15630	----	Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 15630-h.htm or 15630-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/1/5/6/3/15630/15630-h/15630-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/1/5/6/3/15630/15630-h.zip) POLLY OLIVER'S PROBLEM by KATE DOUGLAS WIGGIN With a Biographical Sketch, Portrait, and Illustrations Boston, New York, and Chicago Houghton, Mifflin & Company The Riverside Press, Cambridge 1896 [Frontispiece: Portrait of Mrs. Wiggin] KATE DOUGLAS WIGGIN. It is an advantage for an author to have known many places and different sorts of people, though the most vivid impressions are commonly those received in childhood and youth. Mrs. Wiggin, as she is known in literature, was Kate Douglas Smith; she was born in Philadelphia, and spent her young womanhood in California, but when a very young child she removed to Hollis in the State of Maine, and since her maturity has usually made her summer home there; her earliest recollections thus belong to the place, and she draws inspiration for her character and scene painting very largely from this New England neighborhood. Hollis is a quiet, secluded place, a picturesque but almost deserted village--if the few houses so widely scattered can be termed a village--located among the undulating hills that lie along the lower reaches of the Saco River. Here she plans to do almost all her actual writing--the story itself is begun long before--and she resorts to the place with pent-up energy. A quaint old house of colonial date and style, set in the midst of extensive grounds and shaded by graceful old trees,--this is "Quillcote,"--the summer home of Mrs. Wiggin. Quillcote is typical of many old New England homesteads; with an environment that is very close to the heart of nature, it combines all that is most desirable and beautiful in genuine country life. The old manor house is located on a sightly elevation commanding a varied view of the surrounding hills and fertile valleys; to the northwest are to be seen the foot-hills of Mt. Washington, and easterly a two hours' drive will bring one to Old Orchard Beach, and the broad, blue, delicious ocean whose breezes are generously wafted inland to Quillcote. Mrs. Wiggin is thoroughly in love with this big rambling house, from garret to cellar. A genuine historic air seems to surround the entire place, lending an added charm, and there are many impressive characteristics of the house in its dignity of architecture, which seem to speak of a past century with volumes of history in reserve. A few steps from these ample grounds, on the opposite side of the road, is a pretty wooden cottage of moderate size and very attractive, the early home of Mrs. Wiggin. These scenes have inspired much of the local coloring of her stories of New England life and character. "Pleasant River" in _Timothy's Quest_ is drawn from this locality, and in her latest book, _The Village Watch Tower_, many of her settings and descriptions are very close to existing conditions. Her own room and literary workshop is on the second floor of the house; it is distinctively a study in white, and no place could be more ideal for creative work. It has the cheeriest outlook from four windows with a southern exposure, overlooking a broad grass plat studded with trees, where birds from early dawn hold merry carnival, and squirrels find perfect and unmolested freedom. A peep into this sanctum is a most convincing proof that she is a woman who dearly loves order, as every detail plainly indicates, and it is also noticeable that any display of literary litter is most conspicuously absent. Interesting souvenirs and gifts of infinite variety are scattered all over the room, on the wainscoting, mantel, and in every available niche; very many are from children and all are dainty tributes. A picture of an irresistibly droll child face, of the African type and infectiously full of mirth, is one of a great company of children who look at you from every side and angle of the room. Dainty old pieces of china, rare bits of bric-a-brac, the very broad and old-time fireplaces filled with cut boughs of the spicy fir balsam, and various antique pieces of furniture lend to the inner atmosphere of Quillcote a fine artistic and colonial effect, while not a stone's throw away, at the foot of a precipitous bank, flows--in a very irregular channel--the picturesque Saco River. In this summer home Mrs. Wiggin has the companionship of her mother, and her sister, Miss Nora Smith, herself a writer, which renders it easy to abandon herself wholly to her creative work; this coupled with the fact that she is practically in seclusion banishes even a thought of interruption. And now, what was the beginning and the growth of the delightful literary faculty, which has already given birth to so many pleasant fancies and happy studies, especially of young life? A glimpse is given in the following playful letter and postscript from herself and her sister to a would-be biographer. MY DEAR BOSWELL,--I have asked my family for some incidents of my childhood, as you bade me,--soliciting any "anecdotes," "characteristics," or "early tendencies" that may have been, as you suggest, "foreshadowings" of later things. I have been much chagrined at the result. My younger sister states that I was a nice, well-mannered, capable child, nothing more; and that I never did anything nor said anything in any way remarkable. She affirms that, so far from spending my childhood days in composition, her principal recollection of me is that of a practical stirring little person, clad in a linsey woolsey gown, eternally dragging a red and brown sled called "The Artful Dodger." She adds that when called upon to part with this sled, or commanded to stop sliding, I showed certain characteristics that may perhaps have been "foreshadowings," but that certainly were not engaging ones. My mother was a good deal embarrassed when questioned, and finally confessed that I never said anything worthy of mention until I was quite "grown up;" a statement that is cheerfully corroborated by all the authorities consulted. . . . Do not seek, then, to pierce my happy obscurity. . . . Believe me, dear Bozzy, Sincerely your Johnson, (K. D. W.) Postscript by Johnson's Sister,-- The above report is substantially correct, though a few touches of local color were added which we see Johnson's modesty has moved her to omit. My sister was certainly a capable little person at a tender age, concocting delectable milk toast, browning toothsome buckwheats, and generally making a very good Parent's Assistant. I have also visions of her toiling at patchwork and oversewing sheets like a nice old-fashioned little girl in a story book; and in connection with the linsey woolsey frock and the sled before mentioned, I see a blue and white hood with a mass of shining fair hair escaping below it, and a pair of very pink cheeks. Further to illustrate her personality, I think no one much in her company at any age could have failed to note an exceedingly lively tongue and a general air of executive ability. If I am to be truthful, I must say that I recall few indications of budding authorship, save an engrossing diary (kept for six months only), and a devotion to reading. Her "literary passions" were the _Arabian Nights_, _Scottish Chiefs_, _Don Quixote_, _Thaddeus of Warsaw_, _Irving's Mahomet_, _Thackeray's Snobs_, _Undine_, and the _Martyrs of Spain_. These volumes, joined to an old green Shakespeare and a Plum Pudding edition of Dickens, were the chief of her diet. But stay! while I am talking of literary tendencies, I do remember a certain prize essay entitled "Pictures in the Clouds,"--not so called because it _took_ the prize, alas! but because it competed for it. There is also a myth in the household (doubtless invented by my mother) that my sister learned her letters from the signs in the street, and taught herself to read when scarcely out of long clothes. This may be cited as a bit of "corroborative detail," though personally I never believed in it. Johnson's Sister, N. A. S. Like many who have won success in literature, her taste and aptitude showed themselves early. It would be unfair to take _Polly Oliver's Problem_ as in any sense autobiographical, as regards a close following of facts, but it may be guessed to have some inner agreement with Mrs. Wiggin's history, for she herself when a girl of eighteen wrote a story, _Half a Dozen Housekeepers_, which was published in _St. Nicholas_ in the numbers for November and December, 1878. She was living at the time in California, and more to the purpose even than this bright little story was the preparation she was making for her later successes in the near and affectionate study of children whom she was teaching. She studied the kindergarten methods for a year under Emma Marwedel, and after teaching for a year in Santa Barbara College, she was called upon to organize in San Francisco the first free kindergarten west of the Rocky Mountains. She was soon joined in this work by her sister; and the enthusiasm and good judgment shown by the two inspired others, and made the famous "Silver Street Kindergarten" not only a great object lesson on the Pacific Coast, but an inspiration to similar efforts in Japan, Australia, New Zealand, British Columbia, and the Hawaiian Islands. This school was, and is at the present time, located in a densely inhabited and poverty-ridden quarter of the city. It was largely among the very poor that Mrs. Wiggin's full time and wealth of energy were devoted, for kindergartening was never a fad with her as some may have imagined; always philanthropic in her tendencies, she was, and is, genuinely and enthusiastically in earnest in this work. It is interesting to know that on the wall of one apartment at the Silver Street Kindergarten hangs a life-like portrait of its founder, underneath which you may read these words:-- KATE DOUGLAS WIGGIN. _In this room was born the first free Kindergarten west of the Rocky Mountains. Let me have the happiness of looking down upon many successive groups of children sitting in these same seats._ We are told that the children love that room the best; it is pictured as a bright, cheery spot, where the children used to gather with "Miss Kate" in the bygone days. By the window there is a bird-cage; the tiny occupant bearing the historical name of "Patsy." Connected with this kindergarten is a training-school, organized by Mrs. Wiggin in 1880, and conducted by Miss Nora Smith for several years afterward. The two sisters in collaboration have added much valuable matter to kindergarten literature, notably the three volumes entitled _The Republic of Childhood_, _Children's Sights_, and _The Story Hour_. On her marriage, Mrs. Wiggin gave up teaching, but continued to give two talks a week to the Training Class. She was also a constant visitor in the many kindergartens which had sprung up under the impulse of herself and her associates. She played with the children, sang to them, told them stories, and thus was all the while not only gathering material unconsciously, but practicing the art which she was to make her calling. The dozen years thus spent were her years of training, and, during this time she wrote and printed _The Story of Patsy_, merely to raise money for the kindergarten work. Three thousand copies were sold without the aid of a publisher, and the success was repeated when, not long after, _The Birds' Christmas Carol_ appeared. In 1888 Mrs. Wiggin removed to New York, and her friends urged her to come before the public with a regular issue of the last-named story. Houghton, Mifflin and Company at once brought out an edition, and the popularity which the book enjoyed in its first limited circle was now repeated on a very large scale. The reissue of _The Story of Patsy_ followed at the hands of the same publishers, and they have continued to bring out the successive volumes of her writing. It is not necessary to give a formal list of these books. Perhaps _The Birds' Christmas Carol_, which is so full of that sweet, tender pathos and wholesome humor which on one page moves us to tears, and the next sets us shaking with laughter, has been more widely enjoyed and read than her other stories, at least in America. It has been translated into Japanese, French, German, and Swedish, and has been put in raised type for the use of the blind. Patsy is a composite sketch taken from kindergarten life. For _Timothy's Quest_, one of the brightest and most cleverly written of character sketches, the author feels an especially tender sentiment. The story of how the book took form is old, but will bear repeating; it originated from the casual remark of a little child who said, regarding a certain house, "I think they need some babies there." Mrs. Wiggin at once jotted down in her note-book "needing babies," and from this nucleus the charming story of "Timothy" was woven into its present form. It is said that Rudyard Kipling considers Polly Oliver one of the most delightful of all girl-heroines; and Mrs. Wiggin really hopes some day to see the "Hospital Story Hour" carried out in real life. She owns a most interesting collection of her books in several languages. The illustrations of these are very unique, as most of them are made to correspond with the life of the country in which they are published. _Timothy's Quest_ is a favorite in Denmark with its Danish text and illustrations. It has also found its way into Swedish, and has appeared in the Tauchnitz edition, as has also _A Cathedral Courtship_. Her latest book, _The Village Watch Tower_, is composed of several short stories full of the very breath and air of New England. They are studies of humble life, interesting oddities and local customs, and are written in her usual bright vein. It was not long after her removal to the Atlantic coast that Mrs. Wiggin, now a widow and separated much of the year from her special work in California, threw herself eagerly into the kindergarten movement in New York, and it was in this interest that she was drawn into the semi-public reading of her own stories. Her interpretation of them is full of exquisite taste and feeling, but she has declared most characteristically that she would rather write a story for the love of doing it, than be paid by the public for reading it; hence her readings have always been given purely for philanthropic purposes, especially for the introduction of kindergartens, a cause which she warmly advocates, and with which she has most generously identified herself. I may say that there is an old meeting-house in Hollis in which she has been interested since her childhood. Each succeeding summer the whole countryside within a radius of many miles gathers there to hear her bright, sympathetic readings of her manuscript stories, sometimes before even her publishers have a peep at them. These occasions are rare events that are much talked over and planned for, as I learned soon after reaching that neighborhood. During the summer of 1895 she read one of her manuscript stories--_The Ride of the Midnight Cry_ (now published in _The Village Watch Tower_)--to a group of elderly ladies in the neighborhood of Quillcote, who are deeply interested in all she writes. The story takes its title from an ancient stage-coach well known throughout that region in its day, and known only by the suggestive if not euphonious name of "The Midnight Cry." Mrs. Wiggin possesses rare musical taste and ability, and enthusiastically loves music as an art. It is simply a recreation and delight to her to compose and adapt whatever pleases her fancy to her own flow of harmony. She is the possessor of some very rare and interesting foreign instruments; among this collection is a Hawaiian guitar, the tiniest of stringed instruments, and also one of curious Portuguese workmanship. In the early months of 1895 she was married to George C. Riggs, of New York, but she prefers to retain in literature the name with which she first won distinction. I will speak of her New York winter home only to say that it is the gathering-place of some of the most eminent authors and artists in the country. She goes abroad yearly, and Maine levies a heavy claim on her by right of home ties and affection, for the 'Pine Tree State' is proud to claim this gifted daughter, not only for her genius but her beauty of character and true womanliness. Mrs. Wiggin's work is characterized by a delicious flow of humor, depth of pathos, and a delicate play of fancy. Her greatest charm as a writer is simplicity of style. It enables us to come in perfect touch with her characterizations, which are so full of human nature that, as some one has said, "we feel them made of good flesh and blood like ourselves, with whom we have something, be it ever so little, that keeps us from being alien one to another." Her keen but sympathetic penetration attains some of the happiest results in the wholesome realism of her child characters; her children become real to us, creep into our hearts, and we love them, and in sympathy with this sentiment springs up a spontaneous reawakening of interest in the child-world about us. EMMA SHERMAN ECHOLS. POLLY OLIVER'S PROBLEM A STORY FOR GIRLS "_What you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it_." GOETHE. CONTENTS CHAPTER I. A DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE II. FORECASTING THE FUTURE III. THE DOCTOR GIVES POLLY A PRESCRIPTION IV. THE BOARDERS STAY, AND THE OLIVERS GO V. TOLD IN LETTERS VI. POLLY TRIES A LITTLE MISSIONARY WORK VII. "WHERE IGNORANCE IS BLISS" VIII. TWO FIRESIDE CHATS IX. HARD TIMES X. EDGAR GOES TO CONFESSION XI. THE LADY IN BLACK XII. THE GREAT SILENCE XIII. A GARDEN FLOWER, OR A BANIAN-TREE XIV. EDGAR DISCOURSES OF SCARLET RUNNERS XV. LIFE IN THE BIRDS' NEST XVI. THE CANDLE CALLED PATIENCE XVII. POLLY LAUNCHES HER SHIPS XVIII. THE CHILDREN'S HOUR: REPORTED IN A LETTER BY AN EYE-WITNESS ILLUSTRATIONS PORTRAIT OF MRS. WIGGIN . . . . . . . . . _Frontispiece_ MRS. OLIVER AND POLLY "IT IS SOME OF THE STUDENTS" "SHE OPENED THE BOOK AND READ" [Transcriber's note: The second illustration was missing from the original book.] POLLY OLIVER'S PROBLEM. "Pretty Polly Oliver, my hope and my fear, Pretty Polly Oliver, I've loved you so dear!" DINAH MARIA MULOCK. CHAPTER I. A DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. "I have determined only one thing definitely," said Polly Oliver; "and that is, the boarders must go. Oh, how charming that sounds! I 've been thinking it ever since I was old enough to think, but I never cast it in such an attractive, decisive form before. 'The Boarders Must Go!' To a California girl it is every bit as inspiring as 'The Chinese Must Go.' If I were n't obliged to set the boarders' table, I 'd work the motto on a banner this very minute, and march up and down the plaza with it, followed by a crowd of small boys with toy drums." "The Chinese never did go," said Mrs. Oliver suggestively, from the sofa. "Oh, that's a trifle; they had a treaty or something, and besides, there are so many of them, and they have such an object in staying." "You can't turn people out of the house on a moment's warning." "Certainly not. Give them twenty-four hours, if necessary. We can choose among several methods of getting rid of them. I can put up a placard with BOARDERS, HO! printed on it in large letters, and then assemble them in the banquet-hall and make them a speech." "You would insult them," objected Mrs. Oliver feebly, "and they are perfectly innocent." "Insult them? Oh, mamma, how unworthy of you! I shall speak to them firmly but very gently. 'Ladies and gentlemen,' I shall begin, 'you have done your best to make palatable the class of human beings to which you belong, but you have utterly failed, and you must go! Board, if you must, ladies and gentlemen, but not here! Sap, if you must, the foundations of somebody else's private paradise, but not ours. In the words of the Poe-et, "Take thy beaks from off our door."' Then it will be over, and they will go out." "Slink out, I should say," murmured Polly's mother. "Very well, slink out," replied Polly cheerfully. "I should like to see them slink, after they 've been rearing their crested heads round our table for generations; but I think you credit them with a sensitiveness they do not, and in the nature of things cannot, possess. There is something in the unnatural life which hardens both the boarder and those who board her. However, I don't insist on that method. Let us try bloodless eviction,--set them quietly out in the street with their trunks; or strategy,--put one of them in bed and hang out the smallpox flag. Oh, I can get rid of them in a week, if I once set my mind on it." "There is no doubt of that," said Mrs. Oliver meekly. Polly's brain continued to teem with sinister ideas. "I shall make Mr. Talbot's bed so that the clothes will come off at the foot every night. He will remonstrate. I shall tell him that he kicks them off, and intimate that his conscience troubles him, or he would never be so restless. He will glare. I shall promise to do better, yet the clothes will come off worse and worse, and at last, perfectly disheartened, he will go. I shall tell Mr. Greenwood at the breakfast-table, what I have been longing for months to tell him, that we can hear him snore, distinctly, through the partition. He will go. I shall put cold milk in Mrs. Caldwell's coffee every morning. I shall mean well, you know, but I shall forget. She will know that I mean well, and that it is only girlish absent-mindedness, but she will not endure it very long; she will go. And so, by the exercise of a little ingenuity, they will depart one by one, remarking that Mrs. Oliver's boarding-house is not what it used to be; that Pauline is growing a little 'slack.'" "Polly!" and Mrs. Oliver half rose from the sofa, "I will not allow you to call this a boarding-house in that tone of voice." "A boarding-house, as I take it," argued Polly, "is a house where the detestable human vipers known as boarders are 'taken in and done for.'" "But we have always prided ourselves on having it exactly like a family," said her mother plaintively. "You know we have not omitted a single refinement of the daintiest home-life, no matter at what cost of labor and thought." "Certainly, that's the point,--and there you are, a sofa-invalid, and here am I with my disposition ruined for life; such a wreck in temper that I could blow up the boarders with dynamite and sleep peacefully after it." "Now be reasonable, little daughter. Think how kind and grateful the boarders have been (at least almost always), how appreciative of everything we have done for them." "Of course; it is n't every day they can secure an--an--elderly Juno like you to carve meat for them, or a--well, just for the sake of completing the figure of speech--a blooming Hebe like me (I 've always wondered why it was n't _She_be!) to dispense their tea and coffee; to say nothing of broma for Mr. Talbot, cocoa for Mr. Greenwood, cambric tea for Mrs. Hastings, and hot water for the Darlings. I have to keep a schedule, and refer to it three times a day. This alone shows that boarders are n't my vocation." A bit of conversation gives the clue to character so easily that Mrs. Oliver and her daughter need little more description. You can see the pretty, fragile mother resting among her pillows, and I need only tell you that her dress is always black, her smile patient, her eyes full of peace, and her hands never idle save in this one daily resting-hour prescribed by the determined Miss Polly, who mounts guard during the appointed time like a jailer who expects his prisoner to escape if he removes his eagle eye for an instant. The aforesaid impetuous Miss Polly has also told you something of herself in this brief interview. She is evidently a person who feels matters rather strongly, and who is wont to state them in the strongest terms she knows. Every word she utters shows you that, young as she looks, she is the real head of the family, and that her vigorous independence of thought and speech must be the result of more care and responsibility than ordinarily fall to the lot of a girl of sixteen. Certain of her remarks must be taken with a grain of salt. Her assertion of willingness to blow up innocent boarders in their beds would seem, for instance, to indicate a vixenish and vindictive sort of temper quite unwarranted by the circumstances; but a glance at the girl herself contradicts the thought. _Item_: A firm chin. She will take her own way if she can possibly get it; but _item_; a sweet, lovable mouth framed in dimples; a mouth that breaks into smiles at the slightest provocation, no matter how dreary the outlook; a mouth that quivers at the first tender word, and so the best of all correctives to the determined little chin below. _Item_: A distinctly saucy nose; an aggressive, impertinent, spirited little nose, with a few freckles on it; a nose that probably leads its possessor into trouble occasionally. _Item_: Two bright eyes, a trifle overproud and willful, perhaps, but candid and full of laughter. _Item_: A head of brilliant, auburn hair; lively, independent, frisky hair, each glittering thread standing out by itself and asserting its own individuality; tempestuous hair that never "stays put;" capricious hair that escapes hairpins and comes down unexpectedly; hoydenish hair that makes the meekest hats look daring. For the rest, a firm, round figure, no angles, everything, including elbows, in curves; blooming cheeks and smooth-skinned, taper-fingered hands tanned a very honest brown,--the hands of a person who loves beauty. Polly Oliver's love of beautiful things was a passion, and one that had little gratification; but luckily, though good music, pictures, china, furniture, and "purple and fine linen" were all conspicuous by their absence, she could feast without money and without price on the changeful loveliness of the Santa Ynez mountains, the sapphire tints of the placid Pacific, and the gorgeous splendor of the Californian wild-flowers, so that her sense of beauty never starved. Her hand was visible in the modest sitting-room where she now sat with her mother; for it was pretty and homelike, although its simple decorations and furnishings had been brought together little by little during a period of two years; so that the first installments were all worn out, Polly was wont to remark plaintively, before the last additions made their appearance. The straw matting had Japanese figures on it, while a number of rugs covered the worn places, and gave it an opulent look. The table-covers, curtains, and portières were of blue jean worked in outline embroidery, and Mrs. Oliver's couch had as many pillows as that of an oriental princess; for Polly's summers were spent camping in a cañon, and she embroidered sofa-cushions and draperies with frenzy during these weeks of out-of-door life. Upon the cottage piano was a blue Canton ginger-jar filled with branches of feathery bamboo that spread its lace-like foliage far and wide over the ceiling and walls, quite covering the large spot where the roof had leaked. Various stalks of tropical-looking palms, distributed artistically about, concealed the gaping wounds in the walls, inflicted by the Benton children, who had once occupied this same apartment. Mexican water-jars, bearing peacock feathers, screened Mr. Benton's two favorite places for scratching matches. The lounge was the sort of lounge that looks well only between two windows, but Polly was obliged to place it across the corner where she really needed the table, because in that position it shielded from the public view the enormous black spots on the wall where Reginald Benton had flung the ink-bottle at his angel sister Pansy Belle. Then there was an umbrella-lamp bestowed by a boarder whom Mrs. Oliver had nursed through typhoid fever; a banjo; plenty of books and magazines; and an open fireplace, with a great pitcher of yellow wild-flowers standing between the old-fashioned brass andirons. Little Miss Oliver's attitude on the question of the boarders must stand quite without justification. "It is a part of Polly," sighed her mother, "and must be borne with Christian fortitude." Colonel Oliver had never fully recovered from a wound received in the last battle of the civil war, and when he was laid to rest in a quiet New England churchyard, so much of Mrs. Oliver's heart was buried with him that it was difficult to take up the burden of life with any sort of courage. At last her delicate health prompted her to take the baby daughter, born after her husband's death, and go to southern California, where she invested her small property in a house in Santa Barbara. She could not add to her income by any occupation that kept her away from the baby; so the boarders followed as a matter of course (a house being suitable neither for food nor clothing), and a constantly changing family of pleasant people helped her to make both ends meet, and to educate the little daughter as she grew from babyhood into childhood. Now, as Polly had grown up among the boarders, most of whom petted her, no one can account for her slightly ungrateful reception of their good-will; but it is certain that the first time she was old enough to be trusted at the table, she grew very red in the face, slipped down from her high chair, and took her bowl of bread and milk on to the porch. She was followed and gently reasoned with, but her only explanation was that she did n't "yike to eat wiv so many peoples." Persuasion bore no fruit, and for a long time Miss Polly ate in solitary grandeur. Indeed, the feeling increased rather than diminished, until the child grew old enough to realize her mother's burden, when with passionate and protecting love she put her strong young shoulders under the load and lifted her share, never so very prettily or gracefully,--it is no use trying to paint a halo round Polly's head,--but with a proud courage and a sort of desperate resolve to be as good as she could, which was not very good, she would have told you. She would come back from the beautiful home of her friend, Bell Winship, and look about on her own surroundings, never with scorn, or sense of bitterness,--she was too sensible and sweet-natured for that,--but with an inward rebellion against the existing state of things, and a secret determination to create a better one, if God would only give her power and opportunity. But this pent-up feeling only showed itself to her mother in bursts of impulsive nonsense, at which Mrs. Oliver first laughed and then sighed. "Oh, for a little, little breakfast-table!" Polly would say, as she flung herself on her mother's couch, and punched the pillows desperately. "Oh, for a father to say 'Steak, Polly dear?' instead of my asking, 'Steakorchop?' over and over every morning! Oh, for a lovely, grown-up, black-haired sister, who would have hundreds of lovers, and let me stay in the room when they called! Oh, for a tiny baby brother, fat and dimpled, who would crow, and spill milk on the tablecloth, and let me sit on the floor and pick up the things he threw down! But instead of that, a new, big, strange family, different people every six months, people who don't like each other, and have to be seated at opposite ends of the table; ladies whose lips tremble with disappointment if they don't get the second joint of the chicken, and gentlemen who are sulky if any one else gets the liver. Oh, mamma, I am sixteen now, and it will soon be time for me to begin taking care of you; but I warn you, I shall never do it by means of the boarders!" "Are you so weak and proud, little daughter, as to be ashamed because I have taken care of you these sixteen years 'by means of the boarders,' as you say?" "No, no, mamma! Don't think so badly of me as that. That feeling was outgrown long ago. Do I not know that it is just as fine and honorable as anything else in the world, and do I not love and honor you with all my heart because you do it in so sweet and dignified a way that everybody respects you for it? But it is n't my vocation. I would like to do something different, something wider, something lovelier, if I knew how, and were ever good enough!" "It is easy to 'dream noble things,' dear, but hard to do them 'all day long.' My own feeling is, if one reaches the results one is struggling for, and does one's work as well as it lies in one to do it, that keeping boarders is as good service as any other bit of the world's work. One is not always permitted to choose the beautiful or glorious task. Sometimes all one can do is to make the humble action fine by doing it 'as it is done in heaven.' Remember, 'they also serve who only stand and wait.'" "Yes, mamma," said Polly meekly; "but," stretching out her young arms hopefully and longingly, "it must be that they also serve who stand and _dare_, and I 'm going to try that first,--then I 'll wait, if God wants me to." "What if God wants you to wait first, little daughter?" Polly hid her face in the sofa-cushions and did not answer. CHAPTER II. FORECASTING THE FUTURE. Two of Mrs. Oliver's sitting-room windows looked out on the fig-trees, and the third on a cosy piazza corner framed in passion-vines, where at the present moment stood a round table holding a crystal bowl of Gold of Ophir roses, a brown leather portfolio, and a dish of apricots. Against the table leaned an old Spanish guitar with a yellow ribbon round its neck, and across the corner hung a gorgeous hammock of Persian colored threads, with two or three pillows of canary-colored China silk in one end. A bamboo lounging-chair and a Shaker rocker completed the picture; and the passer-by could generally see Miss Anita Ferguson reclining in the one, and a young (but not Wise) man from the East in the other. It was not always the same young man any more than the decorations were always of the same color. "That's another of my troubles," said Polly to her friend Margery Noble, pulling up the window-shade one afternoon and pointing to the now empty "cosy corner." "I don't mind Miss Ferguson's sitting there, though it used always to be screened off for my doll-house, and I love it dearly; but she pays to sit there, and she ought to do it; besides, she looks prettier there than any one else. Isn't it lovely? The other day she had pink oleanders in the bowl, the cushions turned the pink side up,--you see they are canary and rose-color,--a pink muslin dress, and the guitar trimmed with a fringe of narrow pink ribbons. She was a dream, Margery! But she does n't sit there with her young men when I am at school, nor when I am helping Ah Foy in the dining-room, nor, of course, when we are at table. She sits there from four to six in the afternoon and in the evening, the only times I have with mamma in this room. We are obliged to keep the window closed, lest we should overhear the conversation. That is tiresome enough in warm weather. You see the other windows are shaded by the fig-trees, so here we sit, in Egyptian darkness, mamma and I, during most of the pleasant afternoons. And if anything ever came of it, we would n't mind, but nothing ever does. There have been so many young men,--I could n't begin to count them, but they have worn out the seats of four chairs,--and why does n't one of them take her away? Then we could have a nice, plain young lady who would sit quietly on the front steps with the old people, and who would n't want me to carry messages for her three times a day." At the present moment, however, Miss Anita Ferguson, clad in a black habit, with a white rose in her buttonhole, and a neat black derby with a scarf of white _crêpe de chine_ wound about it, had gone on the mesa for a horseback ride, so Polly and Margery had borrowed the cosy corner for a chat. Margery was crocheting a baby's afghan, and Polly was almost obscured by a rumpled, yellow dress which lay in her lap. "You observe my favorite yellow gown?" she asked. "Yes, what have you done to it?" "Gin Sing picked blackberries in the colander. I, supposing the said colander to be a pan with the usual bottom, took it in my lap and held it for an hour while I sorted the berries. Result: a hideous stain a foot and a half in diameter, to say nothing of the circumference. Mr. Greenwood suggested oxalic acid. I applied it, and removed both the stain and the dress in the following complete manner;" and Polly put her brilliant head through an immense circular hole in the front breadth of the skirt. "It 's hopeless, is n't it? for of course a patch won't look well," said Margery. "Hopeless? Not a bit. You see this pretty yellow and white striped lawn? I have made a long, narrow apron of it, and ruffled it all round. I pin it to my waist thus, and the hole is covered. But it looks like an apron, and how do I contrive to throw the public off the scent? I add a yoke and sash of the striped lawn, and people see simply a combination-dress. I do the designing, and my beloved little mother there will do the sewing; forgetting her precious Polly's carelessness in making the hole, and remembering only her cleverness in covering it." "Capital!" said Margery; "it will be prettier than ever. Oh dear! that dress was new when we had our last lovely summer in the cañon. Shall we ever go again, all together, I wonder? Just think how we are all scattered,--the Winships traveling in Europe (I 'll read you Bell's last letter by and by); Geoffrey Strong studying at Leipsic; Jack Howard at Harvard, with Elsie and her mother watching over him in Cambridge; Philip and I on the ranch as usual, and you here. We are so divided that it does n't seem possible that we can ever have a complete reunion, does it?" "No," said Polly, looking dreamily at the humming-birds hovering over the honeysuckle; "and if we should, everything would be different. Bless dear old Bell's heart! What a lovely summer she must be having! I wonder what she will do." "Do?" echoed Margery. "Yes; it always seemed to me that Bell Winship would do something in the world; that she would never go along placidly like other girls, she has so many talents." "Yes; but so long as they have plenty of money, Dr. and Mrs. Winship would probably never encourage her in doing anything." "It would be all the better if she could do something because she loved it, and with no thought of earning a living by it. Is n't it odd that I who most need the talents should have fewer than any one of our dear little group? Bell can write, sing, dance, or do anything else, in fact; Elsie can play like an angel; you can draw; but it seems to me I can do nothing well enough to earn money by it; and that is precisely what I must do." "You 've never had any special instruction, Polly dear, else you could sing as well as Bell, or play as well as Elsie." "Well, I must soon decide. Mamma says next summer, when I am seventeen, she will try to spend a year in San Francisco and let me study regularly for some profession. The question is, what?--or whether to do something without study. I read in a magazine the other day that there are now three hundred or three thousand, I can't remember which, vocations open to women. If it were even three hundred I could certainly choose one to my liking, and there would be two hundred and ninety-nine left over for the other girls. Mrs. Weeks is trying to raise silkworms. That would be rather nice, because the worms would be silent partners in the business and do most of the work." "But you want something without any risks, you know," said Margery sagely. "You would have to buy ground for the silkworms, and set out the mulberries, and then a swarm of horrid insects might happen along and devour the plants before the worms began spinning." "'Competition is the life of trade,'" said Polly. "No, that is n't what I mean--'Nothing venture, nothing have,' that's it. Then how would hens do? Ever so many women raise hens." "Hens have diseases, and they never lay very well when you have to sell the eggs. By the way, Clarence Jones, who sings in the choir,--you know, the man with the pink cheeks and corn-silk hair,--advertises in the 'Daily Press' for a 'live partner.' Now, there 's a chance on an established hen-ranch, if he does n't demand capital or experience." "It's a better chance for Miss Ferguson. But she does n't like Mr. Jones, because when he comes to call, his coat-pockets are always bulging with brown paper packages of a hen-food that he has just invented. The other day, when he came to see her, she was out, and he handed me his card. It had a picture and advertisement of 'The Royal Dish-faced Berkshire Pig' on it; and I 'm sure, by her expression when she saw it, that she will never be his 'live partner.' No, I don't think I 'll have an out-of-door occupation, it's so trying to the complexion. Now, how about millinery? I could be an apprentice, and gradually rise until I imported everything direct from Paris." "But, Polly," objected Margery, "you know you never could tie a bow, or even put a ribbon on your sailor hat." "But I could learn. Do you suppose all the milliners were called to their work by a consciousness of genius? Perish the thought! If that were true, there wouldn't be so many hideous hats in the shop windows. However, I don't pine for millinery; it's always a struggle for me to wear a hat myself." "You 've done beautifully the last year or two, dear, and you 've reaped the reward of virtue, for you 've scarcely a freckle left." "Oh, that isn't hats," rejoined Polly, "that's the law of compensation. When I was younger, and did n't take the boarders so much to heart, I had freckles given to me for a cross; but the moment I grew old enough to see the boarders in their true light and note their effect on mamma, the freckles disappeared. Now, here 's an idea. I might make a complexion lotion for a living. Let me see what I 've been advised by elderly ladies to use in past years: ammonia, lemon-juice, cucumbers, morning dew, milk, pork rinds, kerosene, and a few other household remedies. Of course I 'm not sure which did the work, but why could n't I mix them all in equal parts,--if they would mix, you know, and let those stay out that would n't,--and call it the 'Olivera Complexion Lotion'? The trade-mark might be a cucumber, a lemon, and a morning dew-drop, _rampant_, and a frightened little brown spot _couchant_. Then on the neat label pasted on the bottles above the trade-mark there might be a picture of a spotted girl,--that's Miss Oliver before using her lotion,--and a copy of my last photograph,--that's Miss Oliver radiant in beauty after using her lotion." Margery laughed, as she generally did at Polly's nonsense. "That sounds very attractive, but if you are anxious for an elegant and dignified occupation which shall restore your mother to her ancestral position, it certainly has its defects." "I know everything has its defects, everything except one, and I won't believe that has a single weak point." "Oh, Polly, you deceiver! You have a secret leaning toward some particular thing, after all!" "Yes; though I have n't talked it over fully yet, even with mamma, lest she should think it one of my wild schemes; but, Margery, I want with all my heart to be a kindergartner like Miss Mary Denison. There would be no sting to me in earning my living, if only I could do it by working among poor, ragged, little children, as she does. I run in and stay half an hour with her whenever I can, and help the babies with their sewing or weaving, and I always study and work better myself afterward,--I don't know whether it's the children, or Miss Denison, or the place, or all three. And the other day, when I was excused from my examinations, I stayed the whole morning in the kindergarten. When it was time for the games, and they were all on the circle, they began with a quiet play they call 'Silent Greeting,' and oh, Margery, they chose me to come in, of their own accord! When I walked into the circle to greet that smallest Walker baby my heart beat like a trip-hammer, I was so afraid I should do something wrong, and they would never ask me in again. Then we played 'The Hen and Chickens,' and afterward something about the birds in the greenwood; and one of the make-believe birds flew to me (I was a tree, you know, a whispering elm-tree), and built its nest in my branches, and then I smoothed its feathers and sang to it as the others had done, and it was like heaven! After the play was over, we modeled clay birds; and just as we were making the tables tidy, Professor Hohlweg came in and asked Miss Denison to come into the large hall to play for the marching, as the music-teacher was absent. Then what did Miss Denison do but turn to me and say, 'Miss Oliver, you get on so nicely with the children, would you mind telling them some little story for me? I shall be gone only ten or fifteen minutes.' Oh, Margery, it was awful! I was more frightened than when I was asked to come into the circle; but the children clapped their hands and cried, 'Yes, yes, tell us a story!' I could only think of 'The Hen that Hatched Ducks,' but I sat down and began, and, as I talked, I took my clay bird and molded it into a hen, so that they would look at me whether they listened or not. Of course, one of the big seven-year-old boys began to whisper and be restless, but I handed him a large lump of clay and asked him to make a nest and some eggs for my hen, and that soon absorbed his attention. They listened so nicely,--you can hardly believe how nicely they listened! When I finished I looked at the clock. It had been nine minutes, and I could n't think what to do the other dreadful minutes till Miss Denison should come back. At last my eye fell on the blackboard, and that gave me an idea. I drew a hen's beak and then a duck's, a hen's foot and then a duck's, to show them the difference. Just then Miss Denison came in softly, and I confess I was bursting with pride and delight. There was the blackboard with the sketches, not very good ones, it is true, the clay hen and nest and eggs, and all the children sitting quietly in their wee red chairs. And Miss Denison said, 'How charming of you to carry out the idea of the morning so nicely! My dear little girl, you were made for this sort of thing, did you know it?'" "Well, I should n't think you had patience enough for any sort of teaching," said Margery candidly. "Neither did I suppose so myself, and I have n't any patience to spare, that is, for boarders, or dishes, or beds; but I love children so dearly that they never try my patience as other things do." "You have had the play side of the kindergarten, Polly, while Miss Denison had the care. There must be a work-a-day side to it; I'm sure Miss Denison very often looks tired to death." "Of course!" cried Polly. "I know it 's hard work; but who cares whether a thing is hard or not, if one loves it? I don't mind work; I only mind working at something I dislike and can never learn to like. Why, Margery, at the Sunday-school picnics you go off in the broiling sun and sit on a camp-chair and sketch, while I play Fox and Geese with the children, and each of us pities the other and thinks she must be dying with heat. It 's just the difference between us! You carry your easel and stool and paint-boxes and umbrella up the steepest hill, and never mind if your back aches; I bend over Miss Denison's children with their drawing or building, and never think of my back-ache, do you see?" "Yes; but I always keep up my spirits by thinking that though I may be tired and discouraged, it is worth while because it is Art I am working at; and for the sake of being an artist I ought to be willing to endure anything. You would n't have that feeling to inspire and help you." "I should like to know why I would n't," exclaimed Polly, with flashing eyes. "I should like to know why teaching may not be an art. I confess I don't know exactly what an artist is, or rather what the dictionary definition of art is; but sit down in Miss Burke's room at the college; you can't stay there half an hour without thinking that, rather than have her teach you anything, you would be an ignorant little cannibal on a desert island! She does n't know how, and there is nothing beautiful about it. But look at Miss Denison! When she comes into her kindergarten it is like the sunrise, and she makes everything blossom that she touches. It is all so simple and sweet that it seems as if anybody could do it; but when you try it you find that it is quite different. Whether she plays or sings, or talks or works with the children, it is perfect. 'It all seems so easy when you do it,' I said to her yesterday, and she pointed to the quotation for the day in her calendar. It was a sentence from George MacDonald: 'Ease is the lovely result of forgotten toil.' Now it may be that Miss Mary Denison is only an angel; but I think that she 's an artist." "On second thoughts, perhaps you are right in your meaning of the word, though it does n't follow that all teachers are artists." "No; nor that all the painters are," retorted Polly. "Think of that poor Miss Thomas in your outdoor class. Last week, when you were sketching the cow in front of the old barn, I sat behind her for half an hour. Her barn grew softer and softer and her cow harder and harder, till when she finished, the barn looked as if it were molded in jelly and the cow as if it were carved in red sandstone." "She ought not to be allowed to paint," said Margery decisively. "Of course she ought n't! That's just what I say; and I ought not to be allowed to keep boarders, and I won't!" "I must say you have wonderful courage, Polly. It seems so natural and easy for you to strike out for yourself in a new line that it must be you feel a sense of power, and that you will be successful." Polly's manner changed abruptly as she glanced in at her mother's empty chair before she replied. "Courage! Sometimes I think I have n't a morsel. I am a gilded sham. My knees tremble whenever I think of my future 'career,' as I call it. Mamma thinks me filled with a burning desire for a wider sphere of action, and so I am, but chiefly for her sake. Courage! There 's nothing like having a blessed, tired little mother to take care of,--a mother whom you want to snatch from the jaws of a horrible fate. That 's a trifle strong, but it's dramatic! You see, Margery, a woman like my mother is not going to remain forever in her present rank in her profession,--she is too superior; she is bound to rise. Now, what would become of her if she rose? Why, first, she would keep a country hotel, and sit on the front piazza in a red rocker, and chat with the commercial travelers; and then she would become the head of a summer resort, with a billiard-room and a bowling-alley. I must be self-supporting, and 'I will never desert Mr. Micawber,' so I should make beds and dust in Hotel Number One, and in Hotel Number Two entertain the guests with my music and my 'sprightly manners,'--that's what Mr. Greenwood calls them, and the only reason I am sorry we live in a republic is that I can't have him guillotined for doing it, but must swallow my wrath because he pays twenty dollars a week and seldom dines at home. Finally, in Hotel Number Three I should probably marry the ninepin-man or the head clerk, so as to consolidate the management and save salaries, and there would end the annals of the Olivers! No, Margery!" cried Polly, waving the scissors in the air, "everybody is down on the beach, and I can make the welkin ring if I like, so hear me: The boarders must go! How, when, and where they shall go are three problems I have n't yet solved; and what I shall find to take the place of them when they do go is a fourth problem, and the knottiest one of all!" CHAPTER III. THE DOCTOR GIVES POLLY A PRESCRIPTION. As the summer wore away, Mrs. Oliver daily grew more and more languid, until at length she was forced to ask a widowed neighbor, Mrs. Chadwick, to come and take the housekeeping cares until she should feel stronger. But beef-tea and drives, salt-water bathing and tonics, seemed to do no good, and at length there came a day when she had not sufficient strength to sit up. The sight of her mother actually in bed in the daytime gave Polly a sensation as of a cold hand clutching at her heart, and she ran for Dr. Edgerton in an agony of fear. But good "Dr. George" (as he was always called, because he began practice when his father, the old doctor, was still living) came home with her, cheered her by his hopeful view of the case, and asked her to call at his office that afternoon for some remedies. After dinner was over, Polly kissed her sleeping mother, laid a rose on her pillow for good-by, and stole out of the room. Her heart was heavy as she walked into the office where the doctor sat alone at his desk. "Good-day, my dear!" he said cordially, as he looked up, for she was one of his prime favorites. "Bless my soul, how you do grow, child! Why you are almost a woman!" "I am quite a woman," said Polly, with a choking sensation in her throat; "and you have something to say to me, Dr. George, or you would n't have asked me to leave mamma and come here this stifling day; you would have sent the medicine by your office-boy." Dr. George laid down his pen in mild, amazement. "You are a woman, in every sense of the word, my dear! Bless my soul, how you do hit it occasionally, you sprig of a girl! Now, sit by that window, and we 'll talk. What I wanted to say to you is this, Polly. Your mother must have an entire change. Six months ago I tried to send her to a rest-cure, but she refused to go anywhere without you, saying that you were her best tonic." Two tears ran down Polly's cheeks. "Tell me that again, please," she said softly, looking out of the window. "She said--if you will have the very words, and all of them--that you were sun and stimulant, fresh air, medicine, and nourishment, and that she could not exist without those indispensables, even in a rest-cure." Polly's head went down on the windowsill in a sudden passion of tears. "Hoity-toity! that 's a queer way of receiving a compliment, young woman!" She tried to smile through her April shower. "It makes me so happy, yet so unhappy, Dr. George. Mamma has been working her strength away so many years, and I 've been too young to realize it, and too young to prevent it, and now that I am grown up I am afraid it is too late." "Not too late, at all," said Dr. George cheerily; "only we must begin at once and attend to the matter thoroughly. Your mother has been in this southern climate too long, for one thing; she needs a change of air and scene. San Francisco will do, though it 's not what I should choose. She must be taken entirely away from her care, and from everything that will remind her of it; and she must live quietly, where she will not have to make a continual effort to smile and talk to people three times a day. Being agreeable, polite, and good-tempered for fifteen years, without a single lapse, will send anybody into a decline. You 'll never go that way, my Polly! Now, pardon me, but how much ready money have you laid away?" "Three hundred and twelve dollars." "Whew!" "It is a good deal," said Polly, with modest pride; "and it would have been more yet if we had not just painted the house." "'A good deal!' my poor lambkin! I hoped it was $1012, at least; but, however, you have the house, and that is as good as money. The house must be rented, at once, furniture, boarders, and all, as it stands. It ought to bring $85 or $95 a month, in these times, and you can manage on that, with the $312 as a reserve." "What if the tenant should give up the house as soon as we are fairly settled in San Francisco?" asked Polly, with an absolutely new gleam of caution and business in her eye. "Brava! Why do I attempt to advise such a capable little person? Well, in the first place, there are such things as leases; and in the second place, if your tenant should move out, the agent must find you another in short order, and you will live, meanwhile, on the reserve fund. But, joking aside, there is very little risk. It is going to be a great winter for Santa Barbara, and your house is attractive, convenient, and excellently located. If we can get your affairs into such shape that your mother will not be anxious, I hope, and think, that the entire change and rest, together with the bracing air, will work wonders. I shall give you a letter to a physician, a friend of mine, and fortunately I shall come up once a month during the winter to see an old patient who insists on retaining me just from force of habit." "And in another year, Dr. George, I shall be ready to take care of mamma myself; and then-- "She shall sit on a cushion, and sew a fine seam, And feast upon strawberries, sugar, and cream." "Assuredly, my Polly, assuredly." The doctor was pacing up and down the office now, hands in pockets, eyes on floor. "The world is your oyster; open it, my dear,--open it. By the way," with a sharp turn, "with what do you propose to open it?" "I don't know yet, but not with boarders, Dr. George." "Tut, tut, child; must n't despise small things!" "Such as Mr. Greenwood," said Polly irrepressibly, "weight two hundred and ninety pounds; and Mrs. Darling, height six feet one inch; no, I 'll try not to despise small things, thank you!" "Well, if there 's a vocation, it will 'call,' you know, Polly. I 'd rather like you for an assistant, to drive my horse and amuse my convalescents. Bless my soul! you 'd make a superb nurse, except"-- "Except what, sir?" "You 're not in equilibrium yet, my child; you are either up or down, generally up. You bounce, so to speak. Now, a nurse must n't bounce; she must be poised, as it were, or suspended, betwixt and between, like Mahomet's coffin. But thank Heaven for your high spirits, all the same! They will tide you over many a hard place, and the years will bring the 'inevitable yoke' soon enough, Polly," and here Dr. George passed behind the girl's chair and put his two kind hands on her shoulders. "Polly, can you be really a woman? Can you put the little-girl days bravely behind you?" "I can, Dr. George." This in a very trembling voice. "Can you settle all these details for your mother, and assume responsibilities? Can you take her away, as if she were the child and you the mother, all at once?" "I can!" This more firmly. "Can you deny yourself for her, as she has for you? Can you keep cheerful and sunny? Can you hide your fears, if there should be cause for any, in your own heart? Can you be calm and strong, if"-- "No, no!" gasped Polly, dropping her head on the back of the chair and shivering like a leaf. "No, no; don't talk about fears, Dr. George. She will be better. She will be better very soon. I could not live"-- "It is n't so easy to die, my child, with plenty of warm young blood running pell-mell through your veins, and a sixteen-year-old heart that beats like a chronometer." "I could not bear life without mamma, Dr. George!" "A human being, made in the image of God, can bear anything, child; but I hope you won't have to meet that sorrow for many a long year yet. I will come in to-morrow and coax your mother into a full assent to my plans; meanwhile, fly home with your medicines. There was a time when you used to give my tonics at night and my sleeping-draught in the morning; but I believe in you absolutely from this day." Polly put her two slim hands in the kind doctor's, and looking up with brimming eyes into his genial face said, "Dear Dr. George, you may believe in me; indeed, indeed you may!" Dr. George looked out of his office window, and mused as his eyes followed Polly up the shaded walk under the pepper-trees. "Oh, these young things, these young things, how one's heart yearns over them!" he sighed. "There she goes, full tilt, notwithstanding the heat; hat swinging in her hand instead of being on her pretty head; her heart bursting with fond schemes to keep that precious mother alive. It's a splendid nature, that girl's; one that is in danger of being wrecked by its own impetuosity, but one so full and rich that it is capable of bubbling over and enriching all the dull and sterile ones about it. Now, if all the money I can rake and scrape together need not go to those languid, boneless children of my languid, boneless sister-in-law, I could put that brave little girl on her feet. I think she will be able to do battle with the world so long as she has her mother for a motive-power. The question is, how will she do it without?" CHAPTER IV. THE BOARDERS STAY, AND THE OLIVERS GO. Dr. George found Mrs. Oliver too ill to be anything but reasonable. After a long talk about her own condition and Polly's future, she gave a somewhat tearful assent to all his plans for their welfare, and agreed to make the change when a suitable tenant was found for the house. So Polly eased the anxiety that gnawed at her heart by incredible energy in the direction of house-cleaning; superintending all sorts of scrubbings, polishings, and renovating of carpets with the aid of an extra Chinaman, who was fresh from his native rice-fields and stupid enough to occupy any one's mind to the exclusion of other matters. Each boarder in turn was asked to make a trip to the country on a certain day, and on his return found his room in spotless order; while all this time the tired mother lay quietly in her bed, knowing little or nothing of her daughter's superhuman efforts to be "good." But a month of rest worked wonders, and Mrs. Oliver finally became so like her usual delicate but energetic self that Polly almost forgot her fears, although she remitted none of her nursing and fond but rigid discipline. At length something happened; and one glorious Saturday morning in October, Polly saddled Blanquita, the white mare which Bell Winship had left in Polly's care during her European trip, and galloped over to the Nobles' ranch in a breathless state of excitement. Blanquita was happy too, for Polly had a light hand on the rein and a light seat in the saddle. She knew there would be a long rest at the journey's end, and that, too, under a particularly shady pepper-tree; so both horse and rider were in a golden humor as they loped over the dusty road, the blue Pacific on the one hand, and the brown hills, thirsty for rain, on the other. Polly tied Blanquita to the pepper-tree, caught her habit in one hand, and ran up the walnut-tree avenue to the Nobles' house. There was no one in; but that was nothing unusual, since a house is chiefly useful for sleeping purposes in that lovely climate. No one on the verandas, no one in the hammocks; after seeking for some little time she came upon Margery and her mother at work in their orange-tree sitting-room, Mrs. Noble with her mending-basket, Margery painting as usual. The orange-tree sitting-room was merely a platform built under the trees, which in the season of blossoms shed a heavy fragrance in the warm air, and later on hung their branches of golden fruit almost into your very lap. "Here you are!" cried Polly, plunging through the trees as she caught sight of Margery's pink dress. "You have n't any hats to swing, so please give three rousing cheers! The house is rented and a lease signed for a year!" "That is good news, indeed!" exclaimed Mrs. Noble, laying down her needle. "And who is the tenant?" "Whom do you suppose? Mrs. Chadwick herself! She has been getting on very nicely with the housekeeping (part of the credit belongs to me, but no one would ever believe it), and the boarders have been gradually weaned from mamma and accustomed to the new order of things, so they are tolerably content. Ah Foy also has agreed to stay, and that makes matters still more serene, since he is the best cook in Santa Barbara. Mrs. Chadwick will pay eighty-five dollars a month. Dr. George thinks we ought to get more, but mamma is so glad to have somebody whom she knows, and so relieved to feel that there will be no general breaking up of the 'sweet, sweet home,' that she is glad to accept the eighty-five dollars; and I am sure that we can live in modest penury on that sum. Of course Mrs. Chadwick may weary in well-doing; or she may die; or she may even get married,--though that's very unlikely, unless one of the boarders can't pay his board and wants to make it up to her in some way. Heigho! I feel like a princess, like a capitalist, like a gilded society lady!" sighed Polly, fanning herself with her hat. "And now you and your mother will come to us for a week or two, as you promised, won't you?" asked Mrs. Noble. "That will give you time to make your preparations comfortably." Polly took a note from her pocket and handed it to Mrs. Noble: "Mrs. Oliver presents her compliments to Mrs. Noble, and says in this letter that we accept with pleasure Mrs. Noble's kind invitation to visit her. Said letter was not to be delivered, in case Mrs. Noble omitted to renew the invitation; but as all is right, I don't mind announcing that we are coming the day after to-morrow." "Oh, Polly, Polly! How am I ever to live without you!" sighed Margery. "First Elsie, then Bell, now you!" "Live for your Art with a big A, Peggy, but it's not forever. By and by, when you are a successful artist and I am a successful something, in short, when we are both 'careering,' which is my verb to express earning one's living by the exercise of some splendid talent, we will 'career' together in some great metropolis. Our mothers shall dress in Lyons velvet and point-lace. Their delicate fingers, no longer sullied by the vulgar dishcloth and duster, shall glitter with priceless gems, while you and I, the humble authors of their greatness, will heap dimes on dimes until we satisfy ambition." Mrs. Noble smiled. "I hope your 'career,' as you call it, will be one in which imagination will be of use, Polly." "I don't really imagine all the imaginations you imagine I imagine," said Polly soberly, as she gave Mrs. Noble's hand an affectionate squeeze. "A good deal of it is 'whistling to keep my courage up.' But everything looks hopeful just now. Mamma is so much better, everybody is so kind, and do you know, I don't loathe the boarders half so much since we have rented them with the house? "They grow in beauty side by side, They fill our home with glee. "Now that I can look upon them as personal property, part of our goods and chattels, they have ceased to be disagreeable. Even Mr. Greenwood--you remember him, Margery?" "The fat old man who calls you sprightly?" "The very same; but he has done worse since that. To be called sprightly is bad enough, but yesterday he said that he shouldn't be surprised _if I married well--in--course--of--time_!" Nothing but italics would convey the biting sarcasm of Polly's inflections, and no capitals in a printer's case could picture her flashing eyes, or the vigor with which she prodded the earth with her riding-whip. "I agree with him, that it is not impossible," said Mrs. Noble teasingly, after a moment of silence. "Now, dearest aunty Meg, don't take sides with that odious man! If, in the distant years, you ever see me on the point of marrying well, simply mention Mr. Greenwood's name to me, and I 'll draw back even if I am walking up the middle aisle with an ivory prayer-book in my hand!" "Just to spite Mr. Greenwood; that would be sensible," said Margery. "You could n't be so calm if you had to sit at the same table with him day after day. He belongs at the second table by--by every law of his nature! But, as I was saying, now that we have rented him to Mrs. Chadwick with the rest of the furniture, and will have a percentage on him just as we do on the piano which is far more valuable, I have been able to look at him pleasantly." "You ought to be glad that the boarders like you," said Margery reprovingly. "They don't, as a rule; only the horrors and the elderly gentlemen approve of me. But good-by for to-day, aunty Meg. Come to the gate, Peggy dear!" The two friends walked through the orange-grove, their arms wound about each other, girl-fashion. They were silent, for each was sorry to lose the other, and a remembrance of the dear old times, the unbroken circle, the peaceful schooldays and merry vacations, stole into their young hearts, together with visions of the unknown future. As Polly untied Blanquita and gave a heroic cinch to the saddle, she gave a last searching look at Margery, and said finally, "Peggy dear, I am very sure you are blue this morning; tell your faithful old Pollykins all about it." One word was enough for Margery in her present mood, and she burst into tears on Polly's shoulder. "Is it Edgar again?" whispered Polly. "Yes," she sobbed. "Father has given him three months more to stay in the university, and unless he does better he is to come home and live on the cattle-ranch. Mother is heart-broken over it; for you know, Polly, that Edgar will never endure such a life; and yet, dearly as he loves books, he is n't doing well with his studies. The president has written father that he is very indolent this term and often absent from recitations; and one of the Santa Barbara boys, a senior, writes Philip that he is not choosing good friends, nor taking any rank in his class. Mother has written him such a letter this morning! If he can read it without turning his back upon his temptations, whatever they may he, I shall never have any pride in him again; and oh, Polly, I have been so proud of him, my brilliant, handsome, charming brother!" "Poor Edgar! I can't believe it is anything that will last. He is so bright and lovable; every one thought he would take the highest honors. Why, Margery, he is, or was, the most ambitious boy I ever knew, and surely, surely he cannot have changed altogether! Surely he will come to himself when he knows he may have to leave college unless he does his best. I 'm so sorry, dear old Peggy! It seems heartless that my brighter times should begin just when you are in trouble. Perhaps mamma and I can do something for Edgar; we will try, you may lie sure. Good-by, dearest; I shall see you again very soon." Ten days later, Polly stood on the deck of the Orizaba just at dusk, looking back on lovely Santa Barbara as it lay in the lap of the foothills freshened by the first rains. The dull, red-tiled roofs of the old Spanish adobes gleamed through the green of the pepper-trees, the tips of the tall, straggling blue-gums stood out sharply against the sky, and the twin towers of the old Mission rose in dazzling whiteness above a wilderness of verdure. The friendly faces on the wharf first merged themselves into a blurred mass of moving atoms, then sank into nothingness. Polly glanced into her stateroom. Mrs. Oliver was a good sailor, and was lying snug and warm under her blankets. So Polly took a camp-chair just outside the door, wrapped herself in her fur cape, crowded her tam-o'-shanter tightly on, and sat there alone as the sunset glow paled in the western sky and darkness fell upon the face of the deep. The mesa faded from sight; and then the lighthouse, where she had passed so many happy hours in her childhood. The bright disk of flame shone clear and steady across the quiet ocean, seeming to say, _Let your light so shine! Let your light so shine! Good luck, Polly! Keep your own lamp filled and trimmed, like a wise little virgin!_ And her heart answered, "Good-by, dear light! I am leaving my little-girl days on the shore with you, and I am out on the open sea of life. I shall know that you are shining, though I cannot see you. Good-by! Shine on, dear light! I am going to seek my fortune!" CHAPTER V. TOLD IN LETTERS. _Extracts from Polly Oliver's Correspondence._ SAN FRANCISCO, November 1, 188--. DEAR MARGERY,--I have been able to write you only scraps of notes heretofore, but now that we are quite settled I can tell you about our new home. We were at a hotel for a week, as long as I, the family banker, felt that we could, afford it. At the end of that time, by walking the streets from morning till night, looking at every house with a sign "To Let" on it, and taking mamma to see only the desirable ones, we found a humble spot to lay our heads. It is a tiny upper flat, which we rent for thirty dollars a month. The landlady calls it furnished, but she has an imagination which takes even higher flights than mine. Still, with the help of the pretty things we brought with us, we are very cosy and comfortable. There is a tiny parlor, which, with our Santa Barbara draperies, table-covers, afternoon tea-table, grasses, and books, looks like a corner of the dear home sitting-room. Out of this parlor is a sunny bedroom with two single brass bedsteads, and space enough to spare for mamma's rocking-chair in front of a window that looks out on the Golden Gate. The dining-room just holds, by a squeeze, the extension-table and four chairs; and the dot of a kitchen, with an enchanting gas-stove, completes the suite. We are dining at a restaurant a short distance off, at present, and I cook the breakfasts and luncheons; but on Monday, as mamma is so well, I begin school from nine to twelve each day under a special arrangement, and we are to have a little Chinese boy who will assist in the work and go home at night to sleep. His wages will be eight dollars a month, and the washing probably four dollars more. This, with the rent, takes forty-two dollars from our eighty-five, and it remains to be seen whether it is too much. I shall walk one way to school, although it is sixteen squares and all up and down hill. . . . The rains thus far have been mostly in the night, and we have lovely days. Mamma and I take long rides on the cable-cars in the afternoon, and stay out at the Cliff House on the rocks every pleasant Saturday. Then we 've discovered nice sheltered nooks in the sand dunes beyond the park, and there we stay for hours, mamma reading while I study. We are so quiet and so happy; we were never alone together in our lives before. You, dear Peggy, who have always had your family to yourself, can hardly think how we enjoy being at table together, just we two. I take mamma's coffee to her and kiss her on the right cheek; then follows an egg, with another kiss on the left cheek; then a bit of toast, with a bear-hug, and so on. We have a few pleasant friends here, you know, and they come to see mamma without asking her to return the calls, as they see plainly she has no strength for society. . . . POLLY. P. S. We have a remarkable front door, which opens with a spring located in the wall at the top of the stairs. It is a modern improvement and I never tire of opening it, even though each time I am obliged to go downstairs to close it again. When Dr. George came last week, he rang the bell, and being tired with the long pull up the hill, leaned against the door to breathe. Of course I knew nothing of this, and as soon as I heard the bell I flew to open the door with my usual neatness and dispatch, when who should tumble in, full length, but poor dear Dr. George! He was so surprised, and the opposite neighbors were so interested, and I was so sorry, that I was almost hysterical. Dr. George insists that the door is a trap laid for unsuspecting country people. November 9. . . . The first week is over, and the finances did n't come out right at all. I have a system of bookkeeping which is original, simple, practical, and absolutely reliable. The house-money I keep in a cigar-box with three partitions (formerly used for birds' eggs), and I divide the month's money in four parts, and pay everything weekly. The money for car-fare, clothing, and sundries I keep in an old silver sugar-bowl, and the reserve fund, which we are never to touch save on the most dreadful provocation, in a Japanese ginger-jar with a cover. These, plainly marked, repose in my upper drawer. Mamma has no business cares whatever, and everything ought to work to a charm, as it will after a while. But this first week has been discouraging, and I have had to borrow enough from compartment two, cigar-box, to pay debts incurred by compartment one, cigar-box. This is probably because we had to buy a bag of flour and ten pounds of sugar. Of course this won't happen every week. . . . I wrote Ah Foy a note after we arrived, for he really seems to have a human affection for us. I inclose his answer to my letter. It is such a miracle of Chinese construction that it is somewhat difficult to get his idea; still I think I see that he is grateful for past favors; that he misses us; that the boarders are going on "very happy and joy;" that he is glad mamma is better, and pleased with the teacher I selected for him. But here it is; judge for yourself:-- SANTA BARBARA, November 5. DEAR MY FREND. I was joy pleased to received a letter from you how are Your getting along and my Dear if your leaves a go We but now I been it is here I am very sorry for are a your go to in San Francisco if any now did you been it is that here very happy and joy I am so glad for your are to do teachers for me but I am very much thank you dear my frend. Good-By. AH FOY. November 15, . . . The first compartment, cigar-box, could n't pay back the money it borrowed from the second compartment, and so this in turn had to borrow from the third compartment. I could have made everything straight, I think, if we had n't bought a feather duster and a gallon of kerosene. The first will last forever, and the second for six weeks, so it is n't fair to call compartment number two extravagant. At the end of this month I shall remove some of the partitions in the cigar-box and keep the house-money in two parts, balancing accounts every fortnight. . . . November 24. . . . My bookkeeping is in a frightful snarl. There is neither borrowing nor lending in the cigar-box now, for all the money for the month is gone at the end of the third week. The water, it seems, was not included in the thirty dollars for the rent, and compartment three had to pay two dollars for that purpose when compartment two was still deeply in its debt. If compartment two had only met its rightful obligations, compartment three need n't have "failed up," as they say in New England; but as it is, poor compartment four is entirely bankrupt, and will have to borrow of the sugar-bowl or the ginger-jar. As these banks are not at all in the same line of business, they ought not to be drawn into the complications of the cigar-box, for they will have their own troubles by and by; but I don't know what else to do. . . . December 2. . . . It came out better at the end of the month than I feared, for we spent very little last week, and have part of the ten pounds of sugar, kerosene, feather duster, scrubbing-brush, blanc-mange mould, tapioca, sago, and spices with which to begin the next month. I suffered so with the debts, losses, business embarrassments, and failures of the four compartments that when I found I was only four dollars behind on the whole month's expenses, I knocked out all the compartments, and am not going to keep things in weeks. I made up the deficit by taking two dollars out of the reserve fund, and two dollars out of my ten-dollar gold piece that Dr. George gave me on my birthday. I have given the ginger-jar a note of hand for two dollars from the cigar-box, and it has resumed business at the old stand. Compartment four, cigar-box, which is perfectly innocent, as it was borrowed out of house and home by compartment three, also had to give a note to the sugar-bowl, and I made the ginger-jar give me a note for my two dollars birthday-money. Whether all these obligations will be met without lawsuits, I cannot tell; but I know by the masterly manner in which I have fought my way through these intricate affairs with the loss of only four dollars in four weeks, that I possess decided business ability, and this gives me courage to struggle on. December 30, 188-. . . . We are having hard times, dear old Margery, though I do not regret coming to San Francisco, for mamma could not bear the slightest noise or confusion, nor lift her hand to any sort of work, in her present condition. At any rate, we came by Dr. George's orders, so my conscience is clear. . . . Mrs. Chadwick has sent us only sixty-five dollars this month, instead of eighty-five. Some of the boarders are behind in their payments. The Darlings have gone away, and "she hopes to do better next month." Mamma cannot bear to press her, she is so kind and well-meaning; so do not for the world mention the matter to Dr. George. I will write to him when I must, not before. Meanwhile I walk to school both ways, saving a dollar and a quarter a month. Have found a cheaper laundry; one dollar more saved. Cut down fruit bill; one dollar more. Blacked my white straw sailor with shoe-blacking, trimmed it with two neckties and an old blackbird badly molted; result perfectly hideous, but the sugar-bowl, clothing, and sundry fund are out of debt and doing well. Had my faded gray dress dyed black, and trimmed the jacket with pieces of my moth-eaten cock's-feather boa; perfectly elegant, almost too gorgeous for my humble circumstances. Mamma looks at me sadly when I don these ancient garments, and almost wishes I had n't such "a wealthy look." I tell her I expect the girls to say, when I walk into the school-yard on Monday, "Who is this that cometh with dyed garments from Bozrah?" Mamma has decided that I may enter a training-school for kindergartners next year; so I am taking the studies that will give me the best preparation, and I hope to earn part of my tuition fees, when the time comes, by teaching as assistant. . . . I go over to Berkeley once a week to talk Spanish with kind Professor Salazar and his wife. They insist that it is a pleasure, and will not allow mamma to pay anything for the lessons. I also go every Tuesday to tell stories at the Children's Hospital. It is the dearest hour of the week. When I am distracted about bills and expenses and mamma's health and Mrs. Chadwick's mismanagements and Yung Lee's mistakes (for he is beautiful as an angel and stupid as a toad), I put on my hat and go out to the children, poor little things! They always have a welcome for me, bless them! and I always come back ready to take up my trials again. Edgar is waiting to take this to the post-box, so I must say good-night. He is such a pleasure to us and such a comfort to mamma. I know for the first time in my life the fun of having a brother. Ever your affectionate POLLYKINS. The foregoing extracts from Polly's business letters give you an idea only of her financial difficulties. She was tempted to pour these into one sympathizing ear, inasmuch as she kept all annoyances from her mother as far as possible; though household economies, as devised by her, lost much of their terror. Mrs. Oliver was never able to see any great sorrow in a monthly deficit when Polly seated herself before her cash-boxes and explained her highly original financial operations. One would be indeed in dire distress of mind could one refrain from smiling when, having made the preliminary announcement,--"The great feminine financier of the century is in her counting-room: let the earth tremble!"--she planted herself on the bed, oriental fashion, took pencil and account-book in lap, spread cigar-box, sugar-bowl, and ginger-jar before her on the pillows, and ruffled her hair for the approaching contest. CHAPTER VI. POLLY TRIES A LITTLE MISSIONARY WORK. One change had come over their life during these months which, although not explained in Polly's correspondence, concerns our little circle of people very intimately. The Olivers had been in San Francisco over a month, but though Edgar Noble had been advised of the fact, he had not come over from Berkeley to see his old friends. Polly had at length written him a note, which still remained unanswered when she started one afternoon on a trip across the bay for her first Spanish conversation with Professor Salazar. She had once visited the university buildings, but Professor Salazar lived not only at some distance from the college, but at some distance from everything else. Still, she had elaborate written directions in her pocket, and hoped to find the place without difficulty. She had no sooner alighted at the station than she felt an uneasy consciousness that it was not the right one, and that she should have gone farther before leaving the railway. However, there was no certainty about it in her mind, so after asking at two houses half a mile apart, and finding that the inmates had never heard of Professor Salazar's existence, she walked down a shady road, hoping to find another household where his name and fame had penetrated. The appointed hour for the lessons was half past three on Fridays, but it was after four, and Polly seemed to be walking farther and farther away from civilization. "I shall have to give it up," she thought; "I will go back to the station where I got off and wait until the next train for San Francisco comes along, which will be nobody knows when. How provoking it is, and how stupid I am! Professor Salazar will stay at home for me, and very likely Mrs. Salazar has made butter-cakes and coffee, and here am I floundering in the woods! I 'll sit down under these trees and do a bit of Spanish, while I 'm resting for the walk back." Just at this moment a chorus of voices sounded in the distance, then some loud talking, then more singing. "It is some of the students," thought Polly, as she hastily retired behind a tree until they should pass. [Illustration: "It is some of the students."] But unfortunately they did not pass. Just as they came opposite her hiding-place, they threw themselves down in a sunny spot on the opposite side of the road and lighted their cigarettes. "No hurry!" said one. "Let 's take it easy; the train does n't leave till 4.50. Where are you going, Ned?" "Home, I suppose, where I was going when you met me. I told you I could only walk to the turn." "Home? No, you don't!" expostulated half a dozen laughing voices; "we 've unearthed the would-be hermit, and we mean to keep him." "Can't go with you to-night, boys, worse luck!" repeated the second speaker. "Got to cram for that examination or be plucked again; and one more plucking will settle this child's university career!" "Oh, let the examinations go to the dickens! What 's the use?--all the same a hundred years hence. The idea of cramming Friday night! Come on!" "Can't do it, old chaps; but next time goes. See you Monday. Ta-ta!" Polly peeped cautiously from behind her tree. "I believe that voice is Edgar Noble's, or else I 'm very much mistaken. I thought of it when I first heard them singing. Yes, it is! Now, those hateful boys are going to get him into trouble!" Just at this moment four of the boys jumped from the ground and, singing vociferously-- "He won't go home any more, He won't go home any more, He won't go home any more, Way down on the Bingo farm!" rushed after young Noble, pinioned him, and brought him back. "See here, Noble," expostulated one of them, who seemed to be a commanding genius among the rest,--"see here, don't go and be a spoil-sport! What 's the matter with you? We 're going to chip in for a good dinner, go to the minstrels, and then,--oh, then we 'll go and have a game of billiards. You play so well that you won't lose anything. And if you want money, Will's flush, he 'll lend you a 'tenner.' You know there won't be any fun in it unless you 're there! We 'll get the last boat back to-night, or the first in the morning." A letter from his mother lay in Edgar's pocket,--a letter which had brought something like tears to his eyes for a moment, and over which he had vowed better things. But he yielded, nevertheless,--that it was with reluctance did n't do any particular good to anybody, though the recording angels may have made a note of it,--and strolled along with the other students, who were evidently in great glee over their triumph. Meanwhile Polly had been plotting. Her brain was not a great one, but it worked very swiftly; Dr. George called it, chaffingly, a small mind in a very active state. Scarcely stopping to think, lest her courage should not be equal to the strain of meeting six or eight young men face to face, she stepped softly out of her retreat, walked gently down the road, and when she had come within ten feet of the group, halted, and, clearing her throat desperately, said, "I beg your pardon"-- The whole party turned with one accord, a good deal of amazement in their eyes, as there had not been a sign of life in the road a moment before, and now here was a sort of woodland sprite, a "nut-brown mayde," with a remarkably sweet voice. "I beg your pardon, but can you tell me the way to Professor Salazar's house? Why" (this with a charming smile and expression as of one having found an angel of deliverance),--"why, it is--is n't it?--Edgar Noble of Santa Barbara!" Edgar, murmuring "Polly Oliver, by Jove!" lifted his hat at once, and saying, "Excuse me, boys," turned back and, gallantly walked at Polly's side. "Why, Miss Polly, this is an unexpected way of meeting you!" ("Very unexpected," thought Polly.) "Is it not, indeed? I wrote you a note the other day, telling you that we hoped to see you soon in San Francisco." "Yes," said Edgar; "I did n't answer it because I intended to present myself in person to-morrow or Sunday. What are you doing in this vicinity?" he continued, "or, to put it poetically, "Pray why are you loitering here, pretty maid?" "No wonder you ask. I am 'floundering,' at present. I came over to a Spanish lesson at Professor Salazar's, and I have quite lost my way. If you will be kind enough to put me on the right road I shall be very much obliged, though I don't like to keep you from your friends," said Polly, with a quizzical smile. "You see the professor won't know why I missed my appointment, and I can't bear to let him think me capable of neglect; he has been so very kind." "But you can't walk there. You must have gotten off at the wrong station; it is quite a mile, even across the fields." "And what is a mile, sir? Have you forgotten that I am a country girl?" and she smiled up at him brightly, with a look that challenged remembrance. "I remember that you could walk with any of us," said Edgar, thinking how the freckles had disappeared from Polly's rose-leaf skin, and how particularly fetching she looked in her brown felt sailor-hat. "Well, if you really wish to go there, I 'll see you safely to the house and take you over to San Francisco afterward, as it will be almost dark. I was going over, at any rate, and one train earlier or later won't make any difference." ("Perhaps it won't and perhaps it will," thought Polly.) "If you are sure it won't be too much trouble, then"-- "Not a bit. Excuse me a moment while I run back and explain the matter to the boys." The boys did not require any elaborate explanation. Oh, the power of a winsome face! No better than many other good things, but surely one of them, and when it is united to a fair amount of goodness, something to be devoutly thankful for. It is to be feared that if a lumpish, dumpish sort of girl (good as gold, you know, but not suitable for occasions when a fellow's will has to be caught "on the fly," and held until it settles to its work),--if that lumpish, dumpish girl had asked the way to Professor Salazar's house, Edgar Noble would have led her courteously to the turn of the road, lifted his hat, and wished her a pleasant journey. But Polly was wearing her Sunday dress of brown cloth and a jaunty jacket trimmed with sable (the best bits of an old pelisse of Mrs. Oliver's). The sun shone on the loose-dropping coil of the waving hair that was only caught in place by a tortoise-shell arrow; the wind blew some of the dazzling tendrils across her forehead; the eyes that glanced up from under her smart little sailor-hat were as blue as sapphires; and Edgar, as he looked, suddenly feared that there might be vicious bulls in the meadows, and did n't dare as a gentleman to trust Polly alone! He had n't remembered anything special about her, but after an interval of two years she seemed all at once as desirable as dinner, as tempting as the minstrels, almost as fascinating as the billiards, when one has just money enough in one's pocket for one's last week's bills and none at all for the next! The boys, as I say, had imagined Edgar's probable process of reasoning. Polly was standing in the highroad where "a wayfaring man, though a fool," could look at her; and when Edgar explained that it was his duty to see her safely to her destination, they all bowed to the inevitable. The one called Tony even said that he would be glad to "swap" with him, and the whole party offered to support him in his escort duty if he said the word. He agreed to meet the boys later, as Polly's quick ear assured her, and having behaved both as a man of honor and knight of chivalry, he started unsuspectingly across the fields with his would-be guardian. She darted a searching look at him as they walked along. "Oh, how old and 'gentlemanly' you look, Edgar! I feel quite afraid of you!" "I 'm glad you do. There used to be a painful lack of reverence in your manners, Miss Polly." "There used to be a painful lack of politeness in yours, Mr. Edgar. Oh dear, I meant to begin so nicely with you and astonish you with my new grown-up manners! Now, Edgar, let us begin as if we had just been introduced; if you will try your best not to be provoking, I won't say a single disagreeable thing." "Polly, shall I tell you the truth?" "You might try; it would be good practice even if you did n't accomplish anything." "How does that remark conform with your late promises? However, I 'll be forgiving and see if I receive any reward; I 've tried every other line of action. What I was going to say when you fired that last shot was this: I agree with Jack Howard, who used to say that he would rather quarrel with you than be friends with any other girl." "It is nice," said Polly complacently. "I feel a sort of pleasant glow myself, whenever I 've talked to you a few minutes; but the trouble is that you used to fan that pleasant glow into a raging heat, and then we both got angry." "If the present 'raging heat' has faded into the 'pleasant glow,' I don't mind telling you that you are very much improved," said Edgar encouragingly. "Your temper seems much the same, but no one who knew you at fourteen could have foreseen that you would turn out so exceedingly well." "Do you mean that I am better looking?" asked Polly, with the excited frankness of sixteen years. "Exactly." "Oh, thank you, thank you, Edgar. I 'm a thousand times obliged. I 've thought so myself, lately; but it's worth everything to have your grown-up, college opinion. Of course red hair has come into vogue, that's one point in my favor, though I fear mine is a little vivid even for the fashion; Margery has done a water color of my head which Phil says looks like the explosion of a tomato. Then my freckles are almost gone, and that is a great help; if you examine me carefully in this strong light you can only count seven, and two of those are getting faint-hearted. Nothing can be done with my aspiring nose. I 've tried in vain to push it down, and now I 'm simply living it down." Edgar examined her in the strong light mischievously. "Turn your profile," he said. "That's right; now, do you know, I rather like your nose, and it's a very valuable index to your disposition. I don't know whether, if it were removed from your face, it would mean so much; but taken in connection with its surroundings, it's a very expressive feature; it warns the stranger to be careful. In fact, most of your features are danger signals, Polly; I 'm rather glad I 've been taking a course of popular medical lectures on First Aid to the Injured!" And so, with a great deal of nonsense and a good sprinkling of quiet, friendly chat, they made their way to Professor Salazar's house, proffered Polly's apologies, and took the train for San Francisco. CHAPTER VII. "WHERE IGNORANCE IS BLISS." The trip from Berkeley to San Francisco was a brilliant success from Edgar's standpoint, but Polly would have told you that she never worked harder in her life. "I 'll just say 'How do you do?' to your mother, and then be off," said Edgar, as they neared the house. "Oh, but you surely will stay to dinner with us!" said Polly, with the most innocent look of disappointment on her face,--a look of such obvious grief that a person of any feeling could hardly help wishing to remove it, if possible. "You see, Edgar" (putting the latch-key in the door), "mamma is so languid and ill that she cannot indulge in many pleasures, and I had quite counted on you to amuse her a little for me this evening. But come up, and you shall do as you like after dinner." "I 've brought you a charming surprise, mamacita!" called Polly from the stairs: "an old friend whom I picked up in the woods like a wild-flower and brought home to you." ("Wild-flower is a good name for him," she thought.) Mrs. Oliver was delighted to see Edgar, but after the first greetings were over, Polly fancied that she had not closed the front door, and Edgar offered to go down and make sure. In a second Polly crossed the room to her mother's side, and whispered impressively, "Edgar _must_ be kept here until after midnight; I have good reasons that I will explain when we are alone. Keep him somehow,--anyhow!" Mrs. Oliver had not lived sixteen years with Polly without learning to leap to conclusions. "Run down and ask Mrs. Howe if she will let us have her hall-bedroom tonight," she replied; "nod your head for yes when you come back, and I 'll act accordingly; I have a request to make of Edgar, and am glad to have so early an opportunity of talking with him." "We did close the door, after all," said Edgar, coming in again. "What a pretty little apartment you have here! I have n't seen anything so cosy and homelike for ages." "Then make yourself at home in it," said Mrs. Oliver, while Polly joined in with, "Is n't that a pretty fire in the grate? I 'll give you one rose-colored lamp with your firelight. Here, mamacita, is the rocker for you on one side; here, Edgar, is our one 'man's chair' for you on the other. Stretch out your feet as lazily as you like on my new goatskin rug. You are our only home-friend in San Francisco; and oh, how mamma will spoil you whenever she has the chance! Now talk to each other cosily while the 'angel of the house' cooks dinner." It may be mentioned here that as Mrs. Chadwick's monthly remittances varied from sixty to seventy-five dollars, but never reached the promised eighty-five, Polly had dismissed little Yung Lee for a month, two weeks of which would be the Christmas vacation, and hoped in this way to make up deficiencies. The sugar-bowl and ginger-jar were stuffed copiously with notes of hand signed "Cigar-box," but held a painfully small amount of cash. "Can't I go out and help Polly?" asked Edgar, a little later. "I should never have agreed to stay and dine if I had known that she was the cook." "Go out, by all means; but you need n't be anxious. Ours is a sort of doll-house-keeping. We buy everything cooked, as far as possible, and Polly makes play of the rest. It all seems so simple and interesting to plan for two when we have been used to twelve and fourteen." "May I come in?" called Edgar from the tiny dining-room to Polly, who had laid aside her Sunday finery and was clad in brown Scotch gingham mostly covered with ruffled apron. "Yes, if you like; but you won't be spoiled here, so don't hope it. Mamma and I are two very different persons. Tie that apron round your waist; I 've just begun the salad-dressing; is your intelligence equal to stirring it round and round and pouring in oil drop by drop, while I take up the dinner?" "Fully. Just try me. I 'll make it stand on its head in three minutes!" Meanwhile Polly set on the table a platter of lamb-chops, some delicate potato chips which had come out of a pasteboard box, a dish of canned French peas, and a mound of currant-jelly. "That is good," she remarked critically, coming back to her apprentice, who was toiling with most unnecessary vigor, so that the veins stood out boldly on his forehead. "You're really not stupid, for a boy; and you have n't 'made a mess,' which is more than I hoped. Now, please pour the dressing over those sliced tomatoes; set them on the side-table in the banquet-hall; put the plate in the sink (don't stare at me!); open a bottle of Apollinaris for mamma,--dig out the cork with a hairpin, I 've lost the corkscrew; move three chairs up to the dining-table (oh, it's so charming to have three!); light the silver candlesticks in the centre of the table; go in and bring mamma out in style; see if the fire needs coal; and I'll be ready by that time." "I can never remember, but I fly! Oh, what an excellent slave-driver was spoiled in you!" said Edgar. The simple dinner was delicious, and such a welcome change from the long boarding-house table at which Edgar had eaten for over a year. The candles gave a soft light; there was a bowl of yellow flowers underneath them. Mrs. Oliver looked like an elderly Dresden-china shepherdess in her pale blue wrapper, and Polly did n't suffer from the brown gingham, with its wide collar and cuffs of buff embroidery, and its quaint full sleeves. She had burned two small blisters on her wrist: they were scarcely visible to the naked eye, but she succeeded in obtaining as much sympathy for them as if they had been mortal wounds. Her mother murmured 'Poor darling wrist' and 'kissed the place to make it well.' Edgar found a bit of thin cambric and bound up the injured member with cooling flour, Mistress Polly looking demurely on, thinking meanwhile how much safer he was with them than with the objectionable Tony. After the lamb-chops and peas had been discussed, Edgar insisted on changing the plates and putting on the tomato salad; then Polly officiated at the next course, bringing in coffee, sliced oranges, and delicious cake from the neighboring confectioner's. "Can't I wash the dishes?" asked Edgar, when the feast was ended. "They are not going to be washed, at least by us. This is a great occasion, and the little girl downstairs is coming up to clear away the dinner things." Then there was the pleasant parlor again, and when the candles were lighted in the old-fashioned mirror over the fireplace, everything wore a festive appearance. The guitar was brought out, and Edgar sang college songs till Mrs. Oliver grew so bright that she even hummed a faint second from her cosy place on the sofa. And then Polly must show Edgar how she had made Austin Dobson's "Milkmaid Song" fit "Nelly Ely," and she must teach him the pretty words. "Across the grass, I saw her pass, She comes with tripping pace; A maid I know, And March winds blow Her hair across her face. Hey! Dolly! Ho! Dolly! Dolly shall be mine, Before the spray is white with May Or blooms the eglantine." By this time the bandage had come off the burned wrist, and Edgar must bind it on again, and Polly shrieked and started when he pinned the end over, and Edgar turned pale at the thought of his brutal awkwardness, and Polly burst into a ringing peal of laughter and confessed that the pin had n't touched her, and Edgar called her a deceitful little wretch. This naturally occupied some time, and then there was the second verse:-- "The March winds blow, I watch her go, Her eye is blue and clear; Her cheek is brown And soft as down To those who see it near. Hey! Dolly! Ho! Dolly! Dolly shall be mine, Before the spray is white with May Or blooms the eglantine." After this singing-lesson was over it was nearly eleven o'clock, but up to this time Edgar had shown no realizing sense of his engagements. "The dinner is over, and the theatre party is safe," thought Polly. "Now comes the 'tug of war,' that mysterious game of billiards." But Mrs. Oliver was equal to the occasion. When Edgar looked at his watch, she said: "Polly, run and get Mrs. Noble's last letter, dear;" and then, when she was alone with Edgar, "My dear boy, I have a favor to ask of you, and you must be quite frank if it is not convenient for you to grant it. As to-morrow will be Saturday, perhaps you have no recitations, and if not, would it trouble you too much to stay here all night and attend to something for me in the morning? I will explain the matter, and then you can answer me more decidedly. I have received a letter from a Washington friend who seems to think it possible that a pension may be granted to me. He sends a letter of introduction to General M------, at the Presidio, who, he says, knew Colonel Oliver, and will be able to advise me in the matter. I am not well enough to go there for some days, and of course I do not like to send Polly alone. If you could go out with her, give him the letter of introduction, and ask him kindly to call upon us at his leisure, and find out also if there is any danger in a little delay just now while I am ill, it would be a very great favor." "Of course I will, with all the pleasure in life, Mrs. Oliver," replied Edgar, with the unspoken thought, "Confound it! There goes my game; I promised the fellows to be there, and they 'll guy me for staying away! However, there 's nothing else to do. I should n't have the face to go out now and come in at one or two o'clock in the morning." Polly entered just then with the letter. "Edgar is kind enough to stay all night with us, dear, and take you to the Presidio on the pension business in the morning. If you will see that his room is all right, I will say good-night now. Our guest-chamber is downstairs, Edgar; I hope you will be very comfortable. Breakfast at half past eight, please." When the door of Mrs. Howe's bedroom closed on Edgar, Polly ran upstairs, and sank exhausted on her own bed. "Now, mamma, 'listen to my tale of woe!' I got off at the wrong station,--yes, it was stupid; but wait: perhaps I was led to be stupid. I lost my way, could n't find Professor Salazar's house, could n't find anything else. As I was wandering about in a woodsy road, trying to find a house of some kind, I heard a crowd of boys singing vociferously as they came through the trees. I did n 't care to meet them, all alone as I was, though of course there was nothing to be afraid of, so I stepped off the road behind some trees and bushes until they should pass. It turned out to be half a dozen university students, and at first I did n't know that Edgar was among them. They were teasing somebody to go over to San Francisco for a dinner, then to the minstrels, and then to wind up with a game of billiards, and other gayeties which were to be prolonged indefinitely. What dreadful things may have been included I don't know. A wretch named 'Tony' did most of the teasing, and he looked equal to planning any sort of mischief. All at once I thought I recognized a familiar voice. I peeped out, and sure enough it was Edgar Noble whom they were coaxing. He did n't want to go a bit,--I 'll say that for him,--but they were determined that he should. I didn't mind his going to dinners and minstrels, of course, but when they spoke of being out until after midnight, or to-morrow morning, and when one beetle-browed, vulgar-looking creature offered to lend him a 'tenner,' I thought of the mortgage on the Noble ranch, and the trouble there would be if Edgar should get into debt, and I felt I must do something to stop him, especially as he said himself that everything depended on his next examinations." "But how did you accomplish it?" asked Mrs. Oliver, sitting up in bed and glowing with interest. "They sat down by the roadside, smoking and talking it over. There was n't another well-born, well-bred looking young man in the group. Edgar seemed a prince among them, and I was so ashamed of him for having such friends! I was afraid they would stay there until dark, but they finally got up and walked toward the station. I waited a few moments, went softly along behind them, and when I was near enough I cleared my throat (oh, it was a fearful moment!), and said, 'I beg your pardon, but can you direct me to Professor Salazar's house?' and then in a dramatic tone, 'Why, it is--is n't it?--Edgar Noble of Santa Barbara!' He joined me, of course. Oh, I can't begin to tell you all the steps of the affair, I am so exhausted. Suffice it to say that he walked to Professor Salazar's with me to make my excuses, came over to town with me, came up to the house, I trembling for fear he would slip through my fingers at any moment; then, you know, he stayed to dinner, I in terror all the time as the fatal hours approached and departed; and there he is, 'the captive of my bow and spear,' tucked up in Mrs. Howe's best bed, thanks to your ingenuity! I could never have devised that last plot, mamma; it was a masterpiece!" "You did a kind deed, little daughter," said Mrs. Oliver, with a kiss. "But poor Mrs. Noble! What can we do for her? We cannot play policemen all the time. We are too far from Edgar to know his plans, and any interference of which he is conscious would be worse than nothing. I cannot believe that he is far wrong yet. He certainly never appeared better; so polite and thoughtful and friendly. Well, we must let the morrow bring counsel." "I hope that smirking, odious Tony is disappointed!" said Polly viciously, as she turned out the gas. "I distinctly heard him tell Edgar to throw a handkerchief over my hair if we should pass any wild cattle! How I 'd like to banish him from this vicinity! Invite Edgar to dinner next week, mamma; not too soon, or he will suspect missionary work. Boys hate to be missionaried, and I 'm sure I don't blame them. I hope he is happy downstairs in his little prison! He ought to be, if ignorance is bliss!" CHAPTER VIII. TWO FIRESIDE CHATS. It was five o'clock Saturday afternoon, and Edgar Noble stood on the Olivers' steps, Mrs. Oliver waving her hand from an upper window, and Polly standing on the stairs saying good-by. "Come over to dinner some night, won't you, Edgar?" she asked carelessly; "any night you like, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday." "Wednesday, please, as it comes first!" said Edgar roguishly. "May I help cook it?" "You not only may, but you must. Good-by." Polly went upstairs, and, after washing the lunch-dishes in a reflective turn of mind which did away with part of the irksomeness of the task, went into the parlor and sat on a stool at her mother's feet. A soft rain had begun to fall; the fire burned brightly; the bamboo cast feathery shadows on the wall; from a house across the street came the sound of a beautiful voice singing,-- "Oh, holy night! the stars are brightly shining. It is the night of the dear Saviour's birth!" All was peaceful and homelike; if it would only last, thought Polly. "You are well to-night, mamacita." A look of repressed pain crossed Mrs. Oliver's face as she smoothed the bright head lying in her lap. "Very comfortable, dear, and very happy; as who would not be, with such a darling comfort of a daughter? Always sunny, always helpful, these last dear weeks,--cook, housekeeper, nurse, banker, all in one, with never a complaint as one burden after another is laid on her willing shoulders." "Don't, mamma!" whispered Polly, seeking desperately for her handkerchief. "I can stand scolding, but compliments always make me cry; you know they do. If Ferdinand and Isabella had told Columbus to discover my pocket instead of America, he would n't have been as famous as he is now; there, I 've found it. Now, mamma, you know your whole duty is to be well, well, well, and I 'll take care of everything else." "I 've been thinking about Edgar, Polly, and I have a plan, but I shall not think of urging it against your will; you are the mistress of the house nowadays." "I know what it is," sighed Polly. "You think we ought to take another boarder. A desire for boarders is like a taste for strong drink; once acquired, it is almost impossible to eradicate it from the system." "I do think we ought to take this boarder. Not because it will make a difference in our income, but I am convinced that if Edgar can have a pleasant home and our companionship just at this juncture, he will break away from his idle habits, and perhaps his bad associations, and take a fresh start. I feel that we owe it to our dear old friends to do this for them, if we can. Of course, if it proves too great a tax upon you, or if I should have another attack of illness, it will be out of the question; but who knows? perhaps two or three months will accomplish our purpose. He can pay me whatever he has been paying in Berkeley, less the amount of his fare to and fro. We might have little Yung Lee again, and Mrs. Howe will be glad to rent her extra room. It has a fireplace, and will serve for both bedroom and study, if we add a table and student-lamp." "I don't believe he will come," said Polly. "We are all very well as a diversion, but as a constancy we should pall upon him. I never could keep up to the level I have been maintaining for the last twenty-four hours, that is certain. It is nothing short of degradation to struggle as hard to amuse a boy as I have struggled to amuse Edgar. I don't believe he could endure such exhilaration week after week, and I am very sure it would kill me. Besides, he will fancy he is going to be watched and reported at headquarters in Santa Barbara!" "I think very likely you are right; but perhaps I can put the matter so that it will strike him in some other light." "Very well, mamacita; I 'm resigned. It will break up all our nice little two-ing, but we will be his guardian angel. I will be his guardian and you his angel, and oh, how he would dislike it if he knew it! But wait until odious Mr. Tony meets him to-night! What business is it of his if my hair is red! When he chaffs him for breaking his appointment, I dare say we shall never see him again." "You are so jolly comfortable here! This house is the next best thing to mother," said Edgar, with boyish heartiness, as he stood on the white goatskin with his back to the Olivers' cheerful fireplace. It was Wednesday evening of the next week. Polly was clearing away the dinner things, and Edgar had been arranging Mrs. Oliver's chair and pillows and footstool like the gentle young knight he was by nature. What wonder that all the fellows, even "smirking Tony," liked him and sought his company? He who could pull an oar, throw a ball, leap a bar, ride a horse, or play a game of skill as if he had been born for each particular occupation,--what wonder that the ne'er-do-wells and idlers and scamps and dullards battered at his door continually and begged him to leave his books and come out and "stir up things"! "If you think it is so 'jolly,'" said Mrs. Oliver, "how would you like to come here and live with us awhile?" This was a bombshell. The boy hesitated naturally, being taken quite by surprise. ("Confound it!" he thought rapidly, "how shall I get out of this scrape without being impolite! They would n't give me one night out a week if I came!") "I 'd like it immensely, you know," he said aloud, "and it's awfully kind of you to propose it, and I appreciate it, but I don't think--I don't see, that is, how I could come, Mrs. Oliver. In the first place, I 'm quite sure my home people would dislike my intruding on your privacy; and then,--well, you know I am out in the evening occasionally, and should n't like to disturb you, besides, I 'm sure Miss Polly has her hands full now." "Of course you would be often out in the evening, though I don't suppose you are a 'midnight reveler.' You would simply have a latch-key and go out and come in as you liked. Mrs. Howe's room is very pleasant, as you know; and you could study there before your open fire, and join us when you felt like it. Is it as convenient and pleasant for you to live on this side of the bay, and go back and forth?" "Oh yes! I don't mind that part of it." ("This is worse than the Inquisition; I don't know but that she will get me in spite of everything!") "Oh dear!" thought Mrs. Oliver, "he does n't want to come; and I don't want him to come, and I must urge him to come against his will. How very disagreeable missionary work is, to be sure! I sympathize with him, too. He is afraid of petticoat government, and fears that he will lose some of his precious liberty. If I had fifty children, I believe I should want them all girls." "Besides, dear Mrs. Oliver," continued Edgar, after an awkward pause, "I don't think you are strong enough to have me here. I believe you 're only proposing it for my good. You know that I 'm in a forlorn students' boarding-house, and you are anxious to give me 'all the comforts of a home' for my blessed mother's sake, regardless of your own discomforts." "Come here a moment and sit beside me on Polly's footstool. You were nearly three years old when Polly was born. You were all staying with me that summer. Did you know that you were my first boarders? You were a tiny fellow in kilts, very much interested in the new baby, and very anxious to hold her. I can see you now rocking the cradle as gravely as a man. Polly has hard times and many sorrows before her, Edgar! You are old enough to see that I cannot stay with her much longer." Edgar was too awed and too greatly moved to answer. "I should be very glad to have you with us, both because I think we could in some degree take the place of your mother and Margery, and because I should be glad to feel that in any sudden emergency, which I do not in the least expect, we should have a near friend to lean upon ever so little." Edgar's whole heart went out in a burst of sympathy and manly tenderness. In that moment he felt willing to give up every personal pleasure, if he might lift a feather's weight of care from the fragile woman who spoke to him with such sweetness and trust. For there is nothing hopeless save meanness and poverty of nature; and any demand on Edgar Noble's instinct of chivalrous protection would never be discounted. "I will come gladly, gladly, Mrs. Oliver," he said, "if only I can be of service; though I fear it will be all the other way. Please borrow me for a son, just to keep me in training, and I 'll try to bear my honors worthily." "Thank you, dear boy. Then it is settled, if you are sure that the living in the city will not interfere with your studies; that is the main thing. We all look to you to add fresh laurels to your old ones. Are you satisfied with your college life thus far?" ("They have n't told her anything. That 's good," thought Edgar.) "Oh yes; fairly well! I don't--I don't go in for being a 'dig,' Mrs. Oliver. I shall never be the valedictorian, and all that sort of thing; it does n't pay. Who ever hears of valedictorians twenty years after graduation? Class honors don't amount to much." "I suppose they can be overestimated; but they must prove some sort of excellence which will stand one in good stead in after years. I should never advise a boy or girl to work for honors alone; but if after doing one's very best the honors come naturally, they are very pleasant." "Half the best scholars in our class are prigs," said Edgar discontentedly. "Always down on the live fellows who want any sport. Sometimes I wish I had never gone to college at all. Unless you deny yourself every pleasure, and live the life of a hermit, you can't take any rank. My father expects me to get a hundred and one per cent. in every study, and thinks I ought to rise with the lark and go to bed with the chickens. I don't know whether he ever sowed any wild oats; if he did, it was so long ago that he has quite forgotten I must sow mine some time. He ought to be thankful they are such a harmless sort." "I don't understand boys very well," said Mrs. Oliver smilingly. "You see, I never have had any to study, and you must teach me a few things. Now, about this matter of wild oats. Why is it so necessary that they should be sown? Is Margery sowing hers? I don't know that Polly feels bound to sow any." "I dare say they are not necessities," laughed Edgar, coloring. "Perhaps they are only luxuries." Mrs. Oliver looked at the fire soberly. "I know there may be plenty of fine men who have a discreditable youth to look back upon,--a youth finally repented of and atoned for; but that is rather a weary process, I should think, and they are surely no stronger men _because_ of the 'wild oats,' but rather in _spite_ of them." "I suppose so," sighed Edgar; "but it's so easy for women to be good! I know you were born a saint, to begin with. You don't know what it is to be in college, and to want to do everything that you can't and ought n't, and nothing that you can and ought, and get all tangled up in things you never meant to touch. However, we 'll see!" Polly peeped in at the door very softly. "They have n't any light; that 's favorable. He 's sitting on my footstool; he need n't suppose he is going to have _that_ place! I think she has her hand on his arm,--yes, she has! And he is stroking it! Oh, you poor innocent child, you do not realize that that soft little hand of my mother's never lets go! It slips into a five and three-quarters glove, but you 'll be surprised, Mr. Edgar, when you discover you cannot get away from it. Very well, then; it is settled. I 'll go back and put the salt fish in soak for my boarder's breakfast. I seem to have my hands rather full!--a house to keep, an invalid mother, and now a boarder. The very thing I vowed that I never would have--another boarder; what grandmamma would have called an 'unstiddy boy boarder!" And as Polly clattered the pots and pans, the young heathen in the parlor might have heard her fresh voice singing with great energy: "Shall we, whose souls are lighted With wisdom from on high,-- Shall we to men benighted The lamp of life deny?" CHAPTER IX. HARD TIMES. The new arrangement worked exceedingly well. As to Edgar's innermost personal feelings, no one is qualified to speak with any authority. Whether he experienced a change of heart, vowed better things, prayed to be delivered from temptation, or simply decided to turn over a new leaf, no one knows; the principal fact in his life, at this period, seems to have been an unprecedented lack of time for any great foolishness. Certain unpleasant things had transpired on that eventful Friday night when he had missed his appointment with his fellow-students, which had resulted in an open scandal too disagreeable to be passed over by the college authorities; the redoubtable Tony had been returned with thanks to his fond parents in a distant part of the state, and two others had been temporarily suspended. Edgar Noble was not too blind to see the happy chance that interfered with his presence on that occasion, and was sensible enough to realize that, had he been implicated in the least degree (he scorned the possibility of his taking any active part in such scurrilous proceedings), he would probably have shared Tony's fate. Existence was wearing a particularly dismal aspect on that afternoon when Edgar had met Polly Oliver in the Berkeley woods. He felt "nagged," injured, blue, out of sorts with fate. He had not done anything very bad, he said to himself; at least, nothing half so bad as lots of other fellows, and yet everybody frowned on him. His father had, in his opinion, been unnecessarily severe; while his mother and sister had wept over him (by letter) as if he were a thief and a forger, instead of a fellow who was simply having a "little fling." He was annoyed at the conduct of Scott Burton,--"king of snobs and prigs," he named him,--who had taken it upon himself to inform Philip Noble of his (Edgar's) own personal affairs; and he was enraged at being preached at by that said younger brother. But of late everything had taken an upward turn, and by way of variety, existence turned a smiling face toward him. He had passed his examinations, most unexpectedly to himself, with a respectable percentage to spare. There was a time when he would have been ashamed of this meagre result. He was now, just a little, but the feeling was somewhat submerged in his gratitude at having "squeaked through" at all. A certain inspired Professor Hope, who wondered what effect encouragement would have on a fellow who did n't deserve any, but might possibly need it, came up to him after recitations, one day, and said:-- "Noble, I want to congratulate you on your papers in history and physics. They show signal ability. There is a plentiful lack of study evinced, but no want of grasp or power. You have talents that ought to put you among the first three men in the University, sir. I do not know whether you care to take the trouble to win such a place (it _is_ a good deal of trouble), but you can win it if you like. That's all I have to say, Noble. Good-morning!" This unlooked-for speech fell like balm on Edgar's wounded self-respect, and made him hold his head higher for a week; and, naturally, while his head occupied this elevated position, he was obliged to live up to it. He also felt obliged to make an effort, rather reluctantly, to maintain some decent standing in the classes of Professor Hope, even if he shirked in all the rest. And now life, on the whole, save for one carking care that perched on his shoulder by day and sat on his eyelids at night, was very pleasant; though he could not flatter himself that he was absolutely a free agent. After all ordinary engagements of concerts, theatres, lectures, or what not, he entered the house undisturbed, and noiselessly sought his couch. But one night, when he ventured to stay out till after midnight, just as he was stealing in softly, Mrs. Oliver's gentle voice came from the head of the stairs, saying, "Good-night, Edgar, the lamp is lighted in your room!" Edgar closed his door and sat down disconsolately on the bed, cane in hand, hat on the back of his head. The fire had burned, to a few glowing coals; his slippers lay on the hearth, and his Christmas "easy jacket" hung over the back of his great armchair; his books lay open under the student-lamp, and there were two vases of fresh flowers in the room: that was Polly's doing. "Mrs. Oliver was awake and listening for me; worrying about me, probably; I dare say she thought I 'd been waylaid by bandits," he muttered discontentedly. "I might as well live in the Young Women's Christian Association! I can't get mad with an angel, but I did n't intend being one myself! Good gracious! why don't they hire me a nurse and buy me a perambulator!" But all the rest was perfect; and his chief chums envied him after they had spent an evening with the Olivers. Polly and he had ceased to quarrel, and were on good, frank, friendly terms. "She is no end of fun," he would have told you; "has no nonsensical young-lady airs about her, is always ready for sport, sings all kinds of songs from grave to gay, knows a good joke when you tell one, and keeps a fellow up to the mark as well as a maiden aunt." All this was delightful to everybody concerned. Meanwhile the household affairs were as troublesome as they could well be. Mrs. Oliver developed more serious symptoms, and Dr. George asked the San Francisco physician to call to see her twice a week at least. The San Francisco physician thought "a year at Carlsbad, and a year at Nice, would be a good thing;" but, failing these, he ordered copious quantities of expensive drugs, and the reserve fund shrank, though the precious three hundred and twelve dollars was almost intact. Poor Mrs. Chadwick sent tearful monthly letters, accompanied by checks of fifty to sixty-five dollars. One of the boarders had died; two had gone away; the season was poor; Ah Foy had returned to China; Mr. Greenwood was difficult about his meals; the roof leaked; provisions were dear; Mrs. Holmes in the next street had decided to take boarders; Eastern people were grumbling at the weather, saying it was not at all as reported in the guide-books; real-estate and rents were very low; she hoped to be able to do better next month; and she was Mrs. Oliver's "affectionate Clementine Churchill Chadwick." Polly had held a consultation with the principal of her school, who had assured her that as she was so well in advance of her class, she could be promoted the next term, if she desired. Accordingly, she left school in order to be more with her mother, and as she studied with Edgar in the evening, she really lost nothing. Mrs. Howe remitted four dollars from the monthly rent, in consideration of Spanish lessons given to her two oldest children. This experiment proved a success, and Polly next accepted an offer to come three times a week to the house of a certain Mrs. Baer to amuse (instructively) the four little Baer cubs, while the mother Baer wrote a "History of the Dress-Reform Movement in English-Speaking Nations." For this service Polly was paid ten dollars a month in gold coin, while the amount of spiritual wealth which she amassed could not possibly be estimated in dollars and cents. The ten dollars was very useful, for it procured the services of a kind, strong woman, who came on these three afternoons of Polly's absence, put the entire house in order, did the mending, rubbed Mrs. Oliver's tired back, and brushed her hair until she fell asleep. So Polly assisted in keeping the wolf from the door, and her sacrifices watered her young heart and kept it tender. "Money may always be a beautiful thing. It is we who make it grimy." Edgar shared in the business conferences now. He had gone into convulsions of mirth over Polly's system of accounts, and insisted, much against her will, in teaching her book-keeping, striving to convince her that the cash could be kept in a single box, and the accounts separated in a book. These lessons were merry occasions, for there was a conspicuous cavity in Polly's brain where the faculty for mathematics should have been. "Your imbecility is so unusual that it 's a positive inspiration," Edgar would say. "It is n't like any ordinary stupidity; there does n't seem to be any bottom to it, you know; it 's abnormal, it 's fascinating, Polly!" Polly glowed under this unstinted praise. "I am glad you like it," she said. "I always like to have a thing first-class of its kind, though I can't pride myself that it compares with your Spanish accent, Edgar; that stands absolutely alone and unapproachable for badness. I don't worry about my mathematical stupidity a bit since I read Dr. Holmes, who says that everybody has an idiotic area in his mind." There had been very little bookkeeping to-night. It was raining in torrents. Mrs. Oliver was talking with General M---- in the parlor, while Edgar and Polly were studying in the dining-room. Polly laid down her book and leaned back in her chair. It had been a hard day, and it was very discouraging that a new year should come to one's door laden with vexations and anxieties, when everybody naturally expected new years to be happy, through January and February at least. "Edgar," she sighed plaintively, "I find that this is a very difficult world to live in, sometimes." Edgar looked up from his book, and glanced at her as she lay back with closed eyes in the Chinese lounging-chair. She was so pale, so tired, and so very, very pretty just then, her hair falling in bright confusion round her face, her whole figure relaxed with weariness, and her lips quivering a little, as if she would like to cry if she dared. Polly with dimples playing hide and seek in rosy cheeks, with dazzling eyes, and laughing lips, and saucy tongue, was sufficiently captivating; but Polly with bright drops on her lashes, with a pathetic droop in the corners of her mouth and the suspicion of a tear in her voice,--this Polly was irresistible. "What's the matter, pretty Poll?" "Nothing specially new. The Baer cubs were naughty as little demons to-day. One of them had a birthday-party yesterday, with four kinds of frosted cake. Mrs. Baer's system of management is n't like mine, and until I convince the children I mean what I say, they give me the benefit of the doubt. The Baer place is so large that Mrs. Baer never knows where disobedience may occur, and that she may be prepared she keeps one of Mr. Baer's old slippers on the front porch, one in the carriage-house, one in the arbor, one in the nursery, and one under the rose hedge at the front gate. She showed me all these haunts, and told me to make myself thoroughly at home. I felt tempted to-day, but I resisted." "You are working too hard, Polly. I propose we do something about Mrs. Chadwick. You are bearing all the brunt of other people's faults and blunders." "But, Edgar, everything is so mixed: Mrs. Chadwick's year of lease is n't over; I suppose she cannot be turned out by main force, and if we should ask her to leave the house it might go unrented for a month or two, and the loss of that money might be as much as the loss of ten or fifteen dollars a month for the rest of the year. I could complain of her to Dr. George, but there again I am in trouble. If he knew that we are in difficulties, he would offer to lend us money in an instant, and that would make mamma ill, I am sure; for we are under all sorts of obligations to him now, for kindnesses that can never be repaid. Then, too, he advised us not to let Mrs. Chadwick have the house. He said that she had n't energy enough to succeed; but mamma was so sorry for her, and so determined to give her a chance, that she persisted in letting her have it. We shall have to find a cheaper flat, by and by, for I 've tried every other method of economizing, for fear of making mamma worse with the commotion of moving." CHAPTER X. EDGAR GOES TO CONFESSION. "I 'm afraid I make it harder, Polly, and you and your mother must be frank with me, and turn me out of the Garden of Eden the first moment I become a nuisance. Will you promise?" "You are a help to us, Edgar; we told you so the other night. We could n't have Yung Lee unless you lived with us, and I could n't earn any money if I had to do all the housework." "I 'd like to be a help, but I 'm so helpless!" "We are all poor together just now, and that makes it easier." "I am worse than poor!" Edgar declared. "What can be worse than being poor?" asked Polly, with a sigh drawn from the depths of her boots. "To be in debt," said Edgar, who had not the slightest intention of making this remark when he opened his lips. Now the Olivers had only the merest notion of Edgar's college troubles; they knew simply what the Nobles had told them, that he was in danger of falling behind his class. This, they judged, was a contingency no longer to be feared; as various remarks dropped by the students who visited the house, and sundry bits of information contributed by Edgar himself, in sudden bursts of high spirits, convinced them that he was regaining his old rank, and certainly his old ambition. "To be in debt," repeated Edgar doggedly, "and to see no possible way out of it. Polly, I 'm in a peck of trouble! I 've lost money, and I 'm at my wits' end to get straight again!" "Lost money? How much? Do you mean that you lost your pocket-book?" "No, no; not in that way." "You mean that you spent it," said Polly. "You mean you overdrew your allowance." "Of course I did. Good gracious, Polly! there are other ways of losing money than by dropping it in the road. I believe girls don't know anything more about the world than the geography tells them,--that it's a round globe like a ball or an orange!" "Don't be impolite. The less they know about the old world the better they get on, I dare say. Your colossal fund of worldly knowledge does n't seem to make you very happy, just now. How could you lose your money, I ask? You 're nothing but a student, and you are not in any business, are you?" "Yes, I am in business, and pretty bad business it is, too." "What do you mean?" "I mean that I 've been winding myself up into a hard knot, the last six months, and the more I try to disentangle myself, the worse the thing gets. My allowance is n't half enough; nobody but a miser could live on it. I 've been unlucky, too. I bought a dog, and some one poisoned him before I could sell him; then I lamed a horse from the livery-stable, and had to pay damages; and so it went. The fellows all kept lending me money, rather than let me stay out of the little club suppers, and since I 've shut down on expensive gayeties they've gone back on me, and all want their money at once; so does the livery-stable keeper, and the owner of the dog, and a dozen other individuals; in fact, the debtors' prison yawns before me." "Upon my word, I 'm ashamed of you!" said Polly, with considerable heat. "To waste money in that way, when you knew perfectly well you could n't afford it, was--well, it was downright dishonest, that's what it was! To hear you talk about dogs, and lame horses, and club suppers, anybody would suppose you were a sporting man! Pray, what else do they do in that charming college set of yours?" "I might have known you would take that tone, but I did n't, somehow. I told you just because I thought you were the one girl in a thousand who would understand and advise a fellow when he knows he's made a fool of himself and acted like a cur! I did n't suppose you would call hard names, and be so unsympathizing, after all we have gone through together!" "I 'm not!--I did n't!--I won't do it again!" said Polly incoherently, as she took a straight chair, planted her elbows on the table, and leaned her chin in her two palms. "Now let's talk about it; tell me everything quickly. How much is it?" "Nearly two hundred dollars! Don't shudder so provokingly, Polly; that 's a mere bagatelle for a college man, but I know it's a good deal for me,--a good deal more than I know how to get, at all events." "Where is the debtors' prison?" asked Polly in an awestruck whisper. "Oh, there is n't any such thing nowadays! I was only chaffing; but of course, the men to whom I am in debt can apply to father, and get me in a regular mess. I 've pawned my watch to stave one of them off. You see, Polly, I would rather die than do it; nevertheless, I would write and tell father everything, and ask him for the money, but circumstances conspire just at this time to make it impossible. You know he bought that great ranch in Ventura county with Albert Harding of New York. Harding has died insolvent, and father has to make certain payments or lose control of a valuable property. It's going to make him a rich man some time, but for a year or two we shall have to count every penny. Of course the fruit crop this season has been the worst in ten years, and of course there has been a frost this winter, the only severe one within the memory of the oldest inhabitant,--that's the way it always is,--and there I am! I suppose you despise me, Polly?" "Yes, I do!" (hotly)--"No, I don't altogether, and I 'm not good enough myself to be able to despise people. Besides, you are not a despisable boy. You were born manly and generous and true-hearted, and these hateful things that you have been doing are not a part of your nature a bit; but I 'm ashamed of you for yielding to bad impulses when you have so many good ones, and--oh dear!--I do that very same thing myself, now that I stop to think about it. But how could you, _you_, Edgar Noble, take that evil-eyed, fat-nosed, common Tony Selling for a friend? I wonder at you!" "He is n't so bad in some ways. I owe him eighty dollars of that money, and he says he 'll give me six months to pay it." "I 'm glad he has some small virtues," Polly replied witheringly. "Now, what can we do, Edgar? Let us think. What can, what _can_ we do?" and she leaned forward reflectively, clasping her knee with her hands and wrinkling her brow with intense thought. That little "we" fell on Edgar's loneliness of spirit consolingly; for it adds a new pang to self-distrust when righteous people withdraw from one in utter disdain, even if they are "only girls" who know little of a boy's temptations. "If you can save something each month out of your allowance, Edgar," said Polly, finally, with a brighter look, "I can spare fifty or even seventy-five dollars of our money, and you may pay it back as you can. We are not likely to need it for several months, and your father and mother ought not to be troubled with this matter, now that it's over and done with." The blood rushed to Edgar's face as he replied stiffly: "I may be selfish and recklessly extravagant, but I don't borrow money from girls. If you wanted to add the last touch to my shame, you 've done it. Don't you suppose I have eyes, Polly Oliver? Don't you suppose I 've hated myself ever since I came under this roof, when I have seen the way you worked and planned and plotted and saved and denied yourself? Don't you suppose I 've looked at you twenty times a day, and said to myself, 'You miserable, selfish puppy, getting yourself and everybody who cares for you into trouble, just look at that girl and be ashamed of yourself down to the ground!' And now you offer to lend me money! Oh, Polly, I wouldn't have believed it of you!" Polly felt convicted of sin, although she was not very clear as to the reason. She blushed as she said hastily, "Your mother has been a very good friend to us, Edgar; why should n't we help you a little, just for once? Now, let us go in to see mamma and talk it all over together!" "If you pity me, Polly, don't tell her; I could not bear to have that saint upon earth worried over my troubles; it was mean enough to add a feather's weight to yours." "Well, we won't do it, then," said Polly, with maternal kindness in her tone. "Do stop pacing up and down like a caged panther. We 'll find some other way out of the trouble; but boys are such an anxiety! Do you think, Edgar, that you have reformed?" "Bless your soul! I 've kept within my allowance for two or three months. As Susan Nipper says, 'I may be a camel, but I 'm not a dromedary!' When I found out where I was, I stopped; I had to stop, and I knew it. I 'm all right now, thanks to--several things. In fact, I 've acquired a kind of appetite for behaving myself now, and if the rascally debts were only out of the way, I should be the happiest fellow in the universe." "You cannot apply to your father, so there is only one thing to do,--that is, to earn the money." "But how, when I 'm in the class-room three fourths of the day?" "I don't know," said Polly hopelessly. "I can tell you what to do, but not how to do it; I 'm nothing but a miserable girl." "I must stay in college, and I must dig and make up for lost time; so most of my evenings will be occupied." "You must put all your 'musts' together," said Polly decisively, "and then build a bridge over them, or tunnel through them, or span them with an arch. We 'll keep thinking about it, and I'm sure something will turn up; I 'm not discouraged a bit. You see, Edgar," and Polly's face flushed with feeling as she drew patterns on the tablecloth with her tortoise-shell hairpin,--"you see, of course, the good fairies are not going to leave you in the lurch when you 've turned your back on the ugly temptations, and are doing your very best. And now that we 've talked it all over, Edgar, I 'm not ashamed of you! Mamma and I have been so proud of your successes the last month. She believes in you!" "Of course," said Edgar dolefully; "because she knows only the best." "But I know the best and the worst too, and I believe in you! It seems to me the best is always the truest part of one, after all. No, we are not going to be naughty any more; we are going to earn that hateful Tony's money; we are going to take all the class honors, just for fun, not because we care for such trifles, and we are going home for the summer holidays in a blaze of glory!" Edgar rose with a lighter heart in his breast than he had felt there for many a week. "Good-night, Parson Polly," he said rather formally, for he was too greatly touched to be able to command his tones; "add your prayers to your sermons, and perhaps you 'll bring the black sheep safely into the fold." The quick tears rushed to Polly's eyes; for Edgar's stiff manner sat curiously on him, and she feared she had annoyed him by too much advice. "Oh, Edgar," she said, with a quivering lip, "I did n't mean to pose or to preach! You know how full of faults I am, and if I were a boy I should be worser I was only trying to help a little, eves if I am younger and a girl! Don't--don't think I was setting myself up as better than you; that's so mean and conceited and small! Edgar dear, I am so proud to think you told me your troubles; don't turn away from me, or I shall think you are sorry you trusted me!" and Polly laid a persuasive, disarming hand on the lad's shoulder. Suddenly Edgar's heart throbbed with a new feeling. He saw as in a vision the purity, fidelity, and tender yearning of a true woman's nature shining through a girl's eyes. In that moment he wished as never before to be manly and worthy. He seemed all at once to understand his mother, his sister, all women better, and with a quick impulsive gesture which he would not have understood a month before, he bent his head over astonished Polly's hand, kissed it reverently, then opened the door and went to his room without a word. CHAPTER XI. THE LADY IN BLACK. "I 've had a little adventure," said Polly to her mother one afternoon. "I went out, for the sake of the ride, on the Sutler Street cable-cars with Milly Foster. When we came to the end of the line, Milly walked down to Greary Street to take her car home. I went with her to the corner, and as I was coming back I saw a lady in black alighting from an elegant carriage. She had a coachman and a footman, both with weeds on their hats, and she seemed very sad and grave; but she had such a sweet, beautiful face that I was sorry for her the first moment I looked at her. She walked along in front of me toward the cemetery, and there we met those boys that stand about the gate with bouquets. She glanced at the flowers as if she would like to buy some, but you know how hideous they always are, every color of the rainbow crowded in tightly together, and she looked away, dissatisfied. I don't know why she had n't brought some with her,--she looked rich enough to buy a whole conservatory; perhaps she had n't expected to drive there. However, Milly Foster had given me a whole armful of beautiful flowers,--you know she has a 'white garden:' there were white sweet peas, Lamarque roses, and three stalks of snowy Eucharist lilies. I need n't tell my own mother that I did n't stop to think twice; I just stepped up to her and said, 'I should like to give you my flowers, please. I don't need them, and I am sure they are just sweet and lovely enough for the place you want to lay them.' "The tears came into her eyes,--she was just ready to cry at anything, you know,--and she took them at once, and said, squeezing my hand very tightly, 'I will take them, dear. The grave of my own, and my only, little girl lies far away from this,--the snow is falling on it to-day,--but whenever I cannot give the flowers to her, I always find the resting-places of other children, and lay them there. I know it makes her happy, for she was born on Christmas Day, and she was full of the Christmas spirit, always thinking of other people, never of herself.' "She did look so pale, and sad, and sweet, that I began to think of you without your troublesome Polly, or your troublesome Polly without you; and she was pleased with the flowers and glad that I understood, and willing to love anything that was a girl or that was young,--oh, you know, mamacita,--and so I began to cry a little, too; and the first thing I knew I kissed her, which was most informal, if not positively impertinent. But she seemed to like it, for she kissed me back again, and I ran and jumped on the car, and here I am! You will have to eat your dinner without any flowers, madam, for you have a vulgarly strong, healthy daughter, and the poor lady in black has n't." This was Polly's first impression of "the lady in black," and thus began an acquaintance which was destined before many months to play a very important part in Polly's fortunes and misfortunes. What the lady in black thought of Polly, then and subsequently, was told at her own fireside, where she sat, some six weeks later, chatting over an after-dinner cup of coffee with her brother-in-law. "Take the armchair, John," said Mrs. Bird; "for I have 'lots to tell you,' as the young folks say. I was in the Children's Hospital about five o'clock to-day. I have n't been there for three months, and I felt guilty about it. The matron asked me to go upstairs into the children's sitting-room, the one Donald and I fitted up in memory of Carol. She said that a young lady was telling stories to the children, but that I might go right up and walk in. I opened the door softly, though I don't think the children would have noticed if I had fired a cannon in their midst, and stood there, spellbound by the loveliest, most touching scene I ever witnessed. The room has an open fire, and in a low chair, with the firelight shining on her face, sat that charming, impulsive girl who gave me the flowers at the cemetery--I told you about her. She was telling stories to the children. There were fifteen or twenty of them in the room, all the semi-invalids and convalescents, I should think, and they were gathered about her like flies round a saucer of honey. Every child that could, was doing its best to get a bit of her dress to touch, or a finger of her hand to hold, or an inch of her chair to lean upon. They were the usual pale, weary-looking children, most of them with splints and weights and crutches, and through the folding-doors that opened into the next room I could see three more tiny things sitting up in their cots and drinking in every word with eagerness and transport. "And I don't wonder. There is magic in that girl for sick or sorrowing people. I wish you could have seen and heard her. Her hair is full of warmth and color; her lips and cheeks are pink; her eyes are bright with health and mischief, and beaming with love, too; her smile is like sunshine, and her voice as glad as a wild bird's. I never saw a creature so alive and radiant, and I could feel that the weak little creatures drank in her strength and vigor, without depleting her, as flowers drink in the sunlight. "As she stood up and made ready to go, she caught sight of me, and ejaculated, with the most astonished face, 'Why, it is my lady in black!' Then, with a blush, she added, 'Excuse me! I spoke without thinking--I always do. I have thought of you very often since I gave you the flowers; and as I did n't know your name, I have always called you my lady in black.' "'I should be very glad to be your "lady" in any color,' I answered, 'and my other name is Mrs. Bird.' Then I asked her if she would not come and see me. She said, 'Yes, with pleasure,' and told me also that her mother was ill, and that she left her as little as possible; whereupon I offered to go and see her instead. "Now, here endeth the first lesson, and here beginneth the second, namely, my new plan, on which I wish to ask your advice. You know that all the money Donald and I used to spend on Carol's nurses, physicians, and what not, we give away each Christmas Day in memory of her. It may be that we give it in monthly installments, but we try to plan it and let people know about it on that day. I propose to create a new profession for talented young women who like to be helpful to others as well as to themselves. I propose to offer this little Miss Oliver, say twenty-five dollars a month, if she will go regularly to the Children's Hospital and to the various orphan asylums just before supper and just before bedtime, and sing and tell stories to the children for an hour. I want to ask her to give two hours a day only, going to each place once or twice a week; but of course she will need a good deal of time for preparation. If she accepts, I will see the managers of the various institutions, offer her services, and arrange for the hours. I am confident that they will receive my protegee with delight, and I am sure that I shall bring the good old art of story-telling into fashion again, through this gifted girl. Now, John, what do you think?" "I heartily approve, as usual. It is a novelty, but I cannot see why it 's not perfectly expedient, and I certainly can think of no other way in which a monthly expenditure of twenty-five dollars will carry so much genuine delight and comfort to so many different children. Carol would sing for joy if she could know of your plan." "Perhaps she does know it," said Mrs. Bird softly. And so it was settled. Polly's joy and gratitude at Mrs. Bird's proposal baffles the powers of the narrator. It was one of those things pleasant to behold, charming to imagine, but impossible to describe. After Mrs. Bird's carriage had been whirled away, she watched at the window for Edgar, and, when she saw him nearing the steps, did not wait for him to unlock the door, but opened it from the top of the stairs, and flew down them to the landing as lightly as a feather. As for Edgar himself, he was coming up with unprecedented speed, and they nearly fell into each other's arms as they both exclaimed, in one breath, "Hurrah!" and then, in another, "Who told you?" "How did you know it?" asked Edgar. "Has Tom Mills been here?" "What is anybody by the name of Mills to me in my present state of mind!" exclaimed Polly. "Have you some good news, too? If so, speak out quickly." "Good news? I should think I had; what else were you hurrahing about? I 've won the scholarship, and I have a chance to earn some money! Tom Mills's eyes are in bad condition, and the oculist says he must wear blue goggles and not look at a book for two months. His father wrote to me to-day, and he asks if I will read over the day's lessons with Tom every afternoon or evening, so that he can keep up with the class; and says that if I will do him this great service he will be glad to pay me any reasonable sum. He 'ventured' to write me on Professor Hope's recommendation." "Oh, Edgar, that is too, too good!" cried Polly, jumping up and down in delight. "Now hear my news. What do you suppose has happened?" "Turned-up noses have come into style." "Insulting! That is n't the spirit I showed when you told me your good news." "You 've found the leak in the gas stove." "On the contrary, I don't care if all the gas in our establishment leaks from now to--the millennium. Guess again, stupid!" "Somebody has left you a million." "No, no!" (scornfully.) "Well, I can't wait your snail's pace. My lady in black, Mrs. Donald Bird, has been here all the afternoon, and she offers me twenty-five dollars a month to give up the Baer cubs and tell stories two hours a day in the orphan asylums and the Children's Hospital! Just what I love to do! Just what I always longed to do! Just what I would do if I were a billionaire! Is n't it heavenly?" "Well, well! We are in luck, Polly. Hurrah! Fortune smiles at last on the Noble-Oliver household. Let's have a jollification! Oh, I forgot. Tom Mills wants to come to dinner. Will you mind?" "Let him come, goggles and all, we 'll have the lame and the halt, as well as the blind, if we happen to see any. Mamma won't care. I told her we 'd have a feast to-night that should vie with any of the old Roman banquets! Here 's my purse; please go down on Sutter Street--ride both ways--and buy anything extravagant and unseasonable you can find. Get forced tomatoes; we'll have 'chops and tomato sauce' à la Mrs. Bardell; order fried oysters in a browned loaf; get a quart of ice cream, the most expensive variety they have, a loaf of the richest cake in the bakery, and two chocolate eclairs apiece. Buy hothouse roses, or orchids, for the table, and give five cents to that dirty little boy on the corner there. In short, as Frank Stockton says, 'Let us so live while we are up that we shall forget we have ever been down'!" and Polly plunged upstairs to make a toilet worthy of the occasion. The banquet was such a festive occasion that Yung Lee's Chinese reserve was sorely tried, and he giggled more than once, while waiting on the table. Polly had donned a trailing black silk skirt of her mother's, with a white chuddah shawl for a court train, and a white lace waist to top it. Her hair was wound into a knot on the crown of her head and adorned with three long black ostrich feathers, which soared to a great height, and presented a most magnificent and queenly appearance. Tom Mills, whose father was four times a millionaire, wondered why they never had such gay times at his home, and tried to fancy his sister Blanche sparkling and glowing and beaming over the prospect of earning twenty-five dollars a month. Then, when bedtime came, Polly and her mother talked it all over in the dark. "Oh, mamacita, I am so happy! It's such a lovely beginning, and I shall be so glad, so glad to do it! I hope Mrs. Bird did n't invent the plan for my good, for I have been frightfully shabby each time she has seen me, but she says she thinks of nothing but the children. Now we will have some pretty things, won't we? And oh! do you think, not just now, but some time in the distant centuries, I can have a string of gold beads?" "I do, indeed," sighed Mrs. Oliver. "You are certainly in no danger of being spoiled by luxury in your youth, my poor little Pollykins; but you will get all these things some time, I feel sure, if they are good for you, and if they belong to you. You remember the lines I read the other day:-- "'Hast not thy share? On winged feet, Lo! it rushes thee to meet; And all that Nature made thy own, Floating in air or pent in stone, Will rive the hills and swim the sea And, like thy shadow, follow thee.'" "Yes," said Polly contentedly; "I am satisfied. My share of the world's work is rushing to meet me. To-night I could just say with Sarah Jewett's Country Doctor, 'My God, I thank thee for my future.'" CHAPTER XII. THE GREAT SILENCE. The months of April and May were happy ones. The weather was perfect, as only California weather understands the art of being; the hills were at their greenest; the wind almost forgot to blow; the fields blazed in wild-flowers; day after day rose in cloudless splendor, and day after day the Golden Gate shone like a sapphire in the sun. Polly was inwardly nervous. She had the "awe of prosperity" in her heart, and everything seemed too bright to last. Both she and Edgar were very busy. But work that one loves is no hardship, especially when one is strong and young and hopeful, and when one has great matters at stake, such as the health and wealth of an invalid mother, or the paying off of disagreeable debts. Even the limp Mrs. Chadwick shared in the general joy; for Mr. Greenwood was so utterly discouraged with her mismanagement of the house, so determined not to fly to ills he knew not of, and so anxious to bring order out of chaos, that on the spur of the moment one day he married her. On the next day he discharged the cook, hired a better one the third, dunned the delinquent boarder the fourth, and collected from him on the fifth; so the May check (signed Clementine Chadwick Greenwood) was made out for eighty-five dollars. But in the midst of it all, when everything in the outside world danced with life and vigor, and the little house could hardly hold its sweet content,--without a glimmer of warning, without a moment's fear or dread, without the precious agony of parting, Mrs. Oliver slipped softly, gently, safely, into the Great Silence. Mercifully it was Edgar, not Polly, who found her in her accustomed place on the cushions, lying with closed eyelids and smiling lips. It was half past five. . . . Polly must have gone out at four, as usual, and would be back in half an hour. . . . Yung Lee was humming softly in the little kitchen. . . . In five minutes Edgar Noble had suffered, lived, and grown ten years. He was a man. . . . And then came Polly,--and Mrs. Bird with her, thank Heaven!--Polly breathless and glowing, looking up at the bay window for her mother's smile of welcome. In a few seconds the terrible news was broken, and Polly, overpowered with its awful suddenness, dropped before it as under a physical blow. It was better so. Mrs. Bird carried her home for the night, as she thought, but a merciful blur stole over the child's tired brain, and she lay for many weeks in a weary illness of delirium and stupor and fever. Meanwhile, Edgar acted as brother, son, and man of the house. He it was who managed everything, from the first sorrowful days up to the closing of the tiny upper flat where so much had happened: not great things of vast outward importance, but small ones,--little miseries and mortifications and struggles and self-denials and victories, that made the past half year a milestone in his life. A week finished it all! It takes a very short time, he thought, to scatter to the winds of heaven all the gracious elements that make a home. Only a week; and in the first days of June, Edgar went back to Santa Barbara for the summer holidays without even a sight of his brave, helpful girl-comrade. He went back to his brother's congratulations, his sister's kisses, his mother's happy tears, and his father's hearty hand-clasp, full of renewed pride and belief in his eldest son. But there was a shadow on the lad's high spirits as he thought of gay, courageous, daring Polly, stripped in a moment of all that made life dear. "I wish we could do something for her, poor little soul," he said to his mother in one of their long talks in the orange-tree sitting-room. "Tongue cannot tell what Mrs. Oliver has been to me, and I 'm not a bit ashamed to own up to Polly's influence, even if she is a girl and two or three years younger than I am. Hang it! I 'd like to see the fellow that could live under the same roof as those two women, and not do the best that was in him! Has n't Polly some relatives in the East?" "No near ones, and none that she has ever seen. Still, she is not absolutely alone, as many girls would be under like circumstances. We would be only too glad to have her here; the Howards have telegraphed asking her to spend the winter with them in Cambridge; I am confident Dr. Winship will do the same when the news of Mrs. Oliver's death reaches Europe; and Mrs. Bird seems to have constituted herself a sort of fairy Godmother in chief. You see everybody loves Polly; and she will probably have no less than four homes open to her. The fact is, if you should put Polly on a desert island, the bees and the butterflies and the birds would gather about her; she draws everything and everybody to her magically. Then, too, she is not penniless. Rents are low, and she cannot hope to get quite as much for the house as before, but even counting repairs, taxes, and furnishings, we think she is reasonably certain of fifty dollars a month." "She will never be idle, unless this sorrow makes a great change in her. Polly seems to have been created to 'become' by 'doing.'" "Yet she does not in the least relish work, Edgar. I never knew a girl with a greater appetite for luxury. One cannot always see the deepest reasons in God's providence as applied to one's own life and character; but it is often easy to understand them as one looks at other people and notes their growth and development. For instance, Polly's intense love for her invalid mother has kept her from being selfish. The straitened circumstances in which she has been compelled to live have prevented her from yielding to self-indulgence or frivolity. Even her hunger for the beautiful has been a discipline; for since beautiful things were never given to her ready-made, she has been forced to create them. Her lot in life, which she has always lamented, has given her a self-control, a courage, a power, which she never would have had in the world had she grown up in luxury. She is too young to see it, but it is very clear to me that Polly Oliver is a glorious product of circumstances." "But," objected Edgar, "that is not fair. You are giving all the credit to circumstances, and none to Polly's own nature." "Not at all. If there had not been the native force to develop, experience would have had nothing to work upon. As it is, her lovely childish possibilities have become probabilities, and I look to see the girlish probabilities blossom into womanly certainties." Meanwhile Polly, it must be confessed, was not at the present time quite justifying the good opinion of her friends. She had few of the passive virtues. She could bear sharp stabs of misfortune, which fired her energy and pride, but she resented pin pricks. She could carry heavy, splendid burdens cheerfully, but she fretted under humble cares. She could serve by daring, but not by waiting. She would have gone to the stake or the scaffold, I think, with tolerable grace; but she would probably have recanted any article of faith if she had been confronted with life-imprisonment. Trouble that she took upon herself for the sake of others, and out of love, she accepted sweetly. Sorrows that she did not choose, which were laid upon her without her consent, and which were "just the ones she did _not_ want, and did _not_ need, and would _not_ have, and could _not_ bear,"--these sorrows found her unwilling, bitter, and impatient. Yet if life is a school and we all have lessons to learn in it, the Great Teacher will be unlikely to set us tasks which we have already finished. Some review there must be, for certain things are specially hard to keep in mind, and have to be gone over and over, lest they fade into forgetfulness. But there must be continued progress in a life school. There is no parrot repetition, sing-song, meaningless, of words that have ceased to be vital. New lessons are to be learned as fast as the old ones are understood. Of what use to set Polly tasks to develop her bravery, when she was already brave? Courage was one of the little jewels set in her fairy crown when she was born, but there was a round, empty space beside it, where Patience should have been. Further along was Daring, making a brilliant show, but again there was a tiny vacancy waiting for Prudence. The crown made a fine appearance, on the whole, because the large jewels were mostly in place, and the light of these blinded you to the lack of the others; but to the eye of the keen observer there was a want of symmetry and completeness. Polly knew the unfinished state of her fairy crown as well as anybody else. She could not plead ignorance as an excuse; but though she would have gone on polishing the great gems with a fiery zeal, she added the little jewels very slowly, and that only on compulsion. There had been seven or eight weeks of partial unconsciousness, when the sorrow and the loneliness of life stole into her waking dreams only vaguely and at intervals; when she was unhappy, and could not remember why; and slept, to wake and wonder and sleep again. Then there were days and weeks when the labor of living was all that the jaded body could accomplish; when memory was weak; when life began at the pillow, and ended at the foot of the bed, and the universe was bounded by the chamber windows. But when her strength came back, and she stood in the middle of the floor, clothed and in her right mind, well enough to remember,--oh! then indeed the deep waters of bitterness rolled over poor Polly's head and into her heart, and she sank beneath them without a wish or a struggle to rise. "If it had been anything else!" she sobbed. "Why did God take away my most precious, my only one to live for, when I was trying to take care of her, trying to be good, trying to give back the strength that had been poured out on me,--miserable, worthless me! Surely, if a girl was willing to do without a father and sisters and brothers, without good times and riches, willing to work like a galley slave, willing to 'scrimp' and plan and save for ever and ever; surely 'they' might be willing that she should keep her mother!" Poor Polly! Providence at this time seemed nothing more than a collection of demons which she classified under the word "they," and which she felt certain were scourging her pitilessly and needlessly. She could not see any reason or justification in "their" cruelties,--for that was the only term she could apply to her afflictions. Mrs. Bird had known sorrow, and she did her best to minister to the troubled and wrong little heart; but it was so torn that it could be healed only by the soft balm of Time. Perhaps, a long while after such a grief,--it is always "perhaps" in a great crisis, though the certainty is ours if we will but grasp it,--perhaps the hidden meaning of the sorrow steals gently into our softened hearts. We see, as in a vision, a new light by which to work; we rise, cast off the out-grown shell, and build us a more stately mansion, in which to dwell till God makes that home also too small to hold the ever-growing soul! CHAPTER XIII. A GARDEN FLOWER, OR A BANIAN-TREE. In August Mr. John Bird took Polly to the Nobles' ranch in Santa Barbara, in the hope that the old scenes and old friends might soothe her, and give her strength to take up the burden of life with something of her former sunshiny spirit. Edgar was a junior now, back at his work, sunburned and strong from his summer's outing. He had seen Polly twice after his return to San Francisco; but the first meeting was an utter failure, and the second nearly as trying. Neither of them could speak of the subject that absorbed their thoughts, nor had either courage enough to begin other topics of conversation. The mere sight of Edgar was painful to the girl now, it brought to mind so much that was dear, so much that was past and gone. In the serenity of the ranch-life, the long drives with Margery and Philip, the quiet chats with Mrs. Noble, Polly gained somewhat in strength; but the old "spring," vitality, and enthusiasm had vanished for the time, and the little circle of friends marveled at this Polly without her nonsense, her ready smiles, her dancing dimples, her extravagances of speech. Once a week, at least, Dr. George would steal an hour or two, and saddle his horse to take Polly for a gallop over the hills, through the cañons, or on the beach. His half-grave, half-cheery talks on these rides did her much good. He sympathized and understood and helped, even when he chided, and Polly sometimes forgot her own troubles in wondering whether Dr. George had not suffered and overcome a good many of his own. "You make one great error, my child," he once said, in response to one of Polly's outbursts of grief; "and it is an error young people very naturally fall into. You think that no one was ever chastened as you are. You say, with Jeremiah, 'No prophet is afflicted like unto this prophet!' Now you are simply bearing your own share of the world's trouble. How can you hope to escape the universal lot? There are dozens of people within sight of this height of land who have borne as much, and must bear as much again. I know this must seem a hard philosophy, and I should not preach it to any but a stout little spirit like yours, my Polly. These things come to all of us; they are stern facts; they are here, and they must be borne; but it makes all the difference in the world how we bear them. We can clench our fists, close our lips tightly, and say, 'Since I must, I can;' or we can look up and say cheerfully, 'I will!' The first method is philosophical and strong enough, but there is no sweetness in it. If you have this burden to carry, make it as light, not as heavy, as you can; if you have this grief to endure, you want at least to come out of it sweeter and stronger than ever before. It seems a pity to let it go for nothing. In the largest sense of the word, you can live for your mother now as truly as you did in the old times; you know very well how she would have had you live." Polly felt a sense of shame steal over her as she looked at Dr. George's sweet, strong smile and resolute mouth, and she said, with the hint of a new note in her voice:-- "I see, and I will try; but how does one ever learn to live without loving,--I mean the kind of loving I had in my life? I know I can live for my mother in the largest sense of the word, but to me all the comfort and sweetness seems to tuck itself under the word in its 'little' sense. I shall have to go on developing and developing until I am almost developed to death, and go on growing and growing in grace until I am ready to be caught up in a chariot of fire, before I can love my mother 'in the largest sense of the word.' I want to cuddle my head on her shoulder, that's what I want. Oh, Dr. George, how does one contrive to be good when one is not happy? How can one walk in the right path when there does n't seem to be any brightness to go by?" "My dear little girl," and Dr. George looked soberly out on the ocean, dull and lifeless under the gray October sky, "when the sun of one's happiness is set, one lights a candle called 'Patience,' and guides one's footsteps by that!" "If only I were not a rich heiress," said Polly next morning, "I dare say I should be better off; for then I simply could n't have gone to bed for two or three months, and idled about like this for another. But there seems to be no end to my money. Edgar paid all the bills in San Francisco, and saved twenty out of our precious three hundred and twelve dollars. Then Mrs. Greenwood's rent-money has been accumulating four months, while I have been visiting you and Mrs. Bird; and the Greenwoods are willing to pay sixty dollars a month for the house still, even though times are dull; so I am hopelessly wealthy,--but on the whole I am very glad. The old desire to do something, and be something, seems to have faded out of my life with all the other beautiful things. I think I shall go to a girls' college and study, or find some other way of getting through the hateful, endless years that stretch out ahead! Why, I am only a little past seventeen, and I may live to be ninety! I do not see how I can ever stand this sort of thing for seventy-three years!" Mrs. Noble smiled in spite of herself. "Just apply yourself to getting through this year, Polly dear, and let the other seventy-two take care of themselves. They will bring their own cares and joys and responsibilities and problems, little as you realize it now. This year, grievous as it seems, will fade by and by, until you can look back at it with resignation and without tears." "I don't want it to fade!" cried Polly passionately. "I never want to look back at it without tears! I want to be faithful always; I want never to forget, and never to feel less sorrow than I do this minute!" "Take that blue-covered Emerson on the table, Polly; open it at the essay on 'Compensation,' and read the page marked with the orange leaf." The tears were streaming down Polly's cheeks, but she opened the book, and read with a faltering voice:-- "We cannot part with our f--fr--friends. We cannot let our angels go. [Sob.] We do not see that they only go out that archangels may come in. . . . We do not believe there is any force in to-day to rival or re-create that beautiful yesterday. [Sob.] We linger in the ruins of the old tent where once we had shelter. . . . We cannot again find aught so dear, so sweet, so graceful. [Sob.] But we sit and weep in vain. We cannot stay amid the ruins. The voice of the Almighty saith, 'Up and onward for evermore!' . . . The sure years reveal the deep remedial force that underlies all sorrow. . . . The man or woman who would have remained a sunny garden flower, with no room for its roots and too much sunshine for its head, by the falling of the walls and the neglect of the gardener is made the banian of the forest, yielding shade and fruit to wide neighborhoods of men." [Illustration: "She opened the book and read."] "Do you see, Polly?" "Yes, I see; but oh, I was so happy being a garden flower with the sunshine on my head, and I can't seem to care the least little bit for being a banian-tree!" "Well," said Mrs. Noble, smiling through her own tears, "I fear that God will never insist on your 'yielding shade and fruit to wide neighborhoods of men' unless you desire it. Not all sunny garden flowers become banian-trees by the falling of the walls. Some of them are crushed beneath the ruins, and never send any more color or fragrance into the world." "The garden flower had happiness before the walls fell," said Polly. "It is happiness I want." "The banian-tree had blessedness after the walls fell, and it is blessedness I want; but then, I am forty-seven, and you are seventeen!" sighed Mrs. Noble, as they walked through the orange orchard to the house. CHAPTER XIV. EDGAR DISCOURSES OF SCARLET RUNNERS. One day, in the middle of October, the mail brought Polly two letters: the first from Edgar, who often dashed off cheery scrawls in the hope of getting cheery replies, which never came; and the second from Mrs. Bird, who had a plan to propose. Edgar wrote:-- . . . "I have a new boarding-place in San Francisco, a stone's throw from Mrs. Bird's, whose mansion I can look down upon from a lofty height reached by a flight of fifty wooden steps,--good training in athletics! Mrs. Morton is a kind landlady and the house is a home, in a certain way,-- "But oh, the difference to me 'Twixt tweedledum and tweedledee! "There is a Morton girl, too; but she neither plays nor sings nor jokes, nor even looks,--in fine, she is not Polly! I have come to the conclusion, now, that girls in a house are almost always nuisances,--I mean, of course, when, they are not Pollies. Oh, why are you so young, and so loaded with this world's goods, that you will never need me for a boarder again? Mrs. Bird is hoping to see you soon, and I chose my humble lodging on this hill-top because, from my attic's lonely height, I can watch you going in and out of your 'marble halls;' and you will almost pass my door as you take the car. In view of this pleasing prospect (now, alas! somewhat distant), I send you a scrap of newspaper verse which prophesies my sentiments. It is signed 'M. E. W.,' and Tom Mills says whoever wrote it knows you." WHEN POLLY GOES BY. 'T is but poorly I 'm lodged in a little side-street, Which is seldom disturbed by the hurry of feet, For the flood-tide of life long ago ebbed away From its homely old houses, rain-beaten and gray; And I sit with my pipe in the window, and sigh At the buffets of fortune--till Polly goes by. There 's a flaunting of ribbons, a flurry of lace, And a rose in the bonnet above a bright face, A glance from two eyes so deliriously blue The midsummer seas scarcely rival their hue; And once in a while, if the wind 's blowing high, The sound of soft laughter as Polly goes by. Then up jumps my heart and begins to beat fast. "She 's coming!" it whispers. "She 's here! She has passed!" While I throw up the sash and lean breathlessly down To catch the last glimpse of her vanishing gown, Excited, delighted, yet wondering why My senses desert me if Polly goes by. Ah! she must be a witch, and the magical spell She has woven about me has done its work well, For the morning grows brighter, and gayer the air That my landlady sings as she sweeps down the stair; And my poor lonely garret, up close to the sky, Seems something like heaven when Polly goes by. "P. S. Tony has returned to the university. He asked after the health of the 'sunset-haired goddess' yesterday. You 'd better hurry back and take care of me! No, joking aside, don't worry about me, little missionary; I 've outgrown Tony, and I hope I don't need to be reformed oftener than once a year. "Yours ever, EDGAR. "P. S. No. II. I saw you twice after--you know--and I was dumb on both occasions. Of all people in the world I ought to have been able to say something helpful to you in your trouble, I, who lived with you and your dear mother through all those happy months before she left us. It will be just the same when I see you again: I shall never be able to speak, partly, I suppose, because I am a man, or on the road to becoming one. I know this is making you cry; I can see the tears in your eyes across all the distance; but it is better even that you should cry than that you should think me cold or unmindful of your sorrow. Do you know one of the sacred memories of my life? It is that, on that blessed night when your mother asked me to come and live under her roof, she said she should be glad to feel that in any sudden emergency you and she would, have a near friend to lean upon. There was a 'royal accolade,' if you like! I felt in an instant as if she had bestowed the order of knighthood upon me, and as if I must live more worthily in order to deserve her trust. How true it is, Polly, that those who believe in us educate us! "Do you remember (don't cry, dear!) that night by the fireside,--the night when we brought her out of her bedroom after three days of illness,--when we sat on either side of her, each holding a hand while she told us the pretty romance of her meeting and loving your father? I slipped the loose wedding ring up and down her finger, and stole a look at her now and then. She was like a girl when she told that story, and I could not help thinking it was worth while to be a tender, honorable, faithful man, to bring that look into a woman's face after eighteen years. Well, I adored her, that is all I can say; and I can't _say_ even that, I have to write it. Don't rob me, Polly, of the right she gave me, that of being a 'near friend to lean upon.' I am only afraid, because you, more than any one else, know certain weaknesses and follies of mine, and, indeed, pulled me out of the pit and held me up till I got a new footing. I am afraid you will never have the same respect for me, nor believe that a fellow so weak as I was could be strong enough to lean upon. Try me once, Polly, just to humor me, won't you? Give me something to do,--something _hard_! Lean just a little, Polly, and see how stiff I 'll be,--no, bother it, I won't be stiff, I'll be firm! To tell the truth, I can never imagine you as 'leaning;' though they say you are pale and sad, and out of sorts with life. You remind me of one of the gay scarlet runners that climb up the slender poles in the garden below my window. The pole holds up the vine at first, of course, but the vine keeps the pole straight; not in any ugly and commonplace fashion, but by winding round, and round about it, and hanging its blossoms in and out and here and there, till the poor, serviceable pole is forgotten in the beauty that makes use of it. "Good-by, little scarlet runner! You will bloom again some day, when the storm that has beaten you down has passed over and the sky is clear and the sun warm. Don't laugh at me, Polly! "Always yours, whether you laugh or not, "EDGAR." "P. S. No. III. I should n't dare add this third postscript if you were near enough to slay me with the lightning of your eye, but I simply wish to mention that a wise gardener chooses young, strong timber for _poles_,--saplings, in fact! _Mr. John Bird is too old for this purpose_. Well seasoned he is, of course, and suitable as a prop for a century-plant, but not for a scarlet runner! I like him, you know, but I 'm sure he 'd crack if you leaned on him; in point of fact, he 's a little cracked now! E. N." The ghost of a smile shone on Polly's April face as she folded Edgar's letter and laid it in its envelope; first came a smile, then a tear, then a dimple, then a sob, then a wave of bright color. "Edgar is growing up so fast," she thought, "I shall soon be afraid to scold him or advise him, and "'What will poor Robin do then, poor thing?' "Upon my word, if I caught him misbehaving nowadays, I believe I should hesitate to remonstrate with him. He will soon be capable of remonstrating with me, at this rate. He is a goose,--oh, there 's no shadow of doubt as to that, but he 's an awfully nice goose." Mrs. Bird's letter ran thus:-- "MY DEAREST POLLYKINS:----We have lived without you just about as long as we can endure it. The boys have returned to school and college. Mr. Bird contemplates one more trip to Honolulu, and brother John and I need some one to coddle and worry over. I have not spoken to you of your future, because I wished to wait until you opened the subject. It is too late for you to begin your professional training this year, and I think you are far too delicate just now to undertake so arduous a work; however, you are young, and that can wait for a bit. As to the story-telling in the hospitals and asylums, I wish you could find courage and strength to go on with that, not for your own sake alone, but for the sake of others. "As I have told you before, the money is set aside for that special purpose, and the work will be carried on by somebody. Of course I can get a substitute if you refuse, and that substitute may, after a little time, satisfy the impatient children, who flatten their noses against the window-panes and long for Mias Pauline every day of their meagre lives. But I fear the substitute will never be Polly! She may 'rattle round in your place' (as somebody said under different circumstances), but she can never fill it! Why not spend the winter with us, and do this lovely work, keeping up other studies if you are strong enough? It will be so sweet for you to feel that out of your own sadness you can comfort and brighten the lives of these lonely, suffering children and these motherless or fatherless ones. It will seem hard to begin, no doubt; but new life will flow in your veins when you take up your active, useful work again. The joyousness that God put into your soul before you were born, my Polly, is a sacred trust. You must not hide it in a napkin, dear, or bury it, or lose it. It was given to you only that you should share it with others. It was intended for the world at large, though it was bestowed upon you in particular. Come, dear, to one who knows all about it,--one whom you are sweet enough to call "YOUR FAIRY GODMOTHER." "Mrs. Noble," said Polly, with a sober smile, "the Ancon sails on the 20th, and I am going to sail with her." "So soon? What for, dear?" "I am going to be a banian-tree, if you please," answered Polly. CHAPTER XV. LIFE IN THE BIRDS' NEST. Polly settled down in the Birds' Nest under the protecting wing of Mrs. Bird, and a very soft and unaccustomed sort of shelter it was. A room had been refurnished expressly for the welcome guest, and as Mrs. Bird pushed her gently in alone, the night of her arrival, she said, "This is the Pilgrim Chamber, Polly. It will speak our wishes for us." It was not the room in which Polly had been ill for so many weeks; for Mrs. Bird knew the power of associations, and was unwilling to leave any reminder of those painful days to sadden the girl's new life. As Polly looked about her, she was almost awed by the dazzling whiteness. The room was white enough for an angel, she thought. The straw matting was almost concealed by a mammoth rug made of white Japanese goatskins sewed together; the paint was like snow, and the furniture had all been painted white, save for the delicate silver lines that relieved it. There were soft, full curtains of white bunting fringed with something that looked like thistle-down, and the bedstead had an overhanging canopy of the same. An open fire burned in the little grate, and a big white and silver rattan chair was drawn cosily before it. There was a girlish dressing-table with its oval mirror draped in dotted muslin; a dainty writing-desk with everything convenient upon it; and in one corner was a low bookcase of white satinwood. On the top of this case lay a card, "With the best wishes of John Bird," and along the front of the upper shelf were painted the words: "Come, tell us a story!" Below this there was a rich array of good things. The Grimms, Laboulaye, and Hans Christian Andersen were all there. Mrs. Ewing's "Jackanapes" and Charles Kingsley's "Water-Babies" jostled the "Seven Little Sisters" series; Hawthorne's "Wonder-Book" lay close to Lamb's "Tales from Shakespeare;" and Whittier's "Child-Life in Prose and Poetry" stood between Mary Howitt's "Children's Year" and Robert Louis Stevenson's "Child's Garden of Verses." Polly sat upon the floor before the bookcase and gloated over her new treasures, each of which bore her name on the fly-leaf. As her eye rose to the vase of snowy pampas plumes and the pictured Madonna and Child above the bookcase, it wandered still higher until it met a silver motto painted on a blue frieze that finished the top of the walls where they met the ceiling. Polly walked slowly round the room, studying the illuminated letters: "_And they laid the Pilgrim in an upper chamber, and the name of the chamber was Peace_." This brought the ready tears to Polly's eyes. "God seems to give me everything but what I want most," she thought; "but since He gives me so much, I must not question any more: I must not choose; I must believe that He wants me to be happy, after all, and I must begin and try to be good again." She did try to be good. She came down to breakfast the next morning, announcing to Mrs. Bird, with her grateful morning kiss, that she meant to "live up to" her room. "But it's going to be difficult," she confessed. "I shall not dare to have a naughty thought in it; it seems as if it would be written somewhere on the whiteness!" "You can come and be naughty in my bachelor den, Polly," said Mr. Bird, smiling. "Mrs. Bird does n't waste any girlish frills and poetic decorations and mystical friezes on her poor brother-in-law! He is done up in muddy browns, as befits his age and sex." Polly insisted on beginning her work the very next afternoon; but she had strength only for three appointments a week, and Mrs. Bird looked doubtfully after her as she walked away from the house with a languid gait utterly unlike her old buoyant step. Edgar often came in the evenings, as did Tom and Blanche Mills, and Milly Foster; but though Polly was cheerful and composed, she seldom broke into her old flights of nonsense. On other nights, when they were alone, she prepared for her hours of story-telling, and in this she was wonderfully helped by Mr. Bird's suggestions and advice; for he was a student of literature in many languages, and delighted in bringing his treasures before so teachable a pupil. "She has a sort of genius that astonishes me," said he one morning, as he chatted with Mrs. Bird over the breakfast-table. Polly had excused herself, and stood at the farther library window, gazing up the street vaguely and absently, as if she saw something beyond the hills and the bay. Mrs. Bird's heart sank a little as she looked at the slender figure in the black dress. There were no dimples about the sad mouth, and was it the dress, or was she not very white these latter days?--so white that her hair encircled her face with absolute glory, and startled one with its color. "It is a curious kind of gift," continued Mr. Bird, glancing at his morning' papers. "She takes a long tale of Hans Andersen's, for instance, and after an hour or two, when she has his idea fully in mind, she shows me how she proposes to tell it to the younger children at the Orphan Asylum. She clasps her hands over her knees, bends forward toward the firelight, and tells the story with such simplicity and earnestness that I am always glad she is looking the other way and cannot see the tears in my eyes. I cried like a school-girl last night over 'The Ugly Duckling.' She has natural dramatic instinct, a great deal of facial expression, power of imitation, and an almost unerring taste in the choice of words, which is unusual in a girl so young and one who has been so imperfectly trained. I give her an old legend or some fragment of folk-lore, and straight-way she dishes it up for me as if it had been bone of her bone and marrow of her marrow; she knows just what to leave out and what to put in, somehow. You had one of your happy inspirations about that girl, Margaret,--she is a born story-teller. She ought to wander about the country with a lute under her arm. Is the Olivers' house insured?" "Good gracious, Jack! you have a kangaroo sort of mind! How did you leap to that subject? I'm sure I don't know, but what difference does it make, anyway?" "A good deal of difference," he answered nervously, looking into the library (yes, Polly had gone out); "because the house, the furniture, and the stable were burned to the ground last night,--so the morning paper says." Mrs. Bird rose and closed the doors. "That does seem too dreadful to be true," she said. "The poor child's one bit of property, her only stand-by in case of need! Oh, it can't be burned; and, if it is, it must be insured. I 'm afraid a second blow would break her down completely just now, when she has not recovered from the first." Mr. Bird went out and telegraphed to Dr. George Edgerton;-- Is Oliver house burned? What was the amount of insurance, if any? Answer. JOHN BIRD. At four o'clock the reply came:-- House and outbuildings burned. No insurance. Have written particulars. Nothing but piano and family portraits saved. GEORGE EDGERTON. In an hour another message, marked "Collect," followed the first one:-- House burned last night. Defective flue. No carelessness on part of servants or family. Piano, portraits, ice-cream freezer, and wash-boiler saved by superhuman efforts of husband. Have you any instructions? Have taken to my bed. Accept love and sympathy. CLEMENTINE CHADWICK GEEENWOOD. So it was true. The buildings were burned, and there was no insurance. I know you will say there never is, in stories where the heroine's courage is to be tested, even if the narrator has to burn down the whole township to do it satisfactorily. But to this objection I can make only this answer: First, that this house really did burn down; secondly, that there really was no insurance; and thirdly, if this combination of circumstances did not sometimes happen in real life, it would never occur to a story-teller to introduce it as a test for heroes and heroines. "Well," said Mrs. Bird despairingly, "Polly must be told. Now, will you do it, or shall I? Of course you want me to do it! Men never have any courage about these things, nor any tact either." At this moment the subject of conversation walked into the room, hat and coat on, and an unwonted color in her cheeks. Edgar Noble followed behind. Polly removed her hat and coat leisurely, sat down on a hassock on the hearth rug, and ruffled her hair with the old familiar gesture, almost forgotten these latter days. Mrs. Bird looked warningly at the tell-tale yellow telegrams in Mr. Bird's lap, and strove to catch his eye and indicate to his dull masculine intelligence the necessity of hiding them until they could devise a plan of breaking the sad news. Mrs. Bird's glance and Mr. Bird's entire obliviousness were too much for Polly's gravity. To their astonishment she burst into a peal of laughter. "'My lodging is on the cold, cold ground, And hard, very hard is my fare!'" she sang, to the tune of "Believe me, if all those endearing young charms." "So you know all about it, too?" "How did you hear it?" gasped Mrs. Bird. "I bought the evening paper to see if that lost child at the asylum had been found. Edgar jumped on the car, and seemed determined that I should not read the paper until I reached home. He was very kind, but slightly bungling in his attentions. I knew then that something was wrong, but just what was beyond my imagination, unless Jack Howard had been expelled from Harvard, or Bell Winship had been lost at sea on the way home; so I persisted in reading, and at last I found the fatal item. I don't know whether Edgar expected me to faint at sight! I 'm not one of the fainting sort!" "I 'm relieved that you can take it so calmly. I have been shivering with dread all day, and Jack and I have been quarreling as to which should break it to you." "Break it to me!" echoed Polly, in superb disdain. "My dear Fairy Godmother, you must think me a weak sort of person! As if the burning down of one patrimonial estate could shatter my nerves! What is a passing home or so? Let it burn, by all means, if it likes. 'He that is down need fear no fall.'" "It is your only property," said Mr. Bird, trying to present the other side of the case properly, "and it was not insured." "What of that?" she asked briskly. "Am I not housed and fed like a princess at the present moment? Have I not two hundred and fifty dollars in the bank, and am I not earning twenty-five dollars a month with absolute regularity? Avaunt, cold Fear!" "How was it that the house was not insured?" asked Mr. Bird. "I 'm sure I don't know. It was insured once upon a time, if I remember right; when it got uninsured, I can't tell. How do things get uninsured, Mr. Bird?" "The insurance lapses, of course, if the premium is n't regularly paid." "Oh, that would account for it!" said Polly easily. "There were quantities of things that were n't paid regularly, though they were always paid in course of time. You ought to have asked me if we were insured, Edgar,--you were the boy of the house,--insurance is n't a girl's department. Let me see the telegrams, please." They all laughed heartily over Mrs. Greenwood's characteristic message. "Think of 'husband' bearing that aged ice-cream freezer and that leaky boiler to a place of safety!" exclaimed Polly. "'All that was left of them, left of six hundred!' Well, my family portraits, piano, freezer, and boiler will furnish a humble cot very nicely in my future spinster days. By the way, the land did n't burn up, I suppose, and that must be good for something, is n't it?" "Rather," answered Edgar; "a corner lot on the best street in town, four blocks from the new hotel site! It's worth eighteen hundred or two thousand dollars, at least." "Then why do you worry about me, good people? I 'm not a heroine. If I were sitting on the curbstone without a roof to my head, and did n't know where I should get my dinner, I should cry! But I smell my dinner" (here she sniffed pleasurably), "and I think it 's chicken! You see, it's so difficult for me to realize that I 'm a pauper, living here, a pampered darling in the halls of wealth, with such a large income rolling up daily that I shall be a prey to fortune-hunters by the time I am twenty! Pshaw! don't worry about me! This is just the sort of diet I have been accustomed to from my infancy! I rather enjoy it!" Whereupon Edgar recited an impromptu nonsense verse:-- "There 's a queer little maiden named Polly, Who always knows when to be jolly. When ruined by fire Her spirits rise higher. This most inconsistent Miss Polly." CHAPTER XVI. THE CANDLE CALLED PATIENCE. The burning of the house completely prostrated Mrs. Clementine Churchill Chadwick Greenwood, who, it is true, had the actual shock of the conflagration to upset her nervous system, though she suffered no financial loss. Mr. Greenwood was heard to remark that he wished he could have foreseen that the house would burn down, for now he should have to move anyway, and if he had known that a few months before, why-- Here the sentence always ended mysteriously, and the neighbors finished it as they liked. The calamity affected Polly, on the other hand, very much like a tonic. She felt the necessity of "bracing" to meet the fresh responsibilities that seemed waiting for her in the near future; and night and day, in sleeping and waking, resting and working, a plan was formulating itself in the brain just roused from its six months' apathy,--a novel, astonishing, enchanting, revolutionary plan, which she bided her time to disclose. The opportunity came one evening after dinner, when Mrs. Bird, and her brother, Edgar and herself, were gathered in the library. The library was a good place in which to disclose plans, or ask advice, or whisper confidences. The great carved oak mantel held on the broad space above the blazing logs the graven motto, "Esse Quod Opto." The walls were lined with books from floor half-way to ceiling, and from the tops of the cases Plato, Socrates, Marcus Aurelius, and the Sage of Concord looked down with benignant wisdom. The table in the centre was covered with a methodical litter of pamphlets and magazines, and a soft light came from the fire and from two tall, shaded lamps. Mr. Bird, as was his wont, leaned back in his leather chair, puffing delicate rings of smoke into the air. Edgar sat by the centre table, idly playing with a paper-knife. Mrs. Bird sat in her low rocking-chair with a bit of fancy-work, and Polly, on the hearth rug, leaned cosily back against her Fairy Godmother's knees. The clinging tendrils in Polly's nature, left hanging so helplessly when her mother was torn away, reached out more and more to wind themselves about lovely Mrs. Bird, who, notwithstanding her three manly sons, had a place in her heart left sadly vacant by the loss of her only daughter. Polly broke one of the pleasant silences. An open fire makes such delightful silences, if you ever noticed. When you sit in a room without it, the gaps in the conversation make everybody seem dull; the last comer rises with embarrassment and thinks he must be going, and you wish that some one would say the next thing and keep the ball rolling. The open fire arranges all these little matters with a perfect tact and grace all its own. It is acknowledged to be the centre of attraction, and the people gathered about it are only supernumeraries. It blazes and crackles and snaps cheerily, the logs break and fall, the coals glow and fade and glow again, and the dull man can always poke the fire if his wit desert him. Who ever feels like telling a precious secret over a steam-heater? Polly looked away from everybody and gazed straight into the blaze. "I have been thinking over a plan for my future work," she said, "and I want to tell it to you and see if you all approve and think me equal to it. It used to come to me in flashes, after this Fairy Godmother of mine opened an avenue for my surplus energy by sending me out as a story-teller; but lately I have n't had any heart for it. Work grew monotonous and disagreeable and hopeless, and I 'm afraid I had no wish to be useful or helpful to myself or to anybody else. But now everything is different. I am not so rich as I was (I wish, Mr. Bird, you would not smile so provokingly when I mention my riches!), and I must not be idle any longer; so this is my plan, I want to be a story-teller by profession. Perhaps you will say that nobody has ever done it; but surely that is an advantage; I should have the field to myself for a while, at least. I have dear Mrs. Bird's little poor children as a foundation. Now, I would like to get groups of other children together in somebody's parlor twice a week and tell them stories,--the older children one day in the week and the younger ones another. Of course I have n't thought out all the details, because I hoped my Fairy Godmother would help me there, if she approved of my plan; but I have ever so many afternoons all arranged, and enough stories and songs at my tongue's end for three months. Do you think it impossible or nonsensical, Mr. Bird?" "No," said he thoughtfully, after a moment's pause. "It seems on the first hearing to be perfectly feasible. In fact, in one sense it will not be an experiment at all. You have tried your powers, gained self-possession and command of your natural resources; developed your ingenuity, learned the technicalities of your art, so to speak, already. You propose now, as I understand, to extend your usefulness, widen your sphere of action, address yourself to a larger public, and make a profession out of what was before only a side issue in your life. It's a new field, and it 's a noble one, taken in its highest aspect, as you have always taken it. My motto for you, Polly, is Goethe's couplet:-- "'What you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.'" "Make way for the story-teller!" cried Edgar. "I will buy season tickets for both your groups, if you will only make your limit of age include me. I am only five feet ten, and I 'll sit very low if you 'll admit me to the charmed circle. Shall you have a stage name? I would suggest 'The Seraphic Sapphira.'" "Now, don't tease," said Polly, with dignity; "this is in sober earnest. What do you think, Fairy Godmother? I 've written to my dear Miss Mary Denison in Santa Barbara, and she likes the idea." "I think it is charming. In fact, I can hardly wait to begin. I will be your business manager, my Pollykins, and we 'll make it a success, if it is possible. If you 'll take me into your confidence and tell me what you mean to do, I will plan the hows and whens and wheres." "You see, dear people," continued Polly, "it is really the only thing that I know how to do; and I have had several months' experience, so that I 'm not entirely untrained. I 'm not afraid any more, so long as it is only children; though the presence of one grown person makes me tongue-tied. Grown-up people never know how to listen, somehow, and they make you more conscious of yourself. But when the children gaze up at you with their shining eyes and their parted lips,--the smiles just longing to be smiled and the tear-drops just waiting to glisten,--I don't know what there is about it, but it makes you wish you could go on forever and never break the spell. And it makes you tremble, too, for fear you should say anything wrong. You seem so close to children when you are telling them stories; just as if a little, little silken thread spun itself out from one side of your heart through each of theirs, until it came back to be fastened in your own again; and it holds so tight, so tight, when you have done your best and the children are pleased and grateful." For days after this discussion Polly felt as if she were dwelling on a mysterious height from which she could see all the kingdoms of the earth. She said little and thought much (oh, that this should come to be written of Polly Oliver!). The past which she had regretted with such passionate fervor still fought for a place among present plans and future hopes. But she was almost convinced in these days that a benevolent Power might after all be helping her to work out her own salvation in an appointed way, with occasional weariness and tears, like the rest of the world. It was in such a softened mood that she sat alone in church one Sunday afternoon at vespers. She had chosen a place where she was sure of sitting quietly by herself, and where the rumble of the organ and the words of the service would come to her soothingly. The late afternoon sun shone through the stained-glass windows, bringing out the tender blue on the Madonna's gown, the white on the wings of angels and robes of newborn innocents, the glow of rose and carmine, with here and there a glorious gleam of Tyrian purple. Then her eyes fell on a memorial window opposite her. A mother bowed with grief was seated on some steps of rough-hewn stones. The glory of her hair swept about her knees. Her arms were empty; her hands locked; her head bent. Above stood a little child, with hand just extended to open a great door, which was about to unclose and admit him. He reached up his hand fearlessly ("and that is faith," thought Polly), and at the same time he glanced down at his weeping mother, as if to say, "Look up, mother dear! I am safely in." Just then the choir burst into a grand hymn which was new to Polly, and which came to her with the force of a personal message:-- "The Son of God goes forth to war, A kingly crown to gain; His blood-red banner streams afar-- Who follows in His train? Who best can drink his cup of woe, Triumphant over pain, Who patient bears his cross below, He follows in His train." Verse after verse rang in splendid strength through the solemn aisles of the church, ending with the lines:-- "O God, to us may strength be given To follow in His train!" Dr. George's voice came to Polly as it sounded that gray October afternoon beside the sea; "When the sun of one's happiness is set, one lights a candle called 'Patience,' and guides one's footsteps by that." She leaned her head on the pew in front of her, and breathed a prayer. The minister was praying for the rest of the people, but she needed to utter her own thought just then. "Father in heaven, I will try to follow; I have lighted my little candle, help me to keep it burning! I shall stumble often in the darkness, I know, for it was all so clear when I could walk by my darling mother's light, which was like the sun, so bright, so pure, so strong! Help me to keep the little candle steady, so that it may throw its beams farther and farther into the pathway that now looks so dim." * * * * * Polly sank to sleep that night in her white bed in the Pilgrim Chamber; and the name of the chamber was Peace indeed, for she had a smile on her lips,--a smile that looked as if the little candle had in truth been lighted in her soul, and was shining through her face as though it were a window. CHAPTER XVII. POLLY LAUNCHES HER SHIPS. There were great doings in the Birds Nest. A hundred dainty circulars, printed in black and scarlet on Irish linen paper, had been sent to those ladies on Mrs. Bird's calling-list who had children between the ages of five and twelve, that being Polly's chosen limit of age. These notes of invitation read as follows:-- "Come, tell us a story!" THE CHILDREN'S HOUR. Mrs. Donald Bird requests the pleasure of your company from 4.30 to 5.30 o'clock on Mondays or Thursdays from November to March inclusive. FIRST GROUP: Mondays. Children from 5 to 8 years. SECOND GROUP: Thursdays. " " 8 " 12 years. Each group limited in number to twenty-four. Miss Pauline Oliver will tell stories suitable to the ages of the children, adapted to their prevailing interests, and appropriate to the special months of the year. These stories will be chosen with the greatest care, and will embrace representative tales of all classes,--narrative, realistic, scientific, imaginative, and historical. They will be illustrated by songs and black-board sketches. Terms for the Series (Twenty Hours), Five Dollars. R.S.V.P. Polly felt an absolute sense of suffocation as she saw Mrs. Bird seal and address the last square envelope. "If anybody does come," she said, somewhat sadly, "I am afraid it will be only that the story hour is at your lovely house." "Don't be so foolishly independent, my child. If I gather the groups, it is only you who will be able to hold them together. I am your manager, and it is my duty to make the accessories as perfect as possible. When the scenery and costumes and stage-settings are complete, you enter and do the real work, I retire, and the sole responsibility for success or failure rests upon your shoulders; I should think that would be enough to satisfy the most energetic young woman. I had decided on the library as the scene of action; an open fire is indispensable, and that room is delightfully large when the centre-table is lifted out: but I am afraid it is hardly secluded enough, and that people might trouble you by coming in; so what do you think of the music-room upstairs? You will have your fire, your piano, plenty of space, and a private entrance for the chicks, who can lay their wraps in the hall as they pass up. I will take the large Turkish rug from the red guest-chamber,--that will make the room look warmer,--and I have a dozen other charming devices which I will give you later as surprises." "If I were half as sure of my part as I am of yours, dear Fairy Godmother, we should have nothing to fear. I have a general plan mapped out for the stories, but a great deal of the work will have to be done from week to week, as I go on. I shall use the same programme in the main for both groups, but I shall simplify everything and illustrate more freely for the little ones, telling the historical and scientific stories with much more detail to the older group. This is what Mr. Bird calls my 'basic idea,' which will be filled out from week to week according to inspiration. For November, I shall make autumn, the harvest, and Thanksgiving the starting-point. I am all ready with my historical story of 'The First Thanksgiving,' for I told it at the Children's Hospital last year, and it went beautifully. "I have one doll dressed in Dutch costume, to show how the children looked that the little Pilgrims played with in Holland; and another dressed like a Puritan maiden, to show them the simple old New England gown. Then I have two fine pictures of Miles Standish and the Indian chief Massasoit. "For December and January I shall have Christmas and winter, and frost and ice and snow, with the contrasts of eastern and Californian climates." "I can get the Immigration Bureau to give you a percentage on that story, Polly," said Uncle Jack Bird, who had strolled in and taken a seat. "Just make your facts strong enough, and you can make a handsome thing out of that idea." "Don't interrupt us, Jack," said Mrs. Bird; "and go directly out, if you please. You were not asked to this party." "Where was I?" continued Polly. "Oh yes,--the contrast between Californian and eastern winters; and January will have a moral story or two, you know,--New Year's resolutions, and all that. February will be full of sentiment and patriotism,--St. Valentine's Day and Washington's Birthday,--I can hardly wait for that, there are so many lovely things to do in that month. March will bring in the first hint of spring. The winds will serve for my science story; and as it chances to be a presidential year, we will celebrate Inauguration Day, and have some history, if a good many subscribers come in." "Why do you say 'if,' Polly? Multitudes of names are coming in. I have told you so from the beginning." "Very well, then; when a sufficient number of names are entered, I should like to spend ten dollars on a very large sand-table, which I can use with the younger group for illustrations. It is perfectly clean work, and I have helped Miss Denison and her children to do the loveliest things with it. She makes geography lessons,--plains, hills, mountains, valleys, rivers, and lakes; or the children make a picture of the story they have just heard. I saw them do 'Over the River and through the Wood to Grandfather's House we go,' 'Washington's Winter Camp at Valley Forge,' and 'The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere.' I have ever so many songs chosen, and those for November and December are almost learned without my notes. I shall have to work very hard to be ready twice a week!" "Too hard, I fear," said Mrs. Bird anxiously. "Oh, no; not a bit too hard! If the children are only interested, I shall not mind any amount of trouble. By the way, dear Mrs. Bird, you won't let the nurses or mothers stand in the doorways? You will please see that I am left quite alone with the children, won't you?" "Certainly; no mothers shall be admitted, if they make you nervous; it is the children's hour. But after two or three months, when you have all become acquainted, and the children are accustomed to listening attentively, I almost hope you will allow a few nurses to come in and sit in the corners,--the ones who bring the youngest children, for example; it would be such a means of education to them. There 's another idea for you next year,--a nurses' class in story-telling." "It would be rather nice, would n't it?--and I should be older then, and more experienced. I really think I could do it, if Miss Denison would help me by talks and instructions. She will be here next year. Oh, how the little plan broadens out!" "And, Polly, you have chosen to pay for your circulars, and propose to buy your sand-table. This I agree to, if you insist upon it; though why I shouldn't help my godchild I cannot quite understand. But knowing you were so absorbed in other matters that you would forget the frivolities, and remembering that you have been wearing the same two dresses for months, I have ventured to get you some pretty gowns for the 'story hours,' and I want you to accept them for your Christmas present. They will serve for all your 'afternoons' and for our home dinners, as you will not be going out anywhere this winter." "Oh, how kind you are, Mrs. Bird! You load me with benefits, and how can I ever repay you?" "You do not have to repay them to me necessarily, my child; you can pass them over, as you will be constantly doing, to all these groups of children, day after day. I am a sort of stupid, rich old lady who serves as a source of supply. My chief brilliancy lies in devising original methods of getting rid of my surplus in all sorts of odd and delightful ways, left untried, for the most part, by other people. I 've been buying up splendid old trees in the outskirts of certain New England country towns,--trees that were in danger of being cut down for wood. Twenty-five to forty dollars buys a glorious tree, and it is safe for ever and ever to give shade to the tired traveler and beauty to the landscape. Each of my boys has his pet odd scheme for helping the world to 'go right.' Donald, for instance, puts stamps on the unstamped letters displayed in the Cambridge post-office, and sends them spinning on their way. He never receives the thanks of the careless writers, but he takes pleasure in making things straight. Paul writes me from Phillips Academy that this year he is sending the nine Ruggles children (a poor family of our acquaintance) to some sort of entertainment once every month. Hugh has just met a lovely girl who has induced him to help her maintain a boarding establishment for sick and deserted cats and dogs; and there we are!" "But I 'm a young, strong girl, and I fear I 'm not so worthy an object of charity as a tree, an unstamped letter, an infant Ruggles, or a deserted cat! Still, I know the dresses will be lovely, and I had quite forgotten that I must be clothed in purple and fine linen for five months to come. It would have been one of my first thoughts last year, I am afraid; but lately this black dress has shut everything else from my sight." "It was my thought that you should give up your black dress just for these occasions, dear, and wear something more cheerful for the children's sake. The dresses are very simple, for I 've heard you say you can never tell a story when you are 'dressed up,' but they will please you, I know. They will be brought home this evening, and you must slip them all on, and show yourself to us in each." They would have pleased anybody, even a princess, Polly thought, as she stood before her bed that evening patting the four pretty new waists, and smoothing with childlike delight the folds of the four pretty skirts. It was such an odd sensation to have four dresses at a time! They were of simple and inexpensive materials, as was appropriate; but Mrs. Bird's exquisite taste and feeling for what would suit Polly's personality made them more attractive than if they had been rich or expensive. There was a white China silk, with belt and shoulder-knots of black velvet; a white Japanese crepe, with purple lilacs strewed over its surface, and frills of violet ribbon for ornament; a Christmas dress of soft, white camel's hair, with bands of white-fox fur round the slightly pointed neck and elbow-sleeves; and, last of all, a Quaker gown of silver-gray nun's cloth, with a surplice and full undersleeves of white crêpe-lisse. "I 'm going to be vain, Mrs. Bird!" cried Polly, with compunction in her voice. "I 've never had a real beautiful, undyed, un-made-over dress in my whole life, and I shall never have strength of character to own four at once without being vain!" This speech was uttered through the crack of the library door, outside of which Polly stood, gathering courage to walk in and be criticised. "Think of your aspiring nose, Sapphira!" came from a voice within. "Oh, are you there too, Edgar?" "Of course I am, and so is Tom Mills. The news that you are going to 'try on' is all over the neighborhood! If you have cruelly fixed the age limit so that we can't possibly get in to the performances, we are going to attend all the dress rehearsals. Oh, ye little fishes! what a seraphic Sapphira! I wish Tony were here!" She was pretty, there was no doubt about it, as she turned around like a revolving wax figure in a show-window, and assumed absurd fashion-plate attitudes; and pretty chiefly because of the sparkle, intelligence, sunny temper, and vitality that made her so magnetic. Nobody could decide which was the loveliest dress, even when she had appeared in each one twice. In the lilac and white crepe, with a bunch of dark Parma violets thrust in her corsage, Uncle Jack called her a poem. Edgar asserted openly that in the Christmas toilet he should like to have her modeled in wax and put in a glass case on his table; but Mrs. Bird and Tom Mills voted for the Quaker gray, in which she made herself inexpressibly demure by braiding her hair in two discreet braids down her back. "The dress rehearsal is over. Good-night all!" she said, as she took her candle. "I will say 'handsome is as handsome does' fifty times before I go to sleep, and perhaps--I only say perhaps--I may be used to my beautiful clothes in a week or two, so that I shall be my usual modest self again." "Good-night, Polly," said the boys; "we will see you to-morrow." "'Pauline,' if you please, not 'Polly.' I ceased to be Polly this morning when the circulars were posted. I am now Miss Pauline Oliver, story-teller by profession." CHAPTER XVIII. THE CHILDREN'S HOUR: REPORTED IN A LETTER BY AN EYE-WITNESS. It was the last Monday in March, and I had come in from my country home to see if I could find my old school friend, Margaret Crosby, who is now Mrs. Donald Bird, and who is spending a few years in California. The directory gave me her address, and I soon found myself on the corner of two beautiful streets and before a very large and elegant house. This did not surprise me, as I knew her husband to be a very wealthy man. There seemed to be various entrances, for the house stood with its side to the main street; but when I had at last selected a bell to ring, I became convinced that I had not, after all, gone to the front door. It was too late to retreat, however, and very soon the door was opened by a pretty maid-servant in a white cap and apron. "You need n't have rung, 'm; they goes right in without ringing to-day," she said pleasantly. "Can I see Mrs. Bird?" I asked. "Well, 'm," she said hesitatingly, "she 's in Paradise." "Lovely Margaret Crosby dead! How sudden it must have been," I thought, growing pale with the shock of the surprise; but the pretty maid, noticing that something had ruffled my equanimity, went on hastily:-- "Excuse me, 'm. I forgot you might be a stranger, but the nurses and mothers always comes to this door, and we 're all a bit flustered on account of its bein' Miss Pauline's last 'afternoon,' and the mothers call the music-room 'Paradise,' 'm, and Mr. John and the rest of us have took it up without thinkin' very much how it might sound to strangers." "Oh, I see," I said mechanically, though I did n't see in the least; but although the complicated explanation threw very little light on general topics, it did have the saving grace of assuring me that Margaret Bird was living. "Could you call her out for a few minutes?" I asked. "I am an old friend, and shall be disappointed not to see her." "I 'm sorry, 'm, but I could n't possibly call her out; it would be as much as my place is worth. Her strict orders is that nobody once inside of Paradise door shall be called out." "That does seem reasonable," I thought to myself. "But," she continued, "Mrs. Bird told me to let young Mr. Noble up the stairs so 't he could peek in the door, and as you 're an old friend I hev n't no objections to your goin' up softly and peekin' in with him till Miss Pauline 's through,--it won't be long, 'm." My curiosity was aroused by this time, and I came to the conclusion that "peekin' in the door" of Paradise with "young Mr. Noble" would be better than nothing; so up I went, like a thief in the night. The room was at the head of the stairs, and one of the doors was open, and had a heavy portiere hanging across it. Behind this was young Mr. Noble, "peekin'" most greedily, together with a middle-aged gentleman not described by the voluble parlor maid. They did n't seem to notice me; they were otherwise occupied, or perhaps they thought me one of the nurses or mothers. I had heard the sound of a piano as I crossed the hall, but it was still now. I crept behind young Mr. Noble, and took a good "peek" into Paradise. It was a very large apartment, one that looked as if it might have been built for a ball-room; at least, there was a wide, cushioned bench running around three sides of it, close to the wall. On one side, behind some black and gold Japanese screens, where they could hear and not be seen, sat a row of silent, capped and aproned nurse-maids and bonneted mammas. Mrs. Bird was among them, lovely and serene as an angel still, though she has had her troubles. There was a great fireplace in the room, but it was banked up with purple and white lilacs. There was a bowl of the same flowers on the grand piano, and a clump of bushes sketched in chalk on a blackboard. Just then a lovely young girl walked from the piano and took a low chair in front of the fireplace. Before her there were grouped ever so many children, twenty-five or thirty, perhaps. The tots in the front rows were cosy and comfortable on piles of cushions, and the seven or eight year olds in the back row were in seats a little higher. Each child had a sprig of lilac in its hand. The young girl wore a soft white dress with lavender flowers scattered all over it, and a great bunch of the flowers in her belt. She was a lovely creature! At least, I believe she was. I have an indistinct remembrance that her enemies (if she has any) might call her hair red; but I could n't stop looking at her long enough at the time to decide precisely what color it was. And I believe, now that several days have passed, that her nose turned up; but at the moment, whenever I tried to see just how much it wandered from the Grecian outline, her eyes dazzled me and I never found out. As she seated herself in their midst, the children turned their faces expectantly toward her, like flowers toward the sun. "You know it 's the last Monday, dears," she said; "and we 've had our good-by story." "Tell it again! Sing it again!" came from two kilted adorers in the back row. "Not to-day;" and she shook her head with a smile. "You know we always stop within the hour, and that is the reason we are always eager to come again; but this sprig of lilac that you all hold in your hands has something to tell; not a long story, just a piece of one for another good-by. I think when we go home, it we all press the flowers in heavy books, and open the books sometimes while we are away from each other this summer, that the sweet fragrance will come to us again, and the faded blossom will tell its own story to each one of us. And this is the story," she said, as she turned her spray of lilac in her fingers. * * * * * There was once a little lilac-bush that grew by a child's window. There was no garden there, only a tiny bit of ground with a few green things in it; and because there were no trees in the crowded streets, the birds perched on the lilac-bush to sing, and two of them even built a nest in it once, for want of something larger. It had been a very busy lilac-bush all its life: drinking up moisture from the earth and making it into sap; adding each year a tiny bit of wood to its slender trunk; filling out its leaf-buds; making its leaves larger and larger; and then--oh, happy, happy time!--hanging purple flowers here and there among its branches. It always felt glad of its hard work when Hester came to gather some of its flowers just before Easter Sunday. For one spray went to the table where Hester and her mother ate together; one to Hester's teacher; one to the gray stone church around the corner, and one to a little lame girl who sat, and sat, quite still, day after day, by the window of the next house. But one year--this very last year, children--the lilac-bush grew tired of being good and working hard; and the more it thought about it, the sadder and sorrier and more discouraged it grew. The winter had been dark and rainy; the ground was so wet that its roots felt slippery and uncomfortable; there was some disagreeable moss growing on its smooth branches; the sun almost never shone; the birds came but seldom; and at last the lilac-bush said, "I will give up: I am not going to bud or bloom or do a single thing for Easter this year! I don't care if my trunk does n't grow, nor my buds swell, nor my leaves grow larger! If Hester wants her room shaded, she can pull the curtain down; and the lame girl can"--_do without_, it was going to say, but it did n't dare--oh, it did n't dare to think of the poor little lame girl without any comforting flowers; so it stopped short and hung its head. Six or eight weeks ago Hester and her mother went out one morning to see the lilac-bush. "It does n't look at all as it ought," said Hester, shaking her head sadly. "The buds are very few, and they are all shrunken. See how limp and flabby the stems of the leaves look!" "Perhaps it is dead," said Hester's mother, "or perhaps it is too old to bloom." "I like that!" thought the lilac-bush. "I 'm not dead and I 'm not dying, though I 'd just as lief die as to keep on working in this dark, damp, unpleasant winter, or spring, or whatever they call it; and as for being past blooming, I would just like to show her, if it was n't so much trouble! How old does she think I am, I wonder? There is n't a thing in this part of the city that is over ten years old, and I was n't planted first, by any means!" And then Hester said, "My darling, darling lilac-bush! Easter won't be Easter without it; and lame Jenny leans out of her window every day as I come from school, and asks, 'Is the lilac budding?'" "Oh dear!" sighed the little bush. "I wish she would n't talk that way; it makes me so nervous to have Jenny asking questions about me! It starts my sap circulating, and I shall grow in spite of me!" "Let us see what we can do to help it," said Hester's mother. "Take your trowel and dig round the roots first." "They 'll find a moist and sticky place and be better able to sympathize with me," thought the lilac. "Then put in some new earth, the richest you can get, and we 'll snip off all the withered leaves and dry twigs, and see if it won't take a new start." "I shall have to, I believe, whether I like it or not, if they make such a fuss about me!" thought the lilac-bush. "It seems a pity if a thing can't stop growing and be let alone and die if it wants to!" But though it grumbled a trifle at first, it felt so much better after Hester and her mother had spent the afternoon caring for it, that it began to grow a little just out of gratitude,--and what do you think happened? "George Washington came and chopped it down with his little hatchet," said an eager person in front. "The lame girl came to look at it," sang out a small chap in the back row. No, (the young girl answered, with an irrepressible smile), it was a cherry-tree that George Washington chopped, Lucy; and I told you, Horatio, that the poor lame girl could n't walk a step. But the sun began to shine,--that is the first thing that happened. Day after day the sun shone, because everything seems to help the people and the things that help themselves. The rich earth gave everything it had to give for sap, and the warm air dried up the ugly moss that spoiled the beauty of its trunk. Then the lilac-bush was glad again, and it could hardly grow fast enough, because it knew it would be behind time, at any rate; for of course it could n't stand still, grumbling and doing nothing for weeks, and get its work done as soon as the other plants. But it made sap all clay long, and the buds grew into tiny leaves, and the leaves into larger ones, and then it began to group its flower-buds among the branches. By this time it was the week before Easter, and it fairly sat up nights to work. Hester knew that it was going to be more beautiful than it ever was in its life before (that was because it had never tried so hard, though of course Hester could n't know that), but she was only afraid that it would n't bloom soon enough, it was so very late this spring. But the very morning before Easter Sunday, Hester turned in her sleep and dreamed that a sweet, sweet fragrance was stealing in at her open window. A few minutes later she ran across her room, and lo! every cluster of buds on the lilac-bush had opened into purple flowers, and they were waving in the morning sunshine as if to say, "We are ready, Hester! We are ready, after all!" And one spray was pinned in the teacher's dress,--it was shabby and black,--and she was glad of the flower because it reminded her of home. And one spray stood in a vase on Hester's dining-table. There was never very much dinner in Hester's house, but they did not care that day, because the lilac was so beautiful. One bunch lay on the table in the church, and one, the loveliest of all, stood in a cup of water on the lame girl's window-sill; and when she went to bed that night she moved it to the table beside her head, and put her thin hand out to touch it in the dark, and went to sleep smiling. And each of the lilac flowers was glad that the bush had bloomed. * * * * * The children drew a deep breath. They smoothed their flower-sprays gently, and one pale boy held his up to his cheek as if it had been a living thing. "Tell it again," cried the tomboy. "Is it true?" asked the boy in kilts. "I think it is," said the girl gently. "Of course, Tommy, the flowers never tell us their secrets in words; but I have watched that lilac-bush all through the winter and spring, and these are the very blossoms you are holding to-day. It seems true, doesn't it?" "Yes," they said thoughtfully. "Shall you press yours, Miss Polly, and will it tell you a story, too, when you look at it?" asked one little tot as they all crowded about her for a good-by kiss. Miss Polly caught her up in her arms, and I saw her take the child's apron and wipe away a tear as she said, "Yes, dear, it will tell me a story, too,--a long, sad, sweet, helpful story!" 
28385	----	+-------------------------------------------------------------------+ |Transcribers note. | | | |To assist readers, some illustration tags have had descriptions | |added. These have been marked with an asterisk. | | | |Only 'The Hunter Cats of Connorloa', is transcribed in this e-text.| +-------------------------------------------------------------------+ CAT STORIES. BY HELEN JACKSON (H. H.), AUTHOR OF "RAMONA," "NELLY'S SILVER MINE," "BITS OF TALK," ETC. LETTERS FROM A CAT. MAMMY TITTLEBACK AND HER FAMILY. THE HUNTER CATS OF CONNORLOA. WITH ILLUSTRATIONS. BOSTON: ROBERTS BROTHERS. 1886. THE HUNTER CATS OF CONNORLOA. [Illustration: CONNORLOA.] THE HUNTER CATS OF CONNORLOA. BY HELEN JACKSON (_H. H._), AUTHOR OF "LETTERS FROM A CAT," "MAMMY TITTLEBACK AND HER FAMILY," ETC. WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BOSTON: ROBERTS BROTHERS. 1886. _Copyright_, 1884, BY ROBERTS BROTHERS. [Illustration: Decorative panel]* THE HUNTER CATS OF CONNORLOA. I. Once on a time, there lived in California a gentleman whose name was Connor,--Mr. George Connor. He was an orphan, and had no brothers and only one sister. This sister was married to an Italian gentleman, one of the chamberlains to the King of Italy. She might almost as well have been dead, so far as her brother George's seeing her was concerned; for he, poor gentleman, was much too ill to cross the ocean to visit her; and her husband could not be spared from his duties as chamberlain to the King, to come with her to America, and she would not leave him and come alone. So at the time my story begins, it had been many years since the brother and sister had met, and Mr. Connor had quite made up his mind that he should never see her again in this world. He had had a sorry time of it for a good many years. He had wandered all over the world, trying to find a climate which would make him well. He had lived in Egypt, in Ceylon, in Italy, in Japan, in the Sandwich Islands, in the West India Islands. Every place that had ever been heard of as being good for sick people, he had tried; for he had plenty of money, and there was nothing to prevent his journeying wherever he liked. He had a faithful black servant Jim, who went with him everywhere, and took the best of care of him; but neither the money, nor the good nursing, nor the sea air, nor the mountain air, nor the north, south, east or west air, did him any good. He only tired himself out for nothing, roaming from place to place; and was all the time lonely, and sad too, not having any home. So at last he made up his mind that he would roam no longer; that he would settle down, build himself a house, and if he could not be well and strong and do all the things he liked to, he would at least have a home, and have his books about him, and have a good bed to sleep in, and good food to eat, and be comfortable in all those ways in which no human being ever can be comfortable outside of his own house. He happened to be in California when he took this resolution. He had been there for a winter; and on the whole had felt better there than he had felt anywhere else. The California sunshine did him more good than medicine: it is wonderful how the sun shines there! Then it was never either very hot or very cold in the part of California where he was; and that was a great advantage. He was in the southern part of the State, only thirty miles from the sea-shore, in San Gabriel. You can find this name "San Gabriel" on your atlas, if you look very carefully. It is in small print, and on the Atlas it is not more than the width of a pin from the water's edge; but it really is thirty miles,--a good day's ride, and a beautiful day's ride too, from the sea. San Gabriel is a little village, only a dozen or two houses in it, and an old, half-ruined church,--a Catholic church, that was built there a hundred years ago, when the country was first settled by the Spaniards. They named all the places they settled, after saints; and the first thing they did in every place was to build a church, and get the Indians to come and be baptized, and learn to pray. They did not call their settlements towns at first, only Missions; and they had at one time twenty-one of these Missions on the California coast, all the way up from San Diego to Monterey; and there were more than thirty thousand Indians in them, all being taught to pray and to work, and some of them to read and write. They were very good men, those first Spanish missionaries in California. There are still alive some Indians who recollect these times. They are very old, over a hundred years old; but they remember well about these things. Most of the principal California towns of which you have read in your geographies were begun in this way. San Diego, Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, San Rafael, San Francisco, Monterey, Los Angeles,--all of these were first settled by the missionaries, and by the soldiers and officers of the army who came to protect the missionaries against the savages. Los Angeles was named by them after the Virgin Mary. The Spanish name was very long, "Nuestra Señora Reina de Los Angeles,"--that means, "Our Lady the Queen of the Angels." Of course this was quite too long to use every day; so it soon got cut down to simply "Los Angeles," or "The Angels,"--a name which often amuses travellers in Los Angeles to-day, because the people who live there are not a bit more like angels than other people; and that, as we all know, is very unlike indeed. Near Los Angeles is San Gabriel, only about fifteen miles away. In the olden time, fifteen miles was not thought any distance at all; people were neighbors who lived only fifteen miles apart. There are a great many interesting stories about the first settlement of San Gabriel, and the habits and customs of the Indians there. They were a very polite people to each other, and used to train their children in some respects very carefully. If a child were sent to bring water to an older person, and he tasted it on the way, he was made to throw the water out and go and bring fresh water; when two grown-up persons were talking together, if a child ran between them he was told that he had done an uncivil thing, and would be punished if he did it again. These are only specimens of their rules for polite behavior. They seem to me as good as ours. These Indians were very fond of flowers, of which the whole country is in the spring so full, it looks in places like a garden bed; of these flowers they used to make long garlands and wreaths, not only to wear on their heads, but to reach way down to their feet. These they wore at festivals and celebrations; and sometimes at these festivals they used to have what they called "song contests." Two of the best singers, or poets, would be matched together, to see which could sing the better, or make the better verses. That seems to me a more interesting kind of match than the spelling matches we have in our villages. But there is nothing of this sort to be seen in San Gabriel now, or indeed anywhere in California. The Indians, most of them, have been driven away by the white people who wanted their lands; year by year more and more white people have come, and the Indians have been robbed of more and more of their lands, and have died off by hundreds, until there are not many left. [Illustration: INDIAN MAKING BOWLS.--Page 19.] Mr. Connor was much interested in learning all he could about them, and collecting all he could of the curious stone bowls and pestles they used to make, and of their baskets and lace work. He spent much of his time riding about the country; and whenever he came to an Indian hut he would stop and talk with them, and ask if they had any stone bowls or baskets they would like to sell. The bowls especially were a great curiosity. Nobody knew how long ago they had been made. When the missionaries first came to the country, they found the Indians using them; they had them of all sizes, from those so large that they are almost more than a man can lift, down to tiny ones no bigger than a tea-cup. But big and little, they were all made in the same way out of solid stone, scooped out in the middle, by rubbing another stone round and round on them. You would think it would have taken a lifetime to make one; but they seem to have been plenty in the olden time. Even yet, people who are searching for such curiosities sometimes find big grave-mounds in which dozens of them are buried,--buried side by side with the people who used to eat out of them. There is nothing left of the people but their skulls and a few bones; but the bowls will last as long as the world stands. * * * * * Now I suppose you are beginning to wonder when I am coming to the Hunter Cats! I am coming to them just the way Mr. Connor did,--by degrees. I want you to know about the place he lived in, and how he used to amuse himself, before he decided to build his house; and then I must tell you about the house, and then about the children that came to live with him in it, and then about the Chinamen that came to do his work, and about his orange-trees, and the gophers that gnawed the bark off them, and the rabbits that burrowed under his vines. Oh! it will be a good many pages yet before I can possibly get to the time when the Hunter Cats come in. But I will tell it as fast as I can, for I dislike long stories myself. The village of San Gabriel is in a beautiful broad valley, running east and west. The north wall of the valley is made by a range of mountains, called the Sierra Madre; that is Spanish and means "Mother Mountains." They are grand mountains; their tops are almost solid stone, all sharp and jagged, with more peaks and ridges, crowded in together, than you could possibly count. At the bottom, they reach out into the valley by long slopes, which in the olden time were covered thick with trees and shrubs; but now, the greater part of these have been cut down and cleared off, and the ground planted full of orange-trees and grapevines. If you want to see how it looks to have solid miles upon miles of orange orchards and vineyards together, you must go to this San Gabriel Valley. There is no other such place in the world. As Mr. Connor rode about, day after day, and looked at these orchards and vineyards, he began to think he should like to have some too. So he went up and down along the base of the mountains, looking for a good place. At last he found one. It was strange nobody had picked it out before. One reason was that it was so wild, and lay so high up, that it would be a world of trouble, and cost a deal of money, to make a road up to it and to clear the ground. But Mr. Connor did not care for that. It was a sort of ridge of the mountains, and it was all grown over thick with what is called in California "chapparal." That is not the name of any one particular shrub or tree; it means a mixture of every sort and kind. You all know what mixed candy is! Well, "chapparal" is mixed bushes and shrubs; mixed thick too! From a little way off, it looks as smooth as moss; it is so tangled, and the bushes have such strong and tough stems, you can't possibly get through it, unless you cut a path before you with a hatchet; it is a solid thicket all the way. As Mr. Connor rode to and fro, in front of this green ridge, he thought how well a house would look up there, with the splendid mountain wall rising straight up behind it. And from the windows of such a house, one could look off, not only over the whole valley, but past the hills of its southern wall, clear and straight thirty miles to the sea. In a clear day, the line of the water flashed and shone there like a silver thread. Mr. Connor used to sit on his horse by the half hour at a time gazing at this hillside, and picturing the home he would like to make there,--a big square house with plenty of room in it, wide verandas on all sides, and the slope in front of it one solid green orange orchard. The longer he looked the surer he felt that this was the thing he wanted to do. The very day he decided, he bought the land; and in two days more he had a big force of men hacking away at the chapparal, burning it, digging up the tough, tangled roots; oh, what slow work it was! Just as soon as a big enough place was cleared, he built a little house of rough boards,--only two rooms in it; and there he went to live, with Jim. Now that he had once begun the making of his house, he could hardly wait for it to be done; and he was never happy except when he was overseeing the men, hurrying them and working himself. Many a tough old bush he chopped down with his own hands, and tugged the root up; and he grew stronger every day. This was a kind of medicine he had not tried before. A great part of the bushes were "manzanita." The roots and lower stems of this shrub are bright red, and twisted almost into knots. They make capital firewood; so Mr. Connor had them all piled up in a pile to keep to burn in his big fireplaces; and you would have laughed to see such a woodpile. It was almost as high as the house; and no two sticks alike,--all prongs and horns, and crooks and twists; they looked like monster's back teeth. At last the house was done. It was a big, old-fashioned, square house, with a wide hall running through the middle; on the east side were the library and dining-room; on the west, the parlor and a big billiard-room; upstairs were four large bedrooms; at the back of the house, a kitchen. No servants were to sleep in the house. Mr. Connor would have only Chinamen for servants; and they would sleep, with the rest of his Chinamen laborers, in what he called the Chinese quarter,--a long, low wooden building still farther up on the hill. Only Jim was to sleep in the house with Mr. Connor. The Chinese quarter was a very comfortable house; and was presided over by a fat old Chinaman, who had such a long queue that Jim called him "Long Tail." His name was See Whong Choo, which, Jim said, was entirely too long to pronounce. There were twenty Chinamen on the place; and a funny sight it was to see them all file out of a morning to their work, every one with what looked like a great dinner-plate upside down on his head for a hat, and his long, black hair braided in a queue, not much bigger than a rat tail, hanging down his back. People in California are so used to seeing Chinamen, that they do not realize how droll they look to persons not accustomed to the sight. Their yellow skins, their funny little black eyes, set so slanting in their heads that you can't tell half the time whether they are looking straight at you or not, their shiny shaved heads and pig-tails, are all very queer. And when you first hear them talking together in their own tongue, you think it must be cats trying to learn English; it is a mixture of caterwaul and parrot, more disagreeable in sound than any language I ever heard. About a year after Mr. Connor had moved into his new house, he got a letter, one night, which made him very unhappy. It told him that his sister and her husband were dead; they had died, both of them in one week, of a dreadful fever. Their two children had had the fever at the same time, but they were getting well; and now, as there was nobody in Italy to take care of them, the letter asked what should be done with them. Would Mr. Connor come out himself, or would he send some one? The Count and his wife had been only a few days ill, and the fever had made them delirious from the first, so that no directions had been given to any one about the children; and there the two poor little things were, all alone with their nurse in their apartment in the King's palace. They had had to live in the palace always, so that the Count could be ready to attend on the King whenever he was wanted. [Illustration: THE KING'S PALACE.--Page 31.] Giuseppe and Maria (those were their names) never liked living there. The palace was much too grand, with its marble staircases, and marble floored rooms, so huge and cold; and armed soldiers for sentinels, standing at the corners and doors, to keep people from going into rooms without permission, and to keep watch also, lest somebody should get in and kill the King. The King was always afraid of being killed; there were so many unhappy and discontented persons in Italy, who did not want him to be King. Just think how frightful it must be to know every day,--morning, noon, and night,--that there was danger of somebody's coming stealthily into your room to kill you! Who would be a king? It used to make the children afraid whenever they passed these tall soldiers in armor, in the halls. They would hold tight to each other's hands, and run as fast as they could, past them; and when they got out in the open air, they were glad; most of all when their nurse took them into the country, where they could run on the grass and pick flowers. There they used often to see poor little hovels of houses, with gardens, and a donkey and chickens in the yard, and children playing; and they used to say they wished their father and mother were poor, and lived in a house like that, and kept a donkey. And then the nurse would tell them they were silly children; that it was a fine thing to live in a palace, and have their father one of the King's officers, and their mother one of the most beautiful of the Queen's ladies; but you couldn't have made the children believe it. They hated the palace, and everything about it, more and more every day of their lives. Giuseppe was ten, and Maria was seven. They were never called by their real names: Giuseppe was called Jusy, and Maria was called Rea; Jusy and Rea, nobody would ever have guessed from that, what their real names were. Maria is pronounced _Mahrea_ in Italy; so that was the way she came to be called Rea for shortness. Jusy gave himself his nickname when he was a baby, and it had always stuck to him ever since. It was enough to make anybody's heart ache to see these two poor little things, when they first got strong enough to totter about after this fever; so weak they felt, they could hardly stand; and they cried more than half the time, thinking about their papa and mamma, dead and buried without their even being able to kiss them once for good-by. The King himself felt so sorry for the little orphans, he came to speak to them; and the kind Queen came almost every day, and sent them beautiful toys, and good things to eat; but nothing comforted the children. "What do you suppose will become of us, Jusy?" Rea often said; and Jusy would reply,-- "I don't know, Rea. As soon as I'm a man, I can take care of you and myself too, easy enough; and that won't be a great while. I shall ask the King to let me be one of his officers like papa." "Oh, no! no! Jusy," Rea would reply. "Don't! Don't let's live in this horrid palace. Ask him to give you a little house in the country, with a donkey; and I will cook the dinner. Caterina will teach me how." Caterina was their nurse. "But there wouldn't be any money to pay Caterina," Jusy would say. "The King might give us enough for that, Jusy. He is so kind. I'm sure he would, don't you think so?" was Rea's answer to this difficulty. "No," said Jusy, "I don't think he would, unless I earned it. Papa had to work for all the money he had." It was a glad day for the children when the news came that their uncle in America was going to send for them to come and live with him; and that in three weeks the man who was to take them there would arrive. This news came over by telegraph, on that wonderful telegraph wire, down at the bottom of the ocean. Their kind Uncle George thought he would not leave the children uncheered in their suspense and loneliness one minute longer than he could help; so he sent the message by telegraph; and the very day after this telegraphic message went, Jim set out for Italy. Jim had travelled so much with Mr. Connor that he was just the best possible person to take charge of the children on their long journey. He knew how to manage everything; and he could speak Italian and French and German well enough to say all that was necessary in places where no English was spoken. Moreover, Jim had been a servant in Mr. Connor's father's house all his life; had taken care of Mr. Connor and his sister when they were a little boy and girl together, just as Jusy and Rea were now. He always called Mr. Connor "Mr. George," and his sister "Miss Julia;" and when he set out to go for the children he felt almost as if he were going to the help and rescue of his own grandchildren. Jusy and Rea did not feel that they were going to a stranger; for they had heard about their Uncle George ever since they could remember; and all about "Jim" too. Almost every year Mr. Connor used to send his sister a new picture of himself; so the children knew very well how he looked. When the news came that they were to go to America and live with him, they got out all of these pictures they could find, and ranged them in a line on the mantelpiece in their parlor. There was a picture of Jim too, as black as charcoal. At first, Rea had been afraid of this; but Jusy thought it was splendid. Every morning the lonely little creatures used to stand in front of this line of pictures and say, "Good-morning, Uncle George! Good-morning to you, Mr. Black Man! How soon will you get here? We shall be very glad to see you." It was over a month before he arrived. The children had been told that he might be there in three weeks from the day the despatch came; and as soon as the three weeks were ended, they began almost to hold their breaths listening for him; they were hardly willing to stir out of the palace for a walk, for fear he might come while they were away. Rea watched at the windows, and Jusy watched at the doorway which led into the corridor. "He might be afraid of the sentinel at the corner there," he said. "Caterina says there are no palaces in America." "Goody!" interrupted Rea, "I'm so glad." "And so perhaps he has never seen a man in armor like that; and I'd better be at the door to run and meet him." All their clothes were packed ready for the journey; and all the things which had belonged to their mamma were packed up too, to go with them. The huge rooms looked drearier than ever. The new chamberlain's wife was impatient to get settled in the apartment herself, and kept coming to look at it, and discussing, in the children's presence, where she would put this or that piece of furniture, and how she would have her pictures hung. "I think she is a very rude lady," said Jusy. "The Queen said these were our rooms so long as we stayed, just the same as if mamma were here with us; and I think I see her coming in here that way if mamma was here!" [Illustration: decorative panel]* II. After all their precautions, Jusy and Rea were out when Jim arrived. They had been to take a walk with Caterina; and when they came back, as they passed the big sentinel at the outside gate, he nodded to them pleasantly, and said,-- "He has come!--the black signor from America." ("Signor" is Italian for "Mr.") [Illustration: JUSY AND REA. "He has come!--the black signor from America."--Page 42.] You see everybody in the palace, from the King down to the scullions in the kitchen, was interested in the two fatherless and motherless children, and glad to hear that Jim had arrived. The very next day they set off. Jim was impatient to be back in California again; there was nothing to wait for. Caterina was greatly relieved to find that he did not wish her to go with him. The Queen had said she must go, if the black signor wished it; and Caterina was wretched with fright at the thought of the journey, and of the country full of wild beasts and savages. "Worse than Africa, a hundred times," she said, "from all I can hear. But her Majesty says I must go, if I am needed. I'd rather die, but I see no way out of it." When it came to bidding Rea good-by, however, she was almost ready to beg to be allowed to go. The child cried and clung to her neck; and Caterina cried and sobbed too. But the wise Jim had provided himself with a powerful helper. He had bought a little white spaniel, the tiniest creature that ever ran on four legs; she was no more than a doll, in Rea's arms; her hair was like white silk floss. She had a blue satin collar with a gilt clasp and padlock; and on the padlock, in raised letters, was the name "Fairy." Jim had thought of this in New York, and bought the collar and padlock there; and the dog he had bought only one hour before they were to set out on their journey. She was in a beautiful little flannel-lined basket; and when Rea clung to Caterina's neck crying and sobbing, Jim stepped up to her and said,-- "Don't cry, missy; here's your little dog to take care of; she'll be scared if she sees you cry." "Mine! Mine! That sweet doggie!" cried Rea. She could not believe her eyes. She stopped crying; and she hardly noticed when the Queen herself kissed her in farewell, so absorbed was she in "Fairy" and the blue satin collar. "Oh, you are a very good black man, Signor Jim," she cried. "I never saw such a sweet doggie; I shall carry her in my own arms all the way there." It was a hard journey; but the children enjoyed every minute of it. The account of all they did and saw, and the good times they had with the kind Jim, would make a long story by itself; but if I told it, we should never get to the Hunter Cats; so I will not tell you anything about the journey at all except that it took about six weeks, and that they reached San Gabriel in the month of March, when everything was green and beautiful, and the country as full of wild flowers as the children had ever seen the country about Florence in Italy. Mr. Connor had not been idle while Jim was away. After walking up and down his house, with his thinking-cap on, for a few days, looking into the rooms, and trying to contrive how it should be rearranged to accommodate his new and unexpected family, he suddenly decided to build on a small wing to the house. He might as well arrange it in the outset as it would be pleasantest to have it when Jusy and Rea were a young gentleman and a young lady, he thought. What might do for them very well now, while they were little children, would not do at all when they were grown up. So, as I told you, Mr. Connor being a gentleman who never lost any time in doing a thing he had once made up his mind to, set carpenters at work immediately tearing out half of one side of his new house; and in little over a month, there was almost another little house joined on to it. There was a good big room for Rea's bedroom, and a small room opening out of it, for her sitting-room; beyond this another room in which her nurse could sleep, while she needed one, and after she grew older, the governess who must come to teach her; and after she did not need any governess, the room would be a pleasant thing to have for her young friends who came to visit her. This kind uncle was planning for a good many years ahead, in this wing to his house. These rooms for Rea were in the second story. Beneath them were two large rooms, one for Jusy, and one for Jim. A pretty stairway, with a lattice-work wall, went up outside to Rea's room, and at the door of her room spread out into a sort of loggia, or upstairs piazza, such as Mr. Connor knew she had been used to in Italy. In another year this stairway and loggia would be a bower of all sorts of vines, things grow so fast in California. * * * * * And now we are really coming to the Cats. They had arrived before the children did. When the children got out of the cars at San Gabriel, there stood their Uncle George on the platform waiting for them. Jusy spied him first. "There's Uncle George," he shouted, and ran towards him shouting, "Uncle George! Uncle George! Here we are." Rea followed close behind, holding up Fairy. "Look at my doggie that Signor black Jim gave me," she cried, holding Fairy up as high as she could reach; and in the next minute she herself, doggie and all, was caught up in Uncle George's arms. "What makes you cry, Uncle George?" she exclaimed; "we thought you would be very glad to see us!" "So I am, you dear child," he said. "I am only crying because I am so glad." But Jusy knew better, and as soon as he could get a chance, he whispered to Rea, "I should have thought you would have known better than to say anything to Uncle George about his having tears in his eyes. It was because we reminded him so much of mamma, that he cried. I saw the tears come in his eyes, the first minute he saw us, but I wasn't going to say a word about it." Poor little Rea felt badly enough to think she had not understood as quickly as Jusy did; but the only thing she could think of to do was to spring up in the seat of the wagon, and put her arms around her uncle's neck, and kiss him over and over, saying, "We are going to love you, like,--oh,--like everything, Jusy and me! I love you better than my doggie!" But when she said this, the tears came into Mr. Connor's eyes again; and Rea looked at Jusy in despair. "Keep quiet, Rea," whispered Jusy. "He doesn't want us to talk just yet, I guess;" and Rea sat down again, and tried to comfort herself with Fairy. But she could not keep her eyes from watching her uncle's face. Her affectionate heart was grieved to see him look so sad, instead of full of joy and gladness as she had thought it would be. Finally she stole her hand into his and sat very still without speaking, and that really did comfort Mr. Connor more than anything she could have done. The truth was, Rea looked so much like her mother, that it was almost more than Mr. Connor could bear when he first saw her; and her voice also was like her mother's. Jusy did not in the least resemble his mother; he was like his father in every way,--hair as black as black could be, and eyes almost as black as the hair; a fiery, flashing sort of face Jusy had; and a fiery, flashing sort of temper too, I am sorry to say. A good deal like thunder-storms, Jusy's fits of anger were; but, if they were swift and loud, like the thunder, they also were short-lived,--cleared off quickly,--like thunder-storms, and showed blue sky afterward, and a beautiful rainbow of sorrow for the hasty words or deeds. Rea was fair, with blue eyes and yellow hair, and a temper sunny as her face. In Italy there are so few people with blue eyes and fair hair, that whenever Rea was seen in the street, everybody turned to look at her, and asked who she was, and remembered her; and when she came again, they said, "Ecco! Ecco! (That is Italian for Look! Look!) There is the little blue-eyed, golden-haired angel." Rea did not know that the people said this, which was well, for it might have made her vain. It was six miles from the railway station to Mr. Connor's house. But the house was in sight all the way; it was so high up on the mountain-side that it showed plainly, and as it was painted white, you could see it in all directions like a lighthouse. Mr. Connor liked to be able to see it from all places when he was riding about the valley. He said it looked friendly to him; as if it said, all the time, "Here I am, you can come home any minute you want to." After they had driven about half way, Mr. Connor said,-- "Children, do you see that big square house up there on the mountain? That is Connorloa." "Whose house is it, Uncle George?" said Jusy. "Why, did you not hear?" replied Mr. Connor. "It is Connorloa." The children looked still more puzzled. "Oh," laughed their uncle. "Is it possible nobody has told you the name of my house? I have called it Connorloa, from my own name, and 'loa,' which is the word in the Sandwich Islands for 'hill.' I suppose I might have called it Connor Hill, but I thought 'loa' was prettier." "Oh, so do I," said Jusy. "It is lovely. Connorloa, Connorloa," he repeated. "Doesn't it sound like some of the names in Italy, Rea?" he said. "Prettier!" said little Rea. "No word in Italy, so pretty as Connorloa; nor so nice as Uncle George." "You dear, loving little thing!" cried Uncle George, throwing his arms around her. "You are for all the world your mother over again." "That's just what I've been saying to myself all the way home, Mr. George," said Jim. "It's seemed to me half the time as if it were Miss Julia herself; but the boy is not much like you." "No," said Jusy proudly, throwing back his handsome head, and his eyes flashing. "I am always said to be exactly the portrait of my father; and when I am a man, I am going back to Italy to live in the King's palace, and wear my father's sword." "I sha'n't go," said Rea, nestling close to her uncle. "I shall stay in Connorloa with Uncle George. I hate palaces. Your house isn't a palace, is it, Uncle George? It looks pretty big." "No, my dear; not by any means," replied Mr. Connor, laughing heartily. "But why do you hate palaces, my little Rea? Most people think it would be the finest thing possible to live in a palace." "I don't," said Rea. "I just hate them; the rooms are so big and so cold; and the marble floors are so slip-py, I've had my knees all black and blue tumbling down on them; and the stairs are worse yet; I used to have to creep on them; and there is a soldier at every corner with a gun and a sword to kill you, if you break any of the rules. I think a palace is just like a prison!" "Well done, my little Republican!" cried Uncle George. "What is that?" said Rea. "I know," said Jusy. "It is a person that does not wish to have any king. There were Republicans in Italy; very bad men. Papa said they ought to be killed. Why do you call Rea by that name, Uncle George?" and Jusy straightened himself up like a soldier, and looked fierce. Mr. Connor could hardly keep his face straight as he replied to Jusy: "My dear boy the word does not mean anything bad in America; we are all Republicans here. You know we do not have any king. We do not think that is the best way to take care of a country." "My papa thought it was the best way," haughtily answered Jusy. "I shall think always as papa did." "All right, my man," laughed Uncle George. "Perhaps you will. You can think and say what you like while you live in America, and nobody will put you in prison for your thoughts or your words, as they might if you lived in Italy." It was near night when they reached the house. As they drove slowly up the long hill, the Chinamen were just going, on the same road, to their supper. When they heard the sound of the wheels, they stepped off the road, and formed themselves into a line to let the carriage pass, and to get a peep at the children. They all knew about their coming, and were curious to see them. [Illustration: "The Chinamen were just going to their supper, and they formed themselves into a line."--PAGE 60.] When Rea caught sight of them, she screamed aloud, and shook with terror, and hid her face on her uncle's shoulder. "Are those the savages?" she cried. "Oh, don't let them kill Fairy;" and she nearly smothered the little dog, crowding her down out of sight on the seat between herself and her uncle. Jusy did not say a word, but he turned pale; he also thought these must be the savages of which they had heard. Mr. Connor could hardly speak for laughing. "Who ever put such an idea as that into your head?" he cried. "Those are men from China; those are my workmen; they live at Connorloa all the time. They are very good men; they would not hurt anybody. There are not any savages here." "Caterina said America was all full of savages," sobbed Rea,--"savages and wild beasts, such as lions and wolves." "That girl was a fool," exclaimed Jim. "It was a good thing, Mr. George, you told me not to bring her over." "I should say so," replied Mr. Connor. "The idea of her trying to frighten these children in that way. It was abominable." "She did nothing of the kind," cried Jusy, his face very red. "She was talking to her cousin; and she thought we were asleep; and Rea and I listened; and I told Rea it was good enough for us to get so frightened because we had listened. But I did not believe it so much as Rea did." The Chinamen were all bowing and bending, and smiling in the gladness of their hearts. Mr. Connor was a good master to them; and they knew it would be to him great pleasure to have these little children in the house. While driving by he spoke to several of them by name, and they replied. Jusy and Rea listened and looked. "What are their heads made of, Uncle George?" whispered Rea. "Will they break if they hit them?" At first, Mr. Connor could not understand what she meant; then in a moment he shouted with laughter. Chinamen have their heads shorn of all hair, except one little lock at the top; this is braided in a tight braid, like a whiplash, and hangs down their backs, sometimes almost to the very ground. The longer this queer little braid is, the prouder the Chinaman feels. All the rest of his head is bare and shining smooth. They looked to Rea like the heads of porcelain baby dolls she had had; and that those would break, she knew by sad experience. How pleased Rea and Jusy were with their beautiful rooms, and with everything in their Uncle George's house, there are no words to tell. They would have been very unreasonable and ungrateful children, if they had not been; for Mr. Connor had not forgotten one thing which could add to their comfort or happiness: books, toys, everything he could think of, or anybody could suggest to him, he had bought. And when he led little Rea into her bedroom, there stood a sweet-faced young Mexican girl, to be her nurse. "Anita," he said, "here is your young lady." "I am very glad to see you, señorita," said the girl, coming forward to take off Rea's hat; on which Rea exclaimed,-- "Why, she is Italian! That is what Caterina called me. And Caterina had a sister whose name was Anita. How did you get over here?" "I was born here, señorita," replied the girl. "It is not quite the same word, Rea," said Mr. Connor, "though it sounds so much like it. It was 'signorita' you were called in Italy; and it is 'señorita' that Anita here calls you. That is Spanish; and Anita speaks much more Spanish than English. That is one reason I took her. I want you to learn to speak in Spanish." "Then we shall speak four languages," said Jusy proudly,--"Italian, French, and English and Spanish. Our papa spoke eleven. That was one reason he was so useful to the King. Nobody could come from any foreign country that papa could not talk to. My papa said the more languages a man spoke, the more he could do in the world. I shall learn all the American languages before I go back to Italy. Are there as many as nine, Uncle George?" "Yes, a good many more," replied Uncle George. "Pretty nearly a language for every State, I should say. But the fewer you learn of them the better. If you will speak good English and Spanish, that is all you will need here." "Shall we not learn the language of the signors from China?" asked Rea. At which Jim, who had followed, and was standing in the background, looking on with delight, almost went into convulsions of laughter, and went out and told the Chinamen in the kitchen that Miss Rea wished to learn to speak Chinese at once. So they thought she must be a very nice little girl, and were all ready to be her warm friends. The next morning, as Rea was dressing, she heard a great caterwauling and miaowing. Fairy, who was asleep on the foot of her bed, sprang up and began to bark furiously; all the while, however, looking as if she were frightened half to death. Never before had Fairy heard so many cats' voices at once. Rea ran to the open window; before she reached it, she heard Jusy calling to her from below,-- "Rea! Rea! Are you up? Come out and see the cats." Jusy had been up ever since light, roaming over the whole place: the stables, the Chinamen's quarters, the tool-house, the kitchen, the woodpile; there was nothing he had not seen; and he was in a state of such delight he could not walk straight or steadily; he went on the run and with a hop, skip, and jump from each thing to the next. "Hurry, Rea!" he screamed. "Do hurry. Never mind your hair. Come down. They'll be done!" Still the miaowing and caterwauling continued. "Oh, hurry, hurry, Anita," said Rea. "Please let me go down; I'll come up to have my hair done afterwards. What is it, Anita? Is it really cats? Are there a thousand?" Anita laughed. "No, señorita," she said. "Only seventeen! And you will see them every morning just the same. They always make this noise. They are being fed; and there is only a very little meat for so many. Jim keeps them hungry all the time, so they will hunt better." "Hunt!" cried Rea. "Yes," said Anita. "That is what we keep them for, to hunt the gophers and rabbits and moles. They are clearing them out fast. Jim says by another spring there won't be a gopher on the place." [Illustration: THE CHINAMAN, AH FOO, FEEDING THE CATS--Page 70.] Before she had finished speaking, Rea was downstairs and out on the east veranda. At the kitchen door stood a Chinaman, throwing bits of meat to the scrambling seventeen cats,--black, white, tortoise-shell, gray, maltese, yellow, every color, size, shape of cat that was ever seen. And they were plunging and leaping and racing about so, that it looked like twice as many cats as there really were, and as if every cat had a dozen tails. "Sfz! Sfz! Sputter! Scratch, spp, spt! Growl, growl, miaow, miaow," they went, till, between the noise and the flying around, it was a bedlam. Jusy had laughed till the tears ran out of his eyes; and Ah Foo (that was the Chinaman's name) was laughing almost as hard, just to see Jusy laugh. The cats were an old story to Ah Foo; he had got over laughing at them long ago. Ah Foo was the cook's brother. While Jim had been away, Ah Foo had waited at table, and done all the housework except the cooking. The cook's name was Wang Hi. He was old; but Ah Foo was young, not more than twenty. He did not like to work in the house, and he was glad Jim had got home, so he could go to working out of doors again. He was very glad, too, to see the children; and he had spoken so pleasantly to Jusy, that in one minute Jusy had lost all his fear of Chinamen. When Rea saw Ah Foo, she hung back, and was afraid to go nearer. "Oh, come on! come on!" shouted Jusy. "Don't be afraid! He is just like Jim, only a different color. They have men of all kinds of colors here in America. They are just like other people, all but the color. Come on, Rea. Don't be silly. You can't half see from there!" But Rea was afraid. She would not come farther than the last pillar of the veranda. "I can see very well here," she said; and there she stood clinging to the pillar. She was half afraid of the cats, too, besides being very much afraid of the Chinaman. The cats' breakfast was nearly over. In fact, they had had their usual allowance before Rea came down; but Ah Foo had gone on throwing out meat for Rea to see the scrambling. Presently he threw the last piece, and set the empty plate up on a shelf by the kitchen door. The cats knew very well by this sign that breakfast was over; after the plate was set on that shelf, they never had a mouthful more of meat; and it was droll to see the change that came over all of them as soon as they saw this done. In less than a second, they changed from fierce, fighting, clawing, scratching, snatching, miaowing, spitting, growling cats, into quiet, peaceful cats, some sitting down licking their paws, or washing their faces, and some lying out full-length on the ground and rolling; some walking off in a leisurely and dignified manner, as if they had had all they wanted, and wouldn't thank anybody for another bit of meat, if they could have it as well as not. This was almost as funny as the first part of it. After Ah Foo had set the plate in its place on the shelf, he turned to go into the kitchen to help about the breakfast; but just as he had put his hand on the door-handle, there came a terrible shriek from Rea, a fierce sputter from one of the cats, and a faint bark of a dog, all at once; and Ah Foo, looking around, sprang just in time to rescue Fairy from the jaws of Skipper, one of the biggest and fiercest of the cats. Poor little Fairy, missing her mistress, had trotted downstairs; and smelling on the floor wherever Rea had set her feet, had followed her tracks, and had reached the veranda just in time to be spied by Skipper, who arched his back, set his tail up straight and stiff as a poker, and, making one bound from the ground to the middle of the veranda floor, clutched Fairy with teeth and claws, and would have made an end of her in less than one minute if Ah Foo had not been there. But Ah Foo could move almost as quickly as a cat; and it was not a quarter of a second after Fairy gave her piteous cry, when she was safe and sound in her mistress's arms, and Ah Foo had Skipper by the scruff of his neck, and was holding him high up, boxing his ears, right and left, with blows so hard they rang. "Cat heap wicked," he said. "You killee missy's dog, I killee you!" and he flung Skipper with all his might and main through the air. Rea screamed, "Oh, don't!" She did not want to see the cat killed, even if he had flown at Fairy. "It will kill him," she cried. Ah Foo laughed. "Heap hard killee cat," he said. "Cat get nine time life good;" and as he spoke, Skipper, after whirling through the air in several somersaults, came down on his feet all right, and slunk off into the woodpile. "I tellee you," said Ah Foo, chuckling. "Thatee isee heapee goodee manee," cried Jusy. "I havee learnee talkee oneee language already!" A roar of laughter came from the dining-room window. There stood Uncle George, holding his sides. "Bravo, Jusy!" he exclaimed. "You have begun on pigeon English, have you, for the first of your nine languages?" "Isn't that Chinese?" said Jusy, much crestfallen. "Oh, no!" said Uncle George, "not by any manner of means. It is only the Chinese way of talking English. It is called pigeon English. But come in to breakfast now, and I will tell you all about my cats,--my hunting cats, I call them. They are just as good as a pack of hunting dogs; and better, for they do not need anybody to go with them." How pleasant the breakfast-table looked!--a large square table set with gay china, pretty flowers in the middle, nice broiled chicken and fried potatoes, and baked apples and cream; and Jusy's and Rea's bright faces, one on Mr. Connor's left hand, the other on his right. As Jim moved about the table and waited on them, he thought to himself, "Now, if this doesn't make Mr. George well, it will be because he can't be cured." Jim had found the big house so lonely, with nobody in it except Mr. Connor and the two Chinese servants, he would have been glad to see almost anything in the shape of a human being,--man, woman, or child,--come there to live. How much more, then, these two beautiful and merry children! Jusy and Rea thought they had never in all their lives tasted anything so good as the broiled chicken and the baked apples. "Heapee goodee cookee, Uncle George!" said Jusy. He was so tickled with the Chinaman's way of talking, he wanted to keep doing it. "Tooee muchee putee onee letter e, Master Jusy," said Uncle George. "After you have listened to their talk a little longer, you will see that they do not add the 'ee' to every word. It is hard to imitate them exactly." Jusy was crestfallen. He thought he had learned a new language in half an hour, and he was proud of it. But no new language was ever learned without more trouble and hard work than that; not even pigeon English! [Illustration: decorative panel]* [Illustration: decorative panel]* III. It had come about by chance, Mr. Connor's keeping this pack of hunting cats. He had been greatly troubled by gophers and rabbits: the gophers killed his trees by gnawing their roots; the rabbits burrowed under his vines, ate the tender young leaves, and gnawed the stems. Jim had tried every device,--traps of all kinds and all the poisons he could hear of. He had also tried drowning the poor little gophers out by pouring water down their holes. But, spite of all he could do, the whole hill was alive with them. It had been wild ground so long, and covered so thick with bushes, that it had been like a nice house built on purpose for all small wild animals to live in. I suppose there must have been miles of gophers' underground tunnels, leading from hole to hole. They popped their heads up, and you saw them scampering away wherever you went; and in the early morning it was very funny to see the rabbits jumping and leaping to get off out of sight when they heard people stirring. They were of a beautiful gray color, with a short bushy tail, white at the end. On account of this white tip to their tails, they are called "cotton-tails." When Mr. Connor first moved up on the hill, Jim used to shoot a cottontail almost every day, and some days he shot two. The rabbits, however, are shyer than the gophers; when they find out that they get shot as soon as they are seen, and that these men who shoot them have built houses and mean to stay, they will gradually desert their burrows and move away to new homes. But the gopher is not so afraid. He lives down in the ground, and can work in the dark as well as in the light; and he likes roots just as well as he likes the stems above ground; so as long as he stays in his cellar houses, he is hard to reach. The gopher is a pretty little creature, with a striped back,--almost as pretty as a chipmonk. It seems a great pity to have to kill them all off; but there is no help for it; fruit-trees and gophers cannot live in the same place. Soon after Mr. Connor moved into his new house, he had a present of a big cat from the Mexican woman who sold him milk. She said to Jim one day, "Have you got a cat in your house yet?" "No," said Jim. "Mr. George does not like cats." "No matter," said she, "you have got to have one. The gophers and squirrels in this country are a great deal worse than rats and mice. They'll come right into your kitchen and cellar, if your back is turned a minute, and eat you out of house and home. I'll give you a splendid cat. She's a good hunter. I've got more cats than I know what to do with." So she presented Jim with a fine, big black and white cat; and Jim named the cat "Mexican," because a Mexican woman gave her to him. The first thing Mexican did, after getting herself established in her new home in the woodpile, was to have a litter of kittens, six of them. The next thing she did, as soon as they got big enough to eat meat, was to go out hunting for food for them; and one day, as Mr. Connor was riding up the hill, he saw her running into the woodpile, with a big fat gopher in her mouth. "Ha!" thought Mr. Connor to himself. "There's an idea! If one cat will kill one gopher in a day, twenty cats would kill twenty gophers in a day! I'll get twenty cats, and keep them just to hunt gophers. They'll clear the place out quicker than poison, or traps, or drowning." "Jim," he called, as soon as he entered the house,--"Jim, I've got an idea. I saw Mexican just now carrying a dead gopher to her kittens. Does she kill many?" "Oh, yes, sir," replied Jim. "Before she got her kittens I used to see her with them every day. But she does not go out so often now." "Good mother!" said Mr. Connor. "Stays at home with her family, does she?" "Yes, sir," laughed Jim; "except when she needs to go out to get food for them." "You may set about making a collection of cats, Jim, at once," said Mr. Connor. "I'd like twenty." Jim stared. "I thought you didn't like cats, Mr. George," he exclaimed. "I was afraid to bring Mexican home, for fear you wouldn't like having her about." "No more do I," replied Mr. Connor. "But I do not dislike them so much as I dislike gophers. And don't you see, if we have twenty, and they all hunt gophers as well as she does, we'll soon have the place cleared?" "We'd have to feed them, sir," said Jim. "So many's that, they'd never make all their living off gophers." "Well, we'll feed them once a day, just a little, so as not to let them starve. But we must keep them hungry, or else they won't hunt." "Very well, sir," said Jim. "I will set about it at once." "Beg or buy them," laughed Mr. Connor. "I'll pay for them, if I can't get them any other way. There is room in the woodpile for fifty to live." Jim did not much like the idea of having such an army of cats about; but he went faithfully to work; and in a few weeks he had seventeen. One morning, when they were all gathered together to be fed, he called Mr. Connor to look at them. "Do you think there are enough, sir?" he said. "Goodness! Jim," cried Mr. Connor, "what did you get so many for? We shall be overrun." Jim laughed. "I'm three short yet, sir, of the number you ordered," he said. "There are only seventeen in that batch." "Only seventeen! You are joking, Jim," cried Mr. Connor; and he tried to count; but the cats were in such a scrambling mass, he could not count them. "I give it up, Jim," he said at last. "But are there really only seventeen?" "That's all, sir, and it takes quite a lot of meat to give them all a bite of a morning. I think here are enough to begin with, unless you have set your heart, sir, on having twenty. Mexican has got six kittens, you know, and they will be big enough to hunt before long. That will make twenty-three." "Plenty! plenty!" said Mr. Connor. "Don't get another one. And, Jim," he added, "wouldn't it be better to feed them at night? Then they will be hungry the next morning." "I tried that, sir," said Jim, "but they didn't seem so lively. I don't give them any more than just enough to whet their appetites. At first they sat round the door begging for more, half the morning, and I had to stone them away; now they understand it. In a few minutes, they'll all be off; and you won't see much of any of them till to-morrow morning. They are all on hand then, as regular as the sun rises." "Where do they sleep?" said Mr. Connor. "In the woodpile, every blessed cat of them," replied Jim. "And there are squirrels living in there too. It is just a kind of cage, that woodpile, with its crooks and turns. I saw a squirrel going up, up, in it the other day; I thought he'd make his way out to the top; I thought the cats would have cleaned them all out before this time, but they haven't; I saw one there only yesterday." Jim had counted too soon on Mexican's kittens. Five of them came to a sad end. Their mother carried to them, one day, a gopher which she found lying dead in the road. Poor cat-mother! I suppose she thought to herself when she saw it lying there, "Oh, how lucky! I sha'n't have to sit and wait and watch for a gopher this morning. Here is one all ready, dead!" But that gopher had died of poison which had been put down his hole; and as soon as the little kittens ate it, they were all taken dreadfully ill, and all but one died. Either he hadn't had so much of the gopher as the rest had, or else he was stronger; he lingered along in misery for a month, as thin, wretched-looking a little beast as ever was seen; then he began to pick up his flesh, and finally got to be as strong a cat as there was in the whole pack. He was most curiously marked: in addition to the black and white of his mother's skin, he had gray and yellow mottled in all over him. Jim thought it looked as if his skin had been painted, so he named him Fresco. Jim had names for all the best cats; there were ten that were named. The other seven, Jim called "the rabble;" but of the ten he had named, Jim grew to be very proud. He thought they were remarkable cats. First there was Mexican, the original first-comer in the colony. Then there was Big Tom, and another Tom called China Tom, because he would stay all the time he could with the Chinamen. He was dark-gray, with black stripes on him. Next in size and beauty was a huge black cat, called Snowball. He was given to Mr. Connor by a miner's wife, who lived in a cabin high up on the mountain. She said she would let him have the cat on the condition that he would continue to call him Snowball, as she had done. She named him Snowball, she said, to make herself laugh every time she called him, he being black as coal; and there was so little to laugh at where she lived, she liked a joke whenever she could contrive one. Then there was Skipper, the one who nearly ate up Fairy that first morning; he also was as black as coal, and fierce as a wolf; all the cats were more or less afraid of him. Jim named him Skipper, because he used to race about in trees like a squirrel. Way up to the very top of the biggest sycamore trees in the cañon back of the house, Skipper would go, and leap from one bough to another. He was especially fond of birds, and in this way he caught many. He thought birds were much better eating than gophers. Mexican, Big Tom, China Tom, Snowball, Skipper, and Fresco,--these are six of the names; the other four were not remarkable; they did not mean anything in especial; only to distinguish their owners from the rest, who had no names at all. Oh, yes; I am forgetting the drollest of all: that was Humbug. Jim gave her that name because she was so artful and sly about getting more than her share of the meat. She would watch for the biggest pieces, and pounce on them right under some other cat's nose, and almost always succeed in getting them. So Jim named her Humbug, which was a very good name; for she always pretended to be quieter and stiller than the rest, as if she were not in any great hurry about her breakfast; and then she whisked in, and got the biggest pieces, and twice as much as any other cat there. The other names were Jenny, Capitan, and Growler. That made the ten. In a very few days after Jusy and Rea arrived, they knew all these cats' names as well as Jim did; and they were never tired of watching them at their morning meal, or while they were prowling, looking, and waiting for gophers and rabbits. For a long time, Rea carried Fairy tight in her arms whenever there was a cat in sight; but after a while, the cats all came to know Fairy so well that they took no notice of her, and it was safe to put her on the ground and let her run along. But Rea kept close to her, and never forgot her for a single minute. There were many strange things which these cats did, besides hunting the gophers. They used also to hunt snakes. In one of the rocky ravines near the house there were large snakes of a beautiful golden-brown color. On warm days these used to crawl out, and lie sunning themselves on the rocks. Woe to any such snake, if one of the cats caught sight of him! Big Tom had a special knack at killing them. He would make a bound, and come down with his fore claws firm planted in the middle of the snake's back; then he would take it in his teeth, and shake it, flapping its head against the stones every time, till it was more dead than alive. You would not have thought that so big a snake could have been so helpless in the claws of a cat. Another thing the cats did, which gave the men much amusement, was, that when they had killed rabbits they carried the bodies into the mules' stables. Mules are terribly frightened at the smell of a dead rabbit. Whenever this happened, a great braying and crying and stamping would be heard in the stables; and on running to see what was the matter, there would be found Big Tom or Skipper, sitting down calm and happy by the side of a dead rabbit, which he had carried in, and for some reason or other best known to himself had deposited in plain sight of the mules. Why they chose to carry dead rabbits there, unless it was that they enjoyed seeing the mules so frightened, there seemed no explaining. They never took dead gophers up there, or snakes; only the rabbits. Once a mule was so frightened that he plunged till he broke his halter, got free, and ran off down the hill; and the men had a big chase before they overtook him. But the queerest thing of all that happened, was that the cats adopted a skunk; or else it was the skunk that adopted the cats; I don't know which would be the proper way of stating it; but at any rate the skunk joined the family, lived with them in the woodpile, came with them every morning to be fed, and went off with them hunting gophers every day. It must have been there some time before Jim noticed it, for when he first saw it, it was already on the most familiar and friendly terms with all the cats. It was a pretty little black and white creature, and looked a good deal like one of Mexican's kittens. Finally it became altogether too friendly: Jim found it in the kitchen cellar one day; and a day or two after that, it actually walked into the house. Mr. Connor was sitting in his library writing. He heard a soft, furry foot patting on the floor, and thought it was Fairy. Presently he looked up; and, to his horror, there was the cunning little black and white skunk in the doorway, looking around and sniffing curiously at everything, like a cat. Mr. Connor held his breath and did not dare stir, for fear the creature should take it into its head that he was an enemy. Seeing everything so still, the skunk walked in, walked around both library and dining-room, taking minute observations of everything by means of its nose. Then it softly patted out again, across the hall, and out of the front door, down the veranda steps. It had seemed an age to Mr. Connor; he could hardly help laughing too, as he sat there in his chair, to think how helpless he, a grown-up man, felt before a creature no bigger than that,--a little thing whose neck he could wring with one hand; and yet he no more dared to touch it, or try to drive it out, than if it had been a roaring lion. As soon as it was fairly out of the way, Mr. Connor went in search of Jim. "Jim," said he, "that skunk you were telling me about, that the cats had adopted, seems to be thinking of adopting me; he spent some time in the library with me this morning, looking me over; and I am afraid he liked me and the place much too well. I should like to have him killed. Can you manage it?" "Yes, sir," laughed Jim. "I was thinking I'd have to kill him. I caught him in the cellar a day or two since, and I thought he was getting to feel too much at home. I'll fix him." So the next morning Jim took a particularly nice and tempting piece of meat, covered it with poison, and just as the cats' breakfast was finished, and the cats slowly dispersing, he threw this tidbit directly at the little skunk. He swallowed it greedily, and before noon he was dead. Jim could not help being sorry when he saw him stretched out stiff near his home in the woodpile. "He was a pert little rascal;" said Jim. "I did kind o' hate to kill him; but he should have stayed with his own folks, if he wanted to be let alone. It's too dangerous having skunks round." In less than a year's time, there was not a rabbit to be seen on Mr. Connor's grounds, and only now and then a gopher, the hunter cats had done their work so thoroughly. But there was one other enemy that Mr. Connor would have to be rid of, before he could have any great success with his fruit orchards. You will be horrified to hear the name of this enemy. It was the linnet. Yes, the merry, chirping, confiding little linnets, with their pretty red heads and bright eyes, they also were enemies, and must be killed. They were too fond of apricots and peaches and pears and raspberries, and all other nice fruits. If birds only had sense enough, when they want a breakfast or dinner of fruit, to make it off one, or even two,--eat the peach or the pear or whatever it might be all up, as we do,--they might be tolerated in orchards; nobody would grudge a bird one peach or cherry. But that isn't their way. They like to hop about in the tree, and take a nip out of first one, then another, and then another, till half the fruit on the tree has been bitten into and spoiled. In this way, they ruin bushels of fruit every season. "I wonder if we could not teach the cats to hunt linnets, Jim," said Mr. Connor one morning. It was at the breakfast-table. "O Uncle George! the dear sweet little linnets!" exclaimed Rea, ready to cry. "Yes, my dear sweet little girl," said Uncle George. "The dear sweet little linnets will not leave us a single whole peach or apricot or cherry to eat." "No!" said Jusy, "they're a perfect nuisance. They've pecked at every apricot on the trees already." "I don't care," said Rea. "Why can't they have some? I'd just as soon eat after a linnet as not. Their little bills must be all clean and sweet. Don't have them killed, Uncle George." "No danger but that there will be enough left, dear," said Uncle George. "However many we shoot, there will be enough left. I believe we might kill a thousand to-day and not know the difference." The cats had already done a good deal at hunting linnets on their own account, in a clandestine and irregular manner. They were fond of linnet flesh, and were only too glad to have the assistance of an able-bodied man with a gun. When they first comprehended Jim's plan,--that he would go along with his gun, and they should scare the linnets out of the trees, wait for the shot, watch to see where the birds fell, and then run and pick them up,--it was droll to see how clever they became in carrying it out. Retriever dogs could not have done better. The trouble was, that Jim could shoot birds faster than the cats could eat them; and no cat would stir from his bird till it was eaten up, sometimes feathers and all; and after he had had three or four, he didn't care about any more that day. To tell the truth, after the first few days, they seemed a little tired of the linnet diet, and did not work with so much enthusiasm. But at first it was droll, indeed, to see their excitement. As soon as Jim appeared with his gun, every cat in sight would come scampering; and it would not be many minutes before the rest of the band--however they might have been scattered,--would somehow or other get wind of what was going on, and there would be the whole seventeen in a pack at Jim's heels, all keeping a sharp lookout on the trees; then, as soon as a cat saw a linnet, he would make for the tree, sometimes crouch under the tree, sometimes run up it; in either case the linnet was pretty sure to fly out: pop, would go Jim's rifle; down would come the linnet; helter-skelter would go the cats to the spot where it fell; and in a minute more, there would be nothing to be seen of that linnet, except a few feathers and a drop or two of blood on the ground. [Illustration: JIM AND THE CATS HUNTING LINNETS.--Page 111.] Jusy liked to go with Jim on these hunting expeditions. But Rea would never go. She used to sit sorrowfully at home, and listen for the gunshots; and at every shot she heard, she would exclaim to Anita, "Oh, dear! Oh, dear! There's another dear little linnet dead. I think Jusy is a cruel, cruel boy! I wouldn't see them shot for anything, and I don't like the cats any more." "But," said Anita, "my little señorita did not mind having the gophers killed. It does not hurt the linnets half so much to be shot dead in one second, as it does the gophers to be caught in the cats' claws, and torn to pieces sometimes while they are yet alive. The shot-gun kills in a second." "I don't care," said Rea. "It seems different; the linnets are so pretty." "That is not a reason for pitying them any more," said Anita gravely. "You did not find those old Indians you saw yesterday pretty. On the contrary, they were frightful to look at; yet you pitied them so much that you shed tears." "Oh, yes!" cried Rea, "I should think I did; and, Anita, I dreamed about them all night long. I am going to ask Uncle George to build a little house for them up in the cañon. There is plenty of room there he does not want; and then nobody could drive them out of that place as long as they live; and I could carry them their dinner every day. Don't you think he will?" "Bless your kind little heart!" said Anita. "That would be asking a great deal of your Uncle George, but he is so kind, perhaps he will. If somebody does not take compassion on the poor things, they will starve, that is certain." "I shall ask him the minute he comes in," said Rea. "I am going down on the piazza now to watch for him." And taking Fairy in her arms, Rea hurried downstairs, went out on the veranda, and, climbing up into the hammock, was sound asleep in ten minutes. She was waked up by feeling herself violently swung from side to side, and opening her eyes, saw Jusy standing by her side, his face flushed with the heat, his eyes sparkling. "O Rea!" he said. "We have had a splendid hunt! What do you think! Jim has shot twenty linnets in this one morning! and that Skipper, he's eaten five of them! He's as good as a regular hunting dog." "Where's Uncle George?" asked Rea sleepily, rubbing her eyes. "I want Uncle George! I don't want you to tell me anything about the cats' eating the linnets. I hate them! They're cruel!" "'Tisn't cruel either!" retorted Jusy. "They've got to be killed. All people that have orchards have to kill birds." "I won't, when I have an orchard," said Rea. "Then you won't have any orchard. That will be all," said Jusy. "At least, you won't have any fruit orchard. You'll have just a tree orchard." "Well, a tree orchard is good enough for anybody," replied Rea half crossly. She was not yet quite wide awake. "There is plenty of fruit in stores, to buy. We could buy our fruit." "Are you talking in your sleep, Rea?" cried Jusy, looking hard at her. "I do believe you are! What ails you? The men that have the fruit to sell, had to kill all the linnets and things, just the same way, or else they wouldn't have had any fruit. Can't you see?" No, Rea could not see; and what was more, she did not want to see; and as the proverb says, "There are none so blind as those who won't see." "Don't talk any more about it, Jusy," she said. "Do you think Uncle George would build a little house up the cañon for poor old Ysidro?" "Who!" exclaimed Jusy. "Oh, you cruel boy!" cried Rea. "You don't think of anything but killing linnets, and such cruel things; I think you are real wicked. Don't you know those poor old Indians we saw yesterday?--the ones that are going to be turned out of their house, down in San Gabriel by the church. I have been thinking about them ever since; and I dreamed last night that Uncle George built them a house. I'm going to ask him to." "I bet you anything he won't, then," said Jusy. "The horrid old beggars! He wouldn't have such looking things round!" Rea was wide awake now. She fixed her lovely blue eyes on Jusy's face with a look which made him ashamed. "Jusy," she said, "I can't help it if you are older than I am; I must say, I think you are cruel. You like to kill linnets; and now you won't be sorry for these poor old Indians, just because they are dirty and horrid-looking. You'd look just as bad yourself, if your skin was black, and you were a hundred years old, and hadn't got a penny in the world. You are real hard-hearted, Jusy, I do think you are!" and the tears came into Rea's eyes. "What is all this?" said Uncle George, coming up the steps. "Not quarrelling, my little people!" "Oh, no! no!" cried both the children eagerly. "I never quarrel with Rea," added Jusy proudly. "I hope I am old enough to know better than that." "I'm only two years the youngest," said Rea, in a mortified tone. "I think I am old enough to be quarrelled with; and I do think you're cruel, Jusy." This made Uncle George smile. "Look out!" he said. "You will be in a quarrel yet, if you are not careful. What is it, Rea?" While Rea was collecting her thoughts to reply, Jusy took the words out of her mouth. "She thinks I am cruel, because I said I didn't believe you would build a house for Indians up in your cañon." "It was not that!" cried Rea. "You are real mean, Jusy!" And so I think, myself, he was. He had done just the thing which is so often done in this world,--one of the unfairest and most provoking of things; he had told the truth in such a way as to give a wrong impression, which is not so very far different, in my opinion, from telling a lie. "A home for Indians up in the cañon!" exclaimed Uncle George, drawing Rea to him, and seating her on his knee. "Did my little tender-hearted Rea want me to do that? It would take a very big house, girlie, for all the poor Indians around here;" and Uncle George looked lovingly at Rea, and kissed her hair, as she nestled her head into his neck. "Just like her mother," he thought. "She would have turned every house into an asylum if she could." "Oh, not for all the Indians, Uncle George," said Rea, encouraged by his kind smile,--"I am not such a fool as Jusy thinks,--only for those two old ones that are going to be turned out of their home they've always lived in. You know the ones I mean." "Ah, yes,--old Ysidro and his wife. Well, Rea, I had already thought of that myself. So you were not so much ahead of me." "There!" exclaimed Rea triumphantly, turning to Jusy. "What do you say now?" Jusy did not know exactly what to say, he was so astonished; and as he saw Jim and the cats coming up the road at that minute, he gladly took the opportunity to spring down from the veranda and run to meet them. [Illustration: decorative panel]* IV. The story of old Ysidro was indeed a sad one; and I think, with Rea, that any one must be hard-hearted, who did not pity him. He was a very old Indian; nobody knew how old; but he looked as if he must be a hundred at least. Ever since he could remember, he had lived in a little house in San Gabriel. The missionaries who first settled San Gabriel had given a small piece of land to his father, and on it his father had built this little house of rough bricks made of mud. Here Ysidro was born, and here he had always lived. His father and mother had been dead a long time. His brothers and sisters had all died or gone away to live in some other place. When he was a young man, he had married a girl named Carmena. She was still living, almost as old as he; all their children had either died, or married and gone away, and the two old people lived alone together in the little mud house. They were very poor; but they managed to earn just enough to keep from starving. There was a little land around the house,--not more than an acre; but it was as much as the old man could cultivate. He raised a few vegetables, chiefly beans, and kept some hens. Carmena had done fine washing for the San Gabriel people as long as her strength held out; but she had not been able for some years to do that. All she could do now was to embroider and make lace. She had to stay in bed most of the time, for she had the rheumatism in her legs and feet so she could but just hobble about; but there she sat day after day, propped up in her bed, sewing. It was lucky that the rheumatism had not gone into her hands, for the money she earned by making lace was the chief part of their living. Sometimes Ysidro earned a little by days' works in the fields or gardens; but he was so old, people did not want him if they could get anybody else, and nobody would pay him more than half wages. When he could not get anything else to do, he made mats to sell. He made them out of the stems of a plant called yucca; but he had to go a long way to get these plants. It was slow, tedious work making the mats, and the store-keepers gave him only seventy-five cents apiece for them; so it was very little he could earn in that way. Was not this a wretched life? Yet they seemed always cheerful, and they were as much attached to this poor little mud hovel as any of you can be to your own beautiful homes. Would you think any one could have the heart to turn those two poor old people out of their home? It would not seem as if a human being could be found who would do such a thing. But there was. He was a lawyer; I could tell you his true name, but I will not. He had a great deal to do with all sorts of records and law papers, about land and titles and all such things. There has always been trouble about the ownership of land in California, because first it belonged to Spain, and then it belonged to Mexico; and then we fought with Mexico, and Mexico gave it to us. So you can easily see that where lands are passed along in that way, through so many hands, it might often be hard to tell to whom they justly belonged. Of course this poor old Ysidro did not know anything about papers. He could not read or write. The missionaries gave the land to his father more than a hundred years ago, and his father gave it to him, and that was all Ysidro knew about it. Well, this lawyer was rummaging among papers and titles and maps of estates in San Gabriel, and he found out that there was this little bit of land near the church, which had been overlooked by everybody, and to which nobody had any written title. He went over and looked at it, and found Ysidro's house on it; and Ysidro told him he had always lived there; but the lawyer did not care for that. Land is worth a great deal of money now in San Gabriel. This little place of Ysidro's was worth a good many hundred dollars; and this lawyer was determined to have it. So he went to work in ways I cannot explain to you, for I do not understand them myself; and you could not understand them even if I could write them out exactly: but it was all done according to law; and the lawyer got it decided by the courts and the judges in San Francisco that this bit of land was his. When this was all done, he had not quite boldness enough to come forward himself, and turn the poor old Indians out. Even he had some sense of shame; so he slyly sold the land to a man who did not know anything about the Indians being there. You see how cunning this was of him! When it came to the Indians being turned out, and the land taken by the new owner, this lawyer's name would not need to come out in the matter at all. But it did come out; so that a few people knew what a mean, cruel thing he had done. Just for the sake of the price of an acre of land, to turn two aged helpless people out of house and home to starve! Do you think those dollars will ever do that man any good as long as he lives? No, not if they had been a million. Well, Mr. Connor was one of the persons who had found out about this; and he had at first thought he would help Ysidro fight, in the courts, to keep his place; but he found there would be no use in that. The lawyer had been cunning enough to make sure he was safe, before he went on to steal the old Indian's farm. The law was on his side. Ysidro did not really own the land, according to law, though he had lived on it all his life, and it had been given to his father by the missionaries, almost a hundred years ago. Does it not seem strange that the law could do such a thing as that? When the boys who read this story grow up to be men, I hope they will do away with these bad laws, and make better ones. The way Rea had found out about old Ysidro was this: when Jim went to the post-office for the mail, in the mornings, he used generally to take Anita and Rea in the wagon with him, and leave them at Anita's mother's while he drove on to the post-office, which was a mile farther. Rea liked this very much. Anita's mother had a big blue and green parrot, that could talk in both Spanish and English; and Rea was never tired of listening to her. She always carried her sugar; and she used to cock her head on one side, and call out, "Señorita! señorita! Polly likes sugar! sugar! sugar!" as soon as she saw Rea coming in at the door. It was the only parrot Rea had ever seen, and it seemed to her the most wonderful creature in the world. Ysidro's house was next to Anita's mother's; and Rea often saw the old man at work in his garden, or sitting on his door-step knitting lace, with needles as fine as pins. One day Anita took her into the house to see Carmena, who was sitting in bed at work on her embroidery. When Carmena heard that Rea was Mr. Connor's niece, she insisted upon giving her a beautiful piece of lace which she had made. Anita did not wish to take it, but old Carmena said,-- "You must take it. Mr. Connor has given us much money, and there was never anything I could do for him. Now if his little señorita will take this, it will be a pleasure." So Rea carried the lace home, and showed it to her Uncle George, and he said she might keep it; and it was only a few weeks after this that when Anita and Rea went down to San Gabriel, one day, they found the old couple in great distress, the news having come that they were going to be turned out of their house. And it was the night after this visit that Rea dreamed about the poor old creatures all night, and the very next morning that she asked her Uncle George if he would not build them a house in his cañon. After lunch, Mr. Connor said to Rea,-- "I am going to drive this afternoon, Rea. Would you like to come with me?" His eyes twinkled as he said it, and Rea cried out,-- "Oh! oh! It is to see Ysidro and Carmena, I am sure!" "Yes," said her uncle; "I am going down to tell them you are going to build them a house." "Uncle George, will you really, truly, do it?" said Rea. "I think you are the kindest man in all the world!" and she ran for her hat, and was down on the veranda waiting, long before the horses were ready. They found old Ysidro sitting on the ground, leaning against the wall of his house. He had his face covered up with both hands, his elbows leaning on his knees. "Oh, look at him! He is crying, Uncle George," said Rea. "No, dear," replied Mr. Connor. "He is not crying. Indian men very rarely cry. He is feeling all the worse that he will not let himself cry, but shuts the tears all back." "Yes, that is lots worse," said Rea. "How do you know, pet?" laughingly said her uncle. "Did you ever try it?" "I've tried to try it," said Rea, "and it felt so much worse, I couldn't." It was not easy at first to make old Ysidro understand what Mr. Connor meant. He could not believe that anybody would give him a house and home for nothing. He thought Mr. Connor wanted to get him to come and work; and, being an honest old fellow, he was afraid Mr. Connor did not know how little strength he had; so he said,-- "Señor Connor, I am very old; I am sick too. I am not worth hiring to work." "Bless you!" said Mr. Connor. "I don't want you to work any more than you do now. I am only offering you a place to live in. If you are strong enough to do a day's work, now and then, I shall pay you for it, just as I would pay anybody else." Ysidro gazed earnestly in Mr. Connor's face, while he said this; he gazed as if he were trying to read his very thoughts. Then he looked up to the sky, and he said,-- "Señor, Ysidro has no words. He cannot speak. Will you come into the house and tell Carmena? She will not believe if I tell it." So Mr. Connor and Rea went into the house, and there sat Carmena in bed, trying to sew; but the tears were running out of her eyes. When she saw Mr. Connor and Rea coming in at the door, she threw up her hands and burst out into loud crying. "O señor! señor!" she said. "They drive us out of our house. Can you help us? Can you speak for us to the wicked man?" Ysidro went up to the bed and took hold of her hand, and, pointing with his other hand to Mr. Connor, said,-- "He comes from God,--the señor. He will help us!" "Can we stay?" cried Carmena. Here Rea began to cry. "Don't cry, Rea," said Mr. Connor. "That will make her feel worse." Rea gulped down her sobs, enough to say,-- "But she doesn't want to come into the cañon! All she wants is to stay here! She won't be glad of the new house." "Yes, she will, by and by," whispered Mr. Connor. "Stop crying, that's my good Rea." But Rea could not. She stood close to the bed, looking into old Carmena's distressed face; and the tears would come, spite of all her efforts. When Carmena finally understood that not even Mr. Connor, with all his good will and all his money, could save them from leaving their home, she cried again as hard as at first; and Ysidro felt ashamed of her, for he was afraid Mr. Connor would think her ungrateful. But Mr. Connor understood it very well. "I have lived only two years in my house," he said to Rea, "and I would not change it for one twice as good that anybody could offer me. Think how any one must feel about a house he has lived in all his life." "But it is a horrible little house, Uncle George," said Rea,--"the dirtiest hovel I ever saw. It is worse than they are in Italy." "I do not believe that makes much difference, dear," said Uncle George. "It is their home, all the same, as if it were large and nice. It is that one loves." Just as Mr. Connor and Rea came out of the house, who should come riding by, but the very man that had caused all this unhappiness,--the lawyer who had taken Ysidro's land! He was with the man to whom he had sold it. They were riding up and down in the valley, looking over all their possessions, and planning what big vineyards and orchards they would plant and how much money they would make. When this man saw Mr. Connor, he turned as red as a turkey-cock's throat. He knew very well what Mr. Connor thought of him; but he bowed very low. Mr. Connor returned his bow, but with such a stern and scornful look on his face, that Rea exclaimed,-- "What is the matter, Uncle George? What makes you look so?" "That man is a bad man, dear," he replied; "and has the kind of badness I most despise." But he did not tell her that he was the man who was responsible for the Indians being driven out of their home. He thought it better for Rea not to know it. "Are there different sorts of badness,--some badnesses worse than others?" asked Rea. "I don't know whether one kind is really any worse than another," said Mr. Connor. "But there are some kinds which seem to me twice as bad as others; and meanness and cruelty to helpless creatures seem to me the very worst of all." "To me too!" said Rea. "Like turning out poor Ysidro." "Yes," said Mr. Connor. "That is just one of the sort I mean." Just before they reached the beginning of the lands of Connorloa, they crossed the grounds of a Mr. Finch, who had a pretty house and large orange orchards. Mr. Finch had one son, Harry, about Jusy's age, and the two boys were great cronies. As Mr. Connor turned the horses' heads into these grounds, he saw Jusy and Harry under the trees in the distance. "Why, there is Jusy," he said. "Yes," said Rea. "Harry came for him before lunch. He said he had something to show him." As soon as Jusy caught sight of the carriage, he came running towards it, crying,-- "Oh, Uncle George, stop! Rea! come! I've found Snowball! Come, see him!" Snowball had been missing for nearly a month, and nobody could imagine what had become of him. They finally came to the conclusion that he must have got killed in some way. Mr. Connor stopped the horses; and Rea jumped out and ran after Jusy, and Mr. Connor followed. They found the boys watching excitedly, one at each end of a little bridge over the ditch, through which the water was brought down for irrigating Mr. Finch's orchards. Harry's dogs were there too, one at each end of the bridge, barking, yelping, watching as excitedly as the boys. But no Snowball. "Where is he?" cried Rea. "In under there," exclaimed Jusy. "He's got a rabbit in there; he'll be out presently." Sure enough, there he was, plainly to be heard, scuffling and spitting under the bridge. The poor little rabbit ran first to one end of the bridge, then to the other, trying to get out; but at each end he found a dog, barking to drive him back. Presently Snowball appeared with the dead rabbit in his teeth. Dropping it on the ground, he looked up at the dogs, as much as to say, "There! Can't I hunt rabbits as well as you do?" Then they all three, the two dogs and he, fell to eating the rabbit in the friendliest manner. "Don't you think!" cried Jusy. "He's been hunting this way, with these dogs, all this time. You see they are so big they can't get in under the bridge, and he can; so they drive the rabbits in under there, and he goes in and gets them. Isn't he smart? Harry first saw him doing it two weeks ago, he says. He didn't know it was our cat, and he wondered whose it could be. But Snowball and the dogs are great friends. They go together all the time; and wherever he is, if he hears them bark, he knows they've started up something, and he comes flying! I think it is just splendid!" "Poor little thing!" said Rea, looking at the fast-disappearing rabbit. "Why, you eat them yourself!" shouted Jusy. "You said it was as good as chicken, the other day. It isn't any worse for cats and dogs to eat them, than it is for us; is it, Uncle George?" "I think Jusy has the best of the argument this time, pet," said Uncle George, looking fondly at Jusy. "Girls are always that way," said Harry politely. "My sisters are just so. They can't bear to see anything killed." After this day, Rea spent most of her time in the cañon, watching the men at work on Ysidro's house. The cañon was a wild place; it was a sort of split in the rocky sides of the mountain; at the top it was not much more than two precipices joined together, with just room enough for a brook to come down. You can see in the picture where it was, though it looks there like little more than a groove in the rocks. But it was really so big in some places that huge sycamore trees grew in it, and there were little spaces of good earth, where Mr. Connor had planted orchards. It was near these, at the mouth of the cañon, that he put Ysidro's house. It was built out of mud bricks, called adobe, as near as possible like Ysidro's old house,--two small rooms, and a thatched roof made of reeds, which grew in a swamp. But Mr. Connor did not call it Ysidro's house. He called it Rea's house; and the men called it "the señorita's house." It was to be her own, Mr. Connor said,--her own to give as a present to Ysidro and Carmena. When the day came for them to move in, Jim went down with the big wagon, and a bed in the bottom, to bring old Carmena up. There was plenty of room in the wagon, besides, for the few little bits of furniture they had. Mr. Connor and Jusy and Rea were at the house waiting, when they came. The cook had made a good supper of meat and potato, and Rea had put it on the table, all ready for them. When they lifted Carmena out of the wagon, she held, tight clutched in her hand, a small basket filled with earth; she seemed hardly willing to let go of it for a moment. "What is that?" said Jusy. "A few handfuls of the earth that was ours," replied Ysidro. "We have brought it with us, to keep it always. The man who has our home will not miss it." The tears came into Mr. Connor's eyes, and he turned away. Rea did not understand. She looked puzzled; so did Jusy. Jim explained. "The Indian women often do that," he said. "When they have to move away from a home they love they carry a little of the earth with them; sometimes they put it in a little bag, and wear it hanging on their necks; sometimes they put it under their heads at night." "Yes," said Carmena, who had listened to what Jim said. "One can sleep better on the earth that one loves." "I say, Rea!" cried Jusy. "It is a shame they had to come away!" "I told you so, Jusy," said Rea gently. "But you didn't seem to care then." "Well, I do now!" he cried. "I didn't think how bad they'd feel. Now if it were in Italy, I'd go and tell the King all about it. Who is there to tell here?" he continued, turning to his Uncle George. "Who is there here, to tell about such things? There must be somebody." Mr. Connor smiled sadly. "The trouble is, there are too many," he said. "Who is above all the rest?" persisted Jusy. "Isn't there somebody at the top, as our King is in Italy?" "Yes, there is one above all the rest," replied Mr. Connor. "We call him the President." "Well, why don't you write and tell him about Ysidro?" said Jusy. "I wish I could see him, I'd tell him. It's a shame!" "Even the President could not help this, Jusy," said Mr. Connor. "The law was against poor Ysidro; there was no help; and there are thousands and thousands of Indians in just the same condition he is." "Doesn't the President make the laws?" said Jusy. "No," said Mr. Connor. "Congress makes the laws." "Oh," said Jusy, "like our Parliament." "Yes," said Mr. Connor. Jusy said no more; but he thought of little else all the afternoon; and at bedtime he said to Rea,-- "Rea, I am real sorry I didn't care about those old Indians at first, when you did. But I'm going to be good to them now, and help them all I can; and I have made up my mind that when I am a man I shall not go to Italy, as I said I would, to be an officer for the King. I shall stay here, and be an officer for the American President, instead; and I shall tell him about Ysidro, and about all the rest of the Indians." * * * * * There is nothing more to be told about the Hunter Cats. By degrees they disappeared: some of them went to live at other houses in the San Gabriel Valley; some of them ran off and lived a wild life in the cañons; and some of them, I am afraid, must have died for want of food. Rea was glad when they were all gone; but Jusy missed the fun of seeing them hunt gophers and linnets. Perhaps, some day, I shall write another story, and tell you more about Jusy and Rea, and how they tried to help the Indians. [Illustration: MATS MADE BY YSIDRO.--Page 126.] 
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43131	----	Mary By Mrs Molesworth Illustrations by Leslie Brooke Published by Macmillan and Co, London and New York. This edition dated 1893. Mary, by Mrs Molesworth. ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ MARY, BY MRS MOLESWORTH. CHAPTER ONE. A BIRTHDAY MORNING. One morning Mary awoke very early. It was in the month of May, and the mornings were light, and sometimes the sun shone in through the windows very brightly. Mary liked these mornings. The sunshine made everything in the room look so pretty; even the nursery furniture, which was no longer very new or fresh, seemed quite shiny and sparkling, as if fairy fingers had been rubbing it up in the night. "I wonder what day it is," thought Mary. It was difficult for her to remember the days, for she was not yet four years old. She was only going to be four soon. Mamma had told her her birthday would come in May, and that this year it would be on a Thursday. And every day, ever since Mary knew that May had come, she wondered if it was Thursday. But it was rather puzzling. Two Thursdays had come without it being her birthday. "P'raps mamma has made a mistook," thought Mary. "P'raps my birfday isn't going to be in May this time." For if it changed about from one day to another--last year it was Wednesday, and next year it would be--oh, it was too difficult to remember that--mightn't it change out of May too? Mary didn't think months were quite so difficult to remember as days, for different things came in months. In April there were showers, and in May flowers. Nurse had told her that, and when the months with the long names came it would be winter. "I hope it isn't a mistook," thought Mary. "I'd like it best to be in May. `MAY' is such a nice short little word, and only one letter more makes it `Mary.' No, I think it can't be a mistook." Mary could read very well, and she could spell little words. She had learnt to read when she was so little that she could not remember it. She thought knitting and cross-stitch work were much harder than reading. But she had to learn them, because mamma said too much reading was not good for such a little girl, and would make her head ache, and mamma bought her pretty coloured wools and nice short knitting needles, and Mary had made a carpet for the drawing-room of her doll-house. But though it looked very pretty Mary still liked reading best. She had also worked a kettle-holder for grandmamma: that is to say she had worked the stitches all round the picture of a kettle, which was already on the canvas when mamma bought it. Mamma called it "grounding it," and while she was working it, Mary often wondered what "grounding" it meant, for a kettle-holder was not meant to lie on the ground. She might have asked mamma to explain, but somehow she did not. She was not a very asking child. Big people did not always understand, not even mamma _quite_ always, and it made Mary feel very strange when they did not understand; it almost made her cry. Though even that she did not mind as much as when they told her she would know when she got big. She did not want to wait to know things till when she got big. It made her feel all hot to think what a lot of knowing there would be to do then, it seemed like a very big hill standing straight up in front of her which she would never get to the top of. She thought she would rather go up it in what she called "a roundy-round way." Papa had shown her that way once when it took her breath away to climb up one of the "mountings"--Mary always called hills "mountings"--in grandmamma's garden, and Mary had never forgotten it. She thought the hill of knowing would be much nicer to go up that way, and that she might begin it now--just a little bit at a time. She thought this all quite plain inside her own mind, but she could not have told it to anybody. Very often it is not till children _are_ quite big that they can tell their own thoughts, looking back upon them. And Mary did not know that she _was_ going up the hill of knowing already, a little bit at a time, just as she fancied she would like to go. Mary felt glad when she had settled it in her mind that it could not be a mistake about her birthday coming on a Thursday, and she lay quite still, watching the sunshine. It had got on to her bed by now, and it made all sorts of nice things on the counterpane. Mary's bed was rather a big one for such a little girl, for the cot she used to have was now her brother Artie's; Artie slept now in Leigh's room, and there was only a corner there for quite a small bed. Leigh was the big brother of Artie and Mary. He was eight years old. Yes, the sunshine made the counterpane very pretty. It was quite white, and as Mary's home was in the country, white things did not get a grey dull look as they do in London. There were patterns all over the counterpane, and if Mary bumped up her knees she could make fancies to suit the patterns--like garden paths leading to beautiful castles, or robber caves--the boys told her stories of robber caves which were very interesting, though rather frightening. And this morning the light shone on a pattern she had never noticed so much before. It was a round ring, just in the middle, and flowers and leaves seemed growing inside it. "It's a fairy ring," thought Mary; "I wonder if the fairies p'raps come and dance on it when I'm asleep." For she had seen fairy rings on the grass in the fields sometimes when she and her brothers were out walking, and nurse had told her about them. Mary had often wished she could get up in the night and go down to the fields to see the fairies, but she knew she could not. She would never be able to open the big door. Besides, it would be naughty to go out without mamma's and nurse's leave. And it would be very cold--even if the moon were shining it would be cold. For Mary had stood in the moonlight once or twice and she knew it did not warm like the sun. "I suppose they don't burn such big fires in the moon," she thought. The fancy about the fairy ring on the counterpane was very nice, for she could think about it and "pertend" she saw the fairies dancing without getting out of her warm nest at the top of the bed at all. She thought she would tell Artie about it and perhaps he would help to make some nice stories of fairy rings. Artie was not always very "listening" to Mary's fancies. He did really like them, but he was afraid of Leigh laughing at him. When Leigh was away, and Artie and Mary were alone together, it was very nice. But very often Leigh wanted Artie to play big things with him, and then Mary had to amuse herself alone. Leigh was not an unkind big brother; he would carry Mary if she was tired, and would have read stories to her, if she had not liked best to read them to herself. But he had quite boy ways, and thought little girls were not much more good than the pretty china figures in his mother's cabinets in the drawing-room. So Mary was often alone. But she did not mind. She had lots of friends of different kinds. Now and then nurse would say to her, "It would be nice, Miss Mary, if you had a little sister, wouldn't it?" But Mary shook her head. She did not think so. "No, zank you," she would say, "I doesn't want a little sister." The waking so early and the thinking about the sun and the moon and fairy rings and how soon it would be her birthday, began to make Mary rather tired at last. And after a while she fell asleep again without knowing it. When she woke up for the second time the sun was still shining, though not so brightly as before. And she heard voices talking in the next room, that was the day-nursery. There was a door open between it and the night-nursery where Mary slept. "Thursday, 18th May," said one of the voices. "May's a nice month for a baby, and all the summer before it. `Thursday's child has far to go.' Perhaps little Missie will marry a hofficer and travel to the Injies. Who can say?" Then there was a little laugh. "That's Old Sarah," said Mary to herself. Sarah was the housemaid--the upper housemaid, and though she was not _very_ old, the children called her so because her niece, who was also called Sarah, was the nursery-maid. "Little Sarah," they sometimes called her. Her father was the gardener, and he and her mother lived in a cottage which the children thought the prettiest house in the world. And sometimes they were allowed, for a very great treat, to go there to tea. It was Little Sarah who was talking to Old Sarah just now. Mary heard her voice, but as she spoke rather low she could not quite tell what the nursery-maid said. She only heard the last words--it was something about "nurse will tell her." This put it into Mary's mind that, though it was quite morning now, she had not seen nurse, and yet she must be up and dressed. "Nurse," she called out in her little clear voice. "Nurse, where are you?" The two Sarahs popped their heads in at the door. "Are you awake, Miss Mary?" asked Little Sarah. "In course I'm awake. You heard me calling," said Mary. She thought Little Sarah was very stupid sometimes. "I'm calling nurse," Mary went on, "I don't want you, Little Sarah. You can go and dress Master Artie." If Little Sarah was rather stupid, she was also very good-natured. She glanced at Mary with a smile, but with rather an odd look on her face too. "What does you want? What is you looking at me for?" said Mary. "Oh, nothing," said Sarah. "I was only thinking whatever would you do without nurse if--if nurse was busy and couldn't be so much with you, Miss Mary." "Nurse wouldn't never be busy like that," said Mary. "Oh, well, never mind. I'll dress Master Artie and I dare say nurse--" began Sarah, but she stopped short. Nurse just then came into the room. "Here's Miss Mary worretting for you," said the girl. Nurse hurried up to the little girl's bed. "Have you been awake long, my dear?" she said. "I'm so sorry." "Nurse," whispered Mary, pulling nurse's head close down so that she could whisper to her, "I heard Old Sarah and Little Sarah talking, and Old Sarah sayed `Thursday' and `May.' Is it my birfday comed, nurse? Mamma sayed it was coming in May, and it would be Thursday." "My dearie," said nurse, "you've guessed right. It is your birthday-- the 18th of May." Mary felt pleased, but also a little disappointed. She had been waiting for her birthday and thinking about it for such a long time that now she could scarcely believe it had come. For it seemed just like other days. No, not quite like other days, not as nice. For nurse had got up so early and Old Sarah and Little Sarah had been talking in the nursery-- she did not like anybody to talk like that in the nursery. "Dress me quick, please, nurse," she said, "and then I'll go to mamma's room, and then p'raps my birfday will begin. I don't think it can have beginned yet. I thought--" and then she stopped and her lips quivered a little. "What, my dearie?" said nurse. She was a very kind, understanding nurse always, but this morning she spoke even more kindly than other mornings to Mary. "I don't know," said Mary. "I think I thought mamma would come to kiss me in bed like a fairy, and--and--I thought there'd be stockings or somefin' like that--like Kissimas, you know." Nurse had lifted Mary out of her bath by this time, and was rubbing her with a nice large "soft-roughey" towel--"soft-roughey" was one of Mary and Artie's words--it meant the opposite of "prick-roughey." They did not like "prick-roughey" things. She wrapped Mary all round in the big towel for a minute; it was nice and warm, for it had been hanging in front of the fire; then she gave Mary a little hug. "You mustn't be unhappy, dear Miss Mary," she said. "Mamma meant to come, I'm sure, but she's fast asleep--and when she wakes I'm afraid she'll have a headache. So I'm afraid your birthday won't be quite like what you planned. But I'm sure there'll be some pretty presents for you--quite sure." But Mary looked up with her lips quivering still more, and the tears beginning to come too. "It isn't presents I want," she said. "Not presents like that way. I-- I want mamma. Mammas shouldn't have headaches. It takes away all the birfday-ness." Then she turned her head round and pressed it in to nurse's shoulder and burst into tears. CHAPTER TWO. GUESSING. Poor nurse was very sorry. But she knew it would not do to be _too_ sorry for Mary, for then she would go on crying. And once Mary got into a long cry it sometimes went on to be a very long one indeed. So nurse spoke to her quite brightly. "My dearie," she said, "you mustn't cry on your birthday morning. It's quite a mistake. Look up, dear. See, the sun's coming out so beautiful again, and we'll have Master Leigh and Master Artie calling for their breakfast. And you'll have to be quick, for your papa gave me a message to say you were to go down to see him in the dining-room." Mary gave a little wriggle, though she still kept her face hidden. But as nurse went on talking she slowly turned round so that her dressing could go on. "I've something to say to you before you go down," nurse went on. "There's something that's come just in time for your birthday. I'll give you each two guesses--you and Master Leigh and Master Artie, while you're eating your breakfast." Mary looked up. "Where's my hankercher?" she said, and when nurse gave it to her she wiped her eyes. That was a good sign. "Let me have my guesses now, nursey," she said coaxingly. But nurse kept to what she had said. "No, dear, guesses are much nicer when there's two or three together. Besides, we must be very quick. See, there's your nice frock all ready." And Mary saw, where nurse pointed to, one of her Sunday afternoon frocks lying on a chair. It was a blue one--blue with tiny white stripes, and Mary was very fond of it. It had a very pretty wide sash, just the same colour, and there were little bows on her shoes the same colour too. Her face got quite smiley when she saw all these things. She was not a vain little girl and she did not care about fine clothes, but it gave her a nice feeling that, after all, her birthday was going to be something different to other days. Soon she was dressed; her hair, which was not very long but soft and shaggy and of a pretty brown colour, combed out so that no tuggy bits were left; her hands as clean as a little girl's hands could be; a nice white pinafore on the top of the pretty blue frock, so that Mary felt that, as nurse said, she was quite fit to go to see the Queen, if the Queen had asked her. And when she went into the day-nursery things seemed to get still nicer. There were no bowls of bread and milk, but a regular "treat" breakfast set out. Tea-cups for herself and the boys, and dear little twists of bacon, and toast--toast in a toast-rack--and some honeycomb in a glass dish. "Oh," said Mary, "it _is_ my birfday. I'm quite sure now there's no mistook." And in a minute Leigh and Artie came running in. I do not know, by the by, that Leigh came _running_, most likely he was walking, for he was rather a solemn sort of boy, but Artie made up for it. He scarcely ever walked. He was always hopping or jumping or turning head over heels, he could _almost_ do wheels, like a London street boy. And this morning he came in with an extra lot of jumps because it was Mary's birthday. "You thought we'd forgotten, Leigh and me, now didn't you?" he said. "But we hadn't a bit. It was Leigh said you liked the bacon twisted up and it was me reminded about the honey. Wasn't it now, nurse? And we've got a present for you after breakfast. It's downstairs with papa's and mamma's. We'll give you them all of us together, Mary." But the mention of mamma brought a cloud again to Mary's face. "Nursey says mamma's dot a headache, and we can't see her. Not Mary on her birfday." At this Leigh looked up. "Is that true?" he said. "Is mamma ill?" "She's asleep, Master Leigh, and she may sleep a good while. I dare say you'll all see her when she wakes." "Her shouldn't be 'nill on my birfday," began Mary again. "Rubbish, Mary," said Leigh. "I dare say she'll be all right. And you should be sorry for mamma if she's ill; it isn't her fault." "I am sorry," said Mary dolefully; "that's why I can't help crying." "Come now, Miss Mary," began nurse. "You're forgetting what we fixed. No crying on a birthday, my dear. And you're forgetting about the guesses. I'm going to give you two guesses each, Master Leigh and Master Artie and Miss Mary, about what's come just in time for her birthday. Now don't speak for a minute, but think it well over while you go on with your breakfast." There was a silence then; all the children looked very grave, though their thinking did not prevent their enjoying their nice breakfast. "Now, Master Leigh," said nurse, "you guess first." "A pony," said Leigh. "A new pony instead of Dapple Grey who's getting too old to trot." Nurse shook her head. "No, it's not a new pony. Besides, I don't think Miss Mary would care as much for a new pony as you boys would." "No," Mary agreed. "I don't want no pony but Dapple Grey. Nother ponies trot too fast." Leigh thought again. This time he tried to make his guess some quite "girl" thing. "A doll--a big doll for Mary," he said. Nurse smiled. No, it was not that--at least--"A wax doll, do you mean, Master Leigh?" "Yes, a wax doll. But I don't _think_ it could be a doll, for that could have been got already for a birthday present, and this is quite an _extra_ present, isn't it?" said Leigh. "Yes, _quite_ extra," said nurse. "But now it's Master Artie's turn." Artie's ideas were very jumbled. He did not keep the inside of his head in nearly such good order as Leigh kept his. First he guessed "a fine day for Mary's birthday," as if any "guessing" could be needed for a thing which was already there before their eyes. Then he guessed a _very_ big cake for tea, which was not a very clever guess, as a nice big cake on a birthday was an "of course." So now it came to Mary's own guesses. She looked up eagerly. "For us all to be doo--" Then with a great effort, for Mary was growing a big girl and wanted to speak quite rightly, "to be g-ood all day. Kite g-ood." "That would be very nice," said nurse, "and I hope it will come true, but that's more wishing than guessing, Miss Mary. It's something that's come, not going to come, that I want you to guess about." Mary's face grew very grave. Then it smiled again. "I know," she said, "mamma's headache to g-go away, now, jimmedjetly, and then we'll go and see her." "I hope it will," said nurse. "But that wasn't the guess." She saw that Mary was too little quite to understand. "See if I can't help you," she said. "What would you like best of anything? Don't you think a doll that could learn to speak and love you and play with you would be a nice birthday present?" Artie and Mary looked puzzled. They had to think about it. But Leigh was quicker. "Why, nurse," he said, "a doll like that would be a _living_--oh nurse, I do believe--" but just as he was going to say more there came a tap at the door, and Robert, the footman, came in. "If you please, Mrs Barley," he began. "Barley" was nurse's own name, and, of course, the other servants were all very respectful, and always called her "Mrs Barley." "Master wants the young gentlemen and Miss Mary now at once, if so be as they've finished their breakfast." "I think you should say `Miss Mary and the young gentlemen,' Robert," said Leigh. "Specially as it's Mary's birthday," said Artie. "Oh rubbish," said Leigh; "birthday or no birthday, it's proper." "I beg the young lady's pardon," said Robert, who was a very well brought up footman. "I'm sure I meant no offence," and he looked towards Mary, but just then he could not see anything of her. For while her brothers were correcting Robert, Mary had been employing herself in getting down from her chair, which took a good while, as it was high and she was very short. Nothing but a sort of fluff of blue skirts and sash and white muslin pinafore and shaggy hair, with here and there a shoe or a little pink hand sticking out, was to be seen. Robert sprang forwards, meaning to be extra polite and set Miss Mary right side uppermost again, but in some mysterious way she managed to get on her feet by herself. "No, zank you, Robert," she said with dignity, as she stood there with a rather red face, smoothing down her pinafore. "I can get down alone." "Miss Mary, my dear," said nurse. "I'm always telling you to ask me to lift you down. The chair will topple over some day and you'll be hurting yourself badly." "But, nurse, I'm _four_, now," said Mary. "Four is big." "Of course it is," said Leigh. "Never mind, nurse. The best plan will be for me to hold her chair while she gets down. Are you ready, Artie? Mary and I are." Artie had managed to "honey" his face and hands, and nurse thought Mary too would not be the worse for a slight sponging. "Papa likes a sweet kiss, but not a honey one," she said. But at last they were all ready and on their way down to the dining-room, where they came upon Robert again, ready to throw open the door with great dignity, as he had hurried down the back stairs on purpose to be there before them. Papa was just finishing _his_ breakfast. He looked up with a bright smile. "Well, young people," he said. "Well, my pet," this was to Mary. "So this is your birthday, my little queen--eh?" He lifted her on to his knee and kissed her. Mary loved when papa called her his little queen. "I have to be off immediately," he said, "but first I have to give you your birthday presents from dear mamma and me." "And ours, papa, Leigh's and mine. They're all together--mamma put them all together," said Artie. "All right. They are over there on the side-table. You fetch them," said papa. "Are you going to a meeting, father?" asked Leigh. "Yes, my boy, to lots of meetings. I shan't be back till late to-night." "What are meetings?" Mary was just going to ask, but the sight of Artie and the parcels put it out of her head. There was a beautiful doll's perambulator from papa and mamma, and "a church book," bound in red, and with "Mary" outside, in lovely gold letters; and from Leigh and Artie, a doll's tea-service--cups and saucers and teapot and everything--in white china with little pink flowers, and dear little teaspoons of shining silver, or at least quite as pretty as silver. And then there was the birthday cake--covered with white sugar and with "Mary" in pink letters. There was no fear of Mary forgetting her name this birthday, was there? How her eyes sparkled, and how quick her breath came with pleasure, and how rosy her cheeks grew! "Oh papa," she said, "oh Leigh, oh Artie!" and for a minute or two that was all she could say. "Are you pleased, my pet?" said papa. "Oh, I _never_, never did have such sp'endid presents," said Mary. "Dear little Mary," said Artie, kissing her. "I am so glad you like them." Then another thought struck Mary, as she stood touching gently one of her treasures after the other, as if she did not know which she loved the most. "Papa, dear," she said, "can't I see dear mamma? I would like to zank dear mamma." "And so you shall, my pet," said her father. And he picked her up as he spoke and seated her on his shoulder. Mary was very fond of riding on papa's shoulder. "Come along, boys," he said, "you may come with me, if you won't be noisy, to see mamma and something else--Mary's best birthday present of all." "Anoder birfday present," said Mary, so surprised that she felt quite breathless. "_Anoder_, papa?" "Yes, old woman--you couldn't guess what, if you tried for a week of Sundays," said papa. Papa did say such funny things sometimes! Mary would have begun wondering what a week of Sundays could be like, if her thoughts had not been so busy with the idea of another birthday present, that she could not take in anything else. What _could_ it be? "There's been nothing but guessing to-day," said Artie. "Nurse _was_ making us guess so at breakfast, about something that's comed for Mary's birthday. Could it be this other present, papa? I'm tired of guessing." "Well, don't guess any more," said papa. "I'm going to show you." CHAPTER THREE. A WONDERFUL BIRTHDAY PRESENT. There was a room next to Mary's mother's room which was not often used. Mary was rather surprised when her father carried her straight to this room instead of to her mother's. And when he lifted her down from his shoulder she was still more surprised to see that there was a nice little fire burning in the grate, and that the room looked quite cheerful and almost like another nursery, with a rocking-chair in front of the fire, and the blinds drawn up to let the pretty summer morning brightness in. There was something in the corner of the room which Mary would have stared at a great deal if she had seen it. But just now she did not look that way, for she was surprised for the third time by seeing that a door stood open in the corner near the window, where she had never known before that there was a door. "Where does that go to, papa?" she said, and she was running forward to look when her father stopped her. "It goes into mamma's room, my pet," he said, "but I don't want you to go in there yet. Perhaps mamma's asleep." "It's all dark," said Mary; she had been peeping in. She felt rather strange, and a very tiny, weeny bit frightened. Everything seemed "funny" this birthday morning. She almost felt as if she was dreaming. "Why is mamma's room all dark?" she said again. "Is her asleep?" "I'm not sure, dear. Wait here a minute and I'll see," and her father went into the next room, closing the door a little after him. Mary and her brothers stood looking at each other. What was going to happen? "It's to be a surprise, I s'pose," said Artie. "It's the guesses, _I_ say," said Leigh. "It's a birfday present for me. Papa said so," said Mary. "We're speaking like the three bears," said Artie laughing. "Let's go on doing it. It's rather fun. You say something, Leigh--say `somebody's been in my bed'--that'll do quite well. Say it very growlily." "Somebody's been in my bed," said Leigh, as growlily as he could. Leigh was a very good-natured boy, you see. "Now, it's my turn," said Artie, and he tried to make his voice into a kind of gruff squeak that he thought would do for the mamma bear's talking. "Somebody's been in _my_ bed," he said. "Come along, Mary, it's you now." Mary was laughing by this time. "Somebody," she began in a queer little peepy tone, "somebody's--" but suddenly a voice from the other side of the door made them all jump. "My dear three bears," it said--it was papa, of course, "be so good as to shut your eyes _tight_ till I tell you to open them, and then Mary can finish." They did shut their eyes--they heard papa come into the room and cross over to the corner which they had not looked at. Then there was a little rustling--then he called out: "All right. Open your eyes. Now, Mary, Tiny Bear, fire away. Somebody's lying--" "In my bed," said Mary, as she opened her eyes, thinking to herself how _very_ funny papa was. But when her eyes were quite open she did stare. For there he was beckoning to her from the corner where he was standing beside a dear little bed, all white lace or muslin--Mary called all sorts of stuff like that "lace"--and pink ribbons. "Oh," said Mary, running across the room, "that's _my_ bed. Mamma showed it me one day. It were my bed when I was a little girl." "Of course, it's your bed," said her father. "I told you to be Tiny Bear and say, `somebody's lying in my bed.' Somebody _is_ lying in your bed. Look and see." Mary raised herself up on her tiptoes and peeped in. On the soft white pillow a little head was resting--a little head with dark fluffy curls all over it--Mary could not see all the curls, for there was a flannel shawl drawn round the little head, but she could see the face and the curls above the forehead. "It," this wonderful new doll, seemed to be asleep--its eyes were shut, and its mouth was a tiny bit open, and it was breathing very softly. It had a dear little button of a nose, and it was rather pink all over. It looked very cosy and peaceful, and there seemed a sweet sort of lavendery scent all about the bed and the pretty new flannel blankets and the embroidered coverlet. That _was_ pretty--white cashmere worked with tiny rosebuds. Mary remembered seeing her mamma working at it, and it was lined with pale pink silk. But just then, though Mary saw all these things and noticed them, yet, in another way, she did not see them. For all her real seeing and noticing went to the living thing in this dear little nest, the little, soft, sleeping, breathing face, that she gazed at as if she could never leave off. And behind her, gazing too, though Mary had the best place, of course, as it was her birthday and she was a girl--behind her stood her brothers. For a few seconds, which seemed longer to the children, there was perfect silence in the room. It was a strange wonderful silence. Mary never forgot it. Her breath came fast, her heart seemed to beat in a different way, her little face, which was generally rather pale, grew flushed. And then at last she turned to her father who was waiting quietly. He did not want to interrupt them. "Like as if we were saying our prayers, wasn't it?" Artie said afterwards. But when Mary turned she felt that he had been watching them all the time, and there was a _very_ nice smile on his face. "Papa," she said. She seemed as if she could not get out another word, "papa--is it?" "Yes, darling," he replied, "it is. It's a baby sister. Isn't that the nicest present you ever had?" Then there came back to Mary what she had often said about "not wanting a baby sister," and she could scarcely believe she had ever felt like that. She was sorry to remember she had said it, only she knew she had not understood about it. "I never thought her would be so pretty," she said. "I never thought her would be so sweet. Oh papa, her is a _lubly_ birfday present! When her wakes up, mayn't I kiss her?" "Of course you may, and hold her in your arms if you are very careful," said her father, looking very pleased. He had been very anxious for Mary to love the baby a great deal, for sometimes "next-to-the-baby" children are rather jealous and cross at being no longer the pet and the youngest. It was a very good thing he and her mamma agreed that the baby had come as a birthday present to Mary. The idea of holding her in her own arms was so delightful that again for a moment or two Mary felt as if she could not speak. "And what do you two fellows think of your new sister?" said papa, turning to the boys. Leigh leant over the cradle and peered in very earnestly. "She's something like," he said slowly, "something like those very tiny little ducklings," and seeing a smile on his father's face he went on to explain, though he grew rather red, "I don't know what makes me think that. She looks so soft and cosy, I suppose. You know the little ducklings, papa? They're like balls of fluffy down." "I don't think she's a bit like them," said Artie, who in his turn had been having a good examination of the baby. "I think she's more like a very little monkey. Do you remember that tiny monkey with a pink face, that sat on the organ in the street at grandmamma's one day, Leigh? It _was_ like her." He spoke quite gravely. He had admired the monkey very much. He did not at all mean that the new baby was not pretty, and his father's smile grew rather comical. "See how she scroozles up her face," he went on; "she's _just_ like the monkey now. It was a very nice monkey, you know, papa." But Mary was not pleased. She had never seen a monkey, but there was a picture of one for the letter "M" in what she called her "animal book," and she did not think it pretty at all. "No," she said, "no, Artie, her's not a' inch like a monkey. Her's _booful_, just booful, and monkeys isn't." Then suddenly she gave a little cry. "Oh papa, dear, do look," she called out, "her's openin' her eyes. I never 'amembered her could open her eyes," and Mary nearly danced with delight. Yes indeed, Miss Baby was opening her eyes and more than her eyes--her little round mouth opened too, and she began to cry--quite loud! Mary had heard babies cry before now, of course, but somehow everything about _this_ baby was too wonderful. She did not seem at all like the babies Mary saw sometimes when she was out walking; she was like herself and not anything else. Mary's face grew red again when she heard the baby cry. "Oh papa, dear," she said. "Has her hurt herself?" "No, no, she's all right," said papa. But all the same he did not take baby out of her cot--papas are very fond of their babies of course, but I do not think they like them _quite_ so much when they cry--instead of that, he turned towards the door leading into the next room. "Nurse," he said in a low voice, but nurse heard him. "Yes, sir," said a voice, in reply, and then came another surprise for Mary. The person who came quickly into the room was not "nurse" at all, but somebody quite different, though she had a nice face and was very neatly dressed. Who could she be? The world did seem _very_ upside down this birthday morning to Mary! "Nurse," she repeated to her father, with a very puzzled look. "Yes, dear," said the stranger, "I'm come to be baby's nurse. You see she needs so much taking care of just now while she's still so very little--your nurse wouldn't have time to do it all." "No," said Mary, "I think it's a good plan," and she gave a little sigh of satisfaction. She loved the baby dearly already and she would have been quite ready to give her anything--any of her toys or pretty things, if they would have pleased her--but still she did feel it would have been rather hard for _her_ nurse to be so busy all day that she could not take care of Artie and her as usual. The strange nurse smiled. Mary was what people call an "old-fashioned" child, and one of her funny expressions was saying anything that she liked was "a good plan." She stood staring with all her eyes as the nurse cleverly lifted baby out of the cot and laid her on her knee in a comfortable way, so that she left off crying. But her eyes were still open, and Mary came close to look at them. "Is her going to stay awake now?" she said. "Perhaps she will, for a little while," said the nurse. "But such very tiny babies like to sleep a great deal." Mary stood quite still. She felt as if she could stay there all day just looking at the baby--every moment she found out some new wonder about her. "Her's got ears," she said at last. "Of course she has," said the strange nurse. "You wouldn't like her to be deaf?" "Baby," said Mary, but baby took no notice. "Her _it_ deaf," she went on, looking very disappointed. "Her doesn't look at me when I call her." "No, my dear," said the nurse. "She hasn't learnt yet to understand. It will take a good while. You will have to be very patient. Little babies have a great, great deal to learn when they first come into this world. Just think what a great many things you have learnt yourself since you were a baby, Miss Mary." Mary looked at her. She had never thought of this. "I wasn't never so little, was I?" she said. "Yes, quite as little. And you couldn't speak, or stand, or walk, or do anything except what this little baby does." This was very strange to think of. Mary thought about it for a moment or two without speaking. Then she was just going to ask some more questions, when she heard her father's voice. "Mary," he said, "mamma is awake and you may come in and get a birthday kiss. Leigh and Artie are waiting for you to have the first kiss as you're the queen of the day." "I'd like there to be two queens," said Mary, as she trotted across to her father. "'Cos of baby coming on my birfday. When will her have a birfday of hers own?" she went on, stopping short on her way when this thought came into her head. Her father laughed as he picked her up. "I'm afraid you'll have to wait a whole year for that," he said. "Next year, if all's well, your birthday and baby's will come together." "Oh, that will be nice," said Mary, but then for a minute or two she forgot all about baby, as her father lifted her on to her mother's bed to get the birthday kiss waiting for her. "My pet," said her mother, "are you pleased with your presents, and are you having a happy day?" Mary put up her little hand and stroked her mother's forehead, on which some little curls of pretty brown were falling. "Mamma dear," she said, "your hair isn't very tidy. Shall I call Larkin to brush it smoove?" and she began to scramble off the bed to go to fetch the maid. "What a little fidget you are," said her mother. "Never mind about my hair. I want you to tell me what you think of your little sister." "I think her _sweet_," said Mary. "And her curls is somefin like yours, mamma. But Leigh says hers like little ducks, and Artie says hers like a pink monkey." Mamma began to laugh at this, quite loud. But just then the nurse put her head in at the door. "Baby's opening her eyes so wide, Miss Mary," she said. "Do come and look at her, and you, Master Leigh and Master Artie too. You shall come and see your mamma again in the afternoon." So they all three went back into the other room to have another look at baby. "I say, children," called their father after them. "We've got to fix what baby's to be called. It'll take a lot of thinking about, so you must set your wits to work, and tell me to-morrow what name you like best." CHAPTER FOUR. BABIES. There was plenty to think of all that day. Mary's little head had never been so full, and before bedtime came she began to feel quite sleepy. It had been a very happy day, even though everything seemed rather strange. Their father would have liked to stay with them, but he was obliged to go away. Nurse--I mean Artie's and Mary's own nurse--was _very_ good to them, and so were cook and all the other servants. The birthday dinner was just what Mary liked--roast chicken and bread-sauce and little squirly rolls of bacon, and a sponge-cake pudding with strawberry jam. And there was a very nice tea, too; the only pity was that baby could not have any of the good things, because, as nurse explained, she had no teeth. "She'll have some by next birthday, won't she?" asked Leigh. "I hope so, poor dear," said nurse, "though she'll scarcely be able to eat roast chicken by then." "Why do you say `poor dear'?" asked Leigh. "Because their teeth coming often hurts babies a good deal," said nurse. "It would be much better if they were all ready," said Leigh. "I don't see why they shouldn't be. Baby's got hands and eyes and everything else--why shouldn't she have teeth?" "I'm sure I can't say, Master Leigh," nurse answered. "There's many things we can't explain." Mary opened her mouth wide and began tugging at her own little white teeth. "Them doesn't hurt me," she said. "Ah but they did, Miss Mary," said nurse. "Many a night you couldn't sleep for crying with the pain of them, but you can't remember it." "It's very funny," said Mary. "What's funny?" asked Leigh. "About 'amembering," answered Mary, and a puzzled look came into her face. "Can you 'amember when you was a tiny baby, nurse?" "No, my dear, nobody can," said nurse. "But don't worry yourself about understanding things of that kind." "There's somefin in my head now that I can't 'amember," said Mary, "somefin papa said. It's that that's teasing me, nurse. I don't like to not 'amember what papa said." "You must ask him to-morrow, dearie," nurse answered. "You'll give yourself a headache if you go on trying too hard to remember." "Isn't it _funny_ how things go out of our minds like that?" said Leigh. "I'll tell you what I think it is. I think our minds are like cupboards or chests of drawers, and some of the things get poked very far back so that we can't get at them when we want them. You see the newest things are at the front, that's how we can remember things that have just happened and not things long ago." "No," said Artie, "'tisn't quite like that, Leigh. For I can remember what we had for dinner on my birthday, and that was very long ago, before last winter, much better than what we had for dinner one day last week." "I can tell you how that is," said nurse, "what you had for dinner on your birthday made a mark on your mind because it was your birthday. Everything makes marks on our minds, I suppose, but some go deeper than others. That's how it's always seemed to me about remembering and forgetting. And if there's any name I want to remember very much I say it out loud to myself two or three times, and that seems to press it into my mind. Dear, dear, how well I remember doing that way at school when I was a little girl. There was the kings and queens, do what I would, I couldn't remember how their names came, till I got that way of saying two or three together, like `William and Mary, Anne, George the First,' over and over." The children listened with great interest to nurse's recollections, the boys especially, that is to say; the talk was rather too difficult for Mary to understand. But her face looked very grave; she seemed to be listening to what nurse said, and yet thinking of something behind it. All at once her eyes grew bright and a smile broke out like a ray of sunshine. "I 'amember," she said joyfully. "Nursie said her couldn't 'amember names. It was names papa said. He said us was to fink of a name for baby." "Oh, is that what you've been fussing about?" said Leigh. "I could have told you that long ago. _I've_ fixed what I want her to be called. I've thought of a _very_ pretty name." Mary looked rather sorry. "I can't fink of any names," she said; "I can only fink of `Mary.' Can't her be called `Mary,' 'cos it's my birfday?" Leigh and Artie both began to laugh. "What a silly girl you are," said Leigh; "how could you have two people in one family with the same name? Whenever we called `Mary,' you'd never know if it was you or the baby we meant." "You could say `baby Mary,'" said Mary, who did not like to be called a silly girl. "And when she was big," said Leigh, "how would she like to be called `baby'?" Mary had not thought of this, still she would not give in. "Peoples has the same names," she said. "Papa's name's `Leigh,' and your name's `Leigh,'--there now--" and as another idea struck her, "and us _all_ is called Bertum. Papa's Mr Bertum and mamma's Mrs Bertum and--and--" "And you're `Miss Bertum,'" said Leigh, laughing. "But that's because Bertram is our _family_ name, you see, Mary. We've each got a first name too. It doesn't much matter papa and me being the same, except that sometimes I think mamma's calling me when she means papa, but it would never do if Artie and I had the same name. Fancy, if we were both called `Artie,' we'd never know which you meant." "No," said Mary, laughing too, "it would be a very bad plan. I never thought of that. But I _can't_ think of a pitty name for dear little baby." "There's lots," said Artie, who had been sitting very silent--to tell the truth, he had forgotten all about choosing a name, but he did not want to say so. So he had been thinking of all the names he could, so that he might seem quite as ready as Leigh. "There's Cowslip and Buttercup and Firefly and--" "Nonsense," said Leigh, "considering you're six years old, Artie, you're sillier than Mary. Those are cows' names, and--" "They're not--not all of them," said Artie, "Firefly's a pony's name. It's little Ella Curry's pony's name, and I think it's very pretty." "For a pony perhaps," said nurse, "but then you see, Master Artie, your little sister isn't a pony." "I wish she was," said Leigh, and when nurse looked up astonished he looked rather ashamed. "Of course I don't mean that it isn't nice for her to be a little girl," he went on, "but I do so wish we had a pony." "You may just be patient for a while, Master Leigh," said nurse; "you know your papa's promised you a pony when you're ten years old, and by that time baby will be nearly two." "That won't matter," said Leigh, "even Mary won't be able to ride my pony. It's to be a real sensible one, not a stupid donkey sort of pony, with panniers or a basket on its back." "No," said Artie, "it's to be a galoppy-trot one! Won't we make him go, Leigh." "I shall," said Leigh; "you won't have much to say to it. You'll be too little too." Artie's face fell. Mary, who was sitting beside him, slipped her little hand into his. "Nebber mind, Artie," she said. "We'll ask papa to give us anoder pony. A very gentle one for you and me and baby." "A perambulator will be more in baby's way," said nurse. "Miss Mary's old one is quite worn out and they do make such pretty ones nowadays. I hope your mamma will get her a very nice one." "And may we push it sometimes?" said Artie, brightening up again, "that would be nice." Leigh gave a little laugh. "What a baby you are, Artie," he was beginning, but nurse, who saw that he was in one of his teasing humours, looked up quickly. "It's such a fine evening," she said, "and it's scarcely five o'clock. How would you like to go out a little walk? We didn't go very far to-day. We might go as far as the Lavender Cottages, I've something to take there from your mamma." The boys looked very pleased. "Oh yes, nurse," they said, "do let's go out." "And mayn't we stop and see the puppies at the smithy on the way?" Leigh went on. "I'm f'ightened of those little barky dogs," said Mary; "I don't want to go out, nurse, I'm sleepy." "It'll do you good, my dear, to have a little walk before you go to bed; you'll sleep all the better for it and wake all the fresher in the morning," and a few minutes afterwards, when the little party were walking down the drive, Mary looked quite bright again. It was a very lovely evening. The way to the Lavender Cottages lay across the fields, and, as every one knows, there is nothing prettier than a long stretch of grass land with the tender spring green lighted up by late afternoon sunshine. Mary trotted along contentedly, thinking to herself. "My birfday's going to bed soon," she thought, "and to-morrow morning it'll be gone--gone away for a long, long time," and she gave a little sigh. "But somefins won't be gone away, all my birfday presents will stay, and baby sister will stay, and when my birfday comes back again it will be hers too. Dear little baby sister! I wish her had comed out a walk wif us, the sun is so pitty." The smithy was at the foot of the road leading up to the cottages, just opposite the stile by which they left the fields. This stile had three steps up and three steps down, with a bar of wood to clamber across at the top. It was one of the children's favourite stiles, as the boys always pretended that the bar was a pony on which they had a ride on the way over. To-day nurse and Mary waited patiently till they had ridden far enough. Then Artie hopped down the other side and Leigh stood at the top to help his sister over, for though he was a teasing boy sometimes, he never forgot that she was a little girl and that it was his place to take care of her. "Leigh," said Mary, as he was lifting her down, "I is so f'ightened of those little dogs! Please don't go to see them." "How can you be frightened of them, Mary?" said Leigh. "It's really very silly! They're only baby dogs, don't you understand; they couldn't hurt anybody." This was quite a new idea to Mary, and she stopped short on the second step of the stile to think about it. "_Baby_ dogs," she said, "I never thought little dogs was babies. Is there babies of everything, Leigh?" "Of course there are. Don't you remember the baby ducks? And the little lambs are baby sheep, and even the tiny buds are baby flowers." "And _babies_ never hurts nobody, does they?" said Mary, as she got safely to the ground again with the help of her brother's hand. "Then I won't be f'ightened, Leigh, of the little doggies. You may take me to see them," and as Leigh hurried on to the smithy, which he thought the most delightful place in the world, Mary trotted beside him as fast as her little legs could go, holding firmly to him while she said over to herself, though in rather a trembling voice-- "I never thought them was _baby_ dogs, _babies_ don't hurt nobody." Yakeman the smith was standing in front of his forge, taking a rest after the day's work. "Good-evening, Master Leigh," he said, as the children came up to him. "Come for a look at the puppies, sir? They're getting on finely. Would Missie like to see them too?" and he turned to open a little gate leading into his garden. Leigh looked down at Mary, not quite sure what she would feel about it. Her face was rather red, and she pinched his hand more tightly. "Would you like to see them, Mary?" he asked. "Oh, yes, I'm not f'ightened now," she answered bravely. "You've no call to be afear'd," said Yakeman, as he led the way. "No," said Mary, "'cos them's only babies." The puppies were all tumbling over each other in a comfortable nest of hay in the corner of a shed. There were four of them, brown curly balls, nearly as soft and fluffy as Leigh's favourite ducklings. Yakeman stooped down and picked one up with his big hand and held it close to Mary. She stroked it gently with the very tip of her fingers. "It _are_ sweet," she said, with a rather shaky little laugh, and as no harm came of her touching it, she grew still braver. "May I kiss its little head?" she said, looking up at the tall blacksmith, who smiled down on her. "To be sure, Missie," said he, so Mary buried her nose in the brown fur, suddenly giving a little cry as she felt something warm and wet on her cheek. "He's licking you," said Leigh; "I dare say he means it for kissing though. I say, Mary, wouldn't it be nice if papa would let us have a puppy for our very own." "A baby puppy and a baby sister," said Mary. "Did you know us had got a baby sister?" she went on, to the smith. "Her comed to-day 'cos it were my birfday." "That was a fine birthday present," said Yakeman, "and you'd be welcome to this puppy if your papa would allow you to have it. I've promised two and I'm keeping one myself, but this here I'd not settled about." Mary's eyes sparkled, and so did Leigh's. "We'd have him between us, Mary," said Leigh. "We must ask papa. _You'd_ better ask him because of its being your birthday, you know." Just then they heard nurse's voice, she had been waiting for Artie while he had another ride on the stile. "Master Leigh and Miss Mary, where are you?" she said. "We must be getting on." The children thanked the smith and ran after her, full of the offer which had been made to them. "Oh, nurse," said Mary, when they had told her of it. "Just fink of all my birfday presents! A baby sister and a baby dog, and all my nother things," and she gave a great sigh of pleasure. "Yes, indeed, Miss Mary," said nurse. "I don't think you'll ever forget your fourth birthday." CHAPTER FIVE. WITH PAPA. The children's father came back late that night, but too late for them to see him. And the next morning he had to be off again, this time for two whole days together, so there was no chance of asking him about the dog. Leigh and Mary spoke of it to their mother, but dogs are things that papas have most to do with, and she could only say, "You must ask papa." It was rather trying to have to wait so long to know about it, or at least it would have been so if Mary had not had so many other interesting things to think about just then. There were all her birthday presents, her "regular" birthday presents, as the boys called them, which were still of course quite new, not to speak of the baby, which seemed to Mary more wonderful every time she saw her. Unless you really live with a baby, and that, as you know, had never happened to Mary before, you can have no idea how very interesting babies are, even when they are so tiny that they can do nothing but go to sleep and wake again, and cry when they are hungry, and stretch themselves and yawn, and make oh! such funny faces! Why, that is quite a long list of things to do already, and there are ever so many more queer little ways about a baby when you come to notice them. Even its little pink toes seemed to Mary the prettiest and funniest things she had ever seen in her life. Leigh and she fixed together that, till they had asked their father about the dog, they would not go past the smithy. "It only makes us fink about it," said Mary. And nurse, who, to tell the truth, was not very eager for them to get the puppy, was not sorry when the children asked her not to pass that way. "Miss Mary is still frightened of Yakeman's dogs," she thought to herself, "and it's just as well. I don't know whatever we'd do if we had to take a puppy out walks with us as well as Miss Baby." For of course nurse knew that before long, when the baby grew a little bigger, she would come to live in the nursery altogether and go out walks with the others. Just at first nurse would carry her, but after awhile she would go in the new perambulator which nurse had set her heart upon getting. That reminds me of Mary's present from her father and mother, which, as I told you, was a doll's perambulator. It was a great amusement to them all, not only to Mary. You have no idea what a lot of fun you can get out of a doll's perambulator. It was not only the dolls that went drives in it; the children tried several other things which did not succeed very well. The kitten for one did not like it at all. Leigh caught it one day, when there was no one else to take a drive, for the dolls had all got very bad colds, and Doctor Artie had said that they must on no account go out. Mary looked very grave at this, but of course the doctor's orders had to be obeyed. "What shall we do?" she said sadly. "It will be so dull to go out a walk wifout the perambulator," for till now the dolls had had a drive every day. "Leave it to me," said Leigh, "you'll find some one all ready waiting when you come down to go out." And sure enough when nurse and Mary arrived at the door, there was the perambulator, and seated in the doll's place, or rather tied into it, was a very queer figure indeed--the kitten, as I told you, looking and feeling perfectly miserable. Leigh had done his best to make it comfortable. He had tied it in with a large soft handkerchief very cleverly, but it was mewing piteously all the same. "Come along quick, Mary," he said, "Kitty's in a great hurry to be off; she doesn't like being kept waiting, that's what she's saying." Mary looked as if she was not quite sure if that was what Kitty's mews really meant, but of course, as Leigh was so much bigger and older, she thought he must know best. So she began pushing the perambulator, very gently at first, for fear of frightening poor pussy, who was so much astonished at feeling herself moving that for a moment or two she left off mewing. "There now," said Leigh, "you see how she likes it. Go faster, Mary." Mary set off running as fast as she could, which was not very fast, however, for at four years old, one's legs are still very short, but she did her best, as she wanted to please Leigh and the kitten too. The garden path was smooth and it was a little down hill. Leigh scampered on in front, Mary coming after him rather faster than she meant. Indeed she began to have a queer feeling that her legs were running away with her, when all of a sudden there came a grand upset. Mary found herself on the ground, on the top of the perambulator, and even before she had time to pick herself up her little voice was heard crying out: "Oh poor Kitty! I'se felled on the top of poor Kitty!" But no, Kitty was not as much to be pitied as Mary herself, for the poor little girl's knees were sadly scratched by the gravel and one of her hands was really bleeding. While, there was Kitty, galloping home in great glee--Leigh's handkerchief spreading out behind her like a lady's train. Mary scarcely knew whether to laugh or _cry_. I think she did a little of both. Leigh wanted to catch pussy again, but nurse would not hear of it, and proposed instead that they should use the perambulator to bring home a beautiful lot of primroses for their mother, from the woods. After this adventure with the kitten, Leigh tried one or two other "tricks," as nurse called them. He wanted to make a coachman of one of his guinea-pigs, who sat quite still as long as he had a leaf of lettuce to munch, but when that was done let himself roll out like a ball over and over again, till even Leigh got tired of catching him and putting him back. Artie's pet rabbit did no better, and then it was decided that when the dolls were ill it would be best to use the perambulator as a cart, for fetching flowers and fir-cones and all sorts of things. This was such fun that the dolls were often obliged to stay at home, even when their colds were not very bad. And for nearly a week the children kept away from the smithy. Papa had been home during that week, of course, and they had tried to ask about the puppy. But he was very busy and hurried; all he could say was that he must see the dog first, and that of course he had had no time for. At last there came a morning on which, when the children went down to see their father after the nursery breakfast, they found him sitting comfortably at the table pouring himself out a second cup of nice hot coffee and reading the newspaper, as if he was not in a hurry at all. "Oh papa," said Leigh, "how jolly it is to see you like that, instead of gobbling up your breakfast as if the train was at the door." "If the train came as near as that I shouldn't be so hurried," said his father laughing, but Mary did not look quite pleased. "Papa doesn't gobble," she said. "Leigh shouldn't speak that way, it's like gooses and turkeys." "I didn't mean that kind of gobbling," said Leigh. "Turkeys gobble-wobble--it's their way of talking. I didn't mean _that_ of papa." Mary still looked rather doubtful, but her father caught her up and set her on his knee with a kiss. "Thank you, my princess," he said, "for standing up for your poor old father. Now, what can I do for you? I've got a nice long holiday before me, all to-day and all to-morrow at home, so I'm quite at your service." Mary looked up. She did not quite understand what "quite at your service" meant, and it was her way when she did not understand anything to think it over for a moment or two before she asked to have it explained. It is not a bad way to do, because there are often things a child can get to understand by a little thinking, and some children have a silly way of never using their own minds if they can help it. "Why don't you answer, Mary?" said Leigh. "I know what _I'd_ say, if papa offered to do anything I wanted, and I think you might remember what we're all wanting so much." Mary's face cleared. "I didn't understand," she said. "But I do now. O papa dear, will you come and see the sweet little doggie at the smiffy? We've been waiting and waiting." "Oh dear," said her father, "I'd forgotten all about it. Yes, of course I'll take a look at it. Let's see: they're retriever pups, aren't they?" Leigh did not answer for a moment. To tell the truth, he was not quite sure what kind of dogs Yakeman's were, though he did not like to say so. "They are brown and curly," he said at last. "And the top of our one's head is nearly as soft as--as baby," added Mary. "Baby would be flattered," said her father. "We're going to call it Fuzzy," Mary went on. "It are so very soft." "And oh, by the by," said papa, "you've never chosen a name for your little sister, so mamma and I have had to fix on one. What do you think of Dorothea?" The children looked at their father doubtfully. "Dorothea," said Leigh. "Doro--" began Artie, stopping in the middle, as he forgot the rest. "Dodo--" said Mary, stopping too. "It's a difficult name, papa." "And I don't think it's very pretty," said Leigh. "Wait a minute," said papa. "You'll like it when I explain about it. You know that baby came on Mary's birthday?" "Yes," said Mary. "She were my best birfday present." "That's just it," her father went on. "`Dorothea' means a present--a present from God, which must mean the best kind of present." "Oh," said Mary, "that's very nice! Please say it again, papa, and I'll try to learn it. Dodo--" "No," said Artie, looking very superior. "Doro--not Dodo." "You needn't look down upon Mary," said Leigh, "if you can't get any further than that. It's Dorothea. I can say it well enough of course, but I do think it's a very long name, papa, for such a very little baby." "She'll grow up to be a big girl some day, I hope," said their father. "But you're all in such a hurry you won't let me finish explaining. Besides having a nice meaning, we like Dorothea because there's such a pretty way of shortening it. We're going to call your little sister `Dolly.'" "That's not difficult," said Mary. "Only it seems as if she was a dolly." "No it doesn't," said Leigh. "Your dolls have all got their own names. I like Dolly very much, papa, and I think we'll better call her it now. `Baby' is so common, there's such lots of babies." "There's a baby at the baker's shop," said Artie, who did not like being left out of the conversation. "It's a lot bigger than our baby, it goes in a sitting-up perambulator all alone." "Dear me," said his father. "How very curious! I should like to see it! We shall be having babies riding tricycles next." Artie stared, he did not understand, but Leigh began to laugh. "How funny you are, papa," he said. "Of course, Artie doesn't mean that it pushes itself along, though _I_ think that pushing a perambulator is very stupid. If I had a baby I know what I'd do." "On the whole, I'd rather not be your baby, I think, Leigh. But if we're going to the smithy this morning, we'd better set off. Run and get ready, boys." Leigh and Artie scampered off, and their father was following them, when a sudden sound made him stop short. It was a wail from Mary. "What is the matter, my darling?" he said, turning back to her. "I does so want to come too," said Mary through her tears. "'Cos the little dog were for me." "You shall come, dear," said her father; "but why didn't you ask me without beginning to cry? That's not being a sensible girl." Mary's face was very like an April day. She smiled up at her father in a minute. "I won't cry," she said, "I'll be very good. Will you wait for me if nurse dresses me very quick, papa?" and she set off after her brothers, mounting upstairs as fast as she could, though "could" was not very fast, as right leg was obliged to wait on each step till left leg made up to it. CHAPTER SIX. "FUZZY." Yakeman at the smithy looked very pleased to see his visitors, especially as their father was with the children. "The puppies are getting on finely," he said. "Two of them are going to their new masters to-morrow. But I've held on to the one as Miss Mary fancied, thinking you'd be looking in some day soon." "We've wanted to come ever so often," said Leigh. "We was waiting for papa," added Mary. "And we didn't come round this way 'cos it made us want the dear little dog so much." Yakeman listened gravely. "I thought I hadn't seen you passing the last few days," he said. "But I wouldn't have let the dog go, not without sending up to ask you." "Oh, we knowed you'd keep him," said Mary, and then Yakeman led the way round to the side of the house again, where the four puppies were rolling and tumbling about in perfect content, their mother watching their gambols with great pride. Suddenly a new thought struck Mary. "Won't her be very unhappy when them all goes away?" she asked Yakeman anxiously. "And won't them cry for their mamma?" The smith smiled. "They're getting old enough to do without her now," he said. "But she'll miss them, no doubt, will poor old Beauty," and he patted the retriever's head as he spoke. "It's the way of the world, bain't it, sir?" turning to the children's father. "Dogs and humans. The young ones leave the old ones cheery enough. It's the old ones as it's hard on!" Mary did not quite understand what he meant, but something made her catch hold of her father's hand. "You won't never let me go away, will you, papa?" she whispered. "Not _never_, will you?" "Not unless you want to go, certainly," said her father, smiling down at her. "But now show me which is the puppy you'd like to have." Mary looked rather puzzled, and so, though they would not have owned it, were the boys. "I think," began Leigh, not at all sure of what he was going to say, but just then, luckily, Yakeman came to their help by picking up one of the puppies. "This here is Miss Mary's one. We've called it hers--the missis and I, ever since the last time you was here." He gave a little laugh, though he did not say what he was laughing at. To tell the truth, Mrs Yakeman and he had called the puppy "Miss Mary!" Mary rubbed her nose, as she had done before, on the puppy's soft curly head. "It are so sweet," she said. "We're going to call him `Fuzzy.' But, oh papa!" and her voice began to tremble. "Oh Leigh and Artie, I don't think we should have him if it would make his poor mother unhappy to be leaved all alone." "It won't be so bad as that, Miss Mary," said the smith, who, though he was such a big man, had a very tender heart, and could not bear to see the little girl's face clouded. "We're going to keep Number 4 for ourselves, and after a day or two Beauty will be quite content with him. You can look in and see for yourselves when you're passing." "Of course," said Leigh, in his wise tone. "It'll be all right, Mary. And we can bring Fuzzy to see his mother sometimes, to pay her a visit, you know." Mary's face cleared. Yakeman and Leigh must know best, and papa would not let them have the dog if it was unkind. It was not what _she'd_ like--to live in a house across the fields from mamma, only to pay her a morning call now and then. But still, dogs were different, she supposed. All this time papa had been looking at Fuzzy, as I think we may now begin to call him. "He's a nice puppy," he said, "a very nice little fellow. Of course, he'll want to be properly taken care of, and careful training. But I can trust Mellor--you know Mellor, of course, the coachman?" he went on to the smith. "He's not bad with dogs." "No, sir, I should say he's very good with 'em," Yakeman replied. "Feedin's a deal to do with it--there's a many young dogs spoilt with over feedin'." "I'll see to that," said Mr Bertram. "Now, children, we must be moving on, I think." But the three stood there looking rather strange. "I thought--" began Leigh. "Won't we--" began Artie. "Oh, papa," began Mary. "What in the world is the matter?" said their father in surprise. "Aren't you pleased about the puppy? I'll send Mellor to fetch him to-morrow." "It's just that," said Leigh. "Yes," said Artie. "We thought he'd be ours, our very own," said Mary, at last explaining what they were in trouble about. For though the three had said nothing to each other, each knew that the others were thinking and feeling the same. "We meant to fetch him ourselves," said Leigh again. "We was going to give him his breakfast and dinner and tea in the nursery," chimed in Artie. "I was p'annin'," added Mary, "that he'd sleep in our beds in turns. I didn't tell Leigh and Artie. I were going to 'apprise them. But I meaned to let it be in turns." Papa began to laugh. So did Yakeman. They could not help it. "Sleep in your cots," said papa. "There wouldn't be much left of the cots or you by the morning." "He wouldn't _eat_ us," said Leigh, looking rather startled. "Not exactly," said his father. "But if he took to rolling on the top of you and making hay of the bedclothes--just look at him now tumbling about in the straw with his brothers--you would not be likely to have a very good night." "And if he had three meals a day in the nursery, there'd not be much left of _he_ in a week or less," said Yakeman. The children looked very surprised. "_We_ always have breakfast and dinner and tea," said Artie, "and little dogs is hungry too." "Ah! yes," said the smith; "but they couldn't do with as much as that. And it'd never do neither for the puppy to eat all as you eats, Master Artie. Puppies isn't little young gentlemen and ladies, and every creature has its own ways. He'll be all right in the stable, never you fear, and Mr Mellor'll see as he has all he should." But still the three faces did not clear. Leigh moved away as if he were going to the gate, flicking his boots with a little whip he had in his hand, to seem as if he did not care, though in reality he was very nearly crying. And Artie's and Mary's faces grew longer and longer. "I don't think I want to have him," she said at last. "Zank you, Mr Yakeman, and zank you, papa; but him wouldn't be _nours_--him'd be Mellor's," and then there came a little choke in Mary's voice and a misty look in her eyes, and in a moment Artie's pocket-handkerchief was out of his pocket and he was rubbing her cheeks with all his might. "_Don't_ cry, Mary," he said; "_please_, don't cry. P'raps papa won't--" I am not quite sure what he was going to say. I am not sure that he knew himself. But whatever it was, he was interrupted. For before Mary's tears had had time to begin their journey down her face, papa had picked her up in his arms and was busy comforting her. He could not bear to see her cry! Really, it was rather a wonder that she was not spoilt. "My pet," he said, "there is truly nothing to cry about. The puppy-- what is it you call him, Fudge or Fuss--" Mary could not help laughing a little. Fancy calling a puppy "Fudge." "No, papa dear; _Fuzzy_--that's what we was going to call him." "Well, darling, Fuzzy shall be your very own. You shall go to see him in the stables whenever you like; I'll tell Mellor. And he will go out walks with you--the puppy, I mean, not Mellor--as soon as ever he has learnt to follow." This made Mary laugh again. The idea of Mellor going out a walk with them all, following behind like a well-behaved dog. For Mellor was not very young, and he had a broad red face and was rather fat. Papa was pleased to hear Mary laughing, even though it was rather a shaky little laugh, and he went on to explain more. "You see he's not the sort of dog that you can have in the house, particularly not in the nursery," he said. "Indeed, I hardly think that any dog except a very old and tried one is safe in a nursery, above all, where there's such a little baby as--" "Dolly," said Mary quietly, to show that she had not forgotten what baby was to be called. "Yes, as Dolly," her father went on. "They would be two babies together, and they might hurt each other without meaning it. Dolly might pull Fuddle's hair--" At this all three children burst out laughing, quite a hearty laugh this time. "Oh, papa dear," said Mary, "what a very bad mem'ry you've got! It isn't _Fuddle_! Can't you say _Fuzzy_?" "Fuzzy, _Fuzzy_, Fuzzy," said papa, speaking like the three bears turned the wrong way. "There, now, I think I've got it into my stupid old head at last. Well, as I was saying, Miss Dolly might pull Master Fuzzy's hair, without meaning to hurt him of course, and he might turn round and snap at her, not exactly meaning to hurt her either, but still--it might be rather bad, you see." Mary's face grew very grave. "I never thought of that," she said solemnly. "It would be dedful for dear little baby Dolly to be hurted, though I'm kite sure Fuzzy wouldn't mean it." "But when Dolly's a good bit bigger, and when Fuzzy is quite a trained dog, he may come into the house sometimes, mayn't he?" said Leigh. "At Auntie Maud's," said Artie, "there's _free_ dogs always lying in the hall. They get up and come and sniff you when you go in. When I was a little boy I was frightened of them, but they never bit me." "Ah! well," said his father, "when Dolly's a big girl and Fuzzy's a big dog, we'll see. Some dogs are very good indeed with little children; I hope he'll be. I remember seeing a great Newfoundland that let his master's children ride on his back, just as if he was a little pony. He stalked along as steadily as possible." "And in some countries," said Leigh eagerly, "dogs are taught to draw little carriages, aren't they? I've seen pictures of them, up where there's such lots of snow near the top of the world. Squim--something, those people are called." "Esquimaux, you mean, I suppose," said his father laughing. He had put down Mary by this time, and they were walking on slowly up the hill towards the Lavender Cottages. "Yes, and in other countries not so far off I've seen dogs drawing little carts as soberly as possible." "I _would_ like to see that!" said Artie, his eyes sparkling. "And so would I!" said Mary. And Leigh, though he said nothing, took the idea into his mind more than either of the others. By this time they were close to the top of the little hill where stood the cottages of which we have spoken so often--the Lavender Cottages as they were called; because once, a good many years ago, an old man lived there, whose lavender was famed all about that part of the country. He had a garden, almost like a little field, quite full of it. This garden belonged to one of the end cottages, and it was now a regular cottage kitchen-garden, with potatoes and cabbages and other vegetables growing in it, though in one corner there was still a nice little stock of the old lavender bushes. Here lived an old woman and her son, named Sweeting. Mrs Sweeting had once been cook at the hall when the children's father was a little boy, and she was always pleased to have a visit from any of them. "I hear poor old Mrs Sweeting has been ill," said papa; "I'll just go in for a minute or two to see her. You children can wait outside for me." The boys and Mary were not sorry to do so. They were always fond of coming to the Lavender Cottages, not only to see Mrs Sweeting who was very kind to them, but because they were much interested in the family of children who lived next door. There were such a lot of them! The cottage would never have held them all; but luckily, in the third cottage, at the other end again, lived the grandfather and grandmother of the large family, and some of the bigger boys had a room in their house. Still there were plenty left in the middle cottage, as you will hear. CHAPTER SEVEN. THE PERRY FAMILY AND PAPA'S STORY. Besides the three big boys, the children had counted six more young Perrys in the middle one of the Lavender Cottages, and by degrees they had found out most of their names. The eldest girl was about twelve, and her name was a very funny one--it was Comfort. "How tired she must be of people saying to her that they hope she's a comfort to her father and mother," said Leigh, when he first heard her name. I think nurse told it him, for she knew something of the Perrys, and the odd name had taken her fancy. Comfort was rather a tall girl for her age, and she was clever at school, where she often got prizes. But the next to her, a short, rosy-faced child called Janie, who was generally seen carrying about the baby, a very motherly little girl, seemed as if her elder sister's name would have suited her better. After Janie came Ned, and after Ned three little creatures so near each other that they all looked like babies together, and it was difficult to tell whether they were boys or girls. The quite youngest--the one that all the rest of them called "baby"-- spent most of its life seemingly in Janie's arms. I _suppose_ Janie went to school sometimes, but, anyway, the Bertram children never passed the cottages or met the little Perrys in the lanes without seeing the baby in its usual resting-place. The other two babies seemed to spend their lives in a queer old-fashioned kind of double perambulator. It was made of wicker; and in fine weather, and indeed sometimes in weather that was not so very fine, was almost always to be seen standing at the cottage-door or just outside the gate leading into the little garden, with the two small people tied into it, one at each side. To-day they were there as usual. There, too, was Janie with number three baby in her arms, while Comfort was strolling about with a book in her hand, out of which she seemed to be learning something. "Good-morning," said Leigh, by way of opening the conversation. "Where's Ned? He can't be at school; it's a half-holiday, isn't it?" "Please, sir--no, sir, if Ned was at school, Comfort and me would be at school too," said Janie. And Comfort, hearing the talking, came up to where they were standing. They were all in the lane just outside the little garden. "Ned's run in just to get a bit of cord," said the elder girl. "We're goin' a walk in the woods. We must take the little ones, 'cos mother's washing's got late this week, and she wants them out of the way." It was rather curious that Mrs Perry's washing often did get late. She was a kind, good-natured woman, but "folks said," according to nurse, not the best of good managers. "What's Ned going to do with the cord?" asked Leigh, Artie and Mary standing by, listening with the greatest interest, and holding each other's hands tightly, as they felt just a little shy. "Oh, it's a notion of Ned's," said Janie, rather scornfully. "It's just his nonsense: he don't like pushing p'ram, 'cos he says it's girls' work, and Comfort don't hold with pushing it neither, 'cos she wants to be reading her book." Here Comfort broke in. "'Tisn't that I'm so taken up with my book," she said,--"leastways not to please myself; but I want to get moved up after next holidays. When I'm big enough I'm to be a pupil teacher." "That would be very nice," said Leigh. "And then, when you're quite big, you'll get to be a schoolmistress, I suppose." Comfort murmured something and got very red. To be a schoolmistress was the greatest wish she had. "But I don't see," Leigh went on, "what Ned and the cord's got to do with it." "Bless you, sir," said Janie, "he's going to make hisself into a pony to draw the p'ram, so as Comfort need do nothing but walk behind pushing with one hand and a-holding of the book with the other, and no need to look out where they're going." "Oh, I see," said Leigh slowly. He could not help admiring the idea. Then, as Ned at that moment ran out of the cottage, the three little visitors stood in a row watching with the greatest interest while Ned harnessed himself to the front of the wicker carriage. It was a little difficult to manage, but luckily the Perry family were very good-natured, and the two babies in the perambulator only laughed when they got jogged about. And at last, with Leigh's help, the two-legged pony was ready for the start. Off they set, Comfort holding on behind. She was so interested in it all, by this time that her book was given to one of the babies to hold. This was lucky, as the first start was rather a queer one. Ned was not tied in quite evenly, so when he set off at a trot the perambulator ran to one side, as if a crab instead of a boy were drawing it. And but for Comfort behind, no doubt, in another minute it would have turned over. "Stop, Ned, stop!" shouted his sisters, Leigh and Artie and Mary joining in, and the babies too. Then they all burst out laughing; it did seem so funny, and it took a minute or two before they could set to work to put things right. When Ned's harness was made quite even, he set off again more slowly. This time it was a great success, or it seemed so anyway, though perhaps it was as much thanks to Comfort's pushing behind as to Ned's pulling in front. Mary and her brothers stood watching the little party as they made their way along the smooth path leading to the wood. "It's a good thing," said Leigh, "they're not going the smithy way, for if they went down hill, I believe the carriage would tumble over; it's such a shaky old thing." "When our baby gets a perambulator it'll not be like that ugly old thing, will it?" said Artie. "It will be a reg'lar nice one." "Of course it will," said Mary. "I'd like it to be the same as the one in my animal book. `G' for goats, with little goats drawing it." "We can't have a goat," said Leigh; "but we might have something. Of course it's rubbish to harness a boy into a carriage, but--I've got something in my head." There was no time for Artie and Mary to ask him what he meant, for just then they saw their father coming out of the gate. "I've kept you waiting a long time, I'm afraid," he said. "Poor old Sweeting was so glad to see me, and when she begins talking, it goes on for a good while." "We didn't mind, papa dear," said Mary, slipping her hand into her father's. "We've been speaking to the children in the next cottage. There's such lotses of them. When you was a little boy, papa, did you have lotses of brothers and sisters--did you?" "No, my pet, I hadn't any at all," papa answered. "That was rather sad, wasn't it? But I had a very kind father and mother. Your grandfather died many years ago, but you know for yourselves how kind grandmother is." "Grandmother," said Artie and Mary together, looking rather puzzled. "I don't understand," said Mary, and Artie did not understand either, though he would not say so. "How silly you are!" said Leigh; "of course grandmother is papa's mother." "Oh," said Mary, with a little laugh, "I never thought of that! I understand now. Then grandmother used to be a mamma!" "Yes, indeed, and a very sweet one," said papa. "I'm afraid, perhaps, she spoilt me a very little. When I was a child the rules for small people were much stricter than they are now. But I was never at all afraid of my mother." "Were you afraid of your father?" asked Leigh with great interest. "Well, just a little perhaps. I had to be a very obedient boy, I can tell you. That reminds me of a story--" "Oh, papa, do tell it us!" said all three at once, while Mary, who was holding his hand, began giving little jumps up and down in her eagerness. "It was ever so long ago, almost thirty years! I was only six at the time. My father had to go up to London for a few days, and as my mother was away from home--nursing her mother who was ill--" "What was _she_ to us?" interrupted Leigh, who liked to get things straight in his head. "Great-grandmother," answered his father; "_one_ of your great-grandmothers, not the one that we have a picture of, though." "I thought we had pictures of all our grand--I don't know what you call them--for hundreds of years," said Leigh. "Ancestors, you mean," said his father, "but mostly the Bertram ones of course. But if I begin explaining about that now, we'll never get on with my story. Where was I? Oh, yes! I was telling you that my father took me up to London with him, rather than leave me alone at home. I was very pleased to go, for I'd never been in a town before, and I thought myself quite a great man, going off travelling alone with my father. We stayed at an hotel--I'm not sure where it was, but that doesn't matter; I only know it was in a quiet street running out of another large wide street, where there were lots of shops of all kinds, and carriages and omnibuses and carts always passing by. My father took me out with him as much as he could; sometimes he would leave me waiting for him in a cab at the door of the houses where he had to see people on business, and once or twice he found me fast asleep when he came out. He didn't think that good for me; so after that, he sometimes left me in the hotel in the care of the landlady who had a nice little girl just about my age, with whom I used to play very happily. "One day--the day before we were to leave--my father took me out shopping with him. He had to buy some presents, for it was near Christmas-time, to take home for the little cousins who were coming to stay with us. We went off to a large toy-shop in the big street I told you of. It was a very large shop, with a door at each end--one out of the big street, and the other opening on to a smaller back street nearer our hotel. And besides the toy-shop there was another part where they sold dressing-cases and travelling-bags and things of that kind. "We were a good while choosing the toys; among them, I remember, was a fine rocking-horse which my father was very anxious to hear what I thought of, for though I didn't know it at the time, he meant it for me myself." "Like _our_ old rocking-horse in the nursery?" asked Leigh. Papa smiled. "More than like it," he said; "it is that very horse. I've kept it ever since, and I had it done up with a new mane and tail when you got big enough to ride it, Leigh." "Oh, how nice," said Mary, "to think it's papa's own horse! But, please, go on with the story, papa." "Well, when we had chosen the horse and all the other things, my father had something else to buy that he thought I wouldn't care about in the other part of the shop. And I think he wanted to tell them where to send the horse to without my hearing. He looked at his watch and seemed vexed to find it so late. He asked me if I should be afraid to run back to the hotel alone, and turned towards the door opening on to the back street, from which we could see the hotel as it faced the end of that small street. But I think he must have fancied that I looked a little frightened, for then he changed and pointed to the front door of the shop, telling me to stay there till he came back. He said it would amuse me to stand just outside in the entrance where I could both see the shop window and watch the carriages passing. "`But whatever you do, Charlie,' he said, `don't move from there till I come back for you!'" CHAPTER EIGHT. PAPA'S STORY CONTINUED. "For some time, a quarter of an hour or so, I dare say, I stood at the shop door very contentedly. It was very amusing, as my father had said, to watch the bustle in the street. I don't think I looked much at the things in the shop window; I'd seen so many of the toys inside. But after awhile I began to wish that my father would be quick. He did seem to be a very long time. I peeped in through the glass door, but I couldn't see him anywhere near. I even opened it a tiny bit to listen if I could hear his voice, but I couldn't. People often passed me to go into the shop and to come out, but nobody specially noticed me; they were all too busy about their own affairs; besides, there's nothing uncommon in a little boy standing at a toy-shop window. "It seemed to grow colder too. I should have liked to run up and down on the pavement in front to warm myself a little; but I dared not move from where I was. At last some one belonging to the shop happened to come to the door to reach down some large toys hanging in the entrance, and this shopman noticed me. By this time, though I scarcely knew it, the tears were running down my face; I was growing so very tired with waiting. He said to me-- "`Is there anything the matter? Have you hurt yourself?' "I answered No, I was only waiting for my father who was in the shop. `But I don't know why he's such a long time,' I said; `I am so tired of waiting,' and somehow the saying it out made me begin to cry much more. "The young man was very kind and seemed sorry for me. He wanted me to come inside where it would be warmer, while he went to look for my father; but I shook my head and told him that papa had said I must stay just there where I was. I wouldn't even come the least bit inside the door. I remembered papa's words so well-- "`Whatever you do, Charlie, don't move from there till I come back for you!' "In a few minutes the shopman came back again. He was shaking his head now; there was no one in the shop with a little boy belonging to them. There were one or two ladies whom he had asked, which I thought very ridiculous, as if I could have mistaken papa for a lady, but there was no gentleman at all, and he tried again to persuade me to come inside. He said there must be some mistake; my father had most likely gone on somewhere else; perhaps he'd be back in a little while; he'd never want me to stay out there in the cold. But there was no getting me to move. I can remember, even now, the sort of fixed feeling in my mind that I _wouldn't_ do the least differently from what he had told me. "Then the young man went off to fetch some one else--the owner of the shop most likely. I remember two or three people coming up and all talking to me and trying to get me to come inside. But I wouldn't--even though by this time I couldn't leave off crying--I just went on shaking my head and saying-- "He said I was to stay here." "I dare say they thought me a very tiresome little boy, but they were very kind. The young man, my first friend, brought me out a chair, and then I heard them talking about what was to be done. They had asked me my name, which I told them, but I couldn't tell them the name of the hotel where we were staying, for I didn't know it, and I _wouldn't_ tell them that it was in a street close by, because I was afraid they would carry me off there. I think I was getting rather confused by this time; I could only remember that I must stay where I was if ever I was to see papa again. I heard them saying that the gentleman had only given his country address, as the toys were to be sent straight home. "After awhile, in spite of the cold and my unhappiness, I think I must have fallen asleep a little. I was almost too young to be anxious about my father and to fear that some accident must have happened to him, but yet I can quite remember that I had really very dreadful feelings. As the evening went on and the street grew darker and darker, and there began to be fewer passers-by, it seemed worse and worse. Once I remember bursting out into fresh crying at seeing, by the light of the gas-lamp, a little boy passing along chattering merrily to the gentleman whose hand he was holding. I felt like a poor shipwrecked mariner on a desert island--all the lonelier that I was in the middle of a great town. "No doubt the shop people must have been getting uncomfortable and wondering what was to come of it. It must have seemed very strange to them; and, at last, the head man came out again and spoke to me--this time rather sharply, perhaps he thought it the best thing to do-- "`Young gentleman,' he said, `this really can't go on! You must see you can't sit there the whole night. Try and think again of the name of the place you're staying at.' "`I don't know it,' I said, and I dare say I seemed rather sulky, for he grew crosser. "`Well, if you can't or won't tell us, something'll have to be done,' he answered. `It's the police's business, not ours, to look after strayed children, or children that won't say where they come from. Here, Smith,' he called out to the young shopman, `just look up and down the street if there's a policeman to be seen.' "He didn't really mean to do anything unkind, but he thought it the best way to frighten me into coming inside the shop, or into telling where I lived, for I don't think they quite believed that I didn't know. But the word `policeman' terrified me out of my wits; I suppose I was already half-stupefied with tiredness and crying. If I had dared, I would have rushed out into the street and run off anywhere as fast as I could. But, through all, the feeling never left me that I must stay where I was, and I burst into loud screams. "`Oh, papa, papa!' I cried, `why won't you come back? The police are coming to take me; oh, papa, papa!' "I was crying so that for a moment or two I didn't hear a bustle at the other end of the shop. Then, all at once, I saw some one hurrying to me from the door leading into the other street, and as soon as I saw who it was, I rushed to meet him and threw myself into his arms, for of course it was my father. I don't think, in all my life, I have ever felt greater happiness than I did then. "`Oh, Charlie,' he said, `my poor little boy! Have you been waiting here all these hours--my good, obedient, little son?' "Then he turned to the shopman who was now a little ashamed of himself-- I dare say the poor man had been getting really afraid that I was to be left on his hands altogether--and explained the whole mistake. He had gone straight on to the city after finishing his orders in the other part of the shop, forgetting that the _last_ thing he had said to me was to wait for him at the front door of the shop; for his thoughts were very much taken up that morning with some very serious business, and it was actually not till he got back to the hotel, late in the afternoon, and found I wasn't there, that he remembered that the plan of my running back alone had been given up. "Then he was terribly frightened and rushed off to the shop, hardly daring to hope he would find me still there. He kept saying he could scarcely forgive himself, and even years after, I often heard him say that he couldn't understand what had come over his memory that day. "When the shop people saw how troubled he was about it, they began telling him how they had tried to make me come inside, but that it had been no use, and all the way home papa kept saying to me-- "`My faithful little Charlie'--which pleased me very much. "He carried me to the hotel, and I felt so weak and tired that I didn't mind, even though I was a big boy of six years old. And I remember, even now, how delightful it was to get well warmed at the fire, and what a nice tea papa ordered for me. "And the next day I was none the worse; luckily I hadn't caught cold, which papa was very glad of, as my mother came up to London that day to meet us, and we all three travelled home together." The children had been listening with all their ears to papa's story. When he stopped Mary gave a deep sigh. "That's a bee-yu-tiful story, papa," she said. "But it nearly made me cry for the poor little boy." "You shouldn't say that, Mary," said Leigh. "The poor little boy was papa himself! Don't you understand?" "Yes, in course I do," said Mary. "But papa _were_ a little boy then, so I might call him the poor little boy." "That's right, Mary," said her father. "Stick up for yourself when you know what you mean to say. Yes, indeed, I did feel a very poor little boy that day: the thought of it has always made me so sorry for children who are lost, or think they're lost. It's a dreadful feeling." "Papa," said Mary--she was trotting beside her father, holding his hand very tight,--"I think, please, I don't want never to go to London, for fear I should get losted; and, please, never take Leigh or Artie either--not to London--'cos, you see, it was when you was a little boy your papa nearly losted you, and Leigh and Artie are little boys." "Rubbish, Mary," said Leigh. "I'm eight, and papa was only six, not much bigger than you are now. If _I_ was with papa in London at a shop I could find my way home ever so far; there's always people in the street you can ask. It's not like getting lost when there's nobody to tell you the way." "The worst kind of getting lost," said Artie, "is in the snow. Up on those mountains, you know, where the snow comes down so thick that you can't see, and then it gets so deep that you are buried in it." "Oh, how dedful!" said Mary; "you won't ever take us to that place, will you, papa? I'd be more f'ightened than in London! Where is that country, papa?" "I suppose Artie means Switzerland," said their father. "I mean the picture in my book," said Artie; "where there's dogs, you know, snuffing to find the poor people under the snow." "Oh, the great Saint Bernard mountain you mean!" said papa; "it's sure to be that. You often see pictures of it in children's books; there are such pretty stories about the good dogs and the kind monks who live there." "Can you teach any dogs to do things like that?" asked Leigh. "No; they have to be a particular kind," answered papa; "but a dog like your puppy can be taught to fetch anything out of the water, from a bit of stick to a baby. He's what you call a retriever: that means fetching or finding something. You can teach a good retriever almost anything." "I thought so," said Leigh, nodding his head wisely. "I'll see what I can't teach Fuzzy." They were back in the park by this time. It was a beautiful May day, almost as warm as summer. The children's father stood still and looked round with pleasure. "It is nice to have a holiday sometimes," he said. "What a lovely colour the grass is in the sunshine!" "And how happy the little lambs are; aren't they, papa?" said Mary. "I wish I had one of my very own--like Mary and the lamb in my nursery book." "You couldn't have a lamb _and_ a dog," said Artie. "Fuzzy would soon knock the lamb over." "I never thought of that," said Mary. "Oh, papa dear," she went on, "I do so want baby Dolly to get big quick! There's such lotses of pretty things to show her in the world. The grass and the trees and the lambs"--and while she spoke her blue eyes wandered all round her,--"and the birds and the sky and--and--oh! the daisies, and"--as at that moment she caught sight of the old woman at the lodge crossing the drive with her red cloak on--"and old Mrs Crutch and her pussy-cat, and--" "You're getting to talk nonsense, Mary," said Leigh. "Old Mrs Crutch isn't a pretty thing!" "Her _cloak's_ very pretty," said Mary, "and she does make such nice ginger-b'ead cake." CHAPTER NINE. TEARS AND SMILES. The spring turned into summer, and with the longer days and warmer sunshine and gentle rain there grew up a great many more "pretty things" for Mary to show to her little sister Dolly; and Dolly herself grew like the flowers and the lambs. By the time she was three months old she could not only smile, she could even give little chuckling laughs when she was very pleased. Mary was quite sure that the baby understood all she said to her, and I do not think she would have been very surprised any day if Dolly had begun to talk. "Why can't she talk, mamma?" she asked her mother one morning. "No little baby learns to do everything at once," mamma answered. "She has to learn to walk and run and use her little hands the way you do. Just think what a lot of things babies have to learn; you must have patience." Mary tried to have patience; she did not so much mind baby's not being able to stand or walk or things of that kind, for she could understand that her little legs needed to grow stronger and firmer, but for a long time she could not understand about the not talking, and it got to be quite a trouble to her. "She can cry and she can laugh and she can coo, and she hears all the words we say to her," said Mary, with a little sigh; "I can't think why she won't talk. Oh, baby dear! don't you think you could if you tried? It's _kite_ easy." Baby was lying on the ground out on the lawn, where nurse had spread a nice thick shawl for her in case the grass might be damp, and Mary was sitting beside her, taking care of her for a minute or two all by herself. Nurse had gone in to fetch some more work. Mary was very proud of being trusted with baby. Leigh and Artie were at their lessons. "Baby dear," she said again, "don't you think you could say just some little words if you tried? Nurse would be so pleased when she comes out if she could hear you saying, `Dear little sister Mary' to me!" She was leaning over baby, and gave her a little kiss. Baby looked up and opened her mouth very wide. Mary could see her little pink tongue, but that was all there was to be seen; and just at that moment there started into Mary's head what must be the reason that baby could not speak. "She hasn't got no teeth!" cried Mary. "She's opening her mouth wide to show me! Oh, poor little darling baby! Has they been forgotten? The baby at the Lavender Cottages has got teeth!" Baby did not seem to mind; she lay there smiling quite happily, as if she was pleased that Mary understood her, but Mary felt very unhappy indeed. Something came back into her mind that she had heard about baby's teeth, but it was a long time ago, and she could not remember it clearly. Was it something about them having been forgotten? "I'm afraid there's been a mistook," said Mary to herself. "Oh, poor baby! A'posing she never can speak! Oh, nurse, nurse, do come; I want to tell you something about poor baby!" But nurse was still in the house and could not hear Mary calling, and Mary dared not go to fetch her because baby must not be left alone. So she did what most little girls, and little boys too sometimes, do when they're in trouble,--she began to cry. "Oh, nurse, nurse!" she wailed through her tears, "do come--oh, do come?" And though baby could not speak she certainly could hear. She half-rolled herself round at the sound of her sister's sad sobs and cries, and for a moment or two her own little face puckered up as if she were going to cry too--it is wonderful how soon a tiny baby learns to know if the people about it are in trouble--but then she seemed to change her mind, for she was a very sensible baby. And instead of crying she gave a sort of little gurgling coo that was very sweet, for it said quite plainly that she knew Mary was grieving, and she wanted to be told what it was all about. At first Mary did not hear her, she was so taken up with her own crying. That is the worst of crying; it makes one quite unnoticing of everything else. Then baby rolled herself still nearer; if only she had understood about catching hold of things, no doubt she would have given Mary a little tug. But she had not learnt that yet. So all she could do was to go on with her cooing till at last Mary heard it. Then the big sister turned round, her poor face all red and wet with her tears; and when she saw baby staring up at her with her sweet, big, baby eyes, and cooing away in her dear little voice, which sounded rather sad, she stooped down and gave her _such_ a hug that, if Dolly had not been really very good-natured, I am afraid her cooing would have been changed into crying. "Oh, baby, you sweet--you dear little innicent sweet!" said Mary; "you're too little to understand what I'm crying for. I'm crying 'cos the angels or the fairies has forgotten about your teeth, and I'm afraid you'll never be able to speak--not all your life, poor baby!" But baby only cooed louder than before. And Mary, looking up, saw what baby saw too--that nurse was coming over the lawn; and baby's face broke out into quite a wide smile; she was very fond of nurse. Poor nurse did not smile when she got close to the two little girls, for she saw that Mary was crying, and she was afraid there was something the matter. "Have you hurt yourself, Miss Mary?" she said. "Miss Baby's all right, but what are you crying about?" "Oh, nurse, I've been calling you so," said Mary,--"calling and _calling_. I'm so unhappy about baby;" and then she told nurse the sad thought that had come into her mind, and how troubled she was about it. Nurse listened very gravely, but--would you believe it?--when Mary had finished all her story, what do you think she did? She sat down on the grass and picked up baby in her arms and burst out laughing. I do not think she had laughed so much for a long time. "Oh, Miss Mary, my dear," she said, "you are a funny child!" Mary looked up at her, her face still wet with tears and with a very solemn expression; she did not quite like nurse's laughing at her when she had been so unhappy. "I'm not funny," she said. "It's very sad for poor baby," and new tears came into her eyes at the thought that even nurse did not care. But nurse had left off laughing by this time. "Miss Mary, my dear," she said, "don't make a trouble about it. Miss Baby's teeth will come all in good time. I shouldn't wonder if she has several dear little pearls in her mouth to show you before Christmas. Don't you remember that day when we were talking about her teeth, I told you how yours had come, one after the other, and that they used to hurt you sometimes." Mary's face cleared at this. "Oh, yes," she said, "I 'amember. Does everybody's teeth come like that? Doesn't any babies have them all ready?" "No," said nurse; "why, even the Perrys' baby that's more than a year old hasn't got all its teeth yet, and it can't say many words. Don't you trouble, Miss Mary, the teeth and the talking will come all right. There now," as little Dolly looked up with a crow in nurse's smiling face, "Miss Baby knows all about it, you see!" Mary put her arms round baby and gave her another big hug. "Oh, you dear little sweet!" she said. "Oh, nurse, I do think she's got such lots of things to tell me if only she could speak!" Baby gave a little chuckle as much as to say, "No fear, I'll talk fast enough before long;" and Mary, who was rather like an April day, set off laughing so much that she did not hear steps coming along the terrace till a voice said, quite close to her-- "Well, Mary, darling, what are you and baby so merry about?" It was mamma. Mary looked at her, and then mamma saw that her eyes were red. "It's all right now ma'am," said nurse, for she knew that mamma was wondering what was the matter even though she had not asked; so mamma went on to tell them what she had come out about, for she knew that when Mary had had a fit of crying the tears were rather ready to come back again if anything more was said about her troubles. "Nurse," she said, "I want you to dress Miss Mary as quickly as possible after her dinner. I'm going to take her a drive with me--quite a long drive; I'm going to the town to choose a perambulator for baby." "Oh, mamma!" said Mary in great delight, "how lovely! And may I get into the p'ram-bilator to see if it's comfor'ble for baby?" "Yes," said mamma, "though a tight fit for you will be all right for baby. And I've other things to buy as well! You've got a list ready for me, nurse, haven't you? I'm quite sure the boys need new boots, and wasn't there something about a sash for Mary?" "She wouldn't be the worse for another blue one, ma'am," said nurse. "Her papa always likes her in blue." "Ah! well, I won't forget about it. I like her in blue best too. And baby--doesn't she want anything?" asked mamma. Of course she did, ever so many things. I never knew a baby that did not want a lot of things--or a baby's nurse perhaps we should say--when there was a chance. Ribbons to tie up its sleeves, and little shoes and tiny socks, and some very fine kind of soap that would not make its soft skin smart, and more things than I can remember. Babies have plenty of wants, though they are such small people. And mamma wrote them all down, saying each aloud as she did so, and Mary stood listening with a very grave face. For she thought to herself, "Just _supposing_ mamma lost the paper or couldn't read all the pencil words, or forgot to write down everything, it would be a very good thing for _her_ to know them all and 'amind mamma." Soon it was time to go in to dinner, and Mary was so full of the thought of going to the town with mamma, that at first she sat with her spoon and fork in her hands, looking at her plate without eating at all. "Why don't you eat your dinner, Mary?" said Leigh. "My nungryness has gone away with thinking of going out with mamma and buyin' such lotses of things," said Mary. "How silly you are!" said Leigh. "Why, when I've something nice to think of, it makes me all the hungrier! If you don't eat your dinner, I don't believe mamma will take you." "Yes, Miss Mary, you must eat it," said nurse. "You'll be later than usual of getting your tea, too, so you should make an extra good dinner." Mary did not feel as if she _could_ be hungry, but she did not want to be left behind, so she began to try to eat, and after one or two mouthfuls it got rather easier. Nurse went on talking, for she knew the less Mary thought about not being hungry the better it would be. "Perhaps your mamma, will let you bring home a nice bagful of buns for tea," she said. "That would be a treat for Master Leigh and Master Artie, to make up for their not going to the town too." "I don't want to go," said Leigh. "I hate shopping. It's such rubbish--taking half an hour to choose things you could settle about in half a minute. Of course I suppose it's different for women and girls." Nurse smiled a little. "Have you nothing for Miss Mary to get for you?" she said. "What shops are you going to?" asked Leigh. "Are you going to the confectioner's?" asked Artie. Mary was not quite sure what the confectioner's was. You see, she did not often see shops, as the children's home was quite in the country. But she knew Leigh would laugh at her if she asked, so she just said-- "We're going to all the shops there is, I think. We're going to buy Baby Dolly's p'ram-bilator." She got rather red as she spoke; but Leigh did not notice it, for he was very much interested by this news. "To buy the p'rambulator," he repeated. "Oh, I say--I wouldn't mind going to choose that! But I couldn't stand the rest of the shopping. Mary--" and he hesitated. "What?" said Mary. "There's one thing I want, if you think you could choose it for me; it's a pair of reins. I've got money to pay for them--plenty; so you can tell mamma if she'll pay them in the shop, she can take the money out of my best purse that she keeps for me, when she comes home. They'll cost about--" he stopped again, for he really did not know. "Do you mean red braid ones, Leigh, like my old ones with the bells on?" asked Artie. "No, of course not. I want regular good strong leather ones--proper ones, d'you hear, Mary?" "Yes," said Mary, "I'm listenin'." "Well, look here then; they must be of nice brown leather, and you must pull it well to be sure it's strong. And they must have a kind of front-piece, stiff, you know, that they are fastened to, or perhaps they cross over it, I'm not sure. And they must be about as long as from me, where I'm sitting now, to where Artie is. And if you can't get them nice in one shop, you must ask mamma to let you go to another, and you mustn't be in a hurry to just take the first ones they show you. You must _choose_ well, Mary, and--" "Don't take half an hour about it when half a minute would do," said nurse, in rather an odd voice. Leigh grew very red. "Nurse," he said, "reins are very pertickler things to get. Leather things have to be _good_, you know." "And so have silk things and cotton things and all the other things that ladies take so long to shop about," said nurse. "But, I'm sure poor dear Miss Mary's head will never hold all the explaining you've been giving her. If you take my advice, Master Leigh, you'll run off to your mamma and tell her what you want and settle about the price and everything. She will be just finishing luncheon, I should think. It was to be early to-day." Leigh thought it a good idea, and did as nurse proposed. Mary was very glad not to have to remember all about the reins; her little head was full enough already. She was looking quite pale with excitement when nurse began to dress her in her best things to go out with her mamma. But it was very interesting to have all her Sunday things on on a week-day, and by the time she was ready--her best boots buttoned and her little white silk gloves drawn on, and her fair curls, nicely brushed, hanging down under her big straw hat, which had white bows and tufty feathers at one side--Mary's face had grown rosier again. CHAPTER TEN. SHOPPING. She felt _quite_ happy when she found herself at last settled by mamma's side in the victoria. She gave a deep sigh--it was a sigh of content-- just because she was so happy. But mamma turned round quickly. "My darling," she said, "is there anything the matter? Why are you sighing so?" Mary cuddled a little bit nearer to mamma, and looked up in her face with a smile. "I'm quite _dreffully_ happy, mamma dear," she said. "The breaving comes like that when I'm dreffully happy. But oh, mamma," she went on, with an anxious look creeping over her face, "I _hope_ we'll 'amember all the lotses of things there is to buy!" "I wrote them down, dear," said mamma. "You saw me?" "Yes, but doesn't writing sometimes get rubbed out? I think I can 'amember neely all if you asked me. Did Leigh tell you all about his reins, mamma?" "Yes, dear. He was very particular indeed. I can't think what has put reins in his head again. He told me some time ago that he thought he was getting too big for playing at horses. Perhaps it's to amuse Artie." "I wonder," said Mary, "if p'raps it's something to do with Fuzzy." But her mother did not hear, or at least did not notice what she said. She had taken the paper with the list of things she had to do, out of her bag and was looking it over. It seemed a long way to the town to Mary. It was between five and six miles, and she had not often driven so far, for you know she was still a very little girl. Now and then her mamma looked at her to see if she was getting sleepy, but every time she seemed quite bright. Her little mind was so full of all the messages they had to do that I don't think she _could_ have grown sleepy. And there were a great many pretty and strange and interesting things to notice as they went along. Mamma kept pointing them out to her and talking about them. There were the flowers in the hedges to begin with--some late ones were still in bloom--here and there stray sprays of honeysuckle even, and low down, nearer the ground, there came now and then little glimpses of pretty colours where smaller wild-flowers, such as "ragged robin," "speedwell," "crow's-foot," and a few others were still peeping out. "If I were a tiny flower," said mamma, "I think I would choose my home on the inside of the hedge--the field-side. It would be so hot and dusty near the road." But Mary thought it would be nice to see the carriages and carts passing, and that it would be rather dull to see nothing but the grass, and then she and mamma laughed at their funny fancies, as if flowers had eyes and ears like children. Then they passed a very queer-looking waggon lumbering along. It seemed like a house built of baskets and straw chairs and brushes instead of brick or stone, and Mary's mamma told her it was a travelling shop, and that the people lived inside and had a little kitchen and a little bedroom, and that _sometimes_ they were quite clean and tidy and nice people. There was a tiny window with a red curtain at the side of the waggon they passed, and Mary saw a little girl, with a nice rosy face, peeping out at her. She nearly jumped when she saw the little girl, and she pulled mamma to make her look. "See, see, mamma!" she cried. "They must be nice people that lives in that basket shop, mustn't they, for that little girl's got a clean face, and she's smilin' so sweetly?" "Yes," said mamma; "it looks as if she had a kind father and mother, and I hope she has. For many poor children have quite as kind fathers and mothers as rich children have, you know, Mary." "Like the Perrys--the Perrys at the Lavender Cottages," said Mary. And then she went on thinking to herself how nice it would be to live in a "going-about house," as she called it. And she wished very much indeed she could have seen inside the waggon. The next thing they passed after that, was a great high carriage with four horses; a man in a red coat was blowing a horn, and there were ever so many ladies and gentlemen sitting up on the top. It made _such_ a dust! Mary began to think mamma was right about the field-side of the hedges, for even though she was a little girl in a carriage and not a flower, she felt quite choked for a minute. Mamma told her it was a stagecoach, and that long ago, before clever men had found out how to make railway trains go, drawn by steam-engines instead of horses, people were obliged to travel in these big coaches. Mary was very much surprised. She thought there had always been railways, but mamma had not time to explain any more about them to her, for just then the carriage began to make a very rattling noise over the stones, so that they could scarcely hear each other speak. They were entering the town. Mary looked about her with great interest. It was a long time since she had been there, and the last day she remembered being driven through the streets it had only been to go to the railway station. For the children and their mother were then on their way to visit their grandmamma. That was six months ago, half a year--before Mary's birthday, which had brought her the wonderful present of Baby Dolly--a very long time ago. But Mary remembered how she had wished that day to stop at the shops and look in at the windows. And now she was not only going to look in; she was going to _go_ in to help mamma to choose all the things she had to buy. It was very nice, but it seemed rather to take away her breath again to think of all they had to do. Mary gave a deep sigh, which made her mamma turn round. "Mary, my dear, you are looking quite troubled," she said; "what is it?" "It's on'y the lotses of things," said Mary. "But you mustn't be like that, or I shall be afraid to bring you out shopping with me," said mamma. "It will be all right, you'll see. Here we are at the first shop--the draper's. That's right; give Thomas your hand and get out slowly." Thomas was quite ready to have lifted her out, but Mary did not like being lifted. It seemed as if she was a baby. Mamma knew this, and unless she was in a great hurry she let Mary manage for herself like a big girl. Mary was not like some children, who do not care about any shops except a toy-shop and a confectioner's; she was interested in all the things mamma had to buy, and she liked to watch the careful way mamma went about it. She had a list all ready, and she had put the same sorts of things together on it, so that she did not need to go backwards and forwards from one counter to another. It was a large shop, but there were not many people in it, so Mary climbed up on a chair and sat there comfortably watching, while mamma chose tape and buttons and reels of cotton and needles, and lots of what are called "small-wares." Mary enjoyed seeing them all brought out in their neat boxes and drawers; she thought to herself that she would like very much to have a shop and have all these interesting things to take care of. And then, when they moved a little farther down, to that part of the counter where pretty silks and ribbons were hanging up--silks and ribbons of all sorts of colours and shades--she was still more delighted. "We are going to choose a sash for you now, Mary," said mamma. "And ribbins to tie up Baby Dolly's sleeves. Weren't you forgetting about the ribbins?" said Mary. Mamma had not forgotten, but she did not say so, for she saw her little girl was proud of remembering; and she was pleased too to see that Mary thought of Dolly before herself. "Yes; of course there are baby's bows to get," she said. "Thank you for reminding me. What colour shall they be? Would you like to choose?" The shopman--I think it was the draper himself, who knew Mary's mamma and was pleased to wait upon her--smiled as he brought out a large box full of ribbons of the right width for tying up babies' sleeves. There were so many pretty colours that Mary felt as if she _could not_ choose. "I'd like some of all of them," she said. But mamma helped her by putting aside those that would not do. Yellow would not be pretty for baby, she said, nor green, nor bright red, nor deep blue or purple; and that left only the soft delicate colours--pale pink and pale blue and very pale lilac. There were pretty white ribbons too, with very fine little checks and spots over them, which she said would be very nice. So then Mary found it easier, and she chose four sets--blue, with a little white line down the edge; and white, with a pink check over it; and another, with tiny blue spots, and one of the pale pinky lilac. It was like wild geranium colour, mamma said, and as Mary did not know what that flower was, mamma promised to look for one in the fields to show her. Then there came the choosing of Mary's sashes. Mamma got two, and Mary was quite pleased, for she saw that mamma was the best chooser after all. One was pale blue, very wide, and with a white line down the side. It was just "like the mamma of _Dolly's_ blue ribbon," Mary said, and the other was all pink, very pretty pale pink. Mary did not like it quite so well, but still she felt sure it would look nice, or else mamma "wouldn't have chosened it." It would take too long to tell you about all the things mamma bought. After she had finished at the draper's she went to the shoemaker's and got boots for the boys and slippers for Mary, and dear sweet little blue silk shoes for Dolly. They were to be her very best ones, to match her blue ribbons. Mary was so pleased that her mamma got them. After that came the great thing of all--that was the perambulator. There was a man in that town who made pony-carriages, and he made perambulators too. Mamma took Mary into a large room which was all glass at the front, and was quite filled with pony-carriages. They did look so shiny and nice--some of them were wicker, and some were made of wood like big carriages. Mary would have liked to get into them all, one after the other, to see which was the most comfortable, and she could not help thinking how very nice it would be to be a pony-carriage man's little girl. What lovely games she and Leigh and Artie could have in this big room! It would be even nicer than having a draper's shop. She did not know that carriage-builders' children and drapers' children are not allowed to play with their fathers' carriages and ribbons any more than she and her brothers would be allowed to pull about the books in the library, or to gather all the fruit and flowers in the garden. They passed through the big room with the glass front to a smaller one behind, where there were a good many perambulators. The man who had shown them in explained to Mary's mamma about the different kinds and told her the prices; and mamma chose three which she made the man draw out by themselves in front of all the others. "It must be one of those," she said; "I want a really good one, but still rather plain and strong, as it is for the country roads." Mary thought to herself what a good way of choosing mamma had; it makes choosing so much easier if you put away the things that _won't_ do. And while she was thinking this, mamma told her she wanted her to get into the perambulator standing next, and say if it was comfortable. "I will lift her in," she said to the man. "It's quite strong enough, I suppose?" "Oh, dear, yes, ma'am!" he answered. "It could bear a child twice this little lady's weight. The springs are fust-rate." It was very comfortable, and when Mary jigged up and down a little gently, it felt quite "dancey," she said. "It's the springs," the man repeated; "they're fust-rate." Mary wondered what "fust-rate" meant. She thought she would ask her mamma. Then she was lifted into the next perambulator--the man lifted her in. He meant to be quite kind, but Mary did not like it, and when at last she found herself on the floor again she stroked down her skirts and gave herself a little shake. Mamma saw that she did not like it, but afterwards she told Mary that sometimes it is best to hide that you do not like things, when they are done out of kindness. "It didn't matter to-day," said mamma, "for the man was busy talking to me and he didn't see you shaking yourself; but you must remember for another time." Mary felt very sorry. She did not forget what her mamma said. Even when she grew to be a big girl she remembered about the man meaning to be kind, and how glad she was he had not seen her shake herself. The other perambulators were not quite as wide as the first one. Mary said they felt rather squeezy, so mamma fixed on the first one. But it could not be sent home at once because the lining had to be changed. It was brown, and the linings of mamma's victoria and pony-carriage were dark red, and mamma liked Dolly's carriage to match. So the man promised it should be ready in two or three days; but Mary looked at it a great deal, because she knew Leigh and Artie would want to know exactly what it was like. After that they went to the grocer's, but mamma did not stay long there, and then they went to the toy-shop to get a rattle for baby and reins for Leigh. But neither mamma nor Mary liked the reins much. There were some of red braid, but they were too common, and the leather ones did not seem strong, and they were not made of the right sort of leather; Mary was quite distressed. "What shall we do?" she said. "Leigh will be so disappointed." She said the word quite right, but it took her a good while. Then mamma had a capital thought. "I know," she said. "We'll go to the saddler's. Even if he hasn't got any toy-reins ready he can easily make them." And fancy--was not it lucky?--the saddler had a pair quite ready-- beauties, just like what Leigh wanted. Mamma was so pleased, and so was Mary; though I do not think mamma would have been quite so pleased if she had known what Leigh had in his head about the reins. Then mamma went to the confectioner's, where she bought some very nice little cakes for Mary to take home for the nursery tea, and, as she thought Mary looked a little tired and must be beginning to feel hungry, she asked for a glass of milk for her and a bun, and then she put Mary on a chair close up to the counter, where she could reach the milk. And then, just as she was going to pay for what she had bought, poor mamma started. "Oh, dear!" she said, "where is my little bag with my purse in it? I must have left it somewhere; I was carrying so many parcels." "Mamma, dear," said Mary, "you had it at the reins' shop. I sawed it in your hand." "Oh, I'm so glad!" said mamma. "Then it'll be all right. I'll run back for it. You finish your milk and bun, dear, and I will come for you as quickly as I can." Mary did not quite like waiting alone, but she did not want to trouble her mother, so she said, "Very well, mamma dear." Her milk and bun did not take long to finish, but she sat on still on the high chair, partly because she thought her mamma would look for her there, partly because she could not get down alone, and she was too shy to ask to be lifted off. But mamma did not come as quickly as Mary hoped, though the time seemed longer to her than it really was. In a few minutes she heard the door open, and she looked up gladly, thinking it was her mamma; but it was not. Instead of mamma in came a rather fat lady, with two boys and a girl. The lady had a red face, and they all talked very loudly. "Now, what will you have, my loveys?" said the lady. "Puffs, cheesecakes, macaroons?" The three children pushed up to the counter and began helping themselves. It was not a large shop, and they crushed against Mary, who was growing very uncomfortable. "Dear, dear," said the fat lady, "I am 'ot!" and she fanned herself with her handkerchief. "Haven't you got a chair for me?" The shop-woman looked at the girl who had seated herself on the only chair besides Mary's one. "I dare say Miss isn't tired," she said; "won't you give the lady your chair?" But the girl would not move. "No," she said; "that child isn't eating anything. She can give her chair. Put her down, Fred." And the bigger of the boys lifted Mary roughly down from her perch before the shop-woman could interfere, and then they all burst out laughing, and Mary, whose face had been getting whiter and whiter, rushed to the open door and ran with all her might down the street. CHAPTER ELEVEN. NURSERY TEA. I dare say it was silly of Mary to be so frightened; but then, you know, she was only a very little girl, and she was not used to rude or rough ways. "Mamma, mamma!" she cried as she ran along. And she did not even think or know which way she was going. But the town was not a big one, not like London, where her papa had been left alone in the toy-shop--and the street was quiet. Several people noticed the prettily-dressed little girl running so fast, the tears rolling down her face. "She's lost her way, poor dear," said one woman, standing at the door of a greengrocer's shop. "She's been bitten by a dog," said another. But nobody did anything till, luckily, Mary flew past the draper's where she had been with her mamma; one of the young men in the shop was reaching something out of the window and saw her. He called to the draper--Mr Mitcham--and Mr Mitcham, who was a kind man and had little girls of his own, hurried after Mary and soon caught her up, for she was getting very tired now. Her legs were shaking sadly, and her breath seemed to choke her, and her heart,--oh, how her poor heart was thumping--it seemed to come right up into her ears. "Are you looking for your mamma, my dear?" said Mr Mitcham. He was rather out of breath himself though he had only run a short way, for he was a fat little man, and he seldom took more exercise than walking about his shop. "Zes, zes!" cried Mary, who went back to her baby talk when she was unhappy or frightened. "Her is goned away, and the naughty boy pulled me off my chair, and--oh, oh, where is my mamma goned?" Mr Mitcham, could not make out what was the matter, but, luckily, just at that moment her mamma came round the corner of the street. She had found her bag at the saddler's, but she had had to wait a few minutes for it, as he had locked it up in a drawer while he went to the inn, where the carriage was, to ask if Mrs Bertram was still in the town. Mamma looked quite startled when she saw poor Mary all in tears, but Mary soon got happy again when she felt her own dear mamma's hand clasping hers firmly. And then, when mamma had thanked the draper, she turned back to the confectioner's again, to get the cakes to take home and to pay for them. Mary did not much want to go; she was afraid of seeing the rude boy and his mother again. But mamma told her she must try not to be so easily frightened. "For, you see, dear, when you ran away in that wild way, I might not have been able to find you for some time, and think how unhappy it would have made me." Mary squeezed mamma's hand very tight. She was beginning to see she had been rather silly. "I won't do like that again," she said. "When I'm a big girl I won't be frightened. But, please, mamma, let me _always_ stay 'aside you when we go to shops." When they got to the confectioner's, they found the young woman there very sorry about Mary having run away, as she felt she should have taken better care of her. The stout lady and her children were still there, and the lady was looking very ashamed, for the confectioner had been telling her that Mary was little Miss Bertram of the Priory--the Priory was the name of Mary's home--and that Mrs Bertram would be very vexed. So the rude boy's mother came up with a very red face, and told Mary's mamma if they had only known who the young lady was, they would never have made so free as to disturb her. Mary's mamma listened gravely, and then she said, "I think you should teach your son to be gentle and polite to everybody, especially little girls, _whoever they are_. Of course I know he did not mean to hurt her, but she is accustomed to her brothers behaving very nicely to her at home." Then she turned away rather coldly, and the children and their mother looked very red and ashamed, and just then the victoria came up to the door, with the two pretty bay horses, all so smart and nice. And mamma took Mary's hand to lead her away. But Mary pulled it out of hers for a moment and ran back to the boy. "Please, don't be sorry any more," she said. "I were a silly little girl, but I don't mind now," and she held out her hand. The boy took it and mumbled something about "beg your pardon." And then Mary got up into the carriage beside mamma. "I am glad you did that, Mary dear," she said; "I hope it will make the boy remember." "And I _were_ a silly little girl," said Mary, as she nestled up to her mamma. They did not talk very much going home. Mary was rather tired, and I think she must have had a little nap on the way; for she looked all right again, and her eyes were scarcely at all red when they drove up to the door of Mary's own dear house. There were Leigh and Artie waiting for them; they had heard the carriage coming and they ran up to the door to be there to help their mamma and Mary out, and to tell them how glad they were to see them again. "Tea's all ready waiting," said Leigh; "and, oh, mamma--we were wondering--nurse has put out a 'nextra cup just in case. _Would_ you come up and have tea with us? Then we could hear all about all you've been buying and everything, for Mary mightn't remember so well." "I don't think I'd forget," said Mary; "on'y we _have_ had lotses of 'ventures. Doesn't it seem a long, long time since we started off after dinner? I _would_ like mamma to have tea with us!" Mamma could not resist all these coaxings, and I think she was very pleased to accept the nursery invitation, for it seemed to her a long time since she had seen dear Baby Dolly. So she told Leigh to run up and tell nurse she was coming, and then, when all the parcels were brought into the hall, she chose out some which she sent upstairs; but the parcel of cakes for tea she gave to Artie to carry up. That was a very happy tea-party. There was so much to tell, and so much to ask about. Mary chattered so fast that mamma had to remind her that her tea would be getting quite cold and everybody would have finished before her if she did not take care. But Mary said she was not very hungry because of the afternoon luncheon she had had at the confectioner's; and that reminded her of what had happened there, and she told Leigh and Artie and nurse and Dolly--though I am not sure if Dolly _quite_ understood--the story of the rude boy and how frightened she had been. "Horrid cad," said Leigh; "I'd like to knock him down." "He were much bigger than you, Leigh," said Mary. "What does that matter?" said Leigh. "I'd knock any fellow down who was rude to my sister." Mary thought it was very brave of Leigh to talk like that. She wondered if he would be vexed if he heard she had forgiven the boy afterwards. "I think he was sorry," said mamma. "He had no idea Mary would have minded so much, you see." "I cried," said Mary,--she felt rather proud of herself now for having had such an adventure,--"I cried lotses." "I hope he didn't see you crying," said Leigh. "He would think you a baby and not a lady if he saw you crying." "I leaved off crying when mamma came," said Mary; "but my eyes was reddy." "You shouldn't have cried," said Artie. "You should have looked at him grand--like this." And Artie reared up his head as high as he could get it out of his brown-holland blouse, and stared round at Dolly, who was cooing and laughing at him over nurse's shoulder, with such a very severe face, that the poor baby, not knowing what she had done to vex him, drew down the corners of her mouth and opened her blue eyes very wide and then burst into a pitiful cry. Artie changed all at once. "Darling baby, kiss Artie," he said. "Sweet baby Artie wasn't angry with you." But nurse told him he should not frighten Miss Baby. She was such a noticing little lady already. "And I forgaved the boy," said Mary. "I shaked hands with him." Nobody could quite see what this had to do with Artie and baby, but Mary seemed to know what she meant. Perhaps she thought that if she had "looked grand" at the boy, he would have set off crying like poor Dolly. Then when tea was over and grace had been said--it was Artie's turn to say grace, and he was always very slow at his tea, so they had some time to wait--mamma undid the parcels that she had sent up to the nursery. The children all came round to see the things, and Mary was very pleased to be able to explain about them. "I helped mamma to choose, didn't I, mamma dear?" she kept saying. She was most proud of all, I think, about Baby Dolly's ribbons. And nurse thought them very pretty indeed, and so I suppose did baby, for she caught hold of them when Mary held them out and tried to stuff them all into her mouth. That is a baby's way of showing it thinks things are pretty; it fancies they must be good to eat. "And my reins, mamma?" said Leigh at last; "when are you coming to my reins?" He had been rather patient, considering he was a boy, for boys do not care about ribbons and sashes and those sorts of things, though he was very pleased with his own boots. So mamma looked out the parcel of his reins before she undid the tapes and cottons and buttons she had got for nurse. "They are really very good reins," she said. "I told you we got them at the saddler's. They are much better and stronger than those you buy at a toy-shop." Leigh turned them over in his hands and pulled them and tugged them in a very knowing way. "Yes," he said, "they're not bad--not bad at all. In fact they are beauties. And what did they cost?" "They cost rather dear," she said,--"dearer than you expected. But if you pay me two shillings, I will give you a present of the rest." "Whew!" said Leigh, "more than two shillings. But they are first-rate. Thank you very much indeed, mamma." "And you won't over-drive your horses or your horse, will you?" said mamma. "I suppose Artie will be your regular one, or do you mean to have a pair--Mary too?" Leigh did not answer at once. "I shall drive Artie sometimes, and Mary sometimes, if she likes," he said. "But I've, another horse too, better than them." Mamma did not pay much attention to what he said; she thought he meant one of the gardener's boys or the page, with whom he was allowed to play sometimes, as they were good boys. "And the p'ram-bilator?" Leigh asked. "When is it coming, mamma? and is it a very nice one? Does it go smoothly? and has it good springs?" "I think it's a very nice one," mamma replied. She was pleased to see Leigh so interested about his little sister's carriage. "But it won't be here for some days--a week or so--as they have to change the linings." "Oh," said Leigh to himself in a low voice, "all the better! I'll have time to break him in a little." The next day, and every day after that for some time, Leigh was very busy indeed. He begged nurse to let him off going regular walks once or twice, because he had something he was making in the shed, where he and Artie were allowed to do their carpentering and all the rather messy work boys are so fond of, which it does not do to bring into the house. He was not "after any mischief" he told nurse, and she quite believed it, for he was a very truthful boy; but he said it was a secret he did not want to tell till he had got it all ready. So nurse let him have his way, only she would not allow Artie to miss his walk too, for she did not think it safe to leave him alone with Leigh, with all his "hammering and nailing and pincering" going on. And I think nurse was right. I wonder if you can guess what was Leigh's "secret"--what it was he was so busy about? He did not tell either Artie or Mary; he wanted to "surprise" them. The truth was, he was making harness for Fuzzy and trying to teach him to be driven. He had begun the teaching already by fastening the reins to an arrangement of strong cord round the dog's body, and he was also making better harness with some old straps he had coaxed out of the coachman. He really managed it very cleverly. It took him two or three days to get it finished, and in the meantime he "practised" with the cord. Poor Fuzzy! He was a big strong dog by this time, but still only a puppy. I am sure he must have wondered very much what all the tying up and pulling and tugging and "who-ho"-ing and "gee-up"-ing meant; but he was very good-tempered. I suppose he settled in his own mind that it was a new kind of play; and, on the whole--once he was allowed to start off running, with Leigh holding the reins behind him, trying to imagine _he_ was driving Fuzzy, while it was really Fuzzy pulling _him_--he did not behave badly, though Leigh found "breaking him in" harder work than he had expected. By the fourth day the "proper harness," as Leigh called it, was ready. He had got the coachman's wife, who was very fond of the children and very clever with her fingers, to stitch some of the straps which he could not manage to fasten neatly with boring holes and passing twine through, though that did for part. And as the coachman did not see that this new fancy could do any harm, he was rather interested in it too. So when it was all complete, and Fuzzy was fitted into his new attire, or it was fitted on to him, perhaps I should say, Mr and Mrs Mellor, and the grooms, and two or three of the under-gardeners all stood round admiring, while Leigh started off in grand style, driving his queer steed. "If you had but a little cart now, Master Leigh," said one of the boys; "it'd be quite a turn-out." "Yes," said Leigh, with a smile; "I mean to get to something like that some day. But driving with reins this way is how they often begin with young horses, isn't it, Mellor?" "To be sure it is!" the coachman replied, as he went off, smiling to himself at the funny notions children take up. "The very idea of harnessing a puppy." For Mellor had never been in Flanders, you see, nor in Lapland. CHAPTER TWELVE. LEIGH'S PLAN. Ever since the day the children had waited for their father outside the Lavender Cottages--the day when it was settled that they were to have Fuzzy--the idea of training the dog to be driven, and making him draw the perambulator as he had seen Ned drawing the Perrys' old wicker carriage, had been in Leigh's head. That was why he was so interested about the new carriage for his little sister. He was sensible in some ways. He knew it would be no use harnessing the dog into a cart or anything till he had accustomed him a little to being driven. That was what had made him think of buying reins. He had waited a good while too, till the dog was nearly full-grown and had grown pretty obedient to his voice and call. But when he heard that the perambulator was really to be bought, he thought to himself that it was quite time Fuzzy's "breaking-in" should begin. For it was now late September. Baby Dolly was close upon her fifth "month-day," as the children called it, and growing so big and lively that nurse could scarcely manage to carry her any distance without feeling rather tired, as Dolly was very fond of sitting straight up and looking about her and giving little jumps and springs when Mary or the boys ran up to her. And "Fuzz," as Leigh generally called him--for he thought "Fuzzy" rather a girl's name--was a very big puppy indeed--so big and playful that, when he came galloping over the lawn to the children, Mary used to run behind nurse, if she was there, for fear of being knocked over. It was fun and affection, of course, and when he stood still Mary would pat him and call him "dear Fuzzy," "poor old Fuzzy," quite bravely, but at the bottom, of her heart she was a little afraid of him. And though she did not like to say so to the boys, she often wished that he had stayed a roly-poly, soft, tumbling-about creature, as he was when she had first seen him--only a few weeks old. But Leigh would not have liked that at all, of course. Well, the driving-lessons went on, and thanks to Leigh's patience, of which he had a good deal when he chose, Fuzz became more manageable, as I said. After a while Leigh found an old remains of a little cart on wheels--it was really a sort of small dray which some of his young uncles had knocked together years ago for dragging wood on--which he managed to harness the dog to, to accustom him to feeling something behind him. Fuzz kicked and spluttered and ran away ever so many times; he did not like the rattling noise coming after him, but after a while he grew used to it and would scamper off quite merrily, and so fast that Leigh could scarcely keep up with him. That was the great difficulty-- to make him go slowly. But Leigh was not discouraged. "It'll be all right," he thought, "when he feels he's pulling something heavier." And still he kept it all a secret, except of course from Mellor and the outdoor servants, and they did not know anything about his plan for the perambulator. It came, about ten days after it had been promised. Mary had been growing very impatient. She thought it was _never_ coming, and even her mamma was on the point of writing to the place where she had ordered it, to ask why they were so long of sending it, when all of a sudden one afternoon it arrived. Everybody admired it extremely. It was really a very pretty little carriage, and Baby Dolly liked it very much, to judge by the way she crowed and chattered in her own sweet baby language the first time she was tucked into it for a drive. This was the very morning after it came. For it was luckily a fine, mild day, and the nursery dinner was made a little earlier than usual, so that Baby Dolly should have the best of the afternoon for the first trial of her perambulator; and Mary and the boys and the under-nurse and Fuzzy were all to go too. Nurse had a holiday indeed! She began by pushing the new carriage herself, just to make sure that baby would not be frightened. But frightened--no, indeed; the little lady chuckled and crowed, and was as happy as could be. So then nurse let Leigh push it for a while, and then Artie, and then even Mary for a little bit, though not for very long, as, though it was beautifully light, it was tiring for her to stretch up her arms, and of course she was too small to see in front if the road was getting at all rough, or if there were stones or ruts to get out of the way of. And then nurse told Emma, the under-nurse (I think I have forgotten to say that "Little Sarah" was not big enough to help with Dolly, so a new under-nurse had come), to push it for a while--not that Leigh and Artie were not most eager to do so, but nurse wanted to make sure that Emma pushed it carefully, for there are two ways of doing even such a simple thing as pushing a perambulator, though you might not think it. And Emma was rather a silly girl, though she was very good-natured. "Now, we'se _all_ pussed it except Fuzzy," said Mary. She was dancing along holding nurse's hand and feeling very happy and safe. For, to tell the truth, she was often a little frightened of the doggie knocking her over if she was walking along alone or with only Artie. "Poor Fuzzy!" Mary was always very affectionate to Fuzz when she felt herself well protected; "don't you think, nursie, he'd like to puss it too? If Leigh made him walk like a bear,"--for walking like a bear was one of the tricks Leigh had taught Fuzz,--"on his two behind legs, and then put his two before legs on the pussing place; don't you think he could do it a little, nursie dear? And then we'd all have took turns?" Nursie laughed at Mary's funny idea. "I'm afraid Miss Dolly and the perambulator would soon all be in a heap on the road if Fuzzy was to have a try at pushing," she said. And Fuzz, who always seemed to know when they were talking of him, came close to nurse and looked up wistfully in her face with his bright sweet eyes as if he would say, "I'm rather afraid so too." Leigh gave him a pat. "_Pushing_ the p'rambulator," he said. "No, indeed. You know something better than that; don't you, Fuzz?" And Fuzz wagged his tail as much as to say, "Yes, indeed; _Leigh_ knows what I can do. But we'll keep our secret." No one paid any attention to what Leigh said however; no one had any idea there was any secret to keep. So the little party finished their walk very happily, and returned home greatly pleased with the new perambulator. It was about a fortnight later that something happened which I must tell you about. All this time Leigh kept on patiently with his training or "breaking-in" of Fuzz. Whenever he had a chance of getting off to the stables alone, for half an hour or so, he harnessed the dog to the remains of a cart that I told you of, and drove him up and down the paths. No one but the stablemen and the gardeners knew about it, and they only thought it was a fancy of the boy's and never spoke about it. And Leigh told nobody--not even Artie--of what he had got in his head. He kept saying to himself he wanted to "surprise" them all, and that if he told Artie every one would be sure to hear of it. "And I must manage to try it first without nurse fussing," he thought. "She'd never believe it would do. She's so stupid about some things." But at the bottom of his heart, I think he knew that what he was meaning to do was not a right thing for him to try without leave from the grown-up people, and that it was the fear of their stopping it much more than the wish to "surprise" everybody that made him keep his plan so secret. So he said nothing, but waited for a chance to come. And before long the chance did come. It does seem sometimes as if chances for wrong things or not-right things come more quickly and more surely than for good things, I am afraid. Or is it, perhaps, that we are more ready to catch at them? Now I must tell you that Emma, the under-nurse, was not a very sensible girl. She was more taken up with herself and her dresses and chattering to whoever would listen to her than with her own work and duties; and she was very fond of calling nurse old-fashioned and fussy and too strict, which was not right. She spoke of her in that way to Leigh, and made him fancy he was too big a boy to be treated like a nursery child, which was very mischievous. But she was a good-natured girl, and she was what is called "civil-spoken" to nurse and to the other servants, so nurse hoped she would improve as she got older, though she found her lazy and careless very often. Just about this time, unfortunately, poor nurse sprained her ankle. It did not make her ill, for it was not very bad and soon began to get better, but it stopped her going out walks for two or three days. The first day this happened was one of the afternoons that Leigh had Latin lessons with a tutor, so only Artie and Mary went out a walk with Baby Dolly in the perambulator and Emma pushing it. Nurse spoke a great deal to Emma about being very careful, and not going near the field where the bull was, and not crossing the little bridge which was soon going to be mended, and about several other "nots." And Emma listened to what she said, and that day all went well. Artie and Mary trotted along very peacefully, and now and then, when the road was smooth, Emma let them push baby for a little bit, and baby cooed and crowed when they talked to her. They went near the Perrys' cottage and they met all the children--Janie as usual carrying the baby, Comfort pushing the old wicker carriage with the two other babies, and staring away at the open book in her hand at the same time, so that Janie had to keep calling out every minute or two to warn her where she was going. Ned was not with them, that was the only difference. For Ned was beginning now to do a little work out of school hours. The Perrys all came to a stop when they met the other party. "How do you do?" said Mary and Artie politely. "How do you like our new p'ram-bilator?" "It do be a beauty, Miss," said Janie. Poor Janie looked tired and hot, though it was not a warm day; the baby was growing heavy. "Law," said Emma, "I'd never carry that child if I was you. Why don't you put it in the cart and make one of the others walk?" "Law" is not a pretty word; but Emma was not very particular when she was alone with the children. "Comfort'd never get her reading done if she had to look after Sammy walking," said Janie. "And I'd have to push the carriage if the dear baby was in it." "Where's Ned?" asked Artie. "And why doesn't he pull the carriage?" Emma stared. "Law, Master Artie--" she was beginning, but Janie, who did not seem at all surprised at the question, for of course she had seen Ned's attempts to make a horse of himself, answered quietly-- "It didn't do--not so very well, sir, and it gave me a turn, it did, to see Sammy and Bertie a-tumblin' about, and all but overturned. No, 'tweren't no good; so Ned, he's give it up." "What a pity!" said Artie and Mary together, "isn't our p'ram-bilator nice, Janie?" "'Tis indeed, the wheels _is_ beautiful _and_ the springs," said Janie, as she stood watching, while Artie pushed it up and down, to let her see how it went; while even Comfort took her eyes off her book for a minute or two to join in, the admiration. "And Miss Baby do be getting on finely," the little nurse-sister added. "You've not come our way for a good bit, Miss," said Comfort to Mary. "It's a nice road past the cottages and on to the wood--so smooth, I can go on reading all the way. No need to look to one side nor the t'other." And then the Perrys moved on, with a curtsey from Janie, which she managed with some difficulty on account of the fat baby, and a kind of nod from Comfort, as she let her eyes drop on to her book again. That evening at tea, Mary and Artie told Leigh and nurse about meeting the Lavender Cottages children, and how tired poor Janie looked. "Isn't it a pity Ned couldn't dror the carriage?" said Artie. "_Draw_, not _dror_," said Leigh. "How vulgar you are, Artie. No, I don't see that it could do much good to Janie, for somebody'd have to drive, and so she'd still have the baby to carry. The big sister should take turns with her." "Yes, indeed," said nurse. "That'd be much better than nonsense about harnessing boys. It's a wonder those children weren't driven into bits, that day you told us of." "Oh, but Ned was so stupid," said Leigh. "He hadn't got proper reins, and he fastened the rope in a perfectly silly way. _I_ could show him how to do it properly. In Lapland, you know, nurse, and in some other country, even dogs pull carts quite nicely." "They must be a different kind of dog from ours then," said nurse. "I know dogs used to turn the spit with the meat to roast it before the fire, but they were a queer kind, and I suppose they were trained to it when they were little puppies." "Yes," said Leigh, "that's it. It's all the training. It's no good unless you begin to teach a dog while he's a puppy." He did not say anything more just then; but that evening he said to Emma that he was going out a walk with the little ones the next day, as he would not have any lessons that afternoon. "I suppose nurse won't be able to go out to-morrow," he added. "No, not till the day after, if then," said Emma. "But never mind, Master Leigh, I'll go any way you like to name, and we'll have a nice walk, if it's a fine day." "I hope it will be a fine day," said Leigh. And the next morning, quite early, before his lessons, he took Fuzz a regular "exercising" up and down the long avenue leading to the stables at the back of the house--cart and all--the dog had really learnt to go pretty well. But then a rough little wooden sledge, on wheels, is a very different thing from a beautiful new perambulator with a sweet baby sister inside it. CHAPTER THIRTEEN. BRAVE JANIE. At dinner that day there was some talk of nurse going out to walk with the children. "Oh do come, nursie dear," said Mary. "It _are_ so much nicer when you come too," and baby cooed up in nurse's face for all the world as if she were saying "do come," too. "I'd like to, dearly," said nurse. "But I think I'd better rest my ankle one day more, and then I hope it will be quite well. I feel quite ashamed of having been so stupid about it." "It wasn't _your_ fault," said Artie. "It was the carpet's fault for being loose." "And mine for not seeing it and getting it fastened," said nurse. Though really I think it was more Emma's fault, for she had charge of the passage where nurse had tripped and fallen. "I think you'd much better wait another day," said Leigh gravely. And nurse said to herself that Master Leigh was very thoughtful for his age. But Leigh had a reason of his own for not wanting nurse to go out with them that day, and if he had let himself think about it honestly he would have seen that his dislike to nurse coming showed that he was not doing right. But all he would allow to himself was "Nurse is so fussy." "If we could put you in the p'ram-bilator, that would be nice," said Mary. "But I'm afraid it wouldn't be big enough." "Of course not, you silly girl," said Leigh rather crossly. He did not want the perambulator spoken of, for fear nurse should say something about not playing any tricks with it. But Mary stared at him. She could not understand why he was so cross. It was again a very fine day for October. And as soon as they could be got ready after dinner the children set off for their walk. "I'll follow you in a moment," said Leigh, as they were waiting at the side door into the garden while Emma got out the perambulator. "If you go slowly down the drive I'll make up to you. I'm going to fetch Fuzzy." Mary's face fell. She was frightened of the dog, you know, when nurse was not there for her to walk beside, for Emma only laughed at her. "I _wiss_ poor Fuzzy wasn't coming," she said. "Rubbish," said Leigh, and then he said more kindly, "You needn't be frightened of him, Mary, you'll see. He can't knock you down to-day;" and then, as he ran off, he cried back to Emma, "If I don't catch you up in the drive, turn to the right. We're going round by the smithy and the Lavender Cottages-- it's the best road for the p'ram-bilator." No one paid much attention to what he said, or they might have wondered what he meant, for there were plenty of good roads for the perambulator. Mary kept as close as she could to Emma and baby, and every now and then she looked round over her shoulder for fear of Fuzz coming full bang upon her in his affection, and knocking her down. But till they had got some little way along the road there was no sign of him or of Leigh. Suddenly there came a whoop and cry from behind them. Mary caught hold of Emma's skirt, and in another moment Leigh rushed past them, "driving Fuzz," he would have said, though it looked more like Fuzz dragging _him_. The dog had his harness on, and Leigh was holding the reins and shouting to him. "I'm taking it out of him," he called out, "just to quiet him down. Doesn't he go well?" It was certainly a comfort to Mary to see that Fuzz was not loose; and in a minute or two, when the pair came back again, running more slowly, she left off trembling and began to laugh a little. "Doesn't Fuzzy go just like a little pony?" she said. "Hasn't Leigh taught him cleverly?" Then Leigh showed off all he had trained the dog to do. He made him walk quite slowly, and then run, and then stop short when he called out "Woa-wo-a, now; gently, old man," till they all admired it greatly. "He'd soon learn to pull a cart," said Emma. "He _can_ pull a cart, that's what I've been teaching him for," said Leigh. "He could draw the p'ram-bilator beautifully." "Law!" said Emma, "could he now, really?" "Of course he could," said Leigh, "as soon as we get into the lane I'll let you see. The road's nice and smooth there." Mary clapped her hands. She thought it would be lovely. But Emma did hesitate a little. "Are you sure it's quite safe, Master Leigh?" she said. "Safe, of course it's safe," said Leigh. "But if you're afraid you can hold on behind just like you're doing now, and then you can stop us going faster than you like." The lane, when they got into it, ran almost straight to the cottages. Leigh meant to pass them and come home by the smithy, for he wanted Yakeman to admire him driving Fuzzy. There was a hill to go down, as you may remember, from the cottages to Yakeman's, and I do not know how Leigh meant to manage there. But as things turned out he did not get so far as that. The little party stopped when they had got some way down the lane, and Leigh began to fasten Fuzz to the perambulator. He had got everything ready--for he had secretly tried it before, and he had straps of the right length which he brought out of his pocket. Mary and Artie stood admiring his cleverness, but Baby Dolly was not pleased. She wanted to go on, and of course she did not understand what they were all stopping for. So she began to cry. Poor little girl, what else could she do? "P'raps she's cold," said Mary. "It _are_ raver cold standing still." "Cold, Miss Mary, oh dear no," said Emma. "She's that wrapped up she _couldn't_ be cold. But she's very fractious to-day; she was crying and fretting all the time nurse was dressing her. Nurse spoils her--if she were my baby I'd be a bit sharper with her." "Poor Dolly--dear Dolly," said Mary, going up to her little sister and trying to sooth her. "Don't cry--Dolly's going to have a beauty drive and go _so_ fast." "Get out of the way, Mary," shouted Leigh. "We're just starting, don't you see?" He held the reins in his hand and ran back behind the perambulator. Then he made Emma take her place as usual, holding the bar--not that there was any _need_ for her, he said, but just to make quite sure of Fuzz not running away--they were a funny-looking party, Emma between the reins and Fuzzy wagging his tail in his hurry to be off. Dolly left off crying and stared about her, wondering what it all meant. "Gee-up, old fellow," said Leigh, Emma giving a little starting push at the same time, and off they went, Mary and Artie at each side, breathless with excitement. At first it seemed all right. They went slowly, and Fuzzy did nothing worse than stand still every minute or two, and look over his shoulder to see what was behind him. The first and second times he did this Leigh only called out, "All right, old fellow--gee-up then." But when it got to the third and fourth time Leigh grew impatient. "Get on with you, you stupid fellow," he shouted, cracking the whip he held. And poor Fuzzy, meaning no harm, not understanding what all the unusual noise and fuss were about, did the only thing he could--he _did_ "get on." He started off, running as fast as he could, and that was pretty fast, for the carriage was very light and Emma was pushing--she could not have helped pushing as she was holding the bar and running. And for a minute or two she laughed so that she could not speak. The silly girl thought it was such fun. And seeing her laughing, Leigh thought it was all right and laughed too. But--on went Fuzz, excited by the laughter, and thinking _he_ was doing all right, till--at the corner where the lane they were in crossed another lane or road, wider but much rougher, and full of deep cart-ruts--instead of keeping straight on he turned sharply round, for some doggy reason or other, and rushed, still at the same speed, along this road to the right. "Fuzz," shouted Leigh, tugging at the left rein. "Fuzz, wo-a then, wo-a." "Stop, stop," screamed Emma. But it was no use; in another instant Emma, already panting with running and laughing, found herself flung off as it were, and Leigh, a moment after, lay sprawling at full length on the road, the reins torn out of his grasp, while Fuzzy in the greatest delight rushed on, on--the perambulator after him, swaying from side to side; and, oh dear, dear-- sweet baby Dolly inside! Mary and Artie were some little way behind, but when they came up, this was what they saw: Emma sitting on the road crying and rubbing her arm, Leigh tearing along as fast as he could go, and a small dark thing far in front of him, bumping up and down among the cart-ruts, and swinging from side to side, as if every moment it would tumble over, or else be broken to pieces. Mary stood still and screamed. Artie ran on at once, shouting at the top of his voice, though I do not quite know what good he thought that would do. And then Mary ran after him and left off screaming, which was sensible. Indeed, I think both of them showed more sense than silly Emma, though she was grown up and they were little children. For what could be less use than to sit on the ground crying and rubbing her bruised arm? But somebody else--somebody none of them was thinking of at all--showed the most sense of any one. The Perry children were coming along a field-path at one side of the road--it was dry weather, and the path was pretty hard and smooth, so Comfort and the old wicker perambulator got on pretty well with Janie and the baby beside them of course--when the sound of Leigh's shouts came across the hedge. Janie had quick ears and still quicker wits. "Someat's wrong," she cried, and she plumped the baby into her sister's arms. "Now hold he," she added, and for once Comfort had to leave off reading--indeed the flop of the baby made her book drop to the ground-- and get it into her head that the care of her three baby brothers was _her_ business for the present, while Janie flew to the gate, which she scrambled over or crept under, I am not sure which, in less time than it takes to tell it, and found herself in the middle of the road. Leigh was some little way off still; but nearer than he, and coming nearer every instant, was something else which made even Janie's stout little heart rise up to her mouth, as she afterwards said. It was the perambulator from the Hall, the beautiful new perambulator, banging and dashing along, dragged by something that looked just then very like a little wild beast instead of a well-disposed tame doggie. And yet it was only looks, for Fuzzy was in the best of spirits, quite pleased with himself, and thinking that Leigh's shouts only meant he was to go faster and faster. But Janie had not time to think anything. She only saw that the perambulator was not empty; she only took in that it must be stopped. She would not have been frightened, even if she had thought the dog was mad, for she was very brave. But she knew that her voice would have no power over him, and she made her plan in a moment. Just as the wildly excited dog came close to her--luckily just then he was going pretty evenly--she threw herself in his way, which made him slacken his pace, and then, somehow or other, she got hold of the edge of the carriage, holding on to it with all her strength, and she was very strong for her size. And then--what happened exactly she could not tell--I fancy Fuzzy must have given a bound forward to get rid of this troublesome interruption to his grand race--but before she knew where she was they were all in a jumbled-up heap on the ground, Janie, Baby Dolly, perambulator, and dog--Fuzzy barking loudly; baby, Janie was thankful to hear, crying and roaring, but, as far as the small sister-nurse could make out, unhurt. She had got her safely in her motherly little arms by the time Leigh came up. The first thing he did was to seize hold of the reins which had been dragging behind, for after a glance had shown him that the baby was in good hands, Leigh's next thought was for the new perambulator. "She's not hurt?" he exclaimed. "No, no, sir. I think not," said Janie. "She fell soft--right atop of me, Master Leigh. Hush, hush now, Miss Baby dear. Don't 'ee cry. There's Miss Mary a-coming along. Hush, hush, my dearie." And in surprise at the strange voice, and pleased by the sweet tones, Dolly actually did leave off crying. She opened her eyes wide, and by degrees a smile--a real smile--crept out of her mouth, and brightened up all the little face, still shining with tears. So that when poor wee Mary, all out of breath, and white with fear for her darling sister, came up to the little group, Janie was able to say, while Dolly stretched out her hands in welcome-- "She's not hurt, Miss Mary, dear. She's not hurt." Leigh by this time had unfastened Fuzz, and set the perambulator on its legs, or wheels, again. He was all trembling; and though it was not a hot day of course, the drops were standing out on his forehead. Wonderful to say, the perambulator was not broken or spoilt. "Oh Mary," said Leigh. He could scarcely speak. "Oh Janie, I don't know how to thank you." Janie opened her eyes. It had never come into her head that she had done anything to be thanked for. But she was, as I said, very sensible. "Master Leigh," she replied, "I couldn't a' done less--that's nothing. But I can't think how Mrs Nurse could a' let you do such a thing." "Nurse is ill; at least she's hurt her leg," said Leigh. "It's Emma that's with us." "Then she oughter be ashamed of herself," exclaimed Janie, as if she was nineteen and Emma ten, instead of the other way about. "What's the good of a big person to look after children if she's as silly as them. I beg your parding, Master Leigh, but this 'ere precious baby's had a narrer escape, and no mistake." Janie was hot with indignation and fright. "But you tried yourselves, Janie," said Leigh, feeling rather small. "Ned harnessed himself to--" "_That_ was quite different," said Janie. "And I told you the other day as it hadn't turned out a good plan at all. I'm sure if I'd had any notion you were thinking of such a thing, I'd have--" she stopped, then went on again, "But you'll never try such tricks again, now, will you, Master Leigh? And you'll go straight to your dear mamma as soon as you get in and tell her all about it." "No, I'll never try it again, I promise you. And of course I'd rather tell about it myself, Janie. You won't, will you? They'd be making such a song of it all through the village." "Very well then, I won't say nothing," agreed the little woman. "And I'll tell Comfort--she's in the field there behind the hedge with the babies. I'll see to it that Comfort says nothing neither." Then Janie put Baby Dolly tenderly back into her nest again, charging the children to stay close round her till Emma came up, "for fear the sweet little lady should be frightened again." There was a vision in the distance of Emma slowly making her way to them, and Janie did not want to see her. "I've a sharp tongue in my head, and I'd mebbe say too much," she thought. So she hurried back to her own charges, whom she found quite content; _the_ baby sprawling on Comfort's knee, and Comfort seated on the grass, late October though it was, buried in her book. There was no need to warn _her_ to say nothing. She looked up with a start as Janie ran up to them. "What have you been doing, Janie?" she said. She had no idea anything had been the matter! Emma was very cross when she got to the children. She was vexed at her own arm being bruised, and began scolding Leigh as if he had done it all on purpose to hurt her. "You said it would be as right as could be, Master Leigh," she grumbled, "and how was I to know? _I'm_ not going to be scolded for it, I can tell you." "You needn't be afraid," said Leigh, very proudly. "I'll take all the blame on myself when I tell mamma." Then Emma changed her tone and began to cry. "You'll not really tell your mamma," she said. "_Of course_ I'd be blamed, and I'd lose a good place, and what my poor mother'd say I don't know. It'd go near to break her heart, and she's not well. Oh Master Leigh, you'll not tell? There's no harm done, and Miss Dolly's none the worse, and we'll never be so silly again. Miss Mary, my dear, do ask Master Leigh not to tell." Mary could not bear to see any one cry, least of all a big person. Her lips began to quiver, and she looked timidly at her brother. "Leigh," she began. And Leigh too was very tender-hearted. But both of them, and Artie too, felt deep down in their hearts that however sorry they might be for Emma they were not doing right in giving in to her. They did promise not to tell, however; and then the little party turned homewards in very low spirits, though they had such great reason for thankfulness that their dear little sister was not hurt. They hardly spoke all the way; and Dolly, by this time, tired out by all her adventures, had fallen fast asleep. CHAPTER FOURTEEN. HAPPY AGAIN. It was two or three days after Fuzzy's running away with the perambulator that nurse, who was now quite well again, came in to breakfast in the nursery with a grave face, and without, as usual, Baby Dolly in her arms. "Where's baby?" said Leigh; and Mary, who was deeply engaged with her bowl of bread-and-milk, looked up. "Where's Baby Dolly, nursie?" she said, in turn. "In bed," nurse answered, "in bed and fast asleep. She's had a bad night, and she only fell really asleep when it was about time for getting up. So of course I didn't wake her." "Is she ill?" asked Leigh; and both he, and Mary and Artie, looked at nurse so anxiously that she felt sorry for them. "I hope not," she said. "I hope she'll be all right when she wakes up. The best and strongest of babies have their little turns. Don't look so troubled, my dears." Just then Emma, who had had her breakfast before, came into the room, and was crossing to the door which led into the night-nursery, when she was stopped. "I'll tidy the room myself this morning, Emma," said nurse. "I don't want any one to go in. Miss Dolly's not very well." "She's been very cross this day or two, crying enough to make herself ill. You spoil her, nurse, that's what I say," said Emma, pertly. Nurse made no reply, except to repeat her orders to Emma not to enter the bedroom. As soon as breakfast was over, the three children--Artie and Mary with clean pinafores, and all with smoothed hair and nicely-washed hands-- went downstairs as usual to the dining-room for prayers. But to their surprise their mamma was not there, nor was nurse. They did not wonder much about nurse, however, for they knew some one would have to stay beside baby in case she woke. But to-day several things seemed strange and different from usual. Instead of going up to the nursery again their father told them they were all to go to the little study where Leigh and Artie did their lessons with their tutor. "For baby must not be disturbed," he said, "and if you were all playing in the nursery the noise would go through to the other room." "Mayn't I go up to the nursery, papa dear?" asked Mary. "Just me. I'd be _kite_ quiet. I don't like to be away from nursie and baby," and her voice sounded as if she were going to cry. "And I don't know what to do when Mr Fibbetts comes." "Mr _Phillips_," said papa. "You're getting too big to talk so babyishly, Mary. And you mustn't be selfish, my dear. If you can play quietly in the nursery you can play quietly in the study, or perhaps I'll send Emma to take you out a little." "I don't want Emma. I want mamma, and nursie and Dolly," said Mary. She thought her papa was rather "c'oss," and she was not used to his being the least cross. And she was unhappy about baby; and deep down in her heart was a sort of fear she tried not to think about. Mary had never been so unhappy in all her life before. The fear was not in _her_ heart only. Leigh and Artie were feeling just the same. At first when they found themselves alone in the study they all three tried to pretend there was nothing the matter. They hid away the fear, and covered it up, and told it to go to sleep. But fears like that are very troublesome. They won't go to sleep; just as we think we have got them safely shut in and all seems still, up they jump again, and there they are knocking at the door, not only of our hearts, but of our _consciences_. "You have done wrong," they say, "and wrongdoing brings trouble." And after a while the two little brothers and their sister left off pretending. They sat down close together on the hearthrug and looked at each other. "Leigh," said Artie, in a strange hushed sort of voice, "do you think Baby Dolly's _very_ ill?" Mary did not speak; but she looked up in Leigh's face, so that he turned his head away. "How should I know?" he said roughly. "You heard as much as I did. Babies are often ill." But both the others knew quite well that he was just as unhappy as they were. "Oh, Leigh," said Mary at last, her voice trembling, "do you think it can be 'cos of--" but here she stopped. Leigh turned round sharply. His face was white, but still he tried to be angry. "Why can't you speak out, you silly girl?" he said. "Why don't you say what you mean?--that I've made her ill by the tumbling out of the perambulator? Nonsense, she fell on the top of Janie Perry, and Janie said she came quite softly. How _could_ it have hurt her?" "I don't know," said Mary, but she spoke very sadly. "There's was a little boy," began Artie, "wot fell out of a winder, and he jumped up and said he wasn't hurt, but then he was killed." "What do you mean?" said Leigh. "How was he killed if he wasn't hurt?" "I mean he died soon," said Artie. "P'raps it was the next day. He was hurt inside his head though it wasn't blooding outside." "And babies are so dellykid," said Mary. Leigh gave a sort of angry grunt, something between a sob and a scold. Certainly Mary and Artie were not comforting. But did he deserve comforting? It was true he had meant no harm at all to dear baby. He had thought it would be fun for her as well as for the others and himself--most for himself, I am afraid--if Fuzz could be taught to draw her carriage quite well, like the dogs papa had told them about. But, had it been right to do it secretly, without anybody's leave? He had turned it and twisted it so in his mind that he had persuaded himself he only wanted to "surprise" everybody, for one reason; and for another, that nurse was so silly and fussy; and for still another, that there was no need to tease papa and mamma about every little plan for amusing themselves that he and the others made. But now, somehow, none of these reasons seemed any good; they all slipped and melted away as if there was nothing real in them. And then there was the second piece of concealment--the hiding about the accident. There was no good excuse for that. Leigh's own first feelings had been to tell at once, and Janie Perry had trusted that he would. Why had he given in to Emma? Was it really out of pity for her and her mother; or was it partly--a good big "partly"--that he was afraid of being very much scolded himself? As he got to this point of his gloomy thoughts Leigh gave another groan; it was much more of a groan this time, as if he could not bear his own unhappiness. Then, for he had covered up his eyes, he felt a little hand stealing round his neck--it was Mary. "Oh, Leigh, dear poor Leigh," she whispered. "I _are_ so sorry for you, and I are so miderable." Leigh drew the trembling, quivering little creature to him, and left off trying to keep up. Artie crept near to them, and they all cried together. Then Leigh started up. "I'll go and tell now," he said, "now, this minute. It's been all my fault, and I don't care what Emma says, nor how I'm scolded. P'raps, _p'raps_, the doctor'll be able to do something, even if her head is hurt inside the way that boy's was." He kissed the two others and started off. He seemed away a long time; but, alas! when he came back there was no look of comfort or hope in his face. It was only very white, and his eyes very red. "It's no good," he said, flinging himself down on a chair and bursting out crying. "It's no good. That's my punishment. Now that I want to tell I can't." Mary and Artie could not understand. "Was you too f'ightened, poor Leigh?" said Mary. "Shall I go?" "No, no, it's not about me. It's this way. Papa's gone, ever so long ago. He's gone to the station, and I think he was going to see the doctor on the way. And mamma and nurse are shut up in the night-nursery with baby, not to be disturbed by _nobody_," said Leigh, forgetting his grammar in his distress. "I saw Emma, but _she's_ no good, she'd only tell stories to keep herself from being scolded. But I do think she looks frightened about baby. Oh dear, what _shall_ I do? Darling Baby Dolly, and it's all my fault. I see it now;" and Leigh flung himself on to the floor and burst out sobbing again. "Leigh, Leigh, poor Leigh," said Mary and Artie together. "Mr Fibbetts will be coming," said Mary in a moment, "and then I'll have to go out with Emma. Oh, I don't want to go." Leigh looked up. "Mr Phillips won't be coming," he said, "I forgot. Everything's been so strange to-day. It's Saturday, Mary. He doesn't come on Saturdays. You shan't go out with Emma if you don't want. She's a untrue bad girl; it's a good deal her fault, though she's not been half so wicked as me." "You've not been wicked, dear Leigh. You didn't mean any harm," sobbed Mary. "And we've _all_ been naughty for not telling," added Artie. "Oh, but what _are_ we to do?" cried Leigh again. "The doctor'll be coming and he won't know, and p'raps he'll give Dolly the wrong medicines with not knowing, and baby will get worser and worser. Oh, what _shall_ we do?" "_I_ know," said Mary, in a clear, decided voice, which made both her brothers look at her in surprise. "We'll hide somewhere, so that we can jump out when the doctor passes and tell _him_. So then he must know what to do for Dolly. Where shall we hide, Leigh?" Leigh stopped crying to consider. "Near the lodge would be best," he said. "The bushes are thick, and he must pass there. But it's cold, Mary, and we can't possibly go upstairs to get your things. Artie and I have got our caps and comforters in the hall. And if we left you here Emma would find you." "No, no," said Mary, dancing about in her eagerness, "don't leave me here, Leigh. There's shawls in the hall. Can't you wrap me up in one of them? I'll be _quite_ good. I won't fuss about at all." So it was settled. The three set off as silently as they could to the hall, where they caught up the best wraps they could find. Then they made their way through the big drawing-room, which opened into a conservatory, out by a side path to the drive. Five minutes after they had left the study Emma came to look for them, but found the birds flown. She took no further trouble; for, to tell the truth, she was not sorry to keep out of the children's way; her own conscience was not at all at rest, and she had made up her mind to write to her mother asking for her to come home at once. Though it was two miles to the village it did not take long to drive there, and Mr Bertram luckily caught Mr Wiseman the doctor just as he was starting on his rounds. Mr Wiseman was driving a young horse; he went well, but he was rather timid, and apt to shy when anything startled him. The lodge gates were open; as the children's papa had told the woman that the doctor would be coming, so he drove in without stopping. But, oh dear! Scarcely had he got a few yards up the avenue before there was a great fuss. The young horse was dancing and shaking with fear, and if the groom had not jumped down and got to his head more quickly than it takes me to tell it, who knows what might not have happened. What had frightened him so? Three funny-looking little figures had sprung out from among the bushes, calling out in eager but melancholy tones-- "Mr Wiseman, Mr Wiseman, please stop. Oh please stop." These were Leigh and Artie, one with an old squashy wide-awake of papa's, that was much too big for him, the other with a cloth deer-stalker cap which made him look like a Laplander, for in their hurry they had not been able to find their own things. And Mary, funniest of all, with a shawl mamma used on the lawn, all huddled up round her, and the fringes trailing elegantly behind. For half a minute the doctor thought they were gypsy children from the van on the common. But then again came the cry-- "Oh, Mr Wiseman, _please_ stay," and his quick eye saw that all the little faces were swollen and tear-stained. Something must be very wrong. "The baby," he thought to himself, "poor little woman. Surely nothing worse has happened to her since I saw Mr Bertram? They could never have sent the children to tell me--" He jumped down, stopping an instant to pat his frightened horse. But he had not the heart to scold the children for startling poor Paddy so. "What _is_ the matter, my dear children?" he said kindly. The children knew Mr Wiseman well, and were not afraid of him, still it was not easy to get the story clearly from them. The doctor saw he must be patient, and as soon as he heard baby's name he felt that the matter might be serious, and by careful questioning he at last understood the whole. In his heart he did not feel very uneasy, for little Dolly's father had told him in what way she seemed ill, and it was not the kind of illness that could have come from a fall. But to the children he was very grave, for he thought it most wrong of them, Leigh especially of course, not to have told exactly what had happened; and he thought, too, that the sooner the under-nurse was sent away the better. "I don't think," he said, "I don't think I need to tell you how wrong you have been. There is no fear, Leigh, of your ever trying anything of the kind again without leave. And even you two little ones are old enough to know you should not have kept the accident a secret. But I must hurry on to see poor baby as quickly as possible. Come back to the house now, for it is too cold for you to be standing about, and as soon as I can I will let you know how your little sister is. All you can do now is to be as good as possible, and give no trouble while she is ill, even if your mamma and nurse cannot be with you at all." With these words he sprang up into his dogcart again and drove off quickly to the house, the children gazing after him. Then Mary burst into a sad fit of crying again. "Oh Leigh! Oh Artie!" she said. "Does you think Baby Dolly's going to die?" Leigh was very pale, and his eyes were still swollen and red, but he had made up his mind not to cry any more. He felt he was so much more to blame than the others that he wanted to try to comfort them. "I hope God will make her better," he said in a very low voice. "Please try not to cry, Mary dear. It makes me so very miserable. Let us go home now and wait quietly in the study till Mr Wiseman comes to tell us how baby is." Mary slipped her hand into Leigh's, and choked down her tears. "I'll try not to cry," she said. "But I can't help thinking about if we have to be all alone with Emma, and she'll be so c'oss. Do you think, p'raps, we won't see mamma for a lot of days, Leigh?" Leigh could only say he did not know, but he squeezed Mary's hand tight. "I'll not let Emma be cross to you, Mary dear," he said. "I'll try to be very good to you, for it's all my fault." Artie took Mary's other hand, and they all three went back to the house. The study was just as they had left it--there was no sign of Emma, which they were very glad of. They felt chilly and tired, though they had walked such a little way, and they were glad all to creep round the fire again, and sit there waiting--oh so very, very anxiously, till they heard Mr Wiseman coming. For Leigh had told him they would be in the study. It seemed a long time. "I wonder if he's _never_ coming," said Mary, more than once. At last there came the sound of footsteps, quick and firm, running downstairs. "There he is," said Leigh, and he ran to the door which he opened and stood there listening. But strange to say the footsteps crossed the hall towards the front door, instead of turning down the passage to the study. Leigh could scarcely believe his ears--surely it _could_ not be the doctor? Yes it was--he heard his voice speaking to the butler in the hall. And then--before Leigh had time to run out and call to him, there came the sound of Mr Wiseman's dogcart driving away as fast as it had come. Leigh felt faint with disappointment. He came back into the room again, looking so white that Mary and Artie started up. "He's gone," said Leigh, "gone without coming in to tell us." "Can it be that Dolly's so ill he doesn't like to tell us?" said Artie. "P'raps he's gone to get another doctor," said Mary. "Peoples has two doctors when they're very ill, nurse said. Oh Leigh, dear Leigh, I'm afraid I'm going to cry." Leigh did not speak. If he had, he would have burst out crying himself, I'm afraid. But just then--just when they were feeling as if they _could not_ bear it any more, there came again the sound of some one hastening downstairs, a lighter tread than Mr Wiseman's this time. And the footsteps did not cross the hall. They came quick and eager, one after the other, down the passages to the study. Then the door opened-- and--some one stood there, looking in. "My poor dears," said a loving voice with a little tremble in it. And in another second somebody's arms were round them all--it is wonderful how many children can creep into one pair of arms sometimes!--and they all seemed to be kissing mamma, for of course it was mamma--and each other at once. And somehow--Mary could not remember how mamma told it them--they knew that there were good news. Baby Dolly was not going to be very ill! It had nothing to do with the fall--but, till the doctor came, it was thought the little sister had got scarlet fever or measles, and that was why the children had been kept out of the nursery all the morning and not allowed to see the baby, or mamma or nurse who had been with her. For those illnesses are very easily caught. But it was nothing so bad. It was only a little feverish attack, which would soon pass away if she was kept quiet and warm. "You shall see her this afternoon, just for a minute or two," said mamma. "I told the doctor I would come down myself to tell you the good news. And I am going to take you out a walk, so as to leave the nursery quite quiet." "Not with Emma?" said Mary. She was not sorry, but she was rather surprised. "No, dear, not with Emma. You will not be with Emma any more, for I cannot trust her." Leigh grew very red at this. "Mamma," he said, "then you can't trust _me_." "Yes," she replied. "I do trust you, for I know you have had a lesson you will never forget. Will you, my boy?" "No, mamma, never," said Leigh in a very low voice. The walk was to the Lavender Cottages. Mamma had two reasons for going there. She wanted to thank Janie Perry for the brave way she had behaved; and she also wanted to ask Janie's mother about a niece of hers, who she thought would make a nice nursery-maid instead of Emma. It was a very happy walk; they all felt as if they had never loved mamma _quite_ so much before. And a few days later, when Baby Dolly had got quite well and was able to go out in her carriage once more, mamma came with them again for a great treat. And Fuzzy came too. "Poor old Fuzzy," said Mary, who was hopping along as merry as a cricket, feeling quite safe with mamma's hand. "Poor old Fuzzy. He never _meaned_ to run away, did he, mamma? When Baby Dolly's a big girl we'll tell her she needn't be f'ightened of poor Fuzzy--it's only his play; isn't it, mamma dear?" ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The End. 
12476	----	SHIPS THAT PASS IN THE NIGHT. CONTENTS. PART I. I. A NEW-COMER II. WHICH CONTAINS A FEW DETAILS III. MRS. REFFOLD LEARNS HER LESSON IV. CONCERNING WARLI AND MARIE V. THE DISAGREEABLE MAN VI. THE TRAVELLER AND THE TEMPLE OF KNOWLEDGE VII. BERNARDINE VIII. THE STORY MOVES ON AT LAST IX. BERNARDINE PREACHES X. THE DISAGREEABLE MAN IS SEEN IN A NEW LIGHT XI. "IF ONE HAS MADE THE ONE GREAT SACRIFICE" XII. THE DISAGREEABLE MAN MAKES A LOAN XIII. A DOMESTIC SCENE XIV. CONCERNING THE CARETAKERS XV. WHICH CONTAINS NOTHING XVI. WHEN THE SOUL KNOWS ITS OWN REMORSE XVII. A RETURN TO OLD PASTURES XVIII. A BETROTHAL XIX. SHIPS THAT SPEAK EACH OTHER IN PASSING XX. A LOVE-LETTER PART II. I. THE DUSTING OF THE BOOKS II. BERNARDINE BEGINS HER BOOK III. FAILURE AND SUCCESS: A PROLOGUE IV. THE DISAGREEABLE MAN GIVES UP HIS FREEDOM V. THE BUILDING OF THE BRIDGE SHIPS THAT PASS IN THE NIGHT. PART I. CHAPTER I. A NEW-COMER. "YES, indeed," remarked one of the guests at the English table, "yes, indeed, we start life thinking that we shall build a great cathedral, a crowning glory to architecture, and we end by contriving a mud hut!" "I am glad you think so well of human nature," said the Disagreeable Man, suddenly looking up from the newspaper which he always read during meal- time. "I should be more inclined to say that we end by being content to dig a hole, and get into it, like the earth men." A silence followed these words; the English community at that end of the table was struck with astonishment at hearing the Disagreeable Man speak. The few sentences he had spoken during the last four years at Petershof were on record; this was decidedly the longest of them all. "He is going to speak again," whispered beautiful Mrs. Reffold to her neighbour. The Disagreeable Man once more looked up from his newspaper. "Please, pass me the Yorkshire relish," he said in his rough way to a girl sitting next to him. The spell was broken, and the conversation started afresh. But the girl who had passed the Yorkshire relish sat silent and listless, her food untouched, and her wine untasted. She was small and thin; her face looked haggard. She was a new-comer, and had, indeed, arrived at Petershof only two hours before the _table-d'hôte_ bell rang. But there did not seem to be any nervous shrinking in her manner, nor any shyness at having to face the two hundred and fifty guests of the Kurhaus. She seemed rather to be unaware of their presence; or, if aware of, certainly indifferent to the scrutiny under which she was being placed. She was recalled to reality by the voice of the Disagreeable Man. She did not hear what he said, but she mechanically stretched out her hand and passed him the mustard-pot. "Is that what you asked for?" she said half dreamily; "or was it the water-bottle?" "You are rather deaf, I should think," said the Disagreeable Man placidly. "I only remarked that it was a pity you were not eating your dinner. Perhaps the scrutiny of the two hundred and fifty guests in this civilized place is a vexation to you." "I did not know they were scrutinizing," she answered; "and even if they are, what does it matter to me? I am sure I am quite too tired to care." "Why have you come here?" asked the Disagreeable Man suddenly. "Probably for the same reason as yourself," she said; "to get better or well." "You won't get better," he answered cruelly; "I know your type well; you burn yourselves out quickly. And--my God--how I envy you!" "So you have pronounced my doom," she said, looking at him intently. Then she laughed but there was no merriment in the laughter. "Listen," she said, as she bent nearer to him; "because you are hopeless, it does not follow that you should try to make others hopeless too. You have drunk deep of the cup of poison; I can see that. To hand the cup on to others is the part of a coward." She walked past the English table, and the Polish table, and so out of the Kurhaus dining-hall. CHAPTER II. CONTAINS A FEW DETAILS. IN an old second-hand bookshop in London, an old man sat reading Gibbon's History of Rome. He did not put down his book when the postman brought him a letter. He just glanced indifferently at the letter, and impatiently at the postman. Zerviah Holme did not like to be interrupted when he was reading Gibbon; and as he was always reading Gibbon, an interruption was always regarded by him as an insult. About two hours afterwards, he opened the letter, and learnt that his niece, Bernardine, had arrived safely in Petershof, and that she intended to get better and come home strong. He tore up the letter, and instinctively turned to the photograph on the mantelpiece. It was the picture of a face young and yet old, sad and yet with possibilities of merriment, thin and drawn and almost wrinkled, and with piercing eyes which, even in the dull lifelessness of the photograph, seemed to be burning themselves away. Not a pleasing nor a good face; yet intensely pathetic because of its undisguised harassment. Zerviah looked at it for a moment. "She has never been much to either of us," he said to himself. "And yet, when Malvina was alive, I used to think that she was hard on Bernardine. I believe I said so once or twice. But Malvina had her own way of looking at things. Well, that is over now." He then, with characteristic speed, dismissed all thoughts which did not relate to Roman History; and the remembrance of Malvina, his wife, and Bernardine, his niece, took up an accustomed position in the background of his mind. Bernardine had suffered a cheerless childhood in which dolls and toys took no leading part. She had no affection to bestow on any doll, nor any woolly lamb, nor apparently on any human person; unless, perhaps, there was the possibility of a friendly inclination towards Uncle Zerviah, who would not have understood the value of any deeper feeling, and did not therefore call the child cold-hearted and unresponsive, as he might well have done. This she certainly was, judged by the standard of other children; but then no softening influences had been at work during her tenderest years. Aunt Malvina knew as much about sympathy as she did about the properties of an ellipse; and even the fairies had failed to win little Bernardine. At first they tried with loving patience what they might do for her; they came out of their books, and danced and sang to her, and whispered sweet stories to her, at twilight, the fairies' own time. But she would have none of them, for all their gentle persuasion. So they gave up trying to please her, and left her as they had found her, loveless. What can be said of a childhood which even the fairies have failed to touch with the warm glow of affection? Such a little restless spirit, striving to express itself now in this direction, now in that; yet always actuated by the same constant force, _the desire for work_. Bernardine seemed to have no special wish to be useful to others; she seemed just to have a natural tendency to work, even as others have a natural tendency to play. She was always in earnest; life for little Bernardine meant something serious. Then the years went by. She grew up and filled her life with many interests and ambitions. She was at least a worker, if nothing else; she had always been a diligent scholar, and now she took her place as an able teacher. She was self-reliant, and, perhaps, somewhat conceited. But, at least, Bernardine the young woman had learnt something which Bernardine the young child had not been able to learn: she learnt how to smile. It took her, about six and twenty years to learn; still, some people take longer than that; in fact, many never learn. This is a brief summary of Bernardine Holme's past. Then, one day, when she was in the full swing of her many engrossing occupations: teaching, writing articles for newspapers, attending socialistic meetings, and taking part in political discussions--she was essentially a modern product, this Bernardine--one day she fell ill. She lingered in London for some time, and then she went to Petershof. CHAPTER III. MRS. REFFOLD LEARNS A LESSON. PETERSHOF was a winter resort for consumptive patients, though, indeed, many people simply needed the change of a bracing climate went there to spend a few months; and came, away wonderfully better for the mountain air. This was what Bernardine Holme hoped to do; she was broken down in every way, but it was thought that a prolonged stay in Petershof might help her back to a reasonable amount of health, or, at least, prevent her from slipping into further decline. She had come alone, because she had no relations except that old uncle, and no money to pay any friend who might have been willing to come with her. But she probably cared very little, and the morning after her arrival, she strolled out by herself, investigating the place where she was about to spend six months. She was dragging herself along, when she met the Disagreeable Man. She stopped him. He was not accustomed to be stopped by any one, and he looked rather astonished. "You were not very cheering last night," she said to him. "I believe I am not generally considered to be lively," he answered, as he knocked the snow off his boot. "Still, I am sorry I spoke to you as I did," she went on frankly. "It was foolish of me to mind what you said." He made no reference to his own remark, and passing on his way again, when he turned back and walked with her. "I have been here nearly seven years," he said and there was a ring of sadness in his voice as he spoke, which he immediately corrected. "If you want to know anything about the place, I can tell you. If you are able to walk, I can show you some lovely spots, where you will not be bothered with people. I can take you to a snow fairy-land. If you are sad and disappointed, you will find shining comfort there. It is not all sadness in Petershof. In the silent snow forests, if you dig the snow away, you will find the tiny buds nestling in their white nursery. If the sun does not dazzle your eyes, you may always see the great mountains piercing the sky. These wonders have been a happiness to me. You are not too ill but that they may be a happiness to you also." "Nothing can be much of a happiness to me," she said, half to herself, and her lips quivered. "I have had to give up so much: all my work, all my ambitions." "You are not the only one who has had to do that," he said sharply. "Why make a fuss? Things arrange themselves, and eventually we adjust ourselves to the new arrangement. A great deal of caring and grieving, phase one; still more caring and grieving, phase two; less caring and grieving, phase three; no further feeling whatsoever, phase four. Mercifully I am at phase four. You are at phase one. Make a quick journey over the stages." He turned and left her, and she strolled along, thinking of his words, wondering how long it would take her to arrive at his indifference. She had always looked upon indifference as paralysis of the soul, and paralysis meant death, nay, was worse than death. And here was this man, who had obviously suffered both mentally and physically, telling her that the only sensible course was to learn not to care. How could she learn not to care? All her life long she had studied and worked and cultivated herself in every direction in the hope of being able to take a high place in literature, or, in any case, to do something in life distinctly better than what other people did. When everything was coming near to her grasp, when there seemed a fair chance of realizing her ambitions, she had suddenly fallen ill, broken up so entirely in every way, that those who knew her when she was well, could scarcely recognize her now that she was ill. The doctors spoke of an overstrained nervous system: the pestilence of these modern days; they spoke of rest, change of work and scene, bracing air. She might regain her vitality; she might not. Those who had played themselves out must pay the penalty. She was thinking of her whole history, pitying herself profoundly, coming to the conclusion, after true human fashion, that she was the worst-used person on earth, and that no one but herself knew what disappointed ambitions were; she was thinking of all this, and looking profoundly miserable and martyr-like, when some one called her by her name. She looked round and saw one of the English ladies belonging to the Kurhaus; Bernardine had noticed her the previous night. She seemed in capital spirits, and had three or four admirers waiting on her very words. She was a tall, handsome woman, dressed in a superb fur-trimmed cloak, a woman of splendid bearing and address. Bernardine looked a contemptible little piece of humanity beside her. Some such impression conveyed itself to the two men who were walking with Mrs. Reffold. They looked at the one woman, and then at the other, and smiled at each other, as men do smile on such occasions. "I am going to speak to this little thing," Mrs. Reffold had said to her two companions before they came near Bernardine. "I must find out who she is, and where she comes from. And, fancy, she has come quite alone. I have inquired. How hopelessly out of fashion she dresses. And what a hat!" "I should not take the trouble to speak to her," said one of the men. "She may fasten herself on to you. You know what a bore that is." "Oh, I can easily snub any one if I wish," replied Mrs. Reffold, rather disdainfully. So she hastened up to Bernardine, and held out her well-gloved hand. "I had not a chance of speaking to you last night, Miss Holme," she said. "You retired so early. I hope you have rested after your journey. You seemed quite worn out." "Thank you," said Bernardine, looking admiringly at the beautiful woman, and envying her, just as all plain women envy their handsome sisters. "You are not alone, I suppose?" continued Mrs. Reffold. "Yes, quite alone," answered Bernardine. "But you are evidently acquainted with Mr. Allitsen, your neighbour at table," said Mrs. Reffold; "so you will not feel quite lonely here. It is a great advantage to have a friend at a place like this." "I never saw him before last night," said Bernardine. "Is it possible?" said Mrs. Reffold, in her pleasantest voice. "Then you _have_ made a triumph of the Disagreeable Man. He very rarely deigns to talk with any of us. He does not even appear to see us. He sits quietly and reads. It would be interesting to hear what his conversation is like. I should be quite amused to know what you did talk about." "I dare say you would," said Bernardine quietly. Then Mrs. Reffold, wishing to screen her inquisitiveness, plunged into a description of Petershof life, speaking enthusiastically about everything, except the scenery, which she did not mention. After a time she ventured to begin once more taking soundings. But some how or other, those bright eyes of Bernardine, which looked at her so searchingly, made her a little nervous, and, perhaps, a little indiscreet. "Your father will miss you," she said tentatively. "I should think probably not," answered Bernardine. "One is not easily missed, you know." There was a twinkle in Bernardine's eye as she added, "He is probably occupied with other things!" "What is your father?" asked Mrs. Reffold, in her most coaxing tones. "I don't know what he is now," answered Bernardine placidly. "But he was a genius. He is dead." Mrs. Reffold gave a slight start, for she began to feel that this insignificant little person was making fun of her. This would never do, and before witnesses too. So she gathered together her best resources and said: "Dear me, how very unfortunate: a genius too. Death is indeed cruel. And here one sees so much of it, that unless one learns to steel one's heart, one becomes melancholy. Ah, it is indeed sad to see all this suffering!" (Mrs Reffold herself had quite succeeded in steeling her heart against her own invalid husband.) She then gave an account of several bad cases of consumption, not forgetting to mention two instances of suicide which had lately taken place in Petershof. "One gentleman was a Russian," she said. "Fancy coming all the way, from Russia to this little out-of-the-world place! But people come from the uttermost ends of the earth, though of course there are many Londoners here. I suppose you are from London?" "I am not living in London now," said Bernardine cautiously. "But you know it, without doubt," continued Mrs. Reffold. "There are several Kensington people here. You may meet some friends: indeed in our hotel there are two or three families from Lexham Gardens." Bernardine smiled a little viciously; looked first at Mrs. Reffold's two companions with an amused sort of indulgence, and then at the lady herself. She paused a moment, and then said: "Have you asked all the questions you wish to ask? And, if so, may I ask one of you. Where does one get the best tea?" Mrs. Reffold gave an inward gasp, but pointed gracefully to a small confectionery shop on the other side of the road. Mrs. Reffold did everything gracefully. Bernardine thanked her, crossed the road, and passed into the shop. "Now I have taught her a lesson not to interfere with me," said Bernardine to herself. "How beautiful she is." Mrs. Reffold and her two companions went silently on their way. At last the silence was broken. "Well, I'm blessed!" said the taller of the two, lighting a cigar. "So am I," said the other, lighting his cigar too. "Those are precisely my own feelings," remarked Mrs. Reffold. But she had learnt her lesson. CHAPTER IV. CONCERNING WÄRLI AND MARIE. WÄRLI, the little hunchback postman, a cheery soul, came whistling up the Kurhaus stairs, carrying with him that precious parcel of registered letters, which gave him the position of being the most important person in Petershof. He was a linguist, too, was Wärli, and could speak broken English in a most fascinating way, agreeable to every one, but intelligible only to himself. Well, he came whistling up the stairs when he heard Marie's blithe voice humming her favourite spinning-song. "Ei, Ei!" he said to himself; "Marie is in a good temper to-day. I will give her a call as I pass." He arranged his neckerchief and smoothed his curls; and when he reached the end of the landing, he paused outside a little glass-door, and, all unobserved, watched Marie in her pantry cleaning the candlesticks and lamps. Marie heard a knock, and, looking up from her work, saw Wärli. "Good day, Wärli," she said, glancing hurriedly at a tiny broken mirror suspended on the wall. "I suppose you have a letter for me. How delightful!" "Never mind about the letter just now," he said, waving his hand as though wishing to dismiss the subject. "How nice to hear you singing so sweetly, Marie! Dear me, in the old days at Grüsch, how often I have heard that song of the spinning-wheels. You have forgotten the old days, Marie, though you remember the song." "Give me my letter, Wärli, and go about your work," said Marie, pretending to be impatient. But all the same her eyes looked extremely friendly. There was something very winning about the hunchback's face. "Ah, ah! Marie," he said, shaking his curly head; "I know how it is with you: you only like people in fine binding. They have not always fine hearts." "What nonsense you talk Wärli!" said Marie "There, just hand me the oil-can. You can fill this lamp for me. Not too full, you goose! And this one also, ah, you're letting the oil trickle down! Why, you're not fit for anything except carrying letters! Here, give me my letter." "What pretty flowers," said Wärli. "Now if there is one thing I do like, it is a flower. Can you spare me one, Marie? Put one in my button-hole, do!" "You are a nuisance this afternoon," said Marie, smiling and pinning a flower on Wärli's blue coat. Just then a bell rang violently. "Those Portuguese ladies will drive me quite mad," said Marie. "They always ring just when I am enjoying myself?" "When you are enjoying yourself!" said Wärli triumphantly. "Of course," returned Marie; "I always do enjoy cleaning the oil-lamps; I always did!" "Ah, I'd forgotten the oil-lamps!" said Wärli. "And so had I!" laughed Marie. "Na, na, there goes that bell again! Won't they be angry! Won't they scold at me! Here, Wärli, give me my letter, and I'll be off." "I never told you I had any letter for you," remarked Wärli. "It was entirely your own idea. Good afternoon, Fräulein Marie." The Portuguese ladies' bell rang again, still more passionately this time; but Marie did not seem to hear nor care. She wished to be revenged on that impudent postman. She went to the top of the stairs and called after Wärli in her most coaxing tones: "Do step down one moment; I want to show you something!" "I must deliver the registered letters," said Wärli, with official haughtiness. "I have already wasted too much of my time." "Won't you waste a few more minutes on me?" pleaded Marie pathetically. "It is not often I see you now." Wärli came down again, looking very happy. "I want to show you such a beautiful photograph I've had taken," said Marie. "Ach, it is beautiful!" "You must give one to me," said Wärli eagerly. "Oh, I can't do that," replied Marie, as she opened the drawer and took out a small packet. "It was a present to me from the Polish gentleman himself. He saw me the other day here in the pantry. I was so tired, and I had fallen asleep with my broom, just as you see me here. So he made a photograph of me. He admires me very much. Isn't it nice? and isn't the Polish gentleman clever? and isn't it nice to have so much attention paid to one? Oh, there's that horrid bell again! Good afternoon, Herr Wärli. That is all I have to say to you, thank you." Wärli's feelings towards the Polish gentleman were not of the friendliest that day. CHAPTER V. THE DISAGREEABLE MAN. ROBERT ALLITSEN told Bernardine that she was not likely to be on friendly terms with the English people in the Kurhaus. "They will not care about you, and you will not care about the foreigners. So you will thus be thrown on your own resources, just as I was when I came." "I cannot say that I have any resources," Bernardine answered. "I don't feel well enough to try to do any writing, or else it would be delightful to have the uninterrupted leisure." So she had probably told him a little about her life and occupation; although it was not likely that she would have given him any serious confidences. Still, people are often surprisingly frank about themselves, even those who pride themselves upon being the most reticent mortals in the world. "But now, having the leisure," she continued, "I have not the brains!" "I never knew any writer who had," said the Disagreeable Man grimly. "Perhaps your experience has been limited," she suggested. "Why don't you read?" he said. "There is a good library here. It contains all the books we don't want to read." "I am tired of reading," Bernardine said. "I seem to have been reading all my life. My uncle, with whom I live, keeps, a second-hand book-shop, and ever since I can remember, I have been surrounded by books. They have not done me much good, nor any one else either." "No, probably not," he said. "But now that you have left off reading, you will have a chance of learning something, if you live long enough. It is wonderful how much one does learn when one does not read. It is almost awful. If you don't care about reading now, why do you not occupy yourself with cheese-mites?" "I do not feel drawn towards cheese-mites." "Perhaps not, at first; but all the same they form a subject which is very engaging. Or any branch of bacteriology." "Well, if you were to lend me your microscope, perhaps I might begin." "I could not do that," he answered quickly. "I never lend my things." "No, I did not suppose you would," she said. "I knew I was safe in making the suggestion." "You are rather quick of perception in spite of all your book reading," he said. "Yes, you are quite right. I am selfish. I dislike lending my things, and I dislike spending my money except on myself. If you have the misfortune to linger on as I do you will know that it is perfectly legitimate to be selfish in small things, _if one has made the one great sacrifice_." "And what may that be?" She asked so eagerly that he looked at her, and then saw how worn and tired her face was; and the words which he was intending to speak, died on his lips. "Look at those asses of people on toboggans," he said brusquely. "Could you manage to enjoy yourself in that way? That might do you good." "Yes," she said; "but it would not be any pleasure to me." She stopped to watch the toboggans flying down the road. And the Disagreeable Man went his own solitary way, a forlorn figure, with a face almost expressionless, and a manner wholly impenetrable. He had lived nearly seven years at Petershof, and, like many others was obliged to continue staying there if he wished to continue staying in this planet. It was not probable that he had any wish to prolong his frail existence, but he did his duty to his mother by conserving his life; and this feeble flame of duty and affection was the only lingering bit of warmth in a heart frozen almost by ill health and disappointed ambitions. The moralists tell us that suffering ennobles, and that a right acceptation of hindrances goes towards forming a beautiful character. But this result must largely depend on the original character: certainly, in the case of Robert Allitsen, suffering had not ennobled his mind, nor disappointment sweetened his disposition. His title of "Disagreeable Man" had been fairly earned, and he hugged it to himself with a triumphant secret satisfaction. There were some people in Petershof who were inclined to believe certain absurd rumours about his alleged kindness. It was said that on more than one occasion he had nursed the suffering and the dying in sad Petershof, and, with all the sorrowful tenderness worthy of a loving mother, had helped them to take their leave of life. But these were only rumours, and there was nothing in Robert Allitsen's ordinary bearing to justify such talk. So the foolish people who, for the sake of making themselves peculiar, revived these unlikely fictions, were speedily ridiculed and reduced to silence. And the Disagreeable Man remained the Disagreeable Man, with a clean record for unamiability. He lived a life apart from others. Most of his time was occupied in photography, or in the use and study of the microscope, or in chemistry. His photographs were considered to be most beautiful. Not that he showed them specially to any one; but he generally sent a specimen of his work to the Monthly Photograph Portfolio, and hence it was that people learned to know of his skill. He might be seen any fine day trudging along in company with his photographic apparatus, and a desolate dog, who looked almost as cheerless as his chosen comrade. Neither the one took any notice of the other; Allitsen was no more genial to the dog than he was to the Kurhaus guests; the dog was no more demonstrative to Robert Allitsen than he was to any one in Petershof. Still, they were "something" to each other, that unexplainable "something" which has to explain almost every kind of attachment. He had no friends in Petershof, and apparently had no friends anywhere. No one wrote to him, except his old mother; the papers which were sent to him came from a stationer's. He read all during meal-time. But now and again he spoke a few words with Bernardine Holme, whose place was next to him. It never occurred to him to say good morning, nor to give a greeting of any kind, nor to show a courtesy. One day during lunch, however, he did take the trouble to stoop and pick up Bernardine Holme's shawl, which had fallen for the third time to the ground. "I never saw a female wear a shawl more carelessly than you," he said. "You don't seem to know anything about it." His manner was always gruff. Every one complained of him. Every one always had complained of him. He had never been heard to laugh. Once or twice he had been seen to smile on occasions when people talked confidently of recovering their health. It was a beautiful smile worthy of a better cause. It was a smile which made one pause to wonder what could have been the original disposition of the Disagreeable Man before ill-health had cut him off from the affairs of active life. Was he happy or unhappy? It was not known. He gave no sign of either the one state or the other. He always looked very ill, but he did not seem to get worse. He had never been known to make the faintest allusion to his own health. He never "smoked" his thermometer in public; and this was the more remarkable in an hotel where people would even leave off a conversation and say: "Excuse me, Sir or Madam, I must now take my temperature. We will resume the topic in a few minutes." He never lent any papers or books, and he never borrowed any. He had a room at the top of the hotel, and he lived his life, amongst his chemistry bottles, his scientific books, his microscope, and his camera. He never sat in any of the hotel drawing-rooms. There was nothing striking nor eccentric about his appearance. He was neither ugly nor good-looking, neither tall nor short, neither fair nor dark. He was thin and frail, and rather bent. But that might be the description of any one in Petershof. There was nothing pathetic about him, no suggestion even of poetry, which gives a reverence to suffering, whether mental or physical. As there was no expression on his face, so also there was no expression in his eyes: no distant longing, no far-off fixedness; nothing, indeed, to awaken sad sympathy. The only positive thing about him was his rudeness. Was it natural or cultivated? No one in Petershof could say. He had always been as he was; and there was no reason to suppose that he would ever be different. He was, in fact, like the glacier of which he had such a fine view from his room; like the glacier, an unchanging feature of the neighbourhood. No one loved it better than the Disagreeable Man did; he watched the sunlight on it, now pale golden, now fiery red. He loved the sky, the dull grey, or the bright blue. He loved the snow forests, and the snow-girt streams, and the ice cathedrals, and the great firs patient beneath their snow-burden. He loved the frozen waterfalls, and the costly diamonds in the snow. He knew, too, where the flowers nestled in their white nursery. He was, indeed, an authority on Alpine botany. The same tender hands which plucked the flowers in the spring-time, dissected them and laid them bare beneath the microscope. But he did not love them the less for that. Were these pursuits a comfort to him? Did they help him to forget that there was a time when he, too, was burning with ambition to distinguish himself, and be one of the marked men of the age? Who could say? CHAPTER VI. THE TRAVELLER AND THE TEMPLE OF KNOWLEDGE. COUNTLESS ages ago a Traveller, much worn with journeying, climbed up the last bit of rough road which led to the summit of a high mountain. There was a temple on that mountain. And the Traveller had vowed that he would reach it before death prevented him. He knew the journey was long, and the road rough. He knew that the mountain was the most difficult of ascent of that mountain chain, called "The Ideals." But he had a strongly-hoping heart and a sure foot. He lost all sense of time, but he never lost the feeling of hope. "Even if I faint by the way-side," he said to himself, "and am not able to reach the summit, still it is something to be on the road which leads to the High Ideals." That was how he comforted himself when he was weary. He never lost more hope than that; and surely that was little enough. And now he had reached the temple. He rang the bell, and an old white-haired man opened the gate. He smiled sadly when he saw the Traveller. "_And yet another one_," he murmured. "What does it all mean?" The Traveller did not hear what he murmured. "Old white-haired man," he said, "tell me; and so I have come at last to the wonderful Temple of Knowledge. I have been journeying hither all my life. Ah, but it is hard work climbing up to the Ideals." The old man touched the Traveller on the arm. "Listen," he said gently. "This is not the Temple of Knowledge. And the Ideals are not a chain of mountains; they are a stretch of plains, and the Temple of Knowledge is in their centre. You have come the wrong road. Alas, poor Traveller!" The light in the Traveller's eyes had faded. The hope in his heart died. And he became old and withered. He leaned heavily on his staff. "Can one rest here?" he asked wearily. "No." "Is there a way down the other side of these mountains?" "No." "What are these mountains called?" "They have no name." "And the temple--how do you call the temple?" "It has no name!" "Then I call it the Temple of Broken Hearts," said the Traveller. And he turned and went. But the old white-haired man followed him. "Brother," he said, "you are not the first to come here, but you may be the last. Go back to the plains, and tell the dwellers in the plains that the Temple of True Knowledge is in their very midst; any one may enter it who chooses, the gate is not even closed. The Temple has always been in the plains, in the very heart of life, and work, and daily effort. The philosopher may enter, the stone-breaker may enter. You must have passed it every day of your life; a plain, venerable building, unlike your glorious cathedrals." "I have seen the children playing near it," said the Traveller. "When I was a child I used to play there. Ah, if I had only known! Well, the past is the past." He would have rested against a huge stone, but that the old white-haired man prevented him. "Do not rest," he said. "If you once rest there, you will not rise again. When you once rest, you will know how weary you are." "I have no wish to go farther," said the Traveller. "My journey is done; it may have been in the wrong direction, but still it is done." "Nay, do not linger here," urged the old man. "Retrace your steps. Though you are broken-hearted yourself, you may save others from breaking their hearts. Those whom you meet on this road, you can turn back. Those who are but starting in this direction you can bid pause and consider how mad it is to suppose that the Temple of True Knowledge should have been built on an isolated and dangerous mountain. Tell them that although God seems hard, He is not as hard as all that. Tell them that the Ideals are not a mountain range, but their own plains, where their great cities are built, and where the corn grows, and where men and women are toiling, sometimes in sorrow and sometimes in joy." "I will go," said the Traveller. And he started. But he had grown old and weary. And the journey was long; and the retracing of one's steps is more toilsome than the tracing of them. The ascent, with all the vigour and hope of life to help him, had been difficult enough; the descent, with no vigour and no hope to help him, was almost impossible. So that it was not probable that the Traveller lived to reach the plains. But whether he reached them or not, still he had started. And not many Travellers do that. CHAPTER VII. BERNARDINE. THE crisp mountain air and the warm sunshine began slowly to have their effect on Bernardine, in spite of the Disagreeable Man's verdict. She still looked singularly lifeless, and appeared to drag herself about with painful effort; but the place suited her, and she enjoyed sitting in the sun listening to the music which was played by a scratchy string band. Some of the Kurhaus guests, seeing that she was alone and ailing, made some attempts to be kindly to her. She always seemed astonished that people should concern themselves about her; whatever her faults were, it never struck her that she might be of any importance to others, however important she might be to herself. She was grateful for any little kindness which was shewn her; but at first she kept very much to herself, talking chiefly with the Disagreeable Man, who, by the way, had surprised every one--but no one more than himself--by his unwonted behaviour in bestowing even a fraction of his companionship on a Petershof human being. There was a great deal of curiosity about her, but no one ventured to question her since Mrs. Reffold's defeat. Mrs. Reffold herself rather avoided her, having always a vague suspicion that Bernardine tried to make fun of her. But whether out of perversity or not, Bernardine never would be avoided by her, never let her pass by without a few words of conversation, and always went to her for information, much to the amusement of Mrs. Reffold's faithful attendants. There was always a twinkle in Bernardine's eye when she spoke with Mrs. Reffold. She never fastened herself on to any one; no one could say she intruded. As time went, on there was a vague sort of feeling that she did not intrude enough. She was ready to speak if any one cared to speak with her, but she never began a conversation except with Mrs. Reffold. When people did talk to her, they found her genial. Then the sad face would smile kindly, and the sad eyes speak kind sympathy. Or some bit of fun would flash forth, and a peal of young laughter ring out. It seemed strange that such fun could come from her. Those who noticed her, said she appeared always to be thinking. She was thinking and learning. Some few remarks roughly made by the Disagreeable Man had impressed her deeply. "You have come to a new world," he said, "the world of suffering. You are in a fury because your career has been checked, and because you have been put on the shelf; you, of all people. Now you will learn how many quite as able as yourself, and abler, have been put on the shelf too, and have to stay there. You are only a pupil in suffering. What about the professors? If your wonderful wisdom has left you with any sense at all, look about you and learn." So she was looking, and thinking, and learning. And as the days went by, perhaps a softer light came into her eyes. All her life long, her standard of judging people had been an intellectual standard, or an artistic standard: what people had done with outward and visible signs; how far they had contributed to thought; how far they had influenced any great movement, or originated it; how much of a benefit they had been to their century or their country; how much social or political activity, how much educational energy they had devoted to the pressing need of the times. She was undoubtedly a clever, cultured young woman; the great work of her life had been self-culture. To know and understand, she had spared neither herself nor any one else. To know, and to use her acquired knowledge intellectually as teacher and, perhaps, too, as writer, had been the great aim of her life. Everything that furthered this aim won her instant attention. It never struck her that she was selfish. One does not think of that until the great check comes. One goes on, and would go on. But a barrier rises up. Then, finding one can advance no further, one turns round; and what does one see? Bernardine saw that she had come a long journey. She saw what the Traveller saw. That was all she saw at first. Then she remembered that she had done the journey entirely for her own sake. Perhaps it might not have looked so dreary if it had been undertaken for some one else. She had claimed nothing of any one; she had given nothing to any one. She had simply taken her life in her own hands and made what she could of it. What had she made of it? Many women asked for riches, for position, for influence and authority and admiration. She had only asked to be able to work. It seemed little enough to ask. That she asked so little placed her, so she thought, apart from the common herd of eager askers. To be cut off from active life and earnest work was a possibility which never occurred to her. It never crossed her mind that in asking for the one thing for which she longed, she was really asking for the greatest thing. Now, in the hour of her enfeeblement, and in the hour of the bitterness of her heart, she still prided herself upon wanting so little. "It seems so little to ask," she cried to herself time after time. "I only want to be able to do a few strokes of work. I would be content now to do so little, if only I might do some. The laziest day-labourer on the road would laugh at the small amount of work which would content me now." She told the Disagreeable Man that one day. "So you think you are moderate in your demands," he said to her. "You are a most amusing young woman. You are so perfectly unconscious how exacting you really are. For, after all, what is it you want? You want to have that wonderful brain of yours restored, so that you may begin to teach, and, perhaps, write a book. Well, to repeat my former words: you are still at phase one, and you are longing to be strong enough to fulfil your ambitions and write a book. When you arrive at phase four, you will be quite content to dust one of your uncle's books instead: far more useful work and far more worthy of encouragement. If every one who wrote books now would be satisfied to dust books already written, what a regenerated world it would become!" She laughed good-temperedly. His remarks did not vex her; or, at least, she showed no vexation. He seemed to have constituted himself as her critic, and she made no objections. She had given him little bits of stray confidence about herself, and she received everything he had to say with that kind of forbearance which chivalry bids us show to the weak and ailing. She made allowances for him; but she did more than that for him: she did not let him see that she made allowances. Moreover, she recognized amidst all his roughness a certain kind of sympathy which she could not resent, because it was not aggressive. For to some natures the expression of sympathy is an irritation; to be sympathized with means to be pitied, and to be pitied means to be looked down upon. She was sorry for him, but she would not have told him so for worlds; he would have shrunk from pity as much as she did. And yet the sympathy which she thought she did not want for herself, she was silently giving to those around her, like herself, thwarted, each in a different way perhaps, still thwarted all the same. She found more than once that she was learning to measure people by a standard different from her former one; not by what they had _done_ or _been_, but by what they had _suffered_. But such a change as this does not come suddenly, though, in a place like Petershof, it comes quickly, almost unconsciously. She became immensely interested in some of the guests; and there were curious types in the Kurhaus. The foreigners attracted her chiefly; a little Parisian danseuse, none too quiet in her manner, won Bernardine's fancy. "I so want to get better, _chérie_," she said to Bernardine. "Life is so bright. Death: ah, how the very thought makes one shiver! That horrid doctor says I must not skate; it is not wise. When was I wise? Wise people don't enjoy themselves. And I have enjoyed myself, and will still." "How can you go about with that little danseuse?" the Disagreeable Man said to Bernardine one day. "Do you know who she is?" "Yes," said Bernardine; "she is the lady who thinks you must be a very ill-bred person because you stalk into meals, with your hands in your pockets. She wondered how I could bring myself to speak to you." "I dare say many people wonder at that," said Robert Allitsen rather peevishly. "Oh no," replied Bernardine; "they wonder that you talk to me. They think I must either be very clever or else very disagreeable." "I should not call you clever," said Robert Allitsen grimly. "No," answered Bernardine pensively. "But I always did think myself clever until I came here. Now I am beginning to know better. But it is rather a shock, isn't it?" "I have never experienced the shock," he said. "Then you still think you are clever?" she asked. "There is only one man my intellectual equal in Petershof, and he is not here any more," he said gravely. "Now I come to remember, he died. That is the worst of making friendships here; people die." "Still, it is something to be left king of the intellectual world," said Bernardine. "I never thought of you in that light." There was a sly smile about her lips as she spoke, and there was the ghost of a smile on the Disagreeable Man's face. "Why do you talk with that horrid Swede?" he said suddenly. "He is a wretched low foreigner. Have you heard some of his views?" "Some of them," answered Bernardine cheerfully. "One of his views is really amusing: that it is very rude of you to read the newspaper during meal-time; and he asks if it is an English custom. I tell him it depends entirely on the Englishman, and the Englishman's neighbour!" So she too had her raps at him, but always in the kindest way. He had a curious effect on her. His very bitterness seemed to check in its growth her own bitterness. The cup of poison of which he himself had drunk deep, he passed on to her. She drank of it, and it did not poison her. She was morbid, and she needed cheerful companionship. His dismal companionship and his hard way of looking at life ought by rights to have oppressed her. Instead of which she became less sorrowful. Was the Disagreeable Man, perhaps, a reader of character? Did he know how to help her in his own grim gruff way? He himself had suffered so much; perhaps he did know. CHAPTER VIII. THE STORY MOVES ON AT LAST. BERNARDINE was playing chess one day with the Swedish Professor. On the Kurhaus terrace the guests were sunning themselves, warmly wrapped up to protect themselves from the cold, and well-provided with parasols to protect themselves from the glare. Some were reading, some were playing cards or Russian dominoes, and others were doing nothing. There was a good deal of fun, and a great deal of screaming amongst the Portuguese colony. The little danseuse and three gentlemen acquaintances were drinking coffee, and not behaving too quietly. Pretty Fräulein Müller was leaning over her balcony carrying on a conversation with a picturesque Spanish youth below. Most of the English party had gone sledging and tobogganing. Mrs. Reffold had asked Bernardine to join them, but she had refused. Mrs. Reffold's friends were anything but attractive to Bernardine, although she liked Mrs. Reffold herself immensely. There was no special reason why she should like her; she certainly had no cause to admire her every-day behaviour, nor her neglect of her invalid husband, who was passing away, uncared for in the present, and not likely to be mourned for in the future. Mrs. Reffold was gay, careless, and beautiful. She understood nothing about nursing, and cared less. So a trained nurse looked after Mr. Reffold, and Mrs. Reffold went sledging. "Dear Wilfrid is so unselfish," she said. "He will not have me stay at home. But I feel very selfish." That was her stock remark. Most people answered her by saying: "Oh no, Mrs. Reffold, don't say that." But when she made the remark to Bernardine, and expected the usual reply, Bernardine said instead: "Mr. Reffold seems lonely." "Oh, he has a trained nurse, and she can read to him," said Mrs. Reffold hurriedly. She seemed ruffled. "I had a trained nurse once," replied Bernardine; "and she could read; but she would not. She said it hurt her throat." "Dear me, how very unfortunate for you," said Mrs. Reffold. "Ah, there is Captain Graham calling. I must not keep the sledges waiting." That was a few days ago, but to-day, when Bernardine was playing chess with the Swedish Professor, Mrs. Reffold came to her. There was a curious mixture of shyness and abandon in Mrs. Reffold's manner. "Miss Holme," she said, "I have thought of such a splendid idea. Will you go and see Mr. Reffold this afternoon? That would be a nice little change for him." Bernardine smiled. "If you wish it," she answered. Mrs. Reffold nodded and hastened away, and Bernardine continued her game, and, having finished it, rose to go. The Reffolds were rich, and lived in a suite of apartments in the more luxurious part of the Kurhaus. Bernardine knocked at the door, and the nurse came to open it. "Mrs. Reffold asks me to visit Mr. Reffold," Bernardine said; and the nurse showed her into the pleasant sitting-room. Mr. Reffold was lying on the sofa. He looked up as Bernardine came in, and a smile of pleasure spread over his wan face. "I don't know whether I intrude," said Bernardine; "but Mrs. Reffold said I might come to see you." Mr. Reffold signed to the nurse to withdraw. She had never before spoken to him. She had often seen him lying by himself in the sunshine. "Are you paid for coming to me?" asked eagerly. The words seemed rude enough, but there was no rudeness in the manner. "No, I am not paid," she said gently; and then she took a chair and sat near him. "Ah, that's well!" he said, with a sigh of relief "I'm so tired of paid service. To know that things are done for me because a certain amount of francs are given so that those things may be done--well, one gets weary of it; that's all!" There was bitterness in every word he spoke. "I lie here," he said, "and the loneliness of it--the loneliness of it!" "Shall I read to you?" she asked kindly. She did not know what to say to him. "I want to talk first," he replied. "I want to talk first to some one who is not paid for talking to me. I have often watched you, and wondered who you were. Why do you look so sad? No one is waiting for you to die?" "Don't talk like that!" she said; and she bent over him and arranged the cushions for him more comfortably. He looked just like a great lank tired child. "Are you one of my wife's friends?" he asked. "I don't suppose I am," she answered gently; "but I like her, all the same. Indeed, I like her very much. And I think her beautiful!" "Ah, she is beautiful!" he said eagerly. "Doesn't she look splendid in her furs? By Jove, you are right! She is a beautiful woman. I am proud of her!" Then the smile faded from his face. "Beautiful," he said half to himself, "but hard." "Come now," said Bernardine; "you are surrounded with books and newspapers. What shall I read to you?" "No one reads what I want," he answered peevishly. "My tastes are not their tastes. I don't suppose you would care to read what I want to hear!" "Well," she said cheerily, "try me. Make your choice." "Very well, the _Sporting and Dramatic_," he said. "Read every word of that. And about that theatrical divorce case. And every word of that too. Don't you skip, and cheat me." She laughed and settled herself down to amuse him. And he listened contentedly. "That is something like literature," he said once or twice. "I can understand papers of that sort going like wild-fire." When he was tired of being read to, she talked to him in a manner that would have astonished the Disagreeable Man: not of books, nor learning, but of people she had met and of Places she had seen; and there was fun in everything she said. She knew London well, and she could tell him about the Jewish and the Chinese quarters, and about her adventures in company with a man who took her here, there, and everywhere. She made him some tea, and she cheered the poor fellow as he had not been cheered for months. "You're just a little brick," he said, when she was leaving. Then once more he added eagerly: "And you're not to be paid, are you?" "Not a single _sou_!" she laughed. "What a strange idea of yours!" "You are not offended?" he said anxiously. "But you can't think what a difference it makes to me. You are not offended?" "Not in the least!" she answered. "I know quite well how you mean it. You want a little kindness with nothing at the back of it. Now, good-bye!" He called her when she was outside the door. "I say, will you come again soon?" "Yes, I will come to-morrow." "Do you know you've been a little brick. I hope I haven't tired you. You are only a bit of a thing yourself. But, by Jove, you know how to put a fellow in a good temper!" When Mrs. Reffold went down to _table-d'hôte_ that night, she met Bernardine on the stairs, and stopped to speak with her. "We've had a splendid afternoon," she said; "and we've arranged to go again to-morrow at the same time. Such a pity you don't come! Oh, by the way, thank you for going to see my husband. I hope he did not tire you. He is a little querulous, I think. He so enjoyed your visit. Poor fellow! it is sad to see him so ill, isn't it?" CHAPTER IX. BERNARDINE PREACHES. AFTER this, scarcely a day passed but Bernardine went to see Mr. Reffold. The most inexperienced eye could have known that he was becoming rapidly worse. Marie, the chambermaid, knew it, and spoke of it frequently to Bernardine. "The poor lonely fellow!" she said, time after time. Every one, except Mrs. Reffold, seemed to recognize that Mr. Reffold's days were numbered. Either she did not or would not understand. She made no alteration in the disposal of her time: sledging parties and skating picnics were the order of the day; she was thoroughly pleased with herself, and received the attentions of her admirers as a matter of course. The Petershof climate had got into her head; and it is a well-known fact that this glorious air has the effect on some people of banishing from their minds all inconvenient notions of duty and devotion, and all memory of the special object of their sojourn in Petershof. The coolness and calmness with which such people ignore their responsibilities, or allow strangers to assume them, would be an occasion for humour, if it were not an opportunity for indignation: though indeed it would take a very exceptionally sober-minded spectator not to get some fun out of the blissful self-satisfaction and unconsciousness which characterize the most negligent of 'caretakers.' Mrs. Reffold was not the only sinner in this respect. It would have been interesting to get together a tea-party of invalids alone, and set the ball rolling about the respective behaviours of their respective friends. Not a pleasing chronicle: no very choice pages to add to the book of real life; still, valuable items in their way, representative of the actual as opposed to the ideal. In most instances there would have been ample testimony to that cruel monster, known as Neglect. Bernardine spoke once to the Disagreeable Man on this subject. She spoke with indignation, and he answered with indifference, shrugging his shoulders. "These things occur," he said "It is not that they are worse here than everywhere else; it is simply that they are together in an accumulated mass, and, as such, strike us with tremendous force. I myself am accustomed to these exhibitions of selfishness and neglect. I should be astonished if they did not take place. Don't mix yourself up with anything. If people are neglected, they _are_ neglected, and there is the end of it. To imagine that you or I are going to do any good by filling up the breach, is simply an insanity leading to unnecessarily disagreeable consequences. I know you go to see Mr. Reffold. Take my advice, and keep away." "You speak like a Calvinist," she answered, rather ruffled, "with the quintessence of self-protectiveness; and I don't believe you mean a word you say." "My dear young woman," he said, "we are not living in a poetry book bound with gilt edges. We are living in a paper-backed volume of prose. Be sensible. Don't ruffle yourself on account of other people. Don't even trouble to criticize them; it is only a nuisance to yourself. All this simply points back to my first suggestion: fill up your time with some hobby, cheese-mites or the influenza bacillus, and then you will be quite content to let people be neglected, lonely, and to die. You will look upon it as an ordinary and natural process." She waved her hand as though to stop him. "There are days," she said, "when I can't bear to talk with you. And this is one of them." "I am sorry," he answered, quite gently for him. And he moved away from her, and started for his usual lonely walk. Bernardine turned home, intending to go to see Mr. Reffold. He had become quite attached to her, and looked forward eagerly to her visits. He said her voice was gentle and her manner quiet; there was no bustling vitality about her to irritate his worn nerves. He was probably an empty-headed, stupid fellow; but it was none the less sad to see him passing away. He called her 'Little Brick.' He said that no other epithet suited her so exactly. He was quite satisfied now that she was not paid for coming to see him. As for the reading, no one could read the _Sporting and Dramatic News_ and the _Era_ so well as Little Brick. Sometimes he spoke with her about his wife, but only in general terms of bitterness, and not always complainingly. She listened and said nothing. "I'm a chap that wants very little," he said once. "Those who want little, get nothing." That was all he said, but Bernardine knew to whom he referred. To-day, as Bernardine was on her way back to the Kurhaus, she was thinking constantly of Mrs. Reffold, and wondering whether she ought to be made to realize that her husband was becoming rapidly worse. Whilst engrossed with this thought, a long train of sledges and toboggans passed her. The sound of the bells and the noisy merriment made her look up, and she saw beautiful Mrs. Reffold amongst the pleasure-seekers. "If only I dared tell her now," said Bernardine to herself, "loudly and before them all!" Then a more sensible mood came over her. "After all, it is not my affair," she said. And the sledges passed away out of hearing. When Bernardine sat with Mr. Reffold that afternoon she did not mention that she had seen his wife. He coughed a great deal, and seemed to be worse than usual, and complained of fever. But he liked to have her, and would not hear of her going. "Stay," he said. "It is not much of a pleasure to you, but it is a great pleasure to me." There was an anxious look on his face, such a look as people wear when they wish to ask some question of great moment, but dare not begin. At last he seemed to summon up courage. "Little Brick," he said, in a weak low voice, "I have something on my mind. You won't laugh, I know. You're not the sort. I know you're clever and thoughtful, and all that; you could tell me more than all the parsons put together. I know you're clever; my wife says so. She says only a very clever woman would wear such boots and hats!" Bernardine smiled. "Well," she said kindly, "tell me." "You must have thought a good deal, I suppose," he continued, "about life and death, and that sort of thing. I've never thought at all. Does it matter, Little Brick? It's too late now. I can't begin to think. But speak to me; tell me what you think. Do you believe we get another chance, and are glad to behave less like curs and brutes? Or is it all ended in that lonely little churchyard here? I've never troubled about these things before, but now I know I am so near that gloomy little churchyard--well, it makes me wonder. As for the Bible, I never cared to read it, I was never much of a reader, though I've got through two or three firework novels and sporting stories. Does it matter, Little Brick?" "How do I know?" she said gently. "How does any one know? People say they know; but it is all a great mystery--nothing but a mystery. Everything that we say, can be but a guess. People have gone mad over their guessing, or they have broken their hearts. But still the mystery remains, and we cannot solve it." "If you don't know anything, Little Brick," he said, "at least tell me what you think: and don't be too learned; remember I'm only a brainless fellow." He seemed to be waiting eagerly for her answer. "If I were you," she said, "I should not worry. Just make up your mind to do better when you get another chance. One can't do more than that. That is what I shall think of: that God will give each one of us another chance, and that each one of us will take it and do better--I and you and every one. So there is no need to fret over failure, when one hopes one may be allowed to redeem that failure later on. Besides which, life is very hard. Why, we ourselves recognize that. If there be a God, some Intelligence greater than human intelligence, he will understand better than ourselves that life is very hard and difficult, and he will be astonished not _because we are not better, but because we are not worse_. At least, that would be my notion of a God. I should not worry, if I were you. Just make up your mind to do better if you get the chance, and be content with that." "If that is what you think, Little Brick," he answered, "it is quite good enough for me. And it does not matter about prayers and the Bible, and all that sort of thing?" "I don't think it matters," she said. "I never have thought such things mattered. What does matter, is to judge gently, and not to come down like a sledge-hammer on other people's failings. Who are we, any of us, that we should be hard on others?" "And not come down like a sledge-hammer on other people's failings," he repeated slowly. "I wonder if I have ever judged gently." "I believe you have," she answered. He shook his head. "No," he said; "I have been a paltry fellow. I have been lying here, and elsewhere too, eating my heart away with bitterness, until you came. Since then I have sometimes forgotten to feel bitter. A little kindness does away with a great deal of bitterness." He turned wearily on his side. "I think I could sleep, Little Brick," he said, almost in a whisper. "I want to dream about your sermon. And I'm not to worry, am I?" "No," she answered, as she stepped noiselessly across the room; "you are not to worry." CHAPTER X. THE DISAGREEABLE MAN IS SEEN IN A NEW LIGHT. ONE specially fine morning a knock came at Bernardine's door. She opened it, and found Robert Allitsen standing there, trying to recover his breath. "I am going to Loschwitz, a village about twelve miles off," he said. "And I have ordered a sledge. Do you care to come too?" "If I may pay my share," she said. "Of course," he answered; "I did not suppose you would like to be paid for any better than I should like to pay for you." Bernardine laughed. "When do we start?" she asked. "Now," he answered. "Bring a rug, and also that shawl of yours which is always falling down, and come at once without any fuss. We shall be out for the whole day. What about Mrs. Grundy? We could manage to take her if you wished, but she would not be comfortable sitting amongst the photographic apparatus, and I certainly should not give up my seat to her." "Then leave her at home," said Bernardine cheerily. And so they settled it. In less than a quarter of an hour they had started; and Bernardine leaned luxuriously back to enjoy to the full her first sledge-drive. It was all new to her: the swift passing through the crisp air without any sensation of motion; the sleepy tinkling of the bells on the horses' heads; the noiseless cutting through of the snow-path. All these weeks she had known nothing of the country, and now she found herself in the snow fairy-land of which the Disagreeable Man had often spoken to her. Around, vast plains of untouched snow, whiter than any dream of whiteness, jewelled by the sunshine with priceless diamonds, numberless as the sands of the sea. The great pines bearing their burden of snow patiently; others, less patient, having shaken themselves free from what the heavens had sent them to bear. And now the streams, flowing on reluctantly over ice-coated rocks, and the ice cathedrals formed by the icicles between the rocks. And always the same silence, save for the tinkling of the horses' bells. On the heights the quaint chalets, some merely huts for storing wood; on others, farms, or the homes of peasants; some dark brown, almost black, betraying their age; others of a paler hue, showing that the sun had not yet mellowed them into a deep rich colour. And on all alike, the fringe of icicles. A wonderful white world. It was a long time before Bernardine even wished to speak. This beautiful whiteness may become monotonous after a time, but there is something very awe-inspiring about it, something which catches the soul and holds it. The Disagreeable Man sat quietly by her side. Once or twice he bent forward to protect the camera when the sledge gave a lurch. After some time they met a procession of sledges laden with timber; and August, the driver, and Robert Allitsen exchanged some fun and merriment with the drivers in their quaint blue smocks. The noise of the conversation, and the excitement of getting past the sledges, brought Bernardine back to speech again. "I have never before enjoyed anything so much," she said. "So you have found your tongue," he said. "Do you mind talking a little now? I feel rather lonely." This was said in such a pathetic, aggrieved tone, that Bernardine laughed and looked at her companion. His face wore an unusually bright expression. He was evidently out to enjoy himself. "_You_ talk," she said; "and tell me all about the country." And he told her what he knew, and, amongst other things, about the avalanches. He was able to point out where some had fallen the previous year. He stopped in the middle of his conversation to tell her to put up her umbrella. "I can't trouble to hold it for you," he said; "but I don't mind opening it. The sun is blazing to-day, and you will get your eyes bad if you are not careful. That would be a pity, for you seem to me rather better lately." "What a confession for you to make of any one!" said she. "Oh, I don't mean to say that you will ever get well," he added grimly. "You seem to have pulled yourself in too many directions for that. You have tried to be too alive; and, now you are obliged to join the genus cabbage." "I am certainly less ill than I was when I first came," she said; "and I feel in a better frame of mind altogether. I am learning a good deal in sad Petershof." "That is more than I have done," he answered. "Well, perhaps you teach instead," she said. "You have taught me several things. Now, go on telling me about the country people. You like them?" "I love them," he said simply. "I know them well, and they know me. You see I have been in this district so long now, and have walked about so much, that the very wood cutters know me; and the drivers give me lifts on their piles of timber." "You are not surly with the poor people, then?" said Bernardine; "though I must say I cannot imagine you being genial. Were you ever genial, I wonder?" "I don't think that has ever been laid to my charge," he answered. The time passed away pleasantly. The Disagreeable Man was scarcely himself to-day; or was it that he was more like himself? He seemed in a boyish mood; he made fun out of nothing, and laughed with such young fresh laughter, that even August, the grave blue-spectacled driver, was moved to mirth. As for Bernardine, she had to look at Robert Allitsen several times to be sure that he was the same Robert Allitsen she had known two hours ago in Petershof. But she made no remark, and showed no surprise, but met his merriness half way. No one could be a cheerier companion than herself when she chose. At last they arrived at Loschwitz. The sledge wound its way through the sloshy streets of the queer little village, and finally drew up in front of the Gasthaus. It was a black sunburnt châlet, with green shutters, and steps leading up to a green balcony. A fringe of sausages hung from the roof; red bedding was scorching in the sunshine; three cats were sunning themselves on the steps; a young woman sat in the green balcony knitting. There were some curious inscriptions on the walls of the châlet, and the date was distinctly marked, "1670." An old woman over the way sat in her doorway spinning. She looked up as the sledge stopped before the Gasthaus; but the young woman in the green balcony went on knitting, and saw nothing. A buxom elderly Hausfrau, came out to greet the guests. She wore a naturally kind expression on her old face, but when she saw who the gentleman was, the kindness positive increased to kindness superlative. She first retired and called out: "Liza, Fritz, Liza, Trüdchen, come quickly!" Then she came back, and cried: "Herr Allitsen, what a surprise!" She shook his hand times without number, greeted Bernardine with motherly tenderness, and interspersed all her remarks with frantic cries of "Liza, Fritz, Trüdchen, make haste!" She became very hot and excited, and gesticulated violently. All this time the young woman sat knitting, but not looking up. She had been beautiful, but her face was worn now, and her eyes had that vacant stare which betokened the vacant mind. The mother whispered to Robert Allitsen: "She notices no one now; she sits there always waiting." Tears came into the kind old eyes. Robert Allitsen went and bent down to the young woman, and held out his hand. "Catharina," he said gently. She looked up then, and saw him, and recognized him. Then the sad face smiled a welcome. He sat near her, and took her knitting in his hand, pretending to examine what she had done, chatting to her quietly all the time. He asked her what she had been doing with herself since he had last seen her, and she said: "Waiting. I am always waiting." He knew that she referred to her lover, who had been lost in an avalanche the eve before their wedding morning. That was four years ago, but Catharina was still waiting. Allitsen remembered her as a bright young girl, singing in the Gasthaus, waiting cheerfully on the guests: a bright gracious presence. No one could cook trout as she could; many a dish of trout had she served up for him. And now she sat in the sunshine, knitting and waiting, scarcely ever looking up. That was her life. "Catharina," he said, as he gave her back her knitting, "do you remember how you used to cook me the trout?" Another smile passed over her face. Yes, she remembered. "Will you cook me some to-day?" She shook her head, and returned to her knitting. Bernardine watched the Disagreeable Man with amazement. She could not have believed that his manner could be so tender and kindly. The old mother standing near her whispered: "He was always so good to us all; we love him, every one of us. When poor Catharina was betrothed five years ago, it was to Herr Allitsen we first told the good news. He has a wonderful way about him--just look at him with Catharina now. She has not noticed any one for months, but she knows him, you see." At that moment the other members of the household came: Liza, Fritz, and Trüdchen; Liza, a maiden of nineteen, of the homely Swiss type; Fritz, a handsome lad of fourteen; and Trüdchen, just free from school, with her school-satchel swung on her back. There was no shyness in their greeting; the Disagreeable Man was evidently an old and much-loved friend, and inspired confidence, not awe. Trüdchen fumbled in his coat pocket, and found what she expected to find there, some sweets, which she immediately began to eat, perfectly contented and self-satisfied. She smiled and nodded at Robert Allitsen, as though to reassure him that the sweets were not bad, and that she was enjoying them. "Liza will see to lunch," said the old mother. "You shall have some mutton cutlets and some _forellen_. But before she goes, she has something to tell you." "I am betrothed to Hans," Liza said, blushing. "I always knew you were fond of Hans," said the Disagreeable Man. "He is a good fellow, Liza, and I'm glad you love him. But haven't you just teased him!" "That was good for him," Liza said brightly. "Is he here to-day?" Robert Allitsen asked. Liza nodded. "Then I shall take your photographs," he said. While they had been speaking, Catharina rose from her seat, and passed into the house. Her mother followed her, and watched her go into the kitchen. "I should like to cook the _forellen_," she said very quietly. It was months since she had done anything in the house. The old mother's heart beat with pleasure. "Catharina, my best loved child!" she whispered; and she gathered the poor suffering soul near to her. In about half an hour the Disagreeable Man and Bernardine sat down to their meal. Robert Allitsen had ordered a bottle of Sassella, and he was just pouring it out when Catharina brought in the _forellen_. "Why, Catharina," he said, "you don't mean you've cooked them? Then they will be good!" She smiled, and seemed pleased, and then went out of the room. Then he told Bernardine her history, and spoke with such kindness and sympathy that Bernardine was again amazed at him. But she made no remark. "Catharina was always sorry that I was ill," he said. "When I stayed here, as I have done, for weeks together, she used to take every care of me. And it was a kindly sympathy which I could not resent. In those days I was suffering more than I have done for a long time now, and she was very pitiful. She could not bear to hear me cough. I used to tell her that she must learn not to feel. But you see she did not learn her lesson, for when this trouble came on her, she felt too much. And you see what she is." They had a cheery meal together, and then Bernardine talked with the old mother, whilst the Disagreeable Man busied himself with his camera. Liza was for putting on her best dress, and doing her hair in some wonderful way. But he would not hear of such a thing. But seeing that she looked disappointed, he gave in, and said she should be photographed just as she wished; and off she ran to change her attire. She went up to her room a picturesque, homely working girl, and she came down a tidy, awkward-looking young woman, with all her finery on, and all her charm off. The Disagreeable Man grunted, but said nothing. Then Hans arrived, and then came the posing, which caused much amusement. They both stood perfectly straight, just as a soldier stands before presenting arms. Both faces were perfectly expressionless. The Disagreeable Man was in despair. "Look happy!" he entreated. They tried to smile, but the anxiety to do so produced an expression of melancholy which was too much for the gravity of the photographer. He laughed heartily. "Look as though you weren't going to be photographed," he suggested. "Liza, for goodness' sake look as though you were baking the bread; and Hans, try and believe that you are doing some of your beautiful carving." The patience of the photographer was something wonderful. At last he succeeded in making them appear at their ease. And then he told Liza that she must go and change her dress, and be photographed now in the way he wished. She came down again, looking fifty times prettier in her working clothes. Now he was in his element. He arranged Liza and Hans on the sledge of timber, which had then driven up, and made a picturesque group of them all: Hans and Liza sitting side by side on the timber, the horses standing there so patiently after their long journey through the forests, the driver leaning against his sledge smoking his long china pipe. "That will be something like a picture," he said to Bernardine, when the performance was over. "Now I am going for about a mile's walk. Will you come with me and see what I am going to photograph, or will you rest here till I come back?" She chose the latter, and during his absence was shown the treasures and possessions of a Swiss peasant's home. She was taken to see the cows in the stalls, and had a lecture given her on the respective merits of Schneewitchen, a white cow, Kartoffelkuehen, a dark brown one, and Röslein, the beauty of them all. Then she looked at the spinning-wheel, and watched the old Hausfrau turn the treadle. And so the time passed, Bernardine making, good friends of them all. Catharina had returned to her knitting, and began working, and, as before, not noticing any one. But Bernardine sat by her side, playing with the cat, and after a time Catharina looked up at Bernardine's little thin face, and, after some hesitation, stroked it gently with her hand. "Fräulein is not strong," she said tenderly. "If Fräulein lived here, I should take care of her." That was a remnant of Catharina's past. She had always loved everything that was ailing and weakly. Her hand rested on Bernardine's hand. Bernardine pressed it in kindly sympathy, thinking the while of the girl's past happiness and present bereavement. "Liza is betrothed," she said, as though to herself. "They don't tell me; but I know. I was betrothed once." She went on knitting. And that was all she said of herself. Then after a pause she said: "Fräulein is betrothed?" Bernardine smiled, and shook her head, and Catharina made no further inquiries. But she looked up from her work from time to time, and seemed pleased that Bernardine still stayed with her. At last the old mother came to say that the coffee was ready, and Bernardine followed her into the parlour. She watched Bernardine drinking the coffee, and finally poured herself out a cup too. "This is the first time Herr Allitsen has ever brought a friend," she said. "He has always been alone. Fräulein is betrothed to Herr Allitsen-- is that so? Ah, I am glad. He is so good and, so kind." Bernardine stopped drinking her coffee. "No, I am not betrothed," she said cheerily. "We are just friends; and not always that either. We quarrel." "All lovers do that," persisted Frau Steinhart triumphantly. "Well, you ask him yourself," said Bernardine, much amused. She had never looked upon Robert Allitsen in that light before. "See, there he comes!" Bernardine was not present at the court martial, but this was what occurred. Whilst the Disagreeable Man was paying the reckoning, Frau Steinhart said in her most motherly tones: "Fräulein is a very dear young lady: Herr Allitsen has made a wise choice. He is betrothed at last!" The Disagreeable Man stopped counting out the money. "Stupid old Frau Steinhart!" he said good-naturedly. "People like myself don't get betrothed. We get buried instead!" "Na, na!" she answered. "What a thing to say--and so unlike you too! No, but tell me!" "Well, I am telling you the truth," he replied. "If you won't believe me, ask Fräulein herself." "I have asked her," said Frau Steinhart, "and she told me to ask you." The Disagreeable Man was much amused. He had never thought of Bernardine in that way. He paid the bill, and then did something which rather astonished Frau Steinhart, and half convinced her. He took the bill to Bernardine, told her the amount of her share, and she repaid him then and there. There was a twinkle in her eye as she looked up at him. Then the composure of her features relaxed, and she laughed. He laughed too, but no comment was made upon the episode. Then began the goodbyes, and the preparations for the return journey. Bernardine bent over Catharina, and kissed her sad face. "Fräulein will come again?" she whispered eagerly. And Bernardine promised. There was something in Bernardine's manner which had won the poor girl's fancy: some unspoken sympathy, some quiet geniality. Just as they were starting, Frau Steinhart whispered to Robert Allitsen: "It is a little disappointing to me, Herr Allitsen. I did so hope you were betrothed." August, the blue-spectacled driver, cracked his whip, and off the horses started homewards. For some time there was no conversation between the two occupants of the sledge. Bernardine, was busy thinking about the experiences of the day, and the Disagreeable Man seemed in a brown study. At last he broke the silence by asking her how she liked his friends, and what she thought of Swiss home life; and so the time passed pleasantly. He looked at her once, and said she seemed cold. "You are not warmly clothed," he said. "I have an extra coat. Put it on; don't make a fuss but do so at once. I know the climate and you don't." She obeyed, and said she was all the cosier for it. As they were nearing Petershof, he said half-nervously: "So my friends took you for my betrothed. I hope you are not offended." "Why should I be?" she said frankly. "I was only amused, because there never were two people less lover-like than you and I are." "No, that's quite true," he replied, in a tone of voice which betokened relief. "So that I really don't see that we need concern ourselves further in the matter," she added wishing to put him quite at his ease. "I'm not offended, and you are not offended, and there's an end of it." "You seem to me to be a very sensible young woman in some respects," the Disagreeable Man remarked after a pause. He was now quite cheerful again, and felt he could really praise his companion. "Although you have read so much, you seem to me sometimes to take a sensible view of things. Now, I don't want to be betrothed to you, any more than I suppose you want to be betrothed to me. And yet we can talk quietly about the matter without a scene. That would be impossible with most women." Bernardine laughed. "Well, I only know," she said cheerily, "that I have enjoyed my day very much, and I'm much obliged to you for your companionship. The fresh air, and the change of surroundings, will have done me good." His reply was characteristic of him. "It is the least disagreeable day I have spent for many months," he said quietly. "Let me settle with you for the sledge now," she said, drawing out her purse, just as they came in sight of the Kurhaus. They settled money matters, and were quits. Then he helped her out of the sledge, and he stooped to pick up the shawl she dropped. "Here is the shawl you are always dropping," he said. "You're rather cold, aren't you? Here, come to the restaurant and have some brandy. Don't make a fuss. I know what's the right thing for you!" She followed him to the restaurant, touched by his rough kindness. He himself took nothing, but he paid for her brandy. That evening after _table-d'hôte_, or rather after he had finished his dinner, he rose to go to his room as usual. He generally went off without a remark. But to-night he said: "Good-night, and thank you for your companionship. It has been my birthday to-day, and I've quite enjoyed it." CHAPTER XI. "IF ONE HAS MADE THE ONE GREAT SACRIFICE." THERE was a suicide in the Kurhaus one afternoon. A Dutchman, Vandervelt, had received rather a bad account of himself from the doctor a few days previously, and in a fit of depression, so it was thought, he had put a bullet through his head. It had occurred through Marie's unconscious agency. She found him lying on his sofa when she went as usual to take him his afternoon glass of milk. He asked her to give him a packet which was on the top shelf of his cupboard. "Willingly," she said, and she jumped nimbly on the chair, and gave him the case. "Anything more?" she asked kindly, as she watched him draw himself up from the sofa. She thought at the time that he looked wild and strange; but then, as she pathetically said afterwards, who did not look wild and strange in the Kurhaus? "Yes," he said. "Here are five francs for you." She thought that rather unusual too; but five francs, especially coming unexpectedly like that, were not to be despised, and Marie determined to send them off to that Mutterli at home in the nut-brown châlet at Grüsch. So she thanked Mynheer van Vandervelt, and went off to her pantry to drink some cold tea which the English people had left, and to clean the lamps. Having done that, and knowing that the matron was busily engaged carrying on a flirtation with a young Frenchman, Marie took out her writing materials, and began a letter to her old mother. These peasants know how to love each other, and some of them know how to tell each other too. Marie knew. And she told her mother of the gifts she was bringing home, the little nothings given her by the guests. She was very happy writing this letter: the little nut-brown home rose before her. "Ach!" she said, "how I long to be home!" And then she put down her pen, and sighed. "Ach!" she said, "and when I'm there, I shall long to be here. _Da wo ich nicht bin, da ist das Gluck_." Marie was something of a philosopher. Suddenly she heard the report of a pistol, followed by a second report. She dashed out of her little pantry, and ran in the direction of the sound. She saw Wärli in the passage. He was looking scared, and his letters had fallen to the ground. He pointed to No. 54. It was the Dutchman's room. Help arrived. The door was forced open, and Vandervelt was found dead. The case from which he had taken the pistol was lying on the sofa. When Marie saw that, she knew that she had been an unconscious accomplice. Her tender heart overflowed with grief. Whilst others were lifting him up, she leaned her head against the wall, and sobbed. "It was my fault, it was my fault!" she cried. "I gave him the case. But how was I to know?" They took her away, and tried to comfort her, but it was all in vain. "And he gave me five francs," she sobbed. "I shudder to think of them." It was all in vain that Wärli gave her a letter for which she had been longing for many days. "It is from your _Mutterli_," he said, as he put it into her hands. "I give it willingly. I don't like the look of one or two of the letters I have to give you, Mariechen. That Hans writes to you. Confound him!" But nothing could cheer her. Wärli went away shaking his curly head sadly, shocked at the death of the Dutchman, and shocked at Marie's sorrow. And the cheery little postman did not do much whistling that evening. Bernardine heard of Marie's trouble, and rang for her to come. Marie answered the bell, looking the picture of misery. Her kind face was tear-stained, and her only voice was a sob. Bernardine drew the girl to her. "Poor old Marie," she whispered. "Come and cry your kind heart out, and then you will feel better. Sit by me here, and don't try to speak. And I will make you some tea in true English fashion, and you must take it hot, and it will do you good." The simple sisterly kindness and silent sympathy soothed Marie after a time. The sobs ceased, and the tears also. And Marie put her hand in her pocket and gave Bernardine the five francs. "Fräulein Holme, I hate them." she said. "I could never keep them. How could I send them now to my old mother? They would bring her ill luck-- indeed they would." The matter was solved by Bernardine in a masterly fashion. She suggested that Marie should buy flowers with the money, and put them on the Dutchman's coffin. This idea comforted Marie beyond Bernardine's most sanguine expectations. "A beautiful tin wreath," she said several times. "I know the exact kind. When my father died, we put one on his grave." That same evening, during _table-d'hôte_, Bernardine told the Disagreeable Man the history of the afternoon. He had been developing photographs, and had heard nothing. He seemed very little interested in her relation of the suicide, and merely remarked: "Well, there's one person less in the world." "I think you make these remarks from habit," Bernardine said quietly, and she went on with her dinner, attempting no further conversation with him. She herself had been much moved by the sad occurrence; every one in the Kurhaus was more or less upset; and there was a thoughtful, anxious expression on more than one ordinarily thoughtless face. The little French danseuse was quiet: the Portuguese ladies were decidedly tearful, the vulgar German Baroness was quite depressed: the comedian at the Belgian table ate his dinner in silence. In fact, there was a weight pressing down on all. Was it really possible, thought Bernardine, that Robert Allitsen was the only one there unconcerned and unmoved? She had seen him in a different light amongst his friends, the country folk, but it was just a glimpse which had not lasted long. The young- heartedness, the geniality, the sympathy which had so astonished her during their day's outing, astonished her still more by their total disappearance. The gruffness had returned: or had it never been absent? The lovelessness and leadenness of his temperament had once more asserted themselves: or was it that they had never for one single day been in the background? These thoughts passed through her mind as he sat next to her reading his paper--that paper which he never passed on to any one. She hardened her heart against him; there was no need for ill-health and disappointment to have brought any one to a miserable state of indifference like that. Then she looked at his wan face and frail form, and her heart softened at once. At the moment when her heart softened to him, he astonished her by handing her his paper. "Here is something to interest you," he said, "an article on Realism in Fiction, or some nonsense like that. You needn't read it now. I don't want the paper again.'' "I thought you never lent anything," she said, as she glanced at the article, "much less gave it." "Giving and lending are not usually in my line," he replied. "I think I told you once that I thought selfishness perfectly desirable and legitimate, if one had made the one great sacrifice." "Yes," she said eagerly, "I have often wondered what you considered the one great sacrifice." "Come out into the air," he answered, "and I will tell you." She went to put on her cloak and, hat, and found him waiting for her at the top of the staircase. They passed out into the beautiful night: the sky was radiantly bejewelled, the air crisp and cold, and harmless to do ill. In the distance, the jodelling of some peasants. In the hotels, the fun and merriment, side by side with the suffering and hopelessness. In the deaconess's house, the body of the Dutchman. In God's heavens, God's stars. Robert Allitsen and Bernardine walked silently for some time. "Well," she said, "now tell me." "The one great sacrifice," he said half to himself, "is the going on living one's life for the sake of another, when everything that would seem to make life acceptable has been wrenched away, not the pleasures, but the duties, and the possibilities of expressing one's energies, either in one direction or another: when, in fact, living is only a long tedious dying. If one has made this sacrifice, everything else may be forgiven." He paused a moment, and then continued: "I have made this sacrifice, therefore I consider I have done my part without flinching. The greatest thing I had to give up, I gave up: my death. More could not be required of any one!" He paused again, and Bernardine was silent from mere awe. "But freedom comes at last," he said, "and some day I shall be free. When my mother dies, I shall be free. She is old. If I were to die, I should break her heart, or, rather she would fancy that her heart was broken. (And it comes to the same thing). And I should not like to give her more grief than she has had. So I am just waiting, it may be months, or weeks, or years. But I know how to wait: if I have not learnt anything else, I have learnt how to wait. And then" . . . . Bernardine had unconsciously put her hand on his arm; her face was full of suffering. "And then?" she asked, with almost painful eagerness. "And then I shall follow your Dutchman's example," he said deliberately. Bernardine's hand fell from the Disagreeable Man's arm. She shivered. "You are cold, you little thing," he said, almost tenderly for him. "You are shivering." "Was I?" she said, with a short laugh. "I was wondering when you would get your freedom, and whether you would use it in the fashion you now intend!" "Why should there be any doubt?" he asked. "One always hopes there would be a doubt," she said, half in a whisper. Then he looked up, and saw all the pain on the little face. CHAPTER XII. THE DISAGREEABLE MAN MAKES A LOAN. THE Dutchman was buried in the little cemetery which faced the hospital. Marie's tin wreath was placed on the grave. And there the matter ended. The Kurhaus guests recovered from their depression: the German Baroness returned to her buoyant vulgarity, the little danseuse to her busy flirtations. The French Marchioness, celebrated in Parisian circles for her domestic virtues, from which she was now taking a holiday, and a very considerable holiday too, gathered her nerves together again and took renewed pleasure in the society of the Russian gentleman. The French Marchioness had already been requested to leave three other hotels in Petershof; but it was not at all probable that the proprietors of the Kurhaus would have presumed to measure Madame's morality or immorality. The Kurhaus committee had a benign indulgence for humanity-- provided of course that humanity had a purse--an indulgence which some of the English hotels would not have done badly to imitate. There was a story afloat concerning the English quarter, that a tired little English lady, of no importance to look at, probably not rich, and probably not handsome, came to the most respectable hotel in Petershof, thinking to find there the peace and quiet which her weariness required. But no one knew who the little lady was, whence she had come, and why. She kept entirely to herself, and was thankful for the luxury of loneliness after some overwhelming sorrow. One day she was requested to go. The proprietor of the hotel was distressed, but he could not do otherwise than comply with the demands of his guests. "It is not known who you are, Mademoiselle," he said. "And you are not approved of. You English are curious people. But what can I do? You have a cheap room, and are a stranger to me. The others have expensive apartments, and come year after year. You see my position, Mademoiselle? I am sorry." So the little tired lady had to go. That was how the story went. It was not known what became of her, but it was known that the English people in the Kurhaus tried to persuade her to come to them. But she had lost heart, and left in distress. This could not have happened in the Kurhaus, where all were received on equal terms, those about whom nothing was known, and those about whom too much was known. The strange mixture and the contrasts of character afforded endless scope for observation and amusement, and Bernardine, who was daily becoming more interested in her surroundings, felt that she would have been sorry to have exchanged her present abode for the English quarter. The amusing part of it was that the English people in the Kurhaus were regarded by their compatriots in the English quarter as sheep of the blackest dye! This was all the more ridiculous because with two exceptions--firstly of Mrs. Reffold, who took nearly all her pleasures with the American colony in the Grand Hotel; and secondly, of a Scotch widow who had returned to Petershof to weep over her husband's grave, but put away her grief together with her widow's weeds, and consoled herself with a Spanish gentleman--with these two exceptions, the little English community in the Kurhaus was most humdrum and harmless, being occupied, as in the case of the Disagreeable Man, with cameras and cheese-mites, or in other cases with the still more engrossing pastime of taking care of one's ill-health, whether real or fancied: but yet, an innocent hobby in itself and giving one absolutely no leisure to do anything worse: a great recommendation for any pastime. This was not Bernardine's occupation: it was difficult to say what she did with herself, for she had not yet followed Robert Allitsen's advice and taken up some definite work: and the very fact that she had no such wish, pointed probably to a state of health which forbade it. She, naturally so keen and hard-working, was content to take what the hour brought, and the hour brought various things: chess with the Swedish professor, or Russian dominoes with the shrivelled-up little Polish governess who always tried to cheat, and who clutched her tiny winnings with precisely the same greediness shown by the Monte Carlo female gamblers. Or the hour brought a stroll with the French danseuse and her poodle, and a conversation about the mere trivialities of life, which a year or two, or even a few months ago, Bernardine would have condemned as beneath contempt, but, which were now taking their rightful place in her new standard of importances. For some natures learn with greater difficulty and after greater delay than others, that the real importances of our existence are the nothingnesses of every-day life, the nothingnesses which the philosopher in his study, reasoning about and analysing human character, is apt to overlook; but which, nevertheless, make him and every one else more of a human reality and less of an abstraction. And Bernardine, hitherto occupied with so-called intellectual pursuits, with problems of the study, of no value to the great world outside the study, or with social problems of the great world, great movements, and great questions, was now just beginning to appreciate the value of the little incidents of that same great world. Or the hour brought its own thoughts, and Bernardine found herself constantly thinking of the Disagreeable Man: always in sorrow and always with sympathy, and sometimes with tenderness. When he told her about the one sacrifice, she could have wished to wrap him round with love and tenderness. If he could only have known it, he had never been so near love as then. She had suffered so much herself, and, with increasing weaknesses, had so wished to put off the burden of the flesh, that her whole heart went out to him. Would he get his freedom, she wondered, and would he use it? Sometimes when she was with him, she would look up to see whether she could read the answer in his face; but she never saw any variation of expression there, nothing to give her even a suggestion. But this she noticed: that there was a marked variation in his manner, and that when he had been rough in bearing, or bitter in speech, he made silent amends at the earliest opportunity by being less rough and less bitter. She felt this was no small concession on the part of the Disagreeable Man. He was particularly disagreeable on the day when the Dutchman was buried, and so the following day when Bernardine met him in the little English library, she was not surprised to find him almost kindly. He had chosen the book which she wanted, but he gave it up to her at once without any grumbling, though Bernardine expected him to change his mind before they left the library. "Well," he said, as they walked along together, "and have you recovered from the death of the Dutchman?" "Have you recovered, rather let me ask?" she said. "You were in a horrid mood last night." "I was feeling wretchedly ill," he said quietly. That was the first time he had ever alluded to his own health. "Not that there is any need to make an excuse," he continued, "for I do not recognise that there is any necessity to consult one's surroundings, and alter the inclination of one's mind accordingly. Still, as a matter of fact, I felt very ill!" "And to-day?" she asked. "To-day I am myself again," he answered quickly: "that usual normal self of mine, whatever that may mean. I slept well, and I dreamed of you. I can't say that I had been thinking of you, because I had not. But I dreamed that we were children together, and playmates. Now that was very odd: because I was a lonely child, and never had any playmates." "And I was lonely too," said Bernardine. "Every one is lonely," he said, "but every one does not know it." "But now and again the knowledge comes like a revelation," she said, "and we realise that we stand practically alone, out of any one's reach for help or comfort. When you come to think of it, too, how little able we are to explain ourselves. When you have wanted to say something which was burning within you, have you not noticed on the face of the listener that unmistakable look of non-comprehension, which throws you back on yourself? That is one of the moments when the soul knows its own loneliness!" Robert Allitsen looked up at her. "You little thing," he said, "you put things neatly sometimes. You have felt, haven't you?" "I suppose so," she said. "But that is true of most people." "I beg your pardon," he answered, "most people neither think nor feel: unless they think they have an ache, and then they feel it!" "I believe," said Bernardine, "that there is more thinking and feeling than one generally supposes." "Well, I can't be bothered with that now," he said. "And you interrupted me about my dream. That is an annoying habit you have." "Go on," she said. "I apologize!" "I dreamed we were children together, and playmates," he continued. "We were not at all happy together, but still we were playmates. There was nothing we did not quarrel about. You were disagreeable, and I was spiteful. Our greatest dispute was over a Christmas-tree. And that was odd, too, for I have never seen a Christmas-tree." "Well?" she said, for he had paused. "What a long time you take to tell story." "You were not called Bernardine," he said. "You were called by some ordinary sensible name. I don't remember what. But you were very disagreeable. That I remember well. At last you disappeared, and I went about looking for you. 'If I can find something to cause a quarrel,' I said to myself, 'she will come back.' So I went and smashed your doll's head. But you did not come back. Then I set on fire your doll's house. But even that did not bring you back. Nothing brought you back. That was my dream. I hope you are not offended. Not that it makes any difference if you are." Bernardine laughed. "I am sorry that I should have been such an unpleasant playmate," she said. "It was a good thing I did disappear." "Perhaps it was," he said. "There would have been a terrible scene about that doll's head. An odd thing for me to dream about Christmas-trees and dolls and playmates: especially when I went to sleep thinking about my new camera." "You have a new camera?" she asked. "Yes," he answered, "and a beauty, too. Would you like to see it?" She expressed a wish to see it, and when they reached the Kurhaus, she went with him up to his beautiful room, where he spent his time in the company of his microscope and his chemical bottles and his photographic possessions. "If you sit down and look at those photographs, I will make you some tea," he said. "There is the camera, but please not to touch it until I am ready to show it myself." She watched him preparing the tea; he did everything so daintily, this Disagreeable Man. He put a handkerchief on the table, to serve for an afternoon tea-cloth, and a tiny vase of violets formed the centre-piece. He had no cups, but he polished up two tumblers, and no housemaid could have been more particular, about their glossiness. Then he boiled the water and made the tea. Once she offered to help him; but he shook his head. "Kindly not to interfere." he said grimly. "No one can make tea better than I can." After tea, they began the inspection of the new camera, and Robert Allitsen showed her all the newest improvements. He did not seem to think much of her intelligence, for he explained everything as though he were talking to a child, until Bernardine rather lost patience. "You need not enter into such elaborate explanations," she suggested. "I have a small amount of intelligence, though you do not seem to detect it." He looked at her as one might look at an impatient child. "Kindly not to interrupt me," he replied mildly. "How very impatient you are! And how restless! What must you have been like before you fell ill?" But he took the hint all the same, and shortened his explanations, and as Bernardine was genuinely interested, he was well satisfied. From time to time he looked at his old camera and at his companion, and from the expression of unease on his face, it was evident that some contest was going on in his mind. Twice he stood near his old camera, and turned round to Bernardine intending to make some remark. Then he chanced his mind, and walked abruptly to the other end of the room as though to seek advice from his chemical bottles. Bernardine meanwhile had risen from her chair, and was looking out of the window. "You have a lovely view," she said. "It must be nice to look at that when you are tired of dissecting cheese-mites. All the same, I think the white scenery gives one a great sense of sadness and loneliness." "Why do you speak always of loneliness?" he asked. "I have been thinking a good deal about it," she said. "When I was strong and vigorous, the idea of loneliness never entered my mind. Now I see how lonely most people are. If I believed in God as a Personal God, I should be inclined to think that loneliness were part of his scheme: so that the soul of man might turn to him and him alone." The Disagreeable Man was standing by his camera again: his decision was made. "Don't think about those questions," he said kindly. "Don't worry and fret too much about the philosophy of life. Leave philosophy alone, and take to photography instead. Here, I will lend you my old camera." "Do you mean that?" she asked, glancing at him in astonishment. "Of course I mean it," he said. He looked remarkably pleased with himself, and Bernardine could not help smiling. He looked just as a child looks when he has given up a toy to another child, and is conscious that he has behaved himself rather well. "I am very much obliged to you," she said frankly. "I have had a great wish to learn photography." "I might have lent my camera to you before, mightn't I?" he said thoughtfully. "No," she answered. "There was not any reason." "No," he said, with a kind of relief, "there was not any reason. That is quite true!" "When will you give me my first lesson?" she asked. "Perhaps, though, you would like to wait a few days, in case you change your mind." "It takes me some time to make up my mind," he replied, "but I do not change it. So I will give you your first lesson to-morrow. Only you must not be impatient. You must consent to be taught; you cannot possibly know everything!" They fixed a time for the morrow, and Bernardine went off with the camera; and meeting Marie on the staircase, confided to her the piece of good fortune which had befallen her. "See what Herr Allitsen has lent me, Marie!" she said. Marie raised her hands in astonishment. "Who would have thought such a thing of Herr Allitsen?" said Marie. "Why, he does not like lending me a match." Bernardine laughed and passed on to her room. And the Disagreeable Man meanwhile was cutting a new scientific book which had just come from England. He spent a good deal of money on himself. He was soon absorbed in this book, and much interested in the diagrams. Suddenly he looked up to the corner where the old camera had stood, before Bernardine took it away in triumph. "I hope she won't hurt that camera," he said a little uneasily. "I am half sorry that" . . . Then a kinder mood took possession of him. "Well, at least it will keep her from fussing and fretting and thinking. Still, I hope she won't hurt it." CHAPTER XIII. A DOMESTIC SCENE. ONE afternoon when Mrs. Reffold came to say good-bye to her husband before going out for the usual sledge-drive, he surprised her by his unwonted manner. "Take your cloak off," he said sharply. "You cannot go for your drive this afternoon. You don't often give up your time to me; you must do so to-day." She was so astonished, that she at once laid aside her cloak and hat, and touched the bell. "Why are you ringing?" Mr. Reffold asked testily. "To send a message of excuse," she answered, with provoking cheerfulness. She scribbled something on a card, and gave it to the servant who answered the bell. "Now," she said, with great sweetness of manner. And she sat down beside him, drew out her fancy-work, and worked away contentedly. She would have made a charming study of a devoted wife soothing a much-loved husband in his hours of sickness and weariness. "Do you mind giving up your drive?" he asked. "Not in the least," she replied. "I am rather tired of sledging." "You soon get tired of things, Winifred," he said. "Yes, I do," was the answer. "I am so easily bored. I am quite tired of this place." "You will have to stay here a little longer," he said, "and then you will be free to go where you choose. I wish I could die quicker for you, Winifred." Mrs. Reffold looked up from her embroidery. "You will get better soon," she said. "You are better." "Yes, you've helped a good deal to make me better," he said bitterly. "You have been a most unselfish person haven't you? You have given me every care and attention, haven't you?" "You seem to me in a very strange mood to-day," she said, looking puzzled. "I don't understand you." Mr. Reffold laughed. "Poor Winifred," he said. "If it is ever your lot to fall ill and be neglected, perhaps then you will think of me." "Neglected?" she said, in some surprise. "What do you mean? I thought you had everything you wanted. The nurse brought excellent testimonials. I was careful in the choice of her. You have never complained before." He turned wearily on his side, and made no answer. And for some time there was silence between them. Then he watched her as she bent over her embroidery. "You are very beautiful, Winifred," he said quietly, "but you are a selfish woman. Has it ever struck you that you are selfish?" Mrs. Reffold gave no reply, but she made a resolution to write to her particular friend at Cannes and confide to her how very trying her husband had become. "I suppose it is part of his illness," she thought meekly. "But it is hard to have to bear it." And Mrs. Reffold pitied herself profoundly. She stitched sincere pity for herself into that piece of embroidery. "I remember you telling me," continued Mr. Reffold, "that sick people repelled you. That was when I was strong and vigorous. But since I have been ill, I have often recalled your words. Poor Winifred! You did not think then that you would have an invalid husband on your hands. Well, you were not intended for sick-room nursing, and you have not tried to be what you were not intended for. Perhaps you were right, after all." "I don't know why you should be so unkind to-day," Mrs. Reffold said, with pathetic patience. "I can't understand you. You have never spoken like this before." "No," he said; "but I have thought like this before. All the hours you have left me lonely, I have been thinking like this, with my heart full of bitterness against you, until that little girl, that Little Brick came along." After that, it was some time before he spoke. He was thinking of his Little Brick, and of all the pleasant hours he had spent with her, and of the kind, wise words she had spoken to him, an ignorant fellow. She was something like a companion. So he went on thinking, and Mrs. Reffold went on embroidering. She was now feeling herself to be almost a heroine. It is a very easy matter to make oneself into a heroine or a martyr. Selfish, neglectful? What did he mean? Oh, it was just part of his illness. She must go on bearing her burden as she had borne it these many months. Her rightful position was in a London ball-room. Instead of which, she had to be shut up in an Alpine village: a hard lot. It was little enough pleasure she could get, and apparently her husband grudged her that. His manner to her this afternoon was not such as to encourage her to stay in from her drive on another occasion. To-morrow she would go sledging. That flash of light which reveals ourselves to ourselves had not yet come to Mrs. Reffold. She looked at her husband, and thought from his restfulness that he had gone to sleep, and she was just beginning to write to that particular friend at Cannes, to tell her what a trial she was undergoing, when Mr. Reffold called her to his side. "Winifred," he said gently, and there was tenderness in his voice, and love written on his face, "Winifred, I am sorry if I have been sharp to you. Little Brick says we mustn't come down like sledge-hammers on each other; and that is what I have been doing this afternoon. Perhaps I have been hard: I am such an illness to myself, that I must be an illness to others too. And you weren't meant for this sort of thing--were you? You are a bright beautiful creature, and I am an unfortunate dog not to have been able to make you happier. I know I am irritable. I can't help myself, indeed I can't." This great long fellow was so yearning for love and sympathy. What would it not have been to him if she had gathered him into her arms, and soothed all his irritability and suffering with her love? But she pressed his hand, and kissed him lightly on the cheek, and told him that he had been a little sharp, but that she quite understood, and that she was not hurt. Her charm of manner gave him some satisfaction; and when Bernardine came in a few minutes later, she found Mr. Reffold looking happier and more contented than she had ever seen him. Mrs. Reffold, who was relieved at the interruption, received Bernardine warmly, though there was a certain amount of shyness which she had never been able to conquer in Bernardine's presence. There was something in the younger woman which quelled Mrs. Reffold: it may have been some mental quality, or it may have been her boots! "Little Brick," said Mr. Reffold, "isn't it nice to have Winifred here? And I have been so disagreeable and snappish." "Oh, we won't say anything about that now," said Mrs. Reffold, smiling sweetly. "But I've said I am sorry," he continued. "And one can't do more." "No," said Bernardine, who was amused at the notion of Mr. Reffold apologizing to Mrs. Reffold, and of Mrs. Reffold posing as the gracious forgiver, "one can't do more." But she could not control her feelings, and she laughed. "You seem rather merry this afternoon," Mr. Reffold said, in a reproachful tone of voice. "Yes," she said. And she laughed again. Mrs. Reffold's forgiving graciousness had altogether upset her gravity. "You might at least tell us the joke," Mrs. Reffold said. Bernardine looked at her hopelessly, and laughed again. "I have been developing photographs all the afternoon," she said, "and I suppose the closeness of the air and the badness of my negatives have been too much for me. Anyway, I know I must seem very rude." She recovered herself after that, and tried hard not to think of Mrs. Reffold as the dispenser of forgiveness, although it was some time before she could look at her hostess without wishing to laugh. The corners of her mouth twitched, and her brown eyes twinkled mischievously, and she spoke very rapidly, making fun of her first attempts at photography, and criticising herself so comically, that both Mr. and Mrs. Reffold were much amused. All the same, Bernardine was relieved when Mrs. Reffold went to fetch some silks, and left her with Mr. Reffold. "I am very happy this afternoon, Little Brick," he said to her. "My wife has been sitting with me. But instead of enjoying the pleasure as I ought to have done, I began to find fault with her. I don't know how long I should not have gone on grumbling, but that I suddenly recollected what you taught me: that we were not to come down like sledge-hammers on each other's failings. When I remembered that, it was quite easy to forgive all the neglect and thoughtlessness. Since you have talked to me, Little Brick, everything has become easier to me!" "It is something in your own mind which has worked this," she said; "your own kind, generous mind, and you put it down to my words!" But he shook his head. "If I knew of any poor unfortunate devil that wanted to be eased and comforted," he said, "I should tell him about you, Little Brick. You have been very good to me. You may be clever, but you have never worried my stupid brain with too much scholarship. I'm just an ignorant chap, and you've never let me feel it." He took her hand and raised it reverently to his lips. "I say," he continued, "tell my wife it made me happy to have her with me this afternoon; then perhaps she will stay in another time. I should like her to know. And she was sweet in her manner, wasn't she? And, by Jove, she is beautiful! I am glad you have seen her here to-day. It must be dull for her with an invalid like me. And I know I am irritable. Go and tell her that she made me happy--will you?" The little bit of happiness at which the poor fellow snatched, seemed to make him more pathetic than before. Bernardine promised to tell his wife, and went off to find her, making as an excuse a book which Mrs. Reffold had offered to lend her. Mrs. Reffold was in her bedroom. She asked. Bernardine to sit down whilst she searched for the book. She had a very gracious manner when she chose. "You are looking much better, Miss Holme," she said kindly. "I cannot help noticing your face. It looks younger and brighter. The bracing air has done you good." "Yes, I am better," Bernardine said, rather astonished that Mrs. Reffold should have noticed her at all. "Mr. Allitsen informs me that I shall live, but never be strong. He settles every question of that sort to his own satisfaction, but not always to the satisfaction of other people!" "He is a curious person," Mrs. Reffold said smiling; "though I must say he is not quite as gruff as he used to be. You seem to be good friends with him." She would have liked to say more on this subject, but experience had taught her that Bernardine was not to be trifled with. "I don't know about being good friends," Bernardine said, "but I have a great sympathy for him. I know myself what it is to be cut off from work and active life. I have been through a misery. But mine is nothing to his." She rose to go, but Mrs. Reffold detained her. "Don't go yet," she said. "It is pleasant to have you." She was leaning back in an arm-chair playing with the fringe of an antimacassar. "Oh, how tired I am of this horrid place!" she said suddenly. "And I have had a most wearying afternoon. Mr. Reffold seems to be more irritable every day. It is very hard that I should have to bear it." Bernardine listened to her in astonishment. "Yes," she added, "I am quite worn out. He never used to be so irritable. It is all very tiresome. It is quite telling on my health." She looked the picture of health. Bernardine gasped; and Mrs. Reffold continued: "His grumbling this afternoon has been incessant; so much so that he himself was ashamed, and asked me to forgive him. You heard him, didn't you?" "Yes, I heard him," Bernardine said. "And of course I forgave him at once," Mrs. Reffold said piously. "Naturally one would do that, but the vexation remains all the same." "Can these things be?" thought Bernardine to herself. "He spoke in a most ridiculous way," she went on: "it certainly is not encouraging for me to spend another afternoon with him. I shall go sledging to-morrow." "You generally do go sledging, don't you?" Bernardine asked mildly. Mrs. Reffold looked at her suspiciously. She was never quite sure that Bernardine was not making fun of her. "It is little enough pleasure I do have," she added, as though in self- defence. "And he seems to grudge me that too." "I don't think he would grudge you anything," Bernardine said, with some warmth. "He loves you too much for that. You don't know how much pleasure you give him when you spare him a little of your time. He told me how happy you made him this afternoon. You could see for yourself that he was happy. Mrs. Reffold, make him happy whilst you still have him. Don't you understand that he is passing away from you--don't you understand, or is it that you won't? We all see it, all except you!" She stopped suddenly, surprised at her boldness. Mrs. Reffold was still leaning back in the arm-chair, her hands clasped together above her beautiful head. Her face was pale. She did not speak. Bernardine waited. The silence was unbroken save by the merry cries of some children tobogganing in the Kurhaus garden. The stillness grew oppressive, and Bernardine rose. She knew from the effort which those few words had cost her, how far removed she was from her old former self. "Good-bye, Mrs. Reffold," she said nervously. "Good-bye, Miss Holme," was the only answer. CHAPTER XIV. CONCERNING THE CARETAKERS THE Doctors in Petershof always said that the caretakers of the invalids were a much greater anxiety than the invalids themselves. The invalids would either get better or die: one of two things probably. At any rate, you knew where you were with them. But not so with the caretakers: there was nothing they were not capable of doing--except taking reasonable care of their invalids! They either fussed about too much, or else they did not fuss about at all. They all began by doing the right thing: they all ended by doing the wrong. The fussy ones had fits of apathy, when the poor irritable patients seemed to get a little better; the negligent ones had paroxysms of attentiveness, when their invalids, accustomed to loneliness and neglect, seemed to become rather worse by being worried. To remonstrate with the caretakers would have been folly: for they were well satisfied with their own methods. To contrive their departure would have been an impossibility: for they were firmly convinced that their presence was necessary to the welfare of their charges. And then, too, judging from the way in which they managed to amuse themselves, they liked being in Petershof, though they never owned that to the invalids. On the contrary, it was the custom for the caretakers to depreciate the place, and to deplore the necessity which obliged them to continue there month after month. They were fond, too, of talking about the sacrifices which they made, and the pleasures which they willingly gave up in order to stay with their invalids. They said this in the presence of their invalids. And if the latter had told them by all means to pack up and go back to the pleasures which they had renounced, they would have been astonished at the ingratitude which could suggest the idea. They were amusing characters, these caretakers. They were so thoroughly unconscious of their own deficiencies. They might neglect their own invalids, but they would look after other people's invalids, and play the nurse most soothingly and prettily where there was no call and no occasion. Then they would come and relate to their neglected dear ones what they had been doing for others: and the dear ones would smile quietly, and watch the buttons being stitched on for strangers, and the cornflour which they could not get nicely made for themselves, being carefully prepared for other people's neglected dear ones. Some of the dear ones were rather bitter. But there were many of a higher order of intelligence, who seemed to realize that they had no right to be ill, and that being ill, and therefore a burden on their friends, they must make the best of everything, and be grateful for what was given them, and patient when anything was withheld. Others of a still higher order of understanding, attributed the eccentricities of the caretakers to one cause alone: the Petershof air. They know it had the invariable effect of getting into the head, and upsetting the balance of those who drank deep of it. Therefore no one was to blame, and no one need be bitter. But these were the philosophers of the colony: a select and dainty few in any colony. But there were several rebels amongst the invalids, and they found consolation in confiding to each other their separate grievances. They generally held their conferences in the rooms known as the newspaper-rooms, where they were not likely to be interrupted by any caretakers who might have stayed at home because they were tired out. To-day there were only a few rebels gathered together, but they were more than usually excited, because the Doctors had told several of them that their respective caretakers must be sent home. "What must I do?" said little Mdlle. Gerardy, wringing her hands. "The Doctor says that I must tell my sister to go home: that she only worries me, and makes me worse. He calls her a 'whirlwind.' If I won't tell her, then he will tell her, and we shall have some more scenes. Mon Dieu! and I am so tired of them. They terrify me. I would suffer anything rather than have a fresh scene. And I can't get her to do anything for me. She has no time for me. And, yet she thinks she takes the greatest possible care of me, and devotes the whole day to me. Why, sometimes I never see her for hours together." "Well, at least she does not quarrel with every one, as my mother does," said a Polish gentleman, M. Lichinsky. "Nearly every day she has a quarrel with some one or other; and then she comes to me and says she has been insulted. And others come to me mad with rage, and complain that they have been insulted by her. As though I were to blame! I tell them that now. I tell them that my mother's quarrels are not my quarrels. But one longs for peace. And the Doctor says I must have it, and that my mother must go home at once. If I tell her that, she will have a tremendous quarrel with the Doctor. As it is, he will scarcely speak to her. So you see, Mademoiselle Gerardy, that I, too, am in a bad plight. What am I to do?" Then a young American spoke. He had been getting gradually worse since he came to Petershof, but his brother, a bright sturdy young fellow, seemed quite unconscious of the seriousness of his condition. "And what am I to do?" he asked pathetically. "My brother does not even think I am ill. He says I am to rouse myself and come skating and tobogganing with him. Then I tell him that the Doctor says I must lie quietly in the sun. I have no one to take care of me, so I try to take a little care of myself, and then I am laughed at. It is bad enough to be ill; but it is worse when those who might help you a little, won't even believe in your illness. I wrote home once and told them; but they go by what he says; and they, too, tell me to rouse myself." His cheeks were sunken, his eyes were leaden. There was no power in his voice, no vigour in his frame. He was just slipping quickly down the hill for want of proper care and understanding. "I don't know whether I am much better off than you," said an English lady, Mrs. Bridgetower. "I certainly have a trained nurse to look after me, but she is altogether too much for me, and she does just as she pleases. She is always ailing, or else pretends to be; and she is always depressed. She grumbles from eight in the morning till nine at night. I have heard that she is cheerful with other people, but she never gives me the benefit of her brightness. Poor thing! She does feel the cold very much, but it is not very cheering to see her crouching near the stove, with her arms almost clasping it! When she is not talking of her own looks, all she says is: 'Oh, if I had only not come to Petershof!' or, 'Why did I ever leave that hospital in Manchester?' or, 'The cold is eating into the very marrow of my bones.' At first she used to read to me; but it was such a dismal performance that I could not bear to hear her. Why don't I send her home? Well, my husband will not hear of me being alone, and he thinks I might do worse than keep Nurse Frances. And perhaps I might." "I would give a good deal to have a sister like pretty Fräulein Müller has," said little Fräulein Oberhof. "She came to look after me the other day when I was alone. She has the kindest way about her. But when my sister came in, she was not pleased to find Fräulein Sophie Müller with me. She does not do anything for me herself, and she does not like any one else to do anything either. Still, she is very good to other people. She comes up from the theatre sometimes at half-past nine--that is the hour when I am just sleepy--and she stamps about the room, and makes cornflour for the old Polish lady. Then off she goes, taking with her the cornflour together with my sleep. Once I complained, but she said I was irritable. You can't think how teasing it is to hear the noise of the spoon stirring the cornflour just when you are feeling drowsy. You say to yourself, 'Will that cornflour never be made? It seems to take centuries.'" "One could be more patient if it were being made for oneself," said M. Lichinsky. "But at least, Fräulein, your sister does not quarrel with every one. You must be grateful for that mercy!" Even as he spoke, a stout lady thrust herself into the reading-room. She looked very hot and excited. She was M. Lichinsky's mother. She spoke with a whirlwind of Polish words. It is sometimes difficult to know when these people are angry and when they are pleased. But there was no mistake about Mme. Lichinsky. She was always angry. Her son rose from the sofa and followed her to the door. Then he turned round to his confederates, and shrugged his shoulders. "Another quarrel!" he said hopelessly. CHAPTER XV. WHICH CONTAINS NOTHING. "YOU may have talent for other things," Robert Allitsen said one day to Bernardine, "but you certainly have no talent for photography. You have not made the slightest progress." "I don't at all agree with you," Bernardine answered rather peevishly. "I think I am getting on very well." "You are no judge," he said. "To begin with, you cannot focus properly. You have a crooked eye. I have told you that several times!" "You certainly have," she put in. "You don't let me forget that." "Your photograph of that horrid little danseuse whom you like so much," he said, "is simply abominable. She looks like a fury. Well, she may be one for all I know, but in real life she has not the appearance of one." "I think that is the best photograph I have done," Bernardine said, highly indignant. She could tolerate his uppishness about subjects of which she knew far more than he did; but his masterfulness about a subject of which she really knew nothing was more than she could bear with patience. He had not the tact to see that she was irritated. "I don't know about it being the best," he said; "unless it is the best specimen of your inexperience. Looked at from that point of view, it does stand first!" She flushed crimson with temper. "Nothing is easier than to make fun of others," she said fiercely. "It is the resource of the ignorant." Then, after the fashion of angry women, having said her say, she stalked away. If there had been a door to bang, she would certainly have banged it. However, she did what she could under the circumstances: she pushed a curtain roughly aside, and passed into the concert-room, where every night of the season's six months, a scratchy string orchestra entertained the Kurhaus guests. She left the Disagreeable Man standing in the passage. "Dear me," he said thoughtfully. And he stroked his chin. Then he trudged slowly up to his room. "Dear me," he said once more. Arrived in his bedroom, he began to read. But after a few minutes he shut his book, took the lamp to the looking-glass and brushed his hair. Then he put on a black coat and a white silk tie. There was a speck of dust on the coat. He carefully removed that, and then extinguished the lamp. On his way downstairs he met Marie, who gazed at him in astonishment. It was quite unusual for him to be seen again when he had once come up from _table-d'hôte_. She noticed the black coat and the white silk tie too, and reported on these eccentricities to her colleague Anna. The Disagreeable Man meanwhile had reached the Concert Hall. He glanced around, and saw where Bernardine was sitting, and then chose a place in the opposite direction, quite by himself. He looked somewhat like a dog who has been well beaten. Now and again he looked up to see whether she still kept her seat. The bad music was a great irritation to him. But he stayed on heroically. There was no reason why he should stay. Gradually, too, the audience began to thin. Still he lingered, always looking like a dog in punishment. At last Bernardine rose, and the Disagreeable Man rose too. He followed her humbly to the door. She turned and saw him. "I am sorry I put you in a bad temper," he said. "It was stupid of me." "I am sorry I got into a bad temper," she answered, laughing. "It was stupid of me." "I think I have said enough to apologize," he said. "It is a process I dislike very much." And with that he wished her good-night and went to his room. But that was not the end of the matter, for the next day when he was taking his breakfast with her, he of his own accord returned to the subject. "It was partly your own fault that I vexed you last night," he said. "You have never before been touchy, and so I have become accustomed to saying what I choose. And it is not in my nature to be flattering." "That is a very truthful statement of yours," she said, as she poured out her coffee. "But I own I was touchy. And so I shall be again if you make such cutting remarks about my photographs!" "You have a crooked eye," he said grimly. "Look there, for instance! You have poured your coffee outside the cup. Of course you can do as you like, but the usual custom is to pour it inside the cup." They both laughed, and the good understanding between them was cemented again. "You are certainly getting better," he said suddenly. "I should not be surprised if you were able to write a book after all. Not that a new book is wanted. There are too many books as it is; and not enough people to dust them. Still, it is not probable that you would be considerate enough to remember that. You will write your book." Bernardine shook her head. "I don't seem to care now," she said. "I think I could now be content with a quieter and more useful part." "You will write your book," he continued. "Now listen to me. Whatever else you may do, don't make your characters hold long discussions with each other. In real life, people do not talk four pages at a time without stopping. Also, if you bring together two clever men, don't make them talk cleverly. Clever people do not. It is only the stupid who think they must talk cleverly all the time. And don't detain your reader too long: if you must have a sunset, let it be a short one. I could give you many more hints which would be useful to you." "But why not use your own hints for yourself?" she suggested. "That would be selfish of me," he said solemnly. "I wish you to profit by them." "You are learning to be unselfish at a very rapid rate," Bernardine said. At that moment Mrs. Reffold came into the breakfast-room, and, seeing Bernardine, gave her a stiff bow. "I thought you and Mrs. Reffold were such friends," Robert Allitsen said. Bernardine then told him of her last interview with Mrs. Reffold. "Well, if you feel uncomfortable, it is as it should be," he said. "I don't see what business you had to point out to Mrs. Reffold her duty. I dare say she knows it quite well though she may not choose to do it. I am sure I should resent it, if any one pointed out my duty to me. Every one knows his own duty. And it is his own affair whether or not he does it." "I wonder if you are right," Bernardine said. "I never meant to presume; but her indifference had exasperated me." "Why should you be exasperated about other people's affairs?" he said. "And why interfere at all?" "Being interested is not the same as being interfering," she replied quickly. "It is difficult to be the one without being the other," he said. "It requires a genius. There is a genius for being sympathetic as well as a genius for being good. And geniuses are few." "But I knew one," Bernardine said. "There was a friend to whom in the first days of my trouble I turned for sympathy. When others only irritated, she could soothe. She had only to come into my room, and all was well with me." There were tears in Bernardine's eyes as she spoke. "Well," said the Disagreeable Man kindly, "and where is your genius now?" "She went away, she and hers," Bernardine said "And that was the end of that chapter!" "Poor little child," he said, half to himself. "Don't I too know something about the ending of such a chapter?" But Bernardine did not hear him; she was thinking of her friend. She was thinking, as we all think, that those to whom in our suffering we turn for sympathy, become hallowed beings. Saints they may not be; but for want of a better name, saints they are to us, gracious and lovely presences. The great time Eternity, the great space Death, could not rob them of their saintship; for they were canonized by our bitterest tears. She was roused from her reverie by the Disagreeable Man, who got up, and pushed his chair noisily under the table. "Will you come and help me to develop some photographs?" he asked cheerily. "You do not need to have a straight eye for that!" Then as they went along together, he said: "When we come to think about it seriously, it is rather absurd for us to expect to have uninterrupted stretches of happiness. Happiness falls to our share in separate detached bits; and those of us who are wise, content ourselves with these broken fragments." "But who is wise?" Bernardine asked. "Why, we all expect to be happy. No one told us that we were to be happy. Still, though no one told us, it is the true instinct of human nature." "It would be interesting to know at what particular period of evolution into our present glorious types we felt that instinct for the first time," he said. "The sunshine must have had something to do with it. You see how a dog throws itself down in the sunshine; the most wretched cur heaves a sigh of content then; the sulkiest cat begins to purr." They were standing outside the room set apart for the photograph-maniacs of the Kurhaus. "I cannot go into that horrid little hole," Bernardine said. "And besides, I have promised to play chess with the Swedish professor. And after that I am going to photograph Marie. I promised Wärli I would." The Disagreeable Man smiled grimly. "I hope he will be able to recognize her!" he said. Then, feeling that he was on dangerous ground, he added quickly: "If you want any more plates, I can oblige you." On her way to her room she stopped to talk to pretty Fräulein Müller, who was in high spirits, having had an excellent report from the Doctor. Fräulein Müller always insisted on talking English with Bernardine; and as her knowledge of it was limited, a certain amount of imagination was necessary to enable her to be understood. "Ah, Miss Holme," she said, "I have deceived an exquisite report from the Doctor." "You are looking ever so well," Bernardine said. "And the love-making with the Spanish gentleman goes on well, too?" "Ach!" was the merry answer. "That is your inventory! I am quite indolent to him!" At that moment the Spanish gentleman came out of the Kurhaus flower- shop, with a beautiful bouquet of flowers. "Mademoiselle," he said, handing them to Fräulein Müller, and at the same time putting his hand to his heart. He had not noticed Bernardine at first, and when he saw her, he became somewhat confused. She smiled at them both, and escaped into the flower-shop, which was situated in one of the covered passages connecting the mother-building with the dependencies. Herr Schmidt, the gardener, was making a wreath. His favourite companion, a saffron cat, was playing with the wire. Schmidt was rather an ill-tempered man, but he liked Bernardine. "I have put these violets aside for you, Fräulein," he said, in his sulky way. "I meant to have sent them to your room, but have been interrupted in my work." "You spoil me with your gifts," she said. "You spoil my cat with the milk," he replied, looking up from his work. "That is a beautiful wreath you are making, Herr Schmidt," she said. "Who has died? Any one in the Kurhaus?" "No, Fräulein. But I ought to keep my door locked when I make these wreaths. People get frightened, and think they, too, are going to die. Shall you be frightened, I wonder?" "No, I believe not," she answered as she took possession of her violets, and stroked the saffron cat. "But I am glad no one has died here." "It is for a young, beautiful lady," he said. "She was in the Kurhaus two years ago. I liked her. So I am taking extra pains. She did not care for the flowers to be wired. So I am trying my best without the wire. But it is difficult." She left him to his work, and went away, thinking. All the time she had now been in Petershof had not sufficed to make her indifferent to the sadness of her surroundings. In vain the Disagreeable Man's preachings, in vain her own reasonings with herself. These people here who suffered, and faded, and passed away, who were they to her? Why should the faintest shadow steal across her soul on account of them? There was no reason. And still she felt for them all, she who in the old days would have thought it waste of time to spare a moment's reflection on anything so unimportant as the sufferings of an _individual_ human being. And the bridge between her former and her present self was her own illness. What dull-minded sheep we must all be, how lacking in the very elements of imagination, since we are only able to learn by personal experience of grief and suffering, something about the suffering and grief of others! Yea, how the dogs must wonder at us: those dogs who know when we are in pain or trouble, and nestle nearer to us. So Bernardine reached her own door. She heard her name called, and, turning round, saw Mrs. Reffold. There was a scared look on the beautiful face. "Miss Holme," she said, "I have been sent for--I daren't go to him alone--I want you--he is worse. I am" . . . . Bernardine took her hand, and the two women hurried away in silence. CHAPTER XVI. WHEN THE SOUL KNOWS ITS OWN REMORSE. BERNARDINE had seen Mr. Reffold the previous day. She had sat by his side and held his hand. He had smiled at her many times, but he only spoke once. "Little Brick," he whispered--for his voice had become nothing but a whisper. "I remember all you told me. God bless you. But what a long time it does take to die." But that was yesterday. The lane had come to an ending at last, and Mr. Reffold lay dead. They bore him to the little mortuary chapel. And Bernardine stayed with Mrs. Reffold, who seemed afraid to be alone. She clung to Bernardine's hand. "No, no," she said excitedly, "you must not go! I can't bear to be alone: you must stay with me!" She expressed no sorrow, no regret. She did not even speak his name. She just sat nursing her beautiful face. Once or twice Bernardine tried to slip away. This waiting about was a strain on her, and she felt that she was doing no good. But each time Mrs. Reffold looked up and prevented her. "No, no," she said. "I can't bear myself without you. I must have you near me. Why should you leave me?" So Bernardine lingered. She tried to read a book which lay on the table. She counted the lines and dots on the wall-paper. She thought about the dead man; and about the living woman. She had pitied him; but when she looked at the stricken face of his wife, Bernardine's whole heart rose up in pity for her. Remorse would come, although it might not remain long. The soul would see itself face to face for one brief moment; and then forget its own likeness. But for the moment--what a weight of suffering, what a whole century of agony! Bernardine grew very tender for Mrs. Reffold: she bent over the sofa, and fondled the beautiful face. "Mrs. Reffold" . . . she whispered. That was all she said: but it was enough. Mrs. Reffold burst into an agony of tears. "Oh, Miss Holme," she sobbed, "and I was not even kind to him! And now it is too late. How can I ever bear myself?" And then it was that the soul knew its own remorse. CHAPTER XVII. A RETURN TO OLD PASTURES. SHE had left him alone and neglected for whole hours when he was alive. And now when he was dead, and it probably mattered little to him where he was laid, it was some time before she could make up her mind to leave him in the lonely little Petershof cemetery. "It will be so dreary for him there," she said to the Doctor. "Not so dreary as you made it for him here," thought the Doctor. But he did not say that: he just urged her quietly to have her husband buried in Petershof; and she yielded. So they laid him to rest in the dreary cemetery. Bernardine went to the funeral, much against the Disagreeable Man's wish. "You are looking like a ghost yourself," he said to her. "Come out with me into the country instead." But she shook her head. "Another day," she said. "And Mrs. Reffold wants me. I can't leave her alone, for she is so miserable." The Disagreeable Man shrugged his shoulders, and went off by himself. Mrs. Reffold clung very much to Bernardine those last days before she left Petershof. She had decided to go to Wiesbaden, where she had relations; and she invited Bernardine to go with her: it was more than that, she almost begged her. Bernardine refused. "I have been from England nearly five months," she said, "and my money is coming to an end. I must go back and work." "Then come away with me as my companion," Mrs. Reffold suggested. "And I will pay you a handsome salary." Bernardine could not be persuaded. "No," she said. "I could not earn money that way: it would not suit me. And besides, you would not care to be a long time with me: you would soon tire of me. You think you would like to have me with you now. But I know how it would be: You would be sorry, and so should I. So let us part as we are now: you going your way, and I going mine. We live in different worlds, Mrs. Reffold. It would be as senseless for me to venture into yours, as for you to come into mine. Do you think I am unkind?" So they parted. Mrs. Reffold had spoken no word of affection to Bernardine, but at the station, as she bent down to kiss her, she whispered: "I know you will not think too hardly of me. Still, will you promise me? And if you are ever in trouble, and I can help you, will you write to me?" And Bernardine promised. When she got back to her room, she found a small packet on her table. It contained Mr. Reffold's watch-chain. She had so often seen him playing with it. There was a little piece of paper enclosed with it, and Mr. Reffold had written on it some two months ago: "Give my watch- chain to Little Brick, if she will sacrifice a little of her pride, and accept the gift." Bernardine unfastened her watch from the black hair cord, and attached it instead to Mr. Reffold's massive gold chain. As she sat there fiddling with it, the idea seized her that she would be all the better for a day's outing. At first she thought she would go alone, and then she decided to ask Robert Allitsen. She learnt from Marie that he was in the dark room, and she hastened down. She knocked several times before there was any answer. "I can't be disturbed just now," he said. "Who is it?" "I can't shout to you," she said. The Disagreeable Man opened the door of the dark room. "My negatives will be spoilt," he said gruffly. Then seeing Bernardine standing there, he added: "Why, you look as though you wanted some brandy." "No," she said, smiling at his sudden change of manner. "I want fresh air, a sledge drive, and a day's outing. Will you come?" He made no answer, and retired once more into the dark room. Then he came out with his camera. "We will go to that inn again," he said cheerily. "I want to take the photographs to those peasants." In half an hours time they were on their way. It was the same drive as before: and since then, Bernardine had seen more of the country, and was more accustomed to the wonderful white scenery: but still the "white presences" awed her, and still the deep silence held her. It was the same scene, and yet not the same either, for the season was now far advanced, and the melting of the snows had begun. In the far distance the whiteness seemed as before; but on the slopes near at hand, the green was beginning to assert itself, and some of the great trees had cast off their heavy burdens, and appeared more gloomy in their freedom than in the days of their snow-bondage. The roads were no longer quite so even as before; the sledge glided along when it could, and bumped along when it must. Still, there was sufficient snow left to make the drive possible, and even pleasant. The two companions were quiet. Once only the Disagreeable Man made a remark, and then he said: "I am afraid my negatives will be spoilt!" "You said that before," Bernardine remarked. "Well, I say it again," he answered in his grim way. Then came a long pause. "The best part of the winter is over," he said. "We may have some more snow; but it is more probable that we shall not. It is not enjoyable being here during the melting time." "Well, in any case I should not be here much longer," she said; "and for a simple reason, too. I have nearly come to the end of my money. I shall have to go back and set to work again. I should not have been able to give myself this chance, but that my uncle spared me some of his money, to which I added my savings." "Are you badly off?" the Disagreeable Man asked rather timidly. "I have very few wants," she answered brightly. "And wealth is only a relative word, after all." "It is a pity that you should go back to work so soon," he said half to himself. "You are only just better; and it is easy to lose what one has gained." "Oh, I am not likely to lose," she answered; "but I shall be careful this time. I shall do a little teaching, and perhaps a little writing: not much--you need not be vexed. I shall not try to pick up the other threads yet. I shall not be political, nor educational, nor anything else great." "If you call politics or education great," he said. "And heaven defend me from political or highly educated women!" "You say that because you know nothing about them," she said sharply. "Thank you," he replied. "I have met them quite often enough!" "That was probably some time ago," she said rather heartlessly. "If you have lived here so long, how can you judge of the changes which go on in the world outside Petershof?" "If I have lived here so long," he repeated, in the bitterness of his heart. Bernardine did not notice: she was on a subject which always excited her. "I don't know so much about the political women," she said, "but I do know about the higher education people. The writers who rail against the women of this date are really describing the women of ten years ago. Why, the Girton girl of ten years ago seems a different creation from the Girton girl of to-day. Yet the latter has been the steady outgrowth of the former!" "And the difference between them?" asked the Disagreeable Man; "since you pride yourself on being so well informed." "The Girton girl of ten years ago," said Bernardine, "was a, sombre, spectacled person, carelessly and dowdily dressed, who gave herself up to wisdom, and despised every one who did not know the Agamemnon by heart. She was probably not lovable; but she deserves to be honoured and thankfully remembered. She fought for woman's right to be well educated, and I cannot bear to hear her slighted. The fresh-hearted young girl who nowadays plays a good game of tennis, and takes a high place in the Classical or Mathematical Tripos, and is book learnèd, without being bookish, and . . . ." "What other virtues are left, I wonder?" he interrupted. "And who does not scorn to take a pride in her looks because she happens to take a pride in her books," continued Bernardine, looking at the Disagreeable Man, and not seeming to see him: "she is what she is by reason of that grave and loveless woman who won the battle for her." Here she paused. "But how ridiculous for me to talk to you in this way!" she said. "It is not likely that you would be interested in the widening out of women's lives." "And pray why not?" he asked. "Have I been on the shelf too long?" "I think you would not have been interested even if you had never been on the shelf," she said frankly. "You are not the type of man to be generous to woman." "May I ask one little question of you, which shall conclude this subject," he said, "since here we are already at the Gasthaus: to which type of learnèd woman do you lay claim to belong?" Bernardine laughed. "That I leave to your own powers of discrimination," she said, and then added, "if you have any." And that was the end of the matter, for the word spread about that Herr Allitsen had arrived, and every one turned out to give the two guests greeting. Frau Steinhart smothered Bernardine with motherly tenderness, and whispered in her ear: "You are betrothed now, liebes Fräulein? Ach, I am sure of it." But Bernardine smiled and shook her head, and went to greet the others who crowded round them; and at last poor Catharina drew near too, holding Bernardine's hand lovingly within her own. Then Hans, Liza's lover, came upon the scene, and Liza told the Disagreeable Man that she and Hans were to be married in a month's time. And the Disagreeable Man, much to Bernardine's amazement, drew from his pocket a small parcel, which he confided to Liza's care. Every one pressed round her while she opened it, and found what she had so often wished for, a silver watch and chain. "Ach," she cried, "how heavenly! How all the girls here will envy me! How angry my dear friend Susanna will be!" Then there were the photographs to be examined. Liza looked with stubborn disapproval on the pictures of herself in her working-dress. But she did not conceal her admiration of the portraits which showed her to the world in her best finery. "Ach," she cried, "this is something like a photograph!" The Disagreeable Man grunted, but behaved after the fashion of a hero, claiming, however, a little silent sympathy from Bernardine. It was a pleasant, homely scene: and Bernardine, who, felt quite at her ease amongst these people, chatted away with them as though she had known them all her life. Then Frau Steinhart suddenly remembered that her guests needed some food, and Liza was despatched to her duties as cook; though it was some time before she could be induced to leave off looking at the photographs. "Take them with you, Liza," said the Disagreeable Man. "Then we shall get our meal all the quicker!" She ran off laughing, and finally Bernardine found herself alone with Catharina. "Liza is very happy," she said to Bernardine. "She loves, and is loved." "That is the greatest happiness," Bernardine said half to herself. "Fräulein knows?" Catharina asked eagerly. Bernardine looked wistfully at her companion. "No, Catharina," she said. "I have only heard and read and seen." "Then _you_ cannot understand," Catharina said almost proudly. "But _I_ understand!" She spoke no more after that, but took up her knitting, and watched Bernardine playing with the kittens. She was playing with the kittens, and she was thinking; and all the time she felt conscious that this peasant woman, stricken in mind and body, was pitying her because that great happiness of loving and being loved had not come into her life. It had seemed something apart from her; she had never even wanted it. She had wished to stand alone, like a little rock out at sea. And now? In a few minutes the Disagreeable Man and she sat down to their meal. In spite of her excitement, Liza managed to prepare everything nicely; though when she was making the omelette _aux fines herbes_, she had to be kept guarded lest she might run off to have another look at the silver watch and the photographs of herself in her finest frock! Then Bernardine and Robert Allitsen drank to the health of Hans and Liza: and then came the time of reckoning. When he was paying the bill, Frau Steinhart, having given him the change, said coaxingly: "Last time, you and Fräulein each paid a share: to-day you pay all. Then perhaps you are betrothed at last, dear Herr Allitsen? Ach, how the old Hausfrau wishes you happiness! Who deserves to be happy, if it is not our dear Herr Allitsen?" "You have given me twenty centimes too much," he said quietly. "You have your head so full of other things that you cannot reckon properly." But seeing that she looked troubled lest she might have offended him, he added quickly: "When I am betrothed, good little old housemother, you shall be the first to know." And she had to be content with that. She asked no more questions of either of them: but she was terribly disappointed. There was something a little comical in her disappointment; but Robert Allitsen was not amused at it, as he had been on a former occasion. As he leaned back in the sledge, with the same girl for his companion, he recalled his feelings. He had been astonished and amused, and perhaps a little shy, and a great deal relieved that she had been sensible enough to be amused too. And now? They had been constantly together for many months: he who had never cared before for companionship, had found himself turning more and more to her. _And now he was going to lose her_. He looked up once or twice to make sure that she was still by his side: she sat there so quietly. At last he spoke in his usual gruff way. "Have you exhausted all your eloquence in your oration about learned women?" he asked. "No, I am reserving it for a better audience," she answered, trying to be bright. But she was not bright. "I believe you came out to the country to day to seek for cheerfulness," he said after a pause. "Have you found it?" "I do not know," she said. "It takes me some time to recover from shocks; and Mr. Reffold's death was a sorrow to me. What do you think about death? Have you any theories about life and death, and the bridge between them? Could you say anything to help one?" "Nothing," he answered. "Who could? And by what means?" "Has there been no value in philosophy," she asked, "and the meditations of learnèd men?" "Philosophy!" he sneered. "What has it done for us? It has taught us some processes of the mind's working; taught us a few wonderful things which interest the few; but the centuries have come and gone, and the only thing which the whole human race pants to know, remains unknown: our beloved ones, shall we meet them, and how?--the great secret of the universe. We ask for bread, and these philosophers give us a stone. What help could come from them: or from any one? Death is simply one of the hard facts of life." "And the greatest evil," she said. "We weave our romances about the next world," he continued; "and any one who has a fresh romance to relate, or an old one dressed up in new language, will be listened to, and welcomed. That helps some people for a little while; and when the charm of the romance is over, then they are ready for another, perhaps more fantastic than the last. But the plot is always the same: our beloved ones--shall we meet them, and how? Isn't it pitiful? Why cannot we be more impersonal? These puny, petty minds of ours! When will they learn to expand?" "Why should we learn to be more impersonal?" she said. "There was a time when I felt like that; but now I have learnt something better: that we need not be ashamed of being human; above all, of having the best of human instincts, love, and the passionate wish for its continuance, and the unceasing grief at its withdrawal. There is no indignity in this; nor any trace of weakmindedness in our restless craving to know about the Hereafter, and the possibilities of meeting again those whom we have lost here. It is right, and natural, and lovely that it should be the most important question. I know that many will say that there _are_ weightier questions: they say so, but do they think so? Do we want to know first and foremost whether we shall do our work better elsewhere: whether we shall be endowed with more wisdom: whether, as poor Mr. Reffold said, we shall be glad to behave less like curs, and more like heroes? These questions come in, but they can be put aside. The other question can _never_ be put on one side. If that were to become possible, it would only be so because the human heart had lost the best part of itself, its own humanity. We shall go on building our bridge between life and death, each one for himself. When we see that it is not strong enough, we shall break it down and build another. We shall watch other people building their bridges. We shall imitate, or criticise, or condemn. But as time goes on, we shall learn not to interfere, we shall know that one bridge is probably as good as the other; and that the greatest value of them all has been in the building of them. It does not matter what we build, but build we must: you, and I, and every one." "I have long ceased to build my bridge," the Disagreeable Man said. "It is an almost unconscious process," she said. "Perhaps you are still at work, or perhaps you are resting." He shrugged his shoulders, and the two comrades fell into silence again. They were within two miles of Petershof, when he broke the silence: there was something wonderfully gentle in his voice. "You little thing," he said, "we are nearing home, and I have something to ask you. It is easier for me to ask here in the free open country, where the space seems to give us breathing room for our cramped lungs and minds!" "Well," she said kindly; she wondered what he could have to say. "I am a little nervous of offending you," he continued, "and yet I trust you. It is only this. You said you had come to the end of your money, and that you must go home. It seems a pity when you are getting better. I have so much more than I need. I don't offer it to you as a gift, but I thought if you wished to stay longer, a loan from me would not be quite impossible to you. You could repay as quickly or as slowly as was convenient to you, and I should only be grateful and" . . . . He stopped suddenly. The tears had gathered in Bernardine's eyes her hand rested for one moment on his arm. "Mr. Allitsen," she said, "you did well to trust me. But I could not borrow money of any one, unless I was obliged. If I could of any one, it would have been of you. It is not a month ago since I was a little anxious about money; my remittances did not come. I thought then that if obliged to ask for temporary help, I should come to you: so you see if you have trusted me, I, too, have trusted you." A smile passed over the Disagreeable Man's face, one of his rare, beautiful smiles. "Supposing you change your mind," he said quietly, "you will not find that I have changed mine." Then a few minutes brought them back to Petershof. CHAPTER XVIII. A BETROTHAL. HE had loved her so patiently, and now he felt that he must have his answer. It was only fair to her, and to himself too, that he should know exactly where he stood in her affections. She had certainly given him little signs here and there, which had made him believe that she was not indifferent to his admiration. Little signs were all very well for a short time; but meanwhile the season was coming to an end: she had told him that she was going back to her work at home. And then perhaps he would lose her altogether. It would not be safe now for him to delay a single day longer. So the little postman armed himself with courage. Wärli's brain was muddled that day. He who prided himself upon knowing the names of all the guests in Petershof, made the most absurd mistakes about people and letters too; and received in acknowledgment of his stupidity a series of scoldings which would have unnerved a stronger person than the little hunchback postman. In fact, he ceased to care how he gave out the letters: all the envelopes seemed to have the same name on them: _Marie Truog_. Every word which he tried to decipher turned to that; so finally he tried no more, leaving the destination of the letter to be decided by the impulse of the moment. At last he arrived at that quarter of the Kurhaus where Marie held sway. He heard her singing in her pantry. Suddenly she was summoned downstairs by an impatient bellringer, and on her return found Wärli waiting in the passage. "What a goose you are!" she cried, throwing a letter at him; "you have left the wrong letter at No. 82." Then some one else rang, and Marie hurried off again. She came back with another letter in her hand, and found Wärli sitting in her pantry. "The wrong letter left at No. 54," she said, "and Madame in a horrid temper in consequence. What a nuisance you are to-day, Wärli! Can't you read? Here, give the remaining letters to me. I'll sort them." Wärli took off his little round hat, and wiped his forehead. "I can't read to-day, Marie," he said; something has gone wrong with me. Every name I look at turns to Marie Truog. I ought to have brought every one of the letters to you. But I knew they could not be all for you, though you have so many admirers. For they would not be likely to write at the same time, to catch the same post." "It would be very dull if they did," said Marie, who was polishing some water-bottles with more diligence than was usual or even necessary. "But I am the one who loves you, Mariechen," the little postman said. "I have always loved you ever since I can remember. I am not much to look at, Mariechen: the binding of the book is not beautiful, but the book itself is not a bad book." Marie went on polishing the water-bottles. Then she held them up to the light to admire their unwonted cleanness. "I don't plead for myself," continued Wärli. "If you don't love me, that is the end of the matter. But if you do love me, Mariechen, and will marry me, you won't be unhappy. Now I have said all." Marie put down the water-bottles, and turned to Wärli. "You have been a long time in telling me," she said, pouting. "Why didn't you tell me three months ago? It's too late now." "Oh, Mariechen!" said the little postman, seizing her hand and covering it with kisses; "you love some one else--you are already betrothed? And now it's too late, and you love some one else!" "I never said I loved some one else," Marie replied; "I only said it was too late. Why, it must be nearly five o'clock, and my lamps are not yet ready. I haven't a moment to spare. Dear me, and there is no oil in the can; no, not one little drop! "The devil take the oil!" exclaimed Wärli, snatching the can out of her hands. "What do I want to know about the oil in the can? I want to know about the love in your heart. Oh, Mariechen, don't keep me waiting like this! Just tell me if you love me, and make me the merriest soul in all Switzerland." "Must I tell the truth," she said, in a most melancholy tone of voice; "the truth and nothing else? Well, Wärli, if you must know . . . how I grieve to hurt you . . . ." Wärli's heart sank, the tears came into his eyes. "But since it must be the truth, and nothing else," continued the torturer, "well Fritz . . . I love you!" A few minutes afterwards, the Disagreeable Man, having failed to attract any notice by ringing, descended to Marie's pantry, to fetch his lamp. He discovered Wärli embracing his betrothed. "I am sorry to intrude," he said grimly, and he retreated at once. But directly afterwards he came back. "The matron has just come upstairs," he said. And he hurried away. CHAPTER XIX. "SHIPS THAT SPEAK EACH OTHER IN PASSING." MANY of the guests in the foreign quarter had made a start downwards into the plains; and the Kurhaus itself, though still well filled with visitors, was every week losing some of its invalids. A few of the tables looked desolate, and some were not occupied at all, the lingerers having chosen, now that their party was broken up, to seek the refuge of another table. So that many stragglers found their way to the English dining-board, each bringing with him his own national bad manners, and causing much annoyance to the Disagreeable Man, who was a true John Bull in his contempt of all foreigners. The English table was, so he said, like England herself: the haven of other nation's offscourings. There were several other signs, too, that the season was far advanced. The food had fallen off in quality and quantity. The invalids, some of them better and some of them worse, had become impatient. And plans were being discussed, where formerly temperatures and coughs and general symptoms were the usual subjects of conversation! The caretakers, too, were in a state of agitation; some few keenly anxious to be of to new pastures; and others, who had perhaps formed attachments, an occurrence not unusual in Petershof, were wishing to hold back time with both hands, and were therefore delighted that the weather, which had not yet broken up, gave no legitimate excuse for immediate departure. Pretty Fräulein Müller had gone, leaving her Spanish gentleman quite disconsolate for the time being. The French Marchioness had returned to the Parisian circles where she was celebrated for all the domestic virtues, from which she had been taking such a prolonged holiday in Petershof. The little French danseuse and her poodle had left for Monte Carlo. M. Lichinsky and his mother passed on to the Tyrol, where Madame would no doubt have plenty of opportunities for quarrelling: or not finding them, would certainly make them without any delay, by this means keeping herself in good spirits and her son in bad health. There were some, too, who had hurried off without paying their doctors: being of course those who had received the greatest attention, and who had expressed the greatest gratitude in their time of trouble, but who were of opinion that thankfulness could very well take the place of francs: an opinion not entirely shared by the doctors themselves. The Swedish professor had betaken himself off, with his chessmen and his chessboard. The little Polish governess who clutched so eagerly at her paltry winnings, caressing those centimes with the same fondness and fever that a greater gambler grasps his thousands of francs, she, had left too; and, indeed, most of Bernardine's acquaintances had gone their several ways, after six months' constant intercourse, and companionship, saying good-bye with the same indifference as though they were saying good-morning or good-afternoon. This cold-heartedness struck Bernardine more than once, and she spoke of it to Robert Allitsen. It was the day before her own departure, and she had gone down with him to the restaurant, and sat sipping her coffee, and making her complaint. "Such indifference is astonishing, and it is sad too. I cannot understand it," she said. "That is because you are a goose," he replied, pouring out some more coffee for himself, and as an after thought, for her too. "You pretend to know something about the human heart, and yet you do not seem to grasp the fact that most of us are very little interested in other people: they for us and we for them can spare only a small fraction of time and attention. We may, perhaps, think to the contrary, believing that we occupy an important position in their lives; until one day, when we are feeling most confident of our value, we see an unmistakable sign, given quite unconsciously by our friends, that we are after all nothing to them: we can be done without, put on one side, and forgotten when not present. Then, if we are foolish, we are wounded by this discovery, and we draw back into ourselves. But if we are wise, we draw back into ourselves without being wounded: recognizing as fair and reasonable that people can only have time and attention for their immediate belongings. Isolated persons have to learn this lesson sooner or later; and the sooner they do learn it, the better." "And you," she asked, "you have learnt this lesson?" "Long ago," he said decidedly. "You take a hard view of life," she said. "Life has not been very bright for me," he answered. "But I own that I have not cultivated my garden. And now it is too late: the weeds have sprung up everywhere. Once or twice I have thought lately that I would begin to clear away the weeds, but I have not the courage now. And perhaps it does not matter much." "I think it does matter," she said gently. "But I am no better than you, for I have not cultivated my garden." "It would not be such a difficult business for you as for me," he said, smiling sadly. They left the restaurant, and sauntered out together. "And to-morrow you will be gone," he said. "I shall miss you," Bernardine said. "That is simply a question of time," he remarked. "I shall probably miss you at first. But we adjust ourselves easily to altered circumstances: mercifully. A few days, a few weeks at most, and then that state of becoming accustomed, called by pious folk, resignation." "Then you think that the every-day companionship, the every-day exchange of thoughts and ideas, counts for little or nothing?" she asked. "That is about the colour of it," he answered, in his old gruff way. She thought of his words when she was packing: the many pleasant hours were to count for nothing; for nothing the little bits of fun, the little displays of temper and vexation, the snatches of serious talk, the contradictions, and all the petty details of six months' close companionship. He was not different from the others who had parted from her so lightly. No wonder, then, that he could sympathise with them. That last night at Petershof, Bernardine hardened her heart against the Disagreeable Man. "I am glad I am able to do so," she said to herself. "It makes it easier for me to go." Then the vision of a forlorn figure rose before her. And the little hard heart softened at once. In the morning they breakfasted together as usual. There was scarcely any conversation between them. He asked for her address, and she told him that she was going back to her uncle who kept the second-hand book- shop in Stone Street. "I will send you a guide-book from the Tyrol," he explained. "I shall be going there in a week or two to see my mother." "I hope you will find her in good health," she said. Then it suddenly flashed across her mind what he had told her about his one great sacrifice for his mother's sake. She looked up at him, and he met her glance without flinching. He said good-bye to her at the foot of the staircase. It was the first time she had ever shaken hands with him. "Good-bye," he said gently. "Good luck to you." "Good-bye," she answered. He went up the stairs, and turned round as though he wished to say something more. But he changed his mind, and kept his own counsel. An hour later Bernardine left Petershof. Only the concierge of the Kurhaus saw her off at the station. CHAPTER XX. A LOVE-LETTER. TWO days after Bernardine had left Petershof, the snows began to melt. Nothing could be drearier than that process: nothing more desolate than the outlook. The Disagreeable Man sat in his bedroom trying to read Carpenter's Anatomy. It failed to hold him. Then he looked out of the window, and listened to the dripping of the icicles. At last he took a pen, and wrote as follows: "LITTLE COMRADE, LITTLE PLAYMATE." "I could not believe that you were really going. When you first said that you would soon be leaving, I listened with unconcern, because it did not seem possible that the time could come when we should not be together; that the days would come and go, and that I should not know how you were; whether you were better, and more hopeful about your life and your work, or whether the old misery of indifference and ill-health was still clinging to you; whether your voice was strong as of one who had slept well and felt refreshed, or whether it was weak like that of one who had watched through the long night. "It did not seem possible that such a time could come. Many cruel things have happened to me, as to scores of others, but this is the most cruel of all. Against my wish and against my knowledge, you have crept into my life as a necessity, and now I have to give you up. You are better, God bless you, and you go back to a fuller life, and to carry on your work, and to put to account those talents which no one realises more than I do; and as for myself, God help me, I am left to wither away. "You little one, you dear little one, I never wished to love you. I had never loved any one, never drawn near to any one. I have lived lonely all my young life; for I am only a young man yet. I said to myself time after time: 'I will not love her. It will not do me any good, nor her any good.' And then in my state of health, what right had I to think of marriage, and making a home for myself? Of course that was out of the question. And then I thought, that because I was a doomed man, cut off from the pleasures which make a lovely thing of life, it did not follow that I might not love you in my own quiet way, hugging my secret to myself, until the love became all the greater because it was my secret. I reasoned about it too: it could not harm you that I loved you. No one could be the worse for being loved. So little by little I yielded myself this luxury; and my heart once so dried up, began to flower again; yes, little one, you will smile when I tell you that my heart broke out into flower. "When I think of it all now, I am not sorry that I let myself go. At least I have learnt what I knew nothing of before: now I understand what people mean when they say that love adds a dignity to life which nothing else can give. That dignity is mine now, nothing can take it from me; it is my own. You are my very own; I love everything about you. From the beginning I recognized that you were clever and capable. Though I often made fun of what you said, that was simply a way I had; and when I saw you did not mind, I continued in that way, hoping always to vex you; your good temper provoked me, because I knew that you made allowances for me being a Petershof invalid. You would never have suffered a strong man to criticize you as I did; you would have flown at him, for you are a feverish little child: not a quiet woolly lamb. At first I was wild that you should make allowances for me. And then I gave in, as weak men are obliged. When you came, I saw that your troubles and sufferings would make you bitter. Do you know who helped to cure you? _It was I_. I have seen that often before. That is the one little bit of good I have done in the world: I have helped to cure cynicism. You were shocked at the things I said, and you were saved. I did not save you intentionally, so I am not posing as a philanthropist. I merely mention that you came here hard, and you went back tender. That was partly because you have lived in the City of Suffering. Some people live there and learn nothing. But you would learn to feel only too much. I wish that your capacity for feeling were less; but then you would not be yourself, your present self I mean, for you have changed even since I have known you. Every week you seemed to become more gentle. You thought me rough and gruff at parting, little comrade: I meant to be so. If you had only known, there was a whole world of tenderness for you in my heart. I could not trust myself to be tender to you; you would have guessed my secret. And I wanted you to go away undisturbed. You do not feel things lightly, and it was best for you that you should harden your heart against me. "If you could harden your heart against me. But I am not sure about that. I believe that . . . . Ah, well, I'm a foolish fellow; but some day, dear, I'll tell you what I think . . . . I have treasured many of your sayings in my memory. I can never be as though I had never known you. Many of your words I have repeated to myself afterwards until they seemed to represent my own thoughts. I specially remember what you said about God having made us lonely, so that we might be obliged to turn to him. For we are all lonely, though some of us not quite so much as others. You yourself spoke often of being lonely. Oh, my own little one! Your loneliness is nothing compared to mine. How often I could have told you that. "I have never seen any of your work, but I think you have now something to say to others, and that you will say it well. And if you have the courage to be simple when it comes to the point, you will succeed. And I believe you will have the courage, I believe everything of you. "But whatever you do or do not, you will always be the same to me: my own little one, my very own. I have been waiting all my life for you; and I have given you my heart entire. If you only knew that, you could not call yourself lonely any more. If any one was ever loved, it is you, dear heart. "Do you remember how those peasants at the Gasthaus thought we were betrothed? I thought that might annoy you; and though I was relieved at the time, still, later on, I wished you had been annoyed. That would have shown that you were not indifferent. From that time my love for you grew apace. You must not mind me telling you so often; I must go on telling you. Just think, dear, this is the first love-letter I have ever written: and every word of love is a whole world of love. I shall never call my life a failure now. I may have failed in everything else, but not in loving. Oh, little one, it can't be that I am not to be with you, and not to have you for my own! And yet how can that be? It is not I who may hold you in my arms. Some strong man must love and wrap you round with tenderness and softness. You little independent child, in spite of all your wonderful views and theories, you will soon be glad to lean on some one for comfort and sympathy. And then perhaps that troubled little spirit of yours may find its rest. Would to God I were that strong man! "But because I love you, my own little darling, I will not spoil your life. I won't ask you to give me even one thought. But if I believed that it were of any good to say a prayer, I should pray that you may soon find that strong man; for it is not well for any of us to stand alone. There comes a time when the loneliness is more than we can bear. "There is one thing I want you to know: indeed I am not the gruff fellow I have so often seemed. Do believe that. Do you remember how I told you that I dreamed of losing you? And now the dream has come true. I am always looking for you, and cannot find you. "You have been very good to me; so patient, and genial, and frank. No one before has ever been so good. Even if I did not love you, I should say that. "But I do love you, no one can take that from me: it is my own dignity, the crown of my life. Such a poor life . . . no, no, I won't say that now. I cannot pity myself now . . . no, I cannot . . . ." The Disagreeable Man stopped writing, and the pen dropped on the table. He buried his tear-stained face in his hands. He cried his heart out, this Disagreeable Man. Then he took the letter which he had just been writing, and he tore it into fragments. END OF PART I. PART II. CHAPTER I. THE DUSTING OF THE BOOKS. IT was now more than three weeks since Bernardine's return to London. She had gone back to her old home, at her uncle's second-hand book-shop. She spent her time in dusting the books, and arranging them in some kind of order; for old Zerviah Holme had ceased to interest himself much in his belongings, and sat in the little inner room reading as usual Gibbon's "History of Rome." Customers might please themselves about coming: Zerviah Holme had never cared about amassing money, and now he cared even less than before. A frugal breakfast, a frugal dinner, a box full of snuff, and a shelf full of Gibbon were the old man's only requirements: an undemanding life, and therefore a loveless one; since the less we ask for, the less we get. When Malvina his wife died, people said: "He will miss her." But he did not seem to miss her: he took his breakfast, his pinch of snuff, his Gibbon, in precisely the same way as before, and in the same quantities. When Bernardine first fell ill, people said: "He will be sorry. He is fond of her in his own queer way." But he did not seem to be sorry. He did not understand anything about illness. The thought of it worried him; so he put it from him. He remembered vaguely that Bernardine's father had suddenly become ill, that his powers had all failed him, and that he lingered on, just a wreck of humanity, and then died. That was twenty years ago. Then he thought of Bernardine, and said to himself, "History repeats itself." That was all. Unkind? No; for when it was told him that she must go away, he looked at her wonderingly, and then went out. It was very rarely that he went out. He came back with fifty pounds. "When that is done," he told her, "I can find more." When she went away, people said: "He will be lonely." But he did not seem to be lonely. They asked him once, and he said: "I always have Gibbon." And when she came back, they said: "He will be glad." But her return seemed to make no difference to him. He looked at her in his usual sightless manner, and asked her what she intended to do. "I shall dust the books," she said. "Ah, I dare say they want it," he remarked. "I shall get a little teaching to do," she continued. "And I shall take care of you." "Ah," he said vaguely. He did not understand what she meant. She had never been very near to him, and he had never been very near to her. He had taken but little notice of her comings and goings; she had either never tried to win his interest or had failed: probably the latter. Now she was going to take care of him. This was the home to which Bernardine had returned. She came back with many resolutions to help to make his old age bright. She looked back now, and saw how little she had given of herself to her aunt and her uncle. Aunt Malvina was dead, and Bernardine did not regret her. Uncle Zerviah was here still; she would be tender with him, and win his affection. She thought she could not begin better than by looking after his books. Each one was dusted carefully. The dingy old shop was restored to cleanliness. Bernardine became interested in her task. "I will work up the business," she thought. She did not care in the least about the books; she never looked into them except to clean them; but she was thankful to have the occupation at hand: something to help her over a difficult time. For the most trying part of an illness is when we are ill no longer; when there is no excuse for being idle and listless; when, in fact, we could work if we would: then is the moment for us to begin on anything which presents itself, until we have the courage and the inclination to go back to our own particular work: that which we have longed to do, and about which we now care nothing. So Bernardine dusted books and sometimes sold them. All the time she thought of the Disagreeable Man. She missed him in her life. She had never loved before, and she loved him. The forlorn figure rose before her, and her eyes filled with tears. Sometimes the tears fell on the books, and spotted them. Still, on the whole she was bright; but she found things difficult. She had lost her old enthusiasms, and nothing yet had taken their place. She went back to the circle of her acquaintances, and found that she had slipped away from touch with them. Whilst she had been ill, they had been busily at work on matters social and educational and political. She thought them hard, the women especially: they thought her weak. They were disappointed in her; she was now looking for the more human qualities in them, and she, too, was disappointed. "You have changed," they said to her: "but then of course you have been ill, haven't you?" With these strong, active people, to be ill and useless is a reproach. And Bernardine felt it as such. But she had changed, and she herself perceived it in many ways. It was not that she was necessarily better, but that she was different; probably more human, and probably less self- confident. She had lived in a world of books, and she had burst through that bondage and come out into a wider and a freer land. New sorts of interests came into her life. What she had lost in strength, she had gained in tenderness. Her very manner was gentler, her mode of speech less assertive. At least, this was the criticism of those who had liked her but little before her illness. "She has learnt," they said amongst themselves. And they were not scholars. They _knew_. These, two or three of them, drew her nearer to them. She was alone there with the old man, and, though better, needed care. They mothered her as well as they could, at first timidly, and then with that sweet despotism which is for us all an easy yoke to bear. They were drawn to her as they had never been drawn before. They felt that she was no longer analysing them, weighing them in her intellectual balance, and finding them wanting; so they were free with her now, and revealed to her qualities at which she had never guessed before. As the days went on, Zerviah began to notice that things were somehow different. He found some flowers near his table. He was reading about Nero at the time; but he put aside his Gibbon, and fondled the flowers instead. Bernardine did not know that. One morning when she was out, he went into the shop and saw a great change there. Some one had been busy at work. The old man was pleased: he loved his books, though of late he had neglected them. "She never used to take any interest in them," he said to himself. "I wonder why she does now?" He began to count upon seeing her. When she came back from her outings, he was glad. But she did not know. If he had given any sign of welcome to her during those first difficult days, it would have been a great encouragement to her. He watched her feeding the sparrows. One day when she was not there, he went and did the same. Another day when she had forgotten, he surprised her by reminding her. "You have forgotten to feed the sparrows," he said. "They must be quite hungry." That seemed to break the ice a little. The next morning when she was arranging some books in the old shop, he came in and watched her. "It is a comfort to have you," he said. That was all he said, but Bernardine flushed with pleasure. "I wish I had been more to you all these years," she said gently. He did not quite take that in: and returned hastily to Gibbon. Then they began to stroll out together. They had nothing to talk about: he was not interested in the outside world, and she was not interested in Roman History. But they were trying to get nearer to each other: they had lived years together, but they had never advanced a step; now they were trying, she consciously, he unconsciously. But it was a slow process, and pathetic, as everything human is. "If we could only find some subject which we both liked," Bernardine thought to herself. "That might knit us together." Well, they found a subject; though, perhaps, it was an unlikely one. The cart-horses: those great, strong, patient toilers of the road attracted their attention, and after that no walk was without its pleasure or interest. The brewers' horses were the favourites, though there were others, too, which met with their approval. He began to know and recognize them. He was almost like a child in his newfound interest. On Whit Monday they both went to the cart-horse parade in Regent's Park. They talked about the enjoyment for days afterwards. "Next year," he told her, "we must subscribe to the fund, even if we have to sell a book." He did not like to sell his books: he parted with them painfully, as some people part with their illusions. Bernardine bought a paper for herself every day; but one evening she came in without one. She had been seeing after some teaching, and had without any difficulty succeeded in getting some temporary light work at one of the high schools. She forgot to buy her newspaper. The old man noticed this. He put on his shabby felt hat, and went down the street, and brought in a copy of the _Daily News_. "I don't remember what you like, but will this do?" he asked. He was quite proud of himself for showing her this attention, almost as proud as the Disagreeable Man, when he did something kind and thoughtful. Bernardine thought of him, and the tears came into her eyes at once. When did she not think of him? Then she glanced at the front sheet, and in the death column her eye rested on his name: and she read that Robert Allitsen's mother had passed away. So the Disagreeable Man had won his freedom at last. His words echoed back to her: "But I know how to wait: if I have not learnt anything else, I have learnt how to wait. And some day I shall be free. And then . . . ." CHAPTER II. BERNARDINE BEGINS HER BOOK. AFTER the announcement of Mrs. Allitsen's death, Bernardine lived in a misery of suspense. Every day she scanned the obituary, fearing to find the record of another death, fearing and yet wishing to know. The Disagreeable Man had yearned for his freedom these many years, and now he was at liberty to do what he chose with his poor life. It was of no value to him. Many a time she sat and shuddered. Many a time she began to write to him. Then she remembered that after all he had cared nothing for her companionship. He would not wish to hear from her. And besides, what had she to say to him? A feeling of desolation came over her. It was not enough for her to take care of the old man who was drawing nearer to her every day; nor was it enough for her to dust the books, and serve any chance customers who might look in. In the midst of her trouble she remembered some of her old ambitions; and she turned to them for comfort as we turn to old friends. "I will try to begin my book," she said to herself. "If I can only get interested in it, I shall forget my anxiety!" But the love of her work had left her. Bernardine fretted. She sat in the old bookshop, her pen unused, her paper uncovered. She was very miserable. Then one evening when she was feeling that it was of no use trying to force herself to begin her book, she took her pen suddenly, and wrote the following prologue. CHAPTER III. FAILURE AND SUCCESS: A PROLOGUE. FAILURE and Success passed away from Earth, and found themselves in a Foreign Land. Success still wore her laurel-wreath which she had won on Earth. There was a look of ease about her whole appearance; and there was a smile of pleasure and satisfaction on her face, as though she knew she had done well and had deserved her honours. Failure's head was bowed: no laurel-wreath encircled it. Her face was wan, and pain-engraven. She had once been beautiful and hopeful, but she had long since lost both hope and beauty. They stood together, these two, waiting for an audience with the Sovereign of the Foreign Land. An old grey-haired man came to them and asked their names. "I am Success," said Success, advancing a step forward, and smiling at him, and pointing to her laurel-wreath. He shook his head. "Ah," he said, "do not be too confident. Very often things go by opposites in this land. What you call Success, we often call Failure; what you call Failure, we call Success. Do you see those two men waiting there? The one nearer to us was thought to be a good man in your world; the other was generally accounted bad. But here we call the bad man good, and the good man bad. That seems strange to you. Well then, look yonder. You considered that statesman to be sincere; but we say he was insincere. We chose as our poet-laureate a man at whom your world scoffed. Ay, and those flowers yonder: for us they have a fragrant charm; we love to see them near us. But you do not even take the trouble to pluck them from the hedges where they grow in rich profusion. So, you see, what we value as a treasure, you do not value at all." Then he turned to Failure. "And your name?" he asked kindly, though indeed he must have known it. "I am Failure," she said sadly. He took her by the hand. "Come, now, Success," he said to her: "let me lead you into the Presence-Chamber." Then she who had been called Failure, and was now called Success, lifted up her bowed head, and raised her weary frame, and smiled at the music of her new name. And with that smile she regained her beauty and her hope. And hope having come back to her, all her strength returned. "But what of her," she asked regretfully of the old grey-haired man; "must she be left?" "She will learn," the old man whispered. "She is learning already. Come, now: we must not linger." So she of the new name passed into the Presence-Chamber. But the Sovereign said: "The world needs you, dear and honoured worker. You know your real name: do not heed what the world may call you. Go back and work, but take with you this time unconquerable hope." So she went back and worked, taking with her unconquerable hope, and the sweet remembrance of the Sovereign's words, and the gracious music of her Real Name. CHAPTER IV. THE DISAGREEABLE MAN GIVES UP HIS FREEDOM. THE morning after Bernardine began her book, she and old Zerviah were sitting together in the shop. He had come from the little inner room where he had been reading Gibbon for the last two hours. He still held the volume in his hand; but he did not continue reading, he watched her arranging the pages of a dilapidated book. Suddenly she looked up from her work. "Uncle Zerviah," she said brusquely, "you have lived through a long life, and must have passed through many different experiences. Was there ever a time when you cared for people rather than books?" "Yes," he answered a little uneasily. He was not accustomed to have questions asked of him. "Tell me about it," she said. "It was long ago," he said half dreamily, "long before I married Malvina. And she died. That was all." "That was all," repeated Bernardine, looking at him wonderingly. Then she drew nearer to him. "And you have loved, Uncle Zerviah? And you were loved?" "Yes, indeed," he answered, softly. "Then you would not laugh at me if I were to unburden my heart to you?" For answer, she felt the touch of his old hand on her head. And thus encouraged, she told him the story of the Disagreeable Man. She told him how she had never before loved any one until she loved the Disagreeable Man. It was all very quietly told, in a simple and dignified manner: nevertheless, for all that, it was an unburdening of her heart; her listener being an old scholar who had almost forgotten the very name of love. She was still talking, and he was still listening, when the shop door creaked. Zerviah crept quietly away, and Bernardine looked up. The Disagreeable Man stood at the counter. "You little thing," he said, "I have come to see you. It is eight years since I was in England." Bernardine leaned over the counter. "And you ought not to be here now," she said, looking at his thin face. He seemed to have shrunk away since she had last seen him. "I am free to do what I choose," he said. "My mother is dead." "I know," Bernardine said gently. "But you are not free." He made no answer to that, but slipped into the chair. "You look tired," he said. "What have you been doing?" "I have been dusting the books," she answered, smiling at him. "You remember you told me I should be content to do that. The very oldest and shabbiest have had my tenderest care. I found the shop in disorder. You see it now." "I should not call it particularly tidy now," he said grimly. "Still, I suppose you have done your best. Well, and what else?" "I have been trying to take care of my old uncle," she said. "We are just beginning to understand each other a little. And he is beginning to feel glad to have me. When I first discovered that, the days became easier to me. It makes us into dignified persons when we find out that there is a place for us to fill." "Some people never find it out," he said. "Probably, like myself, they went on for a long time, without caring," she answered. "I think I have had more luck than I deserve." "Well," said the Disagreeable Man. "And you are glad to take up your life again?" "No," she said quietly. "I have not got as far as that yet. But I believe that after some little time I may be glad. I hope so, I am working for that. Sometimes I begin to have a keen interest in everything. I wake up with an enthusiasm. After about two hours I have lost it again." "Poor little child," he said tenderly. "I, too know what that is. But you _will_ get back to gladness: not the same kind of satisfaction as before; but some other satisfaction, that compensation which is said to be included in the scheme." "And I have begun my book," she said, pointing to a few sheets lying on the counter: that is to say, I have written the Prologue." "Then the dusting of the books has not sufficed?" he said, scanning her curiously. "I wanted not to think of myself," Bernardine, said. "Now that I have begun it, I shall enjoy going on with it. I hope it will be a companion to me." "I wonder whether you will make a failure or a success of it?" he remarked. "I wish I could have seen." "So you will," she said. "I shall finish it, and you will read it in Petershof." "I shall not be going back to Petershof," he said. "Why should I go there now?" "For the same reason that you went there eight years ago," she said. "I went there for my mother's sake," he said. "Then you will go there now for my sake," she said deliberately. He looked up quickly. "Little Bernardine," he cried, "my Little Bernardine--is it possible that you care what becomes of me?" She had been leaning against the counter, and now she raised herself, and stood erect, a proud, dignified little figure. "Yes, I do care," she said simply, and with true earnestness. "I care with all my heart. And even if I did not care, you know you would not be free. No one is free. You know that better than I do. We do not belong to ourselves: there are countless people depending on us, people whom we have never seen, and whom we never shall see. What we do, decides what they will be." He still did not speak. "But it is not for those others that I plead," she continued. "I plead for myself. I can't spare you, indeed, indeed I can't spare you! . . ." Her voice trembled, but she went on bravely: "So you will go back to the mountains," she said. "You will live out your life like a man. Others may prove themselves cowards, but the Disagreeable Man has a better part to play." He still did not speak. Was it that he could not trust himself to words? But in that brief time, the thoughts which passed through his mind were such as to overwhelm him. A picture rose up before him: a picture of a man and woman leading their lives together, each happy in the other's love; not a love born of fancy, but a love based on comradeship and true understanding of the soul. The picture faded, and the Disagreeable Man raised his eyes and looked at the little figure standing near him. "Little child, little child," he said wearily, "since it is your wish, I will go back to the mountains." Then he bent over the counter, and put his hand on hers. "I will come and see you to-morrow," he said. "I think there are one or two things I want to say to you." The next moment he was gone. In the afternoon of that same day Bernardine went to the City. She was not unhappy: she had been making plans for herself. She would work hard, and fill her life as full as possible. There should be no room for unhealthy thought. She would go and spend her holidays in Petershof. There would be pleasure in that for him and for her. She would tell him so to-morrow. She knew he would be glad. "Above all," she said to herself, "there shall be no room for unhealthy thought. I must cultivate my garden." That was what she was thinking of at four in the afternoon: how she could best cultivate her garden. At five she was lying unconscious in the accident-ward of the New Hospital: she had been knocked down by a waggon, and terribly injured. She will not recover, the Doctor said to the nurse. "You see she is sinking rapidly. Poor little thing!" At six she regained consciousness, and opened her eyes. The nurse bent over her. Then she whispered: "Tell the Disagreeable Man how I wish I could have seen him to-morrow. We had so much to say to each other. And now . . . ." The brown eyes looked at the nurse so entreatingly. It was a long time before she could forget the pathos of those brown eyes. A few minutes later, she made another sign as though she wished to speak. Nurse Katharine bent nearer. Then she whispered: "Tell the Disagreeable Man to go back to the mountains, and begin to build his bridge: it must be strong and . . . ." Bernardine died. CHAPTER V. THE BUILDING OF THE BRIDGE. ROBERT ALLITSEN came to the old book-shop to see Zerviah Holme before returning to the mountains. He found him reading Gibbon. These two men had stood by Bernardine's grave. "I was beginning to know her," the old man said. "I have always known her," the young man said. "I cannot remember a time when she has not been part of my life." "She loved you," Zerviah said. "She was telling me so the very morning when you came." Then, with a tenderness which was almost foreign to him, Zerviah told Robert Allitsen how Bernardine had opened her heart to him. She had never loved any one before: but she had loved the Disagreeable Man. "I did not love him because I was sorry for him," she had said. "I loved him for himself." Those were her very words. "Thank you," said the Disagreeable Man. "And God bless you for telling me." Then he added: "There were some few loose sheets of paper on the counter. She had begun her book. May I have them?" Zerviah placed them in his hand. "And this photograph," the old man said kindly. "I will spare it for you." The picture of the little thin eager face was folded up with the papers. The two men parted. Zerviah Holme went back to his Roman History. The Disagreeable Man went back to the mountains: to live his life out there, and to build his bridge, as we all do, whether consciously or unconsciously. If it breaks down, we build it again. "We will build it stronger this time," we say to ourselves. So we begin once more. We are very patient. And meanwhile the years pass. THE END 
41708	----	[Illustration] [Illustration: That which had come out of the east on this bright June morning was a ship's lifeboat about eighteen feet long.--Page 4.] JACK THE HUNCHBACK; A STORY OF ADVENTURE ON THE COAST OF MAINE. BY JAMES OTIS, _Author of "The Castaways," "A Runaway Brig," "Search for the Silver City," "The Treasure Finders," "With Lafayette at Yorktown," "With Washington at Monmouth," "The Treasure of Cocos Island," "Wrecked on Spider Island," etc., etc._ NEW YORK: A. L. BURT, PUBLISHER Copyright, 1892, BY BRADLEY & WOODRUFF. _All rights reserved._ CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGE I. ADRIFT 1 II. AT AUNT NANCY'S 14 III. LEARNING TO MILK 28 IV. PURSUED 40 V. AN ENCOUNTER 52 VI. A MENTAL STRUGGLE 64 VII. FARMER PRATT 75 VIII. A SECOND WARNING 88 IX. THE ALARM 99 X. SICKNESS 111 XI. GARDENING 122 XII. LOUIS'S ADVENTURE 137 XIII. THE SEWING CIRCLE 152 XIV. AFTER THE STORM 167 XV. BROTHER ABNER 179 XVI. A HURRIED DEPARTURE 191 XVII. CAMP MEETING 204 XVIII. A DISASTER 218 XIX. JACK'S PROPOSITION 232 XX. BILL DEAN 247 XXI. STARTLING INFORMATION 261 XXII. THE ARRIVAL 273 _JACK THE HUNCHBACK._ CHAPTER I. ADRIFT. Tom Pratt firmly believed he was the most unfortunate boy in Maine when, on a certain June morning, his father sent him to the beach for a load of seaweed. Tom had never been in love with a farmer's life. He fancied that in any other sphere of action he could succeed, if not better, certainly more easily, than by weeding turnips or hoeing corn on the not very productive farm. But either planting or digging was preferable to loading a huge cart with the provokingly slippery weeds which his father insisted on gathering for compost each summer. Therefore, when the patient oxen, after much goading and an unusual amount of noise from their impatient driver, stood knee-deep in the surf contentedly chewing their cuds and enjoying the cool footbath, Tom, instead of beginning his work, sat at the forward part of the cart gazing seaward, thinking, perhaps, how pleasant must be a sailor's life while the ocean was calm and smiling as on this particular day. So deeply engrossed was he in idleness that his father's stern command from the hillside a short distance away, "to 'tend to his work an' stop moonin'," passed unheeded, and the same ox-goad he had been using might have been applied to his own body but for the fact that just as Farmer Pratt came within striking distance a tiny speck on the water attracted his attention. "It looks to me as if that might be a lapstreak boat out there, Tommy. Can you see anybody in her?" "I reckon that's what it is, father, an' she must be adrift." Farmer Pratt mounted the cart and scrutinized the approaching object until there could no longer be any question as to what it was, when Tom said gleefully,-- "It must be a ship's boat, an' if she hasn't got a crew aboard, we'll make a bigger haul than we could by cartin' seaweed for a week." "Yes, them kind cost more'n a dory," the farmer replied dreamily, as he mentally calculated the amount of money for which she might be sold. "I reckon we'll take her into Portland an' get a tidy--" "I can see a feller's head!" Tom interrupted, "an' it shets off our chance of sellin' her." That the boat had an occupant was evident. A closely shaven crown appeared above the stem as if its owner had but just awakened, and was peering out to see where his voyage was about to end. Nearer and nearer the little craft drifted until she was dancing on the shore line of the surf, and the figure in the bow gazed as intently landward as the farmer and his son did seaward. "It's a boy, father, an' he ain't as big as me!" Tom cried. "Well, that beats anything I ever saw!" This last remark probably referred to the general appearance of the young voyager. He was an odd-looking little fellow, with a head which seemed unusually small because the hair was closely cropped, and a bent, misshapen body several sizes too large for the thin legs which barely raised it above the gunwales. The face was by no means beautiful, but the expression of anxiety and fear caused it to appeal directly to Tom's heart, if not to his father's. Farmer Pratt was not pleased at thus learning that the boat had an occupant. Empty, she would have been a source of profit; but although there was apparently no one save the deformed lad aboard, he could make no legal claim upon her. The craft was there, however, and would speedily be overturned unless he waded out into the surf at the risk of a rheumatic attack, to pull her inshore. Although decidedly averse to performing any charitable deed, he did this without very much grumbling, and Tom was a most willing assistant. That which had come out of the east on this bright June morning was a ship's lifeboat about eighteen feet long, and with the name "Atlanta" painted on the gunwales. She was a much more valuable craft than Mr. Pratt had ever seen ashore on Scarborough beach, and yet he failed to calculate her value immediately, because as the bow grated on the sand the misshapen boy, from whose white lips not a word had escaped during all this time, suddenly lifted what at first appeared to be a bundle of cloth. This act in itself would not have caused any surprise, but at the same moment a familiar noise was heard from beneath the coverings. Farmer Pratt stepped back quickly in genuine alarm and wiped his face with the sleeve of his shirt as he exclaimed,-- "Well, this beats anything I ever seen!" "It's a baby, father!" Tom cried, starting forward to take the burden from the crooked little sailor's arms; but the latter retreated as if afraid the child was to be carried away, and the farmer replied testily,-- "Of course it's a baby. Haven't I heard you cry often enough to know that?" "But how did it come here?" "That's what beats me"; and then, as if suddenly realizing that the apparent mystery might be readily solved, he asked the stranger, "Where did you come from, sonny?" "From Savannah." "Sho! Why, that's way down in Georgy. You didn't sail them many miles in this 'ere little boat?" "No, sir. We broke adrift from Captain Littlefield's ship yesterday when she blowed up, an' the baby's awful hungry." "Ship blowed up, eh? Whereabouts was she?" "Out there"; and the boy pointed eastward in an undecided manner, as if not exactly certain where he had come from. "What made her blow up?" Tom asked curiously. "I don't know. There was an awful splosion like more'n a hundred bunches of firecrackers, an' the captain put Louis an' me in the lifeboat to wait till his wife got some things from the cabin. While all the sailors was runnin' 'round wild like, we got adrift. I hollered an' hollered, but nobody saw us." Then he added in a lower tone, "Louis cried last night for somethin' to eat, an' he must be pretty hungry now." "Well, well, well!" and as the thought of whether he would be paid for the trouble of pulling the boat ashore came into the farmer's mind, he said quickly, "'Cordin' to that you don't own this boat?" "She belongs to the ship." "An' seein's how the vessel ain't anywhere near, I reckon I've as much right to this craft as anybody else. Where do you count on goin'?" "If we could only get back to New York I'm sure I would be able to find the captain's house." "It's a powerful long ways from here, sonny; but I'll see that you are put in a comfortable place till somethin' can be done. What's your name?" "John W. Dudley; but everybody calls me Jack, an' this is Louis Littlefield," the boy replied as he removed the coverings, exposing to view a child about two years old. Master Tom was delighted with the appearance of the little pink and white stranger, who was dressed in cambric and lace, with a thin gold chain around his neck, and would have shaken hands with him then and there if Jack had not stepped quickly back as he said,-- "He's afraid of folks he don't know, an' if you get him to cryin' I'll have a worse time than last night. What he wants is somethin' to eat." "Take 'em right up to the house, Tommy, an' tell mother to give them breakfast. When I get the boat hauled around (for I've got every reason to consider her mine), I'll carry both out to Thornton's." Jack clambered from the craft, disdaining Tom's assistance, and, taking the child in his arms, much as a small cat might carry a very large kitten, stood waiting for his guide to lead the way. Farmer Pratt's son was in no especial hurry to reach home, for while escorting the strangers he certainly could not be expected to shovel seaweed, and Jack said as Tom walked leisurely over the hot sand,-- "If you don't go faster, the baby'll begin to cry, for he's pretty near starved." "Why not let him walk? He's big enough; his legs are twice as large as Mrs. Libby's baby, an' he went alone a good while ago." "I'd rather carry him," Jack replied; and then he refused to enter into any conversation until they were at the foot of the narrow, shady lane leading to the house, when he asked, "Who's Mr. Thornton?" "He keeps the poor farm, an' father's goin' to take you out there." "What for? We want to go to New York." "Well, you see I don't reckon you'll get as far as that without a slat of money, an' father wants to put you fellers where you'll be took care of for a while." Jack stopped suddenly, allowed the baby to slip from his arms under the shade of an apple-tree whose blossoms filled the air with perfume, as he said angrily,-- "Louis sha'n't be taken to the poorhouse! I'll walk my feet off before anybody but his mother shall get him." "You couldn't go as far as New York, an' if he's so hungry you'd better let him have some bread an' milk." "How long before your father'll be back?" "It'll take him a couple of hours to carry the boat down to the Neck, an' that's the only place where she can lie without gettin' stove." "Then we'll go into your house long enough to feed the baby, an' I'll leave before he comes." "All right," and Tom took up the line of march once more. "I don't know as I blame you, for Thornton's ain't the nicest place that ever was, an' I'd rather haul seaweed for a month than stay there one night." Jack looked wistfully at the little farmhouse with its beds of old maid's pinks and bachelor's buttons in front of the muslin-curtained windows, thinking, perhaps, that shelter should be given him there rather than among the town's paupers; but he made no remark, and a few moments later they were standing in the cool kitchen while Tom explained to his mother under what circumstances he had made the acquaintance of the strangers. Mrs. Pratt was quite as economical as her husband; but the baby face touched her heart fully as much as did the fact that the boat in which the children had drifted ashore would amply repay any outlay in the way of food and shelter. She accepted the statement made by Tom, that the children were to be sent to Thornton's, because the town provided such an asylum, and there was no good reason, in her mind at least, why it should not be utilized in a case like this. Thus, with the pleasing knowledge that her involuntary guests would remain but a short time and cost her nothing, she set out a plentiful supply of fresh milk and sweet home-made bread, as she said,-- "Fill yourselves right full, children, for it will rest you to eat, and after you've had a nice ride, Mrs. Thornton will give you a chance to sleep." Jack looked up quickly as if about to make an angry reply, and then, as little Louis went toward the table eagerly, he checked himself, devoting all his attention to the child by waiting until the latter had finished before he partook of as much as a spoonful. Then he ate rapidly, and after emptying two bowls of milk, asked,-- "May I put some of the bread in my pocket?'" "Certainly, child; but it won't be needed, for there is plenty to eat at Thornton's, and most likely in a few days the selectmen will find some way to send word to the baby's relatives." Jack put three slices of bread in his pocket before replying, and then, as with an effort he lifted Louis in his arms, said,-- "We're not goin' to the poor farm, ma'am. We are bound to get to New York, an' thank you for the bread an' milk." Just at that moment Mrs. Pratt was intent on carrying the dishes from the table to the pantry, therefore she did not see the deformed boy leave the house quickly, Tom following close behind. Jack heard her call after him to wait until Mr. Pratt should return; but he shook his head decidedly, and trudged out from the green-carpeted lane to the dusty road, bent only on saving his little charge from the ignominy of the poorhouse. "Say, hold on for father!" Tom cried. "You can't walk even so far as Saco, an' where'll you sleep to-night?" "I'd rather stay in the woods, an' so had Louis," Jack replied; and then in reply to the child's fretful cries, he added, "Don't fuss; I'll find your mother." "But how can you do it if the ship has blowed up?" Tom asked, quickening his steps to keep pace with the deformed boy. "Perhaps mother'll let you sleep in my bed to-night, an' you won't have to go out to the poor farm." "And then again she mightn't, so I guess we won't risk it." "Have you got any money?" "Not a cent." Tom halted irresolutely for a moment, and then his charitable impulses gained the mastery. "Here's half of what I've got, an' I wish it was more." Involuntarily Jack extended his hand for the gift. Four marbles were dropped into it, and then Tom turned and ran like a deer as if afraid he might regret his generosity. The dusty road wound its way among the fields like a yellow ribbon on a green cloth, offering no shelter from the burning rays of the sun, and stretching out in a dreary length. The hunchback plodded steadily on with his heavy burden, and as he walked the good people in the neighboring city of Portland were reading in their morning papers the following item:-- A SINGULAR EXPLOSION. The ship "Atlanta" anchored inside the breakwater just before midnight, and her master reports a remarkable accident. The "Atlanta" loaded at Savannah last week with cotton and turpentine, bound for Bremen. Owing to baffling winds she was eighty miles off Wood Island yesterday afternoon when an explosion occurred which blew off the main hatch, and was followed by dense volumes of what appeared to be smoke. Believing the ship to be on fire, Capt. Littlefield's first thought was of his wife and child, who were on board. The lifeboat was lowered, and in her were placed the captain's son and the cabin boy, a hunchback. Before Mrs. Littlefield could be gotten over the side, the sailors reported no fire in the hold, and the vapor supposed to be smoke was probably the gases arising from the turpentine stored in porous barrels of red oak. In the excitement no particular attention was paid to the children for some time, since the boat was believed to be firmly secured, and the consternation of the captain can be imagined when it was discovered that the craft had gone adrift. The ship stood off and on several hours without discovering any signs of the missing ones, and was then headed for this harbor. As a matter of course the captain will be obliged to proceed on his voyage without delay; but Mrs. Littlefield is to remain in town several days hoping to receive some news of her child, and it is believed that the revenue cutter "Cushing" will cruise along the shore until the boat is found. It is understood that a liberal reward will be offered for any information which may be given regarding the whereabouts of the children, and until that has been done the editors of this paper will thankfully receive tidings of the missing ones in case they have been seen or sighted. It is particularly desirable that masters of vessels should keep a sharp lookout for a drifting boat. CHAPTER II. AT AUNT NANCY'S. Jack toiled manfully on, running until his breath came in such short gasps that he was forced to walk slowly, and then pressing forward once more as if expecting Farmer Pratt was in full pursuit, urged to rapid travelling by the fear that little Louis would be taken to the poor farm. Up the long, steep hill, past the railroad station, until three roads stretched out before him: one straight ahead, another to the right, and the third to the left. He believed there was no time for hesitation. The one leading toward the south was the most inviting because of the trees scattered here and there along its edges, and into this he turned, going directly away from the city where Louis's mother awaited tidings of her darling. The child grew fretful because of the heat and the dust, and the little hunchback heeded not his own fatigue in the effort to quiet him. On he went, literally staggering under his heavy burden, until the yellow road seemed to mellow into a mist which danced and fell, and rose and danced again before his eyes until further progress was wellnigh impossible. They had arrived at a tiny stream, the banks of which were fringed with alders, and overhead a wooden bridge afforded a most pleasing shelter from the sun's burning rays. Wiping the perspiration from his face, Jack looked back. No one was in sight. If Farmer Pratt had come in pursuit he might have mistaken the road, or turned homeward again some time previous, believing the boat not of sufficient value to warrant the journey which, if successful, would only end at the poorhouse. "Here's where we're goin' to stop, Louis," Jack said, lowering the child to the ground. "It'll be cool among these bushes, and if we turn into the fields a bit no one can see us from the road." Then Jack took off his shoes and stockings, holding them on one arm as he raised the child with the other, and, wading through the shallow water, made his way among the bushes a distance of forty or fifty feet to where the leafy screen would prevent passing travellers from seeing them. "I tell you what, the water feels good around a fellow's feet. I'm goin' to give you the same kind of a dose, an' then you'll be ready to go to sleep." Louis, sitting on the grass at the edge of the stream, offered no objection to the plan, and Jack soon made him ready for the partial bath. As the child's feet touched the water he laughed with glee, and Jack's fatigue was forgotten in his delight at having been able to afford this pleasure. After a few moments of such sport the misshapen guardian wiped the pink feet carefully with his handkerchief, replaced the shoes and stockings, took from his pocket the bread which was crumbled into many fragments, moistened them in the brook, and fed his charge until the latter's eyes closed in slumber. Not before he had arranged a screen of leaves in such a manner that the sun would be prevented from looking in upon the sleeping child did Jack think of himself and then he too indulged in the much-needed rest. The hours passed until the sun began to sink in the west. The birds came out from among the leaves and peeped down curiously at the sleeping children, while a colony of frogs leaped upon a moss-covered log, croaking in chorus their surprise at these unfamiliar visitors. One venerable fellow seemed to think this a most fitting opportunity to read his sons a homily on the sin of running away, and after the lengthy lesson was concluded he plunged into the water with a hoarse note of disapprobation, making such a splash that Jack leaped to his feet thoroughly awake and decidedly frightened. The hasty departure of the other frogs explained the cause of the disturbance, and he laughed to himself as he said,-- "I reckon my hump frightened them as much as they did me." He made a hurried toilet, bathed Louis's face with his wet handkerchief until the little fellow awoke, and then continued what was at the same time a flight and a journey. "We've got to run the risk that somebody else will try to send us to the poor farm," he said when they had trudged along the dusty road until the child became fretful again. "At the next nice-lookin' house we come to I'm goin' to ask the folks if they'll let me do chores enough to pay for our lodging." Fully half an hour passed before they were where this plan could be carried into effect, and then Jack halted in front of a small white cottage which stood at the head of an arm of the sea, partially hidden by the trees. "Here's where we've got to try our luck," the boy said as he surveyed the house intently, and almost as he spoke a tiny woman with tiny ringlets either side her wrinkled face appeared in the doorway, starting back as if in alarm on seeing the newcomers. "Goodness me!" she exclaimed as she suddenly observed Jack staring intently at her. "Why don't you come out of the sun? That child will be burned brown as an Injun if you stand there long." Jack pressed Louis closer to him as he stepped forward a few paces, and asked hesitatingly,-- "Please, ma'am, if you'll let us stay here to-night I'll do up all the chores as slick as a pin." The little woman's surprise deepened almost into bewilderment as she glanced first at Louis, who had by this time clambered down from his guardian's arms, and then at Jack's boots, which were covered thickly with dust. "Oh, I'll brush myself before I come in," the boy said quickly, believing her hesitation was caused by the dirt on his garments, "an' we won't be a mite of trouble." The mistress of the cottage took Louis by the hand and led him, with Jack following close behind, into the wide, cool hall, the floor of which was covered with rugs woven with representations of impossible animals in all the colors of the rainbow. "Now tell me where you came from, and why it is necessary to ask for a home?" Jack hesitated an instant. The fear that she too might insist on sending Louis to the poor farm caused him to question whether he had better tell the whole truth, but another look at the kindly face decided him. He related his story with more detail than he had to Farmer Pratt, and when he concluded the little woman said in a motherly tone,-- "You poor children! If the ship exploded there's no one for you to go home to, and what _will_ become of such a helpless pair?" "I can't tell I'm sure, ma'am; but I know we ain't helpless"; and Jack spoke very decidedly now. "I'm big an' can work, so I'll take care of Louis till we find his father." "But if the ship was blown all to pieces?" the little woman continued. "That don't make any difference," Jack interrupted. "We're goin' right to his house in New York some time, no matter how far it is." "But it's a terribly long distance, and you children will surely be sun-struck before you get even to Boston!" Then she added quickly, "Here I am forgetting that you must be hungry! Come straight away into the kitchen while I see what there is in the cupboard, for Aunt Nancy Curtis never lets any one, much less children, want for food very long in her house." "Are you Aunt Nancy?" Jack asked. "I'm aunt to everybody in the neighborhood, which ain't many, and two or three more nephews won't make any difference. Set right up to the table, and after you've had a glass of cool milk, a piece of chicken and some cake I baked to put away for the summer boarders, we'll see what can be done." Jack was disposed to be just a trifle jealous of Louis's evident admiration for this quaint little Aunt Nancy. He had already taken her by the hand, and, in his baby fashion, was telling some story which no one, probably not even himself, could understand. "You are a dear little boy," the old lady said as she led him into the kitchen; "but neither you nor Jack here is any more calculated to walk to New York than I am to go to China this minute." "If you'll let me have a brush I'll get some of this dust off," Jack said as he glanced at the well-scoured floor and then at his shoes. "I'm not fit to go anywhere till I look more decent." "Here's a whisk-broom. Be careful not to break the handle, and don't throw it on the ground when you're done," Aunt Nancy said as she handed the brush to Jack. "There's the pump, and here's a towel and piece of soap, so scrub yourself as much as you please, for boys never can be too clean. I'll comb the baby's hair while you're gone, and then we'll have supper." Louis made not the slightest protest when his misshapen little guardian left him alone with Aunt Nancy. He had evidently decided that she was a woman who could be trusted, and had travelled so much during the day that even a journey to the pump was more than he cared to undertake. Jack brushed and scrubbed, and rubbed his face with the towel, after holding his head under the pump, until the skin glowed red, but cleanly. When he entered the kitchen again where the little woman and Louis were seated cosily at the table, he was presentable even to Aunt Nancy, in whose eyes the least particle of dirt was an abomination. He took the vacant chair by Louis's side, and was considerably surprised, because it was something so unusual in his experience, to see the little woman clasp her withered hands and invoke a blessing upon "the strangers within her gates," when she had thanked her Father for all his bounties. "I went to meetin' once down in Savannah," Jack said; "but I didn't know folks had 'em right in their houses." Aunt Nancy looked at him with astonishment, and replied gravely,-- "My child, it is never possible to give too much praise for all we are permitted to enjoy, and one needn't wait until he is in church before speaking to our Father." Jack did not exactly understand what she meant, but he knew from the expression on the wrinkled face that it was perfectly correct, and at once proceeded to give his undivided attention to the food which had been put upon his plate with a liberal hand. How thoroughly enjoyable was that meal in the roomy old kitchen, through which the summer breezes wafted perfume from the honeysuckles, and the bees sang at the open windows while intent on the honey harvest! When the children's hunger was appeased, it seemed as if half their troubles had suddenly vanished. Louis crowed and talked after his own peculiar fashion; Jack told stories of life on board the "Atlanta," and Aunt Nancy appeared to enjoy this "visiting" quite as much as did her guests. The housework was to be done, however, and could not be neglected, deeply interested though the little woman was in the yarns Jack spun, therefore she said as she began to collect the soiled dishes,-- "Now if you will take care of the baby I'll have the kitchen cleaned in a twinkling, and then we'll go out under the big oak-tree where I love to sit when the sun is painting the clouds in the west with red and gold." "Louis can take care of himself if we put him on the floor," Jack replied, "and I will dry the dishes for you; I've done it lots of times on the 'Atlanta.'" The little woman could not refuse this proffered aid, although she looked very much as if she fancied the work would not be done exactly to her satisfaction, and after glancing at Jack's hands to make certain they were perfectly clean, she began operations. Much to her surprise, the deformed boy was very apt at such tasks, and Aunt Nancy said as she looked over her spectacles at him while he carefully dried one of her best China cups,-- "Well I declare! If you ain't the first boy I ever saw who was fit to live with an old maid like me. You are handier than half the girls I have here when the summer boarders come, and if you could only milk a cow we should get along famously." "It wouldn't take me long to learn," Jack said quickly; for he was eager to assist the little lady as much as possible, having decided in his own mind that this would be a very pleasant abiding place for himself and Louis until the weather should be cooler, when the tramp to New York could be continued with less discomfort. "If you'd show me how once I'm sure I'd soon find out, and--" "It won't do any harm to try at all events," Aunt Nancy replied thoughtfully; "but the cow hasn't come home yet, and there's plenty of time." When the dishes were washed and set carefully away in the cupboard, the little woman explaining to her assistant where each particular article of crockery belonged, Jack began to sweep the already painfully clean floor. Aunt Nancy wiped with a damp towel imaginary specks of dirt from the furniture, and Louis, as if realizing the importance of winning the affections of his hostess, laid his head on the rag rug and closed his eyes in slumber before the work of putting the kitchen to rights was finished. "Dear little baby! I suppose he's all tired out," Aunt Nancy said as she took him in her arms, leaving to Jack the important duty of folding one of her best damask tablecloths, a task which, under other circumstances, she would not have trusted to her most intimate friend. "I'm not very handy with children, but it seems as if I ought to be able to undress this one." "Of course you can. All there is to do is unbutton the things an' pull them off." Aunt Nancy was by no means as awkward at such work as she would have her guest believe. In a few moments she had undressed Louis without awakening him, and clothed him for the night in one of her bedgowns, which, as a matter of course, was much too long, but so strongly scented with lavender that Jack felt positive the child could not fail to sleep sweetly and soundly. Then laying him in the centre of a rest-inviting bed which was covered with the most intricate of patchwork quilts, in a room on the ground-floor that overlooked the lane and the big oak-tree, they left him with a smile on his lips, as if the angels had already begun to weave dream-pictures for him. Aunt Nancy led the way out through the "fore-room," and, that Jack might see the beauties it contained, she opened one of the shutters, allowing the rays of the setting sun to fall upon the pictures of two of the dead and gone Curtis family, an impossible naval engagement colored in the most gorgeous style, two vases filled with alum-encrusted grasses, and a huge crockery rooster with unbending feathers of every hue. This last-named ornament particularly attracted Jack's attention, and during fully five minutes he stood gazing at it in silent admiration, but without daring to ask if he could take the brilliantly painted bird in his hands. "Handsome, isn't it?" Aunt Nancy asked, turning her head slowly from side to side while she critically viewed the combination of colors much as if she had never seen them before. "Its perfectly splendid!" "I'm glad you like it. I think a great deal of him; too much to allow a live rooster on the place crowing around when he can't. It was presented to me in my girlhood days by a young gentleman whom every one thought was destined to be an ornament in the world; but--" Aunt Nancy paused. Her thoughts had gone trooping down the dusty avenues of the past, and after waiting fully a moment Jack asked,-- "Where is the young gentleman now?" "I don't know," was the reply sandwiched between two sobs, and then Aunt Nancy became her old self once more. She closed the shutters carefully, waved her apron in the air to frighten away any overbold dust specks, and the two went out on the long, velvety lane that the little woman might admire the glories of the setting sun. CHAPTER III. LEARNING TO MILK. A low bench painted green and fastened against the trunk of the old oak, that there might be no possibility of its being overturned, was the place where Aunt Nancy told Jack she spent the pleasant summer evenings. "Except where there are caterpillars around," she added, "and then I carry the rocking-chair to the stone doorstep. If you could kill caterpillars, Jack, you would be doing the greatest possible favor, for they certainly make my life wretched at times, although I don't know why a person should be afraid of anything God has made." "Oh, I can kill 'em," Jack replied confidently. "Bring on your caterpillars when you want 'em killed, an' I'll fix the job. There ain't any trouble about that." "But I don't want to bring them on," Aunt Nancy said, hesitatingly. "I never like to touch the little crawling things, and you will have to do that part of the work." "I'll see to it," Jack replied, and believing she would be free in the future from the pests which interfered with her twilight pleasures, Aunt Nancy's face took on an expression of complete satisfaction. "Now let's talk about yourself and the baby," she said. "You must not attempt to walk to New York while this hot weather lasts, and it would cost a power of money to go there on the cars." "I know it," Jack replied with a sigh, "but so long as there isn't a cent between us, I guess we'll have to foot it." "I've been thinking why you shouldn't stay here a spell. You make yourself so handy about the house that I sha'n't mind the extra trouble with the baby, and there are times while the summer boarders are here when I do need a boy very badly." "That's just what I'd like," and Jack spoke emphatically. "If you'll let us stay two or three weeks I'll pay my way in work, an' see that Louis don't bother you." "I believe that will be the best way out of it. The summer boarders are to come in two or three weeks. Before then I'll write to my brother Abner, in Binghamton, who'll be sure to know about Capt. Littlefield, and perhaps he can make some arrangement for your passage." "Where's Binghamton?" Jack asked in perplexity. "Why, it's in York State. I ain't certain how near to the big city, but of course it can't be very far away. Abner's a master hand at readin', so if he don't happen to know Capt. Littlefield as a friend, he'd be sure to have heard of him. When he was home here he was acquainted with everybody for fifty miles around. He could tell you who each man married, how many children they had, and kept the run of everything that happened in the neighborhood. I used to say Abner minded other people's business better than his own, and that _was_ his fault," she added with a sigh. "But we all of us have our faults, and it's never right to speak about those of another before we have fairly weighed our own. He's the one, though, to find the baby's father, so you needn't have any further trouble regarding it; but wait till we get a letter from him." Jack was not as confident as Aunt Nancy appeared to be that this "brother Abner" would know all the people in New York; but he was more than content to remain where he was for a certain length of time in the hope of being able to reach the city in some less laborious way than by walking. Then Aunt Nancy told him about herself, and of the farm which had belonged to her father, but descended to her at his death, because Abner was unwilling to spend his time on land so unproductive that the severest labor failed to bring forth a remunerative crop. "It isn't very good, I'll admit," she said reflectively; "but by taking a few summer boarders I've been able to make both ends meet, and that's all an old maid like me ought to expect." "Have you always lived alone?" "It's nigh on to twelve years since father died, and, excepting in the summer, I've had neither child nor chick here. An old woman ain't pleasant company at the best, and if Abner's daughters don't like to visit their aunt, I can't say I blame them." "Well I do!" Jack said decidedly. "I think you're the nicest old lady I ever saw, and I'd be willin' to stay here all the time if I could." Aunt Nancy was not accustomed to flattery; but it must be admitted, from the expression on her wrinkled face, that it was far from unpleasant, and by way of reward she patted Jack on the head almost affectionately. "Perhaps you won't think so after a while," she said with a smile; and then as Jack was about to make protestations, she added, "it's time to go after the cow, and then I'll give you the first lesson in milking." The farm was not so large that it required many moments to reach the pasture, for the old lady had only to walk to the rear of the barn where the crumple-horned cow was standing at the end of a narrow lane awaiting her coming. As the animal stepped carefully over the bars after they had been let down, Jack could not help thinking she was just such a cow as one would fancy should belong to Aunt Nancy. She walked in a dainty manner, acting almost as if trying not to bring any unnecessary amount of dirt into the barnyard, and behaving in every way as one would say her mistress might under similar circumstances. "While I go for the milking pail you pull some clover from under the trees, for she always expects a lunch while being milked," Aunt Nancy said; and in a few moments Jack had gathered such a feast as caused the sedate animal to toss her head in disapprobation at the unusually large amount she was expected to devour after having been cropping pasture grass all day. With a pail which had been scoured until it shone like silver, and a tiny three-legged stool, white as the floor of her kitchen, the little woman returned. Then with many a "Co, Bossy! So, Bossy!" as if the quiet-looking animal was expected to give way to the most violent demonstrations of wrath, Aunt Nancy placed the stool in the most advantageous position, and said, as she seated herself,-- "Now watch me a few minutes, and you'll see how easy it is after getting the knack." Jack gazed intently at every movement, his eyes opened wide with astonishment as the streams of milk poured into the pail with a peculiar "swish," and before the creamy foam had fully covered the bottom he was quite positive it would be no difficult matter for him to perform the same operation. "I can do it now, if you'll get up." Aunt Nancy vacated the stool without hesitation, for milking seemed such a simple matter that there was no question in her mind but that it could be learned in one very short lesson, and Jack sat down. The cow looked around at this change of attendants, but was too well-bred to express any great amount of surprise, and the hunchback took hold of what appeared like so many fat fingers. Fancying that strength alone was necessary, he pulled most vigorously. Not a drop of milk came; but he accomplished something, for the animal tossed her head impatiently. Jack pulled harder the second time, and then, as Aunt Nancy screamed loudly, the cow started at full speed for the other side of the yard, facing about there at the boy whom she believed was tormenting her wilfully, while she shook her head in a menacing manner. Fortunately the milk-pail was not overturned; but in preventing such a catastrophe, Jack rolled from the stool to the ground with no gentle force, terrified quite as much by Aunt Nancy's screams as by the sudden movement of old crumple-horn. "Why, what's the matter?" he asked, as he scrambled to his feet, looking first at his hostess, and then at the frightened animal. "I ought to have known a boy couldn't milk," Aunt Nancy said impatiently and almost angrily. "It seems as if they have a faculty of hurting dumb beasts." "But I didn't mean to," Jack said apologetically. "I worked just as you did, and pulled a good deal harder, but yet the milk wouldn't come." Aunt Nancy made no reply. Taking up the pail and stool she walked across the yard, trying to soothe the cow in the peculiar language she had used when beginning the task; and Jack, understanding that he had hurt the feelings of both his hostess and her pet, followed contritely, as he said coaxingly,-- "Please let me try it once more. I am certain I can do it if you'll give me another chance." It was not until Aunt Nancy had led the cow back to the pile of clover, and there stroked her head and ears until she was ready to resume the rudely interrupted feast, that any attention was paid to Jack's entreaties. "I'll show you once more," she finally said, "and you must watch to see exactly how I move my fingers. It isn't the pulling that brings the milk, but the pressure of the hand." This time Jack paid strict attention, and in a few moments began to fancy he had discovered what Aunt Nancy called the "knack." But she would not relinquish her seat. "Take hold with one hand while I stay here, and be careful not to hurt the poor creature." Very tenderly Jack made the second attempt, and was so successful as to extract at least a dozen drops from the well-filled udder. This was sufficient, however, to show him what should be done, even though he was at first unable to perform the task, and, thanks to Aunt Nancy's patience, and the gentleness of the animal, before the milking was brought to a close, he had so far mastered the lesson as to win from his teacher a limited amount of praise. "I don't know as I should expect you to learn at once," she said; "but you are getting along so well that by to-morrow night I wouldn't be surprised if you could do it alone. Now I'll go and strain the milk, and you may split me a little kindling wood if you will. Somehow I have never been able to use an axe without danger of cutting my feet, and it's almost like tempting Providence to take one in my hands." Jack did as he was bidden, and although the axe was decidedly rusty and very blunt, to say nothing of its being shaky in the helve, before she finished taking care of the milk he had such a pile of kindlings as would have cost her a week's labor to prepare. "Well!" the little woman said as she came from the cool cellar and surveyed the fruits of his industry, "if you can't do anything else on a farm but that, it'll be a wonderful relief to me. An axe is such a dangerous instrument that I always tremble when I touch one." Jack looked at the ancient tool (which could hardly have inflicted any injury unless one chanced to drop it on his toes) with a smile, but said nothing, and after Aunt Nancy had shown him how to fasten the woodshed door with a huge latch that any burglar over four feet tall could have raised, she led the way into the house. The milking pail was to be washed, a solitary moth which had found its way into the kitchen was to be killed lest he should do some damage to the rag carpet, and Aunt Nancy lighted a candle with a solemn air. "This is the last work of the day," she said, "and perhaps I attach too much importance to it, but I never allow myself to go to bed without making sure there's no one hidden in the house. We'll examine the upper part first, and after that has been done I will show you a chamber which you can have until the summer boarders come. Then we must make different arrangements, for the house is so small that I'm terribly put to it for room." Jack followed the little woman up the back stairs, and each of the four apartments was subjected to the most rigid scrutiny, the boy holding the candle while Aunt Nancy not only peered under the beds and behind the bureaus, but even opened the tiniest closets in search of a supposed intruder. "We are safe for another day," she said with a long-drawn sigh of relief, "and after looking through the fore-room once more I'll lock the doors." There was such an air of responsibility about the little woman that Jack, not fully understanding what she expected to find, immediately conceived the idea that peaceful though this portion of the country appeared, it must be a very dangerous neighborhood, for his hostess could not have taken more precautions had it been known positively that a band of Indians were lurking in the vicinity. Nothing more alarming than the moth was found, however, and after the window fastenings had been carefully examined, Aunt Nancy led the way back to the kitchen, where she once more surprised her guest by taking down the well-worn Bible. In a thin, quavering voice she read therefrom a certain number of verses in which she seemed to find the greatest satisfaction, and then replaced the book reverentially on the stand appropriated to its keeping. Then, to Jack's further surprise, she knelt by the side of the chair and began a simple but heartfelt prayer, while the boy nestled around uneasily, not certain whether it was proper for him to stand up, or follow her example, therefore he remained where he was. When the evening devotions had been brought to a close, he felt decidedly uncomfortable in mind, but did not think it advisable to expose his ignorance by asking the little woman what he should have done. "Now we'll go to bed," Aunt Nancy said as she arose to her feet with such a look of faith on her wrinkled face as reminded the boy of pictures he had seen. Without a word he followed her upstairs to a small room directly over the kitchen, which, however contracted it might seem to others, was twice as large as he needed when compared with his quarters on board the "Atlanta." Then, as if her aim was to astonish and bewilder him on this first evening, Aunt Nancy kissed him on both cheeks as she said "Good night," and left him to his own reflections. CHAPTER IV. PURSUED. It was a long while before slumber visited Jack's eyelids on this first night spent at the farm. To have found such a pleasant resting place after his experience at Farmer Pratt's, and when the best he had expected was to be allowed to remain until morning, was almost bewildering; at the same time the friendly manner in which the kindly faced old lady treated him made a deep impression on his heart. During fully an hour he speculated as to how it would be possible for him to reach New York with Louis, and, not being able to arrive at any satisfactory conclusion, he decided that that matter at least could safely be left in Aunt Nancy's care. Then, all anxiety as to the immediate future having been dissipated, he thought of various ways by which he could lighten the little woman's labors. He laid plans for making himself so useful about the farm that she would be repaid for her care of Louis, and these ideas were in his mind when he crossed the border of dreamland, where, until nearly daybreak, he tried to milk diminutive cows, or struggled to carry enormous tin pails. Despite his disagreeable dreams, the sleep was refreshing, and when the first glow of dawn appeared in the eastern sky he was aroused by the sound of Aunt Nancy's voice from the foot of the stairs. Jack's first waking thought was a continuation of the last on the night previous, and, dressing hurriedly, he ran down to the kitchen to begin the labor which he intended should make him a desirable member of the family. To his great disappointment the fire had been built, Louis dressed, and the morning's work well advanced when he entered the room. "Why didn't you call me before?" he asked reproachfully. "I meant to have done all this while you were asleep; but I laid awake so long last night that it didn't seem possible for my eyes to open." "I am accustomed to doing these things for myself," Aunt Nancy replied with a kindly smile, "and don't mind it one bit, especially when the kindlings have been prepared. I got up a little earlier than usual because I was afraid there might be some trouble about dressing the baby; but he's just as good a child as can be, and seems right well contented here." "It would be funny if he wasn't," Jack replied as he took Louis in his arms for the morning greeting. There was a shade of sorrow in his heart because the child evinced no desire to remain with him, but scrambled out of his arms at the first opportunity to toddle toward Aunt Nancy, who ceased her work of brushing imaginary dirt from the floor in order to kiss the little fellow as tenderly as a mother could have done. "It seems as if he'd got all through with me," Jack said sorrowfully. "I believe he likes you the best now." "Don't be jealous, my boy. It's only natural the child should cling to a woman when he can; but that doesn't signify he has lost any affection for you. It is time old crumple-horn was milked, and we'll take Louis with us so he won't get into mischief. I'm going to give you another lesson this morning." Jack made a vain effort to repress the sigh which would persist in coming to his lips as the baby crowed with delight when the little woman lifted him in her arms, and taking the milking pail, he led the way out through the dewy grass to the barnyard, where the cow stood looking over the rails as if wondering why Aunt Nancy was so late. Jack insisted that he could milk without any further instructions, and, after gathering an armful of the sweet-scented clover, he set boldly to work while Aunt Nancy and Louis watched him from the other side of the fence. This time his efforts were crowned with success, and although he did not finish the task as quickly as the little woman could have done it, by the aid of a few hints from her he had drawn the last drop of milk into the pail before the cow began to show signs of impatience. Then Aunt Nancy and Louis returned to the house while Jack drove the meek-eyed animal to the pasture, and when this was done he searched the shed for a rake. He succeeded in finding one with not more than half the teeth missing, and began to scrape up the sticks and dried leaves from the lane, a work which was well calculated to yet further win the confidence of the neat little mistress of the farm. When the morning meal was served, Jack had so far become accustomed to Aunt Nancy's ways that he bowed his head without being prompted, while she asked a blessing. After breakfast was concluded the hunchback proceeded to put into execution the plan formed on the night previous. "If you'll tell me what to do I'll go to work as soon as the lane is cleaned, an' that won't take a long while. I s'pose there's plenty to be done." "Yes," Aunt Nancy replied with a sigh, "there's a great deal of work which a woman can't do; but I don't know as a boy like you would be able to get along any better than I." "There won't be any harm in tryin'," Jack said manfully. "Tell me what it is you want." "Well, the pasture fence is broken in several places, and I was thinking of getting Daniel Chick to come an' fix it; but perhaps you might patch the breaks up so's a cow couldn't get out." "Of course I can. It ain't much of a job if you've got nails an' a hammer. I'll tackle it as soon as the lane is finished." Aunt Nancy explained that the fence to which she referred bordered the road a short distance above the house, and Jack was so impatient to begin the labor that, contrary to his usual custom, he took a hurried leave of Louis. An hour was sufficient in which to finish the self-imposed task on the lane, and then, with a very shaky hammer and a handful of rusty nails, he set out to repair the fence, leaving Louis playing in the kitchen with the gorgeous crockery rooster, while Aunt Nancy was busily engaged setting the house to rights generally. The scene of Jack's first attempt at fence building was fully an eighth of a mile away, and in a clump of alder-bushes which shut off all view of the house. It was by no means a simple task which he found before him. The posts had so far decayed that an expert workman would have considered it necessary to replace them with new timbers; but since this was beyond his skill, he set about mending it after his own fashion. It must not be supposed that Jack loved to work better than does any other boy; but he believed it was necessary for him to remain with Aunt Nancy until such time as he could find an opportunity of continuing the journey in some more rapid manner than by walking, and the desire to make himself useful about the farm was so great that labor ceased to be a hardship. He had been engaged in this rather difficult task fully an hour, paying little or no attention to anything save the work in hand, when the rattle of wheels on the hard road attracted his notice. Up to this time no person had passed in either direction, and it was from curiosity rather than any idea the approaching travellers might be connected with his fortunes, that he peered out from among the alder-bushes. Immediately he drew back in alarm. He had seen, coming directly toward him in a lumbering old wagon and hardly more than a hundred yards away, Farmer Pratt and his son Tom. "They're huntin' for me!" he said to himself as he crept farther among the bushes to conceal himself from view, and a secure hiding place had hardly been gained when the travellers came to a full stop at the little brook which ran on the opposite side of the road, in order to give their horse some water. As a matter of fact Farmer Pratt _was_ in search of the two who had left his house so unceremoniously; but now he had no intention of taking them to the poorhouse. Quite by accident a copy of a newspaper containing an account of the explosion on board the "Atlanta," and the information that Mrs. Littlefield would remain in Portland in the hope of gaining some information regarding her child, had come into his hands, and it did not require much study on his part to understand that in the greed to possess himself of the boat by ridding himself of the children, he had lost the opportunity of earning a valuable reward. There was a stormy time in the Pratt household when this fact became known, and even Master Tom came in for more than his full share of the scolding because the children had been allowed to go away. "It would have been as good as a hundred dollars in my pocket if I could have lugged them youngsters into town," the farmer repeated over and over again as he blamed first his wife and then his son for what was really his own fault. "I thought a boat worth twenty dollars would be a mighty big haul for one mornin', but here was a show of gettin' five times as much jest by holdin' them two over night, an' you had to let 'em slip through your fingers." Farmer Pratt dwelt upon this unpleasant fact until he finally convinced himself that he would have acted the part of a good Samaritan had the opportunity not been denied him, and very early on this same morning he started out for the purpose of earning the reward by finding the castaways. Jack, crouching among the bushes where he could distinguish the movements of those whom he considered his enemies, heard the farmer say, while the half-fed horse was quenching his thirst,-- "I reckon we've got a day's work before us, all on account of you an' your mother, for that hunchback couldn't have walked as far with the baby. Most likely he found some one who gave him a lift on the road. The chances are he's in Biddeford by this time, other folks have heard the whole story." Tom made no reply, probably because he feared to say anything which might again call forth a flood of reproach, and his father added,-- "I reckon our best way will be to push right on to town instead of huntin' along the road as we've been doin'. Time is gettin' mighty short if we want to catch him before people know what has happened." The farmer was so impatient to arrive at the city that the horse was urged on before his thirst was fully quenched, and as the noise of the wheels told that the briefly interrupted journey had been resumed, Jack crept cautiously out from among the bushes to where he could watch the movements of the travellers until they should have passed Aunt Nancy's farm. As may be supposed, he was thoroughly alarmed. That which he heard convinced him beyond a doubt the farmer was searching for him, and there was no question in his mind but that it was for the sole and only purpose of carrying him and Louis to the poor farm. "I s'pose Aunt Nancy would up an' tell the whole story if they should ask her," he muttered, "an' then I'd have to come out an' go along with 'em, 'cause I wouldn't let that man carry Louis off alone." The color came back to his cheeks, however, and the throbbing of his heart was lessened as he saw the wagon wheel past the lane without either of its occupants making any move toward calling at the house. Most likely neither Aunt Nancy nor Louis were in the yard, and Farmer Pratt was so eager to reach the town where he believed the children to be, that, as he had intimated, there was no further stop to be made along the road. But Jack's mind was far from being relieved even after the clumsy vehicle had passed out of sight, for he knew the farmer would return, failing to gain any information of those he was so anxious to find, and he might think it worth his while to call at Aunt Nancy's. Jack had now lost all interest in his work, and seated himself near the fence trying to decide whether he would be warranted in leaving the temporary home he had found, to take refuge in flight. This he might have done on the impulse of the moment but for the restraining thought that it would be in the highest degree dangerous to travel in either direction on the road, and to make his way through the fields and woods was a matter of impossibility, since he had no idea of the proper course to be pursued. "I don't s'pose Aunt Nancy'd lie even to save us from goin' to the poor farm," he said aloud to himself; "but if she would, I'd hide out in the bushes with Louis till I was sure that man had got through huntin' after us, 'cause he can't keep this thing up all summer." This was by far the best plan Jack could devise for the baby's safety, and yet it seemed hardly possible it would be carried into execution because of the probable unwillingness of Aunt Nancy to so much as equivocate. After thinking the matter over fully twenty minutes without arriving at any other conclusion which promised the slightest hope of escape from his pursuers, he decided to boldly ask the little woman if she would promise, in case Mr. Pratt should call upon her, to say that she had seen neither of her guests. "She can't any more'n get mad at it, an' if she won't agree then I'll take the risk of startin' off once more, but it's goin' to be pretty tough on both of us." There was yet considerable work to be done in the way of fence building; but now Jack had no idea of continuing the labor. He was so agitated that the shaky hammer lay unheeded on the ground where it had fallen when he first saw the travellers, and the nails were left to gather a yet thicker coat of rust as he made his way up through the line of bushes to approach the house from the rear, not daring to go boldly around by the road. CHAPTER V. AN ENCOUNTER. Believing his only enemies were those whom he had seen driving up the road, Jack paid no attention to anything in front of him, save when it was absolutely necessary in order to guide his footsteps, but kept his eyes fixed upon the dusty highway. Owing to the straggling line of bushes, he was forced to make a wide detour to reach the barn unseen by any travellers, and he had not traversed more than half the required distance when a loud cry from a clump of alders which bordered the duck pond caused him to come to a full stop. "Hello, Hunchie! What are you doin' here?" Jack looked up quickly in alarm, fancying the voice sounded like Tom Pratt's, and for an instant believed his pursuers had apparently continued their journey only for the purpose of taking him by surprise in the rear. There was no person in sight, however, and during a few seconds he stood motionless, trying to decide whether it would be safest to run directly toward the farmhouse, or attempt to make his escape through the fields. Then the question was repeated, and before Jack could have fled, had he been so disposed, three boys came out from among the alders, approaching very near as if to prevent flight on the part of the hunchback. "Who are you?" one of the strangers asked, "an' where did you come from?" "I'm Jack Dudley." "Where do you live?" "I'm stayin' over to Aunt Nancy Curtis's awhile," Jack replied hesitatingly, doubtful if it would be well to give these not over-friendly looking boys all the information they desired. "What are you doin' there?" another of the party asked. "Helpin' 'round at whatever she wants done till the summer boarders go away." "Oh! So you're the hired man, are you?" the first boy said in a sneering tone. "I ain't so very much of a man; but I reckon I can do her work, an' I mustn't fool 'round here, for I'm pretty busy this mornin'." "You'll stay till we find out what right you've got to run across this field," the boy who had first spoken said decidedly. "We've always done Aunt Nancy's chores, an' you're makin'a big mistake by takin' our job away." Jack looked once more toward the road to make certain Farmer Pratt and his son were not returning. Then he glanced in the direction of the house, hoping Aunt Nancy might be in sight, for he understood from the tone and attitude of the strangers that they were bent on mischief. Not a person could be seen, and he had no other alternative save to remain where he was until such time as the boys should be willing to let him pass. Any attempt at flight could have been easily checked, since, owing to his deformity, he was not able to run as fast as others of his age. Probably he felt just a trifle frightened; but he stood his ground boldly, determined not to let the strangers see a show of weakness, as he said,-- "I didn't come here to take any feller's job. Aunt Nancy gave me a chance to stay this summer, an' I jumped at it, 'cause there's no boy needs a home more'n I do jest now." "Well, see here, Hunchie," the elder of the party replied in a threatening tone, "we don't know how much you need a home, nor we don't care; but there's one thing certain, you ain't goin' to stay 'round here this summer." "Us fellers can do all Aunt Nancy's chores an' a good deal more. The job belongs to us. If you say you'll leave before night, it'll be all right, an' if not, we'll thump the life out of you." [Illustration: "Does that mean you ain't goin' to leave?" And the boy advanced threateningly with clinched fists, until he stood within a few inches of the deformed lad.--Page 55.] "Perhaps that can't be done," Jack said calmly, with an assumption of courage which was far from natural. "Last summer there was a feller come snoopin' 'round to help on the summer-boarder business, but he soon found it wasn't safe to steal jobs from them as lives here the whole year. We jest about killed him." "Why didn't you stuff his skin an' set it up on the road here, so's other fellers would know enough not to stop?" Jack asked in a sarcastic tone as he stepped back a few paces toward a thicker clump of bushes, where it would be impossible for the strangers to make an attack from the rear. "You can't be any tougher than you look, an' I guess I'll be able to keep on livin' till summer's over, even if I do stay." "Does that mean you ain't goin' to leave?" And the boy advanced threateningly with clinched fists until he stood within a few inches of the deformed lad, who now understood that a fight was inevitable. "It's pretty nigh the size of it," Jack replied; and despite all efforts, his voice trembled slightly, for he knew full well it would be impossible to hold his own against three bullies. "But before beginnin' the row I want you to understand one thing: if I don't work for somebody, I've got to live out of doors, for I haven't a cent. I ain't sayin' but the three of you can lick me, of course, but you'll have to do it every day in the week before I'll leave this farm." Perhaps the bully was a trifle ashamed for threatening one so much smaller than himself, and deformed, for, instead of immediately striking a blow as at first had seemed to be his purpose, he drew back a few paces to hold a whispered consultation with his companions, after which he said,-- "Look here, Hunchie, we're willin' to give you a show, but won't allow no fellers 'round takin' away money we could earn as well as not. Aunt Nancy's always hired us to do her chores when the city folks was here, till she got that feller last year, an' then the old fool said she'd never pay us another cent jest 'cause we didn't jump spry enough to please her. Now we're goin' to show that it's got to be us or nobody. We're willin' to wait till to-morrow night if you say you'll go then. There's plenty of jobs up Old Orchard way, so there ain't any need of your feedin' on wind." "Why don't you go there?" "'Cause we don't want to. This is where we live, an' anything that's to be done 'round here belongs to us. Now cross your throat that you'll leave before to-morrow night, an' we won't say another word." "I'll go an' see what Aunt Nancy thinks about it," Jack replied, not with any intention of obeying these peremptory demands, but in order to escape from what was a very awkward predicament. "You won't do anything of the kind! Promise before leavin' this place or we'll thump you!" "Then thump away, for I won't go," Jack replied determinedly as he backed still farther into the bushes and prepared to defend himself as best he might against such an overwhelming force, although knowing there was no question but that he would receive a severe whipping. "Give it to him, Bill!" the boys in the rear cried. "You can polish him off with one hand, so there's no need of our chippin' in." Bill did not wait for further encouragement. Jack's defence was necessarily very slight, and before he was able to strike a blow in his own behalf, Bill had him on the ground, pounding him unmercifully, while his companions viewed the scene with evident satisfaction. Jack made no outcry: first, because he feared that by bringing Aunt Nancy on the scene the fact of Louis's being at the farm would be made known; and, secondly, he fancied Farmer Pratt might be near enough to hear his appeals for help. Therefore he submitted to the cruel and uncalled-for punishment without a word, although every blow caused severe pain, and when Bill had pummelled him for fully five minutes the other boys interrupted by saying,-- "Come, let up on him! That's enough for the first, an' if he ain't out of town by to-morrow we'll give him another dose. Let's cool him off in the pond." Jack struggled in vain against this last indignity. It was a simple matter for the three boys to lift and throw him half a dozen feet from the bank into the muddy water. There was no danger the little fellow would be drowned, for the duck pond was not more than two feet deep, and as his assailants ran hurriedly away he scrambled out, presenting a sorry sight as he stood on the firm ground once more with mud and water dripping from his face and every angle of his garments. Jack was as sore in mind as he was in body; but even while making his way toward the house he did not neglect any precautions which might prevent his being seen by Farmer Pratt. He skirted around through the straggling line of alders until he reached the rear of the barn, and then, coming across crumple-horn's yard, he was confronted by Aunt Nancy, who had just emerged from the shed. "For mercy's sake!" the little woman screamed, raising her hands in dismay as she surveyed the woe-begone Jack, who looked more like a misshapen pillar of mud than a boy. "Where _have_ you been, and what _have_ you done to yourself? It _is_ strange that boys _will_ be forever mussing in the dirt. I thought I'd had some bad ones here, but you beat anything I ever saw! Why, you must have been rolling in the pond to get yourself in such a condition." "Yes, ma'am, I have," Jack replied meekly as he again tried to brush the mud from his face, but only succeeded in grinding it in more deeply. "What's the matter with your nose? It's bleeding!" Aunt Nancy screamed in her excitement; while Louis, who was sitting on the grass near the broad doorstep, crowed and laughed as if fancying she was talking to him. "Three fellers out there tried to make me promise I'd go away before to-morrow night, an' when I wouldn't, they gave me an awful poundin'. Then the fun was wound up by throwin' me in the pond." "Three boys!" and Aunt Nancy's tone was an angry one. "I'll venture to say William Dean was among the party; and if he thinks he's going to drive off every decent child in the neighborhood, he is mistaken. I'd do my chores alone, and wait on the city folks too, before he should come here again!" Then Aunt Nancy peered in every direction as if fancying the evil-doers might yet be in the vicinity where she could punish them immediately, while Jack stood silent, if not quite motionless, wiping the mixture of blood and mud from his face in a most disconsolate manner. Aunt Nancy's anger vanished, however, as she turned again toward the cripple. All her sympathies were aroused, but not to such an extent as to smother her cleanly instincts. "Did they hurt you very much?" she asked solicitously. "They wasn't any too careful about hittin'," Jack replied with a feeble attempt at a smile, to show that his injuries were not really serious. "If there hadn't been more than one, I'd have hurt him some before he got me into the pond." "I wish you had flogged every single member of that party in the most severe--No, I don't either, for it wouldn't be right, Jack. We are told when anybody smites us on one cheek, we must turn the other also; but it's terrible hard work to do right sometimes. I'm glad you didn't strike them, though I _do_ wish they could be punished." Again Aunt Nancy showed signs of giving way to anger, and one could see that a severe conflict was going on in her mind as she tried to obey the injunctions of the Book she read so often. As if to turn her attention from vengeful thoughts, she immediately made preparations for dressing Jack's wounds. "If you can stand a little more water," she said, "we'll try to get you into something like a decent condition." "I reckon I can stand almost anything after the dose I've had," Jack replied grimly; and Aunt Nancy led him under the pump, stationing him directly beneath the spout as she said,-- "Now I'll wash the mud off; but if the water feels too cold let me know, and we'll heat it." "I'll take it as long as you can keep the handle goin'," Jack replied as he bent his head and involuntarily drew a long breath preparatory to receiving the expected shock. Aunt Nancy could pump a long while when it was for the purpose of removing dirt; and during the next five minutes she deluged Jack with the cold spring water until he stood in the centre of a miniature pond, no longer covered with mud, but dripping tiny streams from every portion of his face and garments. Sitting on the grass near by, Louis clapped his hands and laughed with glee at what he probably thought a comical spectacle designed for his own especial amusement. It was not until Jack had been, as he expressed it, "so well rinsed it was time to wring him out," that either he or Aunt Nancy remembered the very important fact that he had no clothes to replace those which were so thoroughly soaked. "Now what _are_ we going to do?" Aunt Nancy asked in dismay, as she surveyed the dripping boy, who left little rivers of water behind him whenever he moved. "You haven't got a second shirt to your back, and I can't let you remain in these wet clothes." "I might go out to the barn an' lay 'round there till they dried," Jack suggested. "Mercy on us, child, you'd get your death of cold! Wait right here while I go into the attic and see if there isn't something you can wear for a few hours. Don't step across the threshold." This last admonition was unnecessary. Short a time as Jack had known Aunt Nancy, he was reasonably well acquainted with her cleanly habits, and to have stepped on that floor, which was as white as boards can be, while in his present condition, would have been to incur the little woman's most serious displeasure. He was also forced to remain at a respectful distance from Louis, who laughed and crowed as if begging to be taken, and while moving farther away he whispered,-- "It wouldn't do at all to touch you when I'm so wet, old fellow, but I'll lug you around as much as you want as soon as I'm dried off. After Aunt Nancy comes back, I'm goin' to talk with her about Farmer Pratt, an' see if she'll agree to say we ain't here in case he calls. You an' I'll be in a pretty hard box if she don't promise to tell a lie for us." CHAPTER VI. A MENTAL STRUGGLE. When Aunt Nancy returned from the attic, she had a miscellaneous collection of cast-off garments sufficient to have clothed a dozen boys like Jack, providing they had been willing to wear female apparel. "I thought there might be some of father's things upstairs," she said, examining once more each piece; "but I've given them away. You won't care if you have to put on a dress for a little while, will you? Here are some old ones of mine, and it will be a great deal better to use them than to stand around in wet clothes." Jack was not at all anxious to masquerade as a girl, and would have preferred to "dry off," as he expressed it, in the barn; but, fearing lest he should offend the old lady at a time when he was about to ask a very great favor, he made no protest. Aunt Nancy selected from the assortment two skirts, a pair of well-worn cloth shoes, and a shawl, saying as she handed them to the boy,-- "Now you can go out in the barn and put these on. Then we'll hang your clothes on the line, where they'll dry in a little while. In the mean time I'll find some sticking plaster for your face, and a piece of brown paper to put over your eye to prevent it from growing black." Jack walked away as if he were about to perform a very disagreeable task, and by the time Aunt Nancy had carried the superfluous wardrobe upstairs and procured such things as she thought would be necessary in the treatment of the boy's wounds, he emerged from the barn looking decidedly shamefaced. He knew he presented a most comical appearance, and expected to be greeted with an outburst of laughter; but Aunt Nancy saw nothing to provoke mirth in what had been done to prevent a cold, and, in the most matter-of-fact manner, began to treat the bruises on his face. A piece of court plaster fully half as large as Jack's hand was placed over the scratch on his right cheek, another upon a small cut just in front of his left ear, while a quantity of brown paper thoroughly saturated with vinegar covered his eye and a goodly portion of his forehead. This last was tied on with a handkerchief knotted in such a manner as to allow the two ends to stick straight up like the ears of a deformed rabbit. During this operation Louis laughed in glee. It was to him the jolliest kind of sport to see his guardian thus transformed into a girl, and even Aunt Nancy herself could not repress a smile when she gazed at the woe-begone looking boy who appeared to have just come from some desperate conflict. "I s'pose I look pretty rough, don't I?" Jack asked with a faint attempt at a smile. "I feel like as if I'd been broke all to pieces an' then patched up ag'in." "It isn't as bad as it might be," Aunt Nancy replied guardedly; "but out here where we don't see any one it doesn't make much difference, and to run around this way a few hours is better than being sick for a week." "I reckon I can stand it if you can," Jack said grimly, "but I don't think I want to fix fences in this rig. Them fellers would think I'd put on these things so they wouldn't know me." "No indeed, you mustn't leave the house even when your clothes are dry, until I have seen that Dean boy's father." "You ain't goin' to tell him about their poundin' me, are you?" Jack asked quickly. "Of course I am. You don't suppose for a single moment that I intend to run the chances of your being beaten to death by them! If Mr. Dean can't keep his boy at home I'll--I'll--I don't know what I will do." "Seems to me it would be better not to say anything about it," Jack replied hesitatingly. "If we go to tellin' tales, them fellers will think I'm afraid, an' be sure to lay for me whenever I go out." "I'm not going to tell any tales; but I intend to see if it isn't possible for me to have a decent, well-behaved boy around this place without his being obliged to fight a lot of disreputable characters such as some we've got in the neighborhood." This is not the time for Jack to make any vehement protests, lest Aunt Nancy should be provoked because of his persistency, and he changed the subject of conversation by broaching the matter which occupied all his thoughts. "That Mr. Pratt what tried to send Louis an' me to the poor farm drove past here with Tom jest before them fellers tackled me, an' I heard him say he was lookin' for us." "Mercy on me!" Aunt Nancy exclaimed as she pushed the spectacles back from her nose to her forehead and peered down the lane much as if expecting to see the farmer and his son in the immediate vicinity. "Why _is_ he so possessed to send you to the poorhouse?" "That's what I don't know," Jack replied with a sigh; "but he's after us, an' if he once gets his eye on me, the thing is settled." "He has no more right to bother you than I have, and not half as much. According to your story, he didn't even take the trouble to give you a decent meal, and I'll soon let him know he can't carry you away from here." "But how'll you prevent it if he starts right in an' begins to lug us off? He's stronger'n you an' me put together, an' if he's come all this distance there won't be much stoppin' for anything you'll say to him, I'm afraid. Now don't you think it would be better to tell him I wasn't here?" "Mercy on us, Jack! How could I do that when you _are_ here?" "Well, you wouldn't like to have him lug us off if you knew we'd got to go to the poorhouse, would you? 'Cause neither Louis nor me ever did anything to you, or to him either." "But you sha'n't go there, my dear child. So long as I am willing to keep you here, I don't see what business it is of his, or anybody else's." "It seems as though he was makin' it his business," Jack replied disconsolately; for he was now beginning to despair of persuading Aunt Nancy to tell a lie. "If you'd say we wasn't here, that would settle it, and he wouldn't stay." "But I can't, Jack; I can't tell an absolute falsehood." Jack gave vent to a long-drawn sigh as he looked toward the baby for a moment, and then said,-- "Well, I didn't s'pose you would do it anyhow, so Louis an' me'll have to start off, 'cause I won't go to that poor farm if I have to walk every step of the way to New York an' carry the baby besides." "I don't see why you should talk like that, my child. In the first place, there is no reason for believing that hard-hearted man will come here, and--" "Oh, yes, there is!" and Jack repeated the conversation he had overheard while hiding in the alder-bushes. "When he finds out we haven't been to Biddeford, he'll ask at every house on the way back." "Do you really think he would try to take you if I said to him in a very severe tone that I would have him prosecuted for attempting anything of the kind?" "I don't believe you could scare him a bit, an' there isn't much chance you'd be able to stop him after he's come so far to find us." "But I can't have you leave me, Jack," the little woman said in a quavering voice. "You have no idea how much I've been countin' on your company." "You won't feel half so bad as I shall to go," Jack replied mournfully. "But it is out of the question to even think of walking all that distance." "It's got to be done jest the same, an' as soon as my clothes are dried we'll start. Things will come mighty tough; but they can't be helped." Aunt Nancy looked thoroughly distressed, and there was a suspicious moisture in her eyes as she asked,-- "How would it do to lock the doors, and refuse to come down when he knocked?" Jack shook his head. "I don't believe it would work." "No, it mustn't be thought of, for then we should be acting a lie, which is almost, if not quite, as bad as telling one." "How do you make that out?" Jack asked in surprise. "We shouldn't lock the doors unless it was to give him the impression that there was no one at home, which would be a falsehood." The expression on Jack's face told that he failed to understand either the argument or the spirit which prompted it, and for several moments no word was spoken. Then, as a happy thought occurred to him, the boy said eagerly,-- "I'll tell you how it could be done without any lie at all, an' everything would go along as slick as grease." "How?" Aunt Nancy asked quickly, as a look of relief passed over her face. "I'll watch up the road a piece till I see the team comin'. Then I'll run back here, get Louis, an' carry him off somewhere." "Well?" the little woman asked as he paused. "Why, can't you see how easy it'll be then? You'll only have to tell him you don't know where we are, an' he'll be bound to leave." "But, Jack dear, I should know where you were." "How do you make that out?" "You wouldn't leave the farm, an' while I--" "That's jest what you don't know. I didn't tell you where we'd go. It would be the same thing if we left for New York this minute; you might think we was on the road somewhere; but that wouldn't make it so." Aunt Nancy remained silent, and although he did not believe she was convinced, Jack fancied there was a look of hesitation on her face as if she might be persuaded into complying with his request, therefore he added eagerly,-- "You want us to stay here, an'--" "Indeed I do!" the little woman replied fervently. "I never knew a boy who seemed so much like our own folks as you do, and since last night it has been a great relief to think I should have you with me this summer." "And if Mr. Pratt knows we're anywhere around, he'll snake us away for certain." "I don't understand how that can be done, Jack." "Neither do I; but he has come to do it, an' you can't stop him. Now I'll promise to go where you'd never guess of our bein', an' then there wouldn't be the least little bit of a lie in sayin' you didn't know." "I would do almost anything for the sake of keeping you here, Jack, except to commit a sin." "This way you won't be doin' anything of the kind. I reckon my clothes are dry now, an' I'd better put 'em on so's to be ready to watch for Mr. Pratt." Then Jack hurried off as if the matter had been positively settled. Aunt Nancy gazed after him with an expression of mingled pain and perplexity on her wrinkled face, and just then Louis crept to her knee, begging in his odd language to be taken on her lap. "You dear little creature!" she cried, pressing him to her bosom while he chattered and laughed. "It would be cruel to send you among the paupers, when a lonely old woman like me loves you so much!" Jack looked back just in time to see this picture, and there was no longer any doubt in his mind but that Aunt Nancy would accede to his request. Five minutes later he returned clad in his own garments, which looked considerably the worse for the hasty drying, and said as he ran swiftly past the little woman,-- "Don't let Louis go into the house, for I'll want to get hold of him in a hurry!" Aunt Nancy began to make some remark; but he was moving so swiftly that the words were unheard, and the old lady said to herself with a long-drawn sigh as she pressed the baby yet more closely,-- "I'm afraid it is wrong to do as he wishes; but how can I allow cruel men to take this dear child from me, when I know he will not be cared for properly?" Then she began to think the matter over more calmly, and each moment it became clearer to her mind that by acceding to Jack's request she would be evading the truth, if not absolutely telling a lie. "I can't do it," she said, kissing the baby affectionately. "Much as I shall grieve over them, it is better they should go than for me to do what I know to be wrong." Having thus decided, she hurried up the lane to warn Jack; but before reaching the road the boy was met coming at full speed. "Mr. Pratt has just shown up at the top of the hill; he's stoppin' at the house over there! I'll get Louis and hide." "But, Jack dear, I have been thinking this matter over, and I can't even act a lie." "Why didn't you say so before, when I had a chance to get away?" he cried reproachfully. "By lettin' me think you'd do it, you've got us into a reg'lar trap!" The boy did not wait to hear her reply, but ran to where Louis was seated contentedly on the grass, raised him in his arms and disappeared behind the barn, leaving the little woman feeling very much like a culprit. CHAPTER VII. FARMER PRATT. Aunt Nancy was now in a fine state of perplexity. Jack's reproachful tone had cut very deeply, and she began to consider herself responsible for all which might happen because of not having warned him in time. "I'm a wicked woman," she said, wringing her hands distractedly, "and accountable for all that happens now. Why was I so weak as not to give the dear boy a decided answer when he came from the barn?" Then she ran to the bars and called after Jack in a whisper; but if any one had asked why she wanted him to come back just at that time, she could not have explained. Returning to the old oak, she was about to sit down again when the rattle of wheels told that Farmer Pratt was near at hand. Hardly aware of what she did, the little woman went hurriedly into the house, and there awaited what must necessarily be a very painful interview. A few moments later the man whom Jack looked upon as a merciless enemy knocked at the door, and Aunt Nancy said feebly, "Come in." Farmer Pratt entered without very much ceremony, and as the little woman gazed at his face she fancied, probably from what Jack had told her, that it was possible to see covetousness and hard-heartedness written on every feature. He did not remove his hat, but stood in the centre of the floor, whip in hand, as he said,-- "Mornin' ma'am, mornin'. I'm from Scarborough, an' my name is Nathan Pratt. P'rhaps you've heard of me." Aunt Nancy was about to say she never had, meaning that her neighbors never had spoken of him as a person of importance; but she checked herself on remembering this would be a falsehood because of what Jack had said. "I have heard the name," she replied faintly. "I thought so, I thought so. I've lived, man an' boy, in Scarborough for nigh on to fifty years, an' when that's been done without givin' anybody a chance to say a word agin me, except that I want my own, as other folks do, then it would be kinder strange if I wasn't known within a dozen miles of home." "Was that all you came here to say?" Aunt Nancy asked. "Of course not,--of course not"; and the farmer seated himself without waiting for an invitation. "The fact of the matter is, ma'am, I'm huntin' for a couple of children what drifted ashore on my place the other day. One of 'em was a hunchback, an' I must say he is bad, for after eatin' all the food in my house that he an' the young one wanted, he run away, leavin' me in the lurch." "I don't suppose they stole it, did they?" and Aunt Nancy spoke very sharply, for it made her angry to hear such things said about Jack. "No, it wasn't exactly that," and the farmer hesitated, as if to give her the impression something equally wrong had been done by the boy; "but as a citizen of the town I don't want it said we let a couple of youngsters run around loose like calves." "What do you intend to do with them?" the little woman asked severely. Farmer Pratt had no idea of telling a secret which he believed would be worth at least an hundred dollars to him, and by keeping it he again defeated himself. "They oughter be carried to the poor farm till we can find out who owns 'em. You see I'm as big a tax-payer as there is in Scarborough, an' if any other town takes care of the children, we're likely to be sued for the cost of keepin'. Now I don't believe in goin' to law, for it's dreadful expensive, so I've come out to save myself an' my neighbors what little money I can." If Farmer Pratt had told the truth, Aunt Nancy would have done all in her power to aid him, and Jack could not but have rejoiced, although the farmer received a rich reward; but by announcing what was a false proposition, he aroused the little woman's wrath. She no longer remembered that it was wrong even to act a lie, and thought only of the possibility that those whom she had learned to love were really to be taken to the refuge for paupers, if her visitor should be so fortunate as to find them. "It seems hard to put children in such a place," she said, with an effort to appear calm. "That's only prejudice, ma'am, sheer prejudice. What do we keep up sich institoots for? Why, to prevent one man from bein' obleeged to spend more'n another when a lot of beggars come around." "And yet it seems as if almost any one would be willing to feed a couple of children who were lost." "There's where you are makin' a mistake ag'in, ma'am. Youngsters eat more'n grown folks, an' I know what I'm talkin' about, 'cause I've raised a family. Heaven helps them as helps themselves, an' when we find two like the one I'm huntin' for, then I say since heaven won't take a hand at it, the town should." Aunt Nancy remained silent, but those who knew her intimately would have said, because of the manner in which she moved her chair to and fro, that the little woman was struggling very hard to "rule her spirit." "I don't reckon you know anything about 'em, ma'am," Farmer Pratt said after a long pause, during which Aunt Nancy had rocked violently, with her gaze fixed upon an overbold honey bee who was intent on gathering the sweets from a honeysuckle blossom which the wind had forced through the open window. "I know this much," she replied with vehemence, "that I hope you won't find the children if it is simply to carry them to the poor farm. We are told of the reward which--" "Who said anything about a reward?" the farmer asked in alarm, fearing that which he wished should remain a secret was already known. "The Book tells us what shall be the reward of those who give a cup of cold water only to these His little ones--" "Oh! is that it?" and the visitor appeared greatly relieved. "I count myself about as good as my neighbors, but when it comes to keepin' a parcel of children, after I've paid my taxes to run a place especially for sich as they, then I say it's a clear waste of money, an' that's as much of a sin as anything else." "We won't argue the matter," the little woman replied with dignity, "but I hope the time will never come that I, poor as I am, can count the pennies in a dollar when it is a question of giving aid or comfort to the distressed." "Since you haven't seen the youngsters, there's no need of my stayin' any longer, ma'am, but it does seem funny that nobody has run across 'em, when I heard for a fact that they'd come up this road." Aunt Nancy knew full well that by remaining silent now, she was giving the visitor to understand she knew nothing about the missing ones; but just at the moment she would have told a deliberate lie rather than give Jack and Louis up to such a man, however much she might have regretted it afterward. "Of course there's no harm in my askin' the questions," Farmer Pratt said as he moved toward the door, feeling decidedly uncomfortable in mind because of the little woman's sharp words. "Certainly not; but at the same time I am sorry you came." "Why, ma'am?" "Because I have learned how hard-hearted men can be when it is a question of a few dollars. If the children should come to me, they would be given a home, such as it is, until their relatives could be found." "If they should come, I warn you that it is your duty to let me know, for they drifted ashore on my property, an' I've got the first claim." This was rather more than meek little Aunt Nancy could endure; but she succeeded in checking the angry words, and rose from her chair to intimate that the interview was at an end. Farmer Pratt went out very quickly, probably fearing he might hear more unpalatable truths, and the old lady watched him until he drove away. "It was wicked, but I'm glad I did it!" she said emphatically. "The idea of hunting up such children as Jack and Louis simply to send them among paupers!" Not for many moments did the little woman remain in this frame of mind. After a time she began to realize that she had done exactly what she told Jack would be impossible--acted a lie, and her conscience began to trouble her greatly. She tried to read a chapter in the Book with the hope of finding something to comfort her, and, failing in this, her thoughts went out to the children who had left so suddenly. "Mercy on us!" she exclaimed. "Suppose Jack really has gone away, believing I would tell that man all I knew about him!" This idea was sufficient to arouse her to action, and she went behind the barn, where she called softly,-- "Jack! Jack! Where are you?" Not until this very feeble outcry had been repeated half a dozen times did she receive any reply, and then the hunchback, with Louis clasped in his arms, peered out from among the bushes. "Has the farmer gone?" he asked in a whisper. "Indeed he has." "And you didn't tell him where we was?" "He never asked the question; but all the same, Jack dear, I did wrong in allowing him to suppose I knew nothing about you." "You're the sweetest aunt any feller ever had," the hunchback said heartily as he came swiftly up and kissed one of the old lady's wrinkled hands before she was aware of his intentions. "I couldn't believe you wanted us taken to the poorhouse, so I didn't go very far off." "I almost wish I hadn't done it, for--No, I don't either! After talking with that wretch it would have broken my heart to see him take you away! Give me the baby this minute; it seems as if I hadn't seen him for a week." Jack willingly relinquished his charge to the motherly arms extended to receive the laughing child, and said, as Aunt Nancy almost smothered Louis with kisses,-- "You sha'n't ever be sorry for what you have done. I'll work awful hard, an' take care of the baby whenever you've got somethin' else to do." "I know you are a good boy, Jack, and I wouldn't undo what's been done if I could; but at the same time my conscience will reproach me, for I realize that I acted wickedly." So far as the sin was concerned, Jack did not think it of great importance, and wondered not a little that as good a woman as Aunt Nancy should attach so much importance to what, in his mind at least, was nothing more than a charitable act. He took care not to give expression to his thoughts, however, and led the way back to the old oak-tree, where he said,-- "You sit down here awhile, an' I'll go out to make certain that man has gone. It might be he's waitin' 'round somewhere to find whether we're really here." "I don't think there is any danger of that," Aunt Nancy replied as she seated herself on the bench and fondled Louis until the little fellow was tired of caresses. Jack could not be comfortable in mind unless positive his enemy had left the vicinity, and he walked quite a long distance up the road before convincing himself of the fact. When he returned the desire to make himself necessary to the little woman was stronger than ever, and he proposed to finish the work of fence mending at once. "Better wait till after dinner now that it is so near noon," she said. "We'll have a quiet talk, and then I will start the fire." "Is it about Farmer Pratt you want to say something?" "No, we'll try to put him out of our minds. It is the baby." "What's the matter with him?" "He must have another frock and some clothes. These are very dirty, and I'm afraid he'd take cold if I should wash them at night, and put them on again in the morning." "Haven't you got an old dress like the one I wore? By pinnin' it up he'd get along all right." "Indeed he wouldn't, Jack. Boys can't be expected to know what a child needs; but it puzzles me how to get the material from the store." "What's the matter with my goin' after it?" "It is a very long distance--more than four miles away." "That's all right; I walked a good deal farther the day I came here. Jest say what you want, an' I'll go after it now." "Do you really think you could get back before sunset?" "I'm certain of it, providin' I don't wait for dinner." "But you must have something to eat, Jack dear." "I can take a slice of bread and butter in my hand, an' that'll last me more'n four miles." "I have half a mind to let you go," Aunt Nancy said as if to herself, and Jack insisted so strongly that she finally decided he should do the shopping. Not one, but half a dozen slices of bread were spread thickly with butter as a dinner for the messenger, and then the little woman wrote on a slip of paper the different articles she needed. "You must see that Mr. Treat gives you exactly what I've asked for," she said as she read the list, and explained what the texture or color of each article should be. "Watch him closely, and be sure he makes the right change." Then she gave him the most minute directions as to the road, the time which should be occupied in the journey, and the manner the goods were to be brought home. A basket was provided for the purchases, and Aunt Nancy said as she gave Jack a ten-dollar note,-- "Tie that in your handkerchief so's to be sure not to lose it, Jack dear, for it's a great deal of money to a lone woman like me." He promised to be careful, and kissed the baby good by. Aunt Nancy leaned over for the same salute, and when it had been given she said in a sorrowful tone,-- "It is a deal of comfort to have you with me, Jack; but I do wish I had been bold enough to tell that man the truth, and then refused to let you go with him." "It's lucky you didn't, Aunt Nancy, for he'd been bound to have us any way." Then Jack walked swiftly down the daisy-embroidered lane, thinking he was a very fortunate boy indeed in having found such a good friend as the sweet-faced old lady. CHAPTER VIII. A SECOND WARNING. True to his promise, Jack returned before the sun was very low in the western sky, and Aunt Nancy expressed the greatest surprise at seeing him so soon. "When I send William Dean to the store he needs all day for the journey, and on two or three occasions it has been late in the evening before he came back." "It isn't such an awful long walk, but it makes a feller kinder tired, an' I s'pose he had to rest a good while before startin' back. I thought I'd better come the minute the things were ready, 'cause I was afraid you'd do the milkin'." "Of course I shall. You don't suppose I'd let you work after that terribly long walk." "But I'm goin' to do the chores jest the same," Jack replied; and to prove his words he carried in the kindlings for morning. Aunt Nancy was perfectly satisfied with the purchases he made, and until it was time to bring the cow up from pasture she explained her intentions in the way of making clothes for Louis. "This piece of calico isn't as pretty as some I've had from Treat's," she said, unfolding the goods, "but it seems to be a good quality, and that's the main thing. Now, the question is whether I shall make his frock with a yoke, or plain? What do you think, Jack dear?" Jack hadn't the faintest idea of what she meant by a "yoke" or a "frock," but, wishing to please the little woman by giving an opinion, he answered decidedly,-- "I should make it plain." "That was just my idea. How queer it is that you should know all about such things, and have good judgment too!" Jack came very near smiling because of this praise which he did not deserve, but was wise enough not to make any reply, and Aunt Nancy consulted him on every detail until the garment had been fully decided upon. Then it was time to attend to old crumple-horn, and when Jack came into the kitchen again supper was on the table. In view of the fact that he had had such a long tramp, the little woman insisted on his retiring very early, and the Book was opened as soon as the supper-table had been cleared. On this day Aunt Nancy's evening devotions occupied an unusually long time, and she prayed fervently to be forgiven for her sin of the forenoon,--a fact which caused Jack to say when she had finished,-- "It don't seem to me as if you could ever do anything wicked, Aunt Nancy, an' there ain't any need of fussing about what you said to Farmer Pratt, for God knows jest how good you are." "You mustn't talk like that, Jack dear. There are very many times when I give way to anger or impatience, and there can be no question but that I as much as told a lie when that man was here." Jack would have protested that no wrong had been done, but she prevented further conversation by kissing him on both cheeks as she said, "Good night." On the following morning, Aunt Nancy's "man of all work" took good care she should not be the first one awake. He arose as the rays of the coming sun were glinting the eastern sky, and when the little woman entered the kitchen the fire had been built, the floor swept, and the morning's milk in the pail ready for straining. Her surprise at what he had done was sufficient reward for Jack, and he resolved that she should never have an opportunity to do such work while he was sleeping. "I begin to feel quite like a visitor," the little woman said with a cheery laugh as she bustled around in her sparrow-like fashion, preparing breakfast. "This is the first time in a great many years that the fire has been made and the milking done before I got up." Thanks to Jack's labors, the morning meal was unusually early, and when it had been eaten and the dishes washed, the hunchback said as he took up his hat,-- "I'll go now an' finish mendin' the fence." "Wait until I have seen Mr. Dean. I'm afraid those dreadful boys will do you some mischief." "I don't reckon they'll be stirring so early, an' it won't take me more'n an hour longer. While I'm gone, think of somethin' else that needs to be done, for I'd rather be workin' than layin' still." "You're a good boy, Jack dear, and I should be very sorry to have you go away from me now." "There's no danger of that yet awhile, unless Mr. Pratt takes it into his head to come this way again," Jack replied with a laugh as he left the house. It required some search to find the hammer and nails he had thrown down when he was so frightened, and then the task of fence mending progressed famously until a rustling among the bushes caused him to raise his eyes suddenly. Bill Dean stood before him, looking particularly savage and threatening. Jack took a yet firmer grasp of the hammer, resolved to defend himself vigorously providing there should be no other enemies in the vicinity. "So you're still here, eh?" Bill asked sternly. "Looks like it I reckon." "When are you goin'?" "I haven't quite made up my mind; but I'll write an' tell you before I pack my trunk." Bill stepped forward quickly, but Jack persuaded him to go back by swinging the hammer unpleasantly near the bully's head as he said,-- "Don't come too near! You served me out yesterday because there was three in the gang, an' I hadn't anything to defend myself with; but now matters are a little different." "Are you goin' to leave this place to-day?" Bill asked, as he retreated a few paces. "No, nor to-morrow either." "Then remember what I say. This is the second warnin' you've had, an' it'll be the last. Look out for trouble if you're in this town to-night!" "I shall be here, an' I want you to remember that somebody besides me may get into trouble if there's any funny business. Aunt Nancy threatened to tell your father about what was done yesterday, but I coaxed her not to, an' I won't say a word another time." "I don't mind what she says, we'll run you out of this place before two days go by, so take care of yourself." "That's jest what I count on doin', an' if you've got any sense you'll keep away from me." Bill shook his fist threateningly as near Jack's nose as he thought prudent, and disappeared among the bushes, leaving the hunchback decidedly disturbed in mind despite the bold front he had assumed. "Them fellers can make it hot for me, of course," he said to himself when the bully had gone, "an' I expect I shall catch it rough, but almost anything is better than leavin' here after Aunt Nancy has fixed it so nice with Farmer Pratt." He worked more rapidly after receiving this second warning, and returned to the house by the main road instead of going around past the frog pond. The little woman was under the old oak making Louis's new garments when he arrived, and she saw at once by the troubled expression on his face that something had gone wrong. "What's the matter, Jack dear?" she asked kindly. "Matter? I guess I don't know what you mean." "Indeed you do, so now tell Aunt Nancy all about it. Have you seen that Dean boy again to-day?" Jack was forced to confess he had, and in a few moments the little woman succeeded in learning the whole story. She insisted that it was necessary for her to see Bill's father at once; but the hunchback begged her not to do anything of the kind, and she apparently abandoned the idea. "Why is it you don't want me to go?" she finally asked. "Because when any fuss is raised about me, I'm afraid it'll come to Farmer Pratt's ears somehow, an' he'll be over here again." "I wish he would, for then I could confess to him that I the same as told a lie, and defy any one to take you children from me." "When that time comes we shall have to go," Jack replied despondently; and Aunt Nancy endeavored to cheer him by displaying Louis's frock, which was rapidly approaching completion. During the remainder of the day Jack busied himself around the farm at such chores as he or Aunt Nancy could find, and when night came nothing had been heard of those who insisted he must leave the town. The baby sat under the old oak during the evening in all the bravery of his new dress, and Aunt Nancy discussed the subject matter of her proposed letter to "Brother Abner" until it was time to retire. Then Jack went into his tiny room with a heart full of thankfulness that his lines "had been cast in such pleasant places," and it seemed as if his eyes had but just closed in slumber when he was awakened by the pressure of a soft hand on his face. Fear would have caused him to rise to a sitting posture very suddenly but for the fact that the same gentle pressure forced him to remain in a reclining position, and then he heard a familiar voice whisper,-- "O Jack dear, burglars are trying to get into the house! What _shall_ we do?" He was now thoroughly awake, and as the hand was removed from his mouth he asked in a low tone,-- "Are you certain of that?" "Absolutely. I thought I heard an unusual noise, and looked out when--There! _Do_ you hear that?" "It would be strange if I didn't," Jack replied as the creaking of the shed door swinging back on its hinges sounded remarkably loud and harsh on the still night air. "I'll get right up; go downstairs and wait for me." "It will be better if I stay in the hall-way," Aunt Nancy said in a voice, the tremor of which told that she was thoroughly frightened. Never before had Jack dressed so quickly, and as he did he tried to think what course should be pursued. There seemed to be no question but that burglars were on the premises, and to encounter them single handed and alone would be the height of folly. As may be fancied, he had not made a very elaborate toilet when he joined Aunt Nancy at the head of the stairs. It was sufficient that he had on enough clothing to admit of his going out of doors without danger of taking cold. "Have you got a gun or a pistol?" he asked of the little woman who was shivering with fear as if with an ague fit. "No indeed, I never would dare to sleep in the same house with such things." "What have you that I can use as a weapon?" "There isn't a single article in this house which is dangerous except the carving knife, and that is very dull." "It will be better than nothing." "But you surely don't intend to go out there when desperate men may be laying in wait to take your life!" "Something must be done; we can't stay shut up here and allow them to do as they please." "But you'll be killed, Jack dear"; and poor old Aunt Nancy clung to the boy in a frenzy of fear. "To think that I've been expecting something of the kind all my life, and it has come at last!" A sound as if the shed door had been closed told Jack he was wasting what might be precious time. "Get the carving knife quick," he whispered, "and when I go out lock the door after me." Aunt Nancy obeyed in silence. She brought the knife much as though it was the deadliest of weapons, and put it in Jack's hands with something very like awe. "Don't kill the men if you can help it," she whispered. "It would be better to frighten them very badly rather than stain your hands with blood." Jack made no reply; but the thought came into his mind that he would stand a poor chance of frightening a burglar, with nothing but the well worn knife. He opened the door softly. Aunt Nancy stood ready to close and lock it instantly he was on the outside, and the decisive moment had arrived. CHAPTER IX. THE ALARM. It must be confessed that Jack was not at all eager to face the alleged burglars. He knew very well that if there were no more than two he would stand a slim chance of driving them away, and even one good sized man might make it very uncomfortable for him. Had he been left to follow his own inclinations, the outer door would not have been opened, but he knew Aunt Nancy depended upon him for protection, and he must make a reputation for courage or be disgraced in her eyes. The sky was overcast with clouds, and Jack could not distinguish objects ten paces away as he stepped on to the broad stone in front of the door. He heard the key turn in the lock behind him, and this was sufficient to tell him he need not expect any assistance from the little woman inside. Grasping the carving knife firmly, he moved forward slowly in the direction of the shed, and saw a shadowy form dart around the corner of the building. Then another, or the same one, returned, approached Jack, and stooped over as if in the act of placing something on the ground. An instant later the shadow had disappeared, and Jack saw before him a thin line of sparks, apparently coming from the solid earth, but not sufficiently large to cast any light. Quite naturally Jack's first thought was that the miscreants were trying to set the buildings on fire, and he ran forward to extinguish what seemed ready to burst into a flame, when there was a muffled report, the ground appeared to be a mass of coals, while at the same time a soft, sticky substance was thrown in a shower upon him. Jack leaped back in surprise and alarm, and as he did so struck his foot against some obstruction with sufficient power to throw him headlong. The explosion, the sudden glare of light, and the shower of he knew not what, all served to bewilder the boy to such an extent that for the moment it seemed as if the same force which caused the report had knocked him down. The first idea which came into his mind was that he had been shot, for he remembered having heard that the victim does not feel pain for some time after a bullet enters his body, and the sticky substance on his face he thought must be blood. "That Bill Dean meant what he said, an' has commenced drivin' me out of town," he muttered to himself, making not the slightest effort to rise, because he believed it impossible to do so. The silence was almost oppressive after the loud report. Jack could hear nothing to denote that there was any one in the vicinity, and was feeling of his limbs to ascertain the amount of injury done, when a shrill, tremulous voice from the doorway cried,-- "Jack! Jack dear! Are you hurt much?" "I'm afraid I'm shot. It seems as if I was bleedin' dreadful!" "Wait till I can light the lantern, my poor boy"; and the door was closed and locked again. By this time Jack had fully persuaded himself he was seriously wounded, and wondered how long it would be before the pain came. Two minutes later Aunt Nancy, partially dressed and with an odd little lantern in her hand, emerged very cautiously from the house. The fear Jack might be fatally injured was greater than that of the supposed burglars. Her desire to aid others conquered her timidity, and the only thought was to bring relief as speedily as possible. "Mercy on us! What a dreadful thing!" Aunt Nancy exclaimed as she arrived at the place where Jack was lying at full length on the ground. "Tell me where you are hurt, my poor child." "I don't know; but it seems as if somethin' tough must have happened, for I'm bleedin' terribly." The little woman knelt by his side, and held the lantern up until its rays illumined the boy's face. "I can't see any blood, Jack dear; but you seem to be literally covered with something yellow." The boy passed his hand over his face, scraping off the supposed sanguinary fluid, and examined it carefully by aid of the light. Then he leaped to his feet very quickly, looking both ashamed and angry. "It's some kind of a trick Bill Dean's gang have been playing!" he cried, and at that instant from behind the barn came a shout of derision, followed by hearty laughter. "Oh, I wish I was strong enough to flog those wicked wretches!" Aunt Nancy said, her eyes filling with tears of vexation. Jack made no reply. He had taken the lantern from her hand, and was searching carefully in the immediate vicinity. It was not long before he and Aunt Nancy decided that the yellow substance was the seeds and pulp of a pumpkin, and Jack said, as he picked up several pieces of red paper,-- "Now I know what it means. Those fellers have dug the inside out of a pumpkin, and put into it a big firecracker. They waited until I came near the shed before lighting it, an', of course, when the thing exploded it sent the stuff flyin'." "Thank goodness it was no worse!" the little woman added, and Jack burst into a hearty laugh. Despite the suffering caused by fear, the idea that he had been scared almost into dying by an exploded pumpkin was comical in the extreme, and his mirth was not checked until Aunt Nancy asked quite sharply,-- "What on earth are you laughing at?" "To think how frightened we got about nothing." "I'm sure it was a good deal. Here we've been forced out of our beds at this hour of the night, believing burglars were around, and then scared nearly to death because it appeared as if you were wounded, all on account of those terrible boys who wanted to have some sport!" "It can't be helped now, an' the sooner you get into the house the less will be the chances of your taking cold," Jack replied, checking his mirth with difficulty as he saw how angry Aunt Nancy really was. Although it was a practical joke which had caused a great deal of mental anxiety for a short time, he could not look upon it otherwise than as funny, except when he realized that this was the first step taken to drive him out of the town. The little woman insisted on examining the interior of the shed to learn if the boys had done any further mischief, and they found fragments of pumpkin and paper, showing that the "infernal machine" had been constructed there. Nothing appeared to have been disturbed, and the two who had been so unceremoniously awakened returned to the house after the pulp was scraped with a chip from Jack's face, hair, and clothing. It was a long time before the boy could induce slumber to visit his eyelids again that night, but he finally succeeded with such good effect that he did not awaken until the noise Aunt Nancy made while building the fire aroused him. Dressing hurriedly, he went downstairs in time to do a portion of the work, and when the milk was brought into the house after old crumple horn had been driven to pasture, Aunt Nancy asked,-- "Do you think you could take care of Louis a little while this forenoon?" "Of course I can. Are you going visitin'?" "Yes; I intend to see if something can't be done to prevent those wretched boys from carrying on in this manner." "But, Aunt Nancy--" "Now don't say a word, Jack dear. Things were very much like this last summer when I hired a boy from Portland, and no one can tell what might have happened if he hadn't run away. I know it is wrong to get angry, but I can't help it. Seems to me I am growing more wicked every day; yesterday I just the same as told a lie, and last night I did not control my angry passions." "But, Aunt Nancy--" "Don't try to argue with me, or I shall get worse. I am going to see Mr. Dean at once, and you must keep house till I come back." Louis's guardian realized that words would be worse than useless at such a time, and he wisely refrained from speaking, while Aunt Nancy, as if trying hard to keep her temper within bounds, did the morning work in ominous silence. When the last duty had been performed, she directed Jack to take the baby out under the old oak, and then disappeared for half an hour or more, at the end of which time she reappeared dressed with scrupulous neatness, but in the quaintest of fashions. "I sha'n't be away more than an hour; and if any of those boys show themselves, be sure to go into the house with Louis at once." Saying this, she walked swiftly down the lane, and Jack muttered to himself as she turned the corner into the main road,-- "I'm mighty sorry she's bent on anything of the kind, for I'm certain there'll be trouble for me come out of it." Fortunately nothing occurred to cause alarm during the little woman's absence. Jack amused the baby, split more kindlings and piled them up in the shed, being thus occupied when Aunt Nancy returned, looking mildly triumphant. "There!" she said in a tone of satisfaction as she seated herself beneath the old oak and fanned her heated face with a tiny pocket-handkerchief, "I did control my temper, and I don't think the Dean boy will trouble either of us again." "Did you tell his father?" "I gave him a full account of all which had been done, both this summer and last. Mr. Dean has promised me nothing of the kind shall ever happen again, and we are free from that annoyance." Jack thought, but did not venture to put it into words, that Bill Dean would not give up the struggle so easily, and felt convinced there was yet more serious trouble in store for him before the summer came to an end. "Do you know, Jack dear, I would give almost anything in the world if I hadn't told a lie to Mr. Pratt. We should have stood our ground, and defied him to take you and the baby away, rather than commit a sin." "But I can't see that you were so very wicked, Aunt Nancy. He would have carried us off in spite of anything you could say, an' I'm sure you didn't tell a lie." "It is on my conscience just the same, Jack dear, and I shall never feel easy in mind," the little woman replied with a long-drawn sigh. Jack was really distressed because Aunt Nancy should regret so deeply what was done in his behalf; but he could think of nothing consoling to say, since she insisted on believing a downright falsehood had been told. "I am also to be condemned for having given way to my temper; but those boys do try it so severely it is very difficult to remember that he who 'rules his spirit is better than he who taketh a city.'" Jack looked up in bewilderment. He did not understand the application of the quotation, and the remark about taking a city mystified him. Aunt Nancy was so intent on her own sad thoughts that she paid no attention to his perplexity, and after a long silence entered the house, returning a few moments later in her home costume, which the boy thought more becoming than the antiquated finery she had been arrayed in for the call on Bill Dean's father. The little woman did not give Jack the details of her visit to Mr. Dean; but he felt more confident than ever that it was an ill-advised move, so far as his own peace was concerned, and but a little time was to elapse before this was to be proven. "I believe I will send a line to Brother Abner now," Aunt Nancy suddenly said. "It is time he learned what has happened; and since we have no pressing work on hand, you can mind the baby. It isn't as easy for me to write letters as it used to be. I need a long while in which to compose my thoughts." Then the little woman set about the task, and it could be seen it was a hard one by the manner in which she began. Watching through the open window, Jack saw her bring pens, paper, and ink from her chamber to the kitchen, and then nibble at the end of her penholder as if to derive inspiration from that source. Had it been some weighty document of state she could not have been more particular, and fully two hours were spent before the labor was completed. "Took me a long while, didn't it?" she asked on coming into the yard once more. "I believe I've told Abner the whole story, and we'll soon know if the baby's parents are yet alive." "Shall I carry it to the post-office?" "Mercy! no. It is in Treat's store, and I couldn't think of letting you take that long walk again to-day." "It won't hurt me a bit." "You must stay here quietly with me, and to-morrow perhaps you shall go. There is plenty of time, and who knows if Abner is home now; he's a master hand at gadding about, which accounts for his being so poor. I've always told him that 'a rolling stone gathers no moss,' but he laughs it off by saying he doesn't want to be moss-grown." CHAPTER X. SICKNESS. Now that the important letter had been written, Aunt Nancy was in no hurry to mail it. She acted very much as if believing the children would be lost to her immediately after Abner learned the news, and it was simply a case of "deferring the evil day." During the afternoon Jack further endeared himself to the little woman's heart by patching up the door of the shed in such a manner that it could not be opened readily, and fastening it with an old padlock he found in the barn. "That is just what I have been wanting for a long time," Aunt Nancy exclaimed in surprise when he called her to see the result of his labors. "How strange I can't do that as well as you!" "That's because you're a woman," Jack replied, not a little delighted with the praise bestowed upon him. "It may be; but I'm so very much older, it seems as if I should be able to do such things properly, and yet I can't even drive a nail." "There'll be no need of your doin' it while I'm 'round." "And I hope you and Louis will stay a long time; but I suppose it isn't right to say so, for although there isn't any chance his mother can be alive after the ship exploded, he has probably relatives who want to see him." During the remainder of the day, Jack assisted the little woman with the housework, and at sunset the two sat in the favorite place under the old oak, until Louis became unusually fretful. After trying in vain to soothe him, Aunt Nancy insisted they should retire, saying as she went toward the house,-- "I am afraid he doesn't feel very well. Are you sure he didn't play in the sun while I was away?" "I kept him in the shade as much as I could. Do you think he can be sick?" "Not enough for us to worry about, Jack dear. Children are apt to fuss when everything don't go just right. After I undress him, we'll read the Book, and then you shall go to bed." The fact that Louis was not in his usual good spirits and temper worried Jack considerably, despite the little woman's cheery words, and when he went to his tiny room it was impossible for him to sleep immediately. He had lain awake fully two hours, at times speculating as to how he and the baby would finally get to New York, and again wondering if it could be possible that both Captain and Mrs. Littlefield were dead, when the stairway door was opened, as Aunt Nancy whispered cautiously,-- "Jack! Jack dear! Are you awake?" The boy was on his feet in an instant. "What's the matter? Is Louis worse?" "He seems to be quite sick. Will you dress and come down?" Jack answered this summons very quickly as he tried to keep back the dry sob which came into his throat, for it seemed as if the greatest misfortune which could befall him would be to lose the baby at the time when he was in such a good home. He found Aunt Nancy in the kitchen with Louis in her arms. A fire had been built in the stove, and the little woman was seated in front of it rocking the baby as she stirred the boiling contents of a tin kettle. "Do you know what catnip is when you see it growing?" she asked as Jack entered the room. "I don't; but if you'll tell me where to go, I'll hunt for it." "Light the lantern, so there won't be any mistake, and run out to the lane. You'll find some growing along the fence. Get as much as will fill this kettle, and come back as soon as you can." "Is he very bad?" Jack asked in a trembling voice as he gazed at the baby's flushed cheeks. "I never have had much experience with children, but I guess a little catnip tea will bring him around all right by morning." "Hadn't we better have a doctor?" "There is no need yet, and, besides, there isn't one within six miles." "It don't make any difference how far it is, I'm willin' to walk any distance for him." "We will first see what the morning brings forth." Jack delayed no longer. The lantern was lighted, and he started at once in search of an herb he did not even know by sight. Ten minutes later he returned with an armful of green leaves, and Aunt Nancy bestowed but one hasty glance upon them when she cried,-- "O Jack, Jack, you've spent your time gathering burdocks! If you can hold the baby, I'll go after it myself." "I'd rather try ag'in than have you go out where the grass is wet with dew." "It won't hurt me. Take Louis"; and the little woman put the baby in Jack's arms as she hurried away, lantern in hand. It seemed to Jack as if she had but left the house before she returned with the desired herb, and the boy said in surprise,-- "Is that what you call catnip? I saw plenty of it, but didn't think the leaves were big enough to do any good." "In this world it isn't the big things which are capable of working the most benefit, Jack." "If I hadn't known that before, I should after seeing you, Aunt Nancy. You're small, but there couldn't be anybody gooder." Although the little woman said nothing, it could readily be seen that the compliment pleased her. She bustled around much like a busy sparrow, putting the herbs in the kettle, making sundry mysterious decoctions, and otherwise preparing such things as she thought might be of benefit to the baby. Jack held Louis meanwhile, and before Aunt Nancy was ready to take him again he asked in a low tone,-- "Do you think there is any chance he would die?" "I don't believe he is in any danger now, Jack dear; but all of us should think of death as something which will come sooner or later." The boy was silent for a moment, and then he asked abruptly,-- "You pray for everything you want, why don't you do it now so he'll be sure to live?" "It wouldn't be right to ask God simply for the child's life." "Why not?" "Because He doeth all things well, and we do not know what His purpose may be." "But there can't be any good come of takin' Louis away from me, when he's all I've got." "That is something you don't know, Jack dear. What God does is right, and we must bow to His will." Aunt Nancy spoke in such a solemn tone, or, as Jack afterward expressed it, "like as if she was in meetin'," that the boy could say no more, but watched intently every move the little woman made until she was ready to take the baby in her arms once more. This night was a long one to both, for neither thought of going to sleep. Once Aunt Nancy insisted Jack should lie down; but he pleaded so hard to be allowed to remain awake, that she said no more, and the two sat with Louis until daybreak. During this long time neither spoke until the baby had fallen asleep, and Jack was on the point of going out to milk the cow, when the little woman said in a tone very like that of fear,-- "Wouldn't it be a dreadful thing if I should be punished for telling a lie to Mr. Pratt, by losing Louis just now when we are living so comfortably?" "But you didn't tell a lie," Jack replied just a trifle impatiently. "Both you and I know I did, however much we may try to persuade ourselves that it isn't so, and I am certain some punishment will follow." Jack shook his head incredulously. He began to understand that it would be useless to attempt to convince Aunt Nancy she had not committed a grievous sin, and was disposed to lose faith in a religion which would condemn so good a woman for having saved himself and the baby from much trouble. To avoid paining her by saying what was in his mind, he went out to milk, and on returning found the baby sleeping naturally. "He seems much relieved," Aunt Nancy said as she put him to bed. "He will probably sleep a long while, and you had better get some rest." Jack insisted that he did not need any, and continued doing such chores as he could find around the house until breakfast was ready, after which he proposed going to the post-office. "Now the letter is written it had better be mailed, an' perhaps there are some things you want from the store." "I do need a few notions; but it seems too bad to have you walk so far this hot morning." "It'll do me good. I can be back by noon, and the weather won't be very warm while I'm goin' over." Aunt Nancy allowed herself to be persuaded, because there really were some groceries she wanted, and after making out a list with infinite care, cautioning him not to pay more than five cents a pound for the coarse sugar and eighty cents for the tea, she gave him a lunch to be eaten during the return journey. "I don't want you to stay any longer than is necessary; but at the same time you mustn't hurry too fast," she said, as he walked rapidly down the lane; and Jack replied,-- "I'll be back by noon, unless something terrible happens." Although the hunchback could not move as fast as more favored boys, he "kept at it," to use his favorite expression, and by this means was able to get over the ground with reasonable rapidity. He was travelling steadily on, thinking of the baby and Aunt Nancy's apparently needless sorrow at having acted a lie during Mr. Pratt's call, when he was aroused to a sense of what was passing around him by hearing the disagreeably familiar voice of Bill Dean, as he shouted,-- "Hold on there a minute, I want to see you." Bill was coming across the fields at full speed, and, knowing he could not escape if the bully should pursue him, Jack halted. "So you're tryin' to hide behind Aunt Nancy's apron strings, eh?" Master Dean cried as he reached the road. "I don't know what you mean." "Oh, yes, you do. Didn't you send her over to tell my father that I was goin' to drive you out of town, an' didn't she let on about the lickin' we give you?" "That was her business. I tried to stop her, for I can 'tend to my own battles." "Perhaps you can; we'll see about that later. Say, what of that man who was over here huntin' for you?" Jack's cheeks grew pale. He understood to whom Bill referred, and it seemed positive the whole story would be known, despite the sacrifice made by Aunt Nancy. "Haven't got anything to say, eh? Well, I'm goin' to see him, an' tell where you are, then we'll see how you like tattlers." Jack was frightened beyond the power of speech. He had no idea but that his enemy knew exactly where to find Mr. Pratt, and firmly believed the time was near at hand when he and Louis would be forcibly taken away from Aunt Nancy's kindly care. "That don't seem to strike you very well!" Bill cried with a laugh of triumph. "We'll have this thing fixed up in short order, an' then I reckon old Nancy will be ready to hire boys who know their business." "What makes you jump down on me?" Jack asked piteously. "You know mighty well. We told you what to do, an' you thought we didn't mean business. Now you'll soon find out." Jack hadn't the heart to hold any further conversation with his tormentor. His only thought was to hurry on that he might be alone where the matter could be calmly discussed in his own mind, and walked swiftly away, followed by Bill's jeering words. Now indeed he had a cup running over with sorrow. If his enemies knew of Mr. Pratt, it would not be long before that gentleman learned of his whereabouts, and it surely seemed as if the time had finally come when he must start out on the long journey, leaving behind the dearest friend he had ever met since the day when his mother crossed the dark river. "There's no help for it," he said resolutely, "an' I've got to look at this thing right. Bill will tell the farmer right away, an' the sooner we leave the farther we'll be off when they come to find us." Thus the matter was settled in his mind that the flight should be resumed at the earliest moment it might be safe to take Louis out of doors. CHAPTER XI. GARDENING. It can readily be supposed Jack was not inclined to linger on the road after this interview with Bill Dean. That the latter would inform Farmer Pratt of his whereabouts he had no doubt, and this was a method of driving him "out of town" for which he was not prepared. Walking at full speed, running over the descending ground, and trying to keep on at a good pace when he ascended hills, the journey to Treat's store was accomplished in a remarkably short time. He found many customers before him, however, and was obliged to wait until it should be his turn, although he felt quite certain every moment was precious. It was the proprietor of the establishment, who also acted as postmaster, that waited upon him, and while weighing out the "notions" Aunt Nancy had sent for, the gentleman said, as if answering his own question,-- "So you've been hired by Aunt Nancy." "I'm stayin' there a little while, sir." "You are, eh? Where do you hail from?" Jack hesitated an instant, and then replied with a forced laugh,-- "I s'pose I oughter say I belong to the farm, 'cause I haven't any other home." "An orphan, eh?" "Yes, sir." "Where did your folks useter live?" Jack was not aware that Mr. Treat had the name of being the most inveterate gossip in the neighborhood; but felt positive there was no good reason why he should satisfy his curiosity on this point, more particularly since, in view of Bill Dean's threats, he wished to keep as a secret everything concerning himself, therefore said with an assumption of carelessness,-- "Almost anywhere. You see I was brought up to be a sailor." "Sho! Is that so? Well now I wouldn't think you'd make much of a fist shinnin' 'round on the riggin'." "Even if I am crooked I might be as spry as other fellers." "That's a fact; but you don't look it"; and then the worthy Mr. Treat turned his attention to the list Aunt Nancy had written for Jack's guidance. When the goods had been made ready the proprietor of the store would have questioned the messenger further, but the latter hurried away without replying to what he did not consider it was necessary strangers should know. Jack arrived at the farm unusually early, and Aunt Nancy exclaimed as he came up the lane looking heated and breathless,-- "Well, I declare! It does beat all how you can get over the ground! Why, I've known it to take Daniel Chick's horse a good bit longer to go to the post-office and back." "I was in a hurry to talk with you, an' so come as quick as I could, for I'm afraid Louis an' I must go away, even after all that's been done." The little woman looked up quickly in mingled alarm and surprise. "Why, what has happened, Jack dear?" For reply the boy repeated that which Bill Dean had said, and added in conclusion,-- "You see Mr. Pratt will be over here the minute he hears the news, an' then everything is settled the wrong way." "Are you certain Bill Dean knows where he lives?" "Of course he must, else he wouldn't have said what he did." "I'm sorry to have to doubt his word; but I couldn't put the least dependence in a thing he says, and there are more than me in this town of the same opinion. Besides, he is too indolent to walk so far." "Still there's a chance he might send some word." "You are right, Jack; but at the same time I wouldn't borrow trouble. In case that man should come, you can find some way of keeping out of his clutches until I see the 'Squire." "What good would that do?" "I don't know; but it does seem as if we might prevent him from carrying you and the baby away when I'm not only willing but anxious to have you both stay with me. I don't believe there is any law to compel children who have a good home to go to a poorhouse, and if there is the least bit more bother I'm going to have the matter settled once and for all in the 'Squire's court." Aunt Nancy spoke in such a decided tone, and seemed so thoroughly convinced there was a legal remedy for the trouble, that Jack felt relieved at once. "I could get out of his way, no matter how close he got to me; but there's the baby. It might be I was where I couldn't find Louis quick enough when the farmer came, an' then he'd soon drag him away." "The baby will be with me, and I promise you there'll be no dragging when I'm around," the little woman said with considerable dignity. "Keep up your courage, and I'm sure we shall come out all right, except for that miserable action of mine yesterday. If I had told the truth then and defied him, things would seem a great deal smoother now." "Then I'll hold on a while longer." "Certainly, and in the future stay close around the house, so those terrible boys can't make mischief. Did you ever do any gardening, Jack?" "Do you mean plantin' seeds an' makin' 'em grow?" "I mean cultivating the ground. No one can force the seeds to grow but He who rules over all. I would dearly love to have a few string beans and some cabbages, but it's so expensive hiring the land ploughed that I haven't been able to afford it." "I could dig up a good deal with a shovel." "If you'll try it I will get the seeds, and perhaps we shall have the pleasure of harvesting our own crops." Jack was so relieved in mind that he did not feel any fatigue because of the long walk, and insisted on beginning work in the garden at once. Despite all Aunt Nancy could say against it, he labored industriously with the shovel during the next two hours, and at the end of that time as much ground had been prepared as the little woman thought necessary. "It won't do to try too much at first," she said musingly, as, with Louis in her arms, she watched the deformed boy make ready the small plot between the woodshed and barn. "I'll see about the seeds to-morrow, and it does seem as if we might put in more than cabbages and beans now that we've got so much room. I didn't suppose you would care to dig up very much." "It isn't such hard work but that I'd be willin' to make one twice this size; as it is, I reckon you can plant pretty nearly all you want." Then Aunt Nancy, looking very grave as if the task was one of the greatest importance, measured the plot into rows, putting in little bits of wood to mark where each kind of seed should be planted, and when it was finished she looked thoroughly happy. "We shall have a famous garden, Jack dear, and it won't be necessary for me to spend so much money for vegetables when the summer boarders come. They always wonder why I don't raise my own green stuff." The garden and the plans concerning it gave both so much pleasure that, for the time being at least, Farmer Pratt was almost forgotten. The chores occupied Jack's time during the remainder of the day, and when he retired it was to fall asleep almost immediately because of fatigue. Early next morning Aunt Nancy visited one of the neighbors to procure seeds, and when another night came every row was planted. During the three succeeding days Jack remained near the house, never going farther away than the main road, where he spent his spare time watching for Farmer Pratt. It surely seemed as if Bill Dean was ignorant of the gentleman's address, or, as Aunt Nancy had suggested, was too indolent to make the journey to Scarborough, for nothing was seen or heard of Tom's father, and Jack began to feel a certain sense of security. Louis was as contented as a child well could be, and each day claimed more of the little woman's affections until she actually began to look forward with dismay to the coming of the summer boarders, because then she could not devote to him so much of her time. Never once was the nightly search for burglars omitted; and when Jack asked why such a labor was necessary when it was positive no one could enter the house during the day without her knowledge, she replied with an ominous shake of the head,-- "We can't say, Jack dear, what might happen. I have done this same thing for the last fifteen years, and don't intend to be careless now in my old age." "But you never found anybody, did you?" "No, and I hope I never shall; but it would be impossible to sleep if I neglected what seems like a solemn duty." On the fourth day after the garden was planted both Jack and Aunt Nancy visited it twice to see if the seeds had sprouted, and several times did the sight of a weed cause them the greatest joy for a few moments, since it seemed certain something in the vegetable line had shown itself. Like Farmer Pratt, Bill Dean remained out of sight, and the little woman was confident she had frightened him away. "We can count on being left alone this summer, Jack dear, for he won't show his head around here. In all the years I have lived on the farm, when I went to his father was the first time I ever made a complaint to a neighbor, and I hope it will be the last, for I do think people should avoid troubling others with such things. We are told that we must forgive our brother seventy times seven; but there was no use in doing that by William, since it made no difference to him whether he was forgiven or not." Jack was not so confident that those who threatened to drive him away had relinquished their purpose; but he said nothing regarding his fears, since no good could come of alarming the little woman. The day on which the first cabbage showed two tiny leaves above the surface was a red-letter day for the amateur gardeners. Aunt Nancy spent at least two hours admiring it, and the seat under the big oak was abandoned at sunset in order that she might search for further proofs of their success. "There is so much pleasure in having a garden that I shall never again be without one, that is," she added with a sigh, "if I have you with me. I can't bear to think that the time may come when we must part." "May come? Why, it must come, Aunt Nancy. Just as soon as the weather gets cool, we are bound to start." "I have been thinking perhaps Louis hasn't any relatives living, and in that case what would prevent you and he from staying here until I go down into the valley of the shadow of death?" "Nothing would suit me better," Jack replied emphatically. "This is the first home I have ever known, and it will be hard to leave it." "If you do go, Jack dear, it will be a lonely old woman you leave behind. I had gotten accustomed to living alone; but now it is different, and the house would seem deserted without you and the baby. Yet I am afraid something of the kind must happen to punish me for telling Mr. Pratt a lie. It is through a crime that I was enabled to enjoy your company, and we know what are the wages of sin." Jack was not disposed to allow the conversation to continue in this channel. He could not bring himself to believe the little woman had done anything wrong in letting Farmer Pratt think he and Louis were not there, and it made him impatient to hear her blame herself so severely. "You see, Aunt Nancy, we would have to leave whether you done as you did or not, for how can we tell whether Capt. Littlefield or his wife are alive unless we go to find out?" "Oh, Abner will attend to all that! He lived in York State so long that he knows nearly every one in it by this time, and when we hear from him the whole story must be known, for interesting himself in other people's affairs is what exactly suits Abner." Jack could not be satisfied with this reply. He believed implicitly everything Aunt Nancy told him, and she was so positive that there appeared to be no chance for doubt. The little woman was called from the contemplation of the garden by that which, for a moment, caused Jack the greatest alarm. The rattle of wheels was heard from the road, and an instant later Aunt Nancy said in surprise,-- "Mercy on us! who can that be driving up the lane?" "It is the farmer comin' for us!" Jack cried excitedly as he caught Louis from Aunt Nancy's arms, and would have run off at full speed if she had not restrained him. "Wait a moment, my child. I don't see any man in the wagon." Jack looked quickly in the direction of the newcomers and then said,-- "There are two women, but one of them may be Mrs. Pratt." Again he would have sought refuge in flight but for Aunt Nancy's detaining hand. "It is only Mrs. Hayes and Mrs. Souders. I suppose they have come to make a call, and what _will_ they think at seeing the house in such confusion?" Jack, now that his fears were allayed, could not repress a smile at the idea of Aunt Nancy's house ever being in anything save a cleanly and orderly condition; but the little woman appeared really distressed because she had not had an opportunity to inspect it thoroughly before receiving company. "Take care of Louis, and stay under the oak-tree until I come out again," she said, hurrying away to receive the newcomers. Jack loitered near the barn where he would not be seen until the visitors had alighted, tied securely the aged horse, whose only ambition appeared to be to remain motionless, and entered the house. Then, instead of doing as Aunt Nancy had suggested, he took Louis into the woodshed, amusing him there for nearly an hour, when the two ladies departed. "Where are you, Jack?" the little woman called softly when the horse had drawn the wagon and its occupants on to the highway. "What is the matter?" Jack cried, as on emerging from his place of retreat he saw a look of deepest anxiety on Aunt Nancy's face. "Did they come here to take us away?" "It's not quite as bad as that," the little woman replied with a long-drawn sigh, "but very nearly. What _do_ you suppose they wanted?" Jack didn't even attempt to hazard a guess, and Aunt Nancy continued in a mournful tone,-- "They want to hold the monthly sewing circle here day after to-morrow!" "Well?" Jack asked, surprised that such a request should have caused so much distress. "Well? Why, Jack, how can you treat it so lightly? Just think of it! Only one day to clean house, go to the store, and do all the cooking!" "I don't see that there'll be very much to do in the way of cleaning house. It shines like a new three-cent piece already, and how are you goin' to make it look any better?" "O Jack! boys don't understand about such things. You can't see in the corners where the dirt always lodges, and the company will be sure to find everything that is slighted." "Well, I can go to the store for you at least." "I wouldn't allow you to take the chances of seeing William Dean even if you could do the errands, which is impossible. I must get Mr. Chick to carry me over in his team, and while I am away you and Louis are to stay in the house with the doors locked." "I don't think there is any need of that. Those fellers wouldn't dare to come here." "I can't believe they would; but at the same time it will do no harm to be careful. Now what _shall_ we have for supper?" "Do you mean to-night?" "Of course not. It doesn't make any difference what we eat for a day or two; but we must think very seriously of what is to be cooked for the circle." "Have some of your nice biscuits and a piece of cake. If folks can get anything better than that, they deserve to go hungry." "O Jack! you don't understand such things. I should be mortified almost to death if I didn't do as well as Mrs. Souders did when the circle met at her house last month." Then Aunt Nancy, looking as if a heavy burden of care had suddenly fallen upon her, went in to the kitchen, taking Louis with her, that Jack might be free to milk the cow. CHAPTER XII. LOUIS'S ADVENTURE. On this evening, immediately after supper had been eaten and the dishes washed, Aunt Nancy announced that it would be necessary for her to call upon Mr. Daniel Chick. "If I wait until morning his team may not be at home, and, besides, I want him to be ready to make an early start. We must be back by noon at the latest." "Why not let me go and tell him what you want?" Jack asked. "Because you don't know where he lives, and then again it is necessary to pass Mr. Dean's in order to reach his house. William might be at home, and who knows what would happen?" Then Aunt Nancy made a hurried toilet, clothing herself in one of those quaint costumes which Jack did not think at all becoming, and said, as she entered the kitchen again,-- "You must promise not to step your foot out of doors while I am gone. Keep everything well locked, and if any one should happen to call don't show yourself without first learning who they are." Jack agreed, and while the little woman was absent he rocked Louis to sleep, swept the floor until one would have said a broom ought to be ashamed for going over such a cleanly surface with any idea of collecting dirt, and was in the "fore-room" with a lighted candle admiring the crockery rooster when Aunt Nancy returned. "It's me, Jack dear!" she cried as she knocked softly on the door, and when it was opened, entered with the air of one who has been successful. "I got there just in time. He was going over to Henry Mitchell's to tell him he'd haul gravel to-morrow; but of course he had rather go to Treat's, for the work isn't so hard on either himself or his horse. Now we must get to bed early, for I told him I wanted to start by sunrise at the very latest." "But, Aunt Nancy, you don't mean that I am to stay in the house with the doors locked all the forenoon, do you? There are lots of things I could do; but it would be pretty warm if there wasn't any chance for air." "I suppose you might have the doors open, provided you kept a sharp watch on the road, and closed them again in case that Dean boy or his associates should come," the little woman replied thoughtfully. "What shall I do?" "You could clean the knives and forks, and wash all the best dishes through two waters. Be careful when you wipe them, Jack dear, for it would be terrible if any should be broken." After these arrangements had been made, Aunt Nancy remained silent a short time to free her mind from worldly thoughts, and then came the evening devotions, when the little woman prayed earnestly for the "weary and heavy laden," which Jack thought was a reference to herself and the expected company. It was yet dark next morning when a noise from the kitchen aroused the hunchback, and hurrying down he found Aunt Nancy busily engaged preparing breakfast. "Why, you must have stayed awake all night!" he exclaimed in surprise. "Indeed I wasn't so foolish as to do anything of the kind; but when I have work on hand I like to be about it, and goodness knows there's plenty for me to do between now and to-morrow night." "Did you wake Louis?" "No; let him sleep as long as he chooses. You can dress and give him some bread and milk?" "That part of it will be all right," Jack replied confidently, and then he prepared to astonish old crumple-horn by appearing before her while it was yet so dark that she could hardly see the lunch of clover to which she was accustomed during milking time. Breakfast had been cooked, eaten, and the dishes washed before Mr. Daniel Chick and his venerable horse came up the lane. Aunt Nancy was not only ready for the journey, but had begun to grow impatient because of the delay, when he reined up in front of the broad stone step as he said in a cheery tone, calculated to soothe any angry feelings,-- "Well, I must say you're a master hand at gettin' up, Aunt Nancy. 'Pears like as if you was allers on foot like a sparrer." "I try to do what I have on hand in good season," was the rather sharp reply. "There would be less poor folks in this world if people didn't dally round in such a shiftless manner." Mr. Chick knew full well that this remark was aimed especially at him; but like a wise man he made no reply lest worse should follow, and turned the wheels of the wagon that the little woman might have no trouble in clambering on board. Aunt Nancy stopped only long enough to give some parting advice to Jack. "Be sure to keep a sharp watch on the road if you have the doors open," she whispered, "and don't go out, even into the yard, unless it is absolutely necessary, for nobody knows what may happen. When you wash the best dishes be careful, Jack dear, for I should feel very badly in case any were broken." "I'll attend to it in great shape, Aunt Nancy." "Don't give Louis too much milk at a time, the weather is so hot that it might curdle on his stomach; and if I don't succeed in getting home until afternoon, there is some cold meat and cake on the hanging shelf in the cellar. Don't go without a lunch; it is very unhealthy to work while you are hungry." "Who's dallying now, Aunt Nancy?" Mr. Chick cried as he tried to prevent his horse from nibbling at the honeysuckle-bush. "If you had come as you agreed I should have had plenty of time to attend to matters," was the sharp reply; and then with many injunctions for him to keep a firm hold on the reins, the little woman succeeded in gaining the rather shaky seat. "Take good care of Louis!" she cried as the horse ambled slowly down the lane; and Jack re-entered the house feeling decidedly lonely at the prospect of being without Aunt Nancy for several hours. In order to occupy his mind he set about the work laid out, and was so industrious that before the baby made known the fact of being awake, the knives and forks had been cleaned. Fully an hour was spent dressing and feeding Louis, after which he was allowed to play on the kitchen floor while his crooked guardian washed the "best dishes." This was a task which required considerable time, and at eleven o'clock it was hardly more than half finished. Then again Louis wanted milk, and when it had been given him he insisted upon being allowed to go out on the doorstep. At first Jack was disposed to keep him in the house; but when he became fretful, gave him his own way, as he said half to himself,-- "I don't s'pose there can be any harm in lettin' you stay here; but if anything _should_ happen, Aunt Nancy would think I had been careless." After that he kept a strict watch over the baby, going to the door every few moments, and on each occasion finding Louis playing contentedly with a string of buttons the little woman had prepared for him. The fact that he showed no disposition to leave the broad stone caused Jack to have less care than usual, and this, coupled with the idea of cleaning the most elaborate dishes, rendered him oblivious to the flight of time. He was brought to a realization of what was passing around by hearing the rumble of a carriage in the lane, and almost before he could reach the door, Aunt Nancy was in the house, while Mr. Chick had driven away at the full speed of his very slow horse. "Did you get along all right, Jack dear?" the little woman asked, as she deposited an armful of bundles on the table. "Yes, indeed. You see there has been plenty of work, and it doesn't seem any time since you left." "Where is the baby?" "On the doorstep. He fussed to go out, an' I thought the fresh air wouldn't do him any harm." "Which doorstep?" "Why here, of course"; and Jack stepped forward only to give vent to a cry of alarm an instant later. "He isn't here at all! Where do you suppose he could have gone?" Aunt Nancy was at the door before he ceased speaking, and gazed up and down the yard in bewilderment, but without seeing any signs of the missing baby. For an instant the two stood gazing at each other in perplexity, and then Aunt Nancy asked sharply,-- "How long since you saw him?" "It didn't seem many minutes before you came; but I s'pose it must have been, else he'd be 'round here now." "Run up to the barn and see if he is there!" As she spoke the little woman went down the lane, returning just as Jack came back. "He isn't there," the latter said. "Nor on the road. Of course he must be somewhere near, for children can't disappear entirely in such a mysterious fashion. Go up the lane and I'll look back of the barn." "But then we shall be leaving the barn alone You stay here an' I'll do the searchin'." "It wouldn't make any difference if we left the house wide open for a month, I couldn't stand still while that dear little baby is wandering around nobody knows where." Jack understood that it would be useless to remonstrate, and started off at full speed. Up to the entire length of the lane he ran without finding that for which he sought, and then back to the house where he was met by Aunt Nancy on whose wrinkled face was written fear and anguish. She did not wait for him to tell her that the search had been in vain, but cried,-- "Go up through the field from the shed. There is a place where he might have gotten through the fence, and it would lead directly to the duck pond if he kept on in a straight line!" There was a tone in her voice which told of the fear she had regarding the possible ending of his adventures; and Jack, with a mental prayer that he would find the little fellow before it was too late, ran across the enclosure, Aunt Nancy going in the same direction, but at a slight angle. The little woman's anxiety gave fleetness to her feet, and she travelled even faster than Jack could. Both called loudly from time to time, but without receiving any answer, and Jack's heart grew heavy as he thought of what might have happened while he was in the house all unconscious of impending trouble. As the two neared the pond the figure of a boy could be distinguished among the foliage of alders running at full speed toward the main road, and Jack shouted to Aunt Nancy,-- "There goes one of Bill Dean's gang. They know where Louis is." This caused the little woman to redouble her cries, and a few seconds later two more boys could be dimly seen as they hurried away, keeping well within the shelter of the bushes to avoid recognition. There was no longer any question in Jack's mind but that he would soon find the baby, nor was he mistaken. On arriving in view of the pond both saw a rudely constructed raft of fence rails at least ten yards from the shore, and on it, crowing and laughing as if he was having the jolliest possible time sat Louis. "How can we reach him?" Aunt Nancy cried, as she stood wringing her hands, while the big tears ran down her cheeks. "He will surely be drowned, Jack! What is to be done?" The hunchback had no thought of his own safety or discomfort as compared with that of rescuing the baby. Without hesitation he ran into the pond, continuing on at risk of being mired, until the water was above his waist, and the baby held out his hands to be taken. [Illustration: Jack ran into the pond, until the water was above his waist, and the baby held out his hands to be taken.--Page 147.] "Sit still Louis, sit still an' Jack will come to you!" It was impossible to run very fast through the water; and to Aunt Nancy, who stood on the bank in helpless grief, it seemed as if the deformed lad hardly moved, so slow was his progress. More than once did it appear as if the baby would attempt to leave the raft in order to meet his crooked guardian; but by dint of coaxing, Jack succeeded in persuading him to remain seated until he gained his side. Then he lifted the child in his arms, staggering ashore to where the little woman stood waiting to receive him, and the rescue was accomplished. Aunt Nancy alternately laughed and cried as she pressed Louis closely to her bosom, and Jack stood silently by, wondering whether he was to be scolded for having so grossly neglected his charge. It was several moments before she paid any attention to the older boy, and then it was to exclaim,-- "Mercy on us, Jack! I had entirely forgotten you! Run home as soon as possible, or you will catch your death a cold!" "A wettin' won't hurt me on a warm day like this. I'm used to such things." "But you must change your clothes at once, and there's no other way but to put on one of my dresses again." Jack gave no heed to this suggestion, or command, whichever it might be called. He was trying to understand how the baby could have come so far without assistance, when Aunt Nancy said suddenly,-- "It doesn't take one loner to realize how the dear little fellow came here. Those wicked boys must have found him near the shed, and brought him to this place." Several poles lying near by told how the raft was forced toward the centre of the pond, and the fact that three fellows had been seen running through the bushes was sufficient proof, at least to Aunt Nancy and Jack, that Bill Dean and his friends had done the mischief. "I should forget everything I ought to remember if I had that Dean boy here this minute!" the little woman said angrily as she surveyed the evidences of the cruel work. "It is a burning shame that such as he should be allowed among decent people!" "We don't know for certain that it was Bill Dean," Jack suggested. "Yes, we do, for there is no other boy in this town who does such things. I shall see his father again, and when I do it will be very hard work to rule my spirit." "It only makes them worse to complain." "Then I will have him arrested!" And now Aunt Nancy spoke in such an angry tone that Jack did not venture to reply; but he knew from past experience that she would soon be sorry for having given way to her temper. Again the little woman spoke of Jack's condition as if she had not noticed it before, and insisted on his coming home at once, although she could not have supposed he wished to go anywhere else. Louis apparently had no idea he had been exposed to danger, but laughed and pulled at the tiny ringlets either side Aunt Nancy's face until her anger vanished, and she said in a tone of penitence,-- "Really, Jack dear, I get frightened sometimes when I realize how wicked I am growing. I can't seem to control my temper in anything which concerns the baby, and goodness knows how it is all going to end. I began by telling a lie, and now say terrible things on the slightest provocation, though goodness knows this would have stirred up almost any one. You see I took the first step, which is the hardest, and now fall before the least temptation." "You oughtent talk that way, Aunt Nancy. If everybody was as good as you are, this would be an awful nice place to live in." The little woman shook her head as if reproaching him for his words of praise, but did not continue the subject, because by this time they had arrived at the house, and it was necessary she should get the garments Jack had worn once before. Again the hunchback received a ducking under the pump, and then went out to the barn to make his toilet. "Come back as soon as you can, for I want to show you what I bought, and between us we must decide what we shall have for supper to-morrow." When Jack returned to the house, Aunt Nancy had her purchases arranged on the table that he might see them to the best advantage, and then came the discussion of what was a very important matter in the little woman's mind. "I bought citron so as to make that kind of cake if you think it would be nicer than sponge, though I have always been very fortunate in making sponge cake, and that is a good deal more than most people can say." "Why not have both kinds?" "I declare I never thought of that. It is the very thing, and I'll begin at once while you finish the dishes. This time we'll see if between both of us we can't keep Louis away from those wicked boys. I got a nice ham, for that is always good cold, and I engaged two chickens from Daniel Chick. Had we better have them roasted or boiled?" "I thought this was to be only a supper." "That's what it is; but it would never do to have but one kind of cold meat. Why, if you'll believe me, Mrs. Souders had chicken, ham, and tongue, to say nothing of soused pig's feet." "Your supper'll be better'n hers if you make plenty of hot biscuit." "I shall surely do that, and have loaf bread besides. I wonder if you couldn't wait on the table?" "Of course I can. That was what I did on board the 'Atlanta.'" "Then we shall get along famously. Now help me clear off one end of this table, and I'll begin work." The little woman at once set about the task of preparing food for the members of the sewing circle, and nothing was done without first asking Jack's advice. CHAPTER XIII. THE SEWING CIRCLE. So deeply engrossed was Aunt Nancy in the work of making ready for the supper, that the indignities offered Louis by Bill Dean and his partners passed almost unheeded for the time being. It is true that now and then she would speak of what had been done, announcing her intention of complaining again to Bill's father; but the words would hardly be spoken before something in the culinary line demanded her attention, and the subject would be dropped until a more convenient season. Jack labored most industriously, beating eggs, sifting flour, washing pans, and keeping the fire roaring, thus doing his full share in the important preparations. Louis was forced to remain in the kitchen, despite his great desire to get out of doors; and both Jack and the little woman kept strict watch over him, but happily ignorant of the fact that hidden within the friendly shelter of the alder-bushes were Bill Dean and his chums watching another opportunity to get hold of the baby as before. "The sewin' circle is goin' over to old Nancy's termorrer," Bill said in a whisper, "an' we won't be smart if we don't get a chance to square off with Hunchie." "What do you count on doin'?" Sam Phinney asked. "That's jest what we've got to fix up. The old woman will have her hands full of company, an' it seems as if we might rig somethin' that'll pay. Hunchie won't show himself outside the place, for he knows we're layin' for him, an' our only show is to sneak in while the supper is goin' on." "We can easy get in the shed an' wait for something to turn up," Jip Lewis suggested; and the others thought this a very good idea. "I'll cook up somethin' between now an' then," Bill said confidently. "There ain't much chance they'll let that youngster out ag'in, so come, go over on the hill an' see what the fellers there are doin'." This had the effect of causing the party to adjourn without anything having been accomplished save an agreement between the three that, during the meeting of the sewing circle something should be done toward settling matters with the boy who insisted upon remaining in town after they had warned him to leave. During the remainder of the day Aunt Nancy and Jack worked without ceasing in the kitchen, and when night came the arrangements for the company were so nearly completed that the little woman said with a sigh of relief when she and her crooked-assistant were resting under the old oak,-- "I declare, Jack dear, it is surprising how much we have done since noon! I never could have gotten through without you, and don't understand what I did before you came." "I wish I could do more. It doesn't seem as if I worked half hard enough to pay for what you've done to help Louis an' me." "Bless you, child, I'd be paid a dozen times over if I had nothing more than your company; and as for work, why, you've done twice as much as Daniel Chick's daughter would in the same time, and I should have paid her fifty cents, at least, if you hadn't been here." "It doesn't seem very much anyhow; but if you're satisfied, why that settles it, of course. I wonder if Bill Dean's crowd will try to get hold of Louis again?" "Not after I've seen his father, and that's just what I intend to do when the circle meetin' is over. We had better get old crumple-horn in the yard now so we can go to bed early, for I count on being at work by sunrise to-morrow." The chores were quickly done, the house searched once more for possible intruders, the evening devotions concluded, and Jack went to his tiny room happy in the thought that he had been of considerable assistance to Aunt Nancy. The finishing touches were completed by noon on the following day, and the little woman was arrayed in all her antiquated finery to receive the expected guests. Jack had only the suit of clothes he had worn at the time of leaving the "Atlanta," consequently very little could be done on his part toward "dressing up"; but his face shone from repeated applications of soap and water, his hair was combed until every portion of it looked as if it had been fastened in place, and his shoes had a very high polish. Louis's white frock had been washed and ironed, therefore he was, as Aunt Nancy expressed it, "in apple-pie order, and as pretty a baby as ever came into Maine." "I suppose we shall have to put some of the horses in the stable, Jack dear, for a good many of the people will ride, and the question is whether you could unharness them?" Aunt Nancy said as she sat in the "fore-room" awaiting the coming of the guests. "I never did such a thing; but it can't be hard if a feller watches how the harness comes off." "You are smart enough to do almost anything. I'm certain there won't be trouble," Aunt Nancy said in a tone of conviction, and then the rumble of wheels on the lane told that the first of the "company" was coming. The newcomer was Mrs. Souders, who drove a horse Jack felt confident he could unharness; and as she alighted he stood by the head of the venerable animal as he had seen regular grooms do in the city. From that time until nearly three o'clock the hunchback was kept very busy attending to the stable work. Not less than ten horses were driven into the yard, and he was expected to put them in a barn where were but two stalls, including the one it would be necessary to reserve for old crumple-horn. It was some time before he could solve the problem, but it was finally done by hitching several to the fence outside, and standing the remainder on the thrashing-floor. The matter of harness and carriages troubled him considerably; but he believed the owners of the same would be able to recognize their property, therefore no attempt was made to keep them in regular order. When the visitors ceased to arrive, and Aunt Nancy told him she did not think any more were coming, he went to the pump for a thorough wash, and while thus engaged heard a certain portion of the conversation which came from the "fore-room" where the members of the circle were supposed to be working very hard to relieve the poor and distressed by supplying them with garments, each fashioned according to the fancy of its maker. Not for a moment would Jack have thought of deliberately playing the part of eavesdropper; but hearing reference made to Louis and himself, it was only natural he should linger longer than was absolutely necessary. Mrs. Souders was speaking when he first came near the house, and he heard her say quite sharply,-- "Why, Nancy Curtis, are you thinkin' of adoptin' a couple of children at your time of life, an' one of 'em a worthless cripple that'll always be a bill of expense? It seems as if you'd lived long enough in the world to be more sensible." "I'd like to know, Sarah Souders, why you think Jack is 'worthless'?" the little woman asked in a tone of indignation. "Because he can't be anything else. A hunchback isn't any better than a reg'lar invalid, an' besides I've always heard it said they are terribly conceited." "Then this one is an exception. I never had a girl on the farm that helped me as much as he does, and as for the baby--" "That's it exactly," Mrs. Souders interrupted. "It seems that the cripple isn't enough, but you are determined to make your cross heavier by taking care of a baby, when it would be better to think of restin' your old bones." "If it is a pleasure to me, it would seem as if nothing should be said against it," Aunt Nancy replied mildly. "I only wish it might be possible for me to keep the little fellow as long as I live." Then Jack heard that which told him Aunt Nancy was kissing the baby, and he said to himself,-- "If these people think Aunt Nancy has no business to keep me here, I s'pose they are right, an' I oughter go away." "Of course you've the privilege of doing as you please, Nancy Curtis," Mrs. Souders continued, "but I must maintain that it is wrong for you to be obliged to support two helpless children when it is hard work to make both ends meet. I am only sayin' this for your own good, Nancy, an' both Mrs. Hayes an' myself decided it was the duty of some one to talk with you about it." The little woman made no reply to this, and Jack was forced to leave the pump, since his toilet had been completed. "They've made her believe it," he said to himself as the tears would persist in coming into his eyes, "an' it's my place to tell her I'll go. Then she won't have any more trouble with Bill Dean's crowd." He firmly believed it was necessary he and Louis should leave the farm, and the knowledge that Aunt Nancy depended upon him during this day, at least, was a positive pleasure. It had been agreed he should wait upon the table. Such dishes as could not well remain on the overladen board were to be left in the small summer kitchen, and the little woman had arranged a system of signals by which he could understand what she wanted. Although it was yet too soon for supper, he went to his post of duty in order to be ready at the earliest moment Aunt Nancy should require his services, and there stayed, thinking mournfully of what he had heard. In the mean while the stable was unguarded, for Jack had no idea danger was to be apprehended from that quarter, and at about the same time he entered the kitchen, Bill Dean said to his companions who had followed him into the shed,-- "I did have a plan for some fun, fellers; but now there's a bigger show than we ever struck. I don't reckon Hunchie knows very much about harnessin' horses, an' even if he does we'll set him wild." "How?" Sam asked in a whisper. "It ain't likely anybody will go out to the barn till after supper, is it?" "Of course not." "Then all we've got to do is to sneak around back of the stable. I know how to get in from there, an' we'll mix them harnesses up in sich shape that even Mike Crane himself couldn't put 'em together in less'n one day." "You're a brick, Bill, at fixin' things. Let's hurry, for it'll take quite awhile." With decidedly more care than was necessary, the conspirators crept out of the shed, and, going around by the rear of the buildings, entered the barn where Jack had left the harness. There was not one in the party who would not have grumbled loud and long had he been obliged to work as rapidly and hard as was necessary in order to effect their purpose; but since it was mischief instead of useful labor, neither so much as dreamed of complaining. The harness belonging to the teams driven by Mrs. Souders and Mrs. Hayes received the greater portion of their attention. On them nearly every strap was shortened or lengthened, and other parts interchanged, until one not thoroughly familiar with both could hardly have recognized the original set. Each in turn was overhauled, and when the mischief-makers left the barn there was no question but that Jack would have great difficulty in untangling the snarl, even if he should ever be able to do so. "I reckon that will make all hands mad, an' Hunchie's the one who is bound to get the blame," Bill said with a chuckle of satisfaction as they stood for an instant at the rear of the barn. "Now where'll we stay to watch the fun?" "Out by the cow-yard. The grass is so tall nobody'll ever see us." This appeared to be a good idea, and the three adopted it at once, although all believed it must be several hours before Jack would be called upon to harness the horses. In the kitchen the deformed boy, with a heart so heavy it seemed as if he could never smile again, waited patiently until a bustle from the "fore-room" told that the guests were making preparations to discuss Aunt Nancy's supper. "They are getting ready to come," the little woman said excitedly, as she entered the kitchen hurriedly. "Help me fill these plates with biscuit, and then cover the rest over and leave them in the oven till they are needed. I was afraid I should have bad luck with my bread; but it seems to be all right." "Them biscuit couldn't be better if the Queen of England had made 'em," Jack replied emphatically. "I'm sure I don't know what kind of a breadmaker she may be; but I wouldn't like to have it said that even a queen could do better than I, taking it the whole year through, an' allowing for the trouble that yeast will sometimes cause." Aunt Nancy was ready to go into the main kitchen, which on this occasion had been converted into a dining-room, and Jack followed close behind with his hands full of plates. It so chanced that the guests had not waited to be summoned, but came from the "fore-room" under the pretence of assisting the little woman, and Jack, who was walking quite rapidly, intent only on carrying the dishes without accident, ran directly into Mrs. Souders. That lady had never been celebrated for curbing her temper, and to-day she appeared to be in a very ill-humor, probably because of something which may have been said by her friends in the "fore-room." Therefore, instead of treating the matter as an accident, and acknowledging she had no business to be standing in the way of those who were working, she wheeled suddenly and gave the cripple a resounding blow on the ear, which sent him headlong, scattering plates and biscuit in every direction. "You little beggar!" she screamed, as her face grew crimson with rage. "I didn't come here to have any of your low tricks played on me. If Nancy Curtis hasn't got spirit enough to give you a lesson, I'll do it myself." She stepped quickly toward poor Jack, who stood silent and motionless surveying the wreck of Aunt Nancy's best crockery, never for a moment thinking the guest had any idea of inflicting further punishment, and seized him by the coat collar. Jack involuntarily threw up his arm to ward off the blow; but the heavy hand descended twice in rapid succession, and then it was grasped from behind as the little woman's voice, trembling with suppressed rage, was heard,-- "Sarah Souders, aren't you ashamed to strike a cripple?" "Indeed I'm not when it is one like this, whose place is at the poor farm rather than in decent people's houses"; and the lady would have repeated the blow but for the fact that Aunt Nancy clung to her with nervous desperation. "Don't you _dare_ strike that child again, Sarah Souders!" she cried. "I am trying hard to rule my spirit, but the struggle may be too much for my strength, and then I shall say that which would make me sorry afterward." "You should be sorry now when you reject the advice of your best friends," Mrs. Souders replied; but she released her hold of Jack's collar, and he began gathering up the fragments of crockery and bread. "If you mean that I ought to throw these children, who have made my life happier than it has been for many years, out on to a world of such hard-hearted people as you, then it is time you tried to understand the meaning of the word 'charity,'" the little woman said with a slight tremor of the voice as she stepped back a few paces from her angry guest. "The fault was yours, so far as his running into you was concerned. He was doing his work, and you were in his way." "I didn't suppose your foolishness had gone so far that you would uphold the crooked little beggar when he deliberately insults one who has been your best friend." "He had no intention of insulting you, and I do not want him called a beggar, for he isn't. Even though he was, I have yet to learn that poverty is a crime." "I see plainly this is no place for me. The most you can do now is to turn me out of doors." "I do not wish to do anything of the kind, but feel called upon to advise that you think the matter over before speaking again." "That is sufficient, Nancy Curtis, quite sufficient. Jane Hayes, will you go with me, or do you prefer to remain?" "I shall stay here," Mrs. Hayes replied; and with a fling of her skirts, which was probably intended to express both indignation and injury received, Mrs. Souders sailed out of the room. CHAPTER XIV. AFTER THE STORM. Jack who had gathered up the fragments and swept the crumbs from the floor, now looked about him in alarm. The sense of having been wrongly treated was overpowered by the thought that he was the cause, however innocent, of plunging Aunt Nancy into new troubles. It seemed just then as if he was pursued by some unkind fate which brought to him and those who befriended him all manner of misfortune. During fully a minute after Mrs. Souders drifted so majestically from the room, not a word was spoken. Aunt Nancy stood leaning against the table, a vivid red spot glowing on either cheek, and holding her hand over her heart as if to repress its beatings. The guests gathered around her, each trying at the same time to express her opinion of what had occurred,--a proceeding which resulted only in a perfect Babel of confusion. The little woman soon recovered her composure sufficiently to remember her duties as hostess, and said to Jack in a low tone,-- "Do you think you can harness Mrs. Souders's horse? We mustn't forget the courtesy we owe a guest, no matter what has happened." "I can do it if she will show me which wagon an' harness is hers. You see there were so many teams comin' all at once I couldn't keep run of 'em." "Go out and do the best you can. Very likely she will be at the stable by the time you get there." Jack hurried away feeling rather uncertain as to what the result would be when he was alone with the angry woman, but determined to remain silent whatever she might say. On reaching the barn he had but little difficulty in deciding upon the carriage he believed belonged to Mrs. Souders, and was backing it into the yard when that lady arrived. "Are you so stupid that you can't tell one wagon from another?" she asked sharply. "Isn't this yours, ma'am?" "No, it isn't, and you know as well as I do." "I never saw it but once, an' that was when there were a good many here. If you'll pick it out, an' show me the harness, I'll soon have the horse hitched up." "I suppose Nancy Curtis told you to get rid of me as soon as possible; what you did in the dining-room wasn't enough, eh?" "Indeed she didn't; an', if you please, ma'am, I couldn't tell where you was goin' to step when I had my arms full of dishes." "You needn't talk to me. If Nancy Curtis is fool enough to put you above your place, it's no reason why you should think others haven't good sense. That is my carriage, and the sooner it is ready the better I'll be pleased." Jack wheeled out the vehicle she designated, and then asked,-- "Now will you tell me which is your harness an' horse?" "You're a bigger fool than I took you to be," was the reply, as the lady rushed like a small-sized tornado into the barn, and, after some difficulty, succeeded in finding the animal, which was hitched with the others on the thrashing-floor. "Couldn't even find a stall for him! I don't know what's come over Nancy Curtis since you brats arrived at this place!" Then she examined the pile of harness, expressing her opinion very forcibly because Jack had laid them on the floor instead of hanging each set on pegs; but to find her own was more than she could do. "Take any one of them," she finally said in an angry tone, wiping the perspiration from her flushed face. Jack obeyed without a word, but, thanks to the efforts of Bill Dean and his partners, neither he nor Mrs. Souders could gear the horse. One set of harness was much too large, and another so small a goat could hardly have worn it, while all were strapped together in the oddest fashion. This Mrs. Souders believed was owing to Jack's carelessness or ignorance while unharnessing the horses, and the more she struggled to fit one without regard to ownership the greater became her anger, until it was almost beyond bounds. "My husband shall hear of this," she said wrathfully. "Put that horse right back, and he will come over to undo your wicked tricks. Don't speak to me, you little pauper," she cried as the cripple was about to reply; and dealing him a blow on the ear which sent him reeling against the animal, the lady walked rapidly out of the barn. Jack rubbed the injured member an instant, looked about ruefully, wondering what could have happened to the harness, led the horse back to his place, and went out of the barn just in time to see Mrs. Souders sailing around the corner of the lane into the main road. He walked slowly to the house, arriving there as the guests had seated themselves at the table, and Aunt Nancy, who looked as if she had been crying, asked,-- "Why didn't Mrs. Souders go with her team?" Jack told the story of the bewitched harness, adding in conclusion,-- "I took every piece off as carefully as I knew how, and laid them on the floor, because there wasn't any pegs or nails to hang them on. Now it seems like as if nothing was right, an' in the whole lot we couldn't find a single thing which would fit." The guests looked at each other in surprise and alarm, probably thinking if Mrs. Souders didn't succeed in getting her team with the entire collection to choose from, their chances of leaving Aunt Nancy's save by walking were exceedingly slim. A flood of questions were poured forth on the hapless Jack, who could only repeat his former statement. The matter was now becoming so serious that Aunt Nancy's inviting meal no longer had sufficient charms to command their attention, and the entire party insisted on visiting the barn at once to ascertain for themselves the true condition of affairs. With the baby in her arms, Aunt Nancy led the way. Bill Dean and his friends, seeing the procession coming, were not at a loss to divine the meaning of this sudden exodus from the house. "This is gettin' too hot for us," Bill said in a whisper. "With all them old women around we'll be found for certain, an' the quicker we skin out of here the safer we'll be." His partners were of the same opinion, only a trifle more frightened, and their terror caused them to do a very foolish thing. Instead of crawling under shelter of the grass until they were at a safe distance, Sam and Jip leaped to their feet, running at full speed toward the road. As a matter of course Bill was bound to follow the example, thinking how pleased he would be to have his hands on Jip for a single moment in order to punish him for his cowardice, and thus the conspirators stood revealed. "I think we can understand now what has happened to the harness," Mrs. Hayes said as she pointed towards the fugitives, "and I for one say it's time that Dean boy was made to believe it is dangerous to play such tricks." The red spots came on Aunt Nancy's cheeks again as she gazed after the retreating figures, and from the nervous working of her fingers Jack understood she was using every effort to "rule her spirit." As she stood silent and motionless, heeding not the fact that Louis was pulling her ringlets out of shape, some of the other ladies continued on to the barn, and a single glance at the mismated harness convinced them it was useless to attempt straightening matters. "It is foolish to stand here while the biscuit are getting cold," Mrs. Hayes finally said. "Let us go and get supper, after which there will be plenty of time to think over what should be done." The majority of the party shared this opinion, and Aunt Nancy was literally led back to her own home, while the guests divided their attention between the bountiful supper and a discussion as to how Bill Dean and his associates could best be suppressed. None of the party had had more than three cups of tea when Mr. Souders arrived looking very warm because of his long walk, and decidedly angry in consequence of the report made by his wife. He first demanded an interview with Jack, who was sitting in the kitchen fully occupied with his mournful thoughts; but when the ladies began to explain matters relative to the mischief done, he could not but believe the hunchback was innocent of the charges brought against him by Mrs. Souders. "I'll take Bill Dean in hand myself," he said with an ominous gesture. "There is plenty of time for that; but I reckon fixing things in the barn will last longer. Can you lend me the cripple for a while, Aunt Nancy?" The little woman called Jack, explained that he was to assist the gentleman, and as the two went toward the barn she said feelingly,-- "It makes very little difference what people may say, although I would rather have the good will of a dog than his ill will; but if I can prevent it that boy shall not leave this farm unless relatives come forward to claim him." Several united with Aunt Nancy in praising Jack, and since the others remained silent there was no opportunity for a disagreeable argument. It did not require many seconds for Mr. Souders to see that the harness had been tampered with, and he said in a cheery tone, which was a delightful contrast to the one used a short time previous by his wife, as he pulled off his coat,-- "I reckon you an' I have a big contract ahead of us, my boy. It would puzzle a lawyer to fix all these as they should be, and the most we can hope for is to put the sets together so the old women may go home. We'll begin with mine, an' see what can be made of the job." It was a long and tedious task, and before it had been half completed Jack was so well pleased with the gentleman that he said confidentially,-- "Mr. Souders, I don't want you to think I tried to insult your wife. It was an accident which I couldn't prevent, an' you see for yourself I wasn't to blame for this muss." "Don't worry about it, my boy. Mother is a leetle hot-headed with a powerful dislike to youngsters 'cause she hain't got any of her own; but I'll venter to say she's sorry as a cat this very minute for what's been said an' done. If you knowed her little ways you wouldn't mind anything about it; but I'm put out to think she laid her hands on a poor cripple like you." "It wasn't that which made me feel so bad as to have her think I would act mean." "She don't believe a word of what she said by this time, an' for that I'll go bail. There's no use talkin' 'bout it now; I allow you'll see her ag'in mighty soon. Have you been havin' a great deal of trouble with Bill Dean?" Jack was not disposed to tell very much lest it should be thought he was complaining; but Mr. Souders finally succeeded in drawing from him a full account of the threats made. "You sha'n't be troubled any more, my boy, that I'll answer for. Bill is pretty wild, but I reckon we can tame him down a bit before another day goes by." "I wouldn't like any of the fellows to say I'd been carryin' tales, sir." "Neither have you. Aunt Nancy's life is bein' worried pretty nigh out of her, an' that's enough to give me a right to interfere." Jack did not think it proper to tell anything more regarding his experiences with the village boys, and, as a matter of fact, would have preferred saying nothing whatever to Mr. Souders until he had talked with Aunt Nancy. Before the gentleman left the barn he so far sorted out the harness that it was possible to gear up his own team, and Jack thought best to get each one ready while he had the opportunity to call upon such a valuable assistant. When the two returned to the house the supper was ended, and one of the ladies held Louis in her arms while Aunt Nancy and several of the guests washed the dishes. Then Jack milked old crumple-horn, and when the last of the visitors departed all of the chores had been done, therefore nothing prevented he and Aunt Nancy from discussing the events of the day. "I can't say I'm sorry William Dean cut up as he did," the little woman said, "for it has given Mr. Souders a chance to see what he really would do, and there is reason to believe the boy will be obliged to mend his ways." Jack had very little interest in Bill Dean at that moment. He was thinking only of the conversation he heard from the "fore-room," and had determined the matter should be settled finally before he retired. "It seems as if most of the folks think I oughtn't to stay here makin' you feed me," he began. "Bless my soul, what has put that idea into your head, my child?" "I heard what Mrs. Souders said in the front-room before supper." Aunt Nancy looked around quickly as a shade of displeasure passed over her face. "I'm sorry you did hear it, Jack dear; but you must not be so foolish as to let it worry you. I am old enough to attend to my own affairs, and, even if I wasn't, Sarah Souders is not the one to whom I should go for advice." "But, Aunt Nancy, my being here makes trouble for you with your neighbors, and I have been thinking it would be better for Louis an' I to go away at once." "Your being here has very little to do with the trouble I may have. It is my own wicked self. I began by telling a lie to that man from Scarborough, and one sin surely leads to others. You are of great assistance to me, and I should be more sorry than I can say if you went away." Jack was about to make some reply, but before the words could be spoken, Aunt Nancy checked him by laying her hand on his shoulder as she said,-- "Don't argue the matter, Jack dear. We are all tired enough to go to bed, and we'll make ready by searching the house again. After what has happened since noon it wouldn't surprise me the least little mite, if we found half a dozen burglars in hiding." CHAPTER XV. BROTHER ABNER. When Jack retired on this night he was far from feeling comfortable in mind. Aunt Nancy had literally obliged him to cease speaking of the matter, and during the evening devotions prayed so fervently that she might be forgiven for acting a lie, it really distressed him. She had done it solely for him, and he felt personally responsible for her mental trouble. It caused the little woman great anxiety as he could well understand from the fact that she referred to the subject very frequently, and never ceased to sue for pardon. As has been said, Jack did not think the little woman did any great wrong; but since she believed it, the case was as serious to her as if a deadly crime had been committed. He remained awake a long while trying to decide what should be done, and more than once was he tempted to run the risk of calling upon Farmer Pratt to explain all the circumstances, in order to relieve Aunt Nancy's mind. To do this would be, as he firmly thought, neither more nor less than voluntarily condemning himself to the poor farm; but Louis would be safe from the ignominy, and he would be doing the little woman a very great favor. He had decided upon nothing when sleep visited his eyelids, and on the following morning there was so much to be done around the house he could not find any opportunity to study the subject. Aunt Nancy believed it necessary to clean nearly every portion of the house, and as a matter of course he assisted. Louis was really neglected on this day. Having been allowed to play on the floor to his heart's content, neither his crooked guardian nor Aunt Nancy paid very much attention to him. Not until late in the afternoon was the labor brought to a close, and then the tired ones sought rest under the big oak. Jack was about to broach the subject which occupied the greater portion of his thoughts, when the rumble of wheels at the end of the lane caused him to look up in alarm. "Who is that?" he asked excitedly, fearing lest it might be a messenger from Farmer Pratt. "Only Deacon Downs. He sometimes stops on his way home from Treat's store to see if anything is needed. I buy a good many vegetables of him." On this occasion the deacon had not called for any such purpose. He reined in his horse near where Aunt Nancy was sitting, and, refusing her invitation to "get out and visit," unbuttoned his coat in a deliberate manner, saying slowly as he did so,-- "I found this 'ere for you down to Treat's, an' kinder 'lowed you'd be wantin' it." Then fully a moment more was spent before the article referred to was produced, and, meanwhile, Aunt Nancy was in a mild state of excitement through curiosity. "Something for me? What is it, Deacon?" "Wait till I find the pesky thing. I put it in this pocket so there shouldn't be any chance of losin' it, an' now I wouldn't be surprised if it had slipped out." Aunt Nancy came close to the wagon watching the old gentleman's every movement, her face expressing the liveliest impatience; but the visitor did not gratify her curiosity until having found that for which he sought. "Here it is," he said, as he handed her a letter, "an' seein's how it's stamped Binghamton, I wouldn't be surprised if it was from Abner, for I don't reckon you know anybody but him in York State, Nancy?" "Of course it's from Abner, and you gave me almost a shock, Deacon, for I couldn't imagine what you had found of mine." "I don't allow there's any bad news, eh?" and the visitor waited as if expecting Aunt Nancy would open the letter at once. "It's only in regard to some business, Deacon," the little woman replied in a tone which told she did not intend to read the missive until she should be alone. "I don't reckon he's thinkin' of comin' here this summer?" "Dear me, no. Abner's getting too old to go gallivantin' 'round the country very much, an' it's a powerful long journey from here to York State." "You're right, Nancy; but you know Abner allers was a master hand at travellin'." Then the deacon, despairing of getting a glimpse of the letter, urged the aged horse into a slow trot, and the occupants of the Curtis farm were alone once more. "The deacon is a real obliging neighbor," Aunt Nancy said as the rumble of wheels died away in the distance, "but terribly inquisitive. He thought I would read Abner's letter so he'd know what was going on, and perhaps I might have done so if it hadn't been concerning your business, which should be kept to ourselves." "Do you s'pose he has found out anything about Louis's father?" Jack asked, eager to learn the contents of the letter, but not feeling at liberty to hurry the little woman. "I don't think there is any doubt about it"; and Aunt Nancy tore open the envelope with a slowness and deliberation which was almost provoking. During the next five minutes Jack waited impatiently to hear "brother Abner's" reply; but nothing was said until the letter had been read carefully twice over, and then Aunt Nancy exclaimed as she took off her spectacles,-- "Well, I declare!" "Does he know the captain?" "He's never heard of him! It's so surprising when I think of how many people he used to be acquainted with when he lived here." "What does he say about it?" "Nothing of any consequence, and writes as if he was provoked because I asked the question. Wants to know how I suppose he can find a man who was exploded in a vessel at sea; and I can't say but there is considerable good sense in his asking that, for of course when the ship blowed to pieces that settled the whole thing." "But the captain might have been saved, and, besides, while we were in sight the 'Atlanta' looked whole and sound as before the explosion." "But if she didn't go to pieces why hasn't the captain come after his son?" This was a question which Jack could not answer, and had to remain silent. "According to Abner's story, he don't know many of the York State folks except them as lives in Binghamton. Perhaps he's settling down, and isn't as newsy as when he was with me." "If he can't help us, what are Louis an' I to do?" "Stay here, of course." "But, Aunt Nancy, I must try to find Louis's relations, even if his father and mother are dead." "I reckon you're bound to do that somehow; but there's no sense in trying to walk to New York while the weather is so hot." Then the little woman, as if believing the matter had been finally settled, began to speak of the subject which was very near her heart, and for at least the hundredth time Jack was forced to listen to her lamentations because of the equivocation when Farmer Pratt called. It was particularly hard for him to remain quiet during her self-accusations, for now that it was useless to expect "brother Abner" could do anything in the way of learning the details concerning the fate of the good ship "Atlanta," it seemed in the highest degree important to decide upon some course of action. He was well content to stay where he was a certain time; but it seemed as if he should have at least some idea of what was to be done in the future. Aunt Nancy did not give him an opportunity to discuss the matter, however, and when the hour came to search the house for supposed burglars he was in a fine state of perplexity. On the following morning it seemed as if the little woman had dismissed all such thoughts from her mind, for whenever she spoke to Jack it was upon anything rather than how he might best accomplish that which he believed to be his duty. He noticed she was particularly tender toward Louis, and gave him an unusual amount of attention when she thought he and she were alone. It was on this day Mrs. Souders called, and during fully half an hour was closeted with Aunt Nancy, after which she met Jack in the yard when her greeting was more than cordial, but never a word was spoken in reference to the incidents of the day she allowed anger to overcome judgment. Since Jack had not expected anything in the way of an apology, he was agreeably surprised by the change in her manner toward him, and felt that ample reparation had been made. What the lady may have said to Aunt Nancy will never be known, for the little woman maintained the most perfect secrecy regarding it, despite the fact that Jack questioned her as closely as he dared. It was on the evening of this day when they were sitting under the old oak, and Louis was playing in front of them, that Bill Dean walked boldly into the yard, accosting Aunt Nancy as if he and she were on the most friendly terms. Jack was so thoroughly surprised that he experienced the sensation of one who has suddenly been plunged into cold water, for the assurance of the boy was more than he could understand until Master Dean handed Aunt Nancy a printed circular, as he said,-- "I've been hired to carry these around, an' I know you allers go to camp meetin', so I stopped here first. I s'pose you think I'm kinder tough; but them as come here lookin' for jobs without wantin' to work ain't so good as you believe they are." "I don't intend to argue with you, William; but you know very well I have good reason to feel harsh toward you." "Why, what have I done?" and Bill looked as innocent as a lamb. "It would be better if you asked what you haven't done," and the little woman spoke in the most severe tone. "In the first place you drove away a well-disposed boy last summer, and are now trying to do the same by poor little crippled Jack." "I don't see how you can say sich a thing, Aunt Nancy"; and Bill assumed an injured expression. "Didn't you mix up the harness when the circle met here, and didn't you try to drown the baby?" "Me drown a baby?" Bill cried in a horrified tone. "Yes, it was you and your friends who carried him to the duck pond and set him adrift on a raft." "Now, Aunt Nancy, it ain't right to talk agin me in this way"; and a stranger would have said that Bill was on the point of crying. "Why, William Dean, I saw you running away!" "I ain't sayin' you didn't; but that's nothin' to do with the baby. When I came across the field he was at the pond, an' I didn't know what he might do to my raft. Before I got up to him he was sailin' like all possessed, an' when you came I run away for fear you'd want me to wade in after him." Aunt Nancy's eyes opened wide in astonishment at this marvellous story, and while she felt convinced it was false, she would not accuse him of telling a lie without having something in the way of evidence against him. "At least I know you fought with Jack because he wouldn't promise to go away," she said after quite a long pause. Louis's guardian tried to prevent this last remark by a look, but was unsuccessful, and Bill replied boldly,-- "There ain't any use sayin' I didn't, 'cause it's true; but us fellers only was doin' what we had a right." "What do you mean by that?" "Why, we've got a license from the s'lectmen to do all the chores 'round this neighborhood, an' had to pay a mighty big price for it. Do you s'pose we'll let any other fellers come in an' take the bread an' butter outer our mouths after we've scraped the cash together to pay the town tax for that kind of business?" This statement was rather more than even Aunt Nancy could credit, and she said quite sharply,-- "William Dean, I won't have you standing there telling such wrong stories! You must think I'm a natural born idiot to listen." "It's the truth all the same, and if Hunchie don't clear out he won't get along very easy. Good by, Aunt Nancy, I s'pose I'll see you at camp meetin', for all the old maids will be there." Bill did not linger in the lane after this last remark, but went quickly out into the highway, leaving the little woman literally gasping with surprise and indignation. "It's no disgrace to be an old maid," she said when it was once more possible for her to speak; "but I won't have an impudent boy like William Dean throwing it in my face as if it was something to be ashamed about." "I wouldn't pay any 'tention to him," Jack replied consolingly. "You're nicer than any woman _I_ ever saw, an' he'd be only too glad if you was as much of a friend to him as you are to me." Aunt Nancy leaned over and kissed the little cripple on the forehead as she said in a low tone,-- "You are a good boy, Jack dear, and would be a great comfort to me if we were never to part until the good God calls me home." CHAPTER XVI. A HURRIED DEPARTURE. It was not until the following morning that Aunt Nancy paid any particular attention to the circular regarding camp meeting which Bill Dean had brought. Then, as Jack came in from milking, she said with a suddenness which caused the boy to start in surprise,-- "I have been thinking about the camp meeting. What is your opinion?" "I don't know what you mean." "You remember the paper which William Dean brought last night?" "Yes." "Well, it was the time-table of the trains which run to the grounds. Somehow your coming upset me so I had forgotten all about the meeting, and if I should miss it, it would be the first time since I was quite a young girl." "When does it begin?" "Day after to-morrow." "Why don't you go? I can stay here an' take care of crumple-horn and Louis well enough." "Bless you, child, I wouldn't think of leaving you alone three or four days." "Would you be gone as long as that?" "A great many stay the whole week, and I did one year; but it was almost too tedious." "Well, both of us couldn't be away at the same time, an'--" "Why not?" "Because the cow must be milked an' put in the barn." "Daniel Chick's daughters have always done that for me, and would again." "But what about Louis?" "I have been wondering whether I couldn't take him with me." "It would be terrible hard work to lug a baby 'round all the time." "If you went I should be relieved of the greater portion of that care." "It seems as if you had pretty nigh made up your mind already." "There is only one thing which prevents me, and I can't figure it out," the little woman said with an air of anxiety. "What is it?" Jack asked in surprise. "I don't know that it is prudent to spare the money. You see it won't be long now before the summer boarders come, and it costs a great deal to get ready for them." Jack could make no reply. This was a question about which he was ignorant, and there was a certain hesitation on his part regarding the discussion of such a subject when he could do nothing to forward the matter by pecuniary aid. No more was said until after breakfast, when Mrs. Hayes came in, looking excited and breathless. "Haven't you done anything about going to camp meeting, Nancy Curtis?" she cried, as she swung the big rocking-chair around and would have sat on Louis had not Jack called her attention to the fact by pulling the baby from his dangerous position. "I was just speaking about it, but don't know as I shall go." "But you must, Nancy. The children can stay at my house." "If I went they would go with me," the little woman replied, in a tone which told she was not willing to discuss that question. "Very well, there is nothing to prevent. Daniel Chick will take his big tent, and he says you're welcome to use as much of it as you want." "He is very good, I'm sure." "And you'll go, of course? It wouldn't seem like a camp meeting if you wasn't there; and, besides, we always look to you for the coffee. Deacon Downs says it's one of the pleasures of the week to drink Aunt Nancy's Mocha." "I do try to get the best, and when that has been done any one can make it good," the little woman said as her withered cheeks flushed with pleasure at the compliment, while never for a moment did she fancy this praise might have been given only that she should supply the occupants of the tent with their morning beverage. "Then it is settled, you will go?" and Mrs. Hayes arose to her feet. "I can't stop a minute, but felt I must run over to find out if you'd begun preparations." "I haven't, and whether you see me there or not depends. I will let you know to-morrow." "But you must go, because we won't take no for an answer." Aunt Nancy shook her head as if to say the matter was very uncertain, and the visitor took her departure, insisting that the townspeople "couldn't get along without their coffee maker." "I'm sure I don't know what to do," the little woman said with a long-drawn sigh when she and Jack were alone. "If you haven't money enough, why not leave me an' Louis here alone? I'll be awful careful with the house, an' there can't any accident happen." "I'm not afraid to trust you, Jack dear; but as I told Mrs. Hayes, it isn't to be thought of for a minute." "Ain't there some way I might earn the money?" "Bless you, no, child. Even if I was willing you should do such a thing, there isn't any time. The most expensive part of it is that I have always furnished the coffee for all in the tent, and it does take a powerful lot to go around. Why, Deacon Downs himself can drink three cups of a morning, an' then look around sort of wishfully for another. I always give it to him, too, if there's enough left in the pot." Jack felt very badly because he could do nothing toward helping the little woman out of her difficulty, while Louis laughed and crowed as if he thought the whole affair decidedly comical. Aunt Nancy bustled around the house performing a great deal of unnecessary work, her forehead knitted into a frown which showed she was thinking the matter over in the most serious fashion, and Jack watched her every movement. Finally the problem was solved, for her face lighted up as, taking Louis in her arms and seating herself in the rocking-chair, she said cheerily,-- "I don't think William Dean would attempt to make trouble for you now, Jack dear." "Neither do I. Mr. Souders probably scolded him for mixin' up the harness, and he won't bother me." "Do you feel quite certain of that?" "Indeed I do." "Then would it be too much of a walk for you to go to Treat's store?" "Of course it wouldn't, Aunt Nancy. You've only to say the word, an' I'll be off like a shot." Jack had seized his hat as he spoke, and appeared to be on the point of rushing away without waiting for the message, when she stopped him by saying,-- "There's no need of such haste. It will take me some time to fix the errand so you can do it. Last season Daniel Chick farmed the back field for me on shares, and I have quite a lot of wheat on hand. Mr. Treat wanted to buy it, and now I'm going to accept his offer. In case he still wants it, you must bring back some things from the store." "Am I to get the coffee?" "No, that would be too large a bundle. I'll write Mr. Treat a letter, and the remainder of the business you can arrange." Jack was delighted at being able to do something toward settling the vexed question, and waited very impatiently for the little woman to make her preparations. This was quite a long task because a letter was to be written, and after that a list of articles prepared; but finally Aunt Nancy completed the work, and Jack set off at full speed with a generous supply of bread and butter in a neatly tied parcel. He returned before she fancied he could have more than gotten there, and brought with him the goods required. "Mr. Treat says he'll tell Daniel Chick to haul the wheat, and you shall know how much there is as soon as it can be weighed. If you want anything more you shall send for it." "Did he say I could have some money?" Aunt Nancy asked anxiously. "He told me to tell you to call on for cash or goods up to thirty dollars, for he was certain it would amount to as much as that." "Then everything will be fixed without any trouble, and I will tell Mrs. Hayes we shall go to the camp meeting. Now, Jack dear, lie down a little while and get rested so you can help me. We must do a great deal of cooking before to-morrow night." During the remainder of the afternoon and the day following, the household was in as great a state of confusion and excitement as when arrangements were being made for the sewing circle. Aunt Nancy, assisted by Jack, cooked provisions sufficient to have kept a much larger family in food fully two weeks; but the little woman explained she "never liked to go to camp meeting without having something to give those who might come hungry." The neighbors, and, more particularly, Deacon Downs, had called to ascertain if "the coffee maker" was really going, and Daniel Chick promised to come for her with his wagon at an early hour the following morning. The deacon agreed to attend to the transportation of the Mocha, and on the evening before the journey was to be made everything appeared to be in "apple-pie order," although to Aunt Nancy's eyes the house was far from being in a proper condition. Jack was both tired and excited. The prospect of going to a camp meeting pleased him wonderfully, for he had never attended one, and fancied it was something intended for sport rather than anything serious. The baskets were packed; Louis's suit of white clothes stiff with starch and without a blemish; Jack's boots were polished until they shone like a mirror; and Aunt Nancy spent considerable time bewailing the fact that she could not afford to buy him a new coat and pair of trousers. Not until late was the little woman ready to retire, and it appeared to Jack as if he had just fallen asleep when she awakened him to milk the cow. After feeding the animal it seemed as if a very long time would elapse before it would be possible for him to do the same again, and he patted her sleek sides affectionately as he explained that one of Mr. Chick's daughters would take his place during the next three or four days. It isn't very likely the animal understood what he said, but she was perfectly willing to part with him, since it was to exchange the stuffy barnyard for the cool, inviting pasture. The milk was strained and put out on the doorsteps for Miss Chick, since Aunt Nancy could not take it with her, and then a hurried breakfast was eaten. None too soon, either, for the meal had just been finished when Mr. Chick drove up, fretting considerably because the party were not ready to get into the vehicle instantly he arrived. Half a dozen times was Jack sent to make certain this door or that was fastened securely, and the owner of the wagon worked himself into a state of profuse perspiration before Aunt Nancy finally announced she was ready. Jack thoroughly enjoyed the ride to the depot, four miles away. The odor of the flowers and grasses was heavy on the cool air; the birds sang their hymns of thanksgiving that the new day had come; and the trees whispered together of the goodness of the Creator in making for his creatures such a beautiful place in which to live. "It seems almost wicked to enjoy a scene like this when there are so many poor people who never see the country from one year's end to another," Aunt Nancy said, as she looked around in delight; and Mr. Chick replied, speaking much as if he had a cold in his head,-- "It's for us to take all the enjiment that comes in this world, an' leave others to bear the burdens which are put upon them." "If that is good doctrine, Daniel Chick, I'd like to know how you'd fancied a dose of it when you was down with the rheumatiz an' depended upon the neighbors to gather the crops?" "That was a different matter, Nancy Curtis." "In what way?" "Well, you see--I--I--p'rhaps I can't explain it so's you an' the children can understand; but there was a difference." "Only because you can't put yourself in the situation of others. The Golden Rule is good enough for me yet, and I don't think I'll change it for yours." This brief conversation had no effect on Jack, nor would he have thought it an important matter if Mr. Chick had attempted to prove the little woman was wrong. His faith in Aunt Nancy was so great that whatever she said was to him a truth not to be disputed. On arriving at the depot it was learned they were fully an hour too early for the train, and Jack mourned the fact that he might have remained at home long enough to put the barn in better order. It was a large party who intended to make the journey on this morning, and to Jack's dismay he saw Bill Dean and his particular friends arrive about half an hour before the time for leaving. If it had been possible he would have remained out of sight; but the station was small, and Aunt Nancy insisted he should stand where she could keep her eyes on him, consequently it was not many moments before Master Dean recognized him. "Oh, dear! _is_ he going? and _must_ we be in fear and trembling of him all the time we stay?" Aunt Nancy said pathetically as she saw the three boys approaching. "Keep close to me, Jack dear, and if he attempts any mischief I'll appeal for help to Deacon Downs." Bill, however, did not intend to commit any overt act while there were so many around who would not hesitate about dealing out justice to him without delay. He contented himself by walking slowly around Aunt Nancy and Jack, as he said to Jip Lewis,-- "I didn't think we stood so much of a chance to have a good time at camp meetin' this year. Here's Hunchie with the old maid, and we'll see that they don't get lonesome." Fortunately Aunt Nancy did not hear him, otherwise she might have said something which would have provoked further and louder threats. Jack, however, could distinguish every word, and before the three tormentors finished their promenade he regretted having accompanied the little woman. "I ain't afraid they'll get very much the best of me," he said to himself; "but there isn't goin' to be a great deal of fun if I've got to keep my eyes open for them all the time." CHAPTER XVII. CAMP MEETING. When the train drew up at the station, Jack was relieved at seeing his tormentors take their places in a car far ahead of the one he and Aunt Nancy occupied. He anticipated no slight amount of enjoyment from this ride behind the iron horse, and it would be sadly marred if he was forced to listen to such remarks as Bill Dean and his friends would probably make. Aunt Nancy sat by the window with Louis in her arms, and Jack took the seat beside her, watching everything around with the most intense interest, for it was the first time he had ever journeyed so far on the cars. The little woman would have spent considerable of the money received from the sale of the wheat in buying for her crippled escort such articles as the newsboy brought, in the hope of tempting customers; but for the fact that Jack prevented her by whispering more than once,-- "You've paid enough for me already in buyin' the railroad ticket, an' you must save some to get things for the summer boarders." "Bless you, child, I ought to be able to take a little pleasure now and then without thinking constantly of how many pennies there are in a dollar." "But this time, Aunt Nancy, you are not using it for yourself. If you want any of the stuff, why, it's only right you should have it, but don't buy anything for me." Then the little woman whispered as she laid her hand affectionately on his shoulder,-- "It's a comfort to have you around, Jack dear, for you are always thinking of others and never of yourself." "A crooked feller like me don't need as much as other folks, an' I'm sure I get more'n I deserve." "That could never be, my child," Aunt Nancy replied; and Jack fancied she wiped a tear from her eye, but it might have been nothing more than a cinder. Judging from Louis's expressions of delight, he would have been pleased had the journey continued all day, and even Jack was a trifle disappointed because the tenting grounds were reached so soon. The place at which they disembarked was not a village, but only a grove of pine-trees bordering the ocean, with a broad strip of shimmering white sand between the foliage and the water. It was a little settlement of canvas houses among the pines, the gleaming white showing vividly amid the sober green, and the dusty paths here and there resembling yellow ribbons laid on to complete the harmony of color. Jack would have remained a long while silent and motionless gazing in delight at the scene before him, now and then raising his eyes to view the heaving emerald bosom of the sea beyond, but that Aunt Nancy was impatient to "settle down" before the morning services should begin. "It looks pretty, I know, Jack dear, but we mustn't stand dawdling here, because there is considerable work for us to do. I'll carry the baby, and you see what can be done with the bundles." The two were literally laden to the utmost of their strength, as they stepped from the railway platform. Such generous supplies had the little woman brought for their bodily comfort that quite an amount of the belongings would have been left behind but for Deacon Downs, who kindly offered to take charge of the remainder of the goods. In order to find Mr. Chick's tent it was only necessary to follow the party with whom they had travelled, and in a few moments the little woman was arranging her provisions in one corner of the huge tent which had been reserved for her use. Jack hovered around helplessly. He wanted to do something toward aiding Aunt Nancy, but camp life was so new to him he could do nothing more than watch her bird-like movements. After pinning a towel around Louis's neck to avoid the possibility of soiling his white frock, the little woman gave him a small slice of bread and butter, offering some to Jack, but the latter was not hungry. "If you don't care, I'd rather go down to the beach a little while." "You shall do that later, Jack dear, but the morning services will commence very soon, and I want you with me then." "Will it be a reg'lar meetin' where people preach an' pray like they do in a church?" "Certainly, my child; and this is a church, for don't you remember it is said 'the groves were God's first temples'?" Jack didn't remember anything of the kind, for his education had been so sadly neglected he could not read any but the smallest words, therefore made no answer, and as soon as Louis had satisfied his hunger the three went to the cleared space where the services were to be held. Jack watched everything around him with intense interest, and, it must also be said, to such a degree that he failed to hear a single word spoken by the preacher. Aunt Nancy sat with a look of devotion on her face, which to Jack was very beautiful. After a time the boy saw the tears rolling down her cheeks, and listened to the words from the pulpit in order to learn what had caused such apparent sorrow. The clergyman was speaking of those who keep the word, but not the spirit of God's laws, and he failed to find in the teaching anything which could distress the little woman. When the sermon was concluded and the three were walking slowly through the grove, he understood better. "It seemed as if the minister was talking directly to me, Jack dear," she said with quivering lips. "I didn't hear him say anything that sounded like it, Aunt Nancy, an' I listened a good deal of the time." "It was the passage about obeying the word but not the spirit which applied to my case. You see I didn't _speak_ a lie to Mr. Pratt, and might try to comfort myself with the idea I had not disobeyed the commandment; but the meaning of it is, I shouldn't deceive in the slightest manner." "I wish we hadn't come here if you're goin' to think of that thing again." "Again, Jack dear? Do you fancy it has ever been out of my mind?" "I thought you'd kinder got over it." "But I hadn't, and perhaps I was led to come here that I might realize even more fully what I have done." "There isn't any need of that, Aunt Nancy"; and Jack began to look distressed. "Please put it out of your thoughts for a while, an' we'll go down on the beach." "I can't, my child. You shall stroll around an hour, after which you must come back to the tent for dinner." Jack hardly thought he ought to leave the little woman while she was feeling badly, but she insisted on his doing so, and he walked slowly away saying to himself,-- "I never knew religion hurt anybody; but I think Aunt Nancy has too much of it if she's goin' to fuss so over Farmer Pratt. It won't do to let her feel as she does, an' the whole amount of the story is I'll have to leave Louis here while I take the chances of gettin' into the poorhouse by explainin' things to him." So deeply engrossed was he in his thoughts that no attention was paid to anything around until he was brought to a standstill by hearing a disagreeably familiar voice cry,-- "Hold on, Hunchie, we want to know where you left the old maid!" Jack had halted involuntarily, and now would have moved on again in the hope of escaping from Master Dean and his friends, but they barred his way by closing in upon him. There was a large crowd on the grounds surging to and fro, therefore the three boys had little difficulty in forcing Jack to move in this direction or that as they chose, by pretending the press was so great they could not prevent themselves from being pushed against him. "We're goin' down for a swim," Bill Dean said as he linked his arm in the hunchback's, "an' it'll just about break our hearts if you can't come with us." [Illustration: "We're goin' down for a swim," Bill Dean said, as he linked his arm in the hunchback's.--Page 210.] "I don't want to do anything of the kind. You know very well a crooked feller like me couldn't swim, no matter how hard he tried." "We'll show you how, so don't be frightened"; and Bill motioned for Sam and Jip to force the intended victim along in the desired direction. Jack knew perfectly well he could not struggle successfully against his tormentors, but at the same time he did not intend allowing them to take him away from the throng where he might find assistance if necessary. "I don't want to go with you, and shall ask some of these people to help me if you don't go away." "Then you'd only be makin' it all the hotter for yourself, 'cause we count on stayin' here the whole week, an' you can't be tied to the old maid's apron strings every minute of the time." "I'll take my chances of that, so keep off or I'll make a disturbance." Bill had good reason to believe the cripple would carry this threat into execution, and, not wishing to come in direct contact with the guardians of the peace, concluded to bring their sport to a close. "Of course if you don't feel like comin' nobody's goin' to make you, so we'll say good by." As he spoke he gave a quick twist of his foot in front of Jack, at the same instant Jip pushed from behind, and the result was the cripple fell forward on his face, in the gravel and sand. The three boys were off like a flash, and as Jack rose to his feet after some effort, with dusty clothes and a bleeding face, his heart was filled with anger. "If I was only strong enough I'd soon show them fellers what it is to pick on a fellow they thought couldn't help himself!" He had hardly said these words when a man brushed past him with the air of one who feels he has a right to considerably more than half the road, and looking up quickly Jack saw Farmer Pratt. For an instant he thought the man was pursuing him, and would have taken refuge in flight, had not the idea occurred to his mind that Mr. Pratt had come to camp meeting for the same purpose as Aunt Nancy. "I'm foolish to think he's still chasin' after me," he said to himself, "though I s'pose he would take Louis an' me with him if he saw us." Without knowing why he did it, Jack followed a short distance behind the farmer, as if it was necessary to retain him constantly in sight, and while doing so thought of Aunt Nancy's distress concerning the alleged lie. Now surely would be a good time to sacrifice his own comfort in order to ease her mind by taking upon his shoulders the blame, and he ran forward intending, for an instant, to speak with the gentleman. Then it occurred to him that it would be proper to consult the little woman first, and he turned back only to doubt again. It might distress Aunt Nancy yet more to know the farmer was on the grounds, and Jack wished he knew of some one who could give him the proper advice. Deacon Downs was the only person he could think of, and yet he ought not to tell him of what Aunt Nancy had done. "I've got to settle this thing myself," he said as he turned resolutely in the direction of the tent, "and the next thing to do is to talk with Aunt Nancy herself. She knows more goodness than all these people put together." His mind once made up, he was eager to reach the tent, and ran at full speed, arriving just as Deacon Downs summoned the occupants of this particular dwelling to dinner. The little woman was acting as cook, a post of duty to which she had been elected each year because the remainder of the party knew she would perform the arduous labors without complaint. To speak with her now would be to attract the attention of all, and Jack believed he should wait until a more convenient season. Therefore he seated himself at the rough table around which all the others, save Aunt Nancy, were gathered, and tried unsuccessfully to appear as if nothing unusual had occurred. Jack's face told of some trouble, however, and when the deacon had refreshed himself with a large cup of Aunt Nancy's Mocha, he asked in a severe tone,-- "Master Dudley, is it possible that after living with as good a woman as Sister Curtis, you allow your passions to tempt you into fighting? Don't you remember what Dr. Watts says about letting 'dogs delight to bark and bite, for 'tis their nature,' et cetera?" Perhaps Jack might have understood the deacon's question, had it not been for the last word. What an "et cetera" was he hadn't the slightest idea, and instead of replying sat staring stupidly at his plate until Aunt Nancy came forward and asked,-- "What is it about Jack? Has he been doing anything out of the way?" "By the appearance of his face I should say he had. It is strange boys will fight in such a place as this!" "Why, what _has_ happened to you, Jack dear?" the little woman asked anxiously as she lifted the boy's head by placing her hand under his chin. Jack said nothing, and Aunt Nancy asked, as the crimson spots appeared on her cheeks,-- "Has William Dean been troubling you again?" "I had rather tell you some other time," Jack replied in a whisper, as he slipped down from his seat at the table and went toward the scene of the little woman's culinary operations. She followed him at once, and the good but rather inquisitive deacon craned his neck in vain to hear what passed between the two. "It was Bill Dean; but don't say anything about it now, for I've just seen Farmer Pratt," Jack said in a low tone; and as Aunt Nancy started in surprise, a cry of distress came from Deacon Downs's lips. At the moment Jack spoke, the little woman was in the act of removing the coffee pot from the stove, for fear its contents should boil over, when it fell to the ground. Neither Aunt Nancy nor the hunchback paid any attention to this catastrophe; but the deacon was so angry he even threatened that Jack should not be allowed near the tent again. It is doubtful if his words were heard by the two who were in such distress of mind. Aunt Nancy led Jack to the rear of the tent, and there, where no one could overhear, he told the whole story, concluding by saying,-- "You have felt so bad I had a great mind to go right up an' tell him how it happened you acted a lie." "But, Jack dear, then he might drag you off to the poor farm." "I had rather do that than have you feel as you do about it. Louis could stay here, an' I wouldn't tell him where you were, no matter how hard he might try to make me." "I should go to him myself and confess all," the little woman said after a pause. "Then the chances are he'd get hold of both Louis an' me. If it is to be done, I oughter do it." "I declare I don't know what is best"; and Aunt Nancy stood with clasped hands as if expecting Jack would advise. "It is only right I should atone in some way for that which I did; but the flesh is indeed weak when it comes to parting with either of you." "Perhaps there might be some way for me to get clear, an' you'd feel so much better that I'd be contented to stay almost anywhere." The little woman made no reply; she remained silent so long Jack began to be afraid she was ill, and as he stood watching her, the notes of a song of praise to the Maker rose high above the deacon's querulous tones, while mingling with it was the murmur of the surf as it rolled up on the beach, the whole forming a sort of melody which was soothing to the little hunchback. CHAPTER XVIII. A DISASTER. Not for several moments was Aunt Nancy able to decide what should be done, and then, as the song died away leaving only the deacon's words to mingle with the reverberation of the surf, she said in a voice which sounded strained and harsh,-- "It must be done. You shall bring him here, and I will tell the story myself. When he comes, take Louis and walk down by the beach for a while." The little woman could say no more, for at that moment Deacon Downs asked in his blandest tones,-- "Do you think it would be possible to make a leetle more coffee, Sister Curtis?" Aunt Nancy had never been known to refuse a request which involved only her own discomfort or labor, and on this occasion there was no exception to the rule. "It will be ready in a few minutes, Deacon," she replied in a trembling voice, at the same time keeping her face turned from the party lest they should see the tears in her eyes. Jack understood there was no necessity of any further conversation, therefore walked slowly away, feeling very much like a fellow who voluntarily goes to receive unmerited punishment. He now had no fear of Bill Dean and his friends. The present trouble was so much greater than any they could cause him that it was as if this particular trio of boys never existed. Not until he had walked to and fro for half an hour did he begin to realize it might not be possible to find the farmer amid the throng. Each succeeding train brought additional worshippers or visitors to the grove, and the walks were so densely lined with people that he might have passed within ten feet of Mr. Pratt without seeing him. Having made up his mind to that which he considered a sacrifice, he was impatient to have it finished, and walked rapidly until the afternoon was more than half spent; but all in vain. It seemed more than probable he had gone home, or at least Jack so argued to himself, and returned to the tent looking as if suffering from some grievous disappointment. Aunt Nancy was at the flap of the canvas house with an expression of anxiety on her face, but the baby was nowhere to be seen. "Where's Louis?" Jack asked in alarm. "Mrs. Hayes is taking care of him. I thought it best he shouldn't be seen when Mr. Pratt came. Will he be here soon?" "I couldn't find him; he must have gone home." The little woman's face lighted up wonderfully as she cried,-- "O Jack dear, I know it is wicked to say, but I am _so_ glad! It is only right I should bear the burden I myself have caused; but the thought of losing you and the baby almost broke my heart." Then she kissed him on both cheeks, and again did he feel the moisture of her tears. "Well, Aunt Nancy, you haven't lost us yet awhile, an' if Mr. Pratt has gone home that settles the matter for a while." "Yes, Jack dear, but the sin is yet to be atoned for; it is only a postponement of the evil day." "Any way there's no need of worryin' about it now. If, when we get home, you feel that he should know the truth, it won't be much of a job for me to walk over to his house, an' then," Jack added with a feeble attempt at a smile, "they won't have so far to carry me when I'm taken to the poor farm." "Don't talk in such a manner, my dear, for I am hoping it won't ever come to pass." Jack made no reply. He felt quite confident the farmer would insist on his going to the home for paupers, but no good could be done by further distressing the little woman. "I declare I'd entirely forgotten you and I have had no dinner," she suddenly said with a nervous laugh. "I'll get some cold meat and bread, if there is any left; but it is astonishing how strong people's appetites are at the seashore, especially during camp-meeting time. We must get along without coffee, for the deacon fairly swam in that second pot I made." "I don't feel so terribly hungry," Jack replied; "but I'll sit down for the sake of seeing you eat. As to the coffee, that don't trouble me; water is good enough for boys." "It is more wholesome I admit; but there's nothing good enough for a dear heart like yours." Then the little woman bustled around as Jack had seen her do at home, and in a few moments a most appetizing lunch was spread, the amount of food contradicting her fears that all the provisions had been consumed. The two made a hearty meal, considering all their troubles, and when it was concluded Jack helped Aunt Nancy set the tent to rights generally, so when the remainder of the party returned from afternoon services everything was in proper order. Mrs. Hayes brought Louis with her, and after delivering him to Jack she said with a sigh of relief,-- "I declare, Sister Curtis, it is a real pleasure to come to camp meeting with you. It takes the care off of one entirely. I only wish I had your knack at going ahead. Now look at me; I'm almost worn out looking after the baby, and don't feel as if I could do a stitch toward getting supper." The other ladies in the party appeared to be in the same condition of prostration, and the little woman, tired though she was from the labor of preparing and serving dinner for so many, meekly replied that she was perfectly willing to give them a rest by performing all the work. Jack heard the compliment paid by Mrs. Hayes, and understood that it had been given only for the purpose of getting the little woman to continue on while the others enjoyed their leisure. "I'm goin' to help you, Aunt Nancy," he said in a low tone as he went toward the stove where she was making ready to bake some biscuit. "It's too bad for you to do all this work while the others are havin' a good time." "Oh, I don't mind it, dear, so long as I can be of service to some one. We are put in this world to help others, and it should be a pleasure." "But you're doin' all instead of helpin'. Now tell me what I can do, if you're bound to wait on the whole crowd." "Take care of the baby, that will be enough." "He'll stay around here all right," Jack replied as he placed the little fellow on the grass, giving him some smooth stones to play with. Then he set about assisting Aunt Nancy, working so industriously that Deacon Downs said in a tone of faint approbation,-- "That there little hunchback seems right handy if he wants to, an' if he wasn't so given to fightin' it might be a good thing for Aunt Nancy to have him around; but when once a boy gets as quarrelsome as this one, it ain't much use trying to make anything out of him." The majority of the party were of the same opinion, and from that time forth it was believed, at least by those who were present when the deacon spoke, that Jack was a boy who would fight under the slightest provocation. Not until the bell had rung as a signal that the evening services were about to begin did Jack and Aunt Nancy cease their labors. The other occupants of the tent had already departed, and the little woman and her assistant were so tired it seemed almost too great an exertion to walk to the auditorium. "Why not go to bed?" Jack asked. "I'll take care of Louis until he gets sleepy, an' then bring him to you." "No, it would be wrong to remain here when so many truths will be presented, simply because I chance to be tired." "Then we'll all go"; and Jack lifted Louis in his arms. Aunt Nancy enjoyed the services so much that Jack was very glad she had come; but as for himself he believed the time would have been quite as profitably spent in sleeping. On the following morning at daybreak Deacon Downs aroused the hunchback with a harshly spoken command to build the fire and awaken Aunt Nancy when it was burning. "Are you goin' to make her do all the work?" Jack asked as he started to his feet. "Don't be impudent!" the deacon said sternly, raising his cane threateningly. "Learn to do as you are bidden, and in silence." Jack made no reply, but felt that the little woman whom he loved so dearly was being imposed upon. As for Aunt Nancy, she appeared to have no such idea. Jack awakened her as he had been told, and she arose from the bed of straw on which she had lain without undressing, uttering no word of protest. "I would have let you sleep till noon, but the deacon told me to, an' was kinder mad when I asked if you'd got to do all the work," Jack said, his tones proving there was yet anger in his heart. "You shouldn't have said anything about it, my dear, for it is a pleasure to me." "You try to think it is, but I know it's nothin' more than hard work, while the others are enjoying a long nap." "We won't say any more about it, Jack dear. Don't you think you could get me some water?" "Of course I can"; and Jack labored with a will, relieving the tired-looking little woman whenever it was possible. The second day at camp meeting was spent by these two in much the same manner as the first, as regards work, and Louis received very little attention. Jack, in obedience to Aunt Nancy's request, looked again for Mr. Pratt, but with no better success than before; and after dinner he washed the dishes in order that the little woman might attend the afternoon services. It was a decided relief to him when the day came on which they were to return home. He knew Aunt Nancy had worked too hard, and the bustle and confusion tired him almost as much as the labor. Gladly he helped gather up the empty baskets, and when the three were on the cars being whirled rapidly toward home, the little woman said with a sigh of relief,-- "What a comfort it will be to find ourselves on the farm once more, Jack dear! I believe I am getting too old to go to such places, and a week's rest wouldn't be too much to make me feel like myself again." "If you had gone alone, without tryin' to run a boardin'-house for them who didn't care whether you had any fun or not, it would have been different." "You don't look at the matter in the proper light, my child. They've always been accustomed to having Aunt Nancy go at such times, and I couldn't disappoint them as long as I was able to hold up my head." Jack realized it was useless to continue this conversation, so far as convincing the little woman that she had been imposed upon was concerned, and he remained silent. Never before had the farm looked so beautiful, either to Jack or the little woman, as when they arrived home that night, and during the evening devotions Aunt Nancy's thankfulness was made apparent by the fervently spoken words. The hunchback's first care, after opening the house, was to visit the barn to assure himself old crumple-horn had been well taken care of; but he could not gain much information in the darkness. The animal was lying in her stall, and appeared to be in good condition. Notwithstanding the fact that the house had been closed four days, the search for burglars was made before retiring, and then Jack, after seeing Louis tucked snugly in Aunt Nancy's bed, went to his cosey little room feeling confident he would never again have any desire to attend another camp meeting. When the morning came he went out with a light heart to milk the cow, but to his great surprise still found her lying down. All in vain did he urge her to get up; she refused to move, nor would she pay any attention to the tempting lunch of sweet clover he placed in front of her. Running back to the house he summoned Aunt Nancy, and both spent fully an hour alternately coaxing and petting the animal. "She is very sick, Jack dear, there can be no question about that," the little woman said as her eyes filled with tears. "It would grieve me if she should die, for I have owned her a long while." "How many years?" "I hardly know; but it can't be less than eighteen." "Then she must be dying of old age." "I will go right over to Daniel Chick's and ask him to come here. He's a master hand at doctoring animals." Then before Jack could offer to go in her steady Aunt Nancy started down the lane bareheaded, which showed how deeply she felt the possible loss of her pet. In a short time Mr. Chick arrived with the little woman, and his verdict brought no relief to Aunt Nancy's heart. "All you can do is to knock her in the head, for she'll never get up again. It's kinder tough on you, I'll admit, for that cow has been a powerful help, 'specially when the summer boarders are here; but it won't do any good to fret." Aunt Nancy made no reply, but walked slowly to the house as if desirous of being alone. "She feels mighty bad I allow," Mr. Chick continued, speaking to Jack. "I've said many times I didn't know how Aunt Nancy would get along if it wasn't for the cow, an' now I reckon she'll be eatin' her bread without butter." "What will she do when the boarders come?" "That's what I don't know"; and Mr. Chick walked away as if he had no further concern in the matter. Jack sat down where he could watch crumple-horn and at the same time think over this disaster which had come to the little woman. While he was trying to form some plan, the poor old cow laid her head on the sweet-scented clover, gave a few short gasps, and ceased breathing as if from sheer weariness. Jack stood over her a moment, and then returned to the house, arriving there just as Aunt Nancy was emerging with Louis in her arms. "I wouldn't go out there"; and he motioned toward the barn. Aunt Nancy looked at him an instant, appearing to understand what he meant, for she re-entered the house, leaving Jack on the doorstep in a profound study. He could hear Louis's voice from the "fore-room" now and then, therefore it was not necessary to tell him the little woman had gone there to hide her grief. "I must do something" he said to himself, "an' what I first thought of seems to be the only show." Then going to the door of the "fore-room" and knocking gently, he said in a low tone,-- "Aunt Nancy, could you spare me a little while?" "Where are you bound, Jack?" "I'd like to run down to Treat's store if you don't care." Aunt Nancy opened the door, and Jack noticed her eyes were red from weeping. "What is your idea of going there?" she asked in surprise. "I've got some business that I'd rather not explain till I get back." "There's nothing to prevent, my child, and I can trust you not to do anything wrong." "I should hope you could," Jack replied emphatically. "You shall know all about it when I come home." "Don't try to walk too fast, but return as soon as your business is finished." Jack promised to do so, and was hurrying up the lane when the little woman stopped him with these words:-- "I wish you would call at Daniel Chick's and tell him what has happened. It will be necessary to bury poor old crumple-horn, and he must attend to it." "I'll ask him to come over right away"; and Jack resumed his journey, wondering whether he was on the point of doing that for which Aunt Nancy would censure him. "It doesn't make any difference whether she does or not," he said to himself. "If I told her she wouldn't let me go, so this is the only way to fix it." CHAPTER XIX. JACK'S PROPOSITION. Jack called at Mr. Chick's house, saw that gentleman and got his promise to bury old crumple-horn at once, after which he continued on past Bill Dean's home, fearing no trouble from him since he was yet at the camp grounds. On arriving at the store he found Mr. Treat alone, and was greeted with the question,-- "Hello! Here's Aunt Nancy's young man! How's the old lady after her trip to the grove?" "She is well, but tired." "I'll warrant that. When folks want to go off for a good time they invite Nancy Curtis, reckonin' she'll do whatever work there is without grumblin', an' they ain't far out of the way, either. Did the deacon get his full share of that Mocha she bought?" "I don't know, sir; but I guess so, I didn't hear him findin' fault." "Then you can count on his havin' been filled up; _he_ don't buy very much of that kind of coffee when it's him as has to foot the bills." Jack had no interest in this subject, and changed it abruptly by saying,-- "Aunt Nancy's cow died this mornin'." "Sho! How'd that happen?" "Mr. Chick thought it must be old age." "Well I reckon it was. That cow has been in the family quite a spell." "It'll be hard on Aunt Nancy not to have the milk." "I 'low you're 'bout right, sonny; it helped make up a good bit of the old woman's livin', an' she hasn't so much money but that a dollar makes a big difference." "That's true, an' I've come to see if I can't help her out in some way." "You?" and Mr. Treat looked up in surprise. "Why, I thought you hadn't any great amount of cash on hand." "And I haven't; but I thought perhaps I might make a trade with you." "Want to have a dicker of some kind, eh? Well, what have you got to show up?" and Mr. Treat selected from a pile of pine wood a convenient stick to whittle, as he assumed a more comfortable attitude preparatory to indulging in his favorite pastime of "dickering." "I haven't got anything, sir; but thought there might be work I could do around here till I'd earned enough to buy Aunt Nancy another cow." Jack stammered and hesitated until it was a positive pleasure both to himself and the storekeeper when the speech was finally ended. "What can you do?" Mr. Treat asked thoughtfully as he fashioned with infinite care the bit of wood into a toothpick. "Almost anything, sir. I'd be willin' to work very hard if I could get the job." "Have you got any idea what the jobs 'round here might be?" "It don't make any difference; I'm not afraid of bucklin' down to them." "How much do you count on earnin'?" "I want to get enough to buy a cow for Aunt Nancy." "Do you know what one is worth?" "No, sir." Mr. Treat was silent for a moment as if revolving some very weighty matter in his mind, and said slowly,-- "I've got jest sich a cow as would suit Aunt Nancy; she's a good one, an' I wouldn't like to part with her for nothin'. Now, if you'd do the chores 'round here this summer, an' she would put in some of the money I owe for the wheat, we might strike a trade." "But I don't want her to pay anything." "Thought you could do it all yourself, eh?" "I hoped so," Jack replied in a tone of disappointment. "Why, I don't reckon you'd earn it in a year. I'd want forty dollars at the very lowest figger for my cow, an' it would take a mighty smart boy to git that much in twelve months." Jack could no longer conceal his feelings, and, seeing he was pained because of the failure of his plans, Mr. Treat continued in what he intended should be a soothing tone,-- "I'd be willin' to allow you twenty dollars for a summer's work previdin' you'd board yourself at Aunt Nancy's. Then she'd only be called on to pay as much more, an' have twice as good a cow as the one that's dead." "How long do you say the summer should last?" "Well, I wouldn't be hard on you, an' we'd call it quits by the middle of November." "How much of that time would it be necessary for me to stay in the store?" "From five o'clock in the mornin' till nine at night, the same as is expected of other boys." It was the last blow to Jack's hopes. His duty to Louis would prevent him from remaining in this section of the country such a length of time, and it was essential he should assist Aunt Nancy in order to pay her for the food he and Louis consumed. "Well, what do you think of it?" Mr. Treat asked, as the boy stood irresolutely for a moment. "I couldn't because I can't stay here as long as that, and, besides, I must do something for Aunt Nancy to earn our board." "That's right, my boy. There's no harm done because we didn't make a trade; but it shows I'm willin' to help along all I can in a case like this." "I'm much obliged to you," Jack replied faintly, and then he started up the road once more, walking decidedly faster than when he came. He had counted on being able to ease the sorrow in Aunt Nancy's mind by buying for her a cow as good as the one she had lost. He was revolving in his mind half a dozen plans by which the desired result might be attained, when a voice from the opposite side of the road caused him to halt. "How's Aunt Nancy by this time?" It was Mr. Souders who spoke, and because that gentleman had been so kind to him on the day when the sewing circle met at the little woman's house, he decided to tell him the whole story, not from any expectation of receiving assistance, but in order to relieve his mind. Mr. Souders listened attentively to all he had to say, and then replied,-- "Treat was trying to swindle you. His cow isn't worth ten dollars, to say nothing of forty, an' he wasn't over an' above anxious to give you too much for your work. Let the matter drop a couple of days an' I'll see what can be done. We mustn't allow Aunt Nancy to suffer." There was a world of encouragement in the gentleman's tones, and Jack felt as if half his troubles had already been removed. "I'm willin' to do anything I can towards earnin' the money to buy one; but Louis an' I mustn't stay here till November, an' I don't want her to use her own money." "That will be all right, my lad. Go home now, an' I'll see you later." Jack's heart was quite light when he walked swiftly down the lane leading to the tiny house, but became heavy again when he saw the little woman's face. It was evident Aunt Nancy was mourning deeply the loss of her pet, and the cripple felt that as yet he had nothing tangible to assuage her grief. She looked up inquiringly as he approached, but he offered no explanation regarding his journey until the question had been asked directly, and then said hesitatingly,-- "I would rather not tell you, Aunt Nancy. I thought I might be able to do something, but it was a failure, an' the less we say about it the better." "Jack dear," and the little woman was very grave, "when a boy can't tell his friends what he has been doing it looks as if there was something of which to be ashamed." "But in this case there isn't, Aunt Nancy; cross my throat if there is." "I believe you, my child, but would have much preferred if there had been perfect confidence between us." Jack looked up in positive alarm. The little woman's tone was so different from what he had ever heard before when she was addressing him, that he actually felt frightened. "I'll tell you all about it," he said quickly; but Aunt Nancy held up her hand to prevent his saying anything more. "If it is something which you wish to keep a secret from me I don't want to hear it." Now Jack was distressed, for there could be no question but that he had displeased his best friend. "Please listen to me, Aunt Nancy. I did say I wasn't going to tell you, because I thought perhaps you'd think I was meddlin'. That is, you might have thought so after I failed; but if the thing had gone through all right you'd been glad." Then, disregarding entirely her gestures for him to remain silent, he told all the story save that relating to his interview with Mr. Souders. It was yet possible old crumple-horn's place would be filled, but he believed it best not to raise any false hopes. When he concluded Aunt Nancy took his face in her hands, bending his head over until she could kiss his cheeks, when she said in a tremulous voice,-- "Jack, you are a dear, good boy, and have been a blessing to me from the hour you first came into this house; but you must not think of taking any such load upon your shoulders. I would not have permitted it even had you been able to make a satisfactory bargain with Mr. Treat, and that is what no person has ever done before to my knowledge. It was not right to keep from me anything you wished to do, and it is proven in this case, for if I had known what you thought of attempting, I could have explained how useless it would be." "It didn't seem so to me, Aunt Nancy, and I surely believed I could earn more than twenty dollars by working all summer." "Not for such a man as the storekeeper. Now you will be obliged to walk over to Daniel Chick's twice each day for milk, and that will be more labor than taking care of poor old crumple-horn." "Perhaps you may get another cow, Aunt Nancy." "It is impossible, at least during this year. I spent more money at camp meeting than I could afford, and must now pay the penalty when the summer boarders come by being forced to buy both milk and butter. It will make a big hole in my earnings." Now that there was no cow to care for, the work in Jack's particular department was very light, and, as he said to Aunt Nancy, it seemed as if he had hardly begun before the whole was done. The walk to Daniel Chick's was not as pleasant as taking care of old crumple-horn, and besides, he would be forced to pass Bill Dean's house twice each day, a fact which caused him no little disquietude; but he said nothing regarding this to Aunt Nancy. The following forty-eight hours passed very quietly on the farm. The little woman was so thoroughly tired from her labors at camp meeting that she did not have the ambition to bustle around as usual, and the greater portion of her time was spent with Jack in the garden. It is probable that no collection of vegetables ever received more care than was bestowed by these enthusiastic gardeners. The smallest weed was detected and instantly pulled up by Aunt Nancy, while Jack loosened the ground around the roots of each tiny plant until it seemed certain they would be dwarfed. Much to Jack's discomfort, hardly an hour passed when the little woman did not make some reference to Mr. Pratt, and constantly bewailed the fact that she failed to see him. "But it wasn't your fault I couldn't find him, Aunt Nancy," Jack finally said. "I suppose not; but yet it seems as if my cowardice had something to do with it." "You know that couldn't be so, Aunt Nancy; but if you want me to I'll walk over to his house. It ain't so terribly far." This proposition had the effect of reducing the little woman to silence, and during three or four hours Louis' guardian heard nothing regarding the man whom he had every reason to consider an enemy. Late on the afternoon of the third day after he had talked with Mr. Souders, that gentleman's wife drove up, and instead of alighting to call upon Aunt Nancy, said quite sharply,-- "Samuel wanted me to drive over here for Jack." "Why, what is the matter?" The little woman asked in alarm. "Nothing very serious, Nancy Curtis, so don't begin to fret. Sam always was full of whims, an' I reckon this is one of 'em." Jack fancied he knew what was wanted, and his heart was very light when he clambered into the wagon. "I'll come right back," he cried, as the carriage rolled away, and Aunt Nancy sat looking at Louis as if speechless with astonishment. "Is it about the cow?" Jack asked of Mrs. Souders, who sat stiff as a statue and quite as forbidding looking, holding the reins tightly in both hands, and paying no attention to the cripple. She nodded her head, and Jack could not but wonder if she thought her breath too valuable to be wasted in words. This was the extent of the conversation during the ride of ten minutes or more, and the hunchback felt decidedly relieved when it came to an end. Mrs. Souders, silent and stern, was quite as disagreeable a companion as Mrs. Souders angry. The cause of his having thus been summoned was, as he had hoped, a cow. In the yard, with a halter on her head and a card tied to her horn, stood a meek-eyed animal which Jack thought a model of her kind. Mr. Souders came from the shed as the hunchback alighted, and cried in his hearty, cheery voice,-- "What do you think of that, lad? Talk about Treat's cow; why, she can't hold a candle side of this one, and there was a big difference in the price." "Is it for Aunt Nancy?" "Sartin, an' I sent for you to lead her over to the little woman." "But who's to pay for her?" "That part of the transaction has been settled already, an' all you have to do now, is to take the creater away." "But I wanted to do somethin' toward buyin' her." "So you have, my boy. Can you read writin'?" "Not very well." "Then come here while I tell you what's on the card. I got one of Daniel Chick's daughters to fix it up so's it would be kerrect." Then Mr. Souders, after wiping his glasses lest a single word should escape his attention, read the following:-- "TO AUNT NANCY CURTIS FROM JACK DUDLEY, TO WHOM THIS COW WAS PRESENTED BY SARAH SOUDERS, IN TOKEN OF HER REGRET FOR THE UNKIND TREATMENT WHICH HE RECEIVED AT HER HANDS." "You see," Mr. Souders explained confidentially as he finished reading the inscription, "mother has been sorry about what happened over to Aunt Nancy's, jest as I said she would be, an' this is kind of a peace-offerin' to you, at the same time a good turn is done the old woman." "Then no one else paid for the cow? Your wife did the whole thing?" "I may have chipped in a bit; but that don't count. Its mother's present to you an' Aunt Nancy, an' I'm right glad of the chance to help the little woman along. She'd be in mighty hard lines this summer if she had to buy butter an' milk." Jack hardly knew what to do or say. He was delighted almost beyond bounds at being able to take the cow to Aunt Nancy, and at the same time it seemed necessary he should thank Mrs. Souders, but was at a loss to know how it was to be done. "Where is your wife?" he asked after a pause. "In the house, an' I reckon she's locked the door. Better not try to say anything to her. Mother's peculiar, an' flies off dreadfully sometimes, but her heart's in the right place, my boy, which makes up for a good many faults. Lead the creater home now, an' I'll venter to say you'll enjoy seein' Aunt Nancy dance when she knows its hers." Jack would have attempted to thank Mr. Souders, but the gentleman prevented him by unfastening the cow's halter, and insisting that the animal be led away at once. CHAPTER XX. BILL DEAN. Jack was a very proud boy when he came down the lane to the farmhouse leading the docile animal by the halter. He hoped to reach the door before Aunt Nancy should see him; but the little woman was sitting under the old oak wondering what business Mr. Souders had on hand which required the cripple's presence. He was half way from the main road to the house when she saw him, and cried in astonishment,-- "Bless my soul, Jack, have you been and made a trade with Mr. Treat after what I said?" "Indeed I haven't! Jest wait till you see what's on this beauty's horn, an' then you'll know all about it." Aunt Nancy could not curb her curiosity until the animal was led in, but ran forward with Louis in her arms, Jack stopping the cow that she might read that which was written on the card. The little woman was bewildered. She could hardly realize the animal was a present until Jack repeated again and again what Mr. Souders had said, and then it was the hunchback's turn to be bewildered, for instead of expressing her gratitude, she sat down on the grass, regardless of possible stains to her dress, and began to cry heartily. "Why, I thought you'd be glad," Jack said in a tone of disappointment, while Louis pulled at the little woman's ringlets to show his sympathy for what seemed to be grief. "So--so--so I am--Jack dear; but--but--it doesn't seem right that people should do so--so--so much for me." "It wouldn't be enough if they'd sent a thousand cows." "But for you I might never have had poor old crumple-horn replaced." "Of course you would. That was wrote on the card only to make me feel better about what Mrs. Souders did; but she'd given you this all the same." Aunt Nancy refused to look at it in that light, and Jack became confused at being overwhelmed with thanks. The little woman insisted on tracing the gift directly to his visit to Treat's store, thus giving him nearly all the credit, until the conversation became really painful. "Let's take her out to the pasture, for she must be hungry by this time," he said, as a means of putting an end to the words of gratitude which he believed were undeserved. This aroused Aunt Nancy to a sense of the situation as nothing else could have done, for the thought that anything around her might be suffering would always cause her to forget herself, and she followed Jack, who had lifted Louis to the cow's back to give him a ride. It was a sort of triumphal procession which halted at the pasture bars in order that Aunt Nancy might inspect more closely her new pet. "Seems wrong to say anything disparaging of poor old crumple-horn after she has served me faithfully for so many years, but I must confess this cow looks as if she might be a better milker." "I'll bet she's the best in town," Jack replied enthusiastically, as he pulled clover for the gentle animal to eat. "Not quite that, Jack dear, for Deacon Downs has a Jersey that leads everything." "At any rate his cow can't be as kind as this one." "That may be," Aunt Nancy replied meditatively as she kissed the fawn colored nose. "I do really think we couldn't have found a better substitute for poor old crumple-horn." Then the animal was examined critically, without a single flaw having been found, and not until half an hour was spent in this manner could she be allowed to enter the pasture. Aunt Nancy thought it her duty to see Mrs. Souders at the earliest opportunity in order to thank her for the gift, and decided to do so on the following morning when the breakfast dishes had been cleared away. Jack went to clean the stall in the barn for the new cow's occupancy, and was working industriously when he fancied he heard a cry of distress coming from the direction of the duck pond. His first thought was that Louis had strayed again, but on looking out, both he and the little woman were seen under the big oak, apparently as happy and contented as well could be. Believing he had been deceived by his fancy, he resumed the work, but only to stop an instant later as the cries sounded more distinct. This time there could be no mistake, and he ran toward Aunt Nancy as he asked,-- "Do you hear that noise? I'm goin' to see what it means." As he went rapidly across the fields without waiting for a reply, the little woman followed him, but her pace was slow because of having the baby in her arms. The cries continued almost incessantly, and by them Jack was guided to a clump of large trees standing near one end of the pond within a few yards of the spot where Louis had been set adrift on the raft. It was not necessary to search long for the sufferer. Lying on the ground, held firmly down by a huge limb of a tree which had fallen across his breast in such a manner that he could not use his arms, was Bill Dean. His face was pale, whether from pain or fear Jack had no means of ascertaining, for the boy did not wait to be questioned, but cried piteously,-- "O Hunchie, help me outer this scrape an' I won't ever play tricks on you agin!" This promise was not necessary to enlist Jack's sympathy. It was a boy in agony and not an enemy he saw before him; the only question in his mind was how the rescue could be effected. "Lay still, an' I'll do the best I can; but it may hurt a little more when I try to lift the limb." Kneeling that he might get his shoulder under one end of the heavy branch, Jack tried to raise it, but in vain. He was making the second effort, Bill moaning piteously meanwhile, when Aunt Nancy arrived, and she, like Jack, thought only of relieving suffering. "Where are you hurt, William?" she asked anxiously. "I don't know, but it seems as if the ache was all over my body." "How did the accident happen?" "I was choppin' this limb off to build a new raft, an' it fell on me." "Can you lift it, Jack dear?" "I'm afraid not; it's terribly heavy." "Let me help you." The two strained and tugged all to no purpose, when, as he paused to regain his breath and wipe the perspiration from his face, Jack said,-- "I could cut away part of it if I had an axe." "Mine is around here somewhere," Bill said with a groan. Jack soon found the tool, and, working very cautiously lest he should cause the sufferer yet more pain, chopped here and there to remove the larger twigs, while Aunt Nancy bathed Bill's pale face with her handkerchief wetted in the pond. [Illustration: "Where are you hurt, William?" asked Aunt Nancy anxiously.--Page 252.] It required nearly half an hour of the most fatiguing labor to perform the task, and then Jack said as he threw down the axe,-- "When I lift on this end you must try to pull him out, Aunt Nancy." The first attempt was a failure, but at the second the little woman succeeded, and Bill was drawn from his uncomfortable position looking decidedly the worse for wear. "Can you stand up?" Aunt Nancy asked solicitously as she brushed the dirt from Bill's hands, and little Louis patted his cheek to show he wished to take some part in the rescue, even though it only was to display sympathy. "I'll try," Master Dean said meekly, and, with the aid of Aunt Nancy and Jack, the sorrowful looking bully arose to his feet. It was positive the bones of his legs were not broken, for he stood erect without difficulty, and, this having been ascertained, Aunt Nancy proceeded to make a careful examination of his arms and chest. "I do not believe you are seriously injured, William," she said with a sigh of relief. "There can be no doubt but that you will be very lame for a few days; you must bear with it, and thank your Father it is no worse." "My father didn't have anything to do with it. He'd given me Jesse if he knowed I was here cuttin' down the tree." "I mean your Father in heaven, William, who watches over even the sparrow's fall." Bill looked rather shamefaced at having made such a mistake, and said as he turned half away from his rescuers,-- "I told Hunchie I wouldn't bother him any more if he'd help me out, an' I'm goin' to stick to my promise." "It would have been much better if you had arrived at that conclusion before you were in need of assistance," Aunt Nancy replied gravely. "One should do right because it is his duty, and not as a reward to others." "What's the matter now?" Bill asked in surprise. "Do you want me to keep on roughin' it into him?" "Certainly not, and I am glad you made the promise. What I meant was that it would have been better had you done so because you wished to." "But I didn't till now." "We won't speak of it further now. Go home and ask your mother to rub the bruises with liniment. When you feel inclined I would like to have you come to see Jack and me." "I ain't goin' 'round to be preached at," Bill replied in his old defiant tone. "There was enough of that at camp meetin' to last a feller a month." "I did not see you at the services." "Once I had to go when mother caught me jest as the bell was ringin', an' its the last time I'll get in the same box." Aunt Nancy shook her head sadly. She was discouraged, but not so much as to give up the struggle, for it was her intention to renew it again at a more "convenient season." "We had best go back, Jack dear, and William will come to-morrow to tell us how he feels. "I ain't so sure 'bout that, if you're goin' to stuff a feller with a lot of sabbath-school talk," Bill said sulkily, as he picked up the axe and started across the fields without further thanks to his kind friends. "He doesn't seem like a very good boy at heart," Aunt Nancy said sadly, as she raised Louis in her arms; "but we must not judge by outward appearances. I almost feel condemned for saying anything when my own sin has not been atoned for. My mind would be much easier if I had seen Mr. Pratt at the meeting." "It won't take long to fix that," Jack replied, noting with sorrow the look of pain which had come over the little woman's face. "It will do jest as well if I go there an' tell him what you wanted to say." "But then you would be where they could easily carry you to the poor farm." "Well, s'posen they did, what would that 'mount to side of makin' you feel good? Besides, don't you believe Mr. Souders could make them let me out?" "Perhaps he might; I never thought of that." "I'll leave here to-morrow mornin', an' by night be there." "Bless your heart, child, I would never think of letting you walk that long distance. If we should make up our minds that it was best to go, and I wish I _could_ have the strength to say it, you'd ride in the cars." "Why not decide now?" "Because, Jack dear, it nearly breaks my heart to think there is a possibility of being obliged to give you up." "Well, s'posen we go home an' talk the thing over some other time," Jack said with an assumption of cheerfulness which was far from natural. He had suddenly conceived a plan by which the little woman could be relieved without the pain of deciding that it should be so, and there was no more than sufficient time to put it into execution. Aunt Nancy walked back to the house in a meditative mood, Jack talking about the cow and kindred topics to prevent her mind from dwelling upon the dreaded subject. He at once set about doing the chores in an unusually careful manner when they arrived home. A large quantity of wood was brought into the kitchen, an extra amount of water drawn, and the cow given a generous lunch of clover after she had been driven into the stable. "Why do you do so much unnecessary work, Jack dear?" Aunt Nancy asked. "There will be nothing left for morning, and it is bad to have 'idle hands.'" "I may as well fix everything now, for you know what you said about puttin' off till to-morrow. Say, Aunt Nancy, would you lend me a lead pencil an' a piece of paper?" "Of course, my child. Are you going to write a letter?" "Yes, Aunt Nancy, an' you shall see it in the mornin'." "Better sit down at the kitchen table. If writing is as much of a task for you as it is for me, you'll need every possible convenience." "I had rather do it in my room, for you see I don't know very much about such things, an' it'll come mighty hard, but you won't care if it don't look very nice, will you?" "Certainly not, my child. It could only annoy me because I have not taken advantage of our leisure time to teach you the little I know." "You are always blamin' yourself, Aunt Nancy, an' I don't like to hear it. I wouldn't let anybody else talk that way about you." For reply the little woman patted the boy on the cheek, and then proposed the nightly search for burglars be made. After the evening devotions Aunt Nancy gave Jack the articles he had asked for, and was considerably surprised by the warmth of the boy's good-night salute. Once in his room, Jack set about what was for him a formidable task, and it was late before he completed the following:-- "DEAR AUNT NANCY I AM GOIN TO SEA THE FARMER & TELL HIM YOU R SORRY IF I DONT COME BACK U WILL NO WHERE I AM BUT DONT FEL BAD FOUR I LUV U. I CARNT STOP TO MILK JACK DUDLEY URE JACK DEAR." When this had been done Jack looked around the little room as if taking leave of all it contained, wiped a suspicious moisture from his eyes, and then dressed, but with his shoes in his hands, crept softly down the stairs. The ticking of the clock sounded strangely loud and unnatural; the silence, save for this clicking noise, was oppressive, and he felt as if he was about to commit some crime against the woman who had befriended him. "It's got to be done, an' I mustn't stand here worryin' about it, or I might back out," he said to himself. It was necessary he should think of Aunt Nancy's self accusations and sorrow before he could nerve himself to raise the window. He took this method of departing rather than by the door, for he feared the little woman would be alarmed on learning she had remained in the house a portion of the night without every place of egress being securely fastened. Once outside he gazed around several moments, taking in all the details of the place where he had spent so many pleasant days, and then, putting on his shoes, he started up the lane with a heart so heavy it seemed a positive burden. The moon shone faintly through the clouds; the night wind murmured mournfully among the trees, and before him could dimly be seen the road he believed led him to the paupers' home by way of Mr. Pratt's house. CHAPTER XXI. STARTLING INFORMATION. Realizing that he had a long walk before him, Jack continued on at a steady pace keeping ever in mind the good he hoped to accomplish. He did not dare dwell upon the possible ending to the journey lest he should grow faint-hearted, but tried to persuade himself there would be some way by which he might escape the threatened ignominy. By starting at midnight, he expected to arrive at Scarborough early in the day, and then, in case Farmer Pratt did not attempt to detain him, it would be possible to return to the farm before sunset. It was not believed he would meet any travellers at that hour, and the loneliness, when the shadows danced to and fro athwart the road like fairy-land monsters, was so great as to make him repent ever having attempted the undertaking. As the curtain of night was slowly removed, and the heralds of the coming morn appeared in the sky, his drooping spirits revived. He listened with interest to the sounds which proclaimed that day was awakening. The birds in their leafy homes began to discuss the propriety of going out in search of the "early worm." The frogs from the watery dwellings called to their children that it was time to be up and doing unless they wanted to remain tadpoles forever, and the wind which came "out of the sea" whispered: Awake! it is the day. The leaves bowed and courtesied, the waving grasses bent yet lower their heads, the flowers brought out their sweetest perfumes, and all nature was quivering with excitement because the kindly sun was about to show himself once more. Then as the first golden rays of light shot across the sky and the birds burst forth into song, Jack felt a certain sense of relief. The words which he had heard Aunt Nancy speak so often came to his mind, and he repeated over and over again, understanding the meaning better than ever before,-- "He doeth all things well." It was but a little past eight o'clock when he turned the corner which led to Farmer Pratt's house, and the first person he saw was none other than Master Tom. "Hello! Where'd you come from?" that young gentleman cried in surprise. "Down the road a bit." "Why didn't you git back before? Father's been lookin' almost everywhere for you an' the baby." "Is he still huntin'?" "No, he gave it up as a bad job a good while ago, for there's no chance of gettin' the reward now." "The reward?" Jack asked in surprise. "Yes; you see the baby's mother went away from Portland, an' father don't allow there's anybody in town who cares very much about it after so long a time." "Louis' mother in Portland?" Jack cried, rapidly growing bewildered. "Of course; father went in to see her after he made up his mind you'd gone away; but she wasn't there, so he said it would pay him better to 'tend to the farm instead of runnin' 'round after you fellers." Jack's eyes were opened wide with astonishment, and Tom began to think the hunchback had taken leave of his senses. "What's the matter with you?" he asked sharply, and Jack replied slowly,-- "I can't make out how Mrs. Littlefield happened to be in Portland when the last I saw of her was on the 'Atlanta.' Why, the ship was goin' to Bremen!" "She come inside the breakwater after you went adrift. It's all in the papers father's got." "Why didn't you tell me about it?" Jack asked reproachfully. "How could I when we didn't know where you was? Me an' father hunted all 'round, but couldn't find hide nor hair of either you or the baby." "Was your father tryin' to send us back to Mrs. Littlefield?" "Sure, 'cause he wanted to earn the reward." "An' I've been keepin' out of his way when I might have given Louis back to his mother long ago!" Jack cried in dismay. "You oughter knowed better." "How could I when he'd threatened to send us to the poor farm?" "But he didn't." "He told Aunt Nancy so." "Who's she?" "A lady we've been livin' with. Say, Tom, have you got the papers that tell about Mrs. Littlefield huntin' for us?" "There's a whole slat of 'em down to the house. Father spent more'n twenty cents buyin' whatever had anything in it about you." "Will you give me one?" "Of course. I know they ain't any good, for I heard him say he'd thrown away jest so much money on the pesky things." "Let's go right down an' get one," Jack cried excitedly as he tried to quicken Tom's movements by pulling at his arm. Master Pratt was not a boy who could be hurried; he objected to moving quickly upon any occasion, however important, and said irritably,-- "Don't yank a feller 'round so; if I go back now I'm afraid father'll be there an' set me to work." "I'll help you if he does." "A feller like you wouldn't 'mount to much haulin' rock-weed," Tom said scornfully. "But I'll help as much as I can. _Do_ go, Tom; only think what it means to Louis! His mother will soon find him if I can take one of the papers back to Aunt Nancy." "How do you make that out?" "She'd see where to write to Mrs. Littlefield, an' that would settle the whole thing." "Well, I'll go," Master Pratt said with an air such as he fancied a martyr should wear; "but it's goin' to be mighty hard if I'm set to work after gettin' so far away from home." Jack hurried him along as fast as possible, which at the best was a slow pace, and, on arriving at the Pratt farm, Tom reconnoitred several minutes, determined not to enter the house if his father was on the premises. Mr. Pratt was nowhere to be seen, and Tom whispered,-- "You stay here while I run in an' get it. Mother may be mad if she sees you hangin' 'round after father has blowed us up so much for lettin' you go away." Jack hid himself behind a clump of hollyhocks, and in a few moments Tom came back with two papers which showed signs of having been subjected to hard usage. "Put 'em in your pocket, an' let's skip." Jack was about to act upon this suggestion when it suddenly occurred to him that, in the excitement caused by learning Louis' mother was searching for her child, he had forgotten the reason for his visit. "I've got to see your father before I leave," he said. "What for? He won't be very pleasant after losin' all the money the captain's wife was willin' to pay." "I can't help that. I'm here with a message from Aunt Nancy, an' it must be delivered." "I guess you'll find him down in the potato patch, but I ain't fool enough to go with you. Hurry up, an' I'll see you on the road, for I reckon you count on goin' back to that Aunt Nancy." "Of course, an' I must be there as soon as possible." Tom pointed out the location of the field, and Jack started across the ploughed land feeling very light at heart, because it now seemed probable Louis would soon find his mother. Farmer Pratt was not aware he had a visitor until Jack had approached within a couple of yards, and said in a voice which was decidedly shaky,-- "Good mornin', sir." "Hello! It's you, eh?" "Yes, sir," Jack replied, as if believing the gentleman wished for an answer. "Well, you young scoundrel, what have you to say for yourself after cheatin' me out of one hundred dollars? Answer me that, you misshapen villain!" "I didn't cheat you, sir." "Don't contradict me, you miserable cripple, or as sure's my name's Nathan Pratt I'll strike you with this hoe!" Jack started back in alarm as the farmer raised the tool, and then, hoping to bring the interview to a speedy close, said timidly,-- "I came here, sir, to tell you that Aunt Nancy is awful sorry she acted a lie when you were at the house huntin' for us. She can't be easy in her mind till she's confessed, an' as she couldn't walk so far I've come in her place." "Is that the little woman up on the Saco road with a couple of curls an' a mighty sharp tongue?" "She's got two curls." "I know her! So she lied to me, eh?" "Not exactly, sir, for you didn't ask straight out if we were there; but she's awful good and thinks by not tellin' everything it was the same as a lie, so I come over here to tell you she's sorry." "So she ought to be, the vixen! The idea of a little drop of vinegar like her keepin' that baby away from his mother!" "Did you know, then, that Louis' mother was huntin' for him?" "Of course I did, or else why would I have gone gallivantin' 'round the country lookin' for him?" "Then why didn't you tell her? She'd been only too glad to hear from Mrs. Littlefield, but you made her believe we'd got to be took to the poor farm." The farmer glared at Jack for an instant, and then it flashed across his mind that the cause of his losing the reward was the lie he told to Aunt Nancy. This was not a consoling thought to one who had mourned so deeply over the loss of the prospective money as had Mr. Pratt, and the only relief he could find was in scolding Jack. The cripple listened to his angry words a few seconds, and then, knowing no good could come of waiting, said as he walked away,-- "I only came over here to tell you Aunt Nancy was sorry, an' there's no need of stayin' any longer after you know it." "I'll have her arrested for swindlin' me outer that money!" "She didn't do anything of the kind, an' it's all your own fault you lost it," Jack cried, emboldened by the knowledge that he was at a safe distance from the angry man. The farmer shook his fist at the cripple in impotent rage, and Jack hurried out to the road where Tom was waiting to receive him. "What was goin' on down there?" Master Pratt asked eagerly. "I heard him hollerin' awful." "It wasn't much. Your father was kinder mad, but I guess he'll get over it pretty soon." "I hope so, for he's been scoldin' about losin' the money ever since he first saw the papers. Where are you goin' now?" "Home." "Why don't you hold on a while an' get rested?" "It won't do to stop; Aunt Nancy'll be worryin' about me, an', besides, we've got to send a letter to Louis' mother right away." Tom insisted that after the service he had rendered it would be nothing more than a friendly act for the cripple to remain and chat a while, but Jack would listen to nothing of the kind. Despite his weariness he set out on the return journey at once, but with a lighter heart than when he left Aunt Nancy's home. It was dark when he came down the lane and found the little woman sitting under the old oak. "O Jack dear!" she cried in tones of mingled joy and surprise. "It's really you, and that hard-hearted farmer didn't send you to the poor farm. But perhaps you couldn't find him," she added as the thought occurred to her. "Yes I did, an' I told him you was sorry." Then Jack related the incidents of his journey, reserving until the last the startling news which promised to restore Louis to his parents' arms. Aunt Nancy alternately laughed and cried when she heard the story, and at its conclusion said,-- "What a lesson that should be to us, Jack dear. If I hadn't acted the lie Louis would have seen his mother just so much sooner, and I have been the means of making the poor woman's heart ache longer than was necessary. You thought it wasn't a sin because I didn't _speak_ the words which formed the falsehood, and yet you can now see that increased trouble has been brought about by it." "But Mr. Pratt told a reg'lar lie." "That doesn't excuse me in the slightest. If every person in the world spoke falsely I couldn't plead that it gave me a right to do so. But come into the house and get something to eat. You must be nearly famished as well as tired." "A slice of bread and butter wouldn't taste bad. Where's Louis?" "I put him to bed an hour ago," the little woman replied as she led the way in. "After I set the table I'll read the papers you brought so we can find out what's to be done to let that poor woman know where her baby is." Jack insisted there was no reason why the table should be laid for him, but Aunt Nancy would not listen to his proposition of taking the food in his hands. She set out some of the best crockery, and in it placed as tempting a lunch as the most fastidious boy could have asked for. Then as Jack ate she read the accounts of the accident on board the "Atlanta." "It doesn't state here where the captain lives," she said after a while, "but I think I know how we can find Mrs. Littlefield. I will write a letter to the editor of the paper asking for her address, or perhaps it would save time to send one to her and get him to address it." "The last plan is the best," Jack said after some thought. "Then I'll write at once, and you shall take it to the post office the first thing in the morning." It was late before the little woman finished what was to her a hard task, and then she thanked her Father for his wondrous goodness and mercy in allowing that her sin brought forth no other evil than the delay in restoring the baby to his mother's arms. CHAPTER XXII. THE ARRIVAL. Bright and early on the following morning Jack set out for the post office with the letter, and Mr. Treat would have resumed the "dicker" for the cow immediately after his arrival, but the hunchback prevented him by saying,-- "I don't want to buy one now. Mrs. Souders gave Aunt Nancy a handsome creature, and that is all she needs." "Sho! You don't mean to tell me Sarah Souders gave one right out?" "That's what she did." "Then all I can say is, it's a case of fool an' her money soon parted. Why shouldn't Aunt Nancy pay for things the same as anybody else?" "She hadn't the money." "There's where you make a mistake, for we haven't settled for the wheat yet, an' I've quite a little sum in my hands belongin' to her." "But that must be used in gettin' ready for the summer boarders." "Well," Mr. Treat said with a long-drawn sigh, as if pained because he had been prevented from performing a charitable act, "I can't help it if the old woman wants sich a cow as Sarah Souders would buy when she can get a good one from me by puttin' out a little money." Then the worthy post master took the letter Jack handed him, scrutinized it carefully, asked if Aunt Nancy was thinking of putting an advertisement in the papers for summer boarders, and, on receiving a non-committal answer, finally dropped it in the mail bag. Jack had waited to see this last act performed, and when the missive disappeared he hurried home. It so chanced that he did not arrive there as soon as he had expected. While passing Mr. Dean's house Bill came out and hailed him with,-- "Say, Hunchie, is the old maid waitin' for me to come 'round so she can talk Sunday school?" "Aunt Nancy doesn't do anything of the kind. If you knowed her as well as I do you'd be mighty glad to be where she was." "I ain't sayin' that isn't so, an' don't be s'prised if you see me up there pretty soon." "Shall I tell her so?" "No, for it might give the old woman too much of a shock. I only thought I'd let you know so's you wouldn't get frightened when I came inter the yard," and with this remark Master Dean re-entered the house, probably thinking he had paved the way in a very delicate manner for a visit to the little woman whom he had so often held up to ridicule. Now that the important letter had really been sent both Aunt Nancy and Jack were in a nervously expectant frame of mind. They were unable to decide whether the editor of the newspaper or Mrs. Littlefield would write first, and anxiously they awaited for some tidings. Jack went to the post office for every mail, and the little woman actually neglected to wipe imaginary specks of dust from the furniture during three whole days. At the expiration of this time both were startled at seeing Daniel Chick drive up the lane with a strange lady in his wagon. It was at the close of the afternoon, and the two were sitting under the big oak while Louis nestled snugly in the little woman's arms. There was no doubt in Aunt Nancy's mind as to who the stranger might be when she leaped from the carriage, and, seizing the baby in her arms, covered his face with kisses and tears. "It's the dear little fellow's mother," Aunt Nancy whispered, as she led Jack away, "and it is well to leave her alone for a while. She may be hungry, and we must get supper at once. Send Daniel Chick off while I start the fire." It was not an easy matter to dismiss the driver of the vehicle. He had been unable to extract any information from Mrs. Littlefield, and wanted to know why she had come to Aunt Nancy's at least three weeks before the summer boarders should arrive. "It's the baby's mother, and we want to leave her alone," Jack replied. "I ain't troublin' of her, am I?" and Mr. Chick crossed one leg over the other as he gazed at the scene. "No; but Aunt Nancy said you were to go away now," Jack persisted, and then, seeing that the gentleman evinced no disposition to leave, he joined the little woman in the house. Supper was ready and on the table before Mrs. Littlefield could relinquish the baby long enough to ask Jack for the particulars of his adventures. Then when she came to the door Aunt Nancy said, as her ringlets, sharing the feelings of the wearer, shook with suppressed excitement,-- "I hope you will have something to eat. You must be hungry by this time, and Louis shall sit with me while you are at the table." As she spoke the little woman held out her hands invitingly to the baby, and he showed every desire to go to her. "It can be plainly seen that my darling has had a good home," Mrs. Littlefield replied as she kissed him again and again. "He has been loved perhaps better than in a house where there were other children; but almost any one would have given him the same treatment." "I am afraid not; both he and Jack have been very fortunate. Now I will take a cup of tea, but had rather hold him myself." Aunt Nancy beckoned for Jack to be seated although it was not more than two hours since he had eaten supper, and when the little woman's head was bowed in devotion she fervently thanked her Father for his wondrous goodness and mercy in allowing the mother and child to meet again in this world. During the meal Mrs. Littlefield asked Jack to tell the story of his wanderings, and he gave them in detail, not omitting an account of Farmer Pratt's determination to send them to the poor farm. "I shall never be able to repay you for all you have done, my boy," Louis' mother said feelingly when the cripple concluded. "You are to go back with me, and I will take care that you have a good home." Jack had nothing to say in regard to this. It seemed only natural he should remain with Louis after all that had happened, but the idea of leaving the farm was not a pleasant one. He had known Mrs. Littlefield only during such time as she was on shipboard, and while she had been kind to him it was as nothing compared with what he experienced during his stay with Aunt Nancy. Very much was said regarding the children's adventures. Aunt Nancy was thanked over and over again for all her kindness, and then Louis' mother intimated that she would like to retire. "I wish to leave here on the first train to-morrow morning, and have travelled so long that rest seems necessary now." The little woman conducted her guest to another apartment, and then, with Jack's assistance, the kitchen was made tidy once more. Louis was nestling in his mother's arms in the lavender-scented bed which Aunt Nancy kept especially for "company," and the little woman and Jack were under the big oak together for what both believed would be the last time. "You must think sometimes, Jack dear, of the poor old maid who is sitting out here at this same hour wondering where in the big world her boy and baby are." "There won't come a day or evening, Aunt Nancy, when I sha'n't think of you, and remember you are the best friend I or any other boy ever had. You see I can't say what is in my heart, but if I could you'd know I'd never forget how good you've been to me." "The little I have done, Jack dear, was only my duty, and you have paid me a thousand fold for everything. I haven't been so contented for many years as since you came here, and but for the wrong committed when Mr. Pratt called I should have been perfectly happy." "I'm glad you liked me," Jack said half to himself, "for if you hadn't I wouldn't have known what a real home was like. It kinder seems as if I belonged here." "You _do_ act the same as own folks, and I wonder if Mrs. Littlefield will take as much comfort with you as I have?" "But I'm not goin' to stay at her house very long. When the captain comes home I shall get work on board the 'Atlanta' again. Folks won't keep me for an ornament, you know, an' I must earn my own livin'." "Do you like to go to sea?" "Well, there's some things about it that's pleasanter than stayin' ashore. The sailors are kinder than the boys in town, an' don't call me 'Hunchie,' or names of that sort." Aunt Nancy remained silent, as if in deep thought, several moments, and then said abruptly,-- "You certainly ought to go to school a portion of the time, Jack dear." "I s'pose I had, for I don't know scarcely anything, an' never had a chance to learn." "Can you read?" "If the words ain't too long; but in printin' there are so few short ones, that I don't seem to find out what the man who made it meant." "I should have taught you instead of sitting here idle; but we couldn't have accomplished a great deal since you came." "You've had enough to do without botherin' about me." "But, Jack, you can do a great deal by yourself. Before you go away I want to give you a little money, and with some of it you must buy a school book. Then study a certain portion of it each day, until there is no difficulty in reading any ordinary print. After that will be time enough to take up other branches, and writing must come with the reading, as I shall look very anxiously for a letter in your own hand." "I'll do the best I can, Aunt Nancy, but I don't want you to give me any money. You haven't much to spare, and that I know." "I shall share it with you, Jack dear, and you mustn't make any objection, for after you have gone I shall feel better to know you are able to buy what little you may want." Then Aunt Nancy drew from her pocket a small black book which she handed to the boy as she said in a low tone,-- "This was my father's Bible, and the print is so faint that I can no longer read it even with glasses." "Hadn't you rather keep it? It was your father's." "No, dear. I have one as you know, and this can be put to no better service than teaching you the right way. For my sake, Jack, become a good man. Shun evil company, and do unto others as you would they should do unto you. I haven't set a very good example in that way since you came here; but you have a better temper than I, and for that more is expected. Don't be tempted to tell a lie, and then you'll never feel as I have since Mr. Pratt called." "I'll remember all you say, Aunt Nancy, and it would be a mighty ungrateful feller who'd do anything he thought would make you feel bad." Then ensued another long interval of silence, during which the sun finished his work of painting the clouds, and had sunk behind the hills. "It'll come pretty hard not to see you at night," Jack finally said thoughtfully. "Will it, really?" the little woman asked eagerly. "Of course," and Jack looked up in surprise that such a question should have been asked. "I don't s'pose I'll ever find a home as nice as this." "And would you be willing to stay here?" "Indeed I would if I could get work to pay my way." "Don't you think it would be lonely when winter comes, and you would be obliged to remain a greater portion of the time in the house?" "Not if you was here." "Then, Jack, I am going to say something I thought ought not to be spoken of for fear you might do it simply to please me. Why not stay?" "But I can't find any work 'round here, Aunt Nancy." "You have contrived to get plenty from the first night I saw you. If this home seems pleasant there is no reason why you should leave it, and when the white winged messengers come to carry me to the Father, the little I leave behind shall be yours. It isn't much, Jack dear, but would keep you from want, and a delicate boy like you is not able to fight the hard world. If you were strong and well the case would be different." Jack drew a long breath as if the pleasurable surprise was almost overpowering, and then asked slowly,-- "Do you really want me to live here?" "Do I want you? If you say you will stay the pain which is now in my heart will go away in an instant, and I would be the happiest old woman in the State." "Then there'll be two feelin' mighty good, Aunt Nancy, for I'm only too glad of the chance." The little woman kissed him tenderly, which told better than words that the invitation really came from the heart. Not until a late hour that night did the tiny woman and the cripple leave the bench under the old oak. Aunt Nancy had many plans for the future, chief among which was giving Jack an education, and he speculated upon the possibility of tilling so much of the farm during the coming season as would give him a small income. All this was so interesting that for the first time in her life Aunt Nancy came very near forgetting to search the house for supposed burglars. "Mercy on us, Jack! It must be near midnight, and we haven't looked into a single room yet. I am so excited I hardly know what I'm about." "I don't believe there would be any harm done if we didn't search the place for a week," Jack said with a merry laugh; "but we'll go through the motions all the same." On the following morning there was very little opportunity for a lengthy conversation upon the change in the plans as arranged by Aunt Nancy and Jack. When she made known the fact that the cripple would remain with her, Mrs. Littlefield approved heartily of it. "I am positive he couldn't have a better home," she said, "and will take it upon myself to see he is not a burden. That much I owe him, if nothing more, for all he did to make my baby happy and comfortable." "I am not a rich woman, Mrs. Littlefield," Aunt Nancy said with considerable dignity, "but I can care for the dear boy while I live." This concluded the subject, for at that moment Daniel Chick arrived to take the visitor to the station, and Aunt Nancy and Jack could think of nothing save the parting with the little fellow they had learned to love so dearly. Louis crowed and laughed at the prospect of a ride, and Aunt Nancy said sadly when he disappeared around the corner of the lane,-- "It almost seems as if he was glad to go away from us, Jack dear." "I reckon the farm will be kinder lonesome for a day or two, but he's with his mother, an' that's where he belongs." "Yes, dear, we mustn't repine. The day will soon come for me when I go away to my Father, and then you must think the same, for I shall be many times happier in the eternal city than the baby is now. It will be a lonely time for you, Jack dear, but only for a short while, after which the old maid and the cripple will be in the glory and splendor of God's own light." Then Aunt Nancy kissed Jack affectionately as she drew him to the favorite seat, and, under the old oak where so many happy as well as sad hours have been spent, will we bid adieu to the hunchback and his best earthly friend. THE END. A. L. BURT'S PUBLICATIONS For Young People BY POPULAR WRITERS. 52-58 Duarte Street, New York. =Bonnie Prince Charlie=: A Tale of Fontenoy and Culloden. By G. A. HENTY. With 12 full-page Illustrations by GORDON BROWNE. 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. The adventures of the son of a Scotch officer in French service. The boy, brought up by a Glasgow bailie, is a arrested for aiding a Jacobite agent, escapes, is wrecked on the French coast, reaches Paris, and serves with the French army at Dettingen. He kills his father's foe in a duel, and escaping to the coast, shares the adventures of Prince Charlie, but finally settles happily in Scotland. "Ronald, the hero, is very like the hero of 'Quentin Durward.' The lad's journey across France, and his hairbreadth escapes, make up as good a narrative of the kind as we have ever read. For freshness of treatment and variety of incident Mr. Henty has surpassed himself."--_Spectator._ =With Clive in India=; or, the Beginnings of an Empire. By G. A. HENTY. With 12 full-page Illustrations by GORDON BROWNE. 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. The period between the landing of Clive as a young writer in India and the close of his career was critical and eventful in the extreme. At its commencement the English were traders existing on sufferance of the native princes. At its close they were masters of Bengal and of the greater part of Southern India. The author has given a full and accurate account of the events of that stirring time, and battles and sieges follow each other in rapid succession, while he combines with his narrative a tale of daring and adventure, which gives a lifelike interest to the volume. "He has taken a period of Indian history of the most vital importance, and he has embroidered on the historical facts a story which of itself is deeply interesting. Young people assuredly will be delighted with the volume."--_Scotsman._ =The Lion of the North=: A Tale of Gustavus Adolphus and the Wars of Religion. By G. A. HENTY. 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He has many hairbreadth escapes, is several times wounded and twice taken prisoner; but his courage and readiness and, in two cases, the devotion of a black servant and of a runaway slave whom he had assisted, bring him safely through all difficulties. "One of the best stories for lads which Mr. Henty has yet written. The picture is full of life and color, and the stirring and romantic incidents are skillfully blended with the personal interest and charm of the story."--_Standard._ =By England's Aid=; or, The Freeing of the Netherlands (1585-1604) By G.A. HENTY. With full-page Illustrations by ALFRED PEARSE, and Maps. 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. The story of two English lads who go to Holland as pages in the service of one of "the fighting Veres." After many adventures by sea and land, one of the lads finds himself on board a Spanish ship at the time of the defeat of the Armada, and escapes only to fall into the hands of the Corsairs. He is successful in getting back to Spain under the protection of a wealthy merchant, and regains his native country after the capture of Cadiz. "It is an admirable book for youngsters. It overflows with stirring incident and exciting adventure, and the color of the era and of the scene are finely reproduced. The illustrations add to its attractiveness."--_Boston Gazette._ =By Right of Conquest=; or, With Cortez in Mexico. By G. A. HENTY. With full page Illustrations by W. S. STACEY, and Two Maps. 12mo, cloth, price $1.50. The conquest of Mexico by a small band of resolute men under the magnificent leadership of Cortez is always rightly ranked among the most romantic and daring exploits in history. With this as the groundwork of his story Mr. Henty has interwoven the adventures of an English youth, Roger Hawkshaw, the sole survivor of the good ship Swan, which had sailed from a Devon port to challenge the mercantile supremacy of the Spaniards in the New World. He is beset by many perils among the natives, but is saved by his own judgment and strength, and by the devotion of an Aztec princess. At last by a ruse he obtains the protection of the Spaniards, and after the fall of Mexico he succeeds in regaining his native shore, with a fortune and a charming Aztec bride. "'By Right of Conquest' is the nearest approach to a perfectly successful historical tale that Mr. Henty has yet published."--_Academy._ =In the Reign of Terror=: The Adventures of a Westminster Boy By G. A. HENTY. With full-page Illustrations by J. SCH�NBERG. 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. Harry Sandwith, a Westminster boy, becomes a resident at the chateau of a French marquis, and after various adventures accompanies the family to Paris at the crisis of the Revolution. Imprisonment and death reduce their number, and the hero finds himself beset by perils with the three young daughters of the house in his charge. After hairbreadth escapes they reach Nantes. There the girls are condemned to death in the coffin-ships, but are saved by the unfailing courage of their boy protector. "Harry Sandwith, the Westminster boy, may fairly be said to beat Mr. Henty's record. His adventures will delight boys by the audacity and peril they depict.... The story is one of Mr. Henty's best."--_Saturday Review._ =With Wolfe in Canada=; or, The Winning of a Continent. By G. A. HENTY. With full-page Illustrations by GORDON BROWNE. 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. In the present volume Mr. Henty gives an account of the struggle between Britain and France for supremacy in the North American continent. On the issue of this war depended not only the destinies of North America, but to a large extent those of the mother countries themselves. The fall of Quebec decided that the Anglo-Saxon race should predominate in the New World; that Britain, and not France, should take the lead among the nations of Europe; and that English and American commerce, the English language, and English literature, should spread right round the globe. "It is not only a lesson in history as instructively as it is graphically told, but also a deeply interesting and often thrilling tale of adventure and peril by flood and field."--_Illustrated London News._ =True to the Old Flag=: A Tale of the American War of Independence. By G. A. HENTY. With full-page Illustrations by GORDON BROWNE. 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. In this story the author has gone to the accounts of officers who took part in the conflict, and lads will find that in no war in which American and British soldiers have been engaged did they behave with greater courage and good conduct. The historical portion of the book being accompanied with numerous thrilling adventures with the redskins on the shores of Lake Huron, a story of exciting interest is interwoven with the general narrative and carried through the book. "Does justice to the pluck and determination of the British soldiers during the unfortunate struggle against American emancipation. The son of an American loyalist, who remains true to our flag, falls among the hostile redskins in that very Huron country which has been endeared to us by the exploits of Hawkeye and Chingachgook."--_The Times._ =The Lion of St. Mark=: A Tale of Venice in the Fourteenth Century. By G. A. HENTY. With full-page Illustrations by GORDON BROWNE. 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. A story of Venice at a period when her strength and splendor were put to the severest tests. The hero displays a fine sense and manliness which carry him safely through an atmosphere of intrigue, crime, and bloodshed. He contributes largely to the victories of the Venetians at Porto d'Anzo and Chioggia, and finally wins the hand of the daughter of one of the chief men of Venice. "Every boy should read 'The Lion of St. Mark.' Mr. Henty has never produced a story more delightful, more wholesome, or more vivacious."--_Saturday Review._ =A Final Reckoning=: A Tale of Bush Life in Australia. By G. A. HENTY. With full-page Illustrations by W. B. WOLLEN. 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. The hero, a young English lad, after rather a stormy boyhood emigrates to Australia, and gets employment as an officer in the mounted police. A few years of active work on the frontier, where he has many a brush with both natives and bushrangers, gain him promotion to a captaincy, and he eventually settles down to the peaceful life of a squatter. "Mr. Henty has never published a more readable, a more carefully constructed, or a better written story than this."--_Spectator._ =Under Drake's Flag=: A Tale of the Spanish Main. By G. A. HENTY. With full-page Illustrations by GORDON BROWNE. 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. A story of the days when England and Spain struggled for the supremacy of the sea. The heroes sail as lads with Drake in the Pacific expedition, and in his great voyage of circumnavigation. The historical portion of the story is absolutely to be relied upon, but this will perhaps be less attractive than the great variety of exciting adventure through which the young heroes pass in the course of their voyages. "A book of adventure, where the hero meets with experience enough, one would think, to turn his hair gray."--_Harper's Monthly Magazine._ =By Sheer Pluck=: A Tale of the Ashanti War. By G. A. HENTY. With full-page Illustrations by GORDON BROWNE. 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. The author has woven, in a tale of thrilling interest, all the details of the Ashanti campaign, of which he was himself a witness. His hero, after many exciting adventures in the interior, is detained a prisoner by the king just before the outbreak of the war, but escapes, and accompanies the English expedition on their march to Coomassie. "Mr. Henty keeps up his reputation as a writer of boys' stories. 'By Sheer Pluck' will be eagerly read."--_Athenæum._ =By Pike and Dyke=: A Tale of the Rise of the Dutch Republic. By G. A. HENTY. With full-page Illustrations by MAYNARD BROWN, and 4 Maps. 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. In this story Mr. Henty traces the adventures and brave deeds of an English boy in the household of the ablest man of his age--William the Silent. Edward Martin, the son of an English sea-captain, enters the service of the Prince as a volunteer, and is employed by him in many dangerous and responsible missions, in the discharge of which he passes through the great sieges of the time. He ultimately settles down as Sir Edward Martin. "Boys with a turn for historical research will be enchanted with the book, while the rest who only care for adventure, will be students in spite of themselves."--_St. James' Gazette._ =St. George for England=: A Tale of Cressy and Poitiers. By G. A. HENTY. With full-page Illustrations by GORDON BROWNE. 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. No portion of English history is more crowded with great events than that of the reign of Edward III. Cressy and Poitiers; the destruction of the Spanish fleet; the plague of the Black Death; the Jacquerie rising; these are treated by the author in "St. George for England." The hero of the story, although of good family, begins life as a London apprentice, but after countless adventures and perils becomes by valor and good conduct the squire, and at last the trusted friend of the Black Prince. "Mr. Henty has developed for himself a type of historical novel for boys which bids fair to supplement, on their behalf, the historical labors of Sir Walter Scott in the land of fiction."--_The Standard._ =Captain's Kidd's Gold=: The True Story of an Adventurous Sailor Boy. By JAMES FRANKLIN FITTS. 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. There is something fascinating to the average youth in the very idea of buried treasure. A vision arises before his eyes of swarthy Portuguese and Spanish rascals, with black beards and gleaming eyes--sinister-looking fellows who once on a time haunted the Spanish Main, sneaking out from some hidden creek in their long, low schooner, of picaroonish rake and sheer, to attack an unsuspecting trading craft. There were many famous sea rovers in their day, but none more celebrated than Capt. Kidd. Perhaps the most fascinating tale of all is Mr. Fitts' true story of an adventurous American boy, who receives from his dying father an ancient bit of vellum, which the latter obtained in a curious way. The document bears obscure directions purporting to locate a certain island in the Bahama group, and a considerable treasure buried there by two of Kidd's crew. The hero of this book, Paul Jones Garry, is an ambitious, persevering lad, of salt-water New England ancestry, and his efforts to reach the island and secure the money form one of the most absorbing tales for our youth that has come from the press. =Captain Bayley's Heir=: A Tale of the Gold Fields of California. By G.A. HENTY. With full-page Illustrations by H. M. PAGET. 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. A frank, manly lad and his cousin are rivals in the heirship of a considerable property. The former falls into a trap laid by the latter, and while under a false accusation of theft foolishly leaves England for America. He works his passage before the mast, joins a small band of hunters, crosses a tract of country infested with Indians to the Californian gold diggings, and is successful both as digger and trader. "Mr. Henty is careful to mingle instruction with entertainment; and the humorous touches, especially in the sketch of John Holl, the Westminster dustman, Dickens himself could hardly have excelled."--_Christian Leader._ =For Name and Fame=; or, Through Afghan Passes. By G. A. HENTY. With full-page Illustrations by GORDON BROWNE. 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. An interesting story of the last war in Afghanistan. The hero, after being wrecked and going through many stirring adventures among the Malays, finds his way to Calcutta and enlists in a regiment proceeding to join the army at the Afghan passes. He accompanies the force under General Roberts to the Peiwar Kotal, is wounded, taken prisoner, carried to Cabul, whence he is transferred to Candahar, and takes part in the final defeat of the army of Ayoub Khan. "The best feature of the book--apart from the interest of its scenes of adventure--is its honest effort to do justice to the patriotism of the Afghan people."--_Daily News._ =Captured by Apes=: The Wonderful Adventures of a Young Animal Trainer. By Harry Prentice. 12mo, cloth, $1.00. The scene of this tale is laid on an island in the Malay Archipelago. Philip Garland, a young animal collector and trainer, of New York, sets sail for Eastern seas in quest of a new stock of living curiosities. The vessel is wrecked off the coast of Borneo and young Garland, the sole survivor of the disaster, is cast ashore on a small island, and captured by the apes that overrun the place. The lad discovers that the ruling spirit of the monkey tribe is a gigantic and vicious baboon, whom he identifies as Goliah, an animal at one time in his possession and with whose instruction he had been especially diligent. The brute recognizes him, and with a kind of malignant satisfaction puts his former master through the same course of training he had himself experienced with a faithfulness of detail which shows how astonishing is monkey recollection. Very novel indeed is the way by which the young man escapes death. Mr. Prentice has certainly worked a new vein on juvenile fiction, and the ability with which he handles a difficult subject stamps him as a writer of undoubted skill. =The Bravest of the Brave=; or, With Peterborough in Spain. By G. A. HENTY. With full-page Illustrations by H. M. PAGET. 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. There are few great leaders whose lives and actions have so completely fallen into oblivion as those of the Earl of Peterborough. This is largely due to the fact that they were over-shadowed by the glory and successes of Marlborough. His career as general extended over little more than a year, and yet, in that time, he showed a genius for warfare which has never been surpassed. "Mr. Henty never loses sight of the moral purpose of his work--to enforce the doctrine of courage and truth. Lads will read 'The Bravest of the Brave' with pleasure and profit; of that we are quite sure."--_Daily Telegraph._ =The Cat of Bubastes=: A Story of Ancient Egypt. By G. A. HENTY. With full page Illustrations. 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. A story which will give young readers an unsurpassed insight into the customs of the Egyptian people. Amuba, a prince of the Rebu nation, is carried with his charioteer Jethro into slavery. They become inmates of the house of Ameres, the Egyptian high-priest, and are happy in his service until the priest's son accidentally kills the sacred cat of Bubastes. In an outburst of popular fury Ameres is killed, and it rests with Jethro and Amuba to secure the escape of the high-priest's son and daughter. "The story, from the critical moment of the killing of the sacred cat to the perilous exodus into Asia with which it closes, is very skillfully constructed and full of exciting adventures. It is admirably illustrated."--_Saturday Review._ =With Washington at Monmouth:= A Story of Three Philadelphia Boys. By JAMES OTIS. 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. Three Philadelphia boys, Seth Graydon "whose mother conducted a boarding-house which was patronized by the British officers;" Enoch Ball, "son of that Mrs. Ball whose dancing school was situated on Letitia Street," and little Jacob, son of "Chris, the Baker," serve as the principal characters. The story is laid during the winter when Lord Howe held possession of the city, and the lads aid the cause by assisting the American spies who make regular and frequent visits from Valley Forge. One reads here of home-life in the captive city when bread was scarce among the people of the lower classes, and a reckless prodigality shown by the British officers, who passed the winter in feasting and merry-making while the members of the patriot army but a few miles away were suffering from both cold and hunger. The story abounds with pictures of Colonial life skillfully drawn, and the glimpses of Washington's soldiers which are given show that the work has not been hastily done, or without considerable study. =For the Temple=: A Tale of the Fall of Jerusalem. By G. A. HENTY. With full-page Illustrations by S. J. SOLOMON. 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. Mr. Henty here weaves into the record of Josephus an admirable and attractive story. The troubles in the district of Tiberias, the march of the legions, the sieges of Jotapata, of Gamala, and of Jerusalem, form the impressive and carefully studied historic setting to the figure of the lad who passes from the vineyard to the service of Josephus, becomes the leader of a guerrilla band of patriots, fights bravely for the Temple, and after a brief term of slavery at Alexandria, returns to his Galilean home with the favor of Titus. "Mr. Henty's graphic prose pictures of the hopeless Jewish resistance to Roman sway add another leaf to his record of the famous wars of the world."--_Graphic._ =Facing Death=; or, The Hero of the Vaughan Pit. A Tale of the Coal Mines. By G. A. HENTY. With full-page Illustrations by GORDON BROWNE. 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. "Facing Death" is a story with a purpose. It is intended to show that a lad who makes up his mind firmly and resolutely that he will rise in life, and who is prepared to face toil and ridicule and hardship to carry out his determination, is sure to succeed. The hero of the story is a typical British boy, dogged, earnest, generous, and though "shamefaced" to a degree, is ready to face death in the discharge of duty. "The tale is well written and well illustrated, and there is much reality in the characters. If any father, clergyman, or schoolmaster is on the lookout for a good book to give as a present to a boy who is worth his salt, this is the book we would recommend."--_Standard._ =Tom Temple's Career.= By HORATIO ALGER. 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. Tom Temple, a bright, self-reliant lad, by the death of his father becomes a boarder at the home of Nathan Middleton, a penurious insurance agent. Though well paid for keeping the boy, Nathan and his wife endeavor to bring Master Tom in line with their parsimonious habits. The lad ingeniously evades their efforts and revolutionizes the household. As Tom is heir to $40,000, he is regarded as a person of some importance until by an unfortunate combination of circumstances his fortune shrinks to a few hundreds. He leaves Plympton village to seek work in New York, whence he undertakes an important mission to California, around which center the most exciting incidents of his young career. Some of his adventures in the far west are so startling that the reader will scarcely close the book until the last page shall have been reached. The tale is written in Mr. Alger's most fascinating style, and is bound to please the very large class of boys who regard this popular author as a prime favorite. =Maori and Settler=: A Story of the New Zealand War. By G. A. HENTY. With full-page Illustrations by ALFRED PEARSE. 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. The Renshaws emigrate to New Zealand during the period of the war with the natives. Wilfrid, a strong, self-reliant, courageous lad, is the mainstay of the household. He has for his friend Mr. Atherton, a botanist and naturalist of herculean strength and unfailing nerve and humor. In the adventures among the Maoris, there are many breathless moments in which the odds seem hopelessly against the party, but they succeed in establishing themselves happily in one of the pleasant New Zealand valleys. "Brimful of adventure, of humorous and interesting conversation, and vivid pictures of colonial life."--_Schoolmaster._ =Julian Mortimer=: A Brave Boy's Struggle for Home and Fortune. By HARRY CASTLEMON. 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. Here is a story that will warm every boy's heart. There is mystery enough to keep any lad's imagination wound up to the highest pitch. The scene of the story lies west of the Mississippi River, in the days when emigrants made their perilous way across the great plains to the land of gold. One of the startling features of the book is the attack upon the wagon train by a large party of Indians. Our hero is a lad of uncommon nerve and pluck, a brave young American in every sense of the word. He enlists and holds the reader's sympathy from the outset. Surrounded by an unknown and constant peril, and assisted by the unswerving fidelity of a stalwart trapper, a real rough diamond, our hero achieves the most happy results. Harry Castlemon has written many entertaining stories for boys, and it would seem almost superfluous to say anything in his praise, for the youth of America regard him as a favorite author. ="Carrots:"= Just a Little Boy. By MRS. MOLESWORTH. With Illustrations by WALTER CRANE. 12mo, cloth, price 75 cents. "One of the cleverest and most pleasing stories it has been our good fortune to meet with for some time. Carrots and his sister are delightful little beings, whom to read about is at once to become very fond of."--_Examiner._ "A genuine children's book; we've seen 'em seize it, and read it greedily. Children are first-rate critics, and thoroughly appreciate Walter Crane's Illustrations."--_Punch._ =Mopsa the Fairy.= By JEAN INGELOW. With Eight page Illustrations. 12mo, cloth, price 75 cents. "Mrs. Ingelow is, to our mind, the most charming of all living writers for children, and 'Mopsa' alone ought to give her a kind of pre-emptive right to the love and gratitude of our young folks. It requires genius to conceive a purely imaginary work which must of necessity deal with the supernatural, without running into a mere riot of fantastic absurdity; but genius Miss Ingelow has and the story of 'Jack' is as careless and joyous, but as delicate as a picture of childhood."--_Eclectic._ =A Jaunt Through Java=: The Story of a Journey to the Sacred Mountain. By Edward S. Ellis. 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. The central interest of this story is found in the thrilling adventures of two cousins, Hermon and Eustace Hadley, on their trip across the island of Java, from Samarang to the Sacred Mountain. In a land where the Royal Bengal tiger runs at large; where the rhinoceros and other fierce beasts are to be met with at unexpected moments; it is but natural that the heroes of this book should have a lively experience. Hermon not only distinguishes himself by killing a full grown tiger at short range, but meets with the most startling adventure of the journey. There is much in this narrative to instruct as well as entertain the reader, and so deftly has Mr. Ellis used his material that there is not a dull page in the book. The two heroes are brave, manly young fellows, bubbling over with boyish independence. They cope with the many difficulties that arise during the trip in a fearless way that is bound to win the admiration of every lad who is so fortunate as to read their adventures. =Wrecked on Spider Island=; or, How Ned Rogers Found the Treasure. By JAMES OTIS. 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. A "down-east" plucky lad who ships as cabin boy, not from love of adventure, but because it is the only course remaining by which he can gain a livelihood. While in his bunk, seasick, Ned Rogers hears the captain and mate discussing their plans for the willful wreck of the brig in order to gain the insurance. Once it is known he is in possession of the secret the captain maroons him on Spider Island, explaining to the crew that the boy is afflicted with leprosy. While thus involuntarily playing the part of a Crusoe, Ned discovers a wreck submerged in the sand, and overhauling the timbers for the purpose of gathering material with which to build a hut finds a considerable amount of treasure. Raising the wreck; a voyage to Havana under sail; shipping there a crew and running for Savannah; the attempt of the crew to seize the little craft after learning of the treasure on board, and, as a matter of course, the successful ending of the journey, all serve to make as entertaining a story of sea life as the most captious boy could desire. =Geoff and Jim=: A Story of School Life. By ISMAY THORN. Illustrated by A. G. WALKER. 12mo, cloth, price 75 cents. "This is a prettily told story of the life spent by two motherless bairns at a small preparatory school. Both Geoff and Jim are very lovable characters, only Jim is the more so; and the scrapes he gets into and the trials he endures will, no doubt, interest a large circle of young readers."--_Church Times._ "This is a capital children's story, the characters well portrayed, and the book tastefully bound and well illustrated."--_Schoolmaster._ "The story can be heartily recommended as a present for boys."--_Standard._ =The Castaways=; or, On the Florida Reefs. By JAMES OTIS. 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. This tale smacks of the salt sea. It is just the kind of story that the majority of boys yearn for. From the moment that the Sea Queen dispenses with the services of the tug in lower New York bay till the breeze leaves her becalmed off the coast of Florida, one can almost hear the whistle of the wind through her rigging, the creak of her straining cordage as she heels to the leeward, and feel her rise to the snow-capped waves which her sharp bow cuts into twin streaks of foam. Off Marquesas Keys she floats in a dead calm. Ben Clark, the hero of the story, and Jake, the cook, spy a turtle asleep upon the glassy surface of the water. They determine to capture him, and take a boat for that purpose, and just as they succeed in catching him a thick fog cuts them off from the vessel, and then their troubles begin. They take refuge on board a drifting hulk, a storm arises and they are cast ashore upon a low sandy key. Their adventures from this point cannot fail to charm the reader. As a writer for young people Mr. Otis is a prime favorite. His style is captivating, and never for a moment does he allow the interest to flag. In "The Castaways" he is at his best. =Tom Thatcher's Fortune.= By HORATIO ALGER, JR. 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. Like all of Mr. Alger's heroes, Tom Thatcher is a brave, ambitious, unselfish boy. He supports his mother and sister on meager wages earned as a shoe-pegger in John Simpson's factory. The story begins with Tom's discharge from the factory, because Mr. Simpson felt annoyed with the lad for interrogating him too closely about his missing father. A few days afterward Tom learns that which induces him to start overland for California with the view of probing the family mystery. He meets with many adventures. Ultimately he returns to his native village, bringing consternation to the soul of John Simpson, who only escapes the consequences of his villainy by making full restitution to the man whose friendship he had betrayed. The story is told in that entertaining way which has made Mr. Alger's name a household word in so many homes. =Birdie=: A Tale of Child Life. By H. L. CHILDE-PEMBERTON. Illustrated by H. W. RAINEY. 12mo, cloth, price 75 cents. "The story is quaint and simple, but there is a freshness about it that makes one hear again the ringing laugh and the cheery shout of children at play which charmed his earlier years."--_New York Express._ =Popular Fairy Tales.= By the BROTHERS GRIMM. Profusely Illustrated, 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. "From first to last, almost without exception, these stories are delightful."--_Athenæum._ =With Lafayette at Yorktown=: A Story of How Two Boys Joined the Continental Army. By JAMES OTIS. 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. The two boys are from Portsmouth, N. H., and are introduced in August, 1781, when on the point of leaving home to enlist in Col. Scammell's regiment, then stationed near New York City. Their method of traveling is on horseback, and the author has given an interesting account of what was expected from boys in the Colonial days. The lads, after no slight amount of adventure, are sent as messengers--not soldiers--into the south to find the troops under Lafayette. Once with that youthful general they are given employment as spies, and enter the British camp, bringing away valuable information. The pictures of camp-life are carefully drawn, and the portrayal of Lafayette's character is thoroughly well done. The story is wholesome in tone, as are all of Mr. Otis' works. There is no lack of exciting incident which the youthful reader craves, but it is healthful excitement brimming with facts which every boy should be familiar with, and while the reader is following the adventures of Ben Jaffreys and Ned Allen he is acquiring a fund of historical lore which will remain in his memory long after that which he has memorized from text-books has been forgotten. =Lost in the Canon=: Sam Willett's Adventures on the Great Colorado. By ALFRED R. CALHOUN. 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. This story hinges on a fortune left to Sam Willett, the hero, and the fact that it will pass to a disreputable relative if the lad dies before he shall have reached his majority. The Vigilance Committee of Hurley's Gulch arrest Sam's father and an associate for the crime of murder. Their lives depend on the production of the receipt given for money paid. This is in Sam's possession at the camp on the other side of the cañon. A messenger is dispatched to get it. He reaches the lad in the midst of a fearful storm which floods the cañon. His father's peril urges Sam to action. A raft is built on which the boy and his friends essay to cross the torrent. They fail to do so, and a desperate trip down the stream ensues. How the party finally escape from the horrors of their situation and Sam reaches Hurley's Gulch in the very nick of time, is described in a graphic style that stamps Mr. Calhoun as a master of his art. =Jack=: A Topsy Turvy Story. By C. M. CRAWLEY-BOEVEY. With upward of Thirty Illustrations by H. J. A. MILES. 12mo, cloth, price 75 cents. "The illustrations deserve particular mention, as they add largely to the interest of this amusing volume for children. Jack falls asleep with his mind full of the subject of the fishpond, and is very much surprised presently to find himself an inhabitant of Waterworld, where he goes though wonderful and edifying adventures. A handsome and pleasant book."--_Literary World._ =Search for the Silver City=: A Tale of Adventure in Yucatan. By JAMES OTIS. 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. Two American lads, Teddy Wright and Neal Emery, embark on the steam yacht Day Dream for a short summer cruise to the tropics. Homeward bound the yacht is destroyed by fire. All hands take to the boats, but during the night the boat is cast upon the coast of Yucatan. They come across a young American named Cummings, who entertains them with the story of the wonderful Silver City, of the Chan Santa Cruz Indians. Cummings proposes with the aid of a faithful Indian ally to brave the perils of the swamp and carry off a number of the golden images from the temples. Pursued with relentless vigor for days their situation is desperate. At last their escape is effected in an astonishing manner. Mr. Otis has built his story on an historical foundation. It is so full of exciting incidents that the reader is quite carried away with the novelty and realism of the narrative. =Frank Fowler, the Cash Boy.= By HORATIO ALGER, JR. 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. Thrown upon his own resources Frank Fowler, a poor boy, bravely determines to make a living for himself and his foster-sister Grace. Going to New York he obtains a situation as cash boy in a dry goods store. He renders a service to a wealthy old gentleman named Wharton, who takes a fancy to the lad. Frank, after losing his place as cash boy, is enticed by an enemy to a lonesome part of New Jersey and held a prisoner. This move recoils upon the plotter, for it leads to a clue that enables the lad to establish his real identity. Mr. Alger's stories are not only unusually interesting, but they convey a useful lesson of pluck and manly independence. =Budd Boyd's Triumph=; or, the Boy Firm of Fox Island. By WILLIAM P. CHIPMAN. 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. The scene of this story is laid on the upper part of Narragansett Bay, and the leading incidents have a strong salt water flavor. Owing to the conviction of his father for forgery and theft, Budd Boyd is compelled to leave his home and strike out for himself. Chance brings Budd in contact with Judd Floyd. The two boys, being ambitious and clear sighted, form a partnership to catch and sell fish. The scheme is successfully launched, but the unexpected appearance on the scene of Thomas Bagsley, the man whom Budd believes guilty of the crimes attributed to his father, leads to several disagreeable complications that nearly caused the lad's ruin. His pluck and good sense, however, carry him through his troubles. In following the career of the boy firm of Boyd & Floyd, the youthful reader will find a useful lesson--that industry and perseverance are bound to lead to ultimate success. =The Errand Boy=; or, How Phil Brent Won Success. By HORATIO ALGER, JR. 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. The career of "The Errand Boy" embraces the city adventures of a smart country lad who at an early age was abandoned by his father. Philip was brought up by a kind-hearted innkeeper named Brent. The death of Mrs. Brent paved the way for the hero's subsequent troubles. Accident introduces him to the notice of a retired merchant in New York, who not only secures him the situation of errand boy but thereafter stands as his friend. An unexpected turn of fortune's wheel, however, brings Philip and his father together. In "The Errand Boy" Philip Brent is possessed of the same sterling qualities so conspicuous in all of the previous creations of this delightful writer for our youth. =The Slate Picker=: The Story of a Boy's Life in the Coal Mines. By HARRY PRENTICE. 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. This is a story of a boy's life in the coal mines of Pennsylvania. There are many thrilling situations, notably that of Ben Burton's leap into the "lion's mouth"--the yawning shute in the breakers--to escape a beating at the hands of the savage Spilkins, the overseer. Gracie Gordon is a little angel in rags, Terence O'Dowd is a manly, sympathetic lad, and Enoch Evans, the miner-poet, is a big-hearted, honest fellow, a true friend to all whose burdens seem too heavy for them to bear. Ben Burton, the hero, had a hard road to travel, but by grit and energy he advanced step by step until he found himself called upon to fill the position of chief engineer of the Kohinoor Coal Company. =A Runaway Brig=; or, An Accidental Cruise. By JAMES OTIS. 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. "A Runaway Brig" is a sea tale, pure and simple, and that's where it strikes a boy's fancy. The reader can look out upon the wide shimmering sea as it flashes back the sunlight, and imagine himself afloat with Harry Vandyne, Walter Morse, Jim Libby and that old shell-back, Bob Brace, on the brig Bonita, which lands on one of the Bahama keys. Finally three strangers steal the craft, leaving the rightful owners to shift for themselves aboard a broken-down tug. The boys discover a mysterious document which enables them to find a buried treasure, then a storm comes on and the tug is stranded. At last a yacht comes in sight and the party with the treasure is taken off the lonely key. The most exacting youth is sure to be fascinated with this entertaining story. =Fairy Tales and Stories.= By HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN. Profusely Illustrated, 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. "If I were asked to select a child's library I should name these three volumes 'English,' 'Celtic,' and 'Indian Fairy Tales,' with Grimm and Hans Andersen's Fairy Tales."--_Independent._ =The Island Treasure=; or, Harry Darrel's Fortune. By FRANK H. CONVERSE. 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. Harry Darrel, an orphan, having received a nautical training on a school-ship, is bent on going to sea with a boyish acquaintance named Dan Plunket. A runaway horse changes his prospects. Harry saves Dr. Gregg from drowning and the doctor presents his preserver with a bit of property known as Gregg's Island, and makes the lad sailing-master of his sloop yacht. A piratical hoard is supposed to be hidden somewhere on the island. After much search and many thwarted plans, at last Dan discovers the treasure and is the means of finding Harry's father. Mr. Converse's stories possess a charm of their own which is appreciated by lads who delight in good healthy tales that smack of salt water. =The Boy Explorers=: The Adventures of Two Boys in Alaska. By HARRY PRENTICE. 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. Two boys, Raymond and Spencer Manning, travel from San Francisco to Alaska to join their father in search of their uncle, who, it is believed, was captured and detained by the inhabitants of a place called the "Heart of Alaska." On their arrival at Sitka the boys with an Indian guide set off across the mountains. The trip is fraught with perils that test the lads' courage to the utmost. Reaching the Yukon River they build a raft and float down the stream, entering the Mysterious River, from which they barely escape with their lives, only to be captured by natives of the Heart of Alaska. All through their exciting adventures the lads demonstrate what can be accomplished by pluck and resolution, and their experience makes one of the most interesting tales ever written. =The Treasure Finders=: A Boy's Adventures in Nicaragua. By JAMES OTIS. 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. Roy and Dean Coloney, with their guide Tongla, leave their father's indigo plantation to visit the wonderful ruins of an ancient city. The boys eagerly explore the dismantled temples of an extinct race and discover three golden images cunningly hidden away. They escape with the greatest difficulty; by taking advantage of a festive gathering they seize a canoe and fly down the river. Eventually they reach safety with their golden prizes. Mr. Otis is the prince of story tellers, for he handles his material with consummate skill. We doubt if he has ever written a more entertaining story than "The Treasure Finders." =Household Fairy Tales.= By the BROTHERS GRIMM. Profusely Illustrated, 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. "As a collection of fairy tales to delight children of all ages this work ranks second to none."--_Daily Graphic._ =Dan the Newsboy.= By HORATIO ALGER, JR. 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. The reader is introduced to Dan Mordaunt and his mother living in a poor tenement, and the lad is pluckily trying to make ends meet by selling papers in the streets of New York. A little heiress of six years is confided to the care of the Mordaunts. At the same time the lad obtains a position in a wholesale house. He soon demonstrates how valuable he is to the firm by detecting the bookkeeper in a bold attempt to rob his employers. The child is kidnaped and Dan tracks the child to the house where she is hidden, and rescues her. The wealthy aunt of the little heiress is so delighted with Dan's courage and many good qualities that she adopts him as her heir, and the conclusion of the book leaves the hero on the high road to every earthly desire. =Tony the Hero=: A Brave Boy's Adventure with a Tramp. By HORATIO ALGER, JR. 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. Tony, a sturdy bright-eyed boy of fourteen, is under the control of Rudolph Rugg, a thorough rascal, shiftless and lazy, spending his time tramping about the country. After much abuse Tony runs away and gets a job as stable boy in a country hotel. Tony is heir to a large estate in England, and certain persons find it necessary to produce proof of the lad's death. Rudolph for a consideration hunts up Tony and throws him down a deep well. Of course Tony escapes from the fate provided for him, and by a brave act makes a rich friend, with whom he goes to England, where he secures his rights and is prosperous. The fact that Mr. Alger is the author of this entertaining book will at once recommend it to all juvenile readers. =A Young Hero=; or, Fighting to Win. By EDWARD S. ELLIS. 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. This story tells how a valuable solid silver service was stolen from the Misses Perkinpine, two very old and simple minded ladies. Fred Sheldon, the hero of this story and a friend of the old ladies, undertakes to discover the thieves and have them arrested. After much time spent in detective work, he succeeds in discovering the silver plate and winning the reward for its restoration. During the narrative a circus comes to town and a thrilling account of the escape of the lion from its cage, with its recapture, is told in Mr. Ellis' most fascinating style. Every boy will be glad to read this delightful book. =The Days of Bruce=: A Story from Scottish History. By GRACE AGUILAR. Illustrated, 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. "There is a delightful freshness, sincerity and vivacity about all of Grace Aguilar's stories which cannot fail to win the interest and admiration of every lover of good reading."--_Boston Beacon._ =Tom the Bootblack=; or, The Road to Success. By HORATIO ALGER, JR. 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. A bright, enterprising lad was Tom the bootblack. He was not at all ashamed of his humble calling, though always on the lookout to better himself. His guardian, old Jacob Morton, died, leaving him a small sum of money and a written confession that Tom, instead of being of humble origin, was the son and heir of a deceased Western merchant, and had been defrauded out of his just rights by an unscrupulous uncle. The lad started for Cincinnati to look up his heritage. But three years passed away before he obtained his first clue. Mr. Grey, the uncle, did not hesitate to employ a ruffian to kill the lad. The plan failed, and Gilbert Grey, once Tom the bootblack, came into a comfortable fortune. This is one of Mr. Alger's best stories. =Captured by Zulus=: A story of Trapping in Africa. By HARRY PRENTICE. 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. This story details the adventures of two lads, Dick Elsworth and Bob Harvey, in the wilds of South Africa, for the purpose of obtaining a supply of zoological curiosities. By stratagem the Zulus capture Dick and Bob and take them to their principal kraal or village. The lads escape death by digging their way out of the prison hut by night. They are pursued, and after a rough experience the boys eventually rejoin the expedition and take part in several wild animal hunts. The Zulus finally give up pursuit and the expedition arrives at the coast without further trouble. Mr. Prentice has a delightful method of blending fact with fiction. He tells exactly how wild-beast collectors secure specimens on their native stamping grounds, and these descriptions make very entertaining reading. =Tom the Ready=; or, Up from the Lowest. By RANDOLPH HILL. 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. This is a dramatic narrative of the unaided rise of a fearless, ambitious boy from the lowest round of fortune's ladder--the gate of the poorhouse--to wealth and the governorship of his native State. Thomas Seacomb begins life with a purpose. While yet a schoolboy he conceives and presents to the world the germ of the Overland Express Co. At the very outset of his career jealousy and craft seek to blast his promising future. Later he sets out to obtain a charter for a railroad line in connection with the express business. Now he realizes what it is to match himself against capital. Yet he wins and the railroad is built. Only an uncommon nature like Tom's could successfully oppose such a combine. How he manages to win the battle is told by Mr. Hill in a masterful way that thrills the reader and holds his attention and sympathy to the end. =Roy Gilbert's Search=: A Tale of the Great Lakes. By WM. P. CHIPMAN. 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. A deep mystery hangs over the parentage of Roy Gilbert. He arranges with two schoolmates to make a tour of the Great Lakes on a steam launch. The three boys leave Erie on the launch and visit many points of interest on the lakes. Soon afterward the lad is conspicuous in the rescue of an elderly gentleman and a lady from a sinking yacht. Later on the cruise of the launch is brought to a disastrous termination and the boys narrowly escape with their lives. The hero is a manly, self-reliant boy, whose adventures will be followed with interest. =The Young Scout=; The Story of a West Point Lieutenant. By EDWARD S. ELLIS. 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. The crafty Apache chief Geronimo but a few years ago was the most terrible scourge of the southwest border. The author has woven, in a tale of thrilling interest, all the incidents of Geronimo's last raid. The hero is Lieutenant James Decker, a recent graduate of West Point. Ambitious to distinguish himself so as to win well-deserved promotion, the young man takes many a desperate chance against the enemy and on more than one occasion narrowly escapes with his life. The story naturally abounds in thrilling situations, and being historically correct, it is reasonable to believe it will find great favor with the boys. In our opinion Mr. Ellis is the best writer of Indian stories now before the public. =Adrift in the Wilds=: The Adventures of Two Shipwrecked Boys. By EDWARD S. ELLIS. 12mo, cloth, price, $1.00. Elwood Brandon and Howard Lawrence, cousins and schoolmates, accompanied by a lively Irishman called O'Rooney, are en route for San Francisco. Off the coast of California the steamer takes fire. The two boys and their companion reach the shore with several of the passengers. While O'Rooney and the lads are absent inspecting the neighborhood O'Rooney has an exciting experience and young Brandon becomes separated from his party. He is captured by hostile Indians, but is rescued by an Indian whom the lads had assisted. This is a very entertaining narrative of Southern California in the days immediately preceding the construction of the Pacific railroads. Mr. Ellis seems to be particularly happy in this line of fiction, and the present story is fully as entertaining as anything he has ever written. =The Red Fairy Book.= Edited by ANDREW LANG. Profusely Illustrated, 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. "A gift-book that will charm any child, and all older folk who have been fortunate enough to retain their taste for the old nursery stories."--_Literary World._ =The Boy Cruisers=; or, Paddling in Florida. By ST. GEORGE RATHBORNE. 12mo, cloth, price, $1.00. Boys who like an admixture of sport and adventure will find this book just to their taste. We promise them that they will not go to sleep over the rattling experiences of Andrew George and Roland Carter, who start on a canoe trip along the Gulf coast, from Key West to Tampa, Florida. Their first adventure is with a pair of rascals who steal their boats. Next they run into a gale in the Gulf and have a lively experience while it lasts. After that they have a lively time with alligators and divers varieties of the finny tribe. Andrew gets into trouble with a band of Seminole Indians and gets away without having his scalp raised. After this there is no lack of fun till they reach their destination. That Mr. Rathborne knows just how to interest the boys is apparent at a glance, and lads who are in search of a rare treat will do well to read this entertaining story. =Guy Harris=: The Runaway. By HARRY CASTLEMON. 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. Guy Harris lived in a small city on the shore of one of the Great Lakes. His head became filled with quixotic notions of going West to hunt grizzlies, in fact, Indians. He is persuaded to go to sea, and gets a glimpse of the rough side of life in a sailor's boarding house. He ships on a vessel and for five months leads a hard life. He deserts his ship at San Francisco and starts out to become a backwoodsman, but rough experiences soon cure him of all desire to be a hunter. At St. Louis he becomes a clerk and for a time he yields to the temptations of a great city. The book will not only interest boys generally on account of its graphic style, but will put many facts before their eyes in a new light. This is one of Castlemon's most attractive stories. =The Train Boy.= By Horatio Alger, Jr. 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. Paul Palmer was a wide-awake boy of sixteen who supported his mother and sister by selling books and papers on one of the trains running between Chicago and Milwaukee. He detects a young man named Luke Denton in the act of picking the pocket of a young lady, and also incurs the enmity of his brother Stephen, a worthless follow. Luke and Stephen plot to ruin Paul, but their plans are frustrated. In a railway accident many passengers are killed, but Paul is fortunate enough to assist a Chicago merchant, who out of gratitude takes him into his employ. Paul is sent to manage a mine in Custer City and executes his commission with tact and judgment and is well started on the road to business prominence. This is one of Mr. Alger's most attractive stories and is sure to please all readers. Transcriber's Note: Italic text is denoted by _underscores_ and bold text by =equal signs=. Punctuation has been standardised. The word assauge was changed to assuage. Variations in spelling, including dialect, have been retained as in the original publication. 
30860	----	[Transcriber's note: The source book was missing pages 145-6, and 159-160, and many of its illustrations. Should you happen to have this book, with the missing material, please email their scans to Project Gutenberg's (www.gutenberg.org) Errata reporting email address.] [Frontispiece: "SHE FILLED HER APRON WITH THE CRISP, FRESH COOKIES."] RUBY AT SCHOOL The Third Volume of the Ruby Series BY MINNIE E. PAULL AUTHOR OF "RUTH AND RUBY," "RUBY'S UPS AND DOWNS," "PRINCE DIMPLE SERIES," "DOROTHY DARLING," ETC. BOSTON ESTES AND LAURIAT PUBLISHERS Copyright, 1894, BY ESTES AND LAURIAT. University Press: JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A. TABLE OF CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. RUBY IN MISCHIEF II. CARRYING OUT HER PLAN III. LOOKING FOR RUBY IV. CONSEQUENCES V. BOARDING-SCHOOL VI. PREPARATIONS VII. MORE PREPARATIONS VIII. READY IX. THE JOURNEY X. MAKING FRIENDS XI. AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE XII. MAKING ACQUAINTANCE XIII. GETTING SETTLED XIV. SCHOOL XV. BEGINNING SCHOOL XVI. MAUDE'S TROUBLES XVII. LEARNING XVIII. MISADVENTURES XIX. SURPRISES XX. PERSIMMONS XXI. MAUDE XXII. SUNDAY AT SCHOOL XXIII. GETTING READY FOR CHRISTMAS XXIV. FINIS ILLUSTRATIONS. "SHE FILLED HER APRON WITH THE CRISP, FRESH COOKIES" . . . _Frontispiece_ RUBY AND HER MOTHER (missing from book) RUBY MEETING MAUDE AT THE STATION (missing) RUBY WRITING A LETTER HOME "MRS. BOARDMAN WAS VERY PATIENT WITH THE SPOILED CHILD" (missing) MISS KETCHUM AND THE CATERPILLARS (missing) "OH, IT HAS DONE SOMETHING TO MY MOUTH!" (missing) READING THE INVITATION TO AGNES (missing) RUBY AT SCHOOL. CHAPTER I. RUBY IN MISCHIEF. It does seem quite too bad to begin a new Ruby book with Ruby in mischief the very first thing; and yet what can I do but tell you about it? for it is very probable that if she had not been in this particular piece of mischief, this story would never have been written. "Nobody but Ruby would ever have thought of such a thing," Ann exclaimed, when it was discovered, and it really did seem as if Ruby thought of naughty things to do that would never have entered any one else's head. Ruby had certainly been having one of her "bad streaks," as Nora called her particularly mischievous times, and perhaps this was because Ruby had been left to herself more than she had ever been in all her life before. Mamma was sick, and she was only able to have Ruby come into her room when the little girl was willing to be very quiet and move about gently, so as not to disturb her; and she knew very little of what Ruby was about in the long hours which she spent in play. All summer Ruby had been running wild, coming into the house only to eat her meals, or towards evening nestling down beside mamma, to talk to her for a little while about what she had been doing all day. I am afraid it was not very often that Ruby told her of the many things she had been doing of which she knew mamma would not approve at all. When Ruby went over to Mrs. Warren's house to visit Ruthy, Mrs. Warren tried to have her do as she wished her own little girl to do, but she found it a very much harder matter to govern quick-tempered, impulsive Ruby than it was to guide her own gentle little daughter, and she often sighed as she thought how distressed Ruby's mamma would be if she knew how self-willed and mischievous her little daughter was growing without her mother's care. Ruby's papa was very busy with his patients, and when he was at home he spent most of his time in the invalid's room, so he did not have any idea how much the little girl needed some one to look after her, and see that she did not get into mischief. Ann did her best to take care of Ruby, but she had more work to do than usual, so she had very little time to keep watch of the little girl; and besides, Ruby would not mind Ann unless she said she would tell Dr. Harper if Ruby was naughty, and Ann did not like to complain of Ruby if she could help it. Altogether you can see that Ruby had a pretty good opportunity to be just as naughty as she wanted to be; and every day it did seem as if she thought of more mischievous things to do than she had ever done in all her life put together before. Ruby was having a very nice time this afternoon all by herself. It would have been nicer to have had Ruthy to help her enjoy it, but Mrs. Warren was not willing to let Ruthy go over to Mrs. Harper's, now that there was no one to see what the two little girls were about. Ruthy could be trusted not to get into any mischief by herself, but sometimes she yielded to Ruby's coaxing when she had devised some piece of mischief, and then no one knew what the two little girls would do next. Some carpenters had been at work down by the stable, building a new hen-house, and Ruby had made a playhouse for herself with the boards they had left. She had leaned them up against the low branch of an old tree, with Ann's help, for the boards were rather too heavy for her to move alone, and so she had a tent-shaped house of boards in which she thought it was great fun to play. Ruby's favorite story was the "Swiss Family Robinson," and she thought that no greater happiness could befall any one than to be cast away upon a desert island. As long as there did not seem to be any prospect of a desert island before her, when the largest piece of water she had ever seen in her life was the small shallow pond where the boys got water-lilies in summer, and skated in winter, she thought the next best thing would be to live in this little house, and not go home at all, except to see her mother. She was very sure that the rest of the family would not approve of this plan at all, so she did not say anything to them about it, but determined to try it and see how she liked it, without running any chances of being forbidden. One day, when she knew Ann was busy up in her mother's room, and no one would see what she was doing, she ran up to the garret, and brought down a pair of blankets, an old comforter, and the little pillow that belonged to the crib in which she had slept when she was a baby. She carried all these out to her little playhouse in the yard, and has only just tucked away the last corner of the comforter out of sight, when she heard the sound of wheels as her father's buggy drove into the yard. Ruby ran out to meet him, afraid that he might come and look into her little wooden tent, and see what she had taken from the house. She was very sure that he would not at all approve of her plan of spending the night out there alone. She slipped her hand into his, and walked up to the house with him, and then ran back to her play. After dinner she chose a time when Nora would not be in the kitchen, and carried some provisions down to her little house; for though she wanted to imitate the Swiss Family Robinson as far as possible, she was not sure that she would be able to find meals for herself as readily as they did; so, though biscuits and cookies were not at all the sort of food shipwrecked people generally eat, she thought that she had better lay in a supply of them, particularly as there were no kindly cocoanut or bread-fruit trees growing at hand. She filled her apron with the crisp fresh cookies which Ann had just made, and with biscuit from the stone crock, and then spying a little turnover which she was sure Ann had made for her, she added that to her store. It began to look quite like a castaway's tent, Ruby imagined, as she sat down in her little house and looked around. To be sure, you would hardly expect any one wrecked upon a desert island to have such a comfortable roof of boards over his head, and certainly one would not find a supply of warm, dry bed-clothing at hand, nor fresh cookies; but Ruby was quite satisfied, and she thought it would be great fun to spend the night out there all by herself, and imagine herself in the midst of a forest all alone. She shut her eyes, and as the wind rustled the branches of the tree, she pretended that she heard the waves breaking upon the shore of her desert island, and that chattering monkeys were jumping about over her head in the branches of great palm and tall cocoanut-trees. If Ruthy could only be cast away with her it would be ever so much nicer, for then she would not have to enjoy it all by herself; but she reflected that it was just as well that Ruthy could not come over and play, for she probably would be afraid to sleep out there, and would cry and want to go into the house just when the play grew the most interesting. No thought of fear entered venturesome Ruby's mind. It would be an easy matter for her to slip out of the house after she was supposed to be fast asleep in her trundle bed, which was not beside her mother's bed any longer, but in a room by itself. Ruby did not know that the the last thing her father did every night before he went to bed, was to go and take a look at his little girl, and see that she was sleeping comfortably; and very often he went into her room in the evening, soon after she had gone to sleep. Of course she knew that she was going to do a naughty thing, but I am sorry to say that Ruby did not very often let that interfere with anything she wanted to do now, she had her own way so much. She was so excited over her plan for the night that she was very quiet all the rest of the afternoon, and Ann said rather suspiciously,-- "You're up to some new mischief, Ruby Harper, I'll venture, or you would never be so quiet all at once. I know you. Now do be a good girl, and don't keep worrying your poor ma so about you." "Never you mind what I am going to do," answered Ruby, pertly, and just then Ann saw that her cookies were missing. "Well, where on earth are all my cookies?" she exclaimed. "Now, Ruby Harper, you tell me this very minute what you have been doing with them. I know just as well as anything that you never ate such a lot as that, and I don't see what you could have been doing with them. You go and get them and fetch them back to me right away." Ruby made a face at her and darted away. She was not going to bring the cookies back nor tell where they were. What would she do when she was shipwrecked if she did not have a store of provisions in her hut, as she called her little house. She knew it would not do to tell Nora about her plan, and she was so full of it that she felt as if she could not keep it to herself any longer, so she ran over to Ruthy's house. She found Ruthy playing with her paper dolls on the wide back porch, and for a few minutes she pretended that she had come over to see her paper nieces and nephews, for the children always called themselves aunts to each other's dolls. "Oh, I have got a plan to tell you about, Ruthy," she said presently. "I don't want any one to hear me telling you about it, so let's go down under the apple-tree, with the dolls." Ruthy gathered up her children, and in a few moments the two little girls were sitting side by side on the low bench, which Ruthy's father had put there just for their comfort. "It's the grandest plan," began Ruby. "Am I in it, too?" asked Ruthy, half wistfully and half fearfully. She always liked to be in Ruby's plans, and felt a little left out when her little friend wanted to do without her, and yet sometimes Ruby's plans were so very extraordinary that she did not enjoy helping to carry them out at all. "Well, you could be in it, only you see you can't very well," Ruby answered in a rather mixed up fashion. "Why can't I?" Ruthy asked. "Well, I'll tell you all about it, and then you will see that you couldn't very well," Ruby answered. "But first of all you must promise me honest true, black and blue, that you will never, never breathe a word of it to any one." "Not even to mamma?" asked Ruthy, who always felt better when she told her mother all about everything. "No, not to anyone in all the wide world," Ruthy answered. "I won't tell you a single word unless you promise, and you will be awfully sorry if I don't tell you, for this is the most splendid plan I ever made up in all my life. It is just like a book." Ruthy's curiosity overcame her scruples about knowing something which she could not tell her mother. "All right, I won't tell a single person," she said, earnestly. "Tell me what it is." "Promise across your heart," Ruby insisted, for just then the little girls had a fashion of thinking that promising across their hearts made a promise more binding than any other form of words. "I promise, honest true, black and blue, 'crost my heart," Ruthy said very earnestly, and then the two heads were put close together while Ruby whispered her wonderful secret. No one could have heard them, not even the birds in their nests up in the tree, if she had spoken aloud, but a secret always seemed so delightfully mysterious when it was whispered, that she rarely told one aloud. "I am going to be cast away on a desert island," she said, and Ruthy's blue eyes opened to their widest extent. "Why, how can you, when there is n't any desert island anywhere near here for miles and miles?" she exclaimed. "Oh, you are so stupid," Ruby exclaimed impatiently. "Of course I mean to pretend I am cast away. I am going to pretend that down by the barn is a desert island, and that little house I have built with boards is my hut, and I am going to sleep out there all by myself to-night, and I have some provisions and everything all ready." "But will you dare stay out there all alone when it gets dark?" asked Ruthy in awed tones, feeling quite satisfied that she was left out of this plan, for she knew she should never dare to do such a thing, no matter how much Ruby might want her to join her. CHAPTER II. CARRYING OUT HER PLAN. "Of course I would dare," answered Ruby, positively. "I am not such a coward as you are, Ruthy. You see, even if your mamma would let you come over and stay at my house, so you could be in the plan, it would n't be of any use, for it would be just like you to get afraid as soon as it was dark, and then you would cry and want to go back into the house." "I am afraid I would," Ruthy answered meekly, not resenting the accusation of cowardice. "I should think you would be afraid too, Ruby; and then what will your papa and mamma think when they find out in the night that you are gone." "They won't find out," answered Ruby, easily disposing of that objection. "You see I shall wait till after they think I have gone to sleep to go out to my hut. I will get most undressed to-night at bed-time and then put my nightie on over the rest of my clothes, and when papa comes in to kiss me good-night he will never think of my getting up again. Then I will creep downstairs as softly as a mouse, and out into the yard. It will be such fun to roll up in the blankets, and pretend that they are the skins of wild animals, and I shall lie awake for ever so long listening to hear if any bears come around, or lions. Oh, it will be such fun," and Ruby's eyes sparkled. Ruthy looked troubled. "I don't think it will be a bit nice," she said presently. "I don't believe your mamma would like it one single bit; and suppose somebody should carry you off when you are out there all by yourself." "You just can't make me afraid, I guess, Ruthy Warren," sniffed Ruby, scornfully. "You are such a 'fraid-cat that you never want to do anything in all your life but play paper dolls. I might have known you would n't see what fun it is to play Swiss Family Robinson. Now don't you dare tell any one a single word about it. Remember you promised across your heart." "I sha'n't tell," Ruthy answered, "but I do wish you would n't do it, Ruby. Why, I shall be as scared as anything if I wake up in the night and think that you are out there in your house all alone in the pitch dark. I should be so frightened if I was you that I would just scream and scream till some one heard me and came and got me." "I would n't have such a baby as you to stay with me," Ruby said. "I am going to do it just as sure as anything, Ruthy Warren, and if you breathe a word of it to any one so I don't get let to do it, I will never, never speak to you again as long as I live and breathe." "Of course I sha'n't tell when I promised," Ruthy replied, a little hurt at Ruby's doubting her word. "Maybe you won't do it after all, though. Perhaps when it gets dark you will be frightened." "I never get frightened," Ruby said, tossing her head. "Now I must go home, Ruthy. Come and walk part way with me, won't you?" "I'll ask mamma," Ruthy answered, and gathering up her paper dolls she ran into the house, coming back in a few minutes with two red-cheeked apples for the little girls to eat on their way, and permission to go as far as the corner with Ruby. Ruby could talk and think of nothing but her great plan for the night, and Ruthy pleaded with her in vain to give it up. The little girl was so troubled about it that she wished Ruby had not told her about it. She did not see how she would ever be able to go to bed that night, and go to sleep, thinking of her little friend out alone in her little house down by the barn. In the bottom of her heart she wished that Ruby would be caught by Ann on her way out of the house, and prevented from carrying out her plan, but she did not dare whisper this wish to Ruby, as she knew how angry it would make her to think of her plans being thwarted. By the time Ruby reached home another plan occurred to her busy brain. Nora was not far from right when she said that Ruby could think up more mischief than any three children could carry out. Suppose it should be cold in the night. Ruby could not quite remember what time in the year it was when the Swiss Family Robinson were shipwrecked, but she knew they had to make a fire. She would get some shavings and some little sticks, and get a fire all ready to light in her hut, and then if it should be cold, and she should want to light a fire, it would be all ready. This new idea added a great charm to the thought of staying out there all night. She was quite sure that she would need a fire, and she bustled around very busily when she got home, gathering up shavings from the place where the carpenters had been at work, and getting little sticks to lay upon them so that the fire would burn up readily. Then she went back to the house, and going up into the spare room, took down the match-box from the tall chest of drawers, and carried it out to the hut where it would be all ready for the night. When this was done she felt as if she could hardly wait for the sun to go down and bedtime to come. She was so excited over her grand plan that her eyes shone like stars, and her cheeks were so flushed that when her father came in, he put his hand on her cheeks to see whether she had any fever. If he had only known what a naughty plan was in Ruby's mind, he would have been more sorry than to have had his little girl sick. Of course I need not tell you that Ruby knew just how wrong it was to plan something which she knew very well her father and mother would not permit for a moment if they knew of it. But in all the years that you have known her she had not grown any less self-willed, I am sorry to say, and so she thought of nothing but of getting her own way, whether it was naughty or not. The longest day will have an end at last, and though it seemed to Ruby as if a day had never passed so slowly, yet finally the sun went down. Ruby had had her supper, had kissed mamma good-night, and bed-time had come. She took off her shoes, and her dress, and then slipping her little white night-dress on over her other clothes, she scrambled into bed, and waited for her papa to come and kiss her good-night, her heart beating so loudly with excitement that she was afraid he would hear it, and wonder what was the matter with her. I think if it had been her mother who had come in she would have wondered why only Ruby's dress and shoes were to be seen, and why the little girl had such a flushed, guilty look, and held the bed-clothes tucked up so tightly under her chin; but Ruby's papa did not notice any of these things, so Ruby was not hindered from carrying out her naughty plan. She waited for what seemed to her a very long time, and then she heard the wheels of her father's buggy going out of the yard, and knew he had gone somewhere to see a patient. She was glad, for that made one person less who would be likely to hear her when she went out. Her mamma she was sure would not hear her, for her door was closed, and if she could only get past the kitchen door without Ann discovering her, she would be safe. When she could not hear any one stirring, she got up and crept softly over to the door. The house was very still, so even the rustle of her night-dress seemed to make a noise as she stepped along the hall. Down the stairs she crept like a little thief, and at last she reached the door. Ann had been sitting with her back to the kitchen door reading when Ruby went past, so she had not noticed the little figure gliding along. Ruby stepped through the open door out upon the back porch. It was dark, and the noise of the tree toads and frogs seemed to make it more lonely than she had thought it would be. For a moment she was almost willing to give up her plan and go back to bed like a good little girl, but then she thought of Ruthy, and how she would hate to confess to her the next day that she had given up her plan after all; so she went on. Ruby was not inclined to be timid about anything, so, although it did not seem as delightful as she had imagined it would, yet she was not afraid as she ran down the yard to her little house. She was glad, however, that it was not upon a desert island. It was very nice to know that she was not surrounded by great rolling waves on every side, and that if she wished to go back to her home and her mother she could do so in a very few minutes. She crept into her hut, and finding the bedclothes rolled herself up in them. Oh, why was n't it as nice as she had thought it would be? Ruby was provoked with herself for wishing that she was back in the house curled up in her own little bed, instead of being out here in the night alone. She would not give up and go back, though, she said over and over again to herself. No; she had said that she would stay out all night, and she meant to keep her word, whether she liked it or not. If Ruby had only been half as determined to keep her good resolutions as she was to keep her bad ones, she would never have found herself in such scrapes. She rolled herself up in a little ball and drew the blanket closely about her,--not because she was cold, but because it seemed less lonesome. While she was listening to all the music of a summer's night, she fell asleep, and dreamed a very remarkable dream about sleeping in a nest swung from a cocoanut-tree, with a monkey for a bed-fellow. In the mean time very unexpected events were taking place at the house. A little while after Ruby's father had gone out to see his patient a carriage drove up from the station with a visitor. It was Ruby's Aunt Emma, who had come to make a visit of a few days, and who had written to say that she was coming, but had only discovered at the last moment that her letter had not been mailed in time for her brother to receive it before her arrival. After she had had a little talk with Ruby's mother, she was very impatient to see her little niece. "I wish I could have reached here in time to see her before she went to sleep," she said. "I am afraid if she woke up now and found you were here she would not go to sleep again all night," said Ruby's mother. "I won't wake her, but I will just go and peep at her while she is asleep," said Aunt Emma; and lighting a candle, she followed Ann into the room where Ruby was supposed to be fast asleep in her trundle-bed. Of course there was no Ruby there. The little girl was curled up in her blankets out in the yard, under her little tent of boards; and there was only a little crumpled place in the pillow to show where her head had nestled. "Why, where can she be, I wonder?" said Ann in surprise. "Hush! don't let her mother hear, or she will be worried," said Aunt Emma, who knew how easily the invalid would be alarmed. "Perhaps she has gone downstairs to get a drink of water or something." "No, I am sure she has n't been downstairs, for I have been sitting right there in the kitchen all the evening," said Ann, positively. "Oh, Miss Emma, she has got to be the witchiest girl ever you did see. She's always up to some piece of mischief or another, and it's more than any one but her mother can do to keep her in order. I try my best, but it ain't any use at all. She does just as she likes for all of me, unless I tell her father; and then it worries him so that I don't like to, when he has so much else on his mind." "I should like to know where she is now," said Miss Emma, looking very much puzzled. "There comes her father," she went on, as she heard the sound of wheels coming into the yard. "Perhaps he will know." She went downstairs softly, and met the doctor who, was very much surprised at this unexpected visitor. After he had told her how glad he was to see her, she told him that Ruby was not upstairs in her bed, and that Ann did not know where she was, and asked him if he knew what had become of the little girl. He looked very anxious. "Why, no, I have not the least idea," he said gravely. "I kissed her good-night just before I went out to make a call, and she was all right in her bed then. I do not see what could have become of her. I hope we can keep it from her mother, or she will be sadly frightened if she hears Ruby is not to be found at this hour of the night." Of course no one could imagine where Ruby had gone, and although they hunted all over the house, there was not a trace of the little girl to be seen. "Perhaps she has been walking in her sleep," suggested Aunt Emma. "She may have wandered downstairs and out into the yard while she was asleep, and been too frightened when she woke up to know how to find her way back into the house. I have heard of children doing such things." "But she could n't have gone past the door without my seeing her," said Ann, very positively. "I have been sitting right there in the kitchen all the evening, and I am sure I would have heard her, if she had gone past. I never knew Ruby to walk in her sleep; but then I would n't say she might n't have done it this time, only I know she did n't walk past the kitchen door and go out that way." "Could she have gone out the front door?" asked Aunt Emma. The doctor shook his head. "No; that would be too heavy for her to open alone, after it was locked up for the night. I fastened it myself before I went out, and it is fastened now; so she could not have gone out that way. There is her mother calling. I hope she will not ask for Ruby. She must not have this anxiety if we can spare her." CHAPTER III. LOOKING FOR RUBY. People who are sick are very quick to hear when anything is wrong, and as soon as the doctor opened the door of the sick-room, Ruby's mamma asked anxiously,-- "Is anything wrong with Ruby? Where is she?" Just then the only possible explanation of her absence occurred to the doctor, and he answered, "She is not in her bed, my dear, and I am afraid she has run away and gone over to Ruthy's to spend the night. You know she asked permission to stay all night the last time she went over there for supper, and I suppose she has made up her mind to go without permission. It is too bad in her to act this way and worry you. I will drive over after her right away, and bring her back in a few minutes." "I don't believe she would go all the way up to Ruthy's after dark," said her mother, in anxious tones. "I am afraid something has happened to her, though I cannot imagine what it could be." "Don't think about it till I bring her back safe and sound," said the doctor as he hurried away. But it was a great deal easier to give this advice than to follow it. Ruby's mamma could not help worrying about her little girl, and while naughty little Ruby was curled up in her blankets, sleeping as sweetly as a little bird in its nest, her mamma was listening to the wheels of the doctor's buggy, rolling out of the yard, with a beating heart, and wondering what had happened to the little girl who had gone to bed not two hours ago. It did not take very long to drive over to Ruthy's house, and the doctor did not wait to hitch staid old Dobbin, but jumped out and ran up the steps to the house, anxious to know whether Ruby was really there. Although he was quite sure that she must be, yet he was impatient to satisfy himself. "Is Ruby here?" were his first words, when Mr. Warren opened the door. "Why, no," Mr. Warren answered. "I don't think she has been here to-day." "Oh, yes, she was here a little while this afternoon," said Mrs. Warren coming to the door. "Why, what is the matter, doctor? Is n't Ruby at home?" "No, she went to bed all right, but a little while ago when her aunt came and went to look for her, she was gone," said the doctor, feeling as if he did not know now where to turn to look for the little runaway; for where could she possibly be at that time of night, if she had not come over to visit her little friend? "Where can the child be?" "Is n't she in the house somewhere?" asked Mrs. Warren. "No, we have looked through the house," the doctor answered. "I don't know what will become of her mother, if I have to go back without Ruby. No one could have come into the house and stolen her, that is certain, and yet I cannot conceive where she could have gone to at this hour in the evening. This is dreadful." Neither Mr. Warren nor his wife could suggest any place to look for Ruby. It was certainly a very strange thing that she could have disappeared from her bed after dark, without any one knowing anything about it. The doctor got into his buggy again and started towards home, wondering what he should do when he had to tell Ruby's mother that her little girl could not be found. If Ruby could have known what a heartache her father had, as he drove slowly homeward, dreading to take such sad news back with him, I am quite sure the little girl would have tried to be good, and not make those who loved her so anxious about her. In the mean time, Ruby had stirred uneasily in her sleep, and at last when the owl who lived in the tall elm-tree close by, gave a long, mournful hoot, she awakened, and sat up, wondering, as she rubbed her eyes open, where she was. The cool evening breeze fanned her face, and the stars looked down upon her, and all at once Ruby remembered where she had gone to sleep. In the very depths of her heart she wished that she was back again in her own little bed, with her head on her pillow, and the white spread drawn over her. It seemed so very, very desolate to be down here at the end of the garden all alone, with a long, dark walk before her if she should go back to the house; and she began to think that the Swiss Family Robinson had a better time than Robinson Crusoe, since they were all together, and poor Crusoe must often have been very lonely all by himself, before his man Friday came to live with him. If Ruthy had only been there, Ruby thought she would have made a very good man Friday, but she was quite sure that nothing would have persuaded Ruthy to stay out of doors at night. "I am not a little 'fraid-cat like Ruthy," said Ruby to herself, trying to pretend that she was not at all lonely nor frightened. "I would just as lief stay out here every night. I wonder what time it is. I guess it must be nearly morning. I was asleep just hours and hours, I think. I am dreadfully hungry, so it must be ever so long since I had my supper. I had better eat some provisions, maybe." Ruby was not really very hungry, but she wanted to be as much like the Swiss Family Robinson as possible, so she sat up and sleepily nibbled at some cookies. "I don't think these are very nice cookies," she said, as she tried to keep up the pretence that she was very hungry. "I wish they were cocoanuts. They would be ever so much nicer." "I wish this was a big, tall cocoanut-tree," Ruby went on. "And that it was just full of cocoanuts, and that some monkeys had a nest in it, and would throw me down cocoanuts whenever I wanted one. It would hurt if they hit me on the head though. I guess I would have to live under another tree, so as to be sure the cocoanuts would n't drop on me. I wonder if monkeys live in nests. Of course they don't live in bird's-nests, but maybe they take sticks up into trees, and make little nests, and--and--" Ruby nodded so hard that she woke up again. She had nearly gone to sleep sitting straight up, she was so sleepy. "I don't want to go to sleep just yet," she said. "I am going to stay awake, so. I might just as well be in bed as keep asleep out here all the time. I guess I will make a fire, and then that will be just like a real castaway." The sticks and matches were all ready, and Ruby struck a match and lighted the little fire. It was not a very large pile of sticks, and Ruby had not thought that it would make much of a blaze, but the shavings underneath, and the light, dry sticks upon the top, were very ready to take fire and make as large a blaze as they could, so Ruby was quite dismayed at the size of her fire. She was a little frightened, too. She had made the fire in the front of her little house, and she could not get past it to go out. The fence made a strong back wall to the house, over which she could not climb, and she could not possibly get away from the smoke and heat without going so near the fire that she was sure her night-gown would take fire. Suppose the boards that she used in making the house should take fire, what would become of her then. I do not wonder that Ruby was frightened when she looked at the little bonfire, crackling and snapping away as cheerily as if a frightened child was not watching it with tears in her eyes. "Oh, I shall be all burned up," she cried. "And no one will ever know what became of me. My mamma will cry and cry and wonder where Ruby is, but she will never think that I came down here and made a fire, and burned myself all entirely up. Oh, oh, I do wish I had n't. I do wish I had n't. I wonder if I screamed and screamed for papa, whether he would come down and hear me and come down and get me out. Perhaps he could n't. I don't see how anybody could get past that dreadful blaze. He would just have to see me all burning up and he could n't do one thing to save me. Oh, how sorry he would be," and Ruby cried harder than ever at the thought of her father's distress. The smoke made her eyes smart and sting, and it choked her so that she coughed and strangled, and I need not tell you that she would have given anything in the world to have been back in her own little bed again. Just then papa drove through the gate, and you can imagine how much surprised he was to see a fire under some boards down at the end of the yard. He jumped out of the buggy and went down there as quickly as he could, to find out what it was. He looked into the little house, and there beyond the fire, crying so hard that she did not see nor hear him, was the little girl he had been looking for. "Why, Ruby!" he exclaimed in amazement; and Ruby looked up, as much surprised at finding her father there, as he had been a second before when he saw her. "Oh, papa, papa, must I be all burned up?" she cried, but papa was already answering that question. He threw down the boards out of which Ruby had made her house, and striding past the fire, lifted her in his arms, and started up to the house with her. He was so glad that he had found her, and could take her back to her mother safe and unharmed, that he forgot everything else, and of course, Ruby was happy at being in those strong arms, when she had been so sure that she was going to be burned up; and all the way up to the house she resolved, as she had so many times before, that she would surely, surely be good now, for whenever she was naughty, and did things that she knew would not please her father and mother, she always got into trouble, and was not half as happy as she would have been if she had tried to please them. After all, papas and mammas did know what was best for little girls. CHAPTER IV. CONSEQUENCES. Ruby really had very good reason to be sorry for this last piece of naughtiness. By the time her papa carried her into the house they found that her mamma was very ill with the anxiety about Ruby, and her papa just let her kiss the white face once, and then he hurried her away to bed, so that he might do all that he could for the invalid. Ruby was very much surprised to find every one up in the house. She had been so sure that it was nearly morning that she could not understand how it was that, after all she had been doing, and the long sleep she had had out in her little cabin, it should only be a little after ten o'clock. It was some time before Ruby went to sleep, and in that quiet time she had a good opportunity to think how very naughty she had been. "I wish I had n't played Swiss Family Robinson," she said to herself. "I wish I had never, never heard anything about that old book. I should never have thought of it by myself, and then, of course, I would never have done such a thing. And now, it is just perfectly dreadful. I know papa thinks I have been too bad to love any more, and mamma is so sick, and Ann looked as cross at me as if she would just like to bite my head off, and I most know she will scold and scold at me to-morrow, and there, Aunt Emma had to come the first time I ever did such a thing, and now, I suppose she thinks I run away every night, and I never, never did before, and it is n't fair, so;" and Ruby cried softly. "Oh, dear, I do wish I had n't, and it don't make the least speck of difference how many times I wish I had n't now, 'cause it is too late. I wish I always knew beforehand how sorry I would be, and then I would n't do things that make me feel so dreadful bad. I wish I knew how mamma is. If she was n't sick, she would come and love me, and make me feel better; she always does when I have been doing things. It is n't my fault if I do bad things. When my mamma's sick, how can I help doing things. I should n't think anybody would 'spect me to mind Ann, cause she's so cross, and anyway she is n't my mamma, so she need n't pretend that she can tell me when I must n't do things. I won't let anybody but my mamma tell me what I must n't do, 'cept maybe my papa. I think it will be too bad for people to scold me for going out to-night, when I never had one bit a nice time. I can tell Ruthy I went, though, anyway, and she will be just as 'sprised, and she will say, 'I don't see how you ever dared, Ruby Harper.' Ruthy would n't dare go out in the dark. She is a real little 'fraid-cat, that is what she is. I 'm glad I am not so 'fraid of everything." Ruby flounced about upon her pillow. She wanted to find fault with some one else, so as not to have to listen to what her conscience was telling her about herself, but it was not of much use to try to find fault with gentle little Ruthy. Ruby knew that even if she had not been afraid of going out in the dark, she would never have done anything that she knew would make her mamma and papa feel so badly. Ruthy did things sometimes that she ought not to do, and sometimes forgot her tasks, but it was rarely, if ever, that she deliberately planned a piece of mischief; and if she was concerned in one, it was almost always because Ruby had coaxed her into it. "If Ann was n't so cross, I don't believe I would do so many things," Ruby went on, still trying to find some one else to blame. "I never did so many things when mamma was well. I am going to ask her to send Ann away, 'cause it is her fault." But Ruby know better than that. It was because she was so very sure that it had been all her fault that she had done something that she had known perfectly well would displease her mamma and papa if they should know it, and that had worried her papa and made her mamma worse, that she was so anxious to lay the blame upon some one else. She turned her pillow over and over, and thumped it at last, she grew so impatient because she could not go to sleep. "I don't think it is very pleasant to stay awake all night, and keep thinking about things," she said. "Oh, dearie me, I do wish I was asleep. I wonder if people think when they are asleep. They can't tell whether they do think or not, I s'pose, 'cause they 're asleep and don't know it. I wish I was asleep, anyway. I wish I had n't gone down into that yard. I guess I do know I ought n't to have done it, and I am just as sorry as I can be. I could n't be any more sorry if papa should call me Rebecca Harper, and scold me like everything, and if mamma should scold me, too. I guess I won't say anything even if Ann scolds me, for I know I ought not to have done such a dreadful thing. Suppose I had been all burned up; and that is just what would have happened if my papa had not come! I wonder how he happened to come down into the yard and see the fire. I never s'posed he would come. I thought I was just going to be all burned up, so I did. Was n't it dreadful to be so close to a fire, and not be able to get away? I would have been all burned up by this time, and my house would have been all burned up, too, and no one would ever have known what became of me. Mamma would always have said, 'I wonder where Ruby could possibly have gone, and why she never, never comes home,' and papa would worry and worry, and Ruthy would have been so lonely, and they would never, never have known." At the thought of such sad consequences to her mischief, Ruby cried a little, and before her tears had dried, she was fast asleep, so she did not know how ill her mamma was all night, nor how great had been the consequences of her mischief. In the morning when Ruby waked up, she found Ann by her bedside. "Here is your breakfast," said Ann, putting down a tray with Ruby's bowl of bread and milk upon it, on a little table. "Your papa says you are to stay here till he comes up and lets you out. Oh, Ruby, how could you be so naughty and worry your poor mamma? You don't know how sick you made her with your cutting up." Ann did not speak angrily, but she seemed to feel so badly about Mrs. Harper's illness that Ruby felt very subdued and did not try to defend herself as usual. "I don't want to stay up here. I want to go down and eat my breakfast with Aunt Emma," she said, presently, turning her head away, so Ann might not see the tears which were coming into her eyes. "Your papa said you must stay up here," Ann repeated, and without saying anything more, she went out, and Ruby heard the bolt slide, and knew that she was a prisoner. "I don't like to be locked in. I just won't be," she said angrily; and she thought she would jump up and go and pound at the door until some one should come to unfasten it; but then she remembered how sick Ann had said her mamma was, and she knew that a noise would disturb her; and more than that,--it would make her feel so badly to know that Ruby was in a temper. There was something else that Ruby remembered, too. The last time her papa had told her to stay in her own room till he should come to let her out, he had trusted her and had not fastened the door; and when he went upstairs, he had found that Ruby had gone out, and was down in the yard playing with her kitten, just as if she was not in disgrace; so it was no wonder that he could not trust her this time. Ruby sat down on the side of the bed very meekly when she remembered all this, and I am glad to say, really resolved that as far as she could she would make up for having been so naughty last night, by trying to be as good as possible now, and not give any more trouble to her mother. Downstairs her father and Aunt Emma were eating their breakfast, and her father was saying sadly,-- "I am sure I don't know what to do with the child. I am so busy with my patients that I can hardly take the time to be with her mother as much as I should be, and Ann does not seem to be able to make her mind. I know she is always getting into mischief, and she certainly does seem to think of more extraordinary things to do than any child I ever knew. She might have been badly burned last night, if I had not seen the blaze, and even if she had escaped herself, the fire might have spread to the boards and fence, and then there is no knowing where it would have stopped. Her mother will never get well while she worries about Ruby, and you see for yourself what harm last night worry did her. I declare I don't know what to do." "I have a plan," said Aunt Emma, after a little thought. "I will take Ruby back to school with me." CHAPTER V. BOARDING-SCHOOL. "Take Ruby to school with you?" repeated Dr. Harper in surprise. "Yes, I think that is the only thing to be done," Aunt Emma answered. "Of course you would miss her, but you would know that she was in safe keeping, and that I would take good care of her, and make her as happy as possible; and then without the anxiety of her whereabouts or her doings upon her mind, her mother would have a better chance to get well. You see you never can know what the child will do next, and if she had not made that fire she might not have been found until morning, and you know in what a state her mother would have been by that time. I have a week yet before I must go back to teach, and I will get her ready and take her back with me." At first it seemed to Dr. Harper as if he could not possibly let his only little daughter go away to boarding-school, even with her aunt, but as he thought more about it, and talked it over with Aunt Emma, he decided that it was the only thing to do with self-willed, mischievous little Ruby, until her mother should be better again, and able to control her. The next thing to do was to secure her mother's consent, and Dr. Harper said,-- "I am afraid it will take some time to persuade her that she can let Ruby go away from her. She will miss her so much, and will worry lest Ruby should be homesick." He was very much surprised, when he suggested the plan, to hear her say,-- "That is just what I have been thinking about myself. If I only knew that she was being taken good care of, and could not get into any more mischief, I would be willing to let her go, for I shall never have another easy moment about her while I am too sick to take care of her myself. I do not know what she will do next." That was just the trouble. Nobody ever knew what Ruby was going to do next, and as she generally got into mischief first, and then did her thinking about it afterwards, one might be pretty sure that she would carry out any plan that came into her head, whatever its consequences might be. Dr. Harper was seriously displeased with his little daughter, and he determined to give her ample time to think over her naughty conduct; so after he had eaten his breakfast, and done all that he could for the invalid, he went out to visit his patients, leaving her shut up in her room, where she could not get into any more mischief for a few hours at any rate. Ruby had dressed herself and eaten her breakfast, feeling very lonely and penitent, and then she expected that her papa would come and let her out. She wanted to go in to her mamma's room and tell her how sorry she was that she had worried her so the night before; but the minutes went by, and still her father did not come, and when at last Ruby heard his buggy wheels going past the house, she knew that he meant to leave her by herself until he should come back. It seemed a long, long time to Ruby, though it was only two hours really, and she had time to think of all that had happened, and all that might have happened before her papa came back. Ruby heard him drive around to the stable, and she knew just about how long it would take him to walk up to the house. Presently she heard his step upon the porch, and then he came upstairs, and went first into her mother's room, to see how she was, and then after a few minutes he came out, and Ruby heard him coming towards her room. The moment he opened the door she ran and threw herself into his arms. "I am so sorry; indeed I am sorry, papa," she cried, bursting into tears. Her father sat down, and took her up on his knee. "And you have made us all very sorry, Ruby," he answered. "Your mother is very much worse, because she had such a fright last night. Just think what it was when we thought you were safely asleep for the night to find that you had disappeared, without any one knowing where you had gone. I drove over to Ruthy's to look for you; and I do not know what I should have done if I had not seen the fire, and found you in the yard. I should not have had the least idea where to look for you; and I do not think you can realize what serious consequences your naughtiness might have had. And they might have been very dangerous ones to yourself too. If your clothes had taken fire, as they easily might have done, I cannot bear to think what would have happened to my little daughter." Ruby cried on, with her face hidden in her father's shoulder. "Oh, I am so sorry. You can do anything you like to me, papa; indeed, you can," she sobbed. "Perhaps you don't b'lieve how sorry I am, but I never was more sorry for anything; never, never." "I know you are sorry, Ruby," said her father. "You are always sorry after you have done wrong; but that does not seem to keep you from getting into the next piece of mischief that comes into your head. I cannot let you go on in this way any longer. For your mother's sake, if not your own, I must put a stop to it, or she will never have a chance to get well. I am going to send you away to boarding-school with your Aunt Emma." "Oh, papa, papa, don't do that! please don't!" exclaimed Ruby, clinging to him. "I don't want to go away from you and mamma. I don't! oh, I don't! Please let me stay home, and you can keep me shut up in this one single room all the time, and I won't say one word; truly, I won't; but do let me stay with you and mamma. I will be so good." "You think you will now, Ruby; but in a few days you would be in as much mischief as ever. It is better for you to be where some one can take care of you. As soon as your mother is better you shall come home again; and after a few days, I have no doubt but that you will be very happy there with Aunt Emma and the new friends you will make." "I don't believe Ruthy will like to go," said Ruby presently, after a little thought. "Ruthy is not going, my dear," answered her father. "Oh, isn't Ruthy going?" asked Ruby, in surprise. "I thought of course Ruthy would go if I did. Oh, papa, I can't go without Ruthy. I truly can't. Won't you make her go with me? Please do; and then I will try not to cry about going." "I don't believe Ruthy's papa and mamma would want to spare her," answered the doctor. "But you will be with Aunt Emma, you know, dear; and you love her, and she will take very good care of you." "But I want Ruthy, too," Ruby said, looking very much as if she was going to begin crying again at the thought of being separated, not only from her father and mother, but from her little friend as well. "Now Ruby, dear, if you are really sorry that you have been so naughty," said her father, "you will show it by doing all you can to be good now. If you fret and cry and worry about going to school, it will make it very hard for your mother, and perhaps make her worse. If you had been good, and tried to do what you knew would please her when she was not able to watch you, it would not have been necessary to send you away; but you have shown that you need some one to look after you, so there does not seem to be any other way but this of giving your mother a chance to get well without unnecessary anxiety; and of making sure that you are not doing every wild thing that comes into your head. I do not think Ruthy can go with you; so you must try to make the best of things, and go with your Aunt Emma without complaining. If you will do this, I shall know that you really love your mamma and want to do all you can to make her better; and then just as soon as she is well, you shall come home again." Ruby was silent. It was a very hard way of showing that she was sorry, she thought. She would rather have been shut up in her room, or go without pie or almost anything else that she could think of, instead of going away to boarding-school with Aunt Emma. Much as she loved her aunt, she did not want to have to leave her father and mother for the sake of being with her. All at once a thought came into her head which made going away seem less hard. I am sure you will laugh when I tell you what it was that could console her in some part for the thought of leaving her father and mother. She remembered that once when she was upstairs in Mrs. Peterson's house, she saw a little trunk standing at the end of the wide hall, studded with brass-headed nails, and upon one end were the letters "M. D. K." She had asked Maude to whom the trunk belonged, and Maude had looked very important when she answered that it was her own trunk, and that the letters upon the end stood for Maude Delevan Birkenbaum. Ruby was wondering whether she should have a trunk like Maude's if she should go to boarding-school. It had seemed just the very nicest thing in the world to have a trunk of one's own with one's initials upon it in brass-headed nails, and she thought she could go, without being quite heart-broken, if only she had a trunk to take with her. Finally she said,-- "Papa, if I go to boarding-school, I shall have to have a trunk, won't I? And may it be a black trunk with my name on it in brass nails?" Papa smiled, though Ruby did not see him. "Yes, dear," he answered. "If you are a good little girl, and try not to worry your mother by fretting about going, and don't get into any more mischief before you go, I will certainly give you just such a trunk to take with you, if that will be any comfort to you." "It certainly would be a comfort," Ruby answered, cuddling up closer to her papa. "And may I take some butternuts in it?" "You will have to consult your Aunt Emma about what you shall put in it," her father answered, "but I will get you the trunk." "And it will have a key?" asked Ruby. "Yes, it will have a key," said her father. "Now, Ruby, mamma wants to see you a little while. Can I trust you to be a good little girl, and not disturb her when you go into her room? Her head aches very badly, and I only want you to stay in there long enough to kiss her and tell her how sorry you are for disturbing her so last night, and then you must go downstairs quietly. Will you remember?" [Illustration: RUBY AND HER MOTHER (missing from book)] "Yes, papa," Ruby answered in subdued tones, and then she slipped down from his knee, and walked along the hall on tiptoe, and stole into her mother's room. When she saw her mother's pale face, and traces of tears on her cheeks, and knew that it was because she had been so naughty that the tears were there, Ruby wanted to bury her head in the pillow beside her mother, and have a good cry there; but she remembered what her father had told her, and kept very quiet. She only kissed her mother, and whispering how very sorry she was, she came away, feeling comforted and forgiven by her mother's kiss. "I don't see how I am ever bad to such a lovely mamma," she said to herself. She was a little shy about going downstairs. It was not very pleasant to remember that the very first thing Aunt Emma had known about her when she came was that she was in mischief, and Ruby thought of course she would say something about it, and perhaps that Ann would reprove her, too. But she was very pleasantly disappointed when at last she went into the sitting-room, where Aunt Emma was busy with some sewing. She looked up and greeted her little niece as if she had not seen her before since her arrival; and she seemed so wholly unconscious of anything unusual in Ruby's not being down to breakfast, that the little girl thought perhaps her aunt had forgotten all about it. Ann did not say anything more to her about her naughtiness either, and before dinner-time Ruby was almost happy at the idea of going to boarding-school with a trunk, and a key, which she meant to wear upon a string around her neck. She intended to persuade Ruthy to go, too, though. She was quite sure that not even the trunk could make her go away happily without her little friend. CHAPTER VI. PREPARATIONS. Aunt Emma was very pleasant company for some time, but when she went upstairs to the sick-room, Ruby concluded that she would go over and see Ruthy. She felt quite important as she walked along, thinking of the great news she had to tell. It did not take Ruby very long to forget about her troubles and penitences, and if it had not been for the sight of the blackened remains of the fire, and the pile of boards lying where her father had thrown them when he pushed them down and carried Ruby out, she might not have thought of last night's performance for some time. As it was, she stopped the happy little song that had been on her lips, and walked along very quietly for a time, thinking how sorry she was that she had made her mother worse, and that she was going to be sent away from home because she could not be trusted. While going to boarding-school might be a very great event, and an event which was quite unheard-of in the lives of any of Ruby's friends, yet she did not like to have to remember that it was partly as a punishment that she was going. Before she reached Ruthy's, however, she had banished all unpleasant thoughts, and her one idea was to astonish Ruthy with the information that she was going to boarding-school, and was to have a trunk to take with her. She ran upon the porch calling,-- "Ruthy, Ruthy! Where are you?" Mrs. Warren came to the door. "Good-morning, Ruby," she said, looking gravely at the little girl. "How is your mamma this morning after her anxiety last night about you?" Ruby had not thought that Mrs. Warren knew anything about her plan of playing Swiss Family Robinson, and her face grew very red, as she looked away from Mrs. Warren, and twisted the corner of her apron into a little point. "How did you know?" she asked very faintly. "Because your papa came over here looking for you, and then he drove back after a while to let us know that you were found, and were safe. I was very sorry to hear that you had frightened your mother so. How is she this morning?" "She is worse this morning," and Ruby began to cry. It was so hard to have to tell Ruthy's mamma that she had made her own dear mother worse. "I did n't mean to make my mamma worse; I truly did n't, Mrs. Warren. I love my mamma just as much as Ruthy loves you, and maybe better, even if I do do things I ought n't to do. I never thought she would know about it, I truly didn't. If I had known that she would wake up and be frightened, I never would have gone out one step, even if I did think it would be fun." Mrs. Warren led Ruby in and took her up in her lap. "My dear little girl, if you would only stop and think before you get into mischief, I do not believe you would do half so many naughty things," she said. "I know you love your mother, but you think about Ruby first and what she wants to do, and forget to think about your mother until afterwards, and then it is too late to spare her anxiety about you. It would make her very unhappy if she knew how many things you do which, I am sure, you know she would not like." "Indeed, I am going to try to be good," Ruby answered, wiping away her tears. "And I have a great secret, Mrs. Warren. At least, it is n't a secret exactly. It's somewhere that I am going, but I want to tell Ruthy first of all, and then I will tell you about it; and oh, I do hope you will let Ruthy go too. Will you?" "I can't answer until I know where you are going," Mrs. Warren answered. "Does your papa know where you are going, Ruby?" "Oh, yes, ma'am," Ruby answered promptly, glad that for once there was nothing wrong about her plan. "He told me about it this morning. It is only that I want Ruthy to know it the very first of all that I don't tell you about it this very minute, Mrs. Warren. You don't mind, do you?" "Oh, no," Mrs. Warren replied. "If your papa knows about it, I am quite satisfied." Ruby jumped down and went in search of Ruthy, who Mrs. Warren said was probably playing out in the barn. "Ruthy! Ruthy!" called Ruby as she ran down and peeped in through the great doors. "Where are you, Ruthy?" "Up in the hay loft," answered a smothered voice. "Come up here, Ruby." So Ruby climbed up and found Ruthy curled up in a little nest of fragrant hay, with one of her favorite story-books. "Oh, Ruby, tell me about last night," began Ruthy eagerly. "I was so frightened when it began to get dark, and I remembered that you were going to stay out-doors all alone by yourself; and I felt so bad that I almost cried. I could hardly go to sleep, I kept thinking about you so much. Did you go? Was n't it dreadful?" Ruby was glad that Ruthy did not know how her papa had come over to find if Ruby was with Ruthy. "Oh, yes," she answered. "I went out and stayed a long time, but it was n't very nice. Anyway, let's don't talk about that, Ruthy. I have got something to tell you that you could never, never guess, I don't believe, if you tried for one hundred times. Now I will give you six guesses, and you can see if you can guess right. I am going somewhere in about two weeks. Can you guess where?" "Going somewhere?" echoed Ruthy. "Why, I don't believe I could possibly guess, Ruby. Let me think first." She shut her eyes and tried to imagine where Ruby could be going, but she found it pretty hard work. Neither of the little girls had ever been away from home in their lives, farther than over to the grove where the Fourth-of-July picnics were always held, so it was not very strange that Ruthy could not think of any visit that Ruby would be likely to make. Perhaps Ruby was going to visit the grandmother who sometimes came to stay with Ruby's mamma for a few weeks, and who had sent the little girls their wonder balls when they learned to knit. "I guess first that you are going to visit your grandma," she said. "No," answered Ruby, triumphantly. "I just knew you could n't possibly guess right, but try again. I won't tell you until you have guessed six times." "I am afraid I won't ever know, then," sighed Ruthy. "I can't think of six places to guess. Are you going to New York?" "No," answered Ruby. "It is a great deal more important than going to New York. You know folks don't stay long when they go to New York, and they don't take a--" but she clapped her hands over her mouth to shut out the next word. "Dear me, I most told you the very most important part of the secret. I won't say another word for fear I will tell. Now guess again." "I might as well ask you if you are going to the moon," Ruthy said. "I truly can't guess once more, Ruby, so you will have to tell me." "I am going to boarding-school," announced Ruby, triumphantly. Ruthy was just as surprised as Ruby had expected her to be. She sat straight up in the hay, and let her book fall, while she looked at Ruby with wide-open eyes. "What!" she exclaimed, as if she could not believe her ears. "Did you really say you were going to boarding-school, Ruby Harper?" "Yes, I really am," Ruby responded, "but there 's more than that to tell you. What do you suppose I am going to have to take with me?" "I am sure I don't know," Ruthy answered. "I am going to have a trunk of my very own," said Ruby, proudly. "It will be like Maude Birkenbaum's, papa said it would be. It is to be black, and have a beautiful row of gold nails all around the top, and then at one end there will be 'M. D. B.' in letters made of the nails all driven in rows. Won't that be beautiful?" "Yes, indeed," answered Ruthy. "But what will 'M. D. B.' stand for, Ruby?" "Why, for my initials of course," Ruby answered. "Oh, no, I made a mistake. It won't be 'M. D. B.,' but 'R. T. H.,' to stand for Ruby Todd Harper. I forgot that my initials and Maude's were n't the same. But just think of it, Ruthy. To have a trunk of one's own and a key to it! I think that will be too lovely for anything." "Are you glad you are going to boarding-school?" asked Ruthy, looking at her rather soberly. "Why, yes, of course I am," said Ruby, trying to forget that it meant going away from home, too. "How long will you stay, do you suppose?" asked Ruthy. "Oh, I don't exactly know. Till mamma gets well again, papa said," Ruby replied. "I spose maybe about a year." Ruby had rather vague ideas about the length of a year. She always counted a year from one Christmas to the next, or from one Fourth of July to the next, whichever happened to be nearest the time from which she was calculating; and though it seemed a long time when she looked back from one holiday to the last, yet she did not have a very good idea how much time it took for twelve months to pass away. Ruby knew her tables, and she could have told you in one minute, that it took three hundred and sixty-five days to make a year, but she did not know how long it took that procession of days to pass along and let the new year come in. "Oh, dear," and Ruthy buried her face in the hay, and began to cry. "Why, what is the matter?" asked Ruby, in surprise. "I shall miss you so dreadfully," sobbed Ruthy. "I shall not have any one to play with, that is, any one like you, and I shall miss you all the time." "But I am going to ask your mamma to let you go with me," Ruby said comfortingly. "I forgot to tell you, but I truly will. Do you suppose I would go away off to boarding-school without you, Ruthy Warren? You might know I would n't. Of course not. Come and let's go in now and ask your mother if you can't go with me." But Ruthy cried harder than ever. "But I don't want to go to boarding-school," she sobbed. "I want to stay with my mamma. I should just die if I went way off away from her. I don't want you to go either, Ruby. I don't see what you think it is nice to go to boarding-school for, anyway." "Now, Ruthy, I thought you would go with me, even if you didn't think it would be very nice at first," Ruby said, in rather reproving tones. "Of course you think it would n't be nice, but it would be after you got used to it, and you would have a trunk, too, maybe. Wouldn't that be nice?" But the trunk was no comfort to Ruthy. She could not understand how Ruby could bear to think of leaving her mother. She was quite sure she would never be willing to do it, and not Ruby's most eloquent representations to her of how delightful going away with a trunk would be, could induce her to want to accompany her. "Oh, I wish you were not going, either," was all that Ruby could coax from her, after she had talked until she was tired. CHAPTER VII. MORE PREPARATIONS. Thee was nothing that vain little Ruby enjoyed more than a sense of importance, and so she was quite happy for the next few days. All her little friends looked upon her with wonder when they heard that she was going away to boarding-school, and Ruby's announcement to them that she was going to take a trunk added to the importance of the occasion quite as much as she had hoped it would. There was only a week in which to make all preparations for her going, so you can imagine that they were very busy days. Miss Abigail Hart, the dressmaker who made every one's clothes, when they were not made by people themselves, came to the house every day, and sewed all day long, and Aunt Emma helped her most of the time. If it had not been for the thoughts of the trunk, Ruby would have found some of these days very tiresome. She had to be always ready in case Miss Hart should want to try on any of her dresses, so she could not go very far away from the house, and she found Miss Hart's dressmaking very different from her mother's dressmaking. Miss Abigail Hart was tall and thin, and as Ruby and many other little girls said, had quite forgotten all about the time when she was a little girl; so when she went to houses to sew, the children usually tried to keep out of her way as much as possible. Her hands were very cold, whether it was summer or winter, and she never liked it if any one whom she was fitting jumped about when her cold fingers touched one's neck. She wore long scissors, tied by a ribbon to her waist, and these scissors were always cold; and it was not at all a pleasant operation to have the waist of a dress fitted, and have Miss Abigail's cold fingers, and her still colder scissors creeping about one's neck. "If you don't keep still it will not be my fault if you get a cut," Miss Abigail would say, and I am not sure but that some of the little girls were afraid that their very heads might be snipped off by a slip of those shining blades, if they wriggled about when the necks of their dresses were being trimmed down. Miss Abigail was very slow, so it took a long time to go through this operation, and the worst part of it was that one fitting never was sufficient. At least twice, and sometimes three times she would repeat it, and there were plenty of Ruby's friends who had said that not for all the new dresses in the world would they want to have Miss Abigail fit them. They would rather have but one dress and have that dress made by their mothers, if they had to choose between that and those cold fingers and sharp scissors. It was very pleasant to go to the store with Aunt Emma, and help choose the pretty calicoes and delaines which were to be made into dresses and help fill the little trunk. Ruby never felt more important than when she was perched upon the high stool before the counter and had four new dresses at once. She fancied that the store-keeper was more respectful in his tone than he usually was when he addressed little girls, and that he was much impressed by the fact that Aunt Emma let her select the pattern herself instead of choosing for her. The calicoes were very pretty. One was covered with little rosebuds upon a cream-tinted ground, and the other had little dark-blue moons upon a light-blue ground. The delaines were brown and blue; and then besides these dresses, Ruby's best cashmere was to be let down, and have the sleeves lengthened, so that it would still be nice for a best dress. Ruby had never had so many new dresses all at once in her life before, and she felt very important when her papa brought them home in the buggy, and they were all spread out before Miss Abigail. Miss Abigail looked at them very wisely, with her head a little upon one side. She rubbed them between her fingers, wondered whether they would wash well, and finally looked at Ruby, and said,-- "I trust you are a very thankful little girl for all the mercies you have. So you know that there are some poor little children who have but rags to wear?" "Yes 'm," said Ruby, meekly. "Then don't you think you ought to appreciate all the blessings that have been bestowed upon you?" "Yes 'm," Ruby replied again. "Then you must try to be an obedient, gentle child, and do as you are bid in everything." "Yes 'm," said Ruby, wishing in the bottom of her heart that the dresses were all made. She had never had very much to do with Miss Abigail herself, although she had often seen her, and two or three times she had spent a day at the house, helping Mrs. Harper make one of her own dresses. Upon those occasions, however, Ruby had spent the day with Ruthy, and so she had only been with Miss Abigail a little while in the morning, and had not had much to say to her. "If Miss Abigail was my mamma, I would not stay in the same house with her," Ruby said to herself. "I guess that is why she has n't any little girls,--because she don't know how to make them happy. I don't want to be told all the time about being good, I guess." But Ruby had to listen to a great many lectures, whether she liked them or not, in the next few days. Miss Abigail came and stayed with them for all the rest of the week, and as she believed in little girls being made useful, Ruby had to spend a good deal of time in picking out bastings, and doing other little things for Miss Abigail. "Oh, dear, I have n't done one single thing since I can remember," Ruby said, impatiently, to Ruthy one day when her little friend came over to see her; "I have n't done one single thing but pick out bastings and have Miss Abigail telling me how good I ought to be 'cause I have so many new dresses. I do wish she was all done and had gone away." "But then you will go away, too, you know," Ruthy suggested. "I wish I would n't; I wish I was going to stay here for a week after she went," Ruby answered. "I think Aunt Emma might stop her, I do so." "How do you mean?" asked Ruthy. "Well, I know what I would do," said Ruby. "I would say to her this way--" and Ruby held her head very high, and tried to look exceedingly dignified--"I should say, 'Miss Abigail, if you will please tend to making Ruby's dresses, I will tend to her behavior.'" Ruthy looked rather shocked. "I am afraid that would make Miss Abigail feel dreadfully bad, to have your auntie say such a thing," she said. "I think Miss Abigail is real nice, I truly do. She saves pretty pieces of calico for my patch-work, and once she gave me a sash for my doll; don't you remember it?--that blue one, with a little rose bud in the middle." "Well, I don't like her," and Ruby shook her shoulders. "And I don't think it's nice in you to like her, when she makes me perfectly miserable. How would you like it if every time you wanted to do anything you heard her calling you, and had to go in and be fitted and fitted. She holds pins in her mouth, too, a whole row of them, and mamma never lets me do that, so Miss Abigail ought not to, and I just think I will tell her so. She has a whole row of them, just as long as her mouth is wide, and they bristle straight out when she talks. Just suppose she should drop some down my neck when she is talking. They would stick in to me, and hurt me like everything before I could get them out. I guess I would n't like that, would I? And if you had to stand just hours and hours, and have her cold fingers poking around your neck, and those great sharp scissors going snip, snip all around your neck, just where they would cut great pieces out if you dared move, I don't believe you would like that yourself, Ruthy Warren, even if she did give you things for your doll." "No, I don't s'pose I would like it any better than you do," assented Ruthy, who was determined not to quarrel with her little friend, when they were so soon to be separated. "Ruby, Miss Abigail wants you," called Aunt Emma. Ruby made a wry face. "There she is again," she exclaimed. "It's just the way the whole livelong time. I think if she knew how to make dresses, she ought not to have to fit so much. If I fitted my doll so often when I made her a dress, I guess her head would fall off. It would get shaky anyway, with so much fussing. Wait till I come back, Ruthy, and then we will play." Miss Abigail was waiting to fit Ruby's blue delaine, and it looked so pretty that Ruby forgot how unwilling she had been to come in and have it fitted. She showed her pleasure in it so plainly that good Miss Abigail was afraid that the little girl was in danger of becoming vain, and thought it best to warn her against this state of mind. "I am afraid it is n't the best thing for you, Ruby Warren, to have so many new clothes all at once," she said, with the row of pins waving up and down, as she spoke through her teeth, which she did not open when she spoke, lest the pins should fall out. "If any one thinks more of clothes than they should, then dress is a snare and a temptation to them, and I am much afraid that that is what it is going to be to you. Better for you to have only one dress to your back than to put clothes in the wrong place in your mind, and let them make you vain and conceited. What are clothes, anyway? There is n't any thing to be so proud of in them. Now this nice wool delaine was once growing on a sheep's back. Do you suppose that sheep was vain because it was covered with wool? No, it never thought anything about it. And so you see that you ought n't to be proud of it either." "I think new dresses are very nice," said Ruby, speaking cautiously, lest she should inadvertently turn her head, and the sharp points of the scissors should run into her neck. Miss Abigail felt that she must say still more, for it was evident that Ruby was putting too much value upon her dress. "But it is n't new," she said. "Oh, Miss Abigail, it truly is," exclaimed Ruby, forgetting herself and turning her head so suddenly that if the scissors had been in the right place, the points would surely have run into her. Fortunately, Miss Abigail had stopped to see how the neck looked, and her scissors were hanging by her side for a moment. "Why, of course, it is new. I went with Aunt Emma to the store, and helped buy it my very own self, so I know it is brand-new. Why, I should think you could tell it is new, it is so pretty and bright, and there is n't one single teenty tonty wrinkle in it." "Yes, it is new to you," Miss Abigail answered solemnly. "But when you think about the matter, Ruby Harper, you know that the sheep wore it first, and you only have it second-hand, as you might say. Now, I should think a little girl was very silly that thought herself better than any one else, and let her thoughts rest on her clothes because she wore a sheep's old suit of wool made up in a little different way. Shall I tell you some verses that my mother made me learn when I was a little girl, because I was proud of a new pelisse?" "Yes 'm," said Ruby, meekly, taking a great deal of pleasure in the thought that when Miss Abigail was a little girl she had been naughty sometimes, and had had to learn verses as a punishment. "'How proud we are, how fond to show Our clothes, and call them rich and new, When the poor sheep and silk-worm wore That very clothing long before. "'The tulip and the butterfly Appear in gayer coats than I; Let me be dressed fine as I will, Flies, worms, and flowers exceed me still.'" "I don't think worms look nicer than I do," said Ruby, not very politely, when Miss Abigail had finished. "And I am very sorry for you, Miss Abigail, if you had to learn such ugly verses. If you had had a mamma like mine you would have had a better time, I think." Miss Abigail looked severely over her brass-bowed spectacles at Ruby, almost too shocked to speak for a moment. "I am sure, I don't know what your mother would say, Ruby Harper, if she heard you talking that way. I am sure she would think that you were no credit to her bringing-up. You have a good mother, one of the best mothers that ever lived, and your father is such a good man, too, that I am sure I don't see where you get your pert ways from. I was a happy child, because I was, in the main, a good child, and no one ever had a better mother than mine; and I have tried to follow the way in which I was brought up, if I do say it myself. Those were counted to be very pretty verses when I was a child, and I don't know but they were better than to-day. At any rate, in my day, children were taught to have a little respect for their elders, and there are very few that do that now. There were some other verses that I was going to tell a good deal of the nonsense that children learn you, but if that is your opinion of those I did tell you, there is no use in my taking so much trouble." Miss Abigail looked sorrowful as well as vexed, and Ruby wished that she had not told her what she thought of the verses. "I suppose she thinks they are nice," she said to herself; "and mamma would be sorry if she thought I had been rude to Miss Abigail." Ruby was going away from her mother so soon that her conscience was more tender than usual, and she did not want to do what she knew her mother would not like. "Please tell me the other verses, Miss Abigail," she said. "I did not know you liked those other verses, or I would not have called them ugly." "I am glad you did not mean to be a rude child," said Miss Abigail, pleased by Ruby's apology. "Your mother takes so much pains with you that it would be a pity for you not to be a good child. Yes, I will tell you the others, and while I am repeating them you can sit down upon this little ottoman, and pick out the bastings in this sleeve." While Ruby pulled the basting-thread out, and wound it on a spool as Miss Abigail had taught her, half wishing that she had not said anything about the other verses, since she might now have been out at play with Ruthy, Miss Abigail repeated some more of the verses she had learned when she, too, was a little girl like Ruby:-- "'Come, come, Mister Peacock, you must not be proud, Although you can boast such a train; For many a bird, far more highly endowed, Is not half so conceited nor vain. Let me tell you, gay bird, that a suit of fine clothes Is a sorry distinction at most, And seldom much valued, excepting by those Who only such graces can boast. The nightingale certainly wears a plain coat, But she cheers and delights with her song; While you, though so vain, cannot utter a note, To please by the use of your tongue. The hawk cannot boast of a plumage so gay, But piercing and clear is her eye; And while you are strutting about all the day, She gallantly soars in the sky. The dove may be clad in a plainer attire, But she is not selfish and cold; And her love and affection more pleasure impart Than all your fine purple and gold. So you see, Mister Peacock, you must not be proud, Although you can boast such a train; For many a bird is more highly endowed, And not half so conceited and vain.'" "I think I like that ever so much better," said Ruby, jumping up as Miss Abigail finished, and handing back the sleeve, from which she had pulled all the basting-threads. "Now can I go over to Ruthy's, Miss Abigail? Aunt Emma told me that I must ask you before I went away anywhere, for fear you would want me." "No, I shall not want you any more until nearly tea-time," Miss Abigail answered, as she scrutinized the sleeve to see whether Ruby had left any bastings in it. "Now remember what I have told you, Ruby, child, about setting your heart upon your fine clothes. Clothes do not make people, and if you are not a well-behaved child, polite and respectful to your betters, it will not make any difference to any one how well you may be dressed." "Yes 'm," Ruby answered, as she ran away to find Ruthy, thinking that little girls in Miss Abigail's time must have been very different from the little girls she knew, and wondering whether Miss Abigail looked as tall and thin when she was a little girl as she did now, and whether she used to be just as proper and precise. It was so funny to think of Miss Abigail as a little girl that Ruby laughed aloud at the thought, as she looked for her little friend. She was quite sure of one thing: if she had been a little girl when Miss Abigail was a little girl, she would not have chosen her for a friend. Ruthy was the only little girl in all the world that she could wish to have always for a friend, for who else would be always willing to give up her own way, and yield so patiently to impetuous little Ruby in everything. CHAPTER VIII. READY. Ruby thoroughly enjoyed all the preparations that were being made for her departure. Every day, and a great many times a day, the little trunk would be opened and something more put into its hungry mouth, and it was soon quite full of the things which Ruby was to take with her. Of course she did not get into mischief during these busy days,--there was no time for it. It was only when Ruby had nothing else to think about that she devised plans for mischief. At last everything was ready the evening before she was to start. Miss Abigail had finished all that she had to do; she had bidden Ruby good-by, with a long lecture upon how she ought to behave when she was at school, so as to set a good example to her school-mates, and reflect credit upon her father and mother and the training they had given her, and then she had concluded by giving Ruby something that I am afraid she valued much more than the advice,--a pretty little house-wife, of red silk, which she had made for her, with everything in it that Ruby would need if she wanted to take any stitches. When Ruby saw it she was sorry that she had twisted about so much, and showed so plainly how impatient she was growing of the long talk which preceded it. Then Miss Abigail had tied on her large black bonnet, and Ruby had watched her going down the road with a sense of relief that there would be no more fitting of dresses, with cold fingers and still colder scissors, and no more lectures upon good behavior. However, she was so pleased and surprised by the pretty gift that she felt more kindly towards Miss Abigail than she would have believed it possible. Ruby's old dresses had been made over until they looked just like new ones, and the last stitches had been taken in her new ones, and little white ruffles were basted in the necks, so that they were all ready to put on. Everything had been carefully folded up and packed in her trunk,--not only her clothes, but the little farewell gifts that her friends had brought her. She had a nice pencil-box, filled with pencils and pen-holders, two penwipers, as well as a box of the dearest little note-paper, just the right size for her to write upon, with her initial "R" at the top of the paper. Orpah had brought her a mysterious box, carefully tied up in paper, which she had made Ruby promise that she would not open until she unpacked her trunk at school; so that gave Ruby something nice to look forward to when she should reach her journey's end. Ruby had fully intended to take her kitten with her, and she was very much disappointed when Aunt Emma told her that that was one of the things she would have to leave behind her. Ann promised to take the very best care of Tipsey, and that promise comforted Ruby somewhat, although she still wished that she might take her pet with her. It was not until the last evening came that Ruby fully realized that she was going away to leave her papa and mamma the next day. Then she felt as if she would gladly give up her trunk and all her new clothes and everything that she had been enjoying so much, if she might only stay at home. For the first time her promise to her father to be brave about going away cost her a great effort. Her mother had not been nearly so well since the night she had been so anxious about her little girl, and Ruby knew that she must not worry her by crying or fretting about going away. But she climbed up on her father's lap after she had eaten her supper, and put her head down upon his broad shoulder, with the feeling that nothing in all the wide world could make up to her for being away from him and from her dear mother. She wished with all her heart that she had tried to be a good girl during her mother's illness, for then it would not have been necessary to send her away to school. But now it was too late, for everything was all ready for her going, and Ruby was quite sure that coax and tease as hard as she might, her father would not change his plans. "I don't want to go away, papa," she said, with a little sob in her voice, as Tipsey scrambled up in her lap, and curling herself into a little round ball of fur began to purr a soft little tune. "Don't you want to leave Tipsey?" asked her father, playfully. "It is n't only Tipsey," said Ruby, while a big tear splashed down upon her father's hand. "It is you and mamma, most of all, and Ruthy, and everybody. I know I shall not be one single bit happy at school when I can't come home and see you when I want to, and I shall just most die, I am sure I shall." "Little daughter, we both love mother, don't we?" asked her father, stroking Ruby's dark hair gently. "Yes, sir," answered Ruby, with a tremulous voice. "And we would do anything to help her get well again?" "Why, of course," Ruby answered again. "Then we must do some things that are hard, if we really want to help her. You know how sick she has been the last few days. I don't want you to feel as if I was sending you away only as a punishment for running away that night. Perhaps if you had not done that particular thing, I might not have given my consent to this plan, but I am sure you are enough of a little woman to see what a help it will be to mother. If she is to get well again, she needs to have her mind kept perfectly free from worry; and when you are running about with no one to take care of you except Ann, who is too busy to do much for you, she is worrying all the time for fear something may happen to you, or that you may get into some mischief. Now if she knows you are safe at school with Aunt Emma, where you will be well taken care of, and will study your lessons, and try to be good and obedient, then she will feel so much happier about you that it will do more toward helping her to get well than all the medicine in the world. There are some things that I can do for her. I can take care of her, and give her medicine, and see that nothing troubles her in the house, but there is something for you to do that I cannot do. This is to be your share of helping dear mother get well. If you go away bravely, and try to study and be a good girl, so that Aunt Emma can write home in each letter that you are doing just as mother would wish you to do, you will be helping her even more than I will. If you think only about yourself, you will cry about going, and fret to come home, until mother will be troubled about you, and perhaps think it best for you to come home again; but if you think about mother, you will be my own brave little daughter, and then mother will soon be well again, and we will send for our little Ruby, and she will come home wiser and better-behaved than when she went away, and we will all be so happy. I am sure I know which you are going to do." "I am going to be just as brave as can be," Ruby answered, winking back the tears which had been trying to roll down her cheeks, and rubbing out of sight the great shining one which had splashed down upon Tipsey's soft fur. "Yes, papa, I am going to be just as brave as anything. I won't cry. I won't say one word about wanting to come home in my letters, and I will study so hard that I shall stay up at the head of the class just as I do here, and the teacher will think I am ever so--" "Be careful, darling," interrupted her father. "I don't want my little girl to think so much of herself. If you go to school thinking that you are going to be so much more clever than all the other little girls, I am afraid you will find out that you are sadly mistaken, and then you will be very unhappy. Don't think of excelling the other girls, but think of doing the very best you can because it is right, and because it will make mother and father happy. I would rather have my little Ruby at the very foot of the class, and have her unselfish and gentle, than have her at the head, with a proud and unlovely spirit. Of course I should be very glad to have my little daughter excel in her lessons, for then I should know that she was studying and trying to improve herself as much as possible, but I don't want to have her as vain as a little peacock over it. And you know, Ruby, that it is generally when you are trusting in yourself that you do something that you are the most sorry for. Pride goes before a fall, you remember." "I will try not to be proud," said Ruby, penitently. "But you don't know how I like to be praised, papa. It scares Ruthy, and she does n't like it one bit, but I like it from my head down to my feet, I truly do. I like to have people say I am ever so smart, and I don't see how I can help it." "By trying to forget yourself, dear, and keeping self in the back-ground as much as you can in everything that you do. When you are trying to do anything well, remember that it is only just what you ought to do. God has given you a good memory, and a readiness to learn, and so you ought to do the very best with the powers he has given you. You have no more reason to be vain of them than a peacock has to be vain of his fine tail. And it is better to be lovable than clever, and any one who is conceited never makes the friends that a modest child does. Now promise me that you will try, little daughter, to be gentle and modest, and not come back to us selfish and full of conceit." "I will truly try, papa," Ruby answered. "That is harder for me to try than to try to learn my lessons or to keep the rules, but I will truly try, and you shall see how brave I will be in the morning when I go away. Why, papa, I am brave this very minute. I could just cry and cry, it makes me feel so full to think that this time to-morrow night you will be here just the same, and I will be ever so far away." "We will think about the time when you will come home again," said her father, quickly, for Ruby's voice sounded very much as if a word more would bring the tears. "Some day I shall drive down to the station and a young lady with a trunk will get off the cars, and I shall hardly know who it is, you will have grown so fast. Little girls always grow fast when they go to boarding-school, you know." "Do they?" asked Ruby, eagerly. "Oh, papa, do you s'pose I can have long dresses next year?" "Why, then people would think you were a little baby again," said her papa, pretending to misunderstand her. "They would say, 'Why, Ruby Harper wore long dresses when she was six months old, and now she has them on again. She must have grown backwards.'" "Now, papa Harper, you are making fun of me," exclaimed Ruby. "I mean long dresses like young ladies wear. I want to be grown up. Will I be big enough to wear dresses with a train next year if I grow fast." "If you should grow fast enough," her father answered, pinching her cheek, "but I don't think you will do that, Ruby. You would have to grow like Jack's beanstalk, if you expect to spring up into a young lady in a year. Why, then I would not have any little girl, and what would I do for some one to hold in my lap?" "Oh, I guess I don't want to grow too big to sit in lap," Ruby answered, nestling closer to her father. "I forgot that part of it. I will wait for ever so many years for long dresses, if I must give up sitting in lap. Well, I will grow as fast as I can, but not so fast that I won't be your little Ruby any longer." "And now, dear, say good-night to mamma and go to bed," said her father, as he heard the clock striking. "We will have to be up bright and early in the morning, and I want you to have a good sleep." By the time the stars were looking down Ruby was sound asleep in her little trundle-bed for the last time for many weeks. CHAPTER IX. THE JOURNEY. Ruby and Aunt Emma were to start at nine o'clock, and as there were a great many little things to be done before the travellers should get off, the whole house was astir very early in the morning. Ruby was very much excited over her journey, but there was a little lump that kept arising in her throat all the time as if it would choke her if she did not swallow it back. Ruthy was to go over to the station with her, and see her off, and it was hardly daybreak when she came over to Ruby's house, eager to have as long a time as possible with her little friend before she should go away. Ruby felt as if she was a little queen, every one was so kind to her, and so anxious to please her in every way. Even Ann was wonderfully subdued, and when Ruby came downstairs, took her in her arms and said: "I don't know what we shall do without the precious child, I am sure." Coming from Ann, this was indeed a great compliment, and Ruby felt as if Ann was really very nice, indeed, since she had so high an opinion of the little girl. "Are n't you sorry you have been so cross to me, sometimes?" asked Ruby, presently, thinking that if Ann would admit that she had said a great deal that she did not mean in the past, she would feel still happier. Ann was sorry to have the child from whom she had never been separated for a whole day, go away for weeks, but she was not by any means disposed to admit that Ruby had not deserved all the scoldings she had over given her, and her voice had quite a little of its usual sharpness as she answered,-- "You know as well as I do, Ruby Harper, that you 've been enough to try the patience of a saint many and many a time, more particularly since your mother has been taken ill, and though I 'm sorry you 're going away, I am sure it is the best thing for you, for you had got long past my managing, and nobody knew what you were going to do next. If you were n't going to school, likely enough you would burn us all down in our beds some night." Ruby looked rather crestfallen. "I don't think you need be cross the very last thing when I am going away so far, and you won't see me for ever and ever so long again," she said, with a little quiver in her voice. "Well, I did n't mean to be," said Ann, giving her another hug. "It's only that I got provoked that I said that. You see you and me have a lot to learn yet, Ruby, before we can say and do just what we ought to, and nothing else. I'll take it all back, and I'll show you the nice cake I have made for your lunch on the cars." Ruby followed Ann to the buttery, and admired the cake with its white crust of icing, that looked like a coating of frost, to Ann's content, and would have been quite willing to have had a piece of it then and there, if Ann would have permitted it. Everybody talked a great deal about everything but Ruby's going away, for nobody wanted to give the little girl time enough to think about it, lest she should grow homesick; and it seemed quite like a party, Ruby thought, as she sat beside her father at the table, with Ruthy sitting by her, all ready for another breakfast, she had risen so early. After breakfast papa went down to the stable to harness up; the little trunk was shut for the last time, and the key turned and put in Aunt Emma's pocket-book,--greatly to Ruby's disappointment, for she wanted to keep it herself; but Aunt Emma said she might have it after they got safely to school, but it would be very inconvenient if she should lose it on the way there, and she tried to console herself with that promise. Ruby had had a parting frolic with Tipsey, and Ruthy had promised to come over and play with the kitten very often, so that she would not miss her little mistress too much, and now Ruby was going to say good-by to her mother, and have a few quiet minutes with her, before it should be time to put her hat and jacket on. The room was dark and quiet, and when Ruby went in, old Mrs. Maggs, who spent all her time in staying with sick people and nursing them, got up and went out, so that the little girl should have her mother all to herself. Ruby cuddled her face down beside her dear mother's face, in the pillow, and it was all the little girl could do to keep from bursting into tears, and begging that she might not be sent away. She remembered her promise to her father to be brave, and she swallowed the lump in her throat, back, over and over again, while her mother told her how she hoped that her little daughter would be a good girl, so that all she should hear from Aunt Emma would be good news, of Ruby's improvement in her studies, and of her good conduct. Ruby listened to every word, and she promised her mother very earnestly that she would indeed try to conquer her self-will, and be good. "That will help you get well, won't it, mamma?" she asked, stroking the white face tenderly. "Yes, darling, nothing will help me get well faster than that," her mother answered, giving her a tender kiss. It was very hard to say good-by when papa's voice called,-- "Come little daughter, the carriage is ready." It was harder than Ruby had had any idea that it would be. It seemed as if she could not possibly say good-by to her mother, and go out of the room, knowing that she could not kiss her good-night or good-morning any more for weeks and weeks. If it had been any one else, but to go away from her seemed quite impossible. "Good-by, darling. Remember you are going to help me get well again," her mother said, drawing the little girl's face down for a last kiss, and that helped Ruby to be very brave. She kissed her mother over and over again, and then jumped up and went out of the room without one word. The lump in her throat was growing so big that she knew she should cry in a moment if she did not hurry away. "I was brave, papa, I was brave," she said, when she went out into the hall and found her father waiting for her; but the tears came then fast and thick for a moment. "Now you will be my brave little daughter again, I know," said her father, comfortingly, "for it is time for us to start now. I am afraid the train would not wait for us if you were not at the station in time, and it would never do to miss the train on your first journey, would it?" Ruby smiled through her tears. "Don't you think they would wait when they saw the trunk on the platform, papa? I should think they would know somebody was going away then, and would wait." "No, I don't think that even for anything as important as the trunk, the train would wait," her father answered. Ann helped Ruby put on her hat and jacket with unusual gentleness, and Ruby thought that Ann looked very much as if she wanted to cry. "Do you feel sorry, really, that I am going away, Ann?" she asked. "Of course I do, honey," Ann answered. All at once Ruby remembered how she had teased Ann, how many times she had been rude to her, and had done what she knew Ann did not want her to, and she put her arms around Ann's neck. "Ann, I 'm sorry I have been so bad," she whispered. "I will be good when I come home again." Ann was very much touched by Ruby's apology. "Never you think about that," she answered. "I'll miss you dreadfully, and I shall never remember anything but the times you have been as good as a little lamb; so you need n't worry your head about that." "Time to start," called papa again; so Ruby climbed up in the front seat, where she was to sit with her father, and Aunt Emma and Ruthy got in behind her. The little trunk, with Ruby's initials upon it, had already been taken down to the station, and was waiting for her there. It was quite a little drive to the station, and they had not started any too soon, for by the time papa had purchased the tickets, and had given Ruby the little pocket-book, that he had saved for a parting surprise, with a crisp ten-cent bill in it, some bright pennies, and in an inside compartment what seemed to Ruby like untold wealth, a whole dollar note, the distant whistle of the train was heard. And then almost before Ruby knew it she had said good-by to Ruthy, who could not keep her tears back when she said good-by to her little friend, and she was sitting by the window, where she could look out at Ruthy, when the train started, and her papa leaned over to give her a last kiss and hug. "Good-by. God bless and keep my little daughter," he said tenderly. The engine shrieked and whistled, the bell rang, and then with a jerk the train began to move, and Ruby looked out, with her face pressed close to the window, to see her father just as long as she possibly could. He was on the platform by Ruthy now, and he waved his handkerchief as the train started, and threw kisses to his little girl. Ruby pressed her face closer and closer against the glass, but at last it was of no use. There was only an indistinct blur where papa and Ruthy had been standing, for Ruby's eyes were so full of tears that she could not see them, and by the time she had taken out her new handkerchief and wiped them away, the train had begun to go so fast that she could not see the station at all. It was far behind her, and Ruby had really begun her first journey. It was hard work not to put her head down in Aunt Emma's lap and cry as much as she wanted to, but Ruby glanced about the car, and saw that every one else was looking very happy, and watching the things that passed by the windows, so she thought, with some pride, that if she should cry people might not know that it was because she was going away from her dear papa and mamma and Ruthy, but they might think that she was frightened because she had never been in the cars before, and she certainly did not want them to know that. She wiped the tears away from her eyes and sat up very straight, looking out of the window as if she was very much interested in everything she saw. Really, she could not have told you one thing that they went past. She was fighting back the tears, and her longing to have the train stopped and get off even now, and go back home again, where every one loved her so much; and it took all her courage and resolution not to break down. Aunt Emma guessed what the little girl was thinking about, and she did not disturb her for a little while, until she thought that Ruby could talk without letting the tears come. Then, all at once, she began to talk about the places they would pass on their way to school, and Ruby grew so interested in listening to her that the lump in her throat went away, and she really began to enjoy the journey. She looked about the car at the other passengers, and she wondered whether they all knew that she was going away to school and had a little trunk of her very own. It seemed to Ruby as if it was such an important occasion that somehow every one must know, even if they had not been told about it. It was very pleasant to travel, she decided, after a little while, and she wondered why it was that when she looked out of the window, it seemed as if everything was running past the train, instead of the train seeming to be in motion. It was very funny, and Ruby almost laughed when they passed a field full of cows, which shot by the window as if they had been running with all their might, when really they had been standing quite still, looking with soft, wondering eyes at the noisy monster that shrieked and whistled as it rushed on its way, drawing a long train of cars after it. CHAPTER X. MAKING FRIENDS. By and by a man dressed in blue clothes with brass buttons came through the car, stopping at each seat and looking at people's tickets. "That is the conductor, and he wants to look at the tickets," said Aunt Emma. "Would you like to give him the tickets, Ruby?" Of course Ruby wanted to do this, and she changed places with Aunt Emma, and sat at the end of the seat, waiting for the conductor to come. She felt very grown-up and important as she handed the little pieces of pasteboard to him, and wondered whether he would think that she was taking her Aunt Emma on a journey because she had the tickets; but the conductor rather disappointed her. He did not seem to be at all surprised that a little girl should give him the tickets, but he took them and after looking at them for a moment, punched a little hole in them. This did not please Ruby at all. She had not noticed that he had done this same thing to every one else's ticket, and she exclaimed,-- "Please don't do that, you will spoil those tickets, and they are all we have got." The conductor smiled, and so did several other people who had heard Ruby's speech. "I have n't spoiled the tickets, sissy," the conductor said good-naturedly. When he went on to the next seat Ruby showed the tickets to her Aunt Emma. "He says he did not spoil them, but I just think he did," she whispered. "I think it spoils tickets to have a hole made in them, don't you, Aunt Emma? Now spose they are not good any more, how shall we get to school? Will they put us off the cars?" "The tickets will be all right, Ruby," Aunt Emma answered smilingly. "Now put them back in my pocket-book again, so that they will not get lost, and by and by another conductor will get on the train and will want to see them, and then you shall show them to him." "Will he make another hole in them?" asked Ruby, who still felt as if the tickets would be much nicer without the little hole in them. "Yes, there will be three more holes made in them before we give them up," Aunt Emma answered. "Give them up?" echoed Ruby. "What do you mean, Aunt Emma? We don't give them to any body, do we?" "Yes, just before we get off the cars the conductor will take them." "It seems pretty dreadful to spend so much money for tickets and then not be allowed to keep them," Ruby said. "Don't you think he would let me keep mine just to remember the journey by, if I should ask him?" "No, he could not do that," Aunt Emma answered. "You will have to give yours up just as every one else will. But you have had a long ride for the ticket, you know, Ruby, so you must not feel as if your ticket had been taken away and you had received nothing in exchange." "Oh, I forgot that," Ruby answered, and then she leaned her face against the window and looked out again at the places they were passing. By and by the old gentleman in the seat in front of Ruby looked around and when he saw the little girl, he smiled at her with a pair of very kind blue eyes, and said,-- "Little girl, don't you want to come in here and visit me a little while?" Ruby was very willing to do this, for she was tired of looking out of the window, and Aunt Emma had a headache and did not feel like talking; so in a minute she had slipped past her aunt, and was in the next seat, very willing to be entertained. The old gentleman was very fond of little girls, and as he had a whole host of grandchildren, he knew just what little girls and boys liked. He told Ruby some funny stories about the way people had to travel before steam cars were in use, and then he told her about the first school he ever went to, and how he had to go all alone, and had a pretty hard time with the older boys, who were very fond of teasing younger ones. Ruby was very much interested, and told him in return that she, too, was going to school for the first time. By and by a boy came through the cars with a basket on his arm. "Oranges, apples, bananas, pears," he called out, and the old gentleman beckoned to him. "Come here, and let this little lady choose what she would like to have," he said; and the boy brought the basket to Ruby, and rested it upon the arm of the seat, while she looked into it. The old gentleman was very, very nice, she thought, for he not only knew how to be so entertaining, but he called Ruby "a little lady," and if there was one thing in all the world that Ruby liked better than another it was to be considered grown-up, and to be spoken of as a little lady. The old gypsy woman had called her a little lady, though Ruby did not like to remember her, but it was quite proper that a little girl who was going to boarding-school should be considered grown-up, even if she did not have long dresses on. "What will you have, my dear?" asked the old gentleman. "Will you have an orange or a banana, or is there something else you would prefer?" A large yellow Bartlett pear attracted Ruby's eyes. "I think I would like this," she answered. "Very well, my dear," he said. "Now as my eyes are not very good, would you be kind enough to take some money out of my pocketbook and pay the boy?" This was even still more delightful, and Ruby felt as if long dresses could not make her feel one inch more grown-up than she felt when she opened the big purse with its brass clasps, took out some money, and paid the boy, receiving some pennies in change which she dropped back into the purse again. "I see you are quite used to making purchases," said the old gentleman, with a funny little twinkle in his eye, as he watched the happy little face beside him. "I don't very often buy anything and pay the money for it," Ruby said truthfully. "That is, except at the store, and that don't seem to count because mamma always gives me just the right money, all wrapped up so I won't lose it. But I think it is very nice to buy things. Didn't you want a pear, too, sir?" "No, thank you," answered the old gentleman. "Now would you like to have me fix the pear so you can eat it without getting any juice upon your pretty dress?" "Yes, please," Ruby answered, so he spread a newspaper upon his lap, and taking out his knife, cut the pear into quarters, and proceeded to peel it, and cut it into nice little pieces, just the right size to eat. Ruby watched him with a great deal of interest. She liked him more and more all the time, and she was quite sure that it would be very nice to be one of his grandchildren, of whom he had told her. It had been some time now since Ruby and Aunt Emma had started upon their journey, and when Aunt Emma saw what the old gentleman was doing she leaned forward and offered Ruby the lunch-basket. "It would be very nice for you to eat your lunch now, if you are hungry," she said. "Suppose you eat a sandwich first, and then the pear, and some cake afterwards. You can offer the basket to your friend, and perhaps he would like a sandwich, too." Ruby was very much pleased to find that the old gentleman thought that this would be a very good plan, and that he was glad of a sandwich, so the party had quite a little picnic together. Aunt Emma ate her lunch too, and Ruby spread the white napkin that was in the top of the lunch-box over her lap, and laid the sandwiches out upon it, so that the old gentleman might help himself. The pear was such a big one that Ruby could divide it both with the old gentleman and with Aunt Emma and still have plenty for herself, and some time passed very pleasantly in eating the lunch, and putting what was left carefully back into the box again. By this time Ruby had begun to be very tired of riding in the cars. She did not want to look out of the window any more, and she began to feel a little homesick. She grew very quiet, as she began to wonder what Ruthy was doing just now. The old gentleman had told her that it was eleven o'clock, so she knew that Ruthy was probably having a nice game at recess with the other children. This was the first day of school at home, and Ruby remembered how she had always enjoyed that first day. It was so pleasant to put everything to rights in her desk just as she meant to have it all the year, to have her old seat by Ruthy where she had sat ever since she first began to go to school, and to look at the new scholars, and wonder whether she would have much trouble in keeping at the head of the class. The old gentleman wondered what made his little companion so quiet, and looking down at her, he saw the tears beginning to gather in her eyes. He guessed a little of what she was thinking about. Of course he could not know all about school, and about Ruthy, but he knew she was thinking about some one at home. He looked back, and saw that Aunt Emma had put her head down upon the back of the seat, and with a handkerchief over her face was trying to take a little nap in the hope that it would help her aching head. He wondered what he could do to keep Ruby from becoming homesick and tired. "Let me tell you about one of my little grandchildren," he said, and Ruby winked the tears away and looked up at him. "She is a little girl just about your age, and sometimes when we go on a journey together, as we often do,--for every year I go and get her, and bring her to stay with me for two or three weeks in the summer time,--she gets tired of riding in the cars so long at once, and what do you suppose she does?" "What does she do?" asked Ruby. "She reaches into my pocket,--this outside pocket, here,--and takes out this handkerchief, so," and the old gentleman drew out a large silk handkerchief from the pocket that was next to Ruby. "Then she spreads it upon my shoulder just so,--and I put my arm about her, and she cuddles up to me and puts her head down on the handkerchief and takes a nice nap. Then when she wakes up we are almost ready to get off, and she has not minded the long ride. I wonder if you would not like to put your head down here a few minutes, and see if you like it as well as Ellie does. And then if such a thing should happen as that you should go to sleep, why, that would be so much the better." Ruby hesitated. She did not feel as if any one who was old enough to go to boarding-school ought to be such a baby as to go asleep on the way, but she was very tired. She had awakened almost before it was light that morning, and she had been so excited over her journey that she could not keep still for a moment, and then the long ride was making her still more tired. The handkerchief, and the strong arm looked very inviting, and when she looked back and saw that Aunt Emma had gone to sleep, too, that quite decided her. She slipped up nearer to the old gentleman, and taking off her hat, handed it to him to put up in the rack over head. Then she laid her head down upon the silk handkerchief, and he put his arm about her, and drew her up closely to him. "It makes me think of the way papa holds me," she said, but the thought of her papa made two big tears splash down upon the silk handkerchief. "Shall I tell you where I went with my father when I was a little boy," the old gentleman asked,--without seeming to notice the tears,--and then he began a long story which somehow put the tired little girl fast asleep, and the next thing she knew, Aunt Emma was telling her that it was time for her to think about getting her hat on, for they had almost reached their journey's end. "Have I boon asleep?" asked Ruby, starting up and rubbing her eyes. "I should say so," said the old gentleman, looking at his watch. "Guess how long a nap you have taken, little girl." "Ten minutes?" asked Ruby, who thought she must only have just closed her eyes, since she could not remember having slept at all. The last thing that she remembered was listening to the old gentleman's story, and then it had seemed as if the very next thing was being awakened by Aunt Emma's voice. "Ten minutes, and ever so much more," the old gentleman answered with a smile. "You have been asleep just two hours." "Two hours!" and Ruby's eyes were wide open with surprise. "Why, I never remembered that." "You were sleeping too sound to remember anything," her friend said. "Well, I am glad you have had a nice rest, and now you will enjoy reaching your journey's end all the more. I shall miss you very much when you get out, for you have been very pleasant company." "I wasn't very nice when I was asleep, I am afraid," said Ruby, "It was n't very polite of me to go to sleep, was it?" "Oh, yes it was when I invited you to," the gentleman said. "And I enjoyed it, for it seemed just like having my little granddaughter here with me." Aunt Emma helped Ruby put her hat on straight, and brushed the dust from her dress. The engine began to whistle, and that meant that they were very near a station. Ruby said good-by to her kind friend, and he gave her his card with his name upon it, and asked her to write him a letter after she had been at school a little while and tell him how she liked it, and how she was getting on in her lessons. Ruby promised that she would; and then the train began to go more slowly, and at last stopped with a little jerk at a station, and Aunt Emma said,-- "Here we are at last, Ruby." For just a moment Ruby was not glad. She suddenly began to feel a little shy about boarding school, and remembered what she had not thought much about before,--that she would have to meet a great many strange girls, and that it would take some time to become acquainted with them,--and she wished again, as she had wished many times before, that Ruthy might have come with her; but she had not much time to think about anything, for the train did not wait very long for people to get out, and in a few moments Aunt Emma and Ruby were on the platform of the station and Ruby was waving good-by to the kind old gentleman, who was leaning out of the window to see the last of his little friend. CHAPTER XI. AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE. There were several cars, and a great many people got out of them, for this was a junction, and some who were not going to stop here got out that they might take a train that would carry them where they wanted to go. "We must wait till I see about our trunks," said Aunt Emma; and leaving Ruby in a safe corner, she went to look after the baggage and give the checks to the expressman who was waiting to take the trunks up to the school. Ruby stood very still looking about her. It was a very busy place, and there was a good deal to see. After the train upon which she had come had drawn out of the station and gone puffing and panting upon its way, so that she could not see her friend the kind old gentleman any more, another train came into the station that was going the other way, and a few people got off, while a great many of those who were waiting in the station got upon it. A lady with a little girl and a great many bags and bundles got off this last train, and perhaps you can guess how surprised Ruby was when she found it was some one whom she knew. I wonder if you could guess who it was. I do not believe you could, so I will tell you. It was Maude Birkenbaum and her mother who had come upon this other train. [Illustration: RUBY MEETING MAUDE AT THE STATION (missing from book)] "Oh, I so wonder if she is going to boarding-school too," thought Ruby. "I never, never spected to see that girl again, but I don't know but what I am maybe a very little glad to see her, for I don't know one single other of the girls here, and it would be so lonesome for a while. She sha'n't make me do bad things now anyhow, for I am ever so much older than I was when she got me into so many troubles that summer." Ruby had been told not to go away from the place where Aunt Emma had left her, so even to speak to Maude she would not leave it; but she did not need to, for in a few minutes Mrs. Birkenbaum went to the baggage-room, and Maude walked about looking around her. In a little while her eyes fell upon Ruby, and she rushed forward with an exclamation of pleasure. "Why, Ruby Harper!" she exclaimed, quite as much surprised at seeing Ruby as Ruby had been to see her. "I never thought of your being here. What are you doing here anyway?" "I am going to boarding-school," answered Ruby, "and that is my trunk;" and she pointed to her pretty little black trunk, which the expressman was putting upon the wagon, that was getting quite a load of baggage by this time. "I wonder if you are going to the same school that I am," said Maude. "I do hope you are, for then we can have such good times together. I am going to Miss Chalmer's Home Boarding-School for Young Ladies. Where are you going?" "I don't know," admitted Ruby, unwillingly. It had never occurred to her to ask her Aunt Emma the name of the school; indeed I do not think that she knew that any school had a particular name any more than the school at home did. That was always called the school, and so Ruby had thought that this new school was simply a boarding-school. How dreadful it would be if Maude was going to a Boarding-School for Young Ladies, and she herself should be going to a school for children. "You don't know," echoed Maude. "How funny. You are just as funny as ever, Ruby Harper. I never heard of any one starting out to go to boarding-school without knowing where they were going." "Well, I did n't need to know, or I should have asked," said Ruby, with some dignity. "I came with my Aunt Emma, and she is a teacher in this school that I am going to, and so I did not have to know anything about it. She brought me with her." "Oh," said Maude, in more respectful tones. To have an aunt who taught in a boarding-school was a great thing in Maude's eyes, and it made her less inclined to patronize Ruby. "I do hope it is the same school," she went on presently, really glad in the bottom of her selfish little heart to see some one whom she had known before, for this was her first time too of leaving home. "We will have such nice times together, and I have ever and ever so many things to show you. You just ought to see all the dresses I have brought with me." "And so have I," Ruby answered. "My trunk is just full of them, and I had a dressmaker sewing them for a whole week before I came away from home." "Did you?" asked Maude, and Ruby was pleased to notice that she spoke as if this fact made her have a higher opinion of Ruby. "I thought your mamma always made your dresses." "She always used to, but she is sick now," said Ruby, and the lump rose in her throat again at the thought that she was miles away from her mother. "So we had Miss Abigail Hart come and stay a whole week and sew on them all the time." "You must have a nice lot then," said Maude. "I am glad, for if we are going to be friends, I should not like to have the other girls think that you looked old-fashioned and as if you came from the country;" and foolish little Maude tossed her head, and looked complacently down upon her pretty travelling-dress. Perhaps if Ruby had not been thinking about her mother just then, she would have been very angry at Maude's words, and the two children would have begun to quarrel at once; but thinking of her promise to her mother, the very last thing, that she would really try to be good, and do just what she knew was right, Ruby controlled the hasty words, and said pleasantly,-- "Well, even if my dresses are not as pretty as yours, Maude, the girls won't think that it is your fault. Here comes Aunt Emma. Won't she be surprised to find that I know somebody here in this strange place?" Aunt Emma was quite as surprised as Ruby had supposed she would be, and presently Maude's mamma came up, and was very glad to find that Maude was going to have an old friend for a school-fellow. "Ruby is a good little girl, and she will keep Maude straight, I hope," she said to Ruby's aunt; and it was all Ruby could do to keep from looking as proud as she felt, to think that Maude's mamma should say that she was a good little girl. Ruby did not feel as if she quite deserved the praise, but it was very pleasant nevertheless. She made up her mind that she would really try to be good and keep from getting angry at Maude when she said provoking things, and if possible she would help Maude to be good instead of doing wrong things that she proposed. By this time all the trunks were in the wagon and on their way to the school; and Ruby and Maude, with Aunt Emma and Mrs. Birkenbaum, set out to walk, for it was not a very great distance. The two little girls walked together in front, and the ladies came after more slowly. "I wonder what boarding-school will be like," said Ruby presently. "I suppose it will be perfectly dreadful," said Maude. "I know some girls that went to boarding-school once, and they told me that it was awful. They never had enough to eat, and they had to study all the time, and they got so homesick that they tried to run away, but the teacher caught them and brought them back again." Ruby looked horrified. "Do you spose that was really true that they did not have enough to eat?" she asked. "Of course it's true, for these girls told me so," Maude answered. "I have brought a whole lot of cake and candy in my trunk, and I will give you some when I eat it, Ruby. My mamma is going to send me a box every month, so they sha'n't starve me, anyway." Ruby turned back and exclaimed,-- "Aunt Emma, do they give the girls enough to eat at this school?" Aunt Emma laughed. "Why, of course they do," she answered. "Whatever put that notion into your head, Ruby? The girls have all they can eat of good, wholesome food, and it is just as nice as it is at home." Ruby looked contented, and went on again. "I did n't spose you would go and ask your aunt about what I said," Maude remarked presently in rather annoyed tones. "Now don't tell her one single word about the cake and candy I have in my trunk, or she may tell the other teachers, and they will take it away from me. I know all about what things the teachers will do at boarding-school." "I guess my auntie would n't do anything mean," Ruby answered rather hotly. "Anyway, Maude, perhaps this boarding-school is n't like the one that those girls went to. Aunt Emma said it would be ever so nice here, and she ought to know, for she has lived here ever since I was a little bit of a girl. I was only three years old when she began to teach here." "Perhaps it is nice, and then perhaps again she has got used to it, and don't notice that it is n't pleasant," said Maude. "Anyway, I am ever so glad that you are here, Ruby, for it will be ever so much pleasanter having somebody I know." "Turn the corner now, Ruby," called Aunt Emma, as the little girls came to the corner of a street, and going around the corner they found that they were close to the school. Both the children were sure that it must be the school even before Aunt Emma said,-- "Here we are, girls. Does it not look like a pleasant place?" It did, indeed, look very pleasant, and even Maude, who was disposed to find fault, could not raise any objection to the large, rambling brick house, with wide porches running all around it, shaded with vines, and surrounded on every side by large lawns and a pretty garden. A row of great elms spread their wide branches upon both sides of the street, and just opposite the school stood a pretty church, with its spire reaching up among the trees, and ivy climbing over its stone walls. Several little girls about as large as Ruby and Maude, as well as a few older ones, were amusing themselves upon the lawn, and they all looked very happy. "Well, Maude, this is n't as bad as you thought it was going to be, is it?" asked Maude's mamma. "No," admitted Maude. "It looks nice enough outside, but remember, mamma, if I don't like it I am going to run away and come home." Aunt Emma looked at Maude, when she heard the little girl talking this way, and began to feel sorry that she had come, if she was going to say such naughty things. She did not want Ruby to have for a friend a little girl who would be more likely to help her get into mischief than to help her be good. Maude looked up and saw Miss Emma's eyes fixed upon her with grave disapproval, and then she remembered that she had been talking about running away before one of the teachers. "Oh, I don't really mean that," she said. "I won't run away, for papa said if I stayed and was good he would give me a watch that really goes and keeps time, for Christmas." "I am glad you did not mean it," said Miss Emma. "You need not be afraid of being unhappy if you are good and obey the rules. Of course you will miss your mamma and papa for a little while, but you will soon be so interested in your studies and play that you will be contented, I hope. Our little girls are all very happy after the first few days." Just then they entered the gate, and Ruby felt quite shy as she took hold of her aunt's hand, and stayed close beside her. There were so many strange little girls that Ruby thought she would never get acquainted with all of them. She was not used to feeling shy, but then she had never seen so many strangers before. They went up the steps, upon the shaded porch,--where two little girls were sitting in a hammock reading, and looked as if they were birds in a nest,---and rang the bell. Aunt Emma raised the great knocker upon the front door and rapped loudly. Ruby was quite interested in looking at the knocker while they were waiting for the door to be opened. It was a lion's head, and it looked very fierce with its open mouth and sharp teeth. She wondered if she could reach it and rap with it if she stood on tiptoe, and she was just going to ask Aunt Emma to let her try, when the door opened, and a maid took them into the parlor. Ruby looked about her with wondering eyes. So this was boarding-school. CHAPTER XII. MAKING ACQUAINTANCE. They did not have to wait long for Miss Chapman, the principal of the school, to come in. Almost before the girl had closed the parlor door, and before Ruby had had time to do much more than glance about the room, the door opened again, and the dearest and sweetest of Quaker ladies came in. She had on a plain gray dress, and a white handkerchief was folded about her neck. She wore a little white cap over her silver hair, and her eyes were so kind that Ruby was quite sure that she should love her very, very much, and should never do anything to displease her if she could help it. Miss Chapman greeted Aunt Emma very warmly, and was introduced to Mrs. Birkenbaum, and then she turned to the children. "So these are the little girls I have been expecting," she said, shaking hands with them. She asked them a few questions about their journey, and whether they had come together, and then she talked again with the ladies. While this conversation was going on, the children looked about them, Maude no less curiously than Ruby, for boarding-school was a new experience to her, too. It was a pleasant room. In one corner of it was a table with a globe upon it, and some books, and in another corner was a what-not, with shells and other curious things that Ruby wished she might go over and examine. She was wondering whether she might not whisper to Aunt Emma how eager she was to go over to the what-not, and ask whether she might do so, when Miss Chapman rose, and took the party up to their rooms. Ruby was to room with her Aunt Emma, which was a very good arrangement for more than one reason; for she would be less apt to be homesick with her aunt, and besides that she would not be in danger of transgressing rules by speaking to other pupils after the lights had been put out for the night. Maude was to room with one of the other girls, and her room was at the end of the hall. It was a very comfortable little room with two little white beds in it, but Maude did not seem very well satisfied with it. The room in which Ruby was to sleep was larger, because it was a teacher's room, and it did not please Maude to find that Ruby or indeed any one else, should have anything that was better than what she herself had. She looked very sullen, but she did not say anything while Miss Chapman was upstairs. After Miss Emma and Ruby had gone to their own room and she was left alone with her mother in the room which she was to share, she threw herself down upon one of the beds, exclaiming angrily,-- "I don't want to stay here, mamma. I just wish you would either make them give me the nicest room in the house, or take me home with you. Do you spose I want a mean little room like this when Ruby Harper has such a nice one? The idea of a little country girl having a better room than I have! I won't stay if I have to have this room, so." "Oh, yes," said Mrs. Birkenbaum, soothingly. "Yes, you will stay, Maude. The only reason that Ruby has a larger room is because it is her aunt's room, and of course a teacher has to have a larger and nicer room than the scholars. It will be ever so much nicer to be in this room. I am sure you would not like to be in the same room with a teacher and have her listening to everything you said. And now mind, you must be careful what you say to Ruby, for she will probably tell her aunt everything, and the teachers won't like you if you complain about things. Don't fuss about the room, that is a good child, and I will send you a new ring, and you shall have a great big box of cake every month, and then all the other girls will want to be friends with you. This is a nice room; see, it has two windows." But Maude did not feel disposed to let herself be coaxed into liking the room. "It's a horrid little bit of a room," she repeated again, pettishly. "I don't like it, and I won't stay, unless you send me a beautiful ring. What kind of a ring will it be, if I stay, mamma?" "What kind of a ring would you like?" asked her mother. "You shall tell me just what you would like, and I will coax papa to buy it for you." "I want a ring with red and blue stones in it," said Maude, sitting up, and looking less unhappy now that she was interested in her ring. "If papa will send me a ring like that then maybe I will stay, but you must remember to send me lots of cake and candy." "Very well, dear, I will," said her mother, pleased at having coaxed the wilful little girl into submission. "And you will be good, too, won't you, Maude? You know papa wants you to learn something, and you won't learn anything at home, so we want you to get along in your lessons here. Don't let little Ruby Harper beat you in everything. You are ever so much smarter than she is, if you only study." "I guess I am smarter," said Maude, tossing her head. "Ruby is only a country girl, and I guess I can beat her in lessons and everything else if I make up my mind to it, but if I study you must give me everything I want for Christmas." "Yes, we will," her mother answered. "Now get up and let me brush your hair, Maude, and we will go downstairs for a little while, and look about, and then I will unpack your trunk, and get things settled for you." Maude felt better-natured by this time, so she got up from the bed, and let her mother brush her hair, and forgot to complain about things, or make bargains concerning her Christmas presents, while she looked through the window and watched the girls playing ring-toss down on the lawn. "The girls that go to this school are n't one bit stylish," she said presently. "I guess I shall have nicer clothes than any of them. I wonder if they are nice girls. Do you spose I shall like them, mamma?" "Oh, yes, I am sure you will," said her mother, encouragingly. "They are very nice, I am sure, and you will be so happy here that you won't hardly want to come home for the holidays. It won't be long before Christmas comes, so if you get homesick you must remember that." "I guess I won't be homesick, if I can do as I want, and have plenty of candy and cake," said Maude, carelessly. "I am glad Ruby Harper is here, I shall not be so lonely then." "You must give her some of the things I send you," said her mother. "I will see," said Maude. "If she does as I want her to I will, but I am not going to give them all away. I want to keep some for myself." "Now your hair looks all right," said her mother, giving one last brush to the waves of tightly crimped hair that fell below Maude's waist. "We will go downstairs and see the school-room, and look about the garden." In the mean time Ruby had been helping Aunt Emma unpack her little trunk and she was so impatient to see what was in the mysterious package that Orpah had given her that she could scarcely wait for the trunk to be unlocked. She lifted it out, and laid it on the bed, and untied the string. "See if you can guess what is in it," she said to Aunt Emma. "I guess a work-box," Aunt Emma said. "I can't guess at all," Ruby answered, as she opened the paper, and found another wrapping of tissue paper covering the gift. "Oh, Aunt Emma, what do you spose it is? See how carefully it is wrapped up." She unfolded the tissue paper, and then she gave a little scream of delight. I think you would have been just as delighted as Ruby herself was, if you had had such a beautiful gift. It was a little writing-desk, with a plate on the top, with the word Ruby engraved upon it, and a lock in front, with a little key in it. When Ruby turned the key, and opened the lid, she was more delighted even than she had been at first; for surely, no little girl ever had a prettier desk, with a more complete outfit in it. There was a pretty little inkstand in one little compartment, with a silver top which screwed on so tightly that the ink could not possibly spill out when Ruby carried the desk around, and in the opposite compartment was a little silver box for stamps. There was a place for pen-holders and pencils, and when Ruby took off its cover and looked into it, she found the dearest pen-holder of silver, with her initial upon it, and a pen in it all ready for use. There was a little silver pencil in it too, that opened and shut, when it was screwed and unscrewed. Then there was a place for paper, and envelopes, and another place in which to keep all the dear home letters, that Ruby knew she was going to receive every week. The envelopes were pink and cream, and chocolate and a pale blue, to match the paper, and they all had "H" upon them just as if they had been made especially for Ruby. Orpah had directed one of the envelopes to herself, and put a stamp upon it all ready for Ruby to write to her. All this was enough to make Ruby forget that she was tired and away from home, and to make her eyes shine like stars; but there was still something else, that I think she liked better than everything else in the desk put together. Perhaps, it was because it was something that she had never dreamed that she should possess for her very own, that she was so delighted with it. There was a little outfit of sealing-wax, with sticks of different-colored wax, tiny tapers, and a little candlestick just big enough to hold such wee bits of candles, in the shape of a pond lily, and a little seal with "R" on it. So when Ruby had written her letters and put them in their envelopes, she could light one of the little tapers, drop some wax upon the back of the envelope, and press it down with the seal, just as she had seen her papa do. "Oh, oh, oh," she cried, in delight. "I do think Orpah is just the nicest girl. Did you ever see anything quite so perfectly lovely, Aunt Emma? You shall use it when you write letters, if you want to, and oh, may I write a letter this very minute, and seal it with my seal?" "Not just this minute, dear," said her aunt, smiling at her eagerness. "Wait until we have unpacked our trunks, and get a little settled, and then you may write and tell your mamma what a nice journey you had, and how kind the old gentleman was to you." It was a very sure indication that Ruby was trying to be good, that she did not fret because she could not do as she wished that very minute. She put the things back in her desk, closed it, and locked it with the pretty little key, and said, "Aunt Emma, I do wish I had a little ribbon so I could wear this key around my neck." "I have a nice little piece of blue ribbon that I will give you as soon as I open my trunk," Aunt Emma said; and very soon Ruby had the cunning little key tied fast around her neck, where she could put up her hand and feel it every now and then, and think of the pretty gift, and above all of the sealing-wax, which was the chief charm of the desk. CHAPTER XIII. GETTING SETTLED. Both Ruby and Maude felt very shy when they went downstairs and saw so many girls whom they did not know at all. They were very glad that among all those strange girls there was at least one whom they each knew. "Was n't it the funniest thing that we should happen to come to the same boarding-school?" whispered Maude, as she took Ruby's hand and walked up and down the porch, while the scholars who had already come and felt very much at home, looked at them half curiously and half shyly, no doubt wondering whether they would be pleasant schoolmates or not. Aunt Emma found that Ruby was quite contented to stay with Maude, so she went back upstairs, where she still had some little things to do, and Mrs. Birkenbaum finished unpacking Maude's things, for she had to go away that afternoon, and wanted to unpack Maude's trunk before she left. Ruby and Maude walked up and down the porch for a time and then they went down upon the lawn. There was a large lawn in front of the house, where the girls usually played. In one corner of it there was a croquet set, and as this was something new to Ruby, she looked at the hoops with a great deal of interest, while Maude, who had a set at home explained the game to her. "I will show you how to play it, and we will play together sometimes," Maude said. There was plenty of room to play tag, and puss in the corner, and Ruby thought the trees grew in just the right places for that game. She wondered if there had been a school there when they were planted, and if Miss Chapman had planted them so that they would be nice for puss in the corner. The house was quite large, and when Ruby and Maude walked around the lawn towards the back of the house, they found the schoolhouse, which was connected with the rest of the house by a long covered passage-way, so that the girls could go backward and forward in wet weather without getting wet. The school-room was not open, but the children looked through the window, and saw the teacher's desk at one end, blackboards hung upon the walls, and long rows of desks and seats for the scholars. On the other side of the school-room was the garden, with vegetables and flowers, and some pear-trees that were laden with fruit. "Those pears look nice, don't they?" said Maude. "I wonder if they will let us have some. Perhaps Miss Chapman keeps them all for herself. We will have some anyway, won't we, Ruby. Well, I guess we have seen everything now. I think I will go upstairs and see if mamma has finished unpacking my trunk." Ruby was quite willing to go into the house, for she was sure that by this time Aunt Emma would have emptied her trunk, and she might write her letter home. "I was just coning to look for you, Ruby dear," said Aunt Emma, as her little niece opened the door. "You can write to your mamma now, if you like, and you will just have time to write a nice long letter before it is supper-time." Ruby untied the ribbon about her neck, took the little key off, and opened the desk, with a feeling of pride. She was quite sure that there could not be a prettier desk in all the world than this one which Orpah had given her, and she was very anxious to show it to Maude, and surprise her with its beauty. "What shall I write my letter on first, Aunt Emma?" she asked. "Here is a piece of paper and a pencil you can use, and then you can copy it afterwards," said Aunt Emma; so Ruby sat down at a little table by the window, and wrote to her mother. [Illustration: RUBY WRITING A LETTER HOME.] When she had finished her letter and Aunt Emma had looked it over, and corrected the few mistakes in spelling that she found, Ruby opened the desk, and putting it upon the table, took out some of her pink paper, which she thought was the prettiest, and carefully copied the letter. "This ought to be a very nice letter, written on such a beautiful desk, with a silver pen-holder, ought n't it, Aunt Emma?" she asked. "Yes, dear, and I am sure your mamma will think it is very nice," her aunt answered. Ruby was very proud when she finished copying it without one single mistake. She did not usually have the patience to work so carefully but she felt as if such a desk deserved great care on the part of its owner. Would you like to hear her letter? Here it is: MY DEAR MAMMA AND PAPA,--I am writing this letter to you on a beautiful new desk that Orpah gave me. That was what was in the package she made me promise not to open. We had a very pleasant journey. There was a very kind old gentleman on the cars, who talked to me and told me stories, and he told the boy with a basket to let the little lady choose what she wanted, and I chose a big pear. I divided it with Aunt Emma and the old gentleman. When I was sleepy I put my head down on his shoulder the way his little grand-daughter does, and I went to sleep and I slept ever so long, though I thought it was only a little while. It is nice to ride in the cars, but it takes a long time. I like this school. I like Miss Chapman. She has white hair like grandma. Her eyes are blue. I shall be good, for I like her very much. But I shall be good anyway, because I promised you. I do want to see you, mamma, and papa, too. Aunt Emma has unpacked my trunk, and my things are all put away. Maude Birkenbaum is here. She was at the station at the same time I was, and we walked up together. I mean to be good. Her mother said she hoped I would be a help to Maude, and I mean to try to be good, instead of doing things she wants me to do. I love you a whole heartful, mamma and papa. Please write me a long letter soon. I hope you will soon be well again, mamma. I shall seal this letter with my new sealing wax, and you must pretend it is a kiss. Your loving RUBY. Ruby was so impatient to use her new sealing-wax outfit that she found it very hard work to finish her letter carefully, and write the last words just as well as she had written the first one. "Do you think 'Ruby' looks as well as 'My dear Mamma and Papa'?" she asked Aunt Emma, carrying the paper over to her. That was Ruby's test whether she had been careful in writing a letter, to look and see whether the last words were as carefully written as the first ones. Sometimes, if she had not been very careful, one would not think that the same little girl had written all the letter. The first few lines would be so very neat and carefully written, and the last ones would be straggly, and of different heights and wandering all across the pages. But this time Ruby had been very careful indeed. She had left just the same margin all the way down the left-hand side of her page, and she had been careful in dividing her words, so when Aunt Emma had looked it all over very carefully, she could say that it was just as nice as Ruby could possibly have written. Then Ruby folded it and put it into one of her new envelopes; and then came the most exciting part of all. Ruby had never been very fond of letter-writing before, but she thought she would be perfectly willing to write a letter every day, if she might always seal them up with wax. She put the little pond-lily candlestick out upon the table, on a folded piece of paper, which Aunt Emma told her she had better put under it lest the melted wax should drop upon the table-cloth, and then she took out her little box of colored tapers, and tried to decide which one she should use first. She decided upon the pink one, because that matched the color of the paper she had been using; and so she took out a pink taper, and set it in the candlestick. It fitted very snugly, so there was no danger of its falling out. Aunt Emma showed her how to open the little silver match-box that Ruby had not discovered before in the outfit, and she lighted the taper, and then held a stick of green sealing-wax in the flame. When the end had grown quite soft in the heat, Ruby watched it carefully, and let the big drop at the end fall just at the right time, and in just the right place upon her envelope. Then she pressed the seal down upon it, and you can guess how proud she was when she saw her initial in the wax. "Won't mamma be surprised when she gets this letter?" she asked gleefully. "She will wonder where I got the wax, and I am sure she will hardly believe that I made such a nice seal the very first time I ever used it." [Transcriber's note: page 145 missing from book] [Transcriber's note: page 146 missing from book] her, which made a very great difference; and then she was very much interested in listening to the talk of the girls who had been there before, as they crowded about Aunt Emma and told her of what they had been doing during their vacation. Maude was not at all pleased when she found that no one paid any particular attention to her, and she sat by herself with a very discontented look upon her face. One of the girls came up to her after a time, and asked her if she would like to take part in a game, but Maude refused, sullenly, and after that no one else spoke to her. "I shall go home just as soon as mamma can come and get me," she said to herself. "I don't like this place one single bit. No one pays a bit of attention to me, and my dress is ever so much nicer than any one else's. I think Ruby might come and sit by me, instead of staying with her aunt, so I do." But Ruby was very happy where she was. She had not forgotten Maude, and when they had first gone into the sitting-room, she had invited Maude to come and sit beside her; but as Maude had refused, wishing Ruby to come over to her, she had concluded that Maude wished to be by herself, and was listening to the talk going on about her, without thinking any more about Maude. At eight o'clock all the girls went up to bed, and Miss Chapman told them that in half an hour a bell would be rung, and that then they must put their lights out, and not talk any more to one another that night. Some of the girls who were tired had gone to bed earlier, but most of the scholars had stayed downstairs until that hour. The next day would be the first day of regular school, and Miss Chapman told them that she hoped they would all sleep well so as to be fresh for their studies in the morning. When Ruby was in her room, she realized for the first time with all her heart how much happier she was than those girls who had come quite alone. If she had not Aunt Emma she did not know what she should have done, she should have been so lonely. As it was, all her chatter stopped as she began to get undressed, and though Aunt Emma talked on about everything that she thought would interest her little niece, yet Ruby's answers grew more and more infrequent, and Aunt Emma guessed that she was thinking about home, and the dear ones there from whom she had never been separated so long before. Ruby was really a brave little girl, and when she felt the lump swelling in her throat again she kept swallowing it back, and trying to think only of how pleased her papa would be when he should hear that she had been good and had not cried to come home; but when at last she knelt down to say her prayers in her little white night gown, the tears would come. "I want mamma, oh, I want mamma," she sobbed. Aunt Emma took her up tenderly in her arms, and kissed and comforted the little girl as tenderly as she could; but no one could take the place of mother, and though Ruby tried to stop crying, the tears came fast and thick. "You may think I am not trying to be brave, Aunt Emma," said Ruby, through her sobs; "but I am trying, I truly am, but it does just seem as if I should die if I could n't see my mamma. Oh, if I was only home again. Can't I possibly go home to-morrow, Aunt Emma? Do say yes, or I can't live all night." "There, dear, don't cry so hard," said Aunt Emma, wiping away her tears. "You will feel better to-morrow, Ruby darling. You will be so busy getting your lessons that you will not have time to think about anything else, and then when night comes again, you will remember that you have come away with me so that your dear mamma can get well and strong again, and the braver you are, the sooner she will improve. You had forgotten that, had n't you, dear? You know you are helping to make her well here at school. I know you can't help crying some. I shall not think you are not brave because you do, but I know you are going to stop very soon and cuddle up and go to sleep, and wake up as happy as a little bird." Ruby wiped away her tears after a time, and Aunt Emma went to bed with her, that the little girl might feel loving arms about her, and not remember how far she was away from home and from her mother and father. CHAPTER XIV. SCHOOL. At half-past six the next morning, the rising-bell sounded through the house, and Ruby sat up in bed and rubbed her eyes, trying to remember where she was, and what the bell was. It did not take her very long to remember, and she jumped out of bed quite happy again, and wondering what the first day of school would be like. By the time she was all dressed, and had put on one of her pretty new school dresses, the bell rang again, and as Ruby followed Aunt Emma out into the hall, she saw that all the other doors down the long passage-way were opening, and the girls were coming out, some of them fastening their collars, as if they had not had quite time enough to dress. They went down to the dining-room and sat in their chairs around the sides of the room while Miss Chapman read morning prayers. Miss Chapman was seated in her large chair at the end of the room when the girls entered, looking, as Ruby thought to herself, like a queen upon her throne. As they came in one after another, each one said, "Good morning, Miss Chapman," and she answered them. Some of the girls, those who had been there the year before, made a little courtesy as they entered, but the new scholars were too shy to even try to do this, and they only said "Good morning," and some of them were so shy that their lips only moved, and not even the girl next to them could hear what they were trying to say. After prayers came breakfast, and then the girls went upstairs to make their beds and put their rooms in order. There were sixteen girls altogether, and two teachers besides Miss Chapman and Miss Emma, as the girls called her. There was Miss Ketchum, and Mrs. Boardman, who was really the matron, though the girls always thought of her as a teacher, and she sometimes taught a class if any of the other teachers were ill or away. Mrs. Boardman went around to the rooms and told the girls how the rooms were to be kept, and she was such a motherly, warm-hearted body that very often if she found a homesick girl in her room she would know just how to cheer and comfort her, and help her to dry her tears. Poor little Maude was really very unhappy. Her room-mate had not come yet, so she was all alone in her room, and when Mrs. Boardman went in she found her packing her trunk again, with her tears falling fast and thick upon her dresses. For once she did not care whether they were spoiled or not. All she thought of was to go home again as fast as she could, and it had not entered her head that she might not be permitted if she really made up her mind to go. Before Mrs. Birkenbaum had gone, she had told Miss Chapman that Maude would probably want to come home, and that they would have hard work keeping her, as she was used to having her own way, so Mrs. Boardman was not very much surprised when she saw what Maude was doing. Maude did not look up when the teacher entered the room. She was very homesick, poor child, and then besides her desire to see her father and mother, she was very much aggrieved because no one had paid any special attention to her. She had been used to having people make a great deal of her because her clothes were so fine, and here no one had seemed to notice nor care whether she was better dressed than the others or not. This was a new experience to the little girl, and she did not like it. Even Ruby had been more noticed than she had been, and she had always looked down upon Ruby because she lived in the country, and did not have fashionable clothes. It was quite too hard to bear, and Maude determined to go home. "Wait a minute, my dear," said Mrs. Boardman, pleasantly. "That is n't what you ought to be doing just now. This is the time to make beds, and as your room-mate has not come, I will help you this morning, so you will not have to make it all alone; but perhaps you know how to make a bed, so that you would just as soon make it by yourself." Maude lifted her face, her eye flashing through her tears. "I don't know how to make a bed," she answered. "I never made a bed. My mamma has a servant make them at home, and she never had me do such a thing. I don't want to know how to make it, nor to do anything else. I want to go home. I am packing my trunk." "But you can't go home, you know, my dear," said Mrs. Boardman, pleasantly. "I know just how you feel. When I was a little girl about your age I went away from home for a few weeks, and I am afraid I was n't very brave about it." "Did you go to school?" asked Maude. "No, but I will tell you where I went while we are making the bed. Now you take that side of the sheet, that is the way, and draw it up so, and tuck it in snugly, so your toes won't peep out in the night. Well, I was going to tell you how I happened to go away from home. One day when I came home from school, my father met me down by the gate and he told me that my little brother had the scarlet fever and the doctor thought that perhaps I might not have it, too, if they sent me right away, so I was to go to board with an old lady about ten miles away who was willing to take care of me. He had the carriage all ready,--now the blanket, dear; that's right,--and a bundle with the dresses in that I should want for a few weeks, and before I knew it I was on my way. I could n't even say good-by to my mother, for she was with my brother." "And were you homesick?" asked Maude. "Yes, indeed," answered Mrs. Boardman. "I cried and cried the first night, and I thought I would surely walk home the very first thing in the morning. I did not care whether I had the scarlet fever or not, if I might only go home; but when morning came I remembered what my father had said, when he bade me good-by, and so I changed my mind, and stayed." "What had he said?" asked Maude, helping to turn the top of the sheet over, and quite forgetting, in her interest in the story, that she had not intended to make the bed. "He had said when he kissed me good-by, 'Now I know that you will be very homesick, Eliza, and will want to come home a good many times, but I know that you are mother's brave, helpful little maid, and that I can trust you to stay here until brother gets well so that she will not worry about you.' Of course I was not going to disappoint my father when he trusted me; so though I was homesick enough and very unhappy, I stayed there for several weeks until the doctor said it was safe for me to go home again. But you see I remember just how it feels to be homesick, and feel as if one could n't stay away one single day more from home. It takes a brave girl to make up her mind that she will not give up to homesickness, but will do what she knows is going to please those whom she loves. Yes, I know that sounds as if I meant that I was brave, when I was a little girl, but then I really think I was, don't you?" "Yes," admitted Maude. "I think I should have gone home if I had been in your place, and had only ten miles to walk. Did you have a nice time staying with the old lady?" "No, it was not very pleasant," said Mrs. Boardman. "Now pat the pillow, this way, Maude, before you put it in its place, so. I did not have any lessons nor any books to read, and I had no time to bring my patchwork or knitting, and so the time hung very heavy on my hands. I helped about the work when there was anything that a little girl could do. I fed the hens, and looked for eggs, and wiped dishes, and sewed carpet rags, and sometimes I went with the hired man to bring the cows home. There, the bed looks very nicely now, does n't it? I think you will be able to make it look as well as that every day, don't you? And then when you go home again even if the servant does make it, you will not have to think that she knows how to do something which you do not know how to do. It is very nice to know how to do every useful thing, even if it may not be necessary to practise it. Suppose your mamma did not know how to make a bed, and she should have a servant who could not, how do you suppose she would show her without knowing herself? Now shall we hang up these dresses? It is almost time for the bell to ring, so I think you can put these away just as nicely as you could if I stayed and helped you, and then I can go and look after some of the other girls. Now I am going to say to you what my father said to me, 'You are a brave little maid,' and I know you are to be trusted to do what is right. I know you are going to forget all about how much you want to go home, and you are going to do the very best you know how to-day, so that your papa and mamma will be pleased with you;" and Mrs. Boardman hurried away, giving Maude a motherly little squeeze as she passed her. Maude stood looking at her trunk for a few moments after Mrs. Boardman had gone away, rather undecided what to do with her dresses. Fifteen minutes before she had quite made up her mind that she was going home and that nobody in all the world should make her stay at boarding-school now that she had made up her mind that she did not like it, but Mrs. Boardman had taken it for granted that she was a good, brave little girl who wanted to do just what was right, and somehow Maude did not want to disappoint her. Usually Maude's one aim in life was to do just what she chose, and to have her own way in [Transcriber's note: page 159 missing from book] [Transcriber's note: page 160 missing from book] CHAPTER XV. BEGINNING SCHOOL. The school-room was very cheerful and pleasant. There were windows on both sides of the room, and all the space between the windows was covered with blackboards or maps. Ruby began to feel really happy when she sat down on a bench with the new scholars, waiting to be examined by Miss Chapman and assigned to a class. She loved study, and was always happy during school-hours, and generally very good, too, for she was too busy to get into mischief, and too anxious to have a good report to wilfully break any rules. "I wonder if you are as far advanced as I am," whispered Maude, as she sat down beside Ruby. It was on the tip of Ruby's tongue to tell her that she had been at the head of her class for a long time at home, but she remembered in time to check herself that it was not at all probable that whispering was allowed here more than in any other school, and that she might break a rule the very first thing if she should answer. One by one Miss Chapman called the girls up to the desk where she sat, and questioned them about their studies and the books they had used, and Miss Ketchum, at her side, wrote down the answers in a little book. Then the girls were assigned a seat, and Miss Ketchum took their books to them, and showed them what the lesson would be. Ruby was very much pleased when she found that she was to be in the class with girls who were, most of them, larger than herself, and as she was not at all shy, she could answer all the questions Miss Chapman asked her, very fluently, so that the teacher had a very good idea of what the little girl really knew. Some of the new scholars were so shy that they could scarcely answer, and Miss Chapman knew that it would take two or three days to find out how far advanced they were. Very much to Maude's surprise, she was put in a class below Ruby. She was not at all pleased with this, for it was a great mortification to her pride to find that the little country girl whom she had looked down upon was beyond her in her studies. Maude had never attended school regularly, but had stayed at home whenever she could beg consent from her mother, and very often she had won it by teasing when there was really no reason at all why she should not have been at her desk. Even when she had attended school it had never occurred to her that it was for her own benefit that her teachers tried to have her learn her lessons. She had shirked them as much as possible, and as no teacher has time to waste over a little girl who will not study when there are so many willing to learn, she had managed to get along with very little study, and so, of course, had learned but little. She was ashamed to see what small girls were in the class with her, and she made up her mind that she would study so hard that she would soon be promoted into the class in which Ruby had been put. It took until recess time to arrange all the classes, and then the bell rang, and the scholars were free to go out upon the lawn for a half-hour. A basket of rosy-cheeked apples was passed about, and all the children were very ready for one. Some day-scholars attended this school, and Ruby thought, rather wistfully, how nice it would be if she, too, were going home when school should be out. Maude did not care about being with Ruby during recess time, for she was afraid that Ruby would remember her speech early that morning, and remind her that she instead of Maude was the farthest advanced in her studies. Ruby was becoming acquainted with some of her new classmates, and was finding this first morning of school life very pleasant. The rest of the morning seemed longer than the first part had done, and Ruby as well as most of the others were very glad when the noon intermission came. The day-scholars took out their lunch-baskets, and prepared to eat their lunches, and the bell rang for the boarding-scholars to go up to their rooms and get ready for dinner. As each little girl reached the door, she stopped, turned around and made a courtesy to Miss Chapman who was sitting opposite the door. Ruby watched the girls as they went out one by one. She was quite sure that she could never make a courtesy, and as each girl passed out, her turn to go came nearer and nearer. What should she do? If her Aunt Emma had only been there, Ruby might have asked her to let her stay in the school-room, for she felt as if she would a great deal rather go without her dinner than try to make a courtesy when she did n't know how, with all those girls looking at her. What if she should tumble down in trying to make it? It seemed very likely that she would, the very first time she had ever tried to do such a thing. The very thought of such an accident made Ruby's face grow redder than ever. Only three more girls and then Miss Chapman's eyes would be fixed upon her, and it would be time for her to get up and go out. Now only two more girls, and then the last one had gone, and Ruby knew that she must go. She walked over to the door, feeling as shy as Ruthy had ever felt, and stood there a moment. How could she ever try to courtesy with all those girls looking at her? She hesitated so long that all the girls looked up to see why she did not go out. Ruby stood in the door one moment longer, and then she turned and ran down the passage-way as fast as she could go, feeling as if now she must surely go home, for she had disgraced herself forever. She had come out of the room without courtesying, or even saying good-morning as all the other girls had done, and then her running away had of course made all the girls laugh at her. What would Miss Chapman do to her? Would she give her bad marks, or put her at the foot of her class, or keep her in after school? Anything would be bad enough, but the worst of all to proud little Ruby was the thought that she had failed in doing something which all the other scholars seemed to have done so easily. She sobbed aloud as she ran down the passage-way with her hands clasped tightly over her face, and as she turned the corner to go into the house, she ran straight into somebody's arms. She uncovered her face and looked up as a familiar voice said, "Why, Ruby, where are you going so fast? I was just coming to look for you. But are you crying? Why, what is the matter?" But Ruby was crying so hard that Aunt Emma could not understand what she said. She could only make out that it was something about courtesying, so she led Ruby up to her room, and quieted her down a little, and would not let her talk about her trouble until her hair was brushed and her face washed. "I might have taught you how to courtesy before school-time this morning if I had only thought of it in time," Aunt Emma said. "But now you must n't cry about it any more, Ruby. Of course it would have been better if you had tried to do as the other girls did, but now all you can do is to tell Miss Chapman that you are sorry and that you will not do so any more, and you must not fret any more about it. I will show you now, and then you will courtesy as nicely as any one else, before you have to do it again." "But, Aunt Emma, what made the girls do it?" asked Ruby. "If the first girl had not done it none of the others would have had to, would they? And I don't think it is one bit nice, and I don't see what they want to do it for. And oh, Aunt Emma, you ought to have seen how beautifully Maude courtesied. She did it the very best of all the girls, and I don't see how she knew about it, for I am sure she never did it before." "I will tell you why the girls do it," Aunt Emma answered. "It is one of the rules of the school that when a scholar goes out of a room where there is a teacher, she must courtesy to the teacher as she leaves the room. That is intended as a mark of respect. Yesterday school had not begun, and so no attention was paid to it, but to-day everything is going on as usual as nearly as possible. It happened to be one of the old scholars who went out of the room first to-day, and so she knew about it. If it had been a new scholar Miss Chapman would have spoken to her about it. But remember, Ruby, even in the afternoon, if you are in the sitting-room with a teacher, to courtesy when you leave the room. It will not be at all hard after I show you how, and I would not like you to forget it." "Oh, dear," groaned Ruby. "I never heard of anything so funny. Must I go and courtesy to you every time I go out of this room, Aunt Emma? Why, it will take all my time courtesying." Aunt Emma laughed. "Well, I think you may be excused from that when we are alone in the room together," she answered. "If I am in charge of the girls downstairs or in the school-room, then you must of course do just as you would if any other teacher was there, but up here I will excuse you, as I suppose it would seem like a good deal to you to remember a courtesy every time you went in or out of the room. Now I will show you. Look here;" and Aunt Emma courtesied. Ruby was very much pleased to find that it was very easy to draw one foot behind the other and make a courtesy, and she was quite proud of her new accomplishment when she had practised it a few times. "And now, Ruby dear," said Aunt Emma, looking at her watch, "there is just time before dinner for you to go and tell Miss Chapman you are sorry that you left the school-room in that way. She will not scold you, I am sure, so you need not be afraid to go and speak to her. She is in her own room at the end of the hall, and you had better go at once so as to have time before the bell rings." "And then I will make a beautiful courtesy when I come out of her room, shall I?" asked Ruby, quite ready to go, since she would have a chance to show how nicely she could courtesy now. Aunt Emma smiled. "Yes," she answered. Tap, tap, tap, went Ruby at Miss Chapman's door, and when she heard the teacher call, "Come in," she opened the door and walked in quite bravely. Miss Chapman was sitting in her large chair by the window looking over some books. She held out her hand to Ruby. "Well, my dear," she said kindly. "Please ma'am, I came to tell you that I am very sorry I ran out of school without courtesying," said Ruby, rather shyly, looking at the beautiful white hair while she was speaking, and wondering if when she herself grew to be an old lady she would ever have such beautiful fluffy hair, and if she should wear a little white cap. "Why did you do so, Ruby?" asked Miss Chapman. Ruby hung her head. "I did not know how to courtesy," she answered presently. "And I was afraid I should fall down if I tried, it looked so hard, and I was afraid the girls would laugh at me if I tried and tumbled over; and it was so dreadful to have them all looking at me, and then know that I could n't do it, that I just could n't help running. But I know how now. Aunt Emma taught me, and I won't ever forget it now. Please excuse me for this morning." "Yes," Miss Chapman answered. "I can quite understand how it happened this morning, and I am glad you will never do so again. I hope you are going to be a good little girl, Ruby, and progress nicely in your studies. You have had a good teacher and have been well taught, and know how to apply yourself, so I shall hope that you will stand well in your classes." Ruby hardly knew what to say, so she blushed with pleasure, and did not answer. "Now you can go," said Miss Chapman, and so Ruby walked over to the door, opened it, and turned around and stood exactly in the middle of the doorway. Then drawing back her foot, she made a very careful and deep courtesy, and gravely closed the door after her and ran back to Aunt Emma. "Aunt Emma, there is something I have been thinking about," she said after she had told her aunt how kindly Miss Chapman had spoken to her. "This morning I almost got real mad at Maude, for she asked me in such a superior sort of way if I sposed we should be in the same class. 'Do you spose you are as far advanced as I am, Ruby?' she said, just as if she thought I was ever so much behind her. I was going to tell her I guessed I was just as smart as she was, but then I remembered it was school and I did n't, for I knew I must n't talk, but you would 't believe with what little girls she is. I am way ahead of her. Well, I did think I would just remind her of what she said, but I guess maybe I had n't better; for she certainly could courtesy when I didn't know the first thing about it, and so that sort of makes us even. She did n't see me run away, but then if she heard some one else say something about it, she would know, and I should n't feel very nice if she should tell me that anyway she knew something that I could n't do without being showed how. Don't you think I had n't better say anything about being ahead of her?" "I am sure you had better not," said Aunt Emma, promptly; "but it is not because of the courtesying, Ruby, it is because it is not a kind thing to boast, or to remind any one else of their failings. You know you would not like it yourself, and that ought to be reason enough for your never doing it to any one else. What is the Golden Rule?" "Do unto others as you would they should do unto you," repeated Ruby, promptly. "Yes; and that means that you should never, never do to any one else anything that you would not like to have done to yourself," Aunt Emma said. Just then the dinner-bell rang. "I know what I will do," exclaimed Ruby, cheerfully. "I will go to Maude's room and go down to dinner with her, for I just spect she feels sort of lonesome. I saw her once at recess, and she was all by herself, and had n't any one to play with. I will stay with her till she gets a little more acquainted, and that will be paying attention to the Golden Rule; for if I was all by myself here, and had n't got you, Aunt Emma, I am sure I would be glad if Maude would stay with me;" and Ruby ran off to find her little friend, feeling as happy as if she had not had such a burst of tears but half an hour ago. CHAPTER XVI. MAUDE'S TROUBLES. Poor little Maude had not been enjoying this first day at school. It had begun with tears, and she had just been having another burst of anger, and had thought that she could not possibly stay in such a school another hour. It was a new experience to the self-willed child to have to give up her own way, and submit to regulations that she did not like; and although she had managed the courtesy that had brought Ruby to grief, without the least trouble, as she had been to dancing-school, and could courtesy in the most approved French style, yet she found a great grievance waiting for her as soon as she reached her room. Mrs. Boardman was waiting for her. "Maude, I want to help you arrange your hair a little differently," she said. "Miss Chapman does not like the girls to wear their hair here at school as you wear yours, flying all over your shoulders. She does not think it neat, nor does she like little girls to pay so much attention to their appearance while they are at school. Of course she wants you to be neat, but not dressed up as if you were going to a party. She likes her scholars to wear their hair braided, and I will help you braid yours now, as I suppose you cannot do it alone if you are not used to it, and you have no room-mate yet to help you." Maude looked at Mrs. Boardman in angry amazement. If there was any one thing of which vain little Maude was prouder than another, it was of the crinkled, waving hair that fell below her shoulders. She rarely forgot it, and was always playing with a lock of it, or tipping her head over her shoulder, like a little peacock admiring his fine tail. "I don't want to wear it braided," she exclaimed. "I like it this way. It would look like ugly little pig-tails if it was braided, and I won't have it that way. Oh, I want to go home. I don't like it here one single bit. I am sure my mamma would n't let me have my hair braided, like a little charity girl." Mrs. Boardman was very patient with the spoiled child. [Illustration: "MRS. BOARDMAN WAS VERY PATIENT WITH THE SPOILED CHILD" (missing from book)] "Hush, dear; I would n't talk that way," she said. "I hoped your mamma had spoken to you about it before she went away, for I told her that Miss Chapman would want you to wear your hair differently. She told me that she wanted you to follow all the rules of the school, whatever they were; so I know she wishes you to wear your hair as Miss Chapman requires the others to wear their hair. Now, let me braid it for you, for it is growing near dinner-time." But Maude threw herself down the bed, and began to cry. "And now I must tell you about another rule," said Mrs. Boardman. "I expect it will seem to you as if we had a great many rules here; but you will soon get used to them, and then you will not find them burdensome. It is against the rules to sit upon your bed during the day-time. You see it will make the bed look untidy, and that is the reason for this rule. Now, we will straighten the bed out nicely, and then it will be quite tidy again." Maude did not move. "Oh, I must go home," she sobbed. "I can't stay here. It is a perfectly dreadful place. I have to do everything I don't like to do and I can't do the least little tiny thing that I like to do, and my beautiful hair will look so ugly, and I just can't stand it." Some of the other teachers might have reproved the little girl for her fretful words, but kind-hearted Mrs. Boardman was too sorry for her. She could imagine how hard it must seem to a child who had never been under any control at all, to find herself obliged to obey rules, whether she liked them or not. She leaned over and stroked the golden hair. "Now, dear, I know what a good little girl you are going to be when you think about it. I was very proud of you this morning, and thought I should like to have you for one of my special little friends very much. You see I am not exactly one of the teachers, and so I can have a pet when I want one. I know you don't like this rule, but then you are going to obey it because it is right and it will please your mother to know you are being a good girl. Something worse than having my hair braided happened to me when I was about your age. Jump up and let me braid your hair, and I will tell you about it. Come, dear. It is ever so much easier to do things because one wants to, you know, than because one is made to do them, and you will have to obey the rules whether you want to or not; so if I were in your place I should prefer to obey them of my own free will, because I wanted to do just what was right, and please my mother. I don't think you could guess what I had to have done to my hair." Maude stood up and helped to pat the bed straight and flat again. She knew that, as Mrs. Boardman had said, she would have to obey the rules, whether she wanted to or not, and she did realize that it would be much more sensible to follow them willingly than to be in disgrace and be forced into compliance. And there was a better feeling than that in her heart, too. She felt that she was in a place where no one cared for her clothes nor for the little airs she liked to put on, whenever she found any one to admire her, but where she would be valued just for herself, and for her behavior. In that one morning she had noticed how little girls who had not thought of themselves, but only of pleasing others, had found friends at once, while no one had seemed to care for her society; and she realized that if she was to have any love she must try to deserve it. Mrs. Boardman was the one person who seemed willing to be her friend, and who tried to help her do right, and was patient with her ill-temper; and selfish little Maude was grateful for the first time in her life for kindness, and she did not want to disappoint any one who thought that she meant to be good. She would try to be good, at any rate, even if it was not very pleasant. After the bed was in order again, she stood still while Mrs. Boardman brushed her hair out and braided it for her. "I must tell you what happened to my hair," she began cheerfully. "I had had typhoid fever, and my hair was all dropping out, so that the doctor said it must be shaved off. I did not want to have it shaved one bit, for it was quite long and had been thick, but of course I had to do as my mother said, and have it shaved. Oh, I felt so badly about it. I cried and cried the day it was all shaved off, and when I first looked at myself in the glass afterwards, I was almost frightened, I looked so dreadfully. Did you ever see any one's head after the hair had been shaved off?" "No, ma'am," answered Maude. "Well, then, you cannot imagine what it looks like. My head looked more like a ball than anything else, and where the hair had been it was perfectly smooth and bald, and there was only a purplish look to show where it had grown. I ran away and hid myself in the barn and cried harder than ever. But I had something nice happen to make up for all this." "What was it?" asked Maude. "When my hair grew again it was curly, and curly hair was what I had always wished for, and never expected to have; so you can imagine how delighted I was. There, see how nicely your hair looks now that I have braided it. Have you a ribbon to tie the ends?" By the time Maude had found a ribbon and Mrs. Boardman had tied it at the ends of the braids, it was time for her to hurry away and look after some of the other girls; but Maude's face wore a very different expression from the tearful, angry one that had been upon it when she first heard that her hair must be braided. There was a wistful look in her eyes that made Mrs. Boardman turn back and give her a kiss. "We are going to be good friends, are we not, Maude?" she said. "And you are going to be so good that I shall be very proud to say, 'Maude is one of my special friends.'" "Yes, ma'am, I will try to be good," Maude answered. "Thank you," she added, with unusual gratitude. She was looking quite cheerful when Ruby came in. "I was afraid you were lonesome, Maude," she exclaimed, "and I came to go down to dinner with you. When is your room-mate coming, do you suppose?" "I don't know," Maude answered. "Mrs. Boardman said she thought she would come to-night, or maybe to-morrow morning." "Are you glad you are going to have some one in the room with you?" asked Ruby. "I don't know," Maude answered. "If she is nice, I will be glad, and if she is n't nice, I spose I shall be sorry. How did you like school this morning?" "Ever so much," Ruby answered, enthusiastically. "Did n't you?" "Not very much," Maude replied. "I think the lessons are awfully hard." Ruby was very much tempted to say something that would have sounded rather boastful, but she checked herself. It had been on the tip of her tongue to exclaim,-- "Why, if you think your lessons are hard, in a class like yours, what do you suppose mine must be, when I am in with such big girls;" but she only said,-- "I spose the first day everything seems harder; but when we get used to the teachers and the lessons, they won't seem so hard." The dinner-bell rang, and Ruby exclaimed,-- "Oh, I am so hungry. It just seems as if I had not had anything to eat for a year. Let's hurry and go down before the rest, Maude." But everybody else was hungry, too, so Ruby and Maude were by no means the first of the stream of girls that hurried into the dining-room. CHAPTER XVII. LEARNING. I suppose you can hardly fancy a school where little girls were not allowed to wear their hair as they liked; where they had to courtesy to teachers when they left the room; and, what was still more surprising, had to eat whatever was given to them at the table. I think that such a school would seem so very old-fashioned nowadays that no little girls could be found who would be willing to go to it, and even in those days there were very few like it. The dear old Quaker lady, Miss Chapman, taught the little girls to do just as she herself had been taught to do when she were a little girl; so you can easily imagine that her ways was not quite the ways of other teachers. And yet, since her scholars were as healthy, happy, rosy-cheeked little girls as you could find anywhere, I do not know that any one could complain that her ways were not very good ways. They seemed very strange to new scholars sometimes, if they had attended other schools where the rules were not so strict; but they very soon grew used to them, and then they did not mind them at all, and were very happy. If Maude had not been sitting by her friend, Mrs. Boardman, perhaps she would have made a great fuss at dinner-time about eating the piece of sweet potato which had been served to her. She did not like sweet potato, and she liked the idea of having to eat it, whether she wanted it or not, still less, and the clouds began to gather on her face. She glanced about the table, and saw that Ruby was having a hard time, trying to eat a dish which she did not like, and that some of the other girls did not look very happy when they heard the rule. Mrs. Boardman whispered a few encouraging words to Maude, and the little girl reflected that as long as she had really tried to be good about some other things, she might as well try to be good about this rule, too, and so she managed to eat the small piece of potato without saying anything about not liking it. After the girls had eaten the portion which was put upon their plates the first time, they were at liberty to decline any more for that meal; so you may be sure that Maude did not take any more. "Don't let me forget to tell you about a boy I heard about who had to eat something he did n't like, and came very near having to make his whole dinner upon it," whispered Mrs. Boardman. "I don't think you can imagine how it happened, and you can think about it while you are eating your potato. See, it is only a little piece, and it will soon be gone. If I were in your place, I would eat it all up first, and then you will enjoy the rest of your dinner more when you do not have it to think about." Ruby did not so very much mind anything that she had to eat at dinner; but two mornings in the week, Tuesday and Friday, there was always egg-plant for breakfast, and for some weeks Ruby would think about it all the day before, and talk about it the day after, until Aunt Emma told her that she might as well eat eggplant for every meal every day, she thought and talked so much about it. "But I do hate it so," Ruby would say. "I don't see the use in having to eat what one does n't like. I just can't bear it, Aunt Emma." "But you will learn to like it after a while," Aunt Emma said. "Miss Chapman thinks that little girls ought to learn to like everything that is put before them, and she tries to have a pleasant variety, and not have anything that the girls will dislike. You will see how much easier it will be to eat your piece of egg plant in two or three weeks." "And it just seems as if I always did get the very largest piece of all," Ruby said in despair. "This morning you had a little teenty piece and mine was twice as large." "That was so you would have twice as much practice in learning to like it, I suppose," Aunt Emma said with a smile. After dinner was over there was a half-hour for play and then the school-bell rang, and the girls went back into the school-room. Some of them took music lessons, and they went one at a time to take a lesson in the parlor from Miss Emma. Ruby was to take music lessons, to her great delight. She had been sure that it would be very easy, and she was quite disappointed when she found how much she would have to learn before she could play as her aunt did. When school was over for the afternoon, at four o'clock, Ruby breathed a long sigh of relief. The day had seemed a very long one to her, though it had been very pleasant, and it seemed as if it could not be possible that only yesterday at this time she had been on her way to school. "What do we do next?" asked Ruby of one of her schoolmates, as they went into the house together. "We all go out together for a walk," answered the little girl. "Will you walk with me to-day? I will come to your room as soon as I am ready." "All right," Ruby answered, and she ran upstairs to her own room, to put on her hat and jacket. Every pleasant day the girls were taken out for a walk, and the teachers took turns in going with them. To-day Mrs. Boardman was going to take them, and Maude was very glad, because she had obtained permission to walk with her. All the girls were very fond of Mrs. Boardman, and they would obtain her promise to walk with them so many days ahead that she could hardly remember all the promises she had made. When they were all ready they started out, Ruby and Agnes Van Kirk at the head of the little procession and Maude and Mrs. Boardman at the end. Ruby felt very important as she looked up at the window and waved good-by to her aunt. It was great fun going out to walk this way, with a whole string of girls behind her, instead of going down the road with a hop and a skip and a jump to Ruthy's house. If Ruthy could only be here, and if at night she could kiss her mother and father good-night, Ruby was quite sure that she would think boarding-school quite the nicest place in the world. They had a very pleasant walk. They went down the winding road, bordered upon either side with wide-reaching elm-trees, and then turned down towards the river. After they reached the path that wound beside the water Mrs. Boardman let the girls break their ranks, and run about and gather some of the wild flowers and feathery grasses that grew there in such profusion. Ruby gathered a beautiful bunch of plumy golden-rod for her Aunt Emma, and when she went to look for Agnes, she displayed it triumphantly. "Just see what a beautiful bunch of goldenrod I have," she exclaimed in delight. "Won't Aunt Emma be pleased? But have n't you got any flowers, Agnes? Why, what have you been doing? I thought you were looking for flowers too." Agnes opened a paper bag, which she had loosely twisted together at the top, and which seemed to be empty, and said,-- "No, I did not get any flowers, but just see what a beautiful caterpillar I have. Is n't that lovely?" Ruby peeped into the bag, and saw a large mottled caterpillar walking about upon a leaf, apparently wondering where he was, and doubtless thinking that the sun had gone under a cloud, since he could not see it anywhere. "Is n't he a beauty?" repeated Agnes, in delighted tones, taking another look at her prisoner herself, and then twisting the bag together again. Ruby hesitated. She did not like to say that she thought it was the very ugliest caterpillar she had ever seen, and that if Agnes really wanted a caterpillar she would have thought that one of the fat brown ones that she could find anywhere around the school would have been nicer, and yet Agnes seemed to admire it so much she really felt as if she ought to say something. "Well," she said at last, as she found that Agnes was waiting for her, "I think it is certainly one of the biggest caterpillars I ever saw. What are you going to do with it? I don't see what you like caterpillars for." "Oh, it is n't for myself," Agnes answered. "It is for Miss Ketchum. She is very fond of studying about bugs and caterpillars and everything of that kind, and nothing makes her quite as happy as to have a nice new caterpillar to watch." "What does she do with them?" asked Ruby. "She puts them in little boxes with thin muslin over the top, or mosquito netting, so that she can look through and watch them, and she feeds them every day with leaves or something else that they like, and then after a while they spin themselves all up into cocoons, and go to sleep, and then by and by a beautiful butterfly comes out. Oh, Miss Ketchum just loves caterpillars." "I wish I had a caterpillar for her," said Ruby. "Well, I will get one for her the very next time I see one, as long as she likes them so much. I never heard of any one liking caterpillars before, though, did you?" "No, I don't know as I did," said Agnes. "But I think I shall like them very much too before long, for I like to watch the butterflies come out, and I like to keep looking out for new caterpillars. I don't think I would like to bother taking care of them as Miss Ketchum does, but perhaps I won't mind that after a while. She has such a nice book about them." Miss Ketchum was very much pleased with the new specimen when Agnes gave it to her, after the girls got home from their walk, and Ruby looked with great interest at the little boxes in which captive caterpillars were walking about, apparently feeling at home and very happy as they nibbled at their nice fresh leaves, or sunned themselves upon the netting. "Isn't Miss Ketchum nice?" said Agnes, as the girls went up to their own rooms. "Some of the girls don't like her as well as they do the other teachers, but I do. She is always so kind about helping one with lessons, and she never gets cross unless she has one of her bad headaches, and then I should think she would be cross, for the girls tease her. She was so kind to me when I first came that I just love to get her caterpillars or do anything else I can for her." "She was so glad to get that new one, was n't she?" said Ruby. "I will help you get some for her, Agnes, the very next time we go out walking. We will walk together, and then we can both watch for them." "That will be ever so nice," said Agnes. "You see most of the girls make fun of Miss Ketchum because she wears those little curls on her forehead, and is absent-minded sometimes, and likes caterpillars so much, and it will please her ever so much if you like her, and help her instead of laughing at her." It had not occurred to Ruby before that she could please any of the teachers by showing them little kindnesses and being thoughtful of them, and she remembered remorsefully how she had laughed during recess when one of the girls had drawn on her slate a funny caricature of Miss Ketchum, with the two little curls that she wore on each side of her forehead standing up like ears, and her glasses on crookedly. She made up her mind that she would never laugh at her teacher again, but try to help her in every way she could by being good herself and setting others a good example. CHAPTER XVIII. MISADVENTURES. By the time Ruby had been at school a week she was quite happy, and had been so good that Aunt Emma wrote home to her father and mother that no one could ask for a better little girl, or one who made more progress in her studies. In fact, Ruby had begun to be quite proud of herself for being so good, and quite enjoyed comparing herself with some of the other girls, who could not learn their lessons as quickly as she did, and who did not try so hard to be good and not give the teacher any trouble. If Ruby's mother had been with her she would have warned the little girl that this was the very time for her to be most watchful lest she should do wrong, for it was generally when Ruby had the highest opinion of herself that her pride had a fall. If any one had told Ruby upon this particular morning that she should laugh out loud in school, and more than that, laugh at Miss Ketchum, she would not have believed it, and yet that is just exactly what she did. Still, I think you will hardly blame Ruby when I tell you how it happened. It was quite true that, as Agnes had said, Miss Ketchum was apt to be absent-minded sometimes. She was so interested in her studies that she sometimes forgot about other things, and while she never forgot anything connected with her scholars' lessons, yet she sometimes forgot little matters about her dress. She wore her hair in a rather unusual way, and when it was brushed back and arranged she would pin a little round curl upon either side of her face. This morning she had somehow forgotten to pin one of these curls on, and as soon as the girls noticed it, they were very much amused. If Miss Chapman had noticed it when she opened the school she would probably have reminded Miss Ketchum of it, but she did not see it, and none of the girls told her; so the curl was still missing when Ruby went up with the rest of the class to the desk, to recite her grammar lesson. She was not quite sure that she knew it, and she had been studying so hard up to the last minute that she had not noticed how the other girls had been laughing behind their books and desk-covers, and had not even looked at Miss Ketchum since school began. Ruby was at the head of the class, and so the first question came to her,-- "What is an adverb?" Ruby looked up at her teacher, and was just about to answer, when her eyes rested upon the place where the curl ought to have been. Miss Ketchum's hair was very thin just there, and the contrast between the round curl on one side of her head and the empty place upon the other was so funny that before Ruby thought of what she was doing she had laughed aloud. Miss Ketchum had not the least idea that there was anything in her appearance which could be amusing, and as she had often been tried by mischievous scholars giggling or whispering, she thought that Ruby was deliberately intending to be rude, and very naturally she was much provoked at her. One could hardly have expected her to think anything else, for it was not very pleasant to have one of her scholars look straight at her and then burst out laughing. Poor Miss Ketchum's face grew as red as Ruby's own, and she said very sternly,-- "I am surprised at you, Ruby. I did not know that you could behave so badly. You may carry your grammar over there in the corner, and sit there facing the school the rest of the day. Next, what is an adverb?" Poor Ruby was too miserable to try to explain, and she did n't like to tell Miss Ketchum that she had left her curl off; so she took her book and went over in the corner, feeling completely in disgrace. After a while the door opened, and Aunt Emma looked in, to call one of her pupils for her music lesson, and the look of grave surprise upon her face when she saw Ruby sitting there by herself made the little girl more miserable than ever. She had not meant to laugh. If she had noticed the missing curl before she came to the class she never would have laughed; but seeing it suddenly drove the adverb quite out of her head, and before she had known what she was about she had laughed. It seemed a long time to recess, and it was all that Ruby could do to keep the tears out of her eyes. It was the first time in her life that she had ever been in disgrace at school, and she felt it keenly. It would have been bad enough if it had happened in school at home, but to have it happen here was doubly hard. Ruby was sure she could never be happy here again, never, after having to stay up there all the morning in disgrace before the whole school. At last the recess-bell rang, and the other scholars went out to play, and Ruby and Miss Ketchum were left alone. "I shall hear your grammar lesson in a few moments, Ruby," said Miss Ketchum, in a stern tone, and she went to her room, leaving Ruby with her grammar in her hand, trying to keep the tears out of her eyes long enough to study. She did not know nor care just now what an adverb was, and it is very hard to study with a great lump in one's throat, and tears in one's eyes. If she had really meant to be mischievous it would not have been so hard to be in disgrace, but Ruby really had not intended to do wrong, and she would not have done anything to make Miss Ketchum feel badly for anything in the world if she had had time to think. Agnes had cast a pitying glance at her as she went out, for she had understood how it was, and she hoped that during recess time, when Ruby and her teacher should be alone together, Ruby would tell Miss Ketchum why she had laughed. After Ruby's punishment none of the other girls had shown that they noticed the missing curl, lest they should be sent up to the platform too, for speaking about it, so Miss Ketchum did not discover her loss until she went to her room at recess. The first thing she saw when she entered her room was a dark curl lying upon her bureau. She looked at it wonderingly for a moment, and then put her hand up to her head. One curl was in its place, but there was the other lying upon the bureau. She had forgotten to put it on. Looking at herself in the glass, Miss Ketchum smiled, although she was very much mortified to think that she had been in school all the morning without knowing that she had not finished dressing. She understood Ruby's behavior then. Going back to the school-room she sat down at her desk and called Ruby to her. "Ruby, dear, you did not intend to be disorderly this morning in class, did you?" she asked. Ruby burst into tears, and hid her face. In a moment Miss Ketchum's arm was about her, and she was crying on her teacher's shoulder. "Indeed I did n't," she answered, between her sobs. "I never thought of such a thing. I was just going to tell you what an adverb was, and when I looked up I saw--I saw--" "That my hair was not arranged properly?" asked Miss Ketchum. "Yes'm," said Ruby, "and then before I knew what I was going to do I had laughed. I am so sorry, and oh, I wish I could go home. I never was bad in school before, and I did not mean to be this time. Indeed I am so sorry I laughed, Miss Ketchum. I could n't help it and I did n't know I was going to, truly I did n't." "Ruby, dear, I feel as if it was more my fault than yours," said Miss Ketchum, gently wiping away the little girl's tears. "Now you may go out to play and I will hear your lesson some time after school, when you feel like coming up to my room to say it, and you shall have your good mark, if you know it, just as if you had recited it in class. I shall not consider that you have done anything wrong this morning, for I can understand that you would not have laughed if you had had time to think about it for a moment. But you will try after this always to be quiet, will you not?" "Yes 'm," answered Ruby, earnestly, and returning Miss Ketchum's kiss, she wiped her eyes and ran out to play, happier than she had had any idea that she could ever be again. She thought to herself that she would never smile again in school, even if such a thing should happen as that Miss Ketchum should leave both of her curls off at once. When she went out to play she found that the girls were disposed to make much of her for her trouble of the morning. "It was too bad for anything, Ruby Harper, that you had to get into trouble all on account of Miss Ketchum's curl," said one of the girls. "I don't wonder you laughed. If you had seen it before you might have been able to help it, but to look up and see her hair looking that way was enough to make any one laugh, whether they meant to or not. "Miss Ketchum knows now that I did not mean to," Ruby answered. "I truly could not help it, but you see if I am ever in disgrace again." "Never mind, all the girls knew how it was," answered her friend, comfortingly. "Come and play puss in the corner. I am glad she let you out instead of keeping you in all recess." Ruby was quite happy again now, and when she had a moment in which to run up and tell Aunt Emma that Miss Ketchum said that she had not really done anything naughty, she felt much better. But she was sorry that she had laughed, even if she did not intend to, and she wanted to make up to Miss Ketchum for her seeming rudeness; so she made up her mind that that very afternoon she would gather all the caterpillars she could find anywhere, and give them to Miss Ketchum, to show her how sorry she was, and how happy she would like to make her. That afternoon, as soon as she had finished practising, she took an empty cardboard box, and went down to the end of the garden. She was quite sure that in the vegetable garden she would find ever so many caterpillars, and there they were,--great brown ones, crawling lazily about in the sun, smaller green ones, that travelled about more actively, and upon the tomato-plants Ruby found some that she was quite sure Miss Ketchum would like, because they were so remarkably large and ugly. She was a very happy little girl as she filled her box, feeling almost as delighted as if she was finding something for herself with every caterpillar that she captured and put into her box. After she had put as many as thirty or forty in their prison she found it was quite hard to put one in without another coming out, and she did not get along quite as fast. Before the bell rang for study hour, however, she had captured fifty-five, and fifty-five caterpillars looked like a great many when Ruby carefully opened one side of the box and peeped in. Ruby wrote upon the top of the box, in her very best hand, "For Miss Ketchum, with Ruby's love," and then she punched little holes in the cover that her caterpillars might have some air to breathe. She ran upstairs to Miss Ketchum's room, which was over one end of the schoolhouse, and knocked at the door, which was partly opened. No one answered, and Ruby knocked again. She pushed the door open a little farther and looked in, and found that Miss Ketchum had gone out. She was to have charge of the study hour that afternoon, and she had probably gone downstairs. Ruby laid the box on the bureau, and ran away as the bell rang to call the scholars together, feeling quite delighted at the thought of Miss Ketchum's happiness when she should find so large an addition to her "menagerie," as the girls called it. She thought she would not tell Miss Ketchum about it, but let her have the pleasure of a surprise when she should go up to her room. Of all the little girls, no one studied more diligently than Ruby that afternoon, for she wanted to make up for the morning in every way that she could; and the thought of the caterpillars walking about in their prison, all ready to make Miss Ketchum happy when she should find them, made Ruby very glad; so she felt like singing a little song as she studied her grammar, and looked out the map questions in her geography. The day which had begun so disastrously was going to have a very pleasant ending after all, and Ruby no longer felt as if she must go home. When the girls had come into the school-room after recess Miss Ketchum had said what Ruby had not in the least expected her to say, that she had found out why Ruby laughed, and if she had known sooner she would not have sent her out of the class for it, as she felt as if it was her own fault instead of Ruby's, and that therefore, she should give Ruby perfect marks for deportment, since she had not intended to make any disorder during school-time. Ruby was so grateful to Miss Ketchum for thus clearing her before the school that she made up her mind that she would never, never give her teacher the least bit of trouble, but would always be good, and learn her lessons perfectly, so that she should never have any occasion to reprove her. CHAPTER XIX. SURPRISES. When Ruby went to bed that night her last thought was of the caterpillars and of the pleasure they would give her teacher, and she was impatient for the morning to come that she might have Miss Ketchum tell her how much she had enjoyed them. Miss Ketchum did not go up to her room after study hour, but after supper she went up for something, intending to return to the sitting-room at once, as she had charge of the girls that evening. It was almost dark in her room, but she did not stop to light the lamp, as she knew where to get her work-basket in the dark. In passing the bureau she put out her hand and knocked something off, but stooping down on the floor and picking it up again, she concluded that it was merely an empty paper-box, such as Mrs. Boardman often put in her room when she found one, to use as a home for her pets. The cover rolled away, but Miss Ketchum did not stop to look for it, and went down to the sitting room again. Of course you can guess what happened. Whether the caterpillars were asleep or not when the box fell, I could not tell you, but after that they were certainly very wide-awake, for they travelled out of the box and all over the room. Before Miss Ketchum had come up to go to bed they had made their way all over the room. There were some of them on the ceiling, some crawling over the white counter-pane on Miss Ketchum's bed, some upon her pillow, and a very fat, large caterpillar, that Ruby had found upon a tomato-plant, had crept up on the looking-glass and had gone to sleep there. [Illustration: MISS KETCHUM AND THE CATERPILLARS (missing from book)] Miss Ketchum was very much interested in caterpillars, but of course she did not want to have them walking all about her room in this way; so you can imagine how surprised and perhaps a little frightened she was when she came upstairs to bed, and struck a light, and saw the caterpillars making themselves quite at home all about her room. She could not understand it at first, and then it occurred to her that perhaps some of the girls had been playing a trick upon her, and had put them in the room to annoy her. Some of the scholars were unkind enough to tease Miss Ketchum sometimes, and it would not have surprised her if this had been the case to-night. At last she remembered the box, and picking up the cover, she saw written carefully upon it, "With Ruby's love," and then she knew how it had happened. Ruby had put them there to please her, and if the cover had stayed on the box, the caterpillars would have been quite safe, and would have been in their prison yet; but she remembered having knocked the box down, and it was undoubtedly then that they strayed out and wandered about the room. Poor Miss Ketchum! She sighed as she looked about the room. She could not go to bed and perhaps have the caterpillars creeping all over her in the night, and yet it seemed like a hopeless task to catch them, and she had no idea how many there were. But Ruby had meant to be so kind that she thought more of her little scholar's affection for her than she did of the work she had so unintentionally given her. One by one she patiently captured them and returned them to their box. She was not quite sure that she had got them all when she put the last one in, but there were so many that she felt tolerably certain that Ruby could not possibly have found more in one day. It was quite late before she finally got to bed, and while Ruby was sound asleep and dreaming of Miss Ketchum's delight when she should find the addition to her pets, Miss Ketchum was smiling to herself as she thought of Ruby's intended kindness, and how it had turned out. She made up her mind that Ruby should not know that the caterpillars had escaped, but that she should think that her gift had given all the pleasure that it was intended to, and so Ruby never knew of poor Miss Ketchum's caterpillar hunt at bed-time. The next day Miss Ketchum thanked her for them, and explained to her that she would have to set some of them at liberty again, since she had some of a good many of the varieties, and two of each were all that she could take care of; but Ruby was delighted to hear that Miss Ketchum had never had some of the specimens before, and that she was quite sure that they would make beautiful butterflies. After this Ruby and Miss Ketchum were as good friends as Agnes had always been with her teacher, and Miss Ketchum found it a great help to have two little girls, instead of one, upon whom she could always rely for good behavior, and who could be trusted never to wilfully annoy her. She had a great many treasures in her room that had been brought to her from China by a brother who had been a missionary there, and she was always glad to have Agnes and Ruby come and pay her a little visit, and look at whatever they wished. She knew they could be trusted to handle things carefully and not be meddlesome, and many a happy hour the two girls spent there. Miss Ketchum's room was a very large room, as it was the only one over the school-house, so she had plenty of space to keep all her curiosities and her pets. There was a little cupboard that stood in a corner, just as if it had been built for that particular space, and in this corner closet Miss Ketchum kept a little tin of delicious seed-cakes, and some cups and saucers, and pretty little plates with butterflies, and mandarins, and pagodas, and Chinese beauties upon them; and very often when the girls came to see her she would open this cupboard and they would have a little treat, which seemed all the more delightful because the plates were so odd. There was an open fireplace in the room, and when the days were cold and there was a snapping, blazing wood-fire, they used to ask Miss Ketchum if they might not bring their chestnuts and roast them in the hot ashes. Miss Ketchum knew a great many stories, too, and sometimes, on Saturday afternoon, when the children had plenty of time, and would surely not have to hurry away in the most interesting part of the story, she would lean back in her big rocking-chair, and with the little girls sitting on ottomans, one each side of her, she would tell them delightful stories about when she was a little girl and went to school. Ruby and Agnes were glad that they did not live then, when there was no whole holiday on Saturday, but they were very much interested in hearing all that Miss Ketchum had to tell them, and in comparing the things that she did when she went to school with what they did themselves. Altogether Miss Ketchum was a very delightful friend to have, if, she was a little forgetful sometimes, and did like caterpillars; but Ruby and Agnes grew almost as fond of her pets as she was herself, as they learned how much there was of interest about them. They looked forward quite eagerly to the time when, instead of the ugly worm that had woven a chrysalis about himself and gone to sleep for the winter, there should burst forth a beautiful butterfly. It made them more careful not to hurt creeping things, and if they found a brown worm crawling about where he might be stepped upon, the girls would always pick him up carefully upon a stick or leaf and put him in a safe place where he might keep out of danger. CHAPTER XX. PERSIMMONS. The September days passed away and the October days came and found Ruby both happy and good. She had not forgotten her home nor her dear mother and father, but she was learning to love her new home very dearly, and she had tried so hard to be good and give the teachers as little trouble as possible that they were all very fond of her. She found her lessons very pleasant, and as she loved study and was ambitious to always have perfect lessons she was very near the head in all her classes. Twice a week she wrote long letters home to her mother, and told her all about her doings; and her mother was so much better that she was able to write to Ruby two or three times a week,--such loving letters that Ruby always wished for a little while that she could put herself in an envelope and send herself home to her mother, instead of waiting for Christmas. Ruby was doing so well that both her Aunt Emma and her father and mother wanted her to stay until the end of the term at any rate. Ruby hoped that when she went home she would be able to take with her at least one of the five prizes which were to be given at Christmas. There was a composition prize, a deportment prize, a prize for grammar, one for spelling, and one for improvement in music. Ruby had worked so hard in all her classes, and had been so careful to keep all the rules, that she was quite sure that she should take at least one prize home with her to show her father and mother how hard she had tried to be good. If Ruthy could only have been with her, Ruby would have been quite contented; but with all her new friends she still missed the dear little friend who had been like a sister to her all her life. A great many things that had seemed hard to Ruby when she first came were becoming so natural to her now that she never thought anything about them. The courtesying was no longer any trouble to her; on the contrary, she really liked it, and she amused her Aunt Emma one day by telling her that she thought that when she went home she should always courtesy to her father and mother when she went out of the room; for if it was respectful to courtesy to her teachers, it was certainly respectful to courtesy to any one else of whom she thought a great deal. She had learned to like egg-plant just as well as she did anything else, so her trouble over that had melted away into thin air; and she had found Agnes Van Kirk a very good friend to have, for she was a little girl who tried very hard to do right herself, and helped Ruby to do right, too. Agnes was going to be a teacher some day, she hoped, and she was very fond of talking to Ruby about her plans. She was going to have a large boarding-school, and she was not quite sure whether she would have her girls courtesy or not when they went out of a room. "Perhaps it will be old-fashioned by that time, you know," she said to Ruby, when the two girls had counted how many years must pass away before Agnes should have completed her education and opened her school. "Of course I should not teach my girls to do old-fashioned things, that would make people laugh at them, but I want them to do everything that is nice. I mean to be such a teacher as Miss Chapman. She never scolds, but all the girls mind her, and even those who break the rules always wish they had n't when she looks at them. I can hardly wait, I am in such a hurry to begin my school." "And I will come and see you, and look at the girls the way that lady looked at us the other day when she came to visit the school," said Ruby. "Do you remember how beautifully she was dressed, Agnes, and how pretty she was? I wonder if she meant to send her little girl here, and that was why she came. Won't it be fun to go and visit your school when I don't have any of the lessons to study, nor anything. I will be very grand, and they will never guess that we used to be little girls and go to school together. I don't want to be a school-teacher, though." "What do you want to be?" asked Agnes. "I think I shall write books," announced Ruby. "Why, what ever made you think of that?" asked Agnes, in astonishment. "You don't even like to write compositions, and how could you ever write books?" "Oh, compositions are different from books," returned Ruby, airily. "I am sure I could write poetry, I like it so much. There is n't anything I like better than poetry day. I wish it was poetry day every Friday, instead of every other one being compositions. I don't think compositions are at all interesting. We have to write a composition for next time upon one of our walks. I think I will write about our walk this afternoon. I don't think there is ever very much to write about the walks we take. We just go out two and two, and we see the same things every time, and that is all there is of it." "Perhaps something may happen to-day to give you something to write about," Agnes answered; and though she had only spoken in fun, without any idea that her words would come true, something did happen that afternoon, quite out of the usual course, and I am not sure but that Ruby would have rather that it had not happened, and that she would have had less to write about. Miss Ketchum announced at the close of the afternoon school that the girls would go for their walk half an hour earlier than usual, as they were going to gather persimmons, and would want to have more time than for their regular walk. This gathering of persimmons was a treat looked forward to by the girls, and they were very much pleased when they heard that they were to go this afternoon. They each had a little basket in which to bring home their spoils, and Ruby was quite as excited as the rest of them, wondering whether she would find enough to fill her basket. It was the first of November, and there had been several slight frosts, which, Ruby heard the teachers say, ought to ripen the persimmons. "That is funny," she said to herself. "I should think it would spoil persimmons to be frozen. I never heard of anything being better because it had been out in the frost. I wonder what persimmons are like, anyway." Ruby had never seen any persimmons in her life, as they did not grow near her home, and she had a vague idea that they were like apples, only smaller, perhaps. It did not take the girls very long to get ready, and in a little while they were all on their way, so happy that it was hard work to keep in procession, and not lose step with each other. It was a beautiful day. The sky was so blue that not the tiniest little white cloud was floating about upon it anywhere, and the air was not very cold. There was just enough frostiness to make warm wraps very pleasant, and to make the girls find a brisk gait delightful. The leaves had all dropped from the trees, and their bare, brown limbs stood out sharp and clear against the sky, and Ruby wondered whether the persimmons would not have fallen from the tree, too. She did n't ask any questions, however, but made up her mind to wait and see for herself. It was very hard for Ruby to admit that she did not know anything; and although Agnes could have told her all about the persimmons, she preferred to wait rather than ask her. It was quite a long walk to the field where the persimmon-tree grew which was considered the special property of the school. In the woods there were several persimmon-trees, but the boys knew where those persimmons grew, and gathered them as soon as they ripened, and very often before they were ready to eat; so it was of no use going there to look for any. This tree stood in a field that belonged to a friend of Miss Chapman's, and he always kept it just for the girls, and was willing to send out his man to shake the tree and knock the persimmons down for them, if Jack Frost had not done it already. As soon as they reached the field, and the bars were let down, the girls could break their ranks and rush for the persimmon-tree, which grew in the middle of the field. It did not look very inviting, Ruby thought, as she ran along with the others. All the leaves had dropped off except a few which dangled as if the next puff of wind would send them down upon the ground with the others; and the persimmons, which hung thickly upon the branches, did not look at all as Ruby had fancied that they would. There were several lying upon the ground, and Ruby wondered at the girls for picking them up so eagerly. They were all shrivelled, and the least touch would break their skins. Indeed some of them in falling had broken, and were lying in bunches, all mashed together. Ruby did not want any such looking persimmons as those, and she looked carefully about for nice round ones, that were firm and hard. "Come over here, Ruby," called Agnes. "Here are ever so many, and such nice ones. I am getting lots." Ruby glanced over and saw that those in Agnes' basket were just the kind that she did not want. "I see some here," she answered, and so she picked up the firm, hard fruit as quickly as she could. Presently she wondered what they tasted like, and she put one in her mouth. Did you ever have your mouth puckered up by a green persimmon? If you have, then you will know just how Ruby's mouth felt; and if you have not, you must imagine it, for I am sure I cannot tell you about it. It was a very green persimmon that Ruby had tasted, and she had taken such a bite of it before she could stop herself that it seemed to her as though she would never be able to open her mouth again. She was quite frightened at the way her mouth felt, and her eyes filled with tears as she went over to Agnes. "Oh, it has done something to my mouth, and puckered it all up," she said, trying to keep from crying. "I never had such a dreadful feeling in my mouth. Do you suppose it will ever come out again? Oh, it is worse than a toothache, it truly is." [Illustration: "OH, IT HAS DONE SOMETHING TO MY MOUTH!" (missing from book)] "You must have eaten one that was not quite ripe," said Agnes. "Let me see; oh, that one would pucker your mouth dreadfully, for it is n't nearly ready to eat yet. See, it is only these soft ones that are ripe, and the hard ones will all pucker one's mouth." "And I thought that these soft ones were n't good," said Ruby, in dismay, "and I have gathered only these old puckery ones. I could not think what you picked up the squashed ones for." How many times that afternoon Ruby wished she had known more about persimmons, or that she had asked some of the other girls something about them. Her mouth seemed to grow more puckery every moment, and she wondered whether it would ever be any better. It did not feel as if it would, and she could not be persuaded to taste a ripe persimmon, for she had had enough of persimmons. She emptied her basket out, and did not want to touch another, though the girls assured her that the ripe ones were delicious. She was very glad when at last the girls had gathered as many as they wanted, and they were ready to go home again. She went upstairs to her room, and Aunt Emma did what she could to relieve the puckered little mouth; but there was but little that could be done except to wait patiently for time to take the puckers out of it. Ruby was quite sure that it would take a year, and when she woke up the following morning and found that there was nothing to remind her of the persimmon, she was delighted as well as surprised, but it was a long time before she wanted to hear any more about persimmons. CHAPTER XXI. MAUDE. If Maude's mother could have looked into the school and watched her little daughter for a day, I am sure she would have found it hard to believe that she was the same child as the selfish, self-willed little girl, who had made every one else miserable as well as herself if she could not have her own way when she was at home. School life was very hard for Maude in a great many ways, and she had been more homesick than any of the other girls,--not so much because she wanted to see her father and mother as because she wanted to go where she could have her own way and do as she pleased. All her life she had been accustomed to having her own way, and after such training it was very hard for her to submit to the same rules to which the other girls had to submit, and to obey her teachers. It was a new experience to her to find that her fine clothes did not win for her any esteem, and that unless she showed herself kind and obliging to her schoolmates, they did not care to have anything to do with her. It was not altogether Maude's fault that she had been so selfish; it was partly because she had never been taught to be unselfish, and she had grown so used to putting herself and her own comfort before that of every one else, that it seemed the most natural thing in the world to do, and she was surprised when every one else did not do so too. Nothing could have been better for her than to come to this quiet home school, where she could find a friend who would take the trouble to help her correct her faults as Mrs. Boardman did. Maude had never really loved any one before in all her life. She had valued others only for what they did for her, but now she was learning to love from a better reason than that. She really tried to please Mrs. Boardman by obeying the rules and trying to study her lessons, and though it was hard for her to keep up with her class, Mrs. Boardman encouraged her because she could see that Maude was really doing her best. If Maude grew discouraged, and began to think that it was of no use for her to try to learn, that she would never be able to learn her lessons and get up to the head of any of her classes, Mrs. Boardman would tell her how much she had improved since she first came, and encourage her to try again. For the first few weeks Maude found herself frequently in disgrace. It seemed almost impossible for her to understand that she must obey without arguing the point, and that she must not be quarrelsome nor selfish in her intercourse with the other scholars. If Maude had been in a large school where she would not have had any one to help her, she might not have improved so much; but in this little school, where it was more like a family than a boarding-school, she was helped to conquer herself just as wisely as she could have been by a wise mother. When at last she really learned that no one cared for her father's money nor her mother's servants, nor her own jewelry, which she was not allowed to wear, and had to content herself with exhibiting, she began to wish that there was something about herself which should win the love of her schoolmates. She had made such an unpleasant impression upon them at first that they were not very anxious to make friends with her, but as they saw that she was really trying to make herself pleasant, they were more willing to invite her to join in their games and share their amusements. She did not talk so much about her possessions, and tried to care more about others and their happiness. But all this was hard work. It is not an easy matter to be selfish and wilful and then all at once become thoughtful of others, and of their comfort; and many and many a night Maude sobbed herself to sleep, quite discouraged with the efforts she had to make to do things that seemed to come as a matter of course to the other girls. Mrs. Boardman had grown to love the lonely little girl, when she saw how much she needed a friend, and how grateful she was for the kindness which was shown her; and sometimes she would ask Miss Chapman to let Maude spend the night with her, when she found that the little girl was very homesick and discouraged. Perhaps because she had never known before what it was to have a friend who really wanted to help her make the most of herself, Maude loved Mrs. Boardman with all her heart, and she really tried and kept on trying, so that she should not disappoint the one who took so much interest in her. Mrs. Boardman could see how the little girl improved from one week to another, and though there was still much room for improvement, and it might take months and perhaps years to undo the effect of Maude's early training in selfishness, yet there was a great deal that was very sweet and lovable in her character, hidden away under all the dross; and Mrs. Boardman knew that if she kept on trying to improve, some day she would be a very sweet girl, and one who would win love from all around her. Every hour Maude learned something that was of use to her, for she had much more to learn than many of her schoolmates. In the first place she had always thought that work was something that belonged only to servants, and that a lady would not know how to do anything about the house; but here Miss Chapman insisted upon each little girl's caring for her own room, and insisted that the work should be carefully and well done, and the general feeling among the girls was that it was something to be proud of when their rooms won commendation from Mrs. Boardman. Maude no longer felt that it was a disgrace to be obliged to make her own bed, but on the contrary, she took a great deal of pride in making it so well that when Mrs. Boardman went around to look at the rooms after the girls had gone into school, she could find nothing to reprove, but on the contrary could leave a little card with "Good" upon the pillow. Once a week there was a cooking-class which the girls attended in turn, and Maude was as proud as any of the other girls could have been upon the day when she made a plate of nice light biscuit all by herself, for supper; and she looked forward with a good deal of pleasure to the time when she should show her mother how much she could do. Miss Chapman did not believe in education making little girls useless at home, but she tried to have them taught practical things as well as the more ornamental ones, for she wanted them to grow up useful as well as accomplished women. So the scholars learned to sweep and dust, to make beds, and bread and cake, while they studied their other lessons; and when they went home in vacation times their mothers found them very useful little maids. Maude had not made any special friends among the girls. In her time out of school hours she stayed with Mrs. Boardman as much as she could, and her teacher was very kind about letting the little girl come to her room whenever she wanted to, and curl up in the big rocking-chair and watch Mrs. Boardman as she sat by the window in her low sewing-chair and did the piles of mending which accumulated every week. The boxes of cake and candy which Maude had been so anxious that her mother should send her were not permitted to any of the scholars at Miss Chapman's school. Perhaps one reason why they were so well, and the doctor seldom, if ever, paid any of them, a visit, was because they ate such good, wholesome food and were not allowed to spoil their appetites with candy. Once a week they had candy, and then it seemed all the nicer because it was such a treat. A little old woman kept a candy store some little distance down the street, and the girls were allowed to go down there Saturday mornings and buy five cents' worth of candy. This little old woman was quite famous among the scholars for her molasses cocoanut candy, and they almost always bought that kind of candy. As Ruby said to her Aunt Emma after she had been to school a few Saturdays,-- "It looks very nice, and is good, and then you get more of it for five cents than any other kind of candy, so it is really the best kind to buy, you see." The old woman always expected Miss Chapman's young ladies every Saturday, and had nice little bags of candy all tied up, ready for them, so that she should not keep them waiting; and if the day was stormy, and she knew that they would not be allowed to go out, she took a covered basketful of candy-bags up to the school, that they might make their purchases there. Saturday morning was a very pleasant one at school. There was a short study hour, which was really a half-hour, and then the girls wrote letters home, or visited each other in their rooms. In the afternoon they put on their very best dresses, and had a nicer supper than usual, and almost every Saturday evening the minister and his wife came and took that meal with them. He was not at all like the minister Ruby had known at home all her life, and whenever she looked at him, she wondered how it was possible for so young a man to be a minister. He never asked any of the girls whether they knew the catechism or not, and Ruby was quite disappointed at this, though I do not think any of the other girls wanted to say it. Ruby was so sure that she knew it perfectly, even the longest and hardest answers, that she was always glad of a chance to show how well she knew it. Perhaps if the others had known it as well, they might have been willing to say it, but as it was, they were quite satisfied that he never asked for it; and Maude, who did not know a word of it, and who had all she could do to learn what her teachers required of her, would have been quite discouraged, I am afraid, if the recitation of the catechism each week had been added to her other tasks. CHAPTER XXII. SUNDAY AT SCHOOL. Sunday morning the scholars slept nearly an hour longer than usual, and this was looked upon as a great treat, particularly in the winter months when it was scarcely light before seven. It seemed very early rising to get up by lamp-light, and all the girls were quite ready to take the extra hour of sleep upon Sunday mornings. After breakfast, which was always nicer than upon other days, when they had made their rooms tidy, and prepared themselves for church, all but their coats and hats, Miss Chapman called them down to the school-room to study a Bible lesson for half an hour. By this time the church bell would begin to ring, and they would go up to their rooms and get ready to start, and then the little procession would start out just as they did when they went to walk, only, instead of one of the girls walking at the head, Miss Chapman and Miss Ketchum were there, and the girls followed them. It was a very short walk, just across the street, so it was not necessary to start until the second bell had begun to ring. The girls would have been very glad if it had been a little longer walk, but it only took two or three minutes to walk down to the crossing at the corner, and then go across to the pretty vine-covered church. Miss Chapman had one rule that none of the girls liked at all, and yet it was one for which they were all very glad when they had grown older, and did not have to follow it unless they wished. It was her rule that the girls should all listen very attentively to the sermon, remember the text, and the chapter from which it was taken, and then when they came home they were required, after dinner, to spend an hour in writing down all that they could remember of the sermon. At first Ruby was sure that she never could remember anything to write down afterwards, and though she listened as hard as she could, and did her very best to remember, all that she could possibly keep in her head was the text, and one sentence, the sentence with which Mr. Morsell began his sermon; but she soon found that by listening very closely and trying to remember, she grew able to remember much more. Some of the older girls, who had been with Miss Chapman for two and three years, and were accustomed to this practice, could write down a really good epitome of the sermon, and once in a while a scholar did so well that Miss Chapman would send her work over to the minister, and the next time he came to tea he would compliment her for it; and that not only pleased the scholar, but made all the others determine to do so well that their extracts, too, should be sent over to him sometimes. Mr. Morsell always remembered what young hearers he had, and he never failed to put something in his sermon that even Ruby and Maude could understand and remember, if they tried hard enough; so it was a great deal easier for them than if he had preached only for grown-up people. Each girl had a blank-book, and after Miss Chapman had looked her extracts over, she required the scholars to copy these extracts into their blank-books. Ruby was quite pleased when she found that each Sunday she could remember more and more, and that where five lines contained all that she remembered of the first sermon, it soon took two pages to hold all that she could write. She was glad that she had to copy it in this blank-book, for then she could take it home with her at Christmas, and show it to her father and mother and Ruthy; and everything that she did she always wanted to show them, or tell them about, for she never forgot the dear ones. Maude was learning to remember nicely, too. She was not at all a dull little girl. It was only that she had not been accustomed to use her mind when she came to the school, and it had taken her some little time to learn to keep her thoughts upon anything, and really study. She was quite pleased when she found that in this exercise of memory she was doing quite as well as any of the new scholars, and better than four or five of them could do. After a while, when the girls grew older, and finished learning all that they could study with Miss Chapman, and some, perhaps, did not go to school any more, they were very glad that they had learned to listen so attentively; for any one of those little girls who practised listening to the sermon and remembering all they could of it, and then strengthened their memory by writing it down afterwards, found that they had a great deal to be glad of in this training. Even after they grew up, they were so in the habit of listening attentively that they never heard a sermon without being able to remember a great deal of it; so their memories were not like sieves, through which a great deal could run, but in which very little, or perhaps nothing, would remain. But they did not realize then how good it was for them, for even grown-up people very seldom realize that, and so the girls grumbled a good deal sometimes, when they had to sit down on Sunday afternoon and write out what they could remember. There was one thing, however, which the girls soon discovered. It did not make it any easier to grumble about it, and the sooner one set to work in good earnest, the more one was likely to remember of the sermon, and the sooner the task was accomplished; and they had the rest of the afternoon to themselves until Bible-class hour just before tea-time. Then Miss Chapman heard them say the catechism, and talked to them and heard them recite the Bible lesson which they had studied that morning. The time between writing the sermon and the Bible class was always a pleasant time to the scholars. They sat in one another's rooms and talked, or if it was a pleasant day they went out and walked about the garden. While Miss Chapman would not allow any loud laughing nor playing on this day, yet she was glad to have it one which the girls would enjoy as much as possible, and would look back upon with pleasure. There was always some special dainty for tea, and then, after tea, the girls all gathered around the piano in the parlor, and Miss Emma played hymns for them, and they sang until it was time to go to bed. They all enjoyed this. Even the girls who could not sing very well themselves liked to hear the others sing, and they were sorry when the old clock in the hall struck the bed-time hour. Every Sunday seemed such a long step towards the holidays when they should go home and see their fathers and mothers again. While after the first week or two none of the girls were homesick, and all were very happy, yet there was not one of them who had not a little square of paper near the head of her bed, with as many marks upon it as there were days before vacation began, and every morning the first thing they did was to scratch one of these marks off. So Sunday seemed a long step ahead when they looked back over seven days that had passed. Agnes and Ruby generally spent the leisure part of Sunday afternoon with Miss Ketchum. She was very fond of the little girls, and liked to have them come and see her, so they had a very pleasant time in her room. They would save their bags of candy, instead of eating them on Saturday, and Miss Ketchum would have a nice little plain cake, of which her little visitors were very fond, and then they would take down the dishes and have a very nice time. While they were enjoying the good things Miss Ketchum would read to them, or they would see which could tell her the most about the extracts they had written from the sermon. They had such pleasant times with her that they were always sorry when the boll rang for Bible class, and they had to say good-by and run away. Altogether, Sunday was a very happy day at Miss Chapman's, not only to Ruby and Agnes, but to all the other scholars, and they were always ready to welcome it. CHAPTER XXIII. GETTING READY FOR CHRISTMAS. All the girls had a great deal of Christmas preparation. In the evenings they were busy making their Christmas presents for their friends at home, and Ruby was delighted when her Aunt Emma taught her how to knit wristlets. She was very proud when she had finished the first pair for her mother. They had pretty red edges and the rest was knitted of chinchilla wool. Perhaps you would laugh at Ruby if I should tell you quite how much she admired them. When she first began to knit she wished that she need not practise nor study nor do anything else, she enjoyed her new occupation so much; and she carried her wristlet around in her pocket, wrapped up in a piece of paper, so that it should not become soiled, and every little while she would take it out and look at it lovingly. She could imagine her mother's surprise and pleasure when she should give them to her, and tell her that her little girl had knitted every stitch of them for her. There were a great many stitches in the wristlets, and before the first pair was finished Ruby had grown very tired of knitting; but she was willing to persevere when she thought of the pleasure it would be to give them to her mother as her very own Christmas gift to her. The pair she was making for her father did not take her nearly so long to make, even although they were larger, for she had learned to knit so much more quickly; and she was quite proud of the way in which the needles flashed in her busy little fingers. Ruby had brought her doll to school with her, and she found her great company when she went up to her room, although she was such a busy little maiden that she did not find much time in which to play with her. Sometimes she would take her over to Miss Ketchum's room and leave her for a few days, so that when she went there for a little visit she would find her doll waiting for her, but generally Ruby had so many other things in which she was interested that she did not find time to play with her child. But she was making something for Ruthy's Christmas present in which she needed her doll's help very much. Aunt Emma was showing Ruby how to crochet the dearest little baby sacque and hood, for a gift to Ruthy, and as Ruthy's doll was just exactly the same size as Ruby's, Ruby could try the sacque upon her own doll every now and then, and be quite sure that she was getting it the right size. It was a pretty little white sacque with a rose-colored border, and it was so very pretty that Ruby made up her mind that after Christmas, when she should not have so much to do, she would make another just like it for her own doll. The hood was made to match the sacque, and Ruby could hardly wait for Christmas to come when she thought of the happiness her gifts would give. She was impatient to hear Ruthy exclaim with admiration over the beautiful sacque and hood, and to see how proud her father and mother would be when she slipped the wristlets upon their hands, and told them that she had taken every stitch for them with her own fingers. But besides these home preparations, there was to be a little entertainment given at Christmas by the scholars, to which some of the people of the village were always invited, besides the friends of the day-scholars, and those of the boarding-scholars who could come. This entertainment was given the evening before the girls left for their Christmas holidays, so very often their parents came a day earlier to take them home, in order to be present at this entertainment. It was given to show the improvement of the scholars during the term, and all the girls had some part to take in it. To some of them this was a great trial, but Ruby delighted in showing off, and she was perfectly happy when she found that she was to take part three times. It added to her pleasure to have her father write that he would surely be there, for he was coming to bring her home, as Aunt Emma was going somewhere else for her Christmas holidays. So Ruby practised and studied with all her might, as happy and as good a little girl as you could find anywhere, enjoying school-life more every day. Ruby was to play the bass part in a duet with one of the older girls, and she had taken lessons such a little while that this seemed a very great thing to her. She was always ready to practise, so that she should be sure to know her part perfectly, and she went about the house humming the tune, until Aunt Emma declared laughingly that she fully expected to hear Ruby singing it in her sleep. Besides this, Ruby was to recite a piece alone, and to take part in a dialogue; so you can see that she had quite a good deal to do. She would have been quite willing to do more, however, and she looked forward very eagerly to the evening of the entertainment. The dialogue was quite a long one, and Ruby studied it every morning while she was getting dressed, pretending that her aunt and the stove were the other two characters in the piece. To be sure, neither of them said anything, for Aunt Emma was busy getting dressed, and the stove was silent, of course; but Ruby knew what they should say, for she had studied the piece so much that she knew the other parts nearly as well as her own; so she said for them what should be said when their part came, and then repeated her own speeches. There was no danger that Ruby would not be fully prepared when the great evening came. It did not seem possible, now that she looked backward, that she had really been away from home so long. Each day had been so full of duties and pleasures, and had passed so rapidly, that they had gone almost before Ruby knew that they had commenced, and now there were only very few marks left to be scratched out upon the girls' calendars. Ruby was very sorry for Agnes. Her mother lived so far away that it was not possible for her to go home until the long summer vacation came, so Agnes had to spend her Christmas at school. The teachers did all they could to make the day a happy one for her, and her mother sent her a box of presents, but still that was not of course anything like a home Christmas, and it generally made Agnes feel very badly when she heard the other girls talking about the good times they expected to have at Christmas. "It is n't only the parties and the Christmas trees and the good times," she said to Ruby one day. "It is being away from mother that is the hardest part of it all. I always put her picture on the table when I open the box and look at the presents she has sent me, and try to pretend that she is giving them to me; but it is n't of much use. I know all the time that she is hundreds of miles away, and that she wants to see me just as much as I want to see her." It was just one week before Christmas that a very beautiful idea came into Ruby's mind, and she was so pleased that she jumped up and spun around like a top, and caught Agnes by the waist and made her spin around, too, until both the little girls tumbled down in a heap on the floor. "Why, Ruby, are you crazy?" asked Agnes, laughingly. They had been sitting before the fire in Miss Ketchum's room, eating chestnuts and talking about the evening of the entertainment, and both of the girls had been quiet for a little while, Agnes thinking how much she would like to have her mother at the school that night, and Ruby thinking of the pleasure with which she would watch her father while she was reciting her piece, when all at once she jumped up in this state of excitement. [Illustration: READING THE INVITATION TO AGNES (missing from book)] "What is the matter?" asked Agnes again; but Ruby would n't tell her. "It is just the most beautiful idea in all the world," she exclaimed; "but it is something about you, Agnes, and I don't want to tell you until I am quite sure how it is going to turn out. No, you need n't ask me. I shall not tell you one single word of it. I can keep a secret when I want to, and I don't mean to tell you this one. I will only tell you that if it turns out all right you will like it as much as I do, I think. Oh, I am so full of it that I must go over and tell Aunt Emma about it; but you must not ask me to tell you, for indeed I will not." And Ruby did not, although you may imagine that Agnes was very curious to know what it could be over which Ruby was so excited, and which concerned herself. Ruby would only answer, "Wait and see." It had occurred to her that perhaps her mother would be willing to let her invite Agnes to come home with her for her Christmas holidays. Ruby knew that her mother was very much better now, and she was almost sure that she would not feel as if company would tire her too much. Ruby and Agnes had been such friends, and Ruby had told Agnes so much about her home and mother and Ruthy, that she was sure that next best to going to her own home and seeing her own mother, would be going to Ruby's home and spending Christmas with Ruby's mother. Aunt Emma thought that it was a very nice plan, and Ruby wrote that very afternoon to ask her mother about it. It seemed to the impatient little girl as if the answer would never come; and every day she watched when the mail came to see if there was a letter for her; but in three days it came, and she was delighted to find that a little letter was enclosed for Agnes, giving her a very cordial invitation to come home with Ruby to spend her Christmas holidays. Ruby's mother was very much pleased with the idea, and glad that her little daughter had thought of inviting her lonely schoolmate home with her; and if anything could have made Ruby happier than she was already, it was her mother's approval of her plan. You may be sure that Agnes was delighted. It seemed almost too good to be true, at first; and when she read the kind letter from Ruby's mother, and Miss Chapman gave her permission to accept the invitation, she began to look forward to the holidays quite as eagerly as any of the other girls. Besides the pleasure with which Ruby looked forward to Christmas on her own account, she looked forward to the pleasure she expected to give others, and I need not tell you that that is the secret of the greatest happiness in all the wide world. And so the days flew on, each one bringing the joyous home-going nearer. CHAPTER XXIV. FINIS. There came a morning when the very last mark was scratched off the calendars that hung in every room in the school, and the girls knew that, long as it had been in coming, the last day before the holidays had really come. It was a delightful day, for there was so much pleasant preparation going on. "It is just lovely to have such a higgledy-piggledy day," Ruby exclaimed with a rapturous sigh of delight. There was a rehearsal in the morning, to make sure that all the girls were ready for the evening's entertainment; and some of the girls who were not quite perfect in their pieces of music or their recitations, had to study and practise a little while; but beyond that, there was nothing but the most delightful chaos of packing trunks, laying out dresses, and talking over plans for the next day. Every little while some one would ring the bell, and the girls would rush to see which happy girl was greeting her father or mother. Ruby's father came about noon, and she was very much surprised, for she had not expected him until afternoon, on the same train in which she had come. When she heard there was a gentleman downstairs to see Miss Ruby Harper, she rushed downstairs so fast that she nearly tumbled down, and ran into the parlor, quite sure that she would find her father's arms waiting to clasp her. For a moment she did not see any one else, and she fairly cried, very much to her surprise, she was so glad to see her dear father and feel herself nestled in his arms. Then some one said,-- "Don't you see me, Ruby?" and Ruby looked around to find Ruthy, all smiles, watching to see her surprise. "Why, Ruthy Warren!"--and Ruby fairly screamed with delight. "I never, never thought of your coming. Why, it is too splendid for anything! How did you ever come to think of it, and why did n't you tell me, and are n't you glad you came?" "I never thought of it at all," Ruthy answered. "It was all your papa's thought, and I never knew I was coming till last night when he came over to ask mamma if I could come with him. I could hardly sleep, I was so glad, for it seemed so long to wait to see you, and it was such fun to come to travel home with you." Perhaps there was a happier little girl in the school than Ruby that day, but I do not know how it could have been possible. She was going home the next day to see her dear mother. She had her papa and her little friend Ruthy with her, to sympathize in her joy and be proud of her success that evening, and when she should go away in the morning she would not have to leave her new friend Agnes alone at school, but she would belong to the happy party that were going to have a delightful Christmas at Ruby's home. Altogether I do not know what could have been added to her pleasure. The day passed very quickly, and Ruby took her papa and Ruthy for a long walk in the afternoon to show them everything pretty in the village. Her tongue went like a mill-wheel, for she had so much to tell them that she could not get the words out fast enough. At last it was supper-time, and then began the important operation of dressing for the evening. The girls might wear their hair any way they liked this last evening, and Maude was delighted when she looked in the glass and saw her hair floating about her shoulders once more. Maude's mother was not coming till the next day, so she was not quite as happy as Ruby was. The girls were all very much excited by the time the company began to arrive. The long school-room had seats placed in one end of it for the audience, and at the other end were seats for the scholars, for the teachers, and the piano upon which the girls were to play. Ruby was fairly radiant with delight when the moment to begin came, and she was not troubled by any of the doubts that the other girls had that they might fail. She was quite sure that she knew her pieces so perfectly that she could not possibly forget anything; and company never frightened her, it only stimulated her to do her best. She was so glad her papa was there, for it was so delightful to look into his pleased, proud face when she recited her piece. She could not look at him during the dialogue, but she was quite sure that his eyes were following her, and the moment she had finished she looked at him and saw how pleased his face was, and how proud he looked. Then came the duet. Agnes and Ruby were to play this together, and they had practised it so much that they were both sure that they could play it without the music. If any one had told Ruby that in this very piece she would make the only mistake of the evening, she would not have believed it possible, and yet that was the thing that really happened. The first bar Agnes had to play alone, then she struck a chord with Ruby and then had a little run of several notes by herself. Ruby felt very grand when the duet was announced and she walked to the piano with Agnes and seated herself. She was sorry that she was on the side away from the audience, because then her father could not see her quite as well, but then he was so tall that perhaps he could see past Agnes and watch her. They were both ready, and Aunt Emma stood by the piano with the little black baton with which she beat time. Ruby counted softly under her breath so she should be sure not to make a mistake. Agnes played her first notes, then Ruby came in promptly with her chord, and then, oh, Ruby wished that the floor might open and let her go through into the cellar,--she forgot that she had to wait a bar for Agnes to play her little run, and began on her bass. It was Agnes's quick wit that saved Ruby from mortification that she would have found it hard ever to forget. "Keep right on, Ruby. Don't stop for anything," she whispered softly. Ruby's first impulse had been to take her hands off the keys, and perhaps run away as she liked to do when things went wrong; but Agnes' whisper reassured her, and she kept steadily on. Agnes left the run out, and started in with the air, and so no one but Miss Emma, Agues, and Ruby knew that any one had made a mistake. Of course it would have been prettier if the little run that Agnes had practised so faithfully for weeks might have been played where it belonged, but it did not really spoil the piece, and Ruby breathed a sigh of relief when the leaf was turned over, and she found that everything was going smoothly. "You were so good, Agnes," she whispered, when they went back to their seats. "I thought that I might just as well stop as not, when I had made such a perfectly dreadful mistake. I wonder if every one knew it." "No, I am sure no one suspected it," Agnes returned comfortingly. "No one but your aunt knew, and she could see how it happened, and I am sure she liked it a great deal better than having us stop and start all over again." All the rest of the evening's exercises passed off very smoothly; the girls presented Miss Chapman with a handsome inkstand, and she expressed her approval of their faithfulness in study during the fall months, and then presented the prizes, and then came the part of the entertainment that most of the girls liked the best of all,--the refreshments. Ruby was not at all sleepy when bed-time came, and she wished that she could start for home at once without waiting for morning to come, but sure as she was that she should not go to sleep all night, but that she should lie awake and talk to Ruthy, she had hardly put her head on her pillow before her eyes closed and she was sound asleep. The next thing she knew was that her aunt was trying to waken her, and telling her that they must hurry to be ready for the train, as they had several things to do before they could start. It did not take long to waken Ruby then, you may be sure. And so she went home again, to find her dear mother looking almost as well as ever, and so glad to see her dear little daughter again; and she was just as happy as Ruby herself when she saw the pretty book that Ruby had won as the prize for deportment. That assured her that Ruby had indeed faithfully kept her promise of trying to be good, and that she had succeeded. Such a happy home-coming as it was; and Agnes had so warm a welcome that she felt almost as if she belonged to the family. But we must say good-by to Ruby here, and leave her enjoying the happy holidays which she had earned by faithful study, by trying to please her teachers in every way, and by trying to make the very best of herself and make others happy; and I am sure when you say good-by to Ruby this time, you will agree with me that she is a far more lovable little girl than she was when she tried first of all to please Ruby herself. THE END. 
27251	----	[Illustration: (cover)] [Illustration: (frontispiece)] "SOME SAY" NEIGHBOURS IN CYRUS BY LAURA E. RICHARDS Author of "Captain January," "Melody," "Queen Hildegarde," "Five-Minute Stories," "When I Was Your Age," "Narcissa," "Marie," "Nautilus," etc. TWELFTH THOUSAND [Illustration] BOSTON DANA ESTES & COMPANY PUBLISHERS _Copyright, 1896_, BY ESTES & LAURIAT _All rights reserved_ Colonial Press: C. H. Simonds & Co., Boston, Mass., U.S.A. Electrotyped by Geo. C. Scott & Sons "SOME SAY" TO MY Dear Sister, FLORENCE HOWE HALL, THIS VOLUME IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED * * * * * "SOME SAY." Part I. "And some say, she expects to get him married to Rose Ellen before the year's out!" "I want to know if she does!" "Her sister married a minister, and her father was a deacon, so mebbe she thinks she's got a master-key to the Kingdom. But I don't feel so sure of her gettin' this minister for Rose Ellen. Some say he's so wropped up in his garden truck that he don't know a gal from a gooseberry bush. He! he!" The shrill cackle was answered by a slow, unctuous chuckle, as of a fat and wheezy person; then a door was closed, and silence fell. The minister looked up apprehensively; his fair face was flushed, and his mild, blue eyes looked troubled. He gazed at the broad back of his landlady, as she stood dusting, with minute care, the china ornaments on the mantelpiece; but her back gave no sign. He coughed once or twice; he said, "Mrs. Mellen!" tentatively, first low, then in his ordinary voice, but there was no reply. Was Mrs. Mellen deaf? he had not noticed it before. He pondered distressfully for a few moments; then dropped his eyes, and the book swallowed him again. Yet the sting remained, for when presently the figure at the mantelpiece turned round, he looked up hastily, and flushed again as he met his hostess' gaze, calm and untroubled as a summer pool. "There, sir!" said Mrs. Mellen, cheerfully. "I guess that's done to suit. Is there anything more I can do for you before I go?" The minister's mind hovered between two perplexities; a glance at the book before him decided their relative importance. "Have you ever noticed, Mrs. Mellen, whether woodcocks are more apt to fly on moonshiny nights, as White assures us?" "Woodbox?" said Mrs. Mellen. "Why, yes, sir, it's handy by; and when there's no moon, the lantern always hangs in the porch. But I'll see that Si Jones keeps it full up, after this." Decidedly, the good woman was deaf, and she had not heard. Could those harpies be right? If any such idea as they suggested were actually in his hostess' mind, he must go away, for his work must not be interfered with, and he must not encourage hopes,--the minister blushed again, and glanced around to see if any one could see him. But he was so comfortable here, and Miss Mellen was so intelligent, so helpful; and this seemed the ideal spot on which to compile his New England "Selborne." He sighed, and thought of the woodcock again. Why should the bird prefer a moonshiny night? Was it likely that the creature had any appreciation of the beauties of nature? Shakespeare uses the woodcock as a simile of folly, to express a person without brains. Ha! The door opened, and Rose Ellen came in, her eyes shining with pleasure, her hands full of gold and green. "I've found the 'Squarrosa,' Mr. Lindsay!" she announced. "See, this is it, surely!" The minister rose, and inspected the flowers delightedly. "This is it, surely!" he repeated. "Stem stout, hairy above; leaves large, oblong, or the lower spatulate-oval, and tapering into a marginal petiole, serrate veiny; heads numerous; seeds obtuse or acute; disk-flowers, 16 x 24. This is, indeed, a treasure, for Gray calls it 'rare in New England.' I congratulate you, Miss Mellen." "Late, sir?" said Mrs. Mellen, calmly. "Oh, no, 'tisn't hardly five o'clock yet. Still, 'tis time for me to be thinkin' of gettin' supper." "Don't you want I should make some biscuit for supper, mother?" asked Rose Ellen, coming out of her rapt contemplation of the goldenrod that Gray condescended to call rare, he to whom all things were common. Her mother made no answer. "Don't you want I should make a pan of biscuit?" Rose Ellen repeated. Still there was no reply, and the girl turned to look at her mother in some alarm. "Why, mother, what is the matter? why don't you answer me?" "Your mother's deafness," the minister put in, hurriedly, "seems suddenly increased: probably a cold,--" "Was you speakin' to me, Rose Ellen?" said Mrs. Mellen. "Why, yes!" said the girl, in distress. "Why, mother, how did you get this cold? you seemed all right when I went out." "Gettin' old!" cried Mrs. Mellen. "'Tis nothin' of the sort, Rose Ellen! I've took a cold, I shouldn't wonder. I went out without my shawl just for a minute. I expect 'twas careless, but there! life is too short to be thinkin' all the time about the flesh, 'specially when there's as much of it as I have. I've ben expectin' I should grow hard of hearin', though, these two years past. The Bowlers do, you know, Rose Ellen, 'long about middle life. There was your Uncle Lihu. I can hear him snort now, sittin' in his chair, like a pig for all the world, and with no idea he was makin' a sound." "But it's come on so sudden!" cried Rose Ellen, in distress. "That's Bowler!" said her mother. "Bowler for all the world! They take things suddin, whether it's hoarsin' up, or breakin' out, or what it is. There! you've heard me tell how my Aunt Phoebe 'Lizabeth come out with spots all over her face, when she was standin' up to be married. Chicken-pox it was, and they never knew where she got it; but my grand'ther said 'twas pure Bowler, wherever it come from." She gazed placidly at her daughter's troubled face; then, patting her with her broad hand, pushed her gently out of the room before her. "Mr. Lindsay's heard enough of my bein' hard of hearin', I expect," she said, cheerfully, as they passed into the kitchen. "Don't you fret, Rose Ellen! You won't have to get a fog-horn yet awhile. I don't know but it would be a good plan for you to mix up a mess o' biscuit, if you felt to: Mr. Lindsay likes your biscuit real well, I heard him say so." "That's what I was going to do," said Rose Ellen, still depressed. "I wish't you'd see the doctor, mother. I don't believe but he could help your hearing, if you take it before it's got settled on you." "Well, I won't, certain!" said Mrs. Mellen. "The idea, strong and well as I be! Bowler blood's comin' out, that's all; and the only wonder is it hasn't come out before." All that day, and the next, the minister did not seem like himself. He was no more absent-minded than usual, perhaps,--that could hardly be. But he was grave and troubled, and the usual happy laugh did not come when Rose Ellen checked him gently as he was about to put pepper into his tea. Several times he seemed about to speak: his eye dwelt anxiously on the cream-jug, in which he seemed to be seeking inspiration; but each time his heart failed him, and he relapsed with a sigh into his melancholy reverie. Rose Ellen was silent, too, and the burden of the talk fell on her mother. At supper on the second day, midway between the ham and the griddle-cakes, Mrs. Mellen announced: "Rose Ellen, I expect you'd better go down to Tupham to-morrow, and stay a spell with your grandm'ther. She seems to be right poorly, and I expect it'd be a comfort to her to have you with her. I guess you'd better get ready to-night, and Calvin Parks can take you up as he goes along." Rose Ellen and the minister both looked up with a start, and both flushed, and both opened wide eyes of astonishment. "Why, mother!" said the girl. "I can't go away and leave you now, with this cold on you." Her mother did not hear her, so Rose Ellen repeated the words in a clear, high-pitched voice, with a note of anxiety which brought a momentary shade to Mrs. Mellen's smooth brow. The next moment, however, the brow cleared again. "I guess you'd better go!" she said again. "It'd be a pity if Mr. Lindsay and I couldn't get along for a month or six weeks; and I wrote mother yesterday that you would be up along to-morrow, so she'll be looking for you. I don't like to have mother disappointed of a thing at her age, it gives her the palpitations." "You--wrote--that I was coming!" repeated Rose Ellen. "And you never told me you was writing, mother? I--I should have liked to have known before you wrote." "Coat?" said Mrs. Mellen. "Oh, your coat'll do well enough, Rose Ellen. Why, you've only just had it bound new, and new buttons put on. I should take my figured muslin, if I was you, and have Miss Turner look at it and see how you could do it over: she has good ideas, sometimes, and it'd be a little different from what the girls here was doin', maybe. Anyway, I'd take it, and your light sack, too. 'Twon't do no harm to have 'em gone over a little." Rose Ellen looked ready to cry, but she kept the tears back resolutely. "I--don't--want to leave you, with this deafness coming on!" she shouted, her usually soft voice ringing like a bugle across the tea-table. "There! there! don't you grow foolish," her mother replied, with absolute calm. "Why, I can hear ye as well as ever, when you raise your voice a mite, like that. I should admire to know why you should stay at home on my account. I suppose I know my way about the house, if I be losin' my hearing just a dite. It isn't going to spoil my cooking, that I can see; and I guess Mr. Lindsay won't make no opposition to your going, for any difference it'll make to him." Mr. Lindsay, thus appealed to, stammered, and blushed up to his eyes, and stammered again; but finally managed to say, with more or less distinctness, that of course whatever was agreeable to Mrs. and Miss Mellen was agreeable to him, and that he begged not to be considered in any way in the formation of their plans. "That's just what I was thinking!" said his hostess. "A man don't want no botheration of plans. So that's settled, Rose Ellen." Rose Ellen knew it was settled. She was a girl of character and resolution, but she had never resisted her mother's will, nor had any one else, so far as she knew. She cried a good deal over her packing, and dropped a tear on her silk waist, the pride of her heart, and was surprised to find that she did not care. "There's no one there to care whether I look nice or not!" she said aloud; and then blushed furiously, and looked around the room, fearfully, to be sure that she was alone. Early next morning the crack of a whip was heard, and Calvin Parks's voice, shouting cheerfully for his passenger. The minister, razor in hand, peeped between his shutters, and saw Rose Ellen come from the house, wiping her eyes, and looking back, with anxious eyes. A wave of feeling swept through him, and he felt, for the moment, that he hated Mrs. Mellen. He had never hated any one before in his innocent life; while he was pondering on this new and awful sensation, the pale, pretty face had sunk back in the depths of the old red-lined stage, the whip cracked, and Calvin drove away with his prey. Mrs. Mellen came out on the steps, and looked after the stage. Then, with a movement singularly swift for so stout a person, she made a few paces down the walk, and, turning, looked up at the windows of the houses on either side of her own. In both houses a figure was leaning from a window, thrown half out over the sill, in an attitude of eager inquiry. At sight of Mrs. Mellen they dodged back, and only a slight waving of curtains betrayed their presence. The good woman folded her arms deliberately, and stood for five minutes, absorbed in the distant landscape; then she turned, and went slowly back to the house. "There!" she said, as she closed the door behind her. "That'll keep 'em occupied for one while!" and there was infinite content in her tone. Mr. Lindsay, coming in to breakfast, found his hostess beaming behind the teakettle, placid and cheerful as usual. He still hated her, and found difficulty in replying with alacrity to her remarks on the beauty of the morning. "I expect you and me'll have a right cozy time together!" she announced. "You no need to put yourself out to talk to me, 'cause I reelly don't seem to be hearing very good; and I won't talk to you, save and except when you feel inclined. I know an elder does love to have a quiet house about him. My sister married a minister, and my father was a deacon himself, so I'm accustomed to the ways of the ministry." Mr. Lindsay stirred his tea, gloomily. The words recalled to his mind those which had so disturbed him a day or two ago, just when all this queer business of the deafness had come on. He remembered the spiteful tones of the two neighbours, and recalled how the words had hissed in his ears. He had thought of going away himself, lest he should encourage false hopes in the breast of his gentle young friend--or her mother; surely Rose Ellen,--as he said the name to himself, he felt his ears growing pink, and knew that he had not said the name before, even to himself; straightway said it again, to prove the absurdity of something, he was not sure what, and felt his throat dry and hot. Now Rose Ellen herself was gone, and for an indefinite time. She had not gone willingly, of that he was sure; but it was equally evident that her mother had no such thoughts as those two harridans had suggested. He glanced up furtively, to meet a broad, beaming glance, and the question whether he felt feverish any. "You seem to flush up easy!" said Mrs. Mellen. "I should be careful, if I was you, Mr. Lindsay, and not go messing round ponds and such at this season of the year. It's just this time we commonly look for sickness rising in the air." Mr. Lindsay stirred his tea again, and sighed. His mind seemed singularly distracted; and that, too, when the most precious moments of the year were passing. He must put all other matters out of his head, and think only of his great work. Had the Blackburnian Warbler been seen in this neighbourhood, as he had been told? He could hardly believe in such good fortune. The shy, mistrustful bird, hunting the thickest foliage of the tallest forest trees,--how should his landlady's daughter have seen it when she was seeking for ferns? yet her description had been exactly that of the books: "Upper parts nearly uniform black, with a whitish scapular stripe and a large white patch in the middle of the wing coverts; an oblong patch--" but she had not been positive about the head. No, but she _was_ positive as to the bright orange-red on chin, throat, and forepart of the breast, and the three white tail-feathers. Ah! why was she gone? why was she not here to show him the way, as she promised, to the place where she had seen the rare visitor? He might possibly have found the nest, that rare nest which Samuels never saw, which only Audubon had described: "composed externally of different textures, and lined with silky fibres and thin, delicate strips of bark, over which lies a thick bed of feathers and horsehair." It should be found in a small fork of a tree, should it? five or six feet from the ground, near a brook? well, he might still search, the next time he went out; meanwhile, there were the ferns to analyze, and that curious moss to determine, if might be. "But mosses are almost hopeless!" he said aloud, with an appealing glance across the table, where he was wont to look for sympathy and encouragement. "Soap dish?" said Mrs. Mellen, with alacrity. "Well, I don't wonder you ask, Mr. Lindsay. Why, I found it full of frogs' eggs this very morning, and I hove 'em away and scalt it out. It's drying in the sun this minute, and I'll bring it right up to your room directly." She beamed on him, and left the room. Mr. Lindsay groaned; looked about him for help, but found none, and retired, groaning, to his study. Part II. The minister had had a delightful but exhausting afternoon. He had gone to look for the nest of a marsh-hen, which he had some reason to think might be in a certain swamp, about five miles from the village. He did not find the nest, but he found plenty of other things: his pockets bulged with mosses and roots, his hat was wound with a curious vine that might possibly be Clematis Verticillaris, and both hands were filled with specimens of every conceivable kind. Incidentally the mosquitoes and black flies had found him: his face was purple, and, like that of the lady at the Brick Lane Branch tea-party, "swellin' wisibly;" and blood was trickling down his well-shaped nose from a bramble-scratch. He had fallen down once or twice in the bog, with results to his clothes; and altogether he presented a singular figure to the view of his parishioners as he strode hastily through the street. Heads were thrust out of windows, staid eyes rolled in horror, but the minister saw nothing. He was tired, and absorbed in his new possessions. It was good to sit down in his study, and spread his treasures out on the broad table, and gloat over them. A clump of damp moss rested quietly on his new sermon, "The Slough of Despond," but he took no note. He was looking for a place to put this curious little lizard in, and after anxious thought selected the gilt celluloid box, lined with pink satin, which the Mission Circle had given him on Christmas for his collars and cuffs. He felt, vaguely, that it was not the right place for the lizard, but there seemed to be nothing else in reach,--except the flitter-work pen-box, and Rose Ellen had made that for him. Ah! if Rose Ellen were here now, how much she could help him! it was so much easier for two to analyze than one. He at the microscope, and Rose Ellen corroborating, correcting from the textbook,--it was a perfect arrangement. The minister sighed heavily. Mrs. Mellen brought in his tea, for it was Wednesday evening, and he preferred an early cup of tea, and a modest supper after the meeting. Food distracted his mind, he was apt to say, from thought, a statement which his landlady treated with indulgent contempt, as she had never known him to remark the difference between "riz" bread and the soda article. She set the cup down before him, and he promptly dipped a fern root into it; then started back with a cry of dismay. "Well indeed, sir!" said Mrs. Mellen, "I should think so, truly! What did you do that for, and spoil your tea?" "The--tea--a--that is, it is of no consequence about the tea!" said Mr. Lindsay, hastily. "I fear I have injured the root. I thought it was water. Dear! dear! Miss Mellen was in the habit of bringing me a glass of water when I brought plants home." Mrs. Mellen said nothing, but brought the water, and a fresh cup of tea; but Mr. Lindsay had fallen into the depths of the moss, and took no notice of either. She left the room, but presently returned, knitting in hand, and stood, unnoticed, in the doorway, glancing from time to time at the minister. He certainly was "a sight to behold," as she said to herself. She may have thought other things beside, but her face gave no sign. Presently the bell began to ring for Wednesday evening meeting. Mrs. Mellen glanced again at the minister, but he heard nothing. The botany was open before him, and he was muttering strange words that sounded like witch-talk. "Stamens six, hypogenous! anthers introrse! capsule cartilaginous, loculicidally three-valved, scurfy-leaved epiphytic!" What did it all mean? A slow flush crept over the woman's broad, placid face; her eyelids quivered, her eye roamed restlessly about the room. She shifted her weight from one foot to the other, and breathed heavily, as if in distress; and still her eyes came back to the slender figure in the great chair, bent in absorbed interest over the table. Ding! dong! ding! the notes came dropping through the air, clear and resonant. Even a deaf person might hear them, perhaps. Mrs. Mellen was evidently struggling with herself. Once she opened her lips as if to speak; once she stepped forward with outstretched hand, as if to shake the man into wakefulness and attention; but she did not speak, and her hand dropped again; and presently the bell stopped, and Sophronia Mellen went away to her sitting-room, hanging her head. Half an hour later there was knocking at the door, and the sound of many voices, anxious voices, pitched high and loud, on account of Mrs. Mellen's deafness. "How's Mr. Lindsay? When was he took sick? Have ye had the doctor?" "Do you think it's ketchin', Mis' Mellen? Think of all the young children in this parish, if anythin' should get the rounds! My! it's awful!" "How does he look? Some say he was pupple in the face when they see him coming home through the street. Most everybody did see him, and he was a sight! Apoplexy, most likely!" "Has he ever had fits, think? he don't look fitty, but you never can tell." "Have ye sent for his folks? You'd feel better to, I sh'd think, if he's taken; some say he has a mother rollin' in wealth, down Brunswick way." "Well, some say he ain't nothin' of the sort. Christiana Bean saw an aunt of his once, and she hadn't flesh enough on her to bait a mouse-trap with, Christiana said so." "Does he know you, Mis' Mellen? it's awful to see folks out of their heads; I don't know how any one kin bear to see it; you'd better let me come in and spell you a bit; you look clean tuckered out with the fright you've had." Mrs. Mellen stood and looked quietly at the crowd of "members" that surged and cackled about her. "I could hear better if one'd speak at a time!" she said, mildly. "Did you want to see Elder Lindsay? it--it must be gettin' near meetin'-time, isn't it?" "Meetin'-time! meetin's over, and Mr. Lindsay never come nigh. Do you mean to say he ain't sick? do you mean to say--" "What _do_ you mean to say, Mis' Mellen?" Mrs. Mellen held the door in her hand, and still gazed quietly at the excited throng. At length,-- "Whatever's the matter with Mr. Lindsay," she said, in clear incisive tones, "I ain't going to let in no lunatic asylum to drive him clean out of his mind. Deacon Strong and Deacon Todd, if you'll step this way, I presume Mr. Lindsay'll be pleased to see you. And if the rest of you 'ud go home quiet, mebbe it might seem more consistent. There has been a meetin', you say? the Baptists will be just about comin' out now." An hour later, the two deacons were taking their leave of Mr. Lindsay. They stood, hat in hand, and were looking at the young man with pitying eyes. They were elderly men, of kind disposition. "Well, Mr. Lindsay," Mr. Todd was saying; "I guess we've said about all there is to say. Of course 'twas a pity, and such things make talk; but 'twon't occur again, I dare say. Some say--" "It _may_ occur again," cried the young minister. He was sitting with his head in his hand, and despair in his face. "It may occur again! I seem to have no mind, no memory! I am unfit to be a minister of the Christian Church. My brethren, what shall I do?" The elder men exchanged glances: then Deacon Strong stepped forward and laid his hands on the young man's shoulder, for he loved him. "Mr. Lindsay," he said, kindly, "so far as I can see, there's only one thing the matter with you; you want a wife!" "A wife!" repeated Charles Lindsay. His tone suggested that he had never heard of the article. "A wife!" the deacon said again, with emphasis; and his fellow deacon nodded assent. "A sensible, clever young woman, who will help you in parish matters, and be a comfort to you in every way,--a--hem! yes, in every way." The deacon reddened through his beard, and glanced at Deacon Todd; but the latter was a kind man, and knew Mrs. Strong, and gazed out of the window. "And--and tell you when it was time for meeting. I don't know as you'd have to look more'n a hundred miles for the very young woman that would make the right kind of helpmeet for you, but you know best about that. Anyway, Mr. Lindsay, it is not good for man to be alone, we have Scripture for that: and it's quite evident that it's particularly bad for you to be alone, with your--a--your love of nature" (the deacon caught sight of the lizard, peering disconsolately out of the gilt celluloid box, and brought his remarks to a hasty conclusion). "And so we'll be going, Mr. Lindsay, and don't you fret about to-night's meeting, for we'll make it all right." Mr. Lindsay bowed them out, with vague thanks, and muttered expressions of regret. He hardly heard their adieux; the words that were saying themselves over and over in his head were,-- "You want a wife!" Did he want a wife? Was that what was the matter with him? Was that why he went about all day and every day, these last weeks, feeling as if half of him were asleep? He had always been a strong advocate of the celibacy of the clergy, as far as his own case went. Nothing, he had always assured himself, should ever come between him and his work. A wife would be a perpetual distraction: she would want money, and amusement, and a thousand things that he never thought about; and she would interfere with his sermons, and with his collections, and--and altogether, he would never marry. But now,-- And what was it that happened only the other day, here in the village? A man and his wife had been quarrelling, to the scandal of the whole congregation. They were an elderly couple, and when it came to smashing crockery and emptying pails of water over each other, the minister felt it his duty to interfere. So he called on the wife, intending to reason with her first alone, and then, when she was softened and convinced, to call in the husband and reconcile them, and perhaps pray with them, since both were "members." But before he had spoken a dozen of his well-arranged and logical sentences, he was interrupted by loud and tearful outcries. The lady never thought it would come to this, no, never! Some thought she had enough to bear without this, but she knew how to submit to the will of Providence, and no one should say she struv nor hollered. She knew what was due to a minister, even if he was only just in pants; she only hoped Mr. Lindsay wouldn't see fit to say anything to her husband. Take Reuben Meecher when he was roused, and tigers was tame by him: and if he should know that his wife was spoke to so, by them as wasn't born or thought of when they was married, and nobody couldn't say but they had lived respectable for forty years, and now to come to this! The lady was well used to ministers, and some of the most aged in the country, and she knew what was due to them; but for her part, she thought 'twas well for ministers, as well as others, to speak of what they'd had exper'ence in, and then there would be no feeling! The visit was not a success, nor did it cheer the minister to hear the old couple chuckling to each other as he went sadly away, and to feel that they were laughing at him. But he was very humble, and he laid the spiteful words to heart. What did he know? What had he to say to his people, when it came to the real, terrible things of life? What had he had in his whole life, save kindness and a sheltered home, and then study, and a little divinity, and a little science? He sat and gazed at the image of himself in his mind's glass, and found it a gibbering phantom, with emptiness where should be eyes, and dry dust where should be living waters. As he sat thus sadly pondering, the sound of voices struck upon his ear. The window was open, and now that his mind was awake, there was no question of his hearing, when the two next-door neighbours leaned out of their back windows, across Mrs. Mellen's back yard. He had grown to loathe the sound of those two voices, the shrill cackling one, and the fat chuckle that was even more hateful. What were they saying now? "You don't tell me she wants to git him for herself? speak jest a dite louder! She can't hear ye, and he's so muddled up he never heard the bell for meetin', some say; but there's others think he'd ben drinkin', and Deacon Strong and Deacon Todd jest leagued together with Sophrony Mellen to hide it. He was black in the face when he came home, and reelin' in his walk, for I see him with these eyes." Charles Lindsay started as if stung by a venomous snake. He put out his hand to the window, but now the sharp voice broke in, anxious to have its turn. "Well, I shouldn't be a mite surprised if 'twas so, Mis' Bean, and you've had experience, I'm sure, in such matters, after what you suffered with Mr. Bean. But what I was sayin', some do say Phrony Mellen's bound to have the minister for herself, and that's why she sent Rose Ellen off, traipsin' way down to Tupham, when her grandma'am don't need her no more'n a toad needs a tail." "I want to know if they say that!" replied Mrs. Bean. "But you know, some say Rose Ellen's got a beau down to Tupham, and that's why she went off without askin' leave or license, and her ma deef and all. I see her go myself, and she went off early in the mornin', and if ever I see a person what you may call slink away secret, like she'd done somethin' to be 'shamed of, 'twas that girl. _She_ knew what she was goin' for, well enough. Rose Ellen ain't no fool, for all she's as smooth as baked custard. Now you mark my words, Mis' Peake,--" At this moment, the back door opened with a loud clang. Mrs. Mellen stood on the doorstep, and her eyes were very bright. She said nothing, but gazed calmly up and down the yard, as if considering the beauty of the night. Then, after a few minutes, she turned and scrutinized her neighbours' windows. Nothing was to be seen, only a white muslin curtain waved gently in the moonlight: nothing was to be heard, only a faint rustle, probably of the same curtain. "It's an elegant night!" said Mrs. Mellen, aloud. "I thought I heard voices, but my hearin' does play me such tricks, these days." Her calm, sensible voice fell like balm on the distracted ears of the minister. He was soothed, he knew not why. The horrors that those harpies suggested,--could there be truth in them? Rose Ellen with a--his mind refused to frame the detestable word! Was there anything true in the world? Was it all scandal and hatefulness and untruth? He rose and paced his study in anguish of mind, but his ears were still awake,--he thought he never should regain the joy of losing himself,--and now another sound came to them, the sound of wheels. Why did his heart stop, and then beat violently? What was there in the sound of wheels? It was the late stage, of course, and Calvin Parks was driving fast, as usual, to get to his home, five miles away, before ten o'clock at night. But that stage came from Tupham, and Tupham meant Rose Ellen. Rose Ellen, who was as smooth as baked custard, and who had a--the wheels were slacking; the steady beat of the horses' feet stopped; the stage had paused at the Widow Mellen's door. "Here we be!" said Calvin Parks. "Take my hand, Rosy! so, thar she goes! Hope ye'll find yer ma right smart! Give her my respects and tell her,--wal, I swan!" For the door flew open, and out ran the minister, torn and stained and covered with dust, and caught Rose Ellen by both hands and drew her almost forcibly into the house. "Mother!" cried the girl. "How is she? I--I got so scared, not hearing from her, I couldn't stay another day, Mr. Lindsay!" "Oh,--your mother?" said Mr. Lindsay, incoherently. "She--a--she seems to be in excellent health, except for her deafness. It is I who am ill, Rose Ellen: very ill, and wanting you more than I could bear!" "Wanting me?" faltered Rose Ellen, with lips wide, with blue eyes brimming over. "You, Mr. Lindsay, wanting me?" "Yes, Rose Ellen!" cried the minister. They were still standing in the passage, and he was still holding her hands, and it was quite absurd, only neither of them seemed to realize it. "I have always wanted you, but I have only just found it out. I cannot live at all without you: I have been only half alive since you went away. I want you for my own, for always." "Oh, you can have me!" cried Rose Ellen, and the blue eyes brimmed over altogether with happy shining tears. "Oh, I was yours all the time, only I didn't know you--I didn't know--" She faltered, and then hurried on. "It--it wasn't only that I was scared about mother, Mr. Lindsay. I couldn't stay away from--oh, some said--some said you were going to be married, and I couldn't bear it, no, I couldn't!" But when Charles Lindsay heard that, he drew Rose Ellen by both hands into the study, and shut the door. And only the lizard knew what happened next. * * * * * It was a month later. There had been a wedding, the prettiest wedding that the village had ever seen. The whole world seemed turned to roses, and the sweetest rose of all, Rose Ellen Lindsay, had gone away on her husband's arm, and Deacon Strong and Deacon Todd were shaking hands very hard, and blowing peals of joy with their pocket-handkerchiefs. Mrs. Mellen had preserved her usual calm aspect at the wedding, and looked young enough to be her own daughter, "some said," in her gray silk and white straw bonnet. But when it was all over, the wedding party gone, and the neighbours scattered to their homes again, Sophronia Mellen did a strange thing. She went round deliberately, and opened every window of her house. The house stood quite apart, with only the two houses close beside it on either hand, and no others till you came quite into the street itself. She opened every window to its utmost. Then she took a tin pan, and a pair of tongs, and leaned out of the front parlour window, and screamed three times, at the top of her lungs, beating meanwhile with all her might upon the pan. Then she went to the next window, and screamed and banged again, and so on all over the house. There were twenty windows in her house, and by the time she had gone the round, she was crimson and breathless. Nevertheless, she managed to put her last breath into a shriek of such astounding volume that the windows fairly rang. One last defiant clang of the tongs on the tin pan and then she sat down quietly by the back parlour window, and settled herself well behind the curtain, and prepared to enjoy herself thoroughly. "They shall have their fill this time!" she murmured to herself; "and I shall get all the good of it." For some minutes there was dead silence: the event had been too awful to be treated lightly. At length a rustling was heard, and very cautiously a sharp nose, generously touched with colour, was protruded from the window of the left-hand house. "Mis' Bean," said the owner of the nose. "Be you there?" "Well, I should say I was!" was the reply; and Mrs. Bean's fat curls shook nervously out of her window. "Maria Peake, what do you s'pose this means? Ain't it awful? Why, I've got palpitations to that degree,--don't s'pose there's a robber in the house, do ye? with all them weddin' presents about, 'twould be a dreadful thing! 'Tain't likely he would spare her life, and she tryin' to give the alarm like that! Most likely she's layin' dead this minute, and welterin' in her--" "Sssssssh!" hissed Mrs. Peake, in a deadly whisper. "Melissa Bean, you won't let a person hear herself think. 'Tain't no robber, I tell ye! She's gone out of her mind, Phrony Mellen has, as sure as you're a breathin' woman!" "You don't tell me she has!" Mrs. Bean leaned further out, her eyes distended with awful curiosity, her fat lips dropping apart. She was not a pleasant object, the hidden observer thought; but she was no worse than the skinny cabbage-stalk which now stretched itself far out from the opposite window. "I tell ye," Mrs. Peake hissed, still in that serpent-whisper, the most penetrating sound that ever broke stillness, "She's as crazy as a clo'esline in a gale o' wind. Some say she's wore an onsettled eye for six weeks past, and she glared at me yesterday, when I run in to borry an egg, same as if I was one wild animal and she was another. Ssssh! 'Tis Bowler, I tell ye! They go that way, jest as often as they git a chance! I call it an awful jedgment on Elder Lindsay, bein' married into that family. Some say his mother besought him on her bended knees, but he was clean infatooated. I declare to you, Mis' Bean, I'm terrified most to death, to think of you and me alone here, so near to a ravin' lunatic. I don't think nothin' of robbers, alongside o' madness. She might creep in while you're standin' there,--your house is more handy by than mine, 'count of there bein' no fence, and--" "Yah! bah! ha! ha! ha! hurrah!" sounded in sharp, clear tones from Mrs. Mellen's window. Two ghastly faces, white with actual terror, gazed at each other for an instant, then disappeared; and immediately after was heard a sound of bolts being driven home, and of heavy furniture being dragged about. But Mrs. Mellen sat and fanned herself, being somewhat heated, and gazed calmly at the beauty of the prospect. "I've enjoyed myself real well!" she said. "I couldn't free my mind, not while Rosy and Mr. Lindsay was round; I've had a real good time." She fanned herself placidly, and then added, addressing the universe in general, with an air of ineffable good will: "I shouldn't wonder if my hearin' improved, too, kind o' suddin, same as it came on. That's Bowler, too! It's real convenient, bein' a Bowler!" * * * * * NEIGHBOURS IN CYRUS NEIGHBOURS IN CYRUS. "Hi-Hi!" said Miss Peace, looking out of the window. "It is really raining. Isn't that providential, now?" "Anne Peace, you are enough to provoke a saint!" replied a peevish voice from the furthest corner of the room. "You and your providences are more than I can stand. What do you mean this time, I _should_ like to know? the picnic set for to-day, and every soul in the village lottin' on goin', 'xcept those who _would_ like best to go and can't. I've been longin' for these two years to go to a picnic and it's never ben so's I could. And now, jest when I _could_ ha' gone, this affliction must needs come to me. And then to have you rejoicin' 'cause it rains!" The speaker paused for breath, and Miss Peace answered mildly: "I'm real sorry for you, Delia, you know I am; and if the' was any way of getting you to the grove,--but what I was thinking of, you know I couldn't finish Jenny Miller's dress last night, do what I could; and seeing it raining now, thinks I, they'll have to put off the picnic till to-morrow or next day, and then Jennie can go as nice as the rest. She does need a new dress, more than most of the girls who has them. And she's so sweet and pretty, it's a privilege to do for her. That's all I was thinking, Delia." Mrs. Delia Means sniffed audibly, then she groaned. "Your leg hurting you?" cried Miss Peace, with ready sympathy. "Well, I guess you'd think so," was the reply. "If _you_ had red-hot needles run into your leg. Not that it's any matter to anybody." "Hi-hi," said Miss Peace, cheerily. "It's time the bandages was changed, Delia. You rest easy just a minute, and I'll run and fetch the liniment and give you a rub before I put on the new ones." Mrs. Means remaining alone, it is proper to introduce her to the reader. She and Miss Peace were the rival seamstresses of Cyrus Village; that is, they would have been rivals, if Mrs. Means had had her way; but rivalry was impossible where Anne Peace was one of the parties. She had always maintained stoutly that Delia Means needed work a sight more than she did, having a family, and her husband so weakly and likely to go off with consumption 'most any time. Many and many a customer had Anne turned from her door, with her pleasant smile, and "I don't hardly know as I could, though I should be pleased to accommodate you; but I presume likely Mis' Means could do it for you. She doos real nice work, and I don't know as she's so much drove just now as I am." Delia Case had been a schoolmate of Anne Peace's. She was a pretty girl, with a lively sense of her own importance and a chronic taste for a grievance. She had married well, as every one thought, but in these days her husband had lost his health and Delia was obliged to put her shoulder to the wheel. She sewed well, but there was a sigh every time her needle went into the cloth, and a groan when it came out. "A husband and four children, and have to sew for a living!"--this was the burden of her song; and it had become familiar to her neighbours since David Means had begun to "fail up," as they say in Cyrus. Anne Peace had always been the faithful friend of "Delia Dumps." (It was Uncle Asy Green who had given her the name which stuck to her through thick and thin--Uncle Asy believed in giving people their due, and thought "Anne made a dreffle fool of herself, foolin' round with that woman at all.") Anne had been her faithful friend, and never allowed people to make fun of her if she were present. A week before my story opens, when Mrs. Means fell down and broke her leg, just as she was passing Miss Peace's house, the latter lady declared it to be a special privilege. "I can take care of her," she explained to the doctor, when he expressed regret at being obliged to forbid the sufferer's being moved for some weeks, "just as well as not and better. David isn't fit to have the care of her, and--well, doctor, I can say to you, who know it as well as I do, that Delia mightn't be the best person for David to have round him just now, when he needs cheering up. Then, too, I can do her sewing along with my own, as easy as think; work's slack now, and there's nothing I'm specially drove with. I've been wishing right along that I could do something to help, now that David is so poorly. I'm kin to David, you know, so take it by and large, doctor, it doos seem like a privilege, doesn't it?" The doctor growled. He was not fond of Mrs. Means. "If you can get her moved out of Grumble Street and into Thanksgiving Alley," he said, "it'll be a privilege for this village; but you can't do it, Anne. However, there's no use talking to you, you incorrigible optimist. You're the worst case I ever saw, Anne Peace, and I haven't the smallest hope of curing you. Put the liniment on her leg as I told you, and I'll call in the morning. Good day!" "My goodness me, what was he saying to you?" Mrs. Means asked as Anne went back into the bedroom. "You've got something that you'll never get well of? Well, Anne Peace, that does seem the cap sheaf on the hull. Heart complaint, I s'pose it is; and what would become of me, if you was to be struck down, as you might be any minute of time, and me helpless here, and a husband and four children at home and he failin' up. You did look dretful gashly round the mouth yisterday, I noticed it at the time, but of course I didn't speak of it. Why, here I should lay, and might starve to death, and you cold on the floor, for all the help I should get." Mrs. Means shed tears, and Anne Peace answered with as near an approach to asperity as her soft voice could command. "Don't talk foolishness, Delia. I'm not cold yet, nor likely to be. Here, let me 'tend to your leg; it's time I was getting dinner on this minute." It continued to rain on the picnic day; no uncertain showers, to keep up a chill and fever of fear and hope among the young people, but a good, honest downpour, which everybody past twenty must recognize as being just the thing the country needed. Jenny Miller came in, smiling all over, though she professed herself "real sorry for them as was disappointed." "Tudie Peaslee sat down and cried, when she saw 'twas rainin'," she said, as she prepared to give her dress the final trying-on. "There, Miss Peace. I did try to feel for her, but I just couldn't, seems though. Oh, ain't that handsome? that little puff is too cute for anything! I do think you've been smart, Miss Peace. Not that you ever was anything else." "You've a real easy figure to fit, Jenny," Miss Peace replied, modestly. "I guess that's half the smartness of it. It doos set good, though, I'm free to think. The styles is real pretty this summer, anyhow. Don't that set good, Delia?" She turned to Mrs. Means, who was lying on the sofa (they call it a l'unge in Cyrus), watching the trying-on with keenly critical eyes. "Ye-es," she said. "The back sets good enough, but 'pears to me there's a wrinkle about the neck that I shouldn't like to see in any work of mine. I've always ben too particklar, though; it's time thrown away, but I can't bear to send a thing out 'cept jest as it should be." "It _don't_ wrinkle, Mis' Means!" cried Jenny, indignantly. "Not a mite. I was turning round to look at the back of the skirt, and that pulled it; there ain't a sign of a wrinkle, Miss Peace, so don't you think there is." Mrs. Means sniffed, and said something about the change in young folks' manners since she was a girl. "If I'd ha' spoke so to my elders--I won't say betters, for folks ain't thought much of when they have to sew for a livin', with a husband and four children to keer for--I guess I should ha' found it out in pretty quick time." "Hi-hi!" said Miss Peace, soothingly. "There, Delia, Jenny didn't mean anything. Jenny, I guess I'll have to take you into the bedroom, so's I can pull this skirt out a little further. This room doos get so cluttered with all my things round." She hustled Jenny, swelling like an angry partridge, into the next room, and closed the door carefully. "You don't want to anger Mis' Means, dear," she said gently, taking the pins out of her mouth for freer speech. "She may be jest a scrap pudgicky now and again, but she's seen trouble, you know, and she doos feel it hard to be laid up, and so many looking to her at home. Turn round, dear, jest a dite--there!" "I can't help it, Miss Peace," said Jenny. "There's no reason why Mis' Means should speak up and say the neck wrinkled, when anybody can see it sets like a duck's foot in the mud. I don't mind what she says to me, but I ain't goin' to see you put upon, nor yet other folks ain't. I should like to know! and that wrapper she cut for Tudie Peaslee set so bad, you'd think she'd fitted it on the pump in the back yard, Mis' Peaslee said so herself." "Hi-hi!" cried Anne Peace, softly, with an apprehensive glance toward the door; "don't speak so loud, Jennie. Tudie ain't so easy a form to fit as you, not near. And you say she was real put about, do ye, at the picnic being put off?" "She was so!" Jenny assented, seeing that the subject was to be changed. "She'd got her basket all packed last night, she made so sure 'twas goin' to be fine to-day. Chicken sandwiches, she had, and baked a whole pan of sponge-drops, jest because some one--you know who--is fond of 'em." Miss Peace nodded sagely, with her mouth full of pins, and would have smiled if she could; "and now they've put it off till Saturday, 'cause the minister can't go before then, and every livin' thing will be spoiled." "Dear, dear!" cried Miss Anne, her kind face clouding over; "that does seem too bad, don't it? all those nice things! and Tudie makes the best sponge-cakes I ever eat, pretty nigh." Jenny smiled, and stretched her hand toward a basket she had brought. "They won't really be wasted, Miss Peace," she said. "Tudie thought you liked 'em, and I've got some of 'em here for you, this very minute. You was to eat 'em for your own supper, Tudie told me to tell you so." "Well, I do declare, if that isn't thoughtful!" exclaimed Miss Peace, looking much gratified. "Tudie is a sweet girl, I must say. Delia is real fond of cake, and she's been longing for some, but it doos seem as if I couldn't find time to make it, these days." "I should think not!" cried Jenny (who was something of a pepper-pot, it must be confessed), "I should think not, when you have her to take care of, and her work and yours to do, and all. And, Miss Peace,--Tudie meant the sponge-drops for _you_, every one. She told me so." "Yes, dear, to be sure she did, and that's why I feel so pleased, just as much as if I had eaten them. But bread _is_ better for me, and--why! if she hasn't sent a whole dozen. One, two, three--yes, a dozen, and one over, sure as I stand here. Now, that I call generous. And, I'll tell you what, dearie! Don't say a word, for I wouldn't for worlds have Tudie feel to think I was slighting her, or didn't appreciate her kindness; but--well, I _have_ wanted to send some little thing round to that little girl of Josiah Pincher's, that has the measles, and I do suppose she'd be pleased to death with some of these sponge-drops. Hush! don't say a word, Jenny! it would be a real privilege to me, now it would. And you know it isn't that I don't think the world of Tudie, and you, too; now, don't you?" Jenny protested, half-laughing, and half-crying; for Tudie Peaslee had declared herself ready to bet that Miss Peace would not eat a single one of the sponge-drops, and Jenny had vowed she should. But would she or would she not, before ten minutes were over she had promised to leave the sponge-drops at the Pinchers' door as she went by, for little Geneva. There was no resisting Miss Peace, Tudie was right; but suddenly a bright idea struck Jenny, just as she was putting on her hat and preparing to depart. Seizing one of the sponge-drops, she broke off a bit, and fairly popped it into Miss Peace's mouth, as the good lady was going to speak. "It's broke, now," she cried, in high glee, "it's broke in two, and you can't give it to nobody. Set right down, Miss Peace, and let me feed you, same as I do my canary bird." She pushed the little dressmaker into a chair, and the bits followed each other in such quick succession that Miss Peace could make no protest beyond a smothered, "Oh, don't ye, dear; now don't! that's enough!--my stars, Jenny, what do you think my mouth's made of?" (Crunch!) "There, dear, there! It is real good--oh, dear! not so fast. I _shall_ choke! Tell Tudie--no, dearie, not another morsel!" (Crunch.) "Well, Jenny Miller, I didn't think you would act so, now I didn't." The sponge-cake was eaten, and Jenny, with a triumphant kiss on the little rosy, withered-apple cheek, popped her head in at the parlour door to cry, "Good day, Mis' Means!" and flew laughing away with her victory and her cakes. "Well, Anne Peace," was Mrs. Means's greeting, as her hostess came back, looking flushed and guilty, and wiping her lips on her apron, "how you can stand havin' that Miller girl round here passes me. She'd be the death of me, I know that; but it's lucky other folks ain't so feelin' as I am, I always say. Of all the forward, up-standin' tykes ever I see--but there! it ain't to be supposed anybody cares whether I'm sassed or whether I ain't." Saturday was bright and fair, and Anne Peace stood at the window with a beaming smile, watching the girls troop by on their way to the picnic. She had moved Mrs. Means's sofa out of the corner, so that she could see, too, and there was a face at each window. Miss Peace was a little plump, partridge-like woman, with lovely waving brown hair, and twinkling brown eyes. She had never been a beauty, but people always liked to look at her, and the young people declared she grew prettier every year. Mrs. Means was tall and weedy, with a figure that used to be called willowy, and was now admitted to be lank; her once fair complexion had faded into sallowness, and her light hair had been frizzed till there was little left of it. Her eyebrows had gone up, and the corners of her mouth had gone down, so that her general effect was depressing in the extreme. "There go Tudie and Jenny!" cried Miss Peace, in delight. "If they ain't a pretty pair, then I never saw one, that's all. Jenny's dress doos set pretty, if I do say it; and after all, it's her in it that makes it look so well. There comes the minister, Delia. Now I'm glad the roses are out so early. He doos so love roses, Mr. Goodnow does. And the honeysuckle is really a sight. Why, this is the first time you have fairly seen the garden, Delia, since you came. Isn't it looking pretty?" "I never did see how you could have your garden right close 't onto the street that way, Anne," was the reply. "Everybody 't comes by stoppin' and starin', and pokin' their noses through the fence. Look at them boys, now! why, if they ain't smellin' at the roses, the boldfaced brats. Knock at the winder, Anne, and tell 'em to git out. Shoo! be off with you!" She shook her fist at the window, but, fortunately, could not reach it. "Hi-hi!" said Anne Peace. "You don't mean that, Delia. What's roses for but to smell? I do count it a privilege, to have folks take pleasure in my garden." She threw up the window, and nodded pleasantly to the children. "Take a rose, sonny, if you like 'em," she said. "Take two or three, there's enough for all. Whose little boys are you?" she added, as the children, in wondering delight, timidly broke off a blossom or two. "Mis' Green's, over to the Corners! Now I want to know! have you grown so 't I didn't know you? and how's your mother? Jest wait half a minute, and I'll send her a little posy. There's some other things besides roses, perhaps she'd like to have a few of." She darted out, and filled the boys' hands with pinks and mignonette, pansies and geraniums. It was not a large garden, this of Anne Peace's, but every inch of space was made the most of. The little square and oblong beds lay close to the fence, and from tulip-time to the coming of frost they were ablaze with flowers. Nothing was allowed to straggle, or to take up more than its share of room. The roses were tied firmly to their neat green stakes; the crown-imperials nodded over a spot of ground barely large enough to hold their magnificence; while the phlox and sweet-william actually had to fight for their standing-room. It was a pleasant sight, at all odd times of the day, to see Miss Peace bending over her flowers, snipping off dead leaves, pruning, and tending, all with loving care. Many flower-lovers are shy of plucking their favourites, and I recall one rose-fancier, whose gifts, like those of the Greeks, were dreaded by his neighbours, as the petals were always ready to drop before he could make up his mind to cut one of the precious blossoms; but this was not the case with Anne Peace. Dozens of shallow baskets hung in her neat back entry, and they were filled and sent, filled and sent, all summer long, till one would have thought they might almost find their way about alone. It is a positive fact that her baskets were always brought back, "a thing imagination boggles at;" but perhaps this was because the neighbours liked them better full than empty. "Makin' flowers so cheap," Mrs. Means would say, "seems to take the wuth of 'em away, to my mind; but I'm too feelin', I know that well enough. Anne, she's kind o' callous, and she don't think of things that make me squinch, seem's though." Weeks passed on, the broken leg was healed, and Mrs. Means departed to her own house. "I s'pose you'll miss me, Anne," she said, at parting, "I shall you; and you have ben good to me, if 't _has_ ben kind o' dull here, so few comin' and goin'." (Miss Peace's was generally the favourite resort of all the young people of the village, and half the old ones, but the "neighbouring" had dropped off, since Mrs. Means had been there.) "Good-by, Anne, and thank you for all you've done. I feel to be glad I've been company for you, livin' alone as you do, with no husband nor nothin' belongin' to you." "Good-by, Delia," replied Anne Peace, cheerfully. "Don't you fret about me. I'm used to being alone, you know; and it's been a privilege, I'm sure, to do what I could for you, so long as we've been acquainted. My love to David, and don't forget to give him the syrup I put in the bottom of your trunk for him." "'Twon't do him any good!" cried Mrs. Means, as the wagon drove away, turning her head to shout back at her hostess. "He's bound to die, David is. He'll never see another spring, I tell him, and then I shall be left a widder, with four children and--" "Oh, gerlang! gerlang, _up_!" shouted Calvin Parks, the stage-driver, whose stock of patience was small; the horse started, and Mrs. Means's wails died away in the distance. In this instance the predictions of the doleful lady seemed likely to be verified; for David Means continued to "fail up." Always a slight man, he was now mere skin and bone, and his cheerful smile grew pathetic to see. He was a distant cousin of Anne Peace's, and had something of her placid disposition; a mild, serene man, bearing his troubles in silence, finding his happiness in the children whom he loved almost passionately. He had married Delia Case because she was pretty, and because she wanted to marry him; had never known, and would never know, that he might have had a very different kind of wife. Perhaps Anne Peace hardly knew herself that David had been the romance of her life, so quickly had the thought been put away, so earnestly had she hoped for his happiness; but she admitted frankly that she "set by him," and she was devoted to his children. "Can nothing be done?" she asked the good doctor one day, as they came away together from David's house, leaving Delia shaking her head from the doorsteps. "Can nothing be done, doctor? it doos seem as if I couldn't bear to see David fade away so, and not try anything to stop it." Doctor Brown shook his head thoughtfully. "I doubt if there's much chance for him, Anne," he said kindly. "David is a good fellow, and if I saw any way--it might be possible, if he could be got off to Florida before cold weather comes on--there is a chance; but I don't suppose it could be managed. He has no means, poor fellow, save what he carries in his name." "Florida?" said Anne Peace, thoughtfully; and then she straightway forgot the doctor's existence, and hurried off along the street, with head bent and eyes which saw nothing they rested on. Reaching her home, where all the flowers smiled a bright welcome, unnoticed for once, her first action was to take out of a drawer a little blue book, full of figures, which she studied with ardour. Then she took a clean sheet of paper, and wrote certain words at the top of it; then she got out her best bonnet. Something very serious was on hand when Miss Peace put on her best bonnet. She had only had it four years, and regarded it still as a sacred object, to be taken out on Sundays and reverently looked at, then put back in its box, and thought about while she tied the strings of the ten-year-old velvet structure, which was quite as good as new. Two weddings had seen the best bonnet in its grandeur, and three funerals; but no bells, either solemn or joyous, summoned her to-day, as she gravely placed the precious bonnet on her head, and surveyed her image with awestruck approval in the small mirror over the mantelpiece. "It's _dreadful_ handsome!" said Miss Peace, softly. "It's too handsome for me, a great sight, but I want to look my best now, if ever I did." It was at Judge Ransom's door that she rang first; a timid, apologetic ring, as if she knew in advance how busy the judge would be, and how wrong it was of her to intrude on his precious time. But the judge himself opened the door, and was not at all busy, but delighted to have a chance to chat with his old friend, whom he had not seen for a month of Sundays. He made her come in, and put her in the biggest armchair (which swallowed her up so that hardly more than the bonnet was visible), and drew a footstool before her little feet, which dangled helplessly above it; then he took his seat opposite, in another big chair, and said it was a fine day, and then waited, seeing that she had something of importance to say. Miss Peace's breath came short and quick, and she fingered her reticule nervously. She had not thought it would be quite so dreadful as this. "Judge," she said--and paused, frightened at the sound of her voice, which seemed to echo in a ghostly manner through the big room. "Well, Miss Peace!" said the judge, kindly. "Well, Anne, what is it? How can I serve you? Speak up, like a good girl. Make believe we are back in the little red schoolhouse again, and you are prompting me in my arithmetic lesson." Anne Peace laughed and coloured. "You're real kind, judge," she said. "I wanted--'twas only a little matter"--she stopped to clear her throat, feeling the painful red creep up her cheeks, and over her brow, and into her very eyes, it seemed; then she thought of David, and straightway she found courage, and lifted her eyes and spoke out bravely. "David Means, you know, judge; he is failing right along, and it doos seem as if he couldn't last the winter. But Doctor Brown thinks that if he should go to Florida, it might be so 't he could be spared. So--David hasn't means himself, of course, what with his poor health and his large family, and some thought that if we could raise a subscription right here, among the folks that has always known David, it might be so 't he could go. What do you think, judge?" The judge nodded his head, thoughtfully. "I don't see why it couldn't be done, Miss Peace," he said, kindly. "David is a good fellow, and has friends wherever he is known; I should think it might very well be done, if the right person takes it up." "I--I've had no great experience," faltered Anne Peace, looking down, "but I'm kin to David, you know, and as he has no one nearer living, I took it upon myself to carry round a paper and see what I could raise. I came to you first, judge, as you've always been a good friend to David. I've got twenty-five dollars already--" "I thought you said you came to me first," said the judge, holding out his hand for the paper. "What's this? A friend, twenty-five dollars?" "Yes," said Anne Peace, breathlessly. "They--they didn't wish their name mentioned--" "Oh, they didn't, didn't they?" muttered the judge, looking at her over his spectacles. Such a helpless look met his--the look of hopeless innocence trying to deceive and knowing that it was not succeeding--that a sudden dimness came into his own eyes, and he was fain to take off his spectacles and wipe them, just as if he had been looking through them. And through the mist he seemed to see--not Miss Anne Peace, in her best bonnet and her cashmere shawl, but another Anne Peace, a little, brown-eyed, slender maiden, sitting on a brown bench, looking on with rapture while David Means ate her luncheon. It was the judge's turn to clear his throat. "Well, Anne," he said, keeping his eyes on the paper, "this--this unknown friend has set a good example, and I don't see that I can do less than follow it. You may put my name down for twenty-five, too." "Oh, judge," cried Miss Peace, with shining eyes. "You are too good. I didn't expect, I'm sure--well, you _are_ kind!" "Not at all! not at all!" said the judge, gruffly (and indeed, twenty-five dollars was not so much to him as it was to "them," who had made the first contribution). "You know I owe David Means something, for licking him when he--" "Oh, don't, Dan'el--judge, I should say," cried Anne Peace, in confusion. "Don't you be raking up old times. I'm sure I thank you a thousand times, and so will Delia, when she--" "No, she won't," said the judge. "Tell the truth, Anne Peace! Delia will say I might have given fifty and never missed it. There! I won't distress you, my dear. Good day, and all good luck to you!" and so ended Miss Peace's first call. With such a beginning, there was no doubt of the success of the subscription. Generally, in Cyrus, people waited to see what Judge Ransom and Lawyer Peters gave to any charity, before making their own contribution. "Jedge Ransom has put down five dollars, has he? Well he's wuth so much, and I'm wuth so much. Guess fifty cents will be about the right figger for me:" this is the course of reasoning in Cyrus. But with an unknown friend starting off with twenty-five dollars and Judge Ransom following suit, it became apparent to every one that David Means must go to Florida, whatever happened. The dollar and five-dollar subscriptions poured in rapidly, till, one happy day, Anne Peace stood in her little room and counted the full amount out on the table, and then sat down (it was not her habit to kneel, and she would have thought it too familiar, if not actually popish) and thanked God as she had never found it necessary to thank Him for any of the good things of her own life. So David Means went to Florida, and his wife and two children went with him. This had been no part of the original plan, but at the bare idea of his going without her, Mrs. Means had raised a shrill cry of protest. "What? David go down there, and she and the children stay perishing at home? she guessed not. If Florida was good for David, it was good for her, too, and she laid up ever sence spring, as she might say, and with no more outing than a woodchuck in January. Besides, who was to take care of David, she'd like to know? Mis' Porter's folks, who had a place there? She'd like to know if she was to be beholden to Jane Porter's folks for taking care of her lawful husband, and like enough laying him out, for she wasn't one to blind herself, nor yet to set herself against the will of Providence." Doctor Brown stormed and fumed, but Anne Peace begged him to be quiet, and "presumed likely" she could raise enough to cover the expenses for Delia and the two older children. 'Twas right and proper, of course, that his wife should go with him, and David wouldn't have any pleasure in the trip if he hadn't little Janey and Willy along. He did set so by those children, it was a privilege to see them together; he was always one to make of children, David was. She did raise the extra money, this sweet saint, but she ate no meat for a month, finding it better for her health. Joey and Georgie Means, however, never wanted for their bit of steak at noon, and grew fat and rosy under Miss Peace's kindly roof. It was a pathetic sight when the sick man took leave of the little group of friends and neighbours that gathered on the platform at the station to bid him farewell. He had lost courage, poor David; perhaps he had not very much to start with, and things had gone hard with him for a long time. He knew he should never see these faces again, this homely, friendly place. He gazed about with wistful eyes, noting every spot in the bare little station. He had known it all by heart, ever since he was a child, for his father had been station-master. He could have built the whole thing over, with his eyes shut, he thought, and now he should never see it again. Yet he was glad to go, in a way, glad to think, at least, that he should die warm, as his wife expressed it, and that his tired eyes were going to look on green and blossoming things, instead of the cold, white beauty which meant winter to him. He had scarcely ever left Cyrus for more than a day or two; he had a vague idea that it was not creditable to go to the other world, and be able to give so little account of this one. Now, at least, he should be able to look his seafaring grandfather and his roving uncle in the face, if so be he should happen to meet them "over yender." He stood on the platform with his youngest child clasped close in his arms. This was the hardest part of all, to leave the children. His wife and the two older children had already taken their places in the car, and the good-natured conductor stood with his watch in his hand, willing to give David every second he conscientiously could. He came from East Cyrus himself, and was a family man. Anne Peace stood close by, holding fast the hand of little Joey. Strange sounds were in her ears, which she did not recognize as the beating of her own heart; she kept looking over her shoulder, to see what was coming. Her eyes never left David's face, but they were hopeful, even cheerful eyes. She thought he would come back much better, perhaps quite well. Doctor had said there was a chance, and she did hear great things of Florida. And now the conductor put up his watch and hardened his heart. "Come, David, better step inside now. All aboard!" "Good-by, David!" cried Doctor Brown, waving a friendly hand. "Good-by, David!" cried Anne Peace, lifting little Joey in her arms, though he was far too heavy for her. "Look at father, Joey dear, throw a kiss to father; good-by, good-by, David!" The train moved out of the station, but David Means, his eyes fixed on the faces of his children, had forgotten to look at Anne Peace. Winter came, and a bitter winter it was. No one in Cyrus could remember such steady cold, since the great winter of sixty years ago, when the doctor's grandfather was frozen to death, driving across the plains to visit a poor woman. The horse went straight to the place, his head being turned that way and his understanding being good; but when the farmer came out with his lantern, there sat the old doctor stiff and dead in his sleigh. Those were the days when people, even doctors, had not learned how to wrap up, and would drive about all winter with high, stiff hats and one buffalo robe, not tucked in, as we have them nowadays, but dropping down at their feet. There was small chance of our Doctor Brown's freezing to death, in his well-lined sleigh, with his fur cap pulled down over his nose and his fur coat buttoned up to his chin and the great robes tucked round him in a scientific manner. Still, for all that, it was a bitter winter, and a good many people in Cyrus and elsewhere, who had no fur coats, went cold by day and lay cold by night, as one good lady pathetically expressed it. There was little snow, and what there was fell in wonderful crystals, fairy studies in geometry, which delighted the eyes of Joey and Georgie Means, as they trotted to school, with Miss Peace's "nuby" over one little head and her shawl over the other. Every morning the sun rose in a clear sky, shining like steel; every evening the same sky glowed with wonderful tints of amethyst and tender rose, fading gradually, till all was blue once more, and the stars had it all their own way, throbbing with fierce, cold light. It was a great winter for Joey and Georgie! They never thought of its being too cold, for every morning their toes were toasted over the fire before schooltime, as if they had been muffins, and they were sent off nice and hot, with a baked potato in each pocket, in case their hands should be cold through the two pairs of thick mittens which Aunt Peace had provided. Then, when they came home, dinner was waiting, such a dinner as they were not in the habit of having; a little mutton pie, or a smoking Irish stew, with all the dumplings and gravy they wanted (and they wanted a great deal), and then pancakes, tossed before their very eyes, with a spoonful of jam in the middle of each, or blanc-mange made in the shape of a cow, which tasted quite different from any other blanc-mange that ever was. Also, they had the freedom of the corn-popper, and might roast apples every evening till bedtime. Doctor Brown shook his head occasionally, and told Anne Peace she would unfit those children for anything else in life than eating good things; but it was very likely that was jealousy, he added, for certainly his medicines had never given the children these rosy cheeks and sparkling eyes. And when bedtime came, and the two little brown heads were nestled down in the pillows of the big four-poster in the warm room, Anne Peace would humbly give thanks that they had been well and happy through another day, and then creep off to the cold, little room which she had chosen this winter, "because it was more handy." Often, when awakened in the middle of the night by the sharp, cracking frost noises, which tell of intensest cold, she would creep in to feel of the children, and make sure that they were as warm as two little dormice, which they always were. I do not know how many times she took a blanket or comforter off her own bed to add to their store; but I do know that she would not let Jenny Miller go into her room to see. She almost rejoiced in the excessive cold, saying to herself with exultation, "Fifteen below! well, there! and I s'pose it's like summer in Florida, this minute of time!" And then she fancied David sitting under an orange-tree, fanning himself, and smiled, and went meekly to work to break the ice in her water-butt. Every week letters came from David Means to his children, telling them of the beauty all around him and wishing they were there. He said little of his health, but always assured them that Janey and Willy were real smart, and sent his love to Anne Peace and his remembrance to all friends at home. The letters were short, and each time they grew a little shorter, till by and by it was only a postal card, written in a faint and trembling hand, but saying that the weather was fine, and father was so glad to get their little letter, and he would write more next time, but was very busy just now. When she read one of these, Anne Peace would go away into her little cold room for a while, and then would come back smiling and say that now they must write a real _good_ letter to father, and tell him how well they were doing at school. At last came a week when there was no postal card; another week, and there came a letter edged with black and written in Mrs. Means's hand. The children were at school when it came, and Jenny Miller, coming in by chance to bring a pot of head-cheese of her mother's making, found Miss Peace crouching in the corner of the sofa, weeping quietly, with the letter lying on her lap. "Why, Miss Peace," cried Jenny, frightened at the sight of tears in those steadfast eyes, "What is the matter? Do tell me, dear! Why, you're real cold in here. I do believe the fire has gone out. You've had bad news, Miss Peace, have you? Do tell me, that's a dear soul, and don't cry." "Yes," said Anne Peace. "The fire is out, Jenny, and David is dead." She held out the letter, saying something about "privilege--think--rest;" but Jenny Miller was already on her knees, putting kindlings into the stove at a reckless rate. Then, when the fire was crackling merrily, she ran to fetch a shawl and wrapped it round the poor trembling shoulders, and chafed the cold hands in her own warm, young fingers. But soon Miss Peace grew uneasy; she was not used to being "done for," having only the habit of doing for others. She pointed eagerly to the letter. "Read it, Jenny," she said, anxiously. "I--I am all right, dear. It's come rather sudden, that's all, and those poor little children--but read the letter." The words died away, and Jenny, sitting down beside her, took the paper and read. It began "Friend Anne," and went on to say that the writer's poor husband died yesterday, and she was left, as she always knew she should be, a widow with four children. It did seem to her as if he might have been let die to home, instead of being carted all the way down there and then have to send the remains back. She had to promise him she would send them back, though it did seem a pity with the beautiful "semetary" they had there, and full of Northern folks as it would hold and the undertaker a perfect gentleman, if she ever saw one. But the widow hoped she knew her duty, and she would not wish to be thought wanting in anything. Now she supposed they would want to know how David passed away, though she had no "strenth" to write, not having had her clothes off for days or, you might say, weeks, nor slep' one consektive hour the last ten nights. Well, he had seemed to gain a little when they first came, but it wasn't no real gain, for he lost it all again and more too. The pounds just fell off from that man, it seemed as if you could see them go. The last month he fairly pined away, and she thought right to let the folks at home know that he was called to depart, but he wouldn't hear to it. "He said, Delia, he said, if you want me to die easy, he said, don't let on to no one at home but what I'm doing all right." So she set by and held her peace, though it went against her conscience. Last Monday he couldn't leave his bed, and she said, "David, she said, you never will leave it till you're carried," and he said, p'raps 'twas so, but yet he wouldn't allow it, for fear of scaring the children. So that night he sat up in bed and his arms went out and he said "Home!" just that word, two or three times over, and dropped back and was gone. There she was, a widow with four small children, and what she should do she didn't know. Away there in a strange land as you might say, if it _was_ all one country, it did seem as if them as sent them might have thought of that and let them stay at home among their own folks. Not but what there was elegant folks there. Everybody hed been as kind as could be; one lady who was in "morning" herself had lent her a bonnet to wear to the funeral (for she wasn't one to send the remains off without anything being said over them); it was a real handsome bonnet, and she had taken a pattern of it, to have one made for herself. The lady was from New York way, and real stylish. Mrs. Means intended to stay on a spell, as the money was not all gone, and her strength needed setting up, after all she had been through. Mr. Tombs, the undertaker, said he never saw any one bear afflicktion so; she told him she was used to it. He was a perfect gentleman, and a widower himself, so he could feel for her. Miss Peace might be thankful that she was never called on to bear afflicktion, with no one but herself to look out for; not but what 'twas lonesome for her, and Mrs. Means supposed she'd be glad enough to keep Georgie and Joey on a spell longer for company. Tell them they are poor orphans now, with no father to earn their bread. The writer wished her husband's remains to be buried in his father's lot, as she had no money to buy one. Miss Peace might see if any one felt to put up a moniment for David; he hadn't an enemy in the world, and he never begredged a dollar when he had it to give, for anything there was going. If he had thought a little more about her, and less about everybody's cat and dog, she might have something now to put bread in her children's mouths, let alone her own. Not that she had any appetite, a flea wouldn't fatten on what she ate. Lawyer Peters was his mother's third cousin if she was living. He spent more on those girls of his than would clothe the writer and her children for a year. The remains went by the same boat with this letter, so Miss Peace would know when to expect them. Mrs. Means looked to her to see that David had a decent funeral; a handsome one she couldn't expect, folks in Cyrus were close enough about all that didn't go on their own backs, though she shouldn't wish it said. So now there was no more, from Miss Peace's unfortunate friend, "the Widow Means." After reading this precious epistle, Jenny Miller found herself, perhaps for the first time in her life, with nothing to say. She could only sit and press her friend's hand, and thrill, as a girl will, at the touch of a sorrow which she only now began dimly to guess. It was Miss Peace who broke the silence, speaking in her usual quiet tone. "Thank you, Jenny, dear! I'm sure it was a privilege, having you come in just now. David Means was kin to me, you know, and I always set by him a great deal; and then the poor little children!" she faltered again for an instant, but steadied her voice and went on: "You'd better go home now, dear, for the fire is going beautiful, and I don't need anything. I--I shall have to see to things for the funeral, you know. And don't forget to thank your mother for the cheese. It looks real good, and Georgie doos like it the best of anything for breakfast. I guess I'll get on my bonnet, and go to see Abel Mound, the sexton." But here Jenny found her voice, and protested. Miss Peace should not have anything at all to do with all that. 'Twasn't fitting she should, as the nearest kin poor Mr. Means had in Cyrus. Her father would see to it all, Jenny knew he would, and Doctor Brown would help him. She would go herself and speak to the doctor this minute. Miss Peace would have to be here to tell the children when they came home from school, poor little things! and that was all she should do about it. Anne Peace hesitated; and then Jenny had an inspiration, or, as she put it in telling Tudie Peaslee afterwards, "a voice spoke to her." "Miss Peace," she said timidly, "I--I don't suppose you would feel to pick those flowers you were going to send over to Tupham for the Sunday-school festival? I know they kind o' lot on the flowers you send, 'cause they're always so fresh, and you do them up so pretty. But if you don't feel to do it, I can send them word, or ask some one else"-- "The idea!" cried Anne Peace, brightening up. "I forgot the flowers, Jenny, I did so! I should be pleased to pick them, and I'll do it this minute. There--there isn't anything I should like so well. And I do thank you, dear, and if you really think your father wouldn't mind seeing--I am sure it is a privilege to have such neighbours, I always say. There couldn't anybody be more blessed in neighbours than I have always been." In ten minutes Miss Peace was at work in her garden, cutting, trimming, tying up posies, and finding balm for her inward wound in the touch of the rose-leaves, and in the smell of mignonette, David's favourite flower. No one in Cyrus had such mignonette as Miss Peace, and people thought she had some special receipt for making it grow and blossom luxuriantly; but she always said no, it was only because she set by it. Folks could most always grow the things they set most store by, she thought. So the Sunday-school festival at Tupham Corner was a perfect blaze of flowers, and the minister in his speech made allusion to generous friends in other parishes, who sent of their wealth to swell our rejoicings, and of their garden produce to gladden our eyes; but while the eyes of Tupham were being gladdened, Anne Peace was brushing Joey's and Georgie's hair, and tying black ribbons under their little chins, smiling at them through her tears, and bidding them be brave for dear father's sake, who was gone to the best home now, and would never be sick any more, or tired, or--or sad. It was a quiet funeral: almost a cheerful one, the neighbours said, as they saw the little room filled with bright flowers (they all seemed to smell of mignonette, there was so much of it hidden among the roses), and the serene face of the chief mourner, who stood at the head of the coffin, with a child in either hand. It was an unusual thing, people felt. Generally, at Cyrus funerals, the mourners stayed up-stairs, leaving the neighbours to gather round the coffin in the flower-scented room below; but it did not seem strange in Anne Peace, somehow, and, after the first glance, no one could fancy any one else standing there. The old minister, who had christened both David and Anne on the same day, said a few gentle, cheering words, and the choir sang "Lead, kindly Light;" then the procession went its quiet way to the churchyard, and all was over. Jenny Miller and the doctor followed Miss Peace home from the churchyard, but made no attempt to speak to her. She seemed unconscious of any one save the children, to whom she was talking in low, cheerful tones. The doctor caught the words "rest," "home," "happiness;" and as she passed into the house he heard her say distinctly: "Blessed privilege! My children now, my own! my own!" "So they are!" said Doctor Brown, taking off his glasses to clear them. "So they are, and so they will remain. I don't imagine Delia will ever come back, do you, Jenny?" "No," said Jenny, "I don't. She'll marry the undertaker before the year is out." And she did. THE END. * * * * * Transcriber's Notes Original spelling and punctuation have been preserved except for the joining of common contractions. Page 8: Added closing quotes: (you seemed all right when I went out.") Page 9: Phoebe had oe ligature in original book. (you've heard me tell how my Aunt Phoebe 'Lizabeth) Page 56: Removed extra quotation mark before I: ("You are too good. I didn't expect, I'm sure--well, you are kind!") 
40102	----	The Passion for Life By JOSEPH HOCKING _Author of "A Flame of Fire," "The Chariots of the Lord," "All for a Scrap of Paper," "Dearer Than Life," etc._ NEW YORK CHICAGO Fleming H. Revell Company LONDON AND EDINBURGH [Illustration: "Yes. I have an intense desire to live.... A passion for life."] Contents I. THE DOCTOR'S SENTENCE 7 II. MY NEW HOME 18 III. THE CHURCHES' ANSWER 28 IV. THREE VISITORS 46 V. AN EMERGING MYSTERY 59 VI. THE LETHBRIDGE FAMILY 65 VII. ISABELLA LETHBRIDGE 81 VIII. MYSTERY 95 IX. AT THE VICARAGE 105 X. WIRELESS TELEGRAPHY 118 XI. MARY TRELEAVEN 131 XII. FIRST DAYS OF THE WAR 142 XIII. FATHER AND SON 156 XIV. THE RECRUITING MEETING 166 XV. HOW THE CHANGE BEGAN 179 XVI. NEWS FROM HUGH 192 XVII. THE PHANTOM BOATS 203 XVIII. FATHER ABRAHAM 213 XIX. GOD ANSWERED OUT OF THE WHIRLWIND 224 XX. THE VICAR'S SERMON 240 XXI. MISSING--DEAD 252 XXII. A DISCOVERY 263 XXIII. A CLUE TO THE MYSTERY 276 XXIV. PREPARATION 287 XXV. PREMONITIONS 299 XXVI. MIDNIGHT 308 XXVII. VISION 323 XXVIII. THE NEW LIFE 331 XXIX. CHRISTMAS, 1915 344 I THE DOCTOR'S SENTENCE I am in a restless mood to-night. There seems nothing to explain this, except that perhaps I am growing tired of the life I am leading, or it may be that there are influences at work of which I have no cognizance, but which affect my nerves. As I look out of my window I can see storm-clouds driven across the wild sky, while distant lights on the heaving sea are suggestive of mystery. The wind howls around my little wooden tenement, while above the roaring of the waves I can hear the dismal screech of the sea-birds, which, for some reason or other, have left their rocky resting-places. I do not know why it is, but the cry of the sea-birds is always suggestive of the wail of lost souls as they fly through the infinite spaces. I did not mean to begin this way at all, for I want, as far as I can, to put all sad thoughts behind me. Let me begin again then, and, if possible, strike a more cheerful note. I want something to interest me, and it has struck me that if during these long, dark evenings when I have to be alone I can place on record some of the events which have taken place since I have drifted to this part of the country, I shall be able not only to forget the shadow which hangs over my life, but to see streaks of blue sky amidst the storm-clouds, and to catch the bright rays of the sun which are constantly shining, even although the world says that we are living in a dark time. But I am writing this also because, as it seems to me, the happenings of the last few months are of sufficient importance to record. Even although I were sure no one would read what I am going to write, I should still go on writing. Some one has said, I do not know who, that the life of a village is the life of a nation in miniature; and even although that may contain only a suggestion of the truth, certain am I that if I can faithfully record the events which have taken place in the little village of St. Issey, I shall have written something of the history of the great world outside. Now that I have started writing, however, I immediately realize that, if I am to make my narrative comprehensible, I shall have to give some kind of personal explanation. Who am I, where am I, and why am I here? I promised just now that I would, as far as possible, avoid the sad things of life and dwell on the sunshine rather than on the shadow. But why should I? Life is made up of sunshine and shadow, and no one can give a faithful account of life without dwelling on both. Besides, what are the things we call sorrow and joy but contrasts? And life without contrasts would be unbearable. I will tell my story just as it is, then: its light and its shade; its hope and its despair. * * * * * "Simpson," I said to my one servant and factotum, who has been with me for several years, and whom I regard more in the light of a friend and counsellor than as a paid hireling, "the doctor tells me that I have at most a year to live." I was sitting in my chambers in London as I mentioned this interesting piece of information. Simpson had just placed my coffee and bacon before me. He stopped suddenly as I spoke, as though the news had startled him. Then he went on with his work. "I beg your pardon, sir." I repeated the information. "The doctor tells me I have at most a year to live. I may not last so long. Possibly a month will see the end of me." I thought Simpson's hand trembled, but he repeated the formula which had almost become second nature to him: "Yes, sir; thank you, sir," he said. "I have been thinking, Simpson," I went on, "that as I have but such a short time before me in this world I may as well spend it comfortably and in a congenial place; indeed, the doctor insists that I should." "Yes, sir; thank you, sir. Is there anything more you want, sir?" "Simpson," I said, "you don't appear to believe I am serious. I am simply telling you what Dr. Rhomboid told me last night. By the way, how did he ever get the name of Rhomboid? A rhomboid has something to do with mathematics, hasn't it?" To this Simpson made no reply. "How long did you say, sir, that the doctor gave you?" he asked presently. He seemed by this time to have quite recovered himself. "He is of opinion that a year at the outside will see the end of me," was my reply, "but it may be that I shall only last a month or two. There is something wrong with my inside. He gave it some sort of a name, but I won't try to repeat it. I might pronounce it wrongly. But why do you ask?" "Well, sir, you have got an important case on, and I heard that it would last a long time. It would be a pity if you didn't live to see the end of it." "I shall have to drop the case, Simpson," I said. "What, Mr. Francis, drop the case? That would be a terrible pity, and you having had to wait so long for cases, too." "You seem more interested in the case than in the tenure of my existence, Simpson," was my response. "Yes, sir; thank you, sir," replied Simpson, after hesitating some seconds. "How long have you been with me, Simpson?" I asked. "Ever since you went to Oxford, sir--eleven years ago last October." "That is a long time, Simpson." "Yes, Mr. Francis. Your father--that is, Mr. Erskine--made me promise that I would stick to you. That was before he died, sir." I may here remark that my father, John Erskine, died just as I left Winchester. He did not make any fuss about dying. He simply called me to his side and said, "Frank, I have sent you to a good school, and you have done very well. I have left you enough money to go to Oxford, where I want you to take a good law degree. After that, I want you to read for the Bar, and, if possible, rise to be Lord Chancellor. There will not be very much money left when you finish at Oxford--something over a thousand pounds, I believe; but that should last you until your briefs begin to come in. Simpson, our old servant, will go with you. I think that is all, my boy." The next day my father died, and I, as arranged, took Simpson to Oxford with me. Simpson is not very handsome, but he is a very valuable friend, and in his way has glimmerings of sense. I toyed with my breakfast, for although I spoke calmly enough about it, I was not altogether pleased at the idea of dying so soon. After all, I was only just thirty, and, as Simpson had said, the briefs had only just begun to come in. "I beg your pardon, Mr. Francis, but will you be leaving London soon?" "I have decided to leave at once," I replied, "but the question with me is, Where shall I go? I have been thinking a good deal about it during the night, and I cannot decide. Where would you suggest?" "Well, Mr. Francis," replied Simpson, "if you will forgive me for making a suggestion, sir, I should say that, as yours is a Cornish family, Cornwall would be a suitable place to----" Here he stopped, and seemed in a difficulty as to how he should conclude the sentence. "That is, sir," he went on, "would it not be appropriate?" "Exactly," was my answer. "Cornwall it shall be, then; but I don't know Cornwall, although, as you say, I am of Cornish stock. You are also Cornish, Simpson?" "Yes, sir; thank you, sir." "I have been looking through my accounts," I went on, "and I find that by economy I can manage to pay my way for about a year. That fits in exactly, as you see; but I am afraid it won't include you, Simpson. You have rather a good appetite." "My appetite can depend very much on the state of your funds, Mr. Francis," he replied. "That means you are inclined to go with me?" "Certainly, sir; I could not think of leaving you alone." I confess that I was somewhat relieved at this, because, although I determined to put a brave face upon everything, the thought of spending my last days alone was not pleasant. "That is awfully good of you, Simpson," I remarked, "but if you come with me, although, as you say, your appetite can be regulated, we shall have to be careful. I like your idea of going to Cornwall, but I don't know what part of the Delectable Duchy to go to. The doctor suggests that, in order to extend my existence as long as possible, I ought to go to some spot where the air is warm, yet bracing; that I must have no excitement, but at the same time must have interesting and pleasant companionship; that, while I ought to be out of the world, I must at the same time be in it. This fellow with a mathematical name seems to be intensely unreasonable." "Excuse me, sir, but could you give me a short holiday?" asked Simpson. "For how long?" "Say four days, sir. I will arrange for you to be well cared for while I am gone, sir." I didn't ask Simpson why he wished to go away, or where he was going. I am afraid at that moment I hadn't sufficient interest to inquire. Of course, I gave my consent, and that same day Simpson packed up his bag and left me. Here was I, then, Francis Erskine, aged thirty, barrister-at-law, member of the Inner Temple, who, a week before, had good prospects, alone, with my death-warrant signed. I hadn't felt very well for some time, but had paid no heed to my ailments. For the past twelve months I had been, for a young barrister, very busy. It so happened that I had been engaged upon a case which appeared hopeless. All my brothers at the Bar declared that my client had not the ghost of a chance, and then, by what people called a stroke of genius on my part, but which was really a pure fluke, I carried off the thing triumphantly. From that time briefs came in fairly rapidly, and I was more than once referred to as a rising young man of brilliant parts. Then came the doctor's verdict, and there was an end to everything. What I did during Simpson's absence I cannot remember. I tried to take a philosophical view of the situation, and although the disease from which I suffered was, the doctor declared, past all cure, and had made great ravages upon my constitution, I went about as usual. After all, what was the use of bothering about death? At the end of four days Simpson came back. I thought he appeared somewhat excited, but his manner was quiet and respectful as usual. "Enjoyed your holiday, Simpson?" I asked. "Yes, sir; thank you, sir. When will you be ready to start, sir?" "My tenancy of these chambers expires in three days, Simpson." "I hope Mrs. Blandy looked after you all right while I was away, sir?" "I really don't remember," was my reply. "I dare say." "Could you start to-morrow morning, sir? I can get everything ready by that time." "Where are we going, Simpson?" I asked. He looked at me as if in surprise. "To Cornwall, sir." "You have made arrangements for me, then?" "Yes, sir; thank you, sir." I did not ask him any further questions. I did not think it worth while. After all, when one came to reflect, nothing was worth while. If Simpson had suggested the Highlands of Scotland or the Flats of Essex, I should have made no demur. On the whole, however, I was pleased that we were going to Cornwall. Both my father and mother were Cornish people, and although I had never visited the country, it seemed less disagreeable to me to go there and spend my few remaining days than to any other place. I knew that Cornwall was a narrow strip of land at the extreme west of the country, and I had heard vague reports about the fine coast-line and beautiful air, but, beyond that, very little. "Perhaps, sir," said Simpson, "we had better put off our journey until the day after to-morrow." "Why?" I asked. "You will want to say good-bye to your friends, won't you, sir?" "I think I have a remembrance of doing that, Simpson," I replied. "You have a lot of friends here, haven't you? Excuse me for asking, sir." "I have a lot of acquaintances, Simpson," I replied, "but only two friends--Bill Tremain and Tom Esmond. The rest don't count. I should not be surprised if they came to see me when I am in Cornwall--that is, if their wives will allow them. Have you ever reflected, Simpson, that marriage is a tremendous hindrance to friendship? Wives always make it difficult." "Excuse me, sir, but what a pity it is you have not got a wife." "I have never regarded the matter in that light, Simpson. Why do you say so?" "Women always save a man from brooding. They never give him a chance of being quiet, sir," and Simpson shook his head impressively. "You speak as one having authority. Have you ever been married?" "Yes, sir," replied Simpson. "I didn't know that. Why have you never told me? How long were you married?" "Two years, sir. I never talk about those two years, but I shall never forget them." I asked Simpson several questions, but his replies did not contain much information. "You don't seem to be very communicative with regard to your married life." "There's nothing to say, sir, besides what I told you. Women save a man from brooding. You see, sir, they don't give him time to brood. I have never noticed that you have paid much attention to young ladies." "Not very much," I replied. "I don't seem to have had time. I have always been too busy with my work." "If you had married, sir--at least, if you had married the woman I did--you would never have had any time for your work." Next morning I found that all my bags were packed, while a taxi stood at the door. I made no inquiries as to Simpson's intentions or plans. When he went to the booking-office at Paddington I did not even ask him the name of the station for which he was booking. I remember entering a first-class carriage, where Simpson made me as comfortable as possible, after which I saw him talking to the guard, and heard him tell that worthy official that I must not be disturbed if it could possibly be helped. Of my journey to Cornwall I remember practically nothing. I think I slept a great part of the distance. Towards evening we stopped at a little wayside station, where Simpson appeared and told me I was to alight. "Have we come to our journey's end?" I asked. "To the end of the railway journey," was his reply. "I seem to smell the sea, Simpson," I said. "Yes, sir, we are close to the sea." He led the way to the station-yard, where a carriage stood, evidently waiting for me. This I entered, while Simpson, after attending to the luggage, and expressing the hope that he was not inconveniencing me, took his seat by my side. Once in the carriage I began to take more interest in my surroundings. I saw that we were in a beautifully wooded country, while away in the distance rose giant hills and rocky tors. I heard the roll of the waves, too, while the air was like some life-giving elixir. Presently we entered a village, which nestled among the trees. "Simpson," I asked, "what is the name of this village?" "This is St. Issey, sir." "It is a very pretty place." "Yes, sir; thank you, sir." I saw a number of cottages, built in higgledy-piggledy fashion, each surrounded by its own garden. I saw the villagers standing gossiping with each other, heard the laughter of little children as they played in the lane, smelt the sweetness and purity of the air. After all, it was good to live. "Is there no hotel here?" I asked. "No, sir; no hotel, sir." I did not ask him where we were going, or how I was to be accommodated. After all, it was not worth while. One place was as good as another. We passed some lodge gates, which evidently appertained to a big house, and I noted the great granite pillars and the heavy palisading. "The Squire of the parish lives there, I suppose?" "Yes, sir, Squire Treherne. That, sir," pointing to a comfortable-looking house which stood back from the road, "is the Vicarage. Mr. Trelaske lives there. And that, sir, is the Wesleyan Chapel. I am of the Wesleyan persuasion myself--at least, I was when I was a boy." "That is a long time ago, Simpson." "I am fifty-five, sir, but it doesn't seem long since I was a boy--that is, except for those two years when I was married; those seem very long." Simpson's face looked so comical that I could not help laughing. It was the first time I had laughed since my interview with the doctor. We passed by a great square tower and a low, many-gabled church, with the churchyard around it. I turned my eyes away. The place was not pleasant to me. Presently we began to descend a steep hill, and the sound of the waves rolling upon a hard and sandy beach became more and more clear. The carriage entered a narrow lane, which ended in a kind of copse close to a rugged cliff. A little later I saw, built within a few feet from the edge of the cliff, a wooden house. At the back of it a steep and almost precipitous piece of country, covered with brushwood, rose skyward. In front was the Atlantic. The house was in a bay looking towards the sea. The cliffs on the right side were not very high, but on the left they rose up almost perpendicular, rugged and imposing. I noticed that the rocks of which the cliffs were composed were in one place discolored, and I pointed it out. "Yes, sir," replied Simpson. "When I was a boy there was a copper-mine here. There's a level under the hill now--at least, I believe so, sir. This is the house I have settled on, sir." I alighted from the carriage and looked more closely at what was to be my future dwelling. As I have said, it was a wooden erection, and was evidently built with some care. All along the front was a veranda, the floor of which was roughly paved with granite slabs. The few yards of land between the veranda and the edge of the cliff had been cultivated, and flowers grew in wild profusion. At the back of the house many kinds of wild flowers bloomed. In the near distance, on the top of the cliffs, the land was covered with furze bushes and heather. I stood and took a deep breath and listened while the waves rolled on the golden sand hundreds of feet down. "Won't you come into the house, sir?" asked Simpson. "I have paid the driver, and there is a man coming along with the luggage in a cart." "Not yet," I replied. "I want to take my fill of this. This is wonderful--simply wonderful. I want to live." Simpson stood watching me. I thought I saw his lips tremble. II MY NEW HOME I liked the house the moment I entered it. It was snug, cozy, and warm. It had the feeling of home, too, and felt so quiet and restful that I threw myself into an armchair with a sigh of relief. "You spent your holiday in getting this, I suppose, Simpson?" "Yes, sir; thank you, sir. I hope you like it, sir. It is not altogether what I would like, sir, but directly I saw it I thought it would suit you." "To whom does it belong, Simpson?" "Well, sir, I would rather not tell you, if you don't mind. You may rest assured that I got it on favorable terms, and everything is in order." "But I do mind," I said, for by this time I had quite an interest in my surroundings. For days nothing had seemed to matter, but now I was quite eager to know how Simpson had happened upon this quaint yet comfortable place. "You are sure you wish me to tell you, sir?" and Simpson looked at me almost beseechingly. "I insist on it," I replied. "Well, sir, I am afraid it was built by a kind of madman who came down to St. Issey about six years ago. Who he was I don't know. No one seems to know. But he took a lease of this piece of ground from the Squire and built the house with his own hands." "He must have been a carpenter," I suggested. "It seems very well built. But what has become of him?" "He is dead, sir." "Was he old or young?" "Quite an old man, I think, sir. Anyhow, he built it himself and would have no one near him. After it was built he lived here alone for several years, speaking to no one but the village idiot, who went by the name of Fever Lurgy, who bought all his food and did all his errands. No woman was allowed near the place, sir." "Then he cooked his own food and did his own house-work?" I asked. "It would appear so, sir. He seems to have made himself very comfortable, too. As you see, the furniture is not at all bad, and nearly everything is just as he left it." I must confess to being interested. The thought of a man coming to this place and building a house for himself and living there without companionship of any sort appealed to me. I wondered how he spent his days and nights. "Let me have a look around the place," I said, rising from the chair. "I want to see what rooms it contains." "Yes, sir; thank you, sir," was Simpson's reply. The room in which I had been sitting was about fifteen feet square--it might be a little more--and looked out upon the veranda, beyond which stretched the great Atlantic. It was comfortably furnished, and possessed an old-fashioned fireplace, evidently intended for logs of wood, and revealed the fact that the builder was not only ingenious in the matter of house-building, but that he possessed a good deal of taste. The whole apartment was carefully match-boarded, and was, as I said, snug and comfortable. "This, sir, is the bedroom," said Simpson, opening the door at the end of the living apartment. It was much smaller than the other, but quite big enough for a single bed, together with the simple necessities of a man living alone. "And did he die here?" I asked. "Yes, sir; no, sir--that is--I don't know, sir." "What do you mean, Simpson?" "Well, sir, that is why I didn't want to tell you about him; but there are all sorts of stories afloat. You don't mind, do you, sir?" "Not a bit," I replied. "Whatever my ailments are, nerves don't trouble me." "Well, sir," went on Simpson, "the fact that he lived here all alone caused people to talk about him--especially the women. You know what women are, sir, and people used to come and look from the hill above and see what he was doing. One day two women were bold enough to come close to the place, and they knocked at the door. There was no answer, sir. They knocked again and again and made a great noise. Still there was no answer. Then they rushed away to St. Issey and gave it as their opinion that something had happened to him. They hadn't been back in the village more than half an hour when Fever Lurgy came, pale as a ghost, and trembling like a leaf. He had gone to inquire whether he was needed for errands, and, on being unable to make any one hear, had burst open the door. In this bedroom he found evidences of a great struggle. He found blood, too, but the man was nowhere to be seen." "That's interesting," I said. "What was the name by which this old fellow was known?" "Fever Lurgy called him Father Abraham," was Simpson's reply. "Well, go on," I urged. "There's nothing more to tell you, sir. From that day he has never been seen. People believe, however, he was murdered here; that some tramps came and found him alone, stole his money, killed him, and threw his body over the cliff." "And how long was this ago?" "About four months, sir." "And since that time no one has lived here?" "No, sir, no one. Most people have been afraid to come near the place. That is why none of the things have been touched; besides, the Squire, as soon as he discovered what had taken place, told his men to keep an eye on it." "And so you thought, Simpson," I said, "that this was the sort of place I would like to come to and end my days?" "Well, Mr. Francis," was Simpson's response, "for one thing you told me you wanted a place that was cheap, that you wanted a place that was out of the world and yet in the world, and I immediately thought of St. Issey. When I came down here, however, I found that any lodgings you might like would be rather dear, and then, hearing of this place, I determined to come and see it." Here Simpson stopped. "That's not quite answering my question, Simpson," I remarked. "Well, sir, I have not lived with you going on for twelve years without knowing something of the kind of gentleman you are. I have never known you trouble once, sir, about ghosts or anything of that sort, while your nerves have always been as steady as old time. Besides, I was able to get it dirt cheap, sir--in fact, the Squire's steward was glad to have it tenanted at any price. The place is very pretty, too, sir. There is not a finer view along the coast of Cornwall, and that is saying a great deal. It is out of the world, and it is only half a mile from the village. Still, sir, if you don't like it, we can easily leave. Over at St. Eia there's a nice cheap hotel where----" "Hang the hotel," I interposed. "I am going to stay here." "I think I ought to tell you, sir," went on Simpson imperturbably, "that people say they have heard curious noises around here of a night, and it is believed by many that the ghost of Father Abraham haunts the place." Simpson looked so solemn as he said this that I laughed again. I don't know why it was, but, in spite of his dreary story, my spirits rose unaccountably. "The ghost of Father Abraham doesn't trouble me a bit, Simpson," I said. "This place suits me down to the ground. But this is not all? Surely there must be a kitchen somewhere." "Oh yes, sir. This way, sir," and Simpson spoke quite eagerly. Evidently my approval of his choice removed a load from his mind. Father Abraham had evidently determined to make himself comfortable, for the kitchen, though small, seemed to have every requisite. As I entered it, an old woman rose from her chair and curtsied in the old time-honored way. "This," said Simpson, "is Mrs. Martha Bray. I asked her to come in and make everything spotlessly clean for you by the time you came." "And Mrs. Martha Bray has obeyed orders," I remarked. "Everything is as perfect as a new pin. But, Simpson," I continued, "where will you sleep?" "There's a little place here behind, sir, where I have made up a bed for myself," replied Simpson. "It will be nice and handy for my work." "Yes, sur, and plase, sur, I can come in an' help 'ee any time," remarked Martha Bray. "I do'ant live fur away, an' I can come 'cross the fields in a few minutes." "Excuse me, Martha," was Simpson's rejoinder, "but we shall need no one. I can do all that is necessary for Mr. Francis." "Oh, plase yerself," replied the old woman, "but it'll be ter'ble wisht for 'ee doin' everything yerself without a woman to help 'ee. I do always say that a man wethout a woman to do his chores for en es like one side to a pair of scissors. I have got some tay ready, sur, and I have toasted a piece of ham rasher. It's raal ham, too, not like the stuff you buy in the shops. I do'ant hold with these new-fashioned notions about feedin' pigs, and do always feed mine meself like my mother and grandmother used to do before me. And you'll find, sur, that tes deffrent from the ham you do buy in the shops. My b'lief, sur, es that ef old Father Abram had had a woman to look after en, he wouldn't be dead now." Having delivered herself of this long speech, the old woman curtsied once more, and prepared to take my meal into the little living-room. "Excuse me, Martha, I will do that," said Simpson, "and there's no reason why we should detain you any longer. Here are your wages, and thank you for what you have done." "All right," said Martha. "Ef you can do without me, I can do without you. The tay is in the caddy up there. There's some bread in the cupboard there, and the other things be in this drawer. Good-night, sur. I will look over again to see whether there is anything I can do for 'ee." I returned to the sitting-room, and sat while Simpson prepared my evening meal. "I want to wash, Simpson," I said, when he had nearly completed his work. "Besides, it has struck me that there is no such thing as a bathroom in the house. What are we going to do?" "This way, sir," said Simpson, and I followed him out of the house towards what I call the cliff end of the building. Here I found, gurgling out of the hillside, a stream of the purest water I had ever seen, which flowed into a pond. The idea of outdoor ablutions appealed to me, and I almost forgot my ailments as I bathed my hands and face in the pure spring water. A few minutes later, I was eating the sweetest ham I had ever tasted. "If this is the result of the old-fashioned way of feeding pigs," I remarked to Simpson, "I shall make a closer acquaintance with Mrs. Martha Bray, and shall buy all the hams she can dispose of." The time was spring. To be exact, it was the 14th of May, and although the evening air was somewhat chilly, the days had become long, and I remembered standing a long time at the front of my little wooden hut, looking at the giant cliffs at whose feet the waves of the broad Atlantic rolled. When I had returned to the house, Simpson had lit a lamp, while in the grate a wood fire burnt cheerfully. "Do you think it will do, sir?" asked Simpson. "Do!" I replied; "it's just perfect." "Then, sir, if you don't mind, I will go to bed. I am a little tired, sir. There's nothing more I can do for you, is there?" "Nothing, thank you, Simpson. Good-night." A few minutes later I judged, from the silence which prevailed in the kitchen, that Simpson had retired, and that I was practically alone in the little wooden hut. I was still in utter ignorance of my whereabouts, beyond the fact that I was somewhere in Cornwall on the edge of a cliff, and close to a little village called St. Issey. Where St. Issey was situated I did not know. Cornwall, I reflected, was a county nearly a hundred miles long, with the main portion of it surrounded by the sea. I knew that I must be somewhere in the vicinity of the main line of the Great Western Railway, as I did not remember changing anywhere, but beyond that I had little or no knowledge. Still, this did not trouble me. I reflected upon what Simpson had told me concerning the cheapness of my place of residence, and I had absolute trust in him concerning all arrangements for the future. The night was very quiet, I remember. Scarcely a breath of wind stirred, although the air which came into my open window was pure and exhilarating. The splash of the waves was still heard on the sandy beach, although I judged the tide had receded somewhat. Now and then the cry of a disturbed sea-bird reached me, but beyond that, nothing. Somehow I could not make up my mind to turn in for the night. I had too many things to think about, while my new surroundings drove away all desire for sleep. I took one of the books I had brought with me from London, and tried to read, but that was impossible. I could not scan a dozen lines without my mind wandering from the printed pages. After all, when one comes to think about it, my position was somewhat strange. It is easy to talk about coming to a place to die; but when one has actually heard the death sentence pronounced, and is told that, at the most, he cannot live more than a year, it is not a pleasant experience, and, in spite of all my endeavors, my thoughts were constantly reverting to Dr. Rhomboid's verdict. Presently I could bear my thoughts no longer, and, quietly opening the door, I went out into the night. How still, how solemn it was! On my left hand the great beetling, rugged cliffs rose, imposing and awe-inspiring. Behind me, the hillside rose steep and high. In front was the wide Atlantic. I could see the waves breaking into foam some little distance from the shore. I could, in the pale light of the moon, see the discolorment in one place in the rocks, which reminded me of the mine which Simpson had told me was working there when he was a boy. How long I stood there I do not know, but presently, in the silence of the night, I heard a cry. It might be that of a sea-bird, although it made me think of other things. A little later I heard what might be described as a moan, although that does not truly convey the impression it made upon me. In spite of myself, my mind reverted to the story which Simpson had told me about the man who had built the house, and of his supposed tragic end. Could it be, I wondered, that this man's spirit visited the scene of his death, drawn there by some laws yet undiscovered by the student of psychic phenomena? I had no superstitious fears; indeed, I had no belief in a life beyond this present existence. If ever I had believed in this, the belief had died years before. In a vague kind of way I imagined that death was the end of everything. Perhaps that was why the doctor's verdict was so grim and forbidding. I heard another cry, not loud, but quite distinct; and then I thought I saw forms moving along at the base of the cliff some little distance away, but the moon, which was on the wane, gave me insufficient light to be certain. A cloud passed over the sky, and then I could see nothing. "Surely I could not be mistaken," I said to myself, "yet who could be crawling along at the base of the cliffs? No. It was all pure fancy." As if in contradiction of my thoughts, however, I heard noises which seemed to be directly under my feet. These noises seemed to continue for three or four minutes, and then all was silence. "Events have been too much for me," I reflected, "and in spite of all my boasting about my nerves, they are playing me tricks." I turned and looked at the little house, and I doubted whether, in spite of all my brave words, I should be able to continue living there. To be alone day after day and night after night, with no one to speak to me and no one to care for me, save this unimaginative man, was, to say the least of it, anything but exhilarating. Then I felt the gnawing, deadly pain which had led me to visit Dr. Rhomboid. "I must not be a fool," I reflected. "What has to be has to be, and I must go through with it. Besides, one place is as good as another. I will go to bed." All the same, I made up my mind that I would not live like a hermit, and that I would become acquainted with the life of this little village into which I had been cast. III THE CHURCHES' ANSWER I suppose my long journey must have tired me, for I slept soundly, and on the following morning when I awoke the sun was shining through the windows, while the splash of the waves sounded pleasantly to my ears. A few minutes later I was up and dressed. Walking to the edge of the cliff, I looked towards the spot where, the previous night, I fancied I had seen dim forms moving; but in the light of the sun nothing was visible. The shadows, too, of a few hours before had entirely passed away. The fresh, pure spring air exhilarated me in spite of myself. I almost forgot Dr. Rhomboid's verdict. Indeed, so far did I ignore his instructions that I found my way to the highest point of the cliff and looked seaward. Never in my whole life had I been so entranced as on that morning. The blue sky was reflected in the water in such a way that I felt I had never really seen the sea until then. To the right and to the left of me stretched the giant cliffs until they were lost in the horizon. At their feet rolled great waves. Landward, hill rose upon hill, and the whole countryside was fast assuming its garments of summer glory. In a sense, Cornwall did not seem a beautiful county to me at all. At least, it did not possess the beauty I had expected. Compared with Surrey, it looked bare, and in some senses almost drear, and yet it possessed a charm which I could associate with no other place. There was something in the air one breathed, some strange charm, something in the very essence of the county which differentiated it from the rest of the world. Cornwall is as different from other counties as England is different from Spain. I felt my blood tingle as I looked, and realized that a mysterious hand had been laid upon me. Perhaps it was because there was Cornish blood in my veins, and that for many generations my ancestors had lived amidst associations similar to these. In any case, my heart thrilled its recognition, and I knew that I was a part of what I saw, that the spirit of my county was speaking to me, and that the innermost depths of my being realized my homeland. Years seemed to slip from me, and with a recrudescence of youth came a passionate desire for life--more life. While I had been in London I seemed to be largely indifferent to the doctor's pronouncement, even although I was beginning to sip from the goblet of the world's success. But a numbness had possessed my being, and I had been able to speculate grimly upon my approaching demise. Now, however, it was different. The world seemed wider, the sky higher, and life promised infinite things. I could not formulate them into words; nevertheless, they surged up in my being like a mighty torrent, and I longed to live. My whole soul revolted against cessation of life, and all the time I knew that a dread disease was slowly working within me. But I would not think of it. By an effort I threw my forebodings from me, and, seeing a precipitous pathway down to the beach, made my way thitherward. I wanted to interest myself in the happenings of the world. A little later I found my way to the base of the cliffs where, on the previous night, I thought I had seen living beings. No marks of them were evident. The hard, yellow sand was smooth and trackless. There was a stretch of a hundred yards between the foot of the cliffs and the foam-crested waves, and, calling to my mind my impressions of the previous night, I determined to put them to test. Without avail, however. The great heap of débris caused by the working of the mine which Simpson had mentioned had now become covered with verdure. I saw the green stains on the cliff which Simpson had said betokened copper, but nowhere could I see the level which he had mentioned. I peered curiously around, but in vain. Presently I saw a fissure in the rocks which ended in a cave. This I entered and made my way for a few yards, peering curiously around me. Nothing of importance struck my eye. I reflected that this might be almost immediately under my house, and it was here, according to my fancies, I had heard voices on the previous night. I fancied, too, that, except in the case of very high tides, this cave would always be dry. I lit a match, and, looking at the sand at my feet, discerned footmarks. This struck me as somewhat curious, especially as these footprints were apparently fresh, and some of them gave evidence that they had been made by a woman. Still, there was nothing to wonder about. I had frequently heard that the Cornish cliffs were honey-combed by caves, and that pleasure-parties visited them out of pure curiosity. Then something bright caught my eye, and, stooping down, I picked up a woman's brooch. I went outside and examined it, and saw immediately that it was apparently of value. It was quaintly formed, and suggested great age. I concluded that it was composed of dull gold fashioned centuries ago, while two stones of considerable value had been set in it. I speculated a little to whom it might belong, and, thinking that I might hear of some one who had lost such a valuable trinket, I placed it carefully in my pocket so that I might be able to return it to its owner. The sun by this time had increased in power, and, as the place was warm and sheltered, I sat on a great rock near, and gave myself up to fancy. How long I sat there I have no conception, but presently I was awakened to the fact that Simpson had become anxious about me. "It's all right, Simpson," I shouted in reply to his call. "I will come immediately." "Breakfast is quite ready, sir," I heard him say, "and I have been wondering where you had gone." As I made my way towards the lower part of the cliffs, where I thought I saw an easier way to my house than that by which I had descended, I happened to look back, and there, seated in a crevice at nearly the highest point of the cliff, I saw what seemed the form of a woman, and that she appeared to be watching me. A few seconds later I was hidden from her view by the copse into which I had entered. When I had descended half-way towards my house I was able to catch another glimpse of the place where she had been sitting, but she was no longer there. "I hope you haven't been anxious about me, Simpson?" I said, when I returned to the house. "Well, sir, I was a bit worried. You see, the cliffs are dangerous, and you didn't tell me you were going out. I am glad you are all right, sir. Breakfast is quite ready, sir. I cooked some more of that ham, as you seemed to like it so much last night, sir." "That's all right, Simpson; but before I have breakfast I must have another wash at the fountain." When I had taken off my coat I looked at my arms, and was shocked at their thinness. I looked into the little pond and saw the reflection of a tall, thin, attenuated man. I was positively ghastly. When I had finished my toilet I again glanced in the direction where I had seen the woman's form, but the place was hidden from my view. Nearer to me, however, and swayed by the breeze, I saw what I thought was like a woman's dress fluttering. It might be that she was interested in my movements. "I expect the people of the village have fears about me, as they had about Father Abraham," was my thought as I entered the house. No visitors called to see me, and I spent several days in absolute quietness. Although I had at first made up my mind to do so, I paid no visits to the village, and beyond the furtive watcher I have mentioned, I saw no one but Simpson. My first feelings of exhilaration had passed away, and I settled down, in spite of my resolve, to a kind of hermit's life. I still rejoiced in the beauty of the scene and took short walks in the neighborhood of my little dwelling-place, but saw no one. When I had been there a week a bad attack of my malady sent me to bed for three days. Simpson urged me to send for the doctor, but this I would not do. Rhomboid, who was at the head of his profession, had warned me that I should be subject to these attacks, and that they would come to me with increasing frequency until the end. He had also given me general instructions as to what I must do. What was the use, then, of calling in a local practitioner who would be utterly ignorant as to what to do in such a case as mine? At the end of three days I was better, and informed Simpson that I intended getting up. "Simpson," I said, as I sat in the comfortable chair which he had prepared for me, "you told me on the night we came here that you had been brought up a Wesleyan Methodist." "Yes, sir," was Simpson's reply. "Are you of that persuasion still?" "Well, yes, sir; I suppose so, sir." "Have you been to any of their chapels lately?" "Not very often, sir." "Is there a Wesleyan minister who lives at St. Issey?" "No, sir. You see, St. Issey Chapel is only one of the little places in the circuit. A minister, sir, lives five miles from here, and only comes about twice a quarter. I have the circuit plan here, sir. Would you like to see it?" "It would be a curiosity, anyhow," I replied, and a little later Simpson put a sheet of printed paper in my hand. This sheet informed me that St. Issey was in the Lanhydrock Circuit, and, with twelve other chapels, was supplied by two ministers and a number of other men called local preachers. "I see that the superintendent minister is called Mr. Bendle. Have you ever met him?" I asked. "No, sir; but I have heard that he is a very good man. When I was a boy, sir, St. Issey Chapel was crowded; but people don't go to Chapel as they used to." "No? How is that?" I asked. "Well, sir, it seems as though people have become very worldly, and many have given up Chapel-going altogether." "And the Parish Church--do many people go there?" "Just a few, sir; but not many, I am afraid." "I should like to know," I said. "Indeed, sir?" "Yes. The truth is, Simpson, seeing that the doctor tells me I have to die very soon, I should like to know whether any one could tell me about what happens after death." "I have a Bible here, sir," said Simpson. "It tells you all about it there." "Indeed," I said, "I have not read the Bible for years. I don't think I have looked inside one since I left Oxford. Do you read it, Simpson?" "Yes, sir. I read a chapter every night before going to bed." "Are you a Christian, Simpson?" "I hope so, sir," and he looked at me curiously. "Excuse me for asking," I said, "but as you are a Christian you will have ideas about these things." Simpson hesitated a few seconds, and then called to his aid his old formula, "Yes, sir; thank you, sir." "That being so, Simpson," I continued, "I want your opinion. Supposing I were to die to-night, what would become of me?" Simpson gave no answer. I think he wanted to be polite, but could not be truthful at the same time. "You see, Simpson," I interposed, "I have just had a severe shaking up, and, as Rhomboid told me that these attacks would come with increasing frequency and hasten the end, I have a natural curiosity as to what will happen when the end comes. It is not pleasant to think of becoming nothing, and as a belief in a future life is one of the tenets of the Christian faith, and as you tell me you are a Christian, I want to know, from your standpoint, what you think my destiny will be." "Excuse me, sir," said Simpson, "but you will not be offended if I ask something?" "Oh, no," I said, "go on." "Well, then, sir, have you ever been converted? Forgive me for asking, sir; I know you have always been a well-conducted young gentleman, and you have never gone wild like lots I know of, but all the same, sir, I have been taught that there are two places to which people go when they die--heaven and hell. The sheep which are on the right hand go straight to Abraham's bosom, and the goats which are on the left go into outer darkness, where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. The question is, sir, whether you belong to the sheep or the goats." "Exactly," I said; "but what constitutes the sheep and what constitutes the goats?" "That is where the question of conversion comes in," replied Simpson. "Except we become converted we cannot go to heaven." "Then your opinion is, Simpson, that as I have not been converted I must go to hell?" "Yes, sir; thank you, sir. I don't mean to offend, sir." "No, I am sure you don't, Simpson. Besides, I wanted a straight answer. Just now, however, the question of heaven and hell does not trouble me at all. It is rather a question as to whether there is anything at all after the grave." "Do you doubt it, sir?" "I am afraid I have had no opinions about it in the past, Simpson. You see, I have been so busy with my work that I have had no time to think about it. Now, however, when death stares me in the face, I am--well, a little bit curious. How do I know, and how do you know, that the millions of people who are dying every week in this world do not die just like flies? How can we prove that we are any better than they? Do we not sport in the sunshine during a brief space and then cease to be?" "Life would be a miserable one-sided business if it were so, sir. Wouldn't it?" "That is the question, Simpson. Did you ever read Omar Khayyam?" "What is it, sir?" "Ah, I see you have not read him. Omar Khayyam was an old Eastern poet who, in his philosophy and poetry, taught that we are just a part of an eternal round of things. We are born, we live, we propagate our species, we die, and so the thing goes on. But it is not a very cheerful doctrine, Simpson, and that was why I wondered if you, who profess to be a Christian, could give me some information." Simpson was silent. "Ah! I see," I said with a sigh. "You have a sort of traditional hope that there may be a sort of future life, and that you may get to what is called heaven, but you are not sure about it." "Well, sir, I am a very ignorant man on such matters," replied Simpson, "and, to tell you the truth, religion doesn't seem to be the fashion nowadays. All the same, it would be a grand thing if it were true." "Just so," I said, and for the first time I realized the necessity for some sort of faith which should be an anchor amid the storms of life. "Are you better now, sir?" asked Simpson. "Oh yes, considerably better," I replied. "I shall be able to walk about for the next few weeks, I hope." "Then, sir, may I advise you to go to Church or Chapel? The preachers there might be able to tell you." "A good idea," I cried. "I have not been to Church or Chapel since I left Oxford, and while there I only went because I was obliged to. I did enjoy the singing, though. Yes, Simpson, I will take your hint. I will go to Church on Sunday." "It's Sunday to-morrow, sir," was Simpson's reply. "Is it? I had forgotten. Then I will go to-morrow." "Where will you go, sir, to the Established Church or the Wesleyan Chapel?" "I will go to both, and hear what they have to say at both places." The next day was gloriously fine. A cool breeze blew, and out at sea "white horses" rode on the crests of the waves. Near the coast-line, too, was a long streak of foam. The air was pure and invigorating. In sheltered places it was warm and gracious. I allowed myself plenty of time to reach St. Issey by eleven o'clock, and, if the truth must be told, I was a little excited. I felt as though I was going on a tour of exploration. I had never been what is called a religious boy, and though I inherited from my father a high code of honor, religion made no appeal to me. I suppose that at the back of my mind I had an impression that there might be a life other than this, and that some great Eternal Force, which might or might not be personal, had created this and all other worlds. As to whether this Eternal Force had any interest in created life I did not trouble. The question was too remote, and, as far as I could see, admitted of only a conjectural answer. After leaving Oxford, I was too absorbed in my plans and ambitions to trouble about what seemed to me to be something really apart from life. I had never been a bad fellow. I had, as my acquaintances said of me, gone straight. Not that I had been a recluse in any way. For two or three years I went a good deal into society. I never had any serious love affairs, although I am afraid I indulged in some mild flirtations. I had a fair knowledge of current literature, and, although far from being a scholar, I had at the same time scholarly instincts. I had travelled on the Continent of Europe, had a fair knowledge of German and French, and during a long visit to Italy had managed to pick up the language of the people. I had also visited the old churches on the Continent, but had never troubled about what these churches stood for. As far as I could see, the old, stately cathedrals represented something that might have been a power at one time, but which had now passed away. They were interesting from an architectural and from an historical point of view; but as for anything deeper, it never came within the horizon of my vision. I was young, and, as I thought, healthy, and death seemed a long way off. Therefore, why should I trouble? But now death had come near. I do not know that I was frightened, and I was able calmly to face the prospect of annihilation. Nevertheless, that prospect was grim. I longed for life, more life, the completion of life. The life I had lived was, it seemed to me, fragmentary, incomplete, and, to a certain extent, chaotic. I do not know that I attached very much importance to my visit to the little Wesleyan Chapel. All the same, I was curious. If there should be anything beyond, if the man who got up to preach could tell me something which had been hidden from me, I would like to hear what he had to say. I walked very slowly and rejoiced in the glorious morning. As I drew near the village I noted the quiet restfulness of everything. The Church bells were ringing, and a few people were wending their way towards the old time-honored building. Very few people seemed to be making for the Wesleyan Chapel. Groups of youths were lounging around the lanes, smoking cigarettes and passing rustic jokes. Women were gossiping with each other from their cottage doors. There was no squalor anywhere, no poverty visible. Every one seemed to have enough to eat and drink. Every one seemed to be comfortably housed. I entered the little Chapel--a square, plain building, capable of seating perhaps three or four hundred people. It was five minutes to eleven when I entered, and not a soul was there, except a man whom I took to be the Chapel-keeper. He looked at me curiously. By eleven o'clock there might be, all told, thirty people there, mostly elderly men and women. Some young girls were there, and a few children; young men were conspicuous by their absence. When eleven o'clock came perhaps a dozen more came from some vestry, and entered what I took to be the choir-seats. They were nearly all young women. Perhaps during the first ten minutes of the service half a score more came into the Chapel. I am giving these details because I want to tell exactly what I saw, especially as I have discovered that from a religious standpoint St. Issey village is typical of hundreds more all over the county. At about three minutes after eleven a man entered the pulpit. As far as I could judge he was a working man, or he might be a farmer, a carpenter, or a tradesman of some sort. Let it be understood that I came to this place of worship hungering to know something of the deeper things of life. I wanted to be assured that there was another life greater than this, a life which should be the consummation and explanation of this. The preacher commenced by announcing a hymn; a lad at the harmonium played over the tune, and the people sang. Let me confess here that the singing moved me. The Cornish people, whatever their defects or virtues, possess the gift of song. They had sweet, musical voices, and they sang heartily. The words, as I remember them, were of an emotional nature, and were evidently written by some one who deeply believed in what he wrote; but it was evident that very few of the congregation realized the meaning of the words they were singing. There was no sense of reality, no great assurance, no vision. It seemed to be a repetition of something which had been, rather than the expression of something that was vital to them then. Still, I was interested. The hymn made me think of far-away things. At any rate, while no mighty conviction possessed the singers, they accepted the words as containing a kind of traditional truth. I reflected that the hymn _had_ meant something, whatever it might mean now. While the last verse was being sung, I noticed that the congregation turned round, as if some one of importance had entered. I also turned, and saw a man and woman just making their way into a back pew. The man was about fifty years of age, and was evidently a personality. At first I did not know how to classify him. He might be the Squire of the parish, but I was sure he was not. There was something lacking in him; something positive, too, which did not suggest an old landed proprietor. That he was prosperous and important there could be no doubt. He looked like one accustomed to command, and suggested a big banking account. His companion was, as I imagined, his daughter, a young woman of, say, twenty-three or twenty-four years of age. I saw by her dress that she did not belong to the class of which the rest of the congregation was composed. Although by no means a connoisseur of such things, I knew enough of woman's attire to be sure that her clothes had been made by an artist, and probably came either from London or Paris. During the next few minutes I gave furtive glances towards her, and was not impressed favorably. She was good-looking, almost strikingly so; but she seemed to me to have no soul. She looked around the building as though she had come there under protest. She gave not the slightest evidence that the service meant anything to her. The man in the pulpit was, I suppose, of more intelligence than the ordinary man of his class, and having said that, I have said all. I did not want to be critical. I hungered for food, for light. I reflected that Simpson had told me that congregations had fallen off and that there seemed to be no eagerness about religion as there had been thirty years before. I did not wonder at that if this man was a fair exponent of it. By what right or by what authority he was there I do not know, and how he dared to pretend to tell people about the deep things of life I could not imagine. After he had been preaching a few minutes he appeared to get, according to the phraseology which I have since heard, "warmed to his subject." This meant that he shouted, and on two or three occasions struck the Bible; but, taken as a whole, it was the parrot-like utterance of an ignorant man. I am almost tempted to give a detailed description of his discourse, but I will not do so. I am too heart-sore at the thought of it. What help was there for me, a poor wretch with his death-warrant signed? What help was there for the people who sat stolidly in their pews? Why should the boys and girls of the villages or the toil-worn laboring men and women go there? I could see no reason. As far as I could judge, the presence of the man and his daughter in the back pew and I myself, the stranger who had taken up his abode in a wooden hut, attended only by a man-servant, was of far more interest to the people than what the man had to say. I left with a heavy heart. At any rate, I received no assurance of any life after death. I was no nearer conviction of anything which goes by the name of spiritual. As I made my way to the door an old man came up and spoke to me. "Mornin', sir. Glad to see you." "Thank you," I said. "You bean't from these parts, be you?" he asked curiously. "No," I replied. "I hope you enjoyed the service," he ventured. "I enjoyed the singing very much," was my reply. The old man's eyes twinkled. I saw that he understood. "You ded'n feel the presence of the Maaster, ded 'ee, then, sir?" I was silent. He seemed to be on the point of saying something more, but he refrained. Perhaps he thought he would be taking too great a liberty. As I left the building and walked quietly away, I noticed that the man and the girl whom I took to be his daughter were watching me. They evidently wondered who I was. I did not say anything to Simpson on my return about my experiences at the Chapel, and he asked no questions. When evening came I made my way to the Established Church. Somehow, the memory of the old man's eyes when he spoke to me at the Chapel door remained with me. I had a feeling that he knew more than the preacher. Directly I entered the time-honored building, which had stood there since pre-Reformation days, a feeling of restfulness came into my heart. Architecture has always made a strong appeal to me, and this low-roofed, many-pillared edifice, with its worm-eaten pews, its granite flooring and its sense of age, brought a kind of balm to my troubled spirit. I noticed that time had eaten away even the old gray granite of which the pillars were composed, that the footsteps of many generations had worn the hard Cornish granite slabs which floored the aisles. The evening light was subdued as it shone through the stained-glass windows. The ivy which grew outside, and partially covered some of the leaded lights, somehow gave a feeling of restfulness to everything. I heard the birds twittering in the tree-branches in the churchyard, while the bell which called the people to Church was reminiscent of olden time. In my imagination I saw people who lived hundreds of years before, with the light of unquestioning faith in their eyes, coming to worship in the Church of their fathers. A few people entered, and my vision vanished. This old Church represented only something that _had_ been; something that had had its day, and was gone; something that was maintained because of its past, and because nothing better had appeared to take its place. A dozen choir-boys found their way into their stalls. The clergyman assumed his appointed place. The congregation was very small. All counted, I suppose there would not be forty people present, and most of these looked to me like servant lads and girls. I remembered the clergyman's name. Simpson had told me he was called Trelaske. A good old Cornish name, and I reflected that, anyhow, he would be a gentleman. I watched him closely, and I saw a fine, aristocratic-looking man, with a clean-cut, almost classical face. He conducted the service with dignity. He read the sentences of which the Church service is composed correctly and with intelligence. While he read in his natural voice, I was interested; when he intoned, a sense of unreality possessed me. As we went through the service a thousand memories flooded my mind. I had heard these prayers, and read the Psalms a hundred times at Oxford and at Winchester. Memories of old days came flashing back to me, and I was a boy again in the school chapel, listening to old "Thunder and Lightning," as we used to call him, preaching to us. Presently Mr. Trelaske entered the pulpit and gave out his text: "If a man die, shall he live again?" "Now," I thought to myself, "I am going to get something. Here is a man who is set apart to teach people the Christian faith, and he is going to deal with that phase of his faith in which I am really interested." I think he noticed me in his congregation, for he looked curiously towards me more than once. I rather liked him, too. As I said, he was evidently a gentleman, and doubtless had been to Oxford or Cambridge. Possibly he had been at my own College. In about ten minutes his homily was finished. When I try to remember what he said, I am reminded of a story I have since heard. A popular preacher came to Cornwall and preached to a crowded congregation. On the following day this popular preacher saw an old miner, to whom he spoke in a familiar fashion. "Well, Tommy," he said, "what did you think about my sermon last night?" "What ded I think about it?" repeated Tommy. "Yes," said the popular preacher, "what did you think about it?" "I ded'n think there was nothin' to think about," was Tommy's reply. That was my summing-up of Mr. Trelaske's sermon. There was nothing to think about. I had come to Church curious to know--ay, and more than curious; I was longing to know if life promised anything beyond the grave, but the Church gave no answer to my question. In place of burning conviction, there were empty platitudes. In place of vision, there was only the sound of a child crying in the night. "In God's name," I asked myself as I went back to my little habitation, "why should people go to Church or to Chapel? What is there for them but boredom?" I did not want argument, I did not want learning; but I wanted conviction, light, vision--and there were none of these things. When I got back to my house I found that Simpson had returned. "Have you been to Chapel, Simpson?" I asked. "Yes, sir; thank you, sir. People have been asking a lot of questions about you, sir." "Oh, indeed!" "Yes, sir. Mr. Josiah Lethbridge asked me about you, sir. He lives in that big house up by Trecarrel Lane. He is a great mine-owner and ship-owner, sir." "Indeed," I said. "Has he any children?" "Yes, sir. One son and one daughter. Is that all you need, sir?" And Simpson gave the finishing touches to his arrangement of my supper-table. Before I went to bed that night I stood under the veranda of my little house and looked seaward. In the dying light of the day I could still see the giant cliffs stretching away northward. I could also see the long line of foam where the waves broke upon the shore. I heard the sea-birds crying, too. "If a man die, shall he live again?" I said, repeating the words of the text I had heard that night, but no answer came. I went to bed wondering. IV THREE VISITORS On the day following nothing happened, and excepting Simpson I did not see a single person. Indeed, but for one occasion, when out of curiosity I clambered down to the beach, I did not leave the house; but on the Tuesday I had a regular influx of visitors. No less than three persons came to see me, to say nothing of Mrs. Martha Bray, who, in fulfilment of her promise to Simpson, came over to see whether her services were further needed. My first visitor was an entire stranger. He came ostensibly to ask for a drink of milk, but really I believe out of curiosity, for when Simpson had, at my request, supplied him with the milk, he showed no desire to leave. Rather he appeared much interested in my reasons for coming to St. Issey. He was a middle-aged man, say from forty-five to fifty, and lived, he told me, at St. Eia. He proved a rather clever conversationalist, too, for in spite of myself I found myself talking to him freely. There were all sorts of rumors about Father Abraham, he told me. Some had it that he was mad; some said that he was a refugee; others, again, thought he had in the past committed some crime and was hiding from justice, while more than once it had been whispered that his end was the result of a kind of vendetta which was sworn against him because of something he did in his young manhood. "Have you any theories yourself, sir?" he asked. "No," I replied, "I have no theories. I must confess, however, to being a little interested. The old man evidently had a purpose in building the house, and, I think, intended it to be a permanent residence. As you see, although it is composed of wood, it is very carefully built, and was intended to last. For the life of me, however, I can hardly believe he was murdered. Of course, there was blood found upon the floor, but it is not easy to dispose of a body even so near the sea. From what I can hear no one has been washed up here, and but for the marks of struggle and the blood no one would have thought he was murdered." "Exactly," replied my visitor. "But many things are going on of which we know nothing, and many people have purposes in life which they have no desire to make known. What is your opinion of European politics?" "I cannot say I have any very fixed ideas," I replied. "A section of the Press," went on my visitor, "would have us believe that we are on the verge of war, and certainly there have been indications these last few years that we are standing on the brink of a volcano. Do you believe in the stories told about Germany?" "What stories?" I asked. "Oh, that the Germans are preparing for war, and that they mean to go to war with England." To this I gave no answer. "Have you read those articles in _The Daily_----?" he asked. "I mean those articles which told us frightful stories of German preparations for war, of their avowed determination to bring about war with England, and of the toast which the military and naval people in Germany drink on every great occasion." "You mean the toast to 'Der Tag'? Of course, one has heard such stories, but what do they amount to, after all?" "That is my own attitude," was his answer, "and as far as stories about German spies are concerned, I think they are worked up by the Press in order to increase the circulation of the papers. By the way, have you ever seen anything suspicious in this neighborhood? This," and he looked towards the bay, "would be a splendid spot for German boats to land if they wanted to do so." "Why should they want to land in a remote corner of the world like this?" I asked. "Exactly," he replied, "only I was wondering whether you, who live here alone, had ever seen or heard anything which aroused your suspicions?" "No," I replied, not thinking it worth while to tell him anything about the brooch I had found. "You have seen nothing and heard nothing, then?" he persisted. "I have only been here a short time," I replied. "Why do you ask?" "I only wondered, that is all. The people over at St. Eia say that foreigners have been sneaking around trying to pick up information, and I wondered whether you had heard anything." "No," I replied, "nothing at all." "I suppose," he said, "that these cliffs here are honey-combed with caves? Have you seen any of them?" "Yes," I replied. "I saw one the day after I came here. I came upon it suddenly, for the entrance to it is only a fissure in the rocks." "Ah!" he cried. "Did you enter?" "Yes," was my reply, "but it was not at all mysterious. I could see all round it by the aid of a match, and it contained nothing. Of course, it was very curious and very interesting." "But you saw nothing suspicious?" he asked. I shook my head. My visitor did not remain long after this, and although for a time I wondered why he should be so interested, I soon ceased to pay attention to his questions. Perhaps I should have thought more about him, but just before noon I had another visitor. This was a young fellow about twenty-two years of age, whom I knew to be an Oxford man before he had spoken a dozen words. "My name is Lethbridge," he said. "My people live up at Trecarrel yonder, and I came--well, I came really at my pater's request." "Indeed," I said, looking at him curiously. "Yes; you were at Chapel on Sunday morning, weren't you?" "I was," I replied. "Well, my pater and sister were there, and the pater wondered very much who you were. In the evening, contrary to his usual custom, he went a second time, and saw your servant, who told him who you were. Directly the pater mentioned your name, I remembered hearing it in Oxford. You are an Oxford man, aren't you?" "Yes. I was at Balliol." "So was I. I left last June. You are often spoken of by the men. Indeed, I had your old rooms. You will excuse the liberty we took in talking about you, won't you? but really we have very little to interest us in this corner of the world." "You are very kind to come," I replied. "When I told my father who you were, he suggested that I should come down and ask you to come up to dinner. You see, we had heard of some one coming to live in old Father Abraham's hut, and when it turned out to be you, we got interested. You will forgive this informal method of procedure, won't you? But if you will come up and spend an evening with us soon, we shall all be jolly glad." "I am afraid I am too ill to come," I replied. "You do look a bit seedy," was his response, "but the air down here is ripping. It will soon set you up again." "I am afraid I am too far gone for that," was my reply, "but if I am well enough, I shall be only too glad to come." "Say to-morrow night," he said. "If you will leave it an open question," was my reply, "I will say yes, but if I am too ill, you will understand the reason for my absence." He looked at me closely. "Is it as bad as that?" "I am afraid it is," and I sighed when I spoke, for at that moment a wave of desire for life rolled over me. "May I smoke?" he asked, pulling out his pipe. "Please forgive me," I said. "I will tell Simpson to bring some cigars." "Oh no, thank you. A pipe for me, please. By the way, I did not know you were of the Chapel-going order. The one reason I doubted it was you was because my father said you were at the little Wesleyan Chapel." "I went there out of curiosity, I am afraid. I was wondering whether these people had anything to say to a man whose days were numbered." "I go there twice a year," was his reply. "I used to go regularly when a boy. Do you intend to stay long down here, by the way?" "To the end, I expect," I said, shrugging my shoulders. "Come, now, we will not talk like that. I am sorry to see you looking so seedy. You were always spoken of in Oxford as an athlete. You got your Blue, didn't you?" "Yes," I replied; "but one never knows what germs of disease one has in one's system. However, we will not talk about that. It is awfully good of you to ask me to come up to your house." "Rather it will be awfully good of you if you come," he replied. "What a jolly fine view you have here. The old man who built this hut chose one of the most beautiful positions on the whole coast. How did you find it out?" "Simpson, my man, did that for me," was my reply. "He was a boy down here, he says, and when I told him I had to get away from London, he came down here on spec. I consider myself very lucky." "I am afraid you will find it a bit lonely in the winter, won't you? The sea is all right when the sun is shining on it, but in winter, when the clouds are black, I know of nothing more dismal. Besides, those black, beetling cliffs are enough to strike terror into one's soul." I must confess to liking young Lethbridge. He was an athletic, healthy-looking young fellow, tanned by much exposure to the sun, and his every look and movement suggested frankness and honesty. I did not judge him to be very clever, but he was certainly likeable. "You were doing very well at the Bar, weren't you?" he went on. "Our chaps at Balliol spoke of you as one who would bring added lustre to the old College." "I was only just beginning to see light," was the reply. "I was lucky in one of the cases I had, and won it by a fluke. That was why briefs were beginning to come in. But I have got to the end of them now. What do you do with yourself?" "That is the hang of it," he replied. "I am doing nothing. The pater wanted me to go in for the Law, and then try for Parliament. He has an idea that I ought to represent one of the Cornish constituencies, but I am not cut out for that sort of thing." "What would you like to be?" I asked. "Oh, a farmer," he replied. "If, instead of spending all the money he has spent in sending me to Oxford, the pater had bought a thousand acres of land and set me up farming, I should be as happy as a king, but law books are just Sanskrit to me. I love an open-air life, and I love horses and animals generally. The pater won't see things in my light, however; that is why I am doing nothing. I wish you would tell him when you come up that none but brainy men can do anything at the Bar. Well, it is close upon lunch-time, and I must go. But you will be sure to come, won't you? Look here, let's have an understanding. I will send the motor down to the end of the lane to-morrow evening at seven o'clock, and then, if you cannot come, you can send your man out to tell the chauffeur. But be sure to come, if you can." When he had gone I somehow felt better. His very presence was healthful, and I looked forward with pleasure to meeting him again. "You have been quite busy this morning, sir," said Simpson when he came in to lay the table for my lunch. "Two visitors in one day in a neighborhood like this is something wonderful." "Yes," I replied, "and I like young Lethbridge." "I hear he is a great trouble to his father, sir." I did not reply to this. "You see, sir, old Mr. Lethbridge wants him to marry into a county family. The truth is, when I was a boy down here he was only a poor lad. How he has got on in the way he has is a mystery to every one. Somehow or other everything he touched turned to money, and now he is richer than Mr. Treherne, the Squire. He is very ambitious, too, and wants to get in with the county people. That is why people wonder at his sticking to the Wesleyan Chapel." "But how has young Lethbridge caused him trouble?" I asked. "Well, sir, it is said that he's in love with a farmer's daughter, and that the old gentleman says he will cut him off with a shilling if he doesn't make up to Miss Treherne. Of course, people will talk, and maybe it is only gossip." I felt more interested than ever in young Lethbridge after this, although I was rather annoyed with myself that I had listened to servants' gossip. All the same, I believed there might be some truth in what I had heard. There was a look in the young fellow's eyes which suggested that the deepest longings in his heart were unsatisfied. Before the day was over, the old adage which says that it never rains but it pours was fulfilled in my case. Simpson had only just brought my tea when he came to me with an important look on his face. "Mr. Trelaske, the Vicar, has called to see you, sir." "Good!" I replied. "Show him in." "I hope you will forgive the liberty I am taking," said the Vicar on entering, "but, as you are one of my parishioners, and I was told you were at Church on Sunday evening, I thought I might call." "It is very kind of you," I said. "You have just come in time for tea, too. Won't you sit down?" Mr. Trelaske did not look so imposing, as he sat in my little room, as when wearing his clerical robes in Church. He seemed a smaller man, not simply physically--his personality seemed less as he drew a chair up to the table and took a cup of tea from Simpson. "I suppose you know that you are the subject of a great deal of discussion in St. Issey?" he said presently. "I'm very flattered," was my reply. "Well, for a man to come to St. Issey with a man-servant, and take up his abode in old Father Abraham's cottage, has set all the gossips in the village working overtime." "Mrs. Grundy lives here, then?" "Well, you know what we country people are. St. Issey is out of the beaten track of tourists, although there isn't a prettier spot in England, and no healthier for that matter. As for the coast scenery round here, it is, in my opinion, the most beautiful in the whole country. Anyhow, a stranger attracts a great deal of notice. Then, you see, this hut is a mystery." "Yes, I have heard all about that," I replied, "but I dare say a great deal of the mystery has been magnified. Anyhow, it suits me entirely; it is situated in one of the most lovely spots in the vicinity. It is utterly quiet, and yet it is not altogether out of the world." "Might one ask, Mr. Erskine," he said, turning to me suddenly, "why you came to this part of the world?" "I came here to die," I replied. He stared at me curiously. "To die, Mr. Erskine?" he said. "Yes," I replied. "I have been given a year to live--at the outside. It may be that I shall only last a month or two. When I told my man Simpson about it, and said I wanted to die in the most pleasant place possible, and to do it rather cheaply, he came down here and took this house." "Y-you do look rather seedy," he stammered. "But surely it is not so bad as that?" "Dr. Rhomboid, who is at the head of his profession, examined me very carefully, and that was the verdict he passed. That was why I went to Church last Sunday night." "I don't think I quite understand you," and the Vicar looked at me as though he doubted my sanity. "You are an Oxford man, aren't you?" he went on. "At least, that is what I have heard; and you were a barrister, and have won some repute in that direction?" "With the exception of your last sentence, you have been correctly informed," was my reply. "What I have told you is quite true, nevertheless. It is also true that I went to Church last Sunday night because of what Dr. Rhomboid told me," and I looked at his face curiously, because I wanted to see how he would take it. "No," I continued, "I am not an illustration of the old rhyme: "The devil was sick, the devil a monk would be, The devil was well, and the devil a monk was he! It is not that at all; but do you know, Mr. Trelaske, when a man is suddenly told that he has only a year to live, and may possibly die in a few weeks, he is, to say the least of it, somewhat curious to know what will happen after he is dead. I repeat, that is why I went to Church last Sunday night." "Yes, yes, certainly," and I thought he seemed a little bit uneasy. "Mr. Trelaske," I said, "what happens to a man after he is dead?" He was silent for a few seconds, and again he looked at me as if he doubted my sanity. "I am not joking," I persisted. "After all, it is a matter of some interest to me, and as you are a clergyman, and as a belief in a future life is one of the articles of the faith you preach, I thought I would ask your opinion about it." "But surely, Mr. Erskine," he said, "you are not a heathen. You are an old 'Varsity man. You took an arts degree, and would, to say the least of it, have had to study the Greek Testament. You know what is taught there." "Excuse me," was my reply, "but that doesn't quite meet the situation. It is quite true, as you say, that I had to study the New Testament at Oxford, and also while at school at Winchester I was in a Confirmation Class; but all that kind of thing is a long way off. It is simply traditional, and when a man comes down to the depths of life traditions don't count. It is true that I have not read the New Testament lately, not, indeed, since I left Oxford. I am like thousands of other fellows, who, on going out into the world, give these things the go-by. Years ago I suppose I held to the traditional faith, although I have troubled very little about it; but now, as things are, I am interested--I am more than interested. What will happen to me a few months hence, when I am dead? Anything?" I could quite see that he was surprised at the course the conversation was taking, and that he had no expectation of being asked such questions; but now that I had spoken, I meant to know all that he could tell me. "Our state in the future," was his reply, "depends on the life we have lived here." "Isn't that rather begging the question?" I asked. "You are assuming something which, as it seems to me, is a matter of doubt. No, do not mistake me, I haven't lived a bad life. I have not descended to the vulgar vices which are supposed to be so common to men in these days. I have, as my acquaintances say of me, 'gone straight.' I listened very attentively to your sermon on Sunday night. You see, I was more than ordinarily interested. Your text was, 'If a man die, shall he live again?' Will he, Mr. Trelaske?" "Of course," was his reply. "Are you _sure_?" I asked, emphasizing the word. "Hasn't it been the teaching of the Church from its earliest history?" and he looked a little indignant. "Excuse me, but if you will forgive me for saying so, the teaching of the Church is the very thing in question. As you may imagine, I do not ask the question out of idle curiosity; I am deeply interested, vitally interested. Mr. Trelaske, are you sure, if I were to die to-night, that there would be anything after? Mind you, I do not ask for a mere opinion; we all have those, but is it a matter of certainty with you?" "As I said on Sunday night," he replied, after some silence, "spiritual things are spiritually discerned; and immortality is a matter of the spirit, isn't it?" "I am afraid I don't follow you," I replied. "As you said just now, I am a lawyer, and my business for several years has been to test evidence. After I have tested the evidence that has been brought in support of any particular case, it has been my business to convince the jury that the evidence is conclusive. If I don't convince the jury, of course I fail to win my case. Your answer suggests that I lack the qualities to understand the proofs in support of the doctrine you taught on Sunday night. Perhaps you are right; probably I have so neglected what you call the spiritual part of me that it has become atrophied. I will put it in another way, then, and, believe me, it is furthest from my desire to be impertinent. Supposing you were to die to-night--you, an ordained clergyman--are you _sure_ there is a life beyond?" Mr. Trelaske was silent. "Forgive my asking you," I said. "I am afraid I have been frightfully rude; but you see, living here alone, with the doctor's verdict constantly before me, I am curious to know." "Not at all, not at all," he said hastily, "I am very glad you asked me; but the question is so sudden. I do not think that during the whole time I have lived in St. Issey any one has asked me such a thing before, at least not in the same way." "I was wrong," I said; "please forgive me." I could see that I had made him miserable. The look in his eyes told me that. As I said before, Mr. Trelaske was evidently a gentleman, and he wanted to be absolutely honest with me. All the same, his silence made my heart heavy. Although I had, in a way, made up my mind that there was nothing after death, the thought of becoming nothing was grim and repellent. "Look here, Mr. Erskine," he said, after a somewhat painful silence, "you must come to the Vicarage and see me. I will think over what you have said, and then perhaps I shall be better prepared to meet the situation." From that time the conversation drifted to general matters, and when the Vicar left me, it was on the understanding that I should, at an early date, spend an evening with him. V AN EMERGING MYSTERY After the Vicar had gone I suffered a slight reaction. My mind was almost abnormally active, but physically I felt utterly languid and depressed. I could see that Simpson was watching me closely, and when I did not do justice to the dinner he had provided he was almost as depressed as I. "I could not help hearing what you and the Vicar were talking about, sir," he said presently. "I tried not to listen, but some things came to me in spite of myself." "You heard nothing very edifying, Simpson." "No, sir; all the same, I was sorry for you." "Sorry for me! Why?" "Well, sir, I think I understand how you feel. I am only a poor, ignorant man, sir, but I think I should feel something the same myself. Mr. Trelaske did not help you much, did he?" "Well, he did not seem any more sure than you did, Simpson." "Yes, sir; I cannot understand it. I was at the death-bed of my father, sir; he was what you would call an old-fashioned Methodist. He was not clever or learned, or anything of that sort; but he was very sure, sir." "Sure of what, Simpson?" "Sure that he was going to heaven; sure that this life was only a school for a greater life, sir. I am afraid I have not put it very well, but he was what the Vicar says he isn't--sure. What I can't understand, sir, is that religion seems to have no meaning nowadays. I was hoping that when I got down here I should find things the same as they were when I left home forty years ago. Then, sir, religion meant something; it doesn't now. They say the same words at Chapel as they used to say, but they do not mean the same things." "You mean that religion is dead altogether, then, Simpson?" "I don't mean that, sir. I only mean that people seem to have lost it. It seems a terrible thing, doesn't it, sir, that when a young gentleman like you wants to know something, and you go to Chapel, and to Church, to learn the thing they ought to be able to tell you, you find out that they know no more than you do? However, sir, it isn't for me to criticize. Is there anything more I can do for you, sir?" "No, nothing at present, Simpson;" and I turned to the book-shelves that he had fitted up, hoping to find a book that would interest me. In this, however, I utterly failed. I turned from volume to volume, but could fasten my mind on nothing. Books which a few months ago would have enabled me to pass a pleasant evening seemed meaningless and absurd. I turned from one writer to another, but always with the same result. What they had to say meant nothing. Of course, my mind was in an abnormal condition, but that was not my fault. Here was I, face to face with death, hungering for reality, hungering for truths that were vital. My law books repelled me. What did I care about old Acts of Parliament, passed hundreds of years before? Of what interest to me were the decisions of old judges, long since dead? They affected only some nice points of law, which, as far as I could see, mattered nothing. They never touched the depths of life at all. Then there were novels, many of them written by men and women I knew personally. But they had nothing to say to me. I did not care a fig about paltry intrigues, neither was I in the slightest degree interested in _risqué_ situations. I went to the door, and looked out into the silent night. Daylight had just gone, and that kind of atmosphere which can only be felt just after sunset and just before sunrise, pervaded everything. The air was full of mystery. The wondrous depths of the sky, the wide sweep of the Atlantic, the cry of the sea-birds, and that deep hush which accompanies the dying day, aroused infinite longings. What was life, its meaning, its mystery, its destiny? Simpson came to my side. "I beg your pardon, sir, but you are not going out, are you?" I had not thought of it, but his words caused me to determine to go for a walk. "Yes, Simpson, I am," I replied. "Shall I go with you, sir?" "No, thank you, Simpson, I will go alone." "Excuse me, sir, but are you not foolish? Walking in the night might do you harm, sir; it might shorten your days." "What does that matter?" I asked. "As the end is so near, of what consequence are a few days, or, for that matter, weeks? The sooner I die, the sooner I shall solve the great mystery of the Beyond, if there is a Beyond; if there isn't, what have I to live for here?" "I beg your pardon, sir, I am very sorry." And Simpson sighed. I put on a light overcoat, and made my way to the highest point of the cliffs. Beneath me, far down, perhaps three or four hundred feet, the waves rolled on the black, rugged rocks. As I looked seaward, the water, as it seemed to me, became darker and darker. The lines of foam, which stretched along by the coast, became more and more distinct. Night had now fallen. The sky was star-spangled. I had never seen such a sky in England before. Once or twice down by the Mediterranean I had seen something similar, but never in my own country. I felt as though invisible presences were near me, as though they were trying to speak to me; but I could not understand the language. Unmindful of consequences, I sat down on the heather, and gave myself up to fancy. I tried to pierce the veil which hung between me and the Beyond. I tried to understand the meaning of the far-off voices which were wafted to me by the night breezes. I wanted to read the riddle of Life and Death. Then, suddenly, I heard voices, and I was brought back from things intangible and mysterious to things mundane. "You are sure he knows nothing?" It was a woman's voice I heard. "Perfectly sure. I questioned him closely this morning. I so framed my questions that he could have no suspicion--but always with the same result." "But why should he choose a place like this? Surely, if he is ill, dying, he would never come to a madman's hut, in a place where murder was supposed to be committed." "I tell you that there is no need for fear; he suspects nothing--he is just what he seems to be." The voices died away. The man and woman whom I had heard talking, and whom I had dimly seen, descended the hill, and were lost in the darkness. Then it was that, in spite of myself, I became interested in things mundane. Why they should do so I could not imagine, but I felt that they had been talking about me. But why should they? What was the purport of their conversation? How had I become mixed up in the plans of people of whom I knew nothing? I felt myself at the centre of a mystery, and my interest in that mystery caused the greater mystery of Life and Death to lose its hold on me. I recognized the voice of the man. He had been to see me soon after my arrival; but who was the woman? What interest could my movements have to her? She spoke like one having authority, and it was evident that she feared I should discover something. I forgot my ailments, forgot the tragedy of my life, in trying to solve this new riddle. I could not help connecting it with the old-fashioned brooch I had picked up in the cave accidentally the day I had come to Cornwall. The activities and interests in this life again became paramount. "I will get to the bottom of this, anyway," I said to myself as I made my way back to my hut. "It will be better for me, too, than to be forever brooding about myself. And, after all, while I am alive I will live, and I will keep my eyes and ears open until I have discovered what this means." When I reached my little room again, Simpson awaited me eagerly. "Please, sir," he said, "I have had visitors." "More visitors, Simpson?" "Yes, sir, a gentleman and a lady." "Do you know who they are?" "No, sir; they are both complete strangers. They came and asked to see you, and I told them you were not to be seen, sir. They asked a good many questions about you, but I told them nothing." "And then, Simpson?" "The gentleman gave me his card, with his compliments, sir." I took the card and read the address: MR. JOHN LIDDICOAT, THE HILL TOP, ST. EIA. "All right, Simpson," I said. "I shan't want you any more to-night." "Please, sir," said Simpson, "I have some books here which I think might interest you." "Hang books!" I replied. "I don't feel like reading." Then, feeling ashamed of myself for not appreciating Simpson's kindness, I added, "It's awfully good of you, Simpson, and I might like them after all. What is it you have got?" "John Wesley's _Journal_, sir. He came to this part of Cornwall, and I thought you might like to read about it. Not that I should advise you to read to-night, sir, if I might take such a liberty, but perhaps to-morrow. Good-night, sir." And he left me. I was just on the point of going to bed, when, on opening one of the volumes he had placed on the table, I came upon a passage which interested me. I saw that the name of St. Issey was mentioned, and a description given of this very neighborhood. In a few minutes I had become utterly absorbed. Hitherto John Wesley had only been a name to me. I had had no interest either in his life or work. I had looked upon him as somewhat of a fanatic, who had appealed to the fears of a superstitious people, and had founded a sect. Now, however, he revealed himself to me in a new light. This diary was the work of a thoughtful man, and a cultured man, too, who had lived his life to the full, and who faced its issues squarely. My word, religion had meant something to him! It was not a mere name, a tradition, a set of dogmas, a respectable institution. It was something real, vital, pulsating with life. To him the Founder of Christianity was not a mere mystic and social reformer, who lived nineteen hundred years ago on a little strip of land on the Eastern Coast of the Mediterranean, but a Divine Person, Who lived now. This John Wesley, who was an educated man and a thoughtful man, spoke like one who knew, and because of it he had authority and power. I went on reading page after page, until, looking at my watch, I found it was past midnight. VI THE LETHBRIDGE FAMILY We had adjourned to the smoke-room, and for my own part, I was feeling better than I had felt for some time. Opposite me sat Mr. Lethbridge, while by my side sat young Hugh Lethbridge, who had been to see me the day before. I had eaten a good dinner, and felt inclined to take a bright view of everything. Mr. Lethbridge had played the part of host perfectly, and had done his best to make me feel welcome, not only as a visitor in the neighborhood, but in his house. I had the opportunity, moreover, of making the acquaintance of his wife and daughter. The former was a well-meaning lady, whose _métier_ was to manage other people's affairs. While we were at dinner she gave her husband a great deal of information as to how he should manage his men, how he should work the mines he owned, and how the vessels he controlled should be utilized. She also informed her son how he should spend his time, what his amusements and avocations should be. She greatly amused us all by describing what she would do if she were a girl again. She had opinions about everything in heaven above and on earth beneath. I found that she knew intimately the history of every family in the neighborhood, and she took it upon herself to manage the affairs of those families. She might be rather a tiresome person to live with, but for my own part I found her vastly entertaining. Young Hugh Lethbridge told her that he intended writing to the Prime Minister, offering her services as general adviser to the Government, while her daughter laughingly remarked that she would wear herself out in attending to the affairs of people who had a distinct preference for attending to their own business. Mrs. Lethbridge took it all in a good humor, however, and seemed to regard it as her chief business to be a universal helper. She even went so far as to instruct me how I might deal with Simpson, and gave me a great deal of valuable advice on housekeeping. I found that Isabella Lethbridge was entirely different from her mother. On the whole she puzzled me. That she was intelligent there could be no doubt whatever. In many ways she was attractive, but on the whole I did not like her. For one thing, I thought she showed bad taste in holding up her mother to ridicule, while more than once I thought she revealed an almost sullen disposition. Still, she was interesting. She was more than ordinarily good-looking, and at times became quite animated. The family, as a whole, did not strike me as ideal. They seemed to be at cross-purposes with each other. I could see that Mr. Lethbridge did not at all understand his son, and resented any difference of opinion which might exist between them. He apparently regarded Hugh as a boy who should unquestioningly obey his father's behests without regard to his own feelings and opinions; and yet he seemed to be angry with him for not being something in the world which would give him a position among his fellow-men. And yet I am sure Mr. Lethbridge meant well. He was, as I have before suggested, a strong, capable man, and fully bore out what I had heard concerning him. He could never have been a nonentity, wherever he was placed, and whatever he took in hand he would do with such conscientiousness and thoroughness as to make it succeed. Consequently, it was no wonder that he had risen from a poor lad to be a man of wealth and of eminence in the county. That he was exceedingly ambitious there could be no doubt, and I judged that he was a little bit sore that all his ambitions had not been realized. He seemed composed of contradictory elements. On one hand, he seemed a man of the Napoleonic order, who would make everything and every person yield to his desires. On the other, I judged him to be a man who wanted to be strictly honest and conscientious, a man who would not give up one iota of his convictions, even if by so doing he could gain the things he desired. Although no plain statement was made at the dinner-table to that effect, I gathered that he had suffered socially because of his adherence to what he termed his Nonconformist principles, and that he would have taken his position among the county families had he not remained true to the Chapel he had attended as a boy. On the other hand, however, that same Chapel, as it seemed to me, was a fetish rather than something which vitally affected his life. I am spending some time in recording my impressions about this family, because I was brought into close contact with it in later days, and also because the various members of it affected me considerably. "Yes," said Mr. Lethbridge, as we sat in the smoke-room, "I am an old-fashioned man, Mr. Erskine. I do not believe in giving up my early convictions simply because they are not popular." "What are your early convictions?" asked Hugh. "I mean my Nonconformist principles. See what Methodism has done for Cornwall, see what it has done for the whole country for that matter." "Yes, what has it done?" asked Hugh. "It has changed Cornwall from being drunken and godless into the most sober and God-fearing part of the country." "Admitted," replied the son. "But who cares anything about Methodism now?" "I am surprised and ashamed of you, Hugh, talking like that," said the father. "What is your opinion about it, Mr. Erskine?" "My opinion about what?" I asked. "Don't you think a man should stand by his principles?" "His principles, certainly," was my reply, "especially if, after having tested them, they proved to be vital; but I am rather interested in what your son says. I have been reading John Wesley's _Journal_, and I cannot help realizing the tremendous influence he wielded over a hundred years ago in this very county; but what troubles me is that it seems to mean comparatively little now." "I don't understand you," he said, rather brusquely. "What I want to know," I said, "is this. Does Methodism, or for that matter, does religion of any sort, vitally affect the lives and outlook of people now? If it does, why is it that its hold seems to be weakening day by day? I am told that your Chapel used to be crowded, and that while the people were ignorant, Methodism vitally influenced their lives; but now it seems a kind of corpse. It has a name to live, but is dead. This afternoon, Simpson, my man, brought me a book which belonged to his father. That book describes what the people used to do for their faith. Even the women worked to bring stones to build the chapels, while the men toiled hours after their ordinary work was over, as a labor of love, in order to erect the buildings which their children and their children's children neglect and often despise. Everything seems stereotyped. Most of the people seem to care little or nothing about what their forbears would die for, and those that do care seem to regard it in a half-hearted way, and talk about it as something that has been rather than something that is." "Yes," said Mr. Lethbridge, with a sigh, "I am afraid you are right. The old fire has gone, faith has largely died out, real earnestness seems a thing of the past; and yet what can one do?" "I am afraid I am not the one to ask," I replied. "You see, I am a rank outsider so far as that kind of thing is concerned." "For that matter the Church of England is no better," said Mr. Lethbridge. "Should that console one?" I asked. "Cornwall, as I understand, used to be the home of religious activity, of unquestioning faith, of devoted fervor; but to-day people are careless, materialistic. Faiths which at one time were held tenaciously, doctrines which were believed in unquestioningly, are now apparently a dead letter." "I suppose you are a Churchman, Mr. Erskine," said Mr. Lethbridge. "I am afraid I am nothing," I replied. "For several years I did not put my foot inside a Church of any sort." "Indeed, how is that?" "I suppose I had no interest," I said. "That was why going to Church on Sunday was something new to me. I felt like a man witnessing a strange thing, and trying to understand something which was unfamiliar." "Yes, and how did it impress you?" "Everything was so unconvincing," I replied. "The note of reality was never struck at all." "But surely," said Mr. Lethbridge, "you are not an atheist?" "I am nothing," was my answer. "I wish I were. I suppose you know why I came here?" "Yes, I have heard," he replied, "and I am very, very sorry for you, and you such a young man too, and life opening up all sorts of possibilities. Perhaps, however, it is not as bad as you think; the doctor may have made a mistake." "I am afraid there is no hope of that," was my reply. "The man who examined me has the reputation of being the most eminent diagnostician in his profession; but if you religious people are right, it does not matter. If John Wesley, whose diary I have been reading, is right, what we call life, that is, life here, is a very small matter; it is only a fragment of life. Death, according to him, is only an episode; but the worst of it is that here, in a county where he is so largely represented, and in a village where he has visited, his power is gone. The old words are used, but the old convictions are gone--that is why such a man as I am left stranded. But really, I am ashamed of myself, talking like this. Believe me, I am not in the habit of boring people with my ailments and foolish speculations." We joined the ladies shortly after, and our conversation, I am afraid, was of a very uninteresting nature. I noticed all the time we were talking, too, that Mr. Lethbridge was paying no attention whatever. He seemed to be thinking deeply about something else. Presently, while his wife was engaged in a long harangue about the inferiority of girls, comparing them with what she used to be when she was a girl, Mr. Lethbridge broke in suddenly. "Yes, Mr. Erskine," he said, "you may be right in what you were saying--that is, up to a point--but you don't go deep enough." "I am afraid I never do go very deep," was my reply. "The deeper one goes, as a rule, the greater the muddle." "Not in this case," and he spoke quite eagerly. "Why, the whole life of the county is what John Wesley and Methodism have made it. People, as a whole, may seem to have discarded his teachings, but they are in the very air we breathe; the people's thoughts, the people's lives, are what they are to-day because of the work he did." "I dare say," I replied, for, to tell the truth, I was anxious to avoid anything like a theological discussion. "Yes, don't you see? In the background of people's minds there is the impress of his work; his influence is felt everywhere. Even the people who never enter a place of worship have been shaped and moulded by Methodism." "In what way?" asked Hugh. "Well, take such a question as war," replied Mr. Lethbridge. "John Wesley killed the very possibility of war." "I wish I could see it," I could not help exclaiming. "It is plain enough," he replied. "Methodism and war cannot go together. The love of peace has entered into the very essence of people's lives. Is not that something to be thankful for?" "I am not so sure," replied Isabella Lethbridge. "May not war be a very good thing?" "A good thing!" cried her father--"a good thing! Why, it's hellish! I would rather see a son of mine dead than a soldier! And that is the feeling Methodism has created throughout the county. You scarcely ever find a conscientious Methodist becoming a soldier. A soldier in this county is looked upon as a kind of legalized murderer." "Surely," I said, "it is not so bad as that?" "It amounts to that," was his reply. "For my own part, I have an utter abhorrence of anything which savors of militarism, and I know it is because of the impressions I received as a boy." "But supposing war were to break out?" I said. "War break out!" he interrupted. "How can it break out, unless some of our so-called statesmen make asses of themselves? No one wants war." "No," I said--"that is, as far as the general feeling in the country is concerned; but supposing war were thrust upon us?" "Who would thrust it upon us?" he asked, almost angrily. "Germany, for example," was my reply. "Impossible!" "Not so impossible, I am afraid," I could not help replying. "Why, during the last few years we have twice been on the brink of war with Germany, and, unless I am mistaken, a war with that country is bound to come, sooner or later." This, I am afraid, I said rather for the sake of argument than because I really believed it. "Take that Agadir incident. We were within an ace of war then. Indeed, had Germany been as ready as she is now it would doubtless have come off." "I do not believe it," was his reply. "The people of England would have refused; the whole nation would have risen up in protest against it, and not even the Government could have forced the country into a war which it detested." "Not if we were attacked?" was my answer. "I do not believe in the possibility of it at all," he replied. "We are essentially a peace-loving people." "That may be, but even a peace-loving people may be obliged to defend itself." "But we shall never be called upon to defend ourselves." "I am not at all sure," was my answer. "Germany is just spoiling for war. Ever since she beat France she has been longing for expansion, and the military party in Germany maintain that the English people keep them from occupying their rightful place in the world." "Yes, the military party," he said; "a negligible section of the country." "Excuse me," was my answer, "but the military party in Germany is practically the nation. It is true there are a few Socialists who disclaim war, and profess to be at enmity with the military party; nevertheless, that party rules the nation, and if war should break out every Socialist would be obliged to fight for his country--and Germany means that it shall break out." "And what then?" he asked. "Then," I replied, "the power and solidarity of the British Empire will be tested as it has never been tested before. There will be such a struggle as has never been known in the history of the world. Every ounce of power that we have will be requisitioned; every able-bodied man in the country will be called to arms." "But the country will refuse to respond," was his reply. "If you are right, and the men of England refuse to respond, England will cease to be. There will be no England, and Germany will rule the destinies of the world." "You seem to be very sure of what Germany will do," he said, rather impatiently. "No one can travel in Germany, or read German literature, without knowing it. It is a nation under arms. The love of war is bred in the people. Militarism is glorified. They have such an army as was never known before, and they have utilized all their discoveries in science to make their army a perfect fighting machine. They have huge factories devoted to the making of air-ships and guns, and all that appertains to guns, and I tell you that if war breaks out between Germany and England, our country will be tried as it was never tried before. Do you mean to say that England would stand still while Germany sought to destroy us?" "I mean that we are not a military people, and never will be." It was at this point that young Lethbridge sprang to his feet, like a man angry. "I do not believe that you are right, pater," he said. "If England were in danger the young men of England would fight to the last man." "No, they would not," replied the father, "because war is a devilish thing. It is opposed to the teaching of Christianity." "But where would our Christianity be, where would everything we hold dear be, if Germany dominated the world?" protested Hugh. "Why, if I had a hundred lives I would give them for the defense of my country." "Then patriotism would be more than your religion?" "I cannot argue the matter from that standpoint," replied young Lethbridge. "I only know that I am an Englishman--every drop of my blood is English. God made me English, and if I have a love for my country, God gave me that love, and if there were a call for men I would respond." "You would be no son of mine if you did," replied the father. "But he would," cried Isabella Lethbridge. "Why, father, you are a fighter; you know you are, and I should be ashamed of Hugh if his country called him and he held back. There doesn't seem to be much in life worth being interested in, but if anything would arouse me, it would be the thought of England in danger." "And would you believe in war, even if we were in the wrong?" asked her father. "I cannot conceive of our being in the wrong," was her reply. "Besides, it can never be wrong to defend one's native land." The girl's eyes flashed as she made this reply, and I saw possibilities in her nature which I had not recognized before. Her lips quivered, and her features became animated with a kind of new life. "But do you really believe, Mr. Erskine, that Germany means to force war on England?" she went on. "No one who has been to Germany, and has studied the life there, can help knowing that they have been preparing for war for forty years, and no one can help realizing that the Germans hate the English with a deadly hatred. It may be only because of their jealousy, or it may be, as they say, that our Navy keeps them from realizing their rightful position. Anyhow, the fact remains. Our statesmen are doing their best to put off the evil day, but it is a recognized fact among those in high places that Europe at this moment is sitting on a powder magazine; and, mark you, if war does come it will not be a picnic." "I tell you the people of England will never allow such a thing," urged Mr. Lethbridge doggedly; "we are a peace-loving people. Besides, we cannot go to war; we have no army worth calling an army, and I, for one, thank God for it." "Of course there will be no war," said Mrs. Lethbridge confidently; "the Powers would not allow it, my dears." "Are we sure that we have yet realized what Germany is, or what her people mean to do?" I asked. "During the last thirty years she has simply forced herself upon the life of the world; her commerce has progressed by leaps and bounds; she has placed her foot everywhere. Before Bismarck's days she had practically no voice in the counsels of the nations. To-day her voice is a dominant one, her commerce is still increasing; she has succeeded, in spite of our protests, in building a navy second to none but our own. Why did she build that navy? She can command an army of, perhaps, eight or ten million men, more perfectly equipped than any other army known in history. She has munitions, implements of war, which can practically laugh at those of any other nation." "That shows her foolishness," said Mr. Lethbridge. "How?" "Because she does not know what other countries possess." "Is not that where you make a mistake? Germany has a Secret Intelligence Service, which enables her to know the strength of every army and navy in the world. England at this time, for example, is simply riddled with spies. Germany knows the strength of our Navy to a nicety. She knows our every port, every harbor, every fortress; she has made it her business to do so, and Germany means war. Do you think that when the time comes England will sit idly by?" "No! by heavens, no!" cried Hugh Lethbridge. "I doubt whether what you say is true, Erskine, but if England is ever in danger, Englishmen will be true to their name and their country." "Yes, and Englishwomen too," cried Isabella Lethbridge. "I tell you nothing can destroy the old fighting instinct, which will protect home and Motherland. Dad," and she turned to her father almost fiercely, "do you mean to say that if we were in danger you would advise us to do nothing?" Mr. Lethbridge laughed scornfully. "How can there be any danger?" he asked. "War cannot come about in these days, as it did in the old times. War depends now on the whole of the people; the democracy rules--not a few men in high places." "Democracy does not rule," cried the girl, "and never will. Democracy is a mob which is forever calling out for leaders. No Government is democratic, it is always autocratic." "You are talking nonsense, child," said her father. "You can do nothing to-day against the voice of the people, and the voice of the people is against anything like war. I repeat what I said just now--I would rather see a son of mine dead than that he should be a soldier! But there, there! There is no chance of it. Whatever England has been, she is to-day at peace, and as far as Cornwall is concerned, as I said just now, John Wesley has killed militarism." He left the room as he spoke, while Hugh Lethbridge looked meaningly towards his sister. "I am afraid I shall have to be going," I said, looking at my watch. "I have stayed too long already." "No, no!" protested Hugh. "Stay a little longer. Do you know, Erskine, it is like a fresh breeze from the mountains to hear what you have been saying to-night. We live a starved, narrow life down here, and--and I'm sick of it. I almost wish war would break out." "For shame, Hugh!" said his mother. "What good would you be as a soldier? No one can be an officer in an army unless he is trained; and as for your becoming a private, why, think how ridiculous you would look in a private's uniform." "I am afraid I must be going," I persisted, moving towards the door. "I will have the car out and drive you home," said Hugh Lethbridge. "No," I said, "it is a beautiful night, and I think I would rather walk." "But in your state of health, Mr. Erskine, it would be very foolish," said Mrs. Lethbridge. "Really, we cannot allow you." "I would rather walk," I persisted. Whereupon Hugh announced his intention of accompanying me. When Mr. Lethbridge bade me good-night he had quite recovered his equanimity, and expressed the hope that I would soon come to see them again. "I feel like a toad in a hole," said Hugh, after we had walked some minutes in silence together. "How is that?" I asked. "What has life to offer a fellow? The pater insisted upon my going to the University and reading for the Bar. I am not fit for it--I know I am not fit. Then, although he pretends to be a man of the people, he is also socially ambitious. You would not believe it, would you? I know it is wrong for me to talk in this way, but somehow I cannot help it. You know, Erskine, as my father said just now, he was a poor man, and made money rapidly, and he is disappointed that the doors of the county people are not open to us. I do not care a fig about the county people myself; do you?" "Some of them are very nice," I replied. "You will not take it amiss of me if I tell you something, will you? And, of course, you will regard it as a confidence? It is something which means a lot to me." "Do you think you know me well enough to tell me?" I replied. "After all, we have only met twice." "I must tell you," he persisted. "As you say, I have only met you twice, but I seem to have known you all my life. Besides, a fellow must tell his thoughts to some one. I am in love, Erskine." "That is interesting." "Yes, but don't you see, everything is at cross-purposes. Old Treherne, down here, has a daughter several years older than I am. You have heard of Treherne, haven't you? He is the Squire." "Yes, I have heard of Mr. Treherne." "His daughter is on the shelf--has been for several years. He is as poor as a church mouse, is the Squire; but then, he is one of the big people in the county, and the pater has an idea that if I were to marry her ... well, you can see, can't you?" "The lady might not be willing," I suggested. "Quite possible, of course; but the pater seems sure she would be. You see, she's thirty, if she's a day, and as ugly as they make 'em, and the pater wants me to sell my soul and marry her. By so doing, old Treherne would be able to pay off the mortgages on the estate, and I, in time, would become the Squire. Just think of it!" "I thought he wanted you to read for the Bar?" I interposed. "Yes, he does, but that is only one of his many schemes. He wants me to marry Treherne's daughter. Celia, they call her--Celia Treherne. Good, isn't it?" "Why, isn't she an estimable lady?" "Estimable! Estimable enough. But, as I told you just now, I am in love with a farmer's daughter, one of the class my family really belongs to, and the pater--well, I need scarcely tell you what he says." "And this farmer's daughter's name?" I queried. "I wish you would let me introduce you to her," he cried eagerly. "A sweeter girl never lived. I used to think of her as a sweetheart ten years ago, when the pater was poorer than he is now. I fought several boys about her. Mary Treleaven is her name. Do you think that you could persuade the governor? You see, he refuses to countenance it, and, without him, I haven't a penny with which to bless myself." "My dear fellow," I said, "if you care anything about the girl you will make yourself independent of your father." "Yes, but what am I fit for--what can I do? He professes to have democratic notions, and yet he has given me the education of a gentleman; sent me to a public school, where no one learns anything of any use, and then to Oxford, where I just scraped through, and got a pass degree. What is the good of all that to me? There is not a single thing I care anything about, except farming, and that needs capital. What would you advise me to do?" "I am afraid I can't advise anything just now. You see, I know so little about either of you. Perhaps when I have been here a little longer I may be able to help." By this time we had reached the little wooded lane which led to my hut. "You will come and see us again soon?" he pleaded. "You are very kind," I replied. "If I am well enough, I will." "I cannot believe you are so ill as you think," he said eagerly. I did not answer him. Of what use was it for me to tell him of the gnawing pain which I could feel just then--pain which told me that my very life was being eaten away? "Won't you come in?" I asked. "No, I mustn't. Besides, you will be tired. I say! what is that?" and he pointed towards the highest part of the cliff, the base of which pushed itself out into the sea. I looked, and in the dim light saw what I felt sure to be a boat approaching the shore. "Some fishermen, I expect," I replied. "No, fishermen do not hang so close to the rocks as that," was his answer. "Besides, the boat is making directly for us. No one was ever known to land a fishing-boat on this beach. Fishing-boats go direct to the harbor at St. Eia." We listened intently, and heard the steady splash of the oars, and presently I thought I heard low, murmuring voices, but I was not sure. VII ISABELLA LETHBRIDGE During the next few days nothing happened, and, if the truth must be told, I am afraid I got very lonely and depressed. Simpson did his best to interest me, but failed. My books, too, seemed dull and colorless. I suppose it was natural. I was passing through a phase in my life which was the inevitable consequence of what had hitherto taken place. The malady from which I was suffering was taking rather an acute form just then, and I had neither the strength nor inclination for exercise. Thus, although the weather was glorious and the air pure and bracing, I found that sitting day after day amid the same surroundings was anything but exhilarating. Moreover, although I cannot explain it, a sense of dread possessed me. I felt sure that something was going to happen, and that I was going to be at the centre of some untoward event. I expect I felt all the more irritable because my desire to live became stronger and stronger. It appeared to me that I had nothing to live for, and yet I hung on to life, and the hope of life, grimly. "Simpson," I said one day, "you told me when we came here that an idiot lad, who went by the name of Fever Lurgy, waited on old Father Abraham and did his errands. What has become of him?" "Don't know, sir." "Does no one know?" "Don't know at all, sir." "It seems strange, doesn't it, that this lad, who was the first to tell of what had happened to the old man, should not have come here when he heard that the house was occupied again?" "I did hear something of his running away, because he was afraid; but I know nothing." "Afraid? Afraid of what?" "You know what these idiot boys are, sir. I suppose he almost worshipped old Father Abraham, and when he knew his master was killed he feared to stay in the same neighborhood." "Is that your conclusion too, Simpson?" I asked. "I never thought of it before, sir." That day I went out for a walk. Somehow the lethargy which had possessed me for a long time was gone, and my body for the time was instinct with a new life. My fancies about Fever Lurgy had laid hold of me, and I began asking myself all sorts of questions. I found my way into the village, and, seeing a group of men standing by the pump, joined them. I found them very willing to talk with me, and while at first they showed no desire to impart any information, they asked me countless questions. This, I have found since, is a characteristic of the Cornish people. They are exceedingly friendly, and are willing to show kindness to a stranger, but they will not take him into their confidence. They are curious to know everything he can tell them, but they will tell him nothing in return. While they believed I was simply a stranger from "up country," their only interest in me was to know who I was, where I came from, and all about my affairs generally. When they got to know that I was of Cornish descent, however, there was an entire change in their demeanor towards me. I was one of them. In the course of a few minutes we got talking about Father Abraham and of his tragic end. "It 'ave bin said, sur, that th' ould man's ghost do wander round the plaace, where you d' live, sur. Es et true?" "I have never seen him, anyhow. Have you?" "Well, sur, ted'n for we to say. Oal the saame, I heerd curious noises wawn night near your house." "What kind of noises?" I asked. "Oh, a kind of moanin' and cryin', like a gull in pain." "Maybe it _was_ a sea-gull," I suggested. "No, sur, we d' know what gulls be like. Twad'n that. We be sure there was foul play, sur." "What about that lad, Fever Lurgy?" I asked. "Does he live in the neighborhood now?" "Bless you, sur, Fayver Lurgy a'n't bin seen since th' ould man was killed." "No!" I said. "Isn't that strange?" "Oa, he was a funny chap, was Fayver Lurgy. Do you know whay he was called Fayver Lurgy, sur?" "Not the slightest idea," I replied. "Well, sur, down 'long 'ere wi' we, when a great lousterin' chap wa'ant work, and do ait a lot, we d' say 'ee've got Fayver Lurgy. That es, two stomachs to ait, and noan to work. Tha's 'ow Fayver Lurgy got 'is name. He's as strong as a 'oss, but he wudd'n work. 'Ee wadd'n such a fool as 'ee made out. 'Ee allays was a button short, was Fayver Lurgy, but 'ee wadd'n no idiot, as people d' say." "So you think he was afraid of being killed?" I suggested. "Tha's what we d' think, sur." "Who were his father and mother?" I asked. "Nobody doan knaw, sur. He comed 'ere years and years ago, sur, weth an ould woman, who said she was 'is grandmother. When th' ould woman died, sur, Fayver Lurgy jist lopped round by hisself. Sometimes he ded a bit of work, and sometimes nothin'; but 'ee scraped up a living some'ow. When ould Father Abraham comed, he kipt with 'im reglar, and direkly 'ee was killed, Fayver Lurgy left the neighbrood, and nobody doan knaw where 'a es." "Did you ever see old Father Abraham?" I asked. "Yes, sur, I've seen 'im, but never to spaik to. Curyus ould chap he was. He 'ad long white whiskers and ter'ble bright eyes. Wan man I d' knaw spoke to 'un. Billy Barnycote 't was. Billy did say as 'ow he believed that ould Father Abraham was a furriner." "I suppose he never went to Church or Chapel?" I asked. "What! ould Father Abraham? Not 'ee. 'Ee ded'n go nowhere, so to spaik." "And you," I said. "Do you ever go?" "Sometimes, maaster, when there is a good praicher; but why shud us go when the praichers doan knaw more'n we do? I a'ain't bin since last Sunday-school anniversary. They 'ad a praicher from up to Plymouth. Clever chap 'ee was, too. Ef we cud allays git praichers like 'ee, we'd go every Sunday, but when a man like Tommy Coad d' git up and craake, we ca'ant stand it." The day was beautifully fine, and, as I felt more than ordinarily well, I took a long route home. I had not gone far when, passing a stile, I saw Miss Lethbridge leap lightly into the road. I could not help reflecting how handsome she appeared in her light summer attire. When visiting her father's house a few days before she had struck me as being hard and repellent. Even now there was nothing winsome or girlish about her, but that she presented an attractive figure I could not deny. More than ordinarily tall, and finely formed, she carried her well-fitting clothes to perfection. Her features, too, while not exactly beautiful, were striking; and, flushed somewhat as she was by her walk through the fields, she seemed a part of that bright, early summer day. "I hope you are better, Mr. Erskine," was her greeting. "Yes," I replied, "I feel well enough to take a fairly long walk. I have been down into the village talking with some of the people there, and trying to discover some of the romance for which Cornwall is famous." "And have had your labor for your pains," was her reply. "Not entirely. I feel as though I have happened upon something which will lead to interesting developments." "Believe me, you will not, Mr. Erskine." "No? Why?" "If ever there was a false tradition, it is the tradition that Cornwall is romantic. I have lived here all my life, and there is no more romance in the county than in that mine-heap," and she nodded towards a discarded mine which lay in the distance. "The Cornish people," she went on, "have no sense of the mysterious, no sense of the romantic. If ever they had it, it has all died. I suppose that years ago, when the people were entirely ignorant, they believed in all sorts of superstitions, but now that they are better educated they have discarded everything but what they can see, and feel with their own hands. I am inclined to think they are right, too." "I am not so sure," was my answer. And then I told her of the conversation that had taken place a few moments before. "And do you imagine, Mr. Erskine, that any romance surrounds the old man who built the house you live in, and lived like a hermit away there by the cliff? Do you think that any romance is associated with the idiot lad who ran his errands and did his bidding?" "Why not?" "Because none exists." "Pardon me if I do not agree with you. After all, there is something romantic in the thought of that old man coming there alone and building his hut in a lonely place, and spending years of his life there." "Yes, it may seem so; but, pardon me, is there anything romantic in your coming there, Mr. Erskine?" I shrugged my shoulders. "I am afraid not," I replied. "And I dare say the reason why he came there was just as unromantic. As for Fever Lurgy, every village has its idiot who is a butt for rustic jokes." "And what about old Father Abraham's mysterious disappearance?" I asked. "What you call a mysterious disappearance," was her reply, "I regard as a sordid crime. I expect the old man had a little money hoarded up, some tramps heard of it, and, for the sake of that money, murdered him and threw his body over the cliff." "At any rate," I said, "it is more pleasant to think that some mystery surrounded his life, and that he left the neighborhood from some romantic cause. Do you know, I am inclined to think that he is still alive, that he will turn up some day, and that the whole thing will be the talk of the countryside." "And yet you are a trained lawyer, and have lived in London!" she laughed. "Perhaps that is why. Lawyers get weary of hard thinking. Besides, when one comes to think of it, hard thinking is only responsible for a tithe of the discovery of truth. Far more of it is discovered by intuition than by logic." "Do you know, you are very refreshing, Mr. Erskine. It is delightful to think of a man coming from hard, matter-of-fact London to Cornwall, and believing in the things that we simple rustics have discarded for a generation or more." "Then you don't find life either romantic or mysterious?" "I find it the most prosy, uninteresting thing imaginable. There is no mystery and no romance in the world; everything is hard, matter of fact, commonplace." "Come, come, now, you cannot believe that," I laughed. "One believes as one finds." And I thought her eyes became hard. "The other day I read what is called a romantic novel. It had gone through numberless editions, and was, I suppose, the rage of reading circles. It told of all sorts of mysterious happenings and romantic adventures. Then I reflected on what had actually happened to myself and to girls with whom I am acquainted. I went to school in France and Germany, as well as in England, and, do you know, I really cannot find one bit of romance that has ever happened to me or to the girls I have known. I can't remember anything mysterious." "Isn't life one great mystery?" "Yes, mystery if you like, but simply because of our ignorance. When the mystery is explained, the explanation is as prosy as that cottage." And she looked towards a cottage door, where a woman stood by her wash-tub. "Do you ever find life mysterious, Mr. Erskine?" "Yes, it is mysterious from end to end. Sometimes, as I sit in my little wooden hut, facing the sea, at night-time, and hear the wind moan its way over the cliffs and across the waste of waters, when the solemn feeling of night broods over everything, I feel that life is one great mystery. What is behind it all? What is the meaning of everything? Is there a Creator? What lies beyond what we call death? Surely, that is mystery enough. You may say, if you like, that this feeling of mystery is because of our ignorance; nevertheless, it is there." "Yes," she replied. "But the trouble is that, in so far as we have discovered mysteries, they turn out to be of the most prosy and commonplace nature. Things that were once unknown, and appealed to the world as romantic, now that they are known are just as prosy and uninteresting as the commonplace. Directly a thing is known it becomes humdrum. I went to a lecture one night given by a scientist--an astronomer, in fact. He was lecturing on the planet Mars. He said that he himself had examined the planet through a powerful telescope, and he had seen what to him were convincing proofs that there were canals cut through a piece of land which was similar in nature to the Isthmus of Panama. As a consequence the planet Mars was inhabited--inhabited by thinking, sentient beings, who lived in a world millions of miles from this world. It seemed very wonderful at that time, but, when I came to think of it, it was all very prosy. What if it were inhabited? It would simply mean that people somehow exist there, just as they exist here, and think and suffer, and struggle and die. Can anything be more prosy and unromantic than that?" "Isn't the very mystery of death itself attractive--wonderful?" I asked. "Do you think so?" And she looked at me curiously. "Sometimes," I replied, "although I dread the thought of death, I have a kind of feverish curiosity about it, and I would like to die just to know." "Yet it would be disappointing in the end. When that so-called mystery comes to be explained, there will be nothing but great, blank darkness." "And that is your creed of life and death?" "We can only argue from the known to the unknown," was her reply. "And do you not long for something more?" "Long!" And there was passion in her voice. "Then, to you, religion, immortality, have no interest?" "Yes, interest," was her reply, "but, like everything else, it is because of my ignorance. I know I am very ignorant, Mr. Erskine, and I dare say you will laugh at me for talking in the way I do; but, so far as I have read of the origins of religions, they are simply the result of a fear of the unknown. People are afraid to die, and they have evolved a sort of hope that there is a life other than this. I know it is a cheerless creed, but don't facts bear out what I have said? In different parts of the world are different religions, and each and all of them are characteristic of the people who believe in them. Wasn't Matthew Arnold right when he said that the Greeks manufactured a god with classical features and golden hair, while the negroes created a god with black skin, thick lips, and woolly hair?" "Do you go far enough back, even then?" I asked. "You are simply dealing with the shape of the god. What is the origin of the idea?" "I suppose man invented it," was her reply. "Yes, but how? After all, knowledge is built upon other knowledge. Imagination is the play of the mind around ascertained facts. 'No man hath seen God at any time.' How, then, have people come to believe in Him, except through some deeper and more wonderful faculty, which conveyed it to the mind? For the mind, after all, is only the vehicle, and not the creator, of thought." She shrugged her shoulders. "You get beyond me there, Mr. Erskine. When you dabble in metaphysics I am lost. Still, is it not a fact that the more intellectual the race the less religious it becomes? Take France, for example. Paris is the great clearing-house of ideas, and yet the French are an unbelieving people." "Is that altogether true?" was my reply, for I was led to take up an attitude of the soundness of which I was far from being convinced. "Is not France literally sick and tired of the atheism which surged over the nation at the time of the Revolution? France no longer glories in hard unbelief, and, as far as I know, the French people are simply longing for faith, and, for that matter, are going back to faith. Not, perhaps, the faith which the Revolution destroyed, but to something deeper, diviner." She seemed thoughtful, and for some time neither of us spoke. Then she burst out laughing merrily. "Don't things seem reversed?" she said. "Here are you, a scholar of Oxford, and a clever lawyer, upholding tradition, imagination, intuition, superstition, while I, an ignorant girl, am discarding it all." "Perhaps," I replied, "that is because life is long to you, short to me. When one comes to what seems the end of things, one looks at life differently. There," I went on, for at that moment we had passed a lad with his arm round a girl's waist, "that boy lives in heaven. He is with the girl he loves. Suppose you tried to convince that boy and girl there was no such thing as romance, would they believe you?" "Perhaps not," she replied; "but I could take you down the village yonder, and show you men and women who, twenty years ago, were just as romantic as those two cooing doves; and to-day the men loaf round the village lanes, smoking, or, perhaps, are in the public-house drinking; while the women are slatternly, discontented, standing at the wash-tub, or scrubbing out cottages. Where now is the romance, or, for that matter, the love?" "Then you don't believe in love either?" She was silent, and I watched her face closely, and again I was struck by her appearance. Yes, no doubt, Isabella Lethbridge was more than ordinarily handsome. Her features, without being beautiful, were fine. The flash of her eyes betokened intelligence beyond the ordinary. At that moment, too, there was a look in them which I had not seen before--a kind of longing, a sense of unsatisfaction, something wistful. "Love?" she repeated. "No, I don't think I believe in it." "Surely," I said, "that is going a little bit too far." "Yes, perhaps it is," was her answer. "There is love--the love of a mother for her child. You see it everywhere. A lion will fight for her whelps, a hen will protect her chickens. But I suppose you were meaning the love which man has for a woman, and woman for man?" "Yes," I replied, "I was. I was thinking of that lover and his lass whom we have just passed." "I do not know," she replied. "All I know is that I never felt it, and yet I confess to being twenty-four. It is an awful age, isn't it? Fancy a girl of twenty-four never having been in love! Yet, facts are facts. I do not deny that there is such a thing as affinity; but love, as I understand it, is, or ought to be, something spiritual, something divine, something which outlasts youth and all that youth means; something which defies the ravages of time, that laughs at impossibilities. No. I do not believe there is such a thing." "Then what is the use of living?" I asked. "I hardly know. We have a kind of clinging to life, at least the great majority of us have, although I suppose in the more highly cultured States suicides are becoming more common. We shudder at what we call death, and so we seek to live. If, like the old Greeks, we surrounded death with beautiful thoughts----" "Ah yes," I interrupted; "but then we get into the realms of religion. The Greeks believed in an immortal part, and love to them was eternal." "True," she replied. "But where is the old Greek mythology now? It has become a thing of the past. Mr. Erskine, will you forgive me for talking all this nonsense, for it is nonsense? I know I am floundering in a deep sea and saying foolish things. Besides, I must leave you. There is a house here where I must call." She held out her hand as she spoke, and looked at me. I felt as though she were trying to fascinate me. For a second our eyes met, and I felt her hand quiver in mine. At that moment something was born in my mind and heart which I had never experienced before. I confess it here, because probably no one will read these lines but myself. I felt towards Isabella Lethbridge as I had never felt towards any woman before. Even in those days when I had flirted and danced and laughed with girls of my own age, and with whom I fancied myself in love, I had never felt towards a woman as I felt towards her. "Good-day, Miss Lethbridge," I said, as I walked away. "I hope you will come up to Trecarrel again soon," she said. "Please don't wait for a formal invitation; we shall always be glad to see you. At least, _I_ shall," and she gave me a bewildering smile. I walked some little distance down the road, then turned and watched her till she was out of sight. I tried to analyze the new feelings which had come into my life. "Why am I so interested in her?" I asked. "What is this which has come to me so suddenly? Whatever it is, it is not love." And I knew I spoke the truth, even as I know it now. Yet she fascinated me. I reflected that her talk had been pedantic, the product of an ill-balanced mind, and, while she was clever, she was superficial. Yet she attracted me in a way I could not understand. She had moved me as no other woman had moved me, but I knew, as I know now, that I was not in love with her. I walked slowly along. We had come to the end of June, and the birds were singing gaily. Away in the distance I could see the sheen of the waves in the sunlight. The great line of cliffs stood out boldly; the world was very fair. A weight seemed to have rolled from my shoulders. Oh, it was good to live--good to bask in the sunlight on that summer day! I laughed aloud. No romance! no mystery! no religion! no love! The girl had almost made me believe in what she had said, although at the back of my mind I felt it was all wrong. I looked at my watch, and knew that I must be returning, or Simpson would be anxious about me. He had become quite paternal in his care. I descended the steep hill towards the little copse at the back of my house. Once or twice I stopped and listened to the waves as they rolled on the hard, yellow beach, while the sea-gulls hovered over the great beetling cliffs. "I won't die!" I cried. "I simply won't!" And yet I knew at the time that death had taken possession of me, was even then gnawing away at the centre of my life. I entered the little copse and drew near to the house. I had gone, perhaps, twenty yards, when I stopped. Peering at me through the leaves of the bushes, which grew thick on the side of the cliff, was a pair of gleaming eyes. They seemed to me to be the eyes of a madman, a maniac. Perhaps my imagination was excited, and my mind unbalanced, but I thought I saw revenge, hatred, murder. The eyes were large and staring. I could see no face, no form. I felt no fear, only a sense of wonder and a desire to know. I took a step in the direction of those wild, maniacal orbs, and I heard a cry--hoarse, agonized. I took another step forward and looked again, and saw nothing, neither did I hear another sound. Feverishly I made my way towards the spot, but there was nothing there. No footmarks could I discover, no signs of any one having been there. I am perfectly certain I saw what I have described, as sure as that I am sitting in my little room at this moment, but although I searched everywhere I could discover nothing. I returned to my house and began to dress for dinner; but all the while I was haunted by those wild, staring eyes. VIII MYSTERY "Simpson," I said, after dinner, "do you believe in ghosts?" "Yes, sir, I think so, sir." "What are your views about them?" "Well, sir, I don't know that I could put them into words. Will you have your coffee now, sir?" "Yes, please, Simpson; and will you pass my cigar-box?" "Yes, sir; thank you, sir." "You are somewhat of a philosopher, aren't you, Simpson?" "In my own way, sir. If I hadn't been I should have been dead before now." "Oh, indeed," I said. "How?" "Well, sir, it was during the two years I was married. It was my philosophy that saved me." "In what way?" I asked. "Well, you see, sir, I hadn't been married more than a month before I discovered that my wife had a remarkable command of language. While we were courting, she pretended to be shy, and had very little to say; but when we got married she developed the power of speech awful, sir--just awful. At first I answered her back, and every time I spoke I seemed, as it were, to open up the fountains of the great deep, until I thought I was going mad. Then I got to thinking about it, sir, and after careful study of my wife's character I came to the conclusion that the only way I could meet her was by silence. I didn't smoke at that time, sir, she having said as how she hated smoking; but I bought a pipe and tobacco, and every time she started talking I just loaded up my pipe and commenced smoking. I didn't say a word, sir, but let her go on and on." "Well," I asked, "did that cure her?" "Not at first, sir; for a time she was worse than ever, and I thought I should have to give it up. That was where my philosophy came in, sir; I just held on. The more she talked the more I smoked, never uttering a word." "Yes," I said, "and what then?" "She began to cry, sir. She cried and cried until I thought she was going to cry her eyes out. I almost gave in, but being a philosopher I still kept quiet. After that, she began to threaten what she would do. She rampaged round the house like a mad woman, but I only bought a new pipe." "And did you master her that way?" "No, sir; I never mastered her. It is my belief that if a woman has got the gift of the gab as she had, she never can be mastered. But she left me, sir." "I thought you told me she was dead, Simpson?" "Oh, no, sir; I never told you that; I only told you that I had a wife for two years. Yes, sir, she kept with me for two years, trying to break me down. Then, one day, when I came into the house I found a letter from her. She said that she could not live with a brute who would not answer her back, so she went off on her own." "And what did you do then, Simpson?" "I went to live with your father, sir, and I have lived with the family ever since. But it was my philosophy which saved my life. If I had given in she would have killed me." "And where is she now, Simpson?" "I don't know, sir, and I don't want to. Yes, sir, nothing but philosophy will master a woman." "Well, to come back to where we were, Simpson. You being a philosopher, have you any explanation to offer as to ghosts?" "Well, sir, not ever having seen one, I don't see how I can. If I had seen one I might answer. Have you seen one, sir?" "Yes, Simpson. This evening, just before coming in to dinner, I was coming along the footpath through the copse, when I saw a pair of bright, staring eyes, like the eyes of a madman. There was no doubt about it; I am certain I saw them. I could make out no face, but I am certain I saw the eyes. When I went to the place where I saw them I could find nothing. What is your opinion about it?" Simpson thought a minute, then he replied solemnly: "It was an 'allucination, sir." "Was it that, Simpson?" "Well, sir, if you will excuse me for asking, who had you been with before you saw the eyes? Had you spoken to any one? Had you been talking about ghosts, or that sort of thing?" "No, Simpson; I had been talking with Miss Lethbridge, a young lady who does not believe in ghosts." "Ah, that explains, sir." "How, Simpson?" "A woman always upsets the mind--always. If you had said you had seen the face without the eyes, I could perhaps have believed you; but when you say you saw eyes without a face, and then tell me you had been talking with a young lady, I know just what is the matter." "Yes; but, Simpson, that is not all. I heard an awful moan. Rather more than a moan--it was a kind of moan and cry combined." "And did you hear any rustling in the bushes, sir?" "Not a sound." "Ah, well, sir, I stand by my opinion. Anything more you want, sir?" "Nothing more, thank you." And Simpson went away into the kitchen. He had not been gone long, when I heard footsteps outside, and shortly after young Hugh Lethbridge appeared. "You don't mind my calling, do you, Erskine?" he said. "On the contrary, I am delighted," I replied. "I have just been talking with my man about something which I saw this evening, and he can offer no explanation. Perhaps you can." And I told him what I had seen. "By Gum!" he said, "that's funny. You are sure you are not mistaken, Erskine?" "Impossible," I replied. "I saw those eyes as plainly as I see you. It was not dark--the sun had not set, for that matter." "And were you excited in any way?" And he looked at me steadily. "No," I replied; "I was not excited." "It's funny. You don't imagine, do you, that there was anything supernatural about it?" "I wish I did, but I am sorry to say that I have no faith whatever in the supernatural." "No," he said; "I remember what you told us up at Trecarrel. And you searched the place thoroughly?" "Yes, thoroughly. You see, I was curious." "And you had not been thinking about supernatural things?" "Not in the least. For that matter, I had a few minutes before met your sister." "Oh, yes; Bella told me she had met you, and was afraid she had shocked you." "No, I was not shocked at all; I was very interested." "Bella is a curious girl," said Hugh Lethbridge, after a short silence. "We have always been very good friends, but I have never understood her. Even when she was quite a girl she was different from those of her own age." "In what way?" "She was always so hard, so matter of fact. I have told her more than once that she has no soul." He said the words lightly, but to me they were ominous with meaning. He had put into words what I had felt. "I suppose I ought not to say this," went on Hugh; "but I don't feel towards you as I do towards other men. I don't know why it is. No sooner did I see you than I wanted to have you as a friend; I felt I could trust you. You don't mind my saying this, do you?" "Rather it is awfully good of you." "I am a lonely kind of fellow," he went on, "and my home life has shut me off from the society of those I might care for. Other fellows invite their college chums to stay with them, and all that kind of thing, but the pater never allowed me to do it. Why, I don't know. I know it is wrong to discuss one's people before a stranger, but, as I said just now, I don't feel you are a stranger. What do you think of my father, Erskine?" "I think he is a strong, capable man," I replied. "Yes, there is no doubt about that. Why, years ago he was only a poor lad, living in a district where there seemed to be very few chances of a lad making his way, and yet you see what he has done. He was a clerk in the office of a man who had to do with shipping in Penzance. Only in a small way, you know, but he gave my father the chance to learn the business. He did learn it. What the pater doesn't know about shipping isn't worth knowing. To-day he owns scores of vessels. He got into touch with the mining world, too, and he seemed to possess a sort of genius for fastening on to mines that would pay. He has not only a controlling interest in the few prosperous Cornish mines, but he is connected with the mining world in almost every country where mines are to be found. He is as keen as a razor, is the pater, and has a way of making his will felt everywhere. "And yet he is a most conscientious man. That is, conscientious in his own way. He used to be very religious. He used to pray at the Chapel, and all that sort of thing, but he's given it up now. But he holds to the form of religion still. As you heard him say the other night, he is a very strong believer in democracy. On the other hand, a greater autocrat never lived. In reality he believes in the feudal system, even while he professes to scorn what we call aristocracy. Yes, I see you smile. Never was a man more anxious to associate with county families than he. But he never yields an inch to them. If he had, he would have been admitted into what is called county society. Even as it is, Squire Treherne seems to be afraid of him." "How is that?" I asked. "Oh, he pays deference to his opinions; always supports him in public matters, and all that sort of thing. I am inclined to think that the pater has old Treherne in his power. You will not say anything about this, will you, Erskine? I do not believe my father cares a fig about me," he added. "Nonsense!" I replied. "I don't really. In a way he is interested in me. I suppose it is because blood is thicker than water, but do you know I can never remember the time when he kissed me, or anything of that sort. He always tried to rule me with a rod of iron." "And has he treated your sister in the same way?" I asked. "Yes, and no. Do you know, Erskine, my sister is a strange girl." I was silent. I felt I had no right to ask the question which rose in my mind. "What do you think of Bella?" he asked suddenly. He did not seem to realize that he was overstepping the bounds of good taste in asking me, a stranger, such a question, and I realized more than ever that he was only an impulsive boy, although he had reached man's estate. Indeed, in one sense, Hugh did not know what it was to be reserved, and yet in others he was strangely reticent. I thought he seemed to be about to take me further into his confidence at this point, but, perhaps noting the non-committal nature of my reply, he desisted. "Of course, she's a bundle of contradictions," he said; "but she's really splendid. Why, on the day after she'd--but, there, I mustn't tell you about that. Anyhow, there was an accident at Pendeen Mine. Two men were believed to be in danger of drowning by the flooding of the old workings. The miners had made every attempt--at least, so they said--to rescue them, and to do anything more would be to throw away their own lives." "Yes," I said. "What then?" "Bella went to them and talked to them as they had never been talked to before. She laughed all their protests to scorn, and when they proved to her that, humanly speaking, they had done all that men could do, she insisted upon going down the mine herself. It was the maddest thing a woman could do, and God only knows how she did it; but she rescued the miners. Why, it was in all the newspapers. Yes, Bella is magnificent, but--but----" Hugh Lethbridge was silent for some time after this, neither did I speak. I was thinking of the impression she had made on me when I first saw her. "She was never like other girls, even when she was a child," he went on. "She did not care for games--that is, ordinary children's games--so, although she is only two years older than I, we were never what you call playfellows. She is a very brainy girl, too, and by the time she was fourteen had read all sorts of out-of-the-way books." "I wonder she did not go to Somerville or Girton when she left school." "That's what she wanted," replied Lethbridge, "but the pater said he did not believe in women going to a university. He has always maintained that this modern craze about advanced education for women is so much nonsense. Still, Bella is an educated girl. She speaks French and German and Italian fluently, and there is scarcely a classical writer in these languages whom she has not read first hand. Yes, Bella is a strange girl, but very hard." Again there was a silence between us for some seconds. "She is not at all like mother," went on Lethbridge. "I wish she were. Although, as you saw the other night, we teased mother about being general manager of the world, there is scarcely a family in the parish which mother has not helped in one way or another, and in a way she is very popular; but no one would think of going to Bella in trouble." I must confess that I wanted to ask more questions about her, but refrained from so doing. After all, it would not have been good taste on my part. "Well, I must be going now," said Lethbridge presently, rising from his chair. "I am glad I have seen you. Our chat, somehow, has done me good, although I have done most of the talking. I was awfully restless after dinner to-night, and the walk here, and seeing you, have made me feel better. By the way"--and I saw that this was what he had really come for--"I spoke to you about Mary Treleaven the other night." "Yes, I remember." "I have had a row with the pater about her to-day." "I am sorry for that." "It was bound to come. You see, he will not hear of my marrying her. He says it would be pure madness on my part, and if I will not fall in with his wishes he will not give me a penny. I should like to introduce you to Mary; I told you so, didn't I? Will you let me?" "If you like, certainly," I replied; "but really, Lethbridge, I cannot help you in that matter. I would not, even if I could. It would not be right." "If you knew her you would," he said, with boyish eagerness. "She's the finest, sweetest girl in the country, and she is the only one I could be happy with. As for the pater's ideas, I won't fall in with them--I won't." He went to the door as he spoke, and looked out over the sea. "It's a glorious night," he said; "there is not a cloud in the sky, and the light of the moon transforms everything into a fairyland." I went to his side as he spoke, and as I did so a kind of shiver passed through me. The night was, indeed, wonderful. The moon shone so brightly that no stars appeared, and I could see the long line of cliffs stretching northward. Scarcely a breath of wind stirred, and I could hear the waves lapping musically on the hard yellow beach beneath. "I will walk a few steps with you, Lethbridge," I said. "I will not go far. But really this is not an evening to spend indoors. How I wish I were strong and healthy!" Putting on a summer overcoat, I walked with him along the footpath through the copse, and when at length we reached the open country, where heather-covered moorland stretched away on either side, both of us stopped and listened. "What a noise the silence is making!" said Lethbridge. "Did you ever hear anything like it?" "No," I said, "the hush is simply wonderful." Scarcely had we spoken, when rising suddenly before us was the form of a man, and again those strange eyes, which had haunted me for hours, flashed before me. The man moved so quickly that I could not discern his features. He uttered a cry as he went--a cry similar to that I heard in the copse hours before. "Do you know who it is?" I asked. "No," replied Lethbridge. "Strange, isn't it?" "Anyhow, it explains what I saw this afternoon. It might seem as though some one were watching me." "I will follow him, if you like," said Lethbridge, "and find out who it is." "Oh, no, don't trouble; very possibly it means nothing. But I think my mind must be excited, after all. I will go back now, if you don't mind. Good-night." And I went slowly back to my little hut, wondering what the apparition might mean. IX AT THE VICARAGE On my return to my room, I naturally reflected upon what young Hugh Lethbridge had told me. It may seem strange that, on such a short acquaintance, he spoke to me so freely about his family, but what I have written down is, as far as I can remember, exactly what took place. Hugh Lethbridge was scarcely twenty-three, and, although he looked older, was little more than a lad. He was the child of his mother rather than of his father, and was lacking in anything like secretiveness, especially to any one whom he liked. For some reason or another I had seemed to captivate him, so much so that he opened his heart and gave his confidence more fully than was natural on such a short acquaintance. In many respects young Lethbridge was sensitive and self-contained, but in other ways he was so impulsive that he overstepped the bounds of good taste. I got to know him better afterwards, and found that, although he had spoken so freely to me, he was regarded by many as reserved. Besides, he was hungering for sympathy, and because he thought I sympathized with him his confidences were so personal that I almost felt uncomfortable. Nevertheless, I pondered a great deal over what he had told me. Evidently the household at Trecarrel was not altogether happy, and an estrangement existed between Mr. Lethbridge senior and his son. As for Isabella Lethbridge, she presented an interesting study to me. As I have said, she appealed to me as no other woman had ever appealed to me before. For the moment I had thought I was in love with her, but, on reflection, I knew I was not. I was able to study her character calmly and think of her in a kind of detached way. She formed no part in my life. She was an interesting specimen of humanity, whom I took pleasure in analyzing, but the feeling I had towards her was not love. Rather she repelled me even while she fascinated me. The thought of her never caused my heart to throb, nor made the blood course through my veins one whit the faster. Besides, it was not for me to think about such things. I had come down to Cornwall to die. In a few months the spark of my life would go out, and I should enter the great darkness. Days and weeks passed away, and very little of importance happened worthy of record. Often I reflected upon the uselessness of my life. Why, after all, should I live? No one but Simpson was really interested in me, and only he would grieve when I had gone; then again the old revulsion against becoming nothing surged within me. I had hopes, longings, intimations which seemed to overleap the boundaries of time and sense. If this life were all, then life was a mockery, a promise without possible fulfilment, a hope born only to be disappointed. Sitting there alone night after night, hearing the cry of the sea-birds, listening to the wail of the wind as it swept over hill and dale, or found its way across the great waste of waters, I asked a thousand questions and pondered over the problems of life and death, without ever receiving one single ray of light. Sometimes I became so lonely that I called Simpson into my room and talked with him, but I never allowed him to know how dark were the prospects which faced me. The questions I asked him, I remember, were almost flippant in their nature. I made a joke of death, as I tried to make a joke of everything else; so much so that I fancied Simpson was convinced that I did not trouble. After all, why should I worry the poor, simple-minded fellow with questions which he could not answer or understand? The best thing to do was to bear everything with a kind of stoicism, and to make a jest of what really haunted me night and day with strange persistency. Indeed, I think I sometimes rather pained Simpson with my flippant remarks, for I found that the beliefs of his boyhood were still powerful in his life. It is difficult to eradicate the impressions of youth. "After all, Simpson," I said one day, "sleep is a good thing providing one has no bad dreams, and if I sleep for ever I shall know nothing about it." "But if one should dream, sir?" suggested Simpson. "You are quoting Hamlet," I said. "I don't know the gentleman you refer to," was Simpson's somewhat indignant reply; "indeed, I never heard of him. But don't you think, sir, that education and cleverness are very poor things?" "Doubtless, Simpson. But why do you say so?" "Why, sir, here are you, a gentleman who has been to college and all that. You were spoken of in the newspapers as one who would do great things some day, and yet you don't know as much as my old father did, who never had a day's schooling in his life." "How is that, Simpson?" "Well, sir, he _knew_ there was a life after death. He saw the angels, sir." "Did he tell you so, Simpson?" "Yes, sir, he did. He was a very ignorant man, sir, but he knew. Besides, sir--excuse me for saying so--but aren't your opinions very foolish, sir?" "I dare say," I replied. "But to what particular opinions do you refer?" "Opinions about dying, sir. If a watchmaker makes a watch, he makes it keep time, doesn't he?" "Yes," I replied; "but if one of the wheels doesn't fit, the watch stops, and somehow my inside wheels don't fit, or rather they are made of poor material, Simpson." "Of course, sir, it is not for me to contradict you, but I don't think you have been well educated, sir." "My teachers are doubtless to blame, but the worst of it is your Vicar here seems to know nothing for certain, neither do your preachers at Chapel. It is all a matter of guesswork." "Yes, sir, I know I cannot answer you properly, sir, but I do not believe Almighty God is a fool." "What do you mean, Simpson?" "Well, sir, I have an old watch which my grandfather used to carry, and it keeps good time still. The watch was made by a man, and it has lasted nearly a hundred years. Now, I don't believe Almighty God would take so much trouble in making us and then let us last only twenty or thirty years. Excuse me, sir." I mentioned some time ago that Mr. Trelaske, when he had visited me, told me of his intention to invite me up to the Vicarage. He had fulfilled his promise, but I had not been well enough to take advantage of his kindness. This invitation, however, he had repeated, and one night I found my way to the Vicarage. I had hoped for a quiet chat with him, but to my surprise I found three other guests besides myself. One was Squire Treherne, another was a young fellow named Prideaux, and the other was a clergyman from a neighboring parish. Mr. Trelaske was a widower, whose household affairs were conducted by a man and his wife by the name of Tucker. He received me most kindly, and played the part of host perfectly. It happened, too, that young Prideaux knew a man who was at Balliol with me, and this fact led to many reminiscences of college life. The fact, moreover, of my being at Winchester greatly interested Squire Treherne in me. He was an old Winchester boy, and was eager to ask questions concerning the school and to compare it with the days when he was there. In fact, before I had been in the house an hour, I found myself on a friendly footing with them all, and they spoke quite freely in my presence. "By the way, Squire," said Prideaux presently, "I hear that Lethbridge has made another big _coup_. The way that fellow makes money is simply marvellous." "Yes," said Squire Treherne, "and he has made it at my expense, too." "At your expense? How is that?" "He has found tin on my land." "Has he? That's good. It will mean mining royalties for you." "Not a bit of it. He persuaded me to sell the farm on which the tin was discovered two years ago. I did not want to sell it, but I wanted the money, and as the farm was, in a way, outside my ring fence, I consented. Evidently, he knew of the tin, but didn't let on. Got it for a song, too. Now he has the whole thing." "That is bad luck," said Mr. Trelaske. "He makes money at every turn. I would not mind if one of our own set was lucky, but for that fellow--a dissenter and a Radical--to do it riles me." "Well, he is a capable man, isn't he?" said Mr. Robartes, the other clergyman. "Capable, if you like," replied the Vicar. "And public-spirited too, isn't he?" "Only in a way. The fellow isn't a sportsman, and, in the true sense of the word, isn't an Englishman. That is why I dislike him. As you know, too, he opposes the Church at every corner. I suppose it is natural in a rabid dissenter, but it is hard to bear." "Still, he is a great employer of labor," said Prideaux. "And as for young Lethbridge, he is quite a decent fellow." "I suppose Mr. Lethbridge still goes to the Chapel, doesn't he?" asked Mr. Robartes. "Oh yes, I suppose so," was the Vicar's reply. "I believe, if he hadn't been a dissenter, things might have been all right." "How? What do you mean?" "Oh, at bottom a dissenter is never really an Englishman. Did you see that speech he made some little time ago up at Polzeath? He was crying down the Army and saying that our nation was being bled to death to keep up a useless institution. That is what I cannot stand." They went on talking in this way for a considerable time until I began to get rather bored. It seemed to me that they discussed the Church and Dissent as two rival institutions. They regarded the Church as something which should be supported because it was a State affair. As for anything deeper, it did not appear in their conversation. Churchgoing was regarded as something that ought to be a national institution, and as such should be kept up. A few months before I dare say I might have taken an academic interest in the conversation, but as I reflected upon Dr. Rhomboid's verdict upon me it all seemed paltry and foolish. Church and Chapel, as institutions, did not matter a straw to me. "What does Almighty God, if there is an Almighty God, Who made all the worlds, care whether a man goes to Church or to Chapel?" I remember propounding this question quite suddenly, and it seemed to take them aback. "You are a Churchman, aren't you?" asked Mr. Robartes eagerly. "I suppose so, if I am anything," I laughed. "I was confirmed while I was at Winchester, but for the life of me I can't see that it matters whether a man goes to Church or to Chapel." "But surely you have no sympathy with these dissenters?" "I hardly know," was my reply. "I have been to the Methodist Chapel down here two or three times. I went out of curiosity. You see, my lease of life is very short, and I was wondering whether any of them could tell me what lies beyond the grave." I saw Mr. Trelaske look on the floor as I spoke. He evidently remembered our conversation. "It seems to me that we have to leave such things as that," said the Squire. "The Bible and the Church teach us that there is a life beyond the grave, and we had better let it stand at that. As for the Church, it makes a man a good neighbor, a good citizen, and a good Englishman. Besides, the Church doesn't cramp a man. He can be a good sportsman, enjoy a glass of wine, play a game of cards, and still be a good Churchman. That is why I am glad the Methodists are still losing ground. Of course they must." There was nothing harsh in the way he said this. He seemed to regard dissenters as a class apart--a people with a kink in their brains, who out of pure stubbornness adopted a form of religion which somehow made them outsiders. I dare say, if I had gone deeper into the matter, I should have found something which had not appeared in their conversation, but such was the impression I received. "By the way," said Mr. Trelaske presently, "this is bad news about Serbia, isn't it?" "Yes, very bad," replied the Squire. "I should not be surprised if it doesn't lead to complications. These Serbs are barely civilized." I did not understand what he meant, for I had not taken sufficient interest in what was going on to open a newspaper for several days, and I said so. "I tell you," said Squire Treherne, "it is a serious matter. Last Sunday some Serbians murdered the Crown Prince of Austria, and I am afraid it will raise a rumpus. You see, Serbia is backed up by Russia, and if Austria threatens to take reprisals there may be a row." I did not follow with very much interest what they were saying about the trouble in the Balkan States. What did interest me, however, was the tremendous difference between their attitude to war and that which Mr. Lethbridge took. To them the defense of their country was a sacred thing--indeed, almost a religion. I found that Mr. Trelaske had two sons, both of whom were in the Army, and that young Prideaux was a captain in the Territorials. They assumed, as a matter of course, that no man could keep out of the Army in time of national danger. It was not something to argue about; it was something settled as a fixed principle in their lives. No one seemed to believe, however, that trouble between Serbia and Austria could affect England. All of them appeared to think with Lord Salisbury, that we must retain our attitude of "Splendid Isolation," whatever might take place. Perhaps I ought to except young Prideaux, who, having no fixed beliefs, seemed to have doubts about the matter. "I wish these blessed Radicals were not in power," he reflected, between puffs of his cigar. "For that matter, all of us do," said Squire Treherne, in response. "But still, there it is. They have got the upper hand of us now, and it seems as if they are going to keep it." "What I can't stand about the Radicals," said Mr. Robartes, "is that they aren't gentlemen." "Oh, I don't know about that," said Prideaux. "There's Grey, for instance, he's a gentleman, and a sportsman too." "Yes, but he is different from the rest. I wonder how he stays with that lot! I expect if we were dragged into this trouble the present Government would adopt a peace-at-any-price attitude. The great majority of Radicals are dissenters, and nearly all dissenters seem to be fed with anti-war ideas. You remember what took place at the time of the Boer War?" "I am not sure they weren't right about that," remarked the Vicar; "I don't mean about the war itself, but about giving self-government to South Africa. The Boers have settled down remarkably well." "Nonsense, Parson," said Squire Treherne. "It was pure madness. Supposing war were to break out, we should have a revolution in South Africa before we could say 'Jack Robinson.' These Boers ought to have been kept under our thumb. Do you know, I had an awful row with Lethbridge about that." "How are the Lethbridges regarded in the neighborhood?" I asked, for I was anxious to avoid anything like a political discussion. "Regarded in the neighborhood?" replied Squire Treherne. "Oh, we have to tolerate them, you know. Lethbridge is a man of great influence, and, of course, he's very rich. That is where he has the pull. He is the largest employer of labor in this district, and as a consequence people look up to him." "I don't mean that so much," I said. "How is the family regarded socially?" The Squire did not reply, but the Vicar was very pronounced. "Oh, socially," he said, "they scarcely exist. You see, Lethbridge, in spite of his money, is a parvenu and rank outsider. It is true that his wife comes of a decent family, but a few years ago he was a poor lad in this district, and people can't forget it. Besides, the fellow is such an aggressive Radical. He is constantly treading on the corns of people who would otherwise be civil to him." "What about his children?" I said. "I happen to have met them both, and they strike me as being well educated and presentable." "Yes, his children are not so bad, and but for their father would doubtless be well received. At least, Hugh would. He is quite a nice boy. As for the girl, I don't know anything about her." "The girl is handicapped by her father," said young Prideaux. "In spite of everything, she is placed in a curious position." "How is that?" "They occupy a kind of half-way position. On the one hand, they do not associate with the people to whom Lethbridge belonged twenty years ago, and, on the other, they are not quite our sort. Still, I believe the people would have forgiven them, in spite of the father, if the girl hadn't been such a heartless flirt." "A flirt?" I repeated. "Yes. She's a dashed fine-looking girl, you know. Clever, too; and when she likes can be quite fascinating; but, like the rest of her class, she can't play the game." "No?" I said, thinking of what her brother had told me. "No, there was young Tom Tredinnick; fine fellow Tom is, too. He fell head over heels in love with her, and every one thought they were going to make a match of it, but she treated Tom shamefully. There was Nick Blatchford, too; she treated him just as badly. She led him to the point of an avowal, and then chucked him." "That class of people have no sense of honor," said the Vicar. "Of course, we can't get away from them down here. Methodism of one sort or another is the established religion of the county, and they are nearly all Radicals. In fact, they are anti-everything. Anti-smoking, anti-drinking, anti-sporting, anti-vaccination, and all the rest of it." "I wonder," I said musingly. As I went home I tried to gather up the impressions the company had made upon me, and I reflected that the atmosphere of the Vicar's house was utterly different from that of Mr. Lethbridge's. In a way, both were entirely new to me. I was a town-bred boy, and knew practically nothing of country life, and as a consequence was utterly unacquainted with the thoughts and feelings of those who lived far away from London. I had not time, however, to follow my reflections to their natural issue, for no sooner had the carriage, which I had hired for the evening, dropped me at the footpath at the end of the little copse than my thoughts were turned into an entirely different channel. I was perhaps a hundred yards from my little dwelling-place, when suddenly some one crept out of the undergrowth and stood before me. For the time of the year the night was dark. It was now midsummer, but a change had come over the weather, and dark clouds hung in the sky. Still, there was enough light for me to discern the figure of a man, who stood directly in my pathway. "Be you the straanger?" he said. "What do you mean?" I asked; "and who are you?" "Be you the straanger wot d'live in Father Abram's 'ut?" The man's voice was thick, and his enunciation anything but clear. "That seems remarkably like my own business," I replied. "Be you the straanger wot d'live in Father Abram's 'ut?" He repeated the words almost feverishly, and his voice trembled. "What if I am?" I asked. "Then go away! Go away!" "Why should I?" "Ca'ant tell 'ee." "But why should I go away? Who are you?" "Never mind that! You go away! Go away to once!" By this time I had become more accustomed to the darkness, and saw that the man was of huge proportions, and I judged that he had a serious purpose in speaking to me. "I tell 'ee," he went on, "that you must go away; ef you do'ant ..." Here he stopped as though he did not know how to finish his sentence. My mind worked quickly, and I remembered my previous experiences which had taken place at this very spot. His presence explained those wild, staring eyes which I had seen in the copse, and the apparition which had puzzled me on the night I had talked with Hugh Lethbridge. What he might mean by dogging my footsteps I could not explain, but that there was some meaning I felt quite sure. "You have been following me for days," I said. He grunted an assent. "I found you watching me last Thursday week. You crept away from me when I went after you." "I dedn't main no wrong." "Yes, but what do you mean?" "You must go away!--go away!" he repeated. "Come with me to the house," I said. "I want to talk with you." He gave a cry of abject fear. "I mustn't! I mustn't! I be afeerd!" "What are you afraid of?" "I ca'ant tell 'ee! You must go away!" "Go away where?" "Anywhere; but you mustn't stay in thicky house! I've tould 'ee. Summin'll happen to 'ee ef you do'ant!" "What will happen to me?" "I ca'ant tell 'ee, but you must go away!" The man repeated the words with wearisome iteration. He seemed to be obsessed with this one thought. He spoke unintelligently. He might have been a machine repeating over and over the same words. "You are Fever Lurgy," I said. Again the fellow gave a cry as if of fear. "Do'ant 'ee tell nobody," he cried. "But go away!--go away! I tell 'ee, ef you do'ant...." Again he stopped, like one who is afraid to finish his sentence. "Some one has sent you to me," I said. "Who?" "I mustn't tell 'ee--I mustn't tell 'ee!" he cried. "But you must tell me. Come, you are going with me to the house, and I am going to know everything." He started back as I spoke, and then rushed from me. I heard him among the bushes; then he spoke again. "You must go away!--you must go away at once!" I waited for some time but heard nothing more. Then I made my way to my little house, wondering at the meaning of what I had seen and heard. X WIRELESS TELEGRAPHY I did not sleep well that night. The incident of Fever Lurgy raised many questions in my mind. I felt as though I were the centre of some mystery--a mystery of which I was ignorant. I was more convinced than I had ever been that old Father Abraham was not dead. I believed, too, that he had a motive out of the ordinary in coming to this spot and building the hut, and that the reason of his disappearance was not an ordinary crime, as was generally supposed. I pieced together all the events which had taken place since I had been in the neighborhood, and tried to see a meaning in them all, but I could not find any key that would unlock the door of the mystery. I knew nothing of Father Abraham's doings. I was simply a poor wretch who had come there to die, and yet, from the vehemence of Fever Lurgy's voice, it might seem as though there were some plot against me--as though some one wished to do me harm. Twelve months before I should have rejoiced at what seemed like an adventure. It would have added spice to life. I should have thrown myself into the work of solving the mystery with avidity. Then I was strong and vigorous, scarcely knowing the meaning of weariness. While at school I had been a boxer, a runner, and had got my school cap for Rugger. At Oxford, too, while I had been a reading man I was looked upon as an athlete, and so could have held my own whatever took place; but now all was different. While to outward appearances I was still a strong man, I knew that my flesh was wasting away, that the disease from which I suffered was eating away the centres of my life. Still, with a kind of stubbornness which had always characterized me, I resolved I would take no notice of the warning I had received. Why should I go away? If I were in danger it was because something interesting existed at the back of my life. I did not know what it was, but I would find out. To fear, in the ordinary sense of the word, I was a stranger, and in spite of what Fever Lurgy had said, I could not see how any one could wish to harm me. Towards morning I fell asleep, and when I awoke it was to see the sun streaming through the window of my little bedroom. I felt very light-hearted, I remember, and in the light of that new day, instead of Fever Lurgy's warning causing me to be depressed, it gave me a new interest in life. Something was happening. A mystery surrounded me. Things were taking place in this very district which gave zest to life. I jumped out of bed, and in spite of Simpson's repeated warnings against such madness, I plunged into the little pond of pure cold water, which burst out from the hill just above my house. I had scarcely finished breakfast when young Prideaux came into the room. "By the way, Erskine," he said, "you mentioned last night that you were interested in wireless telegraphy. I have to go over to M---- this morning, and remembering what you said last night, I came round this way to ask you if you would go with me." My interest in wireless telegraphy had been aroused because of the case which had won for me some notoriety. In fact, the secret of my success lay in the fact that I had swatted up the subject, and was able to put questions which would never otherwise have occurred to me. I am afraid I did not know much about the system, but, as every one knows, the success of a barrister lies largely in his power to assimilate knowledge quickly, to see the vital points of a case and to insist upon them. It seems that Prideaux had remembered the case in which I had been interested, and in talking about it I had been led to confess that I had given some attention to wireless telegraphy. This explains why he had come to me with the suggestion I have mentioned, and why I eagerly accepted his invitation to motor to M---- with him. Like every one else, I knew that Signor Marconi had erected a station in Cornwall, and that he had thereby created a new epoch in the transmission of messages. I do not know that, under ordinary circumstances, I should have mentioned this fact, but my visit to M---- that day was vitally connected with what happened afterwards. I am by no means a scientist, and what brains I have never ran in that direction. Still, I have a schoolboy's knowledge of scientific subjects, and this went far in helping me to understand the things I saw. Presently, too, the wonder of the thing laid hold of me. The sending out of a mysterious current across the spaces, to be received hundreds of miles away, was like some fairy dream of childhood. Prideaux had a friend at the station, who was a great enthusiast, and who explained, as far as it can be explained, the principle of the thing to us. "Look!" he said presently, "I will show you the thing in miniature. I can easily fix up a couple of these little machines here, and then you will see how it is done." Being an ingenious sort of fellow, he soon did as he had said, and ere long I was simply captivated. My interest in the subject, too, seemed to flatter the young fellow's pride in his work. It was not often, he affirmed, that any one came to the station who picked up the thing so easily. After spending three hours with the young operator, we had lunch together, and being in a more communicative mood than usual, I told him why I had come to Cornwall, and why, in spite of the people's kindness at St. Issey, my evenings were long and lonely. "Why not take this up as a hobby?" he said. "What? Wireless telegraphy?" "Yes. These things are easy enough to fix up. Any boy with a mechanical turn of mind can manage it. I will give you all the material necessary, and you can make a hobby of it. Of course, it will be no advantage to you, but it will help you to while away the time. When I first came here I didn't care a fig about it, but now my work is a source of ever-increasing interest to me. I am always trying new experiments. Why, you and Prideaux could have all sorts of larks." "How is that?" "Why, if you got one of these things at your place, and Prideaux fixed one up at his, you could be sending messages to each other, and you could bewilder people by telling them what is taking place at each other's houses. Don't you see?" And the young fellow laughed boyishly at the prospect which appeared before his mind. "Why, you can have a party at your house and tell your guests how, by your gift of second sight, you know exactly what is going on at Prideaux's house, and then Prideaux, when he comes over, could confirm all you say." "But I should have to learn the code in order to do this?" "Of course you would. That is easy enough. I have a book of codes. A chap with a good memory like you could learn everything in half an hour." I could see that to him his work was at once a plaything and a wonder. He must have been over twenty, but he talked like a lad of fifteen. "It is the most wonderful thing in the world," he went on. "See what lives have been saved by the invention. You remember the burning of the _Volturno_? A man I know was on board that ship, and he told me what he felt when it caught fire, and how, in spite of his danger, his heart thrilled with wonder when he saw the vessels which had been summoned by wireless to their aid. Every one would have died an awful death but for this discovery. Besides, supposing we went to war, can't you see the advantage of it?" "I don't know," I said. "It seems to me that it might be a great disadvantage. Supposing, for example, we went to war with France, and we wanted to send a message to one of our ships, the French would receive the message at one of their receiving stations, and they would know all our plans." "I've made a special study of that," he said, with a laugh. "I daren't let you know how; it would be telling; but I believe I know the secret codes of nearly all the countries. Look here, you get one of these things fixed up, and I will come over and see whether you have got it right. I can put you up to all sorts of dodges. You will never be lonely if this thing really grips you." I must confess that I caught some of the boy's enthusiasm, and when we returned that evening I brought with me the material for fixing up a kind of amateur installation. Although not scientifically inclined, the wonder of the thing appealed to me, and I reflected that during my lonely hours I could occupy myself with this marvellous discovery. Indeed, for many days afterwards I was engaged in carrying out what the boy had instructed me to do. I found what seemed to me a convenient spot on the cliff, close to my house, yet hidden from the gaze of any passer-by, and here I almost forgot my troubles in perfecting it. More than once, too, young Martin--for that was the name of the lad--came over to see me, and told me that I was getting on famously. "I am afraid your affair is not powerful enough," he said; "but I will try and send a message to you. It will be an awful lark, won't it?" By the time young Martin and I had met three times we had become quite friendly, and so eager was he about the work I was doing that he gave me a little book, which he himself had compiled, containing secret codes. "I don't know whether I ought to do this," he laughed, "but really, you know, it is so fine. It is so interesting, too, and it was by the purest chance that I picked them up." By the end of a fortnight I boasted to myself that I knew practically all young Martin could tell me about wireless telegraphy, and that I had assimilated all his boasted knowledge about codes. Although I was not a scientist, I had a voracious memory, and was not long in storing my mind with what, a few weeks before, had but little meaning to me, but was now full of mystery and wonder. By the end of that time one of my old attacks came on, and I was too ill to care about anything. Indeed, when Prideaux and Lethbridge called on me I was too unwell to see either of them. For that matter, I had lost interest in everything. Day followed day, and I opened neither newspaper nor book, nor did I give a thought to what had so interested me since my first visit to that monument of Marconi's genius. What was going on in the outside world I neither knew nor cared. Once or twice I thought the end had come, and that I should never leave Father Abraham's hut alive. Presently, however, a turn came for the better, and in what seemed a remarkable way, health and strength returned to me. I knew it was only temporary, and that in a few weeks I should have another attack, possibly worse than this, but I drove the thought from my mind. "Let me enjoy freedom from pain while I can," I said to myself. "As for morbid thoughts, I will have nothing to do with them." That was why, when Hugh Lethbridge next came to see me and invited me over to Trecarrel, I accepted the invitation with eagerness. I wanted to live while I was able, and the thought of another conversation with Isabella Lethbridge appealed to me. At Hugh's request, I went early. I engaged a kind of phaeton to meet me at the end of the copse and take me over. I still felt weak and languid after my lengthened attack, but was much stronger than I had hoped. The thought of strange faces, too, added a new interest to my life, and I looked forward with eagerness to a pleasant evening. As the carriage entered the lodge gates and passed under a fine avenue of trees, I could not help reflecting what a fine old place Trecarrel was. It had been built hundreds of years before by the family of Trecarrels, which, like many other old families, had become poor, and had to sell the ancestral acres. Mr. Lethbridge had the good sense to leave the house practically as he found it, and had not attempted to modernize it in any way. It is true he had, as he told me, brought the sanitary arrangements and the fireplaces up to date, but the building, as a whole, remained pretty much as it had been at the time of the Trecarrels. From the front entrance it commanded a fine view of rugged tors, beyond which shone the sea, on the one hand, and of wooded dells and rich meadows on the other. It was a place to rejoice in--a place of which the possessor could say proudly, "This is my home." It wanted half an hour to dinner when I entered the house, but I found Isabella Lethbridge already dressed, as if awaiting me. She gave me a warm welcome, and, as I thought, seemed pleased to see me. I had not now seen her for some weeks, and I imagined that the feelings she had awakened in my heart, when we last met, were a thing of the past. Now, however, I knew it was not so. In a way I could not understand she exercised a strange influence over me. I found myself eager to talk to her, anxious to be thought well of by her. I remembered what had been said about her, and I believed it to be true; yet at this time I cared nothing about it. What, after all, did it matter? If any one should read this, I imagine he will say that I had fallen in love with her, but such was not the case. I realized the barriers between us, that, much as I delighted in her beauty--for she was beautiful that night--that much as I rejoiced in being with her, I felt no love for her. That is, love as I understand it. I knew that she repelled me, even while she fascinated me. That she had a vigorous intelligence, I could not deny. That she possessed a strange charm was just as evident, but something kept Isabella Lethbridge from making that appeal to me which caused me to be what the world calls "in love." Perhaps this was because I knew my days were numbered. How could a man, who a few weeks before had been given a year to live, think of marriage and giving in marriage? No, no, Isabella Lethbridge was still only a problem to me, and yet I could not understand the strange interest I had in her. "I hear you have got to know Mr. Ned Prideaux?" she said to me, after we had been talking for a few minutes. "Yes, I met him one night up at Mr. Trelaske's. Do you know him?" "I have met him two or three times," was her reply. "What do you think of him?" "He struck me as a fine specimen of a young Cornishman." "Have you seen him since that night at the Vicarage?" "Yes, two or three times; we have become rather friendly." "He said all sorts of things about me, I expect?" and she looked at me questioningly. "About you! Why should he?" "Don't try to deceive me, Mr. Erskine. You cannot succeed in doing it, although you are a lawyer. I can see that he talked to you about me. What did he say?" "What could he say?" I laughed, "except that you are very beautiful and very fascinating, and all that sort of thing." I know it was very clumsy, and that had I been gifted with a ready wit I should have evaded her question with a greater appearance of ease. "That will not do, Mr. Erskine, and it is not worthy of you. What did he tell you?" There was a look in her eyes, half of curiosity, half of anger, as she spoke. It appeared that she was interested in what Prideaux thought of her, yet angry that he should speak of her. "What could he tell me?" I asked. She reflected for a few seconds, then said suddenly: "Do you believe that any one should be tied down to conventional morality, Mr. Erskine?" "Conventional morality?" I asked. "I am not sure that I understand." "Don't you think," she said, "that one has a right to pick the flowers that lie in one's pathway? Rather, don't you think it is one's duty to do so?" "The question is rather too abstract for me," was my reply; "one has to get down to concrete instances." Again she reflected for a few seconds. "I am glad you have come up early," she said. "Glad to have this opportunity of talking with you alone. You have come from a world of ideas. You have met with people who are determined to live their lives at all costs." "I have met with people, certainly, who have claimed to do this," was my reply; "but, on the whole, the so-called unconventional people, as far as my experience goes, are the most discontented. After all, life doesn't admit of many experiments, and those who make them, as a rule, have to pay very dearly for them." "Yes, but they have been happy while they have been making them," was her reply. "You confess to that, don't you?" "I am not sure. For example, I know a man who was determined to do as you say. He said he would live his life untrammelled by conventional ideas, that he would experiment, that he would pick the flowers that grew at his feet, no matter to whom they belonged." "Yes," she replied eagerly, "and what then?" "He did what he said he would do," I said, "and the result was misery. Lives were wrecked, and he obtained no satisfaction for himself." "But did he not confess that he had happiness while he was making the experiments?" "Perhaps he did, until his deeds bore fruit," was my reply. "Ah yes, that is it," and her voice was eager. "After all, what is the use of a humdrum existence? Some people," and she spoke almost bitterly, "are born handicapped. I think with you that, for most people, our present mode of life is the outcome of a long period of evolution. Customs have become laws, and these laws have hardened until, if one breaks them, he, or she, is banned--condemned. All the same, they are artificial and they should not apply to exceptional circumstances. Do you believe there is a God, Mr. Erskine?" "There seems to be a consensus of opinion that there is," was my reply. "If there is, do you think He intends us to be happy? Do you think He would condemn us for snatching at our only means of happiness?" I tried to understand the drift of her mind, but could not. "I don't know whether there is a God or not," she said. "Even all feeling of Him is kept from me. Neither do I believe there is a future life. Do you?" I was silent, for she had touched upon a sore spot. "We have only this little life, and that being so, ought we not to snatch, as a matter of duty, anything that will make this life happy? Let me put a common case to you. I knew a lad who was doomed to die between twenty and thirty. He was the victim of an hereditary disease. A year before he died, and knowing that he would die, he married the girl he loved. People called it a crime, but to me it was his only chance of happiness, and he seized it. Was he not right?" "I don't know," I said. "Some people are handicapped, Mr. Erskine. They are born into the world with limitations, kinks in their characters, and a host of wild longings--things which make life a tragedy. They cannot obtain happiness in the way ordinary people do. Why, then, is it wrong for them to try and snatch at the happiness they can get?" "That sounds all right," I said, "only I doubt the happiness." "Napoleon broke through conventional barriers," she urged. "He said he could not be governed by ordinary laws." "Exactly," I replied. "But then, for one thing, Napoleon was a genius, and, for another, his great career ended in a fiasco." "Yes; but if being a genius justifies breaking away from the established order of things, do not peculiar limitations also justify it? Do not abnormalities of any sort justify extraordinary measures? If there is a God, Mr. Erskine, we are as God made us, and surely He does not give us life to mock us?" "The worst of it is that facts laugh at us. As far as I can discover, nearly all these experiments end in bitter failure. It is by abiding by the common laws of life that we find what measure of happiness there is." "If I were sure there was a God and a future life I think I could agree with you," was her reply. "And you are not?" "How can one be?" she replied. "It all seems so unreal, so utterly unconvincing. My father sticks by his Chapel, but does he believe what he hears there? Most people accept for granted what isn't proved. They say they believe, but they have no convictions. No one is certain. Sometimes I go to hear Mr. Trelaske, and it is just the same at the Parish Church. If religion were true, it should be triumphant; but there seems nothing triumphant about it. Everything is on the surface. Again and again I have asked so-called Christians if they believe in a future life, and when one goes to the depths of things they can only say they hope so. Were not the old Greeks right when they said, 'Let us eat, drink, and be merry, for to-morrow we die'?" "You are in rather a curious mood for a young lady," I said, with a laugh. "Here you are, situated in this lovely home, with health and beauty and all that makes life worth living, and yet you talk like this." "What is the good of anything, everything, if you are forever yearning for something which you never realize, when you find that at the end of every road of desire is a great blank wall: when the things you passionately long for only end in disappointment?" "Surely that is not your condition, Miss Lethbridge?" "I don't know," she replied, and there was a touch of impatience in her voice. "One doesn't know anything. We are all so comfortable. Every one seems to have enough to eat and to drink; we have houses to live in; we are, in our way, very prosperous, and, superficially, we are content. But life is so little, so piteously mean and little, and no one seems to know of anything to make it great. We never seem to overstep the barriers which keep us from entering a greater and brighter world. Is there a greater and better world?" At that moment Mr. Lethbridge senior entered the room, and our conversation ended. XI MARY TRELEAVEN "Seen to-day's papers, Mr. Erskine?" he said, after our first greeting. "I am afraid I haven't." "You do surprise me." "I fancy I have become pretty much of a hermit, Mr. Lethbridge, and I have scarcely enough interest in what is going on to open a newspaper." "Things are very bad," he said gloomily. "Bad! How?" "We are threatened to be mixed up in this Eastern trouble. The whole thing has got entangled. Some Servian assassins have murdered the Crown Prince of Austria. Austria made certain demands on Servia. Russia supports Servia, whereupon Germany steps in and threatens Russia; but the thing doesn't end there. The alliance between France and Russia drags France in, and then the _Entente Cordiale_ between France and England causes us to interfere. Sir Edward Grey made a most pessimistic statement last night. It seems as though we might go to war." "You remember what I said the last time I was here, Mr. Lethbridge?" "Yes, I know; but it is madness, pure madness. Think what it would mean. The whole trade of the country would be crippled. For that matter the trade of the world would practically stop. We were just beginning to recover ourselves from the effect of the Boer War, and to place the finances of the country upon a solid foundation, and now----It's madness, pure madness. Just as our country seemed to be entering upon another era of prosperity. If there is a war hundreds of people will be ruined. Great firms will come tottering down like ninepins. Besides, think how we should all be taxed." "That is the way you look at it, is it?" "How can I help looking at it in that way?" he replied. "Why, think, I have just formed a company for working a petrol mine in Austria. Nearly a million of money has been raised, and is practically in the hands of the Austrians. We shall probably never see a penny of our money back. What right has England to go bothering with what Germany, or Russia, or Austria does? Why can't we attend to our own business?" "I must get hold of the papers," I said. "I must try and see how we stand." "Oh, of course, Grey makes a good case. Here is the difficulty, you see. We signed a treaty in which we are engaged to protect Belgium; Germany won't promise not to invade Belgium in order to attack France. But why should we bother about old treaties? What have we got to do with Belgium? I did think this Government had the sense to avoid war. If the Tory party had been in we might have expected it; but there it is." "Then Sir Edward Grey really thinks there is danger of war with Germany?" I asked. "Things look very black," was his reply. "If such a thing comes to pass," I could not help saying, "the whole Empire will be in danger." "What, the British Empire in danger! You don't mean that?" "I do," I replied. "I am not sure that war is not inevitable. Germany has been hungering for war for years, and she can place at least eight million men in the field, armed as never a nation was armed before." "Oh, I have no fear about the Empire," he said. "The British Empire is as firm as a rock, and as safe as Gibraltar." "We shall have to utilize every pound of power we have if it remains safe." "Nonsense! nonsense!" he replied impatiently; and I could see he regarded my opinion as of very little value. "Where's Hugh?" he went on. "Late again, I suppose." Hugh entered the room as he spoke, and behind him came his mother. A few minutes later we found our way into the dining-room. Hugh was full of the news which had that day been recorded in the newspapers. "It appears that war is certain," said Hugh. "You were right, Erskine, in what you said the last time you were here. It is evident that the Germans mean war, and are forcing it. They still hope that we won't come in, in which case they think they will soon be able to settle with France on the one hand and Russia on the other." "Of course we shan't come in," replied Mr. Lethbridge; "it would be a crime if we did. Besides, it would be bad policy. We should be missing the opportunity the war would give us. If Germany went to war with France and Russia, her trade, for the time, would be stagnated, and we should be able to get it. If we get embroiled, America will steal the trade of the world." "I have been to Plymouth to-day," said Hugh, "and, as luck would have it, I met with a man who is in the know. He says he knows for a fact that Germany means to fight us, that if we do not come in now she will simply force a war on us in two or three years' time, and then she will smash us." "Nonsense! nonsense!" "He is a great believer in what Lord Roberts says," went on Hugh. "He believes that every man in the country ought to have been trained to defend the country." "And then we should have become a military nation," was Mr. Lethbridge's reply. "No, no, that won't do, and I simply can't believe what the papers say." "Anyhow, our fleet is mobilized," said Hugh, "and I hear that the Territorials are being called up. But that is nothing. Our Army is a mere bagatelle. It is on the board that a million men will be called for. Some say there is going to be conscription." I will not record anything further that took place that night, for, truth to tell, I felt anything but comfortable. It was soon evident that Mr. Lethbridge and his son were entirely antagonistic, and, as a consequence, a strained feeling existed. Indeed, I was glad when the time came for me to return home, and but for the few minutes' chat I had with Isabella Lethbridge, I should have wished I had not accepted the invitation. There could be no doubt about it that Mr. Lethbridge was in a very bad temper. I imagined that he had lost a lot of money, and he saw the possibility of losing more. The fact, too, that Hugh, his only son, was not interested in his schemes, angered him. "I say, Erskine," said Hugh, just before my leaving the house, "you have no objection to my bringing Mary Treleaven over to see you to-morrow night? I want you to know her." "I shall be delighted," was my reply. "But do you think you are wise in opposing your father?" "How can I help opposing him?" asked Hugh. "I am of age, and I have my own life to live. She is the only girl in the world to me, and I am not going to live in misery because of the pater's fads." As I left I had a few seconds alone with Isabella Lethbridge. "You have been bored to death, Mr. Erskine," she said. "No, don't try to deny it. You have played your part very well, but your boredom is written on your face. I don't wonder at it." "Then I apologize for an unforgetable breach of good manners. But did I seem bored when I was talking to you?" "No, you did not; but please, Mr. Erskine, don't go away with a false impression about me." "I hope it is not false," I said, "for it is a very pleasant one." "That is awfully poor," she replied, "and certainly it is not worthy of you." And then she flashed a look into my eyes which, I must confess, set my heart beating violently. "Perhaps the next time you come, Mr. Erskine, we may have pleasanter things to talk about." I went home feeling that my evening had been ill-spent, and yet I was not sure. I felt somehow that forces were at work in my life which were going to make a change in me. Why, I did not know. It is said that when people are near death, the horizon of their vision becomes widened, that the barriers which have hitherto bounded their sight break down. Was that so with me? I did not know why it was, but I felt as though I were on the brink of some discovery. I had no reason for this. My thoughts were rather intuitional than logical. When I reached my little home I reflected upon what had taken place. I tried to gather up the impressions which had been made upon me since I had been in St. Issey. I was obliged to confess, too, that Isabella Lethbridge was right in many of the things she had said. I had come to Cornwall, supposed to be a religious county, and yet, as far as I could see, the religion of both Church and Chapel was something that existed only on the surface. There was very little that went down to the depths of life. I had been to Chapel several times since the service I have described. I had also been repeatedly to the Parish Church, but I never found the thing I wanted. The note of conviction, of reality, was always wanting. The people were so awfully comfortable, so completely self-satisfied; the life of every one seemed to be laid over with a thick covering of materialism. There was no general doubt about spiritual things, but there was a lack of consciousness. Men and women appeared to be careless about what they pretended to accept. I discovered, too, that people went to Church and to Chapel rather as a matter of form and custom than because they entered into communion with the Unseen and the Eternal. Next evening Hugh Lethbridge brought Mary Treleaven to see me, and directly we met I did not wonder at the young fellow's determination. If I have portrayed his character correctly, I have shown him to be a simple-minded, impulsive lad, who cared little for rank or riches; one who obeyed the promptings of his heart, rather than the findings of his reason. No one could associate Hugh with Mr. Worldly Wiseman, and surely Mary Treleaven was a fit mate for such a man. As far as I can judge, she was about twenty years of age, unsophisticated and true-hearted. That she almost worshipped Hugh was evident, and that she stood in awe of his father was just as apparent. I judged, too, that Hugh had been very enthusiastic in his praises about me, for she seemed to regard me, comparative stranger though I was, as a very dear friend of her lover, and when for a few minutes Hugh left us together, she opened her heart to me. "You know, Mr. Erskine," she said simply, "I know that as far as money and position and all that sort of thing goes, I am not Hugh's equal. My father is only a tenant farmer, and I am afraid they up at Trecarrel think that I just look on him as a good catch; but really, Mr. Erskine, it is not that at all. I almost hope they won't give him any money, and I wish, oh, I wish he was only just a simple farmer like my father! I don't care a bit about the money." "I am quite sure you don't," I said. "You care only for Hugh." "Oh, you see that, don't you?" "Indeed I do," I replied. "Do you know," she went on, as artlessly as a child, "that I have prayed about it for hours. I thought it my duty to give him up; indeed, I have offered to do so more than once, but Hugh won't hear of it. But, after all, why should I, Mr. Erskine? I love him and he loves me, and I am not afraid to work for him. Why, only give me a chance, and I will work my fingers to the bone for him," and the tears started to her eyes. I loved to hear her talk. She had that peculiar, soft intonation, common to the fairly-well-educated people in Cornwall. She spoke perfectly correctly, but the Cornish accent, which I had learnt to love--that peculiar, sing-song lilt--was manifest in every sentence she uttered. "Do you know, Mr. Erskine," she went on, "I have been up to see Mrs. Lethbridge?" "Oh!" I said; "and did you have a reason for doing that?" "Yes," she said. "I thought it right just to let her know what I felt. Hugh is talking about emigrating to Canada, and I am sure that if he went he would succeed there, and I am willing to wait five, ten years; it doesn't matter how long. You see, Mr. Erskine, I never loved any one else." "And what did Mrs. Lethbridge say to you?" "Oh, at first she didn't seem to like me, and, as I thought, was angry; but after a bit she got quite pleasant, and Hugh says that she has some money of her own, and that she is willing to give it to him, so that he can start a small farm of his own. You think it would be right, don't you?" "Think what would be right?" I asked. "For him to go against his father, and take it. It isn't as though I wanted Hugh for his money, Mr. Erskine, I only want him for himself, and he wants me." "I am sure that your motives are perfectly pure," was my reply, "but you must remember that Hugh is his father's only son, and it is a very grave thing for a boy to disobey his father's wishes." "Yes, I know, and that is what has made me so miserable. We should have been married before now but for that. I am so glad, Mr. Erskine, that you don't think badly about me." "Think badly about you?" I said, with a laugh. "That would be impossible. I only congratulate Hugh on his good luck, and I jolly well wish I had his chance." "Now you are laughing at me." "Good gracious! No, I am not laughing at you." And I suppose I sighed, for she looked at me curiously. "Oh, forgive me, Mr. Erskine. I did not think! Hugh has told me all about you. Perhaps it isn't as bad as you believe." "Well, it is no use worrying," I replied, "and, believe me, I am awfully glad to have met you. Ah, here is Hugh coming." "You don't advise me to give him up, do you?" "No, of course not!" I said; and I meant it, for this dark-haired, soft-eyed girl had made a strong appeal to me, and I had been perfectly sincere when I said that I envied Hugh Lethbridge. What, after all, were rank and position? What was anything compared with the love of a pure girl like that, and I, whose death-warrant was written, felt a great pain in my heart, as I reflected that the love of such a girl would never be known to me, that I should die in ignorance of what it could mean. "Hugh thinks so much of you, and he is so proud that you are his friend," she went on. "He says you were awfully clever at college, and that if you live you will make a great name for yourself. He says he never felt towards any one like he feels towards you. Oh, it would be lovely if you got well, and could be our neighbor and be near us always." I saw the tears roll down her face as she said this, and I, who have never known what it is to have a sister, felt towards her as, I think, brothers feel towards a sister whom they love. "You don't think badly of me, do you?" she went on. And I could see a look of longing in her eyes. "What makes you ask such a question?" I said. "Oh, Hugh says his father has quite taken to you too, and thinks a great deal of your opinion. I wonder if--if----" "I am afraid Hugh is mistaken," I said. "But if any word of mine can soften his heart----" "Oh, you are good!" she interrupted impulsively, "and you don't think that Hugh would be throwing himself away on me, do you?" "Throwing himself away?" I cried, and at that moment I thought of Miss Treherne, whom I had seen at Church on the previous Sunday morning, and mentally I compared them. The Squire's daughter was a staid-looking spinster of about thirty years of age. She had never been beautiful, and no one by the utmost stretch of imagination could call her attractive. "If I were Hugh," I said, "I would not give you up for anything or anybody, and I should regard myself as the luckiest fellow in the world to get you." She laughed like a child. It was easy to see that I had gladdened her heart, and when a few minutes later she walked away hanging on her lover's arm, I heaved a sigh of envy. "They are right, both of them," I said to myself. "What is all the money in the world, and all the rank, compared to the infinite trustfulness and affection of those two? "Surely God, if there is a God, wants them to be happy," I reflected, and I formed a sort of quixotic resolution that I would speak to Mr. Lethbridge, and try to persuade him to withdraw his opposition to his son's marriage with this pure, sweet, simple-minded country girl. I did not carry my resolution into effect, however. The next day I suffered a kind of reaction from the little excitement caused by what had taken place, and immediately afterwards it seemed as though all my thoughts and resolutions were scattered to the wind. "Please, sir," said Simpson, entering my room, "here's the paper, sir. I thought you might like to look at it, sir." "Is there anything particular in it, Simpson?" "Yes, sir; war is declared, sir." I took the paper from his hand, feeling strangely heavy-hearted, and on opening it, saw, staring me in large letters: "ENGLAND DECLARES WAR ON GERMANY. GERMANY DETERMINES TO VIOLATE HER TREATY. ENGLAND DECIDES TO RISK ALL FOR HONOR. GREAT SCENE IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. THE WHOLE NATION UNANIMOUS." No sooner had I read this, than a strange calm came upon me, and I scanned the paper in a detached sort of way. I seemed to have nothing to do with it; I was cut off from everything. I read what had been written, rather as one who read the history of another country, than as something which vitally affected England. In a way I had expected it. My conversation at Trecarrel had somewhat prepared me, and yet events had moved so rapidly, that declaration of war came like a shock. The whole story was set forth in the newspapers, and from the dispatches it was made plain that, while Germany had hoped that England would remain neutral, and had been willing to offer bribes for our neutrality, she had planned this war, and made arrangements for it. There was no doubt that she believed both Russia and France to be entirely unprepared, and that both she and Austria were prepared. It was plain too that unless we were willing to violate our plighted word, and to allow our honor to be dragged in the dust, we must stand by Belgium. I saw more than this. I saw that a critical moment had come in the life of our nation and Empire. For I realized, knowing Germany as I did, that this was not a war to be "muddled through," as had been the case with other wars. I knew that England must make sacrifices, such as had hitherto been unknown to her. I knew that before German militarism could be crushed, all the vast resources of our Empire would have to be utilized, and that we must be prepared to spend our last penny, and shed the last drop of our blood. But even then I did not realize what this war would mean to our Island home, never saw, even from afar, how it would revolutionize the thoughts and feelings of our land, never dreamed how it would affect the lives of the people in this little Cornish village. XII FIRST DAYS OF THE WAR Next morning I took a walk into the village, and just as I was entering it saw a group of youths reading a placard on the wall. It was headed by the British Coat of Arms, and contained an appeal from Lord Kitchener for five hundred thousand men. The youths looked at it stolidly. They did not seem to think that it affected them. Farther on I saw a woman brushing the little pathway which led to the front door of her cottage. By this time I had become on friendly terms with many of the people in the village, who spoke of me as "the poor young man, staying up to Father Abraham's hut." They evidently knew why I had come to Cornwall, and looked on me pityingly as I passed by. "Mornin', sur." "Good-morning, Mrs. Crantock." "This es ter'ble news, sur." "Yes, very terrible." "I d' think et es judgment from God." "Why do you think that, Mrs. Crantock?" "Ah, sur, w've a forgot God, sur. Things be'ant what they used to be, and God's goin' to teach us a lesson." She was a woman perhaps sixty years of age, and had a patient, kindly face, even although it was not without signs of determination and vigor. "What reason have you for saying that we have forgotten God?" I asked. I reflected that she was an intelligent woman, and represented the class to which she belonged. "Ah, sur, I've lived in Cornwall all my life, and I ca'ant 'elp seein' the deffurence between things now and what they used to be." "Oh," I said, "and how is that?" "Ah, sur, the young people be'ant the same. Why, sur, when I was a young woman, we didn't spend all our time gaddin' about, like young people do nowadays. We wad'n all for pleasure then. Why, sur, every Sunday mornin' I used to go to seven o'clock prayer-meetin', and there would be thirty or forty of us. The people had'n forgot 'ow to pray then, sur." "And have they now?" I asked. "Why, sur, there ed'n no seven o'clock meetin'; we d'ardly ever 'ave prayer-meetin' like we used to. There ed'n nobody to pray, so to speak, and when they do pray, 'tis deffurent. Ah, sur, we 'ad power then. We felt the power, too. As for the Chapel, it was full nearly every Sunday, and nearly everybody went." "And they don't go now?" I suggested. "No, sur, they do'ant go now. That is, nothin' like they used to. Young people do'ant seem to have no relish for the House of God." "What is the reason of it?" I asked. "Worldliness and pleasure, sur. Everybody be a thinkin' 'ow they shall enjoy theirselves. Yes, sur, we 'ave forgotten God, and He is goin' to bring us back to our senses. Yes, war is a ter'ble thing, but ef et will do that et'll be good for us. We d'need strong physic sometimes." I waited, for I could see that she was in a communicative mood, and was pleased with the attention I gave to her. "Then ther's the class-meetin's," she went on; "when I was a young woman, all the professin' Christians went to class-meetin', and everybody did give their experience. It was a means of grace to go then, sur. Men and women 'ad somethin' to tell of what God had done for them, and now, it do'ant seem as ef anybody 'ad any experience to give. Why, sur, we 'ad cottage prayer-meetin's all over St. Issey, and we was 'appy. We knawed then that God loved us, but now we do'ant seem to think about God. Religion wad'n a formal thing then, sur, it was everything to us. Yet, I dunno; people seem to have more worldly goods than they 'ad then, we 'ave better wages, and more of the good things of this life, but then we knawed God; now we do'ant." "Do you mean to say that every one has forgotten Him, Mrs. Crantock?" "No, sur, I do'ant go so fur as that. There be a few who 'aven't removed the ould landmarks. There's Tommy Yelland, and Mary Tresidder, and a few like they, to whom the Word of God is precious, but there be'ant many. You can remember, sur, the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. The Lord destroyed those cities because there wad'n ten righteous men. I do'ant say things is so bad as that wi' we, but we have lost certainty, sur, and we 'ave lost power. Be you a professin' Christian yerself, sur?" "I am afraid I am not, Mrs. Crantock, but I am very interested in it." "Ah, sur, I wish you 'ad come down 'ere in the ould days, when we 'ad Revivals. I've knawed the time when every one in St. Issey who went to Chapel was converted." "Revivals?" I said, for I scarcely understood her. "Yes, sur, the Spirit of the Lord used to move mightily, and after a Sunday evening service I 'ave knawed lots of people come out and be soundly converted; but that is all over now." "Why is that?" I asked. "Ted'n the Lord's fault, sur; His arm is not shortened, neither is His ear heavy. We have resisted His Spirit, sur, and come away from Him. We are fulfilling words of Scripture, 'Ephraim is joined to his idols; let him alone.' Why, sur, at our last special services nobody wad'n converted." "Special services?" I queried. "Yes, sur, we call it a 'mission' now, and we 'ad a special preacher down, but there wad'n no results." "And are things no better at the Church?" I asked. "Well, sur, they d'think of things deffurent up there. We do'ant look upon they as thinking about religion, like we Wesleyans do, or used to do," she added, correcting herself. "Now, sur, we be all alike. There do'ant seem any deffurence between the Church and the world. That is why God 'ave allowed this ter'ble war to come; for 'twill be ter'ble, do'ant you think so, sur?" "Yes," I replied, "I am afraid it will." "I d'ear they Germans be ter'ble fighters, and that every man in the country is a sojer. Es that true, sur?" "Yes, practically true." "Ah, 'tis a wisht thing ed'n et, then? but ef all the people would return to the Lord I shudd'n fear, but we seem to 'ave forgot the power of prayer. Be you better then, sur, makin' so bold?" "Not much better, I am afraid," I replied. "You do look fine an' slight, sur," she added, looking at me pityingly. At first I scarcely understood what she meant, but I discovered that the word "slight" was commonly used among the Cornish people when they spoke of people looking ill. "Pardon me," I said, for although the old dame was comparatively ignorant, and lived in a narrow world of her own, her conversation had greatly interested me. She had made me realize the power of Methodism in the county half a century before, and I wondered whether, in the simplicity of her mind and heart, she had got hold of a greater truth than I had realized. I remembered some words of the Founder of Christianity, "He hath hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hath revealed them unto babes." "Have you lost the knowledge of God, which you once possessed, with the rest of the people?" "No, sur; that is," she added, correcting herself, "I do'ant think I have. Sometimes I am in danger of forgetting Him, and then He d'seem a long way off like, but I know et es my own fault, for direckly I spend a lot of time on my knees the Lord d'come real again to me. I d'remember my ould man's death-bed, too, and, sur, he was like Enoch of old, he walked with God, and when he came to die it was like heaven to hear him talk. He was triumphant, sur, triumphant." As I left Mrs. Crantock, and made my way into the village, I could not help reflecting on what she had said. I had now been in St. Issey ten weeks, and had had time to form some impression on the life of the people. I could not help being convinced, too, that the old woman, in her simple way, had spoken the truth. As far as I could see there was no religion in Cornwall such as she had described. The people were, on the whole, well conducted, but, as I understood the word, there was no deep sense of religion at all. Both at Chapel and Church the people were listless, and, to a large extent, indifferent. The fact of God was not real. That consciousness of the presence of God, which, as far as I could judge, had been common to the people fifty years before, no longer existed. And yet, perhaps, I am not altogether right in saying this. The ideals and the thoughts of the people were largely because of what religion had been in the olden days. Whether the distinctive doctrines of Methodism were largely superstition I am not going to argue here, but they had, in the past, permeated the county, and their effects had not altogether died out. On the other hand, however, they were no longer a present possession, neither was religion, in a large number of cases, a distinctive factor in their lives. The people were comfortable, well fed, well housed, and, generally, well conditioned, and, as a consequence, they did not feel the need of God. The fear of hell, which was prevalent in the old days, had died out, and with its death the realization for the need of religion had died out too. They were so comfortable, so self-satisfied, that everything appertaining to the spiritual world was a long, long way off. No one seemed to be stirred to the depths of life, never anywhere was there a deep calling unto the deep; and thus, while the majority of people were respectable and well behaved, they sought for satisfaction in the life around them. As I walked through the village I came upon a number of miners lounging around, with, apparently, nothing to do. They were, they informed me, working afternoon "core" that week, and thus had their mornings at liberty. They greeted me heartily as I came up, and willingly entered into conversation with me. The subject of conversation was the war, and the two things which impressed me were, first of all, that it would soon be over, and, second, that they had nothing to do with it. In the majority of cases they did not seem to feel that Lord Kitchener's appeal was to them at all. They imagined that soldiers would be forthcoming, and that England would be able to get all the men she wanted, but the idea that they should leave their homes and go away for training did not seem to occur to them. I am speaking now of those early days of the war, before the terror of it really gripped the country. "I d'give they Germans about six weeks," said one miner to me. "What can Germany do 'gainst Russia and France and we? I tell you what, maaster, they have bite off a bigger piece than they can chow, tha's what they've done; do'ant you think so?" "I hope they have," I replied; "but I think you are over-confident. You see, in Germany, every man is trained to be a soldier, and thus they have an army nearly twenty times as big as we have." "But you do'ant think they'll bait we, do 'ee, maaster?" "I think we shall have difficult work to beat them," was my reply, "and the sooner you chaps enlist the better." "What! we go for sojers; do'ant you believe it. I never fired a gun in my life." "Then I think the sooner you begin to learn the better." But I could make no impression on them. The war, to them, was a long way off, and they had only a kind of detached interest in it. They quite agreed with me that, as we were in it, we should have to see it through, only some one else must see it through, not they. The thought of their becoming soldiers seemed utterly alien to them. I discovered, too, that all of them had a kind of feeling that they would lower themselves in the social grade if they donned the King's uniform. In the past, the Army had largely been recruited from men of the extreme lower orders. Of course, I am referring now to privates. When a young fellow got into trouble, or had disgraced himself in any way, the Army was a kind of harbor of refuge. Indeed, it was quite common for magistrates to give incipient criminals the choice between joining the Army and being sent to prison. As a consequence, these Cornish miners, who in their way were exceedingly proud, thought it beneath them to don the King's uniform. Besides, as Mr. Lethbridge had said on a previous occasion, the whole spirit of the county was utterly alien to anything like militarism. As, towards noon, I found my way back to my hut, a great feeling of bitterness came into my heart. "Wouldn't I enlist, if I were able?" I said to myself. "I would to heaven that I were strong and well, and able to do something; but I am nothing but a useless hulk. If the spirit shown by these young fellows is the spirit of the country, the Germans will smash us in a few weeks." For I was not blind to the problem which faced us. I knew that France was not prepared in the same way that Germany was. I remembered that, forty-five years before, Von Moltke with his perfectly trained army had swept down like an avalanche, and carried away the French army as if by a flood. I knew, too, that the German forces were far stronger now than they were then, and that, with the thoroughness which characterized them, they had prepared everything to the minutest detail. I reflected that at that time the German guns were thundering at the Liège forts, and that, except some miracle happened, the German hordes would sweep towards Paris, as in the great _dêbâcle_ of 1870. I knew we had a little army of, perhaps, 200,000 men, but what could they do against such a mighty host? I wondered, too, whether our guns were equal to those of the Germans. Altogether, I was very pessimistic. After this, some days passed without anything happening. For some reason or other I seemed to be left severely alone. No one visited me, neither did I go out of the house. The weather was somewhat inclement, and I was too depressed to brave the angry clouds which hung in the sky. I went neither to Church nor to Chapel, but hung around my hut, sometimes listlessly walking along the cliffs, but, in the main, staying in my little room. "I suppose, sir," said Simpson, one evening, "that there is going to be a recruiting meeting in the village schoolroom." "How did you find that out, Simpson?" I asked. "Saw a bill, sir. Squire Treherne is going to take the chair, and the Vicar and several others are going to speak." "When is the meeting to be, Simpson?" "To-morrow night, sir." Although I felt far from well, I determined to go. I was far away from the centres of life, and felt utterly incapable of doing anything; but I wanted to feel the throb of humanity's pulses, longed to take my share in the great world struggle. I had not time to ask any more questions, however, for at that minute Hugh Lethbridge walked into my room, and I saw by the look on his face that he was much perturbed. I did not ask him any questions, for at that moment Simpson was busily clearing away the dinner utensils. It was evident, however, that something had excited him greatly. He could not sit still, and his hands were constantly clenching and unclenching themselves. "Erskine," he said presently, when Simpson had left the room, "I want you to help me." "Help you, my dear fellow, how?" "I have been and done it," he said. "Done what?" "I could not help it, my dear chap. You have seen the placards all over the place. You know the call there has been for men. What could I do? Here am I, healthy and strong, and just the kind of man that is needed. How could I hang back like a coward?" "Then you have enlisted?" "Yes," he cried, "I have enlisted; I could not help myself." "As a private?" "Yes, as a private. I am not fit to be an officer." "But didn't you belong to the Officers' Training Corps when you were at school?" "The pater would not allow me. No, it was no use my thinking anything about it, so I went to a recruiting station and joined up. I shall have to go to the front immediately." "How is that?" I asked. "What is the use of your going to the front without training? They won't allow you. You will be kept in England at least six months." "No, I shan't. You see, I know the Colonel of the regiment I have joined very well, and he is off to the front immediately, and I am going too." "But how?" "Well, you see, for one thing, I know French and German, and for another, I am not a bad hand at mechanics. I know all about a motor-car, inside and out, and they can find work for me." "Then you are not going as an ordinary Tommy?" "In a way I am, and in a way I am not; but there it is. They are going to make a special case of me. I am off to-morrow to join my regiment, and from what I can hear, the regiment is off in two or three days. I don't know exactly what my duties will be; but there it is, I am off." "What will your father say?" I asked. "That is what I have come to see you about. I never realized until I had done it what the pater would say. You know I am fond of him, even although we have never got on well together. He has never understood me, and I am afraid I have never understood him--there is no link of sympathy between us; but then, you know, he is my pater after all. Yes, I have joined; but that is not all, Erskine." "Not all?" I queried. "What is there besides?" "I have been and got married," was his reply. "Got married!" "Yes. I expect it was a mad thing to do, but I could not help myself. You don't know what it is to be in love, Erskine, and I could not bear the idea of leaving Mary without knowing she was my wife." "And, of course, your father knows nothing about that either?" "No, he knows nothing. You see, I got married by special license. I was afraid to tell the pater what was in my mind,--afraid he would interfere somehow and stop me,--so I thought I would do it first and tell him afterwards." Our conversation was not nearly so connected and straightforward as I have described it here. What he said was uttered in quick, disjointed sentences. Sometimes he would break off in the middle of what he was saying, and talk about something else. That he was greatly excited was easy to see. It was evident, too, that his duty towards his father troubled him greatly. "I don't mind mother," he said; "she will be all right--mother understands me. Of course, Bella and I laugh at her, and all that sort of thing, because she is always making plans for us, and mapping out our day's program, and telling us what we ought to do. We call her the general manager; but she is a good sort is mother, and she understands us, too. But the pater is different. Somehow, he cannot understand us, and we cannot understand him. I suppose, in a way, he is just, and in many things he is generous to me, but in others----Well, there it is. I wondered what I ought to do. At first I thought I would go away without telling him anything, but that would be acting like a sneak. Mind you, Erskine, I would not undo anything I have done. If ever a man had a call to serve his country, I have, and I think it is a splendid piece of luck that I can be useful at a time like this, without going through the training of an ordinary soldier. I jumped at the chance of going to the front straight away; but then, there was Mary. How could I leave her without being sure that I had her? I was afraid the pater would take steps to hinder me from ever getting her. You have some idea what he is--and I was afraid. Besides, she was willing, and so I--I----God forgive me if I have done wrong, Erskine, but I could not help it." "Well, what can I do to help you?" I asked. "There it is, and that is why I have come to-night. I have always had the reputation of having a fair amount of pluck; I do not fear death a bit, and I haven't a single qualm about going to the front; but it's the pater, you see." "What about your father?" I asked. "I am afraid to tell him, Erskine. I simply dare not go home and tell him what I have done." "Nonsense!" I said; "he cannot eat you; you have done nothing to be ashamed of. For that matter you have done what thousands of other fellows have done. You have joined the Army at the call of your King and Country, and it was the right thing to do. I would to God that I were able to do it too!" "Would you, Erskine?" he cried eagerly. "You think I have done right, then?" "I think you should have gone to your father first and asked for his consent. Then, if he would not give it, I think you, being of age, and feeling it your duty, should go in spite of him." "But he would not have consented." "Exactly; still, you should have asked him. As for getting married----" "Yes, yes, what about that?" and he looked towards me feverishly. "Well," I said, "hundreds of fellows are doing it. I have seen scores of such cases in the newspapers. Hurried marriages have been arranged by young fellows going to the front." "Yes, but, you see, they have been different. They have been married with their father's blessing, and all that sort of thing; but I, I am afraid to go and tell him, Erskine, unless----" "Unless what?" I asked. "The pater thinks no end of you," he said excitedly. "He doesn't say much, but I can see it. You see, you promised to do well at the Bar, and he thinks you are clever, and all that sort of thing. Of course he hasn't said much to you, but I know it." "Well, what if he does?" I asked. "Look here, Erskine, that is what I came for. Will you come with me? If you are with me, I believe I can tell him. I have got the car outside, and I can run you up in five minutes." Although I ought to have seen what was in his mind all the time, his request came almost as a shock to me. Josiah Lethbridge was almost a stranger to me. It is true I had been to his house twice, and had met him on two other occasions, but he was not a man to whom one could speak freely. At least I thought so. As I have intimated before, he was a strong, capable man, and, like many of his class, was overbearing, almost repellent. He had risen from a poor lad by his own energy and determination and ability. He had swept difficulties out of his path. He had succeeded because he had made others yield to his stronger will. All these things had left their mark upon him. He could not bear opposition, and he took it as a personal grievance when others did not fall in with his way of thinking. I knew, too, his thoughts and desires with regard to his son, knew how he hated militarism, knew how ambitious he was that Hugh, his only son, should take a high place, not only in the county but in the nation. Therefore, when he was told that Hugh had not only joined the Army as a common soldier, but had married, against his will, a small tenant farmer's daughter, his anger would know no bounds. Besides, what had it to do with me? I had known none of them before I came to Cornwall, less than three months before. Why should I be dragged into this imbroglio? Then I looked at Hugh Lethbridge's face, saw the quiver of his lips, saw the eager look in his eye. Although I had known him only a few weeks, I had conceived a strong affection for him, and, in spite of myself, could not help sympathizing with him. "Will you help me?" he said pleadingly. I nodded. "You will come with me now and see the pater?" "If you wish it." "Thank you, my dear chap," and his voice became husky as he spoke. A few minutes later we stood at the door of Josiah Lethbridge's house. XIII FATHER AND SON I think Isabella Lethbridge must have realized that something out of the ordinary had brought me there that night, for when she met me in the hall there was a look of inquiry on her face. Still, she greeted me kindly, almost eagerly. "It is good of you to come up with Hugh. Father is in the library alone," she said, "and mother and I have sat for more than an hour without speaking. Come in, will you?" "I am afraid I can't," I said. "I have come to see Mr. Lethbridge." Again she looked at me inquiringly, and I was sure, as her glance passed from myself to Hugh, that she divined something of our purpose. "You said the pater was in the library, Bella?" said Hugh. "Yes," was her reply. "Some man came up to see him directly after dinner, and has only just left. I fancy he has had some unpleasantness about business." Hugh, whose mouth had now become firm and determined, went to the library door and knocked. "Yes, come in." I followed Hugh Lethbridge into the room, while he carefully shut the door. The older man looked at us inquiringly. "Won't you sit down?" he said to me, nodding towards a chair; but I could see that he hardly knew what he was saying. His eyes were riveted on Hugh's face, as if he would read his inmost soul. Even then I could not help being impressed by the young fellow's behavior, nor, for that matter, by his general appearance. For Hugh Lethbridge was one of the finest specimens of British young manhood I have ever met. Quite a boy in appearance, he was tall, well knit, and muscular. He had an open, frank countenance, sparkling blue eyes, and brown, wavy hair. He stood before his father firm and erect. His every movement belied the statement that he was afraid. There was no suggestion of fear in his presence, except for the fact that once he looked towards me, as if to be certain that I was there, near to him. Then, without preamble, and without seeking to excuse himself in any way, he burst forth with the news. "Pater," he said, "I have joined the Army--and--and I have married Mary Treleaven." The two sentences came like two pistol-shots. He had evidently determined to waste no time or words. His father did not speak a word for some time. At first he looked at his son, as though he did not comprehend him, and then, when the truth came to him, felt stunned. I watched his face closely, as Hugh spoke, and for a moment could not help pitying him. I realized the pride of the man, realized, too, all the plans he had made, and understood something of what he felt when he saw that the structure he had built up was levelled to the ground like a house of cards. At first I thought he was going to lose control over himself. I saw anger flash from his eyes, saw his face harden. Perhaps, had I not been there, he would have yielded to the passion of the moment; but he was a proud man, and would not willingly place himself in a ridiculous position. It was evident, too, that two forces were fighting in his heart. One was love for his boy; for doubtless, in his way, Hugh was very dear to him. He was his only son, and, as he had hoped, heir to his possessions. On the other hand, he could not bear opposition, and would not yield an inch in the pathway which he had chosen to tread. The silence was almost painful. After Hugh had blurted out his confession, he seemed like one incapable of speech, as his eyes were riveted on his father's face. Neither did he feel that there was anything for him to say. I had told Hugh, on my way up to the house, that he must not expect me to plead for him. It was not my business to interfere between father and son. Indeed, I felt like an intruder all through the painful interview. As for Josiah Lethbridge, he sat in the leather-covered library chair, close by his writing-desk, motionless, for what seemed an interminable time. Then, as if by force of habit, he took a pen, and began to draw grotesque figures on the blotting-pad. He was evidently thinking deeply. Outside the night was windless, and no sound reached us save that of the roll of the waves upon a distant beach. "Dad," burst out Hugh at length, "have you nothing to say?" The older man moved in his chair slowly, and as if with difficulty. "What is there to say?" and his voice was hard and cold. "Well, I thought that--that----" And then Hugh broke down. "What is there to say?" repeated Josiah Lethbridge in the same cold, even voice. "You know what my views are, you know what my wishes are. I have told you more than once my plans about you; but it seems that you thought yourself wiser than I. Or perhaps," he added, "you do not care about my wishes. That is why you have gone and married a penniless girl who can never be anything but a drag to you--married her, too, senselessly, madly, without a shadow of reason for doing it." I saw then that the thing which had wounded him most deeply was not the fact that his son had joined the Army, but that he had married a poor village girl--married her in spite of his wishes, in spite of his positive command. "You have acted in a very honorable way, too, haven't you?" he sneered. "Knowing what my feelings are in the matter, you take the irrevocable step first, and then come and tell me afterwards." "But, dad, don't you see?" and Hugh spoke excitedly. "Yes, I ought to have spoken to you first, perhaps; but then I knew you would not give your consent, and--and I could not bear to lose her. You see, I--I love her!" "Love her!" and Josiah Lethbridge spoke contemptuously. "Yes, love her," cried the young fellow hotly. "I have loved her for years." "A common village girl!" burst forth the father. "She is not common," replied the son. "A purer, better girl never breathed. No one has ever dared to raise a breath against her. She is well educated, too, and every one respects her." It was evident the father's contempt aroused the lad's anger. He had no difficulty in speaking now. Mary Treleaven had to be defended, and he no longer stammered in his speech; words came easily. "I say she is a pure girl and a good girl," he continued almost angrily, "and I love her." I thought for the moment that Josiah Lethbridge would have lost self-control here, and have burst forth in a tirade of abuse; but still he kept command over himself, and, although his lips quivered, he spoke quietly. "Pardon me if I doubt your love," he said. "May I ask what you intend doing with her? If a man loves a woman, he should at least have some prospect of keeping her decently before he marries her." At this Hugh was silent. The father had, by his question, pierced the weak place in Hugh's armor. "If you think," went on Josiah Lethbridge, "that I am going to do anything for her, or you, you are mistaken. You have chosen your own way; you must follow it. I had intended another future for you, but my intentions do not seem to count. I think there is nothing more to say," and he moved in his chair as though the interview were at an end. Then, as if on second thoughts, he turned to me and said quietly: "I do not see why you should have been dragged into this, Mr. Erskine; but I suppose you had your own reason for coming." I felt he had placed me in a wrong position, and for a moment was at a loss how to answer him. Indeed, I felt I had made a mistake in coming, and I was almost sorry I had yielded to Hugh's entreaty. "He came," stammered Hugh, "because I--I begged him to. I was a coward, and I--I thought you would b--be more reasonable to me if he came." "Have I ever been anything but reasonable to you, Hugh?" asked the father. "Of course, to one like yourself, who will not listen to reason, I suppose my words have seemed harsh and arbitrary. I am an older man than you, and therefore think my way is best. Besides----But we will not speak of that. Surely, however, Mr. Erskine did not come here with the intention of condoning your action." "I am sorry if my presence here is unwelcome," I said. "All the same----" "Excuse my interrupting," said Josiah Lethbridge. "Did you know of my son's intention? Were you aware of his mad plans?" "No, dad," burst in Hugh; "Erskine knew nothing. He was as surprised as you when, an hour ago, I went and told him. The truth is, dad, that you and I have never got on well together. You seem to have forgotten that you were ever a young man, and had a young man's feelings and thoughts--seem to have forgotten that you were ever in love. You have always treated me, even since I have reached a man's age, as though I were never to have a will of my own, or to think of disagreeing with you. I feared you as a child, and--and up to to-night I feared you still. That was why I asked Mr. Erskine to come with me while I made my confession." "Did you think," asked Mr. Lethbridge, "that he would influence me in any way?" "I don't know what I thought," replied Hugh; "but Erskine told me that you ought to know--that I ought to come and tell you everything; and I have come, and I have told you." "Very well. That is all, I suppose?" and still the older man spoke in the same calm, measured tones. "You, I imagine, think you have done a very romantic and heroic thing. On the other hand, I feel that my only son has disgraced me." "Disgraced you?" "Yes, disgraced me. Every one in the county who knows me will point at me as one whose son married against his father's wishes--married without a penny--married like one who is ashamed of his action. Well, I imagine I can bear it." "Is that all you have to say, dad?" "I cannot see what there is to say besides. You have followed your own devices, and you must take the consequences." "I think it may be as well to remember, Mr. Lethbridge," I said, "that, whether your son has acted wisely or foolishly, he can claim the credit of being sincere and honest. There is nothing ignoble in a young fellow marrying the girl he loves. As for his joining the Army, it is what every young man ought to do at a time like this." "Pardon me, Mr. Erskine, if I have my own opinions about my son's actions. No doubt the old-fashioned ideas which were instilled into my mind as a boy are regarded as out of date. I was taught to believe in the Commandment, 'Honor thy father and thy mother.' That Commandment, in the present generation, is discarded; but I do not think the present generation, or future generations, will be any the better because they have discarded it. As for his joining the Army, he certainly knows my views about that." "But surely you will give him credit for being conscientious and sincere?" Josiah Lethbridge looked down at the blotting-paper upon which he had been tracing grotesque figures without speaking. He seemed to imagine that my question did not call for a reply. "Hugh tells me that in all probability he will have to go to the front shortly," I went on. "It may be--although I sincerely trust he will come back in safety--he will never come back again. That being so, it is natural to hope that his father will say a kind word before he goes. After all, your son is doing the noblest thing of which he is capable: he is offering his life to his country." "Pardon me, Mr. Erskine," replied Josiah Lethbridge, "but perhaps I may be forgiven if I hold different views from your own. I am a plain man, and as a rule do not waste words. When a son of mine deliberately flouts the deepest convictions of his father's life; when he deliberately defies and does what his father has commanded him not to do; when he tramples underfoot his father's deepest convictions--then, I say, he is no longer a son of mine; henceforth he is a stranger to my house." I was staggered at this. I had quite expected anger--denunciation, perhaps--but not this cold, cruel treatment. "You cannot mean that, sir?" I said. "I am not in the habit of saying what I do not mean, and I do not speak hastily. Your presence here, Mr. Erskine, may have given my brave son the courage to speak to his father, although I have my own opinion about your good taste in coming here to support him; but it doesn't alter my opinions and determinations in the slightest degree, and I presume that, since he has chosen to defy me, he has made his own plans for the future. Anyhow, I have no more to do with him." "Dad, you don't mean that!" and Hugh's voice was hoarse and trembling. "I do not think I need detain you any longer," and Josiah Lethbridge rose from his chair as he spoke. "I have many things to attend to." Perhaps I was foolish, but I could not bear the idea of the young fellow being turned out of his home without making protest. I knew it was no business of mine, and that I was taking an unpardonable liberty in interfering in any way, but I could not help myself. "Mr. Lethbridge," I said, "you will live to repent this. That your son may have been foolish in making a hurried marriage I do not deny; but that he has done wrong in joining the Army at such a time as this I _do_ deny, and it seems to me that no father should treat his son as you are treating yours. He, at least, is offering his life, while you, without a thought of sacrifice and without care for your country's need, coldly turn him out of the house." "Sacrifice!" and for the first time there was a touch of passion in his voice. "We are dragged into this ghastly war through the bungling of our statesmen; we are made the puppets and playthings of political hacks!" he cried. "The whole country is being dragged to ruin because of the mad bungling of those at the head of affairs, and then, because some of us are sane and do not wish to see the country bled to death, we are told that we are making no sacrifice. Sacrifice! I have within the last week lost a fortune through this madness. My business will be ruined; we shall be all bled white with taxation; England will never be the same again; and my own son--or he who was my son," he added in bitter parenthesis--"offers himself as a legalized murderer! And then you talk about sacrifice! But remember this," he added, looking towards Hugh, "it will be no use your coming to me in days to come, or expecting help in any way. I wash my hands of your whole future. As you have made your bed, so you must lie on it." Hugh Lethbridge stood in the middle of the room, looking at his father in a dazed kind of way, as though he had failed to comprehend his words. "You--you surely don't mean that, dad!" Josiah Lethbridge stood, resting one hand on the back of his chair, his face hard and immovable, no word passing his lips. "Good-bye, dad," and Hugh held out his hand. The father did not seem to notice it. He stood perfectly still, with the same hard look on his face. Hugh passed out of the room, leaving me alone with the angry man. "Good-night, sir," I said. "I am sorry, and some day you will be." He hesitated a second, as if in doubt whether to speak, then he looked at me more kindly. "Mr. Erskine," he said, "doubtless you do not approve of my actions, but my convictions are not of yesterday." "I hope, when you have considered, you will act differently," was my reply. "Your son may have all the foolishness of a boy, but he is a lad of whom any father ought to be proud." Mr. Lethbridge did not speak a word for some seconds, then he said, half apologetically: "I am afraid, Mr. Erskine, that I have been very rude to you. I remember that you are a guest in my house, and I am afraid that, in my disappointment, I have broken the laws of hospitality. I shall always be pleased to see you here, when you care to call." "Thank you," I replied, "but I am afraid I cannot accept the hospitality which you offer. The man who closes his door to such a son as yours, and for such a reason, forfeits all right to respect. I am told you claim to be a religious man, but I will not speak of that." And I, too, passed out of the room. I had scarcely closed the door behind me when I saw Isabella Lethbridge standing in the hall. "Hugh has gone in to see mother," she said. "Please tell me what has happened." "I have no right to do that, Miss Lethbridge," was my reply. "Good-night." I went to the door and opened it, regardless of what she might think of me. It seemed to me that I could not breathe in the house; the atmosphere was stifling, and the memory of the look I had seen on Hugh's face made me so angry that I could not trust myself. XIV THE RECRUITING MEETING The human mind and heart are difficult to understand, and, in spite of all men's researches in the realm of psychology, can never be explained. I had left Mr. Lethbridge's house, angry with the owner of it, almost angry with Hugh, certainly hard and bitter towards Isabella Lethbridge; and yet, no sooner had I got outside than an entire revulsion of feeling and thought came over me. My mind seemed like a cloud of dust, while confused, whirling thoughts possessed me. But nothing was real and clear, save that I had played an unworthy part. I reflected that I had not understood Hugh, neither had I understood his father, and in everything I had bungled. I had left Mr. Lethbridge when, as it now seemed to me, he was in the humor to be reasoned with. Had I, I reflected, understood anything of the human heart, I should have known that he would have felt a sense of utter desolation at Hugh's departure, and might, if I had been wise, have repented of his harsh action; but I had not been wise. In a fit of anger I had refused his hospitality, I had insulted him, and thereby had closed the door of his house against me forever. With this thought, too, came the realization that I had been anything but courteous to Isabella Lethbridge. She, naturally, had desired to know something about the interview which had taken place, and I had rudely refused to reply to her question. I had left the house in a way that was less than civil, and had, as a consequence, stamped myself as a clown. Strange as it may seem, I had practically forgotten all about Hugh. I had come to his father's house in order to be near him during the most critical and difficult hour of his life, and I ought to have been with him during the period of anguish which must naturally follow. Instead of which I had left him as though I did not care how he fared. But more than all this my mind and heart were in a state of turmoil, as I considered my feelings towards Isabella Lethbridge. I had caught the flash of her eyes as she looked into mine. In my pride and vanity I could not help believing that she had an interest in me which was more than ordinary, and I knew my heart had responded to what I believed existed in hers, even although, all the time, I felt angrily towards her. I walked towards the Lodge gates, scarcely knowing what I was doing or realizing what had happened, except in a vague, confused way. At that time I forgot my own malady, forgot that my days were numbered. It seemed to me that life stretched out before me, full of wonder, and full of promise. Presently, however, my confused feelings subsided, and I began to think more sanely and connectedly on what had taken place. I remembered that Hugh's car was outside the house, and that, in all probability, he would be coming along in a few minutes. I determined, therefore, to wait for him. So instead of passing through the Lodge gates, I turned and walked back towards the house. I had not gone more than a hundred yards when I met Isabella Lethbridge. Why she had come I had no idea, because she could not have expected to meet me. She would, naturally, think I had continued my journey home, yet she showed no surprise at meeting me. "Mr. Erskine," she said, "what have I done that you should--should----" I thought I caught a sob in her voice. Certainly she seemed strangely wrought upon. I was silent, for I did not know how to answer her. Longings, hopes, fears, and desires surged through my heart in a most unaccountable way. In one sense I felt strangely happy at being there with her on that bright moonlight night; for the clouds had now rolled away, and the moon sailed serenely in the sky above. On the other hand, I knew I was much depressed. While everything was possible, nothing seemed possible. Truly, life was a maddening maze! She turned with me, as if to return to the house, and for some time we walked side by side without speaking. "Won't you tell me what has taken place?" she asked. "Your brother has joined the Army," I replied. "He has got married too--married to Mary Treleaven. He asked me to come with him to the house while he told his father." "And----?" she asked. "Need I tell you that?" was my response. "You mean that my father has driven him out of the house," and her voice was hard and angry. I do not know why it was, but at that moment I felt I must champion Josiah Lethbridge's cause. The man had angered me beyond words, and yet I found myself excusing him. "Your father has had all his convictions trampled upon, all his hopes destroyed," I replied. "The things Hugh has done came upon him suddenly, and overcome by disappointment and grief, he--he----" "Do you excuse him, Mr. Erskine?" she interrupted. "I have neither the right to excuse nor condemn. I was simply an onlooker, and had no right to be there at all." She caught my arm convulsively. "Don't say that," she said eagerly. "You--you have the right; that is, you are interested in Hugh. He is so fond of you, and he thought, of course he thought, you might influence my father. Besides----" "Besides what?" I queried, as I saw her hesitate. "Oh, I don't know. Everything is in a muddle; everything is so hopeless; and yet father talks about God--talks about the power of religion--talks about providence!" I was silent at this, for her words were but an echo of my own thoughts. "Why should not Hugh marry the girl he loves?" she went on. "He is young, and has the right to live his own life; if they love each other, what right has my father to stand in their way?" "I thought you did not believe in love. I remember, when talking with you about it one day, you expressed the opinion that such a thing did not exist." I said this almost triumphantly, as though pleased to get the better of her in an argument. "At any rate," she replied, "he has the madness of love. He is willing to give all, sacrifice all, risk all, for it. That is something anyhow. Mr. Erskine, will you not come back to the house again and plead with my father? He might listen to you. Do you not think you owe it to Hugh, since you came up with him?" Then her mood altered. "After all, what is the use of it? Life can never be anything but a promise of something which can never be fulfilled. But I love him for what he has done. I am prouder of my brother than ever. It is worth living to know that one whom one loves as a brother, has dared everything, and sacrificed everything, for his love." A strange feeling possessed me; at that moment I thought I loved Isabella Lethbridge; felt that here, at least, was a woman who, in spite of her contradictions, in spite of the fact that she had repelled me, was worth the love of a lifetime. As I reflected upon it afterwards, however, I knew that I did not love her. Between my life and hers was a great impassable barrier. Besides, what right had I, a man with one foot in the grave, a man whose days were numbered, to think of such things? Again there was a silence between us, and during that silence such a longing filled my life as I had never known before. I longed to live, to live on and on indefinitely. I hated the barriers by which I was bounded. My whole being revolted against the thought of death. At that moment, too, I felt as though there must be something for which I could find no better name than God Who was behind all things, Who made all things, Who thought all things. Why should that Infinity give me life, only to stamp it out, according to His caprice? Why should I be the subject of such a hideous mockery? With the longing of life, too, came the longing for something even deeper. For the moment my mind was bounded by no barriers. I saw infinite possibility, possibility which transcended all thought and imagination. It seemed to me that if man were a child of God, he possessed something of God's life, lived in Him, was part of Him, that he shared in God's Infinity and Eternity. Then I looked at the woman by my side, and as I did so she seemed to shrivel up. She was a thing of a day, of an hour. She did not seem to share in this Eternal Life of which I had been thinking. All the time she clutched my arm convulsively. At that moment I heard footsteps on the drive, and saw Hugh Lethbridge coming towards us. "Where are you going, Hugh?" I asked. "Going!" he cried. "I am going to the only place a man can go at a time like this. I am going to my wife." "Your father has said nothing more to you?" "I have not seen him. He has not come to me, and I could not go to him; but I have seen mother. She knows, she understands." "Are you walking back, then?" "Walking?" Then he laughed. "Oh, I see, you are thinking about the car. It is not my car now. My father has disinherited me, disowned me; this place is no longer my home; but I would do it again, Erskine, I would do it a thousand times. Good-night, Bella, old girl. What have you and Erskine been talking about?" "But I shall see you again, Hugh?" said Isabella Lethbridge, without seeming to notice the question. "You will have to come early to-morrow morning, if you do," he replied, with a laugh. "I am under orders now, and must report myself to-morrow afternoon. Don't worry, old girl." "I will make father forgive you, I'll simply make him." Hugh laughed sceptically. "You might as well think of moving Routor, or Brown Willie, as think of moving my father; and you know it, Bella; but mother's a trump. Do you know, mother sees more of this business than I have ever seen. I told her just now that I was going to the front almost immediately, and I don't think she ever expects to see me alive again; but she behaved like a saint in heaven. She sees into the heart of this war--sees why England must fight, why it is our duty to crush German militarism; sees why we must save Belgium. You and I have often laughed, Bella, but her mind, or rather her heart, has probed the thing to its very depths. She has made me believe more in religion during the last few minutes I have been with her than I have believed in all my life. She quoted some words from the Bible, which opened a new world for me--'Without shedding of blood, there is no remission of sins.' She spoke like one inspired. I cannot explain the meaning of it, I only know that as she repeated the passage I _felt_ its meaning;--and she made me feel I was doing a great thing. I was no longer going to the war simply at the call of my country, but at the call of God. Good-night, Bella, old girl; shall I see you to-morrow?" "Where can I see you, Hugh?" "At my wife's home," he said proudly. "Will you dare father's anger, and come?" Her only reply was to throw her arms round her brother's neck and kiss him, and then, without even looking at me, she rushed rapidly towards the house. When I reached my little hut that night, I paid the penalty for the excitement through which I had passed. At one time I thought I was going to die. Pain such as I had never suffered before racked me, and I was as weak as a child. It was not until morning that the pain subsided, and I was able to sleep. I, too, had intended to go to John Treleaven's house, and give Hugh a word of cheer as he left to join his regiment; but nature was too strong for me. I did not awake till after midday, and Simpson had been too wise to interfere with nature's healing balm. I had expected during the time I was suffering so terribly that it would be many days before I was restored to my ordinary strength, and yet, strange as it may seem, I awoke refreshed. Evidently there was enough vitality in my system to enable me to recuperate quickly. "There is bad news, sir," said Simpson, after I had dressed. "Bad news! How? Where?" I asked. "The Germans are driving us back everywhere, sir, driving the French too. Do you think the Army would take me, sir, if I offered myself? I'd like to have a smack at them." "How old are you, Simpson?" "Fifty-five, sir." "It may be that they will be obliged to take you before the war is over." "I am ready now, sir, if they will have me." During the afternoon I tried to forget the interview of the previous night in some experiments with the hobby which had occupied my mind for several weeks. I had become quite efficient in the management of my little wireless apparatus, and I was greatly interested in the little book of codes which the young fellow from M---- had given me. When evening came I determined, in spite of what I had suffered on the previous night, to find my way to the village schoolroom. As I have said before, I wanted to feel the pulse of humanity, longed to know what was doing in the world; and living here, in this out-of-the-way corner of the world, it seemed my only chance of fulfilling my desire. When I arrived, the little schoolroom was nearly full. There were but few young men, not more than a score in all. The rest of the audience was made up of women and older men. On the platform was the Squire, who presided over the meeting, and near him were several of the leading people of the district. Both the vicars of St. Issey and St. Eia were there, together with one or two neighboring squires. Naturally, Josiah Lethbridge was absent. I took my seat in a corner of the room, as far out of sight as possible, and tried to understand the little audience which had gathered together. I suppose every county has its characteristics, and certainly a Cornish audience is different from any I have seen. Years ago, I had been informed, the people were exceedingly emotional, and easy to be moved. That, however, was a thing of the past. There was no suggestion of excitement or enthusiasm, and while each and all seemed to listen carefully to what was being said, it was difficult to tell what their feelings were. On the whole, I think I never saw a less responsive audience, if one might judge from outward appearances. A lady with quite a county reputation for singing was at the meeting, and while there are few parts of the country where there is stronger love for music than in Cornwall, she seemed to make little impression on her audience. Yet perhaps I am wrong in saying this. They appreciated the sweetness of her voice and the melody of her songs, but the sentiment which those songs expressed went for nothing. I have heard audiences spoken of as stolid. The audience at St. Issey was not stolid; it was stony. The people were keenly alert, they understood all that was being said, and in a way appreciated all the speeches; but they sat coldly critical, and unmoved. Squire Treherne made a model chairman. He came to them, he said, as a friend and neighbor. He had known most of them all their lives, and he felt it his duty to point out to them, at this time of national danger, the needs of the times and the duties of the people. He spoke of what Cornwall had done in the history of the nation; he reminded them of stirring events in the life of the county, when Cornishmen had done their part and more than their part. Then he went on to describe the circumstances which had led to the war. He described Germany's preparations, told the story of what had taken place in the Balkan States, and related how Sir Edward Grey had done his utmost to avert the war; but the time had come when war could not be averted, and when England had to take her part in it. Her honor was at stake, her safety was in peril, all that we loved was in danger, and every man in the country was called upon to play his part. The Squire did not give a brilliant speech, but it was full of good common sense, full of patriotic fervor. The old man did not see how any Englishman could stand aloof at a time like this. Other speakers followed, who simply repeated what the Squire had said, and presently came the appeal for young men to offer themselves to their King and Country. No one knows how I longed to be able to respond to that appeal. It seemed to me that, commonplace as the speeches were, no man could, who bore a British name, or had British blood in his veins, keep back. But I could do nothing; I was a useless hulk doomed to die. I eagerly scanned the faces of the young men who were near me, anxious to catch some suggestion of response to the speakers' appeals, but no one seemed moved. Each listened attentively to all the arguments that were adduced, but no man made a sign. Never, as it seemed to me, had I seen a more saddening sight, and presently, when the meeting was about to close, and the audience prepared to depart, I yielded to an overwhelming impulse. I knew it was madness on my part to do so, but I could not resist it. After all, what did it matter whether I shortened my days or not? I could not fight for my country, but perhaps I could persuade others to do so. As the chairman was on the point of asking the people to rise and sing the national anthem, I got up and asked to be allowed to say a few words. Of course, consent was immediately given, and I saw some of the people, who were on the point of leaving, resume their seats, as I made my way to the platform. Indeed, I could not help feeling that there was a wave of more than ordinary interest passing over the audience, as they saw me preparing to address them. I had not the slightest idea of what I wished to say. Indeed, as I stood up and faced the people, my mind was a perfect blank. I had simply yielded to an overwhelming impulse, without having any definite message to deliver. Usually making speeches had been no difficulty to me. I had not been a barrister for several years without having had some practice in the art. Nevertheless, I felt a strange nervousness as I faced these simple country-people. I had nothing to say, and there seemed no reason why I should be there. I stood for a few seconds in silence, while the people waited; then, looking in one corner of the hall, I saw Isabella Lethbridge. She was looking at me intently, her eyes were shining brightly, and her lips were parted, as if with eager anticipation. Immediately my thoughts took shape, and words came easily. At that moment, too, a wave of passion passed over me. I remembered what Hugh Lethbridge had done; knew that even now he had left his wife, left his home, left everything at the call of his country; and as I saw a score of stalwart youths, sitting together in the back part of the room utterly unmoved by all that had passed, a feeling of hot anger filled me. I scarcely knew what I said. It did not seem to matter; but something seemed to catch fire within me, and in a few moments I realized that the audience had caught fire too. Cheer after cheer burst forth. Only one thing do I remember saying, and that I thought afterwards was in anything but good taste. "I have come to you," I said, "as a dying man. One of the greatest physicians in London has told me that my days are numbered, that I must avoid all excitement, that I must take care that I do not over-exert myself; that if I do, my life hangs on a thread; but I feel I cannot sit still, although this meeting may kill me, while you are unresponsive." This gave me a kind of text for the appeal I made. I knew I spoke in hot, passionate words. I forgot everything in my desire to rouse the people to a sense of duty. I saw that the faces of the people had become set and stern, I noticed that their eyes were shining with a new light, and I felt that influences were at work which had hitherto been absent. This made me forget the madness of my action, made me careless of my own life. Nothing at that moment seemed to matter but the cause for which I was pleading. "What are you going to do?" I cried. "Will you not respond to the call of your King and of your Country? Will you not fight for liberty, truth, and honor? As for me...." Then a great darkness came over me, and I remembered no more. When I awoke to consciousness, I was sitting in a little anteroom, at the back of the platform, where around me stood the Vicar, the Squire, and two or three others. "Are you better?" "I am quite all right," I replied. "What is the matter?" "You were overcome, exhausted. I am afraid you ought not to have spoken." "Was it in vain, then?" I asked. "Oh, no; half a dozen young fellows came out at the close of your appeal. I do not think it was because of what you said so much, but the fact that you were ill, and risked your life in trying to arouse them, which made them feel ashamed. Are you sure you are better?" "I am quite all right," I repeated. "I cannot understand how I came to lose consciousness." "I am going to run you up in my carriage," said the Squire; "I cannot think of allowing you to walk." "There is not the slightest need for that," I replied; and as if to prove my words I walked across the room. "Still, I am going to drive you home," said the Squire. "I am afraid I ought not to have let you speak, even although you have done what we all failed to do." As I walked into the schoolroom, a group of people waited, evidently anxious to hear about me, and an old man came up and gripped me by the hand. "I be glad you be better, maaster," he said. "'Twas good to 'ear ee for sure; you made me think of John Guttridge, when he used to come down 'ere preachin'. Yes, maaster, you made some of them feel what cowards they was; but we Cornish be curious people. Besides, maaster, we be'ant used to this sort of thing, and spite of all you say, we ca'ant grip it like." "How is that?" I asked. "For forty year we've bin tould the other thing, maaster. Tha's how it is. For forty year we've bin tould that war was wrong; and now to be tould it be our duty--well, you see, we ca'ant clunk it. It do'ant seem right. It'll take a lot to git the thought fixed in our minds that the Lord would have us do this. When you can do that, maaster, there won't be no need for meetin's; the difficulty then will be to keep the boys back." Although I did not reply, I felt that the old man had got to the heart of the thing. One could not eradicate the teachings of half a century in a day. Immediately afterwards, the old man's words were driven from my mind; for coming towards me, with hand outstretched, was Isabella Lethbridge. I saw a look in her eyes that I had never seen before. "Are you mad, Mr. Erskine?" she asked. "I expect so," I replied. "Oh, but I did envy you!" and her voice quivered. "It must be glorious to have the power to move people, even though----" Then she stopped, as if she thought it unwise to utter the thought that had come into her mind. "Good-night;" and her voice was like a sob as she went out into the darkness. XV HOW THE CHANGE BEGAN "That was Lethbridge's daughter, wasn't it?" asked the Squire, as we drove towards my little house. "Yes," I replied. "I am surprised that she should be there;" and I noticed that the Squire's voice seemed tense and angry. "Surprised! Why?" He hesitated a second, then went on. "I had a row with the man this morning. I--I could not help it." "A row with Mr. Lethbridge?" "Yes, he made me mad. I tried to act as generously as I could; but there are limits." I was silent, although, truth to tell, I wanted to know what had caused the Squire's anger. "I went to see him this morning," he went on presently. "You see, I wanted the platform to be as representative as possible, and knowing that Lethbridge is a large employer of labor, and therefore has a great deal of influence among working men, I thought he might be of value to us. I suppose I ought to have gone to see him before; but the meeting was arranged in a hurry, and--and--anyhow, I didn't. But I went this morning, and asked him to propose the chief resolution." "And what did he say?" "He refused pointblank, and added an insulting remark to his refusal." "And then what?" I asked. "I am afraid I lost my temper. You see, I did not understand his point of view--how could I? Whatever he is, he was born in England, and I am afraid I told him some home truths. I told him he was a disgrace to his country, that he was unworthy to be called an Englishman, and that I should refuse ever to enter his house again." "Pretty drastic," I remarked. "Drastic!" replied the old man. "How could I help being drastic? He abused the Army, abused our statesmen, said we had been dragged into the war by a bungling diplomacy, told me we were as guilty as the Germans were, and that we had torn up more scraps of paper than the Germans had. I asked him to prove his words, I challenged him to bring forward a single instance where we had treated any country as the Germans had treated Belgium." "And he?" I asked. "He couldn't answer me." "Well, what was the upshot of it?" "After a bit I got rather ashamed of myself for having lost my temper; besides, I thought I might have misunderstood him, and I wanted his help in the fund we are raising." "And did he help you?" I felt the old man's body quiver as he sat by my side in the carriage. "Not a penny, sir, not a penny. He actually had the cheek to tell me that he had lost a large sum through the war, and that he would be bled to death with taxes. God bless my soul! What have we English people to do talking about taxes at a time like this! Besides, he is a rich man. If he lost a hundred thousand pounds to-morrow, he would hardly feel it. He has been making money hand over fist for a quarter of a century, and now, when the country is in peril, he complains about taxes; squeals like a stoat caught in a gin! I have no patience!" "And you got no further than that with him?" "I got no further with him because I didn't stay. I have tried to be neighborly with the man, although I hate his views. But when one's country is at stake, when a man tries to hide his meanness and niggardliness by whining about taxes!--well, you see, we had nothing more to say to each other. He proved himself to be a bounder, a rank outsider. I told him so, too. I said, 'Henceforth, Mr. Lethbridge, we shall be strangers. I shall never enter your doors again, and naturally you won't want to enter mine.' Then he turned round and asked me what I had sacrificed for the country. I suppose he thought he was going to make a point against me there, but he didn't get much satisfaction out of it. I told him I had written to Headquarters and offered everything I have. If they wanted my house for a hospital, they could have it; if they wanted my land for a camping-ground, they could have it. At that he sneered, and said I was perfectly safe in making such an offer. Think of it, Erskine, think of it! What can you do with a man like that?" "His only son has enlisted," I said. "What, Hugh! You don't mean it?" "Yes, I do. He has enlisted as a private, although I understand that owing to his knowledge of modern languages, and his skill in mechanics, besides being a very good shot, they are going to make a special case of him. All the same, he enlisted as a private." "God bless my soul! That's good." "I am afraid that is why Mr. Lethbridge is so angry," I went on. "You see, he is one of those men who hate war." "Hates war! Well, what of that? We all do. We English are a peace-loving people, and we detest war, we loathe it, shudder at it. Did I not lose my only son in the Boer War? But in this case everything is at stake, our plighted word, our honor! If we slunk out of it, we should be a byword among the nations. Besides, think what these Germans mean to do. If they are not crushed we shall have no country, no home. Have you read what they are doing in Belgium? Have you read about Louvain, Malines, Aerschot? It is devilish, man, devilish. They have violated every law, human and divine. I never thought that any fiend from hell could do what they are doing. And if they can do these things in Belgium, what will they do in England, if they get here? What would become of our women and children? No, no, it is a call of God, my boy, it is a call of God. You put it straight to-night, hot and strong. I nearly lost my head when I heard you." "Anyhow, Hugh Lethbridge has joined the Army. And what has hurt his father even more than that is that he has married that girl Mary Treleaven." "God bless my soul! You don't mean that!" and the old man lapsed into silence. "I am glad he did it," he went on presently. "It serves his father right. And--and Hugh is a fine lad." "He _is_ a fine lad," I assented. "But you can understand how his father feels about it." "Yes, yes," said the Squire. "All the same, I am glad I gave him a piece of my mind. I could not help it, Erskine. I am a peaceful man, and I hate losing my temper, though, God knows, I am a bit given to it. But I was surprised to see his daughter there to-night," he went on, "and she was carried away by what you said too. Well, she has good blood on her mother's side. The Vivians are good people, and the family has owned land in the county for centuries. Ah, here we are. I hope you won't suffer for what you have done to-night, my boy." "I do not think I shall," I replied. "I dare say I was very foolish, but I could not help it." "I am proud of you!" and the old Squire gripped my hand heartily. "You have got good English blood in you, you have got the old Cornish feeling. By the way, I hope you will come over and see me sometimes. I am a poor man, Erskine, and we shall all of us have to retrench, but you will always find a welcome at my house." Then he left me, and I found my way through the copse to my lonely little house. For the next few days I was almost prostrate. I was paying the penalty for my foolishness. I knew I ought not to have gone to the meeting, and yet, I was glad I had. So ill did I become that Simpson, without obtaining my permission, sent for the local doctor to come and see me. This doctor was a tall, gaunt Scotsman, who had, as he informed me, come to Cornwall rather for the purpose of building up his own health than for building up a practice. I was vexed that Simpson had sent for him, but I could not remain angry with the poor fellow, for I was so ill that he dare not be left alone with me without having some one to advise him. Dr. Wise was one of the most talkative men I ever met in my life, and after he had asked me a few questions about my illness, he assured me that I had not long to live, and that in all probability what I had done had curtailed the few months which otherwise would have been left to me. I found out, however, that his chief interest in me was not the malady from which I was suffering, or how he might get me better, but to have me as a listener to his views. "The country is in a bad way," he said. "We have neither arms nor munitions. Even now the Woolwich Arsenal is only working two days a week." "How do you know?" I asked. "Oh, I got it from a man who knows a man who lives near Woolwich," he replied. "I got a letter yesterday morning, telling me about it." "Has your informant an entrée into Woolwich Arsenal?" I asked. "Oh, I know it is true," he replied. "Our house-maid has a brother who works there too, and he says the same thing. Oh, the country is in a bad way." "It must be," I replied. "Yes, and then there is all this talk about the Russians coming over to help us; do you know there is a plot in that, a deep-laid plot?" he asked in serious tones. "You don't mean it!" I said, for by this time the man had begun to amuse me. "Yes, I do," he replied. "I have heard on good authority that the Russians mean to turn round on us. They are in league with the Germans, and they are sending over half a million men to attack our Army at the back. I am not at liberty to tell how I got my information, but it is true. Then there is the Army food. Do you know, it is in a terrible condition." "How is that?" "Our soldiers at the front haven't got enough to eat. I know it for a fact. One of the men who went out with the Expeditionary Force wrote and told me that if it were not for the food they took from the German prisoners they would be starving." "That is terrible," I replied. "You would not believe it, would you?" he went on, "but the whole country is governed wrongly, and they are allowing the Germans to hoodwink us at every corner." "If that is so," was my answer, "it seems strange that the Germans should have been driven back from the Marne. How is it that when they got so near to Paris they did not take it?" "Ah, that is because they hated the English so. They had Paris in their hands practically, and might have been there now if they had not hated the English." "That is very interesting," I said. "How did it come about?" "Well, you see, the German generals had made all arrangements to march into Paris, but they gave way to a fit of anger, and determined to crush the English instead. It was a false move on their part, and but for that we should have been done for." "How lucky for us," I replied. "Yes, but they are arranging to get to Calais by another road now. They have everything fixed up for the invasion of England." "What, the Germans have?" "What they are going to do is this," and he spoke very solemnly. "First of all they are going to take Calais; then they are going to bring their big guns and bombard Dover. After that, they are going to lay mines in two lines, allowing a lane for the German boats to land two hundred thousand men in Dover. They are going to be flat-bottomed boats, and I have it on good authority that the Kaiser is coming with them." "What! that he is coming over in these flat-bottomed boats with two hundred thousand men?" I asked. "Yes, that is it. He is going to march on London with all these men, and dictate terms of peace from there," he added. "And can you inform me what the British Fleet is going to be doing all this time?" I asked. "We have no coal, man," was his answer. "Besides, think of the German submarines. They will sink all our ships as fast as we can bring them up." How long he went on in this strain I hardly know, but that he believed in all he said was evident, and that he took a delight in his mournful prognostications was just as evident. "Simpson," I said, "Dr. Wise has done me good. I feel better than I have felt for days." "Yes, sir; thank you, sir," said Simpson. "Has he given you any medicine, sir?" "Oh, no," I replied. "But he has done me a world of good; only, Simpson, don't allow him to come again." September passed slowly away, and although I gradually recovered from the effects of the excitement through which I had passed, I did not go far afield, and beyond going into the village, and roaming round the cliffs, I took little or no exercise. I discovered, as far as the people of St. Issey were concerned, that no sooner had the first effects of the declaration of war passed away, than they settled down to the old mode of living. Indeed, the war was not real to them at all. It was something that was happening a long way off. Only a few of them read the newspapers, and in spite of the bad news which circulated, they had not the slightest doubt about the English soon bringing the Germans to their knees. They found, too, that the war did not affect them in the way they had expected. There was neither scarcity of money nor food; work went on as usual, the harvest was garnered, and there were no prospects of a famine, which they had feared, coming to pass. Indeed, as I think of those days, and as I reflect upon my own experiences, I do not so much wonder at the general prevailing sentiment. We are far out of the world down here in Cornwall--St. Issey is some miles from a railway station--and removed as we are from the clash and clamor of the world, it is difficult for us to realize what is going on in the great centres of life. That the war existed we knew, that a great struggle was going on hundreds of miles away was common knowledge, but it did not come home to us. The following incidents will give some idea of what I mean. One day, while walking through the fields towards St. Issey, I passed a cottage, by the door of which a woman of about forty years of age was sitting. "Look 'ere, maaster," she said. "I want to ax 'ee a question." "Well," I asked. "What?" "Well, 'tis like this," she said. "Me an' my 'usband 'ave come to words." "I am sorry for that," I said. "But that is not so bad as coming to blows." "Oh, we do'ant come to blows, maaster, and 'ard words break no boans; but that is ev et; we 'ave come to words about this, and we 'ave 'ad several arguments about et, and I d'old to one thing, and my 'usband to another; and I thought you bein' from London would be able to put us right." "If I can I will, but I have my doubts." "'Tis this," replied the woman. "'Tis about Lord Kitchener. My 'usband d'say that Lord Kitchener is for the Germans, and I d'say 'e ed'n. I d'say 'e's for the English. Now which is right, maaster?" Later in the afternoon I met Martha Bray, who, it may be remembered, proffered her services to Simpson on the day of my arrival. "'Ow be 'ee gettin' on then, maaster?" "Oh, better than I deserve, Martha," I replied. "Thank you for the ham you sent over." "Oh, tha's all right, sur. Es the war still goin' on?" "Yes," I replied; "still going on." "Ter'ble pity," was her answer. "It ought to be stopped." "The question is, Martha, how can we stop it?" "We could stop et all right," said Martha, "ef everybody made up their minds to send them no more money. They would have to stop et." "Send who any more money?" I asked. "Why, Lloyd George, maaster; ef everybody in the country refused to send 'un a penny, he'd 'ave to stop et, and then the war would be over." I could not help laughing at Martha's method for ending the great struggle of the world, neither would I have mentioned it, but to give an idea of the feelings which obtained in certain sections of the country. But although to many the great carnage of blood which was convulsing Europe was not real, the fact of war brooded over us like a great black cloud. In a sense we did not realize it, everything was so quiet and peaceful; but in another we did. It was in the background of all our lives, it colored all our thoughts. Although I had given up all hope of getting any answers to the questions which troubled me either at Church or Chapel, I still went almost regularly. I could not understand how, but I had a feeling that it was here I should solve the problems which faced me. For the first two or three weeks after war was declared there was a slight improvement in the congregations, and then things seemed to settle down to their normal condition again. And yet there was a difference, a subtle, indefinable difference. In a way I could not explain, it colored, as I have already said, all our thoughts and feelings. The services both at the Church and the Chapel were conducted just as they had been, except that some new prayers had been added to the Church liturgy, while the preacher at the Chapel generally made some mention of the war in some part of the service. It seemed to me, too, that the people were thinking more than usual. Questions were being asked, which they had never thought of asking when I first came to the village. They did not go very deep, but they were suggestive of the new forces which were being realized. The change was so slight that a casual observer might not have noticed it; but it was there. I could not help thinking of the old Biblical story I had read at school, about the cloud the prophet saw which at first was no bigger than a man's hand, but which presently overspread the whole sky. One day, when I went into the village, a woman stopped me rather angrily. "Look 'ere, Mr. Erskine, I 'ave got somethin' to say to 'ee." "What is it?" I asked. "Well, a few weeks agone my boy Jim enlisted as a sojer 'cause of what you said at the meetin'." "Very sensible of Jim," I replied. "I ded'n like it at the time," said the woman. "I'm very sorry." "Well, none of my family have ever come so low as that before, and the mornin' after he'd enlisted I told my sister Betty, who comed over to see me about it. I said to 'er, 'Jim's goin' for a sojer,' and she says to me, 'God help us, Mary!' she said,'to think that one of our family should sink so low as that.'" "Yes," I said. "And what then?" "Well, sur, he went away, and a week agone he didn't get on very well with one of the officers." "No," I said, "that is a pity. Didn't the officer behave nicely?" "No, 'e didn', that is, what I call nicely. He spoke to my son 'bout what I call nothin' 't 'oal." "Well, what then?" "Well, Jim wad'n pleased, so he gived a fortnight's notice to leave." "What! to leave the Army?" I asked. "Yes. You see, down 'ere wi' we, when a man d'want to leave 'is job, 'ee d'give a week's notice; but Jim thought he would be generous, so 'e gived a fortnight's notice. He went to the officer, and he said, 'I d'want to give a fortnight's notice to leave.'" "And then?" I asked. "Well, first the officer laughed, and then 'e told Jim to go back to 'is work, and said ef 'e left the Army before the war was over, 'e would be shot. I do'ant 'old with things like that, so now Jim 'as got to stay, whether 'e d'like it or not." "And Jim doesn't like it?" "No, 'e ain't bin used to bein' treated like that, and it was all because of you, too. Ef et ad'n bin for the speech you made in the schoolroom, 'e would'n 'ave joined." But although humorous incidents were often happening, the grave realities were slowly gripping our minds and hearts. Day after day, this and that lad was leaving his home to prepare for the war, while many of the Naval Reserve men were already away in the North Sea, or elsewhere, waiting to give their lives, if need be, for their country's safety. Indeed, the Navy was far more real to us than the Army. The Cornish have never been a military people, but have always been at home on the waters. Many a time, as I have watched those great steel monsters ploughing the Atlantic, I have reflected that they were manned very largely by the Cornish, and that they were the chief bulwark against enemy invasion. "I wonder if my boy is on her?" said an old man to me, as one day I watched the smoke from a great warship in the distance. And that question was echoed by thousands of hearts all over the county. Week after week passed away, until the days became short and the nights grew cold. Blacker and blacker grew the clouds, while the lists of casualties which daily appeared in the newspapers made us feel that it was no game we were playing, but that we were engaged in a death struggle. I had not been to Josiah Lethbridge's house, neither had I seen anything of the family, since the night of Hugh's departure, and then--I think it was the beginning of November--I was greatly surprised to see Josiah Lethbridge come to my door. XVI NEWS FROM HUGH I thought he looked ill at ease, and I noticed that he was less ruddy and more careworn than when I had first met him. I am afraid I greeted him rather coldly, for I remembered what had taken place at our last meeting. "I hope I do not intrude," he said. "It is very kind of you to call," was my reply. "Not at all, I ought to apologize for coming." "Have you heard from Hugh?" I asked, for I was determined, as far as possible, to make him feel his duty to his son. I saw his lips shut, and his eyes and face grow harder, as I spoke. "I have heard nothing," he replied. "I do not expect to, neither do I wish to." I was silent at this, for it was not for me to interfere in his relations with his son, but I could not help feeling angry. But there was pity in my heart too, for I could not help seeing that the man was suffering. Why he was suffering I could not tell, but suffering he was. "You have not been to see us lately," he said. "I hope what you said when we last met is not final. I--I should be sorry if the neighborly relations which I had hoped were established came to an end." "I have been nowhere," I replied. "The weather has been very wet lately, and I have scarcely ventured out of doors." "You must be very lonely here." "Life is not very gay," I said. "It can scarcely be." "I suppose friends come to see you?" "Yes, a friend came down last week and spent three days with me," I replied, wondering what was in the man's mind. "The newspapers do not bring us very good tidings." "No, I am afraid we shall have a great deal of bad tidings before the good comes." After that there was an awkward silence for some time. "I am a lonely man myself," he went on. "Of course I have my business, and my public work, but I should be very glad if you would come up to see us sometimes. If you would let me know when you would come, I'd always send a car for you." "What is in the man's mind?" I asked myself. "Surely he did not come here simply to say this." "Naturally I did not think my presence would be welcome after our last interview, and----" "Nothing of the kind," he interrupted, almost eagerly. "I hope you will forgive me for coming so informally, but my wife and I were wondering whether you would come up to-night. Could you? Of course I will send a car for you." I reflected a few seconds before replying. It is true I had told him in a fit of anger that I should refuse his hospitality in future, but I wondered whether he was not repenting of his action towards Hugh; wondered, too, whether by going I could not bring about a better relationship between them and soften his heart. After all, I owed it to Hugh. But, if the truth must be confessed, there was another reason which made me long to go. I knew it was weakness on my part, knew, too, that I was a madman to encourage such feelings. As I have repeated in this history so many times, with dreary monotony, I had received my death sentence, and as I looked at my face each morning in the glass, and saw it become thinner and thinner, I had no misapprehension about the truth of the doctor's words. Therefore it was worse than madness for me to think about Isabella Lethbridge as I did; and yet--let me repeat it again--I was not in love with her. "I wish you would come up to-night," urged Josiah Lethbridge. "Ours is a very quiet household." "Are you giving a dinner-party or anything of that sort?" I asked. "Oh no, no. I believe Bella is having one or two friends; but nothing in the shape of a dinner-party. Come, will you?" I wanted to accept his invitation more than words can say, and yet something held me back. "Have you heard anything about your son's wife?" I asked. Again the old hard look came into his eyes, and he seemed to be struggling with himself. "I have no son," he replied. "I know nothing about the woman you speak of." "Pardon me, Mr. Lethbridge," I said, "but you have. Your son may not have fallen in with your wishes, but he is your son. Nothing can undo that fact. As for his so-called disobedience, he acted according to his conscience, and----" Josiah Lethbridge held up his hand, as if in protest. "We will not speak of that, if you don't mind," he said. "I do not often alter my mind when it is once made up." Again there was a silence, and I was on the point of refusing his invitation, when he, as if anticipating me, broke out almost eagerly. "But you must come up to-night, Mr. Erskine," he said. "My wife is so anxious that you should. She is very fond of you. I never saw her take to a stranger as she has taken to you. Naturally, too, she is very anxious." I tried to read his heart, tried to understand something of the thoughts which were surging through his mind. "I suppose," he went on, "that you, who know influential people in London, know nothing more of this ghastly business than we do. That is, you know nothing more than what appears in the papers." "No," I replied; "but what has appeared in the papers has surely made us feel proud that we are Englishmen. You have seen that we have again repulsed the German attack at Ypres?" "Wholesale murder, I call it!" and his voice became hard as he spoke. "But there, we will not talk about that any more. I shall expect you to-night, then, and will send down the car at a quarter to seven. No, no, I shall accept no refusal. That is settled. I dare not face my wife if I had to go back and say you would not come." And a wintry smile passed over his face. "I am like a moth fluttering in a candle," I said to myself as I put on my evening clothes that night. "Why should I be going to this man's house? Why should I eat of his dinner? Why should I throw myself into the society of this girl? She is nothing to me, never can be; in a way I positively dislike her, and yet I am always thinking about her." "I am glad you are going out to-night, sir," said Simpson, as he helped me on with my fur-lined coat. "It must be very lonely for you night after night, sir, with no one to speak to. I hope you will have a pleasant evening, sir." "It must be a little lonely for you too, Simpson, and I am afraid I try your patience sometimes." For the man had been with me for so long, and had served in our family for so many years, that I regarded him more as a friend than as a servant. "No, sir, it is always a pleasure to serve you, sir." He lit the lantern and walked ahead of me, as we went along the pathway through the copse. "Shall I wait up for you, sir?" he added, as he held open the door of the car. "I think you may as well, Simpson," I said. "I shall not be late." A few minutes later I had reached Josiah Lethbridge's house, and was greeted warmly by Mrs. Lethbridge. I heard the sound of merry voices in the drawing-room close by, and was made somewhat angry that Mr. Lethbridge had asked me this evening, especially as, in spite of what he had said, they were evidently giving a dinner-party that night. When I went into the drawing-room, however, I found only three people. A young man and woman, whom I took to be brother and sister, were the only guests besides myself. They were the son and daughter of the managing director of one of the Cornish banks, and had motored some twenty miles in order to be present. The man, Edward Barcroft, was a young fellow of about five-and-twenty, and I knew him to be a rich man's son. There was nothing striking about him. He was of medium height, somewhat stoutly built, and carried himself with an air of confidence. I did not like him, however. He seemed to be too sure of himself, too aggressive. Miss Barcroft was one of those placid, even-tempered girls who made me think of a German frau. Before the evening was very far advanced, I could not help concluding that Edward Barcroft was a suitor for Isabella Lethbridge's hand, while, as it seemed to me, she was much flattered by his attentions. I do not think I had ever seen her look so handsome as she looked that night. I was never able to describe a woman's dress, but I could not help noticing that her clothes fitted her to perfection. They seemed a part of her. She was very gay, too. She laughed frequently, but her pleasantries grated upon me. Why, I could not tell. She paid me very little attention; indeed, she did not treat me as her guest at all. I had simply come there at the invitation of her father and mother, while she devoted all her attention to young Barcroft. I have said that I had never seen Isabella Lethbridge looking so handsome as she did that night; on the other hand, she had never repelled me more, even while she fascinated me. I understood, as I had not understood before, young Prideaux's description of her. She was a flirt. I saw that young Barcroft was greatly enamored with her; noted, too, that she laughed at his feeblest jokes, and, as far as I could judge, made him believe that she was as interested in him as he was in her. Yet I could not help realizing the artificiality of her every word and action. As for poor Hugh, he was never mentioned. He might never have existed, although I knew by the look on Mrs. Lethbridge's face that she was constantly thinking of him, constantly grieving about what had taken place. I could not tell why it was, but in spite of the fact that every one except Isabella Lethbridge was very kind and courteous to me, I was angry, and felt a sort of contempt for the self-assertive, unpleasant young Cornishman who made himself so much at home in Josiah Lethbridge's house. "The war will soon be over, don't you think, Mr. Erskine?" he said. "What makes you think so?" I asked. "Why, the Germans have been able to do nothing for months," was his reply. "Never since their first blow have they been able to hurt us. See how we have been able to hold them up at Ypres. At present we are not ready to strike our decisive blow, but when we have more guns and ammunition, we shall be able to drive them like a flock of sheep. Besides, they are financially bankrupt, you know." "Indeed," I said. "Yes. It is a matter of robbing Peter to pay Paul with them now. They live by taking in each other's washing; but that will soon come to an end. On the other hand, the war hasn't been such a bad thing for us." "No," I said. "How?" "Oh, it has been good for business. Money has been circulated as it has never been circulated before. Instead of it meaning a financial crash to us, it has meant a boom. Have you not found it so, Mr. Lethbridge?" "Money has certainly been circulated freely," was the older man's reply, "but I do not wish to talk about it. The whole thing is a crime." And both his face and voice hardened. At that moment a servant entered and brought Mr. Lethbridge an official-looking document, which he opened eagerly. He read it through twice, and then calmly and deliberately folded it again and placed it in the envelope. "What is it about, Josiah?" asked Mrs. Lethbridge. I thought he looked pleased, but I could not tell. He did not answer his wife's question. "Is it about Hugh?" she asked. Still he was silent. "Josiah, Josiah, tell me, is he wounded, killed?" "No. I--I suppose it is all the other way. It is nothing to me. There, you can read it if you like." With trembling hands Mrs. Lethbridge took the letter and read it. "Oh, Hugh, my darling boy," she sobbed. "What is it, mother?" asked Isabella. "What has he done?" "He has received some order, some distinguished order for bravery. There, there, read it! Isn't it splendid? I was afraid he was killed or hurt or something. I didn't expect this. Oh, isn't it glorious? But it is just like him." Josiah Lethbridge rose from the table. "Shall we go into the library for our coffee and cigars?" he asked. He seemed to be making an effort to be calm. "We must tell Mary," said Mrs. Lethbridge. "You must do nothing of the sort," said her husband. "When I said, once for all, that we would have nothing to do with that woman, I meant it. Will you come this way, Barcroft and Mr. Erskine? Oh yes, the ladies can come with us if they do not mind tobacco smoke." A few minutes later we were all in the library, where, in spite of Mr. Lethbridge's chagrin, we were not able to suppress our desire to talk about Hugh and what he had done. It appeared by the document received that he had, by his coolness and bravery, not only saved the life of an officer, but that he had rendered such important service to his battalion that a possible disaster had been turned into a victory. "Ah!" I said. "How I envy him!" "Envy him! In what way?" asked Barcroft. "Envy his being able to serve his country," was my reply. "How a man with health and strength can stay in England at a time like this I can't understand." "Are you referring to me?" he asked. And I noticed there was an angry look in his eyes. "I was not referring to any one," was my reply. "I was simply stating what I felt." "For my own part, I believe that a man who is looking after the finances of the country may be doing more for his nation than by wearing khaki," he replied. "Don't you think so, Miss Lethbridge?" "I think too much is made of the so-called heroism of soldiers," she said, evidently with a desire to please him. "Of course it was grand of Hugh to do what he did, but he was always like that." And she looked smilingly into Barcroft's face. Again the girl angered me, and in my heart of hearts I despised her. But why should I be angry? Why should I care about her evident desire to please this young Cornishman? And then, realizing that my words were bordering on discourtesy, said: "I expect the War Office will have written to his wife. Anyhow, I will see that she knows to-morrow that her husband is a hero." At this, Isabella Lethbridge looked at her father and laughed, while he, having given me an angry look, talked about something else. The evening, as far as I was concerned, was painful; and yet I was glad I had accepted the invitation, glad I had been there when the news of Hugh's bravery had arrived. Shortly after ten o'clock I took my leave, vowing to myself as I did so that I would never go there again. Indeed, as I reflected on what had taken place, I could see no reason for my being asked. I had nothing in common with Josiah Lethbridge, while, in spite of everything, Isabella Lethbridge was farther removed from me than ever. "I hope you spent a pleasant evening, sir," said Simpson, as he helped me off with my coat. I did not answer him. Why it was I could not tell, but my mind and heart were full of strange, tumultuous thoughts and feelings. The next morning, I was on the point of sending Simpson for a carriage to take me over to John Treleaven's farm when Hugh's young wife burst into the room with a radiant smile upon her face. "Have you seen this, Mr. Erskine? Have you heard about it?" And she laughed and sobbed at the same time. "It is about Hugh. He has got the D.C.M., and they have actually written to me about it, and I have got a letter from Hugh too! Oh, Mr. Erskine, I am proud and happy!" "It is splendid," I said, "simply splendid!" "Did you know about it?" she asked. "I only got the letter last night." "Yes, I knew," I said, before I had time to think of the meaning of my words. "Has he written to you? Have you heard from the War Office?" "No, I have not heard from Hugh for weeks," I said, "neither have I heard from the War Office, but I was up at Trecarrel last night." "And have they heard up there?" "A letter came while we were at dinner." "And were they pleased? Oh, Mr. Erskine, I am so proud and happy, and yet I am miserable too. You see, I am constantly wondering whether I did right. I cannot bear to think about it, although I am so happy." "Think about what?" I asked. "About Hugh being disinherited. His father has never written him once, and--and--and you know what I mean, sir." "I hope it will all come right in the end, Mrs. Lethbridge," I said. "Oh, but you mustn't call me Mrs. Lethbridge; you must call me Mary. You are Hugh's friend. Do you really think it will all come right? I pray a hundred times a day that it may. Somehow I think it will, because God has answered my prayer in keeping Hugh in safety. Oh, Mr. Erskine, I never prayed in my life as I have been praying lately. Somehow I never felt the need of prayer as I do now. Now that Hugh has gone and left me alone, and while he is in such terrible danger, I am obliged to pray. God has become more real to me lately; and seeing that He has answered my prayer in keeping Hugh safe, perhaps He will do the other also. Why, Mr. Erskine, his father cannot keep a hard heart against Hugh when he is such a hero! Have you seen the paper this morning? They have told all about it. Hugh did wonderful things, simply wonderful! Oh, he can't help being proud of his son when he reads it, can he?" I did not reply, because when I remembered the look on Josiah Lethbridge's face I felt I could give her no comfort. Still, Mary's visit did me good. Her simple trustfulness and her devoted love were such a change from the atmosphere at Trecarrel that her presence seemed like a ray of sunshine on a dark day. After this, days and weeks passed without anything happening which needs recording. We had become used to the war, and while we still read our papers anxiously, there was not the great excitement there had been in its early stages. Our hearts thrilled at the story of the battle of Ypres, especially when, presently, the details of that terrible struggle became known; but the keen excitement and feverish desire to read what had taken place somewhat subsided. Meanwhile, as all the country knows, the spy fever became prevalent. On every hand we heard that agents of the German Secret Information Department covered our country like a plague, and even here, in Cornwall, all sorts of stories were afloat concerning people who were suspected of giving information to Germans. Personally, I paid but little attention to these stories. I did not see how we, situated as we were, away in the extreme end of the country, could be in any way utilized by the enemy. Neither did I see how any one in Cornwall could render them service. I was soon to be undeceived in this matter, however. XVII THE PHANTOM BOATS It came about in this way. One morning in the early spring of 1915, it was unusually fine. For more than a week the weather had been cold and dismal beyond words, then suddenly, as if by magic, the clouds disappeared, the sun shone brightly, and it seemed like summer. So much effect did the weather have upon my health that no sooner did I finish my breakfast that day than I made my way towards a high point on the cliffs, and having ensconced myself in a sheltered spot, where I caught the warmth of the sun and at the same time had a glorious view of sea and coast, I gave myself up to pure enjoyment. I felt very happy, I remember. A letter had come to me from Hugh Lethbridge, telling me he had received a commission, in recognition of services he had rendered, and that he was well, and almost happy. The winter had about come to an end, and while I certainly was not so strong as when I had come to Cornwall, I did not feel like dying. The bright sunshine and pure air seemed to give me a new lease of life, and at times I caught myself wondering whether I had not enough vitality in me to overcome the malady from which I was suffering, and which I so much dreaded. I had not been there more than a few minutes when I heard the sound of voices. A man and woman were talking in the most casual way about the war, and I gathered that something had appeared in that morning's paper which promised well for our arms. "It is splendid, isn't it?" It was the woman who spoke. "A number of trenches taken, and the Germans driven back nearly half a mile." "It won't be long now," said the man. "We shall soon begin to work in good earnest. Did not Lord Kitchener say that he did not know when the war would end, but he knew it would really begin in May? This is only a foretaste of the good news which will come presently." "The Germans are such brutes," said the woman. "There doesn't seem to be a shred of honor in the country." "They are not sportsmen," said the man. "I was talking to a man the other day who had been to school there, and he told me that no German boy knew the meaning of 'playing the game.' All they have done is a repetition of that which commenced the war. 'It is only a scrap of paper,' said the German Chancellor. 'Of course we signed the treaty, we gave our promise; but necessity knows no law.' That is Germany all over. Could anything be more devilish than to bombard those defenseless towns up north? As for their treatment of the Belgians--well, it is all a part of their gospel of frightfulness." "It fairly makes me feel murderous," said the woman. "I am ashamed of having been friendly with Germans." "That is exactly what I feel," said the man. I heard every word they said plainly, although I was hidden from their view; and as everything they said agreed so perfectly with my own feelings, I felt like shouting "Hear, hear." Of course, I said nothing, but remained in the shelter of the great rock, basking in the sun and rejoicing in the soft spring air. A little later both the man and woman came within my view. Evidently they had not been conscious of my presence, for they started when they saw me. "Excuse me," said the man, "but the sight of you was so sudden that it almost gave me a shock. You have discovered a delightful spot." Then I remembered having seen the man before. He had come to see me immediately after my arrival, and I had had some little talk with him. "Have you seen the good news this morning?" Apparently he was in a communicative mood. "No," I replied. "I never get a paper until hours after other people have read and digested theirs." "Ah!" he said. "Haven't I seen you before? Yes, I remember now. You live at yon little wooden hut, don't you? I saw you last summer, and your servant was good enough to give me a glass of milk. Have you not felt it very lonely through the winter?" "Somewhat," I replied, "but I have got used to it now. Besides, such a day as this atones for a score of dreary ones." "The news this morning is splendid," he said. "My sister and I have just been talking about it. I think we shall soon have them on their knees now, don't you?" I did not reply. I was at the moment too much interested in watching the lady, at whom I am afraid I stared rather rudely. She was, perhaps, my own age, or it might be two or three years my junior. According to every standard of beauty I know, she was one of the most handsome women I had ever seen. Magnificently proportioned, simply dressed, a fine carriage, and a brilliant complexion, she would be noticed in any crowd. I wondered who she was; wondered that even I, living the secluded life I did, had not in some way heard of her. Her eyes, too, were very striking--large, lustrous, brilliant. "I don't know," I said, turning to the man. "With such an enemy as Germany, we have all our work cut out." "Ah, but surely," and he laughed gaily, "you are not what the papers call a 'dismal Jimmy,' you are not a pessimist. The Germans are no fighters, they are only boasters. I admit they are very thorough in their preparations, and there is no doubt about it, they have prepared for this war to the minutest detail; but when it comes to hand-to-hand fighting, they are nowhere." "You think so?" I queried. "I am sure of it," said the man. "I have been in Germany a good deal, and they are blusterers, boasters, cruel if you like, but not brave. My sister and I were talking about them a few minutes ago, and we both agreed about it. Of course, they are mean and treacherous, they have no sense of honor. There are no depths to which they will not sink, in order to gain their own ends." "Yes, you have had evidence of that," I replied. "But what angers me more than their treachery, is the treachery of our own people who have given them information. I saw in yesterday's paper that only English people could have given them signals on the Yorkshire coast whereby they were able to do their baby-killing." "Well, we are safe down here, at all events," was the man's reply. "There is nothing for which they need come to Cornwall." "I am not so sure," replied the woman, and her voice startled me, it was so clear, so musical. "They seem to have a hundred deep-laid schemes which are apparently innocent, so nobody suspects them. Even in a district like this there may be spies about." Both the man and myself laughed merrily. Looking out over the blue waters, which glistened in the sunlight, we could see three great warships evidently patrolling the coast. "We have no fear for what they can do here, Rachel, with those steel monsters about," laughed the man. "The Navy has been our salvation, and will be our salvation." "I have heard," said the woman, "that Germans know this country to its minutest detail, that there is not a lane, nor a creek, nor a cave along the whole coast from Land's End to John o' Groat's House, but what they are aware of it." "Nonsense, Rachel. I think you are like the rest of the women, carried away by fairy stories. How long have you been living here, sir?" "More than nine months," I replied. "The war must have broken out soon after you came?" "Yes," I replied. "I came in May." "My sister is awfully frightened, and is constantly manufacturing schemes whereby the Germans can invade us, and she fancies that every stranger is a German spy. Have you, living so close to the cliffs for more than three-quarters of a year, ever seen anything of a German spy?" I shook my head. "Never seen a sign of a German spy, have you?" Again I shook my head. "There, Rachel," laughed the man, "surely that should quieten your fears." A few minutes later they passed on, leaving me alone. I watched them follow the pathway which led close to my house, then they mounted the hill at the back, and were lost to my sight. That night I went to bed early. I had exercised myself more than usual during that day, and felt rather tired, yet I could not sleep. I could not tell why it was, but my mind seemed abnormally active. Perhaps it was because the time allowed me by Dr. Rhomboid was fast drawing to a close. If he were right, I had not more than three months to live. I got up and lit a candle and looked in the glass. My cheeks were certainly pale and hollow, my hands and arms painfully thin, and yet I did not feel like a dying man. I remember blowing out the light and putting aside the curtain and looking out on the sea. There was no moon, but it was a wonderful night of stars, and I could see the long line of breakers as they rolled against the cliffs. The night was as still as heaven, not a breath of wind stirred. The very thought of war, of tumult, of the roar of big guns, seemed infinitely removed from me. The night contained the very genius of peace. I went back to bed again, and still I could not sleep. Hour after hour I lay restless. Why it was I could not tell, for on the whole I slept well. I yielded to what seems now a mad impulse, and putting on my clothes, I went out into the night. Soon my heart beat wildly, for coming round the headline I saw several boats. They made no noise, and yet, in the light of the stars, I was sure I saw them. How many there were I could not tell, but there seemed to be many. Each cleared the corner silently, and then, passing near to the cliffs, was lost to my view. As I have said, the night was windless, but not a sound could I hear. No splash of oars, no throb of machinery, and yet, I felt sure I had seen the boats pass. Of course, I might easily be deceived; for, although it was a night of stars, nothing on the sea showed clearly--the boats were like so many phantoms. Once, as I crept closer towards the cliff, I thought I heard a rustling noise, but I was not sure. No matter how still the weather might be, the murmur of the waves was always heard, and my mind, excited as it was, could easily conjure up foolish fancies. How long I stood there, I do not know. It might have been an hour, for I was unconscious of time. Presently I felt myself shiver, then, realizing how foolish I had been, made my way back to my little wooden hut. I had barely reached my door, when I was certain I heard a rustling in the bushes, just above the spot where a spring of water gushed out. "It was a hare or a rabbit, or it might be a fox," I said to myself, and yet, in the excited state of my mind, I was not satisfied. I had a feeling that something was happening around me. I called to mind the story of Father Abraham. I remembered, too, the repeated visits of the idiot lad called Fever Lurgy. What had become of him? I had neither seen nor heard anything of him for months now. What lay behind this feverish warning? Why had he told me to leave? I went back to bed, and in a few minutes was asleep. When I awoke, it was broad daylight, and hastily dressing myself, I went to the spot in which I had stood the previous night. All was quite calm and peaceful. The day was wondrous in its glory, even although the sun was yet low in the heavens. Sea-birds floated overhead, uttering mournful cries. Out at sea the great steel monsters ploughed their way through deep waters, ever watching our shores. After breakfast I clambered down the rugged footpath towards the beach. I felt a feverish desire to see the cave I had visited on first coming to St. Issey. The day was like summer; the sea rippled on the yellow sandy beach, and its music to me was like a long song. Everything caused my wild fancies to appear foolish. I looked carefully on the sand, but there was no sign of a foot-mark, no suggestion of a boat. Presently I found the fissure which led to the cave. This I entered, thinking as I did so of the quaint brooch of barbaric design which I had found there months before, and which I still possessed. Lighting a match, I looked at the sandy floor, and my whole body quivered with excitement. I saw many footmarks, and what seemed to me more important still, a piece of paper which had evidently been used as a wrapper of a bottle. On it was printed, in German, these words: "_Bremen's Special Whisky, Manufactured in Dusseldorf_." What seemed suspicious was, that any one in Cornwall should be drinking German whisky nine months after the war had commenced. Not even in peace-time had the English people been in the habit of patronizing German whisky distillers. In war-time it was unthinkable. More than that, I was absolutely certain that this paper did not lie here when I last visited the cave. Moreover, the footmarks were fresh. They had been made within the last few hours. I felt as perturbed as Robinson Crusoe was, when, walking on the beach of his lonely island, he had seen a man's footprint on the sand. What did it portend? I ransacked my brain, but could think of nothing. What could Germans be doing here? What advantage could it be to them? And yet, what I had seen troubled me. Leaving the cave, I carefully examined every portion of the cliff, but could discover nothing. No footmarks appeared. No place seemed to exist wherein anything could be hidden. I spent hours thinking, wondering, watching, all to no avail. When I reached my cottage it was lunch-time. That afternoon, I remember, the sky became cloudy, and the sea, instead of a wondrous blue, became dark and forbidding. "I will not go to bed to-night until I feel sleepy," I reflected. "I won't have such a restless time as I had last night." I undid the wrapper of a new novel which I had ordered to be sent to me, and prepared to read. Simpson had gone to bed. The night was chilly, so throwing some fresh lumps of wood on to the fire, and drawing up a chair, I made myself as comfortable as possible. The book was by one of our younger novelists who, as it appeared to me, struck a new vein. He possessed what very few novelists have--namely, vision. He looked deeper into the heart of things than any man I had read for some time. I became so interested that I forgot the lapse of time, until, looking at my watch. I found it was past midnight. I had scarcely noticed this when I heard stealthy footsteps outside. I sat up and listened. A moment later there was a knock at the door--not loud but cautious. I waited a few seconds, and the knock was repeated. Standing close to the door I spoke, not loudly, but sufficiently clearly to reach any one who might be outside. "Who are you? What do you want?" "Let me in, and I will tell you." "Tell me who you are before I do that," I replied. "It is a strange time of night to come to one's house, and I shall not open the door until I know who you are." "I mean only your good," was the answer. "That is easily said," was my reply. "As it happens, my man is sleeping only a few yards away, and I have a loaded revolver close beside me. I am a good shot, too." I scarcely know why I said this. Perhaps it was because I thought if the man were there on evil intent I might frighten him. "I have something to tell you, something vastly important." "Who are you? What is your name?" "One name is as good as another. I mean only your good; let me in." "Very well," I said, "I will open the door. If you do not play the game fairly, expect trouble." Whereon I opened the door, and saw an old, white-bearded man. He wore a long ulster and a soft, broad-brimmed hat which partially hid his features. He came in without invitation, and I shut the door and locked it, putting the key in my pocket. He looked at me steadily, questioningly. He appeared like a man trying to form an estimate of me. "Won't you take off your ulster?" I said. Without a word, he divested himself of the heavy coat, and placing his hat upon it, looked at me steadily again. He might have been Adam in _As You Like It_. He was doubtless very old, but he was ruddy and hale. His eyes were bright and piercing, and I noticed that they were largely shaded by heavy white eyebrows. His hair, also, was thick and white and glossy. A kindly-looking old man he was, but alert, capable, strong. "There," I said, pointing to a chair. "Sit down, and tell me what you have to say." "Do you know you are standing on a powder magazine?" The words came from his mouth like a shot, so tersely, so suddenly did he speak. "Do you speak literally or metaphorically?" "Maybe both," was his reply. "Anyhow, it hasn't exploded yet," was my answer. "Won't you sit down?" "You are very cool." "I see no reason to be excited." He chuckled, as though he were amused. "Since you are so kind," he said, "I will sit down. Ah, that is a good cigar you have been smoking." "Yes," I replied. "Won't you have one?" and I pushed him the box. He lit the cigar with a steady hand, and seemed to be enjoying it, but I noticed that he gave me several quick, searching glances. I was beginning to enjoy what seemed like an adventure. Although my strength had ebbed away considerably during the past few months, my nerves were still steady, and I saw no reason for being afraid. I knew that Simpson was within call, knew too that, at his oft-repeated request, I had obtained a revolver, which was within easy reach. But I had no thought of using it. The man's visit was evidently of a friendly nature, and I believed he had something of importance to tell me. XVIII FATHER ABRAHAM "If I were you, I should leave this house." "May I ask why?" "Because your life is in danger. Yes, I see you smile, but I know; I have reason to know." "No," I replied, "my life is in no danger at all. I gather you are thinking of murder. I happen to be a lawyer, and have studied criminal cases for the last ten years, and I can never remember a murder to have taken place without some grave motive for it. No one has a sufficient motive to kill me. As far as I know, I haven't an enemy in the world, my death would benefit no one, and there is no reason why any would-be murderer would endanger his life by killing me." The old man looked at me with an amused twinkle in his eye. He seemed to regard me as an interesting specimen of humanity. "You are talking in the dark, my young friend," he said. "No," I replied. "I am not talking in the dark, I am talking common sense. If I possessed a secret which was dangerous to any one, if I had it in my power to hurt any one, if I had money which some one desired, if some one hated me very much, if I had done any one any great injury, if I had stolen some young fellow's sweetheart, I could believe there might be truth in your words; but I have done none of these things. I have lived the most commonplace, humdrum life imaginable, and I haven't an enemy in the world. More than that, circumstances have made it unnecessary for any one to kill me. My death will come in a perfectly natural way in a very short time." "What do you mean by that last sentence?" "Just as I told you. If you do not believe me, I beg you to refer to Dr. Rhomboid, R-H-O-M-B-O-I-D, of Harley Street, London." "I see. But you are a cool one!" "I have no reason to be other than cool." "You say you are a lawyer, but there is no need for you to tell me that." "Still," I said, "I am interested in what you say. You have taken the trouble to come here at midnight, when every one else is asleep, and you tell me my life is in danger. I cannot believe that in the slightest degree; but the bump of curiosity, as the phrenologists say, is largely developed in my cranium. Tell me why you came." "I have found out all about you that there is to know," he said between the puffs of his cigar. "That didn't take you long," I replied. Again there was a silence between us, during which he watched my face closely. "Let me tell you this, my young friend. A man with sharp eyes, as yours are, and a brain quick to think, as yours is, is always in danger while a certain class of people exist." "What class of people?" He ignored my question entirely. "You said just now," he remarked, "that the bump of curiosity in your cranium is largely developed." "Very largely indeed." "What is your interest in this coast? Why have you been seen creeping along the beach examining the cliffs?" "Put it down to curiosity." "Exactly! Curiosity. And let me tell you this, my young friend, that if your curiosity should be rewarded, you will be a dead man within twenty-four hours. You might, instead of living here in a perfectly defenseless way, surround yourself by a thousand safeguards; you might have as many sentries as the Kaiser himself, but your life would not be worth a pin's purchase." "And a pin will not purchase much," I retorted. "Exactly! That is why I tell you to leave here." "You evidently know what you are talking about," I replied, "or at least you think you do. You will have noticed that I have not asked you any questions about yourself. There has seemed to be no reason why I should." "Why? What do you know about me?" "Practically nothing," I replied. "I am no Sherlock Holmes, and even if I were, I have not had sufficient energy to satisfy my curiosity; still, I can give you a rough outline of who and what you are. You built this little hut here, built it with care and intelligence, for which I am very grateful. You had as your man Friday, an idiot who went by the name of Fever Lurgy. You lived here like a hermit for years, and were a mystery to every one. Still, people did not trouble much about you, as a good many unconventional people live along the coast. I find that about a mile farther on from here, in another little bay, several artists have built little huts similar to this. One or two writing fellows also live lonely lives on this Cornish coast. You became known as Father Abraham; you showed yourself to practically no one; then, suddenly you left. There were signs of violence in the little room where you slept, and where I now sleep, and it was given out that you were the victim of foul play, that possibly you were murdered. Evidently, however, you were not. As a consequence, there was a good amount of honest sympathy wasted." The old man laughed. Evidently I had amused him. "As a lawyer," I went on, "I have discovered that everything may be resolved into a matter of motive. You must have a motive for doing this. Your past life must be interesting! You tell me that I am in danger of being murdered. I do not believe it a bit. At the same time, there is a connection between your past life and your reason for telling me this doleful news." "I like a man with a clear brain," he chuckled. "I like a man who can analyze, who can deduce, who has studied the laws of synthesis. You were a student of Socrates, weren't you, years ago? You loved the Socratic method of reasoning?" "Your deductions are from insufficient data," I remarked. "But that is by the way. Seeing you have taken the trouble to pay me this visit, would you mind telling me what has caused you to prophesy such evil things about me?" "I do not prophesy, I warn. More than that"--again he looked at me keenly--"your report concerning your health and your declaration of Dr. Rhomboid's verdict on you doesn't justify you in not heeding my warning. Even although a thousand doctors pronounce the death sentence on you, you can still hope that they are mistaken; and you long to live, you hate the thought of death." I reflected a moment. Somehow the old man's presence and his quick intelligence had made me think rapidly. "Do you know," he went on, "that there is a great deal of reason for the foreigners' opinion concerning John Bull's brains? Mind you, John Bull is a cleverer man than he is thought to be; all the same, they have their reason for their opinions." "What might their opinions be?" I asked. He laughed quietly, and again looked at me keenly. "You, now. You are a clever man, you have had a lawyer's training, you are given to observe, to analyze, to synthesize, but you have the Englishman's fault." "And that?" I asked. "You always try to find out the thing which is lying a long way off from you. You never observe the thing which is close by." "You speak in a detached way," I replied. "You speak of Englishmen in the third person. Why do you do that? You are an Englishman?" "How do you know that?" he asked. "Instead of answering that," I replied, "I will tell you something else. You have spent a good deal of time in Germany." I was startled by the change which came over his face. I had evidently made him fear. "Why do you say that?" he cried. "There is such a thing as intuition as well as deduction," I replied. "Intuition and deduction act and react one upon the other. But, after all, you didn't come here because you were interested in mental gymnastics. You say I am in danger in this place; you have warned me to leave it. Why do you say this to me?" "Ah, there is the English side of your character coming out! Will you not do as I tell you without my giving you a reason?" "No," I replied. "Then your own blood be upon your head. I warn you; I can do no more. I tell you you are in danger. You as a lawyer ought to know that a clever man, an observant man, even although he may know nothing of what is going on around him, can be a constant menace to those who work in secret. Now do you follow me?" "Yes," I replied, "I follow you, but because you will not tell me plainly what is in your mind, you have aroused my curiosity; more than that, you have aroused the John Bull in me. I am too near death to be intimidated by what you tell me. As a consequence, you have made me more determined than ever to stay here, unless," I added, "you have decided to come back and live here, and drive me from this little hut, which, in spite of myself, I have come to love." "Ah, you like it!" he said. "It is comfortable, is it not? The sea views are wonderful, the silence of the night is a revelation; but leave it, my young friend, leave it!" "I have told you I shall not leave it," I replied, "until I have sufficient reason for doing so." "But you can do no good by remaining here; if you could, I would not hinder you from your madness. But can't you realize, man, that England is at war? Now then, cannot you understand?" "Oh yes," I replied. "I have had that in my mind for some time. I realized it when I told you that you had lived a long time in Germany." "How did you guess that?" "Oh, for one thing, while you speak English with an English accent, the construction of your sentences suggests a close acquaintance with German literature. You mentioned the Kaiser just now when you spoke of being guarded, and a look of fear came into your eyes when I said I knew of your connection with Germany." He grasped the arms of his chair as I spoke, and looked at me without speaking, but I saw that I had touched him--saw too that there were thoughts in his mind which he dared not utter. "You are afraid of some one," I went on. "Who, I don't know; possibly I shall not be able to find out; but you are. In spite of the kindliness of your nature, there is a horrible fear in your heart. Forces are at work in your life which I at present cannot understand. Look here, are you a paid tool of the German Government?" "God forbid!" he cried. "No, no, God forbid; but--but----Look here, Mr. Erskine, have you discovered anything?" "Nothing. I wish I had." "Let me tell you this, then. You are watched, constantly watched, and the moment you do discover anything----" He shrugged his shoulders by way of concluding his sentence. "Every man has his own secrets," he went on; "as you say, motives govern lives. They guide our actions, control our words." "If I am watched day and night," I said, "I must be a person of some importance; but more than that, you must be in danger in coming here." "I fight the devil with his own weapons," was his reply. "I meet cunning with cunning, plot with plot, mystery with mystery. To be forewarned is to be fore-armed, and I have taken every precaution; but I cannot tell you what I know--that is why I beseech you to leave here. You, a poor invalid, weak as a rabbit, with one foot in the grave, can do nothing; yet your very presence is a menace. Therefore leave the neighborhood, or if you must stay in the neighborhood, go into the village away from here." "I should not be in danger if I went into the village, then?" I asked. "Go into the village," he repeated. "There are lodgings there, simple perhaps, but clean, which would suit you just as well as this." "No," I replied, "no place will suit me quite as well as this." "Then your blood be upon your own head; I am sorry. I like you; I watched you directly after you came here. I discovered all that there was to be known about you. Leave the place, man, and give it out that it is haunted." "Do you realize," I said, "that you have put yourself in danger, too? I do not mean from those enemies who are unknown to me, but from other sources. I happen to know three magistrates in this district. If I were to tell them what you have told me to-night, I could have you arrested as a dangerous character. I have a servant, too, who is in a room close by. Possibly he has heard every word which has passed between us." He laughed like a man amused. "No, Mr. Erskine," he said, "there is not the slightest danger of that. Your servant is asleep. Bah, do you think I don't know? Do you think I am such a fool as that? As for telling the magistrates, you could not do it." "Why?" I asked. "Because you are you. Do you think I did not estimate the kind of man I am speaking to before I said what I have said? But I am sorry. I must be going now." He put on his heavy ulster as he spoke, buttoned it closely round his throat, and pulled his broad-brimmed hat over his forehead. "If you discover anything," he said,--"I am saying this as an off chance, ay, a chance in a million,--leave this place as soon as you have discovered it, and send a telegram to me." "Where?" I asked. "Send it to John Adams, Chigwheal Post Office." "And you will tell me nothing more than that?" "I came here to warn, not to inform." As he spoke I heard a sound outside, something like the cry of a sea-bird; it was a human voice. "Good-night," he said, holding out his hand. "I am truly sorry, but I have done my best." I unlocked the door, and he passed out into the darkness. I listened intently, and heard the rustling of the bushes. A minute later, there was a murmur of voices, and I knew that Fever Lurgy was near. After having closed the door and carefully locked it, I sat for a long time thinking. Part of the little success I had had in the law was owing to a remarkably retentive memory. I have sometimes thought that my memory is peculiar to myself. I do not quite know how to describe it. I have listened to a conversation which has interested me, and I have listened to evidence in court which has been of importance, and for three or four days I have remembered it in its minutest detail, and could repeat it word for word. At the end of three or four days, however, the details have passed from me completely, although I have retained the broad outlines of what I have heard. Now as I sat, the conversation which had taken place, every word, every look, every gesture of old Father Abraham was clear before my mind. That the old man was sincere I did not doubt. He evidently believed that I was in danger. I was sure, too, that he had had some connections with Germany, and that his fears were connected with the war. But I doubted his judgment. I was not sure that he was altogether sane. He was obsessed with thoughts which had no objective reality, at least so I fancied, and yet his warning was grave. Not that I intended to heed it: I had not much to hope for in life; but danger or no danger, I meant to get to the bottom of what he had said. Evidently this hut was closely connected with his thoughts. Evidently, too, it had been under his observation ever since he had left it. I reflected on all I had said to him, and was pleased that I had told him nothing of what I had discovered. Remembering all that had taken place in the country during the last few months, I determined to use whatever faculties I might possess in order to discover how I might be a menace to the enemy. If I could discover that, I should be able to help my own country. When I awoke the following morning, I realized how truly Father Abraham had read my character. I could not make up my mind, even although I had tried, to tell any one that the old man was still alive, and that his actions were at least suspicious. For one thing, I did not believe that he was an enemy to our country; for another, I had my doubts whether any good could result in making a search for him. That he was in hiding in some place in the district I did not doubt. Chigwheal was about nine miles from St. Issey, and he evidently lived near enough to that village to receive postal communications; but where he lived, or what disguises he might assume, I had not the slightest idea. That he was a man with a quick brain and of great resource I had no doubt whatever, and I felt sure he would know how to defend himself in case of danger. In addition to that, too, I felt that I should be acting against the interests which had been born in my heart, if I disclosed his possible whereabouts. I knew instinctively that he was kindly disposed towards me, and to tell of what had occurred would possibly hinder me from the course of action I had decided upon. Added to all this was a kind of secretiveness which hindered me from making known his visit to me. As may be imagined, I had plenty of food for thought. It was evident that his interest in me was no new thing. Months had now elapsed since Fever Lurgy had given me the same warning. Doubtless the poor thick-witted lad was but a messenger from this mysterious old man. I carefully thought over every sentence he had uttered, and weighed their possible meanings. My danger, if danger there was, lay not in the fact that any one harbored evil thoughts concerning me, but that I lived in this little hut. Evidently the hut itself occupied a position of advantage. It was at the centre of some operation. The old man had built it for some purpose, and then, for reasons unknown to me, had left it. I called to mind the fact that immediately after my arrival I had seen figures in the near distance who looked as if they might be watching my actions; but why? It was well known that I had no purpose in coming to Cornwall save to find a healthy spot where I might conserve my poor feeble life as long as possible. One thing, however, Father Abraham had done for me. He had set me on my guard. I had for some months now taken an intelligent interest in what was going on, and had read the papers carefully. Like all other British people, too, my eyes had been opened to what militarism had done for Germany, and to the depths of meanness and baseness to which they were prepared to sink, in order to carry out their purposes. As I have said previously, I had visited Germany on more than one occasion. I also understood the language and could speak it and read it fluently. While in Germany I had talked with professors in the universities and officers in their army. I was aware, too, of their mastery of detail and of their thorough preparedness for everything they undertook. What I could not understand was how I, living in this obscure corner of the country, could be in a position of advantage, and how I could be a menace to my country's enemies. I did not know then, neither did I dream, how my eyes were to be opened. XIX GOD ANSWERED OUT OF THE WHIRLWIND Nothing happened for some days. At first I kept close to the house, and was constantly on the alert lest some evil thing should befall me. I watched vigilantly too. Remembering all that had been reported in the newspapers, my mind was filled with suspicions concerning the possibility of the enemy pursuing his work in this part of the country. Especially did I watch the cliffs around the little bay; but in no way was I rewarded. I began to think that I was the victim of a hoax, or that Father Abraham was little better than a madman obsessed with mad fancies. Thus it came about that after a few days I became careless of the warnings given me, and pursued my old course of life. At that time, I remember, the black cloud of war hung especially heavy on our land. The Prime Minister had stated in the House of Commons the number of killed and wounded in our Army and Navy, and the appalling figures which he gave were added to daily by the lists given in the papers. The village of St. Issey had not suffered greatly. It is true that three men had come home wounded, but their wounds were not serious, and as they had been bright and cheerful during their stay, we had been led to hope that we should escape lightly. Then, suddenly, the horror of the whole business came home to us. Two of our lads were killed at sea. Then we heard that others had been taken prisoners and lay suffering in a German prison camp. Others still were lying wounded in the hospitals in France. One morning--it was some days after Father Abraham's visit--I found on opening my newspapers that among the killed was one Edward Trelaske, who died in action. The name struck me, first because it was Cornish, and second because it was the name of our Vicar. I saw too that he was a captain in one of the battalions belonging to the D.C.L.I., and I wondered whether he were in any way associated with St. Issey. Scarcely had I read this than a knock came to the door, and I saw the Vicar enter the room. He looked ten years older than when I had first seen him. I think I said, when describing our first meeting, that he was a hale and handsome man, ruddy and inclined to stoutness. Now his face was haggard and bloodless, the flesh hung loosely on his cheeks, and I judged from his eyes that he was a stranger to sleep. Immediately I connected his appearance with what I had just read. I did not speak a word, I thought it best not to; but I held out my hand, which he gripped almost convulsively. Almost unconsciously I looked at the newspaper. "Yes," he said, "it is there." "It was your son, then?" I said. "Yes, my eldest son; both were in the Army. One is still alive, thank God; but Ned, my boy Ned----" Then for a moment he broke down, his whole body trembling violently. He recovered himself in a few seconds, however. "I do not complain," he said. "In a way I am proud." "I think I understand," was my reply. "I shall never be the same man again," he went on. "It seems as though a part of my life is buried with him, away in that little French cemetery; but at this moment there is no prouder man in England than I. My son, my eldest son, has given his life for honor, for truth, for God." He spoke like a man inspired. Every word was weighted with a new meaning. "I don't know why I came to you," he went on. "I received the news days ago, and ever since, ever since...." Then he stopped. There was a far-away look in his eyes. "You have my deepest sympathy, Mr. Trelaske," I said. "Words are poor at a time like this----" "No," he interrupted, "words are not poor, when they convey what the heart feels. I rather resented it when my son expressed the desire to go into the Army. I fully expected it of Harry, my second son, and had had him educated with that object in view; but it has always been a tradition in our family for generations that one of the sons should go into the Church. But he would not fall in with my wishes; he was not fit, he said, and he wanted to be a soldier. The living here belongs to our family, has belonged to it for more than a hundred years. Now I know it ought not to have belonged to us." "Why?" I asked. "The Church," he replied, "has been but little more than a name to me, the vocation of a clergyman I have regarded as little more than a profession; that is why--why...." He stopped, as if unable to express the thought in his mind. "'What is the use of my becoming a parson?' said Ned to me. 'I have nothing to say to the people. How can I tell the chaps whom I have fought with, shot with, played cards with, about their souls, about God and about heaven?' I argued with him. I told him that when a man was ordained a priest his ordination gave him priestly rights. But he would have none of it, and insisted upon going into the Army. As I said, I was grieved and angry; but now I know that he served his God more truly than I, for what I have done has lacked a great conviction. I have looked upon my profession as--as a profession; but he, he gave his life for his country, and for truth, and for God. Perhaps he did not say so in so many words, perhaps he did not even think of it, but that is what he did; and I am proud--oh, I am proud. He died a hero, too." "How?" I asked. "Tell me." "He was wounded, not badly, but his arm was broken. He made light of it, however, and among the German prisoners taken was a German officer, a major who was badly hurt. He asked for water. My son, although he was in great pain, fetched water and gave it to him, and while he was giving it to him the German got out his revolver and shot him through the heart." "What happened then?" I asked. "You may guess what happened," he replied. "Some of our men saw it. It was terrible--wasn't it? But how could I wish my son to die a nobler death, even although that fiend shot him? Did he not die as a Christian, trying to bring succor to his enemy?" There was a note of earnestness in his voice which I had never heard before. "And you got this news days ago?" I said. "Yes," he replied, "and I have been to see no one since it came until now. I haven't even been to see my old friend Treherne. At first, all the foundations of my life seemed to be broken up. I could not understand it. I thought I should never be able to bear it. Why should I, a man past my prime, with my work nearly over, be alive while my son, a lad of twenty-seven, should be killed? "I revolted against it. "I told God He was hard. "By and by, however, my mind became clearer; I began to understand. Not that I could put my thoughts into words; I cannot now. Presently I began to pray. I do not think I had really prayed for years. I had read the prayers at Church, I had done my work as a clergyman, but I had missed the great reality of it all. But then I prayed. This morning I felt I must come to see you. You remember what you asked me when I came here first?" "Yes, I remember," I said; "but please do not trouble about that now. You have your own sorrow to think of." "I am ashamed," he went on. "I, a clergyman, set apart to give help, comfort, to those who might come to me, and yet when you asked me one of the greatest of all questions, I had no answer to give. I was dumb." I waited in silence. I longed to know what was in the man's mind, but I felt it would be sacrilege to ask him questions then. I could see that he had been passing through deep waters, that the billows had gone over his head. He was no longer the ecclesiastic, no longer the man he had believed himself, set apart simply because a bishop's hands had been laid upon his head. He had seen beneath the mere conventions of his faith, he had got to the heart of things, or, at least, he had tried to get there. "I am ashamed," he went on, "that I had no answer to give you. Even yet I have none to give. I am still in the dark, and yet--yet...." He seemed like a man who saw something from afar, one who was stretching out lame hands of faith. "I understand as I never understood before," he went on. "Do you remember that story of David standing by the gates of Jerusalem, waiting for news of his son, and who, when the news came, cried out, 'Oh, Absalom, my son, my son, would God that I had died for thee, oh, Absalom, my son!' I understand that now. I think I understand something more; I am not certain yet, but I feel as though--as though...." And again there was a far-away look in his eyes. He rose and held out his hand. "You will wonder why I came," he said. "I do too, except that I could not help coming. Do you remember what our Lord said about blind leaders of the blind? No, I am not blind, but I am like the man who was cured of his blindness by our Lord, who said he saw men as trees walking. It is a strange story, isn't it? But oh, man, what fools we are! What blind fools! And how God Almighty opens our eyes and shows us our foolishness!" I longed to be able to utter some words of comfort, but I was in the dark myself. I had been asking questions ever since I came to Cornwall, but had received no answer. I would have given anything at that time to have been able to say something which would have been balm to the father's bleeding heart. But I could not. I could only tell him how sorry I was, and that seemed such a little thing. That same afternoon, the weather being fine, I found my way into St. Issey. I had practically forgotten Father Abraham's warning, and longing to see human faces, and to get away from the questions which haunted me, I turned towards the village. I had, by this time, learnt to know a great many of the people. I was no longer simply the stranger who had a few months before come to live in Father Abraham's hut. I had now been living in the neighborhood for several months, and was regarded by many of the people as a friend. I had also got into the habit of dropping into the cottages and talking with the simple folk. I had barely entered the village when I saw a woman standing by her cottage door. "Oh, Mr. Erskine," she said. "Will 'ee come in a minute? I 'ave somethin' to tell 'ee." "What is it, Mrs. Rosewarn?" I had seen her once or twice at the Chapel, and knew that her husband was a local preacher. "Ain't 'ee heered, my deear?" "Heard what?" I asked. "About my deear boy. He's killed, my deear." "Killed?" I said. "Yes, my deear. They Germans 'ave killed 'im." Never did I hear such pathos in a human voice. There was no bitterness, no anger, no suggestion of vengeance in her voice, but there was pathos, deep unutterable pathos. "'E was a deear, deear boy," she went on. "No better boy ever stepped in shoe leather. 'Is father were ter'ble against 'is goin' as a sojer, but 'e would go, and now 'e is dead." What could I say? What comfort could I give to this poor bruised, breaking heart? Never did I realize, as I did at that moment, how vain and futile was the learning of men when brought face to face with sorrow and loss. I did not feel it so much when the Vicar had come to me that morning. At the back of my mind I had felt that he, the Vicar of the parish, ought to have had means whereby he could obtain comfort. He was supposed to be the spiritual head of the parish, and professed to believe in shibboleths of Christianity; but everything was different in relation to this poor cottage woman. I felt that I, who had spent years at a seat of learning, who had pored over musty law-books and professed to know something of the ways of men, should have something to say, some message of hope to give her; but I had nothing. "Oh, my deear Mr. Erskine," she said, "the 'and of the Lord is 'eavy upon me, but I am not as those who sorrow without hope." "No," I said. "What hope have you?" "Oh, my deear, 'e was a good boy. 'Ere is 'is last letter, sir. Will 'ee read it, then?" I took the letter and read it. I do not ever remember perusing a document with the same eagerness as I perused this letter sent from the trenches. "DEAR MOTHER AND FATHER,"--I read,--"I have just got a few minutes to write to you, so I am just sending you these few lines to tell you that I am well and happy. While I write I can hear the booming of the guns, the sound of shrapnel, and the awful noise of shells which are shrieking above me; but I am safe here. The trenches are so made that even the German guns cannot hurt us. We are doing very well, and although it will take us a long time, we are going to lick the Germans right enough. I wish the war was over and that I was home among you once again. I expect you will be in Chapel now, or just going home, for it is half-past seven on Sunday night. If ever I live to go home again, I shall go to Chapel more regularly than I did. An hour ago some of us met here and had a prayer-meeting. Lots of the fellows came who never thought of going to a prayer-meeting at home. Somehow war makes us think of things differently. I never dared to pray in the meetings at home, but I did to-night, and you would have been surprised at some of the chaps that did pray, and hear what they said. It was very funny, but they meant it all right, and God understood. Well, I must stop now, for I have to go on duty. Love to you both.--Your affectionate son, "TOM." "Ed'n it wonderful?" she said to me, with streaming eyes. "Tom would never say a word about religion when 'e was at 'ome; but now, do'ant 'ee see, my deear Mr. Erskine? I know that Tom is saafe with his God." "How did he die?" I asked. I felt the question to be out of place, but I could think of nothing better to say. "I do'ant know, my deear. We was told that 'e was killed in action, and that is all. But I ain't got no feears, Tom was a good boy." At that moment there was a knock at the door, and the next moment Mr. Trelaske entered. "I ... I have just heard that Tom is killed," he said, "and I thought you would not take it amiss if I dropped in." "Bless 'ee, sir, I be glad to see 'ee," replied the woman. "Mr. Erskine 'ere was just readin' Tom's last letter. Would 'ee like to read it?" I passed him the letter without a word, and the Vicar read it carefully. "Oh, yes, sir," said Mrs. Rosewarn, "Tom was a good boy, and I ain't got no feears. 'E 'as gone straight to God, 'as Tom." The Vicar stayed for perhaps ten minutes, and during that time he uttered no word about religion. He spoke quite naturally about Tom Rosewarn's death, and expressed deepest sympathy with the sorrowing mother. "Yes, sir," said Mrs. Rosewarn, "we 'ave to comfort each other now. I 'eerd about poor Mr. Edward, and I ain't forgot you, sir, in my prayers." "Thank you, thank you," said the Vicar. "I need them." "It do'ant matter, sir, do it, whether we be Church or Chapel at a time like this?" went on Mrs. Rosewarn. "I ain't ever been to Church in my life, 'cept to funerals and weddin's. I 'ave always been a Wesleyan, and somehow I thought that your religion was deffurent to ours, but now, sir.... Well, sir, perhaps you understand what I mean." When the Vicar left I rose to go with him, but the simple woman persuaded me to stay a few minutes longer. "Only think, sir," she said, when he had gone. "Why, he ain't ever been in my 'ouse before. 'E said that my 'usband was committing what he called sacrilege, by preachin'. 'E said it was a sin for ignorant men, like my John, to preach the Gospel, and now to think that 'e should come 'ere like this, and talk like 'e 'ave talked. And, sir, whether we be gentle or simple, we 'ave got 'earts to feel, 'aven't us, sir?" When I left the cottage I felt that in some way I was leaving a sanctuary, and I realized that this woman possessed a secret which was hidden from me. Her simple faith was greater and more profound than all the learned tomes in the libraries at Oxford, greater than all the scholarship of men. I wandered along the road aimlessly; I did not know where I was going, I did not care, but I had not gone far when I found the Vicar by my side. Evidently he had been waiting for me. "Do you know that woman, Erskine?" he asked. "I have met her a few times," I replied. "I have got very friendly with some of the village folk." "I, who have been the Vicar of this parish for many years, have never been to that house before," he said. "I looked upon her husband as a Radical, as a Dissenter, and therefore a dangerous man. I have been angry with him for usurping offices which I did not think it right for him to hold; but, great God! how a thing like this shows us what fools we are!" I was silent, for I did not know what to say to him. "Do you ever read the Bible, Erskine?" "No," I replied. "I have not read it since I was at Oxford. The last thing that I remember reading was the story of St. Paul's shipwreck. I could not help thinking then what a fine piece of literature it was; but it seemed a long way off. I thought of Paul as one who lived in a superstitious age, and one who saw miraculous interventions in what were only commonplaces. Somehow it strikes me differently now." "How is that?" he asked. "I remember that Paul said something about the Angel of God standing beside him, and telling him that the ship should be saved, and that in the story Paul said, 'I believe God.' It was very fine, very graphic." "Yes," he replied. "It was more than fine, more than graphic. Paul possessed a secret which some of us have lost. I wonder, I wonder----" "Wonder what?" I asked. "Have you ever read the Book of Job?" asked the Vicar, without seeming to notice my question. "I have almost forgotten it," I replied. "I used to think in the old days that it was a very fine drama, compared with which even _Macbeth_ was almost poor. But what of it?" "Do you remember, towards the end of the story, that God answered Job out of the whirlwind? God seems to be answering me out of the whirlwind. He is just shattering all my poor little fancies, shrivelling up all my little beliefs. Why, that woman----Good-day, Erskine." He walked away as he spoke, and I watched him enter the churchyard gates and find his way into the Church. A kind of curiosity impelled me to follow him, and silently I found my way into the old stone building, which had been erected in this quiet village in pre-Reformation days--built by men long since dead, built before even Erasmus let in the light of learning upon our country, before Luther's voice shook the world. How quiet it was! Not a sound disturbed the silence. Not even the murmur of the sea reached me here. At first, I thought the place was empty; that the Vicar had passed through it on his way to the Vicarage. But I was mistaken. Kneeling at his desk, I saw him in prayer. His eyes were fixed on the stained-glass window over the Communion table, but I am sure he did not see the figures of saints and prophets that were placed there. He was looking beyond. I turned and went silently away. It was not for me to disturb him. On looking back now, it seemed to me that that day was a day of great events. Not that much had happened. News had come to me that two lads had been killed in the war, and that was all. But there was more than that. I had seen, as I had never seen before, into the hearts of two people--into that of the Vicar of the parish, and into the heart of a simple woman. They had both lost their sons. I climbed over a stile which led to a footpath whereby I could, by a roundabout way, return to my cottage on the cliff. I was in a strange mood, I remember. My mind was bewildered by what I had seen and heard, and I felt impatient with the philosophies which had somehow caused material barriers to be placed around me. I wanted to overleap those barriers. I was impatient with what seemed to place weights upon the wings of the mind and the wings of that something which we call soul. I hungered, as I never hungered before, for some assurance that life was deeper, greater, diviner than that suggested by the theories of men. A few months before I had been satisfied with the life I had been living. I was beginning to be successful at the Bar, and I had many pleasant friends and acquaintances. The possession of a good name and a respectable profession opened the doors of some of the best houses in England to me, and, as I said, I thought I was content. Then came Dr. Rhomboid's verdict, followed by my visit to Cornwall. After that the great war broke out, and life had become a maddening maze. For some time now I had seen nothing of the Lethbridges. I had had two letters from Hugh, who told me he was well. He also sent me a photograph of himself, taken in his lieutenant's uniform. His letter, I remember, was a cheery epistle, intermingled with a tone of sadness. He asked me to visit his wife, and to try to cheer her; but there was no word either of his father or of his sister. Perhaps the thought of Hugh's letter made me think of the latter, for, as I found my way along the footpath, I reflected on our meetings. Why was it that my mind was constantly reverting to her? I had, in a way, become almost sullenly resigned to the fact that, if Dr. Rhomboid were right, I had only three or four months longer to live, and yet, in a way for which I could not account, I constantly found myself thinking of Isabella Lethbridge. I told myself again and again that I did not love her, and I was sure I was right. Indeed, after my experiences with the Vicar and with Mrs. Rosewarn, I felt angry with her, angry with myself for constantly thinking about her; and while this feeling possessed me, I met her. She had come by a pathway from her home, and the two paths met just as we came in sight of each other. A kind of madness possessed me as I shook hands with her. "Have you heard from Hugh lately?" I asked, after our first greetings. "No," she replied. "My father has forbidden both my mother and me to receive any letters from him." "Surely that is a foolish command on his part," I said. "He cannot stop Hugh from writing, neither can he forbid the postman from bringing letters to your house." "No," she said, with a laugh, "but my father has the key to the letter bag, and he can decide as to what letters reach us." She spoke, as I thought, flippantly, and as one who did not care. Perhaps it was the tone of her voice and the look in her eyes which caused me to say what I did. "Have I to congratulate you, Miss Lethbridge?" "Congratulate me on what?" she asked. "On your engagement," I said. "Engagement! To whom?" "To Mr. Barcroft?" She laughed as though I had perpetrated a joke. "What made you think of such a thing?" she asked. "The look in his eyes when I saw him at your house, and your evident liking for each other." I felt how incongruous my words were, how utterly out of keeping with the scenes of sorrow I had witnessed that day; but, as I said, a spirit of madness was upon me. "Men are such fools," was her reply. "Yes, they are. But we cannot help that. Men were born to be fooled by women. But surely Mr. Barcroft is a happy man now if what rumor says is true." "And what does rumor say?" "That he is favored above all other men," I replied. "That Miss Lethbridge has consented to make him happy." "Was it not Shakespeare who said that 'rumor was a lying jade'?" And again she laughed, as I thought, flippantly, heartlessly. "Poor man, I cannot help what he feels." I felt that her words were those of a vulgar woman, and yet, as she stood there that day, with the early spring sunlight shining upon her, her face flushed with the hue of health, her eyes shining brightly, I had never seen any one so beautiful. "And is rumor a lying jade in this instance?" I asked. "Of course it is," was her reply. "Did I not tell you once, somewhere near here, that I did not believe there was such a thing as love?" "And did you ever tell him so?" And I think there was an angry note in my voice as I asked her that question. "Have I ever given you the right to ask that?" "I don't know," I replied. "But I want to tell you something. I have no right to tell you, but I am in a strange humor to-day. I have been talking with Mr. Trelaske, whose son has been killed in the war. I have also been to the house of Mrs. Rosewarn, whose boy Tom is dead." "Of course, that is very sad," she said; "but I don't see what that has to do with what you have to tell me. Come, I am impatient to hear." Reflecting on it since, I cannot think why I yielded to the madness which possessed me, but I am setting down in this narrative what actually occurred. I suppose I acted like a boor, and I know that, judging by every canon of good taste, I am to be condemned. "Miss Lethbridge, do you know that more than once since I came to Cornwall I have believed myself in love with you?" She stared at me with wide-open eyes. "I have sometimes thought," I went on, "that I would give worlds to possess your love. Had I not been a dying man, I would not have said this; but it does not matter now. Besides, I do not love you." "Thank you," she replied. "But really----" "No," I interrupted. "Do not retort by saying that you never wished for my love, and that if I offered it you would decline it with thanks. I am in a strange humor, or I should not say this. In a way I do love you, love you more than words can tell or imagination can fancy; at the same time, I know I do not love you at all. I love the woman you ought to be, the woman God meant you to be--if there be a God." She looked at me like one startled. "You have tried to play with my heart," I said to her, "I who am only a dying man. No, do not deny it, but you have. You have flashed looks of love at me. You have tried to make me think that you love me, and all the time you have not cared a straw about me. There have been times when I have been ready to worship you, but I could not do it, although, as I said, I have loved you--that is, I have loved the woman you ought to be, that you were meant to be; but it was not you. Do you know, Miss Lethbridge, that you have been a baleful influence in the lives of men? It does not matter to me now, I am beyond that; but since I have been in Cornwall I have met three fellows whose lives you have blackened. You won their love, you made them think you cared for them. Why have you done it?" Her face from rosy red became ashy pale, but her eyes gleamed with hot anger. "Really, Mr. Erskine," she said quietly, "you mistook your profession. A burlesque actor is your role." "Your retort is poor," I went on. "I am not acting, but am in sober earnest. Perhaps I have no right to think of such things, but there have been times when I became mad about you, would almost have sold my soul to possess you. Why, even now my heart cries out for you. I love you more than life or being, and yet it is not you I love at all; it is the woman you might have been." She stood looking at me for some seconds, again with wide-open eyes. Once or twice she seemed on the point of speaking, but she uttered no word. Then she turned and walked away. Her head was erect, and she carried herself proudly. I knew I had wounded her deeply. XX THE VICAR'S SERMON On the following Sunday I went to Chapel in the morning, and to the Parish Church in the evening. As I wended my way thitherwards, I reflected how strange it was that I should make it almost a habit to go to a place of worship on a Sunday. Prior to coming to Cornwall, I had not been inside a Church of any sort for years; indeed, such a thing was alien to my life. I had no interest in it, neither did I see its utility. Indeed, even then I could have given no explanation for my action. Neither Church nor Chapel had given me an answer to things I wanted to know. As I tried to analyze my reason for going, it seemed that something in the atmosphere of Sunday in Cornwall made it natural. Besides, it gave a kind of mild interest to my life. I had but few friends, and living alone as I did, I grew tired of reading and thinking; thus, when Sunday came, the ringing of the Church bells seemed to call me to a house of prayer. I dare say that if I had been in a country where Mohammedanism or Buddhism was the established faith of the people, I should have gone to their mosques or temples just as I went to Church and Chapel in Cornwall. To speak quite frankly, I had, up to the present, received no benefit from either. Mostly the pulpit at the Chapel was occupied by some layman, who spoke in a language different from my own. These laymen had read no books expressing the thought of the age, neither did they at all understand the attitude of my mind. That they were simple, earnest men I did not doubt, and yet I often wondered at their daring to occupy the position of religious teachers. What distressed me, moreover, was the fact that most of them appeared very anxious to convince their congregation that they had prepared a fine discourse, rather than to help people. The note of deep experience was too often lacking; and yet almost Sunday by Sunday I found my way there, until my presence caused no remark whatever. In spite of all this, however, I could not help reflecting that since I came to the little village of St. Issey a subtle change had come over the congregation. Not that the Chapel was very much more largely attended; but there seemed to me to be a spirit of yearning, a deep undertone of feeling among the worshippers. That morning especially did I realize this. The preacher was John Rosewarn, the father of the boy whose death had been recorded the previous week. I will not try to reproduce his sermon. Intellectually, John Rosewarn had practically nothing to say to me, and yet my heart was moved strangely. The shadow of his loss was brooding over him, and although he had no great mental acumen, he seemed to be feeling his way to the heart of things. There was a deep tenderness in his voice, a new light in his eyes. He made no mention of his son's death, but the fact was felt throughout the whole Church. Many wondered, I myself included, how he could have conducted the service that day, yet he did; and although his message from an intellectual standpoint was poor and unconvincing, there was a sense of reality which I had seldom felt in the homely little building. The congregation felt this too, and especially was it manifest during the singing of the hymns. One hymn, I remember, the people sang with great fervor. I had never heard it before, and from the standpoint of poetry it had nothing to recommend it, but as these people sang it, it was weighted with meaning. "We know, by _faith_ we know If this vile house of clay, This tabernacle sink below In ruinous decay We have a house above Not made with mortal hands...." I saw the tears rolling down the faces of the people as they sang, and I thought I noticed a note of triumph. When the service was over, John Rosewarn came down from the pulpit into the vestibule and spoke to me. "Thank you, sir, for calling at our house the other day," he said. "It is a terrible loss, sir, but we shall see our boy again." I went back to my little house on the cliff thinking deeply. Yes, a subtle change had come over the little congregation. The first excitement of the war was over, but something, I could not define what, had created a new atmosphere. Personally, I was still as much in the dark as ever; and the faith, the suggestion of which I had realized that morning, seemed to rest on utterly insufficient foundations; but I could not deny its existence. In the evening I found my way to the Parish Church. I saw at a glance that a larger congregation than usual had gathered. I noticed that old Squire Treherne was in the great square Treherne pew. Noticed, too, that Mr. Prideaux, father of young Prideaux, whose name I have mentioned, also several of the larger farmers who seldom came to Church of an evening, were present. What had drawn them there I could not tell, for it was in no way a special service. And yet, perhaps, it was special, for I knew that the sympathies of the people were drawn out towards Mr. Trelaske. The Vicar did not look so haggard as when he had visited me, but the marks of suffering were plainly to be seen on his face. There was no change in the order of the service. The usual evening prayers were repeated, the Psalms were sung, and the village schoolmaster read the lessons as he was wont to do, and yet here, too, was a suggestion of a change. A deeper note was struck, a new meaning felt. I asked myself why it was so, and wondered if the change were in me or in the people around me. The Vicar conducted the service like a man who was very weary. There was no suggestion of triumph or even conviction in his tones. He seemed to be bearing a heavy burden. When presently the hymn before the sermon was being sung and he left his stall in the choir to go into the pulpit, I wondered what he could say. Had he a message to deliver? Had his sorrow brought him hope, faith? He preached the shortest sermon, I think, I ever heard. Altogether, I imagine it did not take more than five minutes in its delivery, but the people listened as they had never listened before during the time I had been in St. Issey. He chose for his text a passage from the Psalms: "The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God." When he had read the passage, he waited for some seconds as if not knowing what to say. "Has it struck you, brethren, that during this ghastly war, in spite of the fact that the greater part of the world is under arms, in spite of the fact that hellish deeds are being done, in spite of the welter of blood and the unutterable carnage, that we have heard no one deny the existence of God? I thought when the war first broke out and assumed such awful proportions, when I realized the misery it was causing, that people would have doubted God, that they would have said, like the enemies of the Psalmist of old, 'Where is now thy God?' I thought that atheism would have lifted its head again and uttered its desolating cry; that men would have said, 'If there is a God, He would not have allowed these things.' And yet worse things have happened than we, at the commencement of the war, thought possible, but I have heard no one deny the existence of God, neither have I heard any one seriously doubt His goodness. Why is it?" He paused a few seconds and seemed to be communing with himself. "Brethren," he went on, "we meet under the shadow of a great loss. Some of you, even as I at this moment, feel that we are in the deep waters, and in our heart's agony we cry out to God. We cannot help it." He ceased again, and a silence, such as I have never known before in a Church, pervaded the building. "Brethren," he went on, "will you pray for me, and I will pray for you? Pray that we may be led out of darkness into light." I thought he was going to finish here, thought he was going to utter the usual formula at the conclusion of a sermon, but he went on. "God is teaching us many lessons--teaching us how foolish we are, how paltry have been our conceptions of Him; teaching us, too, our need of Him. Will the Church, will religion ever be the same to us again? I think not." Again he stopped, and the people breathlessly waited, as if wondering what he would say next. To me he seemed like a man in doubt as to whether he ought to utter the words which had come into his mind. "In the past," he went on, "religion, even in our quiet little village, has seemed as though it were divided into two camps. I have avoided the Chapel people and the Chapel people have avoided the Church. I need not say why. I am sure we shall never settle our differences by arguments or by criticisms. There has been too much of that in the past. This is a time when we need to pray, and so I am asking all the people in the parish, whether they belong to Chapel or to Church, to meet in the village schoolroom to-morrow night, to pray--to pray that God will bless our soldiers and sailors, and all who are seeking to help us to destroy this awful scourge of war, to pray for broken hearts at home, to pray that God will lead us all into His light." He made a long pause here, and we wondered what was to come next. Then suddenly turning his face, as was his custom, he repeated the formula: "And now to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost, be all honor, power, and dominion, world without end. Amen." The little service was at an end. Quietly we left the old building and found our way into the churchyard. As I reached the gates, I felt a hand upon my arm and saw Squire Treherne standing by me. "Will you come up and have a bite of supper, Erskine?" he said. "Thank you, Squire, but I dare not. I ought not to have come out to-night." "I am glad you did, anyhow," was the Squire's reply. "My word! this business is giving us a shaking up. Trelaske has never preached such a sermon before in my hearing." I could not help smiling, for in truth he had not preached a sermon at all. "I see what you mean," said the old man. "For that matter Trelaske never could preach; and, mind you, I have been as bitter against dissent as any man, but--but he has done more for religion to-night than he has done for many a long year." "Are you going to the prayer-meeting, Squire?" I asked. "What, I! I go to a prayer-meeting!" And he laughed as though it were a joke. "Yes," I said, "why not? That is, if--if you believe it has any meaning." "Yes," he said, "why not? After all, why not? Are you sure you won't come up to supper?" "Quite sure, thank you." I wandered slowly back to my little house, thinking of what the Vicar had said. Yes, he was quite right. Never, during the beginning of the war, had I heard any one deny the existence of God. It might seem as if there were no God at all, when one remembered the deeds that had been done; yet no one seemed to doubt that God lived and reigned. I had scarcely reached the footpath which led to my little copse when, to my surprise, I saw Mr. Josiah Lethbridge coming towards me. I judged that he had been to my house, though I did not know why he should do so. "The evenings are stretching out, Mr. Lethbridge," I said, "aren't they? It is nearly half-past seven, and the daylight has not yet gone." "Yes, the evenings are stretching out," he said, with a sigh. "Have you heard from Hugh lately?" I asked. "No, I have not heard from him. I--I do not expect to; you know that." "I had a letter from him a few weeks ago," I said, as cheerfully as I could. "He sent me his photograph in his lieutenant's uniform. Have you seen it?" He shook his head. "Would you care to?" I asked. "It is in the house close by." "No," he said, and his voice was almost harsh. "No, I do not wish to see it." "I have just come from the Parish Church," I said. "The Vicar has received a terrible blow, hasn't he?" "The Vicar believed in that kind of thing--I never did." "No," was my answer, "I do not think the Vicar believed in it any more than you. He regards war only as a ghastly necessity. But would you, knowing all you know, realizing all our sufferings, and all we shall have to suffer, have had us do differently?" "You mean----?" "I mean, would you have the Germans work their will, and dominate the world by material forces? Would you have had them glorify militarism, and set a war-god upon a pinnacle to worship? Would you have Europe accept the teaching of Treitschke and Nietzsche as the gospel of the future, while we did nothing?" At this he was silent. "I was at the Wesleyan Chapel this morning," I went on. "I did not see you there." "No, I did not go." "John Rosewarn was preaching," I went on. "John has lost his boy Tom." He hesitated for a few seconds and I thought he seemed on the point of saying something to me, then he held out his hand. "Good-night, Mr. Erskine," he said, and a few minutes later he was lost to my view. "That man is deeply troubled," I said to myself as he walked away. "I wonder what he has on his mind." When I entered my cottage Simpson had not yet returned. He had asked my permission before I went to Church that night if he might be out a little later than usual, as some old friends of his had asked him to supper. Of course I gave my consent, but when I found myself alone in the house I felt almost sorry. What I should have done without him during the hours of the long winter nights I do not know, for although his conversation was not very illuminating, it was always a source of comfort to me to know that he was near. I sat down to the simple little meal that he had prepared, and then, throwing myself into an armchair, saw the previous day's newspaper lying by my side. I picked it up almost listlessly, and a few seconds later found myself reading an article on the ravages which were being caused by German submarines. This article detailed the list of disasters caused by this method of warfare, then asked questions which had been troubling the writer. This gentleman, who seemed to know what he was writing about, stated that there must be secret stations along the British coast where the Germans could be supplied with fuel, therefore many traitors to their own country must exist in England. He also insisted that although the shores were constantly watched, hour by hour, and every precaution taken, the Germans had, by some means yet unknown to us, been supplied by people in England with what was essential to their devilish work. "Has the Government," the article concluded, "been sufficiently stringent in their treatment of enemy aliens? Has it inquired with sufficient care into the means whereby our enemy has caused such appalling losses?" I must confess, although everything seemed conjectural, that my interest was aroused, and acting on impulse I opened the door and went out into the night. It had now become very dark. Clouds hung heavily in the sky, there was no moon and not a star appeared. The night was not stormy, although a fairly strong breeze was blowing. The tide, I remember, was high, and the sea swept upon the rocks at the base of the cliff on which my hut was situated. I peered into the darkness, calling to mind as I did so the night on which I had seen, what seemed to me, phantom boats appearing round the headland and then becoming lost to view. I waited for a few minutes and then found myself shivering with cold. When I got back to the house Simpson had returned. "Have you heard the news, sir?" "What news?" I asked. "Another vessel sunk, sir, by the submarines. It was struck without warning, and it is feared that every one on board has been lost." "Where did this happen?" "I don't know, sir, but some men in the village had got hold of a Sunday newspaper and were talking about it. I heard too that two people, one an English woman, and the other a German man, have been taken up as spies. It seems that they have been supplying the Germans with petrol." The man's words seemed almost a commentary on what I had been thinking, and I turned, almost unconsciously, to the newspaper I had been reading. "The Germans are too clever for us, sir, and there is no dirty trick of which they are not capable. I am told they jeered at the people who were trying to save themselves from drowning, and even shot at them. I am not very proud of my county, sir." "Not proud of your county! Why?" "Why, sir, there are dozens of young fellows in St. Issey who won't enlist, and I was told to-night of seven of them who are off to America." "Off to America! Why?" "Why, it seems that the Squire has been at them and told them they are cowards to stay at home at a time like this. It seems, too, sir, that poor Tom Rosewarn's death, as well as that of the Vicar's son, has roused some of the people terribly, and these young fellows have been called such names that they are ashamed to remain at home, but rather than join the Army, as they ought to do, they are leaving for America. I have never been a believer in conscription, but the stories have very nearly converted me to that way of thinking." When Simpson had gone to bed, I put on a thick overcoat and again went out into the night. I wondered whether the fancies that had been in my mind had any foundation of truth, and whether I ought not to go to the authorities and make my suspicions known. There were a great many things against such a course of action, however. Local officials were not very clever, and did not act with much finesse. The Germans would be prepared for anything they might do, and if anything were done at all, it must be done dexterously and secretly. By this time I knew, or at least thought I did, every inch of the cliffs around my home. I had discovered, too, an opening through the bushes which led far down towards the sea. Again acting on impulse, I found this little opening, and scrambled down the steep cliff-side until I came, perhaps, within forty feet of the water. I was entirely hidden from view, as at this part thick brushwood grew to within a few yards of the beach. Besides, it was very dark, and I knew that if I went farther I should risk my life. Up above me the wind soughed its way through the little copse, and over the heights of the beetling cliffs which rose darkly beyond. Out at sea I could hear the sad monotone of the waves. Now and then I heard the cry of a sea-bird, as though it were disturbed in its nest among the rocks. It was now perhaps eleven o'clock, and every one would, in all probability, be abed, with perhaps the exception of the coast watchers who patrolled the coast. I was on the point of returning to the house when I was startled by the sound of a human voice. I was at this point sheltered from the wind, and my ears, having become accustomed to the noise of the waves and the night winds, could hear plainly: "Is that the lot?" There was a reply to this, but what it was I could not say. How long I waited I could not say either. That something was taking place that ought not to take place I was sure. Else why should men be in this lonely cove at midnight on a Sunday? Presently I heard a grating sound, then above the sound of the waves was the splash of oars. I looked intently, but could see nothing, and by and by when I had returned to my house I reflected that my vigils had been in vain. Yet not in vain, for I determined, whatever might be the danger accruing from my action, that I would not rest until I had in daylight again examined every inch of the cliffs. Strange to say, I did not feel much worse for my night vigils, and when I awoke on the following morning my brain was clear and every faculty alert. I was arranging to carry my resolutions of the previous night into effect when Simpson placed the morning paper on the table. The next minute I had forgotten all I had intended to do. XXI MISSING--DEAD On turning to the list of casualties which appeared, I saw to my horror that Hugh Lethbridge was missing. What that might mean I could not of course tell, but the news made my heart as heavy as lead. During the months I had known him I had become much attracted to the young fellow and had conceived a strong affection for him. If he had been my own brother I do not think I could have felt the news more keenly than I did. But more than that I reflected upon the sorrow of his young wife, and the pain his mother would be suffering. I called to mind the last letter I had received from him. "Of course, we live only from hour to hour here," he said; "in fact, only from minute to minute. I have known chaps who have been laughing and joking one minute and have been hurled into eternity the next. That might happen to me. I am feeling very fit just now, but what may be my fate to-morrow, God only knows. I do not trouble so much about myself, but it is Mary I am constantly thinking about. She writes me often, and on the whole is very cheerful, but I know what she is feeling. I do not fear death so much except for her and for mother. As for father and Bella, I do not think they would care much. Anyhow, I would rather be killed than taken prisoner. From what I can hear, those Germans act as devils towards English prisoners." I wondered what the term "missing" might mean. Of course, he had been lost sight of, but whether he had been taken prisoner or not was not clear from what the paper said. "Going out, sir?" said Simpson, as I put on a light overcoat. "Yes, Simpson, I am going up to Trecarrel." "Any bad news, sir?" "Yes," I replied. "Mr. Hugh Lethbridge is missing." "Dear, dear sir!" Then lapsing into his old formula when he did not know what to say, he added, "Yes, sir; thank you, sir." I had scarcely come within sight of Trecarrel when I had an attack of my old malady. It was not severe. Nevertheless, while it lasted it was terrible. I thought I should have fainted on the footpath on which I walked. Presently it passed away somewhat, and, undeterred by my suffering, I made my way towards the house. At that moment my last meeting with Isabella Lethbridge had no weight with me whatever. In fact, I did not anticipate seeing her. However, she must have seen me as I came up the drive, for it was not a servant but she who opened the door. "What is the matter? You are ill!" she cried. "I--I never saw you looking like this before." "That does not matter," was my reply. "I am all right now. I came up because--because...." I did not finish the sentence. I was startled by the look in her eyes. I saw her lips quivering. "Your father and mother are in?" I queried. "Yes, but--but I do not think you had better see them now." "It may not be so bad after all," I said, trying to speak cheerfully. "The paper only reports him missing." "Oh, but haven't you heard? No, of course you can't have. But you ought not to be here. You look so ill, so terribly ill." "She must care for her brother more than I thought. She speaks like one in terrible distress," I reflected. "Oh, no, I am not ill at all now," I said aloud, "but I saw the paper just now, and I could not help coming. It is not so bad as it might be, is it? While there is life there is hope." "But there is no hope," she said. "Hugh is dead." "Dead! Why, the paper----" "Yes, yes, I know; but we have had a special message. It came late last night. Hugh is dead. Hugh is killed." I stood like one stunned, I could not speak. The news had struck me dumb. "Can't you say something?" she cried. "No, of course you can't. And you ought not to be here either. I will order a carriage to take you back," she added like one distraught. Her words came almost in gasps. "And your father and mother?" I asked, without seeming to notice what she had said. "I hope--I hope----" "Mother is wonderful. You see, she expected nothing else. She always said from the day that Hugh went to the front that he would be killed. Oh, yes, mother is wonderful, but my father.... Perhaps, after all, he will see you. Shall I tell him you are here?" "Perhaps it would be better not, after all," was my reply. "I suppose I ought not to have come here; it was foolish; but I was so overwhelmed with the news that I could not help myself." She looked at me for a few seconds in a way that I had never seen her look before, and then left the room suddenly. Presently I heard heavy footsteps coming towards me, and then Josiah Lethbridge entered the room. He looked years older than on the previous night, but the same stern strength of the man manifested itself. He held himself erect, and hid any emotions he might have felt. "Excuse me for coming, Mr. Lethbridge, but although I had known Hugh for such a short time, I loved him as if he were my own brother." "It is very kind of you to come," he said almost coldly; and then, "But you ought not to be here." At that moment Mrs. Lethbridge entered, and I could not help being struck by her appearance. There was a new dignity in her every look and movement. A kind of holy pride shone from her eyes, although it was easy to see that they were not strangers to tears. The suggestion of inconsequence which had struck me when I had first seen her was entirely gone. "I am pleased to see you," she said, holding out her hand. "You were Hugh's friend." "I came to tell you how--how grieved I am." "You must not speak like that," she said quietly. "My boy died in a holy cause. 'He saved others, but himself he _would_ not save.'" "Yes," I said, "that is true. One cannot think of him as dead in the ordinary way. When one gives his life willingly for what he believes to be the highest and the holiest, death has lost its sting." "Oh, he is not dead!" she said. "I could not think of him as dead. The spirit which led him to do what he did can never die. Have you seen what they have said about him? Here, read his Colonel's letter, will you?" And she passed me a missive which I could see had been stained by many tears. It was the letter of a plain, blunt soldier who was not gifted with great literary powers, and yet because it was so simple, so straightforward, it was more eloquent than if it had been written by a master of words. It described how Hugh, in the face of almost certain death, had undertaken work which might mean incalculable advantage to the British Army--that he had led his men forward in the face of withering fire, and that he had done what he set out to do. At first it was thought that he had been taken prisoner, as no signs of him were to be seen, but presently his body was discovered, almost mutilated out of recognition, yet plainly to be identified by infallible signs. "He died a hero," concluded the plain, blunt soldier, "died for his country and his God. Had he lived, I should have recommended him for a captaincy right away, but he has received his promotion in a better world." "That is it, don't you see?" said Mrs. Lethbridge, "he has received his promotion." I could not keep back the tears which started to my eyes. I longed, no one knows how I longed, for the assurance which filled the mother's heart. Nevertheless, I could not help being gladdened by her faith. "He will not come to me, but I shall go to him," she went on. "Do you know, Mr. Erskine, a few days ago I began to hope that he would return, and I pictured him coming back to St. Issey well and strong. I saw the people doing my boy honor; but that was pure fancy on my part, and it does not matter now. Yes, I shall go to him." I could not help glancing at Josiah Lethbridge as she spoke. I wondered what he, who had driven his son from home, felt at that moment; but his face told me nothing; he might not have heard his wife's words. It was hard and stony and emotionless. But he did not rebuke his wife as he would have rebuked her the day before. He who had forbidden his family to mention Hugh's name sat silent, his face grave, ashen, his eyes fixed on the floor. What he felt or thought I could not tell, but I could not help believing that he shared his wife's pride. How could it be otherwise? After all, Hugh was his son. "Bella told me that you looked terribly ill," went on Mrs. Lethbridge. "Certainly you do look pale, but better than she led me to believe. May I order you some refreshments?" "No, I am better now," I replied, and glancing towards the mirror, I saw that my face had resumed its normal color. Scarcely had she spoken than I heard the sound of wheels on the drive outside, and a minute later Squire Treherne was shown into the room. "I could not help coming," said the bluff old man. "The last time I was here I told you--but never mind what I told you--that is over now. I just glanced at the paper this morning, and then, before I knew what I was doing, I was on my way here. We must hope for the best! He is only reported as missing." But Josiah Lethbridge did not speak a word. Instead, he looked out of the window as though interested in the trees which were just bursting into life. "Excuse me, Mrs. Lethbridge," went on the Squire, "I did not notice you; it was very rude of me." Mrs. Lethbridge did not speak a word. She simply handed him the letter of Hugh's Colonel. "God bless my soul! I did not know this," he stammered. "No--no, I did not know this, but--but----" "I never felt so proud in all my life," said the mother. "I always knew that my boy was a good boy; now I know that he was a hero. He laid down his life willingly." Still Josiah Lethbridge did not speak. His eyes were still fixed on the trees in the park. "I know what you are feeling," said the Squire, after a few seconds of almost painful silence. "I know, I know. I lost my only son in the Boer War, and I--I have never been the same man since. Can--can I do anything for you?" he added. "I was just going to suggest," I said, "that I should go over to John Treleaven's farm and see Hugh's wife. She will, of course, have heard the news." "Thank you, Mr. Erskine," said Mrs. Lethbridge, "but that is my work. It is my duty to go and comfort my son's wife." Again I noticed the new tone in her voice. The last time I was at the house she would not have dared to suggest such a thing. She would have feared her husband's anger, but now she stated her intentions naturally. She did not even look towards Josiah Lethbridge as she spoke, but I, who glanced at him at that moment, saw that his face never moved a muscle. "If you would do something for me," said Mrs. Lethbridge, "take care of Mr. Erskine. My daughter told me just now that he was very ill and ought not to have come here." "God bless my soul! you do look seedy," said the Squire. "What is the matter?" "I only had a slight attack of my old trouble, and I look a great deal worse than I am." "All the same, I am going to take you back with me," said the Squire. "No, no, I shall take no denial. That hut of yours on the cliff, with only a man-servant to look after you, is certainly no place for a man who feels seedy. You--you are sure I can do nothing for you, Mrs. Lethbridge? I do feel for you, God knows that. All the same, I do envy you. I wish I had another son to give. Yes, ten sons; I should be prouder than words can say to send every one of them. Somehow this terrible business makes one think differently of life, makes one feel that we have had wrong ideas of everything. Somehow we have confused existing with living." Surely that was a morning of happenings, for scarcely had the Squire spoken than a servant entered the room bearing a letter. It came from the Vicar. Josiah Lethbridge took the letter without a word and read it through with the same unmoved countenance. After he had done so he passed it to his wife. "This is kind of Mr. Trelaske," she said. "He must be burdened by his own sorrow, yet he sends this letter to us. Of course he does not know all the truth." I rose to go. I felt that I should be intruding if I stayed longer. I held out my hand to Mr. Lethbridge, who took it almost mechanically. "It is very kind of you to call," he said. "And--and take care of yourself; you are not strong, you know." When I reached the hall I found Isabella Lethbridge standing there. "That letter from the Colonel is simply splendid," I said. "Of course your loss must be terrible, but you must be proud of your brother." She made no reply, neither could I understand the look on her face. It was not so much sorrow I saw, as wonder and amazement. "Funny family!" said the Squire to me, as we drove away. "Did you notice that the man never spoke a word?" I nodded, and the Squire went on: "My God! what must he be suffering! Drove the boy from home too! But--but, don't I wish he were my boy! Anyhow, there is going to be a change in that house." "What do you mean?" I asked. "The atmosphere is different. Did you notice Mrs. Lethbridge's face? Did you hear what she said?" When we reached St. Issey, I asked the Squire to tell the driver to drop me, as I could easily walk to my house; but the old man would not have it. "No, no, Erskine," he said, "you must come up and spend the day with me; I have nothing to do. Do you know, I have often felt condemned at leaving you so much alone; but you seemed as though you did not wish for society. Still, I have got you now! Yes, yes, I will send word to that man of yours, telling him what has happened to you." A few minutes later I was snugly ensconced in the Squire's library, while Mrs. Treherne and her daughter fussed about me as though I were an invalid. I must confess that it was pleasant to be ministered to by a woman's hands. Simpson was all very well, but I do not think that any man knows what to do in the time of illness as a woman does. "What are you thinking about, Erskine?" asked the Squire presently, after he had placed a box of cigars before me. "I was thinking about Mr. Lethbridge's face," I said. "I was wondering what he must be feeling." "A hard man, Erskine, a hard man. A man who has lived to make money; a man who has always had his own way. Whatever he has touched has turned to gold, whatever he has willed has come to pass." The Squire sighed as he spoke. "He has pulled all sorts of people into his net," he went on, "and got all sorts of people into his power. He does not say much, but he could ruin lots of us if he willed so to do." I called to mind what Hugh Lethbridge had told me, and I fancy I knew what the old man was thinking. "Sometimes, deep down in my heart," went on the Squire, "I have called him a Shylock; but I am not going to think about that now. He is passing through deep waters." After lunch, I again announced my intention of returning home, but was again dissuaded; not only the Squire, but neither his wife nor his daughter would hear of my going. "We will have an informal dinner at six o'clock," said the old man, "then you must come with me to the prayer-meeting." The idea seemed so incongruous that I could not help smiling. "Yes, I know what you are thinking," said the Squire, with a laugh. "I have never been to a prayer-meeting in my life, and I had no thought of going until you kind of suggested it to me yourself after last night's service; but when I came to think about it, it seemed natural and right. We are in for a stiff job, Erskine. I never realized it as I do now. Those Germans stand at nothing! Nothing is too devilish for them to do! Poisoned gases, poisoned wells, sinking passenger ships, killing defenseless women and children, murdering our soldiers, even when they are in the act of doing them a kindness,--nothing is too bad for them. But they are strong! They are strong! We do not realize yet how strong they are. They have utilized all the resources of their country to beat us, to crush us, and we shall have to use every ounce of strength we possess to come out on top. As the Prime Minister said, we must be prepared to shed our last drop of blood. "But that is not all, Erskine. I know I have not been a religious man in the ordinary sense of the word, although I have gone to Church and tried to act straight, but it seems to me as though God wants to teach us a lesson. He is wanting to bring us to our senses. Never in my life have I realized the need of God as I do now, and if we are to fight His battles we need to go to Him for help. I have seen, too, how paltry is the spite which exists between the sects. God bless my soul! What, after all, does the Almighty care whether we go to Church or to Chapel? And it may be that this war will teach us how silly we have been. That is why, in spite of my prejudices, I am glad that Trelaske announced the meeting for to-night. Yes, I am going, Erskine, and I hope you are going too." At seven o'clock that night the Squire and I stood at the door of the village schoolroom, for we had both determined to go to the prayer-meeting. XXII A DISCOVERY I must confess that it was with a strange feeling that I took my seat in the little village schoolroom that night. I had been born and educated in a Christian country, and yet I had never been to a prayer-meeting in my life. As I have previously said, until I came to St. Issey, I had not, except for a wedding, entered a Church for years, and here was I, an avowed agnostic, who had little faith in God and none in a future life, obeying the Vicar's call to prayer. I was startled to find, on looking round the room, that not only Mrs. Lethbridge and Isabella, but also Josiah Lethbridge had come. Their faces formed a curious contrast. Mrs. Lethbridge looked proud, almost triumphant, in spite of the marks of the sorrow which were plainly to be seen on her face. I noticed, too, that after the meeting commenced she entered heartily into the singing of the hymns. Her daughter's face, on the other hand, was not easy to describe. In one sense she looked callous, bored, indifferent; in another, there was an expression of amazement, bewilderment, which I could not explain. But she made no sign of any sort. She sang none of the hymns, neither did she bow her head during prayer. As for Josiah Lethbridge, his face remained stern and immovable during the whole of the meeting. Some one spoke of him afterwards as looking like a "graven image." Years before, I was told, Josiah Lethbridge used to pray in the prayer-meetings at the Wesleyan Chapel; but he had ceased doing so for a long time, although he had never severed his connection with the Church and had rigidly maintained his observance of the outward form of religion. More than once I wondered why he was there, for he must have seen the curious eyes that were cast upon him. Of course every one had heard of Hugh Lethbridge's death. Every one knew, too, that the father had driven his son from home because he had joined the Army, and because he had married the girl he loved. Besides all this, it was common talk that John Treleaven's daughter Mary had never been bidden to the great house at Trecarrel. The gossips had talked about it freely, and many remarks, not complimentary to Hugh's father, had passed. Still he was there, his face as stern as ever, his eyes keenly alert to all that took place. Just before the meeting commenced we were somewhat surprised to see not only the Vicar, but the Wesleyan minister ascend the platform together. The Vicar explained this circumstance at the commencement of the proceedings. He repeated what he had said the previous night, and described how the Church and the Chapel had for years been regarded as opposing camps. "My dear friends," said the Vicar quietly, "I have been a Churchman all my life, and shall remain one until my death; but the troubles through which we are passing have taught me to see many things. I suppose we shall never see eye to eye, but we are all believers in the same God and in the same Saviour. More than that, we are all English people. Lads from the Church are fighting at the front, side by side with the lads from the Chapel. They are all fighting for a common cause. We all have our sorrows, too, and I have been led to see how foolish I have been in being so exclusive. Yes, God has taught me many lessons. That is why this morning I drove to Mr. Bendle's house. He is the minister of the circuit of which St. Issey Wesleyan Chapel is a part. We talked together, prayed together, and he has come here to-night to help me in this meeting." I cannot say that I was much impressed by what took place, and yet in a way I was. I had no convictions of my own, but I could not help realizing the convictions of others. Somehow reality was taking the place of unreality. Most of the praying was done by the Chapel people, as none of the people from the Church had been taught to pray in public. Indeed, only one Churchman, with the exception of the Vicar, took part in the meeting, and that was the Squire. I will not try to reproduce his prayer. It was very unconventional, and yet the fact of this man taking part in such a meeting was significant of much. I noticed, too, that the Squire was as nervous as a child. When the meeting was over, Mr. Treherne took hold of my arm. "Wait for me, will you, Erskine? I want to speak to Trelaske a minute, and then I am going to drive you up to your place." The room was nearly empty at this time, and no one but myself saw Isabella Lethbridge come towards me. "Mr. Erskine, you do not understand, and because you do not understand you are hard and unsympathetic," she said. She gave me no chance of replying, and I was left wondering as to the meaning of her words. The next morning the newspapers were again full of accounts of the work of the German submarines. Three trading vessels had been sunk, and many lives lost. This reminded me of the determination to which I had come on the previous Sunday night, and directly after breakfast I made preparations for carrying out my plans. If there was any truth in old Father Abraham's warnings, however, it was necessary for me to be careful, so I made a point of reconnoitring the coast before taking any definite action. I dressed myself as if for walking, and arming myself with a walking stick, and putting the revolver, which Simpson had persuaded me to carry, in my hip pocket, I went to the highest point of the cliff. It was one of those dull days when a thick mist enveloped everything, and although this mist, unlike a London fog, did not entirely hide the view, it shut out everything except what lay in the near distance. I had scarcely reached the summit of the headland when I heard a cry of pain. With some difficulty I located it, and after investigation discovered a poor little mongrel dog, lying wounded. The creature looked piteously up at me as I approached, as if to solicit my aid. On examining it more closely I found that it had received what seemed like a wound from a pistol or a rifle, but of this I was not sure. I did not think it was mortally wounded, although it bled freely. I had never seen the dog before, nor could I imagine who could be its master. "Poor little chap," I said, as I patted its head. It gave a slight yelp, as if in recognition of my act of kindness. "Simpson has always been wanting me to keep a dog," I reflected. "I wonder if this little thing would live if I took it home and cared for it?" For a moment the incident, slight as it was, drove from my mind the purpose I had in view. I was preparing to carry it back when I heard the sound of voices. Immediately the dog gave a cry of fear and pain. Perhaps it shrank from my endeavors to carry it. I placed it upon the ground, reflecting that I would return to the house and obtain Simpson's assistance, but at that moment a man and a woman came within my view. I remembered in a moment that they were the people who had spoken to me, as I sat basking in the sunlight, a few days before. "Ah, what have you there?" said the man. "I have only just found it," I replied. "I came out for a walk, and heard the poor little thing moaning." "The little wretch has been poaching, I expect, and somebody's gamekeeper has shot it." "I should not think that likely," was my reply. "This is common land here, and no one, as far as I know, has attempted to preserve it. The only man who owns a gamekeeper in the immediate district is Squire Treherne, and his woods are at least two miles away." The man looked at the dog, as I thought, indifferently, while the woman shuddered at the sight of blood. "Have you any idea whose it is?" he asked. "Not the slightest," I replied. "I should let him stay, if I were you," said the man. "He is an ugly-looking beast, and I should judge that his teeth are poisonous. There is no trusting that kind of dog, they will bite even those who try to help them." All this time the poor little thing was whining and whimpering piteously. "I shall take it back to the house," I said. "I am afraid it is badly wounded, but I should like to save its life if I could." "Even if you do, you will never win a prize at the shows," said the man, with a laugh. "I hate those mongrel dogs. By the way," he went on, "is not this a bad morning for you to be out? You look very ill, and have the appearance of a man who ought to be in bed." To this I made no reply. To say the least of it, I regarded it as an impertinence for the man to make any remark at all on my appearance. I knew nothing of him, and beyond the occasions I have mentioned I had never met him. "You are a hard-hearted brute," said the lady, speaking to her brother. "I think it awfully kind of you, sir, to take so much interest in the poor little thing." "Excuse me for asking," said the man, "but since I have met you I have often wondered at you living alone at that little hut." His manner appeared to invite confidence. "I expect I am somewhat of a hermit," I replied. "But whatever induced you to live in such a place? Are you not afraid of tramps and that sort of thing?" and he nodded towards my little house. "Tramps!" I replied. "I have not seen a tramp since I have been in Cornwall." "Well, different people, different tastes!" and he laughed as he spoke. "But if I were you I should not live in such a lonely spot as that for whatever might be given me. Even in Cornwall it is possible to dispose of people, and you would be fair prey to any strolling vagabond." "He might be wanting to frighten me," I said to myself. "I wonder what his purpose is?" and I could not help connecting him with old Father Abraham. "Rather bad news of the war again," he went on, as if desiring to change the subject. "As to that," I replied, "I thought it was rather good news, except for what the German submarines are doing." "Yes, yes, the submarines, they are very bad." "What brutes the Germans are," chimed in the woman. "They make me feel just murderous. Oh, I wish I were a man that I might join the Army." All the time the poor little creature was whimpering as if in pain. "Let me throw it over the cliff," said the man, "and put it out of its misery." "No," I replied, "I am going to take it back to the house." "Yes, yes, do," said the woman. "May I help you? I am awfully fond of dogs. I have kept them all my life and know a good deal about them. I have saved two that the veterinary surgeons had given up." I picked the little creature up carefully, and was wending my way back to the cottage when the woman rushed to my side. "You will let me help you, won't you?" she said. "I am so sorry for the poor little thing." Badly as I wanted to refuse her help, it was impossible to decline a woman's proffered kindness, and a few minutes later both the man and the woman had accompanied me to my little house, and I stood watching her, as with deft fingers she washed the poor little dog's wounds. "There!" she said when she had finished. "I think he will be better now. May I ask your servant to get me a basin of clean water so that I can wash my hands?" As I have said in describing our last meeting, she was one of the handsomest women I had ever seen, and I quickly discovered that she was more than ordinarily intelligent. How it was I do not know, because I am not quick to form acquaintances, but in a few minutes I had ordered Simpson to bring refreshments, and was talking with them freely. They told me that they were staying at a furnished house near St. Eia, that they had been staying there for some months and intended remaining instead of returning to London. "I hate London," said the woman, "and I love the quiet peacefulness of this neighborhood. Besides, I do not think it is safe to live in London. The Germans intend to raid London, and they will throw bombs all over the city. No one will be safe." This led to a general conversation about the war, and about the cruelty and baseness of the Germans in attacking defenseless ships and murdering women and children. In spite of myself, too, I found that I was subjected to a kind of cross-examination, and yet no one listening could have detected a question which could have in the slightest degree been regarded as suspicious, but here my lawyer's training came to my aid, and I was careful to drop no hint of any suspicions I might entertain. When they had gone I heaved a sigh of relief, although, truth to tell, the woman's presence had fascinated me. I wondered who she was, and could not help asking myself if there was not some motive behind that which appeared on the surface, actuating them to find their way into my little cottage. "Simpson," I said, when they had gone, "what did you think of those people?" "I think they are a very nice lady and gentleman," he said. "The lady herself was very charming." "You liked her, did you?" I said. "I always say, sir, that when a dumb animal takes to a person there is nothing much wrong with that person. Now that little dog, sir, was afraid of his life of the man, but did you see how grateful he was to the lady? And no wonder, sir! She treated him as if he were a Christian." "Which way have they gone, Simpson?" "They went towards St. Eia, sir." I hesitated a second. I did not like to take Simpson into my confidence, neither was I pleased at the thought that I had been discussing my visitors with him; still, he was an old servant, and, as I have frequently said, I regarded him more in the light of a friend than a servant. "Simpson," I said, "just follow them, will you, and see where they go and what they do." "Yes, sir," he said, but I could see that he was astonished at my request. Half an hour later he returned. "Please, sir," he said, "they went along the St. Eia footpath, and then turned off as if they meant to go to Chy-an-Wheal." Of course there was nothing suspicious in this, and yet my mind was not at ease. I had never been a man given to morbid fancies, and had always been too much a materialist to pay attention to people who profess to believe in premonitions; and yet my meeting with this man and woman had again stirred a thousand fancies in my mind, while the little creature sleeping on the rug seemed in some way to cause vague fears to come into my mind. Perhaps this was because of the state of my health. It seemed to me that my life, humdrum and commonplace though it might appear, was surrounded by mystery. I had vague intuitions which had no basis of reason. After a time I rose and went out. I wanted to shake off the feelings which possessed me. A few minutes later I was scrambling down the cliff-side, hidden by the thick scrub of bushes. Presently I had a view of the whole of the little bay, which seemed absolutely deserted. I was far from fit to undertake what I had planned to do, but I could not resist the impulse which possessed me. I descended farther, and soon I was at the foot of the cliffs, looking eagerly around me. I found my way into the cave, but there was nothing suspicious there. Evidently no one had visited it since the last high tide. The sandy floor was untrodden; there were no marks of any one having been there. I crept out again, but still no one was visible. "What a fool I am," I said to myself. "I am like a nervous child following a will-o'-the-wisp of my own fancies." Still, what I had seen and heard could not be without meaning. I could have sworn to the fact that I had heard people at this very spot only a few hours before. I had heard a man say, "Is that the lot?" and some one had given him an indistinct reply. Of course this might have meant nothing, and yet I was sure it had. Again I examined the rocks inch by inch, but my search was altogether unrewarded. I passed the little fissure which led to the cave again, and this time I saw what I had never seen before. In an obscure corner, not far from the entrance, was another fissure. It was very narrow, but still wide enough for a man to squeeze his body through. I wondered why I had never seen it before, but on reexamining it I realized that it was so curiously formed, that any one with only a match to illuminate the cave could easily miss it. I squeezed myself through the fissure, and found myself in a cave far larger than the first. In an instant the mystery of the last few months became plain to me. The new cave was as perfect a hiding-place as could possibly be found. Altogether there must have been some hundreds of cans of petrol placed there. This petrol was by different makers. Evidently it had been bought in comparatively small quantities at various places, and had been brought there to be ready for use as necessity arose. I understood now the meaning of the words I had heard only a little while before. "Is that the lot?" What the speaker meant was evident. He had brought a consignment of petrol to this lonely spot, and his words referred to what I saw around me. I realized also the significance of what Father Abraham had said to me during his midnight visit. Evidently he knew what the cave contained when he said that I was standing on a powder magazine. According to my calculations it was almost immediately under my little wooden hut. When I had asked him whether he spoke figuratively or literally, he had replied, "Both." I remembered, too, the article I had seen in the London newspaper. The writer of this article had asked where the Germans had been able to obtain the petrol which enabled them to do their devilish work by means of submarines. Now it was plain. This cave, curiously hidden in the rocky cliff in a quiet, far-away spot on the Cornish coast, suited their purpose admirably. I myself had visited the outer cave on more than one occasion and yet had not discovered it. How many lives, I wondered, had been lost by the stuff which had been stored in this place! I called to mind the times when I had seen phantom-like boats coming round the headland. I remembered how I had puzzled as to what they might mean. Now all was plain; this rocky cliff, although far away from the centre of operations, was important beyond words. Evidently those who had been engaged in this work had cleverly avoided the coast watchers. Quietly and unsuspectingly they had brought cargo after cargo, and when the submarines had need of petrol they had been able to supply them. All this flashed through my mind in a second, then the match by means of which I had made my discovery went out. I realized the awful danger by which I was surrounded; doubtless all these cans were carefully sealed, yet I knew that one spark might ignite this highly combustible fluid, and I should be burnt to death. But that was the smallest part of my danger. I knew that the men who were engaged in this work would stop at nothing; that the spies who had sought out this lonely cave would be ready to do anything in order to keep a secret. A hundred wild fancies surged through my brain. I saw now why Father Abraham had been driven from his hut. What his connections with the Germans were I had no idea, but evidently he had been regarded as dangerous to their plans. That, doubtless, was the reason why the old man had warned me. His words came flashing back to my mind, and revealed to me the fact that I had been under constant surveillance. Then I thought of the man and woman who had lately visited me. What was the meaning of their interest in me? Were they what they pretended, or had they some sinister motive in asking me questions? My discovery made the necessity of action imperative. But what could I do? Here was I, a poor invalid, and, if Dr. Rhomboid was right, I had only a few weeks longer to live. I had, as it seemed to me, only kept myself alive by my strong will power and determination that I would not yield to death. But what could I do? I had by this time learnt something of the police officials in the neighborhood, and I knew how utterly incapable they were of dealing with the matter. I was acquainted with some magistrates in the district, but I feared to go to them; a man like Squire Treherne would be utterly incapable of dealing with such a delicate situation. I knew that in his blunt, straightforward, honest way he would muddle everything. It is true I might write to the War Office or to the Admiralty, but, rightly or wrongly, I did not form a high estimate of their way of doing things; and yet I could see nothing else for it. Even now I might be watched. Even now German agents might be waiting outside the cave to pounce upon me. I lit another match, and saw something which had hitherto escaped my notice. It was a slip of paper. I snatched at it eagerly and carefully read it, my heart beating wildly all the time. The light again went out. How long I remained there in the darkness I do not know, but it seemed to me as though I lived years in a few minutes. A wild scheme flashed through my brain. I would deal with this matter alone! I could not fight for my country, but I would serve it in my own way. I listened intently, but could hear nothing save the dull monotone of the waves outside. No whispering voices reached me. The darkness of the cave seemed to intensify the silence. I crept into the outer cave and again listened; still all was silent. Then I made my way into the daylight, taking every precaution before doing so. No, as far as I could tell no curious eyes were watching me. I was alone. XXIII A CLUE TO THE MYSTERY I seemed to have a fresh lease of life as I clambered up the rocky cliff towards my hut. I had no sense of weariness or weakness at all; it might seem as though all my fears had been groundless, and that Dr. Rhomboid had been utterly mistaken. I expect this was because of the great excitement under which I labored. Every nerve in my body was in tension; at that moment nothing seemed impossible to me. My mind, I remember, seemed as vigorous as my body, and I felt as though I was walking on air. The possibilities of what I had discovered might mean putting an end to one of the greatest dangers which had been threatening our country. From what I could judge, this might be one of the principal store places of petrol. I realized, as I had never realized before, the cleverness of the German mind. No one, I imagined, would think of this out-of-the-way district as a possible centre of their operations. Naturally the whole of the East Coast from Dover to the extreme North of Scotland would be watched with the greatest care; but who would have thought they would choose this out-of-the-way spot on the North of Cornwall? It might seem as though Providence had led me thither. More than once on my way to the house did I stop and look eagerly around me, but I was always assured that no one watched me, and that I was utterly alone; besides, I could not have chosen a more perfect day for my investigation. Although it was now near noon and the weather showed signs of breaking, a thick damp mist still enveloped the whole countryside, thus making observation from a distance almost impossible. "Everything all right, sir?" asked Simpson, as I entered the house. "What should be wrong?" was my reply. "Nothing, sir, only you might have seen a ghost; you look terribly strange and excited, sir." I laughed aloud. "I have not felt so well for months, Simpson." He looked at me dubiously, I thought, and seemed anything but satisfied. "Are you ready for your lunch, sir?" "Lunch?" I replied. "Haven't I had lunch?" Making my way into my little bedroom, I caught a glimpse of my face. I hardly recognized myself! Pale as I had always been since my illness, my pallor had been nothing to the white, drawn, haggard face which I saw in the glass. But for the wild glitter in my eyes, it might have been the face of a dead man, and yet every particle of my being seemed instinct with life. After pretending to eat some of the lunch which Simpson had prepared for me, an unusual languor crept over me, and throwing myself on the couch, I quickly fell asleep. I was awakened by a sound of voices at the door, and I started up quickly. As far as I could judge, I suffered no evil results from the excitement through which I had passed. Whatever had caused me unnatural strength, its influence had not yet departed. "Simpson," I said, "whom have you got there?" "I beg your pardon, sir, but I have just told Mr. Lethbridge that he could not see you. I did not think you looked well, sir." "Show Mr. Lethbridge in. I am perfectly all right." "I am afraid I should not have called," said Mr. Lethbridge, as he entered the room. "You do not look well." "I am better than I have been for months," was my answer. "Sit down, won't you?" He gave me a quick, searching glance, and then took the chair to which I had pointed. There were marks of suffering in his face. Although he was calm and collected and showed no signs of emotion whatever, I thought I saw in his eyes a strange, haunted look. "I am afraid I did not receive you very cordially yesterday," he said presently. "You see it--it was the shock." "Of course it was," was my answer. "I understand how you must be feeling." "Do you?" he replied wearily. "I don't." "Don't what?" I asked. "Understand. I understand nothing. I am bewildered. I am in hell." He spoke very quietly although his voice was strained and somewhat hoarse. "You didn't sleep last night," I suggested. "No," he replied, with a sigh, "I didn't sleep. I suppose I am regarded as a hard man, Mr. Erskine?" To this I made no reply. I knew he was passing through a terrible experience, and, strange as it may seem, I wanted to do nothing to lighten his burden. "I don't know why I have come to you at all," he went on. "You are a comparative stranger to me--indeed, a few months ago I did not know of your existence--and yet something drew me here. I suppose it is because you were fond of him." "I loved him almost like a brother," was my reply. "If I had been his father, I should be a proud man." He looked at me steadily for a few minutes in silence. "I have learnt one thing anyhow," he said at length. "What is that?" "That one cannot destroy the ties of blood. Yes! Yes! I know I had disinherited him; driven him from home; told him he was no longer a son of mine. Yes! told him that I had put him outside my life. But it was a lie! I had not! I could not! Oh, the tragedy of it!" "Yes, tragedy in a way," I said. "Oh, the tragedy of it!" he repeated. "No, it is not death that makes the tragedy, it is something else. I can't understand it. Mr. Erskine, I am a just man." At this I was silent. I could not for the life of me assent to his words. "Yes, I am a just man," he repeated. "That is, I have tried to be just. I did what was right, too; he ought to have obeyed me. I was his father, and it is the duty of a son to obey a father; besides, I had done everything for him. I sent him to one of the best public schools in England. After that I sent him to the University. I had great plans for him. But he disappointed me. He married the girl I told him he must not marry; he did that which I forbade him to do; therefore I was right in driving him from the house. But it was all of no use; he was my son still." "Of course he was," I said. "Ah, yes! but there is the tragedy of it. He has died feeling that he was not my son, remembering what I said to him. That is the tragedy! Oh, how God Almighty must be laughing at me!" "Not if there is a God," I replied. "Why, don't you believe in God?" he burst forth almost angrily. "I don't know," I replied. "But if there is a God, He pities you." He started to his feet and paced the little room while I stood watching him. "God! how I loved that boy," he broke out, "and he didn't know it!" "Yes," I said, "that is the tragedy. That is the unforgivable sin." "Go on," he said. "Say what you want to say." "Hugh was hungering for your love, just hungering for it; but he didn't believe you cared for him. You ask me to speak plainly, Mr. Lethbridge, and so, at the risk of offending you, I am going to do so. You had your hard-and-fast ideas about life; you worshipped success, position, power, and money; you wanted Hugh to conform to your iron rules and laws, and because he was a live, human boy you tried to crush him." "Yes! yes! I know." He spoke almost eagerly. "But even now I cannot feel right about it. After all, war is murder. How can I, a Christian man, a believer in the teaching of the founder of Methodism, believe that my son was anything but murdered? After all, is not a soldier a paid murderer? I think if I could only get that right in my mind I should be happier. Look here! Do you honestly believe that Hugh did right?" "I don't believe; I am sure," was my reply. "Ah! but you don't believe in Christian teaching. You told me months ago that you were an agnostic. Legalized murder cannot be right." "Mr. Lethbridge," I said, "supposing there lived in this neighborhood a band of men without moral sense, without honor, without truth; men to whom you could not appeal because their standards of life were utterly opposed to yours. And suppose that by rapine, cruelty, and murder they sought to rule this district, to rob people of their homes, to outrage everything sacred in life. What do you think it would be your duty to do?" "Yes! yes! I see what you mean. But are the Germans like that? Aren't they as good and as honorable as we are?" "Listen!" I said. "I have just been reading some German books and reviews, and this is what some of the leading men in Germany have lately said. Mark you, they are not men in the street. They express the thoughts which dominate the population of Germany. Here is one by a leading General: 'We have been called Barbarians; we are, and we are proud of it. Whatever acts will help us, we shall commit them, no matter what the world may say. Germany stands as the Supreme Arbiter of her own actions, and however the world may rave at our cruelty and our atrocities, our devilry, we shall commit these deeds, we shall rejoice in them, and we shall be proud of them.'" "Who said that?" he asked. "A leading General in the German Army," I replied. "Here is another statement by a renowned Doctor of Philosophy and an educationist: 'Children in our schools and the youths of our universities must be taught a new doctrine, the Doctrine of Hatred. They must be educated to hate as a duty; it must form a new subject in our curriculum of education, "And now abideth Faith, Hope, and Hatred, and the greatest of these is Hatred."'" "You don't mean to say that any man taught that?" he asked. "Here is the article in a German book," I replied. "My God!" he said. "Here is another statement," I went on, "by perhaps the leading journalist in the German Empire: 'Our might shall create new laws. Germany has nothing to do with what other nations may think of us. Germany is a law unto herself. The might of her armies gives her the right to override all laws and protests. In the future, in all the temples, the priests of all the gods shall sing praises to the God of War.'" He looked at me steadily without speaking. "Hugh gave his life to kill that," I said. "Is not that a Christian thing to do?" He sat, I should think, for five minutes without speaking a word, while I watched him. Then he rose to his feet and held out his hand. "Thank you," he said, "thank you. My God! what a fool I have been." He left the house without speaking another word. I went to the door and watched him as he made his way along the footpath through the copse. I saw that the mists had now passed away and that the sun was shining brightly. Strange as it may seem, I did not at that moment realize the inwardness of my conversation with Josiah Lethbridge; I only reflected upon the fact that although he was a magistrate I had said nothing to him concerning my discovery of that morning. He at least was a keen, capable man, he could act wisely and promptly; yet I had not uttered a word. But after all I had done right; the problem he was facing was different from mine, and he would be in no way in a fit condition to help me. Besides, I had made up my mind to carry out my own plans. No one else came to see me that day, and during the remainder of the afternoon and evening I remained alone, thinking of what I ought to do. I still felt strong and capable. I suffered no pain, neither did any sense of weariness oppress me. "That little dog, sir," said Simpson, coming into the room about sunset. "Yes, Simpson? What of it?" "It is a lot better, sir. The wound was not a bad one at all, and now he is getting quite frolicsome." The dog had followed Simpson into the room and was sniffing at my legs in a friendly way. "Poor old chap," I said, patting his head; "you are not very beautiful certainly, but you look as though you had faithful eyes." He gave a pleased yelp and licked my hand; after this he lay down on the rug and composed himself to sleep. "Evidently he has adopted us, Simpson," I said. "Yes, sir. He makes himself quite at home." "Simpson," I said, "you have the name and address of that man and woman who came to see me this morning?" "Yes, sir, here's the card: Mr. John Liddicoat. There's the name of the house, sir." "Do you know where it is, Simpson?" "Yes, sir; it is a house just behind Treveen Tor. It is a biggish house, sir, but lonely." That night when Simpson had gone to bed, I left my hut quietly and made my way along the cliff footpath towards Treveen Tor, which stands at the back of the little town of St. Eia. I still felt well and strong, no suggestion of my malady troubled me. I could not help wondering at this, as I walked briskly along, and yet in my heart of hearts I knew that my abnormal strength was but a transient thing; I knew I was buoyed up by excitement, and that presently I should suffer a terrible relapse. That was why I was eager to do what I had to do quickly. As I skirted the little town of St. Eia I saw that the lights were nearly all out. I looked at my watch, and found that it was eleven o'clock, and the people had nearly all gone to bed. It was a wonderful night of stars, and there was not a cloud in the sky. The moon had not yet risen, but I knew it was due to rise before midnight. During the whole of my journey I had not met a single person. The night, save for the roar of the waves, was still as death. Leaving the cliff footpath, I struck across the country towards Treveen Tor, and went around the base of the hill towards the spot where Mr. John Liddicoat's house stood. Had any one asked me the reason for going there, I should have been unable to have given them a satisfactory reply. But in my own heart I was satisfied. I had carefully thought out the whole series of events, linking incident with incident and word with word; and although I had no definite hopes as to the result of my nocturnal journey, I felt sure that by taking it I should at least clear my ground. Presently I saw the house plainly; it was, as Simpson had said, situated in a lonely spot, and only approached by a lonely lane from the St. Eia side and the footpath by which I had come. The house itself was in complete darkness; not a glimmer of light shone from any of the windows. I saw that it was surrounded by a garden, perhaps half an acre in extent. This garden was, as far as I could judge, altogether uncultivated. The fence around the garden was low, and scarcely any vegetation hid my view. The district around here was almost treeless. The land on which the house was built was, in the main, hard to cultivate. I saw, however, that two stunted trees grew at some little distance from the house. I waited about a quarter of an hour without making any attempt to climb over the fence. I reflected that if my suspicions were correct, I must use every precaution. At the end of a quarter of an hour I crept cautiously over the fence and made my way towards the house. Still all was dark. I carefully examined the ground around the two stunted trees I have mentioned, and presently I caught sight of something which set my heart beating violently. I was on the point of making a closer examination of what I had already seen, when a ray of light shone from one of the windows and I could hear the sound of voices. Again looking around me eagerly, I saw what looked like a large clump of rhododendron bushes. These offered me not only a hiding-place, but a post of observation. I had scarcely crept between the leaves when the door of John Liddicoat's house opened and two people came out. They were the man and the woman whom I had seen that morning. Almost at the same time the moon rose behind a distant hill, and a few minutes later the garden was flooded with its silvery light. "Have you got it all?" It was a woman who spoke. "Yes, all except ..." and I could not catch the last word. "You bring it, will you?" They made their way towards the stunted trees, where they dropped the things they had brought. Then the man left the woman and appeared a little later bearing a light ladder. I saw the man place his ladder against the tree and mount it, carrying something with him, what it was I could not tell. The moon had now risen high enough to enable me to see more plainly and to show me that the two worked swiftly and dexterously, as though they were accustomed to their work. Presently they had evidently finished, for they stood still and waited for something. "I do not expect we shall get anything to-night." It was the woman who spoke. "There is no knowing," replied the man; "besides, we have our orders. It is a calm night, too." "What time is it?" asked the woman. "Close on midnight," was the reply. "Anyhow, we must wait here until half-past twelve; if nothing comes by that time we shall hear nothing until to-morrow night. My word, if that fool of a fellow who lives in the hut on the cliff only knew! For my own part, I am not sure he does not suspect." "What makes you think so?" "I thought he was very guarded this morning," replied the man, "and I must use every means to make certain; if we bungle this we shall be in a bad way. Anyhow, he is closely watched night and day." After this there was silence, save that I thought I heard a faint clicking noise. The minutes dragged heavily. It seemed as though nothing were going to happen. The moon rose higher and higher, revealing the outlines of the man and woman still more plainly, and presently I saw that their waiting had been rewarded. There was a clear repetition of the sounds I had heard previously. Then the woman said, "Have you got it?" "Yes," replied the man; "we will take it in, and then our work for the night is done." A few minutes later the man climbed the ladder again; evidently he was detaching something he had placed on the trees. I waited and watched perhaps for another ten minutes, and then they went back into the house which had remained in darkness all the time. XXIV PREPARATION How I got back to my little hut that night I do not know. I have not a distinct remembrance of any incident on the journey, or of any spot that I passed. I was unconscious of all my surroundings; I must have walked two or three miles, being utterly oblivious all the time of where I was. I felt no sense of weariness, being still upheld by the unnatural strength caused by my excitement. A part of my journey led me to a footpath which skirted the cliff, and for hundreds of yards I walked on the edge of a precipice. But I knew nothing of it. What I had seen and heard told their own story. My life, which had promised to be so uneventful, proved to be exciting beyond words. I had by some curious chance happened to come upon a spot which was, in some respects, the centre of German operations. What had been a mystery had now become plain to me. The scrap of paper I had found in the little cave had made all sorts of things possible. It had led me to John Liddicoat's house; it had enabled me to understand actions which would have otherwise been enshrouded in mystery. Who John Liddicoat and the woman who called herself his sister were was plain--they were German spies. Whether they were English or German I could not tell. Certainly they spoke the English language as though they had been born and reared on the British Isles; but that they were paid agents of the Kaiser there could be no doubt. I little thought at the time I had paid my visit to the wireless station at M---- that it would have been fraught with such vital import. It seemed to me as though the hand of Providence had guided me there, and had led me to form an acquaintance with the young fellow who had insisted upon teaching me the secrets of wireless telegraphy. What I had learnt offered me boundless opportunities. The little apparatus, which not long before I had regarded as an interesting plaything, became of vital importance. Vast avenues of action opened themselves up before me; by means of this little apparatus which I had found such interest in constructing, I might do very great things. The man Liddicoat, by means of the two stunted trees in his garden, and the apparatus which he had fixed there, had been enabled to receive messages from the enemy. He had been able to learn when new supplies of petrol were to be brought, and when consignments of this same commodity had to be taken to the German submarines. Nothing could be more cunningly contrived; the little cove was hidden by huge promontories, which rose up almost perpendicularly on the rock-bound coast. The spot was far away from all centres of population, and was such an unlikely place that no suspicion would be attached to it. Liddicoat was an English name, and a name closely associated with Cornwall. St. Eia was a little town where visitors often came, and thus he would be able to do his work unhindered and unsuspected. Evidently the Germans in their vast preparations had learned of this cave long before the war and had seen its possibilities; what I had discovered was the outcome of a carefully prepared plan. Of course there was much mystery which I had not yet been able to solve. The part which Father Abraham had played was not yet clear to me, and I found myself hazarding all sorts of conjectures, as to why he had built the hut there and why he had left it. But everything resolved itself into one interpretation--the Germans had foreseen this war, they had conjectured the course it would take. They understood the means which would have to be used, and they had made their preparations carefully, scientifically, and with vast forethought. But what could I do? Evidently I was suspected. Even now, my house was being watched night and day; Father Abraham knew this, and had warned me to leave it. Unseen enemies might strike me down at any moment. And worse than all, although at that time I was buoyed up by an unnatural strength, I was little better than a dead man. I realized that I was opposed to those who were entirely unscrupulous, and who would allow nothing to stand in the way of the accomplishment of their schemes. Doubtless, my wise course would be to write an exact description of all I had seen and heard and send it to the Government authorities without delay. If, as I suspected, Liddicoat was associated with an unscrupulous set of people, he would not hesitate to end my earthly career. In that case, unless I communicated with the authorities at once, my discoveries would be valueless; and yet with a strange obstinacy I determined that I would not do this. As I have said repeatedly, I was at that time buoyed up by an unnatural strength, and my mind was abnormally active. That is how I account for a determination which, in the light of after events, seems insane. Government authorities would be in an infinitely better position to deal with this combination of circumstances than I. Not only would they have every facility at their disposal, but they would have a vast knowledge of German methods. I, on the other hand, had but few facilities. I was almost entirely ignorant of the means they were constantly using, and I was alone! Yet I adhered to my determination with that strange obstinacy which characterizes a man who is in an unnatural condition of mind and body. I vowed that I would see this thing through myself; that I would put together all the pieces of this intricate mosaic and bring the guilty persons to justice; then, when I had done my work, I would present it to the Government. This and a thousand other thoughts flashed through my mind during my midnight journey from John Liddicoat's house to my little hut. I was conscious of no danger, and I am afraid I was heedless as to who might be watching me. I found myself in my little room without realizing that I had opened the door and entered. Almost like a man in a dream I lit my lamp and threw myself in an armchair. I had no thought of sleep, and my mind was still preternaturally active. Then a sense of my utter helplessness possessed me and a great fear filled my heart. I went to the door, opened it slightly, and listened. It was a wonderful night; the moon sailed in a cloudless sky, and I could see the shimmer of the sea far out from land. No sound reached me save the roll of the waves on the sandy beach; not a breath of wind stirred, not a leaf rustled. Locking and bolting the door, I drew some paper from a drawer and commenced writing. How long I wrote I do not know, but I did not stop until I had penned a fairly comprehensive precis of what I had seen and heard. Why I did this I cannot tell; I only know that I was driven to it by some force which, to me, was inexplicable. This done, I signed the paper, giving the hour and date when I had written it. I heard Simpson turning in his bed in the little room close by. "Simpson," I said, going to him, "are you awake?" He yawned drowsily. "Simpson, are you awake?" I repeated. "Yes, sir," he said, starting up. "Is anything the matter, sir? Are you well?" "Quite well, Simpson." "Is it time to get up, sir?" "I--I--what time it is I don't know, Simpson, but it is not time to get up." He looked at me like one afraid. "Can I do anything for you, sir?" "Simpson," I said, "I want you to take this paper and put it away in a place of safety. You must not open it unless something happens to me." "Happens to you, sir? What can happen to you?" "I don't know--nothing, most likely. But I am giving this to you in case there should. Don't be alarmed. If nothing happens to me, let it lie in a place of safety, and give it to me when I ask for it, but if anything should happen...." "Yes, sir," he said eagerly, as I hesitated. "If anything should happen, sir?" "Then--then you will take this to Mr. Josiah Lethbridge!" "Mr. Josiah Lethbridge, sir?" "Yes, take it to him immediately. You must not delay a second." "But what can happen to you, sir?" "I know of nothing," I replied. "I am only taking a precaution. That is all, Simpson. Good-night." I held the lamp in my hand as I spoke, while Simpson sat up in his bed staring at me. "Excuse me, sir," he said, "but--but----" and then he put his hand under the pillow and took out his watch. "It is half-past three, sir, it won't be long before daylight; and--and haven't you been to bed, sir?" "Good-night, Simpson," I said, and then found my way into my little room. Five minutes later, I had got into bed, and blown out the lamp. I was still strangely awake, and was again living over my experiences of the night. I heard Simpson groping cautiously around the house, and I knew he was looking at the fastenings of windows and doors. "I shall have a busy day to-morrow," I said to myself. "I must see that my little wireless apparatus is in good order. I must be careful, too, that I arouse no suspicion in placing it on the spot I have prepared." After this I began to arrange my plans concerning the work I had to do. Then, little by little, things became hazy and indistinct to me. "I am falling asleep," I said to myself. "This is wonderful; I never thought I should sleep to-night." I seemed to be passing through one world into another, from the world of realities to the world of dreams, and yet the latter was as real to me as the former had been. I had a kind of consciousness that I was asleep, and yet the stuff of which my dreams were made was just as vivid as my experiences of that night. I was far out at sea, but it was not such a sea as I had ever known. I felt the movement of the waters, and heard the roar of the machinery. But I could see nothing. A great weight seemed to weigh me down. I felt, too, as though I were moving amidst great sea-monsters, the like of which I had never imagined before. I had a difficulty in breathing; it seemed to me as though the air which passed through my lungs was artificial. I had the use of my senses, but those senses seemed to respond to new conditions. I heard, but my hearing was confused; I felt, but with a kind of numb consciousness. I heard sounds of voices, but the voices might have been hundreds of miles away. It was as though I were speaking to some one through a telephone, a long way off. I was in a kind of a room, but it was such a room as I had never seen before. It had neither shape nor dimension. Little by little, that which had been shadowy and unreal became more definite. I saw a table, with three men sitting beside it; in front of them was a chart. "She will be there on Thursday," said one, placing his hand on a certain spot on the chart. "It's a long distance from here and we shall want more petrol." "It will be easy for us to get it," said another; "we have everything in training. We must let him know." As I said, the voices seemed to be hundreds of miles away, as though they were speaking through a long-distance telephone. Yet every word was plain. I realized at that moment that they were speaking in German, and saw, too, that the men had German faces, and wore German clothes. I was not in the least surprised or disturbed. It seemed to me as though it were all a part of a prearranged plan. The sense of wonder had altogether departed from me. "There will be a greater yell than ever about German atrocities," laughed one of the men. "After all, it does seem a devilish thing to attack passenger vessels." "What has that to do with us? We must obey orders." "But what good will it do?" "God in heaven knows, I don't. I suppose the idea is to frighten the people, so that they will sue for peace." "The English are not to be frightened that way; besides, it won't even touch the British Navy. They are masters on the sea, whatever we may do." Their voices seemed to become dimmer and dimmer; they still went on talking, but I heard nothing distinctly after that. Indeed, the things by which I was surrounded, which had at first been comparatively clear, now became indistinct and unreal. I felt as though I were losing consciousness, and then everything became dark. The next thing I can remember was opening my eyes to see Simpson standing by my bed. "Anything the matter, Simpson?" I inquired. "No, sir, except that it is ten o'clock, and I didn't know what time you meant to get up, sir." "Not for a long time yet, Simpson; I am very sleepy and very tired." Indeed, at that time an unutterable languor possessed me, and I felt as weak as a child. Simpson did not move, but looked at me intently, and I thought I saw fear in his eyes. But I was too tired to care. Then slowly life and vitality came back to me. While I was in a state of languor I remembered nothing of what I had seen in my dream, but little by little everything came back to me, until all was as vivid and as plain as I have tried to set it down here on paper. When I again opened my eyes, I saw Simpson still standing by my bed. "I am going to get up, Simpson." "You are sure you are well enough, sir?" "Well enough! I feel perfectly well." And I spoke the truth. It seemed to me as though a great black shadow which had paralyzed me, rolled away from my life. "Prepare breakfast at once, Simpson; I shall be ready in half an hour." Simpson took a last look at me, and then left the room, with his old formula: "Yes, sir; thank you, sir." I got up and looked towards the sea. The sun was shining brightly, and the waves were glistening in the sunlight. It was a day to rejoice in. The air was clear and pure. I moved briskly around the room, feeling no sense of weariness. My long sleep had restored me; my mind, too, was as active as it had been on the previous night. I fell to thinking about my experiences, and philosophizing on what I had seen in my dreams. "The real I," I reflected, "was not lying at all on that bed all last night. My spirit, my thinking self, my understanding self, was hundreds of miles away, where I don't know, but I was not here. I saw what I saw, and heard what I heard, without my body. I had other eyes, other senses. My real self was not a part of my body at all during that time. Therefore I have a self distinct from the body, independent of it. My body is only a machine whereby my real self does its work, therefore the death of the body would not be the death of me." I took pleasure in ruminating in this way, even although there were at the back of my mind many doubts. The wish was only the father to the thought, and the thought did not carry conviction to my consciousness. It seemed to me that I had intellectually realized something which went to prove the immortality of the soul, but which really proved nothing. I could only be certain of that through some deeper process, something which went down to the very depths of life. All the same, I found pleasure in it, and I remember humming a tune as I dressed. Directly after breakfast, Simpson put the morning paper before me. Mechanically I opened it, and turned to the list of casualties. My heart sank as I read, for I found the names of three men who had gone from St. Issey among the list of killed. "Are you going out, sir?" And Simpson looked at me anxiously. "Yes," I replied, "I am going to the village. I see that Mrs. Searle's boy is killed." "You are sure you are well enough, sir?" "Quite," I replied. "By the way, Simpson, you have that paper I gave you last night?" "Yes, sir; I locked it away carefully, and I understand what you said, but I don't understand what you mean, sir. Are you afraid that----" "That's all right, Simpson; be sure not to forget my instructions." A little later, I found myself at Mrs. Searle's door, and on finding it open, I entered. A second later, I blamed myself for the liberty I had taken. It is not uncommon for these simple folk to enter each other's houses without giving notice in any way, and I had fallen in with the habit of the people. But I should have known better. Mr. and Mrs. Searle were both on their knees praying, and there was an expression on each of their faces which I shall not try to describe. Sorrow, pain, even anguish, were expressed there, but beyond all this was an unutterable peace. I suppose I must have made a slight noise, for they opened their eyes at my approach and rose to their feet. "Have 'ee 'eerd the news, Mr. Erskine?" It was Mr. Searle who spoke. "Yes," I replied; "I have just read it in the newspaper. I came to tell you how deeply I sympathize with you." The man held out his hand and grasped mine, and I saw the tears trickle down his cheeks. "Mr. Erskine," he said, "the Loard's ways seem very hard, but He doeth all things well. I'd bin gittin' cold; the Loard 'ad bin prosperin' me, and some'ow I was forgittin' God. Then, three weeks ago, we 'ad a letter from Jim, tellin' us that 'e was right up in the firing line and that the danger was ter'ble. Some'ow that brought us back to God; we felt the need of God, Mr. Erskine, as we 'adn't felt it for years. And we prayed as we 'adn't prayed for years." He still held my hand, looking at me through the mist of his tears all the time. "When the news came yesterday," he went on, "we felt as though the 'eavens were black, as though nothing mattered. But that is over now. God alone knows what we 'ave suffered at the loss of our boy. But it is only good-bye for a little while; he isn't dead, sir. Now we can say, 'Bless the Loard, O my soul, and all that is within me bless and praise His Holy Name.'" "What would I give," I said to myself, as presently I walked from the house, "if I knew their secret?" Evidently the news had affected the life of the village greatly, for I found groups of people standing together talking about it. I joined a number of miners, who were working "afternoon core" and as a consequence had their morning at liberty. "Ter'ble, sir, edn't it?" said one man to me. "John Searle and his missis took it all right, because they've got their faith to sustain them; but there's Harry Bray, 'e's going about like a man maazed; 'e don't believe in anything, sir, and as a consequence there's no light in his darkness." "No light in his darkness?" I repeated. "No, sir; he became a backslider and gave up God! This is what we was talking about when you comed by. What comfort have the world to offer at a time like this? Here be thousands and tens of thousands of people, all over the world, grieving because their dear ones will never come back again. Mothers grieving about their sons, wives grieving about their husbands, maidens grieving about their sweethearts. You now, sir, you be a scholar and a learned man. Do you know of anythin', anythin', sir, 'cept faith in an Almighty God, that will 'elp people at a time like this? What can science do? What can philosophy do? What can money do?" "Nothing," I said almost involuntarily. "No, nothing. Tell 'ee what, sir, this war is bringing us all back to our senses; we've thought that we could do without Almighty God, sir, but we ca'ant. A man who was preachin' at the Chapel on Sunday night called this war 'The World's great tragedy.' He was right, sir; but God is overruling it. He is answering men out of the whirlwind and the fire, as He did Job of olden times. Forty boys have gone out from St. Issey, sir; how many of 'em will come back again?" I shook my head. "Exactly, sir. Here is a wisht story in the newspaper. A poor woman, sir, who 'ad lost her husband and three sons in the war, wrote to the editor and asked him to give her some explanation of it all, to offer some word of comfort. So the editor wrote to a lot of clever men, sending them copies of the woman's letter, and asking them what they 'ad to say. Here are their answers, sir. They are from a scientist, a politician, a philosopher, and a literary man, and that's what they 'ad to say by way of comfort. She asked for bread, and they gave 'er stone." I took the paper, and saw that the man had spoken truly. The answers which our leading scientists, politicians, philosophers, and scholars had to give were utterly in the negative. They could say nothing that would help to heal the poor woman's bleeding, broken heart. All their scholarship, all their learning, all their philosophy was Dead Sea fruit. Only the man of faith, the man of vision, could give her comfort. I left the village wondering: I realized as I never realized before the impotence of mere intellectualism, of material success, of the advancement of physical science, in the face of life's great tragedies. Then suddenly my thoughts were diverted into another channel, for coming towards me I saw Isabella Lethbridge. XXV PREMONITIONS Our greeting was cold and formal; it seemed to me as though a barrier of reserve stood between us. I remembered what had taken place when we last met in a way similar to this. I also called to mind what she had said when she came to me at the little schoolroom in St. Issey. "How are your father and mother?" I asked presently. "Mother is wonderful, simply wonderful! As for my father, I can't understand him." "No?" I said. "He called to see me yesterday." "Indeed!" She seemed to take no interest in his visit, neither did she ask anything concerning his purpose in coming. An awkward silence fell between us, and I was on the point of leaving her, when she broke out suddenly: "I came out in the hope of meeting you! Seeing it was a fine morning, I thought you might be tempted to walk into St. Issey. If I had not met you, I think I should have gone to your house. I wanted to speak to you badly." "What about?" I asked. "I don't know," was the reply. "I have nothing to say now I have met you." "Was it about your brother?" She shook her head, and I saw her lips tremble. "As you know, I have no brother now; he is dead. What a ghastly mockery life is, isn't it? But for mother, I think I should run away." Each sentence was spoken abruptly and nervously, and I could see she was much wrought upon. "Mr. Erskine," she went on, "you were very cruel to me a few days ago." "Yes," I said, "perhaps I was. I meant to be. I am sorry now. Had I known about your brother, I would not have spoken." "You were cruel because you were so un-understanding. You were utterly ignorant, and because of your ignorance you were foolish." "Ignorant of what?" I asked. "Of everything, everything!" And she spoke almost passionately. "Was what you told me true?" A wild look came into her eyes, such a look as I had never seen before. "I don't think I had any right to say it," I replied, "but was I unjust in my accusation? Did you not try to fascinate me? Did you not try to make me fall in love with you?" "No, yes--I don't really know. And what you said is true, is it not--you don't love me?" "You were very cruel," I said. "You knew why I came here--knew that the doctor had written my death-warrant before I came. It is nearly a year since I came here, and a year was all Dr. Rhomboid gave me to live. To-day I feel as though the doctor's prophecy will be fulfilled." "That you will die before the year is out?" she almost gasped. "Yes," I said. "That was why it was cruel of you to seek to play with a dying man's heart. But you didn't succeed; you fascinated, you almost made me love you. If you had done so, you would have added mockery to mockery. But I never loved you, I only loved the woman you were meant to be, the woman you ought to be." I saw anger, astonishment, and yearning, besides a hundred other things for which I could find no words, in her eyes as I spoke. For a moment she seemed to be struggling to find some answer to give me. Then she burst out angrily, almost furiously: "You are blind--blind--blind!" "Blind to what?" I asked. "You care nothing for me, and you know it. You need not tell me so; I can see it in your eyes. You have won the love of other men only to discard it." "Mr. Erskine," she said, "do you remember our first conversation?" "The one when I first dined at your house?" I asked. "No, the one when we met in the field yonder. It is nearly a year ago." "Yes, I remember. You said you didn't believe that there was such a thing as love--although even then you were trying to make me lose my heart to you." "I told you," she went on, "that some of us were born into the world handicapped, and I asked you whether, seeing nature had prevented us from getting our desires in natural ways, we were not justified in overstepping conventional boundaries." "Yes," I replied, "I remember. But I never could understand what you meant." "No," she went on, "you were blind, blind! I don't think a man can understand a woman. You were at the prayer-meeting the other night--do you believe in God?" "I think there must be a God," I said. "I have just come from Mr. and Mrs. Searle's house. They have lost their boy; he has been killed in the war. They have no doubt about God's existence, they were even rejoicing in their sorrow; and it is all because God is real to them. Yes, I think there must be a God." "If there is a God, He must be awfully unjust," she said bitterly. "If there is a God, why did He create us with barriers around us which we cannot break down, and which we long to break down? Why did He give us longings which we cannot satisfy?" "What longings? What barriers?" I asked. Again she seemed struggling for speech, and I knew there was something in her mind which she wanted to express but could not. "Tell me," she said, "were you really serious when you said you thought the doctor's verdict was soon to be fulfilled?" "Yes," I said, "perfectly serious." "And you think you are going to die soon?" Her voice was hoarse and unnatural. "Yes, I feel quite sure of it." "And yet you are here talking with me about it calmly." "What else is there to do?" "It cannot be! It cannot be!" she cried passionately. "You must not die." "If I could believe what John Searle believes, I should not care," was my answer. "If I could believe that this life is only a fragment of life--that death is only the door by which we enter another life, the fulfilment of this life; if I could believe that at the back of everything is an Omnipotent, All-Wise, Ever-Loving, Beneficent God, I should not mind death, I think I should laugh at it. Then what we call death would not be death at all. That is my difficulty." "And you want to live?" "Yes, I have an intense longing to live. I have a passion for life. But what can I do? When the poison of death is in one's system and science knows no means whereby that poison can be destroyed, all is hopeless." "And the doctor gave you no hope?" "No, he said nothing could save me. Yesterday I felt as though I could not die, as though life was strong within me. To-day life seems only a matter of hours." "And yet you are able to think and talk and walk." "Yes, that is the mockery of it. Do you believe in premonitions, Miss Lethbridge?" "Premonitions?" "Yes, premonitions. I have a feeling that within a few hours I shall be dead." "From your illness?" "I don't know, I suppose so." She stood looking at me wonderingly. Never had I seen her look so fair, so wondrously fair, as she looked that morning, in spite of the fact that she showed marks of having suffered greatly. As she had said, I could not understand her. In one sense she seemed my ideal of what a woman ought to be. Even although I knew the shadow of death was creeping over me, I felt the power of her presence; felt that it would be bliss to love and be loved by such a woman. But I knew she had no love to give me; knew she had tried to play with my heart as she had played with the hearts of others. "You would have made a poor conquest if you had made me fall in love with you," I could not help saying bitterly. "After all, I could only have been your slave for a few weeks." "Don't, don't taunt me!" she cried; "it is cruel, bitterly cruel of you. Besides, I cannot believe that what you say is true. You are not near death--you must live!" "What would I not give if your words were true, Miss Lethbridge! I never felt life so full of possibilities as now. If I could live only a month, a week, I feel as though I could render great service to my King and my Country." Why I was led to say this I cannot tell, but something unloosened my tongue. "How could you render service to your King and your Country?" she asked. "Have you discovered anything?" "Yes, I believe I have. I believe I know more than all our Secret Service officers do." "But surely you will not keep your knowledge to yourself?" "Just now you called me blind," was my reply. "I don't think I am blind, but I am obstinate. Dying men have strange fancies, and I have a fancy that I can do what no one else can. I have a feeling that if I told my secret to the officials they would bungle my plans; that is why I am going to act alone." "Are you going to place yourself in danger?" "What matter if I do? I have only a little while to live, and if--if...." I stopped suddenly, for I realized that I had told her more than I meant to tell any one, that in my excitement I had been reckless and foolish. "You speak in riddles," she said. "You have no right to put yourself in danger. I don't understand at all what you are saying. Tell me what you mean, will you?" I shook my head. "Everything is so much in the clouds, so visionary, that it would be foolish to try to tell you anything. Good-day, I must be going now." And I walked away without another word, leaving her at the gates of her own home. As I reflected afterwards, I had not played a very magnanimous part. I had been rude almost to a point of brutality, and yet I had not been able to help myself. Something in her very presence aroused my opposition, my anger. I cannot tell why, but when I was with her, feelings which I had never known at other times almost mastered me. I knew then, as I had known all along, that I had no love for her, and yet I was conscious that I was within an ace of throwing myself at her feet. Such was the power she had over me; but all the time I knew there was an unbreakable barrier between us. Something, I could not tell what, repelled me, made me adamant. At that time, too, I was in a strange condition of mind. All I had told her was true; although I felt strong and full of life, I knew that the Angel of Death had spread his wings over me; that, in spite of my power to walk and act quickly, death was even then undermining the citadels of life. In a sense life was not real to me at all; everything was intangible, visionary. I was like a man in a dream. * * * * * It is now early in May, and, as I said to Isabella Lethbridge this morning, it is within a fortnight of the end of the year which Dr. Rhomboid gave me to live. I commenced writing this narrative last autumn, when the days were shortening and the long evenings were dreary and lonely. I feel now that I have got to the end of my story, and that I shall never tell of what may yet happen to me. I don't think I am a nervous or fanciful man, and, as far as I can remember in what I have written, there is nothing in my history to suggest that I am superstitious or carried away by old wives' tales. And yet I have a conviction that I have come to the end of my life; that I shall soon learn the great secret--if there is any secret in death. I don't feel ill, rather my body seems instinct with life; I am buoyed up by an unnatural strength; I am capable of thinking, of acting--yet something tells me that I am near the end. I have been writing for hours, so as to bring my records up to this point. Why I have done so I cannot tell, except that I have obeyed an overmastering impulse. At six o'clock this evening I arranged my wireless apparatus, so as to be ready for any news that should come to me. I have also sent Simpson to St. Issey with certain instructions which seem to be necessary, and I have taken all precautions of which I can think to render what I am going to try and do effective. What will the future bring forth, I wonder? What will be the result of my plans? Will everything come to nothing, or will my dreams be realized? I know that if I acted according to the dictates of common sense, I should at once send Simpson with a long telegram to the authorities at Falmouth or Penzance. But with that strange obstinacy which possesses me I refuse to do this; I am acting according to impulse or intuition, rather than in obedience to reason. Concerning the deeper things of life and death, I am almost as much in the dark as I was when I came here nearly a year ago; and yet not altogether. The subtle change which has come over the life of the village has affected me. The faith which has been renewed in the lives of so many people has created an atmosphere which I cannot help but breathe. Even now, although I feel death to be so near, I have a kind of intuition that I cannot die. I cannot say that I believe in God, but there is only a thin line of partition between me and that belief. Life is the same as it has been, and yet it is not the same. A new element has appeared, a new force has made itself felt, but what that force is I cannot tell. During the last few weeks, although I have said nothing about it, I have been reading the New Testament, a book I had not looked at since I left Oxford. Especially have I studied the Gospels. They are very wonderful, in some parts sublime. But I have not learnt the secret of the Man Jesus. I cannot rid my mind of the thought that He was a visionary. And yet I don't know; there are times when I cannot get away from the belief that His words were founded on the Rock of Truth. When I came back from the prayer-meeting the other night, I felt as though Jesus said to me what He said to the man in olden times who asked Him questions, "Thou art not far from the kingdom of God." But everything was transitory and passed away in a moment, and I was left dull and unconvinced. And here I leave it. I am a young man, little over thirty years of age, with life's work undone and life's problems unsolved. If this life is all, then it is a mockery, a haggard failure, an unfulfilled promise, an uncompleted plan. And yet I don't know; even although I were certain that there is nothing beyond, I am still glad that I have had my life. But if there be a Supreme Being, would He give me life and hope, and volition and possibilities, only to destroy that life? I felt as I never felt before--that my body is not my real self; that the essential I is distinct from the body. These premonitions of mine, what do they signify? Certainly they prove a sensitiveness to something which is beyond my power of understanding; but is that all? Never did I feel as I feel now the utter uselessness of mere intellectuality, of material advancement, of scientific discovery, and the thousand other things which men strive after when divorced from faith, divorced from God. I feel that Science, Philosophy, have no answer to give me, and the wisdom of men is but as the voice of the wandering wind. If I believed in God, if I were sure of God, sure of the message which Jesus proclaimed, I could laugh at death; for I should know that out of discord would come harmony, and that out of incompleteness would come completeness. But that secret is not mine. I only dimly hope. But I will follow my fancies no further. I have my work to do. I have to carry out the plans I have made. XXVI MIDNIGHT Again I take up my pen to continue the narrative commenced long months ago. Since I last looked at these pages, wonderful things have happened, so wonderful that I do not expect to be believed; but I will set them down nevertheless, and I will record them exactly as they took place. In order to do this I must go back to that May evening in the year 1915, when, as it seemed to me, I had come to the end of my life. As I have set down in these pages, I had, as I believed, made a discovery which seemed of importance to the nation, and pierced a mystery which had been baffling our Government. Events have proved that I was not wrong in my surmises, and that I had become of importance to the nation's welfare. As I said, I had placed my little wireless apparatus on what seemed to me a suitable place for receiving messages. That I took every precaution in placing it may be imagined; I knew from the conversation I had heard between John Liddicoat and the woman who acted with him that I was a suspect, and that they had taken every precaution against me. I knew, too, if my suspicions were correct, and those suspicions almost amounted to a positive certainty, that I was constantly watched, and that I had, more by chance than by cleverness of my own, kept John Liddicoat in the dark. It was a little after six o'clock in the evening, as near as I can remember, when I returned to my cottage after having visited my wireless apparatus, and made sure that no messages were being received. I had barely entered my room when Squire Treherne paid me a visit. I cannot say that I was glad to see him, much as I had grown to like him, for I felt that I was on the eve of great events and was impatient at interruption. Yet I knew he had not come without reason, and I could not tell him that his visit was untimely. As I have said before, I treated Simpson more as a friend than as a servant, and while I had not in any degree taken him into my confidence, he knew of, and had become interested in, my little wireless apparatus. Indeed, he had rejoiced in my hobby, because he believed it took my mind away from unpleasant things. Moreover, he had proved himself, especially during the past few weeks, an exceedingly sensible fellow, and one who was able to keep his own counsel. Seeing Squire Treherne, therefore, I told Simpson to station himself in a spot from which he could not be observed, to keep a sharp lookout on my little instrument, and to warn me if any one should come near, and especially to take care that no one should learn of its location. Having taken this precaution, I went back to Mr. Treherne, who, judging from his countenance, had important things to tell me. "I hope you are well, Erskine," said the old man kindly, at the same time looking anxiously into my face. "As well as I shall ever be," was my reply. "Do I look ill?" "No, I can't say you do, but you look strange. Nothing the matter, I hope?" And again he looked at me anxiously. "It is good of you to come and see me," was my response. "Not a bit of it! Not a bit of it!" and his reply was eager. "The truth is, I want a chat with you. I have told them at home to put off dinner until eight o'clock in the hope that I may persuade you to come back with me. I have a trap close by." I shook my head. "I am afraid I am not up to it, Squire. But I hope you have no bad news?" "Oh no, no bad news at all; quite the other way. But I say, my lad, I don't like the idea of your being alone here night after night, with only your man to look after you. You really don't look well. Come and pay me a week's visit, will you? I feel it would do you good." "You are awfully kind, Squire, but do you know I am a good deal of a hermit. I have come to love this lonely life of mine, and every one is so kind that I don't feel as though I lived amongst strangers." "That's right, that's right; but promise me you will come back with me." "Not to-night, Squire; I really can't." "Well, then, come over to-morrow. Come and spend a week with me; we should all love to have you." "We will talk about that after I have heard your news," I said; "for I am sure you have news. What is it?" "I don't know why I want to tell you, but I feel as though I must. Josiah Lethbridge has been converted." "Converted! What do you mean?" "The age of miracles is not past;" and the Squire laughed as he spoke. "You know what my opinion of Lethbridge has been; you know, too, that he is regarded as a kind of Shylock. I told you about our quarrel, didn't I?" "Yes, I remember perfectly." "I hate war;" and he spoke as though he wanted to change the subject. "I can't sleep of a night when I think of all the misery, all the agony it is causing. I know that we as a nation could do nothing but what we have done; but when I remember people like poor Searle, and the hundreds and thousands all over the land whose hearts are broken, I feel like going mad. It is simply hellish, man! Not that we can stop it. We must go on and on, no matter what it costs us, until war is made impossible for the future. No, Kaiserism, militarism must be crushed, destroyed forever! Still I feel, Erskine, that there is a tremendous alchemy in war. It is brutal, but it is purifying. It is hellish, but God uses it, and over-rules it for His own purposes." "I hope you are right," was my reply. "But what is your particular reason for saying this now?" "It is Lethbridge. You know what a hard man he is, don't you? You have heard how he has got people into his grip, and ground them to powder? You have been told how, like a spider, he has attracted them into his web and imprisoned them? I don't say that, in a way, he has not been a just man. He has never done anything that has violated the law. But he has been cruel and merciless. He has demanded his pound of flesh to the fiftieth part of an ounce. He has never forgiven an injury, and has always been impatient of any one's will but his own. But there, I needn't enlarge on that; you have heard, you know." "I have heard a good many stories," I replied, "but as a lawyer I always deduct about seventy per cent. from the total. You see, people are given to exaggerate." "Yes, yes, that may be. But Lethbridge was as hard as nails, as cruel as death; that is why the wonder of it comes to me now." "The wonder of what?" I asked. The Squire hesitated a few seconds, and then went on: "He got me into his meshes. Doubtless I was foolish, in fact I know I was. I speculated, and then, although I was bitten, I speculated again. I don't say Lethbridge encouraged me; but he made me feel that things would be sure to come out right. They didn't, and I had to mortgage my estate. I hated going to a bank for money, and Lethbridge helped me out. Little by little he got the upper hand of me, until--well, for the last few years I have been like a toad under a harrow. You can understand the position. I never thought I should tell you this, in fact I have always kept my troubles to myself. All the same, I have been mad at the thought that the estate which has been in my family for I don't know how many generations should be handed over to a man like Lethbridge." I was silent, for there seemed nothing to say. "This morning," went on the Squire, "he came to see me. At first I met his advances coldly, for although he has had me in his power I have always held up my head. To my unspeakable astonishment, he came with a proposal which will enable me to be my own man again in five years. Just think of it, Erskine! I feel as though an awful weight were lifted from my back." "Why did he do it?" I asked. "That brings me back to what we were talking about. There is some wondrous alchemy in war. It may debase some, but others it humbles and ennobles. He said he had had a talk with you, and you had made him feel that his son had died a hero, and was a martyr to his faith. In short, Hugh's death has changed Lethbridge--shaken him to the very depths of his life--revolutionized him. It seems that he has had further messages about Hugh. From what I can understand, Hugh gave his life for his enemy. At the risk of his own life he rescued a German officer, and was killed while he was in the act of doing his glorious deed. The message does not seem very clear, but that is the meaning of it. The thing happened in the night-time, and the soldiers who told Hugh's Colonel were not altogether sure of the details, but this they all insist on: young Lethbridge was a hero; he might have saved himself, but wouldn't; he rescued an enemy at the risk of his own life, and then paid the penalty of his action." I gave a long quivering sigh. I could not help being sad at such a splendid life being cut off in the middle. "Yes, yes," went on the Squire. "Hugh was a splendid boy. It seems awful that we shall never see him again--at least, this side of the grave. But that lad's not dead, Erskine. A boy who could do a deed like that could never die. He had eternal life in him. Anyhow, Josiah Lethbridge is not the same man. You should have seen the look of pride, and more than pride, in his eyes as he told me about it. And what he has done for me, he has done because he says he believes Hugh would have him do it. 'My boy is speaking to me from heaven,' he said; 'that's why I am doing it.'" The Squire dashed a tear from his eyes as he spoke. "Would to God I had a son like him! I tell you, Erskine, I would not have minded losing my estate so much if I knew that he was coming into it. But there, I have told you what I came to tell you. I thought you would like to know. It is a miracle, nothing less than a miracle. He has made me ashamed of myself. Here have I for years been going around thinking hard thoughts and saying hard things about Josiah Lethbridge, and now I feel as though I had been a mean, contemptible sneak. I have scorned him because he is a Dissenter, I have said hard things about people who are not of my way of thinking. I say, God Almighty is giving us a shaking up, and showing us what blind fools we have been. As though He cares what Church we belong to, what place of worship we attend, and what form of prayer we say! I don't read the Bible much, Erskine, but there is a passage which has been running in my mind all the way over here: 'What doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?' That goes to the heart of things, doesn't it? All the rest is trimmings, trimmings. But there, I must be getting back. Now, won't you come with me?" "I can't to-night, anyhow," I said. "Well, to-morrow; promise you will come over then. You will add to my happiness, my boy. You will really!" The Squire's proposal put a thought into my mind which had not occurred to me before. I had determined on another plan, but our conversation had suggested a better one. "I will come over to-morrow for a week, provided I am able, on condition that you do something for me," I said. "Of course I will do anything for you, my boy. But what is it?" "Do you know Colonel Laycock?" "Perfectly well. I dined at his mess the other night." "You are on good terms with him?" "Of course I am. Why?" "I am going to ask you to do a strange thing, Squire," I said. "I have got a scheme in my mind. I am not going to tell you what it is. I am afraid--I am afraid to tell any one. Why, I don't know; but it is a fact. It is possible that to-night I shall send you a message--possible that I shall ask you to do something which will not appeal to your judgment. But I want you to do it. Will you?" "But what is it, my dear fellow?" "I cannot tell you; I want you to trust me. I believe big things are moving, and if you will, I am sure you can help me to accomplish what I have in my mind. If the thing comes off, I will write down detailed instructions, and I want you to act on those instructions. You are a magistrate, and therefore have considerable authority." "Magistrate!" he said. "Is it something to do with law, then?" "It is, and it isn't," I said. "The message may not come to-night, may not come till to-morrow night or the next; but when it comes, I want you to act on it. Will you?" "Then will you come and spend a week with me?" "If I can." "I never like acting in the dark, Erskine, but you are a cautious fellow, and I trust you implicitly. Yes, I will do it; but for the life of me I can't see what you are driving at." "Maybe it will end in nothing," I said, "in which case nothing will be done. But I'll tell you this: if my plans bear fruit, as I think they will, then--then--you will be glad you trusted in me. I am not asking you to compromise yourself in any way; all the same, I tell you this: it seems to me a matter of life and death." For a few seconds the old man looked at me as if he doubted my sanity, then he gripped my hand. "I trust you completely, Erskine, and I will do what you ask. But I must go now. Good-night, my boy. God bless you!" Directly he had gone I went out to relieve Simpson, and on visiting my wireless apparatus, I found that no message had come through. For the next two hours I was on tenter-hooks. My mind was filled with a thousand doubts. Fears of all sorts haunted me. What if my little apparatus were not powerful enough? What if I had misunderstood the whole situation? Everything seemed shadowy and unreal. I doubted myself, I doubted everything. That little apparatus which I had prepared to receive messages seemed as valueless as the toy of a child. How could messages move across great spaces and affect the little instrument which I had manipulated with such care? How could I expect to frustrate the plans of people who were skilled in plotting, and who had been plotting for years? Were not all my hopes and beliefs as baseless as the stuff of which dreams are made? What could a man with the Angel of Death flying over him expect to do under such circumstances? Still I held on to my faith. Foolish as it might seem, I believed that my reasoning was sound, that I had discovered the truth, and that by carrying out my plans I might save hundreds of lives. It was now dark; the moon, which was on the wane, would not rise till far past midnight. Although the night was windless it was cloudy. This fact made everything so dark that I did not dread watchful eyes. Nine o'clock, half-past nine, ten o'clock, yet my little instrument was silent. Had I misunderstood what John Liddicoat had said? Was I mistaken when I heard him tell the woman that he must expect another message the next night? I was in an agony of suspense. Then my heart gave a great leap--the little instrument began to move, while I, with fast beating heart, wrote quickly. Ten minutes later I had locked myself in my little room and was eagerly studying the slip of paper before me. I knew that the message, whatever it might be, had emanated from a spot within a comparatively limited radius, for the simple reason that my apparatus was not of sufficient capacity to receive long-distance messages. It is impossible for me to convey on paper the state of my mind as I read the words which had been transmitted. My excitement was tense beyond words. I felt my heart beating wildly; I scarce dared to breathe. And yet the message looked innocent enough. It was simply this: "One hour after midnight to-night. Completeness essential." That was all; there were no explanations by which any one who was not in the plot could gain any information. It might be received by a score of wireless stations, and any one ignorant of what I knew would be none the wiser. It gave no clue even to the most subtle mind whereby action could be taken. It might be read by any one with perfect safety. No Government official, whatever his position, could understand it. Neither would he see any importance in it. The words were innocence itself, and yet, as I believed, they meant the safety or the destruction of perhaps hundreds of lives. So innocent did they seem that it appeared like madness to take action, but remembering what I had seen and heard, connecting incident with incident, and placing link to link as I did, my chain of reasoning seemed flawless. If I were wrong in my conclusions, I should not only be an object of ridicule, I might indeed be placing myself under menace of the law. Still I decided to act. Rapidly I wrote a letter to Squire Treherne, giving him the minutest details of what I wished him to do. My brain, I remember, was clear, and I was very careful to insist on all sorts of precautions. This done, I summoned Simpson to me. "Simpson," I said, "I want you to take this to Squire Treherne immediately; it is a matter of great importance. It may be that you will be in danger on the way; but that must be risked. You must speak to no one. Take the footpath through the fields, and don't delay an instant." Simpson looked at me steadily as though he doubted my sanity, but evidently there was something in my eyes which told him how much in earnest I was. "Yes, sir; thank you, sir," he said, and then he hesitated. "What is it, Simpson?" "You will be here all alone, sir." "I can't help that; I shall be all right. Do as I tell you." "Shall I find you here when I get back, sir?" he asked. "No, Simpson, I was going to mention that. You will not find me here when you get back. But take no notice of that; wait here until a quarter past one." "Quarter past one, sir! What, an hour and a quarter past midnight?" "Wait here until a quarter past one," I repeated, "and then, if I do not appear, make your way down to the copse, by the footpath, to the beach. You know the cave which is almost immediately beneath the house; go straight to the mouth of the cave and look for me." Again Simpson looked at me as though he doubted my sanity, but, like the well-bred servant he was, he made no reply but "Yes, sir; thank you, sir." A minute later I heard Simpson leaving the house. I felt that the air was laden with tragic events. It was now past eleven o'clock, and I had two hours in which to wait, but I could not stay indoors. Strange as it may seem, I felt no weakness, while the malady from which I suffered gave me no pain at all. I was still buoyed up by the same strange, unnatural strength. I crept towards my little wireless apparatus, but there was no further message. I remained in the near distance for some time, waiting and watching; once or twice I thought I heard a rustling among the bushes, but I was not sure. Although I had no reason for my suspicion, I believed that some one was near me, that furtive eyes were watching me; but I had no tangible reason for believing this. At midnight I went back to the house again; Simpson had not returned. The little dog I had rescued a few days before came and sniffed at my feet, wagging his tail as he did so. Evidently the poor little wretch was rapidly recovering from his wound; indeed he seemed quite well. I put on an overcoat and prepared to go out. The dog still wagged his tail, as though he thought he was going to accompany me. "No," I said to him, "you must not come." Whereupon he began to whimper piteously. I left the house, locking the door, but I had not gone more than a few steps before I stopped. The dog had begun to howl. "This will never do," I reflected. "I will let him come with me, he can do no harm." I opened the door again, whereupon the little brute rushed to me and capered with joy. "Be quiet," I said. "If you follow me you must make no noise." He seemed to understand, for he followed closely at my heels, making no sound as I carefully made my way through the undergrowth. When I had passed through the copse I stopped and listened; at first I thought I heard a rustling sound behind me, but evidently I was mistaken, for all was as silent as death. The night was still dark, although here and there between the clouds I saw stars twinkling; not a breath of wind stirred, and no sound reached me save the soughing of the waves. Some miles out at sea I saw the revolving light of the Dead Man's Rock Lighthouse. My descent to the beach was precipitous and somewhat dangerous, but I knew the pathway, and noiselessly made my way down, the dog keeping close to me all the time. A few minutes later I had reached the beach, and again I listened. My eyes had become sufficiently accustomed to the darkness to see that the dog was also listening. Once or twice he gave a slight whimper, but at a whispered command he was silent. I found my way to the shelter of a rock close to the fissure by which the outer cave was entered. Creeping into the hollow of the rock, I took a little electric lamp from my pocket, and in its light saw that it was nearly half-past twelve. Minutes at that time seemed to me an eternity. Again I passed through all sorts of doubt, and more than once called myself a madman who had followed a will-o'-the-wisp of a wild fancy. Still I held fast to my resolution. From my hiding-place I could see the fissure which led to the cave. At least it would be difficult for any one to approach it without my seeing him. All the time the little dog sat close by my side with eyes and ears alert. I think he understood the condition of my mind. Minute after minute passed slowly by, and there was neither sound nor sight that gave me warning of any one's approach. I looked anxiously to the right and to the left, seeking in vain to pierce the darkness of the night; but nothing happened; I was alone and in silence. I think I must have fallen into a kind of waking dream, for, as it seemed to me, some moments passed when I had no consciousness of my surroundings. Then suddenly the dog at my feet gave a savage yelp. It was well he did so, for I saw two forms close by me, both of which seemed to be in the act of pouncing upon me. I have read somewhere of a man who, when facing a great crisis, felt that he lived a lifetime in a few seconds. I realized now that this can be true. Within a few seconds of the time when the dog yelped, the whole panorama of the past twelve months, and all the details of that panorama, flashed before my eyes. It came to me with a vividness which I had never realized before. That I was indeed at the heart of a scheme whereon depended the lives of many people; that these tins of petrol were intended for German submarines; that this little cove had been used as a storehouse for the fuel whereby the Germans had been able to do their fiendish work; that in some way unknown to the authorities, hundreds of cans of this spirit had been stored there from time to time, and then, as they were needed, taken to those deadly monsters which operated beneath the sea; and that I had, partly by chance, partly by reasoning, but more by intuition, got at the heart of it all. I felt, too, that on me depended the failure or success of the German scheme. By some means or other Liddicoat, or one of his minions, had discovered or suspected what I had done. It was one of those moments, so tense, so weighted with vital issues, that the human body and the human mind are made capable of what in ordinary circumstances would be impossible. Without waiting a second, without giving time to think, and yet feeling all the while that I was acting upon reason rather than upon impulse, I leapt upon what seemed to me the form of a man, and was instantly engaged in a deadly struggle. Even now that struggle does not seem to me real. It is like the memory of a dream rather than something which actually took place. But that it did take place I have tremendous proof. I do not remember making any noise of any sort, but I do remember the deathly grip which was laid upon me and the fight which I knew was to the death. I cannot explain why, but life never was so dear to me as at that moment. I felt, too, as though Dr. Rhomboid had been somehow mistaken in his diagnosis; that life was strong in me, but that passion was swallowed up in a greater passion, a nobler passion--it was to render service to my country, to save the lives of my fellow-countrymen. Even while I struggled I saw what the success of my plans meant; what their failure meant. I remember, too, that I wondered why the second person I had seen took no part in the struggle; why, although there were two who prepared to attack me, only one fought me. Yet such was the case; it was man to man. Who the man was I was not sure, although I had a dim consciousness that I was fighting with the man Liddicoat; neither had I any clear conception as to the meaning of that deadly struggle; all the same, I knew that I must struggle till I had mastered him. I did not remember the precautions I had taken or the agencies I had set on foot; everything was swallowed up in the one thought--I must master the man who I was sure meant to kill me. How long the encounter lasted I have not the remotest idea; indeed, as I think of it now, I was robbed of all human personality. I was simply Fate, and as Fate I must accomplish my purpose, heedless of everything. I fancied that I was gaining the upper hand of him; fancied, too, that others were coming upon the scene of action; but of this I was not sure, for a great darkness came upon me suddenly, and I knew nothing more. XXVII VISION And now I have come to that part of my experiences which I find difficult to relate. It is probable that if these lines are read by eyes other than my own, they will be disbelieved, yet I will set them down as I remember them. This is no easy matter, for I feel as though I were recalling the incidents which happened in a far-off dream rather than something which actually took place. And yet not altogether. What I am going to tell is very real to me, even although the reality is utterly different from what I ever experienced before. Even as I remember, I find myself thinking out of ordinary grooves, and my thoughts are of such a nature that I find no language sufficient to express them. I was dead. I knew that my spirit, my essential self, had left my body, and that I was no longer a habitant of the world in which I had lived. My first sensation, for I can find no better word to express my thought, was that of freedom, and with that sense of freedom came a consciousness of utter loneliness. I felt as the Ancient Mariner in Coleridge's immortal poem must have felt: "Alone, alone, all alone, Alone on a wild, wide sea, So lonely it was that God Himself, Scarce seemèd there to be." I felt no pain, no weariness, and I was free; but I was alone. I do not know that I felt fear; no terror possessed me; I did not think of my past life with dread, neither did past scenes haunt me. My thought of the past was rather the thought of emptiness, of purposelessness, of vacancy; it seemed to me as though my life had been a great opportunity of which I had failed to avail myself. I had a feeling, too, that it was very cold. I seemed to be floating in infinite space, through sunless air. Kipling, I remember, in one of the most vivid poems he ever wrote, described a man who, when he died, was carried far away: "Till he heard as the roar of a rain-fed ford, the roar of the Milky Way. Till he heard the roar of the Milky Way die down, and drone and cease.... Then Tomlinson looked up and down, and little gain was there For the naked stars gleamed overhead, and he saw that his soul was bare. But the wind that blows between the worlds had cut him like a knife...." But the poet's imagination never saw in his vision an experience like mine. No winds blew between the worlds; there was no roar as of a rain-fed ford; all was silence. Not the silence of narrow spaces, not even the silence of night, when the ears of listeners are filled with noise made by silence; it was the silence of illimitable spaces, the silence of eternity. I thought my spirit was mounting; at least that was the impression left upon me; I was going upward, not downward. But here words fail me again, because, as it seemed to me, there was no upward and no downward. More than that, there seemed to be a lack of standards whereby one could measure anything. There was no more time, and as a consequence there was no past, no present, no future. Everything, as I thought, was formless, meaningless. I know I have failed to give a true idea of what I saw and felt. As a boy, I was for a short time fascinated by the study of astronomy, and I remember being made afraid by the thought of the distances between the worlds. Now all that was changed; I was floating, it appeared to me, between unnumbered worlds, but in a way they were near to me, so near that I could see what was happening on them. How long I was alone I do not know, for, as I have said, time had no meaning. In a sense I felt as though I wandered through the silences for æons, although scenes flashed before me with the speed of light. My experiences make me think of the words of the old Hebrew poet: "A thousand years in Thy sight are but as yesterday, when it is passed, and as a watch in the night." I have said that the worlds I saw were near me, so near that I could see their inhabitants and watch their movements and activities. But even in this I convey a wrong impression, for while I had this sense of nearness, I had also the consciousness that they were separated by vast distances. It was just as though I had a glimpse of the Universe. There were millions of worlds around me, and all were inhabited; everywhere was life, life that expressed itself in thought and action. On every hand were sentient thinking beings who played their part and did their work in the world from which they drew their life. A sense of unutterable awe possessed me. I was between the worlds. I could watch what was being done on those worlds, and I felt myself to be the merest speck in infinity. As I have stated, the thought which possessed me was that I was utterly alone, and that while I suffered no pain, and while I had a consciousness of freedom which made me exultant, my loneliness was beyond all thought.... I felt a presence; at least that is the only word I can think of to express my thought. I had no consciousness of a person being near me, and yet that Something was all around me, an Intelligence, a Will, a Power. What it was I could not tell, but that Something answered the questions which came to me.... The one predominating thought or consciousness which flooded and overwhelmed everything was the consciousness of God. While I had been in the body, something hid from me the reality of God; now everything was God. I lived in God; everything was submerged in this one great Fact of Facts, and I wondered at my blindness when I was alive. And yet I was overwhelmed by what, for want of a better word, I call the immensity of everything. I remember asking myself how God could care for such a life as mine; how He could take an interest in the myriads of beings who inhabited the worlds; how He, Who controlled planets and suns, could care for the little lives of men. For I seemed so infinitely little; I was but a speck in infinite space, less to the Universe than the tiniest insect which crawled upon the face of the globe on which I had lived. But even as the thought came to me came also the answer: because God was infinite in thought, in love, in power, so His Being enveloped all; that because He governed the infinitely Great, so He cared for the tiniest speck of life He had created.... I saw the world from which I had come; I was able to locate my own country. Europe stretched out before me like a plain, and there I saw the nations at war. At first the war appeared only like the struggle of ants upon their little hills, and it seemed of no more importance as to which army should conquer the other than if they had been so many insects at war. "How little we must be to God!" I thought. "On earth we regarded the European War as something beyond all thought, all comprehension, yet seen from here it is less than a struggle of gnats. What does it matter to God whether England or Germany wins in what we call the Great World Struggle?" But even as the thought flashed through my spirit came the answer that God did care; that because we were the breath of His life we had a destiny to fulfil, a work to do; that the energies of God were on the side of those who sought to express His will. It was all infinitely beyond me; I could not understand, and yet I had the consciousness that God watched the struggle of the creatures He had made, and that He was on the side of those who, perhaps unknown to themselves, were moving towards His own purposes. As I watched, the world seemed to become nearer to me, and such was my power of vision that I was able to visualize all the struggle and all the deadly warfare from Russia to France. I heard the boom of guns, I saw the flash of bayonets, I could plainly see the men in their trenches and could hear them talking with each other. I saw shells flying from the mouths of the guns, I watched their passage through the air. I beheld them as they fell, and I saw the stain on the battle-fields. I realized everything as I had never realized it before. I saw men in their death agony, I heard their groans, their shrieks of pain. I saw thousands of torn, mangled bodies, bodies which a moment before were full of life and vigor. Then, as it seemed to me, I beheld the agony of the world. I saw blighted homes, broken lives, bleeding, broken hearts. "O God!" I cried out, "let me not see! I cannot bear it!" For death was horrible to me, and life a mockery. How could God care when He allowed these young lives, so full of hope and promise, to perish in a moment? Then out of all the mad carnage and above the din and horror of war came a voice that filled my being and rang through the worlds: "Fear not them who can kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul." I saw that the great tragedy of the world was not the tragedy caused by war, but the tragedy of men killing their souls even while their bodies lived; that the death of those on the battle-fields was as nothing compared to the death of those who seemed to live and yet who were dead, because they had sacrificed truth and honor and love, and that death was impossible while honor and truth and love lived. Then I looked again, and behold, the heavens were full of the spirits of those who had offered their all on the altar of duty, and that for them there was no death. I saw that instruments of war had no power to touch the real life of these men; that each had a Divine Spark of life, and that that life was still under the overshadowing wing of the Eternal love.... Ages appeared to pass; how long I knew not, cared not, for time had no meaning. I saw that the Eternal Love and the Eternal Life, which was everywhere, was bringing out of all that at first seemed a meaningless chaos an infinite order; that even the War of the World in which men lost their lives by thousands and hundreds of thousands, in which unholy passions seemed to prevail, and in which Death stalked triumphant: I say I saw evolving out of all this, confused and contradictory as it all appeared, a higher life and a higher thought--a movement towards the Eternal Will and towards the Eternal Purpose which was behind everything. I know I have badly expressed all this, because I find no words wherewith to make clear that which came to me; for in truth thought was lost in consciousness, and language fails to express that consciousness. I only know that I saw order coming out of chaos, light out of darkness, love out of hatred, divinity out of bestiality, life out of death. For life and love were all. I did not see God--that is, I was not able to visualize His Presence. I did not talk with God as a man talketh with his friend, and yet my whole being seemed to be filled with His Light and Love and Peace. I felt that I was breathing God, because God was all; that nothing was outside His Care, that nothing was too small for His Love. I wondered at my doubts and at my absence of faith, for God was everywhere, in everything; in all purposes, plans, desires. I was conscious that He was shaping and directing and controlling all the thoughts of men, and that everything was moving towards His Eternal Purposes. In the light of what I saw, pain and wrong and misery were being overruled by the Eternal Love, so that even they were speeding men towards the greater, fuller life, and that in the march of untold ages Life and Love were everything. A sense of triumph, of exultation filled me, bore me up as if on the wings of eagles. I saw everything from a new perspective. I realized as I never realized before the meaning of the words of the Apostle: "Our light affliction, which is but for a _moment_, worketh for us a far more exceeding and Eternal weight of glory." I saw that all things--all wrong, all pain, all darkness, everything which made life dark and terrible--were only for a _moment_, and that they were overruled by the Eternal God, so that those who suffered them merged through the ages into Eternal Love and Eternal Light. How long I was in this state I do not know, for, as I have said, time had no meaning to me. All life's standards seemed to melt away. I only knew that I was, that I felt, that I was filled with an overwhelming joy, because I knew that darkness would end in Eternal Light, that pain would end in Infinite Peace. Then slowly everything began to fade away; the worlds by which I was surrounded ceased to be. I lost the power, of visualizing; my thoughts became dim and indistinct. Presently all became darkness save for one speck of light. Sometimes that speck of light became very small; sometimes it grew larger, but it was always there, and I was conscious of an unspeakable peace. XXVIII THE NEW LIFE The first thing I can remember after coming to consciousness was the feeling that strangers were around me. I could not see them, but I knew they were there. I remember trying to open my eyes, but I could see nothing; I heard whispered voices, however. "Is he dead?" "I am not quite sure. No, he's not dead, his pulse still beats!" "Will he live, do you think?" "Difficult to say. He came out of it all right, but his vitality is very low." "Was the operation severe?" "Yes, very severe; it is a miracle that he has lived as long as he has. I must go by the Riviera express to-morrow morning, but I will call about eight o'clock." "Have you any further orders to give?" "No, you can only do what I have told you. His life hangs on a thread; he may live, but I doubt it." I listened in a detached kind of way, scarcely realizing what I heard; I was perfectly indifferent, too. It had nothing to do with me, and even if it had, I did not care. Then darkness came upon me again and I no longer saw the bright speck shining. After that I had quickly fleeting moments of consciousness; things around me became real for a moment and then passed away. Doubtless I was in a semi-comatose condition; sometimes I imagined I heard fragments of conversation, but I can remember nothing definite. After that followed a time of intense weariness. I felt as though I were too weak even to lie down; I could not move my limbs, and the weight of my own body on the bed seemed to weary me, but I was not sufficiently conscious to realize the full extent of my weariness. I have a vague remembrance of being fed; I call to mind a woman standing by my bedside holding something to my mouth; but as I reflect now these things seem only phantoms of the mind. After a time I became conscious of intense pain, and I have a recollection of being able to move my limbs, and I remember hearing a voice saying: "He is stronger anyhow, but I never saw a man so utterly exhausted." A long space of time, how long I do not know, but it seemed to me interminable. Day appeared to follow day and week to follow week, and yet I have no distinct remembrance. In recalling it all, I am like a man trying to remember a far-off dream. Suddenly I became awake. I was fully conscious that I was living; I could outline the room in which I lay, I could see the sunlight streaming in at the window, I could hear the birds singing. I was very weak, but I was alive; I was able to think, too, able to connect thought with thought, although my memory was dim. Incidents of my life passed before me like shadows; I saw them only in part, but I did see them. The room was strange to me. This was not my little bedroom by the sea; the apartment was bigger than the whole of my cottage. The ceiling was high, and the window through which the sun shone was large. I did not care so much where I was; all the same, I was curious. "What has happened to me, I wonder?" I asked myself, "and why am I here?" I could see no one in the room, and all was silent save for the singing of the birds and the humming of the insects. I had a vague consciousness that the feeling of summer was in the air, and a delicious kind of restfulness possessed me. I was no longer too tired to lie down, rather I felt the luxury of being in bed. I suffered no pain either, although at my side, where I remembered suffering exquisite agony, was a kind of tingling sensation which I associated with a wound in the act of healing. I saw a woman come to the head of my bed; she wore a nurse's uniform, and had a placid, kindly face. "Who are you, and where am I?" I know I spoke the words, but I did not recognize my voice at all; it seemed far away, like a whispering among breezes. The woman said something, I know, but what, I could not tell. I imagine the effect was soothing, for immediately afterwards I found myself going to sleep. Again I was conscious, more vividly conscious than before. The outlines of the room were the same, and I was able to recognize some of the furniture which I had previously seen. I remembered, too, lifting my hand from the counterpane and noting how thin and white it was. The door of the room opened and a man entered. I saw at a glance that it was Simpson, and I looked at him through my half-closed eyes. He came to my bedside and looked steadily at me, then he placed his hand gently on my forehead; his touch was as soft as that of a woman. "Simpson," I said, and this time I was able to recognize my voice. "Is that you, Simpson?" "Yes, sir; thank you, sir." His old-time formula acted on me like a tonic; it made me want to laugh. Yes, I really was alive then, and Simpson was with me; but what was the meaning of this strange room? "Simpson," I said, "am I really alive?" "Yes, sir; thank God, sir." I thought I saw the tears gather in his eyes, and I am sure I saw his lips tremble. "Have I been ill, Simpson?" "Yes, sir, very ill, but I believe we have beaten them, sir." "Beaten who?" I asked. But this time he did not answer. The woman came in again bearing something in her hand. There was a whispered consultation between them, and then I remember drinking something, after which I went to sleep again. When I again awoke I felt sure it was morning. I had no reason for believing this, but I had no doubt about it; the air was morning air, the sounds were morning sounds. The birds were chirping in the trees, the cattle were lowing in the meadows, the poultry were cackling in a yard near by, a thousand whispering voices everywhere told me that I had awakened to the dawn of a new day. I moved in my bed; yes, I had strength enough for that, and the movement caused me no pain. In an instant I heard footsteps, and Simpson again came to my side. "Can I do anything for you, sir? How are you to-day?" "I feel like a man reborn, Simpson," I said. And it was true. A life was surging in my veins which I never remembered before; I felt as though my whole being had been made clean and all my powers renewed. I was unutterably weak, but I felt all a child's health and joy. "Tell me what this means, Simpson," I said; "this is not my room, not my bed." "No, sir, but I am your man, sir," and his voice was husky. "Yes, I am glad you are with me, Simpson. It is good to wake up and find you here." "I hope I shall never have to leave you, sir," and I saw him wipe away his tears. "Tell me about it, Simpson--tell me where I am and what has happened to me." "I am forbidden to talk, sir; the doctor won't allow me. You see----" "What doctor?" I interrupted. "Dr. Rhomboid, sir." "Dr. Rhomboid? Dr. Rhomboid?" The name was familiar to me. "Where am I, Simpson?" "You are at Trecarrel, sir; Miss Lethbridge insisted on----" "Miss Lethbridge! Miss Lethbridge!" Then like a flash the veil dropped from my memory. I called to mind the struggle on the beach, the hand-to-hand fight, the plot which I had determined to expose. "Miss Lethbridge insisted on my being brought here, did she, Simpson?" "Yes, sir; you see, sir, that man Liddicoat struck you with something heavy. I--I--but there, I mustn't tell you." "Yes, you must, Simpson; I insist upon knowing everything. I remember all that happened now: I was leaning against the rock waiting, when the dog barked, and the man Liddicoat sprang upon me. I struggled with him for a long time, and then suddenly everything became dark." "Yes, sir, after they had finished----" "Finished what?" I asked. "I can't tell you now, sir; but Miss Lethbridge insisted on your being brought here. And really, sir, the road is easier here than it is to our house, and I gave in." "But how did Miss Lethbridge get there?" "I don't know, sir. I expect she will be telling you herself as soon as you are strong enough. Then I insisted upon sending for Dr. Rhomboid, and, sir, as Providence would have it, he was staying at the Tolgarrick Manor Hotel. The Squire had heard of it, sir; that was why, as soon as you were brought here...." I felt that my mind was weakening, and that I had no longer any strength to grasp the things which Simpson was saying. I lost interest in them, too, and I remember falling asleep with the thought in my mind that I was in the house where Isabella Lethbridge had insisted upon bringing me. I awoke again, and I knew that I was stronger; everything was outlined more clearly to me. Not only the objects by which I was surrounded, but my thoughts seemed more definite. It was now night; the room in which I lay was only illumined by a candle, but I saw everything plainly. Sitting by my side was the nurse whom I remembered previously; she started up on hearing me move and looked at me anxiously. "You need not fear, nurse," I said. "I am better; the cobwebs have gone." The nurse smiled, then she placed her hand upon my wrist. "Yes," she said, "you are better, stronger. Can you bear to have this in your mouth a minute?" "I can bear anything, nurse." Evidently she was pleased with me, for a minute later she smiled confidently. "Your pulse is normal and you have no fever," she said. "Why am I here, nurse? What has happened to me? Tell me everything." "No, no; go to sleep now, and in the morning you may be strong enough to bear it." "I should sleep far better if I knew everything," I replied; "don't be foolish, nurse." "What do you want to know?" "Dr. Rhomboid has been here, I am told," I said. "What did he say about me? When I saw him in London he wrote my death-warrant." "Now he has given you a reprieve," was her reply, "and more than a reprieve. In fact, he said that if you got through the operation you would live!" I was not surprised; I felt that life, and not death, was surging within me. "Don't try to keep things back from me, nurse," I said. "I remember everything that took place. I remember the struggle on the beach and the darkness which followed. Simpson tells me that I have been brought to Mr. Lethbridge's house, and that, as if by special Providence, Dr. Rhomboid was staying at the Tolgarrick Hotel. What was his verdict?" "He sent for a London surgeon," said the nurse, "and he told us that if you recovered from the operation you would live. You have recovered." "Then he made a wrong diagnosis in London. That means I had something growing in me, and now it's cut out I shall live?" The nurse nodded and smiled. "That's all I must tell you now," she said; "take this and go to sleep." I obeyed her like a child; a feeling of utter contentment possessed me, and I felt myself dropping into a deep, untroubled sleep. When I awoke again I had a feeling that it was morning. I knew that the dewdrops were shining on the grass, that the day was new-born; I knew, too, that the sun was rising in a cloudless sky, that the time was summer. I was in the same room, but somehow it was different. A new atmosphere pervaded it; I saw vases of flowers, flowers that were wet with the morning dew, flowers that had been gathered that morning. Their perfume was as sweet as the spices of Araby. A feeling of delicious restfulness possessed me; I was as weak as a child; but there was new life in my being, a life that would overcome everything. I closed my eyes with the consciousness that all was well; nothing troubled me, no thought of care weighed upon my brain or heart. I caught myself remembering those lines of Browning: "The lark's on the wing, The morning's at seven, The hillside's dew-pearled, The snail's on the thorn; God's in His heaven, All's right with the world!" I heard a sob close by my side. I did not know how it was, but the sob seemed to be in accord with my thoughts, for it contained no sorrow. I opened my eyes and saw Isabella Lethbridge leaning over my bed. I didn't speak, I couldn't; my life was filled with wonder, a wonder which I cannot put into words. She was dressed, I remember, all in white; this I thought strange, because I imagined she would show some kind of mourning for her dead brother; but I gave it only a passing thought, for it was of no importance; the thing that impressed me was the new light in her eyes, the new joy in her face. The barrier which had always stood between us had melted away; she was transformed, glorified. There was no need to tell me that a wondrous change had come over her; that some joy to which she had hitherto been blind possessed her; that a new power was pulsating in her life: Isabella Lethbridge was transformed, beautified beyond all thought. We looked at each other without speaking a word; there was no need for words; words at that moment would have seemed like sacrilege. A thousand questions flashed through my mind, but I did not ask them; there was only one question which I longed to ask, a question which embraced everything. Still we did not speak; we remained looking in each other's eyes, as if each were trying to find what we looked for. Then I saw the tears well up, saw them trickle down her cheeks, saw her lips quiver, and then she could no longer hold back her words. "Don't you know, don't you know?" she sobbed. I held out my arms, and a second later our lips met, and we were uttering incoherent words which none but those who know the language of the heart can interpret. "You know now, don't you?" she said at length. "Yes, I know," I said. And yet it was all a wonder to me. When last I had spoken to her an invisible barrier stood between us. I had admired her beauty, her keen intelligence; I thought, too, that I saw wondrous possibilities in her nature; but I did not love her. Something, I knew not what, forbade that love. I had told her so, told her that I did not love her, that I only loved the woman she ought to be. Now it seemed as though a magician's hand had swept away the barrier; that some divine power had illumined her life and filled it with a new and divine element. I saw her ennobled, glorified; the old repellent look had gone; those eyes which had flashed with scorn were now filled with infinite tenderness. Why was it? And what had wrought the change? Presently she lifted her head, and I saw a look of fear come into her eyes. "You said you didn't love me; is that true?" "You know," I replied. "But tell me, tell me!" "I can't," I replied; "words only mock me; they would only suggest the faintest shadow of what fills my life. The barriers are gone! What has wrought the change?" "Are you sure you are strong enough to hear? Oh, it is wrong of me to speak to you like this, and you so weak!" "Your every word is giving me new life," was my reply; "tell me everything." "And you are sure, sure--that--that----" "That I see in you the woman God meant you to be," was my reply. "But what has wrought the change?" "I can hardly find words to tell you, it seems so unreal, so--so beyond the power of words to express. But--but years ago I could not love; I longed to love and could not; something held me back, what, I didn't know. I tried to break down that something. I--I was called a flirt, you know," and she laughed nervously. "Yes, yes, I remember," I said. "I did it as an experiment. I fancied that somehow if I won the love of some one, the casement around my heart would break, would melt away; but it was no use. And all the time I knew that I was missing the joy of life. Then you came. Yes, you were right; I thought I saw in you one who might break the hard crust around my heart, and I tried to fascinate you, tried to--to--do what you said. You remember?" "Yes, I remember." "But you were right. If you had loved me then, I had nothing to give you. At the centre of my heart there was a burning fire; but that fire was confined; I didn't love you; I wanted to, longed to, but I could not. And yet all the time I knew that if ever love came to me it would be for you, only you." She ceased speaking for a few seconds, and I heard her tremulous breathing. "Do you understand? Do you forgive me?" she asked. "Yes, I understand; go on, tell me." "Then came that day, before--before--the awful night. You know when you told me that you believed you were going to die, and you hinted that that very night you were going on an enterprise which meant danger, possibly death, I think I went mad; I have no remembrance of anything except the feeling that I must watch you, save you! So all that evening I waited around your hut unseen. I saw you at your little wireless station; I saw you send Simpson away; I saw you go down through the copse towards the beach. I followed you, watching all the time. Even then I didn't know my secret; I acted as though I had no will of my own, as though I were driven by some power I could not understand. I didn't know your plans, but I felt that I must be silent and watch. Then when that man leapt on you something seemed to break within me, something was liberated, I didn't know what; but I knew that I loved you, I knew that the power of love had come to me, and that I was ready to die to save you. Without thought or comprehension of what I was doing, I flung myself upon the woman, and--and...." "Oh, my love, my love!" I murmured. "Thank God for all His goodness!" For some time we were silent. "Tell me all the rest," I said presently. "That's all, isn't it?" There was a great deal more, but I cared nothing about it. At that moment it seemed to me that all I had tried to do and hoped to do for my country was swallowed up in the one great possession, the one great fact which overwhelmed everything. "Am I doing wrong in telling you this?" she asked. "It seems as though there is nothing else in life now but that, because it has meant everything else--faith, religion, God. It has made the world new, it has broken down all barriers and glorified all life. Oh, my love, my love, do you understand?" "I understand," I replied, "I understand." And then the truth which had contained everything, the truth which was the centre and circumference of all that came to me during the time I thought I was dead, flooded my heart and brain. "Life and love are everything, for these mean God." I did not ask her the result of my struggle with Liddicoat, or the outcome of the plans I had made. I wanted to ask her, and yet I did not; somehow that did not seem to matter. I heard the birds singing in the trees around the house; heard the lowing of the cattle in the meadows; saw the sunlight streaming through the window; breathed the sweetness of the morning air. I had indeed entered the light and life of a new day; the world was flooded with a glory that was infinite; barriers were broken down because I had learnt the secret of life! For some time we were silent; again there seemed nothing to say, because everything was too wonderful for words. "During the time your life hung on a thread, and when the doctors doubted whether you could live, even then I had no fear," she went on presently. "That which had come to me was so wonderful that it seemed to make everything possible, and--I cannot put it into words--but while I was almost mad with anxiety, in spite of a kind of certainty which possessed me, I knew that all was well, I knew that somehow--somehow we should be brought together and that life's secret would be ours." A knock came to the door and the nurse entered. "How is the patient, Miss Lethbridge?" she asked. "I feel wonderful," I replied; "far stronger than I was when you were here last, nurse." "Yes, you are all right," said the nurse smilingly. "Miss Lethbridge came directly you fell asleep, and insisted on my going to bed. I am sure it was awfully good of her to relieve me." "She has proved a good substitute, nurse," I replied; "but you must insist upon her going to bed now if she has been watching all the night." "Yes, and you look as though you need washing and your hair brushed," laughed the nurse. "You must not get on too fast, you know." "I shall be quite well enough to receive visitors soon," was my reply. "Visitors!" laughed the nurse; "you will be inundated with them as soon as you are strong enough. A man has come all the way from London to see you; he wants to interview you for one of the London newspapers. You see, having succeeded in exposing that German plot, and causing the arrest of a lot of dangerous people, you have been the talk of the country." "I was successful, then?" I said. "Successful! Oh, of course you don't know; but you will hear all about it later, as soon as you are stronger." "How long is it since it happened?" I asked curiously. "I have been here just five weeks," replied the nurse. XXIX CHRISTMAS 1915 Of course the facts are old now, and I need not detail them here. All the world knows that Colonel Laycock's soldiers came up in time to get hold of, not only Liddicoat and his accomplice, who proved to be dangerous German spies, but several others who had been in the enemy's service for the purpose of conveying petrol to the submarines. The little bay in which I had lived was of great importance to them, and the cave I had discovered was their principal storehouse for petrol. Indeed, since their plot was exposed and our Government officials got hold of the facts, submarines have done their work under increasing difficulty. Of Father Abraham I heard but little. This, however, is the news which came to me: Years before, he had been sent from Germany to act as one of their agents, but later on, when he discovered what would be expected of him, he left the neighborhood; but before doing so he did his best to create the idea that he had been murdered, and that his body had been disposed of. It seems that he stood in deadly fear of the Germans, and believed that he was constantly watched. He was afraid to confess that he had been acting as a German agent, and that was why he didn't tell the English authorities what he knew. Why he was so anxious to save me from danger I cannot fully comprehend; all I know about him I have set down in this narrative, and those who read this must draw their own conclusions. Certain it is that he was never seen in the neighborhood of St. Issey again. My own recovery was longer than I had hoped for. I grew gradually stronger, but the operation which I had undergone was more serious than I had imagined, and it was several weeks after I awoke to consciousness before I was allowed to leave my room. Dr. Rhomboid, who came twice from London to see me, was very insistent on my taking no risks, and also kept the many visitors who desired to see me from entering the room. Thus for some time after the incidents I have recorded, with the exception of the doctor, who, by the way, was not Dr. Wise, the only persons I saw were the nurse, Simpson, and Isabella. As may be imagined, however, I was well looked after, and was not at all sorry at being deprived of the companionship of my neighbors. Perhaps, however, I have said too much. I did want to see Squire Treherne, and I should have been glad of a visit from the Vicar; and bearing in mind what Squire Treherne had said, I wanted to have a chat with Josiah Lethbridge. At the end of three weeks I was pronounced sufficiently strong to receive visitors, and the first who came was Josiah Lethbridge. I had expected to see a change in him, but not so great as had actually taken place. He knew nothing of what had passed between Isabella and myself, because we had arranged to keep everything a secret; but he could not have treated me more kindly had I been his own child. When I uttered my apologies for the trouble which I had given the family, his lips quivered and he seemed on the point of breaking down. "Please don't mention that," he said. "If you only knew the joy it gives me to know that you are in the house, and that I am in the slightest degree able to be of service to you, you would not talk in that way. But I must not try to explain now; the doctor has only given me three minutes to be with you, so I will only say that I am glad you are here, and that I am eagerly looking forward to the time when we shall see more of each other and know each other better. I have a great deal to tell you, my lad. God only knows how much." Of the visits of Squire Treherne and Mr. Trelaske I will not speak, save to say that I well-nigh broke down at the old Squire's behavior. "God bless my soul!" ejaculated the old man; "we will give you a time when you get well! No, no, not a word from you; you must not talk; but we _will_ give you a time! We will have the whole countryside _en fête_! It is not only the German plot you have exposed, it is other things, my boy! God bless you!" It was not until the beginning of August that I was allowed to leave my bedroom and find my way down-stairs. The nurse and Isabella walked each side of me, supporting me at each step I took, and when I reached the living-room I found Mr. and Mrs. Lethbridge awaiting me. I had barely spoken to Mrs. Lethbridge when I heard a child's cry in the room, and, looking, I saw Mary, Hugh's wife, holding a baby in her arms. "Yes," said Josiah Lethbridge with a laugh, "this is a secret that we have kept in store for you. This is Hugh's child!" "Then--then...." I stammered. "As soon as my son's wife was well enough I insisted upon her being brought to her true home. Mary, my love, bring your baby here where Mr. Erskine can see him. Isn't he a beautiful boy? He was christened a month ago." "And what is he called?" I asked. "There was only one name to give him," replied Josiah Lethbridge proudly--"Hugh." As I looked into Mary's eyes a sob rose in my throat. I saw the joy of motherhood there, I saw infinite tenderness, and more than tenderness. It was a joy chastened by sorrow, by loss unspeakable, by hope eternal. "I am so glad, Mary," I said, "so glad. It is as it ought to be, isn't it?" "Isn't he just like his father?" said the young mother proudly. "See his eyes, his chin--why, he's Hugh all over again!" Then her lips became tremulous, and tears welled up into her eyes. "He is a beautiful boy," I said, "and--and...." "He's made the house a new place," cried Josiah Lethbridge. "I have made Mary sleep in the next room to mine so that I can hear him when he cries in the night. It does me good to hear a baby cry. Oh, my boy, my boy!" and his voice trembled as he spoke. I knew what he was thinking about--knew that he remembered, with a great sadness in his heart, that he had driven his only son from home; knew that he suffered unspeakable sorrow; and I could see that he was a different man. "Isn't God good to us?" he said huskily; "and--and--Mary's forgiven me too, haven't you, my love?" He put his arm around the young widow's waist as he spoke and kissed her. "It's the baby who has done everything," said Mrs. Lethbridge. "The news that he was born came in the middle of the night, and when Josiah heard that both mother and child were well, he could not stay in bed; he got up and tramped around the room like a man beside himself. 'She must come home,' he said, 'home, and bring her baby with her.' Oh, it's wonderful, wonderful!" "And you, Mary," said I, "are you well again?" The simple-hearted girl turned to me with a wan smile. "When the news came to me first about Hugh," she said, "I thought I should have died; I wanted to die; life seemed hateful to me; then--then--when my boy was born, oh, he made all the difference! I know Hugh is not dead, he lives in heaven, and he is watching over us. You believe that too, don't you, Mr. Erskine?" "I don't believe in death," I replied; "there is no death, only seeming death." "Do you remember what I said to you, Erskine, when I saw you months ago in your little hut?" said Josiah Lethbridge. "I said that God Almighty must be laughing at us. Now I know I was wrong." "Yes?" I said questioningly. "God Almighty never laughs at us," said Josiah Lethbridge. "He is revealed to us by His Son, and Jesus wept at the graveside of Lazarus. He weeps at all the sorrow and pain of the world. Jesus wept even although He knew He would raise Lazarus from the dead, and God weeps at our follies and our madness even although He, in His Eternal Love, is working out for us all a greater salvation. Oh, we are fools, my lad! We measure His purposes by our little foot-rule; we explain His Will according to the standard of our puny minds; we measure events by days and years; but God lives, and works His own Sovereign Will. It has all come to me lately. I have gone through deep waters, my lad; the waves and the billows have well-nigh overwhelmed me; but that little baby has made all the difference; my boy lives again in him." I was silent, I remember; there seemed nothing to say. What were words at such a time as that? Deep had called unto deep, and the Voice of God had been heard in the mysterious happenings of life. I found my way to a chair close by a window, through which I looked out on the lawn, and at the flowers which surrounded it. It was about three o'clock in the afternoon, and the sun had begun to sink, although the day was yet glorious. Beyond the trees of the park I could see the wild moorland, and between two rugged tors I caught the shimmer of the sea. The nurse had left the room by this time, and none but the members of the family except myself remained. I could not help realizing the change that had taken place. When I had first entered the house the atmosphere was cold, hard, unpleasant. Josiah Lethbridge was in the height of his prosperity, and he had his wife and children around him; his life did not seem to be touched with care or sorrow; no clouds seemed to hang in his sky. Now the death-reaper had come and had taken his only son; yet it was a far happier home than then. Josiah Lethbridge had been embittered towards his son, because the latter loved a simple-minded farmer's daughter; he had even driven his son from home, because the lad would be true to his heart and marry the girl he loved. Now he had taken this girl to his arms; he had brought her and her baby to his home. There was sorrow in the house, but it was a chastened sorrow, a sorrow illumined by faith and love. "Oh, if my boy had only lived!" said Josiah Lethbridge; "if he had only been spared to see this day, I think my cup of happiness would be full; but God Almighty never makes a mistake." "No," I said, "He never makes a mistake." "Do you say that, Erskine?" "Yes, I say it," I replied, thinking of my own experiences and remembering the life that had come to me. "Yes, I say it." "It is a ghastly thing, is this war," he went on. "I become bewildered, maddened, when I think about it. I can't explain it, I can't even see a far-off glimpse of explanation, when I think of this life only. When I think of the suffering, of the waste of life, the sorrow, the unutterable sorrow of tens of thousands of homes;--it's all so foolish, so--so--mad. But that is not God's doing, my boy; besides, even in it all, through it all, He's working His Will. Life is being purified; men are learning their lessons. I know it, Great God, I know it! The nations of Europe were in danger of forgetting God, and now are realizing their foolishness. But oh, if my Hugh had lived! If I could see him coming across the lawn as I used to see him, if I could hear him laugh in his old boyish way! But he is dead." "No, Mr. Lethbridge," I said, "he is not dead; there is no death, of that I am certain; there is no death. God lives, and because He lives His children live always. I agree with you about the ghastliness, the sinfulness, the madness of war; but this war has told me that the eternal life in man laughs at death. What we call death is not an end of life, it is only a beginning. This life is only a fragment of life; that at all events I have learnt." I looked around the room and found that we were alone. Mary had taken away her baby, while Mrs. Lethbridge and Isabella had, for some reason, left the room. "You speak like one who knows," said Josiah Lethbridge; "you talk like a man who has seen things." "Yes," I said, "I have seen things." "And you have rendered great service to your country too. Have you read what the papers have said about you?" "No," I replied, "I don't know that I have troubled about them. After all, those were only incidents; there are more important things than those." He looked at me curiously. "I know what you have experienced and suffered," I said, "and I know what your suffering has done for you; but you know little of my story; I want to tell you more about it." "Yes, yes, tell me!" he said eagerly. And I told him--told him of the doctor's verdict; told him of my longing for life; told him much that I have set down in these pages. "I can't explain it," I said, when I came to describe the experiences through which I had passed after the great darkness fell upon me, "but I KNOW, I SAW." "You felt that, saw that?" "God and immortality are not matters of faith to me now, Mr. Lethbridge; they are matters of consciousness; that is why I am so certain about Hugh. He is not dead. A lad who could do what he did had Eternal Life in him. God is here all the while; it is only our blindness that keeps us from seeing Him. Hugh is still your son. There are only two eternal things, Mr. Lethbridge." "Two eternal things," he repeated, "only two?" "Life, love. That leads me to what I want to say to you now." He looked at me with keen interest. "I love Isabella," I said simply. "Haven't you guessed it?" "What! Do you mean----?" "I do," I said. "Will you give her to me?" "I--I have seen a change in her lately, and--and----But, my dear boy----" "I am afraid I am what you will call a poor match," I went on. "The doctor says it will be months before I shall be fully strong again, although he promises me that I shall be able to resume my old profession in a couple of months from now. Perhaps my clients will have forgotten me; still, I think I can get some new ones; my reputation seems to be better than I thought it was. Besides, if I become fully strong again, I shall feel it my duty to offer my services to the country; so I shall be a poor match, I am afraid, but I love her." "And she?" he asked. "She knows all I have told you," I replied. "And--and--that has made all the change in her then. Why--why----" "Will you give her to me, Mr. Lethbridge?" I repeated. "Will you let me take Hugh's place as far as I can? I will give my life to make her happy." His astonishment seemed too great for words; several times he attempted to speak, but broke down each time. "But, Erskine, my lad," he said at length, "Erskine----" "You will, won't you, dad? If you don't, I shall run away with Frank!" I had no knowledge that Isabella had been there, but, turning, I saw her standing behind me with love-lit eyes. "Oh, dad, you won't refuse, will you?" "Refuse?" he cried. "God bless my soul!--but--but--it's the very thing I would have chosen!" and then this stern, strong man sobbed like a child. "We are having tea on the lawn," said Mrs. Lethbridge, entering the room at that moment. "Why, what's the meaning of this?" When she knew what had taken place, she threw her arms around my neck, and kissed me. "I have seen it for months," she declared presently. "Oh, yes, you needn't laugh at me; I saw--trust a mother's eyes." That was the happiest evening I had ever known. I will not try to describe it, words seem so poor, so utterly insufficient. We were like those who had come safe into harbor after a voyage across a gray, trackless, stormy sea. We shuddered at the thought of the voyage; but we were glad we had undergone the suffering. "I never knew dad so happy in my life," said Isabella to me as she bade me good-night. "Do you know, that in spite of everything I was afraid that he might--he might refuse? Oh, my love, my love, if Hugh had only lived to see us all!" "He does see us," I ventured. "Yes, but if he could be here amongst us, if he could see how father treats Mary, how he loves the baby, how happy mother is, and how--I--I----Oh, how I hate bidding you good-night, but we shall meet again in the morning." "Yes, we shall meet in the morning," I said, with a glad heart. * * * * * I thought my story had come to an end here, that I had no more to relate, but an event has just happened which I must set down, or this narrative will be incomplete. I had returned to London and taken up my life where I had dropped it. I was still comparatively weak, but strong enough to do the work which fell to me. As the weeks passed by, clients came to me as of old, and I found myself having to refuse briefs. I was glad of this, because I wanted to show Josiah Lethbridge, when I went to Cornwall for Christmas, that I was not helpless, and that I was able to provide a home for his child. I found, too, although the doctors refused me when I offered myself for the Army, that my strength was daily increasing. Indeed, so far had I recovered myself that near the end of the term I was able to carry through a difficult case, and in spite of being opposed by a barrister of national reputation, I was able to win it. I had hoped to go to Cornwall at the beginning of the Christmas vacation, but I found that my success had led to so much work that it was not until Christmas Eve that I was able to get away. "Simpson," I said on the Thursday night, "I want you to get my bag in readiness in time for me to catch the Riviera express to-morrow morning. You know what things I shall want, Simpson; I shall be away about a fortnight, I hope." "Yes, sir." But Simpson didn't leave me as usual. "What is the matter, Simpson? Is there anything you wish to say?" "Well, sir, as you are going to Cornwall, I thought--that is--you see, there might not be room at Mr. Lethbridge's house for me; but the little hut on the cliff is still empty, and I could sleep there." "You want to go, do you, Simpson?" "Well, sir----" "All right," I laughed, "you be ready to come with me." Whereupon he hurried away with a glad look in his eyes. Isabella met me at the station on Christmas Eve. It was about five o'clock when the train drew up, and when I stepped on the platform she sobbed like one overcome. "What is the matter?" I asked. "I--I was afraid you would not come--afraid lest something should happen." "Why, what should happen?" "I don't know, only--even now it seems too good to be true. But there, you have come. Let me look at you again and make sure." "Have you any visitors?" I asked presently. "No; dad would not have any, but he's inviting Mr. Treleaven and his wife over to dinner to-morrow. You see, he's so anxious to make Mary happy. Do you know, Frank," and she laughed joyfully, "he seems to think of himself as your guardian. He has asked me twenty times to-day what time you are coming, and whether I have had any telegrams from you, and hosts of other things. I have been waiting at the station for an hour. He ordered Jenkins to bring around the car an hour too soon. He has read all about that trial a dozen times, and he is--he is proud of you, Frank!" Oh, it was good to be in Cornwall again, good to breathe the pure air, and to smell the salt of the sea. As the motor dashed through St. Issey I thought of the time I had first seen it, and remembered the weight that had rested upon my heart. "I have spent all the morning helping to decorate the Chapel," said Isabella, looking towards that structure as we passed it. "We are going to have a special service there to-morrow. Oh, it is good to have you, Frank." A few minutes later we drew up to the entrance of Trecarrel, where both Mr. and Mrs. Lethbridge stood waiting to greet me, while behind them was Mary, holding her baby in her arms. "Is he not a beauty, Frank?" she said, holding him up to me. "He is beginning to know such a lot of things too. He knows grandad, granny, and Isabella; you should see him laugh when they come into the room!" "Now, Frank, warm yourself before you go up to dress," cried Josiah Lethbridge. "Mother, is the fire in Frank's room all right? He will be cold and tired, you know." "Nonsense, Josiah; the fire has been burning there for hours." "Well, I ordered it to be laid this morning," said the old man, "and when I went into the room at twelve o'clock the servants had not done it. Ah, but you are welcome, my boy; we will have a grand Christmas," and then he sighed. I knew what he was thinking about, but I was so happy that I had almost forgotten Hugh when I entered the drawing-room and found Isabella awaiting me. "I have got this new frock especially for you, Your Lordship. How do you like it?" she said, and my heart leapt as I saw the light in her eyes. "If you had a decent figure it would look very well," I said, with a laugh; "but you know, even dressmakers can't ..." After this I had to show contrition for my rudeness. "You should have seen the hampers that dad has sent to the trenches," she said presently. "All the men in Hugh's company have been remembered. Oh, Frank, there is such a difference in dad; he is not the same man he used to be. He is great friends now with the Vicar, and with Squire Treherne, and all of them." Precisely at seven o'clock we found our way into the dining-room. The apartment was resplendent with Christmas decorations; everywhere the feeling of Christmas abounded. There were only five of us to sit down to dinner--Mr. and Mrs. Lethbridge, Mary, Isabella, and myself--but six chairs were placed. The empty chair was at the end of the table opposite Mr. Lethbridge, and everything had been arranged as though the chair was expected to be occupied. All of us noted it, although no one spoke aloud concerning it. "Dad ordered it," said Isabella to me; "he would have it so." We took our places at the dinner-table, and then Josiah Lethbridge said: "We will sing the old Grace, children." "We thank Thee, Lord, for this our food, But more because of Jesu's love. Let manna to our souls be given, The bread of life sent...." But we never finished the last line; we heard a quick step in the hall outside, a bustling noise, then the dining-room door opened, and Hugh Lethbridge, pale and wan, but still tall and erect, clad in an officer's uniform, came into the room! For a moment he seemed to be dazzled by the light, and walked with uncertain footsteps, while we stood silent with amazement. Then he caught the look on his wife's face. "It's Hugh!" she gasped. Hugh rushed towards her, and a second later they were locked in each other's arms. "My wife! My Mary!" he cried. I will not try to describe what followed, nor attempt to tell how the mother fell upon her boy's neck with fond words of endearment; how Josiah Lethbridge put his hand upon his boy's head, felt his shoulders and his arms, and patted him with infinite tenderness as though he wanted to assure himself that it was really he and not his spirit; how Isabella kissed him again and again, with all sorts of endearing terms; and how Hugh and I shook hands at least twenty times. "And it is not vacant after all," said Josiah Lethbridge, as he saw his son sitting in the chair which had been placed opposite him. "Oh, thank God! Thank God!" Of course Hugh had a long story to tell. It seems that in the excitement of battle, after the German officer had shot him, he was left for dead, and then, before the stretcher-bearers came to him, he had crawled away, and it was believed that he had been buried with the others who were killed that night. Hugh's description was extremely hazy, because he himself scarcely knew what happened to him. When he awoke to consciousness he found himself in a French peasant's hut within the German lines, and here he was kept and nursed by the owners. It seemed a miracle that he should have escaped, but these peasants, seeing that he was English and hating the Germans, kept their secret well. Month after month he lay ill, and even when at length he was well enough to get up, his memory had gone, and he could tell nothing about himself nor what he wanted to do. By and by, however, when his faculties were restored to him, he realized the difficulties of his situation, and for a long time he schemed and planned how to get through the German lines and find his way back to his friends. I will not trouble the reader with a recital of all he went through; suffice it to say that he at length succeeded, and was received by his old comrades as a man risen from the dead. As may be imagined, no sooner did he get among the English than all his difficulties vanished. A new uniform and money were given to him, with a lengthy leave of absence. He was careful, too, to impress upon his superior officers that he didn't want any news concerning his safety to arrive in England before he himself got there. He wanted to give his people a surprise, he said. This being easily arranged, Hugh returned to England, and arrived in Cornwall on Christmas Eve. He decided first of all to go straight to John Treleaven's farm, where he hoped to find his wife, but learning that she had gone to Trecarrel, he with a great wonder in his heart had hurried to his old home. The lights of Trecarrel never went out that night. It was Josiah Lethbridge's will that they should not. Besides, we all had so much to say. Hugh would have the baby brought into the room, and Josiah Lethbridge insisted that Mary's father and mother should be fetched immediately. And then Hugh had to tell his story at least six times over, and we all wondered and exclaimed at each recital. The wonder of that night will never leave me. I had thought that I could never be so happy again as on the evening when Josiah Lethbridge told me he would give Isabella to me for my wife. But that Christmas Eve when Hugh came and the Christmas morning which followed were more wonderful still. Never shall I forget how the soldier lad held his baby in his arms, and looked at it with infinite tenderness and wonder; while his wife, who had believed him dead, clung to him, uttering fond, endearing terms all the while. Never shall I forget how Mrs. Lethbridge went from one to another, with tears of joy streaming down her face, or how Josiah Lethbridge, the old hard look gone from his eyes, told his children again and again how he loved them. I will leave my narrative here. My tale is told, even while it is not finished. While I write, guns are booming, and the war between the nations goes on; but I do not fear. "For Right is Right, since God is God, And Right the day must win." This great world carnage is horrible beyond words, its madness is inexpressible, but beyond all is God. He has many ways of teaching His lessons, and He is now speaking to us out of the whirlwind and out of the fire. _Printed in the United States of America_ * * * * * [Transcriber's Notes: Some odd spellings have been retained as typeset, i.e., "unforgetable".] * * * * * FICTION, JUVENILE, ETC. _J. J. BELL_ _Author of "Wee Macgreegor," etc._ Just Jemima Another "Mile of Smiles" with J. J. Bell. His latest creation is marked by the same dry, pungent humor for which he has long been noted, and "Just Jemima" will quickly take its place next to "Wee MacGreegor," "Oh, Christina!" "Johnny Pryde," and Bell's other books, over which millions have laughed and rejoiced. _WINIFRED ARNOLD_ _Author of "Little Merry Christmas"_ Miss Emeline's Kith and Kin A capital portrayal of American country life as it is lived in the villages of New England. Miss Emeline's dealings with her "kith and kin" make up a most diverting narrative, one certain to win for Miss Arnold large additions to the friends she made with "Mis' Bassett" and "Little Merry Christmas." _DILLON WALLACE_ The Ragged Inlet Guards A Story of Adventure in Labrador. In Wallace's latest story a wartime setting is given to the fascinating Labrador stage. The four "Inlet Guards" furnish round after round of exciting adventures, including the thrilling capture of a German wireless station, while their seniors were fighting "over seas." _MARY STEWART_ _Author of "Once-Upon-a-Time Tales"_ "Tell Me a Story I Never Heard Before" With deft and practiced art, Miss Stewart weaves a modern garland out of blossoms of story-telling as old as the ages. About the Daisy, the Fleur-de-lys, the Pansy, the Tulip, and so forth, she has entwined old-world legends of the days of chivalry, of high adventure, of pastoral romance. _S. HALL YOUNG_ _Author of "Alaska Days with John Muir," "The Klondike Clan," etc_ Adventures in Alaska "When a man's actual experiences are more interesting than ingenious invention, he is wise if he avoids fiction and writes a straight narrative of his adventures. This is what Dr. Young has done in this illustrated account of some of his remarkable experiences during over thirty years work in Alaska."--_The Outlook._ * * * * * WORTH WHILE FICTION _NORMAN DUNCAN_ _Author of "Dr. Luke of the Labrador"_ Battles Royal Down North Appreciation by Dr. Wilfred T. Grenfell. Sir Wm. Robertson Nicoll, LL.D.: "No one can read Mr. Norman Duncan's marvellous Newfoundland fisher idylls without feeling that an English Pierre Loti has arisen, a mystic of the unfathomable deeps." Harbor Tales Down North Appreciation by Dr. Wilfred T. Grenfell. Honoré Willsie, in _The New York Times Magazine_. "We lost the best short story writer in the country when Norman Duncan died." _MARY CAROLINE HOLMES_ The Knock on the Door A Story of To-day. The story of a young man and woman who institute a search for the faith they have outgrown. Cynthia Holden, the girl, goes far on her quest, leaving Jim Trefethen, a young clergyman to whom she is engaged, to "tread the wine-press alone." The ending is a happy one, with an unexpected vision of a good Samaritan, ministering to an oppressed people who had fallen among thieves because of the war. _BURRIS A. JENKINS_ It Happened "Over There" A story of an American aviator and an English "lady of high degree." Dr. Jenkins' book is permeated with the atmosphere of these thrilling heart-searching days, and succeeds in visualizing sights and scenes, which set forth the unspeakable infamy of the Hun, and the unflinching, indomitable spirit of the Allies, one and all determined to work, suffer and endure to the end. _J. J. BELL_ _Author of "Wee Macgreegor"_ Johnny Pryde "Should be read aloud--otherwise the family circle wants to know what the joke is every time you laugh. There's a good laugh in every chapter--sometimes half a dozen, and it has the real J. J. Bell touch."--_New York Evening Sun._ * * * * * STORIES FOR LIVE BOYS _DILLON WALLACE_ _Author "The Lure of the Labrador Wild," "Ungava Bob," etc._ Grit-A-Plenty A Tale of the Labrador Wild. Dillon Wallace, the famous Labrador explorer, has written another book for boys, of that bleak, hard-bitten region which for interest and appeal will press hard his other popular stories of boy life in Labrador. For adventure and realism of the most healthful sort, boys will find it difficult indeed to beat this latest story from the surviving companion of Leonidas Hubbard, Jr., the Labrador explorer. _EDWARD A. STEINER_ Uncle Joe's Lincoln The popular author of "On the Trail of the Immigrant" has written few works of greater appeal than this delightful story of the influence of the life of Abraham Lincoln upon the boys of a far away land, most of whom eventually found their way to the United States. _EDWIN C. BURRITT_ _Author of "Boy Scout Crusoes"_ Cameron Island Further Adventures in the South Seas. The success of "Boy Scout Crusoes" has furnished the incentive for a new story of the same sort of thrilling adventures. Here are many new and wonderful bits of natural history which every wide-awake boy will find not only interesting but instructive as well. _ALBERT LEE, F.R.G.S._ At His Country's Call A Tale of the Great War for Boys. Lt.-Gen. Sir R. Baden-Powell says: "A most exciting yarn for boys which should arouse their spirit of patriotic adoration." Here is a story of the Great War that will make any full-blooded boy sit up nights to arrive at the end. One climax succeeds another until it seems as though every adventure and incident occurring in modern warfare has been woven into this fascinating book. * * * * * NEW EDITIONS _S. HALL YOUNG_ Alaska Days with John Muir "Do you remember Stickeen, the canine hero of John Muir's famous dog story? Here is a book by the man who owned Stickeen and who was Muir's companion on that adventurous trip among the Alaskan glaciers. This is not only a breezy outdoor book, full of the wild beauties of the Alaskan wilderness; it is also a living portrait of John Muir in the great moments of his career."--_New York Times._ _S. R. CROCKETT_ _Author of "Silver Sand," etc._ Hal 'o the Ironsides: A Story of the Days of Cromwell "Crockett's last story. A rip-roaring tale of the days of the great Oliver--days when the dogs of war were let loose in English meadows, and the gallants of England struck home for the King."--_Examiner._ _FANNY CROSBY_ Fanny Crosby's Story of Ninety-Four Years By S. Trevena Jackson. "This is, in a way, an autobiography, for it is the story of Fanny Crosby's life as she told it to her friend, who retells it in this charming book. All lovers of the blind hymn writer ought to read this volume. It tells a story of pathos and of cheer. It will strengthen the faith and cheer the heart of every reader."--_Watchman-Examiner._ _PROF. HUGH BLACK_ The New World "Dr. Black is a strong thinker and a clear, forcible writer. Here he analyzes national tendencies toward unrest--social, material, religious. This he does with moderation yet with courage, and always with hopefulness."--_The Outlook._ _S. M. ZWEMER, D.D., F.R.G.S._ _Author of "Arabia," etc._ Childhood in the Moslem World "The claims of millions of children living and dying under the blighting influence of Islam are set forth with graphic fidelity. Both in text and illustrations, Dr. Zwemer's new book covers much ground hitherto lying untouched in Mohammedan literature."--_Christian Work._ * * * * * ABOUT OTHER LANDS _HENRY CHUNG_ The Oriental Policy of the United States A plea for the policy of the Open Door in China, presented by an oriental scholar of broad training and deep sympathies. The history of American diplomatic relationships with the Orient, the development of the various policies and influences of the western powers in China, and the imperilistic aspirations of Japan are set forth admirably. _CHARLES KENDALL HARRINGTON_ _Missionary Amer. Baptist Foreign Miss. Society to Japan_ Captain Bickel of the Inland Sea "Especially valuable at this hour, because it throws a flood of light on many conditions in the Orient in which all students of religious and social questions are especially interested. We would suggest that pastors generally retell the story at some Sunday evening service, for here is a story sensational, thrilling, informing and at the same time a story of great spiritual urgency and power."--_Watchman-Examiner._ _HARRIET NEWELL NOYES_ _Canton, China_ A Light in the Land of Sinim Forty-five Years in the True Light Seminary, 1872-1917. "An authoritative account of the work undertaken and achieved by the True Light Seminary, Canton, China. Mrs. Noyes has devoted practically her whole life to this sphere of Christian service, and the record here presented is that of her own labors and those associated with her in missionary activity in China, covering a period of more than forty-five years."--_Christian Work._ _MRS. H. G. UNDERWOOD_ Underwood of Korea A Record of the Life and Work of Horace G. Underwood, D.D. "An intimate and captivating story of one who labored nobly and faithfully in Korea for thirty-one years, presenting his character, consecration, faith, and indomitable courage."--_Missions._ * * * * * BIOGRAPHY AND REMINISCENCES _JAMES M. LUDLOW, D.D., Litt.D._ _Author of "The Captain of the Janizaries," "Deborah," etc._ Along the Friendly Way Dr. Ludlow has observed keenly, and thought wisely and deeply; he has read extensively, traveled widely, and rubbed elbows and wits with men great and little of many nations and under varying conditions. He is the "full man" of which the philosopher speaks. And all these intellectual and spiritual riches garnered from many harvests he spreads before the reader in a style that is remarkable for its felicity of phrasing, the color of its varied imagery, and its humor, warmth, and human sympathy. _HERBERT H. GOWEN, F.R.G.S._ The Napoleon of the Pacific: Kamehameha the Great The history of the great chieftian who, in the closing years of the eighteenth century, effected the union of the eight islands of the Hawaiian Archipelago and welded them into a kingdom. Both student and general reader will find THE NAPOLEON OF THE PACIFIC a richly-stored mine of deeply interesting information, extremely difficult to come at in any other form. _CLARA E. LAUGHLIN_ Foch the Man W. B. McCormick in the _N. Y. Sun_ says: "Miss Laughlin has let nothing escape her that will throw light on the development of his character. A revelation of the man who at sixty-seven put the crowning touch to the complete defeat of Germany's military pretensions." _FREDERICK LYNCH, D.D._ The One Great Society Records of some personal reminiscences and recollections of the author, who, as preacher, editor and prominent member of one or two international organisations, has met many of the world's prominent men in the fields of divinity, philanthropy, literature and reform. 
31556	----	[Illustration: DICK IN THE DESERT James Otis] SUNSHINE LIBRARY. THE BLIND BROTHER. By Homer Greene $0.50 THE CAPTAIN'S DOG. By Louis Énault .50 DEAR LITTLE MARCHIONESS. The Story of a Child's Faith and Love .50 DICK IN THE DESERT. By James Otis .50 THE GOLD THREAD. By Norman McLeod, D.D. .50 HOW TOMMY SAVED THE BARN. By James Otis .50 J. COLE. By Emma Gellibrand .50 JESSICA'S FIRST PRAYER. By Hesba Stretton .50 LADDIE. By the Author of "Miss Toosey's Mission" .50 LITTLE PETER. By Lucas Malet .50 MASTER SUNSHINE. By Mrs. C. F. Fraser .50 MISS TOOSEY'S MISSION. By the Author of "Laddie" .50 MUSICAL JOURNEY OF DOROTHY AND DELIA. By Bradley Gilman .50 A SHORT CRUISE. By James Otis .50 THE WRECK OF THE CIRCUS. By James Otis .50 THOMAS Y. CROWELL & COMPANY, NEW YORK AND BOSTON. DICK IN THE DESERT BY JAMES OTIS AUTHOR OF "HOW TOMMY SAVED THE BARN," ETC. NEW YORK: 46 EAST 14TH STREET THOMAS Y. CROWELL & COMPANY BOSTON: 100 PURCHASE STREET COPYRIGHT, 1893, BY THOMAS Y. CROWELL & COMPANY. TYPOGRAPHY BY C. J. PETERS & SON, BOSTON. PRESSWORK BY S. J. PARKHILL & CO. [Illustration: "THANKS TO THE TIMELY ATTENTION, DICK SOON OPENED HIS EYES."--Page 48.] For the lad to whom I have given the name of Dick Stevens this little story has been written, with the hope that he may enjoy the reading of it even as I did his modest manner of telling it. JAMES OTIS. CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGE I. DICK'S DADDY 1 II. A LONELY VIGIL 17 III. A SAND-STORM 34 IV. AT ANTELOPE SPRING 52 V. DICK "PULLS THROUGH" 69 DICK IN THE DESERT. CHAPTER I. DICK'S DADDY. Between Fox Peak and Smoke Creek Desert, on the western edge of the State of Nevada, is a beautiful valley, carpeted with bunch grass, which looks particularly bright and green to the venturesome traveller who has just crossed either of the two deserts lying toward the east. "Buffalo Meadows" the Indians named it, because of the vast herds of American bison found there before the white men hunted simply for the sport of killing; but those who halt at the last watercourse prior to crossing the wide stretches of sand on the journey east, speak of it as "Comfort Hollow." To a travel-stained party who halted at the water-pool nearest the desert on a certain afternoon in September two years ago, this last name seemed particularly appropriate. They had come neither for gold nor the sport of hunting; but were wearily retracing their steps, after having wandered and suffered among the foot-hills of the Sierras in a fruitless search for a home, on which they had been lured by unscrupulous speculators. Nearly two years previous Richard Stevens--"Roving Dick" his acquaintances called him--had first crossed the vast plain of sand, with his wife, son, and daughter. His entire worldly possessions consisted of a small assortment of household goods packed in a stout, long-bodied wagon, covered with canvas stretched over five poles bent in a half-circle, and drawn by two decrepit horses. The journey had been a failure, so far as finding a home in the wilds was concerned, where the head of the family could live without much labor; and now the homeless ones, decidedly the worse for wear, were returning to Willow Point, on the Little Humboldt River. The provisions had long since been exhausted; the wagon rudely repaired in many places; the cooking utensils were reduced to one pot and a battered dipper; the canvas covering was torn and decaying, and the horses presented a skeleton-like appearance. The family had suffered outwardly quite as much as the goods. Young Dick and his father wore clothing which had been patched and repatched with anything Mrs. Stevens could push a needle through, until it would have been impossible to say what was the original material; but to a boy thirteen years of age this seemed a matter of little consequence, while his father preferred such a costume rather than exert himself to tan deer-hides for one more serviceable. Mrs. Stevens and six-year-old Margie were in a less forlorn condition as to garments; but they also needed a new outfit sadly, and nearly every day young Dick told them confidentially that he would attend to the matter immediately after arriving at Willow Point, even if it became necessary for him to sell his rifle, the only article of value he owned. "Once across the desert, mother," he said, as the sorry-looking team was drawn up by the side of the pool, and he began to unharness the horses while his father went in search of game for supper, "and then we shall be well on our way to the old home we had no business to leave." "It is this portion of the journey that worries me most, Dick. You remember what a hard time we had when the animals were in good condition; and now that they are hardly able to drag their own bones along, the danger is great." "No more than when we crossed the river; and even though father did feel afraid there, we got along all right," was the cheerful reply. "There should be plenty of game here, and after a square feed things won't look so bad." Mrs. Stevens turned wearily away to make preparations for the evening meal in case the hunter should bring in a supply of meat, but made no reply. She understood why young Dick spoke encouragingly, and felt proud that the boy displayed so much tenderness for her; yet the fact could not be disguised that dangers beset the little party on every hand. It required but a small amount of labor in order to make ready for the night. Tired as the horses were, there was no likelihood of their straying very far; and Dick simply removed the harness, allowing the animals to roam at will. The wagon served as a camp; and the most arduous task was that of gathering materials with which to make a fire, when nothing larger than a bush could be seen on either hand. Then there was no more to be done save await the return of the hunter, and it was not until the shadows began to lengthen into the gloom of night that young Dick felt seriously alarmed. He knew his father would not have gone very far from the camp in search of game, because he was on foot, and there was no more promising place for sport than within the radius of a mile from where they had halted. Besides, when hunting took the form of labor which must be performed, Richard Stevens was not one who would continue it long, unless he was remarkably hungry. Young Dick's mother gave words to her anxiety several times; but the boy argued with her that no harm could have befallen the absent one in that vicinity, and for a time her fears were allayed. When another hour passed, however, and nothing was heard from his father, even Dick lost courage, and believed that the culminating point in their troubles had been reached. His mother and Margie had entered the wagon when night was fully come, knowing they must go supperless to bed unless the hunter returned; and to Dick the thought that these two whom he loved so dearly were hungry, brought him almost as much sorrow as the unaccountable absence of his father. He believed, however, that it was his duty to appear unconcerned, as if confident his father's prolonged absence did not betoken danger. He trudged to and fro in the immediate vicinity of the vehicle, at times whistling cheerily to show there was no trouble on his mind; and again, when it was impossible to continue the melody because of the sorrow in his heart, repeated to his mother that nothing serious could have befallen the absent one, that probably he had unconsciously wandered a long distance from the camp on the trail of game. "It don't stand to reason he will try to make his way now it is dark, mother dear; but within an hour or two after sunrise he'll be here, and the breakfast we shall then have will make up for the loss of supper." Mrs. Stevens made no reply; and listening a moment, Dick heard the sound of suppressed sobs. His mother was in distress, and he could do no more toward comforting her than repeat what he did not absolutely believe. He knew full well that unless some accident had befallen him, his father would have returned before dark; that he would not have allowed himself to be led so far away from the camping-place that he could not readily return; and the boy's sorrow was all the greater because it was impossible to console his mother. Clambering into the wagon, he put his arms around her neck, pressing his cheek close against hers, and during what seemed a very long while the two remained silent, not daring to give words to their fears. Then Dick bethought himself of a plan which offered some slight degree of hope, and starting up suddenly, said,-- "I ought to have done it before, an' it ain't too late now." "Done what, Dick dear?" "Gone out in the direction father took, and fired the rifle two or three times. It may be he has lost his bearings, and the report of the gun would be enough to let him know where we are." "But you must not go now that it is dark, my boy. Suppose you should lose your way? Then what would become of Margie and me?" "There's no danger of that, mother. I've been in the woods often enough to be able to take care of myself, surely." "Your father would have said the same thing when he set out; but yet we know some accident must have befallen him." "Let me go only a little way, mother." "Of what avail would that be, my son? If the purpose is to discharge your rifle, hoping father may hear the report, why not do it here?" "I will, if you won't let me go farther." "I can't, Dick dear. I might be braver under other circumstances, but now the thought of your leaving me is more than I can bear." "I won't go so far but that I can see the wagon," Dick said, kissing his mother and little Margie much as though bidding them good-by; and a few moments later the report of his rifle almost startled the occupants of the wagon. During the next hour Dick discharged his weapon at least twelve times, but there was no reply of whatsoever nature. If his father was alive and within hearing, he was too badly disabled to give token of his whereabouts. The supply of cartridges was not so large that very many could be used without making a serious inroad upon the store; and realizing the uselessness of further efforts in this direction, Dick went back to the wagon. Margie had fallen asleep, her head pillowed in her mother's lap; and Mrs. Stevens, unwilling to disturb the child, was taking such rest as was possible while she leaned against the canvas covering of the wagon. Dick seated himself beside her. It was not necessary he should speak of his failure, for she knew that already. He had thought it his duty to join her for a few moments, and then go outside again to act the part of sentinel, although such labor could be of little avail; but before he had been nestling by her side five minutes his eyes were closed in slumber; and the mother, her mind reaching out to the absent father, spent the hours of the night in wakefulness, watching over her children. The sun had risen before Dick's eyes were opened; and springing to his feet quickly, ashamed of having slept while his mother kept guard, he said,-- "I didn't mean to hang on here like a baby while you were awake, mother, but my eyes shut before I knew it." "It is well you rested, my son. Nothing could have been done had you remained awake." "Perhaps not; but I should have felt better, because if anything has happened to father, though I don't say it can be possible, I'm the one who must take care of you and Margie." Mrs. Stevens kissed the boy, not daring to trust herself to speak; and he hurried out, for there was before him a full day's work, if he would do that which he had decided upon in his mind the evening previous. There was no reasonable hope any one would come that way for many days--perhaps months. They were alone, and whatever was done must be accomplished by this thirteen-year-old boy. "I'm going after something for breakfast, mother, and then count on trying to follow father's trail," Dick said, after looking around in every direction, even though he knew there was no possibility of seeing any human being. "There is no reason why you should spend the time in trying to get food for us, Dick dear. Margie and I can get on very well without breakfast, and you will have the more time to hunt for your father; but remember, my boy, that you are the only one we can depend upon now, and without you we might remain here until we starved." "I'll take good care not to go so far from the wagon but that I can find my way back; for surely I'll be able to follow on my own trail, if there's no other. Hadn't I better do a little hunting first?" "Not unless you are very, very hungry, Dick. Food would choke me just now, and there is enough of the bread we baked yesterday morning to give you and Margie an apology for a breakfast." "I can get along without; you shall eat my share. Now, don't worry if I'm not back until near sunset. The horses are close at hand, and you may be certain they won't stray while the feed is plentiful. Stay in the wagon, even though there is nothing to harm you if you walk around. We must be careful that no more trouble comes upon us; so keep under cover, mother dear, and I'll be here again before night comes." Dick was not as confident he could follow his father's trail as he would have it appear to his mother; but he decided upon the direction in which he would search, and set bravely out heading due west, knowing he could hold such a course by aid of the sun's position, as his father had often explained to him. Dick was hungry, but scorned to let his mother know it, and tried to dull the edge of his appetite by chewing twigs and blades of grass. After walking rapidly ten minutes, more careful as to direction than he ever had been, because of the responsibility that rested upon him, he stopped and shouted his father's name; then listened, hoping to hear a reply. Save for the hum of insect life, no sound came to his anxious ears. Once more he pressed forward, and again shouted, but without avail. He continued on until, seeing the trail made by the wagon when they had come in from the stream, he knew he was very near to the border of the valley. Surely his father would not have gone outside, because he had said before they arrived that only in the Buffalo Meadows were they likely to find game. Then Dick turned, pushing on in a northerly direction at right angles with the course he had just been pursuing, and halting at five-minute intervals to shout. His anxiety and hunger increased equally as the day grew older. Try as he might, he could not keep the tears from over-running his eyelids. The sun was sinking toward the west before he heard aught of human voice save his own; and then a cry of joy and relief burst from his lips as he heard faintly in the distance his own name spoken. "I'm coming! I'm coming!" he cried at the full strength of his lungs, as he dashed forward, exultant in the thought that his father was alive, for he had begun to believe that he would never see him again in this world. Mr. Stevens continued to call out now and then to guide the boy on the way, and as he drew nearer Dick understood from the quavering tones that his father was in agony. "I'm coming, daddy! I'm coming!" he shouted yet louder, as if believing it was necessary to animate the sufferer, for he now knew that some painful accident had befallen his father; and when he finally ended the search his heart literally ceased beating because of his terror and dismay. Dick believed he had anticipated the worst, but yet was unprepared for that which he saw. Lying amid the blood-stained sage-grass, his shirt stripped into bandages to tie up a grievously injured limb, lay "Roving Dick," his face pallid, his lips bloodless, and his general appearance that of one whom death has nearly overtaken. "Daddy! daddy!" Dick cried piteously, and then he understood that consciousness had deserted the wounded man. He had retained possession of his faculties until aid was near at hand, and then the long strain of physical and mental agony had brought about a collapse. Dick raised his father's head tenderly, imploring him to speak--to tell him what should be done; but the injured man remained silent as if death had interposed to give him relief. Looking about scrutinizingly, as those born and bred on the frontier learn to do early in life, Dick saw his father's rifle twenty feet or more away, and between it and him a trail of blood through the sage-brush, then a sinister, crimson blotch on the sand. Mr. Stevens's right leg was the injured member, and it had been wrapped so tightly with the improvised bandages that the boy could form no idea as to the extent of the wound; but he knew it must indeed be serious to overcome so thoroughly one who, though indolent by nature, had undergone much more severe suffering than he could have known since the time of leaving the wagon to search for game. It seemed to Dick as if more than ten minutes elapsed before his father spoke, and then it was to ask for water. He might as well have begged for gold, so far as Dick's ability to gratify the desire was concerned. "To get any, daddy, I may have to go way back to the wagon, for I haven't come upon a single watercourse since leaving camp this morning." "Your mother and Margie?" "I left them at the camp. How did you get here?" "It was just before nightfall. I had been stalking an antelope; was crawling on the ground dragging my rifle, when the hammer must have caught amid the sage-brush; the weapon was discharged, and the bone of my leg appears to be shattered." "Poor, poor daddy!" and Dick kissed him on the forehead. "We must be four miles from the camp," Mr. Stevens said, speaking with difficulty because of his parched and swollen tongue. "I should say so; but I went toward the west, and after travelling until noon struck across this way, so have no idea of the distance." "I shall die for lack of water, Dick, even though the wound does not kill me." "How shall I get it, daddy?" the boy cried piteously. "I can't leave you here alone, and I don't believe there's a drop nearer than where we are camped." "You _must_ leave me, Dick; for you can do no good while staying here, and the thought that help is coming, even though there may be many hours to wait, will give me strength. Can you find your way to the camp and back after nightfall?" "I'll do it somehow, daddy! I'll do it!" "Then set out at once, and bring one of the horses back with you. I should be able to ride four miles, or even twice that distance, since it is to save my life." "But you'll keep up a brave heart, daddy dear, won't you? Don't think you are going to die; but remember that mother and I, and even little Margie, will do all we can to pull you through." "I know it, Dick, I know it. You are a good lad--far better than I have been father; and if it should chance that when you come back I've gone from this world, remember that you are the only one to whom the mother and baby can look for protection." "You know I'd always take care of them; but I am going to save you, daddy dear. People have gotten over worse wounds than this, and once you are at the camp we will stay in Buffalo Meadows till it is possible for you to ride. I'll look out for the whole outfit, and from this on you sha'n't have a trouble, except because of the wound." "Give me your hand, my boy, and now go; for strong as may be my will, I can't stand the loss of much more blood. God bless you, Dick, and remember that I always loved you, even though I never provided for you as a father should have done." Dick hastily cleared the mist from his eyes, and without speaking darted forward in the direction where he believed the wagon would be found, breaking the sage-brush as he ran in order that he might make plain the trail over which he must return. CHAPTER II. A LONELY VIGIL. It was not yet dark when Dick arrived within sight of the wagon, and shouted cheerily that those who were so anxiously awaiting his coming might know he had been fortunate in the search. As soon as his voice rang out, startlingly loud because of the almost oppressive stillness, Mrs. Stevens appeared from beneath the flap of the canvas covering, and an expression of most intense disappointment passed over her face as she saw that Dick was alone. "It's all right, mother!" he cried, quickening his pace that she might the sooner be relieved from her suspense. "It's all right!" "Did you find your father?" "Yes; an' I've come back for one of the horses. He's been hurt, an' can't walk." "Thank God he is alive!" she cried, and then for the first time since the previous evening she gave way to tears. Dick did all he could toward comforting her without making any delay in setting out on the return journey. While he filled the canteen with fresh water he repeated what his father had bidden him to say; and when his mother asked concerning the wound, he spoke as if he did not consider it serious. "Of course it's bad, for he thinks one of the bones has been splintered; but I don't see why he shouldn't come 'round all right after a spell. We've known of people who had worse hurts and yet got well." "But they were where at least something of what might be needed could be procured, while we are here in the desert." "Not quite so bad as that, mother dear. We have water, and I should be able to get food in plenty. After I've supplied the camp, I'm goin' on foot to Antelope Spring, where we can buy whatever daddy may need." "Across the desert alone!" "A boy like me ought to be able to do it, and"-- "Your father hasn't a penny, Dick dear." "I know that, mother; but I'll sell my rifle before he shall suffer for anything. Now don't worry, and keep up a good heart till I come back." "Can't I be of some assistance if I go too?" "You'd better stay here with Margie. Father and I can manage it alone, I reckon." Then Dick set about catching one of the horses; and as he rode the sorry-looking steed up to the wagon, his mother gave him such articles from her scanty store as the wounded man might need. "You're a good boy, Dick," she said, as he stooped over to kiss her; "and some day you shall have your reward." "I'll get it now, mother, if I see you looking a little more jolly; and indeed things ain't quite so bad as they seem, for I can pull our little gang through in great shape, though I'm afraid after it's been done I sha'n't be able to get you and Margie the new outfit I promised." "We should be so thankful your father is alive as not to realize that we need anything else." "But you do, just the same, whether you realize it or not; an' I'll attend to everything if I have time enough. Don't trouble yourself if we're not back much before morning, for I reckon daddy can't stand it to ride faster than a walk." Then, without daring to stop longer, lest he should betray some sign of weakness, Dick rode away, waving his hand to Margie, who was looking out of the rear end of the wagon, but giving vent to a sigh which was almost a sob when they could no longer see him. Young though he was, Dick understood full well all the dangers which menaced. Although he had spoken so confidently of being able to "pull the gang through," he knew what perils were before them during the journey across the desert; and it must be made within a reasonably short time, otherwise they might be overtaken by the winter storms before arriving at their old home. The beast he rode, worn by long travelling and scanty fare, could not be forced to a rapid pace; and when night came Dick was hardly more than two miles from the wagon. He could have walked twice the distance in that time; but the delay was unavoidable, since only on the horse's back could his father be brought into camp. When it was so dark that he could not see the broken sage-brush which marked the trail, it was necessary he should dismount, and proceed even at a slower pace; but he continued to press forward steadily, even though slowly, until, when it seemed to him that the night was well-nigh spent, he heard a sound as of moaning a short distance in advance. "I've come at last, daddy. It's been a terrible long while, I know; but it was the best I could"-- He ceased speaking very suddenly as he stood by the side of the sufferer, whom he could dimly see by the faint light of the stars. From the broken and uprooted sage-brush around him, it was evident the wounded man had, most likely while in a delirium of fever, attempted to drag himself on in the direction of the camp, and had ceased such poor efforts only when completely exhausted. He was lying on his back, looking straight up at the sky as he alternately moaned and talked at random, with now and then a mirthless laugh which frightened the boy. "Don't, daddy, don't!" he begged, as he raised the sufferer's head. "See, it's Dick come back; and now you can ride into camp!" "Mother is dying of thirst, and I'm--see that stream! Come, boys, we'll take a header into it--I'm on fire--fire!" Frightened though he was, Dick knew water was the one thing his father most needed; and laying the poor head gently back on the sand, he took the canteen from a bag which had served instead of a saddle. "Drink this, daddy, and you'll feel better," he said coaxingly, much as if speaking to a child. The wounded man seized the tin vessel eagerly, and it required all Dick's strength to prevent him from draining it at once. "I'm afraid to give you more now, my poor old man; but wait, like a dear, and I'll let you take it again when you're on the horse." Not until after a violent struggle, which frightened Dick because it seemed almost as if he was raising his hand against his father, did he regain possession of the canteen, and then a full half of the contents had been consumed. When his thirst was in a measure quenched, Mr. Stevens lay quietly on the sand, save now and then as he moaned in unconscious agony, heeding not the boy's pleading words. "Try to help yourself a bit, daddy," he urged. "If you'll stand on one foot I can manage to lift you onto the horse's back." Again and again did Dick try by words to persuade his father to do as he desired, and then he realized how useless were his efforts. He had heard of this delirium which often follows neglect of gun-shot wounds, but had no idea how he should set about checking it. After understanding that words were useless, and knowing full well he could not lift unaided such a weight onto the horse's back, he crouched by his father's side in helpless grief. Never before had he known what it was to be afraid, however far he might be from others of his kind; but now, as he listened to the meaningless words, or the piteous moans, terror took possession of him, and the soft sighing of the gentle wind sounded in his ears like a menace. The horse strayed here and there seeking food, but he gave no heed. Such garments as his mother had given him, Dick spread over the sufferer; and that done there was nothing for him save to wait. It seemed to the anxious boy as if the night would never end. Now and then he rose to his feet, scanning the eastern sky in the hope of seeing some signs of coming dawn; but the light of the stars had not faded, and he knew the morning was yet far away. Finally, when it seemed to him as if he could no longer remain idle listening to a strong man's childish prattle, the eastern heavens were lighted by a dull glow, which increased steadily until he could see the horse feeding on the dry bunch-grass an hundred yards away, and his long vigil was nearly at an end. His father called for water from time to time, and Dick had given him to drink from the canteen till no more than a cupful remained. Now he asked again, but in a voice which sounded more familiar; and a great hope sprang up in the boy's heart as he said,-- "There's only a little left, you poor old man, and we can't get more this side the camp. Shall I give it to you now?" "Let me moisten my lips, Dick dear. They are parched, and my tongue is swollen until it seems ready to burst." Dick handed him the canteen; and his father drank sparingly, in marked contrast to his greedy swallowing of a few moments previous. "It tastes sweet, my boy; and when we are at the camp I'll need only to look at the brook in order to get relief. Are you soon going for the horse?" "I went, an' have got back, daddy dear. You've been talking mighty queer--on account of the wound, I suppose." "How long have you been with me, child?" "I must have got here before midnight, and the morning is just coming now." "You're a good boy, Dick." "That's what mother said before I left, and between the two of you I'm afraid you'll make me out way beyond what I deserve. We must get back as soon as we can, you poor old man; for she'll be crying her eyes sore with thinking we've both knocked under. Will we have a try at getting on horseback?" "Yes; and I reckon it can be done. Lead the beast up here, and then help me on my feet--I've grown as weak as a baby, Dick." "And I don't wonder at it. According to the looks of this sage-brush you must have lost half of all the blood you had at this time yesterday." Now that his father was conscious once more, all Dick's reasonless terror fled, and again he was the manly fellow he had always shown himself to be. The horse was led to Mr. Stevens's side; and Dick raised the nearly powerless body until, at the expense of most severe pain, but without sign of it by even so much as a groan, his father stood on the uninjured limb. Fortunately the horse was too weary to make much protest at what followed; with a restive steed it would have been impossible for the boy to half lift, half push his father up until he was seated on the bag that served as saddle. "How is it now, you poor old man? Can you hold on there a couple of hours?" "I must, my boy; and if it so be I show signs of losing my reason again, you must contrive to lash me here, for unless this wound is attended to in better shape than it is just now, I'll go under." "For mother's sake you must keep a good grip on yourself. It'll come tough, I know; but once we're in camp you shall live on the fat of the land." Dick took up his father's rifle,--his own he had left in the wagon when he went after the horse,--and, leading the animal by the bridle, marched on, glancing back every few seconds to learn how the rider was faring. Although he struggled to repress any evidence of pain, Mr. Stevens could not prevent the agony from being apparent on his face; and Dick, who had neither eaten nor slept during the past twenty-four hours, did all a boy could have done to cheer the sufferer, without thought of his own necessities. "We'll soon be in camp, daddy, when you're to have everything you need," he said from time to time; and then, fancying this was not sufficient encouragement, he finally added, "you know I'm going over to Antelope Spring to get some doctor's stuff as soon as I've found game enough to keep the camp supplied while I'm away." "Antelope Spring!" Mr. Stevens cried, aroused from his suffering for an instant by the bold assertion. "You shall never do it, Dick, not if I had twenty wounds! It's as much as a man's life is worth to cross the desert on foot, and these horses of ours are worse than none at all." "By the time we've been in camp a couple of weeks where the feed is good, they'll pick up in great shape, and be fit to haul the old wagon home. Won't it be prime to see the town once more? And there'll be no more hunting 'round for a place where we can get a livin' easy, eh, daddy?" "No, Dickey; once we're there we'll stay, and I'm going to turn over a new leaf if my life is spared. I'll do more work and less loafing. But you're not to cross the desert alone, my boy." "It may be travellers will come our way, an' I can go with them," Dick replied, taking good care not to make any promises; for he understood from what his mother had said that it would be absolutely necessary that aid should be had from the nearest settlement. Fortunately, as it then seemed to the boy, the pain which his father was enduring prevented him from dwelling upon the subject; and as Dick trudged on, trying to force the horse into a more rapid gait, he turned over in his mind all he had heard regarding such a journey. There were many times when it seemed certain Mr. Stevens must succumb to the suffering caused by the wound; but he contrived to "keep a good grip" on himself, as Dick had suggested, and after what seemed the longest and most painful journey the boy had ever experienced, the two came upon landmarks which told they were nearing the encampment. His father was ghastly pale. The big drops of sweat on his forehead told of intense pain; and, in order to revive his courage yet a little longer, Dick shouted loudly to warn the dear ones who were waiting. "They'll soon come running to meet us; and you must put on a bold front, daddy, else mother will think you're near dead. Hold hard a little while longer, and then we'll have you in the wagon, where all hands of us can doctor you in great shape." It is more than probable that, had he been alone, with no one to cheer him, Mr. Stevens might never have been able to endure the agony which must have been his. Thanks to Dick's cheering words, however, he not only kept his seat, but remained conscious until his wife and son lifted him from the horse to the bed hastily prepared in the vehicle. Then nature asserted herself; and he speedily sank into unconsciousness accompanied by delirium, as when Dick had watched by his side. "He was just that way all night, and it frightened me, mother. What can we do for him?" "I don't know, Dick dear; indeed I don't. Unless he can have proper attention death must soon come, and I am ignorant of such nursing as he needs. If we were only where we could call in a doctor!" "Wouldn't it do almost as well if we had medicine for him?" "Perhaps so; but if we could get such things it would also be possible to at least find out what we should do." "The horses wouldn't pull us across the desert until after they've rested a spell," Dick said half to himself. "And even if they could, we must have food." "See here, mother; you fix up daddy's leg the best you know how, and I'll look around for something that'll fill the pot. There are rabbits here in plenty, though it's mighty hard luck when you have to waste a cartridge on each one. I'll have enough in the way of meat by the time you've washed the wound. I've heard the poor old man himself say that plenty of cool water was needed on a bullet-hole." Mrs. Stevens could not be hopeful under the circumstances, for she knew better than did Dick how slight was the chance that the injured man could live where it was impossible to care properly for the wound; but she would not deprive the boy of hope, and turned to do as he suggested. Although weary and footsore, Dick did not spend many moments in camp. He waited only long enough to get his rifle and ammunition, and then trudged off; for meat must be had, even at the expense of cartridges, both for the wounded man and the remainder of the family. An hour later Dick returned with two rabbits; and when these had been made ready for cooking, he clambered into the wagon to see his father. The invalid looked more comfortable, even though nothing had been done for his relief save to cleanse the wound, and dress it in such fashion as was possible; but he was still in the delirium, and after kissing the pale forehead, Dick went to where his mother was making ready for the long-delayed meal. "I don't reckon there's a bit of anything to eat, mother?" "I shall soon have these rabbits cooked." "But I must be off after larger game, and don't want to wait till dinner is ready." "You need the food, Dickey, and there is only a tiny bit of bread." "Give me that, mother dear. It will stop the hole in my stomach for a spell, and when I come back there'll be plenty of time to eat meat." Had the circumstances been one whit less grave, Mrs. Stevens would not have consented to his setting out before having eaten a hearty meal; but she knew that more meat would soon be needed, since they had no other food, and two rabbits would hardly provide the famishing ones with enough to stay their hunger for the time being. The piece of bread, baked the day previous from the last of their store of flour, was brought out; and, munching it slowly that it might seem to be more, Dick started off again. Not until nearly nightfall did he return; but he had with him such portion of a deer's carcass as he could drag, and all fear of starvation was banished from camp. The wounded man was resting more comfortably, if such term can be applied properly when one is suffering severest pain; and after hanging the meat beneath the wagon, Dick questioned his mother as to what might be done if they were within reach of a physician. "If we could see one, Dickey, your father's life might be saved, for such a wound should not be exceedingly dangerous. If I knew how to treat it, and had the proper washes, we ought to nurse him back to life; but as it is, I haven't even that which would check the fever." "If you could talk to a doctor would it be all right?" "I believe so, Dickey." "Would the medecine you want cost very much?" "It is the same to us whether the price be much or little, since we haven't the opportunity to get what is needed, nor the money with which to pay for it if a shop were near at hand." Dick ceased his questioning, and set about performing such work around the camp as might well have been left undone until the next day. A generous supply of broiled venison was made ready, and the boy ate heartily; after which he went into the wagon, telling his mother he would play the part of nurse until dark, when she could take his place. Once in the vehicle, partially screened from view, Dick, after much search for the bit of a lead-pencil his father owned, wrote on a piece of brown paper that had contained the last ten pounds of flour Mr. Stevens had purchased, the following words,-- DEAR MOTHER,--I know you won't let me go to Antelope Spring if I tell you about what I'm minded to do, so I shall slip off the first thing in the morning. I'll take my rifle with me, and by selling it, get what stuff daddy needs. I can talk with a doctor too; and when I come back we'll fix the poor old man up in great shape. Don't worry about me, for I can get across without any bother. I'm going to take the canteen and some slices of meat, so I sha'n't be hungry or thirsty. I count on being back in three days; but if I'm gone five you mustn't think anything has gone wrong, for it may be a longer trip than I'm reckonin' on. I love you, and daddy, and Margie mighty well; and this footing it across the desert ain't half as dangerous as you think for. Your son, DICKEY. When this had been done, he kissed his father twice, smoothed the hair back from the pale, damp forehead, and whispered,-- "I'm going so's you'll get well, my poor old man; and you mustn't make any kick, 'cause it's _got_ to be done." Then he came out as if tired of playing the nurse, and proposed that he sleep under the wagon that night. "With all hands inside, daddy would be crowded; and I'm as well off out-of-doors. Kiss me, mother, for I'm mighty tired." CHAPTER III. A SAND-STORM. In this proposal to retire thus early Mrs. Stevens saw nothing to excite her suspicions regarding Dick's real intentions. He had worked for thirty-six hours almost incessantly; and it would not be strange if this unusual exertion, together with the weariness caused by excitement, had brought him to the verge of exhaustion. His mother would have insisted upon bringing out one of the well-worn blankets, but that Dick was decidedly opposed to taking anything from the wagon which might in the slightest degree contribute to his father's comfort. "I'm very well off on the bare ground, and with the wagon to shelter me from the dew I couldn't be better fixed. Our poor old man needs all we've got, mother; and you may be sure I won't lay awake thinking of the feather-beds we had at Willow Point, 'cause it's about as much as I can do to keep my eyes open." "You are a dear good boy, and God will reward you. In addition to saving your father's life, for that is what you've done this day, you have lightened my burden until it would be wicked to repine." "I'll risk your ever doing anything very wicked, mother; and if the time comes when it seems to you as though I don't do exactly as you want me to, just remember all you've said about my being a good boy, an' let it be a stand-off, will you?" "I am certain you will never do anything to cause me sorrow, Dickey, dear. Don't get up until you have been thoroughly rested; for now that we have food in camp, I can do all that will be necessary." Then Dick's mother kissed him again, not leaving him until he had stretched out at full length under the wagon; and so tired was the boy that Mrs. Stevens had hardly got back to take up her duties as nurse when his loud breathing told that he was asleep. When Dick awakened it was still dark; but he believed, because he no longer felt extremely weary, that the night was nearly spent; and for the success of his plan it was of the utmost importance he should set out before his mother was astir. It was his purpose to travel on foot to Antelope Spring, a distance in an air-line of about forty-five miles, fifteen of which would be across the upper portion of Smoke Creek Desert. In this waste of sand lay all the danger of the undertaking. The number of miles to be travelled troubled him but little, for more than once had he walked nearly as far in a single day while hunting; and he proposed to spend thirty-six hours on each stage of the journey. Creeping cautiously out from under the wagon, he fastened his letter to the flap of the canvas covering in such a manner that his mother could not fail to see it when she first came out; and then he wrapped in leaves several slices of broiled venison, after which he stowed them in his pocket. The canteen was filled at a spring near-by. He saw to it that his ammunition belt contained no more than half a dozen cartridges, and then took up his rifle, handling it almost lovingly; for this, his only valuable possession, he intended to part with in order to secure what might be necessary for his father's relief and comfort. The weapon was slung over his back where it would not impede his movements; and with a single glance backward he set out with a long, swinging stride such as he knew by experience he could maintain for many hours. It was still dark when he had crossed the fertile meadows, and arrived at the border of an apparently limitless expanse of yellow sand. Here it would not be possible to maintain the pace at which he had started, because of the loose sand in which his feet sank to the depth of an inch at each step. Having set out at such an early hour, this boy, who was perilling his life in the hope of aiding his father, believed the more dangerous portion of the journey might be accomplished before the heat of the day should be the most severe. When the sun rose Dick had travelled, as nearly as he could estimate, over three miles of desert; and his courage increased with the knowledge that one-fifth of the distance across the sands had already been traversed. At the end of the next hour he said to himself that he must be nearly midway on the road of sand; and although the labor of walking was most severe, his heart was very light. "Once across, I'll push on as fast as any fellow can walk," he said aloud, as if the sound of his own voice gave him cheer. "By making an extra effort I ought to be in Antelope Spring before midnight, and have plenty of time to sleep between now and morning. Half a day there to sell the rifle, an' buy what is needed, an' by sunset I should be at the edge of the desert again, ready to make this part of the tramp after dark." He walked quickly, and like one who intends to go but a short distance. The forty-five-mile tramp seemed to him but a trifle as compared with what was to be gained by the making of it. He thought of his mother as she read the note he had left on the flap of the wagon-covering, and wondered if she looked upon his departure as an act of disobedience, which, in fact, it was, since both his parents had insisted he should not attempt it. Then his thoughts went out to his father, and he told over in his mind all the questions he would ask of the doctor at Antelope Spring; for he had no doubt but that he should find one of that profession there. He took little heed to the monotonous view around him, until suddenly he saw in the distance what appeared to be a low-hanging cloud; then he said to himself that if a shower should spring up the sun's face would be covered, and the heat, which was now very great, must be lessened. As this cloud advanced, descending to the sands while it rose toward the heavens, it grew more black; and on either side were long columns of seeming vapor rising, and as rapidly disappearing. Then across the darkness on that portion of the horizon something bright moved swiftly, as if a flash of lightning had passed over the face of the cloud; and in an instant the sun and the sky were shut out from view. Now the clouds took on the appearance of a dense black fog, coming up from the southward over the desert, until Dick was seemingly looking at a gigantic wall, over the face of which shone now and then bright flashes of light. There was a shrieking and moaning in the air, so it seemed to the startled boy; and he failed to understand the meaning of this strange scene, until, the impenetrable wall having come so near, he could see that what appeared like flashes of light were gigantic columns of sand springing high in the air with fantastic shapes, and glinted by the sun from above the apparent vapor, until they were swallowed up in the enormous bank of cloud behind them. Then it was Dick knew the meaning of this terrible danger which threatened him. It was a storm of sand. "Dancing giants" some have termed it, and others speak of it as the "hot blizzard." As if in an instant the dancing, swirling columns and the rushing cloud of sand, which swayed to and fro in fantastic movements, surrounded him. He was in the centre of a cyclone freighted with particles of sand. The wind roared until one might have believed he heard the crash of thunder. Dick halted, terrified, bewildered; and as he came to a standstill, it seemed to him that the clouds on every hand lowered until he could see the blue sky above. Then with a shriek from the wind the very sand beneath his feet rose and fell like billows of the sea. The tempest was upon him. He shielded his eyes with his arm; but the stinging, heated particles sought out every inch of his body, and his clothing afforded but little protection. The sand penetrated his ears and nostrils, and burned his lips until they bled. He had heard it said that to remain motionless in such a tempest means death; for wherever the wind meets with an obstruction, there it piles the sand in huge mounds, and his father had told of more than one hunter who had thus been buried alive. It was death to remain motionless, and yet to move seemed impossible. Whether he turned to the right or the left the whirlwind struck him with a fury which it was difficult to withstand. It was as if the wind swept in upon him from every point of the compass--as if he was the centre of this whirling, dancing, blinding, murderous onrush of sand. The boy's throat was dry. He was burning with thirst. The dust-laden air seemed to have literally filled his lungs, and it was with difficulty he could breathe. Despite the protection he sought to give, his eyes were inflamed, and the lids cruelly swollen. He sank ankle-deep at every step, and above him and around him the wild blasts shrieked, until there were times when he feared lest he should be thrown from his feet. Pulling his hat down over his aching eyes, the bewildered, terrified boy tried to gain some relief from the thirst which assailed him. He understood that the contents of his canteen must be guarded jealously; for if he lived there were still several miles of the desert journey to be traversed, and the walking would be even more difficult than before the storm set in, because of the shifting sand. His distress rendered him reckless; and regardless of the future, he drank fully half the water in the canteen, bathing his eyes with a small quantity poured in the hollow of his hand. It would have been better if he had not tried to find relief by this last method, for the flying particles of sand adhered to such portions of his face as were wet, forming a coating over the skin almost instantly. He attempted to brush it off, and the gritty substance cut into his flesh as if he had rubbed it with emery-paper. Then came into Dick's mind the thought that he should never more see his parents on this earth, and for the instant his courage so far deserted him that he was on the point of flinging himself face downward upon the sand. Fortunately there appeared before his mental vision a picture of his father lying in the wagon with the certainty that death would come unless his son could bring relief, and this nerved the boy to yet greater exertion. With his arms over his face, he pushed forward once more, not knowing whether he might be retracing his steps, or proceeding in the proper direction. Every inch of advance was made against the fierce wind and drifting sand which nearly overthrew him. Every breath he drew was choked with dust. How long he thus literally fought against the elements it was impossible for him so much as to conjecture. He knew his strength was spending rapidly; and when it seemed as if he could not take another step, he stumbled, and fell against a mound of sand. It had been built by the "dancing giants" when some obstruction had been found in the path of the storm; and as Dick fell prostrate at the foot of this slight elevation, there instantly came a sense of deepest relief. The sand was no longer thrown against him by the blast; the wind had ceased to buffet him; he was in comparative quiet, and for an instant he failed to understand the reason. Then he realized that this mound, which had thrown him from his feet, was affording a shelter against the tempest, which was now coming from one direction instead of in a circle as heretofore; and a fervent prayer of thanksgiving went up from his heart, for he believed his life had been saved that he might aid his father. After recovering in a measure from the exhaustion consequent upon his battle with the elements, he proceeded with infinite care to brush the particles of sand from his face; and this done, his relief was yet greater. Overhead the air was full of darkness; the wind still screamed as it whirled aloft the spiral columns of dust; the wave-like drift of the sand surged on either side; but for the moment he was safe. He had been told that such tempests were of but short duration, and yet it seemed to him as if already half a day had been spent in this fight for life. Then he said to himself that he could remain where he was in safety until the wind had subsided; but even as the words were formed in his mind he was conscious of a weight upon his limbs as if something was bearing him down, and for the first time he realized that he was being rapidly buried alive. To remain where he was ten minutes longer must be fatal; and perhaps even that length of time would not be allowed him, for if the wind so shifted as to cut off the top of the mound, then he would be overwhelmed as if in a landslide. There was nothing for it but to go into the conflict once more; and in this second effort the odds would be still greater against him, because his courage was lessened. He knew the danger which menaced, and the suffering he would have to endure the instant he rose from behind the poor shelter; yet it was necessary, and the boy staggered to his feet. There was nothing to guide him in the right direction, for all around was blackness and flying grit; yet he believed his way lay directly in the teeth of the storm, and because of such belief pressed onward, resolving that he would continue as long as was possible. As he said to himself so he did, staggering this way and that, but ever pressing forward on the course which he believed to be the true one, blinded, choking, bewildered by the swirling particles until he was dimly conscious of falling, and then he knew no more. At the moment Dick fell vanquished, hardly more than a quarter of a mile distant were two men mounted on Indian ponies, and leading three burros laden with a miner's outfit for prospecting. To them the sand-storms of the desert were not strange; and with the knowledge born of experience they made preparations for "riding out the gale," when the low, dark cloud first appeared in the eastern horizon. The animals were fastened with their heads together; the riders bending forward in the saddles, and, as well as it could be accomplished, throwing over all the heads a number of blankets. The two horsemen had taken the precaution while assuming this position to present their backs to the wind, and each had tied one end of his blanket around his waist in such manner that it could not be stripped off by the tempest. Two or three blankets were fastened to the heads of the animals, and thus the faces of all were protected. When the sand had whirled around them until the animals were buried nearly to their bellies, the riders forced the bunch onward ten or fifteen paces, continuing to make this change of location at least every five minutes during the entire time the tempest raged; and thus it was they escaped being buried in the downpour of sand. From the time the first blast struck Dick, until the "dancing giants" whirled away to the westward, leaving the sky unclouded and the yellow sands shimmering in the sunlight, no more than thirty minutes had passed; yet in that short interval one human life on which others depended would have been sacrificed, unless these two travellers who were uninjured should chance to reach that exact spot where lay the boy partially covered by the desert's winding-sheet. "You can talk of a gale at sea where the sailors are half drowned all the time; but it ain't a marker alongside of these 'ere red-hot blizzards, eh, Parsons?" one of the horsemen said as he threw off the blanket from his head with a long-drawn sigh of relief. "Drownin' must be mighty pleasant kind of fun alongside of chokin' to death on account of bein' filled plum full with dry sand," Parsons replied. "I allow there ain't no call for us to stay here braggin' about our Nevada hurricanes, Tom Robinson, more especially since we'll make less headway now the sand has been stirred up a bit." "There's nothin' to hold me here," Robinson replied with a laugh. Straightway the two men turned their ponies' heads toward the west; and as they advanced the patient burros, laden with a miscellaneous assortment of goods until little else than their heads and tails could be seen, followed steadily in the rear. Five minutes after they had resumed their journey Parsons cried, as he raised himself in the stirrups, shading his eyes with his hands as he peered ahead,-- "What's that 'ere bit of blue out there? Part of somebody's outfit? or was there a shipwreck close at hand?" "It's a man--most likely a tenderfoot, if he tried to walk across this 'ere desert." The two halted, and Dick Stevens's life was saved. Had the storm lasted two or three minutes longer, or these prospectors gone in any other direction, he must have died where he had fallen. Now he was dragged out from beneath the weight of sand, and laid upon a blanket, while the men, knowing by experience what should be done in such cases, set about restoring the boy to consciousness. Thanks to the timely attention, Dick soon opened his eyes, stared around him for an instant in bewilderment, and then exclaimed as he made a vain attempt to rise,-- "I come pretty near knockin' under, didn't I? The last I remember was of fallin'." "I allow it was the closest shave you'll ever have agin," Parsons replied grimly; "an' I'm free to say that them as are sich fools as to cross this 'ere sand-barren afoot oughter stay on it, like as you were in a fair way of doin' before we come along." "An' that's what daddy would say, I s'pose. If he'd known what I was goin' to do, there would have been a stop put to it, even though it was to save his life I came." "How can you save anybody's life by comin' out in sich a tom-fool way as this? Less than a quart of water, and not so much as a blanket with which to protect yourself." "I can do it by goin' to Antelope Spring an' findin' a doctor," Dick replied. "You see, daddy shot himself in the leg--stove a bone all to pieces; and mother don't know what to do, so I slid off this mornin' without tellin' anybody." "Countin' on footin' it to Antelope Spring?" Parsons asked as if in surprise. "Yes; it ain't more'n forty-five miles the way we've reckoned it." "Where did you start from?" "Buffalo Meadows." "And when did you count on makin' that forty-five miles?" "I allowed to get there before midnight." "Where's your camp?" "Well, we haven't got anything you can rightly call a camp; but we're located in a prairie schooner near by the spring in the valley." "How many in the party?" "Daddy, mother, an' Margie." The two men looked at Dick an instant, and then glanced at each other, after which Parsons said emphatically,-- "The boy has got grit; but the old man must have been way off to come through this section of the country in a wagon." Dick explained how it was they chanced to be travelling, and then, eager to gain all the information possible, asked,-- "Do you know anything about Antelope Spring?" "Nothin' good. There's a settlement by that name; but it's a no-account place." "I s'pose I'll find a doctor?" "I reckon they've got somethin' of the kind hangin' 'round. But are you countin' on draggin' one down to Buffalo Meadows?" "I don't expect to be so lucky. But mother seemed to have the idea that if somebody who knew all about it would tell her how to take care of daddy's wound, she'd get along with such stuff as I could fetch to help him out in the fever. Say, I don't reckon either of you wants to buy a good rifle? There ain't a better one on Humboldt River;" and as he spoke Dick unslung the weapon which hung at his back. "What's your idea in sellin' the gun? It strikes me, if you're countin' on pullin' through from Buffalo Meadows to Willow Point, you'll need it." "Of course I shall; but it's got to go. You see, daddy's dead broke, an' I must have money to pay for the doctor's stuff. I don't s'pose you want it; but if you did, here's a good chance. If you don't buy I reckon there'll be some one up to Antelope Spring who'll take it off my hands." "Haven't you got anything else you can put up, instead of lettin' the rifle go? In this section of the country a tool like that will stand a man good agin starvation." "It's all I own that's worth anything, an' I'll be mighty sorry to lose it; but she's got to go." Again the men looked at the boy, then at each other; and Parsons motioned for his companion to follow him a short distance away, where, to Dick's great surprise, they began an animated conversation. CHAPTER IV. AT ANTELOPE SPRING. Dick was perplexed by the behavior of these two strangers. He failed utterly to understand why they should have anything of such a private nature to discuss that it was necessary to move aside from him; for in a few moments they would be alone on the desert, after he had gone his way. The discussion, or conversation, whichever it may have been, did not occupy many moments; but brief as was the time, Dick had turned to continue his journey at the instant when the men rejoined him. "What do you allow you ought to get for that rifle?" Parsons asked abruptly. "That's what I don't know. You see, I didn't buy it new, but traded for her before we left home. It seems to me she ought to be a bargain at--at--ten dollars." "An' if you get the cash you're goin' to blow it right in for what the doctor can tell you, an' sich stuff as he thinks your old man ought to have eh?" "That's what I'll do if it costs as much." "S'posen it don't? Allow that you've got five dollars left, what then?" "I'll buy flour, an' bacon, an' somethin' for mother an' Margie with the balance." "Do you mean to tell me your father was sich a tenderfoot as to come down through this way without any outfit?" Robinson asked sternly. "He had plenty at the time we started; but you see we struck bad luck all the way along, and when we pulled into Buffalo Meadows we had cooked the last pound of flour. There wasn't even a bit of meat in the camp when he got shot. I knocked over a deer last night, an' that will keep 'em goin' till I get back." "An' a kid like you is supportin' a family, eh?" Parsons asked in a kindly tone. "I don't know what kind of a fist I'm goin' to make of it; but that's what I'll try to do till daddy gets on his feet again. Say, how long do you s'pose it'll take a man to get well when one leg is knocked endways with a bullet plum through the bone of it?" "It'll be quite a bit, I'm thinkin'--too long for you to stay in Buffalo Meadows at this time of the year. Two months ought to do it, eh, Parsons?" "Well, yes; he won't get 'round any quicker than that." "I don't know as it makes much difference if he can't walk a great deal, 'cause after the horses have had plenty of grass for a couple of weeks we'll pull across this place; an' once on the other side I sha'n't worry but what I can take 'em through all right." "Look here, my son," Robinson said, as he laid his hand on the lad's shoulder. "You've got plenty of sand, that's a fact. I allow there ain't a kid within a thousand miles of here that would tackle the contract you've taken this mornin'. If we wasn't bound to the Winnemucca Range, an it wasn't quite so late in the season, we'd help you out by goin' down to camp an' straightenin' things a bit; but it can't be done now. We'll buy your rifle though, an' that's what we've agreed on. Ten dollars ain't sich a big pile for the gun; but yet it's plenty enough--leastways, it's all we can afford to put out just now." "I'll be mighty glad to sell it for that if you need a rifle; an' it'll be better to make the trade now than wait till I get into Antelope Spring, 'cause there's no dead certainty I'll find anybody there who'll buy it." Parsons took from a buckskin bag a small roll of bills, and when he had counted out ten dollars there was but little of the original amount remaining. He handed the money to Dick; and the latter, after the briefest hesitation, held the rifle toward him. "Sorry to give it up, eh?" Robinson asked. "Well, I ain't when it comes to gettin' the money for daddy; if it wasn't for that I'd be. You see, it's the first one I ever owned, an' the way things look now, it'll be a good while before I get another." "I'll tell you how we'll fix it, son. My partner an' I ain't needin' an extra rifle just now; an' more than as likely as not--in fact, I may say it's certain--we'll be up 'round your way before the winter fairly sets in. Now, if you could keep it for us till then, it would be the biggest kind of a favor, 'cause you see we're prospecting an' have got about all the load the burros can tackle." "You're--you're--sure you want to buy this gun, eh?" "Well, if we wasn't, there wouldn't have been much sense in makin' the talk." "But if you're prospectors, there isn't any show of your gettin' 'round to Willow Point." "Oh, we drift up an' down, here an' there, just as the case may be. There ain't any question about our trailin' all over the State in time, and you shall keep the rifle in good shape till we call for it. So long, my son. It's time for you to be hoofin' it, if you count on gettin' to Antelope Spring this side of to-morrow mornin'." As he spoke, Parsons mounted his pony, Robinson following the example; and in another moment the two were on their way once more, leaving Dick in a painful state of uncertainty regarding their purpose in purchasing the gun. During two or three minutes the boy stood where they had left him, and then cried,-- "Hello there! Hold on a minute, will you?" "What's the matter now?" and Parsons looked over his shoulder, but neither he nor his partner reined in their steeds. "Are you buyin' this rifle? or are you makin' believe so's to give me the ten dollars?" "S'posen we was makin' believe?" "Why then I wouldn't take the money, 'cause I ain't out begging." "Don't fret yourself, my son. We've bought the gun all right; an' the next time we meet, you can hand it over. I wish our pile had been bigger so's we could have given twenty, 'cause a kid like you deserves it." The horsemen continued on, and by this time were so far away that Dick would have been unwise had he attempted to overtake them. He stood irresolutely an instant as if doubtful of the genuineness of this alleged business transaction. It was as if the men feared he might attempt to overtake them; for despite the heavy loads on the burros they urged the beasts forward at their best pace, and Dick was still revolving the matter in his mind when they were a mile or more away. "Well, it's no use for me to stand here tryin' to figure out whether they've given me this money or really mean to buy the rifle, for I've got to strike Antelope Spring between this time an' midnight. Now that there are ten dollars in my pocket, I'll be a pretty poor stick if I don't do it; but the sand-storm came mighty near windin' me up. It was the toughest thing I ever saw." Then Dick set forward once more, toiling over the loose surface into which his feet sank three or four inches at every step; and when he finally stood on the firm soil east of this waste of shifting sand, it was two hours past noon. As he had reckoned, there were more than thirty miles yet to be traversed; but the distance troubled him little. He had in his possession that which would buy such knowledge and such drugs as his father might need, and he believed it would be almost a sin to rebel even in his thoughts against the labor which must be performed. Now he advanced, whistling cheerily, with a long stride and a swinging gait that should have carried him over the trail at the rate of four miles an hour; and not until late in the afternoon did he permit himself to halt, and partake of the broiled venison. Then he ate every morsel, and, the meal finished, said aloud with a low laugh of perfect content:-- "It's lucky I didn't bring any more; for I should eat it to a dead certainty, an' then I wouldn't be in as good trim for walkin'. Daddy always says that the less a fellow has in his stomach the easier he can get over the ground, and the poor old man never struck it truer." After this halt of fifteen minutes Dick pressed forward without more delay until he came upon the settlement, at what time he knew not, but to the best of his belief it was hardly more than an hour past midnight. There was no thought in his mind of spending any portion of the money for a bed. The earth offered such a resting-place as satisfied him; and since the day his father departed from Willow Point in the hope of finding a location where he could earn a livelihood with but little labor, Dick had more often slept upon the ground than elsewhere. Now he threw himself down by the side of a storehouse, or shed, where he would be protected from the night wind; and there was hardly more than time to compose himself for rest before his eyes were closed in slumber. No person in Antelope Spring was awake at an earlier hour next morning than Dick Stevens; for the sun had not yet shown himself when the boy arose to his feet, and looked around as if to say that he was in fine condition. "A tramp of forty-five miles ain't to be sneezed at, an' when you throw in fifteen miles of desert an' a sand-storm to boot, it's what I call a pretty good day's work; yet I'm feelin' fine as a fiddle," he said in a tone of satisfaction, after which he made an apology for a toilet at the stream near-by. Dick had no idea in which direction a physician might be found; therefore he halted in front of the first store he saw to wait until the proprietor came, half an hour later, to attend to customers. It was such a shop as one would naturally expect to find in a settlement among the mountains of Nevada. From molasses to perfumery, and from ploughs to fish-hooks, the assortment ran, until one would say all his wants might be supplied from the stock. Cheese was what Dick had decided upon for his morning meal; and after purchasing two pounds, together with such an amount of crackers as he thought would be necessary, he set about eating breakfast at the same time that he gained the desired information. "I've come from the other side of Smoke Creek Desert," he began, speaking indistinctly because of the fulness of his mouth, "an' want to find a doctor." "Ain't sick, are yer?" the shopkeeper asked with mild curiosity. "Daddy shot himself in the leg, an' mother don't know what to do for him; so I've come up to hire a doctor to tell me, an' buy whatever he says is needed." "A kid like you come across the desert! Where's your pony?" "I haven't got any. Daddy's horses are so nearly played out that they've got to be left to grass two or three weeks, if we count on doin' anything with 'em." "Did you walk across?" the shopkeeper asked incredulously. "That's what I did;" and Dick told of his sufferings during the sand-storm, not in a boastful way, but as if it were his purpose to give the prospectors the praise they deserved. When he had concluded, the proprietor plunged his hands deep in his pockets, surveyed the boy from head to foot much as Parsons and Robinson had, saying not a word until Dick's face reddened under the close scrutiny, when he exclaimed,-- "Well, I'll be jiggered! A kid of your size--say, how old are you, bub?" "Thirteen." "Well, a baby of thirteen lightin' out across Smoke Creek Desert, an' all for the sake of helpin' your dad, eh? Do you reckon you can bite out of Dr. Manter's ear all you want to know, an' then go back an' run the business?" "It seems as if he ought to tell me what mother needs to do, an' I can remember every word. Then she said there would have to be some medicine to stop the fever; an' that's what I'm countin' on buyin', if he gives me the name of it." "When are you goin' back?" "I'm in hopes to get away this noon, an' then I'll be in camp by to-morrow mornin'." "Say, sonny, do you want to stuff me with the yarn that you've travelled forty-five miles in less'n thirty-six hours, an' count on doin' the same thing right over agin, which is ninety miles in less'n three days?" "I've done the first half of the journey, an' it couldn't have been more'n two hours past midnight when I got here. With such a lay-out as this for breakfast I'll be in good shape for goin' back; an' it would be a mighty poor boy who couldn't get there between this noon an' to-morrow mornin', 'cause I'll go across the desert after dark, an' it ain't likely there'll be another sand-storm." "Well, look here, sonny, stand right there for a minute, will you, while I go out? I won't be gone a great while, an' you can finish up your breakfast." "But I want to see the doctor as soon as I can, you know." "That'll be all right. I'll make it in my way to help you along so you sha'n't be kept in this town a single hour more'n 's necessary." Having said this, and without waiting to learn whether his young and early customer was willing to do as he had requested, the proprietor of the store hurriedly left the building, and Dick had finished his meal before he returned. The boy was stowing the remainder of the cheese and crackers into his pockets when the shopkeeper, accompanied by two men, who looked as if they might have been hunters or miners, entered. "Is this the kid?" one of the strangers asked, looking as curiously at the boy as had the proprietor. "That's the one; an' the yarn he tells must be pretty nigh true, 'cause he met Parsons an' Robinson, an' accordin' to his story they bought his rifle, leavin' it with him till such time as they want to claim it." The newcomers questioned Dick so closely regarding the journey and its purpose that he began to fear something was wrong, and asked nervously,-- "What's the reason I shouldn't have come up here? When a feller's father is goin' to die if he can't get a doctor afoul of him, it's a case of hustlin' right sharp." "An' accordin' to the account you've given, that's about what you've been doin'," one of the strangers said with an approving nod, which reassured the boy to such an extent that he answered without hesitation the further questions which were asked. When the curiosity of the men had been satisfied, one of those whom the landlord had brought in, and who was addressed by his companions as "Bob Mason," said to Dick, as he laid his hand on the boy's shoulder,-- "We'll take care of you, my bold kid, an' see that you get all your father needs. If it wasn't that the doctor in this 'ere town is worked mighty hard, I'd make it my business to send him right down to your camp. But I reckon, if it's nothin' more'n a bullet through your dad's leg, he'll pull 'round all right with sich things as you can carry from here. Now come on, an' we'll find out what the pill-master thinks of the case." Dick was thoroughly surprised that so much interest in his affairs should be manifested by strangers, and it pleased him that he was to have assistance in this search for medical knowledge. He followed this new friend readily, and in a few moments was standing before the doctor, listening to Mr. Mason's highly colored version of the journey. When he would have corrected the gentleman as to some of the points which had been exaggerated, he was kindly bade to "hold his tongue." "I've heard all your yarn, my boy, an' can imagine a good many things you didn't tell. There's precious few of us in this section of the country that was ever overtook, while on foot, by the dancin' giants, an' lived to tell the story." "I wouldn't be alive if it hadn't been for Mr. Parsons an' Mr. Robinson." "What they did don't cut any figger. It's what you went through with that I'm talkin' about, an' the doctor is bound to hear the whole story before he gives up what he knows." Not until Mr. Mason had concluded the recital after his own fashion did he give the professional gentleman an opportunity to impart the information which Dick had worked so hard to obtain; and then the physician, after telling him in a general way how the patient should be treated, wrote out in detail instructions for Mrs. Stevens to follow. Then from his store of drugs, pills, and nauseous potions he selected such as might be needed in the case, writing on each package full directions, at the expense of at least an hour's time; and when he had finished, Dick believed that his father would suffer for nothing in the way of medicine. "There, lad," Dr. Manter said as he concluded his labors, and tied in the smallest possible compass the articles he had set out, "I allow your mother should be able to do all that is necessary; and unless the bone is so shattered that the leg must be amputated, it is possible you will get along as well without a physician as with one." "Do you mean there's a chance my poor old man might have to let his leg be cut off?" "If you have described the wound correctly, I should say there was every danger. I have written, however, to your mother, so that she may be able to decide if anything of the kind is probable, and then you may be obliged to make another journey up here. At all events, if your father's life should be in danger, you may depend upon it I will come to the camp; although I am free to admit that a ride across Smoke Creek Desert isn't one that I hanker for, although you seem to have made the journey on foot and thought little of it." "That's 'cause I was doin' it on daddy's account. How much is your price for this stuff?" Mr. Mason instantly plunged his hand in his pocket; and before he could withdraw it the physician replied,-- "You have earned all I've given you, lad; and I'd be ashamed to take even a dollar from a plucky little shaver like you." "But I've got ten dollars, an' can pay my way. If I'd thought the prospectors meant to give me the money instead of buyin' the rifle, I'd got along without it; but they said twice over that they wanted the gun, an' I believed 'em." "No one can accuse you of being a beggar; but if it's the same to you, I'd rather let this go on account, and some day perhaps, when you've struck it rich, come around and we'll have a settlement." "Doctor, you're a man, every inch of you!" Mr. Mason said in a loud tone, as he slapped the physician on the shoulder with a force that caused him to wince with absolute pain. "You're a man; an' if the people in this town don't know it already, they shall find it out from yours truly. I reckon we can ante up a little something in this 'ere matter, so the kid won't go home empty-handed; for I tell you there's nothin' in Antelope Spring too good for him." Again Dick looked about him in surprise that such praise should be bestowed for what seemed to him a very simple act. The kindly manner in which the physician bade him good-by, with the assurance that he would himself go to Buffalo Meadows if it should become necessary, served to increase the boy's astonishment; and instead of thanking the gentleman, he could only say, because of his bewilderment,-- "I did it for daddy, sir; an' it would be a mean kind of fellow who wouldn't do as much." Then Mr. Mason hurried him away, and despite Dick's protests insisted on leading him from one place to another, until it was as if he had been introduced to every citizen in the settlement. He was not called upon to tell his story again, because his conductor did that for him; and the details of the narrative were magnified with each repetition, until Dick believed it absolutely necessary he should contradict certain portions wherein he was depicted as a hero of the first class. When Mr. Mason had shown the boy fully around the town, he said by way of parting,-- "Now you go down to Mansfield's, an' wait there till I come." "Where's Mansfield's?" "That's the store where I found you." "But I can't wait a great while, Mr. Mason. You know I've got to be back by to-morrow mornin'; an' I ought to be leavin' now, 'cause it's pretty near noon." "Don't worry your head about that, my son. You shall get to camp before sunrise to-morrow mornin', an' without so very much work on your part, either. Now go down to Mansfield's, an' wait there till I come. Mind you don't leave this town till I'm back there." Mr. Mason hurried away as he ceased speaking; and Dick walked slowly down the street, debating in his mind whether he must obey this order. CHAPTER V. DICK "PULLS THROUGH." When Dick had retraced his steps to Mansfield's he found no less than ten of the citizens there, several of whom he had already met; and all were evidently eager to talk with the boy who had walked across Smoke Creek Desert. There were but few in that section of the country who would have dared to make the venture, although it was by no means a dangerous or difficult journey for a horseman; and Dick's bravery, in connection with all the circumstances, pleased the citizens of Antelope Spring wonderfully well. The package Dick carried told that he had been successful in finding a physician, and Mr. Mansfield was curious to learn how much the medical gentleman had charged for his services. "He wouldn't take a cent," Dick said in reply to the question. "It seems to me the folks in this town are mighty good." "I don't reckon we'll ever be hung for our goodness," the proprietor of the shop said with a grin; "but it is considerable of a treat to see a kid with so much sand as you've shown. Dr. Manter knew which side his bread was buttered on when he wouldn't take your money; an' if your father don't get better with what you're takin' to him, you can count on Manter seein' the thing through. You've got quite a load, my son." "Yes; an' I'm countin' on carryin' more, if you'll take money for what I buy. I don't want to set myself up for a beggar, 'cause I've got the stuff to pay for everything." "What do you want?" "About ten pounds of flour, and the same weight in bacon or salt pork, with a little pepper and salt, will be as much as I can carry." "It's a good deal more'n I'd want to tote forty-five miles 'twixt now and sunset," one of the visitors remarked; and Dick replied cheerily,-- "It wouldn't seem very heavy if you was carryin' it to your folks who'd had nothin' but fresh meat to eat for the last month. Mother and Margie will be wild when I bring in that much." "I'll put up twenty-five pounds in all, for I reckon there are other things that would come handy," Mr. Mansfield said as he began to weigh out the articles, and Dick asked quickly,-- "You're to let me pay for 'em?" "Sure," the proprietor replied as he winked at the loungers. "You shall give all the stuff is worth." "I didn't want to hang 'round here very long; but Mr. Mason said I was to wait for him." "If Bob Mason give sich orders it'll be worth your while to stop a spell; for he's as cross-grained as a broncho when matters don't go to his likin', an' might make trouble for you." Dick was considerably disturbed by this remark, which had much the sound of a threat, and looked out of the door uneasily. The citizens had been exceedingly kind to him; but he had had no little experience with inhabitants of frontier towns, and knew that friendship might be changed to enmity very suddenly. The shopkeeper had not finished filling the small order when Bob Mason rode up on a wiry-looking broncho, and after tying the beast to a hitching-post, entered the store. "I had an idea that was what you were up to," one of the loungers said; and Mason replied with a laugh,-- "When we have sich a visitor as this 'ere kid, I reckon we're called on to make things pleasant for him." Then turning to Dick he added, "If it so be your daddy pulls through all right for the next week or ten days, he should be in condition to ride this far?" "After the horses have rested a little I counted on starting for Willow Point." "It strikes me that would be too rough a journey for the old man at this time of the year. We're needin' kids like you in this town, an' I allow you'll find a shelter here till spring. Then, if the settlement don't suit you, it'll be only a case of goin' on when the travellin' is easier." "Do you mean that we'd better live here?" Dick asked in surprise. "That's the way some of us have figgered it." "Can I find work enough to pay our way? You see, daddy won't be in shape to do anything for quite a spell." "I'll give you a job on my ranch, an' pay fair wages." "Then we'll be glad to stop." "All right, my son. You shall take your own time about comin', and I'll hold the job open till you get here. Now I'm allowin' to lend you that broncho, so you can get back in case the old man grows worse. He's a tricky beast; but I reckon you'll handle him without any too much trouble. The only drawback is that I can't furnish a saddle." "If you can spare the pony, I'll get along without the fixings," Dick replied, his eyes gleaming with delight; for with such a steed he would be able to visit the town at short notice, if it should become necessary. "I'm allowin' that I've got a saddle he can have for a spell," Mr. Mansfield replied thoughtfully; and although Dick insisted that there was really no need of one, it was brought out. The loungers took it upon themselves to see that the broncho was properly harnessed; and now that it was no longer necessary to limit the weight of the supplies, the shopkeeper suggested that the amount of flour and bacon be doubled. "Will ten dollars be enough to pay for it?" Dick asked. "We'll make a charge of it, seein's you're goin' to work for Bob Mason. You can give me an order on him after you've been here a spell, an' it'll be the same thing as cash." "Now you're doin' the square thing, Mansfield," Mason said approvingly; and despite Dick's protests that he preferred to pay his way so long as he had the money, the matter was thus arranged. "You are sure I can earn enough to pay for what we'll need to eat between now and spring?" the boy asked doubtfully. "I'm allowing from what I've seen, that you'll earn a man's wages, an' that'll be thirty dollars a month. If your father is anything like you, I'll guarantee he can find work enough to support the family; an' Antelope Spring is needin' settlers mighty bad." The supply of provisions and the medicines were packed in a bag, divided into two portions of equal weight that they might be carried over the saddle, and then Dick was ready to mount. He realized fully how kind the people of the town had been to him, and was eager to say that which should give token of the gratitude in his heart; but the words refused to come at his bidding. He stammered in the attempt to speak, cleared his throat nervously, and tried again,-- "You've been mighty good, all hands, an' I'm thinkin' it'll help daddy pull through. I wish--I wish"-- "That's all right, my son," Bob Mason interrupted. "We've got a good idea of what you want to say, an' you can let it go at that. As a general thing we don't get stuck on kids; but when one flashes up in the style you have, we cotton to him mightily. You can push that 'ere broncho right along, for forty-five miles ain't any terrible big job for him, an' canter into camp this side of midnight with considerable time to spare." "I thank you all, an' so will mother an' daddy when they get here," he said in a husky tone, as he mounted; and then waving his cap by way of adieu, he rode away, the happiest boy to be found on either side of the Rocky Mountains. Night had not fully come when he halted at the eastern edge of the desert to give the broncho water and grass; and here he remained an hour, the crackers and cheese left from breakfast affording an appetizing supper to a lad who had known but little variation in his bill of fare from fresh meat, broiled or stewed, more often without salt or pepper. The stars guided him on the course across the waste of sand, and the pony made his way over the yielding surface at a pace which surprised the rider. "He can walk four miles an hour, according to this showing, and I should be in camp before ten o'clock." In this he was not mistaken. The broncho pushed ahead rapidly, proving that he had traversed deserts before, and was eager to complete the journey; and when Dick came within sight of the wagon, his mother was standing in front of the camp-fire, so intent on broiling a slice of venison that she was ignorant of his coming until he shouted cheerily,-- "Here I am, mother dear, coming along with a good bit of style, and so many fine things that you'll open your eyes mighty wide when this bag is emptied. How is my poor old man?" He had dismounted as he ceased speaking, and was instantly clasped in his mother's arms. "O Dick, Dick, how sore my heart has been! Your father said you could not get across the desert on foot, and I have pictured you lying on the sands dying." "You've made your pictures all wrong, dearie; for here I am in prime condition, and loaded down with good things. The people up at Antelope Spring have shown themselves to be mighty generous. How is daddy?" "He is resting comfortably just now, although he has suffered considerable pain. Did you see a doctor?" "Yes; an' am loaded way up to the muzzle with directions as to what must be done. Let's go in and see the poor old man, an' then I'll tell you both the story." Mr. Stevens's voice was heard from the inside of the wagon as he spoke Dick's name; Margie clambered out, her big brown eyes heavy with slumber, to greet her brother, and the boy was forced to receive her caresses before it was possible to care for the broncho. Then, as soon as might be, Dick entered the wagon, and the hand-clasp from his father was sufficient reward for all his sufferings in the desert. It was midnight before he finished telling of his journey, and reception by the men of Antelope Spring. He would have kept secret the peril which came to him with the sand-storm; but his father questioned him so closely that it became necessary to go into all the details, and more than once before the tale was concluded did his mother press him lovingly to her as she wiped the tears from her eyes. "You mustn't cry now it is all over," he said with a smile, as he returned the warm pressure of her hand. "I'm none the worse for havin' been half buried, an' we're rich. I'm countin' on pullin' out of here as soon as the horses are in condition; an' we'll stay at the town till spring--perhaps longer." Although he claimed that he was not hungry, his mother insisted on preparing supper from the seemingly ample store of provisions; and when the meal had been eaten it was so nearly morning that Dick would have dispensed with the formality of going to bed, but that his mother declared it was necessary he should gain some rest. His heart was filled with thankfulness when he lay down under the wagon again, covered with a blanket; and perhaps for the first time in his life Dick did more than repeat the prayer his mother taught him, for he whispered very softly,-- "You've been mighty good to me, God, an' I hope you're goin' to let my poor old man have another whack at livin'." Dick had repeated to his mother all the instructions given him by the physician, and before he was awake next morning Mrs. Stevens set about dressing the wound in a more thorough manner than had ever been possible before. She was yet engaged in this task when the boy opened his eyes, and learning to his surprise that the day was at least an hour old, sprang to his feet like one who has been guilty of an indiscretion. "What! up already?" he cried in surprise, as looking through the flap of the wagon-covering, he saw what his mother was doing. "Yes, Dick dear, and I have good news for you. Both your father and I now think he was mistaken in believing the bone was shattered by the bullet. Perhaps it is splintered some, but nothing more serious." "Then you won't be obliged to have it cut off, daddy, an' should be able to get round right soon." "There's this much certain, Dick, whether the bone is injured or not, my life has been saved through your efforts; for I know enough about gun-shot wounds to understand that I couldn't have pulled through without something more than we were able to get here." "Yet you would have prevented me from leaving if I had told you what was in my mind." "I should for a fact; because if one of us two must go under, it would be best for mother an' Margie that I was that one." "Why, daddy! you have no right to talk like that!" "It's true, Dick. I've been a sort of ne'er-do-well, otherwise I wouldn't have been called Roving Dick, while you are really the head of the house." "I won't listen to such talk, daddy; for it sounds as if you were out of your head again, as when we were alone that night. You'll perk up after we're at Antelope Spring, an' show the people there what you can do." "I shall be obliged to work very hard in order to make a good showing by the side of you." Dick hurried away, for it pained him to hear his father talk in such fashion; yet at the same time he hoped most fervently that there would be no more roaming in search of a place where the least possible amount of labor was necessary, and it really seemed as if "Roving Dick" had made up his mind to lead a different life. There was little opportunity for the boy to remain idle. The supplies he had brought from Mr. Mansfield's shop would not suffice to provide the family with food many days unless it was re-enforced by fresh meat; and as soon as Dick had seen to it that the horses and the broncho were safe, he made preparations for a hunting-trip. When breakfast had been eaten, and how delicious was the taste of bacon and flour-bread to this little party, which had been deprived of such food so long, he started off, returning at night-fall with a small deer and half a dozen rabbits. The greater portion of the venison he cut up ready for smoking; and when his mother asked why he was planning so much labor for himself, he replied cheerily,-- "We're likely to lay here ten days at the very least, for the horses won't be in condition to travel in much less time; and now is my chance to put in a stock of provisions for the winter. It never'll do to spend all my wages for food; because you and Margie are to be fitted out in proper shape, and now I haven't even the rifle to sell, for that belongs to the prospectors." Not an idle hour did Dick Stevens spend during the time they remained encamped at Buffalo Meadows; and when the time came that his father believed they might safely begin the journey to Antelope Spring, he had such a supply of smoked meat as would keep the family in food many days. Mr. Stevens's wound had healed with reasonable rapidity, thanks to the materials for its dressing which Dick had risked his life to procure; and on the morning they decided to cross the desert the invalid was able to take his place on the front seat of the wagon to play the part of driver. Dick rode the broncho, as a matter of course; and to him this journey was most enjoyable. Not until the second day did the family arrive at their destination, and Dick received such a reception as caused his cheeks to redden with joy. Bob Mason chanced to be in front of Mansfield's store when the party rode up, and insisted on their remaining there until he could summon the inhabitants of the settlement to give them welcome. "We're glad you've come," Mr. Mason said when he believed the time had come for him to make a speech. "We've seen the kid, an' know how much sand he's got; so if the rest of the family are anything like him, and I reckon they must be, we're gettin' the kind of citizens we hanker after. I've pre-empted the boy, an' allow he'll look out for things on the ranch as well as any man I could hire, an' a good deal better'n the average run. We've got a house here for the rest of you, an' Stevens will find plenty of work if he's handy with tools. Now then, kid, we'll get the old folks settled, an' after that I'll yank you off with me." Mason led the way to a rude shanty of boards, which was neither the best nor the worst dwelling in the town; and to Mrs. Stevens and Margie it seemed much like a palace, for it was a place they could call home, a pleasure they had not enjoyed since leaving Willow Point two years ago. Dick observed with satisfaction that there was a sufficient amount of furniture in the shanty to serve his parents until money could be earned with which to purchase more; and then he rode away with Bob Mason, leading the team-horses to that gentleman's corral. He had brought his family to a home, and had before him a good prospect of supplying them with food, even though his father should not be able to do any work until the coming spring; therefore Dick Stevens was a very happy boy. Here we will leave him; for he is yet in Mason's employ, and it is said in Antelope Spring to-day, or was a few months ago, that when "Bob Mason hired that kid to oversee his ranch, he knew what he was about." It is hard to believe that a boy only fifteen years of age (for Dick has _now_ been an overseer, or "boss puncher" as it is termed in Nevada, nearly two years) could care for a ranch of six hundred acres; yet he has done it, as more than one can testify, and in such a satisfactory manner that next year he is to have an interest in the herds and flocks on the "Mason Place." Mr. Stevens recovered from the wound in due time; and early in the spring after his arrival at the settlement, he joined Messrs. Parsons & Robinson in prospecting among the ranges. His good fortune was even greater than Dick's; for before the winter came again the firm had struck a rich lead of silver, which has been worked with such profit that "Roving Dick's" home is one of the best and the cosiest to be found in the State. Mr. Stevens would have been glad had young Dick decided to give up his work on the ranch; but the latter has declared again and again that he will leave mining strictly alone, because "cattle are good enough for him." THE END. [Transcriber's Note: * Pg 24 Added opening quotes before "I went, an' have got back". * Otherwise, archaic and inconsistent spelling and hyphenation retained.] 
51335	----	Fresh Air Fiend By KRIS NEVILLE Illustrated by KARL ROGERS [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction February 1952. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] Sick and helpless, he was very lucky to have a faithful native woman to nurse him. Or was he? He rolled over to look at the plants. They were crinkled and dead and useless in the narrow flower box across the hut. He tried to draw his arm under his body to force himself erect. The reserve oxygen began to hiss in sleepily. He tried to signal Hertha to help him, but she was across the room with her back to him, her hands fumbling with a bowl of dark, syrupy medicine. His lips moved, but the words died in his throat. He wanted to explain to her that scientists in huge laboratories with many helpers and millions of dollars had been unable to find a cure for liguna fever. He wanted to explain that no brown liquid, made like cake batter, would cure the disease that had decimated the crews of two expeditions to Sitari and somehow gotten back to cut down the population of Wiblanihaven. But, watching her, he could understand what she thought she was doing. At one time she must have seen a pharmacist put chemicals into a mortar and grind them with a pestle. This, she must have remembered, was what people did to make medicine, and now she put what chemical-appearing substances she could locate--flour, powdered coffee, lemon extract, salt--into a bowl and mashed them together. She was very intent on her work and it probably made her feel almost helpful. Finally she moved out of his field of vision; he found that he could not turn his head to follow her with his eyes. He lay conscious but inert, like waterlogged wood on a river bottom. He heard sounds of her movement. At last he slept. * * * * * He awakened with a start. His head was clearer than it had been for hours. He listened to the oxygen hissing in again. He tried to read the dial on the far wall, but it blurred before his eyes. "Hertha," he said. She came quickly to his cot. "What does the oxygen register say?" "Oxygen register?" He gritted his teeth against the fever which began to shake his body mercilessly until he wanted to scream to make it stop. He became angry even as the fever shook him: angry not really at the doctors; not really at any one thing. Angry because the mountains did not care if he saw them; angry that the air did not care if he breathed it. Angry because, between planets, between suns, the coldness of space merely waited, not giving a damn. Several years ago--ten, twenty, perhaps more--some doctor had finally isolated a strain of the filterable virus of liguna fever that could be used as a vaccine: too weak to kill, but strong enough to produce immunity against its more virulent brother strains. That opened up the Sitari System for colonization and exploration and meant that the men who got there first would make fortunes. So he went to the base at Ke, first selling his strip mine property and disposing of his tools and equipping his spaceship for the intersolar trip; and at Ke they shot him full of the disease. But his bloodstream built no antibodies. The weakened virus settled in his nervous system and there was no way of getting it out. The doctors were very sorry for him, and they assured him it was a one-in-ten-thousand phenomenon. Thereafter, he suffered recurrent paralytic attacks. If it had not been for the advance warning--a pain at the base of his spine, a moment of violent trembling in his knees--he would have been forced to give up solitary strip mining altogether. As it was, whenever he felt the warning, he had to hurry to the nearest colony and be hospitalized for the duration of the attack. He had had four such warnings on this satellite, and three times he had gone to Pastiville on Helio and been cared for and come away with less money than he had gone with. His bank credit, once large, had slowly dribbled away, and now he made just about enough from his mining to care for himself during illness. He could not afford to hunt for less dangerous, less isolated work. It would not pay enough, for he knew how to do very little that civilization needed done. He was finally trapped; no longer could he afford a pilot for the long flight from Helio to a newer frontier, and he could not risk the trip alone. He lay waiting for the new spasm of fever and stared at Hertha who, this time, would care for him here and he would not need to go to a hospital. Perhaps, after a little while, he would be able to save enough to push on, through the awful indifference of space, to some new world where, with luck, there would be a sudden fortune. Then he could go back to civilization. He realized bitterly that he was merely telling himself he would go back. He knew there was only one direction he could go, and that direction was not back. Hertha waited, hurt-eyed, moving her pudgy hands helplessly. When the shaking subsided, he explained through chattering teeth about the oxygen register across the room, and she went away. * * * * * The fever vanished completely, leaving him listless. His hand, lying on the rough blanket, was abnormally white. He wiggled the fingers, but he could not feel the wool. His mouth was dry and he wanted a drink of water. Hertha moved out of his range of vision. He shifted his head on the damp pillow and watched her out of the corner of his eye. He had never heard her real name, but she did not seem to object to his name for her. I am that which began; Out of me the years roll; Out of me God and man; I am equal and whole; God changes, and man, And the form of them bodily; I am the soul. He tried to sit up again, but he was very weak. He wanted to quote it to her and tell her what he had never told her: that the name of it was _Hertha_ and that it had been written long ago by a man named Swinburne, and he wanted to explain why he had named her after a poem, because it was very funny. The harsh light hurt his eyes and made him feel dizzy. He lay watching her as she bent toward the oxygen dial, wrinkling her face in animal concentration, trying to read it for him. Her puzzled expression was pathetic; it reminded him of the first time he had seen her. The walls began to spin crazily, for the hut had been intended for only one person. He remembered the first time he saw her, cowering in a filthy alleyway in the Miramus. At first he thought she had taken some food from a garbage pail and was trying to conceal it by holding it to her breast. But when the flare of a rocket leaving the field two blocks away lit the area for a moment, he saw that she was holding a tiny welikin, terribly mangled, looking as if it had just been run over by a heavy transport truck. He took it away from her and threw it into the darkness, shuddering. "It was dead," he said. She continued to stare at him, starting to cry silently, big, round, salt tears that she brushed at with reddened hands. "My--my--" she stammered. He had an eerie feeling that she was trying to say, "My baby," and he felt a little chill of pity creep up his spine. "What do you do?" he asked kindly. "Sweep floors. I work a little for the Commander's wife. Around her home." "How did you get here?" Still crying, she said, "On a rocket." "Of course. What I meant was...." But he did not need to ask how she had gotten passed the emigration officers. Some influential man--such things could happen, especially when the destination was a relatively new frontier, such as Helio, where there was little danger of investigation--had seen to it that certain answers were falsified; and a little money and a corrupt official had conspired to produce a passport which read, "Mentally and physically fit for colonization." The influential man had, in effect, bought and paid for a personal slave to bring with him to the stars. She would not know of her legal rights. She would be easily frightened and confused. And then something had happened, and for some reason she had been abandoned to shift for herself. Perhaps she had run away. He looked away from her face. This was none of his affair. "Never mind," he said. He reached into his pocket and gave her a few coins and then turned and walked rapidly away, suddenly anxious to see the bright, remembered face of the young colonist, Doris, Don's friend; a face that would chase away the memory of this pathetic creature. After a moment, he heard the pad of her feet hopefully, fearfully following him. * * * * * She was standing beside his cot again, and he concentrated to make the walls stop spinning. "It had a blue line." "Yes, I know. Where?" She showed him with her fingers. "This much." "Halfway up?" he prompted. Dumbly, she nodded. He looked at the plants. "Hertha, listen. I've got to talk before the paralysis comes back. You'll have to listen very carefully and try to understand. I'll be all right in about ten days. You know that?" She nodded again. He took a deep breath that seemed to catch in his throat. "But you'll have to go outside before then." Hertha whimpered and fluttered her hands nervously. "I know you're afraid," he said. "I wouldn't ask you, but it has to be done. I can't go. You can see that, can't you? It has to be done." "Afraid!" "Nonsense!" he said harshly. "There's nothing to be afraid of. Put on the outside suit and nothing can hurt you." Moaning in fear, she shook her head. "Listen, Hertha! You've _got_ to do it. For _me_!" He did not like to make the appeal personal. He would have preferred to convince her that fear of the outside was groundless. It was not possible. He had attempted, again and again, to explain that the tiny satellite with its poison air was completely harmless as long as she wore a surface suit. There was no alien life, no possible danger, outside this tiny square of insulated hut and breathable air. But it was useless. And the personal appeal was the only course remaining. It was as much for her sake as his; she also needed oxygen, but she could never understand that fact. "For you?" she asked. He nodded, feeling the fever rise. His face twisted in pain, and he stared pleadingly into her cow-like eyes: dumb eyes, animal eyes, brown and trusting and ... loyal. The paralysis struck. His voice would not come up out of his chest and the dizziness swamped his mind, and, in fever, he was once again in Pastiville, the nearest planet with an oxygen atmosphere. * * * * * Hertha followed him up the alley, out into the cheap glitter of Windopole Avenue, a rutted, smelly street which was the center of the port-workers' section. She followed him across Windopole, up Venus, across Nineshime. He turned into the Lexo Building, which had become shabby since he had seen it last, when it had been freshly painted. She did not follow him inside, and he breathed a sigh of relief and tried to put her out of his mind as he walked up the stairs to the room 17B. After a moment's hesitation, his heart knocking with pleasant anticipation, he pressed the buzzer. "Come in." He found the knob, twisted open the door, entered. "Why Jimmy!" the girl said in what seemed to be surprise and heavy delight. She crossed to him quickly and offered her lips to be kissed. "It's good to see you!" He took half a step backward, trying to keep the shock out of his face. "Oh, it's _so_ good to see you, Jimmy! Sit down. Tell me all about it, about everything. Did you make loads and loads of money? When did you get back? How's the lig fever?" He sat down, scarcely listening, studying the apartment, feeling vaguely ill. She was chattering, he realized, to overcome her embarrassment. "The books you ordered came. I've got them right here. They're all there but some poetry or other. There was a letter about that, but the people just said they didn't have it in stock. I opened it to see if it required an answer. Just a sec. I'll get them for you." She left the room with quick, nervous strides. The apartment had been redone since he had seen it. There were now expensive drapes at the windows, imported from somewhere; a genuine Earth tapestry hung above the door. Plump silken pillows scattered on the floor and a late model phono-general in the corner, with a gleaming cabinet and record spool accessory box. She came back with the books, neatly done up in a bundle. "I guess you still read as much as ever? Don said you always were a great reader." Uncomfortably, he stood up. She put the books on a low serving table, moistened her lips to make them glistening red. "Sit _down_, Jimmy!" He still stood. "_Jimmy!_" she said in mock anger. "Sit down! Goodness, it's good to have a fellow Earthman to talk to. I was so busy when you came by the other time, we scarcely had a _minute_ to talk. I'd just got here, you remember.... Well, I'm settled now, so we'll just have to have a nice, long talk." He shifted on his feet. "I don't suppose you've heard from Don?" Her voice was strained, almost desperate. "Isn't it the oddest thing, him knowing you and me, and both of us right here?" "He told me to write how you were getting along?" "... Oh." He smiled without humor and felt like an old man. He wanted to explain how he had looked forward to seeing a person from his own planet again. Now he wanted to remind her of the girl he remembered: When she had just arrived, still unpacking, eager to start as a junior secretary for the League. "Thank you for letting me send the books here," he said. The sickness was heavy in the pit of his stomach, and suddenly he was hard and bitter. He quoted softly: "The world forsaken, And out of mind Honor and labor, We shall not find The stars unkind." "Old poetry? I guess you really do read a--" Then understanding made her eyes wince. "That wasn't intended to be very complimentary, was it, Jimmy?" Her name was no longer Doris; it was any of a thousand, and her perfume, heavy in his nostrils, was not her perfume or any individual's. She was there before him; she was real. But along with her were a thousand names and a thousand scents. There was the painful nostalgia of recognizing a strange room. Awkwardly he said, "I really must go. I'd like to have a long talk, but--" Her lips parting in sudden artificiality, she crossed to him, reached for his hand with her own. In his mind was the heavy futility of repeating the same thing senselessly until it lost all meaning. "I apologize about the poem," he said, because he knew that it was not his place to speak of it. "That's all right," she said with hollow cheerfulness. Her mouth jerked and her eyes darkened. "Please don't go yet." The palms of his hands were moist. He looked around the apartment again, and he did not want to ask, to bring it out in cruel words. It was not the sort of thing one asked. "I really must go," he repeated levelly. She put her hands on his shoulders. "Please...." And then he saw that she intended to bribe him in the only way she knew how, and he said, "Don't worry, I won't tell Don." He saw relief on her face, and then he was out of the apartment, shaken. He felt as if he had been kicked in the stomach, and he was sickened and his hand trembled. He wanted to talk to someone and try to explain it. Hertha was waiting when he came out to the street. * * * * * The fever passed; control of his body returned. "For you?" Hertha asked. He half propped himself up on the cot. He waved his hand weakly. "Those dead plants. You must throw them out and bring in more." He listened tensely, imagining that he could hear the precious oxygen hiss in from the emergency tank to freshen and revitalize the dead air. Halfway down on the dial. Not enough for ten days, even for one person, unless the air was replenished by bringing in plants. "Hertha, we've got to purify this air. Now listen. Listen carefully, Hertha. You've seen me dig up those plants on the outside?" "Yes, I watch when you go out. I always watch, Jimmy." "Good. You've got to do the same thing. You've got to go out and dig up some plants. You've got to bring them in here and plant them the way I did. You know which ones they are?" "Yes," she said. He closed his eyes, trying to think of a way to make her see how vital a thing a tiny plant could be. The complex chemistry of it bubbled to the surface of his mind. He wanted to tell her why the plants died in the artificial human atmosphere and had to be replaced every week or so. He wanted to tell her, but he was growing weaker. "They purify the air by releasing oxygen. You understand?" She nodded her head dumbly. "You must bring in a great many plants, Hertha. Remember that--a _great_ many. Don't forget that. When you go outside, through the locks, we lose air. Air is very precious, so you must bring in a great many plants." "Yes, Jimmy." "And you must plant them as I did." "Yes, Jimmy." He began to talk faster, in a race with the growing fever. "I've gathered most of the oxygenating plants around the hut. So you may have to go into the forest to get enough." "The--the forest?" "You _must_, Hertha! You _must_!" Her mouth twisted as if she were ready to cry. "For you. Yes, for you I will go into the forest." The fever came back. His mind wandered away. * * * * * He was walking in the open air. He walked from Nineshime to Venus, down Venus to Windopole, up Windopole to "The Grand Eagle and Barrel." He went in. Hertha came with him and sat down by his side at the bar. The bartender looked at him oddly. "She with you, Mac?" He turned to look at her; her dumb, brown eyes met his. He wanted to snarl: "Get the hell away! Leave me alone!" But he choked back the words. It was not Hertha he was angry with. She had done him no injury. She had merely followed him, perhaps because she knew of nothing else to do; perhaps because of temporary gratitude for the coins; perhaps in hope that he would buy her a drink. When the anger passed, he felt sorry for her again. He said, "Want a drink?" She shook her head without changing expression. He looked at her and shrugged and thought that after a while she would get tired and go away. He ordered, and the bartender brought a bottle and one glass. Hertha continued to stare at him; he tried to ignore her. He drank. He thought it would get easier to ignore her as the level of the bottle fell. It didn't. He drank some more. It grew late. "I gotta explain," he said, the liquor swirling in his mind. She waited, cow-eyed. "Ernest Dowson. Man's name. He wrote a poem--_Beata Solitudo_. I wanna explain this. Man lived long, long, long, long time ago. You listenin'? Okay. That's good. That's fine. He said--it's ver' importan' you should unnerstan' this--he said how you put honor and labor out of your mind when you ... you're out here. What he meant, it's ... it's ... you see.... Now I gotta make you see all this. So you listen real close while I tell it to you. There was a man named...." He wanted to explain how the frontier does things to people. He wanted to explain how society is a tight little box that keeps everything locked up and hidden, but how society breaks down and becomes fluid in the stars, and how people explode and forget what they learned in civilization, and how everything is unstable. "This man, his name's--" he said. He wanted to explain how the harsh elements and brute nature and space, the God-awful emptiness and indifference and the sense of aloneness and selfishness and.... There were a thousand things he wanted to tell her. They were all the things he had thought about as he followed the frontier. If he could get it all down right, he could make her see why he had to follow the frontier as long as there was anything left inside of him. Maybe the rest of the people out here were that way, too. Maybe he had seen it in Doris' eyes tonight. Maybe that was why society broke down in the stars and civilization came only when men and women like him were gone. He did not want to know how the rest felt. He did not know whether it would be more terrifying to learn that he was alone, or that he was not alone. But just for tonight, he could tell the alien creature beside him. It would be safe to tell her--if the idea had not rusted inside of him so long that there were no longer any words to fit it. But first he had to make her see his home planet and the great cities and the landscaped valleys and the majestic mountains and the people. He had to make her see the vast sweep of the explorers who first carried the race to a million planets, who devised faster-than-light ships and metals to make the ships out of, metals to hold their forms in the crucible beyond normal space. He had to make her see the colonists who tied all the world together with spans of steel commerce and then moved on in ever-widening circles. He wanted to give her the whole picture. Then he wanted to explain the surge, the restlessness of the men at the frontier. Different men, he thought; from the womb of civilization, but unlike their brothers. The men who pushed out and out. Searching, always searching. He was afraid to find out if their reasons were the same as his. For himself, he had seen a thousand planets and a thousand new life-forms. But it was not enough. There were the vast, blank, empty, indifferent reaches of space beyond him, and that was what drove him on. This he wanted to say to Hertha: No matter how far you go, the thing that gets you is that there's nothing that cares; no matter how far, the thing is that nothing cares; the thing is that nothing cares. It gets you. And you have to go on because some day, somewhere, there may be--something. But he lost the trend of his thoughts completely, and he had another drink. "Decent people come out here...." What was he going to say about decent people? "Stupid!" he cried, slapping her in the face. She rubbed her cheek. "Stupid?" He wanted to cry, for he had not known that he was brutal. "Can't you see?" he screamed, and it was necessary to explain it to her; and then it was not necessary. "You're like the awful, indifferent, mindless blackness of space, unreasoning!" "Unreasoning," she repeated carefully. "You're _Hertha_!" "I'm Hertha," she said. * * * * * The period of calmness that returned after the fever was crystal and lucid, preceding, he knew, a severe, prolonged seizure. "I'm afraid," she told him, shivering, "but I will go." He watched her get into the light surface suit, clamp down the helmet with trembling hands. He was shaking with nervousness as she hesitated at the lock. Then she pulled it open. It clicked behind her. He heard the brief hiss of the oxygen replacing the air that had whooshed out. And he felt sorry for her, alone, terrified, on the scaly, hard surface of the tiny satellite. He closed his eyes, pictured her walking past his strip mine, past the gleaming heap of minerals ready for the transport. He felt tears in his eyes and yet he could not entirely explain his feelings toward her--half fear, sometimes half affection. But more important than that: Why was she with him? What were her feelings? Had some sense of gratitude made her come? Affection? He could not understand her. At times she seemed beyond all understanding. Her responses were mindless, almost mechanical, and that frightened him. He remembered her dumb, apologetic caresses and her pathetically clumsy tenderness--or reflex; he could never be sure--and her eager yet reluctant hands and the always slightly hurt, slightly accusing look in her eyes, as if at every instant she was ready for a stinging blow, and her great sighs, muted as if fearing to be heard and.... He was drunk, screaming meaninglessly, and the bartender threw him out. The pavement cut his face. When he awoke, it was morning and he was in a strange room and she was in bed beside him. She said, "I am Hertha. I brought you home. I will go with you." The paralysis set in. He could not move. The tears froze on his cheeks, and he lay inert, thinking of her almost mindlessly fighting for his life in the alien outside. Then she was back in the hut. So soon? She looked at him, smiled through the transparent helmet at him. He could hear the precious oxygen hiss in to compensate for the air that had been lost when she entered. He could see her eyes. They were proud. Relieved, too, as if she had been afraid he would be gone when she returned. He felt she had hurried back to be sure that he was still there. She knelt by the flower bed and, without removing her suit, she held up the plant proudly. He could see the hard-packed dirt in the roots. Fascinated, he watched her scrape a planting hole. He watched her set the plant delicately and pat the soil with care. Then she stood up. He tried to move, to cry out. He could not. He watched her until she went out of the range of his fixed eyes. She was going to the airlock again. After a moment he heard the familiar hiss of oxygen. She was going to get a great number of plants. But one at a time. 
39567	----	scanned images of public domain material from the Google Print archive. Transcriber's note: Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_). Text enclosed by equal signs is in bold face (=bold=). [Illustration: Book Cover] TWO LITTLE WAIFS [Illustration: "Well, dears," she said, "and what are you playing at?"--Page 4.] TWO LITTLE WAIFS BY MRS. MOLESWORTH AUTHOR OF 'CARROTS,' 'CUCKOO CLOCK,' 'TELL ME A STORY' [Illustration: Two small figures, hurrying along hand-in-hand, caught the attention of several people.--Page 166.] ILLUSTRATED BY WALTER CRANE London MACMILLAN AND CO. 1883 CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. PAPA HAS SENT FOR US 1 CHAPTER II. POOR MRS. LACY 17 CHAPTER III. A PRETTY KETTLE OF FISH 33 CHAPTER IV. "WHAT IS TO BE DONE?" 52 CHAPTER V. IN THE RUE VERTE 72 CHAPTER VI. AMONG THE SOFAS AND CHAIRS 90 CHAPTER VII. THE KIND-LOOKING GENTLEMAN 109 CHAPTER VIII. A FALL DOWNSTAIRS 128 CHAPTER IX. FROM BAD TO WORSE 148 CHAPTER X. "AVENUE GÉRARD, NO. 9" 165 CHAPTER XI. WALTER'S TEA-PARTY 183 CHAPTER XII. PAPA AT LAST 200 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. "WELL, DEARS," SHE SAID, "AND WHAT ARE YOU PLAYING AT?" _Frontispiece_ IN ANOTHER MOMENT THE LITTLE PARTY WAS MAKING ITS WAY THROUGH THE STATION _To face page_ 48 SHE PLACED THE WHOLE ON A LITTLE TABLE WHICH SHE DREW CLOSE TO THE BED 82 "OH DON'T, DON'T CROSS THAT DREADFUL STREET," GLADYS EXCLAIMED 112 ANNA OPENED THE DOOR SHARPLY, AS SHE DID EVERYTHING, AND IN SO DOING OVERTHREW THE SMALL PERSON OF ROGER 156 "GO ALONG THERE," SHE SAID, "AND THEN TURN TO THE LEFT, AND YOU WILL SEE THE NAME 'AVENUE GÉRARD' AT THE CORNER" 170 WALTER WAS HAVING A TEA-PARTY! 185 "It would both have excited your pity, and have done your heart good, to have seen how these two little ones were so fond of each other, and how hand-in-hand they trotted along." _The Renowned History of Goody Two-Shoes._ CHAPTER I. PAPA HAS SENT FOR US. "It's what comes in our heads when we Play at 'Let's-make-believe,' And when we play at 'Guessing.'" CHARLES LAMB. It was their favourite play. Gladys had invented it, as she invented most of their plays, and Roger was even more ready to play at it than at any other, ready though he always was to do anything Gladys liked or wanted. Many children would have made it different--instead of "going over the sea to Papa," they would have played at what they would do when Papa should come over the sea to them. But that was not what they had learnt to look forward to, somehow--they were like two little swallows, always dreaming of a sunny fairyland they knew not where, only "over the sea," and in these dreams and plays they found the brightness and happiness which they were still too young to feel should have been in their everyday baby life. For "Mamma" was a word that had no real meaning to them. They thought of _her_ as of a far-away beautiful angel--beautiful, but a little frightening too; cold and white like the marble angels in church, whose wings looked so soft, till one day Roger touched them, and found them, to his strange surprise, hard and icy, which made him tell Gladys that he thought hens much prettier than angels. Gladys looked a little shocked at this, and whispered to remind him that he should not say that: had he forgotten that the angels lived up in heaven, and were always good, and that Mamma was an angel? No, Roger had not forgotten, and that was what made him think about angels; but they _weren't_ pretty and soft like Snowball, the little white hen, and he was sure he would never like them as much. Gladys said no more to him, for she knew by the tone of his voice that it would not take very much to make him cry, and when Roger got "that way," as she called it, she used to try to make him forget what had troubled him. "Let's play at going to Papa," she said; "I've thought of such a good way of making a ship with the chairs, half of them upside down and half long-ways--like that, see, Roger; and with our hoop-sticks tied on to the top of Miss Susan's umbrella--I found it in the passage--we can make such a great high pole in the middle. What is it they call a pole in the middle of a ship? I can't remember the name?" Nor could Roger; but he was greatly delighted with the new kind of ship, and forgot all about the disappointment of the angels in helping Gladys to make it, and when it was made, sailing away, away to Papa, "over the sea, over the sea," as Gladys sang in her little soft thin voice, as she rocked Roger gently up and down, making believe it was the waves. Some slight misgiving as to what Miss Susan would say to the borrowing of her umbrella was the only thing that interfered with their enjoyment, and made them jump up hastily with a "Oh, Miss Susan," as the beginning of an apology, ready on Gladys's lips when the door opened rather suddenly. But it was not Miss Susan who came in. A little to their relief and a good deal to their surprise it was Susan's aunt, old Mrs. Lacy, who seldom--for she was lame and rheumatic--managed to get as far as the nursery. She was kind and gentle, though rather deaf, so that the children were in no way afraid of her. "Well, dears," she said, "and what are you playing at?" "Over the sea, Mrs. Lacy," said Gladys. "Over the sea," repeated Roger, who spoke very plainly for his age. "Going over the sea to Papa; that's what we're playing at, and we like it the best of all our games. This is the ship, you see, and that's the big stick in the middle that all ships have--what is it they call it? I can't remember?" "The mast," suggested Mrs. Lacy. "Oh yes, the mast," said Gladys in a satisfied tone; "well, you see, we've made the mast with our hoop-sticks and Miss Susan's umbrella--you don't think Miss Susan will mind, do you?" with an anxious glance of her bright brown eyes; "_isn't_ it high, the--the mart?" "Mast," corrected Mrs. Lacy; "yes, it's taller than you, little Gladys, though you are beginning to grow very fast! What a little body you were when you came here first," and the old lady gave a sigh, which made Roger look up at her. "Has you got a sore troat?" he inquired. "No, my dear; what makes you think so?" "'Cos, when my troat was sore I was always breaving out loud like that," said Roger sympathisingly. "No, my throat's not sore, dear, thank you," said the old lady. "Sometimes people 'breathe' like that when they're feeling a little sad." "And are you feeling a little sad, poor Mrs. Lacy?" said Gladys. "It's not 'cos Miss Susan's going to be married, is it? _I_ think we shall be very happy when Miss Susan's married, only p'raps it wouldn't be very polite to say so to her, would it?" "No, it wouldn't be kind, certainly," said the old lady, with a little glance of alarm. Evidently Miss Susan kept her as well as the children in good order. "You must be careful never to say anything like that, for you know Susan has been very good to you and taken great care of you." "I know," said Gladys; "but still I like you best, Mrs. Lacy." "And you would be sorry to leave me, just a little sorry; I should not want you to be _very_ sorry," said the gentle old lady. Gladys glanced up with a curious expression in her eyes. "Do you mean--is it that you are sad about?--_has_ it come at last? Has Papa sent for us, Mrs. Lacy? Oh Roger, listen! Of course we should be sorry to leave you and--and Miss Susan. But is it true, can it be true that Papa has sent for us?" "Yes, dears, it is true; though I never thought you would have guessed it so quickly, Gladys. You are to go to him in a very few weeks. I will tell you all about it as soon as it is settled. There will be a great deal to do with Susan's marriage, too, so soon, and I wouldn't like you to go away without your things being in perfect order." "I think they are in very nice order already," said Gladys. "I don't think there'll be much to do. I can tell you over all my frocks and Roger's coats if you like, and then you can think what new ones we'll need. Our stockings are getting _rather_ bad, but Miss Susan thought they'd do till we got our new winter ones, and Roger's second-best house shoes are----" "Yes, dear," said Mrs. Lacy, smiling, though a little sadly, at the child's business-like tone; "I must go over them all with Susan. But not to-day. I am tired and rather upset by this news." "Poor Mrs. Lacy," said Gladys again. "But can't you tell us just a _very_ little? What does Papa say? Where are we to go to? Not all the way to where he is?" "No, dear. He is coming home, sooner than he expected, for he has not been well, and you are to meet him somewhere--he has not quite fixed where--in Italy perhaps, and to stay there through the winter. It is a good thing, as it had to be, that he can have you before Susan leaves me, for I am getting too old, dears, to take care of you as I should like--as I took care of _him_ long ago." For Mrs. Lacy was a very, very old friend of the children's father. She had taken care of him as a boy, and years after, when his children came to be left much as he had been, without a mother, and their father obliged to be far away from them, she had, for love of her adopted son, as she sometimes called him, taken his children and done her best to make them happy. But she was old and feeble, sometimes for days together too ill to see Gladys and Roger, and her niece Susan, who kept house for her, though a very active and clever young lady, did not like children. So, though the children were well taken care of as far as regarded their health, and were always neatly dressed, and had a nice nursery and a pleasant garden to play in, they were, though they were not old enough to understand it, rather lonely and solitary little creatures. Poor old Mrs. Lacy saw that it was so, but felt that she could do no more; and just when the unexpected letter from their father came, she was on the point of writing to tell him that she thought, especially as her niece was going to be married, some new home must be found for his two little waifs, as he sometimes called them. Before Mrs. Lacy had time to tell them any more about the great news Miss Susan came in. She looked surprised to see her aunt in the nursery. "You will knock yourself up if you don't take care," she said rather sharply, though not unkindly. "And my umbrella--my best umbrella! I declare it's too bad--the moment one's back is turned." "It's the mast, Miss Susan," said Gladys eagerly. "We thought you wouldn't mind. It's the mast of the ship that's going to take us over the sea to Papa." Some softer feeling came over Susan as she glanced at Gladys's flushed, half-frightened face. "Poor little things!" she said to herself gently. "Well, be sure to put it back in its place when you've done with it. And now, aunt, come downstairs with me, I have ever so many things to say to you." Mrs. Lacy obeyed meekly. "You haven't told them yet, have you, aunt?" said Susan, as soon as they were alone. "Yes, I told them a little," said the old lady. "Somehow I could not help it. I went upstairs and found them playing at the very thing--it seemed to come so naturally. I know you will think it foolish of me, Susan, but I can't help feeling their going, even though it is better for them." "It's quite natural you should feel it," said Susan in a not unkindly tone. "But still it is a very good thing it has happened just now. For you know, aunt, we have quite decided that you must live with us----" "You are very good, I know," said Mrs. Lacy, who was really very dependent on her niece's care. "And yet I could not have asked Mr. Rexford to have taken the children, who, after all, are no _relations_, you know." "No," said Mrs. Lacy. "And then to give them up to their own father is quite different from sending them away to strangers." "Yes, of course," said the old lady, more briskly this time. "On the whole," Miss Susan proceeded to sum up, "it could not have happened better, and the sooner the good-byings and all the bustle of the going are over, the better for you and for me, and for all concerned, indeed. And this leads me to what I wanted to tell you. Things happen so strangely sometimes. This very morning I have heard of such a capital escort for them." Mrs. Lacy looked up with startled eyes. "An escort," she repeated. "But not yet, Susan. They are not going yet. Wilfred speaks of 'some weeks hence' in his letter." "Yes; but his letter was written three weeks ago, and, of course, I am not proposing to send them away to-day or to-morrow. The opportunity I have heard of will be about a fortnight hence. Plenty of time to telegraph, even to write, to Captain Bertram to ensure there being no mistake. But anyway we need not decide just yet. He says he will write again by the next mail, so we shall have another letter by Saturday." "And what is the escort you have heard of?" asked Mrs. Lacy. "It is a married niece of the Murrays, who is going to India in about a fortnight. They start from here, as they are coming here on a visit the last thing. They go straight to Marseilles." "But would they like to be troubled with children?" "They know Captain Bertram, that is how we came to speak of it. And Mrs. Murray is sure they would be glad to do anything to oblige him." "Ah, well," said Mrs. Lacy. "It sounds very nice. And it is certainly not every day that we should find any one going to France from a little place like this." For Mrs. Lacy's home was in a rather remote and out-of-the-way part of the country. "It would save expense too, for, as they have no longer a regular nurse, I have no one to send even as far as London with them." "And young Mrs. ----, I forget her name--her maid would look after them on the journey. I asked about that," said Susan, who was certainly not thoughtless. "Well, well, we must just wait for Saturday's letter," said Mrs. Lacy. "And in the meantime the less said about it the better, _I_ think," said Susan. "Perhaps so; I daresay you are right," agreed Mrs. Lacy. She hardly saw the children again that day. Susan, who seemed to be in an unusually gracious mood, took them out herself in the afternoon, and was very kind. But they were so little used to talk to her, for she had never tried to gain their confidence, that it did not occur to either Gladys or Roger to chatter about what nevertheless their little heads and hearts were full of. They had also, I think, a vague childish notion of loyalty to their old friend in not mentioning the subject, even though she had not told them not to do so. So they trotted along demurely, pleased at having their best things on, and proud of the honour of a walk with Miss Susan, even while not a little afraid of doing anything to displease her. "They are good little things after all," thought Susan, when she had brought them home without any misfortune of any kind having marred the harmony of the afternoon. And the colour rushed into Gladys's face when Miss Susan sent them up to the nursery with the promise of strawberry jam for tea, as they had been very good. "I don't mind so much about the strawberry jam," Gladys confided to Roger, "though it _is_ very nice. But I do like when any one says we've been very good, don't you?" "Yes," said Roger; adding, however, with his usual honesty: "I like _bofe_, being praised _and_ jam, you know, Gladdie." "'Cos," Gladys continued, "if we _are_ good, you see, Roger, and I really think we must be so if _she_ says so, it will be very nice for Papa, won't it? It matters more now, you see, what we are, 'cos of going to him. When people have people of their own they should be gooder even than when they haven't any one that cares much." "Should they?" said Roger, a little bewildered. "But Mrs. Lacy cares," he added. Roger was great at second thoughts. "Ye--s," said Gladys, "she cares, but not dreadfully much. She's getting old, you know. And sometimes--don't say so to anybody, Roger--sometimes I think p'raps she'll soon have to be going to heaven. I think _she_ thinks so. That's another reason, you see," reverting to the central idea round which her busy brain had done nothing but revolve all day, "why it's _such_ a good thing Papa's sent for us now." "I don't like about people going to heaven," said Roger, with a little shiver. "Why can't God let them stay here, or go over the sea to where it's so pretty. _I_ don't want ever to go to heaven." "Oh, Roger!" said Gladys, shocked. "Papa wouldn't like you to say that." "Wouldn't he?" said Roger; "then I won't. It's because of the angels, you know, Gladdie. Oh, do you think," he went on, his ideas following the next link in the chain, "_do_ you think we can take Snowball with us when we go?" "I don't know," said Gladys; and just then Mrs. Lacy's housemaid, who had taken care of them since their nurse had had to leave them some months before, happening to bring in their tea, the little girl turned to her with some vague idea of taking her into their confidence. To have no one but Roger to talk to about so absorbing a matter was almost too much. But Ellen was either quite ignorant of the great news, or too discreet to allow that she had heard it. In answer to Gladys's "feeler" as to how hens travelled, and if one might take them in the carriage with one, she replied matter-of-factly that she believed there were places on purpose for all sorts of live things on the railway, but that Miss Gladys had better ask Miss Susan, who had travelled a great deal more than she, Ellen. "Yes," replied Gladys disappointedly, "perhaps she has; but most likely not with hens. But have you stayed at home all your life, Ellen? Have you never left your father and mother till you came here?" Whereupon Ellen, who was a kindly good girl, only a little too much in awe of Miss Susan to yield to her natural love of children, feeling herself on safe ground, launched out into a somewhat rose-coloured description of her home and belongings, and of her visits as a child to the neighbouring market-town, which much amused and interested her little hearers, besides serving for the time to distract their thoughts from the one idea, which was, I daresay, a good thing. For in this life it is not well to think too much or feel too sure of _any_ hoped-for happiness. The doing so of itself leads to disappointment, for we unconsciously paint our pictures with colours impossibly bright, so that the _real_ cannot but fall short of the imaginary. But baby Gladys--poor little girl!--at seven it is early days to learn these useful but hard lessons. She and Roger made up for their silence when they went to bed, and you, children, can better imagine than I can tell the whispered chatter that went on between the two little cots that stood close together side by side. And still more the lovely confusion of happy dreams that flitted that night through the two curly heads on the two little pillows. CHAPTER II. POOR MRS. LACY. "For the last time--words of too sad a tone." AN OLD STORY AND OTHER POEMS. Saturday brought the expected letter, which both Mrs. Lacy and Susan anxiously expected, though with different feelings. Susan hoped that nothing would interfere with the plan she had made for the children's leaving; Mrs. Lacy, even though she owned that it seemed a good plan, could not help wishing that something would happen to defer the parting with the two little creatures whom she had learnt to love as much as if they had been her own grandchildren. But the letter was all in favour of Susan's ideas. Captain Bertram wrote much more decidedly than he had done before. He named the date at which he was leaving, a very few days after his letter, the date at which he expected to be at Marseilles, and went on to say that if Mrs. Lacy could possibly arrange to have the children taken over to Paris within a certain time, he would undertake to meet them there at any hour of any day of the week she named. The sooner the better for him, he said, as he would be anxious to get back to the south and settle himself there for the winter, the doctor having warned him to run no risks in exposing himself to cold, though with care he quite hoped to be all right again by the spring. As to a maid for the children--Mrs. Lacy having told him that they had had no regular nurse for some time--he thought it would be a good plan to have a French one, and as he had friends in Paris who understood very well about such things he would look out for one immediately he got there, if Mrs. Lacy could find one to take them over and stay a few days, or if she, perhaps, could spare one of her servants for the time. And he begged her, when she had made her plans, to telegraph, or write if there were time, to him at a certain hotel at Marseilles, "to wait his arrival." Susan's face had brightened considerably while reading the letter; for Mrs. Lacy, after trying to do so, had given it up, and begged her niece to read it aloud. "My sight is very bad this morning," she said, and her voice trembled as she spoke, "and Wilfred's writing was never very clear." Susan looked at her rather anxiously--for some time past it had seemed to her that her aunt was much less well than usual--but she took the letter and read it aloud in her firm distinct voice, only stopping now and then to exclaim: "_Could_ anything have happened better? It is really most fortunate." Only at the part where Captain Bertram spoke of engaging a maid for the journey, or lending one of theirs, her face darkened a little. "Quite unnecessary--foolish expense. Hope aunt won't speak of it to Ellen," she said to herself in too low a voice for Mrs. Lacy to hear. "Well, aunt?" she said aloud, when she had finished the letter, but rather to her surprise Mrs. Lacy did not at once reply. She was lying on her couch, and her soft old face looked very white against the cushions. She had closed her eyes, but her lips seemed to be gently moving. What were the unheard words they were saying? A prayer perhaps for the two little fledglings about to be taken from her wing for ever. She knew it was for ever. "I shall never see them again," she said, loud enough for Susan to hear, but Susan thought it better not to hear. "Well, aunt," she repeated, rather impatiently, but the impatience was partly caused by real anxiety; "won't you say what you think of it? _could_ anything have happened better than the Murrays' escort? Just the right time and all." "Yes, my dear. It seems to have happened wonderfully well. I am sure you will arrange it all perfectly. Can you write to Wilfred at once? And perhaps you had better see Mrs. Murray again. I don't feel able to do anything, but I trust it all to you, Susan. You are so practical and sensible." "Certainly," replied Susan, agreeably surprised to find her aunt of the same opinion as herself; "I will arrange it all. Don't trouble about it in the least. I will see the Murrays again this afternoon or to-morrow. But in the meantime I think it is better to say nothing more to the children." "Perhaps so," said Mrs. Lacy. Something in her voice made Susan look round. She was leaving the room at the moment. "Aunt, what is the matter?" she said. Mrs. Lacy tried to smile, but there were tears in her eyes. "It is nothing, my dear," she said. "I am a foolish old woman, I know. I was only thinking"--and here her voice broke again--"it would have been a great pleasure to me," she went on, "if he could have managed it. If Wilfred could have come all the way himself, and I could have given the children up into his own hands. It would not have seemed quite so--so sad a parting, and I should have liked to see him again." "But you will see him again, dear aunt," said Susan; "in the spring he is sure to come to England, to settle probably, perhaps not far from us. He has spoken of it in his letters." "Yes, I know," said Mrs. Lacy, "but----" "But what?" "I don't want to be foolish; but you know, my dear, by the spring I may not be here." "Oh, aunt!" said Susan reproachfully. "It is true, my dear; but do not think any more of what I said." But Susan, who was well-principled, though not of a very tender or sympathising nature, turned again, still with her hand on the door-handle. "Aunt," she said, "you have a right to be consulted--even to be fanciful if you choose. You have been very good to me, very good to Gladys and Roger, and I have no doubt you were very good to their father long ago. If it would be a comfort to you, let me do it--let me write to Wilfred Bertram and ask him to come here, as you say, to fetch the children himself." Mrs. Lacy reflected a moment. Then, as had been her habit all her life, she decided on self-denial. "No, my dear Susan," she said firmly. "Thank you for proposing it, but it is better not. Wilfred has not thought of it, or perhaps he has thought of it and decided against it. It would be additional expense for him, and he has to think of that--then it would give _you_ much more to do, and you have enough." "I don't mind about that," said Susan. "And then, too," went on Mrs. Lacy, "there is his health. Evidently it will be better for him not to come so far north so late in the year." "Yes," said Susan, "that is true." "So think no more about it, my dear, and thank you for your patience with a silly old woman." Susan stooped and kissed her aunt, which from her meant a good deal. Then, her conscience quite at rest, she got ready to go to see Mrs. Murray at once. "There is no use losing the chance through any foolish delay," she said to herself. Two days later she was able to tell her aunt that all was settled. Mrs. Murray had written to her niece, Mrs. Marton, and had already got her answer. She and her husband would gladly take charge of the children as far as Paris, and her maid, a very nice French girl, who adored little people, would look after them in every way--not the slightest need to engage a nurse for them for the journey, as they would be met by their father on their arrival. The Martons were to spend two days, the last two days of their stay in England, with Mrs. Murray, and meant to leave on the Thursday of the week during which Captain Bertram had said he could meet the children at any day and any hour. Everything seemed to suit capitally. "They will cross on Friday," said Susan; "that is the Indian mail day, of course. And it is better than earlier in the week, as it gives Captain Bertram two or three days' grace _in case_ of any possible delay." "And will you write, or telegraph--which is it?" asked Mrs. Lacy timidly, for these sudden arrangements had confused her--"at once, then?" "Telegraph, aunt? No, of course not," said Susan a little sharply, "he will have left ----pore several days ago, you know, and there is no use _telegraphing_ to Marseilles. I will write to-morrow--there is _plenty_ of time--a letter to wait his arrival, as he himself proposed. Then _when_ he arrives he will telegraph to us to say he has got the letter, and that it is all right. You quite understand, aunt?" "Oh yes, quite. I am very stupid, I know, my dear," said the old lady meekly. A few days passed. Gladys had got accustomed by this time to the idea of leaving, and no longer felt bewildered and almost oppressed by the rush of questions and wonderings in her mind. But her busy little brain nevertheless was constantly at work. She had talked it all over with Roger so often that he, poor little boy, no longer knew what he thought or did not think about it. He had vague visions of a ship about the size of Mrs. Lacy's drawing-room, with a person whom he fancied his father--a tall man with very black whiskers, something like Mrs. Murray's butler, whom Miss Susan had one day spoken of as quite "soldier-like"--and Roger's Papa was of course a soldier--standing in the middle to hold the mast steady, and Gladys and he with new ulsters on--Gladys had talked a great deal about new ulsters for the journey--waving flags at each side. Flags were hopelessly confused with ships in Roger's mind; he thought they had something to do with making boats go quicker. But he did not quite like to say so to Gladys, as she sometimes told him he was really too silly for a big boy of nearly five. So the two had become rather silent on the subject. Roger had almost left off thinking about it. His little everyday life of getting up and going to bed, saying his prayers and learning his small lessons for the daily governess who came for an hour every morning, eating his breakfast and dinner and tea, and playing with his toy-horses, was enough for him. He could not for long together have kept his thoughts on the strain of far-away and unfamiliar things, and so long as he knew that he had Gladys at hand, and that nobody (which meant Miss Susan in particular) was vexed with him, he asked no more of fate! And when Gladys saw that he was much more interested in trying to catch sight of an imaginary little mouse which was supposed to have been nibbling at the tail of his favourite horse in the toy-cupboard, than in listening to her wonderings whether Papa had written again, and _when_ Miss Susan was going to see about their new ulsters, she gave up talking to him in despair. If she could have given up _thinking_ so much about what was to come, it would have been better, I daresay. But still it was not to be wondered at that she found it difficult to give her mind to anything else. The governess could not make out why Gladys had become so absent and inattentive all of a sudden, for though the little girl's head was so full of the absorbing thought, she never dreamt of speaking of it to any one but Roger. Mrs. Lacy had not told her she must _not_ do so, but somehow Gladys, with a child's quick delicate instinct of honour, often so little understood, had taken for granted that she was not to do so. "Everything comes to him that has patience to wait," says the Eastern proverb, and in her own way Gladys had been patient, when one morning, about a week after the day on which Susan had told her aunt that everything was settled, Miss Fern, the daily governess, at the close of lessons, told her to go down to the drawing-room, as Mrs. Lacy wanted her. "And Roger too?" asked Gladys, her heart beating fast, though she spoke quietly. "Yes, I suppose so," said Miss Fern, as she tied her bonnet-strings. The children had noticed that she had come into the schoolroom a little later than usual that morning, and that her eyes were red. But in answer to Roger's tender though very frank inquiries, she had murmured something about a cold. "That was a story, then, what she said about her eyes," thought sharp-witted Gladys. "She's been crying; I'm sure she has." But then a feeling of pity came into her mind. "Poor Miss Fern; I suppose she's sorry to go away, and I daresay Mrs. Lacy said she wasn't to say anything about it to us." So she kissed Miss Fern very nicely, and stopped the rest of the remarks which she saw Roger was preparing. "Go and wash your hands quick, Roger," she said, "for we must go downstairs. _Mine_ are quite clean, but your middle fingers are all over ink." "Washing doesn't take it away," said Roger reluctantly. There were not many excuses he would have hesitated to use to avoid washing his hands! "Never mind. It makes them _clean_ anyway," said Gladys decidedly, and five minutes later two very spruce little pinafored figures stood tapping at the drawing-room door. "Come in, dears," said Mrs. Lacy's faint gentle voice. She was lying on her sofa, and the children went up and kissed her. "_You_ has got a cold too--like Miss Fern," said Roger, whose grammar was sometimes at fault, though he pronounced his words so clearly. "_Roger_," whispered Gladys, tugging at her little brother under his holland blouse. But Mrs. Lacy caught the word. "Never mind, dear," she said, with a little smile, which showed that she saw that Gladys understood. "Let him say whatever comes into his head, dear little man." Something in the words, simple as they were, or more perhaps in the tone, made little Gladys suddenly turn away. A lump came into her throat, and she felt as if she were going to cry. "I wonder why I feel so strange," she thought, "just when we're going to hear about going to Papa? I think it is that Mrs. Lacy's eyes look so sad, 'cos she's been crying. It's much worse than Miss Fern's. I don't care so much for her as for Mrs. Lacy," and all these feelings surging up in her heart made her not hear when their old friend began to speak. She had already said some words when Gladys's thoughts wandered back again. "It came this morning," the old lady was saying. "See, dears, can you read what your Papa says?" And she held out a pinky-coloured little sheet of paper, not at all like a letter. Gladys knew what it was, but Roger did not; he had never seen a telegram before. "Is that Papa's writing?" he said. "It's very messy-looking. _I_ couldn't read it, I don't think." "But I can," said Gladys, spelling out the words. "'Ar--arrived safe. Will meet children as you prop--' What is the last word, please, Mrs. Lacy?" "Propose," said the old lady, "as you propose." And then she went on to explain that this telegram was in answer to a letter from Miss Susan to their father, telling him all she had settled about the journey. "This telegram is from Marseilles," she said; "that is the town by the sea in France, where your dear Papa has arrived. It is quite in the south, but he will come up by the railway to meet you at Paris, where Mr. and Mrs. Marton--Mrs. Marton is Mrs. Murray's niece, Gladys--will take you to." It was a little confusing to understand, but Mrs. Lacy went over it all again most patiently, for she felt it right that the children, Gladys especially, should understand all the plans before starting away with Mr. and Mrs. Marton, who, however kind, were still quite strangers to them. Gladys listened attentively. "Yes," she said; "I understand now. But how will Papa know us, Mrs. Lacy? We have grown so, and----" she went on, rather reluctantly, "I am not _quite_ sure that I should know him, not just at the very first minute." Mrs. Lacy smiled. "No, dear, of course you could not, after more than four years! But Mr. Marton knows your Papa." Gladys's face cleared. "Oh, that is all right," she said. "That is a very good thing. But"--and Gladys looked round hesitatingly--"isn't anybody else going with us? I wish--I wish nurse wasn't married; don't you, Mrs. Lacy?" The sort of appeal in the child's voice went to the old lady's heart. "Yes, dear," she said. "But Susan thinks it will be quite nice for you with Léonie, young Mrs. Marton's maid, for your Papa will have a new nurse all ready. She wrote to tell him that we would not send any nurse with you." Gladys gave a little sigh. It took some of the bloom off the delight of "going to Papa" to have to begin the journey alone among strangers, and she saw that Mrs. Lacy sympathised with her. "It will save a good deal of expense too," the old lady added, more as if thinking aloud, and half forgetting to whom she was speaking. "Will it?" said Gladys quickly. "Oh, then, I won't mind. We won't mind, will we, Roger?" she repeated, turning to her little brother. "No, we won't," answered Roger solemnly, though without a very clear idea of what he was talking about, for he was quite bewildered by all he had heard, and knew and understood nothing but that he and Gladys were going somewhere with somebody to see Papa. "That's right," said Mrs. Lacy cheerfully. "You are a sensible little body, my Gladys." "I know Papa isn't very rich," said Gladys, encouraged by this approval, "and he'll have a great lot more to pay now that Roger and I are going to be with him, won't he?" "You have such very big appetites, do you think?" "I don't know," said Gladys. "But there are such lots of things to buy, aren't there? All our frocks and hats and boots. But oh!" she suddenly broke off, "won't we have to be getting our things ready? and _do_ you think we should have new ulsters?" "They are ordered," said Mrs. Lacy. "Indeed, everything you will need is ordered. Susan has been very busy, but everything will be ready." "When are we to go?" asked Gladys, suddenly remembering this important question. The sad look came into Mrs. Lacy's eyes again, and her voice trembled as she replied: "Next Thursday, my darling." "Next Thursday," repeated Gladys; and then catching sight of the tears which were slowly welling up into Mrs. Lacy's kind eyes--it is so sad to see an aged person cry!--she suddenly threw her arms around her old friend's neck, and, bursting out sobbing, exclaimed again: "Next Thursday. Oh, dear Mrs. Lacy, next Thursday!" And Roger stood by, fumbling to get out his pocket-handkerchief, not quite sure if he should also cry or not. It seemed to him strange that Gladys should cry just when what she had wanted so much had come--just when it was all settled about going to Papa! CHAPTER III. A PRETTY KETTLE OF FISH. "The cab-wheels made a dreamy thunder In their half-awakened ears; And then they felt a dreamy wonder Amid their dream-like fears." LAVENDER LADY. Gladys said something of the same kind to herself when, looking round her in the railway carriage on that same Thursday morning, she realised that the long, long looked-forward-to day had come. She and Roger had actually started on their journey to Papa! Yet her eyes were red and her face was pale. Little Roger, too, looked subdued and sober. It had never been so in their plays; in their pretence goings to Papa they were always full of fun and high spirits. It was always a beautiful sunny day to begin with, and to-day, the real day, was sadly dull and dreary, and cold too; the children, even though the new ulsters were in all their glory, shivered a little and drew closer together. The rain was falling so fast that there was no use trying to look out of the window, when fields and trees and farmhouses all seem to fly past in a misty confusion. Mr. Marton was deep in his _Times_; Mrs. Marton, after settling the children in the most comfortable places and doing all she could think of, had drawn a book out of her travelling-bag and was also busy reading. Roger, after a while, grew sleepy, and nodded his head, and then Mrs. Marton made a pillow for him on the arm of the seat, and covered him up with her rug. But Gladys, who was not at all sleepy, sat staring before her with wide open eyes, and thinking it was all very strange, and, above all, not the very least bit like what she had thought it would be. The tears came back into her eyes again when she thought of the parting with Mrs. Lacy. She and Roger had hardly seen their kind old friend the last few days, for she was ill, much more ill than usual, and Susan had looked grave and troubled. But the evening before, she had sent for them to say good-bye, and this was the recollection that made the tears rush back to the little girl's eyes. Dear Mrs. Lacy, how very white and ill she looked, propped up by pillows on the old-fashioned sofa in her room--every article in which was old-fashioned too, and could have told many a long-ago tender little story of the days when their owner was a merry blooming girl; or, farther back still, a tiny child like Gladys herself! For much of Mrs. Lacy's life had been spent in the same house and among the same things. She had gone from there when she was married, and she had come back there a widow and childless, and there she had brought up these children's father, Wilfred, as she often called him even in speaking to them, the son of her dearest friend. All this Gladys knew, for sometimes when they were alone together, Mrs. Lacy would tell her little stories of the past, which left their memory with the child, even though at the time hardly understood; and now that she and Roger were quite gone from the old house and the old life, the thought of them hung about Gladys with a strange solemn kind of mystery. "I never thought about leaving Mrs. Lacy when we used to play at going," she said to herself. "I never even thought of leaving the house and our own little beds and everything, and even Miss Susan. And Ellen was very kind. I wish she could have come with us, just till we get to Papa," and then, at the thought of this unknown Papa, a little tremor came over the child, though she would not have owned it to any one. "I wonder if it would have cost a very great deal for Ellen to come with us just for a few days. I would have given my money-box money, and so would Roger, I am sure. I have fifteen and sixpence, and he has seven shillings and fourpence. It _could_ not have cost more than all that," and then she set to work to count up how much her money and Roger's added together would be. It would not come twice together to the same sum somehow, and Gladys went on counting it up over and over again confusedly till at last it all got into a confusion together, for she too, tired out with excitement and the awakening of so many strange feelings, had fallen asleep like poor little Roger. They both slept a good while, and Mr. and Mrs. Marton congratulated themselves on having such very quiet and peaceable small fellow-travellers. "They are no trouble at all," said young Mrs. Marton. "But on the boat we must of course have Léonie with us, in case of a bad passage." "Yes, certainly," said her husband; "indeed I think she had better be with us from London. They will be getting tired by then." "They are tired already, poor pets," said Mrs. Marton, who was little more than a girl herself. "They don't look very strong, do they, Phillip?" Mr. Marton took the cigarette he had just been preparing to enjoy out of his mouth, and turned towards the children, examining them critically. "The boy looks sturdy enough, though he's small. He's like Bertram. The girl seems delicate; she's so thin too." "Yes," agreed Mrs. Marton. "_I_ don't mind, and no more does Léonie; but I think it was rather hard-hearted of Susan Lacy to have sent them off like that without a nurse of their own. If she had not been so worried about Mrs. Lacy's illness, I think I would have said something about it to her, even at the last. Somehow, till I saw the children, I did not think they were so tiny." "It'll be all right once we get to Paris and we give them over to their father," said Mr. Marton, who was of a philosophical turn of mind, puffing away again at his cigarette. "It will have saved some expense, and that's a consideration too." The children slept for some time. When they awoke they were not so very far from London. They felt less tired and better able to look about them and ask a few modest little questions. And when they got to London they enjoyed the nice hot cup of tea they had in the refreshment room, and by degrees they began to make friends with Léonie, who was very bright and merry, so that they were pleased to hear she was to be in the same carriage with them for the rest of the journey. "Till you see your dear Papa," said Léonie, who had heard all the particulars from her young mistress. "Yes," said Gladys quietly--by this time they were settled again in another railway carriage--"our Papa's to be at the station to meet us." "And we're to have a new nurse," added Roger, who was in a communicative humour. "Do you think she'll be kind to us?" "I'm sure she will," said Léonie, whose heart was already won. "She's to teach us French," said Gladys. "That will be very nice," said Léonie. "It is a very good thing to know many languages." "Can you speak French?" asked Roger. Léonie laughed, "Of course I can," she replied, "French is my tongue." Roger sat straight up, with an appearance of great interest. "Your tongue," he repeated. "Please let me see it," and he stared hard at Léonie's half-opened mouth. "Is it not like our tongues then?" Léonie stared too, then she burst out laughing. "Oh, I don't mean tongue like that," she said, "I mean talking--language. When I was little like you I could talk nothing but French, just like you now, who can talk only English." "And can't everybody in France talk English too?" asked Gladys, opening her eyes. "Oh dear no!" said Léonie. Gladys and Roger looked at each other. This was quite a new and rather an alarming idea. "It is a _very_ good thing," Gladys remarked at last, "that Papa is to be at the station. If we got lost over there," she went on, nodding her head in the direction of an imaginary France, "it would be even worse than in London." "But you're not going to get lost anywhere," said Léonie, smiling. "We'll take better care of you than that." And then she went on to tell them a little story of how once, when she was a very little girl, she had got lost--not in Paris, but in a much smaller town--and how frightened she was, and how at last an old peasant woman on her way home from market had found her crying under a hedge, and had brought her home again to her mother. This thrilling adventure was listened to with the greatest interest. "How pleased your mother must have been to see you again!" said Gladys. "Does she still live in that queer old town? Doesn't she mind you going away from her?" "Alas!" said Léonie, and the tears twinkled in her bright eyes, "my mother is no longer of this world. She went away from me several years ago. I shall not see her again till in heaven." "That's like us," said Gladys. "We've no Mamma. Did you know?" "But you've a good Papa," said Léonie. "Yes," said Gladys, rather doubtfully, for somehow the idea of a real flesh-and-blood Papa seemed to be getting more instead of less indistinct now that they were soon to see him. "But he's been away such a very long time." "Poor darlings," said Léonie. "And have you no Papa, no little brothers, not any one like that?" inquired Gladys. "I have some cousins--very good people," said Léonie. "They live in Paris, where we are now going. If there had been time I should have liked to go to see them. But we shall stay no time in Paris--just run from one station to the other." "But the luggage?" said Gladys. "Mrs. Marton has a lot of boxes. I don't see how you can _run_ if you have them to carry. I think it would be better to take a cab, even if it does cost a little more. But perhaps there are no cabs in Paris. Is that why you talk of running to the station?" Léonie had burst out laughing half-way through this speech, and though she knew it was not very polite, she really could not help it. The more she tried to stop, the more she laughed. "What is the matter?" said Gladys at last, a little offended. "I beg your pardon," said Léonie; "I know it is rude. But, Mademoiselle, the idea"--and here she began to laugh again--"of Monsieur and Madame and me all running with the boxes! It was too amusing!" Gladys laughed herself now, and so did Roger. "Then there are cabs in Paris," she said in a tone of relief. "I am glad of that. Papa will have one all ready for us, I suppose. What time do we get there, Léonie?" Léonie shook her head. "A very disagreeable time," she said, "quite, quite early in the morning, before anybody seems quite awake. And the mornings are already so cold. I am afraid you will not like Paris very much at first." "Oh yes, they will," said Mrs. Marton, who had overheard the last part of the conversation. "Think how nice it will be to see their Papa waiting for them, and to go to a nice warm house and have breakfast; chocolate, most likely. Do you like chocolate?" "Yes, very much," said Gladys and Roger. "I think it is not you to be pitied, anyway," Mrs. Marton went on, for the half-appealing, half-frightened look of the little things touched her. "It's much worse for us three, poor things, travelling on all the way to Marseilles." "That's where Papa's been. Mrs. Lacy showed it me on the map. What a long way! Poor Mrs. Marton. Wouldn't Mr. Marton let you stay at Paris with us till you'd had a rest?" "We'd give you some of our chocolate," said Roger hospitably. "And let poor Phillip, that's Mr. Marton," replied the young lady, "go all the way to India alone?" The children looked doubtful. "You could go after him," suggested Roger. "But Léonie and I wouldn't like to go so far alone. It's nicer to have a man to take care of you when you travel. You're getting to be a man, you see, Roger, already--learning to take care of your sister." "I _have_ growed a good big piece on the nursery door since my birthday," agreed Roger complacently. "But when Papa's there he'll take care of us both till I'm quite big." "Ah, yes, that will be best of all," said Mrs. Marton, smiling. "I do hope Papa will be there all right, poor little souls," she added to herself. For, though young, Mrs. Marton was not thoughtless, and she belonged to a happy and prosperous family where since infancy every care had been lavished on the children, and somehow since she had seen and talked to Gladys and Roger their innocence and loneliness had struck her sharply, and once or twice a misgiving had come over her that in her anxiety to get rid of the children, and to waste no money, Susan Lacy had acted rather hastily. "Captain Bertram should have telegraphed again," she reflected. "It is nearly a week since he did so. I wish I had made Phillip telegraph yesterday to be sure all was right. The Lacys need not have known anything about it." But they were at Dover now, and all these fears and reflections were put out of her head by the bustle of embarking and settling themselves comfortably, and devoutly hoping they would have a good passage. The words meant nothing to Gladys and Roger. They had never been on the sea since they were little babies, and had no fears. And, fortunately, nothing disturbed their happy ignorance, for, though cold, the sea was very smooth. They were disappointed at the voyage being made in the dark, as they had counted on all sorts of investigations into the machinery of the "ship," and Roger had quite expected that his services would be required to help to make it go faster, whereas it seemed to them only as if they were taken into a queer sort of drawing-room and made to lie down on red sofas, and covered up with shawls, and that then there came a booming noise something like the threshing machine at the farm where they sometimes went to fetch butter and eggs, and then--and then--they fell asleep, and when they woke they were being bundled into another railway carriage! Léonie was carrying Roger, and Gladys, as she found to her great disgust--she thought herself far too big for anything of the kind--was in Mr. Marton's arms, where she struggled so that the poor man thought she was having an attack of nightmare, and began to soothe her as if she were about two, which did not improve matters. "Hush, hush, my dear. You shall go to sleep again in a moment," he said. "But what a little vixen she is!" he added, when he had at last got Gladys, red and indignant, deposited in a corner. "I'm too big to be carried," she burst out, half sobbing. "I wouldn't even let _Papa_ carry me." But kind Mrs. Marton, though she could hardly help laughing, soon put matters right by assuring Gladys that lots of people, even quite big grown-up ladies, were often lifted in and out of ships. When it was rough only the sailors could keep their footing. So Gladys, who was beginning to calm down and to feel a little ashamed, took it for granted that it had been very rough, and told Mr. Marton she was very sorry--she had not understood. The railway carriage was warm and comfortable, so after a while the children again did the best thing they could under the circumstances--they went to sleep. And so, I think, did their three grown-up friends. Gladys was the first to wake. She looked round her in the dim morning light--all the others were still asleep. It felt chilly, and her poor little legs were stiff and numb. She drew them up on to the seat to try to warm them, and looked out of the window. Nothing to be seen but damp flat fields, and trees with a few late leaves still clinging to them, and here and there a little cottage or farmhouse looking, like everything else, desolate and dreary. Gladys withdrew her eyes from the prospect. "I don't like travelling," she decided. "I wonder if the sun never shines in this country." A little voice beside her made her look round. "Gladdie," it said, "are we near that place? Are you _sure_ Papa will be there? I'm so tired of these railways, Gladdie." "So am I," said Gladys sympathisingly. "I should think we'll soon be there. But I'm sure I shan't like Paris, Roger. I'll ask Papa to take us back to Mrs. Lacy's again." Roger gave a little shiver. "It's such a long way to go," he said. "I wouldn't mind if only Ellen had come with us, and if we had chocolate for breakfast." But their voices, low as they were, awakened Léonie, who was beside them. And then Mrs. Marton awoke, and at last Mr. Marton, who looked at his watch, and finding they were within ten minutes of Paris, jumped up and began fussing away at the rugs and shawls and bags, strapping them together, and generally unsettling everybody. "We must get everything ready," he said. "I shall want to be free to see Bertram at once." "But there's never a crowd inside the station here," said his wife. "They won't let people in without special leave. We shall easily catch sight of Captain Bertram if he has managed to get inside." "He's sure to have done so," said Mr. Marton, and in his anxiety to catch the first glimpse of his friend, Mr. Marton spent the next ten minutes with his head and half his body stretched out of the window long before the train entered the station, though even when it arrived there the dim light would have made it difficult to recognise any one. Had there been any one to recognise! But there was not. The train came to a stand at last. Mr. Marton had eagerly examined the faces of the two or three men, _not_ railway officials, standing on the platform, but there was no one whom by any possibility he could for a second have taken for Captain Bertram. Mrs. Marton sat patiently in her place, hoping every instant that "Phillip" would turn round with a cheery "all right, here he is. Here, children!" and oh, what a weight--a weight that all through the long night journey had been mysteriously increasing--would have been lifted off the kind young lady's heart had he done so! But no; when Mr. Marton at last drew in his head there was a disappointed and perplexed look on his good-natured face. "He's not here--not on the platform, I mean," he said, hastily correcting himself. "He must be waiting outside; we'll find him where we give up the tickets. It's a pity he didn't manage to get inside. However, we must jump out. Here, Léonie, you take Mrs. Marton's bag, I'll shoulder the rugs. Hallo there," to a porter, "that's all right. You give him the things, Léonie. Omnibus, does he say? Bless me, how can I tell? Bertram's got a cab engaged most likely, and we don't want an omnibus for us three. You explain to him, Léonie." [Illustration: In another moment the little party was making its way through the station.] Which Léonie did, and in another moment the little party was making its way through the station, among the crowd of their fellow-passengers. Mr. Marton first, with the rugs, then his wife holding Gladys by the hand, then Léonie and Roger, followed by the porter bringing up the rear. Mrs. Marton's heart was not beating fast by this time; it was almost standing still with apprehension. But she said nothing. On they went through the little gate where the tickets were given up, on the other side of which stood with eager faces the few expectant friends who had been devoted enough to get up at five o'clock to meet their belongings who were crossing by the night mail. Mr. Marton's eyes ran round them, then glanced behind, first to one side and then to the other as if Captain Bertram could jump up from some corner like a jack-in-the-box. His face grew graver and graver, but he did not speak. He led his wife and the children and Léonie to the most comfortable corner of the dreary waiting-room, and saying shortly, "I'm going to look after the luggage and to hunt up Bertram. He must have overslept himself if he's not here yet. You all wait here quietly till I come back," disappeared in the direction of the luggage-room. Mrs. Marton did not speak either. She drew Gladys nearer her, and put her arm round the little girl as if to protect her against the disappointment which she _felt_ was coming. Gladys sat perfectly silent. What she was expecting, or fearing, or even thinking, I don't believe she could have told. She had only one feeling that she could have put into words, "Everything is _quite_ different from what I thought. It isn't at all like going to Papa." But poor little Roger tugged at Léonie, who was next him. "What are we waiting here in this ugly house for?" he said. "Can't we go to Papa and have our chocolate?" Léonie stooped down and said something to soothe him, and after a while he grew drowsy again, and his little head dropped on to her shoulder. And so they sat for what seemed a terribly long time. It was more than half an hour, till at last Mr. Marton appeared again. "I've only just got out that luggage," he said. "What a detestable plan that registering it is! And now I've got it I don't know what to do with it, for----" "Has he not come?" interrupted his wife. Mr. Marton glanced at Gladys. She did not seem to be listening. "Not a bit of him," he replied. "I've hunted right through the station half a dozen times, and it's an hour and a half since the train was due. It cannot be some little delay. It's a pretty kettle of fish and no mistake." Mrs. Marton's blue eyes gazed up in her husband's face with a look of the deepest anxiety. "What _is_ to be done?" she said. CHAPTER IV. "WHAT IS TO BE DONE?" "That is the question." HAMLET. Yes, "what was to be done?" That was certainly the question. Mr. Marton looked at his wife for a moment or two without replying. Then he seemed to take a sudden resolution. "We can't stay here all the morning, that's about all I can say at present," he said. "Come along, we'd better go to the nearest hotel and think over matters." So off they all set again--Mr. Marton and the rugs, Mrs. Marton and Gladys, Léonie and Roger--another porter being got hold of to bring such of the bags, etc., as were not left at the station with the big luggage. Gladys walked along as if in a dream; she did not even wake up to notice the great wide street and all the carriages, and omnibuses, and carts, and people as they crossed to the hotel in front of the station. She hardly even noticed that all the voices about her were talking in a language she did not understand--she was completely dazed--the only words which remained clearly in her brain were the strange ones which Mr. Marton had made use of--"a pretty kettle of fish and no mistake." "No mistake," that must mean that Papa's not coming to the station was not a mistake, but that there was some reason for it. But "a kettle of fish," what _could_ that have to do with it all? She completely lost herself in puzzling about it. Why she did not simply ask Mrs. Marton to explain it I cannot tell. Perhaps the distressed anxious expression on that young lady's own face had something to do with her not doing so. Arrived at the hotel, and before a good fire in a large dining-room at that early hour quite empty, a slight look of relief came over all the faces. It was something to get warmed at least! And Mr. Marton ordered the hot chocolate for which Roger had been pining, before he said anything else. It came almost at once, and Léonie established the children at one of the little tables, drinking her own coffee standing, that she might attend to them and join in the talking of her master and mistress if they wished it. Roger began to feel pretty comfortable. He had not the least idea where he was--he had never before in his life been at a hotel, and would not have known what it meant--but to find himself warmed and fed and Gladys beside him was enough for the moment; and even Gladys herself began to feel a very little less stupefied and confused. Mr. and Mrs. Marton, at another table, talked gravely and in a low voice. At last Mr. Marton called Léonie. "Come here a minute," he said, "and see if you can throw any light on the matter. You are more at home in Paris than we are. Mrs. Marton and I are at our wits' end. If we had a few days to spare it would not be so bad, but we have not. Our berths are taken, and we cannot afford to lose three passages." "Mine too, sir," said Léonie. "Is mine taken too?" "Of course it is. You didn't suppose you were going as cabin-boy, did you?" said Mr. Marton rather crossly, though I don't think his being a little cross was to be wondered at. Poor Léonie looked very snubbed. "I was only wondering," she said meekly, "if I could have stayed behind with the poor children till----" "Impossible," said Mr. Marton; "lose your passage for a day or two's delay in their father's fetching them. If I thought it was more than that I would send them back to England," he added, turning to his wife. "And poor Mrs. Lacy so ill! Oh no, that would never do," she said. "And there's much more involved than our passages," he went on. "It's as much as my appointment is worth to miss this mail. It's just this--Captain Bertram is either here, or has been detained at Marseilles. If he's still there, we can look him up when we get there to-morrow; if he's in Paris, and has made some stupid mistake, we must get his address at Marseilles, he's sure to have left it at the hotel there for letters following him, and telegraph back to him here. I never did know anything so senseless as Susan Lacy's not making him give a Paris address," he added. "He was only to arrive here yesterday or the day before," said Mrs. Marton. "But the friends who were to have a nurse ready for the children? We should have had _some_ address." "Yes," said Mrs. Marton self-reproachfully. "I wish I had thought of it. But Susan was so _sure_ all would be right. And certainly, in case of anything preventing Captain Bertram's coming, it was only natural to suppose he would have telegraphed, or sent some one else, or done _something_." "Well--all things considered," said Mr. Marton, "it seems to me the best thing to do is to leave the children here, _even_ if we had a choice, which I must say I don't see! For I don't know how I could send them back to England, nor what their friends there might find to say if I did--nor can we----" "Take them on to Marseilles with us?" interrupted Mrs. Marton. "Oh, Phillip, would not that be better?" "And find that their father had just started for Paris?" replied her husband. "And then think of the expense. Here, they are much nearer at hand if they have to be fetched back to England." Mrs. Marton was silent. Suddenly another idea struck her. She started up. "Supposing Captain Bertram has come to the station since we left," she exclaimed. "He may be there now." Mr. Marton gave a little laugh. "No fear," he said "Every official in the place knows the whole story. I managed to explain it, and told them to send him over here." "And what are you thinking of doing, then? _Where_ can we leave them?" Mr. Marton looked at his watch. "That's just the point," he said. "We've only three hours unless we put off till the night express, and that is running it too fine. Any little detention and we might miss the boat." "We've run it too fine already, I fear," said Mrs. Marton dolefully. "It's been my fault, Phillip--the wanting to stay in England till the last minute." "It's Susan Lacy's fault, or Bertram's fault, or both our faults for being too good-natured," said Mr. Marton gloomily. "But that's not the question now. I don't think we _should_ put off going, for--another reason--it would leave us no time to look up Bertram at Marseilles. Only if we had had a few hours, I could have found some decent people to leave the children with here, some good 'pension,' or----" "But such places are all so dear, and we have to consider the money too." "Yes," said Mr. Marton, "we have _literally_ to do so. I've only just in cash what we need for ourselves, and I couldn't cash a cheque here all in a minute, for my name is not known. But something must be fixed, and at once. I wonder if it would be any good if I were to consult the manager of this hotel? I----" "Pardon," said Léonie, suddenly interrupting. "I have an idea. My aunt--she is really my cousin, but I call her aunt--you know her by name, Madame?" she went on, turning to Mrs. Marton. "My mother often spoke of her"--for Mrs. Marton's family had known Léonie's mother long ago when she had been a nurse in England--"Madame Nestor. They are upholsterers in the Rue Verte, not very far from here, quite in the centre of Paris. They are very good people--of course, quite in a little way; but honest and good. They would do their best, just for a few days! It would be better than leaving the dear babies with those we knew nothing of. I think I could persuade them, if I start at once!" She began drawing her gloves on while she was speaking. And she had spoken so fast and confusedly that for a moment or two both Mr. and Mrs. Marton stared at her, not clearly taking in what she meant. "Shall I go, Madame?" she said, with a little impatience. "There is no time to lose. Of course if you do not like the idea--I would not have thought of it except that all is so difficult, so unexpected." "Not like it?" said Mr. Marton; "on the contrary I think it's a capital idea. The children would be in safe hands, and at worst it can't be for more than a couple of days. If Captain Bertram has been detained at Marseilles by illness or anything----" "That's not likely," interrupted Mrs. Marton, "he would have written or telegraphed." "Well, then, if it's some stupid mistake about the day, he'll come off at once when we tell him where they are. I was only going to say that, at worst, if he _is_ ill, or anything wrong, we'll telegraph to Susan Lacy from Marseilles and she'll send over for them somehow." "Should we not telegraph to her at once from here?" Mr. Marton considered. "I don't see the use," he said at last. "We can tell her nothing certain, nothing that she should act on yet. And it would only worry the old lady for nothing." "I'm afraid she's too ill to be told anything about it," said Mrs. Marton. "Then the more reason for waiting. But here we are losing the precious minutes, and Léonie all ready to start. Off with you, Léonie, as fast as ever you can, and see what you can do. Take a cab and make him drive fast," he called after her, for she had started off almost with his first words. "She's a very good sort of a girl," he added, turning to his wife. "Yes, she always has her wits about her in an emergency," agreed Mrs. Marton. "I do hope," she went on, "that what we are doing will turn out for the best. I really never did know anything so unfortunate, and----" "Is it all because of the kettle of fish? Did Papa tumble over it? Oh, I _wish_ you'd tell me!" said a pathetic little voice at her side, and turning round Mrs. Marton caught sight of Gladys, her hands clasped, her small white face and dark eyes gazing up beseechingly. It had grown too much for her at last, the bewilderment and the strangeness, and the not understanding. And the change from the cramped-up railway carriage and the warm breakfast had refreshed her a little, so that gradually her ideas were growing less confused. She had sat on patiently at the table long after she had finished her chocolate, though Roger was still occupied in feeding himself by tiny spoonfuls. He had never had anything in the way of food more interesting than this chocolate, for it was still hot, and whenever he left it for a moment a skin grew over the top, which it was quite a business to clear away--catching now and then snatches of the eager anxious talk that was going on among the big people. And at last when Léonie hurried out of the room, evidently sent on a message, Gladys felt that she must find out what was the matter and what it all meant. But the topmost idea in her poor little brain was still the kettle of fish. "If Papa has hurt himself," Gladys went on, "I think it would be better to tell me. I'd so much rather know. I'm not so very little, Mrs. Marton, Mrs. Lacy used to tell me things." Mrs. Marton stooped down and put her arms round the pathetic little figure. "Oh, I wish I could take you with me all the way. Oh! I'm so sorry for you, my poor little pet," she exclaimed girlishly. "But indeed we are not keeping anything from you. I only wish we had anything to tell. We don't know ourselves; we have no idea why your father has not come." "But the kettle of fish?" repeated Gladys. Mrs. Marton stared at her a moment, and then looked up at her husband. He grew a little red. "It must have been I that said it," he explained. "It is only an expression; a way of speaking, little Gladys. It means when--when people are rather bothered, you know--and can't tell what to do. I suppose it comes from somebody once upon a time having had more fish than there was room for in their kettle, and not knowing what to do with them." "Then we're the fish--Roger and I--I suppose, that you don't know what to do with?" said Gladys, her countenance clearing a little. "I'm very sorry. But I think Papa'll come soon; don't you?" "Yes, I do," replied Mr. Marton. "Something must have kept him at Marseilles, or else he's mistaken the day after all." "I thought you said it was 'no mistake!'" said Gladys. Mr. Marton gave a little groan. "Oh, you're a dreadful little person and no--there, I was just going to say it again! That's only an expression too, Gladys. It means, 'to be sure,' or 'no doubt about it,' though I suppose it is a little what one calls 'slang.' But you don't know anything about that, do you?" "No," said Gladys simply, "I don't know what it means." "And I haven't time to tell you, for we must explain to you what we're thinking of doing. You tell her, Lilly. I'm going about the luggage," he added, turning to his wife, for he was dreadfully tender-hearted, though he was such a big strong young man, and he was afraid of poor Gladys beginning to cry or clinging to them and begging them not to leave her and Roger alone in Paris, when she understood what was intended. But Gladys was not the kind of child to do so. She listened attentively, and seemed proud of being treated like a big girl, and almost before Mrs. Marton had done speaking she had her sensible little answer ready. "Yes, I see," she said. "It is much better for us to stay here, for Papa might come _very_ soon, mightn't he? Only, supposing he came this afternoon he wouldn't know where we were?" "Mr. Marton will give the address at the station, in case your Papa inquires there, as he very likely would, if a lady and gentleman and two children arrived there from England this morning. And he will also leave the address _here_, for so many people come here from the station. And when we get to Marseilles, we will at once go to the hotel where he was--where he is still, perhaps; if he has left, he is pretty sure to have given an address." "And if he's not there--if you can't find him--what will you do then?" said Gladys, opening wide her eyes and gazing up in her friend's face. Mrs. Marton hesitated. "I suppose if we really could not find your father at once, we should have to write or telegraph to Miss Susan." Gladys looked more distressed than she had yet done. "Don't do that, please," she said, clasping her hands together in the way she sometimes did. "I'd much rather stay here a little longer till Papa comes. It would be such a trouble to Miss Susan--I know she did think we were a great trouble sometimes--and it would make Mrs. Lacy cry perhaps to have to say good-bye again, and she's so ill." "Yes, I know she is," said Mrs. Marton, surprised at the little girl's thoughtfulness. "But you know, dear, we'd have to let them know, and then most likely they'd send over for you." "But Papa's _sure_ to come," said Gladys. "It would only be waiting a little, and I don't mind much, and I don't think Roger will, not if I'm with him. Will they be kind to us, do you think, those friends of Léonie's?" "I'm sure they will; otherwise you know, dear, we wouldn't leave you with them. Of course it will only be for a day or two, for they are quite plain people, with quite a little house." "I don't mind, not if they're kind to us," said Gladys. "But, oh! I do wish you weren't going away." "So do I," said Mrs. Marton, who felt really very nearly breaking down herself. The sort of quiet resignation about Gladys was very touching, much more so than if she had burst out into sobs and tears. It was perhaps as well that just at that moment Mr. Marton came back, and saying something in a low voice to his wife, drew her out of the room, where in the passage stood Léonie. "Back already," exclaimed Mrs. Marton in surprise. "Oh yes," Léonie replied, "it was not far, and the coachman drove fast. But I thought it better not to speak before the children. It is a very little place, Madame. I wonder if it will do." She seemed anxious and a little afraid of what she had proposed. "But can they take them? That is the principal question," said Mr. Marton. "Oh yes," said Léonie. "My aunt is goodness itself. She understands it all quite well, and would do her best; and it would certainly be better than to leave them with strangers, and would cost much less; only--the poor children!--all is so small and so cramped. Just two or three little rooms behind the shop; and they have been used to an English nursery, and all so nice." "I don't think they have been spoilt in some ways," said Mrs. Marton. "Poor little Gladys seems to mind nothing if she is sure of kindness. Besides, what else _can_ we do? And it is very kind of your aunt to consent, Léonie." "Yes, Madame. It is not for gain that she does it. Indeed it will not be gain, for she must find a room for her son, and arrange his room for the dear children. They have little beds among the furniture, so that will be easy; and all is very clean--my aunt is a good manager--but only----" Léonie looked very anxious. "Oh I'm sure it will be all right," said Mr. Marton. "I think we had better take them at once--I've got the luggage out--and then we can see for ourselves." The children were soon ready. Gladys had been employing the time in trying to explain to poor little Roger the new change that was before them. He did not find it easy to understand, but, as Gladys had said, he did not seem to mind anything so long as he was sure he was not to be separated from his sister. A few minutes' drive brought them to the Rue Verte. It was a narrow street--narrow, at least in comparison with the wide new ones of the present day, for it was in an old-fashioned part of Paris, in the very centre of one of the busiest quarters of the town; but it was quite respectable, and the people one saw were all well-dressed and well-to-do looking. Still Mr. Marton looked about him uneasily. "Dreadfully crowded place," he said; "must be very stuffy in warm weather. I'm glad it isn't summer; we _couldn't_ have left them here in that case." And when the cab stopped before a low door leading into a long narrow shop, filled with sofas and chairs, and great rolls of stuffs for making curtains and beds and mattresses in the background, Mr. Marton's face did not grow any brighter. But it did brighten up, and so did his wife's, when from the farther end of the shop, a glass door, evidently leading into a little sitting-room, opened, and an elderly woman, with a white frilled cap and a bright healthy face, with the kindliest expression in the world, came forward eagerly. "Pardon," she said in French, "I had not thought the ladies would be here so soon. But all will be ready directly. And are these the dear children?" she went on, her pleasant face growing still pleasanter. "Yes," said Mrs. Marton, who held Gladys by one hand and Roger by the other, "these are the two little strangers you are going to be so kind as to take care of for a day or two. It is very kind of you, Madame Nestor, and I hope it will not give you much trouble. Léonie has explained all to you?" "Oh yes," replied Madame Nestor, "poor darlings! What a disappointment to them not to have been met by their dear Papa! But he will come soon, and they will not be too unhappy with us." Mrs. Marton turned to the children. "What does she say? Is she the new nurse?" whispered Roger, whose ideas, notwithstanding Gladys's explanations, were still very confused. It was not a very bad guess, for Madame Nestor's good-humoured face and clean cap gave her very much the look of a nurse of the old-fashioned kind. Mrs. Marton stooped down and kissed the little puzzled face. "No, dear," she said, "she's not your nurse. She is Léonie's aunt, and she's going to take care of you for a few days till your Papa comes. And she says she will be very, very kind to you." But Roger looked doubtful. "Why doesn't she talk p'operly?" he said, drawing back. Mrs. Marton looked rather distressed. In the hurry and confusion she had not thought of this other difficulty--that the children would not understand what their new friends said to them! Gladys seemed to feel by instinct what Mrs. Marton was thinking. "I'll try to learn French," she said softly, "and then I can tell Roger." Léonie pressed forward. "Is she not a dear child?" she said, and then she quickly explained to her aunt what Gladys had whispered. The old lady seemed greatly pleased. "My son speaks a little English," she said, with evident pride. "He is not at home now, but in the evening, when he is not busy, he must talk with our little demoiselle." "That's a good thing," exclaimed Mr. Marton, who felt the greatest sympathy with Roger, for his own French would have been sadly at fault had he had to say more than two or three words in it. Then Madame Nestor took Mrs. Marton to see the little room she was preparing for her little guests. It was already undergoing a good cleaning, so its appearance was not very tempting, but it would not have done to seem anything but pleased. "Anyway it will be _clean_," thought Mrs. Marton, "but it is very dark and small." For though it was the best bedroom, the window looked out on to a narrow sort of court between the houses, whence but little light could find its way in, and Mrs. Marton could not help sighing a little as she made her way back to the shop, where Mr. Marton was explaining to Léonie about the money he was leaving with Madame Nestor. "It's all I can possibly spare," he said, "and it is English money. But tell your aunt she is _sure_ to hear in a day or two, and she will be fully repaid for any other expense she may have." "Oh dear, yes," said Léonie, "my aunt is not at all afraid about that. She has heard too much of the goodness of Madame's family to have any fears about anything Madame wishes. Her only trouble is whether the poor children will be happy." "I feel sure it will not be Madame Nestor's fault if they are not," said Mrs. Marton, turning to the kind old woman. It was all she could say, for she felt by no means sure that the poor little things would be able to be happy in such strange circumstances. The tears filled her eyes as she kissed them again for the last time, and it was with a heavy heart she got back into the cab which was to take her husband and herself and Léonie to the Marseilles station. Mr. Marton was very little happier than his wife. "I wish to goodness Susan Lacy had managed her affairs herself," he grumbled. "Poor little souls! I shall be thankful to know that they are safe with their father." Léonie was sobbing audibly in her pocket-handkerchief. "My aunt will be very kind to them, so far as she understands. That is the only consolation," she said, amidst her tears. CHAPTER V. IN THE RUE VERTE. "The city looked sad. The heaven was gray." SONGS IN MINOR KEYS. "Gladdie, are you awake?" These were the first words that fell on Gladys's ears the next morning. I cannot say the first _sounds_, for all sorts of strange and puzzling noises had been going on above and below and on all sides since _ever_ so early, as it seemed to her--in reality it had been half-past six--she had opened her eyes in the dark, and wondered and wondered where she was! Still in the railway carriage was her first idea, or on the steamer--once she had awakened enough to remember that she was _not_ in her own little bed at Mrs. Lacy's. But no--people weren't undressed in the railway, even though they did sometimes lie down, and then--though the sounds she heard were very queer--she soon felt she was not moving. And bit by bit it all came back to her--about the long tiring journey, and no Papa at the station, and Mr. and Mrs. Marton and Léonie all talking together, and the drive in the cab to the crowded narrow street, and the funny old woman with the frilled cap, and the shop full of chairs and sofas, and the queer unnatural long afternoon after their friends went away, and how glad at last she and Roger were to go to bed even in the little stuffy dark room. _How_ dark it was! It must still be the middle of the night, Gladys thought for some time, only that everybody except herself and Roger seemed to be awake and bustling about. For the workroom, as Gladys found out afterwards, was overhead, and the workpeople came early and were not particular about making a noise. It was very dull, and in spite of all the little girl's courage, a few tears _would_ make their way up to her eyes, though she tried her best to force them back, and she lay there perfectly quiet, afraid of waking Roger, for she was glad to hear by his soft breathing that he was still fast asleep. But she could not help being glad when through the darkness came the sound of his voice. "Gladdie, are you awake?" "Yes, dear," she replied, "I've been awake a long time." "So have I," said Roger in all sincerity--he had been awake about three minutes. "It's very dark; is it the middle of the night?" "No, I don't think so," Gladys replied. "I hear people making a lot of noise." "Gladdie," resumed Roger half timidly--Gladys knew what was coming--"may I get into your bed?" "It's _very_ small," said Gladys, which was true, though even if it had not been so, she would probably have tried to get out of Roger's proposal, for she was not half so fond of his early morning visits as he was. In the days of old "nurse" such doings were not allowed, but after she left, Gladys had not the heart to be very strict with Roger, and now in spite of her faint objection, she knew quite well she would have to give in, in the end. "So's mine," observed Roger, though Gladys could not see what that had to do with it. But she said nothing, and for about half a minute there was silence in the dark little room. Then again. "Gladdie," came from the corner, "mayn't I come? If we squeezed ourselves?" "Very well," said Gladys, with a little sigh made up of many different feelings. "You can come and try." But a new difficulty arose. "I can't find my way in the dark. I don't 'amember how the room is in the light," said Roger dolefully. "When I first waked I _couldn't_ think where we were. Can't you come for me, Gladdie?" "How can I find my way if you can't," Gladys was on the point of replying, but she checked herself! She felt as if she could not speak the least sharply to her little brother, for he had nobody but her to take care of him, and try to make him happy. So she clambered out of her bed, starting with the surprise of the cold floor, which had no carpet, and trying to remember the chairs and things that stood in the way, managed to get across the room to the opposite corner where stood Roger's bed, without any very bad knocks or bumps. "I'm here," cried Roger, as if that was a piece of news, "I'm standing up in my bed jigging up and down. Can you find me, Gladdie?" "I'm feeling for you," Gladys replied. "Yes, here's the edge of your cot. I would have found you quicker if you had kept lying down." "Oh, then, I'll lie down again," said Roger, but a cry from Gladys stopped him. "No, no, don't," she said. "I've found you now. Yes, here's your hand. Now hold mine tight, and see if you can get over the edge. That's right. Now come very slowly, round by the wall is best. Here's my bed. Climb in and make yourself as little as ever you can. I'm coming. Oh, Roger, what a squeeze it is!" "I think it's littler than my bed," said Roger consolingly. "It's not any bigger anyway," replied Gladys, "we might just as well have stayed in yours." "Is it because they're poor that the beds is so _very_ little?" asked Roger in a low voice. "Oh, no, I don't think so," said Gladys gravely. "They've very nice beds; I think they're almost quite new." "Mine was very comfitable," said Roger. "Do you think all poor childrens have as nice beds?" "I'm afraid not," said Gladys solemnly. "I'm _afraid_ that some haven't any beds at all. But why do you keep talking about poor children, Roger?" "I wanted to know about them 'cos, you see, Gladys, if Papa wasn't never finded and we had to stay here, _we'd_ be poor." "Nonsense," said Gladys rather sharply, in spite of her resolutions, "it _couldn't_ be like that; of course Papa will come in a few days, and--and, even if he didn't, though that's quite nonsense, you know, I'm only saying it to make you see, _even_ if he didn't, we'd not stay here." "Where would we go?" said Roger practically. "Oh, back to Mrs. Lacy perhaps. I wouldn't mind if Miss Susan was married." "_I_ would rather go to India with _them_," said Roger. Gladys knew whom he meant. "But we can't, they've gone," she replied. "Are they _gone_, and Léonie, that nice nurse--are they _gone_?" said Roger, appalled. "Yes, of course. They'll be nearly at India by now, I daresay." Roger began to cry. "Why, you _knew_ they were gone. Why do you cry about it now--you didn't cry yesterday?" said Gladys, a little sharply it must be confessed. "I thought," sobbed Roger, "I thought they'd gone to look for Papa, and that they'd come to take us a nice walk every day, and--and----" He did not very well know _what_ he had thought, but he had certainly not taken in that it was good-bye for good to the new friends he had already become fond of. "I'm _sure_ you said they were gone to look for Papa," he repeated, rather crossly in his turn. "Well, dear," Gladys explained, her heart smiting her, "they _have_ gone to look for Papa. They thought they'd find him at the big town at the side of the sea where the ships go to India from, and then they'd tell him where we were in Paris, and he'd come quick for us." "Is this Paris?" asked Roger. "Yes, of course," replied Gladys. "I don't like it," continued the little boy. "Do you, Gladys?" "It isn't like what I thought," said Gladys; "nothing's like what I thought. I don't think when we go home again, Roger, that I'll ever play at pretend games any more." "How do you mean when we go home?" said Roger. "Where's home?" "Oh, I don't know; I said it without thinking. Roger----" "What?" said Roger. "Are you hungry?" asked Gladys. "A little; are you?" "Yes, I think I am, a little," replied Gladys. "I couldn't eat all that meat and stuff they gave us last night. I wanted our tea." "And bread and butter," suggested Roger. "Yes; at home I didn't like bread and butter much, but I think I would now. I daresay they'd give it us if I knew what it was called in their talking," said Gladys. "It wouldn't be so bad if we knew their talking," sighed Roger. "It wouldn't be so bad if it would get light," said his sister. "I don't know what to do, Roger. It's _hours_ since they've all been up, and nobody's come to us. I wonder if they've forgotten we're here." "There's a little tiny, weeny _inch_ of light beginning to come over there. Is that the window?" said Roger. "I suppose so. As soon as it gets more light I'll get up and look if there's a bell," decided Gladys. "And if there is?" "I'll ring it, of course." "But what would Miss---- Oh, Gladys," he burst out with a merry laugh, the first Gladys had heard from him since the journey. "Isn't I silly? I was just going to say, 'What would Miss Susan say?' I quite forgot. I'm not sorry _she's_ not here. Are you, Gladdie?" "I don't know," the little girl answered. Truth to tell, there were times when she would have been very thankful to see Miss Susan, even though she was determined not to ask to go back to England till all hope was gone. "I'm not----" but what she was going to say remained unfinished. The door opened at last, and the frilled cap, looking so exactly the same as yesterday that Gladys wondered if Madame Nestor slept in it, only if so, how did she keep it from getting crushed, appeared by the light of a candle surrounding the kindly face. "_Bon jour_, my children," she said. "_That_ means 'good-morning,'" whispered Gladys, "I know that. Say it, Roger." Why Roger was to "say it" and not herself I cannot tell. Some unintelligible sound came from Roger's lips, for which Gladys hastened to apologise. "He's trying to say 'good-morning' in French," she explained, completely forgetting that poor Madame Nestor could not understand her. "Ah, my little dears," said the old woman--in her own language of course--"I wish I could know what you say. Ah, how sweet they are! Both together in one bed, like two little birds in a nest. And have you slept well, my darlings? and are you hungry?" The children stared at each other, and at their old hostess. "Alas," she repeated, "they do not understand. But they will soon know what I mean when they see the nice bowls of hot chocolate." "Chocolate!" exclaimed both children. At last there was a word they could understand. Madame Nestor was quite overcome with delight. "Yes, my angels, chocolate," she repeated, nodding her head. "The little servant is bringing it. But it was not she that made it. Oh, no! It was myself who took care it should be good. But you must have some light," and she went to the window, which had a curtain drawn before it, and outside heavy old-fashioned wooden shutters. No wonder in November that but little light came through. It was rather a marvel that at eight o'clock in the morning even a "tiny weeny _inch_" had begun to make its way. With some difficulty the old woman removed all the obstructions, and then such poor light as there was came creeping in. But first she covered the two children up warmly, so that the cold air when the window was opened should not get to them. [Illustration: She placed the whole on a little table which she drew close to the bed.] "Would not do for them to catch cold, that would be a pretty story," she muttered to herself, for she had a funny habit of talking away about everything she did. Then, when all was air-tight again, there came a knock at the door. Madame Nestor opened it, and took from the hands of an invisible person a little tray with two steaming bowls of the famous chocolate and two sturdy hunches of very "hole-y" looking bread. No butter; that did not come within Madame Nestor's ideas. She placed the whole on a little table which she drew close to the bed, and then wrapping a shawl round the children, she told them to take their breakfast. They did not, of course, understand her words, but when she gave Roger his bowl and a preliminary hunch of bread into his hands, they could not but see that they were expected to take their breakfast in bed. "But we're not ill," exclaimed Gladys; "we never stay in bed to breakfast except when we're ill." Madame Nestor smiled and nodded. She had not a notion what Gladys meant, and on her side she quite forgot that the children could not understand her any better than she understood them. "We never stay in bed to breakfast unless we're _ill_," repeated Gladys more loudly, as if that would help Madame Nestor to know what she meant. "Never mind, Gladdie--the chocolate's very good," said Roger. As before, "chocolate" was the only word Madame Nestor caught. "Yes, take your chocolate," she repeated; "don't let it get cold," and she lifted Gladys's bowl to give it to her. "Stupid old thing," murmured Gladys, "why doesn't she understand? I should like to throw the chocolate in her face." "Oh, Gladdie," said Roger reproachfully, "_think_ what a mess it would make on the clean sheets!" "I was only in fun--you might know that," said Gladys, all the same a little ashamed of herself. Madame Nestor had by this time left the room with a great many incomprehensible words, but very comprehensible smiles and nods. "I think breakfast in bed's very good," said Roger. Then came a sadder exclamation. "They've given me a pudding spoon 'stead of a teaspoon. It's _so_ big--it won't hardly go into my mouth." "And me too," said Gladys. "How stupid French people are! We'll have to drink it out of the bowls, Roger. How funny it is not to have tea-cups!" "_I_ think it's best to take it like soup," said Roger; "you don't need to put the spoon so much in your mouth if you think it's soup." "I don't see what difference that makes," returned Gladys. But anyhow the chocolate and the bread disappeared, and then the children began to wonder how soon they might get up. Breakfast in bed wasn't so bad as long as there was the breakfast to eat, but when it was finished and there was no other amusement at hand they began to find it very tiresome. They had not so very long to wait, however, before Madame Nestor again made her appearance. "Mayn't we get up?" cried both children, springing up in bed and jumping about, to show how ready they were. The old lady seemed to understand this time, but first she stood still for a moment or two with her head on one side admiring them. "The little angels!" she said to herself. "How charming they are. Come now, my darlings, and get quickly dressed. It is cold this morning," and she took Roger in her arms to lift him down, while Gladys clambered out by herself. Their clothes were neatly placed in two little heaps on the top of the chest of drawers, which, besides the two beds and two or three chairs, was the only furniture in the room. Madame Nestor sat down on one of the chairs with Roger on her knee and began drawing on his stockings. "Well done," she said, when one was safely in its place; "who would have thought I was still so clever a nurse!" and she surveyed the stockinged leg with much satisfaction. Roger seemed quite of her opinion, and stuck out the other set of pink toes with much amiability. He greatly approved of this mode of being dressed. Miss Susan had told Ellen he was big enough, at five years old, to put on his stockings himself, and she had also been very strict about sundry other nursery regulations, to which the young gentleman, in cold weather especially, was by no means partial. But he was not to get off as easily as he hoped. His silence, which with him always meant content, caught Gladys's attention, which till now had been taken up with her own stockings, as she had a particular way of her own of arranging them before putting them on. "Roger," she exclaimed when she turned round and saw him established on Madame Nestor's motherly lap; "what are you thinking of? You haven't had your bath." Roger's face grew red, and the expression of satisfaction fled. "Need I----?" he was beginning meekly, but Gladys interrupted him indignantly: "You dirty little boy," she said. "What would Miss Susan say?" at which Roger began to cry, and poor Madame Nestor looked completely puzzled. "We didn't have a bath last night, you know, because in winter Miss Susan thinks once a day is enough. But I did think we should have had one, after the journey too. And anyway this morning we _must_ have one." But Madame Nestor only continued to stare. "What shall I say? How _can_ I make her understand?" said Gladys in despair. "Where's the little basin we washed our faces and hands in yesterday, Roger?" she went on, looking round the room. "Oh, I forgot--it was downstairs. There's _no_ basin in this room! What dirty people!" then noticing the puzzled look on Madame Nestor's face, she grew frightened that perhaps she was vexed. "Perhaps she knows what 'dirty' means," she half whispered to herself. "Oh dear, I don't mean to be rude, ma'am," she went on, "but I suppose you don't know about children. How _can_ I explain?" A brilliant idea struck her. In a corner of the room lay the carpet-bag in which Miss Susan had packed their nightgowns and slippers, and such things as they would require at once. There were, too, their sponges; and, as Miss Susan had been careful to point out, a piece of _soap_, "which you never find in French hotels," she had explained to Gladys. The little girl dived into the bag and drew out the sponges and soap in triumph. "See, see," she exclaimed, darting back again to the old lady, and flourishing her treasure-trove, "that's what I mean! We must have a _bath_," raising her voice as she went on; "we must be washed and _sponged_;" and suiting the action to the word she proceeded to pat and rub Roger with the dry sponge, glancing up at Madame Nestor to see if the pantomime was understood. "Ah, yes, to be sure," Madame Nestor exclaimed, her face lighting up, "I understand now, my little lady. All in good time--you shall have water to wash your face and hands as soon as you are dressed. But let me get this poor little man's things on quickly. It is cold this morning." She began to take off Roger's nightgown and to draw on his little flannel vest, to which _he_ would have made no objection, but Gladys got scarlet with vexation. "No, no," she cried, "he must be washed _first_. If you haven't got a bath, you might anyway let us have a basin and some water. Roger, you _are_ a dirty boy. You might join me, and then perhaps she'd do it." Thus adjured, Roger rose to the occasion. He slipped off Madame Nestor's knee, and stepping out of his nightgown began an imaginary sponging of his small person. But it was cold work, and Madame Nestor seeing him begin to shiver grew really uneasy, and again tried to get him into his flannels. "No, no," said Roger, in his turn--he had left off crying now--even the cold wasn't so bad as Gladdie calling him a dirty boy. Besides who could tell whether, somehow or other, Miss Susan might not come to hear of it? Gladys might write her a letter. "No, no," repeated Roger valorously, "we must be washed _first_." "You too," said Madame Nestor in despair; "ah, what children!" But her good-humour did not desert her. Vaguely understanding what they meant--for recollections began to come back to her mind of what Léonie's mother used to tell her of the manners and customs of _her_ nurseries--she got up, and smiling still, though with some reproach, at her queer little guests, she drew a blanket from the bed and wrapped it round them, and then opening the door she called downstairs to the little servant to bring a basin and towel and hot water. But the little servant did not understand, so after all the poor old lady had to trot downstairs again herself. "My old legs will have exercise enough," she said to herself, "if the Papa does not come soon. However!" "I'm sure she's angry," whispered Roger to Gladys inside the blanket, "we needn't have a bath _every_ day, Gladdie." "Hush," said Gladys sternly. "I'm _not_ going to let you learn to be a dirty boy. If we can't have a bath we may at least be _washed_." "But if Papa's coming for us to-day or to-morrow," Roger said, "the new nurse could wash us. I don't believe Papa's coming for us," he went on as if he were going to cry again. "I believe we're going to stay here in this nugly little house _always_--and it's all a trick. I don't believe we've got any Papa." Poor Gladys did not know what to say. Her own spirits were going down again, for she too was afraid that perhaps Madame Nestor was vexed, and she began to wonder if perhaps it would have been better to let things alone for a day or two--"If I was sure that Papa would come in a day or two," she thought! But she felt sure of nothing now--everything had turned out so altogether differently from what she had expected that her courage was flagging, and she too, for the first time since their troubles had begun, followed Roger's example and burst into tears. CHAPTER VI. AMONG THE SOFAS AND CHAIRS. "They wake to feel That the world is a changeful place to live in, And almost wonder if all is real." LAVENDER LADY. So it was rather a woe-begone looking little couple, crouching together in the blanket, that met old Madame Nestor's eyes when, followed by the little servant with the biggest basin the establishment boasted of, and carrying herself a queer-shaped tin jug full of hot water and with a good supply of nice white towels over her arm, she entered the room again. "How now, my little dears?" she exclaimed; "not crying, surely? Why, there's nothing to cry for!" Gladys wiped her eyes with the skirt of her little nightgown, and looked up. She did not know what the old woman was saying, but her tone was as kind as ever. It was very satisfactory, too, to see the basin, small as it was, and still more, the plentiful hot water. "Thank you, ma'am," said Gladys gravely, and nudging Roger to do the same. Everybody, she had noticed the day before, had called the old lady "madame," but that was the French for "ma'am" Léonie had told her, so she stuck to her native colours. "Thank you," repeated Roger, but without the "ma'am." "It sounds so silly, nobody says it but servants," he maintained to Gladys, and no doubt it mattered very little whether he said it or not, as Madame Nestor didn't understand, though she was quick enough to see that her little guests meant to say something civil and kind. And the washing was accomplished--I cannot say without difficulty, for Roger tried to stand in the basin and very nearly split it in two, and there was a great splashing of water over the wooden floor--on the whole with success. Poor Madame Nestor! When she had at last got her charges safely into their various garments, she sat down on a chair by the bed and fairly panted! "It's much harder than cooking a dinner," she said to herself. "I can't think how my cousin Marie could stand it, if they have this sort of business every morning with English children. And five, six of them as there are sometimes! The English are a curious nation." But she turned as smilingly as ever to Gladys and Roger; and Gladys, seeing that she was tired, and being sensible enough to understand that the kind old woman was really giving herself a great deal of trouble for their sake, went and stood close beside her, and gently stroked her, as she sometimes used to do--when Miss Susan was not there, be it remarked--to Mrs. Lacy. "I wish I knew how to say 'thank you' in French," said Gladys to Roger. But Madame Nestor had understood her. "Little dear," she said in her own language, "she thinks I am tired." The word caught Gladys's ear--"fatigued," she interrupted, "I know what that means. Poor Mrs. Nest," she explained to her little brother, "she says she's fatigued. I think we should kiss her, Roger," and both children lifted up their soft fresh rosy lips to the old woman, which was a language that needed no translation. "Little dears," she repeated again, "but, all the same, I hope we shall soon have some news from the Papa. Ah!" she interrupted herself; "but there is the clock striking nine, and my breakfast not seen to. I must hasten, but what to do with these angels while I am in the kitchen?" "Take them with you; children are very fond of being in a kitchen when they may," would have seemed a natural reply. But not to those who know what a Paris kitchen is. Even those of large grand houses would astonish many English children and big people, too, who have never happened to see them, and Madame Nestor's kitchen was really no better than a cupboard, and a cupboard more than half filled up with the stove, in and on which everything was cooked. There could be no question of taking the children into the kitchen, and the tiny room behind the shop was very dark and dull. Still it was the only place, and thither their old friend led them, telling them she must now go to cook the breakfast and they must try to amuse themselves; in the afternoon she would perhaps send them out a walk. Two words in this were intelligible to Gladys. "We are to be amused, Roger," she said, "and we are to promenade, that means a walk where the band plays like at Whitebeach last summer. I wonder where it can be?" The glass door which led into the shop had a little curtain across it, but one corner was loose. This Gladys soon discovered. "See here, Roger," she said, "we can peep into the shop and see if any one comes in. Won't that be fun?" Roger took his turn of peeping. "It aren't a pretty shop," he said, "it's all chairs and tables. I'd like a toy-shop, Gladdie, wouldn't you?" "It wouldn't be much good if we mightn't play with the toys," Gladys replied. "But I'll tell you what, Roger, we might play at beautiful games of houses in there. We could have that corner where there are the pretty blue chairs for our drawing-room, and we might pay visits. Or I might climb in there behind that big sofa and be a princess in a giant's castle, and you might come and fight with the giant and get me out." "And who'd be the giant?" asked Roger. "Oh, we can _pretend_ him. I can make a dreadful _booing_ when I see you coming, and you can pretend you see him. But you must have a sword. What would do for a sword?" she went on, looking round. "They haven't even a poker! I wish we had Miss Susan's umbrella." "Here's one!" exclaimed Roger, spying the umbrella of Monsieur Adolphe, Madame Nestor's son, in a corner of the room. It was still rather damp, for poor Adolphe had had to come over in the heavy rain early that morning from the neighbouring inn where he had slept, having, as you know, given up his room to the two little strangers, and his mother would have scolded him had she noticed that he had put it down all dripping, though as the floor was a stone one it did not much matter. And the children were not particular. They screwed up the wet folds and buttoned the elastic, and then shouldering it, Roger felt quite ready to fight the imaginary giant. There was a little difficulty about opening the door into the shop, and rather _too_ little about shutting it, for it closed with a spring, and nearly snapped Roger and his umbrella in two. But he was none the worse save a little bump on his head, which Gladys persuaded him not to cry about. It would never do to cry about a knock when he was going to fight the giant, she assured him, and then she set to work, planning the castle and the way Roger was to come creeping through the forest, represented by chairs and stools of every shape, so that he grew quite interested and forgot all his troubles. It really turned out a very amusing game, and when it was over they tried hide-and-seek, which would have been famous fun--there were so many hiding-holes among the bales of stuffs and pillows and uncovered cushions lying about--if they had had one or two more to play at it with them! But to playfellows they were little accustomed, so they did not much miss them, and they played away contentedly enough, though quietly, as was their habit. And so it came about that Madame Nestor never doubted that they were in the little back-room where she had left them, when a ring at the front door of the shop announced a customer. This door was also half of glass, and when it was opened a bell rang. Gladys and Roger were busy looking for new hiding-places when the sudden sound of the bell startled them. "Somebody's coming in," whispered Gladys; "Roger, let's hide. Don't let them see us; we don't know who they are," and quick as thought she stooped down in a corner, drawing her little brother in beside her. From where they were they could peep out. Two ladies entered the shop, one young and one much older. The face of the older one Gladys did not distinctly see, or perhaps she did not much care to look at it, so immediately did the younger one seize her fancy. She was very pretty and pleasant-looking, with bright brown hair and sweet yet merry eyes, and as she threw herself down on a seat which stood near the door, Gladys was able to see that she was neatly and prettily dressed. "Aren't you tired, Auntie?" she said to the other lady. "A little. It is farther than I thought, and we have not much time. I wonder what colour will be prettiest for the curtains, Rosamond?" "The shade of blue on that sofa over in the corner is pretty," said the young lady. Gladys pinched Roger. It was precisely behind the blue-covered sofa that they were hiding. "I wish they would be quick," said the elder lady. "Perhaps they did not hear the bell." "Shall I go to the door and ring it again?" asked the one called Rosamond. "I don't know; perhaps it would be better to tap at the glass door leading into the house. Madame Nestor sits in there, I fancy. She generally comes out at that door." "I don't fancy she is there now," said the young lady. "You see we have come so early. It has generally been in the afternoon that we have come. Madame Nestor is probably busy about her 'household avocations' at this hour," she added, with a smile. "I wonder what that means," whispered Gladys. "I suppose it means the dinner." Just at that moment the door opened, and Madame Nestor appeared, rather in a flutter. She was so sorry to have kept the ladies waiting, and how unfortunate! Her son had just gone to their house with the patterns for the curtains. He would have sent yesterday to ask at what hour the ladies would be at home, but they had all been so busy--an unexpected arrival--and Madame Nestor would have gone on to give all the story of Léonie's sudden visit to beg a shelter for the two little waifs, had not the ladies, who knew of old the good dame's long stories, cut her short as politely as they could. "We are very hurried," said the one whom the young lady called "auntie." "I think the best thing to be done is to get home as quickly as we can, and perhaps we shall still find your son there; if not, he will no doubt have left the patterns, so please tell him to try to come this evening or to-morrow morning before twelve, for we must have the curtains this week." Of course--of course--Madame Nestor agreed to everything as amiably as possible, and the ladies turned to go. "Are you much troubled with mice?" said the younger lady as they were leaving. "I have heard queer little noises two or three times over in that corner near the blue sofa while we were speaking." Old Madame Nestor started. "Mice!" she exclaimed. "I hope not. It would be very serious for us--with so many beautiful stuffs about. I must make them examine, and if necessary get a cat. We have not had a cat lately--the last was stolen, she was such a beauty, and----" And on the old body would have chattered for another half-hour, I daresay, had not the ladies again repeated that they were very hurried and must hasten home. The idea of mice had taken hold of Madame Nestor's mind; it made her for the moment forget the children, though in passing through the little room where she had left them she had wondered where they were. She hurried into the workroom to relate her fears, and Gladys and Roger, as soon as she had left the shop, jumped up, not sorry to stretch their legs after having kept them still for nearly a quarter of an hour. "I wonder if she'd be angry at our playing here," said Gladys. "What fun it was hiding and those ladies not knowing we were there! I think they were nice ladies, but I wish they had kept on talking properly. I liked to hear what they said." "Why doesn't everybody talk properly here if some does?" asked Roger. "I suppose," said Gladys, though she had not thought of it before, it had seemed so natural to hear people talking as she had always heard people talk--"I suppose those ladies are English. I wish they had talked to _us_, Roger. Perhaps they know Papa." "They couldn't talk to us when they didn't know us was there," said Roger, with which Gladys could not disagree. But it made her feel rather sorry not to have spoken to the ladies--it would have been very nice to have found some one who could understand what they said. "I wish we hadn't been hiding," she was going to say, but she was stopped by a great bustle which began to make itself heard in the sitting-room, and suddenly the door into the shop opened, and in rushed Madame Nestor, followed by the servant and two or three of the workpeople. "Where are they, then? Where can they have gone, the poor little angels?" exclaimed the old lady, while the servant and the others ran after her repeating: "Calm yourself, Madame, calm yourself. They cannot have strayed far--they will be found." Though the children could not understand the words, they could not _mis_understand the looks and the tones, and, above all, the distress in their kind old friend's face. They were still half hidden, though they were no longer crouching down on the floor. Out ran Gladys, followed by Roger. "Are you looking for us, Mrs. Nest?" she said. "Here we are! We've only been playing at hiding among the chairs and sofas." Madame Nestor sank down exhausted on the nearest arm-chair. "Oh, but you have given me a fright," she panted out. "I could not imagine where they had gone," she went on, turning to the others. "I left them as quiet as two little mice in there," pointing to the sitting-room, "and the moment my back was turned off they set." "It is always like that with children," said Mademoiselle Anna, the forewoman. She was a young woman with very black hair and very black eyes and a very haughty expression. No one liked her much in the workroom--she was so sharp and so unamiable. But she was very clever at making curtains and covering chairs and sofas, and she had very good taste, so Madame Nestor, who was, besides, the kindest woman in the world, kept her, though she disliked her temper and pride. "Poor little things--we have all been children in our day," said Madame Nestor. "That is possible," replied Mademoiselle Anna, "but all the same, there are children and children. I told you, Madame, and you will see I was right; you do not know the trouble you will have with these two little foreigners--brought up who knows how--and a queer story altogether it seems to me," she added, with a toss of her head. Gladys and Roger had drawn near Madame Nestor. Gladys was truly sorry to see how frightened their old friend had been, and she wished she knew how to say so to her. But when Mademoiselle Anna went on talking, throwing disdainful glances in their direction, the children shrank back. They could not understand what she was saying, but they _felt_ she was talking of them, and they had already noticed her sharp unkindly glances the evening before. "Why is she angry with us?" whispered Roger. But Gladys shook her head. "I don't know," she replied. "She isn't as kind as Mrs. Nest and her son. Oh I do wish Papa would come for us, Roger!" "So do I," said the little fellow. But five minutes after, he had forgotten their troubles, for Madame Nestor took them into the long narrow room where she and her son and some of their workpeople had their meals, and established them at one end of the table, to have what _she_ called their "breakfast," but what to the children seemed their dinner. She was very kind to them, and gave them what she thought they would like best to eat, and some things, especially an omelette, they found very good. But the meat they did not care about. "It's so greasy, I can't eat it," said Gladys, after doing her best for fear Madame Nestor should think her rude. And Roger, who did not so much mind the greasiness of the gravy, could not eat it either because it was cooked with carrots, to which he had a particular dislike. They were not dainty children generally, but the stuffy room, and the different kind of cooking, and above all, perhaps, the want of their usual morning walk, seemed to take away their appetite. And the sight of Mademoiselle Anna's sharp contemptuous face across the table did not mend matters. "I wish we had some plain cold meat and potatoes," said Gladys, "like what we had at home. I could even like some nice plain bread and butter." "Not _this_ bread," said Roger, who was beginning to look doleful again. "I don't like the taste of this bread." So they both sat, watching all that was going on, but eating nothing themselves, till Madame Nestor, who had been busy carving, caught sight of them. "They do not eat, those poor dears," she said to her son; "I fear the food is not what they are accustomed to--but I cannot understand them nor they me. It is too sad! Can you not try to find out what they would like, Adolphe? You who speak English?" Monsieur Adolphe got very red; he was not generally shy, but his English, which he was rather given to boasting of when there was no need for using it, seemed less ready than his mother had expected. However, like her, he was very kind-hearted, and the sight of the two grave pale little faces troubled him. He went round to their side of the table. "You not eat?" he said. "Miss and Sir not eat nothing. Find not good?" Gladys's face brightened. It was something to have some one who understood a little, however little. "Oh yes," she said, timidly afraid of appearing uncivil, "it is very good; but we are not hungry. We are not accustomed to rich things. Might we--" she went on timidly, "do you think we might have a little bread and butter?" Monsieur Adolphe hesitated. He found it much more difficult than he had had any idea of to understand what Gladys said, though she spoke very plainly and clearly. "Leetle--leetle?" he repeated. "A little bread and butter," said Gladys again. This time he understood. "Bread and butter; I will go see," he answered, and then he hurried back to his mother, still busy at the side-table. "They do not seem accustomed to eat meat," he said, "they ask for bread and butter." "The greedy little things!" exclaimed Mademoiselle Anna, who had got up from her seat on pretence of handing a plate to Madame Nestor, but in reality to hear all that was going on. "How can they be so bold?" "It is the custom in England," said the old lady. "My cousin has often told me how the children there eat so much bread and butter. But I have no fresh butter in the house. Would not preserves please them? Here, Françoise," she went on, calling to the little servant. "Fetch some preserves from the cupboard, and give some with some bread to the poor little angels." "What a to-do to be sure!" muttered Anna to Adolphe. "I only hope your mother will be paid for the trouble she is giving herself, but I much doubt it. I believe it is all a trick to get rid of the two little plagues. English of the good classes do not leave their children to anybody's tender mercies in that way!" "That is true," said Adolphe, who, though he had a good deal of his mother's kind-heartedness, was easily impressed by what Anna said. "And they have certainly a curious accent. I had difficulty in understanding them. I never heard an accent like it in English." "Exactly," said Anna, tossing her head, "they are little cheats--no one will come for them, and no money will be sent. You will see--and so will your mother. But it will be too late. She should have thought twice before taking on herself such a charge." "I am quite of your opinion," said Adolphe. "Something must be done; my mother must be made to hear reason. If no one comes to fetch them in a day or two we must do something--even if I have to take them myself to the English Embassy." "Quite right, quite right, Monsieur Adolphe," said Anna spitefully. But Madame Nestor heard nothing of what they were saying. She was seated quite contentedly beside the children, happy to see them enjoying the bread and jam which they much preferred to the greasy meat, even though the bread tasted a little sour, though she could not persuade them to take any wine. "It isn't good for children," said Gladys gravely, looking up into her face. But poor Madame Nestor shook her head. "It is no use, my dears," she said in her own language. "I cannot understand! Dear me--I do wish the Papa would come. Poor dear angels--I fear I cannot make them happy! But at least I can wash up the dishes for Françoise and let her take them out a walk. You will like that--a nice promenade, will you not?" Gladys jumped up joyfully. "The promenade, Roger--we're going to hear the band play. Won't that be nice? Come let us go quick and get ready." Madame Nestor was enchanted. CHAPTER VII. THE KIND-LOOKING GENTLEMAN. "A friendly pleasant face he had, They really thought him very nice, And when adown the street he'd gone They nodded to him twice." CHANCE ACQUAINTANCES. They were soon ready, for though Gladys had had vague thoughts of trying to explain that she would like the big trunk unfastened to get out their "best" things, she gave up the idea when Madame Nestor got down the new ulsters which she evidently thought quite good enough, and proceeded to wrap them both up warmly. It was cold, she said, and thanks to the way she glanced out-of-doors when she made this remark, at the same time carefully covering up their throats with the white silk handkerchiefs they had had for the journey, Gladys understood her. "We don't look very nice, do we, Roger?" said the little girl, as with her brother's hand in hers, and Françoise, who was short and stout, and wore a big frilled cap, following close behind. "If there are a lot of children where the band plays we shall seem very plain. But I daresay it doesn't matter, and these ulsters are very warm." For it was very cold. It was one of those gray sunless days, less uncommon in Paris than some people imagine, and the Rue Verte was narrow and the houses composing it very high, so that _stray_ gleams of sunshine did not very easily get into it. The children shivered a little as they stood for a moment hesitating as to which way Françoise meant them to go, and one or two foot-passengers passing hurriedly, as most people do in that busy part of the town, jostled the two little people so that they shrank back frightened. "Give me your hands, little Sir and little Miss," said the sturdy peasant girl, catching hold of them, placing one on each side of her as she spoke. It went rather against Gladys's dignity, but still in her heart she was glad of Françoise's protection, though even with that they were a good deal bumped and pushed as they made their way along the narrow pavement. "It will be nicer when we get to the Boulevards," said Françoise; "there the pavement is so much wider." But Gladys did not understand. She thought the girl said something about _bulls_ and _large_, and she looked up half frightened, expecting to see a troop of cattle coming along the street. There was, however, nothing of the kind to be seen. "It's not like Whitebeach," said Gladys, trying to make Roger hear across Françoise's substantial person. But it was no use. Narrow as the street was, great heavy waggons and lurries came constantly following each other over the stones, so that the noise was really deafening, and it was impossible to hear what was said. By peeping sometimes in front of Françoise and sometimes behind her, Gladys could catch sight of Roger's little figure. He was looking solemn and grave; she could tell that by the way he was walking, even when she did not see his face. "I'm afraid he's very cold, poor little boy," thought Gladys to herself, quite forgetting her own little red nose and nipped fingers in concern for her brother. It was a little better after a while when they got out of the narrow street into a much wider one. _Too_ wide Gladys thought it, for the rush of carts and carriages and omnibuses and cabs was really frightening. She saw some people venturing to cross over to the other side in the midst of it all--one lady with a little boy, not much bigger than Roger, especially caught her attention. But she shut her eyes rather than watch them get across--which they did quite safely after all--so terrified was she of seeing them crushed beneath some of the monsters on wheels which seemed to the child's excited imagination to be pounding down one after the other on purpose to knock everything out of their way, like some great engines of war. And she squeezed Françoise's hand so tight that the girl turned round in a fright to see if any one was hurting Gladys, when a slight movement to one side made her fancy the little servant was intending to try to cross. [Illustration: 'Oh don't, don't cross that dreadful street,' Gladys exclaimed.] "Oh don't, don't cross that dreadful street," Gladys exclaimed. And Françoise understood what she meant, thanks to her tugs the other way, and set to work assuring her she had no such intention. "Are you frightened of crossing?" said a voice close beside her--an English voice belonging to a gentleman who had heard her piteous entreaty. "Yes, dreadfully. I'm sure we'll be killed if she takes us over," replied Gladys, lifting her little white face and troubled eyes to the stranger. He turned to Françoise and explained to her that it was hardly safe to attempt to cross, especially as the little girl was so frightened. He spoke, of course, in French, which seemed to him as easy as his own language, and Françoise replied eagerly. Then again the stranger turned to Gladys: "You need not be afraid, my dear little girl," he said, and his kind voice somehow made the tears come to her eyes, "your nurse does not wish to cross. You have not been long here, I suppose--you don't understand French?" "No," said Gladys, gulping down a sob, "we've--we've only just come." "Ah well, you'll soon feel more at home, and be able to explain all you mean for yourself. Good-bye," and raising his hat as perhaps an altogether Englishman would not have done to so little a girl, he smiled again, and in another moment had disappeared in the crowd. "The nurse seems kind enough, but she's rather stupid--just a peasant. And those children look so refined. But they don't seem happy, poor little souls. I wonder who they can be," said the young man to himself as he walked away. "I wish he was our Papa," said Roger. "So do I," said Gladys. And then a queer sort of regret came over her that she had not said more to him. "Perhaps he knows Papa, and could have helped us to find him," was the vague thought in her childish brain. It seemed to her that any English-speaking person in this great town of Paris must know "Papa," or something about him. Françoise walked on; _she_ wished for nothing better than a stroll along the Boulevards, even though this was by no means the best part of them, or containing the prettiest shops. But Gladys kept wishing for the "promenade" and the band. At the corner of a side-street she caught sight of a church at a little distance with some trees and green not far from it. It looked quieter and less crowded, and Gladys was seized with a wish to explore in that direction. She tugged at Françoise. "Mayn't we go up there?" she said, pointing in the direction of the trees. Françoise understood her. She was a good-natured girl, and turned with the children as Gladys wished, though it was against her liking to leave the noisy crowded Boulevards for the quieter side-streets. When they got close to the trees they turned out to be in a little enclosure with railings, a very small attempt at a "square garden," for there were houses round it on all sides, and, cold as it was, a few nurses and children were walking about it and looking cheerful enough, though no doubt they wished they were not so far away from the prettier parts of Paris where the parks and walks for children are so lively and amusing. Gladys looked round with a mixture of approval and disappointment. "It must be here that the band plays," she said to Roger; "but it isn't here to-day. And it's a very small place for a promenade; not nearly so pretty as it was at Whitebeach. But we might play here if it wasn't so cold. And there are nice benches for sitting on, you see." "I don't like being here," said Roger, shaking his head. "I'd like to go home." "Home"--again the word fell sadly on the little mother-sister's ear. But she said nothing to remind Roger of how homeless they were, though she could not help sighing when she thought of the only "going home" there was for them; the little dark bare cheerless bedroom, and the shop filled with sofas and chairs. Poor Madame Nestor doing her best, but understanding so little what a nice bright cosy nursery was like, and still worse, Mademoiselle Anna's sharp eyes flashing angrily at them across the table at meat times! "Wouldn't you like to have a run, Roger?" said Gladys suddenly. "It would make us feel warmer, and there's a nice straight bit of path here." Roger made no objection. He let go of Françoise's hand and took his sister's, and by signs Gladys managed to explain to the girl what they meant to do. "One, two, three, and away," she called out with an attempt at merriment, and off they set. Roger's stumpy little legs could not go as fast as Gladys's longer and thinner ones, but she took care not to let him find that out, and she was rewarded by the colour in his cheeks, and the brighter look in his eyes when they got back to Françoise again. "That's right," said she good-naturedly, and in her heart I think she too would have enjoyed a run, had it not been beneath her dignity to behave in so childish a manner within sight of the dignified nurses in their big cloaks and caps with streaming ribbons, who were strutting up and down the little enclosure. But it grew colder and grayer. "One could almost think it was going to snow," said Françoise, looking up at the sky. Gladys saw her looking up, but did not, of course, understand her words. "I wonder if she thinks it's going to rain," she said to Roger. "Anyway it's dreadfully cold," and she gave a little shiver. "We had better go home," said Françoise, for she was so accustomed to talking about everything she did that even the knowledge that she was not understood did not make her silent. And taking a hand of each child, she turned to go. Gladys and Roger did not mind; they felt tired, though they had not walked nearly so far as they often did at home, and cold, and there had been nothing in their walk to raise their poor little spirits, except perhaps the momentary glance of the bright-faced young Englishman. "That gentleman we met looked very kind, didn't he?" said Gladys to Roger, when they had got back to the Rue Verte, and Françoise was helping them to take off their boots. "Yes," said Roger, in his sober little voice, "I wish----" "What?" said Gladys. "I wish he was our Papa!" said Roger again, with a sigh. "He couldn't be," said Gladys, "he's too young." "He was _much_ bigger than you; he was bigger than _her_," persisted Roger, pointing to Françoise, for like many little children he could not separate the idea of age from size, and Gladys knew it was no use trying to explain to him his mistake. "Anyway, he _isn't_ our Papa," she said sadly. "I wonder what we shall do now," she went on. "Isn't it tea time?" asked Roger. "I'm afraid they don't have tea here," said Gladys. "There's some wine and water and some bread on the table in the little room behind the shop. I'm afraid that's meant for our tea." She was right; for when Françoise took them downstairs Madame Nestor immediately offered them wine and water, and when Gladys did her best to make the old lady understand that they did not like wine, she persisted in putting two or three lumps of sugar into the water in the glasses, which Roger did not object to, as he fished them out before they were more than half melted, and ate instead of drinking them, but which Gladys thought very nasty indeed, though she did not like not to take it as she had already refused the wine. "I wish I could get out my doll," said she, "I don't know what to play with, Roger." "I wish I could get my donkey," said Roger. And Madame Nestor saw that they looked dull and dreary, though she did not know what they said. A brilliant idea struck her. "I will get them some of the packets of patterns to look at," she said, "that will amuse them," and off she trotted to the workroom. "Find me the books of patterns, the prettiest ones, of the silky stuffs for curtains, and some of the cretonnes," she said to one of the young girls sewing there. Mademoiselle Anna looked up suspiciously. "Is there some one in the shop?" she said. "Shall I call Monsieur Adolphe? He has just gone to the other workroom." "No, no, do not trouble yourself," said Madame Nestor. "I only want the patterns to amuse my two little birds in there," and she nodded her head towards the room where the children were. Anna gave her head a little toss. "There is no letter about them yet, I suppose," she said. "Of course not. How could there be?" replied the old lady. "The poor things have been here but one night. I do not see why you should trouble yourself to be so cross about them. You are not _yet_ mistress of this house," upon which Anna murmured something about being sorry to see Madame Nestor troubled about the children, that was her only reason, she knew Madame to be so good, etc. Madame Nestor said no more, for it was seldom she spoke sharply to any one, and, to tell the truth, she was a little afraid of Anna, who some time or other was to be married to Adolphe, and take the place of the old lady, who looked forward then to having some rest in a little home of her own. She did not wish to quarrel with Anna, for she knew she would make a clever and useful wife to her son, but still unkindness to any one, above all to these little helpless strangers, made her really angry. She made the young workwoman help her to carry the big books of patterns to the little sitting-room, and at sight of them Gladys and Roger started up. They were pleased at the prospect of anything to do, poor little things, even lessons would have been welcome, and they were greatly delighted when, as well as the books, Madame Nestor produced a lot of scraps of cretonne with gay flowers and birds in all colour, and made them understand they might do as they liked with them. "Let's cut them out," exclaimed Gladys, "we can cut out lovely things and then afterwards we can paste them on white paper and make all sorts of things with them." But there were no scissors! Gladys opened and shut the middle and forefingers of her right hand repeating "scissors," till Madame Nestor understood and not only lent her a pair of her own, but sent a little way down the street to buy a little pair with blunt ends for Roger, so afraid was she of his cutting himself. "Oh, how nice," exclaimed both children, jumping up to kiss the kind old woman. "Now we can cut out beautifully, and when we are tired of cutting out we can look at these lovely patterns," said Gladys, as she settled herself and Roger comfortably at the table, and Madame Nestor went off to the workroom again, quite satisfied about them for the time. "You see there are _some_ things to be got really very nice in Paris, Roger," said Gladys in her prim old-fashioned way. "These scissors are really very nice, and I don't think they were dear. Madame Nestor gave the boy a piece like a small sixpence, and he brought her a halfpenny back. That isn't dear." "What did he bring her a halfpenny for? Do they sell halfpennies in the shops here?" asked Roger, looking very puzzled. "No, of course not. You're too little to understand. That's what they call 'giving change,'" replied Gladys, wisely. "Ellen told me that once when I went to a shop with her to buy something for Miss Susan. Now, Roger, will you cut out that blue bird, and I'll do these pinky flowers? Then afterwards we can paste them as if the bird was flying out of the flowers; won't that be pretty?" "I'd rather do the flowers," said Roger. "The bird's nose is so twisty--I can't do it." "Very well," said Gladys good-naturedly. "Then I'll do it, and you take the flowers. See they go in nice big rounds--you can easily do them." And for an hour or two the children were as really happy as they had been for a good while, and when the thought of their father and what had become of him pressed itself forward on Gladys, she pushed it back with the happy trust and hopefulness of children that "to-morrow" would bring good news. * * * * * In a part of Paris, at some distance from the Rue Verte, that very afternoon three people were sitting together in a pretty drawing-room at "afternoon tea." They were two ladies--a young, quite young one, and an older. And the third person was a gentleman, who had just come in. "It's so nice to find you at home, and above all at tea, Auntie," he said to the elder lady. "It is such a horrid day--as bad as London, except that there's no fog. You haven't been out, I suppose?" "Oh yes, indeed we have," replied the young lady. "We went a long way this morning--walking--to auntie's upholsterer, quite in the centre of the town. It looks very grim and uninviting there, the streets are so narrow and the houses so high." "I've walked a good way too to-day," said the young man. "I am glad to hear it, my boy," said his aunt. "I have been a little afraid of your studying too hard this winter, at least not taking exercise enough, and you being so accustomed to a country life too!" "I don't look very bad, do I?" said the young man, laughing. He stood up as he spoke, and his aunt and sister glanced at him with pride, though they tried to hide it. He was tall and handsome, and the expression of his face was particularly bright and pleasant. "You are very conceited," said his sister. "I am not going to pay you any compliments." He sat down again, and a more serious look came into his face; for some moments he did not speak. "What are you thinking about, Walter?" asked his sister. Walter looked up. "I was thinking about two little children I met to-day," he said. "Away over on the Boulevard X---- ever so far." "That is not so very far from where we were this morning," interrupted the aunt. "They were such tiny things, and they looked so forlorn and so unhappy; I can't get them out of my head," said Walter. "Did you give them anything? Did they seem quite alone?" asked Rosamond. Walter laughed. "You don't understand," he said; "they were not beggars. Bless me! I shouldn't like to encounter that very imperious little lady if she thought I had made you think they were beggars." "'Imperious little lady,' and 'poor forlorn little things;' what do you mean, Walter?" said Rosamond. "I mean what I say. They did look forlorn little creatures, and yet the small girl was as imperious as a princess. They were two little English children, newly arrived evidently, for they didn't understand a word of French. And they were being taken care of by a stupid sort of peasant girl turned into a 'bonne.' And the little girl thought the nurse was going to cross the street, and that she and the small boy would be killed, and she couldn't make the stupid owl understand, and I heard them talking English, and so I came to the rescue--that was all." "It isn't anything so very terrible," said the aunt. "No doubt they and their bonne will learn to understand each other in a little." "It wasn't that only," said Walter reflectively; "there was something out of gear, I am sure. The children looked so superior to the servant, and so--so out of their element dragging up and down that rough crowded place, while she gaped at the shop windows. And there was something so pathetic in the little girl's eyes." "In spite of her imperiousness," said Rosamond teasingly. "Yes," said Walter, without smiling. "It was queer altogether--the sending them out in that part of the town with that common sort of servant--and their not knowing any French. I suppose the days are gone by for stealing children or that sort of thing; but I could really have fancied there was something of the kind in this case." Rosamond and her aunt grew grave. "Poor little things!" they said. "Why did you not ask them who they were or where they came from, or something?" added Rosamond. "I don't know. I wish I had," said Walter. "But I'm not sure that I would have ventured on such a freedom with the little girl. I'm not indeed." "Then they didn't look _frightened_--the maid did not seem cross to them?" "Oh no, she was good-natured enough. Just a great stupid. No, they didn't look exactly frightened, except of the horses and carriages; but bewildered and unhappy, and out of their element. And yet so plucky! I'm certain they were well-bred children. I can't make it out." "Nor can I," said Rosamond. "I wonder if we shall ever hear any more about them." Curiously enough she dreamt that night that she was again in the furniture shop in the Rue Verte, and that she heard again a noise which she thought to be mice, but that pulling back a chair to see, she came upon two little children, who at once started to their feet, crying: "We're the boy and girl he met. Take us home, do. We're not mice, and we are _so_ unhappy." CHAPTER VIII. A FALL DOWNSTAIRS. "Oh! what's the matter? what's the matter?" GOODY BLAKE. Some days passed; they were much the same as the first, except that the children--children-like--grew used to a certain extent to the things and people and manners and ways of the life in which they found themselves. Roger now and then seemed pretty contented, almost as if he were forgetting the strange changes that had come over them; so long as every one was kind to him, and he had Gladys at hand ready, so far as was possible for her, to attend to his slightest wish, he did not seem unhappy. But on the other hand, the least cross word, or one of Mademoiselle Anna's sharp looks, or even the want of things that he liked to eat, would set him off crying in a way he had never done before, and which nearly broke Gladys's heart. For she, though she seemed quiet and contented enough, was in reality very anxious and distressed. She was of an age to understand that something really serious must be the matter for her and Roger to be left with strangers in this way--no letters coming, no inquiries of any kind being made, just as if she and her little brother were forgotten by all the world! She could write a little, and once or twice she said to herself that if it went on very long she would try to send a letter to Miss Susan; but then again, when she remembered how glad that young lady had been to get rid of them, how she had disliked the idea of their staying with Mrs. Lacy after her marriage--for all this by scraps of conversation, remarks of servants, and so on, Gladys had been quick enough to find out--she felt as if she would rather do anything, stay anywhere, rather than ask Miss Susan to take them back. And then from time to time hope would rise strong in her, and she would wake in the morning firmly convinced that "Papa would come to-day"--hopes, alas, only to be disappointed! She was beginning to understand a little of what was said by those about them. Madame Nestor was as kind as ever, and her son, who had taken a great fancy to Roger, was decidedly kinder than he had been at first. With them alone Gladys felt she would not have minded anything so much; but she could see that Anna's dislike to them increased, and the child dreaded the hours of the meals, from the feeling of the hard scornful looks that Anna was then sure to cast on her. One day she overheard some talking between her and Madame Nestor. The young woman seemed angry, and the old one was remonstrating with her. Gladys heard that they were speaking about money, and also about some one going away, but that was all she could make out, though they were talking quite loud, and did not seem to mind her being there. "If only Anna was going away," thought Gladys, "I wouldn't mind anything. I wouldn't mind the not having baths, or tea, or bread and butter, or--or all the things we had at home, if only there was nobody to look so fierce at us. I'd almost rather be Madame Nestor's little servant, like Françoise, if only Anna would go away." It almost seemed as if her wishes had been overheard by some fairy, for the next morning, when they were called to the second breakfast--which the children counted their dinner--Anna's place was empty! Gladys squeezed Roger's hand under the table, and whispered to him: "She's gone, I do believe she's gone." Then looking up at Madame Nestor she saw her kind old face looking decidedly jollier than usual. "Yes," she said, nodding her head; "Anna is away. She has gone away for a few days." Gladys understood her partly but not altogether, but she did not mind. She was only too pleased to find it true, and that was the happiest day they had since they came to the Rue Verte. Madame Nestor sent out to the pastry-cook's near by for some nice little cakes of a kind the children had never tasted before, and which they found delicious, and Monsieur Adolphe said he would get them some roasted chestnuts to eat if they liked them. He found the words in a dictionary which he showed Gladys with great pride, and pointed them out to her, and was quite delighted when she told him how to pronounce them, and added: "I like roast chestnuts _very_ much." "Mademoiselle shall give me some lessons of English," he said to his mother, his round face beaming with pleasure. "You are quite right, they are little gentlepeople, there is no doubt of it; and I feel sure the Papa will come to fetch them in a few days. He will be very grateful to us for having taken such care of them--it may be a good thing in the end even from a business point of view, for I should have no objection to extend our English connection." No thought of gain to themselves in any way had entered Madame Nestor's head; but she was too pleased to see her son in such a good humour about the children to say anything to disagree with him. "He has a good heart, my Adolphe," she said to herself. "It is only Anna that makes him seem what he is not; if she would but stay away altogether! And yet, it would be difficult to find her equal in other ways." "Speaking of English," she said aloud, "reminds me that those English ladies will be getting impatient for their curtains. And the trimming has not yet come; how slow those makers are! It is a fortnight since they promised it for the end of the week." "It does not matter much," said Adolphe, "for no one can make them up properly except Anna. She should not have gone away just now; she knows there are several things that require her." "That is true," said Madame Nestor, and so it was. Mademoiselle Anna seemed purposely to have chosen a most inconvenient time for going off on a visit to her family, and when Madame Nestor reproached her for this she had replied that with all the money the Nestors had received for the two little strangers, they could well afford to engage for the time a first-rate workwoman to replace her. This was the conversation Gladys had heard and a little understood. Poor Madame Nestor, wishing to keep up the children's dignity, had told every one that Mr. Marton had left her plenty of money for them, making the most of the two or three pounds which was all he had been able to spare, and of which she had not as yet touched a farthing. But whether Anna's absence was inconvenient or not, it was very pleasant to most people concerned. Adolphe himself took the children out a walk, and though Gladys was at first not quite sure that it was not a little beneath her dignity to let the young man be her "chaperon," she ended by enjoying it very much. Thanks to his broken English and the few French words she was now beginning to understand, they got on very well; and when he had taken them some way out of Paris--or out of the centre of the town rather--in an omnibus, she was obliged to own that it was by no means the gray, grim, crowded, noisy, stuffy place it had seemed to her those first days in the Rue Verte. Poor little Roger was delighted! The carriages and horses were to him the most beautiful sight the world could show; and as they walked home down the Champs Elysées it was quite difficult to get him along, he wanted so constantly to stand still and stare about him. "How glad I am we had on our best things!" said Gladys, as she hung up her dark-blue braided serge jacket and dress--for long ago Madame Nestor had been obliged to open the big trunk to get out a change of attire for the children--"aren't you, Roger?" She smoothed dawn the scarlet breast on her little black felt hat as she spoke. "This hat is very neat, and so is my dress; but still they are very plain compared to the things all the children that we saw had on. Did you see that little girl in green velvet with a sort of very soft fur, like shaded gray fluff, all round it? And another one in a red silky dress, all trimmed with lace, and a white feather as long--as long as----" "Was it in that pretty big wide street?" asked Roger. "I saw a little boy like me with a 'plendid coat all over gold buttons." "That was a little page, not a gentleman," said Gladys, rather contemptuously. "Don't you remember Mrs. Ffolliot's page? Only perhaps he hadn't so many buttons. I'd like to go a walk there every day, wouldn't you?" But their conversation was interrupted by Madame Nestor's calling them down to have a little roll and a glass of milk, which she had discovered they liked much better than wine and water. "If only there would come a letter, or if Papa would come--oh, if Papa would but come before that Anna comes back again, everything would get all right! I do hope when he does come that Papa will let me give a nice present to Mrs. Nest," thought Gladys to herself as she was falling asleep that night. The next day was so bright and fine, that when the children saw Monsieur Adolphe putting on his coat to go out early in the morning they both wished they might go with him, and they told him so. He smiled, but told them in his funny English that it could not be. He was going out in a hurry, and only about business--some orders he was going to get from the English ladies. "English ladies," repeated Gladys. "Yes; have you not seen them? They were here one day." "We saw them," said Gladys, smiling, "but they did not see _us_. They thought we were mice," but the dictionary had to be fetched before Adolphe could make out what "mice" meant, even though Roger turned it into "mouses" to make it plainer. And then he had to hurry off--it was a long way, he said, in the Avenue Gérard, close to the Champs Elysées, that these ladies lived. "Avenue Gérard," repeated Gladys, in the idle way children sometimes catch up a name; "that's not hard to say. We say _avenue_ in English too. It means a road with lots of trees. Are there lots of trees where those ladies live, Mr. 'Dolph?" But "Mr. 'Dolph" had departed. After these bright days came again some dreary autumn weather. The children "wearied," as Scotch people say, a good deal. They were even glad on the fourth day to be sent out a short walk with Françoise. "I wonder if we shall see that nice gentleman again if we go up that big street?" said Roger. "I don't think we shall," said Gladys. "Most likely he doesn't live there. And it's a great many days ago. Perhaps he's gone back to England." It was indeed by this time nearly a fortnight that the little waifs had found refuge in the Rue Verte. The walk turned out less disagreeable than their first one with Françoise. They did go up the Boulevard, where the servant had some commissions, but they did not meet the "nice gentleman." They came home, however, in very good spirits; for at the big grocer's shop, where Françoise had bought several things, one of the head men had given them each an orange. And chattering together about how they should eat them--whether it was nicest to suck them, or to cut them with a knife, or to peel them and divide them into what are familiarly called "pigs"--the two children, with Françoise just behind them, reached the shop in the Rue Verte. The door stood open--that was a little unusual, but they did not stay to wonder at it, but ran in quickly, eager to show their oranges to their kind old friend. The door leading to the room behind the shop stood open also, and the children stopped short, for the room was full of people, all talking eagerly and seemingly much excited. There were all the workpeople and one or two neighbours, but neither Madame Nestor nor her son. Françoise, who had caught sight of the crowd and already overheard something of what they were saying, hurried forward, telling the children as she passed them to stay where they were, and frightened of they knew not what, the two little creatures took refuge in their old corner behind the blue sofa. "What can it be?" said Gladys. "P'raps Papa's come," suggested Roger. Gladys's heart gave a great leap, and she sprang up, glancing in the direction of the little crowd of people. But she quickly crouched down again. "Oh no," she said. "It can't be that. Françoise would not have told us to stay here. I'm afraid somebody's ill. It seems more like that." Her instinct was right. By degrees the talking subsided, and one or two of the workpeople went off to their business, and a moment or two after, when Adolphe Nestor suddenly made his appearance, there was a general hush, broken only by one or two voices inquiring "how she was." "Do you hear that, Roger?" whispered Gladys, nudging her brother; "they're asking how she is. That means Mrs. Nest, I'm sure. She must be ill." Roger said nothing, but listened solemnly. "Her was quite well when us went out," he observed, after a considerable pause. "Yes, but sometimes people get ill all of a sudden," said Gladys. Then, after a moment, "Roger," she said, "I think I'll go and ask. I shall be _so_ unhappy if poor Mrs. Nest is ill." "So will I," said Roger. They got up from the floor, and hand in hand crept timidly towards the door. Françoise was still standing there, listening to Adolphe, who was talking to the two or three still standing there. Françoise turned at the sound of the children's footsteps, and raised a warning finger. But Gladys put her aside, with what "Walter" would have called her imperious air. "Let us pass," she said. "I want to speak to Mr. 'Dolph." The young man heard the sound of his own name. "What is it?" he said quickly, in French. "I want to know what's the matter. Is Mrs. Nest ill?" asked Gladys. But she had to repeat her question two or three times before Adolphe understood it He was flurried and distressed--indeed, his eyes looked as if he had been crying--and that made it more difficult for him to catch the meaning of the child's words. But at last he did so. "Ah!" he exclaimed. "Yes, there is much the matter. My poor mother--she has fallen downstairs and broken her leg." Gladys clasped her two hands together. "Broken her leg," she repeated. "Oh, poor Mrs. Nest! Oh, it must hurt her dreadfully." At this Roger burst out crying. Adolphe turned round, and picked him up in his arms. "Poor little fellow," he said, "yes, he, too, is very sorry. What we are to do I know not. Anna away, too. I hope you will be very good and quiet children. Françoise, too, will be so busy--you will do all you can to give no trouble, will you not? I wish we had news of the Papa!" he added, as he turned away. He did not speak at all unkindly, but he seemed very much troubled, and with his broken English it was very difficult for Gladys to follow all he said. "May I go and see poor Mrs. Nest?" she said timidly. "No, no; you cannot see her for a long time," replied Adolphe hastily, as he left the room. "I must send a telegram to Mademoiselle Anna," he added to Françoise, and unfortunately for her peace of mind, Gladys understood him. She turned away, her lips quivering. "Come upstairs, dear," she said to her little brother. "Come to our room and I will take off your things." Roger followed her obediently. Françoise had disappeared into the kitchen, where more than ever she was needed, as there was no one else to see about the dinner--so the two little things climbed upstairs by themselves. It was already growing dusk--the dull little room looked cheerless, and felt chilly. Roger looked up into Gladys's eyes as she was unfastening his coat. "Are you crying, Gladdie?" he said, in his little soft sad tone. Gladys turned away a moment to wipe her eyes. If she had not done so she would probably have burst into a terrible fit of tears, for never had she felt so miserable and desolate. Her pride, too, was aroused, for she saw most plainly that she and Roger were more than ever a sad burden and trouble. But what could she do? What could any little girl of seven years old have done in such a case? The sight of Roger's meek sad face gave her a kind of strength. For his sake she must keep up anyway the appearance of cheerfulness. So she kissed him, and answered quietly: "I am very sorry for poor Mrs. Nest. She has been so kind to us." "Yes," said Roger. Then a bright idea struck him. "I'll say my prayers for her to be made better to-night. Will you, Gladdie?" "Yes," said Gladys, and there was comfort in the thought to her, for it brought with it another. "I'll ask God to help _us_," she thought to herself, "and when I go to bed I'll think and think, and perhaps He'll put something in my head. _Perhaps_ I must try to write to Miss Susan." The loss of Madame Nestor's constant kindness was quickly felt. No one came near the children, and when Gladys crept downstairs there was no light in the little sitting-room--no glasses of milk and plate of rolls waiting for them on the table, as had become a habit. And Roger was cold and hungry! He had asked Gladys to go down and look if there was any "goûter," as they had learnt to call this afternoon luncheon, and when she came up again and told him "no," the poor little fellow, frightened, and cold, and hungry, burst into loud sobbing. Gladys was so afraid it would be heard, and that they would be scolded for disturbing Madame Nestor, that she persuaded Roger to get into bed, where she covered him up warmly, and promised to tell him a story if he would leave off crying. It was not easy to keep her promise--she felt so on the point of bursting into tears herself that she had to stop every now and then to clear her throat, and she was not sorry when, on one of these occasions, instead of Roger's shrill little voice urging her to "go on. What do you stop for, Gladdie?" she heard by his regular breathing that he had fallen asleep. She had no light, but she felt about to be sure he was well covered, and then, leaning her head on the side of his bed, she tried to "think." "I would not mind anything so much if Anna was not coming back," she said to herself. "But if she is here, and poor Mrs. Nest shut up in her room, she can do anything she likes to us, for Mr. 'Dolph wouldn't know; and if I told him he'd think I was very naughty to bother him when his mother was ill. I think I must write to Miss Susan--at least, if Anna is _very_ unkind, I will--unless--unless--oh, if it _would_ but happen for Papa to come to-morrow, or a letter! I'll wait till to-morrow and see--and _perhaps_ Anna won't come back, not--not if Papa's in the train--she'd run away if she saw him, if he had Mrs. Nest's cap on, she'd"--and that was all, for before Gladys had settled what she would do, she too, as you see, had fallen asleep. She slept some time--an hour or two--and she awoke, feeling cold and stiff, though what had awakened her she did not at first know, till again, bringing with it the remembrance of having heard it before, the sound of a voice calling her reached her ears. "Mademoiselle--Mademoiselle Gladees," it said, "why do you not come? The dinner is all ready, and I have called you so many times." It was Françoise, tumbling up the narrow stair in the dark. Gladys heard her fumbling at the door, and called out "Françoise!" Then Roger woke and started up, trembling. "What is it--what is the matter, Gladdie?" he cried, and Gladys had to soothe and pet him, and say it was only Françoise; and Françoise in the meantime had got into the room, exclaiming at their having no light, and pulling a box of matches from her pocket, struck one, and hunted about till she found a bit of candle. It was a rather melancholy scene that the end of candle lighted up. "So--you have been asleep!" exclaimed the servant; "well, perhaps it was the best thing. Well, come down now, Monsieur Adolphe is asking for you," and she would scarcely let them wait to dip their hands in water and smooth their tumbled hair. "What will become of them when _she_ comes back and poor Madame ill in bed, who can say?" the peasant girl muttered to herself as she led them downstairs. "I wish their friends would come to fetch them--I do. It's certainly very strange for rich people to leave their children like that," and Françoise shook her head. Monsieur Adolphe received the children kindly. He had been a little alarmed when Françoise had told him she could not find them in the sitting-room, for he knew it would trouble his poor mother greatly if she found her little favourites were neglected, for the thought of them was one of the things most troubling the poor woman in the middle of her suffering. "If but the Papa would come for them," she had already said to her son. "I know not what to do. I think we must ask some advice. Anna dislikes them so; and if she comes back to-morrow----" "She may not come till the day after," said Adolphe. "Do not trouble yourself about anything just now. The children are all right for the moment." "And you will be kind to them at dinner, and give them nice pieces. They do not eat much, but they are used to more delicate cooking than ours." "Reassure yourself. I will do all as you would yourself. And if you keep quiet, my good Mamma, perhaps in a day or two you can see them for yourself. The great thing is to keep quiet, and that will keep down the fever, the doctor says," repeated poor Adolphe, who was really a good and affectionate son. "Ah, yes," thought poor Madame Nestor, "that is all very well, but at my age," for she was really old--old to be the mother of Adolphe, having married late in life, "at my age one does not break one's leg for nothing. But the good God knows best. If my time has come, so be it. I have no great anxiety to leave behind me, like some poor women, thank Heaven! Only these poor children!" And thanks to what Madame Nestor had said, and thanks in part, too, to his kind feelings, Adolphe was very friendly to the children at dinner; and in reply to their timid inquiries about his mother, told them that the doctor thought she was going on well, and in a day or two they might see her, if they were very good and quiet. So the meal passed off peacefully. "After all," thought Adolphe, "they do not cost one much. They eat like sparrows. Still it is a great responsibility--poor little things!" He took Roger in his arms and kissed him when he said good-night, and Gladys would have gone to bed feeling rather less unhappy, for Françoise put in her head to say she would come in half an hour to help to undress "Monsieur Roger," but for some words she overheard among some of the young workwomen, which she understood only too well--that Mademoiselle Anna was returning the next morning! "I _must_ write to Miss Susan," thought the little girl, as she at last fell asleep. CHAPTER IX. FROM BAD TO WORSE. "Their hearts were laden With sorrow, surprise, and fear." PRINCESS BOPEEP. Nobody came to wake the children the next morning. They slept later than usual, and when Gladys woke it was already as light as ever it was in the dull little room. But it was very cold--the weather had turned to frost in the night, which made the air clearer and brighter, and in their own warm rooms at Mrs. Lacy's the children would have rejoiced at the change. Here it was very different. Gladys lay waiting some time, wondering if no one was coming with their chocolate and bread, forgetting at first all that had happened the day before. By degrees it came back to her mind, and then she was no longer surprised at their being left alone. "Anna has come back," she thought to herself, "and she won't let them bring us our breakfast." She got out of bed, glad to see that Roger was still sleeping, and crossed the room, the cold wooden floor striking chill to her bare feet. She reached the door and opened it, peering down the narrow dark staircase. "Françoise," she called softly, for the kitchen was nearer than the workroom, and she hoped perhaps Françoise would come to her without Anna knowing. But no one answered. She heard voices in the distance--in the kitchen they seemed to be--and soon she fancied that she distinguished the sharp tones of Mademoiselle Anna, ordering about the poor little cook. Gladys quickly but softly shut the door and crossed the room again on tiptoes. She stood for a moment or two hesitating what to do. It was so cold that she felt half inclined to curl herself up in bed again and try to go to sleep! But if Roger woke, as he was sure to do soon--no, the best thing was for her to get dressed as quickly as possible. She bravely sponged herself as well as she could with the cold water, which was now always left in the room in a little jug; "no chance of any _hot_ water to-day!" she thought to herself as she remembered how unhappy she had been that first morning at not having a bath, and then went on to dress, though not without a good deal of difficulty, as several of her little under-garments fastened behind. Not till the last button was secured did Roger wake. "Gladdie," he said in a sleepy tone, "are you dressed. We haven't had our chocolate, Gladdie." "Never mind, Roger dear," said Gladys. "They're all very busy to-day, you know, so I've got up and dressed quickly, and now I'll go down and bring up your breakfast. Unless you'd rather get up first?" Roger considered. He was in rather a lazy mood, which was perhaps just as well. "No," he decided. "I'll have my breakfast first. And you can eat yours beside me, can't you, Gladdie?" "Yes," said Gladys, "that will be very nice." She spoke with a cheerfulness she was far from feeling, for in her heart she felt by no means sure of getting any breakfast at all. But just as she was turning to go a slight knocking was heard at the door. It was more like a scratching indeed, as if the person were afraid of being heard outside as well as by those in the room. "Mademoiselle," came in a loud whisper after the queer rapping had gone on for some time, "are you awake? Open--I have the hands full." It was Françoise. Gladys opened. The little servant, her round red face rounder and redder than usual, for she had been all the morning at the kitchen fire, and had besides been passing through unusual excitement, stumped into the room, a bowl, from which the steam of some hot liquid was rising, in one hand, and a plate with a large hunch of bread in the other. She put them down on the little table and wiped her hot face with her apron. "Ah, Mademoiselle," she said, "no one would believe it--the trouble I have had to get some breakfast for you! _She_ would not have it--lazy little creatures, she called you--you might come down and get it for yourselves--a piece of dry bread and some dripping soup--that was all she would have given you, and I know you are not used to that. So what did I do but wait till her back was turned--the cross cat--and then in with the milk and a tiny bit of chocolate--all I could find, and here it is! Hot, at any rate; but not very good, I fear." Gladys did not, of course, understand a quarter of the words which Françoise rattled off in her queer Norman-French; but her wits were sharpened by anxiety, and she gathered quite enough of the sense of the little servant's long speech to feel very grateful to her. In her hurry Françoise had poured all the chocolate--or hot milk rather, for there was very little chocolate in the composition--into one bowl; but the children were too hungry to be particular. They drank turn-about, and finished by crumbling up the remains of the bread in the remains of the milk and eating it with the spoon, turn-about also, Françoise standing by, watching them with satisfaction! Suddenly she started. "I must run down," she said, "or she will be after me again. I wish I could stay to help you to dress Monsieur Roger, but I dare not," and gathering up the dishes in her apron so that they could not be seen, she turned to go. "Dress him as quickly as you can," she said to Gladys, "and then she cannot say you have given any trouble. But stay--I will see if I cannot get you a little hot water for the poor bébé." And off she set, to appear again in a minute with a tin jug of hot water which she poured out into the basin at once for fear the absence of the tin jug should be discovered. "She has eyes on every side of her head," she whispered as she went off again. Roger's toilet was accomplished more luxuriously than poor Gladys's own, and he was quite bright and happy with no fear of Mademoiselle Anna or any one else, chirping like a little bird, as his sister took him down the narrow staircase to the room behind the shop where they spent the mornings. "Hush, Roger dear, we must be very quiet because poor Mrs. Nest is ill, you know," she said, when his shrill little voice rose higher and higher, for he had had an exceedingly good night and felt in excellent spirits. "She can't hear us down here," replied Roger. But Gladys still repeated her "hush," for, in reality, it was Anna who she feared might overhear Roger's chatter. She looked about for something to keep him quiet, but could see nothing. It was warm in the sitting-room--though if Anna could have done so, she would have ordered Françoise not to light the fire for the little plagues, as she called them--but except for that they would have been happier up in their bedroom, where Gladys had discovered a few of Roger's toys in a corner of the big trunk, which, however, Madame Nest had not allowed them to bring down. "When the Papa comes, I wish him to find all your things in good order," she had said. "The toys might get broken, so while you are here I will find you things to amuse you." But this morning the bundle of cretonne and cut-out birds and flowers was not to be seen! "I must tell Roger stories all the morning, I suppose," thought Gladys, and she was just going to propose doing so, when Roger, who had been standing peeping through the glass door which led into the shop, suddenly gave a cry of pleasure. "Oh, Gladdie," he said, "see what a pretty carriage and two prancey horses at the door!" Gladys ran to look--the shop door was wide open, for one of the apprentice boys was sweeping it out, and they could see right into the street. The carriage had stopped, as Roger said, and out of it stepped one of two people seated in it. It was the younger of the two ladies that the children had seen that first day in the Rue Verte when they were hidden behind the blue sofa in the corner. She came forward into the shop. "Is there no one here?" she said in French. The apprentice, very dusty and looking rather ashamed, came out of a corner. It was not often that ladies in grand carriages came themselves to the little shop, for though the Nestors had some very good customers, Monsieur Adolphe usually went himself to their houses for orders. "I will call some one," said the boy, "if Mademoiselle will have the goodness to wait a moment," and he disappeared through a little door in the corner of the shop which led into the workroom another way. The young lady shivered a little--it was very cold--and then walked about, glancing at the furniture now and then. She seemed to think it too cold to sit down. There was certainly no dearth of chairs! "I wonder if we should ask her to come in here," said Gladys. But before she had time to decide, the door by which the boy had gone out opened again and Mademoiselle Anna appeared. She came forward with the most gracious manner and sweetest smiles imaginable. Gladys, who had never seen her like that, felt quite amazed. The young lady received Anna's civilities very calmly. She had never seen her before, and thought her rather a vulgar young woman. But when Anna begged her to come for a moment into the sitting-room while she went to fetch the patterns the young lady had come for she did not refuse. "It is certainly bitterly cold this morning," she said. "And we are all so upset--by the sad accident to our poor dear Madame--Mademoiselle must excuse us," said Anna, leading the way to the sitting-room as she spoke. Rosamond stopped short. "An accident to that good Madame Nestor. I am very sorry," she exclaimed. [Illustration: Anna opened the door sharply, as she did everything, and in so doing overthrew the small person of Roger.] "Ah, yes," Anna went on in her honeyed tones, "it is really too sad. It was--but will not Mademoiselle come out of the cold, and I will tell her about it," she went on, backing towards the glass door. It opened inwards; the children, very much interested in watching the little scene in the shop, and not quite understanding Anna's intention, had not thought of getting out of the way. Anna opened the door sharply, as she did everything, and in so doing overthrew the small person of Roger, whose short fat legs were less agile than the longer and thinner ones of his sister. Gladys sprang away like a kitten, but only to spring back again the next moment, as a doleful cry rose from poor Roger. "You're not hurt, darling, are you?" she said, as she knelt down to pick him up. Roger went on crying softly. He preferred to take his time about deciding that he wasn't hurt. And in the meantime the stranger young lady had come into the room and was looking round her in some surprise. "Has the little boy fallen down?" she asked in French. "Poor little fellow! Are they Madame Nestor's grandchildren?" "Oh dear, no," replied Anna, casting a contemptuous glance at Gladys and Roger, who, crouching on the floor in a corner of the always dusky little room, could not be very clearly distinguished. "Get up," continued she, turning to them, "get up at once and go to your own room." Frightened by her tone and by Roger's continued sobbing, Gladys dragged him up from the floor as well as she could, and escaped with him by the door leading upstairs, near to which they happened to be. Something in the sudden change of Anna's tone roused the young lady's suspicions. "Who are they, then?" she asked again. "And are you sure the little boy is not hurt?" "He cries for nothing, Mademoiselle--he is always crying. They are children our good Madame has taken in out of charity; it is very difficult to manage with them just now, poor little things. They have been so neglected and are so troublesome; but we must do our best till our dear Madame gets better," and then she went on into a long description of the accident, how she herself had just gone to spend two days with her sister, whom she had not seen for years, when she had been recalled, etc., etc., all told so cleverly that Rosamond went away, thinking that after all she must be a very good sort of young woman, and that it was not right to yield to prejudice. Yet still she could not quite forget the glimpse she had had of the two little creatures taken in "out of charity," and the sound of Roger's stifled sobs. Gladys and he stayed upstairs till they were called down to "déjeûner." It was cold, but they minded the cold less than sharp words and unkind looks. Gladys wrapped Roger up in a shawl and pulled a blanket off the bed for herself, and then they both cuddled down together in a corner, and she told him all the stories she could think of. By twelve o'clock they were very hungry, for in spite of Françoise's endeavours they had had much less breakfast than usual, but they had no idea what time it was, and were too frightened to go down, and there they would have stayed, all day perhaps, if Adolphe, reminded of them by his poor mother's constant questions, had not sent one of the apprentice boys to fetch them down, and meek and trembling the two poor little things entered the long narrow room where all the members of the household were seated round the table. But there was no kindly welcome for them as at dinner the day before. Monsieur Adolphe's usually good-humoured face looked worried and vexed. "Sit down and take your food," he said coldly. "I am very sorry to hear from Mademoiselle Anna how troublesome you have been this morning. I thought you, Mademoiselle, as so much older than your brother, who is really only a baby, would have tried to keep him quiet for the sake of my poor mother." Gladys's face turned scarlet; at first she could scarcely believe that she had heard aright, for it was very difficult to understand the young man's bad English, but a glance at his face showed her she was not mistaken. She clasped her hands in a sort of despair. "Oh, Mr. 'Dolph," she said, "how can you think we would be so naughty? It was only that Roger fell down, and that made him cry." "Do not listen to her," said Anna in a hard indifferent tone, "naughty children always make excuses." But the sight of the real misery in Gladys's face was too much for kind-hearted Adolphe. He noticed, too, that both she and Roger were looking pale and pinched with cold, and he had his own doubts as to Anna's truthfulness, though he was too much under her to venture to contradict her. "Don't cry, my child," he said kindly. "Try to be very good and quiet the rest of the day, and eat your déjeûner now." Gladys made a valiant effort to choke down her tears. "Is Mrs. Nest better to-day," she asked. The son shook his head. "I fear not," he replied sadly; "she has a great deal of fever. And I am, unfortunately, obliged to go into the country for a day or two about some important business." "You are going away! oh, Mr. 'Dolph, there will be no one to take care of us," cried Gladys, the tears rushing to her eyes again. The young man was touched by her distress. "Oh yes, yes," he said; "they will all be very kind to you. I will speak to them, and I shall be soon back again, and you and my little Roger will be very good, I am sure." There was nothing more to be said. Gladys tried to go on eating, though her hunger had quite left her, and it was difficult to swallow anything without crying again. Only one thought grew clearer in her mind--"I must write to Miss Susan." During the rest of the meal Adolphe kept talking to Anna about the work and other things to be seen to while he was away. "You must be sure to send to-morrow early to put up those curtains at the English ladies'--9 Avenue Gérard." "9 Avenue Gérard--that is their new house," said Anna, and the address, which she had already heard twice repeated, caught Gladys's ear. "And tell the one who goes to ask for the patterns back--those the young lady took away to-day. Oh, by the bye, did she see the children?" asked Adolphe. "No, you may be sure. That is to say, I hurried them out of the way, forward little things. It was just the moment she was here, that he, the bébé there, chose for bursting out crying," replied Anna. "I hope she did not go away with the idea they were not kindly treated," said Adolphe, looking displeased. "She thought nothing about them--she hardly caught sight of them." "She did not see that they were English--her country-people?" "Certainly not," replied Anna. "Do you think I have no more sense than to bother all your customers with the history of any little beggars your mother chooses to take in?" "I was not speaking of all the customers--I was speaking of those English ladies who might have taken an interest in these children, because they too are English--or at least have given us some advice what to do. I have already been thinking of asking them. But now it may be too late if they saw the children crying and you scolding them; no doubt, they will either think they are naughty disagreeable children or that we are unkind to them. Either will do harm. You have made a great mistake." He got up and left the room, afraid perhaps of saying more, for at this moment he could not afford to quarrel with Anna. Poor man, his troubles seemed to be coming on him all at once! Gladys understood very little of what they were saying, but she saw that Adolphe was not pleased with Mademoiselle Anna, and it made her fear that Anna would be still crosser to Roger or her. But she took no notice of them, and when they had finished she called Françoise, and told her to take them into the sitting-room and make up the fire. "P'raps she's going to be kind now, Gladdie," said Roger, with the happy hopefulness of his age. But Gladys shook her head. Monsieur Adolphe set off that afternoon. For the first day or two things went on rather better than Gladys had expected. Anna had had a fright, and did not dare actually to neglect or ill-treat the children. So Gladys put off writing to Miss Susan, which, as you know, she had the greatest dislike to doing till she saw how things went on. Besides this same writing was no such easy matter for her. She had neither pen, ink, nor paper--she was not sure how to spell the address, and she had not a halfpenny of money! Very likely if she had spoken of her idea to Adolphe he would have been only too glad for her to write, but Anna was a very different person to deal with. "If I asked her for paper and a pen she would very likely scold me--very likely she wouldn't like me to write while Mr. 'Dolph is away, for fear he should think she had been unkind and that that had made me do it," reflected Gladys, whose wits were much sharpened by trouble. "And I _daren't_ make her angry while we're alone with her." Thus the letter was deferred. Things might possibly have gone smoothly till Adolphe's return, for Anna _wished_ to avoid any upset now she saw how strongly the Nestors felt on the subject. But unfortunately bad-tempered people cannot always control themselves to act as their common sense tells them would be best even for themselves. And Mademoiselle Anna had a very bad and violent temper, which often got quite the mastery of her. So the calm did not last long. CHAPTER X. "AVENUE GÉRARD, No. 9." "One foot up and the other foot down, For that is the way to London town. And just the same, over dale and hill, 'Tis also the way to wherever you will." OLD RHYME. It was a very cold day, colder than is usual in Paris in November, where the winter, though intense while it lasts, seldom sets in before the New Year. But though cold, there had been sufficient brightness and sunshine, though of a pale and feeble kind, to encourage the Mammas of Paris either to take out their darlings themselves or to entrust them to the nurses and maids, and nursery governesses of all nations who, on every fairly fine day, may be seen with their little charges walking up and down what Roger called "the pretty wide street," which had so taken his fancy the day of the expedition with Monsieur Adolphe. Among all the little groups walking up and down pretty steadily, for it was too cold for loitering, or whipping tops, or skipping-ropes, as in finer weather, two small figures hurrying along hand-in-hand, caught the attention of several people. Had they been distinctly of the humbler classes nobody would have noticed them much, for even in this aristocratic part of the town one sometimes sees quite poor children threading their way among or standing to admire the little richly-dressed pets who, after all, are but children like themselves. And sometimes a burst of innocent laughter, or bright smiles of pleasure, will spread from the rich to the poor, at the sight of Henri's top having triumphed over Xavier's, or at the solemn dignity of the walking doll of five-year-old Yvonne. But these two little people were evidently not of the lower classes. Not only were they warmly and neatly dressed--though that, indeed, would hardly have settled the question, as it is but very seldom in Paris that one sees the children of even quite humble parents ill or insufficiently clad--but even though their coats and hats were plain and unfashionable, there was about them a decided look of refinement and good-breeding. And yet they were alone! "Who can they be?" said one lady to another. "Just see how half-frightened and yet determined the little girl looks." "And how the boy clings to her. They are English, I suppose--English people are so eccentric, and let their children do all sorts of things _we_ would never dream of." "Not the English of the upper classes," replied the first lady, with a slight shade of annoyance. "You forget I am half English myself by my mother's side, so I should know. You take your ideas of the English from anything but the upper classes. I am always impressing that on my friends. How would you like if the English judged _us_ by the French they see in Leicester Square, or by the dressmakers and ladies' maids who go over and call themselves governesses?" "I wouldn't _like_ it, but I daresay it is often done, nevertheless," said the other lady good-naturedly. "But very likely those children do _not_ belong to the upper classes." "I don't know," said the first lady. She stopped as she spoke and looked after the children, who had now passed them, thoughtfully. "No," she went on, "I don't think they are common children. I fancy there must be something peculiar about them. Can they have lost their way? Antoinette," she added suddenly, turning round. "You may think me very foolish and eccentric--'English,' if you like, but I am going to run after them and see if there is anything the matter. Look after Lili for a moment for me, please." Antoinette laughed. "Do as you please, my dear," she said. So off hastened, in her rich velvet and furs, the other lady. It was not difficult to overtake the children, for the two pairs of legs had trotted a long way and were growing weary. But when close behind them their new friend slackened her pace. How was she to speak to them? She did not know that they were English, or even strangers, and if they were the former that did not much mend matters, for, alas! notwithstanding the half British origin she was rather fond of talking about, the pretty young mother had been an idle little girl in her time, and had consistently declined to learn any language but her own. _Now_, she wished for her Lili's sake to make up for lost time, and was looking out for an English governess, but as yet she dared not venture on any rash attempts. She summoned up her courage, however, and gently touched the little girl on the shoulder, and all her suspicions that something unusual was in question were awakened again by the start of terror the child gave, and the pallid look of misery, quickly followed by an expression of relief, with which she looked up in her face. "I thought it was Anna," she half whispered, clutching her little brother's hand more tightly than before. "Mademoiselle--my child," said the lady, for the dignity on the little face, white and frightened as it was, made her not sure how to address her. "Can I do anything to help you? You are alone--have you perhaps lost your way?" The last few words Gladys, for she of course it was, did not follow. But the offer of help, thanks to the kind eyes looking down on her, she understood. She gazed for a moment into these same eyes, and then seeming to gather confidence she carefully drew out from the pocket of her ulster--the same new ulster she had so proudly put on for the first time the day of the journey which was to have ended with "Papa" and happiness--a little piece of paper, rather smudgy-looking, it must be owned, which she unfolded and held up to the lady. On it were written the words-- "9 Avenue Gérard." "Avenue Gérard," repeated the lady; "is that where you want to go? It is not far from here." But seeing that the child did not take in the meaning of her words, she changed her tactics. Taking Gladys by the hand she led her to one side of the broad walk where they were standing, and pointing to a street at right angles from the rows of houses bordering the Champs Elysées. [Illustration: "Go along there," she said, "and then turn to the left and you will see the name, 'Avenue Gérard,' at the corner."] "Go along there," she said, "and then turn to the left and you will see the name, 'Avenue Gérard,' at the corner." She pointed as she spoke; then she stooped, and with the sharp point of the tiny umbrella she carried, traced in lines the directions she had given, in the gravel on which they were standing. Gladys considered for a moment in silence, then she lifted her head and nodded brightly. "I understand," she said, "and thank you _very_ much." Then taking Roger's hand, which, while speaking to the lady she had let go, she smiled again, and whispering something to her brother which made him pluck off his little cap, the two small pilgrims set off again on their journey. The lady stood for a moment looking after them, and I think there were tears in her eyes. "I wonder if I could have done more for them," she said to herself, "Fancy Lili and Jean by themselves like that! But they know where they have to go to--they are not lost." "How kind she was," said Gladys, as she led her little brother in the direction the lady had pointed out. "It is not far now, Roger, dear--are you _very_ tired?" Roger made a manful effort to step out more briskly. "Not so _very_, Gladdie. But oh, Gladdie, I was so frightened when I felt you stop and when I saw your face. Oh, Gladdie, I thought it was _her_." "So did I," said Gladys with a shiver. "Would she have put us in prison?" he asked. "I don't know," said Gladys. "I heard her say something to Françoise about the police. I don't know if that means prison. But these ladies won't let her, 'cos you know, Roger, they're _English_, like us." "Is all French peoples naughty?" inquired Roger meekly. "No, you silly little boy," giving him a small shake, "of course not. Think of Mrs. Nest, and Françoise, and even that lady--oh, I didn't mean to make you cry. You're not silly--I didn't mean it, dear." But Roger could not at once stop his tears, for they were as much the result of tiredness and excitement as of Gladys's words. "Gladdie," he went on plaintively, "what will you do if those ladies aren't kind to us?" "They'll help me to send a tele--you know what I mean--a letter in that quick way, to Miss Susan," replied Gladys confidently. "That's all I'm going to ask them. They'd never refuse that." "And could Miss Susan get here to-day, do you think?" Gladys hesitated. "I don't quite know. I don't know how long it takes _people_ to come that way. But I'm afraid it costs a good deal. We must ask the ladies. Perhaps they'll get us a little room somewhere, where Anna can't find us, till Miss Susan sends for us." "But," continued Roger, "what will you do if they're _out_, Gladdie?" Gladys did not answer. Strange to say, practical as she was, this possibility had never occurred to her. Her one idea had been to make her way to the Avenue Gérard at once, then it had seemed to her that all difficulties would be at an end. "What's the good of saying that, Roger," she said at last. "If they're out we'll----" "What?" "Wait till they come in, I suppose." "It'll be very cold waiting in the street--like beggars," grumbled Roger. But he said it in a low tone, not particularly wishing Gladys to hear. Only he was so tired that he had to grumble a little. Suddenly Gladys pulled up. "There it is," she said. "Look up there, Roger; that's the name, 'Av-e-nue Gér-ard.' It's just a street. I thought an avenue would have been all trees, like in the country. Nine--I wonder which is nine?" Opposite to where they stood was No. 34. Gladys led Roger on a little bit and looked at the number on the other side. It was 31, and the next beyond that was 29. "It's this way. They get littler this way," she exclaimed. "Come on, Roger, darling--it's not far." "But if we've to wait in the street," repeated Roger faintly, for he was now possessed by this new idea. Gladys said nothing--perhaps she did not hear. "Twenty-seven, twenty-five, twenty-three," she said, as they passed each house, so intent on reaching No. 9 that she did not even feel frightened. Between seventeen and fifteen there was a long space of hoardings shutting off unbuilt-upon ground--nine seemed a very long time of coming. But at last--at last! It was a large, very handsome house, and Gladys, young as she was, said at once to herself that the English ladies, as she had got into the way of calling them, must be _very_ very rich. For she did not understand that in Paris one enormous house, such as the one she was standing before, contains the dwellings of several families, each of which is often as large as a good-sized English house, only without stairs once you have entered, as all the rooms are on one floor. "I wonder which is the front door," said Gladys. "There seem so many in there." For the great doors of the entrance-court stood open, and, peeping in, it seemed to her that there was nothing but doors on every side to be seen. "We must ask," she at last said resolutely, and foraging in her pocket she again drew forth the crumpled piece of paper with "No. 9 Avenue Gérard," and armed with this marched in. A man started up from somewhere--indeed he had been already watching them, though they had not seen him. He was the porter for the whole house. "What do you want--whom are you looking for?" he said. At first, thinking they _were_ little beggars or something of the kind, for the courtyard was not very light, he had come out meaning to drive them away. But when he came nearer them he saw they were not what he had thought, and he spoke therefore rather more civilly. Still, he never thought of saying "Mademoiselle" to Gladys--no children of the upper classes would be wandering about alone! Gladys's only answer was to hold out the bit of paper. "Avenue Gérard, No. 9," read the man. "Yes, it is quite right--it is here. But there is no name. Who is it you want?" "The English ladies," replied Gladys in her own tongue, which she still seemed to think everybody should understand. She had gathered the meaning of the man's words, helped thereto by his gesticulations. "The English ladies--I don't know their name." Only one word was comprehensible by the porter. "English," he repeated, using of course the French word for "English." "It must be the English ladies on the second floor they want. No doubt they are some of the poor English those ladies are so kind to. And yet--" he looked at them dubiously. They didn't quite suit his description. Anyway, there was but one answer to give. "The ladies were out; the children must come again another day." Gladys and Roger, too, understood the first four words. Their worst fears had come true! If Gladys could have spoken French she would perhaps have found courage to ask the man to let them come in and wait a little; for as, speechless, still holding poor Roger by the hand, she slowly moved to go, she caught sight of a cheerful little room where a bright fire was burning, the glass door standing half open, and towards which the porter turned. "That must be his house," thought Gladys in a sort of half-stupid dreamy way. It was no use trying to ask him to let them go in and wait there. There was nowhere for them--he seemed to think they were beggars, and would perhaps call the police if they didn't go away at once. So she drew Roger out into the street again, out of the shelter of the court, where the wind felt rather less piercing, and, without speaking, wandered a few steps down the street they had two minutes ago toiled along so hopefully. "Where are you going, Gladdie? What are you going to do? I knew they'd be out," said Roger, breaking into one of his piteous fits of crying. Gladys's heart seemed as if it was going to stop. What _was_ she going to do? Wait in the street a little, she had said to Roger. But how could they? The wind seemed to be getting colder and colder; the daylight even was beginning to fade a little; they were not only cold, they were desperately hungry, for they had had nothing to eat except the little bowl of milk and crust of bread--that was all Françoise had been able to give them early that morning. She had been out at the market when the children ran away from Anna in one of her terrible tempers, so Gladys had not even been able to ask her for a few sous with which to get something to eat. Indeed, had Françoise been there, I daresay they would have been persuaded by her to wait till Adolphe came home, for he was expected that evening, though they did not know it! "Roger, _darling_, try not to cry so," said Gladys, at last finding her voice. "Wait a moment and I'll try to think. If only there was a shop near, perhaps they'd let us go in; but there are no shops in this street." No shops and very few passers-by, at this time of day anyway. A step sounded along the pavement just as Gladys had drawn Roger back to the wall of the house they were passing, meaning to wipe his eyes and turn up the collar of his coat to keep the wind from his throat. Gladys looked up in hopes that possibly, in some wonderful way, the new-comer might prove a friend in need. But no--it was only a man in a sort of uniform, and with a black bag strapped in front. Gladys had seen one like him at the Rue Verte; it was only the postman. He glanced at them as he passed; he was a kind-hearted little man, and would have been quite capable of taking the two forlorn "bébés" home to his good wife to be clothed and fed--for there are many kind Samaritans even in careless, selfish big towns like Paris--but how were they to guess that, or how was he to know their trouble? So he passed on; but a house or two farther on he stopped again, being accosted by a gentleman coming quickly up the street in the other direction, just as he was turning in to the courtyard of No. 9. "There is only a paper for you, sir," he said to the young man, whom he evidently knew, in answer to his inquiry. "Will you take it?" "Certainly," was the reply; and both, after a civil good-evening, were going on their way when a sound made them stop. It was Roger--all Gladys's efforts had been useless, and his temper as well as his courage giving way he burst into a loud roar. He was too worn out to have kept it up for long at such a pitch, but while it lasted it was very effective, for both the gentleman and the postman turned back. "I noticed these children a moment ago," said the latter. "I wondered if they had lost their way, but I dared not wait." "I'll see what it is," said the young man good-naturedly. But the postman lingered a moment. "What's the matter?" asked the young man in French. "What's the little boy crying for?" he went on, turning to Gladys. But her answer astonished him not a little. She stared blankly up in his face without speaking for a moment. Then with a sort of stifled scream she rushed forward and caught his hands. "Oh you're the nice gentleman we met--you are--_don't_ say you're not. You're the English gentleman, aren't you? Oh, will you take care of us--we're all alone--we've run away." Walter kept her poor little hands in his, but for half a moment he did not speak. I think there were tears in his eyes. He had so often thought of the little pair he had met on the Boulevards, that somehow he did not seem to feel surprised at this strange meeting. "My little girl," he said kindly, "who are you? Where have you run away from? Not from your home? I remember meeting you; but you must tell me more--you must tell me everything before I can help you or take you where you want to go." "No. 9 Avenue Gérard; that's where we were going," replied Gladys confusedly. "But they're out--the ladies are out." "And we have to wait in the stre-eet," sobbed Roger. Walter started. "9 Avenue Gérard," he said; "how can that be? Whom do you know there?" "Some ladies who'll be kind to us, and know what we say, for they're English. I don't know their name," answered Gladys. Walter saw there was but one thing to be done. He turned to the postman. "I know who they are," he said rapidly in French, with the instinctive wish to save this little lady, small as she was, from being made the subject of a sensational paragraph in some penny paper. "I have seen them before. They had come to see my aunt, who is very kind to her country-people, and were crying because she was out. It will be all right. Don't let yourself be late. I'll look after them." And relieved in his mind the postman trotted off. Walter turned to Gladys again. "_I_ live at No. 9," he said. "Those ladies are my aunt and my sister. So the best thing you can do is to come in with me and get warm. And when my aunt comes home you shall tell us all your troubles, and we will see what to do." "And you won't give us to the police?" asked Gladys, with a sudden misgiving. "We've _not_ done anything naughty. Will the ladies come soon?" For though on the first impulse she had flown to Walter with full confidence, she now somehow felt a little frightened of him. Perhaps his being on such good terms with the postman, whose uniform vaguely recalled a policeman to her excited imagination, or his speaking French so easily and quickly, had made her feel rather less sure of him. "_You_ won't give us to the police?" she repeated. Walter could hardly help smiling. "Of _course_ not," he answered. "Come now, you must trust me and not be afraid. Give me your hand, my little man; or stay, he's very tired, I'll carry him in." And he lifted Roger in his arms, while Gladys, greatly to her satisfaction, walked quietly beside them, her confidence completely restored. "He's very polite, and he sees I'm _big_," she said to herself as she followed him into the court, past the porter's bright little room, from whence that person put out his head to wish Walter a respectful "good-evening," keeping to himself the reflection which explains so many mysteries to our friends across the water, that "the English are really very eccentric. One never knows what they will be doing next." CHAPTER XI. WALTER'S TEA-PARTY. "They felt very happy and content and went indoors and sat to the table and had their dinner."--_The Almond Tree._ BROTHERS GRIMM. Rosamond and her aunt had a good many commissions to do that afternoon. They had not long before this changed their house, and there were still a great many pretty things to choose and to buy for the new rooms. But though it was pleasant work it was tiring, and it was, too, so exceedingly cold that even in the comfortable carriage with its hot-water bottles and fur rugs, the young girl shivered and said to her aunt she would be glad to be at home again, and to get a nice hot cup of tea. "Yes," said her aunt, "and it is getting late. At this time of year the days seem to close in so suddenly." "I'm afraid it is going to be a severe winter. I do so dislike severe winters, Auntie," said Rosamond, who had spent some part of her life in a warm climate. "So do I," said her aunt, with a sigh, "it makes everything so much harder for the poor. I really think it is true that cold is worse to endure than hunger." "You are so kind, Auntie dear," said Rosamond. "You really seem as if you felt other people's sufferings your own self. I think it is the little children I am most sorry for. Perhaps because I have been such a spoilt child myself! I cannot imagine how it would be possible to live through what some children have to live through. Above all, unkindness and neglect. That reminds me----" She was going to tell her aunt of the children she had seen at Madame Nestor's, and of the sharp way the young woman in the shop had spoken to them, but just at that moment the carriage turned into the courtyard of their house, and the footman sprung down and opened the door. "I wonder what put those children in my head just now?" thought Rosamond, as she followed her aunt slowly up the wide thickly-carpeted staircase. "I suppose it was talking of the poor people, though they were not exactly poor." But a moment or two later she really felt as if her thoughts had taken shape, or that she was dreaming, when she caught sight of the most unexpected picture that presented itself to herself and her aunt on opening the door of their pretty "little drawing-room." [Illustration: Walter was having a tea-party!] The room was brightly lighted, the fire was burning cheerily--not far from it stood the low afternoon tea-table covered with a white cloth and heaped up with plates of bread-and-butter and cakes--while the tea-urn sang its pleasant murmur. And the group round the table? That was the astonishing part of it. Walter was having a tea-party! For an instant--they had opened the door softly and he was very much taken up with his guests--the aunt and niece stood looking on without any one's hearing them. Walter was seated in a big arm-chair, and perched on his knee was a very tiny little boy in an English sailor dress. He was a pretty fair child, with a bright pink flush on his face, and he seemed exceedingly happy and to be thoroughly enjoying the cup of hot but mild tea and slice of cake which his host was pressing on him. And on a small chair just opposite sat a pale-faced dark-eyed little girl with an anxious look on her face, yet at the same time an expression of great content. No wonder; she was only seven years old! Fancy the relief it must have been to delicate little Gladys to find herself again in a room like this--to have the comfort of the delicious fire and the food even, to which she was accustomed--above all, to see Roger safe and happy; if only it would last! "_This_ tea isn't too strong for him, is it, Gladys?" Walter said. And Gladys leaning forward examined it with a motherly air, that was both pathetic and amusing. "No, that's quite right. That's just like what he had it at home." The aunt and niece looked at each other. "Who _can_ they be?" whispered the aunt; but Rosamond, though she had scarcely seen the faces of the children in the Rue Verte, seemed to know by instinct. But before she had time to speak, Walter started up; the whisper, low as it was, had caught his ear and Gladys's too. She too got up from her seat and stood facing the ladies, while her cheeks grew still paler, and the anxious look quite chased away the peaceful satisfaction from her poor little face. "Auntie!" said Walter, and in his voice too there was a little anxiety, not lost on Gladys. For though he knew his aunt to be as kind as any one could be, still it _was_ a rather "cool" thing, he felt, to have brought in two small people he had found in the street without knowing anything whatever about them, and to be giving them tea in her drawing-room. "Auntie," he repeated, "this young lady, Miss Gladys Bertram, and her little brother had come to see you, to ask your help. I found them waiting in the street, the concierge had told them you were out; it was bitterly cold, and they had come a very long way. I brought them in and gave them tea, as you see." His face had flushed as he spoke, and there was a tone of appeal in his voice; he could not _before_ Gladys add what was on his lips: "You are not vexed with me?" "You did quite right, my dear boy," said his aunt heartily. "Rosamond and I are cold and tired too. We should like a cup of tea also, and then these little friends of ours will tell us all they have to tell." "I have seen them before," added Walter in a lower tone, going nearer his aunt under pretext of getting her a chair. "You remember the children on the Boulevards I told you about the other day? It is they." But Gladys, who till then had stood still, gazing at the ladies without speaking, suddenly sprang forward and almost threw herself into "Auntie's" arms. "Oh, thank you, thank you!" she exclaimed, bursting into tears. "I was just thinking perhaps you'd be vexed with _him_," she pointed to Walter, "and he's been so kind, and it _is_ so nice here. Oh, we couldn't, we _couldn't_ go back there!" and clasping her new friend still more closely she sobbed as if her overcharged heart would break. Auntie and Rosamond soothed her with the kindest words they could find, and then Auntie, who always had her wits about her, reminded Gladys that they too were very anxious to have a cup of tea, would she help to pour it out? She evidently knew all about it, whereupon Gladys's sobs and tears stopped as if by magic, and she was again the motherly capable little girl they had seen her on entering the room. Tea over--before thinking of taking off their bonnets--Auntie and Rosamond, and Walter too, made Gladys tell them all she had to tell. It was a little difficult to follow at first, for, like a child she mixed up names and events in rather a kaleidoscope fashion. But at last by dint of patience and encouragement and several "beginnings again at the beginning," they got a clear idea of the whole strange and yet simple story, all of which that was known to Gladys herself, you, my little readers, already know, except the history of the last miserable day in the Rue Verte, when Anna's temper had got the better of her prudence to such an extent as to make Gladys feel they could bear it no longer. She had struck them both in her passion that very morning when Françoise was at the market, and wild with fear, more for Roger than herself, Gladys had set off to ask help and advice from the only people she knew of in all great Paris who could understand her story. "Except _him_," added Gladys, nodding at Walter, "but we didn't know where he lived. I couldn't write to Miss Susan, for I hadn't any paper or envelopes. I thought I'd wait till Mr. 'Dolph came home and that he'd let me write, but I don't know when he's coming, and I hadn't any money, and if _she_--oh! if she had struck Roger again it might have killed him. He's so little, you know," and Gladys shuddered. There was silence for a few moments. Then Auntie turned to Walter. "The first thing to be done, it seems to me, is for you to go to the Rue Verte to tell the Nestors--Madame Nestor, that is to say--where these little people are. She will be very uneasy, I fear, poor woman." "Anna won't tell her, I don't think," said Gladys. "Poor Mrs. Nest--she is so kind. I shouldn't like her to be unhappy." "And," continued the lady, "you must ask for the children's clothes." Gladys's eyes glistened. "Do you mean, are you going to let us stay here?" she said; "I mean till to-morrow, perhaps, till Miss Susan can come?" "Where else could you go, my dears?" said Auntie kindly. "I don't know; I--I thought perhaps you'd get us a little room somewhere, and Miss Susan would pay it when she comes. I thought perhaps you'd send her a tele--, you know what I mean, and perhaps she could come for us that way. It's so quick, only it costs a great deal, doesn't it?" Auntie and Rosamond had hard work to prevent themselves laughing at this queer idea of Gladys's, but when her mistake was explained to her, she took it very philosophically. "Then do you think I should write to Miss Susan to-day?" said Gladys. "_You'll_ help me, won't you?" she added, turning to Rosamond. "I don't know very well how to write the address." "Of course I will help you, dear," said Rosamond, but her aunt interrupted. "I do not think little Gladys need write to-night," she said. "Indeed, perhaps it may be as well for me to write for her to the lady she speaks of. But now, Walter, you had better go off at once, and bring back the children's belongings with you. What were you going to say, dear?" for Gladys seemed as if she were going to speak. Gladys's face grew red. "Anna said once that she would sell our big trunk and all our best clothes--I mean she said Mrs. Nest would--to get money for all we had cost them. But I'm sure Mrs. Nest wouldn't. And when Papa comes he'll pay everything." The elder lady looked at Walter. "Try and bring away everything with you," she said. "Take Louis, so that he may help to carry out the boxes. Do your best anyway." It turned out easier than Auntie had feared, for Walter found Adolphe Nestor already returned, and in a state of frantic anxiety about the children. Knowing that they could not be in better hands than those in which they had placed themselves, he was only too thankful to let them remain there, and gave Walter all the information he could about Mr. and Mrs. Marton, who had confided the children to his mother's care. "She can tell you all about the family better than I," he said. "I think even she has the address of Madame Marton's mother, where her cousin was so long nurse. Oh, they are in every way most respectable, and indeed one can see by the children themselves that they are little gentlepeople. There must be something sadly amiss for the father not to have come for them. I fear even that he is perhaps dead." Then he went on to tell Walter that he had told Anna he could no longer keep her in his employment, and that all was at an end with her. "And indeed," he said, his round face getting very red, "I think no man would be happy with a wife with such a temper," in which Walter, who at eighteen considered himself very wise, cordially agreed. Adolphe had not told his mother of the children's flight, for she was still very feverish and excitable; but he said she would be relieved to know where they had found refuge. And then he gave Walter the English money which Mr. Marton had left for their use, and which his mother had kept unbroken. Walter took it, though reluctantly, but he saw that it would have hurt Adolphe to refuse it; and he also reflected that there were other ways in which the Nestors could be rewarded for their kindness. And so he left the Rue Verte with all the children's belongings safely piled on the top of the cab, and with a much more friendly feeling to the upholsterer than he had expected to have, promising to let him know the result of the inquiries his aunt intended immediately to set on foot; and also assuring him that they should not leave Paris without coming to say good-bye to him and his kind old mother. When the two tired but happy little people were safely in bed that night, their three new friends sat round the fire to have a good talk about them. "It is a very strange affair, really," said Walter. "I'm more than half inclined to agree with Nestor that the father must be dead." "But even then," said Auntie, "the friends in England who had charge of them would have known it, and would have sent to inquire about them." "That 'Miss Susan,' as they call her, seems to me to have thought of nothing but the easiest way to get rid of them," said Rosamond indignantly. "She should never have let them start without a letter or a telegram of Captain Bertram's being actually in Paris, and, as far as I can make out from little Gladys, she had not got that--only of his arrival at Marseilles and his _intention_ of coming." "Did Gladys mention Marseilles? Does she know where it is?" asked Walter. "Yes, she said the old lady whom they were very fond of showed it to her on the map, and explained that it was the town in France 'at which the big ships from India stopped,' Gladys is quite clear about all that. She is a very clever child in some ways, though in others she seems almost a baby." "Nothing about her would surprise me after her managing to find her way here," said Auntie. "Just fancy her leading that baby, Roger, all the way here from the Rue Verte!" "Do you know how she did?" said Rosamond. "She tore a little piece of paper off the edge of a newspaper and wrote the address, 'Avenue Gérard 9,' on it with an end of pencil she found lying about; and she showed this bit of paper to anybody 'kind-looking' whom they met, and thus she got directed. Was it not a good idea? She said if she had _asked_ the way the French people would not have understood her speaking." "Then what do you decide to do, Auntie?" said Walter. "Shall I telegraph in the morning to this Miss Susan, or will you write?" Auntie hesitated. "_I_ don't see how you can do either with much chance of it reaching her," said Rosamond. "Gladys, you know, said she was going to be married." "Well, supposing in the first place," said Auntie, "we were to telegraph to the principal hotels at Marseilles and ask if Captain Bertram is there--it would do no harm--it is just possible that by some mistake he is all this time under the belief that the children are still in England." "That's not likely," said Walter; "no one would stay on at a hotel in Marseilles all this time for no reason--three weeks, it must be. But it's not a bad idea to telegraph there first." "Gladys would be so pleased if it proved not to be necessary to send to 'Miss Susan' at all," said Rosamond, who seemed to have obtained the little girl's full confidence. "Well, we shall see," said Auntie. "In the meantime the children are safe, and I hope happy." "Mr. and Mrs. Marton must be in India by this time," said Walter. "_They_ don't seem to have been to blame in the least--they did the best they could. It might be as well to write to them if we had their address." "Perhaps old Madame Nestor may have it," said Rosamond. "The maid--her niece or cousin, whichever it is--may have left it with her." "We can ask," said Auntie. "But it would take a good while to hear from India, and very likely they would have very little to tell, for there is one thing that strikes me," she went on thoughtfully, "which is, the _Martons_ cannot have thought there was anything wrong when they got to Marseilles, otherwise they would have written or telegraphed to the Rue Verte, and certainly to the friends in England." She looked up as if to read in the faces of her two young companions how this struck them. "That's true," said Walter. "But it only adds to the mystery," said Rosamond. "Supposing," said Walter, "that the address has been lost--that of the Nestors, I mean--and that all this time Captain Bertram is hunting up and down Paris for his children?" "That does not seem to me likely," said Auntie. "He would have telegraphed back to England." "Where it wouldn't have been known, Rosamond," said Walter. "Rather to Mr. Marton in India." "If he had _his_ address," said Walter again. "Well, anyway _that_ could be got in England," said Auntie, a little impatiently. "No, no, Walter, it can't be that. Why, supposing Captain Bertram were here looking for his children, the _police_ could have found them for him in a couple of days. No; I very much fear there is more wrong than a mere mistake. Poor little dears--they still seem to have such unbounded faith in 'Papa's coming.' I only trust no harm has come over him, poor man." Walter telegraphed the next morning in his aunt's name to the two principal hotels at Marseilles, to inquire if Captain Bertram was or had been there. From one came back the answer, "No such name known." From the other the information that Captain Bertram had not yet returned from Nice, and that letters and his luggage were waiting for him at the hotel. "Just read this, aunt," he said, hurrying into the drawing-room, and Auntie did so. Then she looked up. "It is as I feared, I feel sure," she said. "Walter, you must go to Nice yourself, and make inquiries." "I shall start to-night," said the young fellow readily. "Stay a moment," said Auntie again. "We have the _Times_ advertisements for the last few days; it may be as well to look over them." "And the Saturday papers, with all the births, marriages, and deaths of the week put in at once," said Rosamond. "You take the _Times_," she added to her brother, going to a side-table where all the papers were lying in a pile, "and I'll look through the others." For a few moments there was silence in the room. Gladys and Roger were very happy with some of their toys, which they had been allowed to unpack in the dining-room. "Bertram, Bertram, no, I see nothing. And there's no advertisement for two lost cherubs in the agony columns either," said Walter. Suddenly Rosamond gave a little exclamation. "Have you found anything?" asked Auntie. "Nothing about Captain Bertram," she replied. "But I think this must be the old lady they lived with. 'Alicia, widow of the late Major-General Lacy,' etc., etc., 'at Market-Lilford on the 16th November, aged 69.' I am sure it is she, for Gladys's second name is 'Alicia,' and she told me it was 'after Mrs. Lacy.'" "Poor old lady--she must have been very kind and good. That may explain 'Miss Susan's' apparent indifference. It was fully a fortnight ago, you see." "Must I tell Gladys?" said Rosamond. "Not yet, I think," said Auntie. "We may have worse to tell her, poor child." "I don't know that it _would_ be worse," said the young girl. "They can't remember their father." "Still, they have always been looking forward to his coming. If it ends in _good_ news, it will make them--Gladys especially--very happy." "As for Roger, perfect happiness is already his," said Rosamond. "He asks no more than weak tea and bread-and-butter, Gladys always at hand, a good fire, and nobody to scold him." CHAPTER XII. PAPA AT LAST. "And now, indeed, there lacked nothing to their happiness as long as they lived."--_The Golden Bird._ BROTHERS GRIMM. Walter went off to Nice that night. The children were not told distinctly the object of his journey. They were allowed to know that he might be passing near "the big town by the sea," which poor Mrs. Lacy, in her kind anxiety to make all clear, had pointed out to Gladys on the map; but that was all, for Auntie wished to save them any more of the nervous suspense and waiting of which they had had so much. She wished, too, to save them any suffering that could be avoided, from the fear of the sorrow, really worse than any they had yet known, which she often dreaded might be in store for them. "Let us make them as happy as ever we can for these few days," she said to Rosamond. "Nothing like happiness for making children strong and well, and they will soon forget all their past troubles." And Rosamond was only too ready to give her assistance to the kind plan, so that in all their lives Gladys and Roger had never been so much made of. The ladies were too wise to overdo it; they found too that it was very easy to amuse these simple little creatures, who had never known since they were born the slightest approach to "spoiling" or indulgence. Everything pleased them. The mere living in the pretty luxurious house--the waking up in the morning to the sight of the bright dainty room, where already a cheerful little fire would be blazing, for the weather continued exceedingly cold. The tempting "little breakfast" of real bread-and-butter and tea--for both Gladys and Roger found they had got very tired of chocolate--the capacious bath and abundance of hot water--above all, the kind and loving and gentle looks and words which surrounded them--all these would have been enough to make them happy. And a drive in Auntie's beautiful carriage, either into the centre of the town "to see the shops," or now and then to visit one of the wonderful old churches with their mysterious height of roof and softly brilliant windows, and _sometimes_, still better, the beautiful swelling organ music which seemed to them to come from nowhere, yet to be everywhere. Ah! those expeditions were a delight Gladys had never even dreamt of, and which little Roger could scarcely take in. They very much changed their opinion of Paris in those days, and no longer called it "an ugly dirty town," as it had seemed to them in their first experience at the Rue Verte. "And when Papa comes, we'll take him to see all these beautiful places, won't we?" said Gladys, for with rest and peace of mind had come back all her pretty childish hope and trust in that "coming." "Yes, dear," said Rosamond. But then she began quickly to speak to the little girl of the pretty colours of the still remaining beech leaves in the Bois de Boulogne, through which for a change they were that day driving. For she could not reply with any confidence in her tone, and she did not want the child to find out her misgiving. Walter had been gone three days and had written twice--once a hurried word to tell of his arrival, once the following day to tell of failure. He had been to two or three of the hotels but had found no traces of Captain Bertram, but there still remained several others, and he hoped to send by his next letter if not good yet anyway more certain news. So Auntie still put off writing to "Miss Susan," for though since seeing the announcement of Mrs. Lacy's death she did not blame her as much as at first, she yet could not feel it probable that the young lady was suffering great anxiety. "In any case I had better wait till Walter tells us _something_," she said to Rosamond. "And when I do write I do not know how to address the letter. Gladdie is sure she was to be married a very few days after they left, but she cannot remember the name of the gentleman, whom she has only seen once or twice, as he lived at a distance, and had made Miss Susan's acquaintance away from her home." "Address to her maiden name--it would be sent after her," suggested Rosamond. "But Gladdie is not sure what that is," replied Auntie, half laughing. "She doesn't know if it is 'Lacy,' or if she had a different name from her aunt. She is such a baby in some ways. I am sure she has not the slightest idea what _our_ surnames are. You are 'Rosamond' and I am 'Auntie.'" "Or 'Madame' when she speaks of you to the servants. She is getting on so nicely with her French, Auntie. That reminds me Louis has been to the Rue Verte, and has brought back word that Madame Nestor is much better, and would be so delighted to see the children any day we can send them." "Or take them," said Auntie. "I would not like them to go without us the first time, for fear they should feel at all frightened. And yet it is right for them to go. They must always be grateful to Madame Nestor, who did her very best for them." "Gladys confided to me she would be a little afraid of going back, though she knows that Anna is no longer there. But she says she will feel as if they were going back to _stay_ there, and as if _this_ would turn out to be only a beautiful dream." "Poor little dear," said Auntie. "And she's going to take her new doll--both to show her off, and that she may feel _she_ isn't a dream! She has such funny ideas sometimes. Auntie----" "What, dear?" "If Walter can't find the father--I suppose I should say if he is dead--what is to be done?" "We must find out all we can--through that Miss Susan, I suppose--as to who are the children's guardians, and what money they have, and all about it." "I wish we could adopt them," said Rosamond. "We're rich enough." "Yes; but that is not the only question. You are almost sure to marry." "I don't know that," said Rosamond, but her face flushed a little. "And Walter, too, some day." "Oh, Auntie! Walter! Why he's only eighteen." "Well, all the same, time goes on, and adopting children often causes complications. Besides, it is not likely that they have _no_ relations." "Well, we shall see what the next letter says," said Rosamond. It was not a letter after all, but a telegram, and this was what it said:-- "Found Bertram. Will explain all. Returning to-morrow." The aunt and niece looked at each other. "He might have said a little more," said the latter. "This is only enough to rouse our curiosity." "We must say nothing to the children yet," decided Auntie. "I do hope, as he is alive," said Rosamond, "that he's a nice good sort of man. If he weren't, that would be worse than anything--having to give up the children to him," and she looked quite unhappy. "Don't let your imagination run away with you so, my dear child," said Auntie. "It's very unlikely that he's not nice in every way. Remember what Gladys says of his kind letters, and how fond Mrs. Lacy was of him, and how she always taught them to look forward to his return. No; _my_ fears are about his health, poor fellow." The children went the next morning with Rosamond and her maid to see Madame Nestor, and Rosamond brought back with her to show her aunt a letter Madame Nestor had just received, which threw a little light on one part of the subject. It was from Léonie telling of Mr. and Mrs. Marton's arrival at their destination, and alluding to the children as if she had no doubt that they had only been left two or three days at the Rue Verte. "Monsieur," meaning Mr. Marton, "was so glad," she wrote, "to find at Marseilles that the children's Papa was going on to Paris almost at once. He had left a letter for Captain Bertram at the hotel, as he had gone to Nice for a day or two; and Madame had only just had time to write to the ladies in England to tell how it had all been. And she was writing by this mail to ask for news of the "dear little things," as she called Gladys and Roger. They had thought of them all the way, and Madame thanked Madame Nestor so much for her kindness. She--Léonie--hoped very much she would see them again some day. Then she presented her compliments to her cousin Adolphe, and promised to write again soon--and that was all." "It is still mysterious enough," said Auntie; "but it shows the Martons were not to blame. As Mr. Marton has written to England again, we shall probably be hearing something from 'Miss Susan' before long. It _is_ strange she has not written before, as she has had the Rue Verte address all this time, I suppose." And here, perhaps, as 'Miss Susan' is not, to my mind nor to yours either, children, I feel sure, by any means the most interesting person in this little story, though, on the other hand, she was far from without good qualities, it may be as well to explain how it had come to pass that nothing had been heard of her. Mrs. Lacy grew rapidly worse after the children left, but with her gentle unselfishness she would not allow her niece's marriage to be put off, but begged her on the contrary to hasten it, which was done. Two days after it had taken place, Susan, who had gone away for a very short honeymoon, was recalled. She never left Mrs. Lacy again till she died. I think the saddest part of dying for the dear old lady was over when she had said good-bye to her little favourites. For some time Susan felt no anxiety about the children, for, from Marseilles, she had heard from young Mrs. Marton of Captain Bertram's not having met them in Paris, and of the arrangement they had been obliged to make. But, that arrived at Marseilles, they had found he had gone two days before to Nice, to look for a house for his children, the landlord said, whom he was going to Paris to fetch. He had left all his luggage there, and had intended to be back this day or the day before, the landlord was not sure which, and to go on to Paris. No doubt he would be returning that same evening, only, unfortunately, his newly-arrived friends Mr. and Mrs. Marton would have gone, but he faithfully promised to deliver to him at once the letter Mr. Marton wrote and left for him. "It seems the only thing to do," added young Mrs. Marton, "and I do hope it will be all right. Captain Bertram must have mistaken a day. Anyway he will know where to find the children, I enclose their address to you too--at least I will get it from Léonie before I shut this letter, for I do not remember it, so that in case you do not hear soon from Captain Bertram you can write there." But in her hurry--for just as she was finishing the letter, her husband called to her that they must be off--the young lady forgot to enclose the address! So there was nowhere for Susan to write to, when, as the days went on and no letter came from Captain Bertram, she did begin to grow uneasy, not exactly about the children's safety, but about their father having gone for them. "Still," she said to her husband, "if he had _not_ got them with him, he would have written to ask where they were. He was never a very good correspondent. But I wonder he hasn't written to ask how my aunt is. I hope there is nothing the matter. I _hope_ I did not do wrong in letting them go without actually knowing of his being in Paris." Of course her husband assured her she had not. But her conscience was not at rest, for Susan had grown gentler now that she was happily married, and she was softened too by the thought of her kind aunt's state. All through the last sad days the children kept coming into her mind, and though Mrs. Lacy was too weak even to ask about them, Susan felt almost guilty when she finally tried to thank her for her goodness. "I don't deserve it," she thought, "I was not kind to the two human beings she loved best," and she wrote over and over again to Captain Bertram at the Marseilles hotel, begging him to send her news of the children, and when Mrs. Marton's letter came from India repeating what she had before written from Marseilles, but with of course no further news, and no mention of the Paris address, poor Susan became so unhappy that her husband promised to take her over to make inquiries in person if no answer came to another letter he sent to Marseilles to the landlord of the hotel, begging him to tell all he knew of Captain Bertram's movements. This letter brought a reply, as you will hear, from Captain Bertram himself. It was evening before Walter arrived. Gladys and Roger were in bed and asleep. Auntie and Rosamond were waiting for him with the greatest anxiety to hear his news. He looked bright and cheery as he came into the room, still enveloped in his wraps, which he began to pull off. "It's nice and warm in here," he said; "but, oh, it's so cold outside. And it was so mild and sunny down there; I would have liked to stay a day or two longer. It was to please _him_ I hurried back so quickly--poor man, he is in _such_ a state about the children!" "But, Walter, what is the meaning of it all? Why has he not come himself?" "Do you like him?" put in Rosamond. "Awfully," said Walter boyishly. "He's just what you would expect their father to be. But I'm forgetting--I haven't told you. He's been dreadfully ill--he can only just crawl a step or two. And all this time he's not had the slightest misgiving about the children, except the fear of not living to see them again of course. He's not had the least doubt of their being safe in England; and only just lately, as he began to get well enough to think consecutively, he has wondered why he got no letters. He was just going to try to write to that place--Market-Lilford--when I got there. So he was mystified too! But we got to the bottom of it. This was how it was. He was feeling ill at Marseilles--he had put off too long in India--and he thought it was the air of the place, and as he had some days to pass before he was due in Paris, he went on to Nice, thinking he'd get all right there and be able to look about for a house if he liked it. But instead of getting all right he broke down completely. He wrote out a telegram to tell Miss Susan that he was ill, and that she must not start the children. It would have been in plenty of time to stop them, had she got it, but she never did." "Never got it," repeated both ladies. "No; the waiter told him it was all right, but it wasn't. His writing was so bad that at the office they couldn't read the address, and the message was returned from London the next day; and by that time he was so ill that the doctor wouldn't allow them to ask him a thing, and he probably wouldn't have understood them if they had. This, you see, he's only found out since I got there. The doctor was meaning to tell him, but he took his time about it, and he did not know how important it was. So, in a way, nobody was to blame except that Miss Susan. That's what Bertram says himself; but while I was there he telegraphed to Marseilles for his letters. There were several from her, and the last so frantic that he's writing to say it's all right; especially as she's been very cut up about the poor old lady's death. But she shouldn't have started the children till he telegraphed _from Paris_. Besides, he had told her to send a maid with them for the journey. It wasn't the Martons' fault; they did their best." "Was he distressed at hearing of Mrs. Lacy's death?" asked Auntie. "_Very_," said Walter; "it put him back, the doctor said; but he'll be all right when he sees the children. If you had seen him when I told him about their finding their way to us, not even knowing our names, all over Paris! He didn't know whether to laugh or cry. He's weak still, you know. And then he's so _dreadfully_ grateful to us! I was glad to get away." "And when does he want them?" said Rosamond dolefully. "As soon as possible. He can't come north this winter. And he's not rich, I can see. So I was thinking----" "What, my boy?" "It _is_ so cold here," repeated Walter; "it really feels terrible to come back to. Supposing we all go down there for a couple of months or so, to escape the cold? We could keep the children till Bertram is strong again and able to make his plans. I think we'd feel quite queer without them now. Besides, I promised him to bring them back to him." "What do you say, Rosamond?" said Auntie. "I should like it very much. It would be so nice not to part with them just yet." So it was decided. You can imagine how much had to be told to the children the next day. Mingled sadness and happiness--warp and woof of the web of life! But when they found themselves once more on the railway, with the kind friends they had learnt to know so well, really on the way to "Papa," I think the happiness was uppermost. He proved to be the dearest of Papas; not the very least like what they had imagined him. "Of course not," Gladys said; "people and things are never like what one fancies they will be." But though he was older and grayer, and perhaps at first sight a little _sadder_ than she had expected, he grew merry enough in the great happiness of having them with him, and as he gradually got strong and well again he seemed, too, to become younger. "Anyway," said Gladys, a few weeks after their arrival at Nice, "he _couldn't_ be nicer, could he, Roger?" in which opinion Roger solemnly agreed. "And now he's getting better," she added; "it's not a bad thing he's been ill, for it's made the doctor say he must never go back to India again." * * * * * Is that all there is to tell about the "two little waifs?" I think I must lift the curtain for an instant "ten years later," to show you little Roger a tall strong schoolboy, rather solemn still, but bidding fair to be all his father could wish him, and very devoted to a tiny girl of about the age at which we first saw Gladys, and who, as her mother is pretty Rosamond, he persists in calling his "niece," and with some show of reason, for her _real_ uncle, "Walter," is now the husband of his sister Gladys! And long before this, by the bye, another marriage had come to pass which it may amuse you to hear of. There is a new Madame Nestor in the Rue Verte, as well as the cheery old lady who still hobbles about briskly, though with a crutch. And the second Madame Nestor's first name is "Léonie." She is, I think, quite as clever as Mademoiselle Anna, and certainly _very_ much better tempered. And whenever any of the people you have heard of in this little book come to Paris, you may be sure they pay a visit to the little old shop, which is as full as ever of sofas and chairs, and where they always receive the heartiest welcome from the Nestor family. I wish, for my part, the histories of all "little waifs" ended as happily! THE END. BEDFORD STREET, COVENT GARDEN, LONDON. _October_, 1883. _Macmillan & Co.'s Catalogue of Works in_ _Belles Lettres, including Poetry, Fiction, etc._ * * * * * =ADDISON,= SELECTIONS FROM. By JOHN RICHARD GREEN, M.A., LL.D. (Golden Treasury Series.) 18mo. 4_s_. 6_d_. =ADVENTURES OF A BROWNIE, THE.= By the Author of "John Halifax, Gentleman." With Illustrations by Mrs. ALLINGHAM. New Edition. Globe 8vo. 4_s_. 6_d_. =ÆSOP.=--SOME OF ÆSOP'S FABLES. With Modern Instances shown in Designs by RANDOLPH CALDECOTT. From New Translations by ALFRED CALDECOTT, M.A. The Engraving by J. D. COOPER. Demy 4to. 7_s_. 6_d_. =ALLINGHAM.=--THE BALLAD BOOK. 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With Illustrations by ARTHUR HUGHES, and Engraved Title-Page by JEENS. Small 4to, cloth extra. 6_s_. LYRICAL POEMS. Extra fcap. 8vo. 6_s_. ORIGINAL HYMNS. Third Edition, enlarged 18mo. 1_s_. 6_d_. VISIONS OF ENGLAND; being a series of Lyrical Poems on Leading Events and Persons in English History. With a Preface and Notes. Crown 8vo. 7_s_. 6_d_. GOLDEN TREASURY OF THE BEST SONGS AND LYRICS. Edited by F. T. PALGRAVE. 18mo. 4_s_. 6_d_. SHAKESPEARE'S SONNETS AND SONGS. Edited by F. T. PALGRAVE. With Vignette Title by JEENS. (Golden Treasury Series.) 18mo. 4_s_. 6_d_. THE CHILDREN'S TREASURY OF LYRICAL POETRY. Selected and arranged with Notes by F. T. PALGRAVE. 18mo. 2_s_. 6_d_. And in Two Parts, 1_s_. each. HERRICK: SELECTIONS FROM THE LYRICAL POEMS. With Notes. (Golden Treasury Series.) 18mo. 4_s_. 6_d_. =PANSIE'S FLOUR BIN.= By the Author of "When I was a Little Girl," "St. Olave's," &c. Illustrated by ADRIAN STOKES. Globe 8vo. 4_s_. 6_d_. =PATER.=--THE RENAISSANCE. Studies in Art and Poetry. By WALTER PATER, Fellow of Brasenose College, Oxford. Second Edition, Revised, with Vignette engraved by C. H. JEENS. Crown 8vo. 10_s_. 6_d_. =PATMORE.=--THE CHILDREN'S GARLAND, from the Best Poets. Selected and arranged by COVENTRY PATMORE. New Edition. With Illustrations by J. LAWSON. (Golden Treasury Edition.) 18mo. 4_s_. 6_d_. Globe Readings Edition for Schools, Globe 8vo, 2_s_. =PEEL.=--ECHOES FROM HOREB, AND OTHER POEMS. By EDMUND PEEL, Author of "An Ancient City," &c. Crown 8vo. 3_s_. 6_d_. =PEMBER.=--THE TRAGEDY OF LESBOS. A Dramatic Poem. By E. H. PEMBER. Fcap. 8vo. 4_s_. 6_d_. =PEOPLE'S EDITIONS.= Profusely illustrated, medium 4to, 6_d_. each; or complete in One Vol., cloth, 3s. TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL DAYS. By an Old Boy. WATERTON'S WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. WASHINGTON IRVING'S OLD CHRISTMAS. WASHINGTON IRVING'S BRACEBRIDGE HALL. =PHILLIPS (S. K.).=--ON THE SEABOARD; and Other Poems. By SUSAN K. PHILLIPS. Second Edition. Crown 8vo. 5_s_. =PLATO.=--THE REPUBLIC OF. Translated into English with Notes by J. LL. DAVIES, M.A., and D. J. VAUGHAN, M.A. (Golden Treasury Series.) 18mo. 4_s_. 6_d_. =POEMS OF PLACES.=--(ENGLAND AND WALES). Edited by H. W. LONGFELLOW. (Golden Treasury Series.) 18mo. 4_s_. 6_d_. =POETS (ENGLISH).=--SELECTIONS, with Critical Introduction by various writers, and a general Introduction by MATTHEW ARNOLD. Edited by T. H. WARD, M.A. Four Vols. New Edition. Crown 8vo. 7_s_. 6_d_. each. Vol. I. CHAUCER TO DONNE. Vol II. BEN JONSON TO DRYDEN. VOL III. ADDISON TO BLAKE. Vol. IV. WORDSWORTH TO ROSSETTI. =POOLE.=--PICTURES OF COTTAGE LIFE IN THE WEST OF ENGLAND. By MARGARET E. POOLE. New and Cheaper Edition. With Frontispiece by R. FARREN. Crown 8vo. 3_s_. 6_d_. =POPE.=--POETICAL WORKS OF. Edited with Notes and Introductory Memoir by ADOLPHUS WILLIAM WARD, M.A. (Globe Edition.) Globe 8vo. 3_s_. 6_d_. =POPULATION OF AN OLD PEAR TREE.= From the French of E. VAN BRUYSSEL. Edited by the Author of "The Heir of Redclyffe." With Illustrations by BECKER. Cheaper Edition. Crown 8vo, gilt. 4_s_. 6_d_. =POTTER.=--LANCASHIRE MEMORIES. By LOUISA POTTER. Crown 8vo. 6_s_. =PRINCE FLORESTAN OF MONACO, THE FALL OF.= By HIMSELF. New Edition, with Illustration and Map. 8vo. cloth extra, gilt edges. 5_s_. A French Translation. 5_s_. Also an Edition for the People. Crown 8vo. 1_s_. =PUSHKIN.=--EUGÈNE ONÉGUINE. A Romance of Russian Life in Verse. By ALEXANDER PUSHKIN. Translated from the Russian by Lieut.-Col. SPALDING. Crown 8vo. 6_s_. =RACHEL OLLIVER.=--A Novel. Three Vols. Crown 8vo. 31_s_. 6_d_. =REALMAH.=--By the Author of "Friends in Council." Crown 8vo. 6_s_. =REED.=--MEMOIR OF SIR CHARLES REED. By His Son, CHARLES E. B. REED, M.A. With a Portrait. Crown 8vo. 4_s_. 6_d_. =RHOADES.=--POEMS. By JAMES RHOADES. Fcap. 8vo. 4_s_. 6_d_. =RICHARDSON.=--THE ILIAD OF THE EAST. A Selection of Legends drawn from Valmiki's Sanskrit Poem, "The Ramayana." 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34045	----	Proofreading Canada Team (http://www.pgdpcanada.net) Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 34045-h.htm or 34045-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/34045/34045-h/34045-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/34045/34045-h.zip) A CHRISTMAS CHILD A Sketch of a Boy-Life by MRS. MOLESWORTH Author of 'Carrots,' 'Cuckoo Clock,' Etc. Illustration: "The Story of Sunny."--_Frontispiece_. Illustration: Skating Scene Illustrated by Walter Crane 'O Christmas, merry Christmas! Is it really come again? With its memories and greetings, With its joy and with its pain.' London Macmillan And Co. 1880 TO _The Two Friends_ WHO WILL BEST UNDERSTAND THIS SIMPLE LITTLE STORY I DEDICATE IT WITH MUCH AFFECTION Paris, _May_ 1880. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. BABY TED 1 CHAPTER II. IN THE GARDEN 18 CHAPTER III. WISHES AND FEARS 37 CHAPTER IV. THE STORY OF SUNNY 58 CHAPTER V. THE STORY OF SUNNY (_Concluded_) 76 CHAPTER VI. LITTLE NARCISSA 94 CHAPTER VII. GETTING BIG 116 CHAPTER VIII. "STATISTICS" 137 CHAPTER IX. A PEACOCK'S FEATHER AND A KISS 161 CHAPTER X. SOME RAINY ADVENTURES 179 CHAPTER XI. "IT'S ONLY I, MOTHER" 200 CHAPTER XII. THE WHITE CROSS 216 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. "THE STORY OF SUNNY" _Frontispiece_ "I WISH THOO'D LET ME HELP THOO TO CUT THE GRASS" _To face page_ 32 "SHE HUNTED ABOUT AMONG THE LEAVES AND BRANCHES TILL SHE FOUND A LITTLE SILVER KNOB" " 83 "BABY SHOWED, OR TED _THOUGHT_ SHE DID, A QUITE EXTRAORDINARY LOVE FOR THE BOUQUETS HER LITTLE BROTHER ARRANGED FOR HER" " 98 "OH DEAR, OH DEAR!" CRIES BEAUTY, JUMPING UP IN A FRIGHT, "HE'S COMING TO EAT ME" " 133 "THEY WERE NEATLY TACKED ON TO THE FEATHER CARD, WHICH HAD A VERY FINE EFFECT ON THE WALL OF THE MUSEUM" " 170 "MASTER TED, VERY WET INDEED, MADE HIS APPEARANCE WITH ROSY CHEEKS AND A GENERAL LOOK OF SELF-SATISFACTION" " 194 CHAPTER I. BABY TED. "Where did you get those eyes so blue?" "Out of the sky as I came through." Christmas week a good many years ago. Not an "old-fashioned" Christmas this year, for there was no snow or ice; the sky was clear and the air pure, but yet without the sharp, bracing clearness and purity that Master Jack Frost brings when he comes to see us in one of his nice, bright, sunny humours. For he has humours as well as other people--not only is he fickle in the extreme, but even _black_ sometimes, and he is then, I can assure you, a most disagreeable visitor. But this Christmas time he had taken it into his head not to come at all, and the world looked rather reproachful and disconcerted. The poor, bare December world--it misses its snow garment, so graciously hiding all imperfections revealed by the absence of green grass and fluttering leaves; it misses, too, its winter jewels of icicles and hoar frost. Poor old world! What a great many Decembers you have jogged through; no wonder you begin to feel that you need a little dressing up and adorning, like a beauty no longer as young as she has been. Yet ever-young world, too! Who, that gazes at March's daffodils and sweet April's primroses, can believe that the world is growing old? Sometimes one could almost wish that it would leave off being so exquisitely, so heartlessly young. For the daffodils nod their golden heads, the primroses smile up through their leafy nests--year after year, they never fail us. But the children that loved them so; the little feet that trotted so eagerly down the lanes, the tiny hands that gathered the flower-treasures with such delight--where are they all? Men and women, some in far-off lands, perhaps; or too wearied by cares and sorrows to look for the spring flowers of long ago. And some--the sweetest of all, _these_ seem--farther away still, and yet surely nearer? in the happier land, whose flowers our fancy tries in vain to picture. But I am forgetting a little, I think, that I am going to tell about a child to children, and that my "tellings" begin, not in March or April, but at Christmas-time. Christmas-time, fortunately, does not depend on Jack Frost for _all_ its pleasures. Christmas-boxes are just as welcome without as with his presence. And never was a Christmas-box more welcome than one that came to a certain house by the sea one twenty-sixth of December, now a good many years ago. Yet it was not a very big present, nor a very uncommon present. But it was very precious, and, to _my_ thinking, very, very pretty; for it was a wee baby boy. Such a dear wee baby, I think you would have called it; so neat and tiny, and with such nice baby-blue eyes. Its hands and feet, especially, were very delightful. "_Almost_ as pretty as newly-hatched ducklings, aren't they?" a little girl I know once said of some baby feet that she was admiring, and I really think she was right. No wonder was it, that the happy people in the house by the sea were very proud of their Christmas-box, that the baby's mother, especially, thought there never was, never could be, anything so sweet as her baby Ted. But poor baby Ted had not long to wait for his share of the troubles which we are told come to all, though it does seem as if some people, and children too, had more than others. He was a very delicate little baby. His mother did not notice it at first because, you see, he was the first baby she had ever had of her very own, and she was too pleased to think him anything but perfect. And indeed he _was_ perfect of his kind, only there was so little of him! He was like one of those very, very tiny little white flowers that one has to hunt under the hedges for, and which surprise you by their daintiness when you look at them closely. Only such fragile daintiness needs tender handling, and these little half-opened buds sometimes shrink from the touch of even the kindest of mothers and nurses, and gently fade out of their sight to bloom in a sunnier and softer clime than ours. And knowing this, a cold chill crept round the heart of little Ted's mother when his nurse, who was older and wiser than she, shook her head sadly as she owned that he was about the tiniest baby she had ever seen. But the cold chill did not stay there. Ted, who was scarcely a month old, gave a sudden smile of baby pleasure as she was anxiously looking at him. He had caught sight of some bright flowers on the wall, and his blue eyes had told him that the proper thing to do was to smile at them. And his smile was to his mother like the sun breaking through a cloud. "I will not be afraid for my darling," said she. "God knows what is best for him, but I think, I do _think_, he will live to grow a healthy, happy boy. How could a Christmas child be anything else?" And she was right. Day after day, week by week, month after month, the wee man grew bigger and stronger. It was not all smooth sailing, however. He had to fight pretty hard for his little share of the world and of life sometimes. And many a sad fit of baby-crying made his mother's heart ache as she asked herself if after all it might not be better for her poor little boy to give up the battle which seemed so trying to him. But no--that was not Master Ted's opinion at all. He cried, and he would not go to sleep, and he cried again. But all through the crying and the restlessness he was growing stronger and bigger. "The world strikes me as not half a bad place. I mean to look about me in it and see all that there is to be seen," I could fancy his baby mind thinking to itself, when he was held at his nursery window, and his bright eyes gazed out unweariedly at the beautiful sights to be seen from it--the mountains in the distance lifting their grand old heads to the glorious sky, which Ted looked as if he knew a good deal about if he chose to tell; the sea near at hand with its ever-changing charm and the white sails scudding along in the sunlight. Ah yes, little Ted was in the right--the world _is_ a very pretty place, and a baby boy whose special corner of it is where his was, is a very lucky little person, notwithstanding the pains and grievances of babyhood. And before long Ted's fits of crying became so completely a thing of the past that it was really difficult to believe in them. All his grumbling and complaining and tears were got over in these first few months. For "once he had got a start," as his nurse called it, never was there a happier little fellow. Everything came right to him, and the few clouds that now and then floated over his skies but made the sunshine seem the brighter. And day by day the world grew prettier and pleasanter to him. It had been very pleasant to be carried out in his nurse's arms or wheeled along in his little carriage, but when it came to toddling on the nice firm sands on his own sturdy legs, and sometimes--when nurse would let him--going "kite kite close" to the playful waves, and then jumping back again when they "pertended," as he said, to wet his little feet--ah, that was too delightful! And almost more delightful still was it to pick up nice smooth stones on the beach and try how far he could throw them into the sea. The sea was _so_ pretty and kind, he thought. It was for a long time very difficult for him to believe that it could ever be angry and raging and wild, as he used to hear said, for of course on wet or stormy days little Ted never went down to the shore, but stayed at home in his own warm nursery. There were pretty shells and stones and seaweed to be found on this delightful sea-shore. Ted was too little to care much for such quiet business as gathering stones and shells, but one day when he was walking with his mother she stopped so often to pick up and examine any that took her fancy, that at last Ted's curiosity was awakened. "What is thoo doing?" he said gravely, as if not quite sure that his mother was behaving correctly, for _nurse_ always told him to "walk on straight, there's a good boy, Master Ted," and it was a little puzzling to understand that mammas might do what little boys must not. It was one of the puzzles which Ted found there were a good many of in the world, and which he had to think over a good deal in his own mind before it grew clear to him. "What is thoo doing?" he asked. "I am looking for pretty stones to take home and keep," replied his mother. "Pitty 'tones," repeated Ted, and then he said no more, but some new ideas had wakened in his baby mind. Nurse noticed that he was quieter than usual that afternoon, for already Ted was a good deal of a chatterbox. But his eyes looked bright, and plainly he had some pleasant thought in his head. The next day was fine, and he went off with nurse for his walk. He looked a little anxious as they got to the turn of the road, or rather to the joining of two roads, one of which led to the sea, the other into country lanes. "Thoo is doing to the sea?" he inquired. "Yes, dear," nurse replied, and Ted's face cleared. When they got to the shore he trotted on quietly, but his eyes were very busy, busier even than usual. They looked about them in all directions, till at last they spied what they wanted, and for half a minute or so nurse did not notice that her little charge had left her side and was lagging behind. "What are you about, Master Ted?" she said hastily, as glancing round she saw him stooping down--not that he had very far to stoop, poor little man--and struggling to lift some object at his feet. "A 'tone," he cried, "a beauty big 'tone for Ted's muzzer," lifting in his arms a big round stone--one of the kind that as children we used to say had dropped from the moon--which by its nice round shape and speckledness had caught his eye. "Ted will cally it hisself." And with a very red face, he lugged it manfully along. "Let me help you with it, dear," said nurse. But "No, zank thoo," he replied firmly each time that the offer was repeated. "Ted must cally it his own self." And "cally" it he did, all the way. Nurse could only succeed in getting him to put it down now and then to rest a bit, as she said, for the stone was really so big a one that she was afraid of it seriously tiring his arms. More than once she pointed out prettier and smaller stones, and tried to suggest that his mother might like them quite as well, or better; but no. The bigness, the heaviness even, was its charm; to do something that cost him an effort for mother he felt vaguely was his wish; the "lamp of sacrifice," of _self_-sacrifice, had been lighted in his baby heart, never again to be extinguished. And, oh, the happiness in that little heart when at last he reached his mother's room, still lugging the heavy stone, and laid it at her feet! "Ted broughtened it for thoo," he exclaimed triumphantly. And mother was _so_ pleased! The stone took up its place at once on the mantelpiece as an ornament, and the wearied little man climbed up on to his mother's knee, with a look of such delight and satisfaction as is sweet to be seen on a childish face. So Ted's education began. He was growing beyond the birds and the flowers already, though only a tiny man of three; and every day he found new things to wonder at, and admire, and ask questions about, and, unlike some small people of his age, he always listened to the answers. After a while he found prettier presents to bring home to his mother than big stones. With the spring days the flowers came back, and Ted, who last year had been too little to notice them much, grew to like the other turning of the road almost better than that which led to the sea. For down the lanes, hiding in among the hedges, or more boldly smiling up at him in the fields, he learnt to know the old friends that all happy children love so dearly. One day he found some flowers that seemed to him prettier than any he had ever seen, and full of delight he trudged home with a baby bouquet of them in his little hot hands. It was getting past spring into summer now, and Ted felt a little tired by the time he and his nurse had reached the house, and he ran in as usual to find his mother and relate his adventures. "Ted has broughtened some most beauty flowers," he eagerly cried, and his mother stooped down to kiss and thank him, even though she was busy talking to some ladies who had come to see her, and whom Ted in his hurry had hardly noticed. He glanced round at them now with curiosity and interest. He rather liked ladies to come to see his mother, only he would have liked it still better if they would have just let him stay quietly beside her, looking at them and listening to what they said, without noticing him. But that way of behaving would not have seemed kind, and as Ted grew older he understood this, and learnt that it was right to feel pleased at being spoken to and even kissed. "How well Ted is looking," said one of the ladies to his mother. "He is growing quite a big, strong boy. And what pretty flowers he has brought you. Are you very fond of flowers, my little man?" "Ses," said Ted, looking up in the lady's face. "The wild flowers about here are very pretty," said another of the ladies. "Very pretty," said his mother; "but it is curious, is it not, that there are no cowslips in this country? They are such favourites of mine. I have such pleasant remembrances of them as a child." She turned, for Ted was tugging gently at her sleeve. "What is towslips?" he asked. "Pretty little yellow flowers, something like primroses," said his mother. "Oh!" said Ted. Then nurse knocked at the door, and told him his tea was ready, and so he trotted off. "Mother loves towslips," he said to himself two or three times over, till his nurse asked him what he was talking about. "But there's no cowslips here," said nurse, when he had repeated it. "No," said Ted; "but p'raps Ted could find some. Ted will go and look to-morrow with nursey." "To-morrow's Sunday, Master Ted," said nurse; "I'll be going to church." "What's church?" he asked. "Church is everybody praying to God, all together in a big house. Don't you remember, Master Ted?" "Oh ses, Ted 'members," he replied. "What's praying to 'Dod, nurse?" "Why, I am sure you know that, Master Ted. You must have forgotten. Ask your mamma again." Ted took her advice. Later in the evening he went downstairs to say good-night. His mother was outside, walking about the garden, for it was a beautiful summer evening. Ted ran to her; but on his way something caught his eye, which sent a pang to his little heart. It was the bunch of flowers he had gathered for her, lying withered already, poor little things, on a bench just by the door, where she had laid them when saying good-bye to her visitors. Ted stopped short; his face grew very red, and big tears rose slowly to his eyes. He was carefully collecting them together in his little hand when his mother called to him. "Come, Ted, dear," she said; "what are you about?" More slowly than his wont Ted trotted towards her. "Muzzer doesn't care for zem," he said, holding out his neglected offering. "Poor f'owers dies when they's leaved out of water." "My darling," said his mother with real sorrow in her voice, "I am so sorry, so very sorry, dear little Ted," and she stooped to kiss him. "Give them to me now, and I will _always_ keep them." Ted was quickly consoled. "Zem's not towslips," he said regretfully. "Ted would like towslips for muzzer." And then with a quick change of thought he went on, "What is praying to 'Dod?" he said, looking up eagerly with his bright blue eyes. "Praying to God means asking Him anything we want, and then He answers us. Just as you ask me something, and I answer you. And if what we ask is good for us, He gives it us. That is one way of answering our prayers, but there are many ways. You will understand better when you are bigger, dear little Ted." Ted asked no more, but a bright pleased look came into his face. He was fond of asking questions, but he did not ask silly ones, nor tease and tease as some children do, and, as I said, when he got an answer he thought it well over in his little head till he got to understand, or thought he understood. Till now his mother had thought him too little to teach him to say his prayers, but now in her own mind she began to feel he was getting old enough to say some simple prayer night and morning, and she resolved to teach him some day soon. So now she kissed him and bade him good-night. "God bless my little boy," she said, as she patted his head with its soft fair hair which hung in pretty careless curls, and was cut across the forehead in front like one of Sir Joshua Reynolds' cherubs. "God bless my little boy," she said, and Ted trotted off again, still with the bright look on his face. He let nurse put him to bed very "goodly," though bed-time never came very welcomely to the active little man. "Now go to sleep, Master Ted, dear," said nurse as she covered him up and then left the room, as she was busy about some work that evening. Ted's room was next to his mother's. Indeed, if the doors were left open, it was quite easy to talk one to the other. This evening his mother happened to go upstairs not long after he had been tucked into bed. She was arranging some things in her own room, moving about quietly not to waken him, if, as she hoped, he had fallen asleep, for falling asleep did not come so easily to Ted as to some children. He was too busy in his mind, he had too many things to think about and wonder about for his brain to settle itself quietly all in a minute. And if he had a strong wish, I think it was that going-to-bed time should never come at all! For a minute or two no sound reached Ted's mother. "I do hope he is asleep," she said to herself, but just then she stopped short to listen. Ted was speaking to himself softly, but clearly and distinctly. What could he be saying? His mother listened with a smile on her face, but the smile grew into a sort of sweet gravity as she distinguished the words. Little Ted was _praying_. He had not waited for her to teach him--his baby-spirit had found out the simple way for itself--he was just asking God for what he wanted. "Please, dear 'Dod," he said, "tell me why thoo won't make towslips grow in this countly. Muzzer loves zem so." Then came a perfect silence. Ted seemed to be holding his breath in expectation, and somehow his mother too stood as still as could be. And after a minute or two the little voice began again. "Please, dear 'Dod, _please_ do tell me," and then the silence returned as before. It did not last so long, however, this time--not more than a minute at most had passed when a sound of faint crying broke upon Ted's mother's hearing--the little fellow had burst into tears. Then his mother could stay away no longer. "What is the matter, my boy?" she said; anxious, baby though he was, not to make him feel ashamed of his innocent prayers by finding that she had overheard what he had said when he thought himself alone. "What is my Ted crying about?" The tears, which had stopped for an instant, came back again. "Muzzer," he said, "'Dod _won't_ 'peak to Ted. Ted p'ayed and p'ayed, and Ted was kite kite kiet, but 'Dod didn't 'amswer.' Is 'Dod a'leep, muzzer?" "No, my boy, but what was it that Ted wanted so much?" "Ted wanted towslips for muzzer, but 'Dod _won't_ amswer," he repeated piteously. A shower of kisses was mother's answer, and gently and patiently she tried to make him understand the _seeming_ silence which had caused his innocent tears. And, as was Ted's "way," he listened and believed. But "some day," he said to his mother, "some day," would she not take him to "a countly where towslips _did_ grow?" CHAPTER II. IN THE GARDEN. "Heigh ho! daisies and buttercups, Sweet wagging cowslips, they bend and they bow." SONGS OF SEVEN. Down below the garden of Ted's pretty home flowed, or danced rather, with a constant merry babble, a tiny stream. A busy, fussy stream it was, on its way to the beautiful little river that, in its turn, came rushing down through a mountain-gorge to the sea. I must tell you about this mountain-gorge some time, or, if you like, we shall visit it with Ted and his faithful companion, whom you have not yet heard about--his father's great big Scotch collie dog, Cheviott. You don't know what a dear dog he was, so brave, but so gentle and considerate. He came of a brave and patient race, for you know "collies" are the famous Scotch sheep-dogs, who to their shepherd masters are more useful than any _two_-legged servant could be. And though I am not sure that "Chevie" himself had ever had to do with "the keeping of sheep," like gentle Abel of old, yet, no doubt, as a baby doggie in his northern home, he must have heard a good deal about it--no doubt, if his tongue had had the power of speaking, he could have told his little master some strange stories of adventures and narrow escapes which had happened to members of his family. For up in the Border mountains where he was born, the storms sometimes come on so suddenly that shepherd and flock are all but lost, and but for their faithful collies, might never find their way home again. Often, too, in the early spring-time, the poor little lambs go astray, or meet with some accident, such as being caught in the bushes and being unable to escape. What, then, would become of them but for their four-footed guardian, who summons aid before it is too late, and guides the gentle, silly lambkins and their mothers along the right paths? I think Ted's father and mother did well when they chose for their boy a collie like Cheviott for his companion. Across the stream, just at the foot of the garden path which sloped down from the house, a couple of planks were placed as a bridge. A narrow bridge, and not a very firm one, it must be confessed, and perhaps for that very reason--because there was something a little risky and dangerous about it--Ted, true boy that he was, was particularly fond of crossing it. He liked to stand on it for a minute or two on the way, "jigging" up and down to feel the shaking and trembling of the planks, but that, of course, was only a kind of playing with danger. I don't think he _would_ have much liked a sudden tumble into the mischievous little brook's cold waters, very cold it would have felt, though it looked so browny bright and tempting. And many a bath in the brook Ted would have had, had Chevie been as much carried away by his spirits as his little master. For no sooner did the two set off running from the top of the sloping garden path, than Ted would call out, "A race, Chevie, a race! Who'll be at the bridge first?" And on he would run as fast as his sturdy wee legs could carry him, Cheviott bounding beside him with a great show of also doing _his_ best. But--and wasn't this clever of Chevie?--just a little way on this side of the bridge he would--not stop short, for that might have disappointed Ted and made him feel as if they weren't having a _real_ race, but go gradually more slowly, as if he felt he had no chance of gaining, so that little Ted always reached the bridge first, and stood shouting with glee and triumph. The first time or two that Ted's mother saw this little performance she had been frightened, for if the dog had gone on at full speed, or even only at luggage-train speed, beside the boy, he could not have avoided tumbling him into the brook. But for anything of this kind Cheviott was far too much of a gentleman, and after watching them once or twice, Ted's mother felt perfectly satisfied that the little man could not be better taken care of than by his four-footed friend. There was another friend, too, who could very well be trusted to take care of Ted, for though he had, of course, a very kind, good nurse in the house, nurses are not able to be the whole day long in the garden, nor are they always very fond of being much there. So, even though Ted was still quite a little boy, it was very nice for him to have two such good out-door friends as Cheviott and David the gardener, the other one I am going to tell you of. It was a beautiful spring day. Ted woke up early, and thought to himself how nice and bright and sunny it was going to be in the garden. He was rather in a hurry to be dressed, for there were several things he was in a hurry to do, and the days, in summer time especially, never seemed long enough for all he had before him. Just now these summer days seemed really brimming over with nice things, for his big cousin Percy--at least he was what _Ted_ counted a "big" cousin, and he was a good many years older than Ted--was with him for the holidays, and though Percy had some lessons to do, still they had a good deal of time together. "Ted wonders if Percy is 'decked' yet," said Ted to his nurse. "Decked" was the word he always used for "dressed," and he was often made fun of for using it. His mind was very full of Percy this morning, for he had only arrived the evening before, and besides the pleasure of having him with him, which was _always_ a pleasure, there was the nice newness of it,--the things he had to show Percy, the tricks Chevie had learnt, big dog though he was, the letters and little words Ted had himself mastered since Percy was last there. "I don't know that Master Percy will be ready quite so early this morning," said nurse. "He may be a little tired with travelling yesterday." "Ted doesn't _zink_ Percy will be tired," said Ted. "Percy wants to see the garden. Percy is so big, isn't he, nurse? Percy can throw sticks up in the sky _so_ high. Percy throwed one up in the sky up to heaven, so high that it _never_ comed down again." "Indeed," said nurse; "are you quite sure of that, Master Ted? Perhaps it did come down again, but you didn't see it." Nurse was a sensible person, you see. She did not all at once begin saying to Ted that he was talking nonsense, or worse still that he was telling stories. For very little children often "romance" in a sweet innocent way which has nothing whatever to do with story-telling--I mean _untruth_-telling, for it is better not to call untruths "stories," is it not? The world and the people in it, and the things they see and hear, are all new and strange to the little creatures so lately started on their puzzling journey. What wonder that real and fancy are mixed up together sometimes--that it is difficult to understand that the pretty blue-bells do not sometimes tinkle in the moonlight, or that there are no longer bears in the woods or fairies hidden among the grass? Perhaps it would be better for us if we were _more_ ready to believe even such passed-by fancies, than to be so quick as we sometimes are to accuse others of wishing to deceive. Ted looked at nurse thoughtfully. "P'raps it did," he said. "P'raps it might have comed down again after Ted was a'leep." "I daresay it caught in a tree or something of that kind," said nurse, as she finished brushing Ted's soft curls and lifted him off the chair on which he had been standing, just as Percy put his head in at the door to ask if Ted might have a run in the garden with him before breakfast. "They're not down yet," said Percy, nodding his bright curly head in the direction of Ted's father's and mother's room; "they're not ready. Nurse, do let Ted come out with me for a bit before breakfast," and Ted trotted off, his hand in Percy's, in utmost content. Was there ever so clever and kind and wonderful a big boy as Percy before? Was there ever one who knew so much about _everything_--cricket and croquet and football; skating and fishing and climbing trees--things on earth and things in water--what was there he didn't know? These were the thoughts that were busy in Ted's little brain as he followed kind Percy about the garden, that bright summer morning, chattering incessantly, and yet ready enough to be silent when Percy took it into his head to relate to his tiny adorer some of his school experiences. "Ted will go to school some day, Percy," he said half questioningly. "Of course you will. I hope you'll come to my school if I've not left by then. I could look after you, you know, and see that they didn't bully you." "What's 'bully'?" asked Ted. "Oh, teasing, you know. Setting you down because you're a little chap, and all that. Knocking you about if you don't look sharp. All those kinds of things that big fellows do to small ones." Ted opened his eyes. It was not very clear to him what Percy meant--it was a new idea, and would have distressed him greatly had he quite taken it in that big boys could be anything but good to little ones. "Thoo doesn't knock Ted about, and thoo is big, Percy," he said, remonstratingly. "No, of course I don't, but that's different. You're like my brother, you know." "And bruvvers _couldn't_ knock theirselves about," said Ted with an air of satisfaction. "N-no, I suppose not," said Percy. Boy as he was, he felt somehow that he could not bear to destroy little Ted's beautiful faith. "But never mind about that just now," he added; "let's run down the bank and see how the cabbages and cauliflowers are getting on. They were just put in when I was here last;" and for some time both boys were intensely interested in examining the state of the vegetable beds. "Ted likes f'owers best," said the child, after a few moments' silence. "When Ted----" "Why don't you say 'I' and 'I like,' Teddy?" said Percy. "You're getting such a big boy--four years old." "Ted _means_ I," persisted the small man. "_I_ sall have all f'owers in Ted's garden, when me is big." Percy was obliged to leave off what he was about--hunting for the slugs and caterpillars among the cabbages--in order that he might stand still and laugh. "I'm afraid you wouldn't get the prize for grammar at our school, Ted," he said. But Ted only laughed too. "I haven't learnt grammar," he said slowly and distinctly. "But please, Percy, Ted doesn't like cabbages. Come and see the f'owers. There was lots of c'ocodiles at that side. Ted likes zem best of all, but zem's done now." "_Crocodiles_," said Percy. "What can crocodiles be?" "Little f'owers with pointy leaves," said Ted. "P'raps it isn't c'ocodiles but somesing like coc--coco----" "Crocuses perhaps," said Percy, as they made their way up to the house. "Yes, they're very pretty, but they're soon done." "When I'm big I'll have a garden where they'll _never_ be done," said Ted. "I'll have c'ocodiles and towslips for muzzer and--and----" "Come in to breakfast, my man," called out his father from the dining-room. "What have you been about this morning?" "We'se been in the garden," said Ted, "and Percy's been 'samining the cabbages. He's caught slugs upon slugs, worms upon worms, earwigs upon earwigs." "My dear little boy," said Ted's father, though he couldn't help laughing, "you mustn't learn to exaggerate." "What's 'saggerate?" began Ted, but looking round another idea caught him. "Where's muzzer?" he said suddenly. "Mother is rather tired this morning," said his father. "Eat your breakfast, dear," and then he turned to talk to Percy and ask him questions as to how he was getting on at school. For a minute or two neither of them noticed Ted. He sat quietly at his place, his bowl of bread and milk before him, but he made no attempt to eat it. Then Percy happened to see him. "Aren't you hungry, Ted?" he said. Ted looked up with his two blue eyes full of tears. "Ses," he said, "Ted's hungry. But if muzzer doesn't come down Ted can't eat. Ted won't eat nothing all day, and he'll die." "Not quite so bad as that," said his father quietly, for he did not want Ted to see that it was difficult not to smile at his funny way of speaking, "for see here is mother coming." Ted danced off his seat with pleasure. "It's dedful when thoo's not here," he said feelingly, and now the bread and milk was quickly despatched. "When I'm big," he continued, in the intervals of the spoonfuls, "I'll have a house as big--as big as a mountain," his eyes glancing out of the window, "and all the little boys in the world shall live there with all their favers and muzzers, and Percies, and everybodies, and nobody shall never go away, not to school or bidness, or nothing, so that they'll all be togever always." Ted looked round for approval, and then took another spoonful. "What a nice place you'll make of the world, my boy, when you're big," said his father. "Ses," said Ted with satisfaction. "But as that time hasn't come yet, I'm afraid I _must_ go to my 'bidness,'" his father went on. For he had to go several times a week a good way into the country, to see that his men were all doing their work properly. "And Percy must go with me to-day," he went on, "for he needs some new clothes, and I shall be driving through A----," which was the nearest town to which they lived. Percy's face looked very pleased, but Ted's grew rather sad. "Never mind, Teddy," whispered Percy. "We'll have lots of days. You must have a good game with Chevie to keep up your spirits." "And David is going to cut the grass to-day," said his father, "so you will have plenty of fun." "But Ted must be careful," said his mother; "don't touch David's sharp tools, Ted. I was quite frightened the other day," she added; "Ted was trying to open and shut those great big shears for clipping the borders." "Zem was sticked fast," said Ted. "Zem opens kite easy sometimes." "Well, don't you touch them any way," said his mother, laughing. But though Ted said "No," I don't feel sure that he really heard what his mother was saying. His wits were already off, I don't know where to--running after Cheviott perhaps, or farther away still, up among the little clouds that were scudding across the blue sky that he caught sight of out of the window. And then his father and Percy set off, and his mother went away about her housekeeping, sending Ted up to the nursery, and telling him that he might ask nurse to put his big blouse on, so that he might play about the garden without risk of soiling his clothes. Ted felt, for him, a very little sad as he trotted out into the garden. He had hoped for such a nice merry day with Percy. But low spirits never troubled him long. Off he set with Cheviott for the race down to the little bridge, always the first bit of Ted's programme, and careful Chevie as usual pulled up in plenty of time to avoid any risk of toppling his master into the brook. Arrived on the bridge, Ted stood still and "jigged" a little as usual. Then he peered down at the shiny water with the bright brown pebbles sparkling up through it, and wondered what it would feel like to be a little fish. "Little fisses," he said to himself, "always has each other to play with. They don't go to school, and they hasn't no bidness, nor no cooks that they must be such a long time ordering the dinners with, nor--nor beds to make and stockings to mend. I wish nurse would 'tum out this morning. Ted doesn't like being all alone. Ted would like somebody littler to play with, 'cos then they wouldn't go to school or out d'ives with papa." But just as he was thinking this, he caught sight of some one coming across the garden, and his ideas took another turn at once. "David, old David," he cried, "is thoo going to cut the grass? Do let me come and help thoo, David." And he ran back across the bridge again and made his way to David as fast as he could. "Good morning, Master Ted," said the gardener. "Is it beautiful day, Master Ted, to be sure. Yes indeed." "Ses," agreed Ted. "Good morning, old David. I'm going to stay out in the garden a long time, a tevible long time, 'cos it's such a sprendid lovely day. What is thoo going to do, David? Can't Ted help thoo?" "I am going to cut the grass, Master Ted, but I not be very long--no; for it is only the middle that's be cut. All the rest stand for hay, to be sure. Ay, indeed." "And when will the hay be cuttened?" inquired Ted. "That's be as Master order, and not as Master can choose neither--no," said David. "He not able to make for the sun to shine; no, indeed; nor the rain neither,--no." "'_Dod_ sends rain and sun," said Ted, reverently, but yet looking at David with a sort of curiosity. "Well, indeed you are right, Master Ted. Yes, yes. But I must get on with my work. God gives us work to do, too; ay, indeed; and them as not work never expect to eat, no, never; they not care for their victual anyhow if they not work for it. No." Ted looked rather puzzled. "Ted eats," he said,--"not victuals--Ted doesn't know that meat--but bread and butter, and tea, and potatoes, and rice pudding, and meat, and _sometimes_ 'tawberry jam and apple pie and--and--lots of things. And Ted likes zem very much, but him doesn't work." "I not know for that, Master Ted," said David, "is it all kinds of work; ay, indeed; and I see you very near always busy--dear me, yes; working very good, Master Ted--ay." Illustration: "I wish thoo'd let me help thoo to cut the grass."--P. 32. "I _like_ to be busy. I wish thoo'd let me help thoo to cut the grass," said Ted, eyeing David wistfully, as he started his big scythe, for the old gardener knew nothing of mowing machines, and would most likely have looked upon them with great contempt. But he stopped short a moment to look down at wee Ted, staring up at him and wishing to be in his place. "No, indeed, Master Ted _bach_!" he said; "you soon have your cliver little legs and arms cut to pieces, if you use with my scythe, Master Ted--ay, indeed, d'rectly. It look easy, to be sure, but it not so easy even for a cliver man like you, Master Ted--no, indeed. But I tell you what you shall do. You shall help to make the grass to a heaps, and then I put it in a barrow and wheel it off. Ay, indeed; that be the best." This proposal was very much to Ted's taste. Chevie and he, at a safe distance from David's scythe, thought it great fun to toss about the soft fine grass and imagine they were helping David tremendously. And after a while, when Chevie began to think he had had enough of it, and with a sort of condescending growl by way of explanation, stretched himself out in the sunshine for a little forenoon sleep, David left off cutting, and, with Ted's help of course, filled the barrow and wheeled it off to the corner where the grass was to lie to be out of the way. It was beginning to be rather hot, though still quite early, and Ted's face grew somewhat red with his exertions as he ran beside David. "You better ride now; jump in, Master Ted," said the gardener, when his barrow was empty. So he lifted him in and wheeled him back to the lawn, which was _quite_ after Ted's own heart. "Isn't thoo going to cut with thoo's big scissors?" said Ted after a while. "It is want oiling," said David, "and I forget to do them. I shall leave the borders till after dinner,--ay, sure," and he was going on with his scything when suddenly a voice was heard from the house calling him. "David, David, you're wanted," said the voice, and then the cook made her appearance at the side of the house. "There's a note to take to----." They could not hear to where, but David had to go. He glanced round him, and, afraid of Ted's experiments, shouldered his scythe and walked off with it for fear of accidents. "Are you going in, Master Ted?" he asked. "Nurse is going to call me when she's ready," said Ted composedly, and knowing that the little fellow often played about by himself for a while, good David left him without any more anxiety. He had got his scythe safe, he never thought of the big pair of shears he had left lying in the grass! Now these gigantic "scissors" as he called them had always had a wonderful attraction for Ted. He used to think how funny they would look beside the very tiny fine pair his mother worked with--the pretty scissors that lay in her little case lined with velvet and satin. Ted had not, in those days, heard of Gulliver and his strange adventures, but if he had, one might have imagined that to his fancy the two pairs of scissors were like a Brobdignag and a Lilliputian. And no sooner had David disappeared than unfortunately the great scissors caught his eyes. "Zem's still sticked fast," he said to himself. "David says zem needs oil. Wiss I had some oil. P'raps the fissy oil to make Ted grow big would do. But the scissors is big enough. Ted wonders if the fissy oil would make zem bigger. Zem _couldn't_ be much bigger." Ted laughed a little to himself at the funny fancy. Then he sat and stared at the scissors. What did they remind him of? Ah yes, they were like the shears of "the great, long, red-legged scissor man," in the wonderful story of "Conrad Suck-a-thumb," in his German picture-book. Almost, as he gazed at them, it seemed to Ted that the figure of the scissors man would suddenly dart out from among the bushes and seize his property. "But him wouldn't cut _Ted's_ fumbs," thought the little man to himself, "'cos Ted _never_ sucks zem. What a pity the scissors is sticked fast! Poor David can't cut with zem. P'raps Ted could oilen zem for poor David! Ted will go and get some fissy oil." No sooner thought than done. Up jumped Ted, and was starting off to the house when a growl from Cheviott made him stop. The dog had just awakened, and seeing his little master setting off somewhere thought it his business to inquire where to and why. He lifted his head and gave it a sort of sleepy shake, then growled again, but gently of course. "What did thoo say, Chevie?" said Ted. "Did thoo want to know where I was going? Stay here, Chevie. Ted will be back in a minute--him's on'y going to get some fissy oil to oilen poor David's scissors." And off he set, though a third growl from Cheviott followed him as he ran. "What does Chevie mean?" thought Ted. "P'raps him's thinking muzzer said Ted mustn't touch zem big scissors. But muzzer on'y meant Ted wasn't to cutten with zem. Muzzer would _like_ Ted to help poor David," and, his conscience quite at rest, he trotted on contentedly. CHAPTER III. WISHES AND FEARS. _Children._ "Here are the nails, and may we help? _Jessie._ You shall if I should want help. _Children._ Will you want it then? Please want it--we like helping." There was no one in the nursery, fortunately for Ted's plans. _Un_fortunately rather, we should perhaps say, for if nurse had been there, she would have asked for what he wanted the little bottle which had held the cod-liver oil, that he had lately left off taking, but of which a few drops still remained. Ted climbed on to a chair and reached the shelf where it stood, and in two minutes he was off again, bottle in hand, in triumph. He found Cheviott lying still, where he had left him; he looked up and yawned as Ted appeared, and then growled with an air of satisfaction. It was sometimes a little difficult for Chevie to decide exactly how _much_ care he was to take of Ted. After all, a little two-legged boy that could talk was not _quite_ the same as a lamb, or even a sheep. He could not run round him barking, to prevent his trotting where he wished--there were plainly some things Ted had to do with and understood which Chevie's dog-experience did not reach to. So Cheviott lay there and blinked his honest eyes in the sunshine, and stared at Ted and wondered what he was after now! For Ted was in a very tip-top state of delight! He sat down cross-legged on the grass, drew the delicious big shears to him--they were heavy for him even to pull--and uncorking the bottle of "fissy" oil, began operations. "Zem _is_ sticked fast, to be soore," he said to himself, adopting David's favourite expression, as he tugged and tugged in vain. "If thoo could hold one side and Ted the other, they would soon come loosened," he observed to Cheviott. But Cheviott only growled faintly and blinked at his master sleepily, and after a good deal more tugging Ted did manage to open the shears, which indeed at last flew apart so sharply that the boy toppled over with the shock, and rolled for a moment or two on the grass, though happily not on the shears, before he recovered his balance. Laughing merrily, he pulled himself up again. Luckily the bottle had not been overturned. Ted poured a drop or two carefully on to his fingers, quite regardless of the fishy smell, and proceeded to anoint the scissors. This he repeated several times, polishing them all over till they shone, but not understanding that _the_ place where the oil was needed was the hinge, he directed the best of his attention to the general shininess. Then he sat and looked at them admiringly. "_Won't_ David be p'eased?" he said. "Zem's oilened all over now. Ted must see if they don't sticken fast now." With nearly as much difficulty as he had had to open them, Ted now managed to shut them. "Zem's better," thought the busy little man, "but Ted must see how they cut." He laid them flat on the grass, at a place where the blades had not been completely sheared by the scythe. Tug number one--the oil had really done some good, they opened more easily--tug number two, behold them gaping--tug number three, they bite the grass, and Ted is just going to shout in triumph when a quick shock of pain stabs through him. He had been kneeling almost _on_ the shears, and their cruel jaws had snipped, with the grass, the tender fleshy part of his poor little leg! It was not the pain that frightened him so much as the feeling held fast by the now dreadful scissors. "David, David," he cried, "oh, please come. Nurse, please come. Ted has cuttened hisself." His little voice sounded clear and shrill in the summer quiet of the peaceful garden, and nurse, who had been hastening to come out to him, heard it from the open window. David too was on his way back, and poor Ted was soon released. But it was a bad cut--he had to be carried into the house to have it bathed and sponged and tenderly bound up by mother's fingers. He left off crying when he saw how sorry mother looked. "Ted is _so_ sorry to t'ouble thoo," he said. "And mother is sorry for Ted," she replied. "But, my dear little boy," she went on, when the poor leg was comfortable and its owner forgetting its pain on mother's knee, "don't you remember that mother told you not to touch David's tools?" "Oh ses," he replied. "Ted wouldn't touch zem for hisself, but it was to _help David_," and the innocent confidence with which he looked up in her face went to his mother's heart. "But _still_, dear Ted, you must try to understand that what mother says, you must do exactly. Mother likes you to be kind and helping to people, but still mother knows better than you, and that is why, when she tells you things, you must remember to do what she says." Ted looked grave and a little puzzled, and seeing this his mother thought it best to say no more just then. The lesson of obedience was one that Ted found rather puzzling, you see, but what his mother had said had made a mark in his mind. He thought about it often, and as he grew bigger other things happened, as you will hear, to make him think of it still more. It was rather a trial to Ted not to be able to run about as usual that afternoon, for had he done so, the cut might have begun to bleed again, so he had to sit still in the nursery, looking out at the window and hoping and hoping that Percy would soon come back. Once David and his barrow passed underneath, and the gardener called up to know if Master Ted's leg was better. Ted shook his head rather dolefully. "Him's better," he said, "but Ted can't run about. Ted's so sad, David. Muzzer's got letters to write and Percy's out." A kind thought struck David. He went round to the drawing-room window and tapped at it gently. Ted's mother was writing there. Might he wheel Master Ted in his barrow to the part of the garden where he was working?--he would take good care of him--"the little gentleman never cut himself if I with him--no, indeed; I make him safe enough." And Ted's mother consented gladly. So in a few minutes he was comfortably installed on a nice heap of dry grass, with Cheviott close beside him and David near at hand. "You never touch my tools again, Master Ted, for a bit; no, to be sure; do you now?" said David. "No," said Ted. "Muzzer says I mustn't. But wasn't the big scissors nicely oilened, David?" "Oh, fust rate--ay," said David. "Though I not say it is a cliver smell--no. I not like the smell, Master Ted." "Never mind," replied Ted reassuringly. "Ted will ask muzzer for some cock-alone for thoo. Thoo can put some on the scissors." "What's that, Master Ted?" inquired David, who was not at all above getting information out of his little master. "Cock-alone," repeated Ted. "Oh, it's somesing that smells very nice. I don't know what it is. I thing it must be skeesed out of f'owers. I'll run and get thoo some now, David, this minute," and he was on the point of clambering to his feet when the stiff feeling of his bandaged leg stopped him. "Oh, I forgot," he exclaimed regretfully. "Yes indeed, Master Ted. You not walk a great deal to-day, to be sure--no, indeed--for a bit; ay." Ted lay still for a minute or two. He was gazing up at the sky, which that afternoon was very pure and beautiful. "Who paints the sky, David?" he said suddenly. "Well indeed, Master Ted, I not think you ask me such a foolis' question, Master Ted _bach_!" said David. "Who's make a sky and a sea and everything so?" "'Dod," said Ted. "Oh, I know that. But I thoughtened p'raps 'Dod put somebody up there to paint it. It was _so_ pitty last night, David--_all_ tolours--Ted tan't say zem all. Why isn't there many tolours now, David?" "I not know for sure," said David, stopping a moment in his work and looking up at the sky. "Ted _thought_," continued the little fellow slowly, "Ted _thought_ p'raps 'Dod's paints was getting done. Could that be why?" David was rather matter-of-fact, and I don't know that that made him any the worse a companion for Ted, whose brain was already quite full enough of fancies. So he did not smile at Ted's idea, but answered quite gravely, "No indeed, Master Ted, I not think that untall." "If on'y Ted could fly," the child continued in a minute or two, as just then a flock of birds made their graceful way between his gazing eyes and the clear blue vault above. "How pittily birds flies, don't they, David? If Ted could fly he'd soon find out all about the sky and everysing. And it wouldn't matter then that him had hurt his leg. _Couldn't_ Ted learn to fly, David?" Ted was soaring too far above poor David's head already for him to know what to answer. What could he say but "No indeed, Master Ted," again? He had never heard tell of any one that could fly except the angels. For David was fond of going to church, or chapel rather, and though he could not read Ted's Bible, he could read his own very well. "Angels," said Ted. The word started his busy fancy off in a fresh direction. He lay looking up still, watching now the lovely little feathery clouds that began to rise as the sun declined, and fancying they were angels with wings softly floating hither and thither in the balmy air. He watched one little group, which seemed to him like three angels with their arms twined together, so long, that at last his eyes grew rather tired of watching and their little white blinds closed over them softly. Little Ted had fallen asleep. "So, so; dear me, he tired," said old David, as, surprised at the unusual silence, he turned to see what Ted was about. "Bless him, he tired very bad with his cliver talk and the pain; ay--but, indeed, he not one to make fuss--no. He a brave little gentleman, Master Ted--ay, indeed," and the kind old man lifted the boy's head so that he should lie more comfortably, and turned his wheelbarrow up on one side to shade him from the sun. Ted smiled in his sleep as David looked at him. Shall I tell you what made him smile? In his sleep he had got his wish. He dreamt that he was flying. This was the dream that came to him. He fancied he was running down the garden path with Chevie, when all at once Chevie seemed to disappear, and where he had been there stood a pretty snow-white lamb. With an eager cry Ted darted forward to catch it, and laid his hand on its soft woolly coat, when--it was no lamb but a little cloud he was trying to grasp. And wonderful to say, the little cloud seemed to float towards him and settle itself on his shoulders, and then all of himself Ted seemed to find out that it had turned into wings! "Ted can fly, Ted can fly!" he cried with delight, or _thought_ he cried. In reality it was just then that David lifted his head, and feeling himself moving, Ted fancied it was the wings lifting him upward, and gave the pleased smile which David noticed. Fly! I should think so. He mounted and mounted, higher and higher, the white wings waving him upwards in the most wonderful way, till at last he found himself right up in the blue sky where he had so wished to be. And ever so many--lots and lots of other little white things were floating or flying about, and, looking closely at them, Ted saw that they were not little clouds as they seemed at first, but wings--all pairs of beautiful white wings, and dear little faces were peeping out from between them. They were all little children like himself. "Come and play, Ted, come and play. Ted, _Ted_, TED!" they cried so loud, that Ted opened his eyes--his real waking eyes, not his dream ones--sharply, and there he was, lying on the soft grass heap, not up in the sky among the cloud-children at all! At first he was rather disappointed. But as he was thinking to himself whether it was worth while to try to go to sleep again and go on with his dream, he heard himself called as before, "Ted, _Ted_, TED." And looking up he forgot all about everything else when he saw, running down the sloping banks as fast as his legs would carry him, Percy, his dear Percy! Ted jumped up--even his wounded leg couldn't keep him still now. "Was it thoo calling me, Percy?" he said. "I was d'eaming, do thoo know--_such_ a funny d'eam? But I'm so glad thoo's come back, Percy. Oh, Ted _is_ so glad." Then all the day's adventures had to be related--the accident with the scissors and the drive in the wheelbarrow, and the funny dream. And in his turn Percy had to tell of all he had seen and done and heard--the shops he had been at in the little town, and what he had had for luncheon and--and--the numberless trifles that make up the interest of a child's day. "Does thoo think there's any shop where we could get _wings_, Percy?" asked Ted. He had the vaguest ideas as to what "shops" were, but Percy had been telling him of the beautiful little boats he had seen at a toy-shop in the market-place, "boats with white sails and all rigged just like real ones;" and if boats with white sails were to be got, why not white wings? "Wings!" exclaimed Percy. "What sort of wings do you mean, Teddy?" "Wings for little boys," Ted explained. "Like what I was d'eaming about. It would be so nice to fly, Percy." "Beautiful, wouldn't it?" agreed Percy. "But nobody can fly, Ted. Nobody _could_ make wings that would be any use for people. People can't fly." "But little boys, Percy," persisted Ted. "Little boys isn't so very much bigger than birds. Oh, you don't know how _lovely_ it feels to fly. Percy, _do_ let us try to make some wings." But Percy's greater experience was less hopeful. "I'm afraid it would be no use," he said. "People have often tried. I've heard stories of it. They only tumbled down." "Did they hurt themselves?" asked Ted. "I expect so," Percy replied. Just then David, who was passing by, stopped to tell the boys that some one was calling them in from the house. "Is it your papa, Master Ted; yes, I think," he said. Ted's leg was feeling less stiff and painful now. He could walk almost as well as usual. When they got to the house-door his father was waiting for him. He had heard of Ted's misfortune, and there was rather a comical smile on his face as he stooped to kiss his little boy. "I want you to come in to see Mr. Brand," he said. "He says he hasn't seen you for a long time, little Ted." Ted raised his blue eyes to his father's face with a rather puzzled expression. "Whom's Mr. Brand?" he asked. "Why, don't you remember him, Teddy?" said Percy. "That great big gentleman--so awfully tall." Ted did not reply, but he seemed much impressed. "Is him a diant?" he asked, gravely. "Very nearly, I should say," said Percy, laughing, and then, as he had already seen Mr. Brand, who had met Ted's father on his way back from A----, Percy ran off in another direction, and Ted followed his father into the drawing-room. Mr. Brand was sitting talking to Ted's mother, but just as the door opened, he rose from his seat and came forward. "I was just going to ask you if--ah! here's your little boy," he said to Ted's father. Then, sitting down again, he drew Ted between his knees and looked kindly at the small innocent face. He was very fond of children, but he did not know much about them, and Ted, looking and feeling rather overawed, stood more silently than usual, staring seriously at the visitor. He was very tall and very big. Whether he quite came up to Ted's idea of a "diant" I cannot tell. But queer fancies began to chase each other round the boy's brain. There had been a good deal to excite and upset the little fellow--at no time a strong child--that day, and his dream when lying asleep on the grass had added to it all. And now, as he stood looking up at big Mr. Brand, a strange confusion of ideas filled his mind--of giants tall enough to reach the sky, to catch and bring down some of the cloud-wings Ted wished so for, interspersed with wondering if it was "fissy oil" that had made this big man so very big. If he, Ted, were to take a great, great lot of fissy oil, would _he_ grow as big and strong? Would he be able to cut the grass like David perhaps, to run faster than Percy--to--to I don't know what--for at this moment Mr. Brand's voice brought him back from his fancies. "What an absent-minded little fellow he is," Mr. Brand was saying, for he had been speaking to Ted two or three times without the child's paying any attention. "Not generally," said Ted's mother. "He is usually very wide-awake to all that is going on. What are you thinking of, Ted, dear?" "Yes," said Mr. Brand. "Tell us what you've got in your head. Are you thinking that I'm a very tiny little man--the tiniest little man you ever saw?" "No," said Ted solemnly, without the least smile, at which his mother was rather surprised. For, young though he was, Ted was usually very quick at seeing a joke. But he just said "No," and stared again at Mr. Brand, without another word. "Then what were you thinking--that I'm the very _biggest_ man you ever did see?" "Ses," said Ted, gravely still, but with a certain light in his eyes which encouraged Mr. Brand to continue his questions. "And what more? Were you wishing you were as big as I am?" Ted hesitated. "I'd _rather_ fly," he said. "But Percy says nobody can fly. I'd like to be big if I could get up very high." "How high?" said Mr. Brand. "Up to the top of the mountain out there?" "Is the mountain as high as the clouds?" asked Ted. "Yes," said Mr. Brand; "when you're up at the very top, you can look down on the clouds." Ted looked rather puzzled. "I'll tell you what," the gentleman went on, amused by the expression of the child's face, "I'll tell you what--as I'm so big, supposing I take you to the top of the mountain--we'll go this very afternoon. I'll take a jug of cold water and a loaf of bread, and leave it with you there so that you'll have something to eat, and then you can stay there quite comfortable by yourself and find out all you want to know. You'd like that, wouldn't you? to be all by yourself on the top of the mountain?" He looked at Ted in a rather queer way as he said it. The truth was that Mr. Brand, who though so big was not very old, was carried away by the fun (to _him_) of watching the puzzled look on the child's face, and forgot that what to him was a mere passing joke might be very different to the tender little four-years-old boy. Ted's face grew rather white, he edged away a little from this strange gentleman, whom he could not make out, but who was so big that Ted felt it impossible to doubt his being able to do anything he wished. "You'd like that, wouldn't you?" he repeated, quite gravely, and glancing at Ted with slightly knitted brows which made the boy suddenly think of some of the "ogre" stories he had heard. "No," said Ted bluntly. But he was afraid to say more. Ogres didn't like to be contradicted, and perhaps--_perhaps_ this strange man really thought he _would_ like it, and really meant to please him. Any way, it would never do to answer rudely, though Ted's face grew still paler, when his glance fell on the mountain peak clearly to be seen out of the window from where he stood, and a little shiver ran through him when he thought that perhaps he would have to go, whether he liked it or not. He edged away still farther, but it was no use. Mr. Brand had put his arm round him, and there was no getting away, when suddenly a noise outside the window caught the gentleman's attention and he started up. It was his dog barking loudly, and Mr. Brand, fearing he might have got into some mischief, stepped out through the glass door to see. Ted was on the alert, and before any one in the room had noticed him he was off. Where should he go to? He dared not hide in the garden, for there he might be seen, especially as Mr. Brand was running about after his dog; he would not go up to the nursery, for nurse would ask him why he had not stayed downstairs; he did not even wish to find Percy, for though he could not have explained why, he felt that it would be impossible for him to tell _any one_ of the strange terror that Mr. Brand's joke had awakened. He felt ashamed of it, afraid too that if, as he vaguely thought might be the case, the offer had been made in real earnest and with a wish to please him, his dislike to it would be ungrateful and unkind. Indeed poor Ted was more troubled than he ever remembered to have been in his whole little life--he could think of nothing for it but to hide till all danger was past. A brilliant idea struck him--he would go and pay a visit to cook! It was not very often he went into the kitchen, and no one would look for him there. And cook was kind, very kind when not very busy. So with a slight shudder as, running past the open front-door, he caught sight of the well-known mountain peak, frowning at him, as it seemed now, for the first time in his life, Ted made his way to cook's quarters. She was not in the kitchen, but hearing some one coming, she called out from the back kitchen where she was. That was better still, every step the farther from the drawing-room, or from Mr. Brand rather, was a gain. So Ted trotted into the back kitchen, and to prevent cook's thinking there was anything the matter asked her if he might play with the cat. He found a piece of string, to which cook tied a cork, and as pussy was really more of a kitten than a cat, he amused himself for some time by making her run after it, whistling now and then to keep up his heart, though had cook looked at him closely she could have seen how white he was, and how every now and then he threw frightened glances over his shoulder. "Your leg's better, Master Ted?" said cook. "Oh ses, zank thoo," said Ted. "Him's much better." "You'll have to take care never to touch sharp tools again, won't you?" she went on, as she bustled about with her work. "Ses," he said again. But he did not speak with his usual heartiness, and cook, who, like all the servants, loved the bright, gentle little fellow, looked at him rather anxiously. Suddenly a sound was heard--wheels on the gravel drive. "What's that, cook?" said Ted, starting. "Only the gentleman's dog-cart--the gentleman that's been to see your papa. He's going away," said cook composedly. Ted hurried into the kitchen. From the window the drive could be seen by big people, though not by him. "Lift me up on the table, please, cook," he said, and when cook good-naturedly did so, and he saw the giant really, actually driving away, Ted could almost have cried with pleasure. But his fears and his relief he kept in his own little heart. "Zank thoo, cook," he said gravely, but with the pretty courtesy he never forgot. "Zank thoo, and please lift me down again." "He's a funny little fellow," said cook to herself, as she watched Ted trot off. "I wonder what he'd got in his mind, bless him." Ted reappeared in the drawing-room. "Where have you been, dear?" said his mother. "We were looking about for you to say good-bye to Mr. Brand. Where did you go to?" "Ted were in the kitchen, 'peaking to cook," he replied. "But why did you go away, dear, while Mr. Brand was here?" asked his mother. "Were you frightened of his dog?" "No," said Ted, "Ted's never frightened of dogs." "No, dear, I know you're not," said his mother. But she did not feel satisfied. Her little boy did not look the same as usual somehow. Still she felt it was better to ask no more--after a while Ted would perhaps tell her of himself. And she did well, for it would have been almost impossible for him to tell his mingled feelings. "Muzzer likes that big man," he was thinking to himself. "Muzzer thinks he's kind. It's naughty and unkind of Ted to be frightened," and so the loyal little man kept silence. And it was not for a long time--not till Ted himself had learnt to "understand" a little better, that even his mother understood the whole. CHAPTER IV. THE STORY OF SUNNY. "Of course he was the giant, With beard as white as snow." But whenever Mr. Brand, poor man, came to call, Ted was sure in some mysterious way to disappear. After a while his mother began to notice it, though, as Mr. Brand did not come very often, she did not do so all at once. She noticed, however, another thing which she was sorry for. Ted took a dislike to the big mountain. It was a great pity, for before that he had been so fond of it--so fond of watching the different expressions, "looks" Ted called them, that it wore according to the time of day, or the time of year, or the weather. And his father and mother had been pleased to see him so "noticing," for such a little boy; they thought it showed, as indeed it did, that he was likely to grow into a happy-minded and happy-hearted man. But now it was quite different. When he sat on his mother's knee in the drawing-room he would turn his little face to the side away from the window so that he should not see the towering mountain-head. He would never laugh at his old friend's putting on his nightcap of mist, as he used to do, and all his pretty fancies about being able to reach the dear little stars if he were up on the top peak of all, were spoilt. "Something has frightened Ted," said his mother to his father one day. "I wonder what it can be. I know _you_ wouldn't frighten him, dear," she added, turning to Percy who was in the room, though of course _Ted_ was not there, otherwise his mother would not have said it, "but still, has there been anything in your play that could have done so? Have you been talking about mountains, or telling stories about them?" "No," said Percy, thoughtfully; "I'm sure there has been nothing. Shall I ask Ted about it? Perhaps he wouldn't mind telling me, not even as much as----" Percy stopped and grew a little red. He was a boy of nice feelings, not rough and knock-about in his ways like many schoolboys. "Not even as much as telling _me_, you were going to say," said Ted's mother, smiling. "Never mind, dear. I daresay it _would_ be easier for him to tell you, and I am very glad my little boy has such a kind Percy to talk to. But I think perhaps it is better to say nothing to him. We may find it out by degrees, and if it is only a sort of fancy--he may have seen the mountain looking gloomy some evening--it may fade away of itself more quickly if we don't notice it." That day was a very bright and lovely one. Ted's mother thought to herself she would like to do something to make Ted, and Percy too, "extra" happy, for the weeks had been running on fast--it would soon be time for Percy, not being a little fish, to go back to school. And Percy's big sister was with them too just then. She was even bigger than Percy, so of course Ted thought her _quite_ grown up, though in reality she was a good many years off being so. She was very nice any way, with a gentle pretty face and kind eyes, and though she was not very old she was very clever at telling stories, which is a most delightful thing in a big sister or cousin--is it not? And she was also able to sing very prettily, another delightful thing, or at least so Ted thought, for he _was_ so fond of singing. This big girl's name was Mabel. And after thinking a while and talking about it to Mabel, Ted's mother thought the nicest thing would be to have tea in a lonely little nesty place in the gorge between the mountains that I have told you of. We were to go there with Ted and Cheviott some day, by the by, were we not? Well, never mind, Cheviott shall be--that is to say he _was_--of the gipsy tea-party, so that will come to the same thing, will it not? They all set off--Ted's father and mother, another gentleman and lady who were staying for the summer in a cottage not far off, that they might be near their friends, their daughter who was _really_ grown up, and Mabel and Percy and Ted. You can fancy the bread and butter there was to cut, the home-made cake, the tea and sugar and cream that must not be forgotten. And when all the baskets were ready and everybody was helping and planning how to carry them, who do you think got hold of the biggest of all and was trying to lug it along? Who but our four-years-old Ted? "My boy, my boy," cried his mother, laughing, for he did look comical--the basket being really very nearly as big as himself and his little face already quite red with the exertion, "you cannot possibly take that basket. Why, _I_ could scarcely carry it." "But boys is stronger than muzzers," said Ted gravely, and it was really with difficulty that they could persuade him to give it up, and only then by letting him carry another which _looked_ nearly as important but was in reality much lighter, as it only held the tablecloth and the teapot and teaspoons. I have not told you about the gorge--not told you, I mean, how lovely it was. Nor if I talked about it for hours could I half describe its beauty. In spring time perhaps it was the prettiest of all, for then it was rich in the early blossoms and flowers that are so quickly over, and that seem to us doubly precious after the flower famine of the winter. But not even in the early spring time, with all the beauty of primroses and violets, could the gorge look lovelier than it did this summer afternoon. For the ferns and bracken never seemed dusty and withered in this favoured place--the grass and moss too, kept their freshness through all the hot days as if tended by fairy fingers. It was thanks to the river you see--the merry beautiful little river that came dancing down the centre of this mountain-pass, at one part turning itself into a waterfall, then, as if tired, for a little flowing along more quietly through a short space of less precipitous road. But always beautiful, always kindly and generous to the happy dwellers on its banks, keeping them cool in the hottest days, tossing here and there its spray of pearly drops as if in pretty fun. On each side of the water ran a little footpath, and here and there roughly-made rustic bridges across it tempted you to see if the other side was as pretty as this, though when you had stood still to consider about it you found it impossible to say! The paths were here and there almost completely hidden, for they were so little trodden that the moss had it all its own way with them, and sometimes too it took a scramble and a climb to fight one's way through the tangled knots and fallen fragments of rock which encumbered them. But now and then there came a bit of level ground where the gorge widened slightly, and then the path stopped for a while in a sort of glade from which again it emerged on the other side. It was in one of these glades that Ted's mother arranged the gipsy tea. Can you imagine a prettier place for a summer day's treat? Overhead the bluest of blue skies and sunshine, tempered by the leafy screen-work of the thickly growing trees; at one side the soft rush of the silvery river, whose song was here low and gentle, though one could hear in the distance the boom of the noisy waterfall; at the other side the mountain slope, whose short brown slippery turf seemed to tempt one to a climb. And close at hand the wealth of ferns and bracken and flowers that I have told you of--a little higher up strange gleaming balls of many kinds of fungus, yellow and orange, and even scarlet, flamed out as if to rival the softer tints of the trailing honeysuckle and delicate convolvulus and pink foxglove below. It was a lovely dream of fairyland, and the knowing that not far away the waves of the broad blue sea were gently lapping the sandy shore seemed somehow to make it feel all the lovelier. The tea of course was a great success--when was a gipsy tea, unless people are _very_ cross-tempered and fidgety and difficult to please, anything else? The kettle did its duty well, for the water boiled in it beautifully on the fire of dry sticks and leaves which Percy and Mabel, and busy Ted _of course_, had collected. The tea tasted very good--"not 'moky at all," said Ted; the slices of bread and butter and cake disappeared in a wonderful way, till at last everybody said "No, thank you, not any more," when the boys handed round the few disconsolate-looking pieces that remained. And after this there was the fun of washing up and packing away, in which Ted greatly distinguished himself. He would not leave the least shred of paper or even crumbs about, for the fairies would be angry, he said, if their pretty house wasn't left "kite tidy." And Percy and Mabel were amused at his fancy, and naturally enough it set them talking about fairies and such like. For the children were by themselves now--the ladies had gone on a little farther to a place where Ted's mother wanted to sketch, and the gentlemen had set off to climb to the nearest peak, from whence there was a beautiful view of the sea. It would have been too much for Ted, and indeed when his father had asked him if he would like to go part of the way with them, both his mother and Percy noticed that a troubled look came over his happy face, as he said he would rather stay where he was, which was strange for him, for though such a little boy, he was always eager for a climb and anxious to do whatever he saw any one else doing. So kind Percy, mindful of Ted's mother's words, said he would not go either, and stayed with the others, helping them to tidy up the fairies' house. "Now," said Ted at last, sitting down on the grass at Mabel's feet, "now I _sink_ the fairies will be p'eased. It's all kite tidy. Fairies is always angry if peoples is untidy." "I thought fairies were always in a good humour," said Percy. "I didn't know they were ever angry." "Oh, I think Ted's right," said Mabel. "They are angry with people who are dirty or untidy. Don't you remember a story about them coming to work in a house where the kitchen was always left tidy at night? And they never would come to the next house because it was always in a mess." "P'ease tell me that story, Mabel," said Ted. "I'm afraid I don't remember it very well," she replied. "Do you remember," said Percy, who was lying on the ground staring up at the sky and the bit of brown mountain peak that could be seen from where he was, "do you remember, Mab, the story of a little boy that fell asleep on the top of a mountain, and the fairies spirited him away, and took him down to their country, down inside the mountain? And he thought he had only been away--when he came home again, I mean, for they had to let him out again after a while--he thought he had only been away a day or two, and, fancy, it had been twenty years! All the children had grown big, and the young people middle-aged, and the middle-aged people quite old, and none of them knew him again. He had lost all his childhood. Wasn't it sad?" "Yes, _very_" said Mabel; "I remember the story." "I think it's dedful," said Ted. "I don't like mountains, and I don't like diants. I'll never go up a mountain, never." "But it wasn't the mountain's fault, Ted," said Percy. "And it wasn't giants, it was fairies." "I sink p'raps it was diants," persisted Ted. "I don't like zem. Mr. Brand is a diant," he added mysteriously, in a low voice. Percy had been thinking of what Ted's mother had said. Now he felt sure that it was something to do with Mr. Brand that had frightened the little fellow. But Mabel did not know about it. "I like mountains," she said. "Indeed I love them. I am always so glad to live where I can see their high peaks reaching up into the sky." "But it wouldn't be nice to be alone, kite alone, on the top of one of zem, would it?" said Ted. "No, it wouldn't be nice to be alone in any far-off place like that," said Percy, "but of course nobody would ever stay up on the top of a mountain alone." "But if zem was _made_ to," said Ted doubtfully. "I wouldn't mind so much if I had Chevie," he added, putting his arm round the dear doggie's neck and leaning his little fair head on him, for of course Chevie was of the party. "Poor Ted," said Percy, laughing. "No one would ever make _you_ live up all alone on the top of a mountain. Mabel, I wish you'd tell us a story," he said to his sister. "It's so nice here. I shall go to sleep if somebody doesn't do something to keep me awake." He was lying at full length on the soft mossy grass, in the same place still, and gazing up at the blue sky and brown mountain peak. "Tell us a story, Mab," he repeated lazily. "I haven't got any very nice ones just now," said Mabel. "I have been so busy with my lessons, you know, Percy, that I haven't had time for any stories." "Can't you make them up yourself?" said Percy. "Sometimes I do, a little," she replied. "But I can't make them all quite myself. Sometimes in our German reading-books there are funny little bits of stories, and I add on to them. There was one--oh yes, I'll tell you one about a giant who lived on the top of a mountain." Ted drew nearer to Mabel, and nestled in to her side. "A diant on the top of a mountain," he repeated. "Is it very f'ightening, Mabel?" "Oh no. Listen and I'll tell you. Once, a long time ago, there was, a long way off, a strange country. There were lots and lots of forests in it, and at the side of the biggest forest of all there rose a chain of high mountains. The people who lived in this forest were poor, simple sort of people--they hadn't much time for anything but work, for it was difficult to gain enough to live on. Most of them were charcoal-burners, and there were not very many of them altogether. Of course in a forest there wouldn't be much room for cottages and houses, would there? And their cottages were none of them near together. Each family had its own hut, quite separated from the others, and unless you belonged to the forest you could hardly find your way from one part of it to the other. The poor people, too, were so busy that they had not much time for going to see each other, or for amusing themselves in any way. They all had a pale sad look, something like the look that I have heard papa say the poor people in some parts of England have--the people in those parts where they work so awfully hard in dark smoky towns and never see the sun, or the green fields, or anything fresh and pretty. Of course the forest people were not as badly off as _that_--for their work any way was in the open air, and the forest was clean--not like dirty factories, even though it was so dark. It was the want of sunshine that was their worst trouble, and that gave them that white, dull, half-frightened look. The forest was too thick and dense for the sun to get really into it, even in winter, and then, of course, the rays are so thin and pale that they aren't much good if they do come. And the mountains at the side came so close down to the edge of the forest that there was no getting any sunshine there either, for it was the north side there, the side that the sunshine couldn't get to. So for these reasons the place had come to be called 'the sunless country.'" "What was there at the other side of the forest?" said Percy; "couldn't they have got into the sunshine at that side?" "No," said Mabel. "I think there was a river or something. Or else it was that the forest was so very, very big that it would have been quite a journey to get out at any other side. I think that was it. Any way they couldn't. And they just had to live on without sunshine as well as they could. Their fathers had done so before them, and there was no help for it, they thought. They were too poor and too hard-worked to move away to another country, or to do anything but just go through each day as it came in a dull sad way, seldom speaking even to each other. "But do you know, it had _not_ always been so in the sunless forest, though the better times were so long ago that hardly any of the poor people knew it had ever been different. There had, once upon a time, been a way into the sunshine on the other side of the mountain, and this way lay right through the great hill itself. But the mountain belonged to a great and very powerful giant"--at this Ted edged still closer to Mabel--"who lived in it quite alone. Sometimes he used to come out at a hole in the top, which was his door, and stay up there for a while looking about him, staring at the black forest down at his feet, and smiling grimly to himself at the thought of how dark and dull it must be for the people who lived in it. For he was not a kind giant at all. It was he that had shut up the passage through which the poor forest people used to pass to their bright cottages on the other side, for in those days they didn't _live_ in the forest, they only went there for their work, and on Sundays and holidays they were all happy and merry together, and the little children grew up rosy and bright, quite different from the poor little wan-faced creatures that now hung sadly about at the hut doors in the forest, looking as if they didn't know how to laugh or play." "Why did the naughty diant shut up the way?" asked Ted. "Because he had a quarrel with the forest people. He wanted them to let their little boys and girls, or some of them, come to him to be his servants, but they wouldn't, and so he was so angry that he shut up the door. But that was so long ago now that the people had almost forgotten about it--the children that the giant had wanted to be his servants were old grandfathers and grandmothers now, and some of them were dead, I daresay, so that the real history of their troubles was forgotten by them but not by the giant, for whenever he came out at the top of the mountain to take some air, he used to look down at the forest and think how dull and miserable they must be there." "Nasty diant," said Ted. "Yes, he was very unkind, but still I think you would have been rather sorry for him too. He was old and all alone, and of course nobody loved him. The people in the forest hardly ever spoke of him. They knew he was there, or that he used to be there, and now and then some of the children who had heard about him used to feel afraid of him and whisper to each other that he would eat them up if he could catch them, but that was about all the notice they took of him. They seemed to have forgotten that he was the cause of their sad, gloomy lives, and indeed I am not sure that any except some very old people really knew. Among these very old people there were a man and his wife who were almost the poorest of all in the forest. They were so poor because they were almost past work, and they had no children to work for them. All that they had was a little granddaughter, who lived with them because her father and mother were dead. And it was a queer thing that she was quite different from the other poor children in the forest. They were all pale and sad and crushed-looking like their parents. This little girl was bright-haired and bright-eyed and rosy-cheeked. She was the one merry happy creature in the forest, and all the poor people used to stand and look at her as she flitted about, and wish that their children were the same. I don't know what her real name was; the story didn't tell, but the name she got to have among the forest people was Sunshine--at least it was Sunshine in German, but I think 'Sunny' is a nicer name, don't you?" "Yes," said Percy; and "Ses," said Ted, "'Sunny' is nicest." "Well, we'll call her 'Sunny.' The reason that she was so different was partly that she hadn't been born in the forest. Her father, who was the son of these old people, had gone away, as some few of the forest people did, to another country, and there he had married a bright-haired, pretty girl. But she had died, and he himself got very ill, and he had only strength to bring his baby girl back to the forest to his parents when he too died. So Sunny's history had been rather sad, you see, but still it hadn't made _her_ sad--it seemed as if the sunshine was _in_ her somehow, and that nothing could send it away." Mabel stopped. Voices and steps were heard coming near. "They're coming back," she said. "I'll have to finish the story another time. I didn't think it would take so long to tell." "Oh _do_ go on now, dear, dear Mabel, oh _do_!" cried Ted beseechingly. But Mabel's fair face grew red. "I couldn't, Ted, dear," she said, "not before big people," and Percy sympathised with her. "We'll hear the rest in the garden at home," he said. "Thoo won't tell it without me, not without Ted, p'ease," asked the little fellow. "No, no, of course not, darling," said Mabel as she kissed his eager face. Just then a ray of bright evening sunshine fell on Ted's brown hair, lighting it up and deepening it to gold, and as the little fellow caught it in his eyes, he looked up laughing. "There's Sunny kissing Ted too," he said merrily. CHAPTER V. THE STORY OF SUNNY (_Concluded_). "A child of light, a radiant lass, And cheerful as the morning air." They were all three laughing at Ted's wit when his mother and the other ladies came upon them. "You seem very happy, children," said she. "Oh ses," said Ted. "Mabel has been telling us such a lovely story. It's not finnied yet. She's going to tell the rest in the garden at home. Oh, I _am_ so happy. It's been such a sprendid day." He began half humming to himself in the excess of his delight. "Ted wishes somebody would sing a song," he said. His mother glanced at Mabel. Poor Mabel's face grew very red again. It would be worse than telling a story. "If we all sang together," she said timidly, "I wouldn't mind trying to begin." So in a minute or two her clear young voice sang out--like a lark's it seemed to mount higher and still higher, gathering strength and courage as it grew, and then softly dropping again as if to fetch the others, who joined her in the old familiar chorus of the simple song she had chosen--"Home, sweet home." Ted listened entranced, and his little voice here and there could be distinguished. But suddenly, as Mabel stopped and a momentary silence fell on them all, he turned to his mother, and throwing himself into her arms, burst into tears. "Muzzer," he said, "I can't bear it. It's _too_ pitty," and though his mother and Mabel soothed the excited little fellow with gentle words and caresses, there were tears in more eyes than Ted's as they all thanked Mabel for her singing. It was the next day that they had the rest of the story. The children were all in the garden together, not far from Ted's favourite "bridge." They could hear the babble of the little brook as it chattered past in the sunshine, and now and then the distant cry of a sea-bird would sound through the clear air, making Cheviott prick up his ears and look very wide-awake all of a sudden, though in reality, being no longer in the first bloom of youth, he was apt to get rather drowsy on a hot afternoon. "We'se all ready, Mabel," said Ted, settling himself down comfortably in his favourite rest at her side. "Now go on p'ease. I can see the top of the mountain kite nice from here, and zen I can sink I'll see the old diant poking his head out," evidently the child's fear of the mountain was fast becoming a thing of the past, and Percy felt quite pleased. "Well," began Mabel, "I was telling you that Sunny had lived with her old grandfather and grandmother since she was quite little. They were very kind to her, but they were very poor, almost the poorest of all in the forest. And yet their cottage never seemed quite so dull and sad as the others. How could it, when there was always Sunny's bright head flitting about, and her merry voice sounding like a bird's? "The old people looked at her half with pleasure and half sadly. "'It can't last,' the old man said one day, when the little girl was running and jumping about in her usual happy way. "The old woman knew what he meant without his explaining, and she nodded her head sadly, and just then Sunny came flying into the cottage to show them some flowers she had actually found in the forest, which, you see, was the greatest wonder possible, for there were almost _never_ any flowers to be seen. And Sunny told them how she had found them in a little corner where the trees did not grow quite so thick, so that more light could get in. And when she saw how surprised the old people were, she looked at them rather strangely, and some new thoughts seemed to be awaking in her mind, and she said, 'Grandfather, why aren't there more flowers in the forest, and why am I the only little girl that laughs and sings? Why does everybody look sad here? I can remember a little, just a little, about the other country I lived in before I came here. People used to laugh and smile there, and my mother had bright hair like mine, and father too was not sad till after mother had gone away and we came to this dark land. Why is it so dark, and why do you all look so sad?' "The old man told her it was all for want of the sun, 'the blessed sun,' he called it, and Sunny thought about his words a great deal. And bit by bit she got the whole story from him, for he was one of the few remaining old people who knew the reason of their misfortunes. And Sunny thought and thought it over so much that she began to leave off dancing and laughing and singing as she used, so that her poor grandfather and grandmother began to be afraid that the sadness of the forest was at last spoiling her happy nature, and for a while they were very sorry about her. But one day she told them what she had in her mind. This was what she said to them-- "'Dear grandfather and grandmother, I cannot bear to see the sadness of the poor people here, and I have been thinking if nothing can be done. And a few nights ago I had a strange dream. I dreamt that a beautiful lady stood beside me and said, 'Go, Sunny, and have no fear. The giant will not harm you.' And since then it has come into my mind that I might win back the sunshine for our poor neighbours, and for you too, dear grandfather and grandmother, for you are not so very old yet, if you will let me go to see if I can melt the giant's hard heart.' "Sunny was standing in front of the old couple, and as she spoke, to their amazement, a sudden ray of sunshine crept in through the little rough window of the cottage and fell softly on her bright head. Her grandfather looked at her grandmother, and her grandmother looked at her grandfather. They didn't know how to speak--they were so surprised. Never, since they were quite, quite little children had they seen such a thing. And they whispered to each other that it must be a magic sign, they must let the child go. I think it was very good and kind of them to let her go, the only thing they had to cheer them. The tears rolled down their poor old faces as they said good-bye to her, not knowing if they would live to see her return. But they said to each other, 'We have not very many years to live. It would be very wrong of us to lose the chance of life and happiness for all the poor forest people just to keep _our_ bit of sunshine to ourselves.' And so they let her go, for they were good old people." "Ses," said Ted, "zem was very kind. But how dedful for Sunny to have to go to the diant. Did her go all alone, Mabel?" "Yes, all alone. But she wasn't frightened. And somehow her grandfather and grandmother weren't frightened for her either. They had a feeling that she _had_ to go, and so she did. She set off the very next morning. Her grandfather explained the way to her, for old as he was he had never forgotten the days when the passage through the giant's mountain was left free and open, so that there was no need for the forest people to spend all their lives in the gloom and shade. "Sunny walked quietly along the dark paths among the trees. She didn't dance and skip as usual, for she felt as if all of a sudden she had grown almost into a woman, with the thought of what she had to do for her poor neighbours. And as she looked about her, she felt as if she had never before quite noticed how dark and chill and gloomy it was. She had a good way to walk, for since the closing of the passage the people had moved farther and farther into the forest. They had grown afraid of the giant, and were glad to get as far from him as they could, for there was no good to be got by staying near him. So Sunny walked on, past the cottages she knew, where she nodded to the people she saw, but without speaking to them, which was so unlike her usual merry way that they all looked after her in surprise and wondered what had come over the little girl. And one or two of them shook their heads and said sadly that she was getting to be like the rest of them. But Sunny walked on, farther and farther, now and then smiling quietly to herself, and her bright little head shining in the darkness almost as if the sun was lighting it up. She went a good way, but there was nothing new or different. It was always the dark forest and the gloomy trees. But at last she saw, close to her, behind the trees, the dark sides of the great mountain, and she knew that she must be near the closed-up door." Illustration: "She hunted about among the leaves and branches till she found a little silver knob."--P. 83. "Oh!" said Ted, "wasn't her afraid of bears?" "No," said Mabel, "she wasn't afraid of anything. She went quietly up to the door and stood before it. It was barred and barred with iron, and it was so long since it had been opened that the ivy and those sorts of plants had grown all over it, creeping round the iron bars. It looked as if it hadn't been opened for a hundred years, and I daresay it hadn't been. But Sunny knew what to do. She hunted about among the leaves and branches till she found a little silver knob--her grandfather had told her about it; and the queer thing was that though the iron bars were quite rusted over so that you wouldn't have known what they were, the little silver knob was still bright and shining as if it had been cleaned every day always." "Wif plate-powder," said Ted, who was very learned about such matters, as he was very fond of watching the servants at their work. "Yes," said Mabel, "just as if it had been cleaned with plate-powder. Well, Sunny pressed this little knob, and a minute or two after she heard a clear tinkling bell. That was just what her grandfather had told her she would hear, so she stood quite still and waited. In a little while she seemed to hear a sound as of something coming along the passage, and suddenly the top part of the door--at least it was more like a window cut in the door--opened, and a voice, though she could not see anybody, called out, 'Have you come to stay?' This too was what her grandfather had told her she would hear, so she knew what to say, and she answered 'Yes.' Then the voice said again, 'At what price?' and Sunny answered, 'Sunshine for the forest.' But her heart began to beat faster when the door slowly opened and she saw that she must enter the dark passage. There was no one to be seen, even though the voice had sounded quite near, so Sunny just walked on, looking about her, for gradually as she went farther, either her eyes grew used to the darkness, or a slight light began to come, and in a few minutes she saw before her a very, very high staircase. It went straight up, without turnings or landings, and the steps were quite white, so she saw them plainly though the light was dim, and as there was nowhere else to go, she just went straight on. I can't tell you what a long time she seemed to keep going upstairs, but at last the steps stopped, and before her she saw another door. It wasn't a door like the one down below, it was more like a gate, for it was a sort of a grating that you could see through. Sunny pressed her face against it and peeped in. She saw a large dark room, with a rounded roof something like a church, and in one corner a very old, grim-looking man was sitting. He had a very long beard, but he didn't look so awfully big as Sunny had expected, for she knew he must be the giant. He was sitting quite still, and it seemed to Sunny that he was shivering. Any way he looked very old and very lonely and sad, and instead of feeling frightened of him the little girl felt very sorry for him. She stood there quite still, but though she didn't make the least noise he found out she was there. He waved his hand, and the barred door opened and Sunny walked in. She walked right up to the giant and made him a curtsey. Rather to her surprise he made her a bow, then he waved his hands about and moved his lips as if he were speaking, but no sound came, and Sunny stared at him in surprise. She began to wonder if he was deaf and dumb, and if so how could she explain to him what she had come for? "'I can't understand what you are saying, sir,' she said very politely, and then, to her still greater surprise, the waving of his hands and the moving of his lips seemed to succeed, for in a very queer deep voice he answered her. "'What do you want?' he said. 'I sent my voice downstairs to speak to you, and he has been loitering on the way, lazy fellow, all this time. There are no good servants to be had nowadays, none. I've not had one worth his salt since I sent my old ones back to Ogreland when they got past work. What do you want?' "'Sunshine for the forest people.' "That was all Sunny said, and she looked at the grim old giant straight in the face. He looked at her, and went on shivering and rubbing his hands. Then he said, with a frown, "'Why should they have sunshine? I can't get it myself, since I'm too old to get up to the top there. Sunshine indeed!' and then he suddenly stretched out his hand to her and made a grab at her hair, screaming out, 'Why, you've got sunshine! Come here, and let me warm my hands. Ugh! that's the first time I've felt a little less chilly these hundred years,' and Sunny stood patiently beside him and let him stroke her golden hair up and down, and in a minute or two she said quietly, "'Will you unfasten the door, good Mr. Giant, and let the poor people through to the other side?' "The giant still kept hold of her hair. 'It would be no good cutting it off--the sunshine would go out of it,' Sunny heard him saying to himself. So she just said again quietly, 'Will you unfasten the door, good Mr. Giant?' "And at last he said, 'I'll consider about it. Your hair's getting cold. Go upstairs,' and he nodded his head towards a door in the corner of the room, 'go upstairs and fetch some sunshine for me, and come down again.' "But Sunny wouldn't stir till she had got something out of him. And she said for the third time, "'Will you unfasten the door, good Mr. Giant, if I go upstairs to please you?' "And the giant gave her a push, and said to her, 'Get off with you, you tiresome child. Yes, I'll open the door if you'll go and bathe your hair well, and then come down to warm my hands.' "So Sunny went upstairs. This stair wasn't like the other. It was a turny, screwy stair that went round and round itself, for you see it was near the top of the mountain and there wasn't so much room as down below. Sunny felt rather giddy when she got to the top, but she got all right again in a minute when she pushed open the little door she found there and came out into the sunlight. It was _so_ lovely, and remember, she hadn't seen sunshine, even though some of the brightness had stayed with her, since she was a very little girl. You have no idea how pretty it was up there, not gloomy at all, and with the beautiful warm sunshine pouring down all round. Sunny was very pleased to warm herself in it, and then when she looked down over the side of the mountain and saw the dark tops of the forest trees, she was still more pleased to think that soon her poor friends would have a chance of enjoying it too. And when she thought that her hair had caught enough sunshine to please the giant she called down through the screwy staircase, 'Have you opened the door, Mr. Giant?' And when the giant said, 'Come down and I'll tell you,' she answered, 'No, Mr. Giant, I can't come till you've opened the door.' And then she heard him grumbling to himself, and in a minute she heard a rattling noise, and she knew the door was opened, and then she came down. She had settled with her grandfather that if she didn't come straight back, he would send some of the people to watch for the door being opened, so she knew it would be all right, for once the giant had agreed to open it, he couldn't shut it again--that was settled somehow, some magic way I suppose, the story didn't say how. So then Sunny, came downstairs again, and the giant stroked her hair up and down till his poor old hands were quite warm, and he grew quite pleased and good-natured. But he wouldn't let Sunny go away, and she had to stay, you see, because the top-door, the one like a gate, was still shut up. And any way she didn't want to be unkind to the giant. She promised him that she would come back to see him every day if he liked if only he would let her go, but he wouldn't, so she had to stay. I don't know how long she stayed. It was a long time, for the story said she grew thin and white with being shut up in the giant's cave and having no running about. It was worse than the forest. The only thing that kept her alive was the sunshine she got every morning, for there was _always_ sunshine at the top of the mountain, and then, too, the comfort of knowing that the poor people were enjoying it too, for when she was up on the top she could hear their voices down below, as they came to the door. Day by day she heard their voices grow merrier and brighter, and after a while she could even hear the little children laughing and shouting with glee. And Sunny felt that she didn't mind for herself, she was _so_ glad to think that she had done some good to her poor friends. But she got paler and thinner and weaker--it was so very tiring to stand such a long time every day while the giant stroked the sunshine out of her golden hair to warm his withered old hands, and it was so terribly dark and dull and cold in the gloomy cavern. She would hardly have known how the days went or when was day and when was night, but for the giant sending her upstairs every morning. But one morning came when she could not go; she got up a few steps, and then her strength went away and she seemed to get half asleep, and she said to herself that she was going to die, and she did not know anything more. She seemed to be dreaming. She fancied the giant came to look for her, and that his old face grew sad and sorry when he saw her. And then she thought she heard him say, 'Poor little girl, I did not mean to hurt her. I have done harm enough. Sunny, forgive me. The giant will do you and your people no more harm. His day is over.' Then she really did sleep, for a long time I fancy, for when she woke up she could not think where she was. She thought at first she was on the top of the mountain, it seemed so beautifully bright and warm. She sat up a little and looked about her, and she _couldn't_ think where she was, for on one side close to her, she saw the dark trees of the forest that she knew so well, and on the other, smiling green fields and orchards and cottages with gardens filled with flowers, just the sort of country her grandfather had told her he remembered when he was a child on the other side of the great hill. It was just as if the mountain had melted away. And, just fancy, that _was_ what had happened! For in a little while Sunny heard voices coming near her, all talking eagerly. It was the people of the forest who had found out what had come to pass, and they were all hurrying to look for Sunny, for they were terribly afraid that the giant had taken her away to Ogreland with the mountain. But he hadn't, you see! And Sunny and all the forest people lived all their lives as happy as could be--they were happier even than in the old days the grandfather and grandmother remembered, for not only were they free to leave the dark forest and enjoy the sunlight as often as they liked, but the sunshine now found its way by all the chinks and crannies among the branches into the very forest itself." "And did they never hear anything more of the giant?" asked Percy. "No," said Mabel, "only in hot summer days sometimes, when the sun was beating down too much on the fields and gardens, the people of that country used to notice a large soft gray cloud that often came between them and the sunshine, and would stay there till the great heat grew less. This cloud seemed always the same shape, and somehow, Sunny, remembering her vision of the giant, thought to herself that the cloud was perhaps he, and that he wanted to make up for his long cruelty. And the children of the forest having heard her story used to laugh when they saw the cloud, and say to each other, 'See, there is the giant warming his hands.' But Sunny would say softly in a whisper, 'Thank you, Mr. Giant.' "And though it is a very, very long time since all that happened, it has never been quite forgotten, and the people of that country are noted for their healthy happy faces, and the little children for their rosy cheeks and golden hair." Mabel stopped. "It is a very pretty story," said Percy. "Are there more like it in the book where you read it?" Mabel was just going to answer, when her attention was caught by Ted. "I do believe he's asleep," she said softly, for Ted had curled himself up like a dormouse in his little nest at her side. But just then the two-legged dormouse gave a funny chuckle, which showed that whether he _had_ been asleep or not, he certainly was so no longer. "What are you laughing at, Teddy?" said Percy. "I were just sinking," said Ted, "what a silly boy Ted were to be afraid of mountains----Ted would like to go up to the very, very top," he went on valorously. "Ted wouldn't mind a bit--not," with a prudent reservation, "not if thoo and Mabel was wif me." CHAPTER VI. LITTLE NARCISSA. "But, I think, of all new-comers Little children are the best." From this time, I think, Ted lost his fear of mountains and giants. It was not till a long time afterwards that he explained to his mother exactly how it had been, and by that time he was of course quite big enough to understand that Mr. Brand had only been joking. But still he did not much care about seeing that gentleman again. He generally managed to be out of the way when he saw the dog-cart with the gray horse driving in at the gate, and just once, when he would not have had time to run off without actual rudeness, which little Ted _never_ was guilty of, he only waited to shake hands and say "Quite well, thank thoo," before he disappeared in so unaccountable a manner that he could not be found as long as Mr. Brand's visit lasted. It was a good deal thanks to Mabel's story that he grew to like his old friend the mountain again. But partly too, I daresay, he forgot his fears on account of several very interesting things that happened about this time. It was a great sorrow to him when Percy had to go back to school--that was one of little Ted's lasting or rather returning sorrows, all through his childhood. Only, like many things in our lives, if we learn to look at them in the right way, it was certainly a trouble with a bright side to it, a cloud with a silver lining--a silver lining which shone indeed all the brighter for the gray outside--for was there not the delight, the _delicious_ delight, of the coming back again, the showing all the changes in the garden since Percy was last there, the new toys and other little presents that Ted had received, and listening to Percy's thrilling accounts of school-life, the relating his own adventures? Still there were times, especially now that Ted was really growing very sensible, that he wished for some other companion in his simple daily life, some one who, like the little fishes, did not have to go to school. And now and then, when, in his rare expeditions to the sea-side town not far off, he saw little groups of brothers and sisters trotting along together, or when in the stories his mother read to him he heard of happy nursery parties, Ted used to wish _he_ had a little "bruvver or sister, even a baby one would be very nice." For deep down in his loving heart there was already the true manly spirit, the longing to have something to take care of and protect; something tinier and more tender even than wee Ted himself. And to make his child-life complete this pretty thing came to him. With the autumn days, just when Ted was beginning to feel a little sad at the summer brightness going away, and his garden work had come to be chiefly helping old David to sweep up the fast-falling leaves, there came to Ted a dear little baby sister. She was the dearest little thing--bright-eyed and merry, and looking as if she was ready for all sorts of fun. She was stronger than Ted had been, and to tell the truth I think I must say prettier. For sweet and fair and dear as was Ted's face both in baby- and boy-hood, he was not what one would call pretty. Not the sort of child whose proud nurse comes home with wonderful stories of ladies stopping her in the street to ask whose beautiful baby he was--not a splendidly vigorous, stalwart little man like a small eight-years-old of my acquaintance whose mother was lately afraid to walk about the streets of Berlin with him lest the old Emperor, as he sometimes does, should want to have him to make an officer of! No; Ted, though lithe and active as a squirrel, merry as a cricket, was not a "showy" child. He was just our own dear little Ted, our happy-hearted Christmas child. But I suppose there never was in this world any one so happy but that it was _possible_ for him to be happier. And this "more happiness" came to Ted in the shape of his baby sister, Narcissa. Boys who despise sisters, "girls" in any shape, big or little, don't know what a great deal they lose. Ted was still a good way off the "big boy" stage, and indeed I don't think anything could have made it possible for him to look at things as too many big boys do. By the time he reached schoolboy-hood, Narcissa was a dainty maiden of five or six, and quite able to stand up for herself in a little queenly way, even had her brother been less tender and devoted. And of the years between, though I would like to tell you something, I cannot tell you half nor a quarter. They were happy sunny years, though not _quite_ without clouds of course. And the first summer of little Cissy's life was a sort of bright opening to them. It was again a very beautiful summer. The children almost lived out-of-doors. Poor nurse found it difficult to get the work in the house that fell to her share finished in the morning before Ted was tugging at her to "tum out into the garden, baby does _so_ want to tum;" and baby soon learnt to clap her hands and chuckle with glee when her little hat was tied on and she was carried downstairs to her perambulator waiting at the door. And there was new interest for Ted in hunting for the loveliest wild flowers he could find, as baby showed, or Ted _thought_ she did, a quite extraordinary love for the bouquets her little brother arranged for her. "Her knows _kite_ well which is the prettiest ones, doesn't her, nurse?" he said one day when they were all three--all four rather, for of course Chevie was one of the group--established in their favourite place under the shade of a great tree, whose waving branches little Cissy loved so much that she would cry when nurse wheeled her away from it. "I think baby knows _lots_, though she can't speak;" and baby, pleased at his evidently talking of _her_, burst into a funny crowing laugh, which seemed exactly as if she knew and approved of what he was saying. "Baby's a darling," said nurse. "How soon will her learn to speak?" Ted inquired gravely. Illustration: "Baby showed, or Ted _thought_ she did, a quite extraordinary love for the bouquets her little brother arranged for her."--P. 98. "Not just yet. She hasn't got any teeth. Nobody can speak without teeth," said nurse. "I hope," said Ted, more gravely still, "I hope Dod hasn't forgotten them." Nurse turned away to hide a smile. "No fear, Master Ted," she said in a minute. "She'll have nice little teeth by and by, you'll see. They'll be wee tiny white specks at first, and then they'll grow quite big and strong enough to bite with. That's how your teeth came. Not all of a sudden, you see." "Ses," said Ted. "Nothing comes all in one sudden. The f'owers is weeny, weeny buds at first, and then they gets big. Nurse, I'm going to take my cart to get a _lot_ of daisies down by the brook for baby. She likes to roll zem in her hands," and off he set with his little blue cart and white horse, his best beloved possession, and which had done good service in its time, to fill it with flowers for Cissy. A few minutes later, as he was manfully dragging the cart up the path again, gee-upping and gee-whoing at the horse, which was supposed to find the daisy heads a heavy load uphill, his mother came out to the garden. "Ted, dear," she said, "your father is going to drive me to A----. It is a long time since you were there, and I should like to have my little boy to go about with me while your papa is busy. I have a good deal of shopping to do. Would you like to go with me?" Ted gave a shout of pleasure. Then suddenly his glance fell on the little sister still in her perambulator under the big tree, and his eyes filled with tears. "I would like dedfully to go," he said, "but poor Cissy. I _is_ so afraid Cissy will cry if I go." He lifted his wistful little face to his mother's with an expression that went to her heart. "Dear Ted," she said; "you are a good, kind, little boy. But don't make yourself unhappy about Cissy. She is too little to cry for your going away, though she will laugh to see you come back." Ted's face cleared, but suddenly a rosy colour spread over it. "Muzzer," he said, in a low voice, tugging gently at her dress to make her stoop down, "muzzer, I _sink_ I were going to cry not all for poor baby being sorry, but part 'cos I did so want to go." Mother understood his simple confession. "Yes, dear," she said, "I daresay you did, and it is right of you to tell me. My good little Ted," she could not resist adding again, and again little Ted's face grew red, but this time with pleasure at mother's praise. Baby bore the announcement, which he considered it his duty to make to her with great formality, very philosophically. Less philosophically did she take nurse's wheeling her away from under her beloved tree with its fluttering branches, towards the house, where nurse had to go to prepare Ted for his expedition. In fact, I am sorry to say that so little did the young lady realise what was expected of her, that she burst into a loud roar, which was quite too much for Ted's feelings. "Dear baby, sweet baby," he cried, "thoo mustn't be tooked away from thoo's tree. I'll ask muzzer to deck me, nurse," he went on eagerly, for his mother had returned to the house, "or I can nearly kite well deck myself. I'll call thoo if I can't find my things. I'll run and ask muzzer," and off he went, so eager to give no trouble, so ready and helpful that nurse thought it best to let him have his way, and to devote her attention to the discomposed Miss Baby. Ted did not find his mother quite so quickly as he expected, though he peeped into the drawing-room and called her by name as he passed her own room upstairs, on his way to the nursery. The fact was that mother was in the kitchen consulting with cook as to the groceries required to be ordered, and it never came into Ted's head to look for her there at this time of day. So he went straight on to the nursery, and managing with a good deal of tugging and pulling and coaxing to open _his_ drawer in the chest, he got out his best little coat and hat and prepared to don them. But first he looked at his hands, which were none the whiter for their recent ravages among the daisies. "Zem's very dirty," he said to himself; "zem must be washed." There was water in the jug, but Ted's ambition was aroused, and great things were to be expected of a little boy who was big enough to "deck himself," as he would have described the process. "Ses, zem's _very_ dirty," he repeated, contemplating the two sunburnt little paws in question. "Zem should have hot water. Hot water makes zem ze most clean." He glanced round, the hot water was not far to seek, for, though it was June, the weather was not very warm, and nurse generally kept a small fire burning in the day-nursery. And beside the fire, temptingly beside the fire, stood the kettle, into which Ted peeping, satisfied himself that there was water enough for his purpose. He would hardly have had patience to fetch it had it not been there, so eager was he for the delights of putting it on to boil. And, wonderful to say, he managed it; he got the kettle, heavy for him to lift, as you can imagine, safely on to the fire, and then, with immense satisfaction, sat down in front of it to watch the result. There was very little water in the kettle, but, though Ted did not think about that, it was all the less trying for his patience. And I hardly think either, that the water could have been quite cold in the first place, or else the fairies came down the chimney and blew up the fire with their invisible bellows to help little Ted, for certainly the kettle began to boil amazingly soon--first it simmered gently and then it began to sing more loudly, and at last what Ted called "moke" began to come out of the spout, and he knew that the kettle was boiling. Ted was so used to hear nurse talking about the kettle "boiling" for tea, that it never came into his head that it was not necessary to have "boiling" water to wash his poor little hands. I don't indeed know what might not have happened to the whole of his poor little body had not his mother at that moment come into the room. A queer sight met her eyes--there was Ted, more than half undressed, barefooted and red-faced, in the act of lifting off the steaming kettle, round the handle of which, with wonderful precaution, he had wrapped his pocket-handkerchief. Ted's mother kept her presence of mind. She did not speak till the kettle was safely landed on the floor, and Ted, with a sigh of relief, looked up and saw her at the door. "I is decking myself, muzzer," he said with a pleased smile, and a charming air of importance, "Poor baby cried, so I told nurse I would deck myself, and nurse didn't mind." "_Didn't_ she?" said his mother, rather surprised. "Oh, she thoughtened p'raps I'd find thoo, I amember," Ted continued, correcting himself. "But did nurse know you were going to boil water?" said his mother. "Oh no," said Ted, "it were only that my hands is _so_ dirty. Zem needs hot water to make zem clean." "Hot water, but not _boiling_," said his mother; "my dear little boy, do you know you might have scalded yourself dreadfully?" "I put my hankerwick not to burn my hands," said Ted, rather disconsolately. "Yes, dear. I know you meant it for the best, but just think if you had dropped the kettle and burnt yourself. And nurse has always told you not to play with fire or hot water." "Ses," said Ted, "but I weren't _playing_. I were going to wash my hands to be nice to go out wif thoo," and his blue eyes filled with tears. But they were soon wiped away, and when his mother had with the help of _some_ of the hot water made face and hands as clean as could be, and smoothed the tangled curls and fastened the best little coat, Ted looked very "nice" indeed, I can assure you, for his drive to A----. It was a very happy drive. Perched safely between his father and mother, Ted was as proud as a king. It was all so pretty, the driving through the shady lanes, where the honeysuckle and wild-roses were just beginning to show some tints of colour, the peeps now and then of the sea below in its blue beauty, the glancing up sometimes at the mountain top, Ted's old friend, along whose sides they were actually travelling--it was all delightful. And when they drew near the little town, and the houses began to stand closer, till at last they came in rows and streets, and the old mare's hoofs clattered over the stones of the market-place so that the people in the sleepy little place came out to see who was coming, Ted's excitement knew no bounds. He had almost forgotten A----, it was so long since he had been there--the sights of the shops and what appeared to him their wonderful contents, the sight even of so many people and children walking about, was almost too much for the little country child; it seemed to take his breath away. He recovered his composure, however, when he found himself trotting about the streets with his mother. She had several shops to go to, each, to Ted, more interesting than the other. There was the ironmonger's to visit, for cook had begged for a new preserving pan and the nursery tea-pot handle was broken; there were various milk jugs and plates to replace at the china shop; brown holland to get at the draper's for Ted's summer blouses. At two or three of the shops his mother, being a regular customer and having an account with them, did not pay, and among these was the grocer's, where she had rather a long list of things needed for the store-closet, and while she was explaining about them all to the white-aproned young man behind the counter, Ted marched about the shop on a voyage of discovery on his own account. There were so many interesting things--barrels of sugar, white, brown, and darker brown still, neat piles of raisins and currants, closely fastened bottles of French plums, and rows of paper-covered tin boxes which Ted knew contained biscuits. "What a kind man," he said to himself, "to give muzzer all she wants," as one after another of his mother's requests was attended to. "Why, he lets muzzer take whatever her likes!" he added, as having brought his wanderings to a close for a minute, he stood beside her and saw her lifting a little square of honey soap out of a box which the grocer presented to her for examination, and, greatly impressed, Ted set off again on another ramble. Doubtless he too might take whatever he liked, and as the thought occurred to him he pulled up before another barrel filled with lumps, little and big, of half clear, whitey-looking stuff, something like very coarse lump sugar, only not so white, and more transparent. Ted knew what it was. It was soda, _washing_ soda I believe it is usually called. Ted was, as I have said, very wide-awake about all household matters, for he always used his eyes, and very often--indeed rather oftener than was sometimes pleasant for the people about him if they wanted to be quiet--his tongue too, for he was great at asking questions. "Soda's very useful," Ted reflected; "nurse says it makes things come cleaner." Just then his mother called him. "Ted, dear," she said, "I'm going." Ted started and ran after her, but just as he did so, he stretched out his hand and took a lump of soda out of the barrel. He did it quite openly, he didn't mind in the very least if the shopman saw him--like the daisies in the field, so he thought, the soda and the sugar and the French plums and everything were there for him or for any one to help themselves to as they liked. But Ted was not greedy--he was far better pleased to get something "useful" for mother than anything for himself. He would have asked her what he had better take, if he had had time--he would have stopped to say "Thank you" to the grocer had he not been in such a hurry to run after his mother. They walked quickly down the street. Ted's mother was a little absent-minded for the moment--she was thinking of what she had ordered, and hoping she had forgotten nothing. And holding her little boy by the one hand she did not notice the queer thing he was holding in the other. Suddenly she stopped before a boot and shoe shop. "I must get baby a pair of shoes," she said. "She is such a little kicker, she has the toes of her cloth ones out in no time. We must get her a pair of leather ones I think, Ted." "Ses, I sink so," said Ted. So his mother went into the shop and asked the man to show her some little leather shoes. Ted looked on with great interest, but when the shoes were spread out on the counter and he saw that they were all _black_, he seemed rather disappointed. "Muzzer," he said in a low voice, tugging at his mother's skirts, "I saw such bootly boo boots in the man's winder." His mother smiled. "Yes, dear," she replied, "they're very pretty, but they wouldn't last so long, and I suspect they cost much more." Ted looked puzzled. "What does thoo mean?" he said, but before his mother had time to explain, the active shopman had reached down the "bootly" boots and held them forward temptingly. "They're certainly very pretty," said baby's mother, who, to tell the truth, was nearly as much inclined for the blue boots as Ted himself. "What is the price of them?" "Three and sixpence, ma'am," replied the man. "And the black ones, the little black shoes, I mean?" "Two and six," replied the man. "A shilling difference, you see, Ted," said his mother. But Ted only looked puzzled, and his mother, occupied with the boots, did not particularly notice him. "I think," she said at last, "I think I will take both. But as the blue boots will be best ones for a good while, give me them half a size larger than the little black shoes." The shopman proceeded to wrap them up in paper and handed them to Ted's mother, who took out her purse and paid the money. The man thanked her, and, followed by her little boy, Ted's mother left the shop. Ted walked on silently, a very unusual state of things. He was trying to find out how to express what he wanted to ask, and the ideas in his head were so new and strange that he could not fit them with words all at once. His mother turned round to him. "Would you like to carry the parcel of baby's shoes for her?" she said. "Oh ses," said Ted, holding out his left hand. But as his mother was giving him the parcel she noticed that his right hand was already engaged. "Why, what have you got there?" she asked, "a stone? Where did you get it? No, it's not a stone--why, can it be a lump of soda?" "Ses," returned Ted with the greatest composure, "it are a lump of soda. I thought it would be very suseful for thoo, so I took it out of that nice man's shop." "My dear little boy!" exclaimed his mother, looking I don't know how. She was rather startled, but she could not help being amused too, only she thought it better not to show Ted that she was amused. "My dear little boy," she said again, "do you not understand? The things in the shop belong to the man--they are his, not ours." "Ses," said Ted. "I know. But he lets thoo take them. Thoo took soap and somesing else, and he said he'd send them home for thoo." "Yes, dear, so he did," said his mother. "But I _pay_ him for them. You didn't see me paying him, because I don't pay him every time. He puts down all I get in a book, and then he counts up how much it is every month, and then I send him the money. In some shops I pay as soon as I get the things. You saw me pay the shoemaker for little Cissy's boots and shoes." "Ses," said Ted, "I saw thoo take money out of thoo's purse, but I didn't understand. I thought all those kind men kept nice things for us to get whenever we wanted." "But what did you think money was for, little Ted? You have often seen money, shillings and sixpences and pennies? What did you think was the use of it?" "I thought," said Ted innocently, "I thought moneys was for giving to poor peoples." His mother could hardly resist stooping down in the street to kiss him. But she knew it was better not. Ted must be made to understand that in his innocence he had done a wrong thing, and the lesson of to-day must be made a plain and lasting one. "What would poor people do with money if they could get all the things they wanted out of the shops for nothing?" she said quietly. Ted considered a moment. Then he looked up brightly. "In course!" he said. "I never thought of that." "And don't you see, dear Ted, that it would be wrong to take things out of a shop without paying for them? They _belong_ to the man of the shop--it would be just like some one coming to our house and taking away your father's coat or my bonnet, or your little blue cart that you like so much, or----" "Or Cissy's bootly boo boots," suggested Ted, clutching hold more tightly of the parcel, as if he thought the imaginary thief might be at hand. "Yes," said his mother, "or Cissy's new boots, which are mine _now_ because I paid money for them to the man." "Ses," said Ted. Then a very thoughtful expression came into his face. "Muzzer," he said, "this soda was that man's--sall I take it back to him and tell him I didn't understand?" "Yes," said his mother. "I do think it is the best thing to do. Shall we go at once? It is only just round the corner to his shop." She said this thinking that little Ted would find it easier to do it at once, for she was sorry for her little boy having to explain to a stranger the queer mistake he had made, though she felt it was right that it should be done. "Shall we go at once?" she repeated, looking rather anxiously at the small figure beside her. "Ses," said Ted, and rather to her surprise his tone was quite bright and cheery. So they turned back and walked down the street till they came to the corner near which was the grocer's shop. Ted's mother had taken the parcel of the little boots from him and held him by the hand, to give him courage as it were. But he marched on quite steadily without the least flinching or dragging back, and when they reached the shop it was he who went in first. He walked straight up to the counter and held out the lump of soda to the shopman. "Please, man," he said, "I didn't know I should pay money for this. I didn't understand till muzzer told me, and so I've brought it back." The grocer looked at him in surprise, but with a smile on his face, for he was a kind man, with little boys and girls of his own. But before he said anything, Ted's mother came forward to explain that it was almost the first time her little boy had been in a shop; he had not before understood what buying and selling meant, but now that she had explained it to him, she thought it right for him himself to bring back the lump of soda. "And indeed it was his own wish to do so," she added. The grocer thanked her. It was not of the least consequence to him of course he said, but still he was a sensible man and he respected Ted's mother for what she had done. And then, half afraid that her little boy's self-control would not last much longer, she took him by the hand, and bidding the shopman good-day they left the shop. As they came out into the street again she looked down at Ted. To her surprise his little face was quite bright and happy. "He were a kind man," said Ted; "he wasn't vexed with Ted. He knew I didn't understand." "Yes, dear," said his mother, pleased to see the simple straightforward way in which Ted had taken the lesson; "but _now_, Ted, you do understand, and you would never again touch anything in a shop, would you?" "Oh no, muzzer, in course not," said Ted, his face flushing a little. "Ted would _never_ take nothing that wasn't his--_never_; thoo knows that, muzzer?" he added anxiously. "Yes, my dear little boy," and this time his mother _did_ stoop down and kiss him in the street. CHAPTER VII. GETTING BIG. "The children think they'll climb a tree." It was a very happy little Ted that trotted upstairs to the nursery with the "bootly boo boots" and the more modest little black shoes for tiny Narcissa. "See what Ted has brought thoo," he said, kissing his baby sister with the pretty tenderness he always showed her, "and see what muzzer has gave _me_," he went on, turning to nurse with another parcel. In his excitement he didn't know which to unfasten first, and baby had got hold of one of the black shoes, fortunately not the blue ones, and was sucking it vigorously before Ted and nurse saw what she was doing. "_Isn't_ she pleased?" said Ted, delightedly. Baby must be very pleased with her new possessions, to try to _eat_ them, he thought. And then he had time to examine and admire his own present. It was a delightful one--a book, a nice old-fashioned fat book of all the old nursery rhymes, and filled with pictures too. And Ted's pride was great when here and there he could make out a word or two. Thanks to the pictures, to his own good memory, and the patience of all the big people about him, it was not long before he could say nearly all of them. And so a new pleasure was added to these happy summer days, and to many a winter evening to come. That night when Ted was going to bed he said his prayers as usual at his mother's knee. "Make me a good little boy," he said, and then when he had ended he jumped up for his good-night kiss, with a beaming face. "I sink God _has_ made me good, muzzer?" he said. "Do you, dear? I hope He is _making_ you so," she answered. "But what makes you say so?" "'Cos I _feel_ so happy and so good," said Ted, "and thoo said I was good to-day when thoo kissed me. And oh, _may_ I take my sprendid hymn-book to bed wif me?" And with the ancient legends of Jack and Jill and Little Boy Blue, and Margery Daw, safely under his pillow, happy Ted fell asleep. I wonder if he dreamt of them! What a pity that so much of the pretty fancies and visions of little childhood are lost to us! What quaint pictures they would make. What a heavy burden _should_ lie on the consciences of those who, by careless words or unconsidered tone, destroy the lovely tenderness of little children's dreams and conceits, rub off the bloom of baby poetry! I could tell you, dear little friends, many pretty stories of Ted and his tiny sister during the first sunny year of little Narcissa's life, but I daresay it may be more interesting to you to hear more of these children as they grow older. The day-by-day life of simple happy little people is, I trust, familiar to you all, and as I want you to _know_ my boy Ted, to think of him through your own childhood as a friend and companion, I must not take up too much of the little book, so quickly filled, with the first years only of his life. And these had now come to an end--a change, to Ted a great and wonderful change, happened about this time. Before little Cissy had learnt to run alone, before Ted had mastered the longest words in his precious "hymn-book," these little people had to leave their beautiful mountain home. One day when the world was looking pensive and sad in its autumn dress, the good-byes had to be said--good-bye to the garden and Ted's shaky bridge; good-bye to old David; and alas! good-bye to Cheviott's grave, all that was left of the faithful old collie to say good-bye to; good-bye to the far-off murmur of the sea and the silent mountain that little Ted had once been so afraid of; good-bye to all of the dear old home, where Ted's blue cart was left forgotten under a tree, where the birds went on singing and chirping as if there were no such things as good-byes in the world--and Ted and Cissy were driven away to a new home, and the oft-told stories of their first one were all that was left of it to their childish minds. A good many hours' journey from the mountains and the sea near which these children had spent their first happy years, in quite another corner of England, there is to be found a beautiful, quiet old town. It is beautiful from its position, for it stands on rising ground; a fine old river flows round the feet of its castle rock, and on the other side are to be seen high cliffs with pleasant winding paths, sometimes descending close to the water's edge, and it is beautiful in itself. For the castle is such a castle as is not to be met with many times in one's life. It has taken centuries of repose after the stormy scenes it lived through in the long-ago days to make it what it now is--a venerable old giant among its fellows, grim and solemn yet with a dreamy peacefulness about it, that has a wonderful charm. As you cross the unused drawbridge and your footsteps sink in the mossy grass of the great courtyard, it would not be difficult to fancy you were about to enter the castle of the sleeping-beauty of the dear old fairy-tale--so still and dream-like it seems, so strange it is to picture to one's fancy the now grass-grown keep with the din and clang of horsemen and men-at-arms that it must once have known. And near by is a grand old church, solemn and silent too, but differently so from its twin-brother the castle. The one is like a warrior resting after his battles, thinking sadly of the wild scenes he has seen and taken part in; the other like a holy man of old, silent and solemn too, but with the weight of human sorrows and anxieties that have been confided to him, yet ever ready to sympathise and to point upwards with a hope that never fails. These at least were the feelings that the sight of the old church and the old castle gave _me_, children dear. I don't suppose Ted thought of them in this way when he first made their acquaintance, and yet I don't know. He might not have been able to say much of what he felt, he was such a little fellow. But he _did_ feel, and in a way that was strange and new, and nearly took his breath away the first time he entered the beautiful old church, walking quietly up the aisle behind his father, his little hat in his hand, gazing up with his earnest eyes at the mysterious stretch of the lofty roof. "O mother," he said, when he went home, "when I am big I will always like the _high_ church best." And when the clear ringing chimes burst forth, as they did with ever-fresh beauty four times a day, sounding to the baby fancy as if they came straight down from heaven, it was all Ted could do not to burst into tears, as he had done that summer day when Mabel had sung "Home, sweet home" in the mountain-gorge. For it was in this old town, with its church and castle and quaint streets, where some of the houses are still painted black and white, and others lean forward in the top stories as if they wanted to kiss each other; where the front doors mostly open right on to the street, and you come upon the dear old gardens as a sort of delicious surprise at the back; where each turn as you walk about these same old streets gives you a new peep, more delightful than the last, of the river or the cliffs or the far distant hills with their tender lights and shadows; where, on market days the country people come trooping in with their poultry and butter and eggs, with here and there a scarlet cloak among them, the coming and going giving the old High Street the look almost of a foreign town;--here in this dear old place little Ted took root again, and learned to love his new home so much that he forgot to pine for the mountains and the sea. And, here, some years after we said good-bye to them as they drove away from the pretty house in the garden, we find them again--Ted, a big boy of nine or ten, Cissy looking perhaps older than she really was, so bright and hearty and capable a little maiden had she become. They are in the garden, the dear garden that was as delightful a playing place as children could have, though quite, quite different from the first one you saw Ted in. There it was all ups and downs, lying as it did on the side of a hill; here the paths are on flat ground, though some are zigzaggy of course, as the little paths in an interesting garden always should be; while besides these, some fine broad ones run straight from one end to another, making splendid highroads for drives in wheelbarrows or toy-carts. And in this garden too the trees are high and well grown, and plenty of them. It was just the place for hide and seek or "I spy." Ted and Cissy have been working at their gardens. "Oh dear," said the little girl, throwing down her tiny rake and hoe, "Cissy _is_ so tired. And the f'owers won't grow if they isn't planted kick. Cissy is so fond of f'owers." "So am I," said Ted, "but girls are so quickly tired. It's no good their trying to garden." Cissy looked rather disconsolate. "Boys shouldn't have all the f'owers," she said. "Zoo's not a summer child, Ted, zoo's a Kismas child. Zoo should have snow, and Cissy should have f'owers." She looked at her brother rather mischievously as she said this. "As it happens, Miss Cissy," said Ted, "there wasn't any snow the Christmas I was born. Mother told me so. And any way, if you liked snowballs I'd let you have them, so I don't see why I shouldn't have flowers." Cissy threw her arms round Ted's neck and kissed him. "Poor Ted," she said, "zoo shall have f'owers. But Cissy won't have any in her garden if zey isn't planted kick." "Well, never mind. I'll help you," said Ted; "as soon as I've done my lessons this evening, I'll work in your garden." "Zank zoo, _dear_ Ted," said Cissy rapturously, and a new hugging ensued, which Ted submitted to with a good grace, though lately it had dawned on him that he was getting rather too big for kissing. The children's "gardens" were just under the wall that skirted their father's real garden. On the other side of this wall ran the highroad, and the lively sights and sounds to be heard and seen from the top of this same wall made the position of their own bit of ground greatly to their liking. Only the getting on to the wall! There was the difficulty. For Ted it was not so tremendous. _He_ could clamber up by the help of niches which he had managed to make for his feet here and there between the stones, and the consequent destruction to trousers and stockings had never as yet occurred to his boyish mind. But Cissy--poor Cissy! it was quite impossible to get _her_ up on to the wall, and for some time an ambitious project had been taking shape in Ted's brain. "Cissy," he said, when he was released, "it's no good beginning working at your garden now. We have to go in in ten minutes. I'm going up on the wall for a few minutes. You stay there, and I'll call down to you all I see." "O Ted," said Cissy, "I _wiss_ I could climb up the wall too." "I know you do," said Ted. "I've been thinking about that. Wait till I get up, and I'll tell you about it." Full of faith in Ted's wisdom, little Cissy sat down by the roots of a great elm-tree which stood in her brother's domain. "My tree" Ted had always called it, and it was one of the charms of his property. _It_ was not difficult to climb, even Cissy could be hoisted some way up--to the level of top of the wall indeed, without difficulty, but unfortunately between the tree and the wall there was a space, too wide to cross. And even when the right level was reached, it was too far back to see on to the road. "If only the tree grew close to the wall," Ted had often said to himself; and now as Cissy sat down below wondering what Ted was going to do, his quick eyes were examining all about to see if a plan that had struck him would be possible. "Cissy," he cried suddenly, and Cissy started to her feet. "Oh what, Ted?" she cried. "I see how it could be done. If I had a plank of wood I could fasten it to the tree on one side, and--and--I could find _some_ way if I tried, of fastening it to the wall on the other, and then I could pull the branches down a little--they're nearly down far enough, to make a sort of back to the seat, and oh, Cissy, it would be such a lovely place! We could both sit on it, and see all that passed. I'll tell you what I'm seeing now. There's a man with a wheelbarrow just passing, and such a queer little dog running beside, and farther off there's a boy with a basket, and two girls, and one of them's carrying a baby, and--yes there's a cart and horse coming--awfully fast. I do believe the horse is running away. No, he's pulled it up, and----" "O Ted," said Cissy, clasping her hands, "how _lovely_ it must be! O Ted, do come down and be kick about making the place for me, for Cissy." Just then the dinner-bell rang. Ted began his descent, Cissy eagerly awaiting him. She took his hand and trotted along beside him. "_Do_ zoo think zoo can do it, Ted?" she said. "I must see about the wood first," said Ted, not without a little importance in his tone; "I think there's some pieces in the coach-house that would do." At luncheon the big people, of whom there were several, for some uncles and aunts had been staying with the children's father and mother lately, noticed that Ted and Cissy looked very eager about something. "What have you been doing with yourselves, you little people, this morning?" said one of the aunties kindly. Cissy was about to answer, but a glance from Ted made her shut tight her little mouth again. There must be some reason for it--perhaps this delightful plan was to be a secret, for her faith in Ted was unbounded. "We've been in the garden, in _our_ gardens," Ted replied. "Digging up the plants to see if they were growing--eh?" said an uncle who liked to tease a little sometimes. Ted didn't mind teasing. He only laughed. Cissy looked a little, a very little offended. She did _not_ like teasing, and she specially disliked any one teasing her dear Ted. Her face grew a little red. "Ted knows about f'owers bootilly," she said; "Ted knows lots of things." "_Cissy!_" said Ted, whose turn it was now to grow a little red, but Cissy maintained her ground. "Ses," she said. "Ted does." "Ted's to grow up a very clever man, isn't he, Cissy?" said her father encouragingly--"as clever as _Uncle_ Ted here." "Oh no," the little fellow replied, blushing still more, for Ted never put himself forward so as to be noticed; "I never could be that. Uncle Ted writes books with lots of counting and stick-sticks in them and----" "Lots of _what_?" asked his uncle. "Stick-sticks," said Ted simply. "I don't know what it means, but mother told me it was a sort of counting--like how many days in a year were fine and how many rainy." "Or how many old women with baskets, and how many without, passed down the road this morning--eh, Ted?" said his other uncle, laughing heartily. "Yes, I suppose so," said Ted. "Are stick-sticks any good?" he inquired, consideringly. "It's to be hoped so," said Uncle Ted. A bright idea struck the little fellow. He must talk it over with Cissy. If only that delightful seat between the tree and the wall was arranged _they_ might make "stick-sticks"! What fun, and how pleased Uncle Ted would be! Already Ted's active brain began to plan it all. They should have a nice big ruled sheet of paper and divide it into rows, as for columns of sums: one row should be for horses alone, and one for horses with carts, and one for people, and one for children, and another for dogs, and another for wheelbarrows perhaps. And then sometimes donkeys passed, and now and then pigs even, on their way to market--yes, a lot of rows would be needed. And at the top of the paper he would write in nice big letters "stick"--no, mother would tell him how to write it nicely, he knew that wasn't quite the real word, mother would spell it for him: "St--something--of what passed the tree." It would be almost like writing a book. He was so eager about it that he could hardly finish his dinner. For a great deal was involved in his plan, as you shall hear. In the first place, it became evident to him after an examination of the bits of wood in the unused coach-house, that there was nothing there that would do. He could get a nice little plank, a plank that would not scratch poor Cissy's legs or tear her frocks, from the carpenter, but then it would cost money, for Ted had gained some worldly wisdom since the days when he thought the kind shopkeepers spread out their wares for everybody to help themselves as they liked. And Ted was rather short of money, and Ted was of rather an independent spirit. He would much prefer not asking mother for any. The seat in the tree would be twice as nice if he could manage it all his own self, as Cissy would say. Ted thought it all over a great deal, and talked about it to Cissy. It was a good thing, they agreed, that it was holiday-time just now, even though Ted had every day _some_ lessons to do. And though Cissy was very little, it was, after all, she who thought of a plan for gaining some money, as you shall hear. Some few times in their lives Ted and Cissy had seen Punch and Judy, and most delightful they thought it. Perhaps I am wrong in saying Cissy had seen it more than once, but _Ted_ had, and he used to amuse Cissy by acting it over to please her. And I think it was from this that her idea came. "Appose, Ted," she said the next day when they were out in the garden having a great consultation--"appose we make a show, and all the big people would give us pennies." Ted considered for a minute. They were standing, Cissy and he, by the railing which at one side of their father's pretty garden divided it from some lovely fields, where sheep, with their dear little lambs skipping about beside them, were feeding. Far in the distance rose the soft blue outlines of a lofty hill, "our precious hill" Ted's mother used to call it, and indeed it was almost worthy of the name of mountain, and for this she valued it still more, as it seemed to her like a reminder of the mountain home she had loved so dearly. Ted's glance fell on it, and it carried back his thoughts to the mountain of his babyhood and the ogre stories mixed up with it in his mind. And then his thoughts went wandering away to his old "hymn book," still in a place of honour in his bookshelves, and to the fairy stories at the end of it--Cinderella and the others. He turned to Cissy with a beaming face. "I'll tell you what we'll do, Cis," he said; "we'll have a show of Beauty and the Beast. What a good idea it was of yours, Cis, to have a show." Cissy was _greatly_ flattered. Only she didn't quite like the idea of her dear Ted being the Beast. But when Ted reminded her that the Beast was _really_ so good and kind, she grew satisfied. "And how awfully pleased Percy will be when he comes to see the seat, _won't_ he?" said Ted. And this thought reconciled him to what hitherto had been rather a grief to him--that Percy's holidays were shorter and fell later in the season than his. You can imagine, children, better than I could tell what a bustle and fuss Ted and Cissy were in all that day. They looked so important, Ted's eyes were so bright, and Cissy's little mouth shut close in such a dignified way, that the big people must have been _very_ stupid big people not to suspect something out of the common. But as they were very kind big people, and as they understood children and children's ways, they took care not to seem as if they did notice, and Mabel and her sister, who were also of the home party, even helped Cissy to stitch up an old muslin window curtain in a wonderful way for Beauty's dress, without making any indiscreet remarks. At which little Cissy greatly rejoiced. "_Wasn't_ I clever not to let zoo find out?" she said afterwards, with immense satisfaction. Late that evening--late for the children that is to say--about seven o'clock, for Cissy had got leave to sit up an hour longer, there came a ring at the hall bell, and a very funny-looking letter was handed in, which a boy in a muffled voice told the servant was for the ladies and gentlemen, and that she was to tell them the "act" would begin in five minutes "in the theatre hall of the day nursery." The parlour maid, who (of course!) had not the least idea in the world that the messenger was Master Ted, gravely handed the letter to Miss Mabel, who was the first person she saw, and Mabel hastened to explain to the others that its contents, quarters of old calling-cards with numbers marked on them, were evidently meant to be tickets for the performance. The big people were all much amused, but all of course were quite ready to "assist" at the "act." They thought it better to wait a little more than five minutes before going upstairs to the theatre hall, to give Ted time to get ready before the spectators arrived, not understanding, you see, that all he had to do was to pin his father's rough brown railway rug on, to imitate the Beast. So when they at last all marched upstairs the actors were both ready awaiting them. Illustration: "Oh dear, oh dear!" cries Beauty, jumping up in a fright, "he's coming to eat me."--P. 133. There was a row of chairs arranged at one side of the nursery for the visitors, and the hearth-rug, pulled out of its place, with a couple of footstools at each side, served for the stage. Scene first was Miss Beauty sitting in a corner crying, after her father had left her in the Beast's garden. "He'll eat me up! oh, he'll eat me up!" she sobs out; and then a low growl is heard, and from a corner behind a table where no one had noticed him, a very remarkable-looking shapeless sort of dark brown lump rolls or waddles along the floor. "Oh dear, oh dear!" cries Beauty, jumping up in a fright, "he's coming to eat me." "No, I'm not going to eat you, dear Beauty," the growly voice replies; "I'm not going to hurt you, dear Beauty. I've brought you something nice to eat for your tea. I'm sure you must be hungry;" and from somewhere or other the Beast produces a plate with some biscuits, which he humbly lays at her feet and then waddles off again. Beauty nibbles at the biscuits, then murmuring to herself, "He's a very kind Beast," she moves away, her window curtain train sweeping gracefully after her, behind the screen, which is supposed to represent the inside of the Beast's Castle, and where he himself has already disappeared. And this is the end of the first scene, the "act" being divided into two scenes. The audience all clap their hands in applause. "Capital!" and "Bravo!" they call out, so that Ted and Cissy feel their cheeks quite red, even behind the screen. "Let's get it done quick, Cissy," said Ted; "it makes me feel so silly when they call out like that." And the last scene is hurried on. It is not a very long one. Beauty has been away. She has gone, as everybody knows, on a visit to her old home, and on her return poor Beast is nowhere to be found. At last she discovers him lying quite still in a corner of the garden. "Oh, poor Beast!" she exclaims, "Cis--Booty, I mean, is so sorry. Oh, poor Beast! I is afraid you is kite deaded, and I do love zoo, poor Beast," at which up jumps poor Beast, Beast no longer, for his rough skin rolls off as if by magic, and lo and behold there is Ted, got up ever so fine, with a scarlet scarf round his waist and an elegant old velvet smoking-cap with a long tassel on his head, and goodness knows what more. "Oh, you bootiful P'ince," cries Beauty, and then they take hands and bow most politely to the audience, and then in a sudden fit of shamefacedness and shyness, they both scurry off behind the screen, Ted toppling over Cissy's long train on the way, at which there is renewed applause, and great laughter from the actors themselves. But the manager is quite up to his business. "That's all," calls out a little voice from behind the screen; "zoo may all go now, and _pay at the door_." And sure enough as the big people make their way out, there is Ted in his usual attire standing at the door, with a little basket in his hand, gracefully held out for contributions. "Why, how did you get here already?" asks his father. "I slipped round by the other side of the screen while you were all laughing and clapping," says Ted, looking up with a beaming face. And the pennies and sixpennies that find their way into the basket are several. When the actors count up their gains before they go to bed, they are the happy possessors of two shillings and sevenpence. Far more than enough to pay for the wood for the seat in the tree! CHAPTER VIII. "STATISTICS." "Are they not busy?--the creatures! Wanting to go to their beds?--not they!" How delightful it was to wake the next morning and to see sparkling in the early sunshine the neat little silver coins, and the big copper ones, laid out in a row on his table! Ted jumped out of bed, not quite so early as he had intended, for he had been up rather later than usual the night before, and by the time he had had his nice cold bath and was dressed, he heard the prayer bell ring, and was only ready to take his seat as usual on a little chair in a corner of the room not far from where his dear old nurse and the other servants were placed. He liked better to sit there, for it gave him somehow a little uncomfortable feeling to see the servants quite by themselves, as it were, so separated from the family, and he had got into the way of sitting between the two sets of seats, and though little Narcissa from her perch on her mother's knee would sometimes smile and nod and beckon to him to come nearer, Ted always kept to his own place. This morning many thoughts were dancing about his brain, and it was a little difficult for him to listen with his usual attention, even though it was one of the chapters he was very fond of, especially when his father read it in his nice clear voice. It was that one about the boy Jesus, staying behind His father and mother to talk with the learned doctors in the temple, and though some part of it puzzled Ted rather, yet he liked to listen and think about it. How frightened that father and mother must have been! How was it that Jesus knew that it was right for Him to stay behind--even though it was without His father's and mother's leave? For other little boys it would have been wrong, but then,--oh yes, of course, Jesus was not like other little boys. If only they, if only he, Ted, could learn to be more like _Him_, the one perfect Christmas child! And even the puzzling part of it grew clearer as this unconscious prayer rose out of the innocent heart. For Ted's own father and mother, even if they were frightened for a little, would not be _vexed_ if he did something without their leave that was good and right. Only it was difficult to tell, very difficult--on the whole Ted felt that he understood what his mother told him about being obedient, better than he used. That was what God had given little boys fathers and mothers for, for they, when they were good and wise, could not but know best. When they were _not_ good and wise, like the fathers and mothers of some of the poor London street boys he had heard of--oh, how fearful that must be! And then as his own father's voice went on, it all came before Ted like a picture--he had once seen a picture of it, he thought--the first setting-out of old Joseph and the sweet-faced mother, the distress and fear, the delight of finding the Child again, and then the long walk home all together to the carpenter's shop in the narrow Eastern street. And, child-like, Ted's fancy turned again with the association to what was before him this morning. _He_ was to go to the carpenter's to choose the wood for the seat in the tree, and oh, how delightful it would be to see it arranged, and how surprised Percy would be, and what beautiful rows of stick-sticks Cissy and he would be able to make to help Uncle Ted. All kinds of pleasant hopes and fancies were racing round Ted's brain again as he knelt down with the others to listen to the prayer that followed the reading. It was not till the murmured chorus of "Our Father," repeated all together at the end, caught his ear, that with a sudden start Ted realised that he had not been listening. He did feel sorry and ashamed, but he was so happy that morning, the world outside was so bright and sunny, and the people inside so kind and cheerful, as they all sat round the breakfast table, that Ted's self-reproach did not last. And as soon as he had finished the short morning lessons he had to do in the holidays, he got leave from mother to go off to order the plank for the seat. It turned out a little dearer than he had expected. Two and sevenpence were the funds in hand. "I could give you a piece of wood for much less of course, sir," said the good-natured carpenter, who was a great ally of Ted's, "but as you explain it to me it needs something more than a bit of wood, else it wouldn't be safe for you and the young lady to sit on;" and then he showed the boy how it should be done, with a small iron bolt driven into the wall and another of a different kind fixed to the tree. "Then," said he, "it will be as safe as safe, and I'll plane you a neat little seat with no splinters or sharp edges to tear Missy's frocks." Ted was delighted. His quick eye caught at once the carpenter's plan, and he saw how much more satisfactory and complete it would be than the rough idea he had had at first. But the price? Ted felt much afraid that here was to be the difficulty. "How much will it cost, Mr. Newton?" he inquired anxiously. The carpenter reflected a moment. "Wood, so much; bolts, so much; nails; time;" Ted heard him half whispering to himself. Then he looked up. "A matter of three shilling or so, sir," he replied. "I'll try that it shan't be more. But you see the bolts I have to buy, they're not things as we use every day. And for the time, sir, I'm not thinking much of that. The evenings are light now. I'll try and see to it myself after work's over." "Thank you very much, Mr. Newton," said Ted. "I think it'll be all right. But I'd like first to tell my mother how much it will cost, and then I'll run back and settle about it." "All right, sir," the carpenter replied; and after pausing a moment at the door to pat the great big gentle dog, that was lying there blinking in the sunshine, and thinking to himself that its eyes somehow reminded him of long ago Cheviott whom Ted still remembered, though Newton's dog wasn't at all the same kind, the boy ran off again, whistling as he went, with light dancing steps down the in-and-out zigzag streets of the old town, stopping a moment, eager as he was, to admire the peeps of lovely view he came upon now and then as he turned a corner, or crossed the open market-place. He was in great spirits. Fivepence short he felt sure could easily be made up. "Either mother will give it me," he thought, "or she'll find some way of my earning it. I'm sure she'd like it properly done, and there'll be no fear of Cissy or me hurting ourselves." On he danced again, for now he was in more open ground, running along the country highroad where was his home. A few cottages stood not far from where he was passing--cottages of respectable people, with several of whom sociable Ted was on friendly terms, and just as he was nearing the first of these, a boy about his own age came out, a basket on his arm and in his hands something tied up in a cloth which he was carrying carefully. But boys will be boys! "Good morning, Jamie," said Ted as they met, for he recognised the boy as the son of a man living farther down the road, who had sometimes worked for his father; "where have you been, and what's that you've got?" and in pure fun Ted tapped with a switch he was carrying on the mysterious bundle. Jamie looked up laughingly. "O Master Ted," he was just beginning, but somehow--_how_ I cannot tell, and I feel pretty sure that neither Ted nor Jamie could have told either--Ted's friendly tap had either distracted his attention so that he trod on a stone and lost his balance, or else it had destroyed the equilibrium of the bundle itself, so that almost before he had time even to say "O Master Ted," the mischief was done. Down plumped the bundle, with a crash of broken crockery, and a brown liquid at once oozed out through the cloth, making a melancholy puddle on the road. Jamie's half-spoken words changed into a cry of despair. It was the Sunday's dinner which had come to grief, the pie which his poor mother had prepared so carefully, and which he was taking home from his grandmother's, in whose oven it had been baking. "Oh dear, oh dear, what ever _shall_ I do?" cried the poor little boy. "What will mother say? Oh dear, oh dear!--O Master Ted, what shall I do?" Jamie's tears and sobs were pitiful. Ted, with a pale concerned face stood beside him, speechless. "It was all my fault, Jamie," he said at last. "It's me your mother must scold, not you. I must go home with you, and tell her it wasn't your fault." "Oh but it were," sobbed the child. "Mother always tells me to look neither to right nor to left when I'm carrying anything like this here. Oh deary me, what ever shall I do?" He stooped down and untied the knots of the large checked handkerchief in which the unfortunate pie had been enveloped. The dish was all in pieces, the gravy fast disappearing. Jamie gathered together, using the largest bit of the broken stoneware as a plate, some of the pieces of meat which might still be eaten, and Ted, stooping down too, helped him to the best of his ability. But it was very little that could be saved from the shipwreck. And then the two boys turned in the direction of Jamie's home, Jamie sobbing all the way, and Ted himself too appalled to know what to say to comfort him. Jamie's mother was a busy, hard-working woman. She was kind to her children, but that is not to say that they never had a sharp word from her. And there were so many of them--more than enough to try the patience of a mother less worried by other cares. So poor Jamie had some reason to cry, and he did not attempt to prevent Ted's going home with him--alone he would hardly have dared to face the expected scolding. She was at the door, or just inside it, as the boys made their appearance, with a big tub before her in which she was washing up some odds and ends, without which her numerous family could not have made their usual tidy appearance at church and Sunday school the next day. For it was Saturday, often a rather trying day to heads of households in every class. But Jim's mother was in pretty good spirits. She had got on with her work, Sunday's pie had been made early and sent on to granny's, and Jamie, who was a very careful messenger, would be back with it immediately, all ready to be eaten cold with hot potatoes the next day. So Sunday's dinner was off the good woman's mind, when suddenly a startling vision met her gaze. There was Jamie, red-eyed and tearful, coming down the road, and beside him the little Master from the Lawn House. What could be the matter? Jamie had not hurt _himself_, thus much was evident, but what was the small and shapeless bundle he was carrying in the handkerchief she had given him to cover the pie, and what had come over the nice clean handkerchief itself? The poor woman's heart gave a great throb of vexation. "What ever have ye done with the pie, Jamie?" she exclaimed first in her anxiety, though she then turned in haste to bid the little master "good morning." "O mother," Jamie began, his sobs bursting out afresh, but Ted put him gently aside. "Let me tell," he said. "I came on purpose. If--if you please," he went on eagerly, though his fair face flushed a little, "it was all my fault. I gave Jim a little poke with my stick, quite in fun, and somehow it made him drop the pie. But it isn't his fault. You won't scold _him_, please, will you?" Vexed as she was, Jamie's mother could not but feel softened. Ted's friendly ways were well known to his poorer neighbours, who with one voice pronounced him "a perfect little gentleman wherever he goes." "It's not much use scolding," she said gently enough, but still with real distress in her tone which went to Ted's heart. "No use crying over spilt milk, as my master says. But still I do think Jamie might have been more careful. However, it can't be helped, but they'll have to do without a pie for dinner to-morrow. And thank you, Master Ted, for coming along of Jim for to tell me." "But it wasn't Jim's fault. It was _all_ mine," repeated Ted sadly. And then he bade the poor woman good-bye, and nodding to Jim, who was still wiping his eyes, though looking a good deal less frightened, the boy set off towards home again. But how different everything looked--the sun was as bright, the air as pleasant as ten minutes before, but Ted's heart was heavy, and when at the garden gate he met his mother, who greeted him with her kind smile and asked him if he had settled with Newton about the seat, it was all poor Ted could do not to burst into tears. He was running past his mother into the house, with a hasty "Yes, thank you, mother, I'll tell you about it afterwards," for he had not yet made up his mind what he should say or do; it was his own fault, and he must suffer for it, that was his first idea, but his mother stopped him. The momentary glance at his face had been sufficient to show her that something was the matter. "What is it, Ted, dear?" she said kindly and anxiously. Ted's answer was a question, and a very queer question. "Mother," he said, "how much do pies cost?" "Pies," repeated his mother, "what kind of pies do you mean? Big ones, little ones, meat ones, or what?" "Big ones, mother, at least _a_ big one, and all made of meat, with crust at the top. And oh!" he exclaimed, "there was the dish! I daresay that cost a good deal," and his face grew sadder and sadder. But his mother told him he really must explain, and so he did. "I didn't mean to tell you about it, mother," he said, "for it was my own fault, and telling you seems almost like asking for the money," and here poor Ted's face grew red again. "I thought the only thing to do was to take the _act_ money, the two shillings and sevenpence, you know, mother, and give it to Jamie's mother, and just give up having the seat," and here Ted's repressed feelings were too much for him. He turned away his face and fairly burst into tears. Give up the seat! Think of all that meant to him, poor boy. The pleasure for Cissy as well as his own, the delightful surprise to Percy, the rows of stick-sticks for his uncle. I don't think it was wonderful that Ted burst into tears. "My poor boy," said his mother, and then she thought it over to herself for a little. She did not begin talking to Ted about how careless he had been, and that it must be a lesson to him, and so on, as many even very kind mothers are sometimes tempted to do, when, as _does_ happen now and then in this rather contrary world, very small wrongdoings have very big results,--she could not feel that Ted had been much to blame, and she was quite sure it _would_ be "a lesson to him," without her saying any more about it. So she just thought it over quietly, and then said, "No, Ted. I don't quite think that would be right. Your giving up the seat would be punishing others as well as yourself--Cissy particularly--and that would not be right. I will see that Jamie and his brothers and sisters have something for their dinner to-morrow that will please them as much as the pie, and you must tell Newton to go on with the seat, and----" "But, mother," interrupted Ted, "I won't be happy unless I pay it myself, the dinner I mean. It wouldn't be _fair_, if I didn't--would it, mother?" and he looked up with his honest, anxious blue eyes in his mother's face, so that she felt the same wish to stoop down and kiss him that had made her do so long ago in the street of the little country town near their old home. "I was going on to speak about that," said his mother. "It will take all your money and a little more to pay Newton, you see, and you haven't any more." "No, mother, but if I was to give up my library pennies?"--for Ted subscribed a penny a week to a children's library in the town, as he had long ago exhausted the home stores. "That would take a _very_ long time, and it would be a pity for you to lose your reading," said his mother. "But I'll tell you what--I will count the dinner as owing from you to me, and you will pay it as best you can, little by little. For every summer you get presents from your uncles or cousins when they are with us. I will count it two shillings and sixpence--the sixpence for the dish, and I know you will not forget to pay me." "No indeed, mother, and thank you _so_ much," said Ted, with a now really lightened heart. "Shall I tell Jamie about the dinner? I could go that way when I go back to Newton's. He will be so pleased. His mother didn't scold him, but yet I couldn't help being _very_ sorry for him. His face did look so unhappy." And when, after dinner, Ted ran off again, I think the pleasure of the good news in store for poor Jamie was quite as much in his mind as his own errand to Newton's. The seat was a great success. Newton came that very evening to measure it exactly, and Ted had the satisfaction of making some suggestions which the carpenter thought very good ones, as to the best way of fastening it firmly. And on Monday evening the work was accomplished. Never, surely, were two birds in a nest more happy than Ted and Cissy, when, for the first time, they mounted up on to their airy throne. Their mother, busy among her flowers, was surprised by a sound of soft singing over her head, coming from at first she could not tell where. She stood still to listen--she had, for the moment, forgotten about the perch in the tree. But the words and the tune soon told her who it was. It was Ted at his old favourite, "Home, sweet home." Sweetly and softly his boyish voice rang out. The tears came into his mother's eyes, but she moved away silently. She did not want the children to know she was there. It seemed to take away the simplicity of his pretty singing for him to know that _any one_, even his mother, had been listening. "He is very fond of music," she said to herself, "no doubt he has great taste for it," and the thought gave her pleasure. She pictured to herself happy future days when Ted and Cissy would be able to play and sing together--when as "big people," the brother and sister would continue the tender friendship that she liked so much to see. Monday evening was too late to begin the important paper for Uncle Ted. But on Tuesday the children were up with the lark, armed with a long ruled sheet, divided by lines across the other way, into what Ted called several "compartments," a pencil or two, for though Cissy could not make figures, she could make little strokes, each of which stood for a one _something_. The words at the head of the "compartments" comprised everything which, with the slightest probability, _could_ be expected to journey along the highroad. Men, women, boys, girls, babies in perambulators, babies in nurses' arms; old women with baskets were considered a separate genus, and had a row to themselves; carts with one horse, waggons with two, donkeys, dogs, pigs, cats, wheelbarrows. And at one side Ted carefully marked the hour at which began and ended the "observations." For, alas! the children could not be _all_ day at their post, though they did gravely purpose that they should take it in turn to go in to dinner, so that no passers-by should be unrecorded. But that mother could not agree to. Dinner must be eaten, and with as much deliberation and propriety as usual, or else what was an interest and a pleasure would have to be discouraged. And after all it was rather nice to have the paper exhibited and commented upon as they all sat round the luncheon-table, though Cissy looked as if she were not _quite_ sure that she should not take offence for Ted, when one of the big people inquired why there wasn't a row for elephants and another for dancing-bears. The long summer afternoon was spent in the same way. Never surely had such a delightful occupation for two small people brimming over with life and energy, been discovered. Two birds busied with arranging their nest could not have been more completely content. "If this goes on," said the children's mother, laughing, when they did condescend to come in to tea, "I think we had better send a mattress and a pillow up to your seat, and let you stay there all night." Ted and Cissy smiled, and in their hearts I rather think they were of opinion that what their mother proposed would be very nice. But, eager as they were, they were both very hungry, and it was evident that living in a tree did not destroy their appetite, for the quantity of slices of bread and butter which disappeared would have alarmed any one unaccustomed to the feats of little people in that way. And tea over, off they set again. It was almost as if they were away on a visit somewhere, the house seemed so quiet, and the garden, so often at that time of day the scene of tremendous romps in which even nurse herself was coaxed to join, quite deserted. _Unless_--that is to say--you had passed under a certain tree and stood still to listen to the clatter going on overhead, though, thanks to the leafy branches, there was nothing to be _seen_. "Can there be magpies up in that tree?" would, I think, have been your first idea. And then, listening a little more attentively, you would have come to think that whether human or feathered they were very funny magpies indeed. "Fifteen, _sixteen_, that makes. Hurrah, sixteen dogs since ten o'clock this morning. And, let's see, seven old women with baskets, and----" "Them wasn't all _old_," corrects the small voice of magpie number two; "Jessie wif the eggs isn't old." "Never mind; if they've got baskets they _should_ be old," replies Ted. "An old woman with a basket _sounds_ right. Then there's five p'rambulators, oh, it _is_ a long word to spell--it goes right out of its place into the other rows. I wish I'd just put 'babies in p'rams.' And then there's three pigs and horses, oh dear I can't count how many. It's getting too dark to see the strokes on the paper. I say, Cissy, just you get down and run in and ask for two or three dips. We can stick them up on the wall and have a beautiful lighting up, and then we can see everybody that passes." Down clambered obedient Cissy--she was growing very alert by this time at making her way up and down--off she set to the house with her message. "Dips, dips," she repeated to herself. "Ted says I'm to ask for two or three dips. I wonder what dips is." She had not the slightest idea, but it never occurred to her to do otherwise than exactly what her brother had said. It was a funny little figure that presented itself to the children's mother, in the twilight, just as she was putting away her work and thinking it was really time for Ted and Cissy to come in, a shawl wrapped round and tied behind over her white pinafore, of which the part that could be seen was by no means as clean as it might have been, any more than the eager flushed little face, with its bright dark eyes and wavy hair tumbling over the forehead. "My dear Cissy, what a _very_ dirty little girl you are," said her mother, laughing. "You really look more like a gipsy than anything else." "Does dipsies live up trees?" inquired Cissy gravely. "Trees _is_ rather dirty. But oh, mother, Ted wants me to ask you for two or three dips. _P'ease_ give me zem." "_Dips_," repeated her mother, "what in the world does he want dips for?" "Cissy doesn't know," replied the little girl. "Cissy doesn't know what dips is. Cissy finks Ted said he would 'tick zem up on ze wall, to make it look pitty." Her mother was very much amused. "Dips are candles," she said. "I suppose Ted wants to light up the tree." Her words made a light break over Cissy's face in the first place. "Oh ses," said the little maiden, "it is getting so dark. Oh _do_ give Ted some dips, _dear_ mother--do, _do_." But not any number of "do's" would have made mother agree to so dangerous a proceeding. "My dear little girl, you would certainly set yourselves on fire, and the tree too," she replied. "But never mind," she went on, seeing the corners of Cissy's mouth going down with the thought of Ted's disappointment, "I will go out with you and explain to Ted." Mother put a shawl over her shoulders and went out with her little girl. Some way off, Ted heard them coming. "O Cis, have you got the dips?" he cried. "I forgot to tell you to bring some matches too. I've had such hard work to see, and a lot of people passed. I _think_ there was a woman and two boys. I'll have to mark them down, when----" "I've come with Cissy, Ted," replied his mother's voice, to his surprise, "to tell you that it would really be too much of a good thing to go on with your observations all night. And, in the first place, you would certainly set yourself and Cissy and the tree on fire, if I let you have candles up there. Come down now, that's a good boy, and show me your paper, and we'll pack it up to send to your uncle by post." "Very well, mother," said Ted, with his usual cheery good-nature. "I'm coming. Here goes," and in another minute he was beside her. "You don't know what a beautiful long paperful I've got. I don't want you to pack it up _yet_, mother. Cissy and I are going to keep it on ever so much longer, aren't we, Cis?" And chattering merrily the children went in with their mother. But as she said to their father, it really is to be doubted if they would not have stayed in the tree all night, if Ted had got his wish and arranged a "dip" illumination on the top of the wall. After all, that day in the tree was the last of their "stick-sticks." The weather changed, and there was nearly a week of rain, and by the time it was over, children-like, Ted and Cissy had grown tired of the rows of strokes representing old women and donkeys and horses, and all the rest of them; the "observations" had lost their attraction for them. Still the pleasure was not quite over, for there was the packing of the big paper to send to Uncle Ted by post, and his letter of thanks in return. And Percy came home for the holidays, and greatly approved of the nest in the tree. And what the children did _not_ do up there--what games they played, how they were by turns Robinson Crusoe hiding from the savages, King Charles in the oak at Boscobel, or, quainter still, how they all sometimes suddenly turned into squirrels and manufactured for themselves the most wonderful tails of old brush handles, and goodness only knows what, which stuck straight up behind and made the climbing to the nest by no means an easy matter--yes indeed, what they did _not_ do up in the tree would be difficult to tell. But it comes into my mind just now that I have never told you anything of Ted's indoor life. Hitherto it has seemed all summer days and gardens, has it not? And no doubt the boy's _greatest_ happiness was in outdoor interests and employments. But of course it was not always summer and sunshine for Ted, any more than for any one else--and, Christmas child though he was, there were wintry days when even _he_ had to stay in the house and find work and pleasures indoors. For winter does not mean nothing but bright frosty skies overhead, and crisp clean snow underfoot. There are dreary days of rain and mist and mud, when children are much better at home, and when mothers and nurses are more thankful than any one _not_ a mother or nurse can imagine, to have to do with cheerful contented little people, who are "good at amusing themselves," and unselfish enough not to worry every one about them because it is a rainy day. CHAPTER IX. A PEACOCK'S FEATHER AND A KISS. "We tried to quarrel yesterday. Ah!... kiss the memory away." In Ted's pleasant home there was a queer little room used for nothing in particular. It was a very little room, hardly worthy indeed of the name, but it had, like some small men who have very big minds, a large window with a most charming view. I think it was partly this which made Ted take such a fancy to this queer little room in the first place--he used to stand at the window when they first came to the house and gaze out at the stretch of sloping fields, with peeps here and there of the blue river fringed with splendid trees, and farther off still the distant hills fading away into the mysterious cloudiness, the sight of which always gave him a strange feeling as if he would like to cry--Ted used to gaze out of this window for ever so long at a time, till somehow the little room came to be associated with him, and the rest of the family got into the way of speaking of it as his. And gradually an idea took shape in his mind which he consulted his mother about, and which she was quite pleased to agree to. Might he have this little room for his museum? That was Ted's idea, and oh how eagerly his blue eyes looked up into his mother's face for her reply, and how the light danced in them with pleasure when she said "yes." There were shelves in the little room--shelves not too high up, some of them at least, for Ted to arrange his curiosities on, without having to climb on to a chair, and even Cissy, when she was trusted as a great treat to dust some of the treasures, could manage nicely with just a footstool. It would be impossible to tell you half the pleasure Ted got out of his museum. It was to him a sort of visible history of his simple happy life, for nowhere did he go without bringing back with him some curious stone or shell, or bird's feather, or uncommon leaf even, to be placed in his collection, both as a remembrance of his visit and as a thing of interest in itself. There were specimens of cotton in its different stages, of wool too, from a soft bit of fluff which Ted had picked off a Welsh bramble, to a square inch of an exquisitely knitted Shetland shawl, fine as a cobweb, which Ted had begged from Mabel when she was giving the remains of the shawl to Cissy for her doll. There were bits of different kinds of coal; there was "Blue John" from a Derbyshire cavern, and a tiny china doll which, much charred and disfigured, had yet survived the great fire of Chicago, where one of the children's uncles had passed by not long after; there was a bit of black bread from the siege of Paris; there were all manner of things, all ticketed and numbered, and their description neatly entered in a catalogue which lay on a little table by the door, on which was also to be seen another book, in which Ted requested all visitors to the museum to write their names, and all the big people of the family so well understood the boy's pride and pleasure in his museum, that no one ever thought of making his way into his little room without his invitation. Ted had begun his museum some months before the great excitement of the nest in the tree, but the delights of the long summer days out of doors had a little put it out of his head. But the latter part, as well as the beginning of these holidays, happened to be very rainy, and the last fortnight was spent mostly by Percy and Ted in the tiny museum room, where Percy helped Ted to finish the ticketing and numbering that he had not long before begun. And Cissy, of course, was as busy as anybody, flopping about with an old pocket-handkerchief which she called her duster, and reproving the boys with great dignity for unsettling any of the trays she had made so "bootily clean." "You must try to get some more feathers, Ted," said Percy. "They make such a pretty collection. There's a fellow at our school that has an awful lot. He fastens them on to cards--he's got a bird-of-Paradise plume, an awful beauty. Indeed he's got two, for he offered to sell me one for half-a-crown. Wouldn't you like it?" "I should think I would," said Ted, "but I can't buy anything this half. You know my money's owing to mother for that that I told you about." He gave a little sigh; the bird of Paradise was a tempting idea. "_Poor_ Ted," said Cissy, clambering down from her stool to give him a hug. Ted accepted the hug, but not the pity. "No, Cissy. I'm not poor Ted for that," he said merrily. "It was ever so kind of mother to put it all right, and ever so much kinder of her to do it that way. I shouldn't have liked not to pay it myself." "I'll see if I can't get that fellow to swop his bird of Paradise for some of my stamps, when I go back to school," said Percy. "Oh, thank you, Percy," said Ted, his eyes shining. "Anyway you might have some peacocks'," Percy went on. "They're not so hard to get, and they look so pretty." "Mother's got some screens made of them on the drawing-room mantelpiece," said Ted, "and one of them's got a lot of loose feathers sticking out at the back that are no use. Perhaps she'd give me one or two. Then I could make a nice cardful, with the peacocks' at the corners and the little ones in a sort of a wreath in the middle." He looked at the sheet of white paper on to which, at present, his feathers were fastened. "Yes, it would be very pretty," he repeated. But just then the tea-bell rang, and the children left the museum for that day. The boys were in it the next morning, when Ted's mother appeared with a rather graver face than usual. She did not come in, she knew that Ted was putting all in perfect order, and that he did not want her to see it till complete, so she only slightly opened the door and called him out. "Ted," she said quietly, but Ted saw that she was sorry, "Ted, do you know anything of this?" She held up as she spoke a pretty and valuable little china ornament which always stood on the drawing-room mantelpiece. It was broken--quite spoilt--it could never be the same again. "Oh dear," exclaimed Ted, "what a pity! Your dear little flower-basket. I am so sorry. How could it have got broken?" "I don't know," said his mother. "I found it lying on the floor. It seemed as if some one had knocked it over without knowing. You are sure you were not trying to reach anything off the mantelpiece yesterday evening?" "Sure," said Ted, looking sorry and puzzled. "It stood just in front of my screen of peacock feathers," his mother went on. She did not in the very very least doubt his assurance, but his manner gave her the feeling that if she helped his memory a little, he might be able to throw some light on the mystery. "In front of the peacock-feather fan," he repeated absently. "Yes," said his mother, "but do not say anything about it, Ted. We may find out how it happened, but I do not like questioning every one about it. It gives the servants a feeling that I don't trust them, for they always tell me if they break anything. So don't say anything more about it to _any one_." "No," said Ted. His tone and manner were still a little puzzled, as if something was in his mind which he could not make clear to himself, and his mother, knowing that he sometimes was inclined to take things of the kind too much to heart, made up her mind to think no more about her poor little vase, and to treat its breakage as one of the accidents we have all to learn to bear philosophically in daily life. But though no more was said, Ted did not forget about it: it worried and puzzled him behind other thoughts, as it were, all day, and little did he or his mother think who was really the innocent culprit. Late that night, just before going to bed herself, Ted's mother glanced into his room, as she often did, to see that the boy was sleeping peacefully. The light that she carried she shaded carefully, but a very wide-awake voice greeted her at once. "Mother," it said, "I'm not asleep. Mother, I do so want to speak to you. I've not been able to go to sleep for thinking about the little broken vase." "O Ted, dear," said his mother, "don't mind about it. It is no use vexing oneself so much about things when they are done and can't be put right." "But, mother," he persisted, "it isn't quite that. Of course I'm _very_ sorry for it to be broken, however it happened. But what makes me so uncomfortable is that I've begun to wonder so if perhaps I _did_ do it. I know we were all talking about your peacock-feather screens yesterday. I said to Percy and Cissy there were some loose ones in one of them, and perhaps you'd give me some for my card of feathers, and I've got a sort of wondering feeling whether perhaps I _did_ touch the screen and knocked down the china flower-basket without knowing, and it's making me so unhappy, but I _didn't_ mean to hide it from you if I did do it." He looked up so wistfully that his mother's heart felt quite sore. She considered a minute before she replied, for she was afraid of seeming to make light of his trouble or of checking his perfect honesty, and yet, on the other hand, she was wise, and knew that even conscientiousness may be exaggerated and grow into a weakness, trying to others as well as hurtful to oneself. "I am sure you did not mean to hide anything from me, dear Ted," she replied, "and I don't think it is the least likely that you did break the vase. But even if you did, it is better to think no more about it. You answered me sincerely at the time, and that was all you could do. We are only human beings, you know, dear Ted, always likely to make mistakes, even to say what is not true at the very moment we are most anxious to be truthful. We can only do our best, and ask God to help us. So don't trouble any more, even if we never find out how it happened." Then she stooped and gave Ted an extra good-night kiss, and in five minutes his loving anxious little spirit was asleep. But the very next day the mystery was explained. "Ted's _new_seum is bootly neat," Cissy announced at breakfast-time, "but he wants some more fevvers. I tried to get down muzzer's screen off the mantelpiece to see if there was some loose ones, but I couldn't reach it. Muzzer, _won't_ you give Ted some loose ones?" Mother looked at Ted, and Ted looked at mother. "So _you_ were the mouse that knocked over my little vase, Miss Cissy!" said mother. "Do you know, dear, that it was broken? You should not try to reach things down yourself. You will be having an accident, like 'Darling' in the picture-book, some day, if you don't take care." The corners of Cissy's mouth went down, and her eyes filled with tears. "I didn't know," she said in a very melancholy voice. "I only wanted to find some loose fevvers for Ted." "I know that, dear," said her mother. "Only if you had asked me you would have got the feathers without breaking my vase. Come with me now, and you'll show me what you want." There proved to be two or three loose feathers as Ted had said--beautiful rainbow eyes, which would not be missed from the screen with the careful way in which Ted's mother cut them out, and the children carried them off in delight. They were neatly tacked on to the feather card, which had a very fine effect on the wall of the museum. And for both Ted and Cissy there was a little lesson, though the two were of different kinds, fastened up with the feathers on the card. Illustration: "They were neatly tacked on to the feather card, which had a very fine effect on the wall of the museum".--P. 170. Before long the holidays were over. Percy went back to school, and poor Ted hid himself for a few hours, as he always did on these sad occasions, that his red eyes might not be seen. Then he came out again, looking paler than usual, but quite cheerful and bright. Still he missed Percy so much that he was not at all sorry that his own holidays were over. For Ted now went early every morning to a regular big school--a school at which there were so many boys that some little fellows of his age might have felt frightened and depressed. But not so Ted. He went on his own cheery way without misgiving. The world to his thinking was a nice and happy place--not _all_ sunshine of course, but very good of its kind. And school-life, though it too had its shadows, was full of interest and satisfaction. Ted loved his fellows, and never doubted, in his simple taking-for-granted of things being as they should be, but that he was loved by them; and how this way of looking out on the world helped him through its difficulties, how it saved him from unreasonable fears and exaggerated anxieties such as take the bloom off many a child-life, it would be difficult for me to describe. I can only try to put you in the way of imagining this bright young life for yourselves. The boy whom, of course only _next_ to his dear Percy, Ted loved best in the world was, to use his own words, "a fellow" of about his own age, whose name was Rex. That is to say, his short name; for his real one was Reginald, just as Ted's was Edmond. They had been together at the big school from the first of Ted's going, being about equal in their standing as to classes, though Rex was rather the elder, and had been longer at school. At Ted's school, as at all others, there were quarrels and fights sometimes; and many a day he came home with traces of war, in the shapes of bumps and bruises and scratches. Not that the battles were all _quarrels_,--there were plenty of good-tempered scrimmages, as well as, occasionally, more serious affrays, for boys will be boys all the world over. And, worse than that, in all schools there are to be found boys of mean and tyrannical spirit, who love to bully and tease, and who need to be put down now and then. And in all schools, too, there are boys of good and kindly feelings, but of hasty and uncontrolled temper, and they too have to be taught to give and take, to bear and forbear. And then, too, as the best of boys are _but_ boys after all, we are still a long way off having any reason to expect that the best of schools even can be like dovecots. I don't know that Ted's school was worse than others in these respects, and Ted himself was not of a quarrelsome nature, but still in some ways he was not very patient. And then, slight and rather delicate though he was, he assuredly had a spirit of his own. He couldn't stand bullying, either of himself or others, and without any calculation as to the odds for or against him, he would plunge himself into the thick of the fray; and but for Rex, who was always ready to back up Ted, I daresay he would often have come off worse than he did. As it was, many were the wounds that fell to his share, and yet he managed, by his quickness and nimbleness, to escape more serious damage. "What have you been doing with yourself, my boy?" his mother said one day not long after the grand doing-up of the museum, when Ted appeared in her room on his return from school, to beg for some sticking-plaister and arnica lotion. He really looked rather an object, and he could not help laughing as he caught sight of his face in the glass; for one eye was very much swollen, and a long scratch down his nose did not add to his beauty. "I _am_ a fright," he said. "But there's not much the matter, mother. It was only a scrimmage--we were all quite good friends." "But really, Ted," said his mother, "I think you must curb your warlike tastes a little. Some day you may really get hurt badly." "No fear, mother," he said. "Besides, after all, a boy wouldn't be worth much who couldn't fight sometimes, would he?" "_Sometimes_," said his mother. "Where was Rex to-day--wasn't he beside you?" Ted's face clouded a little. "Rex was in a bad humour to-day. He wouldn't play," Ted replied. "Rex in a bad humour!" repeated his mother. "Surely that's very uncommon." Ted did not reply, and his mother did not ask him any more, but she noticed that the cloud had not entirely disappeared, and the next morning it was not quite with his usual springing steps that the boy set off to school. Rex's house was on the same road; most days the boys met each other at the gate and went on together, but this time no Rex was to be seen. Either he had taken it into his head to go very early, or he was not yet ready. Ted cast a glance towards the path, down which he was used to see his friend running, satchel over his shoulders, to join him--then he walked on slowly. "I'm not going to wait for him if he doesn't care to come," he said to himself; and when he got to school he was glad he had not done so, for there was Rex already in the schoolroom, and at his desk busy writing, though it wanted some minutes to school-time. "Good morning, Rex," said Ted. "Good morning," replied Rex; but that was all. Whether or not he had been in a bad humour the day before, he was certainly not in a pleasant frame of mind towards Ted _to-day_. The morning passed much less cheerfully than usual, for when all was happy between the boys, though they could not speak to each other in school hours, there were many pleasant little ways in which they could make each other feel that his friend was next door. Ted's lessons suffered from his preoccupation, and, altogether, things seemed to go the wrong way. But Ted did not seem able to care. "What was the matter with Rex?" That was the one question always in his mind. School over, the boys could not help meeting. Their roads lay together, and both had too much self-respect to wish to make an exhibition of the want of good feeling between them to the other boys. So they set off as if nothing were the matter, and walked some little way in silence. At last Ted could stand it no longer. "What's the matter with you, old fellow?" he said. "Why wouldn't you play with me yesterday?" Rex looked up. "I couldn't," he said. "I had got my French exercise all blotted, and I wanted to copy it over without telling any one; that was why I wouldn't come out. So _now_ you see if it was true what you said of me to Hatchard." "What did I say of you to Hatchard?" cried Ted. "_What?_ Why, what he told me you said--that I was a mean sneak, and that I wouldn't play because I wasn't as good at it as you." "I never said so, and you know I never did," retorted Ted, his cheeks flaming. "Do you mean to say that I'm telling a lie?" cried Rex in his turn. "Yes I do, if you said I said that," exclaimed Ted. And then--how it happened I don't think either of the boys could have told--their anger grew from words into deeds. Rex hit Ted, and Ted hit at him again! But one blow--one on each side--and they came to their senses. Ted first, when he saw the ugly mark his clenched fist had left on his friend's face, when he felt the hot glow on his own. "O Rex," he cried, "O Rex! How can we be like that to each other? It's like Cain and Abel. O Rex, I'm so sorry!" And Rex was quick to follow. "O Ted, I didn't mean it. Let's forget we ever did it. I _do_ believe you never said that. Hatchard's a mean sneak himself. I only didn't want to tell you that it was you who blotted my exercise by mistake when you passed my desk. I thought you'd be so sorry. But it would have been better to tell you than to go on like this." Rex's explanation was too much for Ted. Ten years old though he was, the tears rushed to his eyes, and he felt as if he could never forgive himself. He told his mother all about it that evening. He could not feel happy till he did so, and even before he had said anything she knew that the little tug to her sleeve and the whispered "Mother, I want to speak to you," was coming. And even when he had told her all about the quarrel and reconciliation, he hung on, looking as if there were something more to tell. "What is it, my boy?" said his mother; "have you anything more to say?" Ted's face flushed. "Yes, mother," he said. "I wanted to ask you this. When Rex and I had settled it all right again, we still felt rather unhappy. It did seem so horrid to have hit each other like that, it seemed to leave a mark. So, mother, we wanted to take it quite away, and we _kissed_ each other. And we felt quite happy, only--was it a very babyish thing to do? Was it _unmanly_, mother?" His mother drew him towards her and looked lovingly into his anxious face. "Unmanly, my boy? No indeed," she said, "it was kind and good, and kindness and goodness can never be unmanly." And Ted, quite at rest now, went off to bed. CHAPTER X. SOME RAINY ADVENTURES. "Wildly the winds of heaven began to blow, . . . . . . Whilst from the jealous, unrelenting skies The inevitable July down-pour came." Another winter came and went. Ted had another birthday, which made him eleven years old. Another happy Christmas time--this year of the old-fashioned snowy kind, for even in November there was skating, and Ted skated like a Dutchman; and the child-life in the pleasant home went on its peaceful way, with much of sunshine and but few clouds. Narcissa, too, was growing a big girl. She could say all her words clearly now, without lisping or funny mistakes, though, as she was the youngest bird in the nest, I am not sure but that some of the big people thought this rather a pity! And then when the frost and the snow were done with, the ever new spring time came round again, gradually growing into the brilliant summer; and this year the children's hearts rejoiced even more than usual, for a great pleasure was before them. This year they were to spend the holidays with their parents in a quite, _quite_ country place, and many were the delightful fancies and dreams that they made about it, even while it was some distance off. "I do love summer," said Cissy one day. They were standing at the window one May morning, waiting for their father and mother to come to breakfast. It was a Sunday morning, so there was no hurrying off to school. "Don't you _love_ summer, Ted?" "Yes, summer's awfully jolly," he replied. "But so's winter. Just think of the snowballing and the skating. I do hope next winter will be a regular good one, for I shall be ever so much bigger I expect, and I'll try my best to beat them all at skating." His face and eyes beamed with pleasure. Just then his mother came in; she had heard his last words. "Next winter!" she said. "That's a long time off. Who knows what may happen before then?" She gave a little sigh; Ted and Cissy looked at each other. They knew what mother was thinking of. Since _last_ winter a great grief had come to her. She had lost one who had been to her what Ted was to Cissy, and the sorrow was still fresh. Ted and Cissy drew near to their mother. Ted stroked her hand, and Cissy held up her rosy mouth for a kiss. "Dear mother," they said both together, and then a little silence fell over them all. Cissy's thoughts were sad as she looked at Ted and pictured to herself how terrible it would be to lose a brother as dear as he, and Ted was gazing up at the blue sky and _wondering_--wondering about the great mystery which had lately, for the first time in his life, seemed to come near him. What _was_ dying? Why, if it meant, as his father and mother told him, a better, and fuller, and nobler life than this, which he found so good and happy a thing, why, if it meant living nearer to God, understanding Him better, why should people dread it so, why speak of it as so sad? "I don't think," thought little Ted to himself, "I don't _think_ I should be afraid of dying. God is so kind, I couldn't fancy being afraid of Him; and heaven must be so beautiful," for the sunny brightness of the May morning seemed to surround everything. But his glance fell on his mother and sister, and other thoughts rose in his mind; the leaving them--ah yes, _that_ was what made death so sad a thing; and he had to turn his head away to hide the tears which rose to his eyes. There was, as his mother had said, a long time to next winter--there seemed even, to the children, a long time to next summer, which they were hoping for so eagerly. And an interruption came to Ted's school-work, for quite unexpectedly he and Cissy went away to London for a few weeks with their parents, and when they came back there was only a short time to wait for the holidays. If I had space I would like to tell you about this visit to London, and some of the interesting things that happened there--how the children had rather a distressing adventure the first evening of their arrival, for their father and mother had to go off with their aunt in a hurry to see a sick friend, and, quite by mistake, their nurse, not knowing the children would be alone, went out with a message about a missing parcel, and poor Cissy, tired with the journey and frightened by the dark, rather gloomy house and the strange servants, had a terrible fit of crying, and clung to Ted as her only protector in a manner piteous to see. And Ted soothed and comforted her as no one else could have done. It was a pretty sight (though it grieved their mother too, to find that poor Cissy had been frightened) to see the little girl in Ted's arms, where she had fallen asleep, the tears still undried on her cheeks; and the next morning, when she woke up fresh and bright as usual, she told her mother that Ted had been, oh so kind, she never could be frightened again if Ted was there. There were many things to surprise and interest the children, Ted especially, in the great world of London, of which now he had this little peep. But as I have promised to tell you about the summer I must not linger. When they went back from town there were still eight or nine weeks to pass before the holidays, and Ted worked hard, really very hard, at school to gain the prize he had been almost sure of before the interruption of going away. He did not say much about it, but his heart _did_ beat a good deal faster than usual when at last the examinations were over and the prize-giving day came round; and when all the successful names were read out and his was not among them, I could not take upon myself to say that there was not a tear to wink away, even though there was the consolation of hearing that he stood second-best in his class. And Ted's good feeling and common sense made him look quite bright and cheerful when his mother met him with rather an anxious face. "You're not disappointed I hope, Ted, dear, are you?" she said. "You have not taken quite as good a place as usual, and I did think you might have had a prize. But you know I am quite pleased, and so is your father, for we are satisfied you have done your best, so you must not be disappointed." "I'm not, mother," said Ted cheerily,--"I'm not really, for you know I am _second_, and that's not bad, is it? Considering I was away and all that." And his mother felt pleased at the boy's good sense and fair judgment of himself--for there had sometimes seemed a danger of Ted's entire want of vanity making him too timid about himself. What a happy day it was for Ted and Cissy when the real packing began for the summer expedition! It's an ill wind that blows nobody any good, and I suppose it is by this old saying explained how it is that packing, the horror of mothers and aunts and big sisters, not to speak of nurses and maids, should be to all small people the source of such delight. "See, Ted," said Cissy, "do let's carry down some of these boxes. There's the one with the sheets and towels in, _quite_ ready," and the children's mother coming along the passage and finding them both tugging with all their might at really a very heavy trunk, was reminded of the day--long ago now--in the mountain home, when, setting off for the picnic, wee Ted wanted so much to load himself with the heaviest basket of all! And at last, thanks no doubt to these energetic efforts in great part, the packing was all done; the last evening, then the last night came, and the excited children went to sleep to wake ever so much earlier than usual to the delights of thinking _the_ day had come! It was a long and rather tiring railway journey, and when it came to an end there was a very long drive in an open carriage, and by degrees all houses and what Ted's father called "traces of civilisation,"--which puzzled Cissy a good deal--were left behind. "We must be getting close to the moors," said he, at which the children were delighted, for it was on the edge of these great moors that stood the lonely farm-house that was to be their home for some months. But just as their father said this, the carriage stopped, and they were told they must all get down--they were at the entrance to a wood through which there was no cart or carriage road, only a footpath, and the farm-house stood in a glen some little way on the other side of this wood. It was nearly dark outside the wood, inside it was of course still more so, so dark indeed that it took some care and management to find one's way at all. The children walked on quietly, Ted really enjoying the queerness and the mystery of this adventure, but little Narcissa, though she said nothing, pressed closer to her mother, feeling rather "eerie," and some weeks after she said one day, "I don't want ever to go home again because of passing through that dark wood." But once arrived, the pleasant look of everything at the farm-house, and the hearty welcome they received from their host and hostess, the farmer and his wife, made every one feel it had all been worth the journey and the trouble. And the next morning, when the children woke to a sunny summer day in the quaint old house, and looked out on all sides on the lovely meadows and leafy trees, with here and there a peep of the gleaming river a little farther down the glen, and when, near at hand, they heard the clucking of the hens and the mooing of the calves and the barking of the dogs, and all the delightful sounds of real farm-life, I think, children, you will not need me to try to tell you how happy _our_ children felt. The next few days were a sort of bewilderment of interests and pleasures and surprises--everything was so nice and new--even the funny old-fashioned stoneware plates and dishes seemed to Ted and Cissy to make the dinners and teas taste better than anything they had ever eaten before. And very soon they were as much at home in and about the farm-house as if they had lived there all their lives,--feeding the calves and pigs, hunting for eggs, carrying in wood for Mrs. Crosby to help her little niece Polly, a small person not much older than Cissy, but already very useful in house and farm work. One day, when they were busy at this wood-carrying, a brilliant idea struck them. "Wouldn't it be fun," said Ted, "to go to the wood--just the beginning of it, you know--and gather a lot of these nice little dry branches; they are so beautiful for lighting fires with?" Cissy agreed that it would be great fun, and Polly, who was with them at the time, thought, too, that it would be very nice indeed; and then a still better idea struck Ted. "Suppose," he said, "that we were to go to-morrow morning, and take our luncheon with us. Wouldn't _that_ be nice? We could pack it in a basket and take it on the little truck that we get the wood in, and then we could bring back the little truck full of the dry branches." The proposal was thought charming, and mother was consulted; and the next morning Mrs. Crosby was busy betimes, hunting up what she could give to her "honeys" for their picnic, and soon the three set off, pulling the truck behind them, and on the truck a basket carefully packed with a large bottle of fresh milk, a good provision of bread and butter, a fine cut of home-made cake, and three splendid apple turnovers. Could anything be nicer? The sun was shining, as it was right he should shine on so happy a little party, as they made their way up the sloping field, through a little white gate opening on to a narrow path skirting the foot of the hill, where the bracken grew in wild luxuriance, and the tall trees overhead made a pleasant shade down to the little beck, whose chatter could be faintly heard. And so peaceful and sheltered was the place, that, as the children passed along, bright-eyed rabbits stopped to peep at them ere they scudded away, and the birds hopped fearlessly across the path, nay, the squirrels even, sitting comfortably among the branches, glanced down at the three little figures without disturbing themselves, and an old owl blinked at them patronisingly from his hole in an ancient tree-trunk. And by and by as the path grew more rugged, Polly was deputed to carry the basket, for fear of accidents, for Cissy pulling in front and Ted pushing and guiding behind, found it as much as they could do to get the truck along. How they meant to bring it back when loaded with branches I don't know, and as things turned out, the question did not arise. The truck and the basket and the children reached their destination safely; they chose a nice little grassy corner under a tree very near the entrance to the big wood, and after a _very_ short interval of rest from the fatigues of their journey, it was suggested by one and agreed to by all that even if it were rather too early for real luncheon or dinner time, there was no reason why, if they felt hungry, they should not unpack the basket and eat! No sooner said than done. "We shall work at gathering wood all the better after we've had some refreshment," observed Ted sagely, and the little girls were quite of his opinion. And the rabbits and the owls and the squirrels must, I think, have been much amused at the quaint little party, the spice cake and apple-turnover collation that took place under the old tree, and at the merry words and ringing laughter that echoed through the forest. An hour or so later, the children's mother, with an after-thought of possible risk to them from the damp ground, made her way along the path and soon discovered the little group. She had brought with her a large waterproof cloak big enough for them all to sit on together, but it was too late, for the refection was over; the basket, containing only the three plates and the three tin mugs, propped up between Ted and Cissy, toppled over with the start the children gave at the sound of their mother's voice, and a regular "Jack and Jill" clatter down the slope was the result. The children screamed with delight and excitement as they raced after the truant mugs and plates, and their mother, thinking that her staying longer might cause a little constraint in the merriment, turned to go, just saying cheerfully, "Children, I have brought my big waterproof cloak for you to sit on, but as your feast is over I suppose you won't need it. What are you going to do next?" "O mother, we're just going to set to work," Ted's voice replied; "we're having such fun." "Well, good-bye then. I am going a walk with your father, but in case of a change of weather, though it certainly doesn't look like it, I'll leave the cloak." She turned and left them. An hour or two later, when she came home to the farm-house and stood for a moment looking up at the sky, it seemed to her as if her remark about the weather had been a shadow of coming events. For the bright blue sky had clouded over, a slight chilly breeze ruffled the leaves as if in friendly warning to the birds and the butterflies to get under shelter, and before many moments had passed large heavy drops began to fall, which soon grew into a regular downpour. What a changed world! "What will the children do?" was the mother's first thought as she watched it. "It is too heavy to last, and fortunately there is no sign of thunder about. I don't see that there is anything to be done but to wait a little; they are certain to be under shelter in the wood, and any one going for them would be drenched in two minutes." So she did her best to wait patiently and not to feel uneasy, though several times in the course of the next half-hour she went to the window to see if there were no sign of the rain abating. Alas, no! As heavily as ever, and even more steadily, it fell. Something must be done she decided, and she was just thinking of going to the kitchen to consult Mrs. Crosby, when as she turned from the window a curious object rolling or slowly hobbling down the hill-side caught her view. That was the way the children would come--what could that queer thing be? It was not too high, but far too broad to be a child, and its way of moving was a sort of jerky waddle through the bracken, very remarkable to see. Whatever it was, dwarf or goblin, it found its way difficult to steer, poor thing, for there, with a sudden fly, over it went altogether and lay for a moment or two struggling and twisting, till at last it managed to get up again and painfully strove to pursue its way. The children's mother called their nurse. "Esther," she said, "I cannot imagine what that creature is coming down the road. But it is in trouble evidently. Run off and see if you can help." Off ran kind-hearted Esther, and soon she was rewarded for her trouble. For as she got near to the queer-shaped bundle, she saw two pairs of eyes peering out at her, from the two arm-holes of the waterproof cloak, and in a moment the mystery was explained. Ted, in his anxiety for the two girls, had wrapped them up _together_ in the cloak which his mother had left, and literally "bundled" them off, with the advice to get home as quickly as possible, while he followed with his loaded truck, the wood covered as well as he could manage with leafy branches which he tore down. But "possible" was not quickly at all in the case of poor Cissy and her companion. Polly was of a calm and placid nature, with something of the resignation to evils that one sees in the peasant class all over the world; but Narcissa, impulsive and sensitive, with her dainty dislike to mud, and her unaccustomedness to such adventures, could not long restrain her tears, and under the waterproof cloak she cried sadly, feeling frightened too at the angry gusts of rain and wind which sounded to her like the voices of ogres waiting to seize them and carry them off to some dreadful cavern. The summit of their misfortunes seemed reached when they toppled over and lay for a moment or two helplessly struggling on the wet ground. But oh, what delight to hear Esther's kind voice, and how Cissy clung to her and sobbed out her woes! She was more than half comforted again by the time they reached the farm-house, and just as mother was considering whether it would not be better to undress them in the kitchen before the fire and bring down their dry clothes, Master Ted, "very wet, yes very wet, oh very wet indeed," made his appearance, with rosy cheeks and a general look of self-satisfaction. "Did they get home all right?" he said, cheerily. "It _was_ a good thing you brought the cloak, mother. And the wood isn't so wet after all." Illustration: "Master Ted, very wet indeed, made his appearance with rosy cheeks and a general look of self-satisfaction."--P. 194. And an hour or two later, dried and consoled and sitting round the kitchen table for an extra good tea to which Mrs. Crosby had invited them, all the children agreed that after all the expedition had not turned out badly. But the weather had changed there was no doubt; for the time at least the sunny days were over. The party in the farm-house had grown smaller too, for the uncles had had to leave, and even the children's father had been summoned away unexpectedly to London. And a day or two after the children's picnic their mother stood at the window rather anxiously looking out at the ever-falling rain. "It really looks like as if it would _never_ leave off," she said, and there was some reason for her feeling distressed. She had hoped for a letter from the children's father that day, and very probably it was lying at the two-miles-and-a-half-off post-office, waiting for some one to fetch it. For it was not one of the postman's days for coming round by the farm-house; that only happened twice a week, but hitherto this had been of little consequence to the farm-house visitors. Their letters perhaps had not been of such importance as to be watched for with much anxiety, and in the fine weather it was quite a pleasant little walk to the post-office by the fields and the stepping-stones across the river. But all this rain had so swollen the river that now the stepping-stones were useless; there was nothing for it but to take the long round by the road; and this added to the difficulty in another way, for it was not by any means every day that Mr. Crosby or his son were going in that direction, or that they could, at this busy season, spare a man so long off work. So the children's mother could not see how she was to get her letter if this rain continued--at least not for several days, for the old postman had called yesterday--he would not take the round of the Skensdale farm for another three or four days at least, and even then, the post-office people were now so accustomed to some of the "gentry" calling for their letters themselves, that it was doubtful, not certain at least, if they would think of giving them to the regular carrier. And with some anxiety, for her husband had gone to London on business of importance, Ted's mother went to bed. Early next morning she was awakened by a tap at the door, a gentle little tap. She almost fancied she had heard it before in her sleep without being really aroused. "Come in," she said, and a very business-like figure, which at the first glance she hardly recognised, made its appearance. It was Ted; dressed in waterproof from head to foot, cloak, leggings, and all, he really looked ready to defy the weather--a sort of miniature diver, for he had an oilskin cap on his head too, out of which gleamed his bright blue eyes, full of eagerness and excitement. "Mother," he said, "I hope I haven't wakened you too soon. I got up early on purpose to see about your letters. It's still raining as hard as ever, and even if it left off, there'd be no crossing the stepping-stones for two or three days, Farmer Crosby says. And he can't spare any one to-day to go to the post. I'm the only one that _can_, so I've got ready, and don't you think I'd better go at once?" Ted's mother looked out of the window. Oh, how it was pouring! She thought of the long walk--the two miles and a half through the dripping grass of the meadows, along the muddy, dreary road, and all the way back again; and then the possibility of the swollen river having escaped its bounds where the road lay low, came into her mind and frightened her. For Ted was a little fellow still--only eleven and a half, and slight and delicate for his age. And then she looked at him and saw the eager readiness in his eyes, and remembered that he was quick-witted and careful, and she reflected also that he must learn, sooner or later, to face risks and difficulties for himself. "Ted, my boy," she said, "it's very nice of you to have thought of it, and I know it would be a great disappointment if I didn't let you go. But you'll promise me to be very careful--to do nothing rash or unwise; if the river is over the road, for instance, or there is the least danger, you'll turn back?" "Yes, mother, I'll be very careful, really," said Ted. "I'll do nothing silly. Good-bye, mother; thank you so much for letting me go. I've got my stick, but there's no use taking an umbrella." And off he set; his mother watching him from the window as far as she could see him, trudging bravely along--a quaint little figure--through the pouring rain. For more than a mile she could see him making his way along the meadow path, gradually lessening as the distance increased, till a little black speck was all she could distinguish, and then it too disappeared round the corner. And an hour or so later, there were warm, dry boots and stockings before the fire, which even in August the continued rain made necessary, and a "beautiful" breakfast of hot coffee, and a regular north-country rasher of bacon, and Mrs. Crosby's home-made bread and butter, all waiting on the table. And Ted's mother took up her post again to watch for the reappearance of the tiny black speck, which was gradually to grow into her boy. It did not tarry. As soon as was possible it came in sight. "How quick he has been--my dear, clever, good little Ted!" his mother said to herself. And you may be sure that she, and Cissy too, were both at the door to meet the little human water-rat, dripping, dripping all over, like "Johnny Head-in-air" in old "Struwelpeter," but with eyes as bright as any water-rat's, and cheeks rosy with cold and exercise and pleasure all mixed together, who, before he said a word, held out the precious letter. "Here it is, mother--from father, just as you expected. I do hope it's got good news." How could it bring other? Mother felt before she opened it that it could not contain any but good news, nor did it. Then she just gave her brave little boy one good kiss and one hearty "Thank you, Ted." For she did not want to spoil him by overpraise, or to take the bloom off what he evidently thought nothing out of the common, by exaggerating it. And Ted enjoyed his breakfast uncommonly, I can assure you. He was only eleven and a half. I think our Ted showed that he had a sweet and brave spirit of his own;--don't you, children? CHAPTER XI. "IT'S ONLY I, MOTHER." "How well my own heart knew That voice so clear and true." The summer in the wolds, so long looked forward to, was over. It had been very happy, in spite of the rain having given the visitors at the Skensdale farm-house rather more of his company than they had bargained for, and it left many happy memories behind it. And the coming home again was happy too. The days were beginning to "draw in" as people say, and "home," with its coal-fires--which, though not so picturesque, are ever so much _warmer_ than wood ones, I assure you--its well-closing doors and shutters, its nice carpets and curtains, was after all a better place for chilly days and evenings than even the most interesting of farm-houses. And Ted had his school-work to think of too; he was anxious to take a very good place at the next examinations, for he was getting on for twelve, and "some day" he knew that he would have to go out into the world as it were, on his own account--to go away, that is to say, to a big boarding-school, as Percy had done before him. He did work well, and he was rewarded, and this Christmas was a _very_ happy one. There was plenty of skating, and Ted got on famously. Indeed, he learnt to be so clever at it, that Cissy used to feel quite proud, when people admired him for it, to think that he was her brother, though Ted himself took it quite simply. Skating was to him the greatest pleasure he knew. To feel oneself skimming along by one's own will, and yet with a power beyond oneself, was delightful past words. "I do think," thought Ted to himself, one clear bright frosty day, when the sky was as blue, _almost_, as in summer, "I do think it's as nice as flying." And then looking up, as he skimmed along, at the beautiful sky which winter or summer he loved so much, there came over him that same strange sweet _wonder_--the questioning he could not have put into words, as to whether the Heaven he often thought of in his dreamy childish way, was really up there, and what it was like, and what they did there. It must be happy and bright--happier and brighter even than down here, because _there_, in some way that Ted knew that neither he nor the wisest of mankind could explain, one would be nearer God. But yet it was difficult to understand how it could be much brighter and happier than this happy life down below. There was no good trying to understand, Ted decided. _God_ understood, and that was enough. And as He had made us so happy here, He might be trusted to know what was best for us there. Only--yes, that _was_ the greatest puzzle of all, far more puzzling than anything else--_everybody_ was not happy here--alas! no, Ted knew enough to know that--many, many were not happy; many, many were not good, and had never even had a chance of becoming so. Ah, that _was_ a puzzle! "When I'm a man," thought Ted--and it was a thought that came to him often--"I'll try to do something for those poor boys in London." For nothing had made more impression on Ted, during his stay in London, than the sight of the so-called "City Arabs," and all he had heard about them. He had even written a story on the subject, taking for his hero a certain "Tom," whose adventures and misadventures were most thrilling; ending, for Ted liked stories that ended well, with his happy adoption into a kind-hearted family, such as it is to be wished there were more of to be found in real life! I should have liked to tell you this story, and some day perhaps I shall do so, but not, I fear, in this little book, for there are even a great many things about Ted himself which I shall not have room for. There were other pleasures besides skating this Christmas time. Among these there was a very delightful entertainment given by some of Ted's father's and mother's friends to a very large party, both old and young. It was a regular Christmas gathering--so large that the great big old-fashioned ball-room at the "Red Lion" was engaged for the purpose. Dear me, what a great many scenes this old ball-room had witnessed! Election contests without end, during three-quarters of a century and more; balls of the old-world type, when the gentlemen had powdered wigs and ribbon-tied "queues;" which, no doubt, you irreverent little people of the nineteenth century would call "pig-tails;" and my Lady Grizzle from the hall once actually stuck in the doorway, so ponderous was her head-gear, though by dint of good management her hoop and furbelows had been got through. And farther back still, in the Roundhead days, when--so ran the legend--a party of rollicking cavaliers, and a company commanded by one Captain Holdfast Armstrong, passed two succeeding nights in the Red Lion's ball-room, neither--so cleverly did the cautious landlord manage--having the least idea of the other's near neighbourhood. But never had the old ball-room seen happier faces or heard merrier laughter than at this Christmas party; and among the happy faces none was brighter than our Ted's. He really did enjoy himself, though one of the youngest of the guests, for Cissy had been pronounced _too_ young, but had reconciled herself to going to bed at her usual hour, by Ted's promise to tell her all about it the next day. And besides his boy friends--Percy, of course, who was home for the holidays, and Rex, and several others--Ted had another companion this evening whom he was very fond of. This was a little girl about his own age, named Gertrude, the daughter of a friend of his father's. I have not told you about her before, because, I suppose, I have had so many things to tell, that I have felt rather puzzled how to put them all in nicely, especially as they are all simple, everyday things, with nothing the least wonderful or remarkable about them. Gertrude was a very dear little girl; she almost seemed to Ted like another kind of sister. He had Mabel, and Christine her sister, as big ones, and Cissy as his own particular little one, and Gertrude seemed to come in as a sort of companion sister, between the big ones and the little one. Ted was very rich in friends, you see, friends of all kinds. He used often to count them up and say so to himself. Well, this evening of the big Christmas party was, as I said, one of the happiest he had ever known. All his friends were there--all looking as happy as happy could be. "When I'm a man," thought Ted to himself, "I'd like to give parties like this every Christmas," and as he looked round the room his eyes gleamed with pleasure. Gertrude was standing beside him--they were going to be partners in a country-dance, which was a favourite of Ted's. Just then his mother came up to where they were standing. "Ted, my boy," she said, "I am going home now. It is very late for you already--half-past twelve. The others, however, are staying later, but I think it is quite time for you and me to be going, don't you?" Ted's face clouded--a most unusual thing to happen. "Gertrude isn't going yet," he said, "and Rex and his brothers; they're staying later. O mother, _must_ I come now?" His mother hesitated. She was always reluctant to disappoint the children if it could be helped, yet, on the other hand, she was even more anxious not to _spoil_ them. But the sight of Ted's eager face carried the day. "Ah well," she said, smiling, "I suppose I must be indulgent for once and go home without you. So good-night, Ted--you will come with the others--I hope it won't be _very_ late." As she turned away, it struck her that Ted's face did not look _altogether_ delighted. "Poor Ted," she said to herself, "he doesn't like to see me go away alone." But hoping he would enjoy himself, and that he would not be _too_ tired "to-morrow morning," she went home without any misgiving, and she was not sorry to go. She found the Christmas holidays and all they entailed more fatiguing than did the children, for whom all these pleasant things "grew" without preparation. It was a rather dark night--so thought Ted's mother to herself as she glanced out of her window for a moment before drawing the curtains close and going to bed--all the house was shut up, and all those who had stayed at home fast asleep by this time, and it had been arranged that the others should let themselves in with a latch-key. Ted's mother felt, therefore, rather surprised and a little startled when she heard a bell ring; at first she could hardly believe that she was not mistaken, and to be quite sure she opened the window and called out "Is there any one there?" There was half a moment's silence, then some one came out a little from under the porch, where he had been standing since ringing the bell, and a well-known voice replied--how clearly and brightly its young tones rose up through the frosty air-- "It is only I, mother. I thought I'd rather come home after all." "You, Ted," she replied;--"you, and alone?" "Yes, mother. I thought somehow you'd like better to have me, so I just ran home." "And weren't you frightened, Ted?" she said a little anxiously, but with a glad feeling at her heart; "weren't you afraid to come through the lonely streets, and the road, more lonely still, outside the town? For it is very dark, and everything shut up--weren't you afraid?" "Oh no, mother--not a bit," he replied, "only just when I had left all the houses I did walk a _little_ faster, I think. But I'm so glad I came, if you're pleased, mother." And when his mother had opened the door and let him in and given him a good-night kiss even more loving than usual, Ted went to bed and to sleep with a light happy heart, and his mother, as she too fell asleep, thanked God for her boy. * * * * * I must now, I think, children, ask you to pass over with me nearly a whole year of Ted's life. These holidays ended, came, by slow degrees that year, the always welcome spring; then sunny summer again, a bright and happy summer this, though spent at my little friends' own home instead of at the Skensdale farm-house; then autumn with its shortening days and lengthening evenings, gradually shortening and lengthening into winter again; till at last Christmas itself, like the familiar figure of an old friend, whom, just turning the corner of the road where we live, we descry coming to visit us, was to be seen not so far off. Many things had happened during this year, which, though all such simple things, I should like to tell you of but for the old restrictions of time and space. And indeed I have to thank you for having listened to me so long, for I blame myself a little for not having told you more plainly at the beginning that it was _not_ a regular "story" I had to tell you in the "carrots" coloured book this year, but just some parts, simple and real, of a child-life that I love to think of. And I would have liked to leave it here--for some reasons that is to say--or I would have liked to tell how Ted grew up into such a man as his boyhood promised--honest-hearted, loving, and unselfish, and as happy as a true Christmas child could not but be. But, dears, I _cannot_ tell you this, for it was not to be so. Yet I am so anxious that the little book I have tried to write in such a way that his happy life and nature should be loved by other children--I am so anxious that the ending of this little book should not seem to you a _sad_ one, at Christmas-time too of all times, that I find it a little difficult to say what has to be said. For in the truest sense the close of my book is _not_ sad. I will just tell it simply as it really was, trusting that you will know I love you all too well to wish to throw any cloud over your bright faces and thoughts. Well, as I said, this year had brought many little events, some troubles of course, and much good, to our Ted. He had grown a good deal taller, and thinner too, and he never, even as a tiny toddler, could have been called fat! But he was well and strong, and had made good progress at school and good progress too in other ways. He was getting on famously at cricket and football, and was a first-rate croquet-player, for croquet was then in fashion. And the museum had not been neglected; it had really grown into a very respectable and interesting museum, so that not only Ted's own people and near friends were pleased to see it, but even his parents' friends, and sometimes others, again, who happened to be visiting them, would ask the little collector to admit them. I really think it would be a good thing if more boys took to having museums; it would be a good thing for them, for nothing can be more amusing and interesting too, and a very good thing for their friends, especially in bad weather or in holiday-time, when now and then the hours hang heavily on these young people's hands, and one is inclined to wish that some fancy work for _boys_ could be invented. Ted's museum had grown very much, and was always a great resource for him and for Cissy too, for, to tell the truth, her tastes were _rather_ boyish. His library had grown too. I cannot tell you how many nice books he had, and still less could I tell you how he treasured them. When, through much service, some of them grew weak in the back, he would, though reluctantly, consent to have them re-bound; and he had a pretty, and to my mind a touching, way of showing his affection for these old friends, which I never heard of in any other child. Before a book of his went to be bound he would carefully--tenderly I might almost say--cut off the old cover and lay it aside; and among the many sweet traces left by our boy--but I did not mean to say that, only as it came naturally of itself I will leave it--few went more to his mother's heart than to find in one of his drawers the packet carefully tied up of his dear books' old coats. Nothing gave Ted so much pleasure as a present of a book. This Christmas he had set his heart on one, and Christmas was really coming so near that he had begun to think of presents, and to write out, as was his habit, a list of all the people in the house, putting opposite the name of each the present he had reason to think would be most acceptable. The list ended in a modest-looking "self," and opposite "self" was written "a book." But all the other presents would have to be thought over and consulted about with mother--all except hers of course, which in its turn would have to be discussed with his father or Mabel perhaps--ever so many times, before it came to the actual buying. One Sunday--it was about three weeks to Christmas by this time--the head master of Ted's school, who was also a clergyman, mentioned after the usual service that he wished to have a special thanksgiving service this year for the good health that had been enjoyed by the boys this "half." It had been almost exceptionally good, he said; and he himself, for one, and he was sure every one connected with the school would feel the same, _was_ very thankful for it. Ted's mother and Mabel, who were both, as it happened, at the school chapel service that afternoon, glanced at their boy when this announcement was made. They knew well that, despite his merry heart, Ted was sensitive to things that do not affect all children, and they were not surprised to see his cheeks grow a little paler. There was something in the thought of this solemn Thanksgiving, in which he was to take part, that gave him a little of the same feeling as he had had long ago in the grand old church, when he looked up to the lofty roof, shrouded in a mystery of dim light his childish eyes could not pierce, and the sudden carillon broke out as if sung by the angels in heaven. And a little chill struck to his mother's heart; she knew the service was a good and fitting acknowledgment of God's care, and yet a strange feeling went through her, for which she blamed herself, almost like that of the poor Irishwomen, who, when any one remarks on the beauty and healthiness of their children, hasten to cross themselves and to murmur softly "In a good hour be it spoken." For human nature, above all _mother_ nature, is the same all the world over! But on their way home she and Mabel talked it over, and decided that it was better to say nothing about it to Ted. "It would only deepen the impression and _make_ him nervous," said Mabel wisely. A day or two later--a damp, rainy day it had been, there were a good many such about this time--Ted's mother, entering the drawing-room in the evening, heard some one softly singing to himself, gently touching the piano at the same time. It was already dusk, and she went in very quietly. The little musician did not hear her, and she sat down in silence for a moment to listen, for it was Ted, and the song in his sweet, clear tones--tones with a strange touch of sadness in them like the church bells, was "Home, sweet home." It brought the tears to her eyes. "Ted," she said at last. "O mother," he said, "I didn't know you were there." "But you don't mind _me_," she said. Ted hesitated. "I don't know how it is, mother," he said, frankly. "It isn't as if I _could_ sing, you know. But I can't even try to do it when anybody's there. Is it silly, mother?" "It's very natural," she said, kindly. "But if it gives me pleasure to hear you?" "Yes," he said, gently. "And when you're a man I hope and think you may have a nice voice." "Yes," he said again, rather absently. Something in his tone struck his mother; it sounded _tired_. "You're quite well, Ted, aren't you?" she said. "Oh yes, mother--just a very little tired. It's been such a rainy day; it isn't like Christmas coming so soon, is it? There's no snow and no skating." "No, dear." "There was no snow the Christmas I was born, was there, mother?" "No, dear," said his mother again. Ted gave a little sigh. "You're going to Rex's to-night; it is his party, isn't it?" she asked. "Yes," he replied, "but I don't seem to care much to go." "But you're quite well, I think," said his mother cheerfully. "It would be unkind not to go when they are all expecting you." "Yes," said Ted. "It would be." So he went off to get ready; and his mother felt pleased, thinking the dull weather had, for a wonder, affected his spirits, and that the merry evening with his friends would do him good. CHAPTER XII. THE WHITE CROSS. "It is not growing like a tree In bulk, doth make man better be, Or standing long an oak, three hundred year, To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sere. The lily of a day Is fairer far in May, Although it fade and die that night It was the plant and flower of light; In small proportions we just beauties see, And in short measures life may perfect be." "Early Ripe."--BEN JONSON. It seemed as if she had been right. Ted came home with bright eyes and glowing cheeks, and said they had had an "awfully" merry evening. And his mother went to bed with an easy mind. But the next morning she felt less happy again, for Ted was evidently not well. He was not very ill, but just not very well, and he hung about in an uninterested, unsettled way, quite unlike his usual busy briskness. "He excites himself too much when he goes out, I think," said his father; "we really shall have to leave off ever letting him go out in the evening unless we are there ourselves;" and he looked a little anxiously at Ted as he spoke, though the boy had not heard what he said. But again this slight anxiety passed by. Then came a change in the weather, and a sudden frost set in. Ted seemed to revive at once, and when he heard that there was to be a whole holiday for skating, no one was more eager about it than he. And, a little against her own feelings, his mother let him go. "You must be careful, Ted," she said; "you are not yet looking as well as usual. And the ice cannot be very firm. Indeed, I almost doubt its bearing at all. A bath in icy water would not do you any good just now." But Ted promised to be careful, and his mother knew she could trust him. Besides, several big boys were to be there, who would, she knew, look after him. So Ted went, and came home saying it had been as usual "awfully jolly;" but he did look tired, and owned himself rather so, even though well enough to go out again in the evening with the others, and to be one of the merriest at what the children called "a penny reading" together, at which each in turn of the little party of friends read or repeated or acted some story or piece of poetry for the amusement of the others. And once again, but this was the last time she could do so, Ted's mother felt able to throw off the slight vague anxiety which had kept coming and going for the last few days about her little boy, and to go to sleep with an easy mind. But the next morning, to his own and her disappointment, he woke "tired" again. Only tired--he complained of nothing else, but he said he wished he need not go to school. And that was _so_ unlike Ted. "Need I go, mother?" he asked gently. She looked at him doubtfully. "It seems such a pity, dear--so near the examinations too. And sometimes, you know, when you haven't felt quite well in the morning you have come back quite right again." "Very well," said Ted, and he went off cheerfully enough. But when he came back he was not all right as his mother had hoped; the "tiredness" was greater, and he seemed to have caught cold, and the next morning, after a restless night, there was no longer any doubt that Ted was ill. Our dear little Ted--how quickly illness does its work--above all with children! Almost before one has realised its presence the rosy cheeks are pale and the bright eyes dimmed; the sturdy legs grow weak and trembling, and the merry chatter ceases. Ah dear! what a sad, strange hush comes over a house where "one of the children" is ill. The hush and the sadness came but gradually. Still, for a day or two, they hoped it was nothing very serious. On this first afternoon of Ted's really owning himself ill, two girl friends of Mabel's came, as had been arranged, to see the famous museum, usually such a pleasure to its owner to exhibit. But already how different all seemed! "Mother, dear," he said, as if half reproaching himself for selfishness, "it sometimes almost seems a bother to have to show my museum;" but as it was considered better not to let him yield to the depression coming over him, he bravely roused himself and went through the little exhibition with his usual gentle courtesy. But this was the last effort of the kind possible for him. Sunday and Monday found him weaker, and the doctor's kind face grew graver. Still he was not _very_ ill; only it began to seem as if he had not strength to resist what had not, at first, threatened seriously. And one day he made his mother's heart seem, for an instant, to stop beating, when, looking up wistfully, he said to her, "Mother, I don't _think_ I shall ever get better." And the sad days and sadder nights went slowly on. Now and then there seemed a little sparkle of hope. Once Ted began to talk about meeting his dear Percy at the station, when he came home for the holidays, which made those about him hope he was feeling stronger; then, at another time, he said what a pity it would be not to be well by Christmas and by his birthday, and he smiled when his father told him, as was the case, that the doctor quite hoped he would be well by then; and one day when the post brought him his great wish--a beautiful book of travels--his face lighted up with pleasure, and, though not able to read it, the welcome present lay on his bed where he could see it and smile to himself to think it was there. There were happy times through his illness, weak and wearied though he grew, and now and then he seemed so bright that it was difficult, for a little, not to think him much better. But the illness which Ted had is a very deceitful one--it invisibly saps away the strength even when the worst sharp suffering is over--and slowly, slowly it came to be seen that his own feeling had been true; our Ted was not to get better. One day a travelling merchant brought to the door a case of pretty Parian ornaments. White and pure they shone in the winter sunshine, and some one had the thought that "one of these might please Ted." So they were brought up for him to choose from. Poor Cissy! she would fain have carried them in; but alas! for fear of infection, she could not be allowed to see her brother, which made of these last days a double sorrow to her, though she did not know how ill he was. Ted touched the pretty things with his little thin hand. "They are very pretty," he said. "I like this one best, please, mother." "This one" was a snow-white cross, and his mother's heart ached with a strange thrill as she saw his choice; but she smiled as she placed it beside him, where it stood, ever in his sight, till his blue eyes could see it no more. There came a morning on which the winter sun rose with a wonderful glory; gold and orange light seemed to fill the sky, as if in prelude to some splendid pageant. It was Sunday morning. Ted lay asleep, as if carved in marble, his little white face rested on the pillow, and as his mother turned from the marvellous beauty outside to the small figure that seemed to her, just then, the one thing in earth or sky, she whispered to herself what she felt to be the truth. "It is his last Sunday with us. Before another my Ted will have entered that city where there is no need of the sun, of which God Himself is the light. My happy Ted! but oh, how shall we live without him?" She was right. Ted did not live to see Christmas or his birthday. Sweetly and peacefully, trusting God in death as he had trusted Him in life, the little fellow fearlessly entered the dark valley--the valley of the _shadow_ of death only, for who can doubt that to such as Ted what _seems_ death is but the entrance to fuller life? So, children, I will not say that this was the _end_ of the simple life I have told you of--and in yet another way Ted lives--in the hearts of all that loved him his sweet memory can never die. And if I have been able to make any among you feel that you too love him, I cannot tell you how glad I shall be. They laid him in a pretty corner of the little cemetery from which can be seen the old church Ted loved so well, and the beautiful chase, where he so often walked. And even in those midwinter days his little friend Gertrude found flowers for his grave. It was all she could do to show her love for him, she said, crying bitterly, for she might not see him to bid him good-bye, and her heart was very sore. So it was with Christmas roses that the grave of our Christmas child was decked. _Printed by_ R. & R. CLARK, _Edinburgh_. * * * * * Transcriber's note: Missing punctuation has been added. The following additional changes were made to the text: In chapter 4, the misprint "Hs" was changed to read "He" in the sentence: HE would not leave the least shred of paper or even crumbs about In chapter 10, the word "other" was changed to "another" in the sentence: (...) he would not take the round of the Skensdale farm for ANOTHER three or four days at least 
21301	----	Bunyip Land; a Story of Adventure in New Guinea, by George Manville Fenn. _______________________________________________________________________ Joe Carstairs is a boy on a farm in Australia. His father is a keen naturalist who, some years before had set off for New Guinea in search of specimens, and never been heard of again. Joe is old enough to mount a search expedition, and takes with him a local doctor and an aboriginal worker on his farm. They find themselves joined by a stowaway, Jimmy, whose father is a squatter (farmer) nearby, together with his dog, Gyp. This team sets off, arrive in New Guinea, hire some more porters, and travel guided by some sixth sense straight to where Mr Carstairs has been kept a prisoner, along with another Englishman, whose mind has gone, under the stress of his imprisonment. There are the usual close shaves and tense moments, but finally they achieve their end, and return home triumphantly. _______________________________________________________________________ BUNYIP LAND; A STORY OF ADVENTURE IN NEW GUINEA, BY GEORGE MANVILLE FENN. CHAPTER ONE. HOW I MADE MY PLANS AND THEY WERE ENDORSED. "Now, Master Joseph, do adone now, do. I'm sure your poor dear eyes'll go afore you're forty, and think of that!" "Bother!" "What say, my dear?" "Don't bother." "You're always running your finger over that map thing, my dear. I can't abear to see it." Nurse Brown looked over the top of her spectacles at me and shook her head, while I bent lower over the map. Then the old lady sighed, and went on making cottage windows all over my worsted stockings, giving vent to comments all the time, for the old lady had been servant to my grandmother, and had followed her young mistress when she married, nursing me when I was born, and treating me as a baby ever since. In fact she had grown into an institution at home, moving when we moved, and doing pretty well as she liked in what she called "our house." "Bang!" "Bless the boy! don't bang the table like that," she cried. "How you made me jump!" "It's of no use talking, nurse," I cried; "I mean to go." "Go!" she said. "Go where?" "Go and find my poor dear father," I cried. "Why, nurse, am I to sit down quietly at home here, when perhaps my poor father is waiting for me to come to his help?" "Oh, hush! my dearie; don't talk like that I'm afraid he's dead and gone." "He isn't, nurse," I cried fiercely. "He's a prisoner somewhere among those New Guinea savages, and I mean to find him and bring him back." Nurse Brown thrust her needle into the big round ball of worsted, and held it up as if for me to see. Then she took off her glasses with the left hand in the stocking, and shaking her head she exclaimed: "Oh, you bad boy; wasn't it enough for your father to go mad after his botaniky, and want to go collecting furren buttercups and daisies, to break your mother's heart, that you must ketch his complaint and want to go too?" "My father isn't mad," I said. "Your father _was_ mad," retorted Nurse Brown, "and I was surprised at him. What did he ever get by going wandering about collecting his dry orchardses and rubbish, and sending of 'em to England?" "Fame," I cried, "and honour." "Fame and honour never bought potatoes," said nurse. "Why, four different plants were named after him." "Oh, stuff and rubbish, boy! What's the good of that when a man gets lost and starves to death in the furren wilds!" "My father was too clever a man to get lost or to starve in the wilds," I said proudly. "The savages have made him a prisoner, and I'm going to find him and bring him back." "Ah! you've gone wandering about with that dirty black till you've quite got into his ways." "Jimmy isn't dirty," I said; "and he can't help being black any more than you can being white." "I wonder at a well-brought-up young gent like you bemeaning yourself to associate with such a low creature, Master Joseph." "Jimmy's a native gentleman, nurse," I said. "Gentleman, indeed!" cried the old lady, "as goes about without a bit of decent clothes to his back." "So did Adam, nursey," I said laughing. "Master Joseph, I won't sit here and listen to you if you talk like that," cried the old lady; "a-comparing that black savage to Adam! You ought to be ashamed of yourself. It all comes of living in this horrible place. I wish we were back at Putney." "Hang Putney!" I cried. "Putney, indeed! where you couldn't go half a yard off a road without trespassing. Oh, nurse, you can't understand it," I cried enthusiastically; "if you were to get up in the dark one morning and go with Jimmy--" "Me go with Jimmy!" cried the old lady with a snort. "And get right out towards the mountain and see the sunrise, and the parrots in flocks, and the fish glancing like arrows down the silver river--" "There's just how your poor dear pa used to talk, and nearly broke your poor ma's heart." "No, he didn't; he was too fond of her," I said; "only he felt it his duty to continue his researches, the same that brought him out here, and--oh, I shall find him and bring him back." "Don't, don't, don't! there's a good boy; don't talk to me like that. You're sixteen now, and you ought to know better." "I don't want to know any better than that, nurse. I know it's my duty to go, and I shall go." "You'll kill your poor ma, sir." "No, I sha'n't," I said. "She won't like my going at first, because it will seem lonely for her out here; but she'll be as pleased as can be afterwards. Look here: my mother--" "Say _ma_, Master Joe, dear. Doey, please; it's so much more genteel." "Stuff! it's Frenchy; mother's old English. Mother don't believe father's dead, does she?" "Well, no, my dear; she's as obstinate as you are about that." "And she's right. Why, he's only been away four years, and that isn't so very long in a country where you have to cut every step of the way." "Cooey--cooey--woo--woo--woo--woo--why yup!" "Cooey--cooey!" I echoed back, and nurse held he hands to her ears. "Now don't you go to him, Master Joseph; now please don't," said the old lady. "Mass Joe! hi Mass Joe! Jimmy fine wallaby. Tick fass in big hole big tree." Just then my first-lieutenant and Nurse Brown's great object of dislike, Jimmy, thrust his shiny black face and curly head in at the door. "Go away, sir," cried nurse. "Heap fis--come kedge fis--million tousand all up a creek. Jimmy go way?" He stood grinning and nodding, with his hands in the pocket holes of his only garment, a pair of trousers with legs cut off to about mid-thigh. "If you don't take that nasty black fellow away, Master Joseph, I shall be obliged to complain to your poor ma," said nurse. "Get out!" I said; "Jimmy won't hurt you; and though it don't show, he's as clean as a new pin." "He isn't clean; he can't be, dear. How can any one be clean who don't wear clothes, Master Joseph? and look at his toes." Nurse Brown always fell foul of Jimmy's toes. They fidgeted her, for they were never still. In fact Jimmy's toes, which had never probed the recesses of a pair of boots, were more like fingers and thumbs, and had a way of twiddling about when he was supposed to be standing still-- stand perfectly still he never did--and these toes belonged to feet that in climbing he could use like hands. More than once I've seen him pick stones off the ground--just like a monkey, nurse said--or stand talking to any one and keep his attention while he helped himself to something he wanted with his feet. "There, be off Jimmy," I said, for I wanted to stop indoors. "Come kedge fis." "No, not to-day." "Hi--wup--wup--wup!" Jimmy threw himself into an attitude, snatching a small hatchet from the waistband of his trousers, and made believe to climb a tree, chop a hole larger, and draw out an animal, which he seemed to be swinging round by its tail. "No, not to-day, Jimmy," I cried. "Sleep, sleep," said Jimmy, imitating a kangaroo by giving a couple of hops into the verandah, where he chose a sunny place, well haunted by flies, curled up, and went to sleep. "Good morning!" cried a hearty voice, and I ran out to welcome our neighbour the doctor, whose horse's hoofs had not been heard, and who was now fastening the rein to the hook in one of the verandah posts. "Well, Joe," he said as I shook hands and looked up admiringly in his bold well-bearded face. "Well, doctor, I'm so glad you've come; walk in." "Ah! nurse," he cried; "how well you look!" "Yes, yes; but I am glad you're come," she said. "I want you to look at Master Joseph." "I did look at him." "Isn't he feverish or something, sir? He's that restless as never was." "Sign he's growing," cried the doctor. "How's mamma?" "Oh, she's pretty well," I said. "Gone to lie down." "That's right," said the doctor. "I had to come and look at Bowman's broken arm, so I came on here to beg a bit of dinner." "I'm so glad!" I said: for Jimmy, the half-wild black, was my only companion, there being no boys within miles of our run; "stop a week and have some fishing." "And what's to become of my patients?" "You haven't got any," I said. "You told me so last time." "True, O King Joseph! I've come to the wrong place; you don't want many doctors in Australia. Why, nurse, how this fellow grows!" "I wish he'd grow good," cried the old lady. "He's always doing something to worry away his poor ma's and my life." "Why, what's the matter now, nurse?" "Matter, sir! Why, he's took it into his head to go looking for his poor dear dead-and-gone pa. Do, do please tell him he mustn't think of such things." "Why, Joe!" cried the doctor, turning sharply round to me, and ceasing to beat his high boots with his long-thonged whip. "I don't care what anybody says," I cried, stamping my foot. "I've made up my mind, and mean to go to New Guinea to find my father." "There, doctor, did you ever hear any one so wickedly obstinate before?" cried nurse. "Isn't it shocking? and his ma that delicate and worried living all alone, like, here out in these strange parts, and him as ought to be a comfort to her doing nothing but hanker after running away to find him as is dead and gone." "He's not dead, nurse; he's only gone," I cried; "and I mean to find him, as sure as I live. There, that I will." "There, doctor, did you ever hear such a boy?" cried nurse. "Never," said the doctor. "Why, Joe, my boy," he cried as I stood shrinking from him, ready to defend myself from his remonstrances, "your ideas do you credit. I didn't think you had it in you." "Then you don't think it is wrong of me, doctor?" I said, catching his hand. "No, my boy, I do not," he said gravely; "but it is a task for strong and earnest men." "But I am strong," I said; "and if I'm not a man I'm in real earnest." "I can see that, my lad," said the doctor, with his brown forehead filling with thoughtful wrinkles; "but have you counted the cost?" "Cost!" I said. "No. I should get a passage in a coaster and walk all the rest of the way." "I mean cost of energy: the risks, the arduous labours?" "Oh, yes," I said; "and I sha'n't mind. Father would have done the same if I was lost." "Of course he would, my lad; but would you go alone?" "Oh, no," I replied, "I should take a guide." "Ah, yes; a good guide and companion." "There, Master Joseph, you hear," said nurse. "Doctor Grant means that sarcastical." "No, I do not, nurse," said the doctor quietly; "for I think it a very brave and noble resolve on the part of our young friend." "Doctor!" "It has troubled me this year past that no effort has been made to find the professor, who, I have no doubt, is somewhere in the interior of the island, and I have been for some time making plans to go after him myself." Nurse Brown's jaw dropped, and she stared in speechless amazement. "Hurray, doctor!" I cried. "And I say hurray too, Joe," he cried. "I'll go with you, my lad, and we'll bring him back, with God's help, safe and sound." The shout I gave woke Jimmy, who sprang to his feet, dragged a boomerang from his waistband, and dashed to the door to throw it at somebody, and then stopped. "You'll break his mother's heart, doctor," sobbed nurse. "Oh! if she was to hear what you've said!" "I did hear every word," said my mother, entering from the next room, and looking very white. "There, there," cried nurse, "you wicked boy, see what you've done." "Mother!" I cried, as I ran to her and caught her--poor, little, light, delicate thing that she was--in my arms. "My boy!" she whispered back, as she clung to me. "I must go. I will find him. I'm sure he is not dead." "And so am I," she cried, with her eyes lighting up and a couple of red spots appearing in her cheeks. "I could not feel as I do if he were dead." Here she broke down and began to sob, while I, with old nurse's eyes glaring at me, began to feel as if I had done some horribly wicked act, and that nothing was left for me to do but try to soothe her whose heart I seemed to have broken. "Oh, mother! dear mother," I whispered, with my lips close to her little pink ear, "I don't want to give you pain, but I feel as if I must--I must go." To my utter astonishment she laid her hands upon my temples, thrust me from her, and gazing passionately in my great sun-browned face she bent forward, kissed me, and said: "Yes, yes. You've grown a great fellow now. Go? Yes, you must go. God will help you, and bring you both safely back." "Aw--ugh! Aw--ugh! Aw--ugh!" came from the verandah, three hideous yells, indicative of the fact that Jimmy--the half-wild black who had attached himself to me ever since the day I had met him spear-armed, and bearing that as his only garment over the shoulder, and I shared with him the bread and mutton I had taken for my expedition--was in a state of the utmost grief. In fact, he had thrown himself down on the sand, and was wallowing and twisting himself about, beating up the dust with his boomerang, and generally exciting poor old nurse's disgust. "Mother!" I cried; and making an effort she stood up erect and proud. "Mr Grant," she exclaimed, "do you mean what you say?" "Most decidedly, my dear madam," said the doctor. "I should be unworthy of the professor's friendship, and the charge he gave me to watch over you in his absence, if I did not go." "But your practice?" "What is that, trifling as it is, to going to the help of him who gave me his when I came out to the colony a poor and friendless man?" "Thank you, doctor," she said, laying her hand in his. "And I go the more willingly," he said smiling, "because I know it will be the best prescription for your case. It will bring you back your health." "But, doctor--" "Don't say another word," he cried. "Why, my dear Mrs Carstairs, it is five years since I have had anything even approaching a holiday. This will be a splendid opportunity; and I can take care of Joe here, and he can take care of me." "That I will--if I can," I cried. "I know you will, Joe," he said. "And we'll bring back the professor with all his collection of new plants for that London firm, on condition that something fresh with a big red and yellow blossom is named after me--lay the Scarlet Grantii, or the Yellow Unluckii in honour of my non-success." "You're never going to let him start, Miss Eleanor?" cried nurse. "Would you have me stand between my son and his duty, nurse?" cried my mother, flushing. "Dearie me, no," sighed the old lady; "only it do seem such a wild-goose chase. There'll be no one to take care of us, and that dreadful black, Jimmy"--nurse always said his name with a sort of disrelish--"will be hanging about here all the time." "Iss, dat's him, Jimmy, Jimmy, here Jimmy go. Hi--wup--wup--wup, Jimmy go too." "Nonsense, Jimmy!" I said; "I'm going to New Guinea to seek my father." "Iss. Hi--wup--wup--wup, Jimmy going to look for his fader." "Why, you said he was dead," I cried. "Iss, Jimmy fader dead, little pickaninny boy; Jimmy go look for him, find him dere." "Be quiet," I said, for the black was indulging in a kind of war-dance; "you don't understand. I'm going across the sea to find my father." "Dat him. Jimmy want go 'cross sea find him fader bad. Hi! want go there long time." "Why, you never heard of the place before," I said. "No, never heard him fore; want to go long time. Jimmy go too." "Why, what for?" I said. "Hunt wallaby--kedge fis--kill black fellow--take care Mass Joe--find um fader. Hi--wup--wup--wup!" "He would be very useful to us, Joe," said the doctor. "And I should like to take him," I said eagerly. "Iss, Jimmy go," cried the black, who contrived, in spite of his bad management of our language, to understand nearly everything that was said, and who was keenly watching us all in turn. "He would be just the fellow to take," said the doctor. "Hi--wup--wup! Jimmy juss a fellow to take." "Then he shall go," I said; and the black bounded nearly to the ceiling, making nurse utter a shriek, whereupon he thrust his boomerang into his waistband, and dragged a waddy from the back, where it had hung down like a stumpy tail, and showing his white teeth in a savage grin, he began to caper about as if preparing to attack the old lady, till I caught him by the arm, and he crouched at my feet like a dog. "Come long," he said, pointing out at the sun, "walk five six hour--all black dark; go sleep a morning." "All in good time, Jimmy," I said. "Go out and wait." The black ran out, and crouched down upon his heels in the verandah, evidently under the impression that we were about to start at once; but Europeans bound on an expedition want something besides a waddy, boomerang, and spear; and with nurse shaking her head mournfully the while, my mother, the doctor, and I held a council of war, which, after a time, was interrupted by a curious noise between a grunt and a groan, which proved to be from Jimmy's throat, for he was preparing himself for his journey by having a nap. CHAPTER TWO. HOW WE PREPARED TO START, AND STARTED. You will have gathered from all this that my father had been missing for pretty well three years, and that he, a well-known botanist, had accepted a commission from a well-known florist in the neighbourhood of London to collect new plants for him, and in his quest he had made his last unfortunate trip--which had followed one to Carpentaria--to New Guinea. We had heard from him twice, each time with a package of seeds and plants, which we had forwarded to London. Then there was an utter cessation of news; one year had become two--then three--and it would soon be four. Quite a little fellow when he started, I had cried with disappointment at being left behind. Now I had grown into a big fellow for my age; I had dreamed incessantly of making the attempt to find my father, and now at last the time had come. I believe I was quite as excited over the proposed journey as Jimmy, but I did not go about throwing a spear at gum-trees, neither did I climb the tallest eucalyptus to try if I could see New Guinea from the topmost branches. Moreover I did not show my delight on coming down, certain of having seen this promised land, by picking out a low horizontal branch and hanging from it by my toes. All of these antics Jimmy did do, and many more, besides worrying me every half-hour with-- "Come long--time a go find him fader." Of course now I know that it would have been impossible for me to have carried out my plans without the doctor, who was indefatigable, bringing to bear as he did the ripe experience of a man who had been all over the world pretty well before he came to Australia to make a practice; and every day I had from him some useful hint. He was quite as eager as I, but he met all my impatient words with-- "Let's do everything necessary first, Joe. Recollect we are going to a far more savage land than this, and where we can renew nothing but our store of food. Don't let's fail through being too hasty. All in good time." But the time did seem so long, for there was a great deal to do. Jimmy--who by the way really bore some peculiar native name that sounded like Wulla Gurra--was fitted out with a serviceable sailor's suit, of which he was very proud, and never prouder than when he could see it to its best advantage. This was in the wool barn, where, upon every opportunity, the black used to retreat to relieve himself of the unwonted garb, and hang it up against the shingle wall. Then he would show his teeth to the gums and squat down, embrace his knees, and gaze at the clothes. When satisfied with the front he would rise deliberately, go to the wall, turn every article, and have a good look at the other side. We ran some risks at this time, for our henchman was given his first lessons in the use of a rifle, and for a long time, no matter how the doctor tried, it seemed as if it was impossible for the black to hold the piece in any other direction than pointed straight at one of his friends. By slow degrees, though, he got over it, and wanted lessons in loading and firing more often than his master was prepared to give them. Jimmy had heard the report of a gun hundreds of times, but his experience had never gone so far as holding the piece when it was fired; and when, after being carefully shown how to take aim, he was treated to a blank charge and pulled the trigger, the result was that I threw myself on the ground and shrieked with laughter, while the doctor seated himself upon a stump and held his sides, with the tears rolling down his cheeks. For at the flash and report Jimmy uttered a yell, dropped the rifle, and turned and ran as hard as he could for the barn, never once looking behind him. A couple of minutes were, however, sufficient to let his fear evaporate, and he came back waddy in fist, half shamefaced, half angry, and rubbing his right shoulder the while. "Don't do dat," he cried fiercely. "Don't do dat. Play trick, Mass Joe. Play trick, Jimmy." "I didn't," I cried, laughing. "Here; see me." I took the rifle, put in a charge, and fired. "There," I said, reloading. "Now, try again." Jimmy had on only his curtailed trousers, into whose waistband he cautiously stuck the waddy, the knob at the end stopping it from falling through, and gingerly taking the rifle once more to show that he was not afraid, he held it loosely against his shoulder and fired again. The gun kicked more than ever, for it was growing foul, and, uttering a yell, Jimmy dashed it down, snatched the waddy from his waistband, and began belabouring the butt of the piece before we could stop him, after which he stood sulkily rubbing his right shoulder, and scowling at the inanimate enemy that had given him a couple of blows. One or two more experiments with the piece, however, taught the black its merits and demerits to such an extent that he was never so happy as when he was allowed to shoulder the formidable weapon, with which he would have liked to go and fight some native tribe; and his constant demand to me was for me to put in an extra charge so that he might have what he called "big-bang." The doctor took care that we should both be well furnished with every necessary in arms, ammunition, and camp equipments, such as were light and would go into a small space. He got down from Sydney, too, a quantity of showy electro-gilt jewellery and fancy beads, with common knives, pistols, guns, and hatchets for presents, saying to me that a showy present would work our way better with a savage chief than a great deal of fighting, and he proved to be quite right in all he said. Taken altogether we had an excellent outfit for the journey, my mother eagerly placing funds at the doctor's disposal. And then came the question of how we were to get to the great northern island, for as a rule facilities for touching there were not very great; but somehow this proved to be no difficulty, all that we undertook being easily mastered, every obstacle melting away at the first attack. In fact the journey to New Guinea was like a walk into a trap--wonderfully easy. The difficulty was how to get out again. Perhaps had I known of the dangers we were to encounter I might have shrunk from the task--I say might, but I hope I should not. Still it was better that I was in ignorance when, with the doctor, I set about making inquiries at the harbour, and soon found a captain who was in the habit of trading to the island for shells and trepang, which he afterwards took on to Hongkong. For a fairly liberal consideration he expressed himself willing to go out of his way and land us where we liked, but he shook his head all the same. "You've cut out your work, youngster," he said; "and I doubt whether you're going to sew it together so as to make a job." "I'm going to try, captain," I said. "That's your style," he said heartily, as he gave me a slap on the shoulder. "That's the word that moves everything, my boy--that word `try.' My brains and butter! what a lot `try' has done, and will always keep doing. Lor', it's enough to make a man wish he was lost, and his son coming to look after him." "Then you have a son, captain?" I said, looking at him wistfully. "Me? Not a bit of it. My wife never had no little 'uns, for we always buys the boats, they arn't young ships. I married my schooner, my lad; she's my wife. But there, I'm talking away with a tongue like an old woman. Send your traps aboard whenever you like, and--there, I like you--you're a good lad, and I'll help you as much as ever I can. Shake hands." It was like a fierce order, and he quite hurt me when we did shake hands, even the doctor saying it was like putting your fist in a screw-wrench. Then we parted, the doctor and I to complete our preparations; the various things we meant to take were placed on board, and now at last the time had come when we must say _Good-bye_! For the first time in my life I began to think very seriously of money matters. Up to this money had not been an object of much desire with me. A few shillings to send into Sydney for some special object now and then was all I had required; but now I had to think about my mother during my absence, and what she would do, and for the first time I learned that there was no need for anxiety on that score; that my father's private income was ample to place us beyond thought for the future. I found, too, that our nearest neighbour had undertaken to watch over my mother's safety, not that there was much occasion for watchfulness, the days gliding by at our place in the most perfect peace, but it was satisfactory to feel that there were friends near at hand. I was for saying _good-bye_ at the little farm, but my mother insisted upon accompanying us to Sydney, where I noticed that in spite of her weakness and delicate looks, she was full of energy and excitement, talking to me of my journey, begging me to be prudent and careful, and on no account to expose myself to danger. "And tell your father how anxiously I am looking forward to his return," she said to me on the last evening together; words that seemed to give me confidence, for they showed me how thoroughly satisfied she was that we would bring my father back. We were too busy making preparations to the very last for there to be much time for sadness, till the hour when the old skipper came, and was shown up to our room. He came stamping and blundering up in a pair of heavy sea-boots, and began to salute me with a rough shout, when he caught sight of my pale delicate-looking mother, and his whole manner changed. "Lor', I didn't know as there were a lady here," he said in a husky whisper, and snatching off his battered Panama hat, sticking out a leg behind, and making a bow like a school-boy. I beg your pardon for intruding like, mum, but I only come to say that the schooner's warped out, and that youngster here and Mr Grant must come aboard first thing in the morning. He sat down after a good deal of persuasion, and partook of refreshment--liquid, and copiously. But when, on leaving, my mother followed him to the door, and I saw her try to make him a present, he shook his head sturdily. "No, no," he growled; "I asked my price for the trip, and the doctor there paid me like a man. Don't you be afeared for young chap there while he's aboard my craft. While he's with me I'll look after him as if he was gold. I don't like boys as a rule, for they're a worrit and wants so much kicking before you can make 'em work, but I've kind of took to youngster there, and I'll see him through. Good night." The captain went clumping down the stairs, and we could hear him clearing his throat very loudly down the street. Then the doctor, with great delicacy, rose and left us alone, and I tried to look cheerful as I sat for an hour with my mother before going to bed. Did any of you who tried to look cheerful when you were going to leave home for the first time ever succeed, especially with those wistful, longing eyes watching you so earnestly all the time? I'm not ashamed to say that I did not, and that I almost repented of my decision, seeing as I did what pain I was causing. But I knew directly after that it was pain mingled with pleasure, and that I was about to do my duty as a son. Twice over, as I lay half sleeping, I fancied I saw, or really did see, somebody gliding away from my bedside, and then all at once I found that it was morning, and I got up, had a miserable breakfast, which seemed to choke me, and soon after--how I don't know, for it all seemed very dream-like--found myself on the wharf with my mother, waiting for the boat that was to take us three travellers to the ship. Jimmy was there, looking rather uncomfortable in his sailor's suit, which was not constructed for the use of a man who always sat down upon his heels. The doctor was there, too, quiet and cheerful as could be, and I made an effort to swallow something that troubled me, and which I thought must be somehow connected with my breakfast. But it would not go down, and I could do nothing but gaze hard as through a mist at the little delicate woman who was holding so tightly to my hands. There was a dimness and an unreality about everything. Things seemed to be going on in a way I did not understand, and I quite started at last as somebody seemed to say, "Good-bye," and I found myself in the little boat and on the way to the schooner. Then all in the same dim, misty way I found myself aboard, watching the wharf where my mother was standing with a lady friend, both waving their handkerchiefs. Then the wharf seemed to be slowly gliding away and getting more and more distant, and then mixed up with it all came the sound of the bluff captain's voice, shouting orders to the men, who were hurrying about the deck. Suddenly I started, for the doctor had laid his hand upon my shoulder. "We're off, Joe," he said heartily; "the campaign has begun. Now, then, how do you feel for your work?" His words electrified me, and I exclaimed excitedly: "Ready, doctor, ready. We'll find him and bring him back." CHAPTER THREE. HOW I MADE MY FIRST CHARGE WITH A LANCE. We had not been a day at sea before our black follower was in trouble. As a matter of course the men began joking and teasing him about the awkward manner in which he wore his sailor's suit, asking him if it wouldn't be better to have a coat of white paint over him instead, as being cooler and less trouble, and the like. All this Jimmy took with the greatest of equanimity, grasping the men's meaning very well, and very often throwing himself flat on the deck and squirming about, which was his way of showing his delight. But it was absolutely necessary that all this banter should come from the Englishmen. If one of the Malay sailors attempted such a familiarity, Jimmy was furious. "Hi--wup--wup!" he exclaimed to me after one of these bouts; "dirty fellow, brown fellow no good. Not white fellow, not black fellow. Bad for nothing." One afternoon the doctor and I were sitting forward watching the beautiful heaving waves, and talking over the plans we intended to follow when we landed, and we had agreed that a small party was far more likely to succeed than a large one, being more suitable for passing unnoticed through the country. We had just arrived at the point of determining that we would engage six natives at a friendly shore village to carry our baggage and act as guides, when the noise of some trouble aft arose, and we turned to see a Malay sailor lying upon the deck, and Jimmy showing his teeth fiercely, waddy in hand, after having given the man what he afterwards called "a topper on de headums." We ran up, fearing more mischief, for Jimmy could fight fiercely when roused; and we were just in time, for as the doctor reached the Malay the man had scrambled up, drawn his knife, and rushed at the black. But before he could strike, the doctor showed me what wonderful strength of arm he possessed, by seizing the Malay by the waistband and arm and literally swinging him over the low bulwark into the sea. "That will cool his passion," said the doctor, smiling. "I'm sorry I did it though, captain," he said the next minute; "these men are very revengeful." "Too late to say that," cried the captain roughly. "Here, hi! man overboard! Never mind the boat: he swims like a fish." This was plain enough, for the Malay was making his way swiftly through the water, and the captain ran aft with a coil of rope to throw to him from the stern. I ran too, and could see that as the man struck the water in a peculiar fashion, he held his knife open in his hand, and was thinking whether he would use it when the captain threw the rope, the light rings uncoiling as they flew through the air and splashed the water. "Here, look out!" cried the captain; but the man did not heed, but began to beat the water furiously, uttering a strange gasping cry. "Look, doctor!" I cried, pointing, and leaning forward. A low hiss escaped his lips as he, too, saw a dull, indistinct something rising through the transparent sea. "Yah, hi! Bunyip debble fis!" shouted Jimmy excitedly. "Bite sailor, brown fellow. Hoo. Bite!" The black gave a snap and a shake of the head, and then taking the long sharp knife the doctor had given him from his belt, he tore off his shirt and, it seemed to me, jumped out of his trousers. Then the sun seemed to flash from his shiny black skin for an instant, and he plunged into the sea. The exciting incidents of that scene are as plain before me now I write as if they had taken place yesterday. I saw the body of the black strike up a foam of white water, and then glide down in a curve in the sunlit sea, plainly crossing the course of the great fish, which had altered its course on becoming aware of the second splash. The Malay knew what he was doing, for ignoring the help of the rope he allowed himself to drift astern, seeing as he did that the shark's attention had been drawn to the black. "He knows what he's about," said the captain. "If he laid hold of that there rope, and we tried to draw him aboard, that snipperjack would take him like a perch does a worm in the old ponds at home. Here, lower away that boat, and I'll go and get the whale lance." Away went the skipper, while the men lowered the boat; and I was so intent upon the movements of the great fish that I started as the boat kissed the water with a splash. The shark was about ten feet long and unusually thick; and as it kept just below the surface the doctor and I could watch its every movement, guided by the strange but slow wave of the long, curiously-lobed tail. "Now, you brown fellow, you come on. Knife, knife!" As Jimmy shouted out these words he raised himself in the water and curved over like a porpoise, diving right down, and at the same moment the shark gave a sweep with its tail, the combined disturbance making so great an eddy that it was impossible to see what took place beneath the surface. Then all at once there was a horrible discoloration in the sea, and I drew back, holding on by the bulwarks with both hands to keep myself from falling. For, as the water grew discoloured, so did the air seem to glow before my eyes. I was sick and dizzy; the deck seemed to rise in waves, and a curious kind of singing noise in my ears made everything sound distant and strange. There was a strange despairing feeling, too, in my heart, and my breath came thick and short, till I was brought partly to myself by hearing a voice shouting for a rope, and then the mist gradually cleared away, and I became aware of the fact that the boat was moving before me, and that the round, shiny black face of Jimmy was close at hand. A few minutes later both Jimmy and the Malay were aboard, the former throwing himself flat on his back to rest, for he was panting heavily after his exertions. "Big bunyip debble, Mass Joe," he sputtered; "swim more stronger Jimmy, but no got knife. Tick black fellow knife in um lot o' time. Tick it in him frontums, tick it in ums back ums tight, and make um dibe down and take Jimmy much long ways." "Why didn't you leave go of the knife, my man?" said the doctor. "Leave go dat big noo knife?" cried Jimmy sharply. "Let bunyip fis have dat noo knife?" Jimmy did not finish, but shook his head from side to side, so that first one black ear went into the puddle of water on the deck, then the other, while his lips parted in a tremendously long grin, which seemed to say, "Black fellow knows better than to do such a stupid thing as that." Then, as if made of india-rubber, Jimmy drew his heels in, gave a spring, and leaped to his feet, running to the side, and then throwing up his arms with delight. "Dere um is, Mass Joe; turn up him under frontums like fis on hook an' line." For there was the monster making an effort to keep in its normal position, as it swam slowly round and round, but always rolling back, and rising helplessly every time it tried to dive. "Jimmy sorry for you," cried the black. "Plenty good to eat like much muttons. Go down boat bring him board." "Well, I don't know about good meat, blackee, but we may as well have his head to boil out his jaws," said the captain, who was standing looking on, whale lance in hand. "Go down and put him out of his misery, captain," I said, "and take me too." "Oh! all right, my lad," he said, laughing. "You may do the job if you like." "May I?" "To be sure," he said; and I jumped down into the boat, after he had lowered himself, bear fashion, on to one of the thwarts. "Here, send out one of the sailors," said the doctor. "I'll go too." One of the men returned to the deck, looking rather glum, and the doctor took his place, while I sympathised with that sailor and wished that the doctor had not spoken, for I felt sure that he had come down into the boat to take care of me, and it made me feel young and childish. But I did not show my annoyance, I am glad to say; and a minute later the men gave way, and the boat glided slowly towards where the shark had drifted--I all the while standing up in the bows, lance in hand, full of the desire to make use of it, and feeling a cruel, half savage sensation that it would be exceedingly pleasant to drive that lance right home. "Now my water Saint George the Second," cried the doctor banteringly; "mind you slay the sea-dragon." "Mind what you're after, youngster," said the captain. "Give it him close below the gills; a good dig and then draw back sharp." "All right!" I cried back to the captain, for I was offended by the doctor's chaff; it made me feel small before the men. Then, recalling what I had read that a harpooner would do under such circumstances, I shouted: "Give way, boys!" I'd have given something to have been back on board the schooner just then, for a roar of laughter greeted my command, and I felt that I was very young, and had made myself rather ridiculous, while to add to my discomfiture the men obeyed my order with such energy that the boat gave a jerk, and I was nearly sent back in a sitting position on the foremost man. There was another laugh at this, and the doctor said drily: "No, no, my lad; the lance is for the shark, not for us." I recovered my balance without a word, and planting my feet firmly wide apart, remained silent and looking very red, while I held my weapon ready. It was an old rusty affair, with a stiff pole about eight feet long, and was used by the captain for killing those curious creatures which no doubt gave rise to the idea of there being such things as tritons or mermen--I mean the manatees or dugongs that in those days used to swarm in the warmer waters of the Eastern Australian coast. "Keep it up, my lads; pull!" said the captain, who had an oar over the stern to steer. "We must get back soon." I thought this was because the shark, which had ceased to swim round and round, was now laboriously making its way with the current at the rate of pretty well two miles an hour; but as the captain spoke I could see that he was scanning the horizon, and I heard the doctor ask if anything was wrong. "Looks dirty," he growled; and I remember wondering half-laughingly whether a good shower would not wash it clean, when the skipper went on: "Gets one o' them storms now and then 'bout here. Now, my lads; with a will!" The water surged and rattled beneath my feet, and I was forgetting my annoyance and beginning to enjoy the excitement of my ride; and all the more that the shark had once more stopped in its steady flight, and was showing its white under parts some fifty yards away. "Ready, my lad!" cried the captain. "I'll steer you close in. Give it him deep, and draw back sharp." I nodded, and held the lance ready poised as we drew nearer and nearer, and I was ready with set teeth and every nerve tingling to deliver the thrust, when _whish_! _splash_! the brute gave its tail a tremendous lash, and darted away, swimming along with its back fin ploughing the water, and apparently as strong as ever. "Only his flurry, my lad. Pull away, boys; we'll soon have him now." The men rowed hard, and the boat danced over the swell, rising up one slope, gliding down another, or so it seemed to me. "He'll turn up the white directly," cried the captain. "Take it coolly and you'll have him. I'll put you close alongside, and don't you miss." "Not I, sir," I shouted without turning my head, for it seemed such a very easy task; and away we went once more, getting nearer and nearer, till the back fin went out of sight, came up again, went out of sight the other way, and then there was the shining white skin glistening in the sun. There was another swirl and the shark made a fresh effort, but this time it was weaker and the boat gained upon it fast. "Now, boys, pull hard, and when I say `In oars,' stop, and we'll run close up without scaring the beggar. Pull--pull--pull--pull! Now! In oars!" The men ceased rowing, the boat glided on from the impetus previously given, and I was just about to deliver a thrust when the wounded creature saw its enemy, and as if its strength had been renewed, went off again with a dart. "Look at that," cried the captain. "Never mind, he's not going to get away. We'll have him yet." "We seem to be getting a long way from the schooner," I heard the doctor say, and I turned round upon him quite angrily. "Oh!" I cried, "don't stop. We nearly had him that time." "Well, you shall have another try, my boy," said the captain. "Pull away." We were going pretty fast all the time, and again and again we drew near, but always to be disappointed, and I stamped my foot with anger, as, every time, the brute darted off, leaving us easily behind. "Better let me have the lance, Joe," said the doctor smiling. "No, no," I cried. "I must have a try now." "Let him be," growled the captain; "nobody couldn't have lanced him if he'd tried. Now look out, lad! Steady, boys! In oars! Let's go up more softly. That's the style. We shall have him this time. Now you have him, lad; give it him--deep." All these words came in a low tone of voice as the boat glided nearer and nearer to where the shark was swimming slowly and wavering to and fro, and in my excitement I drew back, raising the lance high, and just as the monster was about to dash off in a fresh direction I threw myself forward, driving the point of the lance right into the soft flesh, forgetful of my instructions about a sharp thrust and return, for the keen lance point must have gone right through, and before I realised what was the matter I was snatched out of the boat; there was a splash, the noise of water thundering, a strangling sensation in my nostrils and throat, and I was being carried down with a fierce rush into the depths of the sea. CHAPTER FOUR. HOW I WAS NOT DROWNED, AND HOW WE CHASED THAT SCHOONER. I don't remember much about that dive, except that the water made a great deal of noise in my ears, for the next thing that occurred seemed to be that I was lying on my back, with the back of my neck aching, while the doctor was pumping my arms up and down in a remarkably curious manner. "What's the matter?" I said quickly; and then again in a sharp angry voice, "Be quiet, will you? Don't!" "Are you better, young 'un?" said the captain, who seemed to be swollen and clumsy looking. "Better? Here!" I cried as a flash of recollection came back, "where's the shark?" "Floating alongside," said the doctor, wiping the great drops of perspiration from his forehead. I pulled myself up and looked over the side, where the great fish was floating quite dead, with one of the sailors making fast a line round the thin part of the tail. "Why, I know," I cried; "he dragged me down." It was all plain enough now. The captain had fitted a lanyard to the shaft of the lance, so that it should not be lost, and I had got this twisted round one of my wrists in such a way that I was literally snatched out of the boat when it tightened; and I felt a strange kind of shudder run through me as the doctor went on to say softly: "I had begun to give you up, Joe, my boy." "Only the shark give it up as a bad job, my lad. That stroke of yours finished him, and he come up just in time for us to get you into the boat and pump the wind into you again--leastwise the doctor did." "The best way to restore respiration, captain." "When you've tried my plan first, my lad," replied the captain. "What is it drowns folks, eh? Why, water. Too much water, eh? Well, my plan is to hold up head down'ards and feet in the air till all the salt-water has runned out." "The surest way to kill a half-drowned person, captain," said the doctor authoritatively. "Mebbe it is, mebbe it isn't," said the captain surlily. "All I know is that I've brought lots back to life that way, and rolling 'em on barrels." I shuddered and shivered, and the men laughed at my drenched aspect, a breach of good manners that the captain immediately resented. "There, make fast that shark to the ring-bolt, and lay hold of your oars again. Pull away, there's a hurricane coming afore long." As he spoke he looked long at a dull yellow haze that seemed to be creeping towards the sun. "Had we not better let the fish go?" said the doctor anxiously. "No, I want the oil," said the captain. "We've had trouble enough to get him, and I don't mean to throw him away. Now, my lads, pull." The men tugged steadily at their oars, but the dead fish hung behind like a log, and our progress was very slow. Every now and then it gave a slight quiver, but that soon ceased, and it hung quite passively from the cord. I was leaning over the stem, feeling rather dizzy and headachy when, all at once, the captain shouted to me to "cut shark adrift; we're making too little way. That schooner's too far-off for my liking." I drew my knife, and after hauling the fish as closely as I could to the side I divided the thin line, and as I did so the boat seemed to dart away from its burden. It was none too soon, for the yellow haze seemed to be increasing rapidly, and the wind, which at one minute was oppressively calm, came the next in ominous hot puffs. "Why, the schooner's sailing away from us," cried the captain suddenly. "Hang me if I don't believe that scoundrel of a Malay has got to the helm, and is taking her right away out of spite." "Don't begin prophesying evil like that, captain," cried the doctor sharply. "Here, man, I can pull; let's take an oar apiece and help." "I wasn't croaking," growled the captain; "but whether or no, that's good advice. No, no, youngster, you're not strong enough to pull." "I can row," I said quickly; and the captain making no farther objection, we three pulled for the next half-hour, giving the men a good rest, when they took their turn, and we could see that while the haze seemed nearer the schooner was quite as far-off as ever. There was a curious coppery look, too, about the sun that made everything now look weird and unnatural, even to the doctor's face, which in addition looked serious to a degree I had never seen before. "There'll be somebody pitched overboard--once I get back on deck, and no boat ready to pick him up. Here, what does he mean?" He stood up in the boat waving his hat to those on board the little vessel; but no heed was paid, and the captain ground his teeth with rage. "I'll let him have something for this," growled the captain. "There, pull away, men. What are you stopping for?" The men tugged at their oars once more, after glancing uneasily at each other and then at the sky. "If I don't give him--" "Let's get on board first, captain," said the doctor, firmly. "Ay, so we will," he growled. "The brown-skinned scoundrel!" "That's land, isn't it, captain?" I said, pointing to a low line on our left. "Ay, worse luck," he said. "Worse luck, captain? Why, we could get ashore if we did not overtake the schooner." "Get ashore! Who wants to get ashore, boy? That's where my schooner will be. He'll run her on the reefs, as sure as I'm longing for two-foot of rope's-end and a brown back afore me." "A crown apiece for you, my lads, as soon as you get us aboard," cried the doctor, who had been looking uneasily at the men. His words acted like magic, and the oars bent, while the water rattled and pattered under our bows. "That's the sort o' fire to get up steam, doctor," said the captain; "but we shall never overtake my vessel, unless something happens. I'd no business to leave her, and bring away my men." "I'm sorry, captain," I said deprecatingly. "It seems as if it were my fault." "Not it," he said kindly. "It was my fault, lad--mine." All this while the mist was steadily moving down upon us, and the captain was watching it with gloomy looks when his eyes were not fixed upon the schooner, which kept on gliding away. The doctor's face, too, wore a very serious look, which impressed me more perhaps than the threatenings of the storm. For, though I knew how terrible the hurricanes were at times, my experience had always been of them ashore, and I was profoundly ignorant of what a typhoon might be at sea. "There," cried the captain at last, after a weary chase, "it's of no use, my lads, easy it is. I shall make for the land and try to get inside one of the reefs, doctor, before the storm bursts." "The schooner is not sailing away now," I said eagerly. "Not sailing, boy? Why she's slipping away from us like--No, no: you're right, lad, she's--Pull, my lads, pull; let's get aboard. That Malay scoundrel has run her on the reef." CHAPTER FIVE. HOW WE FOUND JACK PENNY. The captain's ideas were not quite correct. Certainly the little trading vessel had been run upon one of the many reefs that spread in all directions along the dangerous coast; but it was not the Malay who was the guilty party. As far as I was concerned it seemed to me a good job, for it brought the schooner to a stand-still, so that we could overtake it. No thought occurred to me that the rocks might have knocked a hole in her bottom, and that if a storm came on she would most likely go to pieces. Very little was said now, for every one's attention was taken up by the threatened hurricane, and our efforts to reach the schooner before it should come on. It was a long severe race, in which we all took a turn at the oars, literally rowing as it seemed to me for our lives. At times it was as if we must be overtaken by the fierce black clouds in the distance, beneath which there was a long misty white line. The sea-birds kept dashing by us, uttering wild cries, and there was overhead an intense silence, while in the distance we could hear a low dull murmuring roar, that told of the coming mischief. Every now and then it seemed to me that we must be overtaken by the long surging line, that it was now plain to see was pursuing us, and I wondered whether we should be able to swim and save our lives when it came upon us with a hiss and a roar, such as I had often heard when on the beach. "We shall never do it," said one of the men, who half-jumped from his seat the next moment as the captain leaned forward from where he was rowing and gave him a sound box on the ears. "Pull, you cowardly humbug!" he cried. "Not do it? A set of furriners wouldn't do it; but we're Englishmen, and we're going to do it. If we don't, it won't be our fault. Pull!" This trifling incident had its effect, for the men pulled harder than ever, exhausted though they were. It was a struggle for life now, and I knew it; but somehow I did not feel frightened in the least, but stunned and confused, and at the same time interested, as I saw the great line of haze and foam coming on. Then I was listening to the dull roar, which was rapidly increasing into what seemed a harsh yell louder than thunder. "Pull, my lads!" shouted the captain, with his voice sounding strange and harsh in the awful silence around us, for, loud as was the roar of the storm, it seemed still afar off. The men pulled, and then we relieved them again, with the great drops gathering on our faces in the intense heat; and my breath came thick and short, till I felt as it were a sense of burning in my chest. Then I grew half-blind with my eyes staring back at the wall of haze; and then, as I felt that I should die if I strained much longer at that oar, I heard the captain shout: "In oars!" and I found that we were alongside the schooner, and close under her lee. There was just time to get on board, and we were in the act of hauling up the boat, when, with an awful whistle and shriek, the storm was upon us, and we were all clinging for life to that which was nearest at hand. Now, I daresay you would like me to give you a faithful account of my impressions of that storm, and those of one who went through it from the time that the hurricane struck us till it passed over, leaving the sky clear, the sun shining, and the sea heaving slowly and without a single crest. I feel that I can do justice to the theme, so here is my faithful description of that storm. _A horrid wet, stifling, flogging row_. That's all I can recollect. That's all I'm sure that the doctor could recollect, or the captain or anybody else. We were just about drowned and stunned, and when we came to ourselves it was because the storm had passed over. "What cheer, ho!" shouted the captain, and we poor flogged and drenched objects sat up and looked about us, to find that the waves had lifted the schooner off the rocks, and driven her a long way out of her course; that the sails that had been set were blown to ribbons; and finally that the schooner, with the last exception, was very little the worse for the adventure. "She ain't made no water much," said the captain, after going below; "and--here, I say, where's that Malay scoundrel?" "Down in the cabin--locked in," said an ill-used voice; and I rubbed the salt-water out of my eyes, and stared at the tall thin figure before me, leaning up against the bulwark as if his long thin legs were too weak to support his long body, though his head was so small that it could not have added very much weight. "Why, hallo! Who the blue jingo are you?" roared the skipper. The tall thin boy wrinkled up his forehead, and did not answer. "Here, I say, where did you spring from?" roared the captain. The tall thin boy took one hand out of his trousers' pocket with some difficulty, for it was so wet that it clung, and pointed down below. The skipper scratched his head furiously, and stared again. "Here, can't you speak, you long-legged thing?" he cried. "Who are you?" "Why, it's Jack Penny!" I exclaimed. "Jack who?" cried the captain. "Jack Penny, sir. His father is a squatter about ten miles from our place." "Well, but how came _he_--I mean that tall thin chap, not his father--to be squatting aboard my schooner?" "Why, Jack," I said, "when did you come aboard?" "Come aboard?" he said slowly, as if it took him some time to understand what I said. "Oh, the night before you did." "But where have you been all the time?" "Oh, down below there," said Jack slowly. "But what did you come for?" "Wanted to," he said coolly. "If I had said so, they wouldn't--you wouldn't have let me come." "But why did you come, Jack?" I said. "'Cause I wanted," he replied surlily. "Who are you that you're to have all the fun and me get none!" "Fun!" I said. "Yes, fun. Ain't you goin' to find your father?" "Of course I am; but what's that got to do with fun?" "Never you mind; I've come, and that's all about it," he said slowly; and thrusting his hands back into his trousers' pockets as fast as the wet clinging stuff would let him, he began to whistle. "But it arn't all about it," cried the captain; "and so you'll find. You arn't paid no passage, and I arn't going to have no liberties took with my ship. Here, where's that Malay chap?" "I told you where he was, didn't I?" snarled Jack Penny. "Are you deaf? In the cabin, locked in." "What's he doing locked in my cabin?" roared the captain. "I say, are you skipper here, or am I? What's he doing in my cabin locked in?" "Rubbing his sore head, I s'pose," drawled Jack Penny. "I hit him as hard as I could with one o' them fence rails." "Fence rails!" cried the captain, who looked astounded at the big thin boy's coolness, and then glanced in the direction he pointed beneath the bulwarks. "Fence rails! What do you mean--one of them capstan bars?" "I don't know what you call 'em," said Jack. "I give him a regular wunner on the head." "What for, you dog?" "Here, don't you call me a dog or there'll be a row," cried Jack, rising erect and standing rather shakily about five feet eleven, looking like a big boy stretched to the bursting point and then made fast. "He was going to kill the black fellow with his knife after knocking him down. I wasn't going to stand by and see him do that, was I?" "Well, I s'pose not," said the captain, who looked puzzled. "Where is the black fellow? Here, where's Jimmy?" "Down that square hole there, that wooden well-place," said Jack, pointing to the forecastle hatch. "He slipped down there when the yaller chap hit him." "Look here--" said the captain as I made for the hatch to look after Jimmy. "But stop a minute, let's have the black up." Two of the men went below and dragged up poor Jimmy, who was quite stunned, and bleeding freely from a wound on the head. "Well, that's some proof of what you say, my fine fellow," continued the captain, as the doctor knelt down to examine poor Jimmy's head and I fetched some water to bathe his face. "What did you do next?" "Next? Let me see," drawled Jack Penny; "what did I do next? Oh! I know. That chap was running away with the ship, and I took hold of that wheel thing and turned her round, so as to come back to you when you kept waving your cap." "Hah! yes. Well, what then?" "Oh, the thing wanted oiling or greasing; it wouldn't go properly. It got stuck fast, and the ship wouldn't move; and then the storm came. I wish you wouldn't bother so." "Well, I _am_ blessed," cried the captain staring. "I should have been proud to have been your father, my young hopeful. 'Pon my soul I should. You are a cool one, you are. You go and run the prettiest little schooner there is along the coast upon the rocks, and then you have the confounded impudence to look me in the face and tell me the rudder wants greasing and it stuck." "So it did!" cried Jack Penny indignantly. "Think I don't know? I heard it squeak. You weren't on board. The ship wouldn't move afterwards." "Here, I say; which are you?" cried the captain; "a rogue or a fool?" "I d'know," said Jack coolly. "Father used to say I was a fool sometimes. P'r'aps I am. I say, though, if I were you I'd go and tie down that yaller Malay chap in the cabin. He's as vicious as an old man kangaroo in a water-hole." "Your father's wrong, my fine fellow," said the captain with a grim smile; "you ar'n't a fool, for a fool couldn't give such good advice as that. Here, doctor, p'r'aps you'll lend me one of your shooting things. You can get into your cabin; I can't get into mine." The doctor nodded, and in the excitement of the time we forgot all about our drenched clothes as he went down and returned directly with his revolver, and another for the captain's use. "Thank'ye, doctor," said the captain grimly, cocking the piece. "I don't want to use it, and I daresay the sight of it will cool our yaller friend; but it's just as well to be prepared. What! are you coming too? Thought your trade was to mend holes and not make 'em." "My trade is to save life, captain," said the doctor quietly. "Perhaps I shall be helping to save life by coming down with you." "P'r'aps you will, doctor. Here, we don't want you two boys." "We only want to come and see," I said in an ill-used tone; and before the doctor could speak the captain laughingly said, "Come on," and we followed them down below, the men bringing up the rear, armed with bars and hatchets. The captain did not hesitate for a moment, but went straight down to the cabin door, turned the key, and threw it open, though all the while he knew that there was a man inside fiercer than some savage beast. But had he been a little more cautious it would have saved trouble, for the Malay had evidently been waiting as he heard steps, and as the door was opened he made a spring, dashed the doctor and captain aside, overset me, and, as the men gave way, reached the deck, where he ran right forward and then close up to the foremast, stood with his long knife or kris in his hand, rolling his opal eyeballs, and evidently prepared to strike at the first who approached. "The dog! he has been at the spirits," growled the captain fiercely. "Confound him! I could shoot him where he stands as easy as could be; but I arn't like you, doctor, I don't like killing a man. Never did yet, and don't want to try." "Don't fire at him," said the doctor excitedly; "a bullet might be fatal. Let us all rush at him and beat him down." "That's all very fine, doctor," said the captain; "but if we do some one's sure to get an ugly dig or two from that skewer. Two or three of us p'r'aps. You want to get a few surgery jobs, but I'd rather you didn't." All this while the Malay stood brandishing his kris and showing his teeth at us in a mocking smile, as if we were a set of the greatest cowards under the sun. "Look here, Harriet," cried the captain; "you'd better give in; we're six to one, and must win. Give in, and you shall have fair play." "Cowards! come on, cowards!" shouted the Malay fiercely, and he made a short rush from the mast, and two of the hatchet men retreated; but the Malay only laughed fiercely, and shrank back to get in shelter by the mast. "We shall have to rush him or shoot him," said the captain, rubbing his nose with pistol barrel. "Now then, you dog; surrender!" he roared; and lowering the pistol he fired at the Malay's feet, the bullet splintering up the deck; but the fellow only laughed mockingly. "We shall have to rush him," growled the captain; "unless you can give him a dose of stuff, doctor, to keep him quiet." "Oh, yes; I can give him a dose that will quiet him for a couple of hours or so, but who's to make him take it?" "When we treed the big old man kangaroo who ripped up Pompey, Caesar, and Crassus," drawled Jack Penny, who was looking on with his hands in his pockets, "I got up the tree and dropped a rope with a noose in it over his head. Seems to me that's what you ought to do now." "Look'ye here," cried the captain, "don't you let your father call you fool again, youngster, because it's letting perhaps a respectable old man tell lies. Tell you what, if you'll shin up the shrouds, and drop a bit of a noose over his head while we keep him in play, I won't say another word about your coming on board without leave." "Oh, all right! I don't mind trying to oblige you, but you must mind he don't cut it if I do." "You leave that to me," cried the captain. "I'll see to that. There, take that thin coil there, hanging on a belaying-pin." The tall thin fellow walked straight to the coil of thin rope, shook it out, and made a running noose at the end, and then, with an activity that surprised me, who began to feel jealous that this thin weak-looking fellow should have proved himself more clever and thoughtful than I was, he sprang into the shrouds, the Malay hardly noticing, evidently believing that the boy was going aloft to be safe. He looked up at him once, as Jack Penny settled himself at the masthead, but turned his attention fiercely towards us as the captain arranged his men as if for a rush, forming them into a semicircle. "When I say ready," cried the captain, "all at him together." The Malay heard all this, and his eyes flashed and his teeth glistened as he threw himself into an attitude ready to receive his foes, his body bent forward, his right and left arms close to his sides, and his whole frame well balanced on his legs. "Ready?" cried the captain. "All ready!" was the reply; and I was so intent upon the fierce lithe savage that I forgot all about Jack Penny till I heard the men answer. There was the whizzing noise of a rope thrown swiftly, and in an instant a ring had passed over the Malay's body, which was snatched tight, pinioning his arms to his side, and Jack Penny came down with a rush on the other side of the fore-yard, drawing the savage a few feet from the deck, where he swung helplessly, and before he could recover himself he had been seized, disarmed, and was lying bound upon the deck. "I didn't mean to come down so fast as that," drawled Jack, rubbing his back. "I've hurt myself a bit." "Then we'll rub you," cried the captain joyously. "By George, my boy, you're a regular two yards of trump." The excitement of the encounter with the Malay being over, there was time to see to poor Jimmy, who was found to be suffering from a very severe cut on the head, one of so serious a nature that for some time the poor fellow lay insensible; but the effect of bathing and bandaging his wound was to make him open his eyes at last, and stare round for some moments before he seemed to understand where he was. Then recollection came back, and he grinned at me and the doctor. The next moment a grim look of rage came over his countenance, and springing up he rushed to where the Malay was lying upon the deck under the bulwarks, and gave him a furious kick. "Bad brown fellow!" he shouted. "Good for nothing! Hi--wup--wup--wup!" Every utterance of the word _wup_ was accompanied by a kick, and the result was that the Malay sprang up, snatched his kris from where it had been thrown on the head of a cask, and striking right and left made his way aft, master of the deck once more. "Well, that's nice," growled the captain. "I thought them knots wouldn't hold," drawled Jack Penny. "He's been wriggling and twisting his arms and legs about ever since he lay there. I thought he'd get away." "Then why didn't you say so, you great, long-jointed two-foot rule?" roared the captain. "Here, now then, all together. I'm skipper here. Rush him, my lads; never mind his skewer." The captain's words seemed to electrify his little crew, and, I venture to say, his passengers as well. Every one seized some weapon, and, headed by the skipper, we charged down upon the savage as he stood brandishing his weapon. He stood fast, watchful as a tiger, for some moments, and then made a dash at our extreme left, where Jack Penny and I were standing; and I have no doubt that he would have cut his way through to our cost, but for a quick motion of the captain, who struck out with his left hand, hitting the Malay full in the cheek. The man made a convulsive spring, and fell back on the edge of the bulwarks, where he seemed to give a writhe, and then, before a hand could reach him, there was a loud splash, and he had disappeared in the sea. We all rushed to the side, but the water was thick from the effects of the storm, and we could not for a few moments make out anything. Then all at once the swarthy, convulsed face of the man appeared above the wave, and he began to swim towards the side, yelling for help. "Ah!" said the skipper, smiling, "that's about put him out. Nothing like cold water for squenching fire." "Hi--wup! hi--wup!" shouted Jimmy, who forgot his wound, and danced up and down, holding on by the bulwarks, his shining black face looking exceedingly comic with a broad bandage of white linen across his brow. "Hi--wup! hi--wup!" he shouted; "bunyip debble shark coming--bite um legs." "Help!" shrieked the Malay in piteous tones, as he swam on, clutching at the slippery sides of the schooner. "Help!" growled the captain; "what for? Here, you, let me have that there kris. Hitch it on that cord." As he spoke the captain threw down the thin line with which the Malay had been bound, the poor wretch snatching at it frantically; but as he did so it was pulled away from his despairing clutch. "I could noose him," drawled Jack Penny coolly. "I've often caught father's rams like that." "Yes, but your father's rams hadn't got knives," said the captain grimly. "No, but they'd got horns," said Jack quietly. "Ain't going to drown him, are you?" "Not I, boy; he'll drown himself if we leave him alone." "I don't like to see fellows drown," said Jack; and he left the bulwarks and sat down on the hatchway edge. "Tell a fellow when it's all over, Joe Carstairs." "Help, help!" came hoarsely from the poor wretch; and my hands grew wet inside, and a horrible sensation seemed to be attacking my chest, as I watched the struggles of the drowning man with starting eyes. For though he swam like a fish, the horror of his situation seemed to have unnerved him, and while he kept on swimming, it was with quick wearying effort, and he was sinking minute by minute lower in the water. "For Heaven's sake, throw the poor wretch a rope, captain," said the doctor. "What! to come aboard and knife some of us?" growled the captain. "Better let him drown. Plenty of better ones than him to be had for a pound a month." "Oh, captain!" I cried indignantly, for my feelings were too much for me; and I seized a rope just as the Malay went down, after uttering a despairing shriek. "Let that rope alone, boy," said the skipper with a grim smile. "There, he's come up again. Ketch hold!" he cried, and he threw his line so that the Malay could seize it, which he did, winding it round and round one arm, while the slowly-sailing schooner dragged him along through the sea. "I'm only giving him a reg'lar good squencher, doctor. I don't want him aboard with a spark left in him to break out again: we've had enough of that. Haul him aboard, lads, and shove him in the chain locker to get dry. We'll set him ashore first chance." The Malay was hauled aboard with no very gentle hands by the white sailors, and as soon as he reached the deck he began crawling to the captain's feet, to which he clung, with gesture after gesture full of humility, as ha talked excitedly in a jargon of broken English and Malay. "That's what I don't like in these fellows," said Jack Penny quietly; "they're either all bubble or else all squeak." "Yes; he's about squenched now, squire," said the captain. "Here, shove him under hatches, and it's lucky for you I'm not in a hanging humour to-day. You'd better behave yourself, or you may be brought up again some day when I am." As the captain spoke to the streaming, shivering wretch he made a noose in the rope he held, manipulating it as if he were really going to hang the abject creature, in whom the fire of rage had quite become extinct. Then the sailors took hold of him, and he uttered a despairing shriek; but he cooled down as he found that he was only to be made a prisoner, and was thrust below, with Jimmy dancing a war-dance round him as he went, the said dance consisting of bounds from the deck and wavings of his waddy about his head. As the Malay was secured, Jack Penny rose from his seat and walked to the side of the vessel, to spit into the water with every sign of disgust upon his face. "Yah!" he said; "I wouldn't squeak like that, not if they hung me." "Well, let's see," cried the captain, catching him by the collar; "hanging is the punishment for stowaways, my fine fellow." "Get out!" said Jack, giving himself a sort of squirm and shaking himself free. "You ain't going to scare me; and, besides, you know what you said. I say, though, when are we going to have something to eat?" The captain stared at Jack's serious face for a few moments, and then he joined with the doctor and me in a hearty laugh. "I don't well understand you yet, my fine fellow," he said; "perhaps I shall, though, afore I've done. Here, come down; you do look as if a little wholesome vittles would do you good. Are you hungry then?" "Hungry!" said Jack, without a drawl, and he gave his teeth a gnash; "why, I ain't had nothing but some damper and a bottle o' water since I came on board." CHAPTER SIX. HOW JIMMY WAS FRIGHTENED BY THE BUNYIP. "Oh, I don't know that I've got any more to say about it," said Jack Penny to me as we sat next day in the bows of the schooner, with our legs dangling over the side. "I heard all about your going, and there was nothing to do at home now, so I said to myself that I'd go, and here I am." "Yes, here you are," I said; "but you don't mean to tell me that you intended to go up the country with us?" "Yes, I do," he said. "Nonsense, Jack! it is impossible!" I said warmly. "I say!" "Well?" "New Guinea don't belong to you, does it?" "Why, of course not." "Oh, I thought p'r'aps you'd bought it." "Don't talk nonsense, Jack." "Don't you talk nonsense then, and don't you be so crusty. If I like to land in New Guinea, and take a walk through the country, it's as free for me as it is for you, isn't it?" "Of course it is." "Then just you hold your tongue, Mister Joe Carstairs; and if you don't like to walk along with me, why you can walk by yourself." "And what provisions have you made for the journey?" I said. "Oh, I'm all right, my lad!" he drawled. "Father lent me his revolver, and I've got my double gun, and two pound o' powder and a lot o' shot." "Anything else?" "Oh, I've got my knife, and a bit o' string, and two fishing-lines and a lot of hooks, and I brought my pipe and my Jew's-harp, and I think that's all." "I'm glad you brought your Jew's-harp," I said ironically. "So am I," he said drily. "Yah! I know: you're grinning at me, but a Jew's-harp ain't a bad thing when you're lonely like, all by yourself, keeping sheep and nobody to speak to for a week together but Gyp. I say, Joe, I brought Gyp," he added with a smile that made his face look quite pleasant. "What! your dog?" I cried. "Yes; he's all snug down below, and he hasn't made a sound. He don't like it, but if I tell him to do a thing he knows he's obliged to do it." "I say, I wonder what the captain will say if he knows you've got a dog on board?" "I sha'n't tell him, and if he don't find it out I shall pay him for Gyp's passage just the same as I shall pay him for mine. I've got lots of money, and I hid on board to save trouble. I ain't a cheat." "No, I never thought you were, Jack," I said, for I had known him for some years, and once or twice I had been fishing with him, though we were never companions. "But it's all nonsense about your going with us. The doctor said this morning that the notion was absurd." "Let him mind his salts-and-senna and jollop," said Jack sharply. "Who's he, I should like to know? I knowed your father as much as he did. He's given me many a sixpence for birds' eggs and beetles and snakes I've got for him. Soon as I heard you were going to find him, I says to father, `I'm going too.'" "And what did your father say?" "Said I was a fool." "Ah! of course," I exclaimed. "No, it ain't `ah, of course,' Mr Clever," he cried. "Father always says that to me whatever I do, but he's very fond of me all the same." Just then the captain came forward with his glass under his arm, and his hands deep down in his pockets. He walked with his legs very wide apart, and stopped short before us, his straw hat tilted right over his nose, and see-sawing himself backwards and forwards on his toes and heels. "You're a nice young man, arn't you now?" he said to Jack. "No, I'm only a boy yet," said Jack quietly. "Well, you're tall enough to be a man, anyhow. What's your height?" "Five foot 'leven," said Jack. "And how old are you?" "Seventeen next 'vember," said Jack. "Humph!" said the captain. "Here, how much is it?" said Jack, thrusting his hand in his pocket. "I'll pay now and ha' done with it." "Pay what?" "My passage-money." "Oh!" said the captain quietly, "I see. Well, I think we'd better settle that by-and-by when you bring in claim for salvage." The captain pronounced it "sarvidge," and Jack stared. "What savage?" he said. "Do you mean Joe Carstairs' black fellow?" "Do I mean Joe Carstairs' grandmother, boy? I didn't say savage; I said salvage--saving of the ship from pirates." "Oh, I see what you mean," replied Jack. "I sha'n't bring in any claim. I knew that Malay chap wasn't doing right, and stopped him, that's all." "Well, we won't say any more about stowing away, then," said the captain. "Had plenty to eat this morning?" "Oh yes, I'm better now," drawled Jack. "I was real bad yesterday, and never felt so hollow before." The captain nodded and went back, while Jack turned to me, and nodding his head said slowly: "I like the captain. Now let's go and see how your black fellow's head is." Jimmy was lying under a bit of awning rigged up with a scrap of the storm-torn sail; and as soon as he saw us his white teeth flashed out in the light. "Well, Jimmy, how are you?" I said, as Jack Penny stood bending down over him, and swaying gently to and fro as if he had hinges in his back. "Jimmy better--much better. Got big fly in um head--big bunyip fly. All buzz--buzz--round and round--buzz in um head. Fedge doctor take um out." "Here, doctor," I shouted; and he came up. "Jimmy has got a fly in his head." "A bee in his bonnet, you mean," he said, bending down and laying his hand on the black's temples. "Take um out," said Jimmy excitedly. "Buzz--buzz--bunyip fly." "Yes, I'll take it out, Jimmy," said the doctor quietly; "but not to-day." "When take um out?" cried the black eagerly; "buzz--buzz. Keep buzz." "To-morrow or next day. Here, lie still, and I'll get your head ready for the operation." The preparation consisted in applying a thick cloth soaked in spirits and water to the feverish head, the evaporation in the hot climate producing a delicious sense of coolness, which made Jimmy say softly: "Fly gone--sleep now," and he closed his eyes, seeming to be asleep till the doctor had gone back to his seat on the deck, where he was studying a chart of the great island we were running for. But as soon as he was out of hearing Jimmy opened first one eye and then another. Then in a whisper, as he gently took up his waddy: "No tell doctor; no tell captain fellow. Jimmy go knock brown fellow head flap to-night." "What?" I cried. "He no good brown fellow. Knock head off. Overboard: fis eat up." "What does he say; he's going to knock that Malay chap's head off?" drawled Jack. "Yes, Jimmy knock um head flap." "You dare to touch him, Jimmy," I said, "and I'll send you back home." "Jimmy not knock um head flap?" he said staring. "No. You're not to touch him." "Mass Joe gone mad. Brown fellow kill all a man. Jimmy kill um." "You are not to touch him," I said. "And now go to sleep or I shall go and tell the captain." Jimmy lifted up his head and looked at me. Then he banged it down upon his pillow, which was one of those gooseberry-shaped rope nets, stuffed full of oakum, and called a fender, while we went forward once more to talk to the doctor about his chart, for Jack Penny was comporting himself exactly as if he had become one of the party, though I had made up my mind that he was to go back with the captain when we were set ashore. All the same, at Jack Penny's urgent request I joined him in the act of keeping the presence of the other passenger a secret--I mean Gyp the dog, to whom I was stealthily introduced by Jack, down in a very evil-smelling part of the hold, and for whom I saved scraps of meat and bits of fish from my dinner every day. The introduction was as follows on the part of Jack: "Gyp, old man, this is Joe Carstairs. Give him your paw." It was very dark, but I was just able to make out a pair of fiery eyes, and an exceedingly shaggy curly head--I found afterwards that Gyp's papa had been an Irish water spaniel, and his mamma some large kind of hound; and Jack informed me that Gyp was a much bigger dog than his mamma--then a rough scratchy paw was dabbed on my hand, and directly after my fingers were wiped by a hot moist tongue. At the same time there was a whimpering noise, and though I did not know it then, I had made one of the ugliest but most faithful friends I ever had. The days glided by, and we progressed very slowly, for the weather fell calm after the typhoon, and often for twenty-four hours together we did nothing but drift about with the current, the weather being so hot that we were glad to sit under the shade of a sail. The doctor quite took to Jack Penny, saying that he was an oddity, but not a bad fellow. I began to like him better myself, though he did nothing to try and win my liking, being very quiet and distant with us both, and watching us suspiciously, as if he thought we were always making plots to get rid of him, and thwart his plans. Gyp had remained undiscovered, the poor brute lying as quiet as a mouse, except when Jack Penny and I went down to feed him, when he expressed his emotion by rapping the planks hard with his tail. At last the captain, who had been taking observations, tapped me on the shoulder one hot mid-day, and said: "There, squire, we shall see the coast to-morrow before this time, and I hope the first thing you set eyes on will be your father, waving his old hat to us to take him off." Just then Jimmy, whose wound had healed rapidly, and who had forgotten all about the big bunyip fly buzzing in his head, suddenly popped his face above the hatchway with his eyes starting, his hair looking more shaggy than usual, and his teeth chattering with horror. He leaped up on the deck, and began striking it with the great knob at the end of his waddy, shouting out after every blow. "Debble, debble--big bunyip debble. Jimmy, Jimmy see big bunyip down slow!" "Here, youngster, fetch my revolver," shouted the captain to me. "Here, doctor, get out your gun, that Malay chap's loose again." "A no--a no--a no," yelled Jimmy, banging at the deck. "Big bunyip--no brown fellow--big black bunyip debble, debble!" "Get out, you black idiot; it's the Malay." "A no--a no--a no; big black bunyip. 'Gin eat black fellow down slow." To my astonishment, long quiet Jack Penny went up to Jimmy and gave him a tremendous kick, to which the black would have responded by a blow with his war-club had I not interposed. "What did you kick him for, Jack?" I cried. "A great scuffle-headed black fool! he'll let it out now about Gyp. Make him be quiet." It was too late, for the captain and the doctor were at the hatchway, descending in spite of Jimmy's shouts and cries that the big bunyip--the great typical demon of the Australian aborigine--would eat them. "Shoot um--shoot um--bing, bang!" _whop_ went Jimmy's waddy on the deck; and in dread lest they should fire at the unfortunate dog in the dark, I went up and told the captain, the result being that Gyp was called up on deck, and the great beast nearly went mad with delight, racing about, fawning on his master and on me, and ending by crouching down at my feet with his tongue lolling out, panting and blinking his eyes, unaccustomed to the glare of daylight. "You're in this game, then, eh, Master Carstairs?" said the captain. "Well, yes, sir; Penny here took me into his confidence about having brought the dog, and of course I could not say a word." "Humph! Nice game to have with me, 'pon my word. You're a pretty penny, you are, young man," he added, turning to Jack. "I ought to toss you--overboard." "I'll pay for Gyp's passage," said Jack coolly. "I wish you wouldn't make such a fuss." The captain muttered something about double-jointed yard measures, and went forward without another word, while Gyp selected a nice warm place on the deck, and lay down to bask on his side, but not until he had followed Jimmy up the port-side and back along the starboard, sniffing his black legs, while that worthy backed from him, holding his waddy ready to strike, coming to me afterwards with a look of contempt upon his noble savage brow, and with an extra twist to his broad nose, to say: "Jimmy know all a time only big ugly dog. Not bunyip 'tall." CHAPTER SEVEN. HOW WE STOPPED THE BLACKBIRD CATCHERS. The captain was right, for we made the south coast of New Guinea the _very_ next morning, and as I caught sight of the land that I believed to be holding my father as in a prison, a strange mingling of pain and pleasure filled my breast I looked excitedly and long through the doctor's double glass, and he shook hands with me afterwards, as if he thoroughly appreciated my feelings in the matter. It was a lovely morning, with a pleasant breeze blowing, and as we drew nearer we made out a vessel very similar in build to our own going in the same direction. "Why, they are for the same port, I should think!" "I don't know," said the skipper rather oddly. "We're for a little place I know, where the savages are pretty friendly, and I've been talking it over with the doctor as to its being a good starting-place for you, and he thinks it will be. There it lies," he said, pointing north-east. "We can soon make it now." "Looks a nicer place than our land," said Jack Penny, as I stood with him gazing wonderingly at the forest and mountain scenery that hour by hour grew more clear. "I think I shall like Noo Guinea." The day glided on with the look-out growing more and more interesting; and at last, when we were pretty near, we could see the other schooner had outsailed us, and was within a short distance of a scattered collection of huts; while a little crowd of the natives was on the sandy beach busily launching their canoes, in which they paddled out towards the other vessel. "I don't like that," said the skipper suddenly, as he was using his glass. "That's bad for us." "What is?" I said eagerly. "That there schooner going before us. They're blackbird catchers, or I'm a Dutchman." "Blackbird catchers?" I said. "Why, I thought there were no blackbirds out of Europe." "Just hark at him," said the captain, turning to the doctor. "Blackbirds, boy, why, there's thousands; and it's them varmint who go in for the trade of catching 'em as makes the coast unsafe for honest men." "What do you mean?" I cried, and I became aware of the fact that Jack Penny was bending over me like a bamboo. "Mean, boy? just you take the doctor's little double-barrelled telescope and watch and see." I took the glass and looked intently, watching through it the scene of the blacks paddling up to the schooner, and holding up what seemed to be fruit and birds for sale. All at once I saw something fall into one of the canoes, which immediately sank, and eight of its occupants were left struggling in the water. To my great relief I saw a small boat rowed round from the other side of the little vessel, evidently, as I thought, to go to the help of the poor creatures; but, to my horror, I saw that two men stood up in the boat, and, as it was rowed, they struck at the swimming men with heavy bars, and dragged them one by one into the boat. I saw four saved like this, and then the boat was rowed rapidly in pursuit of the other four, who were swimming as hard as they could, as they tried to overtake the canoes, whose occupants were making for the shore. The noise of the shouts reached our ears faintly, and I saw one of the men picked up by the last canoe, and the other three were literally hunted by the schooner's boat, diving like ducks and trying every feat they could think of to avoid capture; but oars beat hands in the water, and I saw two of the fugitives struck on the head by a fellow in the bows of the boat, and then they were dragged over the side. There was one more savage in the water, and he swam rapidly and well, besides which, he had gained some distance during the time taken up in capturing his fellows. As he had changed his direction somewhat I had a better view of the chase, and I felt horrified to see how rapidly the boat gained upon him till it was so near that it could be only a matter of minutes before he would be worn out and treated in the same way as his unfortunate fellows. At last the boat overtook the poor wretch, but he dived down and it passed over him, the blow struck at his head merely making a splash in the water, when up he came, his black head just showing above the surface, and he struggled in another direction for his liberty. To add to the excitement of the scene the sandy shore about the huts was lined with savages, who were rushing about in a tremendous state of excitement, shaking their spears and yelling, but showing plainly that they were a very cowardly race, for not one of them made an effort to launch a canoe and try to save his brother in distress. There could be but one end to this cruel tragedy, so I thought; but I was wrong. Again and again the boat overtook the poor fellow, but he dived and escaped even though blows were struck at him with a boat-hook; but it was evident that he was growing weaker, and that he stayed below a shorter time. All at once, as if the men had become furious at the length of the chase, I saw the boat rowed rapidly down upon him; but the savage dived once more, evidently went right under the boat, and came up full thirty yards astern, swimming now straight for the shore. Then all at once I saw him throw up his arms and disappear, as if he had been snatched under. "Out of his misery," said a deep voice beside me; and turning I found that the captain had been watching the scene through his long glass. "What do you mean?" I said. "Sharks took him down, poor chap," said the captain. "Sharks is ignorant, or they would have grabbed the white fellows instead." As I still watched the scene, with my brow wet with perspiration, I saw the boat make now for the schooner, and quite a dozen canoes put off from the shore. "Lor', what a thing ignorance is, and how far niggers are behind white men in pluck! Why, if these fellows knew what they were about, they might easily overhaul that little schooner, take their brothers out of her, and give the blackbird catchers such a lesson as they'd never remember and never forget, for they'd kill the lot. There ain't a breath o' wind." "But they will take them, won't they, captain?" I cried. "No, my lad, not they. They'll go and shout and throw a few spears, and then go back again; but they'll bear malice, my lad. All white folks who come in ships will be the same to them, and most likely some poor innocent boat's crew will be speared, and all on account of the doings of these blackbird catchers." "But what do they do with the poor fellows?" I cried. "Reg'larly sell 'em for slaves, though slavery's done away with, my boy." "But will not the blacks rescue their friends?" I said. "No, my lad." "Then we must," I cried excitedly; and Jack Penny threw up his cap and cried "Hooray!" Gyp started to his feet and barked furiously, and Jimmy leaped in the air, came down in a squatting position, striking the deck a tremendous blow with his waddy, and shouting "Hi--wup, wup--wup," in an increasing yell. The captain, hardened by familiarity with such scenes, laid his hand upon my shoulder, and smiled at me kindly as he shook his head. "No, no, my lad, that would not do." "Not do!" I cried, burning with indignation. "Are we to stand by and see such cruelties practised?" "Yes, my lad; law says we musn't interfere. It's the law's job to put it down; but it's very slow sometimes." "But very sure, captain," said the doctor quietly. "And when it does move it is crushing to evil-doers. The captain is quite right, Joe, my boy," he continued, turning to me. "We must not stir in this case. I've heard of such atrocities before, but did not know that they were so common." "Common as blackguards," said the captain, "It's regular slavery. There, what did I tell you, my lad?" he continued, as he pointed to the canoes, which were returning after making a demonstration. "These poor blacks are afraid of the guns. It's all over--unless--" He stopped short, scratching his head, and staring first at the schooner and then at us in turn. "Unless what, captain?" I said excitedly. "Here, let's do a bit o' bounce for once in our lives," said the bluff old fellow. "Get out your revolvers and shooting-tackle, and let's see if we can't frighten the beggars. Only mind, doctor, and you too, my young bantam, our weapons is only for show. No firing, mind; but if we can bully those chaps into giving up their blackbirds, why we will." The boat was lowered, and with a goodly display of what Jack Penny called dangerous ironmongery, we started with three men, but not until the captain had seen that the Malay was safely secured. Then we started, and the people aboard the other schooner were so busy with their captives that we got alongside, and the captain, Doctor Grant, and I had climbed on deck before a red-faced fellow with a violently inflamed nose came up to us, and, with an oath, asked what we wanted there. "Here, you speak," whispered the captain to Doctor Grant. "I'm riled, and I shall be only using more bad language than is good for these youngsters to hear. Give it to him pretty warm, though, all the same, doctor." "D'yer hear?" said the red-faced fellow again. "What do you want here?" "Those poor wretches, you slave-dealing ruffian," cried the doctor, who looked quite white as he drew himself up and seemed to tower over the captain of the other schooner, who took a step back in astonishment, but recovered himself directly and advanced menacingly. "Come for them, have you, eh?" he roared; "then you'll go without 'em. Here, over you go; off my ship, you--" The scoundrel did not finish his speech, for as he spoke he clapped a great rough hairy paw on the doctor's shoulder, and then our friend seemed to shrink back at the contact; but it was only to gather force, like a wave, for, somehow, just then his fist seemed to dart out, and the ruffianly captain staggered back and then fell heavily on the deck. Half a dozen men sprang forward at this, but Doctor Grant did not flinch, he merely took out his revolver and examined its lock, saying: "Will you have these poor fellows got into our boat, captain?" "Ay, ay, doctor," cried our skipper; and the slave-dealing crew shrank back and stared as we busily handed down the blackbirds, as the captain kept on calling them. Poor creatures, they were still half-stunned and two of them were bleeding, and it must have seemed to then? that they were being tossed out of the frying-pan into the fire, and that we were going to carry on the villainy that our ruffianly countrymen had commenced. In fact had we not taken care, and even used force, they would have jumped overboard when we had them packed closely in. "Here, shove off!" the captain said, as we were once more in our boat; and just then the leader of the ruffians staggered to his feet and leaned over the side. "I'll have the law of you for this," he yelled. "This is piracy." "To be sure it is," said our captain; "we're going to hyste the black flag as soon as we get back, and run out our guns. Come on, my red-nosed old cocky-wax, and we'll have a naval engagement, and sink you." He nudged me horribly hard with his elbow at this point, and turning his back on the schooner winked at me, and chuckled and rumbled as if he were laughing heartily to himself in secret; but he spoke again directly quite seriously. "I haven't got no boys of my own," he said, "but if I had, I should say this was a sort o' lesson to you to always have right on your side. It's again' the law, but it's right all the same. See how we carried all before us, eh, my lads! The doctor's fist was as good as half a dozen guns, and regularly settled the matter at once." "Then we may set these poor fellows free now?" I said. "Well, I shouldn't like to be one of them as did it," said the captain drily. "Look at the shore." I glanced in that direction and saw that it was crowded with blacks, all armed with spears and war-clubs, which they were brandishing excitedly. "They wouldn't know friends from foes," said the doctor quietly. "No; we must wait." I saw the reason for these remarks; and as soon as we had reached the side of the schooner and got our captives on board I attended the doctor while he busied himself bandaging and strapping cuts, the blacks staring at him wondering, and then at Jimmy, who looked the reverse of friendly, gazing down at the prisoners scornfully, and telling Jack Penny in confidence that he did not think much of common sort black fellow. "Jimmy xiv all o' men waddy spear if try to kedge Jimmy," he said, drawing himself up and showing his teeth. "No kedge Jimmy. Killer um all." It was hard work to get the poor prisoners to understand that we meant well by them. "You see they think you're having 'em patched up," said Jack Penny, "so as they'll sell better. I say, Joe Carstairs, give your black fellow a topper with his waddy; he's making faces at that chap, and pretending to cut off his legs." "Here, you be quiet, Jimmy, or I'll send you below," I said sharply; and as I went to the breaker to get a pannikin of water for one of the men, Jimmy stuck his hands behind him, pointed his nose in the air, and walked forward with such a display of offended dignity that Jack Penny doubled up, putting his head between his knees and pinning it firm, while he laughed in throes, each of which sent a spasm through his loose-jointed body. The black to whom I took the water looked at me in a frightened way, and shook his head. "He thinks it is poisoned, Joe," said the doctor quietly; and I immediately drank some, when the prisoner took the pannikin and drank with avidity, his companions then turning their eager eyes on me. "It is the feverish thirst produced by injuries," said the doctor; and as I filled the pannikin again and again, the poor wretches uttered a low sigh of satisfaction. The schooner lay where we had left it, and all seemed to be very quiet on board, but no movement was made of an offensive nature; and the day glided by till towards sundown, when there was less excitement visible on the shore. Then the captain ordered the boat to be lowered on the side away from the land, while he proceeded to sweep the shore with his glass. "I think we might land 'em now, doctor," he said, "and get back without any jobs for you." "Yes, they seem pretty quiet now," said the doctor, who had also been scanning the shore; "but there are a great many people about." "They won't see us," said the captain. "Now, my blackbirds, I'm not going to clip your wings or pull out your tails. Into the boat with you. I'll set you ashore." For the first time the poor fellows seemed to comprehend that they were to be set at liberty, and for a few minutes their joy knew no bounds; and it was only by running off that I was able to escape from some of their demonstrations of gratitude. "No, my lad," said the captain in response to my demand to go with him. "I'll set the poor chaps ashore, and we shall be quite heavy enough going through the surf. You can take command while I'm gone," he added, laughing; "and mind no one steals the anchor." I felt annoyed at the captain's bantering tone, but I said nothing; and just at sunset the boat pushed off quietly with its black freight, the poor fellows looking beside themselves with joy. "I say, skipper," said the captain laughingly to me, "mind that Malay chap don't get out; and look here, it will be dark directly, hyste a light for me to find my way back." I nodded shortly, and stood with Jack Penny and the doctor watching the boat till it seemed to be swallowed up in the thick darkness that was gathering round, and the doctor left Jack Penny and me alone. "I say," said Jack, who was leaning on the bulwarks, with his body at right angles; "I say, Joe Carstairs, I've been thinking what a game it would be if the captain never came back." "What!" I cried. "You and I could take the ship and go where we like." "And how about the doctor?" I said scornfully. "Ah!" he drawled, "I forgot about the doctor. That's a pity. I wish he'd gone ashore too." I did not answer, for it did not suit my ideas at all. The adventure I had on hand filled my mind, and I felt annoyed by my companion's foolish remark. We had tea, and were sitting with the doctor chatting on deck, after vainly trying to pierce the darkness with our eyes or to hear some sound, when all at once the doctor spoke: "Time they were back," he said. "I say, Skipper Carstairs, have you hoisted your light?" "Light!" I said excitedly. "What's that?" for just then a bright red glow arose to our right in the direction of the shore. "They're a making a bonfire," said Jack Penny slowly. "Or burning a village," said the doctor. "No, no," I cried; "it's that schooner on fire!" "You're right, Joe," said the doctor excitedly. "Why, the savages must have gone off and done this, and--yes, look, you can see the canoes." "Here, I say, don't!" cried Jack Penny then, his voice sounding curious from out of the darkness; and the same moment there was a rush, a tremendous scuffle, Jimmy yelled out something in his own tongue, and then lastly there were two or three heavy falls; and in a misty, stupefied way I knew that we had been boarded by the savages and made prisoners, on account of the outrage committed by the other captain. What followed seems quite dream-like; but I have some recollection of being bundled down into a boat, and then afterwards dragged out over the sand and hurried somewhere, with savages yelling and shouting about me, after which I was thrown down, and lay on the ground in great pain, half sleeping, half waking, and in a confused muddle of thought in which I seemed to see my father looking at me reproachfully for not coming to his help, while all the time I was so bound that I could not move a step. At last I must have dropped into a heavy sleep, for the next thing I saw was the bright sunshine streaming into the hut where I lay, and a crowd of blacks with large frizzed heads of hair chattering about me, every man being armed with spear and club, while the buzz of voices plainly told that there was a throng waiting outside. CHAPTER EIGHT. HOW I RAN FROM THE WHITEBIRD CATCHERS. Yes, I may as well own to it: I was terribly frightened, but my first thoughts were as to what had become of my companions. Jack Penny and the doctor must have been seized at the same time as I. Jimmy might have managed to escape. Perhaps his black skin would make him be looked upon as a friend. But the old captain, what about him? He would return to the schooner with his men and be seized, and knocked on the head for certain. The fierce resistance he would make certainly would cause his death, and I shuddered at the thought. Then I began to think of my mother and father, how I should have failed in helping them; and I remember thinking what a good job it was that my mother would never know exactly what had happened to me. Better the long anxiety, I thought, of watching and waiting for my return than to know I had been killed like this. "But I'm not killed yet," I thought, as the blood flushed to my face. "I'll have a run for it, if I can." I had not much time given me to think, for I was dragged to my feet, and out into a large open place where there were huts and trees, and there before me lay the sea with our schooner, but the other was gone; and as I recalled the fire of the previous night I knew that she must have been burned to the water's edge and then sunk. I began wondering about what must have been the fate of the other schooner's crew, and somehow it seemed that they deserved it. Then I began thinking of my own friends, and then, very selfishly no doubt, about myself. But I had little time for thought, being hurried along and placed in the middle of a crowd of the savages, all of whom seemed to be rolling their eyes and looking at me as if enjoying my position. "Well," I thought to myself, "it is enough to scare anybody; but I'll try and let them see that I belong to a superior race, and will not show what I feel." My eyes kept wandering about eagerly, first to look where my companions were placed, but as I saw no sign of them I began to hope that they might have escaped; secondly, to see which would be the best course to take if I ran for my life. For I could run, and pretty swiftly, then. The hardy life I had led out in the bush, with Jimmy for my companion, had made me light of foot and tolerably enduring. But for some little time I saw not the slightest chance of escape. There were too many savages close about me, and they must have divined my ideas, for they kept a watchful eye upon every act. At first I had felt numbed and cold. My legs and arms ached, and when the blacks took off the rope that they had bound about my limbs every nerve seemed to throb and burn; but by degrees this passed off, and to my great joy I felt more myself. At last, after a great deal of incomprehensible chatter, it seemed that a decision had been come to about me, and a tall black armed with a war-club came dancing up to me, swinging his weapon about, chattering wildly, and after a few feints he made a blow at my head. If that blow had taken effect I should not have been able to tell this story. But I had been too much with my friend Jimmy not to be well upon the alert. We had often played together--he like a big boy--in mimic fight, when he had pretended to spear me, and taught me how to catch the spear on a shield, and to avoid blows made with waddies. Jimmy's lessons were not thrown away. I could avoid a thrown spear, though helpless, like the black, against bullets, which he said came "too much faster faster to top." And as the savage made the blow at me I followed out Jimmy's tactics, threw myself forward, striking the wretch right in the chest with my head, driving him backward, and leaping over him I ran for my life, making straight for the forest. "It's all because of those wretches in the other schooner yesterday," I thought, as I ran swiftly on with a pack of the enemy shouting in my rear; and though I could run very fast, I found, to my horror, that my pursuers were as swift of foot, and that though I was close upon the forest it was all so open that they would be able to see me easily, and once caught I knew now what was to be my fate. I began thinking of the hunted hare, as I ran on, casting glances behind me from time to time, and seeing that though some of my pursuers lagged, there were four who were pretty close upon my heels, one of whom hurled his spear at me, which came whizzing past my ear so closely that it lightly touched my shoulder, making me leap forward as if struck by the weapon. I was panting heavily, and a choking sensation came upon me, but I raced on, since it was for life. How long the pursuit lasted I cannot tell. Perhaps a minute. It seemed half an hour. Twice I leaped aside to avoid blows aimed at me, and each time ran blindly in a fresh direction; but all at once the idea occurred to me in a flash that in my unnerved stupefied position I must have been going backward and struck my head violently against a tree, for it seemed as if there was a violent shock like thunder with a flash of lightning to dazzle my eyes, and then there was nothing at all. CHAPTER NINE. HOW I WAS NOT MADE INTO PIE. When I came to, it was as if all the past was a dream, for I heard voices I knew, and lay listening to them talking in a low tone, till, opening my eyes, I found I was close to the doctor, the captain, Jimmy, and the sailors, while Jack Penny was sitting holding my hand. "What cheer, my hearty?" said the captain, making an effort to come to me; but I then became aware of the fact that we were surrounded by savages, for one great fellow struck the captain on the arm with his club, and in retort the skipper gave him a kick which sent him on his back. There was a loud yell at this, and what seemed to threaten to be a general onslaught. My friends all prepared for their defence, and Jimmy took the initiative by striking out wildly, when half a dozen blacks dashed at him, got him down, and one was foolish enough to sit upon his head, but only to bound up directly with a shriek, for poor Jimmy, being held down as to arms and legs, made use of the very sharp teeth with which nature had endowed him. We should have been killed at once, no doubt, had not one tall black shouted out something, and then begun talking loudly to the excited mob, who listened to him angrily, it seemed to me; but I was so dull and confused from the blow I had received upon my head that all seemed misty and strange, and once I found myself thinking, as my head ached frightfully, that they might just as well kill us at once, and not torture us by keeping us in suspense. The talking went on, and whenever the tall chief stopped for a moment the blacks all set up a yell, and danced about brandishing their spears and clubs, showing their teeth, rolling their eyes, and behaving--just like savages. But still we were not harmed, only watched carefully, Jimmy alone being held, though I could see that at a movement on our part we should have been beaten to death or thrust through. At last, after an interminable speech, the big chief seemed to grow hoarse, and the blacks' yells were quicker and louder. Then there was a terrible pause, and a dozen sturdy blacks sprang towards us as regularly as if they had been drilled, each man holding a spear, and I felt that the end had come. I was too stupid with my hurt to do more than stare helplessly round, seeing the bright sunshine, the glittering sea, and the beautiful waving trees. Then my head began to throb, and felt as if hot irons were being thrust through it. I closed my eyes, the agony was so great; and then I opened them again, for all the savages were yelling and clapping their hands. Two men had seized me, and one of them had his head bandaged, and in a misty way I recognised him as one of the poor wretches to whom I had given water. He and the others, who were easily known by the doctor's patches of sticking-plaster, were talking with all their might; and then all the blacks began yelling and dancing about, brandishing their spears and clubs, frantic apparently with the effect of the injured men's words. "They ar'n't going to kill us, my lad," said the captain then; "and look ye there, they are going to feast the doctor." For the latter was regularly hustled off from among us by a party of blacks, led by two of the sticking-plastered fellows, while two others squatted down smiling at us and rubbing their chests. "Are we to be spared, then?" I said. "Spared? Well, I don't know, my lad," said the captain. "They won't be so ungrateful as to kill us, now these blacks set ashore have turned up and told 'em what sort of chaps we are; but I don't think they'll free us. They'll keep us here and make the doctor a physic chief. Eh! go there? All right; I can understand your fingers better than your tongue, my lad. Come on, all of you." This last was in response to the gesticulations of the injured men who were with us, and soon after, we were all settled down in a very large open hut, eating fruit and drinking water, every drop of which seemed to me more delicious than anything I had ever tasted before. A curious kind of drink was also given to us, but I did not care for it, and turned to the water again; while the doctor set to work to dress and strap up my injury as well as he could for the pressure of the people, who were wonderfully interested in it all, and then gathered round the doctor's other patients, examining their injuries, and listening to the account of the surgical treatment, which was evidently related to them again and again. "Well, this is different to what you expected; isn't it, squire?" said the captain to me the first time he could find an opportunity to speak. "I was beginning to feel precious glad that I shouldn't have a chance to get back and meet your mother after what she said to me." "Then you think we are safe now?" said the doctor. "Safe!" said the captain; "more than safe, unless some of 'em, being a bit cannibal like, should be tempted by the pleasant plumpness of Mr Jack Penny here, and want to cook and eat him." "Get out!" drawled Jack. "I know what you mean. I can't help being tall and thin." "Not you, my lad," said the captain good-humouredly. "Never mind your looks so long as your 'art's in the right place. We're safe enough, doctor, and I should say that nothing better could have happened. Niggers is only niggers; but treat 'em well and they ain't so very bad. You let young Squire Carstairs here ask the chief, and he'll go with you, and take half his people, to try and find the professor; ah, and fight for you too, like trumps." "Do you think so?" I said. "Think! I'm sure of it; and I'm all right now. They'll be glad to see me and trade with me. I'm glad you made me set those chaps free." "And what has become of the crew of the other schooner?" I said anxiously. "Nobbled," said the captain; "and sarve 'em right. Tit for tat; that's all. Men who plays at those games must expect to lose sometimes. They've lost--heavy. Change the subject; it's making young Six-foot Rule stare, and you look as white as if you were going to be served the same. Where's the doctor?" "He said he was going to see to the injured men," I replied. "Come and let's look how he's getting on," said the captain. "It's all right now; no one will interfere with us more than mobbing a bit, because we're curiosities. Come on." I followed the captain, the blacks giving way, but following us closely, and then crowding close up to the door of the great tent where the doctor was very busy repairing damages, as he called it, clipping away woolly locks, strapping up again and finishing off dressings that he had roughly commenced on board. During the next few days we were the honoured guests of the savages, going where we pleased, and having everything that the place produced. The captain moored his vessel in a snug anchorage, and drove a roaring trade bartering the stores he had brought for shells, feathers, bird-skins, and other productions of the island. Gyp was brought on shore, and went suspiciously about the place with his head close up to his master's long thin legs, for though he had tolerated and was very good friends with Jimmy, he would not have any dealings with the New Guinea folk. It did not seem to be the black skins or their general habits; but Jack Penny declared that it was their gummed-out moppy heads, these seeming to irritate the dog, so that, being a particularly well-taught animal, he seemed to find it necessary to control his feelings and keep away from the savages, lest he should find himself constrained to bite. The consequence was that, as I have said, he used to go about with his head close to his master's legs, often turning his back on the people about him; while I have known him sometimes take refuge with me, and thrust his nose right into my hand, as if he wished to make it a muzzle to keep him from dashing at some chief. "I hope he won't grab hold of any of 'em," Jack Penny said to me one day in his deliberate fashion; "because if he does take hold it's such a hard job to make him let go again. And I say, Joe Carstairs, if ever he's by you and these niggers begin to jump about, you lay hold of him and get him away." "Why?" I said. "Well, you see," drawled Jack, "Gyp ain't a human being." "I know that," I replied. "Yes, I s'pose so," said Jack. "Gyp's wonderfully clever, and he thinks a deal; but just now, I know as well as can be, he's in a sort of doubt. He thinks these blacks are a kind of kangaroos, but he isn't sure. If they begin to jump about, that will settle it, and he'll go at 'em and get speared; and if any one sticks a spear into Gyp, there's going to be about the biggest row there ever was. That one the other day won't be anything to it." "Then I shall do all I can to keep Gyp quiet," I said, smiling at Jack's serious way of speaking what he must have known was nonsense. After that I went out of the hut, where Jack Penny was doing what the captain called straightening his back--that is to say, lying down gazing up at the palm-thatched rafters, a very favourite position of his--and joined some of the blacks, employing my time in trying to pick up bits and scraps of their language, so as to be able to make my way about among the people when we were left alone. I found the doctor was also trying hard to master the tongue; and at the same time we attempted to make the chiefs understand the object of our visit, but it was labour in vain. The blacks were thoroughly puzzled, and I think our way of pointing at ourselves and then away into the bush only made them think that we wanted fruit or birds. The time sped on, while the captain was carrying on his trade, the blacks daily returning from the ship with common knives, and hatchets, and brass wire, the latter being a favourite thing for which they eagerly gave valuable skins. My wound rapidly healed, and I was eager to proceed up the country, our intention being to go from village to village searching until we discovered the lost man. "And I don't know what to say to it," said the captain just before parting. "I'm afraid you'll get to some village and then stop, for the blacks won't let you go on; but I tell you what: I shall be always trading backwards and forwards for the next two years, and I shall coast about looking up fresh places so as to be handy if you want a bit of help; and I can't say fairer than that, can I, doctor?" "If you will keep about the coast all you can," said the doctor, "and be ready, should we want them, to supply us with powder and odds and ends to replenish our stores, you will be doing us inestimable service. Whenever we go to a coast village we shall leave some sign of our having been there--a few words chalked on a tree, or a hut, something to tell you that English people have passed that way." "All right, and I shall do something of the kind," said the captain. "And, look here, I should make this village a sort of randy-voo if I was you, for you'll always be safe with these people." "Yes; this shall be headquarters," said the doctor. "Eh, Joe?" I nodded. "And now there's one more thing," said the captain. "Six-foot Rule; I suppose I'm to take him back?" "If you mean me," drawled Jack Penny, entering the hut with Gyp, "no, you mustn't take him back, for I ain't going. If Joe Carstairs don't want me, I don't want him. The country's as free for one as t'other, and I'm going to have a look round along with Gyp." "But really, my dear fellow," said the doctor, "I think you had better give up this idea." "Didn't know you could tell what's best here," said Jack stoutly. "'Tain't a physicky thing." "But it will be dangerous, Jack. You see we have run great risks already," I said, for now the time for the captain's departure had arrived, and it seemed a suitable occasion for bringing Jack to his senses. "Well, who said it wouldn't be dangerous?" he said sulkily. "Gyp and me ain't no more afraid than you are." "Of course not," I said. "'Tain't no more dangerous for me and a big dog than it is for you and your black fellow. I don't want to come along with you, I tell you, if you don't want me." "My dear Jack," I said, "I should be glad of your company, only I'm horrified at the idea of your running risks for your own sake. Suppose anything should happen to you, what then?" Jack straightened up his long loppetty body, and looked himself all over in a curious depreciatory fashion, and then said in a half melancholy, half laughing manner: "Well, if something did happen, it wouldn't spoil me; and if I was killed nobody wouldn't care. Anyhow I sha'n't go back with the captain." "Nonsense, my lad!" said the latter kindly. "I was a bit rough when I found you'd stowed yourself on board, but that was only my way. You come back along with me: you're welcome as welcome, and we sha'n't never be bad friends again." "Would you take Gyp too?" said Jack. "What! the dog? Ay, that I would; wouldn't I, old fellow?" said the captain; and Gyp got up slowly, gave his tail a couple of wags slowly and deliberately, as his master might have moved, and ended by laying his head upon the captain's knee. "Thank'ye, captain," said Jack, nodding in a satisfied way, "and some day I'll ask you to take me back, but I'm going to find Joe Carstairs' father first; and if they won't have me along with them, I dessay I shall go without 'em, and do it myself." The end of it all was that we shook hands most heartily with the captain next day; and that evening as the doctor, Jack Penny, Jimmy, Gyp, and I stood on the beach, we could see the schooner rounding a point of the great island, with the great red ball of fire--the sun--turning her sails into gold, till the darkness came down suddenly, as it does in these parts; and then, though there was the loud buzzing of hundreds of voices about the huts, we English folk seemed to feel that we were alone as it were, and cut off from all the world, while for the first time, as I lay down to sleep that night listening to the low boom of the water, the immensity, so to speak, of my venture seemed to strike me, giving me a chill of dread. This had not passed off when I woke up at daybreak next morning, to find it raining heavily, and everything looking as doleful and depressing as a strange place will look at such a time as this. CHAPTER TEN. HOW WE SAW STRANGE THINGS. "You rascal!" I exclaimed; "how dare you! Here, doctor, what is to be done? How am I to punish him?" "Send him back," said the doctor; "or, no: we'll leave him here at the village." Jimmy leaped up from where he had been squirming, as Jack Penny called it, on the ground, and began to bound about, brandishing his waddy, and killing nothing with blows on the head. "No, no," he shouted, "no send Jimmy back. Mass Joe leave Jimmy--Jimmy kill all a black fellow dead." "Now look here, sir," I said, seizing him by the ear and bringing him to his knees, proceedings which, big strong fellow as he was, he submitted to with the greatest of humility, "I'm not going to have you spoil our journey by any of your wild pranks; if ever you touch one of the people again, back you go to the station to eat damper and mutton and mind sheep." "Jimmy no go back mind sheep; set gin mind sheep. Jimmy go long Mass Joe." "Then behave yourself," I cried, letting him rise; and he jumped to his feet with the satisfaction of a forgiven child. In fact it always seemed to me that the black fellows of Australia, when they had grown up, were about as old in brains as an English boy of nine or ten. That morning we had made our start after days of preparation, and the chiefs of the village with a party of warriors came to see us part of the way, those who stayed behind with the women and children joining in a kind of yell to show their sorrow at our departure. The chief had offered half-a-dozen of his people for guides, and we might have had fifty; but six seemed plenty for our purpose, since, as the doctor said, we must work by diplomacy and not by force. So this bright morning we had started in high spirits and full of excitement, the great band of glistening-skinned blacks had parted from us, and our journey seemed now to have fairly begun, as we plunged directly into the forest, the six men with us acting as bearers. We had not gone far before our difficulties began, through the behaviour of Jimmy, who, on the strength of his knowledge of English, his connection with the white men, and above all the possession of clothes, which, for comfort's sake, he had once more confined to a pair of old trousers whose legs were cut off at mid-thigh, had begun to display his conceit and superiority, in his own estimation, over the black bearers by strutting along beside them, frowning and poking at them with his spear. At last he went so far as to strike one fine tall fellow over the shoulders, with the result that the New Guinea man threw down his load, the others followed suit, and all made rapid preparations for a fight. Humble as he was with me, I must do Jimmy the credit of saying that he did not turn tail, but threw himself into an attitude as if about to hurl his spear; and blood would undoubtedly have been shed had I not taken it upon myself to interfere, to the great satisfaction of our bearers. Order then was restored, the loads were resumed, and Jimmy, who did not seem in the slightest degree abashed by being degraded before the men he had ill-treated, strutted on, and the journey was continued, everyone on the look-out for dangerous beast or savage man. The doctor and I carried revolvers and double-barrelled guns, one barrel being charged with ball. Jack Penny was delighted by being similarly furnished; and in addition he asked for an axe, which he carried stuck in his belt. We were each provided with a similar weapon, ready to hand at times to the blacks, who were always ready to set down their burdens and make short work of the wild vines and growth that often impeded our path. We had determined--I say we, for from the moment of starting the doctor had begun to treat me as his equal in every sense, and consulted me on every step we took; all of which was very pleasant and flattering to me; but I often felt as if I would rather be dependent upon him--we had then determined to strike into the country until we reached the banks of a great river, whose course we meant to follow right up to the sources in the mountains. There were good reasons for this, as a moment's thought will show. To begin with, we were in a land of no roads, and most of our journey would be through dense forest, whereas there was likely to be a certain amount of open country about the river banks. Then we were always sure of a supply of water; game is always most abundant, both birds and beasts, near a river, and, of course, there is always a chance of getting fish; fruit might also be found, and what was more, the villages of the natives not upon the coast are nearly always upon the rivers. Of course, on the other hand, there were plenty of dangers to be risked by following a river's course: fever, noxious beast and insect, inimical natives, and the like; but if we had paused to think of the dangers, we might very well have shrunk from our task, so we put thoughts of that kind behind us and journeyed on. At first, after getting through a dense patch of forest, we came upon open plains, and a part of the country that looked like a park; and as I trudged on with fresh objects of interest springing up at every turn, I found myself wondering whether my poor father had passed this way, and as I grew weary I began to take the most desponding views of the venture, and to think that, after all, perhaps he was dead. That we were in a part not much troubled by human beings we soon found by the tameness of the birds and the number of deer that dashed frightened away from time to time, hardly giving us a glimpse of their dappled skins before they were lost in the jungly growth. The walking had grown more difficult as the day wore on, and at last the great trees began to give place to vegetation of a different kind. Instead of timber we were walking amongst palm-like growth and plants with enormous succulent leaves. Great climbers twined and twisted one with another, unless they found some tree up which they seemed to force their way to reach the open sunshine, forming a splendid shelter from the ardent rays when we wished to rest. There was no attempt during the morning to make use of our guns, for at first we moved watchfully, always on the look-out for enemies, seeing danger in every moving leaf, and starting at every rustling dash made by some frightened animal that crossed our path. By degrees, though, we grew more confident, but still kept up our watchfulness, halting at mid-day beside a little clear stream in a spot so lovely that it struck me as being a shame that no one had a home there to revel in its beauties. The water ran bubbling along amongst mossy rocks, and overhung by gigantic ferns. There were patches of the greenest grass, and close by, offering us shade, was a clump of large trees whose branches strewed brightly coloured flowers to the earth. A flock of gorgeously plumaged birds were noisily chattering and shrieking in the branches, and though they fled on our first coming, they came back directly and began climbing and swinging about so near that I could see that they were a small kind of parrot, full of strange antics, and apparently playing at searching for their food. "We'll have two hours' rest here," said the doctor, "a good meal, and perhaps a nap, and our feet bathed in the cool water, and the rest of the day's journey will come easier." "But hadn't we better get on?" I said anxiously. "`Slow and sure' must be our motto, Joe," said the doctor. "We have hundreds of miles to tramp, so we must not begin by knocking ourselves up. Patience, my boy, patience and we shall win." As soon as he saw that we were going to stop for rest and refreshment, Jimmy began to rub the centre of his person and make a rush for the native basket that contained our food, from which he had to be driven; for though generally, quite unlike many of his fellow-countrymen, Jimmy was scrupulously honest, he could not be trusted near food. There was no stopping to lay the cloth and arrange knives and forks. We each drew our heavy knife, and filled the cup of our little canteen from the stream before setting to at a large cold bird that we had brought with us, one shot by the doctor the day before, and cooked ready for the expedition. I cannot give you its name, only tell you that it was as big as a turkey, and had a beautiful crest of purple and green. We had brought plenty of damper too, a preparation of flour that, I dare say, I need not stop to describe, as every one now must know that in Australia it takes the place of ordinary bread. The native carriers were well provided for, and my depression passed off as the restful contented feeling induced by a good meal came over me. As for Jack Penny, he spread himself out along the ground, resting his thin body, and went on eating with his eyes half shut; while Gyp, his dog, came close alongside him, and sat respectfully waiting till his master balanced a bone across his nose, which Gyp tossed in the air, caught between his jaws, and then there was a loud crunching noise for a few minutes, and the dog was waiting again. Jimmy was eating away steadily and well, as if he felt it to be his bounden duty to carry as much of the store of food neatly packed away inside him as it was possible to stow, when he suddenly caught sight of Gyp, and stopped short with his mouth open and a serious investigating look in his eyes. He saw the dog supplied twice with what he evidently looked upon as dainty bits, and a broad smile came over his countenance. Then he looked annoyed and disappointed, and as if jealous of the favour shown to the beast. The result was that he left the spot where he had been lying half-way between us and the carriers, went to the stream, where he lay flat down with his lips in the water, and drank, and then came quietly up to my side, where he squatted down in as near an imitation of Gyp as he could assume, pouting out his lips and nose and waiting for a bone. The doctor burst out laughing, while I could not tell whether to set it down to artfulness or to simple animal nature on the poor fellow's part. However, I was too English at heart to lower my follower, so I did not treat him like a dog, but hacked off a good bone and sent him to his place. We thoroughly enjoyed our meal, and, as the doctor said, somewhat lightened our loads, when all at once it seemed to me that a spasm ran through Jack Penny where he lay. Then, as I watched him, I saw his hand stealing towards his gun, and he looked at me and pointed towards where a dense patch of big trees formed a sort of buttress to the great green wall of the forest. For a few moments I could see nothing; then I started, and my hand also went towards my piece, for peering round the trunk of one of the trees, and evidently watching us, was one of the most hideous-looking faces I had ever seen. The eyes were bright and overhung by dark wrinkled brows, and, seen in the half light, the head seemed as large as that of a man. In fact I was convinced that it was some fierce savage playing the spy upon our actions. I felt better when I had fast hold of my gun--not that I meant to fire, only to protect myself--and I was reaching out a foot to awaken the doctor, who had thrown himself back with his hat over his face, when I found that Gyp had caught sight of the hideous countenance, and, with a fierce bay, he dashed at the creature. Jack Penny and I started to our feet, Jimmy went after the dog, waddy in hand, and his yell awakened the doctor, who also sprang to his feet just in time to see the creature leap up at a pendent branch, swing itself up in the tree, and disappear amongst the thick leafage, while Gyp barked furiously below. "Big monkey that, my lads," said the doctor. "I did not know we should see anything so large." Jack Penny was all eagerness to follow and get a shot at the animal; but though he looked in all directions, and Gyp kept baying first at the foot of one tree then at the foot of another, he did not see it again. Where it went it was impossible to say; perhaps it travelled along the upper branches, swinging itself from bough to bough by its long arms; but if it did, it was all so silently that not so much as a leaf rustled, and we were all at fault. I was not sorry, for the idea of shooting anything so like a human being, and for no reason whatever, was rather repugnant to my feelings, so that I did not share in my companion's disappointment. "Depend upon it, he has not gone far," said the doctor, when Jack Penny stood staring at the tree where we saw the ape first. "There, lie down, my lad, and rest, and--hallo! what's the matter with Jimmy?" I turned to see the black standing close by, his waddy in one hand, his boomerang in the other, head bent, knees relaxed, an expression of the greatest horror in his face, as he shivered from head to foot, and shook his head. "Why, what's the matter, Jimmy?" I cried. "Bunyip," he whispered, "big bunyip debble--debble--eat all a man up. Bunyip up a tree." "Get out!" I said; "it was a big monkey." "Yes: big bunyip monkey. Come 'way." For the sudden disappearance of the ape had impressed Jimmy with the idea that it was what the Scottish peasants call "no canny," and as it was his first interview with one of these curious creatures, there was some excuse for his apparent fear, though I am not certain that it was not assumed. For Jimmy was no coward so long as he was not called upon to encounter the familiar demons of his people, the word bunyip being perhaps too often in his mouth. The black's dread went off as quickly as it came, when he found that he was not noticed, and for the next two hours we lay resting, Jack Penny and I seeing too many objects of interest to care for sleep. Now it would be a great beetle glistening in green and gold, giving vent to a deep-toned buzzing hum as it swept by; then a great butterfly, eight or nine inches across, would come flitting through the trees, to be succeeded by something so swift of flight and so rapid in the flutter of its wings that we were in doubt whether it was a butterfly or one of the beautiful sunbirds that we saw flashing in the sunshine from time to time. It proved afterwards to be a butterfly or day-moth, for we saw several of them afterwards in the course of our journey. Over the birds Jack Penny and I had several disputes, for once he took anything into his head, even if he was wrong, he would not give way. "These are humming-birds," he said, as we lay watching some of the lovely little creatures that were hovering before the flowers of a great creeper, and seemed to be thrusting in their long beaks. "No," I said, "they are not humming-birds;" and I spoke upon my mother's authority, she in turn resting on my father's teaching. "There are no humming-birds here: they are found in America and the islands." "And out here," said Jack, dictatorially. "There they are; can't you see 'em?" "No," I said, "those are sunbirds; and they take the place of the humming-birds out here in the East." "Nonsense! Think I don't know a humming-bird when I see one. Why, I saw one at Sydney, stuffed." "When you two have done disputing," said the doctor, "we'll start." "Look here, doctor; ain't those humming-birds?" said Jack. "No, no, doctor," I cried; "they are sunbirds, are they not?" "I don't know," said the doctor; "let's make haste on and ask the professor." I sprang to my feet as if stung by a reproach, for it seemed to me as if I had been thinking of trifles instead of the great object of my mission. CHAPTER ELEVEN. HOW JACK PENNY WAS NOT SATISFIED WITH HIMSELF. It was intensely hot when we started again, the heat seeming to be steamy, and not a breath of air to fan our cheeks; but we trudged on for a time without adventure, till all at once a butterfly of such lovely colours flashed across our path, that it proved too much for Jack Penny, who laid down his gun, snatched off his hat, and went in pursuit. We could not go on and leave him; so we stopped to rest, and watch him as he was hopping and bounding along through a tolerably open sunlit part, full of growth of the most dazzling green. Now he neared the insect; now it dashed off again, and led him a tremendous chase, till, just as the doctor shouted to him to return, we saw him make a dab down with his hat and then disappear. "He has got it," I said; for I could not help feeling interested in the chase; but I felt annoyed again directly, as the doctor said coldly: "Yes: he seems to have caught his prize, Joe; but we must defer these sports till our work is done." Just then we saw Jack Penny rise up and turn towards us. To hide my vexation I shouted to him to make haste, and he began to trot towards us, his long body bending and swaying about as he ran. Then he jumped and jumped again, and the doctor shaded his eyes with his hands. "He has got into a swampy patch," he said. "Of course. There's a bit of a stream runs along there, and--" "Ow!" came in a dismal yell, followed by a furious barking, as we saw Jack make a tremendous jump, and then disappear. "Help, help!" came from among some dense green growth, and hurrying forward we at last came in sight of our companion, at least in sight of his head and shoulders, and we could not approach him, for the ground gave way beneath our feet, the bright green moss almost floating upon a treacherous bog. "Hold on!" shouted the doctor; "we'll help you directly;" and taking out his big knife he began to hack at some small bamboos which grew in thick clumps about us. "Make haste," moaned Jack, "I'm sinking;" and we could see Gyp, who was howling furiously, tearing at the soft moss as if to dig his master out. "Give Jimmy knife," said the black, who was grinning and enjoying Jack Penny's predicament. I handed him mine, and he too cut down armfuls of the young green bamboo, the carriers coming up now and helping, when, taking a bundle at a time, Jimmy laid them down, dancing lightly over them with his bare feet, and troubling himself very little about danger, as he made a sort of green path right up to Jack. "His black fellow pull up," shouted Jimmy; but I ran up to where he was, and each taking one of Jack's hands he gave a wriggle, floundered a bit, and then we had him out covered with black mud; and though we were standing up, he would not trust himself just then erect, but crept after us on hands and knees, the soft bog beneath us going up and down like a wave. As soon as he was quite safe there was a hearty laugh at Jack Penny's expense; and the doctor drily asked for the butterfly. "Oh, I caught him," said Jack; "but I lost him when I trod on that great beast." "What great beast?" I said. "Crocodile fifty foot long," drawled Jack. "Say sixty," said the doctor. "Well, I hadn't time to measure him," drawled Jack. "I trod upon one, and he heaved up, and that made me jump into a soft place, and--ugh! what's that?" I was very doubtful about Jack's crocodile, but there was no mistake about the object that had made him utter this last cry of disgust. "They're pricking me horrid," he shouted; and we found that he had at least twenty large leeches busily at work banquetting upon his blood. The blacks set to work picking them off, and scraping him clear of the thick vegetable mud that adhered to him; and with the promise that he was to have a good bathe in the first clear water we encountered, we once more started, Jack looking anything but cheerful, but stubbornly protesting that it was wonderful how comfortable his wet clothes made him feel. Master Jack had to listen to a lecture from the doctor, in which the latter pointed out that if success was to attend our expedition, it would not do for the various members to be darting off at their good pleasure in search of butterflies, and at first Jack looked very grim, and frowned as if about to resent it all. To my surprise, however, he replied: "I see, doctor; we must be like soldiers and mind the captain. Well, all right. I won't do so any more." "I'm sure you will not," said the doctor, holding out his hand. "You see we must have discipline in our little corps, so as to be able fully to confide in each other in cases of emergency. We must be men." Jack scratched his head and looked ruefully from one to the other. "That's just what I want to be, doctor," he drawled; "but I'm always doing something that makes me seem like a small boy. I'm grown up a deal, but somehow I don't feel a bit older than I used to be years ago." "Ah, well, wait a bit, Penny," replied the doctor; "and we will not say any more about the butterfly hunt." Jack's brow seemed to grow as wrinkled as that of an old man, and he was very solemn for the rest of the day, during which we tramped on through the forest, its beauties seeming less attractive than in the freshness of the early morning, and the only striking thing we saw was a pack of small monkeys, which seemed to have taken a special dislike to Jimmy, following him from tree to tree, chattering and shrieking the while, and at last putting the black in a passion, and making him throw his boomerang savagely up in return for the nuts that were showered down. "Bad black fellow," he said to me indignantly. "Come down, Jimmy fight twenty forty all a once." He flourished his club and showed me how he would clear the ground, but the monkeys did not accept the challenge, and that night we halted under a great tree covered with a scarlet plum-like fruit, and proceeded to set up our tent as a shelter to keep off the heavy dew. CHAPTER TWELVE. HOW WATCH WAS KEPT BY NIGHT. The sheet which I have called our tent was stretched over a low bough, and secured to pegs at the four corners, being all open at the sides, so that as I lay I could gaze right away in any direction. On one side there was gloom, with the tall pillar-like tree trunks standing up grey and indistinct; on the other side there was the bright fire, which was as dangerous, I thought, as it was useful, for though it served to keep off wild beasts it was likely to attract savage men, just as moths fly to a flame. As I lay there I could see the doctor keeping watch, and beside him one of the natives, whose black face looked curious and ghastly with the bandage he wore round his head, for this was one of the men who had been seized by the captain of the other schooner, and who had eagerly volunteered to be of our party. This man was gazing intently at the doctor, as if eager to catch the slightest indication of a wish, and so still and misty did he look in the weird light that but for the flaming of the fire from his eyes it would have been hard to tell that he was a living being. Though it was not cold our black followers all slept close about the fire, Jimmy the nearest--so close, in fact, that he seemed as if he were being prepared for a feast on the morrow; and this idea of roasting came the more strongly from the fact that we were in a land whose inhabitants were said to have certain weaknesses towards a taste for human joints. Jack Penny was sleeping heavily close to me, and at regular intervals seeming to announce that he was dreaming of eating, for his lips gave vent over and over again to the word _pork_! Sometimes this regular snoring sound annoyed me, but I forgot it again directly as I lay sleepless there, now watching the gloom of the forest, now the flickering and dancing light of the fire as the wood crackled and burned and the sparks and smoke went straight up, till they were lost on high amid the densely thick branches overhead. It was a curious sensation to be there in that awful solitude, thinking of my past adventures, and wondering what the next day might bring forth. I wanted to sleep and rest, so as to rise refreshed when the doctor called me two hours after midnight, when I was to relieve guard; but sleep would not come, and I lay fidgeting about, wondering how it was possible that such a small twig could set up so much irritation beneath my back. Then, just as I thought I was going off there would be the sensation as of some creeping insect crawling about over my face and in amongst the roots of my hair. Then after impatiently knocking it away, something seemed to be making its way up my sleeve, to be succeeded by something else in the leg of my trousers, while I had hardly got rid of this sensation when a peculiarly clammy cold touch taught me that either a lizard or a snake was crawling over my feet. This last I felt constrained to bear, for a movement might result in the bite of some poisonous creature, while by lying still I might escape. At last I really was dropping off into a sound sleep, when all at once I started into wakefulness, fascinated as it were by the sight of something shining in the black darkness to the left of our fire. With a shudder running through me I rose to my elbow, at the same moment seizing my gun, when a single intent glance convinced me that I was right, for certainly some creature was watching the doctor, and probably crouching before making a deadly bound. I cocked the piece softly, holding the trigger the while, so that there should be no sharp click, and in another moment I should have fired, after careful aim, between the two bright glaring eyes, when the doctor made a movement, and the animal darted aside and went bounding off, just giving me a glimpse of its form, which was that of a small deer. I saw the doctor shade his eyes and stand watching the flying creature. Then stooping down he picked up a few branches that had been gathered ready, and made the fire blaze more brightly. As the glow increased I saw something which there was no mistaking for a harmless deer, for not ten yards away there was a large cat-like creature crouching close to the ground, while, to make assurance doubly sure, there came from between its bared and glistening white teeth a low angry snarl. I took aim, and tried to get a good sight at its head, but hesitated to draw trigger, for the glow from the fire made appearances deceptive, the body of the cat-like beast seeming to waver up and down; and directly after the creature moved, and its head was covered by a low bush. But the doctor and his companion had both seen the animal, which uttered a menacing roar as the former stepped forward, snatched a piece of burning wood from the fire, and hurled it towards the beast, his example being followed by the New Guinea man. The result was a furious roar, and the great cat bounded away towards the forest. This brought Gyp to his feet with a fierce volley of barking, and he would have been off in pursuit but for his master, who woke up and ran out exclaiming: "Dingoes after the sheep! dingoes after the sheep! Here, Gyp, boy! here, Gyp--here--eh! I say, is anything the matter?" "No, no; all right!" cried the doctor. "I--I thought I was at home," said Jack, rubbing his eyes; "and--oh! how sleepy I am." "Lie down again, then," said the doctor; and Jack obeyed, Gyp following and curling up close by his master, who very soon resumed his heavy breathing, in so objectionable a manner that I felt over and over again as if I should like to kick him and wake him up. For there is nothing on earth so annoying as to be unable to sleep when some one close by is snoring away in happy oblivion. As I lay there with my face turned from the fire, so that it should not keep me awake, I felt more and more the sensation of awe produced by being there in the midst of that wild place. While I was perfectly still my eyes were directed upwards in amongst the branches of the great tree, now illumined by the bright flame of our fire, and by degrees I made out that these boughs were peopled by birds and what seemed to be squirrels, and all more or less excited by the unaccustomed light. I lay gazing up at them, seeing the different objects very indistinctly in the dancing light, and then all at once it seemed to me that one particular branch was rising and falling slowly with a peculiar movement. It was a strange wavy motion, which was the more remarkable from the fact that there was no wind; but after a moment or two's thought I fancied I had found the cause in the heated air produced by the fire. But that did not explain what next took place in the smoky obscurity above the fire, for the branch seemed to wave about more and more, and to lengthen; and then I made sure that it was the shadow I saw; but directly after, a thrill ran through me as I recalled that these creatures were fond of nestling high up in branches, where they captured birds and monkeys, and I said in a low hoarse whisper: "Why, it's a snake!" There was no doubt about the matter, for as it swung lower, holding on by its tail, I could see that it was indeed a snake, evidently of considerable length, and about as thick as my arm. It had been aroused from probably a torpid state by the fumes of the fire, and was now descending from bough to bough to reach the earth, and I paused for a time, asking myself what I had better do. The result was that I overcame the unwillingness I felt to move, and crept so softly towards the doctor that I was able to lay my hand upon his shoulder before he heard me approach. "Why, Joe!" he exclaimed, starting, "I thought it was an enemy." "Yes; there he is!" I said with a shudder, and I pointed up among the branches. The black who was the doctor's fellow-watcher had seen me approach, and following with his eyes the direction pointed to by my hand, he too looked up into the tree, where, glistening in the fire-light, there was the reptile swinging slowly to and fro with a pendulum-like motion. In spite of the horror inspired by such a creature, free and within a few yards of where I was standing, I could not help noticing the beauty of the scales, which shone in the fire-light as if of burnished bronze. But I had little time for examination; one moment I was noting the head and curved neck of the reptile, the next there was a sharp twanging noise, and I saw the serpent's head jerk upwards, and then what seemed to be a mass of thick rope fell near the fire; there was a tremendous lashing and tossing about, and when the doctor and I approached the spot cautiously with our guns, it was to find that the reptile had glided off into the forest depths. "A good shot for a bow and arrow," said the doctor, turning to our black companion, who smiled complacently, our manner plainly showing him that we were admiring his skill. "You are getting a poor night's rest, Joe," said the doctor smiling. "Now go and lie down again." "It is of no use," I said fretfully. "I can't sleep, and I only lie thinking about home and him. I shall stay and watch." The doctor protested, but finding at last that I was unwilling to lie down again, he said: "Well, I am quite different, for I am so tired that I cannot keep awake. I will go and lie down then, if you promise to come and wake me as soon as you are drowsy. Mind and keep up a good blaze." I replied that he might be sure of that. "Don't fire unnecessarily," he continued. "If any wild animal comes near, a piece of burning wood will scare it away at once." "As it did that great cat!" I said. "Did you see, then?" he said. "I have not been asleep for a single minute," I replied. "What was it-- a tiger?" "Tiger! No, my lad," he said, laughing; "I don't think we shall see any tigers here. There, I shall yawn my head off if I stop here talking. Good night!" He walked to the shelter, and I went and sat down next our black companion, who smiled a welcome; and thinking this a favourable opportunity, I set to work to try and increase my knowledge of the language, by lifting up different objects and making the black give them their native name, which I tried to imitate as well as I could. He was very intelligent, grasping my meaning at once, and repeating the words again and again, till I was nearly perfect, when he laughed with childlike pleasure. The time passed so quickly in this occupation that I was quite startled by hearing a wild resonant cry that seemed to echo through the forest arcades. Then there was a succession of piercing screams, followed by loud whistling and muttering. A monkey started a chattering noise, which was answered from a distance with a hundredfold power; and looking about me I found that the day was breaking and the night-watch at an end. The change from night to morning is very rapid near the equator, and soon the sun was making bright and attractive places that had looked awful and full of hidden dangers in the night; while, in place of the depression produced by the darkness, I felt eager sensations and desires springing up within my heart, and a strong inclination to get forward once more upon our journey. We made a very hearty meal before the sun was much above the horizon; our simple packing was soon done, and we were not long before we were well on the road of discovery. I expected to be very tired and sleepy, but to my surprise I did not feel in the least the worse for my restless night, and we trudged along pretty swiftly when the land was open, slowly and toilsomely when tangled growth obstructed our way. I was too much occupied with thoughts of my father to pay much heed to the fruits and flowers that we came upon in many spots; besides, I was on before with Jack Penny, and Gyp in front of us very intelligently leading the way. There was, I knew, always the chance of meeting some danger, and on this account we kept a very sharp look-out ahead, till suddenly we were stopped by a strange noise as of water being struck a succession of heavy blows; and as Gyp set up his ears, threw up his nose, and uttered a low whimper, there was the click, click of gun-locks, and every one prepared for some coming danger, the blacks remaining quiet, and looking wonderingly at our strange proceedings. The sound ceased as suddenly as it had begun, and though we listened intently we heard it no more for that time, so we continued our journey with every one thoroughly on the alert. CHAPTER THIRTEEN. HOW JACK PENNY PUT HIS FOOT IN A TRAP. We had made our plans, but they were very elastic, for it was impossible for us to keep to any hard-and-fast line. "No, Joe," the doctor said, "we cannot say that we will do this or that; we must be governed by circumstances. We have one object in view--to find your father, and so far we have determined to follow the course of the first big river; when we shall be diverted from it time must prove." We slept that night under the shade of another tree, and as the mist rolled off the next morning we started once again. It was so glorious a morning that, in spite of the serious nature of our position, it was impossible not to feel in the highest of spirits. The way lay through dense forest, but we had fallen into a track which I at first thought was a regular pathway, and so it proved to be, but not of the kind I imagined as I eagerly called the doctor's attention to it, and the ease with which we were now getting along. "No, Joe," he said; "this is not a path used by human beings. Look down at the footprints." I looked down to see the hoof-marks of innumerable wild creatures, and said so. "Yes," replied the doctor, "it is a track down to the river, followed by the animals that go to drink, and we shall not be long before we get to the water side." Our way did not seem wearisome, for there was so much to see, the birds in particular taking my attention greatly. One moment a flock of black cockatoos would fly screaming by, then a cloud of brilliantly-coloured parroquets, and in one opening we came upon what looked at first like a gigantic beech-tree completely alive with tiny blue-and-green parrots about the size of sparrows, climbing, fluttering, chattering, and chirping, now with their heads up, now heads down, and forming one of the prettiest sights I had ever seen. I could have shot twenty or thirty together as they sat in rows upon the bare branches, so little did they heed our presence; but it was unnecessary to destroy their little lives, and we passed on. I was less merciful an hour later, for food was a necessity, and I was fortunate enough to bring down at the first shot a beautiful little deer that started up in our very path. My shot seemed to alarm the whole forest and set it in an uproar: birds shrieked, monkeys chattered, and to right and left there was a rushing crackling noise, as of big creatures seeking flight. There was a deep-mouthed howl, too, away on our right that made me look anxiously at the doctor. "I don't know, Joe," he replied, as if in answer to a spoken question. "There may be tigers here, and leopards, and old men of the woods, big as ourselves. It is new land, my lad, so don't look to me for information." "Dat big bunyip," said Jimmy in a scared whisper. "Take black fellow-- kill um, eatum." Just then we heard the same beating noise that had fallen upon our ears the previous day. "Dat big bunyip beat um gin," whispered Jimmy, with a curious awe-stricken look in his countenance. "'Taint," said Jack Penny slowly. "I don't believe in bunyips. If it was a bunyip beating his gin, she'd holloa out like hooray, and squeak the leaves off the trees." "'Fraid squeak," said Jimmy eagerly, as he caught Jack's meaning. "Well, perhaps Jimmy's right," said the doctor slowly; "and as I've never seen a bunyip the present is a favourable opportunity, and we can interfere to stop him from too severely castigating his wife. Come, Jimmy, lead on." Jimmy's jaw dropped, but his hand stole to his waistband, from which he drew his waddy, talking slowly the while, till, seeing the doctor make a movement towards him, he turned round and darted into the bush. "He won't stop till he gets back to the village," drawled Jack. "He won't go farther than the first big tree," I said, laughing. "He's watching us now, I'll be bound." "Then you and I will have to meet the bunyip, Joe," said the doctor. "Are you coming, Penny?" "Yes, I'll come," said Jack quietly. "I should like to see a bunyip. Come along." Jack went on--not first, for Gyp started before him and, guided by the noise, we pushed on amongst the dense growth, finding the earth grow moister beneath our feet; and then all at once it seemed as if the big trees had come to an end and we were in a lighter place. "There's the water," I cried, as I caught sight of a flash. "You'll be in it here directly, same as I was," drawled Jack. "I say, doctor, ain't this the sort of place big snakes like?" "Hush!" whispered the doctor; and pressing back the thick growth we advanced cautiously, and following his example I, too, stepped from tuft to tuft, listening to the beating noise and to the other sounds that arose. First there was the loud rustle of wings as some water birds flew up, long-legged creatures with far-stretching necks. Then on my left there was an ominous noise, as of something crawling amongst the reeds, and I shuddered as I saw that Jack Penny was holding his gun ready, and that Gyp's hair was bristling all about his neck, while his teeth were bared. The doctor was some distance before us now, and I could see him peering between some bushes and waving his hand to me to come forward; so, forgetting the danger, if danger there was, I went cautiously to my companion's side, to gaze with astonishment at the scene before me. There was no bunyip or native Australian demon there, but a great shallow, muddy pond or lake, which seemed as if it must be swarming with fish and crocodiles, for every here and there, as the great rugged backs of the horrible lizards were seen pushing towards the shore, shoals of silvery fish leaped out, flashing in the sunshine before they splashed back into the water. Here, then, was the secret of the mysterious noise which was being produced before my eyes. For the crocodiles were driving the shoals of fish into the little bays and creeks, and then stunning them by beating the water heavily with their tails, the result being that the paralysed fish were easily devoured. I felt as if I could never tire of gazing at the monsters so busy before us. There must have been at least five-and-twenty, and all of large size; and it was not a pleasant thought to consider what would have been the consequences if we had attempted to wade across the lagoon. Before leaving, however, the doctor took out his glass and swept the shore of the great pond, to nod with satisfaction. "This is only a sort of bay belonging to the river we are seeking, Joe," he said. "Look there to the left, and you can see the entrance choked up with reeds." We crept back cautiously, to find Jimmy awaiting our return; and then making a detour towards the lake, we soon reached the river, along whose bank was a well-trodden path, in whose softer parts, besides those of deer, it was plain to see the ugly toes of crocodiles, and the long trail they made as they dragged themselves along. We did not halt until we had left the crocodile pond a long way behind; but a fine dry, open spot, close to the flashing water of the swift river, was so tempting that we did not go so far as we had intended. Here a fire was soon lit, and Jimmy sat watching the roasting of the buck with an indescribable look of satisfaction in his countenance; while, eager to try whether it would be possible to add to our provision store at any time from the river, I went on down to the water's edge. For if there were fish in such abundance in the lagoon, I felt sure that if they would bite there must be plenty in the stream. My first idea had been to have a bathe in the cool-looking water, but, seeing my intention, the black who had been my companion in the watch, took my hand, led me cautiously along for a short distance, and then pointed to where there was lying, dimly outlined in the thickened water, one of the hideous creatures such as I had seen in the lagoon. The black then put his wrists together, spread wide his hands, and closed them sharply upon my arm like a pair of jaws, and snatched me sidewise with a good tug. I was quite satisfied, and nodding and shuddering I joined the doctor, who was ready enough to help me fish. We soon had our lines ready, and baiting the hooks with pieces of raw meat, we threw out and waited, after the manner of fishermen at home, for a bite. After a time I examined my bait and threw in again. Then the doctor examined his and threw in again, but neither of us had the slightest touch, and growing weary we went back to the fire to find the buck sufficiently roasted and Jimmy's eyes standing out of his head with hunger; so we made a hasty meal, left the blacks to finish it, and Jack Penny to rest his long body, while we had another try at the fishing. But Jack Penny did not care to rest when anything was going on, and after we had been fishing without result for about half an hour he joined us. "Caught anything?" he said; and on our replying in the negative, "Here, let me try," he said. I handed him my line, and he twisted it well round his hand. "Fish run big, sometimes," he said, nodding his head sagaciously. "Don't leave your line like that, doctor," he added; "make it fast to that bough." The doctor obeyed, and leaving Jack looking very drowsy and dreamy we two took our guns and started along the river bank, thinking that perhaps we might find something useful for the larder, the heat of the climate rendering it necessary for a supply to be obtained from day to day. It was a glorious walk past quiet bends of the river that were as still as ponds, and full of red and white lotus plants which shot up their lovely blossoms from amidst their floating liliaceous leaves. Trees in places overhung the water, and great wreaths of blossom or leaves of dazzling green were reflected on the surface. Insect life was abundant: burnished beetles and lovely coloured butterflies flitting from flower to flower. Birds, too, especially waders and great creatures that I took to be pelicans, were busy in the shallows, where now and then a great crocodile wallowed through the mud, evidently roused by our approach, for though we saw several of these creatures, not one gave the slightest sign of a disposition to attack. "There, we are not likely to see deer before evening when they come down to drink," said the doctor. "Let's get back, Joe, my lad, the sun is not so powerful as it was, and we may as well make a fresh start." We were about three parts of the way back, finding some fresh object of interest at every turn, when I suddenly caught hold of my companion's arm, for a peculiar cry fell upon my ear. "Something wrong!" exclaimed the doctor, and we set off at a sharp run where the undergrowth would allow. A curious sensation of dread came over me, and a cold damp feeling was on my brow and in the palms of my hands as the cry rose once more--a singularly doleful cry, as of some one in great peril. "Are you loaded?" said the doctor, as we ran on, and his voice sounded hoarse with emotion. I nodded, for I could not speak, and, full of the idea that our little camp had been attacked by savages and that some of our followers were being killed, I ran on. It was hard work and like running in a nightmare to get back to our starting-place, for there was always some thorn or tangle that we had not noticed in our careful advance seeming to stop us on our way; but at last we came within sight of the spot where we had left Jack Penny, but he was not there. "There's something wrong at the camp," I panted. "Be cool," replied the doctor, "we may have to fire. Try and keep your nerve. Ah!" This ejaculation was consequent upon our simultaneously catching sight of Jack Penny, up to the armpits in the river, holding on by the branch of a tree. As he saw us he shouted lustily for help. It was no drawl now, but a sharp quick shout. I ran down the bank and the doctor following, we joined hands, when, catching at Jack's wrist, I held on tightly. "Now, then," I said, as I gazed wonderingly in his ghastly face and staring eyes, "let go, and we'll draw you ashore." "No, no," he cried hoarsely. "Got hold of me--drag me in." "Got hold? Of course," I said, "we'll drag you in." "One of those brutes has got him, Joe," cried the doctor excitedly, and his words sent such a thrill through me that I nearly loosed my hold. "Here, pull both together," he said, as he got down by my side and seized Jack Penny by the other arm. We gave a fierce drag, to find that it was answered from below, Jack being nearly drawn out of our hands, his head going down nearly to the eyes, and for the moment it seemed as if we were to be drawn in as well. But fortunately Jack still had tight hold of the branch, to which he clung in the agony of desperation, and he uttered such a piercing cry that it served to arouse the sleeping blacks, the result being that, as we were holding on, and just maintaining our ground, Jimmy and Ti-hi, the black who had attached himself to me, came running down. They saw what was wrong, and Jimmy seized me, the black doing the same by Jimmy, with the effect of dragging poor Jack Penny farther and farther from the water in spite of the struggles of the reptile that was trying to haul him back. First we had him out to the chest, then to the hips, then nearly to the knees, and I never till then thoroughly realised what a lot there was of him, for it seemed as if he would never end. "Hold on!" cried the doctor suddenly. "I'm going to loose him." "No, no!" panted Jack, with a horrified look; but the doctor did loose his hold and caught up his gun. "Now, then," he cried. "All together. Haul with all your might." We obeyed, and though we were for the moment mastered we gave a good swing again, and it seemed as if Jack Penny must be dragged in two. It was like playing a game of French and English, and we were in danger of getting the worst of it. We saw what the doctor wanted, and that was to get the reptile so near the surface that he could fire; but as soon as we got poor Jack nearly ashore the creature gave a tremendous tug, making the water swirl and the mud and sand from the bottom rise in clouds. This went on for five minutes, during which we were striving with all our might, when I nearly loosed my hold, for Jack said in a low despairing tone of voice: "Joe Carstairs, don't let him have me till you've shot me first." I held fast though, and the fight went on, till, just as we were beginning to despair, the reptile came nearer to the surface, the ugly protuberances over its eyes were level with the water, and, bending down, the doctor reached out with his gun in one hand, held the muzzle close to the creature's eye, and fired. There was a tremendous sputter and we were nearly forced to leave go, but the next moment there was no resistance but weight, and we drew Jack and his aggressor, a crocodile about ten feet long, right up to the bank, the monster's jaws, which had closed over one of Jack's stoutly booted feet, remaining fast, though the upper part of its head was all blown away. "Dat a big bunyip," cried Jimmy, forcing the end of his spear through the reptile's jaws and trying to push them open, which he did with his companion's help, and Jack Penny was free to limp feebly for a few yards, and sink down amongst the reeds. Jimmy did not seem in the least afraid of the bunyip now, for hacking off a long lithe cane he put it over the reptile's jaw, and, twisting it tightly rope-fashion, he and Ti-hi dragged it right away from the water, and, avoiding the frantic lashings of its tail, they turned it over with their spears, used like levers, and kept on stabbing it in its tender underparts until it ceased to struggle, when Jimmy turned it over again and began to perform a triumphant war-dance on its back. Meanwhile poor Jack Penny, who had been nearly speechless, began to revive. "That's better," said the doctor. "Now let me look at your foot." "Has he bit it right off?" said Jack faintly. "I can't feel it. Just when I needed it so badly, too!" "Bit it off! No!" I cried. "Is it much hurt, doctor?" "I can't tell till I have unlaced his boot," he replied. "Tell me if I hurt you much, my lad." "It don't hurt," said Jack faintly. "I can't feel at all." It was rather hard work to get the boot off; but at last it was free, and the doctor inspected a double row of red spots, two of which bled a little, but not much. "I'm beginning to feel now," said Jack dolefully. "Why, he ain't bit it off!" he said, raising himself so that he could look down at the injured member. "I thought it was gone." "No; your foot has only had an ugly pinch; the stout boot saved it. Let it bleed a little, my lad; it will save you pain." "What! had he only got hold of my boot?" said Jack excitedly. "And the foot in it," said the doctor. "See, here are the marks of the teeth." "I thought he'd bit it right off, Joe Carstairs," said Jack dolefully. "An' I say, what a coward I am!" "Coward!" I exclaimed. "Why?" "To be so frightened as I was," replied Jack, with a dismal sigh. "Well, I don't know about being a coward, Master Jack Penny," said the doctor quietly; "but I do know that if I had had my foot in that reptile's mouth I should have been in a most horrible state of fear. There, my lad," he continued kindly, "don't think any more about it, only to be thankful for your escape." "But he ought to tell us first how he was caught like that," I said. "Oh, there ain't much to tell," said Jack, sitting up and raising his leg, and softly rubbing his injured foot. "I was fishing, and the fish wouldn't bite, and I got a little nearer to the river side and threw in again and fished; and the sun seemed to get hotter, and I suppose I fell asleep, for I remember dreaming that the dingoes had got among father's sheep again, and that he flicked his whip-lash round my wrist. Then I tried to start up, but a big fish had hold of the line, and it tugged away so hard that I was overbalanced, and took a header off the bank right into the river; and when I came up, pretty tidy astonished like, and began to swim for the bank, the fish on the line, which I had twisted round my wrist, began tugging me out into the stream. It took me out ever so far before I could get the line off my wrist; and then I swam easily back, feeling awful popped like at having lost the fish and the line; and I was just wondering what you would say, when all at once there was a regular rush in the water, and something shut on my foot, giving me such an awful nip that I yelled out as I caught hold of that branch, and held on, shivering all the while with fear, for I forgot about the crocodiles, and thought it must be a shark." "Well!" I said, excitedly; for he stopped. "Well, what?" said Jack. "What next? What did you do?" I said. "Hollered!" replied Jack laconically. "So would you if you had been me." "Yes," I said, "of course; but what took place next?" "Oh, nothing; only that I held tight and he held tight, and as often as he tugged at me it jumped the bough up and down like a see-saw, and it was very horrid." "Most horrible!" said the doctor. "Then I hollered again," said Jack. "Yes; go on!" I cried impatiently. "I did go on," he replied. "I went on hollering, but them chaps at the camp were asleep, and I began to feel that I should have to let go soon; only I wouldn't, because I wanted to find out first what had become of the professor. Then at last you came, and that's all; only I don't feel much like walking very far to-day, so I shall sit still and fish." "Fish! what, with things like that in the water?" I exclaimed. "Oh! they won't hurt me," said Jack; "because I shall be on the look-out now, and won't go in after the next fish that takes my line. I say, where's Gyp?" "I don't know," I said. "I have not seen him." "Crocodiles are very fond of dogs," said Jack quietly. "I hope one of 'em hasn't got Gyp." "Oh, no! he'd be too sharp for one of the reptiles," said the doctor reassuringly. "I don't know," said Jack in his quiet drawl. "I thought I was much too clever for crocodiles; but they're sharp--precious sharp about the teeth. Perhaps he's gone hunting something. He often used at home." "Oh, yes; he'll come back," I said. "Well, we shall see," said Jack. "I'm better now. Lend me another line, Joe Carstairs. I want to see if I can't catch a fish." I looked about first to see if I could trace my line, but it was hopelessly gone. To my surprise and pleasure, though, I found the doctor's where he had left it, tied to a root and drawn out tight, evidently with a fish at the end. I imagined that I could easily draw this out, and I did get it close up to the bank, but as soon as it was in the shallow water it sprang right out and darted away again, making the line rush through my hands so rapidly that it burned my skin. As it leaped out I had a good opportunity of seeing that a great silvery fellow, fully a yard long, had hooked itself, and meant to have some playing before it turned over upon its side in token of submission. I kept on playing the fish, which seemed to grow stronger instead of weaker as I went on at give and take with it, till I was almost tired. At least six times did I draw it in and try to bring it within reach of Ti-hi's fingers, but in vain, for it always darted off as if refreshed. At last, though, I drew it well in, and once more it was about to repeat its tactics; but this time it was too late, for the black pounced down upon it, thrust his hooked finger into its gills, and pulled it up on to the bank. Just then Jimmy came trotting up, hauling away at a line, and to my great delight I found that he had hunted out the one we had left with Jack Penny. "Fastum round big wood!" he cried; and then he tried to explain how the fish had entangled the line round what an American would call a snag; and the result was that we had two fine fish to carry back to the camp, Jimmy's being tired out and readily yielding as he hauled on the line. "I don't think I'll fish to-day," said Jack Penny then. "I say, I feel as if that buck warn't good enough to eat." Hardly had he spoken before he softly sank down sidewise, and lay looking very white, and with his eyes shut. "Is it the venison?" I said in a whisper to the doctor. "No. He is a little faint, now the reaction has set in," replied the doctor; and we had to carry poor wet Jack Penny as well as the fish into camp, and of course we got no farther on our journey that day. CHAPTER FOURTEEN. HOW A STRANGE VISITOR CAME TO CAMP. Jack seemed very little the worse after a good night's rest, that is to say bodily. He was a little white, and his breakfast did not disappear so rapidly as usual, for, probably on account of his great length, and the enormous amount of circulation and support to keep up, Jack Penny used to eat about as much as two ordinary boys. He was, however evidently a little bit upset in his mind, and he laid this open to me just before starting once more. "I say," he said in a low tone, "did I seem such a very great coward yes'day, Joe Carstairs?" "Coward! No," I said; "not you. Any one would have been frightened." "But I hollered so," whispered Jack. "I don't think a young fellow ought to holler like a great girl." "I know I should," I replied. "There, never mind now. They're all ready to start. Come on!" Jack Penny shook his head rather thoughtfully, and then, in a dissatisfied dreamy way, he walked on with me, shouldering his gun, and stooping more than ever, so that it seemed as if he were looking for something which he could not find. We had to pass pretty close to the crocodile, so close that Jack nearly stumbled over it, and a cry of horror involuntarily escaped him as he jumped aside. Then, turning scarlet with annoyance, he gave the monster a kick, and darted back holding his nose, for it was exhaling a most offensive musky odour. I looked at the creature closely and with some curiosity, thinking the while how much smaller it was than those we had seen in the lagoon. All the same, though, it was fully as big in body as a man, though double the length. It was not going to poison the air long, for already it was covered with something red, and a long red line extended from it right away into the jungle. Each tiny red object was an ant, and from experience I knew that very soon every particle of flesh would be devoured. Keeping within easy reach of the river we journeyed steadily on, finding the country grow more beautiful at every step. The trees were bigger, the bamboos taller and more feathery. In the sunny patches flowers were in abundance, and we had no want of opportunities for supplying our larder, large pheasant-like birds, with long tails and crests, and plumage of the most beautiful tints, being plentiful. It seemed a pity to shoot them, but it was a necessity, for our supply of powder, shot, and ball was looked upon by us as so much condensed meat, ready to be expanded when opportunity served. We encountered nothing particular that day except Gyp, who turned up all at once with a piece of furry skin in his mouth, all he had been able to carry of some deer that he had run down; and at the sight of his friend Jack Penny became more himself, throwing off a good deal of his gloom. In fact I saw the tears stand in his eyes as he saw him once more; but catching sight of me looking at him he scowled, and, running to the dog, kicked him over and over again quite savagely. "Just you run away again," he drawled angrily, "and I'll 'bout kill yer. That's what I'll do with you." Gyp closed his eyes and winced and crouched down close to the ground till his master had ceased punishing him, and then he rose dejectedly, and followed quite in the rear of our party with drooping head and tail. I noticed at the time that Jimmy had watched all this with sparkling eyes, wonderfully intent, but I thought no more of it till I saw the black glance at us all in turn, and then begin to slink back. "What is he after now?" I said to myself; and stepping aside among the thick leafage, I let our party go by and stopped to see what Jimmy was about to do. I had not long to wait, for the fact was that the black had snatched at the opportunity to tyrannise over something. He had been summarily checked when amusing himself by sticking his spear into the New Guinea men, and, as we have seen, one of them resented it; but here was a chance. Gyp had been beaten, and had cowered down under his master's blows, so Jimmy took out his waddy, and after glancing forward to see that he was not observed, he waited until Gyp came up slowly, and casting sidelong looks at the Australian, who gave him a heavy thump on the ribs with the war-club. "Bad bunyip dog. Good for nothing, dirty dingo dog," cried Jimmy. "Go long, bad for good dog. Get--yah!" This last was a terrific yell of fear and pain, for instead of cowering down and suffering himself to be beaten and kicked, Gyp knew that this was not his master. For one moment he had stood astonished at the blow, and then seemed puzzled by the strange broken English objurgations; then with a fierce snarl he darted at the black and tried to seize him by the legs, an attack which Jimmy avoided by making a tremendous spring, catching at a horizontal branch above him, and swinging himself up into a tree, where he crouched like a monkey, showering down angry epithets upon the dog as it yelped and barked at him furiously. I came out of my hiding-place laughing till the tears ran down my cheeks; and the noise made by Gyp brought back the doctor and Jack Penny, the latter taking in the situation at a glance and indulging in a broad grin. "Take away bunyip dog; take um way or Jimmy killum," cried the black. "All right!" said Jack Penny; "come down and kill him then." But Jimmy showed no disposition to move, and it was not until Jack had ordered the dog away that the black dropped down, looking at me very sheepishly and acting like a shamefaced child. As we proceeded farther into the interior, wild creatures grew more abundant, and we saw fewer traces of man having traversed these regions. As I noted the various objects I could not help feeling how my father must have revelled in exploring such a naturalist's paradise as this, and I grew more hopeful as the idea gained ground in my mind that very likely he was busy in the interior still pursuing his researches. We travelled very little way now without catching glimpses of some of the occupants of these wilds. Perhaps it was but a glimpse, but generally we were able to distinguish what it was that darted through bush, tree, or shadowy glade. Once or twice we caught sight of the spots of leopards; then a graceful deer would stand at gaze for a moment before going off like the wind. Once a herd of heavy buffaloes started up before us and crashed through the undergrowth; and at last, as we drew near a great tree, the doctor said, pointing upward: "No fear of our wanting food, Joe, while there are such birds as these." As he spoke, with a noise like a whirlwind a flock of great pigeons took flight--great fellows, three times as big as ordinary pigeons, and, as we knew from those shot in Australia, splendid eating. The great tree offered so pleasant a camping place that we decided to pass the night there, and after a look round to see if there was likely to be danger lurking near, the fire was lit, the blacks setting to work at once to collect wood when they had put down their burdens. Then food was prepared and a hearty meal enjoyed, the restful sensation that came over us after the day's exertion being most delicious. Then one by one our followers dropped asleep, Jack Penny, who was still rather grumpy, last. The doctor and I were sitting together by the fire that night, talking in a low voice about our plans, and agreeing that we could not do better than wander on and on through the wilds until we learned some tidings of the lost man, when suddenly my companion laid his finger on his lips and bent forward as if listening. I listened too, thinking the while how strange it all looked about us, with the fire casting weird shadows all around, while the silence now was almost appalling. "Nothing, Joe," said the doctor, dropping his hand. "I thought I heard something." "I'm sure I did," I whispered, with a strange feeling upon me that it would be dangerous to speak aloud. "There are curious sounds heard sometimes in forests," he said thoughtfully. "There, go on--what were we talking about?" As he spoke there was a strange rushing noise, then a peculiar whining sound not far distant among the trees. "What can that be, doctor?" I whispered. "Can't say, Joe. Sounds as if some animal had been climbing along a branch, or had bent down a sapling and then let it fly up again with a loud whish among the trees." "That is just how it sounded to me," I said, gazing full in his eyes. He remained silent for a few moments, not listening but thinking. "We must take a lesson from our friend Jack Penny, there," he said, smiling in my face as he stroked his broad beard. "I must confess, Joe, to feeling a curious sensation of awe as we sit out here in this primeval forest, surrounded by teeming savage life; but Jack Penny coolly sleeps through it all, and, as I say, we must take a lesson from him, and get used to these strange sounds." "There it is again!" I said, catching his arm, and unable to control the feeling that at any moment something might spring out of the darkness upon my back. For the same curious rustling of leaves came whispering from among the trees, and then there was a low expiration of breath, as if some great beast had yawned. Click-click, click-click sounded loudly on the night air, and I followed the doctor's example, cocking both barrels of my piece. "It's coming nearer, whatever it is," said the doctor in a low tone, "and that strange noise means, I think, that it is some great serpent." "But would serpents be out at night?" I said. "That one was the other night, Joe, and we must not reckon upon the regular habits of animals if we light great fires in their lairs." We sat listening again, and the rustling sound began once more. "It's just as if the thing were climbing along trees that are not strong enough to bear it," I said in an excited whisper, "and they keep flying up after it passes." "Hush!" said the doctor. We listened, and from out of the darkest part before us there arose a loud tearing noise as if bark was being scratched from a tree trunk. "Some kind of beast of the cat family, I should say," whispered the doctor. "Pst! be ready; but don't fire unless we are attacked." Just then there was a rush, a scramble, a dull thud, and some creature uttered a sound that seemed like the word _Howl_ in a hollow echoing tone. Again and again there was the low rustling, and then that word _Howl_ that seemed to come from some great throat; and in imagination I saw in the darkness a pair of fiery eyes and a set of great sharp teeth. "Yes; some kind of cat, leopard, or panther," said the doctor; but, low as his utterance was, it seemed to irritate the creature in our neighbourhood, as it kept on the rustling, for there was a harsh exclamation and the earth seemed to be torn up. Then all at once the sound ceased, and it was perfectly still for quite a quarter of an hour, which seemed an endless time; and then, tired of staring intently into the darkness, and too much excited to be silent, I whispered: "This night-watching is the hardest part of our work, doctor." "Oh! no, my boy. It makes you a little creepy at first, but as soon as you feel your own power and how you must alarm these creatures, you will get used to it." "But the fire makes them see us, and we can't see them," I said, in an ill-used tone. Just then there arose from what seemed to be just the other side of the fire one of the most awful cries I ever heard, and my hair felt as if a tiny cold hand were stirring it about the roots, while a curious sensation ran down my back. As the fearsome howl rang out the doctor levelled his piece, ready to fire, and as the fire shone full upon him in his half-kneeling position there was something terribly earnest in his face, and he looked so brave that it seemed to give me a little courage just when I seemed to have none. "Pick up some of those thin branches and throw them on the fire," said the doctor; and I hurried to obey his command, when there was another awful howling roar, and the creature, whatever it was, charged at me; but I threw on the branches all the same, when the fire leaped up with a tremendous blaze, lighting the forest all round. "See it, doctor?" I whispered. "No," he answered; "it keeps in amongst the trees." The doctor's voice sounded so hoarse and strange that it added to my trepidation. He stopped, and I wanted him to go on talking, but he remained silent, while once more the forest resounded with the hideous cry of the beast. The wood blazed well, so that I could see, as it were, a circle of light, and behind us our black shadows were thrown upon the trees, quite startling me as I looked round. "Keep up the fire," whispered the doctor; "whatever it is it will not attack while there is this blaze." I obeyed him and kept on throwing twigs and boughs that had been laid in a heap ready, but with a curious sensation of dread the while, for it seemed to me that if the fire consumed all our wood we should be left at the creature's mercy. All at once it seemed to me that the rustling and snuffling noise was coming round to our left, and as if I had drawn his attention to the fact, the doctor exclaimed: "Yes, it is coming on here; keep round this way." We edged round the fire so as to keep it between us and the animal that seemed to be watching us, when all at once the sound came from close behind us, and, as if moved by one impulse, we bounded past the fire, the pieces I had held in my hand making a crackling blaze and shower of sparks. This seemed to excite our assailant, which uttered three hideous roars at intervals, and each seemed nearer than the last, so that we were driven to keep on edging round the fire so as to keep it as our shield. We walked slowly round the fire three times, fully aware of the fact that the creature was regularly stalking us, for it kept up the scratching rustling noise, and howled at intervals. This was trying enough to our nerves; but when, all at once, every sound ceased, and we stood there by the ruddy blaze, it seemed terrible to know that our enemy was close at hand, but not to know exactly where. At any moment we felt that it might spring upon us, and I turned a wistful look upon the doctor, which he responded to by saying: "Throw on more wood." I obeyed him, and the blaze flashed up higher once again, spreading a cloud of sparks on high to rise among the leaves and tinge the broad branches with a ruddy golden glow. I gazed in all directions for the danger, and started with nervous trepidation every time the doctor spoke, his words being generally--"Throw on more wood." But at last, after a terrible period of anxious silence, he whispered my name. "Yes," I said. "This can't go on much longer. I'm afraid the beast is coming nearer. Can you see anything your side?" "Yes--no--yes, I think so," I whispered back. "There's a shadowy something just at the edge of the light. I think it is some kind of wild beast." "Is it the dog?" he whispered back. "No," I said. "Gyp always sleeps close to his master." "Do you think you could take steady aim at it, my lad?" he said. "I don't know," I replied, "but I will try. Shall I fire at it?" "Let me think," he answered. "I don't know whether it would be wise to fire, and perhaps only wound the creature." "But perhaps I shall kill it," I said. "It is doubtful, Joe," he replied, "and the noise of your piece would bring out our people, perhaps into danger. Let us wait. Here," he said, "I have it! This beast has been cautiously following us round, always keeping out of our sight. I think now that the best way will be for you to continue the retreat round the fire while I stop here on one knee. The beast will then follow you, and I shall get a good certain shot at him." I did not like the idea at all, for it seemed like setting a trap and making me the bait; but I said nothing beyond intimating that I would do as he wished, and he went on: "I shall be certain to hit the brute, but I may not kill, so be ready to fire in turn; you will get a good chance for a sure hit, the animal will be less cautious." "Stop a moment," I said. "I thought at first that it would be very dangerous for me; now I see that it will be more dangerous for you. Let's keep together." "Do as I bid you," he replied sternly. "Now go on round, as if trying to keep the fire between you and danger. Fire quickly if you have a good chance, and don't miss. But first of all let's try the effect of a firebrand or two in the direction you think you saw the brute." He picked up a piece of blazing wood and gave it a whirl round his head. The result was to bring a fierce roar from the wood close behind us, and we involuntarily sprang to the other side of our fire. "There's no knowing where to have the beast," muttered the doctor, as he realised the cunning sneaking habits of our enemy. As he spoke he stooped and picked up another blazing piece of wood, for he had dropped the first to bring his gun to bear. Now, holding the gun in his left hand, he gave the blazing wood a whirl round his head and threw it in the direction from which the fierce roar had come. To my horror and consternation it was answered by a savage yell, and something charged out nearly to the fire but dashed back directly, so quickly, indeed, that we had no time to get more than a sharp shot apiece at the fierce creature. "Load again quickly," whispered the doctor; and I obeyed him, listening the while to the rustling crackling noise at a little distance. "Do you think we hit it?" I said softly. I was afraid to speak aloud lest it should bring down a charge upon us. "I'm afraid not," he replied, as he reloaded and then stood scanning the edge of the circle of light formed by the fire's glow. There was nothing visible but what seemed to be a dark opening amongst the trees, through which it appeared to me that our enemy must have passed. Then we waited, watching so excitedly for the next attack that the fire was for the moment forgotten. Then, seeing the glow it cast become less, we both seized upon armfuls of wood and threw them on, deadening the flame so that the space around was comparatively dark. That was the most anxious time of all, for, do what we would, the fire sent forth huge volumes of smoke, but would not blaze. At any moment it seemed that the great beast might take advantage of the gloom and spring upon us, and we shook the ends of the burning branches and half-consumed pieces of wood, but in vain. Instead of the light glow there was comparative darkness, and in despair, as if again moved by the same impulse, we ceased troubling about the fire, and stood with hand on trigger, ready to pull at the first chance. Then all at once there was a vivid tongue of flame cutting right through the thick smoke, another and another, and I uttered a sigh of relief as the heap of smouldering boughs and leaves burst once more into a blaze. "Now while the light lasts let's have a good shot at the brute," said the doctor, speaking as if nerved to desperation by the torture under which we both writhed. "I'm going to kneel here, Joe; you walk on, and that will make the tiger, or whatever it is, show itself in watching you." "It isn't a tiger," I whispered. "I caught sight of it, and it looked more like a man." The doctor gave me a quick look, and then said sharply, "Go on!" I obeyed him, walking backwards round the fire, my piece ready, so as to get a shot if I saw the creature again; but this time all remained perfectly still, and though I went right round the fire, no sound came from among the trees. "Take a piece of burning wood and throw it opposite to where you stand, Joe." I did so, and the blazing wood described an arc, fell in a tuft of dry undergrowth which burst out into a vivid column of light for a few minutes and died out, but there was no charge, no roar from our enemy, not even the rustling of the bushes as it passed through. "It's very strange, Joe," whispered the doctor. "Pile on more wood." I obeyed him, and this time it caught directly and there was a tremendous blaze, but no attack followed; and we stood listening for some sound of the enemy in vain. "You must have shot it," I said, speaking with some confidence. "Or else you did, Joe," said the doctor. I shook my head, and we remained listening for quite a quarter of an hour, but still in vain. The silence in the forest was now awful, and though we strained our eyes till the fire across which we looked dazzled them, we could see nothing to cause alarm. "Either it's dead or it has gone off, scared by our fire," said the doctor at last. And now that we found time to think, he continued, with a smile, "I hope we are not going to have many such night-watches as this on our expedition. I say though, my lad, how some people can sleep! I should have thought that those howls would have wakened anything. Why, hallo! Gyp, didn't you hear anything? Where's your master?" He stooped and patted the dog, which came trotting up to us, and then yawned and stretched himself out. "Here I am," said Jack Penny, involuntarily imitating his dog. "Here, where's that chap Jimmy? He was to watch with me, wasn't he? Is it time?" "Time! Yes," I said impatiently. "You ought to have been here two hours ago. He'll have to look out, won't he, doctor, for that tiger or wild man." "Yah! stuff!" said Jack with a sneer. "I sha'n't see no--hullo! what has Gyp found? Look, there's something there." We all turned to see the dog, which had picked up some scent about half-way between the fire and the edge of the circle of light. He ran at once to the thick bushes, barked angrily, and then followed the scent round and round the fire at the distance of about twenty yards, ending by dashing right off into the forest depths, his bark growing fainter as we listened. "I say, ought we to follow Gyp?" said Jack Penny. "If we wish to lose our lives," replied the doctor. "You see, Joe, it has gone right off." "But I don't like Gyp to go off after anything and not follow him," cried Jack Penny. "He's a good dog, you know. What is it he's after?" "Some savage beast that has been haunting us all night," cried the doctor. "I should like to follow Gyp, but it would be madness, my lads, and--hark, what's that?" I felt cold as a most unearthly howl came from a long distance away. "Is--is that him?" said Jack, whose eyes looked round and large. "Dat big bunyip," said a voice that made us start, for Jimmy had come up from the dark camp unperceived. "Eat black fellow, white man, anyfing." No one replied to Jimmy's piece of information, and we listened for some minutes till a faint rustling, heard first by the black, who stood ready to hurl his spear, made us all place a finger on the trigger. But it was only caused by the dog, who soon after came into sight, with his tail between his legs, and his hair bristling with terror. He ran right to his master and stood behind him, shivering and whining, as he stared in the direction from which he had come. "Gyp see big bunyip!" cried Jimmy. "Gyp find a bunyip!" "I say," said Jack; "it's my watch now. I s'pose you two are going to lie down." "Frightened, Jack?" I said maliciously. "P'r'aps I am, and p'r'aps I ain't," said Jack stoutly. "I should say I felt frightened if I was; but if you two were going to watch I wouldn't go away and leave you with a big beast like that about. He must be a big one or he wouldn't have frightened Gyp, who'll tackle old man kangaroos six-foot high. You can go if you like, though." This was a long speech for Jack Penny, who rubbed one of his ears in an ill-used way. "Jimmy, black fellow 'fraid um bunyip; oh, yes!" said my follower; "but Jimmy no run away." "We shall not leave you alone, Penny," said the doctor, smiling. "It would not be fair." So we stayed with him till day broke, and not having heard the slightest sound to intimate the neighbourhood of danger, and the dog lying quite still and content by his master, the doctor and I went to get a couple of hours' rest, just as the forest glades were beginning to echo with the screaming of birds of the parrot family, Jimmy bending over me and poking me with the butt end of his spear, almost directly, so it seemed to me, that I had lain down. "Jimmy hungry," he said; "gimmy damper--brackfass. Come long." "Did you hear the bunyip any more, Jimmy?" I said, yawning. "No. Bunyip go sleep all a morning--all a day! Come a night. How-wow!" He put his head on one side and gave so marvellous an imitation of the terrible cries I had heard during the night that I felt sure he must know the creature. "What is it makes that noise, Jimmy?" I said eagerly. "Bunyip--big ugly fellow bunyip!" he exclaimed; and I felt so cross and annoyed with his eternal bunyip that I was ready to kick him; but I refrained, and went instead to the fire, where the doctor was waiting breakfast, after sending Jimmy to wake me up. CHAPTER FIFTEEN. HOW JACK PENNY WAS PERSECUTED BY PIGS. I have often thought since what a wild journey ours was, and how ignorant we must have been to plunge recklessly and in such a haphazard way into a country that, though an island, is a long way on towards being large enough to be called a continent. Still we made the venture, and somehow as soon as a peril was passed we all looked upon it as belonging to yesterday, and troubled ourselves about it no more. I had risen on the morning after our nocturnal adventure feeling despondent and sleepy; but the bright sunshine and the tempting odour of roasting bird stuck on a stick close to the flame, soon made me forget the troubles of the night, and an hour later, with every one in the best of spirits, we made a fresh start, keeping near the river, but beneath the shade of the trees, for the sun seemed to be showering down burning arrows, and wherever we had to journey across the open the heat was intense. In the shady parts the green of the undergrowth looked delicate and pale, but in the sunshine it was of the most vivid green; and bathing in it, as it were, flies and beetles hummed and buzzed, and beat their gauzy wings, so that they seemed invisible, while wherever there was a bare patch of stony or rocky earth lizards were hurrying in and out, and now and then a drab-looking little serpent lay twisted up into a knot. The bearers stepped along lightly enough beneath their loads, and I observed that they never looked to right or left, or seemed to admire anything before them, their eyes being always fixed upon the earth where they were about to plant their feet. Ti-hi in particular tried to warn me to be on the look-out, pointing over and over again to the spade-headed little serpents we saw now and then gliding in amongst the grass. "Killum," said Jimmy upon one of these occasions, and he suited the word to the action by striking one of these little reptiles with his spear and breaking its back. After this he spat viciously at the little creature, picking it up by its tail and jerking it right away amongst the trees. "No killum kill all a body," said Jimmy nodding; and he went through a sort of pantomime, showing the consequences of being bitten by a viper, beginning with drowsiness, continuing through violent sickness, which it seemed was followed by a fall upon the earth, a few kicks and struggles, and lastly by death, for the black ended his performance by stretching himself out stiffly and closing his eyes, saying: "Jimmy dead; black fellow dig big hole and put um in de ground. Poor old Jimmy!" Then he jumped up and laughed, saying: "Killum all um snake! No good! No!" "I say, Joe Carstairs," said Jack Penny, who had watched the performance with a good deal of interest; "don't that chap ever get tired?" "Oh yes; and goes to sleep every time he gets a chance," I said. "Yes! but don't his back ache? Mine does, horrid, every day, without banging about like that;" and as if he felt his trouble then Jack Penny turned his rueful-looking boy's face to me and began softly rubbing his long man's back just across the loins. It was very funny, too, when Jack was speaking earnestly. In an ordinary conversation he would go on drawl, drawl, drawl in a bass voice; but whenever he grew excited he began to squeak and talk in a high-pitched treble like a boy, till he noticed it himself, and then he would begin to growl again in almost an angry tone; and this was the case now. "Here, you're laughing!" he said savagely. "I can't help being tall and thin, and having a gruff voice like a man, when I'm only a boy. I don't try to be big and tall! I grew so. And I don't try to talk gruff." "Oh yes! you do, Jack," I said. "Well, p'r'aps I do; but I don't try to talk thin, like I do sometimes." "I couldn't help laughing, Jack," I said, holding out my hand. "I did not mean to ridicule you." He gave my hand quite an angry slap and turned away, but only to come back directly. "Here, I say; I beg your pardon, Joe Carstairs," he said, holding out his hand, which I shook heartily. "I wish I hadn't got such a beastly bad temper. I do try not to show it, but it makes me wild when people laugh at me." "Well, I won't laugh at you any more, Jack," I said earnestly. "No, don't; there's a good chap," he said, with the tears in his eyes. "It's partly why I came away from home, you know. I wanted to come and find the professor, of course, and I like coming for the change; but it's principally that." "Principally _that_!" I said. "I don't understand you, Jack." "Why, I mean about being laughed at! Everybody has always been laughing at me, because I grew so thin and long and weak-looking, and I got tired of it at last, and was precious glad to come out to New Guinea to stop till I had grown thicker. For I said to myself, I don't s'pose the savage chaps will laugh at me, and if they do I can drop on 'em and they won't do it again." "It must have been unpleasant, Jack," I said. "It's horrid, old fellow," he said confidentially; "and all the more because you are obliged to laugh at it all when you feel as if you'd like to double 'em up and jump on 'em." "Well, there, Jack; I give you my word I won't laugh at you again." "Will you?" cried Jack, with his face beaming, and looking quite pleasant. "Well, that is kind of you. If the doctor wouldn't laugh either I should be as happy as the day's long." "I'll ask him not to," I said. "Oh, no; don't do that!" he cried quickly then; "he'd leave off laughing at me just out of pity, and I'd rather he laughed at me than pitied me, you know. Don't ask him not." "All right!" I said. "I will not." "I'd rather he laughed at me," said Jack again thoughtfully; "for I like the doctor; he's such a brave chap. I say, Joe Carstairs, I wish I could grow into a big broad-chested brave chap with a great beard, like the doctor." "So you will some day." "Tchah!" he cried impatiently. "Look there--there's long thin arms! There's a pair of legs! And see what a body I've got. I ain't got no looking-glass here, but last time I looked at myself my head and face looked like a small knob on the top of a thin pump." "You let yourself alone, and don't grumble at your shape," I said sturdily, and to tell the truth rather surprising myself, for I had no idea that I was such a philosopher. "Your legs are right enough. They only want flesh and muscle, and it's the same with your arms. Wait a bit and it will all come, just as beards do when people grow to be men." "I sha'n't never have any beard," said Jack, dolefully; "my face is as smooth as a girl's!" "I daresay the doctor was only a little smooth soft baby once," I said; "and now see what he is." "Ah! ain't he a fine fellow?" said Jack. "I'm going to try and do as he does, and I want to have plenty of pluck; but no sooner do I get into a scrape than I turn cowardly, same as I did over that little humbug of a crocodile." "Don't talk nonsense, Jack!" I said. "'Tisn't nonsense! Why, if I'd had as much courage as a wallaby I should have kicked that thing out of the water; and all I did was to lay hold of a bough and holler murder!" "I didn't hear you," I said. "Well, _help_! then. I know I hollered something." "And enough to make you. The doctor said he is sure he should not have borne it so bravely as you." "No: did he? When?" "To be sure he did, when we were sitting watching last night." "Bah! it was only his fun. He was laughing at me again." "He was not," I said decidedly. "He was in real earnest." "Oh!" said Jack softly; and there was once more the pleasant light in his countenance that quite brightened it up. I was going to say something else, but he made a motion with his hand as if asking me to be silent; and he walked on to the front to go behind Ti-hi, who was first man, while I went and marched beside the doctor, and chatted with him about the country and our future prospects. "It seems, almost too lovely," I said; "and it worries me because I feel as if I ought to be sad and unhappy, while all the time everything seems so beautiful that I can't help enjoying it." "In spite of perils and dangers, Joe, eh?" he said smiling; and then we went on threading our way amongst the magnificent trees, and every now and then coming upon one standing all alone, its position having allowed of its growing into a perfect state. Again we came upon one of these, literally alive with parrots; and, as I stopped to admire them, I could see that when they opened their vivid green wings the inner parts were of a brilliant flame colour, and there was a ruddy orange patch upon the little feathers at the inset of their tails. Then we came upon monkeys again, quite a family of them, and instead of running away and leaping from branch to branch they began to chatter and shriek and dash about in the greatest excitement, just as if they were scolding us for coming among them, chattering among themselves directly after as if meditating an attack. Before another hour had passed, after noting the beauty of the butterflies, which seemed to increase in number as we penetrated farther into the interior, we came next upon an enormous tree full of gaudily-tinted parroquets, which were nearly as numerous as the parrots of an hour before. "We sha'n't want for food, Joe," the doctor said, "so long as we have plenty of powder; parroquets and parrots are fruit birds, and splendid eating. Look there." As he spoke he raised his gun, fired, and directly the report had struck my ears I saw Jimmy and Gyp set off at full speed. They returned both at odds, the one growling, the other calling his rival a bad bunyip dog, but both holding tightly by a large bird, Gyp having its head, Jimmy the legs. It proved to be something between a turkey and a pheasant, and from its look it promised to be good eating, for which purpose it was handed over to Ti-hi's care. The leader now bore off a little to our left, the result being that we once more struck the river, to find it a large swift stream, but not an attractive place for travellers, since from that one spot where we stood beneath the shelter of some trees I counted at least twenty crocodiles floating slowly down, with the protuberances above their eyes just visible, and here and there at least thirty more lying about on the muddy banks. Towards evening, as we were journeying slowly on, Jimmy came running back to fetch me, and catching me by the hand he led me through some bushes to where a thickly wooded park-like stretch of land began, and motioning me to be silent and follow him he crept from tree to tree, till, having reached what he considered to be a satisfactory position, he pointed upward, and from behind the tree where we were ensconced I looked among the branches far overhead, and for the first time saw one of those wonderfully plumaged creatures--the birds of paradise. I could have stopped there for long, gazing at the beautiful creatures with their fountain-like plumage of pale gold, but time would not permit of my lagging behind, and to Jimmy's great disgust I hurried back, and determined that no object should lead me away from the great aim of our journey. The turkey was ample as a meal for us, but we wanted food for our followers, so as to husband our flour and biscuits. Birds were all very well, but we wanted to kill something more substantial, and for a long time past we had seen no sign of deer, though traces of buffalo were pretty frequent in spots where they had made a peculiar track down to the river, evidently going regularly to quench their thirst. The sight of the buffalo tracks formed the subject of a discussion. Fresh meat was wanted for our followers, who made very light of birds, and one of these animals would have been invaluable to us just then; but the doctor decided that it would not be prudent to follow them, they being rather dangerous beasts, and therefore, though the meat would have been so useful both for present use and to dry in the sun, we gave up the idea of trying to obtain any, preferring to trust to finding deer, and continued our journey. We had gone very little farther, and I was just about to propose to the doctor that we should venture as far as the river and try for some fish, when there was an alarm given by the native who was leading, and in an instant loads were thrown down and every man sought refuge in a tree. We did not understand the natives' words, but their actions were easy enough to read, and all followed their example, the doctor and I getting up into the same tree, one which forked very low down, and we were just in safety when we heard a cry, and saw that Jack Penny was in difficulties. He too had climbed part of the way into a tree, when he had slipped, and in spite of all his efforts he could not at first contrive to get back; and this was just as a rushing noise was heard, that I thought must be a herd of buffalo, but, directly after, a drove of small wild pig came furiously charging down. My attention was divided between the sight of the pigs and Jack Penny, whose long legs kept dropping down, and then being spasmodically snatched up. I burst into a roar of laughter, and Jimmy, who was standing, spear in hand, upon a branch, holding on by another, danced with excitement and delight. "Pull yourself right up, Jack," I shouted, and I had hard work to make my voice heard above the grunting and squealing. "I can't," he yelled back. "Then kick out at the little brutes," I shouted; and just then he lowered himself to the full length of his arms, swung to and fro, and half-a-dozen pigs rushed at him, but he had gained impetus, and just as they made a dash at him he swung his legs up, and clung with them to a branch. "Hurrah!" I shouted; and then a sharp squeal uttered by one unfortunate pig as Jimmy drove his spear through it as it passed beneath his feet, and the sharp report of the doctor's piece, brought me to my senses. The scene had been so comical, especially as regarded Jack Penny, that I had forgotten that I was letting several good dinners slip away, and I had just time to get a quick shot at one of the pigs which was stamping his hoof and grunting defiantly at Jack Penny, before the whole drove, including one that had received an arrow from Ti-hi's bow, swept by us as hurriedly as they came, and were gone. "Not hurt, are you, Jack?" I said, preparing to jump. "Keep your place," cried the doctor; "they may come back." "Well, I shall have a better shot at them," I said. "You foolish boy!" cried the doctor. "Why, the boars would rip you to pieces." I returned to my place at this, and it was fortunate that I did so, for directly after, as if in the wildest of haste, the pig drove came dashing back, to stop as hastily as they came up, and stand snapping, tossing their heads, grunting, squealing, and at times literally barking at us. A couple of shots which laid low one of their party seemed, however, to scare them, and they dashed on once more, and hardly had they gone twenty yards before there was a loud thud and Jack Penny fell from the branch, where he had been clinging, flat upon his back. "Oh my!" he cried, as he sat up and looked about. "I couldn't hold on any longer. It's lucky they are gone." "Look out!" I cried, swinging myself down, dropping my gun, and pulling my hatchet from my belt; but Jack would have fared badly if he had depended on me. For the little boar that had been wounded by an arrow, had dropped, apparently dying, when its companions swept by the second time, but it had fierce life enough left in it to take advantage of Jack Penny's helpless condition, and leaping up it charged at him, its tusks glistening, and the foam tossed from its snapping jaws falling upon its sides. A bullet would have given the fierce beast its quietus, but the doctor would not fire for fear of hitting Jack, and he sat with his gun raised waiting for an opportunity. Jack saw his danger and rolled himself over, trying vainly the while to drag his axe from his belt. Then just as the furious little boar was dashing at him, I saw something black dart down from above; there was a rush, a squeal, and the boar was literally pinned to the earth, while Jimmy stood grinning and staring from the doctor to me and back, as if asking to be complimented upon his feat. For it really was a feat. He had jumped fully ten feet to the ground spear in hand, and literally thrown himself upon the little boar. "A magnificent jump, Jimmy," I cried. "Jimmy de boy to jump," he said, complacently. "Pig, pig kill Mass Jack Penny, Jimmy no spear um." "Yes, I 'spect I should have ketched it pretty warmly," said Jack, gathering himself up. "Oh, I say, I did come down such a bump, Joe Carstairs. It seemed to shake my back joints all to pieces." "Jimmy spear um lil pig, pig," said the black. "Yes, and I'll give you my knife for it," said Jack, taking out his great clasp-knife. "It's a real good one, Jimmy, and I wouldn't have parted with it for a deal." "Jimmy got knife," said the black, with a contemptuous look. "Jimmy don't want knife." "Well, then, what shall I give you?" said Jack. "Tickpence," said he, grinning; "give Jimmy tickpence." "Why, what for?" I cried. "What are you going to do with _tick_ pence?" "Spend um," said Jimmy; "black fellow spend money, money. Give Jimmy all a tickpence." "But there's nowhere to spend it," I said. "Nev mind, Jimmy spend tickpence all a same. Give Jimmy tickpence." Jack had not a single coin about him, neither had I, but fortunately the doctor had one, which he handed to Jack, who gave it to the delighted black, and it was forthwith thrust into the pocket of the curtailed trousers, after which he strutted about, leaving the other blacks to perform the duty of dressing the pigs. CHAPTER SIXTEEN. HOW JIMMY WAS TAKEN VERY BAD INDEED. This sudden supply of food necessitated our making camp where we were, and cutting the meat up into strips to dry, while, apparently on the principle of making their hay while the sun shone, the blacks lit a fire and had a tremendous feast, both Jack Penny and I laughing heartily to see the solemn face of Jimmy as he devoted himself to the task of storing up an abundance of food, ready for emergencies. At our table, as the doctor called it, we contented ourselves with the turkey-like bird, which was delicious, but we tasted the wild pig, a piece of which, fairly well roasted, was brought to us in the most solicitous manner by Ti-hi, who smiled contentedly as he saw us begin to partake thereof. We set it aside, though, as soon as the black had gone, for the doctor pronounced it strong and musky, and Jack Penny behaved very rudely, according to the ordinary etiquette of the dinner table, and exclaimed: "Oh, law!" It was a glorious sunset, and the place where we were encamped, as we styled it, was once more beneath a huge tree. For a time I was listening to the birds' screams and cries from the forest, and then all at once they ceased, and a long-drawn howl, which recalled the horrors of our night-watch, arose from a distance. Then the sun sank, and darkness began to come on very quickly. First the sky paled and a star or two began to twinkle, then all above us was of a deep intense purple, studded and encrusted with points of dazzling light, and, like the doctor, tired out with loss of rest, I began to yawn. For our evenings were not devoted to amusements. Our day only had two divisions, that for work and that for rest. As soon as the arduous toil of the day was over, and we had partaken of food, we were ready for sleep; so this time Jack Penny was set to watch with Ti-hi and Gyp, and we lay down on a bough-made bed. One moment I was lying on my back gazing up at the stars, and first thinking of my mother and how anxious she must be as to how I was getting on; then wondering where my father was likely to be, and whether we were going to work in the best way to find him; the next moment I was dreaming that Gyp had run after and caught a wild man of the woods by the tail, and had dragged him into camp, howling dismally. It did not fit into my dream that wild men of the woods were not likely to be possessed of tails for Gyp to tug, and if they were, that they would have striven to crush the dog by one blow of the hand; my dream arranged itself, and the howling was continued as I started up, all wakefulness, and saw a dark figure bending over me and looking colossal as seen against the ruddy light of the fire. "Is that you, doctor?" I said. "Yes, Joe; wake up. I want you." "What's the matter--has that horrible thing come again?" "No," he said; "the black is very bad." "What! old Jimmy?" I cried. "Yes. That is he howling." I jumped up with a curious sensation of suffocation at my chest, for, startled from a deep sleep into wakefulness, it occurred to me that something dreadful was going to happen, and that we were to lose the true-hearted, merry, boyish companion of so many years. Like a flash there seemed to come back to me the memory of dozens of expeditions in which he had been my faithful comrade, and this was like a death-blow to our hopes, for, in spite of his obstinacy and arrogance, Jimmy would have laid down his life to serve me. "Let us go to him, doctor," I said. "Make haste!" Our way to the black lay past the camp fire, where Jack Penny was sitting with Ti-hi, and the former spoke excitedly as we drew near: "I say, doctor, do make haste and give him a dose of something to do him good, or else put him out of his misery." "Jack!" I said in disgust. "Well, he's awful bad, you know, and he ought to have something. Mind how you go to him. I went just now and he began hitting at my legs with his waddy, and then he poked at Gyp with his spear for going up to smell him." "He won't hurt me," I said sadly; and as another doleful cry came from among the bushes, I led the way to where the poor fellow lay, horribly swollen and writhing in agony. Two of the blacks were watching him, and from what we could make out it seemed that Jimmy had alarmed them by his restlessness, and that they had fetched him back when he ran some distance and fell, and laid him where he now was, in too much agony to stir. "What is the matter with him, doctor?" I said excitedly, as I went down on one knee and took the poor fellow's hand, which he grasped convulsively, and laid flat directly upon his chest--at least that is to say, nearly. "I hardly know yet, my lad," said the doctor. "Perhaps he has eaten some poisonous berry. You know how he tastes every wild fruit we pass." "And will it--will it--" I could say no more, for something seemed to choke my voice, and I looked up imploringly in the doctor's eyes. "Oh! no, Joe, my lad," he said kindly, "not so bad as that." "Jimmy bad as that--Jimmy bad as that," moaned the poor fellow; and as just then Jack Penny threw some light twigs upon the fire, the blaze showed me the swollen and distorted countenance of my poor companion, and a strange chill of apprehension came over me. We watched by him all night, but he grew worse towards morning, and at last he lay apparently stupefied, free from pain, but as if the berry, or whatever it was that he had swallowed, had rendered him insensible. Of course, continuing our journey was out of the question, so all we could do was to make the rough brushwood pallet of the sufferer more comfortable by spreading over it a blanket, and I did little else but watch by it all the day. I felt hurt two or three times by the rough, unfeeling manner in which the doctor behaved towards the black, and I could not help thinking that if Jimmy had been a white man the treatment would have been different. This worried me a good deal, for it seemed so different to the doctor's customary way; but I took comfort from the fact that poor Jimmy was as insensible to pain as he was to kindness, and in this state of misery I hardly left him all day. Towards evening the doctor, who had spent the time overhauling and cleaning our guns and pistols, came to me and insisted upon my going to Jack Penny, who had just got a good meal ready. "But I am not a bit hungry, doctor," I cried. "Then go and eat against you are," he said. "Lay in a moderate store, and don't," he added meaningly, "don't eat more than is good for you." I looked at him wonderingly, and got up without a word, feeling more hurt and annoyed with him than ever, and the more so as he looked at me with a peculiar smile as he twisted a stout cane about in his hands. "How's Jimmy?" said Jack Penny. "Dying," I said sadly, as I took my seat before him. "Oh! I say, not so bad as that, Joe Carstairs! It takes a lot to kill a fellow like Jimmy. He'll come all right again. Here, set to and have a good feed. You must want it awfully." "I can't eat," I said bitterly. "I liked poor old Jimmy. A better fellow never breathed. He saved your life yesterday." "Ah! that he did," said Jack; "and it's all right. The doctor says-- Hullo! what's that?" I started to my feet, for a horrible scream rang through the woods from the direction where poor Jimmy lay; and a pang shot through me as I felt that it was a new throe being suffered by my poor black comrade--comrade soon to be no more. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN. HOW THE DOCTOR GAVE JIMMY HIS PHYSICS. I could not move for a few moments, the terrible cry and the shrieks that followed seemed to rob me of all power; but overcoming this paralysing feeling at last, I ran towards where poor Jimmy lay, the thought flashing upon my mind that the doctor must be performing some operation to try and save the poor fellow's life. I was quite right, as I found when I reached the spot, followed by all the little camp: the doctor was performing an operation, and the Australian was upon his knees now, his feet then, capering about, and appealing for mercy. For the instrument with which the doctor was performing his operation was the stout cane I had previously seen in his hand, one that he had cut in the jungle, and then sent me away so as to spare my feelings and keep me from witnessing the painful sight. To my utter astonishment Jimmy was apparently free from all traces of his late ailment, and catching sight of me he bounded to me, getting behind me to avoid the hail of blows that the doctor was showering upon his unprotected person. "Doctor!" I shouted. "The dose to be repeated," he said, "when necessary," and he reached round me with the cane, giving Jimmy two or three very sharp cuts. "See how this takes down the swelling. For outward application only. One dose nearly certain to cure." "What are you doing?" I cried. "Doing? Performing a wonderful cure. Hasn't Jimmy here been horribly ill, and alarmed the whole camp?" Every time he could he gave Jimmy a smart cut, and the black shrieked with pain. "How are you now, my man?" he said mockingly. "Jimmy quite as well. Ever so better. All rightums. Tank you better," yelled the black, and he sheltered himself again behind my back. "Doctor," I said, surprised and angry at what seemed horrible cruelty. "Give him some more?" he said laughing. "Of course I will," and he tried to reach round me, but I caught hold of the cane, and Jimmy took advantage of the cessation of hostilities for a moment to run for some distance and then climb up a tree, in one of the higher branches of which he settled himself like a monkey, and sat rubbing himself and looking down at the danger from which he had escaped. "There, Joe," said the doctor, laughing; "it has made me hot. That's as good a cure as the Queen's physician could have made." "How could you be so brutal to the poor wretch?" I said indignantly. "Brutal! Ha! ha! ha! My indignant young hero!" he cried. "Here are you going to take up the cudgels in the rascal's behalf. Don't you see there was nothing the matter with the artful black ruffian." "Nothing the matter!" I said. "Why, wasn't he dangerously ill?" "Dangerously full," said the doctor, clapping me on the shoulder. "I was obliged to give him a lesson, Joe, and it will do him good for all our trip. I suspected the rascal from the very first, but I have studied medicine long enough to know how easy it is to be deceived by appearances; so I gave Master Jimmy the benefit of the doubt, and treated him as if he was really very ill, till I had made assurance doubly sure, and then I thrashed him." "What! do you really mean, doctor--" I began. "It could not very well have happened with an Englishman, Joe. With Master Jimmy there, it was different." "But was he not very ill?" "You saw him run and climb that tree; you heard how he yelled. Now what do you think? Could a dying man do that?" "N-no," I faltered. "What does it all mean, then?" "Pig!" said the doctor, smiling; "the gluttonous dog ate till he could not stir. He had as much as anybody else, and then waited his chance, and when every one was lying down he began upon the store of dried strips." "Jimmy terribull sorry, Mass Joe," came from up the tree. "He behaved like a boa constrictor, and then alarmed us all horribly instead of confessing the truth. Why, my dear boy, do you suppose I should have been so cruel to a sick man?" "You black rascal!" I cried, looking up at Jimmy, who howled like a dog. "Jimmy come down now! Never do so no more." "Only let me have a turn at you," I said, and he immediately began to climb higher. "Here, you come down, sir," I shouted. For answer he climbed higher and higher till he was pretty well out of sight among the small branches in the top of the tree. "All right!" I said, "I can wait;" and I walked away with the doctor, horribly annoyed at the waste of time, but wonderfully relieved at matters being no worse. I never knew, but I suspect that Jimmy stopped in the top of the tree till it was dark and then slunk down and hid himself amongst the bushes close up to the watch-fire. At all events he was busy the next morning working away as if nothing had been wrong overnight. He showed himself to be most active in putting things straight, making up the loads, and every now and then glancing furtively first at one of us and then at the other. "Oh, I do like Jimmy, that I do," said Jack Penny to me, and then he threw himself down and began to laugh heartily, shutting his eyes and rolling himself gently to and fro till he declared that he felt better, and got up. "I don't care about laughing when I'm standing up," he said seriously, "it waggles my back so." When breakfast time came, for we had a seven or eight mile walk first in the cool of the early morning, we made a halt and the rations were served out by the doctor, who gave me a look and handed each black his portion in turn, but omitted Jimmy. The latter stood disconsolately looking on for some minutes in the hope that he was to be remembered after all; but when he saw everybody busy at work eating and himself utterly neglected, he walked slowly away some distance from where we were seated and, laying his head against the trunk of a tree, let out a series of the most unearthly howls. "Oh, I say!" exclaimed Jack Penny. "Pleasant," said the doctor, going on with his breakfast; and seeing that he was observed, and that his howls were having some effect, Jimmy displayed the utter childlike disposition of a savage by redoubling his cries. "If he don't stop directly I shall go and talk to him with this," I said, snatching up a stick. "How--aw--ooo!" cried Jimmy, and I jumped to my feet, when he became silent, and I resumed my place. Jimmy watched us eagerly for a few minutes, when, left half starved himself, and unable to bear the neglect when others were enjoying themselves, the howls burst out again followed by a self-commiserating--"Poor Jimmy, Mass Joe not care poor Jimmy never now." No one took any notice, and we went on eating grilled turkey and damper and drinking coffee, and all the time I was rather enjoying my importance and the fact of being able to control, boy as I was, a stout powerful fellow like Jimmy and make him as obedient as a dog. "Poor old Jimmy cut handums. Ebber so sorry, poor Jimmy. Go and die himself. Haw--ow!" "I say," said Jack Penny, "he couldn't dye himself any blacker, could he, Joe Carstairs?" "Have some more coffee, Joe?" said the doctor aloud. "Here, give me a piece more turkey." "Poor Jimmy go starve a deff," was the next that met our ears, and it had such an effect upon Jack Penny that some of his coffee got into his windpipe and he choked and coughed and laughed till he was obliged to lie down. "If I was to cough much like that I should break my back," he said, sitting up and wiping his eyes. "Poor old Jimmy? I do like him. He _is_ a one." Jimmy stood watching the disappearing food, then he sat down. Then he lay at full length; but no one took the slightest notice, for the blacks were selfishly busy, and we were keeping up the punishment for the false alarm to which our follower had subjected us. At last this attack upon Jimmy's tenderest part--his appetite--grew to be more than he could bear, and he sat up in the squatting attitude so much affected by savages. "Ah!" he exclaimed dolefully, "poor black fellow--poor Jimmy!" and this started Jack Penny off laughing once more, which so exasperated Jimmy that he sprang up as sharply as if stung, and ran in a rage to where his black companions were eating their food. "Here, hi! you black fellow, Jimmy done wid him. Jimmy gib boomerang. You no fro down wallaby." He held out his curious hard-wood weapon to Ti-hi, who took it, gazing at him wonderingly, while Jimmy glanced at us to see if we were about to relent and give him some breakfast. "Jimmy going," he said at last, loud enough for us to hear; but we paid no heed. "Jimmy going; nebber come back no more," he said in a louder voice; but no one turned a head. "Jimmy go jump river. Big bunyip crocodile come eat poor Jimmy. All um very sorry. No see poor Jimmy not nev more." He glanced at us again, but we were laughing over our breakfast, though not so busy but that we were able to see the black fold his arms and stalk away, evidently under the impression that we should start up and arrest him; but no one moved. "Big water bunyip glad get black fellow," he said, as loudly as he could, and with a scornful look at us. "Here, suppose we go," said the doctor, rising. "Go?" said Jack, getting up slowly, "where to?" "To see Jimmy feed the crocodiles. Come along, lads." Jimmy stopped short with his jaw dropped, and nearly beside himself with rage. He seemed to be completely staggered at our cool way of taking things, and at last he ran off like the wind, rushed back again with his eyes flashing, and slapping his legs as he darted upon Ti-hi, waddy in hand. "Gib boomerang Jimmy, black tief fellow," he roared. "Take a boomerang. Jimmy boomerang. Tief fellow tole a boomerang." Snatching it from Ti-hi's hand he made believe to strike him with the curious weapon and then rushed off with it into the bush. "Well, Joe," said the doctor, "do you think the crocodiles will dine on blackbird?" I shook my head. "What do you say, Jack Penny, eh?" "Jimmy won't jump in, I know," drawled Jack. "You're right," said the doctor; "he'll come back before long hungry as a hunter, and regularly tamed down or I'm no judge of character." "Yes," I said, "and he'll bring back something he has killed so as to try and make friends. That's how he always did at home." "Well," said Jack Penny solemnly, "I hope he will. I like Jimmy, he makes me laugh, and though it hurts my back I like laughing. It does me good. I never used to have anything to laugh at at home. Father used to laugh when he kicked me, but it never seemed funny to me, and I never used to laugh at that." "Well, Jack Penny, I dare say the black will give you something to laugh at before long, for I don't suppose it will be long before he is back." CHAPTER EIGHTEEN. HOW I NEARLY HAD AN ARROW TO DRINK. We were soon on the way towards the interior again, and the doctor and I had set to work trying to obtain some information from Ti-hi, and also from Aroo, another intelligent looking follower who had been one of the prisoners made by the captain of the burnt schooner. It was hard work, but we were daily getting to understand more and more of the commoner words of conversation, and by degrees we managed to make out that the reason why we had not come upon any native village was that the nearest was still many days' journey distant, but that if we changed our course and went down to the sea-shore we should soon find signs of occupation. But I felt that this would be of no use, for if my father had been anywhere on the coast he must have come in contact sooner or later with one or other of the trading vessels, whose captains, even if they could not bring him away on account of his being a prisoner, would certainly have reported somewhere that they had seen a white captive, and the news must have spread. "He must be right in the interior somewhere," I said; "and I'm sure we can't do better than keep on." "I think you are right, Joe," said the doctor thoughtfully. "I feel sure I am," I said. "I don't expect to find him directly; but I mean to go on trying till I do." "That's the way to find anybody," said Jack Penny. "You're sure to find 'em if you keep on like that. Come along." Jack went off; taking great strides as if he expected to be successful at once; but he did not keep up the pace long, but hung back for me to overtake him, saying: "I say, Joe Carstairs; does your back ever ache much?" "No," I said; "very little. Only when I'm very tired." "Ah! you ain't got so much back as I have," he said, shaking his head. "When you've got as much as I have you'll have the back-ache awfully, like I do. I say, I wonder where old Jimmy has got to." "He's close at hand somewhere," I said. "Depend upon it he has not gone far. If the truth were known," I continued, "he's walking along abreast of us, just hidden in the bushes." "Think so?" said Jack dubiously. "I'm about sure of it," I replied. "I ain't," said Jack. "I'm afraid he's gone right away back; and we've offended him so that we sha'n't see him any more." "You keep your opinion, Jack, and I'll keep to mine. I say, I wonder what that noise is!" "Noise! Birds," said Jack. "No, no! That dull murmur. There, listen!" "Wind in the trees." "No, I'm sure it is not!" I exclaimed. "There! it is gone now. It is like far-off thunder." "Water," said the doctor, who had closed up with us unperceived. "I've been listening to it, and it sounds to me like a waterfall. Depend upon it we shall find that the river comes down over some pile of rocks, and if we were clear of the forest and could take a good look round we should find that the country is growing mountainous on ahead." It seemed during the next day's journey that the doctor was right, for we were certainly ascending, the land growing more rugged and toilsome, but at the same time far more beautiful and full of variety. In place of always journeying on through thick forest or park-like stretches, we now found our way was among stony ridges and long heavy slopes, with here and there a lovely valley, so full of beauty that I used to think to myself that perhaps we should find my father had built himself a hut in some such place as this, and was patiently going on with his collecting. We had seen nothing of Jimmy for three days, and though I suspected him of being close at hand, and coming to our camp at night stealthily in search of food, it really began to appear as if he had left us for good, when an adventure towards evening showed us who was correct in his surmise. "I don't think much of the doctor's waterfall," Jack said to me, in his dry drawling way. "Why, we haven't seen it!" I replied. "No, nor we ain't going to, seemingly. It's wind amongst the trees." "Don't be so obstinate," I said, listening intently to hear the heavy thunderous murmur still, now I listened for it, though I had not seemed to notice it before. "There ain't no waterfall," he replied, "or we should have seen it before now." "Perhaps the shape of the land keeps us from getting near it, or perhaps the wind drives the sound away." "Or perhaps the sound drives the wind away, or perhaps the--Look out, Joe, look out!" Jack Penny leaped aside nimbly, and I followed his example, hardly escaping, while the man in front of me, less quick in his motion consequent upon his having a load upon his head, was sent flying by a great slate-coloured buffalo which had suddenly charged us from behind a clump of trees where it had been lying. It all happened so quickly that I had not time to think of my gun, while the doctor was fifty yards behind, and could not have fired had he been able to see, for fear of hurting us. The great beast had stopped for a moment after sending our bearer flying, and then, seeing him down, snorted a little, lowered his head, and would doubtless have tossed and trampled him to death had there not suddenly come a whirring whizzing noise from some bushes in a hollow on our right, when something struck the buffalo a heavy blow upon the muzzle, making it turn up its head, utter a furious roar, and charge at the bushes. This was my opportunity, and taking a quick aim I fired, and heard the bullet strike with a heavy thud, when the buffalo seemed to drop upon its knees on the steep slope, and literally turned a somersault, crashing with a tremendous noise into some trees; and then, to my astonishment, rising again and going off at a lumbering gallop. It did not go far, for just then there was the sharp crack of the doctor's piece, and once more the buffalo fell heavily, to lie struggling, while, to my astonishment I saw a familiar black figure bound out of the bushes, catch up the boomerang he had thrown, and then race after the buffalo, which he reached just as the doctor also came up and put it out of its misery by a merciful shot in the head. "Jimmy killum! Jimmy boomerang killum!" shouted the black, dancing on the prostrate beast, while Jack and I were busy helping the poor bearer to his feet, and making sure that though stunned he was not seriously hurt. "No," said the doctor. "No bones broken. It's wonderful what some of these savage races will bear." He ceased his examination and gave the poor fellow a friendly clap on the shoulder, while, after lying down for a time in the new camping-ground, close up to the welcome supply of meat, the injured man was sufficiently recovered to sit up, and eat his share of roast buffalo flesh. Some delicious steaks which we cooked proved very welcome to us by way of a change, but we did not commence without a few words with Master Jimmy, who was all smiles and friendliness now with everybody, till the doctor said, pointing to the abundant supply of meat: "No more bad illness, Jimmy. You are not to eat much." "Jimmy won't eat not bit!" he cried viciously. "Go in a bush and starve a deff." "There, sit down and eat your supper!" said the doctor sternly; "and no more nonsense, please." The black looked at him in a sidelong fashion, and his fingers played with the handle of his waddy, which was behind him in his waistband, and then he quailed beneath the doctor's steady gaze, and sat down humbly by the camp fire to cook and eat what was really a moderate quantity for an Australian black. Next morning we were off at daybreak, our way lying up a narrow ravine for a short distance, and then between a couple of masses of rock, which seemed to have been split apart by some earthquake; and directly we were through here the dull humming buzz that we had heard more or less for days suddenly fell upon our ears with a deep majestic boom that rose at times, as the wind set our way, into a deafening roar. I looked triumphantly at Jack Penny, but he only held his head higher in the air and gave a sniff, lowering his crest directly after to attend to his feet, for we were now in a complete wilderness of rocks and stones, thrown in all directions, and at times we had regularly to climb. "It is useless to bring the men this way," the doctor said, after a couple of hours' labour; but as he spoke Ti-hi called a halt and pointed in a different direction, at right angles to that which we had so far followed, as being the one we should now take. The sun had suddenly become unbearable, for we were hemmed in by piled-up stones, and its heat was reflected from the brightly glistening masses, some of which were too hot even to be touched without pain, while the glare was almost blinding wherever the rocks were crystalline and white. "I say, is that a cloud?" said Jack Penny, drawing our attention to a fleecy mass that could be seen rising between a couple of masses of rock. "Yes!" cried the doctor eagerly, as he shaded his eyes from the sun's glare; "a cloud of spray. The falls are there!" "Or is it the wind you can see in the trees?" I said, with a look at Jack Penny. "Get out!" retorted that gentleman. "I didn't say I was sure, and doctor isn't sure now." "No, not sure, Penny," he said; "but I think I can take you to where water is coming down." We felt no temptation to go on then, and willingly followed our guides, who pointed out a huge mass of overhanging rock right in the side of the ravine, and here we gladly halted, in the comparatively cool shade, to sit and partake of some of the buffalo strips, my eyes wandering dreamily to right and left along the narrow valley so filled with stones. I was roused from my thoughts about the strangeness of the place we were in and the absence of trees and thick bush by the doctor proposing a bit of a look round. "We are getting up among the mountains, Joe," he said; "and this means more difficult travelling, but at the same time a healthier region and less heat." "Oh, doctor!" I said, wiping my forehead. "Why, it couldn't be any hotter than it is out there!" said Jack. "Come with us, then, and let's see if we can find a fresh way out. Perhaps we may hit upon a pass to the open country beyond. At all events let's go and see the falls." We took our guns, leaving all heavy things with the blacks, who were settling themselves for a sleep. The sun's heat almost made me giddy for the first hundred yards, and either my eyes deceived me or Jack Penny's long body wavered and shook. But we trudged laboriously on over and among masses of rock, that seemed to be nearly alive with lizards basking in the sun, their curious coats of green and grey and umber-brown glistening in the bright sunshine, and looking in some cases as if they were covered with frosted metal as they lay motionless upon the pieces of weatherworn stone. Some raised their heads to look at us, and remained motionless if we stopped to watch them, others scuffled rapidly away at the faintest sound, giving us just a glimpse of a quivering tail as its owner disappeared down a crevice almost by magic. "Don't! don't fire!" cried the doctor, as Jack suddenly levelled his piece. "Why not?" he said in an ill-used tone. "I daresay they're poison and they ain't no good." The object that had been his aim was an ash-grey snake, rather short and thick of form, which lay coiled into the figure of a letter S, and held its head a few inches from the rock on which it lay. "If you wish to kill the little vipers do it with a stick, my lad. Every charge of powder may prove very valuable, and be wanted in an emergency." "I say," said Jack Penny, dropping the butt of his piece on the rock, leaning his arms upon it, and staring at the speaker. "You don't think we are likely to have a fight soon, do you?" "I hope not," said the doctor; "but we shall have to be always on the alert, for in a land like this we never know how soon danger may come." "I say, Jack," I whispered, "do you want to go back?" "No: I don't want to go back," he said with a snort. "I don't say I ain't afraid. P'r'aps I am. I always thought our place lonely, but it was nothing to these parts, where there don't seem to be no living people at all." "Well, let's get on," said the doctor, smiling; and we threaded our way as well as we could amongst the chaotic masses of stones till we were stopped short by a complete crack in the stony earth, just as if the land had been dragged asunder. As we stood on the brink of the chasm, and gazed down at the bottom some hundred feet below, we could see that it was a wild stony place, more sterile than that we had traversed. In places there were traces of moisture, as if water sometimes trickled down, and where this was the case I could see that ferns were growing pretty freely, but on the whole the place was barrennesss itself. It seemed to have a fascination though for Jack Penny, who sat down on the edge and dangled his long legs over the rock, amusing himself by throwing down pieces of stone on to larger pieces below, so as to see them shatter and fall in fragments. "Snakes!" he said suddenly. "Look at 'em. See me hit that one." He pitched down a large piece of stone as he spoke, and I saw something glide into a crevice, while another reptile raised itself up against a piece of rock and fell back hissing angrily. We were so high up that I could not tell how big these creatures were, but several that we noticed must have been six or seven feet long, and like many vipers of the poisonous kinds, very thick in proportion. I daresay we should have stopped there amusing ourselves for the next hour, pitching down stones and making the vipers vicious; but our childish pursuit was ended by the doctor, who clapped Jack on the shoulder. "Come, Jack," he said, "if we leave you there you'll fall asleep and topple to the bottom." Jack drew up his legs and climbed once more to his feet, looking very hot and languid, but he shouldered his piece and stepped out as we slowly climbed along the edge of the chasm for about a quarter of a mile, when it seemed to close up after getting narrower and narrower, so that we continued our journey on what would have been its farther side had it not closed. Higher and higher we seemed to climb, with the path getting more difficult, save when here and there we came upon a nice bare spot free from stones, and covered with a short kind of herb that had the appearance of thyme. But now the heat grew less intense. Then it was comparatively cool, and a soft moist air fanned our heated cheeks. The roar of the falls grew louder, and at any moment we felt that we might come upon the sight, but we had to travel on nearly half a mile along what seemed to be a steep slope. It was no longer arid and barren here, for every shelf and crevice was full of growth of the most vivid green. For a long time we had not seen a tree, but here tall forest trees had wedged their roots in the cracks and crevices, curved out, and then shot straight up into the air. The scene around was beautiful, and birds were once more plentiful, dashing from fruit to flower, and no doubt screaming and piping according to their wont, but all seemed to be strangely silent, even our own voices sounded smothered, everything being overcome by the awful deep loud roar that came from beyond a dense clump of trees. We eagerly pressed forward now, ready, however, to find that we had a long distance to go, and the doctor leading we wound our way in and out, with the delicious shade overhead, and the refreshing moist air seeming to cool our fevered faces and dry lips. "Why, we're walking along by the very edge," said Jack Penny suddenly. "This is the way;" and stepping aside he took about a dozen steps and then the undergrowth closed behind him for the moment, but as we parted it to follow him we caught sight of his tall form again and then lost it, for he uttered a shrill "Oh!" and disappeared. "Doctor! quick!" I cried, for I was next, and I sprang forward, to stop appalled, for Jack was before me clinging to a thin sapling which he had caught as he fell, and this had bent like a fishing-rod, letting him down some ten feet below the edge of an awful precipice, the more terrible from the fact that the river seemed to be rushing straight out into the air from a narrow ravine high upon our right, and to plunge down into a vast rocky basin quite a couple of hundred feet below. As I caught sight of Jack Penny's face with its imploring eyes I was for the moment paralysed. He had tight hold of the tree, which was only about half the thickness of his own thin wrists, and he was swaying up and down, the weight of his body still playing upon the elastic sapling. "I can't hold on long, Joe Carstairs," he said hoarsely. "I'm such a weight; but I say I ain't a bit afraid, only do be quick." The doctor had crept to my side now, and he reached out his hand to grasp Jack, but could not get hold of him by a couple of feet. "Can't you reach?" the poor fellow gasped. "No, not yet," the doctor said sharply; and his voice seemed quite changed as he took in the position; and I saw him shudder as he noted, as I had done, that if Jack fell it would be into the foaming basin where the water thundered down. "Be quick, please," panted Jack. "I can't do nothing at all; and I don't--think--I could swim--down there." "Don't look down," roared the doctor, though even then his voice sounded smothered and low. Jack raised his eyes to ours directly, and I seemed to feel that but for this he would have been so unnerved that he would have loosed his hold. "Now," cried the doctor, "the tree's too weak for you to cling to it with your legs. Swing them to and fro till we catch hold of you." Jack looked at me with a face like ashes; but he obeyed, and it was horrible to see the sapling bend and play like a cart-whip with the weight upon it. Each moment I expected it to snap in two or give way at the roots; but no: it held fast, and Jack swung to and fro, and danced up and down over the awful gulf till he was within our reach. "Now!" shouted the doctor to me. "Both together." I did as he did, clutched at Jack's legs as they swung up to us; held on; and then we threw ourselves back, dragging with all our might. "Let go! let go!" roared the doctor to Jack. "I daren't, not yet," he cried, with his head hidden from us, that and his body being over the gulf, while we had his legs over the edge of the rock. "But the tree is drawing you away from us," shouted the doctor. "Let go, I say." All this time it was as though Jack Penny were made of india-rubber, for as we pulled his legs it was against something elastic, which kept giving and drawing us back. For a few moments it seemed doubtful whether we should save him, for our hold was hastily taken and none of the best, and I felt the cold perspiration gathering in my hands and on my brow. Then just as I felt that I must give way, and the doctor's hard panting breathing sounded distant and strange through the singing in my ears, our desperate tugging prevailed over even the wild clutch of one who believed himself in deadly peril. Jack's hands relaxed, and we all fell together amongst the bushes, but safe. No one spoke, and the dull sound of panting was heard even amidst the roar of the falling waters. Then the doctor got up, looking fierce and angry, and seizing Jack by the collar he gave him a shake. "Look here," he said. "I'll have no more of it. Next time you get into danger, you may save yourself." "Thank ye, doctor," said Jack, sitting up and rocking himself softly. "I might just as well have gone as be treated like this. You might have taken hold of a fellow's clothes, both of you. You've about tore the flesh off my bones." The doctor turned away to look at the great waterfall, evidently amused by Jack's dry drawling speech; and I sat and looked at my companion, while he looked at me, and spoke out so as to make me hear above the roar of the torrent. "I say, Joe Carstairs, I didn't seem to be very much frightened, did I?" "No," I said. "You bore it very bravely." "Mean it?" "Of course," I said. "That's right; because I did feel awfully queer, you know. I don't mind that though so long as I didn't show it." "How did you manage to get into such a pickle?" I said. "Oh, I don't know," he drawled, still rubbing himself gently. "I was wandering forward to get a good look at the waterfall, and then my legs seemed to go down. I only had time to grip hold of that tree, and then I was swinging about. That's all. Let's have a look at the water, though, all the same." We followed the doctor, going cautiously along till we found him standing gun in hand gazing from a bare spot right out at the huge tumbling body of water, which made the very rocks on which we stood tremble and vibrate as it thundered down. In one spot, half-way down what looked to be a terribly gloomy chasm, a broad beam of sunlight shone right across the foam and fine spray that rose in a cloud, and from time to time this was spanned by a lovely iris, whose colours looked more beautiful than anything of the kind that I had before seen. I could have stood for hours gazing at the soft oily looking water as it glided over the piled-up rocks, and watched it breaking up into spray and then plunge headlong into the chaos of water below; but the doctor laid his hand upon my shoulder and pointed upwards, when, leading the way, he climbed on and on till we were beyond the rocks which formed the shelf over which the water glided, and here we found ourselves at the edge of a narrow ravine, along which the stream flowed swiftly from far beyond our sight to the spot where it made its plunge. We were in comparative quiet up here, the noise of the fall being cut off by the rocks, which seemed to hush it as soon as we had passed. "Let us get back, my lads," the doctor said then; "I don't think we shall advance our business by inspecting this grand river;" and so leaving the water-worn smooth rock of the ravine, we retraced our steps, and at last, hot and fainting almost with the heat, reached the little camp, where our black followers were eagerly looking out for our return. "Where's Jimmy?" I said as I glanced round; but no one knew, and supposing that he had gone to hunt something that he considered good to eat I took no further notice then, though the doctor frowned, evidently considering that he ought to have been in camp. Gyp was there though, ready to salute his master, who lay down at once, as he informed me in confidence, to rest his back. We were only too glad to get under the shelter of the great overhanging rock, which gave us comparative coolness, situated as it was beneath a hill that was almost a mountain, towering up in successive ledges to the summit. The walk, in spite of the excitement of the adventure, had given us an excellent appetite, and even Jack Penny ate away heartily, looking self-satisfied and as complacent as could be. "Why, what are you laughing at, Jack?" I said, as I happened to look up. "I was only smiling," he whispered, "about my accident." "Smiling--at that!" I exclaimed. "Why, I should have thought you would have been horrified at the very thought of it." "So I should if I had been a coward over it, Joe Carstairs; but I wasn't--now was I?" "Coward! No," I said, "of course not. Here, fill my cup with water." We were sitting pretty close to the edge of our shelter, which really might have been termed a very shallow cave, some twenty feet above the level; and as I spoke I held out the tin pannikin towards Jack, for the heat had made me terribly thirsty. The next moment, though, something struck the tin mug and dashed it noisily out of my hand, while before I could recover from my astonishment, the doctor had dragged me backwards with one hand, giving Jack Penny a backhander on the chest with the other. "Arrows!" he whispered. "Danger! There are savages there below." CHAPTER NINETEEN. HOW WE WERE BESIEGED, AND I THOUGHT OF BIRNAM WOOD. I believe the doctor saved us from dangerous wounds, if not from death, for, as he threw himself flat, half a dozen arrows struck the roof of our shelter, and fell pattering down amongst us as we lay. "Here, quick! pass these packages forward," the doctor whispered; and we managed to get the blacks' loads between us and the enemy, making of the packages a sort of breastwork, which sheltered us while we hauled forward some pieces of stone, arrow after arrow reaching this extempore parapet, or coming over it to strike the roof and fall back. The natives with us understood our plans at once, and eagerly helped, pushing great pieces of stone up to us, so that in about a quarter of an hour we were well protected, and the question came uppermost in my mind whether it was not time to retaliate with a charge of shot upon the cowardly assailants, who had attacked us when we were so peacefully engaged. We had time, too, now to look round us and lament that our force was so much weakened by the absence of Jimmy and Aroo, who had gone to fetch more water. "They will be killed," I said, and I saw Ti-hi smile, for he had evidently understood my meaning. He shook his head too, and tried to make me understand, as I found afterwards, that Aroo would take care of himself; but we left off in a state of the greatest confusion. Being then well sheltered we contrived loopholes to watch for our enemies, and Ti-hi pointed out to me the place from whence the arrows were shot every time the enemy could see a hand. The spot he pointed to as that in which our assailants lay was where a patch of thick growth flourished among some stones, about fifty yards along the rocky pass in the direction in which we had come, and as I was intently watching the place to make out some sign of the enemy, and feeling doubtful whether the black was right, I saw a slight movement and the glint of a flying arrow, which struck the face of the rock a few feet above my head, and then fell by Jack Penny's hand. "Mind," I said, as he picked it up; "perhaps it is poisoned." Ti-hi was eagerly watching my face, and as I spoke he caught the arrow from Jack's hand, placed it against his arm, and then closed his eyes and pretended to be dead; but as quickly came to life again, as several more arrows struck the rock and fell harmlessly among us. These he gathered together all but one, whose point was broken by coming in contact with the rock, and that he threw away. After this he carefully strung the bow that he always, like his fellows, carried, and looked eagerly at the doctor, who was scanning the ground in front of us with his little double glass. "I don't like the look of things, my lads," he said in a low voice, and his countenance was very serious as he spoke. "I intended for ours to be a peaceable mission, but it seems as if we are to be forced into war with two men absent." "Shall we have to shoot 'em?" said Jack Penny excitedly. "I hope not," said the doctor, "for I should be sorry to shed the blood of the lowest savage; but we must fight in defence of our lives. We cannot afford to give those up, come what may." Ti-hi fitted an arrow to the string of his short, strong bow, and was about to draw it, but the doctor laid his hand upon him and checked him, to the savage warrior's great disgust. "No," said the doctor, "not until we are obliged; and then I shall try what a charge of small shot will do." We were not long in finding out that it was absolutely necessary to defend ourselves with vigour, for the arrows began to fall thickly-- thickly enough, indeed, to show us that there were more marksmen hidden among the trees than the size of the clump seemed to indicate from where we crouched. I was watching the patch of trees very intently when I heard a sharply drawn inspiration of breath, and turning I saw the doctor pulling an arrow from the flannel tunic he wore. "As doctors say, Joe," he whispered with a smile, "three inches more to the right and that would have been fatal." I don't know how I looked, but I felt pale, and winced a little, while the doctor took my hand. The force of habit made me snatch it away, for I thought he was going to feel my pulse. I fancied for the moment that it must be to see whether I was nervous, and the blood flushed to my cheeks now, and made me look defiant. "Why, Joe, my lad, what is it?" he said quietly. "Won't you shake hands?" "Oh! yes," I cried, placing mine in his, and he gave it a long, firm grip. "I ought," he said, after a pause, "to have said more about the troubles, like this one, which I might have known would arise, when we arranged to start; but somehow I had a sort of hope that we might make a peaceful journey, and not be called upon to shed blood. Joe, my lad, we shall have to fight for our lives." "And shoot down these people?" I said huskily. "If we do not, they will shoot us. Poor wretches, they probably do not know the power of our guns. We must give them the small shot first, and we may scare them off. Don't you fire, my lad; leave it to me." I nodded my head, and then our attention was taken up by the arrows that kept flying in, with such good aim that if we had exposed ourselves in the least the chances are that we should have been hit. The doctor was on one side of me, Jack Penny on the other, and my tall young friend I noticed had been laying some cartridges very methodically close to his hand, ready for action it seemed to me; but he had not spoken much, only looked very solemn as he lay upon his chest, kicking his legs up and sawing them slowly to and fro. "Are we going to have to fight, Joe Carstairs?" he whispered. "I'm afraid so," I replied. "Oh!" That was all for a few minutes, during which time the arrows kept coming in and striking the roof as before, to fall there with a tinkling sound, and be collected carefully by Ti-hi and his companions, all of whom watched us with glowing eyes, waiting apparently for the order to be given when they might reply to the shots of the enemy. "I say, Joe Carstairs," said Jack, giving me a touch with his long arm. "Yes; what is it?" I said peevishly, for his questions seemed to be a nuisance. "I don't look horribly frightened, do I?" "No," I said; "you look cool enough. Why?" "Because I feel in a horrid stew, just as I did when a lot of the black fellows carried me off. I was a little one then." "Were you ever a little one, Jack!" I said wonderingly. "Why, of course I was--a very little one. You don't suppose I was born with long legs like a colt, do you? The blacks came one day when father was away, and mother had gone to see after the cow, and after taking all the meal and bacon they went off, one of them tucking me under his arm, and I never made a sound, I was so frightened, for I was sure they were going to eat me. I feel something like I did then; but I say, Joe Carstairs, you're sure I don't show it?" "Sure! Yes," I said quickly. "If we have to shoot at these savages shall you take aim at them?" "All depends," said Jack coolly. "First of all, I shall fire in front of their bows like the man-o'-war's men do. If that don't stop 'em I shall fire at their legs, and if that don't do any good then I shall let 'em have it right full, for it'll be their own fault. That's my principle, Joe Carstairs; if a fellow lets me alone I never interfere with him, but if he begins at me I'm nasty. Here, you leave those arrows alone, and--well, what's the matter with you?" This was to Gyp, who was whining uneasily as if he scented danger, and wanted to run out. "Down, Gyp, down!" said his master; and the dog crouched lower, growling, though, now as a fresh arrow flashed in from another part. The doctor started and raised his gun to take aim at the spot from whence this shot had come, for one of the savages had climbed up and reached a ledge above where we were. In fact this man's attack made our position ten times more perilous than it was before. But the doctor did not fire, for Ti-hi, without waiting for orders, drew an arrow to its head, the bow-string gave a loud twang, and the next instant we saw a savage bound from the ledge where he had hidden and run across the intervening space, club in one hand, bow in the other, yelling furiously the while. The doctor was about to fire, and in the excitement of the moment I had my piece to my shoulder, but before he had come half-way the savage turned and staggered back, Ti-hi pointing triumphantly to an arrow sticking deep in the muscles of the man's shoulder. There was a loud yelling as the wounded savage rejoined his companions, and our own men set up a triumphant shout. "That's one to us," said Jack Penny drily. "I think I shall keep the score." The doctor looked at me just at this time and I looked back at him; and somehow I seemed to read in his eyes that he thought it would be the best plan to let the blacks fight out the battle with their bows and arrows, and I felt quite happy in my mind for the moment, since it seemed to me that we should get out of the difficulty of having to shed blood. But directly after I coloured with shame, for it seemed cowardly to want to do such work by deputy and to make these ignorant people fight our battle; while after all I was wrong, for the doctor was not thinking anything of the kind. In fact he knew that we would all have to fight in defence of our lives, and when a flight of about twenty arrows came whizzing and pattering over our heads and hurtled down upon the stony floor, I knew it too, and began to grow cool with the courage of desperation and prepared for the worst. "Here, Jack Penny," I whispered, "you'll have to fight; the savages mean mischief." "All right!" he replied in a slow cool drawling way, "I'm ready for them; but I don't know whether I can hit a man as he runs, unless I try to make myself believe he's a kangaroo." The yelling was continued by our enemies, and as far as I could tell it seemed to me that there must be at least thirty savages hiding amongst the rocks and trees, and all apparently thirsting for our blood. "It seems hard, doctor," I said bitterly. "They might leave us alone." "I'm afraid they will think that they would have done better in leaving us," said the doctor gloomily, "for I don't mean them to win the day if I can help it." I could not help staring at the doctor: his face looked so stern and strange till, catching my eye, he smiled in his old way, and held out his hand. "We shall beat them off, Joe," he said gently. "I would have avoided it if I could, but it has become a work of necessity, and we must fight for our lives. Be careful," he added sternly. "It is no time for trifling. Remember your father, and the mother who is waiting for you at home. Joe, my boy, it is a fight for life, and you must make every shot tell." For the moment I felt chilled with horror; and a sensation of dread seemed to paralyse me. Then came the reaction, with the thought that if I did not act like a man I should never see those I loved again. This, too, was supplemented, as it were, by that spirit of what the French call _camaraderie_, that spirit which makes one forget self; and thinking that I had to defend my two companions from the enemy I raised the barrel of my piece upon the low breastwork, ready to fire on the first enemy who should approach. "Look," said Ti-hi just then, for he was picking up scraps of our tongue; and following his pointing finger I made out the black bodies of several savages creeping to posts of vantage from whence they would be able to shoot. "Take care," said the doctor sternly, as an arrow nearly grazed my ear. "If one of those arrows gives ever so slight a wound it may prove fatal, my lad; don't expose yourself in the least. Ah! the game must begin in earnest," he said partly under his breath. As he spoke he took aim at a man who was climbing from rock to rock to gain the spot from which the other had been dislodged. Then there was a puff of white smoke, a roar that reverberated amongst the rocks, and the poor wretch seemed to drop out of sight. The doctor's face looked tight and drawn as he reloaded, and for a moment I felt horrified; but then, seeing a great brawny black fellow raise himself up to draw his bow and shoot at the part where Jack Penny was crouching, and each time seem to send his arrow more close to my companion, I felt suddenly as if an angry wave were sweeping over my spirit, and lay there scowling at the man. He rose up again, and there was a whizz and a crack that startled me. "I say," drawled Jack Penny, "mind what you're after. You'll hit some one directly." He said this with a strange solemnity of voice, and picking up the arrow he handed it to one of the blacks. "That thing went right through my hair, Joe Carstairs," he continued. "It's making me wild." I hesitated no longer, but as the great savage rose up once more I took a quick aim and fired just as he was drawing his bow. The smoke obscured my sight for a few moments, during which there was a furious yelling, and then, just as the thin bluish vapour was clearing off, there was another puff, and an echoing volley dying off in the distance, for Jack Penny had also fired. "I don't know whether I hit him," he answered; "but he was climbing up there like t'other chap was, and I can't see him now." In the excitement of the fight the terrible dread of injuring a fellow creature now seemed to have entirely passed away, and I watched one savage stealing from bush to bush, and from great stone to stone with an eagerness I could not have believed in till I found an opportunity of firing at him, just as he too had reached a dangerous place and had sent his first arrow close to my side. I fired and missed him, and the savage shouted defiance as my bullet struck the stones and raised a puff of dust. The next moment he had replied with a well-directed arrow that made me wince, it was so near my head. By this time I had reloaded and was taking aim again with feverish eagerness, when all at once a great stone crashed down from above and swept the savage from the ledge where he knelt. I looked on appalled as the man rolled headlong down in company with the mass of stone, and then lay motionless in the bottom of the little valley. "Who is it throwing stones?" drawled Jack slowly. "That was a big one, and it hit." "That could not have been an accident," said the doctor; "perhaps Aroo is up there." "I only hope he is," I cried; "but look, look! what's that?" I caught at the doctor's arm to draw his attention to what seemed to be a great thickly tufted bush which was coming up the little valley towards us. "Birnam wood is coming to Dunsinane," said the doctor loudly. "Is it?" said Jack Penny excitedly. "What for? Where? What do you mean?" "Look, look!" I cried, and I pointed to the moving bush. "Well, that's rum," said Jack, rubbing his nose with his finger. "Trees are alive, of course, but they can't walk, can they? I think there's some one shoving that along." "Why, of course there is," I said. "Don't fire unless you are obliged," exclaimed the doctor; "and whatever you do, take care. See how the arrows are coming." For they were pattering about us thickly, and the blacks on our side kept sending them back, but with what result we could not tell, for the savages kept closely within the cover. It was now drawing towards evening, and the sun seemed hotter than ever; the whole of the sultry ravine seemed to have become an oven, of which our cavern shelter was the furnace. In fact the heat was momentarily, from the sun's position, and in spite of its being so long past the meridian, growing more and more intense. Jack Penny had of late grown very silent, but now and then he turned his face towards me with his mouth open, panting with heat and thirst, as uneasily as his dog, whose tongue was hanging out looking white and dry. "Is there any water there?" said the doctor suddenly, as he paused in the act of reloading. "Not a drop," I said, dismally. "Oh! don't say that," groaned Jack Penny. "If I don't have some I shall die." "It will be evening soon," said the doctor in a husky voice, "and this terrible heat will be over. Keep on firing when you have a chance, my lads, but don't waste a shot. We must read them such a lesson that they will draw off and leave us alone." But as he spoke, so far from the loss they had sustained having damped the ardour of the enemy, they kept on sending in the arrows more thickly, but without doing us--thanks to our position and the breastwork--the slightest harm. The sun sank lower, but the rock where we were seemed to grow hotter, the air to be quivering all along the little valley, and as the terrible thirst increased so did our tortures seem to multiply from the fact that we could hear the heavy dull thunderous murmur away to our right, and we knew that it was cool, clear, delicious water, every drop of which would have given our dried-up mouths and parched throats relief. At one time I turned giddy and the whole scene before me seemed to be spinning round, while my head throbbed with the pain I suffered, my tongue all the time feeling like a piece of dry leather which clung to the roof of my mouth. And still the firing was going steadily on, each sending a bullet straight to its mark whenever opportunity occurred; but apparently without effect, for in the midst of all this firing and confusion of shouts from the enemy and defiant replies from our people, the arrows went to and fro as rapidly as ever. If it had not been for the sound of the falling water I believe I could have borne the thirst far better; but no matter how the fighting went, there was always the soft deep roar of the plashing water tantalising us with thoughts of its refreshing draughts and delicious coolness when laving our fevered heads. I grew so giddy at times that I felt that I should only waste my shot if I fired, and refrained, while, gaining experience and growing bolder by degrees, the savages aimed so that every shot became dangerous, for they sent them straight at a mass of rock before us some ten or a dozen yards, and this they struck and then glanced off, so that we were nearly hit three times running. Stones were set up at once upon our right as a protection, but this only saved us for a time. The savages had found out the way to touch us, and before many minutes had elapsed _ricochet_ shots were coming amongst as again. "I can hardly see them, Joe," whispered the doctor suddenly; "my eyes are dizzy with this awful thirst. We must have water if we are to live." He ceased speaking to catch me by the arm, and point to the bush that had been so long stationary in one place that I had forgotten it. "What's that, my lad?" he whispered; "is that bush moving, or are my eyes playing me false. It must be on the move. It is some trick. Fire at once and stop it, or we shall be taken in the flank." I raised my gun as I saw the bush moving slowly on towards us, now coming a yard or two and then stopping; but I was so giddy and confused that I lowered it again, unable to take aim. This took place again and again, and at last I lay there scanning as in a nightmare the coming of that great green bush. The doctor was watching with bloodshot eyes the enemy on his own side, Jack Penny was busy on the other, and the command of this treacherous advancing enemy was left to my gun, which seemed now to have become of enormous weight when I tried to raise it and take aim. "It's all a dream--it is fancy," I said to myself, as I tried to shade my eyes and steady my gaze; but as I said this the bush once more began to glide on, and the black patch I saw beneath it must, I felt, be the leg of the savage concealed behind. CHAPTER TWENTY. HOW JIMMY TURNED UP A TRUMP. Even then I could not shoot, but remained staring, helplessly fascinated for a few minutes by the coming danger. At last, though, I turned to Ti-hi, leaning back and touching him where he crouched, busily seizing upon the arrows that came in his way and sending them back. He crept up to me directly and I pointed to the bush. His eyes glistened, and bending forward he drew an arrow to the head, and was about to send it winging into the very centre of the bush when we suddenly became aware of some strange excitement amongst the savages, who undoubtedly now caught sight of the bush for the first time and sent a flight of arrows at it. The effect of this was that he who had been making use of it for a shield suddenly darted from behind it and made for our shelter. "Aroo, Aroo!" exclaimed the men with us, yelling with delight, while to cover his escape we all fired at the savages, who had come out of their concealment, but only to dart back again, for one after the other three large stones came bounding down the mountain side, scattering the enemy to cover, and the duel once more began, with our side strengthened by the presence of a brave fighting man, and refreshed, for Aroo had his water calabash slung from his shoulders, containing quite a couple of quarts, which were like nectar to us, parched and half-dying with thirst. Its effects were wonderful. The heat was still intense; but after the refreshing draught, small as it was, that we had imbibed, I seemed to see clearly, the giddy sensation passed off, and we were ready to meet the attack with something like fortitude. We could think now, too, of some plans for the future, whereas a quarter of an hour before there had seemed to be no future for us, nothing but a horrible death at our enemies' hands. Ti-hi contrived to make us understand now that as soon as the sun had gone down, and it was dark, he would lead us away to the river side and then along the gorge, so that by the next morning we could be far out of our enemies' reach, when they came expecting to find us in the cave. His communication was not easy to comprehend, but that this was what he meant there could be no doubt, for we all three read it in the same way. Encouraged then by this hope we waited impatiently for the going down of the sun, which was now slowly nearing the broad shoulder of a great hill. Another half-hour and it would have disappeared, when the valley would begin to fill with shadows, darkness--the tropic darkness--would set in at once, and then I knew we should have to lose no time in trying to escape. But we were not to get away without an attack from the enemy of a bolder nature than any they had yet ventured upon. For some little time the arrow shooting had slackened and we watched anxiously to see what it meant, for there was evidently a good deal of excitement amongst the enemy, who were running from bush to stone, and had we been so disposed we could easily have brought three or four down. But of course all we wished for was freedom from attack, and in the hope that they were somewhat disheartened, and were perhaps meditating retreat, we waited and withheld our fire. Our hopes were short-lived though, for it proved that they were only preparing for a more fierce onslaught, which was delivered at the end of a few minutes, some twenty savages bounding along the slope war-club in hand, two to fall disabled by a mass of stone that thundered down from above. We fired at the same moment and the advance was checked, the savages gathering together in a hesitating fashion, when _crash_, _crash_, another mass of rock which had been set at liberty far up the hillside came bounding down, gathering impetus and setting at liberty an avalanche of great stones, from which the savages now turned and fled for their lives, leaving the valley free to a single black figure, which came climbing down from far up the steep slope, waddy in hand; and on reaching the level advanced towards us in the fast darkening eve, looking coolly to right and left to see if any enemy was left, but without a single arrow being discharged. A minute later he was looking over our breastwork into the shallow cave, showing his teeth, which shone in the gloom as he exclaimed: "Black fellow dreffle hungry. Give Jimmy somefin eat. All gone now." CHAPTER TWENTY ONE. HOW WE RETREATED AND WERE CAUGHT IN A TROPIC STORM. Our black companion was quite right. The enemy had indeed gone, and the time had come for us to get beyond their reach, for all at once it seemed to grow dark, and we stood farther out of our shelter, glad to free our limbs from the cramping positions in which they had been for so long. The doctor handed to each of us some chips of dried meat, bidding us eat as we walked. The bearers were well provided, and starting at once, with Ti-hi to lead and Aroo to cover our retreat, we stepped lightly off. Our blacks knew well enough what was required of them now as to our baggage, and every package was taken from the breastwork, shouldered or placed upon the head, and, watchful and ready to use our arms, we soon left the scene of the fight behind. The New Guinea savage Ti-hi as we called him, that being the nearest approach I can get to his name, followed very much the course we had taken early in the day when we sought the waterfall, but left it a little to our left and struck the river some few hundred yards above, pausing for a few minutes for his men to take breath, and then pointing out the course he meant to take. It was a perilous-looking place, enough to make anyone shiver, and there was a murmur amongst the blacks as they looked down at what seemed to be a mere shelf or ledge of rock low down near the black hurrying water of the river, which seemed to be covered with flowing specks of gold as the brilliant stars were reflected from the smooth rushing stream. Where we were to descend the water seemed to be about thirty feet below, but the rocky side of the river bed ran sheer up quite fifty feet as far as we could make out in the darkness, and I did not wonder at the murmur we heard. But Ti-hi's voice rose directly, now pleading softly in his own tongue, now in tones of command, and the murmur trailed off into a few mutterings which resulted in the men beginning to descend. "They were grumbling about having to go down there, weren't they, Joe Carstairs," said Jack Penny in a whisper. "Yes," I said. "And 'nough to make 'em," he said. "I don't like it; even Gyp don't like it. Look at him, how he's got his tail between his legs. I say, can't we wait till daylight?" "And be shot by poisoned arrows, Penny?" said the doctor quietly. "Come: on with you! I'm sure you're not afraid?" "Afraid! What! of walking along there?" said Jack, contemptuously. "Not likely. Was I afraid when I hung over the waterfall?" "Not a bit, my lad; nor yet when you so bravely helped us to defend ourselves against the savages," said the doctor quietly. "Come along. I'll go first." The blacks were all on ahead save Aroo and Jimmy, who followed last, I being next to the doctor, and Jack Penny and his dog close behind me. We had to go in single file, for the ledge was not above a yard wide in places, and it was impossible to avoid a shiver of dread as we walked slowly along, assuming a confidence that we did not feel. The path rose and fell--rose and fell slightly in an undulating fashion, but it did not alter much in its width as we journeyed on for what must have been quite a mile, when we had to halt for a few minutes while the bearers readjusted their loads. And a weird party we looked as we stood upon that shelf of rock, with the perpendicular side of the gorge towering straight up black towards the sky, the summit showing plainly against the starry arch that spanned the river, and seemed to rest upon the other side of the rocky gorge fifty yards away. And there now, close to our feet, so close that we could have lain down and drunk had we been so disposed, rushed on towards the great fall the glassy gold-speckled water. I was thinking what an awful looking place it was, and wondering whether my father had ever passed this way, when Jack Penny made me jump by giving me a poke with the barrel of his gun. "Don't do that," I said angrily, for I felt that I might have slipped, and to have fallen into that swiftly gliding water meant being borne at headlong speed to the awful plunge down into the basin of foam into which I had looked that day. "Oh, all right!" whispered Jack. "I only wanted to tell you that it must be cramp." "What must be cramp?" I replied. "Don't speak so loud, and don't let the doctor hear you," whispered Jack. "I mean in one of my legs: it will keep waggling so and giving way at the knee." "Why, Jack!" I said. "No, no," he whispered hastily, "it ain't that. I ain't a bit afraid. It's cramp." "Well, if you are not afraid," I whispered back, "I am. I hope, Jack, I may never live to be in such an awful place again." "I say, Joe Carstairs, say that once more," whispered Jack excitedly. "I hope I may never be--" "No, no, I don't mean that. I mean the other," whispered Jack. "What, about being afraid?" I said. "Well, I'm not ashamed to own it. It may be cramp, Jack Penny, but I feel as if it is sheer fright." "Then that's what must be the matter with my leg," said Jack eagerly, "only don't let's tell the doctor." "Ready behind there?" said the latter just then. "Yes," I said, "quite ready;" and I passed the word to Jimmy and Aroo, who were close to me. "Let's get on then," said the doctor in a low voice. "I want to get out of this awful gorge." "Hooray!" whispered Jack Penny, giving me such a dig with his elbow that for the second time he nearly sent me off the rocky shelf. "Hooray! the doctor's frightened too, Joe Carstairs. I ain't ashamed to own it now." "Hist!" whispered the doctor then, and slightly raised as was his voice it seemed strangely loud, and went echoing along the side of the chasm. Going steadily on at once we found the shelf kept wonderfully the same in width, the only variation being that it dipped down close to the rushing water at times, and then curved up till we were fifteen or twenty feet above the stream. With the walls on either side of the river, though, it was different, for they gradually rose higher and higher till there was but a strip of starry sky above our heads, and our path then became so dark that but for the leading of the sure-footed blacks we could not have progressed, but must have come to a halt. I was wondering whether this gorge would end by opening out upon some plain, through its being but a gap or pass through a range of hills, but concluded that it would grow deeper and darker, and bring us face to face with a second waterfall, and I whispered to the doctor my opinion; but he did not agree with me. "No," he said, "the gorge is rising, of course, from the way in which the river rushes on, but there can be no waterfall this way or we should hear it. The noise of the one behind us comes humming along this rocky passage so plainly that we should hear another in the same way. But don't talk, my lad. Look to your footsteps and mind that we have no accident. Stop!" he exclaimed, then, "Halt!" I did not know why he called a halt just then in that narrow dangerous place, but it seemed that he heard a peculiar sound from behind, and directly after Aroo closed up, to say that the enemy were following us, for he had heard them talking as they came, the smooth walls of the rocks acting as a great speaking-tube and bearing the sounds along. "That's bad news, my lad," said the doctor, "but matters might be worse. This is a dangerous place, but it is likely to be far more dangerous for an attacking party than for the defenders. Our guns could keep any number of enemies at a distance, I should say. Better that they should attack us here than out in the open, where we should be easy marks for their arrows." "I do wish they'd leave us alone," said Jack Penny in an ill-used tone. "Nobody said anything to them; why can't they leave off?" "We'll argue out that point another time, Jack Penny," said the doctor. "Only let's get on now." "Oh, all right! I'm ready," he said, and once more our little party set forward, the doctor and I now taking the extreme rear, with the exception that we let Aroo act as a scout behind, to give warning of the enemy's near approach. And so we went on in the comparative darkness, the only sounds heard being the hissing of the swiftly rushing water as it swept on towards the fall, and the dull deep roar that came booming now loudly, now faintly, from where the river made its plunge. Twice over we made a halt and stood with levelled pieces ready to meet an attack, but they only proved to be false alarms, caused by our friends dislodging stones in the path, which fell with a hollow sullen plunge into the rushing water, producing a strange succession of sounds, as of footsteps beating the path behind us, so curiously were these repeated from the smooth face of the rock. _Hiss-hiss_, _rush-rush_ went the water, and when we paused again and again, so utterly solemn and distinct were the sounds made by the waterfall and the river that I fancied that our friend Aroo must have been deceived. "If the savages were pursuing us," I said, "we should have heard them by now." "Don't be too satisfied, my dear boy," said the doctor. "These people have a great deal of the animal in them, and when they have marked down their prey they are not likely to leave the track till the end." I did not like the sound of that word, "end." It was ominous, but I held my tongue. "As likely as not," continued the doctor, "the enemy are creeping cautiously along within a couple of hundred yards of where we stand, and--" "I say," cried Jack Penny eagerly, "it's rather cold standing about here; hadn't we better make haste on?" "Decidedly, Penny," said the doctor. "Forward!" "Yes, let's get forward," I said, and the doctor suddenly clapped his hand over my mouth and whispered: "Hush! Look there!" "I can't see anything," I said, after a long gaze in the direction by which we had come. "Can you see just dimly, close to where that big star makes the blur in the water, a light-coloured stone?" "Yes." "Watch it for a minute." I fixed my eyes upon the dimly-seen rock, just where quite a blaze of stars flecked the black water with their reflections, but for a time I saw nothing. I only made my eyes ache, and a strong desire came upon me to blink them very rapidly. Then all at once the stone seemed darker for a moment, and then darker again, as if a cloud had come between the glinting stars and the earth. It was so plain that a couple of the savages had glided by that stone that we felt it would be best to remain where we were for the present, awaiting the attack that we knew must follow. "We are prepared now," whispered the doctor, "and if we must fight it would be better to fight now than have to turn suddenly and meet an attack on our rear." The result was that we remained watching through the next painful hour, guns and bows ready for the first oncoming of the savages; but with terrible distinctness there was the washing sound of the river hissing past the rocks, and the rising and falling musical roar of the distant cascade--nothing more! Then another hour of silence in that awful chasm passed away, with the expectation of being attacked every moment keeping our nerves upon the stretch. How different it all seemed, what a change from the peaceful life at home! There I had led a happy boyish life, with the black for my companion; sometimes he would disappear to live amongst his tribe for a few weeks, but he always returned, and just after breakfast there would be his merry black face eagerly watching for my coming to go with him to "kedge fis" in some fresh creek or water-hole that he had discovered; to hunt out wallabies or some other of the hopping kangaroo family peculiar to the land. Jimmy had always some fresh expedition on the way, upon which we started with boy-like eagerness. But now all at once, consequent upon my determination, my course of life had been changed, and it seemed that, young as I was, all the work that fell to my hand was man's work. Yesterday I was a boy, now I was a man. That was my rather conceited way of looking upon matters then, and there was some ground for my assumption of manliness; but if excuse be needed let me say in my defence that I was suddenly cast into this career of dangerous adventure, and I was very young. Some such musings as the above, mixed up with recollections of my peaceful bed-room at home, and the gentle face that bent over me to kiss me when I was half asleep, were busy in my brain, when the doctor said softly: "This seems to be such a strong place, Joe, my lad, that I hardly like leaving it; but we must get on. Go forward and start them. Tell them to be as quiet as possible." His words seemed full of relief, and I started round to obey him, glad to have an end to the terrible inaction, when, to my utter astonishment, I found Jack Penny, who was behind me, sitting with his legs dangling over the edge of the rocky shelf, and apparently within an inch or two of the water, while his shoulders were propped against the side of the chasm; his rifle was in his lap and his chin buried in his breast--fast asleep! "Jack!" I whispered softly, utterly astounded that any one could sleep at a time like that; but he did not hear me. "Jack!" I said again, and laid my hand upon his shoulder, but without result. "Jack!" I said, giving him an impatient shove. "Get out!" he mumbled softly; and Gyp, whom I had not seen before, resented this interference with his master by uttering a low growl. "Down, Gyp!" I said. "Here, Jack; wake up!" I whispered, and this time I gave him a kick in the leg. "I'll give you such a wunner, if you don't be quiet!" he growled. "Let me alone, will yer!" "Jack! be quiet!" I whispered, with my lips to his ear. "The savages are close at hand!" "Who cares for the savages?" he grumbled, yawning fearfully. "Oh! I am so sleepy. I say, I wish you'd be quiet!" "Wake up!" I said, shaking him; and Gyp growled again. "Shan't!" very decidedly. "Wake up directly, Jack! Jack Penny, wake up!" "Shan't! Get out!" "Hist!" whispered the doctor from behind me. "Wake up!" I said again, going down on one knee so that I could whisper to him. _Snore_! It was a very decided one, and when I laid my gun down and gave a tug at him, it was like pulling at something long and limp, say a big bolster, that gave way everywhere, till in my impatience I doubled my fist and, quite in a rage, gave him, as his head fell back, a smart rap on the nose. I had previously held him by the ears and tapped the back of his head against the rock without the slightest effect; but this tap on the nose was electric in its way, for Jack sprang up, letting his gun fall, threw himself into a fighting attitude, and struck out at me. But he missed me, for when his gun fell it would have glided over the edge of the rocky shelf into the stream if I had not suddenly stooped down and caught it, the result being that Jack's fierce blow went right over my head, while when I rose upright he was wide awake. "I say," he said coolly, "have I been asleep?" "Asleep! yes," I whispered hastily. "Here, come along; we are to get forward. How could you sleep?" "Oh, I don't know!" he said. "I only just closed my eyes. Why, here's somebody else asleep!" Sure enough Jimmy was curled up close to the rock, with his hands tucked under his arms, his waddy in one fist, a hatchet in the other. Jack Penny was in so sour a temper at having been awakened from sleep, and in so rude a way, that he swung one of his long legs back, and then sent it forward. "Don't kick him!" I said hastily; but I was too late, for the black received the blow from Jack's foot right in the ribs, and starting up with his teeth grinding together, he struck a tremendous blow with his waddy, fortunately at the rock, which sent forth such an echoing report through the gully that the doctor came hurriedly to our side. "What is it?" he said in an anxious whisper. "Big bunyip hit Jimmy rib; kick, bangum, bangum!" cried the black furiously. "Who kick black fellow? Bash um head um! Yah!" He finished his rapidly uttered address by striking a warlike attitude. "It's all right now," I whispered to the doctor. "Come along, Jimmy;" and taking the black's arm I pushed him on before me, growling like an angry dog. "All right!" the doctor said. "Yes, for our pursuers! Get on as quickly as you can." I hurried on now to the front, giving Ti-hi his order to proceed, and then signing to the bearers to go on, I was getting back past them along the narrow path, and had just got by Jimmy and reached Jack Penny, when there was a flash, and a rattling echoing report as of twenty rifles from where the doctor was keeping guard. I knew that the danger must be imminent or he would not have fired, and passing Jack Penny, who was standing ready, rifle in hand, I reached the doctor just as there was another flash and roar echoing along the gully. "That's right, my lad!" he whispered; "be ready to fire if you see them coming while I reload." I knelt down, resting my elbow on my knee, and found it hard work to keep the piece steady as I waited to see if the savages were coming on. I had not long to wait before I distinctly saw a couple of dimly-seen figures against the surface of the starlit water. I fired directly, and then again, rising afterwards to my feet to reload. "Now, back as you load, quickly!" whispered the doctor, and he caught Aroo by the shoulder and drew him back as half a dozen arrows came pattering against the rock over our head and fell at our feet. "Back!" whispered the doctor quietly; "we must keep up a running fight." "Here, hold hard a minute!" said Jack Penny aloud; "I must have a shot at 'em first." "No: wait!" cried the doctor. "Your turn will come." Jack Penny uttered a low growl in his deep bass voice, which was answered by Gyp, who was getting much excited, and had to be patted and restrained by angry orders to lie down before he would consent to follow his master in the hurried retreat we made to where Ti-hi and his men were waiting for us. Here we found the shelf had widened somewhat, and some pieces of rock that had fallen offered shelter from an attack. As we joined them the men, who had laid down their loads, prepared to discharge a volley of arrows, but they were stopped, as it would have been so much waste. For the next six hours, till the stars began to pale, ours was one continuous retreat before the enemy, who seemed to grow bolder each time we gave way and hurried along the edge of the river to a fresh halting-place. We fired very seldom, for it was only waste of ammunition, and the darkness was so great that though they often sent a volley of arrows amongst us, not one of our party was hurt. It was a fevered and exciting time, but fortunately we were not called upon to suffer as we had during the attack upon the cave. Then we were maddened almost by the heat and thirst. Now we had ample draughts of cool refreshing water to fly to from time to time, or to bathe our temples where the shelf was low. The savages made no attempts at concealing their presence now, and we could hear a loud buzz of excited voices constantly in our rear, but still they did not pursue us right home, but made rushes that kept us in a constant state of excitement and, I may say, dread. "Do you think they will get tired of this soon, doctor?" I said, just at daybreak, when I found the doctor looking at me in a strange and haggard way. "I can't say, my lad," he whispered back. "We must hope for the best." Just then Ti-hi came from the front to sign to us to hurry on, and following him we found that he had hit upon a place where there was some hope of our being able to hold our own for a time. It was extremely fortunate, for the coming day would make us an easy mark, the pale-grey light that was stealing down having resulted in several arrows coming dangerously near; and though there were equal advantages for us in the bodies of our enemies becoming easier to see, we were not eager to destroy life, our object, as I have before said, being to escape. We followed Ti-hi, to find that the narrow shelf slowly rose now higher and higher, till at the end of a couple of hundred yards it gained its highest point of some five-and-twenty feet above the river; while to add to the advantage of our position, the rock above the path stretched over it like the commencement of some Titan's arch, that had been intended to bridge the stream, one that had either never been finished, or had crumbled and fallen away. In support of this last fanciful idea there were plenty of loose rocks and splinters of stones that had fallen from above, mingled with others whose rounded shapes showed that they must have been ground together by the action of water. I did not think of that at the time, though I had good reason to understand it later on. The position was admirable, the ledge widening out considerably; we were safe from dropping arrows, and we had only to construct a strong breastwork, some five feet long, to protect us from attack by the enemy. In fact in five minutes or so we were comparatively safe; in ten minutes or a quarter of an hour our breastwork was so strengthened that we began to breathe freely. By this time it was morning, but instead of its continuing to grow light down in the ravine, whose walls towered up on either side, the gathering light seemed suddenly to begin to fade away. It grew more obscure. The soft cool refreshing morning breeze died away, to give place to a curious sultry heat. The silence, save the rushing of the river, was profound, and it seemed at last as if it was to be totally dark. "What does this mean, doctor?" I said, as I glanced round and noted that the sombre reflection from the walls of the chasm gave the faces of my companions a ghastly and peculiar look. "A storm, my lad," he said quietly. "Look how discoloured the water seems. There has been a storm somewhere up in the mountains, I suppose, and now it is coming here." "Well, we are in shelter," I said, "and better off than our enemies." "What difference does that make?" grumbled Jack Penny in ill-used tones. "They can't get wet through, for they don't wear hardly any clothes. But, I say, ain't it time we had our breakfast? I've given up my night's rest, but I must have something to eat." "Quick! look out, my lads! look out!" cried the doctor, as there was a loud yelling noise from the savages, whom we could plainly see now coming along the narrow path, while almost simultaneously there was a vivid flash of lightning that seemed to blind us for the time, and then a deafening roar of thunder, followed so closely by others that it was like one rolling, incessant peal. CHAPTER TWENTY TWO. HOW HIGH THE WATER CAME. The coming of the storm checked the furious onslaught of our black enemies, but it was only for the moment. Setting thunder, lightning, and the deluging rain at defiance, they came rushing on, shouting and yelling furiously, and we were about to draw trigger, reluctantly enough, but in sheer desperation, when a volley of arrows checked them for a time, while, resuming what seemed to be a favourite means of warring upon his enemies, Jimmy commenced hurling masses of stone at the coming foes. Checked as they were, though, it was only for a while; and we were compelled to fire again and again, with fresh assailants taking the places of those who fell. The thunder pealed so that the reports of our pieces seemed feeble, more like the crack of a cart-whip, and their flashes were as sparks compared with the blinding lightning, which darted and quivered in the gorge, at times seeming to lick the walls, at others plunging into the rushing, seething stream, into which the rain poured in very cataracts down the rocky sides. We should have ceased in very awe of the terrible battle of the elements, but in self-defence we were driven to fight hard and repel the continued attacks of the enemy, who, growing more enraged at our resistance, came on once more in a determined fashion, as if meaning this time to sweep us before them into the rushing stream. But for the bravery of our black companions our efforts would have been useless, and we should certainly have been driven back by the fierce savages, who advanced up the path, sprang upon the stone breastwork, and would have dashed down upon us regardless of our firearms, but Ti-hi and Aroo cast aside their bows at this final onslaught, and used their war-clubs in the most gallant manner. Jimmy, too, seemed to be transformed into as brave a black warrior as ever fought; and it was the gallant resistance offered that checked the enemy and made them recoil. The falling back of the foremost men, who were beaten and stunned by the blows they had received, drove their companions to make a temporary retreat, and enabled us to reload; but ere we could seem to get breath, one who appeared to be a chief rallied them, and two abreast, all that the path would allow, they came charging up towards us once again. Then there was a dead pause as the thunder crashed overhead once more, and then seemed to be continued in a strange rushing sound, which apparently paralysed the attacking party, who hesitated, stopped short about a third of the way up the narrow slope that led to our little fort, and then with a shriek of dismay turned and began to retreat. I stared after them, wondering that they should give way just at a time when a bold attack would probably have ended in our destruction; but I could make out nothing, only that the noise of the thunder still seemed to continue and grow into a sound like a fierce rush. But this was nothing new: the thunder had been going on before, and that and the blinding lightning the enemy had braved. Our defence had had no effect upon them, save to make them attack more fiercely. And yet they were now in full retreat, falling over each other in their haste, and we saw two thrust into the swift river. "Yah, ah!--big bunyip water, water!" roared Jimmy just then, clapping me on the shoulder; and, turning sharply, I saw the meaning of the prolongation of the thunder, for a great wave, at least ten feet high, ruddy, foaming, and full of tossing branches, came rushing down the gorge, as if in chase of our enemies, and before I had more than time to realise the danger, the water had leaped by us, swelling almost to our place of refuge, and where, a minute before, there had been a rocky shelf--the path along which we had come--there was now the furious torrent tearing along at racing speed. I turned aghast to the doctor, and then made as if to run, expecting that the next moment we should be swept away; but he caught me by the arm with a grip like iron. "Stand still," he roared, with his lips to my ear. "The storm--high up the mountains--flood--the gorge." Just then there was another crashing peal of thunder, close upon a flash of lightning, and the hissing rain ceased as if by magic, while the sky began to grow lighter. The dull boom of the tremendous wave had passed too, but the river hissed and roared as it tore along beneath our feet, and it was plain to see that it was rising higher still. The noise was not so great though, now, that we could not talk, and after recovering from the appalling shock of the new danger we had time to look around. Our first thought was of our enemies, and we gazed excitedly down the gorge and then at each other, Jack Penny shuddering and turning away his head, while I felt a cold chill of horror as I fully realised the fact that they had been completely swept away. There could not be a moment's doubt of that, for the ware spread from rocky wall to rocky wall, and dashed along at frightful speed. We had only escaped a similar fate through being on the summit, so to speak, of the rocky path; but though for the moment safe, we could not tell for how long; while on taking a hasty glance at our position it was this: overhead the shelving rock quite impassable; to left, to right, and in front, the swollen, rushing torrent. The doctor stood looking down at the water for a few moments, and then turned to me. "How high above the surface of the water were we, do you think, when we came here?" "I should say about twenty-five feet?" "Why, we ain't four foot above it now; and--look there! it's a rising fast. I say, Joe Carstairs, if I'd known we were going to be drowned I wouldn't have come." "Are you sure it is rising?" said the doctor, bending down to examine the level--an example I followed--to see crack and crevice gradually fill and point after point covered by the seething water, which crept up slowly and insidiously higher and higher even as we watched. "Yes," said the doctor, rising to his feet and gazing calmly round, as if to see whether there was any loophole left for escape; "yes, the water is rising fast; there can be no doubt of that." Just then Gyp, who had been fierce and angry, snapping and barking furiously at the savages each time they charged, suddenly threw up his head and uttered a dismal howl. "Here, you hold your noise," cried Jack Penny. "You don't hear us holler, do you? Lie down!" The dog howled softly and crouched at his master's feet, while Jack began to take off his clothes in a very slow and leisurely way. First he pulled off his boots, then his stockings, which he tucked methodically, along with his garters, inside his boots. This done he took off his jacket, folded it carefully, and his shirt followed, to be smoothed and folded and laid upon the jacket. And now, for the first time I thoroughly realised how excessively thin poor Jack Penny was, and the reason why he so often had a pain in his back. It seemed a strange time: after passing through such a series of dangers, after escaping by so little from being swept away, and while in terrible danger from the swiftly-rising waters, but I could not help it--Jack's aspect as he sat there coolly, very coolly, clothed in his trousers alone, was so ludicrous that I burst out laughing, when Jimmy joined in, and began to dance with delight. "What are you larfin at?" said Jack, half vexed at my mirth. "At you," I said. "Why, what are you going to do?" "Do!" he said. "Why, swim for it. You don't suppose I'm going to try in my clothes?" My mirth died out as swiftly as it came, for the doctor laid his hand upon my arm and pressed it silently, to call my attention to our black followers, who were laying their bows and arrows regularly in company with their waddies, each man looking very stern and grave. They showed no fear, they raised no wild cry; they only seemed to be preparing for what was inevitable; and as I saw Ti-hi bend over and touch the water easily with his hand, and then rise up and look round at his companions, saying a few words in their tongue, the chill of horror came back once more, for I knew that the group of savages felt that their time had come, and that they were sitting there patiently waiting for the end. CHAPTER TWENTY THREE. WE AWAIT OUR FATE. I glanced from the blacks to the doctor, to see that he was intently gazing up the gorge where the rushing water came seething down, and I read in his face that he could not see the slightest hope. I looked at Jack Penny, who was deeply intent upon a little blue anchor that some bush shepherd had tattooed upon his thin white arm. Then I turned to Jimmy, whose quick dark eyes were busy inspecting his toes, those on the right foot having hold of his war-club, which he was holding out for Gyp to smell. He alone of the party did not seem to realise the fact that the end was so near. "Can we do anything, doctor?" I said at last in a low awe-stricken voice. He gazed at me tenderly and held out his hand to press mine, when I laid it in his grasp. "No, my lad," he said, "nothing. I have tried mentally to see a way out of our peril, but I can see none. Unless the water sinks we are lost! Joe, my lad, you must act like a man!" "I'll try, doctor," I said in a choking voice; and as I spoke, once more there seemed to rise up before me our quiet peaceful home near Sydney, with its verandah and flowers and the simply furnished pretty rooms, in one of which sat my mother, waiting for tidings of her husband and son. I could not help it, but clasped my hands together uttering a despairing cry. For it seemed so hard to give up hope when so young and full of health and strength. Even if it had been amidst the roar and turmoil of the storm it would not have seemed so bad, or when the great flood wave came down; but now, in these calm cool moments, when there was nothing to excite, nothing to stir the blood, and, above all, just when the sky was of a dazzling blue, with a few silvery clouds floating away in the rear of the storm, while the sun shone down gloriously, it seemed too hard to bear. I gazed eagerly at the water, to see that it was nearly a foot higher, and then I joined the doctor in searching the rock with my eyes for a place where we might find foothold and clamber beyond the reach of the rushing torrent; but no, there seemed no spot where even a bird could climb, and in despair I too began to strip off some of my clothes. "Are you going to try to swim?" said the doctor gravely. I nodded. "That's right," he said. "I shall do the same. We might reach some ledge lower down." He said that word _might_ with a slow solemn emphasis that made me shudder, for I knew he felt that it was hopeless; but all the same he granted that it was our duty to try. The doctor now bent down over the water, and I could see that it was rising faster than ever. All at once Jimmy seemed to rouse himself, throwing up his waddy with his foot and catching it in his hand. "No water go down," he said. "Mass Joe, Mass Jack, doctor, an all a let get up higher; no get wet. Top along get drown, die, and bunyip pull um down an eat um!" "I'm afraid escape is impossible, Jimmy," I said sadly. "No know what um say!" cried the black impatiently. "Can't get away," I said. "No get way! Waitum, waitum! Jimmy--Jimmy see!" He went to the edge of the shelf and dipped one foot in the water, then the other, worked his toes about, and then, after a contemptuous look at the blacks, who were calmly awaiting their fate, he looked up at the face of the rock beyond the curving over abutment, and, reaching up as high as he could, began to climb. It did not seem to occur to him at first that if he were able to escape no one else would be, and he tried twice with a wonderful display of activity, which resulted merely in his slipping back. Then he tried elsewhere in two places, but with the same result, and after a few more trials he came to me and stood rubbing the back of his head, as if puzzled at his being so helpless and beaten at every turn. "Get much, too much water, Mass Joe!" he said. "What um going to do?" I shook my head sadly, and went to where the doctor was watching the progress of the rushing river as it rose inch by inch--cracks and points of rock that we had before noticed disappearing entirely, till the flowing earth-stained surface was but a few inches below the ledge where we were grouped, waiting for the time when we should be swept away. In spite of the knowledge that at most in an hour the ledge would be covered I could not help watching the rushing stream as it dashed along. It was plain enough to me now why the sides of the gorge were so smooth and regular, for the action of the water must have been going on like this for many ages after every storm, and, laden as the waters were with masses of wood and stone, with pebbles and sand, the scouring of the rocks must have been incessant. Then my thoughts came back to our horrible position, and I looked round in despair, but only to be shamed out of any frantic display of grief by the stoical calmness with which all seemed to be preparing to meet their fate. Still the water rose steadily higher and higher inch by inch, and I could see that in a very few minutes it would be over the ledge. I was noting, too, that now it was so near the end, my companions seemed averse to speaking to me or each other, but were evidently moody and thoughtful; all but Jimmy, who seemed to be getting excited, and yet not much alarmed. I had gone to the extreme edge of the ledge, where the water nearly lapped my feet, and gazing straight up the gorge at the sunlit waters, kept backing slowly up the slope, driven away as the river rose, when the black came to me and touched my shoulder. "Poor black fellow there going die, Mass Joe. Not die yet while: Jimmy not go die till fin' um fader. Lot o' time; Jimmy not ready die--lot o' time!" "But how are we to get away, Jimmy? How are we to escape?" "Black fellow hab big tink," he replied. "Much big tink and find um way. Great tupid go die when quite well, tank you, Mass Joe. Jimmy black fellow won't die yet? Mass Joe hab big swim 'long o' Jimmy. Swim much fass all down a water. Won't die, oh no! Oh no!" There was so much hope and confidence in the black's manner and his broken English that I felt my heart give a great throb; but a sight of the calm resignation of my companions damped me again, till Jimmy once more spoke: "Mass Joe take off closums. Put long gun up in corner; come and fetch um when no water. Big swim!" Many had been the times when Jimmy and I had dashed into the river and swum about by the hour together; why not then now try to save our lives in spite of the roughness of the torrent and the horrors of the great fall I knew, too, that the fall must be at least two or three miles away, and there was always the possibility of our getting into some eddy and struggling out. My spirits rose then at these thoughts, and I rapidly threw off part of my clothes, placing my gun and hatchet with the big knife, all tied together, in a niche of the rock, where their weight and the shelter might save them from being washed away. As I did all this I saw the doctor look up sadly, but only to lower his head again till his chin rested upon his breast; while Jack Penny stared, and drew his knees up to his chin, embracing his legs and nodding his head sagely, as if he quite approved of what I was doing. The only individual who made any active demonstration was Gyp, who jumped up and came to me wagging his tail and uttering a sharp bark or two. Then he ran to the water, snuffed at it, lapped a little, and threw up his head again, barking and splashing in it a little as he ran in breast-high and came back, as if intimating that he was ready at any moment for a swim. The doctor looked up now, and a change seemed to have come over him, for he rose from where he had been seated and took my hand. "Quite right, my lad," he said; "one must never say despair. There's a ledge there higher up where we will place the ammunition. Let's keep that dry if we can. It may not be touched by the water; even if we have to swim for our lives the guns won't hurt--that is, if they are not washed away." It was as if he had prepared himself for the worst, and was now going to make strenuous efforts to save himself and his friends, after we had taken such precautions as we could about our stores. Jimmy grinned and helped readily to place the various articles likely to be damaged by water as high as we could on ledges and blocks of stone, though as I did all this it was with the feeling that we were never likely to see the things again. Still it was like doing one's duty, and I felt that then, of all times, was the hour for that. So we worked on, with many a furtive glance at the water, which kept on encroaching till it began to lap the feet of our black companions. But they did not stir; they remained with their positions unaltered, and still the water advanced, till the highest point of the ledge was covered, and Gyp began whining and paddling about, asking us, as it were, with his intelligent eyes, whether we did not mean to start. "Hi! Gyp, Gyp!" shouted Jimmy just then; "up along, boy; up along!" and he patted the top of one of the stones that we had used for a breastwork. The dog leaped up directly, placing himself three feet above the flood, and stood barking loudly. "Yes, we can stand up there for a while," said the doctor, "and that will prolong the struggle a bit. Here, come up higher!" he cried, making signs to our black companions, who after a time came unwillingly from their lower position, splashing mournfully through the water, but evidently unwilling even then to disobey their white leader. They grouped themselves with us close up to the breastwork, where we stood with the water rising still higher, and then all at once I felt that we must swim, for a fresh wave, the result probably of some portion of the flood that had been dammed up higher on the river course, swept upon us right to our lips, and but for the strength of our stone breastwork we must have been borne away. As it was, we were standing by it, some on either side, and all clinging together. We withstood the heavy wrench that the water seemed to give, and held on, the only one who lost his footing being Jack Penny, who was dragged back by the doctor as the wave passed on. "Enough to pull your arms out of the socket," whined Jack dolefully. "I say, please don't do it again. I'd rather have to swim." Higher and higher came the water, icily cold and numbing. The wave that passed was succeeded by another, but that only reached to our waists, and when this had gone by there was the old slow rising of the flood as before till it was as high as our knees. Then by degrees it crept on and on till I was standing with it reaching my hips. A fearful silence now ensued, and the thought came upon me that when the final struggle was at hand we should be so clasped together that swimming would be impossible and we must all be drowned. And now, once more, with the water rising steadily, the old stunned helpless feeling began to creep over me, and I began to think of home in a dull heavy manner, of the happy days when I had hardly a care, and perhaps a few regrets were mixed with it all; but somehow I did not feel as if I repented of coming, save when I thought that my mother would have two sorrows now when she came to know of her loss. Then everything seemed to be numbed; my limbs began to feel helpless, and my thoughts moved sluggishly, and in a half dreamy fashion I stood there pressed against, the rock holding tightly by the doctor on one side, by Jimmy on the other, and in another minute I knew that the rising water would be at my lips. I remember giving a curious gasp as if my breath was going, and in imagination I recalled my sensations when, during a bathing expedition, I went down twice before Jimmy swam to my help and held me up. The water had not touched my lips--it was only at my chest, but I fancied I felt it bubbling in my nostrils and strangling me; I seemed to hear it thundering in my ears; there was the old pain at the back of my neck, and I struggled to get my hands free to beat the water like a drowning dog, but they were tightly held by my companions, how tightly probably they never knew. Then I remember that my head suddenly seemed to grow clear, and I was repeating to myself the words of a familiar old prayer when my eyes fell upon the surface of the water, and I felt as if I could not breathe. The next minute Gyp was barking furiously, as he stood upon his hind legs resting his paws upon his master's shoulders, and Jimmy gave a loud shout. "All a water run away, juss fass now," and as he spoke it fell a couple of inches, then a couple more, so swiftly, indeed, that the terrible pressure that held us tightly against the stones was taken off pound by pound, and before we could realise the truth the water was at my knees. Ten minutes later it was at my feet, and before half an hour had passed we were standing in the glorious sunshine with the rocky ledge drying fast, while the river, minute by minute, was going down, so that we felt sure if no storm came to renew the flood it would be at its old level in a couple of hours' time. We were dripping and numbed by the icy water; but in that fierce sunshine it was wonderful how soon our wrung-out garments dried; and warmth was rapidly restored to our limbs by rocks that soon grew heated in the torrid rays. "Big bunyip got no more water. All gone dis time," said Jimmy calmly. "Poor black fellows tink go die. No die Jimmy. Lots a do find um fader all over big country. Water all gone, Jimmy cunning--artful, not mean die dis time. Bunyip not got 'nuff water. Give Jimmy something eat. Ready eat half sheep and damper. Give Jimmy some eat." We all wanted something to eat, and eagerly set to work, but soaking damper was not a very sumptuous repast; still we feasted as eagerly as if it had been the most delicious food, and all the time the water kept going down. CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR. HOW THE DOCTOR TOOK ME IN HAND. It is surprising how elastic the mind is in young people, and my experience has shown me that there is a great deal of resemblance between the minds of savages and those of the young. In this case we had all been, I may say, in a state of the most terrible despair one hour. The next, our black companions were laughing and chattering over their wet damper, and Jimmy was hopping about in the highest of glee, while I must confess to a singular feeling of exhilaration which I showed in company with Jack Penny, who, after resuming his garments, seemed to have been seized with the idea that the proper thing to do was to go round from one to another administering friendly slaps on the shoulder accompanied by nods and smiles. I used to wish that Jack Penny would not smile, for the effect upon his smooth boyish countenance was to make him look idiotic. When the doctor smiled there was a grave kindly benevolent look in his fine heavily-bearded massive face. When Jimmy smiled it was in a wholesale fashion, which gave you an opportunity of counting his teeth from the incisors right back to those known as wisdom-teeth at the angles of his jaws. He always smiled with all his might and made me think of the man who said he admired a crocodile because it had such a nice open countenance. Jimmy had a nice open countenance and a large mouth; but it in no respect resembled a crocodile's. His regular teeth were white with a china whiteness, more than that of ivory, and there was a genuine good-tempered look about his features which even the distortion produced by anger did not take away. It was only the rather comic grotesqueness seen sometimes in the face of a little child when he is what his mother calls a naughty boy, and distends his mouth and closes his eyes for a genuine howl. But Jack Penny had a smile of his own, a weak inane sickly smile that irritated instead of pleasing you, and made you always feel as if you would like to punch his head for being such a fool, when all the time he was not a fool at all, but a thoroughly good-hearted, brave, and clever fellow--true as steel--steel of the very elastic watch-spring kind, for the way in which he bent was terrible to see. So Jack Penny went about smiling and slapping people's backs till it was time to go, and we all watched the cessation of the flood with eagerness. The doctor, in talking, said that it was evident that this gorge ran right up into quite a mountainous region acting as a drain to perhaps a score of valleys which had been flooded by the sudden storm, and that this adventure had given us as true an idea of the nature of the interior we were about to visit as if we had studied a map. Down went the water more and more swiftly till, as I was saying to the doctor how grand it must have been to see the flood rolling over the great fall, we saw that the rocky ledge along which we had come and that on the other side of our little haven of safety were bare and drying up, being washed perfectly clean and not showing so much as a trace of mud. "Let us get on at once," the doctor said; "this is no road for a traveller to choose, for the first storm will again make it a death-trap." So here we were rescued, and we started at once, every one carefully avoiding the slightest reference to the fate of our pursuers, while in the broad light of day, in place of looking terrible, the chasm was simply grand. The cool rolling water seemed to bring with it a soft sweet breeze that made us feel elastic, and refreshed us as we trudged along at an ordinary rate, for there was no fear now of pursuit. So with one or two halts we walked on all day till I felt eager to get out from between the prison-like walls to where the trees were waving, and we could hear the voices of the birds. Here there was nothing but stone, stone as high as we could see. It was a great drawback our not being able to converse with the bearers, but we amended this a little every hour, for Ti-hi struggled hard to make us understand how much he knew about the place and how he knew that there were such floods as this from time to time. We managed to learn from him, too, that we should not escape from the gorge that night, and to our dismay we had to encamp on a broad shelf when the sun went down; but the night proved to be clear and calm, and morning broke without any adventure to disturb our much-needed rest. The gorge had been widening out, though, a great deal on the previous evening, and by noon next day, when we paused for a rest after a long tramp over constantly-rising ground, we were beyond risk from any such storm as that which had nearly been our destruction, but as we rested amid some bushes beside what was a mere gurgling stream, one of several into which the river had branched, Ti-hi contrived to make us understand that we were not in safety, for there were people here who were ready to fight and kill, according to his words and pantomimic action, which Jimmy took upon himself to explain. For days and days we journeyed on finding abundance of food in the river and on its banks by means of gun and hook and line. The blacks were clever, too, at finding for us roots and fruit, with tender shoots of some kind of grassy plant that had a sweet taste, pleasantly acid as well, bunches of which Jimmy loved to stick behind him in his waistband so that it hung down like a bushy green tail that diminished as he walked, for he kept drawing upon it till it all was gone. Now and then, too, we came upon the great pale-green broad leaves of a banana or plantain, which was a perfect treasure. Jimmy was generally the first to find these, for he was possessed of a fine insight into what was good for food. "Regular fellow for the pot," Jack Penny said one day as Jimmy set up one of his loud whoops and started off at a run. This was the first time we found a plantain, and in answer to Jimmy's _cooey_ we followed and found him hauling himself up by the large leaf-stalks, to where, thirty feet above the bottom, hung, like a brobdignagian bunch of elongated grapes, a monstrous cluster of yellow plantains. "I say, they ain't good to eat, are they?" said Jack, as Jimmy began hacking through the curved stalk. "Yup, yup! hyi, hyi!" shouted Jimmy, tearing away so vigorously at the great bunch that it did not occur to him that he was proceeding in a manner generally accredited to the Irishman who sawed off a branch, cutting between himself and the tree. The first knowledge he, and for the matter of fact we, had of his mistake, was seeing him and the bunch of bananas, weighing about a hundredweight, come crashing down amongst the undergrowth, out of a tangle of which, and the huge leaves of the plantain tree, we had to help our black companion, whose first motion was to save the fruit. This done he began to examine himself to see how much he was hurt, and ended by seizing my axe and bounding back into the jungle, to hew and hack at the tree till we called him back. "Big bunyip tree! Fro black fellow down," he cried furiously. "Got um bana, though!" he exclaimed triumphantly, and turning to the big bunch he began to separate it into small ones, giving us each a portion to carry. "I say, what's these?" said Jack Penny, handling his bunch with a look of disgust. "Bananas," I said. "Splendid fruit food." "How do you know?" said Jack sourly. "There's none in your garden at home." "My father has often told me about them," I replied. "They are rich and nutritious, and--let's try." I ended my description rather abruptly, for I was thirsty and hungry as well, and the presence of a highly flavoured fruit was not to be treated with contempt. I cut off one then, and looking at Jack nodded, proceeded to peel it, and enjoyed the new sweet vegetable butter, flavoured with pear and honey, for the first time in my life. "Is it good?" said Jack, dubiously. "Splendid," I said. "Why, they look like sore fingers done up in stalls," he said. "I say, I don't like the look of them." "Don't have any, then," I said, commencing another; while every one present, the doctor included, followed my example with so much vigour that Jack began in a slow solemn way, peeling and tasting, and making a strange grimace, and ending by eating so rapidly that the doctor advised a halt. "Oh, all right!" said Jack. "I won't eat any more, then. But, I say, they are good!" There was no likelihood of our starving, for water was abundant, and fruit to be found by those who had such energetic hunters as the blacks. So we proceeded steadily on, hoping day by day either to encounter some friendly tribe, or else to make some discovery that might be of value to us in our search. And so for days we journeyed on, hopeful in the morning, dispirited in the heat of the day when weary. Objects such as would have made glad the heart of any naturalist were there in plenty, but nothing in the shape of sign that would make our adventure bear the fruit we wished. If our object had been hunting and shooting, wild pig, deer, and birds innumerable were on every hand. Had we been seeking wonderful orchids and strangely shaped flowers and fruits there was reward incessant for us, but it seemed as if the whole of the interior was given up to wild nature, and that the natives almost exclusively kept to the land near the sea-shore. The doctor and I sat one night by our watch-fire talking the matter over, and I said that I began to be doubtful of success. "Because we have been all over the country?" he replied, smiling. "Well, we have travelled a great way," I said. "Why, my dear boy, what we have done is a mere nothing. This island is next in size to Australia. It is almost a continent, and we have just penetrated a little way." "But I can't help seeing," I said, "that the people seem to be all dwellers near the sea-coast." "Exactly. What of that?" he replied. "Then if my poor father were anywhere a prisoner, he would have been sure to have found some means of communicating with the traders if he had not escaped." "Your old argument, Joe," he said. "Are you tired of the quest?" "Tired? No!" I cried excitedly. "Then recollect the spirit in which we set about this search. We said we would find him." "And so we will: my mind is made up to find him--if he be living," I added mournfully. "Aha!" said the doctor, bending forward and looking at me by the light of the burning wood, "I see, my fine fellow, I see. We are a bit upset with thinking and worry. Nerves want a little tone, eh? as we doctors say. My dear boy, I shall have to feel your pulse and put you to bed for a day or two. This is a nice high and dry place: suppose we camp here for a little, and--" "Oh no, no, doctor," I cried. "But I say, Oh yes, yes. Why, Joe, you're not afraid of a dose of physic, are you? You want something, that's evident. Boys of your age don't have despondent fits without a cause." "I have only been thinking a little more about home, and--my poor father," I said with a sigh. "My dear Joe," said the doctor, "once for all I protest against that despondent manner of speaking. `My poor father!' How do you know he is poor? Bah! lad: you're a bit down, and I shall give you a little quinine. To-morrow you will rest all day." "And then?" I said excitedly. "Then," he said thoughtfully--"then? Why, then we'll have a fishing or a shooting trip for a change, to do us both good, and we'll take Jack Penny and Jimmy with us." "Let's do that to-morrow, doctor," I said, "instead of my lying here in camp." "Will you take your quinine, then, like a good boy?" he said laughingly. "That I will, doctor--a double dose," I exclaimed. "A double dose you shall take, Joe, my lad," he said; and to my horror he drew a little flat silver case out of his pocket, measured out a little light white powder on the blade of a knife into our pannikin, squeezed into it a few drops of the juice of a lemon-like fruit of which we had a pretty good number every day, filled up with water, and held it for me to drink. "Oh, I say, doctor!" I exclaimed, "I did not think I should be brought out here in the wilderness to be physicked." "Lucky fellow to have a medical man always at your side," he replied. "There, sip it up. No faces. Pish! it wasn't nasty, was it?" "Ugh! how bitter!" I cried with a shudder. "Bitter? Well, yes; but how sweet to know that you have had a dose of the greatest medicine ever discovered. There, now, lie down on the blanket near the fire here, never mind being a little warm, and go to sleep." I obeyed him unwillingly, and lay attentively watching the doctor's thoughtful face and the fire. Then I wondered whether we should have that savage beast again which had haunted our camp at our first starting, and then I began to dose off, and was soon dreaming of having found my father, and taken him in triumph back to where my mother was waiting to receive us with open arms. CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE. HOW I WAS DISPOSED TO FIND FAULT WITH MY BEST FRIEND. When I unclosed my eyes it was bright morning and through an opening in the trees opposite to where I lay I gazed upon the dazzling summit of a mountain of wonderfully regular shape. As I lay there it put me in mind of a bell, so evenly rounded were the shoulders, and I was thinking whether it would be possible to clamber up it and inspect the country from its summit, when the doctor came up. "Ah! Joe," he said; "and how are the spirits this morning?" "Spirits?" I said wonderingly, for my sleep had been so deep that I had forgotten all about the previous evening. "Oh, I'm quite well;" and springing up I went to the stream by which we were encamped to bathe my face and hands, coming back refreshed, and quite ready for the breakfast that was waiting. "Let's see," said the doctor. "I promised an expedition did I not?" "Yes: hunting or fishing," I said eagerly, though I half repented my eagerness directly after, for it seemed as if I did not think enough about the object of our journey. "I've altered my mind," said the doctor. "We've been travelling for days in low damp levels; now for a change what do you say to trying high ground and seeing if we can climb that mountain? What do you say, Penny?" "Won't it make our backs ache a deal?" he said, gazing rather wistfully up at the glittering mountain. "No doubt, and our legs too," the doctor replied. "Of course we shall not try to ascend the snowy parts, but to get as far as the shoulder; that will give us a good view of the lay of the country, and it will be something to climb where perhaps human foot has never trod before." There was something fascinating enough in this to move Jack Penny into forgetfulness of the possibility of an aching back; and after getting in motion once more, we followed our black bearers for a few miles, and then giving them instructions where to halt--upon a low hill just in front--we struck off to the left, the doctor, Jack Penny, Jimmy, and the dog, and at the end of half an hour began the ascent. So slight was the slope that we climbed I could hardly believe it possible how fast we had ascended, when at the end of a couple of hours we sat down to rest by a rill of clear intensely cold water that was bubbling amongst the stones. For on peering through a clump of trees I gazed at the most lovely landscape I had seen since I commenced my journey. Far as eye could reach it was one undulating forest of endless shades of green, amidst which, like verdant islands, rose hill and lesser mountain. I could have stopped and gazed at the scene for hours had not the doctor taken me by the arm. "Rest and food, my lad," he said; "and then higher up yet before we settle to our map making and mark out our future course." Jimmy was already fast asleep beneath a rock, curled up in imitation of Gyp, while Jack Penny was sitting with his back against a tree, apparently studying his legs as he rubbed his hands up and down them gently, to soften and make more pliable the muscles. "Tain't time to go on yet, is it?" he said with a dismal glance up at us. "No, no, Penny; we'll have a good rest first," said the doctor; and Jack uttered a profound sigh of relief. "I am glad," he said, "for I was resting my back. I get up against a small tree like this and keep my back straight, and that seems to make it stronger and stiffer for ever so long." "Then take my advice, Penny; try another plan, my lad. You have grown too fast." "Yes, that's what father always said," replied Jack, beginning with a high squeak and rumbling off into a low bass. "You are then naturally weak, and if I were you I should lie flat down upon my back every time we stopped. You will then get up refreshed more than you think for." "But you wouldn't lie flat like that when you were eating your victuals, would you? I ain't Jimmy." "No, but you could manage that," I said; and Jack Penny nodded and lay down very leisurely, but only to spring up again most energetically and uttering a frightened yell. Gyp and Jimmy uncoiled like a couple of loosened springs, the former to utter a series of angry barks, and the latter to spring up into the air suddenly. "Where de bunyip--where de big bunyip? Jimmy kill um all along." He flourished his waddy wildly, and then followed Gyp, who charged into the wood as the doctor and I seized our guns, ready for action. Then a fierce worrying noise took place for a few moments in amongst the bushes, and then Jimmy came bounding out, dragging a small snake by the tail, to throw it down and then proceed to batter its head once again with his waddy, driving it into the earth, though the reptile must already have ceased to exist. "Killum dead um!" cried Jimmy, grinning with triumph. "Jimmy killum headums; Gyp killums tail." "I wish you'd look, doctor, and see if he bit me," said Jack, speaking disconsolately. "I lay down as you told me, and put my head right on that snake." "Don't you know whether it bit you?" said the doctor anxiously. "No, not the least idea," said Jack, shaking his head. "I think it must have bit me, I was so close." "I don't believe it did," I said. "Why, you must have known." "Think so?" said Jack dismally. "I say, doctor, is it best, do you think, to lie right down?" "Yes, if you look first to see whether there is danger from snakes. There, lie down, my lad, and rest." Jack obeyed him very reluctantly, and after Gyp and Jimmy had both re-curled themselves, the doctor and I lay down to talk in a low voice about our prospects, and then as I lay listening to his words, and wondering whether I should ever succeed in tracing out my father, all seemed to become blank, till I started up on being touched. "Had a good nap?" said the doctor. "Then let's get on again." We started once more, with the ground now becoming more difficult. Trees were fewer, but rocks and rugged patches of stony soil grew frequent, while a pleasant breeze now played about our faces and seemed to send vigour into our frames. Gyp and the black were wonderfully excited, bounding about in front of us, and even Jack Penny stepped out with a less uncertain stride. Higher we climbed and higher, and at every pause that we made for breath the beauty of the great country was more impressed upon me. "What a pity!" exclaimed the doctor, as we halted at last upon a rugged corner of the way we were clambering, with the glistening summit far above our heads, while at our feet the wild country looked like some lovely green garden. "What is a pity?" I said wonderingly, for the scene, tired and hot as I was, seemed lovely. "That such a glorious country should be almost without inhabitant, when thousands of our good true Englishmen are without a scrap of land to call their own." "Hey, hi!" cried Jack Penny excitedly. "Look out! There's something wrong." Jimmy and the dog had, as usual, been on ahead; but only to come racing back, the former's face full of excitement, while the dog seemed almost as eager as the black. "Jimmy find um mans, find. Quiet, Gyp; no make noise." "Find? My father?" I cried, with a curious choking sensation in my throat. "No; no findum fader," whispered Jimmy. "Get um gun. Findum black fellow round a corner." "He has come upon the natives at last, doctor," I said softly. "What shall we do?" "Retreat if they are enemies; go up to them if they are friendly," said the doctor; "only we can't tell which, my lad. Ours is a plunge in the dark, and we must risk it, or I do not see how we are to get on with our quest." "Shall we put on a brave face and seem as if we trusted them then?" I said. "But suppose they're fierce cannibals," whispered Jack Penny, "or as savage as those fellows down by the river? Ain't it rather risky?" "No more risky than the whole of our trip, Penny," said the doctor gravely. "Are you afraid?" "Well, I don't know," drawled Jack softly. "I don't think I am, but I ain't sure. But I sha'n't run away. Oh, no, I sha'n't run away." "Come along then," said the doctor. "Shoulder your rifle carelessly, and let's put a bold front upon our advance. They may be friendly. Now, Jimmy, lead the way." The black's eyes glittered as he ran to the front, stooping down almost as low as if he were some animal creeping through the bush, and taking advantage of every shrub and rock for concealment. He went on, with Gyp close at his heels, evidently as much interested as his leader, while we followed, walking erect and making no effort to conceal our movements. We went on like this for quite a quarter of a mile, and the doctor had twice whispered to me that he believed it was a false alarm, in spite of Jimmy's cautionary movements, and we were about to shout to him to come back, when all at once he stopped short behind a rugged place that stood out of the mountain slope, and waved his waddy to us to come on. "He has come upon them," I said, with my heart beating faster and a curious sensation of sluggishness attacking my legs. "Yes, he has found something," said the doctor; and as I glanced round I could see that Jack Penny had my complaint in his legs a little worse than I. But no sooner did he see that I was looking at him than he snatched himself together, and we went on boldly, feeling a good deal encouraged from the simple fact that Gyp came back to meet us wagging his tail. As we reached the spot where Jimmy was watching, he drew back to allow us to peer round the block of stone, saying softly: "Dat's um. Black fellow just gone long." To our surprise there were no natives in the hollow into which we peered, but just beyond a few stunted bushes I could see smoke arising, so it seemed, and the black whispered: "Black fellow fire. Cookum damper. Roastum sheep's muttons." "But there is no one, Jimmy," I said. "Jus' gone long. Hear Jimmy come long. Run away," he whispered. "That is no fire," said the doctor, stepping forward. "It is a hot spring." "Yes, yes, much big fire; go much out now. Mind black fellow; mind spear killum, killum." "Yes, a hot spring, and this is steam," said the doctor, as we went on to where a little basin of water bubbled gently, and sent forth quite a little pillar of vapour into the air; so white was it that the black might well have been excused for making his mistake. "Jimmy run long see where black fellow gone. Cookum dinner here. Eh! whar a fire?" he cried, bending down and poking at the little basin with the butt of his spear before looking wonderingly at us. "Far down in the earth, Jimmy," said the doctor. "Eh? Far down? Whar a fire makum water boils?" cried the black excitedly; and bending down he peered in all directions, ending by thrusting one hand in the spring and snatching it out again with a yell of pain. "Is it so hot as that, Jimmy?" I said. "Ah, roastum hot, O!" cried Jimmy, holding his hand to his mouth. "Oh! Mass Joe, doctor, stop. Jimmy go and find black fellow." We tried very hard to make the black understand that this was one of Nature's wonders, but it was of no avail. He only shook his head and winked at us, grinning the while. "No, no; Jimmy too cunning-artful. Play trickums. Make fool o' Jimmy. Oh, no! Ha! ha! Jimmy cunning-artful; black fellow see froo everybody." He stood shaking his head at us in such an aggravating way, after all the trouble I had been at to show him that this was a hot spring and volcanic, that I felt ready to kick, and I daresay I should have kicked him if he had not been aware of me, reading my countenance easily enough, and backing away laughing, and getting within reach of a great piece of rock, behind which he could dodge if I grew too aggressive. I left Jimmy to himself, and stood with the doctor examining the curious steaming little fount, which came bubbling out of some chinks in the solid rock and formed a basin for itself of milky white stone, some of which was rippled where the water ran over, and trickled musically along a jagged crevice in the rocky soil, sending up a faint steam which faded away directly in the glowing sunshine. "I say," said Jack Penny, who had crouched down beside the basin, "why, you might cook eggs in this." "That you might, Penny," said the doctor. "But we ain't got any eggs to cook," said Jack dolefully. "I wish we'd got some of our fowls' eggs--the new-laid ones, you know. I don't mean them you find in the nests. I say, it is hot," he continued. "You might boil mutton." "Eh! whar a mutton? Boil mutton?" cried Jimmy, running up, for he had caught the words. "At home, Jimmy," I said, laughing. The black's disgust was comical to witness as he tucked his waddy under one arm, turned his nose in the air, and stalked off amongst the rocks, in the full belief that we had been playing tricks with him. He startled us the next moment by shouting: "Here um come! Gun, gun, gun!" He came rushing back to us, and, moved by his evidently real excitement, we took refuge behind a barrier of rock and waited the coming onslaught, for surely enough there below us were dark bodies moving amongst the low growth, and it was evident that whatever it was, human being or lower animals, they were coming in our direction fast. We waited anxiously for a few minutes, during the whole of which time Jimmy was busily peering to right and left, now creeping forward for a few yards, sheltered by stones or bush, now slowly raising his head to get a glimpse of the coming danger; and so careful was he that his black rough head should not be seen, that he turned over upon his back, pushed himself along in that position, and then lay peering through the bushes over his forehead. The moving objects were still fifty yards away, where the bush was very thick and low. Admirable cover for an advancing enemy. Their actions seemed so cautious, too, that we felt sure that we must be seen, and I was beginning to wonder whether it would not be wise to fire amongst the low scrub and scare our enemies, when Jimmy suddenly changed his tactics, making a sign to us to be still, as he crawled backwards right past us and disappeared, waddy in hand. We could do nothing but watch, expecting the black every moment to return and report. But five minutes', ten minutes' anxiety ensued before we heard a shout right before us, followed by a rush, and as we realised that the black had come back past us so that he might make a circuit and get round the enemy, there was a rush, and away bounding lightly over the tops of the bushes went a little pack of a small kind of kangaroo. It was a matter of moments; the frightened animals, taking flying leaps till out of sight, and Jimmy appeared, running up panting, to look eagerly round. "Whar a big wallaby?" he cried. "No shoot? No killum? Eh? Jimmy killum one big small ole man!" He trotted back as he spoke, and returned in triumph bearing one of the creatures, about equal in size to a small lamb. This was quickly dressed by the black, and secured hanging in a tree, for the doctor would not listen to Jimmy's suggestion that we should stop and "boil um in black fellow's pot all like muttons;" and then we continued our climb till we had won to a magnificent position on the shoulder of the mountain for making a careful inspection of the country now seeming to lie stretched out at our feet. A more glorious sight I never saw. Green everywhere, wave upon wave of verdure lit up by the sunshine and darkening in shadow. Mountains were in the distance, and sometimes we caught the glint of water; but sweep the prospect as we would in every direction with the glass it was always the same, and the doctor looked at me at last and shook his head. "Joe," he said at last, "our plan appeared to be very good when we proposed it, but it seems to me that we are going wrong. If we are to find your father, whom we believe to be a prisoner--" "Who is a prisoner!" I said emphatically. "Why do you say that?" he cried sharply, searching me with his eyes. "I don't know," I replied dreamily. "He's a prisoner somewhere." "Then we must seek him among the villages of the blacks near the sea-shore. The farther we go the more we seem to be making our way into the desert. Look there!" he cried, pointing in different directions; "the foot of man never treads there. These forests are impassable." "Are you getting weary of our search, doctor?" I said bitterly. He turned upon me an angry look, which changed to one of reproach. "You should not have asked me that, my lad," he said softly. "You are tired or you would not have spoken so bitterly. Wait and see. I only want to direct our energies in the right way. The blacks could go on tramping through the country; we whites must use our brains as well as our legs." "I--I beg your pardon, doctor!" I cried earnestly. "All right, my lad," he said quietly. "Now for getting back to camp. Where must our bearers be?" He adjusted the glass and stood carefully examining the broad landscape before us, till all at once he uttered an exclamation, and handed the glass to me. "See what you make of that spot where there seems to be a mass of rock rising out of the plain, and a thin thread of flashing water running by its side. Yonder!" he continued, pointing. "About ten miles away, I should say." I took the glass, and after a good deal of difficulty managed to catch sight of the lump of rock he had pointed out. There was the gleaming thread of silver, too, with, plainly seen through the clear atmosphere and gilded by the sun, quite a tiny cloud of vapour slowly rising in the air. "Is that another hot spring, doctor?" I said, as I kept my glass fixed upon the spot; "or--" "Our blacks' fire," said the doctor. "It might be either; or in addition it might be a fire lit by enemies, or at all events savages; but as it is in the direction in which we are expecting to find our camp, and there seem to be no enemies near, I am in favour of that being camp. Come: time is slipping by. Let's start downward now." I nodded and turned to Jack Penny, who all this while had been resting his back by lying flat upon the ground, and that he was asleep was proved by the number of ants and other investigating insects which were making a tour all over his long body; Gyp meanwhile looking on, and sniffing at anything large, such as a beetle, with the result of chasing the visitor away. We roused Jack and started, having to make a detour so as to secure Jimmy's kangaroo, which he shouldered manfully, for though it offered us no temptation we knew that it would delight the men in camp. The descent was much less laborious than the ascent, but it took a long time, and the sun was fast sinking lower, while as we approached the plains every few hundred yards seemed to bring us into a warmer stratum of air, while we kept missing the pleasant breeze of the higher ground. If we could have made a bee-line right to where the smoke rose the task would have been comparatively easy, but we had to avoid this chasm, that piled-up mass of rocks, and, as we went lower, first thorny patches of scrub impeded our passage, and lower still there was the impenetrable forest. I was getting fearfully tired and Jack Penny had for a long time been perfectly silent, while Jimmy, who was last, took to uttering a low groan every now and then, at times making it a sigh as he looked imploringly at me, evidently expecting me to share his heavy load. I was too tired and selfish, I'm afraid, and I trudged on till close upon sundown, when it occurred to me that I had not heard Jimmy groan or sigh for some time, and turning to speak to him I waited till he came up, walking easily and lightly, with his spear acting as a staff. "Why, Jimmy; where's the kangaroo?" I said. "Wallaby ole man, Mass Joe?" he said, nodding his head on one side like a sparrow. "Yes; where is it?" "Bad un!" he said sharply. "Jimmy smell up poo boo! Bad; not good a eat. No get camp a night. Jimmy fro um all away!" "Thrown it away!" I cried. "Yes; bad ums. Jimmy fro um all away!" "You lazy humbug!" I said with a laugh, in which he good-humouredly joined. "Yess--ess--Jimmy laze humbug! Fro um all away." "But I say, look here, Jimmy!" I said anxiously, "what do you mean?" "Light fire here; go asleep! Findum camp a morning. All away, right away. Not here; no!" He ended by shaking his head, and I called to the doctor: "Jimmy says we shall not find the camp!" I said hastily; "and that we are going wrong." "I know it," he said quietly; "but we cannot get through this forest patch, so we must go wrong for a time, and then strike off to the right." But we found no opportunity of striking off to the right. Everywhere it was impenetrable forest, and at last we had to come to a halt on the edge, for the darkness was black, and to have gone on meant feeling our way step by step. CHAPTER TWENTY SIX. HOW I GOT INTO SERIOUS DIFFICULTIES. It is not a pleasant place to pass a night, on the ground at the edge of a vast forest, inhabited by you know not what noxious beasts, while if you light a fire to scare them off you always do so with the idea that in scaring one enemy you may be giving notice to a worse where he may find you to make a prisoner or put you to death. However we determined to risk being seen by savages, the more readily that we had gone so far now without seeing one, and in a short time a ruddy blaze was gilding the forest edge and the great sparks were cracking around the trees. We had calculated upon being back at camp that night, so we had eaten all our food, and now, as we sat there by the fire hungry and tired, I began to think that we might have done worse than cut off the kangaroo's tail before Jimmy had thrown it away. Poor Jimmy! He too seemed to be bitterly regretting the idleness that had made him give up his self-imposed task, and the dismal hungry looks he kept giving me from time to time were ludicrous in the extreme. "Never mind, Joe," said the doctor smiling; "tighten your belt, my lad, and get to sleep. That's the best way to forget your hunger. You'll be sure to begin dreaming about feasts." The doctor was right; I lay hungrily awake for a short time, and then dropped off to sleep, to dream of delicious fruits, and cooking, and the smell of meat burning, and I awoke with a start to find that there was a very peculiar odour close to my nose, for a piece of wood must have shot a spark of its burning body into the shaggy head of poor Jimmy, who was sleeping happily unconscious, while a tiny scrap of wood was glowing and the hair sending forth curls of smoke. I jumped up, seized Jimmy by the hair, and crushed out the spark, awaking that worthy so sharply that he sprang up waddy in hand, caught me by the throat, and threw me back, swinging his war-club over his head to strike a tremendous blow. He saw who it was in time and dropped his weapon. "What a fool, Jimmy, yes! What a fool Jimmy sleep. Pull Jimmy hair, jig jag. Hallo! What a want?" It took some time to make him understand what had been wrong, but even when he did comprehend he seemed to be annoyed with me for waking him out of a pleasant dream, probably about damper and mutton, for the saving of so insignificant a thing as his hair, which would have soon grown again. Jimmy lay down again grumbling, but was soon asleep, and on comparing notes with the doctor I found I was so near my time for taking my turn at watching and keeping up the fire that I exchanged places with him. As is often the case, the troubles and depressing influences of the night departed with the day, and setting out very hungry, but by no means in bad spirits, we soon found a more open part, where the forest was beginning to end, and after about three hours' walking we reached our little camp, where we had no difficulty in satisfying our cravings, our ordinary food being supplemented by a great bunch of plantains which one of the blacks had found and saved for us. After a good rest, during which the doctor and I had talked well over our future course, we determined to go right on as we had come for another four days and then to strike due south to hit the shore, always supposing that we encountered nothing fresh to alter our plans. "And I'm sure we shall," I said to myself, for somehow, I cannot tell you why--and perhaps after all it was fancy--I felt sure that we should not be long now before we met with some adventure. I did not like to say anything of this kind to the doctor, for I felt that if I did he would laugh at me; but I took the first opportunity I could find of confiding in Jack Penny. He looked down at me and then seemed to wave himself to and fro, looking at me in a curious dreamy fashion. "Do you think that? do you feel like as if something is going to happen?" "Yes," I said hastily. "I don't ask you to believe it but I cannot help thinking something about my curious feelings." "Oh! I believe you," he said eagerly. "Oh! I quite believe you, Joe Carstairs. I used to feel like that always on mornings when I woke up first, and so sure as I felt that way father used to be going to lick me, and he did. I should put fresh cartridges in my gun if I was you. I'll keep pretty close to you all day and see you through with it anyhow." But Jack Penny did not keep his word, for somehow as we were journeying on in the heat of the day looking eagerly for a spring or river to make our next halting-place we were separated. I think it was Jack's back wanted a rest. Anyhow I was steadily pushing on within shouting distance of my companions, all of whom had spread out so as to be more likely to hit upon water. It was very hot, and I was plodding drowsily along through a beautiful open part dotted with large bushes growing in great clumps, many of which were covered with sweet smelling blossoms, when just as I was passing between a couple of the great clumps which were large enough to hide from me what lay beyond, I stopped utterly paralysed by the scene some fifty yards in front. For there in the bright sunshine stood a boy who might have been about my own age intently watching something just beyond some bushes in his front, and the moment after a small deer stepped lightly out full in my view, gazed round, and then stooped its graceful head to begin browsing. The boy, who was as black as ebony and whose skin shone in the sun, seemed to have caught sight of the deer at the same moment as I, for he threw himself into position, poising the long spear he carried, resting the shaft upon one hand and bending himself back so that he might get the greatest power into his throw. I had seen Jimmy plant himself in the same position hundreds of times, and, surprised as I was at coming upon this stranger, whose people were probably near at hand, I could not help admiring him as he stood there a thorough child of nature, his body seeming to quiver with excitement for the moment and then becoming perfectly rigid. My eye glanced from the boy to the deer and back again, when a slight movement to my right caught my attention and I stood paralysed, for in a crouching attitude I could see a second black figure coming up, war-club in hand, evidently inimically disposed towards the young hunter. "And he may belong to a friendly set of people," I thought. "It is Jimmy!" "No: it was not Jimmy, but one of the bearers--Ti-hi," I thought. "No: it was a stranger!" Just then the boy drew himself back a little more, and as I saw the stooping figure, that of a big burly savage, stealthily creeping on, I realised his intention, which was to wait till the boy had hurled his spear and then leap upon him and beat him to the ground. I made no plans, for all was the work of moments. I saw the spear leave the boy's hand like a line of light in the sunshine; then he turned, alarmed by some sound behind him, saw the savage in the act of leaping upon him, uttered a shrill cry of fear, and ran somewhat in my direction, and at the same moment my gun made a jump up at my shoulder and went off. As the smoke rose I stood aghast, seeing the boy on my left crouching down with a small waddy in his hand and the great black savage prone on his face just to my right. "I've killed him!" I exclaimed, a chill of horror running through me; but as I thought this I brought my piece to the ready again, for the savage leaped to his feet and turned and ran into the bush at a tremendous pace. From habit I threw open the breech of my gun without taking my eyes from the boy, and, thrusting my hand into my pouch, I was about to place a fresh ball cartridge in its place when I found that I had drawn the right trigger and discharged the barrel loaded with small shot, a sufficient explanation of the man being able to get up and run away. I remained standing motionless as soon as I had reloaded, the boy watching me intently the while and looking as if he was either ready to attack or flee according to circumstances. Friendly advance there was none, for he showed his white teeth slightly and his eyes glittered as they were fixed upon mine. Suddenly I caught sight of the deer lying transfixed by the boy's spear, and without a word I walked quietly to where the little animal lay, the boy backing slowly and watchfully from me, but holding his waddy ready for a blow or to hurl at me, it seemed, if I ventured to attack. I wanted to make friends, and as soon as I reached the dead deer I stooped down, holding my gun ready though, and taking hold of the spear, drew it out and offered it to the young hunter. He understood my motion, for he made a couple of steps forward quickly, but only to draw back uttering an angry ejaculation, and raise his waddy in a threatening way. "He thinks I want to trap him," I said to myself; and taking the spear in regular native style, as Jimmy had taught me, I smiled and nodded, tossed it in the air, and let it drop a few yards away with the shaft upright and towards his hands. I pointed to it and drew back a few yards, when, quick as some wild animal, he made two or three bounds, caught up the spear, poised it, and stood as if about to hurl it at me. It was not a pleasant position, and my first impulse was to raise my gun to my shoulder; but my second was to stand firm, resting on my piece, and I waved my hand to him to lower the spear. The boy hesitated, uttered a fierce cry, and stamped one foot angrily; but I waved my hand again, and, thrusting my hand into my pocket, pulled out a ring of brass wire, such as we carried many of for presents to the savages, and I tossed it to him. I saw the boy's eyes glitter with eagerness, but he was too suspicious to move, and so we stood for some minutes, during which I wondered whether my companions had heard the report of my gun, and if so whether they would come up soon. If they did I was sure they would alarm the boy, who seemed as suspicious as some wild creature and shook his spear menacingly as soon as I took a step forward. A thought struck me just then as I saw a red spot glisten on a leaf, and stepping forward I saw another and another, which I pointed to, and then again at a continuous series of them leading towards the dense bush. I took a few more steps forward when the boy suddenly bounded to my side as if he realised that I had saved his life and that he was bound to try and save me in turn. He uttered some words fiercely, and, catching my arm, drew me back, pointing his spear menacingly in the direction taken by the great savage, and in response to his excited words I nodded and smiled and yielded to his touch. We had not taken many steps before he stopped short to stand and stare at me wonderingly, saying something the while. Then he touched me, and as I raised my hand to grasp his he uttered a fierce cry and pointed his spear at me once more, but I only laughed-- very uncomfortably I own--and he lowered it slowly and doubtfully once again, peering into my eyes the while, his whole aspect seeming to say, "Are you to be trusted or no?" I smiled as the best way of giving him confidence, though I did not feel much confidence in him--he seemed too handy with his spear. He, however, lowered this and looked searchingly at me, while I wondered what I had better do next. For this was an opportunity--here was a lad of my own age who might be ready to become friends and be of great service to us; but he was as suspicious and excitable as a wild creature, and ready to dash away or turn his weapons against me at the slightest alarm. It was very hard work to have to display all the confidence, but I told myself that it was incumbent upon me as a civilised being to show this savage a good example, and generally I'm afraid that I was disposed to be pretty conceited, as, recalling the native words I had picked up from our followers, I tried all that were available, pointing the while to the deer and asking him by signs as well if he would sell or barter it away to me for food. My new acquaintance stared at me, and I'm afraid I did not make myself very comprehensible. One moment he would seem to grasp my meaning, the next it appeared to strike him that I must be a cannibal and want to eat him when I made signs by pointing to my mouth. At last, though, the offer of a couple of brass rings seemed to convince him of my friendliness, and he dragged the little deer to me and laid it at my feet. After this we sat down together, and he began chattering at a tremendous rate, watching my gun, pointing at the spots upon the leaves, and then touching himself, falling down, and going through a pantomime as if dying, ending by lying quite stiff with his eyes closed, all of which either meant that if I had not fired at the big black my companion would have been killed, or else that I was not on any consideration to use my thunder-and-lightning weapon against him. I did not understand what he meant, and he had doubtless very little comprehension of what I tried to convey; but by degrees we became very good friends, and he took the greatest of interest in my dress, especially in my stout boots and cartridge-belt. Then, too, he touched my gun, frowning fiercely the while. My big case-knife also took up a good deal of his attention and had to be pulled out several times and its qualities as a cutter of tough wood shown. After this he drew my attention to his slight spear, which, though of wood, was very heavy, and its point remarkably sharp and hard. In spite of its wanting a steel point I felt no doubt of its going through anything against which it was directed with force. He next held out his waddy to me to examine. This was a weapon of black-looking wood, with a knob at the end about the shape of a good-sized tomato. I took hold of the waddy rather quickly, when it must have struck the boy that I had some hostile intention, for he snatched at it, and for the moment it seemed as if there was a struggle going on; then I felt a violent blow from behind, as if a large stone had fallen upon my head, and that was all. CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN. HOW I FOUND THAT I HAD A FELLOW-PRISONER. I have had a good many headaches in my time, but nothing to compare with the fearful throbbing, that seemed as if I were receiving blow after blow upon my temples, when I began to come to myself. I was stupefied and confused, and it took a long time before I recovered sufficiently to comprehend my position. By degrees, though, I was able to bear my eyes unclosed for sufficiently long at a time to see that I was in some kind of hut, and as I realised all this it seemed that I must be still a prisoner, and that all my long journeying since was only a dream. I began wondering where Jimmy could be, and the doctor, and Jack Penny, and then my head throbbed so violently that I closed my eyes, feeling at the same time that I had no arms, no legs, nothing but an inanimate body, and a head that ached with terrible violence as I lay there half-stunned. After a time I must have grown a little more collected, for I awoke to the fact that I was tightly bound with twisted grass, hand and foot; that I was certainly in a hut, quite a large hut, built of bamboo and mats; and that behind me the light shone in, and somewhere close by the sound arose as of a person sleeping heavily. I tried to turn round, but the movement caused such intense pain that I desisted for a time, till my anxiety to know more about my position forced me to make a fresh effort, and I swung myself over, making my head throb so that I gladly closed my eyes, while I wrenched my arms and wrists, that were tied behind my back so harshly that I became quite aware of the fact that I had limbs, as well as an inert body and a throbbing head. When I could unclose my eyes again I saw that it was getting near sundown, and that the sunshine was lighting up the limbs of the great trees beneath which the native village to which I had been brought was built. From where I lay I looked across a broad opening, around which was hut after hut, with its open door facing towards the centre. There was very little sign of life around, but twice in the distance I saw a black figure come out of the doorway of a hut and disappear amongst the trees, but it was some time before I could make out from whence the heavy breathing came that I had heard. As far as I could judge it was from some one just outside the entrance to the hut where I lay, but no one was visible, and it seemed to me that if I could untie the rope that held my wrists and legs there was nothing to prevent my walking out and making my escape. I had just come to this conclusion when there was a rustling noise as of a stick passing over twigs and leaves, and a spear fell down across the doorway. The next instant I saw a black arm and shoulder come forward, the spear was picked up, and the black arm disappeared. Then there was a shuffling sound, as of some one settling down in a fresh position, and all was silent, for the heavy breathing had ceased. "That's my guard," I said to myself, "and he has been, asleep!" Simple words, but they sent a throb of joy through me, and I began to wonder where the doctor was, and what Jack Penny was doing. Then I thought about Jimmy, and that as soon as I was missed he would be sure to hunt me out. My head began to throb once more horribly, but by degrees the fit died off, and I found myself thinking again of escape. "How foolish of me not to have had a dog!" I thought. "Why, if I had had one like Gyp he would have tracked me out by this time." "They'll find me out sooner or later," I said to myself; "so I need not regret being without a dog. But suppose the savages should attack our little party and make them prisoners too." This was quite a new idea to me. The doctor and I had thought out a good many possibilities; but that we, who had come in search of one who was a prisoner, should be ourselves made captives, hardly ever occurred to me. "That would be a sorry end to our voyage," I thought, and I lay gazing out across the open space, wondering in a dreamy misty way whether my poor father had been attacked and captured as I had been, and whether I should be kept a prisoner, and have to live for the rest of my life among savages. My head was not so painful then, and I began to feel that if it would only leave off aching and my poor mother would not be so troubled at this second loss, such a life would be better than being killed, especially as there would always be the chance of escape. I think I must have sunk into a sort of doze or half stupor just then, for the scene at which I lay gazing grew dim, and it seemed to me that it must all have been a dream about my meeting with that black boy; and once more I suppose I slept. How long I slept I cannot tell, but I can recall being in a confused dream about home, and going with Jimmy to a neighbour's sheep-run, where there was a dog, and Jimmy coaxed him away with a big piece of meat, which he did not give to the dog, but stuck on the end of his spear and carried it over his shoulder, with the animal whining and snuffling about, but which was to be reserved until several wallabies had been hunted out, for that was the aim of the afternoon. It seemed very tiresome that that dog should be snuffling about me, and scratching and pawing at me, and I was about to tell Jimmy to give the poor brute the meat and let him go, when his cold nose touched my face, and I started awake, trembling in every limb. The darkness was intense, and for some minutes, try how I would, I could not think. All sorts of wild fancies rushed through my brain, and I grew more and more confused; but I could not think--think reasonably, and make out where I was and what it all meant. The past seemed to be gone, and I only knew that I was there, lying with my arms and legs dead and my head throbbing. There seemed to be nothing else. Yes there was--my dream. It all came with a flash just where it left off, and Jimmy had coaxed the dog away, and it was here annoying me. But why was it dark? There was dead silence then, following upon the light pattering sound of some animal's feet, and with my brain rapidly growing clearer I began to arrange my thoughts I had even got so far as to recollect dropping off asleep, and I was concluding that I had slept right on into the darkness of night, when there was the pattering of feet again, and I knew now that it was no fancy, for some animal had touched me, though it was not likely to be the dog that Jimmy had coaxed away to go wallaby hunting. There was a curious snuffling noise now, first in one part of the hut, then in another. Some animal, then, must have come into the hut, and this, whatever it was, had been touching and had awakened me. What could it be? I wondered, as I tried to think what creature was likely to be prowling about in the darkness. It could not be a wild pig, and my knowledge of animal life taught me that it was not likely to be any one of the cat family, for they went so silently about, while the pattering steps of this creature could be plainly heard. We had encountered nothing in our journey that suggested itself as being likely, and I was beginning to perspire rather profusely with something very much like utter fright, when I heard the creature, whatever it was, come close up and begin snuffling about my legs. "It's coming up to my face," I thought with a chill of horror seeming to paralyse me, or I am certain that I should have called for help. So there I lay numbed and helpless, not knowing what to expect, unless it was to be seized by the throat by some fierce beast of prey, and perhaps partly devoured before I was dead. I tried to shriek out, but not a sound came. I tried to move my arms; to kick out at the creature; but arms and legs had been bound so long that the circulation as well as sensation had ceased, and I lay like a mass of lead, able to think acutely, but powerless to stir a limb. The snuffling noise went on; came to my chest, to my throat, to my face; and I could feel the hot panting breath of the creature, smell the animal odour of its skin; and then, when the dread seemed greater than I could bear, I felt a moist nose touch my face. Another moment and I felt that the intruder would be burying its fangs in my throat, and still I could not stir--could not utter sound, but lay like one in a trance. Suddenly the animal began to tear at my chest with its claws, giving three or four sharp impatient scratchings alternately with its feet, and though I could not see, I could realise that the creature was standing with its forepaws on my chest. Then it was right upon me, with its muzzle at my throat, snuffing still, and then it touched my face with its nose again and uttered a low whine. That sound broke the spell, for I can call it nothing else, and I uttered the one word: "Gyp!" It was magical in its effects, for the faithful beast it was, and uttering a low cry of delight he began nuzzling about my face, licking me, pawing me, and crouching closer to me, as all the while he kept up a regular patting noise with his tail. My speech had returned now, and with it a feeling of shame for my cowardice, as I thought it then, though I do not think so hardly about it now. "Gyp, you good old dog!" I whispered. "And so you've found me out!" I suppose he did not understand my words, but he liked the sound of my voice, for he continued his eager demonstrations of delight, many of which were exceedingly unwelcome. But unwelcome or no I could not help myself, and had to lie there passive till, apparently satisfied that enough had been done, Gyp crouched close to me with his head upon my breast. For a time I thought he was asleep, and thoroughly enjoying the consolation of his company in my wretched position, I lay thinking of the wonderful instinct of the animal, and of his training to be silent, for in spite of the excitement of our meeting he had not barked once. But Gyp was not asleep, for at the slightest sound outside he raised his head quickly, and in the deep silence I could hear the great hairy ears give quite a flap as he cocked them up. As the noise died away or failed to be repeated, he settled down again with his head upon my breast till some fresh sound arose--a distant cry in the forest, or a voice talking in some neighbouring hut, when he would start up again, and once uttered a low menacing growl, which made me think what an unpleasant enemy he would be to a bare-legged savage. Once more Gyp uttered a low growl; but after that he lay with his head upon my breast, and I could feel his regular breathing. Then he lifted a paw and laid it by his nose, but evidently it was not a comfortable position, and he took it down. And there we lay in that black silence, while I wished that dog could speak and tell me where my friends where; whether they had sent him, or whether his own instinct had led him to hunt me out. Whichever way it was, I felt a curious kind of admiration for an animal that I had before looked upon as a kind of slave, devoted to his master, and of no interest whatever to anyone else. "Poor old Gyp!" I thought to myself, and I wished I could pat his head. I kept on wishing that I could pay him that little bit of kindness; and then at last I seemed to be stroking his shaggy head, and then it seemed that I was not free to do it, and then all at once it seemed to be morning, with the sun shining, and plenty of black fellows passing and repassing to the huts of what was evidently a populous village. It all looked very bright and beautiful, I thought, seen through the open door, but I was in great pain. My head had pretty well ceased to throb, but there was a dull strange aching in my arms and legs. My shoulders, too, seemed as if they had been twisted violently, and I was giddy and weak for want of food. "Prisoner or no prisoner they sha'n't starve me," I said half aloud; and I was about to shout to a tall savage who was going by spear on shoulder, when I suddenly recollected Gyp and looked sharply round for the dog, but he was not to be seen. For the moment I wondered whether I had not made a mistake and dreamed all about the dog; but no, it was impossible, everything was too vivid, and after lying thinking for a few minutes I called to the first black who came near. He stopped short, came to the door, thrust in his head and stared at me, while, for want of a better means of expressing myself, I opened my mouth and shut it as if eating. He went away directly, and I was about to shout to another when the first one came back with a couple more, all talking excitedly, and evidently holding some discussion about me. This ended by two of them going away, leaving the other to stand watching. He was a fine stalwart looking fellow, black as Jimmy, but of a different type of countenance, and his hair was frizzed and stuck out all round, giving his head the aspect of being twice the size of nature. As soon as the others had gone he stooped down over me, turning me roughly on my face so as to examine my bound hands. He wrenched my shoulders horribly in doing this, but it did not seem to hurt my hands in the least, and he finished by unfastening the cords of twisted grass and making me sit up. This I did, but with great pain, my arms hanging helplessly down by my sides. The men soon returned, and to my great delight one had a gourd and the other some plantains, which they put down before me in a morose, scowling way. I bent towards the gourd, which I believed to contain water; but though I tried to take it with my hands I could not move either, and I turned my eyes up pitifully to my captors. The man who had unloosed me said something to his companions, one of whom bent down, lifted my right hand, and let it fall again. The second man followed suit with my left, and I saw before they dropped them again that they were dark and swollen, while as to use, that seemed to be totally gone. The man who had remained with me took hold of the gourd and held it to my lips in a quick angry fashion, holding it while I drank with avidity every drop, the draught seeming to be more delicious than anything I had ever before tasted. Setting it aside he looked down at me grimly, and then in a laughing contemptuous way one of the others picked up and roughly peeled a plantain, holding it out to me to eat. It was not sumptuous fare, cold water and bananas, but it was a most delicious and refreshing repast; while to make my position a little more bearable one of the men now undid the grass cord that was about my ankles, setting them free. The act probably was meant kindly, but when, soon after, they left the cabin, after setting me up and letting me fall again, my wrists and ankles began to throb and ache in the most unbearable way, somewhat after the fashion of one's fingers when chilled by the cold and the circulation is coming back. As I sat making feeble efforts to chafe the swollen flesh I became aware that though unbound I was not to be trusted, for fear of escape, and that to prevent this a broad-shouldered black with his hair frizzed into two great globes, one on either side of his head, had been stationed at the hut door. When he came up, spear in hand, I saw that he was tattooed with curious lines across his chest and back, similar lines marking his arms and wrists, something after the fashion of bracelets. He looked in at me attentively twice, and then seated himself just outside the entrance, where he took his waddy from where it was stuck through his lingouti or waistband, drew a sharp piece of flint from a pouch, and began to cut lines upon his waddy handle in the most patient manner. He had been busily at work for some time, when there was a great sound of shouting and yelling, which seemed greatly to excite the people of the village, for dozens came running out armed with clubs and spears, to meet a batch of about a dozen others, who came into the opening fronting my prison, driving before them another black, who was struggling with them fiercely, but compelled by blows and pricks of spears to keep going forward. Then three men ran at him with grass cords and seized him, but he drove his head fiercely into one and sent him flying, kicked the second, and then attacked the other with his fists, regular English fashion, and I knew now who it was, without hearing the shout the new prisoner uttered and the language he applied to his captors. Another pair approached, but he drove them back at once, and probably feeling' pretty well satisfied that his enemies did not want to spear him, he stuck his doubled fists in his sides and went slowly round the great circle that had collected, strutting insultingly, as if daring them to come on, and ending by striding into the middle of the circle and squatting down, as if treating his foes with the most profound contempt. "Poor old Jimmy!" I exclaimed, proud even to admiration of the black's gallant bearing. "Who would call him a coward now!" For a time Jimmy was untouched, and sat upon his heels with his wrists upon his knees and his hands dangling down, but evidently watchfully on the look-out for an attack. I felt so excited as I sat there that I forgot my own pain, and had I been able to move I should have made a dash and run to my old companion's side; but I was perfectly helpless, and could only look on, feeling sure that sooner or later the blacks would attack Jimmy, and if he resisted I shuddered for his fate. Sure enough, at the end of a consultation I saw a rush made at the waiting prisoner, who started up and fought bravely; but he seemed to disappear at once, the little crowd heaving and swaying here and there, and ending by seeming to group itself under a tall tree, from which they at last fell away, and then it was that my heart began to beat less painfully and I breathed more freely, for there was Jimmy bound to the tree trunk, grinning and chattering at his captors, and evidently as full of fight as ever. I sank down upon my elbow with a sigh of relief, for I felt that had they meant to kill my black companion they would have done it at once instead of taking the trouble to bind him to the tree. And now, oddly enough, while I could hear Jimmy calling his captors by all the absurd and ugly names he could invent, the pain and aching seemed to come back into my wrists and ankles, making me groan as I sat and clasped them, a little use having begun to creep back into my arms. As I rubbed my aching limbs I still had an eye on Jimmy, interest in his fate making me think little about my own; and as I watched now the black, now the savages grouped about armed with spear and club, I saw that his dangerous position had so excited Jimmy that he was quite reckless. He had no means of attack or defence left save his tongue, and this he began to use in another way. He had abused his captors till he had exhausted his list of available words, and now in token of derision he gave me another instance to study of the childish nature of even a grown-up savage. For, tied up helplessly there, he put out his tongue at his enemies, thrust it into his cheeks, and displayed it in a variety of ways. Jimmy was possessed of a very long tongue, unusually large for a human being, and this he shot out, turned down, curled up at the end, and wagged from side to side as a dog would his tail. At the same time he contorted and screwed his face up into the most hideous grimaces, elongating, flattening, and working his countenance as easily as if it had been composed of soft wax, till at times his aspect was perfectly hideous. Every moment I expected to see a spear thrown or the savages rush at Jimmy with their clubs; but they retained their composure, simply gazing at him, till Jimmy grew weary, and, full of contempt, shouting out something about poor black fellow dingoes, and then shutting his eyes and pretending to go to sleep. My guard was, like me, so intent upon the scene that he did not hear a slight rustling noise in the darker corner of the hut. CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT. HOW I HAD A VISITOR IN THE NIGHT. The sufferings I had gone through and the excitement must have made me in a feverish state, so that, though I heard the faint noise again and again, I began to look upon it as dreaming, and nothing which need trouble me. Even the sight of Jimmy bound to the tree, and now hanging forward with his head sidewise, did not seem to disturb me. It, too, appeared part of a dream, and my eyes kept closing, and a peculiar hot sensation running over my face. Then this passed off and my brain grew clear, and it was not a dream, but real, while the thought now began to torment me, that as the savages were conferring together it must be about how they should put poor Jimmy to death. There was the faint noise again, and I glanced at the savage who was my guard, but he had not heard it apparently, for he was chipping and carving away at the handle of his waddy, only looking up from time to time at his fellows with their prisoner. I wanted to turn myself round and look in the direction whence the sound came, for I felt now that it was no fancy, but that Gyp had been really with me, and that this was he forcing his way to my side again. I could not turn, though, without giving myself great pain, for now my wrists and ankles were fearfully swollen and tender, so I lay still, waiting and wondering why the dog was so long. Then the rustling ceased altogether, and I was beginning to think that the dog had failed to get through and would come round to the front, when there was a faint rustle once more, and I was touched on the shoulder. But it was not by Gyp's paw; it was a small black hand laid upon me; while, on looking up, there in the dim light was the face of the boy I had encountered on the previous day, or whenever it was that I was struck down. He showed his teeth and pointed to the savage on guard, laying his hand upon my lips as if to stay me from making any sound. Then he looked at my wrists and ankles, touching them gently, after which he laid his hand very gently on the back of my head, and I knew now why it was that I was suffering such pain. For, lightly as he touched me, it was sufficient to send a keen agony through me, and it was all I could do to keep from crying out. The boy saw my pain, and looked at me half wonderingly for a few moments before stooping low and whispering in my ear. I felt so sick from the pain that I paid little heed to his words; but whisper or shout it would have been all the same, I could not have understood a word. So faint and strange a sensation came over me that all seemed dim, and when I once more saw clearly I was alone and the crowd of blacks had disappeared, taking with them Jimmy--if it had not all been a dream due to my feverish state. Just then, however, a couple of blacks came up with the boy straight to the door of the hut, and while the latter stood looking on, the men applied a roughly made plaster of what seemed to be crushed leaves to my head, and then examined my wrists and feet, rubbing them a little and giving me intense pain, which was succeeded by a peculiar, dull warm sensation as they pressed and kneaded the joints. While they were busy the boy went off quickly, and returned with a handful of plum-like fruit, one of which he placed to my dry lips, and I found its acid juice wonderfully refreshing. They all left me soon after, and I saw the boy go and join a tall, peculiar-looking savage, who was marked with tattoo lines or paint in a way different to the rest, and these two talked together for a long while, gesticulating and nodding again and again in my direction, as if I was the subject of their discourse. The effect of the attention to my injuries was to produce a sensation of drowsiness, resulting in a deep sleep, which must have lasted a very long time, for when I awoke it was in the dark, and I was not startled now on hearing the snuffling noise and feeling myself touched by Gyp, who, after silently showing his pleasure, lay down with his head upon my chest once more, and seemed to go to sleep. I made an effort to raise my hand to stroke him, but the pain was too great, and soon after it was I who went to sleep, not Gyp, and when I awoke it was daybreak and the dog was gone. I was better that morning, and could take more interest in all that went on. I saw the tall, peculiar-looking savage go by the hut door at a distance, and I saw the boy go up to him and pass out of sight. Soon after a couple of blacks brought me some food and water, of which I partook eagerly. Later on the boy came with the same two men as on the previous day, and my head was once more dressed and my limbs chafed. Then I was left alone, and I lay watching once more the savages coming and going in a slow deliberate way. I noticed that there were a good many women and children, but if ever they attempted to come in the direction of the hut where I lay they were angrily driven back. Some of the women appeared to be occupied in domestic work, preparing some kind of bread, others busily stripped the feathers from some large birds brought in by men who seemed to have been hunting. I noticed all this feeling calm and restful now, and I was lying wondering whether Jack Penny and the doctor would find out where I was, when I heard a scuffling noise, which seemed to come from a hut where there was a crowd of the people standing. Then there was a repetition of the scene I had previously witnessed, Jimmy being brought out, kicking, struggling, and full of fight. The blacks seemed to want to drag him to the tree where I had seen him tied, but to this Jimmy objected strongly. The way in which he butted at his captors, and kicked out like a grasshopper, would have been most laughable had I not been anxious, for I felt sure that it would result in his hurting some one, and being rewarded with a blow on the head or a spear thrust. I grew so excited at last as the struggle went on that I waited till there was a moment's pause when Jimmy and his captors were drawing breath for a fresh attack, and shouted with all my might-- "Jimmy! be quiet!" My guard, for there was still one at the door, jumped up and stared in, while Jimmy and his captors looked in my direction. Jimmy was the first to break silence by shouting loudly: "Mass Joe! Mass Joe!" "Here!" I shouted back; but I repented the next moment, for Jimmy uttered a yell and made a bound to run towards where he had heard the sound. The result was that one savage threw himself down before the prisoner, who fell headlong, and before he could recover, half a dozen of the blacks were sitting upon him. My heart seemed to stand still, and I felt that poor Jimmy's end had come, but to my delight I could see that our captors were laughing at the poor fellow's mad efforts to escape, and I shouted to him once again: "Be quiet! Lie still!" There was no answer, for one of the men was sitting on Jimmy's head; but he ceased struggling, and after a while the blacks rose, circled about him with their spears, and a couple of them began to push my companion towards the tree to which he had before been bound. "Jimmy no fight?" he shouted to me. "Not now," I shouted back. "Wait." "All rightums," cried Jimmy: "but gettum waddy back, gibs um bang, bang--knockum downum--whack, whack--bangum, bangum!" This was all in a voice loud enough for me to hear, as the poor fellow allowed his captors to bind him to the tree, after which he hung his head and pretended or really did go to sleep. Towards evening I saw the blacks take Jimmy some food, and some was brought to me; and as I sat up and ate and drank I saw the strangely-marked savage and the boy come into the centre of the space by the huts, and lie down near Jimmy, who behaved a good deal after the fashion of some captured beast, for he raised his head now and then, utterly ignoring those who were around, and staring straight before him. But in his case it was not right away toward the forest, but in the direction of the hut where I was confined, and even at the distance where I lay I could read the eagerness in the black's countenance as he waited to hear me speak. It was getting fast towards sundown, and I was wondering how long they would leave Jimmy tied up to the tree, and fighting hard to get rid of an idea that kept coming to me, namely, that the savages were feeding us and keeping us for an object that it made me shudder to think about, when I noted a little excitement among the people. There was some loud talking, and directly after about a dozen came to my prison and signed to me to get up. I rose to my knees and then tried to stand, but my ankles were still so painful that I winced. By a stern effort, though, I stood up, and a sturdy black on either side took my arms and hurried me to a tree close by the one where Jimmy was tied. As we crossed the opening I saw the boy and the tall painted savage standing by the door of a hut on one side, the latter holding a long spear tasselled with feathers, and I supposed him to be the chief, or perhaps only the doctor or conjuror of the village. Jimmy's delight knew no bounds. He shouted and sang and laughed, and then howled, with the tears running down his cheeks. "Hi, yup! Jimmy glad as big dingo dog for mutton bones!" he cried. "How quite well, Mass Joe? Jimmy so glad be with you. Seems all over again, Mass Joe, and Jimmy knock all black fellow up and down--make um run, run. Whatum, Mass Joe--legs?" "Only with being tied up so tightly, Jimmy. They're getting better. My head is the worst." "Head um worse, Mass Joe! Show Jimmy black debble hurt um head. Jimmy whack um, whack um too much can't say kangaroo." "No, no! wait a bit, Jimmy," I said, as the blacks bound me to the tree. "We must watch for our time." "Watch?" said Jimmy; "watch? Doctor got um watch clock. Tick, tick, tick!" "Where is the doctor?" I said. "Jimmy don't know little bitums. Doctor go one way. Mass Jack-Jack Penny-Penny, one way find Mass Joe. Jimmy-Jimmy, go one way find Mass Joe. Jimmy-Jimmy find um. Hooray! Nebber shall be slabe!" "I hope not, Jimmy," I said, smiling. "So the doctor and Jack Penny and you all went to find me, and you were seized by the blacks?" "Dats um--all lot take um way," cried Jimmy. "Only Jimmy find Mass Joe. Come along a black fellow. All jump atop Jimmy. Jimmy fight um, kick um--play big goose berry strong black fellow. Too much big coward big. Topper, topper, Jimmy head um. Go sleep um. Bring um here." "Too many of them, and they hit you on the head and stunned you?" "Hiss! 'tunned Jimmy. Hiss! 'tunned Jimmy. Send um all asleep. Topper head." "Never mind the topper they gave you, Jimmy. We'll escape and find our friends." "Don't know um," said Jimmy dolefully. "Bad good black fellow got no muttons--no grub--no wallaby. Eat Mass Joe--eat Jimmy." "Do you think they are cannibals, Jimmy?" I said excitedly. Jimmy opened his mouth and his eyes very wide and stared at me. "I say, do you think they are cannibals? How stupid! Do you think they eat man?" "Yes; 'tupid, 'tupid. Eat man, lot o' man. Bad, bad. Make um sick, sick." I turned cold, for here was corroboration of my fear. This was why they were treating us well instead of killing us at once; and I was turning a shuddering look at the circle of black faces around me when Jimmy exclaimed: "Sha'n't ums eat Jimmy. No, no. Jimmy eat a whole lot fust. No eat Mass Joe. Jimmy killum killum all lot." I stood there tightly bound, talking from time to time to the black, happier in mind at having a companion in my imprisonment, and trying to make him understand that our best policy was to wait our time; and then when our captors were more off their guard we could perhaps escape. "No good 't all," said Jimmy, shaking his head. "Go eat um, Mass Joe, poor Jimmy. Make up fat um--fat um like big sheep. No run at all, catch fas'." "Not so bad as that, Jimmy," I said, laughing in spite of my position at the idea of being made so fat that we could neither of us run. Just then there was a movement among our captors, and having apparently satisfied themselves with a long inspection of their prisoners they were evidently about to take us back to our prisons. "Jimmy gib all big kick?" said the black. "No, no," I cried, "go quietly." "Jimmy come 'long Mass Joe?" he said next. "If they will let you," I replied; "but if they will not, go back to your own place quietly." "Mass Joe no kind poor Jimmy," he whimpered. "Want kick um. Mass Joe say no." "Wait till I tell you, Jimmy," I replied. "Now go quietly." He made an attempt to accompany me, but the blacks seized him sharply and led him one way, me the other; and as the sun set and the darkness began to come on, I lay in my hut watching the boy and the tall painted chief talking earnestly together, for I could not see Jimmy's prison from inside my own. I felt lighter of heart and more ready to take a hopeful view of my position now that my sufferings from my injuries were less, and that I had a companion upon whom I could depend. But all the same I could not help feeling that my position was a very precarious one. But when I was cool and calm I was ready to laugh at the idea about cannibalism, and to think it was the result of imagination. "No," I said to myself as I lay there, "I don't think they will kill us, and I am certain they will not eat us. We shall be made slaves and kept to work for them--if they can keep us!" As I lay there listening to the different sounds made in the village dropping off one by one in the darkness, I grew more elate. I was in less pain, and I kept recalling the many instances Jimmy had shown me of his power to be what he called "cunning-artful." With his help I felt sure that sooner or later we should be able to escape. Drowsiness began to creep over me now, and at last, after listening to the hard breathing of the spear-armed savage whose duty it was to watch me, I began to wonder whether Gyp would come that night. "I hope he will," I said to myself. "I'll keep awake till he does." The consequence of making this determination was that in a very few minutes after I was fast asleep. Just as before I was wakened some time in the night by feeling something touch me, and raising my arm for the first time made the faithful beast utter low whines of joy as I softly patted his head and pulled his ears, letting my hand slip lower to stroke his neck, when my fingers came in contact with the dog's collar, and almost at the same moment with a stiff scrap of paper. For a moment my heart stood still. Then, sitting up, I caught the dog to me, holding his collar with both hands, touching the paper all the while, but afraid to do more lest the act should result in disappointment. At last I moved one hand cautiously and felt the paper, trembling the while, till a joyous throb rose to my lips, and I rapidly untied a piece of string which tightly bound what was evidently a note to the dog's collar. Gyp whined in a low tone, and as I loosened him, grasping the note in my hand, I knew that he gave a bit of a skip, but he came back and nestled close to me directly. I needed no thought to know that the note was from the doctor, who must be near. Perhaps, too, Gyp had been night after night with that same note, and I had been too helpless to raise a hand and touch his neck where it had been tied. The doctor was close by, then. There was help, and I would once more be free to get back safe to my dear mother. I stopped there and said half aloud: "Not yet--safe to try once more to find him." What was I to do? I could not read the note. I opened it and moved my fingers over it as a blind person would, but could not feel a letter, as I might have known. What was I to do? Gyp would be going back. The letter would be gone, while the doctor might not know but what it had been lost. What should I do? There was only one thing, and that was to tie my handkerchief, my torn and frayed silk handkerchief, tightly to the dog's collar. "He will know that I am here, and alive," I said to myself. "I wish I could send him word that Jimmy is here as well." I tried hard to think of some plan, but for a long time not one would come. "I have it!" I said at last; and rapidly taking off the handkerchief I tied two knots fast in one corner. "Perhaps he will understand that means two of us," I said; and I was about to fasten it to the dog's collar, when there was a noise outside as of some one moving, and Gyp dashed away from me and was gone. "Without my message," I said to myself in tones of bitter disappointment, as all became silent again. To my great joy, though, I heard a faint panting once more, and Gyp touched my hand with his wet nose. "I'll be safe this time," I remarked, as I rapidly secured and tied the knotted handkerchief, ending by fondling and caressing the dog, I was so overjoyed. "Go on, dear old Gyp," I cried softly; "and come back to-morrow night for an answer. There, good-bye. Hush! don't bark. Good-bye!" I patted him, and he ran his nose into my breast, whining softly. Then after feeling the handkerchief once more, to be sure it was safe, I loosened the dog and he bounded from me. I heard a rustling in the corner, and all was silent, while I lay there holding the note tightly in my pocket and longing for the day to come that I might read all that my friends had to say. CHAPTER TWENTY NINE. HOW I HEARD ENGLISH SPOKEN HERE. I suppose I must have dropped asleep some time, but it seemed to me that I was lying awake watching for the daylight, which seemed as if it would never come. Then I dropped soundly asleep and slept some hours, for when I opened my eyes with a start there was one of the blacks leaning over me with some cords in his hands, with which he seemed to be about to bind me; but a shout outside took his attention, and he went out, leaving me trembling with anxiety and crushing the note in my hand. It was broad daylight with brilliant sunshine without, but my prison was windowless, and where I lay was in the shadow, save where here and there a pencil of light shone through the palm-leaf thatch and made a glowing spot upon the floor. Every moment I expected to see my guard back again, or I might be interrupted, I knew, by the coming of some one with food. I dared not then attempt to read for some time, since it seemed like too great a risk of losing words that were inexpressibly precious. At last all seemed so still but the buzz and hum of distant voices that I determined to venture, and undoing my hot hand I unfolded the little scrap of paper, upon which, written closely but clearly, were the following words-- "_As we are so near a village of the blacks, and you have not returned, I have concluded that you have been made a prisoner. Gyp found your scent and went off, returning after many hours' absence; so I write these lines to bid you be of good heart, for we shall try by stratagem to get you away_." Then there was this, evidently written the next day: "_Gyp has been again and brought back the above lines which I tied to his collar. If you get them tie something to the dog's collar to show you are alive and well. Poor Jimmy went in search of you, but has not returned_." "Tie something to the dog's collar to show you are alive and well!" I said to myself over and over again, as I carefully secreted the scrap of paper--a needless task, as, if it had been seen, no one would have paid any heed to it. "And I have tied something to the dog's collar and they will come, the doctor and Jack Penny, with the blacks, to-night to try and save me, and I shall escape." I stopped here, for the words seemed to be wild and foolish. How could they rescue me, and, besides, ought I not to feel glad that I was here among the natives of the island? What better position could I be in for gaining information about my father? I lay thinking like this for long, and every hour it seemed that my injured head and my cut wrists and ankles were healing. The confused feeling had passed away, leaving nothing but stiffness and soreness, while the message I had received gave me what I wanted worst--hope. I did not see Jimmy that day, for he was not brought out, neither was I taken to the tree, but I saw that the savage who brought me food had a double quantity, and to prove that some of it was meant for my fellow-prisoner I soon afterwards heard him shout: "Mass Joe come have 'nana--come have plantain 'nana." This he repeated till I uttered a low long whistle, one which he had heard me use scores of times, and to which he replied. An hour after he whistled again, but I could not reply, for three or four of the blacks were in the hut with me, evidently for no other purpose than to watch. That night I lay awake trembling and anxious. I wanted to have something ready to send back by the dog when it came at night, but try how I would I could contrive nothing. I had no paper or pencil; no point of any kind to scratch a few words on a piece of bark--no piece of bark if I had had a point. As it happened, though I lay awake the dog did not come, and when the morning came, although I was restless and feverish I was more at rest in my mind, for I thought I saw my way to communicate a word or two with the doctor. I was unbound now, and therefore had no difficulty in moving about the hut, from whose low roof, after a good deal of trying, I at last obtained a piece of palm-leaf that seemed likely to suit my purpose. This done, my need was a point of some kind--a pin, a nail, the tongue of a buckle, a hard sharp piece of wood, and I had neither. But I had hope. Several different blacks had taken their places at the door of my hut, and I was waiting patiently for the one to return who sat there carving his waddy handle. When he came I hoped by some stratagem to get hold of the sharp bit of flint to scratch my palm-leaf. Fortunately towards mid-day this man came, and after a good look at me where I lay he stuck his spear in the earth, squatted down, took out his flint and waddy, and began once more to laboriously cut the zigzag lines that formed the ornamentation. I lay there hungrily watching him hour after hour, vainly trying to think out some plan, and when I was quite in despair the black boy, whom I had not seen for many hours, came sauntering up in an indifferent way to stand talking to my guard for some minutes, and then entered the hut to stand looking down at me. I was puzzled about that boy, for at times I thought him friendly, at others disposed to treat me as an enemy; but my puzzled state was at an end, for as soon as I began to make signs he watched me eagerly and tried to comprehend. I had hard work to make him understand by pointing to the savage outside, and then pretending to hack at my finger as if carving it. Jimmy would have understood in a moment, but it was some time before the boy saw what I meant. Then his face lit up, and he slowly sauntered away, as if in the most careless of moods, poising his spear and throwing it at trees, stooping, leaping, and playing at being a warrior of his tribe, so it seemed to me, till he disappeared among the trees. The sun was sinking low, but he did not return. I saw him pass by with the tall painted warrior, and then go out of sight. My food had been given me, but I had not seen Jimmy, though we had corresponded together by making a few shrill parrot-like whistles. Night would soon be upon me once again, and when Gyp came, if he did come, I should not be ready. I was just thinking like this when there was a slight tap close by me, and turning quickly I saw a sharp-pointed piece of stone upon the beaten earth floor, and as I reached out my hand to pick it up a piece of white wood struck me on the hand, making a sharp metallic sound. I felt that there was danger, and half threw myself over my treasures, looking dreamily out at the entrance and remaining motionless, as my guard entered to stare round suspiciously, eyeing me all over, and then going slowly back. I breathed more freely, and was thinking as I saw him settle down that I might at any time begin to try and carve a word or two, and in this mind I was about to take the piece of wood from beneath me when the savage swung himself round and sprang into the hut in a couple of bounds. He had meant to surprise me if I had been engaged upon any plan of escape, but finding me perfectly motionless he merely laughed and went back. Directly after, another savage came up and took his place, and I eagerly began my task. Very easy it sounds to carve a few letters on a piece of wood, but how hard I found it before I managed to roughly cut the words "All Well," having selected these because they were composed of straight lines, which mine were not. Still I hoped that the doctor would make them out, and I hid my piece of flint and my wooden note and waited, meaning to keep awake till the dog came. But I had been awake all the previous night, and I fell fast asleep, till Gyp came and roused me by scratching at my chest, when in a dreamy confused way I found and took something from the dog's collar and tied my note in its place, falling asleep directly after from sheer exhaustion. It was broad daylight when I awoke, and my first thought was of my message, when, thrusting my hand into my breast, a curious sensation of misery came over me as my hand came in contact with a piece of wood, and it seemed that I had been dreaming and the dog had not come. I drew out the flat piece of white wood, but it was not mine. The doctor, probably having no paper, had hit upon the same plan as I. His words were few. "Be on the alert. We shall come some night." I thrust the wooden label beneath the dust of the floor, scraped some more earth over it, and already saw myself at liberty, and in the joy of my heart I uttered a long parrot-like whistle, but it was not answered. I whistled again, but there was no reply; and though I kept on making signals for quite an hour no response came, and the joyousness began to fade out of my breast. Twice over that morning I saw the tall savage who was so diabolically painted and tattooed go by, and once I thought he looked very hard at my hut; but he soon passed out of my sight, leaving me wondering whether he was the chief, from his being so much alone, and the curious way in which all the people seemed to get out of his path. Once or twice he came near enough for me to see him better, and I noticed that he walked with his eyes fixed upon the ground in a dreamy way, full of dignity, and I felt certain now that he must be the king of these people. The next day came and I saw him again in the midst of quite a crowd, who had borne one of their number into the middle of the inclosure of huts, and this time I saw the tall strange-looking savage go slowly down upon his knees, and soon after rise and motion with his hands, when everyone but the boy fell back. He alone knelt down on one side of what was evidently an injured man. The blacks kept their distance religiously till the painted savage signed to them once more, when they ran forward and four of their number lifted the prostrate figure carefully and carried it into a hut. "I was right," I said to myself with a feeling of satisfaction. "I was right the first time. It is the doctor, and he ought to have come to my help when I was so bad." Two days, three days passed, during which I lay and watched the birds that flitted by, saw the people as they came and went, and from time to time uttered a signal whistle; but this had to be stopped, for on the afternoon of the third day a very tall savage entered hurriedly in company with my guard and half a dozen more, and by signs informed me that if I made signals again my life would be taken. It was very easy to understand, for spears were pointed at me and war-clubs tapped me not very lightly upon the head. As soon as I was left alone I sat thinking, and before long came to the conclusion that this was probably the reason why I had not heard any signal from Jimmy, who had perhaps been obstinate, and consequently had been treated with greater severity. I longed for the night to come that I might have some fresh message from the doctor, but somehow I could not keep awake, anxious as I was, and I was sleeping soundly when a touch awoke me with a start. I threw up my hands to catch Gyp by the collar, but to my consternation I touched a hand and arm in the darkness, and there was something so peculiar in the touch, my hand seeming to rest on raised lines of paint, that I turned cold, for I knew that one of the savages was bending over me, and I felt that it must mean that my time had come. I should have called out, but a hand was laid over my lips and an arm pressed my chest, as a voice whispered in good English: "Run, escape! You can't stay here!" "Who is it?" I whispered back, trembling with excitement. "I know!" I added quickly; "you are the tall savage--the doctor!" "Yes--yes!" he said in a low dreamy tone. "The tall savage! Yes--tall savage!" "But you are an Englishman!" I panted, as a terrible thought, half painful, half filled with hope, flashed through my brain. "Englishman! yes--Englishman! Before I was here--before I was ill! Come, quick! escape for your life! Go!" "And you?" He was silent--so silent that I put out my hands and touched him, to make sure that he had not gone, and I found that he was resting his head upon his hands. "Will you go with me to my friends?" I said, trembling still, for the thought that had come to me was gaining strength. "Friends!" he said softly; "friends! Yes, I had friends before I came-- before I came!" He said this in a curious dreamy tone, and I forced the idea back. It was impossible, but at the same time my heart leaped for joy. Here was an Englishman dwelling among the savages--a prisoner, or one who had taken up this life willingly, and if he could dwell among them so could my father, who must be somewhere here. "Tell me," I began; but he laid his hand upon my lips. "Hist! not a sound," he said. "The people sleep lightly; come with me." He took my hand in his and led me out boldly past a black who was lying a short distance from my hut, and then right across the broad opening surrounded by the natives' dwellings, and then through a grove of trees to a large hut standing by itself. He pressed my hand hard and led me through the wide opening into what seemed to be a blacker darkness, which did not, however, trouble him, for he stepped out boldly, and then I heard a muttering growl which I recognised directly. "Hush, Jimmy!" I whispered, throwing myself upon my knees. "Don't speak." "Jimmy not a go to speak um," he said softly. "Mass Joe come a top." "Go," said my companion. "Go quick. I want to help--I--the fever--my head--help." There was another pause, and on stretching out my hand I found that my guide was pressing his to his forehead once again. "He has lived this savage life so long that he cannot think," I felt as, taking his hand, I led him to the opening, through which he passed in silence, and with Jimmy walking close behind he led us between a couple more huts, and then for a good hour between tall trees so close together that we threaded our way with difficulty. My companion did not speak, and at last the silence grew so painful that I asked him how long it would be before daybreak. "Hush!" he said. "Listen! They have found out." He finished in an excited way, repeating hastily some native words before stooping to listen, when, to my dismay, plainly enough in the silence of the night came the angry murmur of voices, and this probably meant pursuit--perhaps capture, and then death. CHAPTER THIRTY. HOW I TALKED WITH MY NEW FRIEND. As I heard the sound of the pursuit a horrible sensation of dread came over me. I felt that we must be taken, and, in addition, vague ideas of trouble and bloodshed floated through my brain, with memories of the fight in the gorge, and I shuddered at the idea of there being more people slain. The effect was different upon Jimmy, the distant cries seeming to excite him. He stopped every now and then to jump from the ground and strike the nearest tree a tremendous blow with a waddy he had obtained from our guide. The latter checked him, though, laying a hand upon his arm as he said to me, after listening intently: "You don't want to fight. These people are too strong. You must escape." "But you will come with us?" I said once more, with the vague fancy coming back that this was he whom I sought, but terribly changed. He said something in reply in the savage tongue, stopped, and then went on. "I forget--I don't know. I am the doctor--a savage--what did you say?" "Come with us," I whispered, and he bent his head in the dark; but my words seemed to have no effect upon him, one idea seeming to be all that he could retain, for he hurried me on, grasping my arm tightly, and then loosed it and went on in front. Jimmy took his place, gripping my arm in turn, and, whispering, showed his power of observation by saying: "Much good him. No black fellow. Talk like Mass Joe some time. Jimmy tink um Mass Joe fader got dust in head. Don't know know." "Oh no! impossible, Jimmy," I whispered back with emotion. "It cannot be my father." "No fader? All um white fellow got mud mud in head. Can't see, can't know know. No Mass Joe fader?" "No, I am sure it is not." "Then um white fellow. No black fellow. Tupid tupid. Don't know at all. No find wallaby in hole. No find honey. No kedge fis. Tupid white fellow all a same, mud in um head." "He seems strange in his head," I said. "Yes. Iss mad mad. No wash um head clean. Can't tink straight up an down ums like Jimmy." "But he is saving us," I said. "Taking us to our friends." "Jimmy no know. Jimmy tink doctor somewhere right long--big hill. Gib black white fellow topper topper make um tink more." "No, no," I whispered, for he had grasped his waddy and was about to clear our guide's misty brain in this rough-and-ready way. "Be quiet and follow him." Just then our guide stopped and let me go to his side. "Fever--my head," he said softly, and as if apologising. "Can't think." "But you will come with us?" I said. "My friend the doctor will help you. You shall help us. You must not go back to that degraded life." "Doctor!" he said, as if he had only caught that word. "Yes, the doctor. Can't leave the people--can't leave him." "Him!" I said; "that boy?" "Hush! come faster." For there were shouts and cries behind, and he hurried us along for some distance, talking rapidly to me all the while in the savages' tongue, and apparently under the impression that I understood every word, though it was only now and then that I caught his meaning, and then it was because they were English words. After catching a few of these I became aware, or rather guessed, that he was telling me the story of his captivity among these people, and I tried eagerly to get him to speak English; but he did not seem to heed me, going on rapidly, and apparently bent on getting us away. I caught such words as "fever--prisoner--my head--years--misery-- despair--always--savage--doctor"--but only in the midst of a long excited account which he said more to himself. I was at last paying little heed to him when two words stood out clear and distinctly from the darkness of his savage speech, words that sent a spasm through me and made me catch at his arm and try to speak, but only to emit a few gasping utterances as he bent down to me staring as if in wonder. The words were "fellow-prisoner;" and they made me stop short, for I felt that I had really and providentially hit upon the right place after all, and that there could be only one man likely to be a fellow-prisoner, and that--my poor father. It was impossible to flee farther, I felt, and leave him whom I had come to seek behind. Then common sense stepped in and made me know that it was folly to stay, while Jimmy supplemented these thoughts by saying: "Black fellow come along fas. Mass Joe no gun, no powder pop, no chopper, no knife, no fight works 'tall." "Where is he?" I said excitedly, as I held the arm of our guide. "Blacks--coming after us." He talked on rapidly in the savage tongue and I uttered a groan of despair. "What um say, Mass Joe?" whispered Jimmy excitedly. "Talk, talk, poll parrot can't say know what um say. Come along run way fas. Fight nunner time o," he added. "Black fellow come along." He caught my arm, and, following our guide, we hurried on through the darkness, which was so dense that if it had not been for the wonderful eyesight of my black companion--a faculty which seemed to have been acquired or shared by our guide--I should have struck full against the trunk of some tree. As it was, I met with a few unpleasant blows on arm or shoulder, though the excitement of our flight was too great for me to heed them then. I was in despair, and torn by conflicting emotions: joy at escaping and at having reached the goal I had set up, misery at having to leave it behind just when I had found the light. It might have been foolish, seeing how much better I could serve him by being free, but I felt ready to hurry back and share my father's captivity, for I felt assured that it must be he of whom our guide spoke. We were hurrying on all this time entirely under the guidance of the strange being who had set us free, but not without protests from the black, who was growing jealous of our guide and who kept on whispering: "No go no farrer, Mass Joe, Jimmy fine a doctor an Mass Jack Penny. Hi come along Jimmy now." He was just repeating this in my ear when we were hurrying on faster, for the sounds of our pursuers came clear upon the wind, when our guide stopped short and fell back a few paces as a low angry growl saluted him from the darkness in front and he said something sharply to us in the native tongue. His words evidently meant "Fall back!" but I had recognised that growl. "Gyp!" I cried; and the growling changed to a whining cry of joy, and in an instant the dog was leaping up at my face, playfully biting at my hands, and then darting at Jimmy he began the same welcoming demonstrations upon the black. "Mass Joe, Mass Joe, he go eat up black fellow. Top um away, top um away." "It's only his play, Jimmy," I said. "Him eat piece Jimmy, all up leggum," cried the black. "Here, Gyp!" I cried, as the dog stopped his whining cry of pleasure, but growled once more. "Here," I said, "this is a friend. Pat his head, sir, and--, where is he, Jimmy?" "Black white fellow, Mass Joe?" "Yes, yes, where is he?" "Gone 'long uder way. Run back fas fas. Fraid o Gyp, Gyp send um way." "Stop him! Run after him! He must not go," I cried. I stopped, for there was a low piping whistle like the cry of a Blue Mountain parrot back at home. "Jack Penny!" I gasped, and I answered the call. "Iss, yes, Mass Jack Penny," cried Jimmy, and Gyp made a bound from my side into the darkness, leaving us alone. We heard the crash and rustle of the underwood as the dog tore off, and I was about to follow, but I could not stir, feeling that if I waited our guide might return, when, in the midst of my indecision, the whistle was repeated, and this time Jimmy answered. Then there was more rustling, the dog came panting back; and as the rustling continued there came out of the darkness a sound that made my heart leap. It was only my name softly uttered, apparently close at hand, and I made a bound in the direction, but only to fall back half-stunned, for I had struck myself full against a tree. I just remember falling and being caught by some one, and then I felt sick, and the darkness seemed filled with lights. But these soon died out, and I was listening to a familiar voice that came, it appeared, from a long way off; then it came nearer and nearer, and the words seemed to be breathed upon my face. "Only a bit stunned," it said; and then I gasped out the one word: "Doctor!" "My dear Joe!" came back, and--well, it was in the dark, and we were not ashamed: the doctor hugged me to his heart, as if I had been his brother whom he had found. CHAPTER THIRTY ONE. HOW WE MADE FURTHER PLANS. "Why, Joe, my lad," he said at last, in a voice I did not recognise, it was so full of emotion, "you've driven me half-wild. How could you get in such a fix?" "Jimmy get in big fix," said an ill-used voice. "Nobody glad to see Jimmy." "I'm glad to feel you," drawled a well-known voice. "I can't see you. How are you, Joe Carstairs? Where have you been?" "Jack, old fellow, I'm glad!" I cried, and I grasped his hands. "That will do," said the doctor sternly. "Are the savages after you, Joe?" "Yes, in full pursuit, I think," I said. "But my guide. I can't leave him." "Your guide? Where is he?" "I don't know. He was here just now. He brought us here." "Jimmy-Jimmy say um goes back along," said the black. "He no top, big fright. Gyp bite um." "One of the blacks, Joe?" said the doctor. "No, no!" I said, so excited that I could hardly speak coherently. "A white man--a prisoner among the blacks--like a savage, but--" "No, no," said Jimmy in a disgusted tone; "no like savage black fellow-fellow. Got a dust in head. No tink a bit; all agone." "His mind wanders, being a prisoner," I stammered. "He is with the blacks--a prisoner--with my father." "What?" cried the doctor. "He has a fellow-prisoner," I faltered. "I am not sure--it must be--my father!" "Mass Joe find um fader all along," said the black. "Jimmy find um too." "Be silent!" cried the doctor. "Do I understand aright, Joe, that your father is a prisoner with the people from whom you have escaped?" "Yes--I think so--I am not sure--I feel it is so," I faltered. "Humph!" "Have you seen him?" "No," I said. "I did not know he was there till I was escaping." "Jimmy see um. All rightums. Find Mass Joe fader." "You saw him, Jimmy?" I panted. "Iss. Yes, Jimmy see him. Big long hair beard down um tummuck." "You have seen him--the prisoner?" said the doctor. "Yes; iss Jimmy see um. Shut up all along. Sittum down, um look at ground all sleep, sleep like wallaby, wallaby." "He means the poor fellow who helped us to escape," I said sadly. "Jimmy see Mass Joe fader," cried the black indignantly. "Jimmy take um right long show um." "The man who brought us here?" "No, no, no, no!" cried Jimmy, dancing with vexation. "Not, not. Jimmy see um Mass Joe fader sit all along. See froo hole. Big long beard down um tummuck--long hair down um back. Um shake um head so, so. Say `hi--hi--ho--hum. Nev see home again. Ah, my wife! Ah, my boy!'" "You heard him say that, Jimmy?" I cried, catching him by the arm. "Jimmy sure, sure. Jimmy look froo hole. Den fro little tone an hit um, and den black fellow come along, and Jimmy lay fas' sleep, eye shut, no move bit." "He has seen him, Joe," cried the doctor. "He could not have invented that." There was a low whining growl here again from Gyp, and Jack Penny drawled: "I say, sha'n't we all be made prisoners if we stop here?" "Quick!" said the doctor; "follow me." "And our guide?" I cried. "We must come in search of him another time. If he has been with the blacks for long he will know how to protect himself." I was unwilling to leave one who had helped us in such a time of need; but to stay meant putting ourselves beyond being able to rescue my father, if it were really he who was our guide's fellow-prisoner. The result, of course, was that I followed the doctor, while a snuffling whine now and then told us that Gyp was on in front, and, in spite of the darkness, leading the way so well that there seemed to be no difficulty. "Where are we going?" I said, after a pause, during which we had been listening to the cries of the savages, which appeared to come from several directions. "To our hiding-place," said the doctor. "Jimmy found it before we lost him, and we have kept to it since, so as to be near you." "But how did you know you were near me?" I said. "Through Gyp first. He went away time after time, and I suspected that he had found you, so one day we followed him and he led us to the village." "Yes?" I said. "Then we had to wait. I sent messages to you by him; and at last I got your answer. To-night we were coming again to try and reach you, perhaps get you away. We meant to try. I should not have gone back without you, my lad," he said quietly. The cries now seemed distant, and we went slowly on through the darkness--slowly, for the trees were very close and it required great care to avoid rushing against them; but the doctor seemed to have made himself acquainted with the forest, and he did not hesitate till all at once the shouts of the blacks seemed to come from close by upon our right, and were answered directly from behind us. "A party of them have worked round," whispered the doctor. "Keep cool. They cannot know we are so near. Hist! crouch down." We were only just in time, for hardly had we crouched down close to the ground than the sound of the savages pushing forward from tree to tree was heard. I could not understand it at first, that curious tapping noise; but as they came nearer I found that each man lightly tapped every tree he reached, partly to avoid it, by the swinging of his waddy, partly as a guide to companions of his position. They came closer and closer, till it seemed that they must either see or touch us, and I felt my heart beat in heavy dull throbs as I longed for the rifle that these people had taken from me when they made me prisoner. I heard a faint rustle to my right, and I knew it was Jimmy preparing for a spring. I heard a slight sound on my left just as the nearest savage uttered a wild cry, and I knew that this was the lock of a gun being cocked. Then all was silent once more. Perhaps the savages heard the faint click, and uttered a warning, for the tapping of the trees suddenly ceased, and not the faintest sound could be heard. This terrible silence lasted quite five minutes. It seemed to me like an hour, and all the while we knew that at least a dozen armed savage warriors were within charging distance, and that discovery meant certain captivity, if not death. I held my breath till I felt that when I breathed again I should utter a loud gasp and be discovered. I dared not move to bury my face in my hands or in the soft earth, and my sensations were becoming agonising, when there was a sharp tap on a tree, so near that I felt the ground quiver. The tap was repeated to right and left, accompanied by a curious cry that sounded like "Whai--why!" and the party swept on. "A narrow escape!" said the doctor, as we breathed freely once more. "Go on, Gyp. Let's get to earth; we shall be safer there." I did not understand the doctor's words then, but followed in silence, with Jack Penny coming close up to me whenever he found the way open, to tell me of his own affairs. "My back's a deal better," he whispered. "I've been able to rest it lately--waiting for you, and it makes it stronger, you know, and--" "Silence, Penny!" said the doctor reprovingly, and Jack fell back a few feet; and we travelled on, till suddenly, instead of treading upon the soft decayed-leaf soil of the forest, I found that we were rustling among bushes down a steep slope. Then we were amongst loose stones, and as the darkness was not quite so dense I made out by sight as well as by the soft trickling sound, that a little rivulet was close to our feet. This we soon afterwards crossed, and bidding me stoop the doctor led the way beneath the dense bushes for some little distance before we seemed to climb a stony bank, and then in the intense darkness he took me by the shoulders and backed me a few steps. "There's quite a bed of branches there," he said aloud. "You can speak out, we are safe here;" and pressing me down I sat upon the soft twigs that had been gathered together, and Jack Penny came and lay down beside me, to talk for a time and then drop off to sleep, an example I must have followed. For all at once I started and found that it was broad daylight, with the loud twittering song of birds coming from the bushes at the entrance of what seemed to be a low-roofed extensive cave, whose mouth was in the shelving bank of a great bluff which overhung a silvery-sounding musical stream. Some light came in from the opening; but the place was made bright by the warm glow that came from a kind of rift right at the far end of the cave, and through this was also wafted down the sweet forest scents. "Jimmy's was a lucky find for us," said the doctor, when I had partaken of the food I found they had stored there, and we had talked over our position and the probability of my belief being correct. "It is shelter as well as a stronghold;" and he pointed to the means he had taken to strengthen the entrance, by making our black followers bind together the branches of the tangled shrubs that grew about the mouth. In the talk that ensued it was decided that we would wait a couple of days, and then go by night and thoroughly examine the village. Jimmy would be able to point out the hut where my father was confined, and then if opportunity served we would bring him away, lie hidden here for a few days till the heat of the pursuit was over, and then escape back to the coast. I would not own to the doctor that I had my doubts, and he owned afterwards to me that his feeling was the same. So we both acted as if we had for certain discovered him of whom we came in search, and waited our time for the first venture. It was dangerous work hunting for food at so short a distance from the village, but our black followers, aided by Jimmy, were very successful, their black skins protecting them from exciting surprise if they were seen from a distance, and they brought in a good supply of fish every day simply by damming up some suitable pool in the little stream in whose bank our refuge was situated. This stream swarmed with fish, and it was deep down in a gully between and arched over by trees. The bows and arrows and Jimmy's spear obtained for us a few birds, and in addition they could always get for us a fair supply of fruit, though not quite such as we should have chosen had it been left to us. Roots, too, they brought, so that with the stores we had there was not much prospect of our starving. In fact so satisfactory was our position in the pleasant temperate cave that Jack Penny was in no hurry to move. "We're just as well here as anywhere else," he said; "that is, if we had found your father." "And got him safe here," he added after a pause. "And the black chaps didn't come after us," he said after a little more thought. "And your mother wasn't anxious about you," he said, after a little more consideration. "You'll find such a lot more reasons for not stopping, Jack Penny," I said, after hearing him out, "that you'll finish by saying we had better get our work done and return to a civilised country as soon as we can." "Oh, I don't know!" said Jack slowly. "I don't care about civilised countries: they don't suit me. Everybody laughs at me because I'm a bit different, and father gives it to me precious hard sometimes. Give me Gyp and my gun, and I should be happy enough here." "Don't talk like that, Jack," I said in agony, as I thought of him who had helped me to escape, and of the prisoner he had mentioned, and whom the black professed to have seen. "Let's get our task done and escape as soon as we can. A savage life is not for such as we." That day we had an alarm. Our men had been out and returned soon after sunrise, that being our custom for safety's sake. Then, too, we were very careful about having a fire, though we had no difficulty with it, for it burned freely, and the smoke rose up through the great crack in the rock above our heads, and disappeared quietly amongst the trees. But we had one or two scares: hearing voices of the blacks calling to each other, but they were slight compared to the alarm to which I alluded above. The men, I say, were back, having been more successful than usual-- bringing us both fish and a small wild pig. We had made a good meal, and the doctor and I were lying on the armfuls of leafy boughs that formed our couch, talking for the twentieth time about our plans for the night, when all at once, just as I was saying that with a little brave effort we could pass right through the sleepy village and bring away the prisoner, I laid my hand sharply on the doctor's arm. He raised his head at the same moment, for we had both heard the unmistakable noise given by a piece of dead twig when pressed upon by a heavy foot. We listened with beating hearts, trying to localise the very spot whence the sound came; and when we were beginning to breathe more freely it came again, but faint and distant. "Whoever it was has not found out that we are here," I whispered. The doctor nodded; and just then Jack Penny, who had been resting his back, sat up and yawned loudly, ending by giving Jimmy, who was fast asleep, a sounding slap on the back. I felt the cold perspiration ooze out of me as I glanced at the doctor. Then turning over on to my hands and knees I crept to where Jimmy was threatening Jack with his waddy in much anger, and held up my hand. The effect was magical. They were silent on the instant, but we passed the rest of that day in agony. "I'm glad that we decided to go to-night," the doctor said. "Whoever it was that passed must have heard us, and we shall have the savages here to-morrow to see what it meant." The night seemed as if it would never come, but at last the sun went down, and in a very short time it was dark. Our plans were to go as near as we dared to the village as soon as darkness set in, place our men, and then watch till the savages seemed to be asleep, and then, by Jimmy's help, seek out my father's prison, bring him away to the cave, and there rest for a day or two, perhaps for several, as I have said. But the events of the day had made us doubtful of the safety of our refuge; and, after talking the matter over with the doctor, we both came to the conclusion that we would leave the latter part of our plan to take care of itself. "First catch your hare, Joe!" said the doctor finally. "And look here, my lad; I begin to feel confident now that this prisoner is your father. We must get him away. It is not a case of _try_! We _must_, I say; and if anything happens to me--" "Happens to you!" I said aghast. "Well; I may be captured in his place!" he said smiling. "If I am, don't wait, don't spare a moment, but get off with your prize. I don't suppose they will do more than imprison me. I am a doctor, and perhaps I can find some favour with them." "Don't talk like that, doctor!" I said, grasping his hand. "We must hold together." "We must release your father!" he said sternly. "There, that will do." CHAPTER THIRTY TWO. HOW WE HEARD A BLACK DISCUSSION AND DID NOT UNDERSTAND. The rescue party consisted of the doctor, Ti-hi, and myself, with Jimmy for guide. Jack Penny was to take command of the cave, and be ready to defend it and help us if attacked or we were pursued. At the same time he was to have the bearers and everything in readiness for an immediate start, in case we decided to continue our flight. "I think that's all we can say, Penny," said the doctor in a low grave voice, as we stood ready to start. "Everything must depend on the prisoners. Now be firm and watchful. Good-bye." "I sha'n't go to sleep," said Jack Penny. "I say, though, hadn't you better take Gyp?" "Yes, yes; take Gyp!" I said; "he knows the way so well." "Jimmy know a way so well, too!" said the black. "No take a dog--Gyp!" But we decided to take the dog, and creeping down into the bed of the rivulet we stood in the darkness listening, shut-in, as it were, by the deep silence. "Forward, Jimmy!" said the doctor, and his voice sounded hollow and strange. Gyp uttered a whine--that dog had been so well trained that he rarely barked--ran quickly up the further bank of the rivulet; Jimmy trotted after him, waddy in hand; the doctor went next, I followed, and Ti-hi brought up the rear. One minute the stars were shining brightly over us, the next we were under the great forest trees, and the darkness was intense. "Keep close to me, my lad," the doctor whispered; and I followed him by the ear more than by the eye; but somehow the task grew easier as we went on, and I did not once come in contact with a tree. By the way Gyp took us I don't suppose it was more than six miles to the savages' village; and though we naturally went rather slowly, the excitement I felt was so great that it seemed a very little while before Jimmy stopped short to listen. "Hear um talkum talkum," he whispered. We could neither of us hear a sound, but I had great faith in Jimmy's hearing, for in old times he had given me some remarkable instances of the acuteness of this sense. "Jimmy go first see!" he whispered; and the next minute we knew that we were alone with Ti-hi, Jimmy and the dog having gone on to scout. "I detest having to depend upon a savage!" muttered the doctor; "it seems so degrading to a civilised man." "But they hear and see better than we do." "Yes," he said; "it is so." There we waited in that dense blackness beneath the trees, listening to the faintest sound, till quite an hour had elapsed, and we were burning to go on, when all at once Ti-hi, who was behind us, uttered a faint hiss, and as we turned sharply a familiar voice said: "All rightums! Jimmy been round round, find um Mass Joe fader!" "You have found him?" I cried. "Not talk shouto so!" whispered Jimmy. "Black fellow come." "But have you found him?" I whispered. "Going a find um; all soon nuff!" he replied coolly. "Come long now." He struck off to the right and we followed, going each minute more cautiously, for we soon heard the busy hum of many voices--a hum which soon after developed into a loud chatter, with occasional angry outbursts, as if something were being discussed. Jimmy went on, Gyp keeping close to his heels now, as if he quite understood the importance of not being seen. We had left the dense forest, and were walking in a more open part among tall trees, beneath which it was black as ever, but outside the stars shone brilliantly, and it was comparatively light. The voices seemed so near now that I thought we were going too far, and just then Jimmy raised his hand and stopped us, before what seemed to be a patch of black darkness, and I found that we were in the shadow cast by a long hut, whose back was within a yard or so of our feet. Jimmy placed his lips close to my ear, then to the doctor's, and to each of us he whispered: "Soon go sleep--sleep. Find Mass Joe fader, and go away fast. All top here Jimmy go see." I quite shared with the doctor the feeling of helpless annoyance at having to depend so much on the black; but I felt that he was far better able to carry out this task than we were, so stood listening to the buzz of voices, that seemed now to arise on every hand. From where we stood we could see a group of the savages standing not thirty yards from us, their presence being first made plain by their eager talking, and I pressed the doctor's arm and pointed. "Yes," he whispered; "but we are in the shadow." From huts to right and left we could hear talking, but that in front of us was silent, and I began wondering whether it was the one that had been my prison. But it was impossible to tell, everything seemed so different in the faint light cast by the stars. I could not even make out the tree where Jimmy had been tied. All at once a sensation as of panic seized me, for the group of blacks set up a loud shout, and came running towards where we were. I was sure they saw us, and with a word of warning to the doctor I turned and should have fled but for two hands that were laid upon my shoulders, pressing me down, the doctor crouching likewise. At first I thought it was Jimmy, but turning my head I found that it was Ti-hi, whose hand now moved from my shoulder to my lips. I drew a breath full of relief the next moment, for in place of dashing down upon us the blacks rushed into the hut behind which we were standing, crowding it; and there was nothing now but a wall of dried and interwoven palm leaves between us and our fierce enemies. Here a loud altercation seemed to ensue, angry voices being heard; and several times over I thought there was going to be a fight. I could not comprehend a word, but the tones of voice were unmistakably those of angry men, and it was easy to tell when one left off and another began. We dared not stir, for now it seemed to be so light that if we moved from the shadow of the hut we should be seen, while the fact of one of us stepping upon a dead twig and making it snap would be enough to bring half the village upon us, at a time when we wanted to employ strategy and not force. The burst of talking in the hut ended all at once, and there was a dead silence, as if those within were listening intently. We held our breath and listened too, trembling with excitement, for all at once we heard a voice utter a few words, and then there was a faint sound of rustling, with the cracking noise made by a joint, as if some one had risen to a standing position. Were the savages coming round to our side and about to leap upon us? Perhaps they were even then stealing from both ends; and my heart in the terrible excitement kept on a heavy dull throb, which seemed to beat right up into my throat. The moments passed away, though, and at last I began to breathe more freely. It was evident that the savages had quitted the hut. In this belief I laid my hand upon the doctor's arm, and was about to speak, when close by us, as it seemed, but really from within the wall of the hut, there came the low muttering of a voice, and I knew that some one had been left behind. The doctor pressed my hand, and I shivered as I felt how narrow an escape we had had. We wanted, of course, to move, but it seemed impossible, and so we stayed, waiting to see if the black had made any discovery. After what seemed to me an interminable time I heard a slight rustling sound, and almost at the same moment there was a hand upon my arm, and directly after a warm pair of lips upon my ear: "Jimmy no find um fader yet! Take um out o' place place! Put um somewhere; no know tell!" I placed my lips to his ear in turn and whispered that there was some one left in the hut. "Jimmy go see," he said softly; and before I could stay him he was gone. "What is it?" whispered the doctor; and I told him. The doctor drew his pistol--I heard him in the darkness--and grasped my arm, as if to be ready for flight; but just then I heard a voice in the hut which made me start with joy. Then there was a rustling sound, and Jimmy came round the corner of the hut. "All rightums!" he whispered. "Find somebody's fader!" "You here again, my boy!" whispered a familiar voice. "Yes!" I said, catching the speaker's arm; and then, "Doctor," I said, "this is the prisoner who saved me--and set Jimmy free!" "Doctor!" said the poor fellow in a low puzzled voice, as if his mind were wandering. "Yes, I am the doctor! They made me their doctor when--the fever--when--oh! my boy, my boy! why did you come back?" he cried excitedly, as if his brain were once more clear. "To fetch you and--the other prisoner!" I said. "Mr Carstairs?" he said earnestly. "Hush, hush! They are coming back--to kill me, perhaps! I must go." He slipped away from us before we could stop him, and while we were debating as to whether we had not better rush in and fight in his defence, the savages crowded into the hut, and once more there was a loud buzz of voices. These were checked by one deeper, slower, and more stern than the others, which were silenced; and after a minute or two, we heard our friend the Englishman respond in a deprecating voice, and apparently plead for mercy. Then the chief savage spoke again in stern tones, there was a buzz of voices once more, and the savages seemed to file out and cross the opening towards the other side of the village. We dared not move, but remained there listening, not knowing but that a guard might have been left; but at the end of a minute or two our friend was back at our side, to say excitedly: "I want to help you, but my head--I forget--I cannot speak sometimes--I cannot think. It is all dark here--here--in my mind. Why have you come?" "We are friends," said the doctor. "Where is Mr Carstairs?" "Carstairs?--Mr Carstairs?" he said. "Ah--" He began to speak volubly in the savage tongue now, tantalising me so that I grasped his arm, exclaiming fiercely: "Speak English. Where is my father?" I could hardly see his face, but there was light enough to tell that he turned towards me, and he stopped speaking, and seemed to be endeavouring to comprehend what I said. "My father--the prisoner," I said again, with my lips now to his ear. "Prisoner? Yes. At the great hut--the chief's hut--" He began speaking again volubly, and then stopped and bent his head. "At the chief's hut?" said the doctor excitedly. "Wait a moment or two to give him time to collect himself, then ask him again." The poor dazed creature turned to the doctor now, and bent towards him, holding him by the arm this time. "Chief's hut? Yes: right across. There." He pointed in the direction the savages seemed to have taken, and from whence we could hear the voices rising and falling in busy speech. My heart leaped, for we knew now definitely where he whom we sought was kept, and the longing, impatient sensation there came upon me to be face to face with him was so strong that I could hardly contain myself. "Let us get round there at once," I whispered, "Here, Jimmy." There was no answer: Jimmy had crept away. CHAPTER THIRTY THREE. HOW I NEARLY MADE A TERRIBLE MISTAKE. We tried several times over to get our friend to speak, but the result was only a voluble burst of words in a tongue we could not comprehend, while all the time he seemed to be aware of his failing, and waved his hands and stretched them out to us as if begging us to forgive him for his weakness. "Let him be, Joe," whispered the doctor at last; "we may excite him by pressing him. Let him calm himself, and then perhaps he can speak." I felt as if it was resigning myself to utter despair, and it seemed that our attempt that night was to be in vain, when Jimmy suddenly popped up among us once more. "'Long here," he whispered, and we were about to follow him when our friend stopped us. "No; this way," he said, and he pointed in the opposite direction. "No, no! 'long here way," said Jimmy excitedly. "Much lot black fellow that way." "Never mind," I whispered; "let's follow him." "Jimmy find Mass Joe fader right 'long this way," cried the black. "Not go 'long other way." "Where is my father?" "Big hut over 'cross," said Jimmy. "Let's get round this way to it then," I whispered. "Come along." The doctor was already in advance, following our guide, and after striking the earth a heavy blow with his waddy to get rid of his anger, Jimmy followed me, not able to understand that we could get to the opposite point by going round one way as readily as by the other. It was very slow work and we had to labour hard, holding the bushes and trees so that they should not fly back upon those who followed us; but by dint of great care we got round at last to what, as far as I could judge, was the far side of the village, our principal guide being the sound of voices which came to us in a dull murmur that increased as we drew nearer, and at last we found ourselves similarly situated as to position, being at the back of another large hut. Here we waited, listening to the buzz of voices, till I wondered in my impatience what they could be discussing, and longed to ask our guide, but feared lest I should confuse him, now that perhaps he was about to do us good service if left alone. I was glad that I had kept quiet the next minute, for the doctor laid his hand upon my shoulder and whispered in my ear: "There is no doubt about it, my lad. We have reached the right spot. Your father is a prisoner in this very hut, and the savages are discussing whether they will keep him here or take him away." "What shall we do?" I whispered back in agony, for it seemed so terrible to have come all these hundreds of miles to find him, and then to sit down, as it were, quite helpless, without taking a step to set him free. "We can do nothing yet," he replied, "but wait for an opportunity to get him away." "Can you not make some plan?" I whispered back. "Hist!" He pressed my hand, for I had been growing louder of speech in my excitement, and just then there was a fresh outburst of voices from within the hut, followed by the trampling of feet and loud shouting, which seemed to be crossing the village and going farther away. "They have taken the prisoner to--" Our companion said the first words excitedly, and then stopped short. "Where?" I exclaimed aloud, as I caught at his arm. He answered me in the savage tongue, and with an impatient stamp of the foot I turned to the doctor. "What can we do?" I said. "It makes me wish to be a prisoner too. I should see him, perhaps, and I could talk to him and tell him that help was near." "While you shut up part of the help, and raised expectations in his breast, that would perhaps result in disappointment," replied the doctor. "We must wait, my lad, wait. The savages are excited and alarmed, and we must come when their suspicions are at rest." "What do you mean?" I said. "Do you mean to go back to-night without him?" "Not if we can get him away," he said; "but we must not do anything mad or rash." "No, no, of course not," I said despairingly; "but this is horrible: to be so close to him and yet able to do nothing!" "Be patient, my lad," he whispered, "and speak lower. We have done wonders. We have come into this unknown wild, and actually have found that the lost man is alive. What is more, we have come, as if led by blind instinct, to the very place where he is a prisoner, and we almost know the hut in which he is confined." "Yes, yes. I know all that," I said; "but it is so hard not to be able to help him now." "We are helping him," said the doctor. "Just think: we have this poor half-dazed fellow to glean some information, and we have a hiding-place near, and--Look out!" I turned my piece in the direction of the danger, for just then a member of our little expedition, who had been perfectly silent so far, uttered a savage growl and a fierce worrying noise. Simultaneously there was a burst of shouts and cries, with the sound of blows and the rush of feet through the bush. For the next few minutes there was so much excitement and confusion that I could hardly tell what happened in the darkness. All I knew was that a strong clutch was laid upon my shoulders, and that I was being dragged backwards, when I heard the dull thud of a blow and I was driven to the ground, with a heavy body lying across me. I partly struggled out of this position, partly found myself dragged out, and then, in a half-stunned, confused fashion, I yielded, as I was dragged through the dark forest, the twigs and boughs lashing my face horribly. I had kept tight hold of my gun, and with the feeling strong upon me that if I wished to avoid a second captivity I must free myself, I waited for an opportunity to turn upon the strong savage who held me so tightly in his grasp and dragged me through the bush in so pitiless a manner. He had me with his left hand riveted in my clothes while with his right hand, I presumed with a war-club, he dashed the bushes aside when the obstacles were very great. My heart beat fast as I felt that if I were to escape I must fire at this fierce enemy, and so horrible did the act seem that twice over, after laying my hand upon my pistol, I withdrew it, telling myself that I had better wait for a few minutes longer. And so I waited, feeling that, after all, my captivity would not be so bad as it was before, seeing that now I should know my father was near at hand. "I can't shoot now," I said to myself passionately; "I don't think I'm a coward, but I cannot fire at the poor wretch, and I must accept my fate." My arm dropped to my side, and at that moment my captor stopped short. "No hear um come 'long now," he said. "Jimmy!" I cried; and for a moment the air seemed full of humming, singing noises, and if I had not clung to my companion I should have fallen. CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR. HOW JIMMY AND I WERE HUNTED LIKE BEASTS. "Jimmy!" I panted, as soon as I had recovered myself to find that the black was feeling me all over in the darkness. "Not got no knock um chops, no waddy bang, no popgun ball in um nowhere," he whispered. "No Jimmy, I'm not wounded," I said. "I thought you were one of the black fellows." "No, no black fellow--no common black fellow sabbage," he said importantly. "Come long fas, fas." "But the doctor and the prisoner and Ti-hi?" I said. "All run way much fas," said Jimmy. "Gyp, Gyp, see black fellow come long much, for Jimmy do and nibblum legs make um hard hard. Gib one two topper topper, den Jimmy say time um way, take Mass Joe. Come long." "But we must go and help the doctor," I said. "Can't find um. All go long back to big hole. Hidum. Say Mass Joe come back long o' Jimmy-Jimmy." It seemed probable that they would make for our hiding-place, but I was very reluctant to go and leave my friends in the lurch, so I detained Jimmy and we sat listening, the black making me sit down. "Rest um leggums," he said. "Run much fas den." We stayed there listening for what must have been the space of half an hour, and during that time we could hear the shouting and rapping of trees of the blacks as they were evidently searching the bush, but there was no sound of excitement or fighting, neither did it seem to me that there were any exulting shouts such as might arise over the capture of prisoners. This gave me hope, and in the belief that I might find my companions at the hiding-place I was about to propose to Jimmy that we would go on, when he jumped up. "No stop no longer. Black fellow come along fas. Get away." The noises made by the blacks were plainly coming nearer, and I sprang to my feet, trying to pierce the darkness, but everywhere there were the dimly-seen shapes of trees so close that they almost seemed to lower and their branches to bear down upon our heads; there was the fresh moist scent of the dewy earth and leaves, and now and then a faint cry of some bird, but nothing to indicate the way we ought to go. I turned to Jimmy. "Can you tell where the cave is?" I said. "No: Jimmy all dark," he answered. "Can't you tell which way to go?" "Oh yes um," he whispered. "Jimmy know which way go." "Well, which?" I said, as the shouts came nearer. "Dat away where no black fellow." "But it may be away from the cave," I said. "Jimmy don't know, can't help along. Find cave morrow nex day." There was wisdom in his proposal, which, awkwardly as it was shaped, meant that we were to avoid the danger now and find our friends another time. "Mass Joe keep long close," he whispered. "Soon come near time see along way Mass doctor and Mass Jack Penny-Penny." We paused for a moment, the black going down on his knees to lay his head close to the ground so as to make sure of the direction where the savages were, and he rose up with anything but comfortable news. "All round bout nearer, come 'long other way." Just then I gave a jump, for something touched my leg through a great rent in my trousers. It felt cold, and for the moment I thought it must be the head of a serpent; but a low familiar whine undeceived me, and I stooped down to pat the neck of Jack Penny's shaggy friend. "Home, Gyp!" I said. "Home!" He understood me and started off at once, fortunately in the direction taken by Jimmy, and after a long toilsome struggle through the bush, the more arduous from the difficulty we experienced in keeping up with the dog, we at last reached a gully at the bottom of which we could hear the trickling of water. "All right ums," said Jimmy quickly, and plunging down through the bushes he was soon at the bottom, and went upon his knees to find out which way the stream ran. He jumped up directly, having found that by the direction the water ran we must be below the cave, always supposing that this was the right stream. Down in the gully the sounds of pursuit grew very faint, and at last died out, while we waded at times, and at others found room upon the shelving bank to get along, perhaps for a hundred yards unchecked; then would come a long stretch where the gully was full of thick bushes, and here our only chance was to creep under them, wading the while in the little stream, often with our bodies bent so that our faces were close to the water. Gyp trotted cheerfully on as I plashed through the water, stopping from time to time to utter a low whine to guide us when he got some distance ahead, and I often envied the sagacious animal his strength and activity, for beside him at a time like this I seemed to be a _very_ helpless creature indeed. Two or three times over I grasped the black's arm and we stopped to listen, for it seemed to me that I could hear footsteps and the rustling of the bushes at the top of the gully far above our heads; but whenever we stopped the noise ceased, and feeling at last that it was fancy I plodded on, till, half dead with fatigue, I sank down on my knees and drank eagerly of the cool fresh water, both Jimmy and the dog following my example. At last, though I should not have recognised the place in the gloom, Jimmy stopped short, and from the darkness above my head, as I stood with the stream bubbling past my legs, I heard the unmistakable click of a gun cock. "Jack!" I whispered. "Jack Penny!" "That'll do," he whispered back. "Come along. All right! Have you got him?" "Whom?" I said, stumbling painfully up into the cave, where I threw myself down. "Your father." "No," I said dismally, "and we've lost the doctor and Ti-hi. Poor fellows, I'm afraid they are taken. But, Jack Penny, we are right. My father is a prisoner in the village." "Then we'll go and fetch him out, and the doctor too. Ti-hi can take care of himself. I'd as soon expect to keep a snake in a wicker cage as that fellow in these woods; but come, tell us all about it." I partook, with a sensation as if choking all the while, of the food he had waiting, and then, as we sat there waiting for the day in the hope that the doctor might come, I told Jack Penny the adventures of the night, Jimmy playing an accompaniment the while upon his nose. CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE. HOW JACK PENNY FIRED A STRAIGHT SHOT. There was no stopping Jimmy's snoring. Pokes and kicks only intensified the noise, so at last we let him lie and I went on in a doleful key to the end. "Oh, it ain't so very bad after all!" said Jack Penny, in his slow drawl. "I call it a good night's work." "Good, Jack?" "Yes. Well, ain't it?" he drawled. "Why, you've got back safe, and you don't know that the doctor won't get back, and you've done what you came to do--you've found your father." "But--but suppose, Jack Penny," I said, "they--they do him some injury for what has passed." "'Tain't likely," drawled Jack. "They've kept him all this time, why should they want to--well, kill him--that's what you're afraid of now?" "Yes," I said sadly. "Gammon! 'tain't likely. If you'd got an old kangaroo in a big cage, and the young kangaroo came and tried to get him away you wouldn't go and kill the old kangaroo for it?" "No, no," I said. "Of course not. I didn't mean to call your father an old kangaroo, Joe Carstairs. I only meant it to be an instance like. I say, do kick that fellow for snoring so." "It is of no use to kick him, poor fellow, and, besides, he's tired. He's a good fellow, Jack." "Yes, I suppose he is," said Jack Penny; "but he's awfully black." "Well, he can't help that." "And he shines so!" continued Jack in tones of disgust. "I never saw a black fellow with such a shiny skin. I say, though, didn't you feel in a stew, Joe Carstairs, when you thought it was a black fellow lugging you off?" "I did," I said; "and when afterwards--hist! is that anything?" We gazed through the bushes at the darkness outside, and listened intently, but there was no sound save Jimmy's heavy breathing, and I went on: "When afterwards I found it was the black I turned queer and giddy. Perhaps it was the effect of the blow I got, but I certainly felt as if I should faint. I didn't know I was so girlish." Jack Penny did not speak for a few minutes, and I sat thinking bitterly of my weakness as I stroked Gyp's head, the faithful beast having curled up between us and laid his head upon my lap. I seemed to have been so cowardly, and, weary and dejected as I was, I wished that I had grown to be a man, with a man's strength and indifference to danger. "Oh, I don't know," said Jack Penny suddenly. "Don't know what?" I said sharply, as he startled me out of my thinking fit. "Oh! about being girlish and--and--and, well, cowardly, I suppose you mean." "Yes, cowardly," I said bitterly. "I thought I should be so brave, and that when I had found where my father was I should fight and bring him away from among the savages." "Ah! yes," said Jack Penny dryly, "that's your sort! That's like what you read in books and papers about boys of fifteen, and sixteen, and seventeen. They're wonderful chaps, who take young women in their arms and then jump on horseback with 'em and gallop off at full speed. Some of 'em have steel coats like lobsters on, and heavy helmets, and that makes it all the easier. I've read about some of them chaps who wielded their swords--they never swing 'em about and chop and stab with 'em, but wield 'em, and they kill three or four men every day and think nothing of it. I used to swallow all that stuff, but I'm not such a guffin now." There was a pause here, while Jack Penny seemed to be thinking. "Why, some of these chaps swim across rivers with a man under their arm, and if they're on horseback they sing out a battle-cry and charge into a whole army, and everybody's afraid of 'em. I say, ain't it jolly nonsense Joe Carstairs?" "I suppose it is," I said sadly, for I had believed in some of these heroes too. "I don't believe the boy ever lived who didn't feel in an awful stew when he was in danger. Why, men do at first before they get used to it. There was a chap came to our place last year and did some shepherding for father for about six months. He'd been a soldier out in the Crimean war and got wounded twice in the arm and in the leg, big wounds too. He told me that when they got the order to advance, him and his mates, they were all of a tremble, and the officers looked as pale as could be, some of 'em; but every man tramped forward steady enough, and it wasn't till they began to see their mates drop that the want to fight began to come. They felt savage, he says, then, and as soon as they were in the thick of it, there wasn't a single man felt afraid." We sat in silence for a few minutes, and then he went on again: "If men feel afraid sometimes I don't see why boys shouldn't; and as to those chaps who go about in books killing men by the dozen, and never feeling to mind it a bit, I think it's all gammon." "Hist! Jack Penny, what's that?" I whispered. There was a faint crashing noise out in the forest just then, and I knew from the sound close by me that the black who was sharing our watch must have been lifting his spear. I picked up my gun, and I knew that Jack had taken up his and thrown himself softly into a kneeling position, as we both strove to pierce the darkness and catch sight of what was perhaps a coming enemy. As we watched, it seemed as if the foliage of the trees high up had suddenly come into view. There was a grey look in the sky, and for the moment I thought I could plainly make out the outline of the bushes on the opposite side of the gully. Then I thought I was mistaken, and then again it seemed as if I could distinctly see the outline of a bush. A minute later, and with our hearts beating loudly, we heard the rustling go on, and soon after we could see that the bushes were being moved. "It is the doctor," I thought; but the idea was false, I knew, for if it had been he his way would have been down into the stream, which he would have crossed, while, whoever this was seemed to be undecided and to be gazing about intently as if in search of something. When we first caught a glimpse of the moving figure it was fifty yards away. Then it came to within forty, went off again, and all the time the day was rapidly breaking. The tree tops were plainly to be seen, and here and there one of the great masses of foliage stood out quite clearly. Just then the black, who had crept close to my side, pointed out the figure on the opposite bank, now dimly-seen in the transparent dawn. It was that of an Indian who had stopped exactly opposite the clump of bushes which acted as a screen to our place of refuge, and stooping down he was evidently trying to make out the mouth of the cave. He saw it apparently, for he uttered a cry of satisfaction, and leaping from the place of observation he stepped rapidly down the slope. "He has found us out," I whispered. "But he mustn't come all the same," said Jack Penny, and as he spoke I saw that he was taking aim. "Don't shoot," I cried, striking at his gun; but I was too late, for as I bent towards him he drew the trigger, there was a flash, a puff of smoke, a sharp report that echoed from the mouth of the cave, and then with a horrible dread upon me I sprang up and made for the entrance, followed by Jack and the blacks. It took us but a minute to get down into the stream bed and then to climb up amongst the bushes to where we had seen the savage, and neither of us now gave a thought of there being danger from his companions. What spirit moved Jack Penny I cannot tell. That which moved me was an eager desire to know whether a horrible suspicion was likely to be true, and to gain the knowledge I proceeded on first till I reached the spot where the man had fallen. It was a desperate venture, for he might have struck at me, wounded merely, with war-club or spear; but I did not think of that: I wanted to solve the horrible doubt, and I had just caught sight of the fallen figure lying prone upon its face when Jimmy uttered a warning cry, and we all had to stoop down amongst the bushes, for it seemed as if the savage's companions were coming to his help. CHAPTER THIRTY SIX. HOW THE DOCTOR FOUND A PATIENT READY TO HIS HAND. We waited for some minutes crouched there among the bushes listening to the coming of those who forced their way through the trees, while moment by moment the morning light grew clearer, the small birds twittered, and the parrots screamed. We could see nothing, but it was evident that two if not three savages were slowly descending the slope of the ravine towards where we were hidden. The wounded man uttered a low groan that thrilled me and then sent a cold shudder through my veins, for I was almost touching him; and set aside the feeling of horror at having been, as it were, partner in inflicting his injury, there was the sensation that he might recover sufficiently to revenge himself upon us by a blow with his spear. The sounds came nearer, and it was now so light that as we watched we could see the bushes moving, and it seemed to me that more of this horrible bloodshed must ensue. We were crouching close, but the wounded man was moaning, and his companions might at any moment hear him and then discovery must follow; while if, on the other hand, we did not resist, all hope of rescuing my poor father would be gone. "We must fight," I said to myself, setting my teeth hard and bringing my gun to bear on the spot where I could see something moving. At the same time I tried to find where Jack Penny was hiding, but he was out of sight. At the risk of being seen I rose up a little so as to try and get a glimpse of the coming enemy; but though the movement among the bushes was plain enough I only caught one glimpse of a black body, and had I been disposed to shoot it was too quick for me and was gone in an instant. They were coming nearer, and in an agony of excitement I was thinking of attempting to back away and try to reach the cave, when I felt that I could not get Jack Penny and the black to act with me unless I showed myself, and this meant revealing our position, and there all the time were the enemy steadily making their way right towards us. "What shall I do?" I said to myself as I realised in a small way what must be the feelings of a general who finds that the battle is going against him. "I must call to Jack Penny." "_Cooey_!" rang out just then from a little way to my right, and Jimmy looked up from his hiding-place. "Is Carstairs there?" cried the familiar voice of the doctor, and as with beating heart I sprang up, he came staggering wearily towards me through the clinging bushes. "My dear boy," he cried, with his voice trembling, "what I have suffered on your account! I thought you were a prisoner." "No!" I exclaimed, delighted at this turn in our affairs. "Jimmy helped me to escape. I say, you don't think I ran away and deserted you?" "My dear boy," he cried, "I was afraid that you would think this of me. But there, thank Heaven you are safe! and though we have not rescued your father we know enough to make success certain." "I'm afraid not," I said hastily. "The savages have discovered our hiding-place." "No!" "Yes; and one of them was approaching it just now when Jack Penny shot him down." "This is very unfortunate! Where? What! close here?" I had taken his hand to lead him to the clump of bushes where the poor wretch lay, and on parting the boughs and twigs we both started back in horror. "My boy, what have you done?" cried the doctor, as I stood speechless there by his side. "We have not so many friends that we could afford to kill them." But already he was busy, feeling the folly of wasting words, and down upon his knees, to place the head of our friend, the prisoner of the savages, in a more comfortable position before beginning to examine him for his wound. "Bullet--right through the shoulder!" said the doctor in a short abrupt manner; and as he spoke he rapidly tore up his handkerchief, and plugged and bound the wound, supplementing the handkerchief with a long scarf which he wore round the waist. "Now, Ti-hi! Jimmy! help me carry him to the cave." "Jimmy carry um all 'long right way; put um on Jimmy's back!" cried my black companion; and this seeming to be no bad way of carrying the wounded man in such a time of emergency, Jimmy stooped down, exasperating me the while by grinning, as if it was good fun, till the sufferer from our mistake was placed upon his back, when he exclaimed: "Lot much heavy-heavy! Twice two sheep heavy. Clear de bush!" We hastily drew the boughs aside, and Jimmy steadily descended the steep slope, entered the rivulet, crossed, and then stopped for a moment beneath the overhanging boughs before climbing to the cabin. "Here, let me help you!" said the doctor, holding out his hand. "Yes," said Jimmy, drawing his waddy and boomerang from his belt; "hold um tight, um all in black fellow way." Then, seizing the boughs, he balanced the wounded man carefully, and drew himself steadily up step by step, exhibiting wonderful strength of muscle, till he had climbed to the entrance of the cave, where he bent down and crawled in on hands and knees, waiting till his burden was removed from his back, and then getting up once more to look round smiling. "Jimmy carry lot o' men like that way!" We laid the sufferer on one of the beds of twigs that the savages had made for us, and here the doctor set himself to work to more securely bandage his patient's shoulder; Jack Penny looking on, resting upon his gun, and wearing a countenance full of misery. "There!" said the doctor when he had finished. "I think he will do now. Two inches lower, Master Penny, and he would have been a dead man." "I couldn't help it!" drawled Jack Penny. "I thought he was a savage coming to kill us. I'm always doing something. There never was such an unlucky chap as I am!" "Oh, you meant what you did for the best!" said the doctor, laying his hand on Jack Penny's shoulder. "What did he want to look like a savage for?" grumbled Jack. "Who was going to know that any one dressed up--no, I mean dressed down--like that was an Englishman?" "It was an unfortunate mistake, Penny; you must be more careful if you mean to handle a gun." "Here, take it away!" said Jack Penny bitterly. "I won't fire it off again." "I was very nearly making the same mistake," I said, out of compassion for Jack Penny--he seemed so much distressed. "I had you and Ti-hi covered in turn as you came up, doctor." "Then I'm glad you did not fire!" he said. "There, keep your piece, Penny; we may want its help. As for our friend here, he has a painful wound, but I don't think any evil will result from it. Hist, he is coming to!" Our conversation had been carried on in a whisper, and we now stopped short and watched the doctor's patient in the dim twilight of the cavern, as he unclosed his eyes and stared first up at the ceiling and then about him, till his eyes rested upon us, when he smiled. "Am I much hurt?" he said, in a low calm voice. "Oh, no!" said the doctor. "A bullet wound--not a dangerous one at all." To my astonishment he went on talking quite calmly, and without any of the dazed look and the strange habit of forgetting his own tongue to continue in that of the people among whom he had been a prisoner for so long. "I thought I should find you here," he said; "and I came on, thinking that perhaps I could help you." "Help us! yes, of course you can! You shall help us to get Mr Carstairs away!" "Poor fellow; yes!" he said softly, and in so kindly a way that I crept closer and took his hand. "We tried several times to escape, but they overtook us, and treated us so hard that of late we had grown resigned to our fate." I exchanged glances with the doctor, who signed to me to be silent. "It was a very hard one--very hard!" the wounded man continued, and then he stopped short, looking straight before him at the forest, seen through the opening of the cave. By degrees his eyelids dropped, were raised again, and then fell, and he seemed to glide into a heavy sleep. The doctor motioned us to keep away, and we all went to the mouth of the cave, to sit down and talk over the night's adventure, the conversation changing at times to a discussion of our friend's mental affection. "The shock of the wound has affected his head beneficially, it seems," the doctor said at last. "Whether it will last I cannot say." At least it seemed to me that the doctor was saying those or similar words from out of a mist, and then all was silent. The fact was that I had been out all night, exerting myself tremendously, and I had now fallen heavily asleep. CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN. HOW WE PASSED THROUGH A GREAT PERIL. It was quite evening when I woke, as I could see by the red glow amongst the trees. I was rested but confused, and lay for some minutes thinking, and wondering what had taken place on the previous day. It all came back at once, and I was just in the act of rising and going to see how our poor friend was, when I felt a hand press me back, and turning I saw it was Jack Penny, who was pointing with the other towards the entrance of the cave. "What is it?" I whispered; but I needed no telling, for I could see that a group of the blacks were on the other side of the ravine, pointing in the direction of the bushes that overhung our refuge, and gesticulating and talking together loudly. They know where we are then, I thought; and glancing from one to the other in the dim light I saw that my opinion was shared by the doctor and our black followers, who all seemed to be preparing for an encounter, taking up various places of vantage behind blocks of stone, where they could ply their bows and arrows and make good use of their spears. Just then the doctor crept towards me and placed his lips to my ear: "They have evidently tracked us, my lad," he said; "and we must fight for it. There is no chance beside without we escape by the back here, and give up the object of our search." "We must fight, doctor!" I said, though I trembled as I spoke, and involuntarily glanced at Jack Penny, wondering even in those critical moments whether he too felt alarmed. I think now it was very natural: I felt horribly ashamed of it then. Whether it was the case, or that Jack Penny was only taking his tint from the greeny reflected light in the cavern, certainly he looked very cadaverous and strange. He caught my eye and blew out his cheeks, and began to whistle softly as he rubbed the barrel of his gun with his sleeve. Turning rather jauntily towards the doctor he said softly: "Suppose I am to shoot now, doctor?" "When I give the order," said the latter coldly. "There won't be any mistake this time?" "No," said the doctor, quietly; "there will not be any mistake this time!" He stopped and gazed intently at the savages, who were cautiously descending towards the stream, not in a body but spread out in a line. "Fire first with large shot," he said softly. "If we can frighten them without destroying life we will. Now creep each of you behind that clump of stones and be firm. Mind it is by steadily helping one another in our trouble that we are strong." I gave him a quick nod--it was no time for speaking--and crept softly to my place, passing pretty close to where our friend lay wounded and quietly asleep. The next minute both Jack Penny and I were crouched behind what served as a breastwork, with our pieces ready, the doctor being on our left, and the blacks, including Jimmy, right in front, close to the mouth of the cave. "We must mind and not hit the blacks!" whispered Jack. "I mean our chaps. Lie down, Gyp!" The dog was walking about in an impatient angry manner, uttering a low snarl now and then, and setting up the hair all about his neck till in the dim light he looked like a hyena. Gyp turned to his master almost a reproachful look, and then looked up at me, as if saying, "Am I to be quiet at a time like this?" Directly after, though, he crouched down with his paws straight out before him and his muzzle directed towards the enemy, ready when the struggle began to make his teeth meet in some one. The savages were all the time coming steadily on lower and lower down the bank, till suddenly one of them stopped short and uttered a low cry. Several ran to his side at once, and we could see them stoop down and examine something among the bushes, talking fiercely the while. "They've found out where our friend was wounded, Jack Penny," I said. "Think so?" he said slowly. "Well, I couldn't help it. I didn't mean to do it, I declare." "Hist!" I whispered; and now my heart began to beat furiously, for the blacks, apparently satisfied, began to spread out again, descended to the edge of the little stream, and then stopped short. If I had not been so excited by the coming danger I should have enjoyed the scene of this group of strongly-built naked savages, their jetty black, shining skins bronzed by the reflections of orange and golden green as the sun flooded the gorge with warm light, making every action of our enemies plain to see, while by contrast it threw us more and more into the shade. They paused for a few moments at the edge of the stream, so close now that they could touch each other by simply stretching out a hand; and it was evident by the way all watched a tall black in the centre of the line that they were waiting his orders to make a dash up into the cave. Those were terrible minutes: we could see the opal of our enemies' eyes and the white line of their teeth as they slightly drew their lips apart in the excitement of waiting the order to advance. Every man was armed with bow and arrows, and from their wrists hung by a thong a heavy waddy, a blow from which was sufficient to crush in any man's skull. "They're coming now," I said in a low voice, the words escaping me involuntarily. And then I breathed again, for the tall savage, evidently the leader, said something to his men, who stood fast, while he walked boldly across the stream beneath the overhanging bushes, and one of these began to sway as the chief tried to draw himself up. I glanced at the doctor, being sure that he would fire, when, just as the chief was almost on a level with the floor of the cave, there was a rushing, scratching noise, and the most hideous howling rose from just in front of where I crouched, while Gyp leaped up, with hair bristling, and answered it with a furious howl. The savage dropped back into the water with a tremendous splash, and rushed up the slope after his people, not one of them stopping till they were close to the top, when Jimmy raised his grinning face and looked round at us. "Um tink big bunyip in um hole, make um all run jus fas' away, away." He had unmistakably scared the enemy, for they collected together in consultation, but our hope that they might now go fell flat, for they once more began to descend, each one tearing off a dead branch or gathering a bunch of dry ferns as he came; and at the same moment the idea struck Jack Penny and me that they believed some fierce beast was in the hole, and that they were coming to smoke it out. The blacks came right down into the rivulet, and though the first armfuls of dry wood and growth they threw beneath the cave mouth went into the water, they served as a base for the rest, and in a very short time a great pile rose up, and this they fired. For a few moments there was a great fume, which floated slowly up among the bushes, but very soon the form of the cavern caused it to draw right in, the opening at the back acting as a chimney. First it burned briskly, then it began to roar, and then to our horror we found that the place was beginning to fill with suffocating smoke and hot vapour, growing more dangerous moment by moment. Fortunately the smoke and noise of the burning made our actions safe from observation, and we were thus able to carry our wounded right to the back, where the air was purer and it was easier to breathe. It was a terrible position, for the blacks, encouraged by their success, piled on more and more brushwood and the great fronds of fern, which grew in abundance on the sides of the little ravine, and as the green boughs and leaves were thrown on they hissed and spluttered and sent forth volumes of smoke, which choked and blinded us till the fuel began to blaze, when it roared into the cave and brought with it a quantity of hot but still breathable air. "Keep a good heart, my lads," said the doctor. "No, no, Penny! Are you mad? Lie down! lie down! Don't you know that while the air high up is suffocating, that low down can be breathed?" "No, I couldn't tell," said Jack Penny dolefully, as he first knelt down and then laid his head close to the ground. "I didn't know things were going to be so bad as this or I shouldn't have come. I don't want to have my dog burned to death." Gyp seemed to understand him, for he uttered a low whine and laid his nose in his master's hand. "Burned to death!" said the doctor in a tone full of angry excitement. "Of course not. Nobody is going to be burned to death." Through the dim choking mist I could see that there was a wild and anxious look in the doctor's countenance as he kept going near the mouth of the cave, and then hurrying back blinded and in agony. We had all been in turn to the narrow rift at the end through which we had been able to see the sky and the waving leaves of the trees, but now all was dark with the smoke that rolled out. This had seemed to be a means of escape, but the difficulty was to ascend the flat chimney-like place, and when the top was reached we feared that it would only be for each one who climbed out to make himself a mark for the savages' arrows. Hence, then, we had not made the slightest attempt to climb it. Now, however, our position was so desperate that Jimmy's proposal was listened to with eagerness. "Place too much big hot," he said. "Chokum-chokum like um wallaby. Go up." He caught hold of the doctor's scarf of light network, a contrivance which did duty for bag, hammock, or rope in turn, and the wearer rapidly twisted it from about his waist. "Now, Mas' Jack Penny, tan' here," he cried; and Jack was placed just beneath the hole. Jack Penny understood what was required of him, and placing his hands against the edge of the rift he stood firm, while Jimmy took the end of the doctor's scarf in his teeth and proceeded to turn him into a ladder, by whose means he might get well into the chimney-like rift, climb up, and then lower down the scarf-rope to help the rest. As I expected, the moment Jimmy caught Jack Penny's shoulders and placed one foot upon him my companion doubled up like a jointed rule, and Jimmy and he rolled upon the floor of the cave. At any other time we should have roared with laughter at Jimmy's disgust and angry torrent of words, but it was no time for mirth, and the doctor took Jack Penny's place as the latter drawled out: "I couldn't help it; my back's so weak. I begin to wish I hadn't come." "Dat's fine," grunted Jimmy, who climbed rapidly up, standing on the doctor's shoulders, making no scruple about planting a foot upon his head, and then we knew by his grunting and choking sounds that he was forcing his way up. The moment he had ceased to be of use the doctor stood aside, and it was as well, for first a few small stones fell, then there was a crash, and I felt that Jimmy had come down, but it only proved to be a mass of loose stone, which was followed by two or three more pieces of earth and rock. Next came a tearing sound as of bushes being broken and dragged away, and to our delight the smoke seemed to rush up the rift with so great a current of air that fresh breath of life came to us from the mouth of the cave, and with it hope. In those critical moments everything seemed dream-like and strange. I could hardly see what took place for the smoke, my companions looking dim and indistinct, and somehow the smoke seemed to be despair, and the fresh hot wind borne with the crackling flames that darted through the dense vapour so much hope. "Ti-hi come 'long nextums," whispered Jimmy; and the black ran to the opening eagerly, but hesitated and paused, ending by seizing me and pushing me before him to go first. "No, no," I said; "let's help the wounded man first." "Don't waste time," said the doctor angrily. "Up, Joe, and you can help haul." I obeyed willingly and unwillingly, but I wasted no time. With the help of the doctor and the scarf I had no difficulty in climbing up the rift, which afforded good foothold at the side, and in less than a minute I was beside Jimmy, breathing the fresh air and seeing the smoke rise up in a cloud from our feet. "Pull!" said the doctor in a hoarse whisper that seemed to come out of the middle of the smoke. Jimmy and I hauled, and somehow or another we got Jack Penny up, choking and sneezing, so that he was obliged to lie down amongst the bushes, and I was afraid he would be heard, till I saw that we were separated from the savages by a huge mass of stony slope. Two of the black bearers came next easily enough, and then the scarf had to be lowered down to its utmost limits. I knew why, and watched the proceedings with the greatest concern as Jimmy and one of the blacks reached down into the smoky rift and held the rope at the full extent of their arms. "Now!" said the doctor's voice, and the two hardy fellows began to draw the scarf, with its weight coming so easily that I knew the doctor and one of the blacks must be lifting the wounded man below. Poor fellow, he must have suffered the most intense agony, but he did not utter a sigh. Weak as he was he was quite conscious of his position, and helped us by planting his feet wherever there was a projection in the rift, and so we hauled him up and laid him on the sand among the bushes, where he could breathe, but where he fainted away. The rest easily followed, but not until the doctor had sent up every weapon and package through the smoke. Then came his turn, but he made no sign, and in an agony of horror I mastered my dread, and, seizing the scarf, lowered myself down into the heat and smoke. It was as I feared; he had fainted, and was lying beneath the opening. My hands trembled so that I could hardly tie a knot, but knowing, as I did, how short the scarf was, I secured it tightly round one of his wrists and called to them to haul just as Jimmy was coming down to my help. He did not stop, but dropped down beside me, and together we lifted the fainting man, called to them to drag, and he was pulled up. "Here, ketch hold," came from above the next moment in Jack Penny's voice, and to my utter astonishment down came the end of the scarf at once, long before they could have had time to untie it from the doctor's wrist. "Up, Jimmy!" I cried, as I realised that it was the other end Jack Penny had had the _nous_ to lower at once. "No: sha'n't go, Mass Joe Carstairs." "Go on, sir," I cried. "No sha'n't! Debble--debble--debble!" he cried, pushing me to the hole. To have gone on fighting would have meant death to both, for the savages were yelling outside and piling on the bushes and fern fronds till they roared. I caught the scarf then, and was half-hauled half-scrambled up, to fall down blinded and suffocated almost, only able to point below. I saw them lower the scarf again, and after what seemed a tremendous time Jimmy's black figure appeared. Almost at the same moment there were tongues of flame mingled with the smoke, and Jimmy threw himself down and rolled over and over, sobbing and crying. "Burn um hot um. Oh, burn um--burn um--burn um!" There was a loud roar and a rush of flame and smoke out of the rift, followed by what seemed to be a downpour of the smoke that hung over us like a canopy, just as if it was all being sucked back, and then the fire appeared to be smouldering, and up through the smoke that now rose slowly came the dank strange smell of exploded powder and the sounds of voices talking eagerly, but coming like a whisper to where we lay. CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT. HOW THE DOCTOR SAID "THANK YOU" IN A VERY QUIET WAY. For some little time we did nothing but lie there blackened and half choked, blinded almost, listening to the sound that came up that rift, for the question now was whether the savages would know that we were there, or would attribute the roar to that of some fierce beast that their fire and smoke had destroyed. The voices came up in a confused gabble, and we felt that if the blacks came up the rift we could easily beat them back; but if they came round by some other way to the rocky patch of forest where we were, our state was so pitiable that we could offer no defence. Jimmy had been applying cool leaves to his legs for some minutes as we lay almost where we had thrown ourselves, seeming to want to do nothing but breathe the fresh air, when all at once he came to where the doctor and I now rested ourselves upon our elbows and were watching the smoke that came up gently now and rose right above the trees. "Jimmy no hurt now. Roast black fellow," he said grinning. "Jimmy know powder go bang pop! down slow." "Yes," said the doctor. "I was trying to get that last canister when I was overcome by the smoke, and just managed to reach the bottom of the rift. Who was it saved me?" "Jimmy-Jimmy!" said the black proudly. "My brave fellow!" cried the doctor, catching the black's hand. "Jimmy come 'long Mass Joe. Haul Mass doctor up. Mass doctor no wiggle Jimmy 'gain, eat much pig." The doctor did not answer, for he had turned to me and taken my hand. "Did you come down, Joe?" he said softly. "Of course I did," I replied quietly, though I felt very uncomfortable. "Thank you!" he said quietly, and then he turned away. "Black fellow hear powder bang," said Jimmy, grinning. "Tink um big bunyip. All go way now." I turned to him sharply, listening the while. "Yes: all go 'long. Tink bunyip. Kill um dead. No kill bunyip. Oh no!" There was the sound of voices, but they were more distant, and then they seemed to come up the rift in quite a broken whisper, and the next moment they had died away. "Safe, doctor!" I said, and we all breathed more freely than before. The blacks had gone. Evidently they believed that the occupant of the cave had expired in that final roar, and when we afterwards crept cautiously round after a detour the next morning, it was to find that the place was all open, and for fifty yards round the bushes and tree-ferns torn down and burned. The night of our escape we hardly turned from our positions, utterly exhausted as we were, and one by one we dropped asleep. When I woke first it was sometime in the night, and through the trees the great stars were glinting down, and as I lay piecing together the adventures of the past day I once more fell fast asleep to be awakened by Jimmy in the warm sunlight of a glorious morning. "All black fellow gone long way. Come kedge fis an fine 'nana." I rose to my feet to see that the doctor was busy with his patient, who was none the worse for the troubles of the past day, and what was of more consequence, he was able to speak slowly and without running off into the native tongue. We went down to the stream, Jack Penny bearing us company, and were pretty fortunate in cutting off some good-sized fish which were sunning themselves in a shallow, and Ti-hi and his companions were no less successful in getting fruit, so that when we returned we were able to light a fire and enjoy a hearty meal. What I enjoyed the most, though, was a good lave in the clear cold water when we had a look at the mouth of the cave. The doctor came to the conclusion that where we were, shut-in by high shelving sand rocks, was as safe a spot as we could expect, the more so that the blacks were not likely to come again, so we made this our camp, waiting to recruit a little and to let the black village settle down before making any farther attempt. Beside this there was our new companion--William Francis he told us his name was, and that he had been ten years a prisoner among the blacks. Until he had recovered from the effect of his unlucky wound we could not travel far, and our flight when we rescued my father must necessarily be swift. It was terribly anxious work waiting day after day, but the doctor's advice was good--that we must be content to exist without news for fear, in sending scouts about the village at night, we should alarm the enemy. "Better let them think there is no one at hand," said the doctor, "and our task will be the easier." So for a whole fortnight we waited, passing our time watching the bright scaled fish glance down the clear stream, or come up it in shoals; lying gazing at the brightly plumed birds that came and shrieked and climbed about the trees above our heads; while now and then we made cautious excursions into the open country in the direction opposite to the village, and fortunately without once encountering an enemy, but adding largely to our store of food, thanks to the bows and arrows of our friends. At last, one evening, after quietly talking to us sometime about the sufferings of himself and my father, Mr Francis declared himself strong enough to accompany our retreat. "The interest and excitement will keep me up," he said; "and you must not wait longer for me. Besides, I shall get stronger every day, and--" He looked from me to the doctor and then back, and passed his hand across his forehead as if to clear away a mist, while, when he began to speak again, it was not in English, and he burst into tears. "Lie down and sleep," the doctor said firmly; and, obedient as a child, the patient let his head sink upon the rough couch he occupied and closed his eyes. "It is as if as his body grew strong his mental powers weakened," said the doctor to me as soon as we were out of hearing; "but we must wait and see." Then we set to and once more talked over our plans, arranging that we would make our attempt next night, and after studying the compass and the position we occupied we came to the decision that we had better work round to the far side of the village, post Mr Francis and two of the blacks there, with our baggage, which was principally food; then make our venture, join them if successful, and go on in retreat at once. CHAPTER THIRTY NINE. HOW WE TOOK A LAST LOOK ROUND, AND FOUND IT WAS TIME TO GO. That next evening seemed as it would never come, and I lay tossing feverishly from side to side vainly trying to obtain the rest my friend recommended. At last, though, the time came, and we were making our final preparations, when the doctor decided that we would just take a look round first by way of a scout. It was fortunate that we did, for just as it was growing dusk, after a good look round we were about to cross the rivulet, and go through the cavern and up the rift back into camp, when I caught the doctor's arm without a word. He started and looked in the same direction as I did which was right down the gully, and saw what had taken my attention, namely, the stooping bodies of a couple of blacks hurrying away through the bushes at a pretty good rate. The doctor clapped his piece to his shoulder, and then dropped it once more. "No!" he said. "I might kill one, but the other would bear the news. Fortunately they are going the other way and not ours. Quick, my lad! let's get back to camp and start." "And they'll come back with a lot of their warriors to attack us to-night and find us gone!" "And while they are gone, Joe, we will attack their place and carry off our prize!" "If we only could!" I cried fervently. "No _ifs_, Joe," he said smiling; "we _will_!" It did not take us many minutes to reach the mouth of the cave, and as we entered I looked round again, to catch sight of another black figure crouching far up the opposite bank, at the foot of a great tree. I did not speak, for it was better that the black should not think he had been seen, so followed the doctor into the cave, climbed the rift with him, and found all ready for the start. "Black fellow all 'bout over there way!" said Jimmy to me in a whisper. "How do you know?" I said quickly. "Jimmy smell am!" he replied seriously. "Jimmy go look 'bout. Smell um black fellow, one eye peeping round um trees." "Yes, we have seen them too," I said; and signing to him to follow, I found the doctor. "The sooner we are off the better!" he said. "Now, Mr Francis, do you think you can lead us to the other side of the village, round by the north? the enemy are on the watch." Mr Francis turned his head without a word, and, leaning upon a stout stick, started at once; and we followed in silence, just as the stars were coming out. It seemed very strange calling this savage-looking being Mr Francis, but when talking with him during his recovery from his wound one only needed to turn one's head to seem to be in conversation with a man who had never been from his civilised fellows. He went steadily on, the doctor next, and I followed the doctor; the rest of our little party gliding silently through the forest for quite three hours, when Mr Francis stopped, and it was decided to rest and refresh ourselves a little before proceeding farther. The doctor had settled to leave Mr Francis here, but he quietly objected to this. "No!" he said; "you want my help more now than ever. I am weak, but I can take you right to the hut where Carstairs is kept a prisoner. If you go alone you will lose time, and your expedition may--" He stopped short and lay down upon the earth for a few minutes, during which the doctor remained undecided. At last he bent down and whispered a few words to his patient, who immediately rose. Orders were then given to the blacks, who were to stay under the command of Jack Penny, and, followed by Jimmy, and leaving the rest of our party in the shade of an enormous tree, we set off once more. The excitement made the distance seem so short that I was astounded when a low murmur told us that we were close to the village, and, stepping more cautiously, we were soon close up behind a great hut. "This is the place," whispered Mr Francis. "He is kept prisoner here, or else at the great hut on the other side. Hist! I'll creep forward and listen." He went down in a stooping position and disappeared, leaving us listening to the continuous talk of evidently a numerous party of the savages; and so like did it all seem to the last time, that no time might have elapsed since we crouched there, breathing heavily with excitement in the shade of the great trees that came close up to the huts. It was a painful time, for it seemed that all our schemes had been in vain, and that we might as well give up our task, unless we could come with so strong a body of followers that we could make a bold attack. I whispered once or twice to the doctor, but he laid his hand upon my lips. I turned to Jimmy, but he had crouched down, and was resting himself according to his habit. And so quite an hour passed away before we were aware by a slight rustle that Mr Francis was back, looming up out of the darkness like some giant, so strangely did the obscurity distort everything near at hand. "Here!" he said in a low voice; and bending down we all listened to his words, which came feebly, consequent upon his exertions. "I have been to the far hut and he is not there!" he whispered. "I came back to this and crept in unobserved. They are all talking about an expedition that has gone off to the back of the cave--to destroy us. Carstairs is in there, bound hand and foot." "My poor father!" I moaned. "I spoke to him and told him help was near," continued Mr Francis; "and then--" He muttered something in the savages' tongue, and then broke down and began to sob. "Take no notice," the doctor whispered to me, as I stood trembling there, feeling as I did that I was only a few yards from him we had come to save, and who was lying bound there waiting for the help that seemed as if it would never come. The doctor realised my feelings, for he came a little closer and pressed my hand. "Don't be downhearted, my lad," he whispered; "we are a long way nearer to our journey's end than when we started." "Yes!" I said; "but--" "But! Nonsense, boy! Why, we've found your father. We know where he is; and if we can't get him away by stratagem, we'll go to another tribe of the blacks, make friends with them, and get them to fight on our side." "Nonsense, doctor!" I said bitterly. "You are only saying this to comfort me." "To get you to act like a man," he said sharply. "Shame upon you for being so ready to give up in face of a few obstacles!" I felt that the rebuke was deserved, and drew in my breath, trying to nerve myself to bear this new disappointment, and to set my brain at work scheming. It seemed to grow darker just then, the stars fading out behind a thick veil of clouds; and creeping nearer to the doctor I sat down beside where he knelt, listening to the incessant talking of the savages. We were not above half-a-dozen yards from the back of the great hut; and, now rising into quite an angry shout, now descending into a low buzz, the talk, talk, talk went on, as if they were saying the same things over and over again. I thought of my own captivity--of the way in which Gyp had come to me in the night, and wondered whether it would be possible to cut away a portion of the palm-leaf wall of the hut, and so get to the prisoner. And all this while the talking went on, rising and falling till it seemed almost maddening to hear. We must have waited there quite a couple of hours, and still there was no change. Though we could not see anything for the hut in front of us we could tell that there was a good deal of excitement in the village, consequent, the doctor whispered, upon the absence of a number of the blacks on the expedition against us. At last he crept from me to speak to Mr Francis. "It is of no use to stay longer, I'm afraid, my lad," he whispered; "unless we wait and see whether the hut is left empty when the expedition party comes back, though I fear they will not come back till morning." "What are you going to do, then?" I said. "Ask Francis to suggest a better hiding-place for us, where we can go to-night and wait for another opportunity." I sighed, for I was weary of waiting for opportunities. "Fast asleep, poor fellow!" he whispered, coming back so silently that he startled me. "Where's the black?" I turned sharply to where Jimmy had been curled up, but he was gone. I crept a little way in two or three directions, but he was not with us, and I said so. "How dare he go!" the doctor said angrily. "He will ruin our plans! What's that?" "Gyp!" I said, as the dog crept up to us and thrust his head against my hand. "Jack Penny is getting anxious. It is a signal for us to come back." "How do you know?" "We agreed upon it," I said. "He was to send the dog in search of us if we did not join him in two hours; and if we were in trouble I was either to tie something to his collar or take it off." "Do neither!" said the doctor quietly. "Look! they are lighting a fire. The others must have come back." I turned and saw a faint glow away over the right corner of the hut; and then there was a shout, and the shrill cries of some women and children. In a moment there was a tremendous excitement in the hut before us, the savages swarming out like angry bees, and almost at the same moment the whole shape of the great long hut stood out against the sky. "The village is on fire!" whispered the doctor. "Back, my boy! Francis, quick!" He shook the sleeping man, whom all at once I could see, and he rose rather feebly. Then we backed slowly more and more in amongst the trees, seeing now that one of the light palm-leaf and bamboo huts was blazing furiously, and that another had caught fire, throwing up the cluster of slight buildings into clear relief, while as we backed farther and farther in amongst the trees we could see the blacks--men, women, and children--running to and fro as if wild. "Now would be the time," said the doctor. "We might take advantage of the confusion and get your father away." "Yes!" I cried excitedly. "I'm ready!" "Stop for your lives!" said a voice at our elbow, and turning I saw Mr Francis, with his swarthy face lit up by the fire. "You could not get near the hut now without being seen. If you had acted at the moment the alarm began you might have succeeded. It is now too late." "No, no!" I cried. "Let us try." "It is too late, I say," cried Mr Francis firmly. "The village is on fire, and the blacks must see you. If you are taken now you will be killed without mercy." "We must risk it," I said excitedly, stepping forward. "And your father too." I recoiled shuddering. "We must get away to a place of safety, hide for a few days, and then try again. I shall be stronger perhaps then, and can help." "It is right," said the doctor calmly. "Come, Joe. Patience!" I saw that he was right, for the fire was leaping from hut to hut, and there was a glow that lit up the forest far and wide. Had anyone come near we must have been seen, but the savages were all apparently congregated near the burning huts, while the great sparks and flakes of fire rose up and floated far away above the trees, glittering like stars in the ruddy glow. "Go on then," I said, with a groan of disappointment, and Mr Francis took the lead once more, and, the doctor following, I was last. "But Jimmy!" I said. "We must not leave him behind." "He will find us," said the doctor. "Come along." There was nothing for me to do but obey, so I followed reluctantly, the glow from the burning village being so great that the branches of the trees stood up clearly before us, and we had no difficulty in going on. I followed more reluctantly when I remembered Gyp, and chirruped to him, expecting to find him at my heels, but he was not there. "He has gone on in front," I thought, and once more I tramped wearily on, when there was a rush and a bound and Gyp leaped up at me, catching my jacket in his teeth and shaking it hard. CHAPTER FORTY. HOW JIMMY CRIED "COOEE!" AND WHY HE CALLED. "Why, Gyp," I said in a low voice, "what is it, old fellow?" He whined and growled and turned back, trotting towards the burning village. "Yes, I know it's on fire," I said. "Come along." But the dog would not follow. He whined and snuffled and ran back a little farther, when from some distance behind I heard a rustling and a panting noise, which made me spring round and cock my gun. "Followed!" I said to myself, as I continued my retreat, but only to stop short, for from the direction in which we had come I heard whispered, more than called, the familiar cry of the Australian savage, a cry that must, I knew, come from Jimmy, and this explained Gyp's appearance. "_Cooey_!" There it was again, and without hesitation I walked sharply back, Gyp running before me as he would not have done had there been an enemy near. There was the panting and rustling again as I retraced my steps, with the light growing plainer, and in less than a minute I came upon Jimmy trudging slowly along with a heavy burden on his back, a second glance at which made me stop speechless in my tracks. "Mass Joe! Jimmy got um fader. Much big heavy. Jimmy got um right fas'." He panted with the exertion, for he tried to break into a trot. I could do no more than go to his side and lay my trembling hands upon the shoulder of his burden--a man whom he was carrying upon his back. "Go on!" I said hoarsely. "Forward, Gyp, and stop them!" The dog understood the word "Forward," and went on with a rush, while I let Jimmy pass me, feeling that if he really had him we sought he was performing my duty, while all I could do was to form the rear-guard and protect them even with my life if we were pursued. Either the dog was leading close in front or the black went on by a kind of instinct in the way taken by our companions. At any rate he went steadily on, and I followed, trembling with excitement, ten or a dozen yards behind, in dread lest it should not be true that we had succeeded after all. The light behind us increased so that I could plainly see the bent helpless load upon our follower's back; but the black trudged steadily on and I followed, panting with eagerness and ready the moment Jimmy paused to leap forward and try to take his place. The fire must have been increasing fast, and the idea was dawning upon me that perhaps this was a plan of the black's, who had set fire to one of the huts and then seized the opportunity to get the prisoner away. It was like the Australian to do such a thing as this, for he was cunning and full of stratagem, and though it was improbable the idea was growing upon me, when all at once a tremendous weight seemed to fall upon my head and I was dashed to the earth, with a sturdy savage pressing me down, dragging my hands behind me, and beginning to fasten them with some kind of thong. For the moment I was half-stunned. Then the idea came to me of help being at hand, and I was about to _cooey_ and bring Jimmy to my side, but my lips closed and I set my teeth. "No," I thought, "he may escape. If any one is to be taken let it be me; my turn will come later on." My captor had evidently been exerting himself a great deal to overtake me, and after binding me he contented himself by sitting upon my back, panting heavily, to rest himself, while, knowing that struggling would be in vain, I remained motionless, satisfied that every minute was of inestimable value, and that once the doctor knew of the black's success he would use every exertion to get the captive in safety, and then he would be sure to come in search of me. Then I shuddered, for I remembered what Mr Francis had said about the people being infuriated at such a time, and as I did so I felt that I was a long way yet from being a man. All at once my captor leaped up, and seizing me by the arm he gave me a fearful wrench to make me rise to my feet. For some minutes past I had been expecting to see others of his party come up, or to hear him shout to them, but he remained silent, and stood at last hesitating or listening to the faint shouts that came from the glow beyond the trees. Suddenly he thrust me before him, shaking his waddy menacingly. The next moment he uttered a cry. There was a sharp crack as of one war-club striking another, and then I was struck down by two men struggling fiercely. There were some inarticulate words, and a snarling and panting like two wild beasts engaged in a hard fight, and then a heavy fall, a dull thud, and the sound of a blow, as if some one had struck a tree branch with a club. I could see nothing from where I lay, but as soon as I could recover myself I was struggling to my feet, when a black figure loomed over me, and a familiar voice said hoarsely: "Where Mass Joe knife, cut um 'tring?" "Jimmy!" I said. "My father?" "Set um down come look Mass Joe. Come 'long fas. Gyp take care Jimmy fader till um come back again again." As Jimmy spoke he thrust his hand into my pocket for my knife, while I was too much interested in his words to remind him that there was my large sheath-knife in my belt. "Come 'long," he said as he set me free, and we were starting when he stopped short: "No; tie black fellow up firs'. No, can't 'top." Before I knew what he meant to do he had given the prostrate black a sharp rap on the head with his waddy. "Jimmy!" I said; "you'll kill him!" "Kill him! No, makum sleep, sleep. Come 'long." He went off at a sharp walk and I followed, glancing back anxiously from time to time and listening, till we reached the spot where he had set down his burden, just as the doctor came back, having missed me, and being in dread lest I had lost my way. I did not speak--I could not, but threw myself on my knees beside the strange, long-haired, thickly-bearded figure seated with its back against a tree, while the doctor drew back as soon as he realised that it was my father the black had saved. CHAPTER FORTY ONE. HOW JIMMY HEARD THE BUNYIP SPEAK, AND IT ALL PROVED TO BE "BIG 'TUFF." I Need not recount what passed just then. But few words were spoken, and there was no time for displays of affection. One black had seen and pursued Jimmy, and others might be on our track, so that our work was far from being half done even now. "Can you walk, sir?" said the doctor sharply. My poor father raised his face toward the speaker and uttered some incoherent words. "No, no; he has been kept bound by the ankles till the use of his feet has gone," said Mr Francis, who had remained silent up to now. "Can't walk--Jimmy carry um," said the black in a whisper. "Don't make noise--hear um black fellow." "You are tired," said the doctor; "let me take a turn." Jimmy made no objection, but bore the gun, while the doctor carried my father slowly and steadily on for some distance; then the black took a turn and bore him right to the place where our black followers were waiting, and where Jack Penny was anxiously expecting our return. "I thought you wasn't coming back," he said as Jimmy set down the burden; and then in a doleful voice he continued, "I couldn't do that, my back's so weak." But Ti-hi and his friends saw our difficulty, and cut down a couple of long stout bamboos whose tops were soon cleared of leaves and shoots. Two holes were made in the bottom of a light sack whose contents were otherwise distributed, the poles thrust through, and my poor father gently laid upon the sack. Four of us then went to the ends of the poles, which were placed upon our shoulders, and keeping step as well as we could, we went slowly and steadily on, Mr Francis taking the lead and acting as guide. Our progress was very slow, but we journeyed steadily on hour after hour, taking advantage of every open part of the forest that was not likely to show traces of our passage, and obliged blindly to trust to Mr Francis as to the way. It was weary work, but no one seemed to mind, each, even Jack Penny, taking his turn at the end of one of the bamboos; and when at last the morning broke, and the bright sunshine showed us our haggard faces, we still kept on, the daylight helping us to make better way till the sun came down so fiercely that we were obliged to halt in a dense part of the forest where some huge trees gave us shade. Mr Francis looked uneasily about, and I caught his anxious gaze directed so often in different directions that I whispered to the doctor my fears that he had lost his way. "Never mind, lad," replied the doctor; "we have the compass. Our way is south towards the coast--anywhere as long as we get beyond reach of the blacks. No, don't disturb him, let him sleep." I was about to draw near and speak to my father, in whose careworn hollow face I gazed with something approaching fear. His eyes were closed, and now, for the first time, I could see the ravages that the long captivity had made in his features; but, mingled with these, there was a quiet restful look that made me draw back in silence from where the litter had been laid and join my companions in partaking of such food as we had. Watch was set, the doctor choosing the post of guard, and then, lying anywhere, we all sought for relief from our weariness in sleep. As for me, one moment I was lying gazing at the long unkempt hair and head of him I had come to seek, and thinking that I would rest like that, rising now and then to see and watch with the doctor; the next I was wandering away in dreams through the forest in search of my father; and then all was blank till I started up to catch at my gun, for some one had touched me on the shoulder. "There is nothing wrong, my lad," said the doctor--"fortunately--for I have been a bad sentry, and have just awoke to find that I have been sleeping at my post." "Sleeping!" I said, still confused from my own deep slumbers. "Yes," he said; "every one has been asleep from utter exhaustion." I looked round, and there were our companions sleeping heavily. "I've been thinking that we may be as safe here as farther away," continued the doctor; "so let them rest still, for we have a tremendous task before us to get down to the coast." Just then Jimmy leaped up staring, his hand on his waddy and his eyes wandering in search of danger. This being absent, his next idea was regarding food. "Much hungry," he said, "want mutton, want damper, want eatums." The rest were aroused, and, water being close at hand in a little stream, we soon had our simple store of food brought out and made a refreshing meal, of which my father, as he lay, partook mechanically, but without a word. The doctor then bathed and dressed his ankles, which were in a fearfully swollen and injured state. Like Mr Francis, he seemed as if his long captivity had made him think like the savages among whom he had been; while the terrible mental anxiety he had suffered along with his bodily anguish had resulted in complete prostration. He ate what was given to him or drank with his eyes closed, and when he opened them once or twice it was not to let them wander round upon us who attended to him, but to gaze straight up in a vague manner and mutter a few of the native words before sinking back into a stupor-like sleep. I gazed at the doctor with my misery speaking in my eyes, for it was so different a meeting from that which I had imagined. There was no delight, no anguished tears, no pressing to a loving father's heart. We had found him a mere hopeless wreck, apparently, like Mr Francis, and the pain I suffered seemed more than I could bear. "Patience!" the doctor said to me, with a smile. "Yes, I know what you want to ask me. Let's wait and see. He was dying slowly, Joe, and we have come in time to save his life." "You are sure?" I said. "No," he answered, "not sure, but I shall hope. Now let's get on again till dark, and then we'll have a good rest in the safest place we can find." In the exertion and toil that followed I found some relief. My interest, too, was excited by seeing how much Mr Francis seemed to change hour by hour, and how well he knew the country which he led us through. He found for us a capital resting-place in a rocky gorge, where, unless tracked step by step, there was no fear of our being surprised. Here there was water and fruit, and, short a distance as we had come, the darkness made it necessary that we should wait for day. Then followed days and weeks of slow travel through a beautiful country, always south and west. We did not go many miles some days, for the burden we carried made our passage very slow. Sometimes, too, our black scouts came back to announce that we were travelling towards some black village, or that a hunting party was in our neighbourhood, and though these people might have been friendly, we took the advice of our black companions and avoided them, either by making a detour or by waiting in hiding till they had passed. Water was plentiful, and Jimmy and Ti-hi never let us want for fruit, fish, or some animal for food. Now it would be a wild pig or a small deer, more often birds, for these literally swarmed in some of the lakes and marshes round which we made our way. The country was so thinly inhabited that we could always light a fire in some shut-in part of the forest without fear, and so we got on, running risks at times, but on the whole meeting with but few adventures. After getting over the exertion and a little return of fever from too early leaving his sick-bed of boughs, Mr Francis mended rapidly, his wound healing well and his mind daily growing clearer. Every now and then, when excited, he had relapses, and looked at us hopelessly, talking quickly in the savages' tongue; but these grew less frequent, and there would be days during which he would be quite free. He grew so much better that at the end of a month he insisted upon taking his place at one of the bamboos, proving himself to be a tender nurse to our invalid in his turn. And all this time my father seemed to alter but little. The doctor was indefatigable in his endeavours; but though he soon wrought a change in his patient's bodily infirmities to such an extent, that at last my father could walk first a mile, then a couple, and then ease the bearers of half their toil, his mind seemed gone, and he went on in a strangely vacant way. As time went on and our long journey continued he would walk slowly by my side, resting on my shoulder, and with his eyes always fixed upon the earth. If he was spoken to he did not seem to hear, and he never opened his lips save to utter a few words in the savage tongue. I was in despair, but the doctor still bade me hope. "Time works wonders, Joe," he said. "His bodily health is improving wonderfully, and at last that must act upon his mind." "But it does not," I said. "He has walked at least six miles to-day as if in a dream. Oh, doctor!" I exclaimed, "we cannot take him back like this. You keep bidding me hope, and it seems no use." He smiled at me in his calm satisfied way. "And yet I've done something, Joe," he said. "We found him--we got him away--we had him first a hopeless invalid--he is now rapidly becoming a strong healthy man." "Healthy!" "In body, boy. Recollect that for years he seems to have been kept chained up by the savages like some wild beast, perhaps through some religious scruples against destroying the life of a white man who was wise in trees and plants. Likely enough they feared that if they killed such a medicine-man it might result in a plague or curse." "That is why they spared us both," said Mr Francis, who had heard the latter part of our conversation; "and the long course of being kept imprisoned there seemed to completely freeze up his brain as it did mine. That and the fever and blows I received," he said excitedly. "There were times when--" He clapped his hands to his head as if he dared not trust himself to speak, and turned away. "Yes, that is it, my lad," said the doctor quietly; "his brain has become paralysed as it were. A change may come at any time. Under the circumstances, in spite of your mother's anxiety, we'll wait and go slowly homeward. Let me see," he continued, turning to a little calendar he kept, "to-morrow begins the tenth month of our journey. Come, be of good heart. We've done wonders; nature will do the rest." Two days later we had come to a halt in a lovely little glen through which trickled a clear spring whose banks were brilliant with flowers. We were all busy cooking and preparing to halt there for the night. My father had walked the whole of the morning, and now had wandered slowly away along the banks of the stream, Mr Francis being a little further on, while Jimmy was busy standing beside a pool spearing fish. I glanced up once or twice to see that my father was standing motionless on the bank, and then I was busying myself once more cutting soft boughs to make a bed when Jimmy came bounding up to me with his eyes starting and mouth open. "Where a gun, where a gun?" he cried. "Big bunyip down 'mong a trees, try to eat Jimmy. Ask for um dinner, all aloud, oh." "Hush! be quiet!" I cried, catching his arm; "what do you mean?" "Big bunyip down 'mong stones say, `Hoo! much hungry; where my boy?'" "Some one said that?" I cried. "Yes, `much hungry, where my boy?' Want eat black boy; eat Jimmy!" "What nonsense, Jimmy!" I said. "Don't be such a donkey. There are no bunyips." "Jimmy heard um say um!" he cried, stamping his spear on the ground. Just then I involuntarily glanced in the direction where my father stood, and saw him stoop and pick up a flower or two. My heart gave a bound. The next minute he was walking slowly towards Mr Francis, to whom he held out the flowers; and then I felt giddy, for I saw them coming slowly towards our camp, both talking earnestly, my father seeming to be explaining something about the flowers he had picked. The doctor had seen it too, and he drew me away, after cautioning Jimmy to be silent. And there we stood while those two rescued prisoners talked quietly and earnestly together, but it was in the savage tongue. I need not tell you of my joy, or the doctor's triumphant looks. "It is the beginning, Joe," he said; and hardly had he spoken when Jimmy came up. "Not bunyip 'tall!" he said scornfully. "Not no bunyip; all big 'tuff! Jimmy, Mass Joe fader talk away, say, `where my boy?'" CHAPTER FORTY TWO. HOW I MUST WIND UP THE STORY. It was the beginning of a better time, for from that day what was like the dawn of a return of his mental powers brightened and strengthened into the full sunshine of reason, and by the time we had been waiting at Ti-hi's village for the coming of the captain with his schooner we had heard the whole of my father's adventures from his own lips, and how he had been struck down from behind by one of the blacks while collecting, and kept a prisoner ever since. I need not tell you of his words to me, his thanks to the doctor, and his intense longing for the coming of the schooner, which seemed to be an age before it came in sight. We made Ti-hi and his companions happy by our supply of presents, for we wanted to take nothing back, and at last one bright morning we sailed from the glorious continent-like island, with two strong middle-aged men on board, both of whom were returning to a civilised land with the traces of their captivity in their hair and beards, which were as white as snow. Neither shall I tell you of the safe voyage home, and of the meeting there. Joy had come at last where sorrow had sojourned so long, and I was happy in my task that I had fulfilled. I will tell you, though, what the captain said in his hearty way over and over again. To me it used to be: "Well, you have growed! Why, if you'd stopped another year you'd have been quite a man. I say, though I never thought you'd ha' done it; 'pon my word!" Similar words these to those often uttered by poor, prejudiced, obstinate old nurse. To Jack Penny the captain was always saying: "I say, young 'un, how you've growed too; not uppards but beam ways. Why, hang me if I don't think you'll make a fine man yet!" And so he did; a great strong six-foot fellow, with a voice like a trombone. Jack Penny is a sheep-farmer on his own account now, and after a visit to England with my staunch friend the doctor, where I gained some education, and used to do a good deal of business for my father, who is one of the greatest collectors in the south, I returned home, and went to stay a week with Jack Penny. "I say," he said laughing, "my back's as strong as a lion's now. How it used to ache!" We were standing at the door of his house, looking north, for we had been talking of our travels, when all at once I caught sight of what looked like a little white tombstone under a eucalyptus tree. "Why, what's that?" I said. Jack Penny's countenance changed, and there were a couple of tears in the eyes of the great strong fellow as he said slowly: "That's to the memory of Gyp, the best dog as ever lived!" I must not end without a word about Jimmy, my father's faithful companion in his botanical trips. Jimmy nearly went mad for joy when I got back from England, dancing about like a child. He was always at the door, black and shining as ever, and there was constantly something to be done. One day he had seen the biggest ole man kangaroo as ever was; and this time there was a wallaby to be found; another the announcement that the black cockatoos were in the woods; or else it would be: "Mass Joe, Mass Joe! Jimmy want go kedge fis very bad; do come a day." And I? Well, I used to go, and it seemed like being a boy again to go on some expedition with my true old companion and friend. Yes, friend; Jimmy was always looked upon as a friend; and long before then my mother would have fed and clothed him, given him anything he asked. But Jimmy was wild and happiest so, and I found him just as he was when I left home, faithful and boyish and winning, and often ready to say: "When Mass Joe ready, go and find um fader all over again!" THE END. 
45666	----	A CHRISTMAS MORALITY [Illustration: Remember my ears are so quick I can hear the grass grow. _Frontispiece._] [Illustration] LITTLE PETER A Christmas Morality for Children of any Age By LUCAS MALET AUTHOR OF 'COLONEL ENDERBY'S WIFE' ETC. [Illustration] WITH NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS BY PAUL HARDY LONDON KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, & CO., 1 PATERNOSTER SQUARE 1888 TO CECILY IN TOKEN OF AFFECTION TOWARDS HERSELF, HER MOTHER, AND HER STATELY HOME THIS LITTLE STORY IS DEDICATED BY HER OBEDIENT SERVANT LUCAS MALET CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGE I. Which deals with the opinions of a Cat, and the sorrows of a Charcoal-burner 1 II. Which introduces the Reader to an Admirer of the Ancient Romans 19 III. Which improves our acquaintance with the Grasshopper-man 36 IV. Which leaves some at Home, and takes some to Church 50 V. Which is both Social and Religious 68 VI. Which attempts to show why the Skies fall 84 VII. Which describes a pleasant Dinner Party, and an unpleasant Walk 95 VIII. Which proves that even Philosophic Politicians may have to admit themselves in the wrong 115 IX. Which is very short because, in some ways, it is rather sad 132 X. Which ends the Story 143 _ILLUSTRATIONS._ 'Remember my ears are so quick I can hear the grass grow' _Frontispiece_ 'What will happen? please tell me' _To face p._ 10 'Go to bed when you are told' " 34 'You all despise me' " 66 Going to Church " 72 Lost " 110 Waiting " 120 Found " 138 The Charcoal-burner visits Little Peter " 150 [Illustration: Little Peter.] CHAPTER I. WHICH DEALS WITH THE OPINIONS OF A CAT, AND THE SORROWS OF A CHARCOAL BURNER. The pine forest is a wonderful place. The pine-trees stand in ranks like the soldiers of some vast army, side by side, mile after mile, in companies and regiments and battalions, all clothed in a sober uniform of green and grey. But they are unlike soldiers in this, that they are of all ages and sizes; some so small that the rabbits easily jump over them in their play, and some so tall and stately that the fall of them is like the falling of a high tower. And the pine-trees are put to many different uses. They are made into masts for the gallant ships that sail out and away to distant ports across the great ocean. Others are sawn into planks, and used for the building of sheds; for the rafters and flooring, and clap-boards and woodwork of our houses; for railway-sleepers, and scaffoldings, and hoardings. Others are polished and fashioned into articles of furniture. Turpentine comes from them, which the artist uses with his colours, and the doctor in his medicines; which is used, too, in the cleaning of stuffs and in a hundred different ways. While the pine-cones, and broken branches and waste wood, make bright crackling fires by which to warm ourselves on a winter's day. But there is something more than just this I should like you to think about in connection with the pine forest; for it, like everything else that is fair and noble in nature, has a strange and precious secret of its own. You may learn the many uses of the trees in your school books, when men have cut them down or grubbed them up, or poked holes in their poor sides to let the turpentine run out. But you can only learn the secret of the forest itself by listening humbly and reverently for it to speak to you. For Nature is a very great lady, grander and more magnificent than all the queens who have lived in sumptuous palaces and reigned over famous kingdoms since the world began; and though she will be very kind and gracious to children who come and ask her questions modestly and prettily, and will show them the most lovely sights and tell them the most delicious fairy tales that ever were seen or heard, she makes very short work with conceited and impudent persons. She covers their eyes and stops their ears, so that they can never see her wonderful treasures or hear her charming stories, but live, all their lives long, shut up in the dark fusty cupboard of their own ignorance, and stupid self-love, and self-satisfaction, thinking they know all about everything as well as if they had made it themselves, when they do not really know anything at all. And because you and I dislike fusty cupboards, and because we want to know anything and everything that Nature is condescending enough to teach us, we will listen, to begin with, to what the pine forest has to tell. When the rough winds are up and at play, and the pine-trees shout and sing together in a mighty chorus, while the hoarse voice of them is like the roar of the sea upon a rocky coast, then you may learn the secret of the forest. It sings first of the winged seed; and then of the birth of the tiny tree; of sunrise and sunset, and the tranquil warmth of noon-day, and of the soft, refreshing rain, and the kindly, nourishing earth, and of the white moonlight, and pale, moist garments of the mist, all helping the tree to grow up tall and straight, to strike root deep and spread wide its green branches. It sings, too, of the biting frost, and the still, dumb snow, and the hurrying storm, all trying and testing the tree, to prove if it can stand firm and show a brave face in time of danger and trouble. Then it sings of the happy spring-time, when the forest is girdled about with a band of flowers; while the birds build and call to each other among the high branches; and the squirrel helps his wife to make her snug nest for the little, brown squirrel-babies that are to be; and the dormice wake up from their long winter sleep, and sit in the sunshine and comb their whiskers with their dainty, little paws. And then the forest sings of man--how he comes with axe and saw, and hammer and iron wedges, and lays low the tallest of its children, and binds them with ropes and chains, and hauls them away to be his bond-servants and slaves. And, last of all, it sings slowly and very gently of old age and decay and death; of the seed that falls on hard, dry places and never springs up; of the tree that is broken by the tempest or scathed by the lightning flash, and stands bare and barren and unsightly; sings how, in the end, all things shrink and crumble, and how the dust of them returns and is mingled with the fruitful soil from which at first they came. This is the song of the pine forest, and from it you may learn this lesson: that the life of the tree and of beast and bird are subject to the same three great laws as the life of man--the law of growth, of obedience, and of self-sacrifice. And perhaps, when you are older, if you take care to avoid that spirit of conceit and impudence which, as we have already said, gets people into such trouble with Nature, you may come to see that these three laws are after all but one, bound for ever together by the golden cord of love. Once upon a time, just on the edge of the pine forest, there lived a little boy. He lived in a big, brown, wooden house, with overhanging eaves and a very deep roof to it, which swept down from the high middle gable like the wings of a hen covering her chickens. The wood-sheds, and hay-barn, and the stable where the brown-eyed, sweet-breathed cows lay at night, and the clean, cool dairy, and the cheese-room with its heavy presses were all under this same wide sheltering roof. Before the house a meadow of rich grass stretched down to a stream, that hurried along over rocky limestone ledges, or slipped away over flat sandy places where you might see the little fishes playing at hide-and-seek or puss in the corner among the bright pebbles at the bottom. While on the shallow, marshy puddles by the stream side, where the forget-me-not and brook-lime and rushes grow, the water-spiders would dance quadrilles and jigs and reels all day long in the sunshine, and the frogs would croak by hundreds in the still spring evenings, when the sunset was red behind the pine-trees to the west. And in this pleasant place little Peter lived, as I say, once upon a time, with his father and mother, and his two brothers, and Eliza the servant-maid, and Gustavus the cowherd. He was the youngest of the children by a number of years, and was such a small fellow that Susan Lepage, his mother, could make him quite a smart blouse and pair of trousers out of Antony's cast-off garments, even when all the patches and thin places had been cut out. He had a black, curly head, and very round eyes--for many things surprised him, and surprise makes the eyes grow round as everybody knows--and a dear, little, red mouth, that was sweet to kiss, and nice, fat cheeks, which began to look rather cold and blue, by the way, as he stood on the threshold one evening about Christmas time, with Cincinnatus, the old, tabby tom-cat, under his arm. He was waiting for his brother Antony to come home from the neighbouring market-town of Nullepart. It was growing dusk, yet the sky was very clear. The sound of the wind in the pine branches and of the chattering stream was strange in the frosty evening air; so that little Peter felt rather creepy, as the saying is, and held on very tight to Cincinnatus for fear of--he didn't quite know what. 'Come in, little man, come in,' cried his mother, as she moved to and fro in the ruddy firelight, helping Eliza to get ready the supper. 'You will be frozen standing there outside; and we shall be frozen, too, sitting here with the door open. Antony will get home none the quicker for your watching. That which is looked for hardest, they say, comes last.' But Peter only hugged Cincinnatus a little closer--thereby making that long-suffering animal kick spasmodically with his hind legs, as a rabbit does when you hold it up by the ears--and looked more earnestly than ever down the forest path into the dimness of the pines. Just then John Paqualin, the charcoal-burner, came up to the open door, with a couple of empty sacks across his shoulders. Now the charcoal-burner was a great friend of little Peter's, though he was a queer figure to look at. For his red hair hung in wild locks down over his shoulders, and his eyes glowed red too--as red as his own smouldering charcoal fires--and his back was bent and crooked; while his legs were so inordinately long and thin, that all the naughty little boys in Nullepart, when he went down there to sell his sacks of charcoal, used to run after him up the street, shouting:-- 'Hurrah, hurrah! here's the grasshopper man again! Hey, ho! grasshopper, give us a tune--haven't you brought your fiddle?' But when Paqualin got annoyed, as he sometimes did, and turned round upon them with his glowing eyes, they would all scuttle away as hard as their legs could carry them. For, like a good many other people, they were particularly courageous when they could only see the enemy's back. You may be sure our little Peter never called the charcoal-burner by any offensive names, and therefore, having a good conscience, had no cause to be afraid of him. 'Eh! but what is this?' he cried, in his high cracked voice as he flung down the sacks, and stood by the little lad in the doorway. 'Remember my ears are so quick I can hear the grass grow. Just now I heard the best mother in the world call her little boy to go indoors, and here he stands still on the threshold. If you do not go in do you know what will happen, eh?' 'No; what will happen? Please tell me,' said Peter. [Illustration: 'WHAT WILL HAPPEN? PLEASE TELL ME.' _Page 10._] The charcoal-burner stretched out one long arm and pointed away into the forest, and sunk his voice to a whisper:-- 'The old, grey she-wolf will assuredly come pit-a-pat, pit-a-pat over the moss and the stones, pit-a-pat over the pine-needles and the fallen twigs and branches, pit-a-pat out of the wood, and--snap!--like that, catch your poor Cincinnatus by the tail and carry him off to make into soup for her little ones. Picture to yourself poor Cincinnatus in the wolf's great, black, steaming soup-pot, and all the wolf-cubs with their wicked, little mouths wide open, sitting round, with their wooden spoons in their hands, all ready to begin.' Peter retreated hastily into the kitchen, cat and all, and took up his stand rather close to his mother. 'Is it true, mother?' he said. 'But where do the wolves buy their wooden spoons, do you think--in the shop at Nullepart?' 'Nay, how should I know?' said Susan Lepage, as she stooped down and kissed the child, and then looking up kindly nodded to the charcoal-burner. 'You must ask the old she-wolf herself if you want to know where she buys her spoons, and her soup pot too for that matter. She is no friend of mine, little one.' After a moment's pause, she added:-- 'You will stay to supper, John Paqualin? My husband and sons will be in soon, and there is plenty for all, thank God. You will be welcome.' But Paqualin shook his head, and the light died away in those strange eyes of his. 'Welcome?' he said. 'The pretty, false word has little meaning for me. And yet perhaps in your mouth it is honest, Susan Lepage, for you are gentle and merciful as a saint in heaven, and the child, here, takes after you. But, for the rest, who welcomes a mad, mis-shapen, half-finished creature on whom Nature herself has had no mercy? Master Lepage will come in hungry. Will he like to have his stomach turned by the sight of the hump-backed charcoal-burner? No, no, I go home to my hut. Good-night, little Peter. I will tell the grey wolf to look elsewhere for her supper.--Ah! I see wonderful things though sometimes, for all that I live alone and in squalor. The red fire and the white moon tell me stories, turn by turn, all the night through.' And with that he swung the empty sacks across his back again and shambled away into the growing darkness. [Illustration] 'A good riddance,' muttered Eliza, as she set the cheese on the table. 'It is an absolute indignity to ask a respectable servant to wait at table on a wild animal like that.' But Susan Lepage sighed as she turned from the doorway. 'Poor, unhappy one,' she said. 'God gave thee thy fair soul, but who gave thee thy ungainly body?' Then she reproved Eliza for her conduct in various matters which had nothing in the world to do with her remarks upon the charcoal-burner. Even the best of women are not always quite logical. Meanwhile little Peter had sat down on his stool by the fire. For a little while he sat very still, for he was thinking over the visit of his friend John Paqualin. He felt rather unhappy about him, he could not quite have said why. But when we are children it is not easy to think of any one person or one thing for long together. There are such lots of things to think about, that one chases another out of our heads very quickly. And so Peter soon gave up puzzling himself about the charcoal-burner, and began counting the sparks as they flew out of the blazing, crackling, pine logs up the wide chimney. Unfortunately, however, he was not a great arithmetician; and though he began over and over again at plain one, two, three, he always got wrong among the fifteens and sixteens; and never succeeded in counting up to twenty at all. Nothing is more tedious than making frequent mistakes. So he got off his stool, and began hopping from one stone quarry in the kitchen floor to the next. Suddenly he became entangled in Eliza's full petticoats--she was whirling them about a good deal, it is true, being in rather a bad temper--and nearly tumbled down on his poor, little nose. 'Bless the child, what possesses him?' cried Eliza. Peter retired to his stool again, in a hurry; and after thinking for a minute pulled a long bit of string, with a cross-bar of stick at the end of it, out of the bulging side pocket of his short trousers, and drew it backwards and forwards, and bobbed it up and down just in front of Cincinnatus' nose. But Cincinnatus would not play. Cincinnatus sat up very stiff and straight, with all his four paws in a row and his tail curled very tight over them, blinking his yellow eyes at the fire. For Cincinnatus was offended! Even cats have feelings. And on thinking it over, he came to the conclusion that he had not been treated with sufficient respect. 'Soup-pots and wooden spoons--fiddledee-dee,' he said to himself in the cat-language. 'Why pervert a child's mind with such inane fictions?' For you see Cincinnatus was not a common cat; being first cousin once removed, indeed, to the Sacristan's cat at Nullepart--who knew all the feast and fast days in the church calendar as well as the Sacristan himself, and had not eaten a mouse on a Friday for I cannot say how long. When you have a scholar in the family it obliges you to be dignified. And so poor little Peter, as nothing and nobody would help to amuse him and pass away the time, pressed his two fat, little hands together in a sort of despair, and gave a terrible sigh. 'Bless the child, what possesses him?' cried Eliza again. 'Ah, my heart! How you made me jump!' 'What is the matter, Peter?' asked his mother. 'Oh! I don't believe Antony will ever come home,' said the boy, while the great tears began to run down over his chubby cheeks. 'And I am so tired of waiting. And I want so badly to know whether they have dressed the stable in the big church at Nullepart; and whether we shall really go there on Sunday, to see the dear baby Jesus, and the blessed Virgin, and good St. Joseph, and the donkeys and cows, you told me about. I have never seen them yet. And I want so dreadfully to go.' Then his mother took up Peter in her arms, and sat down in the wooden chair in the chimney-corner, and held him gently on her lap. 'There, there,' she said, as she stroked his pretty hair, 'what cause have you to fret? The stable will be dressed all in good time; and the donkeys and cows certainly won't run away before Sunday. And St. Joseph and the blessed Virgin will be glad that a little lad like you should come and burn a candle before them--never fear. If the day is fair we will certainly all go to church on Sunday. What is to be will be, and Antony's coming late or early can make no difference. Patience is a great virtue, dear, little one--you cannot learn that too soon.' But Cincinnatus sat up very stiff, though he was growing slightly sleepy; and still winked his yellow eyes at the fire. He was not at all sure that it was not incumbent upon him to spit at the charcoal-burner next time he saw him. It was an extreme measure certainly, and before adopting it he would have been glad to take his cousin the Sacristan's cat's opinion on the matter. Social position brings its responsibilities. Yet all the same, it is a fine thing to have a scholar in the family. [Illustration] CHAPTER II. WHICH INTRODUCES THE READER TO AN ADMIRER OF THE ANCIENT ROMANS. Now, Peter's father was a person of some consequence, or, to speak quite correctly, thought himself of some consequence, which, as you will probably find when you grow older, often comes to much the same thing. He had his own piece of land, and his own herd of cows, which the boys, in the spring time, would help Gustavus to drive, along with the cows of their neighbours, to the wide, grass lands that border the forest on the west, where the blue salvias, and gentians, and campanulas, and St. Bruno's white lilies grow in the long grass. But years ago Peter's father had been a soldier in the French army, and had fought in great battles, and had been in Italy, and even across the sea to Africa. He could tell surprising stories of sandy deserts, and camels, and lions, and Arabs, and a number of other remarkable things that he had seen during his travels. And when he went down, as he frequently did, and sat in the wine shop at Nullepart, everybody treated him with deference and distinction, and called him not plain Lepage, but Master Lepage, and listened respectfully to all that he had to say. Then Master Lepage was very well pleased, and he would take his pipe out of his mouth, and spread out his hands like some celebrated orator, and give the company the benefit of his views upon any subject--even those he did not very well understand. For the great thing is to talk, if you want to make an impression upon society--the sense of that which you say is quite a secondary consideration. Lepage was a handsome man; with a bright, grey eye, and a nose like a hawk's beak; and a fine, grey moustache, the ends of which curled up till they nearly touched his eyebrows. He held himself very erect, so that even in his blue blouse and peg-top trousers, with a great, brown umbrella under his arm, he still looked every inch a soldier. [Illustration] But Master Lepage, notwithstanding his superior knowledge of the world, did not always contrive to please his friends and companions. For he was--so he said--a philosophic politician; and, like most other philosophers and politicians, he sometimes became both tedious and irritable. On such occasions his voice would grow loud, and he would thump the table with his fist till the plates danced and the glasses rattled again; and the more the person with whom he was conversing smiled and apologised, while he differed from him in opinion, the louder his voice would grow, and the more he would thump the table, and stamp and violently declare that all who did not agree with him were idiots and dolts, and traitors. He had two fixed ideas. He venerated the republican form of government, and he despised the Prussians. If one of his sons was idle, loitering over his work or complaining that he had too much to do, Master Lepage would say to him sternly:--'Sluggard, you are unworthy to be the child of a glorious republic.' Or if one of the cows kicked, when Gustavus was milking her, he would cry out:--'Hey then, thou blue imbecile, recollect that thou art the cow of a free citizen, and do not behave like a cut-throat Prussian!' And during the long evenings of all the winters that little Peter could remember--they were not so very many, though, after all--when the supper was cleared away and the hearth swept, his father, after putting on a big pair of gold-rimmed spectacles, and drawing his chair close up to the table so that the lamp-light might fall full on his book, would read to himself the history of the famous Roman Republic. And always once or twice, during the course of the evening, he would lay down the book and take off his spectacles, and as he rubbed the glasses of them with his red pocket-handkerchief, would sigh to himself and say quite gently:--'Ah! but those were times worth living in! They had men worth looking at in those days.' The elder of little Peter's brothers was named Antony. He was a smart, brisk young fellow. He was always in a little bit of a hurry and full of business. He liked to go down to the town to market. He liked to drive a sharp bargain, and when he had nothing else to do he would roam away to the railway station, and hang over the blue wooden railings at the back of the platform, staring at the crowded passenger or heavily laden freight trains going through to Paris, or over the frontier into Switzerland. And if he ever happened to catch sight of any soldiers on the trains, his eyes grew bright and his face eager, and he would whistle a stirring march as he walked home through the forest, and would chatter all the evening about the glorious fun he meant to have when the time came for him to serve his term in the army. And, at that, Master Lepage would look up from the pages of his Roman history book, and nod confidentially to his wife, and say:-- 'Eh! our Antony is a fine fellow. He will help some day to thrash those rascally Prussians.' But she would answer rather sadly:-- 'That will be as the Lord pleases. There is sorrow and sin enough in the world already, it seems to me, without war to make it greater.' Then Lepage would shrug his shoulders with an air of slight disgust, and say:-- 'My wife, you are no doubt an excellent woman. But your mind is narrow. Only a secular education, and, above all, a careful study of ancient history, can enable us to speak intelligently on these great questions.' Then he would wipe his spectacles and return once again to the campaigns of the Romans. [Illustration] Paul, the second boy, was very different to his brother. He was tall and lanky, with quiet, brown eyes and straight, black hair. He had a great turn for mechanics, and made little Peter all manner of charming toys--mill-wheels that turned all splashing and sparkling in the clear water of the stream; or windmills, to set up in the garden, and scare the birds away from the fruit with their clatter, and many other pretty ingenious things. Paul did not talk much about himself; he was a quiet, silent fellow, but he was always busy with his fingers making little models of all the machinery he could see or get pictures of, and, though his father was not quite so partial to him as to Antony, he would sometimes say:-- 'Eh! our Paul, too, will distinguish himself, and bring credit upon his family and country.' Now on the particular evening that I was telling you about in the last chapter, Antony did not come in till quite late. The rest of the family had had their supper, and Eliza was grumbling to Gustavus as she rummaged about in the back kitchen. 'Why can't people be punctual?' she said. 'It would vex a saint to be kept muddling about till just upon bed-time unable to complete the day's work and wash up the plates and dishes. Those who come in late should go to bed supperless if I had my way.' 'Umph,' said Gustavus--which was a remarkably safe answer, since it meant chiefly nothing at all. Master Lepage sat studying the story of the gallant Horatius, how he and two others defended the falling bridge over the river Tiber against all the host of Clusium and the allied cities. Paul, with a pocket-knife and a number of bits of wood on the table before him, was making a model of a force-pump. And Susan Lepage sat in the chimney corner knitting, little Peter on a stool at her feet resting his head against her knees. He was getting so sleepy that his eyes would shut though he tried very hard to keep them open. Sometimes his poor, little head nodded over all on one side; and then he woke up with a great start, dreaming that he had tumbled out of the old pear-tree in the garden, bump, on to the ground. And the dream was so vivid that it took him quite a minute and a half to remember where he was, and to realise that he was sitting on his own little stool in the kitchen, instead of lying on the asparagus bed under the pear-tree. But sleepy or not, Peter was determined not to go to bed till he had heard the news from Nullepart. The longest waiting must needs end at last. There was a sound of brisk footsteps, the door was thrown open, and Antony entered the kitchen, with the rush and bustle of a healthy, young whirlwind. Peter was wide awake in a moment. He jumped up and caught hold of the skirt of his brother's blouse. 'Oh, tell me, tell me,' he cried, 'have they dressed the stable in the church, and can I go on Sunday and see it?' Now, it is always a great mistake to rush at people with questions when they are full of their own affairs; and so little Peter found in this case. For Antony had some money to pay over to his father, and a great many things to say on his own account; and then, too, he was very hungry and wanted his supper, so he pushed poor Peter aside rather roughly, and told him to get out of the way and mind his own business, and intimated generally that he was an inconvenient and superfluous person. Peter retired to his stool again feeling very small. Between sleepiness and disappointment he was very much inclined to cry. Perhaps, indeed, he would have done so, had not Cincinnatus got up and rubbed gently against his legs, with a high back and a very upstanding tail, purring very loud, too, and saying as plain as cat-language could say it:-- 'Console yourself. I, Cincinnatus, regret what has occurred. I am your friend. Confide in me. All will yet go well.' For Cincinnatus was a cat of feeling, and never lost an opportunity of making himself agreeable if he could do it without loss of dignity. However, when Antony had transacted his business, and eaten his supper, and bragged a little about his own performances of one sort and another, he became a trifle ashamed of having behaved so roughly to his little brother. He did not say so, for few people have courage to make a public confession of their faults. But he described, with great animation, how the workmen and the good sisters were busy in the church; how bright everybody said the Virgin's blue mantle would be, how there was real straw in the stable, how charmingly natural the cattle and the donkey looked, and how ingeniously a lamp would be arranged--just like the star, in fact--to shine above the manger. Peter felt satisfied again. But he was still a little hurt; so he sat quiet and rubbed Cincinnatus' head in silence, though there were a hundred and one questions he was longing to ask. 'You will come with us, _mon ami_?' said Susan Lepage, looking across at her husband, who had just laid down his book, and was wiping his spectacles with his red handkerchief. 'Your sons will take good care of you,' he answered. 'As for me, I will keep house.' 'It is the first time we take our little Peter,' she said, and there was a pleading tone in her voice. The little boy loved both his father and mother; though perhaps he loved his mother best, for he was rather afraid of his father sometimes. But now for some reason he grew very bold. He jumped up and trotted across the kitchen, and climbed up on his father's knee. 'Oh, it will be so beautiful,' he said--'And we shall all be so happy--do come, father, do come too.' Master Lepage looked at him very kindly out of his shrewd, grey eyes, and gently pinched his cheek. [Illustration] 'No, no, my son,' he answered, 'go with your mother and your brothers. These shows are admirable for pious women and for the young. But you see I am no longer very young, and they no longer greatly interest me. Those who think deeply upon politics and philosophy outgrow the satisfaction that others derive from such devout illusions. Every age has its appropriate pastimes. Go, my children. As for me, I will remain at home, read the newspaper, and pursue my studies in ancient history.' 'Cannot you think of something better than the doings of those unhappy, old heathens for one day in the week, _mon ami_?' asked his wife. Little Peter looked up at her quickly. She had laid aside her knitting, and coming across the room placed her hand lightly on her husband's shoulder. Master Lepage made a grimace, moved a little in his chair, and smiled good-humouredly at her. 'Ah! my dear, you are the best of women,' he said. 'Then why will you not oblige me?' Lepage pressed his lips together and put up his eyebrows. 'There are points,' he said, 'on which compliance would be a mere manifestation of weakness. We will not discuss the situation. About those small matters upon which we do not, unfortunately, quite agree, it is wise to maintain silence. There are your three sons--an escort worthy of a Roman matron! Be contented, then. I remain at home.' Susan Lepage turned away, and calling to Eliza bade her clear the table. 'Indeed, is it worth while? It will be breakfast time directly,' replied Eliza, who was still in a bad temper at Antony having been late for supper. Susan Lepage looked up at the cuckoo clock in the corner. 'It is late,' she said. 'Come, come, Peter, we will go upstairs; it is long past your bedtime.' But the boy did not want to go to bed. He felt a little disturbed and unhappy, and wanted Lepage more than ever to go with the rest of the family on Sunday to church at Nullepart. So he rubbed his black head against his father's shoulder coaxingly:-- 'Mother wants you to go, and we all want it. Do please go with us to the church on Sunday.' Master Lepage took the child and stood him down on the floor in front of him. 'Go to bed, when you are told to,' he said. 'Obedience was a virtue greatly prized by those grand old Romans.' [Illustration: 'GO TO BED WHEN YOU ARE TOLD.' _Page 34._] 'Out of the mouth of babes--' murmured Susan Lepage, gently. For some reason this observation appeared to incense her husband. 'Ten thousand plagues!' he burst out vehemently. 'Twenty thousand cut-throat Prussians! This is a conspiracy. Can I not stay at home when I please? Can I not sit peaceably in my own kitchen, without cabals and flagrant acts of insubordination? The rights of a husband and father are supreme and without limit, I tell you--read the domestic history of the ancient Romans.' Susan Lepage waited till her husband had finished speaking; and then taking poor, frightened, little Peter by the hand, she said calmly:-- 'Do not trouble your father any more, my child. He has his reasons for remaining at home, and doubtless they are good ones.' Perhaps it was a dream--for Peter was very tired and sleepy, and it came to him when he was snugly tucked up in his little bed, just before his mother put out the candle and left him alone with a faint glimmer of starlight coming in at the uncurtained window at the end of the room. Perhaps it was a dream; but certainly he seemed to hear Master Lepage's voice saying softly:-- 'Forgive me, my wife. I was over hasty. Your path appears to lie in one direction and mine in another, at present; but let us both be tolerant. Who knows but that they may yet meet in the end!' Then someone stooped down over the little boy's bed and kissed him. Yes, it must have been his father, for on his forehead he felt the rough scrape of a thick moustache. CHAPTER III. WHICH IMPROVES OUR ACQUAINTANCE WITH THE GRASSHOPPER MAN. 'I am going to Nullepart on Sunday,' cried little Peter. '_Pfui!_ what a traveller,' answered the charcoal-burner. 'And how do you go? In a coach and four, on the back of a fiery dragon, in the giant's seven-league boots, or flying through the air with the wild ducks, there, crying "Quack, quack, quack, we are all going south because the snow is coming? "' 'I shall walk, of course, like a big boy,' said little Peter. 'But the snow isn't coming just yet, is it?' 'They all say it will be here in a day or two.' John Paqualin shook his head, and looked up at the sky. He was sitting on the rough, wooden bench set against the southern wall of his hut, with his back bent, and his elbows resting on his thin knees. Little Peter climbed up on to the bench beside him. It was rather difficult, you see, because the bench was a very high one, to suit the length of the charcoal-burner's long legs. 'Who are they?' asked the boy, as soon as he had settled himself comfortably. He tried to lean forward with his elbows on his knees like his companion; but his short legs were dangling, and his feet were far off the ground, and he did not find it altogether easy to keep his balance. 'Who are they?' he asked. 'Oh, the earth spirits, who live underground, and the air spirits, who wander up and down the sky. Look at the great arc of white light they are setting up in the north-east as a signal. And the wild ducks, flying overhead. And the moaning in the pine-trees. And Madelon, the old sow there; see how she runs about with her mouth full of grass, wanting to make herself a lair, because she sees the storm-wind coming. They are all telling what will happen. They are wiser than men. They know beforehand. Men only know afterwards.' Paqualin paused a moment, and sat staring at Madelon, the old black sow, with her floppety ears, as she ran to and fro, and grouted about in the heaps of charcoal refuse and in the tumble-down garden fence--half smothered in tall withered grass and weeds--grunting and barking the while like one distracted. 'Everything in the world talks to me,' he continued, speaking slowly. 'All day long, all night long, the air is full of voices.' Peter wriggled himself a little further back on the bench, for, in the excitement of conversation, he had slipped very near the edge of it and was in great danger of falling head first on to the ground. 'I don't hear them,' he said presently. Paqualin laughed. His laugh was cracked and shrill, like his voice; and Peter was always a trifle startled by it somehow. 'Never hear them, little Peter,' he cried, 'never hear them. A few men will call you a poet, but most men will only call you mad, if you do.' 'What is mad?' asked Peter. He felt very much interested. 'Is it a good or a bad thing?' The charcoal-burner looked round at the boy sharply, with his mouth a little open. His strange eyes were glowing dull red. He waited a minute before replying. 'Eh,' he said, 'what an innocent! Why, it is a good thing, of course. An excellent, splendid, glorious thing. Look at me, little Peter. I'll tell you a secret. Can you keep it? Here--quite close--I'll whisper--I am mad--yes, that's the secret. A grand one. See all the blessings it brings me. I live alone in the wood and burn charcoal.' 'Yes,' said Peter, 'I should like that.' 'I have no wife or child to bother me. On feast-days, when I was a lad, the pretty girls never plagued me to dance with them, or asked me to steal kisses.' The charcoal-burner laughed again--'I am saved from all sins of pride and vanity. Think what a gain!--for as I go down the street, the very children tell me my faults, crying, "Look at the grasshopper legs, look at the crook-back;" and the women shut their eyes and turn their heads away, saying, "Heaven avert the bad omen! What a frightful fellow!" Such observations, little Peter, are sharp discipline; and teach humility more thoroughly than any penance the priest can lay on you. Oh, yes! no doubt it is a capital thing to be mad. It saves you a deal of trouble--nobody cares for you, nurses you when you're sick, feeds you when you're hungry, mourns for you when you die.' Paqualin laughed again, and getting up stretched his long, ungainly limbs, and shook himself till his hair hung like a red cloud about his stooping shoulders. 'Ah! ha, it's splendid,' he cried, 'all alone with the spirits and voices, with the beasts, and the trees, and the rain, and the starlight. No one to love you but the fire when you feed it with branches, or the swine when you drive them back to their stye in the twilight.' Now, to tell the truth, poor little Peter was becoming rather confused and nervous, with all this wild, incomprehensible talk of the charcoal-burner's. He had never seen his friend in this strange humour before. And he felt as much alarmed and embarrassed as he would have done if that well-conducted animal Cincinnatus had suddenly turned upon him, with bristling hair and a great tail, spitting and swearing, in the middle of their innocent games of play. He sat very still, staring anxiously at his companion. But when Paqualin threw himself down on the bench again, and putting his lean, brown face very close to little Peter's, said to him with a sort of cry:-- 'Think of it, think of it, child, nobody, day nor night, all through the long years of life, nobody ever to love you!'--the boy's embarrassment changed into absolute fear, and he scrambled down off the bench in a great hurry, hardly able to keep from sobbing. 'If you please, John Paqualin, I should like to go home to my mother,' he said; and then he trotted away as fast as he could along the black cinder-path across the little garden. 'Mother, mother,' echoed the charcoal-burner. 'Sweet, fair wife, and sweet mother! Have pity, dear Lord, on those who may have neither.' Then he got up, and walked after the child, in his awkward way, calling gently to him:-- 'Here, little mouse, come here. Don't run away so fast. There is nothing to hurt you.' Peter had nearly reached the garden gate; but there in the opening stood Madelon, the sow, grunting and snorting, her great jaws working, and her wicked, little eyes twinkling. 'Come, come,' called Paqualin again, coaxingly. 'There are no more disquieting secrets to tell you. Never fear. See now, I have a box of nuts indoors, under my bed--beauties--beauties; will you try them? Cr-r-rack go the shells, out pop the nice kernels--crunch, crunch, crunch, between sharp, white, little teeth eating them all up. Eh! nuts are appetising, are they? You will not run away just yet, then, will you, dear little mouse.' Now Peter would have felt a great deal safer at home it is true; but in the first place, there stood the hideous Madelon blocking the way, and he was very much afraid of her. And then in the second place, he did not wish to be uncivil to his old friend the charcoal-burner. So, finally, he went back, and climbed up the high bench again. 'I will not have any of those nuts, though, please,' he said decidedly. For he wished Paqualin to understand that it was not greediness but friendship that made him return. 'No nuts!' cried the charcoal-burner, smiling kindly at him. 'Eh, what a proud, little soul.' And then John Paqualin really became delightful. And as he and the little boy sat together in the shelter of the high pine-trees, and of the brown, wooden wall of the tumble-down dwelling-house behind them, he told many most interesting stories. For, you see, the charcoal-burner, perhaps from living so much alone, perhaps from being what some persons call 'mad,' knew a number of things which you could not find in the pages of the very largest Encyclopædia of Universal Information--though they really are every bit as true as half the information you would find there. He knew all about the elves who live in the fox-glove bells; and the water-nixies who haunt the stream side; and about the gnomes who work with tiny spades and pickaxes, searching for the precious metals underground. And he could tell where the will-of-the-wisp gets the light for his lantern, with which he dances over bogs and marshy places, trying to lead weak-minded and unscientific travellers astray; and he knew all about the pot of fairy gold that stands just where the base of the rainbow touches the earth, and which moves away and away as you run to find it, shifting its ground forever, so that those who will seek it in the end come home hot, and breathless, and angry, and empty handed, for all their pains. And he could also tell of the old black dwarf who lives in a cave in the heart of the forest, which no one can ever find, though they may search for it for a year and a day; and who, being a mischievous and ill-conditioned dwarf, bewitches the cows so that they go dry; and the hens so that they steal their nests and lay their eggs in all manner of holes and corners, instead of in the hen-roosts like right-minded, well-conducted fowls; and who rides the horses all night long in the stable, so that when the carter goes in, in the dewy morning, to give them their fodder, he finds them trembling and starting and bathed in sweat; and who turns the cream sour in summer, or sits on the handle of the churn--though you can't see him--so that though the good housewife turns and turns, till her arms and back ache, and the heat stands in drops on her forehead, the butter will not come and the day's work is well-nigh wasted. And Paqualin could tell the story, moreover, of the dirty little boy, Eli, who insisted on eating raw turnips and cabbages, and distressing his friends and relatives by picking bits out of the pig pail, instead of sitting up to table like a little gentleman, and who utterly refused to have his hair combed or his face washed:-- 'And, at last, one night,' said the charcoal-burner, 'as a punishment for all his nasty ways, the fairies came and turned him into a great black crow, which flew out of the bedroom window in the chilly dawn. You may often hear him now, little Peter, croaking in the tree-tops, or see him skulking about the farmyard and gardens looking out for scraps and refuse.' 'How long ago was he turned into a crow?' asked Peter. 'Eh, many and many a year ago,' answered the charcoal-burner. 'I saw him only yesterday, and he has grown quite old and grey. But the time of his probation will not be over yet awhile, for bad habits are slow to die, though quick enough to breed in us, little Peter. I throw him a crust of bread now and again, the poor old villain. I've a sort of fellow feeling for him, you see, for I am an ugly, old vagabond too.' 'Bless the child, there he is at last! Ah, my poor heart, how it beats with all this running.' The speaker was Eliza. She stood on the other side of the tumble-down garden fence, with her hand pressed to her side, and a shawl over her head. She was breathing very hard. Eliza was one of those persons who like to make the most of an injury. 'Come home, Peter, come at once,' she went on. 'Don't you know it's half an hour past dinner-time? Here have I been trapesing half over the country to find you--a pretty occupation for a respectable, young, servant woman like me, too. All the men were out, and nothing would do but that I must go racing about like a wild creature, wasting good shoe leather in looking for you. Ah! my poor heart.' Eliza leant up against the fence and panted a little. As Peter got down off the bench, Paqualin bent forward and patted the boy's curly head. 'Run away, little mouse,' he said, 'but come again some day and see me.' 'Am I to wait here all night,' cried Eliza, 'for you, Peter? Have you not had enough yet of the society of his highness the charcoal-burner? No, no, don't speak to me,' she added, addressing Paqualin. 'I have no desire to hold any communication with you. Why, merely seeing you as you pass makes me squint for an hour afterwards. Come along, child.' [Illustration] And seizing Peter's fat, pudgy hand in her large, red one, Eliza marched him off at a sharp pace down the forest path. 'Hey ho, hey ho, life is a bit long for some of us,' said the charcoal-burner. CHAPTER IV. WHICH LEAVES SOME AT HOME AND TAKES SOME TO CHURCH. Little Peter woke up very early on Sunday morning, feeling excited and glad. He sat up on end in bed, but he had to rub his eyes very hard and get the sleep out of them before he could remember exactly what there was to be so very glad about. When he did remember, he was so much delighted that he was compelled to express his feelings in some rather violent manner. He went on all fours and burrowed very quick, like a rabbit, head first, down under the clothes to the bottom of the bed, and then rushed up again, with very red cheeks, puffing, and pushing his curly hair out of his eyes. But it really was not light yet--only the rushlight his mother burnt at night glimmered feebly in the corner. Peter could hear Master Lepage snoring peacefully in his bed on the other side of the wooden partition which divided the big room into two unequal halves--the small half for little Peter and his little bed, and the large half for his father and mother and their large bed. It would be a long while yet before his mother got up and called him to her to help dress and wash him, for Gustavus, the cowherd, had only just gone downstairs from his attic, clumpety-clump with his big, heavy boots over the stairs, and he always got up long before anybody else. Peter wondered what he could do to amuse himself till it was time to dress. And then it struck him as just possible that when Gustavus went down into the kitchen he might have left the door open, and that in that case Cincinnatus, the cat, might have stepped upstairs and be waiting outside on the landing--it had happened so once before on a very delightful and never to be forgotten occasion. Peter waited a moment and held his breath listening, for it seemed to him extremely adventurous to be on the move so very early in the morning. He was not quite sure whether the little, hairy house-bogies and hobgoblins who undoubtedly, so Eliza said at least, wander about the empty rooms and chase each other up and down the silent passages and stairways every night, with impish frolic and laughter, when we are all safe in bed, might not still be holding their revels; and he knew, at least Eliza said so, that it was extremely unlucky for any person to see them, for they don't like to be looked at by mortal eyes, and will come and sit on your pillow, and tickle your nose with a feather out of the bedding, and squat on your chest, till you feel as though you lay under the weight of a mountain, and treat you in a number of other odious and disturbing ways. It made the cold shivers run down Peter's back as he sat up there, in his little, white night-shirt, even to think of coming face to face with the hairy goblins and bogies. But then, on the other hand, the society of Cincinnatus would be so very delightful. Peter slipped one sturdy, bare leg down over the side of the bed. Ah! how cold the smooth boards of the floor felt! However, the other leg very soon followed. Then he crept across the room very quietly, avoiding the oak chest, and the chairs, and the corner of the high cupboard, with his mother's initials and the date of her wedding-day carved on the doors of it; and, when he reached the door, paused, listening at the keyhole. Oh, dear me, there really was something outside on the landing moving about stealthily on small, soft feet. Little Peter's heart stood still. Was it dear, old Cincinnatus, or a dreadful, roundabout, hairy hobgoblin? At last he plucked up courage to put his lips close to the keyhole, and whisper in a rather trembling voice:-- 'Pussy, puss, Cincinnatus, oh, please, is that you?' 'Miau,' answered Cincinnatus, quite composedly and comfortably. In a great hurry little Peter opened a crack of the door. 'Oh! come in quick, please, Cincinnatus,' he said. [Illustration: "Oh! come in quick, please, Cincinnatus."] But cats of quality never permit themselves to be hurried. Cincinnatus came just half-way through the door, then he stopped and rubbed himself--very tall--up against the side-post and purred; and then, stretching out his fore legs as far as ever he could, sharpened his claws, crick, crack, crick, crack, on the boards of the bedroom flooring. 'Oh! do be quick, Cincinnatus,' said the little boy under his breath again; and to hasten matters, he gave the cat a poke in the ribs with his cold bare toes. 'Miau,' cried Cincinnatus quite sharply, jumping on one side, for he was taken rather by surprise. Subsequently he added in the cat language:--'Manners, my good child, manners! Let us before all things cultivate a polite address and a calm, unagitated exterior.' Meanwhile Peter had succeeded in shutting the door quietly, and that, to his great relief, without catching a single glimpse of one of the blobbety-bodied, spindle-legged house-bogies. He pattered across the room as fast as ever he could, and jumped into his warm bed again. 'He is young and inexperienced,' murmured Cincinnatus reflectively. 'I am magnanimous. I scorn to bear malice.' And he, too, jumped into the warm bed. Now, this was really charming. Little Peter pushed up the bedclothes in front, making them into a snug, little, dark cavern, inside which there was just room enough for himself and Cincinnatus. 'See,' he said, 'we will play at robbers. I will be the captain and you shall be my first lieutenant.' But unfortunately, Cincinnatus did not seem to care very much about that particular game. He had arrived at an age and temper of mind at which material comfort is far more valuable than pleasures derived from a lively exercise of the imagination. Perhaps you do not quite understand what that means? Well, so much the better. For my part, I hope you never may understand it. There are a number of things in this world that it is very much the best to be ignorant about if you can possibly manage it. Cincinnatus, anyway, understood it well enough, so he tucked his fore legs under his chest, until nothing was visible of them but just the furry elbows, and laid his tail neatly along his soft side, and settled himself down on the warm sheet, with his eyes more than half shut, purring all the while as loud as if he had got a small steam-engine inside him. 'That's not the way to play at robbers,' said little Peter. But Cincinnatus only purred a trifle louder. It was rather provoking. Still, Peter was too glad of the cat's comfortable company, and was, moreover, really too sweet-tempered a boy to get cross and angry. So he just lay down on his stomach, resting his chin in one hand, while with the other he gently rubbed Cincinnatus about the ears; and amused himself by thinking of the nice, new clothes that lay folded up on the chair at the bottom of his bed, and of the representation of the stable, and the manger in which the Infant Saviour was cradled, that he hoped to see in the great church in the town, before the day was done. And meanwhile, the pale dawn broadened over the dark stretches of the great pine forest, and the cows lowed as Gustavus drove them out to pasture, and Eliza bustled down stairs to begin dusting and sweeping, and making ready the savoury Sunday breakfast. And at last his mother, with her sweet, pale face, got up and washed and dressed him, listening as tenderly, as only mothers know how, to his happy, prattle, and his simple morning prayer. 'Ask the dear Lord to send a special blessing to us all to-day,' she said. 'May I ask Him to send a blessing to my friend John Paqualin, too?' asked Peter. 'He told me yesterday he should never have anybody to love him, and that it saved him a great deal of trouble. But he doesn't look as if it made him happy, does he, mother?' 'Alas, no, poor soul,' said Susan Lepage. 'Yes, pray for him, also, little one, pray that the long disgrace and lonely sorrow of his life here may be counted unto him for righteousness hereafter, and I will say Amen.' It must have been quite half-past eight o'clock before they were all ready to start for Nullepart. Eliza was going too, you see, and she was furiously busy up to the very last moment. Consequently she was rather late, and rushed out of the house after the rest of the party, pinning her blue shawl, and giving sundry pats to the crown of her stiff, white, muslin cap, to make sure it sat quite straight over her plaits of hair behind. 'Eh, but you are smart, Eliza,' said Gustavus, opening his eyes very wide, as he rested the two pails of water he was carrying on the ground for a moment, and rubbed his elbows, which ached a little with the weight. '_Imbécile!_ do not detain me!' cried Eliza, haughtily--though, in truth, she was prodigiously gratified by the cowherd's observation. 'Don't you see how breathless and flurried I am with all the work? Bless me, where's my prayer-book? Oh! thank you, yes, Gustavus, tied up in my pocket-handkerchief. Of course--I knew where it was--at least, I should have found out for myself directly. Good-bye, Gustavus, take care of yourself; and remember the evening's milk is to be set on the left-hand shelf, two from the bottom.' Eliza pursed up her mouth and nodded, as she walked away with a very impressive swinging of petticoats. 'Poor young man, his head is completely turned,' she said to herself. 'But then, what wonder? My appearance in my _fête_ day clothes has always been a subject of remark and respectful admiration!' 'Farewell, my wife; enjoy to the full the emotions called forth by the pious exhibition you are about to witness. They are becoming to your sex. Boys, take good care of your mother; and conduct yourselves in all things as worthy sons of our glorious Republic.' Master Lepage raised his soft felt hat from his head, as he spoke, with an elegant flourish; but whether in compliment to his wife or in honour of the democratic form of government, I really cannot say. At that moment the charcoal-burner came hurriedly from the narrow forest path, that led from his hut, on to the open space outside the farmhouse. Madelon, the sow, ran beside him, shaking her lean sides as she ran, and grunting now and then, apparently with pleasure at being taken out walking. Sometimes she bundled up against her master's long, thin legs, nearly knocking him over; sometimes she stopped and forced her ugly snout into a tuft of grass or weeds by the wayside. The charcoal-burner's red hair streamed out behind him as he came rapidly along; his strange eyes were dull and vacant as those of a sleep-walker. 'I have a message,' he cried hoarsely--'a message to you from the beasts, and the birds, from the pine-trees, and the storm-clouds and the voices. All night long they have told it me, over and over again.' Paqualin, a wild, ragged, unkempt figure, came up close to Master Lepage, who stood there erect and superior as a general officer on parade, surrounded with his family and servants--Gustavus had left his pails of water and joined the little company--in their Sunday best, and all animated with pleasant expectation of a holiday, in which amusement promised to be agreeably mingled with spiritual edification. 'Well, well, out with it quickly then, my good fellow, this wonderful message of yours,' Lepage said, in a bantering, patronising tone. 'You see my wife and my sons here are just ready to start on a long walk. I cannot have them delayed.' 'They must not go, or you must go with them,' cried the charcoal-burner. He stretched out his hands like a man in the dark groping for something he cannot find. 'My head is troubled,' he went on. 'I cannot tell you plainly; but I have an aching in all my bones which foretells misfortune. And I say, they must not go.' 'Pooh,' said Lepage. 'Your head is troubled, just so. But when people's heads are troubled they had best keep at home and not trouble their neighbours into the bargain with all their crazy fancies. Calm yourself, Paqualin. And as for you,' added Lepage, nodding encouragingly to his wife and the boys, 'forward, march. Do not let this untoward little incident affect the pleasures of the day.' But Susan Lepage looked kindly and compassionately at the charcoal-burner, and then turning to her husband, said:-- 'Have a moment's patience with him, _mon ami_; let us at least hear what he has to say.' 'Yes, give me time,' cried Paqualin imploringly. 'There are so many of you staring at me--Ah! I begin to remember. You must go with them if they go, for the snow is coming, Master Lepage. The storm hung out its streaming, white flag in the north-east yesterday, and the wild ducks flew south; there were signs in the earth and in the heavens, and in my ears the sound of many voices. Do not let your wife and children go. The snow will be here before evening, and the way will be difficult to find, and the house door will stand open long into the night before the feet of those you love cross the threshold.' The charcoal-burner spoke as though he was so certain of the truth of that which he said, and his voice sounded so sad, that poor little Peter felt quite dismayed. Even Eliza had no opprobrious observation to make, and as for Gustavus, he stood with his big mouth wide open, staring as if he saw a ghost. Master Lepage, however, remained quite unmoved; and his composure was very reassuring. 'Well, well, my good fellow,' he said, 'I for one need no further proof that your head is very much troubled, so much so indeed that if I had my way you should find a lodging for a time in the _Maison Dieu_ at Nullepart--an excellent institution, which is calculated to cure troubled heads, or at all events to restrain the possessors of them from being inconvenient to other people. But the worst of it is,' Lepage added, rather angrily, 'that this superstitious nonsense is infectious. You, for instance, my wife, begin to look quite disconcerted.' Lepage folded his arms, and nodded his head argumentatively, quite as though he had been addressing an audience in the wine shop. 'Now I put it to you,' he said, 'the day is mild and even sunshiny at present. And which, pray, is likely to be the best weather prophet? I, Francis Louis Lepage, householder, citizen, veteran, and I may add philosophic-politician and student of ancient history, or that poor half-wit--unsound, as anyone can see, both in mind and body?' 'Of course the grasshopper's afraid of the snow,' chimed in Antony, switching at Madelon, the sow, with the little stick he held in his hand. 'It puts his fiddle out of tune.' Then Antony laughed rather loud, as people do sometimes when they have made a joke they are not sure is a very good one. 'For shame, Antony,' said his mother quickly. And John Paqualin turned on the lad, his eyes glowing like live coals. 'Ah! it is noble and generous in a handsome fellow like you to taunt me and scoff at me! Heaven pay you back in your own coin.' Eliza gave a scream, and seized Gustavus by the arm as though she required protection from some most fearful danger. 'For the love of the saints, ma'am, let us go on, and get out of the way of this wild animal,' she said, in a very loud whisper. 'He looks wicked enough to commit a crime. Keep off, Gustavus! What are you thinking about, catching hold like that of a respectable, young, servant woman?' 'Why it was you who caught hold of me, Eliza,' answered the cowherd mildly. Paqualin, meanwhile, looked round the little group with a sort of despair in his poor ugly face. 'It is all useless,' he said; 'you will not listen to or believe me. I only get jeered at. You all despise me.' [Illustration: 'YOU ALL DESPISE ME.' _Page 66._] He turned away with a bitter cry, and shambled off into the forest. 'Good-bye, dear John Paqualin, good-bye.--No, I won't hush, Eliza. I love him, he is a very kind friend to me.--Good-bye, dear John Paqualin,' little Peter called after him. He felt very very sorry for the poor charcoal-burner. 'Whoof,' went Madelon, the sow, making a run at Cincinnatus--who sat washing his face on the clean flags just outside the door of the farm-house--and taking him so by surprise that he leapt up, with a prodigious tail, on to the window ledge, without even waiting to scratch. Then she cantered off, grunting and shaking her great bristly, floppety ears, after her master. 'Next time I see the charcoal-burner, it will undoubtedly be my duty to spit at him,' said Cincinnatus to himself in the cat-language. 'After that which has just occurred, I feel it is quite unnecessary to take any second opinion upon the subject.' 'Forward, march,' cried Master Lepage gaily. 'Enjoy yourselves. Let no thought of that unfortunate being's prognostications disturb you. The day will be charming.' And so, after all, they started for Nullepart. CHAPTER V. WHICH IS BOTH SOCIAL AND RELIGIOUS. Now, undoubtedly, it is extremely easy to most persons not to believe a thing if they do not wish to believe it. And very soon our friends, wending their way along the soft moist forest path, in the languid December sunshine, began to forget about John Paqualin and his alarming warning. 'It was all spite,' said Eliza, tossing her head, white muslin cap and all, with a great show of dignity. 'He hates me because I won't receive his advances and always keep him at a proper distance. It was just a trick to deprive a poor, hard-working, young woman of a well-earned holiday.' 'I think he was wrong about the weather,' remarked Paul quietly. 'It's generally colder before snow.' 'He ought to be shut up in the madhouse, as my father suggested,' said Antony, who was still smarting from the reproof his mother had given him. 'I'd have all those sort of fellows kept under lock and key. There ought to be a law about it. They've no right to be about loose.' 'You are young, my son,' said Susan Lepage, 'and the young, too often, are thoughtless and cruel. Perhaps life will teach you, among other lessons, to be merciful if you would obtain mercy.' Antony's handsome face grew very sulky. 'You're always scolding me for something or other,' he said crossly. [Illustration] Meanwhile our little Peter was very happy. He had been sorry for the charcoal-burner, it is true; but he would have been very much more sorry not to go to Nullepart. A light breeze ruffled the dark branches of the pine-trees; here and there a scarlet or yellow leaf still hung on the brambles that grew on the skirts of the wood; the little birds looked at him merrily with their round, bright eyes, as they flew chirping to and fro among the trees and bushes. As to the snow, Peter did not give it a thought, as he ran, just like a little dog, first a long way on in front of the rest of the party, and then dawdled ever so far behind them--looking at the quaint little huts, and houses, and castles that the pine needles make where they fall and gather on the small twigs and branches at the base of the younger trees; and then, seeing that his mother and brothers had got on a long way ahead of him, scuttled up to them again in a great fuss and hurry, with very red cheeks, and a curious bumping at his heart, what with excitement and exercise, and just a trifle of fright, too, lest the old dwarf whom John Paqualin had told him about should suddenly nod and grin at him from under the pine boughs, saying:-- 'Hey, my fine fellow, so we've met at last!' But I suppose the black dwarf was plotting mischief at home within the recesses of his mysterious cavern on that particular Sunday morning; for though he kept a very sharp look-out, little Peter saw no trace of his naughty, mocking face, even where the path was narrowest and the pine-trees thickest. Now the town of Nullepart is an exceedingly ancient place, as you will gather from its name if you are anything of a scholar. It lies down in a remote valley along the banks of a river, with hills on either hand clothed below with oak, and beech, chestnut, and walnut, and, at their summits, crowned with pine-trees, that make a dark, ragged, saw-like edge against the sky. Some of the houses in the main street are built of stone, and roofed with fine, red, fluted tiles; but the major part of them are of wood, like the farm-house in the forest, with deep eaves, and quaint gables and stairways, and galleries. And I am sorry to say that the good people of Nullepart are somewhat old-fashioned in their habits, and do not pay quite as strict a regard to cleanliness as might be desired; and permit their ducks, and chickens, and pigs to walk about the crooked streets along with the foot-passengers, in rather too friendly and confidential a manner. [Illustration: GOING TO CHURCH. _Page 72_] But little Peter, never having seen any other town, thought Nullepart a very fine place indeed; and quite believed that nowhere else in the world were there such grand houses, or such inviting shops, or so many people, or half so much chatter and bustle. You see the justice of our opinions is very much dependent upon the extent of our experience--a fact which few persons always manage to bear in mind, at least where their own opinions are concerned--with the opinions of their neighbours it is, of course, different. Little Peter clung rather tight to his mother's hand on one side, and to his brother Paul's on the other, for he was somewhat afraid of being lost in the crowd and never found again. Antony did not offer to hold the little boy's hand. He walked on the other side of his mother, with his cap set jauntily over one ear and his handsome face all smiles again. He nodded and said good-day to all his acquaintances, and stared hard at all the pretty girls when he passed them, as a young man should who has a good opinion of himself and who intends some day to be a soldier. But if little Peter thought Nullepart street dangerously full of people, what did he think when passing under the carved porch, and pushing aside the heavy, leathern curtain that hung across the doorway, he entered the church itself, still clinging tightly to his mother's hand? He could see nothing but trousers and petticoats, the broad backs of men, and the comfortable backs of women--it would be uncivil to call them broad, too, you know; you should select your adjectives carefully in speaking of ladies--and the straight backs of lads, and the slim, neat backs of young girls all around him; while the close, heavy air of the church was full of the hum of many voices, and the shuffling of many feet over the stone pavement. 'Ouf, how hot!' said Eliza, in a loud whisper, unpinning her blue shawl. 'Heaven forgive me, but it's like being in a saucepan with the lid on. Why, there's my cousin Ursula Jacqueline Lambert. Ah, my dear cousin! how have you been this long while? Yes, it is seldom we meet. And time passes and leaves its mark behind it. Not that I change much--no, the saints be praised, I keep my looks. But I see you have altered. Well, it cannot be helped. Your husband is a good, faithful soul, and I daresay he doesn't observe it. There's the advantage of having married an old man. His eyes grow dim just in time--now with me....' But Peter did not hear any more of Eliza's conversation, for his mother moved forward into the middle of the nave of the church, from whence it was possible to see the high altar, with its lights and flowers, and the great picture behind it, of which the people of Nullepart are very proud, for it was painted by a famous artist and is worth a great deal of money, and is, moreover, so dark with age, and, perhaps, with a proportion of dirt as well, that it affords an immense amount of interesting conversation, as nobody has ever yet discovered what subject it represents. Priests in rich vestments stood before the altar, their backs looking like those of great gold and silver beetles; and there were boys with tall candles, and boys chanting; and the plaintive sound of the organ; and many persons kneeling on low chairs or on the rough pavement saying their prayers. Susan Lepage knelt down too; and little Peter stood bare-headed close beside her. The church, somehow, seemed very different to what he had expected. It was very large and high, and the painted windows up in the roof let in but scanty light. It seemed to Peter a very mysterious place; and he felt a wee bit frightened. At last Susan rose again from her knees. 'Now for thy pleasure, little one,' she said, looking lovingly at the child. 'Where is the stable, Antony?' 'It is there,' he answered, pointing to the southern aisle of the church. 'I've just been to see; but the crowd is so thick about it we must wait awhile--we can't get through yet.' Susan Lepage sat down on one of the low, rush-bottomed chairs, and took Peter on her lap. 'All in good time,' she said. 'Antony will let us know when to be moving. Meanwhile, we will rest. Your poor, little legs must be tired.' Presently a stout, genial-looking, old gentleman, in a black cassock and funny, little, black cape, came up to them. He wore a black skull-cap, too, for the church was draughty, and his head was bald, save just at the back, where his short, bristly, white hair stood out like a neat trimming round the edge of his cap. 'Well, well, Susan Lepage, it isn't often that we see you here, now,' he said. 'Don't move, don't move, my good woman. Ah, yes! I know the walk is long and fatiguing; you would come oftener if you could. The spirit is willing, as it is written, but the flesh is weak. Yet you do well to come to-day, and bring these fine lads, your sons, with you. The good God remembers those who remember Him. But where is the husband?' [Illustration] Peter looked at his mother as the priest asked this question, and it seemed to him that for some reason she seemed troubled and sad. 'Ah, my father, he has remained at home to keep house. We live, as you know, in a lonely place.' The priest smiled and shook his head. 'Exactly,' he said, 'I understand. Politics have a word to say in the matter, though, haven't they?' But Susan Lepage did not smile in return. 'Alas, my father!' she said. Peter stared at both speakers wonderingly. He did not understand what they meant. But then it must be admitted there are a good many things we do not quite understand at five years old. 'Do not vex yourself,' answered the priest kindly. 'It is written that the faithful wife may save her husband. All times are in the hands of God. That which He has ordained cannot fail to be accomplished.' Then he laid his hand gently on little Peter's round, black head, saying:-- 'And this is your youngest, the autumn child, who brings the blessing to the house?' 'Yes,' she said. 'He has come for the first time to burn a candle before the Infant Jesus. But the worshippers are so many that as yet we have been unable to get a sight of the stable.' Just then Eliza bustled up. 'Ah,' she exclaimed, 'one thing is certain, my poor cousin's temper is sadly soured with age. I made myself agreeable to her, in the assurance that she would at least ask me in to dinner.--Forgive me, your reverence, I did not observe that you were conversing with my mistress'--Eliza curtsied to the priest.--'But not a bit of it. She has treated me with marked coldness, and not so much as hinted at an invitation. It seems to me--' 'My daughter,' said the priest, 'lower your voice. We do not discuss these things so shrilly in this sacred place. Turn your thoughts to religion. Think here of your own sins, not of the shortcomings of others.' Eliza got very red in the face. 'Believe me, I was not thinking of myself, your reverence,' she answered, quickly, 'but of my mistress. I wished to save her the expense of my dinner at the inn, by dining with my relations.--We ought to be going to the Red Horse soon, ma'am,' she added, 'or there will be no room for us.' 'Oh! but I haven't seen the stable yet,' cried little Peter, quite out loud, forgetting that he was in church. 'I don't want any dinner. But I can't go home till I have seen the stable, please.' The little boy had jumped down off his mother's lap and stood there with the big tears in his eyes, and with the corners of his mouth quivering. It seemed to him a terrible thing to have come this long way full of expectation and hope, and then to be disappointed after all. But the priest took his hand kindly, and led him towards the southern aisle of the church, where the crowd was, while Susan Lepage and Paul and Antony followed behind them. 'Room, my friends; have the amiability to make room,' said the priest, 'for a little lad who comes from a considerable distance to see this pious and instructive representation for the first time.' Then little Peter felt quite proud and distinguished, for the people, at the request of the priest, moved aside to the right hand and the left, making a narrow lane for him to pass along to the gilded railings in front of the chapel, where the stable was dressed. Once there, he stood quite still, staring with very round eyes, for the sight seemed to him very beautiful and strange, and his heart was filled with wonder and awe. In a rough, rocky cave, on the straw in a wooden manger, lay the image of the Infant Jesus, wrapped in swaddling clothes, with a golden circle above his baby head. On one side knelt the Virgin Mother, in a white robe and blue mantle, with her hands clasped meekly on her heart; and, as she bent towards her Babe, she seemed to little Peter to look at him with mild and loving eyes. On the other side stood St. Joseph, in a brown habit, leaning upon his staff. And in the dusky background the boy could just make out the form of an ass and some cows. While above the entrance of the cave shone a bright star. 'Ah, how beautiful!' said Susan Lepage softly. 'It should have been finer had we had more money,' answered the priest with a sigh. 'Not that I complain. The parish has been generous, and the good sisters have done their best. Still, I myself greatly desired to have the Three Kings offering treasures. It would have been an effective incident--but our means are limited. They would have been too expensive for us.' And little Peter was puzzled and could not quite comprehend what the priest meant; for he had often heard his father say that kings were old-fashioned rubbish, worth nothing at all, and that a republic was worth ten thousand of them any day in the week. 'Kneel down, my son,' said the priest to Peter presently:--'and pray to be kept pure, and innocent, and devout, so that, when your earthly warfare is accomplished--be it late or soon--you may behold the face of the Saviour in Heaven as you now behold this poor, unworthy image of Him on earth.' Then he turned and left them. Each of the boys bought a candle from the old woman who sat on the chapel steps, and stuck them in the round iron frame standing just by the gilded rails, and lighted them with the long taper she gave them. And Eliza bought one, too, though she was a little disposed to haggle with the old woman and accuse her of overcharging. But Susan Lepage bought three candles, and set them in the frame and lighted them. 'For,' she said, 'we must remember those who are absent--whether by choice or by misfortune--when we are in the house of God.' [Illustration] CHAPTER VI. WHICH ATTEMPTS TO SHOW WHY THE SKIES FALL. Do you know what the snow is and where it comes from? The Dictionary says it is 'a frozen moisture, which falls from the atmosphere in white flakes.' But that description doesn't seem to make us know very much more about it somehow. Some people say the snow is caused by the angels shaking the feather beds up in Heaven; but that, both scientifically and spiritually too, appears to me an improbable solution. Other people, again, say it is all the Time Spirit plucking his geese. And who are the Time Spirit's geese?--Well, if you really want to know, they are all the little poets, and little painters, and little musicians, and little players and all the little inventors of little theories, and little writers of little books, who spend their time in diligently trying to persuade themselves and others that they are great writers of great books, and discoverers of a universal panacea for the healing of the nations; and that, in short, they are not any of them geese at all, but as fine swans as you can see on any river or pond in the three kingdoms. And they come cackling, and hissing, and sidling, and waddling up to the Time Spirit every year--specially in the spring and about Christmastide--in great flocks, and all cry out together:-- 'Is it possible to deny, O Time Spirit, that we are every one of us swans?' And then, I am sorry to say--for though it is perfectly right and just, it isn't the least bit agreeable, as some of us know to our cost--the Time Spirit turns up his sleeves and sets to work with a will, and catches them, though they mostly make a terrible noise and fluster, and plucks them one by one--big feathers first and then small--and sends them away looking sadly bare and foolish, and thereby leaving the world in no doubt whatsoever that they are only geese after all. And some wise persons, who have a perfect right to speak on the matter, think that why we have had so much more snow than usual the last few winters, is because--what with higher education and women's colleges, and one thing and another--the flocks of geese grow larger and larger, so that the poor Time Spirit is getting worn to fiddle strings with everlasting plucking, and it seems not unlikely we may soon have snowstorms nine months in the year. But what if a real swan does come among the geese, once in a way?--Ah! that is quite another matter. For the Time Spirit discovers it in a very few minutes, and jumps up and pulls down his sleeves, and slips off his hat--he has to wear one, you know, to keep the goose down from lodging in his hair--and draws his heels together with a snap and makes a bow from the waist, like an accomplished courtier, and says:-- 'All hail to you, my master or my mistress!'--as the case may be.--'For you the stars shine by night, and the sun rises at morning. All the world is yours, or shall soon be, if you have patience, and faith, and daring, and are true to the voice of the dæmon within.' But there is yet another explanation of the snowfall besides this, and it is, perhaps, after all, the most reasonable one to believe in. For when the nights are long and the days are short, and the sunlight is feeble as a sick man's smile, the North Wind wakes from his summer sleep and calls to his brother the East Wind, and they go forth over the earth driving the heavy-laden snow-clouds before them, and the pale snow-fairies who do their will. Down from the ice floes, and the dim, silent, polar wastes, over land and sea, with a shout like the roar of a battle, and a laugh like the crackle of thunder, while the hills grow white with fear under his tread, and the forests bow themselves and shriek in his fierce breath as the planks and rigging of a ship shriek in a storm at sea, the North Wind comes. He was born hundreds of thousands of years ago, in the Ice Age, when the glaciers crawled out from the heart of the mountains, mile-long, grey-green monsters, over what are now fertile meadows and sunny plains--before man or beast, so vigorous was the keen-toothed frost, roamed over the surface of the earth. His eyes are blue and clear; and they dance as you may see the sky dance on a sharp winter's night; and his white beard hangs low on his chest, which is broad and firm as a hill-side; and he is in the full vigour of a lusty manhood still, and it promises to be a very long while yet before his eye grows dim or his limbs grow weak with age. Some think, indeed, that as he saw man first born into the world, he may live to see him die off it again--to see this great ball, which so long has been our human dwelling-place and home, rolling silent out into immeasurable space, a dead planet, locked in the arms of everlasting frost. But be that as it may, on the fair Sunday morning, when our friend little Peter, his mother, and brothers, and Eliza, were going through the pine forest to the church at Nullepart, the North Wind was up and walking southward, southward over Europe, with the great, grey snow-clouds hurrying on before, for he had hard work to do. And, as the day wore on, he gathered the clouds from east and west, and packed them together in a vast, dusky mass over the town, and the forest and the limestone crags and gorges, and the wide, flat meadows where the cows pasture in summer, and over little Peter's home. And then he bade the snow-fairies bestir themselves, and prick the clouds as full of holes as the top of a flour-dredge, and wrap all the country in a robe of spotless white. Now, it happened that among the snow-fairies there was one who was very young and tender-hearted. Indeed she was not really a snow-fairy at all, but a child of the soft South Wind, who, when all her sisters flew away--as the swallows fly in autumn--to the tropics, overslept herself and got left behind by mistake. And she had joined the snowfairies because she was dull and lonely, and could find no other playfellows, and nothing to do. But, for all that, she did not care to help them in their work, for she had not been brought up to it, you see, and it seemed to her a sad, chilly business. So instead of laughing and playing and flitting about, and easing the great lumbering clouds of their burden, she sat down by herself in a hollow of one of them and cried, and cried. For she could not help thinking of all the sheep on lonely hillsides; and of the small birds seeking food and finding none in the snow-buried fields, and lanes, and hedges; and of little neglected children, of whom, alas! there are always so many, in bare cottage or dreary, city cellar, with no warm clothes, or food, or firing; and of wayfarers on barren heaths and bleak moors; and of the beggars, and vagabonds, and outcasts, the sorry throng of refuse humanity, that tramps the high roads of every country of the civilised world, with neither home, nor hope, nor money, and as she thought of their frost-nipped hands, and bleeding feet, and scanty rags, she cried as if her little heart would break. But the snow-fairies were vexed with her, and scolded and flouted her, for it is, as you all know, a great nuisance to have somebody crying and sobbing and making a fuss, when you yourselves feel quite happy and comfortable. And at last, in their irritation against her, they made such a noise and clamour, and so pushed and plagued and hustled the poor little creature, that the squabbling and commotion reached the ears of the North Wind himself, and he asked what in the name of common-sense was the matter. Then the snow-fairies all pointed at her, and all began chattering at once, as you may hear a flock of starlings chattering in the tops of the beeches at sunset, on a mild March day. But the North Wind told them to go about their business; and he took up the little fairy and stood her in the hollow of his great hand, and asked her quite gently--for the stronger a man is the gentler he can be, as you will very likely find out some fine day--why she was so sad. Then, though she was horribly frightened and blushed up to the tips of her pretty ears, as a modest young maiden should, she looked the great North Wind bravely in the face and told him her little story--how she had been left behind, how she loved the sunshine and the summer, and how she grieved for the misery and famine that winter brings, too often, on man and bird and beast. 'And I don't see _why_ it should all happen,' she said; 'or why there cannot be summer all the year.' Still, though she spoke up so courageously, the poor, little fairy trembled, for she thought that the North Wind would be angry, as the snow-fairies had been, and that he might crush her tiny life into nothingness in the grasp of his great hand. But the North Wind did nothing of the kind. He looked at her till his clear, dancing eyes grew dim and misty; and when, at last, he spoke his voice was low and sweet and sad as church bells that the sailor hears far out at sea, as he sails at evening in sight of some fair, foreign coast. 'Ah, my child!' he said, 'all those who have once been happy, young and old, wise and foolish, mortal and immortal, mighty princes, prophets, psalmists, all living creatures, nay, the very earth herself, all that my eyes have looked on through unnumbered centuries, have asked and still ask that question in some form or other; but the answer is not granted yet. And so, knowing that till the end it may not be told us, we grow humble and grow wise; and learn that it is best to do the work that is appointed us without doubt or hesitation, careless whether it be known or unknown, pleasant or unpleasant, hard or soft, kind or cruel even, so that we get it well and honestly done. As for you, you have lost your way and have wandered from the business set for you to do, and therefore you are filled with sadness, and fears, and questionings. But have patience for a while, and have faith, too, that the mysterious purposes of the Almighty, your Master and mine, will certainly be made plain at last.--Meanwhile, go and help your cousins the snow-fairies. And then, because, though you are honest and brave, you still are frail and tender, when the night of my winter reign is over, I will give you back into the keeping of my kinsman the South Wind, who will find less sharp and cutting work for you to do.' And all this, though you may not at first see exactly how, has a great deal to do with the story of our friend, little Peter; and therefore, even at the risk of your thinking it somewhat dry and puzzling, it has seemed to me well to set it down for you to read here. CHAPTER VII. WHICH DESCRIBES A PLEASANT DINNER-PARTY, AND AN UNPLEASANT WALK. For when little Peter and his mother and brothers came out of the church at Nullepart, the sun had been hidden some time behind thick clouds. Fierce gusts of wind rushed down the street, blowing off hats, and blowing about petticoats, and making window-shutters rattle, and doors slam. 'Make haste, children, make haste,' cried Susan Lepage. 'We must get our dinner at the Red Horse and start homewards as quickly as we can.' 'Oh! I have been hearing something so terrible,' said Eliza, to her mistress, as she came down the church steps. 'Not that I am surprised at it--no, no, no. I have always suspected it. I am sure his appearance this morning was enough to confirm one's worst suspicions.' Eliza pursed up her lips and shook her head with an air of extreme wisdom. 'They do say that Paqualin is a wizard,' she went on. 'Take care, Peter; if you look one way and walk another, you will unquestionably tumble down. And you needn't stare at me so. I wasn't talking to you.--Joseph Berri, the watchmaker's brother, has just been telling me all about it. There is no doubt he overlooked one of Miller Georgeon's draught oxen three years ago, so that it would not eat, and grew daily thinner and thinner, and had, at last, to be killed.--Go on, Peter; your ears will grow as long as a donkey's if you are always listening like that.--And they do say he can call up evil spirits, and storms, and thunder and lightning, and whirlwinds, when he wants them for his own vicious purposes.' 'Nonsense, Eliza, nonsense,' said Susan Lepage. 'You are far too willing to listen to idle, ill-natured tales.' Eliza sighed profoundly and turned up her eyes. 'Ah!' she murmured, 'some day, ma'am, you will see who was in the right, and give credit where it is due. For my part, if it does snow to-day, I shall know what to think.' 'Make haste, children,' said Susan Lepage again. 'The time draws on, and we have no time to waste.' But it was not so easy to make haste. The large dining-room of the Red Horse, with its tall, white-curtained windows, was crowded. From up the valley and down the valley in their long, narrow, country carts--for all the world like tea-trays set on four wheels--with cracking whips and jangling bells, or on foot, from lonely hamlets in the forest, or solitary herdsmen's huts on the steep grass slopes beneath the grey limestone cliffs and crags, all the inhabitants of the district had gathered to attend the church, and see the show, and spend a merry Sunday. And among all these good people were many friends of Susan Lepage, who detained her with greetings and questions. Then, too, the places at the tables were already taken, and it was some time before the boys and their mother could get seats. Even so little Peter had to squeeze himself into a very small space between Madame Georgeon,--the stout, comely wife of Monsieur Georgeon, the miller at Oùdonc--and his mother. But little Peter thought it all delightful, though he was rather pinched as to elbow-room. He liked the rattle of the knives and forks, and the many voices, and the talk and laughter; and watched with great curiosity the active serving-maids, balancing in their hands--and indeed all up their arms, too, so it seemed--an incredible number of plates and dishes. Even the floor sprinkled with sawdust, and the not altogether spotless table-cloth, were interesting. For it was all new, you see, to little Peter; and even things not very nice in themselves are charming when they are new. Then, too, Peter was very hungry; and though Madame Georgeon's full skirts overflowed his small legs, and her handsome shawl, thrown gracefully back from her shoulders--the room was warm, what with the great, china stove in the corner and all the company--and though her shawl, I say, enveloped him entirely now and then in a cloud of many coloured cashmere, the miller's wife was very kind, and coaxed and petted him, and piled up his plate with all manner of dainty things. 'Eh, _par exemple_,' she said, smiling and nodding at him as she sipped her glass of red wine--'it is not every day we go into society, is it, to meet old friends and make new ones? You, Susan Lepage, from a child were of a serious turn of mind. That is an excellent thing, too, no doubt. It secures the future. But the present should not be despised either. The members of my family--the saints be praised--have ever possessed a little grain of gaiety in their composition. For my part I think it is only economical to make the most of this world while you are permitted to be in it. And I regard it as an actual impiety to neglect any opportunity of innocent entertainment. Eat, my child, eat then--a spoonful or so more of this admirable pastry. See, on my plate here. I was provident when the dish came round, and secured a double portion.' Then, turning, she smiled at Susan Lepage again:-- 'Do not alarm yourself. It will not injure him. He will walk it off. Exercise is a fine thing to prevent food lying heavy on the stomach.' 'Perhaps moderation is a finer one still,' answered the other gently. 'But are you not ready, my sons? We must not linger, though you in your kindness would tempt us to do so, good Madame Georgeon. We do not drive home by the high road as you do, but go on foot through the forest, and the days are short.--Antony, we should surely be moving.' But Antony was in no haste to be going, for he, too, was making the most of this opportunity of innocent enjoyment. He sat beside Marie Georgeon, the miller's pretty daughter, who certainly took after her mother's family in respect of gaiety. And, clean glasses being somewhat scarce at the Red Horse from the unusual number of guests, it happened that she and Antony shared one; and her brown eyes were as full of mischief as a May morning is full of sunshine as she glanced up at him over the rim of it, and laughed and talked, and fingered the gold and garnet necklace that fitted so neatly about her throat. And what with her pretty looks and merry words, the young fellow's head was completely turned--and if you do not quite understand what that means, you need only wait a little, for you are bound to find out clearly enough some day. And, as the inevitable consequence of his head being turned, he hardly heard his mother when she spoke to him, and made no haste in the world to finish his dinner, and loitered and dawdled about upon one excuse and another as long as possible; and, I am sorry to say, spoke quite snappishly to his brother Paul, when the latter pointed out to him that the clock had struck three already, and that it was high time to be going. You see, it is just as well not to understand--by experience, anyhow--what it is to have your head turned, since it leads to these deplorable errors both of manners and conduct. So it fell out that when at last our friends left the jovial company at the Red Horse, and came out from the steaming dining-room into the street, the snow-fairies had already been some half-hour at work, and the roadway and house-roofs were all lightly powdered with snow. To little Peter, warm with his dinner, this seemed the crowning piece of fun of a glorious day. He could hardly get along for turning to look at the marks his nailed boots made in the snow. But Susan Lepage thought very differently. She glanced up at the dull, clouded sky, and remembered the sad words of John Paqualin, the charcoal-burner, that everyone had treated so lightly some few hours ago. 'Will it last, do you think?' she asked of Antony. Antony, however, was still thinking of pretty Marie Georgeon, with whom he had shared the kernel of a double almond at parting, both wishing as they eat it. He was wishing his wish still, and it was such an agreeable one that he felt quite superior to all inconvenient incidents in the way of snowstorms and such like.--He cocked his cap more on one side than ever, and assumed quite a patronising air, even towards his mother, which, to say the least, was very silly of him. 'It may last or it may not,' he answered. 'But really, it doesn't very much matter.' 'I wish that your father was with us,' added Susan. 'Why?' cried Antony. 'He couldn't stop it snowing any more than I can. And pray remember, mother, that this isn't by any means the first time I have walked home from Nullepart in bad weather. I believe I could find my way back blindfold or at midnight for that matter.' 'I am not at all troubled about you, my son,' replied his mother quietly, 'but about our poor little Peter here, with his little short legs.' 'Oh, Peter will do well enough,' said the lad impatiently. Some find it difficult to make room in their hearts for more than one person at a time, you know; and Antony's heart was still pretty well occupied by Marie Georgeon. He walked along briskly humming the tune of _Partant pour la Syrie_, which is a song about a young soldier who was pious as well as brave; and a lucky fellow into the bargain, for when he came back from the war he married his master the count's daughter, and lived happily ever after. 'Never mind, mother,' said Paul; 'if the snow is deep, or Peter is tired, I can carry him pick-a-back. He's not very heavy, you know.' 'I shan't be tired. I like the snow,' cried little Peter, and he clapped his hands and pranced about, till Eliza--who was still rather cross because her cousin had neglected to invite her to dinner--caught hold of him and made him walk soberly. 'If you laugh so now there will be tears before night,' she said. 'Laugh at breakfast, cry at dinner, laugh at dinner, cry at supper-time. Ah, dear me! this cold wind; I wish I had thought to put some wool in my ears--I shall be martyred with the toothache.' So they passed down the main street. It was almost deserted now, for the storm had driven people to take shelter in the wine shops, or, which was far wiser, in their own houses. Even the pigs had gone to their styes, and the fowls to their roosts; and the goats, with their little tinkling bells, were safe housed, too, in their sheds, munching the dry, brown hay that in the summer-time had waved as green grass full of a rainbow of flowers. They passed by the smaller houses and out-buildings, and the great saw-mills where the pine logs from the mountains are cut up, that stand along the bank of the swift river; and crossed the bridge with the dark water rushing underneath; and began climbing the road that zig-zags up the long hill between the great, bare walnut-trees and stubble fields, and wild rocky pastures, to the edge of the pine forest--four tall straight figures, and one short roundabout one, showing black against the ever-deepening snow. [Illustration] For, alas! the snow was falling thicker and thicker--here in the open it was already up to the second lace-hole of little Peter's boots--scurrying and racing in wild confusion before the icy breath of the North Wind; twisting, and twirling, and dancing; clinging to grass blade, and bush, and branch, and tree stem; hiding the road so that you could no longer see the margin of it; covering the wheel tracks and marks of the horse hoofs; filling up hollows under the grey rocks and boulders, and blurring the jagged outline of the pine-trees where they rise against the sky. Hundreds of thousands of white, hurrying flakes, soft, silent multitudes, filling the air as far as eye could see. There was no fun now in turning round to look at the marks of his nailed boots, for Peter found the snow hid them again almost as soon as they were made; and it was hard work, too, struggling up the steep hill and battling with the wind. Still the little fellow trudged along without making any complaint. For, you see, he had often heard his father praise the virtues of the Ancient Romans, their courage and endurance; and so Peter had got the notion into his head that it is rather a grand thing not to mind what is uncomfortable and disagreeable, and that it is rather a shameful and unworthy thing to grumble and make a fuss, and cry when your chilblains itch, or you happen to bump your head against the table, or when your legs ache, as his legs began to ache now, with the length and steepness of the hill. More than once his mother stopped and called him to her, and told him he was a good, brave, little man, and pulled the collar of his overcoat up about his red, little ears. And Peter, though he would not have said so for three dozen baking apples, or half a washing-basket full of sugar pigs, did find it very comfortable to stand still in the shelter of her petticoats for a minute or two and get his breath. The town below was hidden in the driving snow, and the dark wall of the pine-trees loomed nearer and nearer. At last the forest path was reached, and here it was better walking. The snow was lighter, and there was shelter from the force of the wind. But they had taken so much time in climbing the hill that the dusk was coming on, and there was still a long way to go. Antony no longer whistled. He walked on steadily ahead of the others, turning round now and then with a fine air of superiority and command. Antony, indeed, was as yet not at all displeased with the adventure. He believed that this was an occasion on which he showed to great advantage. His mother followed him in silence. Little Peter came next. He had taken his brother Paul's hand now, and trotted along as fast as his sturdy little legs would carry him, for to tell the honest truth he was getting a trifle frightened. The birds had all hidden themselves away in the thick brushwood, and no longer welcomed him with their merry round eyes. The well-known path looked mysterious, almost awful, in the half-light, with the tall ranks of the pine-trees on either side of it swaying in the blast. Sometimes the snow would slip in great masses from the high branches and fall close to little Peter's feet, as if the black dwarf was throwing snowballs at him. Poor Peter began to feel very shivery and creepy, and did not the least care to look round lest _something_, he did not exactly know what--and that made it all the worse, perhaps--should be coming tripping, tripping, tripping over the white ground behind him. But the only person who really came behind little Peter was Eliza; and though I do not want to be rude to Eliza, who was a very worthy young woman in her way, I cannot pretend to say that she was doing anything so graceful as tripping over the snow. Not a bit of it. Eliza was extremely disgruntled by the events of the day, and was as full of complaints and lamentations as a hedgehog's back is full of spines. The wet snow had made her fine, white cap limp and drabbled; so that instead of standing up like the vizor of an ancient helmet, the big, lace frill of it tumbled in the most melancholy manner about her face. She had turned the skirt of her dress up over her head; and what with holding it, and her books tied up in her handkerchief, and what with the tightness of her boots, which were a pair of brand new ones and half a size too small for her into the bargain, Eliza came very much nearer floundering than tripping over the snow. The forest opens out in places into wide spaces of waste moorland. Across these by daylight or in fine weather it is easy enough to find the right road; but on such an evening as I am telling you about it is by no means easy. On the edge of the moorland, Susan Lepage called to Antony to stop. 'Go slowly,' she said, 'and pray be careful. If we once mistake the path we may find ourselves in a sad plight. I wish your father was with us! Go on in front,' she added, turning to Paul, 'and I will follow you.' Now his mother's words rather nettled Antony. [Illustration: LOST. _Page 110._] 'You haven't any real confidence in me,' he said sulkily; 'or you wouldn't be repeating all the while that you wish my father was here.' You see, Antony had been a good deal flattered and excited by his pretty companion at the Red Horse at Nullepart. And it often happens, unfortunately, that pleasure when it is past makes us quarrelsome. He kicked the snow about with his foot, and his handsome, young face looked quite rebellious and naughty. 'No, no, my son,' Susan Lepage answered gently. 'I have every confidence in your good intentions. But the way must needs be difficult to find. I merely caution you to be careful.' 'Of course I shall be careful,' said the lad angrily, as he stepped from the shelter of the pine trees into the dim, white waste beyond. For a time all went well; but, all of a sudden, the ground began to grow rough and uneven under foot. Peter stumbled and fell, and scrambled up again half smothered in snow, his poor, little mouth and eyes full of it, and his hands scratched with the harsh heath roots and stones beneath. 'Antony, Antony, we are wandering!' cried his mother, as she wiped the snow out of Peter's eyes and off his clothes, and kissed him. The little boy clung to her, for he felt very desolate and cheerless. He did not think it in the least amusing now to be out in the storm. He longed for the warm, cosy kitchen and for the society of Cincinnatus; but he choked down his tears as his mother kissed him, and tried to be very brave and not to mind his tumble. Antony turned back, he was a few steps ahead. 'We can only have missed the path by a yard or two,' he said hurriedly. 'You just stand still and I'll find it.' And he did find it. But, alas! he could not keep to it, for the light faded and darkness came on quicker and quicker, and still the snow fell in hundreds of thousands of soft white flakes. Eliza groaned and lamented, and our poor, little Peter's snow-clogged boots began to chill his feet through, and his hands grew as cold as frogs' paws, and he got more and more hungry and tired. But he did not grumble about it, for he knew his mother and brothers were cold and weary too; so he struggled on manfully through the ankle-deep snow. And, at last, he got too tired even to feel hungry, and began to cry quite gently to himself. [Illustration] 'Please, mother,' he said, 'I can't go any further.' Susan Lepage took him up in her arms and held him close against her bosom. She did not speak; but, if it had been light enough to see, I think Peter would have found that she was crying too. For the ground was all rough and uneven under foot again; and though Antony went first to the right hand and then to the left he could not make out the road at all. 'I've come all wrong, mother,' he said, and his voice trembled. 'I don't know where we are or which way we are walking. We are lost.' There was a silence before his mother answered him. 'You have done your best,' she said. 'The event is in the hands of God.' CHAPTER VIII. WHICH PROVES THAT EVEN PHILOSOPHIC POLITICIANS MAY HAVE TO ADMIT THEMSELVES IN THE WRONG. But now it is quite time for us to go back to the old, wooden farm-house on the edge of the forest, and see what Master Lepage, and Gustavus, and that intelligent and experienced person, Cincinnatus, are doing, while the rest of the household are wandering, alas! not without growing alarm, and even suffering, in the darkness and cold and snow. In point of fact, then, though Master Lepage had been so very determined to please himself by sitting at home, he had found the day uncommonly long and dull. For he was one of those sociable persons who are never quite happy without an audience to hold forth to and instruct, and convince of their own remarkable wisdom and the hearers' equally remarkable folly. And then, too, for all that he appeared somewhat dictatorial and high-handed, Lepage was at bottom an affectionate and warm-hearted man, who loved his wife and children tenderly. And so, as the afternoon drew on, and the wind rose and the clouds gathered, he began to get into a fine fume and fret. He walked up and down the warm, cosy kitchen as restless as a bear in a pit; and knocked double postman's knocks on the weather glass, and declared out loud that the mercury was going up, when he saw perfectly well that it was going down; and did a number of other useless things to try to persuade himself that he was not one bit anxious or uneasy. 'How inferior is the education of men to that of cats!' thought Cincinnatus. 'Before I was old enough to lap milk out of a saucer, my mother had taught me the vulgarity of giving way to purposeless agitation. "Calm," she would say, "is even a greater sign of good-breeding than a curl of hair inside the ears." In my poor master, there, calm and ear-curls alike are wanting. What a situation! Thank heaven, I at least was born a cat!' But, you see, Master Lepage had really some cause for his restlessness, for all this while he was struggling with an unseen enemy. Deep down in that innermost chamber of the heart--the door of which we most of us keep so tight shut because we know Truth sits within weighing and judging all our thoughts and actions, and letting us know from time to time just what she thinks about them in the very plainest language--in that innermost heart-chamber, I say, Lepage was aware that there was a busy, active feeling of shame and remorse. And while Truth pushed hard at the door inside to let the Feeling out, he pushed equally hard on the outside to keep the Feeling in. But when finally the snow began to fall, and the daylight lessen, and the storm grow fierce and fiercer, Truth pushed and bumped and banged upon the poor door so unmercifully that Master Lepage, sturdy veteran though he was, grew quite weary of opposing her. And so the busy Feeling popped out first its head, and then its two arms, and then squeezed itself out all together, and began racing up and down the whole length and breadth of the old soldier's heart in the most audacious manner. 'You were obstinate and conceited this morning,' said the Feeling; 'you wouldn't listen to John Paqualin, the charcoal-burner. Look at the snow!' 'The glass was rising,' answered Lepage. 'I am perfectly certain it was. And John Paqualin is a madman.' 'Madman yourself,' said the Feeling--for feelings are very free-spoken, you know, and don't mince matters--'madman yourself for letting your wife, who is a delicate woman, and that poor child, little Peter, run such a risk of cold, and fatigue, and perhaps worse.' 'Antony knows the way,' answered Lepage again. 'And he's an able fellow.' 'He is a boy, and like most boys is thoughtless and self-opinionated. He takes after you in that last, by the same token,' said the Feeling. 'I am a philosophic politician,' cried Lepage, somewhat hotly. 'I worship the goddess of Reason.' 'Do you?' said the Feeling. 'And these newspapers you were so anxious to sit at home and read to-day, full--as you perfectly well know--of garbled news, and one-sided statements, and of cheap party cries--they are the voice of Reason, are they?' 'Hang you!' answered Lepage--which was not at all a pretty way of answering. But then, you see, poor Master Lepage was getting very angry because he was very uncomfortable; and when persons are both uncomfortable and angry they are liable to make use of expressions which, very properly, are not printed in the French and English conversation books that you study in the schoolroom.--'I won't listen to you. So away with you. I have no doubt--' 'No doubt, haven't you?' said the Feeling. 'Well, I am glad to hear that.' 'No doubt at all--ten thousand plagues on you--no doubt at all, I say, that my wife and children will be home in ten minutes at the latest. Meanwhile I will read a little. I will improve my mind with the history of those grand, old Romans.' So Lepage got down the history book, and it fell open at one of his favourite passages--the account of the Consul, Marcus Attilius Regulus, who, rather than break his word, left his home and kindred and gave himself up to his pitiless enemies, and bore in silence all the cruel tortures to which they subjected him. 'There was a man!' cried Lepage, as he wiped his spectacles with his red pocket-handkerchief. 'Yes, indeed, a very different man to you, Francis Louis Lepage,' said the Feeling. 'Why, why what do you mean? Twenty thousand cut-throat Prussians!--at least I am no coward. No one has ever accused me of that before. What was I ever afraid of?' [Illustration: WAITING. _Page 120._] 'Of a little trouble,' answered the Feeling. 'Of a walk, for instance, when you felt inclined to sit at home smoking--of what one or two silly, feather-headed fellows, who fancy themselves mighty sharp and clever, might perhaps say about you, if you were seen kneeling down beside your wife and sons, in the church there, with your head uncovered, praying God to forgive you your sins.--Pooh, don't talk about your courage to me!' said the Feeling. Master Lepage sat very still for some time after that in the window-seat, with the Roman History wide open before him; but he did not care to go on reading about the Consul Regulus. He remembered how little Peter had climbed on his knee on Friday evening, and coaxed him to go to Nullepart to see the Infant Jesus and the stable; and had said--poor, little lad, what a nice, little face he had--Lepage rubbed the end of his hooked nose, and sniffed--that if only his father came with them they would all be so happy. 'Well, I hope they have been happy,' he said to himself. 'It is more than I have been, in any case.' He turned and looked out of window. Ah! how it snowed, and how dark it was growing. 'And with this wind, on the moorland the snow will drift. If they have the intelligence of a blue owl between them they will have started early!' he cried quite fiercely. 'Ten thousand plagues--poor dear souls,' he added, for Master Lepage was getting a little confused somehow. [Illustration] He hurried across the kitchen to the house-door and flung it wide open, and standing on the threshold, gazed long and earnestly down the dim forest path, drawing his shaggy eyebrows together till they stood out like _chevaux de frise_ above his keen, grey eyes. 'Ho-la, ho-la, hey!' he shouted. But there was no answer save the roaring of the wind among the pines and the soft 'hush, hush,' of the falling snow. Now for some time past Cincinnatus had been sitting very composedly staring with his great, yellow eyes into the glowing log fire, and meditating pleasantly on the inferiority of men to cats. But when Master Lepage, a prey to that remorseful Feeling which Truth had let loose to tramp where it would up and down his heart, threw the house-door wide open, the icy breath of the North Wind rushed wildly into the kitchen, and made our friend Cincinnatus feel uncommonly cool about the back. 'Neither calm nor ear-curls, dear me!' he murmured to himself as he rose slowly, stretching one fore leg and then the other, and then each hind leg in turn--shaking the last leg rapidly for a moment, too, because it was slightly cramped--and yawning the while so wide, that his pink tongue was curled up quite tight, like a rolling-pin, at the back of his mouth. Then he moved away with dignity, intending to take up his station upon the cushion of the big arm-chair that stood in the corner nicely out of the draught. But all of a sudden Cincinnatus heard something that made him jump all on one side with an arched back and a bristling tail, and say 'Pffzsh!' twice over, as loud as ever he had said it in his life. It was an unfamiliar sound that so startled Cincinnatus, for Master Lepage was pulling strongly at the rope of the big bell that hung under the centre gable of the old house, and the urgent clang of its iron voice rang through the thick, snow-laden air far over the forest. The bell had been placed there long years before to summon neighbours--the house standing in a solitary place--in case of fire or accident. And now Lepage rang it with a double purpose, trusting that even if its friendly tones failed to reach the ears of the poor wanderers, it might at least bring Gustavus, the cowherd, from his father's cottage on the edge of the pastures, where he was spending the Sunday, and that he might help him search for the wife and children whom he loved so well. 'By my great-grandmother's whiskers!' exclaimed Cincinnatus, as he settled himself down on the chair cushion, 'what with draughts, and bell-ringing, and one thing and another, this house will soon be impossible for a cat of any pretensions to gentility. Compare it with the Sacristan's establishment, now, where you can't tell one day from another except by the smell of the different soups for dinner.--Delightful!--With an occasional vocal evening, too, in the back garden, when the moon is full. Lots are strangely unequal in this world!--Pffzsh! and to add to everything else, if there actually is not that intolerable charcoal-burner.' John Paqualin stood on the threshold, a flaming torch of pine boughs in his hand; his long, unkempt hair was white with snow, and so was the tattered cloth cloak that hung in so many folds from his stooping shoulders. His eyes were bright and glowing. 'Ah! the wind,' he said, 'the glorious wind, the roar and the shout of it; the cry of the trees that strain, and the passionate snap of the branches--like heart-strings that snap under the blast of incurable sorrow. And the snow, soft and pure, and light as the coverlet a young mother lays on her first-born's cradle--getting a little too thick just now, though, that coverlet.--Eh! what's this? have you smothered the infant--laid it over the face as well? Be careful, then, with your--But the bell,' he added suddenly, interrupting himself, and catching hold of Master Lepage with his hard, thin fingers--'it called to me, while I was listening to the roll of the drums, and the blare of the trumpets, and the scream of the fifes in the forest there, and made me come hither whether I would or no. What do you want spoiling all my splendid wind-music with your infernal bell-clatter?' 'Want!' cried Lepage hoarsely; 'I want help.' Paqualin laughed aloud. 'Hey-ho,' he said. 'Times are changed, are they? I never heard you sing that song before.' Lepage let go the bell-rope, and raised his clenched fist. But he did not strike the blow. Something stopped him. Perhaps it was that same remorseful Feeling which Truth had let loose in his heart. 'Come inside, Paqualin,' he said quite quietly, after a moment or two. 'Now try to remember.--My wife and sons and our maid-servant went to church at Nullepart this morning. You did your best to prevent them going. You said the snow was coming, and it has come. They should have been back a good two hours ago, and they are not here yet.' 'Not here yet,' repeated the charcoal-burner slowly. 'No, not yet.' Lepage drew his hand across his eyes. 'Would to God,' he said, 'I had gone along with them.--But see now, I will light the lamp and leave the house-door open; and then will go out to search for them. You can find your way like a hound, they say, by night or day, through the forest. Will you come with me and help me?' Paqualin stood in front of the fire; the snow on his hair and cloak melted and ran down, forming a little pool of water about his ill-shod feet. 'I am not over and above fond of you, Francis Lepage,' he said presently, 'as you most likely know already. Love and hatred alike can tell their own story without much need of spoken words. I think you a vain man and a hard one; but your wife is as pitiful as the saints in heaven. You want me to help you to find her? You have not got a dog to do the work for you, and so you'll take me. Ah, well! I've known the dog's place pretty well all my life long;--the kicks and the cuffs, and the grudging crust from the master's table; and then the "Here! my good fellow, good cur, here! nose down, tail up, the scent's cold, but still you're sharp enough to find it; and sweat and faint to catch the hare that will make your owner a savoury supper, while you slink home to the dirty straw and the mouldy crust again." Yes, yes--to be sure, I'll go with you and find them and bring them home; your fair wife and your children, and leave you happy and go back to my hut and the voices--not for your sake though, mind you, but for hers--the only woman whose eyes have ever looked kindly upon me.' 'Come on your own terms,' said Lepage. Just then Gustavus, in his heavy boots, came clumping into the kitchen. 'The bell, master--has the red cow calved of a sudden?' he asked. For once in his life Gustavus appeared to be quite excited. He forgot to take off his hat or put down his big cotton umbrella, from off which the wet snow slipped in little avalanches, _sthlop_, on to the floor. 'Calf thyself, with thy great, stupid, cheese face!' cried the charcoal-burner. Then while Lepage gave the cowherd his orders, and got some things together to take with them, Paqualin stood murmuring to himself, with his head bent low, and his lean, grimy hands stretched out towards the comfortable blaze of the fire:-- [Illustration] 'You, the man, welcome, and brave, and beloved. I, the dog, to show the man the way. Gustavus, there, the ass, to trot behind loaded up with the blankets, and the food, and the brandy. And in the end, what? A bone for the dog, a thistle for the ass, and for the man kisses. Which has the best of it? Hardly fair, is it, eh?' 'Umph,' said Gustavus, as he got the big bundle on to his back. 'Perhaps she'll be a bit soft-hearted when she sees me. Maybe the snow will have taken some of the starch out of our Eliza.' CHAPTER IX. WHICH IS VERY SHORT, BECAUSE, IN SOME WAYS, IT IS RATHER SAD. Have you ever looked for something you cared for very much and failed to find it? A dolly, for instance, forgotten at play in the garden, swept up with the dead leaves, and never seen after. Or, still worse, a dear little kitten of an adventurous turn of mind, that went out in the woods for a walk by himself and never came home again, though you ran down the church-lane and up to the top of the pasture, crying, 'Puss, puss, puss!' till you were quite hoarse, and cross, and tired, and nurse said you must come in because it was past bed-time and the dew was rising, and a number of other things which were perfectly true, but which didn't throw any light on the whereabouts of the kitten. How did you feel? Why, just the most miserable little boy or girl in all the world, to be sure. Or supposing, on the other hand, that you found dolly at last, after all; but with all the red washed off her lips and cheeks, and the mould mixed up with her yellow hair, and her smart frock wet and torn, and one of her waxen legs squashed flat where the wheel of the gardener's barrow had gone over it. Or that the keeper brought back poor kitty some three or four days later, stiff and cold, and said:--'Bin poaching, bin caught in a gin; thought little missy 'ud like to know the end of 'er.' Well, did that make matters much better? I don't think so myself, and at one time of my life I had a good deal of experience in these things, so I have the right to speak. For it is a poor pleasure at best to play that dolly is sick of a fever, when you see that she does not get a bit better, even though you dose her ten times a day with an elaborate preparation of slate-pencil scrapings. And as to begging a candle-box of the housemaid for a coffin, and having a grand funeral in the shrubbery for the kitten, that is terrible work indeed, and makes your eyes so red with crying that you are quite ashamed to go down to dessert in the evening. Now, if you and I have felt so very unhappy over our dolls and kittens when we lost them--and found them again, maybe, but always a good deal the worse for the losing--how do you think Master Lepage felt as he went out that dark, stormy, snowy night, with the charcoal-burner and Gustavus, into the forest? He was very silent as he tramped through the snow, while the wind roared in the pines above him, and blew about the flame of his torch, making it twist and twirl, and flicker and glimmer, sometimes casting a red glare far over the white ground and the great, grey tree-stems and John Paqualin's crooked, uncouth form flitting on just ahead of him; and sometimes dying down till all the scene was wrapped in darkness. He was very silent, I say, and not a bit like vivacious, loquacious Master Lepage who used to sit and hold forth in the wine-shop, and thump the table and make the glasses ring; but more like Sergeant Lepage, who, with his teeth set and his face fierce and white, had marched up under fire of the enemies' guns in battle long ago in Italy or Africa. Lepage marched under fire now, and the battlefield was his own heart. And oh! dear me, how many of his most cherished ideas and beliefs the shot from those guns knocked over--his pride, his self-importance, his trust in his own intellect and insight and acuteness, his politics, his philosophy; nothing, in short, nothing was left standing, except a sense of remorse for his past folly and his love for his wife and his children. 'If they have been merely delayed by the storm, we shall meet them on the road here. If they are lost, they will have begun wandering on the first stretch of moorland,' said John Paqualin. 'See, the snow is ceasing, the stars begin to show in heaven. Eh! the frost, how it bites!' And so it did. As the snow stopped, the night grew colder and colder, for all the ice-fairies came tripping out far and wide over hill and valley, and built transparent piers and bridges across the streams and pools, and hung icicles from the rocks and from the overhanging eaves of the houses, and froze the breath on Lepage's long moustache, and made the earth like iron beneath his feet. Yet he and his two companions still marched on through the forest. They could go but slowly, for in the open spaces the snow had drifted deep, and where the forest paths crossed each other it required all the charcoal-burner's knowledge and skill to tell which was the right one. Now and again they would halt for a minute or two and call aloud, and then listen hoping for an answer; but it was close upon midnight, and they had walked more than half the way to Nullepart before they came upon any trace of those they so earnestly searched for. Here, as I have already told you, the path crosses a wide stretch of rolling moorland, covered with heather and stunted bushes, thorns and brambles and whortle-berry and juniper; while in places crop out large limestone blocks and boulders, some standing together and looking like the ruins of a giant's castle, others but just peeping above the rough soil and encrusted with stone-crop, and ferns and many kinds of mosses--a lovely play-place on a summer day, when the butterflies sport over the heath, and the dragon-flies over the pools in the marshes, but bleak and desolate enough on a December night, with the harsh north wind and the snowstorm. On the edge of this moorland, before leaving the shelter of the pines, Paqualin stopped. 'Shout,' he said, turning to the others, 'shout your loudest. The frost has caught me by the throat, and squeezed my crooked windpipe till I am as hoarse as a raven. But you are strong men. Shout, Lepage, for love of your wife. And you, good ass, there, for love of Eliza your sweetheart; she'll pay you in thistles, prickles and all, if you find her.' So they shouted, and this time there was an answer--a boy's voice half choked with crying. And with a pale, haggard face, and in his eyes a look of terror, from among the snow-laden pine-trees, came Antony. 'You alone!' cried Lepage. 'I trusted her to you; where are your mother and brothers?' 'She sent us on to try to get help. Paul is here just behind me. We lost ourselves, and wandered. She could get no further, and little Peter is dead asleep, under the big rocks, there to the right, out on the moor. Eliza does nothing but cry, and won't move.' The boy was utterly faint and disheartened. He threw himself down on the snow, and covered his face with his hands. 'I did my best, father,' he said, 'indeed, indeed I did; but I couldn't find the way. It was dark, and there was nothing to guide us, and I got bewildered with the cold. We were too late in starting, I know--that was my fault. But I did my best afterwards. Oh! father, I did try to take care of them. I couldn't help it. Say you forgive me.' Paqualin did not wait to hear more. 'The big rocks out to the right,' he repeated. [Illustration: FOUND. _Page 138._] His limbs were stiff with the sharp cold, which had penetrated his threadbare clothes, and his feet were numb with the snow that had worked its way in through the worn, cracked leather of his wretched boots. Oh, yes! I am afraid he was a very funny figure indeed; and that all the little boys in Nullepart would have hooted louder than ever if they could have seen him, as with his long grasshopper legs, wild red hair, and tattered cloak streaming out behind him, he shambled along, slipping and staggering, in the half darkness over that long half-mile of heath, and stone, and prickly bushes, and sly, deceitful snow-drifts that stretched between the edge of the forest and the rocks. 'Here is help,' he shrieked in his shrill voice. 'It is I--I, John Paqualin. Here is help.' As he passed round in front into the shelter of the tall, grey rocks, Susan Lepage rose up from the foot of them with a great cry. She flung her arms about him, and rested her fair head on his shoulder. 'Ah! God has sent you,' she sobbed. 'I called upon Him in the bitterness of my anguish, and He has heard me. Save us, John Paqualin; in mercy save me and my children.' The charcoal-burner's torch slipped from his grasp, and fell hissing upon the ground. 'The dog gets something more than his bone for once,' he said between his teeth. For a minute or so, in that mysterious, ghostly radiance of dancing star-light and white snow, he stood holding the weeping woman in his arms. 'God sent me, though, did He?' he murmured at last. 'Then I must do His good pleasure, not my own.' Paqualin spoke low, and quite softly, notwithstanding that queer crack in his voice. 'Look up, and take courage; there is better comfort than mine at hand. Your two boys are safely cared for already, and your husband is coming. The trouble is over. For you, at least, the morning begins to break.' Then, as he heard the crunch of hurried footsteps coming over the snow behind him, he turned and cried:-- 'Here, take your wife, Lepage!' Paqualin moved aside. 'For the man,' he said, half aloud--'well--what he's a right to. Get back to your kennel, you hound.' Now Eliza was sitting with her back against one of the rocks in the burrow, where the snow was lightest, and little Peter, closely wrapped in his mother's shawl, lay stupefied with sleep, with his head in her lap. As Paqualin turned round, she moaned out:-- 'No, no, don't come near me. I am dreadfully ill--probably I shall never recover. I think I shall die. But I won't give way, I won't listen to you. To the last I am true to Gustavus. Ah! my poor heart, how it beats. Yes, I should like to have bidden a last farewell to Gustavus.' 'Don't fret,' answered the charcoal-burner. 'Thy mooncalf is on the road. He'll be here in plenty of time to say a good deal besides good-bye to you, unless I am very much mistaken.' Eliza gave a prodigious sigh. 'He will be too late, I know it, I know it. Ah! how will he live without me, poor, faithful, broken-hearted Gustavus?' Whether it was his mother's cry that roused him, or the sudden lights and the voices, I do not know; but little Peter half awoke from the heavy torpor of sleep into which the cold and fatigue had plunged him. 'I will not hush, Eliza. I love John Paqualin. Yes, I love him,' he murmured. CHAPTER X. WHICH ENDS THE STORY. 'Something has gone very wrong,' said Cincinnatus to himself in the cat language. 'I don't pretend to understand it. This, is one of those many matters that I should be glad to take my cousin the Sacristan's cat's opinion upon. Dear me! what a misfortune it is to live here in the country, away from the centre of social intercourse and civilisation.' Then Cincinnatus fell to washing his face with his paws, for he had lately had his five o'clock saucer of milk, you see; and it is etiquette in cat-land always to wash after meals, not before them as we do. The yellow earthenware stove was lighted in the bedroom, and Cincinnatus sat opposite to the open door of it, and blinked at the heart of crimson wood embers, set in a fringe of flaky, grey ashes. It was very warm there, but Cincinnatus blinked and washed his face slowly. As to the heat, it soothed him, and inclined him to make a number of reflections. 'At the risk of repeating myself, I must observe that men are poor, improvident, thoughtless creatures,' he went on presently; 'subject to illness and accidents of all kinds. However, a thoughtful cat will not be hard upon them. _Noblesse oblige._ Those who have the advantage can afford to be generous. Fancy coming into this world, now, where the weather is so extremely uncertain, all pink and bare as they do, poor things, without any comfortable fur to cover them; and having to make up for it by enclosing themselves in all sorts of shapeless, foreign substances, prepared from sheep's wool or vegetables. And no tail either! Imagine being deprived of that most dignified and expressive member. Yet, you must give them their due. Necessity has certainly made them very ingenious.' Cincinnatus stretched himself lazily in the hot glow of the stove fire. 'But with all their ingenuity only one life,' he said yawning. 'And that one, as I observed just now, subject to all manner of illness and accident. We have nine lives! Who would be one of them if he could help it? Poor things, no wonder if they envy us.' Then Cincinnatus went across the boarded floor with his noiseless tread, and jumped up on to little Peter's bed, and began purring in the most amiable and engaging manner, sticking out all his claws and then drawing them in again and making a nice tight little fist, as he trampled on the bed-clothes, first with one fore-foot and then with the other. He even went so far as to rub his head along against the little boy's shoulder, which, considering his opinion of the relative position of cats and mankind in the universal scale of being, was really very condescending of him, to my thinking. But little Peter did not speak or pay any attention to Cincinnatus. He only sighed in his sleep, and turned his round, black head on the pillow. Poor little Peter had lain just like that, quite still and quiet, in bed ever since his father and the charcoal-burner had placed him there when they had got home from that terrible walk in the snow, about four o'clock in the morning. The ice-fairies, who really are very elegant people and not at all disagreeable when you know them, had come at sunrise and spread the most beautiful patterns--crowns and crosses, and stars and diamonds, and ice flowers of a hundred exquisite shapes--all over the window panes; but little Peter had been too tired and sleepy to get up and look at them. And when, in the afternoon, not without struggle and difficulty, for the road was dangerous with snow-drifts, the kind, old doctor, with his red nose and his snuffbox, had ridden over from Nullepart, and sat by the little boy's bed and felt his pulse, and examined him carefully, with a face as wise as an owl's, from behind his large spectacles, Peter had been too fired and sleepy to look at him either. The old doctor had taken an extra pinch of snuff, and shaken his head quite seriously, I am sorry to say, at leaving. Now it was past five o'clock, and Peter still lay in his little bed dozing and sleeping--dreaming too, but not of the snow and the pain of the winter. He dreamed of sunshine and of pleasant places, of the singing of birds and the sound of the cow-bells in the flowery fields in the spring-time. The elder boys and their father had gone to see the doctor safe part of his way home again. And Susan Lepage had sunk down in the big chair in the kitchen, and had fallen asleep, worn out with fatigue and anxiety. And Eliza, hearing Gustavus come into the back kitchen with the milk-pans, had slipped downstairs from watching beside the child, just to have a word with him. 'Poor fellow,' she said, 'he really is so over-joyed at my being restored to him, that there is no saying if he won't mix this evening's milk with this morning's, or ruin the cream by shaking it, or commit some other folly. He is not clever, and my family will certainly reproach me with having married beneath me; but he has a good heart, and I think he really appreciates me as he ought to, does Gustavus.' So it happened that little Peter was left quite alone, but for the society of the cat, up in the bedroom. John Paqualin came along the flagged path to the front of the house; and pressing his face close against the glass, for it was difficult to see through them, the panes being frosty, looked in at the kitchen window. Then he went to the house door, lifted the latch carefully, entered, and stood still, listening. There was no sound save the singing of the kettle, and Eliza's chatter in the distant dairy, with the clump of the cowherd's boots on the flags and the clink of the milk-pans. From the rows of copper kettles and saucepans, and the china high on the dresser, to the red tiled floor under the charcoal-burner's feet, the large kitchen actually shone with exquisite cleanliness. The light of the lamp on the table fell upon Susan Lepage's high, white cap, showing it and her pure, grave profile, as she leaned her head back in the arm-chair, clear cut against the ruddy dusk of the chimney corner behind her. [Illustration] Paqualin, as he stood there silent and watchful, with his sunken eyes, ungainly figure, and dilapidated garments, seemed strangely out of place. He shaded his eyes with his hand, for the light dazzled him, as he looked for a minute or two at the sleeping mother. Then he went quietly across the kitchen and up the wide, wooden staircase. 'The house is asleep,' he murmured in his high, cracked tones:--'or would be but for the voice of Eliza. Pah! the woman's tongue cuts like a whip. But her sweetheart, the ass, has a good thick hide of his own; he finds the lash only pleasantly tickling.' Paqualin went into the warm, dimly-lighted bedroom above. 'The house is asleep,' he repeated. 'Hey-ho, Sleep's a kindly fellow, with his turban of nodding poppies. He cures the heart-ache. But he's forgetful, sadly forgetful. He hasn't been near me these five nights; and God knows, I have had the heart-ache as badly as any of the others.' He knelt down by little Peter's bed, and looked closely at the child. [Illustration: THE CHARCOAL-BURNER VISITS LITTLE PETER. _Page 150._] 'Eh! Sleep is hardly a kind friend to you, I'm afraid, though,' he said under his breath. 'A little too much of the smell of the drowsy poppies here to be quite healthful.' As he spoke, Cincinnatus, who had been curled up comfortably in a nice, warm depression in the bed-clothes, jumped down on to the floor with glaring eyes and a great tail. 'I won't spit though,' he said. 'It really isn't worth the trouble. No, an air of absolute indifference will be even more impressive and chilling.' So he walked away very stiffly, and sat down opposite the open stove door again. The charcoal-burner placed one of his lean hands on the little boy's soft, pudgy one, that lay palm upward on the pillow, and with the other patted him tenderly on the cheek. 'Little Peter,' he said, 'wake up. Come back to us, dear, little mouse. You said you loved me--nobody ever said that to me before. Don't go away from me, do not desert me.' He paused a minute, and then went on pleadingly:-- 'Think of all the stories I have told you, remember the nuts and the apples.--Eh! wake up, little lad, and come back to poor, ugly John Paqualin, to whom his fellow men have shown such scant mercy.' But the child lay quite still; his long, black eyelashes resting on his pale cheeks, and his pretty, round mouth a wee bit open as he sighed softly in that strange stupor of sleep. Tears dimmed the charcoal-burner's eyes. He bent his wild shock head and rested it down on the white coverlet. 'Ah, great God!' he murmured, 'Thou who art all powerful, listen to me. See here, can't we make an exchange?--Take my poor, battered, weary, old soul instead of his fresh, innocent, white one. Let me give him my life for his mother's sake, the sweetest and most compassionate of women. She will grieve if she loses him, her darling, her baby; and kind as she is, she won't miss me very much. Why should she?--an outcast of nature, a shameful, misshapen mistake; one sorry sight the less in the world when I'm gone, that's all.--Death's dreadful, they say--yes, I know I am afraid of it. But, after all, it can't be so very much worse than life--at least for some of us.' He threw back his head, and clasped his hard hands together. 'Here, take me,' he cried. 'I will come. A trifle of suffering, more or less, what does it matter? Spare the little lamb, O Lord, and take me, John Paqualin, as ransom.' Now the charcoal-burner was not quite right in his head, you see, and that accounts for his eccentric prayer and very original behaviour. You had better bear this in mind. I won't tell you why; you will probably find out for yourselves when you have seen more of the world and grown rather older. Paqualin knelt on there for some time, looking up as though he expected a direct and visible answer to his singular petition. But nothing happened save that Eliza came upstairs on the tips of her toes--a way of stepping which she intended to be particularly quiet, but which was, in fact, particularly noisy--and peeped into the room. Seeing the charcoal-burner kneeling by the bed-side, she gave a fearful gasp, and sank down into the nearest chair. 'The saints help and preserve us!' she exclaimed in a loud whisper, holding her side, 'what next? Ah! how it startled me. The helpless, sick child in the arms of that ogre! Go away, John Paqualin, go away. How on earth did you get here? I've only been downstairs three minutes giving some necessary instructions to Gustavus.--He really is beside himself with joy, poor fellow.--Go away, I say; if Peter woke up suddenly he would have a fit at seeing you. Look at yourself in the looking-glass, and you'll understand why, fast enough. A rush of blood to the head from fright and the child would be dead. And if half the stories one hears of you are true, there is enough down on the wrong side of your account already without adding wilful murder. Go along with you.--Ah! I am so weak--my poor heart, how it beats.' Eliza advanced, creaking across the boarded floor, towards the charcoal-burner. He had risen to his feet. 'There is no answer,' he said, in a low voice. 'You fool, learn your lesson. God doesn't want your wretched, worthless soul, John Paqualin. Who are you, indeed, that you should try to strike a bargain with the Almighty, and offer such miserable refuse and offscourings as your life in place of that of the pure and sinless child there?' He looked back towards the bed. 'Good-bye,' he said, 'dear, little Peter. When you are gone there will be nothing left on earth to love me; and in heaven it's clear they can do very well without me yet awhile.' Then, as Eliza came close to him, whispering, pointing towards the door, and signing to him, he turned upon her with a terrible face. 'Woman, leave me alone,' he said. 'Have not I enough to bear already, without the maddening gnat-bites of your spiteful ignorance and cruel folly?' And the grasshopper man went out of the room, and down the stairs, and into the dark frosty night. [Illustration] Eliza leant up against the bottom of the bed, with her eyes half shut. 'Are you gone yet,' she murmured, 'you savage, wild animal?--If the child had woke up and screamed there would have been a fine fuss, and all the blame would have been laid on me, of course. It isn't fair that crazy men like that should be allowed to persecute respectable, young servant-women. I'll get Gustavus to lay an information against him at the police station at Nullepart for using threatening language to me. Of course it is all jealousy; but I can't help my good looks.' Eliza opened her eyes again, arranged the mauve silk handkerchief about her neck, and smiled complacently. 'It is a comfort to know that you have no cause to be ashamed of your face--or of your disposition, for that matter, either,' she added. Now this all happened on Monday evening, as no doubt you have made out already. Very early, before it was light on Wednesday morning, little Peter, who all that long time had lain sleeping unconscious of what went on around him, suddenly seemed to find himself very wide awake indeed. There was a strange light in the room, bright and yet soft like an early summer dawn. And as the little boy opened his eyes, he saw that at his bedside there stood a young man, with a calm, beautiful face and shining hair. He was clothed down to the feet in a long, white, linen garment. As Peter looked up wonderingly, the young man bent over him. There was something very still and gentle in his glance, and the little boy smiled, for it seemed to him that the young man's face was that of an old friend, though he could not remember ever to have seen him before. Then the young man spoke to him, and said:-- 'Little Peter, you have been sick and tired. Will you come away with me to a far-off country where there is no more sickness and trouble, and where the children play all the year round among blooming flowers in green, sunny pastures by the river-side?' Peter did not feel a bit afraid; but he thought of his parents and his brothers, and asked:-- 'But, please, will my mother, and father, and Paul, and Antony, and my cat Cincinnatus, come too? Paul is very kind, and he makes such nice mill-wheels to turn in the brook, and weathercocks to stick up in the pear-tree and show which way the wind blows. And Cincinnatus would be dull and lonely if I left him behind. He likes to come to bed with me in the morning, and the old grey wolf might come out of the wood and catch him, and make him into soup for little wolves when I was gone.' The young man smiled as he answered:--'Never fear. Your mother and father and Paul and Antony will certainly join you some day if they are good. Time seems very short while we wait in that happy country. And as to Cincinnatus, who knows but that he may come also? In any case, he will be quite safe, for our Heavenly Father loves all his living creatures--not only angels and men, but fish, and birds, and beasts as well. Will you come, little Peter?' 'Ah! but there's John Paqualin,' said the boy. 'You know whom I mean--the charcoal-burner. I can't leave him very well, you see, because he is often very unhappy; and he says nobody will ever care for him because he is rather odd and ugly-looking. And I do care for him very much indeed.' Then the young man bent lower and looked into little Peter's eyes. 'Why, why you are John Paqualin!' cried the child. 'Yes,' said the other, and his face was radiant with the peace that passes understanding. 'I am John Paqualin. God be praised.' 'But how you have changed!' little Peter said; for he was a good deal surprised, you know, and no wonder. 'With the Lord one day is as a thousand years,' answered the young man. 'Will you come with me now, little Peter?' Then Peter stretched out his hands and laughed out loud with joy; he was so very glad about quite a number of things--the thought of his playfellows in that fair and happy country, and of the coming of his parents and brothers, and of Cincinnatus the cat, and most of all at the delightful change for the better that had taken place in the personal appearance of his friend the charcoal-burner. 'Yes,' he said, 'I'll come.' So then the young man took him up very tenderly in his strong arms, and laid the little, tired head upon his breast and carried little Peter away. Now it happened, strangely enough, that though both Susan Lepage and her husband sat watching by their child's bedside, they neither of them saw the young man with the calm face and shining hair, or heard a word he said. They only saw that the little boy opened his eyes suddenly and seemed to gaze at something with a kind of glad wonder, and that he smiled, and that his dear, little lips moved, and then that he stretched out his hands and laughed joyfully. After that he lay very still. Susan Lepage waited a moment or two, then she rose and took a candle that stood on the oak chest near the bed's head. Shading it with her hand, she stooped down and looked closely at the child. 'Ah, my little one!' she cried. She put the candle back again, and coming round the foot of the bed, stood by Master Lepage, with her hand resting on his shoulder. 'My husband,' she said, 'our child will suffer no more. The dear Lord loved him and has called for him. A child has died on earth. A child is born in Paradise.' There was a long silence. Master Lepage sat bolt upright with his arms hanging down at his sides--more as though he was standing before the general officer on parade, than sitting in the rush-bottomed chair in his own bedroom. The big tears ran down over his cheeks and fell from his moustache on to his blue blouse as thick as a summer shower. 'My wife,' he said slowly, 'our paths have joined at last--joined beside an open grave, but better there than nowhere. There shall be no more silence between us. The God whom you have served so faithfully in time will surely heal the smart of your sorrow. And perhaps He will condescend to listen to the prayers of a foolish, vain-glorious, wrong-headed, old soldier, whom grief and repentance have humbled. Pardon me, my wife. I have been wrong and you right all along.' Lepage stood up, took her two hands in his, and kissed her. 'Ah, my dear, let us talk only of love and hope, not of pardon,' Susan Lepage answered gently. She turned and looked at little Peter, still and smiling, with his round, black head resting so cosily on the white pillow. 'The autumn child has brought a blessing to the house,' she murmured. 'Ten thousand plagues!' broke out Master Lepage hoarsely. 'Twenty thousand cut-throat Prussians!--but I loved the little one.' * * * * * And is that the end of the story? Well, yes, as far as a story can be said to have an end--most stories go on for ever, only we get tired or stupid and leave off reading them--if the story has an end, I say, I suppose this is it. Still there are just one or two little things I can mention which you might like to know. For instance, when next day Gustavus happened to pass the charcoal-burner's hut, he heard such a horrible barking, and yelling, that, though he was not of a very active or curious order of mind, he really had to go and see what was the matter. And on getting to the back of the hut he found Madelon, the sow, standing up on her hind legs in her sty, with her fore-feet resting on the rough, wooden door of it, her long, black snout high in the air, her floppety ears shaking, her great mouth wide open as she squealed aloud, and not a single scrap of food in her trough. This seemed to Gustavus such a singular thing, that though he had no great fancy for the society of the charcoal-burner, he thought he would just look inside the hut door, which stood half open. The snow had drifted in at it and lay thick on the mud floor within, there was no fire on the hearth, and the place was deathly chill. Yet Paqualin sat there sure enough, on a wooden bench, with his elbows on the table in front of him, and his head resting on his hands. His back was towards Gustavus. The cowherd did not quite like to go inside the hut somehow. He stood in the snow on the door-sill and called. At last he plucked up his courage, and going forward pulled at Paqualin's ragged sleeve. [Illustration] 'Umph,' said Gustavus, as he stumbled out again in a desperate hurry. He took off his hat and wiped his face round, for notwithstanding the frosty day, he felt quite uncomfortably warm. 'Here, I'll give you something, granny,' he called out to the sow. 'If you wait till your master brings it you'll wait a long time for your breakfast to-day. Bless me! but I shall have something to tell our Eliza this evening at supper that'll make her open her eyes!' Antony has gone to serve his time in the army; and when his time is up and he comes back again to the old, wooden farm-house in the forest, I think it is very likely that the wish he wished in the dining-room of the Red Horse at Nullepart, when he shared the double filbert kernel with pretty Marie Georgeon, may really come true. Paul is apprenticed to an engineer in Paris, and lives among whirling machines in the great, crowded workshops; and his employers are much impressed with his ability and talent, and prophesy that he will make a name for himself some day. Cincinnatus is quite an old cat now, and his whiskers are almost white; but he still sits opposite the glowing wood fire in the kitchen, and blinks his big, yellow eyes and reflects on the superiority of cats to men. And Master Lepage still reads the history of the famous Roman Republic in the winter evenings, and takes off his spectacles and wipes them with his red pocket-handkerchief; but he rarely talks politics now, and never sits in the wine-shop, though on fine Sundays he often walks with his gentle, sweet-faced wife through the forest, and kneels humbly beside her in the church, and prays God to guide and teach him, and forgive him all his sins. [Illustration] And is this a true story? Yes, as true as I can make it, and I have taken a good deal of pains. But did it all really happen? Ah! that is quite another question. For you will find as you grow older, that some of the very truest stories are those which, as most people in this world count happening, have never happened at all. And if you can't understand how that can be, I advise you, the first fine day, to ask your way to Nullepart and take the opinion of the Sacristan's cat upon the matter. He is a scholar, you know, so he is sure to be able to explain it. THE END. PRINTED BY SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE LONDON Transcriber's Note: Variations in hyphenation have been retain as in the original publication. Punctuation has been standardised. 
34484	----	Waihoura, the Maori Girl, by W.H.G. Kingston. ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ WAIHOURA, THE MAORI GIRL, BY W.H.G. KINGSTON. CHAPTER ONE. THE NEW COLONY. ARRIVAL OF THE FAMILIES OF MR PEMBERTON, FARMER GREENING AND OTHERS, IN NEW ZEALAND.--INSPECT LAND.--ENCAMP NEAR THE PORT TILL THEY CAN SETTLE ON THE LAND THEY HAVE SELECTED. A fine emigrant ship, her voyage happily terminated, had just entered her destined port in the northern island of New Zealand. Her anchor was dropped, the crew were aloft furling sails, and several boats were alongside ready to convey the passengers to the shore. All was bustle and excitement on board, each person anxious to secure his own property,--and people were running backwards and forwards into the cabins, to bring away any minor articles which might have been forgotten. The water was calm and bright, the sky intensely blue. On either hand were bold picturesque headlands running out into the sea, fringed by dark rocks, while beyond the sandy beach, which bordered the bay, on a partially cleared space, were seen numerous cottages, interspersed with tents and huts, many of the latter rudely constructed of boughs. Further off arose forests of tall trees, reaching to the base, and climbing the sides of a range of high mountains, here and there broken by deep ravines, with sparkling streams rushing down them, finding their way into a broad river which flowed into the bay. Beyond the first range appeared others--range beyond range, the summits of several towering to the sky, covered with mantles of snow shining with dazzling whiteness in the bright rays of the sun. In several places the forest gave way to wide open tracts, clothed with fern or tall waving grass. "Here we are safe at last," exclaimed Valentine Pemberton, a young gentleman about eighteen, as he stepped from one of the first boats on to the ledge of rocks which formed the chief landing-place of the settlement. "Father, let me help you," he added, extending his arm towards a middle-aged fine-looking man who followed him. "Now, Lucy, take my hand; the rocks are somewhat slippery. Harry, you can look out for yourself." He addressed his young sister, a fair sweet-looking girl of about fifteen, and his brother, a fine active boy, who sprang on to the rock after him. "Take care of Betsy, though," said Lucy, not forgetful of her faithful maid, whose attachment to her young mistress had induced to leave home for a strange land. "Paul Greening is helping her," answered Harry. Mr Pemberton, with his daughter and two sons, soon made their way to the more even beach, followed by Betsy and Paul Greening. Paul's father, farmer Greening, a sturdy English yeoman, with his wife and two younger sons, James and little Tobias, as the latter was called, though as big as his brothers, were the next to land. "My boys and I will look after your things, Mr Pemberton," shouted the farmer. "Do you go and find lodgings for Miss Lucy and Betsy." "Thank you, my friend," said Mr Pemberton, "but we have made up our mind to rough it, and purpose camping out under tents until we can get a roof of our own over our heads. Before we begin work, however, I wish to return thanks to Him who has guided and protected us during our voyage across the ocean. Will you and your family join us?" "Aye, gladly sir," answered farmer Greening. "We are ready enough to be angry with those who are thankless to us when we have done them a kindness, and I have often thought how ungrateful we are apt to be to Him who gives us everything we enjoy in this life." Mr Pemberton led the way to a sheltered spot, where they were concealed by some high rocks from the busy throng on the beach. He there, with his own children and the farmer's family, knelt down and offered a hearty thanksgiving to the merciful God who had heretofore been their friend and guide, and a fervent prayer for protection from future dangers. Then, with cheerful hearts and strong hands, they returned to the boat, to assist in landing their goods and chattels, while Valentine and Paul went back to the ship to bring off the remainder of the luggage. Mr Pemberton and farmer Greening, meantime, set off to get the surveying officer to point out a plot of ground on which they might encamp, the rest of the party remaining on the beach to look after their property. While they were thus employed, a bustling little man, in a green velveteen shooting coat, approached Lucy, who, with Betsy and Mrs Greening were removing the lighter articles of their baggage. Underneath a broad-brimmed hat, which he wore far back on his bullet-like head, covered with short cropped hair, appeared a pair of round eyes, and a funny turned up nose. "Oh, Miss Pemberton, I am shocked to see you so employed!" he exclaimed. "Let me assist you. My own things will not be brought on shore to-day, I am told, and I have no wish to go on board the ship again to look for them." "Thank you, Mr Nicholas Spears," said Lucy, who had already discovered that the little man was never happy unless attending other people's concerns, to the neglect of his own, and had no wish to encourage him in his bad habit. "My brother Harry and our friends here can do all that is necessary." "Oh, I beg ten thousand pardons, Miss Lucy, but I thought that I could be of use to you. It would be such a pleasure, believe me." Mr Nicholas Spears rolled his round eyes about, and twitched his mouth in such a curious manner when he spoke, that Lucy could scarcely refrain from laughing outright. "If you don't look after your own property, Mr Spears, I don't think anybody else will," observed Mrs Greening. "Just let me advise you to go back in the first boat, and see if any of your goods have been got out of the hold, or they may be sent on shore, and you will not know what have become of them." The little man seemed very unwilling to follow this wise counsel, but hearing his name called by some of the other emigrants, he hurried away to join them, and was seen running up and down the beach, carrying their boxes and parcels. Most of the other passengers had now come on shore, and were busily employed in looking after their property, and conveying it from the beach. Valentine and Paul had just returned with the remainder of their goods, and soon afterwards Mr Pemberton and farmer Greening returned, accompanied by four dark-skinned men, dressed in shirts and trousers, the few tattoo marks on their faces, and the shaggy state of their black hair, showing them to be of the lower order of natives. They brought also a small dray, drawn by bullocks, with which to transport the heavier articles of their luggage. "Wherever you go, Mr Pemberton, with your leave, I and mine will go too," said farmer Greening, as they walked along. "We have been neighbours in the old country, and you have ever been a kind friend to me, and if I can be of any use to you in choosing land, which I ought to know something about, why, you see, sir, it's just what I shall be glad to do." Mr Pemberton knew the value of the farmer's friendship and assistance too well to decline it, and thanked him heartily. He had himself gone through many trials. After enjoying a good fortune derived from West Indian property, and living the life of a country gentleman, he found himself, at the time he was about to send his eldest son to the university, and his second boy into the navy, deprived of nearly the whole of his income. Soon afterwards he lost his wife, a far greater blow to his happiness, and believing that he could best provide for his children by emigrating to one of the colonies, with the small remainder of his fortune, he had embarked with them for New Zealand. A cleared space on some rising ground overlooking the harbour had been selected for encamping. To this the property of the party was soon conveyed. Mr Pemberton had brought with him two tents, the largest of which served as a store-house for his goods, and there was also space in it for beds for himself and his sons, while a much smaller one was appropriated to the use of Lucy and Betsy, which Lucy had invited Mrs Greening to share with them. The farmer and his sons, with the assistance of the Maoris, as the New Zealanders are called, were putting up a hut in which they might find shelter till the land they had purchased had been fixed on. It was composed simply of stakes driven into the ground, interwoven with branches of trees, beams being secured to the top, while other branches were placed on them and thatched with long grass, an operation quickly performed by the Maoris. Before dark it was in a sufficiently forward state to afford shelter to the farmer and his sons,--some heaps of fern, brought in by their active assistants, serving them for beds. While the pakehas, the strangers, as the natives call the English, slept at one end, the four Maoris occupied the other. Before they lay down to rest Mr Pemberton invited them into his tent to join in family worship, a practice he had kept up during the voyage, and hoped in future to maintain under all circumstances. "It's a great blessing and advantage, Miss Lucy, to be associated with a gentleman like the Squire," said Mrs Greening, when they returned to their tent. "My boys especially might be inclined to run wild in this strange country, if they hadn't the good example he sets before them." "We, I am sure, shall be a mutual help to each other, Mrs Greening," answered Lucy. "Your husband's practical experience in farming will greatly assist my father and brothers, and I was truly thankful when I heard that you wished to settle near us." "We know what it is to have bad land, with a high rent to pay," observed Mrs Greening with a sigh, "and I hope, now that we are to have a farm of our own, with a kind soil, we shall get on better than we did in the old country. Few are ready to work harder than my good man and our boys, and I have never been used to be idle since I was big enough to milk a cow." The following day Mr Pemberton and the farmer, accompanied by Valentine and Paul, prepared to set off, with one of the Maoris as a guide, to inspect a block of land lately surveyed, about ten miles from the coast, with a fine stream flowing through it. Before starting they surveyed from the hill the road they were to take. At a short distance appeared the outskirts of the forests, composed of the lofty kauri, or yellow pine, kahikatea, or white pine, the rimu, with its delicate and gently weeping foliage, and several others, interspersed by the shade-loving tree-fern, the most graceful of all forest trees. From the boughs hung parasites and creepers of brilliant hues,--some, like loose ropes from the rigging of a ship, others, in festoons winding from stem to stem, uniting far-off trees with their luxuriant growth. "How shall you be able to pass through that thick forest?" asked Lucy, of her father. "We shall have to make good use of our axes, I suppose," said Valentine. "We shall find but little difficulty," observed Mr Pemberton. "Although the foliage is so dense overhead, there is no jungle or underwood to obstruct our passage, and in this hot weather we shall have the advantage of travelling thoroughly shaded from the rays of the sun. We shall find it far more fatiguing walking over the fern land, which, at a distance, looks so smooth and even." Mr Pemberton took his fowling-piece; but the only weapons carried by the rest of the party were their axes, to mark the trees round the land they hoped to select. They expected not to be absent more than three days. Lucy and Harry accompanied them a short distance. They found, on their return, Mrs Greening busily employed with her sons in arranging the hut,--indeed, the good woman was never idle, and set an example of industry which some of the other settlers would have done wisely to follow. Leaving her boys to go on with the work, she commenced making preparations for dinner. "You must let me act as your cook, Miss Lucy," she said. "You and Betsy will have enough to do, and it's what I am used to." The cooking, however, was of necessity somewhat after the gipsy fashion, a pot being hung from a triangle over a fire on the ground, and when the pot was removed the tea-kettle took its place. They had no difficulty in procuring provisions, as there were several bakers in the village, and the Maoris brought in pigs and wild-fowl, and various roots and vegetables to the market. CHAPTER TWO. WAIHOURA. NATIVES ARRIVE AT MR PEMBERTON'S CAMP.--THEY BRING WITH THEM ON A LITTER A YOUNG GIRL--WAIHOURA APPARENTLY VERY ILL.--A DOCTOR IS SENT FOR, AND A HUT IS BUILT FOR HER ACCOMMODATION. "Oh mother! mother! Miss Lucy! Betsy! do look at the strange savages who are coming this way," exclaimed little Tobias, as he rushed up to the door of the tent the following morning. "I never did see such wild creatures, except once at the fair, and they were white men painted up to make believe they had come from foreign parts. There's no doubt about these, though." Lucy and her companions being thus summoned, hurried from the tent and joined Harry and the two young Greenings, who were standing on the brow of the hill, watching a band of twenty or thirty Maoris, who, emerging from the forest, were coming towards where they stood. At their head stalked a tall savage-looking warrior. His face, as he drew near, was seen to be thickly covered with blue lines, some in spirals, others in circles and curls of various devices. His black hair was gathered in a knot at the top of his head, and secured with a polished bone, while several large rings hung from his ears. Over his shoulders was thrown a large mat cloak, which almost completely enveloped his form. In one hand he carried a musket, more on the present occasion to add to his dignity than for use, as swords were formerly worn by gentlemen in Europe. His companions had their faces tattooed, though in a much less degree than was that of their leader. Some wore merely long kilts round their waists, but many had cloaks of matting. The hair of most of them was cut short, looking like a black mop at the top of their heads. Savages though they looked, they walked with a dignity and freedom that showed they felt their own consequence and independence. They were followed by several women, also clothed in mats, though of a finer texture than those of the men. Their hair hung loosely over their shoulders, and several wore a wreath of flowers or shells, which assisted to keep it off their eyes. Their faces were but slightly tattooed, the chin, and lips only being marked, giving the latter a curious blue look, which Lucy thought detracted much from their otherwise comely appearance. They were walking on either side of a small litter, covered with boughs, and carried by four young men. The party of natives advanced as if about to ascend the hill; but when the chief saw that it was occupied by the tents, he ordered them to halt at its base, and they immediately began to make preparations for encamping, while the young men were sent off towards the woods to collect fuel for the fires and materials for building huts. The litter having been placed on the ground, the women gathered round it, as if much interested in whatever it contained. The chief himself then approached, and the boughs being partially removed, Lucy perceived that its occupant was a young girl. The chief seemed to be speaking to her with tender interest. At length, on seeing Lucy and her companions watching him, he advanced towards them. "Oh! Miss Lucy, let's run away--the savage is coming, and I don't know what he will do," cried Betsy, in great alarm. "I am sure he will not hurt us, from the gentle way he was speaking to the young girl," said Lucy, holding her ground, though she felt a little nervous. "He looks terribly fierce, though," observed Mrs Greening. "But it won't do to run away, as if we were afraid." The chief, whose eye had been fixed on Lucy, now approached her, and pointing to the litter, seemed to invite her to come down and speak to his daughter, for such she felt the girl must be. "Oh miss, don't go," cried Betsy. "You don't know what they will do;" but Lucy, struck by the appearance of the occupant of the litter, was eager to learn more about her, and overcoming any fears she might have felt, at once accompanied the chief. The women made way for her as she got close to the litter. On it reclined, propped up by matting, which served as a pillow, a girl apparently of about her own age. Her complexion was much fairer than that of any of her companions, scarcely darker, indeed, than a Spanish or Italian brunette. No tattoo marks disfigured her lips or chin; her features were regular and well-formed, and her eyes large and clear, though at present their expression betokened that she was suffering pain. She put out her hand towards Lucy, who instinctively gave her her's. "Maori girl ill, berry ill," she said. "Tell pakeha doctor come, or Waihoura die--pakeha doctor make Waihoura well." Although the words may not have been so clearly pronounced as they have been written, Lucy at once understood their meaning. "Oh yes, I will send for a doctor," she answered, hoping that Dr Fraser, the surgeon who came out with them in the ship, would be found on shore. She beckoned to Harry, and told him to run and bring Dr Fraser without delay. The chief comprehended her intentions, and seemed well pleased when Harry and Tobias, who also offered to go, set off towards the village. As no one addressed her, Lucy guessed rightly that the Maori girl was the only person of her party who could speak English, and curious to know how she had learned it, she asked the question. "Waihoura learn speak pakeha tongue of missionary," she answered, "but near forget now," and she put her hand to her brow, as if it ached. "The doctor will come soon, I hope, and give you medicine to make you better," said Lucy, taking the young girl's hand, which felt hot and feverish. Waihoura shook her head, and an expression of pain passed across her countenance. "We will pray to God, then, to make you well," said Lucy. "He can do everything, so be not cast down, but trust Him." The Maori girl fixed her large eyes on her as she was speaking, evidently trying to understand her meaning, though apparently she did not entirely comprehend it. Savage in appearance as were the people who surrounded her, Lucy did not feel afraid of them, while they evidently regarded her with much respect. Betsy having at length gained courage, came down the hill with Mrs Greening. "Poor dear," said the farmer's wife, when she saw the Maori girl. "What she wants is good food, a comfortable bed, and a little careful nursing. If we had our house up, I'll be bound we would bring her round in the course of a few weeks, so that that painted-faced gentleman, her father, would not know her again." "We would make room for her in our tent," said Lucy. "Or, perhaps, her friends would build a hut for her close to it; they probably would soon put one up, and it would be far better for her to remain with us than to return to her home." The chief had been watching them while they were speaking, and seemed to understand that they were discussing some plan for his daughter's benefit. He spoke a few words to her. "What say?" she asked, looking at Lucy, and then pointing to her father. "We wish you to stop here and let us nurse you," said Lucy, trying still further to explain her meaning by signs. The young girl's countenance brightened, showing that she understood what Lucy had said, and wished to accept her offer. Perhaps the remembrance of her stay with the Missionary's family brought some pleasing recollections to her mind. While they were still speaking, a person was seen hurrying along the somewhat dusty road which led from the village, and Lucy soon recognised Mr Nicholas Spears. "Has not he come yet?" he exclaimed, as he drew near. "Dr Fraser, I mean. I met Master Harry, and that big lout Tobias. I beg your pardon, Mrs Greening. I did not see you were there, and so I told them I would find him and send him on; so I did, for I understood from them that a princess, or some great person, wanted his services. If he has not come I must go back and hurry him. Is that the princess? She don't look much like one, however, she may be a princess for all that. Your servant, Miss, and that old gentleman, with the curious marks on his face, is her father, I suppose? Your servant, sir," he added, making the chief a bow with his broad-brimmed hat. The chief bent his head in acknowledgment, and seemed somewhat inclined to rub noses with the little man as a further sign of his good-will; but Mr Spears sprang back in alarm, evidently thinking it safer to keep at a distance from the savage-looking warrior; observing, however, the confidence shown by Lucy and her companions, he walked round them once or twice, gazing at them as if they had been wild beasts at a show. As he passed again near Lucy, she reminded him of his promise to look for Dr Fraser, and much to her satisfaction, off he set at full speed. In a short time the doctor was seen coming along the road, followed by Harry and Tobias. "Oh, Dr Fraser, I am so glad you are come," said Lucy. "Here is a sweet interesting Maori girl, and she is very ill, I fear. Can you do anything for her?" "I am afraid, Miss Lucy, unless she can speak English, or we have an efficient interpreter, there may be some difficulty in ascertaining her disease, but I will do my best." "Oh, she understands a little English," said Lucy, "and seems very intelligent." The doctor approached the litter, and stooping down, remained some time by the girl's side, asking her questions, and endeavouring to comprehend her answers. "Unless I can have her for some time as my patient, I fear, Miss Pemberton, that I cannot do much for her," he said at length. "My lodgings are very small, and I suspect that among the settlers there are none who would be willing to receive her." Lucy then told him of the plan she and Mrs Greening had proposed. "That would certainly afford the best prospect of her recovery," he answered. "If we can explain that to her friends, perhaps they would be willing to allow her to remain." Lucy was very glad to hear this, for she already felt a deep interest in the young Maori girl. "There is her father," said Lucy, pointing to the chief, "perhaps you can make him understand what we propose." "I will try," said Dr Fraser, "but, if not, I must get Mr Clifton, the surveyor, who speaks their language, to explain it to him." The chief, who had been looking on all the time with an expression of anxiety visible on his stern countenance, now drew near, and with the assistance of his daughter, was made to comprehend what their new friends proposed. He stopped some time, apparently considering the matter, and then having consulted with several of his companions, he returned, and taking Lucy's hand, placed it in that of Waihoura, as if confiding her to her care. "But we must make them understand that they must build her a comfortable house," said Lucy. This the doctor managed to do without much difficulty, and leading the chief up the hill, showed the position in which he wished it to be placed. The natives, who appeared to render implicit obedience to their chief, immediately went off to cut timber. The doctor, meantime, marked the dimensions of the building, and showed the height he desired to have it, which was nearly three times that of the ordinary native huts. "We must have a proper door and a couple of windows, too," he remarked. "The poor girl requires fresh air more than anything else, probably she has been shut up in the smoke and heat of a native hut, and unless we have one of a very different character, she will have little chance of recovery." Idle and averse to work, as Lucy heard that the Maoris were, she was pleased to see the rapid way in which they erected the hut. While some dug the holes for the posts, and others cut them down, a third party brought them up the hill. They were evidently surprised at the size of the building, and uttered numerous exclamations of astonishment when the doctor made them understand that it must be in no respect smaller than he proposed. Harry, with James and Tobias, got their spades and levelled the ground for the floor, rendering considerable assistance also in digging the holes. Among the articles Mr Pemberton had brought were several doors and window sashes, intended for his own cottage. Lucy suggested that these should be unpacked, and a door and two windows be used for the hut. "I am sure that my father will not object," she said, "and it will make the house much more comfortable." "I wish that all our countrymen had as much consideration for the natives as you show, Miss Lucy," observed the doctor, "and I feel sure Mr Pemberton will approve of what you propose doing." The door and two windows were accordingly fixed, the Maoris showing themselves very expert carpenters. The doctor having seen that the plan he proposed for the house was likely to be properly carried out, returned to the town to get some medicine, while Mrs Greening arranged a comfortable English bed, in which his patient might be placed. Before nightfall the hut was completely finished. Mrs Greening removed her own bedding to it, that, as she said, she could be at hand to attend to the young native girl; and Dr Fraser having given her some medicine, took his departure, promising to come back, early the next morning. The chief showed by his manner the perfect confidence he placed in his new friends, and leaving his daughter in their charge, he and his companions retired to the foot of the hill, where they spent the night round their camp fire. Lucy sat for some time by the side of Waihoura, who showed no inclination to go to sleep; she evidently was astonished at finding herself in an English bed, and watched over by a fair pakeha girl instead of her own dark-skinned people. She talked on for some time, till at length her words grew more and more indistinct, and closing her eyes, to Lucy's satisfaction, she fell asleep. "Now, do you go back to your tent," said Mrs Greening. "I'll look after the little girl, and if I hear any noise I'll be up in a moment and call you or Betsy; but don't be fancying you will be wanted, the little girl will do well enough, depend on that." Lucy very unwillingly retired to her tent, and was much surprised when she awoke to find that it was already daylight. CHAPTER THREE. IN CAMP. DR FRASER ARRIVES WITH MR MARLOW, A MISSIONARY, WHO RECOGNISES WAIHOURA.--HE PERSUADES HER FATHER TO ALLOW HER TO REMAIN.--RETURN OF MR PEMBERTON, WHO HAS SELECTED HIS LAND, AND BEGINS TO SETTLE ON IT.-- THE FARM DESCRIBED.--HE LEAVES THEM AGAIN FOR IT ACCOMPANIED BY MR SPEARS.--WAIHOURA RECOVERS AND LEARNS ENGLISH, WHILE LUCY LEARNS MAORI.--A VESSEL ARRIVES WITH SHEEP, SOME OF WHICH THE DOCTOR BUYS, AND ARE LOOKED AFTER BY TOBY.--LUCY TRIES TO EXPLAIN THE GOSPEL TO WAIHOURA. "I am not quite happy about her, Miss Lucy," said Mrs Greening, when Lucy, as soon as she was dressed, went into the hut. "If she was an English girl I should know what to do, but these natives have odd ways, which puzzle me." The young Maori girl lay as she had been placed on the bed, with her eyes open, but without moving or speaking. There was a strange wild look in her countenance, so Lucy thought, which perplexed her. "I wish the doctor were here," she said; "if he does not come soon, we will send Harry to look for him." "Little Tobias shall go at once, Miss," answered Mrs Greening. "The run will do him no harm, even if he misses the doctor." Tobias was called, and taking his stick in hand, the young giant set off at a round trot down the hill. Lucy sat watching the sick girl, while Mrs Greening and Betsy made preparations for breakfast. Every now and then she cast an anxious glance through the open doorway, in the hopes of seeing the doctor coming up the hill. "Oh! how sad it would be if she were to die in her present heathen state; when should she recover, she may have an opportunity of learning the blessed truths of the gospel," thought Lucy. "How thankful I should feel could I tell her of the love of Christ, and how He died for her sake, and for that of all who accept the gracious offers of salvation freely made to them. I must try, as soon as possible, to learn her language, to be able to speak to her." Such and similar thoughts occupied Lucy's mind for some time. At length, turning round and looking through the open doorway, she saw several natives coming up the hill. She recognised the first as Waihoura's father. The party approached the hut, and stopped before the entrance. "Dear me, here comes some of those savage-looking natives," exclaimed Mrs Greening. "What shall we say to them? I hope they are not come to take the poor little girl away." "I will try and make them understand that we have sent for the doctor, and that if they wish her to recover, they must let her remain under his charge," said Lucy, rising and going to the door. Though still feeling somewhat nervous in the presence of the Maoris, her anxiety to benefit Waihoura gave her courage, and she endeavoured, by signs, to make the chief understand what she wished. She then led him to the bedside of his daughter, who lay as unconscious as before. He stood for some time gazing down at her, the working of his countenance showing his anxiety. Lucy felt greatly relieved on hearing Toby's voice shouting out, "The doctor's a-coming mother, I ran on before to tell you, and there's a gentleman with him who knows how to talk to the savages." In a short time the doctor arrived, accompanied by an Englishman of middle age, with a remarkably intelligent and benignant expression of countenance. "Mr Marlow kindly agreed to come with me," said Dr Fraser. "He understands the Maori language, and I shall now be able to communicate with my patient, and to explain to her friends what is necessary to be done to afford her a prospect of recovery." "I am afraid she is very ill," said Lucy, as she led the doctor and Mr Marlow into the hut. The latter addressed the young girl in a low gentle voice. At first she paid no attention, but at length her eyes brightened and her lips moved. Mr Marlow continued speaking, a smile lighted up her countenance. She replied, and taking his hand, pressed it to her lips. "I thought so," he said, turning to Lucy, "we are old acquaintances. When still a child, she was for a short time at my missionary school, but her father resisted the truth, and took her away. Through God's providence she may once more have an opportunity of hearing the message of salvation. We must endeavour to persuade Ihaka, her father, to allow her to remain. He loves his daughter, and though unconscious of the value of her soul, for the sake of preserving her life, he may be induced to follow our advice." Dr Fraser, through Mr Marlow, put several questions to Waihoura, and then administered some medicine he had brought, leaving a further portion with Mrs Greening, to be given as he directed. Mr Marlow then addressed Ihaka the chief, who seemed to listen to him with great attention. He told him what the English doctor had said, and urged him, as he loved his daughter, to leave her under his care. Ihaka at first hesitated, unwilling to be separated from his child. Mr Marlow pressed the point with great earnestness, and at length the chief signified his readiness to comply with the doctor's advice. "Tell him if he restores my daughter, I and my people will be friends to him and the pakehas, for his sake, for ever," he said, pointing to Dr Fraser. "The life of your daughter, as well as that of all human beings, is in the hands of the great God who rules this world, and allows not a sparrow to fall to the ground without knowing it," answered Mr Marlow. "The doctor is but His instrument, and can only exert the knowledge which has been given him. To that loving God we will kneel in prayer, and petition that she may be restored to health." Saying this, Mr Marlow summoned the English lads; and Betsy, who had hitherto kept at a distance, and kneeling on the ground, offered up an earnest prayer to God, that if it was in accordance with His will, and for the benefit of the young Maori girl, He would spare her life. All present earnestly repeated the "Amen," with which he concluded his prayer. The savages, during the time, stood round in respectful silence; and, though not understanding the words uttered, were evidently fully aware of the purpose of what had been said. Ihaka once more entering the hut, Waihoura recognised him. Taking her hand, he beckoned Lucy and Mrs Greening to approach, and placed it in theirs, as if confiding her to their charge. "Please, sir," said Mrs Greening to Mr Marlow, "tell the chief we will do the best we can for his little girl. She is a sweet young creature, and I little expected to find such among the savages out here." "They have hearts and souls, my dear lady, as we have, and though their colour is different to ours, God cares for them as He does for us." The chief seemed content, and after again addressing the missionary, he and his people took their departure. "The savages are all going, mother," exclaimed little Tobias some time afterwards, as he came puffing and blowing up the hill. "I could not feel quite comfortable while they were near us, and I am glad that we are rid of them." "We should not judge from outside looks, Tobias," remarked Mrs Greening. "As the good missionary said just now, they have hearts and souls like ours, and I am sure that chief, fierce and savage as he looks, loves his daughter as much as any English father can do." Dr Fraser and Mr Marlow had before this returned to the town, promising to come back in the evening to see how their patient was getting on. The consumption of firewood in the camp was considerable, as Mrs Greening kept up a good fire in the open air for the cooking operations. Harry and Tobias had brought in a supply in the morning, and Harry's hands and clothes gave evidence how hard he had laboured. "We shall want some more wood before morning," observed Mrs Greening, turning to her sons. "I am ready to go again," said Harry, "if James will stay in the camp." "No; Master Harry, its my turn to go if you will stop behind," said James. "If you wish it I'll stay," replied Harry. "One of us ought to remain, or strangers coming up to the camp might be troublesome, and I would not permit that." While James and Tobias set off with axes in their hands, and pieces of rope to bind their faggots, Harry got his gun, and began to march up and down on guard. He evidently considered himself like a sentinel in the presence of an enemy. Now he looked on one side of the hill, now on the other. No person could have entered the camp without receiving his challenge. He had thus been passing up and down for some time, when he caught sight, in the distance, of some persons emerging from the forest. "Here they come," he shouted out, "Papa and Valentine, Mr Greening and Paul, and the two natives who went with them." He was examining them with his spy-glass. "Yes, it's them, and they will soon be here. Pray get supper ready, Mrs Greening; depend upon it they will be very hungry after their long march." Mrs Greening, aided by Betsy, at once got her pots and saucepans on the fire. Harry, though feeling much inclined to run down and meet the party, restrained his eagerness. "A sentry must not quit his post," he said to himself, "though no harm will happen, I'll keep to mine on principle." In a short time Mr Pemberton, with his companions, appeared at the foot of the hill. Lucy ran down to meet them, eager to welcome her father, and to tell him about Waihoura. "I am glad you can be of assistance to the young girl, and it is most desirable that we should be able to show our friendly disposition towards the natives," he observed. "Oh, I do so hope she will recover," said Lucy. "But I am afraid that some time must pass before she is well enough to be moved." "That would decide me in a plan I propose," said Mr Pemberton. "Greening and I have settled our ground, and I hope that we may be put in possession of it in a day or two; we will then leave you here with Harry and Tobias, while we go back and build our houses, and make preparations for your reception." Lucy had expected to set out as soon as the ground was chosen; but as she could not hope that Waihoura would be in a fit state to be moved for some time, she felt that the arrangement now proposed was the best. Mr Pemberton and farmer Greening were highly pleased with the ground they had selected. "We propose to place our houses on the slope of a hill, which rises within a quarter of a mile of the river," he observed. "Greening will take one side and I the other. Our grounds extend from the river to the hill, and a little way beyond it; when the high road is formed, which will, from the nature of the country, pass close to our farm, we shall have both land and water communication. Close also to the foot of the hill, a village probably will be built, so that we shall have the advantage of neighbours. Among other advantages, our land is but slightly timbered, though sufficiently so to afford us an ample supply of wood for building, and as much as we shall require for years to come for fencing and fuel. From the spot I have chosen for our house, we have a view over the country in this direction, so that, with our telescope, we can distinguish the vessels, as they come into the harbour, or pass along the coast." "We shall have plenty of fishing too, Harry," exclaimed Valentine. "And we may, if we go a little distance, fall in with wild boars and plenty of birds, though there are none which we should call game in England." "Oh! how I long to be there, and begin our settlers' life in earnest," said Harry. "I hope the little savage girl will soon get well enough to move." "I wish we could be with you also to help you in the work," said Lucy. "How can you manage to cook without us?" "Valentine and Paul have become excellent cooks, and though we shall miss your society, we shall not starve," observed Mr Pemberton. "Our camp life is a very pleasant one," remarked Valentine. "For my part I shall be rather sorry when it is over, and we have to live inside a house, and go to bed regularly at night." This conversation took place while they were seated at supper on the ground in front of the large tent. It was interrupted by the arrival of Mr Fraser, accompanied by Mr Marlow, to see Waihoura. "She is going on favourably," said the doctor, as he came out; "but she requires great care, and I feel sure that had you not taken charge of her, her life would have been lost. Now, however, I trust that she will recover. Mr Marlow will let her father understand how much he is indebted to you, as it is important that you should secure the friendship a chief of his power and influence." In two days Mr Pemberton and farmer Greening were ready to start for their intended location. Each had purchased a strong horse, and these were harnessed to a light dray, which Mr Pemberton had bought. It was now loaded with all the articles they required, and sufficient provisions and stores to last them till their cottages were put up, and they could return for the rest of the party. By that time it was hoped that the young Maori girl would be in a fit state to be moved. "I will not let her, if I can help it, go back to her own people," said Lucy. "She will become, I am sure, attached to us. I may be of use to her, and she will teach me her language, and it will be interesting to learn from her the habits and customs of the natives." "Yes, indeed, it would be a pity to let the poor little girl turn again into a savage," observed Mr Greening. "I can't fancy that their ways are good ways, or suited to a Christian girl, and that I hope, as Miss Lucy says, she will turn into before long." It had been arranged that Lucy and Betsy should take up their abode in the large tent, in which there was now sufficient room for their accommodation, the small one being packed up for Mr Pemberton's use. The dray being loaded, the farmer went to the horses' heads, and the young men, with the two Maoris, going on either side to keep back the wheels, it slowly descended the hill. "We shall not make a very rapid journey," observed Valentine. "But we shall be content if we come to the end of it in time without a break down." Harry felt very proud at being left in charge of the camp, and Tobias promised that there should be no lack of firewood or water, while he could cut the one, and draw the other from the sparkling stream which ran at the foot of the hill. "We shall do very well, never fear, sir," said Mrs Greening to Mr Pemberton, "and as soon as you and my good man come back, we shall be ready to start." Just as her father had wished Lucy good-bye, Mr Spears, with a pack on his back, and a stout stick in his hand, was observed coming up the hill. "Just in time, neighbour," he exclaimed, as he came up to Mr Pemberton. "I found out, at the surveyor's office, where you had selected your land, and I made up my mind at once to take a piece of ground close to it. As I am all alone, I have only bought a few acres, but that will be enough to build a house on, and to have a garden and paddock. With your leave I'll accompany you. There are several more of our fellow passengers who will select land on the same block when they hear that you and I have settled on it, and we shall soon have, I hope, a pleasant society about us. We shall all be able to help each other; that's the principle I go on." Mr Pemberton told Mr Spears that he was very willing to have him as a companion on the journey, and that he was glad to hear that a settlement was likely soon to be formed near him. He was well aware that the differences of social rank could not be maintained in a new colony, and he had made up his mind to be courteous and kind to all around him, feeling assured that all the respect he could require would thus be paid him by his neighbours. He at once gave a proof of his good intentions. "Your pack is heavy, Mr Spears, and we can easily find room on our waggon for it," he said, and taking off the pack, he secured it to the vehicle which they had just then overtaken. "Thank you, good sir, thank you," answered Mr Spears, as he walked forward, with a jaunty elastic step, highly pleased at being relieved of his somewhat heavy burden. "One good turn deserves another, and I hope that I may have many opportunities of repaying it." Mr Pemberton had promised Lucy to send over, from time to time, to let her know what progress was made, and to obtain intelligence in return from her. Notwithstanding this, she looked forward eagerly to the day when he would come back to take her and the rest of the party to their new abode. Though she did her best to find employment, the time would have hung somewhat heavily on her hands had she not had Waihoura to attend to. The Maori girl, in a short time, so far recovered as to be able to sit up and try to talk. She seemed as anxious to become acquainted with English as Lucy was to learn her language. They both got on very rapidly, for though Waihoura had some difficulty in pronouncing English words, she seldom forgot the name of a thing when she had once learned it. She would ask Lucy to say the word over and over again, then pronouncing it after her. At the end of a week she could speak a good many English sentences. Lucy made almost as rapid progress in Maori, she having the advantage of several books to assist her, and at length the two girls were in a limited degree able to exchange ideas. No one in the camp, however, was idle. Harry, who always kept guard, was busy from morning to night in manufacturing some article which he thought likely to prove useful. Betsy either went with Tobias to cut wood, or bring up water, or assist Mrs Greening, and frequently accompanied her into the town when she went marketing; and sometimes Tobias, when he was not wanted to cut wood, went with his mother. One day he came back with the information that a vessel, which had come to an anchor in the morning, had brought over from Australia several head of cattle, and a large flock of sheep. "I wish father were here, he would be down on the shore, and buying some of them pretty quickly," he exclaimed. "Could we not send to let him know," said Lucy. "Harry, I heard papa say, too, that he wished to purchase a small flock of sheep as soon as he could find any at a moderate price. I should so like to have charge of them. I have always thought the life of a shepherd or shepherdess the most delightful in the world." Harry laughed. "I suspect when it began to rain hard, and your sheep ran away and got lost in the mountains and woods, you would wish yourself sewing quietly by the fireside at home, and your sheep at Jericho," he exclaimed, continuing his laughter. "Still I should be very glad if we could get the sheep, though I am afraid they will all be sold before we can receive papa's answer." While the conversation was going on, Dr Fraser arrived to see Waihoura. Harry told him that he would very much like to send to his father to give notice of the arrival of the sheep. "Would you like to turn shepherd?" asked the doctor. "I should like nothing better, for I could take my books with me, or anything I had to make, and look after the sheep at the same time; it would suit me better than Lucy, who has a fancy to turn shepherdess, and have a crook, and wear a straw hat set on one side of her head, surrounded with a garland, just as we see in pictures." "I suspect Miss Lucy would find home duties more suited to her," said the doctor; "but if you, Harry, will undertake to look after a small flock of sheep, I think I may promise to put one under your charge, and to give you a portion of the increase as payment. I was thinking of buying a hundred sheep, but hesitated from not knowing any one I could trust to to keep them. From what I have seen of you, I am sure you will do your best; and as your father and farmer Greening will probably purchase some more, they will run together till they are sufficiently numerous to form separate flocks. If you will write a letter to your father I will send a messenger off at once," said the doctor. "Indeed, so certain am I that they would wish to purchase some, that I will, when I go back, make an offer for a couple of hundred in addition to mine." The next day the doctor told them that he had purchased the sheep as he had proposed, and he brought a letter from Mr Pemberton thanking him for doing so, and saying that they had made such good progress in their work, that they hoped, in another week, to come back for the rest of the party. "I am rather puzzled to know what to do with the sheep in the meantime," said the doctor. "I cannot entrust them to natives, and there is not a European in the place who has not his own affairs to look after. What do you say, Harry, can you and Tobias take care of them?" "I cannot quit my post," answered Harry, though he was longing to go and see the sheep. "If they were sent up here, I could watch them, but I am afraid they would not remain on the hill while there is better pasture below." "Tobias could take charge of them, sir," said Mrs Greening. "And if we had our old dog `Rough,' I'll warrant not one would go astray." "Rough," who had accompanied farmer Greening all the way from England, had mysteriously disappeared the morning of their arrival; he could not be found before they had quitted the ship, and they had since been unable to discover him. "That is curious," said the doctor; "for this morning, when I bought the sheep, a man offered me a shepherd's dog for sale. I told him that should he not in the meantime have found a purchaser, I would treat with him in the evening after I had seen the dog. Should he prove to be `Rough,' I will not fail to purchase him." Tobias, on hearing this, was very eager to accompany Dr Fraser. "The old dog will know me among a thousand, and the man will have a hard job to hold him in," he observed, grinning from ear to ear. The doctor, after he had seen Waihoura, told Lucy she need have no further anxiety about her friend, who only required good food and care completely to recover. "I must get Mr Marlow to see her father, and persuade him to allow her to remain with you, and he may assure him very truly that she will probably fall ill again if she goes back again to her own people," he said. Tobias accompanied the doctor into the town in the hopes of hearing about his favourite "Rough." He had not been long absent, when back he came with his shaggy friend at his heels. "Here he is mother, here he is Master Harry," he shouted. "I know'd how it would be, the moment he caught sight of me, he almost toppled the man who held him down on his nose, and so he would if the rope hadn't broken, and in another moment he was licking me all over. The doctor gave the man a guinea; but I said it was a shame for him to take it, and so did everybody, for they saw that the dog knew me among twenty or thirty standing round. The man sneaked off, and `Rough' came along with me. Now I must go back and bring the sheep round here to the foot of the hill. There's some ground the surveyor says that we may put them on till we can take them to our own run, but we must give `Rough' his dinner first, for I'll warrant the fellow has not fed him over well." "Rough" wagged his stump of a tail to signify he understood his young master's kind intentions, and Mrs Greening soon got a mess ready, which "Rough" swallowed up in a few moments, and looked up into Toby's face, as much as to say, "what do you want with me next?" "Come along `Rough,' I'll show you," said Toby, as he set off at a round trot down the hill. The party at the camp watched him with no little pleasure, when a short time afterwards, he, with the aid of "Rough," was seen driving a flock of sheep from the town past the hill to a meadow partly enclosed by a stream which made its way into the sea, a short distance off. "Rough" exhibited his wonderful intelligence, as he dashed now on one side, now on the other, keeping the sheep together, and not allowing a single one to stray away. It was a difficult task for Toby and him, for the sheep, long pent up on board ship, made numberless attempts to head off into the interior, where their instinct told them they would find an abundance of pasture. Without the assistance of "Rough," Toby would have found it impossible to guide them into the meadow, and even when there, he and his dog had to exert all their vigilance to keep them together. Harry was sorely tempted to go down to assist. "I must not quit my post though," he said. "As soon as I am relieved, then I'll try if I cannot shepherd as well as Toby. It seems to me that `Rough' does the chief part of the work." The doctor had engaged a couple of natives to assist Toby in looking after the sheep, but he was so afraid of losing any, that he would only come up to the camp for a few minutes at a time to take his meals, and to get "Rough's" food. The Maoris had built him a small hut, where he passed the night, with the flock lying down close to him, kept together by the vigilant dog. The Maoris were, however, very useful in bringing firewood and water to the camp. Waihoura was now well enough to walk about. Lucy had given her one of her own frocks and some other clothes, and she and Betsy took great pains to dress her in a becoming manner, they combed and braided her dark tresses, which they adorned with a few wild flowers that Betsy had picked, and when her costume was complete, Mrs Greening, looking at her with admiration, exclaimed, "Well, I never did think that a little savage girl could turn into a young lady so soon." Waihoura, who had seen herself in a looking-glass, was evidently very well satisfied with her appearance, and clapped her hands with delight, and then ran to Lucy and rubbed her nose against her's, and kissed her, to express her gratitude. "Now that you are like us outside, you must become like us inside," said Lucy, employing a homely way of speaking such as her Maori friend was most likely to understand. "We pray to God, you must learn to pray to Him. We learn about Him in the Book through which He has made Himself known to us as a God of love and mercy, as well as a God of justice, who desires all people to come to Him, and has shown us the only way by which we can come. You understand, all people have disobeyed God, and are rebels, and are treated as such by Him. The evil spirit, Satan, wishes to keep us rebels, and away from God. God in His love desires us to be reconciled to Him; but we all deserve punishment, and He cannot, as a God of justice, let us go unpunished. In His great mercy, however, He permitted another to be punished for us, and He allowed His well-beloved Son Jesus Christ, a part of Himself, to become the person to suffer punishment. Jesus came down on earth to be obedient in all things, because man had been disobedient. He lived a holy pure life, going about doing good, even allowing Himself to be cruelly treated, to be despised and put to shame by the very people among whom He had lived, and to whom He had done so much good. Then, because man justly deserves punishment, He willingly underwent one of the most painful punishments ever thought of, thus suffering instead of man. When nailed to the cross, His side was pierced with a spear, and the blood flowed forth, that the sacrifice might be complete and perfect. Then He rose again, to prove that He was truly God, and that all men will rise from the dead; and He ascended into heaven, there to plead with the Father for all who trust Him, and to claim our freedom from punishment, on the ground that He was punished in our stead." "Jesus sent also, as He had promised, the Holy Spirit to dwell on earth with His people, to be their Comforter, their Guide and Instructor, and to enable them to understand and accept His Father's loving plan of salvation, which He had so fully and completely carried out." "Do you understand my meaning," said Lucy, who felt that she had said more than Waihoura was likely to comprehend. She shook her head. "Lucy not bad woman;" pointing to Mrs Greening, "not bad; Maori girl bad, Maori people very bad," she answered slowly. "God no love Maori people." "But we are all bad when compared to Him--all unfit to go and live in His pure and holy presence," exclaimed Lucy. "And in spite of their wickedness, God loves the Maori people as much as He does us; their souls are of the same value in His sight as ours, and He desires that all should come to Him and be saved." "Why God not take them then, and make them good?" asked Waihoura. "Because He in His wisdom thought fit to create man a free agent, to give him the power of choosing between the good and the evil. Why He allows evil to exist, He has not revealed to us. All we know is that evil does exist, and that Satan is the prince of evil, and tries to spread it everywhere throughout the world. God, if He chose, could overcome evil, but then this world would no longer be a place of trial, as He has thought fit to make it. He has not left man, however, without a means of conquering evil. Jesus Christ came down on earth to present those means to man; they are very simple, and can very easily be made use of; so simple and so easy that man would never have thought of them. Man has nothing to do in order to get rid of his sins, to become pure and holy, and thus fit to live in the presence of a pure and holy God. He has only to put faith in Jesus Christ, who, though free from sin, as I have told you, took our sins upon Himself, and was punished in our stead, while we have only to turn from sin, and to desire not to sin again. We are, however, so prone to sin, that we could not do even this by ourselves; but Christ, knowing our weakness, has, as He promised, when He ascended into heaven, sent His Holy Spirit to be with us to help us to hate sin, and to resist sin." Lucy kept her eyes fixed on her friend to try and ascertain if she now more clearly understood her. Waihoura again shook her head. Lucy felt convinced that her knowledge of English was still too imperfect to enable her to comprehend the subject. "I must try more than ever to learn to speak Maori," she said, "and then perhaps I shall better be able to explain what I mean." "Maori girl want to know much, much, much," answered Waihoura, taking Lucy's hand. "Maori girl soon die perhaps, and then wish to go away where Lucy go." "Ah, yes, it is natural that we should wish to be with those we have loved on earth, but if we understand the surpassing love of Jesus, we should desire far more to go and dwell with Him. Try and remember, Waihoura, that we have a Friend in heaven who loves us more than any earthly friend can do, who knows how weak and foolish and helpless we are, and yet is ever ready to listen to us, and to receive us when we lift up our hearts to Him in prayer." "Maori girl not know how to pray," said Waihoura, sorrowfully. "I cannot teach you," said Lucy, "but if you desire to pray, Jesus can and will send the Holy Spirit I told you of. If you only wish to pray, I believe that you are praying, the mere words you utter are of little consequence, God sees into our hearts, and He knows better than even we ourselves do, whether the spirit of prayer is there." "I am afraid, Miss Lucy, that the little girl can't take in much of the beautiful things you have been saying," observed Mrs Greening, who had all the time been listening attentively. "But I have learned more than I knew before, and I only wish Tobias and the rest of them had been here to listen to you." "I am very sure my father will explain the subject to them more clearly than I can do," said Lucy, modestly. "I have only repeated what he said to me, and what I know to be true, because I have found it all so plainly set forth in God's Word. My father always tells us not to take anything we hear for granted till we find it there, and that it is our duty to search the Scriptures for ourselves. It is because people are often too idle, or too ignorant to do this, that there is so much false doctrine and error among nominal Christians. I hope Mr Marlow will pay us a visit when we are settled in our new home, and bring a Maori Bible with him, and he will be able to explain the truth to Waihoura far better than I can. You will like to learn to read, Waihoura, and we must get some books, and I will try and teach you, and you will teach me your language at the same time." Lucy often spoke on the same subject to her guest; but, as was to be expected, Waihoura very imperfectly understood her. With more experience she would have known that God often thinks fit to try the faith and patience even of the most earnest and zealous Christians who are striving to make known the truth of the gospel to others. The faithful missionary has often toiled on for years among the heathen before he has been allowed to see the fruit of his labours. CHAPTER FOUR. SETTLING DOWN. RETURN OF WAGGON TO THE CAMP FOR LUCY AND THE REST OF THE PARTY, WHO SET OFF FOR THE FARM.--SCENERY ON THE ROAD.--ARRIVAL AT FARM.--MR SPEARS AGAIN.--PLANS FOR THE FUTURE. "Here comes the waggon," shouted Harry, as he stood on the brow of the hill waving his hat. "There's farmer Greening and Val. Papa has sent for us at last." Harry was right, and Val announced that he had come for all the lighter articles, including Lucy and her companions, who were to set out at once with farmer Greening, while he, with a native, remained to take care of the heavier goods. The waggon was soon loaded, leaving places within it for Lucy and Waihoura, Mrs Greening and Betsy insisting on walking. "Now Val, I hand over my command to you, and see that you keep as good a watch as I have done," said Harry, as he shook hands with his brother. "I must go and take charge of the sheep." Valentine smiled at the air of importance Harry had assumed. "There's the right stuff in the little fellow," he said to himself, as he watched him and young Tobias driving the sheep in the direction the waggon had taken. Lucy was delighted with the appearance of the country, as they advanced, though she could not help wishing very frequently that the road had been smoother; indeed, the vehicle bumped and rolled about so much at times that she fully expected a break down. Waihoura, who had never been in a carriage before, naturally supposed that this was the usual way in which such vehicles moved along, and therefore appeared in no degree alarmed. She pointed out to Lucy the names of the different trees they passed, and of the birds which flew by. Lucy was struck with the beauty of the fern trees, their long graceful leaves springing twenty and thirty feet from the ground; some, indeed, in sheltered and damp situations, were twice that height, having the appearance of the palm trees of tropical climates. The most beautiful tree was the rimu, which rose without a branch to sixty or seventy feet, with graceful drooping foliage of a beautiful green, resembling clusters of feathers; then there was the kahikatea, or white pine, resembling the rimu in foliage, but with a light coloured bark. One or two were seen rising ninety feet high without a branch. There were numerous creepers, some bearing very handsome flowers, and various shrubs; one, the karaka, like a large laurel, with golden coloured berries in clusters, which contrasted finely with the glossy greenness of its foliage. Some of the fruits were like large plums, very tempting in appearance; but when Lucy tasted some, which the farmer picked for her, she was much disappointed in their flavour. The best was the poro poro, which had a taste between that of apple peel and a bad strawberry. Birds were flitting about from tree to tree; the most common was the tui, with a glossy black plumage, and two white feathers on the throat like bands, and somewhat larger than an English blackbird, which appeared always in motion, now darting up from some low bush to the topmost bough of a lofty tree, when it began making a number of strange noises, with a wonderful volume of tone. If one tui caught sight of another, they commenced fighting, more in sport, apparently, than in earnest, and ending with a wild shout; they would throw a summer-set or two, and then dart away into the bush to recommence their songs and shouts. There was a fine pigeon, its plumage richly shaded with green purple and gold, called the kukupa. Occasionally they caught sight of a large brown parrot, marked with red, flying about the tops of the tallest trees, and uttering a loud and peculiar cry; this was the kaka. Waihoura pointed out to Lucy another bird of the parrot tribe, of a green plumage, touched with gold about the head, and which she called the kakarica. As the waggon could only proceed at a snail's pace, they had made good but half the distance, when they had to stop for dinner by the side of a bright stream which ran through the forest. The horses, which were tethered, cropped the grass, and Mrs Greening unpacked her cooking utensils. While dinner was getting ready, Waihoura led Lucy along the bank of the stream to show her some more birds. They saw several, among them an elegant little fly-catcher, with a black and white plumage, and a delicate fan-tail, which flew rapidly about picking up sun-flies; this was the tirakana. And there was another pretty bird, the makomako, somewhat like a green linnet. Several were singing together, and their notes reminded Lucy of the soft tinkling of numerous little bells. They had seen nothing of Harry and Tobias with the sheep since starting, and farmer Greening began to regret that he had not sent one of his elder sons to drive them. "Never fear, father," observed Mrs Greening, "our little Tobias has got a head on his shoulders, and so has Master Harry, and with `Rough' to help them, they will get along well enough." Mrs Greening was right, and just as the horses were put too, "Rough's" bark was heard through the woods. In a short time the van of the flock appeared, with a native, who walked first to show the way. Though "Rough" had never been out in the country before, he seemed to understand its character, and the necessity of compelling the sheep to follow the footsteps of the dark-skinned native before them. "It's capital fun," cried Harry, as soon as he saw Lucy. "We have to keep our eyes about us though, when coming through the wood especially, but we have not let a single sheep stray away as yet." "Well, boys, our fire is still burning, and my missus has cooked food enough for you all," said farmer Greening. "So you may just take your dinner, and come on after us as fast as you can." "We will not be long," answered Harry. "Hope, mother, you have left some bones for `Rough' though," said Toby. "He deserves his dinner as much as any of us." "Here's a mess I put by for him to give when we got to the end of our journey," answered Mrs Greening, drawing out a pot which she had stowed away in the waggon. She called to "Rough," who quickly gobbled it up. The waggon then moved on, while Harry and his companions sat round the fire to discuss their dinner. "Rough," in the meantime, vigilantly keeping the sheep together. The remainder of the journey was found more difficult than the first part had been. Sometimes they had to climb over steep ranges, when the natives assisted at the wheels, while Mrs Greening and Betsy pushed behind; then they had to descend on the other side, when a drag was put on, and the wheels held back. Several wide circuits had to be made to avoid hills on their way, and even when over level ground, the fern in many places was so very thick that it was rather hard work for the horses to drag the waggon through it. "This is a rough country," observed Mrs Greening, as she trudged on by her husband's side. "I didn't expect to see the like of it." "Never fear, dame," answered the farmer. "In a year or two we shall have a good road between this and the port, and a coach-and-four may be running on it." At length the last range was passed, and they reached a broad open valley, with a fine extent of level ground. In the distance rose a hill, with a sparkling river flowing near it, and thickly wooded heights. Further on beyond, it appeared a bold range of mountains, their highest peaks capped with snow. "This is, indeed, a beautiful scene," exclaimed Lucy. "That's our home, Miss," said the farmer, pointing to the hill. "If your eyes could reach as far, you would just see the roof of your new house among the trees. We shall come well in sight of it before long." The waggon now moved on faster, as the fern had been cut away or trampled down, and the horses seemed to know that they were getting near home. Mr Pemberton and the farmer's sons came down to welcome them, and to conduct them up to the house. Lucy was surprised to find what progress had already been made. The whole of it was roofed over, and the room she was to occupy was completely finished. The building was not very large. It consisted of a central hall, with two bed-rooms on either side, and a broad verandah running entirely round it; behind it were some smaller detached buildings for the kitchen and out-houses. In front and on one side a space was marked off for a flower garden, beyond which, extending down the side of the hill to the level ground, was a large space which Mr Pemberton said he intended for the orchard and kitchen garden. On that side of the house were sheds for the waggons and horses, though now occupied by the native labourers. "They consider themselves magnificently lodged," said Mr Pemberton. "And they deserve it, for they worked most industriously, and enabled me to put up the house far more rapidly than I had expected. I believe, however, that they would have preferred the native wahre, with the heat and smoke they delight in, to the larger hut I have provided for them, and I have been sometimes afraid they would burn it down with the huge fire they made within." Farmer Greening's cottage, which was a little way round on the other side of the hill, was built on a similar plan to Mr Pemberton, but it was not so far advanced. "You must blame me, Mrs Greening, for this," said Mr Pemberton. "Your husband insisted on helping me with my house before he would begin yours, declaring that he should have the advantage of having mine as a model. I hope, therefore, that you will take up your abode with us till yours is finished, as Harry and I can occupy the tent in the meantime." Mrs Greening gladly accepted the invitation; she thought, indeed, that she should be of use to Lucy in getting the house in order. The sitting-room was not yet boarded, but a rough table had been put in it, and round this the party were soon seated at tea. "Beg pardon, I hope I don't intrude, just looked in to welcome you and my good friend Mrs Greening to `Riverside.' Glad to find that you have arrived safe. Well, to be sure, the place is making wonderful progress, we have three families already arrived in the village, and two more expected tomorrow, and I don't know how many will follow. I have been helping my new friends to put up their houses, and have been obliged to content myself with a shake-down of fern in the corner of a shed; but we settlers must make up our minds to rough it, Mr Pemberton, and I hope to get my own house up in the course of a week or two." These words were uttered by Mr Nicholas Spears, who stood poking his head into the room at the doorway, as if doubtful whether he might venture to enter. "I thank you for your kind inquiries, Mr Spears," said Mr Pemberton, who, though he could not feel much respect for the little man, treated him, as he did everybody else, with courtesy. "If you have not had your tea come in and take a seat at our board. We have but a three-legged stool to offer you." This was just what Mr Spears wished; and sitting down he began forthwith to give the party all the news of the settlement. From his account Lucy was glad to find that two families, one that of a naval, the other of a military officer, who had just arrived in the colony, had taken land close to theirs, and were about to settle on it. Although the midsummer day was drawing to a close, Harry and Toby, with the sheep, had not yet made their appearance. Paul and James went off to meet them, and take the flock where they were to remain for the night, so as to relieve the boys of their charge. There was a fine bright moon, so they would have no difficulty in finding their way. Not long afterwards Harry's voice was heard, echoed by Toby's, shouting to the sheep, and the two boys rushed up to the house. "Here we are, papa," cried Harry. "We have brought the sheep along all safe, and now Paul and James have got charge of them, we may eat our supper with good consciences." Mrs Greening quickly placed a plentiful meal before the two young shepherds, who did ample justice to it. "We must get some cows, farmer, if we can procure any at a moderate price, when you next go back to town," said Mr Pemberton. "That's just what I was thinking," answered the farmer. "And some pigs and poultry," added Mrs Greening. "I should not think myself at home without them, and Miss Lucy and Betsy will be wanting some to look after." "And a few goats, I suspect, would not be amiss," observed the farmer. "I saw several near the town, and I hear they do very well." Waihoura, who was listening attentively to all that was said, seemed to comprehend the remark about the goats, and made Lucy understand that she had several at her village, and she should like to send for some of them. Supper being over, Mr Pemberton, according to his usual custom, read a chapter in the Bible, and offered up evening prayer; and after Mr Spears had taken his departure, and the rest of the family had retired to their respective dormitories, heaps of fern serving as beds for most of them, Mr Pemberton and the farmer sat up arranging their plans for the future. The latter agreed to return to town the next day to bring up the remainder of the stores, and to make the proposed purchases. Although they all knew that at no great distance there were several villages inhabited by savages, till lately, notorious for their fierce and blood-thirsty character, they lay down to sleep with perfect confidence, knowing that the missionary of the gospel had been among them, and believing that a firm friendship had been established between them and the white occupants of their country. CHAPTER FIVE. IHAKA'S VISIT. LIFE AT RIVERSIDE.--WAIHOURA BEGINS TO LEARN THE TRUTH.--HER FATHER, ACCOMPANIED BY SEVERAL CHIEFS, COMES TO TAKE HER TO HIS PAH, AND SHE QUITS HER FRIENDS AT RIVERSIDE. The settlement made rapid progress. In the course of a few weeks Mr Pemberton's and farmer Greening's houses were finished, their gardens dug and planted; and they had now, in addition to the sheep, which Harry and Toby continued to tend, several cows and pigs and poultry. Lucy, assisted by Betsy, was fully occupied from morning till night; she, however, found time to give instruction to Waihoura, while Mr Pemberton or Valentine assisted Harry in his studies. He seldom went out without a book in his pocket, so that he might read while the vigilant "Rough" kept the sheep together. Several other families had bought land in the neighbourhood, and had got up their cottages. Some of them were very nice people, but they, as well as Lucy, were so constantly engaged, that they could see very little of each other. The Maoris employed by Mr Pemberton belonged to Ihaka's tribe, and through them he heard of his daughter. He had been so strongly urged by Mr Marlow to allow her to remain with her white friends, that he had hitherto abstained from visiting her, lest, as he sent word, he should be tempted to take her away. Lucy was very glad of this, as was Waihoura. The two girls were becoming more and more attached to each other, and they dreaded the time when they might be separated. "Maori girl wish always live with Lucy--never, never part," said Waihoura, as one evening the two friends sat together in the porch, bending over a picture-book of Scripture subjects, with the aid of which Lucy was endeavouring to instruct her companion. Lucy's arm was thrown round Waihoura's neck, while Betsy, who had finished her work, stood behind them, listening to the conversation, and wondering at the way her young mistress contrived to make herself understood. "God does not always allow even the dearest friends to remain together while they dwell on earth," replied Lucy to Waihoura's last remark. "I used to wish that I might never leave my dear mother; but God thought fit to take her to Himself. I could not have borne the parting did not I know that I should meet her in heaven." "What place heaven?" asked Waihoura. "Jesus has told us that it is the place where we shall be with Him, where all is love, and purity, and holiness, and where we shall meet all who have trusted to Him while on earth, and where there will be no more parting, and where sorrow and sickness, and pain, and all things evil, will be unknown." "Maori girl meet Lucy in heaven?" said Waihoura, in a tone which showed she was asking a question. "I am sure you will," said Lucy, "if you learn to love Jesus and do His will." Waihoura was silent for some minutes, a sad expression coming over her countenance. "Maori girl too bad, not love Jesus enough," she said. "No one is fitted for heaven from their own merits or good works, and we never can love Jesus as much as He deserves to be loved. But He knows how weak and wayward we are, and all He asks us is to try our best to love and serve Him, to believe that He was punished instead of us, and took our sins upon Himself, and He then, as it were, clothes us with His righteousness. He hides our sins, or puts them away, so that God looks upon us as if we were pure and holy, and free from sin, and so will let us come into a pure and holy heaven, where no unclean things--such as are human beings--of themselves can enter. Do you understand me?" Waihoura thought for some time, and then asked Lucy again to explain her meaning. At length her countenance brightened. "Just as if Maori girl put on Lucy's dress, and hat and shawl over face, and go into a pakeha house, people say here come pakeha girl." "Yes," said Lucy, inclined to smile at her friend's illustration of the truth. "But you must have a living faith in Christ's sacrifice; and though the work and the merit is all His, you must show, by your love and your life, what you think, and say, and do, that you value that work. If one of your father's poor slaves had been set free, and had received a house and lands, and a wife, and pigs, and many other things from him, ought not the slave to remain faithful to him, and to try and serve him, and work for him more willingly than when he was a slave? That is just what Jesus Christ requires of those who believe in Him. They were slaves to Satan and the world, and to many bad ways, and He set them free. He wants all such to labour for Him. Now He values the souls of people more than anything else, and He wishes His friends to make known to others the way by which their souls may be saved. He also wishes people to live happily together in the world; and He came on earth to show us the only way in which that can be done. He proved to us, by His example, that we can only be happy by being kind, and gentle, and courteous to others, helping those who are in distress, doing to others as we should wish they would do to us. If, therefore, we really love Jesus, and have a living active faith in Him, we shall try to follow His example in all things. If all men lived thus, the gospel on earth would be established, there would be really peace and good will among men." "Very different here," said Waihoura. "Maori people still quarrel, and fight, and kill. In pakeha country they good people love Jesus, and do good, and no bad." "I am sorry to say that though there are many who do love Jesus, there are far more who do not care to please Him, and that there is much sin, and sorrow, and suffering in consequence. Oh, if we could but find the country where all loved and tried to serve Him! If all the inhabitants of even one little island were real followers of Jesus, what a happy spot it would be." Waihoura sighed. "Long time before Maori country like that." "I am afraid that it will be a long time before any part of the world is like that," said Lucy. "But yet it is the duty of each separate follower of Jesus to try, by the way he or she lives, to make it so. Oh, how watchful we should be over ourselves and all our thoughts, words and acts, and remembering our own weakness and proneness to sin, never to be trusting to ourselves, but ever seeking the aid of the Holy Spirit to help us." Lucy said this rather to herself than to her companion. Indeed, though she did her best to explain the subject to Waihoura, and to draw from her in return the ideas she had received, she could not help acknowledging that what she had said was very imperfectly understood by the Maori girl. She was looking forward, however, with great interest, to a visit from Mr Marlow, and she hoped that he, from speaking the native language fluently, would be able to explain many points which she had found beyond her power to put clearly. The work of the day being over, the party were seated at their evening meal. A strange noise was heard coming from the direction of the wahre, which the native labourers had built for themselves, a short distance from the house. Harry, who had just then come in from his shepherding, said that several natives were collected round the wahre, and that they were rubbing noses, and howling together in chorus. "I am afraid they have brought some bad news, for the tears were rolling down their eyes, and altogether they looked very unhappy," he remarked. Waihoura, who partly understood what Harry had said, looked up and observed-- "No bad news, only meet after long time away." Still she appeared somewhat anxious, and continued giving uneasy glances at the door. Valentine was about to go out to make inquiries, when Ihaka, dressed in a cloak of flax, and accompanied by several other persons similarly habited, appeared at the door. Waihoura ran forward to meet him. He took her in his arms, rubbed his nose against hers, and burst into tears, which also streamed down her cheeks. After their greeting was over, Mr Pemberton invited the chief and his friends to be seated, fully expecting to hear that he had come to announce the death of some near relative. The chief accepted the invitation for himself and one of his companions, while the others retired to a distance, and sat down on the ground. Ihaka's companion was a young man, and the elaborate tattooing on his face and arms showed that he was a chief of some consideration. Both he and Ihaka behaved with much propriety, and their manners were those of gentlemen who felt themselves in their proper position; but as Lucy noticed the countenance of the younger chief, she did not at all like its expression. The tattoo marks always give a peculiarly fierce look to the features; but, besides this, as he cast his eyes round the party, and they at last rested on Waihoura, Lucy's bad opinion of him was confirmed. Ihaka could speak a few sentences of English, but the conversation was carried on chiefly through Waihoura, who interpreted for him. The younger chief seldom spoke; when he did, either Ihaka or his daughter tried to explain his meaning. Occasionally he addressed her in Maori, when she hung down her head, or turned her eyes away from him, and made no attempt to interpret what he had said. Mr Pemberton knew enough of the customs of the natives not to inquire the object of Ihaka's visit, and to wait till he thought fit to explain it. Lucy had feared, directly he made his appearance, that he had come to claim his daughter, and she trembled lest he should declare that such was his intention. Her anxiety increased when supper was over, and he began, in somewhat high-flown language, to express his gratitude to her and Mr Pemberton for the care they had taken of Waihoura. He then introduced his companion as Hemipo, a Rangatira, or chief of high rank, his greatly esteemed and honoured friend, who, although not related to him by the ties of blood, might yet, he hoped, become so. When he said this Waihoura cast her eyes to the ground, and looked greatly distressed, and Lucy, who had taken her hand, felt it tremble. Ihaka continued, observing that now, having been deprived of the company of his daughter for many months, though grateful to the friends who had so kindly sheltered her, and been the means of restoring her to health, he desired to have her return with him to his pah, where she might assist in keeping the other women in order, and comfort and console him in his wahre, which had remained empty and melancholy since the death of her mother. Waihoura, though compelled to interpret this speech, made no remark on it; but Lucy saw that the tears were trickling down her cheeks. Mr Pemberton, though very sorry to part with his young guest, felt that it would be useless to beg her father to allow her to remain after what he had said. Lucy, however, pleaded hard that she might be permitted to stay on with them sometime longer. All she could say, however, was useless; for when the chief appeared to be yielding, Hemipo said something which made him keep to his resolution, and he finally told Waihoura that she must prepare to accompany him the following morning. He and Hemipo then rose, and saying that they would sleep in the wahre, out of which it afterwards appeared they turned the usual inhabitants, they took their departure. Waihoura kept up her composure till they were gone, and then throwing herself on Lucy's neck, burst into tears. "Till I came here I did not know what it was to love God, and to try and be good, and to live as you do, so happy and peaceable, and now I must go back and be again the wild Maori girl I was before I came to you, and follow the habits of my people; and worse than all, Lucy, from what my father said, I know that he intends me to marry the Rangatira Hemipo, whom I can never love, for he is a bad man, and has killed several cookies or slaves, who have offended him. He is no friend of the pakehas, and has often said he would be ready to drive them out of the country. He would never listen either to the missionaries; and when the good Mr Marlow went to his pah, he treated him rudely, and has threatened to take his life if he has the opportunity. Fear only of what the pakehas might do has prevented him." Waihoura did not say this in as many words, but she contrived, partly in English and partly in her own language, to make her meaning understood. Lucy was deeply grieved at hearing it, and tried to think of some means for saving Waihoura from so hard a fate. They sat up for a long time talking on the subject, but no plan which Lucy could suggest afforded Waihoura any consolation. "I will consult my father as to what can be done," Lucy said at last; "or when Mr Marlow comes, perhaps he can help us." "Oh no, he can do nothing," answered Waihoura, bursting into tears. "We must pray, then, that God will help us," said Lucy. "He has promised that He will be a present help in time of trouble." "Oh yes, we will pray to God. He only can help us," replied the Maori girl, and ere they lay down on their beds they together offered up their petitions to their Father in heaven for guidance and protection; but though they knew that that would not be withheld, they could not see the way in which it would be granted. Next morning Waihoura had somewhat recovered her composure. Lucy and Mrs Greening insisted on her accepting numerous presents, which she evidently considered of great value. Several of the other settlers in the neighbourhood, who had become acquainted with the young Maori girl, and had heard that she was going away, brought up their gifts. Waihoura again gave way to tears when the moment arrived for her final parting with Lucy; and she was still weeping as her father led her off, surrounded by his attendants, to return to his pah. CHAPTER SIX. AMONG THE MAORIS. RIVERSIDE.--MR MARLOW THE MISSIONARY, VISITS THE PEMBERTONS.--LUCY AND HER FRIENDS VISIT IHAKA.--A NATIVE PAH DESCRIBED.--A FEAST--NATIVE AMUSEMENTS.--RETURN TO RIVERSIDE. The appearance of Riverside had greatly improved since Mr Pemberton and farmer Greening had settled there. They had each thirty or forty acres under cultivation, with kitchen gardens and orchards, and Lucy had a very pretty flower garden in front of the cottage, with a dairy and poultry yard, and several litters of pigs. Harry's flock of sheep had increased threefold, and might now be seen dotting the plain as they fed on the rich grasses which had sprung up where the fern had been burnt. There were several other farms in the neighbourhood, and at the foot of the hill a village, consisting of a dozen or more houses, had been built, the principal shop in which was kept by Mr Nicholas Spears. The high road to the port was still in a very imperfect state, and the long talked of coach had not yet begun to run. Communication was kept up by means of the settlers waggons, or by the gentlemen, who took a shorter route to it on horseback. Mr Marlow at length paid his long promised visit. Lucy eagerly inquired if he had seen Waihoura. "I spent a couple of days at Ihaka's pah on my way here," he replied, "and I am sorry to say that your young friend appears very unhappy. Her father seems resolved that she shall marry Hemipo, notwithstanding that he is a heathen, as he has passed his word to that effect. I pointed out to him the misery he would cause her; and though he loves his child, yet I could not shake him. He replied, that a chief's word must not be broken, and that perhaps Waihoura's marriage may be the means of converting her husband. I fear that she would have little influence over him, as even among his own people he is looked upon as a fierce and vindictive savage." "Poor Waihoura!" sighed Lucy. "Do you think her father would allow her to pay us another visit? I should be so glad to send and invite her." "I am afraid not," answered Mr Marlow. "Ihaka himself, though nominally a Christian, is very lukewarm; and though he was glad to have his daughter restored to health, he does not value the advantage she would derive from intercourse with civilised people. However, you can make the attempt, and I will write a letter, which you can send by one of his people who accompanied me here." The letter was written, and forthwith despatched. In return Ihaka sent an invitation to the pakeha maiden and her friends to visit him and his daughter at his pah. Mr Marlow advised Lucy to accept it. "The chief's pride possibly prevents him from allowing his daughter to visit you again, until, according to his notions, he has repaid you for the hospitality you have shown her," he observed. "You may feel perfectly secure in going there; and, at all events, you will find the visit interesting, as you will have an opportunity of seeing more of the native customs and way of living than you otherwise could." Mr Pemberton, after some hesitation, agreed to the proposal, and Valentine undertook to escort his sister. Harry said he should like to go; "but then about the sheep--I cannot leave them for so long," he said. James Greening offered to look after his flock during his absence. A lady, Miss Osburn, a very nice girl, who was calling on Lucy, expressed a strong wish to accompany her. "I think that I am bound to go with you, as I have advised the expedition, and feel myself answerable for your safe conduct," said Mr Marlow. "I may also prove useful as an interpreter, and should be glad of an opportunity of again speaking to Ihaka and his people." A message was accordingly sent to the chief, announcing the intention of Lucy and her friends to pay a visit to his pah. The road, though somewhat rough, was considered practicable for the waggon, which was accordingly got ready. They were to start at daybreak, and as the pah was about twelve miles off, it was not expected that they would reach it till late in the afternoon. Two natives had been sent by Ihaka to act as guides, and as they selected the most level route, the journey was performed without accident. About the time expected they came in sight of a rocky hill rising out of the plain, with a stream running at its base. On the summit appeared a line of palisades, surmounted by strange looking figures, mounted on poles, while in front was a gateway, above which was a larger figure, with a hideous countenance, curiously carved and painted. The natives pointed, with evident pride, at the abode of their chief. As the path to it was far too steep to allow of the waggon going up it, Lucy and her friend got out to ascend on foot. As they did so, the chief and a number of his people emerged from the gateway, and came down to meet them. The usual salutations were offered, and the chief, knowing the customs of his guests, did not offer to rub noses. Lucy inquired anxiously for Waihoura. She was, according to etiquette, remaining within to receive her visitors. After passing through a gateway, they found a second line of stockades, within which was a wide place occupied by numerous small wahres, while at the further end stood two of somewhat larger size, ornamented with numerous highly carved wooden figures. On one side was a building, raised on carved posts, with a high-pitched roof--it was still more highly ornamented than the others, in grotesque patterns, among which the human face predominated. This latter was the chief's store-house, and it was considerably larger and handsomer than his own abode. The dwelling-houses were of an oblong shape, about sixteen feet long and eight wide, with low walls, but high sloping roofs; the doors were so low that it was necessary to stoop when entering. The roofs were thatched with rampo, a plant which grows in the marshes; and the walls were of the same material, thickly matted together, so as to keep out both rain and wind. As the party advanced, Waihoura appeared from her wahre, and throwing her arms on Lucy's neck, began to weep as if her heart would break. She then conducted her friends into the interior, while the chief took charge of Mr Marlow, Valentine, and Harry. Waihoura's abode was clean and neat, the ground on each side covered thickly with fern, on the top of which mats were placed to serve as couches. Here the Maori girl begged her guests to be seated, and having recovered her composure, she thanked Lucy warmly for coming, and made inquiries about her friends at Riverside. She smiled and laughed, and became so animated, that she scarcely appeared like the same person she had been a few minutes before. She became very grave, however, when Lucy asked if her father still insisted on her marrying Hemipo. "He does," she answered, in a sad tone. "But I may yet escape, and I will, if I can, at all risks." She pressed her lips together, and looked so firm, that Lucy hoped that she would succeed in carrying out her resolution. Their conversation was interrupted by a summons to a feast, which the chief had prepared, to do honour to his guests. In the centre of the pah a scaffold was erected, with bars across it, on which were hung up various fish, pieces of pork, and wild-fowl, while on the top were baskets full of sweet and ordinary potatoes, and a variety of other vegetables; and a number of women were employed in cooking, in ovens formed in the ground. These ovens were mere holes filled with hot stones, on the top of which the provisions were placed, and then covered up with leaves and earth. In deference to the customs of their white friends, the natives had prepared seats for them, composed of fern and mats, in the shade of the chief's wahre, while they themselves sat round, at a respectful distance, on the ground, in the hot sun. When all were arranged, the chief, wrapped in his cloak, walked into the centre, and marching backwards and forwards, addressed the party, now turning to his guests, now to his countrymen, the rapidity of his movements increasing, till he appeared to have worked himself into a perfect fury. Waihoura, who sat by Lucy's side, begged her and her friend not to be alarmed, he was merely acting according to custom. Suddenly he stopped, and wrapping his cloak around him, sat down on the ground. Mr Marlow considered this a good opportunity of speaking to the people, and rising, he walked into their midst. His address, however, was very different to that of the chief's. He reminded them that God, who rules the world, had given them all the food he saw there collected; that He desires to do good to the bodies of men, and to enable them to live in happiness and plenty; but that He loves their souls still more, and that He who had provided them with the food was ready to bestow on them spiritual blessings, to feed their souls as well as their bodies: that their bodies must perish, but that their souls must live for ever--He had sent the missionaries to them with His message of love, and He grieved that they were often more ready to accept only the food for their bodies, and to reject that which He offers for their souls. Much more he spoke to the same effect, and explained all that God, their Father had done for them when they were banished for their sins, to enable them again to become His dear children. Earthly fathers, he continued, are too often ready to sacrifice their children for their own advantage, regardless of their happiness here and of their eternal welfare. Ihaka winced when he heard these remarks, and fixed his eyes on the speaker, but said nothing. Other chiefs, who had come as guests, also spoke. Lucy was glad to find that Hemipo was not among them. The feast then commenced, the provisions were handed round in neat clean baskets to each guest. Ihaka had provided plates and knives and forks for his English friends, who were surprised to find the perfect way in which the fish and meat, as well as the vegetables, were cooked. After the feast, the young people hurried out of the pah towards a post stuck in the ground, on one side of a bank, with ropes hanging from the top; each one seized a rope, and began running round and round, now up, now down the bank, till their feet were lifted off the ground, much in the way English boys amuse themselves in a gymnasium. In another place a target was set up, at which the elder boys and young men threw their spears, composed of fern stems, with great dexterity. Several kites, formed of the flat leaves of a kind of sedge, were also brought out and set flying, with songs and shouts, which increased as the kite ascended higher and higher. A number of the young men exhibited feats of dancing, which were not, however, especially graceful, nor interesting to their guests. When the sun set the party returned to the pah. Mr Marlow, accompanied by Val, went about among the people, addressing them individually, and affording instruction to those who had expressed an anxiety about their souls. Ihaka had provided a new wahre for his visitors, while Waihoura accommodated Lucy and Miss Osburn in her hut. Lucy had hoped to persuade Ihaka to allow his daughter to return with her, but he made various excuses, and Waihoura expressed her fears that she was not allowed to go on account of Hemipo, who objected to her associating with her English friends. Next morning the party set out on their return, leaving Waihoura evidently very miserable, and anxious about the future. They had got a short distance from the pah, when a chief with several attendants passed them, and Lucy felt sure, from the glimpse she got of his features, that he was Hemipo, especially as he did not stop, and only offered them a distant salutation. Mr Marlow again expressed his regret that he had been unable to move Ihaka. "Still, I believe, that he is pricked in his conscience, and he would be glad of an opportunity of being released from his promise," he remarked. "The chief considers himself, however, in honour bound to perform it, though he is well aware that it must lead to his daughter's unhappiness. I do not, however, suppose that he is biased by any fears of the consequences were he to break off the marriage, though probably if he did so Hemipo would attack the fort, and attempt to carry off his bride by force." When the party got back to Riverside, their friends were very eager to hear an account of their visit, and several regretted that they had not accompanied them. "Who would have thought, Miss Lucy, when we first came here, that you would ever have slept inside one of those savage's huts!" exclaimed Mrs Greening. "My notion was, that they would as likely as not eat anybody up who got into their clutches; but I really begin to think that they are a very decent, good sort of people, only I do wish the gentlemen would not make such ugly marks on their faces--it does not improve them, and I should like to tell them so." CHAPTER SEVEN. THE BEGINNING OF TROUBLE. PROSPEROUS CONDITION OF THE SETTLEMENT--MR PEMBERTON AND HIS SONS GO OUT SHOOTING.--WAIHOURA IS OBSERVED FLYING FROM HEMIPO, WHO FIRES AND WOUNDS HER.--RESCUED BY MR PEMBERTON AND TAKEN TO RIVERSIDE.--VAL GOES FOR DR FRASER.--ON THEIR RETURN, RAHANA, A NATIVE CHIEF, SAVES THEIR LIVES.--IHAKA ARRIVES WITH HIS FOLLOWERS TO DEFEND THE FARM, AS ALSO DO RAHANA'S, BUT NO ENEMY APPEARS, AND THEY, WITH WAIHOURA, RETURN TO IHAKA'S PAH. The little settlement went on prosperously, the flocks and herds increased, and more land was brought under cultivation; the orchards were producing fruit, and the kitchen gardens an abundance of vegetables. There had been outbreaks of the natives in the northern part of the island, but those in their immediate neighbourhood were supposed to be peaceably disposed, and friendly towards the English. Lucy had been for some time expecting to hear from Waihoura, and she feared, from the last account she had received from her, that the marriage the poor girl so much dreaded with Hemipo, might soon take place. "I am afraid it can't be helped," observed Mrs Greening, who was trying to console her. "After all, he is her own countryman, and maybe she will improve him when they marry." "Oh, but I mourn for her because he is a heathen, and a cruel bad man," said Lucy, "and I am sure she is worthy of a better fate." Mr Pemberton and Valentine had shortly after this gone out with their guns to shoot some wild-fowl which had visited the banks of the river. The young Pembertons and Greenings had built a boat, and as the birds appeared more numerous on the opposite side, Harry, who met them, offered to paddle them across. While Harry remained in the canoe, they proceeded up a small stream which ran into the main river. They were approaching the border of the forest. Although the foliage, entwined by creepers, was so dense towards the upper part of the trees that the rays of the sun were unable to penetrate through it, the lower part was open and free from underwood, thus enabling them to pass among the trees without difficulty, and to see for a considerable distance into its depths. "We shall find no birds there," observed Val. "Had we not better turn back and continue along the bank of the main stream?" They were just about to do as Val proposed, when they caught sight of a figure running at full speed through the forest towards them. "It is a woman, I believe," exclaimed Val. "Yes, and there is a man following her. She is endeavouring to escape from him. She is crying out, and making signs for us to come to her assistance. She is Waihoura!" As he spoke, the savage stopped, then levelled his rifle and fired. Waihoura shrieked out, and running a few paces further towards them, fell. "I must punish the villain," exclaimed Val, dashing forward. "Stay, my boy," said Mr Pemberton, "he deserves punishment, but not at our hands,--let us try and assist the poor girl." They hurried to where Waihoura lay. The bullet had wounded her in the shoulder. Meantime the savage had retreated, and when they looked round for him, he was nowhere to be seen. "We must take the poor girl to the house and endeavour to obtain surgical assistance for her," said Mr Pemberton. They lifted her up and bore her along towards the river. Valentine shouted for Harry, who quickly came up with the canoe. Waihoura was too much agitated to speak, or to tell them by whom she had been wounded. Still her countenance exhibited an expression rather of satisfaction than of alarm. Harry having secured the canoe, ran on before his father and brother to prepare Lucy for the arrival of her friend. Waihoura was carried into the house, and placed on the bed she had formerly occupied, while Harry ran on to get Mrs Greening to assist in taking care of her. Left with Lucy and Betsy, Waihoura soon recovered her composure. "I have escaped from him," she said, in her broken English. "I have done what I long intended. Hemipo came for me to my father's pah, and I was delivered in due form to him, and so my father's honour was satisfied. I went quietly for some distance, as if I was no longer unwilling to accompany him, and then, watching my opportunity, I ran off, hoping to make my escape without being discovered. He saw me, however, and followed, though I was already a long way off. I hoped to reach the river and swim across to you, when he was nearly overtaking me. Just then, as he caught sight of your father and brother, in his rage and disappointment he fired at me, and would have killed me had they not come up to prevent him." Such was the meaning of the account Waihoura gave Lucy, as she and Betsy were endeavouring to staunch the blood which continued to flow from the wound. As soon as Mrs Greening arrived, she advised Val to set off and obtain Dr Fraser's assistance. "We may be able to stop the blood, but the hurt is a bad one, and if the bullet is still in the wound, will need a surgeon to take it out," she observed. Valentine required no second bidding. Harry, indeed, had already got a horse ready. He galloped away, taking the shortest cut across the country to the fort. Valentine had to spend some time in searching for Dr Fraser, who had gone off to a distance, and when he returned he had a patient to whom it was absolutely necessary he should attend. "I'll not be a moment longer than I can help," exclaimed the doctor. "I felt great interest in that pretty little native girl. There's one comfort, that the natives seldom suffer from fever through injuries. You ride back and say I am coming." "I would rather wait for you," answered Valentine. Though he was sorely annoyed at the delay, it enabled him to give his horse a feed, and to rest the animal, so that there was not so much time lost as he supposed. At length the doctor was ready, and they set off to take the way by which Valentine had come. They had gone rather more than half the distance, and were approaching a defile between two high hills, covered thickly with trees, and wild rugged rocks on either side. They were just about to enter it when a Maori, who, by the way he was dressed, appeared to be a chief, was seen hurrying down the side of the hill towards them, and beckoning to them to stop. "He wishes to speak to us," said Valentine, "shall we wait for him?" "I hope that his intentions are friendly," observed the doctor. "These fellows have been playing some treacherous tricks to the settlers in the north, and it is as well to be prepared." "His manner does not appear to be hostile," observed Valentine. "I will ride forward to speak to him." Valentine had not gone many paces before he met the native, who hurriedly addressed him in broken English. "Go back and take another path," he exclaimed. "If you go forward you will be killed, there's a bad chief, with several men, lying in wait to shoot you. I have only just discovered their intentions, and hurried forward to give you warning." "Can you tell us who the chief is?" asked Valentine, not feeling very willing to believe the stranger's statement. "His name does not matter," answered the young stranger. "He supposes me to be his friend, and begged me to assist him, so that I do not wish further to betray him, but I could not allow you to suffer." "There may be some truth in what the young man says, and we should be unwise not to take his advice," observed the doctor. Valentine warmly thanked the stranger, who offered to lead them by a path he was acquainted with, which would enable them to escape the ambush and reach the river side with little loss of time. He accordingly led them back for some distance, and then striking off to the right over the hills, conducted them through another valley, which in time took them out on to the open plain. "You are safe now," he said. "Ride on as fast as you can, so that your enemy may not overtake you." "I should like to know who you are, that we may thank you properly for the benefit you have done us," said Valentine, "and I am sure Ihaka's daughter, on whose account Dr Fraser is going to our settlement, will desire to express her gratitude. She is sorely wounded, and I fear in much danger." "Wounded and in danger," exclaimed the young stranger. "How has she received an injury?" "She was basely shot at by a Maori," answered Val. "The chief told me that it was your sister who was ill, and that you having grossly insulted him, he was determined to revenge himself on you." He stopped for a few moments as if for consideration. "I will accompany you," he said. "If I go back I shall not be able to resist accusing him of his treachery, and bloodshed may be the consequence." "Come along then, my friend," said the doctor, "you are fleet of foot, and will keep up with our horses." The stranger, a fine young man, one of the handsomest natives Valentine had as yet seen--his face being, moreover, undisfigured by tattoo marks,--on this ran forward, and showed by the pace he moved at, that he was not likely to detain them. It was dark when they reached Riverside, but Lucy had heard the sound of their horses' feet, and came out to meet them. "I am so thankful you have come, doctor," she exclaimed. "Waihoura is, I fear, suffering much pain, and we have been able to do little to relieve her." The doctor hurried into the house. His report was more favourable than Lucy had expected. He quickly extracted the bullet, and promised, with the good constitution the young girl evidently possessed, that she would soon recover. Valentine invited the young stranger to remain, and he evidently showed no desire to take his departure. "I wish to stay for your sakes as well as my own," he said, "and I would advise you to keep a vigilant watch round the house during the night. The man who has committed so foul a deed as to shoot Ihaka's daughter, must from henceforth be Rahana's foe, and I now confess that it was Hemipo who intended to waylay and murder you. I am myself a Rangatira, chief of a numerous tribe. My father ever lived on friendly terms with the English, and seeing the folly of war, wished also to be at peace with his neighbours, and I have desired to follow his example. Among our nearest neighbours was Hemipo, who, though one I could never regard with esteem, has always appeared anxious to retain my friendship. Hitherto I have, therefore, frequently associated with him, but from henceforth he must be to me as a stranger. He is capable, I am convinced, of any treachery, and when he finds that you have escaped him on this occasion, will seek another opportunity of revenging himself." This was said partly in English and partly in Maori. Mr Pemberton, following the advice he received, sent to farmer Greening and several other neighbours, asking their assistance in guarding Waihoura, thinking it possible that Hemipo might attack the place and attempt to carry her off. Among others who came up was Mr Spears, with a cartouche-box hanging by a belt to his waist, and a musket in his hand. "Neighbours should help each other, Mr Pemberton," he said as he made his appearance, "and so I have locked up the shop, and shall be happy to stand sentry during the night at any post you may assign me. Place me inside the house or outside, or in a cow-shed, it's all the same to me. I'll shoot the first man I see coming up the hill." Valentine suggested that Mr Spears was as likely to shoot a friend as a foe, and therefore placed him, with a companion, in one of the sheds, strictly enjoining him not to fire unless he received an order to do so. From the precautions taken by Mr Pemberton, it was not likely that Hemipo would succeed even should he venture on an attack, especially as every one in the settlement was on the alert. The night passed off quietly, and in the morning Dr Fraser gave a favourable report of Waihoura. A messenger was then despatched to Ihaka, to inform him of what had occurred. He arrived before sunset with several of his followers, well-armed, and at once requested to have an interview with his daughter. On coming out of her room he met Mr Pemberton, and warmly thanked him for having again preserved her life. "From henceforth she is free to choose whom she will for a husband," he observed. "I gave her, as I was bound to do by my promise, to Hemipo; but she escaped from him, and as he has proved himself unworthy of her, though war between us be the result, I will not again deliver her to him." Lucy, who overheard this, was greatly relieved. Not knowing the customs of the Maoris, she was afraid that the chief might still consider himself bound to restore Waihoura to her intended husband. "I must go at once and tell her," she said. "I am sure that this will greatly assist her recovery." "She knows it. I have already promised her," said Ihaka. "And I will remain here and defend her and you, my friends, from Hemipo,--though boastful as he is, I do not believe that he will venture to attack a pakeha settlement." Rahana, who had hitherto remained at a distance, now came forward, and the two chiefs greeted each other according to their national custom, by rubbing their noses together for a minute or more. They then sat down, and the young chief gave Ihaka an account of the part he had taken in the affair. "We have ever been friends," answered Ihaka, "and this will cement our friendship closer than ever." They sat for some time talking over the matter, and Rahana agreed to send for a band of his people to assist in protecting their friends, and afterwards to escort Waihoura to her home. Till this time, the only natives who frequented the settlement were the labourers employed on the farm, but now a number of warriors might be seen, with rifles in their hands, some seated on the hillside, others stalking about among the cottages. They all, however, behaved with the greatest propriety, declining even to receive provisions from the inhabitants, both Ihaka's and Rahana's people having brought an abundant supply. Though scouts were sent out in every direction, nothing was heard of Hemipo, and it was supposed that he had returned to his own village--either being afraid of meeting those he had injured, or to hatch some plan of revenge. Dr Fraser, who had gone home when he considered Waihoura out of danger, returned, at the end of a fortnight, and pronounced her sufficiently recovered to undertake the journey home, to which Ihaka was anxious to convey her, as she would be there safer from any design Hemipo might entertain, than in the unprotected cottage at Riverside. Lucy, although she would gladly have had her remain longer, felt that this was the case. The Maori girl warmly embraced her before taking her seat on the covered litter constructed for her conveyance, and willingly gave a promise to return to Riverside as soon as her father considered it safe for her to do so. The young chief had constituted himself her chief attendant, and when they set out placed himself by her side, which he showed no intention of quitting. It appeared that they had hitherto been strangers to each other, but Lucy, having observed the admiration with which he had regarded Waihoura the first time they met, pleased with his manners, could not help hoping that he might become a Christian, and a successful suitor of her friend. She watched the party as they took their way along the road, till they were lost to sight among the trees; and from the judicious precautions they took of throwing out scouts, she trusted that they would, escape being surprised even should Hemipo be on the watch for them, and would reach their destination in safety. As soon as they were gone the settlement returned to its usual quiet state. After the character they had heard of Hemipo, Mr Pemberton considered it prudent to keep a watch at night, and to advise the Greenings, as well as his own sons, to carry arms in their hands, and never to go singly to a distance from the house. Day after day passed by, till at length they began to feel that such precautions were unnecessary, and by degrees they abandoned the habit, only occasionally taking their guns when they went out to shoot birds, or when the traces of a wild pig, which happened to stray from the mountains, were discovered in the neighbourhood. Few countries in the world are so destitute of game or animals of any description, or of noxious reptiles, as New Zealand; the only reptile, indeed, being a harmless lizard, while the only wild beasts are the descendants of pigs originally introduced by Europeans, which having escaped from their owners to the forests where they roam at large. Unhappily, although many of the natives lived on the most friendly terms with the English, and had made considerable advancement in civilisation, a large number still, at that period, retained much of their former savage character, and, instigated perhaps by evilly-disposed persons, from time to time rose in aims against the English, and though inferior in numbers to the settlers, were enabled, in their mountain fastnesses, to resist the attacks of well-trained troops sent against them. They sometimes descended on the unprepared settlements, murdered the inhabitants, and committed many fearful atrocities. Of late years, however, finding resistance vain, they have submitted to the English Government, and as they possess equal rights and privileges with the settlers, and are treated in every respect as British subjects, it may be hoped that they will become, ere long, thoroughly civilised and contented with their lot, so infinitely superior to that of their former savage state. At the time, however, that the occurrences which have been described took place, although cannibalism and their more barbarous customs were almost abandoned, still a number of the tribes were hostile to the English, and also carried on a fierce warfare among themselves. Our friends at Riverside were destined shortly to feel the ill effects of this state of things. CHAPTER EIGHT. CARRIED OFF. DISTURBANCE AMONG THE NATIVES.--VOLUNTEERS FROM THE SETTLEMENT.--MR PEMBERTON AND VAL CALLED AWAY.--THE SETTLERS, TO THEIR DISMAY, DISCOVER THAT THE YOUNG PEMBERTONS HAVE BEEN CARRIED OFF. Lucy had made tea, and her father and brother, who had come in from their work, had just taken their seats, when Mr Spears, announced by Betsy, popped his head in at the door. "Beg pardon, Mr Pemberton, for intruding, but I thought you would like to have this letter at once," he said, handing an official-looking envelope. "I have sent several others of similar appearance to a number of gentlemen in our neighbourhood, and I suspect they mean something." Lucy observed that her father's countenance assumed a grave expression as he read the document; after requesting the bearer to sit down and take a cup of tea. "More disturbances among the natives?" asked Mr Spears. "I hope, though, that they will keep quiet in these parts." "Yes, I am sorry to say that they have risen in much greater numbers than heretofore, and matters look very serious," answered Mr Pemberton. "The Governor has requested me to assist in organising a body of volunteers to co-operate with the loyal natives in this district, and to keep in check any of the Maoris who may be inclined to rebel, while the troops are engaged with the main body of the insurgents. I am afraid this will compel me to be absent from home for some time." "May I go with you?" exclaimed Harry. "I should so like to have some soldiering." "No, you must stay at home to take care of Lucy and the farm," answered Mr Pemberton. "Val, you are named, and though I would rather have left you in charge, we must obey the calls of public duty. Farmer Greening will assist Harry; Paul and James will probably accompany me." "Put my name down as a volunteer," exclaimed Mr Spears. "I'll have my musket and cartouche-box ready in a trice. I shall be proud to go out and fight my country's battles." "Take my advice, Mr Spears, and stay at home to look after your shop and the settlement--some must remain behind to guard it," said Mr Pemberton. "I am ready for the field, or for garrison duty," answered the little man, rising, and drawing himself up. "I must go back with the news to the village; the people are suspecting that there is something in the wind." Mr Pemberton and Valentine soon made the necessary preparations for their departure, and early the next morning, in company with several other settlers, set out on their expedition. As the natives in their immediate neighbourhood had always appeared very friendly, they had no anxiety about the safety of Riverside. Time passed on; news reached the settlement that the volunteers had on several occasions been engaged, and that the insurgents still made head against them. Lucy could not help feeling anxious at the prolonged absence of her father and brother; but as they wrote word that they were well, she kept up her spirits, hoping that the natives would soon be convinced of the uselessness and folly of their rebellion, and that peace would be established. She also received visits from Mary Osburn and other friends, and Mrs Greening never failed to look in on her two or three times in the day, while her husband kept his eye on the farm, and assisted Harry in managing affairs. Lucy had hoped that by this time it would be safe for Waihoura to pay her a visit, and she had sent a message inviting her to come to Riverside. In reply, Waihoura expressed her thanks for the invitation, but stated that as her father was absent with many of his people, taking a part in the war, she could not venture to quit home. She also mentioned that Hemipo was supposed to have joined the rebels, as he had not for some time been seen in the neighbourhood. A short time after this, as Harry was standing on the bank of the river, near which his sheep were feeding, he observed a small canoe gliding down the stream. A single native was in it, who, as soon as he saw him, paddled up to where he stood. The stranger leaped on shore, and asked Harry, in Maori, pointing to the hill, whether he did not belong to that place. As Harry understood very little Maori, he could but imperfectly comprehend what the man, who appeared to be delivering a message, was saying. The stranger, perceiving this, tried to help his meaning by dumb show, and Harry heard him repeat the name of Hemipo several times. The man placed himself on the ground, and shut his eyes, as if he was asleep, then he jumped up, and, moving away, ran up to the spot, and pretended to be lifting up a person whom he carried to the canoe. He did this several times then he flourished his arms as if engaged with a foe, leaping fiercely about from side to side, and then jumped into his canoe and began to shove it off, as if he was going to paddle up the stream. He returned, however, again coming up to Harry, and, with an inquiring look, seemed to ask whether he was understood? Harry asked him to repeat what he had said, and at length made out, as he thought, that the stranger wished to warn him that the settlement would be attacked at night, while the inhabitants were asleep, by Hemipo, whose object was to carry them off as prisoners, but when this was likely to take place he could not discover. The stranger, who was evidently in a great hurry to be off again, seemed satisfied that he was understood, and, getting into his canoe, paddled rapidly up the river. "I wish that I understood the Maori better," thought Harry, "I should not then be in doubt about the matter; however, it will be as well to be prepared. We will fortify our house, and keep a bright look out, and I'll tell the other people to be on the watch." He soon after met Toby, and telling him to look to the sheep, hurried homewards. Lucy listened calmly to his account. "There is, I fear, no doubt that some harm is intended us," she observed. "But we must pray that it may be averted, and do what we can to guard against it. I think our six native labourers are faithful, and we must place three of them in the house, and send the other three out as scouts to give us notice of the approach of an enemy. I propose also that we have a large pile of firewood made above the house, that, as soon as danger threatens it may be lighted as a signal to our friends in the neighbourhood. You must tell them of our intention, and ask them to come to our assistance as soon as they see the fire blazing up." "You ought to have been a man, and you would have made a first-rate soldier," exclaimed Harry, delighted at Lucy's idea. "It is the wisest thing that could be done; I'll tell everybody you thought of it, and I am sure they will be ready to help us." "But perhaps they will think that the whole place is to be attacked, and if so, the men will not be willing to leave their own homes and families," observed Lucy. "Oh, but I am sure the Maori intended to warn us especially, for he pointed to our hill while he was speaking," said Harry. "Then he mentioned Hemipo, who probably has a spite against us for rescuing Waihoura from him. However, there's no time to be lost. I'll tell the men to cut the wood for the bonfire, and go on to let Mr Osburn and our other friends know about the matter." Having charged Lucy and Betsy to close the doors and windows, and not to go out of the house, he went to tell the other people. The farmer was out, but he told Mrs Greening what he had heard. "Oh, it would be terrible if any harm was to happen to Miss Lucy, and the Squire and Master Val away," exclaimed the good woman; "I'd sooner our place were all burned down than that--I'll go round to her and persuade her to come here--then, if the savages go to your house they will not find her, and if they come here, the farmer and Tobias, I'll warrant, will fight for her as long as they have got a bullet or a charge of powder remaining." Harry warmly thanked Mrs Greening for her generous intentions, though he doubted very much whether Lucy would consent to leave the house. He then hurried on to the village. Mr Spears, at whose house he first called, was thrown into a great state of agitation on hearing of his apprehensions. "I'll go round and tell all the other people, and we will see what can be done," he exclaimed, getting down his musket. "We will fight bravely for our homes and hearths; but dear me, I wish all the people who are away would come back. These savages are terrible fellows, and if they were to come suddenly upon us at night, as you fancy they will, we may find ourselves in a very unpleasant predicament." While Mr Spears went off in one direction, Harry continued on to the house of their friend Mr Osburn, which was at no great distance. He, though expressing a hope that the stranger had been amusing himself at Harry's expense, undertook to collect the rest of the neighbours, and to make preparations to go to his assistance should the signal-fire give them notice that the house had been attacked. "I would offer at once to go up and assist in guarding you," he said. "But I am afraid that our other friends will not be willing to leave their own cottages undefended; indeed, I think we shall more effectually assist you by following the plan you propose. Still, I would advise you not to be over anxious about the matter, though you will do wisely to take the precautions you propose." Harry, feeling somewhat proud of himself, and tolerably well satisfied with the arrangements he had made, returned home. He found the farmer and Mr Greening at the house. They had in vain attempted to persuade Lucy to pass the night at their house--she would not leave Harry, who said that, as he had charge of the place, nothing would induce him to desert his post, and they hoped, with the precautions taken, they might escape the threatened danger. "Depend upon it, if the savages really come and find us prepared they will not venture to attack the house," said Harry. "Well, well, I like your spirit, Master Harry," said the farmer. "I'll be on the watch, and if I hear the sound of a musket I shall know what it means, and will be quickly round with my four natives." At length the farmer and Mrs Greening took their departure. Harry had spoken to the native servants, who seemed fully to understand what was expected of them, and promised to be vigilant. Betsy had undertaken to keep a lantern burning, and to run out at the back-door at the first signal of danger, and light the bonfire. Harry tried to persuade Lucy to go to bed. "Of course I shall sit up myself and keep watch for anything that happens," he said; "and if you fall asleep, Lucy, I'll awaken you if necessary." After commending themselves to the care of God, and reading together, as usual, a chapter in the Bible, the two young people sat down with their books before them to wait the issue of events, Harry, however, every now and then got up and ran to the door to listen, fancying he heard some sounds in the distance. Hour after hour passed by, and neither foe nor friend appeared. The night seemed very long, but at length the morning light streamed through the openings above the shutters. Harry opened the door, the air was pure and fresh, and the scene before him appeared so calm and peaceful, that he felt much inclined to laugh at his own fears. The native servants, who had been on the watch, came in also, and declared that they had seen no one, nor heard the slightest sound during the night to alarm them. In a short time farmer Greening arrived, and expressed his satisfaction at finding that they had had no cause for alarm. "Perhaps after all, Master Harry, the man was only passing a joke on you, though it was as well to be on the safe side, and to be prepared." Lucy had several visitors during the day, who appeared much inclined to consider they had been unnecessarily alarmed. "We may or may not have been," observed Harry, "but I intend to keep the same look out tonight as before." The second night passed over like the former, and Harry himself now owned that unless the stranger purposely intended to deceive him, he must have misunderstood his meaning. The evening came on, the cows had been milked, the pigs and poultry fed, and other duties attended to. They were in their sitting-room reading, when Betsy came in and announced Mr Spears. "I hope I don't intrude, Miss Lucy," he said, putting his head in at the doorway in his usual half-hesitating manner, "but I could not shut up my house for the night without coming to inquire how you are getting on. Well, Master Harry, the Maoris who were to attack us have turned out to be phantoms after all, pleasanter foes to fight with than real savages. However, you behaved very well, my young friend, and I hope you will get a quiet night's rest, and sleep free from alarm." "Thank you for your kind wishes," answered Lucy, "but still I hope that you and our other friends will be on the watch, for I cannot feel altogether secure till our father and brother return." "Never fear, Miss Lucy, we will be ready if your phantom foes come. Pardon me, Master Harry, for calling them phantom foes, but such they are, I suspect. Ah! ah! ah!" and Mr Spears laughed at his own conceit. As Lucy did not wish to encourage the little man, she did not invite him to sit down, and, somewhat to her relief, he soon went away. Mr Spears had reached home, and was shutting up his cottage, when, looking towards the hill, he saw the beacon fire blazing up. He rushed back for his musket, and began to load it in great haste; but in vain he pulled the trigger, it would not go off--no wonder, for he had forgotten to put on a cap. Not discovering this, having knocked at the doors of his immediate neighbours, and told them that the settlement was attacked, he ran as fast as his legs could carry him to Mr Osburn. Though that gentleman turned out immediately, it was sometime before he could collect the rest of the inhabitants, when some with firearms, and others with pitchforks, or any weapons they could lay hands on, rushed up the hill towards Mr Pemberton's farm. They were joined on the way by farmer Greening and Tobias. All round the house seemed quiet, and not a sign of a Maori could be discovered. "There's been some trick played," said farmer Greening, "for all my servants went off this evening, and I should not be surprised that Mr Pemberton's have done the same; but I hope Master Harry has kept the door shut, and not let the enemy inside." As may be supposed, on reaching the house, their consternation and grief was very great when they discovered that the inmates had gone; and from the overturned chairs, and the back and front doors being open, their alarm for the safety of their young friends was greatly increased. "The savages have undoubtedly come and carried them off, but we may yet be in time to overtake them, if we can ascertain in what direction they have gone," said Mr Osburn. "See, the orchard gate is open," said farmer Greening. "They must have gone this way, by the path which leads to the river." They went on a little farther, when Tobias picked up a handkerchief. "That must be Miss Lucy's," he exclaimed, "and probably dropped on purpose," observed Mr Osburn. On reaching the river, no signs, however, of the savages nor their captives were to be seen; and though they hurried along the bank for some distance, they were at length compelled to return, in a state of increased anxiety for their young friends, to the settlement. CHAPTER NINE. THE RESCUE. LUCY AND HARRY CARRIED OFF BY HEMIPO, WHO TAKES THEM TO HIS PAH.--LUCY EXPLAINS THE TRUTH TO A NATIVE GIRL WHO ATTENDS HER.--WAIHOURA APPEARS, AND ASSISTS THEM TO ESCAPE.--ENCOUNTER HEMIPO, WHO IS CONQUERED BY RAHANA.--HEMIPO ALLOWED TO GO FREE.--HAPPY RETURN TO RIVERSIDE WITH WAIHOURA AND HER PARTY.--GREAT REJOICINGS.--HEMIPO BECOMES A CHRISTIAN.--WAIHOURA MARRIES RAHANA, AND THE SETTLEMENT FLOURISHES. Lucy and Harry were spending their evening, as was their usual custom, Harry reading aloud while his sister sat by his side working. Mr Spears had not long gone away, when a slight knock was heard at the door. "I do believe it must be that Mr Spears come back again," observed Betsy, getting up to open it. As she did so, what was her horror to see the figure of a tall Maori warrior, his face painted red, with his merai or axe in his hand. "Run, Miss Lucy! run, Master Harry, and hide yourselves!" she exclaimed, attempting to push back the door. Her efforts were vain, the savage dashed it open and stalked in, followed by a dozen or more Maoris. "Light the bonfire!" exclaimed Lucy,--and Betsy, springing by her, made her escape at the back-door. Harry tried to drag off Lucy in the same direction, but they were both instantly seized by the Maoris, two of whom sprang after Betsy. Scarcely a word was spoken by any of the natives, and Lucy had been too much agitated and alarmed to shriek out. The leader, in whom, by his sinister features and fierce looks, Lucy recognised Hemipo, had raised his weapon as if to strike Harry, but he restrained himself on finding that there was no opposition. He and one of his companions now bound Harry's arms, making signs to him that if he made any noise his brains would be dashed out. Two others then lifted up Lucy, and taking a cloak which hung on the wall, threw it round her. Plunder did not appear to be their object; for, although numerous articles were lying about which would have been of value to them, none were taken. The savages now lifted up Lucy and Harry in their arms and carried them out of the house. Harry looked round, hoping to see some of the native servants. No one appeared. "I hope, at all events, that Betsy may have set light to the signal-fire, that if we are carried away our friends will come in pursuit of us," he said to himself. Great was his disappointment when directly afterwards he saw Betsy brought along in the arms of two of the savages. "I have done it though, Master Harry," she exclaimed, loud enough for him to hear. "I had just time to throw the candle in among the sticks and paper before they caught me,--I do not think they saw what I had been about, or they would have stopped and put it out." A savage growl, and the hand of one of her captors placed over her mouth, prevented Betsy from saying any more. The whole party now moved down the hill at a rapid rate towards the river. On reaching the bank the young captives were placed on board a canoe, several of which were collected at the spot. Harry felt a little relieved when his arms were unbound, and he was allowed to sit at his ease beside Lucy. The savages evidently supposed that he would not attempt to leap out and swim on shore. The flotilla shoved off. The night was very dark, but the Maoris, well acquainted with the river, navigated dexterously amid the rocks and occasional rapids in their course. Now and then the water could be seen bubbling up on either side, and sometimes leaping over the gunwale, and once or twice so much came in that Harry feared the canoe would be swamped. "If we are upset, stick to me, Lucy," he whispered. "I'll swim with you to the shore, and we will then run off and try and make our escape." Lucy felt confident of her young brother's courage, but feared that there was little prospect of his succeeding in the attempt. Poor Betsy shrieked out with alarm. A threatening sound from the man who steered the canoe warned her to keep silence. There had been for sometime a strong wind, it now increased, and blowing directly against them, greatly impeded the progress of the canoes. Still the Maoris persevered. At length a loud clap of thunder burst from the sky. It was succeeded by several terrific peals, while vivid flashes of forked lightning darting forth showed that they were passing between high rugged cliffs which rose on either side of the stream, overhung with trees, amid which the wind roared and whistled as they waved to and fro above their heads, threatening every instant, torn up by the roots, to fall over and crush them. The thunder rattled louder than ever, reverberating among the cliffs. Just then a flash, brighter than its predecessors, which came hissing along close to the canoe, showed Harry the savage features of Hemipo, who was sitting in the stern steering. Still the canoe went on, indeed, as far as Harry could see there was no place on either side where they could have landed, and he earnestly prayed that, should any accident happen, it might be further on, where there would be a hope of reaching the shore. Lucy sat with her hands clasped in his, and her calmness and self-possession gave him courage. "Oh, what a dear brave little sister mine is," he thought to himself. "I would willingly give up my life to save her's. I wonder what these savages will do with us. They surely cannot be so barbarous as to intend to kill her,--they may knock me on the head very likely, and I only wonder they did not do so at first, it would have been more like their usual custom." The rain was now falling in torrents. Harry drew the cloaks which had been thrown over Lucy and Betsy closer round them. He was himself quickly wet through, but for that he cared little. Though it was evident that the paddlers were straining every nerve to urge the canoe onwards, he could judge by the appearance of the cliffs that they were making but slow progress, sometimes, indeed, they were almost brought to a standstill, then again they would redouble their efforts, and the wind lulling for a short time, they would stem the rapid current and get into calmer water. It was difficult to judge, under the circumstances, how time went by, but it seemed to Harry that the whole night was thus spent. Still the darkness continued, and hour after hour passed. At length the banks came more clearly into view, and he could distinguish the other canoes in company. Suddenly the cliffs on either side ceased, and he found that they had entered a lake. Covered, however, as it was with foaming waves stirred up by the storm, it seemed scarcely possible for the canoes to make their way across it. After they had in vain attempted to do so, and several of them had been nearly swamped, Harry perceived that they were steering towards the shore. They made their way up a small inlet, where, sheltered from the gale, the canoes at length floated quietly, and their crews set to work to bail them out. This being done, Harry observed that they were examining their muskets, and fresh priming them, lest they should have become damp with the rain. He hoped from this that they had not yet reached Hemipo's district, and were still in that of some friendly tribe. Meantime a man was sent on shore, who ran to the summit of a neighbouring height, where Harry saw him looking round, as if to ascertain whether any one was approaching. On his return, after he had given his report, Hemipo landed, and with scant ceremony dragged his prisoners out of the canoe, and signed to them that they were to accompany him. Eight of the savages immediately landed and closed round them. Having issued orders to the remainder, he led the way towards the entrance of a valley which extended up from the water. Lucy and Betsy could with difficulty walk after having been so long cramped up in the canoe. Harry begged his sister to lean on him, that he might help her along, and poor Betsy did her best to keep up with them, for the savages showed no inclination to slacken their pace. Every now and then, indeed, one of them gave her a rough push to make her move faster. Harry felt very indignant, but knew that it would be useless to expostulate, and dreaded lest Lucy might be treated in the same way. The valley through which they were proceeding he found ran parallel with the lake, and concluded, as was the case, that it would at length conduct them to an upper part of the stream, which, had it not been for the storm, Hemipo intended to have reached in the canoes. The chief stalked on ahead, every now and then turning round to order his followers to move faster. The valley, as they proceeded, narrowed considerably; the sides, composed of wild rugged rocks with overhanging trees crowning their summits, rising precipitously on either hand. Harry observed that the chief, as they advanced, looked cautiously ahead, as if he thought it possible that an enemy might appear to intercept him. Suddenly he stopped altogether, and addressed a few words to his followers, while he pointed up the valley. What he said Harry could not understand, but several of the savages directly afterwards drew their merais from their belts, and cast fierce looks at their captives, which too clearly indicated their cruel designs. "Oh, our dear father, my poor brother," murmured Lucy, as her eye glanced at the savages' weapons, and she clung closer to Harry, thinking of those she loved more than of herself. "Yet they cannot be so cruel." "Are they going to kill us?" cried Betsy. "Dear, dear Miss Lucy," and she stretched out her arms as if to protect her young mistress. After waiting a short time Hemipo ordered two of his men to go ahead, apparently to ascertain if the road was clear. They seemed satisfied that such was the case, for at a sign from them he and the rest proceeded as before. Harry, as they advanced, could not help looking up frequently at the cliffs on either side, and more than once he fancied he saw some person moving among the rocks as if observing them, while at the same time endeavouring to remain concealed. If such was the case, the person managed to escape the keen eyes of the Maoris, for Hemipo went on, evidently not supposing that he was watched. At length they emerged from the defile, and proceeding over a more open, though still a hilly and picturesque country, till they again came in sight of the river. By this time Lucy and Betsy were nearly dropping with fatigue, and even Harry, though accustomed to exercise, felt very tired, but the savages still urged them on, regardless of their weary legs. Harry felt very indignant, but Lucy entreated him not to show his resentment. At last a hill, round the base of which the river made its way, rose directly before them, with a stockade on its summit, similar to that surrounding Ihaka's village. Hemipo led the way towards it, and ascended a narrow path, at the top of which appeared a gateway, with a huge hideous figure above it. As he approached a number of women and children and old men issued forth eyeing his captives with no pleasant looks. Scarcely a word, however, was exchanged between the inhabitants and him till they entered the pah, when the whole party seated themselves on the ground, each of them singling out one of the new comers, and began rubbing their noses together, howling and weeping, while the tears, in copious torrents, flowed down their brown cheeks. Under other circumstances, Harry, who with his sister and Betsy, were left standing alone, would have felt inclined to laugh heartily at the odd scene, but matters were too serious to allow him to do so now. After the savages had rubbed their noses, howled, and shed a sufficiency of tears to satisfy their feelings, they got up with dry eyes and unconcerned looks, as if nothing of the sort had occurred. They then came round their captives, who were allowed to stand unmolested, while Hemipo was apparently giving an account of his adventures. Lucy and Betsy trembled as they saw the fierce glances cast at them during the chief's address; their lives seemed to hang on a thread, for any moment his auditors, whom he appeared to be working into a fury, might rush forward and cut them down with the merais, which, ever and anon, they clutched as if eager to use them. At length he ceased, when another orator got up, and appeared to be endeavouring to calm the angry feelings of the assembly. Others spoke in the same strain, and at last the orator, who had opposed Hemipo, having gained his object, so it seemed, came up to the captives and signed to them to accompany him. Leading them to a large wahre on one side of the pah, he told them to enter. Lucy, overcome with fatigue, sank on a heap of fern, which covered part of the floor. "Cheer up," said Harry, "they do not intend to kill us, and I hope that chief, who looks more good-natured than Hemipo, will think of bringing us some food. I'll let him know that we want it." Harry went back to the door at which the chief was still standing, and made signs that they were very hungry. The chief evidently understood him, and in a short time a girl appeared with a basket of sweet potatoes, some baked fish, and a bowl of water. Lucy thanked her warmly in Maori, saying that she might some day have the opportunity of rewarding her, adding-- "Our people will be grateful for any kindness shown us, and though we have been most cruelly carried away from our home, yet they will not revenge themselves on the innocent." The girl, whom Lucy supposed from her appearance to be a slave, looked very much surprised. "Our religion teaches us that we should forgive our enemies, and do good to those who injure us, and therefore still more should we be grateful to all who do us good," she continued. "Do you understand that?" The girl shook her head, and made signs to Lucy and her companions to eat while the food was hot; they needed, indeed, no second bidding, the girl standing by while they discussed the meal. Lucy feeling the importance of gaining the good-will of any person in the village, again spoke to the girl, much to the same effect as before. The latter evidently understood her, and made a sign that if discovered in helping them to escape she would be killed. Lucy's words had, however, it seemed, made an impression on her mind, for when she stooped down to take up the basket and bowl, she whispered that she would do what she could to be of use to them. They were now left alone. Harry entreated his companions to go to sleep, declaring that he was able to sit up and keep watch; and in spite of their anxiety, they were so weary, that in a few minutes their eyes closed, and they happily forgot all that had occurred. Harry kept awake as well as he could, and every now and then he observed women and children, and sometimes men, peering at them through the open door of the hut. Discovering, however, a chick mat spread on a framework leaning against the side of the hut, he conjectured that it was intended to use as a door, and, accordingly, placing it across the entrance, shut out the intruders. Having now nothing to distract his attention, he very soon dropped off to sleep. It was dark when he awoke, and as there were no sounds in the village he concluded that it was night, and he hoped that they might therefore be allowed to rest in quiet. He went to the door of the hut and looked out. No one was stirring, the storm had ceased, and the stars were shining brightly overhead. He again carefully closed the entrance, securing it with some poles, so that it could not be opened from the outside, and throwing himself on the fern at Lucy's feet, was soon fast asleep. He was awakened by hearing some one attempting to open the door--the daylight was streaming in through the crevices--on pulling it aside the slave girl, who had brought their supper, appeared with a basket of food and a bowl of water, as before. The light awoke Lucy and Betsy, who seemed refreshed by their slumbers, though their faces were still pale and anxious. The girl pointed to the food and bade them eat, but seemed unwilling to stay. "Let us say our prayers, Harry, as we should do at home, before breakfast," said Lucy, "though we have not a Bible to read." They knelt down, and Lucy offered up a prayer of thanksgiving to God for having preserved them, and for further protection, while the Maori girl stood by wondering what they were about. She then hurried away, as they supposed, from having received orders not to remain with them. They were left alone all the morning, and at noon the girl brought them a further supply of food. "This looks as if the Maoris did not intend to do us any harm, perhaps they expect to get a ransom for us," observed Harry. "I trust so," said Lucy, "and I am sure our friends would pay it should our father and Val be still absent from home; but, perhaps, Hemipo has some other object in carrying us off." "What can that be?" asked Harry. "The idea came into my mind, and I fear it is too likely that he has done so, in order to get Waihoura into his power. If she believes that our lives are in danger, she will, I am sure, be ready to do anything to save them," answered Lucy. "How should she know that we have been carried away," asked Harry. "She will suspect something when our labourers suddenly return to her village, and will send to ascertain what has occurred," observed Lucy. "If it was not for your sake, Lucy, I would run every risk rather than let the poor girl fall into the power of the savage," exclaimed Harry. "I hope that our father and Val, and the volunteers, will find out where we have been carried to, and will come to attack the pah and rescue us." "That would cause great loss of life, and, perhaps, seal our fate," answered Lucy. "I have been praying, and He who does not allow a sparrow to fall to the ground without knowing it, will arrange matters for the best. The knowledge that He does take care of us should give us confidence and hope." "I am sure you are right," observed Harry, after a few minutes reflection. "Still we cannot help talking of what we wish." In the afternoon, Harry going to the door of the hut, heard voices as if in loud discussion at a distance, and observing no one about, he crept on among the huts till he came in sight of a number of people seated on the ground, apparently holding a debate, for one after the other got up and addressed the rest. Keeping himself concealed behind the hut, he watched them for some time, at length he saw Hemipo and a body of armed men issue out by the gate. He crept back to the hut with this information. As far as he could ascertain, only the old men, and women, and children, were left in the pah. Late in the evening the slave girl again visited them, and, as she appeared less anxious than before to hurry away, Lucy spoke to her. At last she answered-- "What Manima can do she will do for the pakehas, but they must wait-- perhaps something will happen." She said this in a very low voice, and taking up the basket and bowl, hurried away. Harry found that no one interfered with him as he walked about outside the hut; but he did not like to go far from Lucy and Betsy, and darkness coming on, he returned. After he had closed the door, they offered up their prayers as usual, and lying down, soon fell asleep. Lucy was awakened by feeling a hand pressed on her shoulder. She was inclined to cry out, when she heard a low voice saying in Maori-- "Don't be afraid, call your brother and Betsy." Lucy, to her astonishment, recognised the voice of Waihoura, and without waiting to ask questions, awakened Harry and Betsy. A few words served to explain what she had heard, and they at once got up and followed Waihoura out of the hut. She led the way among the wahres the inmates of which, they knew from the sounds which issued forth, were fast asleep. They soon reached the inner end of the pah, behind the public store-house, the largest building in the village, when Waihoura pointed to an opening in the stockade. It was so narrow that only slight people could have passed through it. Waihoura, taking Lucy's hand, led her through it, but Betsy almost stuck as she made the attempt. With some assistance from Harry, she however succeeded in getting on the other side, when he following, found that they were standing on the top of a cliff. Waihoura again taking Lucy's hand, showed them a narrow and zigzag path which led down it. They followed her, as she cautiously descended towards the river, which Harry saw flowing below them. On reaching the edge of the water Waihoura stepped into a canoe, which had hitherto been hidden by a rock. The rest of the party entering it, two men who were sitting with their paddles ready, immediately urged the canoe out into the stream, down which they impelled it with rapid strokes, while Waihoura, taking another paddle, guided its course. Not a word was spoken, for all seemed to know exactly what was to be done. They had entirely lost sight of the hills on which the pah stood, before Waihoura uttered a word. She then, in a whisper, addressed Lucy, who was sitting close to her, apparently considering, even then, that great caution was necessary. They were passing between high cliffs, amid which the slightest sound, Harry rightly guessed, might be carried, and heard by any one posted on them. The paddlers redoubled their efforts, till at length they got into a broader part of the river. Lucy then, in a low voice, told Harry that Waihoura had heard of their capture from the labourers, who had returned home, and had immediately formed a plan for their rescue. She had friends in Hemipo's pah, for all were not as bad as he was, and among them was Manima, who belonged to a friendly tribe, and had been carried off some time before by Hemipo, with others, as a slave. She had herself, with a party of her people, immediately set out, and knowing the route they would have to take, had remained in ambush with the intention of rescuing them; but fearing that Hemipo would put them to death should he find himself attacked, she resolved to employ stratagem to set them at liberty. She had at once sent a message to Manima, and on finding that Hemipo had set out on another expedition, she had herself that very night entered the pah in disguise, and arranged the plan which had thus far been carried out. "She tells us," added Lucy, "that her only fear arises from the possibility of meeting Hemipo, who has gone down the river in his war canoes, though for what object she could not ascertain. She advises us to keep very silent, as should he be anywhere near, he is certain to have scouts on the watch, though we may hope to escape them in the darkness of night." "As I said of you, Lucy, she would make a first-rate General," observed Harry, "and I hope for her sake, as well as ours, that she will prove herself a successful leader." Scarcely had Harry spoken when a loud voice hailed them from the shore, and a bullet whistled close to them. "Don't cry out," whispered Waihoura. "The man will take some time to load again, and we may get beyond his reach." Her hopes were, however, vain, for directly afterwards several canoes darted from behind some rocks, and surrounding them, their canoe was towed to the shore. "They are Hemipo's people," said Waihoura. "But keep silence, he is not among them, and they will merely keep us prisoners till he comes, and something may happen in the meantime." The country was tolerably level beyond the bank where the canoes lay. There was sufficient light from the stars to enable Harry to see for some distance inland, and he recognised the spot as the same place at which they had been taken on shore on their way up the river. After waiting a considerable time, he observed a party of men moving along from the direction of the valley, and coming towards the canoes. He was afraid that they were Hemipo and his band. "How will the savage treat us, and those who have been trying to aid our escape?" he thought. Just then he caught sight of another and very much larger party coming from nearly the opposite direction. The first stopped and seemed trying to hide themselves behind some rocks and bushes, but the others had seen them, and uttering loud cries, rushed forward, then came the flashes and rattle of musketry, with reiterated cries for a few minutes, when the smaller party giving way, attempted to fly, but were quickly surrounded. The people in the canoes, on seeing this, shoved off from the bank, and endeavoured to drag Waihoura's canoe with them. The crew resisted; a blow on his head, however, struck down one of the men, and it appeared too probable that their enemies would succeed in their object. They had got out into the middle of the stream, when several more canoes were seen rounding a point below them. Waihoura uttered a loud cry, and the canoes came rapidly paddling towards them. Their captors, on seeing this, allowed her to go free, and began making their way as fast as they could up the river. "Who are you?" asked Waihoura, as the strangers' canoes approached. "We are Rahana's people, and he ordered us to come here to stop Hemipo from descending the river, while he proceeded on by land," was the answer. "Then it is Rahana who has gained the victory," exclaimed Waihoura, and, escorted by her friends, she guided her canoe towards the shore, Harry taking the paddle of the poor man who had been struck down. They quickly landed, when a messenger despatched to Rahana brought him to where Waihoura and her English companions were seated on some rocks by the bank of the river. He spoke earnestly for a few minutes to Waihoura. Lucy, from what he said, learned that she had sent to ask his assistance, and that ascertaining the proceedings of Hemipo, he had set out with all his followers to meet him and compel him to restore the prisoners he had carried off. "He and many of his people are now in my hands, for before they could escape we surrounded them and captured them all," he said, addressing Lucy and Harry. "They deserve death,--do you wish that we should kill them, or give them into the hands of your countrymen?" "Oh no, no, spare their lives," exclaimed Lucy. "We should do good to our enemies, and we would far rather let them go free. We are thankful to have been rescued from their power, but more than that we do not desire." "That is a strange thing the pakeha girl says," remarked Rahana to Waihoura. "Is it according to the religion you desire to teach me?" "Oh yes, yes," exclaimed Waihoura. "I know that Lucy is right. She has told me that He who came to die and be punished that men might enjoy happiness hereafter, blessed His enemies, and did good to those who injured Him." "Then they shall live," said Rahana. "I will set Hemipo free, and tell him that it is by the wish of the pakehas, and that he must henceforth be their friend and ally, and abandoning the cruel customs of our people, learn the good religion, which has made them act thus towards him." Lucy and Harry knowing the alarm their disappearance must have caused to Mrs Greening and their other friends, were anxious to return home immediately. Waihoura offered to accompany them, and begged Rahana that he would allow one of his canoes to convey them down the river. "I will myself take charge of them, and I shall be proud to deliver them in safety to their friends," he answered. "I will, however, first obey their wish, and set Hemipo and his followers free, after I have deprived them of their arms, which belong to my warriors." While the canoes were getting ready for the voyage down the river, fires were lighted, and fish and other provisions were cooked, some of which were presented to Waihoura and her friends, greatly to Harry's satisfaction, who declared that he had seldom felt so hungry in his life; though Lucy and Betsy, still scarcely recovered from their agitation, partook of the repast but sparingly. Meantime Rahana had gone back to where he had left his warriors and their prisoners. He shortly returned, accompanied by another person. As they approached the spot where Waihoura and her friends sat, the light of the fire showed that Rahana's companion was Hemipo. He looked greatly crestfallen, but recovering himself, he addressed Waihoura. Neither Lucy nor Harry could clearly understand him; but they gathered from what he said that he desired to express his gratitude for having his life spared, and sorrow for his conduct towards her, as also for having carried off her friends, and that if they would send a missionary to him he would gladly listen to his instruction. It evidently cost him much to speak as he did. She was glad when the interview was over, and Rahana told him that he might now depart in peace. Waihoura and her friends were now conducted to the largest canoe, in which Rahana also took his seat. They had not proceeded far down the river when day broke, and the neighbouring woods burst forth with a chorus of joyful song, the sky overhead was blue and pure, the waters bright and clear, and the grass and shrubs, which grew on the banks, sparkled with bright dewdrops. "See, see," exclaimed Harry. "There's a whole fleet of boats coming up the river." Rahana, on observing them, went ahead of his flotilla with a flag waving at the bow of his canoe. "There is our father, there is Val," exclaimed Harry. The canoe was soon alongside one of the largest boats. A few words explained all that had occurred. Mr Pemberton and his companions had returned home the day after his children and servant had been carried off, when an expedition had immediately been organised to sail up the river and attack Hemipo's pah, it being at once suspected that he had committed the outrage. As there was now no necessity to proceed further, the boats' bows were turned down the stream, Harry, with his sister and Betsy, having gone on board Mr Pemberton's. Accompanied by the canoes, a strong current being in their favour, they soon reached "Riverside," where the safe return of the young people caused almost as much satisfaction as the news which had just before arrived of the termination of the war. Waihoura soon afterwards became the wife of Rahana, who built a house after the English model, on some land which he owned in the neighbourhood near the river, and receiving instruction from their friends, both became true and earnest Christians. They had the satisfaction also of hearing that Hemipo, who had gladly received Mr Marlow and other missionaries, had, with all his people, become Christians, and he showed by his changed life and peaceable conduct, that he was one in reality as well as in name. "Riverside" continued to increase and prosper, and protected by the friendly natives who surrounded it, escaped the disasters from which many other places in subsequent years suffered. Honest Mr Spears must not be forgotten. Though still showing a readiness to help everybody, having learned the necessity of attending to his own affairs, he became one of the leading tradesmen in the place. Both Mr Pemberton and farmer Greening had, in course of time, the satisfaction of seeing their children married, and settled happily around them. THE END. 
41641	----	JUST SIXTEEN. [Illustration: "We will have luncheon here close to the fire," she said, "and be as cosey as possible."--_Page 28._] JUST SIXTEEN. BY SUSAN COOLIDGE, AUTHOR OF "THE NEW YEAR'S BARGAIN," "WHAT KATY DID," "WHAT KATY DID AT SCHOOL," "WHAT KATY DID NEXT," "CLOVER," "A GUERNSEY LILY," ETC. [Illustration: QUI LEGIT REGIT.] BOSTON: ROBERTS BROTHERS. 1890. _Copyright, 1889_, BY ROBERTS BROTHERS. University Press: JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A. CONTENTS. PAGE A LITTLE KNIGHT OF LABOR (_Two Illustrations_) 7 SNOWY PETER 63 THE DO SOMETHING SOCIETY 80 WHO ATE THE QUEEN'S LUNCHEON? (_Illustration_) 92 THE SHIPWRECKED COLOGNE-BOTTLE 110 UNDER A SYRINGA-BUSH 126 TWO GIRLS--TWO PARTIES 137 THE PINK SWEETMEAT 154 ETELKA'S CHOICE (_Illustration_) 177 THE FIR CONES 204 A BALSAM PILLOW 217 COLONEL WHEELER 229 NINETY-THREE AND NINETY-FOUR 238 THE SORROWS OF FELICIA 258 IMPRISONED 271 A CHILD OF THE SEA FOLK 282 JUST SIXTEEN. A LITTLE KNIGHT OF LABOR. The first real snow-storm of the winter had come to Sandyport by the Sea. It had been a late and merciful autumn. Till well into November the leaves still clung to their boughs, honeysuckles made shady coverts on trellises, and put forth now and then an orange and milk-white blossom full of frosty sweetness; the grass was still green where the snow allowed it to be seen. Thick and fast fell the wind-blown flakes on the lightly frozen ground. The patter and beat of the flying storm was a joyous sound to children who owned sleds and had been waiting the chance to use them. Many a boy's face looked out as the dusk fell, to make sure that the storm continued; and many a bright voice cried, "Hurrah! It's coming down harder than ever! To-morrow it will be splendid!" Stable-men were shaking out fur robes and arranging cutters. Already the fitful sound of sleigh-bells could be heard; and all the world--the world of Sandyport that is--was preparing to give the in-coming winter a gay welcome. But in one house in an old-fashioned but still respectable street no one seemed inclined to join in the general merry-making. Only two lights broke its darkness: one shone from the kitchen at the back, where, beside a kerosene lamp, Bethia Kendrick, the old-time servitor of the Talcott family, was gloomily darning stockings, and otherwise making ready for departure on the morrow. The other and fainter glow came from the front room, where without any lamp Georgie Talcott sat alone beside her fire. It was a little fire, and built of rather queer materials. There were bits of lath and box-covers, fence-pickets split in two, shavings, pasteboard clippings, and on top of all, half of an old chopping-bowl. The light material burned out fast, and had to be continually replenished from the basket which stood on one side the grate. Georgie, in fact, was burning up the odds and ends of her old life before leaving it behind forever. She was to quit the house on the morrow; and there was something significant to her, and very sorrowful, in this disposal of its shreds and fragments; they meant so little to other people, and so very much to her. The old chopping-bowl, for instance,--her thoughts went back from it to the first time she had ever been permitted to join in the making of the Christmas pies. She saw her mother, still a young woman then, and pretty with the faded elegance which had been her characteristic, weighing the sugar and plums, and slicing the citron, while her own daring little hands plied the chopper in that very bowl. What joy there was in those vigorous dabs and cross-way cuts! how she had liked to do it! And now, the pretty mother, faded and gray, lay under the frozen turf, on which the snow-flakes were thickly falling. There could be no more Christmases for Georgie in the old house; it was sold, and to-morrow would close its doors behind her forever. She shivered as these thoughts passed through her mind, and rising moved restlessly toward the window. It was storming faster than ever. The sight seemed to make the idea of the morrow harder to bear; a big tear formed in each eye, blurring the white world outside into a dim grayness. Presently one ran down her nose and fell on her hand. She looked at it with dismay, wiped it hastily off, and went back to the fire. "I won't cry, whatever happens, I'm resolved on that," she said half aloud, as she put the other half of the chopping-bowl on the waning blaze. The deep-soaked richness of long-perished meats was in the old wood still. It flared broadly up the chimney. Georgie again sat down by the fire and resumed her thinking. "What am I going to do?" she asked herself for the hundredth time. "When my visit to Cousin Vi is over, I must decide on something; but what? A week is such a short time in which to settle such an important thing." It is hard to be confronted at twenty with the problem of one's own support. Georgie hitherto had been as happy and care-free as other girls. Her mother, as the widow of a naval officer, was entitled to a small pension. This, with a very little more in addition, had paid for Georgie's schooling, and kept the old house going in a sufficiently comfortable though very modest fashion. But Mrs. Talcott was not by nature an exemplary manager. It was hard not to overrun here and there, especially after Georgie grew up, and "took her place in society," as the poor lady phrased it,--the place which was rightfully hers as her father's daughter and the descendant of a long line of Talcotts and Chaunceys and Wainwrights. She coveted pretty things for her girl, as all mothers do, and it was too much for her strength always to deny herself. So Georgie had "just this" and "just that," and being a fresh attractive creature, and a favorite, made her little go as far as the other girls' much, and now and again the tiny capital was encroached upon. And then, and then,--this is a world of sorry chances, as the weak and helpless find to their cost,--came the bad year, when the Ranscuttle Mills passed their dividend and the stock went down to almost nothing; and then Mrs. Talcott's long illness, and then her death. Sickness and death are luxuries which the poor will do well to go without. Georgie went over the calculations afresh as she sat by the fire, and the result came out just the same, and not a penny better. When she had paid for her mother's funeral, and all the last bills, she would have exactly a hundred and seventy-five dollars a year to live upon,--that and no more! The furniture,--could she get something for that? She glanced round the room, and shook her head. The articles were neither handsome enough nor quaint enough to command a good price. She looked affectionately at the hair-cloth sofa on which her mother had so often lain, at the well-worn secretary. How could she part with these? How could she sell her great-grandfather's picture, or who, in fact, except herself, would care for the rather ill-painted portrait of a rigid old worthy of the last century, in a wig and ruffled shirt, with a view of Sandyport harbor by way of a background? Her father's silhouette hung beneath it, with his sword and a little mezzotint of his ship. These were treasures to her, but what were they to any one else? "No," she decided. "Bethia shall take the old kitchen things and her own bedroom furniture, and have the use of them; but the rest must go into Miss Sally's attic for the present. They wouldn't fetch anything; and if they would, I don't think I could bear to sell them. And now that is settled, I must think again, what _am_ I to do? I must do something." She turned over all manner of schemes in her mind, but all seemed fruitless. Sew? The town was full of sempstresses. Georgie knew of half a dozen who could not get work enough to keep them busy half the time. Teach? She could not; her education in no one respect had been thorough enough. Embroider for the Women's Exchanges and Decorative Art Societies? Perhaps; but it seemed to her that was the very thing to which all destitute people with pretensions to gentility fled as a matter of course, and that the market for tidies and "splashers" and pine-pillows was decidedly overstocked. "It's no use thinking about it to-night," was the sensible decision to which she at last arrived. "I am too tired. I'll get a sound night's sleep if I can, and put off my worries till I am safely at Miss Sally's." The sound night's sleep stood Georgie in good stead, for the morrow taxed all her powers of endurance, both physical and moral. Bethia, unhappy at losing the home of years, was tearful and fractious to a degree. Sending off the furniture through the deep snow proved a slow and troublesome matter. The doors necessarily stood open a great deal, the rooms grew very cold, everything was comfortless and dispiriting. And underlying all, put aside but never unfelt, was a deep sense of pain at the knowledge that this was the last day,--the very, very last of the home she had always known, and might know no more. When the final sledge-load creaked away over the hard frozen crust, Georgie experienced a sense of relief. "The sooner 'tis over, the sooner to sleep," she sang below her breath. Everything was in order. She had generalled all ably; nothing was omitted or forgotten. With steady care she raked out the fire in the kitchen stove, which the new owner of the house had taken off her hands, and saw to the fastenings of the windows. Then she tied on her bonnet and black veil, gave the weeping Bethia a good-by kiss on the door-step, closed and locked the door, and waded wearily through the half-broken paths to the boarding-house of Miss Sally Scannell, where Cousin Vi, otherwise Miss Violet Talcott, had lived for years. No very enthusiastic reception awaited her. Cousin Vi's invitation had been given from a sense of duty. She "owed it to the child," she told herself, as she cleared out a bureau-drawer, and made a place for Georgie's trunk in the small third-story room which for sixteen years had represented to her all the home she had known. Of course such a visit must be a brief one. "So you're come!" was her greeting as Georgie appeared. "I thought you'd be here sooner; but I suppose you've had a good deal to do. I should have offered to help if the day had not been so cold. Come in and take your things off." Georgie glanced about her as she smoothed her hair. The room bore the unmistakable marks of spinsterhood and decayed gentility. It was crammed with little belongings, some valuable, some perfectly valueless. Two or three pieces of spindle-legged and claw-footed mahogany made an odd contrast to the common painted bedroom set. Miniatures by Malbone and lovely pale-lined mezzotints and line engravings hung on the walls amid a maze of photographs and Japanese fans and Christmas cards and chromos; an indescribable confusion of duds encumbered every shelf and table; and in the midst sat Miss Vi's tall, meager, dissatisfied self, with thin hair laboriously trained after the prevailing fashion, and a dress whose antique material seemed oddly unsuited to its modern cut and loopings. Somehow the pitifulness of the scene struck Georgie afresh. "Shall I ever be like this?" she reflected. "Now tell me what has happened since the funeral," said her cousin. "I had neuralgia all last week and week before, or I should have got down oftener. Who has called? Have the Hanburys been to see you?" "Ellen came last week, but I was out," replied Georgie. "What a pity! And how did it happen that you were out? You ought not to have been seen in the street so soon, I think. It's not customary." "How could I help it?" responded Georgie, sadly. "I had all the move to arrange for. Mr. Custer wanted the house for Saturday. There was no one to go for me." "I suppose you couldn't; but it's a pity. It's never well to outrage conventionalities. Have Mrs. St. John and Mrs. Constant Carrington called?" "Mrs. Carrington hasn't, but she wrote me a little note. And dear Mrs. St. John came twice, and brought flowers, and was ever so kind. She always has been so very nice to me, you know." "Naturally! The St. Johns were nobodies till Mr. St. John made all that money in railroads. She is glad enough to be on good terms with the old families, of course." "I don't think it's that," said Georgie, rather wearily. "I think she's nice because she's naturally so kind-hearted, and she likes me." The tea-bell put an end to the discussion. Miss Sally's welcome was a good deal warmer than Cousin Vi's had been. "You poor dear child," she exclaimed, "you look quite tired out! Here, take this seat by the fire, Georgie, and I'll pour your tea out first of all. She needs it, don't she?" to Cousin Vi. "_Miss Talcott_ is rather tired, I dare say," said that lady, icily. Cousin Vi had lived for sixteen years in daily intercourse with Miss Sally, one of the sunniest and most friendly of women, and had never once relaxed into cordiality in all that time. Her code of manners included no approximation toward familiarity between a Talcott and a letter of lodgings. Georgie took a different view. "Thank you so much, dear Miss Sally," she said. "How good you are! I _am_ tired." "I wish you wouldn't call Miss Sally 'dear,'" her cousin remarked after they had gone upstairs. "That sort of thing is most disagreeable to me. You have to be on your guard continually in a house like this, or you get mixed up with all sorts of people." Georgie let it pass. She was too tired to argue. "Now, let us talk about your plans," Miss Talcott said next morning. "Have you made any yet?" "N--o; only that I must find some work to do at once." "Don't speak like that to any one but me," her cousin said sharply. "There _are_ lady-like occupations, of course, in which you can--can--mingle; but they need not be mentioned, or made known to people in general." "What _do_ you mean?" "I don't know, I'm sure. I've never had occasion to look into the matter, but I suppose a girl situated as you are could find something,--embroidery, for instance. You could do that for the Decorative Art. They give you a number, and nobody knows your real name." "I thought of embroidery," said Georgie; "but I never was very good at it, and so many are doing it nowadays. Besides, it seems to me that people are getting rather tired of all but the finer sort of work." "What became of that nephew of Mr. Constant Carrington whom you used to see so much of two or three years ago?" demanded Miss Vi, irrelevantly. "Bob Curtis? I don't quite know where he is. His father failed, don't you remember, and lost all his money, and Bob had to leave Harvard and go into some sort of business?" "Oh, did he? He's of no consequence, then. I don't know what made me think of him. Well, you could read to an invalid, perhaps, or go to Europe with some lady who wanted a companion." "Or be second-best wing-maker to an angel," put in Georgie, with a little glint of humor. "Cousin Vi, all that would be very pleasant, but I don't think it is likely to happen. I'm dreadfully afraid no one wants me to go to Europe; and I must have something to do at once, you know. I must earn my bread." "Don't use such a phrase. It sounds too coarse for anything." "I don't think so, Cousin Vi. I don't mind working a bit, if only I can hit on something that somebody wants, and that I can do well." "This is exactly what I have been afraid of," said Miss Vi, despairingly. "I've always had a fear that old Jacob Talcott would break out in you sooner or later. He has skipped two generations, but he was bound to show himself some day or other. He had exactly that common sort of way of looking at things and talking about them,--the only Talcott I ever knew of that did! Don't you recollect how he insisted on putting his son into business, and the boy ran away and went to the West Indies and married some sort of Creole,--all his father's fault? "Now, I'll tell you," she went on after a pause. "I've been thinking over this matter, and have made up my mind about it. You're not to do anything foolish, Georgie. If you do, you'll be sorry for it all your life, and I shall never forgive you besides. Such a good start as you have made in society, and all; it will be quite too much if you go and spoil your chances with those ridiculous notions of yours. Now, listen. If you'll give up all idea of supporting yourself, unless it is by doing embroidery or something like that, which no one need know about, I'll--I'll--well--I'll agree to pay your board here at Miss Sally's, and give you half this room for a year. As likely as not you'll be married by the end of that time, or if not, something else will have turned up! Any way, I'll do it for one year. When the year is over, we can talk about the next." And Miss Talcott folded her hands with the manner of one who has offered an ultimatum. If rather a grudging, this was a really generous offer, as Georgie well knew. To add the expense of her young cousin's board to her own would cost Miss Vi no end of self-denials, pinchings here and pinchings there, the daily frets and calculations that weigh so heavily. Miss Talcott's slender income at its best barely sufficed for the narrow lodgings, to fight off the shabbiness which would endanger her place in "society," and to pay for an occasional cab and theatre ticket. Not to do, or at least to seem to be doing and enjoying, what other people did, was real suffering to Cousin Vi. Yet she was deliberately invoking it by her proposal. Had it been really made for her sake, had it been quite disinterested, Georgie would have been deeply touched and grateful; as it was, she was sufficiently so to thank her cousin warmly, but without committing herself to acceptance. She must think it over, she said. She did think it over till her mind fairly ached with the pressure of thought, as the body does after too much exercise. She walked past the Woman's Exchange and studied the articles in the windows. There were the same towels and tidies that had been there two months before, or what seemed the same. Georgie recollected similar articles worked by people whom she knew about, for which she had been asked to buy raffle tickets. "She can't get any one to buy it," had been said. Depending on such work for a support seemed a bare outlook. She walked away with a little shake of her head. "No," she thought; "embroidery wouldn't pay unless I had a 'gift'; and I don't seem to have a gift for anything unless it is housework. I always was good at that; but I suppose I can't exactly take a place as parlor-maid. Cousin Vi would certainly clap me into an asylum if I suggested such a thing. How nice it would be to have a real genius for something! Though now that I think of it, a good many geniuses have died in attics, of starvation, without being able to help themselves." When she reached home she took a pencil and a piece of paper and wrote as follows:-- _Things Wanted._ 1. Something I can do. 2. Something that somebody wants me to do. 3. Something that all the other somebodies in search of work are not trying to do. Round these problems her thoughts revolved, and though nothing came of them as yet, it seemed to clear her mind to have them set down in black and white. Meantime the two days' _tête-à-tête_ with Cousin Vi produced one distinct result, which was, that let come what come might, Georgie resolved that nothing should induce her to stay on at Miss Sally's as proposed, and be idle. Her healthy and vigorous youth recoiled from the idea. "It is really good of her to ask me," she thought, "though she only does it for the honor of the family and the dead-and-gone Talcotts. But what a life it would be, and for a whole year too! Cousin Vi has stood it for sixteen, to be sure, poor thing! but how could she? Mother used to say that she was called a bright girl when she first grew up. Surely she might have made something of herself if she had tried, and if Aunt Talcott hadn't considered work one of the seven deadly sins for a lady! She was handsome, too. Even I can recollect her as very good looking. And here she is, all alone, and getting shabbier and poorer all the time. I know she sometimes has not money enough to pay her board, and has to ask Miss Sally to wait, snubbing her and despising her all the time, and holding on desperately to her little figment of gentility. People laugh at her and make fun of her behind her back. They invite her now and then, but they don't really care for her. What is such a society worth? I'll take in washing before I'll come to be like Cousin Vi!" * * * * * How little we guess, as we grope in the mists of our own uncertainties, just where the light is going to break through! Georgie Talcott, starting for a walk with her cousin on the third day of her stay at Miss Sally's, saw the St. John carriage pass them and then pull up suddenly at the curb-stone; but she had no idea that so simple a circumstance could affect her fate in any manner. It did, though. Mrs. St. John was leaning out of the window before they got to the place where the carriage stood, and two prettily gloved hands were stretched eagerly forth. "Georgie! oh Georgie, how glad I am to see you out, dear! I made Henry stop, because I want you to get in for a little drive and then come home with me to lunch. Mr. St. John is in New York. I am quite alone, and I'll give orders that no one shall be admitted, if you will. Don't you think she might, Miss Talcott? It isn't like going anywhere else, you know,--just coming to me quietly like that." "I don't see that there would be any impropriety in it," said Miss Talcott, doubtfully; "though--with you, however, it _is_ different. But please don't mention it to any one, Mrs. St. John. It might be misunderstood and lead to invitations which Georgie could not possibly accept. Good-morning." With a stately bend Cousin Vi sailed down the street. Mrs. St. John, I am sorry to say, made a face after her as she went. "Absurd old idiot!" she muttered. "Such airs!" Then she drew Georgie in, and as soon as the carriage was in motion pulled her veil aside and gave her a warm kiss. "I am so glad to get hold of you again!" she said. Mrs. St. John, rich, childless, warm-hearted, and not over-wise, had adopted Georgie as a special pet on her first appearance in society two years before. It is always pleasant for a girl to be made much of by an older woman; and when that woman has a carriage and a nice house, and can do all sorts of things for the girl's entertainment, it is none the less agreeable. Georgie was really fond of her friend. People who are not over-wise are often loved as much as wiser ones; it is one of the laws of compensation. "Now tell me all about yourself, and what you have been doing this past week," said Mrs. St. John, as they drove down to the beach, where the surf-rollers had swept the sands clean of snow and left a dry, smooth roadway for the horses' feet. The sea wore its winter color that day,--a deep purple-blue, broken by flashing foam-caps; the wind was blowing freshly; a great sense of refreshment came to Georgie, who had been wearying for a change. "It has been rather sad and hard," she said. "I have had the house to clear out and close, and all manner of things to do, and I was pretty tired when I finished. But I am getting rested now, and by and by I want to talk over my affairs with you." "Plans?" asked Mrs. St. John. "Not exactly. I have no plans as yet; but I must have some soon. Now tell me what _you_ have been doing." Mrs. St. John was never averse to talking about herself. She always had a mass of experiences and adventures to relate, which though insignificant enough when you came to analyze them, were so deeply interesting to herself that somehow her auditors got interested in them also. Georgie, used to her ways, listened and sympathized without effort, keeping her eyes fixed meanwhile on the shining, shifting horizon of the sea, and the lovely arch of clear morning sky. How wide and free and satisfactory it was; how different from the cramped outlook into which she had perforce been gazing for days back! "If life could all be like that!" she thought. The St. John house seemed a model of winter comfort, bright, flower-scented, and deliciously warm, as they entered it after their drive. Mrs. St. John rang for her maid to take off their wraps, and led Georgie through the drawing-room and the library to a smaller room beyond, which was her favorite sitting-place of a morning. "We will have luncheon here close to the fire," she said, "and be as cosey as possible." It was a pretty room, not over-large, fitted up by a professional decorator in a good scheme of color, and crowded with ornaments of all sorts, after the modern fashion. It was many weeks since Georgie had seen it, and its profusion and costliness of detail struck her as it never had done before. Perhaps she was in the mood to observe closely. They were still sipping their hot _bouillon_ in great comfort, when a sudden crash was heard in the distance. "There!" said Mrs. St. John, resignedly; "that's the second since Monday! What is it _now_, Pierre?" She pushed back her chair and went hurriedly into the farther room. Presently she came back laughing, but looking flushed and annoyed. "It's really too vexatious," she said. "There seems no use at all in buying pretty things, the servants do break them so." "What was it this time?" asked Georgie. "It was my favorite bit of Sèvres. Don't you recollect it,--two lovely little shepherdesses in blue Watteaus, holding a flower-basket between them? Pierre says his feather duster caught in the open-work edge of the basket." "Why do you let him use feather dusters? The feathers are so apt to catch." "My dear, what can I do? Each fresh servant has his or her theory as to how things should be cleaned. Whatever the theory is, the china goes all the same; and I can't tell them any better. I don't know a thing about dusting." That moment, as if some quick-witted fairy had waved her wand, an idea darted like a flash into Georgie's head. She took five minutes to consider it, while Mrs. St. John went on:-- "People talk of the hardship of not being able to have things; but I think it's just as hard to have them and not be allowed to keep them. I don't dare to let myself care for a piece of china nowadays, for if I do it's the first thing to go. Pierre's a treasure in other respects, but he smashes most dreadfully; and the second man is quite as bad; and Marie, upstairs, is worse than either. Mr. St. John says I ought to be 'mistress of myself, though china fall;' but I really can't." Georgie, who had listened to this without listening, had now made up her mind. "Would you like me to dust your things?" she said quietly. "My dear, they _are_ dusted. Pierre has got through for this time. He won't break anything more till to-morrow." "Oh, I don't mean only to-day; I mean every day. Yes, I'm in earnest," she went on in answer to her friend's astonished look. "I was meaning to talk to you about something of this sort presently, and now this has come into my head. You see," smiling bravely, "I find that I have got almost nothing to live upon. There is not even enough to pay my board at such a place as Miss Sally's. I must do something to earn money; and dusting is one of the few things that I can do particularly well." "But, my dear, I never heard of such a thing," gasped poor Mrs. St. John. "Surely your friends and connections will arrange something for you." "They can't; they are all dead," replied Georgie, sadly. "Our family has run out. I've one cousin in China whom I never saw, and one great-aunt down in Tennessee who is almost as poor as I am, and that's all except Cousin Vi." "She's no good, of course; but she's sure to object to your doing anything all the same." "Oh yes, of course she objects," said Georgie, impatiently. "She would like to tie my hands and make me sit quite still for a year and see if something won't happen; but I can't and won't do it; and, besides, what is there to happen? Nothing. She was kind about it, too--" relenting; "she offered to pay my board and share her room with me if I consented; but I would so much rather get to work at once and be independent. Do let me do your dusting," coaxingly; "I'll come every morning and put these four rooms in nice order; and you need never let Pierre or Marie or any one touch the china again, unless you like. I can almost promise that I won't break anything!" "My dear, it would be beautiful for me, but perfectly horrid for you! I quite agree with your cousin for once. It will never do in the world for you to attempt such a thing. People would drop you at once; you would lose your position and all your chance, if it was known that you were doing that kind of work." "But don't you see," cried Georgie, kneeling down on the hearth-rug to bring her face nearer to her friend's,--"don't you see that I've _got_ to be dropped any way? Not because I have done anything, not because people are unkind, but just from the necessity of things. I have no money to buy dresses to go out and enjoy myself with. I have no money to stay at home on, in fact,--I _must_ do something. And to live like Cousin Vi on the edge of things, just tolerated by people, and mortified and snubbed, and then have a little crumb of pleasure tossed to me, as one throws the last scrap of cake that one doesn't want to a cat or a dog,--_that_ is what I could not possibly bear. "I like fun and pretty things and luxury as well as other people," she continued, after a little pause. "It isn't that I shouldn't _prefer_ something different. But everybody can't be well off and have things their own way; and since I am one of the rank and file, it seems to me much wiser to give up the things I _can't_ have, out and out, and not try to be two persons at once, a young lady and a working-girl, but put my whole heart into the thing I must be, and do it just as well as I can. Don't you see that I am right?" "You poor dear darling!" said Mrs. St. John, with tears in her eyes. Then her face cleared. "Very well," she said briskly, "you _shall_. It will be the greatest comfort in the world to have you take charge of the ornaments. _Now_ I can buy as many cups and saucers as I like, and with an easy mind. You must stay and lunch, always, Georgie. I'll give you a regular salary, and when the weather's bad I shall keep you to dinner too, and to spend the night. That's settled; and now let us decide what I shall give you. Would fifty dollars a month be enough?" "My dear Mrs. St. John! Fifty! Two dollars a week was what I was thinking of." "Two dollars! oh, you foolish child! You never could live on that! You don't know anything at all about expenses, Georgie." "But I don't mean only to do _your_ dusting. If you are satisfied, I depend on your recommending me to your friends. I could take care of four sets of rooms just as well as of one. There are so many people in Sandyport who have beautiful houses and collections of bric-à-brac, that I think there might be as many as that who would care to have me if I didn't cost too much. Four places at two dollars each would make eight dollars a week. I could live on that nicely." "I wish you'd count me in as four," said Mrs. St. John. "I should see four times as much of you, and it would make me four hundred times happier." But Georgie was firm, and before they parted it was arranged that she should begin her new task the next morning, and that her friend should do what she could to find her similar work elsewhere. Her plan once made, Georgie suffered no grass to grow under her feet. On the way home she bought some cheese-cloth and a stiff little brush with a pointed end for carvings, and before the next day had provided herself with a quantity of large soft dusters and two little phials of alcohol and oil, and had hunted up a small pair of bellows, which experience had shown her were invaluable for blowing the dust out of delicate objects. Her first essay was a perfect success. Mrs. St. John, quite at a loss how to face the changed situation, gave her a half-troubled welcome; but Georgie's business-like methods reassured her. She followed her about and watched her handle each fragile treasure with skilful, delicate fingers till all was in perfect fresh order, and gave a great sigh of admiration and relief when the work was done. "Now come and sit down," she said. "How tired you must be!" "Not a bit," declared Georgie; "I like to dust, strange to say, and I'm not tired at all; I only wish I had another job just like it to do at once. I see it's what I was made for." By the end of the week Georgie had another regular engagement, and it became necessary to break the news of her new occupation to Cousin Vi. I regret to say that the disclosure caused an "unpleasantness," between them. "I would not have believed such a thing possible even with you," declared that lady with angry tears. "The very idea marks you out as a person of low mind. It's enough to make your Grandmother Talcott rise from her grave! In the name of common decency, couldn't you hunt up something to do, if do you must, except this?" "Nothing that I could do so well and so easily, Cousin Vi." "Don't call me Cousin Vi, I beg! There was no need of doing anything whatever. I asked you to stay here,--you cannot deny that I did." "I don't wish to deny it," said Georgie, gently. "It was ever so kind of you, too. Don't be so vexed with me, Cousin Vi. We look at things differently, and I don't suppose either of us can help it; but don't let us quarrel. You're almost the only relative that I have in the world." "Quarrel!" cried Miss Talcott with a shrill laugh,--"quarrel with a girl that goes out dusting! That isn't in my line, I am happy to say. As for being relatives, we are so no longer, and I shall say so to everybody. Great Heavens! what will people think?" After this outburst it was evident to Georgie that it was better that she should leave Miss Sally's as soon as possible. But where to go? She consulted Miss Sally. That astute person comprehended the situation in the twinkling of an eye, and was ready with a happy suggestion. "There's my brother John's widder in the lower street," she said. "She's tolerably well off, and hasn't ever taken boarders; but she's a sort of lonesome person, and I shouldn't wonder if I could fix it so she'd feel like taking you, and reasonable too. It's mighty handy about that furniture of yours, for her upstairs rooms ain't got nothing in them to speak of, and of course she wouldn't want to buy. I'll step down after dinner and see about it." Miss Sally was a power in her family circle, and she knew it. Before night she had talked Mrs. John Scannell into the belief that to take Georgie to board at five dollars a week was the thing of all others that she most wanted to do; and before the end of two days all was arranged, and Georgie inducted into her new quarters. It was a little low-pitched, old-fashioned house, but it had some pleasant features, and was very neat. A big corner room with a window to the south and another to the sunset was assigned to Georgie for her bedroom. The old furniture that she had been used to all her life made it look homelike, and the hair-cloth sofa and the secretary and square mahogany table were welcome additions to the rather scantily furnished sitting-room below, which she shared at will with her hostess. Mrs. Scannell was a gentle, kindly woman, the soul of cleanliness and propriety, but subject to low spirits; and contact with Georgie's bright, hopeful youth was as delightful to her as it was beneficial. She soon became very fond of "my young lady," as she called her, and Georgie could not have been better placed as to kindness and comfortableness. A better place than Sandyport for just such an experiment as she was making could scarcely have been found. Many city people made it their home for the summer; but at all times of the year there was a considerable resident population of wealthy people. Luxurious homes were rather the rule than the exception, and there was quite a little rivalry as to elegance of appointment among them. Mrs. St. John's enthusiasm and Mrs. St. John's recommendation bore fruit, and it was not long before Georgie had secured her coveted "four places." Two of her employers were comparative strangers; with the fourth, Mrs. Constant Carrington, she had been on terms of some intimacy in the old days, but was not much so now. It _is_ rather difficult to keep up friendship with your "dusting girl," as her Cousin Vi would have said; Mrs. Carrington called her "Georgie" still, when they met, and was perfectly civil in her manners, but always there was the business relation to stand between them, and Georgie felt it. Mrs. St. John still tried to retain the pretty pretext that Georgie's labors were a sort of joke, a playing with independence; but there was nothing of this pretext with the other three. To them, Georgie was simply a useful adjunct to their luxurious lives, as little to be regarded as the florist who filled their flower-boxes or the man who tuned their pianos. These little rubs to self-complacency were not very hard to bear. It was not exactly pleasant, certainly, to pass in at the side entrance where she had once been welcomed at the front door; to feel that her comings and her goings were so insignificant as to be scarcely noticed; now and then, perhaps, to be treated with scant courtesy by an ill-mannered servant. This rarely chanced, however. Georgie had a little natural dignity which impressed servants as well as other people, and from her employers she received nothing but the most civil treatment. Fashion is not unkindly, and it was still remembered that Miss Talcott was born a lady, though she worked for a living. There were stormy days and dull days, days when Georgie felt tired and discouraged; or, harder still to bear, bright days and gala days, when she saw other girls of her age setting forth to enjoy themselves in ways now closed to her. I will not deny that she suffered at such moments, and wished with all her heart that things could be different. But on the whole she bore herself bravely and well, and found some happiness in her work, together with a great deal of contentment. Mrs. St. John added to her difficulties by continual efforts to tempt her to do this and that pleasant thing which Georgie felt to be inexpedient. She wanted her favorite to play at young ladyhood in her odd minutes, and defy the little frosts and chills which Georgie instinctively knew would be her portion if she should attempt to enter society again on the old terms. If Georgie urged that she had no proper dress, the answer was prompt,--"My dear, I am going to give you a dress;" or, "My dear, you can wear my blue, we are just the same height." But Georgie stood firm, warded off the shower of gifts which was ready to descend upon her, and loving her friend the more that she was so foolishly kind, would not let herself be persuaded into doing what she knew was unwise. "I can't be two people at once," she persisted. "There's not enough of me for that. You remember what I said that first day, and I mean to stick to it. You are a perfect darling, and just as kind as you can be; but you must just let me go my own way, dear Mrs. St. John, and be satisfied to know that it is the comfort of my life to have you love me so much, though I won't go to balls with you." But though Georgie would not go to balls or dinner-parties, there were smaller gayeties and pleasures which she did not refuse,--drives and sails now and then, tickets to concerts and lectures, or a long quiet Sunday with a "spend the night" to follow. These little breaks in her busy life were wholesome and refreshing, and she saw no reason for denying them to herself. There was nothing morbid in my little Knight of Labor, which was one reason why she labored so successfully. So the summer came and went, and Georgie with it, keeping steadily on at her daily task. All that she found to do she did as thoroughly and as carefully as she knew how. She was of real use, and she knew it. Her work had a value. It was not imaginary work, invented as a pretext for giving her help, and the fact supported her self-respect. We are told in one of our Lord's most subtly beautiful parables, that to them who make perfect use of their one talent, other talents shall be added also. Many faithful workers have proved the meaning and the truth of the parable, and Georgie Talcott found it now among the rest. With the coming in of the autumn another sphere of activity was suddenly opened to her. It sprang, as good things often do, from a seeming disappointment. She was drawing on her gloves one morning at the close of her labors, when a message was brought by the discreet English butler. "Mrs. Parish says, Miss, will you be so good as to step up to her morning-room before you go." "Certainly, Frederick." And Georgie turned and ran lightly upstairs. Mrs. Parish was sitting at her writing-table with rather a preoccupied face. "I sent for you, Miss Talcott, because I wanted to mention that we are going abroad for the winter," she began. "Maud isn't well, the doctors recommend the Riviera, so we have decided rather suddenly on our plans, and are to sail on the 'Scythia' the first of November. We shall be gone a year." "Dear me," thought Georgie, "there's another of my places lost! It is quite dreadful!" She was conscious of a sharp pang of inward disappointment. "My cousin, Mrs. Ernest Stockton, is to take the place," continued Mrs. Parish. "Her husband has been in the legation at Paris, you know, for the last six years, but now they are coming back for good; and when I telegraphed her of our decision, she at once cabled to secure this house. They will land the week after we sail, and I suppose will want to come up at once. Now, of course all sorts of things have got to be done to make ready for them; but it's out of the question that I should do them, for what with packing and the children's dressmaking and appointments at the dentist's and all that, my hands are so full that I could not possibly undertake anything else. So I was thinking of you. You have so much head and system, you know, and I could trust you as I could not any stranger, and you know the house so well; and you could get plenty of people to help, so that it need not be burdensome. There will be some things to be packed away, and the whole place to be cleaned, floors waxed and curtains washed, the Duchesse dressing-tables taken to pieces and done up and fluted,--all that sort of thing, you know. Oh! and there would be an inventory to make, too; I forgot that. Then next year I should want it gone over again in the same way,--the articles that are packed taken out and put into place, and so on, that it may look natural when we come home. My idea would be to move the family down to New York on the 15th, so as to give you a clear fortnight, and just come up for one day before we sail, for a final look. Of course I should leave the keys in your charge, and I should want you to take the whole responsibility. Now, will you do it, and just tell me what you will ask for it all?" "May I think it over for one night?" said prudent Georgie. "I will come to-morrow morning with my answer." She thought it over carefully, and seemed to see that here was a new vista of remunerative labor opened to her, of a more permanent character than mere dusting. So she signified to Mrs. Parish that she would undertake the job, and having done so, bent her mind to doing it in the best possible manner. She made careful lists, and personally superintended each detail. Miss Sally recommended trustworthy workpeople, and everything was carried out to the full satisfaction of Mrs. Parish, who could not say enough in praise of Georgie and her methods. "It robs going to Europe of half its terrors to have such a person to turn to," she told her friends. "That little Miss Talcott is really wonderful,--so clear-headed and exact. It's really extraordinary where she learned it all, such a girl as she is. If any of you are going abroad, you'll find her the greatest comfort possible." These commendations bore fruit. People in Sandyport were always setting forth for this part of the world or that, and leaving houses behind them. A second job of the same sort was soon urged upon Georgie, followed by a third and a fourth. It was profitable work, for she had fifty dollars in each case (a hundred for her double job at the Algernon Parishes'); so her year's expenses were assured, and she was not sorry when another of her "dusting" families went to Florida for the winter. It became the fashion in Sandyport to employ "little Miss Talcott." Her capabilities once discovered, people were quick in finding out ways in which to utilize them. Mrs. Robert Brown had the sudden happy thought of getting Georgie to arrange the flowers for a ball which she was giving. Georgie loved flowers, and had that knack of making them look charming in vases which is the gift of a favored few. The ball decorations were admired and commented upon; people said it was "so clever of Mrs. Brown," and "so much better than stiff things from a florist's," and presently half a dozen other ladies wanted the same thing done for them. Fashion and sheep always follow any leader who is venturesome enough to try a new fence. Later, Mrs. Horace Brown, with her cards out for a great lawn-party, had the misfortune to sprain her ankle. In this emergency she bethought herself of Georgie, who thereupon proved so "invaluable" as a _dea ex machina_ behind the scenes, that thenceforward Mrs. Brown never felt that she could give any sort of entertainment without her help. Engagements thickened, and Georgie's hands became so full that she laughingly threatened to "take a partner." "That's just what I always wanted you to do," said Mrs. St. John,--"a real nice one, with heaps of money, who would take you about everywhere, and give you a good time." "Oh, that's not at all the sort I want," protested Georgie, laughing and blushing. "I mean a real business partner, a fellow-sweeperess and house-arranger and ball-supper-manageress!" "Wretched girl, how horribly practical you are! I wish I could see you discontented and sentimental just for once!" "Heaven forbid! That _would_ be a pretty state of things! Now good-by. I have about half a ton of roses to arrange for Mrs. Lauriston." "Oh,--for her dance! Georgie," coaxingly, "why not go for once with me? Come, just this once. There's that white dress of mine from _Pingat_, with the _Point de Venie_ sleeves, that would exactly fit you." "Nonsense!" replied Georgie, briefly. She kissed her friend and hurried away. "I declare," soliloquized Mrs. St. John, looking after her, "I could find it in my heart to _advertise_ for some one to come and rescue Georgie Talcott from all this hard work! What nice old times those were when you had only to get up a tournament and blow a trumpet or two, and have true knights flock in from all points of the compass in aid of distressed damsels! I wish such things were in fashion now; I would buy a trumpet this very day, I vow, and have a tournament next week." Georgie's true knight, as it happened, was to come from a quarter little suspected by Mrs. St. John. For the spare afternoons of this second winter Georgie had reserved rather a large piece of work, which had the advantage that it could be taken up at will and laid down when convenient. This was the cataloguing of a valuable library belonging to Mr. Constant Carrington. That gentleman had observed Georgie rather closely as she went about her various avocations, and had formed so high an opinion of what he was pleased to term her "executive ability," that he made a high bid for her services in preference to those of any one else. [Illustration: Recognizing an old friend, she jumped up, exclaiming, "Why Bob--Mr. Curtis--how do you do?"--_Page 49._] She was sitting in this library one rainy day in January, beside a big packing-case, with a long row of books on the table, which she was dusting, classifying, and noting on the list in her lap, when the door opened and a tall young man came in. Georgie glanced at him vaguely, as at a stranger; then recognizing an old friend, she jumped up, exclaiming, "Why Bob--Mr. Curtis,--how do you do? I had no idea that you were here." Bob Curtis looked bewildered. He had reached Sandyport only that morning. No one had chanced to mention Georgie or the change in her fortunes, and for a moment he failed to recognize in the white-aproned, dusty-fingered vision before him the girl whom he had known so well five years previously. "It is?--why it _is_," he exclaimed. "Miss Georgie, how delighted I am to see you! I was coming down to call as soon as I could find out where you were. My aunt said nothing about your being in the house." "Very likely she did not know. I am in and out so often here that I do not always see Mrs. Carrington." "Indeed!" Bob looked more puzzled than ever. He had not remembered that there was any such close intimacy in the old days between the two families. "I can't shake hands, I am too dusty," went on Georgie. "But I am very glad indeed to see you again." She too was taking mental notes, and observing that her former friend had lost somewhat of the gloss and brilliance of his boyish days; that his coat was not of the last cut; and that his expression was spiritless, not to say discontented. "Poor fellow!" she thought. "What on earth does it all mean?" meditated Bob on his part. "These books only came yesterday," said Georgie, indicating the big box with a wave of the hand. "I have had to dust them all; and I find that Italian dust sticks just as the American variety does, and makes the fingers just as black." A little laugh. "What _are_ you doing, if I may be so bold as to ask?" "Cataloguing your uncle's library. He has been buying quantities of books for the last two years, as perhaps you know. He has a man in Germany and another in Paris and another in London, who purchase for him, and the boxes are coming over almost every week now. A great case full of the English ones arrived last Saturday,--such beauties! Look at that Ruskin behind you. It is the first edition, with all the plates, worth its weight in gold." "It's awfully good of you to take so much trouble, I'm sure," remarked Mr. Curtis politely, still with the same mystified look. "Not at all," replied Georgie, coolly. "It's all in my line of business, you know. Mr. Carrington is to give me a hundred dollars for the job; which is excellent pay, because I can take my own time for doing it, and work at odd moments." Her interlocutor looked more perplexed than ever. A distinct embarrassment became visible in his manner at the words "job" and "pay." "Certainly," he said. Then coloring a little he frankly went on, "I don't understand a bit. Would you mind telling me what it all means?" "Oh, you haven't happened to hear of my 'befalments,' as Miss Sally Scannell would call them." "I did hear of your mother's death," said Bob, gently, "and I was truly sorry. She was so kind to me always in the old days." "She was kind to everybody. I am glad you were sorry," said Georgie, bright tears in the eyes which she turned with a grateful look on Bob. "Well, that was the beginning of it all." There was another pause, during which Bob pulled his moustache nervously! Then he drew a chair to the table and sat down. "Can you talk while you're working?" he asked. "And mayn't I help? It seems as though I might at least lift those books out for you. Now, if you don't mind, if it isn't painful, won't you tell me what has happened to you, for I see that something _has_ happened." "A great deal has happened, but it isn't painful to tell about it. Things _were_ puzzling at first, but they have turned out wonderfully; and I'm rather proud of the way they have gone." So, little by little, with occasional interruptions for lifting out books and jotting down titles, she told her story, won from point to point by the eager interest which her companion showed in the narrative. When she had finished, he brought his hand down heavily on the table. "I'll tell you what," he exclaimed with vigorous emphasis, "it's most extraordinary that a girl should do as you have done. You're an absolute little _brick_,--if you'll excuse the phrase. But it makes a fellow--it makes _me_ more ashamed of myself than I've often been in my life before." "But why,--why should you be ashamed?" "Oh, I've been having hard times too," explained Bob, gloomily. "But I haven't been so plucky as you. I've minded them more." Georgie knew vaguely something of these "hard times." In the "old days," five years before, when she was seventeen and he a Harvard Junior of twenty, spending a long vacation with his uncle, and when they had rowed and danced and played tennis together so constantly as to set people to wondering if anything "serious" was likely to arise from the intimacy, the world with all its opportunities and pleasures seemed open to the heir of the Curtis family. Bob's father was rich, the family influential, there seemed nothing that he might not command at will. Then all was changed suddenly; a great financial panic swept away the family fortunes in a few weeks. Mr. Curtis died insolvent, and Robert was called on to give up many half-formed wishes and ambitions, and face the stern realities. What little could be saved from the wreck made a scanty subsistence for his mother and sisters; he must support himself. For more than two years he had been filling a subordinate position in a large manufacturing business. His friends considered him in luck to secure such a place; and he was fain to agree with them, but the acknowledgment did not make him exactly happy in it, notwithstanding. Discipline can hardly be agreeable. Bob Curtis had been a little spoiled by prosperity; and though he did his work fairly well, there was always a bitterness at heart, and a certain tinge of false shame at having it to do at all. He worked because he must, he told himself, not because he liked or ever should like it. All the family traditions were opposed to work. Then he had the natural confidence of a very young man in his own powers, and it was not pleasant to be made to feel at every turn that he was raw, inexperienced, not particularly valuable to anybody, and that no one especially looked up to or admired him. He scorned himself for minding such things; but all the same he did mind them, and the frank, kindly young fellow was in danger of becoming soured and cynical in his lonely and uncongenial surroundings. It was just at this point that good fortune brought him into contact with Georgie Talcott, and it was like the lifting of a veil from before his eyes. He recollected her such a pretty, care-free creature, petted and adored by her mother, every day filled with pleasant things, not a worry or cloud allowed to shadow the bright succession of her amusements; and here she sat telling him of a fight with necessity compared with which his seemed like child's play, and out of which she had come victorious. He was struck, too, with the total absence of embarrassment and false shame in the telling. Work, in Georgie's mind, was evidently a thing to be proud of and thankful over, not something to be practised shyly, and alluded to with bated breath. The contrast between his and her way of looking at the thing struck him sharply. It did not take long for Georgie to arrive at the facts in Bob's case. Confidence begets confidence; and in another day or two, won by her bright sympathy, he gradually made a clean breast of his troubles. Somehow they did not seem so great after they were told. Georgie's sympathy was not of a weakening sort, and her questions and comments seemed to clear things to his mind, and set them in right relations to each other. "I don't think that I pity you much," she told him one day. "Your mother and the girls, yes, because they are women and not used to it, and it always _is_ harder for girls--" "See here, you're a girl yourself," put in Bob. "No--I'm a business person. Don't interrupt. What I was going to say was, that I think it's _lovely_ for a young man to have to work! We are all lazy by nature; we need to be shaken up and compelled to do our best. You will be ten times as much of a person in the end as if you had always had your own way." "Do you really think that? But what's the use of talking? I may stick where I am for years, and never do more than just make a living." "I wouldn't!" said Georgie, throwing back her pretty head with an air of decision. "I should scorn to 'stick' if I were a man! And I don't believe you will either. If you once go into it heartily and put your will into it, you're sure to succeed. I always considered you clever, you know. You'll go up--up--as sure as, as sure as _dust_,--that's the thing of all the world that's most certain to rise, I think." "'Overmastered with a clod of valiant marl,'" muttered Robert below his breath; then aloud, "Well, if that's the view you take of it, I'll do my best to prove you right. It's worth a good deal to know that there is somebody who expects something of me." "I expect everything of you," said Georgie confidently. And Bob went back to his post at the end of the fortnight infinitely cheered and heartened. "Bless her brave little heart!" he said to himself. "I won't disappoint her if I can help it; or, if I must, I'll know the reason why." It is curious, and perhaps a little humiliating, to realize how much our lives are affected by what may be called accident. A touch here or there, a little pull up or down to set us going, often determines the direction in which we go, and direction means all. Robert Curtis in after times always dated the beginning of his fortunes from the day when he walked into his uncle's library and found Georgie Talcott cataloguing books. "It set me to making a man of myself," he used to say. Georgie did not see him for more than a year after his departure, but he wrote twice to say that he had taken her advice and it had "worked," and he had "got a rise." The truth was that the boy had an undeveloped capacity for affairs, inherited from the able old grandfather, who laid the foundations of the fortune which Bob's father muddled away. When once will and energy were roused and brought into play, this hereditary bent asserted itself. Bob became valuable to his employers, and like Georgie's "dust," began to go up in the business scale. Georgie had just successfully re-established the Algernon Parishes, who arrived five months later than was expected, in their home, when Bob came up for a second visit to his uncle. This time he had three weeks' leave, and it was just before he went back that he proposed the formation of what he was pleased to call "A Labor Union." "You see I'm a working man now just as you are a working woman," he explained. "It's our plain duty to co-operate. You shall be Grand Master--or rather Mistress--and I'll be some sort of a subordinate,--a Walking Delegate, perhaps." "Indeed, you shall be nothing of the sort. Walking Delegates are particularly idle people, I've always heard. They just go about ordering other folks to stop work and do nothing." "Then I won't be one. I'll be Grand Master's Mate." "There's no such office in Labor Unions. If we have one at all, you must have the first place in it." "What is that position? Please describe it in full. Whatever happens, I won't strike." "Oh," said Georgie, with the prettiest blush in the world, "the position is too intricate for explanation; we won't describe it." "But will you join the Union?" "I thought we had joined already,--both of us." "Now, Georgie, dearest, I'm in earnest. Thanks to you, I know what work means and how good it is. And now I want my reward, which is to work beside you always as long as I live. Don't turn away your head, but tell me that I may." I cannot tell you exactly what was Georgie's answer, for this conversation took place on the beach, and just then they sat down on the edge of a boat and began to talk in such low tones that no one could overhear; but as they sat a long time and she went home leaning contentedly on Bob's arm, I presume she answered as he wished. He went back to his work soon afterward, and has made his way up very fast since. Next spring the firm with which he is connected propose to send him to Chicago to start a new branch of their business there. He is to have a good salary and a share of the profits, and it is understood that Georgie will go with him. She has kept on steadily at her various avocations, has made herself so increasingly useful that all Sandyport wonders what it shall do without her when she goes away, and has laid up what Miss Sally calls "a tidy bit of money" toward the furnishing of the home which she and Bob hope to have before long. Mrs. St. John has many plans in mind for the wedding; and though Georgie laughingly protests that she means to be married in a white apron, with a wreath of "dusty miller" round her head, I dare say she will give in when the time comes, and consent to let her little occasion be made pretty. Even a girl who works likes to have her marriage day a bright one. Cousin Vi, for her part, is dimly reaching out toward a reconciliation. For, be it known, work which brings success, and is proved to have a solid money value of its own, loses in the estimation of the fastidious its degrading qualities, and is spoken of by the more euphonious title of "good fortune." It is only work which doesn't succeed, which remains forever disrespectable. I think I may venture to predict that the time will come when Cousin Vi will condone all Georgie's wrong-doings, and extend, not the olive-branch only, but both hands, to "the Curtises," that is if they turn out as prosperous as their friends predict and expect them to be. But whatever Fate may have in store for my dear little Georgie and her chosen co-worker, of one thing I am sure,--that, fare as they may with worldly fortune, they will never be content, having tasted of the salt of work, to feed again on the honey-bread of idleness, or become drones in the working-hive, but will persevere to the end in the principles and practices of what in the best sense of the word may be called their Labor Union. SNOWY PETER. The weather was very cold, though it was not Christmas yet, and to the great delight of the Kane children, December had brought an early and heavy fall of snow. Older people were sorry. They grieved for the swift vanishing of the lovely Indian summer, for the blighting of the last flowers, chrysanthemums, snow-berries, bitter-sweet, and for the red leaves, so pretty but a few days since, which were now blown about and battered by the strong wind. But the children wasted no sympathy on either leaves or berries. A snow-storm seemed to them just then better than anything that ever grew on bush or tree, and they revelled in it all the long afternoon without a thought of what it had cost the world. It was a deep snow. It lay over the lawn six inches on a level; in the hollow by the fence the drifts were at least two feet deep. There was no lack of building material therefore when Reggie proposed that they should all go to work and make a fort. Such a wonderful fort as it turned out to be! It had walls and bastions and holes for cannon. It had cannon too, all made of snow. It had a gateway, just like a real fort, and a flag-staff and a flag. The staff was a tall slender column of snow, and they poured water over it, and it froze and became a long pole of glittering ice. The flag had a swallow-tail and was icy too. Reggie had been in New London and Newport the last summer, he had seen real fortifications and knew how they should look. Under his direction the little ones built a _glacis_. Some of you will know what that is,--the steep slippery grass slope which lies beneath the fort walls and is so hard to climb. This _glacis_ was harder yet--snow is better than grass for defensive purposes--if only it would last. "Now let's make the soldiers," shouted little Paul as the last shovel-full of snow was spread on the _glacis_ and smoothed down. "Oh, Paul, we can't, there won't be time," said Elma, the biggest girl, glancing apprehensively at the sun, which was nearing the edge of the sky. "It must be five o'clock, and nurse will call us almost right away." "Oh, bother! I wish the days weren't so short," said Paul discontentedly. "Let's make one man, any way; just for a sentry, you know. There ought to be a sentry to take care of the fort. Can't we, Elma?" "Yes--only we must hurry." The small crew precipitated itself on the drift. None of them were cold, for exercise had warmed their blood. The little ones gathered great snowballs and rolled them up to the fort, while the big ones shaped and moulded. In a wonderfully short time the "man" was completed,--eyes, nose, and all, and the gun in his hand. A pipe was put into his mouth, a cocked-hat on his head. Elma curled his hair a little. Susan Sunflower, as the round-faced younger girl was called for fun, patted and smoothed his cheeks and forehead with her warm little hands. They made boots for him, and a coat with buttons on the tail-pocket; he was a beautiful man indeed! Just as the last touch was given, a window opened and nurse's head appeared,--the very thing the children had been dreading. "Come, children, come in to supper," she called out across the snow. "It's nearly half-past five. You ought to have come in half an hour ago. Miss Susan, stop working in that snow, nasty cold stuff; you'll catch your death. Master Reggie, make the little boys hurry, please." There was never any appeal from Nurse Freeman's decisions, least of all now when papa and mamma were both away, and she ruled the house as its undisputed autocrat. Even Reggie, on the verge of twelve, dare not disobey her. She was English and a martinet, and had been in charge of the children all their lives; but she was kind as well as strict, and they loved her. Reluctantly the little troop prepared to go. They picked up the shovels and baskets, for Nurse Freeman was very particular about fetching things in and putting them in their places. They took a last regretful look at their fort. Paul climbed the wall for one more jump down. Little Harry indulged in a final slide across the _glacis_. Susan Sunflower stroked the Sentinel's hand. "Good-night, Snowy Peter!" they cried in chorus, for that was the name they had agreed upon for their soldier. Then they ran across the lawn in a long skurrying line like a covey of birds, there was a scraping of feet on the porch, the side-door closed with a bang, and they were gone. Left to himself, Snowy Peter stood still in his place beside the gateway of the fortification. Snowmen usually do stand still, at least till the time comes for them to melt and run away, so there was nothing strange in that. What _was_ singular was that about an hour after the children had left him, when dusk had closed in over the house and the leafless trees, and "Fort Kane" had grown a vague dim shape, he slowly turned his head! It was as though the fingers of little Susan had communicated something of their warmth and fulness of life to the poor senseless figure while working over it, and this influence was beginning to take effect. He turned his head and looked in the direction of the house. All was dark except for the hall lamp below, which shone through the glass panes above the door, and for two windows in the second story out of which streamed a strong yellow light. These were the windows of the nursery, where, at that moment, the children were eating their supper. Snowy Peter remained for a time in motionless silence looking at the window. Then his body slowly began to turn, following the movement of its head. He lifted one stiff ill-shaped foot and moved a step forward. Then he lifted the other and took another step. His left arm dangled uselessly; the right hand held out the gun which Paul had made, and which was of the most curious shape. The tracks which he left in the snow as he crossed the lawn resembled the odd, waddling tracks of a flat-footed elephant as much as anything else. It took him a long, long time to cross the space over which the light feet of the children had run in two minutes. Each step seemed to cost him a mighty effort. The right leg would quiver for a moment, then wave wildly to and fro, then with a sort of galvanic jerk project itself, and the whole body, with a pitch and a lurch, would plunge forward heavily, till brought up again in an upright position by the advanced leg. After that the left leg would take its turn, and the process be repeated. There was no spring, no supple play to the joints; in fact, Snowy Peter had no joints. His young creators had left them out while constructing him. At last he reached the wall of the house, and stood beneath the windows where the yellow light was burning. This had been the goal of his desires; but, alas, now that he had attained the coveted position he could not look in at the windows--he was far too short. Desperation lent him energy. A stout lattice was nailed against the house, up which in summer a flowering clematis twined and clustered. Seizing this, Snowy Peter began to climb! Up one bar after another he slowly and painfully went, lifting his heavy feet and clinging tightly with his poor, stiff hands. His gun-stock snapped in the middle, his cocked-hat sustained many contusions, even his nose had more than one hard knock. But he had the heart of a hero, whom neither danger, nor difficulty, nor personal inconvenience can deter, and at last his head was on a level with the nursery window-sill. It was a pleasant sight that met his eyes. No one had slept in the nursery since Paul had grown big enough for a bed of his own; and though it kept its own name, it was in reality only a big, cheerful upstairs sitting-room, where lessons could be studied, meals taken, and Nurse Freeman sit and do her mending and be on hand always for any one who wanted her. Now that Mr. and Mrs. Kane were absent, the downstairs rooms looked vacant and dreary, and the children spent all their evenings in the nursery from preference. A large fire burned briskly in the ample grate. A kettle hissed and bubbled on the hob; on the round table where the lamp stood, was a row of bright little tin basins just emptied of the smoking-hot bread-and-milk which was the usual nursery supper. Nurse was cutting slices from a big brown loaf and buttering them with nice yellow butter. There was also some gingerbread, and by way of special and particular treat, a pot of strawberry-jam, to which Paul at that moment was paying attention. He had scooped out such an enormous spoonful as to attract the notice of the whole party; and just as Snowy Peter raised his white staring eyes above the sill, Reggie called out, "Hullo! I say! leave a little of that for somebody else, will you?" "Piggy-wiggy," remarked Harry, indignantly; "and it's your second help too!" "Master Paul, I'm surprised at you," observed Nurse Freeman severely, taking the big spoonful away from him. "There, that's quite enough," and she put half the quantity on the edge of his plate and gave the other half to Susan. "That's not fair," remonstrated Paul, "when I've been working so hard, and it's so cold, and when I like jam so, and when it's so awfully good beside." "Jam! what is jam?" thought Snowy Peter. He pressed his cold nose closer to the glass. "We all worked hard, Paul," said Elma, "and we all like jam as much as you do. May I have some more, Nursey?" "I wonder how poor Snowy Peter feels all alone out there in the garden," said Susan Sunflower. "He must be very cold, poor fellow!" "Ho, he don't mind it!" declared Paul with his mouth full of bread-and-jam. "Oh, yes, I do--I mind it very much," murmured Snowy Peter to himself; but he had no voice with which to make an outward noise. "Won't you come out and see him to-morrow, Nursey?" went on Susan. "He's the best man we ever made. He's quite beautiful. He's got a pipe and a hat and curly hair and buttons on his coat--I'm sure you'll like him." Snowy Peter reared himself straighter on the lattice. He was proud to hear himself thus commended. "If he could only talk and walk, he'd be just as good as a live person, really he would, Nursey," said Elma. "Wouldn't it be fun if he could! We'd bring him in to tea and he'd sit by the fire and warm his hands, and it would be such fun." "He'd melt fast enough in this warm room," observed Reggie, while Nurse Freeman added: "That's nonsense, Miss Elma. How could a man like that walk? And I don't want no nasty snow images in _my_ nursery, melting and slopping up the carpet." Snowy Peter listened to this conversation with a painful feeling at his heart. He felt lonely and forlorn. No one really liked him. To the children he was only a thing to be played with and joked about. Nurse Freeman called him a "nasty snow image." But though he was hurt and troubled in his spirit, the warm bright nursery, the sound of laughter and human voices, even the fire, that foe most fatal of all to things made of snow, had an irresistible attraction for him. He could not bear the idea of returning to his cold post of duty beside the lonely Fort, and under the wintry midnight sky. So he still clung to the lattice and looked in at the window with his unwinking eyes; and a great longing to be inside, and to sit down by the cheerful fire and be treated with kindness, took possession of him. But what is the use of such ambitions to a snow-man? Long, long he clung to the lattice and lingered and looked in. He saw the two little ones when first the sand-man began to drop his grains into their eyes, and noticed how they struggled against the sleepy influence, and tried to keep awake. He saw Nurse Freeman carry them off, and presently fetch them back in their flannel nightgowns to say their prayers beside the fire. Snowy Peter did not know what it meant as they knelt with their heads in Nursey's lap, and their pink toes curled up in the glow of the heat, but it was a pretty sight to see, and he liked it. After they were taken away for the second time, he watched Elma as she studied her geography lesson for the morrow, while Reggie did sums on his slate, and Paul played at checkers with Susan Sunflower. Snowy Peter thought he should like to do sums, and he was sure it would be nice to play checkers, and jump squares and chuckle and finally beat, as Paul did. Alas, checkers are not for snow-men! Paul went to bed when the game was ended, and Susan, and a little later the other two followed. Then Nurse Freeman raked out the fire and put ashes on top, and blew the lights out and went away herself, leaving the nursery dark and silent except for a dim glow from the ash-smothered grate and the low ticking of the clock. Some time after she departed, when the lights in the other windows had all been extinguished and the house was as dark inside as the night was outside, Snowy Peter raised his hand and pushed gently at the sash. It was not fastened, and it opened easily and without much noise. Then a heavy leg was thrown over the sill, and stiffly and painfully the snow soldier climbed into the room. He wanted to feel what it was like to sit in a chair beside a table as human beings sit, and he was extremely curious about the fire. Alas, he could not sit! He was made to stand but not to bend. When he tried to seat himself his body lay in a long inclined plane, with the shoulder-blades resting on the back of the chair, and the legs sticking out straight before him,--an attitude which was not at all comfortable. The chair creaked beneath him and tipped dangerously. It was with difficulty that he got again into his natural position, and he trembled with fear in every limb. It had been a narrow escape. "A fine thing it would have been if I had fallen over and not been able to get on my feet again," he thought. "How that terrible old woman would have swept me up in the morning!" Then, cautiously and timidly, he put his finger into the nearly empty jam-pot, rubbed it round till a little of the sweet, sticky juice adhered to it, and raised it to his lips. It had no taste to him. Jam was a human joy in which he could not share, and he heaved a deep sigh. Drops began to stand on his forehead. Though there was so little fire left, the room was much warmer than the outer air, and Snowy Peter had begun to melt. A great and sudden fear took possession of him. As fast as his heavy limbs would allow, he hastened to the window. It was a great deal harder to go down the lattice than to climb up it, and twice he almost lost his footing. But at last he stood safely on the ground. The window he left open; he had no strength left for extra exertion. With increasing difficulty he stumbled across the lawn to his old position beside the gateway of the fort. A sense of duty had sustained him thus far, for a sentry must be found at his post; but now that he was there, all power seemed to desert his limbs. Little Susan's warm fingers had perhaps put just so much life into him, and no more, as would enable him to do what he had done, as a clock can run but its appointed course of hours and must then stop. His head turned no longer in the direction of the house. His eyes looked immovably forward. The straight stiff hand held out the broken gun. Two o'clock sounded from the church steeple, three, four. The earliest dawn crept slowly into the sky. It broadened to a soft pink flush, a sudden wind rose and stirred, and as if quickened by its impulse up came the yellow sun. Smoke began to curl from the house chimneys, doors opened, voices sounded, but still Snowy Peter did not move. "Why, what is this?" cried Nurse Freeman, hurrying into the nursery from her bedroom, which was near. "How comes this window to be open? I left the fire covered up a purpose, that my dears might have a warm room to breakfast in. It's as cold as a barn. It must be that careless Maria. She's no head and no thoughtfulness, that girl." Maria denied the accusation, but Nurse was not convinced. "Windows did not open without hands," she justly observed. But what hands opened this particular window Nurse Freeman never, never knew! Presently another phenomenon claimed her attention. There on the carpet, close to the table where the jam-pot stood, was a large slop of water. It marked the spot where the snow-man had begun to melt the night before. "It's the snow the children brought in on their boots," suggested Maria. "Boots!" cried Nurse Freeman incredulously. "Boots! when I changed them myself and put on their warm slippers!" She shook her head portentously as she wiped up the slop. "There's something _on_accountable in it all," she said. So there was, but it was a great deal more unaccountable than Nurse Freeman suspected. When the children ran out, after lessons, to play in their fort, their time for wonderment came. How oddly Snowy Peter looked,--not at all as he did the day before. His figure had somehow grown rubbed and shabby. The buttons were gone from his coat-tails. The gun they had taken such pains with was broken in two. _Where was the other half?_" "What's that on his finger?" demanded Elma. "It looks as if it were bleeding." It was the juice of the strawberry-jam! Paul first tasted delicately with the tip of his tongue, then he boldly bit the finger off and swallowed it. "Why, what made you do that?" asked the others. "Jam!" was the succinct reply. "Jam! Impossible. How could our snow-man get at any jam? It couldn't be that." "Tastes like it, any way," remarked Paul. "I can't think what has happened to spoil him so," said Elma, plaintively. "Do you think a loose horse can have got into the yard during the night? See how the snow is trampled down!" "Hallo, look here!" shouted Reggie. "This is the queerest thing yet. There's the other half the gun sticking out half-way up the clematis frame!" "It must have been a horse," said Elma, who having once settled on the idea found it hard to give it up. "It couldn't be anything else." "Oh, yes, it could. It was no horse. It was me," said Snowy Peter in the depths of his being, where a little warmth still lingered. "He's very ugly now, I think; see how he's melted all along his shoulder, and his hair has got out of curl, and his nose is awful," pronounced Susan Sunflower. "Let's pull him to pieces and make a nicer man." "Oh, oh!" groaned Snowy Peter, with a final effort of consciousness. His inward sufferings did not affect his features in the least, and no one suspected that he was feeling anything. Paul knocked the pipe out of his mouth with a snow-ball. Harry, with a great push, rolled him over. The crisp snow parted and flew, the children hurrahed; in three minutes he was a shapeless mass, and nobody ever knew or guessed how for a few brief hours he had lived the life of a human being, been agitated by hope and moved by desire. So ended Snowy Peter; and his sole mourner was little Susan, who remarked, "After all, he _was_ nice before he got spoiled, and I wish Nursey had seen him." THE DO SOMETHING SOCIETY. Clatter, clatter, went a sewing-machine in an upstairs room, as the busy mamma of the Newcombe children bent over it, guiding the long breadths beneath the clicking needle, her eyes fixed on its glancing point, but her thoughts very far away, after the fashion of mammas who work on sewing-machines. The slam of a door, and the sound of quick feet in the entry below, arrested her attention. "That is Catherine, of course," she said to herself. "None of the other children bang the door in just that particular way." The top of a rapidly ascending red hat, with a pigtail of fair hair hanging beneath it, became visible, as Mrs. Newcombe glanced across to the staircase. It _was_ Catherine. Another moment, and she burst into the room. "Mamma, mamma, where are you? Oh, mamma, we girls have invented a society, and we are all going to belong to it." "Who is 'all,' and what sort of a society is it?" demanded Mrs. Newcombe, by no means suspending her machine work. "All--we six, I mean--Frances and the Vaughns, and the 'Tittering Twins,' and me. We haven't any name for the society yet, but we want to do something." "What sort of a something?" "Oh, I don't know. All sorts of somethings; but, first of all--you know how sick Minnie Banister is, don't you, mamma?" "Yes." "Well, the society is really gotten up for her. We want to go every Saturday, and take her presents. Surprises, you know, so that she can be sort of expecting us all the week and looking forward. Don't you think that is a good plan, mamma?" "Very good; but what kind of presents were you thinking of?" "I don't know exactly; we haven't thought about that yet. Something pretty. You'll give us some money to buy them with, won't you, mamma?" "No, dear, I can't do that." "But, mamma!" "Listen, Catherine, and don't pucker your forehead so. It's a bad habit which you have taken up lately, and I want you to break yourself of it. I cannot give you money to buy presents; not that I do not love Minnie, or am not sorry for her, but I cannot afford it. Papa has his own boys and girls to feed and clothe and educate. He cannot spare money for things that are not necessary, even when they are kind pleasant things like this plan of yours." "But, mamma--little bits of things! It wouldn't take much!" "You naturally feel that there is no bottom to papa's pocket, Catherine; that he has only to put his hand in and take out what he likes; but, my dear, that isn't true. Papa cannot do it any more than you can." "Then we can't have our society," cried Catherine. Her lip trembled, and her face flushed pink with the sense of disappointment. "I didn't say that," said her mother, smiling. "Have the society by all means, and carry out your plans. That can be done without money." "But, mamma, how can it? What do you mean?" "The how I must leave to you. Set your wits to work, and you will find out. There are plenty of ways in which to please sick people besides buying them things. Notice carefully when you are there; ask Mrs. Banister; use your eyes. Things will suggest themselves. What sick people enjoy most are little surprises to vary their dull days, and the sense that some one is loving and thinking about them. Small unexpected pleasures count for more than their worth with them. Now, dear, run away. Consult with the others, and when you decide what you want to do, come to me, and I will do what I can to help you in ways that do not cost money." Catherine looked more hopeful, though not altogether convinced. "I'll see what they say," she remarked thoughtfully. Then, after lingering a moment, as if in hopes of something more, she ran downstairs again. She found the members of the future society looking rather crestfallen. They had all rushed home to propound their plan, and each of their mothers in turn had raised pretty much the same objections to it which Mrs. Newcombe had raised, and had not tempered their denials with any fresh suggestions. Catherine's report had, therefore, rather the effect of raising their spirits. "I'm--not--sure," said Frances Brooks, "but it would be more fun to do it that way than the other. Don't you know how much nicer it always is to make Christmas presents than to buy them? And I thought of something while you were talking that might do for the first Saturday surprise." "Have you really? What?" "It came into my head because the other day when Mary and I were there, Minnie lost her handkerchief. It had slipped under the mattress or somewhere, and she worried about not finding it, and Mrs. Banister was a good while in getting another, and I was wondering if it wouldn't be nice to make some sort of a little case, which could lie on the bed beside her, and hold it." "Out of birch bark," suggested Mary Vaughn. "Splendid! We could work little blue forget-me-nots on it in crewels," suggested Sue Hooper. "Yes, and I have a bit of blue silk that would be just the thing for the lining," put in Ethel Hooper, the second "Tittering Twin," Sue being the first. "Sister had it left over from a sofa-pillow, so she gave it to me. It is quite light, and will match the forget-me-nots." "Now, isn't that delightful!" cried Catherine. "Here's our first surprise all settled without any trouble at all. I know where we can get the bark,--from one of those big birches in Mr. Swayne's woods, and mother'll give us some orris-root for a _sachet_, I know. She has some that's particularly nice. It came from Philadelphia." Under these promising auspices the "Do Something Society," for that was the name resolved upon, came into existence. Many hands made light work of the little handkerchief-case. All the members went together to get the birch bark, which in itself was good fun. Mary Vaughn cut out the case. Amy, who had taken a set of lessons in Kensington stitch, worked the starry zigzag pattern, which did duty for forget-me-nots, upon it. Susy Hooper, who was the best needlewoman of them all, lined it. Catherine made the _sachet_. Ethel, as youngest, was allowed to fasten it into the case with a tiny blue bow, and they took turns in carrying it, as they walked toward Minnie's house Saturday morning. Minnie had been looking forward to Saturday all the week. It was the only day when these special friends had time to come for a good long stay with her. On other days they "ran in;" but what with schools and music-lessons, and daily walks and short winter afternoons, they always had to run out again long before she was ready to have them go. She had been watching the clock ever since she woke, in hopes that they would come early; nor was she disappointed, for by half-past ten the bell rang, and steps and voices were heard coming upstairs. Minnie raised herself, and held out her hands. "O girls, how lovely! You've all come together," she said. "I've been wondering all the week if you would." "You darling, how nice it is to see you! Are you any better to-day?" asked Catherine. Then, after they had all kissed her, Amy laid on the counterpane the handkerchief-case pinned up in thin white paper. "There's something for you," cried the society, as with one voice. It took a good while for Minnie to open the parcel, for her fingers were weak, but she would not let any one help her. When the pretty birch-bark case was revealed, she was even more pleased than her friends had hoped she would be. "How dear you were to make it for me!" she kept repeating. "I shall never lose my handkerchiefs now. And I shall look at it when you are not here, and it will give me the feeling that you are making me a visit." Then they explained the new society to her and asked her to join, with the understanding that she was not to be an "active member" till she was quite well again, and Minnie agreed, and became on the spot number seven of the Do Somethings. What they did not explain was their plan for the Saturdays, because Mrs. Newcombe had dropped this word of wisdom into their counsels, that sick people enjoy a little pleasure which comes unexpectedly, much more than a larger one which they lie and think about till they are tired of the idea of it. Catherine had to bite her nimble tongue more than once to hold the secret in, but the eyes of the others held her in check, and she remembered in time. And while they chattered and laughed, Mary Vaughn kept her eyes open as Mrs. Newcombe had advised, and with such good effect that, as the society trooped out on to the sidewalk, she was ready to say, "Girls, I have thought of something for next time." "And so have I," added Frances. "Not really! What fun! Tell us what yours is." "A wall-basket full of dried leaves and things to fill up that bare space of wall opposite Minnie's bed. It needn't cost anything, for I have got one of those big Japanese cuffs made of straw which will do for the basket, and there are thousands of leaves to be had for the picking." "What a good idea that is!" said Amy Vaughn. "We will make it lovely, and it will be something bright for Minnie to look at. We'll do it. But what was your idea, Mary?" "Mine was a sand-bag. Didn't you hear Minnie say, 'Mamma, the sheet is quite wet just where my foot comes;' and Mrs. Banister came in a hurry and took away the hot-water bag, and said there was something wrong with the screw, and it was always leaking? My aunt, who is an invalid, uses a bag of sand instead. It is made very hot in the oven and slipped into a little cover, and it keeps warm longer than hot water does, she says. Don't you think we might make one for Minnie?" "It's the best idea yet," said Catherine. "And we will have it for next Saturday because it's something useful that she really wants, and that will give us plenty of time to dry the leaves for the Saturday after." The sand-bag, with its little slip cover of red canton flannel, proved a remarkable success. It was the comfort of her life, Minnie declared; but the joy of her life was the wall-basket which followed on the next Saturday, and which made a beautiful spot of brightness on the bare wall. Ethel Hooper, who had a natural instinct for color and effect, arranged it. It held branches of deep red and vivid yellow leaves, with sprays of orange and green sumach, deep russet oak and trails of flaming blackberry-vine, amid which rose a few velvet-brown cat-tails and fluffy milk-weed pods, supporting in their midst a tiny bird's nest poised in a leafless twig. Minnie was never tired of looking at it. She said it was as good as taking a walk in the woods to see it. The gay color refreshed her eyes, and cheered many a dull moment when she was alone and did not feel like reading; and, altogether, the wall-basket proved one of the most successful of the achievements of the Do Something Society that winter. I have not time to tell you of all the many other things they did. One Saturday the gift was a home-made sponge-cake. Another time it was some particularly nice molasses candy, pulled very white, and braided and twirled into M's and B's. A pillow stuffed with balsam-fir was another of the presents. On Christmas Eve they carried her the tiniest little fir-tree ever seen, a mere baby of a fir, planted in a flower-pot, hung with six mandarin oranges, and lighted with wax matches which burned just long enough to be admired and no longer. Later there was a comical valentine, and on Minnie's birthday a pretty card, designed by Catherine, who had a taste for drawing. One melancholy Saturday, when Minnie was too ill to see them, the members all left their cards in a little basket. Another time it was the cards of all their pet cats. And while they thus labored to make the hard months less hard for their friend, their own souls were growing, keeping pace with their growing bodies, as souls do which are properly exercised in deeds of kindliness and unselfish love. So that when spring came, bringing roses back to Minnie's pale cheeks, and strength to her feeble limbs, and she was able to take her place among the rest and be a "Do Something" too, all of them were eager to keep on, and to continue the work begun for one, by service for the many who needed cheering as much as Minnie had done. And the best part of the lesson which all of them had learned was, so Mrs. Newcombe thought, the great lesson that money, though a useful, is not an essential, part of true helpfulness, and that time given, and thought, and observation, and ingenuity, and loving hearts, can accomplish without it all the best and sweetest part of giving. WHO ATE THE QUEEN'S LUNCHEON? You can imagine the state of excitement into which Otillie Le Breton was thrown, when, one day in June, her father, the Seigneur of Sark, came home and told her that the Queen, who was cruising about the Channel in the royal yacht, had notified him of her intention of landing at Sark the next Thursday and of lunching at the Seigneurie. It sounds such a fine thing to be the daughter of the Seigneur of Sark, that perhaps you will imagine that Otillie was used to kings and queens and fine company of all sorts, and wonder that she should feel so much excited on this occasion. Not at all! The Seigneur of Sark is only a quiet, invalid clergyman who owns his little island just as other English gentlemen do their estates, letting out the land to farmers and collecting his rents and paying his taxes like other people; and Otillie was a simply brought-up girl of fourteen, who knew much less of the world than most girls of her age in Boston or New York, had never been off the Channel Islands, and never set eyes on a "crowned head" in her life, and she felt exactly as any of us would if we were suddenly told that a queen was coming to take a meal in our father's house. Queens are not common apparitions in any of the Channel Islands, and least of all in little Sark. It is a difficult place to get to even for common people. The island, which is only three miles long, is walled by a line of splendid cliffs over three hundred feet high. Its only harbor is a strip of beach, defended by a tiny breakwater, from which a steep road is tunnelled up through the rocks to the interior of the island. In rough weather, when the wind blows and the sea runs high, which is the case five days out of seven in summer, and six-and-a-half days out of seven in winter, boats dare not make for this difficult landing, which is called by the natives "The Creux"--or hole. It is reported that some years since when the Lords of the Admiralty were on a tour of inspection they sailed all round Sark and sailed away again, reporting that no place could be discovered where it was possible to land, which seemed to the Sarkites a very good joke indeed. There are four principal islands in the Channel group: Alderney and Jersey, from which come the cows all of us know about; Guernsey, whose cattle, though not so celebrated on this side of the sea, are held by the islanders as superior to all others; and Sark, the smallest and by far the most beautiful of the four. It is a real story-book island. The soft, sea-climate and the drifting mists of the Gulf Stream nourish in its green valleys all manner of growing things. Flowers flourish there as nowhere else. Heliotropes grow into great clumps, and red and pink geraniums into bushes. Fuchsias and white-starred jessamines climb to the very roofs of the mossy old farm-houses, which stand knee-deep, as it were, in vines and flowers. Long links of rose-colored bindweed lie in tangles along the dusty roadside; you tread on them as you walk through the shady lanes, between hedge-rows of ivy and sweet-brier and briony, from whose leaves shine out little glittering beetles, in mail coats of flashing, iridescent green, like those which the Cuban ladies wear on their lace dresses as a decoration. There is only one wagon kept for hire on the island, and all is primitive and peaceful and full of rest and repose. But there are wonderful things too, as well as beautiful ones,--strange spouting-holes in the middle of green fields, where the sea has worn its way far inland, and, with a roar, sends sudden shocks of surf up through its chimney-like vent. Caves too, full of dim green light, in whose pools marvellous marine creatures flourish-- "The fruitage and bloom of the Ocean," or strange spines of rock path linking one end of the island with the other by a road not over five feet wide, from whose undefended edges the sheer precipice goes down on either side for hundreds of feet into the ocean. There are natural arches in the rocks also through which the wonderful blue-green sea glances and leaps. All about the island the water is of this remarkable color, like the plumage of a peacock or a dragonfly's glancing wings, and out of it rise strange rock-shapes, pyramids and obelisks and domes, over which white surf breaks constantly. Some of the most remarkable of these rocks are beneath the Seigneurie, whose shaven lawns and walled gardens stretch to the cliff top and command a wide sea-view. It is a fine old house, with terraces and stone balustrades over which vines cluster thickly, and peacocks sit, spreading their many-eyed tails to the sun, as if trying to outdo the strange, flashing, iridescent sea. Otillie herself always fed these peacocks, which were old family friends. There were six of them, Bluet and Cramoisie,--the parents of the flock, who had been named by Mrs. Le Breton, who was a Frenchwoman,--Peri and Fee de Fees, and Lorenzo the Magnificent and the Great Panjandrum, these last christened by Otillie herself on account of their size and stately demeanor. The beautiful creatures were quite tame. They would take food from her hand, and if she failed to present herself at the accustomed time with her bowl of millet and bread, they would put their heads in at the terrace windows and scream, till she recollected her duty and came to them. I am afraid that the peacocks were rather neglected for the few days preceding the Queen's visit, for everybody at the Seigneurie was very busy. Mr. Le Breton, as a general thing, lived simply enough. His wife had died when Otillie was only six years old. Miss Niffin the governess, Marie the cook, two housemaids, and an old butler who had served the family for a quarter of a century made up the establishment indoors. Otillie had her basin of porridge and cream and her slice of bread at eight o'clock every morning, and bread and milk and "kettle-tea" for supper, with now and then a taste of jam by way of a treat. The servants lived chiefly on "Jersey soup," a thick broth of oatmeal, vegetables, and fish, with a trifle of bacon or salt-beef to give it a relish. Mr. Le Breton had his morning coffee in his study, and the early dinner, which he shared with Otillie and Miss Niffin, was not an elaborate one. These being the customs of the Seigneurie, it can easily be imagined that it taxed every resource of the establishment to provide suitably for the Queen's entertainment. All the island knew of the important event and longed to advise and help. The farmers sent their thickest cream and freshest strawberries and lettuces, desirous to prove their loyalty not to their sovereign only, but also to their landlord. Marie, the cook, spent the days in reading over her most difficult recipes, and could not sleep at night. A friend of hers, once second cook to the Earl of Dunraven, but now retired on her laurels into private life, offered to come for a few days to assist, and to fabricate a certain famous game pasty, of which it was asserted the English aristocracy are inordinately fond. Peter the butler crossed over to Guernsey twice during the week with a long list of indispensables to be filled up at the shops there, hampers of wine came from London, and hot-house grapes and nectarines from friends in Jersey; the whole house was in a bustle, and nothing was spoken of but the Queen and the Queen's visit, what she would wear and say and do, whom she would bring with her, and what sort of weather she would have for her coming. This last point was the one on which Otillie was most solicitous. A true child of Sark, she knew all about its tides and currents, the dangers of the island channels, and the differences which a little more or less wind and sea made in the navigation of them. She could recollect one stormy winter, when a Guernsey doctor who had come over to set a broken arm was detained for three weeks on the island, in plain sight all the time of his own home in St. Peterport, but as unable to get to it as if it had been a thousand miles away! "It would be dreadful if the Queen came and then could not get away again for three weeks!" she said to herself. "It would be awfully interesting to have her here, of course--but I don't quite know what we should do--or what she would do!" She tried to make a picture of it in her mind, but soon gave up the attempt. Provisions are scarce sometimes on Sark when the wind blows and the boats cannot get in. There would always be milk and vegetables and fruit if it were summer, and perhaps chickens enough could be collected to hold out; but there was something terrible in the idea of a queen without butcher's meat! Otillie's imagination refused to compass it! Her very first thought when the important day dawned was the weather. She waked with the first sunbeam and ran at once to the window. When she saw a clear sky and the sun rising out of a still sea, she gave a scream of delight. "What is the matter?" asked Miss Niffin sleepily from the next room. "It's good weather," replied Otillie. "We've got the most beautiful day for the Queen to come in." Miss Niffin's only answer was a little groan. She was a small, shy person, and the idea of confronting royalty made her dreadfully nervous. "Oh, if the day were only over!" she said to herself; and she longed to plead a headache and stay in bed, but she dared not. Besides, she felt that it would be cowardly to desert her post on such an important occasion and leave Otillie alone; so she braced her mind to face the awful necessity and began to dress. Mr. Le Breton, awakening about the same time, gave a groan a good deal like Miss Niffin's. He was a loyal subject, and felt the honor that was done him by the Queen's inviting herself to luncheon; but, all the same, invalids do not like to be put out of their way, and he, too, wished the day well done. "Ten to one I shall be laid up for the next month to pay for it," he reflected. Then he too braced himself to the necessity and rang for hot water, determined to do his duty as a man and a Seigneur. Otillie was perhaps the only person in the house who was really glad to have the day come. The servants were tired and fretted with a sense of responsibility. Marie had passed a dreadful night, full of dreams of failure and spoiled dishes. "Now just as sure as guns my rolls will have failed to rise this day of all the days of the year," was her first waking thought. But no, the rolls were light as a feather, and the sponge and almond cakes came out of the oven delicately browned and quite perfect in taste and appearance. Nothing went wrong; and when Mr. Le Breton, just before starting for the Creux harbor to meet the royal party, took a look into the dining-room to make sure that all was right, he said to himself that he had never seen a prettier or more complete little "spread." The table was ornamented with hot-house fruit and flowers, beautifully arranged by Miss Niffin and Otillie. All the fine old Le Breton plate had been brought out and polished, the napery shone like iced snow, there were some quaint pieces of old Venetian glass, jugs, dishes, and flagons, and a profusion of pretty confections, jellies, blanc-manges, crystallized fruits, and bonbons, to give sparkle and color. The light streamed in at the windows which opened on the terrace, from under the vines the flash of the waves could be seen, the curtains waved in the wind, which was blowing inland. Nothing could be prettier; the only discord was the noisy scream of the peacocks on the lawn, who seemed as much upset and disturbed by the great event as the rest of the household. "Can't something be done to stop those creatures?" said Mr. Le Breton. "Tie them up somewhere, can't you, Otillie, or send a boy to drive them down to the farm." "It's only because they are hungry," replied Otillie rather absently. "I haven't given them their breakfast yet." She was sticking long stems of fronded Osmundas into a jar as a decoration for the fireplace, and scarcely noticed what her father said. It was some minutes after the carriage drove away before she finished; then, with a sigh of relief, she brushed up the leaves she had scattered on the carpet, and ran upstairs to change her dress. It would never do to be caught by the Queen in a holland frock, with her hair blown about her eyes, and green finger-tips! The clock struck one as she fastened her white dress and patted smooth the bows of her wide pink sash. One was the hour fixed for the Queen to land, so there was no time to lose. Otillie only waited for a glance in at the door of the spare room, where the Queen, if so minded, was to take off her things. She glanced at the bed with a sort of awe as the possible repository of a royal bonnet, altered the position of a bowl of roses on the mantelpiece, and then hurried down to join Miss Niffin, who, attired in her best black silk and a pair of lace mitts, was seated decorously in the hall doing nothing. Otillie sat down beside her. It was rather a nervous waiting, and a long one; for half an hour passed, three quarters, and finally the clock struck two, before wheels were heard on the gravel, and during all that time the two watchers spoke scarcely a word. Only once Otillie cried as a gust of wind blew the curtains straight out into the room, "O dear! I hope it isn't rough. O dear! wouldn't it be dreadful if the Queen were to be sick? She would never like Sark again!" "I think her Majesty must be used to the sea, she sails so much," replied Miss Niffin. The gust died away and did not blow the curtains any more, and again they sat in silence, waiting and listening. "At last!" cried Otillie as the distinct roll of wheels was heard on the drive. Her heart beat fast, but she got up bravely, straightened her slender little figure as became a Le Breton, and walked out on to the porch. Her eyes seemed strangely dazzled by the sun--for she could see no one in the carriage but her father. It rolled up to the door, and Otillie felt a great throb of disappointment rise like a wave in her heart, and spread and swell! Mr. Le Breton had come back alone! "Papa," she cried, as soon as she could speak, "what _has_ happened? Where is the Queen?" "I hope nothing has gone amiss with her Gracious Majesty," put in Miss Niffin from behind. Mr. Le Breton got out of the carriage before he replied. He looked tired and annoyed. "You can drive to the stable, Thomas," he said; "the carriage will not be wanted." Then he turned to Miss Niffin. "Her Gracious Majesty has decided not to land," he went on. "The wind has sprung up and made rather a sea outside the breakwater; nothing to signify by the Sark standard, but enough to deter inexperienced persons. I waited at the Creux for nearly an hour, and every man, woman, and child on the island waited with me, with the exception of you and Otillie and the servants, and then the captain of the royal yacht signalled that he could not risk putting the Queen ashore in a small boat in such rough water. So the thing is given up." There was a certain latent relief in Mr. Le Breton's tone. "Oh!" cried Otillie, stamping her foot. "How hateful of the wind to spring up! It could have waited as well as not! It has all the rest of the time to blow in, and now all the nice preparations are thrown away, and all our pleasant time spoiled, and just as likely as not the Queen will never come to Sark at all." Her voice died away into a storm of sobs. "I wish I could be assured of that," remarked her father in a tone of weary resignation. "What I am afraid of is that she will come, or try to come, another day, and then there will be all this to do over again." He indicated by a gesture the door of the dining-room, from which queer muffled sounds were heard just then. "Peter seems as much afflicted by this disappointment as you are, Otillie," he added. "Come, my child, don't cry over the matter. It can't be helped. Wind and waves oblige nobody, not even kings and queens." "There are compensations for all our troubles," said Miss Niffin in her primmest tone. "We must bear up, and try to feel that all is for the best." Miss Niffin seemed to find it quite easy to be morally consoled for her share of loss in the giving up of the Queen's visit. "How can you talk in that way!" cried Otillie, who was not in the least in awe of Miss Niffin. "If I had broken my comb, you would have said exactly the same, I know you would! There isn't any compensation at all for this trouble, and it's no use my trying to feel that it's for the best,--it isn't." "We never know," replied Miss Niffin piously. "Come," said Mr. Le Breton, desiring to put an end to the altercation, "I don't know why we should go hungry because her Majesty won't come and eat our luncheon. Take my arm, Miss Niffin, and let us have something to eat. Marie will break her heart if all her trouble and pains are not appreciated by somebody." [Illustration: The peacocks, tired of waiting for their morning meal, and finding the windows open, had entered and helped themselves.--_Page 107._] He gave his arm to Miss Niffin as he spoke, and moved forward to the dining-room. Otillie followed, wiping her eyes with her handkerchief, and feeling that the dainties would stick in her throat if she tried to swallow them, she was so very, very, dreadfully disappointed. But when Mr. Le Breton reached the dining-room door he stopped suddenly as if shot, and gave a sort of shout! No one could speak for a moment. There was the feast, so prettily and tastefully arranged only an hour before, a mass of ruins! The flowers were upset, the fruit, tumbled and mashed, stained the cloth and the floor. Wine and lemonade dripped from the table's edge. The pink and yellow jellies, the forms of Charlotte Russe and blanc-mange and the frosted cakes and tarts were reduced to smears and crumbs. Where the gigantic pasty had stood remained only an empty dish, and above the remains, rearing, pecking, clawing, gobbling, appeared six long blue-green necks, which dipped and rose and dipped again! The peacocks, tired of waiting for their morning meal, and finding the windows open, had entered and helped themselves! There was Lorenzo the Magnificent with a sponge-cake in his beak, and Peri gobbling down a lump of blanc-mange, and the Grand Panjandrum with both claws embedded in a pyramid of macaroons. Their splendid tails were draggled with cream and crumbs, and sticky with jelly; altogether they presented a most greedy and disreputable appearance! The strangest part of the whole was that while they stuffed themselves they preserved a dead silence, and did not express their enjoyment by one of their usual noisy screams. It was evident that they felt that the one great opportunity of their lives was going on, and that they must make the most of it. At the sound of Mr. Le Breton's shout the peacocks started guiltily. Then they gathered up their tails as best they might, and, half flying, half running, scuttled out of the windows and far across the lawn, screaming triumphantly as they went, while Otillie tumbled into a chair and laughed till she cried. "Oh! didn't they look funny?" she gasped, holding her sides. "Rather expensive fun," replied the Seigneur ruefully. "But it is one comfort that we have it to ourselves." Then the humor of the situation seized on him also, and he sat down and laughed almost as hard as Otillie. "Dear me! what a mercy that her Majesty didn't come!" remarked Miss Niffin in an awe-struck tone. "Good gracious," cried Otillie with sudden horror at the thought, "suppose she had! Suppose we had all walked in at that door and found the peacocks here! And of course we should! Of course they would have done it just the same if there had been fifty queens to see them! How dreadful it would have been! Oh, there are compensations, Miss Niffin; I see it now." So Otillie was reconciled to her great disappointment, though the Queen never has tried to land at Sark again, and perhaps never will. For, as Otillie sensibly says, "It is a great deal better that we should be disappointed than that the Queen should be; for if she had been very hungry, and most likely she would have been after sailing and all, she would not have thought the Grand Panjandrum with his feet in the macaroons half so funny as we did, and would have been truly and really vexed." So it was all for the best, as Miss Niffin said. THE SHIPWRECKED COLOGNE-BOTTLE. It seemed the middle of the night, though it was really only three o'clock in the morning, when little Davy Crocker was wakened by a sudden stamping of feet on the stoop below his window, and by a voice calling out that a ship was ashore off the Point, and that Captain Si, Davy's uncle, must turn out and help with the life-boat. Davy was a "landlubber," as his cousin Sam Coffin was wont to assert whenever he wanted to tease him. He had lived all his short life at Townsend Harbor, up among the New Hampshire hills, and until this visit to his aunt at Nantucket, had never seen the sea. All the more the sea had for him a great interest and fascination, as it has for everybody to whom it has not from long familiarity become a matter of course. Conversation in Nantucket is apt to possess a nautical and, so to speak, salty flavor. Davy, since his arrival, had heard so much about ships which had foundered, or gone to pieces on rocks, or burned up, or sprung leaks and had to be pumped out, that his mind was full of images of disaster, and he quite longed to realize some of them. To see a shipwreck had become his great ambition. He was not particular as to whether the ship should burn or founder or go ashore, any of these would do, only he wanted all the sailors to be saved. Once he had gone with his cousins to the South Shore on the little puffing railroad which connects Nantucket town with Siasconsett, and of which all the people of the island are so justly proud; and there on the beach, amid the surf-rollers which look so soft and white and are so cruelly strong, he had seen a great piece of a ship. Nearly the whole of the bow end it appeared to be. It was much higher than Davy's head, and seemed to him immense and formidable; yet this enormous thing the sea had taken into its grasp and tossed to and fro like a plaything and at last flung upon the sand as if it were a toy of which it had grown weary. It gave Davy an idea of the great power of the water, and it was after seeing this that he began to long to witness a shipwreck. And now there was one, and the very sound of the word was enough to make him rub open his sleepy eyes and jump out of bed in a hurry! But when he had groped his way to the window and pulled up the rattling paper shade, behold! there was nothing to be seen! The morning was intensely dark. A wild wind was blowing great dashes of rain on the glass, and the house shook and trembled as the blasts struck it. Davy heard his uncle on the stairs, and hurried to the door. "Mayn't I go to the shipwreck with you, Uncle Si?" he called out. "Go to what? Go back to bed, my boy, that's the place for you. There'll be shipwreck enough in the morning to satisfy all of us, I reckon." Davy dared not disobey. He stumbled back to bed, making up his mind to lie awake and listen to the wind till it was light, and then go to see the shipwreck "anyhow." But it is hard to keep such resolutions when you are only ten years old. The next thing he knew he was rousing in amazement to find the room full of brilliant sunlight. The rain was over, though the wind still thundered furiously, and through the noise it made, the sea could be heard thundering louder still. Davy jumped out of bed, dressed as fast as he could, and hurried downstairs. The house seemed strangely empty; Aunt Patty was not in the kitchen, nor was cousin Myra in the pantry skimming milk, as was usual at this hour of the day. Davy searched for them in woodshed, garden, and barn. At last he spied them on the "walk" at the top of the house, and ran upstairs to join them. Do any of you know what a "walk" is? I suppose not, unless you have happened to live in a whaling-town. Many houses in Nantucket have them. They are railed platforms, built on the peak of the roof between the chimneys, and are used as observatories from which to watch what is going on at sea. There the wives and sweethearts of the whalers used to go in the old days, and stand and sweep the ocean with spy-glasses, in hopes of seeing the ships coming in from their long cruises each with the signals set which told if the voyage had been lucky or no, and how many barrels of oil and blubber she was bringing home. Then they used to watch the "camels," great hulls used as floats to lighten the vessels, go out and help the heavy-laden ship over the bar. And when that was done and every rope and spar conned and studied by the experienced eyes on the roofs, it was time to hurry down, hang on the welcoming pot, trim the fire and don the best gown, so as to make a bright home-coming for the long-absent husband or son. Aunt Patty had a spy-glass at her eyes when Davy gained the roof. She was looking at the wrecked ship, which was plainly in view, beyond the little sandy down which separated the house from the sea. There she lay, a poor broken thing, stuck fast on one of the long reaches of sandy shoal which stretch about the island and make the navigation of its narrow and uncertain channels so difficult and sometimes so dangerous. The heavy seas dashed over the half-sunken vessel every minute; between her and the shore two lifeboats were coming in under closely-reefed sails. "Oh, do let me look through the glass!" urged Davy. When he was permitted to do so he uttered an exclamation of surprise, so wonderfully near did it make everything seem to be. "Why, I can see their faces!" he cried. "There's Uncle Si! There's Sam! And there's a very wet man! I guess he's one of the shipwrecked sailors! Hurrah!" and Davy capered up and down. "You unfeeling boy!" cried Myra, "give me the glass--you'll let it fall. He's right, mother, father and Sam are coming ashore as fast as they can sail, and they'll be wanting their breakfasts, of course. I'd better go down and mix the corn bread." She took one more look through the glass, announced that the other boat had some more of the shipwrecked men on board, she guessed, and that Abner Folger was steering; then she ran down the ladder, followed by her mother, and Davy was left to watch the boats in. When he too went down, the kitchen was full of good smells of boiling coffee and frying eggs, and his uncle and Sam and the "very wet man" were just entering the door together. The wet man, it appeared, was the captain of the wrecked vessel; the rest of the crew had been taken home by other people. The captain was a long, brown, sinewy Maine man. He was soaked with sea-water and looked haggard and worn, as a man well might who had just spent such a terrible night; but he had kind, melancholy eyes, and a nice face, Davy thought. The first thing to be done was to get him into dry clothes, and Uncle Si carried him up to Davy's room for this purpose. Davy followed them. He felt as if he could never see enough of this, his first shipwrecked sailor. When the captain had been made comfortable in Uncle Silas's flannel shirt and spare pea-jacket and a pair of Sam's trousers, he hung his own clothes up to dry, and they all went down to breakfast. Aunt Patty had done her best. She was very sorry for the poor man who had lost his ship, and she even brought out a tumbler of her best grape jelly by way of a further treat; but the captain, though he ate ravenously, as was natural to a man who had fasted so long, did not seem to notice what he was eating, and thus disappointed kind Aunt Patty. She comforted herself by thinking what she could get for dinner which he would like. Uncle Si and Sam were almost as hungry as the Maine captain, so not much was said till breakfast was over, and then they all jumped up and hurried out, for there was a deal to be done. Davy felt very dull after they had gone. He had never heard of such a thing as "reaction," but that was what he was suffering from. The excitement of the morning had died out like a fire which has no more fuel to feed it, and he could not think of anything that he wanted to do. He hung listlessly round, watching Aunt Patty's brisk operations about the kitchen, and at last he thought he would go upstairs and see if the captain's clothes were beginning to dry. Wet as they were, they seemed on the whole the most interesting things in the house. The clothes were not nearly dry, but on the floor, just below where the rough pea-jacket hung, lay a little shining object. It attracted Davy's attention, and he stooped and picked it up. It was a tiny bottle full of some sort of perfume, and set in a socket of plated filagree shaped like a caster, with a filagree handle. The bottle had a piece of white kid tied over its cork with a bit of blue ribbon. It was not a thing to tempt a boy's fancy, but Davy saw that it was pretty, and the idea came into his head that he should like to carry it home, to his little sister Bella. Bella was fond of perfumes, and the bottle had cologne in it, as Davy could smell without taking out the cork. He was sure that Bella would like it. Davy had been brought up to be honest. I am sure that he did not mean to steal the cologne-bottle. The idea of stealing never entered his mind, and it would have shocked him had it done so. He was an imaginative little fellow, and the tiny waif seemed to him like a shell or a pebble, something coming out of the sea, which any one was at liberty to pick up and keep. He did not say to himself that it probably belonged to the captain, who might have a value for it, he did not think about the captain at all, he only thought of Bella. So after looking at the pretty toy for a while, he put it carefully away in the drawer where he kept his things, pushing it far back, and drawing a pair of stockings in front of it, so that it might be hidden. He did not want anybody to meddle with the bottle; it was his now, or rather it was Bella's. Then he went up to the walk once more, and was so interested in watching the wreck and the boats, which, as the wind moderated, came and went between her and the shore, picking up the barrels and casks which were floated out of her hold, that he soon forgot all about the matter. It was nearly dark before the two captains and Sam came back to eat the meal which had been ready for them since the middle of the afternoon. Aunt Patty had taken off her pots and saucepans more than once and put them on again, to suit the long delay; but nothing was spoiled and everything tasted good, which showed how cleverly she had managed. The Maine captain--whose name it appeared was Joy--seemed more cheerful than in the morning, and more inclined to talk. But after supper, when he had gone upstairs and put on his own clothes, which Aunt Patty had kept before the fire nearly all day and had pressed with hot irons so that they looked almost as good as ever, his melancholy seemed to come on again. He sat and puffed at his pipe till Aunt Patty began to ask questions about the wreck. Captain Joy, it appeared, was part owner of the ship, whose name was the "Sarah Jane." "She was called after my wife's sister," he told them, "and my little girl to home has the same name, 'Sarah Jane.' She is about the age of that boy there, or a mite older maybe,"--nodding toward Davy. "She wanted to come with me this vy'age, but her mother wouldn't hear of it, and I'm mighty thankful she wouldn't, as things have turned out. No child could have stood the exposure of such a night as we had and come out alive; and Sarah Jane, though she's as spry as a cricket and always on the go, isn't over strong." The captain took a long pull at his pipe and looked dreamily into the fire. "I asked her, just as I was coming off, what I should bring her," he went on, "and she had a wish all fixed and ready. I never knew such a child for knowing her own mind. She's always sure what she wants, Sarah Jane is. The thing she wanted was a cologne-bottle, she said, and it must be just so, shaped like one of them pepper and vinegar what d' you call em's, that they put on hotel tables. She was very pertikeler about the kind. She drew me a picter of it on her slate, so 's to have no mistake, and I promised her if New York could furnish it she should have that identical article, and she was mighty pleased." Nobody noticed that at the mention of the cologne-bottle, Davy gave a guilty jump, and shrank back into the shadow of Uncle Si's broad shoulders. Oh, if he could only put it back into the pocket of the pea-jacket! But how could he when the captain had the jacket on? "I was kind of fearful that there wouldn't be any bottles of that pertikeler shape that Sarah Jane had in her mind," continued Captain Joy, "but the town seemed to be chock-full of 'em. The very first shop I come to, there they stood in the window, rows of 'em, and I just went in and bought one for Sarah Jane before I did anything else, and when I'd got it safely stowed away in the locker, I felt kind of easy in my mind. We come down with a load of coal, but I hadn't more 'n a quarter cargo to take back, mostly groceries for the stores up to Bucksport and Ellsworth,--and it's lucky it was no more, as things have happened. The schooner was pretty old and being so light in ballast, I jedged it safest, when the blow come on so hard from the nor'-east, to run it under the lee of Cape Cod and ride it out there if we could. But we hadn't been anchored more 'n three hours--just about nine o'clock it was--when the men came to tell me that we was taking in water terrible fast. I suppose the ship had kind of strained her seams open in the gale. It want no use trying to pump her out in such a storm, and if we didn't want to go down at our anchorage, there wasn't anything for it but to cut her loose and drive across the Haven in hopes of going aground on the sand before she sank. I can tell you if ever a man prayed, I prayed then, when I thought every minute she'd founder in deep water before we struck the shoal. And just as she was settling I heard the sand grate under the keel, and you may believe I was thankful, though it meant the loss of pretty much all I've got in the world. I shouted to the men to get to the rigging in the mainmast, for I knew she'd go to pieces pretty soon, and there wasn't no way of signalling for help till daylight, and I gave one dive for the cabin, got the papers out of the locker, and Sarah Jane's cologne-bottle, buttoned them up inside my pea-coat, and just got back again in time to see the foremast go over the side and the sea make a clean sweep of the decks. The mainmast stayed, and we lashed ourselves, and managed to hold on till sunrise, when we see you a-coming out to us, and glad we were. "Every now and then in the night, when the water was washing over us, I put my fingers inside my coat and made sure that Sarah Jane's bottle was there, and wasn't broken. I didn't want the child to be disappointed, you see. It was safe when we come ashore, I'm certain of that, but--" The captain paused. "Now don't say it got broken after all!" cried Myra sympathetically. "No, it wasn't broken, but it's just as bad," said Captain Joy. "Either I dropped it getting out of the boat and trod it down in the sand, or else some one has took it. It's gone, any way, and do you know, it's a foolish thing to say, but I feel nigh as bad about that there little dud as wasn't worth more 'n fifty cents, as I do about the loss of the hull cargo, on account of Sarah Jane." There was a pause as he ceased. Aunt Patty and Myra were too sorry for the captain to feel like speaking at once. Suddenly into the silence there fell the sound of a sob. Everybody started, and Uncle Si caught Davy's arm and pulled him into the firelight where his face could be seen. "Why, what are you crying for, little 'un?" asked Uncle Si. "I'm so sorry. I didn't know it was the captain's," said Davy, in a tear-choked voice. "Didn't know what was the captain's? Now, Davy Crocker, 'twasn't ever you who took that bottle?" cried Aunt Patty. "I found it on the floor," sobbed Davy. "I thought it was washed ashore from the shipwreck. I didn't suppose it belonged to anybody, and I wanted it for Bella. Oh, I'm so sorry." "Why, then it ain't lost after all," cried Captain Joy, brightening up. "Well, how pleased Sarah Jane _will_ be! Don't cry any more, my lad. I can see how it was, and that you didn't think it was stealing to take anything that had been in the sea." Aunt Patty and Myra, however, still were deeply shocked, and could not look as lightly at Davy's offence as did the captain. Davy crept upstairs, brought down the cologne-bottle and slid it into Captain Joy's hand; then he crept away and sat in a dark corner behind the rest, but his conscience followed him, and Myra's reproachful look. "Oh, Davy!" she whispered, "I never thought you'd be so mean as to take anything from a shipwrecked sailor!" This was Davy's punishment, and rankled in his mind long after everybody else had forgotten the matter, after the sands had swallowed up all that was left of the "Sarah Jane," and after the captain had returned to Bucksport and made the real Sarah Jane happy by the gift of the bottle she had wished for so much. It rankles occasionally to this day, though he is now a stout lad of fifteen. That he, he of all boys, should have done such a thing to a man just saved from the sea! He consoles himself by resolving to be particularly kind to shipwrecked sailors all the rest of his life; but unluckily, the "Sarah Jane" is, so far, his sole experience of a wreck, and the only sailor he has as yet had any chance to do anything for is Captain Joy, and what he did for him we all know. One does not always have the opportunity to make up for a blunder or a fault, and I am afraid Davy may live his life out and never again have the good luck to show his good intentions by _not_ picking up and hiding a Shipwrecked Cologne-Bottle! UNDER A SYRINGA-BUSH. The old syringa at the foot of the Wade's lawn was rather a tree than a bush. Many years of growth had gone to the thickening of its interlaced boughs, which grew close to the ground, and made an impervious covert, except on the west side, where a hollow recess existed, into which a small person, boy or girl, might squeeze and be quite hidden. Sundry other small persons with wings and feathers had discovered the advantages of the syringa. All manner of unsuspected housekeepings went on within its fastnesses, from the lark's nest, in a tuft of grass at the foot of the main stem, to the robin's home on the topmost bough. Solicitous little mothers brooded unseen over minute families, while the highly decorative bird papa sat on a neighboring hedge, carrying out his mission, which seemed to be to distract attention from the secreted family by the sweetness of his song and the beauty of his plumage. In the dusk of the evening, soft thrills and twitters sounded from the bush, like whispered conversation; and very entertaining it must have been, no doubt, to any one who understood the language. So, altogether, the old syringa-bush was an interesting little world of itself. Elly Wade found it so, as she sat in the green hiding-place on the west side, crying as if her heart would break. The syringa recess had been her favorite "secret" ever since she discovered it, nearly two years before. No one else knew about it. There she went when she felt unhappy or was having a mood. Once the boughs had closed in behind her, no one could suspect that she was there,--a fact which gave her infinite pleasure, for she was a child who loved privacies and mysteries. What are moods? Does any one exactly understand them? Some people attribute them to original sin, others to nerves or indigestion; but I am not sure that either explanation is right. They sweep across the gladness of our lives as clouds across the sun, and seem to take the color out of everything. Grown people learn to conceal, if not to conquer, their moods; but children cannot do this, Elly Wade least of all. As I said, this was by no means her first visit to the syringa-bush. It has witnessed some stormy moments in her life, when she sat there hot and grieved, and in her heart believing everybody cruel or unjust. Ralph had teased her; or Cora, who was older than she, had put on airs; or little Kitty had been troublesome, or some schoolmate "hateful." She even accused her mother of unkindness at these times, though she loved her dearly all the while. "She thinks the rest are always right, and I wrong," she would say to herself. "Oh, well! she'll be sorry some day." What was to make Mrs. Wade sorry Elly did not specify; but I think it was to be when she, herself, was found dead, somewhere on the premises, of a broken heart! Elly was very fond of depicting this broken heart and tragical ending,--imaginative children often are. All the same, if she felt ill, or cut her finger, she ran to mamma for help, and was as much frightened as if she had not been thinking these deadly thoughts only a little while before. To-day Elly had fled to the syringa-bush with no idea of ever coming out again. A great wrong had been done her. Cora was going with a yachting-party, and she was not. Mamma had said she was too young to be trusted, and must wait till she was older and steadier. "It is cruel!" she said with a fresh burst of sobs, as she recalled the bitter moment when she heard the verdict. "It was just as unkind as could be for her to say that. Cora is only four years the oldest, and I can do lots of things that she can't. She doesn't know a bit about crocheting. She just knits. And she never made sponge-cake, and I have; and when she rows, she pulls the hardest with her left hand, and makes the boat wabble. I've a much better stroke than she has. Papa said so. And I can swim just as well as she can! "Nobody loves me," was her next reflection,--"nobody at all. They all hate me. I don't suppose anybody would care a bit if I _did_ die." But this thought was too hard to be borne. "Yes, they would," she went on. "They'd feel remorse if I died, and they ought to. Then they would recollect all the mean things they've done to me, and they would groan, and say, 'Too late--too late!' like the bad people in story-books." Comforted by this idea, she resolved on a plan of action. "I'll just stay here forever, and not come out at all. Of course, I shall starve to death. Then, all summer long they'll be hunting, and wondering and wondering what has become of me; and when the autumn comes, and the leaves fall off, they'll know, and they'll say, 'Poor Elly! how we wish we'd treated her better!'" She settled herself into a more comfortable position,--it isn't necessary to have cramps, you know, even if you _are_ starving to death,--and went on with her reflections. So still was she that the birds forgot her presence, and continued their twittering gossip and their small domestic arrangements undisturbed. The lark talked to her young ones with no fear of being overheard; the robins flew in and out with worms; the thrush, who occupied what might be called the second story of the syringa, disciplined a refractory fledgling, and papa thrush joined in with a series of musical expostulations. Elly found their affairs so interesting that for a moment she forgot her own,--which was good for her. A big bumble-bee came sailing through the air like a wind-blown drum, and stopped for a minute to sip at a syringa blossom. Next a soft whir drew Elly's attention, and a shape in green and gold and ruby-red glanced across her vision like a flying jewel. It was a humming-bird,--the first of the season. Elly had never been so near one before, nor had so long a chance to look, and she watched with delight as the pretty creature darted to and fro, dipping its needle-like bill into one flower-cup after another, in search of the honey-drop which each contained. She held her breath, not to startle it; but its fine senses seemed to perceive her presence in some mysterious fashion, and presently it flew away. Elly's mind, no longer diverted, went back to its unhappiness. "I wonder how long it is since I came here," she thought. "It seems like a great while. I guess it must be as much as three hours. They're all through dinner now, and beginning to wonder where I am. But they won't find me, I can tell them!" She set her lips firmly, and again shifted her position. At the slight rustle every bird in the bush became silent. "They needn't," she said to herself. "I wouldn't hurt them. I'm not like Ralph. He's real bad to birds sometimes. Once he took some eggs out of a dear, cunning, little song-sparrow's nest, and blew the yolks. I'd never do such a mean thing as that." But though she tried to lash herself up to her old sharpness of feeling, the interruption of wrathful thoughts had somewhat soothed her mood. Still, she held firmly to her purpose, while an increasing drowsiness crept over her. "I shall stay here all night," she thought, "and all to-morrow, and to-morrow night. And then"--a yawn--"pretty soon I shall be dead, I suppose, and they'll be--sorry"--another yawn--"and--" Elly was asleep. When she woke, the bright noon sunshine had given place to a dusky light, which made the syringa recess very dark. The robins had discovered her whereabouts, and, hopping nearer and nearer, had perched upon a branch close to her feet, and were talking about her. She was dimly conscious of their voices, but had no idea what they were saying. "Why did it come here, any way?" asked Mrs. Robin. "A great heavy thing like that in _our_ bush!" "I don't know, I'm sure," replied Mr. Robin. "It makes a strange noise, but it keeps its eyes shut while it makes it." "These great creatures are so queer!" pursued Mrs. Robin. "There,--it's beginning to move! I wish it would go away. I don't like its being so near the children. They might see it and be frightened." The two birds flitted hastily off as Elly stretched herself and rubbed her eyes. A very uncomfortable gnawing sensation began to make itself evident. It wasn't exactly pain, but Elly felt that it might easily become so. She remembered now that she fled away from the table, leaving her breakfast only half finished, yesterday morning,--was it yesterday, or was it the day before that? It felt like a long while ago. The sensation increased. "Dear me!" thought Elly, "the story-books never said that starving to death felt so. I don't like it a bit!" Bravely she fought against the discomfort, but it gained upon her. She began to meditate whether her family had perhaps not been sufficiently punished. "I've been away a whole day," she reflected, "and a whole night, and I guess they've felt badly enough. Very likely they've all sat up waiting for me to come back. They'll be sorry they acted so, and, any way, I'm so dreadfully hungry that I must have something to eat! And I want to see mamma too. Perhaps she'll have repented, and will say, 'Poor Elly! She _may_ go.'" In short, Elly was seized with a sudden desire for home, and, always rapid in decision, she lost no time in wriggling herself out of the bush. "There, it's gone!" chirped the female robin. "I'm glad of it. I hope it will never come back." Very cautiously Elly crept through the shrubbery on to the lawn. It still seemed dark, but she now perceived that the gloom came from a great thunder-cloud which was gathering overhead. She could not see the sun, and, confused with her long sleep, was not able to make out what part of the day it was; but, somehow, she felt that it was not the early morning as in the bush she had supposed. Across the lawn she stole, and upon the piazza. No one was visible. The open window showed the dining-table set for something,--was it tea? Upstairs she crept, and, looking in at the door as she went by, she saw her mother in her room taking off her bonnet. "My poor child, where did you think we had gone?" she called out. "Papa was kept in town till the second train, and that was late, so we have only just got back. You must be half starved, waiting so long for your dinner. I hope nurse gave you some bread and milk." "Why,--what day is it?" stammered the amazed Elly. "Day? Why, Elly, have you been asleep? It's to-day, of course,--Thursday. What did you think it was?" Elly rubbed her eyes, bewildered. Had the time which seemed to her so long really been so short? Had no one missed her? It was her first lesson in the comparative unimportance of the individual! A sense of her own foolishness seized her. Mamma looked so sweet and kind! Why had she imagined her cruel? "Did you go to sleep, dear?" repeated Mrs. Wade. "Yes, mamma," replied Elly, humbly; "I did. But I'm waked up now." TWO GIRLS--TWO PARTIES. A great bustle and confusion had reigned the whole week long in the old house at the top of the hilly street, known to the neighborhood as "the Squire's." All the slip-covers had been taken from the furniture in the best parlor. All the company china had been lifted off its top shelf and washed. All the spare lamps had been filled, all the rooms swept and dusted, all the drawers in the bureaus freshly arranged, for--as Milly said to herself--"who knew but some one might take a fancy to peep in?" Milly Grace, the Squire's daughter, had sat for hours in a cold woodshed tying up wreaths of ground-pine and hemlock with fingers which grew more chilly every hour. These wreaths now ornamented the parlor, festooning curtains, chimney-piece, and door-frames, and making green edges to the family portraits, which were two in number, neither of them by Copley or Stuart, as was plain to the most casual observation. One of these portraits represented the Squire's father in a short-waisted, square-tailed blue coat, and a canary-colored waistcoat. His forefinger was inserted in a calf-bound volume of Blackstone, and his eyes were fixed with a fine judicial directness upon the cupola of the court-house seen through a window in the background. The other was his wife, in a sad-colored gown and muslin tucker, with a countenance which suggested nothing except saleratus and the renunciation of all human joys. The Squire did not care much for this picture. It made him feel badly, he said, just the feeling he used to have when he was a boy and was sent every Sunday by this orthodox parent to study the longer answers of the Shorter Catechism on the third step of the garret-stairs, with orders not to stir from that position till he had them perfectly committed to memory. It was this strict bringing-up, perhaps, which made him so indulgent to Milly,--a great deal too indulgent her step-mother thought. In the buttery stood a goodly row of cakes little and big, loaves whose icings shone like snow-crust on a sunny day, little cakes with plums and little cakes without plums; all sorts of cakes. On the swinging shelf of the cellar were moulds of jelly clear and firm. In the woodhouse stood three freezers of ice-cream, "packed" and ready to turn out. Elsewhere were dishes of scalloped oysters ready for the oven, each with its little edging of crimped crackers, platters of chicken-salad, forms of blanc-mange, bowls of yellow custard topped with raspberry-and-egg like sunset-tinted avalanches, all that goes to the delectation of a country party: for a party there was to be, as after this enumeration I need hardly state. It was Milly's party, and all these elaborate preparations were her own work,--the work of a girl of nineteen, with no larger allowance of hands, feet, and spinal-vertebræ than all girls have, and no larger allowance of hours to her day; but with a much greater share of zeal, energy, and what the Squire called "go" than most young women of her age can boast of. She it was who had pounded away at the tough sacks full of ice and salt till they were ready for the freezers. She it was who had beaten the innumerable eggs for the sponge cakes, pound cakes, fruit cakes, "one, two, three, four," jelly, nut and other cakes, who had swept the rooms, washed the china, rearranged, changed, brightened everything. Like most other families on Croydon Hill, the Graces kept but one "help," a stout woman, who could wash, iron, and scrub with the best, and grapple successfully enough with the simple daily _menu_, but who for finer purposes was as "unhandy" as a gorilla. All the embellishments, all the delicate cookeries, fell to the share of the ladies of the household, which meant Milly as a general thing, and in this case particularly, for the party was hers, and she felt bound to take the burden of it on her own shoulders as far as possible, especially as her step-mother did not quite approve, and considered that the Squire had done a foolish thing in giving consent. "Milly should have her way for once," the Squire had announced. So Milly had her way, and had borne herself bravely and brightly through the fatigues of preparation. But somehow when things were almost ready, when the table was set, lacking only the last touches, and the fire lighted, a heavy sense of discouragement fell upon her. It was the natural reaction after long overwork, but she was too inexperienced to understand it. She only knew that suddenly the thing she had wished for seemed undesirable and worth nothing, and that she felt perfectly miserable, and "didn't care what became of her." She laid her tired head on the little table by which she was sitting, and, without in the least intending it, began to cry. Mrs. Grace was lying down, the Squire was out; there was no one to note her distress or sympathize with it excepting Teakettle, the black cat. He was sorry for Milly after his cat-fashion, rubbed his velvet head against her dress for a little while as if wishing to console her, but when she took no notice, he walked away and sat down in front of the door, waiting till some one should open it and let him through. Cats soon weary of the role of comforter, and escape to pleasanter things,--sunshine, bird-shadows on the grass, light-hearted people who will play with them and make no appeal to their sympathies. Milly's tears did her no good. She was too physically worn out to find relief in them. They only deepened her sense of discouragement. The clock struck six; she roused herself wearily and went upstairs to dress. There were still the lamps to light and last things to do. "And no one to do them but me," thought poor Milly. "Oh dear, how dreadfully my feet ache! How glad I shall be when they all go away and I can go to bed!" This was indeed a sad state of mind to be in on the eve of a long-anticipated pleasure! Everything looked bright and orderly and attractive when the guests arrived a little after half-past seven. The fire snapped and the candles shone; a feeling of hospitable warmth was in the air. Milly's arrangements, except so far as they regarded her own well-being, had been judicious and happy. The pretty girls in their short-sleeved blue and crimson merinos, with roses and geranium-leaves in their hair (I need not say that this was at a far-back and old-fashioned date), looked every whit as charming as the girls of to-day in their more elaborate costumes. Cousin Mary Kendal, who, for all her grown-up sons and daughters liked fun as much as any girl among them, had volunteered to play for the dancing, and the spirit with which she dashed at once into "The Caspian Waltz" and "Corn Rigs are Bonny" was enough to set a church steeple to capering. Everybody seemed in a fair way to have a delightful evening except one person. That one was poor Milly, usually the merriest in every party, but now dull, spiritless, and inert. She did not even look pretty! Color and sparkle, the chief elements of beauty in her face, were, for the moment, completely quenched. She was wan and jaded, there were dark rings under her eyes, and an utter absence of spring to her movements, usually so quick and buoyant. She sat down whenever she had the chance, she was silent unless she must speak; half-unconsciously she kept a watch of the clock and was saying to herself, "Only two hours more and I can go to bed." Her fatigued looks and lack of pleasure were a constant damper to the animation of the rest. Every one noticed, and wondered what could be the matter; but only Janet Norcross dared to ask. "Have you got a headache?" she whispered; but the "No" which she received by way of answer sounded so cross that she did not venture on further inquiries. "Why won't you dance with me?" urged Will Benham; "you said you would when we were talking about the party after the Lecture--don't you remember?" "I'd rather the others had the chance--it's my party, you know," replied Milly. "But they _are_ having a chance. Everybody is dancing but you. Come, Milly." "Oh, Will, don't tease," cried Milly irritably. "I never saw such an evening. Do please to leave me alone and go and ask some of the others." Weariness sharpened her voice. Till the words were out of her lips she had no idea that she was going to speak so petulantly to Will. It sounded dreadfully even to herself. "Oh, certainly," said Will with freezing dignity. He crossed the room, and presently Milly saw him take Helen Jones out to the set of Lancers just forming. He did not look at Milly again, or come near her, and the sense of his displeasure was just the one drop too much. Milly felt herself choke, a hot rush of tears blinded her eyes, she turned, and being fortunately near the door, got out of it and upstairs without suffering her face to be seen. Janet found her half an hour later lying prone across the bed, and sobbing as if her heart would break. "What _is_ the matter?" she cried in alarm. "Are you ill, dear Milly? has anything dreadful happened? I came up to look for you. Will Benham got worried because you were away so long, and came to me to ask what had become of you. I told him I guessed you were taking out the ice-creams, but Katy said you hadn't been in the kitchen at all, so I came up here. What is the matter--do tell me?" "Oh, nothing is the matter at all, except that I am a perfect idiot, and so tired that I wish I were dead," said Milly. "It was awfully good of Will to care, for I spoke so crossly to him. You can't think. It was horrid of me, but somehow I felt so dreadfully tired that the words seemed to jump out of my mouth against my will. Dear Janet--and I was cross to you, too," added Milly penitently. "Everything has gone wrong with me to-night. Oh, and there is that horrible ice-cream! I must go and get it out of the freezers. But my back aches so, Janet, and the soles of my feet burn like fire." "You poor thing, you are just tired out," said her friend. "No wonder. You must have worked like a horse to make everything so nice and pretty as it is. Don't worry about the ice-cream. Just tell me what dishes to put it in, and I'll see to it. It won't take five minutes. But do rouse yourself now, and keep up a little while longer. The others will wonder so if you don't go down. You _must_ go down, you know. Here is a wet towel for your eyes, and I'll smooth your hair." Even so small a lift as having the ice-cream taken out for her was a relief, and Janet's kindness, and the sense that Will was not hopelessly alienated by her misconduct, helped Milly to recover her equilibrium. Soothed and comforted she went downstairs, and got through the rest of the evening tolerably well. But when the last good-night had been said, and the last sleigh-bell had jingled away from the door, she found herself too tired to rest. All night long she tossed restlessly on her hot pillows, while visions of pounding ice and stirring cake, of Will's anger, and Janet's surprise when she found her in tears, whirled through her thoughts. When morning came she was so "poorly" that the doctor was sent for. "Too much party, no doubt," was his inward commentary when he received the summons; and his first words to Milly were, "Well, Missy, so you are down with fruit cake and mottoes, are you?" "Oh, Doctor, no, I never ate a mouthful of the cake. I only made it," was poor Milly's disclaimer. "That sounds serious," said the doctor. But when he had felt her pulse he looked graver. "You've done a good deal too much of something, that is evident," he said. "I shall have to keep you in bed awhile to pay you for it." Milly was forced to submit. She stayed in bed for a whole week and the greater part of another, missing thereby two candy-pulls on which her heart was set, and the best sleighing frolic of the season. Everybody was kind about coming to see her, and sending her flowers and nice things, and Janet, in particular, spent whole hours with her every day. "The whole thing seems such a dreadful pity," Milly said one day. She was really better now, able to sit up, and equal to a calm discussion of her woes. "I had looked forward so much to my party, and I wanted to have it as nice as could be, and I worked so hard; and then, when the time came, I didn't enjoy it a bit. If I could only have it over again now when I am all rested and fresh, I should have as good a time as anybody. Doesn't it seem a pity, Janet?" "Yes, it does," replied Janet, after which she fell into a little musing-fit. "One can't have company without taking some trouble," she said at last. "But I wonder if one need take so much?" "I don't see what else I could have done," said Milly. "You must give people nice things when they come to see you, and somebody has got to make them. And besides that, there is so much to see to about the house,--dusting, and washing china, and making the rooms nice." "I know," went on Janet reflectively. "Mrs. Beers half killed herself, I remember, when she had that quilting two years ago, in giving the whole house a thorough house-cleaning beforehand. She said as like as not somebody would want to run up into the garret-chamber after something, and she should have a fit if it wasn't in order. And after all, not a soul went anywhere except to the parlor and dining-room, and into Mrs. Beers's bedroom to take off their things; so the fuss was all thrown away, and Mrs. Beers had inflammation of the lungs afterward, and almost died." "I recollect. But then they might have gone to the attic--she couldn't tell. It was natural that Mrs. Beers should think of it." "Well, and suppose they had, and that there had been a trifle of dust on the top of some old trunk, what difference would it have made? People who are busy enjoying themselves don't stop to notice every little thing. I am going to think the thing over, Milly. It's all wrong somehow." Janet herself was meditating a party. Her father had given permission, and Aunt Esther, who managed the housekeeping, was only too glad to fall in with any plan which pleased Janet. Judge Norcross was the richest man on the Hill. There was no reason why Janet's entertainment should not out-shine Milly's. In fact, she had felt a little ambitious to have it do so, and had made certain plans in her private mind all of which involved labor and trouble; but now she hesitated. "If I'm going to be as tired out as Milly was, and not enjoy it, what's the use of having a party at all?" she said to herself. "I'd _like_ to have it as nice as hers; but whatever I have, I have got to do it all myself. I'm not as strong as Milly, I know, and it has half killed _her_; perhaps it would quite kill me. A party isn't worth that!" She discussed the matter within herself, reasonably. She _could_ wind herself up and make eight kinds of cake if she liked. There were the recipes and the materials and she knew how; moreover, Aunt Esther would help her. She could have as much jelly and syllabub and blanc-mange as Milly, she could turn the house upside down if she desired, and trim and beautify and adorn. It was a temptation. No girl likes to be outdone, least of all by her intimate friend. "But is it worth while?" Janet queried. And I think she proved herself possessed of a very "level head" when, at last, she decided that it was not. "I'll be sensible for once," she told herself. "A party is not a duty, it is a pleasure. If I get so tired that I spoil my own pleasure, I spoil my company's too, for they will be sure to find it out just as they did at Milly's. I couldn't half enjoy anything that night, because she looked so miserable; and I won't run the risk of having the same thing happen at our house. I'll just do what is necessary, and leave off the extras." The "necessary," when Janet came to analyze it, proved to be quite as much as she was able to undertake; for, as she had admitted to herself, she was not nearly so strong as Milly Grace. It meant an ample supply of two sorts of cake, freshly made and delicate, with plenty of ice-cream, salad, scalloped oysters, and rolls. There was extra china to wash, the table to set, and the rooms to dust and arrange, and Janet was quite tired enough before it was done. She sent to Boston for some preserved ginger to take the place of the jelly which she didn't make, she made no attempt at evergreen wreaths, and she wisely concluded that rooms in their usual state of cleanliness would pass muster with young people intent on dancing and amusement, that no one would find time to peep into holes and corners, and that the house could wait to have its "thorough cleaning" administered gradually after the occasion was over. There was really a great deal of steady good sense in holding to this view of the matter, and Janet found her reward in the end. The preparations, even thus simplified, taxed her strength; the extra touches which she had omitted would have been just the "straw too much." She gave herself a good margin for rest on the afternoon preceding the party, and when she came downstairs in her pretty dress of pale blue cashmere and swan's-down, ready to meet her guests, her cheeks and eyes were as bright as usual, and her spirits were ready for the exhilaration of excitement. The tone of any gathering depends in great measure on its hostess. If she is depressed or under the weather, her visitors are pretty sure to catch her mood and be affected by it. Janet's sunny looks and gay laughs set the key-note of her party. Nobody missed the wine jelly or the six absent sorts of cake, no one wasted a thought on the evergreen wreaths. All was fun and merriment, and nothing seemed wanting to the occasion. "What a good time we _have_ had!" said Helen Jones to Alice Ware as they stood at the door of the dressing-room waiting for their escorts. "It's been ever so much jollier than it was at Milly's, and I can't think why. That was a beautiful party, but somehow people seemed to feel dull." Helen had no idea of being overheard, but as it happened Milly was nearer to her than she thought. "I'll tell you why it was, Helen," she said, coming forward frankly. "Don't look so shocked. I know you didn't mean me to hear, but indeed I don't mind a bit. And it's quite true besides. Janet's party has been a great deal nicer, and it's because I was such a goose about mine. I did a great deal too much and got dreadfully tired, so tired that I couldn't enjoy it, and you all found it out of course, so you couldn't enjoy it either. I'm sure I don't wonder, but it was all my own fault. Janet took warning by my experience and made her party easier, and you see how nice it has been. We have all had a beautiful time, and so has she. Well--I've learned a lesson by it. Next time I give a party I shall just do what I can to make it pleasant for you all, and not what I can't, and I hope it will turn out better for everybody concerned." THE PINK SWEETMEAT. Only three pairs of stockings were left in the shop. It was a very little shop indeed, scarcely larger than a stall. Job Tuke, to whom it belonged, was not rich enough to indulge in the buying of any superfluous wares. Every spring he laid in a dozen dozen of thin stockings, a bale of cheap handkerchiefs, a gross of black buttons, a gross of white, a little stationery, and a few other small commodities. In the autumn he added a dozen dozen of thick stockings, and a box full of mittens and knitted comforters. Besides these he sold penny papers, and home-made yeast made by Mrs. Tuke. If the stock of wearables grew scant toward midwinter, Job rejoiced in his heart, but by no means made haste to replenish it. He just laid aside the money needed for the spring outfit, and lived on what remained. Thus it went year after year. Trade was sometimes a little better, sometimes a little worse, but whichever way it was, Job grew no richer. He and his old wife lived along somehow without coming on the parish for support, and with this very moderate amount of prosperity they were content. This year of which I write, the supply of winter stockings had given out earlier than usual. The weather had been uncommonly cold since October, which may have been the reason. Certain it is, that here at Michaelmas, with December not yet come in, only three pairs of stockings were left in the little shop. Job Tuke had told his wife only the week before that he almost thought he should be forced to lay in a few dozen more, folks seemed so eager to get 'em. But since he said that, no one had asked for stockings, as it happened, and Job, thinking that trade was, after all, pretty well over for the season, had given up the idea of replenishing his stock. One of the three pairs of stockings was a big pair of dark mixed gray. One pair, a little smaller, was white, and the third, smaller still and dark blue in color, was about the size for a child of seven or eight years old. Job Tuke had put up the shutters for the night and had gone to bed. The stockings were talking together in the quiet darkness, as stockings will when left alone. One pair had been hung in the window. It had got down from its nail, and was now straddling carelessly with one leg on either side of the edge of the box in which the others lay, as a boy might on the top of a stile. This was the big gray pair. "Our chances seem to be getting slim," he said gloomily. "That is more than you seem," replied the White Stockings, in a tart voice. "Your ankles are as thick as ever, and your mesh looks to me coarser than usual to-night." "There are worse things in the world than thickness," retorted the Gray Stockings angrily. "I'm useful, at any rate, I am, while you have no wear in you. I should say that you would come to darning about the second wash, if not sooner." "Is that my fault?" said the White Pair, beginning to cry. "No; it's your misfortune. But people as unfortunate as you are should mind their P's and Q's, and not say disagreeable things to those who are better off." "Pray don't quarrel," put in the Little Blues, who were always peacemakers. "Think of our situation, the last survivors of twelve dozen! we ought to be friends. But, as you say, matters _are_ getting serious with us. Of course we are all thinking about the same thing." "Yes; about the Christmas, and the chimney corner," sighed the White Pair. "What a dreadful thing it would be if we went to the rag-bag never having held a Christmas gift. I could not get over such a disgrace. My father, my grandfather--all my relations had their chance--some of them were even hung a second time!" "Yes; Christmas is woven into our very substance," said the Gray Stockings. "The old skeins and the ravellings tell the story to the new wool,--the story of the Christmas time. The very sheep in the fields know it. For my part," he added proudly, "I should blush to lie in the same ash-heap even with an odd stocking who had died under the disgrace of never being hung up for Christmas, and I will never believe that my life-long dream is to be disappointed!" "Why will you use such inflated language?" snapped the White Pair. "You were only woven last July. As late as May you were running round the meadow on a sheep's back." "Very well; I don't dispute it. I may not be as old as Methuselah, but long or short, my life is my life, and my dream is my dream, and you have no call to criticise my expressions, Miss!" thundered the Big Pair. "There you are again," said the Little Blues. "I _do_ wish you wouldn't dispute. Now let us talk about our chances. What day of the month is it?" "The twenty-seventh of November," said the Gray Stockings, who, because they hung over the penny papers in the window, always knew the exact date. "Little more than four weeks to the holidays," said the White Pair dolorously. "How I wish some one would come along and put us out of suspense." "Being bought mightn't do that," suggested the Little Blues. "You might be taken by a person who had two pairs of stockings, and the others might be chosen to be hung up. Such things do happen." "Oh, they wouldn't happen to me, I think," said the White Pair vaingloriously. As it happened, the three pairs of stockings were all sold the very day after this conversation, and all to one and the same person. This was Mrs. Wendte, an Englishwoman married to a Dutch shipwright. She had lived in Holland for some years after her marriage, but now she and her husband lived in London. They had three children. The stockings were very much pleased to be bought. When Job Tuke rolled them up in paper and tied a stout packthread round them, they nestled close, and squeezed each other with satisfaction. Besides, the joy of being sold was the joy of keeping together and knowing about each other's adventures. The first of these adventures was not very exciting. It consisted in being laid away in the back part of a bureau-drawer, and carefully locked in. "Now, what is this for?" questioned the White Stockings. "Are we to stay here always?" "Yes; that is just what I should like to know," grumbled the Big Grays. "Why, of course not! Who ever heard of stockings being put away for always?" said the wise Little Blues. "Wait patiently and we shall see. I think it is some sort of a surprise." But day after day passed and nothing happened, surprising or otherwise, till even the philosophical Little Blue Stockings began to lose heart and hope. At last, one evening they heard the key click in the lock of the drawer, a stream of light flashed into their darkness, and they were seized and drawn forth. "Well, mother, let us see thy purchase. Truly fine hosen they are," said Jacob Wendte, whose English was rather foreign. "Yes," replied his wife. "Good, handsome stockings they are, and the children will be glad, for their old ones are about worn out. The big pair is for Wilhelm, as thou knowest. Those must hang to the right of the stove." The Big Gray Pair cast a triumphant glance at his companions as he found himself suspended on a stout nail. This _was_ something like life! "The white are for Greta, and these small ones for little Jan. Ah, they are nice gifts indeed!" said Mrs. Wendte, rubbing her hands. "A fine Christmas they will be for the children." The stockings glowed with pleasure. Not only were they hung up to contain presents, but they themselves were Christmas gifts! This was promotion indeed. "Hast thou naught else?" demanded Jacob Wendte of his wife. "No great things; a kerchief for Greta, this comforter for Wilhelm, for the little one, mittens. That is all." But it was not quite all, for after her husband had gone to bed, Mrs. Wendte, a tender look on her motherly face, sought out a small, screwed-up paper, and with the air of one who is a little ashamed of what she is doing, dropped into each stocking a something made of sugar. They were not sugar almonds, they were not Salem Gibraltars,--which delightful confections are unfamiliar to London shops,--but irregular lumps of a nondescript character, which were crumbly and sweet, and would be sure to please those who did not often get a taste of candy. It was of little Jan that his mother had thought when she bought the sweetmeats, and for his sake she had yielded to the temptation, though she looked upon it as an extravagance. There were three of the sweetmeats--two white, one pink--and the pink one went into Jan's stockings. Mrs. Wendte had not said anything about them to her husband. "Well, this is satisfactory," said the Gray Pair, when Mrs. Wendte had left the room, and he was sure of not being overheard. "Here we are all hanging together on Christmas Eve. My dream is accomplished." "Mine isn't," said the White Pair plaintively. "I always hoped that I should hold something valuable, like a watch or a pair of earrings. It is rather a come-down to have nothing but a bit of candy inside, and a pocket handkerchief pinned to my leg. I don't half like it. It gives me an uncomfortable pricking sensation, like a stitch in the side." "It's just as well for you to get used to it," put in the Gray. "It doesn't prick as much as a darning-needle, I fancy, and you'll have to get accustomed to that before long, as I've remarked before." "I'm the only one who has a pink sweetmeat," said the Little Blues, who couldn't help being pleased. "And I'm for a real child. Wilhelm and Greta are more than half grown up." "Real children are very hard on their stockings, I've always heard," retorted the White Pair, who never could resist the temptation to say a disagreeable thing. "That may be, but it is all in the future. This one night is my own, and I mean to enjoy it," replied the contented Little Blues. So the night went, and now it was the dawn of Christmas. With the first light the door opened softly and a little boy crept into the room. This was Jan. When he saw the three pairs of stockings hanging by the stove, he clapped his hands together, but softly, lest the noise should wake the others. Then he crossed the room on tiptoe and looked hard at the stockings. He soon made sure which pair was for himself, but he did not take them down immediately, only stood with his hands behind his back and gazed at them with two large, pleased eyes. At last he put his hand up and gently touched the three, felt the little blue pair, gave it a pat, and finally unhooked it from its nail. Then he sat down on the floor, and began to put them on. His toe encountering an obstacle, he pulled the stocking off again, put his hand in, and extracted the pink sweetmeat, with which he was so pleased that he laughed aloud. That woke up the others, who presently came in. "Ah, little rogue that thou art! Always the first to waken," said his mother, pleased at his pleasure. "See, mother! see what I found!" he cried. "It is good--sweet! I have tasted a crumb already. Take some of it, mother." But Mrs. Wendte shook her head. "No," she said. "I do not care for sugar. That is for little folks like thee. Eat it thyself, Jan." It was her saying this, perhaps, which prevented Wilhelm and Greta from making the same offer,--at least, I hope so. Certain it is that neither of them made it. Greta ate hers up on the spot, with the frank greediness of a girl of twelve who does not often get candy. Wilhelm buttoned his up in his trousers pocket. All three made haste to put on the new stockings. The three pairs had only time to hastily whisper as they were separated,-- "To-night perhaps we may meet again." The pink sweetmeat went into the pocket of Jan's jacket, and he carried it about with him all the morning. He did not eat it, because once eaten it would be gone, and it was a greater pleasure to have it to look forward to, than to enjoy it at the moment. Jan was a thrifty little boy, as you perceive. Being Christmas, it was of course an idle day. Jacob Wendte never knew what to do with such. There was his pipe, and there was beer to be had, so in default of other occupation, he amused himself with these. Mrs. Wendte had her hands full with the dinner, and was frying sausages and mixing Yorkshire pudding all the morning. Only Greta went to church. She belonged to a parish-school where they gave Christmas prizes, and by no means intended to lose her chance; but, apart from that, she really loved church-going, for she spoke English and understood it better than either of the other children. Wilhelm went off on errands of his own. Little Jan spent the morning in admiring his stockings, and in wrapping and unwrapping his precious sweetmeat, and taking it out of his pocket and putting it in again. "Why dost thou not eat it, dear?" asked his mother, as she lifted the frying-pan from the stove. But he answered: "Oh! not yet. When once it is eaten, it is over. I will wait." "How long wilt thou wait?" she asked. Jan said bashfully, "I don't know." In truth, he had not made up his mind about the sweetmeat, only he felt instinctively that he did not want to hurry, and shorten his pleasure. Dinner over, he went out for a walk. Every now and then, as he marched along, his hand would steal into his pocket to finger his precious candy and make sure that it was safe. It was a gray afternoon, but not snowing or raining. Hyde Park was not too far away for a walk, and Jan went there. The Serpentine was skimmed over with ice just strong enough to bear boys, and quite a little crowd was sliding or skating upon it. Jan could skate very well. He had learned in Holland, but he made no attempt to join the crowd. He was rather shy of English boys, for they sometimes laughed at his Hollander clothes or his Dutch accent, and he did not like to be laughed at. So he strolled away, past the Serpentine and the skaters, and watched the riders in the Row for a while. There were not a great many, for people who ride are apt to be out of London at the Christmas time; but there were some pretty horses, and one fair little girl on a pony who took Jan's fancy very much. He stood for a long time watching her trot up and down, and the idea occurred to him that he would like to give her his sweetmeat. He even put his hand into his pocket and half pulled it out; but the little girl did not look his way, and presently her father, with whom she was riding, spoke to her, and she turned her horse's head and trotted off through the marble arch. Jan dropped the sugarplum again into his pocket, and felt as if his sudden fancy had been absurd; and indeed I think the little girl would have been surprised and puzzled what to do had he carried out the intention. After the pony and his little mistress had departed, Jan lost his interest in the riders, and walked away across the park. Once he stopped to look at a dear little dog with a blue collar, who seemed to have lost his master, for he was wandering about by himself, and smelling everybody and everything he met, as if to recover a lost trail. Jan called him. He came up in a very friendly way and allowed himself to be patted; and once more the sweetmeat was in danger, for Jan had taken it out with the intention of dividing it with this new friend, when a whistle was heard which the little dog evidently recognized, and he darted off at once to join his master. So again the pink sweetmeat was put back into Jan's pocket, and he walked on. He had gone quite a distance when he saw a number of people collected round the foot of a tree. A ladder was set against one of the lower branches, and a man had climbed up nearly to the top of the tree. Jan, like a true boy, lost no time in joining the crowd, but at first he could not make out what was going on. The boughs were thick. All that he could see was the man's back high up overhead, and what he was doing he could not guess. A benevolent-looking old gentleman stood near, and Jan heard him exclaim with great excitement: "There, he's got him! No, he's not; but it was a close shave!" "Got what, sir?" he ventured to ask. "Why, the rook, to be sure." Then, seeing that Jan still looked puzzled, he took the trouble to explain. "You see that rook up there, my lad, don't you?" Jan had not seen any rook at all! "Well it is caught in some way, how, I can't tell you, but it can't get away from the tree. It has been there three days, they say, and all that time the other rooks have brought food to it, and kept it from starving. Now some one has gone up to see what is the difficulty, and, if possible, to set the poor thing free." "Thank you, sir," said Jan. And the old gentleman looked at him kindly, and said to himself:-- "A very civil, tidy little lad! I like his face." Jan had now become deeply interested in what was going on. He stood on tiptoe, and stretched his neck; but all he could see was the man's back and one of his feet, and now and then the movement of a stick with which the man seemed to be trying to hit something. At last there was a great plunge and a rustling of branches, and people began to hurrah. Jan hurrahed too, though he still saw nothing very clearly; but it is easier to shout when other boys shout, if you happen to be a boy, than it is to keep still. Slowly the man in the tree began to come down. He had only one hand to help himself with now, for the other held the heavy rook. We in America do not know what rooks are like, but in England they are common enough. They are large black birds, something like our crows, but they look wiser, and are a good deal bigger. As the man neared the ground, every one in the crowd could see what had been the matter with the rook. A kite-string, caught among the tree branches, had tangled his legs and held him fast. He had pulled so hard in his efforts to escape that the string had cut into one of his legs and half broken it. It was stiff and bleeding, and the rook could neither fly nor hop. People searched in their pockets, and one little girl, who had a half biscuit, began to feed the rook, who, for all the kindly efforts of his friends, seemed to be half-famished. The poor thing was too weak to struggle or be frightened, and took the crumbs eagerly from the girl's hand. Jan thought of his sweetmeat, and took it out for the third time. Everybody was crowding round the man who held the rook, and he could not get near. A very tall policeman stood in front of him. Jan pulled his arm, and when he turned, handed him the sweetmeat, and said in his soft foreign English:-- "For the bird, sir." "Thank you, my dear," said the policeman. He had not understood what Jan said, and in an abstracted way, with his eyes still fixed on the rook, he bit the pink sweetmeat in two, and swallowed half of it at a mouthful. Fortunately Jan did not see this, for the policeman's back was turned to him; but observing that the man made no attempt to go forward, he pulled his sleeve for the second time, and again said:-- "For the bird, I said, sir." This time the policeman heard, and taking one step forward, he held the remaining half of the sweetmeat out to the rook, who, having by this time grown used to being fed, took the offered dainty greedily. Jan saw the last pink crumb vanish into the long beak, but he felt no regret. His heart had been touched by the suffering of the poor bird, and he was glad to give what he could to make it forget those painful days in the tree. So that was the end of the pink sweetmeat, or not quite the end. The kind old gentleman to whom Jan had spoken, had noticed the little transaction with the policeman. He was shrewd as well as kind. He guessed by Jan's clothes that he was a working-man's son, to whom sweets were not an every-day affair, and the generous act pleased him. So he put his hand into _his_ pocket, pulled out a half-crown, and watching his opportunity, dropped it into Jan's pocket, quite empty now that the sweetmeat was gone. Then, with a little chuckle, he walked away, and Jan had no suspicion of what had been done to him. Gradually the crowd dispersed, Jan among the rest walking briskly, for he wanted to get home and tell his mother the story. It was not till after supper that he discovered the half-crown, and then it seemed to him like a sort of dream, as if fairies had been at work, and turned the pink sweetmeat into a bit of silver. That night the three pairs of stockings had another chance for conversation. The blue ones and the gray ones lay close together on the floor of the room where Jan slept with his brother, and the white ones, which Greta had carelessly dropped as she jumped into bed, were near enough the half-opened door to talk across the sill. "It has been an exciting day," said the White Pair. "My girl got a Keble's 'Christian Year' at her school. It was the second-best prize. It is a good thing to belong to respectable people who take prizes. Only one thing was painful to me: she wriggled her toes so with pleasure that I feel as if I were coming to an end in one of my points." "You probably are," remarked the Big Gray. "Yes, now that I examine, I can see the place. One stitch has parted already, and there is quite a thin spot. You know I always predicted that you would be in the rag-bag before you knew it." "Oh, don't say such dreadful things," pleaded the Little Blues. "Mrs. Wendte will mend her, I am sure, and make her last. What did your girl do with her sweetmeat?" "Ate it up directly, of course. What else should one do with a sweetmeat?" snapped the White Pair crossly. "Oh, dear! my toe feels dreadfully ever since you said that; quite neuralgic!" "My boy was not so foolish as to eat his sweetmeat," said the Big Gray stockings. "Only girls act in that way, without regard to anything but their greedy appetites. He traded his with another boy, and he got a pocket-knife for it, three screws, and a harmonica. There!" "Was the knife new?" asked the Blue. "Could the harmonica play any music?" demanded the White. "No; the harmonica is out of order inside somehow, but perhaps my boy can mend it. And the knife isn't new--quite old, in fact--and its blade is broken at the end; still, it's a knife, and Wilhelm thinks he can trade it off for something else. And now for your adventures. What did _your_ boy do with his sweetmeat, Little Blues? Did he eat it, or trade it?" "It is eaten," replied the Blue Stockings cautiously. "Eaten! Then of course he ate it. Why don't you speak out? If he ate it, say so. If he didn't, who did?" "Well, nobody ate the whole of it, and my boy didn't eat any. It was divided between two persons--or rather, between one person and--and--a thing that is not a person." "Bless me! What are you talking about? I never heard anything so absurd in my life. Persons, and things that are not persons," said the White Pair; "what do you mean?" "Yes; what _do_ you mean? What is the use of beating about the bush in this way?" remonstrated the Big Gray Pair. "Who did eat the sweetmeat? Say plainly." "Half of it was eaten by a policeman, and the other half by a rook," replied the Little Blues, in a meek voice. "Ho, ho!" roared the Gray Stockings, while the White Pair joined in with a shrill giggle. "That beats all! Half by a policeman, and half by a rook! A fine way to dispose of a Christmas sweetmeat! Your boy must be a fool, Little Blues." "Not a fool at all," said the Blue Pair indignantly. "Now just listen to me. Your girl ate hers up at once, and forgot it. Your boy traded his away; and what has he got? A broken knife, and a harmonica that can't play music. I don't call those worth having. My boy enjoyed his sweetmeat all day. He had more pleasure in giving it away than if he had eaten it ten times over! Besides, he got half a crown for it. An old gentleman slipped it into his pocket because he was pleased with his kind heart. I saw him do it." "Half a crown!" ejaculated the White Pair, with amazement. "That _is_ something like," admitted the Big Gray Stockings. "Your boy did the best of the three, I admit." The Little Blues said no more. Presently the others fell asleep, but she lay and watched Jan as he rested peacefully beside his brother, with his wonderful treasure--the silver coin--clasped tight in his hand. He smiled in his sleep as though his dreams were pleasant. "Even if he had no half-crown, still he would have done the best," she whispered to herself at last. Then the clock struck twelve, and the day after Christmas was begun. ETELKA'S CHOICE. Etelka lived on the very borders of the Fairy Country. It may be that some of you do not believe that there are any such beings as fairies. In fact, it is not easy to hold to one's faith in them when one lives in such a country as this of ours. Fairies are the shyest of creatures; shyer than the wood-dove, shyer than the glancing dragon-fly. They love silence, seclusion, places where they can sport unseen with no intruding voice or step to startle them: when man comes they go. And I put it to you whether it is likely that they can enjoy themselves in the United States, where every forest with any trees in it worth cutting down is liable at any moment to be attacked by an army of wood-choppers; where streams are looked upon as "water power," lakes as "water supply," and ponds as suitable places for the breeding of fish; where distance is brought near by railroads, and solitudes only mean a chance for a settler; where people are always poking about the hills and mountains in search of coal mines or silver mines, and prodding the valleys in hopes of oil wells, and where silence generally means an invitation to a steam-whistle of one kind or another? But where Etelka lived no one doubted the reality of fairies any more than they did that of human beings. Her home was in Bohemia, in the outskirts of the _Boehmer-wald_, a vast, unpeopled tract of mountainous country thickly wooded, full of game, and seldom visited except by hunting-parties in pursuit of stags or wild boars. Etelka's people were of mixed Sclavonic and gypsy origin. They cultivated a patch of land under the stewardship of a lord who never came near his estate, but this was only their ostensible occupation; for poaching or smuggling goods across the frontier brought in a great deal more money to them than did farming. There were three sons, Marc, Jocko, and Hanserl; Etelka was the only girl. They were lithe, sinewy young fellows, with the swarthy skins and glittering black eyes which belonged to their gypsy blood, and something furtive and threatening in their looks, but she was different. Her hair and eyes were of a warm brown, her features were delicate, and their expression was wistful and sweet. All summer long she ran about with her slender feet and ankles bare. A thin little cotton gown and a bead necklace composed her wardrobe for the warmer months. In winter she wore woollen stockings and wooden shoes, a stuff petticoat and a little shawl. She was always shabby, often ragged, and on cold days scarcely ever warm enough to be comfortable; but she somehow looked pretty in her poor garments, for beauty is the gift of Heaven, and quite as often sent to huts as to palaces. No one had ever told Etelka that she was pretty, except indeed young Sepperl of the Mill, whom she had seen now and again on her semi-annual visits to the neighboring village to dispose of her yarn, and he had said more with his eyes than with his tongue! To her family it made no difference whatever whether she was pretty or not. They preferred to have her useful, and they took care that she should be so. She spun and sewed, she cleaned the pots and pans, cooked the rye porridge and the cabbage soup, and rarely got a word of thanks for her pains. Her brothers flung her their jackets to mend or their game to dress, without a word of ceremony; if she had refused or delayed to attend to their wants she would have got a rough word, a curse, or perhaps a blow. But Etelka never refused; she was a willing little creature, kindly and cheerful, and had no lazy blood in her veins. So early and late she worked for them all, and her chief, almost her only pleasure was when, her tasks despatched, she could escape from the hut with its atmosphere of smoke and toil, and get away into the forest by herself. When once the green and fragrant hush of the high-arched thickets closed her in, she would give a sigh of relief, and a sense of being at home took possession of her. She did not feel it in the hut, though she called that home, and it was the only one she had ever known. Did Etelka believe in fairies? Indeed she did! She had a whole volume of stories about them at her tongue's end. Her great-grandmother had seen them often; so had her great-aunt. The mother of Dame Gretel, the wise woman of the village, who herself passed for a witch, had been on intimate terms for a long time with a hoary little kobold who had taught her all manner of marvellous things. The same fortunate woman had once seen Rubesal, the mountain demon, and had left an account of him and his looks, which were exactly those of a charcoal-burner. Etelka knew the very hollow where Dame Gretel's mother used to sit and listen to the teachings of the kobold, and could point out the ring where a number of the "good people" had once been seen moving a mystic dance, their wings glancing in the darkness like fire-flies. She, herself, had never seen a fairy or a kobold, it is true; everybody was not thus fortunate, but she might some day, who knew? And meantime she had often heard them whispering and sighing in their odd little voices close beside her. You may be sure that Etelka believed in fairies. It was one reason why she liked so well to go to the great forest, which was their well-known abiding-place. One day the desire to escape from home was unusually strong upon her. Her mother was out of sorts for some reason and had been particularly harsh. Her father, who sometimes stood her friend, had gone to the village with a bundle of hare-skins which he hoped to trade for oil and brandy. Her brothers, who had some private expedition on foot, had kept her running since early morning. She had grown tired and a little cross at their many exactions, and when, finally, all was made ready, and they set out with their guns and snares and a knapsack full of food, and her mother, sitting with her pipe beside the fire, had fallen into a doze, Etelka gladly closed the door behind her and stole away. The soup was simmering in its pot, the bowls were ready set on the table. She would not be missed. For an hour or two she might feel that she belonged to herself. The forest felt deliciously cool and still as she walked fast up the little glade which led to the Fairy Spring. This was a small pool of clear water, bubbling strongly up from a sandy bottom, and curiously walled round with smooth stones, which seemed fitted and joined by the labor of man, though in reality they were a freak of nature. Etelka sat herself down on this stony rim, dipped her hands in the water and sprinkled a little on her hot forehead. A tall spear of feathery grass grew just by. Presently it began to bend and sway as if wind-blown, and dance lightly up and down before her face. She took no notice at first; then it occurred to her, as no wind was blowing anywhere else, it was odd that this particular grass-blade should be in such active motion. "How queer," she said, looking hard at the grass-blade; "it seems to be alive!" A shrill, small laugh echoed her words, and suddenly, as if her eyes had been magically opened to see, she became aware that a tiny shape in green, with a pointed cap on its head, was sitting upon the blade of grass and moving it to and fro with hand and foot. The little countenance under the cap was full of mischief and malice, and the bright eyes regarded her with a strange glee. Etelka knew instantly that her wish had come true, and that at last she was face to face with a veritable fairy. "Oh!" was all she could say in her amazement. "Well, stupid, do you know who I am?" asked the creature in a voice as shrill as its laugh. "Yes, mein Herr," faltered Etelka. "Here you have gone about all your days wishing you could see a fairy," continued the small creature, "and there we were close by all the time, and you never opened your eyes to look. How do you like me now you do see me?" "Very much, Herr Fairy," replied Etelka, gaining courage. "I think you are beautiful." The fairy seemed pleased at this compliment, which was evidently sincere. "Thou art a good maiden enough, as maidens go," he said, accosting her more familiarly. "I have long had my eye on thee, Etelklein. I have sat up in the roof-thatch and heard Jocko and Hanserl scold and hector, and the mother order thee about, and I have noted that thou wast almost always kind and humble, and seldom answered them back again. Thou art neat-handed, too, and that we fairies think much of. Many a drink of good new milk have I had, which I should have missed hadst thou forgotten to scour the pail. So now in return I will do something for thee. Listen. "Thou must know that each fairy of the _Boehmer-wald_ has the privilege once every hundred years of granting one wish to a mortal. All do not exercise it. Some crabbed ones do not like the human folk enough to be willing to do them a good turn, others again are too lazy or too pleasure-loving to go out of their way for the purpose. I am neither of these. Now, hearken. I will give thee the power that every time thou dancest a piece of gold shall lie under thy foot--or, instead of the gold, a flower shall spring up out of the ground; which wilt thou have?" "Yes; which wilt thou have?" cried another sharp voice, and a second fairy appeared, out of the air as it were, and seated himself on the very tip of the grass-blade. "Don't be in a hurry. Think a bit before you choose, Etelka. Why, child, what are you looking so scared about?" For Etelka had grown pale, and had not been able to repress a little scream at this sudden apparition. She rallied her courage and tried to look brave, but her heart misgave her. Was the wood full of these unseen creatures? "It is only my gossip," explained fairy number one. "Thimblerig is his name. Mine is Pertzal. He usually comes after me wherever I go. You needn't be afraid of _him_. Now, gold-piece or flower--decide." Etelka was in a whirl of confusion. It was dreadful to have to make up her mind all in a moment about such an important thing. Her thoughts flew to Sepperl of the Mill. He was fond of flowers, she knew; the mill garden was always full of blue flax, poppies, and lavender, and Sepperl spent all his spare hours in working over it. Suppose--suppose--the thing over which she had sometimes shyly glowed and blushed were to happen, how pleasant it would be to dance flowers all day long for Sepperl! Then her mind reverted to the hut, to her mother and the boys, who were always craving after the luxuries of life which they could not have, and fiercely envying those who were better off than themselves. Would they not be happier and better and kinder for the gold which she had it in her power to give them? They would not forgive her if she lost such a chance, that she knew. And even so far as Sepperl went, gold never came amiss to a poor man's door. So many things could be bought with it. "One cannot eat flowers," said Etelka to herself with a sigh; yet still she hesitated, and her heart felt heavy within her. "Choose," repeated the two fairies, each echoing the other. "I choose the gold-piece," said Etelka. The fairy faces clouded over as she spoke, and she knew she had chosen wrong. "Very well," said Pertzal, "have thy wish." He vanished as he spoke. Etelka sat alone by the bubbling spring, and she rubbed her eyes and asked herself if it were not all a dream. "I will put it to the test," she thought; and jumping up she began to dance beneath the trees, slowly and doubtfully at first, and then with swift and joyful bounds and steps, for as she danced, ever and anon upon the ground beneath her feet appeared a glittering coin. She danced so long that when at last she ceased she sank down exhausted. The beautiful yellow pieces lay thickly around her, some larger, some smaller, as if their size depended upon the vigor of her movements. She had never dreamed of such wealth before, and she gathered them up and tied them in the corner of her shawl, half-fearing they might turn to brass or pebbles; but when she neared home and looked at them again they were still gold. Her mother was standing at the door with a black look on her face. "Where hast thou been, thou idle baggage?" she demanded. "I drop asleep for one moment, and when I wake the fire is well-nigh out." Etelka glanced at the setting sun. In her excitement she had not marked the flight of time. It was much later than she had supposed. "I am sorry," she faltered. Then, to appease her mother's anger, she untied the corner of her shawl and showed the fairy money. "See what I have brought," she said; "they are all for thee." The old woman fairly gasped in her surprise. "Gold!" she cried, clutching the coins which Etelka held out. "Real gold! More than I ever saw before. Where didst get it, girl? Who gave it thee?" "The fairies!" exclaimed Etelka joyfully. "And they taught me how to get more when we are again in need." "Do you dare to make a mock of me?" screamed her mother, aiming a blow at her with the staff which she held in her hand. "Fairies indeed! A fine story! Tell the truth, hussy. Didst thou meet some count in the forest--or the landgrave himself?" "I met nobody," persisted Etelka, "no one at all except the fairy and the other fairy, and it was they who gave me the gift." Her mother's staff descended with a whack on her shoulder. "Get thee in," she said harshly. "Thou are lying." But she held fast to the gold all the same, and when Etelka's back was turned she hid it secretly away. So the first fruit of the fairy gift was a blow! Later, when the father came back from the village, there was another scene of severity and suspicion. Neither of Etelka's parents believed her story. They treated her like a culprit who will not confess his guilt. It was worse yet when her brothers returned the following day. In vain she wept and protested, in vain she implored them to believe her. "It's easy enough to talk," Jocko declared at last, "but to prove thy words is not so easy. If thou hast the power to dance gold-pieces into existence, why, face to work and dance! Then we shall know whether or not to believe thee." Strange to say, this method of proving her veracity had not occurred to Etelka's mind. After her troubled sleep and unhappy day she had begun to feel that the interview with the fairies was no more than a dream, and she scarcely ventured on the test, dreading that the strange gift bestowed upon her might have been withdrawn. Slowly and fearfully she began to dance, while her family watched every movement with eyes of scornful incredulity. Suddenly Marc, uttering a great oath, stooped and picked up something from the hard-trodden earthen floor. It was a gold-piece! "By Heavens!" he exclaimed, "the girl spoke true! or"--with a return of suspicion--"is it one of those she gave thee which thou hast dropped?" turning to his mother. But as Etelka, with heart suddenly grown lighter, went on bounding and twirling, one shining coin after another shone out on the floor beneath her feet, and with howls and screams of joy her relatives precipitated themselves upon them. It seemed as if they could never have enough. If Etelka paused to rest they urged her on. "Dance thou!" they cried. "Dance, Etelklein, liebchen, susschen, darling of our hearts, do not stop! Keep on till we are all rich." One hour, two, passed, and still Etelka obeyed their eager behest and danced on. The boys' pockets, her father's pouch, her mother's lap were full, and yet they demanded more. At last, quite worn out, she sank in a heap on the ground. "I cannot take another step," she sighed. "Oh, well," Jocko reluctantly admitted, "that may do for to-night. To-morrrow we will have some more of it." From that day all was changed for the family in the forest hut. Every one, except Etelka, fell to work straightway to squander the fairy gold. The sons made expeditions to the distant town, and came back laden with goods of the most incongruous kinds,--silks, velvets, tobacco, gold-embroidered caps, bonbons, carved pipes, gayly painted china, gilt clocks, toys of all descriptions; anything and everything which had pleased their untutored fancy. The father and mother smoked all day long, till the air of the hut was dense and stifling. Brandy and _kirsch-wasser_ flowed in streams. Etelka alone profited nothing from the fairy gift. To be sure she had her share of the dainties which the others devoured, and her brothers now and then tossed her a ribbon or a brightly colored handkerchief; but for these she did not much care, and her liberty, for which she did care, was greatly abridged. No longer was she suffered to wander at will in the forest. She had become too precious for that. Something might happen to her, they all declared, a bear or a wolf might come along and attack her, or she might slip and sprain her ankle, which, so far as they were concerned, would be just as bad! No, Etelka must run no risks; she must stay at home, and be ready to dance for them whenever they needed her. The slender limbs grew very weary, and the heart which gave them life was often heavy, as time went on, and more and more gold was needed to satisfy the exactions of her family. Money easily won is still more easily spent. The fairy gold melted fast in the rapacious fingers which clutched it. Soon--for appetite grows by what it feeds upon--the little hut no longer sufficed the growing ambition of Etelka's brothers. It was too poor, too lonely, too everything, they declared; they must all remove to Budweis or Linz; the city was the only fit place for people to live in who had money to spend. Etelka was not consulted. She was ordered to pack this and that, and to leave the other behind, that was all, and was made to dance a few extra hours to pay the travelling expenses. All the homely old furniture was left in the hut, as not smart enough for the grand city home they were going to. They took only the things they had bought since their good luck began; but these filled a great cart, on the top of which Etelka and her mother were perched. She cast one last look toward her beloved forest, to which she had not been allowed a farewell visit. Jocko cracked his long whip, the oxen slowly moved forward. "Good-by to everything," said Etelka in her heart, but she dared not say it aloud. A quick pang shot through her as they passed the mill garden, gay with flowers, where Sepperl, hoe in hand, was standing. His eyes met hers with deep and silent reproach, then were averted. She did not understand, but it made her very sad. No one had told her that a few weeks before, Sepperl had asked her in marriage of her father, and had been roughly refused. Such an offer would have been looked upon as unheard-of good fortune six months previously; now it was regarded almost as an insult! Marry Etelka! Take their gold-earner away from them! It was out of the question. What was the fool thinking of? But Etelka heard nothing of all this. Haunted by the recollection of Sepperl's wistful glance, she went her way with the others. Little heart had she for the new home which seemed to them so fine. It was high up in an old building, overlooking a crowded street. The rooms seemed very large and empty after the forest hut, and the first care of the family was to furnish them. With reckless disregard of good taste as well as of expense, Marc and Jocko and Hanserl rushed away to the market and the shops, and presently the stairs began to fill with porters bringing up all manner of things,--beds and chairs and tables, gaudy carpets for the floors, ill-painted pictures in showy frames for the walls, a piano on which none of them knew how to play, a music-box of extraordinary size which could play without assistance, looking-glasses, lamps, wonderful china figures, a parrot in a gilded cage, with a dreadful command of profane language. The rooms were filled and more than filled in no time, and for the payment of all these things Etelka must dance! And dance she did, but with a heavy heart and no spring in her feet. Accustomed to the quiet of the forest neighborhood, the sounds and smells of the city oppressed her greatly. The crowd and bustle frightened her, the roar of noise kept her awake at night, she felt as if she could not breathe. Things grew worse rather than better. Their extravagance provoked notice, and the fame of their riches and their ignorance soon brought about them a crew of tempters and needy adventurers. Men with evil eyes and sly greedy faces began to appear at all hours, to smoke and drink with Marc and Jocko, to gamble with them and win their money. Much money did they win, and all that was lost Etelka must make good. With her will or without it, she must dance,--dance always to content her rapacious kindred. They could hardly endure to spare her for the most needful rest. Time and again when she had sunk exhausted on her bed to sleep, while dice rattled and glasses clinked in the next room, Hanserl or Jocko had rushed in to awaken her roughly and demand that she should get up at once and dance. Stumbling and half blind with drowsiness the poor girl would do her best, but her movements being less brisk and buoyant, the coins would be of smaller value, and she would be sworn at for her pains, and threatened with dire penalties if she did not do better next time. No wonder that under this treatment she grew pale and thin. The pretty cheeks lost their roundness, the pink faded from them, her eyes were dull and lustreless. A great homesickness took possession of her. Night and day she pined for the forest hut. So wan and unhappy was she, that even the hard hearts of those who profited by her should have been touched by it; but no one noticed her looks or cared that she was unhappy, so long as she would keep on dancing and coin gold for them. At last came a day when she could not rise from her bed. Marc came and threatened her, he even pulled her on to her feet, but it was in vain; she fell down with weakness and could not stand. Alarmed at last, Jocko hastened after a doctor. He came, felt Etelka's pulse, shook his head. "What has she been doing?" he asked. Nothing, they told him, nothing at all! Then he shook his head still more portentously. "Ah, well, in that case it is all of no use," he said. "She is all given out. She must die." And now indeed those who had let Etelka tire herself to death for them were thoroughly frightened. With her would perish all their hopes, for the gold she had earned for them had been spent as fast as made; nothing had been laid up. They took wonderfully good care of her now. There was nothing she fancied that they would not willingly have brought her; but all the poor child asked for was to be left alone and suffered to lie still, not to be forced to keep on with that weary dancing! Gradually the spent flame of life flickered feebly upward within her, and as she gained a little in strength, a longing after the forest took possession of her. The wish seemed utterly foolish to her family, but they would not refuse it, for their one desire was to have her get well and able to earn gold for them again. So the big wagon and the oxen were hired, Etelka on her bed was laid carefully in it, Marc took the goad, and slowly, slowly, the sick girl was carried back to her old home. All was unchanged there. Dust lay thickly on the rude furniture which had been left behind, on the pots and pans which hung upon the wall, but no one had meddled with them or lifted the latch of the door since the family went away. The cool hush and stillness of the place was like a balm to Etelka's overstrained nerves. She slept that night as she had not slept for weeks, and on the morrow was visibly stronger. Marc did not stay with her long. The quiet of the hut disgusted him, and after enduring it for a day or two he went back to the others in the city, leaving Etelka alone with her father and mother. He gave strict orders that he was to be sent for the moment that Etelka was able to use her feet again. Then, indeed, she must fall to work and dance to make up for all this wasted time. Poor Etelka rejoiced to see him go. She had learned to fear her brothers and almost to dislike them. The day after he went, she begged her father to carry her in his arms to the edge of the forest and lay her under a tree. She wanted to feel the wind in her face again, she said. He consented at last, though grumbling a little at the trouble. Etelka was comfortably placed on a bear-skin under the shade of a spreading fir, and after a while, as her eyes were closed and she seemed to be asleep, her father stole away and left her. She was in full sight of the hut, so there seemed no danger in leaving her alone. But Etelka was not asleep. She was thinking with all her might, thinking of the fairy, wishing she could see him again and ask him to undo the fatal gift which had brought such misery into her life. Suddenly, as she lay thinking these thoughts, her cheek was tickled sharply. She opened her eyes. There stood the same odd little figure in green which she had seen before; as then a grass-blade was in his hand, and leaning over his shoulder was his gossip Thimblerig. Etelka almost screamed in her joy. "Thou seemest pleased to see us," remarked Pertzal with a mocking smile. "Oh, I am glad, indeed I am," cried poor Etelka. "Dear kind Herr Fairy, have pity! Don't let me dance gold any more!" "What! Tired already? What queer creatures mortals be!" began Pertzal teasingly; but the kinder Thimblerig interposed. "Tired of her gift, of course she is! You knew she would be when you gave it, Gossip! Don't plague the poor child. Look how thin she has grown. But, Etelka, I must tell thee that when once a fairy has granted to a mortal his wish, he has no power to take it back again." "What!" cried Etelka in despair, "must I then go on dancing forever till I die?" "He cannot take it back," repeated Thimblerig. "But do not cry so; there is another way. A second fairy can grant a wish which will contradict the first, and so all may be made right. Now, Etelka, I have a kindness for thee as well as Pertzal here, and like him I have the right to grant a favor to a mortal. Now, listen. Dance thee never so well or dance thee never so long, from henceforward shall never gold-piece lie under foot of thine for all thy dancing! And, furthermore, if ever thou art married to a man whom thou lovest, I endow thee with this gift, that when thou dancest with will and because thy heart is light, violets and daisies and all sweet blossoms shall spring at thy tread, till all about thee is as a garden." "Now I will add this piece of advice," said Pertzal, grinning maliciously. "If ever this does happen, hold thy tongue about thy gift to thy husband. The best of men can hardly resist the temptation of making money out of their womenkind,--safety lies in silence." "Oh, how can I thank you?" sighed Etelka. "Thank us by being happy," said Thimblerig. Then the fairies faded from sight, and Etelka was alone. I have not time to tell of the wrath of Etelka's father and mother and brothers, when, as she grew strong enough to dance again for their bidding, it was found that no gold-pieces followed her light steps, and that the fairy gift had been withdrawn. Their ill-humor and discontent made the life of the hut worse than ever it had been before. Etelka sank into her former insignificance. Very willingly and faithfully she worked for them all, but she could not win them to content. One after another the boys departed from home. Marc enlisted as a soldier, Jocko joined a party of smugglers and disappeared over the Italian frontier, Hanserl took service with the charcoal-burners high up on the mountains. When Sepperl of the Mill asked again for Etelka's hand in marriage the following year, there was no question as to what answer should be given him. Her father was only too glad to say yes. Etelka was made happy at last. She had been a wife several months before she made trial of her second fairy gift. It was one evening when she and Sepperl were in their garden, and he was telling her his plans with regard to a bit of waste land which he had lately fenced in. "It will take many roots and seeds to make it like the rest," he remarked, "but little by little we can do it without feeling the cost, and in the end it will be the best of all." Then, with a sudden flash in her eyes, Etelka left her husband and began to dance. To and fro over the bare earth she sped with quick graceful steps, now advancing, now retreating, now describing circles, with her arm poised above her head like wings and her laughing eyes fixed on Sepperl. He was puzzled by this freak on the part of his pretty wife, but stood watching her with great admiration, her cheeks were so flushed, and her movements so light and dainty. She stopped at last, came to him, and laid her hand on his arm. [Illustration: Then with a sudden flash in her eyes, Etelka left her husband and began to dance.--_Page 202_.] "Now look," she said. And lo! where had been bare, brown earth a half-hour before, was now a green sward enamelled all over with buttercups, violets, pink-and-white Michaelmas daisies, and pansies of every shade of gold and purple. Sepperl stood transfixed. "Hast thou commerce with the elves?" he asked. But Etelka did not reply. The words of Pertzal recurred to her memory, "Silence is safety," and they were like a wise hand laid on her lips. She only laughed like a silver bell, shook her head, and left on Sepperl's cheek a happy kiss! THE FIR CONES. AN IDYL OF CHRISTMAS EVE. "Well, the old tree has gone at last," said the farmer, as he latched the heavy door and began to stamp the snow from his boots. "What tree?" cried a girl's voice, as the whir of the busy wheel suddenly slackened. "Oh, father, not the Lovers' Tree,--the old fir? Surely thou canst not mean _that_?" "No other, Hilda; the Lovers' Tree, under which thy mother and I exchanged our troth-plight more than twenty years back. Hey, dame?" And he turned with a smile to where his wife sat in the sunset light, humming a low tune to the accompaniment of her clicking needles. She smiled back in answer. "Yes, Paul, and my mother as well; and thine too, I'll be bound, for she also was a Brelau girl. All Brelau knows the fir,--a hundred years old it was, they say." "More than that," said the farmer. "My grandfather courted his lass under its shade, and his father did the same. Add a hundred and fifty to your hundred, and it won't be so far amiss, wife. But it has fallen at last. There'll be no more maidens wooed and won under the Lovers' Tree. Thou hast lost thy chance, Hilda." And he turned fondly to his girl. "That was indeed a terrible wind last night," went on the dame. "It rocked the bed till it waked me from my sleep. Did it rouse thee also, Liebchen?" But Hilda responded neither to word nor look. She had left her wheel, had crossed the room, and now stood gazing from the window to where across the valley the green obelisk of the old fir had risen. Men were moving about the spot where once it stood, and the ring of axes on the frosty air told that already the frugal peasantry were at work; and the pride of the village, confidant of many secrets, was in process of reduction to the level of vulgar fire-wood. In rushed two children. "Hast thou heard the news?" they cried. "The Lovers' Tree is blown down! All the people are up there chopping. May we go too, and see them chop? We will bring home all the cones to build the Christmas fire. Ah, do let us go, mother; fir cones blaze so magnificently." "You are such little ones, you will get in the way of the axes and be hurt," replied their mother, fondling them. But the farmer said,-- "Yes, let them go; we will all go. Get thy cloak, Ursula, and thy woollen hood. We will see the old tree once more before it is carried away. Wilt thou come too, Hilda?" But Hilda shook her head, and did not turn or answer. The children rioted about, searching for baskets and fagot strings; but she neither moved nor spoke. Then the door closed, and all was quiet in the cottage. But still Hilda stood in the window, looking with dreamy, unseeing eyes across the valley to the opposite hillside. She was looking upon a picture,--a picture which nobody would ever see again; upon the venerable tree, beloved of all Brelau, which for more years than men could count, had stood there watching the tide of human life ebb and flow, as some majestic old man might stand with children playing about his kindly knees. Whole generations of lovers had held tryst under its shade. Kisses had been interchanged, vows murmured,--the old, old story of human love, of human joy, of hope, of longing, of trust, had been repeated and repeated there, age after age, and still the old tree guarded its secrets well, as in days of greenest youth, and still bent to listen like a half-human friend. White arms clasped its trunk, soft cheeks were laid there, as if the rough bark could feel responsive thrill. Two centuries of loving and listening had mellowed its heart. The boughs seemed to whisper meanings to those who sought their shade,--gay songs to the young, counsels to the burdened, benedictions to those who, bowed down with trouble, came, black-clad and sorrowful, to look across the valley where once the purple lights of hope had met their eyes. "Wait," the rustling murmur seemed to say to such; "only wait--wait, as I have waited, and you shall be made exceedingly glad. Behold, the day dawns and the shadows fly away!" And though the heavy heart might not comprehend the whispered words, something seemed lifted from the weight of sadness, and the mourners departed comforted, knowing not why. But not upon a vague picture only did Hilda look. German girls can keep their own counsel as well as girls of other nations, and for all her father's joking she had not "lost her chance" under the Lovers' Tree. Often had she sat there--sat there not alone--and now in thought she was there again. She heard a voice--she leaned to meet a kiss. "Wilhelm," she faltered, and then the vision dissolved in a mist of hot and rushing tears. In the old fir she seemed to lose a friend, an intercessor. Oh, why had this unhappy quarrel arisen? Why had she and Wilhelm loved at all, if only to be so unhappy in the end? But, in truth, it is very easy for lovers to quarrel. Like particles of electric matter, the two natures near, attract, repel. The fire that leaps from either soul, responsive to kindred fire, fuses or destroys. A hint, a suspicion, jealousy, mistrust, the thousand and one small chances of life, come between, and all is over. Only-- "The little pitted speck in garnered fruit" is needful. A trifle, or what seemed a trifle, had been the beginning of mischief between Hilda and Wilhelm, but the breach had slowly widened till now; when for weeks they had neither met nor spoken, and the idyl begun under summer boughs was withering in time of frost like summer flowers. To the old tree, and to him alone, did the girl confide her wretchedness. In his dumb ear she owned herself in the wrong. "Why do you not say so?" the responsive murmur seemed to breathe. "Wilhelm is true! Wilhelm is kind! only a word, and all will be well." But pride laid his finger on her lips. She neglected the kindly monitor, the word came not, and now the dear old fir was gone; and thinking of all these things, Hilda's heart was very sad. Meantime upon the hillside a great crowd of people were assembled about the fallen trunk. Old men and women, with wistful eyes, stood there; comely middle-aged pairs, surrounded by children; young girls and their bachelors; boys with fresh rosy faces and wondering eyes,--all alike had come to see once more the face of the village friend. Merrily rang the axes upon the wood. Some looked sad, some merry, as the work went on. There was much interchange of "Do you remembers," much laughing and joking, a few tears. The children with their baskets ran about picking up the bright cones which once hung like a coronet upon the forehead of the fir. Here and there a woman stooped for a chip or a small twig to carry away as relic. And then it began to grow dark. The people recollected themselves, as people will after doing a sentimental thing, and saw that it was time to go home. So in contented crowds they descended the hill to their suppers, and threw billets of the old fir on the fire, and beside the blaze partook of sausage and cheese, and laughed and gossiped no less merrily than usual, and the funeral of the old tree was over. "We will keep all our cones, and the big fagot which Fritz tied up, until day after to-morrow," said little Gretchen; "because, you know, day after to-morrow comes Christmas eve, and the Christ-child must be sure to find a good fire." No one gainsaid this, so the fagot was laid aside. All next day, and the next, did Hilda labor busily, throwing herself with feverish energy into the Christmas preparations. There was a plenty to do. The furniture must shine its brightest, veal and puddings must be made ready for spit and oven, green boughs be hung everywhere, and, above all, the tree must be prepared. Hard and continually she worked, and as the sun set on the blessed eve all was in order. A vast fire crackled on the hearth of the "big room," thrown open in honor of the festival. Its bright blaze was reflected back from the polished panels of the tall corner clock, and danced on the rosy apples and glossy filberts of the still unlighted tree, which stood, green and magnificent, beyond. Little fruit of value did this wonderful tree bear. Jackets, stockings, leather shoes, loaded the lower boughs; above was a flowering of warm hoods and gay neck-cloths, there was a wooden cow for Gretchen, a trumpet of red tin for little Paul; but the useful and the necessary predominated. Tender hands had arranged all, had hung the many-colored tapers, crowned the whole with bright-berried stems, and, in the moss at the foot, laid reverently a tiny straw cradle, with waxen occupant, in memory of that resting-place in the Bethlehem manger where once a "young child lay." And now, pale and tired, Hilda stood gazing upon her finished work. "Sister, sister!" clamored eager voices through the closed door, "hasn't the Christ-child come yet?" "No, dears, not yet. Go away and play quietly in the kitchen. I'll call you when he comes." The little footsteps retreated, and Hilda seated herself before the fire with a weary sigh. It would be an hour or more before her father would return, and the lighting of the tree begin; so, leaning back in the high carved chair, she gave herself up to rest of body, leaving her mind to rove listlessly as it would. The basket of cones stood beside the hearth. Half mechanically she stooped for a handful, and threw them on the blaze. Then a certain drowsy peace came over her, broken only by the flickering noise of the burning cones. They did not burn like other cones, she thought, and even as the idea floated through her brain, a strange, phantasmal change passed over them. Moving and blending, they began to build a picture in the heart of the fire,--the picture of a tree, drawn in flaming lines. Hilda knew the tree. It was the old fir of Brelau, complete in limb and trunk. And, as she gazed, figures formed themselves beneath the boughs,--figures as of people sitting there, which moved and scintillated, and, swaying toward each other, seemed to clasp and kiss. She uttered a low cry of pain. At the sound the scene shifted, the tree dissolved as in fiery rain, and the cones, raising themselves and climbing upward, stood ranged in a group on the topmost log, like a choir of musicians about to play. Strange notes seemed to come from the blaze, low and humming, like a whispered prelude, then voices began to speak, or to sing--which was it?--in tones which sounded oddly near, and yet infinitely far away. It was like a chorus of elves sung to the accompaniment of rustling leaves. And all the time it went on, certain brightly flaming cones, which took precedence, emphasized the music with a succession of quick, glancing sparks, darting out like tiny finger-points, as if to attract attention. "Look at us! look at us!" were the words of the strange _staccato_ chant which sounded from the fire. "We are all light and glorious as your love used to be,--used to be. It isn't so any longer." Then other cones, half burned and crusted over with white ashes, pushed forward and took up the strain in sad recitative: "Look at us! look at us, Hilda! We are as your love is now,--is now. Ah, there will be worse to come ere long!" And all the time they sang, glowing strongly from within, they fixed what seemed eyes, red and winking, on Hilda's face. Then the ashes from below, drifting upward in an odd, aimless way, formed themselves into a shadowy shape, and began to sing in low, muffled tones, full of sadness. "We are dead, Hilda," was their song; "all dead! dead as your love will be--will be--before long." And at the close of the strain all the cones closed together, and emitted a sigh so profound and so melancholy that Hilda started from her chair. Tears stood upon her cheeks. She stared at the fire with strange excitement. It was burning quietly now, and without noise. She was certainly awake. Had she been dreaming? Just at that moment the latch of the door clicked slightly, and somebody entered, slowly, hesitatingly, propelled from behind by a childish figure. "Hilda," said Gretchen's voice, "here's Wilhelm wanting to see the father. I told him to come in, because _perhaps_ the father was here, or else the mother." And Gretchen's eyes explored the room in search of the Christ-child, for a glimpse of whom she had resorted to this transparent device. Then, alarmed by Hilda's stony silence, she suddenly hung her head, and, rushing out, clapped the door behind her, and left the two alone. Hilda gave a gasp of bewilderment. She could not move. Was this part of the vision? Wilhelm stole one furtive glance at her face, then dropped his eyes. For a moment perfect stillness prevailed, then, shifting uneasily from one leg to the other in his embarrassment, the young man muttered something undistinguishable, and turned. His hand was on the door,--a moment more and he would be gone. Hilda started forward. "Wilhelm!" she exclaimed, with the hoarse utterance of one who seeks to escape from some frightful dream. Wilhelm turned. He saw the pale, agitated face, the eyes brimmed with tears, the imploring, out-stretched hands. Another second and he held her in his arms. The familiar touch melted the ice of Hilda's heart, her head sank upon his breast, and in a few broken words all was spoken and explained. So brief an interval and all life changed! The same intense feeling which drove them asunder drew them as inevitably together now that once the returning tides had chance to flow. Clasped in close embrace, with tears and smiles and loving self-reproachings, they stood before the fire; and as they bent for their first reconciled kiss, the fir cones, flashing once more into life and activity, rose upon the topmost log. Even the burned and blackened ones glowed with fresh fire. Hand in hand, as it were, they climbed into position, and leaped and capered side by side as if merrily dancing, while little jubilant cracks and clicks and sounds, as of small hands clapped for joy, accompanied the movement. Then suddenly the splendor faded, and sinking with one consent into ashes, the cones sifted through the logs and vanished forever, their mission accomplished, their work done. With eyes of amazement the lovers gazed upon the spectacle to its close. As the last spark faded, Hilda laid her head again on Wilhelm's breast. "Ah!" she said, tenderly sighing, "the dear old fir! He loved us well, Wilhelm, and that was his 'good-by.'" Perhaps it was! A BALSAM PILLOW. Now that fir-needles and hemlock-needles have become recognized articles of commerce, and every other shop boasts its row of fragrant cushions, with their inevitable motto, "Give Me of Thy Balm, O Fir-tree," I am reminded of the first pillow of the sort that I ever saw, and of what it meant to the girl who made it. I should like to tell you the little story, simple as it is. It belongs to the time, eight or nine years since, before pine pillows became popular. Perhaps Chateaubriand Dorset may be said, for once in her life, to have set a fashion. Yes, that was really her name! Her mother met with it in a newspaper, and, without the least idea as to whether it appertained to man or woman, adopted it for her baby. The many syllables fascinated her, I suppose, and there was, besides, that odd joy in a piece of extravagance that costs nothing, which appeals to the thrifty New England nature, and is one of its wholesome outlets and indulgences. So the Methodist elder baptized the child "Chateaubriand Aramintha," making very queer work of the unfamiliar accents; and then, so far as practical purposes are concerned, the name ceased to be. How can a busy household, with milk to set, and milk to skim, and pans to scald, and butter to make, and pigs to feed, find time for a name like that? "Baby," the little girl was called till she was well settled on her feet and in the use of her little tongue. Then she became "Brie," and Brie Dorset she remained to the end. Few people recollected that she possessed any other name, unless the marriage, birth, and death pages of the family Bible happened to be under discussion. The Dorsets' was one of those picturesque, lonely, outlying farms, past which people drive in the summer, saying, "How retired! how peaceful!" but past which almost no one drives in the winter. It stood, with its environment of red barns and apple-orchards, at the foot of a low granite cliff whose top was crowned with a fir wood; and two enormous elm-trees met over its roof and made a checker-work of light and shade on its closely blinded front. No sign of life appeared to the city people who drew their horses in to admire the situation, except, perhaps, a hen scratching in the vegetable-beds, or a lazy cat basking on the doorstep; and they would drive on, unconscious that behind the slats of the green blinds above a pair of eyes watched them go, and a hungry young heart contrasted their lot with its own. Hungry! There never was anything like the starvation which goes on sometimes in those shut-up farmhouses. Boys and girls feel it alike; but the boys are less to be pitied, for they can usually devise means to get away. How could Brie get away? She was the only child. Her parents had not married young. When she was nineteen, they seemed almost elderly people, so badly does life on a bleak New England farm deal with human beings. Her mother, a frail little woman, grew year by year less fit for hard labor. The farm was not productive. Poverty, pinch, the inevitable recurrence of the same things to be done day after day, month after month, the same needs followed by the same fatigues,--all these Brie had to bear; and all the while the child had that love and longing for the beautiful which is part of the artist's equipment, and the deprivation of which is keen suffering. Sweet sights, sounds, smells,--all these she craved, and could get only in such measure as her daily work enabled her to get them from that world of nature which is the satisfaction of eager hearts to whom all other pleasures are denied. The fir wood on the upper hill was the temple where she worshipped. There she went with her Bible on Sunday afternoons, with her patching and stocking-mending on other days. There she dreamed her dreams and prayed her prayers, and while there she was content. But all too soon would come the sound of the horn blown from below, or a call from the house, "Brie, Brie, the men are coming to supper; make haste!" and she would be forced to hurry back to the workaday world. Harder times followed. When she was just twenty, her father fell from his loaded hay-wagon, and fractured his thigh. There was no cure for the hurt, and after six months of hopeless tendance, he died. Brie and her mother were left together on the lonely farm, with the added burden of a large bill for doctoring and medicines, which pressed like a heavy weight on their honorable hearts. The hired man, Reuben Hall, was well disposed and honest, but before Mr. Dorset's death he had begun to talk of going to the West, and Brie foreboded that he might not be willing to stay with them. Mrs. Dorset, broken down by nursing and sorrow, had become an invalid, unable to assist save in the lightest ways. The burden was sore for one pair of young shoulders to bear. Brie kept up a brave face by day, but at night, horrors of helplessness and apprehension seized her. The heavens seemed as brass, against which her feeble prayers beat in vain; the future was barred, as it were, with an impassable gate. What could they do? Sell the farm? That would take time; for no one in particular wanted to buy it. If Reuben would stand by them, they might be able to fight it out for another year, and, what with butter and eggs and the corn-crop, make enough for his wages and a bare living. But would Reuben stay? Our virtues sometimes treat us as investments do, and return a dividend when we least expect it. It was at this hard crisis that certain good deeds of Brie's in the past stood her friend. She had always been good to Reuben, and her sweet ways and consideration for his comfort had gradually won a passage into his rather stolid affections. Now, seeing the emergency she was in, and the courage with which she met it, he could not quite find the heart to "leave the little gal to make out by herself." Fully purposing to go, he stayed, putting off the idea of departure from month to month; and though, true to his idea of proper caution, he kept his good intentions to himself, so that the relief of having him there was constantly tempered by the dread lest he might go at any time, still it _was_ relief. So April passed, and May and June. The crops were planted, the vegetables in. Brie strained every nerve. She petted her hens, and coaxed every possible egg out of them, she studied the tastes of the two cows, she maintained a brave show of cheer for her ailing mother, but all the time she was sick at heart. Everything seemed closing in. How long could she keep it up? The balsam firs of the hill grove could have told tales in those days. They were Brie's sole confidants. The consolation they gave, the counsel they communicated, were mute, indeed, but none the less real to the anxious girl who sat beneath them, or laid her cheek on their rough stems. June passed, and with early July came the answer to Brie's many prayers. It came, as answers to prayer often do, in a shape of which she had never dreamed. Miss Mary Morgan, teacher in grammar school No. 3, Ward Nineteen, of the good city of Boston, came, tired out from her winter's work, to spend a few days with Farmer Allen's wife, her second cousin, stopped one day at the Dorset's door, while driving, to ask for a drink of water, took a fancy to the old house and to Brie, and next day came over to propose herself as a boarder for three months. "I can only afford to pay seven dollars a week," she said; "but, on the other hand, I will try not to make much trouble, if you will take me." "Seven dollars a week; only think!" cried Brie, gleefully, to her mother after the bargain was completed, and Miss Morgan gone. "Doesn't it seem like a fortune? It'll pay Reuben's wages, and leave ever so much over! And she doesn't eat much meat, she says, and she likes baked potatoes and cream and sweet baked apples better than anything. And there's the keeping-room chamber all cleaned and ready. Doesn't it seem as if she was sent to us, mother?" "Your poor father never felt like keepin' boarders," said Mrs. Dorset. "I used to kind of fancy the idea of it, but he wasn't willin'. I thought it would be company to have one in the house, if they was nice folks. It does seem as if this was the Lord's will for us; her coming in so unexpected, and all." Two days later Miss Morgan, with a hammock and a folding canvas chair and a trunk full of light reading, arrived, and took possession of her new quarters. For the first week or two she did little but rest, sleeping for hours at a time in the hammock swung beneath the shadowing elms. Then, as the color came back to her thin face and the light to her eyes, she began to walk a little, to sit with Brie in the fir grove, or read aloud to her on the doorstep while she mended, shelled peas, or picked over berries; and all life seemed to grow easier and pleasanter for the dwellers in the solitary farmhouse. The guest gave little trouble, she paid her weekly due punctually, and the steady income, small as it was, made all the difference in the world to Brie. As the summer went by, and she grew at home with her new friend, she found much relief in confiding to her the perplexities of her position. "I see," Miss Morgan said; "it is the winter that is the puzzle. I will engage to come back next summer as I have this, and that will help along; but the time between now and then is the difficulty." "Yes," replied Brie; "the winter is the puzzle, and Reuben's money. We have plenty of potatoes and corn and vegetables to take us through, and there's the pig to kill, and the chickens will lay some; if only there were any way in which I could make enough for Reuben's wages, we could manage." "I must think it over," said Miss Morgan. She pulled a long branch of the balsam fir nearer as she spoke, and buried her nose in it. It was the first week of September, and she and Brie were sitting in the hill grove. "I love this smell so," she said. "It is delicious. It makes me dream." Brie broke off a bough. "I shall hang it over your bed," she said, "and you will smell it all night." So the fir bough hung upon the wall till it gradually yellowed, and the needles began to drop. "Why, they are as sweet as ever,--sweeter," declared Brie, smelling a handful which she had swept from the floor. Then an idea came into her head. She gathered a great fagot of the branches, and laid them to dry in the sun on the floor of a little-used piazza. When partly dried, she stripped off the needles, stuffed with them a square cotton bag, and made for that a cover of soft sage-green silk, with an odd shot pattern over it. It was a piece of what had been her great-grandmother's wedding gown. _Voilà!_ Do you realize the situation, reader? Brie had made the first of all the many balsam pillows. It was meant for a good-by gift to Miss Morgan. "Your cushion is the joy of my life," wrote that lady to her a month after she went home. "Every one who sees it, falls in love with it. Half a dozen people have asked me how they could get one like it. And, Brie, this has given me an idea. Why should you not make them for sale? I will send you up some pretty silk for the covers, and you might cross-stitch a little motto if you liked. I copy some for you. Two people have given me an order already. They will pay four dollars apiece if you like to try." This suggestion was the small wedge of the new industry. Brie lost no time in making the two pillows, grandmother's gown fortunately holding out for their covers. Then came some pretty red silk from Miss Morgan, with yellow _filoselle_ for the mottoes, and more orders. Brie worked busily that winter, for her balsam pillows had to be made in spare moments when other work permitted. The grove on the hill was her unfailing treasury of supply. The thick-set twigs bent them to her will; the upper branches seemed to her to rustle as with satisfaction at the aid they were giving. In the spring the old trees renewed their foliage with vigorous purpose, as if resolved not to balk her in her purpose. The fir grove paid Reuben's wages that winter. Miss Morgan came back the following June, and by that time balsam pillows were established as articles of commerce, and Brie had a munificent offer from a recently established Decorative Art Society for a supply of the needles, at three dollars the pound. It was hard, dirty work to prepare such a quantity, but she did not mind that. As I said, this was some years since. Brie no longer lives in her old home. Her mother died the third year after Miss Morgan came to them, the farm is sold, and Brie married. She lives now on a ranch in Colorado, but she has never forgotten the fir-grove, and the memory of it is a help often in the desponding moments that come at times to all lives. "I could not be worse off than I was then," she says to herself. "There seemed no help or hope anywhere. I felt as if God didn't care and didn't hear my prayers; and yet, all the time, there was dear Miss Morgan coming to help us, and there were the trees, great beautiful things, nodding their heads, and trying to show me what could be made out of them. No, I never will be faithless again, nor let myself doubt, however dark things may look, but remember my balsam pillows, and trust in God." COLONEL WHEELER. Colonel Wheeler, as any one might see at a glance, had been a gallant officer in his day. It was true that he no longer had anything to do with military movements, but his very face suggested a martial past. So did his figure, which, though thin to an almost incredible degree, was unmistakably that of a military man, and also his dress, for the colonel invariably appeared in full uniform, with a scarlet, gold-laced coat, epaulettes, and a cocked hat and feathers, seldom removed even at meal-times. His moustache waved fiercely half-way across his cheeks, his eyes were piercing, and his eyebrows black and frowning; in short, it would be difficult to imagine a more warlike appearance than he presented on the most peaceful occasions. Like all truly brave men, Colonel Wheeler was as gentle as he was valiant, and nothing pleased him better in the piping times of peace than to be detailed on escort duty, and made of use to the ladies of his acquaintance. So it came to pass that again and again he was asked to take charge of large family parties on long journeys. You might see him starting off with a wife or two, half a dozen sisters-in-law, and from eight to fourteen children, all of them belonging to somebody else; not one of them being kith or kin to the gallant colonel. They made really a formidable assemblage when collected, and it took the longest legal envelope which Liz-- There! I have let out the secret. Colonel Wheeler was a paper doll, and these ladies and children who travelled about with him were paper dolls also. They belonged to Lizzie Bruce and her cousin Ernestine, who between them owned several whole families of such. These families were all large. None of the mamma dolls had less than twelve children, and some of them had as many as twenty. Lizzie and Ernestine despised people not made of paper, who had only two or three little boys and girls. In fact, Lizzie was once heard to say of some neighbors with eleven children, "They are the only really satisfactory people I ever knew,--just as good as paper dolls;" and this was meant as the highest possible compliment. Lizzie lived in Annapolis, Md., and Ernestine in Hingham, Mass., so, as you will see, there was a long distance between their homes. It took a day and a half to make the journey, and the little cousins did not visit each other more than once or twice a year. But the dolls went much oftener. _They_ travelled by mail, in one of those long yellow envelopes which lawyers use to put papers in, and Colonel Wheeler always went in the same envelope to take care of them. When they came back from these trips, Lizzie or Ernestine, whichever it chanced to be, would unpack them, and exclaim delightedly, "How well the dear things look! So much better for the change! See, mamma, how round and pink their faces have grown!" "I wouldn't advise you to depend so much on Colonel Wheeler," Lizzie's mother would sometimes say. "These military men are rather uncertain characters. I wouldn't send off all the dolls at once with him, if I were you. And really, Lizzie, such constant journeys are very expensive. There is never a stamp in my desk when I want one in a hurry." "But, mamma, the children really _had_ to have a change," Lizzie would protest, with tears in her eyes. "And as for the colonel, he is such a good man, truly, mamma! He would never steal anybody else's family! He takes beau-tiful care of the dolls, always." "Very well, we shall see," answered mamma, with a teazing smile. But she saw that Lizzie was in earnest, so she did not say anything more to trouble her, and the very next day contributed seven postage-stamps to pay for the transportation of a large party which Lizzie wanted to send on to Hingham for a Christmas visit. This party included, besides Colonel Wheeler, who as usual acted as escort, Mrs. Allen, the wife of Captain Allen, her fourteen children, her sister-in-law Miss Allen, her own sister Pauline Gray,--so called because her only dress happened to be made of gray and blue tissue-paper,--and Mrs. Adipose and her little girl. Mrs. Adipose, whose name had been suggested by papa, was the fattest of all the dolls. Her daughter was fat, too, and Ernestine had increased this effect by making her a jacket so much too large for her that it could only be kept on with a dab of glue. Captain Allen was a creature who had no real existence. Lizzie meant to make a doll to represent him some day. Meanwhile, he was kept persistently "at the front," wherever that might be, and Mrs. Allen travelled about as freely as if she had no husband at all. This Lizzie and Ernestine considered an admirable arrangement; for, as Captain Allen never came home and never wrote, he was as little of an inconvenience to his family as any gentleman can ever hope to be. Well, this large and mixed company started off gayly in the mail-bag, and in due time Lizzie heard of their safe arrival, that they were all well, and that the baby "already looked better for the change." About three weeks later another letter came, and she opened it without the least qualm of anxiety, or any suspicion of the dreadful news it was to bring. It ran thus:-- DEAR LIZ,--Mrs. Adipose grew a little home-sick. She began to worry about Mr. Adipose. She was afraid he would have trouble with the servants, or else try to clean house while she was away, and make an awful mess all over everything. You never could tell what men would do when they were left alone, she said. So, as I saw she wasn't enjoying herself any more, and as the baby and little Ellen seemed to have got as much good out of the visit as they were likely to get, I sent them back last week Friday, and hope you got them safely. Lizzie dropped the letter with a scream of dismay. This was Saturday. Last week Friday was more than a week ago. Where, oh, where were the precious dolls? She flew with her tragic tale to mamma, who, for all she was very sorry, could not help laughing. "You know I warned you against trusting too much to Colonel Wheeler," she said. "Oh, mamma, it isn't his fault, I am sure it isn't," pleaded Lizzie. "I have perfect confidence in him. Think how often he has gone to Hingham, and never once didn't come back! He _would_ have fetched them safely if he hadn't been interfered with, I know he would! No, something dreadful has happened,--it's that horrid post-office!" and she wrung her hands. Mamma was very sorry for Lizzie. Papa wrote to the postmaster, and Ernestine's papa inquired at the Hingham post-office, and there was quite a stir over the lost travellers. Time went on. A month, six weeks, two months passed, and no tidings came, and Mr. Adipose still sat in the lonely baby-house, watching the cook brandishing a paper saucepan--always the same saucepan--over the toy stove, and Bridget, the "housemaid," forever dusting the same table-top, and never getting any farther on with her work. Mamma proposed that Lizzie should make some new dolls to take the place of the lost ones, and offered help and the use of her mucilage bottle; but Lizzie shook her head sorrowfully. "I can't help feeling as if the Allens may come back some day," she said. "Colonel Wheeler is such a good traveller; and what would they think if there was a strange family in their rooms? Besides, it's almost as much fun to play without them, because there is Mr. Adipose, a widower, you know, which is very interesting, and the two pairs of twins, which Mrs. Allen forgot to take. Besides, I can always make believe that they are coming to-morrow." The very next morning after this conversation, as mamma sat writing in her room upstairs, she heard a wild shriek at the front door. The postman had rapped a moment before, and Lizzie had rushed down to meet him, as she had each day since the dolls were lost. The shriek was so loud and sudden that Mrs. Bruce jumped up; but before she could get to the door in flew Lizzie, holding in her hand a wild huddle of battered blue envelopes with "Dead Letter Office" stamped on their corners, and a mass of pink and gray and green gowns and funny tumbled capes and hats. It was the doll party, returned at last! "Mamma, mamma," she cried, "what did I tell you? Colonel Wheeler didn't run away with them; he has brought them all home." There they were indeed; Mrs. Adipose as fat as ever, Mrs. Allen, and all her children, the sister, the sister-in-law, and Colonel Wheeler, erect and dignified as usual, in spite of a green crease across both his legs, and a morsel of postage-stamp in his eye, and wearing an air of conscious merit, which the occasion fully warranted. As Lizzie rapturously embraced him, she cried: "Dear old Colonel, nobody believed in you but me, not even mamma! I knew you hadn't run away with nineteen people. Mamma laughed at me, but she doesn't know you as well as I do. Nobody shall ever laugh at you again." And nobody did. Colonel Wheeler had earned public confidence, and from that day to this no one has dared to say a word against him in Lizzie's hearing. He has made several journeys to Hingham without the least misadventure, and papa says he would trust him to escort Lizzie herself if it were necessary. He is the hero of the dolls' home, and poor old Mr. Adipose, who never stirs from home, is made miserable by having him held up as a perpetual model for imitation. But unlike the generality of heroes, Colonel Wheeler lives up to his reputation, and is not less modest, useful, and agreeable in the domestic circle because of being so exceptionally meritorious! NINETY-THREE AND NINETY-FOUR. Ninety-three and Ninety-four were two houses standing side by side in the outskirts of a country town, and to all outward appearance as like each other as two peas. They were the pioneer buildings of a small brick block; but as yet the rest of the block had not been built, which was all the better for Ninety-three and Ninety-four, and gave them more space and outlook. Both had French roofs with dormer windows; both front doors "grained" to represent oak, the graining falling into a pattern of regular stripes like a watered silk; and across the front of each, on the ground floor, ran the same little sham balcony of varnished iron,--balconies on which nothing heavier than a cat could venture without risk of bringing the frail structures down into the street. Inside, the houses differed in trifling respects, as houses must which are under the control of differing minds; but in one point they were precisely alike within,--which was, that the back room of the third story of each was occupied by a girl of seventeen. It is of these two rooms that I want to tell the story. So much has been said and written of late years about home decoration and the methods of producing it, that I think some other girls of seventeen with rooms to make pretty may like to hear of how Eleanor Pyne and May Blodgett managed theirs. Eleanor was the girl at Ninety-three. She and May were intimate friends, or considered themselves such. Intimacy is a word very freely used among young people who have not learned what a sacred word it is and how very much it means. They had grown up together, had gone to the same schools, shared most of their pleasures as well as their lessons, sent each other Christmas presents and birthday cards every year, and consulted in advance over their clothes, spring bonnets, and fancy work, which, taken all together, may be said to make an intimacy according to the general use of the term. So it was natural that, when May, stirred by the sense of young-ladyhood just at hand and by the modern impulse for house decoration, desired to "do over" and beautify her room, Eleanor should desire it also. Making a room pretty nowadays would seem easy enough where there is plenty of money for the purpose. There is only the embarrassment of choice, though that is so embarrassing at times as to lead one to envy those grandmothers of ours, who, with only three or four patterns of everything to choose from, and those all ugly, had but the simple task of selecting the least ugly! But in the case of my two girls there was this further complication, that very little money could be used for adornment of the bedrooms. Mrs. Blodgett and Mrs. Pyne had consulted over the matter, and the decision was that Eleanor and May might each spend twenty dollars, and no more. What can be done with twenty dollars? It will buy one pretty article of furniture. It will pay for a "Kensington Art Square," with perhaps enough left for cheese-cloth curtains. It will paper a room, or paint it. You can easily dispose of the whole of it, if you will, in a single portière. And here were two rooms which needed renovation from floor to ceiling! The rooms were of the same size. Both had two windows looking north and an ample closet. The most important difference lay in the fact that the builder of the houses, for some reason known only to himself, had put a small fireplace across the corner of Eleanor's room, and had put none in May's. _Per contra_ May's room was papered, which she considered a counterbalancing advantage; but as the paper was not very pretty, Eleanor did not agree with her. Many were the consultations held between the two girls. And just here, before they had actually begun operations, a piece of good luck befell both of them. Eleanor's grandmother presented her with an easy-chair, an old one, very shabby as to cover, but a good chair still, and very comfortable. And almost simultaneously a happily timed accident occurred to Mrs. Blodgett's spare-room carpet, which made the buying of a new one necessary, and the old one was given to May. It was a still respectable Brussels, with rather a large medallion figure on a green ground. It did not comport very well with the blue and drab paper on the walls, and the medallions looked very big on the smaller floor; but May cared nothing for that, and she accepted her windfall gleefully. "It will save ever and ever so much," she said, joyously. "Carpets do cost so. Poor Eleanor, you will have to get one for yourself, unless you can persuade your cook to upset an oil lamp on one of your mother's." "Oh, Annie is too careful; she could never be persuaded to do such a thing as that," laughed Eleanor. "Besides, I don't want her to. I don't like any of mother's carpets very much." "Well, I don't care what sort of a carpet it is so long as I don't have to buy it," said May. "I do," replied Eleanor. She did. There was this great point of difference between the friends. Eleanor possessed by nature that eye for color and sense of effects which belongs to what people call the "artistic" temperament. May had none of this, and did not even understand what it meant. To her all reds and olives and yellows were alike; differences of tone, inflections of tint, were lost on her untrained and unappreciative vision. She was unconscious of this deficiency, so it did not annoy her, and as Eleanor had a quiet and pleasant way of differing with her, they never quarrelled. But none the less did each hold to her own point of view and her own opinion. So, while May read eagerly all the articles in the secular and religious papers which show how girls and women have made plain homes cheaply charming by painting sunflowers and Black-Eyed Susans on ink-bottles and molasses-jugs, converting pork-barrels into arm-chairs with the aid of "excelsior" and burlaps, and "lighting up" dark corners with six-cent fans, and was fired with an ambition to do the same, Eleanor silently dissented from her enthusiasms. She was ready to help, however, even when she did not agree; and May, glad of the help, did not notice much the lack of sympathy. It is often so in friendships. One does the talking and one the listening. One kisses while the other holds out the cheek, as the French proverb puts it; one lays down the law and the other differs without disputing it, so both are satisfied. It was so in this case. Eleanor was doing a great deal of quiet thinking and planning while May chattered by the hour over her projects. "What I want my room to be," she told her friend, "is gay and dressy. I hate dull-looking rooms, and having no carpet or paper to buy I can get lots of chintz. There's a lovely pattern on the bargain counter at Shell's for fourteen cents, all over roses. I am going to have a whole piece of it, and just cover up all that awful old yellow furniture of mine entirely. The bureau is to have little rods across the front and curtains to hide the drawers, like that picture in the 'Pomologist,' and I shall make a soapbox footstool and a barrel chair, and have lambrequins and a drapery over my bed, and a coverlet and valances. The washstand I have decided to do in burlaps with cat-tails embroidered on the front, and a splasher with a pattern of swans and, 'Wash and be clean.' Won't it be lovely? "You know those black-walnut book-shelves of mine," she went on, after a pause; "well, I am going to cover them in white muslin with little pleated ruffles on the edges and pink satin bows at the corners. Sarah Stanton has promised to paint me a stone bottle with roses to put on top, and Bell Short is working me a wall banner. It's going to be the gayest little place you ever saw." "Won't the white muslin soil soon, and won't so much chintz get very dusty?" objected Eleanor. "Oh, they can be washed," replied May, easily. So the big roll of chintz was ordered home, and for a fortnight she and Eleanor spent all their spare time in hemming ruffles, tacking pleatings on to wooden shelves, and putting up frills and curtains. When all was done the room looked truly very fresh and gay. The old yellow "cottage furniture" had vanished under its raiment of chintz and was quite hidden. Even the foot-board of the bed had its slip-cover and flounce. The books were ranged in rows on the muslin shelves with crisp little ruffles above and below. Flowers and bright-colored zig-zags of crewels adorned everything. Wherever it was possible, a Japanese fan was stuck on the wall, or a bow of ribbon, or a little embroidered something, or a Christmas card. Scarfs of one sort or another were looped across the corners of the pictures, tidies innumerable adorned the chair-backs and table-tops. There was a general look of fulness and of an irresistible tendency in things to be of no particular use except to make spots of meaningless color and keep the eye roving restlessly to and fro. "Isn't it just lovely?" said May, as she stood in the doorway to take in the effect. "Now, Eleanor Pyne, do say it's lovely." "It's as bright as can be," answered Eleanor, cordially. "Only I can't bear to think of all these pretty things getting dusty. They're so nice and fresh now." "Oh, they can easily be dusted," said May. "You are a perfect crank about dust, Elly. Now, here is my account. I think I have managed pretty well, don't you?" The account ran thus:-- Sixty yards of chintz at 14 cents a yard $8.40 Burlaps, cheese-cloth, white muslin 3.25 Fans, ribbons, crewels 1.60 Stamping a tidy .30 One wicker-work chair 5.00 Hanging-basket 1.25 ------ Total $19.80 "There's twenty cents left over," explained May, as she finished reading the items. "That will just get a yellow ribbon to tie round the handle of my clothes-brush. Eleanor, you've been ever so good to help me so much. When are you going to begin your room? You must let me help you now." "I began this morning." "Have you really begun? What did you get?" "Oh, I didn't get anything. This first thing isn't to cost anything at all." "Why, what is it?" "You know that ugly fire-board in front of my fireplace? I have taken it upstairs to the attic, and mother has lent me some cunning little andirons and a shovel and tongs which grandmamma gave her, and I am going to have an open fire." "But you don't need one. The room is warm enough, with your register." "Oh, I know that. And I didn't mean that I was going to _light_ the fire, only have it all ready for lighting. I rubbed the brass knobs myself with Puit's Pomade, and they shine _beautifully_, and I painted the bricks with red-ochre and water, and arranged the wood and kindlings, and it has such a cosy, homelike look, you can't think!" "Well, I confess I don't see the cosiness of a fire that you're never going to light." "Oh, mamma says if I ever am sick in bed, or there is any particular reason for it, I may light it. And even if it doesn't happen often, I shall have the comfort of knowing that it's all ready." "I call it cold comfort. What a queer girl you are! Well, what are you going to do next, Elly?" "You will laugh when I tell you. I'm going to paper my room myself." "Not really! Why, you can't. Papering is very difficult; I have always heard so. People have to get men to do it, always." "I don't believe it's so very difficult. There was a piece about it once in the 'Family Friend' which I cut out and saved. It told how to make the paste and everything, and it didn't seem hard at all. Mother thinks I can. I'm going to begin to-morrow. In fact, I began yesterday, for old Joyce came and mended the crack in the ceiling and kalsomined it, and oh, May, I did such a _thrifty_ thing! He had a nice big brush and a roller to smooth out the paper with, and don't you think, I made a bargain with him to hire them out to me for three cents an hour, so I sha'n't have to buy any." "Didn't he laugh?" "Yes, he laughed, and Ned laughed too; but I don't care. 'Let those laugh who win,'" concluded Eleanor, with a bright, confident smile. "Come in to-morrow afternoon and see how I get on," she called out from the door of Ninety-three. May went at the appointed time. The papering was done, and for a beginner very well done, though an expert might easily have found faulty places here and there. The paper Eleanor had chosen was of a soft, warm yellow like pale sunshine, which seemed to neutralize the cold light of the north windows. It looked plain when seen in shadow, but where the light struck it revealed a pattern of graceful interlaced disks. And the ceiling was tinted with a much lighter shade of the same yellow. A chestnut picture-rod separated wall and ceiling. "Putting the paper on myself saved _lots_," announced Eleanor, gleefully. "It only cost fifteen cents a roll, so the whole room came to exactly a dollar eighty. Then I am to pay Joyce eighteen cents for six hours' use of his brush and roller, and mother isn't going to charge anything for the flour for the paste, because I boiled it myself. I had to get the picture-moulding, though, and that was rather dear,--nearly two dollars. Ned nailed it up for me." "Why didn't you have a paper border; it would not have cost nearly as much?" "No, but I should have had to drive nails and tacks in every time I wanted to hang up anything, and that would have spoiled the paper. And I want that to last a long, long time." "What are you going to do with your furniture?" asked May, casting an eye of disfavor at the articles in question, a so-called "cottage" set, enamelled, of a faded, shabby blue. "I am going to paint them," replied Eleanor, daringly. "Eleanor Pyne! you can't!" But Eleanor could and did. Painting is by no means the recondite art which some of its professors would have us suppose. Eleanor avoided one of the main difficulties of the craft, by buying her paint ready mixed and qualified with "dryers." She chose a pretty tint of olive brown. Ned took her bedstead apart for her, and one by one she carried the different articles to a little-used attic, where, equipped in a long-sleeved apron and a pair of old cotton gloves to save her fingers, she gradually coated each smoothly with the new paint. It took some days to finish, for she did not work continuously, but when done she felt rewarded for her pains; for the furniture not only looked new, but was prettier than it had ever been before during the memory of man. Her brother Ned was so pleased with her success, that he volunteered, if she would pay for the "stuff," to make a broad pine shelf to nail over the narrow shelf of her chimney-piece, and some smaller ones above, cut after a pretty design which he had seen in an agricultural magazine. This handsome offer Eleanor gladly accepted, and when the shelves were done, she covered them with two coats of the same useful olive-brown paint. There was still some paint left; and grown bold with practice and no longer afraid of her big brush, Eleanor essayed a bolder flight. She first painted her doors and her window-frames, then she attacked her floor, and, leaving an ample square space in the middle, executed a border two feet and a half wide all round it, in a pattern of long diamonds done in two shades of olive, the darker being obtained by mixing a little black with the original tint. "You see I have to buy my own carpet," she explained to the astonished and somewhat scandalized May; "and with this border a little square one will answer, instead of my having to get a great big thing for the whole floor." "But sha'n't you hate to put your feet on bare boards?" "That's just what I sha'n't do. Don't you see that the bureau and washstand and the bedstead and towel-frame and all the rest fill up nearly all the space I have left for a border. What's the use of buying carpet for _them_ to stand on?" May shook her head. She was not capable of such original reasoning. In her code the thing that generally had been always should be. "Well, it seems rather queer to me--and not very comfortable," she said. "And I can't think why you painted those shelves over the mantel instead of covering them with something,--chintz, now. They would have looked awfully pretty with pinked ruffles, you know, and long curtains to draw across the front like that picture you saw in 'Home made Happy.'" "Oh, I shouldn't have liked that at all. I should hate the idea of calico curtains to a mantel-piece. It would always seem as if they were going to catch fire." "But they _couldn't_. You don't have any fire," persisted May. "No, but they would seem so. And I want my fire to look as if it could be lighted at any minute." Eleanor's instinct was based on an "underlying principle." It is a charming point in any fireplace to look as if it were constantly ready for use. Inflammable draperies, however pretty, militate against this look, and so are a mistake in taste, especially in our changeful New England climate, where, even in midsummer, a little blaze may at any moment be desirable to cheer a dull day or warm a chilly evening. But May herself was forced to admit that the room looked "comfortable" when the square of pretty ingrain carpeting of a warm golden brown was tacked into its place, and the furniture brought back from the attic and arranged. Things at once fell into harmonious relation with each other, as in a well-thought-out room they should do. The creamy, bright paper made a pleasant background; there was an air of cheerfulness even on cloudy days. May could not understand the reason of this, or why on such days her reds and pinks and drabs and greens and blues never seemed to warm her out of dulness. "I am sure my colors are a great deal brighter than yours," she would say; "I cannot imagine why they don't light up better." Eleanor did not try for many evanescent prettinesses. In fact, she could not, even had she wished to do so, for her money was all spent; so, as she told her mother, she contented herself with having secured things that would wear, and a pretty color. She put short curtains of "scrim" at her windows, and plain serviceable towels which could be often washed on her bureau and table-tops. The bureau was enlivened by a large, square scarlet pincushion, the only bit of finery in which Eleanor indulged. Amid the subdued tone of its surroundings it looked absolutely brilliant, like the famous red wafer which the great Turner stuck in the foreground of his dim-tinted landscape, and which immediately seemed to take the color out of the bright pictures on either side. Later, when Eleanor had learned to do the pretty Mexican work, now in fashion, she decorated some special towels for her table and bureau, with lace-like ends, and a pair of pillow-covers. Meanwhile, she bore very well the knowledge that May and most of the other girls of their set considered her room rather "plain and bare." It suited her own fancy, and that satisfied her. "I do like room to turn about in and not too many things, and not to smell of dust," she told her mother. Here is Eleanor's budget of expenses, to set against May's:-- Wall-paper, twelve rolls $1.80 Use of brush and roller .18 Kalsomining ceiling 1.75 Picture-moulding 2.00 Two gallons of mixed paint, at $1.80 per gallon 3.60 Brush .30 Nine yards of ingrain carpeting at sixty-five cents a yard 5.85 Carpet thread and tacks .20 Pine shelving 1.00 Chintz for chair-cover put on by Eleanor herself 1.75 Satin and ribbon for cushion 1.12 ------ Total $19.86 This was two years ago. If you could take a peep at the rival rooms in Ninety-three and Ninety-four to-day, you would find Eleanor's looking quite as pretty as when new, or prettier; for she has used it carefully, and each year has added something to its equipments, as years will. When a girl has once secured a good foundation for her room, her friends are apt to make their gifts work in toward its further beautification. With May it is different. Her room has lost the freshness which was its one good point. The chintz has become creased and a little faded, the muslin and scrim from repeated washings are no longer crisp, and look limp and threadbare; all the ribbons and scarfs are shabby and tumbled; while the green carpet and the blue wall "swear" as vigorously at each other as they did at first. May sighs over it frequently, and wishes she had tried for a more permanent effect. Next time she will do better, she avers; but next times are slow in coming where the family exchequer has not the recuperative powers of Fortunatus's purse. The Moral of this simple tale may be divided into three heads. I object to morals myself as a wind-up for stories, and I dare say most of you who read this are no fonder of them than I am; still, a three-headed moral is such a novelty that it may be urged as an excuse. The three heads are these:-- 1. When you have only a small sum to spend on renovations, choose those that will last. 2. Ingenuity and energy count for more than mere money can. 3. Once make sure in a room of convenience, cheerfulness, and a good color, and you can afford to wait for gimcracks--or "Jamescracks"--or any of the thousand and one little duds which so many people consider indispensable features of pleasantness. Rooms have their anatomy as well as human beings. There must be a good substructure of bones rightly placed to underlie the bloom and sparkle in the one; and in like manner for the other the laws of taste, which are immutable, should underlie and support the evanescent and passing fancies and fashions of every day. THE SORROWS OF FELICIA. It was a pretty chamber, full of evidences of taste and loving care. White curtains draped the windows and the looking-glass. There was a nice writing-table, set where the light fell upon it exactly as it should for convenience to the writer. There was a book-shelf full of gayly bound books, a pretty blue carpet, photographs on the faintly tinted blue wall,--somebody had evidently taken pains to make the room charming, and just as evidently to make it charming for the use of a girl. And there lay the girl on the sofa,--Felicia, or, in schoolroom parlance, Felie Bliss. Was she basking in the comfort and tastefulness of her room? Not at all! A volume of "In Memoriam" was in her hand. Her face was profoundly long and dismal. She murmured mournful lines over to herself, only pausing now and then to reach out her hand and fill a tumbler from a big jug of lemonade which stood on a little table beside her. Felie always provided herself with lemonade when she retired to her bedroom to enjoy the pleasures of woe for a season. From the door, which was locked, sounded a chorus of knocks and irreverent voices. "Sister, are you in there?" demanded one. "Are you thinking about Life, sister?" asked another. "Have you got your sharp-pointed scissors with you?" cried the first voice. "Oh, Felie, Felie, stay your rash hand." "We like lemonade just as much as you," chimed in Dimple, the youngest of the four. "Let us in. We are very thirsty, and we long to comfort you," said voice the second, with a stifled giggle. Felicia paid no attention whatever to these observations, only murmured to herself,-- "But what to her shall be the end? And what to me remains of good? To her perpetual maidenhood--" "Who is 'her'?" demanded that bad Jenny through the door. "If you mean Mrs. Carrington, you are all wrong. May Curtis says her engagement is announced to Mr. Collins." "Oh, children, do go away!" cried Felie in a despairing tone. "Forgive these wild and wandering cries, Confessions of a wasted youth; Forgive them where they fail in truth, And in Thy wisdom make me wise." "Hear her!" said Betty outside. "She's having it very badly to-day. I wish I knew Tennyson. I should like to tell him what I think of his writing a horrid, melancholy, caterwauling book, and making the Bliss family miserable. Felie, if you've drunk up all your lemonade, you might at least lend us the pitcher." It was no use. Felicia either did not, or would not, hear. So, with a last thump on the panels of the long-suffering door, the trio departed in search of another pitcher. If anybody had told Felie Bliss, at seventeen, that she really had not a grief in the world worthy of the name, she would have resented it deeply. She was a tall girl, whose bones and frame were meant for the use of a large woman, when their owner should have arrived at all that nature meant her to be, but who at this period of her life was almost startlingly long and thin. She had "outgrown her strength," as people say, which was Felie's only excuse for the almost tragic enjoyment which she took in mournful things. She was in fair health, and had an excellent appetite, and a real school-girl love for raisins, stick-cinnamon, sugar-plums, and soda-water; tastes which were highly at variance with the rôle which she wished to play,--that of a sweetly-resigned and long-suffering being, whose hopes had faded from earth, into the distant heaven toward which she was hastening. Felie's sweet-tooth was quite a trial to her; but she struggled with it, and resisted enjoyment as far as was possible with her naturally cheerful disposition. She was an interesting perplexity to her family, who were contented, reasonable folk, of the sort which, happily for the world, is called commonplace. To her younger sisters, especially, Felicia was a never-failing and exciting conundrum, the answer to which they were always guessing, but never could find out. For days together she would be as cheerful as possible, full of fun and contrivance, and the life of the house; then, all of a sudden, gloom would envelop her like a soft fog, and she would retire to her room with "In Memoriam," or some other introspective volume, and the fat jug of lemonade, lock the door, and just "drink and weep for hours together," as her sister Jenny expressed it. It was really unaccountable. All her books were deeply scored with lines against the woful passages, and such pencilled remarks as "Alas!" and "All too true!" She sat in church with a carefully arranged sad smile on her face; but this, as unsuitable to her natural expression, was not always a success. Felie was much aggrieved one day at being told, by an indiscriminating friend, that her face "seemed made to laugh,--no one could imagine it anything but bright." This, for a girl who was posing for "Patience on a monument smiling at grief," was rather a trial; but then the friend had never seen her reading "King John," and murmuring,-- "Here I and sorrow sit--" with a long brown stick of cinnamon, in process of crunch, occupying the other corner of her mouth. But perhaps the friend might have found even this funny,--there are such unfeeling people in the world! Felie's letters were rather dull reading, because she told so little of what she had said or done, and hinted so liberally at her own aching heart and thwarted hopes. But her correspondents, who were mostly jolly school-girls, knew her pretty well, and dismissed these jeremiads as, "Just Felie's way. She does love to be miserable, you know, but nobody is better fun than she when she doesn't think it her duty to be unhappy." Felie didn't come down to tea on the evening of the day on which our story opens. An afternoon of lemonade had dampened her appetite, but at bedtime she stole out in her dressing-gown and slippers, helped herself to a handful of freshly baked cookies and a large green cucumber pickle, and, by the aid of these refreshments, contrived to stave off the pangs of hunger till next morning, when she appeared at breakfast cheerful and smiling, with no sign upon her spirits of the eclipse of the day before. Her family made no allusion to that melancholy episode,--they were used to such,--only Mr. Bliss asked, between two mouthfuls of toast, "Where were you gadding to last night, child? I didn't hear you come home." "I was not out. I didn't feel very--very bright, and went to bed early." "Oh!"--Mr. Bliss understood. "He who makes truth unlovely commits high treason against virtue," says an old writer; but he who simulates grief, and makes it ridiculous, commits an almost equal crime against true feeling. Felie had been playing at sorrow where no sorrow was. That very day a real sorrow came, and she woke up to find her world all changed into a reality of pain and puzzle and bewilderment, which was very different from the fictitious loss and the sham suffering which she had found so much to her mind. She had no idea, as she watched her father and mother drive off that afternoon, that anything terrible was about to happen. Only the "seers" of the Scotch legends could see the shroud drawn up over the breast of those who are "appointed to die" suddenly; the rest of us see nothing. The horse which Mr. Bliss drove was badly broken, but he had often gone out before and come back safely. It was only on this particular day that the combination of circumstances occurred which made the risky horse dangerous,--the shriek of the railroad-whistle, the sharp turn in the road, the heap of stones. There was a runaway, an overset, and two hours from the time when the youthful sisters, unexpectant of misfortune, had watched their parents off, they were brought back, Mr. Bliss dead, Mrs. Bliss with a broken arm, and injuries to the spine so severe that there was little chance of her ever being able to leave her bed again. So much can be done in one fatal moment. It is at such dark, dark times that real character shows itself. Felie's little affectations, her morbid musings and fancies, fell from her like some light, fantastic drapery, which is shrivelled in sudden heat. Her real self--hopeful, self-reliant, optimistic--rose into action as soon as the first paralyzing shock of pain was past, and she had taken in the reality of this new and strange thing. All the cares of the house, the management of affairs, the daily wear and tear of life, which has to be borne by _some one_, fell upon her inexperienced hands. Her mother was too shaken and ill to be consulted, the younger girls instinctively leaned on what they felt to be a strength superior to their own. It was a heavy load for young shoulders, and Felie was not yet eighteen! She made mistakes of course,--mistakes repented of with bitter crying and urgent resolutions. She was often tried, often discouraged; things did not smooth themselves easily, or the world go much out of its usual course, because Felie Bliss was perplexed and in trouble. There were no mornings to spare for tragedy, or Tennyson. Felie's eyeballs often longed for the relief of a good fit of tears; that troublesome little lump would come into her throat which is the price of tears resolutely held back, but there was too much to do to allow of such a weakening self-indulgence. Mother must be cared for, the house must be looked after, people on business must be seen, the "children," as she called her sisters, must not be suffered to be too sad. And then, again, "In Memoriam," beautiful as it is, and full of sweet and true and tender feeling, did not satisfy Felie now as it had done when she was forced to cultivate an artificial emotion outside of herself. "If I had time and knew how to write poetry, I could say a great many things that Tennyson never thought of," she told Jenny, one day. It is so with all who suffer. No poet ever voiced the full and complete expression of our own personal pain. There is always something beyond,--an individual pang recognized and understood only by ourselves. So the years went on, as years do even when their wheels seem weighted with lead. The first sharpness of their loss abated. They became used to the sight of their father's empty chair, of his closed desk; they ceased to listen for the sound of his step on the porch, his key in the door. Mrs. Bliss gradually regained a more comfortable measure of health, but she remained an invalid, the chief variation in her life being when she was lifted from bed to sofa, and back again from sofa to bed. Felie was twenty-four, and the younger ones were no longer children, though she still called them so. Even Dimple wore long dresses, and had set up something very like a lover, though Felie sternly refused to have him called so till Dimple was older. Felie was equally severe with Dr. Ernest Allen, on her own account. "She was a great deal too busy to think of such a thing," she declared; but Dr. Allen, who had faith in time, simply declared that he "didn't mind waiting," and continued to hang his hat on the hat-tree in the Bliss's entry three times a week. Indeed, looking at Felicia Bliss, now that she had rounded physically and mentally into what she was meant to become, you would not wonder that any man should be willing to wait a while in hope of winning such a prize. A certain bright cheer and helpfulness was her charm. "The room grew pleasanter as soon as she came into it," Dimple declared. Certainly Dr. Allen thought so; and as a man may willingly put off building a house till he can afford to have one which fronts the sun, so he considered it worth while to delay, for a few years, even, if need be, and secure for life a daily shining which should make all life pleasanter. He had never known Felie in her morbid days, and she could never make him quite believe her when she tried to tell of that past phase of her girlhood. "It is simply impossible. You must exaggerate, if you have not dreamed it," he said. "Not a bit. Ask Dimple,--ask any of them." "I prefer to ask my own eyes, my own convictions," declared the lover. "You are the most 'wholesome' woman, through and through, that I ever knew. A doctor argues from present indications to past conditions. I am sure you are mistaken about yourself. If I can detect with the stethoscope the spot in your lungs where five years back pneumonia left a trace, surely I ought to be able to make out a similar spot in your nervous temperament. The idea is opposed to all that you are." "But not to all that I was. Really and truly, Dr. Allen, I used to be the most absurd girl in the world. If you could have seen me!" "But what cured you in this radical and surprising manner?" "Well," said Felie, demurely, "I suppose the remedy was what you would call homeopathic. I had revelled in a sort of imaginary sorrowfulness, but when that dreadful time came, and I tasted real sorrow, I found that it took all my strength to meet it, and I was glad enough of everything bright and cheering that I could get at to help me through. "I wonder if there are many girls in the world who are nursing imaginary miseries as I used to do," she went on. "If there are, I should like to tell them how foolish it is, and how bad for them. But, dear me, there are so many girls and one can't get at them! I suppose each must learn the lesson for herself and fight her fight out somehow, and I hope they will all get through safely, and learn, as I have, that happiness is the most precious thing in the world, and that it is so, _so_ foolish not to enjoy and make the most of it while we have it. Because, you know, _some_ day trouble must come to everybody. And it is such a pity to have to look back and know that you have wasted a chance." IMPRISONED. The big house stood in the middle of a big open space, with wide lawns about it shaded by cherry-trees and lilac-bushes, toward the south an old-fashioned garden, and back of that the apple-orchard. The little house was on the edge of the grounds, and had its front entrance on the road. Its doors were locked and its windows shuttered now, for no one had lived in it for several years. Three little girls lived in the big house. Lois, who was eight years old, and Emmy, who was seven, were sisters. Kitty, their cousin, also seven, had lived with them so long that she seemed like another sister. There was, besides, Marianne, the cook's baby; but as she was not quite three, she did not count for much with the older ones, though they sometimes condescended to play with her. It was a place of endless pleasure to these happy country children, and they needed no wider world than it afforded them. All summer long they played in the open air. They built bowers in the feathery asparagus; they knew every bird's-nest in the syringa-bushes and the thick guelder-roses, and were so busy all the time that they rarely found a moment in which to quarrel. One day in July their mother and father had occasion to leave home for a long afternoon and evening. "You can stay outdoors till half-past six," Mrs. Spenser said to her little girls; "then you must come in to tea, and at half-past seven you must go to bed as usual. You may play where you like in the grounds, but you must not go outside the gate." She kissed them for good-by. "Remember to be good," she said. Then she got into the carriage and drove away. The children were very good for several hours. They played that little Marianne was their baby, and was carried off by a gypsy. Lois was the gypsy, and the chase and recapture of the stolen child made an exciting game. At last they got tired of this, and the question arose: "What shall we do next?" "I wish mother would let us play down the road," said Emmy. "The Noyse children's mother lets them." "I'll tell you what we'll do," said Lois, struck by a sudden bright idea. "Let's go down to the shut-up house. That isn't outside the gate." "O Lois! yes, it is. You can't go to the front door without walking on the road." "Well, who said anything about the front door? I'm going to look in at the back windows. Mother never said we mustn't do that." Still, it was with a sense of guilt that the three stole across the lawn; and they kept in the shadow of the hedge, as if afraid some one would see and call them back. Little Marianne, with her rag doll in her arms, began to run after them. "There's that little plague tagging us," said Kitty. "Go back, Marianne; we don't want you." Then, when Marianne would not go back, they all ran away, and left her crying. The shut-up house looked dull and ghostly enough. The front was in deep shadow from the tall row of elms that bordered the road, but at the back the sun shone hotly. It glowed through the low, dusty window of a cellar, and danced and gleamed on something bright which lay on the floor within. "What do you suppose it is?" said Emmy, as they all stooped to look. "It looks like real gold. Perhaps some pirates hid it there, and no one has come since but us." "Or perhaps it's a mine," cried Lois,--"a mine of jewels. See, it's all purple, like the stones in mother's breastpin. Wouldn't it be fun if it was? We wouldn't tell anybody, and we could buy such splendid things." "We must get in and find out," added Kitty. Just then a wail sounded close at hand, and a very woful, tear-stained little figure appeared. It was Marianne. The poor baby had trotted all the long distance in the sun after her unkind playfellows. "Oh, dear! You little nuisance! What made you come?" demanded Emmy. "I 'ant to," was all Marianne's explanation. "Well, don't cry. Now you've come, you can play," remarked Lois; and Marianne was consoled. They began to try the windows in turn, and at last found one in a wood-shed which was unfastened. Kitty scrambled in, and admitted the others, first into the wood-shed and then into a very dusty kitchen. The cellar stairs opened from this. They all ran down, but--oh, disappointment!--the jewel-mine proved to be only the half of a broken teacup with a pattern on it in gold and lilac. This was a terrible come-down from a pirate treasure. "Pshaw!" said Kitty. "Only an old piece of crockery. I don't think it's fair to cheat like that." Little Marianne had been afraid to venture down into the cellar, and now stayed at the top waiting for them. "Let's run away from her," suggested Kitty, who was cross after her disappointment. So they all hopped over Marianne, and, deaf to her cries, ran upstairs to the second story as fast as they could go. There were four bare, dusty chambers, all unfurnished. "There she comes," cried Kitty, as Marianne was heard climbing the stairs. "Where shall we hide from her? Oh, here's a place!" She had spied a closet door, fastened with a large old-fashioned iron latch. She flew across the room. It was a narrow closet, with a shelf across the top of it. "Hurry, hurry!" called Kitty. The others made haste. They squeezed themselves into the closet, and banged the door to behind them. Not till it was firmly fastened did they notice that there was no latch inside, or handle of any sort, and that they had shut themselves in, and had no possible way of getting out again. Their desire to escape from Marianne changed at once into dismay. They kicked and pounded, but the stout old-fashioned door did not yield. Marianne could be heard crying without. There was a round hole in the door just above the latch. Putting her eye to this, Lois could see the poor little thing, doll in arms, standing in the middle of the floor, uncertain what to do. "Marianne!" she called, "here we are, in the closet. Come and let us out, that's a good baby. Put your little hand up and push the latch. You can, if you will only try." "I'll show you how," added Kitty, taking her turn at the peep-hole. "See, come close to the door, and Kitty will tell you what to do." But these mysterious voices speaking out of the unseen frightened Marianne too much to allow of her doing anything helpful. "I tan't! I tan't!" she wailed, not venturing near the door. "Oh, do try, please do!" pleaded Lois. "I'll give you my china doll if you will, Marianne." "And I'll give you my doll's bedstead," added Emmy. "You'd like that, I know. Dear little Marianne, do try to let us out. Please do. We're so tired of this old closet." But still Marianne repeated, "Tan't, tan't." And at last she sat down on the floor and wept. The imprisoned children wept with her. "I've thought of a plan," said Emmy at last. "If you'll break one of the teeth out of your shell comb, Lois, I think I can push it through the hole and raise the latch up." Alas! the hole was above the latch, not below it. Half the teeth were broken out of Lois's comb in their attempt, and with no result except that they fell through the hole to the floor outside. At intervals they renewed their banging and pounding on the door, but it only tired them out, and did no good. It was a very warm afternoon, and, as time went on, the closet became unendurably hot. Emmy sank down exhausted on the floor, and she and Kitty began to sob wildly. Lois alone kept her calmness. Little Marianne had grown wonderfully quiet. Peeping through the hole, Lois saw that she had gone to sleep on the floor. "Don't cry so, Kitty," she said. "It's no use. We were naughty to come here. I suppose we've got to die in this closet, and it is my fault. We shall starve to death pretty soon, and no one will know what has become of us till somebody takes the house; and when they come to clean it and they open the closet door, they will find our bones." Kitty screamed louder than ever at this terrible picture. "Oh, hush!" said her cousin. "The only thing we can do now is to pray. God is the only person that can help us. Mamma says he is close to every person who prays. He can hear us if we are in the closet." Then Lois made this little prayer:-- "Our Father who art in heaven. We have been naughty, and came down here when mamma didn't give us leave to come; but please forgive us. We won't disobey again, if only Thou wilt. We make a promise. Help us. Show us the way to get out of this closet. Don't let us die here, with no one to know where we are. We ask it for Jesus Christ's sake. Forever and forever. Amen." It was a droll little prayer, but Lois put all her heart into it. A human listener might have smiled at the odd turn of the phrases; but God knew what she meant, and he never turns away from real prayer. He answered Lois. How did he answer her? Did he send a strong angel to lift up the latch of the door? He might have done that, you know, as he did for Peter in prison. But that was not the way he chose in this instance. What he did was to put a thought into Lois's mind. She stood silent for a while after she had finished praying. "Children," she said, "I have thought of something. Kitty, you are the lightest. Do you think Emmy and I could push you up on to the shelf?" It was not an easy thing to do, for the place was narrow; but at last, with Lois and Emmy "boosting," and Kitty scrambling, it was accomplished. "Now, Kitty, put your back against the wall," said Lois, "and when I say 'One, two, three,' push the door with your feet as hard as you can, while we push below." Kitty braced herself, and at the word "three," they all exerted their utmost strength. One second more, and--oh, joy!--the latch gave way, and the door flew open. Kitty tumbled from the shelf, the others fell forward on the floor,--they were out! Lois had bumped her head, and Emmy's shoulder was bruised; but what was that? They were free. "Let us run, run!" cried Lois, catching Marianne up in her arms. "I never want to see this horrible house again." So they ran downstairs, and out through the wood-shed into the open air. Oh, how sweet the sunshine looked, and the wind felt, after their fear and danger! Their mother taught them a little verse next morning, after they had told her all about their adventure and made confession of their fault; and Lois said it to herself every day all her life afterward. This is it:-- "God is never far away; God is listening all the day. When we tremble, when we fear, The dear Lord is quick to hear,-- Quick to hear, and quick to save, Quick to grant each prayer we make, For the precious Gift he gave, For his Son our Saviour's sake." "I love that hymn," Lois used to say; "and I know it's true, because God heard us just as well in that little bit of a closet as if we had been in church!" A CHILD OF THE SEA FOLK. The great storm of 1430 had done its worst. For days the tempest had raged on land and sea, and when at last the sun struggled through the clouds, broken now and flying in angry masses before the strong sea wind, his beams revealed a scene of desolation. All along the coast of Friesland the dikes were down, and the salt water washing over what but a few days before had been vegetable-gardens and fertile fields. The farm-houses on the higher ground stood each on its own little island as it were, with shallow waves breaking against the walls of barns and stoned sheepfolds lower down on the slopes. Already busy hands were at work repairing the dykes. Men in boats were wading up to their knees in mud and water, men, swimming their horses across the deeper pools, were carrying materials and urging on the work, but many days must pass before the damage could be made good; and meanwhile, how were people to manage for food and firing, with the peat-stacks under water, and the cabbages and potatoes spoiled by the wet? "There is just this one thing," said Metje Huyt to her sister Jacqueline. "Little Karen shall have her cup of warm milk to-night if everybody else goes without supper; on that I am determined." "That will be good, but how canst thou manage it?" asked Jacqueline, a gentle, placid girl of sixteen, with a rosy face and a plait of thick, fair hair hanging down to her waist. Metje was a year younger, but she ruled her elder sister with a rod of iron by virtue of her superior activity and vivacity of mind. "I shall manage it in this way,--I shall milk the Electoral Princess." "But she is drowned," objected Jacqueline, opening wide a pair of surprised blue eyes. "Drowned? Not at all. She is on that little hump of land over there which looks like an island, but is really Neighbor Livard's high clover-patch. I mean to row out and milk her, and thou shalt go with me." "Art thou sure that it is the Electoral Princess, and not any other cow?" asked Jacqueline. "Sure? Have I not a pair of eyes in my head? Sure? Don't I know the twist of our own cow's horns? Oh, Jacque, Jacque,--what were thy blue saucers given thee for? Thee never seemest to use them to purpose. However, come along. Karen must not want for her milk any longer. The mother was making some gruel-water for her when I came away, and Karen did not like it, and was crying." Some wading was necessary to reach the row-boat, which fortunately had been dragged up to the great barn for repairs before the storm began, and so had escaped the fate which had befallen most of the other boats in the neighborhood,--of being swept out to sea in the reflux of the first furious tide. The barn was surrounded by water now, but it was nowhere more than two or three inches deep. And pulling off their wooden shoes, the sisters splashed through it with merry laughter. Like most Friesland maidens, they were expert with the oar, and, though the waves were still rough, they made their way without trouble to the wet green slope where the Electoral Princess was grazing, raising her head from time to time to utter a long melancholy moo of protest at the long delay of her milkers. Very glad was she to see the girls, and she rubbed her head contentedly against Jacqueline's shoulder while Metje, with gentle, skilful fingers, filled the pail with foaming milk. "Now stay quietly and go on eating Friend Livard's clover, since no better may be," she said, patting the cow's red side. "The water is going down, the dikes are rebuilding, presently we will come and take thee back to the home field. Meanwhile each day Jacque and I will row out and milk thee; so be a good cow and stay contentedly where thou art." "What can that be?" Jacqueline asked after the sisters had proceeded a short distance on their homeward way. "What?" "That thing over there;" and she pointed toward a distant pool some quarter of a mile from them and still nearer to the sea. "It looks like--like--oh! Metje, do you think it can be some one who has been drowned?" "No,--for it moves,--it lifts its arm," said Metje, shading her eyes from the level rays of the sun, and looking steadily seaward. "It is a girl! She is caught by the tide in the pool. Row, Jacqueline, row! the tide turns in half an hour, and then she will be drowned indeed. The water was very deep out there last night when the flood was full; I heard Voorst say so." The heavy boat flew forward, for the sisters bent to the oars with all their strength. Jacqueline turned her head from time to time, to judge of their direction and the distance. "It's no neighbor," she answered as they drew nearer. "It's no one I ever saw before. Metje, it is the strangest-looking maiden you ever saw. Her hair is long,--so long, and her face is wild to look upon. I am afraid." "Never mind her hair. We must save her, however long it is," gasped Metje, breathless from the energy of her exertions. "Steady, now, Jacque, here we are; hold the boat by the reeds. Girl! I say, girl, do you hear me? We are come to help you." The girl, for a girl it was who half-sat, half-floated in the pool, raised herself out of the water as one alive, and stared at the sisters without speaking. She was indeed a wild and strange-looking creature, quite different from any one that they had ever seen before. "Well, are you not going to get into the boat?" cried Metje; "are you deaf, maiden, that you do not answer me? You'll be drowned presently, though you swam like forty fishes, for the tide will be coming in like fury through yon breach in the dike. Here, let me help you; give me your hand." The strange girl did not reply, but she seemed to understand a part, at least, of what was said to her. She moaned, her face contracted as if with pain, and, raising herself still farther from the water with an effort, she indicated by signs that she was caught in the mud at the bottom of the pool and could not set herself free. This was a serious situation, for, as Metje well knew, the mud was deep and adhesive. She sat a moment in thought; then she took her oar, forced the boat still nearer, and, directing Jacqueline to throw her weight on the farther edge to avoid an upset, she grasped the cold hands which the stranger held out, and, exerting her full strength, drew her from the mud and over the side of the boat. It rocked fearfully under her weight, the milk splashed from the pail, but the danger was over in half a minute, and the rescued girl, exhausted and half-dead, lay safely on the bottom. "Dear me, she will freeze," cried Jacqueline hastily; for the poor thing they had saved was without clothing, save for the long hair which hung about her like a mantle. "Here, Metje, I can spare my cloak to wrap round her limbs, and she must put on thy jacket. We will row the harder to keep ourselves warm." Rowing hard was indeed needful, for, summer as it was, the wind, as the sun sank, blew in icy gusts from the Zetland Zee, whirling the sailless windmills rapidly round, and sending showers of salt spray over the walls of the sheepfolds and other outlying enclosures. The sisters were thoroughly chilled before they had pulled the boat up to a place of safety and helped the half-drowned stranger across the wet slope of grass to the house door. Their mother was looking out for them. "Where hast thou been, children?" she asked. "Ach!" with a look of satisfaction as Metje slipped the handle of the milk-pail between her fingers. "That is well! Little Karen was wearying for her supper. But who hast thou here?" looking curiously at the odd figure whom her daughters were supporting. "Oh, mother, it is a poor thing that we saved from drowning in that pool over there," explained Metje, pointing seaward. "She is a stranger, from far away it must be, for she understands not our speech, and answers nothing when we ask her questions." "Dear me! what should bring a stranger here at this stormy time? But whoever she is, she must needs be warmed and fed." And the good Vrow hurried them all indoors, where a carefully economized fire of peats was burning. The main stock of peats was under water still, and it behooved them to be careful of what remained, the father had said. "We shall have to lend her some clothes," said Metje in an embarrassed tone. "Hers must have been lost in the water somehow." "Perhaps she went in to bathe, and the tide carried them away," suggested Jacqueline. "Bathe! In a tempest such as there has not been in my time! Bathe! Thou art crazed, child! It is singular, most singular. I don't like it!" muttered the puzzled mother. "Well, what needs be must be. Go and fetch thy old stuff petticoat, Metje, and one of my homespun shifts, and there's that old red jacket of Jacqueline's, she must have that, I suppose. Make haste, before the father comes in." It was easier to fetch the clothes than to persuade the strange girl to put them on. She moaned, she resisted, she was as awkward and ill at ease as though she had never worn anything of the sort before. Now that they scanned her more closely there seemed something very unusual about her make. Her arms hung down,--like flippers, Metje whispered to her sister. She stumbled when she tried to walk alone; it seemed as though her feet, which looked only half developed, could scarcely support her weight. For all that, when she was dressed, with her long hair dried, braided, and bound with a scarlet ribbon, there was something appealing and attractive in the poor child's face. She seemed to like the fire, and cowered close to it. When milk was offered her, she drank with avidity; but she would not touch the slice of black bread which Metje brought, and instead caught up a raw shell-fish from a pail full which Voorst had scooped out of the pool of sea-water which covered what had been the cabbage-bed, and ate it greedily. The mother looked grave as she watched her, and was troubled in her mind. "She seems scarce human," she whispered to Metje, drawing her to a distant corner; though indeed they might have spoken aloud with no fear of being understood by the stranger, who evidently knew no Dutch. "She is like no maiden that ever I saw." "Perhaps she is English," suggested Metje, who had never seen any one from England, but had vaguely heard that it was an odd country quite different from Friesland. The mother shook her head: "She is not English. I have seen one English that time that thy father and I went to Haarlem about thy grand-uncle's inheritance. It was a woman, and she was not at all like this girl. Metje, but that thou wouldst laugh, and Father Pettrie might reprove me for vain imaginations, I should guess her to be one of those mermaidens of whom our forefathers have told us. There are such creatures,--my mother's great-aunt saw one with her own eyes, and wrote it down, and my mother kept the paper. Often have I read it over. It was off the Texel." "Could she really be that? Why, it would be better--more interesting, I mean--than to have her an Englishwoman," cried Metje. "We would teach her to spin, to knit. She should go with us to church and learn the Ave. Would it not be a good and holy work, mother, to save the soul of a poor wild thing from the waves where they know not how to pray?" "Perhaps," replied the Vrow, doubtfully. She could not quite accustom herself to her own suggestion, yet could not quite dismiss it from her mind. The father and Voorst now came in, and supper, delayed till after its usual time by the pressing needs of the stranger, must be got ready in haste. Metje fell to slicing the black loaf, Jacqueline stirred the porridge, while the mother herself presided over the pot of cabbage-soup which had been stewing over the fire since early morning. Voorst, meanwhile, having nothing to do but to wait, sat and looked furtively at the strange girl. She did not seem to notice him, but remained motionless in the chimney-corner, only now and then giving a startled sudden glance about the room, like some wild creature caught in a trap. Voorst thought he had never seen anything so plaintive as her large, frightened eyes, or so wonderful as the thick plait of hair which, as she sat, lay on the ground, and was of the strangest pale color, like flax on which a greenish reflection is accidentally thrown. It was no more like Metje's ruddy locks, or the warm fairness of Jacqueline's braids, than moonlight is like dairy butter, he said to himself. Supper ready, Metje took the girl's hand and led her to the table. She submitted to be placed on a wooden stool, and looked curiously at the bowl of steaming broth which was set before her; but she made no attempt to eat it, and seemed not to know the use of her spoon. Metje tried to show her how to hold it, but she only moaned restlessly, and, as soon as the family moved after the father had pronounced the Latin grace which Father Pettrie taught all his flock to employ, she slipped from her seat and stumbled awkwardly across the floor toward the fire, which seemed to have a fascination for her. "Poor thing! she seems unlearnt in Christian ways," said Goodman Huyt; but later, when his wife confided to him her notion as to the stranger's uncanny origin, he looked perplexed, crossed himself, and said he would speak to the priest in the morning. It was no time for fetching heathen folk into homes, he remarked, still less those who were more fish than folk; as for mermaids, if such things there might be, they were no better in his opinion than dolphins or mackerel, and he did not care to countenance them. Father Pettrie was duly consulted. He scouted the mermaid theory, and, as the Vrow had foreboded, gave her a reprimand for putting such ideas into the mind of her family. The girl was evidently a foreigner from some far distant country, he said, a Turk it might be, or a daughter of that people, descended from Ishmael, who held rule in the land of the Holy Sepulchre. All the more it became a duty to teach her Christian ways and bring her into the true fold; and he bade Goodman Huyt to keep her till such time as her friends should be found, to treat her kindly, and make sure that she was brought regularly to church and taught religion and her duty. There was no need of this admonition as to kindness. Vrow Huyt could hardly have used a stray dog less than tenderly. And for Jacqueline and Metje, they looked upon the girl as their own special property, and were only in danger of spoiling her with over-indulgence. "Ebba," they called her, as they knew no name by which to address her, and in course of time she learned to recognize it as hers and to answer to it,--answer by looks and signs, that is, for she never learned to speak, or to make other sound than inarticulate moans and murmurs, except a wild sort of laughter, and now and then, when pleased and contented, a low humming noise like an undeveloped song. From these the family could guess at her mood, from her expressive looks and gestures they made shift to understand her wishes, and she, in turn, comprehended their meaning half by observation, half by instinct; but closer communication was not possible, and the lack of a common speech was a barrier between them which neither she nor they could overcome. Gradually "Dumb Ebba," as the neighbors called her, was taught some of the thrifty household arts in which Dame Huyt excelled. She learned to spin, and though less expertly, to knit, and could be trusted to stir whatever was set upon the fire to cook, and not let it burn or boil over. When the family went to mass, she went too, limping along with painful slowness on her badly-formed feet, and she bowed her head and knelt with the rest, but how much or how little she understood they could not tell. Except on Sundays she never left the house. Her first attempts at doing so were checked by Metje, who could not dismiss from her memory what her mother had said, and was afraid to let her charge so much as look toward the tempting blue waves which shone in the distance; and after a while Ebba seemed to realize that she was, so to speak, a kindly treated captive, and resigned herself to captivity. Little Karen was the only creature whom she played with; sometimes when busied with the child she was noticed to smile, but for every one else her face remained pitifully sad, and she never lost the look of a wild, imprisoned thing. So two years passed, and still Dumb Ebba remained, unclaimed by friends or kindred, one of the friendly Huyt household. The dikes were long since rebuilt, the Electoral Princess had come back to her own pasture-ground and fed there contentedly in company with two of her own calves, but the poor sea-stray whom Metje had pulled into the boat that stormy night remained speechless, inscrutable, a mystery and a perplexity to her adopted family. But now a fresh interest arose to rival Ebba's claims on their attention. A wooer came for pretty Jacqueline. It was young Hans Polder, son of a thrifty miller in the neighborhood, and himself owner of one of the best windmills in that part of Friesland. Jacqueline was not hard to win, the wedding-day was set, and she, Metje, and the mother were busy from morning till night in making ready the store of household linen which was the marriage portion of all well-to-do brides. Ebba's services with the wheel were also put into requisition; and part of her spinning, woven into towels, which, after a fancy of Metje's, had a pattern of little fish all over them, were known for generations as "the Mermaid's towels." But this is running far in advance of my story. Amid this press of occupation Ebba was necessarily left to herself more than formerly, and some dormant sense of loneliness, perhaps, made her turn to Voorst as a friend. He had taken a fancy to her at the first,--the sort of fancy which a manly youth sometimes takes to a helpless child,--and had always treated her kindly. Now she grew to feel for him a degree of attachment which she showed for no one else. In the evening, when tired after the day's fishing he sat half asleep by the fire, she would crouch on the floor beside him, watching his every movement, and perfectly content if, on waking, he threw her a word or patted her hair carelessly. She sometimes neglected to fill the father's glass or fetch his pipe, but never Voorst's; and she heard his footsteps coming up from the dike long before any one else in the house could catch the slightest footfall. The strict watch which the family had at first kept over their singular inmate had gradually relaxed, and Ebba was suffered to go in and out at her will. She rarely ventured beyond the house enclosure, however, but was fond of sitting on the low wall of the sheep-fold and looking off at the sea, which, now that the flood had subsided, was at a long distance from the house. And at such moments her eyes looked larger, wilder, and more wistful than ever. As the time for the wedding drew near, Voorst fell into the way of absenting himself a good deal from home. There were errands to be done, he said, but as these "errands" always took him over to the little island of Urk, where lived a certain pretty Olla Tronk, who was Jacqueline's great friend and her chosen bridesmaiden, the sisters naturally teased him a good deal about them. Ebba did not, of course, understand these jokings, but she seemed to feel instinctively that something was in the air. She grew restless, the old unhappy moan came back to her lips; only when Voorst was at home did she seem more contented. Three days before the marriage, Olla arrived to help in the last preparations. She was one of the handsomest girls in the neighborhood, and besides her beauty was an heiress; for her father, whose only child she was, owned large tracts of pasture on the mainland, as well as the greater part of the island of Urk, where he had a valuable dairy. The family crowded to the door to welcome Olla. She came in with Voorst, who had rowed over to Urk for her,--tall, blooming, with flaxen tresses hanging below her waist, and a pair of dancing hazel eyes fringed with long lashes. Voorst was almost as good looking in his way,--they made a very handsome couple. "And this must be the stranger maiden of whom Voorst has so often told me," said Olla after the first greetings had been exchanged. She smiled at Ebba, and tried to take her hand, but the elfish creature frowned, retreated, and, when Olla persisted, snatched her hand away with an angry gesture and put it behind her back. "Why does she dislike me so?" asked Olla, discomfited and grieved, for she had meant to be kind. "Oh, she doesn't dislike thee, she couldn't!" cried peace-loving Jacqueline. But Ebba did dislike Olla, though no one understood why. She would neither go near nor look at her if she could help it, and when, in the evening, she and Voorst sat on the doorstep talking together in low tones, Ebba hastened out, placed herself between them, and tried to push Olla away, uttering pitiful little wailing cries. "What does ail her?" asked Jacqueline. Metje made no answer, but she looked troubled. She felt that there was sorrow ahead for Ebba or for Voorst, and she loved them both. The wedding-day dawned clear and cloudless, as a marriage-day should. Jacqueline in her bravery of stiff gilded head-dress with its long scarf-like veil, her snowy bodice, and necklace of many-colored beads, was a dazzling figure. Olla was scarcely less so, and she blushed and dimpled as Voorst led her along in the bridal procession. Ebba walked behind them. She, too, had been made fine in a scarlet bodice and a grand cap with wings like that which Metje wore, but she did not seem to care that she was so well dressed. Her sad eyes followed the forms of Olla and Voorst, and as she limped painfully along after them, she moaned continually to herself, a low, inarticulate, wordless murmur like the sound of the sea. Following the marriage-mass came the marriage-feast. Goodman Huyt sat at the head of the table, the mother at the foot, and, side by side, the newly-wedded pair. Opposite them sat Voorst and Olla. His expression of triumphant satisfaction, and her blushes and demurely-contented glances, had not been unobserved by the guests; so no one was very much surprised when, in the midst of the festivity, the father rose, and knocked with his tankard on the table to insure silence. "Neighbors and kinsfolk, one marriage maketh another, saith the old proverb, and we are like to prove it a true one. I hereby announce that, with consent of parents on both sides, my son Voorst is troth-plight with Olla the daughter of my old friend Tronk who sits here,"--slapping Tronk on the shoulder,--"and I would now ask you to drink with me a high-health to the young couple." Suiting the action to the word, he filled the glass with Hollands, raised it, pronounced the toast, "A High-Health to Voorst Huyt and to his bride Olla Tronk," and swallowed the spirits at a draught. Ebba, who against her will had been made to sit at the board among the other guests, had listened to this speech with no understanding of its meaning. But as she listened to the laughter and applause which followed it, and saw people slapping Voorst on the back with loud congratulations and shaking hands with Olla, she raised her head with a flash of interest. She watched Voorst rise in his place with Olla by his side, while the rest reseated themselves; she heard him utter a few sentences. What they meant she knew not; but he looked at Olla, and when, after draining his glass, he turned, put his arm round Olla's neck, drew her head close to his own, and their lips met in a kiss, some meaning of the ceremony seemed to burst upon her. She started from her seat, for one moment she stood motionless with dilated eyes and parted lips, then she gave a long wild cry and fled from the house. "What is the matter? Who screamed?" asked old Huyt, who had observed nothing. "It is nothing. The poor dumb child over there," answered his wife. Metje looked anxiously at the door. The duties of hospitality held her to her place. "She will come in presently and I will comfort her," she thought to herself. But Ebba never "came in" again. When Metje was set free to search, all trace of her had vanished. As suddenly and mysteriously as she had come into their lives she had passed out of them again. No one had seen her go forth from the door, no trace could be found of her on land or sea. Only an old fisherman, who was drawing his nets that day at a little distance from the shore, averred that just after high noon he had noticed a shape wearing a fluttering garment like that of a woman pass slowly over the ridge of the dike just where it made a sudden curve to the left. He had had the curiosity to row that way after his net was safely pulled in, for he wanted to see if there was a boat lying there, or what could take any one to so unlikely a spot; but neither boat nor woman could be found, and he half fancied that he must have fallen asleep in broad daylight and dreamed for a moment. However that might be, Ebba was gone; nor was anything ever known of her again. Metje mourned her loss, all the more that Jacqueline's departure left her with no mate of her own age in the household. Little Karen cried for "Ebbe" for a night or two, the Vrow missed her aid in the spinning, but Voorst, absorbed in his happiness, scarcely noted her absence, and Olla was glad. Gradually she grew to be a tradition of the neighborhood, handed down from one generation to another even to this day, and nobody ever knew whence she came or where she went, or whether it was a mortal maiden or one of the children of the strange, solemn sea folk who was cast so curiously upon the hands of the kindly Friesland family and dwelt in their midst for two speechless years. NOTE.--The tradition on which this story is founded, and which is still held as true in some parts of Friesland, is referred to by Parival in his book, "Les Delices de Hollande." SUSAN COOLIDGE'S POPULAR BOOKS. [Illustration: NANNY'S SUBSTITUTE. Nanny at the Fair, taking orders and carrying trays.--PAGE 171.] MISCHIEF'S THANKSGIVING, _AND OTHER STORIES_. WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY ADDIE LEDYARD. _One handsome square 16mo volume, bound in cloth, black and gilt lettered. Price $1.25._ [Illustration: "Now, Katy, do,--ah, do, do."--PAGE 108.] WHAT KATY DID AT SCHOOL. WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY MARY A. HALLOCK. _One handsome square 16mo volume, bound in cloth, black and gilt lettered. Price, $1.25._ [Illustration] _CLOVER_. A Sequel to the Katy Books. By SUSAN COOLIDGE. With illustrations by Jessie McDermott. Square 16mo. Cloth. Price, $1.25. All the children will want to know more about "What Katy Did." [Illustration: These girls were Clover and Elsie Carr.--PAGE 7.] WHAT KATY DID NEXT. WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY JESSIE MCDERMOTT. One handsome square 16mo volume, bound in cloth, black and gilt lettered. Price $1.25. [Illustration: THE CLIFFS.] A LITTLE COUNTRY GIRL. With Illustrations. One volume. Square 16mo. Cloth, black and gold. Price $1.25. [Illustration: Eyebright, who had grown as dear as a daughter to the old lady, was playing croquet with Charley.--Page 246] =EYEBRIGHT.= With Illustrations. One handsome, square, 16mo volume, bound in cloth. Black and gilt lettered. Price, $1.25. ROBERTS BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, BOSTON. LOUISE CHANDLER MOULTON'S STORIES. 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[Illustration: 'Sing, Tessa; sing!' cried Tommo, twanging away with all his might.--PAGE 47.] AUNT JO'S SCRAP-BAG: Containing "My Boys," "Shawl-Straps," "Cupid and Chow-Chow," "My Girls," "Jimmy's Cruise in the Pinafore," "An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving." 6 vols. Price of each, $1.00. [Illustration: Grandma's Story FROM "SPINNING-WHEEL STORIES."] THE SPINNING-WHEEL SERIES: SILVER PITCHERS, and Other Stories. PROVERB STORIES. SPINNING-WHEEL STORIES. A GARLAND FOR GIRLS, and Other Stories. 4 volumes. Cloth. Price, $1.25 each. [Illustration] JACK AND JILL: A VILLAGE STORY. With Illustrations. 16mo. Price, $1.50. ROSE IN BLOOM. [Illustration] A Sequel to "EIGHT COUSINS." Price $1.50. ROBERTS BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, _Boston_. LOUISA M. ALCOTT'S WRITINGS. _Miss Alcott is really a benefactor of households._--H. H. _Miss Alcott has a faculty of entering into the lives and feelings of children that is conspicuously wanting in most writers who address them; and to this cause, to the consciousness among her readers that they are hearing about people like themselves, instead of abstract qualities labelled with names, the popularity of her books is due._--MRS. SARAH J. HALE. _Dear Aunt Jo! You are embalmed in the thoughts and loves of thousands of little men and women._--EXCHANGE. =Little Women=; or =Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy=. With illustrations. 16mo $1.50 =Hospital Sketches, and Camp and Fireside Stories.= With illustrations. 16mo 1.50 =An Old-Fashioned Girl.= With illustrations. 16mo 1.50 =Little Men=: Life at Plumfield with Jo's Boys. With illustrations. 16mo 1.50 =Jo's Boys and How they Turned Out.= A sequel to "Little Men." With portrait of "Aunt Jo." 16mo 1.50 =Eight Cousins=; or, The Aunt-Hill. 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One small quarto, bound in cloth, with emblematic designs 2.50 =Little Women Series.= Comprising Little Women; Little Men; Eight Cousins; Under the Lilacs; An Old-Fashioned Girl; Jo's Boys; Rose in Bloom; Jack and Jill. 8 large 16mo volumes in a handsome box 12.00 Miss Alcott's novels in uniform binding in sets. Moods; Work; Hospital Sketches; A Modern Mephistopheles, and A Whisper in the Dark. 4 volumes. 16mo 6.00 =Lulu's Library. Vols. I., II., III.= A collection of New Stories. 16mo 1.00 _These books are for sale at all bookstores, or will be mailed, post-paid, on receipt of price, to any address._ ROBERTS BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, _Boston, Mass._ LOUISA M. ALCOTT'S FAMOUS BOOKS. [Illustration] EIGHT COUSINS; or, The Aunt-Hill. With Illustrations by SOL EYTINGE. Price, $1.50. ROBERTS BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, BOSTON. Transcriber's Note: Punctuation has been standardised. Hyphenation has been retained as in the original publication. Changes have been made as follows: Page 39 friendship with you, "dusting girl," _changed to_ friendship with your "dusting girl," Page 89 aunt, who is an invalid, used _changed to_ aunt, who is an invalid, uses Page 190 Dance, Etelklein, leibchen _changed to_ Dance, Etelklein, liebchen Page 250 choose a pretty tint of _changed to_ chose a pretty tint of 
18496	----	file was produced from images generously made available by The Kentuckiana Digital Library) BIG BROTHER [Illustration: ROBIN] "_Cosy Corner Series_" BIG BROTHER BY ANNIE FELLOWS-JOHNSTON [Illustration] BOSTON JOSEPH KNIGHT COMPANY 1894 COPYRIGHT, 1893 BY JOSEPH KNIGHT COMPANY [Illustration: ILLUSTRATIONS] PAGE ROBIN _Frontispiece_ "A BAREFOOT GIRL WEARING A SUNBONNET" 1 "MRS. ESTEL WAS LISTENING TO LITTLE SCRAPS OF HISTORY," ETC. 9 "THE LITTLE WHITE COTTAGE IN NEW JERSEY," 19 "ROBIN FOLLOWED HIM EVERYWHERE" 21 "STEVEN WOULD COAX HIM OVER IN A CORNER TO LOOK AT THE BOOK" 23 "THE BLACK DANCING BEAR HAD ALWAYS TO BE PUT TO BED" 26 "ONCE HE TOOK A BALL OF YARN TO ROLL AFTER THE WHITE KITTEN" 29 "HE WANTED TO GET AWAY FROM THE HOUSE," ETC. 43 "THEY COMMENCED TO BUILD A SNOW MAN" 54 BIG BROTHER. Every coach on the long western-bound train was crowded with passengers. Dust and smoke poured in at the windows and even the breeze seemed hot as it blew across the prairie cornfields burning in the July sun. [Illustration] It was a relief when the engine stopped at last in front of a small village depot. There was a rush for the lunch counter and the restaurant door, where a noisy gong announced dinner. "Blackberries! blackberries!" called a shrill little voice on the platform. A barefoot girl, wearing a sunbonnet, passed under the car windows, holding up a basket full, that shone like great black beads. A gentleman who had just helped two ladies to alight from the steps of a parlor car called to her and began to fumble in his pockets for the right change. "Blackberries! blackberries!" sang another voice mockingly. This time it came from a roguish-looking child, hanging half-way out of a window in the next car. He was a little fellow, not more than three years old. His hat had fallen off, and his sunny tangle of curls shone around a face so unusually beautiful that both ladies uttered an exclamation of surprise. "Look, papa! Look, Mrs. Estel!" exclaimed the younger of the two. "Oh, isn't he a perfect picture! I never saw such eyes, or such delicate coloring. It is an ideal head." "Here, Grace," exclaimed her father, laughingly. "Don't forget your berries in your enthusiasm. It hasn't been many seconds since you were going into raptures over them. They certainly are the finest I ever saw." The girl took several boxes from her basket, and held them up for the ladies to choose. Grace took one mechanically, her eyes still fixed on the child in the window. "I'm going to make friends with him!" she exclaimed impulsively. "Let's walk down that way. I want to speak to him." "Blackberries!" sang the child again, merrily echoing the cry that came from the depths of the big sunbonnet as it passed on. Grace picked out the largest, juiciest berry in the box, and held it up to him with a smile. His face dimpled mischievously, as he leaned forward and took it between his little white teeth. "Do you want some more?" she asked. His eyes shone, and every little curl bobbed an eager assent. "What's your name, dear," she ventured, as she popped another one into his mouth. "Robin," he answered, and leaned farther out to look into her box. "Be careful," she cautioned; "you might fall out." He looked at her gravely an instant, and then said in a slow, quaint fashion: "Why, no; I can't fall out, 'cause big brother's a holdin' on to my feet." She drew back a little, startled. It had not occurred to her that any one else might be interested in watching this little episode. She gave a quick glance at the other windows of the car, and then exclaimed: "What is it, papa,--a picnic or a travelling orphan asylum? It looks like a whole carload of children." Yes, there they were, dozens of them, it seemed; fair faces and freckled ones, some dimpled and some thin; all bearing the marks of a long journey on soot-streaked features and grimy hands, but all wonderfully merry and good-natured. Just then a tired-looking man swung himself down the steps, and stood looking around him, knitting his brows nervously. He heard the girl's question, and then her father's reply: "I don't know, my dear, I am sure; but I'll inquire if you wish." The man's brows relaxed a little and he answered them without waiting to be addressed. "They are children sent out by an aid society in the East. I am taking them to homes in Kansas, mostly in the country." "You don't mean to tell me," the old gentleman exclaimed in surprise, "that you have the care of that entire car full of children! How do you ever manage them all?" The man grinned. "It does look like a case of the old woman that lived in a shoe, but there are not as many as it would seem. They can spread themselves over a good deal of territory, and I'm blessed if some of 'em can't be in half a dozen places at once. There's a little English girl in the lot--fourteen years or thereabouts--that keeps a pretty sharp eye on them. Then they're mostly raised to taking care of themselves." Some one accosted him, and he turned away. Grace looked up at the bewitching little face, still watching her with eager interest. "Poor baby!" she said to herself. "Poor little homeless curly head! If I could only do something for you!" Then she realized that even the opportunity she had was slipping away, and held up the box. "Here, Robin," she called, "take it inside so that you can eat them without spilling them." "All of 'em?" he asked with a radiant smile. He stretched out his dirty, dimpled fingers. "_All_ of 'em," he repeated with satisfaction as he balanced the box on the sill. "All for Big Brother and me!" Another face appeared at the window beside Robin's, one very much like it; grave and sweet, with the same delicate moulding of features. There was no halo of sunny curls on the finely shaped head, but the persistent wave of the darker, closely cut hair showed what it had been at Robin's age. There was no color in the face either. The lines of the sensitive mouth had a pathetic suggestion of suppressed trouble. He was a manly-looking boy, but his face was far too sad for a child of ten. "Gracie," said Mrs. Estel, "your father said the train will not start for fifteen minutes. He has gone back to stay with your mother. Would you like to go through the car with me, and take a look at the little waifs?" "Yes, indeed," was the answer. "Think how far they have come. I wish we had found them sooner." A lively game of tag was going on in the aisle. Children swarmed over the seats and under them. One boy was spinning a top. Two or three were walking around on their hands, with their feet in the air. The gayest group seemed to be in the far end of the car, where two seats full of children were amusing themselves by making faces at each other. The uglier the contortion and more frightful the grimace, the louder they laughed. In one corner the English girl whom the man had mentioned sat mending a little crocheted jacket, belonging to one of the children. She was indeed keeping a sharp eye on them. "'Enry," she called authoritatively, "stop teasing those girls, Hi say. Pull the 'airs from your hown 'ead, and see 'ow you like that naow! Sally, you shall not drink the 'ole enjuring time. Leave the cup be! No, Maggie, Hi can tell no story naow. Don't you see Hi must be plying my needle? Go play, whilst the car stops." Robin smiled on Grace like an old friend when she appeared at the door, and moved over to make room for her on the seat beside him. He had no fear of strangers, so he chattered away in confiding baby fashion, but the older boy said nothing. Sometimes he smiled when she told some story that made Robin laugh out heartily, but it seemed to her that it was because the little brother was pleased that he laughed, not because he listened. Presently Mrs. Estel touched her on the shoulder. "The time is almost up. I am going to ask your father to bring my things in here. As you leave at the next station, I could not have your company much longer, anyhow. I have all the afternoon ahead of me, and I want something to amuse me." "I wish I could stay with you," answered Grace, "but mamma is such an invalid I cannot leave her that long. She would be worrying about me all the time." She bade Robin an affectionate good-by, telling him that he was the dearest little fellow in the world, and that she could never forget him. He followed her with big, wistful eyes as she passed out, but smiled happily when she turned at the door to look back and kiss her hand to him. At the next station, where they stopped for a few minutes, he watched for her anxiously. Just as the train began to pull out he caught a glimpse of her. There was a flutter of a white handkerchief and a bundle came flying in through the window. He looked out quickly, just in time to see her stepping into a carriage. Then a long line of freight cars obstructed the view. By the time they had passed them they were beyond even the straggling outskirts of the village, with wide cornfields stretching in every direction, and it was of no use to look for her any longer. Mrs. Estel lost no time in making the young English girl's acquaintance. She was scarcely settled in her seat before she found an opportunity. Her umbrella slipped from the rack, and the girl sprang forward to replace it. "You have had a tiresome journey," Mrs. Estel remarked pleasantly after thanking her. "Yes, indeed, ma'am!" answered the girl, glad of some one to talk to instead of the children, whose remarks were strictly of an interrogative nature. It was an easy matter to draw her into conversation, and in a short time Mrs. Estel was listening to little scraps of history that made her eyes dim and her heart ache. [Illustration] "Do you mind telling me your name?" she asked at length. "Ellen, ma'am." "But the other," continued Mrs. Estel. "We're not to tell, ma'am." Then seeing the look of inquiry on her face, explained, "Sometimes strangers make trouble, hasking the little ones hall sorts hof questions; so we've been told not to say where we're going, nor hany think helse." "I understand," answered Mrs. Estel quickly. "I ask only because I am so much interested. I have a little girl at home that I have been away from for a week, but she has a father and a grandmother and a nurse to take care of her while I am gone. It makes me feel so sorry for these poor little things turned out in the world alone." "Bless you, ma'am!" exclaimed Ellen cheerfully. "The 'omes they're going to be a sight better than the 'omes they've left behind. Naow there's 'Enery; 'is mother died hin a drunken fit. 'E never knew nothink hall 'is life but beating and starving, till the Haid Society took 'im hin 'and. "Then there's Sally. Why, Sally's living 'igh naow--hoff the fat hof the land, has you might say. Heverybody knows 'ow 'er hold huncle treated 'er!" Mrs. Estel smiled as she glanced at Sally, to whom the faucet of the water-cooler seemed a never-failing source of amusement. Ellen had put a stop to her drinking, which she had been doing at intervals all the morning, solely for the pleasure of seeing the water stream out when she turned the stop-cock. Now she had taken a tidy spell. Holding her bit of a handkerchief under the faucet long enough to get it dripping wet, she scrubbed herself with the ice-water, until her cheeks shone like rosy winter apples. Then she smoothed the wet, elfish-looking hair out of her black eyes, and proceeded to scrub such of the smaller children as could not escape from her relentless grasp. Some submitted dumbly, and others struggled under her vigorous application of the icy rag, but all she attacked came out clean and shining. Her dress was wringing wet in front, and the water was standing in puddles around her feet, when the man who had them in charge came through the car again. He whisked her impatiently into a seat, setting her down hard. She made a saucy face behind his back, and began to sing at the top of her voice. One little tot had fallen and bumped its head as the train gave a sudden lurch. It was crying pitifully, but in a subdued sort of whimper, as if it felt that crying was of no use when nobody listened and nobody cared. He picked it up, made a clumsy effort to comfort it, and, not knowing what else to do, sat down beside it. Then for the first time he noticed Mrs. Estel. She had taken a pair of scissors from her travelling-bag, and had cut several newspapers up into soldiers and dolls and all kinds of animals for the crowd that clamored around her. They were such restless little bodies, imprisoned so long on this tedious journey, that anything with a suggestion of novelty was welcome. When she had supplied them with a whole regiment of soldiers and enough animals to equip a menagerie, she took another paper and began teaching them to fold it in curious ways to make boxes, and boats, and baskets. One by one they crowded up closer to her, watching her as if she were some wonderful magician. They leaned their dusty heads against her fresh gray travelling-dress. They touched her dainty gloves with dirty, admiring fingers. They did not know that this was the first time that she had ever come in close contact with such lives as theirs. They did not know that it was the remembrance of another child,--one who awaited her home-coming,--a petted little princess born to purple and fine linen, that made her so tender towards them. Remembering what hers had, and all these lacked, she felt that she must crowd all the brightness possible into the short afternoon they were together. Every one of them, at some time in their poor bare lives, had known what it was to be kindly spoken to by elegant ladies, to be patronizingly smiled upon, to be graciously presented with gifts. But this was different. This one took the little Hodge girl right up in her lap while she was telling them stories. This one did not pick out the pretty ones to talk to, as strangers generally did. It really seemed that the most neglected and unattractive of them received the most of her attention. From time to time she glanced across at Robin's lovely face, and contrasted it with the others. The older boy attracted her still more. He seemed to be the only thoughtful one among them all. The others remembered no past, looked forward to no future. When they were hungry there was something to eat. When they were tired they could sleep, and all the rest of the time there was somebody to play with. What more could one want? The child never stirred from his place, but she noticed that he made a constant effort to entertain Robin. He told him stories and invented little games. When the bundle came flying in through the window he opened it with eager curiosity. Grace had hurried into the village store as soon as the train stopped and had bought the first toy she happened to see. It was a black dancing bear, worked by a tiny crank hidden under the bar on which it stood. Robin's pleasure was unbounded, and his shrieks of delight brought all the children flocking around him. "More dancin', Big Brother," he would insist, when the animal paused. "Robin wants to see more dancin'." So patient little "Big Brother" kept on turning the crank, long after every one save Robin was tired of the black bear's antics. Once she saw the restless 'Enry trying to entice him into a game of tag in the aisle. Big Brother shook his head, and the fat little legs clambered up on the seat again. Robin watched Mrs. Estel with such longing eyes as she entertained the others that she beckoned to him several times to join them, but he only bobbed his curls gravely and leaned farther back in his seat. Presently the man strolled down the aisle again to close a window, out of which one fidgety boy kept leaning to spit at the flying telegraph poles. On his way back Mrs. Estel stopped him. "Will you please tell me about those two children?" she asked, glancing towards Robin and his brother. "I am very much interested in them, and would gladly do something for them, if I could." "Certainly, madam," he replied deferentially. He felt a personal sense of gratitude towards her for having kept three of his most unruly charges quiet so long. He felt, too, that she did not ask merely from idle curiosity, as so many strangers had done. "Yes, everybody asks about them, for they _are_ uncommon bright-looking, but it's very little anybody knows to tell." Then he gave her their history in a few short sentences. Their father had been killed in a railroad accident early in the spring. Their mother had not survived the terrible shock more than a week. No trace could be found of any relatives, and there was no property left to support them. Several good homes had been offered to the children singly in different towns, but no one was willing to take both. They clung together in such an agony of grief, when an attempt was made at separation, that no one had the heart to part them. Then some one connected with the management of the Aid Society opened a correspondence with an old farmer of his acquaintance out West. It ended in his offering to take them both for a while. His married daughter, who had no children of her own, was so charmed with Robin's picture that she wanted to adopt him. She could not be ready to take him, though, before they moved into their new house, which they were building several miles away. The old farmer wanted the older boy to help him with his market gardening, and was willing to keep the little one until his daughter was ready to take him. So they could be together for a while, and virtually they would always remain in the same family. Mr. Dearborn was known to be such an upright, reliable man, so generous and kind-hearted in all his dealings, that it was decided to accept his offer. "Do they go much farther?" asked the interested listener, when he had told her all he knew of the desolate little pilgrims. "Only a few miles the other side of Kenton," he answered. "Why, Kenton is where I live," she exclaimed. "I am glad it will be so near." Then as he passed on she thought to herself, "It would be cruel to separate them. I never saw such devotion as that of the older boy." His feet could not reach the floor, but he sat up uncomfortably on the high seat, holding Robin in his lap. The curly head rested heavily on his shoulder, and his arms ached with their burden, but he never moved except to brush away the flies, or fan the flushed face of the little sleeper with his hat. Something in the tired face, the large appealing eyes, and the droop of the sensitive mouth, touched her deeply. She crossed the aisle and sat down by him. "Here, lay him on the seat," she said, bending forward to arrange her shawl for a pillow. He shook his head. "Robin likes best for me to hold him." "But he will be cooler and so much more comfortable," she urged. Taking the child from his unwilling arms, she stretched him full length on the improvised bed. Involuntarily the boy drew a deep sigh of relief, and leaned back in the corner. "Are you very tired?" she asked. "I have not seen you playing with the other children." "Yes'm," he answered. "We've come such a long way. I have to amuse Robin all the time he's awake, or he'll cry to go back home." "Where was your home?" she asked kindly. "Tell me about it." He glanced up at her, and with a child's quick instinct knew that he had found a friend. The tears that he had been bravely holding back all the afternoon for Robin's sake could no longer be restrained. He sat for a minute trying to wink them away. Then he laid his head wearily down on the window sill and gave way to his grief with great choking sobs. She put her arm around him and drew his head down on her shoulder. At first the caressing touch of her fingers, as they gently stroked his hair, made the tears flow faster. Then he grew quieter after a while, and only sobbed at long intervals as he answered her questions. His name was Steven, he said. He knew nothing of the home to which he was being taken, nor did he care, if he could only be allowed to stay with Robin. He told her of the little white cottage in New Jersey, where they had lived, of the peach-trees that bloomed around the house, of the beehive in the garden. He had brooded over the recollection of his lost home so long in silence that now it somehow comforted him to talk about it to this sympathetic listener. [Illustration] Soothed by her soft hand smoothing his hair, and exhausted by the heat and his violent grief, he fell asleep at last. It was almost dark when he awoke and sat up. "I must leave you at the next station," Mrs. Estel said, "but you are going only a few miles farther. Maybe I shall see you again some day." She left him to fasten her shawl-strap, but presently came back, bringing a beautifully illustrated story-book that she had bought for the little daughter at home. "Here, Steven," she said, handing it to him. "I have written my name and address on the fly-leaf. If you ever need a friend, dear, or are in trouble of any kind, let me know and I will help you." He had known her only a few hours, yet, when she kissed him good-by and the train went whirling on again, he felt that he had left his last friend behind him. When one is a child a month is a long time. Grandfathers say, "That happened over seventy years ago, but it seems just like yesterday." Grandchildren say, "Why, it was only yesterday we did that, but so much has happened since that it seems such a great while!" One summer day can stretch out like a lifetime at life's beginning. It is only at threescore and ten that we liken it to a weaver's shuttle. It was in July when old John Dearborn drove to the station to meet the children. Now the white August lilies were standing up sweet and tall by the garden fence. "Seems like we've been here 'most always," said Steven as they rustled around in the hay hunting eggs. His face had lost its expression of sadness, so pathetic in a child, as day after day Robin's little feet pattered through the old homestead, and no one came to take him away. Active outdoor life had put color in his face and energy into his movements. Mr. Dearborn and his wife were not exacting in their demands, although they found plenty for him to do. The work was all new and pleasant, and Robin was with him everywhere. When he fed the turkeys, when he picked up chips, when he drove the cows to pasture, or gathered the vegetables for market, Robin followed him everywhere, like a happy, dancing shadow. [Illustration] Then when the work was done there were the kittens in the barn and the swing in the apple-tree. A pond in the pasture sailed their shingle boats. A pile of sand, left from building the new ice-house, furnished material for innumerable forts and castles. There was a sunny field and a green, leafy orchard. How could they _help but be happy?_ It was summer time and they were together. Steven's was more than a brotherly devotion. It was with almost the tenderness of mother-love that he watched the shining curls dancing down the walk as Robin chased the toads through the garden or played hide-and-seek with the butterflies. "No, the little fellow's scarcely a mite of trouble," Mrs. Dearborn would say to the neighbors sometimes when they inquired. "Steven is real handy about dressing him and taking care of him, so I just leave it mostly to him." Mrs. Dearborn was not a very observing woman or she would have seen why he "was scarcely a mite of trouble." If there was never a crumb left on the doorstep where Robin sat to eat his lunch, it was because Big Brother's careful fingers had picked up every one. If she never found any tracks of little bare feet on the freshly scrubbed kitchen floor, it was because his watchful eyes had spied them first, and he had wiped away every trace. He had an instinctive feeling that if he would keep Robin with him he must not let any one feel that he was a care or annoyance. So he never relaxed his watchfulness in the daytime, and slept with one arm thrown across him at night. Sometimes, after supper, when it was too late to go outdoors again, the restless little feet kicked thoughtlessly against the furniture, or the meddlesome fingers made Mrs. Dearborn look at him warningly over her spectacles and shake her head. [Illustration] Sometimes the shrill little voice, with its unceasing questions, seemed to annoy the old farmer as he dozed over his weekly newspaper beside the lamp. Then, if it was too early to go to bed, Steven would coax him over in a corner to look at the book that Mrs. Estel had given him, explaining each picture in a low voice that could not disturb the deaf old couple. It was at these times that the old feeling of loneliness came back so overwhelmingly. Grandpa and Grandma, as they called them, were kind in their way, but even to their own children they had been undemonstrative and cold. Often in the evenings they seemed to draw so entirely within themselves, she with her knitting and he with his paper or accounts, that Steven felt shut out, and apart. "Just the strangers within thy gates," he sometimes thought to himself. He had heard that expression a long time ago, and it often came back to him. Then he would put his arm around Robin and hug him up close, feeling that the world was so big and lonesome, and that he had no one else to care for but him. Sometimes he took him up early to the little room under the roof, and, lying on the side of the bed, made up more marvellous stories than any the book contained. Often they drew the big wooden rocking-chair close to the window, and, sitting with their arms around each other, looked out on the moonlit stillness of the summer night. Then, with their eyes turned starward, they talked of the far country beyond; for Steven tried to keep undimmed in Robin's baby memory a living picture of the father and mother he was so soon forgetting. "Don't you remember," he would say, "how papa used to come home in the evening and take us both on his knees, and sing 'Kingdom Coming' to us? And how mamma laughed and called him a big boy when he got down on the floor and played circus with us? "And don't you remember how we helped mamma make cherry pie for dinner one day? You were on the doorstep with some dough in your hands, and a greedy old hen came up and gobbled it right out of your fingers." Robin would laugh out gleefully at each fresh reminiscence, and then say: "Tell some more r'members, Big Brother!" And so Big Brother would go on until a curly head drooped over on his shoulder and a sleepy voice yawned "Sand-man's a-comin'." The hands that undressed him were as patient and deft as a woman's. He missed no care or tenderness. When he knelt down in his white gown, just where the patch of moonlight lay on the floor, his chubby hands crossed on Big Brother's knee, there was a gentle touch of caressing fingers on his curls as his sleepy voice repeated the evening prayer the far away mother had taught them. There was always one ceremony that had to be faithfully performed, no matter how sleepy he might be. The black dancing bear had always to be put to bed in a cracker box and covered with a piece of red flannel. [Illustration] One night he looked up gravely as he folded it around his treasure and said, "Robin tucks ze black dancin' bear in bed, an' Big Brother tucks in Robin. Who puts Big Brother to bed?" "Nobody, now," answered Steven with a quivering lip, for his child's heart ached many a night for the lullaby and bedtime petting he so sorely missed. "Gramma Deebun do it?" suggested Robin quickly. "No: Grandma Dearborn has the rheumatism. She couldn't walk up-stairs." "She got ze wizzim-tizzim," echoed Robin solemnly. Then his face lighted up with a happy thought. "Nev' mind; Robin'll put Big Brother to bed _all_ ze nights when he's a man." And Big Brother kissed the sweet mouth and was comforted. During the summer Mr. Dearborn drove to town with fresh marketing every morning, starting early in order to get home by noon. Saturdays he took Steven with him, for that was the day he supplied his butter customers. The first time the boy made the trip he carried Mrs. Estel's address in his pocket, which he had carefully copied from the fly-leaf of the book she had given him. Although he had not the remotest expectation of seeing her, there was a sense of companionship in the mere thought that she was in the same town with him. He watched the lamp-posts carefully as they went along, spelling out the names of the streets. All of a sudden his heart gave a bound. They had turned a corner and were driving along Fourth Avenue. He took the slip of paper from his pocket. Yes, he was right. That was the name of the street. Then he began to watch for the numbers. 200, 300, 400; they passed on several more blocks. Mr. Dearborn drove up to the pavement and handed him the reins to hold, while he took the crock of butter into the house. Steven glanced up at the number. It was 812. Then the next one--no, the one after that--must be the place. It was a large, elegant house, handsomer than any they had passed on the avenue. As long as it was in sight Steven strained his eyes for a backward look, but saw no one. Week after week he watched and waited, but the blinds were always closed, and he saw no signs of life about the place. Then one day he saw a carriage stop at the gate. A lady all in black stepped out and walked slowly towards the house. Her long, heavy veil hid her face, but he thought he recognized her. He was almost sure it was Mrs. Estel. He could hardly resist the inclination to run after her and speak to her; but while he hesitated the great hall door swung back and shut her from sight. He wondered what great trouble had come to her that she should be dressed in deep black. The hope of seeing her was the only thing about his weekly trips to town that he anticipated with any pleasure. It nearly always happened that some time during the morning while he was gone Robin got into trouble. Nobody seemed to think that the reason the child was usually so good was due largely to Steven's keeping him happily employed. He always tried to contrive something to keep him busy part of the morning; but Robin found no pleasure very long in solitary pursuits, and soon abandoned them. [Illustration] Once he took a ball of yarn from the darning-basket to roll after the white kitten. He did not mean to be mischievous any more than the white kitten did, but the ball was part of Grandma Dearborn's knitting work. When she found the needles pulled out and the stitches dropped, she scolded him sharply. All her children had been grown up so long she had quite forgotten how to make allowances for things of that sort. There was a basket of stiff, highly colored wax fruit on the marble-topped table in the parlor. Miss Barbara Dearborn had made it at boarding-school and presented it to her sister-in-law many years before. How Robin ever managed to lift off the glass case without breaking it no one ever knew. That he had done so was evident, for in every waxen red-cheeked pear and slab-sided apple were the prints of his sharp little teeth. It seemed little short of sacrilege to Mrs. Dearborn, whose own children had regarded it for years from an admiring distance, fearing to lay unlawful fingers even on the glass case that protected such a work of art. He dropped a big white china button into the cake dough when Molly, "the help," had her back turned. It was all ready to be baked, and she unsuspectingly whisked the pan into the oven. Company came to tea, and Grandpa Dearborn happened to take the slice of cake that had the button in it. Manlike, he called everyone's attention to it, and his wife was deeply mortified. He left the pasture gate open so that the calves got into the garden. He broke Grandpa Dearborn's shaving-mug, and spilled the lather all over himself and the lavender bows of the best pin-cushion. He untied a bag that had been left in the window to sun, to see what made it feel so soft inside. It was a bag of feathers saved from the pickings of many geese. He was considerably startled when the down flew in all directions, sticking to carpet and curtains, and making Molly much extra work on the busiest day in the week. But the worst time was when Steven came home to find him sitting in a corner, crying bitterly, one hand tied to his chair. He had been put there for punishment. It seemed that busy morning that everything he touched made trouble for somebody. At last his exploring little fingers found the plug of the patent churn. The next minute he was a woebegone spectacle, with the fresh buttermilk pouring down on him, and spreading in creamy rivers all over the dairy floor. These weekly trips were times of great anxiety for Steven. He never knew what fresh trouble might greet him on his return. One day they sold out much earlier than usual. It was only eleven o'clock when they reached home. Grandma Dearborn was busy preparing dinner. Robin was not in sight. As soon as Steven had helped to unhitch the horses he ran into the house to look for him. There was no answer to his repeated calls. He searched all over the garden, thinking maybe the child was hiding from him and might jump out any moment from behind a tree. He was beginning to feel alarmed when he saw two little bare feet slowly waving back and forth above the tall orchard grass. He slipped over the fence and noiselessly along under the apple-trees. Robin was lying on his stomach watching something on the ground so intently that sometimes the bare feet forgot to wave over his back and were held up motionless. With one hand he was pulling along at a snail's pace a green leaf, on which a dead bumble-bee lay in state. With the other he was keeping in order a funeral procession of caterpillars. It was a motley crowd of mourners that the energetic forefinger urged along the line of march. He had evidently collected them from many quarters,--little green worms that spun down from the apple boughs overhead; big furry brown caterpillars that had hurried along the honeysuckle trellis to escape his fat fingers; spotted ones and striped ones; horned and smooth. They all straggled along, each one travelling his own gait, each one bent on going a different direction, but all kept in line by that short determined forefinger. Steven laughed so suddenly that the little master of ceremonies jumped up and turned a startled face towards him. Then he saw that there were traces of tears on the dimpled face and one eye was swollen nearly shut. "O Robin! what is it now?" he cried in distress. "How did you hurt yourself so dreadfully?" "Ole bumble!" answered Robin, pointing to the leaf. "He flied in ze kitchen an' sat down in ze apple peelin's. I jus' poked him, nen he flied up and bit me. He's dead now," he added triumphantly. "Gramma killed him. See all ze cattow-pillows walkin' in ze p'cession?" So the days slipped by in the old farmhouse. Frost nipped the gardens, and summer vanished entirely from orchard and field. The happy outdoor life was at an end, and Robin was like a caged squirrel. Steven had his hands full keeping him amused and out of the way. "Well, my lad, isn't it about time for you to be starting to school?" Mr. Dearborn would ask occasionally. "You know I agreed to send you every winter, and I must live up to my promises." But Steven made first one pretext and then another for delay. He knew he could not take Robin with him. He knew, too, how restless and troublesome the child would become if left at home all day. So he could not help feeling glad when Molly went home on a visit, and Grandma Dearborn said her rheumatism was so bad that she needed his help. True, he had all sorts of tasks that he heartily despised,--washing dishes, kneading dough, sweeping and dusting,--all under the critical old lady's exacting supervision. But he preferred even that to being sent off to school alone every day. One evening, just about sundown, he was out in the corncrib, shelling corn for the large flock of turkeys they were fattening for market. He heard Grandma Dearborn go into the barn, where her husband was milking. They were both a little deaf, and she spoke loud in order to be heard above the noise of the milk pattering into the pail. She had come out to look at one of the calves they intended selling. "It's too bad," he heard her say, after a while. "Rindy has just set her heart on him, but Arad, he thinks it's all foolishness to get such a young one. He's willing to take one big enough to do the chores, but he doesn't want to feed and keep what 'ud only be a care to 'em. He always was closer'n the bark on a tree. After all, I'd hate to see the little fellow go." "Yes," was the answer, "he's a likely lad; but we're gettin' old, mother, and one is about all we can do well by. Sometimes I think maybe we've bargained for too much, tryin' to keep even _one_. So it's best to let the little one go before we get to settin' sech store by him that we can't." A vague terror seized Steven as he realized who it was they were talking about. He lay awake a long time that night smoothing Robin's tangled curls, and crying at the thought of the motherless baby away among strangers, with no one to snuggle him up warm or sing him to sleep. Then there was another thought that wounded him deeply. Twist it whichever way he might, he could construe Mr. Dearborn's last remark to mean but one thing. They considered him a burden. How many plans he made night after night before he fell asleep! He would take Robin by the hand in the morning, and they would slip away and wander off to the woods together. They could sleep in barns at night, and he could stop at the farmhouses and do chores to pay for what they ate. Then they need not be a trouble to any one. Maybe in the summer they could find a nice dry cave to live in. Lots of people had lived that way. Then in a few years he would be big enough to have a house of his own. All sorts of improbable plans flocked into his little brain under cover of the darkness, but always vanished when the daylight came. The next Saturday that they went to town was a cold, blustering day. They started late, taking a lunch with them, not intending to come home until the middle of the afternoon. The wind blew a perfect gale by the time they reached town. Mr. Dearborn stopped his team in front of one of the principal groceries, saying, "Hop out, Steven, and see what they're paying for turkeys to-day." As he sprang over the wheel an old gentleman came running around the corner after his hat, which the wind had carried away. Steven caught it and gave it to him. He clapped it on his bald crown with a good-natured laugh. "Thanky, sonny!" he exclaimed heartily. Then he disappeared inside the grocery just as Mr. Dearborn called out, "I believe I'll hitch the horses and go in too; I'm nearly frozen." Steven followed him into the grocery, and they stood with their hands spread out to the stove while they waited for the proprietor. He was talking to the old gentleman whose hat Steven had rescued. He seemed to be a very particular kind of customer. "Oh, go on! go on!" he exclaimed presently. "Wait on those other people while I make up my mind." While Mr. Dearborn was settling the price of his turkeys, the old gentleman poked around like an inquisitive boy, thumping the pumpkins, smelling the coffee, and taking occasional picks at the raisins. Presently he stopped in front of Steven with a broad, friendly smile on his face. "You're from the country, ain't you?" he asked. "Yes, sir," answered Steven in astonishment. "Came from there myself, once," he continued with a chuckle. "Law, law! You'd never think it now. Fifty years makes a heap o' difference." He took another turn among the salt barrels and cracker boxes, then asked suddenly, "What's your name, sonny?" "Steven," answered the boy, still more surprised. The old fellow gave another chuckle and rubbed his hands together delightedly. "Just hear that, will you!" he exclaimed. "Why, that's my name, my very own name, sir! Well, well, well, well!" He stared at the child until he began to feel foolish and uncomfortable. What image of his own vanished youth did that boyish face recall to the eccentric old banker? As Mr. Dearborn turned to go Steven started after him. "Hold on, sonny," called the old gentleman, "I want to shake hands with my namesake." He pressed a shining half-dollar into the little mittened hand held out to him. "That's for good luck," he said. "I was a boy myself, once. Law, law! Sometimes I wish I could have stayed one." Steven hardly knew whether to keep it or not, or what to say. The old gentleman had resumed conversation with the proprietor and waved him off impatiently. "I'll get Robin some candy and save all the rest till Christmas," was his first thought; but there was such a bewildering counter full of toys on one side of the confectioner's shop that he couldn't make up his mind to wait that long. He bought some shining sticks of red and white peppermint and turned to the toys. There was a tiny sailboat with a little wooden sailor on deck; but Robin would always be dabbling in the water if he got that. A tin horse and cart caught his eye. That would make such a clatter on the bare kitchen floor. At last he chose a gay yellow jumping-jack. All the way home he kept feeling the two little bundles in his pocket. He could not help smiling when the gables of the old house came in sight, thinking how delighted Robin would be. He could hardly wait till the horses were put away and fed, and he changed impatiently from one foot to another, while Mr. Dearborn searched in the straw of the wagon-bed for a missing package of groceries. Then he ran to the house and into the big, warm kitchen, all out of breath. "Robin," he called, as he laid the armful of groceries on the kitchen table, "look what Brother's brought you. Why, where's Robin?" he asked of Mrs. Dearborn, who was busy stirring something on the stove for supper. She had her back turned and did not answer. "Where's Robin," he asked again, peering all around to see where the bright curls were hiding. She turned around and looked at him over her spectacles. "Well, I s'pose I may's well tell you one time as another," she said reluctantly. "Rindy came for him to-day. We talked it over and thought, as long as there had to be a separation, it would be easier for you both, and save a scene, if you wasn't here to see him go. He's got a good home, and Rindy'll be kind to him." Steven looked at her in bewilderment, then glanced around the cheerful kitchen. His slate lay on a chair where Robin had been scribbling and making pictures. The old cat that Robin had petted and played with that very morning purred comfortably under the stove. The corncob house he had built was still in the corner. Surely he could not be so very far away. He opened the stair door and crept slowly up the steps to their little room. He could scarcely distinguish anything at first, in the dim light of the winter evening, but he saw enough to know that the little straw hat with the torn brim that he had worn in the summer time was not hanging on its peg behind the door. He looked in the washstand drawer, where his dresses were kept. It was empty. He opened the closet door. The new copper-toed shoes, kept for best, were gone, but hanging in one corner was the little checked gingham apron he had worn that morning. Steven took it down. There was the torn place by the pocket, and the patch on the elbow. He kissed the ruffle that had been buttoned under the dimpled chin, and the little sleeves that had clung around his neck so closely that morning. Then, with it held tight in his arms, he threw himself on the bed, sobbing over and over, "It's too cruel! It's too cruel! They didn't even let me tell him good-by!" He did not go down to supper when Mrs. Dearborn called him, so she went up after a while with a glass of milk and a doughnut. "There, there!" she said soothingly; "don't take it so hard. Try and eat something; you'll feel better if you do." Steven tried to obey, but every mouthful choked him. "Rindy'll be awful good to him," she said after a long pause. "She thinks he's the loveliest child she ever set eyes on, but she was afraid her husband would think he was too much of a baby if she took him home with those long curls on. She cut 'em off before they started, and I saved 'em. I knew you'd be glad to have 'em." She lit the candle on the washstand and handed him a paper. He sat up and opened it. There lay the soft, silky curls, shining like gold in the candle-light, as they twined around his fingers. It was more than he could bear. His very lips grew white. Mrs. Dearborn was almost frightened. She could not understand how a child's grief could be so deep and passionate. He drew them fondly over his wet cheeks, and pressed them against his quivering lips. Then laying his face down on them, he cried till he could cry no longer, and sleep came to his relief. Next morning, when Steven pulled the window curtain aside, he seemed to be looking out on another world. The first snow of the winter covered every familiar object, and he thought, in his childish way, that last night's experience had altered his life as the snowdrifts had changed the landscape. He ate his breakfast and did up the morning chores mechanically. He seemed to be in a dream, and wondered dully to himself why he did not cry when he felt so bad. When the work was all done he stood idly looking out of the window. He wanted to get away from the house where everything he saw made his heart ache with the suggestion of Robin. "I believe I'd like to go to church to-day," he said in a listless tone. [Illustration] "Yes, I'd go if I were you," assented Mr. Dearborn readily. "Mother and me'll have to stay by the fire to-day, but I've no doubt it'll chirk you up a bit to get outdoors a spell." He started off, plodding through the deep snow. "Takes it easier than I thought he would," said Mr. Dearborn. "Well, troubles never set very hard on young shoulders. He'll get over it in a little while." As Steven emerged from the lane into the big road he saw a sleigh coming towards him, driven by the doctor's son. As it drew nearer a sudden thought came to him like an inspiration. "O Harvey!" he cried, running forward. "Will you take me with you as far as Simpson's?" "Why, yes, I guess so," answered the boy good-naturedly. He was not surprised at the request, knowing that Mrs. Dearborn and Mrs. Simpson were sisters, and supposing that Steven had been sent on some errand. It was three miles to the Simpson place, but they seemed to have reached it in as many minutes. Harvey turned off towards his own home, while Steven climbed out and hurried along the public road. "Half-way there!" he said to himself. He was going to town to find Mrs. Estel. He was a long time on the way. A piercing wind began to blow, and a blinding snow-storm beat in his face. He was numb with cold, hungry, and nearly exhausted. But he thought of little Robin fifteen miles away, crying at the strange faces around him; and for his sake he stumbled bravely on. He had seen Mrs. Dearborn's daughter several times. She was a kind, good-natured woman, half-way afraid of her husband. As for Arad Pierson himself, Steven had conceived a strong dislike. He was quick-tempered and rough, with a loud, coarse way of speaking that always startled the sensitive child. Suppose Robin should refuse to be comforted, and his crying annoyed them. Could that black-browed, heavy-fisted man be cruel enough to whip such a baby? Steven knew that he would. The thought spurred him on. It seemed to him that he had been days on the road when he reached the house at last, and stood shivering on the steps while he waited for some one to answer his timid ring. "No, you can't speak to Mrs. Estel," said the pompous colored man who opened the door, and who evidently thought that he had come on some beggar's mission. "She never sees any one now, and I'm sure she wouldn't see you." "Oh, _please_!" cried Steven desperately, as the door was about to be shut in his face. "She told me to come, and I've walked miles through the storm, and I'm so cold and tired! Oh, I _can't_ go back without seeing her." His high, piercing voice almost wailed out the words. Had he come so far only to be disappointed at last? "What is it, Alec?" he heard some one call gently. He recognized the voice, and in his desperation darted past the man into the wide reception hall. He saw the sweet face of the lady, who came quickly forward, and heard her say, "Why, what is the matter, my child?" Then, overcome by the sudden change from the cold storm to the tropical warmth of the room, he dropped on the floor, exhausted and unconscious. It was a long time before Mrs. Estel succeeded in thoroughly reviving him. Then he lay on a wide divan with his head on her lap, and talked quietly of his trouble. He was too worn out to cry, even when he took the soft curls from his pocket to show her. But her own recent loss had made her vision keen, and she saw the depth of suffering in the boy's white face. As she twisted the curls around her finger and thought of her own fair-haired little one, with the deep snow drifting over its grave, her tears fell fast. She made a sudden resolution. "You shall come here," she said. "I thought when my little Dorothy died I could never bear to hear a child's voice again, knowing that hers was still. But such grief is selfish. We will help each other bear ours together. Would you like to come, dear?" Steven sat up, trembling in his great excitement. "O Mrs. Estel!" he cried, "couldn't you take Robin instead? I could be happy anywhere if I only knew he was taken care of. You are so different from the Piersons. I wouldn't feel bad if he was with you, and I could see him every week. He is so pretty and sweet you couldn't help loving him!" She stooped and kissed him. "You dear, unselfish child, you make me want you more than ever." Then she hesitated. She could not decide a matter involving so much in a moment's time. Steven, she felt, would be a comfort to her, but Robin could be only a care. Lately she had felt the mere effort of living to be a burden, and she did not care to make any exertion for any one else. All the brightness and purpose seemed to drop out of her life the day that little Dorothy was taken away. Her husband had tried everything in his power to arouse her from her hopeless despondency, but she refused to be comforted. Steven's trouble had touched the first responsive chord. She looked down into his expectant face, feeling that she could not bear to disappoint him, yet unwilling to make a promise that involved personal exertion. Then she answered slowly, "I wish my husband were here. I cannot give you an answer without consulting him. Then, you see the society that sent you out here probably has some written agreement with these people, and if they do not want to give him up we might find it a difficult matter to get him. Mr. Estel will be home in a few days, and he will see what can be done." That morning when Steven had been seized with a sudden impulse to find Mrs. Estel he had no definite idea of what she could do to help him. It had never occurred to him for an instant that she would offer to take either of them to live with her. He thought only of that afternoon on the train, when her sympathy had comforted him so much, and of her words at parting: "If you ever need a friend, dear, or are in trouble of any kind, let me know and I will help you." It was that promise that lured him on all that weary way through the cold snow-storm. With a child's implicit confidence he turned to her, feeling that in some way or other she would make it all right. It was a great disappointment when he found she could do nothing immediately, and that it might be weeks before he could see Robin again. Still, after seeing her and pouring out his troubles, he felt like a different boy. Such a load seemed lifted from his shoulders. He actually laughed while repeating some of Robin's queer little speeches to her. Only that morning he had felt that he could not even smile again. Dinner cheered him up still more. When the storm had abated, Mrs. Estel wrapped him up and sent him home in her sleigh, telling him that she wanted him to spend Thanksgiving Day with her. She thought she would know by that time whether she could take Robin or not. At any rate, she wanted him to come, and if he would tell Mr. Dearborn to bring her a turkey on his next market day, she would ask his permission. All the way home Steven wondered nervously what the old people would say to him. He dreaded to see the familiar gate, and the ride came to an end so very soon. To his great relief he found that they had scarcely noticed his absence. Their only son and his family had come unexpectedly from the next State to stay over Thanksgiving, and everything else had been forgotten in their great surprise. The days that followed were full of pleasant anticipations for the family. Steven went in and out among them, helping busily with the preparations, but strangely silent among all the merriment. Mr. Dearborn took his son to town with him the next market day, and Steven was left at home to wait and wonder what message Mrs. Estel might send him. He hung around until after his usual bedtime, on their return, but could not muster up courage to ask. The hope that had sprung up within him flickered a little fainter each new day, until it almost died out. It was a happy group that gathered around the breakfast table early on Thanksgiving morning. "All here but Rindy," said Mr. Dearborn, looking with smiling eyes from his wife to his youngest grandchild. "It's too bad she couldn't come, but Arad invited all his folks to spend the day there; so she had to give up and stay at home. Well, we're all alive and well, anyhow. That's my greatest cause for thankfulness. What's yours, Jane?" he asked, nodding towards his wife. As the question passed around the table, Steven's thoughts went back to the year before, when their little family had all been together. He remembered how pretty his mother had looked that morning in her dark-blue dress. There was a bowl of yellow chrysanthemums blooming on the table, and a streak of sunshine, falling across them and on Robin's hair, seemed to turn them both to gold. Now he was all alone. The contrast was too painful. He slipped from the table unobserved, and stole noiselessly up the back stairs to his room. The little checked apron was hanging on a chair by the window. He sat down and laid his face against it, but his eyes were dry. He had not cried any since that first dreadful night. There was such a lively clatter of dishes downstairs and babel of voices that he did not hear a sleigh drive up in the soft snow. "Steven," called Mr. Dearborn from the foot of the stairs, "I promised Mrs. Estel to let you spend the day with her, but there was so much goin' on I plum forgot to tell you. You're to stay all night too, she says." The ride to town seemed endless to the impatient boy. He was burning with a feverish anxiety to know about Robin, but the driver whom he questioned could not tell. "Mrs. Estel will be down presently," was the message with which he was ushered into the long drawing-room. He sat down uncomfortably on the edge of a chair to wait. He almost dreaded to hear her coming for fear she might tell him that the Piersons would not give Robin up. Maybe her husband had not come home when she expected him. Maybe he had been too busy to attend to the matter. A dozen possible calamities presented themselves. Unconsciously he held himself so rigid in his expectancy that he fairly ached. Ten minutes dragged by, with only the crackle of the fire on the hearth to disturb the silence of the great room. Then light feet pattered down the stairs and ran across the broad hall. The _portière_ was pushed aside and a bright little face looked in. In another instant Robin's arms were around his neck, and he was crying over and over in an ecstasy of delight, "Oh, it's Big Brother! It's Big Brother!" Not far away down the avenue a great church organ was rolling out its accompaniment to a Thanksgiving anthem. Steven could not hear the words the choir chanted, but the deep music of the organ seemed to him to be but the echo of what was throbbing in his own heart. There was no lack of childish voices and merry laughter in the great house that afternoon. A spirit of thanksgiving was in the very atmosphere. No one could see the overflowing happiness of the children without sharing it in some degree. More than once during dinner Mrs. Estel looked across the table at her husband and smiled as she had not in months. Along in the afternoon the winter sunshine tempted the children out of doors, and they commenced to build a snow man. They tugged away at the huge image, with red cheeks and sparkling eyes, so full of out-breaking fun that the passers-by stopped to smile at the sight. Mrs. Estel stood at the library window watching them. Once, when Robin's fat little legs stumbled and sent him rolling over in the snow, she could not help laughing at the comical sight. It was a low, gentle laugh, but Mr. Estel heard, and, laying aside his newspaper, joined her at the window. He had almost despaired of ever seeing a return to the old sunny charm of face and manner. [Illustration] They stood there together in silence a few moments, watching the two romping boys, who played on, unconscious of an audience. "What a rare, unselfish disposition that little 'Big Brother' has!" Mr. Estel said presently. "It shows itself even in their play." Then he added warmly, turning to his wife, "Dora, it would be downright cruel to send him away from that little chap." He paused a moment. "We used to find our greatest pleasure in making Dorothy happy. We lavished everything on her. Now we can never do anything more for her." There was another long pause, while he turned his head away and looked out of the window. "Think what a lifelong happiness it is in our power to give those children! Dora, can't we make room for both of them for her sake?" Mrs. Estel hesitated, then laid both her hands in his, bravely smiling back her tears. "Yes, I'll try," she said, "for little Dorothy's sake." That night, as Steven undressed Robin and tucked him up snugly in the little white bed, he felt that nothing could add to his great happiness. He sat beside him humming an old tune their mother had often sung to them, in the New Jersey home so far away. The blue eyes closed, but still he kept on humming softly to himself, "Oh, happy day! happy day!" Presently Mrs. Estel came in and drew a low rocking-chair up to the fire. Steven slipped from his place by Robin's pillow and sat down on the rug beside her. Sitting there in the fire-light, she told him all about her visit to the Piersons. They had found Robin so unmanageable and so different from what they expected that they were glad to get rid of him. Mr. Estel had arranged matters satisfactorily with the Society, and they had brought Robin home several days ago. "I had a long talk with Mr. Dearborn the other day," she continued. "He said his wife's health is failing, and their son is trying to persuade them to break up housekeeping and live with them. If she is no better in the spring, they will probably do so." "Would they want me to go?" asked Steven anxiously. "It may be so; I cannot tell." Steven looked up timidly. "I've been wanting all day to say thank you, the way I feel it; but somehow, the right words won't come. I can't tell you how it is, but it seems 'most like sending Robin back home for you and Mr. Estel to have him. Somehow, your ways and everything seem so much like mamma's and papa's, and when I think about him having such a lovely home, oh, it just seems like this is a Thanksgiving Day that will last _always_!" She drew his head against her knee and stroked it tenderly. "Then how would you like to live here yourself, dear?" she asked. "Mr. Estel thinks that we need two boys." "Oh, does he really want me, too? It's too good to be true!" Steven was kneeling beside her now, his eyes shining like stars. "Yes, we both want you," answered Mrs. Estel. "You shall be our own little sons." Steven crept nearer. "Papa and mamma will be so glad," he said in a tremulous whisper. Then a sudden thought illuminated his earnest face. "O Mrs. Estel! Don't you suppose they have found little Dorothy in that other country by this time, and are taking care of her there, just like you are taking care of us here?" She put her arm around him, and drew him nearer, saying: "My dear little comfort, it may be so. If I could believe that, I could never feel so unhappy again." Robin and "ze black dancin' bear" were not the only ones tucked tenderly away to sleep that night. The sleigh bells jingled along the avenue. Again the great church organ rolled out a mighty flood of melody, that ebbed and flowed on the frosty night air. And Big Brother, with his head pillowed once more beside Robin's, lay with his eyes wide open, too happy to sleep--lay and dreamed of the time when he should be a man, and could gather into the great house he meant to own all the little homeless ones in the wide world; all the sorry little waifs that strayed through the streets of great cities, that crowded in miserable tenements, that lodged in asylums and poorhouses. Into his child's heart he gathered them all, with a sweet unselfishness that would have gladly shared with every one of them his new-found home and happiness. * * * * * 
21108	----	Fritz and Eric, or the Brother Crusoes by John Conroy Hutcheson ________________________________________________________________ This is rather an extraordinary book, because it consists of two rather different eras in the lives of two brothers. In the first the brother Fritz takes part in the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-71, and is severely wounded, but survives - just. He is tended by a beauteous maiden, with whom he falls in love. Meanwhile the brother Eric has gone to sea in what turns out to be a rotten old vessel, which sinks in southern waters. There are some survivors, but Eric is not among them, and is presumed dead. Fritz departs for America, and is wondering how to get a job. He meets a whaling captain and they are having a chat in a bar when who should appear but Eric, who has had a miraculous rescue, but has never had a chance of writing home. The two brothers decide they will get the whaling ship to drop them off on a very remote island in the South Atlantic, Inaccessible Island, where they will spend a year sealing, and make their fortunes from the skins they get during the year. There are many vicissitudes, and they do make their fortunes, but not from sealing. There are so many tense situations, so very well described, that the book might almost have come from the pen of George Manville Fenn. A well-written and interesting book, and with a very good description of the Franco-Prussian War, the war which is so often forgotten about. N.H. ________________________________________________________________ FRITZ AND ERIC; OR, THE BROTHER CRUSOES BY JOHN CONROY HUTCHESON CHAPTER ONE. "GOOD-BYE!" "Time is getting on, little mother, and we'll soon have to say farewell!" "Aye, my child. The parting is a sad one to me; but I hope and trust the good God will hold you in His safe keeping, and guide your footsteps back home to me again!" "Never you fear, little mother. He will do that, and in a year's time we shall all meet again under the old roof-tree, I'm certain. Keep your heart up, mother mine, the same as I do; remember, it is not a `Farewell' I am saying for ever, it is merely `Auf wiedersehen!'" "I hope so, Eric, surely; still, we cannot tell what the future may bring forth!" said the other sadly. Mother and son were wending their way through the quaint, old-fashioned, sleepy main street of Lubeck that led to the railway station--a bran-new modern structure that seemed strangely incongruous amidst the antique surroundings of the ancient town. Although it was past the midday hour, hardly a soul was to be seen moving about; and the western sun lighted up the green spires of the churches and red-tiled pointed roofs of the houses, glinting from the peculiar eye-shaped dormer windows of some of the cottages with the most grotesque effect and making them appear as if winking at the onlooker. It seemed like a scene of a bygone age reproduced on the canvas of some Flemish artist; and, but that Eric and his mother were accustomed to it, they must have rubbed their eyes, like Rip Van Winkle when he came down from the goblin-haunted mountain into the old village of his youth, in doubt whether all was real, thinking it might be a dream. Presently, however, they were at the railway station, and they would have been convinced, if they had felt inclined to believe otherwise, that they were living in the present. But, even here, amid all the hissing of steam, and creaking of carriages, and whirr of moving machinery, the queer old-world costumes of the peasantry, with their quaint hats and mantles, which more resembled the stage properties of a Christmas pantomime than the known dress of any people of the period, all spoke of the past--a past when the great Barbarossa reigned in Central Europe, and when there were "Robbers of the Rhine," and "Forty thousand virgins," in company with Saint Ursula, canonising the sainted and scented city of Cologne. Ah, those days of long ago! "Here we are at last, mother," said Eric, slinging the bag containing his sea kit on to the railway platform. "The old engine is getting its steam up, and we'll soon be off. Cheer up, little mother! As I've told you, it is not a good-bye for ever!" "So you say, my son. The young ever look forward; but old people like myself look back, and it makes us reflect how few of the noble aspirations and longing anticipations of our youth are ever realised!" "Old people like yourself indeed, little mother!" said Eric indignantly, tossing up his lion-like head, and looking as if he would like to see any one else who would dare to make such an assertion, the next moment throwing his arms round her neck, and hugging her fondly. "I won't have you calling yourself old, you dear little mother, with your nice glossy brown hair, and beautiful bright blue eyes and handsome face--a face which I fail not to see Burgher Jans gaze on with eloquent expression every Sunday when we go to the Dom Kirche. Ah, I know--" "Fie, my son!" exclaimed Madame Dort, interrupting him by placing her hand across his mouth, a process which soon stopped his indiscreet impetuosity, a warm blush the while mantling her comely countenance; for she was yet in the bloom of middle-aged womanhood. "Suppose, now, any one were to overhear you, audacious child!" "Ah, but I know, though," repeated the boy triumphantly, when he had again regained his freedom of speech. "I won't tell, little mother; still, I must make a bargain with you, as I don't intend that fusty old Burgher Jans to have my handsome young mutterchen, that's poz! But, to change the subject, why are you so despondent about my leaving you now, dear mother? I've been already away from you two voyages, and yet have returned safe and sound to Lubeck." "You forget, my child, that the pitcher sometimes goes once too often to the well. The ocean is treacherous, and the perils of the sea are great, although you, in boy-like fashion, may laugh at them. Strong men have but too often to acknowledge the supremacy of the waves when they bear them down to their watery grave, leaving widows and orphans, alas! to mourn their untimely fate with sad and bitter tears! Don't you remember your poor father's end, my son?" "I do, mother," answered the boy gravely; "still, all sailors are not drowned, nor is a seafaring life always dangerous." "Granted, my child," responded his mother to this truism; "but, those who go down to the sea in ships, as the Psalmist says, see the perils of the deep, and lead a venturesome calling! Besides, Eric, I must tell you that I--I do not feel myself so strong as I was when you first left home and became a sailor boy; and, although I have no doubt a good Providence will watch over you, and preserve you in answer to my heartfelt prayers, yet you are now starting on a longer voyage than you have yet undertaken, and perchance I may not live to greet you on your return!" "Oh, mother, don't say that, don't say that!" exclaimed Eric in a heart- broken voice; "you are not ill, you are not ailing, mother dear?" and he peered anxiously with a loving gaze into her eyes, to try and read some meaning there for the sorrowful presage that had escaped thus inadvertently from her lips, drawn forth by the agony of parting. "No, my darling, nothing very alarming," she said soothingly, wishing to avoid distressing him needlessly by communicating what might really be only, as she hoped, a groundless fear on her part. "I do not feel exactly ill, dear. I was only speaking about the natural frail tenure of this mortal life of ours. This saying `Good-bye' to you too, my darling, makes me infected with morbid fear and nervous anxiety. Fancy me nervous, Eric--I whom you call your strong-minded mother, eh?" and the poor lady smiled bravely, so as to encourage the lad, and banish his easily excited fears on her account. It was but a sickly smile, however, for it did not come genuinely from the heart, prompted though the latter was with the fullest affection. Still, Eric did not perceive this, and the smile quickly dismissed his fears. "Ha, ha," he laughed in his light-hearted, ringing way. "The idea of your being nervous, like I remember old grandmother Grimple was when I used to jump suddenly in at the door or fire my popgun! I would never believe it, not even if you yourself said it. Ah, now you look better already, and like my own dear little mother who will keep safe and well, and welcome me back next year, surely; and then, dear one, we'll have no end of a happy time!" "I hope so, Eric; I hope so with all my heart," said she, pressing the eager lad to her bosom in a fond embrace; "and you may be sure that none will be so glad to welcome you back as I!" "Think, mother," said Eric presently, after a moment's silence, in which the feelings of the two seemed too great to find expression in words of common import. "Why, by that time I will have nearly sailed round the world; for in my voyage to Java and back I will have to `double the Cape,' as sailors say!" "Yes, that you will, my boy," chimed in his mother, anxious to sustain this buoyant change in his humour, and drive away the somewhat melancholy tone she had unwittingly introduced into their last parting conversation. "You'll be a regular little travelled monkey, like the one belonging to the Dutchman that we were reading about the other day which could do everything almost but speak, although I don't think anybody would accuse you of any want of ability on the latter score, you chatterbox!" "No, no, little mother; I think not likewise," chuckled Eric complacently. "I'm not one of your silent ones, not so! But, hurrah!-- There comes Fritz turning in under the old gateway. He said he would try and get away for half an hour in the afternoon from the counting- house to wish me another good-bye and see me off, if Herr Grosschnapper could spare him. Ah ha, Master Fritz," shouted out the sailor lad, as his brother drew nigh, "you're just in time to see the last of me. I thought the worthy Herr would not let you come, you are so very late." "Better late than never," said the other, smiling, coming up beside the pair, who were standing in front of one of the railway carriages, into which Eric had already bundled his bag. "The old man did growl a bit about my `idling away the afternoon,' as he called it; but when I impressed him with the fact that you were going away to sea, he relented and let me come, saying that it was a good job such a circumstance did not occur every day!" "Much obliged to him, I'm sure!" said Eric, with that usual toss of his head which threw back his mane-like locks of yellow hair. "He would have been a fine old curmudgeon to have refused you leave to wish good- bye to your only brother!" And he put one of his arms round Fritz's neck as he spoke. "Hush, my son," interposed Madame Dort. "You must not speak ill of the good merchant who has been such a kind friend to Fritz and given him regular employment in his warehouse!" "All right, mutterchen, I won't mention again the name of the old cur--, I mean dear old gentleman, little mother, there!" And then catching the twinkling eye of Fritz, the two burst into a simultaneous laugh at the narrow escape there had been of his repeating the obnoxious epithet; while Madame Dort could not help smiling too, as she gazed fondly into the merry face of the roguish boy, standing by his brother's side and clinging to him with that deep fraternal affection which is so rarely seen, alas! in members of the same family. Truly, they were sons of whom any mother might have been proud. Fritz was tall and manly, by virtue of his two-and-twenty years and a small fringe of dark down that covered his upper lip; Eric was shorter by some inches, but more thick-set and with broader shoulders, predicting that he would be the bigger of the two as time rolled on. The firstborn, Fritz, with his closely cropped hair and swarthy complexion, took after his dead father, who had been a Holsteiner--a mariner by profession, who had sailed his ship from the Elbe some years before for the last time, and left his wife to bring up her fatherless boys by the sweat of her brow and her own exertions; for Captain Dort had left but little worldly goods behind him, his all being embarked with himself in his ship, which was lost, with all hands on board, in the North Sea. Fritz and Eric had both been too young at the time to appreciate the struggles of their mother to support herself and them, until she had achieved a comfortable competency by teaching music and languages in several rich Hanoverian families; and now she had no longer to battle for her bread. Eric took after her in face and expression, having the same light- coloured hair and bright blue eyes; but there the resemblance ceased, as hardly had he grown to boyhood than he evinced that desire for a sea life which he must have inherited with his father's blood--he would, he must be a sailor! Being the youngest, he naturally was her pet; and thus, although the recollection of her husband's fate was ever before her, and Madame Dort had a dread of the sea which only those who have suffered a similar bereavement can fully understand, she could not resist the boy's continual pleadings, backed up as they were by his evident and unaffected bias of mind towards everything connected with ships and shipping; for, Eric never seemed so happy as when frequenting the quays and talking with the sailors and sea-captains who came to the old port of Lubeck, where of late years the mother had taken up her residence, in order to be near Fritz, who had obtained a clerkship in a merchant's house there, through the friendly offices of the parents of one of the music-teacher's pupils. Eric had already received his `sea-baptism,' so to speak, having been on a trip to England in a Hamburgh cattle-boat, and on a cruise up the Baltic in a timber-ship; but he was now going away in a Dutch vessel to the East Indies, the voyage promising to occupy more than a year, so there is no wonder that his mother was anxious on his account, thinking she would never live to see him again. It seemed so terrible to her as she stood on the railway platform, surrounded by all the bustle and preparation of the train about to depart, to fancy, as she gazed with longing eyes at her brave and gallant Eric, with his lion-like head and curling locks of golden hair, that she might never look on her sailor laddie's merry, loving face any more; and, tears dropped from the widow's eyes as she drew him towards her, clasping him to her, as if she could not bear to let him go. "Come, mother," said Fritz, after a moment's interval. "Time is up! The guard is calling out for the passengers to take their seats. Eric, old fellow, good-bye, and God bless you! You will write to the mother and me from every port you touch at?" "Aye, surely," said the boy, a sob breaking his voice and banishing the mannish composure which he had tried to maintain to the last. "Good- bye, Fritz; you'll take care of mother?" "Don't you fear, that will I, brother!" was the answer in those earnest tones which Fritz always used when he was making a promise and giving his word to anything he undertook--a word which he never broke. "And now, good-bye, mutterchen, my own darling little mother," said Eric, clasping his mother in a last clinging hug; "you'll never forget me, but will keep strong and well till I come back." "I will try, my child, with God's help," sobbed out the poor lady. "But, may He preserve you and bring you back safe to my arms! Good-bye, my darling. You must never forget Him or me; my consolation in your absence will be that your prayers will ascend to heaven along with mine." "You may trust me, mother, indeed you may. Good-bye, little mother! God bless you, mutterchen! Good-bye!" cried out the sailor lad from the carriage window; and then, the train moved off, puffing and panting out of the station, leaving Fritz and his mother standing on the platform, and waving their handkerchiefs in farewell to Eric, who was as busily engaged gesticulating, with his hat in one hand and in the other a newspaper that his brother had brought him, shouting out, `Lebewohl!'--a sobbing farewell it was--for the last time, and still waving adieux when his voice failed him! "Never mind, my mother," said Fritz softly, giving his arm to the heart- stricken lady, and leading her away with tender care from the railway station to their now sadly bereaved home. "Cheer up, and hope, mutterchen! You have a son still left you, who will never desert you or quit his post of looking after you, till Eric, the dear boy, comes back." "I know, my son, I know your love and affection," replied Madame Dort, pressing his arm to her side affectionately; "but, who can tell what the future may have in store for us? Ah, it's a wise proverb that, dear son, which reminds us that `man proposes, but God disposes!'" "It is so," murmured Fritz, more to himself than to her; "still, I trust we'll all meet again beneath the old roof-tree." "And I the same, from the bottom of my heart!" said his mother, in cordial sympathy with his wish, as she began to ascend the steps leading up to her dwelling; while Fritz returned to the counting-house of his employer, Herr Grosschnapper, to finish those duties which had been interrupted by his having to see Eric off. CHAPTER TWO. A THUNDERCLAP! It was late in the autumn when Eric left Lubeck on his way to Rotterdam, where he was to go on board the good ship _Gustav Barentz_, bound on a trading voyage to the eastern isles of the Indian Ocean; and, as the year rolled on, bringing winter in its train--a season which the Dort family had hitherto always hailed with pleasure on account of its festive associations--the hours lagged with the now sadly diminished little household in the Gulden Strasse; for, the merry Christmas-tide reminded them more than ever of the absent sailor boy, who had always been the very life and soul of the home circle, and the eagerly sought- for guest at every neighbourly gathering. "It does not seem at all the same now the dear lad is away on the seas," said old Lorischen, the whilom nurse, and now part servant, part companion of Madame Dort. "Indeed, I cannot fancy him far-distant at all. I feel as if he were only just gone out skating on the canal, and that we might expect him in again at any moment!" "Ah, I miss him every minute of the day," replied Madame Dort, who was sitting on one side of the white porcelain stove that occupied a cosy corner of the sitting-room, facing the old nurse, who was busily engaged knitting a pair of lambs-wool stockings on the other. "It is now--aye, just two months since the dear lad left us," continued Lorischen, "and we've never had a line from him yet. I hope no evil has befallen the ship!" "Oh, don't say such a thing as that," said Madame Dort nervously. "The vessel has a long voyage to make, and would only touch at the Cape of Good Hope on her way; so we cannot expect to hear yet. I wonder at you, Lorischen, alarming me with your misgivings! I am sure I am anxious enough already about poor Eric." "Ach himmel! I meant no harm, dear lady," rejoined the other; "but, when one has thoughts, you know, they must find vent, and I've been dreaming of him the last three nights. I do wish he were safe back again. The house is not itself without him." "You are not the only one that thinks that," said Madame Dort. "Why, even the very birds that come to be fed at the gallery window miss him! They won't take their bread crumbs from my hand as they used to do last winter from his; you remember how tame they were, and how they would hop on his shoulder when he opened the window and called them?" "Aye, that do I, well! He was a kind lad to bird and beast alike. There is my old cat, which another boy would have tormented according to the nature of all boys where poor cats are concerned; but Eric loved it, and petted it like myself! Many a time I see Mouser looking up at that model of his ship there, blinking his eyes as if he knew well where the young master is, for cats have deeper penetration than human folk give them credit for. I heard him miaow-wowing this morning; and, when I went to look for him, there he was on the top of the stove, if you please, gazing up at the little ship, with his tail up in the air as stiff as a hair-brush! I couldn't make it out at all, and that's what made me so thoughtful to-day about the dear lad, especially as I'd dreamt of him, too." "My dear Lorischen, you absurd creature," laughed out Madame Dort. "I'm glad you said that. Don't you know what was old Mouser's grievance? Was I not close behind you at the time the cat was making the noise, and did not Burgher Jans' dog rush out of the room as the door was opened? Of course, Mouser got on the stove to be out of his way, and that was why you thought he was speaking in cat language to poor Eric's little model ship. What a superstitious old lady you are, to be sure!" "Ah well, you may think so, and explain it away, madame," said Lorischen, in no way convinced; "but I have my beliefs all the same; and I think that cat knows more than you and I do. Dear, dear! There, I declare it is snowing again. What a Christmas we will have, and how the dear lad would have enjoyed it, eh?" "Yes, that he would," rejoined the other. "He did love to watch the snowflakes come down, and talk of longing to see an Arctic winter; but I hope it will not fall so heavily as to block the railway, and prevent us from getting any letters." "I hope not," replied Lorischen sympathisingly. "That would be a bad look-out, especially at Christmas time! Look, the roof of the Marien Kirche is covered already: what must it not be in the open country!" The old town presented a very different aspect now to what it had done when Madame Dort had walked by Eric's side to the railway station, for the red tiles of the houses were hidden from view by the white covering which now covered the face of nature everywhere--the frozen canal ways and river, with the ice-bound ships along the quays and the tall poplar trees and willows on the banks, as well as the streets and market-place, being thickly powdered, like a gigantic wedding-cake, with snow-dust; while icicles hung pendent, as jewels, from the masts of the vessels and the boughs of the trees alike, and from the open-work galleries of the market hall and groined carvings of the archways and outside staircases that led to the upper storeys of the ancient buildings around. These latter glittered in every occasional ray of sunshine that escaped every now and then from the overhanging clouds, flashing out strange radiant shades of colouring to light up the monotonous tone of the landscape. Madame Dort rose from her chair and went to the window where she remained for some little time watching the fast descending flakes that came down in never-ceasing succession. "I'm afraid it is going to be a very heavy fall," said she presently, after gazing at the scene around in the street below. Then, lifting her eyes, she noticed that the heavy mass of snow-clouds on the horizon had now crept up to the zenith, totally obscuring the sun, and that the wind had shifted to the north-east--a bad quarter from whence to expect a change at that time of year. "But, dear me, there is Fritz! I wonder what brings him home so early to-day?" she exclaimed again after another pause. "See," she added, "the dear child! He has got something white in his hand, and is waving it as he comes up the stairway. It's a letter, I'm sure; and it must be from Eric!" Old Lorischen bounced out of her chair at this announcement and was at the door of the room almost as soon as her mistress; but, before either could touch the handle, it was opened from without, and Fritz came into the apartment. "Hurrah, mother!" he shouted out in joyful tones. "Here's news from Eric at last! A letter in his own dear handwriting. I have not opened it yet; but it must have been put on board some passing vessel homewards bound, as it is marked `ship's letter,' and I've had to pay two silbergroschen for it. Open it and read, mother dear; I'm so anxious to hear what our boy says." With trembling hands Madame Dort tore the envelope apart, and soon made herself mistress of the contents of the letter. It was only a short scrawl which the sailor lad had written off hurriedly to take advantage of the opportunity of sending a message home by a passing ship, as his brother had surmised--Eric not expecting to have been able to forward any communication until the vessel reached the Cape; and, the stranger only lying-to for a brief space of time to receive the despatches of the _Gustav Barentz_, he could merely send a few hasty lines, telling them that he was well and happy, although he missed them all very much, and sending his "dearest love" to his "own little mother" and "dear brother Fritz," not forgetting "darling, cross old Lorischen," and the "cream- stealing Mouser." "Just hear that, the little fond rascal!" exclaimed the worthy old nurse, when Madame Dort read out this postscript. "To think of his calling me cross, and accusing Mouser of stealing; it is just like his impudence, the rogue! I only wish he were here now, and I would soon tell him a piece of my mind." Eric added that they had had a rough passage down the North Sea, his vessel having to put into Plymouth, in the English Channel, for repairs; and that, as she was a bad sailer, they expected to be much longer on the voyage than had been anticipated. He said, too, that if the wind was fair, the captain did not intend to stop at the Cape, unless compelled to call in for provisions and water, but to push on to Batavia so as not to be late for the season's produce. He had overheard him telling the mate this, and now informed those at home of the fact that they might not be disappointed at not receiving another letter from him before he reached the East Indies, which would be a most unlikely case, unless they had the lucky chance of communicating a second time with a homeward-bound ship--a very improbable contingency, vessels not liking to stop on their journey and lay-to, except in answer to a signal of distress or through seeing brother mariners in peril. "So, you see," said Madame Dort, as soon as she had reached the end of the sheet, "we must not hope to hear from the dear boy again for some time, and can only trust that all will go well with him on the voyage!" She heaved a heavy sigh from the bottom of her mother's heart as she spoke, and her face looked sad again, like it had been before Eric's letter came. "Yes, that's right enough, mutterchen," answered Fritz hopefully; "but, you can likewise see that Providence has watched over our Eric so far, in preserving him safely, and there is now no reason for our feeling any alarm on his account. We shall hear from him in the spring, without doubt, telling us of his safe arrival at Java, and saying what time we may look forward to expecting him home. At any rate, this dear letter comes welcome enough now, and it will enable us to have a happier Christmas-tide than we should otherwise have passed." "Ach, that it does," put in old Lorischen, beginning again to bustle about the room with all her former zest in making preparations for the coming festival, which her melancholy forebodings about Eric and superstitious, fears anent the cat's colloquy in the morning had somewhat interrupted: "we shall have a right merry Christmas in spite of the dear lad's absence. We must remember that he will be with us in spirit, at least, and it would grieve him if we were down-hearted!" This wise reflection of the old nurse, coupled with Fritz's hopeful words, appeared to have a cheering influence on Madame Dort, whom many trials had made rather more despondent than could have been expected from her bright, handsome face, which did not seem sometimes to have ever known what sorrow was; although, like Eric's, it exhibited for the moment every passing mood, so that those familiar with her disposition could almost read her very thoughts, her nature being so open. Banishing her gloom away, apparently by the mere effort of will, she now proceeded to assist Lorischen in getting the room decorated for the Christmas Eve feast, of which all partook with more merriment and content than the little household in the Gulden Strasse had known since the sailor boy left. Nay, it seemed to them, happy with the tidings of his safety and well-being, that Eric was there too in their midst; for they drank his health before separating for the night, and his mother, when placing the surprise presents, which were to tell the members of the family in the morning that they had not been overlooked in the customary distribution of those little gifts that form the most pleasing remembrances of the festive season in Germany, did not omit also to fill the stocking which Eric had suspended from the head of his bedstead before leaving--he having laughingly said that he expected to find it chock-full when he returned home in time for the next Christmas feast, as he was certain that Santa Claus would never be so unkind as to forget him because he chanced to be away and so missed his turn in the usual visit of the benevolent patron of the little ones! Time passed on at Lubeck, the same as it does everywhere else. The year turned and the months flew by. Winter gave place to spring, when the adamantine chains with which the ice-king had bound the rivers and waters of the north were loosed asunder by the mighty power of the exultant sun; the snow melted away from the earth, which decked itself in green to rejoice at its freedom, smiling in satisfaction with flowers; while the trees began to clothe their ragged limbs and branches in dainty apparel, and the birds to sing at the approach of summer. June came, when Madame Dort had fully expected to hear of Eric's arrival at Batavia; but the month waned to its close without any letter coming to gladden the mother's heart again, nor was there any news to be heard of the good ship _Gustav Barentz_ in the commercial world--not a single telegram having been received to report her having reached her destination, nor was there any mention of her having been seen and signalled by some passing vessel, save that time when she was met off the Cape de Verde Islands in the previous November. It began to look ominous! But, while Madame Dort was filled with apprehension as to the fate of her younger son, a sudden conjuncture of circumstances almost made her forget Eric. This was, the unexpected summons of Fritz from her side, to battle with the legions of Germany against the threatened invasion of "the Fatherland" by France. At the time, it looked sudden enough. A little cloud, no bigger than a man's hand, had arisen on the horizon of European politics, which, each moment, grew blacker and more portentous; and, in a brief while, it burst into a war that deluged the vine-clad slopes of Rhineland and the fair plains of Lorraine with blood and fire, making havoc everywhere. Now, however, looking back on all the events of that terrible struggle and duly weighing the surroundings and impelling forces leading up to it, allowing also for all temporary excuses and pretexts, and admitting all that can be said for partisanship on either side, there can be no use in blinking at the pregnant fact that the real cause of the war arose from a desire to settle whether the French or the Germans were the strongest in sheer brute force--just in the same way as two men, or boys, fight with nature's weapons in a pugilistic encounter to strive for the mastery, thus indulging in passions which they share with the beasts of the field! The long, steady, complete preparation for war on each side shows that this very simple and intelligible motive was at the bottom of it all; and it is pitiable to think, for the sake of human nature, when recapitulating the history of this fearful conflict of fifteen years ago which caused such misery and murderous loss of life, that two of the most polished, advanced, educated, and representative nations of Europe at that time should not have apparently attained a higher code of civilised morality than that adopted by the natives of Dahomey--one, ruled over by the blood-stained fetish of human sacrifice! As the world advances, looking at the matter in this light, we seem to have exchanged one sort of barbarism for another, and the present one appears almost the worse of the two, by the very reason of its being mixed up with so much scientific advancement, cultural refinement, and the higher development of man. It is like the old devil returning and bringing with him seven other devils more powerful for evil than their original prototype, this prostitution of learning, intellect, and philosophy to the most debasing influences of human nature! These thoughts, however, did not affect either Fritz or his mother at the time. Not being the only son of a widow, in which case he might have been exempted from service, Fritz, when he had reached his eighteenth year, had been compelled to join the ranks of the national army; and, after completing the ordinary course of drill, had been relegated to the Landwehr and allowed to return home to his civic occupation. But, when the order was promulgated throughout the German empire to mobilise the vast human man-slaying machine which General Moltke and Prince Bismark had constructed with such painstaking care that units could be multiplied into tens, and tens into hundreds, and hundred into thousands--swelling into a gigantic host of armed men almost at a moment's notice, ready either to guard the frontier from invasion, or to hurl its resistless battalions on the hated foe whose defeat had been such a long-cherished dream--the young clerk received peremptory orders to join the headquarters of the regiment to which he was attached. The very place and hour at which he was to report himself to his commanding officer were named in the general order forwarded along with his railway pass, so comprehensive were the details of the Prussian military organisation. This latter so thoroughly embraced the entire country after the absorption of the lesser states on the collapse of Koniggratz, that each separate individual could be moved at any given moment to a certain defined point; while the instructions for his guidance were so complete and perfect, that they could not fail to be understood. Fritz had to proceed, in the first instance, to the capital city of his state, Hanover, now no longer a kingdom, but only a small division of the great empire into which it was incorporated. For him there was no chance of evasion or getting out of the obligation to serve, for the whilom "kingdom" having withstood to the last during the six weeks' war the onward progress to victory of the all-devouring Prussians, her citizens would be at once suspected of disloyalty on the least sign of any defection. Besides, a keen official eye was kept on the movements of all Hanoverians, their patriotism to the newly formed empire being diligently nourished by a military rule as stern and strict as that of Draco. "Oh, my boy, my firstborn! and must I lose thee too?" exclaimed Madame Dort, when Fritz made her acquainted with the news of his summons to headquarters. "Truly Providence sees fit to afflict me for my sins, to try me with this fresh calamity!" "Pray do not take such a sombre view of my departure, dear mother," said Fritz. "Why, probably, in a month's time I will be back again in old Lubeck; for, I'm sure, we'll double up the French in a twinkling." "Ah, my child, you do not know what a campaign is, yet! The matter will not be settled so easily as you think. War is a terrible thing, and the Prussians may not be able to crush the whole power of the French nation in the same way in which they conquered Austria and Saxony, and subdued our own little state four years ago." "But, mother recollect, that now we shall be fighting all together for the Fatherland," said Fritz, who like most young Germans was well read in his country's history, and to him the remembrance of the old war time, when Buonaparte trampled over central Europe, was as fresh as if it were only yesterday. "We've long been waiting for this day, and it has come at last! Besides, dear mutterchen, you forget that the Landwehr, to which I belong, will only act as a reserve, and will not probably take any part in the fighting--worse luck!" He added the latter words under his breath, for it was not so long since he had abandoned his barrack-room life for him to have lost the soldierly instincts there implanted into him; and, truth to say, he longed for the strife, the summons to arms making him "sniff the battle from afar like a young war-horse!" The French declaration of war and the proclamation of the German emperor had roused the people throughout the country into a state of patriotic frenzy; so that, from the North Sea to the Danube, from the Rhine to the Niemen, the summons to meet the ancient foe was responded to with an alacrity and devotion which none who witnessed the stirring scenes of that period can ever forget. Fritz was no less eager than his comrades; and, considerably within the interval allowed him for preparation, he and the others of his corps living in the same vicinity were on their way to Hanover. This second parting with another of her children almost wrung poor Madame Dort's heart in twain; but, like the majority of German mothers at the time, she sent off her son, with a blessing, "to fight for his country, his Fatherland"; for, noble and peasant alike, every wife and mother throughout the length and breadth of the land seemed to be infected with the patriotism of a Roman matron. Madame Dort would be second to none. "Good-bye, my son," she said, "be brave, although I need hardly tell your father's son that, and do your duty to God and your country!" "I will, mother; I will," said Fritz, giving her a last kiss, as the train rolled away with him out of the station to the martial strains of "Der Deutsche Vaterland," which a band was playing on the platform in honour of the young recruits going to the war. The widow had to-day no son left to support her steps homeward to the desolate house in the Gulden Strasse, now bereaved of her twin hopes, Fritz and Eric both; only old Lorischen was by her side, and she felt sadly alone. "Both gone, both gone!" she murmured to herself as she ascended the outside stairway that led to her apartments in the upper part of the house. "It will be soon time for me to go, too!" "Ach nein, dear mistress," said the faithful servant and friend who was now the sole companion left to share the deserted home. "What would become of me in that case, eh? We will wait and watch for the truants in patience and hope. They'll come back to us again in God's good time; and they will be all the more precious to us by their being taken from us now. Himmel! mistress, why we've lots of things to do to get ready for their return!" CHAPTER THREE. GRAVELOTTE. The actual declaration of war by France against Germany was not made until the 15th of July, 1870, reaching Berlin some four days later; but, for some weeks prior to that date, there is not the slightest doubt that both sides were busily engaged in mobilising their respective armies and making extensive preparations for a struggle that promised at the outset to be "a war to the knife"--the cut-and-dried official announcement of hostilities only precipitating the crisis and bringing matters to a head, so to speak. On the general order being given throughout the states of the Empire to place the national army on a war footing, in a very few days the marvellous system by which the German people can be marshalled for battle, "each tribe and family according to its place, and not in an aggregate of mere armed men," was in full operation throughout the land; and, under the influence of fervid zeal, of well-tested discipline, and of skilful arrangement, the Teuton hosts became truly formidable. From the recruiting ground allotted to it, each separate battalion speedily called in its reserves, expanding into full strength, the regiments so formed being at once arrayed into divisions and corps under proved commanders, furnished with every appliance which modern military science deemed necessary. These battalions composed the first line of defence for the Fatherland; while behind them, to augment the regular troops, again following out local distinctions and keeping up "the family arrangement," the Landwehr stood in the second line; the additional reserve of the Landsturm--yet to be called out in the event of fresh levies being required for garrisoning the fortresses with this militia force, so as to enable the trained soldiery to move onward and fill up the casualties of the campaign--forming a third line of defence. These gigantic masses were organised with the celerity and precision of clockwork, and then sent forward westward, perfectly equipped--in the highest sense a national army, being over four hundred thousand strong! Day after day, up to the end of July, the different railway lines of Germany bore the mighty host onward to the banks of the Rhine in endless succession of train-loads. Mass after mass of armed men, duly supplied with all the material of war, advanced rapidly, yet in due pre-arranged order, to the points selected for their gathering; while, in the meantime, the fortresses along the line of the river, where the first French attack was expected to be made, were put in a proper state of defence, and now, with strong garrisons, repaired works, ditches filled, and ramparts crowned with Krupp cannon, were prepared to defy the invader. By the first week of August three great armies had taken possession of the strip of territory, lying between the lower stream of the Moselle and the Rhine, which had for centuries been a battlefield between the German and French races, and which was now to witness fighting on a scale which put every previous campaign into the shade. The first army, under the veteran General Steinmetz, who had won his spurs at Waterloo, had been moved from the north down the valley of the Moselle and along the railway from Bingen, with its headquarters at the strongly fortified town of Coblentz. The second, or "central army," under Prince Frederick Charles, "the Red Prince," as his enthusiastic soldiers styled him, occupied Mannheim and Mayence, guarding the Vosges, through which was the principal avenue to the heart of the coveted Rhineland provinces; while the third army, under the Crown Prince of Prussia, who, as is well-known, is married to our own "Princess Royal," had its headquarters at Landau, where also the Baden and Wurtemberg contingents had to rendezvous. "The ball was opened"--to use the light-hearted expression of a French journalist in describing the commencement of the murderous struggle for supremacy between the two nations--at Saarbruck on the 2nd of August, 1870, when the late ill-fated Prince Imperial of France received his "baptism of fire"; but the first real engagement of the war did not occur till two days later, at Weissembourg, this being succeeded by the terrible battle of Woerth on the 6th of the month, when the German army under the Crown Prince of Prussia crumpled up the forces of Mcmahon, and thus effectually disposed of the previously much-vaunted superiority of the French military system, with its chassepot rifle and mitrailleuse. With these initial victories of Germany we have not much to do, however; for Fritz belonged to the Hanoverian division, which formed one of the units of the Tenth Army Corps, under the command of Steinmetz, which did not come into action until later on. On joining his regiment at headquarters, our young recruit from Lubeck, hastily summoned to exchange the pen and desk of a Dutch merchant's counting-house for the needle-gun and camp of the soldier, discovered to his great joy, that, instead of having to go through the tedious routine of garrison duty--which he had expected would have mainly composed his experiences of the war--the French invasion of Rhineland had so suddenly collapsed, that the Teuton forces, which had been assembled for the original purpose of defending the native soil, were now able to take the offensive and in their turn invade the territory of the foe; and, thus, he would be able to see active service on the field. This was a consummation dearly desired on his part, for he was young and ardent; although, perhaps, the order to go forwards was not quite so much relished by some of his comrades, who were married men and preferred the quiet of their home fireside to the many risks and discomforts of a campaign, which, at the beginning, they did not look upon so hopefully as their leaders. "Hurrah!" he exclaimed one morning at Coblentz, when the division in which he served was paraded on the Platz in heavy marching order, the men hurriedly falling into the ranks. "No more sentry rounds now and guard-mounting; we're off to Paris!" "Don't you crow too loudly, my young bantam," said a veteran near him; "we'll have a long march first, and then perhaps one of those confounded chassepot bullets we've heard so much of will put you feet foremost, in a way you won't like!" "Bah!" replied Fritz; "I'll run the chance of that. Anything is better than stopping here kicking our heels in this old town, while our brothers are gaining laurels in the battlefield!" "Ach, mein lieber," said the other; "wait till you've seen a little of the reality of war, the same as I did four years ago at Sadowa; you'll then think differently. It all looks very well now, with your smart new uniform and bright helmet; but, when the one is ragged with bayonet cuts and bloody and dirty, and the other doesn't preserve you from a leaden headache, you will prefer, like me, barrack life--aye, even in Coblentz!" "Hush there! order in the ranks!" sang out an officer at this moment, stopping Fritz's answer; and, the word of command being presently given to march, the conversation was not renewed. After the fearful loss they had suffered at Woerth, which battle was followed up by the sanguinary defeat of Frossard at Forbach, to the left of their line, on the same day, the French fell back on Metz as their rallying point, hoping by means of the vast entrenched camp there and its facilities of communication with Chalons and Verdun, to be able to make a stand against the enemy, now pressing them so sore. Military critics say that this was the greatest mistake made by the Emperor Napoleon's advisers; and that, had the forces under Bazaine retreated farther to the west--after throwing a sufficient garrison into Metz-- they might have been able to effect a junction with the defeated army of Mcmahon, which that general was withdrawing into the interior and from which they were now completely cut off. Be that as it may, however, during this interval of inactivity, when the shattered fragments of the magnificent French army--which had so proudly assumed the offensive but a bare fortnight before along the frontiers of the Rhine--were idling away precious moments that were fraught with peril and disaster to the Gallic race, the huge German masses, animated by a sense of victory and the consciousness of a superiority in arms as well as in numbers, were sweeping forward like a whirlwind of destruction. The Crown Prince, who had routed Mcmahon at Woerth and driven the wedge in that separated him from Bazaine, continued his onward march on the left of the German line through the passes of the Vosges into the fertile plains of Champagne. At the same time, Prince Frederick Charles, with the main portion of the second army, had crossed the Moselle at Pont-a-Mousson; and, moving northwards, was already in a position to threaten the line of the French retreat on Verdun, while the remainder of the Red Prince's forces were advancing to the eastward of Metz. The columns, too, of Steinmetz, moving with mathematical regularity at an equal rate of progression, were also being echelonned along the northern face of the fortress, just within striking distance. To put it concisely, some two hundred and fifty thousand unbeaten German soldiers, with an artillery numbering over eight hundred guns, almost surrounded the stronghold of Lorraine and the far weaker and partly demoralised force which the French had gathered together beneath its walls, only, as it turned out subsequently, to court defeat and annihilation. It was not until the 14th of August that the series of battles that were to rage round Metz, began. Early in the morning of that day--apparently for the first time struck with an apprehension of having his retreat on Chalons by way of Verdun interfered with and his communications with his base of supply cut off, thus appreciating his critical position only when it was too late to remedy it--the French Marshal commenced crossing the Moselle with his vanguard. The entire body of troops, however, did not reach the river; for, three corps, which had been encamped to the eastward of the fortress, delayed their departure until the afternoon--a tardiness that enabled Steinmetz to attack their rear and detain them on the spot, until the flanking movement of Prince Frederick Charles' army beyond the Moselle towards Pont-a-Mousson had been completed. A bloody and indecisive action was the result, in which, if the Germans did not gain a victory, they succeeded in accomplishing their object--that of detaining the French troops before Metz, until their retreat on Verdun should be impossible of achievement. On the 16th occurred the battle of Vionville; and, two days later, that of Gravelotte, the bloodiest contest that took place between the opposing forces throughout the entire war--the first general engagement, too, in which our friend Fritz really "smelt powder" and became an active participant. The rough skirmishing work which some of the divisions of the army corps under Steinmetz had already had, during the intervening days since the 14th, somewhat prepared the soldiers of the Waterloo veteran for butchery. They could plainly perceive from his tactics that their general was one who would spare no sacrifice of human life in order to gain his end and defeat the enemy. The corpses piled high on the field of Vionville of the Cuirassiers and Ziethen Hussars, who had been ordered to charge batteries of artillery in Balaclava fashion, afforded proof enough of that; and the men said, with a laugh and a shrug of the shoulders, "Ah, yes; we're going to have a warm time of it now with `Old Blood and Iron,' we are!" And they had! Fritz had barely dropped to sleep on the evening of the 17th, when, towards midnight, he was aroused by the wild music of military trumpets, blown apparently from every bivouac in his neighbourhood for miles round. "Who goes there?" he exclaimed, raising himself up on his elbow, but half awake and dreaming he was on sentry duty. "Rouse up! rouse up!" shouted a comrade in his ear, and then he recollected all at once where he was. As he sprang to his feet, the noise throughout the camp told without further explanation that an important crisis was at hand, for the measured tramp of marching battalions pulsated the ground like the beat of a muffled drum, while above this sound could be heard the roll of wheels and dragging of gun limbers, and the ringing of horses' hoofs, all swelling into a perfect roar of sound. Bazaine, having been driven back from the forward positions his army had attained on the Verdun and Etain roads, in its progress of retreat towards Chalons, by the intervention of the German forces, now sought a fresh vantage-ground during the brief respite allowed by his enemy--one, that is, where he would be able not only to offer a determined resistance, but also retain his lines of retreat; and whence, if victorious, he might be able to break forth and make good his intended movement on Chalons. Such a position he found in the range of uplands, which, intersected at points by ravines, with brooks and difficult ground in front and with belts of wood in the near distance, extends from the village of Gravelotte on the north-east to Privat-la-Montaigne, beyond the road that runs from Metz to the whilom German frontier; and, throughout the whole of the previous day the Marshal had been busily engaged in stationing his troops along this line collecting every means of defence which could add to its natural strength. The arrangements of Bazaine certainly gave proof on this occasion of that tactical skill for which he had previously been renowned. The French left, occupying Gravelotte at the junction of the roads from Verdun and Etain and thence extended along the high-road to Metz, held a range of heights, with a wood beneath, which commanded all the neighbouring approaches. This position, besides, was protected in front by lines of entrenchments, with rifle-pits and a formidable display of artillery; and, shielded in its rear by the heavily armed fort of Saint Quentin, might well-nigh be considered impregnable. Bazaine's centre, although not so strongly placed, had also the advantage of rising ground; and, the right of the line was equally protected by natural and artificial means. Along this admirably selected fighting ground the French Marshal posted some hundred thousand men altogether, clinging to Gravelotte with his best troops, and leaving about twenty thousand as a reserve near Metz--thus acting entirely on the defensive. While Bazaine had been making these preparations, the German leaders had not by any means been idle. On the same day that the French Marshal was entrenching himself on his chosen field of battle, the entire force of the second army, under the Red Prince, approaching from Pont-a-Mousson, had come into line; and, in communication with the first army, under old "Blood and Iron" Steinmetz, had completely crossed the French, line of retreat, occupying the Verdun and Etain roads northward from Rezonville to Doncourt, with the remaining corps that had remained to the east of Metz supporting the rear and right flank. Altogether, the German commanders had at least nine army corps in hand; and when the reinforcements were brought up, they could calculate on possessing a force of no less than two hundred and forty thousand men to hurl against their antagonists, thus overmatched at the very outset by at least two to one. The Teuton plan of battle, as subsequently detailed, premised, that, as the French left at Gravelotte was prodigiously strong, making it extremely difficult to carry that position without enormous sacrifices, it would be preferable to move a large part of the army across Bazaine's front, in order to assail and crush his right wing, which was protected in the rear by Metz, and so could not be turned in that direction. It was also decided that, at the same time, a forward attack should be made as a feint on Gravelotte, the German commanders hoping that under the double pressure of a simultaneous onslaught on both its wings, the French army would lose its hold of the Verdun and Etain roads--which of course it was Bazaine's object to secure--when, being driven in under the guns of Metz, his forces would there be isolated and completely cut off from any further action in the campaign. This result, it may be here stated, was ultimately attained, although the turning movement against the right of the French line was found to be impracticable shortly after it was undertaken and had to be given up, the operations of the German host being subsequently confined to an attack in front on the formidable position of Gravelotte--which, with its ridge of hills lined with fortifications and strengthened with rows of rifle-pits that covered the slopes in every direction, overtopping each other like seats in a circus, seemed proof against attack. Marching in the darkness, he knew not whither, by the side of comrades in solid phalanx, Fritz found himself, when morning broke, at the rear of some other battalions that were concealed from the enemy behind a mass of brushwood and scattered forest trees. These grew on an elevated plateau from which a very good view could be obtained of the field of battle, the rising sun lighting up the whole landscape and displaying the beautiful details of the country around, so soon, alas! to be marred by the terrible havoc of battle, bringing fire and ruin and bloodshed in its train. On the left, stretched out like a silver thread amidst the green sheen of the foliage the road leading to Verdun and Paris beyond, lined along its extent with rows of tall poplars planted with mathematical regularity; while a series of pretty villages, each with its own church steeple and surrounded by charming villa residences, only a few hundred yards apart apparently, broke the monotonous regularity of the highway-- Mars la Tour, Florigny, Vionville, Rezonville, Malmaison, and last, though by no means least, Gravelotte, which was in the immediate foreground. On the right were thickly wooded hills; and, far away in the distance, glittered the peaks and pinnacles of Metz, the whole forming a lovely panorama, spread out below in the smiling valley of Lorraine. As Fritz was looking on this scene with mingled feelings, a splendid regiment of uhlans dashed up behind the infantry; and, when they reached the brow of the hill, they broke into a wild hurrah, which almost seemed to thrill their horses, which neighed in chorus. This provoked a responsive echo from the marching battalions on foot; and then, the cavalry galloped forwards. At the same time, distant cannonading could be heard in the neighbourhood of Vionville, and shells were seen bursting in the air around the French positions at Point du Jour, with the smaller puffs of smoke from rifles in action between the trees below. The battle had begun. Bang, bang, went the guns; and soon the cannonade, drawing in closer and closer upon the doomed villages, became a deafening roar, with streams of hurtling missiles shrieking overhead and bursting with a crash at intervals. Masses of men could be perceived winding in and out along the main road and the side lanes like ants, a gap every now and then showing in their ranks when some shot had accomplished its purpose. By twelve o'clock the engagement had become general; although, as yet, it had been only a battle of the guns, which bellowed and hurled destruction on assailant and defender alike--the curious harsh grating sound of the French mitrailleuse being plainly perceptible above the thunder of the cannon and rattle of musketry, "just like the angry growl of a cross dog under a wagon when some one pretends to take away his bone!" as one of the men said. The Ninth Army Corps, composed of Schleswig-Holsteiners, Fritz's compatriots and close neighbours, were the first to come into collision with the enemy's van but soon the Hanoverian artillery had to follow suit; and bye-and-bye, in the main attack on Gravelotte, the infantry became engaged at last, much to the relief of the men, who were bursting with impatience at being allowed to rest idly on their arms when such stirring scenes were being enacted before their eyes. This was not, however, until the French positions in front of Vionville had been carried, a success only achieved late in the afternoon, after the most desperate fighting and when the slaughter-dealing Steinmetz ordered an advance in front of the enemy's defences. A tremendous fire of artillery was first concentrated on the French works, one hundred and twenty guns taking part in the bombardment; and then, after about half an hour's shelling, the leading Prussian regiment dashed up the slopes above Gravelotte. The men were rushing into the very jaws of death; for, when they had got about half-way up, the mitrailleuses opened on them, doing terrible execution at close quarters. The brave fellows, however, pressed on, though they fell literally by hundreds. Indeed, they actually got into the works, and a half battery of four-pounder guns which had followed them up was close in their rear on their way to the crest of the hill, when the French, who had run their mitrailleuses farther back some four hundred yards to avoid capture, opened so deadly a fire that the "forlorn hope" had to retire again down the slope--leaving the guns behind them, for every horse in the battery had been killed or disabled. After this, a mad attempt was made to charge the hill with cavalry, the cuirassiers and uhlans dashing up the road at the French works; but men and horses were mowed down so rapidly that the scattered remnants of these fine squadrons had to retire like the infantry. A third effort was made by another line regiment, the men advancing in skirmishing order, instead of in column like the first pioneers of the attack; but although this attempt was covered by a tremendous artillery fire, it was equally unsuccessful. Some of the men certainly managed to reach the French batteries, but they were then shot down in such numbers by the terrible mitrailleuses that they could not hold their ground. These different episodes of the battle consumed the greater portion of the afternoon, although of course fighting was going on elsewhere along the line. Fritz's battalion was engaged in another part of the field, and in the Bois du Vaux, as well as on the opposite bank of the Moselle, it did good service in crushing in the wing of the French. Here Fritz had an opportunity of distinguishing himself. In charging an entrenched outwork held by the enemy, the captain of his company got struck down by a bullet; when, as no officer remained to take his place, Fritz gallantly seized the sword of the fallen man, leading on his comrades to the capture of the battery, which had been annoying the German reserves greatly by its fire. Fortunately, too, for Fritz, his commanding officer, General Von Voigts-Rhetz, not only noticed his bravery on the occasion, but let him know that it should not be forgotten at headquarters. Meanwhile, the continual bombardment of the French position was maintained, and about half-past six o'clock in the evening a last desperate attack was made on Gravelotte--the outlying farmhouse of La Villette, which was the key to the defence, being especially assailed. The reserve artillery being brought up commenced playing upon the still staunchly guarded slopes with storms of shot and shell; and, presently, the farmhouse was in flames, although the garden was still held by the French, who had crenellated the walls, making it into a perfect redan. A gallant foot regiment then took the lead of the German forces, charging up the deadly slope, followed by a regiment of hussars; when, after more than an hour spent in the most desperate fighting of the day, the French at last began to retire from the entrenchments which they had defended so gallantly up to now, the infantry being protected in their retreat by the murderous mitrailleuses that had so disunited the ranks of their stubborn foes, the hoarse growl of their discharge being yet heard in the distance long after the louder and sharper reports of the guns and howitzers had generally ceased. The evening was now closing in, and soon darkness reigned around, the prevailing gloom being only broken by the fiery path of some bombshell winging its parabolic flight through the air, or the long tongue of fire darting forth from the mouth of a stray cannon; while, in the sky above, the lurid smoke-clouds of burning houses joined with the shades of night in casting a pall over the scene of hideous carnage which the bright day had witnessed, hiding it for ever save from the memories of those who were there and had shared its horrors. The battle of Gravelotte was lost and won; but, to the Germans, the victory was almost akin to a defeat, no less than five-and-twenty thousand of the best troops of the "Fatherland" being either killed or wounded! Fritz escaped scathless through all the perils of the day, in spite, too, of his risking his life most unnecessarily on many occasions in order to see the progress of the fight when his battalion was not in action; but his favourite comrade, the veteran soldier who had fought at Sadowa, received a bullet in his chest, and his life-blood was gradually ebbing away when Fritz, kneeling at his side, asked him if he could do anything for him. "Ah, no," answered the poor fellow; "nobody can do anything for me now! I told you, comrade, to wait till you saw what real war was like. Himmel! Sadowa and '66 were child's play to this here, with the fire of the chassepot and that infernal mitrailleuse! Hurrah, though we've won!" shouted out the veteran in a paroxysm of patriotism; and then, joining in with the chorus of "Die Wacht am Rhein," which a Prussian corps was singing as they marched by, he thus sobbed out his last breath and so died! "His was a patriot soldier's end," said Fritz, as he closed his eyes and covered over his face reverently with his pocket-handkerchief. "Yes, so it was," chimed in the others sententiously. "It is good so to die!" CHAPTER FOUR. AFTER THE BATTLE. During the height of the struggle, Fritz had been carried away by a perfect delirium of excitement, as if in a dream; and what he had done had been done almost unconsciously, in spite of himself, and on the spur of the moment. He had been marched here; marched there; halted; ordered to fire; charged with his comrades; retreated; charged again--all, as it seemed, in one brief second of time! What, with the continuous roar of artillery reverberating through the surrounding hills; the constant ping; pinging and singing of rifle bullets; the rattling discharge of platoon firing; the whirring of heavy shot and shell through the air above the ranks and the bursting every now and then of some huge bomb in their midst, knocking down the men like ninepins and sending up a pyramid of dust and stones, mingled with particles of their arms and clothing, as well as fragments of the torn flesh of some victims, on the missile exploding in a sheet of crackling flame, with a rasping, tearing noise--all combined with the thick sulphureous cloud of gunpowder which hung over the battlefield, half asphyxiating the combatants, whose hoarse cries of rage and hatred could be heard above the noise of the cannon and discharges of musketry, mixed up with the words of command of their different officers, the "_En avant, mes amis_!" of the French, the stern "_Vorwarts_!" of the Germans, and the occasional wild, weird, frenzied scream of some stricken charger echoing shrilly in the distance, like the wail of a lost soul in purgatory--the whole realised a mad riot of destruction and carnival of blood, the essence of whose moving spirit appeared to take possession of each one engaged, rendering him unaccountable for his actions for the time being. Like the rest, Fritz felt the "war fever" upon him. A red mist hovered before his eyes. He smelt blood and longed to spill more. The fumes of brimstone acted on his senses like hasheesh to narcotic smokers. An irresistible impulse urged him forwards. A voice kept crying in his ears, "Kill and slay, and spare not!" This was while the fury of the combat lasted, when the Prussian battalions were hurling their human waves in columns against the rocky defences of Gravelotte, only for them to fall back impotently, like the broken foam and spent wash of billows which have assailed in vain the precipitous peaks of some cliff-defended coast that repels their every attack; when the sharp clash of steel met opposing steel and galloping thud of flying squadrons, urged on with savage oath and triumphant cheer, filled the air; when the gurgling groan of the death-agony and moan of painless pain, made the treble of the devil-music, to the thundering sustained bass of the cannon roar, and the growling arpeggio accompaniment of the mitrailleuse! But, when, after one last fearful combined volley, in which every single piece of ordnance on the field seemed to take part, the hideous turmoil of sound ceased as if by mutual consent. A sort of solemn hush, in company with the night, caused comparative stillness to brood over the scene, in contrast to the pandemoniacal noise that had previously reigned so fiendishly. Then, all of a sudden, Fritz appeared to awake suddenly from a disturbed dream or phantom-haunted night-mare, in which all the powers of evil were tearing at his heart and brain. The war fever, for him, had exhausted its final paroxysm. The red mist had been withdrawn from his eyes. The thirst for blood from his soul. He was himself again; but a strangely altered self, for he felt weak and ill, and as languid and worn-out as if he had just recovered from a fainting fit. It was at this moment that Hermann his comrade had been struck down by a chassepot ball, winging its murderous mission from some unknown point; and when Fritz had sat down by the side of the body, covering over the face of the dead man, he did not seem to feel any desire to live or even to rise up again, he was so utterly powerless and lacking in energy. The majority of his fellow-soldiers appeared, too, to be in the same mood, stretching their weary limbs on the ground in listless apathy, as if caring for nothing; they did not either seem to be affected by hunger or thirst, although it was more than twelve hours since they had broken their fast; the fury of the fight had satiated them, taking away all stamina and appetite. Presently, however, an ambulance detachment, passing by on their merciful errand to seek for the wounded, besought aid; and Fritz, with others, at once sprang up and volunteered assistance to bear away those to whom the surgeon's care could do any good to the field hospitals, where their hurts could be attended to in a general way. The number of wounded men was so great that it was simply impossible for the doctors to hunt after individual cases and treat them properly. The battlefield was now covered by a dense cloud, illuminated at either end of the valley in which it lay by two enormous fires of burning houses. But, above, the stars shone down peacefully from the blue vault of heaven on the terrible picture of carnage below; and, as the smoke of the gunpowder cleared away, the different points of the struggle could be clearly picked out by reason of the heaps of corpses and dead horses, piled beneath overturned cannon and broken limbers, shattered needle- guns and chassepots, all of which were scattered around pell-mell in endless profusion. "Water, water, for the love of God!" was the heartrending cry that proceeded everywhere from yet living men hidden among hecatombs of the slain, as they heard the footsteps of the ambulance corps and their helpers. Really, the task was an endless one, to try to relieve the misery around; for, hardly had one wounded wretch been saved from being buried alive in the mountain of dead under which he writhed, than an appeal for aid was heard in another direction--and yet again another, until the bearers and relief corps themselves became exhausted. Each required forty pairs of hands instead of one! It was terrible work to go over the scene of slaughter in cold blood, with no fever of excitement to blot out the hideous details, now displaying themselves in all their naked reality! Conspicuously, in front of La Villette, were to be seen the white trimmings of the uniforms of the Prussian Imperial Guards; the red trousers of the French line; the shining helmets of the cuirassiers, whose breastplates were all torn and dented with shot, as if they had been ploughed over; while the wind, now rising as the night progressed towards morning, rustled the myriad leaves of white paper that had escaped from out of the French staff carriages, blowing them across the valley, like a flock of sea- gulls fluttering on the bosom of the breeze. As the day broke, the bright beams of the rising sun lit up the field of battle, only to disclose its horrors the more unmistakably. The rays of light, flashing on the exposed sword blades and bayonet points, reflected little radiant gleams of brightness; but, the hands of those who wielded them so valiantly not many hours agone were now cold and cramped in the agony of death, alas! Sad bruised eyes glared out from disfigured faces under torn-open breasts, appearing to look up to where the stars only so recently twinkled down, vainly asking Providence why it had put the lightning into the hands of man for so fell a purpose! Rows of infantry lay dead in perfect order, as if on parade, where the mitrailleuse had mowed them down; whole squadrons of hussars and lancers were heaped up in mass; and, in some of the French rifle-pits, there were more than a thousand corpses piled, the one on top of another with trim regularity, as if carefully arranged so. Blue, red, and yellow uniforms, with the occasional green of the Tyrolean Jager, were mixed together in picturesque confusion along the Verdun road; in fact, the dead and dying were everywhere in such prodigious numbers that the hearts of those seeking out the wounded were appalled. Worse than in the fields were the scenes displayed in the villages and little towns along the white high-road to Metz, the tall poplars that lined it being torn down by the round shot, thus blocking the way. The broken vehicles and baggage wagons that were mingled together in an inextricable mass also added to the obstruction; Malmaison, Vionville, and Rezonville were filled with war victims; and all the surgeons, French as well as German, that could be summoned to help, were as busy as they could possibly be. Carriages and stretchers covered the open places in front of every house, the Red Cross of Geneva being rudely depicted on the doors, with the neutral flag of the society floating above; while pools of blood marked the dressing places of the wounded, the pale white faces of whom looked down in mute misery from the carts in which they were being borne away to the rear to make room for others to be attended to. To complete the picture, those who had died under operation were laid by the roadside until they could be collected bye- and-bye for burial, the living having to be seen to first! Released at length, after toiling through the night and early morning at his voluntary labour, Fritz was able at last to return to the bivouac of the Hanoverians; but, while on his way to camp, he passed one of the most affecting pictures he had yet seen. Hearing the howl of a dog, he turned aside towards a little clump of trees from which the sound seemed to come, and here he came up to a splendid large black retriever, which, with one paw on a dead officer's breast and with his noble head raised to the sky, was baying in that melancholy fashion in which dogs tell their woe on being overcome by grief. Near this little group was an unfortunate horse sitting on its haunches, its hind-quarters having been torn off by the discharge of a shell, or the passage of some conical projectile. The animal was moaning heavily with pain, and looked so appealingly at Fritz out of its large deep eyes, that he raised a revolver which he had picked up on the field and put the poor brute out of its agony. It was a different matter with the dog, however; although he could not persuade the faithful retriever to leave his master's side; and, as it was getting late, and Fritz thought he might be missed and reported as a straggler from his corps, he hurried on to the camping ground of his regiment, promising himself to return later on in the day, if spared from duty, when he would bury the dead body of the officer and take possession of the dog--that is, should no one else have appropriated him in the meantime, as might possibly be the case. He was so worn-out with fatigue, on arrival at the bivouac of the regiment in the Bois du Vaux, that, on finding that his absence was not taken any notice of, he laid himself down by the side of a fire which the men had kindled for cooking their camp kettles; and, although it was a warm summer day, he immediately fell asleep, not waking until late in the afternoon. Then, partaking of some Erbwurst, or "peasoup sausage," which one of his comrades had kindly kept for him, albeit the rations were rather scanty, he felt a new man, and fit for anything; for, the worn-out feeling of exhaustion and nervous horror which had possessed his mind throughout the many hours that elapsed since the close of the fighting on the evening before, being only the effects of over- excitement, had now completely disappeared on his getting rest and refreshment. Indeed, he no longer felt sickened with war. On the contrary, he was quite ready to start into a fresh battle, and that, too, with as eager an impetus as he had plunged into his first engagement. This was not all, either. On the regiment being paraded shortly afterwards in front of its bivouac, the field officer of the day called out "Fritz Dort" a second time, after the names of the men had been run over on the muster roll-- many failing to answer, and having the brief military comment "Dead," or "Missing," placed after their numbers. "Here!" answered Fritz, stepping forwards and saluting the officer in the ordinary routine fashion, wondering what was to come next. "Fritz Dort and men of the 16th Hanoverians," proceeded the major, reading from an official document in his hand, "I am directed by the general commanding the Tenth Army Corps, in the order of the day, to signalise the distinguished gallantry which the said Fritz Dort displayed yesterday in the face of the enemy at the engagement in front of Gravelotte, when, on the falling of the officer leading the company to which he was attached, the said Fritz Dort bravely stepped to the front, and taking his commander's vacant post, led on his men to capture the French battery, which they were detailed to take by storm. For such conspicuously good service in action, the general commanding hereby promotes the said Fritz Dort to be a sub-lieutenant in the same regiment, trusting that, as an officer, he will perform his duty as he has done as a private soldier and meet with the obedience and honour of those with whom he has previously served as a brother comrade, none the less on account of his promotion from the ranks which as one of themselves he has adorned!" A loud "Hurrah!" broke from all the men when the major had finished reading this document; and that officer then shook hands kindly with Fritz, welcoming him cordially to the higher station he had attained. The other subalterns also advanced, doing the same; while, on retiring from the parade, the men of the rank and file, without receiving any order to that effect, gave the young hero a general salute, in token of their respect and recognition of his new dignity as an officer over them. Fritz's heart was bursting with joy at his unexpected promotion. He thought how proud his mother would be to hear of it; but, before writing home by the afternoon field post, as he intended doing, he determined to carry out the promise he had made to himself, and which he held as equally binding as if it had been made in the presence of witnesses--the promise to bury the body of the dead officer which he had come across in the wood, guarded by his faithful dog. "Heinrich!" he called out to the man who, as his whilom comrade, had preserved his rations for him. He forgot for the moment the altered condition of their respective ranks. "Ja, Herr Lieutenant," said Heinrich, much to his surprise, stepping out towards him and saluting, with forefinger to pickelhaube, as straight as a ramrod. "Bother!" exclaimed Fritz, a bit puzzled at first by the inconvenience in some ways of his exaltation in rank. There was some difficulty at first in accommodating himself to his new position. "Never mind my being an officer for awhile, friend Heinrich," he explained to his whilom comrade--"the dignity can keep without harming it until we are again on duty together, when I promise to remember it to all your advantage; for you've been good fellows to me, one and all! I want you now to help me, friend Heinrich, in a sad commission; so, I rely upon your assistance from our old brotherly feelings when together--not because I ask you as your superior. Get a pickaxe and spade from one of the pioneers and come with me. I'm going to bury a poor fellow who has fallen over there, whose fate has attracted my sympathy." Fritz pointed, as he spoke, to the wood where the dead man lay. "With right good pleasure, Herr Lieutenant," said the other in a cheerful tone of voice, with great alacrity of manner, saluting again as before. As a soldier, he knew his place too well to take a liberty with an officer, even if a newly-made one, and with his own permission! The German, or rather Prussian, system was and is very strict on such points. "Oh, bother!" ejaculated Fritz again, between his teeth. "The idea of helping to bury a man `with right good pleasure'!" He could not help smiling at the ludicrous association with so grave a subject, as he unconsciously mimicked the soldier's simple speech. "Poor dear old fellow, though," thought he a moment afterwards, "he doesn't know what a funny phrase he used." In a minute or two the man returned with the required articles; when he and Fritz set off towards the wood, the latter leading the way, and Heinrich following close behind in single file. On reaching the spot which he had marked, Fritz found that no one had apparently been there in his absence, for the dog was still on guard over his master's corpse, although he was now lying across the body, and had ceased his melancholy howl. When he approached the animal wagged his bushy tail, as if in recognition of having seen Fritz before. "Poor fellow!" said Fritz; "come here, old man! We're here to put your master in his last home, and you must not prevent us. We will treat him very tenderly." The dog looked up in his face, as if he understood what his new friend said; and, crawling off from the officer's body, he came to Fritz and licked his hand, holding up the while one paw, which was bleeding as if from a cut. "He is wounded," said Heinrich, stooping down. "Yes," answered Fritz, examining the poor paw, much apparently to the dog's satisfaction. "It's from a piece of shell, probably the same that settled the horse there; but it's not a bad wound, and will soon get well, doggie!" So saying, lifting up the injured member gently, he began to bind it round with a piece of lint which he had in his pocket, the retriever keeping perfectly quiet, as if knowing that no injury was intended him. Fritz then proceeded to open the dead officer's jacket, in order to search for any papers or articles of value, which he might keep and forward to his relatives. Previously, the dog would not allow him to touch the body at all, but now he did not offer any objection, so Fritz turned out all the pockets. He could discover no paper, however, nor any trace of identity. The only token he could find was a little silver ring wrapped in a small piece of paper, inscribed, "From my beloved, 18th July, 1870." This was carefully enclosed in a little bag of silk, and suspended by a ribbon round the poor young fellow's neck, resting on the cold and lifeless spot where his heart once used to beat. "A love gage," said Heinrich sympathisingly. "Ah, yes," replied Fritz; "and the poor girl will, I suppose, continue to look out for him, hoping to see him again, while he lies here in a nameless tomb! Never mind, I will keep the token and the dog; perhaps I may discover her and his friends some day through them. Now, let us make the grave quickly, comrade, and commit him to his rest!" In silence the two then dug a low trench in the soil beneath the tree where the officer had found his death, and then reverently laid him in it. He had died calmly from the effects of a bullet which must have penetrated his brain, as only a small blue orifice was to be seen in the centre of his forehead; and a smile was on his handsome young face, as if no painful thought had vexed his last moment. During the sad obsequies, the dog kept close to the side of Fritz, watching attentively everything that was done, without stirring or uttering a sound, save when they shovelled the earth on his poor master's breast. He then gave vent to a short, angry bark; but, on Fritz speaking to him soothingly, he again became quiet, remaining so to the end, when he laid down on the newly-made grave, with a deep, low whine that was almost a sigh, that seemed to come from the bottom of his faithful canine heart! From a piece of broken wood close by, Fritz then carved a rude cross, which he fixed in the ground at the head of the poor young fellow's last resting-place, inscribing on it the words: "To a French officer. Peace to his remains. The grave knows no enmities! 18th August, 1870." The date on this unknown victim's grave was exactly one month later than that on which he must have parted from his sweetheart. What a strange fatality, pondered Fritz and his companion, that one who had probably been so much loved and cared for, should be indebted for the last friendly offices which man or woman could render him--to strangers! "May he rest in peace!" said Fritz, uncovering his head as he turned away, and then putting on his helmet again. "So, too, I wish," echoed Heinrich. "We can do no more for him, poor youth!" "No," said Fritz; "we'd better go now. Come on, old fellow!" he added, with a whistle to the retriever, who, wise dog that he was, seeing he could do no further good to the one to whom he had been faithful in life and watched in death as long as he was able, now answered the call of the new friend whom Providence had sent him. Without any demur he returned with Fritz and Heinrich to the Hanoverian camp, following close behind the heels of the former, as if recognising him as his master in the place of him whom he had lost. Fritz christened this treasure trove of the battlefield "Gelert"; and like that trusty hound of old, the animal became known to all the men in a very short while. He was formally adopted, indeed, as the pet of the regiment, besides coming in for Fritz's own special care, being known even to the general in command of the division as "the dog of the sub- lieutenant of Gravelotte." CHAPTER FIVE. BAD NEWS. If it had seemed dull and lonely in the little household of the Gulden Strasse at Lubeck after Eric had gone to sea, how much more so was it not to the two sad women left alone to console each other when Fritz, also, had departed from home! For days, Madame Dort appeared borne down by a weight of woe, and even Lorischen lost that customary cheeriness with which she usually performed her daily duties in her endeavours to console her mistress. Mouser, too, went miaow-wowing about the house at nights, as if he likewise shared in the family despondency--not once being caught in the act of stealing the breakfast cream, a predilection for which had hitherto been an abnormal failing on his part. So changed, indeed, became the old cat that he did not possess spirit enough to put up his tail and "phit" and "fiz" at Burgher Jans' terrier, when that predatory animal made an occasional excursion into the parlour at meal times, to see what he could pick up, either on the sly or in that sneaking, fawning fashion which a well-trained dog would have despised. This continued almost to the end of the month; but then came a bright little bit of intelligence to gladden their hearts. It was like a gleam of sunshine breaking through the dark cloud of gloom that hung over them. Fritz wrote home from Coblentz, close to the frontier, telling how comfortable he was, and how every one in the army of the Fatherland was confident as to the result of the campaign. In a few weeks at the outside, they thought--everything was so carefully planned and every contingency provided against--the French army of invasion would have been dispersed to the four winds of heaven and the war be over; and, then, the Landwehr, at all events, would be enabled to return home to their several states and resume those peaceful employments which their mobilisation had interrupted. Fritz said that he feared he would have no chance of distinguishing himself in the campaign, as one alone of the three great army corps they had already massed along the Rhine would be sufficient to crush the hated foe. The only men who would probably see any fighting would be those serving under the Crown Prince, who had already routed the enemy and were in active pursuit of them across the borderland. His veteran old general, Steinmetz, every one considered to be "out of the hunt completely!" All he would see of the whole affair, they thought, would be the warriors returning home crowned with laurels after the victory. Thus ran the tenor of Fritz's letter, the writer evidently not dreaming of the events in store for him; and that, instead of returning to Lubeck in a few weeks, it would be many weary months before he saw the blinking eyes of the ancient astronomical clock in the Dom Kirche again! Through the intricacies of the field post, too, this communication was a long time in reaching the little seaport town on the North Sea, being at least ten days old when it arrived; but what mattered that? It contained good news when it did come, and was as welcome as if it had been dated only yesterday. "Ah, ha!" exclaimed Lorischen, when her mistress communicated the contents of Fritz's letter. "The young Herr will soon be back, and then we'll see him give Meinherr Burgher Jans the right-about. I call it scandalous, I do, his persecuting an unprotected, lone widow--just because her sons are away, and there's only me to look after her! But, I keep him at arm's distance, I promise you, madame. It is only his thief of a dog who manages to creep in here when I am about!" Madame Dort blushed. She was a comely, middle-aged woman, and when she coloured up she looked quite pretty. "I'm sure, Lorischen," she said, "I wonder you can talk such nonsense; you are as bad as poor Eric used to be, teasing me about that little fat man! Poor Burgher Jans means no harm in coming to inquire after my health while Fritz is away." "That's just what I object to, dear lady," interrupted the other; "why does he do it?" "Can't you see, you stupid thing," said Madame Dort, laughing heartily, the hopeful letter of her son having quite restored her spirits, "that is the very reason? If dear Fritz were here, he would naturally ask him how we all are; but, as he is away now, and I never go outside the house, while you, my faithful Lorischen, are not very communicative, I suppose, when you go to the Market Platz, it is plain enough to common sense that the worthy Burgher, if he takes an interest in us, must come here to inquire after the family himself!" "Oh yes, I understand," answered the old nurse, in a grumbling tone. She had lived so long with the widow, whom she looked upon really as a child committed to her charge, that she considered she had a perfect right to pass an opinion on anything which did not please her. Besides, she was jealous, on behalf of the boys, of any interloper being put over their heads in the shape of a stepfather, she as an old spinster having a wholesome horror of the designing nature of all men, especially of the little Burgher Jans, to whom she had taken an inveterate dislike. "Oh yes, I understand," she said in an ironical tone she always assumed on being a bit vexed; "when the cat's away the mice play!" "I presume then," said Madame Dort dryly, "that Mouser is a good deal absent now from his duties; for, I noticed this morning that half that cheese in the cupboard was nibbled up. It was a good Limburger cheese, too!" "Ach, Himmel!" exclaimed the old nurse, not perceiving the design of her mistress to change the conversation, and taking up the cudgels readily to defend her dearly loved cat. "The poor creature has not been himself since the young masters have been away. He feels too lonesome to hunt the mice as he used to do so gaily in the old days, tossing them up in the air when he caught them, and bringing them mewing to my feet,--the dear one! Why, he hardly ever touches a drop of milk now." "Yes, I see he spares our cream--" "Oh, madame, that was a libel on the poor animal. It was only the dear lad Eric's joke! Mouser would never touch one drop of the breakfast cream, save perhaps when we might be late for the meal, or when the dear fellow felt a little thirsty, or--" "Ah, indeed! Yes, no doubt," interrupted Madame Dort, laughing again. "He would have been at it again to-day, only Burgher Jans' dog came in at the nick of time and scared him away!" "Did he!" said Lorischen indignantly. "It strikes me that pest of a terrier is here a good deal too much, like his master! And, talk of him, there he is!" she added hastily, leaving the room as a knock came to the door. Burgher Jans came in as the old nurse went out, brushing by him with ill-concealed contempt and aversion. He was a fat little man, with long straight hair coming down over his coat collar, and a round, full-moon sort of face, whose effect of beaming complacency was enhanced by a pair of large-rimmed tortoise-shell spectacles out of which his owl-like eyes shone with an air of balmy wisdom. "Most worthy lady," he commenced, addressing Madame Dort with an elaborate bow, sweeping the floor with his hat. "Unto me the greatest and ever-much rapture doth it with added satisfaction bring, to tell you of the glorious success of the German arms over our greatly-overbearing and hopeful-of-victory foe." "Dear me!" exclaimed the widow, "you are rather late with your news; I heard from Fritz just now." "And is the dear, well-brought-up, and worthy youth in good health?" "He is," said Madame Dort; "and tells us to expect him home soon." Burgher Jans looked startled at this announcement, losing a trifle of his beaming smile. "He is not wounded, I trust?" asked he tremblingly. "Oh dear no, thank the good God who has watched over him," answered the other cheerfully. "Why, he has not been in battle yet! He tells us that the French are retreating, and that the war will be over almost before another blow has been struck, the enemy having to surrender before our irresistible battalions." "Have you not heard of the battles of Woerth and Forbach, then?" "No; what--when were they?" "Where did your son Fritz write to you from, then?" "From Coblentz. His letter is dated the day he arrived there, but I only got it this morning." "Ah then, most worthy lady, two terrible battles have occurred since that time. We have beaten the French and forced them back into their own country; but, alas! thousands of German lives have been lost. The slaughter has been terrific!" "Good heavens, Burgher Jans, you alarm me!" said Madame Dort, rising from her chair in excitement. "Fritz told me there would be no fighting except between the Crown. Prince's army and the enemy!" "The worthy young Herr was right so far," put in the little man soothingly, "that is as regards the south of the line; but our second army corps has been likewise engaged on the banks of the Saar, hurling disaster on the foe, although the French fought well, too, it is said. Where, however, is Herr Fritz?" "Serving under General Steinmetz." "Ah, then he's safe enough, dear madame. That army is but acting as the reserve. It is only my poor countrymen, the Bavarians, and the Saxons who will have the hard work of the campaign to do. Von Bismark wants to let out a little of their blood in return for the feverish excitement they displayed against the Prussians in '66!" "You relieve my mind," said Madame Dort, resuming her seat. "I thought for the moment Fritz was in danger. You speak bitterly against the Chancellor, however. He is a great man, and has done much for Germany." "Oh, yes, I grant that," replied the other warmly; "still, he is one who never forgets. He always pays out a grudge! You will see, now, if those poor Bavarians do not come in for all the thick of the fighting." "You talk as if there is going to be a lot more?" "So there is, without doubt, without doubt," said Burgher Jans, rubbing his hands together, as if he rather enjoyed the prospect. "In that case, then, Fritz cannot return to Lubeck as soon as he thinks possible?" and Madame Dort looked grave again, as she said this half questioningly. "I fear not, most worthy lady," replied the little man in a tone of great concern; but, from the look on his face and the brisk way in which he still continued to rub his hands together, it might have been surmised that the prolonged absence of poor Fritz from his home would not affect him much,--in fact, that he would be rather pleased by such a contingency than not. Madame Dort noticed this, and became quite sharp to him in consequence. "I must beg you to say good-bye now," she said; "I've a busy day before me, and have no more time to waste in chatting. Good-morning, Burgher Jans." "Good-morning, most worthy lady," said the little fat man, accepting his dismissal and bowing himself out. "The ill-natured little manoeuvrer!" exclaimed Madame Dort, half to herself, as he left the room. Lorischen entered again at the same time, the two always playing the game apparently of one of those old-fashioned weather tellers, in which a male or female figure respectively comes out from the little rustic cottage whenever it is going to be wet or fine; for, as surely as the Burgher ever entered the sitting-room, the old nurse withdrew, never returning until he had left. "The ill-natured little manoeuvrer!" exclaimed Madame Dort, not thinking she was overheard. "I believe he would be glad to keep poor Fritz away if he could." "Just what I've thought all along!" said Lorischen, immensely pleased at this acknowledgment of her superior power of discernment. "I mean, not on account of wishing any harm to Fritz," explained the widow, "but that he himself might be able to come here oftener." "Just what I've said!" chirped out the old nurse triumphantly; but Madame Dort made no reply to this second thrust, and before Lorischen could say anything further, a second visitor came to the little house in the Gulden Strasse. It seemed fated as if that was to be a day for callers, and "people who had no business to do preventing those who had," as the old nurse grumbled while on her way to open the street door for the new-comer--a courtesy Burgher Jans never required, walking in, as she said, without asking leave or license, just when he pleased! The visitor was Herr Grosschnapper, the merchant who employed Fritz in his counting-house and who was also a part proprietor in the ship in which Eric had sailed for Java. Madame Dort's heart leapt in her bosom when she saw the old gentleman enter the parlour. But, the shipowner's face did not look as if he brought any pleasing news; and, after one brief glance at his countenance, the widow's fell in sympathy. She almost anticipated the evil tidings which she was certain he had in store for her. "Madame Dort," he began, "pray compose yourself." "I am quite calm, Herr Grosschnapper," she answered. "Go on with what you come to tell me. You have heard something of my poor boy Eric; is it not so?" "It is, madame," replied the merchant, deceived by her composure. "I grieve to say that I have received intelligence through the English house of Lloyd's that the _Gustav Barentz_ foundered at sea in the Southern Ocean early this year. Two boats escaped from her with the crew and passengers, one of which, containing the first officer and several hands, was picked up when those on board were in the last stage of exhaustion, by a vessel bound to Australia. The men were taken to Melbourne before any communication could be received from them, so that is why the news of the wreck has been so long in reaching us." "And Eric?" asked the widow, with her head bent down. "He was with the captain in the other boat, dear madame," said Herr Grosschnapper; "but, I'm afraid there is little or no chance of their having been saved, or else we would have heard of them by this time. Pray bear up under the loss, madame. He was a good son, I believe, and would have made a good sailor and officer; but it was not to be! Remember, you have another son left." "Ah, but not Eric, my little one, my darling!" burst forth the poor bereaved mother in a passion of tears; and then, the merchant, seeing that any words of comfort on his part would be worse than useless, withdrew. The violence of Madame Dort's grief, however, was soon assuaged, for she had long been preparing herself for this blow. She had given up all hope of ever hearing from Eric again, even before Fritz left home. Thenceforth, all her motherly love was bound up in her firstborn, now the only son left her; and daily she scanned the papers to learn news of the war. Time passed on, the widow occasionally receiving a hurried scrawl from Fritz, who, as she knew, was now no longer resting with the reserve battalions in the fortresses of the Rhine, but marching onwards with the invading army through France. She heard of the terrible battle of Gravelotte, in which she dreaded that he had taken part; but, almost before she could read the full official details published in the German newspapers under military censorship, her anxieties were relieved by a long letter coming from Fritz, telling of his participation in the colossal contest and of his miraculous escape without a wound, although he had been in the thick of the fire and numbers of his comrades from the same part of the country had been killed. But, he had better news to tell--that, at least, is what he wrote, only the mother doubted whether any intelligence could be more important to her than the fact of his safety! What would she think of hearing that he had been promoted to be an officer "for gallantry in the field of battle," as the general order read out to the whole army worded it? Would she not be proud of her Fritz after that? Aye, would she not, would not Lorischen? And did not the entire gossiping community of Lubeck know all about it by and through the means of the old nurse before the close of the self- same day, eh? Certainly; still, would it be believed that the very first person whom Lorischen told the news to was her special antipathy, Burgher Jans? She actually went up to and accosted him of her own free-will on the Market Platz for the very purpose of telling him of Fritz's promotion! Yes, such was the case; and she not only was friendly to the little fat man on this occasion, but she actually patted his dog at the same time! Still, Eric, the lost sailor laddie, was not forgotten in his brother's success. The mother's grief was only chastened; and almost the very first thought she had on receiving the news from Fritz, and afterwards when she read it in official print, was "how pleased poor Eric would have been at this!" Bye-and-bye, Fritz wrote again, telling that their task had become very monotonous. The Tenth Army Corps was detained along with several others to besiege Metz, so hemming in Bazaine and the remainder of the army that had endeavoured so gallantly at Gravelotte to pierce the German lines, that they were powerless to assist the rest of their countrymen in driving the Teuton invader from their soil. The besieging army, which was formed of the united forces of the different corps under Prince Frederick Charles and Steinmetz, had nothing to do, said Fritz, save to stand to their guns and perform sentry duty; for the French, since the fearful battle of the 18th of August, had not once attempted to push their way out beyond range of the guns of the fortress, under whose shelter they were cantoned in an extended entrenched camp, and were apparently being daily drilled and disciplined for some great effort. On the 31st of the month, however, Fritz told his mother later on, Bazaine made a desperate effort to break the German cordon around Metz; and this being repulsed with heavy loss, the Marshal again remained quiet for the space of another six weeks. During this period Madame Dort heard regularly from her son through the field post. She sent him letters in return, telling him all the home news she could glean, and saying that she expected him back before the winter. She hoped, at least, that he would come by that time, for Herr Grosschnapper had informed her that he would have to fill up Fritz's place in his counting-house if the exigencies of the war caused his whilom clerk to remain away any longer. Things went on like this up to the month of October, the anniversary of poor Eric's going away; when, all at once, there came a cessation of the weekly letters of Fritz from headquarters. His mother wrote to inquire the reason. She received no answer. Then she read in the papers of another heavy battle before Metz, in which the Tenth Army Corps had taken part. The engagement had happened more than a week before, and Fritz was silent. He might be wounded, possibly killed! Madame Dort's anxiety became terrible. "No news," says the proverb, "is good news;" but, to some it is the very worst that could possibly be; for, their breasts are filled with a storm of mingled doubts and fears, while hope is deadened and there is, as yet, no balm of resignation to soothe the troubled heart! The proverb is wrong; even the most heartbreaking confirmation of one's most painful surmise is infinitely preferable to being kept in a state of perpetual suspense, where one dreads the worst and yet is not absolutely certain of it. It was so now with Madame Dort. She thought she could bear the strain no longer, but must go to the frontier herself and seek for information of her missing son, as she had read in the newspapers of other mothers doing. However, one afternoon, as she was sitting in the parlour in a state of utter dejection by the side of the lighted stove, for winter was coming on and the days were getting cold, Lorischen brought in a letter to her which had just come by the post. It was in a strange handwriting! The widow tore it open hurriedly, glancing first at the signature at the end. "Madaleine Vogelstein!" she said aloud. "I wonder who she is; I never heard of her before!" She then went on to read the letter. It did not take her long to understand the sense of it. For, after scanning the contents with startled eyes, she exclaimed, "My son! oh, my son!" and then fell flat upon the floor in a dead faint. CHAPTER SIX. WOUNDED. The stupendous events of the war rushed on with startling rapidity. The invasion of France, in retaliation for the projected invasion of Germany, was now an accomplished fact; and, day after day, the Teuton host added victory to victory on the long list of their triumphant battle-roll, almost every engagement swelling the number of Gallic defeats and lessening the power of the French to resist their relentless foe, who now, with iron-clad hand on the throat of the prostrate country, marched onward towards Paris, scattering havoc with fire and sword wherever the accumulating legions of armed men trod. The battle of Woerth succeeded that of Weissembourg; Forbach that of Woerth; and then came Vionville and Gravelotte to add their thousands of victims to the valhalla of victory. The surrender of Sedan followed, when the Germans passed on their way to the capital; but the brave general Urich still held out in besieged Strasbourg, and Bazaine had not yet made his last brilliant sortie from the invested Metz. The latter general especially kept the encircling armies of Prince Frederick Charles and Steinmetz on the constant alert by his continuous endeavours to search out the weakest spot in the German armour. The real attempt of the French Marshal to break through the investing lines was yet to come; that of the 31st of August, to which Fritz alluded in his letter to his mother, having been only made apparently to support Mcmahon as a diversion to the latter's attack on Montmedy, before the surrender of Sedan. From this period, up to the beginning of October, the French remained pretty quiet, the guns of the different forts lying without the fortifications of Metz only keeping up a harassing fire on the besieging batteries that the Germans had erected around on the heights commanding the various roads by which Bazaine's army could alone hope to force a passage through their lines. Summer had now entirely disappeared and cold weather set in, so the Teuton forces found it very unpleasant work in the trenches when the biting winds of autumn blew through their encampments of a night, making their bivouac anything but comfortable; while the sharp morning frosts also made their rising most unpleasantly disagreeable; add to this, whenever they succeeded in making their quarters a trifle more cosy than usual, as certainly would the cannon of Fort Quelin or the monster guns of Saint Julien send a storm of shot and shell to awaken them, causing an instant turn-out of the men in a body to resist a possible sortie. Bazaine made perpetual feints of this sort, with the evident intention of wearying out his antagonists, even if he could do them no further harm. The position was like that of a cat watching a mouse-hole, the timid little occupant of which would every now and then put out its head to see whether the coast were clear; and then, perceiving its enemy on the watch, provokingly draw it in again, leaving pussy angry at her repeated disappointments and almost inclined to bite her paws with vexation at her inability to follow up her prey into its stronghold; for, the heavy artillery of the fortress so protected the surrounding country adjacent to Metz, that the Germans had to place the batteries of their works out of its range, that is, almost at a distance of some four miles from the French camp--of which any bombardment was found after a time to be worse than useless, causing the most infinitesimal amount of damage in return for an enormous expenditure of ammunition and projectiles that had to be conveyed over very precarious roads all the way from the frontiers of the Rhine into the heart of Lorraine. "Oh, that the French would only do something!" cried Fritz and his companions, sick of inactivity and the wearisome nature of their duties, which, after the excitement of battle and the stirring campaigning they had already gone through, seemed now far worse than guard-mounting in Coblentz. "Oh, that the French would only do something to end this tedious siege!" Soon this wish was gratified. On the morning of the 6th of October, when the investiture of Metz had lasted some six weeks or more--just at daybreak--a heavy, dull report was heard at Mercy-le-Haut. It was like the bursting of a mine. "Something is up at last!" exclaimed one of the staff-officers, entering the tent where Fritz and others were stretched on the bare ground, trying to keep themselves as warm as they could with all the spare blankets and other covering that could be collected heaped over them--"Something is up at last! Rouse up; the general assembly has sounded!" The ringing bugle notes without in the frosty air emphasised these words, causing the young fellows to turn out hastily, without requiring any further summons. Aye, something was up. The pioneers of the Seventh German army corps, on the extreme right, had mined and blown up the farm buildings of Legrange aux Bois, close to Peltre. These farm buildings had hitherto served as a cover to the French troops when they made their foraging sorties, but they could not be held by the Germans, for they were situated within the line of fire of Fort Quelin; so, as may be imagined, their destruction was hailed with a ringing cheer by the besiegers. The artillerymen in the fort, however, apparently anticipating an attack in force of which this explosion was but the prelude, were on the alert at once; and, soon after sunrise, they began to pour in a heavy rain of fire on the German works, which the conflagration of the buildings and removal of intervening obstacles now clearly disclosed. Whole broadsides of projectiles from the great guns flew into the valley of the Moselle as far as Ars, sweeping away the entrenchments as if they were mere packs of cards; and, presently, an onward movement of French battalions of infantry, supported by field artillery and cavalry, showed that, this time at least, something more was intended by Marshal Bazaine than a mere feint. Trumpet called to trumpet in the German ranks, and speedily the whole of the second army under Prince Frederick Charles mustered its forces in line of battle, the men gathering in imposing masses towards the threatened point at Ars. Here the 61st and 21st infantry regiments, which were on outpost duty, were the first: to commence hostilities, rushing to meet the French who were advancing from Metz. Aided by the batteries erected by the side of the Bois de Vaux, the Germans, after a sharp conflict, succeeded in repulsing the enemy, who had ultimately to retire again under the guns of Fort Quelin, although they made a vigorous resistance while the engagement lasted--only falling back on suffering severe loss from the shower of shrapnel to which they were subjected, besides losing many prisoners. During all the time of this attack and repulse, Fort Saint Julien, on the other side of the fortress, was shelling the Landwehr reserve, causing many casualties amongst the Hanoverian legion; and, but that the men here were quite prepared for their foe, the combat might have extended to their lines. As it was, the expected fight, for which the Tenth Corps was ready and waiting, was only delayed for a few hours; when, if Fritz and his comrades had complained of the cold of the weather, they found the work cut out for them "hot" enough in all conscience! In the afternoon of the following day, Bazaine made a desperate effort to break through the environment of the Germans in the direction of Thionville. On the previous evening, in resisting the attack from Saint Julien, which had been undertaken at the same time as that from Saint Quelin on Ars, the French had been driven from the village of Ladonchamps, and their adversaries had established foreposts at Saint Remy, Petites et Grandes Tapes, and Maxe; and now, under cover of a thick fog, the French Marshal advanced his troops again and commenced a vigorous attempt, supported by a heavy artillery fire, for the recovery of the lost Ladonchamps. Failing in this, although possibly the attack might have been a blind, the general being such a thorough master of strategy, Bazaine made a dash for Petites et Grandes Tapes, annihilating the foreposts and hurling great masses of men at their supports. Having occupied these villages, the French Marshal then sent forward a large body of troops to the right, close to the Moselle. These advanced up the valley against the German entrenchments on the heights until checked by cannon fire from batteries on both sides of the river, and were only finally stopped by an advance in force of two brigades of the Landwehr, the men of whom occupied a position just in front of Petites et Grandes Tapes. Amongst these latter troops was the regiment of our friend Fritz. The fighting was terrific here. Clouds of bullets came like hail upon the advancing men, reaping the ranks down as if with a scythe, while bursting shells cleared open spaces in their midst in a manner that was appalling; still, those in the rear pressed on to fill the places of the fallen, with a fierce roar of revenge, and the needle-gun answered the chassepot as quickly as the combatants could put the cartridges into the breech-pieces and bring their rifles again to the "present." Fritz felt the frenzy of Gravelotte return to him as he gripped the sword which he now wielded in place of the musket; and, urging on his company, the men, scattering right and left in tirailleur formation were soon creeping up to the enemy, taking advantage of every little cover which the irregularities of the ground afforded. Then, suddenly, right in front, could be seen a splendid line regiment of the French, advancing in column. A sheet of flame came from their levelled rifles, and the Fusilier battalion of the Landwehr regiment to the left of Fritz's company were exterminated to a man, the enemy marching over their dead bodies with a shout of victory. Their progress, however, was not to last. "Close up there, men!" came the order from Fritz's commanding officer; when the troops hurriedly formed up in a hollow which protected them for a moment from the galling fire. "Fix bayonets!"--and they awaited the still steady advance of the French until they appeared above the rising ground. "Fire, and aim low!" was the next order from the major; and then, "Charge!" With a ringing cheer of "Vorwarts!" Fritz dashed onward at the head of the regiment, a couple of paces in front of his men, who with their sharp weapons extended in front like a fringe of steel, came on behind at the double. Whiz, sang a bullet by his ear, but he did not mind that; crash, plunged a shell into the ground in front, tearing up a hole that he nearly fell into; when, jumping over this at the run, in another second he had crossed swords with one of the officers of the French battalion, who rushed out as eagerly to meet him. They had not time, though, to exchange a couple of passes before a fragment of a bursting bomb carried away the French officer's head, bespattering Fritz with the brains and almost making him reel with sickness; while, at the same moment, the men of the German regiment bore down the French line, scattering it like chaff, for the sturdy Hanoverians seemed like giants in their wrath, bayoneting every soul within reach! This was only the beginning of it. "On," still "on," was the cry; and, not until the lost villages were recaptured and the unfortunate German foreposts avenged did the advance cease. But the struggle was fierce and terribly contested. Three several times did the Germans get possession of Petites et Grandes Tapes, and three several times did the French drive them out again with their fearful mitrailleuse hail of fire; the bayonet settled it at last, in the hands of the northern legions, who had not forgotten the use of it since the days of Waterloo, nor, as it would appear, the French yet learnt to withstand it! Beyond a slight touch from a passing bullet which had grazed his lower jaw, having the effect of rattling his teeth together, as if somebody had "chucked him under the chin," Fritz had escaped without any serious wound up to the time that the French were beaten back after the third attempt to carry their positions; but then, as they turned to run and the Hanoverians pressed on in pursuit, he felt suddenly hit somewhere in the breast. A spasm of pain shivered through him as the missile seemed to rend its way through his vitals; and then, throwing up his arms, he fell across the corpse of a soldier who must have been shot almost immediately before him, for the body was quite warm to the touch. How he was hurt he could not tell; he only knew that he was unable to stir, and that each breath of air he drew came fainter and fainter, as if it were his last. He heard, from the retreating tramp of footsteps and distant shouts, that his regiment had moved on after the enemy; but, as he lay on his back, he could not see anything save the sky, while each moment some stray shot whistled by in the air or threw up earth over him, threatening to give him his finishing blow should the wound he had received not be sufficient to settle him. Then, he felt thirsty, and longed to cry out for help; but, no sound came from his lips, while the exertion to speak caused such intolerable agony that he wished he could die at once and be put out of his misery. When charging the French battalion, he recollected putting his foot on the dead face of some victim of the fight, and he could recall the thrill of horror that passed through him as he had done this inadvertently; now, each instant he expected, too, to be trampled on in the same manner. Ha! He could distinguish footsteps pressing the ground near. "Oh, mother!" he thought, "the end is coming now, for the fight must be drawing near again. I wish a shell or bullet would settle the matter!" But the footsteps he imagined to be the tramp of marching men--on account of his ear being so close to the ground and thus, of course, magnifying the sound--were only those of the faithful Gelert, who with the instinct of a well-trained retriever was searching for his new-found friend. He had tracked his path over the valley from the advanced post which the regiment had occupied in the morning, and where the dog had been kept by Fritz to watch his camp equipments until he should return. Gelert evidently considered that he had waited long enough for duty's sake; and, that, as his adopted master did not come to fetch him, he ought to start to seek for him instead, one good turn deserving another! At the moment, therefore, when Fritz expected to have the remaining breath trampled out of him by a rush of opposing battalions across his poor prone body, he felt the dog licking his face, whining and whimpering in recognition and mad with joy at discovering him. "Dear old Gelert, you brave, good doggie," he ejaculated feebly, in panting whispers. "You'll have to try and find a third master now!" and then, overcome by the effort, which taxed what little strength was left in him, he swooned away like a dead man--the last distinct impression he had being that of seeing a bright star twinkle out from the opal sky above him as he lay on the battlefield, which seemed to be winking and blinking at him as if beckoning him up to heaven! His awakening was very different. On coming to his consciousness again, he felt nice and warm and comfortable, just as if he were in bed; and, opening his eyes, he saw the sweet face of a young girl bending over him. "I must be dreaming," he murmured to himself lazily. He felt so utterly free from pain and at ease that he did not experience the slightest anxiety or perplexity to know where he was. He was perfectly satisfied to take what came. "I must be dreaming, or else I am dead, and this is one of the angels come to take me away!" CHAPTER SEVEN. MADALEINE. "I am glad you are better," said a soft voice in liquid accents, so close to his ear that he felt the perfumed breath of the speaker wafted across his face. Fritz stared with wide-opened eyes. "I'm glad you're better," repeated the voice; "you are better, are you not; you feel conscious, don't you, and in your right senses?" "Where am I?" at last said Fritz faintly. "Here," answered the girl, "with friends, who are attending to you. Do not fear, you shall be watched over with every care until you are quite well again." "Where is `here'?" whispered Fritz feebly again, smiling at his own quaint question. The girl laughed gently in response to his smile. "You are at Mezieres, not far from the battlefield where you fell. I discovered you there early yesterday morning." "You?" inquired Fritz, his eyes expressing his astonishment. "Yes, I," said the girl kindly; "and I was only too happy to be the means of finding you, and getting you removed to a place of safety; for, I'm afraid that if you had lain there much longer on the damp ground you would have died." "Oh!" interrupted Fritz as eagerly as his exhausted condition would allow; "I remember all now! I was wounded and lay there close to the battery; and then I saw the stars come out and thought--" "Hush!" said the girl, "you must not speak any more now. You are too weak; I only spoke to you to find out whether you had regained consciousness or not." "But you must let me thank you. If it had not been--" "No, I won't allow another word," she interposed authoritatively. "You will do yourself harm, and then I shall be accused of being a bad nurse! Besides, you haven't got to thank me at all; it was the dog who made me see you." "What, Gelert," whispered Fritz again, in spite of her admonition,--"dear old fellow!" He had hardly uttered these words, when the faithful dog, who must have been close beside the bed, raised himself up, putting a paw on one of Fritz's arms which lay outside the coverings and licking his hand, whining rapturously the while, as if rejoiced to hear the voice of his master again. "`Gelert!'" exclaimed the girl with some surprise. "Why, I know the dog perfectly, and he recognises me quite well; but he is called `Fritz,' not `Gelert,' as you said." "`Fritz!'" ejaculated he, in his turn. "Why, that is my name!" "Gracious me," thought the girl to herself, "he is rambling again, and confusing his own name with that of the dog! I must put a stop to his speaking, or else he will get worse. Here, take this," she said aloud, lifting to his lips a wineglass containing a composing draught which the doctor had left for her patient to take as soon as he showed any signs of recovery from his swoon, and which she really ought to have given him before; "it will do you good, and make you stronger." Fritz swallowed the potion unhesitatingly, immediately sinking back on his pillow in a quiet sleep; when the girl, sitting down by the side of the bed, watched the long-drawn, quivering respirations that came from the white, parted lips of the wounded man. "Poor young fellow!" she said with a sigh; "I fear he will never get over it. I wonder where Armand is now, and how came this stranger to have possession of his dog! The funniest thing, too, is that `Fritz' seems as much attached to this new master as he was to Armand, although he has not forgotten me. Have you, `Fritz,' my beauty, eh?" The retriever, in response, gave three impressive thumps with his bushy tail on the floor, as he lay at the girl's feet by the side of the bed. He evidently answered to this other familiar appellation quite as readily as he had done to that of "Gelert," being apparently on perfect terms of friendship, not to say intimacy, with the young lady who had just asked him so pertinent a question. He certainly had not forgotten her. He would not have been a gallant dog if he had; nor would he have displayed that taste and wise discrimination which one would naturally have expected to find, in a well-bred dog of his particular class, for his interlocutor was a remarkably pretty girl--possessing the most lovely golden-hued hair and a pair of blue eyes that were almost turquoise in tint, albeit with a somewhat wistful, faraway look in them, especially now when she gazed down into the brown, honest orbs of the retriever, who was watching her every moment with faithful attention. She had, too, an unmistakeable air of refinement and culture, in spite of her being attired in a plainly made black stuff dress such as a servant might have worn, and having a sort of cap like those affected by nuns and sisters of charity drawn over her dainty little head, partly concealing its wealth of fair silky hair. No one would have dreamt of taking her to be anything else but a lady, no matter what costume she adopted, or how she was disguised. "Who ever thought, dear doggie," she continued, speaking the thoughts that surged up in her mind while addressing the dumb animal, who looked as if he would like to understand her if he only could,--"who ever would have thought that things would turn out as they have when I last patted your dear old head at Bingen, `Fair Bingen on the Rhine,' eh?" and she murmured to herself the refrain of that beautiful ballad. The retriever gave a long sniff here to express his thorough sympathy with her, and the girl proceeded, musingly, thinking aloud. "Yes, I mean, doggie, when Armand and I parted for the last time. Poor mamma was alive then, and we never dreamt that this terrible war would come to pass, severing us so completely! Poor Armand, he said he would be true and return to me again when he was old enough to be able to decide for himself without the consent of that stern father of his, who thought that the daughter of a poor German pastor was not good enough mate for his handsome son--although he was only a merchant, while my mother was a French countess in her own right. Still, parents have the right to settle these things, and I quite agreed with dear mamma that I would never consent to enter a family against their will, especially, too, when they despised our humble position!" The girl drew herself up proudly as she said this. "Never mind," she went on again presently, "it is all over and done for. But, still, I believe Armand loved me. How handsome he looked that last time I saw him when he came to our little cottage to say good-bye, before he went to join his regiment in Algeria, where his father had got him ordered off on purpose to separate us. However, perhaps it was only a boy and girl affection at the best, and would never have lasted; my heart has not broken, I know, although I thought it would break then; for, alas! I have since seen sorrow enough to crush me down, even much more than parting with Armand de la Tour. Fancy, poor darling mamma gone to her grave, and I, her cherished child, forced to earn my bread as companion to this haughty old baroness, who thinks me like the dust under her feet! Ah, it is sad, is it not, doggie?" The retriever sniffed again, while the blue eyes continued to look down upon him through a haze of tears; and then, the girl was silent for a time. "Heigho, doggie," she exclaimed, after a short pause of reflection, brushing away the tear drops from her cheeks and shaking her dainty little head as if she would fain banish all her painful imaginings with the action, "I must not repine at my lot, for the good Father above has taken care of me through all my adversity, giving me a comfortable home when I, an orphan, had none to look after me. And, the good baroness, too--she may be haughty, but then she is of a very noble family, and has been brought up like most German ladies of rank to look down upon her inferiors in position; besides, she is kind to me in her way. I am pleased that she took it into her head to come off here to seek for her son, and bring him presents from home in person. Nothing else would suit her, if you please, on his birthday, although the young baron, I think, was not over-delighted at his mother coming to hunt for him in war time, as if he were a little boy--he on the staff of the general! I fancy he got no little chaff from his brother officers in consequence. However, `it is an ill wind that blows nobody good,' for the good baroness being here has been seized with a freak for looking after the wounded, because the Princess of Alten-Schlossen goes in for that sort of thing; and thus it is, doggie, that I'm now attending to this poor fellow here. Though, how on earth Armand parted with you, and you became attached to this new master, whom you seem to love with such affection, I'm sure I cannot tell!" Fritz at this moment turned in the little pallet bed on which he was lying, and in an instant the girl was up from her seat and bending over him. "Restless?" she said, smoothing the pillows and laying her cool hand on the hot brow of her patient, who gave vent to a sigh of satisfaction in his sleep. "Ah! you'll be better bye-and-bye. Then, you will wake up refreshed and have some nourishment; and then, too, you'll be able to tell me all about yourself and master doggie here, eh?" But, it was many days before poor Fritz was in a condition to offer any explanation about the dog--many days, when the possibility was trembling in the balance of fate as to whether he would ever speak again, or be silent for aye in this world! When he woke up, he was delirious; and the doctor, a grave German surgeon of middle age, on coming into the room to examine him, when making the rounds of the house--a villa in the suburbs of Mezieres, which had been transformed into a sort of field hospital for the most dangerous cases in the vicinity--declared Fritz to be in a very critical state. His life, he said, was in serious peril, a change having taken place for the worse. He had been struck by a chassepot conical rifle bullet in the chest; and the ball, after breaking two of his ribs and slightly grazing the lungs, had lodged near the spine, where it yet remained, the wounded man being too prostrate for an operation to be performed for its extraction, although all the while it was intensifying the pain and adding to the feverish symptoms of the patient. "You've not been allowing him to talk, have you?" asked the surgeon, scanning the girl's face with a stern professional glance. "No," she replied, blushing slightly under his gaze; "that is, he wanted to, an hour ago, when he became conscious, but I gave him the sleeping draught you ordered at once." "Donnerwetter!" exclaimed the other. "The potion then has done him harm instead of good. I thought it would have composed him and made him comfortable for the operation, as, until that bullet is taken out he can't possibly get well. However, he must now be kept as quiet as possible. Put a bandage on his head and make it constantly cool with cold water. I will return bye-and-bye, and then we'll see about cutting out the ball." The surgeon then went out softly from the room, leaving the girl to attend to his directions, which she proceeded to do at once; shuddering the while at what she knew her poor patient would have to undergo, when the disciple of Aesculapius came back anon, with his myrmidons and their murderous-looking surgical knives and forceps, to hack and hew away at Fritz in their search for the bullet buried in his chest--he utterly oblivious either of his surroundings or what was in store for him, tossing in the bed under her eyes and rambling in his mind. He fancied himself still on the battlefield in the thick of the fight:-- "Vorwarts, my children!" he muttered. "One more charge and the battery is won. Pouf! that shell had a narrow squeak of spoiling my new helmet. The gunner will have to take better aim next time!" Then he would shudder all over, and cry out in piteous tones, "Take it away, take it away--the blood is all over my face; and his body, oh, it is pressing me down into that yawning open grave! Will no one save me? It is terrible, terrible to be buried alive, and the pale stars twinkling down on my agony!" Presently, however, the cold applications to his head had their effect, and he sank down into a torpid sleep, only to start up again in the ravings of delirium a few moments afterwards. Fritz continued in this state for hours, with intervals of quiet, during which his nurse, by the doctor's orders, administered beef tea and other nourishment which sustained the struggle going on in his sinking frame; until, at last, the ball was extracted, after an operation which was so prolonged that the girl, who felt almost as if she were undergoing it herself, thought it would never end. Then came the worst stage for the sufferer. Fever supervened; and, although the wound began to heal up, his physical condition grew weaker every day under the tearing strain his constitution was subjected to. Even the doctor gave him up; but the girl, who had attended to him with the most unwearying assiduity had hopes to the last. Fritz had been unconscious from the time that he first recognised the dog, on the evening after he was wounded and found himself in the villa, until the fever left him, when he was so weak that he was unable to lift a finger and seemed at the very gates of death. Now, however, his senses returned to him, and a glad look came into his eyes on seeing, like as he did before and now remembered, the face of the beautiful girl bending over him again; but he noticed that she did not look so bright as when he first beheld her. "Ah!" he exclaimed feebly, "it was not a dream! How long have I been ill?" "More than a fortnight," said the girl promptly. "Oh, my poor mother!" ejaculated Fritz with a sob, "she will have thought me dead, and broken her heart!" "Don't fear that," said she kindly. "I wrote to her, telling her you were badly hurt, but that you were in good hands." "You! Why, how did you know her name, or where she lived?" "I found the address in your pocket," answered the girl with a laugh. "Don't you recollect putting a slip of paper there, telling any one, in case you were wounded or killed, to write and break the news gently to your mother, `madame Dort, Gulden Strasse, Lubeck'? I never heard before of such a thoughtful son!" "Ah, I remember now," said Fritz; "and you wrote, then, to her?" "Yes, last week, when we despaired of your recovery; but, I have written again since, telling her that the bullet has been removed from your wound, and that if you get over the fever you will recover all right." "Thank you, and thank God!" exclaimed Fritz fervently, and he shut his eyes and remained quiet for a minute or two, although his lips moved as if in prayer. "And where is Gelert, my dog?" he asked presently. "`Fritz,' you mean," said the girl, smiling. "No, that is my name, the dog's is Gelert." "That is what I want explained," said the other. "But, please pardon my rudeness, Fraulein," interrupted Fritz, "may I ask to whom I am indebted for watching over me, and adding to it the thoughtful kindness of relieving my mother's misery?" "My name is Madaleine Vogelstein," said the girl softly. "Do you like it?" "I do; it is a very pretty one," he replied. "The surname is German, but the given name is French--Madaleine? It sounds sweeter than would be thought possible in our guttural Teuton tongue!" "My mother was a Frenchwoman, and I take the name from her," explained the girl. "But now, before I stop you from talking any more, for the good doctor would blame me much if he came in, you must tell me how you came to possess that dog; or, rather, why he so faithfully attached himself to you, as it was entirely through him that I found you, and got you picked up by the ambulance corps and brought here. You must first take this soup, however, to strengthen you. It has been kept nice and warm on that little lamp there, and it will do you good. I won't hear a word more until you have swallowed it!" "A soldier should always obey the orders of his commanding officer," said Fritz with a smile, as he slowly gulped down the broth, spoonful by spoonful, as Madaleine placed it in his mouth, for he could not feed himself. "That will do," she remarked, when he had taken what she thought sufficient. "And now you can tell me about the dog. Here he is," she continued, as the retriever came into the room; and, going up to the side of the bed where Fritz was lying, put up his paws on the counterpane and licked his master's face, in the wildest joy, apparently, at his recovery and notice of him. "He must have heard his name spoken, as I only just sent him out for a run with one of the men, for all the time you were so ill we could not get him to leave the room. Now, doggie, lie down like a good fellow, and let us hear all about you." The retriever at once obeyed the girl, stretching himself on the floor at her feet, although close beside his master all the while. Fritz then narrated the sad little episode of the battle of Gravelotte, and how he had found the dead body of the French officer with the dog keeping guard over it. The girl wept silently as he went on. "It must have been poor Armand," she said presently through her tears. "Did you find nothing about him to tell who he was?" "There was a little bag I saw round his neck," said Fritz; "I took it off the poor fellow before we buried him, and suspended it on my own breast afterwards for security, thinking that I might restore it some day to his friends, if I ever came across them." "Ah, that must be the little packet which got driven into your wound, and, stopping the flow of blood, saved your life, the doctor says. I have kept it carefully for you, and here it is," cried the girl, hastily jumping up from her seat and bringing the article in question to Fritz. "Open it," he said; "I haven't got the strength to do it, you know." Madaleine unfastened the silken string that confined the mouth of the bag, now stained with Fritz's blood; and then she pulled out the little silver ring it contained. One glance was enough for her. "Yes," she faltered through her sobs. "It is the ring I gave him; but that was months before the date engraved upon it, `July 18th, 1870,' which was the day he said he would come back to Bingen, as then he would be of age." "And he never came, then?" inquired Fritz. "No, never again," said she mournfully. "Ah, I would come if I had been in his place," exclaimed Fritz eagerly, with a flashing eye. "I never fail in an appointment I promise to keep; and to fail to meet a betrothed--why it is unpardonable!" He had raised his voice from the whisper in which he had previously spoken, and its indignant tone seemed quite loud. "Perhaps he couldn't come," said Madaleine more composedly. "Besides, we were not engaged; all was over between us." "I'm very glad to hear that," replied Fritz. "It would have been dastardly on his part otherwise! But, would you like to keep the dog for his sake, Fraulein Vogelstein? I have got no claim to him, you know." "Oh dear no, I would not like to deprive you of him for the world, much as I love the poor faithful fellow. Why, he would think nobody was his proper master if he were constantly changing hands like this!" "Poor old Gelert!" said Fritz; and the dog, hearing himself talked about, here raised himself up again from his recumbent attitude by the side of the bed and thrust his black nose into the hand of his master, who tried feebly to caress him. "`Fritz,' you mean," corrected Miss Madaleine, determined to have her point about his right name. "Well, if you call him so, I shall think you mean me," said Fritz jokingly, as well as his feeble utterance would permit his voice to be expressive. He wanted, however, to imply much more than the mere words. "That would not be any great harm, would it?" she replied with a little smile, her tears of sorrow at Armand de la Tour's untimely fate having dried up as quickly as raindrops disappear after a shower as soon as the sun shines out again; however, she apparently now thought the conversation was becoming a little too personal, for she proceeded to ply the invalid with more soup in order to stop his mouth and prevent him from replying to this last speech of hers! CHAPTER EIGHT. THE "LITTLE FAT MAN." "Hullo! What fails with the well-born and most worthy lady, her to make in such pitiable plight?" inquired Burgher Jans, poking his little round face into the parlour of the house in the Gulden Strasse, just as Lorischen, bending over her mistress, was endeavouring to raise her on to the sofa, where she would be better enabled to apply restoratives in order to bring her to. The old nurse was glad of any assistance in the emergency; and, even the fat little Burgher, disliked as he was by her, as a rule, with an inveterate hatred, was better than nobody! "Madame has fainted," she said. "Help me to lift her up, and I'll be obliged to you, worshipful Herr." "Yes, so, right gladly will I do it, dearest maiden," replied Burgher Jans politely, with his usual sweeping bow, taking off his hat and depositing it on an adjacent chair, while he lent a hand to raise the poor lady and place her on the couch. This done, he espied the letter that had caused the commotion, which Madame Dort still held tightly clutched in her hand when she fell; and he tried to pull it away from her rigid fingers. "Ha, what have we here?" he said. "You just leave that alone!" snapped out Lorischen. "Pray take yourself off, with your wanting to spy into other people's business! If I were a man I'd be ashamed of being so curious, I would. Burgher Jans, I'll thank you to withdraw; I wish to attend to my mistress." "I will obey your behests, dearest maiden," blandly replied the little man, taking his hat from the chair and backing towards the door, although casting the while most covetous eyes on the mysterious letter, which he would have cheerfully given a thaler to have been allowed to peruse. "I will return anon to inquire how the gracious lady is after her indisposition, and--" "If you are not out of the room before I count five," exclaimed the old nurse, angrily interrupting him, "I declare I'll pitch this footstool at your little round turnip-top of a head, that I will. One--two--three--" "Why, whatever is the matter, Lorischen?" interposed Madame Dort, opening her eyes at this juncture, while the old nurse yet stood with the footstool raised in her uplifted hands facing the door, half in and half out of which peered the tortoise-shell spectacles of the little fat burgher. "Who is there?" The poor lady spoke very faintly, and did not seem to know where she was at first, her gaze wandering round the room. Lorischen quickly put down the heavy missile with which she was threatening Burgher Jans; and he, taking advantage of this suspension of hostilities, at once advanced again within the apartment, although still keeping his hand on the door so as to be ready to beat a retreat in a fresh emergency, should the old nurse attempt to renew the interrupted fray. "High, well-born, and most gracious madame," said he obsequiously. "It is me, only me!" "Hein!" grunted Lorischen. "A nice `me' it is--a little, inquisitive, meddlesome morsel of a man!" "Oh, Meinherr Burgher Jans," said Madame Dort, rising up from the sofa. "I'm glad to see you; I wanted to ask you something. I--" Just at that moment she caught sight of the letter she held between her fingers, when she recollected all at once the news she had received, of which she had been for the time oblivious. "Ah, poor Fritz!" she exclaimed, bursting into a fit of weeping. "My son, my firstborn, I shall never see him more!" "Why, what have you heard, gracious lady?" said Burgher Jans, abandoning his refuge by the door, and coming forwards into the centre of the room. "No bad news, I trust, from the young and well-born Herr?" "Read," said the widow, extending the letter in her hand towards him; "read for yourself and see." His owlish eyes all expanded with delight through the tortoise-shell spectacles, the fat little man eagerly took hold of the rustling piece of paper and unfolded it, his hands trembling with nervous anxiety to know what the missive contained--and which he had been all along burning with curiosity to find out. Lorischen actually snorted with indignation. "There, just see that!" she grumbled through her set teeth, opening and clenching her fingers together convulsively, as if she would like to snatch the letter away from him--when, perhaps, she would have expressed her feelings pretty forcibly in the way of scratches on the Burgher's beaming face: "there, I wouldn't have let him see it if he had gone down on his bended knees for it--no, not if I had died first!" The widow continued to sob in her handkerchief; while the Burgher appeared to gloat over the delicate angular handwriting of the letter, as if he were learning it by heart and spelling out every word--he took so long over it. "Ah, it is bad, gracious lady," he said at length; "but, still, not so bad as it might otherwise be." Madame Dort raised her tear-stained face, looking at the little roan questioningly; while Lorischen, who in her longing to hear about Fritz had not quitted the apartment, according to her usual custom when Burgher Jans was in it, drew nearer, resting her impulsive fingers on the table, so as not to alarm that worthy unnecessarily and make him stop speaking. The Burgher felt himself a person of importance, on account of his opinion being consulted; so he drew himself up to his full height--just five feet one inch! "The letter only says, most worthy and gracious lady,--and you, dearest maiden," he proceeded--with a special bow to Lorischen, which the latter, sad to relate, only received with a grimace from her tightly drawn spinster lips--"that the young and well-born Herr is merely grievously wounded, and not, thanks be to Providence, that he is--he is--he is--" "Why don't you say `dead' at once, and not beat about the bush in that stupid way?" interposed the old nurse, who detested the little man's hemming and hawing over matters which she was in the habit of blurting out roughly without demur. "No, I like not the ugly word," suavely expostulated the Burgher. "The great-to-come-for-all-of-us can be better expressed than that! But, to resume my argument, dearest maiden and most gracious lady, this document does not state that the dear son of the house has shaken off this mortal coil entirely as yet." "I'd like to shake off yours, and you with it!" said Lorischen angrily, under her breath--"for a word-weaving, pedantic little fool!" "You mean that there is hope?" asked Madame Dort, looking a bit less tearful, her grief having nearly exhausted itself. "Most decidedly, dear lady," said the Burgher. "Does not the letter say so in plain and very-much-nicely-written characters?" "But, all such painful communications are generally worded, if the writers have a tender heart, so as to break bad news as gently as possible," answered the widow, wishing to have the faint sanguine suspicion of hope that was stealing over her confirmed by the other's opinion. "Just so," said Burgher Jans authoritatively. "You have reason in your statement; still, dear lady, by what I can gather from this letter, I should think that the Frau or Fraulein Vogelstein who signs it wishes to prepare you for the worst, but yet intimates at the same time that there is room to hope for the best." "Ah, I'm glad you say so," exclaimed the widow joyfully. "Now I read it over, I believe the same; but at first, I thought, in my hurried glance over it, that Fritz was slain, the writer only pretending he was still alive, in order to prepare me for his loss. He is not dead, thank God! That is everything; for, whilst there is life, there's hope, eh?" "Most decidedly, gracious lady," responded the little man with effusion. "If ever I under the down-pressing weight of despondency lie, so I unto myself much comfort make by that happy consolation!" Madame Dort experienced such relief from the cheering aspect in which the Burgher's explanation had enabled her now to look upon the news of Fritz's wound, that her natural feelings of hospitality, which had been dormant for the while, asserted themselves in favour of her timely visitor, who in spite of his curiosity had certainly done her much good in banishing all the ill effects of her fainting fit. "Will you not have a glass of lager, Herr Jans?" said she. "Mein Gott, yes," promptly returned the little man. "Much talking makes one dry, and beer is good for the stomach." "Lorischen, get the Burgher some lager bier," ordered Madame Dort, on her invitation being accepted, the old nurse proceeding to execute the command with very ill grace. "The Lord only knows when he'll leave now, once he starts guzzling beer in the parlour! That Burgher Jans is getting to be a positive nuisance to us; and I shall be glad when our poor wounded Fritz comes home, if only to stop his coming here so frequently--the gossipping little time- server, with his bowing and scraping and calling me his `dearest maiden,' indeed--I'd `maiden' him if I had the chance!" Lorischen was much exasperated, and so she grumbled to herself as she sallied out of the room. However, much to her relief, the "fat little man" did not make a long stay on this occasion, for he took his leave soon after swallowing the beer. He was anxious to make a round of visits amongst his acquaintances, to retail the news that Fritz was wounded and lying in a hospital at Mezieres, near Metz, for he had read it himself in the letter, you know! He likewise informed his hearers, although he had not so impressed the widow, that they would probably never see the young clerk of Herr Grosschnapper again in Lubeck, as his case was so desperate that he was not expected to live! His story otherwise, probably, would have been far less interesting to scandal-mongers, as they would have thus lost the opportunity of settling all the affairs of the widow and considering whom she would marry again. Of course, they now decided, that, as she had as good as lost both her sons and had a nice little property of her own, besides being comparatively not old, so to speak, and not very plain, she would naturally seek another partner to console herself in her solitude--Burgher Jans getting much quizzed on this point, with sly allusions as to his being the widow's best friend! Some days after Madaleine Vogelstein's first letter, Madame Dort received a second, telling her that the ball had been extracted from her son's wound, but fever had come on, making him very weak and prostrate; although, as his good constitution had enabled him to survive the painful operation, he would probably pull through this second ordeal. The widow again grew down-hearted at this intelligence, and it was as much as Burgher Jans could do, with all his plausibility, to make her hopeful; while Lorischen, her old superstitious fears and belief in Mouser's prophetic miaow-wowing again revived, did all her best to negative the fat little man's praiseworthy efforts at cheering. Ever since the Burgher had been elected a confidant of Madaleine's original communication, he had made a point of calling every day in the Gulden Strasse, with his, to the old nurse, sickening and stereotyped inquiry--"Any news yet?" until the field post brought the next despatch, when, as he now naturally expected and wished, the letter was given him to read. "He seems bent on hanging up his hat in our lobby here!" Lorischen would say spitefully, on the widow seeking to excuse the little man's pertinacity in visiting her. "Much he cares whether poor Master Fritz gets well or ill; he takes more interest in somebody else, I think!" "Oh, Lorischen!" Madame Dort would remonstrate. "How can you say such things?" "It is `Oh, mistress!' it strikes me," the other would retort. "I wish the young master were only here!" "And so do I heartily," said Madame Dort, at the end of one of these daily skirmishes between the two on the same subject. "We agree on that point, at all events!" and she sighed heavily. The old servant was so privileged a person that she did not like to speak harshly to her, although she did not at all relish Lorischen's frequent allusions as to the real object of the Burgher's visits, and her surmises as to what the neighbours would think about them. Madame Dort put up with Lorischen's innuendoes in silence, but still, she did not look pleased. "Ach Himmel, dear mistress!" pleaded the offender, "never mind my waspish old tongue. I am always saying what I shouldn't; but that little fat man does irritate me with his hypocritical, oily smile and smooth way--calling me his `dearest maiden,' indeed!" "Why, don't you see, Lorischen, that it is you really whom he comes here after, although you treat him so cruelly!" said the widow, smiling. This was more than the old spinster could bear. "What, me!" she exclaimed, with withering scorn. "Himmel, if I thought that, I would soon scratch his chubby face for him--me, indeed!" and she retreated from the room in high dudgeon. Bye-and-bye, there came another letter from the now familiar correspondent, saying that Fritz was really recovering at last; and, oh what happiness! the mother's heart was rejoiced by the sight of a few awkwardly scrawled lines at the end. It was a postscript from her son himself! The almost indecipherable words were only "Love to Mutterchen, from her own Fritz," but they were more precious to her than the lengthiest epistle from any one else. "Any news?" asked Burgher Jans of Lorischen soon afterwards, when he came to the house to make his stereotyped inquiry. "Yes," said the old nurse, instead of replying with her usual negative. "Indeed!" exclaimed the little man. "The noble, well-born young Herr is not worse, I hope?" and he tried to hide his abnormally bland expression with a sympathetic look of deep concern; but he failed miserably in the attempt. His full-moon face could not help beaming with a self- satisfied complacency which it was impossible to subdue; indeed, he would have been unable to disguise this appearance of smiling, even if he had been at a funeral and was, mentally, plunged in the deepest woe-- if that were possible for him to be! "No, not worse," answered Lorischen. "He is--" "Not dead, I trust?" said Burgher Jans, interrupting her before she could finish her sentence, and using in his hurry the very word to which he had objected before. "No, he is not dead," retorted the old nurse, with a triumphant ring in her voice. "And, if you were expecting that, I only hope you are disappointed, that's all! He is getting better, for he has written to the mistress himself; and, what is more, he's coming home to send you to the right-about, Burgher Jans, and stop your coming here any more. Do you hear that, eh?" "My dearest maiden," commenced to stammer out the little fat man, woefully taken aback by this outburst, "I--I--don't know what you mean." "Ah, but I do," returned Lorischen, not feeling any the more amiably disposed towards him by his addressing her in that way after what Madame Dort had said about his calling especially to see her. "I know what I mean; and what I mean to say now, is, that my mistress told me to say she was engaged when you came, should you call to-day, and that she is unable to see you, there! Good-morning, Burgher Jans; good-morning, most worshipful Herr!" So saying, she slammed the door in the poor little man's face, leaving him without, cogitating the reason for this summary dismissal of him by the widow; albeit Lorischen, in order to indulge her own feelings of dislike, had somewhat exaggerated a casual remark made by her mistress-- that she did not wish to be interrupted after the receipt of the good news about Fritz, as she wanted to answer the letter at once! CHAPTER NINE. A MUTUAL UNDERSTANDING! "Do you know what is going on to-day?" said Madaleine Vogelstein to her patient, a couple of days after she had aided him to scrawl that postscript to her letter to his mother in his own handwriting, when he had so far recovered that he might be said to be almost convalescent. "No, what--anything important?" he replied, answering her question in questionable fashion by asking another. "Guess," said she teasingly, holding up her finger. "I'm sure I can't." "The capitulation of Metz!" she said slowly with some emphasis, marking the importance of the news she was telling. "Never--it can't be!" ejaculated Fritz, making an effort to spring up in the pallet bed on which he was still lying, but falling back with a groan on finding himself too weak. "What an unlucky beggar I am!" "Lie still," said she, putting her hand gently on his, which was outside the quilt. "You must keep quiet, or you'll never get better, so as to be able to stand up and walk about again--no, you won't, if you try to hurry matters now." "That's more than the French have done if they've only just given in! Is it true, though? Perhaps you've only heard a rumour, for there are always such false reports flying about. Why, in the camp it used to be the current cry every morning, after we began the siege, that Metz had fallen." "It is true enough now, I can tell you," said Madaleine. "The whole French army commanded by Bazaine has capitulated, and the Germans have marched in and taken possession of the fortress." "I must believe you; but, is it not aggravating that this should just happen when I am invalided here, and not able to take part in the final triumph? It is rather hard lines, after serving so long in the trenches all during our wearisome environment, not to have had the satisfaction in the end of being a witness to the surrender!" "It's the fortune of war," said she soothingly, noticing how bitterly Fritz spoke. "Although all may fight bravely, it is not every one who reaps the laurels of victory." "No," he replied, smiling at some thoughts which her words suggested--so much is dry humour allied to sentiment that the mention of laurels brought to his mind a comic association which at once dispelled his chagrin. "When did you say the capitulation took place?" "Well, I heard that the formal agreement was signed by the French officers on behalf of Marshal Bazaine two days ago; but the actual surrender takes place to-day, the Marshal having already left, it is said, to join his imprisoned emperor at Cassel." What Madaleine told Fritz was perfectly true. On the 27th of October, the seventieth day after it had been driven under the guns of Metz on the disastrous termination of the battle of Gravelotte, Bazaine's army, in addition to the regular garrison of the fortress and an unknown number of Gardes Mobiles, was forced to surrender to the Germans--thus now allowing the latter to utilise the giant legions hitherto employed in investing the stronghold of Lorraine, in further trampling out the last evidences of organised resistance in France, and so, by coercing the country, sooner put an end to the duration of the war. Notwithstanding all the comments made--especially those by his own countrymen in their unreasoning prejudice against every one and everything connected with the late empire, from its unfortunate and much-maligned head downwards--in the matter of this capitulation, and on Marshal Bazaine's conduct, it is absolutely certain that he held out as long as it was possible to do so. Indeed, it is a surprising fact that his provisions lasted such a length of time; and it would be a cause for sorrow to believe that the brave defender of Metz was in any way stained by the crime of "treachery" as his act was stigmatised by the demagogues of Paris. Those who assert that a clever commander ought somehow or other to have made his escape from the place, do not take into consideration the strength of the investing force, which comprised the united armies of Prince Frederick Charles and Steinmetz--more than two hundred and fifty thousand men, in addition to their reserves, all capable of being concentrated at any given point where an attack was anticipated, and protected, besides, by entrenched lines of great strength. Nor do these biassed critics consider the ruin that must have fallen on Bazaine's army, even if it had succeeded in cutting its way through the ranks of the besiegers, as the general tried gallantly, but unsuccessfully, to do on more than one occasion, besides making numerous sorties. It is apparent to most unprejudiced minds now, at this distance of time from the momentous epoch of the struggle between the two nations, that the Marshal, in his situation, accomplished all that could have been expected in detaining for such a length of time a huge German army nearly on the frontier, thus giving the invaded country breathing time to collect its resources for just so long a period. The fact is, that when an army like that of Bazaine's is severed from its communications and supplies, its surrender can only be a question of time; and, therefore, unparalleled as is the capitulation of Metz in modern history, the unprecedented catastrophe--can be fully accounted for on military grounds. "I'm sorry I missed the sight," said Fritz presently, after thinking over the news. "It would have been some fair return for all that bitter night work I had in the trenches before I was wounded. Still, I'm glad it's all ended now, for my corps will be able to march onward on Paris like the rest." "That will not benefit you much, my poor friend," remarked Madaleine sympathisingly. "I'm afraid it will be some time before you will be strong enough to move from this room, although you're improving each day." "Oh, will it?" said Fritz triumphantly; "that's all you know about it, young lady! Why, Doctor Carl said this morning that he thought I would be able to report myself fit for duty in another week." "I suppose you'll rejoice to get back to your friends and comrades in the regiment? You must find it miserable and dull enough in this place!" "No, not quite that. I've been very happy and comfortable here the last few days; and I shall never forget all your kindness and care of me--no, never!" "Don't speak of that, pray; it's only what any one else would have done in my place. Besides," she added demurely, "you know that in attending to you as a wounded soldier, I have only been carrying out the orders of the baroness, my employer." "Hang the fussy old thing!" said Fritz impatiently trying to shrug his shoulders. He had had the honour of one interview with Madaleine's distinguished patroness, and did not crave for another; for, she had a good deal of that old-fashioned, starched formality which the German nobility affect, mixed up with a fidgety, condescending, patronising manner which much annoyed the generous-minded young fellow. He burned with indignation all the time the visit of the old lady to him had lasted, for she ordered Madaleine to do this and corrected her for doing that, in, as he thought, the rudest manner possible. Her exquisitely dignified patronage of himself, as a species of inferior animal, who, being in pain and distress, she was bound in common charity to take some notice of, caused him no umbrage whatever; but it annoyed him to see a gentle, ladylike girl like Madaleine subjected to the whims and caprices of an old woman, who, in spite of her high birth, was naturally vulgar and inconsiderate. "Hang the fussy old thing!" he repeated, with considerable heat. "I wish you had nothing to do with her. I'm sure she would drive me mad in a day if I were constantly associated with her!" "Ah, dear friend, beggars mustn't be choosers," said Madaleine sadly. "You forget my position, in your kind zeal on my behalf! A poor orphan girl such as I, left friendless and penniless, ought to be glad to be under the protection of so grand a lady as the Baroness Stolzenkop. She is kind to me, too, in her way." "But, what a way!" interposed Fritz angrily. "I wouldn't speak to a dog in that fashion." "You are different." "I should hope so, indeed!" "Besides, Herr Fritz, remember, that if it hadn't been for this old lady, of whom you speak in such disrespectful terms, I should never have come here to Mezieres and been able to nurse you." "I forgot for the moment, Fraulein. My blessing on the old catamaran for the fancy that seized her, so auspiciously, to go touring on the trail of the war and thus to bring you here. I don't believe I would have lived, if it had not been for your care and kindness!" "Meinherr, you exaggerate. It is to your own good constitution and to Providence that your thanks are due; I have only been a simple means towards that happy end." "Well, I shall always attribute my recovery to you, at all events; and so will my good mother, who I hope will some day be able to thank you in person for all that you've done for me and her." "I should like to see her," said Madaleine; "she must be a kind, good lady, from her letters to you." "And the fondest mother in the world!" exclaimed Fritz with enthusiasm. "But, you will see her--some day," he added after a pause. "I vow that you shall." "I don't know how that will be," said Madaleine, half laughing in a constrained fashion, as if wishing to conceal her real feelings. "In a week or two you will be off to the wars again and forget me--like a true soldier!" "Stay," interposed Fritz, interrupting her. "You have no right to say that! Do you think me so ungrateful? You must have a very bad opinion of me! I--" "Never mind explanations now," interrupted the girl in her turn, speaking hurriedly in a nervous way, although trying to laugh the matter off as a joke. "If the doctor says you can soon report yourself as fit for duty, of course you'll have to rejoin your regiment." "Ah, I wonder where that is now?" said Fritz musingly. "Since our camp round Metz is broken up, the army will naturally march on farther into the interior. No matter, there's no good my worrying myself about it. They'll soon let me know where I've got to go to join them; for, the powers that be do not allow any shirking of duty in the ranks, from the highest to the lowest!" "I saw that here," remarked Madaleine. "The baroness wanted to get her son to return home with her; but she was told that, if he were allowed to go he could never come back to the army, as his reputation for courage would be settled for ever." "Yes, that would be the case, true enough. Hev would be thought to have shown the white feather! But, about your movements, Fraulein Madaleine--the baroness is not going to remain here long, is she?" "No; she spoke this morning about going away. She said that, as the siege of Metz was raised, and the greater portion of the wounded men would be removed to Germany, along with the prisoners of war, she thought she would go back home--to Darmstadt, that is." "And there you will stop, I suppose?" asked Fritz. "Until she has a whim to go somewhere else!" replied Madaleine. "May I write to you there?" "I will be glad to hear of your welfare," answered she discreetly, a slight colour mantling to her cheeks. "Of course, you have been my patient; and, like a good nurse, I should like to know that you were getting on well, without any relapse." "I will write to you, then," said Fritz in those firm, ringing tones of his that clearly intimated he had made a promise which he intended to keep. "And you, I hope, will answer my letters?" "When I can," replied the girl; "that is, you know, if the Baroness Stolzenkop does not object." "Bother the Baroness Stolzenkop!" said he energetically, and he stretched out his hand to her with a smile. "Promise to write to me," he repeated. Madaleine did not say anything; but she returned his smile, and he could feel a slight pressure of her fingers on his, so with this he was perfectly contented for the while. "Ah, when the war is over!" he exclaimed presently, after a moment's silence between the two, which expressed more than words would have done perhaps. "Ah, when the war is over!" "Eh, what?" said the doctor, coming in unexpectedly at that instant and catching the last words. "I--I--said," explained Fritz rather confusedly, "that when the war was over, I'd be glad to get home again to my mother and those dear to me;" and he looked at Madaleine as he spoke meaningly. "Eh, what?" repeated the doctor. "But, the war isn't over yet, my worthy young lieutenant, and I hope we'll patch you up so as to be able to play a good part in it still for the Fatherland!" "I hope so, Herr Doctor," answered Fritz. "I've no desire yet to be laid on the shelf while laurels and promotion are to be won." "Just so, that is good; and how do you feel this afternoon, eh?" "Much better." "Ah yes, so I see! You will go on improving, if you take plenty of food. I bet that in a week's time I shall be able to turn you out of these nice quarters here." So saying, the surgeon bustled out of the room, with a kind nod to his patient and a bow to Madaleine, who was shortly afterwards summoned by a servant to the baroness--the footman telling her that her ladyship requested her presence at once. She returned later on, but it was only for a very brief interval, to say good-bye. The Princess of Alten-Schlossen, she said, was about to leave Mezieres immediately for Germany, and the baroness could not think of staying behind, even for the charitable consideration of nursing any more wounded, if the exalted lady, whose actions traced the pattern for her own conduct, thought fit to go away! Madaleine, therefore, had orders to pack up all the old dowager's numerous belongings, being also given permission to make any arrangements she pleased for the poor fellows who remained in the villa, in order to have them handed over to the regular authorities, now that this amateur ambulance of the baroness was going to abandon its voluntary labours. "It's a shame," said Madaleine indignantly. "It is like putting one's hand to the plough and then turning back!" "Never mind, Fraulein, do not fret yourself," interposed Fritz. "The old lady has done some good by starting this hospital here, even if she did it in imitation of the Princess; and, although she may now give it up, it will be carried on all right by others, you see if it won't! As I am getting well, too, and will have to go, as the doctor says; why, I shall not regret it as I should otherwise have done." "Oh, you selfish fellow!" said she, smiling. "Now you have been attended to and nursed into convalescence, you do not care what becomes of those who may come after you!" "Not quite so bad as that," replied Fritz; "only, as I shall be away serving with my regiment, I should prefer to think of you ensconced in the quiet security of the baroness' castle on the Rhine, to being here amidst the excitement of the war and in the very thick of bands of stragglers to and from the front." "Especially since I would lose your valuable protection!" laughed Madaleine. "Ah, wait till I get up and am strong!" said Fritz. "When you see me again, I promise to be able to protect you." "Aye, when!" repeated the girl with a sigh. "However, I must say good- bye now, Herr Lieutenant I have told our man Hans, whom the baroness leaves behind, to see that you want for nothing until you shall be able to attend to yourself. I'm sorry you'll have no female nurse now to look after you." "I wouldn't let another woman come near me after you go!" exclaimed Fritz impulsively. "Mind, you have promised to write to me, you know." "Yes," said she, "I will answer your letters; and now, good-bye! Don't forget me quite when you get amongst the gay ladies of Paris, who will quite eclipse your little German nurse!" "Never!" he ejaculated. "Good-bye, till we meet again!" and he pressed her hand to his lips, looking up into her eyes. "Good-bye!" said she in a husky voice, turning away; when the dog, which had been lying down in his usual place by his master's bedside, started up, "Good-bye you, too, my darling `Fritz'!" she added, throwing her arms round the retriever's neck and kissing his smooth black head; "I nearly forgot you, dearest doggie, I do declare!" "Heavens!" exclaimed the other Fritz, mortally jealous of his dog for the moment, "I wish you would only say farewell to me like that!" Madaleine blushed a celestial rosy red. But "Auf wiedersehen!" was all she said, as she left the room with a speaking glance from her violet eyes; and, towards the evening, from the confused bustling about which he heard going on within the villa, and the sound of carriage wheels without driving off, Fritz knew that the Baroness Stolzenkop and her party--amongst whom, of course, was Madaleine--had quitted Mezieres, on their way back to the banks of the Rhine. CHAPTER TEN. ON THE MOVE AGAIN. "I wonder if she cares about that French fellow still?" thought Fritz to himself when Madaleine had gone. "I don't believe she could have felt for him much, from the manner in which she listened when I told her of his death and the way she looked at that ring. Himmel! Would she receive the news of my being shot in the same fashion, I wonder?" Fritz, however, could not settle this momentous question satisfactorily to his own mind just then; so he had, consequently, to leave the matter to be decided at that blissful period when everybody thought that "everything would come straight"--the period to which he had alluded at the interesting instant when his slightly confidential conversation with Madaleine was so inopportunely interrupted by the maladroit entrance of Doctor Carl. In other words, "when the war should be over!" But, as the worthy disciple of Aesculapius had sapiently remarked on the occasion of his accidental interference with what might have been otherwise a mutual understanding between the two, the war was not over yet. The halcyon time had not arrived for the sword to be beaten into a ploughshare, nor did there seem much prospect of such a happy contingency in the near immediate future; for, although the contest had already lasted three months--during which a series of terrible engagements had invariably resulted in the defeat of the French--from the commencement of the campaign to the capitulation of Metz, each crushing disaster only seemed to have the effect of nerving the Gallic race to fresh resistance and so prolong the struggle. Indeed, at the beginning of November, 1870, with Paris laughing the idea of a siege to scorn and new armies being rapidly organised, in the north at Saint Quentin, in the west at Havre, and in the south at Orleans, the end of the war appeared as far off as ever! Fritz missed the attentions of his unwearying little nurse much, and his convalescence did not progress so rapidly in consequence; but one morning, some three weeks after the departure of the party of the baroness' from Mezieres, he was agreeably surprised by Doctor Carl giving him permission to rejoin his corps. "I don't quite think you exactly strong enough yet, you know; but I've received orders to clear out the hospitals here, sending forward all such as are fit to their respective regiments, while those not sufficiently recovered I am to invalid to Germany. Now, which is it to be, Herr Lieutenant? I candidly don't believe you're quite up to the mark for campaigning again yet; but still, perhaps, you would not like being put on the shelf, and no doubt you'd gain strength from the change of air as you moved on with the army. Which course will you select, Herr Lieutenant? I give you the choice." "To rejoin my regiment, certainly, doctor!" answered Fritz, without a moment's hesitation. "I'm tired of doing nothing here, and I fancy I've been well enough to move for the past fortnight." "Ah, permit me to be the best judge of that, young man," said the other. "No doubt you feel wonderfully strong just now! Can you lift this chair, do you think, eh?" "Certainly," replied Fritz, laying his hand on the slight little article of furniture the doctor had pointed out with his cane, and which he could have easily held up with one finger when in the possession of his proper strength. He was quite indignant, indeed, with Doctor Carl for suggesting such a feeble trial for him, as if he were a child; but, much to his astonishment, he found that he was utterly unable to raise the chair from the ground. Besides which, he quite panted after the exertion, just as if he had been endeavouring to lift a ton weight! "Ha, what did I say, Herr Lieutenant?" said the surgeon with a laugh. "You will now allow, I suppose, that we doctors know best as to what is good for our patients! But, come, you will not be wanted to raise or carry about a greater weight than yourself until you come up with your regiment, which is now with Manteuffel's division near Amiens, for, by that time, you'll be yourself again. I'll now go and sign your certificate and papers, so that you may get ready to start as soon as you like." "Hurrah!" exclaimed Fritz. "It is `Forwards' again--the very word puts fresh life in me!" and, trying once more, he lifted the chair this time with ease. "You see, Herr Doctor, I can do it now!" "Ah, there's nothing like hope and will!" said the doctor, bustling out of the room--which Fritz, unlike many poor victims of the war, had had entirely to himself, instead of being only one amongst hundreds of others in a crowded hospital ward. "By the time you join your comrades again, you'll be double the man you were before you came under my care!" "Thanks to you, dear doctor," shouted out Fritz after him in cordial tones; and he then proceeded to overhaul his somewhat dilapidated uniform to see whether it was in order for him to don once more. On the termination of the siege of Metz, by its capitulation at the end of October, the large German force which had been employed up till then in the investment of Marshal Bazaine's entrenched camp before the fortress, became released for other duties; thus enabling Von Moltke, the great strategical head of the Teuton legions, to develop his plans for the complete subjugation of the country. In accordance, therefore, with these arrangements, two army corps, each of some thirty thousand men, proceeded at once to aid the hosts encircling Paris with fire and steel; while two more corps were led by Prince Frederick Charles towards the south of France, where they arrived in the nick of time to assist the Duke of Mecklenburgh and the defeated Bavarians under Van der Tann in breaking up the formidable army of the Loire commanded by Chanzy, which had very nearly succeeded in altering the condition of the war; the remainder of the German investing force from Metz were sent northwards, under Manteuffel, in the direction of Brittany and the departments bordering on the English Channel, so as to crush out all opposition there. With this latter force marched the regiment of our friend Fritz, which he was able to rejoin about the beginning of December at Amiens, where were established the headquarters of General Manteuffel, the present commander of the first army--"Old Blood and Iron." Steinmetz having been shelved, it was said, on account of his age and infirmities, he having fought at Waterloo, but more probably on account of his rather lavish sacrifice of his men, especially at Gravelotte. This force kept firm hold of Normandy with a strong hand, threatening Dieppe and Havre on either side. Fritz had a tedious journey to the front. Partly by railway where practicable, and partly by roads that were blocked by the heavy siege guns and waggon loads of ammunition going forwards for the use of the force besieging Paris, the young lieutenant made his way onwards in company with a reserve column of Landwehr proceeding to fill up casualties in Manteuffel's ranks--the journey not being rendered any the more agreeable by the frequent attacks suffered from franc-tireurs when passing through the many woods and forests encountered on the route, in addition to meeting straggling bands of the enemy, who opposed the progress of the column the more vigorously as it abandoned the main roads leading from the frontier and struck across country. It was not by any means a pleasure trip; but, putting all perils aside, regarding them merely as the vicissitudes of a soldier's lot, what impressed Fritz more than anything else was the ruin and devastation which, following thus in the rear of a triumphant army, he everywhere noticed. The towns he entered on his way had most of their shops shut, and the windows of the private houses were closed, as if in sympathy with a national funeral, those which had been bombarded--and these were many-- having, besides, their streets blocked up with fallen masonry and scattered beams of timber, their church steeples prostrate, and the walls of buildings perforated with round shot and bursting shells that had likewise burnt and demolished the roofs; while, in the more open country, the farms and villages had been swept away as if with a whirlwind of fire, only bare gables and blackened rafters staring up into the clouds, like the skeletons of what were once happy homes. The vineyards and fields and gardens around were destroyed and running to waste in the most pitiful way, for every one connected with them, who had formerly cherished and tended them with such care and attention, had either been killed or else sought safety in flight to the cities, where their refuge was equally precarious. Along the highway, the trees, whose branches once gave such grateful shade to wayfarers, were now cut down, only rows of hideous, half-consumed stumps remaining in their stead; while here and there, as the scene of some great battle was passed, great mounds like oblong bases of flattened pyramids rose above the surface of the devastated plain--mounds under whose frozen surface lay the mouldering bodies of thousands of brave men who had fallen on the bloody field, their last resting-place unmarked by sepulchral cross or monumental marble. Everywhere there was terrible evidence of the effects of war and the price of that "glory" which, the poet sings truly, "leads but to the grave!" Fritz was sickened with it all; but, what struck his keen sense of honour and honesty more, was the wholesale pillage and robbery permitted by the German commanders to be exercised by their soldiery on the defenceless peasantry of France. A cart which he overhauled, proceeding back to the frontier, contained such wretched spoil as women's clothes, a bale of coffee, a quantity of cheap engravings and chimney ornaments, an old-fashioned kitchen clock, with an arm-chair--the pride of some fireside corner--a quantity of copper, and several pairs of ear-rings, such as are sold for a few sous in the Palais Royale! The sight of this made his blood boil, and Fritz got into some trouble with a colonel of Uhlans by ordering the contents of the cart to be at once confiscated and burnt, the huckster being on the good books of that officer--doubtless as a useful collector of curios! It was a current report amongst the French at the time that the German army was followed by a tribe of Jew speculators, who purchased from the soldiers the plunder that they certainly could not themselves expect to carry back to their own country; and this incident led Fritz to believe the rumour well founded. "Heavens, little mother," as he wrote home subsequently to Madame Dort, after his experience of what went on at headquarters under his new commander. "I do not fear the enemy; but the only thing which will do us any harm, God willing that we come safely home, is that we shall not be able to distinguish between mine and thine, the `meum' and `tuum' taught us at school, for we shall be all thorough thieves; that is to say, we are ordered to take--`requisition' they call it--everything that we can find and that we can use. This does not confine itself alone to food for the horses and people, but to every piece of portable property, not an absolute fixture, which, if of any value, we are directed to appropriate and `nail' fast! "Through the desertion of most of the castles here in the neighbourhood by their legitimate proprietors, the entry to all of them is open to us; and now everything is taken out of them that is worth taking at all. The wine-cellars in particular are searched; and I may say that our division has drank more champagne on its own account than I ever remember to have seen in the district of Champagne, when I visited it last year before the war. "In the second place, our light-fingered forces carry off all the horses we can take with us; all toilet things, glasses, stockings, brushes, boots and shoes, linen--in a word, everything is `stuck to!' "The officers, I may add, are no exception to the private soldiers, but steal in their proper precedence, appropriating whatever objects of art or pictures of value they can find in the mansions we visit in these archaeological tours of ours. Only yesterday, the adjutant of my regiment, a noble by birth, but I am sorry to say not a gentleman either by manners or moral demeanour, came to me and said, `Fritz Dort, do me the favour to steal for me all the loot you can bring me. We will at all events show Moltke that he has not sent us into this war for nothing.' Of course, this being an order from a superior officer, I could not say anything but `At your command, your highness!' But what will come of it all only God knows! I'm afraid, when there is nothing left to lay our hands on, we will begin to appropriate the goods and chattels of each other; although, little mother, I will endeavour to keep my fingers clean, if only for your sake!" Fritz, however, soon had something more exciting to think about than the morals of his comrades; for, only a few days after he joined his regiment, he went into action again at the battle of Amiens, when the Germans drove back Faidherbe's "army of the north," routing them with much slaughter, and taking many prisoners, besides thirteen cannon. A French regiment of marines was ridden down by a body of German Hussars, who were almost decimated by the charge--which resembled that of Balaclava, the "sea soldiers" standing behind entrenchments with their guns. Later on, too, Fritz was in a more memorable engagement. It occurred on the morning of the 23rd of December at Pont Noyelles, where the army of General Manteuffel, numbering about fifty thousand men with some forty guns, attacked a force of almost double the strength, commanded by Faidherbe, the last of the generals on whom the French relied outside of Paris. The two armies confronted each other from opposing heights, separated by the valley of the Somme and a small, winding stream, which falls into the larger river at Daours, on the right and left banks of which the contending forces were respectively aligned; and the combat opened about eleven o'clock in the forenoon with a heavy cannonade, under cover of which the German tirailleurs smartly advanced and took possession of several small villages, although the French shortly afterwards drove them out of these at the point of the bayonet, exhibiting great gallantry. In the evening, both armies rested in the same positions they had occupied at the commencement of the fight; but, although the French greatly outnumbered their antagonists, being especially superior in artillery, the fire of which had considerably thinned the German ranks, they did nothing the whole of the succeeding day. On the contrary, they rested in a state of complete inactivity, when, if they had but pushed forwards, they might have compelled the retreat of Manteuffel. The next morning was that of Christmas Day. Fritz could not but remember it, in spite of his surroundings, for he received a small parcel by the field post, containing some warm woollen socks knitted by Lorischen's own fair fingers, and sent to him in order "to prevent his appropriating those of the poor French peasantry," as he had intimated might be the case with him in his last letter home, should he be in need of such necessaries and not have any of his own. His good mother, too, did not forget him, nor did a certain young lady who resided at Darmstadt. It was the morning of Christmas Day; but not withstanding its holy and peaceful associations, Fritz and every one else in Manteuffel's army corps expected that the anniversary would be celebrated in blood. Judge of their surprise, however, when, as the day advanced, the vedettes and outposts they sent ahead returned with the strange intelligence that the enemy had abandoned the highly advantageous ground they had selected on Pont Noyelles, retiring on Arras. The news was almost too good to be true; but, nevertheless, the German cavalry were soon on the alert, pursuing the retreating force and slaughtering thousands in the chase--thus Christmas Day was passed! The new year opened with more fighting for Fritz; for, on the 2nd of January, occurred the battle of Bapaume, and on the 19th of the same month the more disastrous engagement for the French of Saint Quentin, which finally crumbled up "the army of the north" under Faidherbe, which at one time almost looked as if it would have succeeded in raising the siege of Paris, by diverting the attention of the encircling force. However, in neither of these actions did Fritz either get wounded or gain additional promotion; and from thence, up to the close of the war, his life in the invaded country was uneventful and without interest. Yes, to him; for he was longing to return home. "Going to the war" had lost all its excitement for him, the carnage of the past months and the sorrowful scenes he had witnessed having fairly satiated him with "glory" and all the horrors which follow in its train. Now, he was fairly hungering for home, and the quiet of the old household at Lubeck with his "little mother" and Lorischen--not forgetting Mouser, to make home more homelike and enjoyable, for Fritz thought how he would have to teach Gelert, who had likewise escaped scathless throughout the remainder of the campaign in the north of France, to be on friendly terms with the old nurse's pet cat. He was thinking of some one else too; for, lately, the letters of Madaleine had stopped, although she had previously corresponded with him regularly. He could not make out the reason for her silence. One despatch might certainly have been lost in transmission through the field post; but for three or four--as would have been the case if she had responded in due course to his effusions, which were written off to Darmstadt each week without fail--to miss on the journey, was simply impossible! Some treachery must be at work; or else, Madaleine was ill; or, she had changed her mind towards him. Which of these reasons caused her silence? It was probably, he thought, the former which he had to thank for his anxiety; and the cause, he was certain, was the baroness. What blessings he heaped on her devoted head! It was in this frame of mind that Fritz awaited the end of the war. CHAPTER ELEVEN. A PLEASANT SURPRISE! That winter was the dullest ever known in the little household of the Gulden Strasse, and the coldest experienced for years in Lubeck--quiet town of cold winters, situated as it is on the shores of the ice-bound Baltic! It was such bitter, inclement weather, with the thermometer going down to zero and the snow freezing as it fell, that neither Madame Dort nor old Lorischen went out of the house more than they could help; and, as for Mouser, he lived and slept and miaow-wowed in close neighbourhood to the stove in the parlour, not even the temptation of cream inducing him to leave the protection of its enjoyable warmth. For him, the mice might ravage the cupboards below the staircase, his whilom happy hunting-ground, at their own sweet will; and the birds, rendered tame by their privations, invade the sanctity of the balcony and the window- sills, whereon at another season their lives would not be worth a moment's purchase. He heeded them not now, nor did he, as of yore, resent the intrusion of Burgher Jans' terrier, when that predatory animal came prowling within the widow's tenement in company with his master, who had not entirely ceased his periodic visits, in spite of "the cold shoulder" invariably turned to him by Lorischen. Mouser wasn't going to inconvenience himself for the best dog in Christendom; so, on the advent of the terrier, he merely hopped from the front of the stove to the top, where he frizzled his feet and fizzed at his enemy, without risking the danger of catching an influenza, as he might otherwise have done if he had sought refuge elsewhere out in the cold. Aye, for it was cold; and many was the time, when, rubbing their tingling fingers, both the widow and Lorischen pitied the hardships to which poor Fritz was exposed in the field, almost feeling angry and ashamed at themselves for being comfortable when he had to endure so much--as they knew from all the accounts published in the newspapers of the sufferings which the invading armies had to put up with, although Fritz himself made light of his physical grievances. At Christmas-tide they were sad enough at his absence, with the memory of the lost Eric also to make that merry-making time for others doubly miserable to them; but, on the dawn of the new year, their hopes began to brighten with the receipt of every fresh piece of news from France concerning the progress of the war. "The end cannot be far off now," they said to one another in mutual consolation, so as to cheer up each other's drooping spirits. "Surely the campaign cannot last much longer!" The last Sunday in the month came, and on this day Madame Dort and Lorischen went to the Marien Kirche to service. Previously they had been in the habit of attending the Dom Kirche, from the fact of Eric's liking to see, first as a child and afterwards as a growing boy, the great astronomical clock whose queer-looking eyes rolled so very curiously with the swing of the pendulum backwards and forwards each second; but, now, they went to the other house of God for a different reason. It, too, had an eccentric clock, distinguished for a procession of figures of the saints, which jerked themselves into notice each hour above the dial; still it was not that which attracted the widow there. The church was filled with large monumental figures with white, outstretching wings, that hovered out into prominence above the carvings of the old oak screens, black with age. These figures appeared as if soaring up to the roof of the chancel; and Madame Dort had a fancy, morbid it might have been, that she could pray better there, surrounded as it were by guardian angels, whose protection she invoked on behalf of her boy lost at sea, and that other, yet alive, who was "in danger, necessity," and possibly "tribulation!" After she and Lorischen had returned home from the Marien Kirche, the day passed quietly and melancholy away; but the next morning broke more cheerfully. It was the 30th of January, 1871. Both the lone women at the little house in the Gulden Strasse remembered that fact well; for, on the morrow, the month from which they had expected such good tidings would be up, and if they heard nothing before its close they must needs despair. Seeing that the morning broke bright and cheerily, with the sun shining down through the frost-laden air, making the snow on the roofs look crisper and causing the icicles from the eaves to glitter in its scintillating rays, Lorischen determined to go to market, especially as she had not been outside the doorway, except to go to church, since the previous week. She had not much to buy, it is true; but then she might have a gossip with the neighbours and hear some news, perhaps--who knows? Anything might have happened without the knowledge of herself or her mistress, as no one, not even Burgher Jans, had been to visit them for ever so long! Clad, therefore, in her thick cloak and warm boots, with her wide, red- knitted woollen shawl over her head and portly market-basket on arm, Lorischen sallied out like the dove from the ark, hoping perchance to bring back with her an olive branch of comfort; while the widow sat herself down by the stove in the parlour with her needle, stitching away at some new shirts she was engaged on to renew Fritz's wardrobe when he came back. Seeing an opportunity for taking up a comfortable position, Mouser jumped up at once into her lap as soon as the old nurse had left the room, purring away with great complacency and watching in a lazy way the movements of her busy fingers, blinking sleepily the while at the glowing fire in front of him. Lorischen had not been gone long when Madame Dort heard her bustling back up the staircase without. She knew the old nurse's step well; but, besides hers, she heard the tread of some one else, and then the noisy bark of a dog. A sort of altercation between two voices followed, in which the old nurse's angry accents were plainly perceptible; and next there seemed a hurried scuffle just without the parlour door, which suddenly burst open with a clatter, and two people entered the room. They were Lorischen and Burgher Jans, who both tried to speak together, the result being a confused jangle of tongues from which Madame Dort could learn nothing. "I say I was first!" squeaked the Burgher in a high treble key, which he always adopted when excited beyond his usual placid mode of utterance. "And I say it was me!" retorted the old nurse in her gruff tones, which were much more like those of a man. "What right have you to try and supplant the servant of the house, who specially went out about it, you little meddlesome teetotum, I'd like to know, hey?" "But I was first, I say! Madame Dort--" "Don't listen to him, mistress," interposed Lorischen. "I've just--" "There's news of--" But, bang just then came Lorischen's market-basket against the side of the little man's head, knocking his hat off and stopping his speech abruptly; while the old nurse muttered savagely, "I wish it had been your little turnip-top of a head instead of your hat, that I do!" "Good people! good people!" exclaimed Madame Dort, rising to her feet and dropping her needlework and Mouser--who rapidly jumped on to the top of the stove out of the reach of Burgher Jans' terrier, which, of course, had followed his master into the parlour and at once made a dart at the cat as he tumbled on to the floor from the widow's lap. "Pray do not make such a noise, and both speak at once! What is the matter that you are so eager to tell me--good news, I trust, Lorischen, or you would not have hurried back so soon?" Madame Dort's voice trembled with anxiety, and tears of suspense stood in her eyes. "There," said Lorischen triumphantly to the Burgher, who remained silent for the moment from the shock of the old nurse's attack. "You see for yourself that my mistress wishes me to tell her." "Oh, what is it--what have you heard?" cried the widow plaintively. "Do not keep me in this agony any longer!" And she sat down again nervously in her chair, gazing from one to the other in mute entreaty and looking as if she were going to faint. "There now, see what you've done!" said Lorischen, hastening to Madame Dort's side. "I told you what it would be if you blurted it out like that!" Burgher Jans' eyes grew quite wide with astonishment beneath the broad rims of his tortoise-shell spectacles, giving him more than ever the appearance of an owl. "Peace, woman!" he exclaimed. "I--" "Yes, that's it, dear mistress," interrupted the old nurse, half laughing, half crying, as she knelt down beside the widow's chair and put her arm round her caressingly. "There's peace proclaimed at last, and the dear young Herr will come home again to you now!" "Peace?" repeated the widow, looking up with an anxious stare from one to the other. "Yes, peace, most worthy lady," said Burgher Jans pompously in his ordinary bland voice; adding immediately afterwards for Lorischen's especial benefit--"and I was the first to tell you of it, after all." "Never mind," replied that worthy, too much overpowered with emotion at the happiness of the widow to contest the point. "We both brought the glad tidings together. Madame, dearest mistress, you are glad, are you not?" But Madame Dort was silent for the moment. Her eyes were closed, and her lips moving in earnest prayer of thankfulness to Him who had heard her prayers and granted the fervent wish of her heart at last. "Is it really true?" she asked presently. "Yes, well-born and most worthy lady," replied the little fat man, whom Lorischen now allowed to speak without further interruption. "Our Bismark signed an armistice with the French at Versailles on Saturday by which Paris capitulates, the forts defending it being given over to our soldiers, and the starving city allowed to be reprovisioned by the good English, who have prepared ever so many train-loads of food to go in for the use of the population." "Ah, those good English!" chimed in Lorischen. "You have reason to say that, dearest maiden," continued the Burgher, bowing suavely to the old woman. "They subscribed, ah! more than a million thalers for this purpose in London." "And I suppose the war will now cease?" said Madame Dort. "Most certainly, worthy lady," replied Burgher Jans. "The armistice is to last for three weeks to enable the French to have an election of members to an assembly which will decide whether the contest shall go on any further; but there is no doubt, as their armies have all been defeated and their resources exhausted, that hostilities will not be again resumed. All parties are sick of fighting by this time!" "So I should think," exclaimed Lorischen warmly. "It has been a bloody, murdering work, that of the last six months!" "Yes, but good for Germany," put in the little man in his bland way. "Humph! much good, with widows left without their husbands and children fatherless, and the stalwart sons that should have been the help of their mothers made food for French powder and the chassepot! Besides, I don't think the German states, Meinherr," added the old nurse more politely than she usually addressed the Burgher, "will get much of the plunder. Mark my words if Prussia does not take the lion's share!" "You have reason, dearest maiden," answered the other, agreeing with his old opponent for once. "I've no doubt that, like the poor Bavarians who had to do the heaviest part of the fighting, we shall get only the kicks and Prussia the halfpence!" "That's more than likely," said Lorischen, much pleased at the similarity of their sentiments; "and I suppose we can expect Herr Fritz home soon now, eh?" "Probably as soon as peace is regularly established; for then, our troops will commence to evacuate France and march back to the Rhine," replied Burgher Jans,--"that Rhine whose banks they have so valiantly defended." "Ah, we'd better begin at once to prepare to receive our soldier lad," said the old nurse with much cheerfulness, as if she wished to set to without a moment's delay at making things ready for Fritz; seeing which, Burgher Jans took his departure, the widow and Lorischen both expressing their thanks for the good news he had brought, and the old nurse actually escorting him to the door in a most unusual fit of civility! The definite treaty of peace between France and Germany was completed on the 28th February, 1871, when it was ratified by the constituent assembly sitting at Bordeaux, the conquered country surrendering two of her richest provinces, Alsace and Lorraine, together with the fortresses of Metz and Belfort--the strongest on the frontier--besides paying an indemnity of no less a sum than five milliards of francs, some two hundred millions of pounds in English money, to the victors! It was a terrible price to pay for the war; for, in addition to these sacrifices must be reckoned:-- 2,400 captured field guns; 120 eagles, flags, and standards; 4,000 fortress guns; and 11,669 officers and 363,326 men taken prisoners in battle and interned in Germany--not counting 170,000 men of the garrison of Paris who must be held to have surrendered to their conquerors, although these were not led away captive like the others, who were kept in durance until the first moiety of their ransom was paid! But, Prince Bismark over-reached himself in grinding down the country as he did. He thought, that, by fixing such an enormous sum for the indemnity, France would be under the heel of Germany for years to come, as the Prussian troops were not to leave until the money was paid. Instead of which, by a general and stupendous movement of her population, inflamed by a praiseworthy spirit of patriotism, the five milliards were paid within a year and the French soil clear of the invader--this being the most wonderful thing connected with the war, some persons think! Meanwhile, Madame Dort's anxiety to behold her son again at home and his earnest wish to the same effect had to await gratification. The news of the armistice before Paris reached Lubeck on the 30th January; but it was not until March that the German troops began to evacuate their positions in front of the capital of France, and nearly the end of the month before the last battalion turned its face homeward. Before that wished-for end was reached, Fritz was terribly heart-sick about Madaleine. After a long silence, enduring for over a month, during which his mind was torn by conflicting doubts and fears, he had received a short, hurried note from her, telling him that she had been ill and was worried by domestic circumstances. She did not know what would become of her, she wrote, adding that he had better cease to think of her, although she would always pray for his welfare. That was all; but it wasn't a very agreeable collapse to the nice little enchanted "castle in Spain" he had been diligently building up ever since his meeting with Madaleine at Mezieres:-- it was a sad downfall to the hopes he had of meeting her again! Of course, he wrote to his mother, telling her of his misery; but she could not console him much, save by exhorting him to live in hope, for that all would come well in good time. "Old people can't feel like young ones," thought Fritz. "She doesn't know what I suffer in my heart." And so time rolled on slowly enough for mother and son; he, counting the days--sadly now, for his return was robbed of one of its chief expectations; she, gladly, watching to clasp her firstborn in her arms once more. Ample amends she thought this would be to her for all the anxiety she had suffered since Fritz had left home the previous summer, especially after her agonised fear of losing him! Towards the close of March, the Hanoverian regiments returned to their depot, Fritz being forwarded on to Lubeck. As no one knew the precise day or hour when the train bearing him home might be expected to arrive, of course there was no one specially waiting at the railway station to welcome him back. Only the ordinary curiosity-mongers amongst the townspeople were there; but these were always on the watch for new-comers. They raised a sort of cheer when he and his comrades belonging to the neighbourhood alighted from the railway carriages; but, although the cheering was hearty, and Fritz and the others joined in the popular Volkslieder that the townspeople started, the young sub-lieutenant missed his mother's dear face and Lorischen's friendly, wrinkled old countenance, both of whom, somehow or other without any reason to warrant the assumption, he had thought would have been there. It was in a melancholy manner, therefore, that he took his way towards the Gulden Strasse and the little house he had not seen for so long-- could it only have been barely nine months ago? How small everything looked now, after his travels and experiences of the busy towns and handsome cities of France which he had but so lately passed through! All here seemed quiet, quaint, diminutive, old- fashioned, like the resemblance to some antique picture, or the dream city of a dream! Presently, he is in the old familiar street of his youth. It seemed so long and wide then; now, he can traverse its length in two strides, and it is so narrow that the buildings on either side almost meet in the middle. But, the home-coming charm is on him; love draws him forward quickly like a magnet! He sees his mother's house at the end of the street. He is up the outside stairway with an agile bound. With full heart, he bursts open the door, and, in a second, is within the parlour. He hears his mother's cry of joy. "My son, my son!" and she throws herself on his neck, as he clasps her in a fond embrace, recollecting that once he never expected to have lived to see her again. And Lorischen, too, she comes forward with a handshake and a hug for the boy she has nursed on her knee many a time in the years agone. But, who is this besides? "What! Madaleine?" exclaims Fritz. "Yes, it is I," she replies demurely, a merry smile dancing on her face, and a glad light in the bright blue eyes. This was the surprise Madame Dort had prepared for Fritz--a pleasant one, wasn't it, with which to welcome him home? CHAPTER TWELVE. FAMILY COUNCILS. "I have to thank you, dear mother, for this!" said Fritz, with an affectionate smile, to Madame Dort. "How did you contrive such a pleasant surprise?" "You told me of your trouble, my son," she replied; "so I did my best to help you under the circumstances." "And you, little traitress," exclaimed he, turning to Madaleine. "How could you keep me in suspense all those weary weeks that have elapsed since the year began?" "I did not think you cared so much," said she defiantly. "Cared!" he repeated. "Well, it was not my fault," she explained. "When I wrote to you last, I really never thought I should see you again." "You don't know me yet," said Fritz. "I should have hunted you out to the world's end! I had determined, as soon as I had seen mother, to go off to Darmstadt and find out what had become of you." "And a nice wild-goose chase you would have had," answered Madaleine, tossing her head, and shaking the silky masses of golden hair, now unconfined by any jealous coiffe, with her blue eyes laughing fun. "You wouldn't have found me there! The baroness--" "Hang her!" interrupted Fritz angrily; "I should like to settle her!" "Ah, I wouldn't mind your doing that now," continued the girl naively; "she treated me very unkindly at the end." "The brute!" said Fritz indignantly. "Her son--the young baron, you know--came home from the war in January. He was invalided, but I don't think there was anything the matter with him at all; for, no sooner had he got back to the castle than he began worrying me, paying all sorts of attention and pestering me with his presence." "Puppy!" exclaimed Fritz; "I would have paid him some delicate little attentions if I'd been there!" "Oh, I knew how to treat him," said Madaleine. "I soon made him keep his distance! But it is the Baroness Stolzenkop that I complain of; she actually taxed me with encouraging him!" "Indeed?" interrogated Fritz. "Yes; and, when I told her I wouldn't choose her fop of a son if there wasn't another man in Germany, why she accused me of impertinence, telling me that the fact of my having attracted the young baron was an honour which an humble girl in my position should have been proud of-- she did, really!" "The old cat!" said Fritz indignantly; "I should like to wring her neck for her." "Hush, my son," interposed Madame Dort. "Pray don't make use of such violent expressions. The baroness, you know, is exalted in rank, and--" "Then all the greater shame for her to act so dishonourably," he interrupted hotly. "She ought to be--I can find no words to tell what I would do to her, there!" "Besides, Master Fritz," said old Lorischen, "I won't have you speak so disrespectfully of cats, the noblest animals on earth! Look at Mouser there, looking his indignation at you; can't you see how he feels the reproach of your comparing him to that horrid baroness?" This remark at once diverted the conversation, all turning in the direction the old nurse pointed, where a little comedy was being enacted. Mouser--with his tail erected like a stiff bottle-brush, and every individual hair galvanised into a perpendicular position on his back, which was curved into the position of a bent bow with rage and excitement, his whiskers bristling out from each side of his head and his mouth uttering the most horrible anathemas the cat language is capable of--was perched on the back of Madame Dort's arm-chair in the corner; while poor Gelert, the innocent cause of all this display of emotion on Mouser's part, was calmly surveying him and sniffing interrogatory inquiries as to whom he had the pleasure of speaking. The dog had not yet been formally introduced to his new cat friend, and from the commanding position he had taken up, with his hind legs on the hearthrug and his fore paws on the seat of the easy chair, he had considerable advantage over pussy, should that sagacious creature think of fleeing to another vantage-ground; although the thought of this, it should be added, never crossed for an instant the mind of old Mouser; he knew well when he was safe. Fritz burst out laughing. "Lie down, Gelert!" he cried; and the retriever at once obeyed. "Is that the dear dog?" inquired Madame Dort, stooping to pat him. "Yes," said Fritz, "this is Gelert, the brave, faithful fellow but for whom I would have bled to death on the battlefield and never have been saved by Madaleine!" "Thanks be to God!" exclaimed the widow piously. "What a nice dog he is!" "He is all that," replied Fritz; "still, he must be taught not to molest Master Mouser. Here, Gelert!" The dog at once sprang up again from his recumbent position on the hearthrug; while Mouser, his excessive spiny and porcupinish appearance having become somewhat toned down, was now watchfully observing this new variety of the dog species, which his natural instinct taught him to regard with antagonism and yet who was so utterly different from Burgher Jans' terrier, the only specimen of the canine race with whom he had been previously acquainted. "See," said Fritz to the retriever, laying one hand on his head and stroking the cat with the other, "you mustn't touch poor Mouser. Good dog!" The animal gave a sniff of intelligence, seeming to know at once what was expected of him; and, never, from that moment, did he ever exhibit the slightest approach of hostility to pussy--no, not even when Mouser, as he did sometimes from curiosity, would approach him at the very delicate juncture when he was engaged on a bone, which few dogs can stand--the two ever after remaining on the friendliest of friendly terms; so friendly, indeed, that Mouser would frequently curl himself to sleep between Gelert's paws on the hearthrug. This little diversion had drawn away the conversation from Madaleine's treatment by the old Baroness Stolzenkop; but, presently, Madame Dort proceeded to explain to Fritz that, on account of his telling her in one of his letters home how anxious he was in the matter, and knowing besides how much she was indebted to Madaleine for saving his life by her kindly nursing when he was in the villa hospital at Mezieres, she had written to her at Darmstadt, asking her to pay her a visit and so light up a lonely house with her presence until her son should have returned from the war. "And a veritable house fairy she has been," concluded the widow, speaking from her heart, with tears in her eyes. "She has been like sunshine to me in the winter of my desolation." "And Mouser likes her, too," said Lorischen, as if that settled the matter. "She's the best manager in the world," next put in Madame Dort. "She has saved me a world of trouble since she's been in the house." "And she cooks better than any one else in Lubeck!" exclaimed the old nurse, not to be beat in enumerating all the good qualities of Fritz's guardian angel, who had taken her heart, as well as the widow's, by storm. Meanwhile, the subject of all these remarks stood in the centre of the room, blushing at the compliments paid her on all sides. "Dear me, good people, I shall have to run away if you go on like that," she cried at last. "I have been so happy here," she added, turning to Fritz. "It's the first time I've known what home was since my mother died." "Poor child," said Madame Dort, opening her arms. "Come here, I'll be your mother now." "Ah, that's just what I've longed for!" exclaimed Fritz rapturously. "Madaleine, will you be her daughter in reality?" The girl did not reply in words, but she gave him one look, and then hid her face in the widow's bosom. "Poor Eric," said the widow presently, resigning Madaleine to the care of Fritz, who was nothing loth to take charge of her--the two retreating to a corner and sitting down side by side, having much apparently to say to each other, if such might be surmised from their bent heads and whispered conversation. "If he were but here, my happiness would now be almost complete!" "Yes," chimed in Lorischen as she bustled out of the room, Madame Dort following her quietly, so as to leave the lovers to themselves--"the dear flaxen-haired sailor laddie, with his merry ways and laughing eyes. I think I can see him now before me! Ah, it is just nineteen months to the day since he sailed away on that ill-fated voyage, you remember, mistress?" But, she need not have asked the question. Madame Dort had counted every day since that bright autumn morning when she saw her darling for the last time at the railway station. It was not likely that she would forget how long he had been absent! Later on, when the excitement of coming home to his mother and meeting with Madaleine had calmed down, Fritz, having ceased to be a soldier, his services not being any longer required with the Landwehr, turned his attention to civil employment; for, now, with the prospect of marrying before him, it was more urgent than ever that he should have something to do in order to occupy his proper position as bread-winner of the family, the widow's means being limited and it being as much as she could do to support herself and Lorischen out of her savings, without having to take again to teaching--which avocation, indeed, her health of late years had rendered her unable to continue, had she been desirous of resuming it again. Madaleine, of course, could have gone out as a governess, Madame Dort being, probably, easily able to procure her a situation in the family of one of her former pupils; or she might have resumed the position of a hospital nurse, for which she had been trained at Darmstadt, having been taken on as an assistant in the convalescent home established in that town by the late Princess Alice of Hesse, when the Baroness Stolzenkop turned her adrift. But Fritz would not hear of Madaleine's leaving his mother. "No," said he decisively to her, "your place is here with mutterchen, who regards you as a daughter--don't you, mother?" "Yes, indeed," answered the widow readily enough--"so long as I'm spared." "There, you see, you've no option," continued Fritz triumphantly. "Mother would not be able to do without you now. Besides, it is not necessary. I will be able to earn bread enough for all. Look at these broad shoulders and strong arms, hey! What were they made for else, I'd like to know?" Still, Fritz did not find it so easy to get employment as he thought. Herr Grosschnapper had kept the clerkship he had formerly filled in his counting-house open for him some time after the commencement of the war; but, finding that Fritz would be away much longer than he had expected, he had been forced to employ a substitute in his place. This young man had proved himself so diligent and active in mastering all the details of the business in a short time, that the worthy shipowner did not wish to discharge him now when his original clerk returned, and Fritz himself would have been loth to press the matter; although, he had looked upon his re-engagement in the merchant's office as a certainty when he came back to Lubeck. Fritz had thought, with that self-confidence which most of us possess, that no one could possibly have kept Herr Grosschnapper's books or calculated insurances with such ability as he could, and that the worthy merchant would have been only too delighted to welcome so able a clerk when he walked into the counting-house again. He had not lived long enough to know that as good, or better, a man can always be found to fill the place of even the best; and that, much as we may estimate our own value, a proportionate equivalent can soon be supplied from other sources! So, much to Fritz's chagrin, on going down to the merchant's place of business on the quay, all eagerness to resume work again on the old footing, he found that he was not wanted: he would have to apply elsewhere for employment. "Oh, that will not be a hard matter," he thought to himself. "Softly, my friend," whispered fickle Dame Fortune in his ear, "not quite so fast! Things don't always turn out just as you wish, young sir, with your reliant impetuosity!" Lubeck had never been at any time a bustling place, for it had no trade to speak of; and now, since the war had crippled commerce, everything was in a state of complete stagnation. Ships were laying up idle all along the banks of the great canal, although spring was advancing and the ice-chains that bound up the Baltic would soon be loosed. There were no cargoes to be had; and perforce, the carriers of the sea were useless, making a corresponding dearth of business in the houses of the shipping firms. Why, instead of engaging fresh hands at their desks, they would have need soon to discharge some of their old ones! This was the answer that met his ear at every place he applied to, and he had finally to give up all hope of finding work in his native town. It was the same elsewhere. The five milliards of ransom paid by France, brought no alleviation of the enormous taxation imposed on Germany to bear the expense of organising the great military machine employed to carry out the war. The Prussian exchequer alone reaped the benefit of this plunder of the conquered nation; as for the remaining states of the newly created empire, they were not a farthing to the good for all the long train of waggons filled with gold and silver and bales of bank-notes that streamed over the frontier when the war indemnity was paid. If possible, their position was made worse instead of better; as, from the more extravagant style of living now adopted, in lieu of the former frugal habits in vogue--on account of the soldiers of the Fatherland learning to love luxury through their becoming accustomed during the campaign to what they had never dreamt of in their lives before-- articles of food and dress became increased in price, so that it was a difficult matter for people with a small income to make both ends meet. Ah, there was wide-spread poverty and dearth of employment throughout the length and breadth of the land, albeit there might be feasting and hurrahing, and clinking of champagne glasses Unter den Linden at Berlin! However, Fritz was not the sort of fellow to grow despondent, or fail to recognise the urgency of the situation. Long before Eric had gone to sea, he had fancied that Lubeck, with its slow movements and asthmatic trade, offered little opening for the energy and ability with which he felt himself endowed; for, he might live and die a clerk there, without the chance of ever rising to anything else. He had frequently longed to go abroad and carve out a fortune in some fresh sphere; but the thought of leaving his mother alone prevented him from indulging in this day-dream, and he had determined, much against the grain, to be satisfied with the humble lot which appeared to be his appointed place in life. Now, however, circumstances had changed. His place was filled up in the old world; Providence itself forced him to seek an opening in the new. His mind was made up at once. "Little mother," said he one evening, when he had been home a month, seeing every prospect of employment shut out from him--his last hope, that of a situation in the house of a comrade's father at Coblentz, from which he had expected great things, having failed--"I've determined to emigrate to America--that is, if you do not offer any objection; for I should not like to go without your consent, although I see there's no chance for me here in Germany." "What!" exclaimed Madame Dort, so startled that she let her knitting drop. "Go to America, across the terrible sea?" Fritz had already explained matters to Madaleine, and she, brave-hearted girl that she was, concealing her own feelings at the separation between them which her lover's resolve would necessitate, did not seek to urge him against his will to abandon his project. She believed in his honesty of purpose, relying on his strong, impulsive character; and what he had decided on, she decided, too, as a good wife that was to be, would be best not only for them both but for all. "Yes, to America, mutterchen," he replied to the widow's exclamation, speaking in a tender voice of entreaty. "It is not so very far, you know, dear little mother, eh? It will be only from Bremerhaven to Southampton in England,--you recollect going there with me for a trip, don't you, the year before last?--and from Southampton to New York; and, there, I shall be in my new home in ten days' time at the outside! Why, it's nothing, a mere nothing of a voyage when you come to consider it properly." "Across the wide, wild ocean that has already robbed me of Eric, my youngest," went on poor Madame Dort, unheeding his words; "you, my firstborn--my only son now--I shall never see you more, I know!" and she gave way to a burst of tears. "Say not so, darling mother," said Madaleine, throwing her arms round her and joining in her weeping with a sympathetic heart, feeling quite as great grief at the idea of parting with her lover. "He will return for us both bye-and-bye. He is only going to make that home for us in the Far West we've read about so often lately, which he cannot hope to establish here; and then, my mother,--for you are my mother too, now, are you not?--he will come back for you and me, or we will go out and join him." "And I should like to know what will become of me, Fraulein Madaleine," interposed Lorischen indignantly. "Am I to be left behind to be bothered all my life long by that little plague, Burgher Jans?" "No, no, Lorischen," laughed Fritz; "a home across the sea in America would not be a home without you--or Mouser, either," he added. "That's all right, then," said the old nurse affably; her digression serving to break the gravity of the conversation, and make Madame Dort take a better view of the matter. "But, it's a terrible journey, though, a terrible journey--almost worse than parting with him to go to the war," said the widow sadly to herself. "Ah, but you did not have Madaleine with you then," replied Fritz, turning a look of affection to the fair girl clinging to his mother. "She will be a daughter to you, and comfort you in my absence, I know." "Aye, that I will," exclaimed Madaleine fondly, caressing her adopted parent and gazing at Fritz with the blue eyes full of love, although blinded with tears. "I shall love her dearly for your sake, my darling, as well as for her own--and my own too; and we will all look forward to meeting again happily after our present parting, with hope and trust in the good God who will protect and watch over you in return for our prayers!" "Amen to that," said Lorischen heartily. "And I tell you what it is, Master Fritz--we'll be all ready when you give the word to follow you across the sea to that wonderful America! I declare I'm quite longing to see it, for I don't think much of this Lubeck now, with such curious, meddling, impertinent people in it like that odious little fat man, Burgher Jans." These words of the old nurse put them all in a merry mood, and the family council thus terminated more cheerily than it had begun. CHAPTER THIRTEEN. ACROSS THE ATLANTIC. Fritz was as prompt in action as he was rapid in resolve; so in a few days after he had imparted to Madaleine and his mother his intention of emigrating to America, his last good-byes were exchanged with the little household in the Gulden Strasse--not forgetting the faithful Gelert, now domiciled in the family, whom it was impossible to take with him on account of the expense and trouble his transit would have occasioned, besides which, the good doggie would be ever so much better looked after by those left behind and would serve "as a sort of pledge," Fritz told Madaleine, "of his master's return!" Yes, within a week at the outside, he had left Lubeck once more, and was on his way to that western "land of the free" which Henry Russell the ballad writer, has sung of:-- where the "mighty Missouri rolls down to the sea," and where imperial autocrats and conscription are undreamt of--although, not so very, very many years ago, it was convulsed in the throes of a civil war which could boast of as gigantic struggles between hostile forces and as terrible and bloodthirsty battles as those which had characterised that Franco-German campaign, in which Fritz had but so recently participated and been heartily sick of before it terminated! The love of colonisation seems to be the controlling spirit of modern times. Some sceptics in the truth of historical accuracy, have whispered their suspicions that, the "New World" was actually discovered at a date long anterior to the age of Columbus; but, even allowing that there might be some stray scrap of fact for this assertion, it may be taken for granted that the first nucleus of our present system of emigration, from the older continent to the "new" one, originated in the little band of thirty-nine men left behind him by Christopher in Hispaniola, at the close of his first "voyage beyond seas," in the year 1493, or thereabouts. This small settlement failed, as is well-known, and the bones of the Genoese mariner who founded it have been mouldering in dust for centuries. Sir Walter Raleigh--the gallant imitator of Columbus, treading so successfully in his footsteps as to illustrate the old adage of the pupil excelling the master, the original expounder, indeed, of the famous "Westwards Ho!" doctrine since preached so ably by latter-day enthusiasts--has also departed to that bourne from whence no traveller returns. So have, likewise, a host of others, possessing names proudly borne on the chronicle of fame as martyrs to the universal spread of discovery and spirit of progress. But, the love of enterprise, and consequent expansion of civilisation and commercial venture, inaugurated by the brave old pioneers of Queen Elizabeth's day, have not ceased to impel similar seekers after something beyond ordinary humdrum life. The path of discovery, although narrowed through research, has not yet been entirely exhausted; for "fresh fields and pastures new," as hopeful as those about which Milton rhapsodised and as plenteously flowing with typical milk and honey as the promised land of the Israelites, are being continually opened up and offered to the oppressed and pauperised populations of Europe. Thus, the tide of emigration, swelled from the tiny ocean-drop which marked its first inception more than three hundred years ago to its present torrentine proportions and bearing away frequently entire nationalities on its bosom, still flows from the east to the west, tracing the progress of civilisation from its Alpha to its Omega, as steadily as when it originally began--aye, and as it will continue to flow on, until the entire habitable globe shall be peopled as with one family by the intermixture and association of alien races! It is curious how this migratory spirit has permeated through the odd corners of the old world, leading the natives of different countries to flock like sheep to every freshly spoken of colony; and how, by such means, Englishmen, Celts, Germans, French, Hollanders, Italians, Norsemen, Africans, as well as the "Heathen Chinee," are scattered in a mixed mass over the whole face of the earth now-a-days, as widely as the descendants of Noah were dispersed from the plain of Shinar after their unsuccessful attempt at building the tower of Babel--the result being, that some of the highest types of advancement are at present to be found where, but a few years back, uncultivated savages, as rude but perhaps not quite so inquisitive as the late Bishop Colenso's apocryphal Zulu, were the sole existing evidences of latent humanity! Fritz, however, was not proceeding to any of these newly colonised countries. Like the majority of other Germans who had emigrated before him, he was aiming for "the States," where, according to the popular idea in Europe, money can be had for nothing in the shape of any expenditure of labour, time, or trouble. Really, the ne'er-do-well and shiftless seem to regard America as a sort of Tom Tiddler's ground for the idle, the lazy, and the dissolute--although, mind you, Fritz was none of these, having made up his mind to work as hard in the New World as he would have been forced to do in the Old for the fortune he could not win there, and which he had been forced to turn his back on. Bremerhaven to Southampton; Southampton to Sandy Hook, as he had told his mother; and, in ten days altogether, the ocean steamer he travelled in, one of the North German line, had landed him safely in New York. Seven years before, when he would have reached the "Empire City" during the height of the Secession War, he might have sold himself to a "bounty jumper," as the enlisting agents of the northern army were termed, for a nice little sum in "greenback" dollars; now, he found sharpers, or "confidence men," ready to "sell" him in a similar way--only, that the former rogues would have been satisfied with nothing less than his body and life, as an emigrant recruit for Grant or Sherman's force; while the present set cared but for his cash, seeking the same with ravenous maw almost as soon as he had landed at Castle Garden! Fritz had taken a steerage passage, so as to save money; and, being dressed in shabby clothes, in keeping with his third-class ticket, the loafers about the Battery, at the end of Manhattan Island, on which the town of New York is built, thought he was merely an ignorant German peasant whom they might easily impose on. They, however, soon found that he had not been campaigning six months for nothing, and so their efforts at getting him to part with the little capital he had were pretty well thrown away--especially as Fritz, in his anxiety to find some work to do at once, did not "let the grass grow under his feet," but proceeded up Broadway instead of wasting his time by lounging in the vicinity of the emigrant depot, as the majority of his countrymen generally do, apparently in the expectation that employment will come in search of them. Still, he soon discovered that New York was overstocked with just the species of labour he was able to supply. Of course, if he had been at the pitch of desperation, he might have found a job of some sort to his hand; but, writing and speaking English and French fluently in addition to his native tongue, besides being a good correspondent and book-keeper, he did not feel disposed to throw away his talents on mere manual labour. He had emigrated to "make his fortune," or, at all events, to achieve a position in which he could hope to build up a home for the dear ones left behind at Lubeck; and there would not be much chance of his accomplishing this by engaging himself out as a day labourer--to assist some skilled carpenter or bricklayer--which was the only work offered him. "No, sir; nary an opening here!" was the constant reply he met with at every merchant's office he entered from Wall Street upwards along Broadway until he came to Canal Street; when, finding the shops, or "stores" as the Americans call them, going more in the "dry goods" or haberdashery line, he wended his way back again "down town," investigating the various establishments lying between the main thoroughfare and the North and East rivers, hoping to find a situation vacant in one of the shipping houses thereabouts. But, "No, sir; all filled up, I guess," was still the stereotyped response to his applications, with much emphasis on the "sir"--the majority of the Manhattanese uttering this word, as Fritz thought, in a highly indignant tone, although, as he discovered later on, this was the general pronunciation adopted throughout the States. "I suppose," he said to one gentleman he asked, and who was, it seemed to Fritz, the master, or "boss," of the establishment, from the fact of his lounging back in a rocking chair contiguous to his desk, and balancing his feet instead of his hands on the latter,--"I suppose it's because I can give no references to former employers here, that all the men I speak to invariably decline my services?" "No, sirree; I reckon not," was the reply. "Guess we don't care a cuss where you come from. We take a man as we find him, for just what he is worth, without minding what he might have been in the old country, or bothering other folks for his ka-racter, you bet! I reckon, mister, you'd better start right away out West if you want work. Book-keepers and sich-like are played out haar; we're filled up to bustin' with 'em, I guess!" It was good advice probably; but, still, Fritz did not care to act upon it. Having been accustomed all his life to the shipping trade, he wished to find some opening in that special branch of business; and, if he went inland to Chicago or elsewhere, he thought, he would be abandoning his chances for securing the very sort of work he preferred to have. Besides, going away from the neighbourhood of ships and quays and the sea would be like cutting adrift every old association with Lubeck and Europe; while, in addition, he had directed his letters from home to be sent to the "Poste Restante, New York," and if he left that city, why he would never hear how Madaleine and his mother were getting on in his absence! So, for days and days he patrolled the town in vain; seeking for work, and finding none. The place, as his candid informer had said, was filled with clerks like himself in search of employment; and they, linguists especially, were a drug in the market--the cessation of the Franco-German War having flooded the country with foreign labour. What should he do? Before making a move, as everybody advised him, he determined to await the next mail steamer. This would bring him a letter from home, in answer to the one he had written, immediately on landing, telling of his safe arrival in the New World. He was dying to have, if only, a line from those dear ones he had left with a good-bye in the Gulden Strasse, recounting all that had happened since he had started from home--his passage across the Atlantic having lasted, according to his morbid imagination, at least as long as the war he had lately served through! At last, a letter came; and, as it really put fresh heart in him-- cheering up his drooping energies and banishing a sort of despondent feeling which had begun to prey upon him, altering him completely from his former buoyant self--he made up his mind in his old prompt fashion to visit some of the other seaports on the coast, "Down East," as Americans say, in order to try whether he might not be able there to get a billet. He had very little money left now; for, he had not brought much with him from home, originally and the greater part of what he had in his pockets when he came ashore had melted away in paying for his board and lodging while remaining in New York. Although he had put up at the cheapest boarding-house he could find, it was far dearer than the most expensive accommodation in Lubeck or even at a first-class hotel in any large town on the Continent. Living in such a city was actually like eating hard cash! Fritz saw that he would have to proceed on his journey along the coast as cheaply as possible:-- he had not much to spare for railway and steamboat fares. With this resolution staring him in the face, he made his way one afternoon to the foot of Canal Street, from the quays facing which, on the North River, start the huge floating palaces of steamers that navigate the waters of Long Island Sound--visiting on their way those New England States where, it may be recollected, the Pilgrim Fathers landed after their voyage in the _Mayflower_, of historic renown, a couple of odd centuries ago. One of these vessels had "Providence" marked on her; and the name at once arrested the attention of Fritz. "Himmel!" he said to himself, with a superstitious sort of feeling like that which he used to ridicule in old Lorischen when she read omens in Mouser's attitudes and cat language of a night--"this looks lucky; perhaps providence is going to interpose on my behalf, and relieve me from all the misery and anxiety I'm suffering! At all events, I will go on board and see where the steamer is bound for." No sooner said than done. Fritz stepped on to the gangway; and, quickly gaining the vessel, asked one of the deck hands he saw forward where she was going to. "Ha-o-ow?" repeated the man--meaning "what?" "Where are you bound for?" said Fritz again. "Providence, Rhode Island, I guess, mister. Can't ye see it writ up?" "And where's that?" further inquired Fritz. "New England way, I reckon, whar I wer raised." "Any ships or shipping trade there?" The man laughed out heartily. "Jerusalem, that's prime, anyhow!" he exclaimed. "Any ships at Providence? Why, you might as well ask if thar wer any fish in the sea! Thar are heaps and heaps on 'em up to Rhode Island, mister, from a scoop up to a whaler; so I guess we can fix you up slick if you come aboard!" "All right, I will," said Fritz; "that is, if the fare is not too high." "Guess two-fifty won't break you, hey?" responded the deck hand, meaning two-and-a-half dollars. "No," said Fritz; "I think I can manage that. What time do you start?" "Five o'clock sharp." "That will just give me time to fetch my valise," said Fritz, thinking aloud. "Where away is that?" asked the man. "Chatham Street," answered Fritz, "just below the town hall." "Oh, I know, mister, well enough whar Chatham Street is! Yes, you'll have plenty of time if you look smart." "Thank you, I will," said Fritz; and, going back to the boarding-house where he had been stopping, he soon returned to the quay with the little valise that carried all his impedimenta--reaching the steamer just in the nick of time as she was casting off. As he jumped on to her deck, the gangway was withdrawn. "All aboard?" sang out the captain from the pilot-house on the hurricane deck. "Aye, aye, all aboard," was the response from Fritz's friend the deck hand, who, with only a red flannel shirt on and a pair of check trousers--very unsailorlike in appearance altogether--stood in the bows. "Then fire away and let her rip!" came the reply from the captain above, followed by the tinkle of an electric bell in the engine-room, the steamer's paddles revolving with a splash the moment afterwards and urging her on her watery way. Round the Battery at Manhattan Point she glided, and up the East River through Hell Gate into Long Island Sound--one of the most sheltered channels in the world, and more like a lake or lagoon than an arm of the sea--leaving a broad wake of creamy green foam behind her like a mill- race, and quivering from stem to stern with every revolution of her shaft, with every throb of her high-pressure engines! CHAPTER FOURTEEN. AN UNEXPECTED MEETING. The Rhode Island steamer was a splendid boat, Fritz found, when he came to look about him; for, she was a "floating palace," every inch of her, with magnificent saloons and state-cabins stretching away the entire length of the vessel fore and aft. A light hurricane deck was above all, on which the passengers could promenade up and down to their hearts' content, having comfortable cane-bottomed seats along the sides to sit down upon when tired and no gear, or rope coils, or other nautical "dunnage," to interrupt their free locomotion on this king of quarter-decks, which had, besides, an awning on top to tone down the potency of the western sun. With three tiers of decks--the lowermost, or main, containing the engine-room and stowage place for cargo, as well as the men's quarters; the lower saloon, in which were the refreshment bars, and what could only appropriately be called the "dining hall," if such a term were not an anachronism on board ship; and, thirdly, the upper saloon, containing the principal cabins and state-rooms, in addition to the graceful promenading hurricane deck surmounting the whole--the steamer had the appearance of one of those bungalow-like pretended "houses" which children build up with a pack of cards. Only that, this illusion was speedily destroyed by the huge beam of the engine, working up and down like a monster chain-pump on top of the whole structure--not to speak of the twin smoke-stacks on either side of the paddle-boxes emitting volumes of thick, stifling vapour, and the two pilot-houses, one at each extremity of the hurricane deck; for, like most American river steamers, the boat was what was called a "double-ender," built whale-boat fashion to go either backwards or forwards, a very necessary thing to avoid collision in crowded waters. Fritz could not but realise that the ingenious construction which he was gazing at was essentially a Yankee invention, resembling nothing in European waters. If he had not yet been fully convinced of this fact, the eldritch screech which the steam whistle shortly evolved, in obedience to the pressure of the captain's finger on a valve in the pilot-house forward-- whence the vessel was steered--would have at once decided his mind on the point. It was the most fearful, ear-deafening, blood-curdling sound he had ever heard in his life! Fritz thought something had happened--that the boiler was in danger of bursting, or the vessel sinking at the least--but, on making a startled inquiry of the nearest person, he was reassured by learning that the "whistle," as the frightful noise was called, was only emitted in courteous salutation to another steamer passing in the distance, bound down to New York; and soon, an answering squeal from the boat in question, mercifully tempered by the distance into a faint squeak that lent more "enchantment" to its notes than was possessed by the one which had just startled him, corroborated the truth of this statement. After enjoying the scenery from the hurricane deck for some little time, Fritz made his way below to the forward part of the main deck running into the bows, where he had noticed, while looking down from above, his friend the deck hand of the Garibaldi shirt and blue cotton check trousers--or "pants" as the man would himself probably have called these garments. He was busily engaged coiling down ropes and otherwise making himself useful, singing the while in a light-hearted way a queer sort of serio- comic and semi-sentimental ditty, the most curious composition Fritz had ever come across. He, therefore, could not help laughing when the singer arrived at the end of his lay. The man turned round at once on hearing the sound of his merriment. "Nice song, that," said Fritz, as soon as he could compose his face sufficiently to speak. "Just the sort of tender tone about it that I like!" "None o' your gas, mister," replied the other with a smile, which showed that he was not offended at Fritz's chaff. "It's only a lot o' nonsense I picked up somehow or other out West." "It is a very funny mixture," said Fritz. "It is a wonder to me who imagines these absurd things and makes them up!" "Right you air," replied the man. "A heap more curious it is than the folks who write the clever things; and the queerest bit about it is, too, that the nonsense spreads quicker and faster than the sense!" "Human nature," said Fritz laconically, expressing thus his opinion of the matter. "You're a philosopher, I reckon?" observed the deck hand in reply. "No, not quite that," answered Fritz, rather surprised at such a remark from a man of the sort. "I merely form conclusions from what I see. I'm only a clerk--and you?" "I'm a deck hand now," said the other, speaking rather bitterly. "Last fall, I was a cow boy, Minnesota way; next year, I'll be goodness knows what. Once, I was a gentleman!" "And how--" began Fritz, when the other interrupted him brusquely. "Put it all down to the cussed drink, mister, and you won't be far out," said he, laughing mockingly, so as to disguise what he really felt by the avowal; "but," he added, to turn the conversation, "you speak very good English for a German, which I ken see you are." "I was educated partly in England," said Fritz. "Ah, that accounts for it. Been long in this country?" "About six weeks," replied Fritz. "Travelling for pleasure, or looking about you?" was the next query from the deck hand, whom Fritz thought strangely inquisitive for an utter stranger. Still, the man did not mean any harm; it was only the custom of the country, as all new-comers speedily find out. "I'm looking about for work," he answered rather curtly. "I wish you would get me some." Fritz thought this would have silenced his interlocutor; but, instead of that, the deck hand proceeded with a fresh string of questions. "What can you do?" he asked amiably, his smile robbing the words of any impertinence. "You don't look like one who has roughed it much." "No?" said Fritz, somewhat amused. "You would not think, then, that I had been all through the terrible war we've had with France, eh?" "Pst!" ejaculated the other. "You don't call that a war, do you? Why, you don't know what a war is in your miserable, played-out old continent! Look at ours, lasting nearly four years, and the battle of Gettysburgh, with thirty thousand dead alone! What do you think of that, hey?" "Gravelotte had nearly as many," said Fritz quietly. "All right, mister; we won't argy the p'int now; but you haven't answered me yet as to what you ken do." "Well, then," answered Fritz, "I can speak and write three languages, keep books, and act as a good correspondent and manager." "I like that," exclaimed the other admiringly. "You speak slick and straight to the p'int, without any bunkum or blarney, like some of them that come over here. But, what line have you run on in the old country?" "The shipping business is what I know best about," replied Fritz. "Ah, that's the reason, I suppose, you asked me if thar wer any ships up to Providence, hey, mister?" "Yes," said Fritz. "I have applied to all the houses in New York in vain, and I thought I would try my chance at some other seaport town." "Didn't like going inland, then!" "No," he answered. "And so you selected Providence?" "I only did so from chance. If I had not seen the name painted on the steamer, I would not have thought of speaking to you and asking where she was going." "And if you had not spoken to me again, why, I would not have known anything about you, nor been able to put you in the way of something," replied the deck hand, more earnestly than he had yet spoken. "You can do that?" said Fritz eagerly. "Yes; but wait till we get to Providence. As soon as the old ship is moored alongside the wharf and all the luggage ashore, you come along of me, and I'll show you whar to go. I shall be my own boss then, with no skipper to order me about." The man hurried off as he said these last words, in obedience to a hail from above--telling him to go and do something or other, "and look smart about it too"--which had probably influenced his remark about being his own "boss" when he got to land; and Fritz did not see him again until the next morning, by which time the steamer had reached its destination. To Fritz's eyes, Providence was more like a European town than New York, the more especially from his being accustomed to the look of seaports on the Baltic and banks of the Elbe; for the houses were mostly built of stone, and there was much less of that wooden, flimsy look which the newly sprung up cities of America possess. This old-fashioned appearance is a characteristic of all the New England states--Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Connecticut--for, here the original "Pilgrim Fathers" settled down and built unto themselves dwellings as nearly like those they had left behind them as it was possible with the materials to their hands, their descendants seemingly keeping up the habit of building in like manner. If this is not the case, then, most certainly, the old buildings of two centuries ago have lasted uncommonly well! Fritz waited to go ashore until his friend the deck hand should be disengaged. He had seen him soon after they reached the steamer's wharf; and, again, a second time when the crowd of passengers, with the exception of himself, brought up from New York had all disembarked--the man telling him he was just going to "clean himself down a bit," and he would then be ready to take him to a decent place to stop, where he would not be charged too exorbitantly for his board. And so Fritz waited on the steamer's deck alongside the quay, gazing with much interest at the scene around him. There were not quite so many ships as his casual acquaintance had led him to expect when he told him he would "see heaps up thaar"; but, still, the port evidently had a large import trade, for several big vessels were moored in the harbour and others were loading up at the wharves or discharging cargo, the latter being in the majority, while lots of smaller sailing craft and tiny boats were flying about, transporting goods and bales of merchandise to other places further up the river. He had hardly, however, seen half what was in view when some one tapped him on the shoulder, and he turned round. It was his friend the deck hand of the red flannel shirt and blue check cotton trousers; but, a wonderful transformation had taken place in his dress! Clad now in an irreproachable suit of black, with a broad, grey felt hat on his head, the man looked quite the gentleman he had represented himself as once being. His manners, too, seemed to have changed with his outer apparel, the off-hand boorishness of the whilom "deck hand" having vanished with his cast-off raiment. "I'm sorry to have kept you waiting, sir," he said to Fritz, still, however, with the strongly accentuated "sir" he had noticed in those who had spoken to him at New York, "but I've hurried up as quickly as I could. Shall we now go ashore?" "Certainly," said Fritz, "although you've not detained me, I assure you. I have had plenty to look at during the little time I've been waiting." "Ah, you've not seen half of Providence yet," replied the other, as the two stepped from the gangway that led from the deck of the steamer on to the stone quay alongside. "Why, some of the houses further up are finer than those of Broadway!" "This is your native place, I suppose?" said Fritz slyly. "Yes," answered his companion, "but I do not flatter it on that account." The two walked on, until presently the Rhode Islander stopped in front of one of the smaller hotels. This looked, despite its lesser proportions, in comparison with its larger rivals, far more respectable and aristocratic--if such terms may be permitted to anything appertaining to the land of so-called "equality" and "freedom," where, according to the poetical belief, there is no aristocracy save hat of merit and shoddy! "Let's go in here," said the deck hand. "It is a great place for the merchants and sea-captains, and I might be able to introduce you to some one I know while we're having a drink." "It's too early for that," said Fritz, feeling inclined to draw back, remembering what his companion had confessed the night before about his habits. "Ah, I see," exclaimed the other, colouring up as he took the hint, being evidently highly sensitive. "But you need not be afraid of that now. I'm always on my good behaviour whenever I come up to Providence. I'm really not going in here to drink now, I assure you; this is a house of call for business people, and I want to see some one just come home whom I know." "All right, then," said Fritz, going into the hotel without any further protest; when, following his companion through several long passages, they at length entered a large room at the back. "Jerusalem!" ejaculated the Rhode Islander almost the very instant he had crossed the threshold of this apartment. "If that aren't the identical coon right oppo-site, mister!" "Where?" asked Fritz. "There," said the other, pointing to where a rather short, broad- shouldered man was engaged in conversation with a lithe lad, whose back was turned but the colour of whose hair reminded Fritz of poor Eric. "Hullo, Cap'en Brown," sang out the whilom deck hand at this juncture; and, the broad-shouldered man looking round in the direction whence the voice proceeded, the lad also turned his face towards Fritz. Good heavens! It was his brother Eric, whom he and every one at home had believed to be buried beneath the ocean with the rest of the boat's crew that had escaped when the _Gustav Barentz_ foundered, nothing of them having been heard since! With one bound he was across the room. "Eric!" he exclaimed in astonishment. "Fritz!" ejaculated the other; and, forgetting their surroundings in the joy of thus meeting again, the two brothers fell into each other's arms, almost weeping with joy. "By thunder!" said the Rhode Islander to his friend the sea captain, both looking on with much interest at the affecting scene, "I'm glad I made him come in here anyhow, and we'll have a licker-up on the strength of it, Cap'en Brown. It seems it wer a sort of providence that made him take our boat away haar, after all!" CHAPTER FIFTEEN. THE YANKEE SKIPPER. "And how on earth did you escape?" asked Fritz, when he and Eric had somewhat recovered from their first surprise and emotion at meeting again in so unexpected a manner. "Well, it's a long story to tell, brother," replied Eric, as soon as he could speak calmly, putting his arm through that of Fritz and drawing him towards a sort of long sofa, like a divan, which stretched across one side of the wide apartment where they had so strangely encountered-- the other and opposite side of the room being occupied by the usual long hotel "bar," common in most American towns, in front of which various little detached groups of people were standing up, drinking and chatting together. "Suppose we come to an anchor here awhile, and I'll reel you off a yarn about all that has happened to me since I left Lubeck." "All right, we may as well sit down, at all events," said Fritz. "They won't charge us for that, eh?" "Oh no, I guess not," answered Eric, with that old light-hearted laugh of his, which his brother had never thought he should ever hear again. "This is a free country, they say, you know!" "Now tell me all about yourself," said Fritz, when they had ensconced themselves comfortably in the furthest corner of the divan, or settee, which they had pretty much to themselves. "I'm dying to know how you were saved!" "Right you are, my hearty," replied Eric, in sailor fashion. "Here goes for the log of my cruise in the poor old _Gustav Barentz_!" "Fire away!" said Fritz; and then, the lad thereupon began his story. The ship, Eric declared, was found to be terribly leaky almost as soon as they had started on the voyage, and this necessitated their having to put into Plymouth for repairs, which detained them a considerable time. Indeed, it was as much as they could do to patch her up at all; for, her timbers were so rotten and the vessel had been strained so much from overloading that she was really unfit to be sent to sea. However, as Fritz already knew, the _Gustav Barentz_ managed to clear out of the Channel, reaching the latitude of the Cape de Verde Islands all right, and it was shortly after passing Teneriffe that Eric had been enabled to forward that letter of his which had so gladdened his mother's heart, to Lubeck by a homeward-bound ship. After that, however, all went wrong with the ill-fated vessel. She had knocked about in the doldrums for weeks; and, after making a long leg over to the South American coast, had succeeded at last in getting round the Cape of Good Hope safely-- although taking a terrible time over it, and dragging out a most tedious passage from Plymouth--when she met a south-east gale, just as she had entered the Indian Ocean and was shaping a course towards the Straits of Sunda, so as to fetch Java. Leaky and strained and overladen as the ship was, she was in no condition to fight the elements on fair terms; so the result of it was, that, after being buffetted by the gale for some four days and then, finally, pooped by a heavy following sea as she tried to run before the wind, it was discovered that she was making water too fast for the pumps to be of any avail. Consequently, as nothing further could be done, it was determined to abandon her. Accordingly, the jolly-boat and pinnace were provisioned and launched over the side, the crew being divided between the two, under the direction of the captain and chief officer; and they had hardly time to get into these frail craft, to encounter once again on worse terms the perils of the ocean that had already proved too strong for their vessel, and push off from her side, when they saw the old _Gustav Barentz_ go down before their eyes--foundering almost without a moment's warning. "It was terrible for you all to be left tossing about on the raging sea in a couple of open boats!" said Fritz sympathisingly, pressing his brother's arm,--"worse than being in a leaky ship, I should think." "Yes," answered Eric; "but we kept up our courage well, the captain sustaining us with brave words, saying that, as we were not many miles south of Cape Arguilhas and had the wind blowing right on to the land, we must soon reach shore. But, I don't know, I'm sure, how he came to place the ship where he did; for, according to my reckoning, we were several degrees, at the least, to the eastward of the Cape. However, I suppose he said what he did to prevent our giving way to despair, which, perhaps, we might otherwise have done, eh?" "Most probably," said Fritz, agreeing with his brother. "It would be very unlikely for the captain to make so great an error in his calculations as that. He was esteemed a good navigator, you know, by Herr Grosschnapper." "Well, anyway," continued Eric, without waiting to argue this point with his brother, "we did not reach land that day, which some of the men expected from his words; nor did we the next morning, although, then much to our sorrow, we could see the pinnace no longer near us, she having parted company in the night time and gone to the bottom, as we thought." "You were wrong," interrupted Fritz; "the boat was picked up by an Australian ship, the survivors being taken on to Melbourne. It was through these that we heard later on of the loss of the _Gustav Barentz_; and naturally, as you had not been rescued at the same time, we all gave you and the captain's party up." "Oh, indeed!" said Eric. "I'm right glad to hear that! Why, we thought that they were the lost ones, not us, lamenting them much accordingly! That Groots, the first mate, was a capital chap, as fine an officer as ever stepped aboard a ship; so I'm pleased to know he's safe. But, to go on with my yarn, there we found ourselves alone in the morning on the wild waste of waters, dancing about in an angry sea that threatened every moment to overwhelm us, and with the gale increasing instead of having blown itself out, as we hoped. We didn't feel very comfortable, I can tell you, Fritz." "I should think not," responded his brother. "No; for it was as much as we could do to prevent the boat from filling every moment, the waves were breaking over her so continually. It only escaped sinking by constantly baling her out with our boots and keeping her head to the wind with a floating anchor, which we rigged together out of all the spare oars and spars we had aboard, veering the little craft to leeward of this by the painter. All that day, too, the gale kept up; and the sea, you may be sure, did not calm down, rolling mountains high, as it seemed to us just down to its level in the jolly- boat! So it was the next night, there not being the slightest lull, we having to ride it out all the while; but, on the third morning, the gale moderated sufficiently for us to be able to scud before it in the direction of the Cape. It was lucky for us that the wind, by the way, did not shift once while we were lying-to, blowing steadily from the same quarter it began in, from the south-east. If it had changed at all, especially during the night at any time, it would have been all up with us!" "Yes?" said Fritz interrogatively. "Why, of course it would, for it was as dark as pitch, so that you could not see your hand before your face; and if the wind had chopped round, bringing us athwart the heavy rolling sea that was running, we should have been swamped in a moment, without the chance of saving ourselves by turning the boat's head so as to meet the waves; do you see now?" "I see," said Fritz, with a shudder. "It was bad enough to confront your peril in daylight, but it would have been awful to have been engulfed in the darkness!" "That was what was in our minds," proceeded Eric; "at least, I can answer for my own thoughts. However, on the morning of the third day, as I've told you, the wind slackening down somewhat, although still blowing steadily from the south-east, we hauled up to our floating anchor, which we quickly proceeded to take to pieces, hauling on board again the oars and old boat-stretchers that had composed it, and which had served the purpose of fending off somewhat the rollers, these breaking over the spars, under whose lee we had comparatively still water. We then, with a great deal of difficulty, as it was a dangerous operation on account of getting broadside on to the waves, managed to slew the jolly-boat's head round; when, rigging up a scrap of a sprit- sail amidships, so as not to bury the little craft's nose, which might have been the case if we had tried to step our proper mast more forward, with the captain steering with an oar out to windward to give him greater command of her than the rudder would have done, we scudded away towards the African coast, giving up the pinnace as lost, and looking out only for ourselves." "You had plenty to do," said Fritz, "without thinking of any one else." "Yes," replied Eric; "but still, we could not forget them so easily as all that. Shore folk think sailors are heartless, and that when a poor chap is lost overboard, they only say that `So-and-so has lost the number of his mess!' and, after having an auction over his kit in the fo'c's'le, then dismiss him from their memory! But, I assure you, this is not always the case. You see, a ship is a sort of little world, and those on board are so closely bound together--getting to know each other so thoroughly from not having any others to associate with--that when one is taken away from amongst them, particularly by a violent death, his absence, cannot but be felt. A sailor often misses even a messmate whom he may dislike. How much the more, therefore, did we feel the loss of the whole boat's crew of the pinnace, every man of whom was almost as much a brother to me as you!" "I beg your pardon if I spoke thoughtlessly," said Fritz; "but I should have imagined that being in such imminent danger, you would not have had much time to mourn your lost comrades." "Nor did we," continued Eric, "so long as we had something to do, either in helping to bale the boat out or keeping her head to wind; but, when we began to run before the gale, the men stretched out in the bottom and along the stern-sheets, doing nothing,--for there was nothing for us to do,--we began to think of the poor fellows. This was only for a short time, however, as presently we had a more serious consideration on our minds than even the fate of the others. During all the strain on us, when we were in such danger, none of us had thought of eating or drinking; and, consequently, we had not examined the provisions--put hastily on board as we were leaving the sinking ship. But, now, feeling almost famished, on proceeding to overhaul the lockers, we found to our dismay that the sea water had spoilt everything, our biscuit being paste and the other food rendered unfit for use." "What a calamity!" exclaimed Fritz. "Yes," said Eric, "it was. Fortunately, we had some water, although our two barricoes did not contain an over-abundant supply for seven men as there were of us in the jolly-boat all told, including me. The captain, too, had stowed away a bottle of rum in the pocket of his pea jacket; and this being served out all round in a little tin pannikin we had, diluted to the strength of about four-water grog, it strengthened us all up a bit, bracing up our energies for what lay before us." "What did you do?" asked Fritz. "Why, what could we do, save let the boat go where the wind chose to take us, and trust in providence!" said Eric, seemingly surprised at the question. "Ah, we had an awful time of it," he resumed presently. "When you come to being five days in an open boat, with nothing to eat and only a small quantity of water to assuage your burning thirst with at stated intervals, exposed all the time, too, to rough seas breaking over you-- encrusting your hair and skin and everything with salt that blistered you when the sun came out afterwards, as it did, roasting us almost as soon as the gale lessened--why it was a painful ordeal, that's all! The rum did not last out long; and soon after the final drop of this was served out, the captain succumbed to weakness, having been dying by inches, and the stimulant only sustaining him so long. We kept him a couple of days, and then flung the body overboard, along with those of two other men who had died in the meantime from exposure and want of food; thus, only three others were now left in the jolly-boat besides me." "And then?" interrupted Fritz anxiously. "I don't know what happened afterwards," said Eric. "I got delirious, I suppose, for I remember fancying myself at home again in Lubeck, with Lorischen bending over me and offering me all sorts of nice things to eat! Really, I do not recollect anything further as to what occurred in the boat." "How were you saved, then?" asked Fritz. "It was that good Captain Brown there, talking to the gentleman whom you came in here with," replied Eric, pointing out the broad-shouldered, jolly-looking, seafaring man whom Fritz's friend, the deck hand of the steamer, had accosted and was now conversing with, close to where the two brothers were seated on the divan. "Oh, he rescued you!" said Fritz, looking at the seafaring man with some interest. "I should like to thank him." "Yes; he's a good fellow," Eric went on. "The first thing I saw when in my right senses again, I think, after we had heaved the bodies of our dead shipmates overboard the boat, was Captain Brown bending over me. I must have confused his face with that of Lorischen, whom I had been dreaming of, for I thought it was hers, and called the captain by her name." "You did?" "Yes; I remember his laughing and saying, `poor little chap,' meaning me. He took care of me well, though; and it was only through his kind care that they were able to bring me round again. They told me afterwards that I was in a most pitiable state of emaciation--a skeleton, they said, with only fragments of burnt, blistered skin covering my poor bones!" "And the others," inquired Fritz,--"did they recover too?" "No; not one of the three was alive when Captain Brown's ship came across our boat. I was the only one who had any life remaining. They thought me a corpse, too, and would have left me to die with the rest, if it hadn't been for the captain, who declared there was breath still in my apparently dead body, and kindly had me hoisted on board and attended to." "But how was it you never wrote home?" said Fritz after a bit, the recollection of what he had gone through overcoming Eric and making him silent for a moment. "How could I, when the first land I touched, since I was picked up in the ocean south of the Cape, was when I stepped ashore here last week!" "I can't make that out," said Fritz, puzzled at this. "Why," replied the other, "you must know that Captain Brown's ship, the _Pilot's Bride_, is a whaling vessel; and she was on her usual cruise for her fishing ground in the Southern Ocean, when I was rescued. If there had been a boatload of us, or had our skipper been alive, perhaps Captain Brown would have put in to the Cape to land us and so give news of the loss of our ship; but, as there was only me, a boy, and I was for days insensible and unable to give him any particulars about the vessel I belonged to, of course he continued his voyage. When I came to myself, he promised to put me on board the first home-going ship we met; but, as we were far out of the track of these, we never came across a sail. We did land at Tristan d'Acunha, about which I'll have to tell you something bye-and-bye as to a plan I've got in my head, however, as no vessel with the exception of ourselves had been there for six months, there was not much use in my leaving a letter to be forwarded home, on the chance of its being called for, was there?" "No," said Fritz, laughing. "A bad sort of post office that!" "So," continued Eric, "I had to wait till I landed here last Friday, when I wrote at once to dear mother and you, whom I thought would of course still be at Lubeck." "Ah, you don't know all that has happened since you left," said Fritz solemnly. "Nothing is the matter with mother, dear mutterchen?" asked Eric in a frightened voice. "No; she's quite well, thank God," said Fritz, who then proceeded to give his brother a history of all that had transpired in his absence-- the account taking all the longer from Eric's ignorance of the war and everything connected with it, he not having seen a newspaper from the time of his leaving home until his arrival at Rhode Island, when, the events of the past memorable year being of course stale news, they had no chance of being communicated to him. "And now," said Fritz, when he had made an end of his confidences in return for his brother's story, "I want to know Captain Brown, and thank him for all his kindness to you, Eric." As Fritz said this, the broad-shouldered, jolly, seafaring man Eric had pointed out--who was still talking to Fritz's acquaintance of the steamboat, close to the divan and within sound of the brothers' voices-- hearing his name spoken, looked towards Fritz, who at once raised his hat politely. "Sarvint, sir," said he, coming forward and stretching out an open hand about the size of a small-sized ham. "You're the brother, I reckon from the likeness, of this young shaver I picked up off the Cape, hey? My name's Brown, Cap'en Brown, sir, of the _Pilot's Bride_, the smartest whaling craft as ever sailed out o' Providence, I guess. Glad to know you, mister!" CHAPTER SIXTEEN. AN INVITATION. "Yes, I'm Eric's brother," said Fritz, grasping the huge paw of the other, and shaking hands cordially,--"Fritz Dort, at your service. I'm only too glad to have the pleasure of personally thanking you, on my own and my mother's behalf, for your bravery in saving my poor brother here from a watery grave, as well as for all your kindness to him afterwards! He has told me about you, captain, and how you rescued him at sea, besides treating him so very handsomely afterwards." "Avast there!" roared out the Yankee skipper in a voice which was as loud as if he were hailing the maintop from his own quarter-deck, albeit it had a genial, cheery tone and there was a good-natured expression on his jolly, weather-beaten face. "Stow all thet fine lingo, my hearty! I only did for the b'y, mister, no more'n any other sailor would hev done fur a shepmate in distress; though, I reckon I wer powerful glad I overhauled thet there jolly-boat in time to save him, afore starvation an' the sun hed done their work on him. I opine another day's exposure would hev settled the b'y's hash; yes, sir, I du!" "I've no doubt of that," said Fritz kindly. "From what he says, you must have picked him up just in the nick of time." "Yes, sirree, you bet on thet," responded the skipper. "Six hours more driftin' about in thet boat, with the sun a-broilin' his brain-box an' his wits wool-gatherin' in delirimums, would ha' flummuxed him to a haar, I guess. He wer so mad when we got him aboard thet he took me fur his gran'mother, Lorry sunthin' or other--I'm durned if I ken kinder rec'lect the name!" "So he tells me," said Fritz, laughing at the idea of old Lorischen being mistaken for the broad-shouldered, red-faced, whaling captain. The old nurse, who was very particular about her personal appearance, would have had a fit at the bare supposition, much less at such an allusion to her age as would have supposed her ancient enough to be Eric's grandmother! "Never mind, mister," continued the skipper, giving Eric a hearty slap on the back, which made the lad wince although he smiled at what the worthy sailor intended for a little friendly attention. "He's all right now, the b'y is--ain't you, my bully, hey?" "Yes; all right, captain, all right, sir, thanks to you," replied Eric. "Thet's your sort," said the skipper exultantly. "We've coddled him up an' made a man of him ag'in, we hev, sirree. Jerusalem, mister, you wouldn't know him ag'in for the skillagalee young shaver we h'isted aboard! An', what is more, mister, look here, we've made a sailor of the b'y since he's been along of us in the _Pilot's Bride_--none of your lazy, good-for-nothin' idlers; but, a reg'ler downeaster cat block, clear grit an' no mistake, a sailor every inch of him, yes, sir!" "I should have thought he had seen enough of the sea, eh?" said Fritz, turning to Eric with a smile. "Thunder, mister!" exclaimed the Yankee skipper indignantly. "What d'ye mean with your `'nough of the sea,' when he's only jest cut his eye- teeth an' taken to larnin'? Why, mister, it would be a sin to let thet b'y turn his hand to anythin' else, fur he's a born sailor to the very backbone!" "What say you, Eric?" said Fritz to his brother. "Oh, I'm with the captain," replied he. "I always loved the sea, and the wreck of the old _Gustav Barentz_ has not altered my thinking about it just the same. I don't believe I could ever settle down to a shore life now! I have learnt a lot of seamanship, too, with Captain Brown; and he says, that if I will go with him on his next whaling voyage, he'll make me third mate of the _Pilot's Bride_." "Jest so, my young cock shaver," said that gentleman; "an' what old Job Brown sez, why I guess he'll stick to! You rec'lect what I told you 'bout wages, hey? We whalin' men don't gen'rally give a fixed sum, as we go shares in the vally o' the venture; but, if yer brother haar likes it better, I'll give you twenty dollars a month, besides yer keep an' mess money, thaar!" "I'm sure, Captain Brown, that is a very generous offer," replied Fritz, acting as spokesman for his brother; "still, I hardly think my poor mother would like his being away for so long a time as your voyage would last." "We'll be away, I reckon, fur a twelvemonth, countin' from next month, when we'll start--thet is if my shep's ready for the v'y'ge, as I kinder guess she'll be, with me to look arter her an' see the longshore men don't lose time over the job," interrupted the skipper. "Say now, she sails latter end o' July, so as to git down to the Forties afore October, or tharabouts; waall, I guess we'll cast anchor in Narraganset Bay ag'in 'fore next fall--will that du for you, mister, hey?" "You see," explained Fritz, "my poor mother thinks him dead; and, of course, after she gets the letter he tells me he has just sent home, it will be as bad as a second death to her to know that he has now started on another voyage without returning to see her first! Besides that, I've read and heard that whaling life is terribly dangerous--isn't it?" "Not a bit of it," said the skipper bluntly, in sea-dog fashion. "I reckon it's nary half so dangerous as sailin' back'ards an' for'ards across the herrin' pond 'twixt Noo Yark an' your old Eu-rope in one o' them ocean steamers, thet are thought so safe, whar you run the risk o' bustin' yer biler an' gettin' blown up, or else smashin' yer screw-shaft an' goin' down to Davy Jones' locker! Why, thaar ain't a quarter the per'l 'bout it, much less half, as I sed jest naow! You jest ax my friend haar, whom you seem to hev known afore. Say, Nat, what d'ye think o' whalin' life?" "Safe as the National Bank, I guess, Job," promptly responded the individual addressed, Fritz's acquaintance the "deck hand," whose full name he now learnt was Nathaniel Washington Slater--usually addressed as "Nathaniel W Slater," or called familiarly "Nat" by his friends! "Thaar!" exclaimed the skipper, "what more d'ye want than thet, hey? You see, mister, the _Pilot's Bride_ don't do whalin' up in Baffin's Bay an' further north, whar I'll allow the fishin' is a bit risky. We only makes reg'ler trips once a year to the Southern Ocean, callin' in on our way at Saint Helena an' the Cape o' Good Hope. Thaar, I guess, we meets a fleet of schooners thet do all the fishin' fur us 'mongst the islands. We fetch 'em out grub, an' sich-like notions, an' take in return all the ile an' skins they've got to bring home. In course, sometimes, we strike a fish on our own 'count; but, we don't make a trade of it, 'cept the black fins comes under our noses, so to speak! The b'y'll run no risk, you bet, if you're skeart about him." "No, not a bit, mister," corroborated Nat; "and it's a downright capital openin' for him, I guess, too. Why, there are scores of people would give something handsome as a premium to get the cap'en to take their sons along o' him!" "Thet's a fact," said the skipper; "though I reckon I don't kinder like to be bothered with b'ys--'specially sich as are mother's darlin's. They're gen'rally powerful sassy, or else white-livered do-nuthins! I've taken a fancy to this lad, howbeit; an' thet's the reason I wants fur to hev him with me." "Besides, Fritz," put in Eric, who had refrained from speaking as yet throughout the conversation, although so interested in it, "you must recollect what a sum mother paid for my outfit? Well, I have lost every stitch of it, and shall not get the slightest return from the owners for what went down in the _Gustav Barentz_--merchant sailors have to run the risk of all such casualties, you know! Now, I should not like to go back on mother's hands again, like a bad penny, with nothing to bless myself with; but, here's a capital chance for me. As Captain Brown says, I shall return in a year, and then my wages would be something handsome to take home to mutterchen, even if I then gave up the sea." "Did you tell mother of this in your letter?" asked Fritz. "Certainly; for, of course, I did not expect to see you here. I told her that I had almost pledged my word with Captain Brown to go with him, even if it were only to pay him for what he had already done for me, in advancing me money to buy clothes and other necessaries, for I hadn't a rag on when he rescued me, as well as promising to keep me here till the vessel is ready to start again on her next voyage. Why, Fritz, he's so kind, that he actually offered to pay my passage home, if I were bent on seeing mother first before deciding about his offer!" "That settles it then, Eric, for mother will be certain to say that the right thing to do will be to pay your debts first; in addition to which, knowing I am now out here, she will not expect you to return yet. Really, Captain Brown," added Fritz, turning to the skipper, who appeared to be anxiously awaiting the result of the colloquy between the two brothers, "I'm quite at a loss to express my gratitude to you, both on my brother's and my own behalf! I hope you will not think me lukewarm in the matter, from my taking so long to make up my mind?" "Sartenly not, sirree," said the Yankee skipper with emphasis, as he gripped Fritz's hand again. "Sartenly not, sirree. Bizness is bizness, an' pleasure's another kind o' notion altogether! I only gev' the b'y an invitation, thet's all, I reckon!" "An invitation which he now accepts with thanks," replied Fritz. "Eh, Eric?" he added, turning to the lad, who was looking at Captain Brown with a face as beaming as his own. "Of course I will," answered Eric, without a moment's hesitation. "I should be a donkey to refuse such an offer." "Waall," drawled out the skipper in high good humour, "I'm raal glad to hear you say thet so. You won't repent j'inin' me, I ken tell you, nor regret slingin' yer hammock aboard the _Pilot's Bride_!" He then proceeded to wring Eric's hand as cordially, and forcibly too, in his big fist as he had done his brother's. "Now thet's all settled an' fixed up slick," said Captain Brown, when he had finished hand-shaking, passing on the friendly civility to Mr Nat Slater. "I guess we'd better hev a liquor-up to seal the barg'in; an' when thet's done, if you've got nuthin' better to du, I reckon you'd better come along o' me to my little shanty at the head of the bay--your brother's ben made welcome thaar already." "You are very kind," replied Fritz, to whom this courteous speech was addressed; "but this gentleman here," indicating Nat, "was just going to show me a boarding-house where I can put up at. He has also promised to introduce me to some shipping firm where I can get work." "Out o' collar, then?" asked the skipper, with deep interest. "Yes," answered Fritz. "I could get no employment in New York, and that is what made me come up here, so providentially as it has now turned out." "Waall, come home along o' me, anyhow, till you find sunthin' to put yer hand to," said the other kindly. "My folks'll make you downright welcome, you bet, mister." "Thank you, I will," replied Fritz, accepting the kind invitation in the same spirit in which it was offered; and presently the two brothers, reunited so strangely, were on their way, in company with the good- hearted skipper to his "shanty," as he called it, on Narraganset Bay--a comfortable, old-fashioned house, as Fritz presently found out, commanding a fine view of the Providence river on one hand, and of the wide Atlantic, rolling away into the illimitable distance, on the other. "Nat" declined to accompany the party, on the plea of an engagement He made an appointment, however, with Fritz for the morrow, promising then to introduce him to some business men, who, he said, would probably find the young German employment; after which he took leave of the Yankee skipper and the two brothers, with a brief parting, "So long!" CHAPTER SEVENTEEN. ERIC'S PROJECT. Fritz was not long in the company of Mr Nathaniel Washington Slater on the following day before he discovered, much to his disappointment, that he was one of those superficial characters who are given largely to dealing in promises that they either have no intention of keeping when making them originally, or which they never were or would be in a position to carry out. When coming up Long Island Sound on board the Rhode Island steamer and having that friendly chat in the bows of the boat, the deck hand had been lavishly expansive as to what he would be able to accomplish for his newly-made acquaintance, in the way of procuring him employment; but, when Fritz met him again, according to their arrangement of the previous afternoon, "Nat" did not appear to exhibit that eager alacrity in introducing him to business men--or "big bugs," as he termed them-- which his words of the night before had led Fritz naturally to expect. Whether this arose from the fact that the deck hand's desire to aid the young German had evaporated as rapidly as it had arisen, or because his morning reflections had convinced him that he had too rashly promised something which he was unable to perform, Fritz, of course, could not precisely tell. Whatever was the reason, the result came to the same thing, that Mr Slater showed a most unmistakable inclination to "back out" of the matter in the same easy way in which those double-ender floating palaces Fritz had noticed on the way up could go astern in order to avoid an obstruction; albeit Nat was prolific in the extreme with all manner of excuses--excuses that were as baseless and unsubstantial as the foam churned up by the steamboat's paddle-wheels! He "felt ugly" and was "no end sorry," but he really "hadn't the time that morning." This was his first attempt at shunting the engagement; but then, when Fritz, in the exuberance of hopeful possibilities, offered to meet him at the same place and time on the following day, "Nat" "couldn't think of putting him to the trouble," as he "might have to return to New York in the boat at a moment's notice." Besides, he said, it would be "better to put off the appointment awhile," as he'd just heard that the "boss" of the very identical shipping firm where he thought he could have got Fritz a berth had started "right away" for Boston, and he was such a "durned electric eel of a cuss, here, there, and everywhere," that it would be "just dubersome to kalkerlate" when he would "reel his way back to hum!" Fritz could not understand many of these very choice Americanisms; still, he was sufficiently gifted with common sense to see pretty plainly that all the deck hand's "tall talking" of the previous evening had been, to use his own expressive vernacular, nothing but "bunkum," and that, if he wished to get any situation in the place, he must trust more to his own good fortune than to Mr Slater's kind offices as a go- between. This disheartened him at the time; but when he got back to Captain Brown's shanty later on, the worthy old skipper, noticing his despondency, soon cheered him out of it. "Bless you, sonny," said he affectionately, for he seemed to have taken as great a fancy to Fritz as he had to Eric--the young fellow having told him all his plans and prospects, besides giving him an epitome of his adventures during the war when narrating the same for his brother's edification,--"Bless you, sonny, nary you mind what thet ne'er-do-well Nat Slater sez. I'd half a mind to tell you thet yesterday, when I seed you so thick with him! Jerusalem, mister, he's a coon thet's bin allers a loafer all his life, stickin' to nuthin' even fur a dog-watch, an' as shifty as one o' them sculpens in the creek thaar! You jest wait an' make yourself comf'able haar till bye-em-bye, an' I reckon we'll fix you up to sunthin'." The same evening, when the two brothers were alone together, and speaking of old Captain Brown's kindness, Eric suddenly, as if in a moment of inspiration, said, "Why should you not come along with me in the _Pilot's Bride_ when we start next month?" "What!" exclaimed Fritz in astonishment. "Don't look so startled, brother," said Eric, laughing at the expression of the other's face. "Recollect, that as you say, you've been unable to get any work here, so, why not go with me? I'm sure Captain Brown would take you with us if you ask him." "But I'm not a sailor," argued Fritz; "and, besides, if I were one, going to sea would not be the way to make the fortune I have planned, so that I may be able to return home and marry Madaleine." "Ah, that dear Madaleine!" said Eric. "I wonder when I'll see her, and whether I shall think her all that you describe? Never mind," he added, seeing that Fritz appeared vexed at this speech, "I've no doubt she's a beautiful maiden, and that you'll both be as happy as the day is long! But, I'm going to speak about business now, my brother; and, if you listen, you'll see that my idea of your coming in the _Pilot's Bride_ is not such a wild-goose chase, after all." "I confess I don't see it yet," interposed Fritz, with a smile at Eric's boyish eagerness. "In what way will going whaling with Captain Brown and your important self advance my fortunes?" "Listen," said the other, "and I'll soon tell you. Do you recollect when I was recounting my story, that after I was picked up from the boat and taken on board the _Pilot's Bride_, I mentioned the fact of the ship calling at Tristan d'Acunha?" "Yes; and you also said that you would inform me of something important about the place `bye-and-bye,' if you alluded then to what you're going to tell me now." "Precisely, `bye-and-bye' is `now,'" said Eric, laughing again and tossing his mane-like hair back from his forehead in the old fashion. "We landed at Tristan d'Acunha--" "Where on earth is that place?" interrupted Fritz. "I've a confused notion that it is an island of some sort; but, in what precise spot it is situated, I'm sure I can't tell!" "Well, then," commenced Eric grandiloquently--only too glad of the opportunity of having to instruct his elder brother, who had been regarded in the family circle as the centre of all wisdom--"`Tristan d'Acunha' is the centre island of a group, so-called after the Portuguese navigator who discovered them in the early beginning of the sixteenth century. The islands are probably the most isolated and remote of all the abodes of men, lying as they do almost in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, and nearly equidistant from the continents of America and Africa; for, they are situated nearly on the line that could be drawn between Cape Horn and the Cape of Good Hope--from the latter of which they are distant some fifteen hundred miles in a westerly direction, while Saint Helena, the nearest other land to them on the north, is thirteen hundred miles away." "You're very explicit, I'm sure," said Fritz in a chaffing way; "you must have been coaching up your geography recently." "I disdain vulgar interruption and idle clamour," returned the other in a similar vein. "But, to proceed. The group consists of the larger island of Tristan and two smaller islands--Inaccessible Island, some eighteen miles to the south-west, and Nightingale Island, twenty miles to the south. These islands are uninhabited, save by penguins and seals; but an interesting little colony of some eighty souls occupies Tristan, breeding cattle and cultivating vegetables, with which they supply passing vessels, mostly whalers--these calling there from time to time, on their way to and from their fishing grounds in the great Southern Ocean." "Your account is highly interesting, my dear Eric," said Fritz, when his brother had completed this exhaustive description of the Tristan d'Acunha group; "still, I confess I do not see in what way it affects me." "Don't you?" "No." "Then you will soon; listen a moment longer. I told you that, with the exception of the larger one, these islands are uninhabited save by the penguins and seals and such-like marine animals." "Yes, you've told me that; and I don't wonder at it when they are situated so remotely from all civilisation." "That fact has its advantages none the less," proceeded Eric. "Being so cut off from communication with men makes these islands just the favourite resort of those animals that shun the presence of their destroyers. Seals, as you know, are very nervous, retiring creatures seeking their breeding-places in the most out-of-the-way, deserted spots they can find; and the advance of the human race, planting colonies where the poor things had formerly undisputed sway around the shores of the South American continent, has driven them further and further afield, or rather to sea, until they are now only to be met with in any numbers in the Antarctic Ocean, and such islands as lie adjacent to that great Southern continent which has never yet been discovered--although Lord Ross pretty nearly put foot on it, if any explorer can be said to have done that." "Really, Eric," exclaimed Fritz jokingly, "you surpass yourself!" "Oh, I've read up all this in some books Captain Brown lent me," said the boy. "I wanted to learn everything that was to be learnt about a whaler's life, and to become acquainted with the special parts of the ocean that have to be visited by vessels in the trade in order to find a profitable fishing ground." "But you've been talking about seals, not whales," remarked Fritz. "Yes, because it is with seals that my present business lies," said the other, not a bit put out by the correction. "Banished now from their once favourite waters around Cape Horn, adjacent to the islands of the Pacific, there are yet some stray outlandish spots left which the animals frequent, so as to be able to breed in peace and multiply, without fear of that wholesale extermination which is their unhappy lot elsewhere. Amongst such isolated places is the Tristan d'Acunha group; and, to Inaccessible Island as well as the other islets they come in countless numbers every year. Seal fishing is a very profitable concern; for, not only is the oil valuable, but the skins fetch the most extravagant prices in the market, especially those of the finer sort. Now, do you see what I'm after, brother?" "You want to go sealing, I suppose; but, won't you have plenty of that in the _Pilot's Bride_ with Captain Brown, eh?" "Not in the way I mean," replied Eric. "I have an idea of settling for a time at Tristan d'Acunha, going in thoroughly for the thing as a business on shore." Fritz appeared to prick up his ears at this. "But, I thought you said there was a colony there already; why don't the people manage to cultivate the trade? Besides, if they have it all their own way, I think they would not like a couple of strange interlopers, like you and me, going amongst them to rob them of their harvest from the sea!" "Ah, I see you're bitten with the idea," exclaimed Eric, clapping his hands triumphantly. "But, it was not of Tristan, the larger island, I was thinking; it was of Inaccessible Island, where there wouldn't be another living soul but ourselves, the seals, and sea birds." "`Monarchs of all we survey,' eh, like Robinson Crusoe?" said Fritz with a smile. "That would be very nice, wouldn't it?" "Don't laugh, brother," returned Eric, speaking earnestly. "I assure you I've considered this thing well. The people living at Tristan told me that they went fishing to the other islands once a year; but, the weather is generally so rough and the beach so hard to land at or get off from, on account of the heavy ocean rollers coming in when the wind is up at all, that the islanders can never make a long stay at the islets--and so cannot get half the number of sealskins which might be easily procured by any one stopping ashore there for any length of time. I really thought, I assure you, of asking Captain Brown, when I went on my next voyage with him, to land me at Inaccessible Island, with provisions enough to last me six months or so, and to call for me on his return voyage from the Cape, as he was wending his way back home again here." "And you would have gone there alone?" "Yes; why not? But now, oh, Fritz, if you would only go with me, we might settle at this place like regular Robinson Crusoes--as you said just now--and make a pile of money, or, rather, of skins, in a year or two!" "The idea is feasible," said Fritz in a reflective way. "I'll talk to Captain Brown, and see what he says of it." The elder brother had a good deal of German caution in his composition; so that, although prompt of action, he was never accustomed to undertake anything without due deliberation. Eric, on the contrary, all impulse, was thoroughly carried away by the notion, now that he saw that Fritz, instead of ridiculing it, thought it worth consideration. The project of going to settle on a real uninhabited island, like Robinson Crusoe, that hero of boyhood throughout the world, exceeded the realisation of his wildest dreams, when first as a little chap he had planned how he should go to sea as soon as he was big enough. Why, he and Fritz would now be "Brother Crusoes," if his project were carried out, as there seemed every likelihood of its being--crusoes of their own free-will and not by compulsion, besides having the satisfaction of knowing that within a certain period it would be in their power to end their solitary island life; that is, should they find, either that it did not come up to their expectations in a business point of view, or that its loneliness and seclusion combined with the discomforts of roughing it were more than they could bear. It was a glorious plan! This was Eric's conclusion, the more he thought of it; while Fritz, on his part, believed that there was something in the suggestion--something that had to be weighed and considered carefully--for, might he not really conquer Fortune in this way? Captain Brown did not throw any cold water on the matter either, when it was brought before him. "By thunder! it's a durned good plan, it air, mister," said he to Fritz, "thet it air, fur a young scaramouch like thet youngster thaar! I seed him palaverin' with one o' them islanders at Tristan--they're a sort of half-caste tan colour there, like mulattoes in the States. I rec'lect one of the men who wer oncest on a whaler with me a v'y'ge or two to Kerguelen Land an' back, tellin' me 'bout the lot of seals thet were on Inaccessible Island, now I come to think of it; but I've never been thaar myself. Its name's good enough fur me, since most of us thet go by thaar gives it a pretty wide berth, you bet; fur it air inaccessible, with a vengeance--a rocky coast plungin' down abruptly into the sea, with a terrible surf breakin' ag'in the cliffs, an' no anchorage ground anywheres nigh thet's safe!" "And how could we land then?" asked Fritz. "Oh, it ken be done, mister, fur the Tristaners go over thaar, as the b'y told you, every year fur a week or so; an' they hev to git ashore somehow or other. Yes, we'll manage to land you, safe enough, in a whale-boat when the time comes. What I meant to say was, thet the ship couldn't stay any while lyin' off, so as to see whether you liked the place or not. If you land, thaar you'll hev to stay till we come back fur you next v'y'ge!" "All right, I shan't mind that, with Eric. If I were alone, of course it would be another matter." "Jest so," replied the Yankee skipper; and he then proceeded to advise the brothers what would be best to take with them, Fritz wishing to lay out his small remaining stock of money to advantage. He also told them, good-naturedly, that he would convey them to their contemplated destination for nothing, so that they would have no passage to pay. Eric, indeed, would work his, being considered as attached to the ship, his name besides being retained on the list of the crew while sealing on shore; and, as for Fritz, Captain Brown said, he would "grub him and give him a bunk into the barg'in." Then, again, in respect of the provisions they would need for their maintenance during their stay on the island, the skipper promised to supply them from the ship's stores, on their arrival there, at cost price; so that, not only would they thus get them much cheaper than they would have been able to purchase them in open market, but they would likewise save the cost of their freightage to Inaccessible Island, which any one else would have expected them to pay. Could Fritz desire more? Hardly. "I guess, mister," concluded the skipper, "so be it as how you kinder makes up yer mind fur the venture, thet you two coons will start in bizness with a clean sheet an' no book debts, like the boss of a dry goods store; an' if you don't make a pile in less than no time, why it won't be Job Brown's fault, I reckon!" This settled the matter; when, the captain giving them a short memorandum of certain necessary articles which they would find useful on the island and which they could readily procure in Providence while the _Pilot's Bride_ was refitting, the two brothers set to work making their preparations without delay for the novel enterprise to which Eric's project had given birth--that of going crusoeing in the South Atlantic! CHAPTER EIGHTEEN. THE "PILOT'S BRIDE." The more Fritz thought over the project, the more enthusiastic he became about it. Unlike Eric, he was deeply reflective, never adventuring into any scheme or undertaking action in any matter until he had fully weighed the pros and cons and had considered everything that could be said for and against it; but, once his judgment was convinced, there was no more hearty co-operator than he. It was so in this instance. Eric's idea had struck him as feasible at the first blush, the boy being so eager in giving vent to his own impressions and experiences of what he had seen at Tristan d'Acunha with regard to the advantage of starting a new sealing station of their own; but, when Fritz came to ponder over the plan, it seemed so chimerical that he felt inclined to be angry with himself for having entertained it for a moment. These second thoughts, however, did not long stand their ground after old Captain Brown had been consulted; for, that experienced mariner, who had, as he thought, such better means of judging than himself, immediately took so sanguine a view of the enterprise, that Fritz's original opinion in favour of it became confirmed, and he entered upon the preparations for the expedition with even greater zest than Eric, its first inceptor and propounder. "Brother," said he to the latter, on Captain Brown's approving of the plan and promising his cordial assistance in helping them to carry it out to a successful issue, "we'll not leave anything to chance. We will put our shoulders to the wheel and determine to win!" "Aye," responded the other, "and we oughtn't to make a failure either; for, you know, the old adage has it that, `Fortune favours the brave,' eh?" "Yes," said Fritz, the practical. "However, it is in little things that success is attained, so we must not neglect these." Nor did they. Indeed, so much did Fritz impress Eric with the value of carefully considering every petty detail of their outfit, so that they might not find something omitted at the last moment which would be of use, that there was danger of their forgetting more important articles-- the "little things," apparently, absorbing all their attention. So engrossed were they in this enthusiasm for collecting and packing up the most out-of-the-way trifles which it struck one or other of the two brothers that they might want--getting these ready, too, for their departure weeks before the _Pilot's Bride_ could possibly be refitted for her voyage--that they were the subject of many a joke from the hospitable household of the little "shanty" on Narraganset Bay. The captain and Mrs Brown, or else Celia their daughter--a lively American lassie of Eric's age, who seemed to have taken as great a fancy to the young sailor as her father had done towards Fritz--would ever be suggesting the most extraordinary things as likely to "come in handy on the island," such as a warming pan or a boot-jack; with which latter, indeed, the skipper gravely presented the elder brother one day, telling him it would save him time when he was anxious to get on his slippers of an evening after sealing on the rocks! But, although they "chaffed" them, the kind people helped them none the less good-naturedly in completing their equipment, the old captain's "missis" and his "gal" plying their needles as energetically on their behalf as Madame Dort and Lorischen would have done in the little house at home in the Gulden Strasse of Lubeck. The very eagerness and "thoroughgoingness" of the hopeful young fellows enlisted sympathy for them, in addition to those good qualities which had already made them prime favourites. "Bully for them, old woman," as the skipper said, when talking them over to his wife. "They're raal grit an' bound to run into port with a fair wind an' no mistake, you bet; they're such a tarnation go-ahead pair o' coons, with no empty gas or nonsense about 'em!" But, full as he was of the venture, and embarking heart and soul into its details with every energy he possessed, Fritz did not neglect to write home a long letter to his mother and Madaleine, telling them all about the new undertaking in which his hopes and prospects alike were centred and expressing his feelings thoroughly in the matter--thus showing the amount of reflection he had given to the scheme. Eric, he said, was a sailor; and, therefore, should the venture not succeed, its failure would not affect him much, as it would be merely an episode in his nautical life, Captain Brown promising to retain his name on the books of the _Pilot's Bride_ and allow him to ship again as third mate in the event of his taking to the sea once more when the two got tired of their sojourn on the island or found that sealing did not answer their expectations; but, for him, Fritz, the enterprise was a far more important one, changing the whole aspect of his career. However, he wrote, he not only hoped for the best, but believed the undertaking would result more favourably than his most sanguine wishes led him to estimate its returns; still, in any case, it was better, he thought, to engage in it, rather than waste any further time in vainly searching for employment in the States. But, whether successful or unfortunate, he was fully determined, so he concluded his letter, to return home within the period of three years to which he had limited his absence when leaving Lubeck; and, he prayed that his coming back would be the opening of a new era of happiness for them all--that is should the good God, who had so mercifully preserved their Eric from the dangers of the deep and restored the dead to life, prosper the joint enterprise of the reunited brothers, who, come what may, would now be together. "Good-bye, dear mutterchen, and you, my darling Madaleine," were his last words. "Watch and pray for us, and look forward to seeing us again beneath the old roof-tree in time for our third Christmas festival from now; and, then, won't there be a home-coming, a house-warming, with us altogether once more!" Much to Fritz's satisfaction, before the _Pilot's Bride_ was ready to put to sea, a reply was received to this communication, bidding the brother crusoes a cheery "God speed!" from home. Madame Dort was so overjoyed with the unexpected news of Eric's safety that she made no demur to the prolongation of his absence from home, the more especially now that he would be in Fritz's company. As for Madaleine, she expressed herself perfectly contented with her betrothed's plans, considering, as she did, that he would know best; but she was all the better pleased, she wrote, that he was going to an uninhabited island, as then he would be unable to come across other girls, who might blot her image from his heart. "The little stupid!" as Fritz said fondly to himself when he read this,--"as if that were possible, the darling!" If Madaleine, however, could have known that, when she penned those words, Master Fritz was engaged making himself agreeable to a party of New York belles who had come up from the stifling "Empire City" to see their cousins the Browns and sniff the bracing sea breezes of Narraganset Bay, she might not have been quite so easy in her mind! But, she need not have alarmed herself much, for Fritz was too busily engaged, along with Eric, in helping Captain Brown to prepare the _Pilot's Bride_ for her forthcoming voyage, to spare much time to the fascinating fair ladies from Fifth Avenue. The elder brother could do but little to aid the skipper in a nautical way; still, as a clerk, he proved himself of great assistance, attending to all the captain's correspondence and acting as a sort of supercargo. Eric, however, having now had considerable experience of the sea, besides, as the skipper had said, being "a born sailor," came out in strong colours in all those minutiae required in getting a vessel ready for sea. Really, he showed himself so active and intelligent that the skipper looked upon him as "his right-hand man"--at least, so declared he one day in the presence of Mrs Brown, Celia, and the entire family at the shanty, in full and open conclave; and no one disputed his statement, albeit Master Eric was sadly confused at the compliment. But, how was it with the ship, in which, like twin Caesars, the brothers were about to embark "all their fortunes?" Well, the _Pilot's Bride_, after going into dry dock and discharging cargo on her return home, first had her sheathing stripped and the exterior of her hull carefully examined to see that no rotten timber- work should be overlooked that might subsequently be fatal to her when battling with the billows in mid-ocean. She had then been recaulked and coppered; besides having her rigging set up again and tarred down, as well as the coverings and seizings replaced, and the chaffing gear paid over. Finally, on the yards being sent up and the rigging completed, with all the running gear seen to and thoroughly overhauled, a good coat of paint, and an overcoat, too, in addition was given to the vessel from bow to taffrail down to the water-line, with a white streak, in regular Yankee fashion, running along her ports. The stern gallery and rail were then gilded, as was also the figure-head--a wooden damsel, with arms akimbo, of the most unprepossessing appearance, representing the bride of the "pilot" whose name she bore. This completed the exterior refitting of the ship. Much remained to be done to her interior, however; and, here it was that Eric was able to be of considerable service, having learnt all of a sailor's duty in reference to the stowage of a vessel's hold--a matter that might seem easy enough to a landsman who only has to do with the packing of boxes, but which is of serious importance on board a ship, where the misplacement of the cargo may not only affect her sailing properties but also the safety of those she carries. To commence with, the _Pilot's Bride_ being a whaler would have to start from her home port comparatively "light"--as, having no cargo to speak of, save the provisions for her own crew for twelve months and the stores she carried for the use of the sealing schooners amongst the islands, she was forced to take in a great deal of ballast to ensure her stability, and this had to be so apportioned in her hold as to make her of good trim. This being done, the water and provisions were then shipped and a large number of empty casks placed on top of all the stores in the hold, amidships. These latter were carried to be subsequently filled with the oil and skins that might be collected by the schooners acting as tenders to the _Pilot's Bride_ amongst the islands; and, besides, the ship had "trying pots" of her own to melt down the blubber of any whales or odd fish she might capture "on her own hook." The brothers' belongings were next taken on board and placed in the cabin appropriated by Captain Brown to Fritz's use; and then, only the live stock remained to be shipped and the crew mustered for the vessel to be ready for sea, as now, with her sails bent she lay along the wharf at Providence, waiting but to be hauled out into the stream. She was a barque of some three or four hundred tons, riding rather high out of the water in consequence of being mostly in ballast. In appearance she looked somewhat wall-sided, and she had those heavy round bows that are seen mostly in whaling vessels, which are thus protected forwards in order to resist the pressure of the ice in those arctic regions whither they go to and fro; but, in spite of her build, which resembled more that of a Dutch galliot--such as Fritz's eyes were accustomed to see in the ports of the North Sea--than an American merchantman, with her freshly painted hull, whose ports were picked out in white, and her tall shapely spars all newly varnished, the _Pilot's Bride_ looked as dapper and neat as her namesake. Eric certainly thought this, no matter what his brother's opinion might be, and believed there was every reason for Captain Brown taking the pride in the vessel that he did. "There you are," said the skipper to the brothers, taking them with him to survey her from the jetty when all her preparations were finished, the vessel only waiting his mandate to haul out into the river--"did you ever see sich a tarnation duck of a beauty in all yer born days, hey?" "She looks very pretty," observed Fritz admiringly. "Blow thet!" exclaimed the skipper with a laugh. "Folks would think you were talkin' 'bout a gal; but, what ken a longshore fellow know 'bout a shep!" he added compassionately. "What d'ye say 'bout her Mas' Eric, hey?" "I say she's a regular clipper, captain," answered the lad in prompt sailor fashion, much to the skipper's delight. Eric's encomium was all the more appreciative from the fact of his having been familiar with the ship through part of her last voyage. Then, she was all battered and bruised from her conflict with the elements during her cruise in southern seas; so, now, her present transformation and gala trim made the difference in her appearance all the more striking to him, causing her good points to shine out with all the greater display and hiding most of her drawbacks. "Ah, thet's your sort of 'pinion I likes," said the skipper in reply to Eric's tribute to the vessel's merits. "Yes, suttenly, she's a clipper, if ever there wer one; an' a beauty to the back of thet, I reckon, hey, sonny?" and he gave the lad one of his thundering pats of approval across the shoulders with his broad hand that almost jerked him off the jetty. "I guess," he added presently, "the only thing we've got to do now is to shep a tol'able crew aboard; an' then, I kalkerlate, mister, she'll be the slickest whaler this v'y'ge as ever loos'd tops'les an' sailed out o' Narraganset Bay!" "Will there be any difficulty in getting men?" asked Fritz. "No, I reckon not, mister," replied the skipper, with a huge guffaw at his ignorance. "Why, the crimpers would send 'em to me in shoals, fur Job Brown is as well-known in Providence as Queen Victoria is in England, God bless her fur a good woman, too! The diff'culty lies in pickin' out the good ones thet air worth their salt from the green hands, as ain't up to a kid of lobscouse fur all the work they ken do aboard a shep!" "Well, I hope you'll get the men you want," said Fritz cordially. "Nary a doubt 'bout thet," answered the other, slewing round and trotting across the wharf to a line of warehouses and merchants' offices on the other side. "I'm just a-goin' to my agents now; an' I ken tell you, fur a fact, thet Job Brown is never licked, no, sir, not when he makes up his mind to anythin'!" In the evening of the same day he astonished Fritz somewhat. "Who d'ye think wished fur to sign articles with me to-day fur the v'y'ge?" said he, after he mentioned that he had shipped his crew and that the _Pilot's Bride_ would haul out into the stream the next morning, preparatory to starting off altogether on the following day. "I'm sure I can't say," replied Fritz. "Who but our old friend Nat Slater!" said the skipper with a broad grin. "I guess Nathaniel Washington hez come down in the world ag'in, fur all his tall talkin' about what he wer goin' to do to help you, hey?" "Have you taken him on?" asked Fritz, somewhat dubious about the pleasure which the society of the whilom "deck hand" of the steamboat would afford him when the two of them should be cooped together on board the same vessel for any length of time, especially after the way in which that individual had behaved to him. "Yes, I let him jine," answered the skipper. "I couldn't do else, considerin' the poor cuss wer so down on his luck as to ask me; 'sides, mister, I knewed him afore he went to the bad; an' if he du come with me, it'll do him good in one way. He'll never get none o' thet infarnal drink till he comes back ag'in to Providence, fur I never allows a drop o' pizen in any craft I sails from the time we leaves port till we casts anchor ag'in!" "I'm glad to hear that," said Fritz. "There's mischief enough done with it on land without taking it to sea." "Right you air, mister," rejoined the other; "but, mind you, I don't ask my men to do what I don't do myself. This old hoss doesn't believe in a fellow's preachin' one thing and practisin' another; no, sirree! I ain't a teetotaler, nohow; but I never touches a drop o' licker from the time I sots foot aboard ship till I treads land ag'in--an' what I does, every man Jack o' my crew shall do ditto, or I'll know an' larn 'em the reason why, you bet! Howsomedever, mister, I guess we'd all better turn in now," he added, making a signal which Mrs Brown and Celia always interpreted as meaning their departure to bed. "Recollect, this'll be our last night ashore, fur we shall all hev to rise airly in the mornin' to git the _Pilot's Bride_ under weigh." CHAPTER NINETEEN. THE VOYAGE OF THE SHIP. When Fritz awoke the next day, however, he could not quite make out what was going on in the place. There was a strong smell of gunpowder in the air, and he could hear the cracking reports of small cannon, let off at frequent intervals with much noise in the streets by a crowd of boys, whose voices mingled with the excruciating sound of squeaking trumpets and the shrill, ear-piercing scream of penny whistles. For the moment, he thought he was dreaming again of the old days of the war, and that the confused medley, which became each moment louder, was but the half-waking recollection of the bivouac around Metz, with its many constant alarms of sallies and sorties from the beleaguered fortress; but, when he came downstairs from his bedroom, he was speedily undeceived as to the reason for the pandemonium without. The captain and Eric had already started off for the ship, and only Mrs Brown and Celia were below waiting breakfast for him. "What on earth is the matter?" he asked. "It seems like Bedlam broken loose. Is there an insurrection going on?" "Ah, they're having a fine time, ain't they!" said Miss Celia. "But, what is it all about?" he repeated, gazing from one to the other of the smiling ladies, almost bewildered by the uproar out of doors. "Fourth of July," replied the lady of the house, as if that was quite a sufficient answer and accounted for everything. "The fourth of July!" he repeated mechanically. "What has the day of the month got to do with it--is it an anniversary of some sort--some national holiday?" "An anniversary, indeed!" exclaimed Miss Celia indignantly. "I thought you were such a good hand at history. Why, haven't you ever heard of our glorious Declaration of Independence, when the free states of America severed the hated yoke that bound them under the thraldom of the tyrant England?" "Oh, yes, I forgot. I'm sure I beg your pardon for not recollecting what must be to you a sacred day!" said Fritz, somewhat deceived by the girl's affected enthusiasm, Celia having spoken as grandiloquently as if she were an actress declaiming tragedy. "Sacred day, fiddlesticks!" she replied, laughing at his grave face and solemn manner. "I guess we don't worry ourselves much about that! We try and have a good time of it, and leave it to the politicians and skallywags to do the speechifying and bunkum! The boys have the best time of it, I reckon." "Yes," he replied, his ideas as to the patriotic associations of American citizens considerably modified. "They seem to enjoy themselves, if the noise they're making affords any criterion of that!" "I guess so," answered the girl. "They've burnt a few fire crackers this morning; but, it's nothing to what they do at Boston. Law, why you should see the goings on there'll be in front of Faneuil Hall to-night, when the `Bonfire Boys' set to work!" "By that time, I imagine, I'll be on the sea," said Fritz. "Your father told us last evening that he would start to-day if the wind was fair, and I noticed a bit of a breeze blowing through my window when I was dressing." "Yes," put in Mrs Brown; "and he said this mornin', 'fore he went off down town, to tell you to be sure and hurry up as soon as ever you'd swallowed your breakfast--not for what I want to hasten you away, though!" "Did he?" said Fritz, bolting a bit of buckwheat cake and hastily rising from the table. "If that's the case, I'd better be off to see about my traps." "Bless you, they're all aboard hours ago! Eric took them with him when he started off with pa," remarked Celia demurely. "Oh, you saw him before he went, then?" said Fritz. "Yes, I wished your brother good-bye," replied the girl, colouring up. "Oh!" repeated Fritz meaningly, with a sly glance at her. "And now, Mr Dort, we must wish you good-bye, too," interposed Mrs Brown, in order to distract his attention from Celia, who looked a bit confused by Fritz's interrogatories respecting Master Eric. "Aren't you coming down to see us off?" said he. "Guess not," replied Mrs Brown with much composure, her husband's departure with his ship being of such periodic occurrence as to have long since lost all sense of novelty. "We'll see you when you get out in the bay, and wish you good luck in the distance. I hope, mister, that you and your brother will be successful in your venture--that I do heartily." "Thank you," said Fritz, shaking the hand of the good-natured woman cordially. "I can't express how grateful we both are to you and your husband for all your kindness to us, strangers in a foreign land!" "What, do you leave me out?" put in Miss Celia saucily. "I should think not," returned Fritz gallantly. "I included you, of course, when thanking your mother. I'm sure words would fail to give you any idea of my feelings on the subject; but I dare say Eric spoke on my behalf this morning." "Indeed, he had too much to say for himself," retorted the girl; "and, instead of his behaving like a quiet German lad, as I thought him, he was more of a saucy American sailor boy! Not that I minded that much," she added demurely. "It made him more sparkish-like and all the pleasanter." "Really?" said Fritz, smiling. "I think I shall have to talk to Master Eric when I get on board the ship." "No, nary you mind that," pleaded Miss Celia most magnanimously. "I forgive him this time; but you can tell him, though, I'll pay him out when he comes back to our shanty, that I will!" "All right, I will give him your message," replied Fritz, as he shook hands with the fair little Rhode Islander, whose eyes were full of tears as she said good-bye, in spite of her sprightly manner and off-hand way. "And now, ladies," he added, addressing them both collectively, "I must say farewell, hoping to have the pleasure of seeing you again on our return from Inaccessible Island, somewhere about two years hence." "I'm sure I hope so, too," said the lady of the house kindly, Celia joining cordially in the wish; and Fritz then left the shanty, directing his steps down to the quay, where he expected to find the _Pilot's Bride_ still moored. She was not here, however; but, after a moment, he could discern the vessel lying out in the river some little distance from the shore. There, anchored almost in mid-stream and with a blue peter flying at the fore as well as the American stars and stripes trailing over her stern, she looked even more picturesque than when Fritz had seen her lying along the wharf on his first view of her. It was much earlier in the month than Captain Brown had stated was his usual time for starting on his annual voyage to the South Atlantic; but the skipper had accelerated his departure in order to have time to go to Tristan d'Acunha on his outward trip, instead of calling there as he usually did just before returning to Providence--so as to allow the brothers to pick up a little information that might be of use to them from the little colony at Tristan, before proceeding to their own selected settlement on Inaccessible Island. The ship was now, therefore, quite ready to start as soon as the wind and her captain willed it; for, her sails were bent, with the gaskets cast-off and the topsails loose, ready to be let fall and sheeted home at the word of command. A nautical man would have noticed, too, that she was hove short, right over her anchor, so that no time should be lost in bowsing that up to the cathead and getting under weigh, when the time came to man the windlass and heave up the cable, with a "Yo-heave ho!" Presently, Fritz observed a boat that had been towing astern of the ship hauled up alongside, and then this put off for the shore, with some one in the stern-sheets whom he did not recognise at first, on account of the person having a gilt-banded cap on; but, as soon as the boat got nearer, he saw that it was Eric, who now hailed him while yet a hundred yards away. "Hullo!" he shouted; "how is it you're so late? The captain is only waiting for you to set sail, for the pilot's coming on board now!" "I didn't think you were going until the evening," replied Fritz, descending the steps of the jetty, which the boat had now nearly approached. "Nor were we, if this breeze hadn't sprung up since morning so very suddenly, when we least expected it! I suppose it's because of all that gunpowder firing that the air's got stirred up a bit? But, jump in, old fellow, the skipper seems a bit impatient; and the sooner we're all on board the better he'll be pleased." With these words, Eric stretched out a hand to help his brother into the little dinghy, which could barely carry two comfortably besides the man pulling amid-ship, and then the frail little craft started on her way back to the mother ship, of which she seemed the chicken! No sooner were they alongside and up the ladder, than Captain Brown's voice was heard rapidly giving orders, as if no time were to be lost. "Veer thet boat astern an' hook on the falls," he roared in stentorian accents. "I want her walked up to the davits 'fore I can say Jack Robinson! There, thet's the way to do it, men. Now, get her inboard an' secure her; we shan't want her in a hurry ag'in, till we come back to the bay!" "Mr Dort," he sang out presently to Eric, who was standing by ready for the skipper's orders and watching his eye--prepared to jump anywhere at a second's notice, and looking so full of eagerness and attention that Fritz felt quite proud of him! "Aye, aye, sir," answered the lad, touching his cap; for, nowhere is deference insisted on so stringently from inferior officers to their superiors as on board ship, especially in merchantmen commanded by captains worth their salt. In no other way can proper respect be paid to authority, or the necessary orders requisite for the safety and comfort of all enforced. "I give you charge o' the mizzen mast," said Captain Brown, meaning that Eric would have to see to all that was necessary for making sail in the after part of the ship. At the same time, the second mate stationed himself amidships, and the first officer went forward to the bows, to superintend the getting up of the anchor, each of them repeating the several directions of the captain in turn. "All hands make sail!" then shouted the skipper, who, with his hands in the pockets of his monkey jacket, stood on the poop deck aft, looking everywhere apparently in one glance, it was so comprehensive of everything that was going on below and aloft; whereupon, the men, racing up the rigging with alacrity, the topsails were soon sheeted home and the yards hoisted, after which more canvas was unfolded to the breeze, that came in short, sharp puffs off the land. The headsails were then backed, as the ship brought up over her anchor; and, the windlass coming round with a ringing "clink, clank!" of the pawl to the hearty long heaves of the sailors--who worked at it with a will, singing in chorus the while--the heavy weight of metal that still attached the _Pilot's Bride_ to the sand and shells at the bottom of Narraganset Bay was ere long lifted gradually above the water and run up to the cathead. The jib and foretop-sail were then allowed to fill again and the yards squared; when, the vessel, paying off, began to move, at first slowly, and then more rapidly as she gathered way, out of the harbour away towards the open sea, some thirty miles beyond. The wind being light and flickering, the crew were soon ordered aloft again to set the top-gallant-sails, for the breeze was so far favourable that the ship did not have to beat out of the bay; consequently, she was able to spread more canvas than if she had been forced to tack, or had to be steered by her sails. Nor was Captain Brown satisfied with top-gallants alone; for, quickly, the order came to set the royals and flying jib before the men could climb down the ratlins; and, soon, the vessel was under a cloud of sail alow and aloft, taking advantage of every breath of air. Towards the afternoon, the north-westerly breeze still lasting, the ship cleared Narraganset Bay, running before the wind; when, shaping a course between the treacherous Martha's Vineyard on the one hand and Gardiner's Island on the other, she was steered out into the open Atlantic. No sooner had they got to sea than Captain Brown called all hands aft, mustering the crew--who numbered some twenty in all, including the cook and a couple of boys. He then gave them a short speech from the poop. Some of the men had been with him before, he said, so they knew what he was; but, as for those who didn't, he would tell them that, as long as they did their duty manfully, they would find him always considerate towards them. If they "turned rusty," however, why then "they'd better look out for squalls," for they would discover, should they try on any of their notions, that he was "a hard row to hoe!" The men were next divided into watches and dismissed to their several duties; after which the _Pilot's Bride_ settled down steadily to her voyage. At first, Fritz found the life on board very enjoyable. The motion of the ship was so slight, as she slipped through the water with the wind on her quarter, that there was no rolling; and the difference of her arrangements, with clean cabins and the absence of that sickening smell of the engine-room which had permeated the steamer in which he had made the passage from Bremen to New York--his only previous acquaintance with the ocean-made him fancy that he could spend all his days on the deep without discomfort. But, after a time, the routine grew very monotonous; and long ere the _Pilot's Bride_ had reached tropical latitudes, Fritz would have been glad if she had reached their appointed destination. Truth to say, the vessel was not that smart sailer which a stranger would have imagined from all the skipper had said about her. It was nearly three weeks before she ran into the north-east trades; and three more weeks, after she got within these favouring winds, before she managed to cross the Line, which she did somewhere about 24 degrees West. All this time, too, to add to Fritz's disgust, they never passed a single other sail! The weather throughout the voyage, up to now, had treated the vessel fairly enough, so no complaint could be made on that score; but, no sooner had they arrived at the equator, than the wind suddenly shifted round to the west and south-west, accompanied by a violent squall that would have settled the _Pilot's Bride_, if Captain Brown had not fortunately anticipated it and prepared in time. The ship was nearing Pernambuco, off the South American coast, on a short "leg," before taking the long one that would fetch down towards Tristan d'Acunha, proceeding in the ordinary track of vessels going round the Cape of Good Hope; when, suddenly, towards evening, it fell nearly calm and sheet lightning was noticed towards the eastward, where a dense bank of dark clouds had mounted up, obscuring the sky. This was enough for Captain Brown, who had gone through a similar experience before. "All hands take in sail!" came his order, without a moment's delay. The men sprang aloft immediately and furled the royals and top-gallant- sails; while others below took in the flying jib and hauled up the mainsail and trysail--the hands wondering all the time what on earth the skipper was at, taking in all the spread of the vessel's canvas, when there wasn't a breath of air blowing! However, the "old man," as he was generally called by the crew, knew better than they; and so, with the ship's yards stripped and squared, he awaited what science and forethought had taught him to expect. Science and forethought had not caused him to make these preparations in vain! The blackness in the south-east extended round the horizon to the west, and, presently, a thick mist came rolling up from that quarter, enveloping the vessel in its folds and covering the stars in front like a curtain, although those lesser lights of the night shone out brightly in other parts of the sky. Then, all at once, the squall burst with a furious blast that made the ship heel over almost on her beam ends, the wind being followed by a shower of rain and hail that seemed as if it would batter in the decks. "Let go the halliards!" sang out Captain Brown; and, his order being promptly attended to, the vessel was not taken aback--otherwise every spar would have snapped away, or else she would have gone down stern foremost. Now, however, instead of any accident happening, the good ship, although reeling with the blow like a drunken man, paid off from the wind handsomely--running on for some time before the gale and tearing through the water with everything flying, "as if old Nick were after her," the men said! All hands being then called again, the topsails and trysails were close- reefed, the courses furled, and the foretopmast-staysail set; when, the barque was brought round nearly to her course again, with the weather- braces hauled in a bit to ease her. This was the first rough weather Fritz experienced, and it cannot be said to have increased his admiration for a sea life, all he saw of which only tended to make him wonder more and more every day what could induce his brother Eric to have such a passionate inclination towards it! It was a strange fancy, he thought, as he watched the disturbed state of the wild ocean, lashed into frenzy by the force of the gale, which seemed to wax more lusty each hour; for, the ship appeared to be, now, careering like a mad thing through some deep watery valley, between lofty mountainous peaks of spray, and, the next moment, seeming to be on the toppling edge of a fathomless abyss, into which she looked about to plunge headlong to destruction as she rose above the plane of tempest- tossed water, borne aloft on the rolling crest of one of the huge waves that were racing by each other as if in sport--the broken, billowy element boiling and seething as far as the eye could reach, in eddies of creamy foam and ridges of turbid green, with the clouds above of a leaden tinge that deepened, as they approached the horizon, to a dark slatish hue, becoming blue-black in the extreme distance. "That Shakespeare was a fine fellow!" Fritz said to Captain Brown, who stood close by the binnacle, keeping an eye to the two men who were now at the wheel steering; for, the ship required careful handling in the heavy sea that was running to prevent her from broaching to, and it needed very prompt action frequently to jam down the helm in time, so as to let her fall off her course before some threatening mountain of water that bore down on her bows. "Ha-ow?" ejaculated the skipper inquiringly, turning to the other, who was looking over the taffrail surveying the scene around and had spoken musingly--uttering his thoughts aloud. "I mean Shakespeare, the great dramatist," replied Fritz, who, like all educated Germans, had a keen appreciation of the bard and could quote his pregnant sayings at pleasure. "He wrote plays, you know," he added, seeing that Captain Brown did not quite comprehend him. "Oh, I rec'lect now," replied the skipper, understanding him at last, and his face beaming with curious intelligence. "Him as wrote a piece called `Hamlet,' hey? I reckon I see it once when I wer to Boston some years ago, an' Booth acted it uncommon well, too, yes, sirree!" "Well then," said Fritz, going on to explain the reason for his original remark, "Shakespeare exactly expresses my sentiments, at this present moment, in the words which he puts into the mouth of one of his characters in the `Tempest,' Gonzalo, I think. `Now would I give a thousand furlongs of sea for an acre of barren ground; long heath, brown furze, anything: the wills above be done, but I would fain die a dry death!'" The young fellow laughed as he ended the apt quotation. The skipper, however, did not appear to see the matter in the same light. "I guess thet there Gonzalo," he remarked indignantly, "wer no sailor; an' Mister Shakespeare must hev hed a durned pain in his stummick when he writ sich trash!" Some hours afterwards, fortunately for Fritz's feelings, the gale broke; when, the wind shifting round to the northward of west, the _Pilot's Bride_ was enabled to steer away from the South American coast and shape a straight course for Tristan d'Acunha. CHAPTER TWENTY. ARRIVAL AT TRISTAN D'ACUNHA. "This air prime, now ain't it?" said the skipper to Fritz, as the ship, with her nose pointing almost south, was driving away before the north- west wind and making some ten knots an hour. "Yes, she's going along all right," replied he; adding frankly, however, "I should like it all the better, though, if the vessel didn't roll about so much." "Roll?" exclaimed Captain Brown indignantly; "call this rolling? Why, Jee-rusalem, she only gives a kinder bit of a lurch now an' ag'in! I thought you would hev got your sea-legs on by this time." Fritz could only bow to this statement, of course; but, all due deference to the skipper, nevertheless, the _Pilot's Bride_ did roll, and roll most unmercifully, too. She was just like a huge porpoise wallowing in the water! It may be remembered that she had sailed from port light, with a pretty considerable freeboard; and now, with the wind almost right aft, so that she had no lateral pressure to steady her--as would have been the case if the breeze had been abeam or on her quarter--she listed first to port and then to starboard, with the "send" of the sea, as regularly as the swing of a clock's pendulum. Really, the oscillation made it almost as impossible for Fritz to move about as if the ship had been contending with all the powers of the elements in a heavy storm, whereas the skipper said she was only "going easy," with a fair wind! Why, the "breeze" had not lasted a day, before nearly every particle of glass and crockery-ware in the steward's cabin was smashed to atoms; while preventer stays had to be rove to save the masts from parting company. Roll, eh? She did roll--roll with a vengeance! Fortunately, this did not last long; the wind shifting round to the north-east, after a three days' spell from the west, which brought the ship on a bow line, steering, as she was, south-east and by south. Had not this change come when it did, "the old tub would hev rolled her bottom out," as Mr Slater, the whilom deck hand, "guessed" one morning to Fritz, while the crew were engaged in washing decks. Of course, the brothers themselves had many a chat together while the voyage lasted, talking over their plans as well as chatting about the different scenes and circumstances surrounding the endless panorama of sea and sky, sky and sea, now daily unfolded before them. Naturally--to Fritz, at least--all was new; and it was deeply interesting to him to notice the alteration in the aspect of the heavens which each night produced as the ship ran to the southward. The north star had disappeared with its pointers, as well as other familiar stellar bodies belonging to higher latitudes; but, a new and more brilliant constellation had risen up in the sky within his new range of view, which each evening became more and more distinct. This was the Southern Cross, as it is called, consisting of four stars, three of the first magnitude and the fourth somewhat smaller, arranged in the form of an oblique crucifix, pointing across the firmament "athwartship-like," as the skipper explained one night-watch when the brothers were looking out together. Only once in the year, Captain Brown said, is this cross perfectly perpendicular towards the zenith; for, as it circles round our planet, it reverses its position, finally turning upside-down. When the _Pilot's Bride_ ceased to roll and began to make steady way towards Tristan, with the wind from the northward and eastwards on her beam, she ran along steadily on one tack, with hardly a lurch, covering some two hundred miles a day as regularly as the log was hove and the sun taken at noon. All this time, no sight could now have been more glorious than the heavens presented each night after sunset. The myriads upon myriads of stars that then shone out with startling brilliancy was something amazing; and the puzzle to Fritz was, how astronomers could name and place all these "lesser lights"--following their movements from day to day and year's end to year's end, without an error of calculation, so that they could tell the precise spot in the firmament where to find them at any hour they might wish! "And yet," said Fritz, musingly, "these wise men are puzzled sometimes." "Nary a doubt o' thet," responded the skipper, who, in spite of his rough manner and somewhat uncultivated language, thought more deeply than many would have given him credit for; "I guess, mister, all the book-larnin' in the world won't give us an insight inter the workin's o' providence!" "No," said Fritz. "The study of the infinite makes all our puny efforts at probing into the mysteries of nature and analysing the motives of nature's God appear mean and contemptible, even to ourselves." "Thet's a fact," assented the skipper. "Look thaar, now! Don't thet sky-e, now, take the gildin' off yer bunkum phi-loserphy an' tall talkin' 'bout this system an' thet--ain't thet sight above worth more'n a bushel o' words, I reckon, hey?" Fritz gazed upwards in the direction the other pointed, right over the port quarter of the ship and where the starry expanse of the stellar world stretched out in all its beauty. Eastwards, near the constellation Scorpio, was the Southern Cross, which had first attracted their attention, the figurative crucifix of the heavens; while the "scorpion," itself, upreared its head aloft, surmounted by a brilliant diadem of stars that twinkled and scintillated in flashes of light, like a row of gems of the first water--the body of the fabled animal being marked out in fine curves, in which fancy could trace its general proportions, half-way down the heavens. In a more southerly direction, still, the parallel stars of the twin heroes Castor and Pollux could be seen, shining out with full lustre in a sky that was beautifully, intensely blue, conveying a sense of depths beyond depths of azure beyond; and, as the wondering lookers gazed and the night deepened, fresh myriads of stars appeared to come forth and swell the heavenly phalanx, although the greater lights still maintained their glittering superiority, Jupiter emitting an effulgence of radiant beams from his throne at the zenith, while the Milky Way powdered the great celestial dome with a smoke wreath of starlets that circled across the firmament in crescent fashion, like a sort of triumphal arch of flashing diamonds which the angels could tread in their missions from heaven to earth, or the feet of those translated to the realms of the blest! "Grand, ain't it?" repeated the skipper. But Fritz said nothing; his thoughts went deeper than words. A day or two after this, the north-east wind suddenly failed and a dead calm set in, lasting for twenty-four hours. This circumstance did not please Captain Brown much, for he hardly knew what to make of it; however, after a day and night of stagnation, the breeze returned again, although, in the interim of lull, it took it into its head to shift round more to the southwards, causing the _Pilot's Bride_ to run close- hauled. On the evening before this change of wind, and while the calm yet continued, the sea presented what seemed to Fritz--and Eric too, for he had never seen such a sight before, although he had much better acquaintance with the wonders of the deep than his brother--a most extraordinary scene of phosphorescent display, the strange effect of it being almost magical. The sun had set early and the moon did not rise till late; but, as soon as the orb of day had disappeared below water, the horizon all round became nearly as black as ink, without any after-glow, as had invariably been noticed at previous sunsets. The whole sky was dark and pitchy like; only a few stars showing themselves momentarily for a while high up towards the zenith, although they were soon hidden by the mantle of sombre cloud that enveloped the heavens everywhere. Meanwhile, the entire surface of the sea, in every direction as far as their eyes could reach, seemed as if covered with a coating of frosted silver; and, all around the ship, at the water-line, there appeared a brilliant illumination, as if from a row of gas jets or like the footlights in front of the stage of a theatre. Where the sea, too, was broken into foam by the slight motion of the ship, it also gave out the same appearance; and the faint wake astern was as bright as the track usually lit up by the moon or rising sun across the ocean, resembling a pathway of light yellow gold. When Fritz first saw the reflection, on looking over the side of the ship, he thought that something had happened down below, and that the appearance he noticed was caused by different lights, streaming through the portholes and scuttles. "What are they doing with all those lanterns in the hold?" he asked Eric in surprise. The sailor lad laughed. "No ship lanterns," said he, "are at work here. They say that this queer look of the sea is occasioned by thousands of little insects that float on the surface and which are like the fireflies of the tropics. Don't you recollect reading about them?" "But then, this light is so continuous," replied Fritz. "It is bright as far away as we can see." "Yes, I suppose the shoal of insects stretches onward for miles; still, it is only when it is dark like this, with the sky overcast, that you can see them. At least, that is what I've been told, for I never saw such a display before." "You're 'bout right, my lad," observed Captain Brown, who had come over to leeward, where the brothers were. "I forgit what they call the durned things; but, they're as thick as muskitters on the Florida coast. You'll see 'em all clear away as soon as the moon shows a streak, though. They can't stand her candlelight, you bet!" It was as the skipper said. Although the illumination of the sea was so vivid that it lit up the ship's sails with flashes as the water was stirred, it died away when the moon shone out. Then, too, the sky lightened all round and the clouds cleared away before the approaching wind which had thus apparently heralded its coming. Nothing occurred after this to break the monotony of the voyage, beyond a school of whales being noticed blowing in the distance away to the windward one day, about a week after the change of wind. "There she spouts!" called out a man who was up in the fore cross-trees, overhauling some of the running gear; but the hail only occasioned a little temporary excitement, for the animals were much too far off for pursuit and, besides, Captain Brown wished to land the brothers and clear his ship of all cargo before going whaling on his own account. This consummation, however, was not long distant; for some sixteen days or so after they had turned their backs on the South American coast, the skipper told Fritz he hoped to be at Tristan on the morrow. This was when he and the captain were having their usual quarter-deck walk in the first watch, the evening of the same day on which they passed the school of whales. "Yes, sirree," he said, "we've run down to 36 degrees South latitude, I guess, an' wer 'bout 13 degrees West when I took the sun at noon; so I kalkerlate, if the wind don't fail an' the shep keeps on goin' as she is, which is bootiful, I reckon, why we'll fetch Tristan nigh on breakfus-time to-morrow,--yes, sir!" "Indeed!" exclaimed Fritz. He did not think they were anywhere near the place yet; for, although it was more than two months since they had left Narraganset Bay, the ship appeared to sail so sluggishly and the voyage to be so tedious, that he would not have been surprised to hear some day from the captain that they would not reach their destination until somewhere about Christmas time! "Ya-as, really, I guess so, mister. No doubt you're a bit flustered at gettin' thaar so soon; but the _Pilot's Bride's_ sich a powerful clipper thet we've kinder raced here, an' arrove afore we wer due, I reckon!" The skipper innocently took Fritz's expression of surprise to be a compliment to the ship's sailing powers; and so Fritz would not undeceive him by telling him his real opinion about the vessel. It would have been cruel to try and weaken his belief in the lubberly old whaler, every piece of timber in whose hull he loved with a fatherly affection almost equal to that with which he regarded his daughter Celia. Fritz therefore limited himself to an expression of delight at the speedy termination of their voyage, without hazarding any comment on the _Pilot's Bride's_ progress; by which means he avoided either hurting the old skipper's feelings or telling an untruth, which he would otherwise have had to do. He was undoubtedly glad to have advanced so far in their undertaking; for, once arrived at Tristan d'Acunha, a few more days would see them landed on Inaccessible Island, when, he and Eric would really begin their crusoe life of seal-catching and "making the best" of it, in solitary state. Wasn't he up on deck early next morning, turning out of his bunk as soon as he heard the first mate calling the captain at four bells--although, when he got there, he found Eric had preceded him, he having charge of the morning watch and having been up two hours before himself! However, neither of the brothers had much the advantage of the other; for, up to breakfast time, Tristan had not been sighted. But, about noon, "a change came o'er the spirit of their dream!" Captain Brown had just gone below to his cabin to get his sextant in order to take the sun, while Fritz, to quiet his impatience, had sat down on the top of the cuddy skylight with a book in his hand, which he was pretending to read so as to cheat himself, as it were; when, suddenly, there came a shout from a man whom the skipper had ordered to be placed on the look-out forward--a shout that rang through the ship. "Land ho!" Fritz dropped his book on to the deck at once and Eric sprang up into the mizzen rigging, hurriedly scrambling up the ratlins to the masthead, whence he would have a better point of observation; the skipper meanwhile racing up the companion way with his sextant in his hand. "Land--where away?" he sang out, hailing the man on the fore cross- trees. "Dead away to leeward, two points off the beam," was the answer at once returned by the man on the look-out, who happened, strangely enough, to be Fritz's whilom acquaintance, the "deck hand!" "Are you sure?" hailed the captain again to make certain. "As sure as there's claws on a Rocky Mountain b'ar," replied the man in a tone of voice that showed he was a bit nettled at his judgment being questioned; for he next added, quite loud enough for all to hear, "I guess I oughter know land when I see it. I ain't a child put out to dry nurse, I ain't!" "There, thet'll do; stow thet palaver!" said Captain Brown sharply, "else you'll find thet if Rocky Mountain b'ars hev claws, they ken use 'em, an' hug with a prutty good grip of their own too, when they mean bizness, I guess, Nat Slater; so, you'd better quiet down an' keep thet sass o' yourn for some un else!" This stopped the fellow's grumbling at once; and Captain Brown, after proceeding aloft to have a look for himself and see how far the island was off, gave directions for having the ship's course altered, letting her fall off a point or two from the wind. "I guess I wer standin' a bit too much to the northward," he said to Fritz, who was waiting on the poop, longing to ask him a thousand questions as to when they would get in, and where they would land, and so on; "but thet don't matter much, as we are well to win'ard, an' ken fetch the land as we like." The island, which at first appeared like a sort of low-lying cloud on the horizon, was now plainly perceptible, a faint mountain peak being noticeable, just rising in the centre of the dark patch of haze. "Is it far off?" asked Fritz. "'Bout fifty mile or so, I sh'u'd think, mister," answered the skipper--"thet is more or less, as the air down below the line is clearer than it is north, so folks ken see further, I guess. I don't kinder think it's more'n fifty mile, though, sou'-sou'-west o' whar the shep is now." "Fifty miles!" repeated Fritz, somewhat disconcerted by the announcement; for, he would not have thought the object, which all could now see from the deck, more than half that distance away. "Why, we'll never get there to-day!" "Won't we?" said the skipper. "Thet's all you know 'bout it, mister. The _Pilot's Bride_ 'll walk over thet little bit o' water like a race hoss, an' 'ill arrive at Tristan 'fore dinner time, you bet!" The skipper's prognostication as to the time of their arrival did not turn out quite correct, but Fritz's anxiety was allayed by their reaching the place the same night; for, the mountain peak, which had been noticed above the haze that hung over the lower part of the island, began to rise higher and higher as the ship approached, until its sharp ridges could be plainly seen beneath a covering of snow that enveloped the upper cone and which changed its colour from glistening white to a bright pink hue as it became lit up by the rays of the setting sun--the latter dipping beneath the western horizon at the same instant that the _Pilot's Bride_ cast anchor in a shallow bay some little distance off the land, close to Herald Point, where the English settlement on the island lies. CHAPTER TWENTY ONE. AN OCEAN COLONY. Fritz and Eric wished to go ashore the moment the anchor plunged into the water and the chain cable grated through the hawse hole; but, darkness setting in almost immediately after sunset, as is usual in such southerly latitudes, their landing had to be postponed until the next morning, when the skipper told them they would have plenty of time to inspect the little ocean colony of Tristan d'Acunha--that is, should not a westerly-wind set in, bringing with it a heavy swell, as it invariably did; for, this would cause them "to cut and run from their anchorage in a jiffy," if they did not desire to lay the ship's bones on the rocks by Herald Point, which he, "for one," he said, had no intention of doing. However, the wind still remained in the same quarter, blowing steadily from the south-east, which made it calm where the _Pilot's Bride_ was lying--Captain Brown from previous experience knowing the safest berth to take up--so she did not have to shift her berth. When morning broke, too, the brothers had a better view of the place than on the evening before; for then, only a hasty peep at it could be obtained before it was hidden by night. The small bay in which the ship was moored opened to the westward; and, on the right, a slope of rough pasture land, about a quarter of a mile in width, ran up from the beach to an almost precipitous wall of rock, a thousand feet or more in height--although a sort of misty vapour hung over it, which prevented Fritz from gauging its right altitude. On the left-hand side, the wall of rock came sheer down into the sea, leaving only a few yards of narrow shingle, on which the surf noisily broke. A stream leaped down from the high ground, nearly opposite the vessel, and the low fall with which it tumbled into the bay at this point indicated that there would be found the best landing-place, an opinion which Captain Brown confirmed as soon as he came on deck. "I guess, though," said the skipper, pointing out a red flag which Fritz could notice just being hoisted on one of the cottage chimneys in the distance, "we needn't hurry 'bout launchin' a boat, fur some o' them islanders are comin' off to pay us a visit an' will take you ashore. Thet's their signal for communicatin' with any vessel thet calls in here. Run up our ensign, Mr Dort," he added to Eric, who stood at his station on the lee side of the mizzen mast; "an' tell 'em to fire the gun forrud, jest to give 'em a kinder sort o' salute, you know. Uncle Sam likes to do the civil, the same as other men-o'-war when they goes to foreign ports!" These orders were obeyed; and no sooner were the "Stars and Stripes" run up to the masthead and the report of the little gun on the topgallant fo'c's'le heard reverberating through the distant mountain tops--the sound of the discharge being caught up and echoed between the narrow arms of the bay--than a smart whale-boat, pulled by eight men and with a white-bearded, venerable-looking individual seated in the stern-sheets, was seen coming out from the very spot which Fritz had determined to be the landing-place. They were soon alongside the _Pilot's Bride_; when the old man--who introduced himself as Green, the oldest inhabitant of the island and with whom Captain Brown had already had an acquaintance of some years' duration--cordially invited Fritz to land, the skipper having explained that he wished to see the place and hear all about it. He told the brothers aside, however, that perhaps they'd better not mention their intention of settling on Inaccessible Island, for the inhabitants of Tristan, who sent expeditions every year on sealing excursions there, might not like to hear this news. While on their way to the shore with the old man and four of the islanders--the other Tristaners remaining on board the ship to select certain articles they required from her stores and arrange for the barter of fresh meat and potatoes with Captain Brown in exchange--Fritz observed that, some distance out from the land, there was a sort of natural breakwater, composed of the long, flat leaves of a giant species of seaweed which grew up from the bottom, where its roots extended to the depth of fifteen fathoms. This, old Green pointed out, prevented the rollers, when the wind was from the westward, from breaking too violently on the shore, between which and the floating weed was a belt of calm water, as undisturbed as the surface of a mountain tarn. The landing-place was of fine black sand, showing the volcanic character of the mountain peak above, which Green said was over eight thousand feet high and had an extinct crater on the top; and, when Fritz and his brother had jumped out of the boat, they proceeded up to the little settlement of the islanders, which was called "Edinburgh" out of compliment to his Royal Highness Prince Alfred, who had visited the place when cruising in HMS _Galatea_, just four years before their landing. The village consisted of some dozen cottages or so, roughly built of square blocks of hewn stone dovetailed into each other, without mortar, and thatched with tussock-grass. The houses were scattered about, each in its own little garden, enclosed by walls of loosely piled stones about four feet high; but, as it was now the early spring of Tristan, these had very little growing in them. One of the enclosures, Fritz noticed, had a lot of marigolds in flower, another, several dwarf strawberry plants just budding, while a third was filled with young onions; but the majority displayed only the same coarse, long tussock- grass with which the cottages were thatched. When the brothers came to examine the houses more closely, they were particularly struck with the neatness with which they were constructed and the extreme labour that must have been expended on them. Apart from the difficulty of procuring wood, which they could only get from stray whaling ships, the islanders are obliged to build their dwellings of stone, in order to prevent their being demolished by the fierce and frequent hurricanes that assail the isolated little spot, exposed as it is to all the rude blustering blasts that career over the expanse of the Atlantic. The cottages are, therefore, put together with a dark-brown, soft sort of stone, which is hewn out in great blocks from the cliffs above the settlement and afterwards shaped with great accuracy and care with the axe. Many of these masses of stone are upwards of a ton in weight; but, still, they are cut so as to lock into one another in a double row to form the main wall, which is some eighteen inches thick, with smaller pieces of stone, selected with equal care as to their fitting, placed in between. There is no lime on the island, so that the blocks are put together on the cyclopean plan, without cement. They are also raised into their places in the same primitive fashion, strong spars being used for inclined planes, up which these monoliths are pushed by manual labour in a similar way to that described in the old hieroglyphics of the Nineveh marbles. With all these precautions as to strength, however, the sou'-westers blow with such fierceness into the little bay where the colony is situated, that many of these massive buildings, Green said, were constantly blown down, the huge blocks being tumbled about like pieces of cork! The roofs were thatched with the long grass that Fritz had seen growing in the gardens and with which he had later on a closer and more painful acquaintance, the tussock fibres being fastened inside to light poles that were attached to rafters placed horizontally, while the ridges outside were covered with bands of green turf, firmly fixed on. As for the colony, which numbered some eighty souls in all, it consisted of fifteen families, who possessed from five to six hundred head of cattle and about an equal supply of sheep, with lots of pigs and poultry, each family having its own stock in the same way that each cultivated its own garden; but, there was a common grazing ground, where also large quantities of potatoes were raised--the trade of the island being principally with the American whalers, who take supplies of fresh meat and vegetables, for which they barter manufactured goods, household stuffs, and "notions." During their visit, Fritz and Eric were hospitably entertained by the old man Green at his cottage, which had three large rooms and was the best in the place; and the roast pig which furnished the main dish of the banquet was all the more toothsome, by reason of the long time the brothers had been at sea and so deprived of fresh meat and those good things of the land, to which they had grown somewhat accustomed during their stay at the comfortable shanty on Narraganset Bay under Mrs Brown's auspices. Indirectly, too, Fritz found out a great deal about Inaccessible Island; and, the more he heard, the more firmly rooted became his determination to settle there. The seals, old Green said, were numerous enough; but, he added that the islanders were only able to pay a short visit in December every year, and so lost considerable chances of taking more of them. "Aha," thought Fritz, "we'll be there altogether, and so will have opportunities for taking them all the year round. Tristaners, my good people, look out for your sealskins and oil in future; we, crusoes, are going into the business wholesale!" When the brothers were rowed back to the ship in the evening--having spent the entire day on the island in noticing what would be most useful to themselves subsequently for the new life they were about to adopt-- the other Tristaners who had remained on board choosing goods returned to the shore, promising to send the value of the articles they had selected in beef and potatoes on the following morning. Before turning in for the night, however, Captain Brown gave Fritz to read a newspaper extract which he had posted into his logbook. This detailed the early history of the little colony, and the gist of it was as follows:-- Although discovered as early as the year 1506 by d'Acunha, the first comparatively modern navigator who visited the island was the captain of an American ship--the _Industry_, a whaler sailing from Philadelphia-- who remained at Tristan from August, 1790, to April, 1791, his people pitching their tents on almost the precise spot now occupied by the settlement. At the time of this vessel's visit, it was mentioned that there was plenty of wood of a small growth excellent for firewood; but this Fritz noticed was not the case when he inspected the place during the day, hardly anything but slight brush being apparent beyond the tussock-grass. The American captain also stated that the amount of sea animals of all kinds on the island--whales, seals, and penguins--was almost inexhaustible, his party having procured over six thousand sealskins during their stay of seven months, besides killing more whales than they could find room for the oil from them in their ship! This, too, had become altered during the years which had elapsed, the seals getting scarcer at Tristan now, through the wholesale war carried on against them by the islanders, who latterly, with the exception of the visits they paid to Inaccessible Island and Nightingale Islet--according to old Green's account--had almost abandoned the pursuit for sheer want of sport. The next mention of Tristan d'Acunha, as related in the printed chronicle Fritz read, was in the year after the American captain's sojourn there, when two British ships of war, the _Lion_ and _Hindostan_, which were probably East Indiamen, with the English embassy to China on board, anchored off the north side of the island under the cliff of the mountain peak; but, a sudden squall coming on, these vessels had to leave without investigating the place thoroughly, although their commanders described it as being uninhabited at that time. Nine years later, the captain of another ship that called there found three Americans settled on the island, preparing sealskins and boiling down oil. Goats and pigs had been set adrift by some of the earlier visitors, as well as vegetables planted, and these colonists appeared to be in a very flourishing condition, declaring themselves perfectly contented to pass their lives there. One of the men, indeed, had drawn up a proclamation, stating that he was the king of the country, a title which the others acknowledged; and the three, the monarch and his two subjects, had cleared about fifty acres of land, which they had sown with various things, including coffee-trees and sugar-canes; but, whether this plantation turned out unsuccessful, or from some other notion, the "king" and his colleagues abandoned the settlement--the place remaining deserted until the year 1817, when, during Napoleon Buonaparte's captivity at Saint Helena, the island was formally taken possession of by the English Government, a guard of soldiers being especially drafted thither for its protection, selected from the Cape of Good Hope garrison. This was, undoubtedly, the foundation of the present colony; for, although the military picket was withdrawn in the following year, a corporal of artillery with his wife and two brother soldiers, who expressed a desire to remain on the island, stayed behind. Since then, Tristan has always been inhabited--the original little colony of four souls having formed the nucleus of the present settlement of over eighty, men joining it at various times from passing whalers, while women were imported from the Cape when wives were wanted. From the fact of these latter being mostly Hottentots, the complexion of the younger men, Fritz noticed, was somewhat darker than that of Europeans. This explained what the skipper meant, on first telling him about the island, when he said the inhabitants were "mulattoes"; although Fritz thought them only of a brunette tinge, for they were of much lighter hue than many Spaniards and Italians whom he had met on the Continent. Glass, the ex-artilleryman and original founder of the English settlement, was a Scotchman, born at Kelso. He seems to have been a man of great principle and energy, these qualities gaining for him the complete confidence of the little community over which his authority was quite of a patriarchal character. For thirty-seven years he maintained his position as leader, representing the colony in all its transactions with passing ships and showing himself just and honest in his dealings. The islanders had always been English-speaking, and having strong British sympathies, "Governor Glass," as he was styled, received permission from one of the naval officers visiting the island to hoist the red ensign, as a signal to vessels going by. This slight official recognition was all the notice that the settlement has received from England ever since its establishment--that is, beyond the sending out of a chaplain there by the "Religious Tract Society," who remained for five years and when leaving spoke of the members of the little settlement as being so highly moral that they did not require any spiritual ministration, "there not being a vice in the colony to contend with!" To this latter statement, Fritz found the skipper had appended an eccentric footnote:-- "'Cos why, there ain't no rum handier than the Cape, the little to be got from the whalers visiting the spot--an' they have little enough from me, you bet!--being speedily guzzled down by the old birds, an' the young uns never gettin' a taste o' the pizen!" On Glass's death, he was succeeded in the leadership of the colony by Green, the next oldest man, who now lived in the house of the late founder of the settlement and hoisted the English ensign in his turn. Green was a venerable-looking man, with a long white beard, and seemed, from what Fritz could gather in his different conversations with the islanders, to have successfully followed in his predecessor's footsteps. Since the Duke of Edinburgh's visit in the _Galatea_, many other stray men-of-war have occasionally called to see how the islanders were getting on; but the principal trading communication they have has always been with American whalers, some round dozen of which call at Tristan yearly for the purposes of barter. "An' I guess it's a downright shame," said Captain Brown, when mentioning this latter fact to Fritz, "thet they don't fly the star- spangled banner instead o' thet there rag of a British ensign! If it weren't for us whalers, they'd starve fur want of wood to warm themselves in winter; an', who'd buy their beef an' mutton an' fixins, if we didn't call in, hey?" "That's a conundrum, and I give it up," answered Fritz with a laugh. "Ah, you're a sly coon," said the skipper, sailing away to his cabin. "I guess it's 'bout time to bunk in, mister, so I'm off. Good-night!" "Good-night!" returned Fritz, shutting up the log book and going his way likewise to the small state room set apart for the use of himself and his brother, where he found Eric asleep and snoring away soundly, the tramping about ashore having completely tired out the lad. CHAPTER TWENTY TWO. "ALONE!" The next morning, when Fritz got on deck, he found the ship diving and courtesying to her anchor, while an ominous swell came rolling in past her from the westward towards the beach. The surf, too, was breaking against the boulders of the high rocky ramparts that came down sheer from the cliff on the left-hand side of the bay, which was now to the right of where Fritz was standing at the stern of the _Pilot's Bride_, she having swung round during the night and now laying head to sea. There was no wind to speak of, although there was evidently a change brewing; still, any one with half an eye could see that the skipper was quite prepared for any emergency, for the headsails of the vessel, instead of being furled up, now hung loose, the gaskets being cast-off and the bunts dropped. The men, also, were forward, heaving away at the windlass and getting up the cable, of which a considerable length had been paid out, the ship riding in over forty fathoms of water. "Hullo, mister," exclaimed Captain Brown, when he noticed Fritz looking about him, as if perplexed as to what these signs meant,--"I told you we might hev to cut an' run any moment!" "Why?" said Fritz. "Can't you see, man," retorted the other. "I thought you'd hev been half a sailor by this time, judgin' by your smart lad of a brother! Why, the wind is jest choppin' round to the west'ard, I reckon; an', as I don't kinder like to let the ship go to pieces on them thaar cliffs to loo'a'd, I guess we're goin' to make tracks into the offin' an' give the land a wide berth." "Are you going to start soon?" asked Fritz. "Waall, there ain't no 'mediate hurry, mister; but I allers like to be on the safe side, an' when them islanders bring their second boatload o' taters an' t'other grub, I reckon we'll be off. They've brought one lot already, in return for the dry goods an' bread-stuffs I've let 'em hev; an' when they bring the second, I guess the barg'in'll be toted up!" Not long afterwards, Fritz saw the islanders' boat coming off from the landing-place. It was pretty well laden, and the swell had increased so greatly that it sometimes was lost to sight in the trough between the heavy rollers that undulated towards the shore. The Tristaners, however, being accustomed to the water and experienced boatmen, did not make much of the waves; but, pulling a good steady stroke, were soon alongside--the bowman catching a rope which was hove from the chains and holding on, while the various contents of the cargo brought were handed on board. This operation had to be performed most dexterously; for, one moment, the little craft would be almost on a level with the ship's bulwarks, while the next she would be thirty feet below, as the billowy surface of the sea sank below her keel. Eric was beside the skipper, checking the quantities of provisions which had been accurately calculated beforehand, for the Tristaners showed a keen eye to business and weighed everything they bartered for the whaler's goods, when one of the men hailed him. This was the identical young fellow of whom he had spoken to Fritz when first expounding his projected scheme for going sealing to Inaccessible Island, and who, he mentioned besides, had told him all about the place. Indeed, he had actually suggested his going there. Eric had wondered much at not having come across this young man on the previous day when they had visited the settlement, although he looked about for him, so he was doubly pleased to see him now. "Hullo!" cried out this Tristaner to the young German. "So you are back again, eh?" "Yes," said Eric. "Come aboard a moment; I want to speak to you." "All right," exclaimed the other, who was a fine, stalwart young fellow, with jet-black hair and a bronzed face that appeared to be more tanned by the weather than owing its hue to coloured blood; when, in a jiffy, he had swung himself into the chains by the rope attached to the boat's bows and was by Eric's side on the deck of the _Pilot's Bride_, his face all over smiles. "You're the very chap I was wanting to see," said Eric, shaking hands with him cordially. "I was puzzled to know what had become of you yesterday. I did not see you anywhere." "I was away up the mountain, gathering grass," replied the young fellow. "So, you've returned here, as you said you would, early in the year?" "You told me such fine accounts of the fishing," retorted Eric with a laugh, "that, really, I couldn't stop away. I want to talk to you about it again now. This is my brother," he added, introducing Fritz. "Glad to know him," said the Tristaner, bowing politely--indeed, the manners of all the islanders struck Fritz as being more polished than what he had observed in so-called civilised society. "Is he going to join you in settling on Inaccessible Island?" "Yes," replied Eric. "He and I have determined to start sealing there. We have come from America on purpose. Is there anything more you can tell us about it?" "Have you got provisions to last you a year at the least? You must calculate to hold out so long, for no ship may be able to visit you earlier and you cannot count on procuring much food on the island." "Oh, yes; we've got plenty of grub," said Eric, using the sailor's term for food. "And the things besides that I told you would be necessary?" "You may be certain of that," replied Eric. "The only thing I see that we'll have any difficulty about will be in rigging up a house. I'm sure that Fritz and I will never be able to build a substantial shanty like one of those you have here in your island." "No, perhaps not," said the young fellow, smiling. "You see, when we are going to run up a house, we all join together and lend a hand, which makes it easy work for us. It would be impossible for one or two men-- or many more, indeed. I'll tell you what I'll do for you, though. If the captain of your ship here will promise to bring me back again to Tristan, I will go over there with you for a couple of days or so, to see you comfortably fixed up, as you Americans say, at Inaccessible Island, before you and your brother are left to yourselves." "Agreed!" exclaimed Eric joyfully. "I will ask the skipper at once." To dart across the deck to where Captain Brown was now standing by the open hatchway, overseeing the provisions being passed down into the ship's hold, was, for the sailor lad, but the work of a moment! "Oh, Captain Brown,"--commenced Eric breathlessly, his excitement almost stopping his speech for a second. "Waall, what's all the muss about?" said the old skipper, turning round and scanning the lad's eager face. "Do you an' your brother want to back out o' the venture naow? I saw you talkin' to thet Tristaner you met here with me in the spring." "Back out of the project?" repeated Eric very indignantly. "Give up my pet plan, when everything is turning more and more in favour of it, captain? I should think not, indeed!" "Then, what's the matter?" asked the skipper. "I want you to grant me a favour," said Eric, hesitating a bit as the other looked at him steadfastly, a half-smile, half-grin on his weather- beaten countenance. "Thought sunthin' wer up!" ejaculated the skipper. "Waall, what's this durned favour o' your'n?" he added in his good-natured way. "Spit it out, sonny, an' don't make sich a mealy mouth of it!" "This Tristaner--young Glass, you recollect him, don't you, captain?" said Eric, proceeding with his request--"says he'll come with us and help to build our cabin for us at Inaccessible Island, and settle us--" "Show you the ropes, in fact, hey?" interrupted the skipper. "Yes," continued Eric. "He agrees to stop a day or two with us, till we feel at home, so to speak, if you will undertake to bring him back again and land him at Tristan before you go on to the Cape." "Oh!" exclaimed the skipper, giving expression to a long, low whistle from between his closed teeth. "Thet's the ticket, is it? Waall, I guess I don't mind doin' it to oblige you an' your brother, though it'll take me a main heap out o' my way coastin' up haar ag'in!" "Thank you; oh, thank you, captain," said Eric, quite delighted with this promise; and he rushed back across the deck to tell the others the good news. While the young Tristaner was explaining matters to his comrades in the boat--from which all the stores had now been removed that had been brought off from the island and a few extra articles put in, which Captain Brown had made them a present of, as "boot" to the bargain of barter--the wind began to spring up in gusts, causing the ship's sails to flap ominously against the masts. "Guess you'd better be off," cried the skipper, coming to the side, where the two brothers and the young Tristaner who was going to accompany them stood leaning over, having a parting palaver with those in the boat below. "The breeze is risin', an' if you don't kinder care 'bout startin', I reckon we must. Shove off thaar!" "All right," sang out one of the islanders, casting off the rope which attached them still to the ship. "Good-bye, and mind you bring our countryman back safe." "You bet," shouted the skipper. "I'll take care o' him as if he wer my own kin. Now, Eric," he added, "you've got to tend your duties to the last aboard, you know; away aft with you an' see to the mizzen sheets. All hands make sail!" The topsails were dropped at the same moment and sheeted home, while the jib was hoisted; and the ship, paying off, forged slowly up to her anchor. "Now, men," sang out Captain Brown sharply. "Put your heart into thet windlass thaar, an' git the cable in! It's comin' on to blow hard, an' if you don't look smart we'll never git out of this durned bay in time!" Clink, clank, went round the unwieldy machine, as the crew heaved with a will, their movements quickened by the urgency of getting under weigh without delay, and each man exerting the strength of two. "Heave away, men!" chorussed the mate, standing over them and lending his voice to their harmonious chant. "Heave! Yo ho, heave!" A few hearty and long pulls, and then the anchor showed its stock. "Hook cat!" shouted the mate; whereupon, the fall being stretched along the deck, all hands laid hold. "Hurrah, up with her now, altogether!" came the next cry; and then, the anchor was bowsed up to the cathead to the lively chorus that rang through the ship, the men walking away with the fall as if it had no weight attached to it. The yards were now braced round and the _Pilot's Bride_ began to beat out of the bay against the head wind, which was now blowing right on to the shore. "Guess we aren't a bit too soon," said the skipper, when the vessel, after her second tack to starboard, just cleared Herald Point. "If we'd stopped much longer, we'd been forced to stop altogether, I reckon!" "Was there any danger?" asked Fritz innocently. "Yes, mister; there's allers danger to a shep with a gale comin' on an' a nasty shore under her lee. There's nothin' like the open sea for safety! When you can't come to an anchor in a safe harbour, the best thing is to up cable an' cut and run, say I!" Inaccessible Island was only about eighteen miles distant from Tristan; but, as it lay to the south-west of that island and the wind blew strongly from almost the same quarter, the _Pilot's Bride_ had to make a couple of long tacks before she could approach sufficiently near for Fritz to see the spot where he and his brother had elected to pass so many weary months of solitary exile. As the ship beat to windward, passing the island twice on either tack, he was able to notice what a bare, inhospitable-looking place it was. Its structure seemed pretty much the same as that of Tristan, with the exception that the snow-white cone projecting into the clouds, which was the most noticeable feature in the latter island, was here wanting; but, a wall of volcanic rocks, about the same height as the cliff of Tristan d'Acunha, entirely surrounded the desolate spot, falling for the most part sheer into the sea and only sloping, as far as could be seen from the distance the ship was off, sufficiently on one side to allow of any access to the top. Against this impenetrable, adamantine barrier, on the west, the heavy rolling sea that had travelled all the way from Cape Horn was breaking with a loud din, sending columns of spray flying over almost the highest peaks and making the scene grand but awesome at the same time. "Well might it be called Inaccessible Island!" exclaimed Fritz, gazing intently at the threatening cliffs and cruel surge. "Yes, sirree, it kinder skearts one to look at it, don't it now, hey?" "I should think it more dangerous to approach than Tristan?" said Fritz presently. "I rayther guess so, mister," replied the skipper. "I rec'lect readin', when I was a b'y, of the wreck of a big East Indyman here bound fur Bombay. She wer called the _Blenden Hall_, an' I ken call to mind, though it must be nigh fifty year ago, the hull yarn as to how she wer lost." "Do you?" said Fritz. "I should like to hear about it." "Waall, here goes, I reckon. You see as how there wer several ladies aboard, an' it wer the plight they wer put in thet made me 'member it all. It wer in the month of July thet it happen'd, an' the vessel, as I said afore, wer bound to Bombay. The weather bein' thick an' the master funky about his latitudes, findin' himself by observation near these islands, he detarmined to look for 'em, in order to get a sight of 'em an' correct his reck'nin'. I guess he hed too much of a sight soon; fur, a thick fog shortly shut out everythin' from gaze, an' lookin' over the side he found the vessel in the midst of a lot o' floatin' weed. The helm wer put down, but by reason of light winds and a heavy swell settin' in to the shore, the same as you just now saw at Tristan, the shep's head couldn't be got to come round. Breakers were now heard ahead, so the jolly-boat wer lowered with a tow-line to heave the bows round; but it wer of no use, as the wind hed failed entirely an' the swell was a-drivin' the shep on to the rocks. An anchor wer then let go, but the depth of water didn't allow it to take hold, so, they lowered the cutter to help tow the shep's head round, along with the jolly-boat, when all of a sudden she struck. The fog wer so thick by then, thet those on board couldn't see the boats alongside, much less the shore. Howsomedever, they cut away the masts, to ease the vessel an' stop her grindin' on the rocks. Soon arter this, the fog lifted when those on board were frit by seein' right over their heads apparently, those very terrific-lookin' cliffs you see in front, just thaar--only thet they wer close into 'em, not more nor half a cable's length off, an' the heavy seas, sich as you ken now see runnin' up the face of the rocky wall thaar, wer breaking boldly right over the shep--" "And," interrupted Fritz, "what happened then?" "What could you expect?" replied the skipper. "I guess she wer beaten into matchwood in five minutes; although, won'erful to say, the hull of the passengers, ladies an' all, wer got ashore safely, only one man bein' drowned--an' it sarved him right, as he was one of the crew who tried to escape when the shep first struck, an' leave all the rest to perish! They wer all got to land by a hawser rigged from a peak of projectin' rock to a bit of the wreck; an' the ladies, I read, mister, an' all o' them, lived from July to November on penguins an' seal flesh, which they cooked in part of an iron buoy that they sawed in half fur a kittle, shelterin' themselves from the cold in tents thet they made out of the vessel's sails. I reckon, mister, you'll be kinder better provided fur an' lodged, hey?" "Yes, thanks to your kindness," said Fritz; "but the island seems completely encompassed by this rocky wall. I don't see where and how we're going to land and get our things on shore!" "Don't you?" chuckled the skipper. "I guess you'll soon see how we'll fix it." Presently, Fritz's doubts were solved. When the _Pilot's Bride_ had worked her way well to windward of the island, the captain fetched down towards the eastern side, where, on rounding a point, a narrow bay lay right before the ship, quite sheltered from the rough swell and wind that reigned paramount on the other side of the coast, storming and beating against the wall-like cliffs in blind fury! Here, it was as calm as a mill pond; so, the ship was brought to an anchor right in front of a pretty little waterfall that leaped its way by a series of cascades from the cliff above to a level plateau at the base, where a narrow belt of low ground extended for about a mile in front of the bay, its seaweed face being bordered by a broad sandy beach of black sand. "Oh, that is pretty!" exclaimed Fritz and Eric, almost together in one breath. "It is like the falls of the Staubbach at home in dear Germany." "I don't know nary anythin' 'bout thet," said the skipper laconically, for the brothers spoke for the moment in their native tongue, carried away by old associations; "but I guess we'll hev to see 'bout gettin' your fixins ashore pretty sharp, fur the wind may change agin, an' then I'd hev to cut an' leave you." "All right, captain, we're quite at your service," said Fritz; and, a boat being lowered, the various packages containing the brothers' personal belongings, as well as the supply of provisions furnished by the skipper from the ship's stores for their use, were put on board, after which the two then jumped in accompanied by Captain Brown and the young Tristaner, the little party being rowed ashore by four seamen whom the skipper had ordered to assist. As soon as they landed, the things were carried up the beach; when, the seamen bearing a hand,--directed by Captain Brown, who seemed quite used to the sort of work,--all devoted their efforts towards building a rough sort of house, which would serve the adventurous brothers for a temporary habitation until they could make themselves more comfortable. Young Glass selected the best site for the building; and the skipper having caused a lot of timber to be placed in the boat, a makeshift cottage was hastily run up, the walls being of blocks of stone without and of wood inside. The islander then thatched this neatly with tussock-grass, which grew all up the face of the cliff, where, as he showed the brothers, it could be utilised as a sort of ladder to gain the plateau on top--on which, he also told Fritz and Eric, they would find droves of wild hogs and a flock of goats that would come in handy for food when their provisions failed. The Tristaner had promised to remain with them as long as Captain Brown would stay with the _Pilot's Bride_, that is, for a week or so, if the weather was favourable. However, quite unexpectedly, towards afternoon on the next day--when the cottage was completed, it is true, but they had not as yet had time to explore the island in company with young Glass, in order to be familiarised as to the best spots for sealing, planting their potatoes and vegetable seeds, and so on--the wind shifted again round to the south-east; and no sooner was this change apparent than the skipper had to weigh anchor without a moment's delay, when of course the Tristaner had to embark, or else submit to share the young crusoes' exile. Captain Brown had remained on shore with them all the time from their landing, and he appeared now very loth to leave them at the last. Really, as they went down with him to the whale-boat in which they had come ashore, there were tears in the old man's eyes, which he tried vainly to hide. "Pooh!" he exclaimed, stamping his foot vigorously. "It's all them dratted 'skeaters or flies, or sunthin's got inter my durned old optics as I can't see! Hail the ship, Eric my lad, an' tell 'em to send a boat to take us off, will you, sonny?" "But the whale-boat that we landed in is here, captain," said Eric, thinking the skipper had forgotten all about it. "Nary you mind thet, my lad," shouted the good-hearted old man; "I'm goin' to leave thet with you fur a present, b'ys, in case you sh'u'd get tired an' want ter shift your quarters to Tristan some day. It's allers best to be purvided with the means of escape, you know, in case of the worst, for the _Pilot's Bride_ might get wracked down 'mongst the islands Kerguelen way, an' no shep might ever call to take you off." "Oh, captain, how can we thank you!" exclaimed Fritz, overcome with emotion at the skipper's thoughtfulness. "Still, you will come and look us up next year should all be well with you, eh?" "You bet on thet," replied the worthy old man. "I guess you'll see me next fall, if I'm in the land o' the livin'!" "And you'll call to see if there are any letters for us at the Cape of Good Hope, won't you? I told our people at home to write there, on the chance of their communications being forwarded on." "I'll bring 'em sure, if there's any," replied the skipper; and, by this time, a second boat having been sent off from the ship, in which the seamen who had pulled the first whale-boat ashore now took their places, along with the Tristan islander, it only remained for the kind old captain to embark--and then, the brothers would be crusoes indeed! "Good-bye, an' God bless you, my b'ys," he said, wringing first the hand of Fritz and then that of Eric, in a grip that almost crushed every feeling in those respective members. "Good-bye, my lads; but keep a stiff upper lip an' you'll do! Trust in providence, too, an' look arter the seals, so as to be ready with a good cargo when I come back next fall!" "Good-bye, good old friend," repeated Fritz, wringing his honest hand again on the old man stepping into the boat, the crew of which raised a parting cheer as it glided away to the ship, leaving the young crusoes behind on the beach! They watched with eager eyes the sails being dropped and the anchor weighed, the _Pilot's Bride_ soon after spreading her canvas and making way out of the little bay. Then, when she got into the offing, the skipper, as a final adieu, backed the vessel's main-topsail and dipped her colours three times, firing the bow gun at the same time. It was a nautical farewell from their whilom comrades: and then the brothers were left alone! CHAPTER TWENTY THREE. TAKING AN INVENTORY. The westerly wind being, of course, fair for the _Pilot's Bride_ in her run back to Tristan d'Acunha, she soon disappeared in the distance--the snow-capped cone of the larger island being presently the only object to be seen on the horizon, looking in the distance like a faint white cloud against the sky. The evening haze shut out everything else from their gaze: the lower outlines of the land they had so recently left: the vessel that had conveyed them to their solitary home. Nothing was to be seen but the rolling tumid sea that stretched around them everywhere, as far as the eye could reach, heaving and swelling and with the breeze flecking off the tops of the billows into foam as its resistless impetus impelled them onwards, away, away! "Well," exclaimed Eric, after a long pause, during which neither of the brothers had spoken, both being anxiously watching the _Pilot's Bride_-- until, first, her hull and then her gleaming sails, lit up for awhile by the rays of the setting sun, had sunk out of sight--"well, here we are at last!" "Yes, here we are," said Fritz, "and we've now got to make the best of our little kingdom with only our own companionship." "We won't quarrel, at all events, brother," replied Eric, laughing in his old fashion at the possibility of such a thing. The lad was quite overwrought with emotion at parting with the old skipper as well as his late companions in the ship; and, tears and mirth being closely allied, he would have felt inclined to laugh at anything then--just because he couldn't cry! "I don't suppose we will," said the other--"that is, not intentionally. But, brother, we will have to guard our tempers with a strong hand; for, when two persons are thrown together in such close association as we shall be during the next ensuing months--with no one else to speak to and no authority to control us, save our own consciences and the knowledge of the all-seeing Eye above, weighing and considering our actions--it will require a good deal of mutual forbearance and kindly feeling on the part of one towards the other to prevent us from falling out sometimes, if only for a short while. Even brothers like us, Eric, who love each other dearly, may possibly fall out under such trying circumstances!" "Aye, but we mustn't," said Eric. "Instead of falling out, we'll fall into each other's arms whenever we agree to differ, as old nurse Lorischen would have said!" and he gave his brother an enthusiastic hug as he spoke, putting his words into action with a suddenness that almost threw Fritz off his feet. "Hullo!" exclaimed the latter good-humouredly, smiling as he disengaged himself from Eric's bear-like embrace. "Gently lad. Your affectionate plan, I'm afraid, would sometimes interfere with the progress of our work; but talking of that, as the vessel has now disappeared, there's no use in our standing here any longer looking at the sea. Suppose we begin to make ourselves at home and arrange our things in the snug little cottage which our good friends have built for us?" "Right you are!" responded Eric, starting off towards the cliff, under the lee of which the Tristaner had directed the hut to be built, so that it might be sheltered from the strong winds of the winter, which would soon have blown it down had it been erected in a more exposed situation. Fritz followed more leisurely to the level plateau by the waterfall, where stood their cottage. Here, arresting his footsteps, he remained a moment surveying the little domain before joining his brother, who had already rushed within the building. That boy was all impulse: always eager to be doing something! The territory of the young crusoes was of limited dimensions. Extending about a mile laterally, it was bounded on either side by lofty headlands that projected into the sea, enclosing the narrow strip of beach that lay between in their twin arms. The depth of the valley inwards was even more confined by a steep cliff, down whose abrupt face slipped and hopped through a gorge, or gully, a little rivulet. This stream, on its progress being arrested by a shelf in front of the rocky escarpment, tumbled over the obstacle in a sheet of cloud-like spray, being thus converted into a typical "waterfall" that resembled somewhat that of Staubbach, as the brothers had noticed when making their first observations from the ship. The rivulet, collecting its scattered fragments below, made its way to the beach in a meandering course, passing by in its passage the slight hollow in the plateau at the base of the furthermost crag, close by where the cottage was situated. The "location," as Captain Brown would have termed the sloping ground between the cliff and the sea, was certainly not an extensive one; for, in the event of their wishing to expand their little settlement, in the fashion of squatters out West, by "borrowing" land from adjacent lots, the inexorable wall of volcanic rock to the rear of the plateau and on its right and left flank forbade the carrying out of any such scheme; still, the place was big enough for their house, besides affording room for a tidy-sized garden--that is, when the two had time to dig up the soil and plant the potatoes and other seed which the skipper had provided them with, so that they might have a supply of vegetables anon. At first sight, there did not appear to be any means of exit from this little valley; for, the steep cliffs that hedged in its sides and back lifted themselves skywards to the height of nearly a thousand feet, while their fronts were generally so smooth and perpendicular that it would have been impossible even for a monkey to have climbed them--much less human beings, albeit one was a sailor and pretty well accustomed to saltatory feats! But, on their inspecting the apparently insurmountable breastwork a little closer, Fritz noticed, as the young Tristaner had pointed out to them, that, by the side of the gorge through which the waterfall made its erratic descent to the lower level, the face of the cliff was more strongly indented; so that, by using the tussock-grass, which grew there in great abundance, as a sort of scaling ladder, and taking advantage of the niches in the rock to step upon where this failed, the summit could be thus easily gained. The top, however, was so far away from the beach and the foothold so insecure that the work of ascending the crag would be a most hazardous proceeding at the best of times, to the elder brother at all events. While Fritz was thus cogitating, and diligently studying the features of the scene around, Eric was waiting for him impatiently at the door of the rough-looking hut which the sailors had built for them under the superintendence of Captain Brown and the Tristaner. The young sailor was too restless to remain quiet very long. "Do come along, brother!" he called out after a while. "What a time you are, to be sure; we'll never be able to unpack our things before it's dark, unless you look sharp!" "All right, I'm coming," replied the other; and he was soon by the side of Eric, who had already begun to overhaul the various articles that had been brought up from the boat by the sailors and piled up in a corner of the hut. "What a lot of things!" exclaimed the lad. "Why, there are ever so many more parcels than I thought there were!" "Yes," said his brother; "it is all that good Captain Brown's doing, I suppose. When we were parting, he told me that he had left me a few `notions,' besides our own traps." "He has too, brother. Just look here at this barrel of beef; you didn't pay him for that, eh?" "No," said Fritz; "I only bought some pork and ship's biscuits, besides flour and a few groceries." "Then he has thought of much that we forgot," remarked Eric with considerable satisfaction. "I don't think our groceries included preserved peaches and tinned oysters, Fritz; yet, here they are!" "You don't say so--the kind old fellow!" exclaimed Fritz; and then he, too, set to work examining the stores as eagerly as his brother. Before leaving Providence, the two had purchased a couple of spades and shovels, an American axe, a pick, a rake, a wheelbarrow, and a hoe for agricultural purposes--the skipper having told them that the soil would be fertile enough in the summer at Inaccessible Island for them to plant most sorts of kitchen produce, which they would find of great help in eking out the salted provisions they took from the ship, besides being better for their health; while, to give emphasis to his advice, he presented them with a plentiful stock of potatoes to put into the ground, besides garden seed. For cooking, the brothers were provided with a large kettle and frying pan, a couple of saucepans, several knives and forks, some crockery, and, in addition, a large iron cauldron for melting down seal blubber; for hunting purposes, to complete the list of their gear, they had two harpoons, a supply of fishing hooks and a grapnel, two Remington rifles--besides Fritz's needle-gun which he had used in the first part of the Franco-German war, before he became an officer and was entitled to carry a sword--a supply of cartridges, five pounds of loose powder, lead for making bullets, and a mould. Among their weapons, also, was an old muzzle-loading fowling piece for which shot had been taken, Fritz thinking that it might come in handy for shooting birds--although, as he subsequently found out, all of the feathered tribe they saw were penguins, and these did not require any expenditure of powder and shot on their behalf, being easily knocked down with a stick. Nor did they forget to bring with them three or four strong sheath knives, for skinning the seals and any other use for which they were applicable; and, to add to their stock of cutlery implements, the skipper had presented Fritz with a serviceable bowie knife, whose broad double-dagger-like blade was powerful enough to cut down a tree on an emergency or make mince-meat of an enemy! Fritz had likewise purchased in Rhode Island a good stock of winter clothing for himself and Eric, a couple of thick blanket rugs, and two empty bed-tick covers--to be afterwards filled with the down they should procure from the sea birds. He bought, too, a strong lamp, with a supply of paraffin oil, and several dozen boxes of matches; so that he and Eric should not have to adopt the tinder and flint business, or be obliged to rub two pieces of dry stick together, in the primitive fashion of the Australian aborigines, when they wanted a light. So much for their equipment. For their internal use, Fritz had selected from the ship's stores a barrel of salt pork, two hundred-weight of rice, one hundred pounds of hard biscuit, two hundred-weight of flour, twenty pounds of tea and thirty of coffee, and a barrel of sugar; besides which, in the way of condiments and luxuries, their stores included three pounds of table salt, some pepper, a gallon of vinegar, a jar of pickles, a bottle of brandy and some Epsom salts in the view of possible medical contingencies. The skipper also advised their taking a barrel of coarse salt to cure their sealskins with, as well as empty casks to contain what oil they managed to boil down. These were their own stores; but, imagine the surprise of Fritz and his brother, when they found that Captain Brown had added to their stock the welcome present of a barrel of salt beef and a couple of hams, a good- sized cheese, and some boxes of sardines, besides the preserved fruits and pickled oysters which Eric had already discovered. Nor did the skipper's kindness stop here. He had packed up with their things a couple of extra blankets, which they subsequently found of great comfort in the cold weather, in addition to their rugs; a wide piece of tarpaulin to cover their hut with; a few short spars and spare timber; and, lastly, a clock--not to speak of the valuable whale-boat which he had thought of just as he was going away and had presented to them all standing, with oars, mast and sails in complete trim. "I declare," said Fritz, "he has been better than a father to us all through. I never heard of such good nature in my life!" "Nor I," responded Eric, equally full of gratitude. "Celia, too, before I left Providence, gave me a nice little housewife, wherewith I shall mend all our things when they want repairing, besides which, she made ma a present of quite a little library of books." "And I've brought all mine as well," said Fritz, unrolling a large package as he spoke. "We'll not be hard up for reading, at any rate," remarked Eric, laughing joyously. "Food for the mind as well as food for the body, eh?" "Yes," said Fritz; "plenty of both." "But, how on earth shall we ever be able to get through all this lot of grub?" "Ah, we won't find it a bit too much," said Fritz. "What, for only us two, brother?" exclaimed Eric in astonishment. "You forget it has got to last us more than a year, for certain; while, should the _Pilot's Bride_ not visit us again next autumn, it will be all we may have to depend on for twice that length of time." "Oh, I forgot that." "If you could see the pile of rations which one regiment alone of men manages to consume in a week, the same as I have, Eric, you would not wonder so much at the amount of our supplies." "But think, brother, a regiment is very different to two fellows like us!" "Just calculate, laddie," answered the other, "the food so many men would require for only one day; and then for us two, say, for seven hundred days--where's the difference?" "Ah, I see," said Eric, reflecting for a moment. "Perhaps there won't be too much, after all, eh?" "Wait till this time next year, and see what we shall have left then, laddie!" "But, remember the goats and pigs on the top of the mountain which the Tristaner spoke to us about. We'll have those for food as well, won't we?" "Wait till we catch them," remarked Fritz dryly; adding shortly afterwards, "We'd better stop talking now, however, and see about getting our bed things ready for turning in for the night. Recollect, we'll have a busy day of it to-morrow." "Ah, I shall go up and explore the mountain top, brother, the first thing in the morning," said Eric impulsively. "I'm dying to see what it's like!" "We have more important things to do, before satisfying our curiosity," observed the other. "Don't you recollect the garden?" "I declare I forgot it, brother, for the moment, although there's no need for us to hurry about that." "The sooner we plant the seed, the sooner it will grow up," said Fritz gravely. "Remember, old fellow, it is late in the spring now here; and, unless the things are put into the ground without further delay, Captain Brown said we need not hope to have any return from them this year." "All right, Fritz," replied Eric cheerfully, the name of the skipper having the talismanic effect of making him curb his own wishes anent the immediate exploration of the island, which he had planned out for the next day's programme. "We'll do the garden first, brother, if you like." "I think that will be wisest," said Fritz. "But now let us arrange our bunks and have a bit of something to eat from the little basket the steward put up for us before coming ashore. After that, we must go to roost like the penguins outside, for it is nearly dark." "Aye, aye, sir," responded Eric, touching his cap with mock deference. "You just do that again!" said Fritz, threatening him in a joking way. "Or, what?" asked the other, jumping out of his reach in make-believe terror. "I'll eat your share of this nice supper as well as mine." "Oh, a truce then," cried Eric, laughing and coming back to his brother's side; when the two, sitting down in the hut, whose interior now looked very comfortable with the lamp lit, they proceeded to demolish the roast fowl and piece of salt pork which Captain Brown had directed the steward to put into a basket for them, so that they should be saved the trouble of cooking for themselves the first day of their sojourn on the island, as well as enjoy a savoury little repast in their early experience of solitude. "I say," remarked Eric, with his mouth full. "This is jolly, ain't it!" "Yes, pretty well for a first start at our new life," replied Fritz, eating away with equal gusto. "I only hope that we'll get on as favourably later on." "I hope so, too, brother," responded the other. "There's no harm in wishing that, is there?" "No," said Fritz. "But, remember, the garden to-morrow." "I shan't forget again, old fellow, with you to jog my memory!" "Ah, I'll not omit my part of it, then," retorted Fritz, joining in Eric's laughter. Then, the brothers, having finished their meal, turned out their lamp; and, throwing themselves down on a heap of rugs and blankets which they had piled together in a corner of the hut, they were soon asleep, completely tired out with all the fatigues and exertions of the eventful day. CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR. GARDENING UNDER DIFFICULTIES. If the brothers thought that they were going to hold undisputed sway over the island and be monarchs of all they surveyed, they were speedily undeceived next morning! When they landed from the ship on the day before, in company with the captain and boat's crew, all had noticed the numbers of penguins and rock petrels proceeding to and from the sea--the point from whence they started and the goal they invariably arrived at being a tangled mass of brushwood and tussock-grass on the right of the bay, about a mile or so distant from the waterfall on the extreme left of the hut. The birds had kept up an endless chatter, croaking, or rather barking, just like a number of dogs quarrelling, in all manner of keys, as they bustled in and out of the "rookery" they had established in the arm of the cliff; and Fritz and Eric had been much diverted by their movements, particularly when the feathered colonists came out of the water from their fishing excursions and proceeded towards their nests. The penguins, especially, seemed to possess the diving capabilities of the piscine tribe, for they were able to remain so long under the surface that they approached the beach without giving any warning that they were in the neighbourhood. Looking out to sea, as the little party of observers watched them, not a penguin was to be seen. Really, it would have been supposed that all of them were on shore, particularly as those there made such a din that it sounded as if myriads were gathered together in their hidden retreat; but, all at once, the surface of the water, some hundred yards or so from the beach, would be seen disturbed, as if from a catspaw of a breeze, although what wind there was blew from the opposite quarter, and then, a ripple appeared moving in towards the land, a dark-red beak and sometimes a pair of owlish eyes showing for a second and then disappearing again. The ripple came onwards quickly, and the lookers-on could notice that it was wedge-shaped, in the same fashion as wild geese wing their way through the air. A moment later, a band of perhaps from three to four hundred penguins would scramble out on to the stones with great rapidity, at once exchanging the vigorous and graceful movements for which they were so remarkable while in the water for the most ludicrous and ungainly ones possible now that they were on terra firma; for, they tumbled about on the shingle and apparently with difficulty assumed the normal position which is their habit when on land--that of standing upright on their feet. These latter are set too far back for their bodies to hang horizontally; so, with their fin-like wings hanging down helplessly by their sides, they look ashore, as Fritz said to Eric, "just the very image of a parcel of rough recruits" going through their first drill in the "awkward squad!" When the penguins got fairly out of the water, beyond reach of the surf--which broke with a monotonous motion on the beach in a sullen sort of way, as if it was curbed by a higher law for the present, but would revenge itself bye-and-bye when it had free play--they would stand together in a cluster, drying and dressing themselves, talking together the while in their gruff barking voice, as if congratulating each other on their safe landing; and then, again, all at once, as if by preconcerted order, they would start scrambling off in a body over the stony causeway that lay between the beach and their rookery in the scrub, many falling down by the way and picking themselves up again by their flappers, their bodies being apparently too weighty for their legs. The whole lot thus waddled and rolled along, like a number of old gentlemen with gouty feet, until they reached one particular road into the tussock-grass thicket, which their repeated passage had worn smooth; and, along this they passed in single file in the funniest fashion imaginable. The performance altogether more resembled a scene in a pantomime than anything else! This was not all, either. The onlookers had only seen half the play; for, no sooner had this party of excursionists returned home than another band of equal numbers appeared coming out of the rookery from a second path, almost parallel with the first but distinctly separated by a hedge of brushwood--so as to prevent the birds going to and from the sea from interfering with each other's movements. These new--comers, when they got out of the grass on to the beach--which they reached in a similar sprawling way to that in which the others had before traversed the intervening space, "jest as if they were all drunk, every mother's son of 'em!" as the skipper had said--stopped, similarly, to have a chat, telling each other probably their various plans for fishing; and then, after three or four minutes of noisy conversation, in which they barked and growled as if quarrelling vehemently, they would scuttle down with one consent in a group over the stones into the water. From this spot, once they had dived in, a long line of ripples, radiating outwards towards the open sea, like that caused by a pebble flung into a pond, was the only indication, as far as could be seen, that the penguins were below the surface, not a head or beak showing. Such was the ordinary procedure of the penguins, according to what Fritz and the others noticed on the first day of the brothers' landing on the island. A cursory glance was also given to the movements of the curious little rock hoppers and petrels. These made burrows in the ground under the basaltic debris at the foot of the cliffs, just like rabbits, popping in and out of their subterranean retreats in the same way as people travelling in the American backwoods have noticed the "prairie dogs" do; but, both the brothers, as well as the men from the _Pilot's Bride_, were too busy getting the hut finished while daylight lasted and carrying up the stores from the beach to the little building afterwards, to devote much time to anything else. When, too, the captain and seamen returned on board and the ship sailed, leaving Fritz and Eric alone, they had quite enough to occupy all their time with unpacking their things and preparing for the night, without thinking of the penguins; although they could hear their confused barking noise in the distance, long after nightfall, above the singing of the wind overhead through the waterfall gully and the dull roar of the surf breaking against the western side of the coast. The brothers, however, were too tired to keep awake long, soon sinking into a heavy sleep that was undisturbed till the early morning. But, when day broke, the penguins would not allow their existence to be any longer forgotten, the brothers being soon made aware of their neighbourhood. Eric, the sailor lad, accustomed to early calls at sea when on watch duty, was the first to awake. "Himmel!" he exclaimed, stretching his arms out and giving a mighty kick out with his legs so as to thoroughly rouse himself. He fancied that he heard the mate's voice calling down the hatchway, while summoning the crew on deck with the customary cry for all hands. "What's all the row about--is the vessel taken aback, a mutiny broken loose, or what?" "Eh?" said Fritz sleepily, opening his eyes with difficulty and staring round in a puzzled way, unable at first to make out where he was, the place seemed so strange. "Why, whatever is the matter?" repeated Eric, springing up from amongst the rugs and blankets, which had made them a very comfortable bed. "I thought I was on board the _Pilot's Bride_ still, instead of here! Listen to that noise going on outside, Fritz? It sounds as if there were a lot of people fighting--I wonder if there are any other people here beside ourselves?" "Nonsense!" said his brother, turning out too, now thoroughly awake. "There's no chance of a ship coming in during the night; still, there certainly is a most awful row going on!--What can it be?" "We'll soon see!" ejaculated Eric, unfastening a rude door, which they had made with some broken spars, so as to shut up the entrance to the hut, and rolling away the barrels that had been piled against it, to withstand any shock of the wind from without. The brothers did not fear any other intruder save some blustering south-easter bursting in upon them unexpectedly. "Well!" sang out Fritz, as soon as the lad had peered without--"do you see anybody?" "No," replied Eric, "not a soul! I don't notice, either anything moving about but some penguins down on the beach. They are waddling about there in droves." "Ah, those are the noisy gentlemen you hear," responded the other, coming to the doorway and looking around. "Don't you catch the sound more fully now?" "I would rather think I did," said Eric. "I would be deaf otherwise!" There was no doubt of the noise the birds made being audible enough! The barking, grunting, yelping cries came in a regular chorus from the brushwood thicket in the distance, sometimes fainter and then again with increased force, as if fresh voices joined in the discordant refrain. The noise of the birds was exactly like that laughing sort of grating cry which a flock of geese make on being frightened, by some passer-by on a common, say, when they run screaming away with outstretched wings, standing on the tips of their webbed feet as if dancing--the appearance of the penguins rushing in and out of the tussock clump where their rookery was, bearing out the parallel. "They are nice shipmates, that's all I can say!" remarked Eric presently, after gazing at the movements of the birds for some little time and listening to the deafening din they made. "They seem to be all at loggerheads." "I dare say if we understood their language," said Fritz, "we would know that each of their different cries has a peculiar signification of its own. Perhaps, they are talking together sociably about all sorts of things." "Just like a pack of gabbling old women, you mean!" exclaimed Eric. "I should like to wring all their necks for waking us up so early!" "Not a bit too soon," observed Fritz. "See, the sun is just rising over the sea there; and, as we turned in early last night, there is all the better reason for our being up betimes this morning, considering all there is for us to do before we can settle down regularly to the business that brought us here. What a lovely sunrise!" "Yes, pretty fairish to look at from the land," replied the other, giving but a half-assent to his brother's exclamation of admiration. "I've seen finer when I was with Captain Brown last voyage down below the Cape near Kerguelen. There, the sun used to light up all the icebergs. Himmel, Fritz, it was like fairyland!" "That might have been so," responded the elder of the two, in his grave German way when his thoughts ran deep; "but, this is beautiful enough for me." And so it might have been, as he said--beautiful enough for any one! The moon had risen late on the previous night, and when Fritz and Eric turned out it was still shining brightly, with the stars peeping out here and there from the blue vault above; while, the wind having died away, all the shimmering expanse of sea that stretched away to the eastwards out of the bay shone like silver, appearing to be lazily wrapped in slumber, and only giving vent to an occasional long hum like a deeply drawn breath. But, all in a moment, the scene was changed--as if by the wave of an enchanter's wand. First, a rosy tinge appeared, creeping up from below the horizon imperceptibly and spreading gradually over the whole arc of sky, melting presently into a bright, glowing madder hue that changed to purple, which faded again into a greenish neutral tint that blended with the faint ultramarine blue of the zenith above. The bright moonlight now waning, was replaced for an instant or two only--the transition was so short--by a hazy, misty chiaro-oscuro, which, in another second, was dissolved by the ready effulgence of the solar rays, that darted here, there, and everywhere through it, piercing the curtain of mist to the core as it annihilated it. Then, the sun rose. But no, it did not rise in the ordinary sense of the expression; it literally jumped up at once from the sea, appearing several degrees above the horizon the same instant almost that Fritz and Eric caught sight of it and before they could realise its presence, albeit their eyes were intently fixed all the while on the point where it heralded its coming by the glowing vapours sent before. "Ah!" exclaimed Fritz, drawing a deep breath when this transformation of nature was complete, the light touching up the projecting peaks of the cliff and making a glittering pathway right into the bay. "This sight is enough to inspire any one. It ought to make us set to our work with a good heart!" "Right you are," responded Eric, who was equally impressed with the magic scene--in spite of his disclaimer about having seen a better sunrise in antarctic seas. "As soon as we've had breakfast, for I confess I feel peckish again--it's on account of going to bed so early, I suppose!--I'm ready to bear a hand as your assistant and help you with the garden. But, who shall be cook? One of the two of us had better take that office permanently, I think; eh, Fritz?" "You can be, if you like," said the other. "I fancy you have got a slight leaning that way, from what I recollect of you at home." "When I used to bother poor old Lorischen's life out of her, by running into the kitchen, eh?" "Yes, I remember it well." "Ah, that was when I was young," said Eric, laughing. "I wouldn't do it now, when I am grown up and know better!" "Grown up, indeed! you're a fine fellow to talk of being of age with your seventeen years, laddie!" "Never mind that," retorted Eric; "I mayn't be as old as you are; but, at all events, I flatter myself I know better how to cook than a sub- lieutenant of the Hanoverian Tirailleurs!" So saying, the lad proceeded to make a fire and put the kettle on in such a dexterous manner that it showed he was to the manner born, so to speak; Fritz helping to aid the progress of the breakfast by fetching water from a pool which the cascade had hollowed out for itself at the point where it finally leapt to level ground and betook itself to the sea in rivulet fashion. The brothers only trenched on their stores to the extent of getting out some coffee and sugar, the remains of their supper being ample to provide them with their morning meal; and, after partaking of this, armed with their wheelbarrow and other agricultural implements, besides a bag of potatoes and some seed for planting, they sallied forth from the hut in the direction of the penguin colony. Here, the Tristaner told them, they would find the best spot for a garden, the soil being not only richer and easier to cultivate but it was the only place that was free from rock, and not overrun by the luxuriant tussock-grass which spread over the rest of the land that was not thicket. Proceeding to the right-hand side of the cliff under which their hut was built, they descended the somewhat sloping and broken ground that led in the direction of the penguin colony, the noise from which grew louder and louder as they advanced, until it culminated in a regular ear- deafening chorus. When they had reached the distance of about a quarter of a mile, they came to a closely grown thicket, principally composed of a species of buckthorn tree that grew to the height of some thirty feet although of very slender trunk, underneath which was a mass of tangled grass and the same sort of debris from the cliff as that whereon their hut stood. The place was overgrown with moss and beautiful ferns, while several thrushes were to be seen amongst the branches of the trees just like those at home, although the brothers did not think they sang as sweetly: they whistled more in the way of the blackbird. The ground here, too, was quite honeycombed with the burrows of the little petrels, and into these their footsteps broke every moment. It was odd to hear the muffled chirp and feel the struggling birds beneath their feet as they stepped over the grass-grown soil. The ground had not the slightest appearance of being undermined by the mole-like petrels, its hollowness being only proved when it gave way to the tread; although, after the first surprise of the two young fellows at thus disturbing the tenants of the burrows, they walked as "gingerly" as they could, so as to avoid hurting the little creatures. The birds, however, seemed too busy with their domestic concerns to take any notice of them. After passing through the strip of wood, which was not of very extensive dimensions, Fritz and Eric found the ground on the other side level and pretty free from vegetation. This open land was just at the angle between the cliffs, occupying a space of perhaps a couple of acres, exactly as the Tristaner had told them; so, here they began at once their operations for laying out their projected garden, which was to be the first task they had to accomplish before settling down, now that they had been saved the trouble of building a house to live in. Eric, impetuous as usual, wanted to dig up and plant the entire lot; but Fritz was more practical, thinking it the wisest plan not to attempt too much at once. "No," said he, "we had better begin with a small portion at first; and then, when we have planted that, we can easily take in more land. It won't be such easy work as you think, laddie!" Accordingly, they marked out a space of about twenty yards square; and then, the brothers, taking off their coats, commenced digging at this with considerable energy for some length of time. But, Eric soon discovered that, easy as the thing looked, it was a much tougher job than he had expected, the ground being very hard from the fact of its never having had a spade put into it before; besides which, the exercise was one to which the lad was unaccustomed. "Really, I must rest," he exclaimed after a bit, his hands being then blistered, while he was bathed in perspiration from head to foot. He did not wish to give in so long as he saw Fritz plodding on laboriously, especially as he had made light of the matter when they began; but now he really had to confess to being beaten. "I declare," he panted out, half-breathlessly--"my back feels broken, and I couldn't dig another spadeful to save my life!" "You went at it too hard at first," said his brother. "Slow and sure is the best in the long run, you know! Why, I haven't tired myself half as much as you; and, see, I have turned over twice the distance of hard ground that you have." "Ah, you are used to it," replied Eric. "I'm more accustomed to ploughing the sea than turning up land! But, I say, Fritz; while you go on digging--that is if you're not tired--I've just thought of something else I can do, so as not to be idle." "What is that--look on at me working, eh?" "No," said the lad, laughing at the other's somewhat ironical question; "I mean doing something really--something that will be helping you and be of service to the garden." "Well, tell me," replied Fritz, industriously going on using his spade with the most praiseworthy assiduity, not pausing for a moment even while he was speaking; for, he was anxious to have the ground finished as soon as he could. "I thought that some of the guano from the place where the penguins make their nests would be fine stuff to manure our garden with before we put in the seeds, eh?" "The very thing," said Fritz. "It's a capital idea of yours; and I am glad you thought of it, as it never occurred to me. I recollect now, that the Tristaner said they used it for the little gardens we saw at their settlement. It will make our potatoes and cabbages grow finely." "All right then; shall I get some?" "By all means," responded Fritz; "and, while you are collecting it, I will go on preparing the ground ready for it; I've nearly done half now, so, by the time you get back with the guano I shall have dug up the whole plot." "Here goes then!" cried Eric; and, away he went, trundling the wheelbarrow along, with a shovel inside it for scraping up the bird refuse and loading the little vehicle--disappearing soon from his brother's gaze behind the tussock-grass thicket that skirted the extreme end of the garden patch, close to the cliff on the right-hand side of the bay, and exactly opposite to the site of their cottage, this being the place where, as already mentioned, the penguins had established their breeding-place, or "rookery." Prior to Eric's departure, the birds had been noisy enough, keeping up such a continual croaking and barking that the brothers could hardly hear each other's voice; but now, no sooner had the lad invaded what they seemed to look upon as their own particular domain, than the din proceeding from thence became terrific, causing Fritz to drop his spade for the first time since handling it and look up from his work, wondering what was happening in the distance. He could, however, see nothing of Eric, the tussock-grass growing so high as to conceal his movements; so, he was just about resuming digging, fancying that his brother would shortly be back with his wheelbarrow full of guano manure and that then the uproar would be over, when, suddenly, he distinguished, above all the growling and barking of the penguins, the sound of the lad's voice calling to him for aid. "Help, Fritz, help!" cried Eric, almost in a shriek, as if in great pain. "Help, Fritz, help!" CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE. ERIC'S COOKERY. To throw down his spade a second time and rush off in the direction from whence his brother's cries for assistance proceeded was but the work of an instant for Fritz; and when he had succeeded in pushing his way through the tangled tussock-grass, which grew matted as thick as a cane- brake, he found the lad in a terrible plight. At first, the strong ammoniacal smell of the guano was so overpowering, combined with the fearful noise the penguins made--all screaming and chattering together, as if the denizens of the monkey house at the Zoological Gardens, which Fritz had once visited when in London, had been suddenly let loose amongst the parrots in the same establishment-- that his senses were too confused to distinguish anything, especially as the thicket was enveloped in semi-darkness from the overhanging stems of the long grass which shut out the sunlight; but, after a brief interval, Fritz was able to comprehend the situation and see his brother. Poor Eric was lying face downwards, half-suffocated amidst the mass of bird refuse, with the wheelbarrow, which had got turned over in some mysterious way or other, lying over him and preventing him from rising. Really, but for Fritz's speedy arrival, the lad might have lost his life in so strange a fashion, for he was quite speechless and his breath gone when his brother lifted him up. Nor was this the worst either. The penguins had made such a determined onslaught on Eric with their heavy beaks and flapping wings, and possibly too with their webbed feet when he was down struggling amongst them, that his clothes were all torn to rags; while his legs and body were bleeding profusely from the bites and scratches he had received. His face alone escaped injury, from the fact of its being buried in the guano debris. Fritz took hold of him, after pulling away the wheelbarrow, and lugged him outside the penguin colony; when the lad, recovering presently, was able to tell the incidents of the adventure, laughing subsequently at its ridiculous aspect. It seemed funny, he explained, that he, a sailor who had battled with the storms of the ocean and feared nothing, should be ignominiously beaten back by a flock of birds that were more stupid than geese! He had thought it easy enough to get the guano for the garden, he said, but he had overrated his ability or rather, underrated the obstacles in his way; for, no sooner had he left the level ground which they had selected for their little clearing, than he found that the tussock- grass, which appeared as light and graceful in the distance as waving corn, grew into a nearly-impenetrable jungle. The root-clumps, or "tussocks" of the grass--whence its name--were two or three feet in width, and grew into a mound about a foot high, the spaces intervening between, which the penguins utilised for their nests, averaging about eighteen inches apart, as if the grass had been almost planted in mathematical order. It would have been hard enough to wheel in the wheelbarrow between the clumps, Eric remarked, if all else had been plain sailing; but since, as he pointed out and as Fritz indeed could see for himself, the stems of the thick grass raised themselves up to the height of seven or eight feet from the roots, besides interweaving their blades with those of adjoining clumps, the difficulty of passing through the thicket was increased tenfold. He had, he said, to bend himself double in stooping so as to push along the wheelbarrow into the birds' breeding-place, which he did, thinking his path would become more open the farther he got in. So, not to be daunted, Eric trundled along the little vehicle right into the heart of the birds' colony, beating down the grass as he advanced and crushing hundreds of eggs in his progress, as well as wheeling over those birds that could not, or stupidly would not, get out of his way; when, as he was beginning to load up the wheelbarrow with a mass of the finer sort of guano which he had scraped up, the penguins, which had been all the while grumbling terribly at the intruder who was thus desolating their domain--waiting to "get up steam," as the lad expressed it--made a concerted rush upon him all together, just in the same manner as they appeared always to enter and leave the water. "In a moment," Eric said, "the wheelbarrow got bowsed over, when I managed, worse luck, to fall underneath; and then, finding I couldn't get up again, I hailed you, brother." "I came at once," interposed Fritz, "the moment I heard you call out." "Well, I suppose you did, old fellow," said Eric; "but whether you did or didn't, in another five minutes I believe it would have been all up with me, for I felt as if I were strangled, lying down there on my face in that beastly stuff. It seemed to have a sort of take-away-your- breath feeling, like smelling-salts; and, besides, the penguins kicked up such a hideous row all the while that I thought I would go mad. I never heard such a racket in my life anywhere before, I declare!" "But they've bitten you, too, awfully," remarked Fritz sympathisingly. "Look, your poor legs are all bleeding." "Oh, hang my legs, brother!" replied the other. "They'll soon come right, never fear, when they have had a good wash in salt water. It was the noise of the blessed birds that bothered me more than all their pecking; and, I can say truly of them, as of an old dog, that their bark is worse than their bite!" So chuckling, the lad appeared to think no more of it; albeit he had not escaped scathless, and had been really in imminent peril a moment before. "The penguins do bark, don't they, Fritz?" he presently asked when he had stopped laughing. "Yes," said his brother, "I don't think we can describe the sounds they make as anything else than barking. Talking of dogs, I wish I had my old Gelert here; he would soon have made a diversion in your favour and routed the penguins!" "Would he?" exclaimed Eric in a doubting tone, still rather sore in his mind at having been forced to beat a retreat before his feathered assailants. "I fancy the best dog in the world would have been cowed by those vicious brutes; for, if he didn't turn tail, he would be pecked to death in a minute!" Eric was not far wrong, as a fine setter, belonging to one of the officers of HMS _Challenger_, when that vessel was engaged in surveying the islands of the South Atlantic, during her scientific voyage in 1874, was torn to pieces by the penguins in the same way that Eric was assailed, before it could be rescued. "Never mind," said Fritz, "I wish dear old Gelert were here all the same." "So do I," chorussed Eric, jumping up on his legs and shaking himself, to see whether his bones might not have received some damage in the affray. "We should have rare fun setting him at the penguins and interrupting their triumphant marches up and down the beach!" And he raised his fist threateningly at his late foes. "Do you know," observed Fritz, who had been cogitating awhile, "I think I see the reason for their methodical habit of going to and from the water." "Indeed?" said Eric. "Yes. Don't you recollect how an equal number seem always to come out from the rookery and proceed down the beach when the other batches land from the sea, just as if they took it in rotation to go fishing?" "Of course. Why, Captain Brown specially pointed that out to us." "Well," said Fritz, "the reason for that is, that the males and females mind the nests in turn, just as you sailors keep watch on board ship. First, let us say, the gentlemen penguins go off to the sea to have a swim, and see what they can catch; and then, at the expiration of a fixed time, these return to the shore and take charge of the nests, sitting on the eggs while their wives, whom they thus relieve for a spell, have a spell off, so as to get a mouthful of fresh air--" "Water, you mean," interposed Eric, jokingly. "All right, water then, and perhaps a fish or two as well; after which they come back to attend to their own legitimate department. Look now at that group there, just in front of us?" Eric glanced towards the spot where his brother directed his attention, and noticed a party of penguins returning from the sea. These separated as soon as they approached the line of nests, different individuals sidling up to the sitting birds and giving their partners a peck with their beaks, by way of a hint, barking out some word of explanation at the same time. In another moment, the home-coming penguin had wedged itself into the place of the other, which struggling on to its feet then proceeded outside the thicket, where, being joined by others whose guard had been thus similarly relieved, the fresh group proceeded together, in a hurried, scrambling sort of run, to the beach, whence they shortly plunged into the sea, having, however, their usual gabbling colloquy first in concert before taking to the water. "They're a funny lot," said Eric; "still, they're not going to get the better of me, for I intend to load the wheelbarrow with their guano, whether they like it or not!" "I wouldn't disturb them again, if I were you," observed Fritz. "They seem to have quieted down, and do not mind our presence now." "I won't trouble them, for I shall not go inside their rookery," said Eric. "I only intend to skirt round the place, and see what I can pick up outside." "Very well then, I will go on digging the garden, which I have been neglecting all this time, if you will get the manure. I should like to plant some of our potatoes to-day, before knocking off work, if we can manage it." "All right, fire away; I will soon come and join you," said Eric, and the brothers separated again--Fritz proceeding back to the ground he had been digging, which now began to look quite tidy; while the sailor lad, lifting up the handles of the wheelbarrow, trundled it off once more along the edge of the tussock-grass thicket, stopping every now and again to shovel up the guano, until he had collected a full load, when he wheeled his way back to where Fritz was working away still hard at the potato patch. A piece of ground twenty yards long by the same in breadth is not easy to dig over in a day, even to the most industrious toiler, and so Fritz found it; for, in spite of the interruption his brother had suffered from on his first start after the manure from the bird colony, the lad managed to cover the whole of the plot they had marked out with the fertilising compound, which he wheeled up load after load, long before he had accomplished half his task, although he dug away earnestly. Fritz had been a little more sanguine than he usually was. He thought he could have finished the job before the middle of the day; but, when it got late on in the afternoon and the sun gave notice as he sank behind the western cliff that the evening was drawing nigh, there was still much to finish; and so, much to the elder brother's chagrin, the task had to be abandoned for the day in an incomplete state. "Never mind," he said to Eric--when, putting their spades and other tools into the wheelbarrow, they trundled it homeward in turn, like as their friends the penguins practised their domestic duties--"we'll get it done by to-morrow, if we only stick to it." "I'm sure I will do my best, brother," responded Eric; "but, really, I do hate digging. The man who invented that horrible thing, a spade, ought to be keel-hauled; that's how I would serve him!" "Is that anything like what the penguins did to you this morning?" asked Fritz with a chuckle. "Pretty much the same," said Eric, grinning at the allusion. "I declare I had almost forgotten all about that! However, I'll now go and get a change of clothes, and have a bath in the sea before sitting down comfortably to our evening meal;" and, anxious to carry out this resolve at once, the lad set off running towards the hut with the wheelbarrow before him, he having the last turn of the little vehicle. "There never was so impetuous a fellow as Eric," Fritz said to himself, seeing the lad start off in this fashion. "Himmel, he is a regular young scatter-brain, as old Lorischen used to call him!" "Pray be quick about your bath," he called out after him. "I will get the coffee ready by the time you come back." "Good!" shouted Eric in return. "Mind and make it strong too; for, I'm sure I shall want something to sustain me after all my exertions!" The day terminated without any further incident; although the wind having calmed down, the young fellows heard the penguins much more plainly through the night than previously. Still, this did not much affect their rest; for in the morning they turned out fresh and hearty for another day's experience of gardening. But, again, they were unable to finish the plot of land properly on this second day, to Fritz's satisfaction, so as to begin planting their seeds. The ground was so hard and there were such numbers of roots and weeds to remove from the soil, that it took them up to the middle of the afternoon of the third day ere their little plot could be said to be clear of all extraneous matter. Then, however, it was really ready for the reception of their seedling potatoes and other vegetables, with the guano well dug in. "Hurrah!" exclaimed Fritz, as he and Eric began fixing a piece of line across the fresh mould, so as to be able to make the furrows straight for the potatoes, which they had ready cut in a basket, only pieces with an "eye" in them being selected, "now, we'll soon be finished at last! When we've put in the cabbage seed and onions, I think we'll have a holiday for the rest of the day." "Right you are," said Eric, in high glee at the prospect of a little respite from the arduous toil they had been engaged in almost since they had landed. He would have struck work long before, had it not been for Fritz labouring on so steadily, which made him ashamed to remain idle. "I tell you what we'll do to celebrate the event, now the garden is done. We will have a feast there." "I don't know where that's to come from," observed Fritz in his sober way, just then beginning to place carefully the pieces of potato in the drills prepared for them. "I don't think there's much chance of our having any feasting here." "Oh, indeed," replied Eric; "am I not cook?" "Well, laddie, I haven't noticed any great display of your skill yet since we landed," said Fritz dryly. "Ah, we've been too busy; you just wait till I have time, like this afternoon. Then you shall see what you shall see!" "No doubt," said Fritz, laughing at this sapient declaration. "However, I assure you, brother mine and most considerate of cooks, I'll not be sorry to have a change of diet from the cold salt pork and biscuit on which we have fared all the time we've been gardening." "How could I cook anything else, when you wanted me here?" replied Eric indignantly, handing the last piece of potato to put in the sole remaining drill. "I couldn't be up at the hut with my saucepans and down here helping you at the same time, eh?" "No," said Fritz, proceeding to give the plot a final rake over; after which he sowed some cabbage seed and onions in a separate patch, while Eric put in the peas and scarlet runners which the skipper had given him. "We'll consider the past a blank, laddie. See what you can do with your saucepans to-day; you've got the whole afternoon before you." "All right," replied Eric. "Only, you must promise not to interfere with me, you know; mind that, old fellow!" "What, I have the temerity to offer advice to such a grand cuisinier as the noble ex-midshipman? no, not if I know myself." "Thanks, Herr Lieutenant," said Eric, with a deferential bow; "I will summon your lordship when the dinner is ready." With this parting shot, the lad went off laughing towards the hut. Fritz proceeded down to the shore; and, in order that he might keep his promise to Eric of not disturbing him, he determined to devote his time to watching the penguins, so as to get up an appetite for the forthcoming banquet--although the hard work he had just gone through rendered any stimulus to eating hardly necessary. Indeed, Fritz would have been well enough satisfied to have sat down and demolished a fair quantity of the despised cold pork and biscuits long before Eric summoned him up to the hut, which he did presently, with a hail as loud as if he were calling "all hands" at sea, in a heavy squall. "Ahoy, Herr Lieutenant!" shouted out the lad in his funny way. "Your gracious majesty is served!"--screeching out the words so distinctly that, though he was on the opposite side of the valley, the portentous announcement sounded to Fritz as if it had been bellowed in his ears. "I'm coming," he answered; and, with no lagging footsteps, he quickly hastened towards the left cliff, where in front of the hut he could see Master Eric had made the most elaborate preparations in his power for the promised feast. The lad had even gone so far as to spread the piece of tarpaulin which the skipper had given them, on the ground in lieu of a tablecloth! Everything looked charming. Eric had arranged some plates and a couple of dishes round the tarpaulin with great artistic effect, and a carving knife and fork before the place where he motioned Fritz to seat himself. The lad's own position, as host, was in front of a large mess tin which was covered with a cloth. A most agreeable odour filled the air, albeit the faint smell as of burnt meat somewhat struck Fritz as Eric proceeded to take off the covering cloth with a flourish. "Well, Monsieur Cuisinier, what is the bill of fare?" asked the elder brother with a gratified smile, the unaccustomed smell of a hot dinner almost making his mouth water before he knew what he was going to have. "Roast beef to begin with," announced Master Eric pompously. "Himmel!" exclaimed Fritz, "roast beef! How have you managed to provide that?" His heart sank within him as he asked the almost unnecessary question; for, quickly came the answer he feared. "Oh," said Eric in an off-hand way, "I opened the cask Captain Brown gave us and roasted a piece over the fire." "But, that was salt meat!" ejaculated Fritz in consternation. "Well, what matter?" rejoined Eric; "I suppose it was as good to roast as any other. Besides, we didn't have any fresh." Fritz heaved a sigh of despair. "Let us try it, anyhow," he said in a melancholy tone, and Eric having, carved off with extreme difficulty a knob--it could be called nothing else--of the black mass in the mess tin he had before him, handed the plate containing it over to Fritz, who, sawing off a fragment, endeavoured to chew it unsuccessfully and then had finally to eject it from his mouth. "Good heavens, Eric!" he exclaimed, "it's as hard as a brickbat, as salt as brine, and burnt up as thoroughly as a piece of coke. How could you even think of trying to roast a bit of salt junk? Why, your own experience of the article on board ship should have told you better!" "Well, I know it is tough when boiled; but I fancied it might be better roasted for a change. I'm very sorry, old fellow, but, still, we haven't come to the end of our resources yet; I have got another dish to surprise you." "I hope not in the same way!" said Fritz with a shudder. "What is the other string to your bow, eh, Mr Cook?" "A stew," replied Eric laconically. "Ho, that sounds better," said his brother, the complacent look which had stolen over his face on sitting down to the banquet now returning again in the expectation of having something savoury at last. "A stew, eh? Why, that used to be my favourite dish at home; don't you remember, laddie?" "Yes, I remember," responded Eric, not quite so joyously as his brother evidently expected; "but," he added hesitatingly, "you'll find this a little different, because, ah, you know, ah, I hadn't got all the proper things. Still, it's very nice, very nice indeed!" The amateur cook brought out the last words with great earnestness, as if wishing to impress Fritz with the fact that, although the dish might not be quite what he expected, yet it would be certainly "tasty"--that is, according to his notions! It was; for, hardly had Fritz tasted a spoonful of it, than he spat it out again, making the most terrible faces. "Why, this is worse than the other!" he cried rather angrily. "What on earth have you made it of. Eric?" "Well, I put in some pork and the tinned oysters--" "That mixture would be almost enough to settle one!" said Fritz, interrupting him. "Anything else?" "Oh, yes. As there were only a few potatoes left from those we used for planting in the garden I put them in; and, as I had no other vegetables, I also shook in some preserved peaches, and--" "There, that will do," shouted Fritz, quite put out at having his expected dinner treat spoilt in such a fashion,--"salt pork, pickled oysters, and preserved peaches,--good heavens! The stew only wanted some cheese to be added to make it perfect." "I did put some in," said Eric innocently. This naive acknowledgment quite restored Fritz's good humour, and he burst out laughing; his anger and disgust dispelled at once by the comical confession. "If ever I let you cook for me again," he observed presently when he was able to speak again, "I'll--yes, I will eat a stewed penguin, there!" Eric laughed, too, at this; although he remarked, wisely enough, "Perhaps you might have to eat worse than that, old fellow!" "I don't know what could be," said Fritz. "Nothing!" curtly replied Eric, the truism silencing his brother for the moment and setting him thinking; but he presently spoke again to the point at issue. "Is there nothing left for us to eat?" he asked. "I'm famishing." "There's the cheese and some raw ham if you can manage with those," said Eric sadly, quite disheartened at the failure of all his grand preparations for giving his brother a treat. "Capitally," replied Fritz, "fetch them out, and let us make a good square meal. We can have some coffee afterwards. Next time, laddie," he added to cheer up Eric, "I dare say you'll do better." The lad was somewhat relieved at his brother taking the matter so good- humouredly, and quickly brought out the cheese and ham, which with some biscuits served them very well in place of the rejected viands; and, soon, the two were chatting away together again in their old affectionate way as if no misunderstanding had come between them, talking of home and old familiar scenes and recollections of Lubeck. While they were yet sitting in front of the hut, over their coffee, the setting sun cast the shadow of the cliff right before their feet; and, at the very edge of the craggy outline, they perceived the shadow of something else which was in motion. This somewhat aroused their attention and made them look up towards the heights above the waterfall. What was their astonishment, there, to see a large animal, which, in the strong light behind it from the descending orb, appeared almost of gigantic proportions. The beast appeared to be right over their heads; and, as they looked up, it seemed as if about to jump down on them! CHAPTER TWENTY SIX. THE WILD GOATS. "Ach, Himmel! What is it?" exclaimed Eric, getting closer to his brother, who also was at first a bit frightened. "I sure I don't know," said Fritz, quite perplexed for the moment; but he was soon reassured, for the animal, which had hitherto presented itself end on towards them, so that its head and body were humped up together, now turning sideways, its change of position enabled him better to judge of its proportions. "Pshaw!" he cried out, "it's only a goat, after all!" "A goat?" repeated Eric, still surprised, not catching at once the meaning of the word. "Yes; don't you remember that young Glass said there was a flock of goats on the tableland above the cliff?" "Oh, I recollect now," said Eric, his mind quite relieved. For the moment, he really believed that some terrible monster inhabited the desert island besides themselves; and thought that this unknown animal might possibly sally forth as soon as the sun set and darkness reigned, in search of its prey, when he and Fritz would fall victims to its rapacity. "I did not understand you at first." "Well, it's all right now, brother, so you need not be afraid. I cannot wonder at your alarm, however for I was startled, I must confess. Fancy, me, a soldier, to show such want of nerve! Why, I'm as bad as you were the other morning when the penguins attacked you!" "Don't say any more about that, please," pleaded Eric, whose fright of the birds was still a standing joke with Fritz. "I'm sure when they rushed at me so fiercely they seemed quite as awful as the sight of that big brute up there on the cliff, who looked just as if he were going to leap down on us." "Very well, we'll let the matter drop, then," said the other, laughing. "I can't afford to boast of my courage now! If all goes well, laddie, we will ascend the cliffs to-morrow and have a peep at my gentleman at closer quarters." "All right," replied Eric, using his stock phrase for everything; and then, as it was getting dark, the brothers turned in for the night--the sailor lad taking particular care, by the way, to see that the door of the hut was carefully barricaded, a precaution which had been omitted since the first evening of their taking possession of the little dwelling. The next morning was a bright and cheerful one, with no wind to speak of, save a pleasant breeze, while the sun was warm and cheerful--its light dancing on the curly little waves that rippled on the beach, causing the plumage of the penguins as they made their pilgrimages to and from the rookery to gleam with iridescent colours. This was especially the case when the birds emerged from the water, the light just then giving them the tints which the dolphin displays when first caught and before death has deadened its changing hues. "A splendid day for our exploring trip!" sang out Eric, the early riser, waking up Fritz by rolling away the barrels from before their frail doorway and fussing about the hut. "Rouse up, brother. The old sun has been up for an hour or more, and it will be soon time for us to start." "Eh, what? oh, yes," cried Fritz, rubbing his eyes and yawning; but, Eric, pulling away his blankets, soon made him bestir himself, when his brother jumped up with his usual alertness--first running down to the beach and imitating the penguins in having a dip in the sea, to wash the cobwebs out of his head, as he laughingly said on his return to their little domicile, when proceeding to dress. For a sailor, Eric was, strangely enough, not half so fond of a daily bath; but, as he said in excuse to his brother, this was perhaps owing to his having so many impromptu and unexpected douches on board ship. Most seamen, especially those of foreign nationality, have seemingly a horror of water for ablutionary purposes, in contradistinction to landsmen. However, there was one advantage in this, to Fritz at least; for, while he was performing his swim and making his subsequent toilet, Eric had lit a fire and was preparing coffee for their breakfast, to which, when ready, Fritz was able to sit down comfortably without any trouble or exertion on his part. A cup of the steaming fluid apiece warmed the two, invigorating them for the business of the day; and, as soon as the matutinal meal was finished, they set about getting their traps ready. "Of course, we'll take our guns, eh?" asked Eric; although, as far as he was concerned, he had evidently already come to a decision on the point, for he had carefully selected one of the Remington rifles from their armoury for his own especial weapon. "Yes, I suppose we had better take something to shoot with," replied Fritz. "We need not pot our old friend the goat yet, however. Judging by his horns and beard, he must be the kaiser of the flock, and so may be a little tough; still, we may find some daintier morsel to shoot. I confess I should be glad of a little fresh meat for a change--a real roast this time, eh, Eric?" "Oh, bother that roast salt beef; I suppose I'll never hear the end of it!" cried the lad pathetically, although he could not refrain from laughing at Fritz's allusion to the unsuccessful banquet. "You just get me something proper to cook, and I bet you'll not be disgusted with the way in which I dress it!" "We'll see," replied Fritz, taking up the fowling piece and slinging a powder flask and shot case round his neck. "As you're going to carry a rifle for heavy game, laddie, I'll take this for the benefit of any likely-looking birds we may come across." "All right," responded Eric; when the two, packing up some biscuit and cheese for their refreshment by the way and barricading the door of the hut from the outside--lest the penguins might chance to pay them a visit in their absence--set forth towards the base of the waterfall up the gorge. Here, the Tristaner had told them, they would be able to climb up by the aid of the tussock-grass should they wish to reach the summit of the cliff. It was a tedious ascent, the top of the ridge being over a thousand feet above the little valley in which they lived. As for Fritz, he was quite worn-out when they arrived at the head of the crags above the waterfall; but Eric found the climbing easier work from his practice in the rigging aboard the _Pilot's Bride_. This was just as well, for he had to pull his brother up nearly all the way. However, once arrived at the summit, the two had the whole tableland exposed to their view. This sight alone well rewarded them for their trouble, for the plateau stretched like an undulating plain before them, occupying the entire extent of the island--with the exception of the three-cornered slice taken out of it by their valley, like a segment cut from a round cheese. There was, also, a slight depression on the western side, where there was a little cave, although this was not nearly so wide as the bay on the east fronting their valley. Groups of stunted trees grew in the hollows, in which sprang up in great luxuriance the inevitable tussock-grass; while, amongst the little thickets that were sparsely scattered over the plain, were grazing large numbers of hogs, headed by a monster boar. This animal had tusks nearly a foot long; and he almost impaled Eric against a buckthorn tree, under the shelter of which he had been lying until surprised by the lad, when, after making a rush at him, he ran grunting away, followed by his numerous family. As the brothers proceeded across the tableland, they also saw numbers of a small bird, about the size of a bantam, called by young Glass the "island hen." Its plumage was almost entirely black, and its wings were so short that they were useless for flight, the bird running in and out of the long grass and ferns with which the surface of the plateau was covered in the open, like the partridge does amongst the turnips in England. Fritz shot a couple of the little things, and the brothers plucked and roasted them over an extemporary fire which Eric lit with the box of matches he invariably "carried in his pocket--as a sort of badge of his culinary office," Fritz said. The birds were found to be very palatable for lunch, along with the biscuit and cheese which the brothers had brought with them. The goats were the main object of the excursion; but Fritz could not see anything of them until they had nearly made the circuit of the plain. When they had almost given up the animals as a myth, feeling inclined to believe that the old "billy" they had seen the evening before was the creature of their imagination, they suddenly came upon the flock. The goats were secreted in a thicket of buckthorn trees and tussock-grass, close to where the tableland sloped to the beach at its western extremity. There were twenty-three in all, and must have been the produce of a pair which some whaling vessel had turned loose on the island; for, they were every one marked in the same way as the patriarchal-looking male,-- evidently their progenitor. He was a stately old fellow, with a fine pair of curving horns that nearly reached to his tail; in addition to which, he could boast of a long silky beard that a Turkish pasha might have envied. Seeing three kids amongst the number, Fritz told Eric to shoot one; and the lad, after a third attempt with the repeating rifle he carried, succeeded in making a successful shot. There was some excuse for Eric's not killing his kid at first; for, the old male was extremely wary, keeping at a very respectful distance from the two sportsmen and making the flock remain in his rear, while he fronted the intruders-- continually retreating as they advanced, and dexterously shifting his position, by a flank movement every now and then, so as not to be driven over the cliffs. "Master Billy can't be ignorant of men folk or firearms," said Eric, when he had missed his second shot, "otherwise, he would not remain so far off!" "He was probably brought here originally from the Cape," replied Fritz, telling his brother to aim lower next time, his last bullet having only missed by too great an elevation. "So, like all animals that have once heard a gun go off, he knows what it means! Most likely, if I had not fired twice at those little birds, we might have got up quite close to the flock; but, the old gentleman must have heard the report and that has made him so cautious about letting us approach. Look out, Eric; now's your chance! Only aim low and steadily, and you will bring down that kid there to the right!" Puff, bang! No sooner said than done. "Hurrah!" shouted Eric, "I've got him this time, without fail!" He had; for, although the flock of goats scampered off from the thicket they were at that moment occupying towards another woody clump on the opposite side of the plain, darting away with the rapidity of the wind, they left one of their number behind. The unfortunate victim was a pretty little kid, about three months old; and it lay stretched out, bleeding, on the grass. Its body had been perforated by the bullet from Eric's rifle. "That was a capital shot!" exclaimed Fritz, when the two came up to where the poor little kid lay. "The ball has passed right through its heart; so, you must have aimed, as I told you, behind the shoulder." "I did," said Eric, alike proud of his powers and the compliment; "but, poor little thing, it seems a pity to have killed it!" "Ah," remarked Fritz the practical, "still, roast mutton will taste nice after our living on salt meat for so many days, eh?" "Yes," replied Eric, with much satisfaction, his sympathy for the slaughtered kid quickly disappearing at the thought of all that young Glass had told him as to the flavour of the animal when cooked. "It is better than the tenderest pork, they say." "Very well, we'll try it for dinner to-morrow and see whether we agree with that verdict. It will be too late to cook it when we get home this evening." "Dear me, I really did not think the time was going so fast! Why, it must be within a hour of sunset; don't you think so?" "Not far off," said Fritz; "so, therefore, there's all the greater reason for our returning down the gully as soon as possible. If the darkness came on while we were descending, I should never be able to scramble down." "Never fear, brother; I'll look after you," cried Eric. On their approaching the eastern end of the clift again, the sailor lad first lowered down the dead kid by a piece of rope he had taken with him, on to one of the niches in the gorge above the waterfall, and then prepared for the descent of Fritz and himself. "Never fear brother," he repeated. "Although you may be stronger than I, still my eye is steady and my hand sure!" "Good!" said Fritz. "You had better then go down first, and direct me where to put my feet. After we've been up and down once or twice, of course, I shall not find it so difficult." "All right," responded Eric, "here goes!" So saying, he swung himself over the top of the cliff, when, holding on firmly to the tussock-grass and half slipping down and half stepping on the projections in the face of the crag, he reached in a few minutes the first broad ledge over which the rivulet from above tossed its spray. "Are you quite safe?" asked Fritz, before adventuring on the descent. "Certainly," said the other. "Hold on to the grass stems the same as I did, and let yourself slide over at the corner--there! Now, feel with your foot for a projecting bit of stone just below where you are standing and about a yard to the right. Have you got it?" "Yes," replied Fritz. "All right, then, let yourself down on it and take a fresh grip of the tussock-grass, for you will have to bear more to the left this time. Hold on tight and take a long step down, now, and you'll be beside me; there you are, you see!" Eric then proceeded down to the next step, or leap, of the waterfall in the same way, lowering the kid first, and then descending and directing his brother's steps; so that, in a much shorter time than they had ascended, they arrived once more in the valley--although, from the fact of the tableland being more open and exposed and the cliffs obscuring the light, the lads found it quite dark when they reached their hut, the sun having sunk below the western ocean while they were climbing down the crags. "Thank goodness, we're here at last!" exclaimed Fritz, when, having got within their hut, he sank upon the bed in the corner. "I didn't tell you before, for fear of alarming you; but, as I came down the cliff, I sprained my ankle fearfully. Once, I thought I should never reach the bottom alive, laddie. Really, if we had but another step now to go, I'm certain I would not have been able to limp it." "Himmel!" ejaculated Eric, "I couldn't see that you walked lame on account of its being dark; and, you wouldn't tell me, of course, or lean on my arm so as to let me help you!" Eric spoke in quite an aggrieved tone, which struck his brother keenly, although he refrained from answering him; but, while expressing his sense of hurt feeling at Fritz not asking his aid, the lad was busily employed in lighting the lamp and examining the injured ankle, which, to his consternation, he found so badly dislocated that the bone protruded. The foot, too, was already swollen to more than twice its size! "It looks awful," he said; "and, just think, if it had given way when we were descending the crag you might have tumbled down the precipice and made me brotherless! Why did you not tell me and ask my help?" "Because," replied Fritz, with some reason, "my doing so might perhaps have frightened you, causing you to lose your nerve at a moment when the safety of both of us depended on your keeping cool and steady." "That might have been so," said Eric; "but, still, I would have been able to help you more if I had known! However, `everything that is, is for the best,' isn't that so, brother?" With this consoling reflection, the sailor lad, under Fritz's directions, set about bandaging the wounded limb with a long handkerchief dipped in cold water and wrapped round it as tightly as possible. This surgical operation accomplished, the two then went to bed, pretty well tired with the day's excursion. They had had a long chase after the wild goats, in addition to first exploring the tableland above and the exertion of ascending and descending the cliff--which latter was quite an arduous enough enterprise in itself and sufficiently dangerous, as was amply proved by the fact of Fritz's accident, that might lay him up for some time. However, the next day, the invalid thought roast kid ample payment for sprained ankle; and he was not sorry for the enforced rest he was obliged to take after the rough exercise he had undergone since landing on the island, having now an opportunity of reading and investigating the little library of books given by Celia Brown to Eric, which he had not yet had the chance of overhauling. Indeed, Master Fritz had a nice easy time of it; for Eric not only waited on him, but saw to everything that had to be done until he was able to move about again. "That old billy-goat was bound to do me an injury! I thought so when I first saw him that evening, standing out against the sunset sky over our heads," said the elder brother to Eric, when he was once more out of doors and felt again like his old self. "Aha, though, I've not done with the old rascal yet! Some day, I'll pay him out, never fear!" "Right you are!" was Eric's answer, laughing the while. The lad was really so overjoyed to see his brother on his legs again, that he went off into fits of laughter every now and then about nothing at all. He could not contain himself! CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN. SEALING. It was well on in the month of September--the spring of the year in South Atlantic latitudes--when the brothers commenced their crusoe-like life on Inaccessible Island; and, by the time that Fritz had recovered from the effects of his sprained ankle, so far as to be able to hobble about the place, it was nearly the end of October. This was the beginning of the early summer at Inaccessible Island; and, the season being but a short one, not an hour of it could be wasted if they wished to carry out to advantage the special purpose that had taken them away from the haunts of men. The sealing season would soon begin; and, it behoved them to be ready for it, so that they should lose no chance of securing as many skins as they could get. The amount of oil they might procure from the boiled- down blubber was also a consideration, but only a secondary one in comparison with the pelts; for, owing to the market demand for sealskins and the wholesale extermination of the animal that supplies them that is now continually going on in arctic and antarctic seas alike, the pursuit is as valuable as it is more and more precarious each year--the breeding-grounds now being almost deserted to what they once were, even in the most out-of-the-way spots, the Esquimaux to the north and American whalers in the south having depopulated the whilom numerous herds. The garden was the first point Fritz aimed for, when he found he could put his foot to the ground; and he proceeded thither slowly, with the aid of a stick to lean upon and with Eric "frisking round him," as he said, just like old Gelert would have done! In the comparatively short space of time since Fritz had last seen the little plot, a wonderful transformation had been effected--thanks to the richness of the virgin soil, the productiveness of the climate, and, lastly, the super-stratum of guano which Eric had suggested being placed over the clearing. The sailor lad, too, had not forgotten each morning to water the newly planted land, which was exposed all day to the sun's heat, with the exception of a brief period in the afternoon when the shade of the cliffs extended over it; so, now, the garden presented a smiling appearance, with the potatoes just sprouting above their ridges, and cabbages and radishes coming up in clusters, while rows of peas and scarlet runners were sprouting as thick as hedges--not to speak of the slender onion stems, like tiny spears, each bearing its own seed back above ground after it had performed its creative mission below the surface, leaving a root behind. "This looks well," said Fritz, delighted at the result of their joint handiwork. "Bye-and-bye, we ought to reap a good return for all our labour. I'm glad we got the job done when we did; otherwise, we should not have such a charming prospect before us." "I'm jolly glad we haven't got to do it now!" replied Eric, with a shrug of his shoulders and laughing as usual. "Himmel! I shall never forget that digging!" "Nor the penguins either, I suppose, when you went to get the guano that day?" said Fritz slyly, with a meaning glance. "Ah, brother, `no more of that, an thou lovest me!'" quoted Eric. "Still, the guano, perhaps, has made the things come on so well, eh?" "No doubt of that," replied Fritz. "But, we'll have to thin out those cabbage plants shortly, laddie; that will necessitate our digging up some more ground, so as to make a place ready for them." "Oh!" groaned the other in a lachrymose way, making a hideous grimace. "However, we needn't hurry about it," continued Fritz, smiling at his grimace. "Ah!" exclaimed Eric, much relieved. He knew that if the thing had to be done, he should have to accomplish it; for, in spite of all his disgust for spade work, he certainly would not have allowed Fritz to attempt gardening so soon with his invalided foot. "No, there's no hurry," went on Fritz, as if thinking aloud. "We'll have to confine our attention to the seals now for the next two months or so, as that is our special business here. When we can capture no more of those gentry, we'll have plenty of time to attend to the garden; although, probably, we shall get something out of it ere long, if only a few radishes--at all events we ought to have some new potatoes by Christmas, that is if they ripen as rapidly as they have jumped out of the ground!" "Fancy, new potatoes at Christmas!" cried Eric. "I wonder what they would say to that at home in Lubeck?" "Aye, what!" repeated Fritz; and, in a second, his thoughts were far away across the rolling Atlantic. His mental eyes could see--as plainly as if the scene was there before him, now, in that little valley between the cliffs of the desert isle where the two brothers were--the house in the Gulden Strasse, with the dear home faces belonging to it. Yes, there they were in a loving vision, the "little mother," Lorischen, and Madaleine, not forgetting Gelert or Mouser even; while the old-fashioned town, with its antique gateway and pillared market platz, and quaint Dom Kirche and clock of the rolling eyes, seemed moving past in a mental panorama before him! Eric recalled him presently to himself by a pertinent inquiry. "We'll have to see to our boat to hunt the seals in, won't we?" he asked. "Yes, certainly," said Fritz, fixing his mind on present things with an effort. "I hope it's all right!" "You may make sure of that," answered Eric. "I wasn't going to let any harm happen to the boat which the good captain so kindly gave us! No. I have been down to look at and overhaul it every day--keeping water in it besides, that the seams should not open with the heat and make it leak." "Then it is quite seaworthy?" "Oh, yes, without doubt." "Well, I tell you what we'll do," said Fritz. "As the exertion will not compel me to have any walking to speak of, nor interfere with the strengthening of my poor foot, I vote that we sail round the headland to the western beach on the other side of the island. We can then see whether there is any appearance yet of the seals coming to take up their summer residence here." "Won't that be jolly!" shouted out Eric. "Why, it is the very thing I have been longing to do since we went up the cliffs and saw the beach there from the tableland! I would not speak to you about it, because I knew, of course, you could not move, and feared that talking of it might excite you." "That was very considerate of you, laddie," replied Fritz; "so, now to reward you for your thoughtfulness, I vote that we proceed there as soon as we can get the boat ready and prepare for the excursion. Apart from its being in the nature of a little pleasure trip--my convalescent tour, as it were, for change of air--it is really necessary work for us to know when we can begin, if we are going to be seal hunters and trade in skins and oil!" "Right you are," said Eric, quite convinced by this argument that nothing could be more wise or sensible than a voyage round the island in the whale-boat, especially as the plan agreed with his own views of the matter to an iota; and, in his usually impulsive way, in spite of having already inspected the little craft that morning, he rushed off down to the beach, scaring multitudes of penguins on his way, to see whether she was as sound and seaworthy as he had said, and thoroughly fit for the cruise. Everything was right, fortunately; so, early on the following day, they shoved off the whale-boat from the beach. This was a rather fatiguing operation, although it was greatly facilitated by some rollers which Eric sawed off a spare topgallant mast that was amongst the old spars the skipper gave them. The brothers then started on their trip round the island, the wind being fair from the south-east--the same point, indeed, from which it had blown almost entirely during their stay, with the exception of a short spell from the south-west just after their arrival. The coast, after clearing the headland, was bold and precipitous, the wall of rock continuing round to the west side; although here it broke away, with a lower ridge of soft dolomite that had caves worn into its face from the action of the sea, and one or two creeks that the boat could run into. This was evidently the haunt of the seals, for numbers of fish bones were scattered about on the floor of the caves and on the fragments of volcanic rock that were scattered on the beach below, piled and heaped up in pyramid fashion. Landing at one of the little caves, just under a tussock-grass-grown gully, like that close to their hut on the eastern side, Eric ascended with his rifle to the ridge above. He soon gained the tableland, returning anon with a well-grown kid which Fritz had told him to shoot, so that they might take it home with them. The ascent to the plateau, the lad said, was much easier from this part of the coast than by the waterfall; but, of course, as it would necessitate a voyage almost round the island whenever they attempted it, the other way was more preferable, although dangerous by contrast. One or two seals were seen sunning themselves on the rocks; but these quickly slid off into the sea when the boat approached. Their breeding- season had certainly not yet arrived, else they would not only have been more numerous, but have been too much engaged with their families to mind ordinary intruders. When separated from their fellows, as the brothers now saw them, however, they were naturally extremely timid animals. Proceeding round the southern extremity of the island, the cliff that encircled the coast seemed the more precipitous the further they advanced, frowning down destruction on any ship that might approach it unawares in the darkness--should the wind blow on shore and the set of the sea prevent escape from its terrors! Eric steered the boat out a bit here, so that they might tack further on inwards and so weather the eastern promontory, which stretched to the left of the bay outwards into the ocean. They were thus able to have a grand view of the whole island, getting back to their little home, not long before sundown. Nor did they return empty-handed, either; for, the kid furnished fresh meat for their dinner, to which their trip besides added a piquant relish. What with making things more comfortable in their hut and attending to the garden, which bloomed out apace each day, the hours did not lag on their hands by any means during the next week or two. There was occupation enough, even in this interval, to pass the time pleasantly away; but, when the month of November was ushered in, the seals then coming to the island in shoals, they found plenty to do from morning till night. There was work of all kinds to be done:-- first, boating round the coast after their prey; secondly, hunting the animals into their caves and killing them, taking care to secure their bodies before they sank into deep water and were thus irrecoverably lost; thirdly, getting off the skins and salting them down to prevent their putrefying; and, lastly, boiling blubber--oh, yes, they had enough work to employ them, and no time to be idle! Before this busy period, however, every morning, again at midday, and in the afternoon, Eric would go up and down the tussock-grass ladder by which he scaled the precipice on to the tableland above, whence he was able to reconnoitre the west coast, the favourite resort of the seals, according to the information of young Glass, the Tristaner who instructed them in the matter. The lad did this daily as a matter of duty, "climbing the fore cross- trees for a look-out," as he termed the scramble up the gorge; and, as regularly, three times every day, after his morning, midday, and afternoon observations, he would come back to Fritz with the same unsatisfactory tale--that no seals were in sight. One afternoon, however, towards the end of the month, he reported more cheering news. "Oh, there are such a lot of seals on the rocks!" he called out from the top of the cliff, without waiting to come down. "Why, there must be hundreds of them there, crawling in and out of the caves on their flappers, to and from the sea! Which will be the best way to tackle them, brother, we can reach them from here, you know?" Fritz, who was below seated outside the hut, just preparing to mend some of his clothes that had long needed looking after, in a moment became equally excited, pitching the dilapidated garments back inside the hut and putting off the work of repairing to some future day. "Come down sharp, Eric, and help me to get the boat out," he cried. "We must attack them from seaward; for, if we went at them from the cliff, they would at once take to the water, and so escape us. Descend at once, while I am getting the guns and tackle ready!" "Right you are!" shouted the sailor lad in answer. "I'll be down with you in a brace of shakes!" No sooner had he uttered the words than he was scrambling down by the tussock-grass through the waterfall gully; while, at the same time, Fritz below was proceeding hurriedly to collect the various articles required for the sealing expedition, which had been put away on one side so as to be handy for just such an emergency:-- the loaded rifles, with spare cartridges; the two harpoons, to each of which a long coiled-up line was attached; the strong boat-hook to pull in the carcases of their victims; and, other little etceteras. The common seal, which is frequently seen on the north coast of Scotland amongst the Hebrides and Shetland Islands, and the sea bear of Cape Horn and the Magellan Straits, are both very similar in their general habits to the Greenland seal of the Esquimaux; and the animals usually herd together in flocks or droves of some thirty to a hundred, each male having a certain number of females under his charge--the males being some six to eight feet long and the females of less dimensions. The seals invariably frequent the most desolate rocks and caverns, where they can have ready access to the sea, which is their proper element; and, in the north and extreme south, they live on the ice-peaks as a rule, getting the fish they require for their food by diving off and catching their prey in the same way that an otter does. The wildest and stormiest seas appear to delight them most. In such they may be seen, sporting amidst the breakers and rough water, in the highest of spirits apparently, and escaping scatheless where other creatures would be dashed to pieces on the rocks that form their temporary homes. Although they do not assemble on shore in any numbers, except during the summer months of the latitudes in which they are found, they are never far-distant from their favourite haunts at any time, the reason for their not being seen, most probably, being that they only leave the water at night during the winter, or else because the stormy weather prevents those who go after them from approaching their habitats and so noticing them. By the time Eric descended the cliff, Fritz had the boat ready to shove off, with their hunting gear inside and all necessary weapons for the chase; so, the two were soon on their way round the headland, steering towards the seal-caves on the western side of the island. "You never saw such a lot, brother," Eric went on to say, when they had embarked and were working round the coast. "There were hundreds of small ones, while some were big monsters that had long noses and seemed to be double the size of the others!" "Ah, those were probably sea elephants," said Fritz. "I should like to catch one. The fur, they say, is not so good as that of the common seal, but they yield an immense lot of oil from their blubber--from eight to ten barrels, I have been told." "Really?" observed Eric. "Why, one or two of those gentlemen would soon fill up our casks!" "Yes, and I shouldn't regret it," said Fritz. "We should then have a good stock ready against the time Captain Brown returns to visit us with the _Pilot's Bride_!" "Aye, I should like that," replied the other; and then, as both rowing and sailing--for the wind was light--the boat neared the rock caves of the western coast, the brothers grew too excited to talk any more. Presently, they hove in sight of their hunting-ground; whereupon, they at once stopped the way of the boat in order to map out their campaign. It did not take long for them to do this; and the gist of the plan could be seen in the arrangements they made for battle. Fritz and Eric both put their rifles ready on the thwarts of the boat, and the harpoons were also placed handy in the bows along with the boat- hook; then, lowering the lugsail which the little craft carried, they muffled their oars with some rags they had prepared and pulled in steadily towards the beach. As they got nearer, the seals could be seen swarming on the rocks, while the noise they made--something like the bleating of sheep mingled with a hoarse growling roar, not dissimilar to that of an angry bull in the distance--could be heard plainly while the brothers were yet more than a mile off. Some of the seals were swimming about in the water, but the majority were basking on the huge slabs of rocks that had been broken off from the face of the cliff by the onslaught of the waves and which now lay on the beach at its base, partly in and partly out of the sea. "Now, Eric, be ready!" called out Fritz in a hoarse whisper. "Do you see those two fellows on that boulder nearest us?" "Yes," whispered Eric in return, almost breathless with excitement. "Then, you take the right-hand one, and I will make sure of the one to the left. Aim low and steadily at the head, for that is the only vital part a ball will reach. Remember, if you only wound him, he'll slip into the water and dive out of our reach!" "Right you are; I'm ready," was Eric's reply. "Wait till I give the word, then," said Fritz. There was a moment of suspense as the boat crept closer to the poor seals, who were playing away, thoughtless of danger, and then-- "Fire!" exclaimed Fritz. The two murderous rifles, at the same instant, at once belched forth their contents; and, a moment after, the dropped heads of the animals aimed at showed that the respective bullets had accomplished their mission. "Now, let us push in," cried Fritz, seizing his oar again, when, his brother following his example, they beached the boat in a few strokes. Then, each taking up a harpoon, they attacked the cluster of animals, killing fifteen before the frightened creatures could escape into their native element, although they came off the rocks with a rush, looking most formidable as they opened their mouths and showed their fangs, emitting the while terrific roars; and, as they waddled in a crowd into the water, they rolled down the brothers with their impetus as if they had been ninepins. "I don't mind the bruises," said Fritz, picking himself up again with a laugh. "Not when I have such a sound salve for them as the thought of the oil we'll get out of all the carcases!" "Nor I," chimed in Eric, rubbing his nose ruefully though all the same. "Think of fifteen--no, seventeen sealskins, counting in the two we shot first on the rocks! They ought to fetch something handsome when we send them to the States, eh?" "Yes," said Fritz; "but now, out with your knife, laddie! Let us set to work, taking off the pelts while they are still warm." "Right you are," replied Eric; and the two were soon at work, skinning the animals and taking off the layer of blubber which lay immediately beneath the inner lining of the skin--rolling up the greasy and reeking mass of skin and fat together in bundles and placing them in the boat as soon as each seal had his toilet thus attended to. It was very dirty work and neither was sorry when all the blubber and skins were stowed in the whale-boat; their last care being to roll the poor bodies of the seals now bereft of those coveted coats which had caused their destruction, into the sea. This was done in order that the remains might not scare away others of the herd from such inhospitable shores. The task was soon accomplished, for the rocks shelved down abruptly into the water; and, when the place was made tidy again, the brothers set sail for home with their cargo, going back the contrary way they came, so as to have the advantage of the wind and save the labour of rowing. Since their onslaught, not another live seal was to be seen in the vicinity, the first to make off before the boat was pulled into the beach after Fritz and Eric had fired being the couple of sea elephants which they had noticed amongst the mass of animals, clustered together on the rocks; and these, consequently, they were unable to secure. However, they consoled themselves on their way back to the bay with the reflection that they had done a very good day's work. They were by no means dissatisfied with the result of their sport--seventeen seals at one haul were not to be despised! For some time after reaching the hut they were busily engaged, cleaning the skins and salting them down for preservation. They had both been instructed how to do this on board the whaler; although Eric, having had previous practical experience with all the details of the operation, now acted as superintendent. They had also to boil the blubber in the iron cauldron, which they had brought from the States for the purpose of "trying out the oil," as whaling men technically term the procedure; and they found when they had finished that the result realised some ten barrels full. This was a splendid start for them and it made them so contented that it was upwards of a fortnight before they undertook another expedition to the west beach. But, apart, from the satisfactory results of their first venture, they thought it best to let the seals have a little interlude of calm before attacking them again. Besides this, Eric's reports from his look-out station on the tableland were most unfavourable, as, for some days after their last foray, hardly a seal was to be seen in the neighbourhood of the scene of the fray. However, one fine morning in December, Eric reported the arrival of a fresh batch of the fur-bearing animals on the west rocks; so, making their boat ready, the brothers soon sailed round thither once more. They had turned the last projecting point of the headland, before opening the beach frequented by the seals, and Fritz had brought up the boat's head to the wind, preparatory to their lowering the sail and taking to their oars to pull into shore, when Eric, who had been looking out over the bows, arrested his brother's intention. "Hullo, Fritz!" he exclaimed, "there's some one there before us. I can see a boat, with a lot of men in it, close to the beach!" "Indeed!" said Fritz, quite as much astonished. "I wonder who they are?" He felt almost as indignant as a landlord on finding that a party of poachers had invaded his choicest preserves and were ruthlessly appropriating his pet pheasants! "Himmel!" he repeated, "I wonder who the fellows can be?" Just then, the discharge of several rifles all together, as if practising platoon firing, struck on his ear; and, as Fritz sniffed the smell of the burnt gunpowder floating by him in the air to seaward, driven off from shore by the wind, the saltpetrous scent did not tend to restore his equanimity! CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT. SOME VISITORS. "What donkeys we are!" exclaimed Eric presently, a moment or so after the discharge of the firearms. "We are real stupids to be astonished at all!" "How, in what way?" asked Fritz. "Why, the strange boat must have come from Tristan d'Acunha. Don't you recollect, we were told that a party always came sealing here, as well as at Nightingale Island, during the summer?" "Oh yes; I forgot," said Fritz. "I wonder, though, you didn't see their boat pass your look-out station--you, with your fine observant eyes!" "Ah, they must have come round to leeward of the promontory, close under the land," replied Eric to this taunt:--"that is how they escaped my notice. But, what shall we do now--go on, or return home?" "It strikes me we had better go home, for we shall have uncommon little sport to-day, since they have been first in the field!" said Fritz dryly. "Still, I suppose we'd better be friendly with them. Let us go on to shore first before leaving, and have a chat. No doubt, they'll be as much surprised to see us as we were just now at their unexpected appearance here." "Well, I don't know about that," observed Eric. "I should think young Glass would have told them about our having settled here." "But, I asked him not to mention it," replied Fritz, "and, as he seemed a very decent sort of young fellow, I dare say he has obeyed my wish-- especially as he was your friend, you know." "It's all right then," said Eric; "my Tristaner would be certain to keep his word if he promised it. Let us proceed now and astonish them with our presence, which must therefore, as you say, be quite unexpected." "Pull away then, brother." "Right you are!" said Eric in response; and the two, putting their backs into the oars, the boat was soon speeding to the point where the islanders were gathered in a group on the shore--far too busy with the seals they had shot to notice their approach. "Now," cried Fritz, when they were close to the others, although still unobserved, "let us give them a call." "Shout away!" said Eric; when, he and his brother joining their voices, they gave utterance to a ringing hail that must have frightened all the fish near. "Boat ahoy!" The party on shore, who had their backs turned seawards, jumped round at this as if they had been shot; but soon, an answering hail assured them that some one amongst the islanders had recognised them. "Hillo, whar be you sprung from?" inquired a voice with a strong nasal twang. It was that of Nat Slater, the "deck hand" of the Rhode Island steamboat! Fritz was perfectly astounded to find him now amongst the Tristaners. How came he there? What could possibly have become of the _Pilot's Bride_ and Captain Brown? These were the anxious thoughts that at once flashed through the mind of the young German, and his brother shared his anxiety to an equal extent. Nat Slater however did not keep them long in suspense. "I guess," he said--as soon as they reached the beach and accosted the islanders, who received them very coldly they could perceive, as if looking upon them now as rivals in the same pursuit--"me and the old man couldn't drive the same team long. We had a muss together, soon as you parted company, an' I asked him to put me ashore at Tristan, thinking to ship in another whaling craft; but, I'm blest if ary a one's called thar since the _Pilot's Bride_ sailed, so I've ben forced to chum in with these islanders!" "Did you get on a spree, or what, to make Captain Brown leave you behind?" asked Fritz, judging by what the skipper had told him of Mr Nathaniel Slater's character that the real facts of the case might put quite another complexion on his plausible statement, that the skipper had quarrelled with him. "Waall, I reckon, I did go on a bit of a bender aboard," said the whilom deck hand in a drawling way. "I managed to stow away a couple o' bottles of Bourbon whisky I got to Providence after I left hum, an' I thought I would have a licker-up arter we parted with you an' your brother, mister, I felt so kinder lonesome." "And I suppose you got so drunk that Captain Brown kicked you out of the ship?" exclaimed the young German indignantly. "Why, you knew his particular orders about never allowing any spirituous liquors on board his vessel when at sea!" "I guess he wern't boss of everybody," said the American coolly. "An' so I told him, too! But, say, mister, I've a kinder hankering to jine you and your brother haar; will you let a poor coon chum in?" "No, I confess I would rather not," was the instant reply that came from Fritz--a decision which, from his quick look of satisfaction, Eric most cordially shared in. "We did not appear to get on together very well before, and I certainly do not care to associate with any one who does not keep his word!" "I guess this here island don't belong to you, mister?" said Nat Slater sneeringly, on purpose apparently to make Fritz angry; but the young German remained perfectly cool and collected. "I never said it did," he answered. "Of course, you have every right to settle here if you like; but I and my brother decline having any association with you." "Oh, jist as you like, mister," replied the American, now showing himself in his true colours, having evidently nourished a spite against the two brothers on account of Captain Brown's friendship for them. "I'm durned if I kinder kear now to hang out along with you, as I sed at first; I'd rayther a durned sight stick to these good chaps haar, as hev more friendly feelins than a pair o' blessed foreign coons that don't know how to treat a free-born American citizen like a man! I guess, though, I'll spile your sealing for you, if I hev any influence with the islanders." "You are welcome to do your worst," said Fritz; and then, as young Glass was not amongst the Tristaners--who now seemed, either from the deck hand's threat or on account of some other reason, to look upon them in rather a hostile manner--he and Eric withdrew from the party. Retiring at once to their boat, they returned to their own little settlement in the eastern bay, with the resolve of not coming out after the seals again until after the islanders had left the coast, so as not to risk any further altercation with them. "It's a great nuisance, though," grumbled Eric, who was especially annoyed by the fact of their going back to the hut with an empty boat instead of the full cargo | he expected, similar to their first day's experience of sealing. "I should like to pay out that mean Yankee for his spite. He's not like a true sailor, for he wasn't worth his salt aboard the _Pilot's Bride_; and I've heard the skipper say that he only took him out of good nature and nothing else!" "Yes, I know he only allowed him to come in order to save him from ruin at home," Fritz said. "But, he might just as well have left him at Providence, for all the good the voyage has done him!" "Well, he has spoilt our sealing, as he said he would," observed Eric after a bit, when they were rounding the western promontory of their own little bay, and their cottage home was just in sight. "Only to-day, or, at the worst, for but a short time longer," replied Fritz. "The islanders will not stay for any period after they've filled their boat; and, of course, he will return with them to Tristan. He's too lazy to stop here and shift for himself, although he would have been glad to sponge upon us." "Joy go with him when he leaves!" cried Eric heartily on the keel of their whale-boat touching the beach, when they then proceeded to draw her up on the shingle and take all their traps and gear out of her. They did this in case their American friend might persuade the islanders to come round to the bay and make a raid on their property, so as to prevent them from interfering with their sealing--that being the only grievance which they could possibly have against them. However, as next morning, the whale-boat lay intact where they had left her, their suspicions of the Tristaners' bad faith proved to be quite unfounded. Still, the brothers were glad to find, from Eric's observations on the tableland, whence he kept a constant watch on the visitors' movements, that, after a ten days' stay they left the little island once more to them alone; although, as they also discovered to their grief a short time after their departure, the Tristaners took away with them the greater number of the goats on the plateau, or else killed them for their sustenance whilst they remained. This was a sad discovery. The islanders were quite welcome to the pigs, thought the brother crusoes; but the flesh of the goats was so delicate and needful besides, as a change of diet to their ordinary salt provision, that any diminution of their numbers was a serious loss to them. It was not until a week at least after the Tristaners had left, that Eric reported the presence of seals again on the west beach, where, probably, the fact of the islanders camping on the spot had quite as much to do with scaring away the timid creatures from the coast as the warfare waged upon them. Fortunately, however, the poor animals had an affection for the place; for, having now observed, no doubt from some of their number sent out as scouts, that their enemies had departed, they once more returned to the rock caverns they had before frequented. "There are some of those `elephants,' as you call them, amongst them, too," said Eric when he came down the cliff with the news to Fritz. "There are a great many more than I saw last time." "Ah, we must try and catch some of the gentlemen this trip," remarked Fritz. "Perhaps it will be the last chance we may have of capturing sea elephants!" "Right you are," replied the lad. "I'll do my best to kill them; but really, brother, they look awfully formidable fellows!" "Oh, they're not half so dangerous as they look," said Fritz. "They're like your friends the penguins; their bark is worse than their bite!" "Ha, ha!" laughed Eric good-temperedly; "you will continue to chaff me about those wretched birds I suppose! Never mind, though, I've got the joke about the billy-goat frightening you as a set-off, eh, brother?" "That's nothing--nothing!" said Fritz in an off-hand way. "We'd better see about starting round after the seals, I think." "Ah, it's all very well your trying to get out of it like that!" retorted Eric, going off, laughing, to haul the whale-boat down into the bay; when, as soon as she was afloat and all their preparations made, they set off again round the headland for the sealing ground. They noticed, as they approached, that the animals were much more wary now than at the time of their first visit, many plunging into the water from off the outlying rocks on the boat nearing the shore; consequently, they had to use their rifles at once to secure any seals at all, without trusting to their harpoons. Fritz fired six shots rapidly from the Remington he carried, Eric, who was not so handy in the use of the weapon, managing about half the number; and then, seeing that some of the animals which were only wounded were endeavouring to wriggle down the beach into the sea, the two dashed in at them with the harpoons and boat-hook--Master Eric selecting the latter weapon from his being more accustomed to its use. They had a great scrimmage amongst the struggling seals, which roared and bellowed like so many bull calves, looking when they opened their mouths as if they would swallow up the brothers at one gulp; but, it was all bravado, for the poor things had not an ounce of fight in them. They suffered themselves to be knocked on the head without the slightest resistance, only bleating piteously when they received their death-blow and dropping down in their tracks at once. One enormous sea elephant Fritz made for, just as he was on the point of sliding off into the sea from a little rocky jetty where he had ensconced himself. The animal reared itself on its fore flappers and seemed to tower over the young German; but, on Fritz pluckily piercing it with his harpoon right through the chest, the warm blood gushed over him in a torrent and the portentous sea elephant sank down lifeless. The creature was upwards of eighteen feet long, from the point of his queer-looking nose or snout, which was elongated like an elephant's trunk--hence its name of "sea elephant"--to the hind flappers; while it must have been pretty nearly ten feet in girth. "Ah, here are eight barrels of oil at least!" shouted Fritz when he had given the monster his death-blow. "Fancy all that quantity from one sea elephant!" "You don't say you've caught one of those fellows?" cried Eric, who was kneeling down and trying to detach a little cub seal from its dead mother. "I wish I had killed him, instead of my victim here. I wonder what this poor little baby thing will do without its parent?" "You'd better knock it on the head," said Fritz. "It is safe to pine away, if left alone to take care of itself, now that its mother is dead." "I'm sure I can't do that," replied the lad, turning away from the pitiful sight. "It would seem to me exactly like committing a murder in cold blood!" "You are too tender-hearted for a sealer," said Fritz in his matter-of- fact way; and then, with one tap from the butt end of his harpoon on its nose, he settled the fate of the poor little beast. The result of this day's sport was, some thirteen sealskins, in addition to that of the sea elephant, which, although much larger of course than the others, did not appear to be of the same quality of fur. From the number of animals they bagged, it was apparent that the bullets from their rifles must have penetrated more than one seal at a time, passing through the one aimed at and hitting some of those behind. This would be quite feasible if the leaden messenger of death did not come in contact with the bone, for the bodies of the mammals were very soft and yielding from the amount of adipose tissue they contained. These sealskins, with those which they had previously obtained, made up their quota to thirty. The oil, likewise, extracted from the blubber filled up their remaining empty casks, so that they had now no receptacle wherein to stow any more should they succeed in killing more seals. But, the brothers need not have troubled themselves on this account, for their last onslaught on the breeding-ground had the effect of the final straw on the camel's back, not one of the cat-faced animals--as Eric called them, from their fancied resemblance to old Mouser--being to be seen in the neighbourhood of the coast for months afterwards, albeit the young crusoes were constantly on the watch for them! Boiling down the blubber was, certainly, a tedious operation. The brothers had made a rocky bed for their cauldron, near the hut, with an ingeniously constructed fireplace beneath it which had a cross-cut trench for creating a draught, in the way Fritz noticed that the soldiers made their camp fires during the war--the whole affair when finished looking like one of those "coppers" placed in back kitchens for washing days. Over this laboratory, the two were busy enough for some days, making themselves so black with smoke and begrimed with oil that they resembled a couple of chimney sweepers, or engine fitters for the nonce! Eric, who superintended the details by reason of the superior knowledge which his whaling experience gave him, first cut up the blubber into long thin strips, which Fritz again subdivided into smaller portions with the aid of his sheath knife. These strips of blubber were then heaped into the pot, under which a roaring fire was kept up, the operation being continued until the cauldron was full; when, as it came to the boil, the refuse matter and pieces of flesh adhering to the fat were skimmed off from the top, and the melted oil allowed to cool gradually, after which it was emptied into the casks kept ready by the side of the hut. The brothers were very glad when the job was ended, for the blubber smelt terribly fishy and almost suffocated them with its fumes as the pot came to the boiling point; but, they persevered with their task until their casks were all full and headed up, when they proceeded to dress their sealskins roughly and salt them down in a large puncheon which they had reserved especially for their storage. Next, they had a grand clean up, putting the hut and place in order, the blubber boiling having covered everything with a deposit of oily soot; and, the morning after they had made things comfortable again, they proceeded down to the garden to see how matters were progressing there, not having visited the spot since the day they had started on their last sealing excursion. "I say, brother," observed Eric, as they directed their steps towards the little wood beyond the waterfall, where they could hear the thrushes chirping and whistling as they came near; for, the penguins were not so noisy now, having hatched their eggs and abandoned the nests they used to make such a fuss over. "I say, brother, how are the days going--it must be nearly the end of December now, eh?" Fritz thought for a moment. He was the methodical member of the family and had always been looked up to as having the best memory for dates at home. "Himmel!" he exclaimed. "What day do you think it is?" "I'm sure I can't imagine," replied Eric. "All the days go alike here; why, it seems more than a year already since good Captain Brown left us, although I know it's only a few months." "Only, think, Eric, it is--" "No, never!" said the lad, interrupting his brother and guessing that the answer he was going to give would confirm his own conjecture. "It cannot be, really, eh?" While saying this, Eric stopped abruptly as they were entering the little grove of buckthorn trees, where the thrushes and finches were hopping about amongst their branches as merry as grigs in the sunshine; for, the weather was as warm as our June, although it was then December--the seasons in southern latitudes being the reverse of what we are accustomed to in Europe. "Yes, you've guessed right, laddie," replied Fritz, looking into his face with a smile. "It is, without doubt, Christmas Day!" "What, to-day?" said Eric, incredulous in spite of himself. "Yes, to-day," repeated his brother. "Well, that is wonderful!" exclaimed Eric; adding a moment afterwards, however, in a tone of the greatest dismay, "only think, though, we haven't prepared a Christmas tree, or anything!" "Never mind," said Fritz consolingly. "Those sort of arrangements for the festival would be a little out of place here." "Would they?" cried Eric. "Ah, we'll see about that!" CHAPTER TWENTY NINE. FRITZ GOES HUNTING. After his last remark, Eric, silent for a little while, as if buried in deep thought, followed behind his brother to the garden patch, which was found in the most flourishing state. The potatoes were all in full flower and the haulms of sturdy growth promised well for the crop of tubers beneath, some indeed being already half withered, as if fit for digging; while pods were thick on the two rows of peas planted, and the scarlet runners were a mass of bloom and brilliancy. At such a glorious sight, Eric could remain silent no longer. "This is capital," he exclaimed in high delight; "why, we've got a regular harvest, brother!" "Yes, the great Mother Earth has rewarded our exertions," said Fritz thoughtfully. "It is wonderful how she yields to those who cultivate her properly! I can see that we'll have bushels of potatoes--enough to last us through the winter." "Aye, and peas and beans, too," chorussed Eric. "Look, here, at this lot, Fritz! I believe we can have a dish of them to-day." "What, to keep up the festival with?" said his brother, smiling. "I see you are still thinking of that; but, methinks, green peas at Christmas will be rather an anachronism!" "Hang the what-do-you-call-it--oh, anachronism!" cried the lad impulsively. "When we're at Rome we must do as Rome does." "I don't remember, though, that the citizens of `The city on the seven hills' ate peas in December, as far as my reading of the classics go," remarked Fritz ironically. He liked to "pick up" his brother sometimes in fun. "Ah, that was because they were pagans, and didn't keep up our Christmas ceremonies!" cried Eric triumphantly. "Still, Romans or no Romans, I declare we'll have a rare banquet to-day, brother, eh!" "No roast beef, I hope!" "Oh no, bother it--something better than that! You just let me alone and you'll see bye-and-bye!" "All right, laddie, I don't mind leaving the cooking in your hands, now," said Fritz kindly, wishing to blot out the recollection of his last remark. "You have had experience since your first memorable attempt, which I must say was perhaps excusable under the circumstances." "You are a brick, old fellow," responded Eric, much pleased at this speech. "Only trust matters to my hands and, I promise you I'll not let you have any opportunity to find fault with me a second time!" "Very good; that's agreed," said Fritz; and, after thus settling matters, the two then went about the garden, gathering its produce--the elder digging up some new potatoes for trial, while Eric picked all the early peas that seemed fit, quite filling a good-sized basket which he had brought with him; although Fritz, who had not been so thoughtful, had to put his potatoes in a handkerchief. On their way home, the brothers passed through the deserted penguin rookery, with never a bark or a grumble from the whilom excited birds as they tramped the well-worn paths which they had made from the thicket to the beach. The inhabitants of the feathered colony were now educating their little ones in the art of fishing; and, the scene in front of the bay was quite enlivening as the birds swam about gracefully in curves, losing in the sea that ungainliness and ugly, awkward appearance which seemed inseparable from them on land, and prosecuting their task, without any of the noise that had distinguished them while breeding. Birds were darting about--here, there, and everywhere in the water; some, swimming after each other as if in a race, like a shoal of fish; others, again, chasing one another on the surface, on which they seemed to run, using the ends of their wings, or flappers, to propel them like oars, for they dipped in the tips of their pinions and scattered the spray in their progress. To add to the charm, the calm expanse of sea reflected the pure ultramarine blue of the sky above, being illumined at the same time by the bright sunlight, which brought out in strong relief the twin headlands embracing the little bay with their outstretching arms. Nothing, indeed, could be more unlike the crusoes' old associations of Christmas and Christmas-tide than this prospect presented, nothing less suggestive of: home; and yet, standing there, on the shore of their lonely sea-girt and cliff-embattled island home, gazing across the ocean that spanned the horizon, the thoughts of both strayed away to their little native town on the Baltic--where, probably, the housetops were then covered with snow and the waters bound in chains of ice; but where, also, troops of children were singing Christmas hymns and Christmas bells were ringing, while prayers were no doubt being offered up for them, so distant and yet so near in spirit! Eric, however, was not long pensive. The day was too bright and fine for him to be sorrowful or reflective for any length of time; so, after staying by the side of Fritz for a short while on the shore, sharing his thoughts about the dear ones far away--although neither uttered a word on the subject the one to the other--his impulsive nature quickly asserted itself, as usual. "I'm off, old fellow," said the young sailor, slinging the basket of freshly picked peas on his arm and leaving the bundle of potatoes for Fritz to carry. "It is getting near the noonday hour, and time for me to be thinking of preparing dinner!" "All right, laddie, go on and I will follow you soon," replied the other, but, still, without making any move from his seat on the shingle. "Mind, and don't forget the potatoes," cried Eric, who was already half- way towards their hut. "I shall want them soon!" "All right," replied the other, but the mention of the potatoes, which had been an anxious consideration with Fritz all along, seemed to have the effect of banishing his sad reflections; for, in another minute, he, with his bundle on arm, followed Eric up the incline that led to the cottage. Considering all things, the two had a capital Christmas dinner. Indeed, Eric, the cook, so greatly distinguished himself on this occasion that he blotted out all recollection of his previous mishaps when undertaking a similar role. What say you to a splendid ham, one of those given them by Captain Brown; green peas, fresh and tender and dressed to perfection; and, new potatoes? Many a person might have a worse meal on a warm summer day, like it was this anniversary of the festival on Inaccessible Island! Nor was this all; for, after the more substantial portion of the feast, Eric introduced a wonderfully savoury compound in the confectionery line, which he had manufactured with some care. This consisted of flour and sugar made into a thick paste, with some of those very preserved peaches which had figured so prominently in the despised stew that had been Eric's first essay in cooking, placed within the envelope, the compound being then boiled in a saucepan until thoroughly done. During the early months of the new year, the brothers had little to do save attending to their garden, digging up the remaining potatoes when ripe, and then storing them in a corner of their hut. They also cleared some more land and planted out the little seedling cabbages in long rows, so that in time they had a fine show of this vegetable, which was especially valuable as an antiscorbutic to the continuous use of salt meat,--now their main nutriment with the exception of a few birds which Fritz brought down occasionally with his fowling piece. Once or twice they went round the promontory in their boat, in pursuit of stray single seals; but, the animals were so shy that only a long shot could be had at them. This made it a risky and almost needless task to waste gunpowder in their pursuit; for, in the event of the animals being merely wounded and not killed right out at once, they invariably slipped off the rocks, disappearing in deep water before the brothers had time to row up to them and haul them into the boat. Under these circumstances, therefore, although they expended a considerable number of bullets, they had only two more sealskins to show in return to add to their great hauls at the commencement of the season; so, after a third unsuccessful expedition early in the new year, they made up their minds to leave the animals alone until the following summer. Then, they determined to begin their campaign before the Tristaners should forestall them, hoping to secure a large number by a newly-organised system of capture--Eric assailing them from the shore by way of the descent from the tableland on the western coast, while Fritz attacked them by sea in the boat. "Talking of expeditions," said Eric, while the two were thus planning together their future seal campaign--"we haven't been up on the cliffs for a long time now; suppose we ascend the plateau and see how the pigs and goats are getting on, eh?" "That's a very good idea," replied his brother. "The garden is in good order now, needing nothing further to be done to it for some time; while, as for reading, I'm sure I have devoured every book in our little library, including Shakespeare, which I know by heart--so, there's nothing to occupy my mind with." "I'm in the same position precisely," said Eric. "You therefore agree to our hunting expedition, eh?" "Yes; the more especially as I wish to try and pot that old billy-goat. He is such an artful old fellow that he always keeps just out of range of my weapon, as if he knows the distance it carries. He will thus offer good sport. That other kid too, that we saw, must be grown up by now." "He shall be my prey," cried Eric, proceeding immediately to polish his rifle, so as to be ready for the excursion. A day or two afterwards, the two ascended the cliff by the now familiar tussock-grass ladder; but, although Eric could almost have gone up blindfold this time, the ascent was quite as difficult as it had been at first to Fritz, who had never climbed it once since the day he sprained his ankle in coming down, having left the look-out department entirely to the sailor lad, on account, as he said, of its "being more in his line!" As he had not, therefore, seen it for so long, Fritz noticed a considerable change on going up. The grass had grown very much taller, while the trees appeared more bushy; but, besides these alterations, the inhabitants of the plateau had become changed and more varied. The droves of wild hogs had increased considerably; while the goats, headed by the old billy, who looked as lively and venerable as ever, had diminished--of course, through the ravages of the Tristaners, as mentioned before. Still, not even the loss of these latter animals specially attracted his attention; what he particularly observed was, that the prairie tableland had a fresh class of visitors, which must have arrived with the new year, for they had not been there when he had previously ascended the cliff. Eric was too much taken up with looking for seals to notice them, for he certainly never mentioned them on his return below to the hut; and, so, Fritz was doubly surprised now at seeing them. These newcomers were the wandering albatross--the "Diomedia exulans," as naturalists term it--which sailors believe to float constantly in the upper air, never alighting on land or sea, but living perpetually on the wing! Eric was firmly convinced of this from what he had been told when on board the _Pilot's Bride_; but Fritz, of course, expressed doubts of the bird having any such fabulous existence when it was pointed out to him while illustrating "flight without motion," as its graceful movement through the air might be described. Now, he had ocular demonstration of the fact that the albatross not only rests its weary feet on solid earth sometimes, but that it also builds a nest, and, marvellous to relate, actually lays eggs! No sooner had Fritz set foot on the plateau, after a weary climb up the toilsome staircase which the tussock-grass and irregularities of the cliff afforded, than he startled one of these birds. It was straddling on the ground in a funny fashion over a little heap of rubbish, as the pile appeared to him. The albatross was quite in the open part of the tableland, and the reason why it selected such a spot for its resting- place, instead of amid the brushwood and tussock-grass thickets that spread over the plateau, was apparent at once when the bird was disturbed; for, it had to take a short run along the bare ground before it could get its pinions thoroughly inflated and rise in the air. Had it been amidst the trees or long grass, Fritz would have been able to approach it and knock it over before it could have sought safety in flight, on account of its long wings requiring a wide space for their expansion. On proceeding to the little heap of rubbish, as Fritz thought it, from which the albatross had risen, he found it to be a nest. This was built, like that of an ostrich, about a foot high from the surface of the ground, on the exterior side, and three feet or so in diameter; while the interior was constructed of grass and pieces of stick woven together with clay. There was one large egg in the centre of this nest, a little bigger than that of a swan and quite white, with the exception of a band of small bright red spots which encircled the larger end. In addition to the albatross, several nests of which were scattered about the open ground on the plateau to the number of a hundred or more, there were lots of mollymawks and terns, or "sea swallows." These latter were beautifully plumaged, Fritz thought, the wings and body being delicately harmonised in white and pale grey, while tiny black heads and red beaks and feet, further improved their dainty appearance. After noticing these new arrivals carefully, although he would not fire at any of them, thinking it needless destruction to kill any creatures but such as were required for food or other purposes, such as the seals, Fritz made after the goats. These, he soon discovered, had removed themselves, under the leadership of "Kaiser Billy"--as his brother had christened the big old male which had frightened them both by his shadow on the cliff--to the further side of the tableland, placing the width of the plateau between the brothers and themselves. "Artful old brute!" said Fritz on noticing this. "Ah, he doesn't intend you to come near him to-day," observed Eric. "He's too wise to put himself within reach of your rifle." "Is he?" replied the other, beginning to get vexed, as the goat dexterously managed to preserve the same distance between them by shifting round in a sidling fashion as he and Eric advanced. "I tell you what, laddie, you go round one way, and I shall take the reverse direction. By that means we will circumvent the cunning old gentleman." These tactics were adopted; but, by some keen intuitive instinct which warned him which of the brothers was most to be feared, "Kaiser Billy," while allowing Eric many a time to get within range, still carefully kept out of Fritz's reach! It was most provoking. "Hang the old fellow!" cried the elder between his clenched teeth. "I'll have him yet;" and, thinking to deceive the animal's wariness by pretending to give up the chase, he sat down in one of the nests of the albatross, whence he could command a good view around of the several thickets of grass and brushwood, asking Eric to continue driving the goats towards him while he lay here concealed. This Eric did, after first shooting the plumpest-looking of the females, which had the effect of scaring the rest and making them run in the direction where Fritz was lying in ambush. The goats, however, went faster than either of the brothers expected; so Fritz, seeing them coming out of a clump of brushwood in the distance just after Eric had brought down his selected victim, immediately crouched down in his retreat. Hearing soon afterwards, however, the sound of the animals' hoofs, he was afraid of raising his head to make an observation as to their whereabouts until they should come closer, thinking that his sudden appearance might cause them race off again in another direction and lose him the chance of a shot. He had not to wait long, for the goats came closer and closer--too close, indeed, to be pleasant! "Look out, Fritz! look out, brother! they're right on top of you," shouted out Eric from the distance, away behind the flock, now coming up at a gallop, and still headed by the venerable "Kaiser Billy." Fritz at once scrambled to his feet, rifle in hand, cocking the weapon as he rose up; but, at the same instant that he stood on his legs, a blow like a battering ram struck him in the small of the back, sending him down flying to the ground again on his face and pitching the cocked rifle out of his hands. This was not the end of it, either; for, the weapon went off with a loud bang as it fell beside him, the bullet penetrating his leg just below the knee in an upward direction and narrowly escaping his head. As for "Kaiser Billy," who had butted him as he rose up, and thus did the damage, he galloped off with a loud "baa" of triumph, as if shouting a paean of victory. "Himmel! are you hurt, Fritz?" called out Eric, hastening up on hearing the report of the rifle. He was alarmed at seeing his brother lying motionless on the ground. But, there was no answer; nor did Fritz even move at the sound of his voice! CHAPTER THIRTY. ANOTHER MISHAP. In another minute Eric arrived where his brother was lying; when, throwing himself on his knees, he bent over him anxiously. "Oh, Fritz, are you badly hurt?" he cried: and, still receiving no answer, he burst into a passion of sobs. "He's dead, he's dead!" he wailed in a broken voice--"dead, never to speak to me more!" "No, laddie, not quite dead yet," whispered Fritz faintly. The sudden blow in the back from the goat's horns, striking him as it did at the base of the spine, had rendered him for the moment unconscious; the unexpected attack had injured him terribly--more so, indeed, than the bullet wound through his leg. Besides, he was lying face downwards, and so was unable to turn over, which fact prevented him from speaking more plainly when he recovered his senses. "Not dead? Oh, I am so glad!" shouted out Eric joyously, in sudden revulsion of feeling. "I was afraid that you were killed!" "I feel pretty near it," said Fritz, although he spoke now in a stronger tone, Eric having partly raised him up, by putting his arm under his neck. "Gently, laddie, gently," he called out, however, as his brother lifted him, "my poor back hurts fearfully!" "I thought it was your leg, Fritz, for it is bleeding awfully. Your trousers are wet with blood!" "That's nothing, laddie--nothing to speak of," said Fritz. "Oh, isn't it?" cried the other, who had been busily cutting away the trouser leg and stocking with his sheath knife. "Why, the bullet has gone through the fleshy part of your calf." "I wish it had gone through the horny part of that horrid old goat," said Fritz grimly, smiling at his own joke, which made Eric laugh. "The old brute! But, you would go after him, you know." "Yes; still, I am suffering now, and perhaps justly, for not leaving the poor animal alone. He never harmed me before I tried to harm him, so it only serves me right! It's a bad job, Eric; I'm afraid I shan't be able to get down to the hut again. You will have to rig me up some sort of shelter here." "Oh, no, that won't be necessary," said Eric, glad that his brother seemed to be getting more like his old calm self and able to look matters in the face. "Why, how can I move? Do you think I shall be able to climb down that abominable tussock-grass ladder in this condition, especially when I was hardly able to manage it while sound in wind and limb--which I can't say is the case at present?" "I didn't think of your getting down that way, old fellow," said the lad, after a moment's reflection. "I've got another plan in my noddle-- a better one than yours I think." "And what is that?" asked Fritz. "Why, you know where you are now, don't you?" "Yes, I should think I did; I haven't quite lost my consciousness yet!" "You are close to the western side of the coast, just near where the plateau slopes down to the sea by our sealing ground." "Well, what of that?" "Why, don't you see through my plan yet, brother? Can I not pull the whale-boat round from our bay, and then manage to lift you down the incline here into it--thus getting you back home easily in that way?" "Himmel, Eric, you're a grand fellow," exclaimed Fritz, in honest admiration of the proposal. "I declare I never thought of such a simple thing as that. Of course it can be done. What a stupid I was, not to think of it! That old goat must have knocked all my seven senses out of my head; for, I declare I never recollected that there was any other way of getting down from here save by the waterfall gully!" "Ah, well, there is another way," said Eric, laughing joyously. "But, really we must now see about using it, for I don't want you to remain up here all night when you may be so much more comfortable in the hut. I will scramble down and fetch round the boat at once, if there is nothing more I can do for you before I go--is there anything you wish?" "No, nothing, now that you've raised my head and propped it up so nicely with your coat. I should be glad, though, if you will bring a can of water with you when you come back with the boat." "Stay, I'll get some for you now!" cried the lad; and, flying across the plateau, he was soon half-way down a niche in the gully whence he could reach the cascade. In a few minutes more, he was up again on the tableland and by the side of Fritz, with his cap full of the welcome water, which tasted to the sufferer, already feverish from the bullet wound--which Eric had bandaged up to stop the bleeding--more delicious than nectar, more strengthening than wine. It at once brought the colour back to his cheek and the fire to his eye. "Ha!" Fritz exclaimed, "that draught has made a new man of me, laddie. You may be off as soon as you please, now, to fetch the boat; while I will wait patiently here until you can bring it round the headland. How's the wind?" "South-east and by south," cried the young sailor promptly. "That will be all in your favour, then. Go now, laddie, and don't be longer than you can help." "You may depend on that," cried Eric, pressing his brother's hand softly; and, in another moment, he was racing again across the plateau to the point where the two had ascended from the gully by the waterfall. Ere long, Eric had brought round the whale-boat to the haunt of the seals on the west beach; when, after a good deal of labour, in which he could not help hurting Fritz somewhat, he succeeded in getting the sufferer down the sloping rocks. Thence, he lifted him bodily into the stern-sheets of the boat, where he had prepared a comfortable couch by piling up on the bottom grating all the blankets and rugs from the hut. Eric had a hard pull back against the wind and tide round the headland, there being none to help him with an oar; but, naturally indomitable, he bravely accomplished the task at last, arriving back at the bay before sunset with his almost unconscious burden, who was now unable to move or assist him in the least. Fortunately, the most arduous part of the transportation was now accomplished, the remainder being "all plain sailing," as Eric said. The lad certainly had a most inventive mind; for, as soon as they reached their own little bay, he once more astonished Fritz--who was glad enough to get so far, but puzzled as to how he would ever arrive at the hut, knowing that the lad would never be able to carry him there. "Now, brother," cried Eric, "you just stop quietly where you are a minute or two while I get the carriage ready." "The carriage?" cried Fritz, more puzzled than ever. "What do you mean, laddie?" "The wheelbarrow, of course," answered Eric, laughing. "See, I have put the door of our hut across it; and, with the bedding on top of this, I shall be able to wheel you, without the slightest jolting, right up to the cottage." "Donnerwetter!" exclaimed Fritz--"you're a wonderful lad; you seem to think of everything." "Nonsense! Silence, now--you mustn't talk; it might bring on fever perhaps!" exclaimed Eric, to stop his brother's grateful expressions. Then, lifting him out carefully from the boat, he placed the invalid on the novel ambulance wagon he had so ingeniously improvised; and, rolling the wheelbarrow along the little pathway up the incline that led to the hut, he proceeded carefully to transport him home. Arrived here, Eric at once put Fritz to bed, so that he might be able to examine his injuries more closely and apply proper bandages to the wounded leg and back, in place of the temporary appliances he had made shift with when first attending to the wounded hero, who was now able to direct him what to do and how to do it. Eric could not help thinking what an unlucky fellow that elder brother of his was! The cliff seemed fatal to him; for, the first time he ascended it, he sprained his ankle, which laid him up for three weeks; and now he had hurt himself even worse. Really, the sailor lad wished there were no crags at all; but, should that devout consummation not be feasible, then he wished there were no means of getting to the summit, for then Fritz would never incur any danger through climbing there. Little did Eric think, as these hasty reflections passed through his mind, that, in a very short while, his last wish would be gratified--and that in a way, too, which would seriously affect them both! The very next morning, indeed, he was glad enough to go up the cliff by the tussock-grass ladder, in order to fetch the young goat he had shot the day before, which, in the excitement of Fritz's accident, had been left behind on the plateau; and, as he was coming down the gully again, he saw the old goat "Kaiser Billy," and shook his fist at him. "You old rascal!" he cried--"had it not been for you and your nasty horns, poor Fritz would be now all right." He then fired a shot at the animal in the distance; but, the knowing fellow, who must have noticed the lad's deadly aim the previous afternoon--when he had slain one of his family while she was galloping along beside him--now kept carefully out of the range of Eric's rifle, so that the bullet did not fall any way near him, so the lad had to descend the tussock-grass ladder in a somewhat disappointed frame of mind. He had not wished actually to hurt the old goat, but merely to give him a sort of mild lesson anent his impudent treatment of Fritz. However, the astute animal declined learning even from so gentle an instructor as Eric, despite the possibility of the lad having his welfare at heart! This was the last time the sailor lad ever had the chance to climb up or down the face of the cliff by means of the much-abused ladder-way; for, within the next few days, a sudden mishap happened that cleared the tangled masses of grass away in a jiffy, leaving the precipitous pass through the gorge bare--the grim rocks thenceforth disclosing themselves in all their naked ruggedness, for, there were no friendly tendrils hanging down whereby to escalade the heights. The accident occurred in this wise. When clearing the land for the garden, a large amount of brushwood and weeds had to be removed from its surface. These, when cut down and dug up, made a large heap of rubbish, which, for the sake of neatness and being out of the way, was piled up at the bottom of the gorge adjoining the waterfall--the embrasure of the gully making a capital dust-hole, as Eric had suggested. From the effects of the hot sun, this rubbish was now as dry as straw; so, one afternoon, when Fritz had so far recovered from his injuries as to be able to crawl out of the hut and sit on a bench outside, which the two had constructed under a rude sort of porch, Eric determined to signalise his brother's convalescence by having a bonfire in honour of the event. To the impulsive lad it was all one to think of such a thing and to carry out the idea. In a moment, rushing from Fritz's side, he had drawn his inseparable box of matches from his pocket, struck a light, and ignited the pile of rubbish. "Doesn't it flare up splendidly?" he cried with glee as he watched the tongue-like flames darting upwards, the whole body of dry material being soon in a red fiery glow, so hot and scorching that the lad had to move away from the vicinity; and, returning to the front of the hut he stood for a time by the side of Fritz, gazing with great admiration at the blaze, which, mounting higher and higher, quickly enveloped the gorge with clouds of that light, pungent smoke which wood fires always give out. "Yes, it burns well enough," said the calm, methodical Fritz; "but, perhaps, laddie, it will spread farther than you intend. I fear it will burn up the little wood to the right of our garden, with all the poor thrushes and other birds in it. It is easy enough to start a fire, you know: the difficulty is to limit its action and put it out when you wish!" "Oh, there's no fear about that," replied Eric with great nonchalance. "The wind is blowing from the north-east and will only carry the flames against the cliff, where there is nothing to harm." Was there not? Higher and higher rose the smoke, ascending pyramidically up the chimney-like gorge; and, the quick-darting tongues of flame could be seen spreading through the hazy veil, while the crackle and roar of the fire sounded fiercer and fiercer. Presently, growing bolder in its strength, the fire advanced outwards from the cleft in the rock where it was first kindled, spreading to the right and left of the gully. Next, it began to clamber up the face of the cliff, burning away gaily even right under the waterfall, which seemed powerless to stay its rapid progress. "Look, Eric," cried Fritz, "it has caught the tussock grass now close to our ladder. I told you it would do mischief!" "Bother it all, so it has!" exclaimed the lad, darting off with the vain intention of trying to stop the conflagration. He might just as well have attempted to arrest the flow of the sea in the little bay below by the aid of his much-detested spade! Crackle, crackle--puff--whish; and, in another few moments, the whole cliff seemed on fire, the flames licking every particle of herbage off the face of the rock. The heat soon made the solid stone glow like molten iron; while the columns of white smoke, as they rose up, were swept by the wind over the tableland, frightening away several of the albatross, which hovered over the scene of devastation on poised wing, wondering apparently what all the fuss was about! The fire gradually burnt itself out when there was nothing more to consume, only an angry pile of smouldering embers remaining below the waterfall, which still danced and tumbled itself over the blackened edges of the crags, no longer festooned with the tussock-grass and shrubs which had previously given the brothers handhold and foothold when climbing to the summit of the cliff. The ladder up to Eric's look-out station being now irremediably destroyed, henceforth the sphere of action of the brother crusoes would be limited to the confined valley in which they had landed and built their home; for, there was now no means of reaching the tableland, save by the pass on the western side near their sealing station, to reach which they would have to use the whale-boat and venture out to sea, round the eastern or western headland. They were now really shut completely within their little valley, without a chance of escaping in any sudden emergency, except by taking to the water! The destruction of the ladder-way was a sad calamity; but, that was not the worst of the damage done by Eric's bonfire! It was late in the afternoon when the lad first lit up the pile of rubbish and night came ere the fire had died out, its blazing light, reflected back by the glistening surface of the cliff, shining out to sea from the bay, like a beacon welcoming the passing mariner to friendly shores--instead of which, the cruel crags that encircled the island only grinned through the surf, like the pointed teeth of a pack of snarling wolves, waiting to rend and tear any hapless craft that should make for them! In addition to this, there was yet another peril to any ship in the vicinity; for, the wind from the north-east had risen to a gale as the evening set in, bringing with it a heavy, rolling swell that thundered in upon the beach with a harsh, grating roar, throwing up columns of spray over the projecting peaks of the headlands on either hand. "I hope no vessel will mistake your bonfire for a beacon," said Fritz, as the darkness increased. "If so, and they should chance to approach the land, God help them, with this wind and sea on!" "I trust not," replied Eric sadly, already regretting his handiwork; "it would be a bad look-out for them!" But, as he spoke the words, the sound of a cannon could be heard coming from seaward over the water; and the lad shuddered with apprehension. CHAPTER THIRTY ONE. THE WRECK OF THE BRIG. "Himmel!" exclaimed Fritz, rising up from the bench on which he was sitting and clutching on to the side of the hut for support, being still very feeble and hardly able to stand upright. "There must be a ship out there approaching the island. If she should get too close inshore, she is doomed!" But, Eric did not answer him. The lad had already rushed down to the beach; and, climbing on to a projecting boulder, was peering into the offing, endeavouring to make out the vessel whose signal gun had been heard in the distance. The darkness, however, was too great. The heavens were overcast with thick, drifting clouds, while the sea below was as black as ink--except where the breakers at the base of the cliffs broke in masses of foam that gave out a sort of phosphorescent light for the moment, lighting up the outlines of the headlands during the brief interval, only for them to be swallowed up the next instant in the sombre gloom that enwrapped the bay and surrounding scene. Eric, consequently, could see nothing beyond the wall of heaving water which the rollers presented as they thundered on the shingle, dragging back the pebbles in their back-wash with a rattling noise, as if the spirits of the deep were playing with dice in the depths below under the waves! At his back, the lad could see the bonfire still blazing, casting the foreground in all the deeper shadow from its flickering light; and, never did he regret anything more in his life than the sudden impulse which had led him into so dangerous a freak, as that of lighting the bonfire. Who knew what further terrible peril that treacherous fire might not lead to, besides the mischief it had already done? Bye-and-bye, there came the sound of another gun from the sea. The report sounded nearer this time; still, Eric could see nothing in sight on the horizon when some break in the clouds allowed him a momentary glimpse of the angry ocean--nothing but the huge billows chasing each other in towards the land and the seething foam at the base of the crags, on which they broke themselves in impotent fury when they found their further course arrested by the rocky ramparts of the island. Nor could the lad hear anything beyond the crash of the breakers and splash of the eddying water, which sometimes washed up to his feet, as he stood on the boulder gazing out vainly to sea, the sound of the breaking billows being mingled with the shriek of the wind as it whistled by overhead. Nothing but the tumult of the sea, stirred into frenzy by the storm- blast of angry Aeolus! After a time, Eric suddenly recollected that his brother could not move far from the hut and must be wondering what had become of him; and, recognising as well the fact that he was powerless alone to do anything where he was, even if a ship should be in danger, he returned towards the cottage to rejoin Fritz, his path up the valley being lit up quite clearly by the expiring bonfire, which still flamed out every now and then, as the wind fanned it in its mad rush up the gorge, stirring out the embers into an occasional flash of brilliancy. Fritz, usually so calm, was in a terribly anxious state when his brother reached him. "Well, have you seen anything?" he asked impatiently. "No," said Eric sorrowfully. "There's nothing to be seen." "But _you_ heard another cannon, did you not?" "Oh yes, and it seemed closer in." "So I thought, too," said the other, whom the sound of the heavy guns, from his old experience in war, appeared to affect like a stimulant. "Can't we do anything? It is terrible to stand idly here and allow our fellow-creatures to perish, without trying to save them!" "What could we do?" asked Eric helplessly, all the buoyancy gone out of him. He seemed to be quite another lad. "You couldn't launch the boat without me, eh?" "No," answered Eric; "I couldn't move it off the beach with all my strength--I tried just now." Fritz ground his teeth in rage at his invalid condition. "It serves me right to be crippled in this fashion!" he cried. "It all results from my making such a fool of myself the other day, after that goat on the plateau. I ought to have known better." "You need not vex yourself, brother, about that," said Eric. "If there were twenty of us to get the boat into the water, instead of two, she could not live in the heavy sea that is now running. She would be swamped by the first roller that came in upon us, for the wind is blowing dead on shore!" "That may be," replied Fritz; "still, I should like to do something, even if I knew it would be useless!" "So should I," said Eric, disconsolately. In silence, the two continued to pace up and down the little platform they had levelled in front of their hut, trying to pierce the darkness that now entirely obscured the sea, the north-easter having brought up a thick fog in its train, perhaps from the far-distant African coast, which shut out everything on that side; although, the light of the bonfire still illumined the cliff encircling the valley where they had pitched their homestead, disclosing the inmost recesses of this, so that they could see from where they stood, the wood, which the conflagration had spared, as well as their garden and the tussock-grass rookery of the penguins beyond, not a feature of the landscape being hid. Again came the booming, melancholy sound of the minute guns from sea, making the brothers more impatient than ever; and, at that moment, the fog suddenly lifted, being rapidly wafted away to leeward over the island, enabling the two anxious watchers to see a bit of bright sky overhead, with a twinkling star or two looking down on the raging ocean, now exposed to their gaze--all covered with rolling breakers and seething foam as far as the eye could reach, to the furthest confines of the horizon beyond the bay. Still, they could perceive nothing of the ship that had been firing the signals of distress, till, all at once, another gun was heard; and the flash, which caught their glance at the same moment as the report reached them, now enabled them to notice her imminent peril. This, the people on board could only then have noticed for the first time, the fog having previously concealed their danger; for they distinctly heard, above the noise of the sea and wind, a hoarse shout of agonised, frantic alarm, wafted shorewards by the wind in one of its wild gusts. The vessel was coming up under close-reefed topsails, bow on to the headland on the western side of the bay; and, almost at the very instant the brothers saw her, she struck with a crash on the rocks, the surf rushing up the steep face of the cliff and falling back on the deck of the ill-fated craft in sheets of spray like soapsuds. Fritz and Eric clasped their hands in mute supplication to heaven; but, at the same moment, the spars of the vessel--she was a brig, they could see--fell over her side with a crash. There was a grinding and rending of timbers; and then, one enormous wave, as of three billows rolled into one, poured over her in a cataract. One concentrated shriek of horror and agony came from the seething whirlpool of broken water, and, all was over; for, when the foam had washed away with the retreating wave, not a single vestige could be seen of the hapless craft! She had sunk below the sea with those on board. "Oh, brother, it is awful!" cried Eric. Fritz could not answer. His throat was filled with a great gulping lump which prevented him from drawing his breath; while his eyes were suffused with tears that no unmanly feelings had called forth. Eric was starting off again down to the beach, to see whether any one had escaped from the wreck and been swept into the bay, in which case he might have been of use in trying to drag them from the clutch of the cruel waves, when Fritz called him back. "Don't leave me behind, brother," he cried out passionately. "Wheel me down, in the barrow, so that I may help, too!" The lad stopped in a instant, comprehending his brother's request; and, flying back, in and out of the hut as if he had been galvanised, he quickly placed the old door on top of the wheelbarrow as a sort of platform, with a mattress on top. He then lifted Fritz on the superstructure as if he were a child, the excitement having given him tenfold strength; and, wheeling the barrow down at a run, the two arrived on the beach almost sooner than a boat could have pulled ashore from the point where the catastrophe to the vessel had occurred. But, although it was now light enough to scan the surface of the restless sea for some distance out, no struggling form could be seen battling with the waves; nor was there a single fragment of the wreck noticeable, tossing about on the billows that still rolled in thunderingly on the beach, marking out the contour of the bay with a line of white surf, which shone out in contrast to the glittering black sand that was ever and anon displayed as the back-wash of the waves swept out again in a downward curve preparatory to the billows hurling themselves in shore once more with renewed force. "Poor chaps, they must all have gone down!" said Eric, half crying. He had made sure that some one would have escaped, if only for him to rescue at the last moment--perhaps just when the sinking swimmer might require a helping hand to drag him from the clutches of the grasping billows that sought to overwhelm him as he was getting beyond their reach! "There's no doubt of that," echoed Fritz, who had got off his platform on the wheelbarrow with much more agility than he had been capable of a short time before. "The sea has swallowed up those who were not dashed to pieces on the headland! I hardly know which fate was the least preferable of the two?" "I do hope that the bonfire did not lead to their misfortune," said Eric presently. "If so, I should consider myself to be the cause of their death!" "No, I don't think it was, laddie," replied Fritz, to cheer him, the lad being greatly distressed at the thought of having occasioned the catastrophe. "You see, the ship must have been coming from the other side of the headland, whose height would shut all view of our valley entirely from the sea." "Well, I only hope so," replied Eric, only half consoled. "I'm afraid, however, the people on board took the flame of the burning grass to be some beacon to warn them." "In that case, they would have kept away from it, of course," said Fritz decidedly; "so, no blame can be attached to you. The wind, you see, was blowing a gale from the north-east; and, probably, they were driving on before it, never thinking they were near Inaccessible Island, nor believing that there was such a place anywhere within miles of them, or land at all, for that matter, till they should reach the South American coast!" "Perhaps so," rejoined Eric, in a brighter tone; "but then, again, they might have thought the light to be a ship on fire, and, in going out of their way to lend assistance, they possibly met with their doom, eh?" "Ah, that would be sad to believe," said Fritz. "However, I don't think we should worry ourselves over the dispensations of providence. Poor fellows, whoever they are, or whatever they were about at the time of the disaster, I'm sorry for them from the bottom of my heart!" "And so am I," chimed in his brother. "But now, old fellow," added Eric, "it is time for you to be getting back indoors, with your poor back and wounded leg." "Yes, I shan't be sorry to lie down now; for, I've exerted myself more than I should have done. Oh," continued Fritz, as the lad helped him on to the wheelbarrow platform, again preparing to return to the hut, "I shall never forget the sight of that doomed vessel dashing against the rocks. I fancy I can now see the whole hideous panorama before my eyes again, just as we saw it when the mist cleared away, disclosing all the horrors of the scene!" "I shan't forget it either, brother," said Eric, as he commenced to wheel back Fritz homeward, neither uttering another word on the way. Both went to bed sadly enough; for, the calamity that had just occurred before their eyes made them more depressed than they had ever been before--aye, even in the solitude of their first night alone on the island. Next morning, the gale had blown itself out, the wind having toned down to a gentle breeze; while the sea was smiling in the sunshine, so innocently that it seemed impossible it could have been lashed into the fury it exhibited the previous night. There it was, rippling and prattling away on the beach in the most light-hearted fashion, oblivious, apparently, of all thought of evil! All trace of the wreck, too, had disappeared, nothing being subsequently cast ashore but one single plank, on which the hieroglyphic letters, "PF Bordeaux," were carved rudely with a chisel; so, the mystery of the brig's name and destination remained unsolved to the brothers, as it probably will continue a mystery, until that day when the ocean gives up its secrets and yields up its dead to life! CHAPTER THIRTY TWO. "NEWS FROM HOME." For some time after the wreck, the brothers seemed to experience a strange dreariness about the place which they never felt before. They were now shut in entirely, being confined, as it were, to the little valley of the waterfall through the destruction of the tussock- grass ladder, which previously had opened the tableland on top of the crags to them, giving greater liberty of action; although the ascent had not been by any means an easy matter for Fritz. Now, however, restricted to their scanty domain, bounded by the bare cliff at the back and encompassed by lofty headlands on either side, they were prevented from wandering beyond the limits of the bay, save by taking to their boat; and this, the strong winds which set in at the latter end of March rendered utterly impossible of achievement. Consequently, they began to realise more fully their solitary condition, recognising the fact that they were crusoes indeed! No event of any importance happened after the episode of the bonfire and the storm in which the crew of the brig perished, for some weeks, nothing occurring to break the monotony of the solitary life they were leading; until, one morning, without any warning, the penguins, which had been their constant companions from the commencement of their self- chosen exile up to now, suddenly left the island. This was in the month of April. Never was a migration more unexpected. On the evening before, the birds, so long as daylight lasted, were seen still playing about in the bay and arranging themselves in lines along the rough escarpment of the headlands, where they were drawn up like soldiers on parade and apparently dressed in the old-fashioned uniform that is sometimes still seen on the stage. Really, their black and white plumage exactly resembled the white buckskin breeches and black three-cornered hats of the whilom mousquetaires; while their drooping flappers seemed like hands down their sides in the attitude of "attention!"--the upper portions of the wings, projecting in front, representing those horrible cross-belts that used to make the men look as if they wore stays. The penguins seemed so much at home on the island that it looked as if they never intended leaving it, albeit the brothers noticed that the birds barked and grumbled more discordantly than they had done of late. No doubt there was something on hand, they thought; but they never dreamt that this grand pow-wow was their leave-taking of the rookery; but, lo and behold! when Eric came out of the hut next morning to pay his customary matutinal visit to the beach, there was not a single penguin to be seen anywhere in the vicinity, either out in the water or on land! They had disappeared, as if by magic, in one single night. In the evening before, they were with them; when day dawned, they were gone! Fritz and Eric had got so accustomed to the birds by this time, studying their habits and watching the progress of many of the adult penguins from the egg to representative birdom, as they passed through the various gradations of hatching and moulting, that they quite missed them for the first few days after their departure. The cliffs, without their presence to enliven them, appeared never so stern and bleak and bare as now; the headlands never so forbidding and impassable; the valley never so prison-like, to the brothers, shut in as they were and confined to the bay! However, the winter season coming on apace, the two soon had plenty to do in preparing for its advent. This served to distract their attention from becoming morbid and dwelling on their loneliness, which was all the more dismal now from the fact of their being debarred from their hunting-ground on the plateau--Fritz having got strong and well again after the wreck, and being now able to start on a second expedition in pursuit of "Kaiser Billy," did he so wish, if the access to the tableland above the cliffs by way of the gully were only still open to them. Goat-shooting, therefore, being denied them, the brothers busied themselves about other matters, as soon as the increasing coldness of the air and an occasional snow-storm warned them that winter would soon visit the shores of the island. "I tell you what," said Fritz, when the first few flakes of snow came fluttering down one afternoon as they were standing outside the hut, the sun having set early and darkness coming on. "We're going to have some of the old weather we were accustomed to at Lubeck." "Ah; but, we can have no skating or slides here!" replied Eric, thinking of the canals and frozen surface of the sea near his northern home, when the frost asserted its sway, ruling with a sceptre of ice everywhere. "No, and we don't want them either," rejoined the practical Fritz. "I am pondering over a much more serious matter; and that is, how we shall keep ourselves warm? My coat, unfortunately, is getting pretty nearly worn-out!" "And so is mine," cried Eric, exhibiting the elbows of his reefing jacket, in which a couple of large holes showed themselves. The rest of the garment, also, was so patched up with pieces of different coloured cloth that it more resembled an old-clothes-man's sack than anything else! "Well, what do you think of our paying our tailor a visit?" said Fritz all at once, after cogitating a while in a brown study. Eric burst out into a loud fit of laughing; so hearty that he nearly doubled himself up in the paroxysms of his mirth. "Ha, ha, ha, what a funny fellow you are, Fritz!" he exclaimed. "I wonder where we are going to find a tailor here?" "Oh, I know one," said his brother coolly, in such a matter-of-fact way that the lad was quite staggered with surprise. "Do you?" he asked in astonishment. "Who is he?" "Your humble servant," said Fritz, with a low bow. "Can I have the pleasure of measuring you for a new suit, meinherr?" Eric began laughing again. "You can measure away to your heart's content," he replied; "but, I fancy it will puzzle even your lofty intellect to discover the wherewithal to make clothes with--that is, except sailcloth, which would be rather cold wear for winter, I think, eh, Master Schneider?" "How about those two last sealskins we didn't salt down, or pack up with the rest in the puncheon?" enquired Fritz with a smile. "O-oh!" exclaimed Eric, opening his mouth wide with wonder. "A-ah," rejoined his brother. "I think they'll do very well to make a couple of good coats for us; they'll be warm and serviceable." "Of course they will," said Eric, jumping at the idea. "And, they will be fashionable too! Why, sealskin jackets are all the rage in Berlin and Hanover; so, we'll be regular dandies!" "Dandies of the first water, oh yes," replied Fritz quizzingly. "I wonder what they would think of us at, Lubeck if they could just see us now!" "Never mind, brother, we'll astonish them when we go back with our pockets full of money," said Eric in his happy fashion; and then, without further delay, the two set to work making themselves winter garments, as Fritz had suggested, from the sealskins. These had been dried, instead of being salted down with the rest, in the ordinary way whalers preserve them for the furriers; so, now, all that remained for the brothers to do was to make the skins limp and pliable. This they managed to effect by rubbing grease over the inner surface of the skins with a hard piece of lava slab selected from the volcanic debris at the foot of the cliff, in the same way, as Eric explained, that sailors holystone the decks of a ship; and, after the pelts of the seals were subjected to this process, they underwent a species of tanning by being steeped in a decoction of tea leaves, keeping, however, the hair out of the liquor. Lastly, the outside portion of the skins was dressed by pulling off the long fibrous exterior hairs, concealing the soft fur below that resembled the down beneath a bird's rough feathers. The skins being now thoroughly prepared, all that remained to do was to cut out the coats, a feat the crusoes accomplished by using their old garments for patterns; and then, by the aid of the useful little housewife which Celia Brown had given Eric, after an immense amount of stitching, the brothers were able at last to clothe themselves in a couple of fur jackets. These, although they were perhaps roughly made, the good people at home could not have turned up their noses at, for the articles were certainly intrinsically worth more than the best-cut masterpiece of the best outfitter, even if not of so perfect a fit or style! Fritz was the chief tailor in this operation; but, while he was busily engaged with needle and thread, Eric was employed in another way, equally for the good of both. The hut had been found somewhat cold and damp in consequence of the sun's power beginning to wane by reason of its shifting further north, through the periodic revolution of the earth; so it was determined to build a fireplace within the dwelling. This had not been necessary before, all their cooking operations having been carried on without the hut at an open-air campaigner's stove designed by soldier Fritz. Now, however, Master Eric devoted himself to the task of improving their household economy, accomplishing the feat so well that, wonderful to relate, the place never smoked once after the fire had been lit in the new receptacle for it, excepting when the wind blew from the westward. Then, indeed, coming from over the top of the plateau above, it whirled down the gorge, roaring through the lad's patent chimney like a cyclone. From May, until the end of July--during which time the extreme severity of the winter lasted--the brothers did little, save stop indoors and read, or play dominoes. Really, there was nothing else for them to occupy their minds with; for, it was impossible to cultivate the garden, while the weather was too rough for them to venture out in the whale-boat. Early in August, however, the penguins returned. The birds did this as suddenly as they had left; although they did not come all together, as at the period of their migrating from the island. It need hardly be said that Fritz and Eric welcomed them joyfully as the early swallows of the coming summer; for, as the summer advanced, their life would be more varied, and there would be plenty for them to do. Besides, the brothers had not forgotten Captain Brown's promise to return at this period and visit them with the _Pilot's Bride_, the arrival of which vessel might be expected in a couple of months or so. The male penguins were the first to make their reappearance in the bay, Eric returning to the hut with the news of this fact one morning in August. "I say, Fritz," he called out, when yet some distance off from their dwelling--"I've just seen two penguins down by the sea!" "Have you?" exclaimed the other eagerly. "That's good news." "Is it?" said Eric. "I didn't think you cared about them so much." "Ah, I'm looking out for their eggs," replied Fritz. "Why, you never seemed to fancy them last year, old fellow," said the sailor lad surprised. "What means this change of view on your part?" "Well, you know, when we arrived here first, the birds were already sitting; and, I certainly confess I did not care about the eggs then, for they would probably have been half addled! Now, however, if we look out each day, we can get them quite fresh, when they'll be ever so much better. Young Glass told us, as you ought to remember, that they tasted very nice and not in the least fishy." "Oh, yes, I recollect," said Eric. "I will keep a good look-out for them now you say they're worth looking after!" And he did. The two male birds, who first came, were succeeded on the following day by half a dozen more, a large number coming later on the same afternoon. All these penguins were in their best plumage, and very fat and lazy, contenting themselves with lolling about the beach for a day or two, as if to recover from the fatigues of their journey. Then, after a solemn conference together close to the rookery, the birds began to prepare their nests, so as to be ready for the reception of the females, which did not make their appearance for nearly a month after the first male penguins were seen. A fortnight later, there was in almost each nest an egg of a pale blue colour, very round in shape and about the size of a turkey's--the sight of which much gratified Master Eric, who, fearless of consequences, made a point of investigating the tussock-grass colony every morning. He called the birds habitat his "poultry yard," seeming to be quite unmindful of his mishap there the previous year; although now, as the penguins had not begun regularly to sit yet, they were not so noisy or troublesome as when he then intruded on their domain. Besides, as the sailor lad argued, the eggs were uncommonly good eating, and well worth risk getting them. September came; and the brother crusoes were all agog with excitement, watching for the expected coming of the old Yankee skipper. "Do you know what to-day is?" asked Fritz one morning, as Eric woke him up in turning out. "What a fellow you are for dates!" exclaimed the other. "You ought to go and live in the East, where they cultivate them, brother! No, I can't say I recollect what day it is. Tuesday, is it not?" "I don't mean that," said Fritz petulantly. "I alluded to the sort of anniversary, that's all." "Anniversary of what?" "Our landing here last year," replied Fritz. "Oh, I forgot that!" exclaimed Eric. "It strikes me you forget a good many things," said his brother in his dry way. "Still, what I was thinking of was, that we might now really begin to look out for Captain Brown. What a pity it is that you can't ascend to your old signalling station on top of the gully." "Yes, it was all on account of the grass burning that our ladder got spoilt and--" "Of course you didn't set it on fire, eh?" interposed Fritz. "Ah well, it's of no use our talking about that now; words will not mend matters," said Eric. "We'll have look out from here!" The wind latterly had been from the east, blowing right into the bay. On account of this, the brothers could not venture out in the boat and thus get round the headland, so as to climb the plateau from the other side of the island and scan the offing from thence. Still, no amount of looking out on their part--or lack of observation, whichever way the matter was put--seemed to effect the arrival of the expected ship; for, the month passed away in daily counted days without a trace of a sail being seen on the horizon. At last, just when the brothers had given up in despair all hope of hearing from home, Eric, one morning in October, reported that there was something in sight to windward of the bay; although, he said, he did not think she looked like the _Pilot's Bride_. Hastily jumping into his clothes--for Fritz, sad to relate, could never practise early rising, in which good habit day after day Eric set him a praiseworthy example--the elder followed the younger lad again to the shore of the bay; from which point, well away out to sea, and her hull just rising from the rolling plane of water, could be seen a vessel. She was steering for the island apparently, with the wind well on her beam. "It isn't Captain Brown's ship," said Eric now decisively, his sailor eye having distinguished while she was yet in the distance that the vessel was a fore-and-aft-rigged schooner, although Fritz could not then tell what sort of craft she was. "It is one of those small whalers that ply amongst the islands, such as I saw down at Kerguelen." "What can have become of the skipper, then?" cried Fritz, quite disappointed. "I hope nothing has happened to him." "We'll soon know," replied Eric. "If I mistake not this very schooner, which is evidently going to call here, is the _Jane_. I know her by that queer patch in her jib; and, if that's the case, she is one of the consorts of the _Pilot's Bride_ and will be bound to be able to tell us something about her." "I sincerely hope so," said Fritz. The two then remained silent for some time, watching the approaching vessel; but they took the precaution to run down their whale-boat to the beach, so as to be ready to put off as soon as the visitor should come near enough for them to board her. In a short time, bowling up before a good breeze, although it seemed hours to them, they were so anxious, the schooner lay-to off the bay, hoisting her flag as a signal that she wished to communicate. But, long before the bunting had been run up to the masthead, the brothers had launched their boat and were pulling out towards the vessel, which did not anchor, for there was a heavy ground swell on--this latter, indeed, cost them, too, some trouble in getting their little craft out to sea, the rolling surge first lifting her up and then plunging her down so that everything was hidden from them for the moment by a wall of water on either side. However, they managed to get through the waves somehow; and, presently, they were alongside the schooner,--pulling in under her stern, whence a rope was hove them to get on board by. An active-looking, slim, seamanlike young fellow advanced to them as they scrambled on the schooner's deck; and Eric appeared to recognise him. "Hullo, Captain Fuller," he said, "where's the _Pilot's Bride_ and the old skipper?" "I'm sorry you won't see him this trip," replied the other. "The barque got damaged in a gale off the African coast a month ago: so, she had to put into the Cape of Good Hope for repairs, which'll take such a time that Captain Brown couldn't manage to come along here and see you as he promised. Howsomever, the old skipper has sent me in his stead, to bring you some letters and take home any cargo you might have ready in sealskins and oil. He told me, likewise, to let you have any provisions you may want; but, I'm sorry to say, while coming here I helped an American ship that was short, and now I only have a little flour left to spare." "Thank you, all the same," said Fritz, who had been waiting patiently while the master of the schooner gave this explanation. "I'm very sorry at not seeing Captain Brown; however, I suppose he'll come for us next year, as he said, won't he?" "Oh yes," answered the other cordially. "I'm sure he will, for it seemed a great disappointment to him not to be able to do so now. He told me to be certain to say that, `blow great guns and small arms or not, he'll be at Inaccessible Island next year!' But, you must be anxious about your letters. Here they are," and the nice-looking young fellow, whom Fritz had quite taken a fancy to, handed a little packet to him, adding, "I am afraid I'll have to hurry you up about your return messages, as the wind is getting up from the eastwards and I shan't be able to remain here long." Fritz at once broke the seal of a thick letter, which Captain Brown had enclosed in one of his own. This he saw came from Lubeck, although it had the Capetown post mark on it, and he glanced hurriedly over the front page and then at the end. "All right at home, thank God!" he said aloud for Eric's benefit, the lad staring at his brother with eager eyes. "And now, Captain Fuller, I'm ready to attend to you. I shall be glad of a barrel of flour if you can spare it, but our other provisions can hold out. Will you let a man or two come ashore to help get our freight aboard?" "How much have you got to ship?" asked the other. "Thirty sealskins and twenty barrels of oil," replied Fritz at once; he and Eric had counted over their little store too often for him not to have their tally at his fingers' ends! "Come now," said Captain Fuller encouragingly. "That's not bad work for a couple of novices as their first take here! Next year, you'll be able to fill up the _Pilot's Bride_, `I reckon,' as the old skipper would say." "Not quite that," replied Fritz, while he and Eric joined in the other's laugh; "still, I've no doubt we'll do better than this, for we'll take care to be beforehand with some folks!" The commander of the schooner looking puzzled by the latter part of this speech, Fritz proceeded to tell the young seaman all about Nat Slater and the Tristaners, anent which he became very indignant. "I'll take care to call at the island and spoil the mean fellow's game for him, so that you shan't be troubled in the same way again!" cried their new friend, with much heartiness; "but, do, please, let these men go ashore with you now and fetch your produce at once, or else we'll have to be off without it! Here, Harris and Betkins," he sang out to two of the schooner's men, "go along with these gentlemen in their boat and bring off some cargo they'll point out to you!" "I don't think we can stow all in one boat," said Eric. "Then, we must make two or three trips till we do," answered the other, equal to the occasion; and this procedure was adopted until all the brothers' sealskins and barrels of oils were shipped in the schooner. The goods were consigned to Captain Brown, who had undertaken to dispose of all the produce of their expedition; and, when the freight was all shipped, the schooner, filling her sails, bore away from the island on her return trip to the Cape--not without a hearty farewell to Fritz and Eric from those on board. This visit of the little craft cheered them up wonderfully, reconciling them cheerfully to another year's sojourn in their island home; for, had not the schooner brought them comfort and hope, and, above all else, what was to their longing hearts like manna to the Israelites in the wilderness, water to a dry ground, warmth to those shivering with cold-- in other words, "good news from home?" Aye, that she had! CHAPTER THIRTY THREE. A DIRE PERIL. Oh, those dear letters from home! Did not Fritz pore over them, when he and Eric got back to their little hut, glad to sit down and be quiet again, all to themselves after the excitement of the schooner's visit and the fatigue of shipping the produce of their labours during the past? Madame Dort's missive was a long, voluminous epistle of ever so many pages, written in their dear mother's clear hand, without a blot or a scratch out, or any tedious crossing of the pages to make the writing indistinct. She had been a teacher, and able to write well, if only because she had formerly to instruct others? The letter was public property for both, being addressed to Eric as well as Fritz, and it contained much loving news--news that caused the elder brother frequently to pause in his reading and Eric to dash away the quick tears from his bright eyes; while, anon, it made them both laugh by some funny allusion to household arrangements as they recalled the well-remembered little home scene in the old-fashioned house in which the two had been brought up, in the Gulden Strasse at Lubeck. The communication was so lengthy that it was almost a journal, Madame Dort recounting all the haps and mishaps of the family since Fritz had gone away, taking it for granted that he would have informed Eric of all that had transpired during the lad's previous absence. The letter mentioned, too, that the neighbours were all interested in the brothers' adventures and called frequently to ask her about them. Herr Grosschnapper, she also related, had especially told her that he had never employed so accurate a book-keeper as Fritz; for, the new clerk had, like a new broom, swept so clean that he had swept himself out of favour, the old merchant longing to have the widow's son back in his counting-house again. "I don't wonder at that," exclaimed Eric, interrupting the reading here. "He should have known when he was well off and kept your place open for you until your return from the war!" "So he did, brother, he waited as long as he could," said Fritz, taking the part of the absent, although the matter was still a sore subject with him; and, then, he continued reading out his mother's letter, which went on to detail Lorischen's many dreams about the children of her nursing--how she prophesied that Eric would be such a big strapping fellow that the house would not be able to contain him, and how Mouser had developed such an affection for Gelert, that he even followed the dog, when the latter went out to take his walks abroad, in the most fearless manner possible, trusting evidently to the kindness of his canine protector to prevent other obnoxious animals like Burgher Jans terrier from molesting him! Oh, and while mentioning the little fat man's dog, Madame Dort said she had such a wonderful story to relate. What would they think of Lorischen-- "I said it would turn out so!" cried Eric, interrupting his brother a second time. "I always said it would turn out so, in spite of all our old nurse's cruel treatment of the little Burgher." "What did you say, Mr Prophet?" asked Fritz good-humouredly. "That he and Lorischen would make a match of it yet," replied Eric, clapping his hands in high glee. "What fun that would be! Is it not so, brother?" "You might be further out in your guessing than that," said Fritz, going on to the denouement of the story told in his mother's letter. Yes, Madame Dort wrote, the little fat man had really, one day when Lorischen had received him more affably than usual and invited him to partake of some nice cheese-cakes she had just made, asked her to marry him! And, more wonderful still, in spite of all their old nurse used to say about the Burgher, and how she pretended to detest him, as they must remember well, Lorischen had finally agreed to an engagement with him, promising to unite her fate with his when Herr Fritz and Master Eric came home. "So now, dear boys both, you know how much depends on your return," concluded their mother in her quaint way, for she had a keen appreciation of humour. "If only to hasten the happiness of old Lorischen and her well-beloved little fat man, pray do not delay your coming back as soon as ever you can conveniently manage it. I say nothing about myself or of Madaleine, my new daughter; for, you must be able to imagine without the aid of any words of mine, how we are both longing and praying to see you again!" "And now for sister Madaleine's letter," cried Eric, when he had kissed the signature to that of his mother's which Fritz handed over to him as soon as he had done reading it aloud. "It seems almost as big a one as mutterchen's and I dare say there'll be lots more news in it!" "Ah, I think I'll read this first to myself," said Fritz dryly; adding a moment after when he noticed Eric's look of intense disgust: "you see, she only writes to me, you know." "Oh yes, that's very fine!" exclaimed the other, in a highly aggrieved tone. "Never mind, though, I can pay you out sooner than you think, Master Fritz! See this little note here!" "No--yes--what is it?" said Fritz, looking up in an absent way from the second of the home letters, which now lay open on his knee. "Ah, wouldn't you like to know, Mr Selfish-keep-his-letters-to-himself sort of a brother, eh? Well, then, this note here contains some of the dearest words you ever saw penned! It was enclosed by Miss Celia Brown in a letter of her father's to you--which you've taken such little account of that you chucked it down on the floor in your ridiculous hurry to read that letter which you won't tell me about. Now, I did intend, Master Fritz, to give you this delightful little note, which I would not part with for the world, for you to read it your own self; but, now, I shan't let you once cast your eyes over it, there! It is only a little tiny note; still, I think much more of it than all your big letters from that Madaleine Vogelstein, who I don't believe is half as handsome as Celia!" "All right then, we're both satisfied if such is the case," rejoined Fritz, in no way put out by this outburst, or alarmed at the terrible reprisals threatened by Eric, and then, the elder brother bowed his head again over the unfolded sheets of scented paper lying on his knee that came from his sweetheart across the sea. The letter was all that the fondest lover could wish; and, with the omission of a few endearing terms, Fritz subsequently read it to Eric, who thereupon relented from his previous resolution and showed him Miss Celia Brown's note. This, however, contained nothing very remarkable, after all; unless a postscript, saying that the writer "expected to have a good time" when the sailor lad returned to Providence, deserves to be described in Eric's extravagant language. The schooner's visit having settled their minds, so to speak, the brother crusoes were able after her departure to devote themselves anew, with all the greater zest, to what they now considered their regular work. As in the previous year, before adventuring beyond their own special domain, the garden was dug up and replanted; the labour this time, of course, being far less than on the first occasion, for they had no longer virgin soil to tackle with as then. A much larger lot of potatoes were put into the ground, the brothers having learnt by experience that, after once planting, these useful "apples of the earth" necessitated little further trouble, one good hoeing up when the sprouts had appeared above the surface and an occasional rake over to keep down the weeds being quite sufficient to make the plot look neat; while, should they have more than they required for themselves when harvest time came, they could easily store them up for the use of the _Pilot's Bride_ crew, as a slight return for all Captain Brown's kindness. A good crop of cabbages and onions was also provided for; while Eric did not forget his favourite peas and beans for their next Christmas banquet. This task done and things tidied up about the hut, so as to make their immediate surroundings snug and comfortable, the brothers determined, the weather being now settled and fair, to have a cruise round the coast again. They were anxious to find out whether the seals were about yet, besides wishing to pay another visit to the tableland, which they had been debarred from exploring since the bonfire had burnt up their ladder at the beginning of the winter season. They would, naturally, have made this expedition long before, had the wind and sea not been so boisterous--very unlike, indeed, the genial spell they had experienced in the previous year; but, really, from the month of August, a succession of gales had set in from different points of the compass and the navigation was so dangerous that it would not have been safe to have ventured out beyond the bay. Indeed, as it was, the whale-boat got so much knocked about by a heavy sea, which came rolling in on the beach one night when they had not drawn her up far enough, that she was now far too cranky for them to trust their lives in her in bad weather. However, one fine day, late in November, with all their shooting and hunting gear, in addition to a supply of provisions for a week or ten days, they set sail from the bay bound westward round the headland, intending to have a regular outing. Seals they found plentiful enough, the animals having returned to their breeding haunts much earlier than the year before. They seemed, besides, so tame that the new-comers must either have been quite a fresh family of the mammals, or else the brothers had stolen a march on the Tristaners and would therefore have the advantage of the first assault on the seals. There was nothing like taking time by the forelock, and so, without frightening the animals by any display of hostility, the brothers quietly landed their traps in a little creek some distance away from the principal cove they frequented; and then, the two organised a regular campaign against their unsuspecting prey. Eric with a rifle and harpoon got round the seals by way of the land; while Fritz, equally well provided with weapons, assailed them from the sea in the boat, both making a rush together by a preconcerted signal. Their strategy was triumphant this time; for, after a very one-sided battle between the intrepid seal killers on the one hand and the terrified, helpless creatures on the other, eighty-five victims were counted on the field of battle--six of the animals being sea elephants, and five sea bears, or "lions," a species having a curious sort of curly mane round their necks, while the remainder of the slain consisted of specimens of the common seal of commerce. "Why, brother, this is grand!" exclaimed Eric, as he and Fritz counted over the spoil. "But, how shall we get the blubber and skins round to the bay? Our boat will never carry them all in her leaky state." "Well, laddie, I thought you were the inventive genius of the family," said the other. "Can't you think of an easier plan than lugging them round the headland all that way by sea?" "I'm sure I can't," Eric replied, with a hopeless stare. "Then, I'll tell you," said Fritz. "What think you of our just taking them up to the top of the plateau; and, after a short walk across the tableland, pitching our bundle of spoil down right in front of our hut-- without first loading up the boat and then unloading her again, besides having the trouble of toiling all the way from the beach to the cottage afterwards?" "Why, that's a splendid plan!" cried Eric; "almost good enough for me to have thought of it." "I like your impudence!" said Fritz, laughing. "Certainly, a young sailor of my acquaintance has a very good opinion of himself!" "Right you are," rejoined Eric, with his time-honoured phrase; and then the two, as usual, had a hearty laugh. Skinning the seals and packing up the layers of blubber within the pelts was then the order of the day with them for some hours, Fritz pointing out, that, if they removed all the traces of the combat before nightfall, the seals would return to their old haunt the next day, the evening tide being sufficient to wash away the traces of blood on the rocks as well as bear to the bottom the bodies of the slain victims; otherwise, the sad sight of the carcases of their slain comrades still lying about the scene of battle would prevent the scared and timid animals from coming back. Consequently, the brothers worked hard; and, practice having made them proficients in the knack of ripping off the coats of the seals with one or two dexterous slashes with a keen knife along the stomach and down the legs of the animals, they stripped off the skins in much less time than might be imagined. Then, the pelts and layers of blubber were rolled up together in handy bundles and conveyed up to the plateau. This was a very tedious job, necessitating, first, a weary tramp to and from the beach to where the path led up to the summit of the tableland; and, secondly, a scramble up the rocky and wearisome ascent of the plateau, this latter part of their labour being rendered all the more difficult and disagreeable by the bundles of blubber and skins, which they had to carry up on their heads in the same fashion as negroes always convey their loads--a thing apparently easy enough to the blacks by reason of their strong craniums, but terribly "headachy" for Europeans unaccustomed to such burdens! Fritz and Eric did not hurry over this job, however, deferring its completion till the morning. They camped out on the plateau so as to be out of the way of the seals, glad enough to rest after their day's labour, without going hunting after the goats, as they had intended at first doing, the same afternoon. Next morning, seeing no seals about--the animals probably not having recovered from their fright yet--they continued carrying up the skins and blubber, until they had quite a respectable pile on the plateau; when, the next question arose about its transportation across the tableland to the eastern side, immediately over the gully by which they used to climb up, near their hut. "I wish we had brought your carriage, Fritz," said Eric, alluding to the wheelbarrow, which had been so styled by the sailor lad after he had utilised it as an ambulance waggon. "It's too late to wish that now," replied the other. "I could soon go round in the boat and fetch it, brother," cried Eric, looking as if he were going to start off at the moment. "No, stop, laddie; we could not spare the boat," said Fritz, laying his hand on his arm. "It would be more than likely that, the moment you were out of sight the seals would land again on the rocks, when we should miss the chance of taking them! I don't believe we shall have more than one other chance of getting their skins; for the Tristaners will soon be here again on their annual excursion, with that fellow Slater in their company, and, I confess, I should not like us to be here when they came." "I wouldn't mind a row at all!" cried Eric defiantly; "still, as you don't want me to go for the wheelbarrow, how do you suggest that we should carry the skins across this dreary expanse here?" "Let us make a stretcher with the oars," said Fritz. "Bravo, the very thing," replied Eric. "Why, you are the inventive genius this time!" "Well, one must think of something sometimes," said Fritz, in his matter-of-fact way; and the two then proceeded to carry out the plan of the elder brother, which simplified their labour immensely. They only had to make some three journeys across the plateau with the skins, which, when the bundles were all transported to the eastern side of the tableland, were incontinently tumbled over to the foot of the cliff below, alighting quite close to the cauldron in which the blubber would be subsequently "tried out" into oil. Then, and not till then, did they pick up their guns and think of the goats, which had hitherto led a charmed life as far as they were concerned. They soon noticed, however, that, in lieu of the large number they had observed when they last saw them, the flock had been now reduced to five. The Tristaners must evidently have paid another visit to the west coast since they had met them there when going sealing the previous season; and, this second visit the brothers put down to the instigation of the whilom "deck hand," who had no doubt incited the islanders to do everything they could to annoy them. Fritz only shot one goat, leaving "Kaiser Billy" and the other three, on the chance of their numbers being afterwards increased. He and Eric then went for a hunt after the wild pigs, killing a fine young porker, which they roasted on the plateau and made a feast of at their camp. The flesh, however, was very coarse, tasting fishy and rank, probably on account of the pigs feeding on the penguins, the young of which they could easily secure by going down to the beach by the same pathway that the brothers had climbed. Fritz and Eric stayed ten days on the western shore; but during all the time they remained they only were able to capture eleven more seals, which made up their quota to ninety-six. Eric longed to run it up to the even hundred, but they did not see another single mammal, although they remained a day longer on the coast than they had intended. This delay led to the most disastrous consequences; for, a gale sprang up right in their teeth when they were on their way back to the bay with the goat and the remaining sealskins, which they had not taken the trouble of transporting across the plateau, but took along with them in the boat. It was something wonderful to notice the sea, which a short time previously had been so placid, presently running high with mighty rollers, that threatened each moment to engulf their little craft; and they had to allow her to run before the wind some little time for fear of getting her swamped. This danger avoided, a worse one arose, which Fritz had not thought of, but which soon became apparent to the sailor lad, his intelligence heightened by his former painful experience when adrift in a boat at sea, out of sight of land. "I say, Fritz," he cried; "we are leaving the land!" "What?" asked the other, not understanding him. "We are getting away too far from the island; and if we go on like this, we'll never get back." "Good heavens, what shall we do?" said Fritz. "I'm sure, I can't say," replied Eric despondently. "Can't we put back?" "No; we'd be upset in an instant, if we attempted it." "Then, we're lost!" exclaimed Fritz. "The land is now growing quite faint in the distance and each moment it sinks lower and lower!" This was not the worst, either. The afternoon was drawing to a close; and, the sky being overcast, darkness threatened presently to creep over the water and shut out everything from their gaze. CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR. ANXIOUS TIMES. The boat continued driving before the wind for some little time, until the mountain cliffs of Inaccessible Island gradually lost their contour. They had become but a mere haze in the distance, when Eric, who had been intently gazing upward at the sky since Fritz's last speech of alarm, and seemed buried in despondency, suddenly appeared to wake up into fresh life. He had noticed the clouds being swept rapidly overhead in the same direction in which the boat was travelling; but, all at once, they now appeared to be stationary, or else, the waves must be bearing their frail little craft along faster than the wind's speed. What could this puzzling state of things mean? Eric reflected a moment and then astonished Fritz as they both sat in the stern-sheets, by convulsively grasping his hand. "The wind has turned, brother!" he cried out in a paroxysm of joy. Fritz thought he was going mad. "Why, my poor fellow, what's the matter?" he said soothingly. "Matter, eh?" shouted out Eric boisterously, wringing | his brother's hand up and down. "I mean that the wind has changed! It is chopping round to the opposite | corner of the compass, like most gales in these latitudes, that's what's the matter! See those clouds there?" Fritz looked up to where the other pointed in the sky--to a spot near the zenith. "Well," continued the lad, "a moment ago those clouds there were whirling along the same course as ourselves. Then, when I first called out to you, they stopped, as if uncertain what to do; while now, as you can notice for yourself, they seem to be impelled in the very opposite direction. What do you think that means?" Fritz was silent, only half convinced, for the send of the sea appeared to be rolling their unhappy boat further and further from the island, which, only a bare speck on the horizon, could be but very faintly seen astern, low down on the water. "It means," said Eric, answering his own question, without waiting longer for his brother's reply, "that the same wind which bore us away from our dear little bay is about to waft us back again to it; still, we must look out sharply to help ourselves and not neglect a chance. Oars out, old fellow!" "But, it is impossible to row amidst these waves," the other expostulated. "Bah, nothing is impossible to brave men!" cried the sailor lad valiantly. "I only want to get her head round to sea. Perhaps, though, my old friend that served me in such good stead when the _Gustav Barentz_ foundered may serve my turn better now; we'll try a floating anchor, brother, that's what we'll do, eh?" "All right, you know best," replied Fritz, who, to tell the truth, had very little hopes of their ever seeing the island again. He thought that, no matter what Eric might attempt, all would be labour in vain. The sailor lad, on the contrary, was of a different opinion. He was not the one to let a chance slip when there seemed a prospect of safety, however remote that prospect might be! Rapidly attaching a rope round the bale of sealskins that were amidships, thinking these more adapted for his purpose than the oars, which he had first intended using, he hove the mass overboard, gently poising it on the side and letting it slip gradually into the water. He did this in order that he might not disturb the balance of the boat, which any sudden rash movement would have done, causing her probably to heel over--for the waves, when they raced by, came level with her gunwale, and an inch more either way would have swamped her. In a few seconds after this impromptu anchor was tried, the effect on the whale-boat's buoyancy became marvellous. Swinging round by degrees, Eric helping the operation by an occasional short paddle with one of the oars he had handy, the little craft presently rode head to sea, some little distance to leeward of the sealskins whose weight sunk them almost to the level of the water; and then, another unexpected thing happened. The oil attached to the still reeking skins came floating out on the surface of the sea, so calming the waves in their vicinity that these did not break any longer, but glided under the keel of the boat with a heavy rolling undulation. "This is more than I hoped!" exclaimed Eric joyfully. "Why, we'll be able to ride out the gale capitally now; and, as soon as the wind chops round--as it has already done in the upper currents of air, a sure sign that it will presently blow along the water from the same quarter--why, we can up anchor and away home!" "How shall we ever know the proper direction in which to steer?" asked Fritz, who was still faint-hearted about the result of the adventure. "We won't steer at all," said Eric. "There are no currents to speak of about here; and as we have run south-westwards before the north-easter, if we run back in an opposite direction before the south-wester, which is not far off now from setting in, why we must arrive pretty nearly at the same point from which we started." "But we may then pass the island by a second time and be as badly off as we are now." "What an old croaker you are!" cried Eric impatiently. "Won't I be on the look-out to see that such an accident as that shan't happen? We'll have to be very careful in turning the boat however--so as to bring the wind abeam when we get up abreast of the island, in order to beat into the bay--for the poor craft is so leaky and cranky now that she'll not stand much buffeting about." "Can't I do anything?" asked Fritz, beginning to regain his courage and bestir himself, now that he reflected that their chances of getting back to the island were not so precarious and slight as he had at first imagined. "Yes, you can bale out the boat, if you like," said Eric. "She's nearly half full of water now and continues leaking like a sieve. The seams strain and yawn awfully when she rides, even worse than when she was flying along at the mercy of the wind and waves. Still, we must try to keep her clear if possible, as the lighter and more buoyant she is, the better chance have we of getting out of this mess." "I'll do the baling gladly," rejoined Fritz, really pleased at doing something, and beginning at once with the job, using a large tin pannikin that they had taken with them. "Then, fire away," said Eric. "It will be as much as I can do to attend to the steering of the boat. Look sharp, old fellow, and get some of the light ballast out of her! I see a light scud creeping up from leeward, behind us, with the waves fringing up into a curl before it. The wind has chopped round at last and we'll have to cut and run as soon as it reaches us." Fritz baled away with the tin pannikin for dear life. "Now, brother," cried Eric, a moment later, "get your knife ready, and go forwards into the bows. I want you, the instant I sing out, to give a slash across the painter holding us to our moorings." "What, and lose our bundle of sealskins!" exclaimed the practical Fritz. "Lose them? Of course! Do you think we'd have time to lug them into the boat before we'd be pooped! What are the blessed things worth in comparison with our lives?" "I beg your pardon," said Fritz humbly, always ready to acknowledge when he was in the wrong. "I spoke unthinkingly; besides, if we lose these, we've got plenty more under the cliff by our hut." "Aye, if we ever reach there!" replied Eric grimly. Although taking advantage of every possible device to reach the island again, as a sailor he was fully conscious of the dire peril they were in. "Now, Fritz," he called out presently, as a big white wave came up astern, "cut away the painter, and just give a hoist to the jib and belay the end of the halliards, half-way up. There, that will do. Lie down for the present, old fellow. The wind has reached us at last; so, it's a case of neck or nothing now!" Hardly had Eric uttered the last words, when a sudden rush of wind struck the boat's stern like a flail, seeming to get underneath and lift it out of the water. The next instant the little craft sank down again as if she were going to founder stern foremost; but, at the same moment, the wind, travelling on, caught the half-set jib, and blowing this out with a sound like the report of a cannon, the small sail soon began to drive the boat through the swelling waves at racing speed. Onward speeded the boat, faster and yet faster. Fortunately, the mast was a strong spar, or otherwise it would have broken off like a carrot; as, even with the half-hoisted jib, it bent like a whip, thus yielding to the motion of the little craft as she rose from the trough of the sea and leaped from one wave crest to another. The boat appeared just to keep in advance of the following rollers that vainly endeavoured to overtake her, and only broke a yard or so behind her stern--which, on account of her being a whale-boat, was built exactly like her bows and thus offered a smaller target for the billows to practise on, as they sent their broken tops hurtling after her in a shower of thick foam. Eric had an oar out to leeward steering, while Fritz crouched down amidships, with the belayed end of the jib halliards in his hand, ready to let them go by the run when his brother gave the word; and, as the boat tore on through the water like a mad thing, the darkness around grew thicker and thicker, until all they could distinguish ahead was the scrap of white sail in the bows and the occasional sparkle of surf as a roller broke near them. Should they not be able to see where they were going, they might possibly be dashed right on to the island in the same way as they had seen the unfortunate brig destroyed. It was a terrible eventuality to consider! Presently, however, the moon rose; and, although the wind did not abate its force one jot, nor did the sea subside, still, it was more consoling to see where they were going than to be hurled on destruction unawares. Eric was peering out over the weather side of the boat, when, all of a sudden, on the starboard bow, he could plainly distinguish the island, looking like a large heavy flat mass lifting itself out of the sea. "There it is!" he cried out to Fritz, who at once looked up, rising a little from the thwart on which he had been lying. "Where?" "To your right, old fellow; but, still ahead. Now, we must see whether we can make the boat go our way, instead of her own. Do you think you could manage to haul up the jib by yourself? Take a half-turn round one of the thwarts with the bight of the halliards, so that it shall not slip." Fritz did what was requested; when Eric, keeping the boat's head off the wind, sang out to his brother to "hoist away." The effect was instantaneous, for the boat quivered to her keel, as if she had scraped over a rock in the ocean, and then made a frantic plunge forwards that sent her bows under. "Gently, boat, gently," said Eric, bringing her head up again to the wind, upon which she heeled over till her gunwale was nearly submerged, but she now raced along more evenly. "Sit over to windward as much as you can," he called out to Fritz, shifting his own position as he spoke. Almost before they were aware of it, they were careering past the western headland of the bay, when Eric, by a sudden turn of his steering oar, brought the bows of the whale-boat to bear towards the beach. The little craft partly obeyed the impetus of his nervous arm, veering round in the wished-for direction, in spite of the broken water, which just at that point was in a terrible state of commotion from a cross current that set the tide against the wind. But, it was not to be. The doom of the boat was sealed in the very moment of its apparent victory over the elements! A return wave--curling under from the base of the headland, against whose adamant wall it had hurled itself aloft, in the vain attempt to scale the cliff--falling back angrily in a whirling whish of foam, struck the frail craft fair on the quarter. The shock turned her over instantly, when she rolled bottom upwards over and over again. The sea then hurled her with the force of a catapult upon the rocks that jutted out below the headland; and Fritz and Eric were at once pitched out into the seething surf that eddied around, battling for their lives. How they managed it, neither could afterwards tell; but they must have struck out so vigorously with their arms and legs at this perilous moment, in the agony of desperation, that, somehow or other, they succeeded in getting beyond the downward suction of the undertow immediately under the overhanging headland. Otherwise, they would have shared the fate of the boat, for their bodies would have been dashed to pieces against the cruel crags. Providentially, however, the strength of the struggling strokes of both the young fellows just carried them, beyond the reach of the back-wash of the current, out amidst the rolling waves that swept into the bay from the open in regular succession; and so, first Eric and then Fritz found themselves washed up on the old familiar beach, which they had never expected to set foot on again alive. Here, scrambling up on their hands and knees, they quickly gained the refuge of the shingle, where they were out of reach of the clutching billows that tried to pull them back. As for the boat, it was smashed into matchwood on the jagged edges of the boulders, not a fragment of timber a foot long being to be seen. The brothers had escaped by almost a miracle! "That was a narrow squeak," cried Eric, when he was able to speak and saw that Fritz was also safe. "Yes, thank God for it!" replied the other. "I had utterly given up hope." "So had I; but still, here we are." "Aye, but only through the merciful interposition of a watchful Hand," said Fritz; and then both silently made their way up the incline to their little hut by the waterfall, unspeakably grateful that they were allowed to behold it again. Never had the cottage seemed to their tired eyes more homelike and welcome than now; and they were glad enough to throw themselves in bed and have some necessary rest:-- they were completely worn-out with all they had gone through since the previous morning, for the anxious night had passed by and it was broad daylight again before they reached shore. Not a particle of the boat or anything that had been in her was ever washed up by the sea; consequently, they had to deplore the loss, not only of the little craft itself, the sole means they had of ever leaving the bay, but also of the carcase of the goat they were conveying home to supply them with fresh meat, as a change from their generally salt diet. The sea, too, had taken from them their last haul of sealskins, which had cost them more pains to procure than the much larger lot they had pitched down from the plateau, and which fortunately were safe. Nor was this the worst. Their two rifles and the fowling piece--which Fritz had taken with him, as usual, in his last hunting expedition, for the benefit of the island hen and other small birds--as well as the harpoons, and many other articles, whose loss they would feel keenly, were irrevocably gone! But, on the other side of the account, as the brother crusoes devoutly remembered, they had saved their lives--a set-off against far greater evils than the destruction of all their implements and weapons! The first week or two of their return from this ill-fated expedition, Fritz and Eric had plenty to do in preparing the bundles of sealskins they had secured in their first foray, and which they found safe enough at the bottom of the gully where they had cast them down from above; although they little thought then of the peril they would subsequently undergo and the narrow chance of their ever wanting to make use of the pelts. Still, there the skins were, and there being no reason why they should not now attend to them, they set to work in the old fashion of the previous year, scraping and drying and then salting them down in some fresh puncheons Captain Fuller of the _Jane_ had supplied them with, as well as a quantity of barrels to contain their oil, in exchange for the full ones he had taken on board. After the skins were prepared, the blubber had to be "tried out" in the cauldron, with all the adjuncts of its oily smoke and fishy smell, spoiling everything within reach; and, when this was done, there was the garden to attend to, their early potatoes having to be dug up and vegetables gathered, besides the rest of the land having to be put in order. They had no time to be idle! Christmas with them passed quietly enough this time. The loss of the boat and the escape they had of their own lives just preceded the anniversary, so they felt in no great mood for rejoicing. In addition to that, the festival had too many painful memories of home, for which they now longed with an ardent desire that they had not felt in their first year on the island. The fact was, that, now the whale-boat was destroyed, they were so irrevocably confined to the little valley where their hut was planted-- shut in alike by land and sea, there being no chance of escape from it in any emergency that might arise, save through the unlikely contingency of some stray passing vessel happening to call in at the bay--that the sense of being thus imprisoned began to affect their spirits. This was not all. Their provisions lately had been diminishing in a very perceptible manner; so much so, indeed, that there was now no fear of their being troubled with that superabundance of food which Eric had commented on when they were taking the inventory of their stores! But for some flour which Captain Fuller had supplied them with, they would have been entirely without any article in the farinaceous line beyond potatoes, their biscuits being all gone. The hams and other delicate cabin stores Captain Brown had originally given them were now also consumed; so that, with the exception of two or three pieces of salt pork still remaining and a cask of beef, they had nothing to depend on save the produce of their garden and some tea--all their other stores as well as their coffee and sugar having long since been "expended," as sailors say. The months passed by idly enough, with nothing to do, and they watched for the approach of winter with some satisfaction; for, when that had once set in, they might look for the return of the _Pilot's Bride_ to rescue them from an exile of which they were becoming heartily weary. The penguins departed in April, as before, leaving them entirely solitary and more crusoe-like than ever, when thus left alone themselves; and, then, came the winter, which was much sharper than previously, there being several heavy falls of snow, while the waterfall froze up down the gorge, hanging there like a huge icicle for weeks. It was dreary enough, and they hardly needed the wintry scene to make their outlook worse; but, one bitter morning they made a discovery which filled them with fresh alarm. They had finished eating all their salt pork, but had never once opened the cask of beef since Eric abstracted the piece he roasted the year before "for a treat"; and, now, on going to get out a good boiling piece, in order to cook it in a more legitimate fashion, they found to their grief that, whether through damp, or exposure to the air, or from some other cause, the cask of beef was completely putrid and unfit for human food! This was very serious! They had kept this beef as a last resource, trusting to it as a "stand- by" to last them through the winter months; but now it had to be thrown away, reducing them to dry potatoes for their diet--for, the penguins, which they might have eaten "on a pinch," had departed and would not return to the island until August, and there was no other bird or animal to be seen in the valley! Their plight was made all the more aggravating from the knowledge of the fact that, if they could only manage to ascend the plateau, they might live in clover on the wild pigs and goats there; so, here they were suffering from semi-starvation almost in sight of plenty! Fritz and Eric, however, were not the sort of fellows to allow themselves to be conquered by circumstances. Both, therefore, put their thinking caps on, and, after much cogitation, they at last hit upon a plan for relieving their necessities. CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE. A LONG SWIM. This plan was nothing else than their attempting the feat of swimming round the headland, in order to reach the western shore, from whence, of course, they knew from past experience they could easily ascend to the tableland above--the happy hunting-ground for goats and pigs, their legitimate prey. "Nonsense," exclaimed Fritz, when Eric mooted the project; "the thing can never be done!" "Never is a long day," rejoined the sailor lad. "I'm sure I have covered over twice that distance in the water before now." "Ah, that might have been in a calm sea," said Fritz; "but, just recollect the terrible rough breakers we had to contend with that time in December when the whale-boat got smashed! Why, we might never get out of the reach of that current which you know runs like a mill-race under the eastern cliff." "We won't go that way," persisted Eric. "Besides, the sea is not always rough; for, on some days the water, especially now since the frost has set in, is as calm as a lake." "And terribly cold, too," cried his brother. "I dare say a fellow would get the cramp before he had well-nigh cleared the bay." "Well, I never saw such a chap for throwing cold water on any suggestion one makes!" exclaimed Eric in an indignant tone. He was almost angry. "It is cold water this time with a vengeance," retorted Fritz, laughing; whereupon Eric calmed down again, but only to argue the point more determinedly. "Mind, I don't want you to go, brother," he pleaded. "I'm much the stronger of the two of us, although I am the youngest; so, I'll try the feat. It will be easy enough after rounding the headland, which will be the hardest part of the job; but when I have weathered that, it will be comparatively easy to reach the seal-caves. Once arrived there, I shall only have to climb up to the plateau and shoot some pigs and a goat and fling them down to you here, returning at my leisure; for, there'll be no hurry. As for the swim back, it will not be half so difficult a task as getting round there, for the wind and tide will both be in my favour." But, Fritz would not hear of this for a moment. "No," he said; "if anybody attempts the thing, it must be me, my impulsive laddie! Do you think I could remain here quietly while you were risking your life to get food for us both?" "And how do you expect me to do so either?" was the prompt rejoinder. "I am the eldest, and ought to decide." "Ah, we are brothers in misfortune now, as well as in reality; so the accident of birth shall not permit you to assert a right of self- sacrifice over me!" cried Eric, using almost glowing language in his zealous wish to secure his brother's safety at the expense of his own. "What fine words, laddie!" said Fritz, laughing again at the other's earnestness, as if to make light of it, although he well recognised the affection that called forth Eric's eloquence. "Why, you are speaking in as grand periods as little Burgher Jans!" Eric laughed, too, at this; but, still, he was not going to be defeated by ridicule. "Grand words or not, brother," he said, with a decision that the other could not bear down; "you shall not venture upon the swim while I stop here doing nothing!" "Nor will I allow you to go and I remain behind," retorted Fritz. "I tell you what, then," cried Eric; "as we're two obstinate fellows and have both made up our minds, suppose we attempt the feat together, eh?" Fritz urged at first that it was unnecessary for both to run the risk; however, Eric's pleadings made him finally yield. "You see," argued the sailor lad, "we can swim side by side, the same as we have done many a time in the old canal at Lubeck; and then, should either of us get the cramp, or feel `played-out,' as the skipper used to say, why the other can lend a helping hand!" And, so it was finally settled, that, on the first bright calm day when there should be but little wind, and while the tide was setting out of the bay in the direction favourable for them, which was generally at the full and change of the moon, they were to attempt the task of swimming round the headland to the west shore of the island. Thence they could ascend the plateau in search of that animal food which they so sadly required, the two having been restricted for some weeks to a diet of dry potatoes, without even a scrap of butter or grease to make them go down more palatably. This being determined on, the two quickly made their preparations for the undertaking, which to them appeared almost as formidable as poor Captain Webb's feat of trying to go down the Falls of Niagara; although, it might be mentioned incidentally, that, at the time they attempted their natatory exploit, that reckless swimmer's name was unknown to fame. Of course, they had to consider that, should they reach the beach on the other side all right and thus get up to the tableland, they would require some weapon to bring down the animals they were going in chase of; and, as both the Remington rifles as well as Fritz's shot gun had been lost with the whale-boat, the only firearm remaining was the needle-gun, which the elder brother had brought with him from Germany-- more, indeed, as a reminiscence of the campaign in which he had been engaged than from any idea of its serviceableness. However, for want of anything better, there it was; and, as Fritz had plenty of cartridges which would fit it, the weapon had a chance of now being employed for a more peaceful purpose than that for which it was originally intended. It would, certainly, still take life, it is true; but it would do so with the object of ultimately saving and not destroying humanity. There was the weapon and the cartridges; but, how to get them round with them was the question? The brothers could swim well enough without any encumbrance, still, they would be crippled in their efforts should they be foolish enough to load themselves with a heavy gun, as well as sundry other articles which they thought it necessary to take with them for the success of their expedition. Why, such a procedure would be like handicapping themselves heavily for the race! What was to be done? Eric, the "inventive genius," very soon solved this difficulty. "I tell you what we'll do, brother," he said; "let us put our blankets, with the kettle and rifle and the other things we require, in one of the oil casks. We can then push this before us as we swim along, the cask serving us for a life buoy to rest upon when we are tired, besides carrying our traps, eh?" "Himmel, Eric, you're a genius!" exclaimed Fritz, clapping him on the back. "I never knew such a fellow for thinking of things like you, laddie; you beat Bismark and Von Moltke both rolled into one!" "Ah, the idea only just flashed across my mind," said the other, somewhat shamefaced at his brother's eulogy and almost blushing. "It came just on the spur of the moment, you know!" "But, how are we going to get the needle-gun into the barrel?" asked Fritz suddenly, taking up the weapon and seeing that its muzzle would project considerably beyond the mouth of the said article, even when the butt end was resting on the bottom. "Why, by unscrewing the breech, of course," said Eric promptly. Fritz gazed at him admiringly. "The lad is never conquered by anything!" he cried out, as if speaking to a third person. "He's the wonder of Lubeck, that's what he is!" "The `wonder of Lubeck' then requests you'll lose no time in getting the gun ready," retorted Eric, in answer to this chaff. "While we're talking and thus wasting time, we may lose the very opportunity we wish for our swim out of the bay!" This observation made Fritz set to work: and the two had shortly placed all their little property in one of the stoutest of the oil casks, which they then proceeded to cooper up firmly, binding their old bed tarpaulin round it as an additional precaution for keeping out the salt water when it should be immersed in the sea. Rolling the cask down to the beach, they tried it, to see how it floated; and this it did admirably, although it was pretty well loaded with their blankets wrapped round the needle-gun and other things. It still rose, indeed, quite half out of the water. Eric then plaited a rope round it, with beckets for them to hold on by; and so, everything being ready, they only waited for a calm day to make the venture. Some three days afterwards, the south-east wind having lulled to a gentle breeze and the sea being as smooth as glass, only a tumid swell with an unbroken surface rolling into the bay, the brothers started, after having first stripped and anointed their bodies with seal oil--a plan for the prevention of cold which Eric had been told of by the whalers. Until they reached the headland, they had easy work; but, there, a cross current carried them first one way and then another, so much interfering with their onward progress that it took them a good hour to round the point. That achieved, however, as the sailor lad had pointed out when they were first considering the feasibility of the attempt, all the rest of the distance before them was "plain sailing"; so that, although they had to cover twice the length of water, if not more, another couple of hours carried them to the west beach. Here they arrived not the least exhausted with their long swim; for, by pushing the cask before them in turn and holding on to it by the beckets, they, were enabled to have several rests and breathing spells by the way. Arrived again on terra firma, they at once opened their novel portmanteau; and, taking out a spare suit of clothes for each, which they had taken the precaution to pack up with the rest of their gear, they proceeded to dress themselves. After this, they carried up their blankets and other things to a little sheltered spot on the plateau above, where they had camped on their previous expedition. They did not find the tableland much altered, save that a considerable amount of snow was scattered about over its surface, accumulating in high drifts at some points where the wind had piled it in the hollows. The ground beneath the various little clumps of wood and brush, however, was partly bare; so, here, they expected to find their old friend "Kaiser Billy" and the remains of his flock. But, high and low, everywhere, in the thickets and out on the open alike, they searched in vain for the goats. Not a trace of them was to be seen; so, Fritz and Eric had finally to come to the conclusion that the islanders--along with their enemy, as they now looked upon him, Nat Slater--had paid another secret visit to the plateau and destroyed the animals. They believed the Tristaners did this with the object of expediting their departure from Inaccessible Island, where there could be no doubt they must have spoiled their sealing, thus depriving them of a valuable article of barter. "Never mind," said Eric the indomitable, when Fritz lamented the disappearance of the goats. "We've got the wild hogs left; and, for my part, I think roast pig better than dry potatoes!" "Himmel, the idea is good!" replied Fritz, who had already screwed on the breech of the needle-gun, making it ready for action. "We must go pig-chasing, then." And, so they did, shooting a lusty young porker ere they had travelled many steps further. Eric's matches were then produced, the inevitable box of safety lights being in the pocket of the sealskin jacket he had headed up in the oil cask; when, a fire being lit, the game was prepared in a very impromptu fashion, the animal being roasted whole. On previously tasting the flesh of these island hogs, they had thought the pork rather fishy; but now, after weeks of deprivation from any species of animal food, it seemed more delicious than anything they had ever eaten before. "Why, Eric, it beats even your roast beef!" said Fritz jokingly. The lad looked at him reproachfully; that was all he could do, for his mouth was full and this prevented him from speaking. "I beg your pardon," interposed the other. "I shan't say so again; I forgot myself that time." "I should think you did," rejoined Eric, now better able to express himself. "It's best to let bye-gones be bye-gones!" "Yes," replied Fritz; and the two then went on eating in silence, so heartily that it seemed as if they would never stop. Indeed, they made such good knife-and-fork play, that they were quite weary with their exertions when they had finished, and were obliged to adjourn to their little camp in the sheltered hollow where, curling themselves up comfortably in their blankets, they went cosily to sleep. The next day, they killed several of the younger hogs and threw their carcases down to the bottom of the gully by the waterfall; for, besides planning out the manufacture of some hams out of the island porkers, they intended utilising the lard for frying their potatoes, in. This, in the event of their finding the pig's flesh too rank after a time, would then afford them an agreeable change of diet to the plain boiled tubers with which hitherto they had had only salt to eat for a relish. On the third day, as the wind seemed about to change and ominous clouds were flying across the face of the sky, they determined to return home, having by that time consumed the last of their roast pig as well as all the potatoes they had brought with them in their floating cask. They were taking a last walk over the plateau, which they thought they might never see again--for the swim round the headland was not a feat to be repeated often, even if the weather allowed it, the currents being so treacherous and the sea working itself up into commotion at a moment's notice--when, suddenly, Eric stopped right over the edge of the gully. He arrested his footsteps just at the spot where the tussock-grass ladder had formerly trailed down, enabling them to reach their valley, without all the bother of toiling round the coast as they had to do now. "Don't you think this spot here has altered greatly?" said the sailor lad to Fritz. "No, I can't say I do," returned the other. "The grass has only been burnt away; that, of course, makes it look bare." "Well, I think differently," replied Eric, jumping down into the crevice. "This place wasn't half so wide before." "Indeed?" "No, it wasn't I couldn't have squeezed myself in here when I last came up the plateau." "Why, that was all on account of the space the tussock-grass took up." Eric did not reply to this; but, a moment after, he shouted out in a tone of great surprise, "Hullo, there's a cave here, with something glittering on the floor!" "Really?" "Yes, and it looks like gold!" CHAPTER THIRTY SIX. "SAIL HO!" "Gold!" exclaimed Fritz in astonishment. "Yes, gold," repeated the other, excitedly. "There are a lot of coins here each bigger than an eight-gulden piece." "Nonsense?" "Yes, there is, really. Come down here and see for yourself. There's plenty of room for both you and me." Trembling with excitement, Fritz jumped down beside his brother, who, stooping down in the crevice of the gully, had discovered a cavity in the rock further in the face of the cliff. This the fringe of the now destroyed tussock-grass had previously hidden from view as they ascended and descended the ladder-way; else they must have noticed the place the very first time they came up to the tableland from the valley below. It was exactly facing the ledge from whence they climbed on to the plateau; so, had it not been then covered over, they could not have failed to see it. The cavity, which had been probably worn away by the water trickling down, was like a little grotto; and there, piled on the bare rock, were hundreds of coins! These were quite bright, strange to say, although this circumstance was most likely owing to the action of the fire that had burnt the tussock- grass; for, some heavy iron clamps and hinges, that had evidently belonged to the box which contained the coins originally and had been consumed at the same time, lay on either side of the golden treasure. A number of the coins, too, if any further proof was needed, were fused together in a solid lump. With eyes dilated with joy, the brothers gazed at the mine of wealth, hardly daring to believe that what they saw was real. Then, Fritz put out his hands and touched the heap. "It is there--I feel it!" he exclaimed. "We are not dreaming?" "I'm sure I'm not," said Eric, laughing with delight. "Why, it is a regular fortune--it will beat all that we have earned by our sealing!" Fritz took up one of the coins and examined it carefully. He had some knowledge of numismatics from his mercantile education in Herr Grosschnapper's office, that worthy merchant trading to all parts of the globe and having considerable dealings with foreign monies. "It is a doubloon," he explained to his brother after studying it a bit. "The treasure consists of old Spanish coins that must have lain here for years." "I wonder who put them in this little hole?" said Eric. Fritz did not answer this query for the moment; but, almost at the same instant, there flashed across his recollection a curious story which an old man at Tristan d'Acunha had told him--at the time when he and Eric were inspecting the settlement on that island, before coming over to their own little colony--concerning an old pirate who had buried a lot of treasure either there or on Inaccessible Island. After the brothers had gazed to their hearts' fill at the precious hoard which had so suddenly been, revealed to them, the next thought was how to remove it to their hut below. "We'll roll up the lot in a blanket," said Eric, who as usual was always to the fore when anything had to be planned out. "Tie up the gold securely; and then chuck the bundle containing it down below, along with the poor pigs we have slaughtered! There's no fear of anybody making off with our doubloons before we accomplish the swim round the headland back home." "Yes, that will be the wisest course," acquiesced Fritz; "but, talking of swimming round the headland, the sooner we're off the better. Those clouds look very threatening." "Only rain, I think," replied Eric, looking up at the sky. "Good, that will not make us very wet when we are in the water, with our bare skins," said Fritz quizzingly. "No," replied Eric, laughing. "But, the sooner we are now off the better, as you say; for, even if the weather holds up, there are a lot of things for us to do when we get home. We have the pigs to skin, as well as cut up and salt; and, besides, there's all our money to count over." "We can do that now, as we roll it up in the blanket," replied Fritz, proceeding to suit the action to the word. To their high delight, they found that there were nearly two thousand separate gold coins, apart from the solid lump fused together, the whole being probably worth some three thousand pounds, or thereabouts. "Why, it's a perfect fortune!" exclaimed Eric. "You and Madaleine will now be able to marry and settle down, and mother be comfortably provided for, and everything!" "But, how about your share?" said Fritz, looking at the unselfish lad with glistening eyes. "Your share, indeed, why it's all yours!" "Nonsense," replied Eric; "we are partners, are we not? Besides, I don't want any money. When we leave here, you know, I'm going to sea again with Captain Brown, in the _Pilot's Bride_; and a sailor, unlike you poor land folk, carries his home with him. He does not continually want cash for housekeeping expanses!" "Very well, we'll see about that bye-and-bye," said Fritz, putting all the coins into the blanket, which Eric then tied up securely, lashing it round with a cord in seaman fashion. After that, they pitched the bundle down below, when the chink of the coins at the bottom of the gully sounded like pleasant music in their ears! The barrel of the needle-gun was then unscrewed from the stock, Fritz having kept the weapon ready for use as long as they remained on the plateau, thinking that as Fortune had so strangely endowed them with the pirate's treasure, perhaps some outlandish bird might equally suddenly make its appearance for him to add to their spoil. However, as nothing new in the feathered line came in sight, the albatross having taken their departure with the penguins, and not even an "island hen" being to be seen, the two now clambered down to the west beach once more. Here, packing up their cask again with the various impedimenta they still had, they proceeded also to put in their clothing. Then, fastening up the cask and lashing the tarpaulin round it again with the fastenings and beckets, which had been taken off in order the easier to unpack it, they entered the sea for their return swim round the headland--starting off in the best of spirits on their way back home once more. This time, the swim back was far more fatiguing, the wind and a slight swell being against them; but, the good living they enjoyed while on the plateau had nerved them up to any amount of exertion, so the journey, if more wearying, was performed in almost the same time they had taken to go to the western coast. Besides, as soon as they neared the headland, the currents there, which had been against them, were now all in their favour, the waves bearing them and their oil cask, once they had turned the point, buoyantly up to their own beach in the little bay, without the trouble almost of swimming a stroke! It was now well on towards the latter end of July, in the second year of the island life; and, the next week or two, they were busy enough salting down their pigs and attending to their garden, some cabbages from which with their newly acquired pork making them many a good meal. Then, came the return of the penguins to their breeding-place in August; so, there was now no further fear of their suffering from a scarcity of food, for, in case they tired of pork, they had plenty of fresh eggs for a change, as well as an occasional roast of one of the inhabitants of the rookery, whose fleshy breasts tasted somewhat, Eric said, like goose--albeit Fritz called him a goose for saying so! September was ushered in by a strong north-easterly gale, similar to that in which the brig had been wrecked. This alarmed the brothers, who began to fear, when the gale had lasted over the middle of the month, that the stormy weather might possibly prevent the _Pilot's Bride_ from venturing near the island, Captain Brown having said that it would have been more than madness while the wind prevailed from that quarter for any vessel to approach the coast. However, towards the third week in the month, the north-east wind shifting round, a gentle breeze sprang up from the south-west. A like change had very similarly occurred at the time of their own landing on the island; so, the brothers' hearts beat high with hope. Everything was got ready for their instant departure; the consequence of which was that all their own personal little goods and chattels were packed up so soon that they had frequently to open the bundles again to take out some article they required for use! The golden treasure was not forgotten either--that may be taken for granted. The result of their sealing for the past year was also put up for shipment. This consisted of eighty-five sealskins and fifty barrels of oil--a result that said much for their industry during the period. And so, the brother crusoes waited and looked out, day after day, with longing eyes for the anxiously expected vessel that was to terminate their exile on Inaccessible Island and bear them back to the loved ones at home! Fritz of late had somewhat reformed his lazy habits, rising much earlier than he used to do, this reformation being caused by a natural desire to be up and stirring when the _Pilot's Bride_ should arrive; but, still, Eric invariably forestalled him. The sailor lad was always down on the beach on the look-out, in default of being able to climb up to his former signalling station on the cliff, at the first break of day! Morning after morning, he went down to the shore; morning after morning, he returned with a disconsolate face and the same sad report-- "Nothing in sight!" This was the case every day. There was never the vestige of a vessel on the horizon. At last, one morning became a gladdened one in their calendar! Eric had proceeded to the beach as usual; but, not returning so soon as was his general habit, Fritz had time to awaken and rouse up from bed. Anxious at the lad's delay, he went to the door of the hut, peering out to seaward as the sun rose in the east, flooding the ocean with a radiance of light. At the same instant, Fritz heard Eric hailing him in the distance. It was the cheeriest shout, he thought, he had ever heard! Only two words the lad called out. "Sail ho!" CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN. IN THE GULDEN STRASSE AGAIN. That was all. "Sail ho!" shouted Eric in stentorian tones, his voice penetrating through the entire valley, and reaching probably the remotest extent of the island. The shout was quite enough for Fritz; for, hardly taking time to dress, he at once rushed down to join his brother on the beach. "Where is she?" he cried out anxiously, when yet some distance off. He panted out the question as he ran. "Right off the bay!" sang out Eric, in quite as great a state of frenzied excitement. "She's hull down to windward now; but she's rising every moment on the horizon." "Where?" repeated Fritz, now alongside of the other. "I can't see her." "There," said Eric, pointing to a tiny white speck in the distance, which to Fritz's eyes seemed more like the wing of a sea bird than anything else. "How can you make her out to be the _Pilot's Bride_?" was his next query. "I can barely discern a faint spec far away; and that might be anything!" Eric smiled. "Himmel!" he cried with an infinite superiority. "What bad sight you landsmen have, to be sure! Can't you see that she is a barque and is steering straight for the bay. What other vessel, I should like to know, would be coming here of that description, save the old skipper's ship!" Fritz made no reply to this unanswerable logic; so, he asked another question instead. "What time do you think she'll be near enough to send a boat off, eh, brother? We can't go out to meet her, now, you know." "No, worse luck!" said Eric. "However, I think, with this breeze, she'll be close to us in a couple of hours' time." "A couple of hours!" exclaimed Fritz with dismay, the interval, in his present excited state of feeling, appearing like an eternity! "Yes; but, the time will soon pass in watching her," replied the sailor lad. "Look how she rises! There, can't you now see her hull above the waves?" Fritz gazed till his eyes were almost blinded, the sun being right in his face when he looked in the direction of the advancing vessel; but, to his inexperienced eyes, she still seemed as far off as ever. "I dare say you are right, Eric," he said; "still, I cannot see her hull yet--nor anything indeed but the same little tiny speck I noticed at first! However," he added, drawing a deep sigh, "if we only wait patiently, I suppose she'll arrive in time." "Everything comes to him who knows how to wait," replied his brother, rather grandiloquently; after which speech the two continued to look out over the shimmering expanse of water, now lit up by the rays of the steadily rising sun, without interchanging another word. Their thoughts were too full for speech. Some two hours later, the _Pilot's Bride_--for it was that vessel, Eric's instinct not having misled him--backed her main-topsail and lay- to off the entrance to the little bay, the gaudy American flag being run up as she came to the wind, and a gun fired. The brother crusoes were almost mad in their eagerness to get on board. "What a pity we have no boat!" they both exclaimed together. They looked as if they could have plunged into the sea, ready dressed as they were, so as to swim off to the welcome vessel! Eric waved his handkerchief frantically to and fro. "The skipper will soon know that something has prevented our coming off, and will send in a boat," he said; and the two then waited impatiently for the next act of the stirring nautical drama in which they had so deep an interest. In a few minutes, they could see a boat lowered from the side of the ship; and, presently, this was pulled towards the shore by four oarsmen, while another individual, whom Eric readily recognised in the distance as Captain Brown, sat in the stern-sheets, steering the little craft in whaling fashion with another oar. "It's the good old skipper!" exclaimed Eric, dancing about and waving his hat round his head so wildly that it seemed as if he had taken leave of his senses. "I can see his jolly old face behind the rowers, as large as life!" Two or three minutes more, and the boat's keel grated on the beach, when Fritz and Eric sprang into the water to greet their old friend. "Waall, boys!" cried the skipper, "I guess I'm raal downright glad to see you both ag'in, thet I am--all thet, I reckon. It's a sight for sore eyes to see you lookin' so slick and hearty." So saying, Captain Brown shook hands with the two in his old, thoroughgoing arm-wrenching fashion, their hands when released seeming to be almost reduced to pulp in the process, through the pressure of his brawny fist. Of course, they then had a long talk together, the brothers recounting all that had happened to them in the past year, Captain Fuller of the schooner _Jane_ having taken to the Cape an account of their doings during the preceding twelve months. "Waal," exclaimed the skipper, when he was showed their little cargo of sealskins and oil, and told also of the treasure which they had found, "I guess you h'ain't made half so bad a job o' crusoeing, arter all! I reckon them skins an' He, along o' what you shipped afore, will fetch you more'n a couple o' thousan' dollars; an' what with them doubloons you mention, I guess you'll hev' made a pretty considerable pile fur the time you've been sealin'!" There being no object to be gained by the vessel remaining any length of time at the island--which indeed was the reason that the skipper had not brought the _Pilot's Bride_ to anchor, preferring to ply on and on in front of the bay, so as to be ready for an instant start--the little property of the brothers was, without further delay, taken on board; and then, crusoes now no longer, they bade adieu, a long adieu, to Inaccessible Island, their abiding place for the past two years. As the _Pilot's Bride_ filled her sails and cleared the headlands, which, stretching their giant arms across the entrance to the little bay, soon shut out all view of the valley from their gaze, the last thing they noticed was their hut, the home of so many long and weary months, blazing away in regular bonfire fashion. Master Eric had put a match to the thatch of the little edifice on crossing its threshold for the last time! "There's no fear, however, of this bonfire doing as much mischief as the last, old fellow!" he said apologetically to Fritz as they gazed back over the ship's stern at the rapidly receding island. "No," replied the other. "It won't do any particular harm, it is true; but still, I think it was a pity to burn down our little home. We have passed many pleasant as well as sad hours there, you know, during the last two years." "That may be all very true, brother," replied Eric, "but do you know what was my real reason for setting fire to it?" "No," said Fritz. "Well then I'll tell you," continued the other. "I couldn't bear to think that those cheeky penguins should invade it and perhaps make their nests there after we were gone!" "What?" exclaimed Fritz, beginning to laugh. "You don't mean to say you haven't forgiven the poor birds yet for--" "Stop!" cried Eric, interrupting him. "You know what you agreed to, eh? Let bye-gones be bye-gones!" "Good," said Fritz; and there ended the matter. The return voyage of the _Pilot's Bride_ back to America was uneventful, although full enough of incident to the brothers after their enforced exile; but when the vessel arrived again at her old home port of Providence in Rhode Island, of course the two had something more to excite them in the greeting they received from the cheery and kindly- hearted family of the good old skipper at the shanty on the bay. The worthy dame, Mrs Brown, welcomed them like sons of her own; while, Miss Celia--declared that Eric had grown quite a man--adding, with a toss of her head, that she "guessed he'd lost nothing of his old impudence!" However, in spite of all the kindness and hospitality of these good people, Fritz and Eric were both too anxious to get home to Lubeck to prolong their stay in the States any longer than was absolutely necessary; so, as soon as the worthy skipper had managed to convert their stock of sealskins and oil into hard cash--getting the weighty and old-fashioned doubloons exchanged for a valuable banker's draft, save one or two which they kept for curiosity's sake--the pair were off and away again on their way back to Europe by the next--starting North German steamer from New York. Before setting out, however, Eric promised to return to Providence ere the following "fall," in time to resume his post of third mate of the _Pilot's Bride_ before she started again on another whaling voyage to the southern seas. One more scene, and the story of "The Brother Crusoes" will be "as a tale that is told!" It is Christmas Eve again at Lubeck. The streets as well as the roofs and exteriors of the houses are covered with snow, exhibiting without every appearance of a hard winter; while, within, the interiors are filled with bustling folk, busy with all the myriad and manifold preparations for the coming festival on the morrow. Mirth, music, and merry-making are everywhere apparent. In the little old-fashioned house in the Gulden Strasse, where Fritz and Eric were first introduced to the readers notice, these cheery signs of the festive season are even more prominently displayed than usual; for, are not the long-absent wanderers expected back beneath the old roof- tree once more, and is not their coming anticipated at every hour--nay, almost at any moment? Aye! Madame Dort is sitting in her accustomed corner of the stove. She is looking ever so much better in health and younger in appearance than she was at the time of that sad celebration of the Christmas anniversary three years ago, detailed in an early chapter of the story; and there is a smile of happiness and content beaming over her face. The good lady of the house is pretending to be darning a pair of stockings, which she has taken up to keep her fingers busy; but every now and then, she lets the work drop from her hands on to her knees, and looks round the room, as if listening and waiting for some one who will soon be here. Madaleine, prettier than ever, clad in a gala dress and with bright ribbons in her golden hair, while her rosebud lips are half parted and her blue eyes dancing with joy and excitement, is pacing up and down the room impatiently. She is too eager to sit still! Mouser, our old friend the cat, is curled up in a round ball between Gelert's paws on the rug in front of the stove; while, as for Lorischen, she is bustling in and out of the room, placing things on the well- spread table and then immediately taking them away again, quite forgetful of what she is about in her absence of mind and anxiety of expectancy. Burgher Jans, too, now and again, keeps popping his head through the doorway, to ask if "the high, well-born and noble Herren" have yet come--the little fat man then retiring, with an humble apology for intruding, only to intrude again the next instant! Madame Dort had received, late that afternoon, a telegram from Fritz, stating that he had reached Bremerhaven; and that he and Eric were just going to take the train, hoping to be with them in Lubeck ere nightfall. Cause enough, is there not, for all this excitement and expectancy in the household? Presently, a party of singers pass down the street, singing a plaintive Volkslieder, that sounds, oh so tender and touching in the frosty evening air; and then, suddenly, there is a sound of footsteps crunching the snow on the outside stairway. Gelert, shaking off poor Mouser's fraternal embrace most unceremoniously, starts up with a growl, rushing the moment afterwards with a whine and yelp of joy to the rapidly thrown open door; and, here he jumps affectionately up upon a stalwart, bearded individual who enters, trying to lick his face in welcome. "Fritz!" cries Madaleine. "Eric!" echoes the mother, the same instant. "Madaleine!" bursts forth from Fritz's lips; while Eric, close behind, cries out joyously, "Mother--mutterchen--dear little mother mine!" The long-expected meeting is over, and the "Brother Crusoes" are safe at home again. Little remains to be told. Early in the new year, when winter had given place to spring and the earth was budding forth into fresh life, Fritz and Madaleine were married. The happy pair live on still with good Madame Dort in the little house of the Gulden Strasse as of yore; for, Fritz has settled down into the old groove he occupied before the war, having gone back to rejoin his former employer, Herr Grosschnapper--although, mind you, instead of being only a mere clerk and book-keeper, he is now a partner in the shipbroker's business:-- the little capital which he and Eric gained in their sealing venture to Inaccessible Island, and which Fritz has invested in the concern in their joint names, is amply sufficient to make him a co-proprietor instead of occupying a subordinate position. And Eric? Well, the lad is doing well enough. He went back to Providence at the end of the following summer, as he had promised; and, having joined the _Pilot's Bride_, and sailed in her since, he is now first officer of that staunch old ship--which the fates will that our old friend the Yankee skipper shall still command. The last news from Rhode Island, however, records a rumour anent a "splice," to use the nautical phrase, between Master Eric and Miss Celia Brown; and report has it that when this matrimonial engagement is effected "the old man" has announced his intention of giving over his dearly beloved vessel to the entire charge of his son-in-law. Still, this has not happened yet--Master Eric being yet too young for such honours. Lorischen and Burgher Jans, strange to say, did not make a match of it after all, the fickle-minded old nurse backing out of the bargain instead of holding to her promise after the arrival of her young masters at home. Gelert is yet to the fore, and as good and brave an old dog as ever, albeit time has robbed him of some of his teeth and made him somewhat less active; but as for Mouser, he does not seem to have "turned a hair." The highly intelligent animal still purrs and fizzes as vigourously as in his youth--occupying his leisure moments, when not after birds or mice, in basking in the sunshine on the window-ledge above the staircase in summer; while, in winter, he curls himself up between Gelert's outstretched paws on the hearthrug, in front of the old-fashioned china stove. The brothers must have the last word; and, here a little sermon must come in. Do you know, if you should ask them their candid opinion, they would tell you that, although the idea of playing at Robinson Crusoe may seem pleasant enough to those whose only experience of life on a desert island is derived from what they have read about its romantic features in books, persons, like themselves, who know what the real thing is, could narrate a very different story concerning its haps and mishaps, its deadly monotony and dreary solitude, its hopes and its despair! THE END. 
44914	----	[Transcriber's Note: Bold text is surrounded by =equal signs= and italic text is surrounded by _underscores_. Obvious punctuation errors have been repaired however the unusual use of quotation marks in continuing paragraphs was retained as printed.] [Illustration: "The lady came into the room to find out why the dog had called out. Mew-Mew ... crept out." _Page 19._] BOW-WOW AND MEW-MEW BY GEORGIANA M. CRAIK EDITED BY JOSEPH C. SINDELAR _Author of_ NIXIE BUNNY IN MANNERS-LAND NIXIE BUNNY IN WORKADAY-LAND NIXIE BUNNY IN HOLIDAY-LAND NIXIE BUNNY IN FARAWAY-LANDS FATHER THRIFT AND HIS ANIMAL FRIENDS MORNING EXERCISES FOR ALL THE YEAR BEST MEMORY GEMS [Illustration] BECKLEY-CARDY COMPANY CHICAGO COPYRIGHT, 1914, BY JOSEPH C. SINDELAR _Made in U. S. A._ [Illustration] CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I BOW-WOW AND MEW-MEW 7 II BOW-WOW AND MEW-MEW ARE NOT HAPPY 9 III MEW-MEW FALLS ASLEEP 11 IV THE CHICKS, THE PIGS, THE DUCKS 13 V BOW-WOW IS HURT 16 VI BOW-WOW IN BED 18 VII MEW-MEW BY THE FIRE 20 VIII BOW-WOW IN GREAT PAIN 21 IX MEW-MEW A NURSE 24 X BOW-WOW FEELS VERY ILL 27 XI WILL BOW-WOW DIE? 29 XII BOW-WOW AND MEW-MEW BECOME FRIENDS 31 XIII MEW-MEW SEEKS SOME FOOD 34 XIV BOW-WOW DOES NOT DIE 37 XV BOW-WOW AND MEW-MEW ARE VERY GREAT FRIENDS 39 XVI BOW-WOW AND MEW-MEW WILL GO AWAY 41 XVII SHALL THEY START SO SOON? 44 XVIII SAYING "GOOD-BY" 46 XIX BOW-WOW AND MEW-MEW SET OFF 48 XX RUNNING AWAY 51 XXI IS IT GOOD FUN? 52 XXII IN THE FIELDS 55 XXIII PUSS FALLS LAME 57 XXIV IN THE CORN-FIELD 59 XXV THE FIRST MEAL 62 XXVI THE WORK OF EACH RUNAWAY 64 XXVII THE BIG SHEEP-DOG 66 XXVIII BOW-WOW IS BADLY HURT 69 XXIX PUSS TURNS NURSE 71 XXX CROSS WORDS 73 XXXI HOW THE RUNAWAYS FARED 76 XXXII KIND FRIENDS 78 XXXIII BAD BLOWS 80 XXXIV THOUGHTS OF HOME 83 XXXV WHERE WAS HOME? 85 XXXVI PUSS FALLS ILL 87 XXXVII THE OLD FARM-HOUSE 88 XXXVIII HOME 90 XXXIX TELL US MORE 92 ABOUT THE BOOK 95 [Illustration] Bow-Wow and Mew-Mew [Illustration] I BOW-WOW AND MEW-MEW "Get out of the way," said a little fat dog, as he came near the fire. "I shall not get out of your way," said the white puss, who had got the best place first. "Do you keep out of my way!" "You are as bad a cat as ever I saw," cried the dog, in a rage. The dog's name was Bow-Wow. "I am not half so bad a cat as you are a dog," said Mew-Mew. Bow-Wow and Mew-Mew were a very young dog and cat. They did not know how to be good. No one had told them. They did not use kind words the one to the other. They led a sad life, and were cross all day long. Bow-Wow said that Mew-Mew was idle, vain, and cross, and of no use to any one. And Mew-Mew said of Bow-Wow, that he was only fit to bark, that he was all for himself and ever in the way. Thus they used to go on all day. It was quite a treat when they fell asleep. That was the only time that there was peace with them. II BOW-WOW AND MEW-MEW ARE NOT HAPPY Bow-Wow and Mew-Mew did not love each other. But you must know that they did not find good in any thing. All was bad alike to them. They did not like the house they lived in; they did not like the lady they lived with; nor the food they had to eat. They said they did not have what was good for them to eat or to drink. Bow-Wow wanted other little dogs about the place, so that he could have a good game of play. Mew-Mew sat with her eyes half shut for hours, to think what a shame it was no other cat ever came to see her. "Now if I had a real home," Mew-Mew would say, "I would have a lot of young cats in it. I would have a fire in every room, a cup of warm milk on each floor, and all the meat in the house should be cut up into little bits. And I would kill Bow-Wow and all the dogs that came near my house." III MEW-MEW FALLS ASLEEP Mew-Mew would think of such a life till she grew quite glad. She would begin to purr, and so sing herself off to sleep. "Did ever any one see such a cat?" Bow-Wow said, when Mew-Mew acted in this way. "She sings as if she were out of her wits. I have seen much in my life" (he was quite young), "but I have never seen so silly a cat as Mew-Mew is." Then he would go to Mew-Mew and give her a blow on the side of her head to wake her up. Mew-Mew would spring up like a shot. [Illustration] And if Bow-Wow did not take to his heels with all his might, which he very often did, Mew-Mew would use her paws in such a way as to make him wish he had left her to have her sleep out. Bow-Wow and Mew-Mew lived in a farm-house. You shall hear how this dog and cat were often put out, and how much they had to bear. IV THE CHICKS, THE PIGS, THE DUCKS First, there were the chicks. "They eat all day long," said Mew-Mew. "I cannot bear them; I wish I might eat them." Then there were the pigs. Bow-Wow did not like the pigs. For one day he had gone into their sty to bark at them. But they did not fear him and did not try to get away. [Illustration] In fact, they trod on him till he was well-nigh dead. He kept away from the pigs after that; at any rate, he did not go into their sty again. Then the ducks. If there was one thing Mew-Mew did not like, it was the ducks. The ducks made a great deal too much noise, they did not even know how to walk, and they had a very bad way of going into the water. The horse and the cow were much too big. It was not safe to go near them. They had a way of using their feet, which Bow-Wow and Mew-Mew did not like at all. The dog and cat had not one thing which they did like. The lady was not quite so bad as the rest. Still she was to blame that there were not fires in every room, cups of warm milk on every floor, and bits of good meat in the dish. V BOW-WOW IS HURT It came about one day that Bow-Wow was badly hurt. He had gone into the barn-yard "for no harm at all," he said, but to bark at the chicks, and put them in fear of their lives. He had great fun with one chick, which ran away from him, and flew up to its perch. Bow-Wow went after it and made leaps into the air to get it, and was just as glad as he could be. But all at once he could jump no more. A large log of wood fell on him. He felt great pain. This made him cry, so that one could hear him half a mile away. [Illustration] The lady ran out to see why Bow-Wow cried so loud. She took the wood off him. Then she found that the bone of one leg was hurt. A man was sent for to dress the leg, and Bow-Wow was put to bed. VI BOW-WOW IN BED As soon as Bow-Wow was in bed, Mew-Mew came into the room. She was as glad as she could be to see poor Bow-Wow in pain. "Well, you are a fine sort of dog, you are," she said; "why could you not leave the chicks alone? It is a pity you did not break all your legs. I wish you had done so. Anyhow, it will be a long time before you get about again. I shall have the nice warm fire all to myself now." "Oh--h--h!" cried Bow-Wow, for the poor little dog felt very ill. Then the bad Mew-Mew put up her paw and gave Bow-Wow such a blow that it made him cry loud again with pain. The lady came into the room to find out why the dog had called out. Then Mew-Mew, who, to tell the truth, knew that she had not done what was right, crept out by the open door. (See picture on page 2.) She took care to keep out of the way for the rest of the day. It was only when it was quite dark, and the lady had gone to bed, that she dared to come into the room again, and take her place before the fire. VII MEW-MEW BY THE FIRE Bow-Wow was in his little bed. Great care had been taken of him. He had not gone to sleep, for his leg hurt him so much that he could not get to sleep at all. When he saw Mew-Mew come into the room he was in such fear that he did not know what to do. She had been such a bad cat in the day, that Bow-Wow did not feel at all sure but that now, when the lady was in bed, Mew-Mew might kill him. It was a sad case for Bow-Wow. He shut his eyes, all but the least bit. He kept them just far enough open, to see what Mew-Mew was doing, and then he lay quite still. Mew-Mew gave one look at Bow-Wow's bed. "Bow-Wow is asleep," she said. "I will not be unkind to him again." Then she went to the fire, and sat with her back to Bow-Wow, that he might not see her; and she began to wash her coat. This was such a long task that she soon forgot all about Bow-Wow. She sat for a long time in the same place, even after the fire had gone out. VIII BOW-WOW IN GREAT PAIN Mew-Mew had a nice coat, white as milk. She kept it very clean, for she washed it for a good many hours each day. Bow-Wow used to say, "Why, you will wash it all away." Mew-Mew did not mind that a bit, for she knew that Bow-Wow only said this when he felt vexed that he had not a nice white coat. Bow-Wow's coat was black as coal. Mew-Mew sat by the fire and washed her coat. [Illustration] Bow-Wow did not dare to go to sleep, for fear of what the cat might do. At last he was quite worn out. His leg was very painful, too. After the cat had washed and washed for an hour and a half, Bow-Wow could bear it no longer. He turned himself in bed and gave a great groan. Mew-Mew left off washing at once. "I will groan again," said Bow-Wow; "I may as well, as I have done so once." He did groan again, and over and over again. If he were to be killed, he could not help it, and the pain did not seem so bad while he groaned. "Oh! you are awake, are you?" said Mew-Mew. "Oh--h--h! yes, I am awake," and Bow-Wow gave another great groan. IX MEW-MEW A NURSE "Do you mean to make that noise all night?" said the cat, in a very sharp way. "I do not know. I hope not. I wish I could lose this bad pain." "You _are_ a bad dog," said Mew-Mew. "You have a nice warm bed to lie on; great care has been taken of you; you have had good food to eat; what more can you want? "Yet you lie there and groan. "As for poor me, all I have to lie on is an old bit of rug. I think it is I that ought to groan." "I wish you had my leg," said Bow-Wow. "Oh, we shall never hear the last of that leg now." Then, as she had no more to say, she went to her rug to sleep. But she had only slept for a little while, and had fallen into a nice dream about a mouse, when Bow-Wow gave a great cry. "Why do you call out in that way?" said Mew-Mew, in a rage. "I am so hot," cried Bow-Wow, "that I think I shall die." "I wish you were dead," said the cat. "Why did you wake me from my first sleep and let that fat mouse get away from me? Am I to be kept awake all night to nurse you?" "I only want you to take the rug off me," said Bow-Wow. "Oh, dear! dear!" cried Mew-Mew. [Illustration] But she took off the rug, and put it near the fire. It would make her a nice soft bed. The rug she had was not so good and soft as this. X BOW-WOW FEELS VERY ILL "Well, will that do?" said Mew-Mew. "Oh, I do not know; I am very ill." "I dare say you are not a bit worse than I am; you have not a bad cold as I have." "A bad cold! What is a bad cold to a leg as full of pain as mine is?" "Oh! there you are! all about the leg again!" Mew-Mew went off to her rug, and was soon fast asleep. She slept this time for a good long while, and Bow-Wow slept too; but as break of day came, Bow-Wow made a very loud cry. "Dear me! dear me! what is it now?" said Mew-Mew. "I cannot bear this great pain any longer. You must come and help me with my bad leg." "Anything for peace," said Mew-Mew, and up she came and bit through what was on the leg and took it off. "Well, are you all right now?" "I am better," said Bow-Wow. But he lay back, for he could not hold up his head. [Illustration] "You do not look to me as if you would live," said the cat, after she had had a long look at him. "Not look as if I should live?" said Bow-Wow. "No, I do not think you will live;" and with that, she sat down before the dog, with her eyes fixed on his face, as if she meant to wait there and see the end of him. XI WILL BOW-WOW DIE? "Is there anything I can do?" asked the dog. "Oh! I do not know of anything. You must just wait." Then Mew-Mew shut her eyes for a little more sleep. "But Mew-Mew! Mew-Mew!" cried poor Bow-Wow, "you must not go to sleep. Oh, Mew-Mew! I have no one to speak to but you." "It will not help you to speak," said Mew-Mew. "You are much too fond of your own voice; I have told you that over and over again." "Yes, Mew-Mew, so you have. But you would not have me die, would you? I have so many things I should like to say to you. What will you do without me when I am gone?" The poor little dog gave such a sad look into Mew-Mew's face, as he spoke these words, that Mew-Mew did not quite know what to say. To tell the truth, though she tried to think that she was very glad at getting rid of Bow-Wow for good and all, yet she was not quite sure about it. After all, she did not know what she should do without him. But she did not wish to show that she was so weak as to care for him; so when he asked "What will you do when I am gone?" she said: "Oh! I shall do much as I do now." And she began to wash a speck off one of her white paws. XII BOW-WOW AND MEW-MEW BECOME FRIENDS But poor little Bow-Wow could not bear this. "What!" he said, "you will go on as you do now when I am gone? You will go on just the same, when you will never have me to look at--or to speak to--or to fight with?" Bow-Wow's voice quite broke down. "Oh, Mew-Mew! you _are_ not kind to me." "Me not kind! If it comes to that, you are much more unkind than I am. You do not care a bit for me; not a bit more than if I was a chick or a pig. You would not sit up with _me_, as I am doing with you now--no, not if I had hurt ten legs," said Mew-Mew. "Oh, Mew-Mew! how can you say such things?" cried Bow-Wow. "Oh, Mew-Mew! how _can_ you, and with me dying!" [Illustration] "You would not care if _I_ were dying ten times over," said the cat. And she put her paw over her face, and began to cry. "I--I--I should," said Bow-Wow; "I am sure I should care very much." "Well, well," said Mew-Mew, "I do not wish to be cross with you, now that you are about to die." "Let us be friends then," said Bow-Wow. "We will," said Mew-Mew. Then they were quite still for some time. They did not know what to make of being friends. They did not speak, for they did not know what to say. XIII MEW-MEW SEEKS SOME FOOD Mew-Mew was the first to speak. "How are you now, Bow-Wow?" she said. "How do I look?" said the dog. "Ah! not very well. There is a look in your eyes I do not like." "Oh, if it is only my eyes," said Bow-Wow, "I can change that.... Look at me now, Mew-Mew." "That is not the same look at all," said the cat. "Your eyes are as bright as mine now, Bow-Wow." "No, no--not so bright as yours. No other eyes could be as bright as yours, Mew-Mew. But I do feel a good deal better now, and I think, dear Mew-Mew, that if I could get a long sleep and some nice food--" "Should you like a mouse?" cried Mew-Mew. "Ah! I fear a mouse would get away from me. I do not know how to deal with a mouse as you do, Mew-Mew, even when I am well. I should like some cold meat." "Well, I will see what I can do," said Mew-Mew. Away she went; but the only food that she could find was some cold pork. [Illustration] She had two or three bites at this, to make sure it was good, and then went back to Bow-Wow with her prize. "What is it, Mew-Mew?" "Cold pork: very nice." And she put it before him. "Please have some too, Mew-Mew." "Well, I do not care if I do," said the cat. XIV BOW-WOW DOES NOT DIE They both set to work with a good will. In a very short time the cold pork was all gone. "It was very good," said Bow-Wow, with a sigh. "It has done me a great deal of good. Is there any more of it?" "Not a bit more," said Mew-Mew. "Well, it cannot be helped. Shall I try now to go to sleep?" "Yes, do, and I will make up your bed for you." This she did, and the dog lay down and shut his eyes. "I will just give my coat a wash, and then try to go to sleep too," said Mew-Mew. "Be sure you call me if you feel worse, dear Bow-Wow." The little boys and girls who read this book will be glad to know that in spite of all the fright which Bow-Wow and Mew-Mew had, the dog was in no danger of dying at all. He had to stay in bed for a whole week, and for ten days more was very weak, and had to take care what he ate, and where he went. [Illustration] Yet by the end of a month he was as strong as ever, and would bark at the pigs and hunt the chicks just as he had done before. XV BOW-WOW AND MEW-MEW ARE VERY GREAT FRIENDS Bow-Wow and Mew-Mew were now great friends. Mew-Mew said that she had saved Bow-Wow's life when he was ill. She said this so often, that Bow-Wow came to think it was true, and looked upon her as the best friend he had in the world. As for Mew-Mew, she grew very fond of Bow-Wow; she did not like to have him out of her sight. They loved each other so much that if you had told them they were once cross and unkind they would have said: "Oh, no! that must have been some other dog and cat, it could not have been we." But though they were now such good friends, they did not like the rest of the world a bit more than they had done before. One night, after the lady had gone to bed, Bow-Wow and Mew-Mew met to have a talk before the fire. Bow-Wow was very sad. "Why are you so sad, Bow-Wow?" said Mew-Mew. "It is the pigs!" "What have they been doing?" "I heard them grunt as I came past the sty!" [Illustration] "But they did you no harm, did they?" "They would have done if they could." XVI BOW-WOW AND MEW-MEW WILL GO AWAY "Well, pigs are no good anywhere, I own," said Mew-Mew, "but do you know, when I come to think of it, I am not sure but that chicks are worse." "Chicks are bad, if you like, but not so bad as pigs. You may be right, yet I do not know but that out of the whole set, ducks are the very worst of all," said Bow-Wow. And then he began to groan. As soon as he gave a groan Mew-Mew gave one too, and they kept on for some time. "I have a good mind not to bear it," said Bow-Wow at last. "Dear me! you must bear it, how can you help it?" "I can go away." "Where to?" "Anywhere." Mew-Mew was so put out with the thought of Bow-Wow going away, that for a time she could not speak. At last she said, "Oh, Bow-Wow, you would not leave me, would you?" "Would you not come with me?" he asked. "Yes, that I would, anywhere, to the end of the world." "Then we will go," said Bow-Wow. "It must be a good change, that is clear; in no place can we be as badly off as we are here." "Yes, that is quite clear," said the cat. "When shall we set off?" "Now, at once," said Bow-Wow. XVII SHALL THEY START SO SOON? "But we cannot get out yet; the doors are not open." To tell the truth, Mew-Mew did not care about getting away, as Bow-Wow did. She liked to stay at home. And on this night she felt that she must have a long sleep. So she said, "We must not start yet, for I have not given my coat a good wash." "Cannot you live one night without giving your coat a wash?" said Bow-Wow, in a rage. "I should think not. Would you have me to go out into the world with dust and dirt on my coat? And before we set out, I should like to get a thing or two that we may want to take with us. Let us have a sound sleep to-night. We may hope then to start in good time." "Well, well, as you please," said Bow-Wow, who now felt glad, too, that they had not to leave their warm place by the fire just then. [Illustration] They lay down side by side on the rug, and went to sleep. XVIII SAYING "GOOD-BY" Next day Bow-Wow went for a walk round the farm. First he had a look at the pigs; he did not go into their sty, but he barked at them and said: "I am sad for you, that you can never get out for a walk, but must be ever in that sty. Do you not wish you had been born dogs?" And the pigs, with a grunt, said: "Go away, you little dog; we do not wish to talk to you. Our home is a very nice one; we do not want to make any change." He gave a bark at the chicks, not so much to harm them as to bid them good-by. [Illustration] He went to the pond to get a drink and to say as his last words to the ducks: "Why do you not be wise and stay on the land? You can come to no harm here, but I am sure you will take cold by being so much in the water, and that may be the death of you!" But the ducks said: "Quack! quack! run off, you bad dog. You do not at all know what is good for us." XIX BOW-WOW AND MEW-MEW SET OFF In the night Mew-Mew had made her coat quite white. She stole a roast chick out of the house, and hid it in the dust-bin. And she took one or two other things which they might want. They did not start till the lady had given them two meals that day. At the set time they met at the dust-bin. [Illustration] "But who was to carry the chick?" Bow-Wow said he could not, Mew-Mew said the same. Then said Bow-Wow: "Had we better not eat it now? It is no use to leave it here." They set to work, and ate the chick to the very last bone. Then they did not feel quite so fit to take a long walk as they had hoped. Still they made their way to the gate of the farm and out into the road. "Now we have done it," said Bow-Wow. "Yes, we have done it," said Mew-Mew who did not feel at all gay. "We must step out as fast as we can," said Bow-Wow, "for I dare say they will be after us in half an hour." [Illustration] "Oh! as fast as you please," said Mew-Mew; but she wished all the time that she was back on her rug before the fire. So they set off at full speed. XX RUNNING AWAY They left the farm by the gate and got on the road. Bow-Wow wished to run very fast, for "I dare say they will be after us in half an hour," he said. He did not think but that they would soon be missed, though he said, "No one has ever given us much care." "Our loss," he said, "will make the lady sad and she will send out the men to find us." Bow-Wow and Mew-Mew ran fast, so fast that the cat was soon out of breath. Mew-Mew could run fast for a little way, but she was not used to long races. She had not gone half a mile before she began to feel quite ill. XXI IS IT GOOD FUN? "It is fine fun, is it not, Mew-Mew?" Bow-Wow called out in great joy. He had often run a long race and did not mind this run a bit. "Yes, it is fine fun," said Mew-Mew, two or three times. But at last, when for about the tenth time Bow-Wow said, "Is it not fine fun?" Mew-Mew could only gasp out:-- "Yes--yes--it is--good fun--but--can we not--just--rest a little?" [Illustration] "What! rest so soon?" said Bow-Wow. "Yes--just--for--a little time." "Oh, well, if you wish it," and Bow-Wow stood still. "But what is the matter with you? Have you hurt one of your paws?" "Oh no--not that," said Mew-Mew. "We have run so fast that I have lost my breath." "That is sad," said Bow-Wow. "I do not know how you will be able to move about much in the world, if you so soon lose your breath." "But we are not to be ever on the run, are we?" said Mew-Mew, with a wild look in her eyes. "Well, no, not ever on the run. But there will be a good deal of it. We must do the best we can." XXII IN THE FIELDS "Have you had a rest now, Mew-Mew?" said Bow-Wow. "Oh yes," said the cat, as she got on her legs again. "We will not go quite so fast now, will we?" "As you please. If the men from the farm come after us, and take us back, it will not be I that am to blame." They set off once more. They did not keep to the road, for fear of those who might be on the lookout for them. Some fields were much more easy to cross than others. The best of all were those of nice soft short grass. The fields in which the corn had been cut, were very hard to get over. The short stems of the corn were sharp to their paws. [Illustration] The field of large green leaves was not so bad to cross. Still it was not nice to be out of sight the whole time, and only to know where the other was by calling out every now and then. They could not run so fast as on the road, and though they did stop many times to rest, it was hard work for Mew-Mew. She was short of breath, as you know. But, worse than that, her paws had become so large that she could only just get along. "Oh, dear me!" she said, "what can have made my paws swell in this way, and what makes them so full of pain?" XXIII PUSS FALLS LAME Mew-Mew went on but a little way. She then could not even limp along any more. "Well, I did think you could run better than this," said Bow-Wow, not in a very sweet temper, when he saw her lie down. "Oh, I shall be well soon," the cat said, "it is only my paws. Oh, Bow-Wow, do your paws never hurt?" "I should think not," said Bow-Wow. "Well, but just look at mine." And they did look odd, for they were as big again as they ought to be, and quite black. "Have you some thorns in them?" asked Bow-Wow. "You must put them into water and wash them." "Put my paws in water! I would not do such a thing for the world." "What will you do with them, then?" "I mean to lick them." "It will take you a long time to lick those paws white. But if you mean to do it you had better begin, for we shall not walk any more to-night. Let us creep under this corn in the field. You will not mind if I go to sleep, will you, Mew-Mew?" "Oh dear, no," said the cat. XXIV IN THE CORN-FIELD "I should like some food before I go to sleep," Bow-Wow said to himself. "I do not at all know where to get any. I must go without my supper for once." This he did, and was soon fast asleep. As for poor Mew-Mew, she had two hours' good work, before she could get rid of the pain in her paws, and make them look white, as they did before she set out. Then she made herself into a ball, and slept well till the sun was up. I dare say she would have slept half the next day, had not Bow-Wow called,-- "Up! up! wake up, Mew-Mew!" Mew-Mew did her best to get up, and to keep her eyes open. She had never had such a day as the last. "No time to lose!" said Bow-Wow. "We must have some food!" "Oh, yes," said Mew-Mew, "we will have some birds. Wait till I have washed--". "Till I have washed my coat," she was going to say, but before she had got the last words out, she heard such a noise, all at once, in the trees near, that it quite put them out of her head. She looked up to see the cause of it, and then cried:-- "Oh! look at the birds! Oh! dear me! Bow-Wow! look at the birds! Oh! look at them! look at them!" [Illustration] XXV THE FIRST MEAL She had never seen so many birds, at one time, in her life before. "Well, I see them," said Bow-Wow. "Why do you not go and get some, and not talk so much about them?" The truth was that Bow-Wow did not much care to hear about birds. Mew-Mew had but to lie in wait for them and she could get nice tid-bits for herself. But Bow-Wow might look and wait, and as soon as he made a jump, the bird was sure to fly away. The sight of Mew-Mew's little feasts had of old been more than Bow-Wow was able to bear. [Illustration] "Why do you not get some?" said Bow-Wow. "Oh! I will get them," said Mew-Mew, "all alive." And she lost no time about it, for she had two poor little birds in no time. Bow-Wow ate one, she ate the other. "Will you have one more?" said Mew-Mew. "Yes, if you please," said the dog. Mew-Mew could get these birds with great ease. They had three birds each, and then as they could eat no more, they lay down again for a time. "It is very warm," said Mew-Mew. "I wish I had a little milk." XXVI THE WORK OF EACH RUNAWAY "Milk! Oh, you will get no milk here," said Bow-Wow. "Get no milk!" said the cat. "There is no milk," said the dog, "but you can have water." "I would not take a drop of water to save my life," said Mew-Mew. "Well, well," said Bow-Wow, seeing that all the hair on her back was on end, "we will hope to find some milk as we go along. But I want to speak to you. I think, dear Mew-Mew, that as you can get birds so well,--you know how they fly away from me,--I cannot do better than leave you to find our food each day." "I am sure, if I can please you," said Mew-Mew, "I shall only be too glad to do so." "Very well," said Bow-Wow. "I will pick out our road and say when we shall rest, and where we shall sleep; and you can come to me at any time that you want help." "I will," said Mew-Mew. "And now let us set off," said Bow-Wow. "Yes," said Mew-Mew. "I hope we shall find some milk as we go on." They went on for a long way, through the fields and woods, and kept out of the way of men and boys. XXVII THE BIG SHEEP-DOG At last, at a time when they had not looked well ahead, they heard a loud bark, and saw a great sheep-dog racing after them, as if he would break his neck. "Oh!" cried Bow-Wow. "Oh--h!" cried Mew-Mew. They did not know what to do. "We must run up a tree," said the cat. "But I cannot run up a tree," said the dog. "I am sure I cannot help you," cried Mew-Mew, and she ran with all her might. [Illustration] There was a large tree close by; Mew-Mew flew up it, and was quite safe. What would poor Bow-Wow do? The great dog came up. He did not give Bow-Wow time to speak, but fell on him, and began to roll him over and over on the hard ground. "Oh, Mew-Mew! Mew-Mew!" cried he, calling upon the only friend he had. "What do you mean by 'Mew-Mew'?" said the big dog. And he laid hold of Bow-Wow's neck, and gave him such a shake, as if he would shake his life out of him. Mew-Mew, up in the tree, you may be sure, sat as still as a mouse. "Oh! let me go! and I will never--never--" cried Bow-Wow, with his voice getting fainter at each word. The big dog had such a hold of Bow-Wow, that he was not able to say what it was that he would never do. "It is all over with me," he said to himself; and he shut his eyes and gave himself up for lost. XXVIII BOW-WOW IS BADLY HURT Just then a loud call was heard. "Come off, Rex! Do you hear? Come off, lad!" The big dog just lifted his head at the sound, and so gave Bow-Wow time to get his breath, but he kept him fast on the ground. "Come off, you bad dog!" said the man again. It was not till he had called a good many times, that the big dog gave poor Bow-Wow a last shake, and then ran off to the man. As soon as he was quite gone, Bow-Wow, who had not dared open his lips before, began to groan with all his might. "Oh!" he said. "Oh! oh!" They were such sad groans, that they made Mew-Mew's heart, as she sat in the tree, quite come into her mouth. "What shall I do? Shall I come down, Bow-Wow?" she said. But Bow-Wow would not hear her, and only groaned more and more. "Oh, dear! dear! I do think he is dying," cried Mew-Mew; and she came down from the tree, though she could but just stand for fear. "Bow-Wow! can you speak?" she called out, as soon as she was down. "Do not come near me," said the little dog, in a low voice. XXIX PUSS TURNS NURSE Mew-Mew gave a look all round, and as the sheep-dog was nowhere in sight, she came to where Bow-Wow lay. "Go away! leave me!" said Bow-Wow. "Leave you! Never!" cried the cat. "Oh! my poor dear, dear Bow-Wow! Why, you are badly hurt!" "If I am badly hurt you are quite safe, at any rate," said Bow-Wow. "You run away, and leave your friend to get badly hurt, do you not?" "Ah! but is it not a good thing that I did run away? Who would nurse you now if I were hurt too?" There was something in that, so Bow-Wow said no more about it. Mew-Mew began to run over the things she could do for Bow-Wow: how she would put him to bed, get him some drink, and kill a bird for him. Bow-Wow said he would like some food, and that if he had a very fine bird, he would try to eat some of it. [Illustration] Mew-Mew went off to find a fine bird. But go where she would, up and down, not a bird could she get. The land just there had few trees. There did not seem to be a bird in the place. XXX CROSS WORDS She ran up the trees, she hid in the wheat, yet she saw but six birds in an hour, and these all got away. She went back to Bow-Wow with a sad face. "You have come back at last," Bow-Wow said as soon as he saw her. "Come! make haste. Where are the birds?" "Oh, Bow-Wow, I cannot find any." "You cannot find any birds?" "Not one! It is the worst place I ever was in," and she began to sob as if her heart would break. "You ought to have done better," said Bow-Wow. "It is your work to find food. I told you so." "And it is your part to take care of us on the way, and you have done that well, have you not?" said Mew-Mew. "You have not much to talk about, anyhow," said Bow-Wow. "If I have not, I might have had, for all your good lookout," said the cat. Thus they grew very cross. I dare say they might even have come to blows, if it had not been that Bow-Wow was not able to stand. After a while they made up their cross words. [Illustration] As poor Bow-Wow felt ill, they could not go on. No food was to be had. They lay down just in that place, each rolled into a tight ball, and soon fell asleep. XXXI HOW THE RUNAWAYS FARED They slept the rest of that day. In the night rain began to fall. This made them wake up. Bow-Wow was just able to walk to a tree, the same tree that Mew-Mew had used to hide in. The rain did not come so hard, close up to the trunk of the tree. It would take too long to tell you of all this little dog and cat had to bear, for many days. Often without food, in the wind and the rain, and on the cold ground at night, what a change after the good home they had left! Day by day they grew more thin and weak. Bow-Wow's black coat was all rusty and dusty; his bones looked as if they must come through his skin. As for Mew-Mew's fur, you would not think it ever could have been white at all, it was in such a sad state. [Illustration] She used to wash her paws, and her face, two or three times a day; she would have done more if she could. Once they went near a house, in the hope that some food might be given them, but some bad boys cast stones at them, and drove them away. They had to run for their lives. XXXII KIND FRIENDS One night, after they had had no food all day, they saw a little boy and girl on the road, and the boy and girl saw them. They did not run away at the sight of a dog, as some boys and girls would have done. [Illustration] When they saw how thin and poor the dog and cat were, they took out of their bag some bread, which they had left from dinner, and fed them. Bow-Wow and Mew-Mew were very glad to have the food, and would have gone home with their young friends. But the boy said, "No, you must not come home with us. We do not know you. We have a big dog in the yard at home. Rex would kill you, if you came to our house." XXXIII BAD BLOWS The one thing in their minds now was, how to get home once more. They could never agree who was most to blame that they had run away. Mew-Mew said that all the blame lay with Bow-Wow; and Bow-Wow said that Mew-Mew was quite as much to blame as he was, and more so. Mew-Mew could not bear this. Weak as she was, she made a spring at Bow-Wow, and gave him such a box on the ears, that he, being very weak too, fell right down. [Illustration] When he got on his legs again, he flew at Mew-Mew. One might think they would have killed each other on the spot; but they were not so strong as they had been, and could not fight long. After they could fight no more, they would not speak a word for half an hour. Then Mew-Mew, with her kind heart, said, "I am sure I did not mean to hurt you, Bow-Wow!" And Bow-Wow said, "Let us not think or say any more about it. It is very sad that we cannot live without cross words and bad blows. But what are we to do? How are we to live?" "I wish we were dead," said Mew-Mew. "We soon shall be," said Bow-Wow. "But why did we ever, ever run away?" asked Mew-Mew. XXXIV THOUGHTS OF HOME Mew-Mew had asked this a good many times before and Bow-Wow had said, "We did it for the best." To-day he only gave a great groan. "We had such a good home!" said Mew-Mew. "We had!" said Bow-Wow. "There was food for us at all times." "There was!" "We had a fire all the year round to keep us warm." "It got too warm sometimes." "It never was too warm for me." "There were the chicks in the yard, that we did not like." "Yes, and the pigs." "And the ducks, and the horse, and the cow. Yet they did us no harm." "Well, no! I cannot say they did; that is, if we left them alone." Bow-Wow did not forget how the pigs trod on him in the sty. Mew-Mew went on: "But we gave up our good home, we left the lady who was so kind to us, and here we are with no food, cold, and wet, and nearly dead. Oh! Bow-Wow." "Oh! Mew-Mew!" They each had as sad a face as you ever saw in your life. "We may get home yet," said the dog. "Ah, if we could!" said the cat. XXXV WHERE WAS HOME? In what way did home lie? They had gone now to the right hand, now to the left hand, now to the north, now to the south. How to find the way by which they had come first, they could not tell. They could but walk on, and on, and on; and their poor little weak legs felt many a pain. "We can but go on till we die, Bow-Wow," said Mew-Mew. They went on, and never knew the least bit in the world where they were going. Sometimes when the sun rose, they had not the heart to get up at all. They would lie still, with their eyes shut, and try to sleep as long as they could, that they might not think of their pains. [Illustration] When they had gone long with no food, they could not sleep, but would creep close to each other, or would sit and look at each other in a kind of fear. XXXVI PUSS FALLS ILL At last one night came, when poor little Mew-Mew lay quite flat on the ground, and put out her four paws. She said in a very quiet way, "I can walk no more. When the day comes, you must say good-by to me and go on alone." "Oh! Mew-Mew," cried Bow-Wow, and he went to her side and sat down. The tears came into his eyes so fast that he could not see. "I will stay here if you must stay, Mew-Mew," said Bow-Wow. "I will stay here and die too." "Oh, no, dear Bow-Wow; you may get home yet." "What good would it do me to get home alone?" "You could tell the lady how hard we tried to get home. I should like to have her know how hard we tried, and how sorry we were." "But she will never know it," said Bow-Wow. "I shall never find her. I cannot go on alone. I will not leave you." XXXVII THE OLD FARM-HOUSE They lay down to sleep. It was a dark cold night. They crept close, that they might not feel the cold so much. Bow-Wow could not sleep: he thought every hour would be Mew-Mew's last. But the hours passed on, and she still drew her breath in the same short way. She was alive when the sun rose. It had been night when they had come to this place--quite dark. When the light came, what do you think Bow-Wow saw? As soon as his eyes were open, and this was just as the birds began to sing, he saw, not far off, the farm-house at home. [Illustration] There it was; and the sun shone on the warm tile roof, and on the old stone walls. There it was, with the barn-yard and the stacks of hay. Bow-Wow knew them every one. He gave one long look, and then such a bark, that even made poor sick Mew-Mew wake. XXXVIII HOME "Oh, Bow-Wow, what is it?" she said. But Bow-Wow could not tell. Not a word would come from him save one. He ran round and round as if he were wild. "HOME! HOME! HOME!" he cried. Yes, it was home at last. Mew-Mew could see it. There it was, the red house lit up by the sun. But poor Mew-Mew could not walk to it. [Illustration] Bow-Wow ran off to the house, and in some way or other, as dogs often will, made one of the men come to the place where Mew-Mew lay. He took Mew-Mew in his arms, to her long-lost home. XXXIX TELL US MORE But some little boy or girl will say, "Tell us more. Tell me,--did Mew-Mew die? Did the lady take Bow-Wow and Mew-Mew into the house again? What did she do for them, if she took them in? Did puss ever get her white coat again? And if they both got quite well again, were they good or bad afterward?" I will tell you. The lady was very glad to see her pets home once more. They were in such a sad way that she did not whip them. [Illustration] She gave Mew-Mew a cup of warm milk before the fire. Bow-Wow had a great lump of meat with no bone. Then each of them had a warm bath, and Mew-Mew was put to bed. As to Mew-Mew's coat, she washed it so often, and took such care of it, that in a few weeks it grew long and was quite white again. And I am glad to be able to add, that Bow-Wow and Mew-Mew were as good a little dog and cat ever after, as you and I could wish them to be. ABOUT THE BOOK Bow-Wow and Mew-Mew is one of the few books for beginners in reading that may be classed as literature. Written in words of mostly one syllable, it has a story to tell, which is related in so attractive a manner as to immediately win the favor of young children. It teaches English and English literature to the child in the natural way: through a love for the reading matter. It is the character of story that will, in the not distant future, replace the ordinary primer or reader with detached sentences, and which seldom possesses any relation to literature. The ultimate objects of any story can only be effected through the _love_ for a story. The prominent point in this story is development of good character, which may well be regarded as the highest purpose of education. The transformation from bad to good traits in the dog and cat cannot but have a desirable effect on every child that reads the story. Bow-Wow and Mew-Mew become dissatisfied with their home and their surroundings, and ungrateful toward their benefactress. As the story tells, "They did not find good in any thing." But after running away and suffering hunger, neglect, and bad treatment, their characters begin to change. They naturally come to reflect their mistress's goodness. They learn the value of companionship and friendship, and the appreciation of a home. However, the ethical thoughts in the story are presented without a moral. The child really _lives_ the scenes described. He has the emotions of the characters and feels their convictions. And this determines the worth of a story as an agent in character development. The narrative furnishes, further, the proper kind of exercise for the imagination. It affords abundant opportunity for the play of the dramatic instinct in the child, and effects a happy union of the "home world" and the "school world." The illustrations, drawn by Miss Hodge, have been planned and executed with considerable care. J. C. S. GOOD BOOKS FOR CHILDREN'S READING For children from five to ten years =Nonsense Rhymes and Animal Stories.= By Alhambra G. Deming. Charming little rhymes and stories, incidentally teaching habits of good English to the little folks. 64 pages, with 35 illustrations in black and color. _Cloth, 65 cents._ =The Teenie Weenies.= By William Donahey and Effie E. Baker. The adventures of these strange tiny folks are related in a manner that is delightfully simple and realistic, and which will be found to appeal to the child's sense of humor. 141 pages, with 72 illustrations in colors and decorated end sheets. _Cloth, 70 cents._ =Two Indian Children of Long Ago.= By Frances Lillian Taylor. A collection of beautiful Indian legends, giving an intimate picture of Indian child life. 160 pages, with 40 illustrations in black and color. _Cloth, 70 cents._ =Nixie Bunny in Manners-Land.=. By Joseph C. Sindelar. This is the first of the popular NIXIE BUNNY BOOKS which have been read wherever there are children. It is a rabbit story of good manners. 144 pages, with 62 illustrations in colors and decorated end sheets. _Cloth, 70 cents._ The other books in the same series are: =Nixie Bunny in Workaday-Land= A rabbit story of the occupations and industry. 144 pages, with 90 illustrations in colors and decorated end sheets. _Cloth, 70 cents._ =Nixie Bunny in Holiday-Land= A rabbit story of the holidays. 159 pages, with 82 illustrations in colors and decorated end sheets. _Cloth, 70 cents._ =Nixie Bunny in Faraway-Lands= A rabbit story of strange little folk. 160 pages, with 94 illustrations in colors and decorated end sheets. _Cloth, 70 cents._ BECKLEY-CARDY COMPANY _Publishers_ CHICAGO 
48228	----	courtesy of the Digital Library@Villanova University (http://digital.library.villanova.edu/)) [Illustration: No. 8. PRICE. TEN CENTS. Published Weekly. By Subscription. $5.20 Per Annum. Entered at the New York Post Office as Second-Class Matter. February 25, 1896 THE ARM CHAIR LIBRARY EACH NUMBER CONTAINS A COMPLETE NOVEL BY A POPULAR AUTHOR. AVERIL. By ROSA NOUCHETTE CAREY. F·M·LUPTON· PUBLISHER 23 25 AND 27 CITY HALL PLACE NEW YORK ] Averil. By ROSA NOUCHETTE CAREY. CHAPTER I. A WET DAY IN LINCOLN'S INN. Mr. Harland was one of those enviable persons who invariably take a cheerful view of everything; in the favorite parlance of the day, he was an optimist. A good digestion, an easy-going temperament, and a conscious void of offense toward his fellow-creatures, all contributed to furnish him with a fine flow of spirits. In this way he was a philosopher, and would discourse for a good half hour at a time on the folly of a man who permitted himself to be disturbed by any atmospheric changes; he thought it derogatory to the dignity of a human being to be depressed by a trifle more or less of fog. No man delighted more than he did in the sunshine--a spring day moved him to exuberant animation; but, on the other hand, no pressure of London smoke, no damp, clinging fog, no scarifying east wind, no wearisome succession of wet days, ever evoked an impatient expression or brought him down to the dull level on which other people find themselves. This made him a delightful companion, and when Mrs. Harland (who certainly matched her husband in good humor) once averred herself a fortunate woman, none of her friends contradicted her. Mr. Harland had just reached his chambers in Lincoln's Inn one morning, and as he divested himself of his wet overcoat he hummed a little air in an undertone. The surroundings would have looked dreary enough to any other person. It was difficult to recognize that May had actually arrived; the air had a February chill in it; and the heavy, leaden sky and ceaseless downpour of steady rain made the few passers-by shiver; now and then a lawyer's clerk hurried along, uttering a sort of dumb protest in his raised shoulders and turned-up collar. In that quiet spot the drip of the water from the roofs was distinctly audible, alternating with the splash of the rain on the stone flags of the court. Mr. Harland glanced at the letters lying on his table, then he walked up to the fire-place, and spread his white, well-shaped hands over the cheerful blaze. "My housekeeper is a jewel!" he muttered. "She is worth her weight in gold, that woman; she seems to know by instinct when to light a fire. Bless me, how it is raining! Well, people tell me I am an oddly constituted person, but I believe in my heart that I thoroughly enjoy a wet day; one is sure of a quiet morning; no fussy clients, to bore one and take up one's valuable time; not that I object to clients," with a chuckle. "Halloo! come in!" as a modest rap sounded at the door. "Well, Carruthers, what is it? No one can be possibly wanting me this morning," as a solemn-faced young man stood hesitating on the threshold. "The young lady said she was in no hurry, sir; would not disturb you for the world. It is Miss Willmot." "Miss Willmot!" and Mr. Harland dropped his eye-glasses, and then picked them up in a hurry. "Show her in, show her in at once, Carruthers; and mind, I am engaged; I am not to be interrupted on any account. To think of that delicate little creature venturing out on such a day! What do you mean by it, what do you mean by it, Miss Averil?" advancing with outstretched hands and a beaming face, as a little figure appeared in the doorway. "Don't scold me," returned the girl, in a sweet, plaintive voice. "I am not so imprudent as you think. I took a cab, and drove all the way, so I am not wet at all; no, indeed I am not," as Mr. Harland inspected her carefully, touching her dress and mantle, as though to convince himself of the truth of her words; but he only shook his head, and drew an easy-chair close to the fire. "Sit down and warm yourself," he said, with a good-humored peremptoriness. "You are not the sort to brave damp with impunity. You are a hot-house plant, that is what you are, Averil; but you have no one to look after you, and so you just go on your willful way." "You speak as though you were not pleased to see me," with a slight pout; "but I know better, do I not, Mr. Harland!" laying a thin little hand on his arm. The lawyer rubbed up his gray hair with a comical gesture. "I am always pleased to see you, my dear," he said at last, in a fatherly sort of way, for he had daughters of his own, and there was a very real friendship between him and this girl, whom he had known from her cradle. "But all the same, I am vexed with you for coming. If you wanted me, why did you not wire, and I would have been with you before the day was out? You know it was an understood thing between us that you are to send for me if you are in any perplexity." "Yes, I know; but if I send for you, one or other of them would be sure to find it out, and then curiosity would be excited; it is so much nicer to talk to you here. I do love these quiet rooms, and that gray old court." And Averil looked dreamily out of the window as she spoke. No one who had seen Averil Willmot for the first time would have guessed her age; in reality she was seven-and-twenty, but her diminutive stature, which scarcely equaled that of a well-grown child of twelve, often made people think her much younger; and her face, in spite of the cast of melancholy that was always perceptible, was singularly youthful. At first sight Averil was certainly not prepossessing; her stunted growth and small, sallow face had little to recommend them; without being actually deformed, she had rounded shoulders and sunken chest, the result of some spinal mischief in early years. Her features were scarcely redeemed from plainness; only a sweet, sensitive mouth, and dark, thoughtful eyes prevented positive ugliness; but those who knew Averil best cared little for her looks, though it was just possible that a sense of her physical defects had something to do with the vibrating melancholy that was so often heard in her voice. "You might have a quiet place of your own to-morrow if you liked," observed Mr. Harland, as Averil uttered her little speech. "I am a tolerably cheerful person, as you know, and take most things with equanimity; but it always rubs me up the wrong way when I see people making martyrs of themselves for insufficient reasons, and spoiling their own lives. Granted that you owe a certain amount of duty to your step-mother and her children--and I am the last man in the world to deny that duty, having step-children of my own--still, is there a ghost of a necessity for you all living together, like an ill-assorted clan?" "My dear old friend," laughed Averil, and she had a pretty, child-like laugh, though it was not often heard, "how often are we to argue on that point? The ghost of my necessity, as you call it, is Lottie, and she is substantial enough, poor child. If I were to consent to break up our mixed household, what would become of poor Lottie?" "Take her with you, of course. Mrs. Willmot would only be too glad to get rid of an incumbrance. What does she care about her husband's niece? Try it, Averil; the burden of all these gay young people is too heavy for your shoulders." "I have tried," she replied, sadly. "Mr. Harland, indeed I have not been so unmindful of your advice as you think. I have made more than one attempt to put things on a different footing, but all my efforts have been in vain. Mrs. Willmot refuses to part with Lottie, though I have offered to provide for her; but the answer is always the same, that Lottie is her husband's legacy to her, that on no consideration would she part with such a sacred charge!" A keen, sarcastic look shot from the lawyer's eyes. He muttered under his breath, "Humbug!" but he prudently forbore to put his thoughts into words. "Miss Lottie never lived with you in your father's lifetime," he observed, presently; "at least, I never saw her there." "No; she was at school at Stoke Newington. The people boarded her in return for her help with the little ones. She was very young then; she is only eighteen now. I am afraid they taught her very little. I used to tell father so, but he disliked so much to interfere." "And now the sacred charge is at Kensington. My dear, that step-mother of yours is a clever woman--you remember I always told you--a very clever woman; she knows where she is comfortable." "I have not come here through the rain to talk about my step-mother," returned Averil, in a reproachful tone, "but to show you a letter I have just received. Mr. Harland, you know all my father's affairs; can you tell me anything about a cousin of his, Felicia Ramsay?" "Is that her married name? Willmot once told me, when I was dining with him, that he had been engaged to his cousin, Felicia Graham. It is so long ago that I can not recollect what moved him to such confidence. Stop; I have it. I remember I made the remark that a man seldom marries his first love (you know, even old fogies will sentimentalize sometimes), and he replied (you know his dry way)--'I was engaged to my cousin before I married Averil's mother, but the fates in the shape of a shrewish old uncle, forbade the bans.' And then he sighed, and somehow we changed the conversation." Averil flushed; her dark, sensitive face showed signs of emotion. "Poor father! but he loved my mother dearly, Mr. Harland. Still, I am glad to know this; it makes me understand things better. Now, will you read my letter (you will see it is addressed to my father), and tell me what you think of the writer?" The lawyer put on his _pince-nez_ and looked attentively at the somewhat cramped, girlish handwriting, then he turned to the signature, Annette Ramsay; after which he carefully perused it, while Averil sat watching him with her hands folded in her lap. "DEAR SIR AND GOOD COUSIN," it began, "will you have patience with me while I tell you my sad story? For many years my father has been dead, and now the dear mother has followed him; and in all this wide world I have no one but old Clotilde to care for me. My cousin, it is terrible for a girl to be so so lonely. If I were Catholic I could take refuge with the good sisters in the Convent of the Sacred Heart; but always I do remember my mother's teaching and our good pastor. For my own part I was not aware that my English cousin existed; but one day, when my mother was unusually suffering, she called me to her bedside--'Annette,' she said, quite seriously, 'thou must write to my cousin, Leonard Willmot, when I am gone. If only I had strength to write to him myself! Ask him, in the name of Felicia Ramsay, to show kindness to her only child. Throw thyself on his protection. Leonard was always of a generous nature; his heart is large enough to shelter the unfortunate.' My cousin, those were the words of my mother, and she wept much as she uttered them. As I was writing this, our good pastor entered. I showed him the beginning of my letter. 'Tell your cousin more of your life and circumstances,' he urged. 'Represent to him exactly your situation.' Well, I will try to obey; but figure to yourself my difficulty, in thus writing to a stranger. "While my father lived, my life was as joyous as the bees and birds. What was there that I lacked? My mother loved me; she taught me everything--to read, to sew, to speak English and French. During my father's long absences (he was a sea captain) we worked well, we sufficed to each other; when my father came home we made holiday, and fêted him. One day he did not come. By and by we heard the sad news--in a great storm he had perished. My cousin, those were bitter days! I was just fourteen; until then I had been a child, but my mother's trouble made a woman of me. Alas! never did my mother recover the shock; in silence she suffered, but she suffered greatly. 'Look you, my child,' she would say, 'we must not repine; it is the will of God. Your father was a brave man; he was a Christian. We know that he gave his life for others; it was he who saved the ship, and but for the fall of the mast he would be living now. Oh! if only he had thought of himself and of his wife and child; but they must all go first, even the little cabin-boy, and so he stayed too long.' "Perhaps it was natural, but she was never weary of telling that story as we sat at work. My father's death had left us poor; my mother mended lace, she taught me to do the same. We lived on still in the old French town where my father had placed us, and where I had been born. He had never been rich, and it was easier to live there than in England; his mother had settled there, and one or two of his people, but they had all dropped away; soon there were none whom we could _tutoyer_, only Clotilde, who kept the house. "I have always believed that my mother worked too hard; she had too few comforts, and my father's death preyed on her spirits. She drooped more every day--her eyes grew too dim for the lace-work. By and by she had no strength to speak; only when she looked at me the tears rolled down her cheeks; then I knew she feared to leave me alone in the great world, and it was not easy to comfort her. Our good pastor was with us then; it was he who closed her eyes, and read the service over her; presently he will leave us, for his new work is in England. It is he who has promised to direct this letter when he reaches London. "My cousin, what is there that I need to say more? I work hard, that I may feed and clothe myself, but Clotilde is old--every one who loves me dies: perhaps she will die too, and then what will become of me? "My cousin, I recommend myself to you, "With affectionate respect, "ANNETTE RAMSAY. "_Rue St. Joseph, Dinan._" "Well?" as Mr. Harland laid down the letter--"well, my good friend?" "You want my opinion, Averil? To my mind it is a good letter; there is a genuine ring in it; the girl states her case very fairly. It is a little un-English, perhaps, but what of that? If Willmot had lived he would have held out a helping hand, no doubt. Yes, the matter is worthy of investigation; and if you care to assist her--" But here Averil placed her hand on his arm. "You have said enough. I see the letter has not displeased you; it seems to be a beautiful and touching letter. I could not help crying over it. Mr. Harland, I am going to ask you a very great favor--it is the greatest I have ever asked of my old friend; but there is no one I can trust but you. Will you go over to Dinan and see this girl? Will you tell her that her mother's cousin is dead, and that I am her sole relative? Tell her also," still more impressively, "that my home is hers--that I am ready to welcome her as a sister; and bring her to me, the sooner the better. Mr. Harland, will you do this, or shall I go myself and fetch my cousin?" Mr. Harland looked perplexed; he fidgeted on his seat and played with his eye-glasses. "My dear, this is very sudden; it is not wise to make up your mind so quickly. We have only this letter; how can we know what the girl is like? Let me go first. I can easily make friends with her without compromising you in the least. You are too impulsive, Averil! Your generosity runs away with you. You are overburdened already, and yet you would take more responsibilities on yourself." Averil smiled, but she was evidently bent on having her own way. "Mr. Harland, it is your duty to protest, and I expected this remonstrance; but, on the other hand it is my duty to befriend my cousin. What does it matter what she is like? It is enough for me that she is unhappy and desolate. Do you think I do not know what it is to be lonely?" And here her voice broke a little. "Perhaps I shall care for her, and she will be a comfort to me. Poor thing! was it not touching of her to say there were none for her to _tutoyer_? I like her quaint way of expressing herself. Now, will you be good, and help me in this?" "And you have really made up your mind to have the girl?" rather gruffly. "Yes, I intend to offer my cousin a home," was Averil's quiet reply; and after a little more grumbling on the lawyer's part, some definite arrangements were made, and half an hour later Averil was jolting homeward through the wet, crowded streets; but, tired as she was, there was a quiet, peaceful expression on her face, as though some duty were fulfilled. "I think father would approve of what I am doing," she said to herself; "he did so like helping people: no man ever had a kinder heart." But Averil sighed as she uttered this little panegyric. Alas! Leonard Willmot's daughter knew well that it had been sheer kindness of heart, unbalanced by wisdom, that had led him to marry the gay widow, Mrs. Seymour. He had been touched by her seeming desolation, and the helplessness that had appealed to his chivalrous nature; and, as Averil knew, this marriage had not added to his happiness. CHAPTER II. LA RUE ST. JOSEPH. One afternoon, about a fortnight after Averil Willmot had paid her visit to Lincoln's Inn, Mr. Harland stood on the deck of the small steamer in the gay port of Dinan, looking with amused eyes on the motley group collected on the quay. It was a lovely June day, and he had thoroughly enjoyed his little pleasure trip--for such he insisted on regarding it. He had earned a holiday, he had told Averil, and he had always longed to explore the Rance--it was such a beautiful river. It was his habit to combine pleasure with business, and he went to see Dinan, as well as interview Annette Ramsay. "How I wish I had brought Louie with me," he thought, regretfully, as he looked at the bright scene before him; the blue river, the green-wooded heights, the yellow and brown houses that lined the quay. Some pigeons were fluttering in the sunshine; a black goat with a collar round its neck was butting viciously at a yellow mongrel dog; a knot of _gendarmes_, _ouvriers_ in blue blouses, and soldiers with red shoulder-knots were drinking in front of a shabby little _auberge_; some barefooted boys were sailing an old wooden tub in the river; a small, brown-faced girl, in a borderless cap, scolded them from the bank--the boys laughed merrily. "Chut! no one minds Babette. Where is the mast, Pierre?" Mr. Harland heard one of them say. "Business first, pleasure afterward--is not that the correct thing?" thought Mr. Harland, as he climbed to the roof of a rickety little omnibus. "First I will go to the Rue St. Joseph, afterward I will dine, and reconnoitre the place. Perhaps it would be as well to secure my bed at the hotel, and deposit my portmanteau; the _cocher_ will direct me;" and Mr. Harland, who had a tolerable knowledge of French, was soon engaged in a lively conversation with the black-mustached individual who occupied the box. La Rue St. Joseph was only a few hundred yards from the hotel; it was in a narrow, winding street leading out of one of the principal thoroughfares. He had no difficulty in finding the house; it was a high, narrow house, wedged in between two picturesque-looking buildings, with overhanging gables and broad latticed windows, and looked dull and sunless; its neighbors' gables seemed to overshadow it. As Mr. Harland rang the bell, a little, wiry-looking old woman, with snow-white hair tucked under her coif, and a pair of black, bead-like eyes, confronted him. "What did monsieur desire?" "Monsieur desired to know if Mademoiselle Ramsay were within." "_Mais oui, certainement_; mademoiselle was always within. Mademoiselle was forever at her lace-work. Would monsieur intrust her with his name? Doubtless he was the English cousin to whom mademoiselle had confided her troubles. Monsieur must pardon the seeming indiscretion, but it was not curiosity that had prompted such a question." "Madame, I grieve to tell you that Mr. Willmot is dead," began Mr. Harland; but Clotilde, uttering a faint shriek, burst into voluble lamentations which effectually prevented him from finishing his sentence. "What disappointment! what chagrin! Mademoiselle would be inconsolable! She had raised her hopes so high, she had built her faith on this unknown cousin. How many times had she said to her, 'Clotilde, _ma bonne amie_, I have a presentiment that something pleasant is going to happen; in the morning I wake and think, now my cousin has his letter; he is considering how he can best help me. The English take long to make up their minds; they do nothing in a hurry.' And now _la petite_ will hear she has no cousin; it is _triste_ inconceivable: but doubtless good will come out of evil." "Madame," interposed Mr. Harland, as soon as he could make himself heard, "will you permit me to put two or three questions?" "With all the pleasure in life. Monsieur must follow her within. Gaston's wife was at the market, buying herbs for the _pot au feu_; no one would interrupt them." And Clotilde, still talking volubly, ushered him into a dark little kitchen, with a red-brick floor, and a few glittering brass utensils on the shelves. A yellow jug of blue and white flowers stood on the closed stove; there were plants in the narrow window, some strings of onions dangled from the ceiling. Clotilde dusted a chair, and then folded her arms, and looked curiously at her visitor. "I want you to tell me first how long you have known Mrs. Ramsay and her daughter." "How long?"--and here Clotilde's beady eyes traveled to the ceiling--"six, seven years; _tenez_, it must be seven years since the English madame took her rooms. Oh, she remembered it well; that day she was a trifle out of humor, she must confess that. Jean had put her out of all patience with his grumbling. Men, even the best of them, were so inconsiderate. I was standing at the door, monsieur, just turning the heel of my stocking, and I saw Madame with her long crape veil, and a thin slip of a girl with black ribbons in her hat. 'You have rooms to let, madame?' she began. _Hélas_, the little black dog was on my shoulders, and my answer was not as civil as usual, for I was still thinking of Jean's grumbles. 'Oh, as to that, the rooms were there; no one could deny the fact; but there were better to be had at Madame Dubois's, lower down; folks were hard to please nowadays.' But she interrupted me very gently: 'May we see your rooms? We could not afford very grand ones.' 'Madame might please herself; I had no objection.' I fear I was by no means gracious, for it had entered into my head all of a sudden that I was tired of lodgers; but in the end madame managed to conciliate me. The rooms did not please them much, for I heard madame say, in a low voice, 'They are not dear, of course; but then they are small and dark, almost oppressively so. I fear, Annette, that you will find them very dull.' 'But it would be better to be dull and keep out of debt, _chère maman_,' replied the girl; 'we are too poor to consider trifles.' Ah, mademoiselle was always one to make light of difficulties; so the rooms were taken, after all. That was seven years ago, and now madame was in the cemetery." "Was she ill long?" "Yes, some months; but mademoiselle ever affirmed that she had changed for the worse from the hour she had received news of her husband's death. Grief does not always kill quickly, but all the same it was heart sorrow, and too much work, that led to her illness. Ah, she suffered much; but it was the death-bed of a saint--such resignation, such sweetness, no complaints, no impatience. If she had only been Catholic! but it was not for me to perplex myself with such questions; doubtless _le bon Dieu_ took care of all that." "But she grieved much at leaving her daughter?" "Oh, yes, monsieur; but such grief in a mother is no sin. Sometimes she would say to me, poor angel, 'Clotilde, my good friend, be kind to Annette when I am gone. She will be all alone, my poor child; but I must try and trust her to her Heavenly Father.' Many times she would say some such words as these. It was edifying to listen to her; if one could only assure one's self of such faith!" "And Miss Ramsay has been with you ever since her mother's death?" "Truly; where would _la petite_ go? At least she is safe with me. It is a _triste_ life for so young a creature--always that everlasting lace-work from morning to evening; no variety--hardly a gleam of sunshine. 'Oh. I am so tired!' she would say sometimes, when she comes down to the kitchen of an evening. 'Is it not sad, Clotilde, to be so young and yet so tired? I thought it was only the old whose limbs ache, who have such dull, weary feelings.' '_Chut, mon enfant_,' I would reply; 'it is only the work and the stooping;' and I would coax her to take a turn in the Promenade des Petits Fosses, or down by the river. 'It is for want of the sunshine,' I would say, in a scolding voice; 'the young need sunshine.' Then she would laugh, and put on her hat, and when she came back there would be a tinge of color in her face; for look you, my monsieur, the rooms are dark, and that makes the _petite_ have such pale cheeks." Mr. Harland listened with much interest to this artless recital. He had gleaned the few facts that he needed, and now he begged Clotilde to show him to Mademoiselle's apartment. She complied with his request willingly. As she opened the door, and preceded him up the steep staircase, he could hear a sweet, though perfectly untrained voice singing an old Huguenot hymn that he remembered. The solemn measure, the soft girlish voice, affected him oddly. The next moment Clotilde's shrill voice broke on the melody. "Mademoiselle, an English monsieur desires to speak with thee." "At last--thank God!" responded a clear voice. "My cousin, you are welcome!" And a slim, dark-eyed girl glided out of the shadows to meet him. The room was so dark that for a moment Mr. Harland could not see her features plainly, but he took her outstretched hands and pressed them kindly, half drawing her to the one small window, that the evening light might fall on her face. "Oh, you find it dark?" she said, quickly. "Strangers always do; but I am used to it. If I sit here," pointing to a tall wooden chair beside her, "I can see perfectly; it is when one is unaccustomed that one finds it oppressive--only when one goes out the sunshine is sometimes too dazzling." "That is why you are so pale, Miss Ramsay," observed Mr. Harland, with a pitying look at her thin, drooping form and sallow complexion. The girl was not pretty, certainly, but it was the absence of all coloring that seemed to mar her good looks. She had well-cut features, a gentle, mobile mouth, and large dark eyes. As he spoke, she looked at him reproachfully. "Why did you call me Miss Ramsay? Is that the English fashion, my cousin? You know I have never lived in England, and its ways are foreign to me. To a relative I am Annette--is it not so?" "Yes, of course; you are perfectly right," replied Mr. Harland, cheerfully; "you will soon be English enough, Miss Annette. The fact is, you have made a mistake: I am not your cousin, though I shall hope to be considered as a friend. Your cousin, Mr. Leonard Willmot, died two years ago." "_Il est mort!_" with a sudden relapse into French. "Oh, _mon Dieu, mon Dieu_!" clasping her hands, with a gesture of despair, "is it my fate that every one belonging to me must die? Then I am desolate indeed!" Mr. Harland found it necessary to clear his throat; that young, despairing face was too much for him. "My dear Miss Ramsay," he exclaimed, "things are not as bad as you think. It is true that poor Willmot has gone--a good fellow he was, too, in spite of one or two mistakes--but his daughter is ready to be your friend. She is your cousin, too, so you have one relative, and she has commissioned me, as her oldest friend, to find you out, and offer you a home." Annette's eyes filled with tears. "A home! do you really mean it? Monsieur, will you tell me the name of this unknown cousin? Is she a girl like myself?" "How old are you, Miss Ramsay?" "I am nineteen." "Well, your cousin Averil is seven-and-twenty; so she is older, you see, though she is hardly tall enough to reach to your shoulder." "But I am not big myself--not what you call tall; my cousin must be a very little person; she is quite old, too--seven-and-twenty." And Annette looked perplexed. "You are not as tall as my daughter Louie, but you are a fair height. Averil has never grown properly, but she is the nicest little person in the world when you come to know her. You are lucky, Miss Ramsay; you are, indeed, to have made such a friend; for Averil is true as steel, and I ought to be a good judge, for I have known her from a baby." "She must be very good. It is kind, it is more than kind, to offer me a home. I do not seem to believe it yet. Are you sure--are you quite sure, monsieur, that this is what my cousin intends?" "Oh, I am not without proofs," returned Mr. Harland, touched by the girl's gentle wistfulness and anxiety. "I have brought you a note from Averil herself; it is written in a great hurry, but I dare say you will find the invitation all right." Annette's eyes brightened. She stretched out her hand eagerly for the letter. "MY DEAR COUSIN ANNETTE," it began, "your letter to my father has made me feel very sad. When my good friend, Mr. Harland, gives you this, you will have heard of my dear father's death. Had he been living, I know well how his kind heart would have longed to help you, you poor, lonely child! But, Annette, you must allow me to act in his place. Remember, I am your cousin, too. While I live you shall not want a home. Mr. Harland will explain everything, and make things easy for you. Do not hesitate to trust him. He will guard you as he would his own daughter. I go to him in all my troubles, and he is so wise and helpful. His time is valuable, so if you will please us both you will make as much haste as you can in packing up your possessions, and then come to your English home. I will do all I can to make you happy, and to console you for past troubles. I do so love taking care of people. I have no time to add more. "Your affectionate cousin, "AVERIL WILLMOT." "How kind! how good!" murmured Annette, as she put down the note; "it seems to me as though I love her already, this Averil." "You will love her more by and by," returned Mr. Harland, in his cheery manner. "I expect you two will get on first rate. Now, Miss Ramsay, I am a practical sort of a person. How long do you think it would take you to pack up your things, eh?" "It is so few that I have," she answered, seriously. "Indeed, monsieur, I have only one other gown." "So much the better--so much the better; then we can be off the day after to-morrow. Well, what is it?" as the girl glanced at him rather appealingly. "It is only that there must be one or two things that I must do," she returned, timidly, "that is, if you will permit me, monsieur. There is the lace-work to carry back to Madame Grevey; also I must make my adieus to old Manon Duclos--she is my good friend, although she is only a peasant; and"--hesitating still more--"there is the cemetery, and it is the last time, and I must take fresh flowers for my mother's grave." And here Annette's eyes brimmed over with tears, and one or two rolled down her cheek. "Monsieur, we were everything to each other, mamma and I." "My dear child," replied Mr. Harland, hastily, "you shall have time to fulfill all your little duties. You are a good girl not to forget your friends. Would you like me to stay another day?" "Indeed, no!" in a shocked voice. "How could I be so inconsiderate after my cousin's letter? Monsieur, you are too good. There is no need of so much time; by to-morrow afternoon it will be all done." "If you are sure of that, I might call for you about four, and we would have a stroll together along the banks of the river. Shall you be tired? Would you rather that I left you alone?" "I would rather come with you, monsieur--I ought to say sir; but since my mamma died I have spoken no English, not a word--always it is the French." "Very well, we will have our walk," trying not to smile at her childish naïveté. "I will call for you at four; and after our walk we will dine together. Good-bye, Miss Ramsay, or, better still, _au revoir_." "_Au revoir_--that pleases me best," she said, gently. "Take care of that step, monsieur; the staircase is so dark." "Now I must go to my Clotilde," she said to herself, "and tell her this wonderful thing that has happened." CHAPTER III. ON THE BANKS OF THE RANCE. Punctually at the appointed hour Mr. Harland stood before the dark little house in the Rue St. Joseph; but he had hardly touched the bell before the door opened, and Annette confronted him. "I am quite ready," she said, hurriedly: "I have been looking out for you for some time, because I did not wish to keep you waiting. Is it your pleasure to come in and wait a little, monsieur, or shall we take our walk now?" "Well, it is a pity to waste even a quarter of an hour in-doors this lovely evening," returned Mr. Harland, in his quick, cheery manner; "so, if you are ready, Miss Ramsay, we will begin our stroll at once." He looked at her rather keenly as he spoke, at the slim, girlish figure in the black dress. The hat shaded her face; but even at the first glance he could see she was very pale, and that her eyes were swollen, as though she had been crying. How young and pathetic she looked, standing there in the afternoon light, with the little silk kerchief knotted loosely round her shapely throat, and a tiny rosebud fastened in her dress! He was just a little silent as they turned down the street, for he feared to question her too closely; and he was much relieved when Annette began to talk to him in her frank, naïve way. "I fear I am a dull companion," she said, gently; "but I am a little sad at the thought that there will be no one but Clotilde to visit my mother's grave. I have been saying good-bye to it. That is why my eyes are so red. Look, monsieur; this rosebud is the first that has blossomed; was it selfish of me to gather it? The dear mother loved roses more than any other flowers; they were the offerings she liked best on her fête day; this little white bud will be a souvenir when I am far away. Monsieur, perhaps I am foolish; but I feel I shall miss my mother more when I can not kneel beside her grave." "Oh, you will get over that feeling," replied Mr. Harland, hastily; "that is just how my wife feels about Mysie. Mysie was our youngest but one, and she died when she was six years old. My wife half broke her heart about her; and when we moved from Norbiton to Chislehurst, it was her one regret that we were leaving Mysie behind; but I used to tell her"--and here Mr. Harland's voice had a suspicion of huskiness in it--"that it was just fancy, that Mysie was as near as ever, and that it was better to think of her growing up in heaven among all the other children than to think of the poor perishing little body that lies in that Norbiton church-yard." "You are right, monsieur; it is the truth you are telling me," returned Annette, humbly, and she looked up at him very sweetly; "but I can understand so well the regret of madame, your wife. That is the worst of us. We do forget so often that it is not our beloved who lie in the grave. At one moment we smile to think they are so safe in Paradise, and the next we are weeping over the grass mound that covers them. It is we who are inconsistent, faithless; too well do I know this, monsieur." "Oh, it is natural; one does not learn everything at once," returned Mr. Harland, cheerily. Sorry as he was for her, he had not a notion how he was to talk to her; if only Louie or his wife were here--women always know what to do in such cases. "No one can blame you for fretting about your mother; a good mother is not to be replaced; but you are young, and after a time you will find yourself consoled. Why, your cousin Averil--no one but Mrs. Harland and myself know how that girl misses her father. He made an idol of her. I do not believe he ever crossed a wish of hers, except in his marriage, and she held her tongue about that, and he never found out the difference it made in her life. Yes, and she misses him still, though she says so little about it; only my wife finds her crying sometimes; but Averil is just the bravest-hearted little woman in the world; she is not one to inflict her feelings on other people." Mr. Harland talked on all the faster as he saw Annette wipe away a furtive tear or two; he wanted to give her time to recover herself. "It is all so true," she observed, in a broken voice, as he finished. "No, it is not wrong to weep for the best of mothers; our dear Lord has taught us that. Still, one must not sorrow too much. Monsieur, you have interested me greatly about my cousin; if I did not fear to fatigue you, I should like to hear more. Oh, we have come to the quay; now let us cross that little bridge lower down, and there we can walk quite close to the river. It is so green and quiet further on; nothing but wooded banks, and the blue river flowing on so peacefully." "It is charming. Look at that young fellow in his boat, Miss Annette; he is going to take his little sister for a row. I bet you anything he is English before he opens his mouth. Yes, I thought so," as the lad shouted out, "Mind what you are about, Minnie. Now, then, look sharp and jump!" "There are so many English," remarked Annette, softly. "I think Dinan is full of them. This boy--I have seen him before. There is no mother; but he is so good to that little pale sister. Often I have watched them. His name is Arthur; he is one of my friends; for, do you know," with a dreamy smile, "though there are only Clotilde and Gaston's wife, and the Old Manon Duclos, to whom I can talk, I have many friends, people whom I meet, and about whom I make up stories, and to whom I say good-evening under my breath when I meet them; for, when one is young, one longs for friends. As for this Arthur, I have spoken with him; for once, when he dropped his hat, I picked it up; and another time, when he was in some difficulty with his oar, I helped him, and so his little sister gives me a nod when we meet." Mr. Harland felt no inclination to smile at this childish recital; on the contrary, his genial face was rather grave as he realized how lonely this girl had been. What would Averil say when he told her that? To think of bidding good-evening under her breath to strangers, and making up stories about them; he could not have laughed for worlds, in spite of the quaintness of the notion. "Now I shall have my cousin," she went on. "Monsieur, there is something you said which I do not at all understand--something about my cousin Leonard marrying. Does not my cousin Averil live alone? No?" as Mr. Harland shook his head in an amused way. "With whom, then, does she live?" "Why, with her step-mother, of course. Look here, Miss Annette, I see I must coach you up in the family history, or you will take all sorts of notions into your little head. Not that there is much to tell," with a sudden remembrance that Averil had begged him to say as little as possible about her affairs; "but you may as well know people's names." "Are there so many people?" asked Annette, looking a little bewildered. "Where is it that my cousin lives?" "At Kensington. It is rather an old house, but it is a very comfortable one, and there is actually a garden. Gardens do not abound in the fashionable parts of London; that is why I live at Chislehurst, because my wife and the girls, Louie especially, wanted a garden. It is Averil's house. She has her mother's fortune, beside what her father left her; and her step-mother and her family live with her." "Step-mother? Ah, I see--the wife that my cousin Leonard married, and they had children. Yes, of course. That must be so nice for Averil." "No; nonsense," returned Mr. Harland, still more amused. "You have got wrong notions altogether. Mr. Willmot never had any other child but Averil, and a boy who died. His second wife had a grown-up family; her name was Mrs. Seymour." "And he married her? But that seems strange," observed Annette, for she was not without shrewdness. "Oh, men do strange things sometimes. Mrs. Seymour was a very handsome woman, and she could make herself fascinating." "And she was rich?" "Rich? Oh, no; tolerably well to do; that was all." "And the grown-up children--how many are there who live with my cousin Averil?" "Three, without counting Lottie Jones. There is Maud; she is the eldest, and a fine, handsome girl she is, too; and Georgina, and Rodney. Rodney is his mother's darling; a good-looking, idle young scamp of a fellow." "And Lottie Jones--and who may that be?" "Well, Lottie is a sort of hanger-on--a niece of Mrs. Seymour; and it seems she has no one belonging to her but this aunt. She is a nice little girl, and Averil is very fond of her." "Does she like her better than this Maud and Georgina?" Mr. Harland laughed outright. "Come, come, Miss Annette, you are too sharp; you ask too many questions. Wait until you get to Redfern House, and then you will find out things for yourself." A sensitive flush crossed Annette's face. "You must pardon me if I seem too inquisitive," she said, timidly. "I did not know I was asking what was wrong; it was difficult to understand my cousin's household; but I will remember to wait, and not to tease you with any more questions. Indeed, you are so good, monsieur, that I do not wish to tease you at all." "My dear little girl," returned Mr. Harland, kindly, "you do not tease me in the least; it is only that silly child Averil who has made me hold my tongue. 'Do not talk about me much to my cousin; let her find things out for herself'--that is what she said to me, and that is why I checked you just now." "And you were perfectly right, monsieur. I will ask no more questions about my cousin. Look, there is a kingfisher--_martin-pêcheur_ they call him here. Is he not pretty? And did you see that water-rat? We have been sitting so still on this bank that they have forgotten to mind us." "That reminds me that it is growing late, and that you and I must be hungry, and that our dinner at the Trois Frères will be waiting." "Well, she was a little hungry," Annette confessed. The long walk had tired her also; she was not used to walking, much as she loved it. "For, you see, monsieur," she added seriously, "when one has to feed and clothe one's self, there is no time to be idle. One puts in another sprig into the lace-work, and then another, and then the light goes, and it is dreary to walk in the dusk; besides, there are _les convenances_--what you would call the propriety--one would not willingly offend against that." "To be sure; how thoughtless I have been!" ejaculated Mr. Harland; but when he offered his arm, Annette shook her head with a smile. "She did not need help; she would do very well, and there was the bridge in sight, and Monsieur Arthur had returned from his row." "She is Averil's sort," he said to himself, as he watched her graceful walk, and saw how bravely she was keeping up, in spite of her fatigue; and as soon as possible he hailed a fiacre. "But that is extravagant," she protested, with a little pout. "And it is for me, I see that well, for you are not a bit tired, monsieur." But monsieur was not listening to her. He was wondering how long this girl would have borne her life, and if she could possibly have grown paler as the time went on. "She is like a plant that has grown up in a dark cellar," he thought; and he almost shuddered as he remembered that room in the Rue St. Joseph; but by and by, as they sat together at the _table d'hôte_, Annette forgot her fatigue in her astonishment at the magnificence of the feast. "How many more courses?" she whispered to her neighbor, who was enjoying some excellent _ragoût_. "One goes on eating, and still there is more. At the Rue St. Joseph the dear mother and I were satisfied with coffee and eggs, and perhaps a salad. Sometimes Clotilde would bring us a dish of fried potatoes, or some stewed pears; then we feasted like gourmand. Is it possible, monsieur, that people dine like this every day?" Mr. Harland was not too much engrossed with his _déjeûner_ to enjoy the girl's naïveté; on the contrary, he took a great deal of interest in the fact that the food, and most likely the pleasant excitement, had brought a tinge of color to her face. He insisted on her partaking of some delicious-looking pastry. "All young people like sweets," he said; and when he had finished, and they had their coffee at the window, he showed her the photographs that he had bought that morning, and talked, and asked questions about the places he had seen; and they were very happy indeed. "She is a nice little thing, and I am sure Averil will like her," was his parting thought that night. As for Annette, she scarcely slept at all, with mingled fatigue and excitement. Her thoughts traveled back to every event of the past day. Now she was sitting with old Manon Duclos, and the feeble old creature was weeping over her. "Must I lose thee, _chérie_? Oh, what news! What an unhappy fate! Who will read to me when thou art gone, _ma petite_? Who will be good to old Manon?" And then there had been that good-bye in the cemetery. How her tears had flowed over that little white rosebud! Nay, it was true what monsieur had said--it was not the dear mother who lay there; she must try to remember that. And then there had been the long walk. How lovely the river had looked in the evening sunshine. How kind and benignant monsieur had been! "I hope I shall see him often," she thought. "Perhaps I was wrong to question him so closely about my cousin's household. But it was all so confusing; even now I do not seem to understand. How can my cousin Averil be mistress while her step-mother lives? She is only a girl like myself. I wonder if she be handsome? I think all English people are handsome. What a nice face monsieur has--so clear and honest. I think I love gray hair. But I remember he said she was little. Somehow, I can not picture her. And this Lottie Jones. Ah, it is all bewildering! How strange I shall feel among all those people." And Annette sighed, for she was tired, and her poor little heart was aching for her mother; and when at last she fell asleep, it was to dream that they were sitting together in the little room down-stairs. Annette slept so soundly after all her fatigues, that it was quite late when she woke, and she had only just time to dress herself, and swallow the coffee Clotilde brought her, before Mr. Harland drove up to fetch her. Perhaps it was just as well that she had only those few moments in which to take leave of her old life. She bade adieu very quietly to Clotilde. "I shall never forget thee, my best friend," she said, gently. "One day, if my cousin permit, I will come and see thee and Gaston and Toinette." As for Clotilde, she wept volubly. "_Le bon Dieu_ would watch over their dear mademoiselle. _Hélas!_ the place would be empty without her. No; she must not forget them; she would have their prayers," and so on. A thousand blessings followed her in that shrill voice. The girl smiled rather sadly as she listened to them. "Poor old house!" she said, softly, as they drove away. "In spite of hard work, one had happy hours. Always it is so in life--the good and the bad mingled, and some have more of God's sunshine than others." And then she was silent, and Mr. Harland did not disturb her, for he knew by a certain kindly instinct that the girlish heart was stirred to its depths. CHAPTER IV. COULD THIS BE AVERIL? It was late in the afternoon of the following day that Mr. Harland and his young companion drove through Kensington. "You must be very tired, my dear," he observed, in quite a fatherly manner, for during the last four-and-twenty hours their friendship had made great progress. "But no--why should I be tired?" returned the girl, in her pretty French accent, which he already found so charming. "Monsieur, what has there been to fatigue me? I have slept so well, oh, perfectly well, in my little box of a berth. Did not the captain say himself that we had a grand passage? I was not seasick, not the least little bit in the world, and yet I have never found myself on a ship before." "Well, it was a trifle rough toward three o'clock. But you must have been fast asleep, Miss Annette." "Yes; and as the waves only rocked me, I was glad, for I did not much like the ship; the cabin was not so hot and crowded. But the train--that was more amusing. I could look out on the flying hedge-rows, and tell myself that this was England--my mother's country. Even these streets please me, although I find so much noise a little confusing. Are all your streets so terribly full, monsieur? There is no room for those poor horses to pass." "Oh, you should see some of our city streets--Cheapside, or by the Mansion House. I wonder what you would say to the traffic there? England is a busy place; people pride themselves on always being in a hurry. This is quiet enough compared with some of our thoroughfares. Look at those fine shops. I suppose, like other girls, you are never weary of admiring smart things?" "If one's purse were not always empty, it would be a pleasure," she said, with a sigh; "but to see things is only to long for them, and that makes one discontented. I think I like better to walk by the river, or under the trees in the Promenade des Petits Fosses. You have been there, monsieur. It is pleasant to sit there and watch the children with their _bonnes_; in the evening it is so cool and shady. It is there I so often greet my unknown friends. There is a little French girl who is lame; I think she is a seamstress. Well, I have seen her so often, that at last I made up my mind I would speak to her. To-morrow I will say, 'Good-evening'--that was what I promised myself. But you see, monsieur, it has all come to nothing, for monsieur has come, and here I am driving with you through these wonderful English streets." "Yes, and in another moment we shall be at our destination. Do you see that large red-brick corner house? That is Redfern House." "Is it so? But, monsieur, my cousin must be very rich to live in so big a house; it is larger than our English consul's;" and Annette looked a trifle disturbed. Mr. Harland saw how the poor child twitched the ends of her little silk kerchief, and shook the dust off her black serge gown, while a frightened expression came into her large, soft eyes. "I don't think Averil cares much for her large house," replied Mr. Harland. "She is not a bit grand herself, so you need not look so alarmed, my dear." "It is foolish to be nervous," she stammered; "and of course you will be with me, monsieur, and already you seem like an old friend. Ah, we have stopped, and the door has opened like magic." But in spite of her effort to speak bravely, Mr. Harland felt how her hand trembled as he assisted her out of the cab, and could not forbear giving it a kindly pressure. The gray-haired butler who received them glanced at the young stranger with benevolent interest. "Where is Miss Willmot, Roberts?" asked Mr. Harland. "She is in her private sitting-room, sir, and she begged you would go to her there. Mrs. Willmot and the young ladies are dining out." "Oh, then we shall be alone. Come along, Miss Annette;" and he took the girl's arm, and conducted her quickly through the large hall, and down a passage lined with bookcases, which gave it the appearance of a narrow room. As Roberts opened the door a tiny figure in black appeared on the threshold, and met them with outstretched hands. "Ah, you have come at last! I thought you late. But you are very welcome, Cousin Annette," accompanying the words with a warm kiss. "Mr. Harland, thank you so much for bringing my cousin. You have acted like a true friend. Will you sit in this comfortable chair, Annette? You must be tired out after your long journey." Annette left this assertion uncontradicted--she had simply no words at her command. Could this be Averil? her cousin Averil? the mistress of this grand house, whom she had so longed and dreaded to see? this little creature, who was no bigger than a child? Why had not Mr. Harland prepared her? It was impossible to conceal her astonishment, and, to tell the truth, her disappointment. Happily, Mr. Harland came to her relief by engaging Averil in a conversation about their journey. He wanted to explain why they were late; it was owing to the blockheadedness, as Mr. Harland termed it, of an official at the custom-house; a couple of minutes would have been sufficient to have investigated Miss Ramsay's modest luggage; but no, the idiot must keep them waiting; and so on, detailing the grievance at full length. Annette did not listen; she was regarding the slight, bent figure and small, intent face opposite to her. Her cousin Averil was ill, or did she always look so grave? But no; as she asked herself the question, Averil broke into a sweet little laugh, and the next minute her quick, observant eyes took in her cousin's puzzled scrutiny. She flushed faintly, but the smile did not leave her lips. "You are surprised to see such a very small person, are you not, Annette? I suppose if I stood up, Mr. Harland, you would find that my cousin is a head taller. People always begin by taking me for a child. I am quite used to it," with easy frankness. "Confess you were saying to yourself, Annette, 'Surely, this very little person can not be my cousin Averil, who wrote me that letter.'" "Oh, you are a witch," returned Annette, blushing, "or you would not have read my thoughts. But indeed it is I who have been rude. How could I know how you would look, my cousin? I am ashamed that I have been so indiscreet." "You have been nothing of the kind, dear. Why, what nonsense!"--for Annette was evidently very much ashamed of herself. "You shall think what you please about me, and I will promise to forgive you if you will only tell me you are glad to find yourself at home." And here Averil gave her one of the rare winning smiles that lighted up the little dark face wonderfully. But she was almost sorry that she had made this speech when she saw the tears spring to Annette's eyes. "Home! is it indeed my home?" she said, wistfully, looking round the room, which was full of beautiful things, and yet had the indescribably cosy air that belongs to a well-used apartment. Annette had never seen such a room; even the English consul had nothing to compare with it. She knew that well, for she had often mended lace for Mrs. Greville, the consul's wife, and yet they had a fine drawing-room, with red velvet chairs and lounges. Annette was too bewildered, too ignorant, to take in details; she was not aware of the value of those cool, delicious little bits of landscape that hung on the walls, though they rested her eyes with their suggestion of breezy moorlands and sunny meadows. She glanced at the carved cabinets and book-cases, the soft easy-chairs, the flowers, the birds, even the black poodle that lay on the rug, with a sort of dreamy surprise. "I never thought any home could be so beautiful," she finished, softly; "it does not seem true that I am to live in it." Averil laughed, and then checked a sigh. "I am so glad you like the look of it," she said, simply. "Will you take off your hat, Annette? The room is warm, and we are going to have tea. Ah, that looks much more comfortable," as Annette obeyed her, and smoothed her dark-brown hair. "My cousin looks pale, and a little thin," she continued, turning to Mr. Harland, who was watching the girls with benevolent anxiety. He was hoping that his little traveling-companion would soon recover herself. He had not seen her so timid and tongue-tied before. He wished Averil could hear how prettily she could talk. When she spoke of anything that interested her, her eyes got quite large and bright. And then how fluent she could be! Averil was evidently a patient person; she had made her little attempt to put her cousin at her ease, and now she seemed inclined to let things take their course. "She is tired and strange, poor child," she said to herself, "and she finds it difficult to unbend; presently she will talk to me of her own accord, for she looks both intelligent and gentle." As she addressed Mr. Harland, Roberts entered the room with the tea-things, which he arranged on a low table beside Averil's chair. "Where is Miss Lottie?" she asked in an undertone; but Roberts did not know--she had gone out early in the afternoon, and had not returned. "Ah, to be sure; little Miss Jones generally has tea with you, does she not, Averil?" observed Mr. Harland. "I have not seen her since luncheon," she replied, and a slight shade crossed her face. "I think her aunt must have given her some commission, for Roberts tells me only Maud and Georgina were in the carriage. Poor child! she will be tired. I must ask Milner to give her some tea when she comes in." "I never knew any one like you, Averil, for looking after people's little comforts. I wonder what Miss Lottie would do without you, not to mention a good many other people?" Mr. Harland spoke in a joking tone, but Averil reddened as though she detected a compliment. She was pouring out the tea, but as she rose to carry a cup to Annette the girl started up impulsively. "But it is not for you to wait on me, my cousin," she said, in quite a shocked voice. "No one has ever waited on me, or brought tea to me before." "But you are tired, and have had a long journey, Annette; besides, I love to wait on people." "But you must not love what is wrong," returned Annette, quaintly. "See, I will place myself beside you at that little table, and then you will not jump up every minute; will not that be better, my cousin?" "Yes, dear," and Averil, with quiet tact, made room for the girl beside her; she even checked Mr. Harland with a glance when he would have volunteered his services. "Annette has everything within reach now," she said, pleasantly, and she took no notice when Annette, with quick officiousness, insisted on waiting on monsieur; on the contrary, she admired her graceful movements, and the utter want of self-consciousness that was Annette's chief charm. "What a pretty figure she has!" she thought, wistfully; "and perhaps, if she were not so pale, so utterly colorless, her face might be pretty too; anyhow, it interests me." Mr. Harland could not stop long; he had to take an early train to Chislehurst. Before he left he found an opportunity to give one of his good-natured hints to Averil as she followed him out into the lobby. "What do you think of her, eh, Averil? But I suppose it is too soon to ask your opinion. I forgot, too, what a cautious little person you are." "It is not always wise to speak. I am very much interested in my cousin; she looks gentle and lady-like, but I should prefer to answer your question a week later." "Ah, to be sure--an Averil-like speech. Well, I only want to give you a hint. She is a little shy, and the idea of all those people frightens her. Let her be as quiet as possible this first evening." "My dear Mr. Harland, she will see no one; I have arranged all that. Mrs. Willmot and the girls are dining out, and I have ordered an informal supper in my own room. Annette will like that much better, will she not?" "I should think so; that is a first-rate idea of yours, Averil. Do you know I have quite taken to that little French girl? Pshaw! I always forget she is English. Louie will be quite jealous when I tell her. By the bye, you must bring her down to see my wife, Averil; she and the girls will be delighted to make her acquaintance." "I grieve that monsieur has gone," were Annette's first words as Averil re-entered the room. "I look upon him as my first friend. Do you know, I took him for my cousin? When Clotilde announced an English gentlemen I thought, of course, that it was he. Forgive me, my cousin, if I make you sad; people are so different; with some it is always silence--it is as though speech would desecrate their dead; but for me, I am forever speaking of my mother to Clotilde, to Manon, even to myself. Why should the name we love most grow strange to one's lips?" "You are quite right," returned Averil, softly; "if I have not talked much about my dear father, it is for other reasons." Here she stammered, hesitated, and then changed the subject. "Annette, when I read your letter to him I grew quite sad. 'You must bring her home to me.' That is what I told my good old friend Mr. Harland. 'We must make her forget her troubles: she shall be like my own sister.' Shall it be so between us, dear? Do you think you can care for a poor crooked little body like me?" and her dark sad eyes rested for a moment yearningly on her young cousin's face. "Oh, I shall love you--you will see how well I shall love you," returned Annette, throwing her arms impulsively round Averil. "What does it matter how you look, my cousin? Why is it you make such a speech to me? You have kind eyes--I can trust them. Monsieur tells me you have a good heart--is it not proof that you have written me that letter, that you permit me to call this home? Let us not make any more speeches to each other; it is all understood between us that we are friends." Averil's grave face softened. "I have one faithful little friend already; how pleased I shall be to have another! As I told you, I do so like taking care of people." "Oh, but it is I who must wait on you," returned Annette, seriously. "There is a look on your face, my cousin, as though you were always thinking; it is not a frown," as Averil looked amused, "and yet your forehead contracts itself--so," drawing her brows together; "it gives one a fatigued sense, as though you were too heavily burdened; and you are grave, and yet you have never known what it is to be poor." "No; but I have sometimes forgotten to be grateful for my riches. Annette, you are a shrewd observer; no one here notices my gravity. But I must not let you go on talking like this. I want to show you your room, and then you can make any change you like in your dress; not that it matters to-night"--as Annette's face fell a little--"for, unless Lottie join us, you and I will be alone. Will you come with me, dear?" touching her arm, as Annette appeared lost in thought. The staircase at Redfern House was wide and handsome, and the spacious landing was fitted up prettily with cabinets of china and stands of flowers. "I have chosen a room near mine," continued Averil, quietly; "it is not very large, but I think you will find it very comfortable." "Comfortable! oh, it is far, far too grand for me. You must have made a mistake my cousin;" and Annette's eyes grew large and round. Perhaps, if Averil had seen the girl's sleeping-room in the Rue St. Joseph, she might have understood the situation more perfectly; but to her luxurious ideas there was nothing out of the common in the fresh cretonne hangings, the pretty, well-appointed furniture, the couch and writing-table. To be sure, there was nothing wanting to any young lady's comfort; she had herself placed all kinds of knickknacks on the toilet-table. Annette stood by in puzzled ecstasy as her cousin opened the wardrobe and drawers and then pointed out to her the tasteful little work-basket and blotting-case. "You will find everything ready for your use. I hope I have not forgotten anything. It has been such a pleasure to me fitting up this room. Now I will leave you for a little while to rest and refresh yourself, and then we will have some more talk;" and with a nod and a smile Averil withdrew to her own room. CHAPTER V. LOTTIE. "Oh, my mother, if thou could only see me now!" was Annette's inward ejaculation when the door closed upon her cousin; and as though this tender reflection had opened the flood-gates of suppressed emotion, the tears flowed rapidly, and for a little while they could not be checked. Poor, tired Annette was struggling against a tide of conflicting feelings; now a pang crossed her faithful heart at the thought of that humble grave in the cemetery at Dinan, so far away, and then she chid herself for the fancy. "It is not the grave, it is the life that we should remember," she said to herself; "life that is forever. Who can deprive me of those prayers that my mother prayed on her death-bed? While memory lasts who can rob me of her example, her precepts, of the remembrance of her gentle patience? There is no death to love. Truly, monsieur is right--my darling mother is as near me as ever;" and Annette dried her eyes. After this she moved timidly about her beautiful room, looking at one treasure after another with a sort of admiring awe and reverence. Annette's innate sense of the beautiful had never before been gratified. She had grown up to womanhood among the meager surroundings of poverty; her inherited instincts and a natural love of refinement had found no vent in that dark, unlovely house in the Rue St. Joseph, with its dim, smoke-begrimed walls and long, narrow windows, overshadowed by neighboring gables, when only a few sous expended on flowers was possible to the young lace-mender, and whose chaplet of white-roses for her mother's coffin was only procured at the expense of a meal. But Annette was less gratified at the thought of becoming the possessor of all these fine things than touched at the womanly thoughtfulness that had provided them. "What a fine heart my cousin Averil must have," she reflected, "to have expended her money on an unknown stranger! How sweet to think that while I was imagining myself lonely and forsaken, this room was being prepared for me! It is the heavenly kindness that warms me so," she said to herself as she examined one thing after another. It was true; Averil had forgotten nothing; her generosity had anticipated all her cousin's little wants. "All her life the poor child has been poor," she thought. "I should like her to find everything ready for use. It will be a sort of sisterly welcome. Lottie will help me to think of things." And so it was that silk-lined basket with its dainty work implements had found its place, and the well-stocked paper-case. There was even a case of brushes on the toilet-table, and a new Bible and prayer-book on the little round table, while a few choice photographs in simple frames adorned the walls. Annette was so absorbed in her researches, so loath to put down one treasure and take up another, that she hardly had time to brush her thick hair and smooth her rumpled collar before Averil reappeared. She looked at the closed trunk in some surprise. "You have not unpacked! Shall I help you?" she asked, kindly. "I was afraid I had left you too long. But perhaps you are not ready to come down?" "Does it matter about the unpacking?" returned the girl, a little wearily. "It is not as though I had fine gowns and laces. My one poor dress will not hurt. Ah," looking at Averil's dress, which, in spite of its plainness, had all sorts of pretty finishes, "I fear I shall shame you, my cousin, with my poverty." "Poverty never shamed any one," replied Averil, quickly. "Do not trouble about anything to-night, Annette," looking at her a little anxiously, as she noticed the traces of recent tears. "To-morrow you shall tell me what you want, and we will get it together. I dare say you will find shopping very amusing. I know Lottie loves it." "And you, my cousin?" "Well, perhaps I do not care for it myself, but it is all in the day's work," replied Averil, cheerfully. "I could spend half the day in a book-seller's, or looking over pictures and engravings, but for dresses and fine things, they are, of course, indifferent to me, unless I buy them for others;" and Averil shrugged her shoulders with a little gesture of contempt. They were passing through the hall as they spoke when a door opened quickly, and a young lady in gray came out. She was a pretty, dark-eyed girl. Averil at once accosted her. "My dear Lottie, where have you been? It is nearly seven o'clock!" "Yes, I know. Please don't keep me, Averil. Maud wants me to arrange her flowers. I have been to Whiteley's and the Stores, but I can not match those things that Georgina wants. It is no use her being vexed about it, for I have done my best;" and she was hurrying away when Averil called her back. "But you have not spoken to my cousin, Lottie. You will surely shake hands with her?" Lottie extended her hand at once. "I did not mean to be rude, Averil," she said in a flurried, apologetic manner. "How do you do, Miss Ramsay? I have no time to speak to you now, but when they are all gone I will come to you;" and she nodded to Averil and ran up-stairs. "Poor Lottie! How tired she looks! You must excuse her abruptness, Annette. Lottie is not her own mistress. She will come down to us by and by, when Mrs. Willmot and the girls have gone to their dinner-party. I want you and Lottie to be good friends." "I think she has a nice face, only she looked what you call harassed, just as I used to feel when there was too much work to be done and Clotilde wanted me to walk. This young lady is like myself, is she not?--she has no parents. Oh, yes, monsieur told me something of her history. She was a poor orphan, and her uncle adopted her, and then he died, and his wife, who is your step-mother, my cousin, had the magnificent generosity to keep her still." A faint smile flitted over Averil's face, but she made no direct response to this last clause. "Lottie was quite a little girl when Mr. Seymour adopted her. Her parents died young. Her life has been hard, like yours, Annette. I hope you and Lottie will take to each other. I have a large family, and nothing pleases me more than to see the members of my family happy together." "But--yes--why not?" returned Annette, regarding her cousin with widely opened eyes. "In this house that is so large there is surely room for every one--there will be no need to quarrel." "Oh, I was not speaking of Redfern House," replied Averil; but she offered no further explanation. She drew Annette down on the couch beside her and talked to her in a low voice, so that Roberts, who was putting the finishing touches to the supper-table, could not have overheard those quiet tones. When everything was ready Roberts quietly withdrew, and the two girls seated themselves at the table. Annette noticed that a place was laid for Lottie, but they were half through their meal before she joined them. Annette, whose tongue was now unloosed, was giving Averil a graphic description of her Dinan life when Lottie came quickly into the room. She looked pale and worried. "Oh, Averil, I am so sorry to be late," she said, looking half inclined to cry; "but it was really not my fault. They have only just driven from the door, and there were a hundred things Georgina wanted me to do. Something had gone wrong with her dress, and of course she was very much put out, and--" "Never mind all that, Lottie, dear," observed Averil, in her quick, decided way. "'Brush away the worries,' as dear father used to say. Here is a nice cup of coffee, and I will cut you some of the breast of that chicken. Nonsense!" as Lottie protested that her head ached, and that she was too tired to eat: "starving never rested any one. Annette, will you give Lottie some of that salad you praise so much and then, while she is a good girl and eats her supper, you shall go on with your picturesque description. Lottie, you have no idea how well Annette talks--she makes one see things so plainly. That is what we love--a storybook of talk, don't we, Lottchen?" Annette was quite willing to go on talking. Averil's gentle look of sympathy and her evident interest were sufficient inducement: it was enough that she pleased her auditors. She even grew a little excited as Lottie's pale listlessness faded, and the weary contraction of her brow relaxed. She seemed roused, interested, taken out of herself. "She has had a hard life too, Averil," Annette heard her whisper; "and then she has not had you;" and Lottie's eyes grew soft and pathetic over this little speech. Roberts came to clear away and to bring the lamps, and then Averil bade her two young companions join her at the open window. Lottie placed herself on a stool at her feet and laid her head on Averil's lap. In the pauses of her talk Annette could see Averil's thin light hand with its single diamond ring flashing in the lamp-light as it smoothed Lottie's dark hair tenderly. Presently she said in a half whisper: "Go on, Annette; do not stop talking. Lottie has fallen asleep, and the rest will do her good. Perhaps, after all, she will not have one of her bad headaches." "But why does she tire herself so much?" asked the girl, in some surprise. "It is not good to make one's self sick with fatigue. Oh, I know what it is when one's back aches with stooping, and the light goes, and there is still work to be done; but to walk and not to stop when one is tired, it is that that passes my comprehension." "Lottie is a busy little woman in her way," replied Averil, quietly. "She works beautifully, and her aunt and cousins give her plenty to do." "Oh, she is not rich, and that is how she repays her aunt's kindness. Doubtless she is very happy to do them service. My cousin, I have yet to learn in what way I shall be able to repay your goodness. But I shall find out some day, and answer that question for myself." Averil was not a demonstrative little person or she could have found a ready response to Annette's question, so touching in its graceful naïveté: "Love me for myself," she would have answered. "Love me and you will repay me a hundred-fold;" for hers was a nature that was never satisfied with loving that spent itself, and yet was forever giving--full measure, yet without hope of return. Yes, young as she was in years, Averil had already learned the sorrowful lesson that Life teaches to her elder scholars--that it is useless to expect too much of human nature, and that though, thank God, love often begets love, it is better and wiser to give it freely, as God gives His blessed sunshine, pouring it alike on the thankful and ungrateful, for "with what measure ye mete," said the Divine Master, "it shall be measured to you again." Alas! how niggardly are our human measures, how carefully we weigh out our small grains of good-will, for which we expect to be repaid so richly! Averil was bent on being a listener to-night. She said little; only an intelligent question, a sympathetic monosyllable or two, drew out fresh details. "If I want to know Annette thoroughly," she thought, "I must let her tell me all about herself. I think our great mistake in making acquaintance with people is that we never put ourselves sufficiently in the background, so we contrive to stamp a portion of our individuality on every fresh person. Annette is very original--she is also frank and unreserved. It is a relief for her to talk, and it is always easy for me to listen." It was growing quite late, when Lottie suddenly started up with a rather guilty air. "Have I been asleep, Miss Ramsay? How rude you must have thought me! But when I am tired, and Averil strokes my hair, she always sends me to sleep. Why, it is nearly ten o'clock!"--jumping up in a hurry. "Oh, Averil, you ought to have woke me! The girls' room is in such a state, and Georgina made me promise to put it tidy." "Suppose I ask Unwin to do it as a favor--you are half asleep, Lottie. She looks like a little owl, does she not, Annette?" "Oh, no; we must not trouble Unwin. And there is aunt's room, too. It is all my fault for going to sleep and forgetting my duties;" and Lottie's pretty face wore its harassed look again. "What is there to do? At least I can help you," observed Annette, eagerly. "Is it to make things tidy? Surely that is not difficult. My cousin, I should love to help Miss Jones, if she will have me." "Very well; we will all go," returned Averil, gratified by Annette's ready good-nature; and Lottie at once brightened up. Annette looked a little astonished as they entered the large, handsome room; the bed, chairs, even the floor, seemed strewn with a profusion of garments, the toilet table heaped with laces, gloves, and trinkets. "What gorgeousness! what splendor!" thought Annette; but she did not utter her wonder aloud; she only shook out the folds of a black lace dress that was trailing across a couple of chairs, and began folding it with quick, deft fingers. Averil was called away at this moment; when she returned all traces of chaos had been removed. Annette was standing by the toilet table rolling up some ribbons, and Lottie was locking up the trinkets in the dressing-case. "Oh, Averil!" she exclaimed, "Miss Ramsay has been helping me so nicely. She has folded up all the dresses, and she does it as well as Unwin. And now she has promised to mend that lace flounce for me to-morrow, so I shall be able to practice before Herr Ludwig comes. Maud was so bent on my doing it, though I told her that my piece was not nearly perfect." "But to me it is a trifle," replied Annette, quickly. "I can work a new sprig where the old one has been rent. Miss Jones will not know it has been mended at all, and to me it will be play. And now, if there is nothing else that I can do, will you permit me to retire? for, like Miss Jones, my eyes are heavy, and the hour is later than that to which I have always accustomed myself." "My dear child, how thoughtless I have been! Tired! Of course you are tired after your journey. Lottie, I will take Annette to her room, and then come back to you." Averil was not long away, but Lottie had finished her task, and was awaiting her with some impatience. "Well, Averil?" "Well, my dear," in rather a quizzical voice, "have you altered your opinion at all since the morning? Are you still as sure that the arrival of my little Frenchified cousin must spoil everything? Have you found her quite as disagreeable as you expected?" Lottie pouted. "Don't be tiresome, Averil. A person must make a mistake sometimes. Miss Ramsay is not disagreeable at all. On the contrary, I think she is rather nice." "Nice!" still in the same teasing voice. "I should have said my cousin was charming." "Oh, of course; you are never for half measures, Averil. I should not wonder if in time you liked her far better than you do me--no, I should not wonder at all." Averil broke into her little silvery laugh as Lottie finished her speech in rather an injured manner. "Indeed, Lottie, I am not at all sure that I shall not become excessively fond of Annette. She is amiable, and yet she has plenty of character. And then she has such winning ways!" "Yes; and my manners are so abrupt. You are always telling me so, Averil." "For your own good, dear. Why, what nonsense!" as Lottie's eyes filled with tears. "Do you think Annette will make any difference between us? For shame, Lottie! I can not believe for one moment that you could seriously entertain such an unworthy thought. What! Can you who know me so well--can you begrudge me another object of interest, another friendly being on whom I may bestow a little affection? No; this sort of petty jealousy does not belong to my Lottie." "No, not really, Averil"--throwing her arms round her neck and giving her a penitent kiss. "I am only cross because I am so tired. No one can take my place, not even this fascinating Miss Ramsay. Do you think I would begrudge you anything--when I want the whole world to love you as much as I do?" "Hush! Good-night! There, there, you foolish child!" as Lottie mutely pleaded for another kiss, and Averil left her smiling. But the smile faded as she entered her own room, and a look of utter weariness took its place. "Oh, Unwin," she said, as a gray-haired, pleasant-looking woman came from an inner room, "I did not think it possible that one could ache so!" "You are just worn out, Miss Averil," returned the old servant, tenderly. "You are none of the strongest, and you are young yet, though folks seem to forget that, and put too much upon you. It goes to my heart to see you so white and spent of a night, and no one to spare you anything. You are always looking after other people, and forgetting yourself." "You dear old story-teller! Why, I am grumbling about my own aches and pains at this very minute." "Yes, my dear, and I hope you will always grumble to me, as you call it," returned Unwin, as she gently unplaited Averil's hair and brushed out the dark, shining masses that nearly reached to the ground. Unwin did not leave her young mistress that night until her weary little head was laid on her pillow, and more than once she entered the room softly, to assure herself that Averil had fallen asleep. "Her mind is too big for her body," she thought, as she crept away, and nearly stumbled over the poodle. "No one knows the strain there is on that young creature, and no one ever sees her give way but me;" and Unwin sighed, for she had known and loved her young mistress from childhood, and it grieved her to see her darling young lady so weary and exhausted. CHAPTER VI. BREAKFAST AT REDFERN HOUSE. Annette was an early riser; she had slept soundly in her new, luxurious bed, and awoke refreshed and full of energy. When she had dressed herself carefully, and had disposed of her scanty stock of clothing in the big wardrobe that seemed to swallow it up, she was at a loss what to do. She had read her chapter in the new Bible--with her mother's worn old Bible lying all the time on her lap--but there were no other books, and no work that she could do. She would have liked to have used her pretty blotting-case, but no one would expect a letter. Perhaps she could find her way to her cousin Averil's sitting-room--there would be plenty of books there. Annette had just reached the hall when the sound of a piano from a room near excited her curiosity. Perhaps Miss Jones was practicing, and would tell her what to do. As she opened the door Lottie looked up and nodded, while she finished her scale. "Good-morning, Miss Ramsay," she said at last, as Annette stood by the piano looking with some envy at her brisk little fingers. "I hardly expected to see you before the breakfast-bell rang. So you have found your way in here." "Am I wrong to come here?" asked Annette, looking round the bright, home-like apartment, with its well-littered work-tables and handsomely filled book-shelves. "I was about to find my cousin's room, only the sound of the piano attracted me. How beautifully you play, Miss Jones! Your fingers seem to fly over the keys. For myself, I have never learned music"--somewhat mournfully. "Oh, I was only playing my scales," returned Lottie, carelessly. "Yes, you were quite right to come here; no one goes to Averil's room without permission. It is her private sitting-room, you see, and I dare say she is reading there now. This is the morning-room, where every one sits, and works, and writes their letters." "Morning-room! Is there then a room for evening?" asked Annette, in such a puzzled tone that Lottie could not help laughing. "Well, there is the drawing-room, you know, and we certainly use that of an evening--that is, when we entertain visitors. Would you like to see it?" And Lottie, who was a little weary of her scales, rose with alacrity. She was beginning to think Annette a very amusing person. She thoroughly enjoyed the air of wonder with which she regarded everything. "But this room is magnificent. I have never seen so grand a room," she kept repeating at intervals. "Yes it looks very nice when it is lighted up," replied Lottie nonchalantly. "Averil has the art of making all her rooms look comfortable and home-like. There is nothing stiff even in this one. Some people's drawing-rooms always have an unused look, just as though no one ever lived in them." "Two fire-places, and all those big windows, and a floor so long that one could dance over it. Ah! I thought that was a stranger, that girl in black, with the pale lace and I see it is myself." And Annette stood before the glass panel, gravely regarding herself, while Lottie watched her in some amusement. "I think you will know yourself again," she said, a little sarcastically. But the sarcasm was lost on Annette, who was still contemplating her image with the utmost seriousness. "Forgive me if I keep you too long," she returned; "but until this moment I do not think I have ever seen myself clearly; that is why I interview myself as I would a stranger. It is good, it is wholesome, to realize that one has no claims to admiration--a pale, long face--Bah! You shall take my place, Miss Lottie--the big glass will be more pleased to reflect you." The little compliment pleased Lottie, though she pretended to laugh it off. "You are not fair to yourself" she said, blushing. "The glass has not seen you talk. When people are animated they look better. No one can judge of themselves. Averil always speaks of herself as an ugly little thing; it is a sort of craze with her to think she shocks people at first sight. But there are times, I assure you, when I almost think she is beautiful. Oh! there is the breakfast-bell. I am so glad, for I am as hungry as a hunter. Come along, Miss Ramsay; we shall find Averil at her post." Averil, who was almost hidden behind the big urn, looked up from her letters, and gave Annette a kind welcome. "Have you slept well, dear? I think you look more rested. Mrs. Willmot, this is my cousin, Annette Ramsay"--addressing a tall, fine-looking woman in widow's dress, who was reading the paper in the window. "Oh, indeed!" she returned, rather coolly, holding out her plump white hand as she spoke, but without advancing a step. "I hope you are very well, Miss Ramsay." "I am always well, thank you," returned Annette, shrinking a little from the keen scrutiny of those handsome hazel eyes. It must be confessed Mrs. Willmot's reception was somewhat chilling. "To that lady I am an unwelcome visitor," she thought; for the girl was tolerably shrewd and clear-sighted. "Come and sit by me, Annette," observed Averil, quickly. "Lottie, will you help Annette to some of that omelet? The others are not down--we generally begin without them. I wonder how you felt when you woke up in a strange room this morning, and if you wished yourself back in the Rue St. Joseph?" Annette was about to disclaim this notion somewhat eagerly, when Mrs. Willmot's clear, metallic voice struck in: "I can not think why the girls are not down. We were home last night at a ridiculously early hour. There is not the slightest excuse for being so late. Lottie, do go up and hurry them. Georgina is getting into lax ways. I am always telling her that early rising is the best cosmetic for the complexion. I do not know if you have noticed it, Averil, but Georgie is getting positively fat." "No, I can not say that I have noticed it," returned Averil, rather curtly. "They are not later than usual. I hope they will not keep Lottie, or her breakfast will get cold." But Mrs. Willmot interrupted her; this time she spoke in a decidedly injured voice. "My dear Averil, it is too bad. The toast is hard again. I can not possibly eat it. Really, Mrs. Adams is growing more careless every day." "I am so sorry. Annette, would you mind ringing the bell, and I will order some fresh toast to be made." Averil spoke with the utmost good-humor, but as she gave the order Mrs. Willmot's cloudy brow did not relax, and Roberts had hardly closed the door before she burst out again: "It is really shameful, Averil, to see how you are duped by your servants. Look at the wages you give Mrs. Adams--nearly double what I used to pay Ransome--and she is growing more neglectful every day. Why, the lobster cutlets the other day were not fit to eat, and she had flavored the white soup wrongly. How you can put up with such an incompetent person, just because she is a respectable woman, passes my comprehension. In my opinion old servants are mistakes. Of course, you shake your head. One might as well talk to the wind. It is a little hard that at my age and with all my experience, you will never consent to be guided by me in such matters." Averil elevated her eyebrows slightly. "I am afraid, my dear Mrs. Willmot, that on these points we must agree to differ, as you well know, for we have often discussed the matter. Nothing would induce me to part with Mrs. Adams. She is an invaluable servant; she is industrious and economical, and my father always praised her cooking. I think Rodney has infected you with his club notions. He has got it into his head that it is his prerogative as an Englishman to grumble, but I mean to give him a strong hint to hold his tongue before Roberts. By the bye, Mrs. Willmot"--gliding easily from the vexed topic--"I have two more refusals this morning--from the Farnboroughs and Lathams." "What are you saying about the Lathams, Averil?" interposed a fresh voice, and a tall, striking-looking girl, the youthful image of her mother, entered the room, followed closely by Lottie. "Good-morning, mother! What are you frowning at?" bestowing a light, butterfly kiss rather carelessly as she passed. "Oh!" with a sudden change of tone, and with rather a cool stare at Annette. "This is Miss Ramsay, I suppose. How do you do? Very well, I hope--pleasant journey, and all that sort of thing?" And the young lady swept to her chair with an impertinent insouciance of manner that some people thought charming. "What has become of your sister, Maud?" asked her mother, in rather a freezing tone. "My sister?" with an amused air. "Is it not absurd, Averil, when mother uses that dignified tone? I would not be Georgie for the world at this moment. It is all Doctor Rathbone's fault. He took mother in to dinner last night, and regaled her with all kinds of entertaining speeches. He told her Georgie was getting fat, and that she ought to ride before breakfast. Oh, no, I would not be in Georgie's shoes for the next month." And Maud drew down the corners of her mouth in a ridiculous manner, that nearly convulsed Lottie with suppressed merriment. "I have often told Georgina that she ought to walk more," returned Averil, rather seriously. "She is too fond of an easy chair, she reads too many novels, and--" but here Mrs. Willmot checked her. "There now, Maud, you are making Averil severe on Georgina, as usual. You might know by this time how hard she always is on her, and yet no girl ever deserved blame less. I told Doctor Rathbone that it was laughing so much that made her fat. What a disagreeable old man he is! I never saw her in better looks than she was last night. That blue dress suited her admirably. I am sure Captain Beverley thought so, for he was most attentive." "I can't say I noticed it," replied Maud, coldly. "Have the Lathams really refused, Averil? What a pity!" Mrs. Willmot looked a little alarmed at her daughter's heightened color and evident vexation. "Oh, the room will be crowded as it is," she said, soothingly. "It does not matter about the Lathams. Mrs. Mortimer was telling me last night, Maudie, that she never saw you look to more advantage. 'Georgina is very much improved,' she said, 'and you have reason to be proud of them both; but in my opinion Georgina will never hold a candle to her sister--she has not Maud's beautiful figure, you see.'" "My dear Mrs. Willmot, is it not a pity--" but here Averil stopped, while Maud bridled her long neck, and tried not to look pleased at this foolish flattery. Just then an interruption occurred. The door opened rather noisily, and a fine, buxom girl, with a broad, heavy type of face, and a profusion of light, flaxen hair, made her appearance. "Good-morning, good people all!" she said, airily, as she subsided into a vacant chair. "Lottie, will you please cut me some of that ham? I am literally starving, for Captain Beverley gave me no time to eat my dinner. Why are you looking so glum, Averil? Oh, I see. I have forgotten my manners. Miss Ramsay, please excuse me. I completely overlooked you;" and Georgina, feeling that she had made a graceful apology, turned her shoulder on Annette, and applied herself to her breakfast. "Averil," exclaimed Maud, at this moment, "I suppose we can have the carriage this afternoon? We want to pay some calls." "I am very sorry, Maud," began Averil, in a hesitating voice, "but my cousin has some shopping to do." "There are excellent shops in High Street," responded the young lady, in the coolest manner. "Miss Ramsay will find all she wants at Siemans & Little, or there is Barker," with a supercilious glance at Annette's neat black dress. "I am afraid, all the same, that you can not have the carriage this afternoon, Maud." "Not have it!" and here Maud looked excessively put out. "Averil, I did not think you could be so inconsiderate. Mamma has all these calls owing, and they positively must be paid, and to-morrow we are going to that garden-party at Richmond, and the next day is Sunday, and Monday is Lady Morrison's At Home, Tuesday is ours, and--" Annette, who, had listened to this expostulation in puzzled silence, suddenly interposed. "The carriage, my cousin," she said, in some surprise. "What is it that I want with a carriage? Surely I can walk, and then this young lady will not be inconvenienced. Oh, yes, that is best, and I can walk." But here Lottie nudged her impressively, and Averil said, a little sadly, "But I can not walk, Annette--at least, very little walking knocks me up." "But is it absolutely necessary for Miss Ramsay's shopping to be done to-day?" asked Maud, rather disdainfully. "Say No, my cousin," whispered Annette, with a pained flush. But Averil smiled back at her and said, "Hush!" "I think it is you who are inconsiderate, Maud," she said, very quietly. "Yes, it is absolutely necessary that Annette should not be disappointed. But as your heart seems set on paying these visits, you may have the carriage, and we will manage with a hansom, please say no more about it," as Maud certainly had the grace to look a little ashamed of herself. "Annette will not mind, I am sure. Now, will one of you two girls look after Rodney when he comes down? I want Lottie to finish her practicing before Herr Ludwig comes. Come, Lottie! come, Annette!" and Averil beckoned to them. As soon as the door closed behind them Lottie burst into an indignant remonstrance. "Oh, Averil, how can you put up with it? It is really too bad of Maud! and for aunt to encourage her in such impertinence!" "Please, Lottie, dear, let the subject drop," and Averil's mouth had a weary curve. "Time is too precious, and you and I have far too much to do to waste it on such trifles. Annette, do you think you will be dull in my sitting-room? I have my letters to write, and all sorts of business." "I shall not be dull if I can see you," returned Annette, simply. "Since my mother's death I have worked alone. Alone! Ah, what a bitter word! One is slow in learning it. Often I have forgotten--I have lost myself in some dream. 'Is it so, mother?' I would say, and raise my head. Alas! there were only the dark corners, the empty chair--no answering smile to greet me. Oh, my cousin, I see I make you sad with my little retrospect. But it was only to prove to you that I shall be gay--what you call cheerful--by comparison." Averil did not answer for a moment--when she next spoke it was to question Annette about the torn lace flounce she was to mend for Lottie. Annette was eager to begin her task; she wanted to show these dear people that there was something she could do. "It is play to me," she said, with innocent egotism. "You shall see, and Miss Lottie too, that I can work well. 'One need not starve when one has ten fingers,' as poor Clotilde says. Ah! poor Clotilde! she is peeling her onions now, and perhaps saying a prayer for me in her heart. Hold! I am a sad chatter-box. I will not speak again for an hour"--and for a wonder, Annette contrived to keep her word. But though Annette's tongue was silent, her thoughts were busy enough. Again and again she raised her dark eyes from her embroidery, and fixed them on the quiet figure before her, on the grave, intent face, on the small, busy hands, as Averil wrote letters, added up bills, or made entries in her housekeeping book. CHAPTER VII. RODNEY MAKES HIS APPEARANCE. But the morning was not to pass without interruption. The young mistress of Redfern House was evidently a woman of business. First, a stout, comely looking woman demanded admittance, and had a long and evidently a most important interview. Annette, in her sunny corner, could only hear a word or two--mayonnaise, apricot tart, and so on. Evidently Averil was making out the _menu_. Then, when Mrs. Adams was dismissed, Unwin took her place, and again snatches of conversation reached Annette's ears; they seemed to be discussing some charitable case, for soup and linen were mentioned. "You will go yourself, Unwin," she heard Averil say. "My time is fully occupied to-day; but if you find out that they are really deserving people, I will call myself to-morrow. In any case a little soup and a few comforts will do no harm, for the woman is certainly very ill." "Very well, ma'am: I will pack a basket, and--" Here her voice dropped, but there was a great deal more said before Unwin left Averil to resume her letter-writing. Again there was silence, only broken by the trills of the bullfinch. Averil's pen traveled rapidly over the paper; then she stopped and appeared to listen, and a moment afterward rose with a quick exclamation of annoyance. "What can she have heard?" thought Annette. But her curiosity was soon gratified. Averil had forgotten to close the door behind her, and the next moment Annette heard her speaking to Lottie. "Why have you stopped playing, Lottie? It is not eleven o'clock. I thought you told me that you particularly wanted two hours." "Yes, I did say so, but aunt wants some letters written, and Maud says she is too busy to do them. Never mind, Averil; don't trouble about it. I shall only get a scolding from Herr Ludwig because my piece is not perfect." "Go back to your playing, Lottie. I will speak to Mrs. Willmot. Now, don't argue; it is only a waste of time, and you know you have promised to be guided by me. Quick--march!" Here the drawing-room door closed in a summary manner. A heavy footfall in the passage outside--the talk begins again. Annette pricks up her ears. Yes, she is behind the scenes; she is beginning to learn the ways of the household. "Mrs. Willmot, I want to speak to you"--in Averil's voice. "Why is Lottie always to be interrupted? I thought it was understood between us that she was to have time for her practicing. Herr Ludwig is an expensive master; it is throwing my money away unless she prepares properly for her lesson. Last week he was very angry because she played her piece so imperfectly." "I am sure I do not know why you are telling me all this, Averil. I am not aware that I am interrupting Lottie." "Maud has just asked her to write some letters." "Oh, I forgot. I remember now that both the girls told me that they were too busy; and really Georgina is so careless, and writes such a shocking hand, that I never care to ask her." "But Maud is always writing to some one." "Yes; and every one says how clever and amusing her letters are. But really she is quite cross if I beg her to answer a few notes. Girls are so selfish; they never will take trouble for other people." "I think you should insist on Maud making herself useful. I suppose we should all grow selfish if we yielded to the feeling. Indeed, Lottie must not be disturbed; another scolding from Herr Ludwig would dishearten her. If no one else will write your letters, I must offer my services." "You, Averil! What nonsense! Thank you, I prefer to manage my own business"--very stiffly. "I suppose the letters can wait." Here there was a slow sweep of a dress over the floor, and the next moment Averil re-entered. Annette looked at her wistfully, but said nothing, and again the soothing stillness prevailed. The black poodle slumbered peacefully; Annette worked on busily; her task was nearly finished. She made up her mind, when it was completed, that she would slip through the open window and explore the green, winding path that looked so pleasant. A garden was a novelty to her, and the sight of the trimly shaven lawn and gay flower-beds was wonderfully pleasant to her eyes. Another tap at the door--a quick, imperative tap--followed by the entrance of a fair, boyish-looking young man, dressed in the height of fashion. "I say, Averil, are you very busy? I want to speak to you"--and then he checked himself as he caught sight of Annette. "I beg your pardon. I had no idea you had any one with you," honoring Annette with rather a cool, supercilious stare as he spoke. "Good-morning, Rodney. This is my cousin, Miss Ramsay. You knew yesterday that she was expected. Annette, this is Mr. Seymour, my step-mother's son." Annette acknowledged the introduction with rather a haughty bend of her head--the little lace-mender had her pride. These Seymours were not gracious in their reception of her. Each one in turn had informed her by their manner that she was an unwelcome guest. Good; she would keep herself to herself; they should not be inconvenienced by her. A naughty little sparkle came into Annette's brown eyes. "If it please you, my cousin, I will take a turn in that pleasant garden," she said, rather primly. "I have finished the sprig, and Miss Jones will not know where it has been mended, and then I shall be in no one's way." "Please do not disturb yourself on my account, Miss Ramsay," began Rodney. But Annette did not give him time to finish. She had had enough of these Seymours, she told herself, as she brushed a thread or two from her black dress. She did not even wait for Averil's permission, but ran down the steps, followed by the black poodle, who was enchanted at the prospect of a game. Annette had never found out that she had a temper till that minute. "One must grow tall to stand on tiptoe with these English," she said, with a little toss of her head, as she walked down the shrubbery. Rodney lolled against the window-frame and watched her rather lazily. "What a very energetic young person!" he muttered. Then aloud, "It must be an awful bore for you, Averil, having a poor relative turning up in this unexpected fashion." "I am not so sure that Annette will prove a bore," replied Averil, rather coolly. "I am very pleased with the little I have seen of her. In spite of poverty and hard work, she seems to have a great deal of refinement. She is clever and amusing, and I have discovered that she is an excellent companion." "Indeed! The girls did not seem much impressed by her at breakfast. It is a pity she is not better-looking. She has a half-starved sort of appearance. But if you are pleased, and all that--" "Rodney!" a little impatiently, "did you come to my room to discuss my cousin's merits and demerits?" "No, indeed. How sharp you are, Averil! You are always down on a fellow before he can get a word in. There is no particular hurry, is there?" fingering the rosebud in his button-hole in a way that provoked Averil. "No hurry for you," rather sarcastically; "but if you will excuse me for mentioning it, I am very much pressed for time myself, so please let me know what you want as quickly as possible." "Well, you might be a little more gracious, Ave," in a rather sulky tone. "I don't often take up your precious time, do I?" Then, as she made no answer, he went on in the same drawling fashion. "The fact is, I am a bit hard up, and I dare not let the mater know it. She cut up rough last time, and if there is anything I hate it is a scene--my nerves won't stand it." Averil sat down and folded her hands on her lap in a resigned way. Her manner said mutely that this was exactly what she expected to hear. She looked such a little creature--so absurdly childish--beside the tall lazy figure that was propping itself against the wall; but there was nothing childish in the small, resolute face. Rodney seemed to find the silence trying. He shifted from one foot to the other, and pulled his mustache as he furtively eyed her. "Can't you speak a word to a fellow?" he said, when the situation became intolerable. Averil flashed a look at him. "Oh, dear yes; a thousand words if you like," she returned, scornfully. "The question is, whether the _fellow_ will like them." "Come now, Ave, don't be so confoundedly hard on me. You are such a good-natured little soul, and have so often helped me, that you are not going to turn rusty now." "Does it never strike you"--in a keen, incisive voice--"that there are limits even to good nature, that I may possibly have conscientious scruples about throwing my money away on a spendthrift? Now, please do not interrupt me, Rodney; I must speak, even if the truth is not to your taste. I am not one to prophesy smooth things. You have come to tell me that you have exceeded your allowance, that you are in debt again, and that you dare not apply to your mother; and I will tell you in return that you ought to be ashamed of yourself." "Of course I must bear anything that you choose to say, if I put myself in this position." And here Rodney seemed to gulp down something. Averil's voice softened unconsciously. "Rodney, it is for your good I am speaking. I have no wish to be hard on you or any one, but I can not see you ruining yourself without a word of remonstrance. How long do you mean to go on like this, living upon"--she was going to say "me," but hastily substituted the word "mother?" Rodney colored as though he understood her. "If only something would turn up," he muttered. "It is just like my luck, failing to pass that examination." "When people do not work, is it a surprising fact that they cannot pass an examination? Ill luck--something to turn up!" still more impatiently. "How I hate those phrases! The very cant of the idler. Is there anything in this world worth having that can be procured without effort--without downright labor? 'By the sweat of your brow shall you eat bread.' Why should you be exempt, Rodney, from the common burden of humanity?" "Oh, come! don't preach, Ave. Who says that I don't mean to work?" "Did you work at Oxford? Are you working now?" "Perhaps not. But I am young; and even the mater says there is plenty of time. You need not grudge me a little amusement. I'll work fast enough by and by." "My dear," replied Averil, with a quaint motherliness that sat oddly upon her, "'by and by' is a dangerous ally. 'Now' is a stouter fellow, and a better staff for a young man. You know what Mr. Harland says, 'The longer you wait for work, the less you will feel inclined for it when it comes. Idleness never improved any one.'" "'How doth the little busy bee improve each shining hour!'" drawled Rodney, who was getting weary of this lecture. "Exactly so. And you have not stored a bit of honey yet. Now, Rodney, in spite of your impatience, I must beg you to listen to me a moment. I will help you this once." "Oh, thanks, awfully! I always knew you were a brick, Averil." "This once"--holding up her finger impressively. "But, Rodney, never again. I tell you my conscience will not allow me to do it. I cannot throw away good money that might help worthy people in paying the debts of an extremely idle young man, and so encourage him to contract more." "Upon my word, Averil!" in an affronted tone. "My dear boy, I am stating the sober truth. You are an idle young man; and you are far too fond of pleasure. All the Seymours are." "You are vastly complimentary to the family"--relapsing into sulkiness. "Why don't you turn us out? You are not bound to put up with us. Come now, Averil, answer that if you can?" "I could answer it easily," looking at him with an expression of sadness. "But silence is golden, Rodney. But do not try me too much. There are times, I do not deny it, when I long to run away from you all." "Well, you are awfully good to us"--in a penitent tone. "I often tell the girls what a little brick you are. I know we are a troublesome lot. It is our up-bringing, as Aunt Dinah calls it. The mater has spared the rod and spoiled the child, don't you know? Awful nuisance that." Averil smiled. In her heart Rodney was her favorite--weak, self-indulgent, and easily led. He was not without good impulses, and he was not so hopelessly selfish as the others. "Now tell me what you want and I will write the check," she observed, resuming her business-like manner; "or, better still, let me have your bills." "Oh, of course, if you do not trust me!" and Rodney looked hurt and mortified. "Very well, I will. Now then!" and as Rodney whispered the amount in her ear she merely elevated her eyebrows, but made no remarks as she wrote the check and passed it to him. She checked his profuse thanks. "Never mind about that. I never care much for words. If you want to please me, if you have the faintest wish to preserve my respect, you will look out seriously for a berth. You will ask Mr. Harland to help you. Do, Rodney; do, my dear boy; and I shall still live to be proud of you." Rodney tried to laugh at her earnestness, but it was easy to see that his light facile nature was touched. "Well, I will see about it. Don't bother yourself Ave. I never was worth the trouble. You are a good little soul, and I am awfully obliged to you. I am, indeed. Oh, there is the young woman--the cousin, I mean. And I may as well take myself off." And Rodney sauntered off. "Are you alone? Then I need not fear to interrupt you?" began Annette. Then she stopped, and regarded Averil with close attention. "Ah! you are tired, my cousin. You have grown quite pale and fatigued during my absence. I will take a book to that shady garden seat." "No, no! I will put away my letters. I have had so many interruptions. Indeed, I must talk to you, Annette. That is part of my business for this morning. Shall we go up to your room? I want you to tell me exactly what you require for renovating your wardrobe, just as you would have told your mother. You are still in mourning, of course. It is only six months since you lost her." "Only six months! To me it seems like six years. Yes, I will keep to my black gown; any color would dazzle me too much. You are in black, too, my cousin!" "Yes; but this is not mourning. I think I dislike any color for myself. Unwin sees to my dresses. When she thinks I want a new one she tells me so. I should never remember it myself. But, strange to say, it is always a pleasure to me to see people round me well dressed." "That is because you have an artistic taste. Miss Jones dresses well. I was remarking on her gown this morning." "Oh, yes! Lottie has excellent taste. And then she knows she is pretty." Averil could have said more on this subject, but she was singularly uncommunicative on the subject of her own good deeds. Lottie would have waxed eloquent on the theme. She could have informed Annette of a time when the little school-girl had shed hot tears of humiliation and shame over the out-grown shabby gown, with the ink-stain dropped by a malicious school-mate on one of the breadths; days when faded ribbons and mended gloves were the order of the day; when Lottie's piteous petitions for a new frock, even for new boots, were refused on the score of reckless extravagance. Lottie's sweet youth had been imbittered by these minor vexations, these galling restrictions enforced by unloving tyranny and despotism. In a thousand ways she had been made to suffer for being an incumbrance. The bright, lively girl, conscious of latent talents, and yearning for a higher education and self-culture, was literally starved and repressed in her intellectual faculties--reduced to a dull level of small, grinding duties. Lottie had good masters in the school at Stoke Newington, but as she lacked time for preparation, their lessons yielded scant profit. She had to teach history and geography to the young ones, to help them with their sums, their mending, to overlook their practicing. The young pupil teacher was the drudge of the whole school. And yet even there she won golden opinions. It was Averil who was her benefactor, whose sympathy and ready affection smoothed her daily life. It was Averil who watched over her in a hundred ways. Lottie had still much to bear from her aunt's selfish caprices, but her life was a far happier one now. The shabby gowns were things of the past. Averil had taken that matter in hand. Lottie's fresh, dainty toilets often caused a remonstrance from Mrs. Willmot, and a sneering remark from Maud or Georgina. Her neglected musical powers were cultivated by the eminent Herr Ludwig. Lottie was not ungrateful for all this kindness. Her loving nature blossomed into fresh sweetness, and she repaid Averil by the devotion of her young girlish heart--"my sweet Saint Averil," as she often called her. CHAPTER VIII. "WILL YOU TAKE BACK THOSE WORDS, MAUD?" A very few minutes were sufficient for the inspection of Annette's scanty stock of clothes. Averil's eyes grew misty over the little pile of coarse, neatly mended linen; the worn shoes, the pitiful contrivances, gave more than one pang to her warm heart. "How can she contrive to look so ladylike?" she thought, as she remarked the frayed edges of her black gown; "none of them seem to have noticed that indefinable air that stamps her as a true gentlewoman. I wish Maud and Georgina had half such good manners; but they are thorough girls of the period." Annette looked at her wistfully when the brief survey was over. "I told you the truth, my cousin, did I not, when I said I was poor? In the Rue St. Joseph it did not seem to matter, but here, among all these fine people, I do not love to be shabby." "Oh, we will alter all that," returned Averil, cheerfully. "I shall give you the same outfit I gave Lottie when she first came to live here. As I am to enact the part of fairy godmother, I am sorry that the pumpkin-coach is wanting; but we shall do very well, I dare say." And then, as she went to her room, she reproached herself for not being sufficiently grateful for her riches. "How often have I complained of the burden of my wealth!" she said to herself. "How often have I longed to shift my responsibilities and to betake myself to a cottage with Lottie and Unwin! Why am I so impatient, so cowardly? I ought to rejoice at the richness of the talent intrusted to me. 'Give an account of thy stewardship.' Yes, those awful words will one day sound in my ears. So much has been given me, that surely much will be required. Oh, what a poor creature I am, for I would willingly, thrice willingly give it all if only I could be like other girls!" Here she caught sight of herself in the glass, and a flush came into her pale, sad face. "No one--no one guesses my weakness; even Unwin, dear soul, only thinks I am tired and far from strong. But One knows," raising her eyes reverently; "and He who has laid this cross upon me will surely help me to carry more bravely to the end." And then she whispered, softly: "'Multiply our graces, Chiefly love and fear; And, dear Lord, the chiefest Grace to persevere.'" That afternoon Annette thought she was in fairyland. If Averil had been a benevolent fairy and had waved her magic wand, she could not have worked greater wonders, and yet it was all so quietly done. Averil seemed to know just what she wanted, and her orders were executed in a marvelous way. They went to a linen warehouse first, and then drove to a dressmaker. "Mrs. Stephens will know exactly what to get us," Averil remarked in the hansom. "As you are in mourning, there will be no need to select shades. She will take your measure and show us a few stuffs. We shall not be fatigued with looking over fashion books. Annette, you must not be afraid of speaking. If any material takes your fancy, please tell me so without reserve. Lottie always chooses her own gowns, and she has a very pretty taste." But, in spite of this kindly permission, Annette could not bring herself to speak, except at last, when Averil felt a timid touch on her arm. "Do not give me so much," she pleaded, in a grave tone of remonstrance. "My cousin, you are too extravagant. I shall ruin you. How many more dresses? One for morning, and one for promenade, and a dinner-dress, and yet another. Why should I have that other, Cousin Averil?" "Why? Because you will have to look your best on Tuesday, when all my friends are coming," returned Averil, smiling. "My dear Annette, you have no idea of the crowds that are invited. The grenadine is for that occasion. Now you must have a hat and a jacket; and then there are boots and shoes. Come, we have no time to waste in talking;" and again they jumped into the hansom. More purchases--gloves, a sunshade, even an umbrella, then two weary, jaded beings were driven back through the sweet evening air. Averil leaned back in the corner of the hansom, with closed eyes, almost too tired to speak. Her frail form ached with fatigue, her heart felt peaceful and at rest; she had forgotten herself in giving pleasure to another, and the reward of unselfishness was hers already. Annette was silent too: her heart was too full for speech. "For what is it that I can say?" she thought; "to thank is only to give words. I must wait and prove my gratitude in other ways;" and Annette's girlish bosom throbbed with sweet, warm feelings. Already she loved her cousin, already her orphaned heart seemed to cleave to her. "If thou hadst known her, thou wouldst have loved her too, my mother," she thought, as her dark eyes were fixed on the blue, cloud-flecked sky. As Annette sprung lightly from the hansom and ran up the steps of Redfern House, she noticed how slowly and stiffly Averil moved after her. "Oh, you are tired, tired!" she said, remorsefully. "Miss Jones will tell me I have killed you." "Lottie knows better than that. I am so often tired, Annette. Why, Roberts"--interrupting herself--"that is surely not the gong? It is only just seven." Roberts looked embarrassed. "The young ladies have ordered dinner half an hour earlier," he said, in a rather hesitating fashion. "I told them, ma'am, that half past seven was the hour mentioned, but Miss Maud said--" "Do you mean that dinner is actually served?" and a slight frown crossed Averil's brow. "Annette"--turning to her cousin "there is no time to dress; will you please take off your hat, and come down into the dining-room?" Annette obeyed, but as she took her place at the dinner table beside Lottie, she looked round her somewhat bewildered. "They must be going to a party," she thought. Even Lottie was in white, the table was dressed with flowers; surely it must be a fête day. Averil came in by and by and took her place. She looked unusually grave. Mrs. Willmot gave a deprecating cough, and threw back her voluminous cap-strings. "I hope my dear Averil, that the little change in the programme has not inconvenienced you," she said, in a tone intended to be propitiatory; "but Maud said that she was sure you had forgotten the concert at the Albert Hall." "It was Maud's doing, then. At least I need not apologize for my walking-dress." But though she said no more, Mrs. Willmot glanced nervously at her daughters, and Maud tossed her head in a supercilious way. Only Rodney seemed at his ease. Lottie looked red and uncomfortable until Averil began talking to her. "Are you going to the concert too, Lottie?" she asked, in some surprise. "Not if you want me," returned Lottie, anxiously. "Only, as there was a vacant seat in the box, aunt said I might as well go. I only knew it about an hour ago. I had no idea at luncheon." "My dear, there is no reason why you should not enjoy the treat, and you have never heard Madame Patey: go, by all means. Annette and I are both so tired that we should not be good company; indeed, I mean to give her a book for the rest of the evening." "Then you do not mind--oh, I am so glad!" and Lottie's brow grew clear in a moment. She began to chatter to Annette about this wonderful concert, and about the singer. "What a fuss you make about it Lottie!" observed Maud, who seemed somewhat out of temper. "Miss Ramsay will think you have never been to a concert before." "I have not been to many, and I think concerts are the most heavenly things in existence; there is nothing on earth I love better than music." "Except a few superlatives," was the sarcastic rejoinder; and somehow Lottie's innocent enthusiasm seemed quenched in a moment. "What's up with you girls?" remarked Rodney, lazily, as the conversation flagged at this point. "Lots of people talk in superlatives, so you need not be down on Lottie. You and Georgie are always awfully in love with something or other. It is awfully nice of you, you know." Maud gave him a withering glance, but made no answer, and he rattled on in his good-humored, boyish way. He even addressed Annette once or twice, as though to make amends for his sister's influence. Neither Maud nor Georgina seemed disposed to trouble themselves about her. In their eyes she was only an incumbrance--another applicant for Averil's bounty. They had not been consulted in the matter. Averil rarely consulted any one. If they had been asked for their opinion of this new inmate of Redfern House, they would have termed her "a plain, uninteresting, shabby little thing;" for the Miss Seymours were never sparing of their adjectives. Lottie they tolerated. Lottie knew how to make herself useful. They would have been at a loss without her; in many ways she was invaluable. They had no maid. Mrs. Willmot's means could not afford such extravagance, with Rodney's college debts to pay, and a hundred private expenses. Lottie had excellent taste. She was clever, and knew how to use her needle. She could turn a dress and arrange a drapery; she could advise them on the choice of a trimming. It needed all Averil's skillful management to prevent Lottie from becoming a perfect drudge. Many a task of mending was privately performed by Unwin, or one of Averil's protégées, to give Lottie leisure for her beloved music. When it was possible to secure an hour from interruption, Averil read French and history with her. The poor girl felt her imperfect education bitterly, and Averil's strong will was set on raising her to her own level. "Is a bright, intelligent creature like Lottie to degenerate into a mere lady's maid?" she would say to herself. "We must all serve our apprenticeship. God forbid that I should hinder her from making herself useful, but there are limits to everything: only Maud and Georgina do not seem to recognize the fact. Why are some natures so selfish? I suppose their mother has spoiled them. Some people would say that I was spoiled, too, for I generally get my own way. Dear father! as though he ever refused me anything." As they left the dining-room, Annette lingered for a moment to admire a fine bronze figure. The hall was somewhat dark, and in the summer twilight she was unperceived by Averil, who had just joined Maud at the foot of the staircase. "Maud, I want to speak to you for a moment. What has happened just now must never occur again." Averil spoke with a decision that was not to be mistaken, and Maud looked excessively offended. "I am sure I do not know why you are making all this fuss, Averil. What does such a little thing signify? One would think, from your manner, that I had committed some crime in asking Mrs. Adams to serve dinner half an hour earlier." "It was taking a great liberty, Maud; a liberty that must never be repeated in my house. No one shall contradict the mistress's orders. Mrs. Adams will be taught that she must only take orders from me. I am sorry to have to speak like this, but you give me no option. This sort of thing has occurred too often; I am resolved to put a stop to it." "It is mamma who ought to be mistress of the house," returned Maud. "I wonder you are not ashamed to put her in such a position. You treat us all like children, and you are only a girl yourself." "I shall not reply to you, Maud--recriminations are useless. You can ask yourself, and I can safely leave to your conscience to answer, whether one of you has received anything but kindness at my hands. And what do you give me in return? Do you ever consult my taste, my pleasures? Do you care for anything but your own wishes?" "You have everything," in the same proud, passionate tone. "How can you expect us not to envy you, Averil? We are dependent on you, and I hate dependence--just because mamma was cheated out of her rights." "Maud," in a voice so hard and cold that Annette scarcely recognized it, "I can bear much, but there are limits to my generosity. Will you take back that speech, or shall I go to your mother?" "I declare, you are too bad Averil," bursting into indignant tears. "You are using your power mercilessly." "Will you take back those words, Maud?" "As though I meant them!"--dashing her tears away. "Of course; I know the money is yours." "You are wrong; it is not mine; it is no more mine than any other gift I possess. I do not desire it--it is more a burden than a pleasure. At times it is almost an unbearable responsibility. Not that I expect you to believe me," rather sadly. "Well, you know you are odd enough for anything. I never knew any one like you, Averil." "Are you quite sure you know me, Maud? Have you ever tried really to know me? I am perfectly aware what you and Georgina think of me. Oh, yes; I am odd, eccentric--none of your friends understand me." "Oh, don't let us quarrel," returned Maud, impatiently. She had recovered her temper, at least outwardly, for she thought it would be more politic to keep the peace. "Of course, we never shall agree in things. I love society, and you only care to associate with dowdy, frumpish people. In your place, I should keep open house--I should never be alone. But, there! one might as well argue with the wind." And Maud shrugged her shoulders and ran up-stairs, leaving Averil still standing there. Annette heaved a heavy sigh as she moved slowly away; there was something indescribably pathetic in the small, slender figure, the drooping head, the tightly locked hands. "Oh, they are cruel, these people!" exclaimed Annette, half aloud. "They care not to understand--they have no kindness in their hearts." But, in spite of her sympathy and youthful indignation, she did not venture for a long time to follow her cousin; she moved about uneasily, taking up a book and laying it down again. She saw the party drive off to the concert. Lottie kissed her hand to her, with a beaming smile, as she passed. "She would not look so happy if she had heard that talk," thought Annette. And then she could bear the solitude of the big rooms no longer. And though her heart beat a little quickly at her own temerity, she crossed the dusky hall again, and tapped softly at the door of her cousin's room. Perhaps that light tap was inaudible, for there was no answer, and Annette timidly entered. The moon had risen, and a flood of silvery beams was pouring in at the open window, beside which Averil sat. For a moment Annette thought she was asleep; she was lying back in her chair with closed eyes, but as Annette advanced noiselessly, she was shocked to see a large tear steal down her cheek, followed by another. Annette's affectionate heart could not bear the sight. She startled Averil by stooping over her to kiss it away. "Annette!" in rather an embarrassed voice. "My dear, why have you followed me?" But this delicate hint that she would rather be alone was lost on Annette. "Don't be vexed with me, my cousin. I came because I overheard, and because I was sorry for you. Indeed, I did not like you to be alone, and Miss Jones was not here to comfort you. Oh, you have been shedding tears! It was cruel--cruel to speak to you like that! You did well to be angry." "Oh, Annette, please hush! You must not say such things. It is never well to be angry. I ought to know Maud by this time. She has a bad temper when she is put out, she does not always measure her words. Do you know why I am so unhappy? Not because of what Maud said, but because I can not forgive myself for being so hard. Oh, I am proud, terribly proud, and sometimes they make me suffer; but I do not often forget myself. I think"--with a little sob--"that I was too tired; one can bear so little when the body is weak." "My poor dear!"--three little words; but the sympathetic tone was infinitely soothing to Averil's sore spirit. "Do not pity me too much; I deserve to suffer. I had no right to be so angry." "But, my cousin, surely Miss Seymour was in the wrong to contradict your orders?" "Most certainly; but I could have told her so more quietly. I was right to reprove her, but I ought not to have suffered her to provoke me. Annette, if only one could be sweet-tempered. One has to fight such a hard battle sometimes--and, oh! I am so tired of it all." "You are young, and have much to bear," returned Annette, in her serious way. "And always goodness is difficult. How well do I remember my mother speaking to me on this subject. One day, as we sat together at our work, she surprised me by telling me that her temper was naturally a bad one. Never shall I forget my astonishment. No, it could not be possible. 'Seest thou, Annette,' she said--for we talked often in the language of our adopted country--'I have taught myself, by God's help, to control it while I was young. When I first married I was very hasty, and would say bitter things when others displeased me; but one day I said to myself, 'Felicia'--my mother's name was Felicia--'thou art growing sharper every day. People will cease soon to love thee. Thy tongue should be thy servant, not thy master.' My cousin, never have I heard an irritable word from my mother's lips; her patience and sweetness were wonderful. Do you care to know how she cured herself? When her husband, her child, her servant, or perhaps some troublesome neighbor, provoked her, she would be silent a moment, then she would reply. And always she repeated the same words in her heart, 'Deliver us from evil;' that was her charm of charms, as she called it. But it answered well." CHAPTER IX. THE MUTUAL IMPROVEMENT SOCIETY. "Thank you, dear. You have done me good," returned Averil, gratefully, when Annette had finished her little story. "Ah! that is well, my cousin." "No one has done me so much good before. But, Annette, you must call me Averil. We are strangers no longer. We must be sisters to each other. Lottie, too; there is no need to call her Miss Jones." "I will remember. I will do anything that pleases you. Every day I shall grow more English. I shall learn your ways." "I hope you and Lottie will be good friends." "But why not? Already I feel to love her. She is bright--she has a sweet temper; and then, how she plays!" "And you long to play, too?" "Surely. And to sing; above all things, to sing. Oh, my cousin--I mean, Averil--what does that look mean? Is it that you will altogether crush me with kindness? I am to dwell in this fine house, and I am to dress as grandly as the consul's lady used to dress. And still that is not enough?" "No, certainly. We must think of better things than clothes. Annette, shall you think me hard if I give you books to read?" "Books? Ah! they will content me much. Never have I had time to read, except on Sunday." "Lottie and I read history together. Why should you not join us, Annette? And then I have begun to teach her French. Poor Lottie's education has been sadly neglected. And she is so clever, and feels her deficiencies so deeply." "Stay, my cousin--I have a notion," and Annette's eyes were sparkling with eagerness. "Already I have an idea. Why should we not make the exchange? Miss Jones--Lottie, I mean--shall teach me my notes in music, and I will read and talk French with her. Ah! that pleases you," as Averil smiled. "You think it a good idea?" "Excellent! Lottie is used to teaching. You will not need a master for at least a year. But there is only one obstacle in this charming scheme: How is Lottie to find time for all this?" "I have thought of that, too," returned Annette, gravely. "Listen, my cousin. Ah! you shake your head. I shall learn to say Averil by and by. For myself, I love work. I can mend, I can darn--even my mother praised me, and she was hard to please. I will share Lottie's tasks. When two work, the labor is sooner ended. We can talk French. Our tongues will be at liberty, though our hands are busy. Ah! this, too, contents you. I am happy that I have already found out a way to please you." "My dear child!" Averil was almost too touched to say more. She felt a generous delight as this beautiful nature, at once so simple and so child-like, unfolded itself before her. It was her secret trouble that so few natures satisfied and responded to her own. All her life she had hungered and thirsted for sympathy, though she had long ago ceased to expect it. Her father had loved her, but he had formed other ties, regardless of his child's best interests. Averil's home life had been terribly isolated. Her large nature had been compelled to create its own interests. For Lottie she felt the affection that she would have bestowed on a young sister. Lottie's gay, healthy nature, with its robust sweetness, was a singularly youthful one. She leaned on Averil, and depended on her for all her comforts. But it may be doubted if she understood Averil's strange, sensitive temperament. With all Lottie's devotion, her dog-like fidelity, her loyal submission, she failed to give Averil what she required. Annette was young too, but she had been early schooled in adversity, and its bitter lessons had been tempered by the watchful love of an earthly parent. Until lately, Annette had not suffered alone. "My mother and I." In spite of privations, that dual existence had been sweet. Annette's cheek had grown pale and thin, but her heart had kept young. No unkindness had frozen her young energies; no galling restrictions, no want of sympathy, had driven her back upon herself. She was like a closed-up flower; the sunshine would soon open the blossom. "She is different from Lottie. She is older, graver, more intense," thought Averil. "Last night I thought her interesting; the French word _spirituelle_ seemed to express her perfectly. To-night I have found out that there are still depths to be sounded. I must not allow myself to expect too much. She may disappoint me, as others have done. It is not wise to demand too much of human nature. But already I feel to love her." They did not talk much after this. Averil was obliged to own that she was weary, and that her head ached, and after a little she retired to bed. Annette was almost too excited to sleep. She had found a way to make herself useful. "Ah! they should see, these dear people, how she could work." Annette was not a bit dismayed at the thought of the task she had set herself; the thin, slender fingers were longing to achieve those marvelous feats of invisible darning, those dainty hem-stitched borders and delicate embroideries. Annette would not be daunted by any amount of dilapidated lace and frayed flounces. Like Alexander the Great, she was longing for new worlds to conquer--those regions that belonged to her woman's kingdom. "Ah! they shall see! they shall see!" she said to herself a dozen times before she fell asleep. When Annette entered the dining-room the next morning she was surprised to find Maud occupying Averil's place. Her anxious inquiries were answered carelessly. "Averil had the headache. She was having breakfast in her own room. Oh, there was no need to be so concerned," as Annette plied her with questions. "Averil was often ailing. She had wretched health. Any one could see at a glance what a sickly little person she was. It was her own fault. If she would only rest more, and winter abroad, and not be running out in all weathers to see all sorts of people, she would do very well;" and here Maud gave her favorite shrug, that was so expressive, and turned a cold shoulder on Annette. No one else addressed her. Mrs. Willmot read her letters, and conversed with her daughters. Lottie scarcely spoke. She ate her breakfast hurriedly, and left the room as soon as possible. Annette followed her. "Why is it that you are making such haste?" she asked. "Is it that you have your music to practice?" "No, indeed," returned Lottie, stretching her arms a little wearily; "but I have work to do that will occupy me for the rest of the day. Ah! how I do hate work--at least, how I long sometimes to do something better. Oh, that concert, Miss Ramsay, was glorious! I could scarcely sleep afterward. I think I am crazy about music. I want to try over something I heard on the grand piano; but Georgina would be so vexed to hear me. She and Maud want their dresses for to-morrow, and there is ever so much to do to them." "Never mind; I will help you. I will fetch my new work-basket, and you shall show me your room, and you will see how much sooner the work will be done." "Will you really?"--and Lottie's face brightened, and her dimples came into full play. "How good-natured you are, Miss Ramsay!" "If I call you Lottie, you must say Annette also. Averil, my cousin, thinks it is not well to be stiff. Oh! is this your room? It is almost as pretty as mine. You have a writing-table also; and what a dear little round table for work! Those are the dresses, I suppose?"--looking at some flimsy white garments on the bed, and she listened to Lottie's instructions gravely. How the girls' tongues unloosed as their needles flew through the soft stuff! Lottie had so much to say about the concert. Her little pleasure-loving soul had been stirred to the depths by that wonderful music. "There is nothing like it--it is the highest of all the arts!" cried Lottie, with flushing cheeks. "Oh, I know poetry is glorious, and, of course, one must always love beautiful pictures; but, as Averil says, music is the most unearthly of all the arts." "Did my cousin say that?" "Yes; you should hear her talk about music. As she says, there is so much about it in the Bible, she thinks it will be one of the chief pleasures in heaven. Don't you know how one reads of the harpers harping with their harps, and the new song before the throne? I remember when we were talking on this subject that Averil showed me a verse about the predicted fall of Babylon, where it said, 'The voice of harpers, and minstrels, and flute-players, and trumpeters shall be heard no more.' Music was a great power even in those days." "Then you will teach it to me?" asked Annette; and thereupon she unfolded her scheme: how she was to share Lottie's labors; how they were to talk French over their work; and how Averil had promised to read to them when she had time. "We are to form a mutual improvement society, my cousin says; each is to help the other. You will have time for your beloved music. I shall listen to you, and now and then you will give me a lesson. Ah! you do not speak, Lottie, and yet I can see you are well pleased;" for Lottie's work had dropped to her lap, and she was regarding Annette with bright, wide-open eyes. "Oh, I am so ashamed of myself," she returned. "Miss Ramsay--Annette, you are heaping coals of fire on my head. Do you know"--with an amusing air of contrition--"that I was dreadfully cross when Averil told me you were coming to live here? I sulked about it nearly all day. 'What do you want with changes?' I said. 'This French cousin will spoil all.' Oh, I was as disagreeable as possible. I was jealous because Averil took such pains with your room. 'How do you know whether you will like her?' I said, more than once. But Averil only laughed at my bad humor. 'I can know nothing until I see her,' she returned. 'But, all the same, her room shall be as pretty as possible.'" "Oh, she is an angel, my cousin!" "You would say so if you knew all," was Lottie's reply. "Sometimes I wonder how she can go on living this life that is so uncongenial to her; but I know she does it partly for my sake. I was so miserable until I knew Averil;" and here a shade crossed her bright face. "No one seemed to care whether I had proper things or not, and the school-girls at Stoke Newington laughed at my shabby frocks, though in a way they were kind to me, and would often give me some of their own things. I pretended not to care, and I would laugh with the rest of them; but I often had a good cry over it in private. I used to dream sometimes that I had a new dress, such a pretty one! and then, when I woke, the tears would come, because I was so disappointed to find it only a dream. Perhaps it was wrong to fret about it. I wish I could be more like Averil. I think she would wear sackcloth as happily as silk." "It seems to me that you and I, Lottie, are more earthly minded. I do care exceedingly for nice things." "Yes; and I used to envy the Israelites. Don't you remember, their clothes never wore out in the wilderness? How I used to sigh over those patches! And then the darns! I shall never forget my feelings of supreme content when I found myself the possessor of half a dozen brand new stockings." "Is it that your aunt is so poor?" asked Annette, in a puzzled tone. Lottie colored. "Well, you see, she has many expenses, and is not exactly what you call rich. Mr. Willmot left most of his money to Averil. I have heard that there was some mistake. He thought aunt had plenty of money when he married her. And uncle certainly left her a good income. But it seems as though it has dwindled somehow. Rodney costs her a good deal, and Maud and Georgina are extravagant. Perhaps I ought not to tell you all this, but I do not wish you to be hard on them." For Lottie was too generous to blame her relatives. In her heart she knew she owed them little gratitude; that her services fully repaid them for the scanty maintenance--that was all they had given her. It was Averil whose roof sheltered her, who was in reality her benefactor. Annette read the girl's generous reticence aright. She said no more on that subject; but she recurred regretfully to Lottie's speech about her cousin's uncongenial life. "I do not understand you," she said, wistfully. "Is it that monsieur was right and that my cousin would prefer to live alone? So many people must be trying, if one loves quiet. But it seems to me as if she could at all times seclude herself in her own room." "My dear Annette, you forget that Averil is mistress of the house. It would never do to shut herself up in her own apartments. Maud would get the upper hand in a moment. And if Averil were not firm--if she did not hold the reins--Redfern House would be a very different place from what it is. The girls are always teasing her to have dinner-parties. They want to fill the house; but Averil does so dislike a crowd. She is dreading Tuesday, I know." "But what is to happen on Tuesday?" "Oh, only one of those stupid, senseless 'At Homes.' A lot of people will come and eat ices and strawberries. There will be music that no one will hear, and a professional is going to sing. Poor, dear Averil, she will be as miserable as possible; and next day she will be ill, and have one of her nervous headaches. But they have teased her into sending out about two hundred invitations, and so she must go through with it." "But it is too bad. Monsieur, who is her good friend, should protect her." "Monsieur!" and Lottie looked mystified. Then a light broke on her. "Do you mean Mr. Harland, Annette?" "Yes. But I think I must always call him monsieur," returned Annette, softly. "He was so good to me. When I saw his gray hair and pleasant face I thought it was my cousin Leonard. Picture to yourself my delight in having a friendly hand held out to me. Oh, he was so kind, so fatherly! I have called him monsieur always to myself." "I wonder what these two young workwomen are chattering so busily about?" asked a quiet voice at this moment, and Averil smiled at them from the threshold. "So the mutual improvement society has begun, eh, Lottie?" as the girls greeted her with delight. "Annette, how fast you work! Why, that dress is nearly done!" "She is ever so much cleverer than I," returned Lottie, mournfully. "Oh, dear! how quickly the time has passed. Luncheon will be ready directly." "Never mind; lay those dresses on the bed, and Unwin shall add the finishing touches. You both looked as tired as possible. Annette, we really must put some color into those pale cheeks." "You have none to spare yourself, my cousin," she replied, with an affectionate glance. Averil looked wan and thin, and there were dark circles round her eyes. "Come, that is too bad! when my headache is gone, and I expected a compliment. You are as bad as Unwin, who wanted me to go to bed. Now, Lottie, I am going to show Annette the parks this afternoon. A drive will do me good, and if you like you shall go too. I shall tell Mrs. Willmot that I want you to act as _cicerone_, as I am not equal to any exertion. We shall not go very early, so you will have time for an hour's practicing." But she was not allowed to finish her sentence, for Lottie was kissing her in the most merciless manner. "You dear, sweet thing! I do so love a drive! And the park will be so amusing! Perhaps we shall see the Princess of Wales. A concert yesterday; the park to-day--really, I am getting quite gay." "Are you sure you feel fit to go?" remonstrated Annette. "Lottie, I thought you said my cousin disliked crowds." "Oh, no; unless I have to entertain them. It is a pretty sight, I assure you; and I too, like Lottie, find it very amusing. It always reminds me of Britain Row in 'Vanity Fair.' I am sure my Lord Luxurious, the Lord Desire of Vain-glory, and Sir Having Greedy are still to be found in the nineteenth century." And Lottie laughed as though she understood Averil's allusion. CHAPTER X. AVERIL AT HOME. The next two or three days passed quickly and pleasantly to Annette; "the dear Fairy Order," as Lottie had called her playfully, during their first morning's work together, was already exercising her beneficent sway on her companion's behalf--tasks that would have entailed hours of labor on Lottie were now finished long before the luncheon-bell rang. After Annette's long, solitary days passed in that dark room in the Rue St. Joseph, these two or three hours spent with Lottie, listening to her broken French, and interspersing laughing corrections, seemed merely playtime to Annette. "Do you know Averil is fitting up a room for us?" remarked Lottie, on the morning of the eventful Tuesday when Averil was to hold her reception, and about a hundred and fifty people had accepted her invitation to come and be bored. "She does not like the idea of our sitting in my bedroom. There is a room that is never used at the end of the corridor, and she is having it repapered, and has chosen such a pretty carpet for it; it is to be half workroom and half study; and the piano that is in Rodney's room is to be taken up there for your use. You see, Averil is so thoughtful, she never forgets anything, and she says it will never do for you to annoy people with practicing scales and beginner's exercises down in the morning-room." "Oh, that is wise, I have thought much of this difficulty, Lottie. You are very outspoken--ought you to have told me all this? Did not my cousin mean to give me this little surprise?" Lottie laughed, but she had the grace to look ashamed of herself. "My dear Fairy Order," she said, "I never can hold my tongue. Averil thinks I must talk even in my sleep. Well, it was naughty of me to betray Averil's nice little scheme. You must just pretend to be surprised when she shows you the room. You must open your eyes widely, and say--" "But that would be deceitful," returned Annette, gravely. "You are a funny little person, Lottie; you would even recommend me to deceive. Ah! it is your joke," as Lottie only laughed again. "You are always so ready with your joke, you will not make me believe you. When Averil shows me the room, I shall thank her with all my heart, but I will not be surprised--not one little bit." "You are very provoking," returned Lottie, pouting. "If you had not darned Maud's white silk stockings so beautifully, I would not forgive you so easily. But you are such a dear old fairy. Ah! here comes Averil with Motley's 'Dutch Republic;' she is going to read to us for half an hour;" for after this pleasant, desultory fashion Lottie's education was carried on; but it agreed with her wondrously well--she sipped knowledge as sweetly as a bee sips honey. Annette felt unusually gay that morning; she found it a little difficult to concentrate her attention on the reading. Down-stairs the rooms were decked with flowers, as though for a fête; her new dress had come home, and she was longing to try it on. She wondered how Averil could sit there reading so quietly, as though no hundred and fifty people were coming. "It must be that she wishes to shut out the thought of them all," Annette said to herself; and her shrewd surmise certainly grazed the truth. Averil was nervously dreading the ordeal; with all her passionate desire for human sympathy, her very real love of human kind, these vapid interchanges of compliments, that passed under the name of receptions or At Homes, were singularly distasteful to her. How could conversation be carried on in a crowd? How could one enjoy one's friends when civilities had to be exchanged with strangers? Averil's world was not theirs; her ardent and earnest temperament could only expand in a higher temperature. She had not the graceful art of saying nothings; the trifling coinage of society, its passwords, its gay bandinage, were unknown to her. Without being awkward--Averil was never awkward--she was at once too grave and too reserved to make a popular hostess; and though her gatherings were successful, and people liked to come to Redfern House, they were more at their ease with Mrs. Willmot and her daughters. "Such a charming, well-bred woman!" was the universal verdict. "Such a model stepmother!" Averil could scarcely eat the luncheon that was served, for the sake of convenience, in Rodney's snug little den. The other rooms, with the exception of Averil's, were thrown open _en suite_--tea and ices and strawberries were to be served in the dining-room; the drawing and morning-rooms were for the reception; there were tent-like awnings from the windows; the lawn was dotted over with red-cushioned chairs and Japanese umbrellas; and the grand piano was ready for the professionals. Annette had put on her pretty black summer dress, and was regarding herself with a grave, satisfied air when Averil entered. She had a little case in her hand, and a tiny bouquet of creamy rosebuds and maiden-hair. "I have come to put the finishing touches to my _débutante_," she said, smiling. "You must have a few flowers to light up your black dress, and I think this will also suit you;" and she clasped a little collar of sparkling jet round Annette's throat. "Is this for me? It is beautiful, beautiful! Never have I possessed an ornament. But you are unadorned, my cousin!" looking at the little child-like figure. Averil's soft black silk was unrelieved by anything except the delicate lace at the throat and wrists; she always dressed very simply, but to-day there was something almost severe in the absence of anything like ornament. "Do not look at me," she said, hastily. "Unwin always does her best for me, but she has a thankless task, Annette. You look very nice. If you keep near me, I will introduce some people whom I think you will like. Ah, there goes Lottie!" as a white dress floated down the staircase. "We must go down, too." Mrs. Willmot and her daughters were already in the drawing-room, and Rodney was strumming with one hand on the grand piano. Mrs. Willmot put up her eyeglass in rather a puzzled manner as Averil entered with her cousin. "Who is that distinguished-looking girl in black, Maud?" she asked, in a whisper. Her daughter broke into a scornful laugh. "Distinguished! My dear mother, are you blind! It is only Miss Ramsay. I suppose Averil has given her a decent frock for the first time in her life. But I can see no such wonderful transformation; she is very plain, poor girl! with her sallow skin and big eyes;" and Maud turned her long neck and regarded herself in the glass that hung near them. Her dress fitted to perfection, and was really very tasteful and becoming. True, it was not paid for, and she knew that her mother would treat her to an angry lecture on extravagance; but Maud was quite used to these lectures. She hummed a little air, and moved through the room with that haughty insouciance that was considered her style. It was Lottie who tripped up to Annette, with her girlish, outspoken admiration. Lottie was looking exceedingly pretty: her fresh bloom and bright expression were infinitely more attractive than Maud's cold perfection of feature. "Does not she look nice?" she whispered, in Averil's ear; "there is something very graceful about her. If she were not quite so thin, I think she would look almost pretty." But Averil had no time to answer, as two or three guests entered the room that moment. The rooms filled after this. Annette, who had disregarded Averil's request, and had withdrawn into a quiet corner, looked on, well amused. What a gay scene! what a hubbub of voices and light laughter! She could scarcely see Averil's little figure near the door, with her stepmother's portly form behind her, as she received one guest after another. Lottie was on the lawn in the midst of a bevy of girls; Maud was standing near her, talking to a white-haired officer, and Georgina was bandying jests with two young men; neither of them took any notice of her. Presently a stout man with a sandy mustache pushed his way to the piano, and drew off his gloves. There was an instant's silence when he first struck the keys, but after a few minutes the hubbub began again. Very few people listened; only two or three edged their way nearer to the piano, and hemmed in the performer. Annette stood among them; the sweet sounds had beguiled her from her corner. She stood motionless, entranced, without noticing that Averil was standing just behind her. "Thank you so much, Herr Faber," observed Averil, gently, as the last crashing chord had been played; but Herr Faber only bowed stiffly as he rose; his small blue eyes looked irritable, and he drew his brows together. "It is all in the day's work," Annette heard him mutter to a friend. "To make music for those who do not listen. Bah! It is thankless work. Come, my Hermann, we will at least make ourselves scarce until these Goths require us again:" which was hardly civil of the professor, since more than one pair of ears had listened patiently to every note. "Herr Faber is put out, Frank," observed Averil, in a vexed voice: she was addressing a young man who stood beside her. Annette had looked at him more than once. She had never seen him before, she did not know his name, but she seemed to recognize his face. "We must manage better next time. What shall we do to silence these people? Herr Faber certainly feels himself insulted." "Shall I stand on a chair and cry 'Silence!' at intervals? I think it would have an effect. Do let me, Averil." "You absurd boy! No; we must try other means before my favorite signora sings. She has the voice of a lark and the temper of--please find me a simile." But the young man only laughed and shook his head. He had a pleasant face, without being strictly good-looking. And again Annette was tormented by some vague resemblance that seemed to elude her before she could grasp it. At this moment Averil turned her head and saw her. "Why, Annette, you were just the person I wanted! Where have you been hiding all this time? Frank, I want you to give my cousin, Miss Ramsay, an ice or some strawberries. Annette, this is Mr. Frank Harland. You remember our kind old friend, do you not?" "Do you mean monsieur?" with a quick flush. "How is it possible that I should ever forget him, my cousin? And you are his son? Ah! that is the likeness, then," looking up at the young man a little shyly. "Oh, I remember; you made my father's acquaintance at Dinan. Yes, I am his son and heir. I only wish I were half as good--eh, Averil?" with a merry glance. "Now, Miss Ramsay, I am to obey orders. Will you allow me to pilot you through this crowd?--it is almost as intricate as a lawyer's brief." And as Annette did not seem quite to understand him, he took her hand and placed it under his arm, and guided her skillfully through the various groups. "But what a crowd!" were her first words, as he found a seat for her, and ascertained her opinion on the respective merits of vanilla, coffee, and strawberry ice. "Ah, yes, I do so love this sort of entertainment--don't you?" he returned, as he brought her the ice. "People do look so cool and comfortable, penned up like sheep, on a warm summer afternoon. Just standing room, don't you know, and not a seat to be had, except for the dowagers. If I had a wife--but, you see, there is not a Mrs. Frank Harland at present--I should insist on her seeing her friends in detachments, and not _en masse_, in this heathenish way. As it is, my mother's tea-parties are worth a hundred of these." "Ah! you have a mother"--with a quick sigh, that made the young man glance first at her and then at her black dress. "Yes; and I am the happy possessor of four sisters and three young torments of brothers. So you and my father are old acquaintances, Miss Ramsay?" "Monsieur? But, yes, he was my first friend. Never shall I forget his kindness, his consideration. If I had been a duchess instead of a poor little lace-mender he could not have treated me with greater courtesy. He is what you call an English gentleman." "Dear old boy, so he is!" and Mr. Frank looked as though he had himself received a compliment. "Old boy! That is surely not the name for him," she returned, in a rebuking tone, that greatly amused her hearer. "I do not like monsieur to be called thus." "That is because you are a stranger to our English ways," replied the young man, trying hard to restrain his inward mirth. "Fellows of my age often use these sort of terms. They mean no disrespect. A man like my father never gets old. I believe he has the secret of perpetual youth. He is as young as any of us. It does one good to see his freshness. If I were only half as good!" finished Mr. Frank, in his cordial, hearty way. Annette looked at him with interest. This eulogy entirely mollified her. "When you are as old as monsieur some one may call you 'dear old boy,' too," she said, sedately. There was no help for it. If Frank must have died for it, he could not have helped laughing. He had never met any one so original as this grave, dark-eyed girl. Her very freshness and absence of coquetry were refreshing contrasts to many girls that he knew. Coquetry was not in Annette's vocabulary. She had no acquaintance with men, either young or otherwise. A civil word from the English consul when he saw her in his wife's room; a little friendly conversation with her kind old chaplain--these were her only opportunities. True, there was Clotilde's priest--a thin, brown-faced man, who took snuff, and gave her his blessing. But he was very different from this lively Mr. Frank, with his droll speeches and his merry laugh, and his "old boy." The young people grew quite friendly and confidential in their snug little corner, fenced in by the blossoming plants. Annette was so well amused that she was almost sorry when her companion suggested that they should go back to the drawing-room. "We have lost the signora's song, and there is Herr Faber crashing among the keys again. There are lots of people I know, and to whom I must make myself agreeable. One must not be selfish, Miss Ramsay." But it may be doubted if Annette understood the implied compliment. CHAPTER XI. "A PLAIN, HOMELY LITTLE BODY." At their entrance into the dining-room Frank Harland found himself surrounded by a group of friends. As one of them addressed him, Annette, with much tact, slipped away with a softly whispered excuse. She had caught sight of Averil at the other end of the room. Averil beckoned her to a chair beside her. "What have you done with Frank?" she asked, smiling. "I thought I put you in his charge. Ah! there he is with the Courtlands, surrounded as usual. He is a general favorite." "One need not wonder at that," returned Annette, sedately. "I have never talked to any young man before, but I found him very pleasant. He has been telling me about monsieur and his mother. He seems to have a happy home, my cousin." "Yes, Grey-Mount is a dear old house; and all the Harlands are nice. They are very dear friends of mine, Annette, and one day I must take you to see them. A day at Grey-Mount always does me good. And there is another place--Well, Frank"--as that individual made his way to them rather hastily. "I have shaken off that young puppy, Fred Courtland. I hate fellows who scent themselves. Faugh! You have been talking for the last two hours, and I dare say no one has thought of getting you a cup of tea." "No, never mind." returned Averil, smiling. "The signora is going to sing again, and I must not leave the room just now. No, indeed, Frank," as he seemed determined to argue the point. "Let me listen to her first, and then I will go with you." "All right. But please understand that I am to have the monopoly of your conversation. No followers allowed at present." And to Annette's amusement he coolly took up his position so as to fence Annette completely from notice, and his monopoly of conversation consisted of an unbroken silence. Averil seemed perfectly satisfied with this arrangement. She leaned back in her chair and listened to the song, and a more rested look came upon her face as the high, pure notes of the signora's voice floated through the room. Some degree of attention was paid to the gifted young vocalist; but just at the last a group outside the window, beside which Frank Harland was standing, began talking rather too audibly. "Miss Seymour," observed a languid, drawling voice, "I wish you could inform me where I can find my hostess. It is awkward, to say the least of it, when one has no conception of a person." "I do not see her at present," returned Maud, coldly. "It will not be easy to find her in this crowd. A very small person in black. That is the only description I can give you, Captain Faucit. A plain, homely little body like Miss Willmot is not very easy to describe." "No, indeed!" and here Mrs. Willmot's smooth voice chimed in. "My step-daughter is a sad invalid, Captain Faucit. Dear Averil is quite a recluse. One can not wonder at it"--dropping her voice, although every word was distinctly audible. "With her affliction, poor girl, her want of health, and her deformity, the world offers few attractions." "Now for the tea, Averil!" exclaimed Mr. Frank, briskly. He had set his teeth hard for a moment, and his hand was clinched, as though it longed to do injury to some one; but the next moment he was leaning over Averil's chair with a gentle, brotherly sort of freedom. "Come," he said, touching her cold little hand. "A cup of strong tea--that is my mother's panacea for all ills." Averil rose and took his arm without a word. There was a dark, pained flush on her face, a strained look in her eyes, as though the cruel words had gone home. Annette looked after her pitifully. She could see that kind Mr. Frank was still talking to her. He was very tall, and had to stoop a good deal. "A plain, homely body, indeed!" groaned Annette. "And she looked so sweet just now. Deformity! Oh, what a wicked, wicked lie!" For once Annette did not measure her words. "What does it matter, such a little thing as that? What does it matter that she is not as tall and straight as Lottie, when every one loves her?" Annette's pleasure in the fête was over. She could hardly keep her tears back as she sat there. Where was Lottie? She had not once come across her. But even as the thought passed through her mind Lottie waved to her gayly. She was sitting under the awning with a merry group of girls, and seemed happy and well amused. Annette felt far too miserable to join them. The room was thinning now. The professionals had gone. A little later on she saw Averil glide quietly to her stepmother's side, as the guests made their adieus. The next moment Mr. Frank came up to her corner. "I must be going too," he said rather gravely. "I hope every one has had as pleasant an afternoon as I have;" but he spoke without his old gayety. "The afternoon is spoiled to me," returned Annette, with more vehemence than caution. "Mr. Frank Harland, why is it that people are so cruel? Why do they hurt my cousin, who has the goodness of an angel? This is all they give her in return for so much generosity." Frank Harland's lips twitched a little under the brown mustache. "You must not ask me, Miss Ramsay," he said hurriedly. "I can't help it if people will be such brutes. I beg your pardon--I believe it was a lady who spoke. I only know I had to pull myself up pretty tight. That fellow Faucit spoke to her just. I longed to kick him." "I do not like these Seymours," returned Annette, with the same frankness with which she would have talked to Lottie. "They take too much, and they give nothing back. Every day my cousin has much to bear--to suffer. If she were not a good Christian, she would not be so patient." "Ask my father what he thinks of Averil," was Frank's reply. "Oh, I know all about it. It pretty nearly sickens me to see the airs they all give themselves. If they would only treat her decently. Miss Jones knows my opinion--we have often talked about it. Good-bye, Miss Ramsay. I dare say we shall meet again soon;" and he shook hands with her heartily. "She is not a bad sort, and she is fond of Averil already," he thought; for the Harlands, from the eldest to the youngest, were stanch to Averil, and Frank especially had a brotherly affection for the gentle little creature. Annette, after all, did not tell Lottie. Lottie was so gay, so excited, so full of the afternoon's delights, that she had not the heart to damp her; and when Lottie said, "And you have enjoyed yourself, too, Annette?" she only answered, rather soberly, "Yes, very much." But she hardly dared look at Averil that evening, the shade was still so deep in her eyes, and the grave, measured tones spoke so clearly to her ears of repressed melancholy. Only when she bade her good-night Averil detained her. "Annette, I understand," she said, softly; "but there is no need to take it so much to heart." Annette started. "What is it you mean, my cousin? I have said nothing." "No; only you have looked so sorry for me all the evening. My stepmother meant nothing--it was only her way. If only"--here she caught her breath, as though something stabbed her--"if only Frank had not heard her! My dear, there are tears in your eyes. Why, what nonsense! As though I am not used to it by this time. No, I am not deformed--there was no need to put it quite so strongly--but a little crooked creature such as I am has long outlived vanity." "My cousin, you shall not talk so--it hurts me. To me you are beautiful; and Lottie says so, too." Averil laughed a little mirthless laugh; she was so tired, so worn out with all sorts of conflicting feelings, that she felt she must laugh or cry; but Annette's grieved look seemed to rebuke her. "I meant it--I meant it truly," she said. "Thank you, dear. What a blessing love is so blind sometimes. Well, I hope to be beautiful some day"--and here her eyes softened; "there will be no little homely bodies in heaven, Annette." "There will be no cruel words either, my cousin." "Hush! you are as bad as Frank. They did not mean to be cruel. Mrs. Willmot thinks so much of good looks. All her children are handsome. She is a good-looking woman herself. She attaches too much importance to outward appearance. Personally she means me no unkindness." Annette was silent; if she had known these words, she would have quoted them: "Evil is wrought by want of thought, as well as by want of heart." What utter want of delicacy to speak of the daughter of her dead husband in such contemptuously pitying terms to a stranger! Averil seemed battling with some unusual mood, for she continued quickly, almost impatiently: "Do not think that I am not grateful to you for your sympathy; but you must not spoil me; one wants to be strengthened, not weakened. There was a noted saint once--his name was Francis Xavier--and his prayer used to be: 'Lord, remove not this cross until it has worked that in me for which Thou didst send it.' It was a grand prayer, Annette--it included so much." "My cousin, we are not saints; few of us could say that prayer." "No; but we must all try our poor little best; we must not feed our pride and self-love. Now bid me good-night, and put all speeches, unkind or otherwise, out of your head;" and Averil kissed her affectionately. There was a saying that Averil greatly loved, and which is generally attributed to Thomas à Kempis: "I have sought rest everywhere, and have found it nowhere, save in a little corner with a little book." How often, during the last five years, she had entered her room, feeling bruised and weary from contact with hard, uncongenial natures, and had risen from her knees feeling quieted and refreshed. This night, when Unwin had left her, she opened a favorite book that always lay beside her Bible; its title had attracted her--"Weariness"--and in its kindly, consoling pages she had found endless comfort. A passage she had marked and remarked now met her eye: "Night after night, as you lie down to rest, the weary day ended, think that a day offered to God in weariness and quiet endurance may bring you fuller joy than the brightest, happiest seasons of enjoyment can do; and when morning brings a fresh beginning, it may be of weariness of body and spirit, strive to hear the voice of God saying: 'My son, it is thus I will that thou shouldst serve Me. If I will that thy service be weary and lifeless, and deficient in all earthly reward, and pleasure, what is that to thee, so long as it is My will? What I do thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter. Follow thou Me without questioning the love which inflicts this weariness and sadness, and seeming privation of all thou most delightest in.'" Averil closed the book and sat motionless for awhile. Outside, the summer moonlight was steeping everything in its pure white light, the night-dews were bathing the sleeping flowers. "I have not been good to-day," she said, presently. "What does it matter if he heard it? It is better so--it makes no difference. I will not let this fatal sadness conquer me. To-morrow I will go down to the Dove-cote, and I will take Annette;" and with this resolution Averil slept. The next morning, as Annette was standing by her window watching a pair of quarrelsome sparrows, who had fallen out over a moldy crust, and who were pecking at each other's soft feathered bodies with angry, defiant chirps, there was a tap at her door, and Averil entered fully dressed, without a trace of last night's cloud on her serene face. "Good-morning, Annette. Are you nearly ready? for I have ordered an early breakfast for you and Lottie and myself. I am going a little way into the country to see some friends of mine, and if you like the idea you shall go with me." "Oh, that is good--delightful! What friends are these, my cousin? Is it monsieur and--" "My dear child!" and Averil could not forbear a smile, "the Harlands are not my only friends. I see you are pining for a sight of monsieur, as you persist in calling him, so I shall have to take you to Grey-Mount. But to-day I am going to my Dove-cote. No; you shall not ask me any questions. Wait until you see my friends. Now, you must hurry, for the gong will sound in less than ten minutes, and the carriage will be round at half past nine. Put on your new cambric--we are going to have a hot day." Annette was not long in finishing her toilet; but Averil and Lottie were already seated at the breakfast-table. Lottie made a little grimace when she saw Annette. "What a charming day you are going to have! I do love the Dove-cote. Averil is very disagreeable not to invite me too." "But are you not going Lottie?" and Annette regarded her with some surprise. But Averil answered for her. "No, dear; it is your turn to-day, and Lottie is only pretending to be vexed. She knows she has far too much to do. There are letters to be written, and Georgina wants her to go with her to Kew, as Maud is engaged. Lottie will enjoy that, especially as she will meet some of her own friends." "Oh, that is all very well," grumbled Lottie who looked as fresh and bright as the morning. "But I would rather be with you and Annette. I don't care about the Courtlands, and unless Mr. Frank will be there--" "He will be there," returned Averil, quickly. "He told me so yesterday. And his friend, Mr. Chesterton, will be there. Lottie, you are getting up a grievance for nothing. The party will be as nice as possible." But Lottie made no answer, and she was remarkably silent the remainder of the meal. "Is life to be one fête?" thought Annette, as she put on her new shady hat, and selected a pair of gloves from the smart little case on her toilet-table. No more mended finger-tips, no more frayed and faded ribbons for the young lace-mender. "Tell me, my cousin--are your friends grand?" she asked, as the carriage bore them swiftly in the direction of Paddington. But Averil refused to answer. "You shall judge of my friends when you see them, Annette, dear. They are very dear friends. I call them my family. Some of the happiest hours of my life--and, thank God, I have had many happy hours--have been spent at the Dove-cote." "It is, then, dearer to you than Grey-Mount?" Averil hesitated, and was half annoyed, half amused at this curious pertinacity on her cousin's part. "Comparisons are odious," she said, lightly. "One does not measure one's friendship. Mr. Harland is my very good friend; but still"--with a thoughtful look and a sigh that was quickly repressed--"I am happier at the Dove-cote." Here the carriage stopped, and in the bustle of taking tickets, and finding a less crowded compartment, the subject dropped. CHAPTER XII. THE DOVE-COTE. The next hour passed quickly. Averil had her book, and Annette amused herself with looking out of the window. "How could one read," she thought, "when the sun was shining, and the foals were frolicking beside their mothers, and every green field had its picturesque group of feeding cattle and sheep? It was like turning over the pages of a picture-book. Now they came to a cluster of cottages with a little Norman church, half hidden in trees; then a winding road; a clear, silvery river, with gay little boats floating on it, with fine houses beside it; then another pastoral scene, and so on. Is not the world beautiful?" thought Annette, as the train stopped, and Averil beckoned to her. She was almost sorry that the journey was over. She heard Averil order a fly, and then followed her into a curious old inn. They sat for a few minutes in a close, stuffy parlor, with a print of the battle of Trafalgar over the fire-place. "We have a mile and a half still to go," Averil said. "If I could only walk through those delicious lanes! But old Jemmy always has to take me. Ah! there comes our chariot. Rather a ramshackle affair, is it not, Annette? But Jemmy and his old mare are both worthy creatures." Annette had no fault to find with the lumbering wheezy vehicle; she was looking delightedly at the rich hedge-rows with their wealth of wild-flowers, at the rustic cottages with their gay little gardens, at the green fields with browsing cattle. Every moment there was something to admire. Presently they came to a sort of hamlet; there was a village inn, with The Duck and Drake swinging on the old sign-board, a few scattered cottages with heavy thatched roofs, and a small green with snow-white geese waddling over it. Here Jemmy, a gray-haired, wizen-faced man drew up of his own accord. "There be the Dove-cote, surely," he said, pointing down a steep lane. "I suppose there be no need to come further." "No; the goose green will do. Come for me at the usual time, Jemmy, and wait for me here;" and Averil dismissed him with a kindly nod. Annette was looking round her in some perplexity. There were the inn and the cottages, but where could the Dove-cote be? She could see no house of any pretension, only in the distance, half-way down the lane, there was a low gray roof half hidden in trees. "Yes, that is the Dove-cote," observed Averil, walking in her usual slow fashion across the little green, while the geese stretched their long necks and hissed after her. "Is this not a sweet little nook, Annette? How the children do love this lane! It is a perfect play-ground for them. In autumn, when the blackberries are ripe, you can see them with their little tin pails, scratching themselves with the brambles, and half smothered with travelers' joy. Ah! there is Daddy, sunning himself, with Bob asleep beside him. Well, Annette," unlatching a little white gate as she spoke, "welcome to the Dove-cote." Annette was a good deal surprised. It was only a cottage, after all, or, more correctly speaking, two cottages, for there were two stone porches and two open doors; a long strip of flower-garden was on one side, and a still narrower strip of smoothly mown turf on the other. There was an elm-tree with a circular seat, on which an old man was sitting, and a black terrier was curled up beside him. "Well, Daddy, where is the Corporal?" asked Averil, in her clear voice, as the old man rose up rather stiffly, and, leaning on his stick, gave her a military salute. He was a very tall old man, with a long gray beard, and his joints were not so supple as they used to be, for he seemed to support himself with difficulty. As Averil spoke the terrier gave a shrill bark of welcome, and came limping over the grass on three legs, and Annette saw the fourth was missing. "The Corporal is at work among the cabbages, and Snip is helping him, ma'am. Snip's a terrible hand at digging. Corporal said to me as we were smoking our pipes yesterday, 'Snip's a handy fellow. He will be worth his salt presently. He puts his heart into things, Snip does, if it is pulling up a weed or hoeing a potato-bed. He don't shirk work like other boys of his age, don't Snip.'" "I am glad to hear that," returned Averil. "The Corporal is not one to bestow praise where it is not due. I was very anxious about poor Snip. I was rather fearful how he might turn out. It would not do to expect too much, Daddy. A city arab seldom has his fair chances. If you had told me that he spent his day in turning somersaults and making catherine-wheels of himself among the Corporal's cabbages, I should not have been surprised." The old soldier smiled grimly. "Well, he has a refresher sometimes, and stands with his heels uppermost when his feelings is too many for him--when he has had his fill of pudding, perhaps. Mother Midge says it is by way of grace. She finds the boy somewhat aggravating in the house. He is better out among the pensioners; the pensioners are not so mortal particular as to manners." Averil broke into a merry laugh. Daddy was evidently a wag in his way. There was a twinkle in his eye as he patted Bob, as though he had enunciated a clever joke. "We will go to them presently; but we must first pay our respects to Mother Midge. Ah, Methuselah"--as a crippled jackdaw hobbled across the grass, and greeted her hoarsely. "Is he not a wise-looking bird, Annette? He and Bob are such friends. They are like Daddy and the Corporal." At that moment a little woman in gray, with a droll, weather-beaten face and a pair of spectacles perched on the top of an absurdly small nose, suddenly appeared on one of the porches, and clapped her hands delightedly at the sight of her visitors. "Dear me! if it is not Miss Willmot," she exclaimed, "and you are as welcome as flowers in May. Come in out of the sun, my dear, and you shall have a glass of Cherry's milk. She is yielding us a grand supply just now, and, though I say it that should not, I don't believe there is sweeter milk to be found anywhere." "Wait a moment, Mother Midge," as the little woman was bustling away; "I want you to speak to my new cousin first. Annette, this lady's name is really Bennet--Miss Lydia Bennet--but she is always known among us as Mother Midge." "And it is a name I love, ever since dear little Barty gave it to me. Poor little lamb! But he is better off now." Mother Midge was no beauty, certainly. There was something comical, something altogether incongruous, in the lined forehead and gray hair, and the pert little nose and those bright, kittenish blue eyes. But she had the sweetest voice in the world. "But it is so strange a name," objected Annette, in her serious manner. Averil seemed amused, but Mother Midge gave a little sigh. "My dear young lady," she said, gently, "the name has never seemed droll to me, for it was the last word dear little Barty ever spoke. Shall I tell you about him? Miss Willmot found him--she finds them all. He was a mere baby, and nearly skin and bone when he came here. He and a sister a year or two older were turned on the streets to beg, and the brute who owned them--I believe she called herself their mother, only the dumb beasts have more compassion on their young--had turned them out of doors to sleep. Oh! you look shocked; but one sees such cases in the paper. The little creatures were found on a doorstep one snowy evening. Deb had taken off her frock to wrap round Barty, who was ill and coughing. Well, he did not last long--one could not wonder at that, after all that exposure and ill-usage; but we made him very happy as long as he lived. Mother Midge was the name he gave me. No one knew what it meant, but Deb taught it to the others. Well, I was sitting with him on my lap one afternoon--I knew the end was near--and I was talking to him and Deb about heaven--for they were just like heathens--and, baby as he was, Barty was as clever and acute as possible. Just as I was talking, I felt his little bony hand creep up to my neck; 'I don't want no 'eavens,' he whispered, hoarsely; 'I'd like better to stop along of Deb and Mother Midge.' Those were his last words. But maybe he has changed his mind since then," finished the little woman, softly. "And Deb! Where is Deb?" asked Annette, eagerly. "Oh, you shall see her presently. Deb is my right hand. Now I must go and fetch you the milk and a slice of home-made cake, for you must be starving." Annette looked round the room as Mother Midge trotted off. It was a small room, and very simply furnished. There was a square of carpet that did not quite cover the white boards; there were one or two well-worn easy-chairs, a work-table, a comfortable-looking couch, and some well-arranged book-shelves. "This is the Midge's nest," observed Averil, who noticed Annette's perplexity. "Ah! I see you are dying to question me; but there is no time now. Mother Midge is a wonderful woman, though I dare say a certain person, if she knew of her existence, would certainly call her a plain, homely little body. But she has a great soul. She is one of God's heroines!" "My cousin, forgive me if I am pertinacious. Who are these people? I do not understand." "Lottie, when she wants to tease me, calls them my waifs and strays. But they are no such things. This is my family. I lead two lives, Annette. When things go wrong with me, and I get out of harmony with my surroundings, I take refuge with Mother Midge and her children. Nothing does me so much good. Hush! not a word of this at Redfern House. No one knows of the Dove-cote but Lottie. Ah! here come our refreshments. Mind you praise the cake, for if there be one thing on which Mother Midge prides herself it is her seed-cake." Annette ate and drank in a sort of dream. What new views in life were opening before her! This, then, was Averil's secret--the little refuge that the young heiress had provided for a few stricken creatures who had fallen in the battle of life. Annette was to hear all about it presently; now she could only look round her and wonder, with a sort of touched reverence. "Now we must go and see Jack," observed Averil, as she swept the crumbs from her lap. "Annette, do you see there are two cottages? We have added a new wing. There was no room big enough for the children, and no place for them to sleep. This is the Corporal's room, as we call it, where the old men sit and smoke their pipes. This"--as they entered a clean, spacious room, with a long table and some forms, and a few gay Scripture prints hanging on the walls--"this is where the children live. They are with the Corporal now, all except Jack"--walking up to the window, where there was a small couch covered with a red quilt. "Well, my little man, how does the world go with you?" "Thank you, ma'am, I'm spry!" returned a small chirping voice, and a shock head, covered with rough, carroty hair, raised itself from the pillow. Annette gave a pitying exclamation. Could it be a child's face, with those hollow, sunken features, those lusterless, staring eyes? A skeleton hand and arm were thrust out from the quilt. "I'm spry, ma'am, and the Dodger is spry too. Come out, you varmint, when the leddy's asking after your 'ealth!"--and Jack, panting, and with infinite difficulty, extracted a miserable-looking gray creature, evidently a veteran who had certainly run the tether of its nine lives, and was much battered in consequence. "Oh, the Dodger is spry, is he?" observed Averil, with much interest, as the cat purred feebly, and began licking its lean sides. "But I hope both you and he mean to get fatter with all your good living." "Jack was found in a cellar, Annette," she continued, stroking the shock head tenderly--"in a den of thieves. Some murder had been committed in a drunken brawl. The gang had been obliged to seek a fresh hiding-place, and Jack, who was crippled with hip disease, had been left there, forgotten. The good city missionary who discovered him, and told me the story, found him lying on a heap of moldy straw under the grating, with the cat beside him. They were both nearly starved, and half dead with cold--weren't you, Jack?" "We was, ma'am, just so," was Jack's response. "The Dodger had brought me a mouse, but I could not stomach sich food. Dodger hasn't nothing to say to mice now. He feeds like an alderman, he does. Spry! that ain't the word for it, ma'am--he is just bursting with enjoyment, is the Dodger." Averil smiled faintly; but as they left the room, she said in a low voice, "How long do you think he will last, Mother Midge?" Mother Midge only shook her head. "The dear Lord only knows that, Miss Willmot. But they are making room for him and the Dodger up there, surely." Annette opened her eyes rather widely at this remark. But Averil pressed her arm meaningly. "Don't take any notice," she whispered, when the little woman had gone on a few steps. "This is only one of her notions. She will have it that animals are to go to heaven too. I have never heard her reason it out; but she is very angry if any one ventures to dispute her theory. 'The whole creation groaneth and travaileth together in pain,' she says, sometimes. 'But it will all be set right some day.' I never argue against people's pet theories when they are as harmless as this." Mother Midge had preceded them into a small kitchen, where a diminutive girl, with a sharp precocious face, was scouring some tins. A stolid looking young woman, with rather a vacant expression, was basting a joint. "That's Deb," remarked Averil, with a kindly nod to the little girl, "and this is Molly." A gleam of pleasure, that seemed to light up the coarse, heavy features, crossed Molly's face at the sight of her. "I'm fain to see you, ma'am," she muttered with a courtesy to the strange lady, and then she turned to her basting again. "Molly does wonders, and she is a first-rate teacher for Deb," observed Mother Midge, as they left the kitchen. "I am not going to tell you Molly's history, Miss Ramsay. I see no use in burdening young minds with oversorrowful stories. It is grief for her child that has nearly blunted poor Molly's wits. The little one had a sad end. But she is getting over it a little--and Jack does her good. I hope for Molly's sake Jack will be spared, for she just slaves for him. Now we will go out in the kitchen-garden and see the Corporal." CHAPTER XIII. MOTHER MIDGE AND THE CORPORAL. A long sloping piece of ground behind the two cottages had been laid out as a kitchen-garden. The trim condition of the beds, the neatly weeded paths, all bore traces of the Corporal's industry. But neither he nor his assistants were to be seen. An overturned basket, with a hoe and a rake lying beside it, and a boy's battered straw hat, alone bore evidence of the morning's work. The bees were hovering over the thyme, and a little white rabbit, that had escaped from its hutch, was feasting on one of the finest cabbages. "Where can they be?" asked Averil; and Mother Midge, whose sharp ears had caught the sound of voices, suggested they were in the field with the pensioners, a surmise which proved to be perfectly correct. The field lay on the other side of the lane. It was a large field, and boasted of a cow-house and a couple of sheds. The Corporal was sitting on the gate, with a small group of boys round him, whom he seemed haranguing. He had taken his pipe out of his mouth, and was gesticulating with it. He was a small, wiry man, with gray stubby hair, and a pair of twinkling black eyes. He had a large nose and a deep voice, which were the only big things about him. "It is no good you youngsters argufying with me," the Corporal was saying, with an appearance of great severity. "What I say I sticks to. That 'ere boy is a bully"--pointing to a small lad with the innocent eyes of a cherub. "Please, Mr. Corporal, I b'ain't that," replied the child, with a terrified sniff. "Don't you bandy words with me," continued the Corporal, sternly. "The boy who shies stones at old Billy ought to be made an example of--that is what I say." "Please, sir, it was only fun," stammered the culprit. "Billy knows I would not hurt him." "What is the matter, Corporal?" interposed Averil, briskly. "Tim hasn't got into mischief again, has he?" laying her hand caressingly on the curly head. "Servant, ma'am"--and the Corporal saluted her stiffly. "It is all along of Billy's snorting and scampering, and kicking up his hoofs, that I knew that mischief was going on. That boy"--pointing to the still sniffing cherub--"goes without his pudding to-day. Look at Billy, ma'am, and if ever a horse is injured in his tenderest feelings, that horse is Billy. He can't stomach the sweetest patch of grass, he is that wounded--and all along of Tim." "Oh, fy, Tim!" was all Averil ventured to say--for the Corporal was a severe disciplinarian, and allowed no infraction of rules. Any want of kindness to the pensioners was always punished severely. "Go back to your weeding, sir," continued the Corporal, and Tim slunk away. Averil looked after him regretfully. "Is he not a pretty boy?" she whispered, so that the others could not hear her. "He is the Corporal's favorite, though you would not think so to hear him. Tim and his hurdy-gurdy and monkey came here a year ago. He was found sitting beside a dry ditch one winter evening--his drunken father was lying at the bottom. It was impossible to say whether Tim or the monkey looked most miserable. The poor things were half starved, and had been cruelly used. Topsy--that is the monkey--is in one of the sheds. Now, if there is a thing in the world Tim loves, it is his monkey. Half Tim's grief at the loss of his pudding will be that Topsy will forfeit his share. Topsy is one of our pensioners. That is Billy"--pointing to a lean old horse at the further end of the field. Two donkeys and an old goat were feeding near him. A toothless old sheep-dog, and a yellow mongrel with half a tail, were lying on a mat in front of the shed, basking in the sunshine. "The pensioners are all old then, my cousin?" "Billy is old, and Floss, the sheep-dog, and Nanny also. Anyhow, my pensioners all have a history. They have been through the furnace of affliction--even that lame duck. Only Cherry, and the cocks and hens, have led a happy existence. The Dove-cote has its rules, and one of these is, kindness toward our four-legged pensioners." "It is a good rule. Your pensioners seem well content. Who are these other boys?" Evidently the Corporal thought Annette's question was addressed to him, for he struck in briskly: "This is Snip, ma'am"--pointing to a sturdy-looking lad with a merry face. "This is the fellow who aggravates our feelings by making a spread-eagle of himself, and walking down the paths with his feet in the air, and Bob barking alongside of him. Not but what Snip can do his fair share of work too. I'd back that boy for hoeing a bed or training a creeper against any gardener in the land"--this in a loud aside that was perfectly audible to the grinning Snip. "Then there's Dick"--singling out the next, a shambling, awkward boy, with a vacant, gentle face. "Dick is the fellow who minds the pensioners. Who says Dick isn't bright, when he can milk Cherry and harness Mike and Floss? Law bless you! If all the boys were as clever as Dick we should do well. Dick has nothing to say to book-learning"--dropping his voice mysteriously. "Too many kicks in early life have put a stop to that. Dick couldn't spell his own name--couldn't answer a question without a stutter. But he is a rare one among the animals. The worst of it is, he gets into a rage if he sees any one else misuse them. He had collared Tim, and would have made an end of him in no time if Billy had not snorted and kicked up his heels." Dick seemed perfectly impervious to the Corporal's criticism. He shambled away in an aimless manner. "There is only wee Robbie left," interrupted Mother Midge, as the Corporal laid down his empty pipe and paused for breath. "He is our baby now, since dear little Barty left us. There are two other graves besides his. We call them gardens. We can not hinder some of our doves from flying away. Look at him!" as the little creature rubbed his face lovingly against her gown. "That is his way of showing affection, for wee Robbie is deaf and dumb." Averil sat down and lifted him on to her lap, while the Corporal made his salute, and hurried after his boys. "He does not grow much," she said, touching his cheek softly. "Annette, we have no idea of his age. He is just wee Robbie. He is almost as small as he was that day when we first saw him;" and Averil gave a faint shudder at the remembrance. "Did you find this little one also, my cousin?" "Yes," returned Averil, rocking him in her arms, while a soft, pitying look came into her eyes. "I have spoken to you once or twice of a city missionary who tells me of cases. His name is Stevenson; he is a good man, and we are great friends. I was with him one day. I had just been to see Daddy, who was very ill. We were passing a public-house--it was in Whitechapel, but I forget the name; it is unfamiliar to me. It was a wretched street, and the public-house was one of the lowest of its kind. Just as we were passing, a miserable-looking tramp, with a child in her arms, reeled out of the doorway. A man was following her. There was some quarrel; she put down the child on the pavement and flew at the man with the ferocity of a wild-cat. Mr. Stevenson wanted me to move on, but I had caught sight of the child's face, and it seemed to rivet me--such a white baby face, with such a dumb, agonized terror stamped on it. 'The child! we can not leave the child!' I kept saying. But Mr. Stevenson prevailed on me to take refuge in a shop near. A crowd was collecting; there was no policeman, and no attempt was being made to stop the drunken brawl. An hour later Mr. Stevenson entered with a shocked face. He had the child in his arms; it looked half dead with fright. 'It is too horrible,' he said. 'The woman is dead. No one would interfere, and the brute--they say it is her husband--gave her a push, and she fell and struck her head against the curb. They have taken the man into custody. He is too drunk to know what has happened. Here is the child. They tell me he is a deaf-mute. Did ever any one see such a pitiful sight in a Christian country? Alas! that such things should be.' I was sitting by Daddy's fireside. The Corporal got me some water, and we washed the poor little creature (for he was in the most filthy condition), and wrapped him up in an old shawl, and gave him some warm bread and milk. His baby breath reeked of gin. But he was famished, and took the warm food greedily. There was no Mother Midge then. The Dove-cote was not in existence. I was obliged to leave him with the Corporal until I could find some one to take care of him. Oh, there is the dinner-bell! Do you hear the boys scampering to the house? We must follow them, or the Corporal will have said grace." It was a curious dinner-party, but Averil looked happier than Annette had ever seen her, as she sat between wee Robbie and Deb. The Corporal sat at one end of the table, with Mother Midge opposite to him. Deb and Snip waited on every one. And several of the pensioners, including Topsy and the lame jackdaw, were waiting for their portion of the meal. The boys were on their best behavior before Averil. Even Snip did not venture on one somersault. Tim's face grew a little sorrowful when he caught sight of the pudding. A lean, brown arm was already clutching his coat-sleeve, and the monkey's melancholy eyes were fixed on the empty plate. "Topsy shall have some of mine," whispered Averil. And Tim's face cleared like magic. When dinner was over, the boys rushed off to play in the field, and the Corporal and Daddy lighted their pipes and strolled to the gate to overlook them. Mother Midge was busy, and Averil proposed that she and Annette should sit under the elm-tree. "Everything goes on just as usual when I am here," she explained. "By and by the boys will come to their lessons. The Corporal teaches them to read and write. I have not shown you my bedroom, Annette. I often spend a night or two here. The thought of my Dove-cote helps me over my worst times." "Will you tell me how you came to think of it first, my cousin?" "Well, it is not much of a story. There were the two old men, you see. Oh, I forgot! I never told you about them. Mr. Stevenson had found them out. One day as we were talking, he told me of an old soldier who was very ill, and who was living in a miserable garret. 'He has a friend with him,' he said, 'an old soldier, too--an ingenious fellow, who supports them both by carving little wooden toys and selling them. They are not related to each other, only old comrades. And it is wonderful how neat and ship-shape the place is. The Corporal is as handy as a woman. I wish you would go and see them, Miss Willmot. They seem to me fine fellows, the Corporal especially.' "Fine fellows indeed! Would you believe it, Annette, that the Corporal was living on tea and bread, and working eighteen hours out of the twenty-four to keep himself and his old chum from the disgrace of the work-house? 'It is not the place for her majesty's soldiers, ma'am,' observed the Corporal to me. 'I think it would break Daddy's heart to take his medals into that sort of place. No, ma'am, asking your pardon. The work-house and the jail are not for the likes of us. We don't mind starving a bit if we can keep a roof over our heads. If only Daddy could work! But when rheumatics gets into the bones there's no getting it out again.' Well, I took a fancy to these brave, kindly old men. I thought it was a noble thing for the Corporal to be starving himself for his friend. If you want heroism, you will find it among the poor. I used to go and see them constantly. I sent in a doctor for Daddy, and nourishing food, and warm blankets, and some fuel for the fireless grate. But I think some good tobacco from Mr. Harland pleased them most. It seemed to make a different man of Daddy. Well, I did not see my way clear at first. I had found wee Robbie, and the Corporal was minding him. They were still in their miserable garret. Then all at once the thought came to me, Why should not Mother Midge take care of them all?" "Then you knew her also." "Oh, yes, I knew her. She was one of Mr. Stevenson's friends, and I had already heard her history. Hers is such a sad story. There are no happy stories at the Dove-cote. She was the youngest of a large family. Her father was a lawyer. He was a bad, dishonest man, and very brutal to his wife and daughters. He had even turned them out-of-doors, when he was in one of his mad rages. He was taken up at last for disposing of some trust money. I think he speculated with it. But before the trial came on he died from some short inflammatory illness. Mother Midge was hardly grown up then. But she has a keen recollection of all that miserable time. "The mother sunk into a chronic invalid. One of her daughters was crippled; the rest worked at dress-making and millinery. Once they kept a little school. But the name of Bennet was against them. They had no friends; people seemed to be shy of them. Years of struggle followed, during which first one, then another, succumbed. They were all delicate except Mother Midge. She was the youngest and sturdiest of them all. When I first knew her she was all alone. Her last sister was just buried. She was working for a ladies' outfitting shop, and was very poorly paid. Her eyesight, too, was failing, partly from impure air and insufficient food. I thought, Why should not Lydia Bennet make a home for my dear old men? I spoke to Mr. Harland, and he humored my fancy. Dear father was just dead, and he thought the plan would occupy my thoughts a little. He bought the cottages for me, and the field, and I furnished a few rooms. Mother Midge took possession, and then came the two old men and wee Robbie. Barty and Deb came next. It is only a family, Annette. We do not pretend to do great things. Three of my children--little Barty, and Freddy, and Nan, have left us--flown away, as Mother Midge says. Jack will be the next to go. We have room for two more. And as the pensioners die off we shall replace them. You have no idea how wisely Mother Midge and the Corporal rule. These neglected children learn to obey, and soon discover that their happiness consists in keeping the rules. We allow no idleness. Every child feels that he earns his or her daily bread. Even Dick, with his limited intellect, has work that he can do. Ah! there they go to their lessons," as the little knot of lads hurried past, with the Corporal at their head. And then came Mother Midge with her knitting, and wee Robbie. "No one can teach wee Robbie anything," said Averil; "but in his own way he is as happy as the day is long." CHAPTER XIV. "WHEN THE CAT IS AWAY." Two or three hours later, as they were crossing the little goose green in the sunset, Averil said softly to Mother Midge: "I have had such a nice time. The sweet country air and the sound of the children's voices have destroyed all the cobwebs." "I am so glad of that, dearie," was Mother Midge's answer; and then Jemmy touched his old white hat to them, and again they drove through the still, dewy lanes. Averil leaned back against the shabby cushions. Annette thought she was tired, and left her undisturbed; but it was not fatigue that sealed Averil's lips. A sweet spell of rest, of thankfulness, of quiet heart-satisfaction, seemed to infold her. These sort of moods were not rare with Averil; she had her hours of exaltation, when life seemed very sweet to her, and the discords of existence, its chilling disappointments, its weary negations, and never-ending responsibilities, lay less heavily on her, as though invisible hands had lifted the burden, and had anointed her eyes with some holy chrism. Then it was that Averil grasped the meaning and beauty of a life that to those who loved her seemed overfull of care and anxiety--when the veil seemed lifted; and as she looked round on the few helpless creatures whom she fed and sheltered, she felt no personal happiness could be so sweet as this power of giving happiness to others. "What does it matter," she said softly, to herself--and a solemn look came into her eyes as she looked over the tranquil landscape--"what does it matter if one be a little lonely, a little weary sometimes, if only one can help others--if one can do a little good work before the Master calls us? To go home and have no sheaves to take with us, oh, that would be terrible!" "I wonder if Lottie has had a happy day, too?" observed Annette, as they came in sight of Redfern House. The moon was shining; through the open windows came the sound of laughter, of voices. Averil roused herself with an effort. "They seem very merry," she said, tranquilly. "Annette, I have ordered supper to be laid in my sitting-room. I knew they would have finished dinner by this time. When you have taken off your hat, will you join me there?" "May I speak to you a moment, ma'am?" asked Roberts. "Captain Beverley and Mr. Forbes are dining here, and--" But Annette did not hear any more. She was tired and hungry; she made a speedy toilet. As she ran down-stairs she was surprised to find Averil still in her walking-dress. "Do not wait for me," she said, hastily. "Roberts, will you see my cousin has all she wants? Annette, I am sorry, but I shall not be long." Averil's room looked the picture of comfort. The supper-table was laid; the pretty shaded candles and flowers had a charming effect; the glass doors were open, and a flood of moonlight silvered the lawn and illuminated the garden paths. Maud was singing; the clear, girlish voice seemed to blend with the scene. A masculine voice--was it Rodney's?--was accompanying her. "Oh, that we two were maying!"--how sweetly it sounded. It was some little time before Averil reappeared. To Annette's surprise, she was in evening-dress. The old grave look had come to her face again; but she said nothing--only summoned Annette to the table. "You should not have waited," she said, reproachfully. "Annette, when we have finished supper, I shall have to leave you. Roberts tells me that some of Rodney's friends are dining here, and it will not do for the mistress to absent herself." "Is it for that you have changed your dress, my cousin? And you are so tired. It is a pity--it is a great pity. Ah, the music has stopped! They have been singing so deliciously. I wish you could have heard them. There was a man's voice--I think he must be a great singer." "Captain Beverley has a fine voice. I suppose he and Maud were trying a duet together. Oh, here comes Lottie!" as a bright face suddenly appeared in the door-way. "Well, little one, come and give an account of yourself." "Oh, how cozy you look!" exclaimed Lottie, pouncing on them both in her lively way, and giving them a score of airy kisses. Lottie was looking charming in her pretty pink frock. "Well, what do you think of Mother Midge and the Corporal? Is he not an old dear, Annette? No, Averil, I am not going to answer a question until Annette gives me her opinion of the Dove-cote." Annette was too happy to be interrogated; she poured forth a stream of eulogy, of delight, into Lottie's listening ears. Nothing had escaped her; she retailed the day's proceedings in her own vivid, picturesque way. "My cousin is the happiest person in the world," she finished, seriously. "Most people have to be content with their own happiness. You and I are those people, Lottie. But Averil creates heart-sunshine. Ah, you must not tell me to hush! Have I not heard all those wonderful stories--Mother Midge, and the two old men, and wee Robbie, even the pensioners? Oh, if we could only go through the world and gather in the sick and sorrowful ones! My cousin does not need to envy any one--surely no happiness can be like hers." "Thank you, dear," returned Averil, in a low voice; but the grave look was still in her eyes. "Lottie, it is your turn now. Have you had a happy day?" "Oh, yes," returned Lottie, carelessly; but her dimples betrayed her. "Everything was very pleasant. The Courtlands were civil, and the gardens beautiful, and the ices were excellent." "And Frank was there?" "Oh, yes; Mr. Frank was there. His mother had given him a note for you;" and Lottie fumbled in her pocket. "Mr. Chesterton was there too. By the bye," with an evident effort to appear unconcerned, "Georgina wants you to ask the Courtlands and Mr. Chesterton to dinner next week. She was talking about it all the way home." "Well, I have no objection," began Averil, with rather an amused look; but Lottie interposed in a rather shame-faced way: "No, and, of course, Georgie will speak to you herself. Only she said this evening to Maud, that there would be no room for me at table. I think Georgina does not want me to be there; she seemed put out because--" Here Lottie came to a dead stop. "Oh, I see," in a meaning tone, as Lottie produced the letter; "well, you are wise to come to head-quarters. Georgina's little humors can not be allowed to disarrange my dinner-table." "If there be no room for Lottie, there can be no room for me, my cousin," struck in Annette. "There will be room for both," returned Averil, quietly. "I will ask Frank and Louie, and will make Georgina understand that it is quite an informal dinner-party. Don't distress your little head about it, Lottie. Let me read my letter in peace;" and Lottie's look of radiant good-humor returned. Her cheeks had grown as pink as her dress during the last few minutes, but Averil took no notice, only when she had finished her letter she smiled and handed it to Annette. It was Annette's turn to look radiant now. "Oh, how kind!" she exclaimed, breathlessly. "Lottie, this is for you also. Mrs. Harland (that is monsieur's wife, I suppose) has made the most charming arrangement. We are to spend the day and sleep--that will be twenty-four hours of happiness. This is what she says: 'My husband will be pleased to see his little Dinan friend again. He was highly complimented when Frank told him how cordially monsieur was remembered. My girls are most anxious to make Miss Ramsay's acquaintance; and as we can put up Lottie, there is no need to leave her behind. If you will come to lunch, we shall have a nice long day, and Lottie can have some tennis.' My cousin, shall we go? Next Monday--that is a good day, is it not?" "Of course we shall go," interposed Lottie. "Do you think Averil could have the heart to refuse us such a treat? Mrs. Harland is a darling for thinking of me. Of all places, I do love to go to Grey-Mount." "You need not tell me that," returned Averil, rising. Now, what was there in that little speech to make Lottie change color again? Annette's quickness could make nothing of the situation. Why should not Lottie love Grey-Mount, when monsieur lived there, and so many charming people? Why did Averil give that amused little laugh as Lottie pushed her chair away petulantly, and said rather impatiently that it was growing late, and that she must go back to the drawing-room. Lottie was really a very excitable little person; she did not even wait when Averil said she was coming too; she ran down the steps and across the lawn, leaving Averil to bid good-night to Annette. "I shall be late--you must not wait for me," she said, quietly. "Where has that madcap flown? I dare say you think Lottie is in an odd mood to-night. How pretty the child grows! Lottie has a sweet face--one can not wonder if she be admired. Good-night, Annette; pleasant dreams. To-morrow I will answer Mrs. Harland's kind invitation." Annette went to bed happily, but she was far too excited to sleep; the recollections of the day were too vivid. Jack and Snip, and even woe-begone Molly, with her patient, heavy face, started up one by one before her--the green field, with the pensioners, the seat under the elm-tree, Daddy and Bob and the lame jackdaw, wee Robbie with his wistful blue eyes, passed and repassed before her inward vision. Now she was walking with Mother Midge across the goose green, now watching Deb as she fetched the water from the well; the pigeons were fluttering over the cottage roofs. She seemed sinking into a dream, when a voice spoke her name. "Are you asleep, Annette? I thought I heard you cough;" and Lottie, still in her pink dress, shielded her candle, and glided into the room. "I was dreaming, but I do not think I was asleep," returned Annette, drowsily. "Is it not very late, Lottie? And you are still up and dressed." "Yes, and I am so tired," she returned, disconsolately, as she extinguished the light and sat down on the bed. "Annette, I hope I am not disturbing you, but I felt so wretched I could not go to my own room." "Wretched, my Lottie!" and Annette was wide awake now. "Yes, but not on my account. Oh, no; it is Averil of whom I am thinking. How can they be so ungrateful?--how can they have the heart to treat her so? It is not Rodney, it is Maud who puts this affront on her, who will have that odious man to the house. What can aunt be thinking about? Why does she not take Averil's part? But no; they are all against her, and yet they owe everything to her." "I do not understand," returned Annette, in a bewildered tone. "What has happened? Lottie, I implore you to speak more plainly. Have they quarreled with my cousin? And it was only yesterday--yesterday--" "Yes, I know; Mr. Frank told me. I don't think he will ever forgive aunt that speech. They are always making those little sneering innuendoes. I think Mr. Frank would like to fight them all. He is just like Averil's brother--her great big brother--and I am sure he is nearly as fond of her as he is of his sister Louie." "But he has many sisters, has he not? Monsieur told me of his sons and daughters. There were Nettie, and Fan, and Owen--oh, I forget the rest." "Yes; but Louie is Mr. Frank's own sister. Don't you see, their mother died when they were quite young, and Mr. Harland married again. Oh, yes, Mr. Frank has plenty of half-brothers and sisters, but they are much younger. Nettie and Fan are still in the school-room, and Owen and Bob at Rugby; and the twins are only seven years old." "I like to hear about these people very much; but, Lottie, this is not the subject. What has gone wrong to-night? Why is our dear Averil so troubled?" "Everything is wrong," returned Lottie, dejectedly. "Averil has taken a very great dislike to Captain Beverley. He is very rich, and a friend of Rodney, and he is paying Maud great attention. Averil, for some reason, does not think well of him, and she has begged aunt to keep him at a distance. She insists that he is only a flirt, and that all his attentions mean nothing; and he is doing Rodney great harm." "A flirt! What is that, my Lottie?" "Oh, he pretends that he admires Maud--and perhaps he does, for every one knows how handsome she is; but he has no right to single her out as he does, and make people talk, unless he means to marry her. Averil is afraid Maud is beginning to like him, and she has spoken very seriously to aunt. But, you see, they believe in him, and they will have it that Averil is prejudiced." "And they invite him here to dinner in her absence?" "Yes--that is so wrong, because, of course, it is Averil's house, and she has several times refused to have him. He was at the At Home, but she could not help herself there. You must have seen him--a tall, fine-looking man, with a red mustache, and eyes rather close together--he is generally beside Maud." "I did not regard him; but what of that? It seems to me that Mr. Rodney is to blame most." "Of course he was to blame, but it was Maud who suggested the invitation. Anyhow, it was putting a very serious affront upon Averil. You must know that Maud and Georgina too take such liberties that Averil has been obliged to make it a rule that no one is to be invited to the house unless she be consulted. Maud has been trying to pass it off as an impromptu thought, but she planned it herself at breakfast, and when aunt tried to dissuade her, she talked her and Rodney over. Mr. Forbes is another of Averil's _bêtes noires_. He is rich and idle, and she says it will ruin Rodney to associate with such men." "Does not Mrs. Willmot recognize the danger? She is old--she is a mother--most mothers are wise." "I am afraid aunt is not very wise," replied Lottie, sorrowfully; "she never could manage Maud. I think she is afraid of her. But this is not all, Annette. Averil is very strict in some things--she has been brought up differently from other girls. She does not like cards; and it is one of her rules that no play for money is allowed in this house. Well, when we went to the drawing-room they were all playing at some game--I don't know the name--for three-penny points. Captain Beverley had started it." "But that was wrong--it was altogether wrong." "Rodney got very red, and looked uncomfortable when he saw Averil; but Maud only held up her cards and burst out laughing. 'When the cat is away, my dear,' she said, in her flippant way. 'Don't look so terribly shocked, Averil; we shall only lose a few shillings--no one will be ruined. It is your turn to play, Captain Beverley.' "'Will you excuse me, Captain Beverley,' returned Averil, in the quietest voice, 'if I venture to disturb your game? It is a matter of principle with me: both my father and I have always had a great dislike to any game that is played for money. In this house it has never been done until this evening. You will do me the greatest favor if you will choose some other game.'" CHAPTER XV. MME. DELAMOTTE'S LITTLE BILL. "How could she have the courage?" mused Annette, when Lottie had finished her recital, and she repeated her thoughts aloud. "Averil is never wanting in courage, but the worst of it is, her mind is stronger than her body, and that tells on her. Of course, when she spoke in that quiet, decided tone, there could be no possible appeal. Maud threw down her cards and walked to the piano with the air of an offended queen. 'I believe music was forbidden in some Puritan households, Captain Beverley,' she said, in a sarcastic voice. 'I am thankful to inform you that it is not yet placed on the list of tabooed amusements.' Captain Beverley made some answer in a low voice, and then they both laughed. Averil tried her best to put them all at their ease. She praised Maud's singing, she talked to them cheerfully; but both gentlemen took their leave as soon as possible. Rodney went with them. I heard Averil beg him as a favor to her to stay at home, but he was sulky, and refused to listen. He said, 'The other fellows would only think him a muff, and he was not going to stand any more preaching.' They went away to their club. I can see how uncomfortable Averil is. She thinks that she has done more harm than good. I left her talking to aunt and Maud. Maud was in one of her tempers, and there was a regular scene. Hush! I hear her voice now; they are coming up to bed. Not a word more; they must not find out I am here." Annette lay perfectly still, and Lottie crept to the door. Maud's room was just across the passage, and both the girls hoped to hear her close her door; but to their dismay, she stood outside, talking in an angry voice to her mother. "It is too bad; she gets worse every day!" they heard her say, in a tone of passionate insistence. "I can not help it," returned Mrs. Willmot, fretfully. "You ought to know Averil by this time. You go too far, Maud; I am always telling you so. You think of nothing but your own pleasure. It was foolish to put this affront on Averil. You might know that with her high spirit she would resent it." "Nonsense, mamma. You are afraid of her, and Georgie is afraid of her too. How can you let yourself be ruled by a slip of a girl? Of course, I know it is her home. Does not everything belong to her? If we were not so miserably poor, we need not live in this Egyptian bondage--afraid to invite a friend or to say our soul is our own. I wonder what Captain Beverley thinks of his evening's amusement? It will be a fine joke between him and Mr. Forbes. I declare, I don't envy Rodney. 'My father and I have always had a great dislike to any game that is played for money.' Did ever any one hear such cant in a modern drawing-room? I am glad I made her uncomfortable about Rodney. The poor boy is not playing those penny points now at the club. Ah, she turned quite white, I assure you." "You talk as though you had not your brother's interest at heart," returned Mrs. Willmot, in the same fretful voice. "I wish Captain Beverley would not take him to his club; he is far too young. Averil is right there. Maud, what was he saying to you in the garden just after dinner?" But here the voices dropped, and a moment afterward the door of Maud's room closed, and with a whispered good-night Lottie made her escape. But there was no rest for Averil. Long after Annette had fallen into a refreshing sleep a weary little figure paced up and down the deserted drawing-room. She had sent Roberts to bed when that faithful old domestic came to extinguish the lights. "I will wait up for Mr. Rodney," she had said. "I do not expect he will be very late." But for once she was wrong. Rodney was very late indeed. The church clock had chimed two before she heard his bell. Averil's thoughts were not pleasant; the sting of Maud's words was still abiding with her. "Is she right? Have I driven him away to worse things?" she asked herself. "Ought I to have allowed the game to go on, and then have spoken afterward? Would that not have been been temporizing with wrong things? 'One can always go down the little crooked lane,' as dear father used to say. He was so fond of the 'Pilgrim's Progress!' I could only remember how he hated this sort of amusement, and to see it played in this house, when in his life-time they never dared propose such a thing! I know his friends thought him strait-laced--even Mr. Harland; but what does that matter? If one has principle, there must be no compromise. Still, if she be right, and Rodney--" Here a look of pain crossed Averil's face, and she clasped her hands involuntarily. "Oh, my darling, how can I save you when your own mother and sister will not help me? Maud is infatuated. That man will never ask her to marry him; he will look far higher for his wife. A Miss Seymour will not be good enough for Oliver Beverley. I have told my step-mother so again and again; but Maud's influence is greater than mine. Oh, how much happier will be my little Lottie's fate! I know from what Frank says that Ned Chesterton is in earnest; and what could be better--a good son and brother, and rising in his profession? Perhaps he will not speak yet; but they are both young enough to wait. Lottie looks very happy to-night--God bless her!" And here a low, heavy sigh rose to Averil's lips. She started as the sound of the bell reached her, and hurried out to unbolt the door. Rodney did not at once see her; he thought it was Roberts. He came in whistling--his face was flushed and excited. "Sorry to keep you up so late, old fellow," he said, in his good-humored way. "Why, Averil!"--and then his face clouded--"there was no need for this attention," he muttered, as he put down his hat. Averil followed him. "Don't be vexed, Rodney. I could not go to bed until you came in. You have given me enough to bear already. Why were you so unkind as to refuse to stay at home, when I asked you as a favor?" Rodney's reply was very unsatisfactory. He boasted of his small gains in a tone that deeply grieved Averil. Seeing his face flushed with drink and with the excitement of play, she turned away. Could she save him? Was he not already a long way down that little crooked path upon which another brisk lad, whose name was Ignorance, and who came out of the country of Conceit, had already walked? There were bitter tears shed in Averil's room that night as she prayed long and earnestly for one whom she called her brother. Was Rodney conscious of this as he lay tossing feverishly? How many such prayers are offered up night after night for many a beloved and erring one! What says the apostle? that "he which converteth the sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death, and shall hide a multitude of sins." Unwin had reason to grieve over her mistress's worn looks the next morning, but she asked no questions and made no comments. Unwin was too wise a woman to waste regrets over what could not be helped. Roberts had told her enough, and she could form her own conclusions. The household were quite aware that another indignity had been on their idolized mistress, "and by them as are not fit to tie her shoes," observed the kitchen-maid, contemptuously; for Maud's imperious manners and lack of courtesy made her no favorite with the servants. Averil did not waste words either. She took no further notice of yesterday's occurrence. When she met her step-mother and the girls at luncheon, she accosted them pleasantly and in her usual manner; it was Maud who hardly deigned to answer, who averted her head with studied coldness every time Averil addressed her. Some hours of brooding and a naturally haughty temper had only fanned Maud's discontent to a fiercer flame. It was easy to see that she regarded herself in the light of an injured person. Lottie, who had been to the Stores to execute some commissions for her aunt, did not make her appearance until luncheon was nearly over, and then she and Rodney came in together. Rodney still looked a little sulky; he gave Averil a curt nod as he took his place, and snubbed Georgina when she inquired after his headache. "There is no need to publish it on the house-tops," he said, irritably. "It is only women who are fond of talking about their little ailments. I suppose there is some ice in the house, Ave? This water is quite lukewarm." "I'll ring and ask Roberts," observed Lottie. "Maud, Madame Delamotte is waiting to speak to you. She says there has been no answer, and when Hall told her that you were at luncheon, she only said she would wait, as her business was very important." Georgina darted a frightened, imploring glance at her sister, but Maud only grew very red. "It is very impertinent," she muttered, angrily, "but these sort of people have no consideration. I shall tell Madame Delamotte that I shall withdraw my custom if she pesters me in this way. Lottie, will you tell her, please--But no, perhaps I had better go myself;" and Maud swept out of the room in her usual haughty fashion. Rodney laughed and shrugged his shoulders, but Averil seemed uneasy and preoccupied. Mrs. Willmot had taken no notice of this little interruption; her slow, lymphatic temperament seldom troubled itself over passing things. Madame Delamotte was the girls' dress-maker. She supposed Maud had been extravagant enough to order a new dress for Lady Beverley's "small and early." "I really must lecture her about extravagance;" and here she adjusted her eyeglass, and looked at some fashion-plates with a serene absorption that was truly enviable. Averil's uneasiness seemed to increase, and at last she made an excuse to leave the table. As she passed through the hall quickly, she came upon Maud; she was in close conversation with a thin, careworn-looking woman dressed in the height of fashion. Averil knew Mme. Delamotte slightly; she had been to her shop on more than one occasion. As she bade her a civil "good-morning," the French woman accosted her in a nervous, agitated manner. "Miss Willmot, may I implore your assistance with this young lady? I can not persuade her to hear me. The bill is large, and she says I shall have still to wait for my money; and, alas! business is 'bad.'" "Averil, I must beg you not to interfere," returned Maud, angrily. "Madame Delamotte is grossly impertinent. I have every intention of settling her bill, but just now it is not convenient, and--" here Maud hesitated. "Madame Delamotte, will you come into my room a moment?" observed Averil, quietly. "Maud, you had better come, too. There is no need to take the whole household into confidence; and the hall is far too public a place for this sort of conversation." But Maud refused. "I have said all I have to say," she returned, contemptuously. "If Madame Delamotte chooses to dun me in this fashion, I shall have no further dealings with her. If you mix yourself up in my affairs, you must take the consequences: the bill will be settled all in good time." Averil made no answer; she only signed to the dressmaker to follow her, and as soon as they were alone Mme. Delamotte produced her account. She was visibly discomposed, and began to apologize. "Miss Seymour is too hard with me," she said, almost tearfully. "I have never dunned any one. The young ladies are good customers; I have great pleasure in working for them; but it is necessary to see one's money. This account has been running for a year and a half, and now Miss Seymour says it is exorbitant. Everything is down; I have used the best of materials--nothing else would satisfy her. What would become of me if all my customers treated me in this way?" Averil glanced down the bill, then she folded it up. "You are perfectly right, Madame Delamotte; your complaint is a just one. Will you leave the account with me? I can promise you that it shall be settled before to-morrow evening. I think you know me sufficiently to rely on my word." "Every one knows Miss Willmot," returned the French woman, politely. "You have removed a great weight from my mind trusting you with the fact that I am greatly in need of the money." "Then in that case I will write you a check in advance, if you will give me a receipt;" and as Mme. Delamotte seemed overjoyed at this concession, Averil sat down to her writing-table; but as she wrote out the check a look of disquiet crossed her face. "How can any one act so dishonorably?" she thought; but she little knew the seducing and evil effects of pampered vanity. She checked Mme. Delamotte's profuse thanks very gently but decidedly, and when she had dismissed her she sat on for a long time with her head on her hand, revolving the whole matter. "I have robbed my poor, just to pay for all these fine dresses," she said, bitterly, "and yet it had to be done. Now I must go and speak to Mrs. Willmot. Oh! what a sickening world all this is. I feel like Sisyphus, forever rolling my stony burden uphill. Oh, Mother Midge, if I could only leave it all and take refuge with you!" Mrs. Willmot was dozing in the morning-room; her book lay on her lap; but it had long ago slipped through her fingers. She regarded Averil drowsily as she sat down opposite to her, and settling her cap-strings with a yawn, asked what had become of the girls. "I do not know, Mrs. Willmot. I am sorry to disturb you, but it is necessary for us to have a serious talk. Madame Delamotte has been here to beg Maud to settle her bill. Are you aware?" regarding her sternly, "that neither she nor Georgina has attempted to pay their dress-maker for the last year and a half?" Mrs. Willmot's placid face lost a little of its color; she looked alarmed, and held out her hand for the account, which Averil still held. "There is no occasion to look at it," she said, coldly. "I can tell you the exact amount;" and as she named the sum, Mrs. Willmot uttered a faint exclamation and threw herself back in her chair. "I don't believe it!" she said, vehemently, and her weak, handsome face was quite pale. "There is vile imposition. Madame Delamotte ought to be ashamed of herself; my girls do not owe half that sum. I will ask Maud. No; Maud is so hot and impetuous she never will let me speak. Georgina will be better." "There is no need to send for her either. I have a good memory, and have verified most of the items. The bill is large, but then it has been running on for eighteen months. I only want to know how you propose to settle it." CHAPTER XVI. AVERIL'S STEP-MOTHER. As Averil asked this question in her usual quiet manner, her step-mother's perturbation increased; she was brought face to face with an unexpected difficulty--and Mrs. Willmot hated any sort of complication. To eat, drink, and be merry were important items in her code. She was indolent, and liked comfort, and, as she said, "Her girls were too much for her." "What shall you do?" reiterated Averil, patiently, as Mrs. Willmot only sighed and looked unhappy. "I think I am the most miserable woman alive," she returned, stung to weak exasperation by Averil's quiet persistence. "You have no pity for me, Averil; and yet I was your father's wife, and a good wife, too. What is the good of asking me to settle this infamous bill--for infamous it is, as I mean to tell Madame--when I have not a hundred pounds left, in the bank, and that boy is always drawing on me?" "Do you mean Rodney?" interposed Averil, eagerly. "Let us leave this bill for a moment while I speak to you of him. Has he answered Mr. Harland's letter?" For two days previously a letter had come to Rodney from the lawyer, offering him a post in Canada that promised to be very remunerative in the future. Mr. Harland had spoken very warmly of the advantages attaching to such a situation, and Averil had indorsed this opinion. The letter had arrived early on the morning of her reception; but, in spite of all her business, she had talked for more than half an hour to both Rodney and her step-mother, begging them to close at once with the offer. Rodney seemed rather in favor of it: to use his own phrase, he thought Canadian life would be "awfully jolly," and he promised to talk his mother over; but until now Averil had heard nothing. "Has Rodney written to Mr. Harland?" she asked again, as Mrs. Willmot hesitated, and seemed unwilling to answer. "Yes, he has written," she said, at last, when Averil compelled her to speak. "I declare, you make me so nervous, Averil, sitting opposite me, and questioning me in that jerky fashion, that I hardly know how to answer." "And he has accepted the post?" still more eagerly. "He has done nothing of the kind," returned her step-mother, pettishly. "You have no heart, Averil. You do not understand a mother's feelings. Do you suppose I am going to let my boy go all that distance? As though there were no other places to be found in England. I should break my heart without him. I was awake half the night, thinking about it. I did not have a bit of peace until I got the dear fellow to write and decline it this morning." Averil's little hands were pressed tightly together. "Give me patience," she whispered. Then aloud, "Mrs. Willmot, are you aware of the advantages you have thrown away? Let me implore you to reconsider this; it is not too late--a telegram will nullify the letter. I am very unhappy about Rodney. He seems to be mixed up with a set of most undesirable friends. They are all richer and older than he. They take him to their club; they induce him to play for money. It is no use warning you against Captain Beverley on Maud's account but for Rodney's sake--" But here Mrs. Willmot interrupted her. "Don't say a word against Captain Beverley, Averil. Things will very soon be settled between him and Maud, I can tell you that," with a meaning nod. "I know he is not a favorite of yours; but he is one of the best catches of the season. Every one will tell you that. Look at Beverley House! And then Oliver, though he is only the second son, has fifteen hundred a year, and they say he is his uncle's heir. No one thinks much of his brother's health--he seems a sickly sort of person. Mark my words--Maud will be Lady Beverley one day." Averil gave vent to a despairing sigh. What impression could she make on this weak, worldly nature? She had often argued with her step-mother, and had encountered the same placid resistance to all her appeals. Weak people are often obstinate. Mrs. Willmot was no exception; she would listen to Averil, agree with her, and finally end by doing exactly as she had intended at first. On the present occasion Averil did not spare her. "You are wrong," she said, vehemently. "One day you will know how wrong you have been. Captain Beverley is only flirting with Maud--he will never propose to her. The Beverley's will look far higher than our family. You are encouraging her in this miserable infatuation, and both you and she are sacrificing Rodney." "What do you mean by this extraordinary statement, Averil?" And Mrs. Willmot drew herself up with an affronted air. "Captain Beverley is using Rodney for his own ends. Do you suppose a man of his age has any interest in a boy like Rodney? It pleases him to come here, and he throws a careless invitation to him now and then, which he is far too pleased to accept. Rodney will be ruined, for Frank tells me they are a wild, extravagant set. This Canadian scheme would save him--it would break off his intimacy with those men; it would remove him from the scene of his temptation. Mrs. Willmot, you are sacrificing your boy to Maud's fancied interest--it is she who is keeping him here." But though Averil went on in this strain until she was exhausted, she could not induce her step-mother to alter her decision. She was evidently touched once or twice as Averil pleaded; an uneasy look came over her face. "You are prejudiced--Maud thinks very differently from that," she observed, more than once. It was Maud who was evidently the mother's adviser. Averil had to desist at last with a sore heart; but before she broke off the conversation she returned again to the subject of Mme. Delamotte. She made far more impression here. Mrs. Willmot burst into tears when she saw the receipted bill; she even kissed Averil affectionately, and called her her dear, her dearest girl. There was no want of gratitude for the timely help that had staved off the evil day of reckoning. Mrs. Willmot spoke the truth when she said that she would never forget this generous act. "My girls have treated me badly," she said, with unusual bitterness--"Maud especially. I know I am to blame leaving things so much to Maud; but she is clever, and has a clear head, and never muddles things as I do. I thought there were only two quarters owing--I certainly understood that last year's account had been settled. I remember drawing a check--Stop! was it for Madame Delamotte or Rodney? My memory is so bad, and the children seem always pestering me for money." Mrs. Willmot's explanation was by no means lucid; but Averil, who knew her perfectly, did not in the least accuse her of insincerity. She was aware that her stepmother was a bad woman of business; that she was indolent, and suffered herself to be ruled by her high-spirited daughter. She had always shifted her responsibilities on to other people. To do her justice, she was extremely shocked at the want of rectitude on Maud's part, and promised readily that such a thing should never occur again--the quarterly bill should be settled in future. She even acquiesced very meekly when Averil announced her intention of speaking to Maud very plainly. "I shall tell her," she finished--and there was a stern, set look round Averil's mouth as she spoke, that showed she fully meant what she said--"that if such a disgraceful occurrence ever takes place again in this house, I shall consider it my duty to make different arrangements for the future." "I am sure she deserves to be frightened," returned Mrs. Willmot, tearfully. She was plainly awed by Averil's manner, though she did not in the least believe this threat. But Averil had not spoken without due reflection. During the long sleepless night she had tried to look her duty in the face; her step-mother had claims on her, but was it right that her poor should be defrauded--that her father's money should be squandered to satisfy the rapacity of these headstrong young people? Was she not encouraging them in habits of extravagance and idleness? She could bear her daily martyrdom, the homely sacrifice; but that it should be in vain, that it should be productive of evil and not good, this was intolerable to her. She went to her own room, feeling weary and disquieted. The worst part--her talk with Maud--was to come. She felt she had need to brace herself afresh for the stormy discussion. As she sat down by the window she saw Rodney lounging on the lawn; his brief sulkiness had vanished. In reality he was a sweet-tempered fellow, and hated to be on bad terms with any one. "Halloo, Ave," he said, as he caught sight of her, "what have you and the mater been talking about all this time? There seems to be a precious row about something." Averil was utterly spent--she put out her hand to him with a little sob. "Why do you all make my life so miserable?" she said. "It is not fair. I have done nothing to deserve it." Rodney gave his usual shrug and kicked a loose pebble. He wished he had not spoken. The least approach to a scene gave him an uncomfortable sensation. Averil saw his dismay, and recovered herself at once. "Come and sit down," she said, hastily. "I want to talk to you. Rodney, why did you write to Mr. Harland without speaking to me again? It troubles me inexpressibly to think that you have thrown away such a chance. Do you know, Frank says--" "Oh, Frank again!" returned Rodney, crossly. "I beg your pardon, Ave," as she looked somewhat offended at this; "I do hate to have a fellow flung at me like that. How could I help writing when the mater and Maud made such a fuss--" "But you would have liked it yourself?" "I don't know. It is rather a bore leaving all one's friends. Beverley says there are better berths to be picked up here. There is Forbes's brother, Alick--" "Please do not tell me what Captain Beverley or Mr. Forbes think; Mr. Harland is a far wiser adviser. Rodney, dear, I am very unhappy about you. You are not choosing your friends wisely. I dread Captain Beverley's influence. He is rich, a man of the world, and intensely selfish. His habits can not be yours. Your mother's means are not large; you have no right to live as though you had expectations. You would be far safer and happier in Canada than staying on here in idleness." "It is not my fault," returned Rodney, impatiently. "I was quite willing to go, only the mater cried about it, and Maud told me that I was only thinking of my own interests. Don't you see, Ave," in a coaxing voice, "I am in rather a difficult position--I can't turn a cold shoulder on Beverley when he is making up to Maud. It is quite true what she says--that I am the only son, and that it is rather shabby to leave the mater if she does not want to part with me." "Rodney, if you would only give up the society of these men. I think I dislike Mr. Forbes even more than Captain Beverley. I never can trust a man who does not look you in the face. Frank told me that he belongs to one of the fastest sets in town." "Nonsense! Forbes is a capital fellow--I don't know any one more good-natured or amusing. He has done me a good turn more than once. But"--interrupting himself--"you are only a girl--you would not understand." "I think I know more than most girls," returned Averil, with a sad smile. "I am very old for my age. Try me, Rodney. I wish you would tell me everything;" and she looked anxiously at the fair, boyish face, with its handsome, irresolute mouth. If he would only confide in her! But even as the thought passed through her mind Rodney threw off some unwelcome reflection, and shook himself with a light laugh. "You are a good little soul, Ave," he said, jumping up. "Don't bother your head about me. Something is sure to turn up, so there is no need to banish me to Canada;" and Rodney went off whistling. Averil sat for a little time alone, then Lottie brought her some tea, and after that she went in search of Maud. No one knew what passed between them. Mrs. Willmot, in her selfish policy, thought it wise not to inquire. Averil did not appear again that evening--she had a headache, and remained in her own room. Georgina noticed that Maud was in an unusually bad temper; she snubbed Lottie mercilessly, and was positively rude to Annette. But Georgina was not a very close observer; she failed to detect a certain uneasiness and restlessness, that seemed to increase as the evening wore on. Maud took no one into her confidence; if any expectation she had formed had met with disappointment, she was strong enough to bear it in silence. "It has been a stupid day," said Annette, as she parted from Lottie that night. "Something has gone wrong--my cousin is miserable." But Lottie could give her no information. The evening had been a failure; Maud had been cross and detestable; Rodney had gone out; no one had ventured to speak. "Never mind; things will be better to-morrow, and there is Grey-Mount on Monday," she said, with the gay philosophy that was natural to her. "Things will be better to-morrow"--a very Lottie-like speech. Lottie's sanguine temperament never predicted misfortune; if matters were unsatisfactory to-day, they were sure to mend. It was this bright joyousness, this faith in an ultimate good, that had made the little school-girl happy in spite of shabby clothes, hard task-masters, and uncongenial labors; it was this sweet, unselfish nature, so child-like, and yet so sound at the core, that was weaving the love that was to be the blessing of her life. It was not Lottie's pink cheeks, her bright eyes, and pleasant ways, that were binding Ned Chesterton's heart to her so surely, for Ned was an intelligent, shrewd fellow, and knew better than to build his life's happiness on such shifting materials. It was the girl's frankness, her honesty, her loyal devotion to those she loved, and her sweet yielding temper, that had first attracted him. He was not a rich man: the young lawyer would have to work hard at his profession before he could afford the luxury of a wife; but he had long ago said to himself that that wife should be Lottie Jones. CHAPTER XVII. ANNETTE DECLINES TO PLAY TENNIS. Averil was rather quiet and subdued the next day or two, but as usual she battled bravely with her depression, and tried not to damp the enjoyment of her two young companions. The new work-room was finished, and looked very comfortable; and Fairy Order, as Lottie still called her, was quite in her element. There was plenty of time now for the music lessons and practicing. Lottie was learning to chatter in French, and Annette found her a most intelligent pupil. The girls sat together, walked together, or drove out with Averil; no one interfered with them. When Lottie had letters to write, or her aunt or cousins wanted her, Annette went in search of Averil, or sat in the garden with her book. Maud and Georgina made no attempt to admit her into their companionship; they still treated her with coldness, as though they regarded her as an interloper. In the evenings when Averil read to herself, she and Lottie escaped into the garden, or whispered together over their work. Georgina once asked them contemptuously what they could find to talk about; she sneered slightly as she spoke. When friends were not present there were often lapses of silence. Rodney would complain of the dullness, and go out in search of amusement. "I wish we could go out too," Georgina would say. "I think no family of old maids could be more deadly dull. Mamma goes to sleep, and Averil reads, and Maud writes letters." "I wish you would be quiet and let me finish my notes," Maud would say, pettishly--she seemed always irritable now; and then Georgina would subside into moody silence. If any one came in there was an instantaneous change; for example, if Captain Beverley dropped in for a moment to fetch Rodney, Maud's eyes would brighten, her prettiest songs would be sung; Mrs. Willmot would be broad awake and smiling; only Averil's grave little face did not relax, her greeting never became warmer. The day at Grey-Mount was a great success. As Averil looked at the girls' bright faces as they took their places in the train the cloud seemed to lift off her own spirits; it was delightful to think that for twenty-four hours her worries would be in the background. Kind greetings, approving smiles, hearty sympathy, were all awaiting her; no dissatisfied looks, no struggling wills would mar her enjoyment. Averil's brow grew calm and clear as a little child's as the prospect widened, and when they reached Chislehurst she was talking as merrily as her companions. "There is Louie!" exclaimed Lottie, as the train slackened speed, and a tall, pleasant-looking girl gave her an answering nod and smile. She had a strong resemblance to her brother Frank, and, like him, had no claims to beauty; but her frank, open countenance, attracted Annette. "She is a Harland, so of course she is nice," she said to herself, with illogical reasoning. Miss Harland did not seem to require any introduction; she shook hands cordially with Annette. "Mamma was too busy to come, Averil," she said, leading the way to the station door, where an open barouche and a pair of handsome bays were awaiting them. "What have you been doing with yourself lately, you naughty little person? Lottie, she looks more shadowy and unsubstantial than ever! Father will be horrified when he sees her." "Don't be so absurd, Louie. I am perfectly well," laughed Averil, who certainly looked very small and slender beside this fine-grown, vigorous young woman. But Miss Harland chose to argue the point; and as Lottie took her part, there was a lively discussion that lasted until they reached Grey-Mount. Grey-Mount was a substantial gray-stone house standing in its own grounds. As they drove up to the door, a bevy of young people came out to greet them. Louie introduced them all in a quick, off-hand fashion to their new guest as, "Nettie and Fan--and the twins, Fred and Winnie. And this is my little mamma," she continued, in an affectionate, patronizing tone, as a quiet, lady-like little woman appeared in the background. Annette thought her still very pretty; she liked her soft voice and ways. It was evident that her children doted on her, for a word from mamma seemed to have a restraining influence on the twins, a pair of noisy, high-spirited children. Annette found herself at home at once; there was no stiffness, no reserve, at Grey-Mount. Nettie and Fan had pounced on Lottie as their rightful prey, and had carried her off at once. Mrs. Harland had followed with Averil, and Annette felt a hand pressed through her arm. "You and I will have to entertain each other until luncheon," observed Louie, in a comfortable voice. "When mamma and Averil begin to talk they never leave off. Oh, of course it is Bob and Owen--they generally begin about the boys. Frank will be home presently, and then we shall have tennis. Frank is my own, own brother, you know. Not but what Owen and Fred are brothers too, but Frank is my special--" "Oh, yes, I understand about that. Lottie has told me he is monsieur's son, and this lady you call mamma is your step-mother. I have not talked to her much, but her looks please me. She is altogether different from Mrs. Willmot." "My dear Miss Ramsay, there are step-mothers and step-mothers. Frank and I think mamma perfect; she has not a selfish thought. As to Mrs. Willmot and the Misses Seymour, I had better hold my tongue on that subject. Averil is a darling; we are all so fond of her; but she is just wearing herself out--" "Do you think my cousin looks so ill?" returned Annette, in such quick alarm that Miss Harland regretted her speech. She was a warm-hearted, impulsive girl, and sometimes said more than was prudent. She was anxious now to explain away her words, for the sad wistfulness that had come into Annette's dark eyes touched her. "She has always been delicate," she returned, hastily. "At one time her health was a great anxiety to us all; but during the last year or two she has been stronger. Miss Ramsay, are you fond of flowers? Shall we go and see the green-houses? Yes, Winnie, you may come too"--as the pretty little girl ran up to them. Before luncheon was quite over Frank Harland made his appearance. He was accompanied by a tall, good-looking man, whom they all called Ned, and who was afterward introduced to Annette by Lottie in the shyest of voices as "Mr. Chesterton." If Annette had not been such a recluse, and so totally unacquainted with the ways of young people--the curé and his snuff-box being her sole masculine acquaintance in the Rue St. Joseph--she might have read certain facts from Lottie's shy eagerness and pleased, downcast looks. She might even have adduced the same conclusion from the young lawyer's evident absorption and almost exclusive monopoly of the girl. In tennis he was her partner, and afterward they walked about the garden together. Every one took it as a matter of course. No one interfered with their _tête-à-tête_--not even Averil, whose eyes often rested on her protégée with fond wistfulness. "Lottie is very happy," Annette heard her whisper once to Mrs. Harland. Annette was very pleased to see Mr. Frank again; but she could not be induced to take her first lesson in tennis, though he employed all his eloquence to coax her to become his partner. "You are bent on snubbing me," he said at last, in mock despair. "You were much more amiable when I met you last, Miss Ramsay, and we exchanged confidences over our vanilla ices." "That is too bad," she returned, trying not to laugh. "What is it you mean by 'snub?' I do not understand all your English words. It is you who are unkind, Mr. Harland; for you want to make me ridiculous in the eyes of your sister and friends. Ah, yes; it would amuse them to see how often I should miss the ball! They would just clap their hands with the fun. No; I will sit here in the shade and watch you, and that will be my first lesson in tennis; and if you will come to Redfern House, you can teach me there, and Lottie can play with us." "To be sure! that is a good idea," he said, eagerly; and then, as they called to him, he lifted his cap and ran down the grass slope to the tennis court. Annette kept her promise, and watched the game with intelligent interest. Every now and then Frank came to her to explain things. He was pleased with the girl's naïveté and frankness, and he always left her a little reluctantly when Louie waved her racket, or Ned shouted to him that they were waiting. He was just making his way to her for the fifth time when he saw her suddenly rise from her seat with a quick exclamation of pleasure at the sight of a gray-haired man who was crossing the lawn in a leisurely, middle-aged fashion. "Monsieur, it is you at last," she said, holding out her hand. "Oh, how glad I am to see you again!" Mr. Harland smiled as he cordially responded to her greeting; but the next moment he held her out at arm's-length and critically surveyed her. "Do you know," he said, in a pleased voice, "that if you had not spoken to me I think I should hardly have recognized my young friend of the Rue St. Joseph? What has she done with herself, Averil?"--in quite a puzzled tone. Mr. Harland could not understand it at all. He remembered the girl as she stood that morning in her shabby gown, with the little lace kerchief knotted round her throat, and her small, pale face and grave eyes. The young creature that stood before him was as slim and graceful as a fawn. She was no longer pale. Her eyes were clear and sparkling, her black dress was enlivened by a dainty breast-knot of dark crimson roses. Could these few weeks have effected this transformation? "No, I should not have known you," he said, dropping her hand; but he looked very kindly at her. Frank had been much amused at this little scene; but by and by his mood changed. He was even guilty of the unfilial wish that his father had been detained longer at Lincoln's Inn. Frank found he could no longer secure Miss Ramsay's attention. She evinced a preference for monsieur's society, and could not be induced to leave his side, even to see the hot-houses under Frank's guidance. Frank turned rather sulky at last, to his father's amusement. Mr. Harland's eyes twinkled mischievously as he watched his discomfiture. "Miss Ramsay," he said, "you are very good to stop with an old fellow like me, but I must not monopolize you. Mr. Frank seems a little put out with us both." "He is only pretending," she said, in a voice that reached the young man. "I think it is his way of making fun--it is so long since I have seen you, monsieur. And I like better to sit and talk to you of Dinan, and those days when you were kind to me. As for Mr. Frank, I shall see him often--often." Mr. Harland glanced at her in extreme surprise; he noticed that Frank turned his head to listen. "He is coming to teach me tennis," went on Annette, in a composed, matter-of-fact tone. "I would not play to-day, because I knew I should only make myself ridiculous; but I understand the game now; and Lottie and I will practice; when Mr. Frank comes he will be surprised at my progress." "Father, shall I bring you and Miss Ramsay some tea out there?" asked Frank suddenly at this moment. Now, what had become of the young man's brief moodiness? Frank was humming an air as he brought out the teacups: he had a little joke for Annette when she thanked him for his trouble; but he shook his head when she would have made room for him. "Don't disturb yourself," he said, quickly; "I know you and monsieur"--with a little stress on the word--"are as happy as possible. I am going to talk to Averil about the tennis, and see which day I may come." "Very well," she returned, tranquilly; and she resumed her conversation. She was telling her friend about her life at Redfern House, about the new work-room, and her cousin's kindness. As she talked on in her bright, rapid way, Mr. Harland told himself that she was not far from being pretty; she was not so thin, and her complexion had improved, and the _spirituelle_ expression of the dark eyes was very attractive. Meanwhile, Averil was listening to Frank's plans with rather a puzzled look. Frank had announced his intention of coming down to Redfern House as often as possible to practice tennis with the girls. "You have a good lawn," he went on, in an off-hand manner, "and I daresay Seymour will join us. Thursday is my best day, if it will suit you, Averil." "Any day will suit me," she returned, with the soft friendliness that she always showed him. "But, Frank, I want to speak to you. You must not misunderstand Annette. Perhaps you may think her frankness a little strange, but she means nothing by it; she has lived so completely out of the world that she hardly knows its ways. I believe that she has never spoken to a young man in her life; and she treats you as she would Louie. You will not mind if I say this to you; but Annette is so sweet and good I could not bear her to be misunderstood." "I shall not misunderstand her. How could any one mistake such child-like frankness?" returned the young man, gravely; but he flushed a little, as though Averil's words touched him. "Please come, then, as often as you can," she returned, cheerfully. "You know how welcome you will be." Frank did not make any more attempts to speak to Annette that evening; but he showed her little attentions, and watched her a good deal; it pleased him to see how friendly she was with them all. As she bid him good-bye at the station the next morning--for he and Mr. Chesterton had accompanied them--she said to him: "I have had such a happy time. Every one is so nice and kind. Monsieur, and your step-mother, and sister, and--" "I hope you are going to include me," he returned, mischievously; but Annette took the question in good part. "And you too; oh, yes! I think it is very good of you, Mr. Harland, to teach me tennis. Is it not so, my cousin?" But Averil was apparently deaf, for she made no response. "Annette," she said, gently, when she found herself alone with her cousin that evening, "I want to give you a little hint, because you have been such a recluse, and do not know the ways of society. Young girls of your age do not generally invite young men. Now, when you asked Frank to play tennis--" But Annette interrupted her in quick alarm. "Have I done wrong? I am so sorry. It is your house, and I ought to have left it to you." "Well, another time; but, of course, in this case it does not matter; the Harlands are like my own brothers and sisters. Frank comes as often as he likes." "But I am sorry, all the same," returned Annette, gravely, and a distressed color came to her face. "It seems I have been bold. My cousin, will you explain? I do not know the rules, and I would not willingly offend. Mr. Harland was so kind; he proposed to teach me, and I thought there could be no harm." "My dear," replied Averil, kissing her hot cheek remorsefully, "there is nothing wrong. If Frank came every day he would be welcome; it is only a hint for your future use." But Annette was sensitive; her innate sense of propriety had taken alarm; she had been forward, or her cousin would not have given her this reproof. "You shall not have to find fault with me again," she said, humbly. "I will remember the difference between old men and young men for the future, my cousin." CHAPTER XVIII. "I HEAR THAT WE HAVE TO CONGRATULATE YOU." A few more weeks passed. The summer days flew merrily by for Annette and Lottie; and if, as time went on, Averil's hidden anxieties and secret watchfulness did not relax, and a growing fear pressed more heavily upon her, she made neither of the girls her confidante. With that innate unselfishness that belonged to her nature, she refused to burden their youthful spirits with the shadow of coming trouble. But on those summer nights, when the moonlight was stealing into each sleeper's room, its pure white beams would often fall on one small, kneeling figure; for in those days Averil prayed for Rodney as one would pray for some unwary traveler hovering on the edge of a perilous abyss. Frank Harland had kept his promise loyally, and the Thursdays had become an institution at Redfern House. Ned Chesterton frequently accompanied him; and as Rodney often condescended to don his flannels and join them, his sister's frigidity relaxed, and as one or two other young people would drop in, there was often a pleasant party collected on the trim green lawn. Averil would sit at her window with her work and book and watch them contentedly; it amused her to see the young men's stratagems to secure their favorite partners. Georgina was inclined to monopolize Mr. Chesterton, and he often had to have recourse to some innocent ruse to win Lottie to his side. Averil noticed, too, that Frank's choice generally fell on Annette. "Outsiders see most of the game," she thought. Averil was always ready to fulfill her duties as hostess, and talk to Frank in the pauses of the game, to listen to Ned's artful praises of Lottie's play, to interest herself when any defeated combatant talked of his or her ill-luck. There were always iced drinks and tea to be had in the gay little striped tent over which Roberts presided. Frank once told Averil that she was a first-rate hostess, and that his friend Ned never enjoyed himself so much as at Redfern House. "I am so glad you are pleased," was Averil's answer; but she blushed a little at the young man's praise. Yes, it was her part to be Lady Bountiful--to give pleasure rather than to receive it. One afternoon she was in her usual seat, when Rodney came up to her; he had had an engagement with one of his West End friends, and Averil had not seen him since breakfast. He looked tired and heated as he flung himself down on the steps by Averil's chair, and with her usual quickness she detected in a moment that something was wrong. "Where's Maud?" he asked, after an instant's moody silence. "Oh, I remember!" before Averil could answer him. "She and the mater were to lunch at the Egertons'. Ave, it is all over the club. I would not believe it at first. I told Forbes that he could not be such a cad. But it is true; I heard it from half a dozen fellows. Beverley is going to marry his first love, Lady Clementina Fox." Rodney had expected an exclamation of dismay, but Averil only grew a little pale. "Well?" she returned, briefly. "It's true, I tell you," he repeated, staring at her as though unable to believe this calm reception of his news. "Of course it's true. I do not doubt you for a moment. If you think I am surprised, Rodney, you are very much mistaken. I have expected this for the last few weeks." "But it is hard lines for Maud," groaned the lad, who, with all his faults, was fond of his sisters. "I am glad I called him a cad to Forbes. Here he has been paying her attention for the last six months. I call it a confounded shame for any man to get a girl talked about. Lots of fellows have said to me, 'I suppose Beverley and your sister mean to hit it off.' I declare, he deserves to be horse-whipped!" "Instead of that, he has secured a beauty and a fortune," returned Averil, bitterly. "What does it matter to a man of his caliber if a woman's heart is damaged more or less? Don't let us talk of him, Rodney. I might be tempted to say something I should repent. The question is, How is Maud to be told?" "That is just what I was going to ask you," he returned, ruefully. "The mater must not do it--she would drive Maud crazy. She can not help fussing. And then she cries, and that irritates Maud. You will have to do it, Ave. You know just how to put things, and you know when to stop talking. I'll back you against any one for common sense and that sort of thing." "I!" returned Averil, recoiling with such a pale look of dismay on her face that Rodney was startled. "I to inflict a wound like that on any woman. Oh, no, Rodney!" "But I tell you, Ave, it must be you," replied the lad, impatiently. "Do you think I am the sort of fellow to manage a delicate business like that? I should just blurt it out and then flee like what's-a-name--the messenger that came to Jehu. I won't have a hand in it, and you will do it so beautifully, Ave." "No, no," she returned, almost harshly. "Maud has no love for me, and she would only grow to hate me. If neither you nor your mother will do it, Rodney, she must go untold. Tell her! How could I do it?" she went on, half to herself, "when I know--none better--how it will hurt. Oh, that women should have to suffer so!" But Rodney would not give up his point. "How can you have the heart to refuse?" he said, reproachfully. "Would you leave her to the tender mercies of outsiders! Do you know she will meet them to-night at the Powells'? If she does not know before, she will see it for herself then." "To-night!" in a shocked voice. "Yes; don't I tell you so?" still more irritably. "Would you expose her to such an ordeal unprepared? Ave, you must do it--you must get her to stop at home. She can have a headache--women can always have headaches--and Georgina must go in her place." "Very well, I will tell her," in a weary voice. "Let me go now, Rodney, or Frank will see I am upset. Don't think I am not sorry, because I do not say much; but it is all such a terrible mistake, dear. You would none of you believe me. I told you he meant nothing;" and then she sighed and left him. Averil knew that her task was a hard one. She doubted how Maud's proud nature would receive such a blow. Would it be totally unexpected? had she already a secret fear--a terrible suspicion--that Captain Beverley was playing fast and loose with her? Averil could not answer these questions. Maud had looked worn and jaded for the last week or two, and the brightness of her beauty had dimmed a little, as though under some secret pressure; but she had not even made Georgina her confidante. Averil's opportunity came sooner than she expected. Half an hour later she heard the carriage-wheels, and a few minutes afterward there was a tap at her door, and to her surprise Maud entered. She was still in her walking-dress, and looked extremely handsome. "Averil," she said, pleasantly, "mamma quite forgot to ask you if we could have the carriage to-night. Stanton says the horses are not tired, and it's only a mile and a half to the Powells'." "Certainly. Stanton is the best judge. He is careful not to overwork Whitefoot;" and then, as Maud was leaving, she continued, rather nervously: "Do you mind staying a moment? I wanted to speak to you alone. There is something you ought to know that Rodney has just told me about Captain Beverley--it is all over the club." "Some scandal, I suppose," was the careless response. But Averil was grieved to see the sudden fading of the bright color. "There are always plenty of tales going on. I think men are just as much given to gossip as women. I daresay it is some mare's-nest or other." "I am afraid not," returned Averil, with marked emphasis. "Mr. Forbes told Rodney, and you know he is a connection of Captain Beverley. He said--indeed, indeed, it is true, Maud--that he is engaged to be married to Lady Clementina Fox." "I do not believe it," replied Maud. She had not a vestige of color on her face, but her attitude was superb in its haughtiness. "Oliver Beverley engaged! Nonsense! You ought to know better than to bring me such tales." "My dear," returned Averil, tenderly, "I bring you the news because no one else would take upon themselves such an unkind office--because I want to spare you all the pain I can. You will not go to the Powells' to-night, Maud?" "And why not, may I ask?" in a freezing tone, that repelled all proffered sympathy. "Because he and Lady Clementina will be there"--in a half whisper. "That is all the more reason for me to go--that I may contradict this extraordinary statement," was Maud's unflinching response; but a dark flush crossed her face as she spoke. "Very well; I will tell mamma that we can use the carriage;" and she swept out of the room. Evidently Rodney was on the watch, for he slipped in a moment after. "Have you told her, Ave?" "Yes; and she does not believe it--at least, she says so." "Do you think she does?" "Certainly she believes it." "Oh, she was always a game one," he returned. "Maud has plenty of pluck; she will brave it out in her own way. And she will not be pitied, mind you. Anyhow, you have got her off to-night?" "I tried my best; but she says she will go. She is determined to find out the truth for herself." Rodney's face fell. "Shall I tell my mother? She must not be allowed to go. No girl should put herself in such a position, with all her pluck; she could not face them like that." "I believe she could and will. No; leave her alone. You do not know Maud; she has pride enough for ten women. Let her go and find out the truth for herself. If you take my advice you will say nothing to your mother. Mrs. Willmot will be able to control her feelings best before strangers." "Well, perhaps you are right," he replied, reluctantly. "We must just make the best of a bad business." "Just so. And if you want to help your sister, take no notice of her. Maud will bear nothing in the way of sympathy. I know her, Rodney: she is deeply wounded, but she will bleed inwardly. Captain Beverley will have to answer for his dastardly behavior, though not to us;" and Averil's face grew very stern. "Well, I'll come and tell you about it afterward--that is, if you are not asleep, Ave." "Am I likely to be sleeping?" she replied, reproachfully. "Come here to this room--you will find me up;" and Rodney promised he would do so. Maud appeared in her usual spirits at dinner-time; she laughed and talked freely with Frank and Mr. Chesterton; only Averil noticed that the food was untouched on her plate, while Rodney more than once replenished her glass with water. She looked handsomer than ever as she stood in the hall, drawing on her long gloves. Once Averil, moved to exceeding pity, touched her on the arm. "Maud, dear, do not go. Why will you not spare yourself?" A mirthless laugh answered her. "Do not people generally congratulate their friends? I have armed myself with all sorts of pretty speeches. Mamma shall hear me say them. How she will open her dear old eyes! Mamma, I think you and I are going to enjoy this evening." "Indeed I hope so, my love. And how well you are looking--isn't she, Averil? I know somebody who will think so." Maud winced; then she recovered herself, and gave a low, mocking courtesy. "Many thanks for the compliment. Good-night, dear people, all. Rodney, take mamma to the carriage." How superbly she was acting! Rodney could have clapped his hands and cried, "Bravo!" but Averil only sighed. How long would such false strength avail her? When would that proud spirit humble itself under the chastening Hand? Averil spent a miserable evening, in spite of all Frank could do to rouse her. She sent him away at last. "Go and talk to the others--Lottie and Annette. I am bad company to-night, Frank." "You are not yourself," he said, affectionately. "Something is troubling you, and you will not tell us." And though Averil owned he was right, he could not induce her to say more. She was glad when the young men took their departure, and she was free to seek her own room. Rodney found her there, trying to read, but looking inexpressibly weary. She took his hand and drew him to a seat beside her. "Tell me about it, Rodney." "There isn't much to tell. Alicia Powell got hold of Maud directly we entered the room. I heard her say: 'Every one is congratulating them. Lady Clementina looks charming. She is really a fine-looking woman for her age, though she is older than Oliver.' You see, Alicia is a sort of cousin, so she calls the fellow by his Christian name. They are to be married in October, and go abroad for the winter." "How did Maud take it?" "Why, as a matter of course. Oh, I can tell you she behaved splendidly. 'Rodney has told us,' she said, as coolly as possible. 'It is an excellent match. Mamma, there is a such a crowd here. Shall we move into the next room?' You should have seen the mater's face--the poor thing looked ready to drop. I believe Maud did not dare let her stay there, for fear of the young lady's sharp eyes." "Well?" for Rodney paused here. "Well, I took them into the next room, and Forbes joined us there. And of course he had plenty to say about Beverley's good luck. The fellow--how I longed to kick him!--was standing talking to a big red-haired woman. Oh, she was not bad-looking, but I was not exactly in the mood to admire his choice. Well, he looked rather uncomfortable when he caught sight of us, but he put a bold face on it. You should have seen the air with which Maud gave him her hand--she might have been a queen, and wasn't I proud of her! 'I hear that we have to congratulate you, Captain Beverley,' she said, in quite a composed way. 'I hope you will give us the pleasure of an introduction to Lady Clementina.' Beverley seemed quite taken aback. I never saw a man look so foolish. He had to bring her. And Maud made one or two pretty speeches. And then she complained that the room was hot and crowded, and Stewart--you know Stewart--took her away. I believe she had had just enough of it." "And your mother?" "Oh, I looked after the mater pretty sharply. I got a seat for her by old Mrs. Sullivan--you know her. She is as deaf as a post, and so short-sighted that she never sees anything. The mater was turning all manner of colors. We had quite a scene with her on the way home. But Maud never spoke a word. She bade us good-night, and went up to her own room, and locked herself in; and then I coaxed the mater to go to bed too." "Poor Rodney! You have had a hard time of it." "I suppose it was not particularly enjoyable. If I could only have kicked him, Ave! It is a shame that one is not allowed to horsewhip a fellow like that." And Rodney shrugged his shoulders and walked off with a disgusted face. CHAPTER XIX. "YOU WILL TRY ME, AVE?" Averil had a painful interview with her step-mother the next morning; but she was very patient with the poor, weak woman, who bemoaned herself so bitterly. Mrs. Willmot never brooded silently over her wrongs; her feeble nature needed the relief of words; her outbursts of lamentation, of indignation, of maternal solicitude, were all poured into Averil's ears. "To think my girl, my own beautiful Maud, should be set aside by that red-haired woman! Handsome! She can not hold a candle to Maud. Averil, you do not know how a mother's heart bleeds for her child. My only consolation is that she does not suffer as I feared she would. She is angry with him--her pride is hurt, and no wonder! He has treated her shamefully. But I am thankful to see that her affections are not deeply engaged. If she had cared for him, would she have looked at him with a smile, as she did last night?" Averil let this assertion pass. Mrs. Willmot was not a person of much penetration; she loved her children, but they could easily hoodwink her. Averil herself held a different opinion, and her conviction only deepened as time went on. Maud bore herself much as usual. She still fulfilled her numerous engagements, and seemed as much engrossed by her daily occupations as ever, though she was perhaps a trifle more haughty, more exacting in her demands on Georgina and Lottie. But Averil noticed how heavy her eyes looked when she came down in the morning, how often they were encircled with black rings. She ate little, but any remark on her loss of appetite seemed to irritate her. She was paler, too, and as time went on there were sharpened lines in her face; the lovely curves seemed to lose their roundness; a sort of haggardness replaced the youthful freshness. Averil tried once or twice to break down the girl's reserve, but her gentle hints availed nothing. Maud would have no sympathy, permit no condolence; and after a time Averil's thoughts were diverted into another channel. It was the middle of September now; Georgina had gone to visit some friends in Ireland, and Mrs. Willmot and Maud were planning to spend the greater part of October and November in Devonshire. Averil's expenses had been heavy that year, and she had given up, in consequence, a much-talked-of trip to Switzerland. "Next year, if I live, I will take Annette and Lottie," she said to Mr. Harland; "but Rodney is not leaving town just yet and I do not care to leave him. Perhaps I will take the girls later on to Brighton for a week or two; one summer in town will not hurt me;" and though Mr. Harland grumbled at this resolution, she carried her point. No, she could not leave Rodney; she was growing daily more anxious about him. He was often moody and irritable, had fits of gloom, followed by moods of reckless gayety. He was seldom at home, and when questioned about his engagements by his mother and sisters always answered evasively--Townley had asked him to go down to Cricklewood, or Forbes or Stewart had invited him. "Who is this Townley?" Maud had once asked. "Is he a new friend of yours, Rodney?" "Oh, I have known him for some time," he returned, curtly; "he is a chum of Forbes--he is one of the clique;" and then he sauntered out of the room. Averil looked up from her work. "Maud, I do not like the idea of this Mr. Townley. Frank knows him; he says he is the most worthless of the set--a thoroughly bad fellow. I am getting very anxious about Rodney." "I think he ought to stay at home more," was Maud's reply. "I must get mamma to lecture him. He has been borrowing money off her again--he spends far too much." "He would have been safer in Canada," returned Averil, quietly. But to this Maud made no response, only a shade crossed her face; if she regretted that false step, she did not say so; it is only a generous nature that owns its mistakes. That night Averil had a sad shock. She had been very busy all day, and had sat up later than usual to finish some letters. As usual, Rodney was out; but a little before one she heard Roberts admit him. She was just putting away her papers, and as she closed her desk and opened the door she heard the old butler's voice raised in a serious remonstrance. "Mr. Rodney, sir, you ought to be ashamed of yourself. You will wake your mother and the young ladies! Do, I beg of you, let me help you to bed before my mistress sees you; she is writing in her room." "All right, old fellow! Don't you put yourself out," returned a thick voice, curiously unlike Rodney's. As they passed, Averil covered her face with a low cry. She must shut out that sight--her boy, with his fair hair disheveled, and flushed, meaningless face, as he lurched past her unsteadily on the butler's arm. "Oh, Rodney, Rodney!" At that bitter cry the young prodigal seemed for the moment half sobered. "Never mind, Ave," he stammered; "I am only a little poorly. Roberts--he is a good fellow--will take care of me. Good-night!" Averil made no answer; she followed them up, with a white, stony face, and went to her room. There was no sleep for her that night. If vicarious shame could have saved Rodney, that bitter expiation might have been his. "But no man can save his brother, or make an atonement for him." Rodney looked miserable enough the next morning: his conscience was not yet hardened. Averil took no notice of him; it was Maud who lectured him in sharp accents for his irregular habits. "You will get into trouble one day if you go on like this," she said, in her hardest manner; and yet Maud knew nothing of the disgraceful scene. "You stop out late every night; you spend mamma's money, and you are forming idle, useless habits from always mixing with richer men. Mamma will be ruined if you go on like this." "What a pity you hindered me from going to Canada!" sneered Rodney; and somehow that home-thrust silenced Maud, and she shortly left the room. Averil was finishing her breakfast; she had risen late, after a sleepless night; but she only read her letters, and took no part in the conversation. Rodney glanced at her uneasily. "I wish you would speak to me, Ave," he said at last. "If you only knew how confoundedly miserable I feel. Yes, I know I made a beast of myself last night--you need not tell me that. Roberts has been rowing me. It was those fellows--they would keep taunting me with being a temperance man." Averil looked at him in speechless indignation; but the flash of the gray eyes was not pleasant to meet--they expressed their utter contempt, such measureless disdain. "Oh, of course I know you will be down on me; I have done for myself now." "Yes, and for me too. You have robbed me of a brother--do you think I can own you for one now?" "Do you mean that you are going to kick me out?"--in a tone of dismay. Certainly, Rodney had never expected this. "I will answer that question later," she said, sternly. "If you think such scenes are to be permitted in my house, you are strangely mistaken. These walls shall shelter no drunkard." "You have no right to call me such names," retorted Rodney, angrily. "I am no worse than other fellows. It was Saunders and Townley. They laid a wager--" "Stop--I will not hear you. Have you no manliness? Are you a child, to be led by other men? What do I want to know about Saunders and Townley, or any other of these worthless companions, who are ruining you? Will they answer for your sin, Rodney--for your miserable degradation of last night?" "You won't let a fellow speak," he said, quite cowed by this burst of indignation. "I know I made a wretched ass of myself. I am ashamed of myself, I am indeed, Ave; and if you will only look over it this once, I will promise you that it shall not occur again." "How am I to have faith in such a promise?" she returned, sadly; but her anger was lessening in spite of herself. He looked so wretched, so utterly woe-begone, and he was only a boy; she must give him another chance. Rodney read the softening in her voice. "Only try me," he said, eagerly; "I am not all bad--I am not, indeed! I will turn over a new leaf. I will drop Staunton and all those other fellows, and look out for a berth in earnest. Don't say you'll give me up. You are my best friend, Ave"--and there were tears in the poor lad's eyes. Averil's loving heart was not proof against this. He had been a mere boy when her father had married, and from the first she had taken to him. Rodney had never made any distinction between her and his own sisters. He had always been fond of her; he tried to take her hand now, and she did not draw it away. "You will try me, Ave?" "If you will give up the society of those men," she returned, in her old gentle manner. "Do, my dear boy--do, for my sake--break with them entirely, and with the club." "I will--I will, indeed--I promise you! I must go there to-day, because I have business with Townley." "Oh, not to-day--never again, Rodney!" "But I must, I tell you. Ave, I have business that can not be put off. After to-day I will promise you gladly. I am getting sick of the whole thing myself." "And you must go?" And Averil felt a sinking of her heart as she put the question. "I give you my word, I must; but I won't be long. There shall be no staying out to-night. I suppose"--looking at her wistfully--"that you would not let me kiss you, Ave?" Averil drew back. She had forgiven him, but she was not quite ready for that. She had often permitted his brotherly caress, but somehow the scene of last night was still before her. "I will shake hands instead, Rodney." But directly he had left the room she repented of her hardness. "I wish I had let him kiss me," she said to herself more than once that day. To distract herself, Averil ordered the carriage after luncheon, and took Annette and Lottie for a long drive. They had tea at a little village inn, and put up the horses for a couple of hours. Then they drove back leisurely in the cool of the evening. The girls had filled the carriage with festoons of honeysuckle and all kinds of wild-flowers. It was nearly nine when they returned. The little expedition had revived Averil, but her careworn look came back when Roberts told her that Mr. Rodney had not dined at home. "Miss Seymour was asking about him just now, ma'am. She said her mother was quite anxious, for he had promised to come early." Averil turned away without answering. She was sick at heart. Surely he had not forgotten his promise already? She was too weary to sit up: she was obliged to leave him to Roberts, who would have undergone any amount of fatigue to shield his young mistress. She let Unwin help her undress, and lay down in bed with the most miserable sense--that her trust was gone. Unwin saw the tears stealing through her closed eyelids. The faithful creature was relieved when worn-out Nature had its revenge, and Averil fell into a heavy sleep that lasted until late in the morning. She woke to find Unwin standing by the bed with a breakfast-tray, and an anxious expression on her pleasant face. "You have slept finely, ma'am," she said, as she opened the window a little wider. "It seemed a pity to disturb you, but Miss Seymour seemed to think it was late enough." "Why, it is ten o'clock!" replied Averil in dismay. "My good Unwin, you ought not to have let me sleep so long." And then, dropping her voice a little--"When did Mr. Rodney come home?" "He has not been home, ma'am," returned Unwin, in a distressed voice. "That is why Miss Seymour begged me to wake you. She and Mrs. Willmot seem very much worried; they say Mr. Rodney has never done such a thing in his life as to stop out all night. Mrs. Willmot is fretting herself about it. She will have it that something must have happened to him." Averil lay quite still for a moment; then she sprung up. "I must dress quickly," she said. "Put the tray on the table; I will drink the coffee presently. Unwin, you were wrong not to wake me. I must write to Mr. Harland at once; he will know what to do. Tell Mrs. Willmot that I will be with her soon." Averil hardly knew how she dressed that morning. Just before she left the room she opened her Bible for a moment, and her eyes rested on the words: "Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and he will sustain thee," and the promise seemed to comfort her. On her way down-stairs she encountered Annette and Lottie. They both looked very grave, and Annette slipped her hand through Averil's arm. "I am so sorry, my cousin. It is not good of Mr. Rodney to frighten us all like this." "He ought to be ashamed of himself!" added Lottie, indignantly. "Aunt is making herself quite ill." "You must not keep me," returned Averil, as she disengaged herself gently from Annette's detaining touch. She found her step-mother in a piteous condition. The poor lady had got it into her head that something terrible had happened to her boy. "He has been run over, or there has been a railway accident," she said, hysterically. "Averil, why don't you send Roberts to inquire at all the hospitals? He has never done such a thing in his life as to stop out all night. He knows how frightened I should be--" "Mamma," interrupted Maud, in a hard, resolute voice, "there is not need to conjure up such horrors. Why should there be an accident? Rodney is not a child; he is able to take care of himself. How do we know what may be detaining him?" But her words failed to convince her mother. It was some time before Averil could find an opportunity to speak, and then she had little comfort to give. "I think he is in some trouble, and that he is ashamed to come home," she said, in a low tone. "Some money trouble, I mean. I am going to write to Mr. Harland; he will know best what to do, and Roberts shall take my letter." And then she withdrew to her room, leaving Maud to combat the weary, endless conjectures, the tearful questions that were so difficult to answer, mingled with incessant upbraiding; for Mrs. Willmot was selfish in her grief. "I wish we had let him go," she moaned. "It is your own fault, Maud, for he had nearly persuaded me. If anything happens to your brother, how are we to forgive ourselves?"--and so on through the slow-dragging hours. No wonder Maud grew paler as the day wore on; her own heart felt heavy as lead, and she could find few words of comfort for her distressed mother. CHAPTER XX. "HAVE YOU FOUND HIM, FRANK?" Averil was somewhat surprised when, two hours later, Frank Harland made his appearance. His father had a touch of the gout, he explained. He had come in his stead to offer his services. He listened attentively as Averil put him in possession of the few facts. "I will go down to the club at once," he said starting up with a business-like air that seemed to promise efficient masculine aid. "Don't trouble more than you can help, Averil. I shall be sure to find out everything from some of the men. I expect the foolish fellow has got into difficulties, and is keeping himself dark." Mrs. Willmot cheered up a little when Averil imparted the young lawyer's view of the case; her imagination ceased to dwell so exclusively on hospital wards and fractured limbs. She had horrified Maud and Lottie by mysterious hints of belated folks smuggled into dark entries. "How do I know he is not made away with by ruffians?" she had sobbed; and Maud, who had reached the limits of her endurance, and who was suffering secretly the deadly sickness of remorse, silenced her with impatient harshness. "Mother you will drive me crazy," she said at last. "Why will you say such things? It is cruel to us!" And Mrs. Willmot, who was easily quelled by her eldest daughter, relapsed into weak tears. It was Annette who came to Maud's relief at last. "Let her talk to me," she said, quietly. "The air will do you good; this room is so close. She can say what she likes to me, and it will not hurt--not as it hurts you. Oh, I know all about it! She must talk; it is her only relief;" and, to Maud's surprise, she placed herself beside the poor lady. "You will talk to me, will you not?" she said, taking her hand in her pretty, earnest way. "I will listen to you--oh, yes, I will listen! I think there is a difference in people--some are so silent in their grief. What is it you fear? Surely the good God will take care of your son! You have prayed to Him? No!"--as Mrs. Willmot shook her head--"then no wonder you are miserable! When one can not pray there is no help." A swift pang of regret crossed Maud's mind as she heard these simple words. They had treated Annette badly; they had ignored her existence as far as possible, and this was the kindly return she was making them. Maud felt as though she hated herself as she paced restlessly up and down the garden walks, straining her ears for the sound of Frank's wheels. "What have I ever done in my life?" she thought, bitterly. "Have I considered any one but myself? I deserve my punishment; I deserve all this suspense and misery!" But so wretched was her mood, that though her repentance was real, and there was nothing she would not have done to ease her mother's mind, she could find no words for Averil when she joined her. "Dear Maud, I think this is worse for you than for any one," whispered Averil, affectionately, looking into the brilliant, strained eyes, that seemed as though they could not shed a tear. "I know how trying it has been; but Annette is managing your mother so nicely." "Don't Averil; I can't talk," returned Maud, hoarsely, and she turned away. No, she could not talk. Averil meant kindly, but it was not for her to understand. "If anything happens to Rodney it will be my fault--mine," she murmured, as she resumed her restless walk. It seemed hours before Frank returned. Averil met him in the hall, and took him into her own room. "Well," she asked, breathlessly, as she leaned against a table, "have you found him, Frank?" He shook his head. "He was not there. No one knows exactly where he is. Will you sit down?" bringing her a chair, and compelling her with gentle force to rest. "There is no need to stand for I have much to tell you." "Ah! then you have found out all about it?" And Frank nodded. "He is in money difficulties--I was sure of that from the first. I have seen Forbes, and he has told me all. That fellow Townley--he seems to be a precious cad--got him to put his name to a bill some months ago. It has been renewed. Well, I will spare you all that part. I need only tell you that Townley behaved like a mean hound about it. He knew all the time that he was sold up, and that they would come on Rodney." "Was it for a large amount?" "It was for three hundred and fifty pounds--a pretty sum for a young fellow to pay who is living on his mother! He made the poor boy believe that it was just a matter of form--that he would not be implicated in the least." "Frank, I will pay it. It is sad to throw my father's money away, but we must clear Rodney. He has been duped by this man." "Stop! There is more to tell. It is a very bad business altogether. They left the club together last evening--they had been dining with Forbes--and the vexation and terror, and the wine he had taken, had got into the poor fellow's head. He was in an awful rage when he left the club--they all say that--but Townley was only sneering and laughing at him. Forbes says he heard Rodney mutter that he would have his revenge, and, not quite liking the look of things, he lighted his cigar and followed them." "Wait a moment, Frank;" and Averil caught at his arm a moment. She was white to her lips. Then, after a minute--"Now go on. I will try to bear it!" And Frank obeyed her. "Forbes did not like to follow them too closely, or to act as a spy, but he could see they were quarreling. They had turned into a quieter street, as though to carry on their discussion without hinderance, and after a time they stood still under a lamp-post. Forbes was hesitating whether he should pass them or not, when he heard Rodney say, 'You have done for me, but I will be even with you;' and then he raised his hand and gave him a terrible blow, and the next moment he saw Townley fall." Averil moved her lips, but no words came. "Forbes rushed up to them and thrust Rodney away. 'You have killed him!' he said; and for the minute he thought he was speaking the truth. Townley had fallen and struck the back of his head against the curb; he was insensible, but not dead. As he knelt down and tried to support him in his arms a policeman hurried up to him. 'I saw it done, sir,' he said, excitedly, 'and I tried to nab the gentleman; but he was too quick for me. One of my mates is giving him chase. He is not dead, is he sir?' 'No; I can feel his heart beat,' returned Forbes. 'You must get me a cab, and I will take him round to his rooms--they are not far from here.' And then he went on to tell me how they took him home and sent for the doctor, and how the physician feared concussion of the brain. Forbes thinks he will not die. Don't look so white, Averil." "Ah! I did not see you. Miss Seymour," as Maud's rigid face appeared in the window. Evidently she had heard all. "Rodney--where is he?" she asked. But her voice was almost inaudible; and Frank went on addressing Averil. "No one knows what has become of him. I have inquired at Scotland Yard, but it appears he eluded the man who chased him. He is in hiding somewhere. Don't you see, Averil, he is suffering a double fear. Townley had told him the Jews would be down on him, and Forbes' statement that he had killed Townley made him feel himself a murderer. He dare not come home, for fear of being arrested; and our difficulty is--where are we to look for him?" "Oh, Frank, this is dreadful! What are we to do?" But Maud said nothing. She leaned against Averil's chair, with her despairing eyes fixed on Frank's face. "We can do little at present, I fear. Until Townley is out of danger we dare not hazard an advertisement. It would only put them on his track. I can set a special agent to work, and, if you wish it, we can settle with Isaacs about the bill." "Yes, yes: I do wish it!" "Then it shall be done at once. I am not without hopes, Averil, that he may find means to communicate with us. I am sure, if Townley recovers, that we shall hear from him soon." "And if he dies?" "Then he will get out of the country. But for that he will need money. But I have a strong conviction that he will not die. Now I will go and see after this business, and come back to you when I have settled it." "But; you must not go without your dinner. I told Roberts that we would have a cold supper to-night. Go into the dining-room, Frank, and I will send some one to look after you. I must go to Mrs. Willmot now." Frank was not unwilling to refresh his inner man. He went off obediently. He blessed Averil in his heart when, a few minutes later, Annette came into the room. "My cousin wishes me to attend to you," she said, in her serious, sedate way. "Lottie is out, and Miss Seymour is engaged. What is there I can get you? There is cold lamb and salad, and a mayonnaise of salmon." "I will help myself, and you shall sit and talk to me," returned Frank, who was quite equal to the occasion. There was something restful to him in the girl's tranquil unconsciousness. Frank's heart beat a little faster as she took the chair beside him, and talked to him in her soft voice. "It is too horrible; there is no English word to express it. You must find him, Mr. Harland--you and monsieur--or my poor cousin will break her heart. You have hope, you say? That is well. In every case one must always have hope." "I will not leave a stone unturned; you may be sure of that," replied the young man, fervently. He was ready to promise anything to this gentle, dark-eyed girl who seemed to repose such faith in him. Something of the old chivalrous feeling came into Frank's heart as he listened to her; a longing to be her true knight--hers and Averil's--and to hew his way through any obstacles. "I shall not be here again to-night," he said, as he took a cup of coffee from her hand. "It is late now, and I must consult my father. But to-morrow--will you tell Averil that I will be here as early as possible? I shall see you then?" looking at her inquiringly. "But, certainly! Why not?" she rejoined, with naïve surprise. "This rose--it is one of the last--will you give it to monsieur?" "Monsieur--it is always monsieur," he returned, rather dolefully. "I wish you thought of me half as much." "But I think of you always," she replied, simply, "when I remember all my good friends." Frank was obliged to content himself with this temperate compliment. It was this simplicity, this child-like, truthful nature, that had drawn Frank to her from the first. "I have never seen any girl like her," he said to his confidante, Louie, that night. "But, with all her sweetness, I doubt if she cares for me in the least." "You will have to find that out for yourself, by and by," returned Louie, in her sensible, matter-of-fact way. In her heart she thought no one could be good enough for her brother. Louie's ideal sister-in-law would have been an impossible combination of beauty, intellect, and amiability--a walking miracle of virtues. She honestly believed that there was no man living to equal her father and Frank. Annette was very nice, but she almost wished that Frank had not been so hasty in his choice. Mr. Harland quite forgot his pint as he listened to his son. He rubbed up his grey hair with mingled annoyance and perplexity. "I always told Averil the lad was as weak as water," he said, irritably. "I hope that crazy mother of his is content with her work now. They have brought things to a pretty pass between them. Why, it seems to me that he has only just missed killing the man." "I am afraid that Rodney thinks he has done for him. I wish we could find him, father--the poor fellow must be suffering a martyrdom." "And serve him right, too," returned Mr. Harland, with unusual severity; and then he and his son plunged into a long business discussion. It was a miserable evening at Redfern House. Averil could not leave her step-mother, who was in a pitiable condition of mind and body. Maud at last suggested that Dr. Radnor, who knew her mother's constitution, should send her a composing draught; and as this took immediate effect, they were at last set free. Lottie and Annette found it impossible to settle to their ordinary occupations, and after supper they sat out in the moonlight, talking in low, subdued tones of the sad events of the day. Lottie, who was very tender-hearted, and easily moved by other people's feelings, cried at intervals; she was fond of her cousin, in spite of his love of teasing, and the thought of him, lonely and unhappy, oppressed her sadly. "I was afraid we were too happy," she murmured. "I don't think I have ever been so happy in my life. It has been such a beautiful summer--it brought you, my dear Fairy Order, and, oh! lots of nice things." "It will not be always dark," replied Annette, quietly. "Look at that sky, my Lottie; how the little stars are shining through the cloud. Presently it will pass away. Oh, there is my cousin coming in search of us." Yes, Averil had come to fetch them. It was late, very late, she said, and they would be safer in bed. Unwin had offered to watch that night. Averil could not rid herself of the thought that perhaps in the darkness of the night their poor boy might steal into his home. "He will see the light, and then he will know we are expecting him," she said to herself, as she followed the girls up-stairs. CHAPTER XXI. JIM O'REILLY. Averil had just reached her own room when she remembered that she had not bidden Maud good-night. It was very late, and just for a moment she hesitated; then she crossed the passage and tapped softly at her door. There was no response. She knocked again, and then gently turned the handle. For the instant she thought the room was empty, until a sound of a low smothered sob from the bed arrested her. The moon had retired behind a cloud, and in the dim uncertain light Averil could just discern a dark form stretched across the bed. A great pang of pity crossed her as she groped her way to it--it was Maud; she had thrown herself down, fully dressed, upon the quilt, with her face buried in the pillow, and was trying to choke down the hysterical sobs that were shaking her from head to foot. The strain of the last few hours had been too great, and she had broken down the moment she found herself alone. The overmastering passion made her deaf to everything; and, as Averil stood beside her, the words, "Oh, Oliver, Oliver! cruel, cruel!" reached her ears distinctly. There were pitying tears in Averil's eyes, and then with a sudden impulse she stooped over her and drew Maud's head to her bosom, and soothed her as one would soothe a broken-hearted child. "Do not try to check it; you must give way at last. All this time you have borne it so bravely and alone. Why should you fear me, your sister Averil? Oh, my poor dear, I know how you have suffered. And then this last cruel blow!" Then, as bitter sobs only answered her, she went on, tenderly, "You have been so good to-day; you have not thought of yourself, but only of your poor mother. Do you think I do not know how terribly bad it has been for you?" "Don't praise me; don't say anything kind," returned Maud, hoarsely, as her strong will forced down another quivering sob. "Poor mamma! how gladly would I change places with her! She is unhappy, but she has not this weight," putting her hands on her breast. "Averil, if anything has happened to Rodney, I shall have been my brother's murderer. Mamma would have let him go, only--" she stopped, and Averil's sisterly arms only pressed her closer. "You must not say such things," she returned, gently. "You have been selfish and thoughtless; you did not think of his good, but only of your own; but if you had realized all this mischief, you would have been the first to bid him go." "You say that to comfort me," she returned, in a broken voice. "But, Averil, you do not know. I shut my eyes willfully; I sacrificed Rodney to my own interests; I thought of nothing but Oliver; and now I am punished, for he has left me. He taught me to love him; he made me believe that he cared only for me; and now he is going to marry another woman!" and the poor girl shuddered as she said this. "Dear Maud, he was not worthy of you." "Not worthy of me?" with the old scorn in her voice. Then she broke down again, and buried her face on Averil's shoulder. "What does it matter if he were not worthy, when I loved him? I loved him! Oh, you are good to me, but you do not know--how can you know?--all I have suffered." "I know more than you think, dear," returned Averil, in a low, thrilling voice. "I may not have suffered in the same way--for to me there is no pain like the pain of finding one we love unworthy of our affection; but if it will comfort you, Maud--if it will make you more sure of my sympathy with you in this bitter trial--I do not mind owning that I also have known trouble!" "You have cared for some one!" starting up in her surprise. "Oh, Averil, I am so sorry." "Well, so am I," with quaint simplicity. "It was very foolish, was it not?--a little crooked body like me. But it was my father's fault. Dear old father! how his heart was set on it! No, Maud, I am not going to tell you the story; it is not old enough. In one sense I was happier than you, for he was good--oh, so good!--though he could never have cared for me. Well, it is past and over, and I am wiser and happier now--no one suffered but myself." "Oh, Averil, how can you speak so calmly?" "My dear, there was a time when I could not have spoken so; when I thought life looked just like one long, dull blank, when I did not know how I was to go on living in such a dreary world. I remember I was in this heavy mood one day when the words came into my mind; 'In the world ye shall have tribulation;' and then I said to myself, 'What if this be my special cross--the one that my Lord meant me to bear? Shall I refuse it, because it is so painful, when He carried His for me?' I had been bearing it alone, much as you have done; but it came upon me then that I must kneel down and tell Him all--the disappointment, and the human shame, and the misery, and all that was making me feel so faint and sick with pain. And when I rose the burden was not so heavy, and it has been growing lighter and lighter ever since. Dear Maud, will you try my remedy?" "I can not, Averil. You will be shocked, but I have never prayed in my life. Of course I have said my prayers--just a collect or two morning and evening, and at church; but to speak like that, to tell out one's troubles--" "There is no comfort like it," returned Averil, in her sweet, clear voice. "When we talk to others there is so much to explain; we fear to be misunderstood; we measure our words anxiously; but there is no need with our Heavenly Friend, 'Lord, Thou knowest'--one can begin like that, and pour it all out. We are not alone any more; we fear no longer that our burden will crush us: human sympathy is sweet, but we dare not lean on it. We fear to exhaust it; there is only one sympathy that is inexhaustible." "If I were only like you!" sighed Maud; and then, in broken words, it all came out--the tardy confession of an ill-spent youth. The barrier once removed, there were no limits to that long-deferred repentance. At last Maud saw herself by a clearer light, and owned honestly the two-fold faults that had been the bane and hinderance of her young life--pride and selfishness. Yes, she was humbled now; the scorching finger of affliction had been laid upon her, but she had refused to recognize the chastening hand. It needed another stroke, another trial, before her haughty spirit was bowed in the dust. Maud never knew how dearly she loved her brother, until terror for his fate awoke her slumbering conscience. "If I could only suffer in his stead!" she moaned, more than once. Averil's disciplined nature knew better than to break the bruised reed. With gentle tact and patience she listened to all Maud's bitter confession of her shortcomings. In her sturdy truth she did not venture to contradict her. Only when she had finished she said, tenderly: "Yes, you have been very selfish; but you will be better now. If you only knew how I love you for telling me all this, Maud! I have still so many faults. Life is not easy. We must help each other; we must be real sisters, not half-hearted ones. And one thing more--we will not lose courage about our dear boy;" and then, after a few more words, and a tearful embrace from Maud, they separated. If Averil's limbs ached and her head felt weary, there was thankfulness in her heart. At last the barrier was removed between her and Maud; the patient endurance of years was reaping its fruits of reward. Averil's generosity had already forgiven everything. Hers was the charity which "hopeth all things." Maud was very quiet and subdued the next day. She looked ill, but nothing would induce her to spare herself. "My mother likes to have me with her," she said, in answer to an affectionate remonstrance from Averil. "Why should Annette be troubled?" And Averil was obliged to let her have her way. Frank kept his promise, and came early, but he could give little comfort. There was no news of Rodney, and Mr. Townley still lay in the same precarious state. He came again in the evening, and stayed to dinner. It seemed a relief to Averil to have him with them, and his cheery influence had a brightening effect on the dejected household. Annette told him frankly that she was glad to see him, only she blushed a little at his evident delight in learning that fact. "Was I wrong to say that?" she thought; but she would not confess this doubt to Lottie. "It is an ill wind that blows no one any good." Frank might have felt this, if he had been been in the mood for proverbs; but he was too full of sympathy for his friends, too anxious on Rodney's account, to consider any personal benefit. His father's touch of gout was certainly in his favor: still, he condoled with him dutifully on his return from Redfern House. He sent a line by a messenger the next morning to tell Averil that Mr. Townley was certainly better. "Doctor Robertson has hopes of him now," he wrote. "My father is still incapacitated for business, though he is in less pain, so I am up to my ears in work; but I will contrive to look in on you at dinner-time. I shall possibly spend the night in town, as I have an early appointment for to-morrow." Averil carried these good tidings to Maud, who was obliged to own herself ill. She had been seized with faintness while dressing, and Lottie had summoned Averil in alarm. Averil took things into her own hands very quietly; she made Maud lie down again, and put her under Unwin's care. When Dr. Radnor came to see Mrs. Willmot she would just give him a hint to prescribe for Maud, too. Secret trouble and want of sleep were telling even on her fine constitution. She wanted care, rest, and, above all, freedom from anxiety. Averil did her best for her. She prevented Mrs. Willmot invading her daughter's room, by representing to her that Maud was trying to sleep. She and Annette mounted guard over the poor, distracted woman, who could not be induced to employ herself or to do anything but wander about aimlessly, bemoaning herself to every one who had time to listen to her. Maud could at least be in the cool, shaded room that Unwin kept so quiet, and brood over her wretchedness in peace. Now and then Averil came to her side with a gentle word, or Lottie, in a subdued voice, asked how she felt. For the first time in her life, Maud felt it was a luxury to be ill. No one expected her to make efforts. When every one looked so grave and sad, there was no need for her to try and hide her misery. When Frank came that night he was shocked at Averil's wan looks. The suspense of these three days was telling on her. She shook her head at his first kind speech. "It can not be helped," she said, quietly. "I was never one of the strong ones, Frank;" and she turned the subject. "Maud is ill, too, and Mrs. Willmot is in the same miserable state, unable to settle to anything. Dear Annette is so good to her. We have not told Georgina: we can not bear to do so. It would only make one more to suffer; and she is so far away. Have you heard of Mr. Townley again to-night." "Yes, and he is going on well. If we could only let Rodney know that--" And then Roberts announced dinner, and Frank had no time to say more. A little later, as he was speaking to Averil in the bay-window, Roberts came in rather hastily. "There is a man outside asking to speak to you, ma'am," he said, addressing his mistress. "He seems a rough sort of body, like a crossing-sweeper; and he refused to send his message by me. He wasn't overcivil when I wanted him to state his business. 'I'll speak to Miss Willmot, the mistress of the house, and no one else;' and that's all I could get out of him, ma'am." "Never mind, Roberts: I'll go to him;" for the old butler looked somewhat aggrieved. "We will go together," returned Frank. "I dare say it is some begging petition, as my father says. You play the part of Lady Bountiful far too often, and of course you are taken in." Averil smiled, but she was in no mood to refute the accusation. "You may come if you like," she said, with gentle nonchalance. "But I am rather apt to form my own conclusions. Where have you put him, Roberts?" "Well, ma'am, I just shut the door on him, for he was not over and above respectable," returned the old servant. But both he and Frank were surprised to find that she recognized the man as one of her endless protégés. "Why, it is Jimmy!" she said, as he pulled off his frowzy cap, and displayed his grizzled gray locks. "I hope your wife is not worse, Jimmy?" "Bless your kind heart, miss, she is doing finely. It is only an errand the young gentleman asked me to do for him. 'You will put this into her own hands, Jim O'Reilly,' he says to me; and, the saints be praised!--I have done it," finished Jim, as he burrowed in the pocket of his ragged jacket and produced a dirty scrap of paper that smelled strongly of tobacco. Averil gave a little cry, for she had recognized the handwriting, scrawled and blotted as it was. "I must see you, Averil. I can endure this suspense no longer. Do not be afraid. Trust yourself to Jimmy. He is as honest as the day, though a bit soft. He will bring you to me." No more--not even a signature. But there was no mistaking Rodney's clear, familiar writing. She held it out to Frank. A gleam of pleasure crossed his face as he read it. "Shall we go at once, Averil?" for she was watching him anxiously. "Yes, yes. I will put on my bonnet. I must just tell Maud where we are going. What a comfort to have you, Frank!" But Jim O'Reilly, who had been standing stolidly aside, struck in here. "I can't be taking the pair of you, surely. It is Miss Willmot the gentleman wants. Better come along of me alone, miss, and then folks won't ask so many questions." "But I could not think of letting Miss Willmot go alone," returned Frank, decidedly. "Look here, my good fellow: I am an old friend of the family, and Mr. Seymour will be glad to see me." But evidently Jimmy held doggedly to his own opinion, until Averil interposed. "He is right, Jimmy. You need not be afraid of trusting this gentleman. He knows about everything. Do not let us waste any more time in talking. Roberts, we shall want a cab." "I will fetch one round at half past nine, sharp," interrupted Jimmy. "Look here, missus," addressing Averil, "I am to bring you along of the young gentleman, ain't I? Well, begging your pardon, I must be doing it my own way. It is not dark enough for the job yet. Just keep your mind easy for another hour, and I'll be round with a four-wheeler, as sure as my name is Jim O'Reilly. We have a goodish bit to go, and I'll look out a horse that is fresh enough to take you there and back. Half past nine--not before, and not after;" and Jimmy shambled toward the door. "Oh, Frank, don't let him go!" exclaimed Averil, in a distressed voice; and Frank nodded, and followed him out. He came back after a few minutes. "It is all right," he observed. "The man knows what he is about. He is going to smuggle us into some slum or other. How thankful I am to be here!" And Averil indorsed this with all her heart as she ran up-stairs to share the good tidings with Maud. CHAPTER XXII. MOPS IS ADDED TO THE PENSIONERS. Averil thought that hour the longest she had ever spent in her life; she was ready nearly half an hour before the time, and was sitting watching the minute hand of the clock, or starting up at every sound. But she need not have disquieted herself--Jimmy was faithful to his appointment. At the exact stroke of the half hour a cab was at the door, with Jimmy on the box. Frank handed Averil in, and then tried to question Jimmy; but the old sweeper was invulnerable. "I'll take you there right enough. Don't trouble your head, sir. Now, then, cabby;" and Frank had to jump in hastily, for fear he should be left behind. If the waiting seemed endless, the drive seemed still more interminable. A close, sultry day had ended in a wet night; only a few passers-by were hurrying through the rain. In the better thoroughfares the shops were closed: only the flaming gas-lamps, or some illuminated gin-palace, enabled Frank to see the route they were taking. Happily, they had a good horse, just fresh from his stable, and a steady driver. By and by, when Averil was tired of straining her eyes in the hope of recognizing each locality, Frank discovered that they were turning into Oxford Street, and a few minutes afterward the unsavory precints of the Seven Dials were revealed to them. Late as it was, the whole neighborhood seemed swarming out-of-doors--women with ragged shawls over their heads, and trodden-down, slip-shod heels, were passing through the swing-doors of a dingy-looking tavern; loafing men, barefooted children, babies in arms, and toddling infants blocked up the narrow pavements. Averil looked out on them pitifully, until the cab suddenly pulled up, and Jimmy appeared at the door. "We won't go no further, master," he said. "You just take the lady down that there street," jerking his thumb backward over his shoulder. "Half-way down on the left-hand side you will see a bird-fancier's--Daniel Sullivan is the name. Just walk in and say Jim O'Reilly wants to know the price of that there fancy pigeon, and you'll find you've hit the mark. Cabby and I will wait here; you will find us when you want us." "Come, Averil," interposed Frank, eagerly; but Averil lingered a moment to slip some money into the hand of a white-faced, weary-looking woman, with a baby in her arms, and a crying child, hardly able to walk, clinging to her shawl. "Take them in out of the rain. God help you, you poor things!" she whispered, as the woman looked at her in a dazed way, and then at the coins in her hand. That dumb, wistful look haunted Averil as Frank hurried her along. Some quarrel was going on--a woman's shrill tones, then rough oaths and curses in a man's voice, mingled with the rude laughter of the lookers-on. "Sure you are in the right of it, Biddy!" exclaimed one slatternly virago. "Ben ought to be ashamed of himself for calling himself a man--the sarpent he is, to trample on a poor cratur, and to get her by the hair of her head, the owld bully!" "Daniel Sullivan--this is the place," whispered Frank, as he drew Averil through the narrow door-way into a small, dimly lighted room, crowded with cages and hutches, wherein were rabbits, pigeons, and every species of bird. A dwarfish old man, with a gray beard and a fur cap, was haggling with a rough-looking costermonger over the price of a yellow puppy. The mother, a mongrel, with a black patch over her eye, was gazing at them in an agonized manner, and every moment giving the puppy a furtive lick. "Get out, Mops," growled her master, angrily. "You aren't going to keep this 'ere puppy, so you may as well make up your mind to it;" and Mops feebly whined and shivered. The poor creature's misery appealed to Averil's soft heart. She heard the costermonger say, as he took his pipe out of his mouth. "I will give you a tanner for the pup;" when, to Frank's surprise she interfered: "Will you let me have that dog and the puppy? I have taken rather a liking to them. I would give you five shillings." "I ain't so sure about parting with Mops," returned the old man, gruffly. "She ain't much to look at, but she is a knowing one." Evidently Mops was knowing, for she wagged her tail, and licked her puppy again, with an imploring glance at Averil that fairly melted her heart. Daniel was induced to hesitate at the offer of seven shillings and sixpence, and in another moment Mops and the yellow puppy were Averil's property, to be added to the list of Mother Midge's pensioners. Frank waited until the costermonger had gone out grumbling, and then he asked for Jim O'Reilly's fancy pigeon. The old bird fancier looked up quickly from under his overhanging eyebrows. "Oh, that's the ticket, is it? Come along, sir;" and he pushed open a door, and ushered them into a close little room, lighted somewhat dimly by a tallow candle, and reeking of tobacco smoke. As they entered, Rodney, who was sitting by the table as though he had fallen asleep, with his head on his arms, started up; and at the sight of his white, haggard face and miserable eyes, Averil's arms were round his neck in a moment. "Oh, Rodney, my darling, at last we have found you! Why have you kept us in such suspense three whole days?--and we have been so wretched." And all the time she spoke she was fondling his hands, and pushing the hair off his forehead, and the poor lad was clinging to her as though she were his only refuge. "Oh, Ave!" was all he could get out, for the lump to his throat almost choked him. He did not seem to notice Frank; he was half awake, and dazed, and paralyzed with misery. Averil was shocked to see the change in her boy; his eyes were sunken, he looked as though he had not slept or eaten, and his hand shook like an old man's. "Don't you hate me?" he murmured, hoarsely, in her ear. "Ave, I'm a murderer--a murderer!" "My darling, no. You are no such thing," she returned, soothing him, for his manner terrified her. "Do you know, Frank and I have good news for you? Mr. Townley is not dead. Dear Rodney, God has been very merciful. He would not permit you to spoil your life; He has given you another chance. The poor man was stunned by your violence, but not killed; he is better, recovering--indeed, he will not die; will he, Frank?" For it seemed to her as though Rodney could not believe her--as though he dared not take in the full meaning of her words. He had pushed her away, and now he stood with his trembling hands on her shoulders, and his heavy, blood-shot eyes trying to read her face. "You are deceiving me--he is dead," he muttered. For the moment Averil thought the shock had turned the poor lad's brain; but Frank knew better; his common sense came to her aid. "Nonsense! Don't play the fool, Seymour," he said, with assumed impatience. "You know as well as I do that Averil is not the girl to tell you an untruth. Of course, Townley is not dead. I am going to see him to-morrow, and offer damages. We have taken up the bill for you, and it is all settled. You have got off far better than you deserve." Frank was not mincing the matter; but his brusque, matter-of-fact speech seemed to have the effect of recalling Rodney's scattered faculties. He drew a long breath, changed color, and finally burst into tears. Frank gave Averil a reassuring nod. "It will be all right now. I'll come back presently, after I have had a look at Mops;" for Frank's tact was seldom at fault, and his kindly heart, so like his father's, told him that Averil would like to be alone with her boy. "After all, there is no cordial like a woman's sympathy" he thought, as he stood looking into a wooden box, where Mops, relieved in her maternal mind, was sleeping with her puppy. Frank had time to indulge in a great many reflections before he thought it prudent to go back. Rodney looked more like himself now; he rose from his chair, and put out his hand to Frank somewhat timidly. "I could not offer it before," he said, in a low voice. "I thought I should never venture to shake hands with an honest man again. I felt like Cain, branded for the whole term of my miserable life. Will you take it, Harland?" "To be sure I will;" and Frank shook it cordially. "Let bygones be bygones. We are not any of us ready to throw stones. Averil, don't you think Jimmy will be tired of waiting? and our cabby will be making his fortune out of us. Besides, they do shut up shop here, even in the Seven Dials. Come along, Seymour. I expect you have had about enough of this place." "Do you mean I am to go home with you?" for, somehow, such a blessed idea had never occurred to Rodney. Home--he had never hoped to see it again, "But it is not safe, is it, Ave?" "And why not?" returned Frank, in his cheerful, off hand manner. "Of course, Isaacs had a writ out against you, but Averil has settled that. As far as that goes, you are a free man. I hear Townley's solicitor intends to claim damages. I am going to see after that to-morrow. Your mother means to sell out of the Funds and clear you. I can't help thinking"--and here Frank eyed him critically--"that a warm bath and a shave--I strongly recommend a shave--and a good supper will make a different man of you. We will just settle with your landlord and Jim O'Reilly, and then we will make the best of our way home." And to this they both assented. But Averil did not forget her new pensioners--oh, dear, no! Mops and her puppy were both put into the cab. The way home did not seem half so long, for Rodney was telling them all they wanted to know. He described to them his panic-stricken flight that night, and how he took refuge in a dark entry, where Jim O'Reilly found him. "He was a regular pensioner of mine," explained Rodney, "and he recognized me at once. 'You come along with me,' he said, when I had implored his assistance. 'There is a pal of mine in the Seven Dials that will keep you dark for a bit. You will be safe along of Daniel Sullivan;' and then he brought me here. I believe I have been nearly out of my mind half the time. And at last I could bear it no longer, and then Jim said he would take my note. I thought I must see you and get some money; that you would help me to escape out of the country. I never had a doubt that Townley was dead. Forbes' words, 'You have killed him!' rang in my ears day and night. Oh, Ave, if I can forget what you have done for me to-night!"--and the pressure of his hand spoke volumes. "Seymour, there is still that post in Canada. Just at the last moment Hunsden was unable to go. They cabled to us yesterday for another man." This was joyful tidings to Averil--a mute thanksgiving for another mercy crossed her lips. But Rodney only said, in a dispirited voice, that Mr. Harland never would give him the chance again. "How can I expect people to trust me after what has happened?" "We'll talk of that later on," was Frank's answer; and then the cab stopped, and the door flew open, as though Roberts had been stationed there some time. "I am glad to see you, sir," he said, as Rodney sprang up the steps; for Roberts was a privileged person, and knew all the family secrets. Mrs. Willmot was in her dressing-room, and Rodney went up at once to see her and Maud. When he came down he found a comfortable meal ready for him. How sweet and home-like it looked to the poor prodigal! But for the sight of Mops, who was making herself quite at home in an arm-chair, blinking with one eye at the eatables, those three days might have been some hideous nightmare. Rodney rubbed his eyes, and then looked again, and met Averil's smile. "I must see you eat and drink before I go to bed," she said, beckoning him to a seat beside her. "Frank says he is hungry, and no wonder, for it is nearly one o'clock. Frank, will you put down a plate for Mops--the poor thing looks half starved!" And by the way Mops devoured her meal, Averil was probably right. * * * * * How peacefully the household at Redfern House slept that night! What a happy reunion the next morning, when Rodney took his accustomed place at the breakfast table by his mother's side! It was such a pity, as Annette observed, that Maud should be missing. Poor Mrs. Willmot could scarcely take her eyes off her boy; every moment she broke into the conversation to indulge in some pitying exclamation about his looks. "Did not dear Averil think he looked ill? He had grown thin; he was altered somehow." Then it was, "Poor, darling Maud had not slept all night; her nerves were in a shocking state;" and so on; but no one attended to her. Frank was talking to Annette in rather a low voice, and Rodney was listening to Averil. Frank tore himself away with much reluctance. True, he was coming again that evening. He was to see Mr. Townley's solicitor, and to offer apologies and ample damages on Rodney's account; and there was the Canada scheme to be discussed, for he had already hinted to Averil that there was not a moment to lose. When Frank had gone off, Averil sent Rodney to sit with his sister, who was still too weak to leave her bed; and then she went into her own room and lay down on the couch and looked out on the sunshiny garden. Much to the black poodle's disgust, Mops had followed her there; Mops's sense of maternal dignity was evidently strongly developed--she had certainly a ridiculous fondness for the fat, rollicking, yellow thing. It amused Averil to see the way Mops looked at her every now and then, as much as to say, "Did you ever see a finer, handsomer puppy?" It was utter peace to Averil to lie there and watch the thrushes on the lawn; the soft ripeness of the September breeze seemed laden with a thousand vintages; the birds' twitterings, the bees' humming, even the idle snapping of Ponto at the flies--all seemed to lull her into drowsiness. She woke from a delicious doze to find Rodney beside her. He was about to move quietly away, but she stretched out her hand to stop him. "I have woke you," he said, penitently. "Ave, I never saw you asleep before. You have no idea what a child you looked;" and there was a little touch of awe in the young man's voice. Something in Averil's aspect, in the frail form, the pure, soft outlines, the child-like innocence, seemed to appeal to his sense of reverence. Rodney was not wrong, for was she not a happy child? just then resting in her Father's love, content to trust herself and her future to Him. "You look too shadowy and unsubstantial altogether," he went on, half seriously, half humorously; "as though you only wanted a pair of wings to fly away. But we could not spare you yet--we could not indeed." "Not till the time comes," she said, stroking his face as he knelt beside her. "Oh, Rodney, how nice it is to have you again! Do you think I should ever forget my boy, wherever I may be--'in this room or the next?'--as some one has quaintly said." "Oh, one can't tell about those sort of things," he returned, vaguely. "No; you are right, and I have never troubled myself with such questions, as some people do. How can we tell if we shall be permitted to see our dear ones still militant here on earth? I am content to leave all such matters; our limited human intelligences are unfit to argue out these deep things. Of one truth only I am convinced--that God knows best." "I always said you were a little saint, Ave." "Nonsense!" she returned, playfully. "I don't believe you know the meaning of the term. Do you remember what Dryden said?-- "'Glossed over only by a saintlike show.' "It is far too big a word to apply to a poor little sinner like me. Now, I want to talk to you about something else, Rodney--something peculiarly earthly--in short, about Canada; for Frank will be here this evening, and we must make up our minds on the subject." CHAPTER XXIII. "GOOD-BYE, AVE!" Frank had a whole budget of news that evening. He had seen Mr. Townley, who was recovering fast, and had made him handsome apologies on Rodney's part. "They say there is good in every one," observed Frank, sententiously, looking round a little patronizingly on his listeners. "There is often a touch of good in what seems most evil. Evidently, Townley's conscience has been giving him a twinge or two, for he won't ruin us in the way of damages; in fact, we have come to terms without his solicitor. You are to pay the doctor's bill, and that is about all, Seymour. And now let us go into the Canada question. My father wishes to know if you will take the berth." There was no hesitation on Rodney's part this time; his grateful acceptance was annotated very tearfully by his mother. Rodney's repentance was too real to haggle over terms, to desire delay; if they wanted him, he would go at once--the sooner the better. His outfit could be managed in a couple of days. And to all this Averil assented. She left them still in full conclave, and went up to tell Maud the news. As she did so she was struck with the melancholy wistfulness in her beautiful eyes. "Oh, how I envy him!" she sighed. Averil looked at her in surprise: "You envy Rodney?" "Yes; not because he has sinned so deeply, and has been pardoned so generously--for I might almost say the same of myself--but because he is going to a new place, to begin afresh, to make another commencement. It will be like a different world to him; no one will remember his past follies, or cast a slur on him." Maud spoke with intense earnestness and passion; and as she paused, a sudden thought flashed into Averil's mind--one of those quick intuitions that made Frank now and then call her a woman of genius. "Should you like to go, too, Maud?" she asked, very slowly. "I!" with a quick start and flush. "What is the use of putting such a question?" "I mean, should you care to go and make a home for Rodney?" "I should love it of all things. But mamma--you know she could not do without me. Georgina is not thoughtful, and somehow she has always depended on me." "Yes, I know that; but why should you not all go? It would be better for Rodney, and his mother can not bear to part with him. I would help you to form a comfortable home, though, perhaps, not an extravagant one. Rodney will keep himself. After all, it is not a bad idea. I have often heard you and Georgie long for a Canadian winter. What do you say, Maud?" "Oh, Averil, do you really mean it?" And now Maud's eyes were full of tears, and she could hardly speak. "Tell me exactly what you think of it, dear," went on Averil, in an encouraging voice. "I know your mother will agree to anything you propose. She has never been selfish with regard to her children, except in that one instance--her refusal to part with Rodney." "And that was more my fault than hers," returned Maud, remorsefully. "Do not blame poor mamma--she has her faults. We have none of us treated you well, but she has always been good to us. I know she is so fond of Rodney that it will almost break her heart to be separated from him; and it does seem so lonely for him out there without any of us. Rodney is so unlike other young men of his age--he never seems to want to leave us." "I think he would love to have you." "I know he would; and a home would be so comfortable--he would come to us every evening. Averil"--dropping her voice--"if you only knew what it would be to me to get away, so that I should not be obliged to meet them everywhere. I am afraid," speaking with great dejection, "that you will think me very weak, but I feel as though I should never get over it if I stay here, doing just the same things, and going to just the same places, and having no heart for anything." "My poor child"--caressing her--"do you think I do not understand? Do you imagine that I am sending you away from me for my own good?" "Ah, that is the only sad part--that I should have to leave you, Averil, and just as I was beginning to love you so. It is all my selfishness to plan this, and leave you alone." "But I shall not be alone," returned Averil, brightly. "I do not mean you to take Lottie, so you may as well make up your mind to that. Besides, Ned Chesterton wants her, and I intend him to have her, by and by, when Lottie is a little older and wiser. Then I shall have Annette, and Mother Midge, and a host of belongings. Never was a little woman richer in friends than I am." "You deserve every one of them," replied Maud; and then a shade passed over her lovely face "You will be better without us, Averil. Mamma, Georgina, and I have only spoiled your home and made it wretched. You will be able to lead your own life, follow your own tastes as you have never done yet. Do you think I do not see it all plainly now? how it has been all duty and self-sacrifice on your part, and grasping selfishness on ours? I wonder you do not hate us by this time, instead of being our good angel!" "You shall not talk so," returned Averil, kissing her. "You are my dear sister, and sisters always bear with one another's faults. Well, it is settled; and now I shall leave you to talk it over with your mother, while I give a hint to Rodney and Frank. Then there is Georgina; she must come home at once; and you must get well, Maud; for your mother will do nothing without you." "I feel well already," replied Maud; and indeed she looked like a different creature; something of her old energy and spirit had returned at the notion of the change. Averil knew her suggestion had been a wise one; it was a "splendid fluke," as Frank observed when he heard it. If a bomb had exploded at Mrs. Willmot's feet she could not have been more utterly aghast than when the idea was jointly propounded by Maud and Rodney. "Preposterous! Impossible!" she repeated over and over again. "A more impracticable scheme had never been heard. Cross the sea! Never! She was a wretched sailor. She would rather die than cross the Atlantic. Live out of England, where her two good husbands were buried! How could any one ask such a thing of a widow? Averil just wanted to get rid of them; it was a deep-laid plot to set herself free." Rodney was too indignant at this charge to utter another word. He took himself off in a huff, leaving his mother dissolved in tears. He had been so charmed with the idea; the Canadian home had so warmed his fancy; but, if his mother chose to feel aggrieved, he would have nothing more to say to it--and as Maud was too weary to carry on the discussion, the matter dropped. But a night's sleep effected wonders, for, lo and behold! the next morning Mrs. Willmot was in a different mood--the only impossibility now would be to bid good-bye to Rodney. "Sooner than be separated from that dear boy, she would cross a dozen Atlantics! Maud had evidently taken a fancy to the scheme, and the thing should be done." "Thank you, mother," returned Rodney, gratefully; and Mrs. Willmot heaved a deep sigh. "It was a sacrifice," she said, a little pompously; "but she had always thought more of her children than herself; and the change would be good for the dear girls. Young people were very gay in Canada, she heard. They had nice sledging-parties, and there were a good many dances;" and here she coughed, and looked significant. In spite of her troubles, Mrs. Willmot would always be true to her own nature; her pleasure-loving instincts would always crave indulgence. She was neither stronger nor better for all her trials. But as Averil looked at Maud she did not fear the mother's influence. Maud's character was strong, for good or evil. With all her faults, there was nothing small or mean about her. If she had erred, she had also repented; and though hers might be a weary, uphill fight, Averil felt there would be no weak tampering with temptation. Maud would be a little hard in her judgment of herself and others--a little prone to hold the reins too tightly. She would discipline herself sternly, and exact the same scrupulous honesty from others; but Averil knew she could be safely trusted to do her best for her mother's and Rodney's comfort. To her strong nature, their very dependence on her would bring out her best points. Her present position in the household had never suited Maud. She had grudged Averil her power; and though this might have been checked in the future, her life at Redfern House did not afford her sufficient scope. "She will be far more her own mistress out there," observed Mr. Harland, as he joined the family circle the night before Rodney sailed. It had been arranged that Rodney should start alone, and that his mother and sisters should follow him in a month's time. Their preparations were much more extensive than his, and they had to bid good-bye to their friends. Besides, Averil was not willing to part with them quite so soon. Strange to say, she felt fonder even of her step-mother now she knew they were to be separated. There had never been anything in common between them, and yet Averil discovered, or thought she had discovered, a dozen new virtues. "Maud will be very much admired out there," went on Mr. Harland, in the same aside. But Averil scarcely answered. She was not thinking of Maud that night, but only of Rodney. Her eyes seemed to follow him everywhere. Had she realized how she would miss him? How quiet the house would be without his boyish laugh, his merry whistle! From the very first he had taken the place of a young brother to her. Frank had been her great big brother, but Rodney was a sort of Benjamin. His very faults, his moral weakness, had kept her closer to him. It is impossible to be anxious about people and not to grow to love them. He saw her looking at him at last, and came and sat beside her, with a very sober face. "I do hate good-byes; don't you, Ave?" he said, in rather a melancholy tone. "Why, no," she said, trying to speak cheerfully. "I think the word the most beautiful word in our language. 'Good-bye--God be with you.' That is what it means, Rodney." "Oh, yes, of course; but I was not meaning the word itself. It is only that I do hate leaving you, Ave." But she would not let him say that, either. Though her own heart was aching, she would send him away brightly. "It is a grand thing you are doing," she said, in her sweetest and most serious voice. "You are going out to do a man's work in the world; to carve out your own career; to make a home for your mother and sisters." "It is you who are doing that," he returned. "You have been far too liberal; we could have managed with much less." "I do not need it," was all her answer; and then she went on with a few words of sisterly advice--not many words. Averil did not believe in much speaking; but she knew that Rodney loved her well enough to hear her patiently. Of the two he seemed more affected when the time of parting came. There were no tears in Averil's eyes as there were in his--only something of solemnity. "God bless you, my darling!" was all she whispered, as he kissed her again and again; and his "Good-bye, Ave," was dreadfully husky; but, as she smiled and waved to him, no one knew how her heart ached. "Shall I ever see him again?" she said to herself as she turned away. But she left that, as she left everything else, to the wise and loving will of her Heavenly Father. The month that followed Rodney's departure was rather an ordeal for Averil. Georgina had rushed home at the first news of the flitting, and her exuberant spirits and abundant energy seemed to turn the house upside down. If the Seymour family had contemplated a move into the wilds of Africa, to a spot most remote from civilization, there could not have been greater excitement. Friends crowded round them; dress-makers and milliners held mysterious interviews at all hours; huge traveling-boxes filled up the passages; and Lottie and Annette had their work cut out for them. It was "Lottie, will you do this for me?" or "Lottie, you must really find time to finish this," from morning to night. Lottie was quite equal to the occasion. Her affectionate mind was brimming over with good-will to every one. Lottie's magnanimity had long ago overlooked the past. She had forgotten the minor miseries, the petty tyrannies, the small denials, that had harassed her youth; she only remembered gratefully that her aunt and cousins had given her a home. She must do everything she could for them in return. Lottie even chided herself secretly for her hardness of heart; she could not be as sorry as she wished. The thought of being alone with Averil and her dear Fairy Order was too delicious altogether; and as she found Annette held a similar opinion, the two girls indulged privately in many a delightful day-dream. Averil was thankful when the ordeal was over, and the last parting words had been said. Her real "Good-bye" to Maud had been said overnight. Maud had come to her room, and they had had a long, long talk. Maud had been very much overcome, and Averil had found it difficult to soothe her; but just at the last she said hurriedly--and Averil loved to remember her words: "Don't think I shall ever forget your goodness, Averil. If I ever become a better woman, it will be all owing to you; because you trusted me, and I dare not disappoint you. All these years you have set me an example, though I did not choose to take it; but I shall remember it when I am away from you. I must not promise--indeed, I dare not trust myself; but, Averil, you shall see--you shall see how I will try to do better!" And Maud nobly kept her word. It was the end of October when the Seymours left Redfern House, and Averil, who was weary, and had long needed rest and change of scene, took her two girls the very next day to Brighton, where they spent the greater part of November. It was a glorious time for Annette and Lottie; and even Averil, in spite of her fatigue, enjoyed the long, sunshiny mornings, the pleasant drives, and the cozy evenings, when they worked and read aloud; and during the pauses of their conversation they could hear the water lapping on the stones in the starlight. It was a little strange settling into Redfern House again. The rooms looked large and empty, and for a long time a pang crossed Averil each time she passed the door of Rodney's room. But she would not give way to these feelings of depression. She devoted herself more than ever to her girls' interest. She had found a music-master for Annette, and a drawing-master soon followed; lectures on English literature, concerts and oratorios, social evenings with a few congenial friends, soon filled up the busy day. In the spring, Louie Harland came for a long visit, and remained for some weeks, joining the girls in all their studies and amusements, and setting Averil free for a lengthy visit to Mother Midge; and when she left them it was with the full understanding that the first fortnight in June was to be spent by the trio at Grey-Mount House. CHAPTER XXIV. "YOU ARE MONSIEUR'S SON." One lovely June afternoon Annette was sitting on the steps that led down from the veranda at Grey-Mount House. She was alone, and looked unusually pensive; indeed, there was a slight shade of melancholy on her expressive face. Annette had just remembered that it was on this very day last year that she had first seen monsieur. "A year ago--actually it is a year," she said to herself, "since I left the Rue St. Joseph! Oh, those days--how dark and narrow they seem beside my life now!" And Annette shuddered involuntarily as she remembered the close, dark room, the long, weary hours, the frugal, solitary meals, when the tired lace mender had finished her work. But the next moment the old street, with its curiously gabled houses, vanished from her mental vision, and she took up a different thread of musing. "What could she have said last night to offend Mr. Frank so deeply? He had kept away from her all the evening, and this morning he had gone off with only a hurried good-bye, and without waiting for his button-hole bouquet, though it was all ready for him--the prettiest she had ever made." It was this remembrance that had been tormenting Annette all day, and had spoiled the sunshine for her. She had left Louie and Nettie to finish their game with Lottie, because she was playing so badly; and, of course, that was Mr. Frank's fault, too. Annette did so hate to hurt people; but, though she did not like to confess it even to herself (for she was very loyal to her friends), Mr. Frank had been so very touchy lately. He was always pulling her words to pieces and grumbling over them, and he never seemed quite satisfied with her. "I think I disappoint him terribly," she said to herself, plaintively. "And yet what have I said?" And here Annette tried painfully to recall her words. They had been talking very happily, Frank had been giving her an account of a walking-tour, and somehow the conversation had veered round to Dinan and monsieur. Perhaps he was a little bored with her praises of monsieur, for he suddenly frowned (and she had never seen him frown before), and said: "It is no use trying; I may as well give it up. I don't believe any man has a chance with you; you think of no one but my father." "I think there is no man so good and wise as monsieur," she had replied, very innocently; and then, to her dismay, Mr. Frank had looked hurt, and became all at once quite silent. "I do not understand young men," she said, as she laid her head on the pillow; "they are strange--very strange. Mr. Frank looks as though I had committed some crime. Friends ought not to quarrel for a word. To-morrow I will make him ashamed of himself. His bouquet shall be better than monsieur's." Annette was quite happy as she prepared her little offering--she even smiled as she laid it aside. She was sure Frank saw it, though he took no notice; he always petitioned for one so humbly. But on this unlucky day he went out of the breakfast-room without a word; he was in the dog-cart beside his father as Annette crossed the hall, and his cold, uncompromising "Good-morning, Miss Ramsay!" left her no opening. The poor flowers were left to wither on the marble slab, and Annette, in rather a melancholy mood, settled to her practicing; but her scales were less perfect than usual. "What can it mean?" played the prelude to every exercise and study. Annette had laid aside her mourning; she was in white this evening, and the cluster of dark roses at her throat suited her complexion admirably. Her pretty little head, with its dark, smooth plaits, was drooping slightly. Something in her attitude seemed to strike Frank as he crossed the lawn on his way to the house; he looked, hesitated, then looked again, and finally sauntered up to the veranda with a fine air of indifference. "Do you know where Louie is, Miss Ramsay?" "She is playing tennis with Lottie. Oh, you are leaving me!" as Frank nodded and turned away, and a distressed look crossed her face. "All day I have wanted to speak to you, and now you will not listen! Mr. Frank, I do not like my friends to be angry with me when I have done no wrong--no wrong at all. It is not treating me well!" And Annette looked at him with grave dignity. Evidently, Frank had not expected this. He had been brooding over his grievance all day--nursing it, magnifying it, until he believed that he was greatly to be pitied. But this frankness on Annette's part cut away the ground from beneath his feet. How could he explain to her the manner in which she had hurt him? She was so unlike other girls--so simple and child-like. Frank found himself embarrassed; he stammered out something about a misunderstanding. "A misunderstanding, surely, since I have been so unhappy as to offend you," returned Annette, gently. "Mr. Frank, will you tell me what I have done, that I may make amends? I have hurt you--well, that gives me pain. I think there is no one for whom I care so much as--" "Monsieur," finished Frank, gloomily, and there was quite a scowl on his pleasant face. "Why don't you finish your speech, Miss Ramsay? We all know what you think of monsieur!"--which was very rude of Frank, only the poor fellow was too sore to measure his words. He was angry with himself, with her, with every one. He could not make her understand him; all these months he had been trying to win her, and there had been no response on her part; but this frank kindliness-- Annette looked at him for a moment with wide-open, perplexed eyes. She wished to comprehend his meaning. "Well," she said, slowly, "and you are monsieur's son, are you not?" Now what was there in this very ordinary speech--the mere statement of an obvious fact--to make Frank suddenly leap to his feet and grasp her hand? "Do you mean that?" he exclaimed, eagerly. "Annette, do you really mean that you can care for me as well as for him? Tell me, quickly, dear! I have been trying so hard all these months to make you understand me; but you never seemed to see." "What is it you wish me to understand?" she said, shyly; for, with all her simplicity, Annette could hardly mistake him now. "You quarrel with me for a word, but you tell me nothing plainly. Is it that I am too slow, or that you have not taken the trouble to instruct me?" "Trouble! where you are concerned!" he said, tenderly. And then it all came out--the story of his love, his patient wooing, his doubts if his affection could be returned. "You were always so sweet and friendly to me," he went on; "but I could never be sure that you really cared for me--that you cared for me enough to become my wife," finished the young man in a moved voice. "You could not be sure until you asked me," returned Annette naïvely. "There was no need to make yourself so miserable, or to have given me this unhappy day." "Have you been unhappy, too, my dearest?" but Frank looked supremely happy as he spoke. "Yes; for I could not bear that anything should come between us. So you see, my friend, that, I too, have cared a good deal." But when Frank wanted her to tell him how long she had cared--"Was it only yesterday, or a week ago, or that day on which they had gone to the Albert Hall, when I gave you the flowers?" and so on, Annette only blushed and said she did not know. "But surely you have some idea, my darling?" "But why?" she answered, shyly. "Is it necessary to find out the beginning of affection? Always you have been kind to me. You have made me glad to see you. I have never separated you from monsieur since the day we talked of him so much. 'This young man resembles his father--he has the same kind heart:' that is what I said to myself that day"--and Frank was too content with this statement to wish to question his sweetheart more closely. Mr. Harland was sitting in the study reading his paper, and talking occasionally to Averil, who was in her hammock-chair beside him, when a slim white figure glided between him and the sunshine, and Annette stood before him. "Well, mademoiselle," he said, playfully--for this was his pet name for her--"what has become of the promised walk?" "Oh, I have forgotten!" she said, with a little laugh; "and it is your fault, Mr. Frank"--but she did not look at the young man as she spoke. "Monsieur, you must forgive me, for I am not often so careless; and you must not scold your son, either, because we are both so happy." "Eh, what!" exclaimed Mr. Harland, dropping his eye-glasses in his astonishment; for Frank actually, the young rogue, had taken Annette's hand, and was presenting her to him in the most curiously formal way. "Father, do you want another daughter?" asked Frank hurriedly. "I have brought you one. The dearest girl in the world, as you have long known." "I know nothing of the kind, sir," returned his father, in much anger. "To think of your saying such a thing with Averil sitting by. The dearest girl in the world--humph!" "Monsieur knows that is not the truth," replied Annette, and her dark, soft eyes were very pathetic. "Perhaps he is not willing to take the poor little lace-mender for his daughter." "Is he not?" was the unexpected reply. And Annette, to her delight and astonishment, found herself folded in his arms. "My dear little girl, I am more than willing! Monsieur is not such a conceited old humbug. He knows what is good as well as other people; and he respects his son"--here he grasped Frank's hand cordially--"for his choice; and he begs to tell him, and every one else concerned, that he is a sensible fellow." And here Mr. Harland marched away, using his handkerchief rather loudly, to tell his wife the news. "Dear Annette," exclaimed Averil, "will you not come to me and let me wish you joy?" And as she warmly embraced her, Annette whispered, "Are you glad, my cousin? Have I done well?" "Very well indeed," returned Averil. But for a moment her heart was so full that she could say no more. Evidently Frank understood her, for he glanced proudly at his young betrothed. "I am a lucky fellow, am I not, Averil? Ah, here comes Louie. I expect my father is literally publishing it on the house-tops. Come with me, Annette; let us go and meet her." "So you have been and gone and done it, Frank," observed Louie, with great solemnity; "and I have a new sister. Annette, I warned you before that Frank was my own special brother; and now you will have to be fond of me as well as him, for I don't mean to be left out in the cold." And though Louie laughed, and spoke in her old merry way, the tears were very near her eyes. "But I do love you already," protested Annette, earnestly. "And it makes me so happy to know that I, too, shall have brothers and sisters. Mr. Frank will not have them all to himself any longer. They will be mine, too. Is it not so?"--appealing to her lover; and of course Frank indorsed this with delight. What a happy evening that was at Grey-Mount House! Frank, who was idolized by his brothers and sisters, found himself in the position of a hero. The Harlands were simple, unworldly people. It never entered their heads that the son and heir was not making a very grand match in marrying a young orphan without a penny to call her own--a little, sallow-faced girl who had once earned her living by mending lace. To them "kind hearts were more than coronets, and simple faith than Norman blood;" and they were wise enough to know that Annette's sweet disposition and lowly virtues would keep, as well as gain, her husband's heart. It was very pretty to watch her, Averil thought, that evening. She took her happiness so simply; she seemed so unconscious of herself. Her one thought was to please her fiancé, and all those dear people who had taken her into their hearts. "You are very happy, Annette?" Averil said to her later on that night. "But I need not ask; for your face is brightness itself." "I think I am more than happy," returned Annette, with a deep sigh of utter content. "Ah! if only my mother could know that I am to spend my life with so good a man. Lottie has been trying to tease me. She will have it that Mr. Chesterton is nicer--as though he could compare with my Mr. Frank!" finished Annette, with a gesture of superb disdain. "God has been very good to me," thought Averil, reverently, when Annette had left her, and she sat alone in the moonlight. "How different things were with me this time last year! Then I was troubled about Rodney; my home-life was miserable; Annette was an unknown stranger; even Lottie was a care to me. And now I trust, I hope, my boy is beginning a new life; I am happier about Maud; my burdens are all lifted, and if the future looks a little lonely, it will not be for long--not for long--" She stopped and folded her hands, and a sweet, solemn look came into her eyes. What if her work were nearly done? if the weary, worn-out frame would soon be at rest? Would that be a matter of regret? "When Thou wilt, and as Thou wilt," was the language of her heart. Soon, very soon--yes, she knew that well--the tired child would go home. And as this thought came to her in all its fullness, a strange, mysterious joy--a look of unutterable peace--came on the pale face. "Even so, Father," she whispered--and the dim summer night seemed to herald the solemn words. "In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you." "And for me--for me, too!" prayed Averil. THE ARM CHAIR LIBRARY. 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8413	----	THE BISHOP'S SHADOW BY I.T. THURSTON _Author of "Boys of the Central," "A Genuine Lady" etc._ WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY M. ECKERSON "This learned I from the shadow of a tree That to and fro did sway upon a wall, Our shadow selves--our influence--may fall Where we can never be." CONTENTS I. LOST--A POCKETBOOK II. NAN'S NEW HOME III. AN ACCIDENT IV. TODE MEETS THE BISHOP V. IN THE BISHOP'S HOUSE VI. TODE'S NEW START VII. AFTER TODE'S DEPARTURE VIII. THEO'S SHADOW WORK IX. THEO IN TROUBLE X. A BITTER DISAPPOINTMENT XI. THEO'S NEW BUSINESS XII. NAN FINDS FRIENDS XIII. NAN'S DEPARTURE XIV. THEODORE GIVES CARROTS A CHANCE XV. A STRIKE XVI. CALLED TO GO UP HIGHER XVII. FINAL GLIMPSES LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS THEODORE BRYAN, SIGN-POLISHER "HE'S AWAKIN' UP, I GUESS" ADRIFT AGAIN "OH, HOW PRETTY,--HOW PRETTY IT IS!" "STOP THE CAR!" THANKSGIVING REUNION THE BISHOP'S SHADOW [Illustration: Theodore Bryan, Sign-Polisher] I. LOST--A POCKETBOOK It was about ten o'clock in the morning and a northeast storm was raging in Boston. The narrow crooked business streets were slippery with mud and thronged with drays and wagons of every description, which, with the continual passing of the street cars, made it a difficult and often a dangerous matter to attempt a crossing. The rain came in sudden driving sheets, blotting out all but the nearest cars or vehicles, while the wind seemed to lie in wait at every corner ready to spring forth and wrest umbrellas out of the hands of pedestrians at the most critical points in the crossings. Two ladies coming along Causeway street by the Union Depot, waited some minutes on the sidewalk watching for an opening in the endless stream of passing teams. "There! We shan't have a better chance than this. Come on now," one of them exclaimed, stepping quickly forward as there came a little break in the moving line. She stepped in front of two cars that had stopped on parallel tracks and her companion hastily followed her. Just then there came a fierce gust that threatened to turn their umbrellas inside out. The lady in front clutched hers nervously and hurried forward. As she ran past the second car she found herself almost under the feet of a pair of horses attached to a heavy wagon. The driver yelled angrily at her as he hastily pulled up his team; a policeman shouted warningly and sprang toward her, and her friend stopped short with a low cry of terror. But though the pole of the wagon grazed her cheek and the shock threw her almost to the ground, the lady recovered herself and hurried across to the sidewalk. It was then that a little ragged fellow of perhaps thirteen, slipped swiftly under the very feet of the horses, and, unheeding the savage shouts of the driver, wormed his way rapidly through the crowd and vanished. As he did so, the lady who had so narrowly escaped injury, turned to her friend and cried, "Oh my pocketbook! I must have dropped it on the crossing." "On the crossing, did you say?" questioned the policeman, and as she assented, he turned hastily back to the street, but the cars and teams had passed on and others were surging forward and no trace of the pocketbook was visible. The policeman came back and questioned the lady about it, promising to do what he could to recover it. "But it's not probable you'll ever see a penny of the money again," he said. "Some rascally thief most likely saw ye drop it an' snatched it up." The policeman was not mistaken. If he had turned through Tremont and Boylston streets he might have seen a ragged, barefooted boy sauntering along with his hands in his pockets, stopping now and then to look into a shop window, yet ever keeping a keenly watchful eye on every policeman he met. The boy looked as if he had not a penny in those ragged pockets of his, but one of his grimy hands clutched tightly the lost pocketbook, which his sharp eyes had seen as it fell beneath the feet of the horses, and which he had deftly appropriated as he wriggled through the mud. Heedless of wind and rain the boy lounged along the street. It was not often that he found himself in this section of the city, and it was much less familiar to him than some other localities. He seemed to be wandering aimlessly along, but his restless eyes were on the watch for some retired spot where he might safely examine his prize and see how much money he had secured. For a long time he saw no place that seemed to him a safe one for his purpose, so he went on and on until suddenly he realised that he was tired. He was passing a large brownstone church at the moment, and he sat down on the steps to rest. "My! But this is a gay ol' church!" he thought, as he looked curiously at the beautiful building. "Wonder where them steps go to." Springing up he ran across the pillared porch to the foot of the stone stairs that led to the upper entrance to the chapel. Following a sudden impulse he started hastily up these stairs, his bare feet making no sound. At the top of the stairs he found himself shut in on two sides by a high stone balustrade, the chapel door forming the third side. This door was closed. He tried it softly and found it locked. Then he dropped down in the darkest corner of the landing, and, with eyes and ears still keenly alert, pulled from his pocket the mud-stained purse and examined it carefully. He found in it thirty-six dollars in bills and about a dollar more in silver. The boy gave a gleeful, silent laugh. "Struck it rich this time," he said to himself. He hunted up a crooked pin from somewhere about his dilapidated garments, and fastened the roll of bills as securely as he could inside the lining of his jacket, keeping the silver in his pocket. Then he again examined the book to be sure that he had overlooked nothing. On the inside of the leather was the name, "R. A. RUSSELL," and there was also a card bearing the same name and an address. The card he tore into tiny bits and chewed into a pellet which he tossed over the stone balustrade. Then, with the pocketbook in his hand, he looked about him. There was a pastor's box fastened beside the door. He crowded the telltale book through the opening in the top of this box, and then with a satisfied air ran blithely down the stone steps. But he stopped short as he came face to face with the sexton who was just crossing the porch. "Here, you! Where've you been? What you been up to?" cried the man, clutching at him angrily, but the boy was too quick. He ducked suddenly, slipped under the sexton's hands and darted across the porch and down the steps. Then he stopped to call back, "Be'n makin' 'rangements ter preach fer ye here next Sunday--yah! yah!" and with a mocking laugh he disappeared leaving the sexton shaking his fist in impotent wrath. The boy ran swiftly on until he had gotten quite a distance from the church; then he slackened his pace and began to plan what he should do next. The sight of a confectioner's window reminded him that he was hungry, and he went into the store and bought two tarts which he ate as he walked on. After that he bought a quart of peanuts, two bananas and a piece of mince-pie, and having disposed of all these he felt hungry no longer. Having in his possession what seemed to him a small fortune, he saw no necessity for working, so that night he did not go as usual to the newspaper office for the evening papers, but spent his time loafing around the busiest corners and watching all that went on about the streets. This unusual conduct attracted the attention of his cronies, and a number of newsboys gathered about him trying to find out the reason of his strange idleness. "I say, Tode," called one, "why ain't ye gettin' yer papers?" "Aw, he's come into a fortune, he has," put in another. "His rich uncle's come home an' 'dopted him." "Naw, he's married Vanderbilt's daughter," sneered a third. "Say, now, Tode, tell us w'at's up," whispered one, sidling up to him. "Hev ye swiped somethin'?" Tode tried to put on an expression of injured innocence, but his face flushed as he answered, shortly, "Come, hush yer noise, will ye! Can't a chap lay off fer one day 'thout all the town pitchin' inter him? I made a dollar extry this mornin'--that's all the' is about it," and stuffing his hands into his pockets he marched off to avoid further comment. For the next week Tode "lived high" as he expressed it. He had from three to six meals a day and an unlimited amount of pie and peanuts besides, but after all he was not particularly happy. Time hung heavy on his hands sometimes--the more so as the boys, resenting his living in luxurious idleness, held aloof, and would have nothing to do with him. He had been quite a leader among them, and it galled him to be so left out and ignored. He began to think that he should not be sorry when his ill-gotten money was gone. He was thinking after this fashion one day as he strolled aimlessly down a side street. It was a quiet street where at that hour there was little passing, and Tode lounged along with his hands in his pockets until he came to a place where the sidewalk was littered with building material and where a large house was in course of construction. Perhaps the workmen were on a strike that day. At any rate none of them were about, and the boy sprang up onto a barrel that was standing near the curbstone, and sat there drumming on the head with two pieces of lath and whistling a lively air. After a little his whistle ceased and he looked up and down the street with a yawn, saying to himself, "Gay ol' street, this is! Looks like everybody's dead or asleep." But even as he spoke a girl came hastily around the nearest corner and hurried toward him. She looked about fourteen. Her clothes were worn and shabby but they were clean, and in her arms she carried a baby wrapped in a shawl. She stopped beside Tode and looked at him with imploring eyes. "Oh can't you help me to hide somewhere? Do! Do!" she cried, with a world of entreaty in her voice. The boy glanced at her coolly. "What ye want ter hide for? Been swipin' somethin'?" he questioned, carelessly. The girl flashed at him an indignant glance, then cast a quick, frightened one behind her. "No, no!" she exclaimed, earnestly. "I'm no thief. I'm running away from old Mary Leary. She's most killed my little brother giving him whiskey so's to make him look sick when she takes him out begging. Look here!" She lifted the shawl that was wrapped about the child. Tode leaned over and looked at the little face. It was a pitiful little face--so white and thin, with sunken eyes and blue lips--so pitiful that it touched even Tode's heart, that was not easily touched. "The ol' woman after ye?" he asked, springing down from the barrel. "Yes, yes! Oh, do help me," pleaded the girl, the tears running down her cheeks as she gazed at the baby face. "I'm afraid he's going to die." The boy cast a quick glance about him. "Here!" he exclaimed, "squat down an' I'll turn this over ye." He seized a big empty barrel that stood near. Without a word the girl slipped to the ground and he turned the barrel over her, kicking under the edge a bit of wood to give air. The next moment he stooped down to the opening and whispered, "Hi! The ol' lady's a comin'. Don't ye peep. I'll fix her!" Then he reseated himself again on the barrelhead and began to drum and whistle as before, apparently paying no heed to the woman who came along scolding and swearing, with half a dozen street children following at her heels. She came nearer and nearer but Tode drummed on and whistled unconcernedly until she stopped before him and exclaimed harshly, "You boy--have you seen a girl go by here, with a baby?" "Nope," replied Tode, briefly. "How long you be'n settin' here?" "'Bout two weeks," answered the boy, gravely. The woman stormed and blustered, but finding that this made no impression she changed her tactics and began in a wheedling tone, "Now, dearie, you'll help an ol' woman find her baby, won't ye? It's heartbroke I am for my pretty darlin' an' that girl has carried him off. Tell me, dearie, did they go this way?" "I d' know nothin' 'bout yer gal," exclaimed Tode. "Why don't ye scoot 'round an' find her 'f she's cleared out?" "An' ain't I huntin' her this blessed minute?" shrieked the woman, angrily. "I b'lieve ye _have_ seen her. Like's not ye've hid her away somewheres." Tode turned away from her and resumed his drumming while the woman cast a suspicious glance at the unfinished building. "She may be there," she muttered and began searching through the piles of building material on the ground floor. "Hope she'll break her ol' neck!" thought Tode, vengefully, as he whistled with fresh vigor. The woman reappeared presently, and casting a threatening glance and a torrent of bad language at the boy, went lumbering heavily down the street with the crowd of noisy, curious children straggling along behind her. When they had all disappeared around the corner of the street, Tode sprang down and putting his mouth to the opening at the bottom of the barrel whispered hastily, "Keep still 'til I see if she's gone sure," and he raced up to the corner where he watched until the woman was out of sight. Then he ran back and lifted the barrel off, saying, "It's all right--she's gone, sure 'nough." The girl cast an anxious glance up and down the street as she sprang up. "Oh dear!" she exclaimed. "I don't know where to go!" and Tode saw that her eyes were full of tears. He looked at her curiously. "Might go down t' the wharf. Ol' woman wouldn't be likely ter go there, would she?" he suggested. "I don't think so. I've never been there," replied the girl. "Which way is it?" "Come on--I'll show ye;" and Tode set off at a rapid pace. The girl followed as fast as she could, but the child was a limp weight in her arms and she soon began to lag behind and breathe heavily. "What's the matter? Why don't ye hurry up?" exclaimed the boy with an impatient backward glance. "I--can't. He's so--heavy," panted the girl breathlessly. Tode did not offer to take the child. He only put his hands in his pockets and waited for her, and then went on more slowly. When they reached the wharf, he led the way to a quiet corner where the girl dropped down with a sigh of relief and weariness, while he leaned against a post and looked down at her. Presently he remarked, "What's yer name?" "Nan Hastings," replied the girl. "How'd she get hold o' ye?" pursued the boy, with a backward jerk of his thumb that Nan rightly concluded was meant to indicate the Leary woman. She answered slowly, "It was when mother died. We had a nice home. We were not poor folks. My father was an engineer, and he was killed in an accident before Little Brother was born, and that almost broke mother's heart. After the baby came she was sick all the time and she couldn't work much, and so we used up all the money we had, and mother got sicker and at last she told me she was going to die." The girl's voice trembled and she was silent for a moment; then she went on, "She made me kneel down by the bed and promise her that I would always take care of Little Brother and bring him up to be a _good_ man as father was. I promised, and I am going to do it." The girl spoke earnestly with the light of a solemn purpose in her dark eyes. Tode began to be interested. "And she died?" he prompted. "Yes, she died. She wrote to some of her relatives before she died asking them to help Little Brother and me, but there was no answer to the letter, and after she died all our furniture was sold to pay the doctor and the funeral bills. The doctor wanted to send us to an orphan asylum, but Mary Leary had worked for us, and she told me that if we went to an asylum they would take Little Brother away from me and I'd never see him any more, and she said if I'd go home with her she'd find me a place to work and I could keep the baby. So I went home with her. It was a horrid place"--Nan shuddered--"and I found out pretty soon that she drank whiskey, but I hadn't any other place to go, so I had to stay there, but lately she's been taking the baby out every day and he's been growing so pale and sick-looking, and yesterday I caught her giving him whiskey, and then I knew she did it to make him look sick so that she would get more money when she went out begging with him." "An' so you cut an' run?" put in Tode, as the girl paused. [Illustration: "He's awakin' up, I guess."] "Yes--and I'll _never_ go back to her, but--I don't know what I _can_ do. Do you know any place where I can stay and work for Little Brother?" The dark eyes looked up into the boy's face with a wistful, pleading glance, as the girl spoke. "I'd know no place," replied Tode, shrugging his shoulders carelessly. He did not feel called upon to help this girl. Tode considered girls entirely unnecessary evils. Nan looked disappointed, but she said no more. "He's wakin' up, I guess," remarked Tode, glancing at the baby. The little thing stirred uneasily, and then the heavy, blue-veined lids were lifted slowly, and a pair of big innocent blue eyes looked straight into Tode's. A long, steadfast, unchildlike look it was, a look that somehow held the boy's eyes in spite of himself, and then a faint, tremulous smile quivered over the pale lips, and the baby hands were lifted to the boy. That look and smile had a strange, a wonderful effect on Tode. Something seemed to spring into life in his heart in that instant. Up to this hour he had never known what love was, for he had never loved any human being, but as he gazed into the pure depths of those blue eyes and saw the baby fingers flutter feebly toward him, his heart went out in love to the child, and he held out his arms to take him. Nan hesitated, with a quick glance at Tode's dirty hands and garments, but he cried imperiously, "Give him here. He wants to come to me," and she allowed him to take the child from her arms. As he felt himself lifted in that strong grasp, Little Brother smiled again, and nestled with a long breath of content against Tode's dirty jacket. "See--he likes me!" cried the boy, his face all aglow with the strange, sweet delight that possessed him. He sat still holding the child, afraid to move lest he disturb his charge, but in a few minutes the baby began to fret. "What's he want?" questioned Tode, anxiously. Nan looked distressed. "I'm afraid he's hungry," she replied. "Oh dear, what _shall_ I do!" She seemed ready to cry herself, but Tode sprang up. "You come along," he exclaimed, briefly, and he started off with the child still in his arms, and Nan followed wonderingly. She shrank back as he pushed open the door of a restaurant, but Tode went in and after a moment's hesitation, she followed. "What'll he take--some beef?" inquired the boy. "Oh no!" cried Nan, hastily, "some bread and milk will be best for him." "All right. Here you--bring us a quart o' milk an' a loaf o' bread," called Tode, sharply, to a waiter. When these were brought he added, "Now fetch on a steak an' a oyster stew." Then he turned with a puzzled look to Nan. "How does he take it? D'ye pour it down his throat?" he asked. "No, no!" cried Nan, hastily, as he seized the bowl of milk. "You must feed it to him with a spoon." "All right!" and utterly regardless of the grinning waiters Tode began to feed the baby, depositing quite as much in his neck as in his mouth, while Nan looked on, longing to take the matter into her own hands, but afraid to interfere. Suddenly Tode glanced at her. "Why don't ye eat?" he said, with a gesture toward the food on the table. The girl coloured and drew back. "Oh I can't," she exclaimed, hastily, "I ain't--I don't want anything." "Ain't ye hungry?" demanded Tode in a masterful tone. "N--not much," stammered Nan, but the boy saw a hungry gleam in her eyes as she glanced at the food. "Y'are, too! Now you jest put that out o' sight in a hurry!" But Nan shook her head. "I'm no beggar," she said, proudly, "and some time I'm going to pay you for that," and she pointed to the bowl of bread and milk. "Shucks!" exclaimed the boy. "See here! I've ordered that stuff an' I'll have it to pay for anyhow, so you might's well eat it. _I_ don't want it," and he devoted himself again to the child. Nan turned her head resolutely away, but she was so hungry and the food did smell so good that she could not resist it. She tasted the oysters and in three minutes the bowl was empty, and a good bit of the steak had disappeared before she pushed aside her plate. "Thank you," she said, gratefully. "It did taste _so_ good!" "Huh!" grunted Tode. This was the first time in his life that anybody had said "thank you" to him. He handed the baby over to Nan and, though he had said he was not hungry, finished the steak and a big piece of pie in addition and then the three left the restaurant. II. NAN'S NEW HOME As they went out, Nan looked anxiously from side to side, fearing to see or be seen by the Leary woman. Tode noticed her troubled look and remarked, "Ye needn't ter fret. _I_ wouldn't let her touch ye. We might's well go back to the wharf," he added. So they returned to the corner they had left, and in a little while the baby dropped into a refreshing sleep in his sister's lap, while Tode sometimes roamed about the wharf, and sometimes lounged against a post and talked with Nan. "What is _your_ name?" she asked him, suddenly. "Tode Bryan." "Tode? That's a queer name." "'Spect that ain't all of it. There's some more, but I've forgot what 'tis," the boy replied, carelessly. "And where's your home, Tode?" "Home? Ain't got none. Never had none--no folks neither." "But where do you live?" "Oh, anywheres. When I'm flush, I sleeps at the Newsboys' Home, an' when I ain't, I takes the softest corner I can find in a alley or on a doorstep," was the indifferent reply. Nan looked troubled. "But I can't do that," she said. "I can't sleep in the street with Little Brother." "Why not?" questioned Tode, wonderingly. "Oh because--girls can't do like that." "Lots o' girls do." "But--not nice girls, Tode," said Nan, wistfully. "Well no, I don't 'spect they're nice girls. I don't know any girls 't amount to much," replied Tode, disdainfully. Nan flushed at his tone, as she answered, "But what _can_ I do? Where can I go? Seems as if there ought to be some place where girls like me could stay." "That's so, for a fact," assented Tode, then he added, thoughtfully, "The's one feller--mebbe you could stay where he lives. He's got a mother, I know." "Oh if I only could, Tode! I'd work _ever_ so hard," said Nan, earnestly. "You stay here an' I'll see 'f I can find him," said the boy. Then he turned back to add suspiciously, "Now don't ye clear out while I'm gone." Nan looked at him wonderingly. "Where would I go?" she questioned, and Tode answered with a laugh, "That a fact--ye ain't got no place to go, have ye?" Then he disappeared and Nan waited anxiously for his return. He came back within an hour bringing with him a freckle-faced boy a year or so older than himself. "This's the gal!" he remarked, briefly. The newcomer looked doubtfully at Nan. "See the little feller," cried Tode, eagerly. "Ain't he a daisy? See him laugh," and he chucked the baby clumsily under the chin. The child's heavy eyes brightened and he smiled back into the friendly, dirty face of the boy. The other boy looked at Tode wonderingly. "Didn't know 't you liked _kids,_" he said, scornfully. "So I don't--but this one's diff'runt," replied Tode, promptly. "You ain't no common kid, be ye, Little Brother?" "What's his name?" questioned the boy. "His name is David, but mother always called him Little Brother, and so I do," answered the girl, in a low tone. "Have you a mother?" she added, with an earnest look at the boy. "Got the best mother in this town," was the prompt reply. "Oh, won't you take me to her, then? Maybe she can tell me what to do," Nan pleaded. "Well, come along, then," responded the boy, rather grudgingly. "You come too, Tode," said Nan. "'Cause you know we might meet Mary Leary." "All right. I'll settle her. Don't you worry," and Tode, with a very warlike air marched along at Nan's right hand. "What's your mother's name?" questioned Nan, shyly, of the newcomer as the three walked on together. "Hunt. I'm Dick Hunt," was the brief reply. Then Dick turned away from the girl and talked to Tode. It was not very far to Dick's home. It was in one of the better class of tenement houses. The Hunts had three rooms and they were clean and comfortably furnished. Tode looked around admiringly as Dick threw open the door and led the way in. Tode had never been in rooms like these before. Nan--after one quick glance about the place--looked earnestly and longingly into Mrs. Hunt's kind motherly face. Dick wasted no words. "Mother," he said, "this girl wants to stay here." Mrs. Hunt was making paper bags. Her busy fingers did not stop for a moment, but she cast a quick, keen glance at Nan and Tode. "What do you mean, Dick?" she said. "Oh, Mrs. Hunt, if you only would let us stay here till I can find a place to work, I'd be so thankful. We'll have to stay in the street tonight--Little Brother and I--if you don't," urged Nan, eagerly. Mrs. Hunt's kind heart was touched by the girl's pleading tone. She had girls of her own and she thought, "What if my Nellie had to spend the night in the street," but she said only: "Sit down, my dear, and tell me all about it." The kind tone and those two words "my dear," were almost too much for poor anxious Nan. Her eyes filled with tears and her voice was not quite steady as she told again her sorrowful little story, and when it was ended the mother's eyes too were dim. "Give me that baby," she exclaimed, forgetting her work for the moment, and she took the little fellow tenderly in her arms. "You poor child," she added, to Nan, "of course you can stay here to-night. It's a poor enough place an' we're as pinched as we can be, but we'll manage somehow to squeeze out a bite and a corner for you for a day or two anyway." Tode's face expressed his satisfaction as he turned to depart. Dick too looked pleased. "Didn't I tell ye I'd got the best mother in this town?" he said, proudly, as he followed Tode down the stairs. "Yes you did, an' 'twarn't no lie neither," assented Tode, emphatically; "but, see here, you can tell your mother that _I'm_ agoin' to pay for that little feller's bread an' milk." Dick looked at him curiously. "You goin' to work again?" he questioned. "'Course I am." "Somebody's got your beat." "Who?" Tode stopped short in angry surprise as he asked the question. "That big red-headed feller that they call Carrots." "Well--Carrots'll find himself knocked out o' business," declared Tode, fiercely. When the newsboys assembled at the newspaper office a little later, Dick speedily reported Tode's remark, and soon all eyes were on the alert to see what would happen. Tode was greeted rather coldly and indifferently, but that did not trouble him. He bought his papers and set off for his usual beat. Scenting a fight a good many of the boys followed. As Dick had said, Tode found the big fellow on the ground, lustily crying his papers. Tode marched straight up to him. "See here, Carrots, this's my beat. You clear out--d'ye hear?" he shouted. The big fellow leered at him scornfully, and without a word in response, went on calling his papers. Down on the ground went Tode's stock in trade, and he fell upon Carrots like a small cyclone fighting with teeth, nails, fists and heels, striking in recklessly with never a thought of fear. Forgetful of possible customers, the boys quickly formed a ring, and yelled and hooted at the antagonists, cheering first one and then the other. But the contest was an unequal one. The red-headed boy was the bigger and stronger of the two and plucky as Tode was, he would have been severely treated had not the affair been ended by the appearance of a policeman who speedily separated the combatants. "What's all this row about?" he demanded, sharply, as he looked from Tode's bleeding face to the big fellow's bruised eye. "He took my beat. I've sold papers here for three years," cried Tode, angrily. "What _you_ got to say?" The policeman turned to the other. "He give it up. He ain't sold a paper here for a week past," growled Carrots. "Whose beat is it?" The man turned to the other boys as he asked the question. "Reckon it's Tode's." "He's o'ny been layin' off fer a spell." "It's Tode's sure 'nough." So they answered, and the officer turned again to Carrots. "You're a bigger feller 'n he is. You let him alone an' go find a new beat for yourself, an' see 't I don't catch either of ye fightin' in the streets again, or I'll put ye where ye'll get another kind of a beat if ye don't walk straight. Now scatter--all of ye!" The "fun" was over and the boys needed no second bidding. They scattered in all directions and the next moment, Tode's shrill voice rang out triumphantly, while his rival stalked gloomily off, meditating dire vengeance in the near future. Meantime, after Tode and Dick had departed, Nan had spoken a few grateful words to Mrs. Hunt, and then laying the baby on the lounge, she said, earnestly, "Please show me just how you make those bags. I'm sure I can do it." It was simple work and it did not take her many minutes to master the details. Her quick eyes and deft fingers soon enabled her to do the work fully as well and as rapidly as Mrs. Hunt could do it. "Well, I never! You certainly are a quick one," exclaimed the good woman as she gave up her seat to the girl. "Now if you can finish that job for me, I can get a little sewing done before dark." "Oh yes, I can finish this easily," exclaimed Nan, delighted that there was something that she could do in return for the kindness shown her. By and by, Jimmy, Nellie, and the younger children came in from school, staring in amazement at the two strangers who seemed so much at home there. Nan made friends with them at once, but she dreaded the arrival of the father. "What if he shouldn't want us to stay?" she thought, anxiously, as she heard a heavy step on the stairs, and Nellie called out, "Here comes father!" There was a general rush of the children as he opened the door and he came into the room with boys and girls swarming over him. Nan's fears departed at the first sight of his honest, kindly face, and his cheery greeting to her. "Wal' now, this is nice," he said, heartily, after hearing his wife's brief explanation. "Never can have too many little gals 'round to suit me, an' as fer this young man," he lifted Little Brother gently as he spoke, "he fits into this fam'ly jest like a book. Ted here's gettin' most too much of a man to be our baby any longer." Ted's round face had lengthened as his father took up the baby, but it brightened at these words, and he straightened himself and slipped his hands into the pockets of the very short trousers he was wearing. "I'll be a big man pretty soon," he remarked, and his father patted his head tenderly as he answered, "So you will, sonny, so you will, an' the more you help other folks the faster you'll grow." That was a happy evening for Nan. As she sat at the supper-table at "father's" right hand the only shadow on her satisfaction was the fear that she might not be allowed to remain in this friendly household. But somehow, even that thought could not cast a very dark shadow on her heart when she looked up into the sunshine of Father Hunt's plain face, or met the motherly smile of his good wife. She lent a helping hand whenever she saw an opportunity to do so, and the table was cleared, and the dishes washed so quickly that Mr. Hunt remarked to his wife, "Look here, now, mother, why can't you an' me go somewheres this evening? You ain't been out with me for more'n a year, an' I feel's if I'd like a bit of an outin' to-night." Mrs. Hunt looked up doubtfully, but Nan spoke up quickly, "Do go, Mrs. Hunt. I'll take care of the children and be glad to." "That's right! That's right!" exclaimed Mr. Hunt. "'Course ye will, an' I 'spect you'll make 'em have such a fine time that they'll be sorry when we get back." Ted put his finger in his mouth and gloom gathered on his round face at this suggestion, but it vanished as Nan said, "Teddy, I can cut fine soldiers out of paper, and animals too. After your father and mother go I'll cut some for you." Teddy's face brightened at this promise, and he saw the door close behind his mother without shedding a single tear. Nan put Little Brother to bed and then all the children gathered about the table and Nan drew men and animals on brown paper and cut them out, to the great delight of the children. Teddy especially was so interested that once Nellie remarked, "You needn't get quite into Nan's mouth, Ted." Nan laughed. "If he only won't get his fingers cut instead of the paper," she said. "There! I've got a whole fun'ral of horses," remarked Ted, in a tone of great satisfaction, as he ranged a long string of the figures two and two on the table. "Look out, Ted, you'll knock over the lamp!" cried Jimmy, hastily. The warning came too late. Even as the words were uttered, the chair on which Ted was standing slipped from under him, and as he struck out wildly to save himself from falling he hit the lamp and knocked it over on the table. The chimney rolled to the floor with a crash, and the burning oil spread over the table licking up Ted's horses and the scattered bits of paper as it went. Then a piece of the burning paper blew against Nellie's apron and the next instant that was blazing, and Nellie screaming with fright, while the other children ran crying into the inner room--all but Ted. He--petrified with terror--stood still with mouth and eyes wide open, gazing at the fiery stream rolling over the table. It all happened in two or three seconds, but Nan did not lose her head. She jerked off Nellie's apron without regard to fastenings, and crammed it into the coalhod, then snatching up her old shawl which was lying on the lounge, she threw it over the burning lamp and gathered it closely over lamp, paper and all, so smothering the flames. In two minutes the danger was over, Nan had lighted another lamp that Nellie brought her, and the frightened children came creeping slowly back to the table. Teddy did not care for paper men or animals any more that night. He was ready to go to bed, and Nellie undressed him and put him there, but the others sat up until the father and mother came home, all eager to tell the story of their danger and of Nan's bravery. The mother's eyes filled with tears as she put her arms about as many of the children as she could gather into them and looked at Nan in silent gratitude, while the father laid his hand kindly on the girl's brown hair as he said, gravely, "Child, you've earned your place in this home. As long as I'm able to work you're just as welcome here as the rest--you and the baby too." Nan's eyes were shining happily. "'Twas nothing much to do," she answered, "and I'll find some way to pay for Little Brother and me if only we can stay here." Dick had come in soon after his parents, and had listened in gloomy silence to the story of the children. "Humph!" he said to himself. "Twasn't so awful much to put out that fire. I'd a done it in no time if I'd a been here." It seemed to Dick that his father and mother were making altogether too much of this strange girl, and the evil spirit of jealousy reared its ugly head in his heart. He wished he had not brought those two home with him, anyhow. When, the next day, Tode met him on the street and inquired about Nan and Little Brother, Dick replied, gruffly, "Oh, they're all right 'nough." "But are they goin' ter stay't your place?" questioned Tode. "'Spect so." Dick's voice was gruffer than before. "I'm agoin' 'round there to see 'em to-day," remarked Tode. Dick made no reply. Tode repeated, "Don't ye hear? I say I'm agoin' ter see 'em to-day." "I heard what ye said. S'pose I'm deaf?" and Dick turned his back and marched off. Tode looked after him angrily. "Like ter punch his head fer him," he said, under his breath. "Would, too, if his folks hadn't let Little Brother stay on there." Nothing daunted by Dick's unfriendly manner, Tode presented himself that afternoon at Mrs. Hunt's door. He found that good woman and Nan both busy over the paper bags. All the children except Dick were at school, and Little Brother was lying on the old shawl at his sister's feet. Tode gave an awkward nod by way of greeting and dropped down on the floor beside the child. "Hello, little chap!" he said. There certainly was a mutual attraction between the two, for the baby again responded to his greeting with a smile, and held out his scrawny little hands. Tode was delighted. He lifted the child in his arms and sat down with him in an old rocking-chair. Nan cast a quick, disturbed glance at the two. She had dressed the baby in some clothes that Mrs. Hunt had found for her--a few that had survived Ted's rough usage. They were old but clean, and it was trying to Nan to see Little Brother's pure, sweet face and fresh garments held by Tode's dirty hands against his dirtier jacket. But the baby did not mind. He looked as contented as Tode did, and when the boy's grimy fingers touched his thin cheek, Little Brother laughed a soft, happy, gurgling laugh that was music in Tode's ears. But suddenly the boy's glance took in the contrast between his soiled hand and the little face against which it rested. For a moment he hesitated, then he arose hastily, placed the child gently on the old shawl again and said to Mrs. Hunt, "Ye ain't got a bit o' soap you could lend me, have ye?" Mrs. Hunt looked at him inquiringly, then she answered a little unwillingly, for even soap costs money, "You can take that bit on the shelf there." Tode seized it and vanished. Few things escaped his quick eyes, and he had noticed a sink and a faucet in the hall outside the door. There he rubbed and scrubbed his hands for full five minutes vastly to their improvement, though even then he looked at them doubtfully. "Can't do no better," he muttered, as he wiped them--well, he had only one place to wipe them, and he did the best he could. When he went back he glanced somewhat sheepishly at Mrs. Hunt as he put the remains of the soap back on the shelf, and again took up the baby. Nan smiled at him but she made no remark, and tried not to look at his jacket. After he had gone Mrs. Hunt asked, thoughtfully, "How long have you known that boy, Nan?" "I never saw him until yesterday," answered the girl. "He was good to me then." "Yes, I know, an' of course you don't want to forget that, but, Nan, I'm afraid he's a bad boy. Dick says he is. He says he lies and steals and swears. I guess you don't want to have much to do with him." Nan looked troubled. She answered, slowly, "I guess he hasn't had much of a chance, Mrs. Hunt. He can't remember anything about his father and mother, and he says he's never had any home except the street. Do you s'pose 'twill hurt for him to come here sometimes to see Little Brother? 'Seems as if it might help him to be a better boy. He likes Little Brother." For a moment Mrs. Hunt was silent. She was thinking how hard she tried to bring up her children to be good boys and girls, and yet they were not always good. She wondered what kind of a boy her Dick would have been if he, like Tode, had had no home and no one to keep him from evil ways. "If that's so, there's some excuse for him," she said, in response to Nan's plea for Tode. "P'raps 'twill help him somehow if he gets to carin' for that innocent baby, an' I don't mind his comin' here sometimes, only be careful that you don't learn any evil from him, my dear," and she leaned over and kissed the girl's cheek. "Oh, Mrs. Hunt, I _must_ be good always, you know, for Little Brother's sake. I can't ever forget or break my promise to mother," Nan answered, earnestly. And Mrs. Hunt, as she saw the solemn look in the dark eyes uplifted to her own, felt that she need not worry about Nan and Tode. III. AN ACCIDENT Tode Bryan was sauntering down the street, his hands in his pockets, as usual, when he was not selling papers. He was whistling a lively tune, but he was on the lookout for anything interesting that might happen. As he passed a fruit stand kept by an old woman, he slyly snatched a handful of peanuts which he ate as he went on. He had sold out his papers more quickly than usual, for it was still early in the evening, and the streets were full of business-men on their way to their homes. Suddenly the boy stopped short and listened, and the next moment there was a general rush into doorways and side streets as a fire-engine came dashing around the corner, while the police rushed from side to side clearing the way through the narrow street. As the engine passed, Tode, like every other boy within sight or hearing, raced madly after it, shouting and yelling "fire" with all the power of his healthy lungs. Hearing somebody say where the fire was, he slipped through a narrow cross street and an alley, so coming out ahead of the engine which the next moment swung around the nearest corner. An old man was just crossing the street, and as he heard the clang of the gong and the clatter of the engine, he looked about in a dazed, frightened way, and, instead of hurrying across, hesitated a moment and then turned uncertainly back. The driver did his best to avoid him but when the engine had passed the old man lay motionless upon the ground. Instantly a crowd gathered about him and Tode pressed forward to the front rank. One policeman was raising the old man's head and another was asking if anybody knew who the injured man was. It was Tode, who, peering curiously at the pale face, remarked, "I know him. He buys papers o' me." "What's his name? Where does he live?" questioned the officer. "Do' know. He keeps a bookstand down on School street." "Well, we'll have to send him to the hospital. Ring up the ambulance, Dick," said the officer to his companion. Tode was just dashing off after the engine when one of the policemen collared him. "Here you!" he exclaimed. "None o' your cuttin' off! If you know this man you've got to go to the hospital an' 'dentify him." Tode looked uncomfortable and tried to squirm out of the man's grasp--a fruitless effort, for his strength availed nothing against that iron grip. The boy had no idea what "'dentify" might mean but he had his reasons for preferring to keep at a distance from the guardians of the law. There was no help for it, however, so with many inward misgivings, he submitted and waited for the ambulance. When it appeared the still insensible old man was lifted in and Tode was ordered to the front seat where he rode securely between the driver and the policeman. The boy had never before been in a hospital and he felt very ill at ease when he found himself inside the building with its big rooms and long bare halls. He was left alone with the policeman for a while, and then both of them were called into another room and questioned in regard to the accident. Finally Tode was dismissed with strict orders to return the next day. "He'll be here. I know him, an' if he don't show up, you jest send me word an' I'll find him for ye," the officer said to the doctor, with a threatening glance at the boy. Tode said nothing, but in his heart he was determined not to return the next day. The officer, however, kept his eye on him, and the next afternoon pounced upon him and put him on a street car with strict orders to the conductor not to let him off until he reached the hospital. So finding himself thus under watch and ward, Tode concluded that he might as well obey orders, and he rang the bell at the hospital door. He was met by the doctor whom he had seen the night before, and taken at once to the ward where the injured man was lying. As Tode gazed around the long room with its rows of white beds, a feeling of awe stole over him. He wanted to get away, for he did not know what to do or say. The old man was lying as if asleep, but when the doctor spoke to him he looked up and his dim eyes brightened at sight of the familiar face of the boy. "Oh, bishop, it's you is it? Got a paper for me?" he said with a feeble smile. Tode wriggled uneasily as he answered gruffly, "Guess ye don't want none to-day, do ye?" "No, I don't believe I do. You can bring me one to-morrow, bishop," and as he spoke the old man closed his eyes again, and turned his face away with a weary sigh. "Come away now," said the doctor, and once outside the door he added, "He hasn't said as much as that before. Seeing some one he knew aroused him as I hoped it would. Why does he call you bishop?" "I do' know," replied Tode, indifferently. "Well, you must come again to-morrow. Here's a car ticket and a quarter. I'll give you the same when you come to-morrow. Be here about this time, will you?" "All right--I'll come," answered the boy to whom the quarter was an inducement. The old man remained at the hospital for several weeks and Tode continued to visit him there at first for the sake of the money and because he dared not disobey the doctor's orders, but after a while he became rather proud of the old man's evident liking for him, and he would often sit and talk with him for half an hour at a time. One day Tode inquired curiously, "What d' ye call me bishop for? 'Tain't my name." And the old man answered dreamily, "You remind me of a boy I knew when I was about your age. He used to say that he was going to be a bishop when he grew up and so we boys always called him 'bishop.'" "An' did he?" questioned Tode. "Become a bishop? No, he entered the army and died in his first battle." "W'at's a bishop, anyhow?" asked Tode, after a moment's silence. "You know what a minister is, Tode?" "A preacher, ye mean?" "Yes, a minister is a preacher. A bishop is a sort of head preacher--ranking higher, you know." Tode nodded. "I'd rather be a soldier like that feller you knew," he remarked. A day came when the old man was pronounced well enough to leave the hospital and the doctor ordered Tode to be on hand to take him home. The boy did not object. He was rather curious to see the little place in the rear of the bookstand where the old man lived alone. Since the accident the stand had been closed and Tode helped to open and air the room and then made a fire in the stove. When this was done the old man gave him money to buy materials for supper which of course the boy shared. After this he came daily to the place to run errands or do anything that was wanted, and by degrees the old man came to depend more and more upon him until the business of the little stand fell almost wholly into the boy's hands, for the owner's head still troubled him and he could not think clearly. It was a great relief to him to have some one to look after everything for him. Tode liked it and the business prospered in his hands. If he lacked experience, he was quicker and sharper than the old man. The two took their meals together, and at night Tode slept on a blanket on the floor, and was more comfortable and prosperous than he had ever been in his life before. He had money to spend too, for old Mr. Carey never asked for any account of the sums that passed through the boy's hands. So he himself was undisturbed by troublesome questions and figures, the old man was content now, and each day found him a little weaker and feebler. Tode noticed this but he gave no thought to the matter. Why borrow trouble when things were so much to his mind? Tode lived in the present. He still sold the evening papers, considering it wise to keep possession of his route against future need, and never a week passed that he did not see Little Brother at least twice. He would have liked to see the child every day, but he knew instinctively that he was not a favorite with the Hunts, and that knowledge made him ill at ease with them. But it could not keep him away altogether. He found too much satisfaction in Little Brother's love for him. More than once Mrs. Hunt had remarked to Nan that she didn't "see what in the world made the baby so fond of that rough, dirty boy." Nan herself wondered at it though she kept always a grateful remembrance of Tode's kindness when she first met him. Tode often brought little gifts to the child, and would have given him much more, but Nan would not allow it. The two had a long argument over the matter one day. It was a bright, sunny morning and Mrs. Hunt had said that the baby ought to be out in the fresh air, so Nan had taken him to the Common, and sat there keeping ever a watchful eye for their enemy, Mary Leary. Tode going down Beacon street espied the two and forgetting all about the errand on which he was bound, promptly joined them. "He's gettin' fat--he is," the boy remarked, poking his finger at the dimple in the baby's cheek, then drawing it quickly away again with an uncomfortable expression. Tode never cared how dirty his hands were except when he saw them in contrast with Little Brother's pure face. "Yes, he's getting well and strong," assented Nan, with a happy smile. "I say, Nan, w'at's the reason you won't let me pay for his milk?" asked Tode, after a little. Then it was Nan's turn to look uncomfortable, and the color rose in her cheeks as she answered, "I can pay now for all he needs. You know Mrs. Hunt gets a double quantity of bags and I work on them every day." But this answer did not satisfy Tode. "That don't make no diff'runce," he growled. "Don't see why you won't let me do nothin' for him," and he cast a gloomy glance at the baby, but Little Brother laughed up at him and the gloom speedily melted away. After a moment's silence he added, slowly, "It's comin' cold weather. He'll want a jacket or somethin', won't he?" "He'll have to have some warm clothes," replied Nan, thoughtfully, "but I can get them--I guess." Tode turned upon her fiercely. "I s'pose you'd let him freeze to death 'fore you'd let me buy him any clothes," he burst out, angrily. "I sh'd like ter know w'at's the matter with ye, anyhow. Has that measly Dick Hunt ben stuffin' ye 'bout me?" Nan coloured again and dropped her eyes. "Say--has he? I'll give it ter him next time I catch him out!" and Tode ground his heel suggestively into the gravel walk. "Oh, Tode, don't! Please don't fight Dick," pleaded Nan. "How can you when his mother's so good to Little Brother?" "Don't care 'f she is. _He_ ain't," was Tode's surly reply. "He don't want you'n him to stay there." Nan's eyes were full of uneasiness. "Did he say so?" she questioned, for she had noticed Dick's coldness and been vaguely disturbed by it. The boy nodded. "Yes," he said, "he tol' me so. Said there's 'nough fer his father ter feed 'thout you'n him," and he pointed to the baby. "But I work," pleaded Nan. "I pay for all we eat." "But ye don't pay fer the rent an' the fire, an'--an' everything," Tode replied, with a note of triumph in his voice, "so now, ye better let me pay fer Little Brother an' then you c'n pay the rest." Nan hesitated and her face was troubled. Finally she lifted her dark eyes to his and said bravely, "Tode, I guess I ought to tell you just why I couldn't anyway let you do for Little Brother as you want to. It's because--because you don't get your money the right way." "Who says I don't? Did that Dick Hunt say so? I'll"--began Tode, fiercely, but Nan laid her hand on his arm and looked steadily into his face. "Tode," she said, earnestly, "if you will look straight into Little Brother's eyes and tell me that you never steal--I'll believe you." "I never"--began the boy, boldly; then he met a grave, sweet glance from the baby's big blue eyes, and he hesitated. The lying words died on his tongue, and turning his eyes away from the little face that he loved, he said gloomily, "What's that got to do with it anyhow? S'posin' I do hook a han'ful of peanuts sometimes. That ain't nothin'." "Tode, do you want Little Brother to hook a handful of peanuts sometimes when he gets big?" asked Nan, quietly. The boy turned his eyes again to the baby face and the hot blood burned in his own as he answered, quickly, "'Course I don't. He won't be that sort." "No, he won't, if I can help it," replied Nan, gravely. Tode dug his toe into the dirt in silence. Nan added, "Tode, by and by, when he gets bigger, would you want him to know that you were a thief?" When Tode looked up there was a strange gravity in his eyes, and his lips were set in an expression of stern resolve. "I've got ter quit it," he said, solemnly, "an' I will. Say, Nan," he added, wistfully, "if I quit now, ye wont ever let him know I used ter be--what you said, will ye?" "No, Tode, never," answered Nan, quickly and earnestly. "And Tode, if you'll stick to it, and not steal or lie or swear, I shan't mind your helping me get things for Little Brother." The boy's face brightened, and he drew himself up proudly. "It's a bargain, then," he said. Nan looked at him thoughtfully. "I don't believe you know how hard it will be, Tode. I find it's awful hard to break myself of bad habits, and I don't s'pose you've ever tried to before, have you?" Tode considered the question. "Guess not," he said, slowly, after a pause. "Then I'm afraid you'll find you can't stop doing those bad things all at once. But you'll keep on trying, Tode. You won't give up 'cause it's hard work," Nan pleaded, anxiously. "Nope," answered the boy, briefly, with a glance at the soft little fingers that were clasped about one of his. When Nan went home he went with her to the door, loth to lose sight of the only creature in the world for whom he cared. As the door closed behind the two, he walked on thinking over what Nan had said. Much of it seemed to him "girls' stuff an' nonsense." "As if a fella couldn't stop swipin' things if he wanted to!" he said to himself. As he went on he passed a fruit stand where a man was buying some bananas. In putting his change into his pocket he dropped a nickel, which rolled toward Tode who promptly set his foot on it, and then pretending to pull a rag off his torn trousers, he picked up the coin and went on chuckling over his "luck." But suddenly he stopped short and the hot color rose in his cheeks as he exclaimed with an oath, "Done it again!" He looked around for the man, but he had disappeared, and with an angry grunt Tode flung the nickel into the gutter and went on, beginning so soon to realise that evil habits are not overcome by simply resolving to conquer them. Tode never had made any such attempt before, and the discovery had rather a depressing effect on him. It made him cross, too, but to his credit be it said, the thought of giving up the struggle never once occurred to him. He found old Mr. Carey asleep in his chair, and he awoke him roughly. "See here!" he exclaimed, sharply. "Is this the way you 'tend to business when I'm gone? Some cove might a stole every book an' paper on the stand, and cleaned out the cash, too." He pulled open the drawer as he spoke. "No thanks to you that 'tain't empty," he grumbled. He had never spoken so sharply before, and the old man was vaguely disturbed by it. He got up and walked feebly across the room, rubbing his trembling fingers through his grey hair in a troubled fashion, as he answered slowly, "Yes, yes, bishop--you're right. It was very careless of me to go to sleep so. I don't see how I came to do it. I'm afraid I'm breaking down, my boy--breaking down," he added, sadly. As Tode looked at the old man's dim eyes and shaking hands a feeling of sympathy and compassion stole into his heart, and his voice softened as he said, "Oh, well, it's all right this time. Reckon I'll have to run the business altogether till you get better." "I'm afraid you will, bishop. I'm not much good anyhow, nowadays," and the old man dropped again into his chair with a heavy sigh. The weeks that followed were the most miserable weeks of Tode Byran's short life. He found out some things about himself that he had never before suspected. It was wholesome knowledge, but it was not pleasant to find that in spite of his strongest resolutions, those nimble fingers of his _would_ pick up nuts and apples from street stands and his quick tongue would rattle off lies and evil words before he could remember to stop it. The other boys found him a most unpleasant companion in these days, for his continual failures made him cross and moody. He would speedily have given up the struggle but for Little Brother. Several times he did give it up for a week or two, but then he staid away from the Hunts' rooms until he grew so hungry for a sight of the baby face that he could stay away no longer. Nan came to understand what these absences meant, and always when he reappeared she would speak a word of encouragement and faith in his final victory. Tode had not cared at all for Nan at first, but in these days of struggle and failure he began to value her steadfast faith in him, and again and again he renewed his vow to make himself "fit to help bring up Little Brother," as he expressed it. It was one day toward the close of winter that Tode noticed that Mr. Carey seemed more than usually dull and listless, dropping into a doze even while the boy was speaking to him, and he went to bed directly after supper. When the boy awoke the next morning the old man lay just as he had fallen asleep. He did not answer when Tode spoke to him, and his hands were cold as ice to the boy's touch. Tode did not know what to do, but he finally hunted up the policeman, who knew him, and the two went back together and found the old man dead. As no relatives appeared, the city authorities took charge of the funeral, the books and the few pieces of furniture were sold to pay the expenses, and Tode found himself once more a homeless waif. He had not minded it before, but his brief experience of even this poor home had unfitted him for living and sleeping in the streets. He found it unpleasant too, to have no money except the little he could earn selling papers. He set himself to face his future in earnest, and came to the conclusion that it was time for him to get into some better paying business. After thinking over the matter for several days he went to Nan. "You know them doughnuts you made th' other day?" he began. "Yes," replied Nan, wonderingly. Mrs. Hunt had taught her to make various simple dishes, and as Tode had happened in the day she made her first doughnuts, she had given him a couple, which he had pronounced "prime!" Now he went on, "I don't want to sleep 'round the streets any more. I'm sick of it, but I can't make money 'nough off papers to do anything else. I'm thinkin' of settin' up a stand." "A bookstand, Tode?" questioned Nan, interestedly. "No--a eatin' stand--fer the fellers ye know--newsboys an' such. 'F you'll make doughnuts an' gingerbread an' san'wiches fer me, I bet all the fellers'll come fer 'em." "Now that ain't a bad idea, Tode," said Mrs. Hunt, looking up from her work. "Of course the boys would buy good homemade food instead of the trash they get from the cheap eatin' houses, an' Nan, I shouldn't wonder if you could earn more that way than by workin' at these bags." Nan considered the matter thoughtfully, and finally agreed to give it a trial, and Tode went off highly pleased. It took him two weeks to save enough to start his stand even in the simplest fashion, but when he did open it, he at first did a flourishing business. In the beginning the boys patronised him partly from curiosity and partly from good fellowship, but Nan's cookery found favour with them at once, and "Tode's Corner" soon became the favorite lunch counter for the city newsboys, and Tode's pockets were better filled than they had been since Mr. Carey's death. For several weeks all went well, and the boy began to consider himself on the high road to fortune, but then came a setback. One day his stand was surrounded by a crowd of boys all clamoring to be served at once, when the big fellow who had taken possession of Tode's newspaper route, months before, came along. He had never forgotten or forgiven the boy for getting the better of him on that occasion, and now he thought he saw a chance for revenge. Creeping up behind the group of hungry boys, he suddenly hit one of them a stinging blow on the face, and as this one turned and struck back angrily at him, the big fellow flung him back with all his strength against Tode's stand. The stand was an old one and rickety--Tode had bought it secondhand--and it went down with a crash, carrying cookies, doughnuts, gingerbread, coffee, sandwiches, cups, plates and boys in one promiscuous mixture. Before the boys could struggle to their feet, Carrots, with his hands full of gingerbread, had disappeared around the nearest corner. There was a wild rush and a scramble, and when two minutes later, Tode stood gazing mournfully at the wreck, not an eatable bit remained. The boys had considered the wreckage as their lawful spoils, and every one of them had snatched as much as he could. Later, however, their sense of justice led some of them to express, after their rough fashion, sympathy for Tode, and disapproval of his enemy's revengeful act. Besides, a few of them had enough conscience to acknowledge to themselves that they had not been entirely blameless. The result was that half a dozen of them went to Tode the next day and offered to "chip in" and set him up again. Tode appreciated the spirit that prompted the offer, but he was also shrewd enough to foresee that should he accept it, these boys would expect favours in the way of prices and quantities when they dealt with him in the future, and so he declined. "Reckin I can stan' on my own feet, boys," he answered. "I've been a-tinkerin' up the ol' stand, an' I'm a-goin' to start in again to-morrow. You fellers come here an' get yer breakfast, an' that's all the help I'll ask, 'cept that ev'ry last one o' ye'll give that Carrots a kick fer me." "We will that!" shouted the boys. "We'll make him sorry fer himself!" And the next day their sympathy took the practical form that Tode had suggested, for every one of them that had any money to spend, spent it at "Tode's Corner," so that his stand was cleared again, but in a very satisfactory fashion--a fashion that filled his pockets with dimes and nickels. IV. TODE MEETS THE BISHOP Sundays were Tode's dreariest days. He found that it did not pay to keep his stand open later than ten o'clock, and then after he had spent an hour with Little Brother and Nan, the time hung heavy on his hands. Sometimes he pored over a newspaper for a while, sometimes over something even more objectionable than the Sunday newspaper, and for the rest, he loafed around street corners and wharves with other homeless boys like himself. One Sunday morning he was listlessly reading over some play-bills pasted on a fence, when the word "bishop" caught his eye, and he spelled out the announcement that a well-known bishop was to speak in St. Mark's Church, that afternoon. "Cracky! I'd like to see a live bishop. B'lieve I'll go," he said to himself. Then looking down at his ragged trousers and dirty jacket, he added with a grin, "'Spect some o' them nobs'll most have a fit to see me there." Nevertheless he determined to go. Old Mr. Carey had never called him anything but "bishop," and now the boy had a queer feeling as he read that word on the bill--a feeling that this bishop whom he had never seen had yet in some way something to do with him--though in what way he could not imagine. He thought over the matter through the hours that followed, sometimes deciding that he would go, and again that he wouldn't, but he found out where St. Mark's Church was, and at three o'clock he was there. He gave a little start and a shadow fell upon his face as he saw the pillared porch and the stone stairway. He seemed to see himself running up those stairs and stuffing that stolen pocketbook into the pastor's box that he remembered so clearly. These thoughts were not pleasant ones to him now, and Tode stopped hesitatingly, undecided whether to go on or to go in. It was early yet and no one was entering though the doors stood invitingly open. While he hesitated, the sexton came out to the steps. Tode remembered him too, and looked at him with a grin that exasperated the man. "Get out o' this!" he exclaimed, roughly. "We don't want any o' your sort 'round here." Of course that settled the matter for Tode. He was determined to go in now anyhow, but he knew better than to attempt it just then. "Who wants to go int' yer ol' church," he muttered as he turned away. The man growled a surly response but Tode did not look back. On the corner he stopped, wondering how he could best elude the unfriendly sexton and slip into the building, without his knowledge. He dropped down on the curbstone and sat there thinking for some time. At last a voice above him said quietly, "Well, my boy, aren't you coming to church?" Tode looked up, up a long way it seemed to him, into such a face as he had never before looked into. Instinctively he arose and stepped back that he might see more plainly those clear blue eyes and that strong, tender mouth. The boy gazed and gazed, forgetting utterly to answer. "You are coming into church with me, aren't you?" So the question was repeated, and Tode, still lookingly earnestly up into the man's face, nodded silently. "That's right, my son--come," and a large, kindly hand was laid gently upon the boy's shoulder. Without a word he walked on beside the stranger. The sexton was standing in the vestibule as the two approached. A look of blank amazement swept across his face at sight of the boy in such company. He said no word, however, only stepped aside with a bow, but his eyes followed the two as they passed into the church together, and he muttered a few angry words under his breath. As for Tode, some strange influence seemed to have taken possession of him, for he forgot to exult over the surly sexton. He passed him without a thought indeed, feeling nothing but a strange, happy wonder at the companionship in which he found himself. The stranger led him up the aisle to one of the best pews, and motioned him in. Silently the boy obeyed. Then the man looking down with his rare, beautiful smile into the uplifted face, gently raised Tode's ragged cap from his rough hair, and laid it on the cushioned seat beside him. Then he went away, and Tode felt as if the sunlight had been suddenly darkened. His eyes followed the tall, strong figure longingly until it disappeared--then he looked about him, at the beautiful interior of the church. The boy had never been in such a place before, and he gazed wonderingly at the frescoes, the rich colours in the windows, the dark carved woodwork and the wide chancel and pulpit. "Wat's it all for, I wonder," he said, half aloud, and then started and flushed as his own voice broke the beautiful, solemn silence. People were beginning to come in and filling the seats about him, and many curious and astonished glances fell upon the boy, but he did not notice them. Presently a soft, low strain of music stole out upon the stillness. Surely a master hand touched the keys that day, for the street boy sat like a statue listening eagerly to the sweet sounds, and suddenly he found his cheeks wet. He dashed his hand impatiently across them wondering what was the matter with him, for tears were strangers to Tode's eyes, but in spite of himself they filled again, till he almost wished the music would cease--almost but not quite, for that strange happiness thrilled his heart as he listened. Then far-off voices began to sing, coming nerrer and nearer, until a long line of white-robed men and boys appeared, singing as they walked, and last of all came the kingly stranger who had brought Tode into the church, and he went to the lectern and began to read. "The--bishop!" Tode breathed the words softly, in a mixture of wonder and delight, as he suddenly realised who this man must be. He sat through the remainder of the service in a dreamy state of strange enjoyment. He did not understand why the people around him stood or knelt at intervals. He did not care. When the bishop prayed, Tode looked around, wondering whom he was calling "Lord." He concluded that it must be the one who made the music. He listened eagerly, breathlessly, to the sermon, understanding almost nothing of what was said, but simply drinking in the words spoken by that rich, sweet voice, that touched something within him, something that only Little Brother had ever touched before. Yet this was different from the feeling that the baby had awakened in the boy's heart. He loved the baby dearly, but to this great, grand man, who stood there above him wearing the strange dress that he had never before seen a man wear--to him the boy's whole heart seemed to go out in reverent admiration and desire. He knew that he would do anything that this man might ask of him. He could refuse him nothing. "Ye are not your own. Ye are bought with a price." These words, repeated again and again, fixed themselves in Tode's memory with no effort of his own. Buying and selling were matters quite in his line now, but he did not understand this. He puzzled over it awhile, then put it aside to be thought out at another time. When the service was over, Tode watched the long line of choir boys pass slowly out, and his eyes followed the tall figure of the bishop till it disappeared from his wistful gaze. Then he looked about upon the kneeling congregation, wondering if the people were going to stay there all day. The bishop was gone, the music had ceased, and Tode did not want to stay any longer. He slipped silently out of the pew and left the church. That evening he wandered off by himself, avoiding the Sunday gathering-places of the boys, and thinking over the new experiences of the afternoon. The words the bishop had repeated so often sung themselves over and over in his ears. "Ye are not your own. Ye are bought with a price." "Don't mean me, anyhow," he thought, "'cause I b'long ter myself, sure 'nough. Nobody ever bought me 't ever I heard of. Wonder who that Jesus is, he talked about so much. I wish--I wish he'd talk ter me--that bishop." All the strange happiness that had filled his heart during the service in the church, was gone now. He did not feel happy at all. On the contrary, he felt wretched and utterly miserable. He had begun to have a distinct pride and satisfaction in himself lately, since he had stopped lying and stealing, and had set up in business for himself, and especially since Mrs. Hunt had begun to look upon him with more favour, as he knew she had--but somehow now all this seemed worthless. Although he had not understood the bishop's sermon, it seemed to have unsettled Tode's mind, and awakened a vague miserable dissatisfaction with himself. He was not used to such feelings. He didn't like them, and he grew cross and ugly when he found himself unable to shake them off. He had wandered to the quiet corner of the wharf, where he and Nan and Little Brother had spent the first hours of their acquaintance, and he stood leaning against that same post, looking gloomily down into the water, when a lean, rough dog crept slowly toward him, wagging his stumpy tail and looking into the boy's face with eyes that pleaded for a friendly word. Generally Tode would have responded to the mute appeal, but now he felt so miserable himself, that he longed to make somebody or something else miserable too, so instead of a pat, he gave the dog a kick that sent it limping off with a yelp of pain and remonstrance. He had made another creature as miserable as himself, but somehow it didn't seem to lessen his own wretchedness. Indeed, he couldn't help feeling that he had done a mean, cowardly thing, and Tode never liked to feel himself a coward. He looked after the dog. It had crawled into a corner and was licking the injured paw. Tode walked toward the poor creature that looked at him suspiciously, yet with a faint little wag of its tail, as showing its readiness to forgive and forget, while at the same time ready to run if more abuse threatened. Tode stooped and called, "Come here, sir!" and, after a moment's hesitation, the dog crept slowly toward him with a low whine, still keeping his bright eyes fastened on the boy's. "Poor old fellow," Tode said, gently, patting the dog's rough head. "Is it hurt? Let me see." He felt of the leg, the dog standing quietly beside him. "'Tain't broken. It'll be all right pretty soon. What's your name?" Tode said, and the dog rubbed his head against the boy's knee and tried to say with his eloquent eyes what his dumb lips could not utter. "Got none--ye mean? You're a street dog--like me," the boy added. "Well, guess I'll go home an' get some supper," and he walked slowly away and presently forgot all about the dog. He had lately hired a tiny garret room where he slept, and kept his supplies when his stand was closed. He went there now and ate his lonely supper. It had never before seemed lonely to him, but somehow to-night it did. He hurried down the food and started to go out again. As he opened his door, he heard a faint sound, and something moved on the dark landing. "Who's there?" he called, sharply. A low whine answered him, and from out the gloom two eyes gleamed and glittered. Tode peered into the shadow, then he laughed. "So it's you, is it? You must have tagged me home. Come in here then if you want to," and he flung his door wide open and stepped back into the room. Then out of the shadows of the dark landing the dog came slowly and warily, ready to turn and slink off if he met no welcome, but Tode was in the mood when even a strange dog was better than his own company. He fed the half-starved creature with some stale sandwiches, and then talked to him and tried to teach him some tricks until to his own surprise he heard the city clocks striking nine, and the long, lonely evening he had dreaded was gone. "Well now, you're a heap o' company," he said to the dog. "I've a good mind ter keep ye. Say, d'ye wan' ter stay, ol' feller?" The dog wagged his abbreviated tail, licked Tode's fingers, and rubbed his head against the ragged trousers of his new friend. "Ye do, hey! Well, I'll keep ye ter-night, anyhow. Le' see, what'll I call ye? You've got ter have a name. S'posin' I call ye Tag. That do--hey, Tag?" The dog gave a quick, short bark and limped gaily about the boy's feet. "All right--we'll call ye Tag then. Now then, there's yer bed," and he threw into a corner an old piece of carpet that he had picked up on a vacant lot. The dog understood and settled himself with a long, contented sigh, as if he would have said: "At last I've found a master and a home." In a day or two Tag's lameness disappeared, and his devotion to his new master was unbounded. Tode found him useful, too, for he kept vigilant watch when the boy was busy at his stand, and suffered no thievish fingers to snatch anything when Tode's eyes and fingers were too busy for him to be on the lookout. The dog was such a loving, intelligent little creature, that he quickly won his way into Nan's heart, and he evidently considered himself the guardian of Little Brother from the first day that he saw Tode and the child together. Some dogs have a way of reading hearts, and Tag knew within two minutes that Tode loved every lock on Little Brother's sunny head. A few days after that Sabbath that the boy was never to forget, he went to see Nan and the baby, and in the course of his visit, remarked, "Nan, I seen the bishop last Sunday." "What bishop?" inquired Nan. "The one that talked at the big, stone church--St. Mark's, they call it." "I wonder 't they let you in, if you wore them ragged duds," remarked Mrs. Hunt. "The bishop asked me to go in an' he took me in himself," retorted Tode, defiantly. "For the land's sake," exclaimed Mrs. Hunt. "He must be a queer kind of a bishop!" "A splendid kind of a bishop, I should think," put in Nan, and the boy responded quickly, "He is so! I never see a man like him." "Never see a man like him? What d'ye mean, Tode?" questioned Mrs. Hunt. Tode looked at her as he answered slowly, "He's a great big man--looks like a king--an' his eyes look right through a feller, but they don't hurt. They ain't sharp. They're soft, an'--an'--I guess they look like a mother's eyes would. I d'know much 'bout mothers, 'cause I never had one, but I should think they'd look like his do. I tell ye," Tode faced Mrs. Hunt and spoke earnestly, "a feller'd do 'most anything that that bishop asked him to--couldn't help it." Mrs. Hunt stared in amazement at the boy. His eyes were glowing and in his voice there was a ring of deep feeling that she had never before heard in it. It made her vaguely uncomfortable. Her Dick had never spoken so about any bishop, nor indeed, about anybody else, and here was this rough street boy whom she considered quite unfit to associate with Dick--and the bishop himself had taken him into church. Mrs. Hunt spoke somewhat sharply. "Well, I must say you were a queer-lookin' one to set in a pew in a church like St. Mark's." Nan looked distressed, and Tode glanced uneasily at his garments. They certainly were about as bad as they could be. Even pins and twine could not hold them together much longer. "Tode," Mrs. Hunt went on, "I think it's high time you got yourself some better clothes. Dear knows, you need 'em if ever a boy did, an' certainly you must have money 'nough now." "'Spect I have. I never thought about it," replied Tode. "Well, you'd better think about it, an' 'tend to it right away. 'F you're goin' to church with bishops you'd ought to look respectable, anyhow." Something in the tone and emphasis with which Mrs. Hunt spoke brought the colour into Tode's brown cheeks, while Nan looked at the good woman in surprise and dismay. She did not know how troubled was the mother's heart over her own boy lately, as she saw him growing rough and careless, and that it seemed to her hard that this waif of the streets should be going up while her Dick went down. Tode thought over what had been said, and the result was that the next time he appeared he was so changed that the good woman looked twice before she recognised him. His clothes had been purchased at a secondhand store, and they might have fitted better than they did, but they were a vast improvement on what he had worn before. He had scrubbed his face as well as his hands this time, and had combed his rough hair as well as he could with the broken bit of comb which was all he possessed in the way of toilet appliances. It is no easy matter for a boy to keep himself well washed and brushed with no face cloth or towel or brush, and no wash basin save the public sink. Tode had done his best however, and Nan looked at him in pleased surprise. "You do look nice, Tode," she said, and the boy's face brightened with satisfaction. All through that week Tode told himself that he would not go to the church again, yet day by day the longing grew to see the bishop's face once more and to hear his voice. "W'at's the use! O'ny makes a feller feel meaner 'n dirt," he said to himself again and again, yet the next Sabbath afternoon found him hanging about St. Mark's hoping that the bishop would ask him in again. But the minutes passed and the bishop did not appear. "Maybe he's gone in aready," the boy thought, peering cautiously through the pillars of the entrance. There was no one in sight, and Tode crept quietly across the porch through the wide vestibule to the church door. Only the sexton was there, and his back was toward the boy as he stood looking out of the opposite door. "Now's my time," thought Tode, and he ran swiftly and silently up the aisle to the pew where the bishop had placed him. There he hesitated. He was not sure which of several pews was the one, but with a quick glance at the sexton's back, he slipped into the nearest, and hearing the man's footsteps approaching, dropped to the floor and crawled under the seat. The sexton came slowly down the aisle, stopping here and there to arrange books or brush off a dusty spot. He even entered the pew where Tode was, and moved the books in the rack in front, but the boy lay motionless in the shadow, and the man passed on without discovering him. Then the people began to come in, and Tode was just about to get up and sit on the seat, when a lady and a little girl entered the pew. The boy groaned inwardly. "They'll screech if I get up now," he thought. "Nothin' for it but to lay here till it's over. Wal', I c'n hear _him_ anyhow." "Him," in Tode's thought was the bishop, and he waited patiently through the early part of the service, longing to hear again that rich, strong, thrilling voice. But alas for Tode! It was not the bishop who preached that day. It was a stranger, whose low monotonous voice reached the boy so indistinctly, that he soon gave up all attempts to listen, and before the sermon was half over he was sound asleep. Fortunately he was used to hard resting-places, and he slept so quietly that the occupants of the pew did not discover his presence at all. The music of the choir and of the organ mingled with the boy's dreams, but did not arouse him, and when the people departed and the sexton closed the church and went home, Tode still slept on in darkness and solitude. Usually there was an evening service, but on this occasion it was omitted, the rector being ill, so when Tode at last opened his eyes, it was to find all dark and silent about him. As he started up his head struck the bottom of the seat with a force that made him cry out and drop back again. Then as he lay there he put out his hands, and feeling the cushioned seat over his head, he knew where he was and guessed what had happened. "Wal! I was a chump to go to sleep here!" he muttered, slowly, rising with hands outstretched. "'Spect I'll have ter get out of the window." The street lights shining through the stained glass made a faint twilight in the church, but there was something weird and strange about being there alone at that hour that set the boy's heart to beating faster than usual. He went to one of the windows and felt about for the fastenings, but he could not reach them. They were too high. He tried them all, but none were within his reach. Then he sat down in one of the pews and wondered what he should do next. He was wide awake now. It seemed to him that he could not close his eyes again that night, and indeed it was long after midnight before he did. He felt strangely lonely as he sat there through those endless hours, dimly hearing the voices and footsteps in the street without grow fewer and fainter, till all was silent save the clocks that rang out the creeping hours to his weary ears. At last his tired eyes closed and he slipped down on the cushioned seat and slept for a few hours, but he awoke again before daylight. It was broad daylight outside before it was light enough in the church for the boy to see clearly, and then he looked hopelessly at the high window fastenings. He had tried every door but all were securely locked. "Nothin' t' do but wait till that ol' cove comes back," he said to himself. Then a thought flashed across his mind--a thought that made his heart stand still with dread. "S'posin' he don't come till next Sunday?" Tode knew nothing about midweek or daily services. But he put this terrible thought away from him. "I'll get out somehow if I have ter smash some o' them pictures," he said aloud, as he looked up at the beautiful windows. The minutes seemed endless while the boy walked restlessly up and down the aisles thinking of his stand, and of the customers who would seek breakfast there in vain that morning. At last he heard approaching footsteps, then a key rattled in the lock, and Tode instinctively rolled under the nearest pew and lay still, listening to the heavy footsteps of the sexton as he passed slowly about opening doors and windows. The boy waited with what patience he could until the man passed on to the further side of the church, then he slid and crawled along the carpeted aisle until he reached the door, when springing to his feet he made a dash for the street. He heard the sexton shouting angrily after him, but he paid no heed. On and on he ran until he reached his room where Tag gave him a wildly delighted welcome, and in a very short time thereafter the stand at "Tode's Corner" was doing a brisk business. V. IN THE BISHOP'S HOUSE Tode's patrons were mostly newsboys of his acquaintance, who came pretty regularly to his stand for breakfast, and generally for a midday meal, lunch or dinner as it might be. Where they took their supper he did not know, but he usually closed his place of business after one o'clock, and spent a couple of hours roaming about the streets doing any odd job that came in his way, if he happened to feel like it, or to be in need of money. After his meeting with the bishop he often wandered up into the neighbourhood of St. Mark's with a vague hope that he might see again the man who seemed to his boyish imagination a very king among men. It had long been Tode's secret ambition to grow into a big, strong man himself--bigger and stronger than the common run of men. Now, whenever he thought about it, he said to himself, "Just like the bishop." But he never met the bishop, and having found out that he did not preach regularly at St. Mark's, Tode never went there after the second time. One afternoon in late September, the boy was lounging along with Tag at his heels in the neighbourhood of the church, when he heard a great rattling of wheels and clattering of hoofs, and around the corner came a pair of horses dragging a carriage that swung wildly from side to side, as the horses came tearing down the street. There was no one in the carriage, but the driver was puffing along a little way behind, yelling frantically, "Stop 'em! Stop 'em! Why don't ye stop the brutes!" There were not many people on the street, and the few men within sight seemed not at all anxious to risk life or limb in an attempt to stop horses going at such a reckless pace. Now Tode was only a little fellow not yet fourteen, but he was strong and lithe as a young Indian, and as to fear--he did not know what it was. As he saw the horses dashing toward him he leaped into the middle of the street and stood there, eyes alert and limbs ready, directly in their pathway. They swerved aside as they approached him, but with a quick upward spring he grabbed the bit of the one nearest him, and hung there with all his weight. This frightened and maddened the horse, and he plunged and reared and flung his head from side to side, until he succeeded in throwing the boy off. The delay however, slight as it was, had given the driver time to come up, and he speedily regained control of his team while a crowd quickly gathered. Tode had been flung off sidewise, his head striking the curbstone, and there he lay motionless, while faithful Tag crouched beside him, now and then licking the boy's fingers, and whining pitifully as he looked from face to face, as if he would have said, "_Won't_ some of you help him? I can't." The crowd pressed about the unconscious boy with a sort of morbid curiosity, one proposing one thing and one another until a policeman came along and promptly sent a summons for an ambulance; but before it appeared, a tall grey-haired man came up the street and stopped to see what was the matter. He was so tall that he could look over the heads of most of the men, and as he saw the white face of the boy lying there in the street, he hastily pushed aside the onlookers as if they had been men of straw, and stooping, lifted the boy in his strong arms. "Stand back," he cried, his voice ringing out like a trumpet, "would you let the child die in the street?" They fell back before him, a whisper passing from lip to lip. "It's the bishop!" they said, and some ran before him to open the gate and some to ring the bell of the great house before which the accident had occurred. Mechanically the bishop thanked them, but he looked at none of them. His eyes were fixed upon the face that lay against his shoulder, the blood dripping slowly from a cut on one side of the head. The servant who opened the door stared for an instant wonderingly, at his master with the child in his arms, and at the throng pressing curiously after them, but the next moment he recovered from his amazement and, admitting the bishop, politely but firmly shut out the eager throng that would have entered with him. A lank, rough-haired dog attempted to slink in at the bishop's heels, but the servant gave him a kick that made him draw back with a yelp of pain, and he took refuge under the steps where he remained all night, restless and miserable, his quick ears yet ever on the alert for a voice or a step that he knew. As the door closed behind the bishop, he exclaimed, "Call Mrs. Martin, Brown, and then send for the doctor. This boy was hurt at our very door." Brown promptly obeyed both orders, and Mrs. Martin, the housekeeper, hastily prepared a room for the unexpected guest. The doctor soon responded to the summons, but all his efforts failed to restore the boy to consciousness that day. The bishop watched the child as anxiously as if it had been one of his own flesh and blood. He had neither wife nor child, but perhaps all the more for that, his great heart held love enough and to spare for every child that came in his way. It was near the close of the following day when Tode's eyes slowly opened and he came back to consciousness, but his eyes wandered about the strange room and he still lay silent and motionless. The doctor and the bishop were both beside him at the moment and he glanced from one face to the other in a vague, doubtful fashion. He asked no question, however, and soon his eyes again closed wearily, but this time in sleep, healthful and refreshing, instead of the stupor that had preceded it, and the doctor turned away with an expression of satisfaction. "He'll pull through now," he said in a low tone. "He's young and full of vitality--he'll soon be all right." The bishop rubbed his hands with satisfaction. "That's well! That's well!" he exclaimed, heartily. The doctor looked at him curiously. "Did you ever see the lad before you picked him up yesterday?" he asked. "No, never," answered the bishop, who naturally had not recognised in Tode the boy whom he had taken into church that Sunday, weeks before. The doctor shook his head as he drove off and muttered to himself, "Whoever saw such a man! Who but our bishop would ever think of taking a little street urchin like that right into his home and treating him as if he were his own flesh and blood! Well, well, he himself gets taken in often no doubt in another fashion, but all the same the world would be the better if there were more like him!" And if the doctor's pronouns were a little mixed he himself understood what he meant, and nobody else had anything to do with the matter. The next morning Tode awoke again and this time to a full and lively consciousness of his surroundings. It was still early and the nurse was dozing in an easy-chair beside the bed. The boy looked at her curiously, then he raised himself on his elbow and gazed about him, but as he did so he became conscious of a dull throbbing pain in one side of his head and a sick faintness swept over him. It was his first experience of weakness, and it startled him into a faint groan as his head fell back on the pillow. The sound awoke the nurse, who held a spoonful of medicine to his lips, saying, "Lie still. The doctor says you must not talk at all until he comes." "So," thought the boy. "I've got a doctor. Wonder where I am an' what ails me, anyhow." But that strange weakness made it easy to obey orders and lie still while the nurse bathed his face and hands and freshened up the bed and the room. Then she brought him a bowl of chicken broth with which she fed him. It tasted delicious, and he swallowed it hungrily and wished there had been more. Then as he lay back on the pillows he remembered all that had happened--the horses running down the street, his attempt to stop them, and the awful blow on his head as it struck the curbstone. "Wonder where I am? Tain't a hospital, anyhow," he thought. "My! But I feel nice an' clean an' so--so light, somehow! If only my head wasn't so sore!" No wonder he felt "nice and clean and light somehow," when, for the first time in his life his body and garments as well as his bed, were as sweet and fresh as hands could make them. Tode never had minded dirt. Why should he, when he had been born in it and had grown up knowing nothing better? Yet, none the less, was this new experience most delightful to him--so delightful that he didn't care to talk. It was happiness enough for him, just then, to lie still and enjoy these new conditions, and so presently he floated off again into sleep--a sleep full of beautiful dreams from which the low murmur of voices aroused him, and he opened his eyes to see the nurse and the doctor looking down at him. "Well, my boy," said the doctor, with his fingers on the wrist near him, "you look better. Feel better too, don't you?" Tode gazed at him, wondering who he was and paying no attention to his question. "Doctor," exclaimed the nurse, suddenly, "he hasn't spoken a single word. Do you suppose he can be deaf and dumb?" The bishop entered the room just in time to catch the last words. "Deaf and dumb!" he repeated, in a tone of dismay. "Dear me! If the poor child is deaf and dumb, I shall certainly keep him here until I can find a better home for him." As his eyes rested on the bishop Tode started and uttered a little inarticulate cry of joy; then, as he understood what the bishop was saying, a singular expression passed over his face. The doctor, watching him closely could make nothing of it. "He looks as if he knew you, bishop," the doctor said. The bishop had taken the boy's rough little hand in his own large, kindly grasp. "No, doctor," he answered, "I don't think I've ever seen him before yesterday, but we're friends all the same, aren't we, my lad?" and he smiled down into the grey eyes looking up to him so earnestly and happily. Tode opened his lips to speak, then suddenly remembering, slightly shook his head while the colour mounted in his pale cheeks. "He acts like a deaf mute, certainly," muttered the doctor, and stepping to the head of the bed he pulled out his watch and held it first to one and then the other of Tode's ears, but out of his sight. Tode's ears were as sharp as a ferret's and his brain was as quick as his ears. He knew well enough what the doctor was doing but he made no sign. Were not the bishop's words ringing in his ears? "If the poor child is deaf and dumb I shall certainly keep him here until I can find a better home for him." There were few things at which the boy would have hesitated to ensure his staying there. He understood now that he was in the house of the bishop--"my bishop" he called him in his thought. So, naturally enough, it was taken for granted that the boy was deaf and dumb, for no one imagined the possibility of his pretending to be so. Tode thought it would be easy to keep up the deception, but at first he found it very hard. As his strength returned there were so many questions that he wanted to ask, but he fully believed that if it were known that he could hear and speak he would be sent away, and more and more as the days went by he longed to remain where he was. As he grew stronger and able to sit up, books and games and pictures were provided for his amusement, yet still the hours sometimes dragged somewhat heavily, but it was better when he was well enough to walk about the house. Mrs. Martin, the housekeeper, had first admired the boy's bravery, then pitied him for his suffering, and had ended by loving him, because she, too, had a big, kindly heart that was ready to love anybody who needed her love and service. So, it was with great satisfaction that she obeyed the bishop's orders, and bought for the boy a good, serviceable outfit as soon as he was able to walk about his room. She combed out and trimmed his rough, thick hair, and then helped him dress himself in one of his new suits. As she tied his necktie for him she looked at him with the greatest satisfaction, saying to herself, "Whoever would believe that it was the same boy? If only he could hear and speak now like other boys, I'd have nothing more to ask for him." Then she stooped and kissed him. Tode wriggled uneasily under the unwonted caress, not quite certain whether or not he liked it--from a woman. The housekeeper took his hand and led him down the stairs to the bishop's study. It was a long room containing many books and easy-chairs and two large desks. At one of these the bishop sat writing, and over the other bent a short, dark-faced man who wore glasses. "Come in, Mrs. Martin, come in," called the bishop, as he saw her standing at the open door. "And who is this?" he added, holding out his hand to the boy. "You don't recognize him?" Mrs. Martin asked smiling down on Tode's smooth head. The bishop looked keenly at the boy, then he smiled contentedly and drew the little fellow to his side. "Well, well!" he said, "the clothes we wear do make a great difference, don't they, Mrs. Martin? He's a fine looking lad. Gibson, this is the boy I was telling you about." The little dark man turned and looked at Tode as the bishop spoke. It was not a friendly look, and Tode felt it. "Ah," replied Mr. Gibson, slowly. "So this is the boy, is it? He was fortunate to fall into your hands;" and with a sharp, sidelong glance over his shoulder, Mr. Gibson turned again to his work. The bishop drew a great armchair close to his table and gently pushed Tode into it. Then he brought a big book full of pictures and put it into the boy's hands. "Let him stay here for a while, Mrs. Martin," he said. "I always work better when there is a child near me--if it's the right sort of a child," he added, with a smile. Mrs. Martin went out, and Tode, with a long, happy breath, leaned back in the big chair and looked about him at the many books, at the dark head bent over the desk in the alcove, finally at the noble face of the bishop intent on his writing. This was the beginning of many happy hours for Tode. Perhaps it was the weakness and languor resulting from his accident that made him willing to sit quietly a whole morning or afternoon in the study beside the bishop's table, when, before this, to sit still for half an hour would have been an almost unendurable penance to him; but there was another and a far stronger reason in the deep reverential love for the bishop, that day by day was growing and strengthening into a passion in his young heart. The boy's heart was like a garden-spot in which the rich, strong soil lay ready to receive any seed that might fall upon it. Better seed could not be than that which all unconsciously this man of God--the bishop--was sowing therein, as day after day he gave his Master's message to the sick and sinful and sorrowful souls that came to him for help and comfort. It goes without saying that the bishop had small leisure, for many and heavy were the demands upon his time and thought, but nevertheless he kept two hours a day sacredly free from all other claims, that he might give them to any of God's poor or troubled ones who desired to see him, and believing that Tode could hear nothing that was said, he often kept the boy with him during these hours. Strange and wonderful lessons were those that the little street boy learned from the consecrated lips of the good bishop--lessons of God's love to man, and of the loving service that man owes not only to his God, but to his brother man. Strange, sad lessons too, of sin and sorrow, and their far-reaching influence on human lives. Tode had not lived in the streets for nearly fourteen years without learning a great deal about the sin that is in the world, but never until now, had he understood and realised the evil of it and the cure for it. Many a time he longed to ask the bishop some of the questions that filled his mind, but that he dared not do. Among these visitors there came one morning to the study a plainly dressed lady with a face that Tode liked at the first glance. As she talked with the bishop, the boy kept his eyes on the book open in his lap, but he heard all that was said--heard it at first with a startled surprise that changed into a sick feeling of shame and misery--for the story to which he listened was this: The lady was a Mrs. Russell. The bishop had formerly been her pastor and she still came to him for help and counsel. She had been much interested in a boy of sixteen who had been in her class in the mission school, a boy who was entirely alone in the world. He had picked up a living in the streets, much as Tode himself had done, and finally had fallen into bad company and into trouble. Mrs. Russell had interested herself in his behalf, and upon her promise to be responsible for him, he had been delivered over to her instead of being sent to a reform school. She went to a number of the smaller dry goods stores and secured promises of employment for the boy as parcel deliverer. To do this work he must have a tricycle, and the energetic little lady having found a secondhand one that could be had for thirty dollars, set herself to secure this sum from several of her friends. This she had done, and was on her way to buy the tricycle when she lost her pocketbook. The owner of the tricycle, being anxious to sell, and having another offer, would not hold it for her, but sold it to the other customer. The boy, bitterly disappointed, lost hope and heart, and that night left the place where Mrs. Russell had put him. Since then she had sought in vain for him, and now, unwilling to give him up, she had come to ask the bishop's help in the search. To all this Tode listened with flushed cheeks and fast-beating heart, while before his mind flashed a picture of himself, wet, dirty and ragged, gliding under the feet of the horses on the muddy street, the missing pocketbook clutched tightly in his hand. Then a second picture rose before him, and he saw himself crowding the emptied book into that box on the chapel door of St. Mark's. The bishop pulled open a drawer in his desk and took from it a pocketbook, broken and stained with mud. He handed it to Mrs. Russell, who looked at him in silent wonder as she saw her own name on the inside. "_How_ did it get into your hands?" she questioned, at last. "You would never guess how," the bishop answered. "It was found in the pastor's box at St. Mark's, and the rector came to me to inquire if I knew any one of that name. I had not your present address, but have been intending to look you up as soon as I could find time." "I cannot understand it," said Mrs. Russell, carefully examining each compartment of the book. "Why in the world should the thief have put the empty pocketbook there, of all places?" "Of course he would want to get rid of it," the bishop replied, thoughtfully, "but that certainly was a strange place in which to put it." "If the thief could know how the loss of that money drove that poor foolish boy back into sin and misery, he surely would wish he had never touched it--if he has any conscience left," said Mrs. Russell. "There is good stuff in that poor boy of mine, and I can't bear to give him up and leave him to go to ruin." The bishop looked at her with a grave smile as he answered: "Mrs. Russell, I never yet knew you willing to give up one of your straying lambs. Like the Master Himself, your big heart always yearns over the wanderers from the fold. I wonder," he added, "if we couldn't get one or two newsboys to help in this search. Many of them are very keen, sharp little fellows, and they'd be as likely as anybody to know Jack, and to know his whereabouts if he is still in the city. Let me see--his name is Jack Finney, and he is about fifteen or sixteen now, isn't he?" "Yes, nearly sixteen." "Suppose you give me a description of him, Mrs. Russell. I ought to remember how he looks, but I see so many, you know," the bishop added, apologetically. "Of course you cannot remember all the boys who were in our mission school," replied Mrs. Russell. "Jack is tall and large, for fifteen. His hair is sandy, his eyes blue, and, well--his mouth _is_ rather large. Jack isn't a beauty, and he is rough and rude, and I'm afraid he often does things that he ought not to do, but only think what a hard time he has had in the world thus far." "Yes," replied the bishop with a sigh, "he _has_ had a hard time, and it is not to be wondered at that he has gone wrong. Many a boy does that who has every help toward right living. Well now, Mrs. Russell, I'll see what I can do to help you in this matter. Your faith in the boy ought to go far toward keeping him straight if we can find him." The bishop walked to the hall with his visitor. When he came back Tode sat with his eyes fastened on the open book in his lap, though he saw it not. He did not look up with his usual bright smile when the bishop sat down beside him. That night he could not eat, and when he went to bed he could not sleep. "Thief! Thief! You're a thief! You're a thief!" Over and over and over again these words sounded in Tode's ears. He had known of course that he was a thief, but he had never _realised_ it until this day. As he had sat there and listened to Mrs. Russell's story, he seemed to see clearly how his soul had been soiled with sin as surely as his body had been with dirt, and even as now the thought of going back to his former surroundings sickened him, so the remembrance of the evil that he had known and done, now seemed horrible to him. It was as if he looked at himself and his past life through the pure eyes of the bishop--and he hated it all. Dimly he began to see that there was something that he must do, but what that something was, he could not as yet determine. He was not willing in fact to do what his newly awakened conscience told him that he ought to do. In the morning he showed so plainly the effects of his wakeful night, and of his first moral battle, that the bishop was much concerned. He had begun to teach the boy to write that he might communicate with him in that fashion, but as yet Tode had not progressed far enough to make communication with him easy, though he was beginning to read quite readily the bold, clear handwriting of the bishop. This morning, the bishop, noting the boy's pale cheeks and heavy eyes, proposed a walk instead of the writing lesson. Tode was delighted to go, and the two set off together. Now the boy had an opportunity to see yet farther into the heart and life of this good, great man. They went on and on, away from the wide streets and handsome houses, into the tenement house district, and finally into an old building, where many families found shelter--such as it was. Up one flight after another of rickety stairs the bishop led the boy. At last he stopped and knocked at a door on a dark landing. The door was opened by a woman whose eyes looked as if she had forgotten how to smile, but a light flashed into them at sight of her visitor. She hurriedly dusted a chair with her apron, and as the bishop took it he lifted to his knee one of the little ones clinging to the mother's skirts. There were four little children, but one lay, pale and motionless on a bed in one corner of the room. "She is sick?" inquired the bishop, his voice full of sympathy, as he looked at the small, wan face. The woman's eyes filled with tears. "Yes," she answered, "I doubt I'm goin' to lose her, an' I feel I ought to be glad for her sake--but I can't." She bent over the little form and kissed the heavy eyelids. "Tell me all about it, my daughter," the bishop said, and the woman poured out her story--the old story of a husband who provided for his family after a fashion, when he was sober, but left them to starve when the drink demon possessed him. He had been away now for three weeks, and there was no money for medicine for the sick child, or food for the others. Before the story was told the bishop's hand was in his pocket and he held out some money to the woman, saying, "Go out and buy what you need. It will be better for you to get it, than for me to. The breath of air will do you good, and I will see to the children until you come back." She hesitated for a moment, then with a word of thanks, threw a shawl over her head and was gone. The bishop gathered the three older children about him, one on each knee and the third held close to his side, and told them stories that held them spellbound until the sick baby began to stir and moan feebly. Then the bishop arose, and taking the little creature tenderly in his strong arms, walked back and forth in the small room until the moaning cry ceased and the child slept. He had just laid it again on the bed when the mother came back with her arms full of packages. The look of dull despair was gone from her worn face, and there was a gleam of hope in her eyes as she hastily prepared the medicine for the baby, while the bishop eagerly tore open one of the packages, and put bread into the hands of the other children. "God bless you, sir,--an' He will!" the woman said, earnestly, as the bishop was departing with a promise to come soon again. Tode, from his seat in a corner had looked on and listened to all, and now followed the bishop down to the street, and on until they came to a big building. The boy did not know then what place it was. Afterward he learned that it was the poorhouse. Among the human driftwood gathered here there was one old man who had been a cobbler, working at his trade as long as he had strength to do so. The bishop had known him for a long time before he gave up his work, and now it was the one delight of the old man's life to have a visit from the bishop, and knowing this, the latter never failed to come several times each year. The old cobbler lived on the memory of these visits through the lonely weeks that followed them, looking forward to them as the only bright spots in his sorrowful life. "You'll pray with me before ye go?" he pleaded on this day when his visitor arose to leave. "Surely," was the quick reply, and the bishop, falling on his knees, drew Tode down beside him, and the old cobbler, the child and the man of God, bowed their heads together. A great wonder fell upon Tode first, as he listened to that prayer, and then his heart seemed to melt within him. When he rose from his knees, he had learned Who and What God is, and what it is to pray, and though he could not understand how it was, or why--he knew that henceforth his own life must be wholly different. Something in him was changed and he was full of a strange happiness as he walked homeward beside his friend. But all in a moment his new joy departed, banished by the remembrance of that pocketbook. "I found it. I picked it up," he argued to himself, but then arose before him the memory of other things that he had stolen--of many an evil thing that he had done, and gloried in the doing. Now the remembrance of these things made him wretched. The bishop was to deliver an address that evening, and Tode was alone, for he did not feel like going to the housekeeper's room. He was free to go where he chose about the house, so he wandered from room to room, and finally to the study. It was dark there, but he felt his way to his seat beside the bishop's desk, and sitting there in the dark the boy faced his past and his future; faced, too, a duty that lay before him--a duty so hard that it seemed to him he never could perform it, yet he knew he must. It was to tell the bishop how he had been deceiving him all these weeks. Tears were strangers to Tode's eyes, but they flowed down his cheeks as he sat there in the dark and thought of the happy days he had spent there, and that now he must go away from it all--away from the bishop--back to the wretched and miserable life which was all he had known before. "Oh, how _can_ I tell him! How can I tell him!" he sobbed aloud, with his head on the desk. The next moment a strong, wiry hand seized his right ear with a grip that made him wince, while a voice with a thrill of evil satisfaction in it, exclaimed in a low, guarded tone, "So! I've caught you, you young cheat. I've suspected for some time that you were pulling the wool over the bishop's eyes, but you were so plaguy cunning that I couldn't nab you before. You're a fine specimen, aren't you? What do you think the bishop will say to all this?" Tode had recognised the voice of Mr. Gibson, the secretary. He knew that the secretary had a way of going about as soft-footed as a cat. He tried to jerk his ear free, but at that Mr. Gibson gave it such a tweak that Tode could hardly keep from crying out with the pain. He did keep from it, however, and the next moment the secretary let him go, and, striking a match, lit the gas, and then softly closed the door. "Now," he said, coming back to the desk, "what have you to say for yourself?" "Nothing--to you," replied Tode, looking full into the dark face and cruel eyes of the man. "I'll tell the bishop myself what there is to tell." "Oh, you will, will you?" answered the man, with a sneer. "I reckon before you get through with your telling you'll wish you'd never been born. The bishop's the gentlest of men--until he finds that some one has been trying to deceive him. And you--you whom he picked up out of the street, you whom he has treated as if you were his own son--I tell you, boy, you'll think you've been struck by lightning when the bishop orders you out of his sight. He never forgives deceit like yours." Tode's face paled and his lips trembled as he listened, but he would not give way before his tormentor. His silence angered the secretary yet more. "Why don't you speak?" he exclaimed, sharply. "I'll speak to the bishop--not to you," replied the boy, steadily. His defiant tone and undaunted look made the secretary furious. He sprang toward the boy, but Tode was on the watch now, and slipped out of his chair and round to the other side of the desk, where he stopped and again faced his enemy, for he knew now that this man was his enemy, though he could not guess the reason of his enmity. The secretary took a step forward, but at that Tode sped across the room out of the door, and up to his own room, the door of which he locked. Then he sat down and thought over what had happened, and the more he thought of it the more certain he felt that what the secretary had said was true. A long, long time the boy sat there, thinking sad and bitter thoughts. At last, with a heavy sigh, he lifted his head and looked about the bright, pretty room, as if he would fix it all in his mind so that he never could forget it, and as he looked at the soft, rich carpet, the little white bed with its fresh, clean linen, the wide, roomy washstand and bureau, he seemed at the same time to see the bare, dirty, cheerless little closet-like room to which he must return, and his heart ached again. At last he started up, searched in his pockets for a piece of paper and a pencil, and began to write. His paper was a much-crumpled piece that he had found that morning in the wastebasket, and as yet his writing and spelling were poor enough, but he knew what he wanted to express, and this is what he wrote: DEAR BISHOP: I hav ben mene and bad i am not def and dum but i acted like i was caus I thot you wood not kepe me if yu knu I am sory now so i am going away but i am going to kepe strate and not bee bad any more ever. I thank you and i lov you deer. TODE BRYAN. It took the boy a long time to write this and there were many smudges and erasures where he had rubbed out and rewritten words. He looked at it with dissatisfied eyes when it was done, mentally contrasting it with the neat, beautifully written letters he had so often seen on the bishop's desk. "Can't help it. I can't do no better," he said to himself, with a sigh. Then he stood for several minutes holding the paper thoughtfully in his hand. "I know," he exclaimed at last, and ran softly down to the study. It was dark again there and he knew that Mr. Gibson had gone. Going to the desk, he found the Bible which the bishop always kept there. As Tode lifted it the leaves fell apart at one of the bishop's best-loved chapters, and there the boy laid his letter and closed the book. He hesitated a moment, and then kneeling down beside the desk, he laid his face on the cover of the Bible and whispered solemnly, "I _will_ keep straight--I will." It was nearly nine o'clock when Tode returned to what had been his room; what would be so no longer. He undressed slowly, and as he took off each garment he looked at it and touched it lingeringly before he laid it aside. "I b'lieve he'd want me to keep these clothes," he thought, "but I don't know. Maybe he wouldn't when he finds out how I've been cheatin' him. Mrs. Martin's burnt up my old ones, an' I've got to have some to wear, but I'll only take what I must have." So, with a sigh, he laid aside his white shirt with its glossy collar and cuffs, his pretty necktie and handkerchief. He hesitated over the shoes and stockings, but finally with a shake of the head, those, too, were laid aside, leaving nothing but one under garment and his jacket, trousers and cap. Then he put out the gas and crept into bed. A little later he heard Mrs. Martin go up to her room, stopping for a moment to glance into his and see that he was in bed. Later still, he heard the bishop come in and go to his room, and soon after the lights were out and all the house was still. Tode lay with wide open eyes until the big hall clock struck twelve. Then he arose, slipped on his few garments and turned to leave the room, but suddenly went back and took up a little Testament. "He told me to keep it always an' read a bit in it ev'ry day," the boy thought, as with the little book in his hand he crept silently down the stairs. They creaked under the light tread of his bare feet as they never had creaked in the daytime. He crossed the wide hall, unfastened the door, and passed out into the night. VI. TODE'S NEW START A chill seemed to strike to Tode's heart as he stood on the stone steps and looked up to the windows of the room where the bishop was sleeping, and his eyes were wet as he passed slowly and sorrowfully out of the gate and turned down the street. Suddenly there was a swift rush, a quick, joyful bark, and there was Tag, dancing about him, jumping up to lick his fingers, and altogether almost out of his wits with joy. Tode sat down on the curbstone and hugged his rough, faithful friend, and if he whispered into the dog's ear some of the grief that made the hour such a bitter one--Tag was true and trusty: he never told it. Neither did he tell how, night after night, he had watched beside the big house into which he had seen his master carried, nor how many times he had been driven away in the morning by the servants. But Tag's troubles were over now. He had found his master. [Illustration: Adrift Again.] "Well, ol' fellow, we can't stay here all night. We must go on," Tode said at last, and the two walked on together to the house where the boy had slept before his accident. The outer door was ajar as usual, and Tode and the dog went up the stairs together. Tode tried the door of his room. It was locked on the inside. "They've let somebody else have it," he said to himself. "Well, Tag, we'll have to find some other place. Come on!" Once the boy would not have minded sleeping on a grating, or a doorstep, but now it seemed hard and dreary enough to him. He shivered with the cold and shrank from going to any of his old haunts where he would be likely to find some of his acquaintances, homeless street Arabs, like himself. Finally he found an empty packing box in an alley, and into this he crept, glad to put his bare feet against Tag's warm body. But it was a dreary night to him, and weary as he was, he slept but little. As he lay there looking up at the stars, he thought much of the new life that he was to live henceforth. He knew very well that it would be no easy thing for him to live such a life, but obstacles in his way never deterred Tode from doing, or at least attempting to do, what he had made up his mind to. He thought much, too, of the bishop, and these thoughts gave him such a heartache that he would almost have banished them had he been able to do so--almost, but not quite, for even with the heartache it was a joy to him to recall every look of that noble face--every tone of that voice that seemed to thrill his heart even in the remembrance. Then came thoughts of Nan and Little Brother, and these brought comfort to Tode's sorrowful heart. He had not forgotten Little Brother during the past weeks. There had never been a day when he had not thought of the child with a longing desire to see him, though even for his sake he could hardly have brought himself to lose a day with the bishop. Now, however, that he had shut himself out forever from what seemed to him the Paradise of the bishop's home, his thoughts turned again lovingly toward the little one, and he could hardly wait for morning, so eager was he to go to him. Fortunately for his impatience, he knew that the Hunts and Nan would be early astir, and at the first possible moment he went in search of them. He ran up the stairs with Tag at his heels, and almost trembling with eagerness, knocked at the Hunts' door. Mrs. Hunt herself opened it, and stared at the boy for a moment before she realised who it was. "For the land's sake, if it isn't Tode! Where in the world have you been all this time?" she cried, holding the door open for him to enter, while the children gazed wonderingly at him. "I've been sick--got hurt," replied Tode, his eyes searching eagerly about the room. "I don't see Nan or Little Brother," he added, uneasily. "They don't live here no more," piped up little Ned. Tode turned a startled glance upon Mrs. Hunt. "Don't live here!" he stammered. "Where do they live?" "Not far off; just cross the entry," replied Mrs. Hunt, quickly. "Nan's taken a room herself." "Oh!" cried Tode, in a tone of relief, "I'll go'n see her;" and waiting for no further words, he went. "Well," exclaimed Mrs. Hunt, "he might 'a' told us how he got hurt an' all, 'fore he rushed off, I should think." "Jus' like that Tode Bryan. He don't know nothin'!" remarked Dick, scornfully. His mother gave him a searching glance. "There's worse boys than Tode Bryan, I'm afraid," she said. "There ye go agin, always a flingin' at me," retorted Dick, rudely. "How's a feller to git on in the world when his own mother's always down on him?" "You know I'm not down on you, Dick," replied his mother, tearfully. "You're always a hintin' nowdays, anyhow," muttered Dick, as he reached over and helped himself to the biggest sausage in the dish. Mrs. Hunt sighed but made no answer, and the breakfast was eaten mostly in silence. Meantime, Tode running across the entry, had knocked on the door with fingers fairly trembling with eagerness and excitement. Nan opening it, gave a glad cry at sight of him, but the boy, with a nod, pushed by her, and snatched up Little Brother who was lying on the bed. The baby stared at him for an instant and then as Tode hugged him more roughly than he realised, the little lips trembled and the baby began to sob. That almost broke Tode's heart. He put the child down, crying out bitterly, "Oh Little Brother, _you_ ain't goin' to turn against me, sure?" As he spoke he held out his hands wistfully, and the baby, now getting a good look at him, recognised his favorite, and with his old smile held out his arms to the boy, who caught him up again but more gently this time, and sat down with him on his knee. It was some minutes before Tode paid any attention to Nan's questions, so absorbed was he with the child, but at length he turned to her and told her where he had been and what had happened to him. She listened to his story with an eager interest that pleased him. "Wasn't it strange," she said, when he paused, "wasn't it strange, and lovely too, that you should have been taken into the bishop's house--and kept there all this time? Did you like him just as much in his home as in the church, Tode?" "He's--he's"--began Tode with shining eyes, then as the bishop's face rose before him, he choked and was silent for a moment. "I don't b'lieve there's any other man like him in _this_ world," he said, finally. Nan looked at him thoughtfully, at his face that seemed to have been changed and refined by his sickness and his new associations, at the neat clothes he wore, then at his bare feet. "I shouldn't think, if he's so good, that he would have let you come away--so," she said, slowly. Tode flushed as he tried to hide his feet under his chair. "'Twasn't his fault," he answered, quickly. He too was silent for a moment, then suddenly he sat upright with a look of stern resolve in his grey eyes, as he added, "Nan, I'll tell you all there is about it, 'cause things are goin' to be diff'runt after this. I'm goin' to live straight every way, I am; I've--promised." Then he told her frankly the whole story; how he had deceived the bishop, pretending to be deaf and dumb; how Mr. Gibson had come upon him in the study, and what he had said, and how, finally, he himself had come away in the night. Nan listened to it all with the keenest interest. "And you had to sleep out of doors," she said; "I'm so sorry, but, if the bishop is so good, why didn't you stay and tell him all about it, Tode? Don't you think that that would have been better than coming away so without thanking him for all he had done--or anything?" Tode shook his head emphatically. "You don't know him, Nan," he replied. "He's good, oh better than anybody else in the world, I b'lieve, but don't you see, just 'cause _he's_ so good, he hates cheatin' an' lyin', just _hates_ 'em; an', oh I _couldn't_ tell him I'd been cheatin' him all this time, an' he so good to me." "I know, 'twould have been awful hard to tell him, Tode, but seems to me 'twould have been best," the girl insisted. "I _couldn't_, Nan," Tode repeated, sadly, then impatiently thrusting aside his sorrow and remorse, he added, "Come now, I want to know what you've been doin' while I've been gone. I used to think an' think 'bout you'n him," glancing at the baby, "an' wonder what you'd be doin'." "Oh, we've got on all right," answered Nan, "I was worried enough when you didn't come, 'specially when one of the Hunt boys went down and found that your stand had not been opened. I was sure something had happened to you, 'cause I knew you never would stay away from us so, unless something was the matter." "Right you are!" put in Tode, emphatically. Nan went on, "I was sure there was something wrong, too, when Tag came here the next day. Poor fellow, I was so sorry for him. One of his legs was all swollen and he limped dreadfully, and hungry--why, Tode, he acted as if he were starving. But just as soon as I had fed him he went off again, and didn't come back till the next morning, and he's done that way ever since." Tag had kept his bright eyes fastened on Nan's face while she talked, and he gave a little contented whine as Tode stooped and patted his head. "But tell me what you've ben doin', Nan. How'd you get money enough to hire this room an' fix it up so dandy?" Tode inquired, looking about admiringly. While Nan talked she had been passing busily from table to stove, and now she said, "Breakfast is ready, Tode. Bring your chair up here and give me Little Brother." Tode reluctantly gave up the baby, and took his seat opposite Nan at the little table. "You've got things fine," he remarked, glancing at the clean towel that served for a tablecloth, and the neat white dishes and well-cooked food. He was hungry enough to do full justice to Nan's cooking, and the girl watched him with much satisfaction, eating little herself, but feeding the baby, as she went on with her story. "When you didn't come back, I knew I must find some way to sell my cookies and gingerbread and so I made some fresh and went to every family in this house and asked 'em if they would buy their bread and all of me instead of at the bakeshops. I told 'em I'd sell at the same price as the shops and give them better things. Some wouldn't, but most of them had sense enough to see that it would be a good thing for them, and after they'd tried it once or twice they were ready enough to keep on. Now I supply this house and the next one. It keeps me cooking all day, but I don't mind that. I'm only too glad that I can earn our living--Little Brother's and mine. Of course, I couldn't be cooking all day on Mrs. Hunt's stove, and besides they have no room to spare and we crowded 'em, and so, as soon as I got money enough, I hired this room. I'm paying for the furniture as fast as I can. It was all secondhand, of course." Tode looked admiringly at the girl, as she ceased speaking. "You've got a head," he remarked. "But now about cooking for my stand. Will you have time to do that too?" "Yes indeed," replied Nan, promptly. "I'll find time somehow." Tode hesitated, moved uneasily in his chair and finally said, "'Spect you'll have to trust me for the first lot, Nan. I ain't got no money, ye know." "Why, Tode, have you forgotten that ten dollars you asked me to keep for you?" "No--'course I ain't forgot it, but I thought maybe you'd had to use it. Twould 'a' been all right if you had, you know." "Oh no, I didn't have to use that. Here it is," and Nan brought it out from some hidden pocket about her dress. "Then I'm all right," exclaimed the boy, in a tone of satisfaction. "I've got to get some clothes first an' then I'll be ready for business." "What's the matter with those clothes?" questioned Nan. "Oh, I've got to send these back to the bishop." Tode's face was grave as he spoke. "But--I don't see why. He won't want em," Nan remonstrated. "It's this way, Nan." Tode spoke very earnestly. "If I'd been what he thought I was, I know I could have kept all he gave me, but, you see, if he'd known I was cheatin' an' lyin' to him all the time he wouldn't 'a' given me a single thing, so don't ye see, I ain't no business to keep 'em, an' I ain't goin' to keep 'em a minute longer'n I have to." Nan shook her head, for Tode's reasoning had not convinced her, but seeing how strong was his feeling in the matter she said no more, and in a few minutes the boy went out, his face radiant with satisfaction, because Little Brother cried after him. He invested half his ten dollars in some second-hand clothes, including shoes and stockings. They were not very satisfactory after the garments he had been wearing of late, but he said to himself, "They'll have to do till I can get better ones an' sometime I'm agoin' to have some shirts an' have 'em washed every week, too." Tode's trade, that day, was not very heavy, for it was not yet known among his regular customers that he had reopened his stand, but he took care to advertise the fact through those whom he met and he did not fear but that his business would soon be prospering again. That afternoon he succeeded in securing a tiny room in the house with Nan. It was a dismal little closet, lighted only from the hall, but it was the best he could do, and Tode considered himself fortunate to have his dark corner to himself, even though a broken chair and a canvas cot without bedding of any sort were all the furniture he could put into it then. Nan shook her head doubtfully when he showed her the room. "Dark and dirty," she said, with a sniff of disgust, as the boy threw open the door. "You must get somebody to scrub it for you, Tode, and then whitewash the walls. That will make it sweeter and lighter." "So it will," responded the boy, promptly, "but I'll have to do the scrubbin' an' white-washin' both, myself." Nan looked at him doubtfully. "I wonder if you'd get it clean," she said. "Scrubbing's hard work." "You'll see. What'll I scrub it with--a broom?" "You ought to have a scrub-brush, but I haven't any. You'll have to do it with an old broom and a cloth. I can let you have the broom and I guess we can get a cloth of Mrs. Hunt. You going to do it now?" she added, as Tode began to pull off his coat. "Right now," he answered. "You see, Nan, I've got loads of things to do, an' I can't be wastin' time." "What things?" questioned Nan, curiously. "Oh--I'll tell you about them after awhile," replied the boy. "The broom in your room?" "Yes, I'll bring it to you," and Nan hurried off. She came back with an old pail full of hot water, a piece of soap, a broom and a cloth, and then she proceeded to show Tode how to clean the woodwork and floor, thoroughly, with special attention to the dark corners which looked, indeed, as if they had never been visited by a broom. Nan was a thorough little housewife, and she longed to do the whole work herself, but Tode would not allow that, so she could only stand and look on, wondering inwardly how a boy could handle a broom so awkwardly. But if he was slow and awkward about it, Tode was in earnest, and he looked with much satisfaction at the result of his labor when it was completed. "You'll have to wash the floor again after you've whitewashed the walls," Nan said, "but it needed two scrubbings, anyhow." Tode looked at it ruefully. "Oh, did it?" he said. "I think one such scrubbing as that ought to last it a year." Nan laughed. "If you'll carry out my bread and things to-morrow, I'll do your whitewashing for you," she said. But Tode shook his head. "I'll carry out your stuff all right," he answered, "but I ain't a-goin' to have a girl doin' my work for me." He bought the lime and paid also for the use of a pail and brush, and the next day he put a white coat on his walls, and when this was done, he was much better satisfied with his quarters. Nan offered to lend him her shawl in place of a blanket, but he guessed that she needed it herself and refused her offer. VII. AFTER TODE'S DEPARTURE In the bishop's household, Mrs. Martin was always one of the earliest to rise in the morning, and just as Tode sat down to breakfast with Nan and Little Brother, the housekeeper was going downstairs. Tode's door stood open and she saw that he was not in the room. Her quick eyes noted also the pile of neatly folded garments on a chair beside the bed. She stepped into the room and looked around. Then she hurried to the study, knowing that the boy loved to stay there, but the study was unoccupied. By the time breakfast was ready she knew that the boy had left the house, but the bishop refused to believe it, nor would he be convinced until the house had been searched from attic to cellar. When Mr. Gibson made his appearance, a gleam of satisfaction shone in his narrow eyes as he learned of Tode's disappearance. "I was afraid something like this would happen," he remarked, gravely. "It's a hopeless kind of business, trying to make anything out of such material. I've had my suspicions of that boy for some time." "Don't be too quick to condemn him, Mr. Gibson," exclaimed the bishop, hastily. "He may have had some good reason for going away so. I've no doubt he thought he had, but I had grown to love the lad and I shall miss him sadly." "Did you never suspect that he was not deaf and dumb, as he pretended to be?" the secretary asked. The bishop looked up quickly. "Why, no, indeed, I never had such an idea," he answered. An unpleasant smile flickered over the secretary's thin lips as he went on, "I heard the boy talking to himself, here in this room, last evening. He can hear and speak as well as you or I." "Oh, I am sorry! I am sorry!" said the bishop, sadly, and then he turned to his desk, and sitting down, hid his face in his hands, and was silent. The secretary cast more than one swift, sidewise glance at him, but dared say no more then. After a while the bishop drew his Bible toward him. It opened at the fourteenth chapter of John, and there lay Tode's poor little soiled and blotted note. The bishop read it with tear-dimmed eyes, read it again and again, and finally slipped it into an envelope, and replaced it between the leaves of his Bible. He said nothing about it to his secretary, and presently he went to his own room, where for a long time he walked back and forth, thinking about the boy, and how he might find him again. Then Brown came to him with a telegram summoning him to the sickbed of his only sister, and within an hour he left the city, and was absent two weeks. Meantime Tode, the morning after his scrubbing and whitewashing operations, had carefully folded the clothes he had worn when he left the bishop's house and tied them up in an old newspaper. Into one of the pockets of the jacket he had put a note which ran thus: DEAR MRS. MARTIN: Pleas giv thes cloes to the bishop and tell him i wud not have took them away if i had had any others. I did not take shoes or stockins. I keep the littel testament and i read in it evry day. Tell him i am trying to be good and when i get good enuf I shall go and see him. You was good to me but he was so good that he made me hate myself and evrything bad. I can never be bad again while i remember him. TODE BRYAN. He hired a boy whom he knew, to carry the bundle to the bishop's house, and from behind a tree-box further down the street, he watched and saw it taken in by Brown. The boy's heart was beating hard and fast, as he stood there longing, yet dreading, to see the bishop himself come out of the house. But the bishop was far away, and Tode walked sadly homeward, casting many a wistful, lingering glance backward, as he went. Brown carried the package gingerly to Mrs. Martin, for the boy who had delivered it was not over clean, and Mrs. Martin opened it with some suspicion, but when she saw the clothes she recognised them instantly, and finding the note in the pocket read it with wet eyes. "I knew that wasn't a bad boy," she said to herself, "and this proves it. He's as honest as the day, or he wouldn't have sent back these clothes--the poor little fellow. Well, well! I hope the bishop can find him when he gets back, and as to the boy's pretending to be deaf and dumb, I'm sure there was something underneath that if we only knew it. Anyhow, I do hope I'll see the little fellow again sometime." When the bishop returned the accumulated work of his weeks of absence so pressed upon him that for a while he had no time for anything else, and when at last he was free to search for Tode, he could find no trace of him. As for Tode, he had never once thought of the possibility of the bishop's searching for him. He looked forward to seeing his friend again sometime, but that time he put far away when he himself should be "more fit," as he said to himself. One evening soon after his return, Nan had a long talk with him, a talk that left her wondering greatly at the change in his thoughts and purposes, and which made her regard him with quite a new feeling of respect. "Nan," he began, "I told you I'd got loads of things to do now." "Yes?" The girl looked at him inquiringly. Tode was silent for a little. It was harder for him to speak than he had thought it would be. "You see," he went on, slowly, "I've been mean as dirt all my life. You don't know what mean things I've done, an' I ain't goin' to tell ye, only that I know now I've got to turn straight around an' not do 'em any more. I've got to make a man of myself," he drew himself up as he spoke, "a real man--the kind that helps other folks up. I can't say just what I mean, but I feel it myself," he added, with a half-appealing glance at Nan. She had listened attentively with her eyes fastened on his earnest face. Now she said softly, "You mean--you want to be the kind of man the bishop is, don't you?" "Oh, I couldn't ever be _really_ like him," protested the boy, quickly, "but, well, I'm goin' to try to be a sort of shadow of him. I mean I'm goin' to try to amount to something myself, an' do what I can to help other poor fellers up instead of down. I'm goin' to lend a hand 'mongst the folks 'round here, just a little you know, as he does 'mongst the poor people he goes to see. But I've got some other things to do too. I've got some money to pay back, an' I've got to find a feller that I helped to pull down." And thereupon, Tode told the story of Mrs. Russell's pocketbook and her search for Jack Finney. He told it all quite frankly, not trying in the least to excuse or lessen his own guilt in the matter. "It will take you a long time to save up so much money, Tode," Nan said when he paused. "Yes, unless I can find some way to earn more, but I can't help that. I'll do the best I can, an' I've got some notions in my head." He talked over with her some of his plans and projects, and as she listened, she thought to herself, "He's getting 'way ahead of me, but I'm afraid he'll get into trouble at first." And she was not mistaken. Tode was now so thoroughly in earnest himself that he forgot to take into consideration the fact that those whom he meant to help up might prefer to be left to go down in their own fashion. His old associates speedily discovered that a great change had come over Tode Bryan, and the change did not meet with their approval. They called it "mighty cheeky" of him to be "pokin' his nose" into their affairs, and they would show him that he'd better stop it. So Tode soon found himself exceedingly unpopular, and, what was worse, in a way, under a boycott that threatened to ruin his business. He fell into the way of carrying his trials and perplexities to Nan, and talking them over with her. She had plenty of that common sense, which is not very common after all, and she often made him see the reason of his failures, while at the same time he was sure of her sympathy. One evening Tode appeared in her room with his little Testament in his hand. There was a perplexed expression in his eyes as he said, "Nan, 'bout readin' this, you know--I've been peggin' away at the first part, an' I can't make nothin' of it. It's just a string of funny words, names, I s'pose. _I_ don't see no sense to it." Nan glanced at the page to which he had opened. It was the first chapter of Matthew. "Oh, that's all it is, just a lot of names. You can skip all that, Tode," she answered, easily. "No I can't, neither," replied the boy, decidedly. "If I begin to skip, no knowin' where I'll stop. If it's readin' this book that makes folks good, I've got to know all 'bout it. Say, can't you read this with me an' tell me how to call all these jawbreakers?" Nan looked rather shocked at the boy's free and easy reference to the Book, but seeing from his grave face and serious manner that he was very much in earnest, she sat down with him, and the two young heads bent over the page together. "I remember reading this chapter with mother," Nan said, gently, "and she told me how to pronounce these names, but I can't remember all of them now. I'll do the best I can, though," and she read slowly the first seventeen verses, Tode repeating each name after her. "Whew!" he exclaimed, in a tone of intense relief, when the task was ended, "that's 'bout the toughest job ever I tackled." "Well, you see, you needn't read all that again. The rest of the chapter is different. It's all about Jesus," Nan said. Tode read the remaining verses slowly by himself, but he shook his head in a dissatisfied way as he closed the book. "That's easier than the names to read, but I don't seem to get much out of it. Guess I'm too thick-headed," he said, in a discouraged tone. "Tode," exclaimed Nan, suddenly, "you ought to go to some Sunday-school. Then you'd learn all about the Bible and the things you want to know." "Might be a good scheme, that's a fact," he answered, thoughtfully. "Reckon I'll try it on anyhow, an' see how it works." "Yes, do. I always used to go before mother was sick. If you have a good teacher you'll like it, I'm sure." "There's a mission school down near my stand. I'll have a try at it next Sunday an' see what it's like," Tode said. So the very next day he went to the mission chapel, and, from the notice on the door, found out the hours of service, and the following Sunday he was on hand in due season. As he went somewhat doubtfully up the steps, he saw in the vestibule a young man, who stepped forward and held out his hand, saying cordially, "Glad to see you here. Are you a stranger?" Tode wasn't quite sure what a stranger might be, but he muttered, "I ain't never been here before." "Then I'm glad I happened to meet you. Will you come into my class?" Tode nodded and followed the young man into the chapel, which was already nearly full of boys and girls. "My name is Scott. What is yours?" inquired the stranger, as he led the way to his own corner of the room. Tode gave his name, and Mr. Scott introduced him to half a dozen boys who had already taken their places in his class. One of these boys was Dick Hunt. He gave Tode a careless nod by way of greeting, as the latter dropped into the seat next him. To Tode's great satisfaction the lesson chanced to be on the birth of the Lord Jesus, and Mr. Scott told the boys the whole story so clearly and vividly, that Tode at least was intensely interested. It was all new and fresh to him, and he was listening eagerly to every word, when suddenly Dick Hunt ran a long pin deep into his leg. The pain made him start and almost cry out, but he suppressed the cry as he turned and gave Dick a savage pinch that made him writhe, as he exclaimed in a threatening tone, "You stop that!" Mr. Scott turned grave, inquiring eyes on the two, as he asked: "What's the matter, Dick?" "He's a pinchin' me--Tode Bryan is. He give me an awful tweak when you wasn't a lookin'." "Is that so?" Mr. Scott asked, and Tode, with a scornfully defiant glance at Dick, answered promptly, "Yes." "I am sorry, Tode," said Mr. Scott; "you can sit here on the other side." Tode's face flushed a little as he changed his seat, but now another of the boys, having a grudge against Dick, cried out, "Hunt stuck a pin in him first; I seen him do it." "You hush up!" muttered Dick, with a scowl. Just then the superintendent's bell sounded and the lesson time was over. When the school was dismissed, Mr. Scott detained Tode. "Why didn't you tell me that Dick had stuck a pin into you first," the teacher asked, rapidly turning the leaves of his Bible as he spoke. "I ain't a sneak like he is," answered Tode, briefly. Mr. Scott found the place that he wanted, and keeping his finger between the leaves, looked thoughtfully at the boy before him. "You told me that your name is Tode. That is what the boys call you. It isn't your real name, is it?" he asked, with a friendly look. Tode puckered his forehead into a puzzled frown at the question. "N-no," he answered, slowly. "There's some more to it, but I can't think what 'tis. Wish't I could." "You've no father or mother?" "No--never had none since I's big enough to know anything," was the careless reply. Mr. Scott laid his hand kindly on the lad's shoulder. "My boy," he said, slowly and earnestly, "I believe yours is a very beautiful name. It must be Theodore." "That's it! That's it!" exclaimed Tode, excitedly. "I 'member somebody told it to me once, an' I know that's it. How'd you know it so quick?" He looked up wonderingly into his teacher's face as he asked the question. "I once knew another Theodore who was nicknamed Tode; but, my boy, do you know what your name means?" Tode shook his head. "Didn't know names meant anything," he answered. "But they do. Theodore means the gift of God. A boy with such a name as that ought to count for something in the world." "I mean to." The boy uttered the words slowly and emphatically. Mr. Scott's face brightened. "Do you mean that you love and serve the Lord Jesus, Theodore?" he asked, softly. The boy shook his head half sadly, half perplexedly. "I don't know nothin' much 'bout Him," he answered, with a gentleness most strange and unusual in him, "but I've promised to do the right thing every time now--an' I'm a-goin' to do it." "You have promised--whom, Theodore?" "Promised myself--but I don't know nothin' much 'bout what is the right thing," he added, in a discouraged tone. "You'll soon learn if you're in earnest, my boy. This Book will tell you all you need to know. Can you read?" "Some." "Then read this verse for me, will you?" Mr. Scott held out his Bible and pointed to the verse. Slowly and stumblingly the boy read, "Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves," and again, "Recompense to no man evil for evil." Seeing that Tode did not understand the meaning of what he had read, Mr. Scott explained the passages to him. The boy listened attentively, then he exclaimed in a tone of dismay, "But does it mean that a feller can't never strike back?" "That's what it says." Tode pondered this unpalatable statement with a clouded face. "But what ye goin' to do when some other feller cuts up rough with ye?" "Find some other way to get even with him." "But I don't see--what other way is there 'cept hittin' him a harder one'n he gives you?" Mr. Scott opened his Bible again and pointed to the last two verses of the twelfth chapter of Romans. Tode went home that day with his mind in a tumult. These new ideas did not suit him at all. A "word and a blow," and the blow first had been his method of settling such questions heretofore, and it seemed to him far the better way. He took a roundabout route home, for he did not want to see Nan until he had thought out this matter to his own satisfaction. To help people poorer or weaker than himself, or to "keep straight" himself, and help others to do likewise--this was one thing. To meekly submit to ill treatment and "take a blow" from a fellow whom he "could whip with his little finger"--this was quite another and, to one of Tode's temperament, a far more distasteful thing. The boy had reached no conclusion when he finally went home to supper. He was silent and thoughtful all the evening, but it was not until the following day that he spoke of the matter to Nan. Nan listened in perplexed silence to what he had to say. She had been well taught while her mother lived, but she had never given these subjects any real, deep thought, as Tode was doing now. She began to feel that this rough, untaught street boy was likely to get far ahead of her if he should keep on pondering over questions like this. Even now she could give him but little help. Seeing this, Tode took up his Testament again, and read on and on until he had finished the book of Matthew, and gained a pretty clear idea of the life and death of Jesus the Christ. There was much, of course, that he did not understand at all. Many of the words and expressions conveyed no meaning to him, but yet he gathered enough to understand, in a measure, what that Life was, and he began dimly to realise why the bishop gave so much of his time and thought to God's poor. The boy pondered these things in his heart, and a new world seemed to open before him. "Nan," he said at last, "I've found out what my real name is. It's Theodore." "Theodore," repeated the girl. "Well, I'm glad to know it, for I never did like to call you Tode. How did you find out?" "Mr. Scott said it to me, and I knew as soon as I heard it that that was it." "Then I won't ever call you Tode again. I shall call you Theo. I like that." The boy liked it too. It gave him a strange thrill of pleasure every time he thought of what Mr. Scott had said about the meaning of his name. VIII. THEO'S SHADOW WORK The days that followed were very busy ones for both Nan and Theo. The girl spent most of her time over the stove or the moulding board, and the boy, delivering the supplies to many of the families in the two big tenement houses, attending to his stand, and selling evening papers, found the days hardly long enough for all that he wanted to do. As he went from room to room with Nan's bread and soup and gingerbread, he soon learned much about the different families and found plenty of opportunities to serve as the "bishop's shadow," in these poor homes. Money he had not to give, for every penny that he could possibly spare was laid aside for a special purpose now, but he found countless ways to carry help and sunshine to sad and sore hearts, without money. One morning he left Nan's room with a basket piled with bread--brown and white--in one hand, and a big tin pail full of boiled hominy in the other. He went first to the top floor, stopping at one door after another, where dirty, frowzy women and children opened at the sound of his cheery whistle. He handed in the loaves, or the measures of hominy with a gay word or a joke that more than once banished a frown from a woman's worn face, or checked the tears of a tired, hungry child. Children were getting to be fond of the boy now, and he liked it. In one room there were two families and half a dozen children. In one corner, on a rickety couch was a crippled boy, who had lain there day after day, through long, weary months. He was listening intently for that whistle outside the door, and when he heard it, his dull eyes brightened, and he called out eagerly, "Oh, tell him to come in a minute--_just_ a minute!" The woman who opened the door, said indifferently, "Tommy wants you to come in a minute." Theo stepped over to the tumbled couch, and smiled down into the wistful eyes of the sick boy. "Hello, old man!" he said, cheerily. "I've brought you something," and out of his pocket he pulled a golden chrysanthemum that he had picked up in the street the day before, and had kept all night in water. It was not very fresh now, but Tommy snatched it hungrily, and gazed at it with a happy smile. "Oh, how pretty--how pretty it is!" he cried, softly smoothing the golden petals with his little bony forefinger. "Can I keep it, truly?" [Illustration: "Oh, how pretty,--how pretty it is!"] "'Course. I brought it for you," Theo answered, his round, freckled face reflecting the boy's delight. "But I must scoot. Folks'll be rowin' me if their bread's late." He ran off leaving the sick boy with the flower held lovingly against his thin white cheek, while his eyes followed wistfully Theo's strong, active figure as he hurried away. On the next floor, an old woman, bent and stiffened by rheumatism, sat alone all day, while her children were away at work. She could not get out of her chair, or help herself in any way. Her breakfast would be a penny's worth of Nan's hominy, but on this morning her children had gone off without even setting out a dish, or a cup of water for her. Tode brought her a saucer and spoon, filled a cup with fresh water from the faucet, and pulled up the curtain so that the sunlight would shine in upon her. "There, old lady," he said, brightly, when this was done, "now you're all right, an' I'll be in again an' fix your dinner for ye." The old woman's dim eyes looked after him, and she muttered a word of thanks as she turned slowly to her breakfast. The boy wasted no minutes, for he had none to spare, but even when he did not step inside a door at all, he always had a smile or a bright word ready for each customer, and in lives where sin or grinding poverty has destroyed all hope, and life has become simply dull, dogged endurance of suffering, a cheerful word or smile has a wonderful power. These wretched women and forlorn little children had already begun to look forward to the coming of the "bread boy," as the little ones called him, as a bright spot in their days. In almost every room he managed to leave a hint of cheer behind him, or at least to lighten a little the cloudy atmosphere. His pail and basket empty, he ran back to Nan's room for his own supplies, and having opened his stand he served his customers, taking his own breakfast between whiles, as he had opportunity. He sold the morning papers, too, at his stand, and between twelve and one o'clock he was as busy as a boy could well be. After that hour few customers appeared, and then, having made his midday meal from whatever he had left, he closed his stand and went home. Then was his time for a little more of what Nan called his "shadow work," when he refilled with fresh water the cup of the rheumatic old woman, or carried her a cup of tea that Nan had made for her, adding to it, perhaps, a cooky or a sandwich that remained from his stock. Or he glanced into a room where two or three children were locked in all day while the mothers were away at work--and attended to the fire for them. Often he found time for a five minutes' chat with crippled Tommy, and now and then he walked awhile with a sick baby in his arms as he had seen the bishop do that day long before. They were all little things that the boy did, but as he kept on doing them day after day, he found in this service for others such happiness as he never had known before. Tommy's delight in the half-withered chrysanthemum set Theo to thinking, and the result of his thinking was that he began to frequent the flower stalls and pick up the broken blossoms that were occasionally thrown aside there. One day a woman who was selling flowers, said to him, "Say, boy, what do you do with the flowers you pick up? I've seen you 'round here after 'em lots o' times lately." "Give 'em to sick folks an' poor ones that can't get out anywheres," replied the boy, promptly. The woman searched his face to see if he were deceiving her, but there was nothing sly or underhanded in the clear eyes that returned her gaze so frankly. "Hm-m," she murmured, thoughtfully. "What do you do Saturday nights, boy?" "Nothin' much, after I've sold out my papers." "Well, Saturday night's our busy time here; one of our busy times, that is, an' if you want to come 'round an' help for an hour or two, I'll pay you in the flowers that are left over." Theo's eyes brightened, but he was shrewd, and was not going to bind himself to an agreement that might not be satisfactory. "I'll come next Sat'day an' try it," he said. "All right," and the woman turned to a customer. Theo was on hand promptly the next Saturday evening. He found that the flower woman wanted him to carry home pots of growing plants for lady purchasers. He was kept busy until nine o'clock, and received in payment a good-sized basket full of violets, roses, heliotrope and carnations. Some had short stems, and some were a little wilted, but the boy was well content with his pay. "Most of them will freshen up and look bright as ever if you put them to-night in a pail of water where they'll have plenty of room," the woman said; "and here--this is for good luck," and she handed him a little pot of geranium with a cluster of pink blossoms. That brought a smile of genuine delight to the boy's face. "Oh!" he cried, "that's dandy! I'll give it to Nan." "And who's Nan--your sister?" questioned the woman. "N--no, not quite. Guess she's as good's my sister, though. Shall I come next Sat'day, ma'am?" replied the boy. "Yes, come next Saturday, an' right along, if you keep on doing as well's you've done to-night." Theo almost ran home, so eager was he to show Nan his treasures. He had never cared very much for flowers himself, but he was beginning now to realise their value to others, and he was sure that Nan would be delighted with the geranium. He was not disappointed. The girl's eyes sparkled at sight of the delicate pink blossoms and she thanked him so heartily that he could only mutter, "Oh, shucks! 'Tain't nothin' much." Then he showed her his basket of cut flowers, and she exclaimed delightedly over them as she lifted them out as tenderly as if they had been alive, and placed them carefully in a pail of fresh water in which she had sprinkled a little salt. "Mother used to put salt in the water to keep flowers fresh," she said, "and oh, won't it be _lovely_ to carry these around to the shut-ins, tomorrow, Theo! I think Mrs. Hunt would like some," she added. "All right. Pick out what you like an' take 'em in to her now." Nan selected some of the freshest blossoms and went across with them to her neighbour, leaving Theo with the baby, who was asleep. She was gone some time, and when she returned her face was grave. "What's the matter? Didn't she like 'em?" asked the boy. "Yes, indeed, she was ever so pleased with them, and told me to thank you for sending them to her--but, Theo, she's worrying so over Dick. She thinks he's going all wrong." "So he is," answered Theo, soberly. "And can't you do anything about it?" "Don't see's I can. He's in with a mean lot o' fellers, 'n he's no good anyhow, nowadays." "But there must be some good in him. His father and mother are so good," pleaded Nan. "Mrs. Hunt was crying when I went in. She says Dick often stays out till midnight or after now, and she's afraid he'll be locked up." "Serve him right if he was," muttered Theo, under his breath. "He's lost the place his father got for him," added Nan. "'Course. Nobody'd keep such a feller long." Nan shook her head sorrowfully, thinking of Dick's mother. Theo said no more, and soon left the room. Nan thought he had gone to bed, but instead, he went out and walked slowly and somewhat doubtfully toward a saloon which he had seen Dick enter more than once of late. Theo, himself, used to go there, but he had not been near the place for many a week. He did not want to go in now, and he waited about outside, wishing that Dick would come out, and yet uncertain what to do if he did come. Finally he pushed open the door and went up the stairs. A dozen or so boys were there, many of whom he knew, and among them was Dick. The proprietor of the place gave the boy a warm welcome, and some of the boys greeted him gaily, but Dick scowled as Theo sat down beside him. He waited until the loud talk began again, then he said in a low tone, "Dick, I came after you. Will you go home with me now? Your mother's frettin'." Dick's face darkened angrily. "Who made you boss over me?" he shouted, springing from his seat with a threatening gesture. "You mind your own business, will you?" Theo's cheeks flushed as every face in the room was turned toward him. "What's the row?" "What's he doin'?" "What does he want?" "Put him out! Put him out!" These shouts and others mingled with oaths as all crowded about the two boys. "There's no row, an' nothin' to get mad about," said Theo, trying to speak quietly. "Dick's mother's frettin', an' I asked him to go home with me. That's all there is about it." "An' enough it is too," exclaimed one of the boys. "Dick's big enough to know when to go home, ain't he?" "What's he got to do with me or my mother?" growled Dick, "I'll go home when I get good an' ready, an' not before." "An' it's time for _you_ to go home now!" exclaimed the proprietor of the place, elbowing his way to the front of the group, and addressing Theo. "We don't want none o' your sort around here. Now clear out--d'ye hear?" Seeing that it was useless to stay longer, Theo departed, followed by taunting cries and yells, from all in the room. He went gloomily homeward, telling himself that he had been a fool to try to do anything for Dick Hunt. Dick was "no good anyhow." But, as he passed her door, Mrs. Hunt opened it and peered anxiously out. Her eyes were red and swollen, and she turned back with a disappointed air as she saw Theo. The next moment however, she stepped out into the hall, pushing the door to behind her. "Tode," she whispered, "do you know where my Dick is?" The boy answered reluctantly, "He's down at Todd's." Mrs. Hunt put her apron to her eyes and sobbed softly. "Oh, dear," she moaned, "his father's gone to look for him, an' if he finds him there he'll most kill him--he's that mad with the boy for the way he's been goin' on lately." Theo stood silent, not knowing what to say, and then Mrs. Hunt turned back into the room while he went up another flight to his. He had just reached his own door when he heard loud, angry voices accompanied by scuffling sounds on the stairs below, and he knew that Mr. Hunt had found Dick, and was bringing him home. After Theodore had gone out, Nan had put all the flowers into two big dishes with plenty of water, and the next morning she was up early and separated them, putting together two or three pinks or a rose with its buds and a bit of foliage, or a cluster of geranium blossoms and green leaves. When Theo came for them she laid the small clusters carefully in a basket, and sprinkled them with fresh water, then as she stooped and buried her face among the fragrant, beautiful things she exclaimed, "Oh Theo, I wish I had time to go with you, and see how happy you make them all with these beautiful, lovely flowers." "I'll begin with you," laughed the boy. "Pick out the ones you like best." But Nan put her hands resolutely behind her and shook her head. "No, I'm not sick and I've had the pleasure of seeing them all, and fixing them, beside my pot of geranium. That's plenty for me." Theodore looked critically at her, then at the blossoms; then he picked out three delicate pink carnations. "No, no! Please don't, Theo," began the girl, but with a laughing glance at her, Theodore laid the blossoms in Little Brother's small white fingers, and hurried away. He went first to Tommy O'Brien's room. The sick boy's weary face brightened at sight of him, but it fairly beamed when Theodore held up the basket saying, "Choose any one of 'em Tommy--the very prettiest of all." "O-oh!" cried Tommy. "I never saw so many. Oh, Theo, where did you get 'em all?" Theo told him while the woman and the children crowded about the basket to see and exclaim over the contents. Tommy chose a spray of lily of the valley and Theo added a pink rose and bud. Then he gave a blossom to each of the children and to their mothers as well, and went away leaving softened faces and smiles in place of frowns and sullen words. The old woman whose breakfast was so often forgotten was not alone to-day. Her daughters were at home, but they were not paying much attention to her. At first she peered stupidly with her half-blind eyes into Theo's basket, then suddenly she cried out, "Oh, I smell 'em! I smell vi'lets. Where be they? Where be they?" There was one little bunch of violets in the basket. Theo snatched it up and laid it in the wrinkled, trembling hands. The old woman held the blossoms against her withered cheek, then she pressed them to her lips, and two big tears rolled slowly down her face. "La! Ma's cryin' over them vi'lets. Here Tode, gi' me some o' them bright ones. Gi' me a rose!" cried one of the young women, and Theo handed each of them a rose and went away in silence. He glanced back as he left the room. The old woman was still holding the violets to her cheek and it was plain, even to the boy, that her thoughts were far away. So, from room to room he went and nowhere did he fail of a glad welcome, because of the gifts he offered. In the dirtiest rooms, the most hardened of the women, the roughest and rudest of the children, seemed to become momentarily gentle and tender when the flowers were laid in their hands. When all had been given away except one rose, Theodore paused and considered. There were several rooms that he had not visited. To which of these should he carry this last rose? Not to Old Man Schneider surely. He was standing at the moment outside Old Man Schneider's door. The old man was the terror of all the children in the house, so ugly and profane was he, and so hideous to look at. Fearless as Theodore was--the sight of Old Man Schneider always made him shudder, and the boy had never yet spoken to him. While he stood there trying to decide who should have the rose, he heard a deep, hollow groan, and surely it came from the room of Old Man Schneider. Theodore stood still and listened. There came another groan and another, and then he knocked on the door. There was no response and he opened it and went in. He had been in many dirty, dismal rooms, but never in one so dirty and so dismal as this. It looked as if it never had been clean. The only furniture was a tumble-down bed in one corner, a chair and a broken stove. On the bed, the old man was lying, covered with rags. He fixed his sunken eyes on the boy and roughly demanded what he wanted, but even as he spoke he groaned again. "You are sick--can't I do something for you?" asked the boy. The old man gazed at him for a moment, then he broke into a torrent of angry words, ending with, "Get out o' my sight. I hate boys. I hate everybody an' everything." Theodore stood still. The rose in his hand looked strangely out of place in that squalid room--but--beautifully out of place, for it seemed to shed light and color as well as perfume through the close, unhealthy atmosphere. "Clear out, I say. Why don't ye go?" The old man tried to shake a threatening fist, but his arm dropped weakly, and in spite of himself he moaned with pain. "Can't I bring a doctor or somebody to help you?" the boy asked gently. "Ain't nobody ter help me. Don't I tell ye I hate everybody?" was the fierce reply. Theodore gazed about him. There seemed nothing that he could do. He hesitated for a moment, then stepped forward and laid the beautiful rose against the dark, knotted fingers on the ragged bed-covering, and then he went away, closing the door behind him. Stopping only to put his basket into his room and lock the door, he hurried off to the dispensary and asked that a doctor be sent to Old Man Schneider as soon as possible. He waited until the doctor was at liberty and then returned with him. There was no response to their knock, and again Theodore opened the door and went in, the doctor following. The old man did not move or look up even when the doctor spoke to him. He lay as Theo had last seen him only that his fingers were closed tightly over the stem of the rose, and one crimson petal lay on the pillow close to the sunken cheek. The old man was dead--but who could tell what thoughts of other days--of sinless days long past, perhaps--may have been awakened in his heart by that fragrant, beautiful bit of God's handiwork? As Theodore went quietly up the stairs, he was glad that he had not passed by Old Man Schneider's door. IX. THEO IN TROUBLE Theo went regularly now to the mission school on Sunday afternoons, and Mr. Scott had become much interested in him. One day Mr. Scott pleased Theo immensely by going to the boy's stand and getting his lunch there, and not long after he went one evening to the boy's room. He found the place dark and the door locked, but as he was turning away, Theo came running up the stairs. "Oh!" he cried out, in a tone of pleased surprise, as he saw his teacher. "Wait a minute an' I'll get a light." Having lighted his lamp, the boy sat down on the cot, giving the broken stool to his visitor. Mr. Scott's heart was full of sympathy as he glanced around the forlorn little room and remembered that it was all the home that the boy had. "Theodore," he said, after talking a while, "what do you do evenings?" "Oh, sometimes I stay in Nan's room, an' sometimes I drop in an' talk to Tommy O'Brien or some of the other sick ones in the house, an' sometimes I go somewheres outside. Saturday nights I help at a flower stand." "Why don't you go to an evening school? I think that would be the best place for you to spend your evenings," said Mr. Scott. This was a new idea to the boy. He thought it over in silence. Mr. Scott went on, "It's not your fault, Theodore, that you have had no schooling, thus far, but now, you can go to an evening school and it will be your fault if you grow up ignorant. You will be able to do far more and better work in the world, with an education, than without one. The more you know yourself the better you can help others, you see." "Yes," sighed the boy. "I guess that's so, but I 'spect I'll find it tough work learning." "I'm not so sure of that. It will be rather hard at first, because you're not used to studying; but I think you are bright enough to go ahead pretty fast when you once get a good start. Now who is this girl, that I've heard you mention several times--Nan is her name?" "Oh, yes, Nan. Come on, I want you to see her an' our baby," replied the boy, eagerly. Somewhat uncertain as to what kind of a girl this might be, yet anxious to know as much as possible about Theo's associates and surroundings, Mr. Scott followed the boy down the stairs. "Nan, here's my teacher, Mr. Scott, come to see the baby," Theodore exclaimed, as he unceremoniously pushed open the door and ushered in the visitor. Mr. Scott was more taken aback than was Nan, at this abrupt introduction. The girl coloured a little, but quietly arose and shook hands with the gentleman, while Theo exclaimed: "Good! Little Brother ain't asleep yet. This is our baby, Mr. Scott. Ain't he a daisy? Take him." Now, Mr. Scott was a young man and totally unused to "taking" babies, but the boy had lifted the little one from the bed and was holding him out to his teacher with such a happy face that the young man felt that it would never do to disappoint him. So he received the baby gingerly in both hands and set him on his knee, but he did not know what to say or do to amuse the child, and it was an immense relief to him when Little Brother held out his hands to Theo, and the boy took him again saying, "Ye don't know him yet, do ye, Little Brother? You will though, by 'n' by," wherein Theo was more of a prophet than he imagined. Relieved of the child, Mr. Scott turned to Nan and the colour rose in his face as he saw a gleam of amusement in the girl's dark eyes, but Theo's ready tongue filled up the momentary pause, and soon all three were chatting like old friends, and when Mr. Scott took his departure, it was with the conviction that his new scholar was fortunate in having Nan for a friend. At the same time he realised that this great tenement with its mixed community was a most unsuitable place for a girl like Nan, and determined that she should be gotten into better surroundings as soon as it could be accomplished. His interest in Theodore was deepened by this visit to his room and friends. He felt that there was something unusual in the boy, and determined to keep watch of him and give him any needed help. It was November now and the night was chilly. As Mr. Scott left the tenement house he buttoned his thick overcoat about him, and shivered as he thought of Theodore's bare cot, with not a pillow or a blanket even. "Not a single bit of bedding," he said, to himself, "and no fire! That will never do, in weather like this." The next day he mentioned the case to the aunt with whom he lived, with the result that a couple of pillows and a warm comforter were sent before night to Nan's room, addressed to Theodore Bryan, and for the remainder of the winter the boy at least did not suffer from cold at night. Theodore grew to like his teacher much as the weeks passed, and often after Sunday-school the two walked home together. Some of the boys that had been longer in the class rather resented this friendship, the more so as Theo was by no means popular among them just at this time. "He's gettin' too good, Tode Bryan is," one of them said, one Sunday. "He walked home with teacher last week, an' now he's a doin' it again." He glanced gloomily after the two, as he spoke. "I'd like ter punch his head; that's what I'd like to do," put in another. "He pitched inter me for swearin' t'other day." "He's a fine one to talk 'bout swearin'," added a third. "I've heard him goin' it hot an' heavy many a time." "Oh yes, but he's settin' up fer a saint now, ye know," said Dick Hunt, scornfully. "I owe him a lickin,' an' he'll get it too 'fore he's many days older." "What for, Dicky?" questioned another. "What for? For blabbin' to my daddy an' sendin' him to Todd's after me, the night he come sneakin' in there himself," cried Dick. "I've been layin' for him ever since, an' I'll give it to him good, first chance I get." "He goes to night school now," remarked one. "Oh, yes, he's puttin' on airs all 'round," returned Dick. "I'll night school him!" he added, vengefully. It was not long before Dick found an opportunity to execute his threats of vengeance. He was loafing on a street corner, with Carrots and two other boys, one night, when Theodore passed them on his way home from school. He nodded to them as he went by, but did not stop. Dick's eyes followed him with a threatening glance until he saw him turn through a narrow street. Then Dick held a brief conference with Carrots and the other two, and all four set off hastily in the direction that Theodore had taken. He, meantime, went on whistling cheerily and thinking pleasant thoughts, for he was beginning to get on at the school, and better yet, he had in his pocket at that moment, a five-dollar bill that meant a great deal to him. Ever since his return from the bishop's house, he had been working as he never had worked before, neglecting no opportunity to earn even a nickel, and every penny that he could possibly spare he had given to Nan to keep for him. He had been perfectly frank with her, and she knew that as soon as he had saved up thirty-seven dollars he meant to carry it to the bishop for Mrs. Russell, and tell him the whole story. First, to stop all his wrongdoing and then as far as possible, to make up to those he had wronged--these were Theodore's firm purposes now, but he felt that he could never bear to face the bishop again until he could take with him the proof of his genuine repentance. Many and many a time in these past weeks, had the boy planned with Nan how he would go to the house and what he would say to the bishop, and what he hoped the bishop would say to him, and Nan had rejoiced almost as much as the boy himself as, week by week, the sum in her hands grew toward the desired amount. Even Nan did not know all the hard work and stern self-denial that had made it possible for Theodore to put by that money out of his small earnings. The five in his pocket on this evening would complete the entire sum and the very next day he meant to carry it to the bishop. The mere thought of seeing again the face that was to him like no other face in all the world--filled the boy's heart with a deep, sweet delight. He was thinking of it as he hurried along through a short, dark alley, where were only two or three stables and one empty house. Quick, stealthy footsteps followed him, but he paid no heed to them until a heavy blow on the back of his head made him suddenly turn and face four dark figures that were close at his heels. "Who are you? What ye hittin' me for?" he demanded, angrily. There was no response, but Dick struck at him again. This time, however, Theodore was on his guard, and he caught Dick's arm and gave it a twist that made its owner cry out. "Oh ho, it's you, Dick Hunt. I might a' known nobody else would sneak up on a feller this way. Well, now, what are ye after?" "I'm after givin' you the worst lickin' ever you had," muttered Dick, trying in vain to free his arm from Theo's strong grip. "What for?" demanded Theodore. "For sneakin' into Todd's and then runnin' to tell my father where I was. That's one thing, but there's plenty more't I'm goin' to settle with you for, to-night," shouted Dick, as he pounded with his left hand, and kicked viciously at the other's shins. "I never spoke to your father that night," Theo declared, but Dick responded, scornfully, "Tell that to a greenhorn! Pitch into him, boys. He won't let go o' me." Seeing the others start toward him, Theo flung Dick's arm aside, and bracing himself against a vacant house just behind him, faced them all in dogged silence. They hesitated for a moment, but Dick cried out again, "Come on, boys!" and the four flung themselves upon Theo, striking, pounding and kicking all together. He defended himself as best he could, but the odds were too great. It was only when the boy slipped to the ground in a limp, motionless heap, that his assailants drew off, and looked uneasily at one another in the darkness. "What'll we do now?" whispered Carrots. "Cut it--somebody's comin'!" cried Dick, in a low tone, and thereupon they took to their heels, leaving Theo as he had fallen on the ground. The boys stopped running as soon as they reached a lighted street where the passers-by might notice them; but they walked on rapidly and discussed the affair in low, guarded tones. "You don't think he's done for, do ye, Dick?" questioned Carrots, uneasily. Dick tried to laugh carelessly, but the effort was a failure. He was beginning to be anxious as to the result, though he was not ready to admit it. "Done for? Not much!" he answered, promptly. "More like he was shammin', an' wasn't hurt half so much as he'd ought ter be." "But if 'tain't so-if he's hurt bad, he may have us up for 'sault an' batt'ry," remarked another. "Dick's the only one he could go for, 'cause 'twas so dark, he couldn't spot the rest of us," put in Carrots, hastily. "Ye needn't try to sneak out o' it that way," cried Dick, sharply. "If I get took up, you'll be, too." "D'ye mean't you'd give us away after gettin' us into it, jest ter help you out?" demanded the other, in a threatening tone. "If he does, we'll make it hot fer _him_" put in another, as Dick answered, doubtfully, "Wal if he should make a fuss 'bout it, I can't take all the blame, can I? I didn't do all the whackin'." "Well, I say, boys, he's a nice one, Dick Hunt is! After gettin' us to help him lick a feller 'cause he darsent do it alone, he talks of gettin' us took up for it," exclaimed the last speaker; "but see here, you," he added to Dick, "Bryan knew you an' he didn't know any the rest of us, an' I tell ye what--if you get inter trouble 'bout this job, you lug us into it 'f ye dare! I'll swear 't Carrots an' Jo here were down t' my place with me, 'n' they'll swear to it too; hey, boys?" "We will so!" "We'll do that ev'ry time!" they answered in one voice; and then with a few cutting words the three turned off together, leaving Dick to pursue his way alone. And miserable enough Dick was as he walked on alone. He was not in the least sorry for what had been done to Theodore, but he was afraid of the consequences. He turned sick with dread as he remembered how the boy's body had slipped in a limp heap to the ground and lain there motionless. Suppose they had killed him? It would be murder. Somebody would have to answer for it and that somebody would be he--Dick Hunt. The cold perspiration started on his forehead and his heart throbbed heavily at the thought, and he felt a wild desire to run on and on till he had left that dark heap in the dark alley, miles and miles behind him. Then came a flash of hope. Perhaps after all Tode was not so badly hurt. Perhaps he had been shamming just to scare them. At this thought, Dick's quick pace slackened and he had half a mind to go back and see if the body still lay there, but he could not bring himself to do that. He shivered and hurried on aimlessly, through the brightly lighted streets. He was afraid to go home, lest he be met there by the news that he dreaded. He was afraid to stay in the streets, for every moment he expected to feel the heavy hand of a policeman on his shoulder. He said to himself that Carrots and the others might inform against him just to save themselves. So, as wretched as a boy well could be, he wandered about for an hour or two, stopping sometimes in dark corners and then hastening on again, stealing suspicious glances over his shoulders, and listening for pursuing footsteps. At last, he turned homeward, longing, yet dreading, to see his mother. It was nearly midnight when he crept softly up the stairs, but his mother had been unable to sleep, and as his hand touched the door in the darkness, she threw it open with a sigh of relief that her weary waiting was over for that night. She did not find fault with him. It seemed to her utterly useless now to complain or entreat. Dick longed to ask if she knew anything about Tode, but his tongue refused to utter the words and he tumbled into bed in gloomy silence. There had been no shamming when Theo fell under the brutal blows of the four boys who had set upon him. They were all strong, well-grown lads, and striking blindly and viciously in the dark, had perhaps hit harder than they realised. At any rate Theo had felt his strength failing even before a last blow on his head made him unconscious of what followed. The "somebody," whom the boys had heard, came slouching along through the dark alley and stumbled over the prostrate body. "Hello! What's this?" he exclaimed, his nimble fingers running rapidly over the boy's face and figure. "Somebody's been up to something here. Let's see if--no! Well, that's queer!" These disconnected remarks were the accompaniment to a rapid and skillful search through the boy's pockets, and the last emphatic expression was drawn forth by the discovery that there had been no robbery; whereupon the newcomer promptly proceeded to complete the job by emptying the said pockets in a manner that proved him no novice at such business. Then he stole noiselessly away, leaving the boy again alone in the darkness, and now there was no good bishop at hand to take him in. Meantime, at home, Nan was wondering why Theo did not come in as usual to tell her what he had been doing at the night school, and to get Tag, who always staid with her when Theo was at the school. Tag was troubled and uneasy too. When it was time for the boy to come Tag sat watching the door, his ears alert for a footstep outside. Now and then he whined, and finally he showed so plainly his desire to go out that Nan opened the door, saying, "Go find him, Tag." She stood in her doorway listening, and heard the dog scamper up to Theo's door. There he listened and nosed about for a moment, then down he came again, and with a short, anxious bark, dashed down the stairs to the street. Nan waited a long time but the dog did not return, and at last she put out her light and went to bed with a troubled heart. But Tag could not sleep. He seemed to know that there was something wrong and something for him to attend to. He raced first to his master's stand, then to the mission school and to the night school, and finding all these places now dark and silent, he pattered through the streets, his nose close to the ground, his anxious, loving eyes watching everything that moved. So at last he came to that dark heap in the dark alley, and first he was wild with joy, but when his frantic delight failed to awaken his master and make him come away home, Tag was sure that something was very wrong indeed and he began to run backward and forward between the motionless body and the corner, until he attracted the attention of a policeman who followed him around into the dark alley, and in a few minutes Theodore was on his way to the Emergency Hospital with Tag following after the ambulance at the top of his speed. But once again Tag found himself rudely repulsed when he tried to slip in after his master. This time he felt that he really could not bear it, and so he stood on the hospital steps and lifting up his voice howled his protest until somebody came and drove him away. But he couldn't stay away, so he crawled into a dark corner up against the wall, and curling himself into the smallest possible space, lay there watchful and wretched until morning, when, after eyeing wistfully those who came out and went in past him, he trotted slowly home to Nan, and did his poor best to tell her what had happened and where Theo was. Nan had passed an anxious night, for she was sure that there was something wrong, and since Theo's return from the bishop's, he had been so changed, that she had grown very fond of him. Being a year or two his senior, she felt a kind of elder sisterly responsibility in regard to him, knowing as she did, that he was even more alone in the world than she, for she had Little Brother, and Theo had nobody at all. So she was at Mrs. Hunt's door, talking the matter over with her, when Tag, with drooping head and tail, came slowly up the stairs. He wagged his tail faintly at sight of Nan, and rubbed his head affectionately against her, and then stood looking up at her, as if waiting to be questioned. "He's been gone all night," Nan was saying to Mrs. Hunt, and referring to the dog, "but I don't believe he found Theo. He doesn't act as if he had. Oh, Mrs. Hunt, where _do_ you suppose he is?" Mrs. Hunt shook her head. "The dear knows," she said, "but something must 'a' happened to him, sure. He's been steady as clockwork since ever he took that room upstairs, I'll say that for him." She sighed as she spoke, thinking of her Dick. "But what can I do, Mrs. Hunt?" cried Nan, her eyes full of tears. "It seems dreadful to keep right on, just as if he were here, as usual. Isn't there any way to find out where he is?" "Look here, Nan," exclaimed Mrs. Hunt. "Do you know where his teacher--that Mr. Scott--lives?" "Yes." "Well, why don't you send word to him? He seems to think a lot of Tode an' Dick. I guess he does of all his scholars. He would know what to do, an' where to look for the boy--don't you think so?" Nan's face had brightened as her friend spoke. "I'm sure that's a good idea," she replied. "He's always been so nice and kind to Theo. I most know he'll help find him." "That's right now, child, stop fretting, for I'll warrant he'll set things straight in no time. I'll let Dick or Jimmy go around to Mr. Scott's as soon as they've had their breakfast." Relieved by this promise, and trying hard to be hopeful and not to worry, Nan ran back to her room, while Mrs. Hunt called the boys. Dick pretended to be very sound asleep, and it required more than one call and shake to arouse him, but in reality, he too had passed a most miserable night, and he had listened, with heart beating fast and hard, to his mother's colloquy with Nan; and as he listened, ever before his mind's eye was that dark, motionless heap on the ground. In imagination, he saw Theo's dead body on a slab in the morgue, and himself in a prison cell, condemned for murder. Dick's worst enemy could not have wished him to be any more wretched than he was in that hour, as he cowered in his bed, and strained his ears to catch every word that was uttered. But when his mother shook him, he rubbed his eyes, and pretended to be still half asleep, and flatly refused to go to Mr. Scott's. "Let Jim go, 'f anybody's got to," he growled, as he began to pull on his clothes. "Here you, Jim, turn out lively now!" he added, yanking the bedclothes off his brother to emphasise his words. "He's always a-puttin' off on me--Dick is," snarled Jim, as he joined his mother in the other room a few minutes later, but when he learned why he was to go to Mr. Scott's he made no further objections, but swallowed his breakfast hastily, and went off on the run. Jim did not share his brother's enmity toward the missing boy. Jim liked Theo. He liked Nan too, and was always ready to do an errand for her, if she wanted him. Mr. Scott was just sitting down to breakfast when Jim appeared, and he left his coffee to cool while he listened with keen interest to what the boy had to tell him. His face was very grave as he said, "Tell Miss Nan that I will be around there within an hour. See here, though, Jim,--have you had your breakfast?" "Ye--yes, sir," Jim answered, with a quick glance at the hot cakes and chops that had such an appetising odour. Jim didn't have chops and hot cakes for breakfast. "Aunt Mary, can you put another plate here for Jim?" Mr. Scott asked, and his aunt, with a smile, set another chair at the table, and piled a plate with eatables, of which the boy disposed as easily and speedily as if that had been his first meal that day. Mr. Scott likewise made a hasty breakfast, and then he sent Jim back to Nan, while he himself went to his place of business to arrange for his absence that morning. Within the hour, as he had said, he knocked at Nan's door. She welcomed him with a feeling of glad relief, assured that at least he would be able to find out where Theo was. He waited only to get what little information she could give him, and then set forth, but before he had reached the bottom of the first flight of stairs, Nan ran after him. "Mr. Scott," she called. "Wouldn't it be a good plan to take Tag--Theo's dog--with you?" Mr. Scott thought it would, but now an unexpected obstacle was encountered. Tag refused to go with him. He crept under Nan's dress, and crouched there, looking quietly out at the gentleman, but making no movement toward him, though he called and whistled as persuasively as he could. "Oh, Tag, do go," pleaded Nan, almost ready to cry at the dog's unexpected obstinacy. Tag twisted his head and looked up at her, and it almost seemed as if he were moved by her pleading tone, for, after a moment's hesitation, he crept slowly out from his refuge, and followed Mr. Scott down the stairs. Once outside the house he stopped and gazed with keen, questioning eyes at the gentleman, standing, meanwhile, ready to dart off, should any attempt be made to capture him, but Mr. Scott stopped too, and said quietly, "Go find him, Tag. Find Theo." That was enough for the intelligent little creature. With a quick, sharp yelp of satisfaction, Tag set off at such a pace that Mr. Scott had hard work to keep him in sight. In fact, as soon as they turned into a thronged business street, he lost sight of his four-footed guide entirely, but the direction Tag had taken was a sufficient clue. The young man was so certain that the Emergency Hospital was the place to which the dog was leading him, that he boarded a car and went directly there, and sure enough on the steps sat Tag, his short ears erect, and his eager eyes watching impatiently for a chance to slip inside the doors. He seemed to know that his chance had come when he saw Mr. Scott running up the steps, for he frisked about and showed his delight in every conceivable fashion. Dogs were not allowed in the hospital, but when Mr. Scott picked Tag up in his arms and promised to keep him there, the attendant finally consented that he should do so. And so they went first to the waiting-room and then up the stairs and through the long corridors. X. A BITTER DISAPPOINTMENT Theodore was still unconscious when he was lifted into the ambulance the night before, but on the way to the hospital he opened his eyes, wondering much to find himself flat on his back and being driven rapidly through the streets. In a few minutes he remembered what had happened, and guessed that he must have been stunned by a blow or a fall. As he reached this conclusion, the vehicle stopped, and he was lifted out and carried into the hospital in spite of his protests. He had a dread of entering a hospital as a patient, and he wanted to go home. But the doctors would not allow him to go home. They told him that if he would be quiet and do as they said, he would probably be able to go home the next morning, and with this promise he was obliged to be content, and allow himself to be undressed and put to bed. He was badly bruised and his right shoulder was very lame, but there was no serious injury, and it seemed to the boy very trying to be compelled to spend the night where he was. He did not sleep much, partly because of his strange surroundings, and partly because of his aching head and shoulder, and as he lay there in the dimly-lighted ward, his thoughts were busy. A hot anger burned in his heart as he recalled the cowardly attack in the dark alley. He saw that it had been deliberately planned by Dick Hunt, and that the four boys must have followed him from the corner where he saw them. "I'll pay that Dick Hunt for this," he muttered under his breath, "an' Carrots, too. I know the chap that hit so hard was Carrots. I'll make 'em suffer for it!" He lay there, his eyes flashing and his cheeks burning, as he thought over various schemes of vengeance. Then suddenly he thought of Mr. Scott, and that brought something else to his remembrance. He seemed to see his teacher holding out his little Bible and making him--Theodore--read aloud those two verses: "Dearly beloved avenge not yourselves." And "Recompense to no man evil for evil." As he repeated these words to himself, the fire died slowly out of the boy's eyes and the angry colour faded from his cheeks. He turned restlessly in his bed and tried to banish these thoughts and bring back his schemes of vengeance, but he could not do it. He knew what was the right--what he ought to do--but he was not willing to do it. Hour after hour he argued the matter with himself, finding all sorts of reasons why, in this case, he might take vengeance into his own hands and "learn that Dick Hunt a lesson," yet feeling and knowing in the depths of his heart that whatever the old Tode Bryan might have done, Theodore Bryan, who was trying to be the bishop's shadow, certainly had no right to do evil to somebody else simply because that somebody had done evil to him. It was nearly morning before the long battle with himself was over, but it ended at last, and it was Theodore, and not Tode who was victorious, and it was the memory of the bishop's face, and of the bishop's prayer that day in the poorhouse, that finally settled the matter. "He'd fight for somebody else, the bishop would, but he wouldn't ever fight for himself, an' I mustn't neither," the boy murmured, softly, and then with a long breath he turned his face to the wall and fell asleep, and he had but just awakened from that sleep when Mr. Scott, with Tag under his arm, came through the long corridor to the ward where Theodore was lying in the very last cot, next the wall. Mr. Scott had promised not to let the dog out of his arms, but if he had been better acquainted with Tag he would never have made such a rash promise. As the gentleman followed the nurse into the ward, the dog's eyes flashed a swift glance over the long line of cots, and the next instant something dark went flying down the room and up on to that last cot in the row, and there was Tag licking his master's face and hands, and wagging his tail, and barking like mad. "Dear me!" exclaimed the nurse, running toward the corner. "This will never do. He'll drive the patients into fits! Why didn't you keep hold of him?" She threw the question back in a reproachful tone to Mr. Scott. He laughed a little as he answered, "If you will try to pick him up now and hold him, you will understand why." Even as he spoke, the nurse was making an attempt to capture and silence the noisy little fellow. She might as well have tried to pick up a ball of quicksilver. Tag slipped through her fingers like an eel, scurrying from one end of the cot to the other, and barking excitedly all the time. "Can't you stop him, Theodore?" exclaimed Mr. Scott, as he reached the corner where the boy lay. "Here, Tag, lie down and be still," cried the boy, and with one last defiant yap at the nurse, Tag nosed aside the bedclothes and snuggled down beside his master with a sigh of glad content. "Well, if ever I let a dog into _my_ ward again!" exclaimed the nurse, in a tone of stern determination. "I'm sorry he made such a noise, ma'am. It was only because he was so glad to find me," said Theodore, quickly. The nurse turned away in offended silence, and Mr. Scott sat down by the bed and began to talk with the boy. He listened with a grave face to Theo's story. When it was ended, he asked, "Did you recognise either of the boys?" "Yes, sir; one, certainly, and I think I know one of the others." "Well?" said the teacher, inquiringly. Theodore hesitated a moment, then answered in a low tone, "You 'member them verses you showed me that first Sunday, Mr. Scott?" The gentleman smiled down into the sober, boyish face. "I remember," he replied, "but, Theo, this is a grave matter. To beat a boy until he is unconscious, and then leave him to live or die, is a crime. Such boys ought not to be shielded." "Mr. Scott, I had an awful time over that last night," answered the boy, earnestly. "I wanted to pay them fellers for this job--you better b'lieve I did, but," he shook his head slowly, "I can't do it. You see, sir, I ain't Tode no more--I'm Theodore, now." There was a look on the homely, boyish face that forbade further discussion of the matter, and, after a moment's silence, Mr. Scott said in a different tone, "Well, my boy, when are you going home? Nan and the baby want to see you." Theo glanced impatiently about the long room. "She said I'd got to stay in bed till the doctor had seen me," he replied, "'n the doctor'll be here 'bout nine o'clock." "She" was the nurse. "It's nearly nine now. I'll wait until the doctor comes, then," Mr. Scott said. The doctor pronounced the boy quite fit to leave the hospital, and his clothes being brought to him, the curtains were drawn around his cot and he dressed himself hastily. But as he pushed aside the curtains, Mr. Scott saw a troubled look on his face, and asked: "What's the matter, Theodore?" Without answering the boy crossed the room to the nurse. "Where's the money that was in my pocket?" he asked, anxiously. The nurse looked at him sharply. "If there was any money in your pockets when you were brought here it would be in them now," she answered, shortly. "You can go to the office and ask any questions you like." Theodore turned toward his teacher a very sorrowful face. "I've been robbed, too," he said. "Oh, I'm sorry, Theodore. How much have you lost?" "Five dollars. She says to ask at the office, but 'twon't do no good, I s'pose." "No, nothing would have been taken from your pockets here, but we will stop at the office and see if we can learn anything," Mr. Scott said. Tag had kept close to his master's heels, and now at his teacher's suggestion Theodore picked up the dog, who went forth quietly enough in that fashion. Inquiries at the office convinced the boy that he had been robbed before he was brought there, and naturally enough he came to the conclusion that his money had gone into the pockets of Dick Hunt and his companions. At the door of the tenement house Mr. Scott left Theo, who hurried eagerly up the stairs. On the landing he met Jimmy Hunt, who called out: "Hi--o, Tode, where ye been all night? Say, what was the matter? Did Mr. Scott find ye?" "Yes," was Theo's only response, as he pushed open Nan's door, to be greeted with such a warm welcome that he hardly knew what to say and had to hide his embarrassment by poking the baby's ribs to make him laugh. Jimmy Hunt had followed him into the room and listened with open mouth as well as ears to the brief story that the boy told in reply to Nan's questions. "Oh, 'twasn't much. I got knocked down an' carried to the hospital, an' they wouldn't let me come away till morning--that's all." "An' wasn't ye hurt?" cried Jimmy, in a disappointed tone. It seemed to him altogether too tame an affair if nobody was hurt. "My shoulder's sprained, an' my head was hurt a little," Theo answered. "Say, Jim, where's Dick?" "I d'know. Out somewheres," replied Dick's brother, indifferently. "Why ain't you in school, Jimmy?" was Theo's next question. "Well, I like that!" exclaimed Jimmy, in a tone of deep disgust. "Ain't I been a-racin' all over town for you this mornin', a-gettin' Mr. Scott to hunt ye up, an' goin' ter see 'f your stand's open, an' carryin' things 'round fer Nan, too? How could I do all that an' be in school, I'd like to know?" "'Deed, you couldn't, Jimmy," replied Nan, soothingly. "I don't know what I should have done this morning without him, Theo. He was my right hand man." Jimmy coloured with satisfaction at this high praise, and his delight was complete when Theodore added, "That so? Well now, Jimmy boy, I ain't goin' to forget this." "Huh! Twarn't nothin'. I liked to do it," replied Jimmy, and then overcome by a sudden and unaccountable fit of bashfulness he ran hastily out of the room. Then Theodore told Nan the details of his adventure, but not even to her would he tell the name of his enemy, and Nan did not guess, for she would never have imagined that Mrs. Hunt's Dick could have served Theo so. Dick had gone out as usual after breakfast and did not come home even to get his supper, but of late his habits had been so irregular that nothing was said at home about his absence. After supper Jimmy was sent out on an errand and Dick met him and questioned him in regard to Theo's return, and what he had to say. Jimmy waxed indignant over the story which he filled in from his own imagination with many vivid details. "Some fellers pitched into him an' knocked him down an' beat him an' left him for dead an' they took him t' the hospital an' kep' him there all night. Guess them fellers'll suffer for it! They robbed him, too. Took five dollars out o' his pockets." "They didn't neither!" exclaimed Dick, hastily, thrown off his guard by this unexpected statement. "Come now, Dick Hunt, mebbe you know more'n I do about it," retorted Jimmy, with withering sarcasm, little suspecting how much more his brother _did_ know. "Mebbe you heard what Nan said to ma 'bout it." "No, no! 'Course I d'know nothin' 'bout it. How would I know?" replied Dick, quickly and uneasily. "Say, Jimmy, is he--is Tode goin' to have them fellers took up?" "'Spect he is--I would," answered Jimmy; then remembering his errand, he ran off, leaving Dick looking after him with a haggard, miserable face. "Robbed," Dick said to himself, as he walked moodily and aimlessly on. "We didn't do that anyhow. Somebody must 'a' gone through his pockets after we cleared out. Nice box I'm in now!" Dick did not go home at all that night. He was afraid that he might be arrested if he did. "He knows 'twas me did it, an' he's keepin' dark 'bout it till they can nab me," he thought. He hunted up the three boys who had been so ready to help him the night before, but he found them now firmly banded together against him. Moreover, they had spread such reports of him among their companions, that Dick found himself shunned by them all. He dared not go home, so he wandered about the streets, eating in out-of-the-way places, and sleeping where he could. One day Carrots told him that Tode Bryan was huntin' everywhere for him. Then Dick, in desperation, made up his mind to go to sea--he could stand the strain no longer. He dared not go home, even to bid his mother goodbye. Dick was selfish and cruel, but he had even yet a little lingering tenderness for his mother. It was not enough to make him behave himself and do what he knew would please her, but it did make him wish that he could see her just for a moment before going away. It was enough to make him creep cautiously to the house after dark, and stand in the shadow, looking up at her window, while he pictured to himself the neat, pleasant room, where at that hour, she would be preparing supper. While he stood there, Theo came out of the house, with Tag, as usual, at his heels. Tag ran over to the dark corner and investigated Dick, but cautiously, for there was no friendship between him and this member of the Hunt family. Dick stood silent and motionless afraid that the dog might bark and draw Theo over there, but he stood ready for flight until Theo whistled and Tag ran back to him, and presently followed him off in another direction. Then, with a breath of relief, Dick stole off into the darkness, and the next day he left the city on a vessel bound for South America, rejoicing that at last he was beyond reach of Tode Bryan. Dick was not mistaken in thinking that Theo had been searching for him, but he was greatly mistaken as to the boy's purpose in it. Theodore was entirely ready now to obey that command that Mr. Scott had shown him and to do his best to "overcome evil with good." He took it for granted that Dick and the others had robbed as well as beaten him, but all the same, he felt that he was bound to forget all that and find some way to show them a kindness. But though Theo was always on the lookout for him, Dick managed to keep out of his sight while he remained in the city. After Dick had sailed, some boy told Jimmy where his brother had gone, and so at last the news reached Theodore. Since his return from the bishop's, Theo had had few idle moments, but after losing the five dollars he worked early and late to make up the loss. He grew more silent and thoughtful, and when alone his thoughts dwelt almost continually on that happy day when he should look once more into the bishop's kind face. "I'll tell him all about it," he would say to himself, "how I saw that Mrs. Russell drop the pocketbook, an' how I slipped under the wagon an' snatched it up out o' the mud, an' used the money. I'll tell it all, an' ev'rything else bad that I can 'member, so he'll know jest what a bad lot I've been, an' then I'll tell him how sorry I am, an' how I'm a-huntin' ev'rywhere for that Jack Finney, an' how I'll keep a-huntin' till I find him." All this and much more Theodore planned to tell the bishop, and, as he thought about it, it seemed as if he could not wait another hour, so intense was his longing to look once more into that face that was like no other earthly face to him, to listen again to the voice that thrilled his heart, and hear it say, "My boy, I forgive you." Many a time he dreamt of this and started up from sleep with those words ringing in his ears, "My boy, I forgive you," and then finding himself alone in his dark, dismal little room, he would bury his wet cheeks in the pillow and try to stifle the longing in his lonely, boyish heart. Even Nan, who knew him better than did any one else, never guessed how his heart hungered to hear those words from the lips of the bishop. But little by little--in nickels and dimes and quarters--Theodore laid by another five dollars. He knew to a penny how much there was, but when he brought the last dime, he and Nan counted it all to make sure. There was no mistake. It amounted to thirty-seven dollars and twenty-five cents, and the boy drew a long, glad breath as he looked up at Nan with shining eyes and flushed cheeks, saying, "To-morrow, Nan, I can see--_him!_" "Don't look so--so awfully glad, Theo. I'm afraid something will happen," said Nan, with a troubled expression in her eyes as she looked at him. "Don't you worry. I ain't a-goin' to be robbed again--you better believe I ain't!" cried the boy. Then he glanced at his worn suit and tried to pull down his jacket sleeves, as he added, wistfully, "D'you think I look well enough to go there, Nan? I wanted to buy a collar an' necktie, but, I just _couldn't_ wait any longer." Nan's private opinion was, that if the bishop could only see Theo's face at that moment, the garments he wore would be a matter of small importance. She answered, quickly, "You look plenty well enough, Theo. Don't worry about that." She gathered up the money and put it back into the box in which it had been kept, and the boy went across the room to the bed where the baby lay asleep. "Seems to me he looks kind o' peaked--don't he, Nan?" he remarked, uneasily. Nan cast an anxious glance at the little, thin face, and shook her head. "He doesn't get strong as I hoped he would," she answered, sadly. "Oh well, he will, when it comes warmer, so he can get out doors oftener," the boy said, as he went away to his room. He hurried through his work the next day, closing his stand at the earliest possible moment, and rushing home to get ready for his visit. He always, now, kept his face and hands scrupulously clean. His hair might have been in better condition if he had had money to buy a comb or a brush, but those were among the luxuries that he felt he must deny himself until he had made all the restitution in his power. To-day, however, when he went to Nan's room for his money, she offered him the use of her comb, and helped him reduce his rough, thick hair to some kind of order. Even then he looked at himself somewhat doubtfully. His suit was so shabby in spite of Nan's careful mending, and his shoes were worse than his suit, but they were polished to the last degree. He had exchanged a sandwich and two doughnuts for that "shine." "You look well enough, Theo," Nan said, "plenty well enough. Now go on, and oh, I do _hope_ it will be all right." "I know 'twill," cried the boy, joyously, as he tucked the money carefully into an inside pocket. "Oh, Nan!" He looked at her with such a happy face that her own beamed a bright response. Then he ran off and Nan stood in the doorway watching him as he went down the stairs, closely followed by his inseparable companion, Tag. "The dear boy! He is fairly pale," said Nan, to herself, as she turned back into her room. "It is strange how he loves that bishop--and what a different boy he is, too, since he came home. I don't see how the bishop can help loving him. Oh, I do hope nothing will happen to spoil his visit. He has looked forward to it so long." The boy felt as if he were walking on air as he went rapidly through the crowded streets, seeing nothing about him, so completely were his thoughts occupied with the happiness before him. As he got farther up town the crowd lessened, and when he turned into the street on which the bishop lived, the passers-by were few. At last he could see the house. In a few minutes he would reach it. Then his joyous anticipations suddenly vanished and he began to be troubled. What if Brown wouldn't let him in, he thought, or--what if the bishop should refuse to see him or to listen to his story? As these thoughts came to him his eager pace slackened and for a moment he was tempted to turn back. Only for a moment, however. He _knew_ that the bishop would not refuse to see him, and as for Brown, if Brown refused to admit him, he would go to the servants' door and ask for Mrs. Martin. So thinking, he pushed open the iron gate and went slowly up the walk. "Stay here, Tag. Lie down, sir!" he ordered, and the dog obediently dropped down on the steps, keeping his bright eyes fastened on his master, as the boy rang the bell. Theo could almost hear his heart beat as he waited. Suddenly the door swung open and there was Brown gazing severely at him. "Well--what do _you_ want?" questioned the man, brusquely. "I want--Don't you know me, Brown? I want to see--Mrs. Martin." The boy's voice was thick and husky, and somehow he could not utter the bishop's name to Brown standing there with that cold frown on his face. "Oh--you want to see Mrs. Martin, do you? Well, I think you've got cheek to come here at all after leaving the way you did," Brown growled. He held the door so that the boy could not enter, and seemed more than half inclined to shut it in his face. "Oh, please, Brown, _do_ let me in," pleaded the boy, with such a heart-broken tone in his voice, that Brown relented--he wasn't half so gruff as he pretended to be--and answered, grudgingly, "Well, come in, if you must, an' I'll find out if Mrs. Martin will see you." With a sudden gleam of joy in his eyes, Theodore slipped in. "Come along!" Brown called over his shoulder, and the boy followed to the housekeeper's sitting-room. The door of the room stood open, and Mrs. Martin sat by the window with a newspaper in her hand. She glanced up over her spectacles as Brown's tall figure appeared at the door. "Mrs. Martin, this boy says he wants to see you," he announced, and then sauntered indifferently away to his own quarters. Mrs. Martin took off her glasses as she called, "Come in, boy, and tell me what you want." Theo walked slowly toward her hoping that she would recognise him, but she did not. Indeed it was a wonder that Brown had recognised him, so different was his appearance in his rough worn clothes, from that of the handsomely dressed lad, whose sudden departure had so grieved the kindhearted housekeeper. "Don't you know me, Mrs. Martin?" the boy faltered, sorrowfully, as he paused beside her chair. "No, I'm sure I--why! You don't mean to say that you are our deaf and dumb boy!" exclaimed the good woman, as she peered earnestly into the grey eyes looking down so wistfully into hers. "Yes, I'm the bad boy you were so good to, but I've been keepin' straight ever since I was here, Mrs. Martin," he answered, earnestly. "I have, truly." "Bless your dear heart, child," cried the good woman, springing up hastily and seizing the boy's hands. "I'm sure you have. I guess _I_ know a bad face when I see one, and it don't look like yours. Sit down, dear, and tell me all about it." In the fewest possible words Theo told his story, making no attempt to excuse anything. The housekeeper listened with keen interest, asking a question now and then, and reading in his face the confirmation of all he said. He did not say very much about the bishop, but the few words that he did say and the look in his eyes as he said them, showed her what a hold upon the boy's heart her master had so unconsciously gained, and her own interest in the friendless lad grew deeper. When his story was told, she wiped her eyes as she said, slowly, "And to think that you've been working all these weeks to save up that money! Well, well, how glad the dear bishop will be! He's said all the time that you were a good boy." "Oh, has he?" cried Theo, his face all alight with sudden joy. "I was afraid he'd think I was all bad when he found out how I'd cheated him." "No, no!" exclaimed Mrs. Martin. "He was grieved over your going off so, and he has tried his best to find you, but you see he didn't know where to look for you." "Did he try to find me, Mrs. Martin? Oh, I'm so glad! And can I see him now, please?" The boy's voice trembled with eagerness as he spoke. The housekeeper's kind face was full of pity and sympathy as she exclaimed, "Why, my boy, didn't you know? The bishop is in California. He went a week ago to stay three months." All the glad brightness faded from the boy's face as he heard this. He did not speak, but he turned aside, and brushed his sleeve hastily across his eyes. Mrs. Martin laid her hand gently on his shoulder. "I'm so sorry," she said, "and he will be too, when he knows of your coming. I will write him all about it." Still the boy stood silent. It seemed to him that he could not bear it. It had not once occurred to him that the bishop might be away, and now there was no possibility of seeing him for three long months. It seemed an eternity to the boy. And to think that he was there--at home--a week ago! "If they hadn't stole that five dollars from me, I might 'a' seen him last week," the boy said to himself, bitter thoughts of Dick Hunt rising in his heart. At last he turned again to the housekeeper and at the change in his face her eyes filled with quick tears. He took from his pocket the little roll of money and held it out, saying in a low unsteady voice, "You send it to him--an' tell him--won't you?" "I'll write him all about it," the housekeeper repeated, "and don't you be discouraged, dear. He'll want to see you just as soon as he gets home, I know he will. Tell me where you live, so I can send you word when he comes." In a dull, listless voice the boy gave the street and number, and she wrote the address on a slip of paper. "Remember, Theodore, I shall write the bishop all you have told me, and how you are trying to find the Finney boy and to help others just as he does," said the good woman, knowing instinctively that this would comfort the boy in his bitter disappointment. He brightened a little at her words but he only said, briefly, "Yes--tell him that," and then he went sorrowfully away. Mrs. Martin stood at the window and looked after him as he went slowly down the street, his hands in his pockets and his eyes on the ground, while Tag, well aware that something was wrong, trotted beside him with drooping ears and tail. "Tell me that that's a bad boy!" the good woman said to herself. "I know better! I don't care what that Mr. Gibson said. I never took much stock in Mr. Gibson myself, anyhow. He always had something to say against anybody that the bishop took an interest in. There--I wish I'd told Theodore that he was here only as a substitute, and had to leave when the regular secretary was well enough to come back. I declare my heart aches when I think of that poor little fellow's face when I told him that the bishop was gone. Ah well, this is a world of disappointment!" and with a sigh she turned away from the window. Nan sat in a rocking-chair with Little Brother in her arms, when Theodore opened her door. "Oh Theo--what is it? What is the matter?" she cried, as she saw his face. He dropped wearily into a seat and told her in a few words the result of his visit. "Oh, I am so sorry!" she exclaimed. "And it seems so hard to think that you would have seen the bishop if you hadn't lost that five dollars!" The boy sighed, but made no reply. He could not talk about it then, and presently he got up and went out. XI. THEO'S NEW BUSINESS Theodore went slowly down the stairs, but stopped on the outside steps and stood there with his hands in his pockets looking listlessly up and down the street. There was another big tenement house opposite, and on its steps sat a girl of ten or eleven with a baby in her lap. The baby kept up a low wailing cry, but the girl paid no attention to it. She sat with her head leaning against the house, and seemed to notice nothing about her. Theodore glanced at her indifferently. His thoughts were still dwelling on his great disappointment--the sorrowful ending of the hopes and longings of so many weeks. It seemed to him that he had now nothing to which to look forward; nothing that was worth working for. Then suddenly there flashed into his mind the words he had heard the bishop speak to a man who came to him one day in great sorrow. "My life is spoiled," the man had said. "All my hopes and plans are destroyed. What shall I do?" And the bishop had answered, "My son, you must forget yourself, and your broken hopes and plans, and think of others. Do something for somebody else--and keep on doing." "That's what he would say to me, I s'pose," thought the boy. "I wonder what I can do. There's Tommy O'Brien, I 'spect he'd be glad 'nough to see most anybody." He turned and went slowly and reluctantly back up the stairs. He didn't want to see Tommy O'Brien. He didn't want to see anybody just then, but still he went on to Tommy's door. As he approached it, he heard loud, angry voices mingled with the crying of a baby. He knocked, but the noise within continued, and after a moment's pause he pushed open the door and went in. The three women who lived in the room were all standing with red, angry faces, each trying to outscold the others. Three or four little children, with frightened eyes, were huddled together in one corner, while a baby cried unheeded on the floor, its mother being too much occupied with the quarrel to pay any attention to her child. The women glanced indifferently at Theodore as he entered, and kept on with their loud talk. Theo crossed over to Tommy's cot. The sick boy had pulled his pillow over his head and was pressing it close to his ears to shut out the racket. "Le'me 'lone!" he exclaimed, as Theodore tried to lift the pillow. His face was drawn with pain and there were dark hollows beneath his heavy eyes. Such a weary, suffering face it was that a great flood of pity surged over Theodore's heart at sight of it. Then Tommy opened his eyes and as he saw who had pulled aside his pillow a faint smile crept around his pale lips. "Oh!" he cried. "It's you. I thought 'twas some o' them a-pullin' off my piller. Can't you make 'em stop, Tode? They've been a-fightin' off an' on all day." He glanced at the noisy women as he spoke. "What's the row about?" asked Theo. "'Cause Mis' Carey said Mis' Green's baby was cross-eyed. Mis' Green got so mad at that that she's been scoldin' 'bout it ever since an' leavin' the baby to yell there by itself on the floor--poor little beggar! Seem's if my head'll split open with all the noise," sighed Tommy, wearily, then he brightened up as he inquired, "What d' you come for, Tode?" "Just to talk to you a little," replied Theo. "S'pose you get awful tired layin' here all the time, don't ye, Tommy?" The unexpected sympathy in the voice and look touched the lonely heart of the little cripple. His eyes filled with tears, and he reached up one skinny little hand and laid it on the rough, strong one of his visitor as he answered, "Oh, you don't know--you don't know anything about it, Tode. I don't b'lieve dyin' can be half so bad's livin' this way. She wishes I'd die. She's said so lots o' times," he nodded toward his aunt, who was one of the women in the room, "an' I wish so too, 'f I've got to be this way always." "Ain't ye never had no doctor, Tommy?" asked Theo, with a quick catch in his breath as he realised dimly what it would be to have such a life to look forward to. "No--she says she ain't got no money for doctors," replied the boy, soberly. "I'll"--began Theodore, then wisely concluding to raise no hopes that might not be realised, he changed his sentence to, "I'll find out if there's a doctor that will come for nothin'. I believe there is one. Can ye read, Tommy?" The sick boy shook his head. "How could I?" he answered. "Ain't nobody ter show me nothin'." "Wonder 'f I couldn't," said Theo, thoughtfully. "I c'n tell ye the letters anyhow, an' that'll be better'n nothin'." A bit of torn newspaper lay on the floor beside the bed. He picked it up and pointed out A, O and S, to Tommy. By the time the little cripple had thoroughly mastered those three letters so that he could pick them out every time, the women had given up their quarrel. Mrs. Green had taken up her baby and was feeding it, and the other women, with sullen faces, had resumed their neglected duties. "Oh dear! Must you go?" Tommy exclaimed as Theo got off the cot on which he had been sitting. "But you was real good to come, anyhow. When'll ye come again an' tell me some more letters?" "I'll show ye one ev'ry day if I can get time. Then in three weeks you'll know all the big ones an' some o' the little ones that are just like the big ones. Now don't ye forget them three." "You bet I won't. I shall say 'em a hundred times 'fore to-morrow," rejoined the little fellow, and his eyes followed his new friend eagerly until the door closed behind him. As for Theodore himself, half the weight seemed to have been lifted from his own heart as he went down the stairs again. "I'll run outside a minute 'fore I go to supper," he said to himself. "The air was awful thick in that room. Reckon that's one thing makes Tommy feel so bad." He walked briskly around two or three squares, and as he came back to the house he noticed that the girl and the baby still sat where he had seen them an hour before. The baby's cry had ceased, but it began again as Theo was passing the two. He stopped and looked at them. The girl's eyes rested on his face with a dull, indifferent glance. "What makes it cry? Is it sick?" the boy asked, nodding toward the baby. The girl shook her head. "What ails it then?" "Starvin'." The girl uttered the word in a lifeless tone as if it were a matter of no interest to her. "Where's yer mother?" pursued the boy. "Dead." "An' yer father?" "Drunk." "Ain't there nobody to look out for ye?" Again the girl shook her head. "Ain't ye had anything to eat to-day?" "No." "What d'ye have yesterday?" "Some crusts I found in the street. Do go off an' le'me 'lone. We're most dead, an' I'm glad of it," moaned the girl, drearily. "You gi' me that baby an' come along. I'll get ye somethin' to eat," cried Theo, and as the girl looked up at him half doubtfully and half joyfully, he seized the bundle of shawl and baby and hurried with it up to Nan's room, the girl dragging herself slowly along behind him. Nan cast a doubtful and half dismayed glance at the two strangers as Theodore ushered them in, but the boy exclaimed, "They're half starved, Nan. We _must_ give 'em somethin' to eat," and when she saw the baby's little pinched face she hesitated no longer, but quickly warmed some milk and fed it to the little one while the girl devoured the bread and milk and meat set before her with a ravenous haste that confirmed what she had said. Then, refreshed by the food, she told her pitiful story, the old story of a father who spent his earnings in the saloon, leaving his motherless children to live or die as might be. Nan's heart ached as she listened, and Theodore's face was very grave. When the girl had gone away with the baby in her arms, Theo said, earnestly, "Nan, I've got to earn more money." "How can you?" Nan asked. "You work so hard now, Theo." "I must work harder, Nan. I can't stand it to see folks starvin' an' not help 'em. I'll pay you for what these two had you know." Nan looked at him reproachfully. "Don't you think I want to help too?" she returned. "Do you think I've forgotten that meal you gave Little Brother an' me?" "That was nothin'. Anyhow you've done lots more for me than ever I did for you," the boy answered, earnestly, "but, Nan, how _can_ rich folks keep their money for themselves when there are people--babies, Nan--starvin' right here in this city?" "I suppose the rich folks don't know about them," replied the girl, thoughtfully, as she set the table for supper. "I've got to talk it over with Mr. Scott," Theo said, as he drew his chair up to the table. "You talk everything over with Mr. Scott now, don't you, Theo?" "'Most everything. He's fine as silk, Mr. Scott is. He rings true every time, but he ain't"-- He left his sentence unfinished, but Nan knew of whom he was thinking. The next afternoon Theodore walked slowly through the business streets, with eyes and ears alert, for some opening of which he might take advantage to increase his income. Past block after block he wandered till he was tired and discouraged. Finally he sat down on some high stone steps to rest a bit, and while he sat there a coloured boy came out of the building. He had a tin box and some rags in his hands, and he began in an idle fashion to clean the brass railing to the steps. Theodore fell into conversation with him, carelessly and indifferently at first, but after a little with a sudden, keen interest as the boy began to grumble about his work. "I ain't a-goin' ter clean these yer ol' railin's many more times," he said. "It's too much work. I c'n git a place easy where the' ain't no brasses to clean, an' I'm a-goin' ter, too. All the office boys hates ter clean brasses." "What do ye clean 'em with?" Theodore inquired. The boy held out the tin box. "This stuff an' soft rags. Say--you want ter try it?" He grinned as he spoke, but to his surprise his offer was accepted. "Gi' me your rags," cried Theo, and he proceeded to rub and polish energetically, until one side of the railings glittered like gold. "Yer a gay ol' cleaner!" exclaimed the black boy, as he lolled in blissful idleness on the top step. "Now go ahead with the other rail." But Theodore threw down the rags. "Not much," he answered. "I've done half your work an' you can do the other half." "Oh, come now, finish up the job," remonstrated the other. "'Tain't fair not to, for you've made that one shine so. I'll have ter put an extry polish on the other to match it." But Theodore only laughed and walked off saying to himself, "Rather think this'll work first-rate." He went straight to a store, and asked for "the stuff for shining up brass," and bought a box of it. Then he wondered where he could get some clean rags. "Per'aps Mrs. Hunt'll have some," he thought, "an' anyhow I want to see Jim." So home he hastened as fast as his feet would carry him. Good Mrs. Hunt was still a little cool to Theodore, though she could see for herself how steady and industrious he was now, and how much he had improved in every way; but she had never gotten over her first impression of him, founded not only on his appearance and manners when she first knew him, but also on Dick's evil reports in regard to him. Now that Dick himself had gone so far wrong, his mother went about with a heartache all the time, and found it hard sometimes to rejoice as she knew she ought to do in the vast change for the better in this other boy. "Is Jim here?" Theodore asked when Mrs. Hunt opened the door in response to his knock. "Yes--what's wanted, Tode?" Jimmy answered for himself before his mother could reply. "Can you stay out o' school to-morrow?" Theo questioned. "No, he can't, an' you needn't be temptin' him," broke in the mother, quickly. "Oh, come now, ma, wait till ye hear what he wants," remonstrated Jimmy, in whose eyes Theo was just about right. "I wanted him to run my stand to-morrow," said Theodore. "I've got somethin' else to 'tend to. There's plenty o' fellers that would like to run it for me, but ye see I can't trust 'em an' I _can_ trust Jim every time." Jimmy drew himself up proudly. "Oh, ma, do let me stay out an' do it," he cried, eagerly. "It's Friday, an' we don't have much to do Fridays anyhow, in our school." "We-ell, I s'pose then you might stay out just this once," Mrs. Hunt said, slowly, being fully alive to the advantages to Jimmy of such a friendly feeling on Theo's part. She recognized Theodore's business ability, and would have been only too glad to see her own boy develop something of the same kind. She was haunted with a dread that he might become idle and vicious as Dick had done. "All right, then," Theodore responded, promptly. "You be ready to go down with me at seven o'clock, Jim, an' I'll see you started all right before I leave you. Oh, Mrs. Hunt, there's one more thing I want. Have you any clean old rags?" "For what?" "Any kind o' soft white cotton stuff or old flannel will do," replied the boy, purposely leaving her question unanswered. "I'll pay you for 'em, of course, if you let me have 'em." "Well, I guess I ain't so stingy as all that comes to," exclaimed Mrs. Hunt, sharply. "D'ye want 'em now?" "I'll come for 'em after supper," answered the boy, thinking that it was best to make sure of them, lest he be delayed for want of them in the morning. When later that evening, he knocked at her door, Mrs. Hunt had the pieces ready for him, and the next morning, Jimmy was waiting in the hall when Theo came from Nan's room with his big basket, and the two boys went down the street carrying the basket between them. As soon as its contents had been arranged as attractively as possible on the clean white marbled oilcloth with which the stand was covered, and the coffee made and ready to serve, Theo handed Jimmy two dollars in dimes, nickels and pennies, to make change, and set off with the box of paste in his pocket, and the roll of rags under his arm. Jimmy watched him out of sight, and then with a proud sense of responsibility awaited the appearance of his customers. Theodore walked rapidly on till he reached the business streets where most of the handsome stores and offices were. Then he slackened his pace and went on slowly, glancing keenly at each building until he came to one that had half a dozen brass signs on the front. "Here's a good place to make a try," he said to himself, and going into the first office on the ground floor he asked as politely as he knew how, "Can I shine up your brass signs for you?" There were several young men in the outer office. One of them answered carelessly, "Yes indeed, shine 'em up, boy, and see 't you make a good job of it." "I will that, sir," responded Theodore, blithely, and set to work with a will. There had been much wet weather and the signs were badly discoloured. It took hard, steady rubbing for nearly an hour to get them into good shining order, but Theodore worked away vigourously until they gleamed and glittered in the morning sunlight. Then he went again into the office. "I've finished 'em, sir," he said to the young man to whom he had spoken before, "an' I think I've made a good job of it. Will you step out an' see what you think?" "Not at all necessary. If you're satisfied, I am," replied the man, bending over his desk and writing rapidly. Theodore waited in silence. The young man wrote on. Finally he glanced up and remarked in a tone of surprise, "Oh, you here yet? Thought you'd finished your job." "I have done my part. I'm waitin' for you to do yours," replied the boy. "Mine? What's my part, I'd like to know?" demanded the young man, sharply. "To pay me for my work." replied Theo, promptly, but with a shadow falling on his face. "Pay you? Well, if this isn't cheeky! I didn't agree to pay you anything." "But you knew that I expected to be paid for my work," persisted the boy, the angry colour rising in his cheeks. "You expected--pshaw! Young man, you've had a lesson that is well worth the time and labour you've expended," remarked the clerk in a tone of great dignity. "Hereafter you will know better than to take anything for granted in business transactions. Good-morning," and he turned his back on the boy and began to write again. Theodore glanced around the room to see if there was any one on his side, but two of the other clerks were grinning at his discomfiture, and the others pretended not to know anything about the affair. He saw now that he had been foolish to undertake the work as he had done, but he realised that it would not help his case to make a fuss about it. All the same he was unwilling to submit without a protest. "Next time I'll take care to make my bargain with a gentleman," he said, quietly. He saw a singular change in the expression of the clerk's face at these words, and as he turned sharply about to leave the office he almost ran into a tall, grey-haired man who had just entered. "Stop a bit, my boy. I don't understand that remark of yours. What bargain are you going to make with a gentleman?" The tone of authority, together with the disturbed face of one clerk and the quite evident amusement of the others, suddenly enlightened Theodore. He knew instinctively that this man was master here and in a few quick sentences he told what had happened. The gentleman listened in silence, but his keen, dark eyes took note of the flushed face of one clerk and the amused smiles of his companions. "Is this boy's story true, Mr. Hammond?" he asked, sternly. Mr. Hammond could not deny it "It was only a joke, sir," he said, uneasily. "A joke, was it?" responded his employer. "I am not fond of such jokes." Then he turned again to the boy and inquired, "How much is due you for cleaning the signs?" "I don't know. I'm just starting in in this business, an' I'm not sure what I ought to charge. Can you tell me, sir?" The gentleman smiled down into the young face lifted so frankly to his. "Why, no," he answered, gravely, but with a twinkle in his eyes. "I believe our janitor usually attends to the signs." "Guess he don't attend to 'em very well, for they were awful dirty," remarked the boy. "Took 'me 'most an hour to shine 'em up. Did you notice 'em, sir, as you came in?" "No, I did not. I'll look at them now," and Theodore followed the gentleman out to the steps. "Well, you have made a good job of it, certainly," the gentleman said. "The signs haven't shone like that since they were first put there. Quite a contrast to the others on the building. Come back into the office a moment." He went back to Mr. Hammond's desk and again Theodore followed. "Mr. Hammond," said the gentleman, quietly, "you are willing of course to pay for your joke. The boy has done his work extremely well. I think he ought to have half a dollar for it." With anything but a happy expression, Mr. Hammond drew from his pocket a half dollar and handed it to Theodore, who said, not to the clerk, but to the gentleman, "Thank you, sir," and left the office. But he did not leave the building. He went to the owner of every brass sign in or on the building and asked to be allowed to make every other sign look as well as those of T.S. Harris, which he had just polished. Now, T.S. Harris was the owner of the building and the occupants of the other offices considered that it would be wise to follow his example in this matter, so the result was that Theodore spent all the morning over the signs on that one building, and Mr. Harris having set the price, he received twenty-five cents for each sign. He was just putting a finishing rub on the last one when the janitor discovered what had been going on. He came at the boy in a great rage for he wanted no one to have anything to do with the care of the building except those whom he chose to hire. "You take your traps an' clear out o' this now, an' don't you ever dare to show your face here again," he shouted, angrily. "If I catch ye here again I'll kick ye down the stairs!" "P'raps Mr. Harris will have a word to say about that," replied Theodore, coolly, for in one and another of the offices he had picked up enough to convince him that the word of Mr. Harris was law in that building. Then he added, in a much more friendly tone, "Now, look here, mister. You're too busy a man to be cleaning signs--'course you are. You've got to hire somebody t' do it an' the' won't anybody do it better or fer less money 'n I will. I'm a-goin' to make a reg'lar business of cleanin' brasses all 'round this neighbourhood, an' if you'll stan' by me an' help me fix it all right with the other bosses 'bout here--I'll see 't you don't lose anythin' by it." The janitor's fierce frown had slowly faded as the boy spoke. Nothing pleased him so much as to be considered a person of influence, and had Theodore been ever so shrewd he could have adopted no other line of argument that would so quickly and effectually have changed an enemy into a friend as did this that he hit upon merely by chance. The man stepped down to the sidewalk and looked up at the signs with a critical air. "Wai'," he answered, slowly, "I ain't a-goin' to deny that you've done your work well--yes a sight better'n any of the lazy rascals I've been hiring, an' if you could be depended on now, I d'know but what I might's well give the work to you as to anybody else. Of course, as you say, 'tain't my place to do servant's work like brass cleanin'." "Of course not," assented Theo, promptly. "But then," the man went on, "if I should speak for ye t' the janitors of the other buildings 'long here, 'n' get ye a big line o' custom, 'course I sh'ld have a right t' expect a--er--a sort o' commission on the profits, so to speak?" "Oh!" replied Theodore, rather blankly. "What _is_ a commission, anyhow?" The man explained. "And how much of a commission would you expect?" questioned the boy. The janitor made a mental calculation. Here on this one building, the boy had cleaned seven signs. That made a dollar and seventy-five cents that he had earned in one morning. Of course he would not often get so much out of one building, but the man saw that there were good possibilities in this line of work. "S'pose we say ten per cent.--ten cents out of every dollar?" he ventured, with a keen glance at the boy. "You mean ten per cent, on all the work that I get through you?" Theo replied. "Oh no--on _all_ the work of this sort that you do. That's no more'n fair since you'll owe your start to me." "Not much! I owe my start to myself, an' I'll make no such bargain as that," answered Theo, decidedly. "I'm willin' to give you ten per cent. on all that I get through you, but not a cent more. You see I'm bound to put this thing through whether you help me or not," he added, quietly. The janitor saw that he had been too grasping and hastened to modify his demands lest he lose his commissions altogether. "Well, well," he said, soothingly, "we won't quarrel over a little difference like that. Let it be as you say, ten per cent. on all the jobs I get for ye, an' there's the janitor of the Laramie Building on the steps this minute. Come along with me an' I'll give ye a start over there--or, first--ain't there a little matter to attend to," he added, with an insinuating smile. "You'll settle your bills fast as they come due, of course, an' you've got a snug little sum out of my building here." "Yes, but no thanks to you for that," replied Theo, but as the man's face darkened again, he added, "but never mind, I'll give you the commission on this work since it's in your building," and he handed eighteen cents to the janitor, who slipped it into his pocket with an abstracted air as if unconscious of what he was doing. The result of the man's recommendation to his brother janitor was that Theodore secured the promise of all the brass cleaning in the Laramie Building also, and that with one or two small jobs kept him busy until dark when he went home with a light heart and with the sum of three dollars and fourteen cents in his pocket. To be sure he had worked hard all day to earn it, but Theodore never had been lazy and he was willing enough to work hard now. He carried home some oranges as a special treat that night, for now he took his supper regularly with Nan who was glad to make a return in this fashion for the help he was continually giving her in carrying out her food supplies, as well as many other ways. As they arose from the supper-table, Theodore said, "I'll go across an' see how Jimmy got on to-day, at the stand," but even as he spoke there came a low knock at the door and there stood Jimmy--no longer proud and happy as he had been in the morning, but with red eyes and a face full of trouble. "Why, Jimmy, what's the matter?" cried Nan and Theo, in one voice. "Come in," added Nan, kindly pulling him in and gently pushing him toward a chair. Jimmy dropped into it with an appealing glance at Theo. "I'm--I'm awful sorry, Tode," he began. "But I--I couldn't help it, truly I couldn't." He rubbed his sleeve hastily across his eyes as he spoke. "But what is it, Jimmy? I'm sure you did the best you could whatever is wrong, but do tell us what it is," exclaimed Theodore, half laughing and half impatient at the uncertainty. "'Twas that mean ol' Carrots," began Jimmy, indignantly. "I was sellin' things off in fine style, Tode, an' Carrots, he came along an' he said he wanted three san'wiches in a paper. I put 'em up fer him, an' then he asked fer six doughnuts an' some gingerbread, an' a cup o' coffee--an' he wanted 'em all in a paper." "Not the coffee, Jimmy," said Nan, laughingly, as the boy stopped to take breath. "No, 'course not the coffee. He swallered that an' put in a extry spoonful o' sugar too, but he wanted all the rest o' the things in a paper bag, an' I did 'em up good for him, an' then he asked me to tie a string 'round 'em, an' I got down under the stand for a piece of string, an' when I found it, an' looked up--don't you think Tode--that rascal was streakin' it down the street as fast's he could go, an' I couldn't leave the stand to run after him, an' 'course the' wasn't any p'lice 'round, an' so I had to let him go. I'm awful sorry, Theo, but I couldn't help it." "'Course you couldn't, Jimmy. And is that all the trouble?" "Yes, that's 'nough, ain't it?" answered Jimmy, mournfully. "He got off with more'n forty cents worth o' stuff--the old pig! I'll fix him yet!" "Well, don't worry any more over it, Jimmy. Losin' th' forty cents won't break me, I guess," said Theo, kindly. Jimmy brightened up a little, but the shadow again darkened his face as he said, anxiously, "I s'pose you won't never trust me to run the stand again?" "Trust you, Jimmy? Well, I guess I will. No danger of _your_ trusting Carrots again, I'm sure." "Not if I know myself," responded Jimmy, promptly, and Theo went on, "I s'pose your mother wouldn't want you to stay out of school mornin's for a week or two?" Jimmy looked at him with sparkling eyes. "Do you mean"--he began, breathlessly, and then paused. "I mean that I may want you to run the stand for me all next week, as well as to-morrow," Theo answered. "Oh--ee! That's most too good to b'lieve," cried the little fellow. "Say! I think you're--you're prime, Tode. I must go an' tell ma," and he dashed out of the door, his face fairly beaming with delight. "It's worth while to make anybody so happy, isn't it, Theo?" Nan said, then she added, thoughtfully, "Do you think the brass-cleaning will take all your time, so you can't be at the stand any more?" "Just at first it will. Maybe I shall fix it differently after a while," he answered. On his way to the business district the next morning, he stopped and bought a blank book and a pencil, and wherever he cleaned a sign or a railing that day, he tried to make a regular engagement to keep the brasses in good condition. If he secured a promise of the work by the month he made a reduction on his price, and every business man--or janitor who regularly engaged him, was asked to write his own name in the new blank book. Not on the first page of the book, however. That the boy kept blank until about the time when Mr. Harris had come to his office the day before. At that hour, Theodore was waiting near the office door, and there Mr. Harris found him as he came up the steps. "Good-morning, sir," said Theo, pulling off his cap with a smile lighting up his plain face. "Good-morning," returned the gentleman. "Have you found something else to polish up here to-day?" "No, sir, but I wanted to ask you if you would sign your name here in my book," the boy replied. Mr. Harris looked amused. "Come into my office," he said, "and tell me what it is that you want." Theodore followed him across the outer office to the private room beyond. The clerks cast curious glances after the two, and Hammond scowled as he bent over his desk. "Now let me see your book," said Mr. Harris, as the door of the office swung silently behind them. Theo laid his rags and paste box on the carpet, and then put the blank book on the desk as he said, earnestly, "You see, sir, I'm trying to work up a reg'lar business, an' so I want the business men I work for to engage me by the month to take care of their brass work--an' I guess I did learn a lesson here yesterday, for to-day I've asked every gentleman who has engaged me to sign his name in this book--See?" He turned over the leaves and showed three names on the second page. "And you want my name there, too? But I haven't engaged you. I only gave you a job yesterday." "But your janitor has engaged me," answered Theodore, quickly. "Well, then, isn't it the janitor's name that you want?" "Oh, no, sir," cried the boy, earnestly. "Nobody knows the janitor, but I guess lots o' folks know you, an' your name would make others sign--don't you see?" Mr. Harris laughed. "I see that you seem to have a shrewd business head. You'll make a man one of these days if you keep on. And you want my name on this first page?" he added, dipping his pen into the inkstand. "Yes, because you was my first friend in this business," replied Theodore. Mr. Harris glanced at him with that amused twinkle in his eye, but he signed his name on the first page. Then he said, "I wish you success in your undertaking, and here's a trifle for a send-off." He held out a silver dollar as he spoke, but Theodore did not take it. "Thank ye, sir," he said, gratefully; "you've been real good to me, but I can't take any money now, 'cept what I earn. I c'n earn all I need." "So?" replied Mr. Harris, "you're independent. Well, I like that, but I'll keep this dollar for you, and if you ever get in a tight place you can come to me for it." "Thank you, Mr. Harris," said the boy again. "I won't forget, but I hope I won't need it," and then he picked up his belongings and left the office. As he passed Mr. Hammond's desk, he said, "Good-morning, sir," but the clerk pretended not to hear. All through the next week and for weeks after, Theodore spent his time from nine to five o'clock, cleaning brasses and making contracts for the regular care of them, until he had secured as much work as he could attend to himself. Meantime, Jimmy Hunt had taken entire charge of the stand and was doing well with it. Theo gave him four-fifths of the profits and he was perfectly satisfied, and so was his mother, who found his earnings a welcome addition to the slim family income, and it was so near the end of the school term that she concluded it did not matter if Jimmy did stay out the few remaining weeks. But busy as Theodore was, he still found time to carry out what Nan cooked for the people in the two houses, as well as to drop in on one and another of his many neighbours every evening--for by this time the night school had closed for the season. His Saturday evenings were still spent at the flower stand, and now that blossoms were more plentiful, he received more and better ones in payment for his work, and his Sunday morning visits to the different rooms were looked forward to all the week by many of those to whom he went, and hardly less so by himself, for the boy was learning by glad experience the wonderful joy that comes from giving happiness to others. When he saw how the flowers he carried to stuffy, dirty, crowded rooms, were kept and cherished and cared for even until they were withered and dead--he was sure that his little flower mission was a real blessing. Before the hot weather came, Tommy O'Brien was carried away out of the noisy, crowded room to the Hospital for Incurables. Theo had brought one of the dispensary doctors to see the boy, and through the doctor's efforts and those of Mr. Scott, Tommy had been received into the hospital. He had never been so comfortable in his brief life as he was there, but at first he was lonely, and so Theodore went once or twice a week to see him, and he never failed to save out some flowers to carry to Tommy on Sunday. But, however full Theodore's time might be, and however busy his hands, he never forgot the search for Jack Finney. His eyes were always watching for a blue-eyed, sandy-haired boy of sixteen, and he made inquiries for him everywhere. Three times he heard of a boy named Finney, and sought him out only to be disappointed, for the first Jack Finney he found was a little chap of ten or eleven, and the next was a boy of sixteen, but with hair and eyes as black as a Jew's--and besides, it turned out that his name wasn't Finney at all, but Findlay; and the third time, the boy he found was living at home with his parents, so Theo knew that no one of the three was the boy of whom he was in search and although he did not in the least give up the matter, he came to the conclusion at last that his Jack Finney must have left the city. Mr. Scott interested himself in the search because of his great interest in Theodore, and he went to the reform school and the prison, but the name he sought was on neither record. Although Theodore said nothing to any one about it, he was also on the lookout for another boy, and that boy was Carrots. Ever since Carrots had stolen the food from the stand, Theo had wanted to find him. More than once he had caught a glimpse in the streets of the lank figure and the frowzy red head, but Carrots had no desire to meet Theo and he took good care to keep out of his way. XII. NAN FINDS FRIENDS So the spring days slipped away until March and April were gone and the middle of May had come. Theodore was counting the days now, for it was in May that the bishop was to return--so Mrs. Martin had told him--and the boy began to watch eagerly for the word that the housekeeper had promised to send him. So full of this were his thoughts and so busy was he with his work for himself and for others, that he spent much less time than usual with Nan and Little Brother. About this time there was a week of extremely hot weather. One day toward the close of this week as Theodore was passing Mrs. Hunt's door, she called him in. "You'd better come here for your supper to-night," she said. Theodore looked at her with a quick, startled glance. "Why--where's Nan?" he inquired. "Nan's in her room, but she can't get you any supper to-night. She's sick. I've seen for weeks past that Nan was overworkin' with all that cooking she's been doin', and to-day she just gave out--an' she's flat on her back now." Theodore was silent in blank dismay. Until that moment he had not realised how much he had come to depend upon Nan. "Has she had a doctor, or anything?" he asked, in such a troubled voice that Mrs. Hunt could not but be sorry for him. "No, I offered to send Jimmy for a doctor, but she said she only wanted to rest, but I tell you what, Theo, she ain't goin' to get much rest in that room, hot's an oven with the constant cooking, an' what's more that baby can't stand it neither." "I'll go an' see her," replied the boy, slowly, "an'--I guess I don't want any supper to-night, Mrs. Hunt." "Yes, you do want supper, too, Theodore. You come back here in half an hour an' get it, an' look here--Don't worry Nan, talkin' 'bout her being sick," Mrs. Hunt called after him in a low voice, as he turned toward the girl's door. It seemed strange enough to Theodore to see bright, energetic Nan lying with pale face and idle hands on the bed. She smiled up at the boy as he stood silent beside the bed finding no words to say. "I'm only tired, Theo," she said, gently. "It has been so hot to-day, and Little Brother fretted so that I couldn't get through my work so well as usual." "He's sick too," answered Theodore, gravely. Nan turned her head to look at the little white face on the pillow beside her. "Yes, he's sick. Oh Theo"--and then the girl covered her face with her hands, and Theodore saw the tears trickling through her fingers. "Don't Nan, don't!" he cried, in a choked voice, and then he turned and ran out of the room and out of the house. Straight to his teacher he went, sure of finding there sympathy, and if possible, help. He was not disappointed. Mr. Scott listened to what he had to say, and wrote a note to a friend of his own who was a physician, asking him to see Nan and the baby at his earliest convenience. Then having comforted Theodore, and compelled him to take some supper, Mr. Scott sent him away greatly refreshed, and proceeded to talk the matter over with his aunt, Mrs. Rawson. "Those two children ought to be sent away into the country, Aunt Mary," he began. "Nan and Theodore, do you mean?" "No, no! Theodore's all right. He's well and strong. I mean Nan and her little brother. Aunt Mary, it would make your heart ache to see such a girl as that working as she has worked, and living among such people. I wish you would go and see the child." "I'll try to go to-morrow, Allan. I've been intending to ever since you told me about her, but the days do slip away so fast!" answered the lady. But she found time to go the next day, and the first sight of Nan's sweet face was enough to make her as deeply interested in the two as her nephew had long been. "But what an uncomfortable place for a sick girl!" Mrs. Rawson thought, as she glanced at the shutterless windows through which the sun was pouring, making the small room almost unbearably hot, although there was no fire in the stove. She noticed that the place was daintily clean and neat, though bare as it well could be, but noisy children were racing up and down the stairways and shouting through the halls, making quiet rest impossible. Mrs. Rawson's kind heart ached as she looked from the room to the pure face of the girl lying there with the little child beside her. "She must be a very unusual girl to look like that after living for months in this place," she thought to herself. While she was there the doctor came, and when he went away, Mrs. Rawson went with him that she might tell him what she knew about the girl's life and learn what he thought of the case. "It is a plain case of overwork," he said. "From what you tell me the girl has been doing twice as much as she was able to do, and living in that little oven of a room with nothing like the fresh air and exercise she should have had, and very likely not half enough to eat. The baby seems extremely delicate. Probably it won't live through the summer, and a good thing too if there's no one but the girl to provide for them. What they need is--to go straight away into the country and stay there all summer, or better yet, for a year or two, but I suppose that is out of the question." "I must see what can be done, doctor. Such a girl as that surely ought not to be left to struggle along unfriended." "No, but there are so many such cases. Well, I hope something can be done for her. I'll call and see her again to-morrow, but medicine is of little use in a case like this," the doctor replied. Mrs. Rawson was not one to "let the grass grow under her feet," when she had anything to do, and she felt that she had something to do in this case. She thought it over as she went home, and before night she had written to a relative in the country--a woman who had a big farm and a big heart--to ask if she would board Nan and her little brother for the summer. She described the two, and told how bravely the girl had battled with poverty and misfortune until her strength had failed. The letter went straight from the warm heart of the writer to that of her friend and the response was prompt. "Send those two children right to me, and if rest and pure air and plenty of wholesome food are what they need, please God, they shall soon be strong and well. They are surely His little ones, and you know I am always ready and glad to do His work." Such was the message that Mrs. Rawson read to her nephew two days after her visit to Nan, and his face was full of satisfaction as he listened to it. "Nothing could be better," he said. "It will be a splendid place for those children, and it will be a good thing too for Mrs. Hyde to have them there." "Yes, I think so," replied Mrs. Rawson, "but now the question is--will Nan consent to go? From what little I have seen of her I judge that she will not be at all willing to accept help from strangers." "She will shrink from it, perhaps, for herself, but for the sake of that little brother I think she will consent to go. Theo tells me that she has been exceedingly anxious about the child for weeks past," answered Mr. Scott. "Well, I'll go to-morrow and see if I can prevail upon her to accept this offer, but Allan, one thing you must do, if Nan does consent to go--and that is, you must break it to Theodore. It's going to be a blow to him, to have those two go away from the city. He'll be left entirely alone." "So he will. I hadn't thought of that. I must think it over and see what can be done for him. He certainly must not stay there, with no place but that dark little closet in which he sleeps," replied the gentleman. Mrs. Rawson's kindly sympathy and gentle manners had quickly won Nan's confidence and the girl welcomed her warmly when she appeared in the little room the next morning. She found Nan sitting by the open window, with her pale little brother in her arms. "Oh, I'm ever so much better," she said, in reply to Mrs. Rawson's inquiries. "The doctor's medicine helped me right away, but I don't feel very strong yet--not quite well enough to begin my cooking again. I'm going to begin it to-morrow," she added. "Indeed, you'll not do any cooking to-morrow, Nan," said the lady, decidedly. "You're not fit to stand over the stove or the mixing board, and besides, it would make the room too hot for the baby." Nan glanced anxiously at the little face on her arm. "I can carry him in to Mrs. Hunt's. He's no trouble, and she's always willing to keep him," she answered. "Now, my child, I want you to listen to me," Mrs. Rawson began, and went on to tell the girl about the plans she had made for her and her little brother. Nan listened, with the colour coming and going in her face. "It is so good--so kind of you to think of this," she exclaimed, earnestly, "and I'd _love_ to go. Mrs. Rawson, you don't know how I hate living in a place like this," she shuddered, as she spoke, "and it would be like heaven to get away into the sweet clean country, with good people--but I can't go unless there is something I can do there. I _couldn't_ go and live on charity, you know." "It wouldn't be charity, Nan; it would be love," answered Mrs. Rawson, gently. "Mrs. Hyde keeps one room in her house always ready for any guest whom the Lord may send her and I think He is sending you there now. Remember, my child, you have this dear sick baby to think of, as well as yourself. Nan, the doctor thinks Little Brother will not live through the summer unless he is taken away from the city." Nan gave a quick, gasping breath, as she drew the baby closer and bent her face over his. When she looked up again her eyes were wet, and she said, in a low tone, "If that is so, I can't refuse this kind offer, and I will try to find some way to make it right." "There's nothing to make right, dear; you've only to go and be just as happy and contented as you can be. I know you will be happy there. You can't help loving Mrs. Hyde. And now, my child, there's another matter." She paused and added, in a low tone, "I had a little girl once, but God took her away from my home. She would have been about your age now if she had staid with me. For her sake, Nan, I want you to let me get a few things that you and the baby will need. Will you, dear?" Nan was proud. She had never gotten accustomed to poverty and its painful consequences, and she would have preferred to do without, any time, rather than accept a gift from those on whom she had no claim; but she realised that she could not go among strangers with only the few poor garments that she now had, so, after a moment's silence, she answered, in a voice that was not quite steady, "You are very, very good to me, Mrs. Rawson. I'll try to be good too, only, please don't get a single thing that I can do without." "Nan, if you had plenty of money and you found a girl who had been left all alone in the world, with no one to do anything for her--would you think it was any wonderful kindness in you to spend a few dollars for her?" "N--no, of course not. I'd just _love_ to do it," replied Nan, "but"-- "That's enough, then, and now there's only one more thing I have to speak about. I know some girls, who have formed themselves into a band called a 'King's Daughter Circle,' and they meet once a week to sew for somebody who is not able to do her own sewing. I've told these girls a little about you and they want very much to do some sewing for Little Brother and you. Now, would you be willing to let them come here to-morrow afternoon? Would it trouble you?" The colour rose in Nan's cheeks and her lips trembled, and for a moment she seemed to shrink into herself as she thought what a contrast her poor surroundings would be to these other girls, who lived such different lives from hers, but she saw that Mrs. Rawson was really desirous that they should come, and she was not willing to disappoint one who was doing so much for her; so after a moment's silence she answered, "Of course they can come, if you think they won't mind too much." She glanced about the room as she spoke. Mrs. Rawson leaned over and kissed her. "Child," she said, "they know nothing about the trials that come into other lives--like yours. I want them to know you. Don't worry one bit over their coming. They are dear girls and I'm sure you will like them--as sure as I am that they will all love you--and Nan, one thing more, leave Mr. Scott to tell Theodore about your going." Then she went away, leaving Nan with many things to think about. She could not help worrying somewhat over the coming of those girls. As she recalled her own old home, she realised how terribly bare and poor her one room would look to these strangers and she shrank nervously from the thought of meeting them. More than once, she was tempted to ask Theo to go to Mrs. Rawson and tell her that the girls could not come there. Mrs. Rawson went straight from Nan's room to the shopping district, where she purchased simple but complete outfits for Nan and the baby. The under garments and the baby's dresses she bought ready-made and also a neat wool suit for the girl and hats and wraps for both, but she bought enough pretty lawn and gingham to make as many wash dresses as Nan would require, and these she carried home and cut out the next morning. That evening too she sent notes to the members of the circle telling them to meet at her house before one o'clock the next day, which was Saturday. They came promptly, eleven girls between fifteen and seventeen, each with her sewing implements. Bright, happy girls they were, as Nan might have been, had her life been peaceful and sheltered like theirs, Mrs. Rawson thought, as she welcomed them. "Sit down, girls," she said, "I want to tell you more about my poor little Nan before you see her." She told the story in such fashion that the warm, girlish hearts were filled with a sweet and tender sympathy for this other girl, and they were eager to do all that they could for her. Not one of them had ever before been in a tenement house like the one to which Mrs. Rawson led them, and they shrank from the rude children and coarse women whom they encountered in the halls and on the stairs, and pressed closer together, grasping each other's hands. Nan's face whitened and her thin hands were clasped tightly together as she heard them coming along the hall. She knew it was they, so different were their quiet footsteps from most that passed her door. Nan opened the door in response to Mrs. Rawson's knock and the girls flocked in, looking so dainty and pretty in their fresh shirt-waists and dimities, and their gay ribbons. As Nan looked at them she was painfully conscious of her own faded calico and worn shoes, and her cheeks flushed, but the girls gave her no time to think of these things. They crowded about her, introducing each other with merry laughter and gay little jokes, seeming to take Nan right in among them as one of themselves, and taking prompt possession of the baby, who wasn't a bit shy, and appeared to like to be passed from one to another, and kissed, and called sweet names. Nan had borrowed all Mrs. Hunt's chairs, but still there were not enough, and three or four girls gleefully settled themselves on the bed. Every one of them had come with her hands full of flowers, and seeing these, Mrs. Rawson had brought along a big glass rose bowl, which the girls speedily filled and set in the middle of the table. A tap at the door announced the arrival of a boy with a box and a bag for Mrs. Rawson, and out of the box she lifted a baby sewing machine, which she fastened to the table. Then from the bag she took the lawn and gingham as she said, "Now, girls, your tongues can run just as fast as your fingers sew, but remember this tiny machine works very rapidly and you've got to keep it supplied. I'll hem this skirt first." In an instant every girl had on her thimble, and they all set to work with right good will. "Can't I do some, too?" said Nan. "I don't want to be the only idle one." "You can gather some ruffles in a few minutes--as soon as I have hemmed them," answered Mrs. Rawson, smiling to herself, as she saw how bright and interested Nan looked already. All that long, bright afternoon tongues and needles were about equally busy. Fortunately it was cooler, else the girls would have been uncomfortable in the small room, but as it was, not even Nan gave more than a passing thought to the bare room and its lack of comfort. Indeed, after the first few moments, Nan forgot all about herself and just gave herself up to the delight of being once more a girl among girls. She thought them lovely, every one, and indeed they were lovely to her in every way, for her sweet face and gentle manners had won them all at first sight. How they did chatter! Never before had that room--or indeed any room in that dreary building, held such a company as gathered there that day. At half-past five there came another rap on the door, and Mrs. Rawson exclaimed, "Put up your sewing, girls. We've business of another sort to attend to now." The girls looked at her inquiringly as Nan opened the door again. "Bring them in," called Mrs. Rawson, and a man edged his way gingerly among the girls and set two big baskets and an ice cream freezer beside the table. "A house picnic! Mrs. Rawson, you're a darling!" called one and another of the girls. Mrs. Rawson nodded a laughing acknowledgment of the compliment, as she said, "Open the baskets, girls. The dishes are in the round one. I thought Nan might not be prepared for quite such a family party." With quick, deft fingers the girls swept aside the sewing, unscrewed the little machine, spread a fine damask cloth over the pine table, and on it arranged the pretty green and gold dishes and glasses, putting the big bowl of roses in the centre. Then from the other basket they took tiny buttered biscuits, three-cornered sandwiches, tied with narrow green ribbons, a dish of chicken salad, and a big loaf of nut cake. All these quite covered the table so that the cream had to be left in the freezer until it was wanted. How Nan did enjoy that feast! How her eyes shone with quiet happiness as she watched the bright faces and listened to the merry talk; not all merry either, for more than once it touched upon the deep things of life, showing that the girls had thought much, even if their lives had been happy, sheltered ones. When the feast was ended, the dishes repacked in the basket, and the unfinished work put away, the girls gathered about Nan to say "good-bye," and she wondered how she could have dreaded their coming,--for now it seemed as if she could not let them go. She felt as if all the joyous brightness would vanish with them. The quick young eyes read something of this feeling in her face, and more than one girl left a kiss with her cordial farewell. The room seemed very still and lonely to Nan when the last flutter of light dresses was gone and the last faint echo of girlish voices and footsteps had died on her eagerly listening ears. She dropped into the rocking-chair and looked about the room, trying to repeople it with those fair, young, friendly faces. She could almost have imagined it all a dream but for the cake and sandwiches and ice cream on the table. The sight of the fast melting cream suggested another thought to her. Hastily filling a plate with portions of everything on the table, she set it away for Theodore and then went across to Mrs. Hunt's rooms to tell her to come with the children and take all that was left. The eyes of the children gleamed with delight at sight of the unexpected treat, and they speedily emptied the dishes which their mother then carried home to wash, while the children took back the borrowed chairs. By this time Nan began to feel very weary, and she threw herself down on the bed with the baby, but she kept in her hand some little scrips of the pretty lawns and ginghams that she had found on the floor. It seemed hardly possible to her that she could be going to have such dresses. Why--one of the scrips was exactly like a waist that one of those girls had worn. Nan gazed at it with a smile on her lips, a smile that lingered there until it was chased away by the remembrance of Theo's loneliness when she and Little Brother should be far away. XIII. NAN'S DEPARTURE Theo was feeling that he needed sympathy about that time, for it seemed to him as if every one that he cared for was to be taken away from him. Mr. Scott had invited the boy to go with him for a row on the river and then to go home with him to supper. The river was beautiful in the afternoon sunlight, and Theodore enjoyed the row and the friendly talk with his teacher, but he felt a little shy with Mrs. Rawson and was not sorry to find her absent from the supper-table. When the meal was over Mr. Scott took the boy up to his own room to see some of his curiosities. Theo's quick eyes took silent note of everything, and he mentally decided that some day he would have just such a room as that. He was thinking thus, when Mr. Scott said, "Theo, you haven't asked me what Dr. Reed thinks about Nan and her little brother." "She's better to-day--Nan is," exclaimed the boy, quickly. "Yes, I suppose the medicine has toned her up a little, but the doctor says that she must have a long rest. She has been working too hard." "Well, she can. I'm earnin' enough now to take care of 'em," interposed the boy. "Nan would never be content to let you do that, I think, but, Theo, that isn't all." Theo said nothing, but his anxious eyes asked the question that his lips refused to utter. Mr. Scott went on, "The doctor says that the baby must go away into the country or--he will die." Theodore walked quickly to the window, and stood there looking out in silence. After a moment, his teacher crossed the room and laid his arm affectionately over the boy's shoulders. "Sit down, Theodore," he said, gently, "I want to tell you what we have planned for Nan and the little one." Then in few words he told of Mrs. Rawson's letter and the reply, describing the beautiful country home to which Nan and the baby were to go. "You will be glad to think of them in such a place during the hot summer days," he went on, "even though their going leaves you very lonely, as I know it will, Theodore." "I ought to be glad, Mr. Scott," replied the boy, slowly, as his teacher paused, "an' I am, but ye see you don't know how hard 'tis for a feller to keep straight when he ain't got no home an' nobody to talk to after his work's done at night. Nan--well _you_ know she ain't like the rest o' the folks down our way. She never scolds nor nags at me, but somehow I can't ever look her straight in the eye if I've been doin' anything mean." "Nan has been a good friend to you, I'm sure, and I think you have been a good friend to her and the baby, Theodore. I know that she will miss you sadly at first, and if she thinks you are to be very lonely without them, I'm afraid she will worry about it and not get as much good from the change as she might otherwise," Mr. Scott added. The boy drew a long breath. "I won't let her know 't I care much 'bout their goin'," he said, bravely. "Nan will guess quite enough," answered the gentleman, "but, Theodore, how would you like to come here? Mrs. Rawson has a little room over the L that she seldom uses, and she says that you can sleep there if you like, and pay for it the same that you pay for the dark room that you now have." The boy's eyes were full of surprise and pleasure as he answered, gratefully, "I'd like that fine!" "Come on, then, and we'll take a look at the place. It has been used as a storeroom and will, of course, need some fixing up." As Mr. Scott threw open the door of the L room Theodore stepped in and looked about him with shining eyes. It was a long, low room with windows on three sides. The floor was covered with matting and the walls with a light, cheerful paper. "This for me!" exclaimed the boy. "Why, Mr. Scott, it's--it's too fine for a chap like me." "Not a bit, my boy, but I think you can be very comfortable here, and you will know that you have friends close at hand. And now, Theodore, I suppose you will want to get home, for we hope to get Nan away next week." "So soon!" cried the boy, a shadow falling on the face, a moment before so bright. "Yes, the sooner the better for the little one's sake," replied Mr. Scott, gravely. "You've been mighty good to me--an' to Nan," said the boy, simply, and then he went away. He walked rapidly through the streets, taking no note of what was passing around him, his thoughts were so full of this new trouble, for a great and sore trouble it seemed to him to lose Nan and Little Brother out of his life even for a few weeks. His way led him across the Common, but he hurried along with unseeing eyes until suddenly something bright attracted his attention, and he became aware that it was a shock of rough red hair under a ragged old cap. It was surely Carrots sitting on one of the benches, his eyes gazing moodily across the greensward to the street beyond. He did not notice Theo's approach, but started up quickly, as the latter stopped in front of him. "Hold on, Carrots--don't clear out. I want to tell you something," cried Theo, hastily, laying a detaining hand on one ragged sleeve. Carrots looked at him suspiciously. "D'know what yer got ter say ter me," he growled. "Sit down here, an' I'll tell ye." Theodore sat down on the bench as he spoke, and after a moment's hesitation the other boy dropped down beside him, but he kept a wary glance on his companion, and was plainly ready to "cut and run" at a moment's notice. "You look's if you were down on your luck," began Theo, with a glance at the ragged garments, and dilapidated shoes of the other. "'Course--I'm always down on my luck," responded Carrots, in a tone that implied, "what business is that of yours?" "Sellin' papers now?" "Yes, but a feller can't make a livin' out o' that. There's too many kids in the business, an' folks'll buy o' the kids ev'ry time, 'n' give us big fellers the go-by," Carrots said, in a gloomy tone. "That's so. The little chaps always sell most," assented Theodore. "Why don't you get into some other business, Carrots?" "Can't--'cause my money's all tied up in railroad stock," retorted Carrots, with bitter sarcasm. "Carrots, what made ye play such a mean trick on Jim Hunt the other day?" asked Theodore, suddenly. Carrots grinned. "Hunt's a fool," he answered, "else he wouldn't 'a' give me a chance ter work him so slick." "Well, I don't think you'll play it on him again. I think you were the fool, Carrots, for you know well enough you can't get such good stuff anywhere else for your money, an' now ye can't go to my stand." "Got it 'thout money that time," chuckled Carrots, impudently, but still keeping a sharp eye on his companion. Theo flushed, and his fingers itched to pitch into the boy and give him a good drubbing, but he controlled himself, and said, quietly, "What's the trouble with you, Carrots? Are you too lazy to work, or what?" The boy's eyes flashed angrily, as he replied, "See here, Tode Bryan--what ye pokin' yer nose int' my business for, anyhow?" "'Cause I can put you in the way of earnin' honest money if you're willin' to do honest work." "What sort o' work?" Carrots inquired, suspiciously. "I'll tell ye 'bout it when I'm sure you're ready to take hold of it, an' not before. See here, Carrots, I've seen you lately loafin' 'round with some o' the meanest fellers in this town, an' if you don't keep away from them you'll find yourself where some of 'em have been a'ready--behind the bars. I mean well by ye, an' if you make up your mind to be a man instead of a tramp an' a loafer, you can come to me, an' I'll give ye a start. Jim Hunt'll tell ye where to find me." The night shadows were falling now and the street lamps were already lighted, and seeing this, Theodore started up, adding, "It's later'n I thought. I must be off," and he hurried away, leaving Carrots looking after him in a much bewildered state of mind. Theodore found Nan sitting by the window in the dark. She had rocked the baby to sleep, and was thinking over the happy afternoon that seemed now so like a beautiful dream. She lighted her lamp when Theodore came in, and brought out the food that she had put aside for him, and while he ate she told him of all that had happened. He did not eat much and he was very silent, so silent that at last she paused and said, anxiously, "You aren't sick, are you, Theo?" "No," he replied, gravely, "an' Nan, I'm real glad you're goin' to such a nice place." But though he spoke earnestly, there was in his voice a ring of pain that Nan detected instantly, and guessed its cause. "I'm going to miss you dreadfully, Theo," she said, quickly, "and I don't know what Little Brother will do without you. That's the one thing about it that I don't like--to think of you all alone here with no place to stay evenings." "Mr. Scott says I can have a room where he lives--at Mrs. Rawson's," answered Theodore. "It's a fine room--bigger'n this, an' it's got checked straw carpet an' three windows." "Oh, Theo, how glad I am!" cried the girl, delightedly. "That's just splendid. Don't you like it?" she added, as the boy still sat with serious eyes fixed on the floor. "Like it? The room you mean? Oh yes, it's a grand room, but I don't think I'll go there," he answered, slowly. The gladness died out of Nan's face. "Oh, Theo, why not?" she exclaimed, in a disappointed tone. He answered again, slowly, "I think I shall stay here an' take this room o' yours 'stead o' my little one." "This is ever so much better than yours, of course, an' if you do that you can keep my furniture, and I s'pose you'd be comfortable, but 'twould be lonesome all the same, and I shouldn't think you'd like it half so well as being with Mr. Scott." "'Course I wouldn't like it half nor quarter so well, Nan, but this is what I've been thinkin'. You know there's a good many boys in these two houses that don't have no place to stay evenin's, 'cept the streets, an' I was thinkin' as I came home to-night, how fine 'twould be if there was a room where they could come an' read an' play games an' talk, kind of a boys' club room, don't ye know, like the one Mr. Scott was tellin' 'bout they're havin' in some places. I think he'll help me get some books an' papers an' games, an' maybe he'll come an' give us a talk sometimes. It would be grand for fellers like Jimmy Hunt that ain't bad yet, but will be if they stay in the streets every evenin'." "Theo, I think it's a splendid idea, only there ought to be just such a room for the girls. They need it even more than the boys do." Nan hesitated a moment, then added, earnestly, "Theo, I'm proud of you." Theodore's face was the picture of utter amazement as he gazed at her. "Proud--of me?" he gasped. "I'd like to know what for." "Well, never mind what for, but I want to say, Theo, what I've thought ever so many times lately. When I first knew you, you were good to Little Brother and me, so good that I can never forget it, but you weren't"-- "I was meaner'n dirt," interposed the boy, sorrowfully. "No, but you'd never had any chance with nobody to teach you or help you, and I used to hate to have you touch Little Brother, because I thought you were not good." "I wasn't," put in Theodore, sadly. "But since you came back from the bishop's you've been so different, and it seems to me you're always trying to help somebody now. Theo--if Little Brother lives, I hope he'll be like you." Theodore stared at her in incredulous silence. "Like me. Little Brother like me," he whispered, softly, to himself, the colour mounting in his cheeks. Then he arose and walked over to the bed where the child lay, with one small hand thrown out across the bedclothes. The soft, golden hair lay in pretty rings on the moist forehead, but the little face looked waxen white. Theodore stood for a moment looking down at the baby, then suddenly he stooped and kissed the outstretched hand, and then without another word he went away. Nan's eyes were full of tears as she looked after him. "How he does love Little Brother," she thought. "He's going to miss him awfully." Monday was a busy day for Mrs. Rawson. She had engaged a seamstress to finish off Nan's dresses, and having seen the woman settled to her work, she set off herself for the tenement house, a boy going with her to carry a small valise. She found Nan busy baking bread. The place was very warm and the girl looked flushed and tired. Mrs. Hunt had carried the baby off to her cooler rooms. "Nan, child, you've not taken up the cooking again?" exclaimed Mrs. Rawson. "I had to do some--not very much," replied the girl, gently. "But, my dear, I thought you understood that we didn't want you to do this any more." Nan only smiled as she set the last loaf in the oven. The lady went on, "Nan--we want you to go away to-morrow." Nan looked up with startled eyes. "So soon!" she exclaimed as Theodore had done. "Why should there be any delay about it? Every day that you stay here is so much actual loss to you and to the baby, too," added Mrs. Rawson. With a bewildered air Nan dropped into a chair, saying, hesitatingly, "But how can I get ready to go to-morrow?" "Easily enough, if you let the cooking go. I was wondering as I came along what you would do with your furniture." To Mrs. Rawson's eyes the few poor bits of furniture looked worthless enough, but she realised that it would seem quite otherwise to the girl who had bought them with her own hard earnings. But now Nan looked up with shining eyes and in eager words told of Theodore's plan and the lady's face brightened as she listened. "It's a fine plan," she replied, heartily, "and it means a deal for such a boy as Theodore to have thought of it." "And when he might have gone to your house, too," added Nan, softly. "Mrs. Rawson, he'll be very lonely when Little Brother is gone." "Yes, he'll miss you both sadly, but Nan, you mustn't worry about Theodore. Mr. Scott loves the boy and will look out for him, you may be sure of that. But now we must talk about your journey. I've brought the things that I thought you would need on the way, and I'd like you to try on this dress." She lifted the pretty wool suit from the valise as she spoke, and Nan began to take off her faded calico. The colour rose in her face as she did so, for she hated to have Mrs. Rawson see her poor under garments, but the lady seemed not to notice, as she chatted away about the dress. "Fits you beautifully. I was sure it would, for I had all the measurements. I don't believe you will need to carry many of the things you have, for there are plenty of the new ones," she said. "I put into this little valise everything that will be needed for the journey, and the other things can go with mine." Nan looked up quickly, crying out joyfully, "Oh, Mrs. Rawson, are you going with us?" "To be sure. Did you suppose I meant for you to travel alone with a sick baby? I'm going to stay a week." "That's lovely!" exclaimed the girl, with a sigh of relief. "I did dread to go among entire strangers alone." "Mrs. Hyde won't be a stranger two minutes after you meet her. You couldn't help loving her if you should try. Now then, let me see. You are to be ready at half past nine to-morrow. The train goes at 10:15. I'll stop here for you. Now, child, don't work any more to-day. Just rest so that you can enjoy the journey. Oh, there's one thing I came near forgetting--shoes. Those will have to be fitted. Can you come with me now and get them?" "Yes, if Mrs. Hunt can see to my baking," Nan replied. Mrs. Hunt was very ready to do so, and Nan and her new friend were soon in a car on their way to the shoe store. When she returned to her room alone, the girl took out the pretty serviceable garments from the valise and examined them all with mingled pain and pleasure. It was a delight to her to have once more such clothing as other girls wore, but to receive them from strangers, even such kind strangers as Mrs. Rawson and the girls, hurt Nan more than a little. But she did not feel quite the same about the dainty garments for her little brother. Over those her eyes shone with satisfaction. She could not resist the desire to see how he would look in them, and when he was dressed she carried him in for Mrs. Hunt to admire, and the two praised and petted the little fellow to their hearts' content. Theodore had looked forward to a quiet evening with Nan and the baby--that last evening that they were to spend together for so long--but it proved to be anything but a quiet one. It had leaked out that Nan was going away, and all through the evening the women and girls in the house were coming to say "good-bye." Nan had not expected this, for she had never had much to do with any of them, and it touched her deeply when in their rough fashion they wished her a pleasant summer and hoped that the baby would come back well and strong. Theodore sat silent in a corner through all these leave-takings, and some of the women, as they went back to their own rooms, spoke of the loneliness the boy would feel without the baby that they all knew he loved so dearly. When the last caller had departed, Theodore stood up and held out a little purse to Nan. "Ain't much in it, but I want ye to use it for anything _he_ wants," the boy said, with a gesture toward the child. Nan hesitated. She would not have taken it for herself, but she knew that it would hurt Theo sadly, if she refused his gift, so she took it, saying, "You've been so good to him always, Theo. I shan't let him forget you ever." "No--don't," muttered the boy, and unable to trust himself to say more, he turned away in silence, and went to his own room. The little purse he had given Nan contained five dollars. "The dear boy! How good he is to us," Nan murmured, as she put the bill back into it, "but I hope I shall not need to use this." Theodore ran in the next morning for a hasty good-bye before he went out to his work. He had waited purposely until the last moment, so that his leave-taking might be a brief one, and he said so little, and said that little so coldly that a stranger might have thought him careless and indifferent, but Nan knew better. Now that the time of departure was so close at hand, she shrank nervously from it and almost wished she had refused to go, but still she dressed Little Brother and herself in good season, and was all ready when at nine thirty, promptly, Mrs. Rawson appeared. The lady gave a satisfied glance at the two, and then insisted upon carrying the baby downstairs herself, while one of the Hunt children followed with Nan's valise. A cab was waiting at the door, and cabs being rarities in that locality, a crowd of curious children stood gaping at it, and waiting to see Nan and the baby depart in it. "It is going to be a warm day. I shall be glad when we are fairly off," Mrs. Rawson said, with an anxious glance at the baby's face, as the cab rattled over the rough stones. As the little party entered the station, there was a flutter of light raiment and bright ribbons, and Nan found herself fairly surrounded by the eleven King's Daughters. They took possession of the baby, who brightened up wonderfully at the sight of them, and they seized the valise and Mrs. Rawson's handbag, and they trooped altogether through the great station to the waiting train, and instead of saying, "Can't go through yet, ladies--not till the train's made up," the gatekeeper smiled in genial fashion into their bright faces and promptly unlocked the gate for them. That was because one of them was the daughter of a railroad official, but Nan didn't know that. The train was not all ready, but two of the parlor cars were there, and into one of these the girls climbed, and then they found the seats belonging to Mrs. Rawson and Nan, and put the extra wraps up in the rack for them and pushed up the window, and did everything else that they could think of for the comfort of the travellers. Then one of them pinned a great bunch of deliciously fragrant violets to Nan's dress, and another fastened a tiny silver cross above the violets, as she whispered, "We've made you a member of our circle, Nan, dear, and this is our badge." And then Nan noticed that every one of the girls wore the tiny, silver cross somewhere about her dress. She wondered what it meant and determined to ask Mrs. Rawson later, but she could not talk much just then--she was too happy with all those dear girls about her, chattering to her and counting her in with themselves. At last there was a rumble and a jar, and people began to fill up the seats in the car and one of the girls looked at her watch and exclaimed, "We must say 'good-bye' girls, or we shall be carried off." "Wouldn't it be fun if we could all go too, and stay for the week with Mrs. Rawson?" cried another. "Yes, indeed. If it weren't for school we might have done it." "Now remember, Nan, we're all going to write to you because you belong to our circle," whispered another, and then, some with a kiss, and some with a warm handshake, they said, "good-bye," and hastened out of the car and stood on the platform outside the car windows, calling out more farewells and last words, and waving hands and handkerchiefs, until the train drew out of the station. Then Nan settled back in her comfortable seat with a happy light in her dark eyes. "I didn't suppose there were any such girls in all the world, Mrs. Rawson," she said; "girls who would be so dearly kind to a stranger like me." "They certainly are dear girls. I think myself that there are not many like them," Mrs. Rawson answered. "Some of them have been in my Sunday-school class ever since they were nine years old." "Perhaps that accounts for it," Nan answered, shyly, with one of her quick, bright smiles. Then she turned to look out of the window and her face changed, for there on a fence, close beside the track, stood Theodore, eagerly scanning the windows as the train went by. Nan snatched up Little Brother and held him to the window, and a smile broke over the boy's face as he waved his hat in response. Then the train gathered speed and flew on, and the boy went slowly back to his work. It was nearly sunset when the station where the travellers were to stop, was reached. Nan's heart began to beat fast and she glanced around somewhat anxiously as she stepped on to the platform, but the next moment she found herself looking into Mrs. Hyde's face, and from that instant all her fears and anxieties vanished. Mrs. Hyde had no children of her own, but the very spirit of motherliness seemed to look out of her eyes, and she took the two strangers into her heart at sight. The baby, wearied with the long journey had been fretting for the last hour, but no sooner did he find himself in Mrs. Hyde's arms, than he settled down comfortably and went to sleep and slept soundly through the three mile drive from the station. Mrs. Hyde did not say much to Nan during the drive, only by an occasional word or smile, showing her that she was not forgotten, while the two ladies talked together, but at last she laid her firm, strong hand lightly on the girl's fingers, saying, "Look, dear--you are almost home." And Nan looked with happy eyes at a big, rambling, white house, shaded by tall elms, and with wide piazzas on three sides. An old-fashioned flower garden, with high box-bordered beds was at the back, and broad, rolling acres, spread out on every side but one, where there was a grove of grand old trees. The late afternoon sunlight was throwing long, level beams across the green lawn, touching everything with a golden light as they drove up to the side door, and Nan said to herself, "I don't see how anybody could help being well and happy here." XIV. THEODORE GIVES CARROTS A CHANCE Theodore dreaded to go home that night. After his work was done he went to a restaurant for supper and then strolled on to the Common. It was cool and pleasant there under the wide-spreading trees, and he sat down on one of the benches and wondered what Nan was doing then and how Little Brother had borne the long hours of travel. When it was quite dark he went slowly homeward. Mrs. Hunt's door stood open and he stopped to get the key which Nan was to leave there for him. Jimmy sprang up and brought it to him, and Mrs. Hunt gave him a kind word or two and asked him to come in and sit awhile, but he said he was tired, and taking the key, he crossed the hall and unlocked Nan's door. As he closed it behind him he gave a little start, for he saw something move over by the window. The next instant he realised that it was only Nan's chair which had rocked a little from the jar of the closing door. The room was unlighted except for the faint glimmer near the open windows. As Theo sat down in the rocking-chair, a wave of loneliness and homesickness swept over him. Nan and Little Brother had made all the home feeling he had ever known, and never before had he felt so absolutely alone and friendless as he did to-night. Tag seemed to share the feeling too. He went sniffing about the room, evidently searching for the two who were gone, and finally, with a long breath like a sigh, he dropped down beside the rocking-chair and rubbed his head against his master's hand with a low, troubled whine. Theodore patted the rough head as he said, "Pretty lonesome, ain't it, old fellow?" and Tag rapped the floor with his tail and whined again. For a long time the boy sat there gravely thinking. At last, with a sigh, he said to himself, "Might's well go to bed. Don't feel like doin' anything to-night." He was used to undressing in the dark and he did not light the lamp, but as he was about to get into bed his hand touched something smooth and stiff that was lying on the pillow. "It's a letter," he exclaimed, wonderingly, and he hastened to light the lamp. "Oh!" he cried, breathlessly, as he saw the bold, firm handwriting. "It's from the bishop." His cheeks were flushed, his eyes shining and his fingers fairly shaking with excitement as he held the letter carefully in his hands, reading and rereading the address. "THEODORE BRYAN, Care of MRS. MARTIN." He thought how many times he had sat beside the bishop's desk and watched the pen travelling so rapidly across the paper. Theodore would have known _that_ writing anywhere. For a long time he did not open the letter. It was happiness enough to know that it was there in his hands, the first letter he had ever received. And to think that the bishop should have written it--to him, Theodore Bryan! It was a pity that the bishop could not have seen the boy's face as he stood looking with glowing eyes at the envelope. At last he opened it and began to read the letter. It was a long one, and as the boy read on and on, his breath came quicker and his eyes grew dim, and when he had finished it his cheeks were wet, but he did not know it. He was not thinking of himself. There were many who would have given much for a letter from the bishop, but surely none could have appreciated one more than did the lonely boy who stood there that night in the dimly-lighted room poring over those closely written pages. Again and again he read the whole letter, and many times he read over one passage until the words were written in letters of light on his heart. When at last he went to bed it was to lie awake for hours with the letter held tightly in his hand, while he repeated to himself those words that he was to remember as long as he lived. "Mrs. Martin writes me that you are anxious to be assured of my forgiveness. My dear boy, if you have ever wronged me I forgive you as freely and fully as I hope for forgiveness myself; but, Theodore, had you wronged me ever so deeply, it would all be blotted out by the joy it gives me to know that you are a soldier of the Cross. I know that you will be a faithful soldier--loyal even unto death--and may the great Captain whom we both serve, have you ever in His holy keeping." Over and over the boy repeated these words as he lay sleepless, but full of deep happiness and peace. "Whom we both serve." The wise and holy bishop and he, a poor ignorant street boy, were soldiers now under the one great Captain. Faithful and loyal even unto death? Ah yes, Theodore pledged himself anew to such service in the watches of that night. Nevertheless, the letter had brought to the boy a fresh disappointment, for it informed him that the bishop had been ill ever since he left the city, and that it had been decided that he should remain away until October. "Five months longer before I can see him," Theodore thought sorrowfully, yet he could not grieve as he had done before. It almost seemed as if he could feel the bishop's hand actually resting upon his head, and see the kind eyes looking down into his. The boy had not been so happy since he left the bishop's house as he was on this night when he had expected to be so lonely and miserable. "Oh if Nan only knew, how glad she would be," he thought more than once. He slept at last with the letter clutched tightly in his hand, and his fingers had not loosed their hold when he awoke the next morning, nor had the joy died out of his heart. His thoughts were very busy as he dressed, and suddenly he stopped short, with one shoe on and the other in his hand. "That's it!" he cried aloud. "That's what the bishop meant that Sunday! 'Ye are not your own. Ye are bought with a price.' The great Captain's bought me for one of His soldiers, an' I've got to do what He says. I never knew before just what that meant, but I do now." Then he added, softly, "But I want to do what He says, anyhow." Going forth in this spirit to his work, Theodore could hardly fail to find something to do for his Captain. Mrs. Hunt had decided to take up the work that Nan had been doing, and to furnish supplies for the stand. She had the big basket all ready when Theodore came from his room, and he and Jimmy set off with it for the stand where both the boys now took their breakfasts. Theodore was unusually quiet and thoughtful, and there was something in his face that silenced Jimmy's lively tongue that morning. The two boys had just gotten their stand ready for business, when Theodore exclaimed, eagerly, "There he is now!" and darted off. Jimmy looked after him in wonder that turned to indignation, as he saw Theo lay a detaining hand on the ragged jacket of Carrots, who was slouching aimlessly along the sidewalk with his hands in his pockets, and, after a little talk with him, bring him back to the stand. "Well now, I like that!" muttered Jimmy under his breath. He glowered darkly at Carrots as Theo drew him up to the stand, but Theodore looked into Jimmy's face with a strange light in his eyes, as he filled a plate for Carrots and poured him out a cup of coffee. "Sh'ld think you'd better wait till he'd paid for what he jagged here that last time," Jimmy muttered, with a scowling glance at the culprit. Carrots, overhearing the remark, grinned, and then winked impudently at Jimmy, while he disposed with all speed of the contents of the plate that Theodore had set before him. Once or twice he cast a puzzled glance at the latter as if trying to discover some hidden motive. "Had 'nough?" Theo questioned, when plate and cup were empty. "'Spect I might get outside of one or two o' them doughnuts," Carrots answered, with another wink at Jimmy's clouded face. When the doughnuts also had disappeared, Theo said, "Come along a bit with me, Carrots," and the two walked off together, leaving Jimmy for the first time savagely angry with his friend Theodore. Carrots slouched along at Theo's side, with his narrow eyes roving suspiciously from side to side in search of a possible policeman, into whose hands he suspected that his companion might be scheming to deliver him. He could not conceive the possibility of anybody's failing to avenge a wrong if he had the chance. "Carrots," began Theodore, "where do you sleep?" "Can't catch me that way," thought Carrots to himself, as he answered carelessly, "Oh anywheres 't I happen ter find myself when I'm sleepy." "No reg'lar place--no home?" questioned Theo. "Nope." "Well, I've paid rent up to the end of the month for the room I've been sleepin' in, an' I shan't use it any more. You can sleep there for nothin' for the next week if you like." Carrots stopped short and gazed at his companion with his tongue in his cheek. "Think I'm a fool?" he asked, shortly. "I do' know whether ye are or not. 'Seems to me you will be 'f ye say 'no' to my offer," and Theo looked straight into the shifty eyes of his companion. That straightforward look puzzled Carrots. It was more convincing than any words. He studied Theo's face for a moment, then he burst out, "What's your game, anyhow, Tode Bryan?" "Carrots," exclaimed Theo, earnestly, "there's no game at all about it. I've got the room, an' I don't need it, 'cause I've taken another one. You're welcome to use this till the month's up. Now, what d'ye say? Will ye take it or leave it?" "I'll--take--it," rejoined Carrots, slowly. "All right." Theo gave him the number, adding, "Come to my room anytime 'fore ten for the key." Then he hurried on, leaving Carrots in a maze of wonder, doubt and indecision, for he could not yet believe that Theo meant honestly by him. As for Theo, he whistled cheerily as he hastened on, for he felt that he had been doing a bit of his Captain's business. He was not in the least deceived. He knew that Carrots was a "bad lot," as he expressed it, but he said to himself, "I was a bad lot, too, not so very long ago, an' I'll see if I can't do something for Carrots while I'm a-huntin' for that Jack Finney." Jimmy Hunt was on the lookout for Theodore that evening, and pounced upon him the moment he appeared. Jimmy's face was still clouded, and he made no response to his friend's cheery greeting. "I say, Theo," he began, "I'd like to know what you meant by it, anyhow." "What's the trouble, Jimmy? What do you mean?" "What _d'you_ mean by luggin' that thievin', sarcy Carrots over t' the stand this mornin' an' stuffin' him with grub, an' never askin' him for a red cent?" Jimmy spoke in a deeply aggrieved tone. "You won't lose anything by it, Jim. That comes out o' my share of the profits," Theo answered, quickly. "'Tain't that," responded Jimmy, hastily. "I wouldn't 'a' minded if it had been any other feller but him. Say, Theo, what did make ye do it anyhow? Think ye might tell me that." Theodore looked down into the face lifted to his, half curiously, half impatiently. "Jimmy," he said, gravely, "wouldn't you be glad if somebody would lend a hand to Dick and help him make a man of himself?" Jimmy flushed. He was ashamed of his brother and mortified by Dick's evil reputation. "'Course," he answered, shortly, dropping his eyes. "Well, Jimmy, I'd help Dick if I could, an' there's another feller I've been huntin' for ever so long. 'Seem's if I can't find him anywheres, an' so till I _do_ find him, I'm a-goin' to try to pull Carrots up 'stead of him." "Pull Carrots up!" echoed Jimmy, scornfully. "Tode, you must be soft if you expect to make anything out o' such a bad lot as Carrots." "There's a good spot in most chaps, I b'lieve, Jimmy, an' I guess there's one in Carrots, if I can only find it. Anyhow, I'm a-goin' to try for a while." "Huh!" growled Jimmy. He said no more, but after this he watched Theo and Carrots closely, and did a deal of earnest thinking on the subject. Carrots slept in Theodore's room for the next week--slipping softly up and down the stairs, with furtive, suspicious glances into every dark corner in the halls at night, and departing in the same fashion before Theo was up in the morning. He uttered no word of gratitude, but Theo knew better than to expect anything of that sort. One night when he came in, Theodore sat with his door wide open, and called out pleasantly, "Come in a minute, Carrots." The boy paused on the threshold until he had satisfied himself that there was no one else in the room, then he sidled in and dropped heavily on a chair. "Wal', what's wanted?" he inquired, gruffly. "Like to earn a little extra money to-morrow?" Theodore began. "That depends." "Depends on what?" "On the kind o' work." "Well, I should think you'd be ready for any kind of work," Theodore remarked, with a quick glance at the ragged garments of the other. Carrots grinned, carelessly. "Oh I ain't a swell like you," he replied, casting, what he meant for a scornful look at the other boy's clean outing shirt and decent suit. Theodore had reached the point now where he had at least one clean shirt a week. He ignored the remark and went on, "There's plenty of fellers that would be glad of this job, but I want to give you the first chance at it. Jimmy Hunt's goin' on an excursion to-morrow, an' can't run the stand. You can run it if you want to." Carrots gazed at him with mouth and eyes wide open. "Me?" he exclaimed, incredulously. "You mean't you'll let me run it--alone--'thout you bossin' the job?" Theo nodded. Carrots' mouth slowly stretched into a grin of mingled satisfaction and derision, as he exclaimed, "All right. I'm your man!" "Then be ready to go with me at half past six," replied Theo. Then he added, "Look here--what's your real name? Tain't Carrots I know. If you'll tell me what 'tis I'll call you by it." "Do' want none o' yer callin'! Carrots's good 'nough for me, an' if I'm suited, other folks needn't ter interfere," growled the boy, with renewed suspicion. "No need to get huffy 'bout it," rejoined Theodore. "It put me up a peg when folks begun to call me Theodore 'stead of Tode or Toady, an' so I thought you'd feel the same way. 'Course, if you like to be Carrots, nobody cares." "Humph!" grunted Carrots, and departed without further discussion of the matter. He was waiting in the hall when Theodore opened his door the next morning and assisted handily enough about carrying the big basket and arranging the stand. He did not, however, believe that Theo meant to leave him actually in charge, until he found himself established behind the neat counter with fifty cents in nickels and pennies in his pocket, to make change. "Wal', I'm blest!" he exclaimed, and then he grinned and chuckled and slapped his sides with glee, while Theodore went off, thinking to himself, "It's a risk, but I had to give him his chance." Many times during that morning he thought of Carrots and wondered how he was getting on. It was a hot day and an unusually tiresome one for Theodore, and it was later than usual when he returned to his room. Before he had closed the door Jimmy Hunt ran across the hall calling out, "Say, Theo, where's the baskets an' things?" Theodore's heart sank, but he answered quietly, "Haven't they been brought back?" "No. Who'd you get to run the stand, Theo?" "Carrots." "Theodore Bryan--you _didn't_!" exclaimed Jimmy, in such a tragic tone, that Theo almost laughed outright. His amusement was the last straw to Jimmy. He burst into a storm of scornful blame in the midst of which Theo quietly stepped into his room and shut the door, leaving Jimmy to fume and storm as much as he chose. That brought the boy to himself. He began to cool down and to remember, that after all, the stand belonged to Theodore, and he had a right to do as he pleased with it. So after standing in the hall, kicking at the banisters for a while, to relieve his feelings, Jimmy knocked at the closed door and in response to Theo's "come in," he went in, in a somewhat calmer state of mind. "What you goin' to do in the mornin', Theo?" he began, in a subdued tone. "Have you been to the stand, Jim?" "Yes, an' that scamp after he'd sold all the stuff went to work an' auctioned off the dishes an' coffee-urn an' everything. Just skinned the place out slick," Jimmy burst out, indignantly. "I went 'round to see where the baskets was, an' some fellers told me all about it. They said 'twas a red-headed chap done it, but I _couldn't_ b'lieve you'd be green 'nough to trust that Carrots. Say, Theo, did you re'ely think he'd do the square thing, by you?" "Not much. I hoped he would an' I had to give him a chance, Jimmy?" "Why'd you have to?" asked Jimmy, curiously. "Where would I be now if somebody hadn't given me a chance, Jimmy?" "Oh, you--you ain't Carrots. You're another sort." "Yes, I'm another sort now, but I was bad as Carrots before I met Nan an' Little Brother," answered Theo, earnestly. Then he added, "Don't you worry 'bout the stand. I'll go out presently an' buy what's wanted." "An' ain't ye going to do nothin' ter that Carrots for this, neither?" inquired Jimmy, anxiously. "No, nothing. But, Jimmy, don't fret yourself about him. If he keeps on as he's been doin', he'll soon find himself locked up." "'N' he'd oughter be too," muttered Jimmy, as he went away, leaving Theodore to think over the failure of his attempt. He was not much surprised, though he had not expected quite such a clean sweep on Carrots' part, and the loss was not heavy enough to embarrass him at all. At Mr. Scott's suggestion, Theo had begun to deposit his extra earnings in a savings bank and he had enough on hand to easily replace the dishes and utensils lost, but he was disappointed and disheartened. It seemed so useless to try to help one who would not try to help himself. And yet he could not be quite discouraged since he always remembered what he himself had once been. He went out and bought what was needed and when he came back he found Mr. Scott just turning away from his door. He hastened to unlock it and the gentleman turned back, saying, "I'm glad you came before I had got away, Theodore, for I want to talk over that boys' club plan with you." "I thought you'd forgot all about it," replied the boy, his face brightening. He had spoken to his teacher about this plan, and Mr. Scott had answered, "Yes, something of the sort may be done, but if I were in your place I wouldn't be in a hurry about it," and so the matter had been left. Now Mr. Scott looked thoughtfully about the room, saying, "You must find this far more comfortable than the room you had before. Don't you sleep better here, Theo?" "Oh, yes, I don't feel so tired in the morning." "No, because you have the windows here and can have better air; but, Theo, do you realise how it would be if you should use this for a club-room? Some of the boys would be here every evening, and you'd have to have lights burning, and by the time you were ready to go to bed, the room would be very hot and stuffy--full of bad air. Besides you would have to be here all the time. You couldn't trust such boys in your room alone." Theodore thought of Carrots, and his face was grave and disturbed as he answered, slowly, "'Spect you're right, Mr. Scott, but I do hate to give up the plan." "Perhaps we won't give it up, only change it a little. Have you ever been in the large front room, upstairs?" Theodore shook his head, with a look of surprise, that his teacher should know anything about the rooms upstairs. Mr. Scott added, "Well then, suppose you come up with me now, and take a look at it. I have the key." Wondering much, the boy followed his teacher up the stairs to a large room with two windows on each side. "How would this do for your clubroom, Theodore?" Mr. Scott inquired. "This? Oh, this would be fine--but Mr. Scott, it would cost a pile for this." "Rather more than for yours, of course, but now this is the way of it, Theodore. I liked your plan about the club, but I didn't like the idea of your giving up your own room to it, so I spoke to several gentlemen of my acquaintance about the matter, and they all wanted to have a hand in it. So they each gave me a sum of money, and then I interviewed your landlord and rented this room. He is going to have it whitewashed, and then we shall have the floor thoroughly scrubbed and outside blinds put on these sunny windows. Then we shall put in some tables and chairs and some plain pine shelves for the books and papers that we are going to collect from our friends, and if you like, some of us will give the boys a talk on current events once a week or so." "What's current events?" interposed Theo, quickly. "You'll soon find out. Now then, Theo, we must have somebody to take charge of this room. Can you do it?" "Yes, indeed." "You know that means that you must be here every evening in the week, from half past seven to ten o'clock. You'll want to be away sometimes, Theodore." "Yes, I s'pose I will, but I'm ready to stay here all the same until night school begins again." "Very well, then we'll let it be so, and we'll try to have the room ready for our opening in a week or two--as soon as we have enough books and papers to begin with." Mr. Scott locked the door as he spoke, and the two went downstairs. Theodore's face was full of satisfaction over the promised reading-room, but it clouded a little as his teacher said, "You mustn't be disappointed, Theodore, if very few boys spend their evenings in this room for a while. Most of the boys in this neighbourhood are so used to loafing about the streets, that they like that best, especially in hot weather, and, of course, few of them care much for reading. They will have to be educated up to it." "S'pose that's so," replied the boy, thoughtfully, "but they'll like it next winter when it's cold an' stormy outside," he added. "Yes," assented the gentleman, adding, as he turned to depart, "Theo, Mrs. Rawson will be home to-morrow. Don't you want to come and take supper with us, and hear what she has to say about Nan, and the little one?" "Oh, yes, thank you, sir," cried Theodore, with a happy smile. "All right, then, we shall expect you," and with a pleasant "Good-night," Mr. Scott went away. Theodore rather dreaded the supper with Mrs. Rawson, but he forgot to be shy or ill at ease when she began to tell him about the delightful old farmhouse, and the happy times that Nan and the baby were having there. She told him everything she could think of that would be of interest to him, and he listened to it all with an eager face, and a glad heart. If Little Brother must be far away from him, Theodore was happy in the assurance that the child was in such a beautiful place, and that already he had begun to grow stronger and brighter. XV. A STRIKE "No cars a-runnin'! What's up?" exclaimed Jimmy, the next morning, as he and Theodore passed down Tremont street. "There's a strike on. Didn't you hear 'bout it yesterday?" replied Theo. "No. My! But there'll be a time if all the cars stop." "A pretty bad time--'specially for the folks that live outside the city," Theodore answered, soberly. When, after taking his breakfast at the stand, he went back through Tremont street, groups of men and boys were standing about in every corner, and everywhere the strike was the one topic of conversation. There were groups of motormen and conductors here and there, some looking grave and anxious, and some careless and indifferent. As the morning advanced the throngs in the streets increased. Belated business men hurried along, and clerks and saleswomen with flushed faces and anxious eyes, tried impatiently to force their way through the crowds to get to their places of business. Theodore noticed the large number of rough-looking men and boys on the streets, and that most of them seemed full of suppressed excitement. Now and then as he passed some of these, he caught a low-spoken threat, or an exultant prophecy of lively times to come. It all made him vaguely uneasy, and he had to force himself to go about his work instead of lingering outside to see what would happen. In one office, while he was busy over the brasses, three gentlemen were discussing the situation, and the boy, as he rubbed and polished, listened intently to what was said. "What do the fellows want? What's their grievance, anyhow?" inquired one man, impatiently, as he flicked the ashes from his cigar. "Shorter hours and better pay," replied a second. "Of course. That's what strikers always want," put in a third. "They seem to think they're the only ones to be considered." "Well, I must confess that I rather sympathise with the men this time," said the second speaker. "I hold that they ought to have shorter hours." "There are plenty that will be glad enough to take their places, though." "I suppose so, but all the same I maintain that these companies that are amply able to treat their men better, ought to do so. I believe in fair play. It pays best in the end to say nothing of the right and wrong of it." "Think the company will give in?" questioned one. "Guess not. I hear that the superintendent has telegraphed to New York and Chicago for men." "There'll be trouble if they come!" exclaimed the first speaker. "I believe," said another man, joining the group, "I believe that Sanders is responsible for all this trouble--or the most of it, anyhow. He's a disagreeable, overbearing fellow who--even when he grants a favor, which is seldom enough--does it in a mean, exasperating fashion that takes all the pleasure out of it. I had some dealings with him once, and I never want anything more to do with him. If he'd been half-way decent to the men there would never have been any strike, in my opinion." Sanders was the superintendent of the road where the trouble was. "You're right about Sanders," said another. "I always have wondered how he could keep his position. These strikes though, never seem to me to do any real good to the cause of the strikers, and a great many of the men realise that too, but these walking delegate fellows get 'round 'em and persuade 'em that a strike is going to end all their troubles--and so it goes. I saw that little sneak--Tom Steel--buttonholing the motormen, and cramming them with his lies, as I came along just now. There's always mischief where Tom Steel is." By this time Theodore had finished his work, and he left the office, his head full of strikes, superintendents, and walking delegates, and wherever he went that day, the strike was the only subject discussed. He stopped work earlier than usual, finding himself infected with the prevailing unrest and excitement. He found the sidewalks of the principal business streets thronged with men, women and boys, all pressing in one direction. "Come along, Tode!" cried a shrill voice at his elbow, and he turned to find Jimmy Hunt, his round face all alight with anticipation of exciting episodes to follow. Jimmy began talking rapidly. "They've been smashin' cars, Tode, an' haulin' off the motormen an' conductors that want to keep on workin'. There's three cars all smashed up near the sheds, an' the strikers say they'll wreck every one that's run out to-day." "It's a shame!" declared Theo, indignantly; yet boy-like, if there was to be a mob fight, he wanted to be on hand and see it all, and he took care not to let Jimmy get far ahead of him. As they went on, the crowd continually increased until it became so dense that the boys had to worm their way through it inch by inch. They pressed on, however, and when further progress was impossible, they found standing room on the very front close to the car-track. It had been a noisy, blustering crowd as it surged along the street, but now that it had come to a standstill, a sudden breathless silence fell upon it, and all eyes turned in one direction, gazing eagerly, intently up the track. Suddenly, a low, hoarse cry broke from a hundred throats. "It's comin'! It's comin'!" and far up the street a car appeared. The faces of the men grew more hard and determined. Those of the women became pale and terrified. The two boys peered eagerly forward, their hearts beating quickly, with dread mingled with a sort of wild excitement. "Look, Theo--Look!" whispered Jimmy, pointing to some men who were hastily digging up cobble-stones from the street. "There's Carrots, too," he added. "Wonder who that little chap is--the one that seems to have so much to say to the car men," Theo replied, thoughtfully. "That's Tom Steel. You've heard of him, hain't ye?" A man at Theo's elbow was speaking. "He's responsible for this strike, I think, an' I hope he'll get his pay for it too," he added, grimly. Theodore glanced up into the grave face of the speaker and recognised him as a motorman. Evidently, he was more bitter against the strikers than against the company. The car was now close at hand, and all at once as with a single impulse, there was a surging forward, and the crowd closed in blocking the track with a solid mass of human beings. The motorman set his teeth hard, and rang the gong loudly, insistently. The conductor hastened through the car and stood beside him. The only passenger was a policeman, who stood on the rear platform calmly gazing at the sea of angry, excited faces on either side. "This car's got to stop!" shouted a big, brawny fellow, springing onto the step and giving the motorman a threatening glance. "This car ain't a-goin' to stop!" retorted the motorman, grimly, as he released the brake. "We'll see about that," and with the words the big fellow seized the man's arms and wrenched his hand off the lever. The conductor sprang to the assistance of his comrade while the policeman ran forward and pushed the man roughly off the car. In the same instant, Theo saw Carrots snatch a box from a bootblack near him and with a wild yell of defiance, hurl it through one of the car windows. The shrill, taunting cry of the boy, mingled with the crash of the breaking glass, and the sight of the policeman's upraised club, aroused the mob to sudden fury. At once there arose a wild hubbub of shouts, yells and cries, followed by a shower of cobble-stones, and a fierce rush upon the three men on the car, and in two minutes the car was a shattered wreck; the motorman and conductor were being hustled through the crowd with threats and warnings, while the policeman's club had been wrenched from his grasp. He drew his pistol, but with a howl of fury it was knocked from his hand, and the next moment he lay senseless upon the ground, felled by a savage blow from his own club. The taste of conflict, the sight of blood, had roused to a fierce flame the smouldering spirit of lawlessness and insurrection in the mob. A savage rage seemed to have taken possession of the men as, with frantic haste and mad delight, they tore up cobble-stones and built a huge barricade across the track. When it was completed, Carrots darted up on top of it and waved a red handkerchief above his head. A hoarse roar of approval broke from the mob, but Steel sternly ordered the boy down and hissed in his ear, "You fool! You might have spoiled everything by that! Don't ye show that again till I give the signal--d'ye hear?" Carrots nodded with an evil gleam in his narrow eyes, that made Theo shiver. "Come on, now. We've done enough for once," Steel added, and keeping his hand on the arm of the boy the two disappeared in the throng that was slowly melting away. Then, with a long breath, Jimmy turned to Theodore. "My!" he exclaimed, in a tone of shuddering satisfaction. "It's awful, ain't it, Theo! S'pose he's dead?" He gazed with half fearful interest toward the policeman who had been clubbed and about whom a group had gathered. "Looks like it. There comes some more p'lice. They'll take care of him. Come on, Jimmy, le's go home." "Oh, no, Theo, don't go home, yet. Le's go an' see what's goin' on over there," and Jimmy turned into a cross street through which the greater portion of the crowd was pressing. "There's something the matter over at the depot," said Theodore, as he followed, half willingly and half reluctantly, in Jimmy's eager footsteps. About the depot there was usually a constant stream of cars coming and going, but to-day the streets looked bare and deserted. When the boys reached the square only two cars were in sight and these two were approaching, one behind the other, on the same track. As they drew near, they were seen to contain each six or eight policemen, fully armed and with stern, resolute faces. The mob again howled and hooted at the motormen and conductors, and showered them with dirt and small stones, but made no attempt to stop the cars. No cars were run after dark that evening, and the next day they were run only at intervals of an hour and each one carried a heavily armed guard. The strikers and their lawless sympathisers continued to throng the streets and to threaten all car-men who remained on duty. Now and then a car window was broken or an obstruction placed on the tracks, but there was no serious outbreak, and it was rumoured that a compromise between the company and the strikers was under consideration and that the trouble would soon be at an end. So a week slipped away. One morning Theodore was on his way from one office to another when he heard the sound of drum and fife and saw a body of the strikers marching up Washington street. Every boy within sight or hearing at once turned in after the procession, and Theodore followed with the rest. It was about ten o'clock in the morning and the streets were full of shoppers, many of them ladies who had been afraid to venture out during the past week. As if they had risen out of the ground, scores of rough-looking men and street boys began to push and jostle the shoppers on the narrow sidewalks until many of the frightened women took refuge in the stores, and the shopkeepers, fearful of what might follow, began hastily putting up their shutters and making ready to close their stores, if necessary. These signs of apprehension gave great delight to the rougher element in the streets, and they yelled and hooted uproariously at the cautious shopkeepers, but they did not stop. Steadily, swiftly they followed that body of men marching with dark, determined faces to the sound of the fife and the drum. "Where are they going?" Theo asked of a man at his side and the reply was, "To the car-house, I reckon. They're ripe for mischief now." "What's stirred 'em up again--anything new?" the boy questioned. "Many of the strikers have been discharged and new men brought on--five hundred of them--from New York and Chicago. I'm afraid we haven't seen the worst of the troubles yet." "Look! Look!" cried a boy, close beside Theodore, and the latter looking ahead, saw a squad of mounted officers coming through a cross street. Without stopping to parley they charged into the marching strikers and dispersed them, silencing the fife and drum, and when the furious mob of followers and sympathisers yelled threats and defiance at the officers, the latter charged into the mob riding up to the pavement and forcing the people back into the stores and dwellings behind them. This was as fuel to the fire of anger and insurrection. Deep and dire threats passed from lip to lip, and evil purpose hardened into grim determination as the mob slowly surged in the direction of the car-house, after the officers had passed on. The throng was far more quiet now, and far more dangerous. Again and again, Theodore caught glimpses of Tom Steel's insignificant face, and like a long, dark shadow, Carrots followed ever at his heels. No cars were running now, but the boy heard low-spoken references to new men and "scabs," and "the will of the people," as, almost without effort of his own, he was borne onward with the throng. At a little distance from the car-house the strikers again drew together and stood mostly in gloomy silence, their eyes ever turning toward the closed doors of the great building before them. The vast crowd waited, too, in a silence that seemed to throb and pulse with intense and bitter feeling. The strikers had stopped in the middle of the street, and around them on every side, except toward the car-house, the crowd pressed and surged like a vast human sea. There were not many women in the number gathered there, and the few who were there were of the lowest sort, but men and boys--largely tramps, roughs and street boys--were there in countless numbers, mingled with not a few of the better class. Slowly the minutes passed, until an hour had gone by, and it began to be whispered about that the company dared not run any cars. Still the men waited, and the crowd waited too. But at last some grew weary of inaction, and when Steel proposed that they spend the time barricading the tracks, his suggestion met with a quick response. From a neighbouring street the men brought Belgian blocks and piled them on the track. They pulled down tree boxes and broke off branches of trees, and when an ice wagon came along they took possession of the huge blocks of ice and capped their barricade with these. Suddenly the doors of the car-house were thrown open, and a car rolled slowly out. There was an instant of breathless silence, followed by a roar like that of a thousand savage beasts, as the strikers saw that new men were running the car, and that it carried half a score of policemen, armed to the teeth. As it approached the barricade some of the officers sprang off and began to throw down the obstructions, the others standing ready to fire upon the mob if necessary. The crowd showered bitter words and taunts upon the officers, but did not venture to molest them. The motorman stood with his hand on the lever, ready to start the car the moment the track should be clear. Carrots, with a pack of street Arabs at his heels, jeered at the new motorman, climbing up on the car and taunting him, until, at last, his patience was exhausted, and he suddenly lifted his foot and kicked one of the boys off the car. The boy fell heavily to the ground, and instantly the shrill voice of Carrots was uplifted, crying frantically, "He's killed Billy Green! He's killed Billy Green! Pitch in to him, boys! Pitch into him!" Billy Green was already picking himself up, with no worse injury than a cut in his cheek, but the mob took up the cry, and, "Pitch into him! Pitch into him! Kill him! Kill him!" was shouted by hundreds of savage voices as the crowd pressed about the car. They tried to drag the motorman off, in spite of the guards, they smashed the car windows, they tore out the cushions, they beat the policemen, and wrenched their clubs out of their hands. Finally several of the officers drew their pistols and fired into the air. At this the crowd fell back for a second, and the turmoil of shouts and cries that had been deafening a moment before, died away in sudden silence--a threatening, dangerous silence as of a wild beast about to spring. Into this instant of silence broke a new cry from the outskirts of the crowd. "It's the mayor. Make way for the mayor!" "No, it's the bishop. Make way for the bishop! Stand back! Stand back!" At this cry, Theodore turned like a flash and gazed in the direction in which all eyes were turning. There was no mistake. The bishop was surely one of the occupants of a carriage that was slowly forcing its way through the throng. With his heart beating with a wild joy; his eyes glowing; the colour coming and going in his cheeks, Theodore stood still until the carriage stopped. Then sliding through the smallest spaces, darting between feet, this way and that, the boy managed somehow to reach the side of the carriage, where he stood with his hand on one of the wheels, his eager, burning gaze fastened on the face he loved so well. Instinctively he pulled off his cap, but he made no attempt to attract the attention of the bishop. He uttered no word or sound. He only stood with all his loving heart in his eyes, and looked. The bishop's expression was very grave, as he gazed over that vast sea of faces. He turned to speak to the gentleman who sat beside him, and as he did so, his eyes fell on Theodore's eloquent upturned countenance. A quick, bright smile flashed across his face, and reaching down, he laid his hand for a moment gently upon the boy's bared head. Before he could speak the silence was again broken by a cry from many lips--a cry of warning now, rather than a threat, though again the words were, "Stop the car! Stop the car! The bishop! The bishop!" The bishop's carriage had come to a standstill directly across the track, the crowd being here so dense that it was impossible for the driver to go even a yard farther. The policemen had cleared the barricade from the track, and then sprung hastily on the car again. Evidently they had not noticed the dangerous position of the carriage, and now the motorman started the car forward. The man was a stranger in the city. He knew nothing about the bishop--cared nothing about him. He was there to run that car, and he meant to do it or die in the attempt, so when the crowd shouted, "The bishop! The bishop!" he yelled in reply, "Get out of the way then if you don't want him hurt. This car's a-going through, bishop or no bishop!" The car was already in motion. The crowd pushed and struggled and tried to fall back and let the carriage pass over the track, but it was impossible, so closely were the people packed together there. [Illustration: "Stop the car!"] On the car came, while for an instant the crowd waited with tense breath for what should follow. "Loyal unto death." The words rang through Theodore's brain, as in that instant he sprang swiftly forward and flung himself across the track directly in front of the slowly moving car. A cry of horror broke from the throng and a score of hands were stretched forth to draw the boy from his dangerous position, but he clung to the fender and would not be removed. "Stop the car!" he pleaded. "Oh stop the car or the bishop will be killed!" Never a thought of his own danger had the boy,--for he would have given his young life freely and joyfully for his bishop, but the sacrifice was not needed. The police, now seeing the danger, forced the furious motorman to stop the car until the crowd had had time to fall back and the carriage had safely crossed the track. Then the car passed on followed by threatening glances and menacing words from the angry throng. But now the bishop arose in the carriage, and as he stood in the majesty of his great height with the light of a pure heart and a holy life illumining his face--once again a hush fell upon that vast gathering, and when the rich voice rolled out upon the still air, uttering its message of heavenly love, and strong, sweet counsels of peace and justice, the hearts of the people were melted within them. Hard, brutal men and rude street boys listened, feeling a strange power that they could not understand, thrilling their souls, and compelling them, in spite of their own wills, to follow the counsels of this servant of God. No other man in that great city was honoured and loved by rich and poor alike, as was the bishop. To no other would such a crowd in such a mood have hearkened, but they stood in silence and listened breathlessly as if they feared to lose a single word. They listened as if they knew that never again would such a message come to them from those lips. Stern, bitter faces softened, and hard eyes dimmed with tears as the burning, melting words fell on the listening ears. Women wept, and men forgot their hatreds and their grievances. Only here and there an evil face grew more evil as the bishop's words worked upon the hearts and consciences of that vast throng. Tom Steel dropped his mask of careless indifference, as he tried to stem the tide by whispering sneers and taunts to one and another, but they would have none of his counsels now, and after a while he slunk away with a black scowl on his face and evil words on his lips, and still beside him slouched the gaunt, ragged figure with its crown of rough red hair; and no one bade them stay; no one listened to their wicked whispers, for the bishop's words were filling every ear and every heart. At last, the bishop stretched forth his hands and pronounced a tender blessing upon them all, and then he drove slowly away, and when he was gone rough men looked into each other's faces, half wondering, half ashamed, as they moved away. They had no desire now for rioting and lawlessness--for deeds of blood and violence. The Spirit of God had touched their hearts. The atmosphere in which the bishop lived and moved and had his being had for the time enveloped even these. No wonder then, that it had wrought such a transformation in the heart and life of one little street boy. That same night two hundred of the city clergymen united in an appeal to the company to submit the troubles to arbitration, and to this both the company and the strikers agreed. The result was that although all that the men asked was not granted, yet their hours were shortened, and an increase of pay promised at the beginning of the year. XVI. CALLED TO GO UP HIGHER As for Theodore--when the bishop's carriage had driven away he went home in a state of joyous expectation. He thought how he would go, on the morrow, to the bishop's house, and of the long talk they two would have together, when he would tell his friend all that he had so often longed to tell him. He knew well how interested the bishop would be in all that he--Theodore--was trying to do for the Great Captain, and he longed to talk over his work and his plans with one so wise and so experienced. On his way home he stopped and bought some linen collars and cuffs and a neat necktie. "'Cause I want to look as well's I can when he sees me," he said to himself. All that evening he thought of that visit which he would make the next day. He realty _could_ not wait any longer, but he found it hard to decide what would be the best hour for him to go. He knew that the bishop was very often away in the evening, or if at home he was almost sure to have guests with him. In the afternoon, too, he seldom had a leisure moment. Indeed he never had any leisure moments, but Theodore decided at last that the best time to see him would be between twelve and one o'clock. All night, in his dreams, he saw himself making his way to the house and once he awoke in great distress, imagining that Brown had sternly refused him admittance. He could not work that next morning, but he wanted somebody else to share his happiness, and so to all the sick and shut-in ones in the two houses, he carried some little gift. It was his thank-offering, though he did not know it. Small gifts they were, all--a flower to one, a newspaper to another, some oranges to a sick woman, an extra loaf to a hard-working mother--little things all, but given in the name of the Great Captain though His Name was not once mentioned. So, many kindly thoughts followed the boy when, at noon, he went once more through the streets toward the bishop's house. Theodore's face had little of beauty, but the glance of his grey eyes was honest and true. He was able now to possess two suits and he wore his best one with the clean linen and the new tie. Many a mother might have been proud that day to call this boy of the streets, her son. The remembrance of his dreams sent a shiver over Theodore as he rang the bell at the bishop's door, but Brown did not refuse him admittance. On the contrary he smiled faintly and held open the door as he said, in a low tone, "Come to Mrs. Martin's room," and once again Theodore followed him across the wide hall. Mrs. Martin gave him a cordial welcome, but a great dread fell upon the boy as he noted her red eyes and subdued manner, and when she said, "He talked about you last evening, Theodore, and told us what you did for him. You've come to ask how he is, haven't you?" the boy's heart sank and he dropped into the nearest chair with his eyes fixed entreatingly on the housekeeper's face. His throat felt dry and stiff, and he dared not trust himself to speak. Mrs. Martin too, sat down and wiped her eyes as she went on, "He ought not to have gone out to speak to those strikers yesterday. He wasn't well enough, and I told the gentlemen so when they came for him, but as soon as he heard what they wanted he said he would go. He came home all tired out, and he was taken sick in the night." Theodore tried in vain to frame a question with his trembling lips. The housekeeper guessed what he would have asked and answered as if he had spoken. "It's some heart trouble and the doctors say he cannot live." At these words, Theodore's head went down on the table and he sat as if stunned. His trouble seemed to him too great even for belief. Eight months before it had seemed terrible to him to know that the width of the continent separated him from his friend. Now, what a joy it would have been to him to know that the bishop was alive and well in California. At last he lifted his head and asked in a low voice, "How long?" Mrs. Martin understood. She answered, sadly, "A few days--possibly only a few hours. He lies as if he were asleep, but it is not sleep. I think," she added, with a glance at the boy's heart-broken face, "I think you can see him for a moment if you would like to." Theodore nodded and the housekeeper added, "Come then," and led the way to an upper room. The boy followed with such an aching heart as he had never imagined that a boy could have. The sick room was darkened and a nurse sat by the bedside. Theodore stood for a moment looking down on the face so dear to him, and so changed even in the few hours since last he saw it. He longed to press his lips to the hand that lay outstretched on the white coverlet, but he did not dare, and after a moment he turned and left the room in silence. Mrs. Martin followed him down the stairs. At the door he stopped and looked at her, tried to speak but could not, and so went away without a word. He knew that never again should he see his friend alive, and he did not. Before the next night, the bishop had been called to go up higher. When the announcement of his death appeared in the papers there was a request that no flowers be sent. Theodore did not notice this item, and so on the day of the funeral he carried to the house some of the roses that he knew the bishop had loved most, and Mrs. Martin herself placed them in the cold hand that a few days before, had been laid upon Theodore's head. All the gold of the earth, had it been offered to the boy, could not have purchased from him the sweet memory of that last look and touch. On the day of the funeral, the church where the service was held was crowded, and the streets without were filled with a throng as vast as that to which so short a time before, the bishop had spoken, but what a difference was there in look and manner between the two great gatherings! Here, every face was softened, every heart tender with grief. They called him "our bishop," and they felt that they had lost one who loved them--one who was indeed their friend. But not one, whether within or without the church, not one grieved more deeply for the grand, beautiful life so suddenly cut off than did the lad who stood without and listened to the solemn tones of the great organ, and watched with eyes dim with tears as the black-draped coffin was borne out to its burial. The boy stood there until the last of the long line of carriages had passed him; then he stepped forward and, alone and on foot, he followed to the cemetery. When all was over, he went sorrowfully homeward, feeling as if there was a great blank in his life--a blank that could never be filled; that the world could never again seem bright to him; but that evening Mr. Scott came, and his affectionate sympathy comforted the boy's sore heart. His teacher made him feel that now, more than ever, he must be "the bishop's shadow." To Theodore, his small ministries to the forlorn and suffering ones about him, seemed, indeed, as nothing when he recalled the wide-reaching labours of the bishop, but as the days went on these small ministries grew to be the joy of his life. Mr. Scott, watching him closely, saw how week by week he became more unselfish and thoughtful for others; more eager to help any who needed his help. It was a grief to the boy that one whom he most longed to help seemed for a time beyond his reach, and this was Carrots. Four of the ringleaders in the riotous proceedings of the strike had been arrested, tried and sentenced to two years in the penitentiary. Of this number were Tom Steel, and Carrots, whose red banner had more than once caught the eye of the police. Jimmy Hunt openly rejoiced, feeling that Carrots had got his deserts at last, but Theodore was troubled and disheartened over the matter. He went to see the boy in prison, and found him as gruff and surly as ever, yet he was sure that, when he came away, the eyes of Carrots followed him wistfully. He did not go again to the prison but, though he was no more fond of letter-writing than are most boys of fourteen, yet, during those two years of Carrots' imprisonment, never a month passed in which he did not receive a long, cheery letter from Theodore. He never replied to any of these letters, but as Theodore expected no replies, that made no difference. XVII. FINAL GLIMPSES As the evenings lengthened, the club grew in favour among the boys of the neighbourhood, and often Mr. Scott wondered to see how Theodore succeeded in maintaining good order and in keeping up the interest of the boys, without setting them against him. He was full of ingenious ideas for interesting them in something helpful, and, as he expressed it, "lifting 'em up a peg." He grew to be exceedingly popular in the neighbourhood that winter, but he never discovered the fact. He was too busy thinking of and for others, to think much about himself. After a while he gave up all interest in his stand to Jimmy Hunt and devoted himself wholly to his brass-polishing business. It outgrew his own time and strength before the New Year, and then he hired boys to work for him, and he spent his time superintending their work and extending his list of employers. He paid the boys as liberally as he could, but he would tolerate no loafing or careless work, so that at first he had some trouble in getting satisfactory assistants, but once secured, they seldom left his employ. The time came when he had a long list of such employees, and when a large part of the brass work in the city was under his care--but this was later. Nan and Little Brother did not come back to the city in the fall. Mr. Scott had never intended that they should if he could prevent it. Long before the summer was over, Nan had taken a daughter's place in Mrs. Hyde's childless home and Little Brother had become the cherished pet of the household. So warm and deep was the love given to them both that even Nan's sensitive pride could not object to remaining there where she knew that she could give as much as she received in love and service, and with a glad and grateful heart she abandoned all thought of returning to the city, and knew that she had at last found a real home. But she did not forget her older friend, Theodore, and she told her new friends so much about him that they desired to see and know him also. So it came about that one of her letters to him contained a cordial invitation from Mrs. Hyde for him to spend Thanksgiving week at her home. Mr. Scott gladly agreed to attend to the club-room and to keep an eye on the polishing business as far as he could, so Theodore accepted the invitation and began to look forward with delight to seeing Little Brother and Nan again. He could hardly realise that it was he himself--poor Theodore Bryan--who, one bright November morning, sat in the swift-flying car and looked out on the autumn landscape on his way to spend Thanksgiving as Mrs. Hyde's guest, and to see again the two whom he loved to call his "folks." [Illustration: Thanksgiving reunion.] As the train drew near the station at which he was to stop, Theo wondered who would meet him. He hoped Nan would. Indeed, he felt sure that she would, for, of course, Mrs. Hyde would not know him any more than he would know her. So, as the cars ran along by the platform, he gazed eagerly out of the car window, and he felt a little chill of disappointment because Nan was nowhere in sight. There was a comfortable carriage in waiting for somebody. He thought that it might be Mrs. Hyde's--but no, that could not be, either, for a big, rosy-cheeked laddie, with mischievous blue eyes, sat on the seat, flourishing a whip in true boyish fashion. That didn't look much like heavy-eyed, white-lipped Little Brother, and there was not a girl anywhere in sight, except a tall, handsome one in a beautiful grey suit, trimmed with fur. This girl stood near the carriage and seemed to be watching for some one. "I do wish Nan had come to meet me," Theo thought, as he stepped off the train, and then the tall girl in the grey suit was looking eagerly into his face, with both hands outstretched, crying, "Oh, Theo! How glad I am to see you!" and he was seated in the carriage with that rosy-cheeked, merry-faced little laddie, between him and Nan, before he fairly realised that this was Little Brother, grown well and strong, as even Nan had not dared hope he would do in so few months. And he had not forgotten his old friend either--Little Brother had not,--or, if he had, he renewed the friendship very speedily, and during Theo's stay the two were as inseparable as of old. It was a happy week for Nan, for she could see how Theodore had been growing in the best ways during the months of their separation, and she was not a bit disappointed in him, but proud to have her new friends know him. And, as for the boy, it was a glimpse into a new life for him--that week in a lovely Christian home. He made up his mind that, sometime, he would have just such a home of his own, and he went back to the city well content to leave these two in such tender hands and amid such delightful surroundings. Through all the winter that followed, Theodore was busy and happy. When the night-school began, he coaxed Mr. Hunt to take charge of the clubroom, for Theodore wanted to learn and fit himself for better work by and by, and with such a purpose he made rapid progress in his studies. But, busy as he was, he still found time for his Saturday evening work for the florist, that he might continue his Sunday flower mission, for he knew that those few blossoms were all of brightness and beauty that ever entered into some of those shut-in, poverty-pinched lives about him. Then, at Christmas time, Mr. Scott and Mrs. Rawson and the King's Daughters Circle helped him prepare a Christmas tree in the clubroom; a tree that bore a gift for every child and woman in the two houses. The children almost went wild over that, the first Christmas tree that many of them had ever seen; and then the eleven girls in their pretty winter dresses served all the company with cake and cream. Theodore was too happy and busy to eat his share, but that was all right, for Teddy Hunt had no trouble at all in disposing of two portions. When the last candle had ceased to glimmer among the green branches, and the last bit of cake and spoonful of cream had disappeared, the company slowly and lingeringly departed, already looking forward to just such another Christmas three hundred and sixty-five days later. Then with many a "Merry Christmas" to Theodore, the girls and Mrs. Rawson took their departure, and Mr. Scott followed them, only stopping a moment, to say, "We left your Christmas gift in your room, my boy. I hope you will like it." Wondering what his gift might be, the boy put out the lights and locked the clubroom door and hurried down to his room, remembering then that his teacher had asked for his key earlier in the evening. The key was in the door now, and there was a light in the room. Theodore pushed open the door and then stopped short with a cry of delighted surprise, for he never would have recognised this as the bare little room he had left. A neat rug covered the floor, fresh shades hung at the windows; a white iron bedstead with fluffy mattress and fresh white bedding stood where the old bedstead had been, and in place of the pine table and chairs were a neat oak bureau, and a washstand with toilet set and towels, three good, comfortable chairs and a desk that made Theo's eyes shine with delight. But best of all was a picture that hung on the wall facing the door--a picture of the bishop with that tender look in the eyes that the boy remembered so well. On a card, slipped in the corner of the frame, was written, "From Nan and Little Brother," and Theodore, as he looked and looked, felt that there was nothing left for him to desire. He was still standing in the middle of the floor, gazing at the picture, when there was a knock at the door and as he opened it in flocked the eleven girls with Mrs. Rawson and Mr. Scott behind them. "Do you like it, Theodore?" "We _couldn't_ go home till we saw you here," they exclaimed, and laughed and chattered joyously when they saw that the boy was too pleased and delighted for any words, and then they went away with their own hearts full of the joy of giving, to write a circular letter to Nan telling her all about it. After this the winter passed quietly to Theodore. He was well and strong, and he was busy day and evening, and he was as happy a boy as could be found in all that city. And the weeks and months slipped away until two years had gone by, and it was time for Carrots to be released. Theodore ascertained the day and hour when he would leave the penitentiary and met him at the very gate with a warm and friendly greeting, and took him at once to his own room. He searched the pale face of the boy, wondering whether there really was in it a change for the better, or not. It seemed to him less sullen and more thoughtful than it had been two years before, but he was not sure. Certainly, Carrots was very quiet. It seemed almost as if he had forgotten how to talk. He looked about Theo's neat, comfortable room, evidently noting the changes there, but he made no comment. Theodore had set out a table with a good supper for the two, and Carrots ate as if he enjoyed the food. When the meal was ended, he leaned back in his chair, and as he looked straight into Theodore's eyes, said slowly, "What made ye do it, Tode?" "Do what--bring you here to supper?" "Yes, an' write all them letters to me, an'--an' everything?" "Why, Carrots, it's this way. I served another fellow an' awful mean trick once, and I've been trying mighty hard to find him, and make it up to him, but I haven't found him yet, and so I've tried to do a little for you instead of him--don't you see?" Carrots nodded, and Theo fancied that he looked a little disappointed. "Then 'twasn't really me you wanted to help?" he said, gravely. "Yes, 'twas, too," answered Theo, quickly. "I'd have done what I could for you, anyhow, Carrots, but I do _wish_ I could find him," he added, sorrowfully. "What's his name?" inquired Carrots. "Jack Finney." "What?" exclaimed the boy, staring at Theodore as if he could not believe his ears. "Jack Finney," repeated Theo, wonderingly. "Well, I never! Tode--_I'm_ Jack Finney." "You?" cried Theodore, starting up excitedly. "You Mrs. Russell's Jack Finney?" The boy nodded again. "I guess so. I was in her class in the mission school." Theo's face was all alight as he exclaimed, "Oh, Carrots--no, Jack, I'll never call you Carrots again--Jack, I'm too glad for anything! And now look here, Jack Finney, you've _got_ to be the right kind of a chap from this on. I won't let you go wrong. I _can't_ let you go wrong, Jack. It--it seems as if it'll be all my fault if you do." And Jack, looking again straight into Theodore's eyes, answered slowly, "I guess I've had 'bout enough o' crooked doin's. If you'll stand by me, I'll make a try on the other line, anyhow." "I'll stand by you every time, Jack," cried Theodore, earnestly. And he did, through months of alternate hope and discouragement, for Jack did not find the upward road an easy one. There were the bad habits of years always pulling him down, and there were old companions in evil ever ready to coax him back to their company, and more than once they succeeded for a while; but Theodore would not give him up, and in the end, the boy had his reward, for Jack Finney became his fellow-soldier under the Great Captain, and his faithful helper in his loving ministry among Christ's little ones. 
46762	----	generously made available by Internet Archive (https://archive.org) Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 46762-h.htm or 46762-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/46762/46762-h/46762-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/46762/46762-h.zip) Images of the original pages are available through Internet Archive. See https://archive.org/details/bessieherfriends00math BESSIE AND HER FRIENDS * * * * * * _BOOKS BY JOANNA H. MATHEWS._ I. THE BESSIE BOOKS. 6 vols. In a box. $7.50. II. THE FLOWERETS. A SERIES OF STORIES ON THE COMMANDMENTS. 6 vols. In a box. $3.60. III. LITTLE SUNBEAMS. 6 vols. In a box. $6.00. IV. KITTY AND LULU BOOKS. 6 vols. In a box. $6.00. V. MISS ASHTON'S GIRLS. 6 vols. In a neat box. $7.50. VI. HAPS AND MISHAPS. 6 vols. $7.50. _BY JULIA A. MATHEWS._ I. DARE TO DO RIGHT SERIES. 5 vols. In a box. $5.50. II. DRAYTON HALL STORIES. Illustrative of the Beatitudes. 6 vols. In a box. $4.50. III. THE GOLDEN LADDER SERIES. Stories illustrative of the Lord's Prayer. 6 vols. $3.00. ROBERT CARTER AND BROTHERS, _New York_. * * * * * * [Illustration: Bessie's Friends. FRONTIS.] [Illustration: Decoration] BESSIE AND HER FRIENDS. by JOANNA H. MATHEWS, Author of "Bessie at the Seaside," "Bessie in the City," &c. "_Speak not evil one of another._" "_Bear ye one another's burdens._" New York: Robert Carter & Brothers, 530 Broadway. Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1868, by Robert Carter and Brothers, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York. To _MY SISTER BELLA_, WHOSE LOVING CONSIDERATION _Has lightened the "burden" of many an otherwise weary hour_. _CONTENTS._ PAGE _I. Jennie's Home_ 7 _II. The Police-Sergeant's Story_ 30 _III. Little Pitchers_ 48 _IV. Papa's Story_ 64 _V. Light through the Clouds_ 95 _VI. Uncle Ruthven_ 117 _VII. An Unexpected Visitor_ 143 _VIII. Franky_ 167 _IX. Bear ye One Another's Burdens_ 181 _X. Two Surprises_ 200 _XI. Blind Willie_ 224 _XII. Maggie's Book_ 241 _XIII. Disappointment_ 269 _XIV. Aunt Patty_ 294 _XV. Willie's Visit_ 314 _XVI. Willie's Recovery_ 336 [Illustration: Beginning of book] _BESSIE AND HER FRIENDS_. I. _JENNIE'S HOME._ "Morher," said little Jennie Richards, "isn't it 'most time for farher to be home?" "Almost time, Jennie," answered Mrs. Richards, looking up from the face of the baby upon her lap to the clock upon the mantel-piece. A very pale, tiny face it was; so tiny that Sergeant Richards used to say he had to look twice to be sure there was any face there; and that of the mother which bent above it was almost as pale,--sick, anxious, and worn; but it brightened, as she answered Jennie. "It is five minutes before six; he will be here very soon now." Away ran Jennie to the corner, where stood a cane-seated rocking-chair, and after a good deal of pushing and pulling, succeeded in drawing it up in front of the stove; then to a closet, from which she brought a pair of carpet slippers, which were placed before the chair. "I wish I was big enough to reach farher's coat and put it over his chair, like you used to, morher." "That will come by and by, Jennie." "But long before I am so big, you'll be quite well, morher." "I hope so, dear, if God pleases. It's a long, long while to sit here helpless, able to do nothing but tend poor baby, and see my dear little daughter at the work her mother ought to do." "Oh, morher, just as if I did not like to work! I don't like 'e reason why I have to do it, but it's right nice to work for you and farher. And I wouldn't like to be lazy, so I hope I will always have plenty to do." "Dear child," said Mrs. Richards, with a sigh, "you're like enough to see that wish granted." "'At's good," said Jennie, cheerfully, taking her mother's words in quite a different spirit from that in which they were spoken; "it's so nice to be busy." And indeed it would appear that this small maiden--small even for her six years--did think so; for as she talked she was trotting about the room, busying herself with arranging half a dozen trifles, which her quick eye spied out, and which, according to her way of thinking, were not just in proper order. First, the hearth, on which no spot or speck was to be seen, must be brushed up anew; next, the corner of the table-cloth was to be twitched into place, and a knife laid more exactly into straight line; then a ball, belonging to one of the younger children, was picked up and put in the toy-basket, with the reminder to little Tommy that father was coming, and the room must be kept in good order. One would have thought it was already as neat as hands could make it. Plain enough it was, certainly, but thoroughly comfortable. The carpet, though somewhat worn, and pieced in more than one place, was well swept and tidy, and the stove and the kettle which sang merrily upon its top were polished till they shone. The table in the centre of the room was ready set for tea, and, though it held no silver or cut glass, the most dainty lady or gentleman in the land need not have hesitated to take a meal from its white cloth and spotless delf ware. The only pieces of furniture which looked as if they had ever cost much were a large mahogany table with carved feet, which stood between the windows, and a bookcase of the same wood at the side of the fireplace; but both of these were old-fashioned, and although they might be worth much to their owners, would have brought little if offered for sale. Not a speck of dust, however, was to be seen upon them or the rest of the furniture, which was of stained pine; while at the side of Mrs. Richards' arm-chair stood the baby's wicker cradle, covered with a gay patchwork spread. And that tiny quilt was the pride and delight of Jennie's heart; for had she not put it all together with her own small fingers? after which, good Mrs. Granby, who lived up-stairs, had quilted and lined it for her. On the other side of the mother, sat, in a low chair, a boy about nine years old. His hands were folded helplessly together, and his pale face wore a sad, patient, waiting look, as if something were coming upon him which he knew he must bear without a struggle. One looking closer into his eyes might notice a dull film overspreading them, for Willie Richards was nearly blind, would be quite blind in a few weeks, the doctors said. Between Jennie and the baby came three little boys, sturdy, healthy children, always clamoring for bread and butter, and frequent calls for bread and butter were becoming a serious matter in the policeman's household; for provisions were high, and it was not as easy to feed eight mouths as it had been to feed four. This year, too, there had been severe sickness in the family, bringing great expenses with it, and how the wants of the coming winter were to be provided for, Sergeant Richards could hardly tell. With the early spring had come scarlet fever. The younger children had gone through it lightly, Jennie escaping altogether; but poor Willie had been nigh to death, and the terrible disease had left its mark in the blindness which was creeping upon him. Then, watching her boy at night, Mrs. Richards had taken cold which had settled in her limbs, and all through the summer months she had lain helpless, unable even to lift her hand. And what a faithful little nurse Jennie had been to her! Then two months ago the baby sister was born, whose coming Jennie had hailed with such delight, but whose short life had so far been all pain and suffering. The mother was better now, able to sit all day in the cushioned chair, where the strong arms of her husband would place her in the morning. But there she remained a prisoner, unable to move a step or even to stand, though she could so far use her hands as to tend her baby. But Mrs. Richards had not felt quite discouraged until to-day. Now a fresh trouble had come, and she felt as if it were the last drop in the cup already too full. The children knew nothing of this, however, and if mother's face was sadder than usual, they thought it was the old racking pain in her bones. The three little boys were at the window, their chubby faces pressed against the glass, peering out into the darkness for the first glimpse of father. His duty had kept him from home all day, and wife and children were more than usually impatient for his coming. It was a small, two-story, wooden house, standing back from the street, with a courtyard in front, in the corner of which grew an old butternut tree. It bore but few nuts in these latter days, to be sure, but it gave a fine shade in the summer, and the young occupants of the house took great pride and comfort in it. The branches were almost bare now, however, and the wind, which now and then came sighing up the street, would strip off some of the leaves which still remained, and scatter them over the porch or fling them against the window. "You couldn't do wi'out me very well; could you, morher?" said Jennie, as she straightened the corner of the rug, "even if good Mrs. Granby does come and do all the washing and hard work." "Indeed, I could not," answered Mrs. Richards. "My Jennie has been hands and feet to her mother for the last six months." "And now she's eyes to Willie," said the blind boy. "And eyes to Willie," repeated his mother, tenderly laying her hand on his head. "And tongue to Tommy," added Willie, with a smile. Jennie laughed merrily; but as she was about to answer, the click of the gate was heard, and with shouts of "He's coming!" from Charlie, "Poppy, poppy!" from the younger boy, and a confused jargon from Tommy, which no one but Jennie could understand, the whole three tumbled down from the window and rushed to the door. A moment later it opened, and a tall, straight figure in a policeman's uniform appeared. "Halloa, you chaps!" said a cheery voice. "Suppose two or three dozen of you get out of the way and let me shut the door; it won't do to keep a draught on mother." He contrived to close the door, but as for getting farther with three pair of fat arms clasping his legs, that was quite impossible. The father laughed, threw his cap upon a chair, and catching up first one and then another of his captors, tossed them by turns in the air, gave each a hearty kiss, and set him on his feet again. "There, gentlemen, now let me get to mother, if you please. Well, Mary, how has it gone to-day? Poorly, eh?" as he saw that in spite of the smile which welcomed him, her cheek was paler and her eye sadder than they had been when he left her in the morning. "The pain is no worse, dear,--rather better maybe," she answered; but her lip quivered as she spoke. "Then that monstrous baby of yours has been worrying you. I am just going to sell her to the first man who will give sixpence for her." "No, no, no!" rose from a chorus of young voices, with, "She didn't worry scarcely any to-day, farher," from Jennie, as she lifted her face for his kiss. Willie's turn came next, as rising from his chair with his hand outstretched, he made a step forward and reached his father's side. One eye was quite dark, but through the thick mist which was over the other, he could faintly distinguish the tall, square figure, though, except for the voice and the sounds of welcome, he could not have told if it were his father or a stranger standing there. Then began the grand amusement of the evening. Mr. Richards pulled down the covering of the cradle, turned over the pillow, looked under the table, peeped into the sugar-bowl, pepper-pot, and stove, and at last pretended to be much astonished to discover the baby upon its mother's lap, after which the hunt was carried on in search of a place big enough to kiss. This performance was gone through with every night, but never lost its relish, being always considered a capital joke, and was received with shouts of laughter and great clapping of hands. "Father," said Jennie, when Mr. Richards was seated in the rocking-chair, with a boy on each knee, "we have a great surprise for your supper to-night." If Jennie did not resemble her father in size, she certainly did in feature. In both there were the same clear, honest gray eyes, the same crisp, short curls, the same ruddy cheeks and full red lips, the same look of kindly good-nature, with something of a spirit of fun and mischief sparkling through it. "You have; have you?" he answered. "Well, I suppose you know it takes a deal to surprise a member of police. We see too many queer folks and queer doings to be easy surprised. If you were to tell me you were going to turn a bad, lazy girl, I might be surprised, but I don't know as much short of that would do it." Jennie shook her head with a very knowing look at her mother, and just then the door opened again and a head was put within. "Oh, you're home, be you, Sergeant Richards?" said the owner of the head. "All right; your supper will be ready in a jiffy. Come along, Jennie." With this the head disappeared, and Jennie, obeying orders, followed. In five minutes they both returned, the head this time bringing the rest of the person with it, carrying a tray. Jennie held in her hands a covered dish, which she set upon the edge of the table with an air of great triumph. She was not tall enough to put it in the proper spot before her father's place; but she would by no means suffer him to help her, although he offered to do so. No, it must wait till Mrs. Granby had emptied the tray, and could take it from her hands. What the policeman's family would have done at this time without Mrs. Granby would be hard to tell. Although a neighbor, she had been almost a stranger to them till the time of Willie's illness, when she had come in to assist in the nursing. From that day she had been a kind and faithful friend. She was a seamstress, and went out to work by the day; but night and morning she came in to see Mrs. Richards and do what she could to help her, until one evening she had asked Mr. Richards if she might have a talk with him. The policeman said, "Certainly," though he was rather surprised, for Mrs. Granby generally talked without waiting for permission. "I guess things ain't going just right with you; be they, Sergeant Richards?" she began. Richards shook his head sadly. "I suppose if it wasn't right, it wouldn't be, Mrs. Granby; but it's hard to think it with Mary lying there, bound hand and foot, my boy growing blind, and the poor little baby more dead than alive; with me away the best part of the day, and nobody but that green Irish girl to do a hand's turn for them all, unless yourself or some other kind body looks in. Jennie's a wonderful smart child, to be sure; but there's another sore cross, to see her working her young life out, when she ought to be thinking of nothing but her play. And then, how we're going to make both ends meet this year, I don't know." "So I thought," answered Mrs. Granby; "and it's the same with me about the ends meetin'. Now just supposin' we helped one another along a bit. You see they've raised my rent on me, and I can't afford it no way; besides that, my eyes is givin' out,--won't stand sewin' all day like they used to; so I'm not goin' out by the day no more, but just goin' to take in a bit of work and do it as I can. That Biddy of yours ain't no good,--a dirty thing that's as like as not to sweep with the wrong end of the broom, and to carry the baby with its head down and heels up. She just worries your wife's life out; and every time she goes lumberin' over the floor, Mary is ready to screech with the jar. Now you just send her packin', give me the little room up-stairs rent free for this winter, and the use of your fire for my bits of meals, and I'll do all she does and more too,--washin', scrubbin', cookin', and nussin'. You won't have no wages to pay, and though they mayn't come to much, every little tells; and Mary and the babies will be a sight more comfortable, and you, too, maybe, if I oughtn't to say it. You're just right, too, about Jennie. It goes to my heart to see her begin to put her hand to everything; she's more willin' than she's able. Pity everybody wasn't the same; it would make another sort of a world, I guess. What do you say to it? Will it do?" Do! The policeman thought so indeed, and was only too thankful. But it was a one-sided kind of a bargain, he said, all on their side, and Mrs. Granby must take some pay for her services. This she refused; she was not going to give them all her time, only part of it, and the room rent free was pay enough. But at last she consented to take her meals with them, though somehow she contrived to add more to the rather slender table than she took from it. Now she had a chicken or tender steak for Mrs. Richards, "it was so cheap she couldn't help buying it, and she had a fancy for a bit herself," but it was always a very small bit that satisfied her; now a few cakes for the children, now a pound of extra nice tea or coffee. "Sergeant Richards needed something good and hot when he came in from duty, and he never took nothin' stronger, so he ought to have it." From the time that she came to them, Mrs. Richards began to improve; there was no longer any need to worry over her disorderly house, neglected children, or the loss of comfort to her husband. The baby ceased its endless wailing, and with Jennie to keep things trim after they had once been put in order, the whole household put on its old air of cosy neatness. Truly she had proved "a friend in need," this cheerful, bustling, kind-hearted little woman. "Now you may uncover the dish, farher," said Jennie, as having brought a little stand and placed it at her mother's side, she led Willie to the table. Mr. Richards did so. "Broiled ham and eggs!" he exclaimed. "Why, the breath is 'most taken out of me! I know where the ham came from well enough, for I bought it myself, but I'd like to know who has been buying fresh eggs at eight cents apiece." "No, Sergeant Richards, you needn't look at me that way," said Mrs. Granby, holding up the tea-pot in one hand; "I ain't been doin' no such expenses. I brought them home, to be sure; but they was a present, not to me neither, but to your wife here. Here's another of 'em for her, boiled to a turn too. Fried eggs ain't good for sick folks. 'Twasn't my doin' that you got some with your ham neither; I wanted to keep 'em for her eatin', but she said you was so fond of 'em, and she coaxed me into it. She does set such a heap by you, she thinks nothin' ain't too good for you. Not that I blame her. I often says there ain't a better husband and father to be found than Sergeant Richards, look the city through; and you do deserve the best, that's a fact, if it was gold and diamonds; not that you wouldn't have a better use for them than to eat 'em; diamonds fetches a heap, they tell me, but never havin' had none of my own, I can't rightly tell of my own showin'. Come, eat while it's hot. I'll see to your wife. No, thank you, none for me. I couldn't eat a mouthful if you was to pay me for it. Don't give the little ones none, 'taint good for 'em goin' to bed. Jennie might have a bit, she's been stirrin' round so all day, and Willie, too, dear boy." Mrs. Granby's voice always took a tenderer tone when she spoke of Willie. "Well, I'll just tell you how I come by them eggs. This afternoon I took home some work to an old lady, a new customer Mrs. Howard recommended me to. When I was let in, there she stood in the hall, talkin' to a woman what had been sellin' fresh eggs to her. There they was, two or three dozen of 'em, piled up, lookin' so fresh and white and nice, enough to make your mouth water when you looked at 'em and thought what a deal of nourishment was in 'em. So when the lady was through with the woman, says I, 'If you'll excuse the liberty, ma'am, in your house and your presence, I'd just like to take a couple of eggs from this woman before she goes.' "'Certainly,' says the lady, but the woman says, 'I can't spare no more, there's only a dozen left, and I've promised them to another lady;' and off she goes. Well, me and the old lady settles about the work, and she tells me she'll have more in a month's time, and then she says, 'You was disappointed about the eggs?' "'Yes, ma'am,' says I. "So, thinkin', I s'pose, 'twasn't for a poor seamstress like me to be so extravagant, she says, 'Eggs are high this season,--eight cents apiece.' "I didn't want to be settin' myself up, but I wasn't goin' to have her take no false notions about me, so I says, 'Yes, ma'am, but when a body's sick, and ain't no appetite to eat only what one forces one's self to, I don't think it no sin to spend a bit for a nice nourishin' mouthful.' "And she says, very gentle, 'Are you sick?' "'Not I, ma'am,' says I, 'but a friend of mine. Bad with the rheumatics these six months, and she's a mite of an ailin' baby, and don't fancy nothin' to eat unless it's somethin' delicate and fancy, so I just took a notion I'd get a couple of them eggs for her.' "And she says, 'I see you have a basket there, just let me give you half a dozen of these for your friend.' I never thought of such a thing, and I was took all aback, and I said would she please take it out of the work. I couldn't think of takin' it in the way of charity, and she says, 'If I were ill, and you had any little dainty you thought I might like, would you think it charity to offer it to me?' "'No, ma'am,' says I; 'but then there's a difference.' "'I see none in that way,' she said; 'we are all God's children. To one he gives more than to another, but he means that we shall help each other as we find opportunity, and I wish you to take this little gift for your friend as readily as you would offer it to me if I were in like need.' Now wasn't that pretty? A real lady, every inch of her. And with her own hands she laid half a dozen eggs in the basket. She was askin' some more questions about my sick friend, when somebody pulls the door-bell as furious, and when it was opened, there was a servant-gal lookin' as scared as anything, and she tells the old lady her little granddaughter was lost, and couldn't be found nowhere, and was she here, and did they know anything about her? Well, they didn't know nothin', and the old lady said she'd be round right away, and she herself looked scared ready to drop, and I see she hadn't no more thought for me nor my belongin's, nor couldn't be expected to, so I just takes my leave. And when I come home and shows Mary the eggs, nothin' would do but you must have a couple cooked with your ham for supper." All the time Mrs. Granby had been telling her story, she was pouring out tea, waiting on Mrs. Richards, spreading bread and butter for the children, and now having talked herself out of breath, she paused. At the last part of the story, the police-sergeant laid down his knife and fork, and looked up at her. "What is your lady's name?" he asked. "Mrs. Stanton," answered Mrs. Granby. "And who is the child that was lost?" "I don't know, only a granddaughter; I don't know if it's the same name. Why, have you seen the child?" "I can't tell if it's the same," answered Richards, "but I've got a story for you to-night. I have been thinking all the afternoon I had a treat for Jennie." "Is it a duty story, farher?" asked his little daughter. "Yes, it is a duty story." "Oh, that's good!" Whenever her father had a story to tell of anything which had happened to him during his daily duties, Jennie always called it a "duty story," and she was very eager for such anecdotes. [Illustration: decoration, end of chap. 1] [Illustration: Title decoration, chap. 2] II. _THE POLICE-SERGEANT'S STORY._ Tea was over, the dishes neatly washed and put away by Mrs. Granby and Jennie, the three little boys snugly tucked in their cribs up-stairs, the baby lying quiet in its cradle, and Mrs. Granby seated at the corner of the table with her sewing. Jennie sat upon her father's knee, and Willie in his usual seat at his mother's side, and the policeman began his story. "It might have been about two o'clock when, as I was at my desk, making out a report, Policeman Neal came in with a lost child in his arms, as pretty a little thing as ever I saw, for all she did look as if she had been having rather a hard time of it,--a gentleman's child and a mother's darling, used to be well cared for, as was easy to be seen by her nice white frock with blue ribbons, and her dainty shoes and stockings. But I think her mother's heart would have ached if she had seen her then. She had lost her hat, and the wind had tossed up her curls, her cheeks were pale and streaked with tears, and her big brown eyes had a pitiful look in them that would have softened a tiger, let alone a man that had half a dozen little ones of his own at home; while every now and then the great heavy sighs came struggling up, as if she had almost cried her heart out. "When Neal brought her in, she looked round as if she expected to see some one, and so it seems she did; for he put her on thinking she'd find some of her own folks waiting for her. And when she saw there was no one there, such a disappointed look as came over her face, and her lip shook, and she clasped both little hands over her throat, as if to keep back the sobs from breaking out again. A many lost children I've seen, but never one who touched me like her. "Well, Neal told where he'd found her, and a good way she'd wandered from her home, as we found afterwards, and how she said her name was Brightfort, which was as near as he'd come to it; for she had a crooked little tongue, though a sweet one. I looked in the directory, but no name like that could I find. Then Neal was going to put her down and go back to his beat, but she clung fast to him and began to cry again. You see, she'd kind of made friends with him, and she didn't fancy being left with strange faces again. So I just took her from him, and coaxed her up a bit, and told her I'd show her the telegraph sending off a message how she was there. I put her on the desk, close to me, while I set the wires to work; and as sure as you live, what did I hear that minute but her saying a bit of a prayer. She didn't mean any one to hear but Him she was speaking to, but I caught every word; for you see my head was bent over near to hers. And I'll never forget it, not if I live to be a hundred, no, nor the way it made me feel. 'Dear Father in heaven,' she said, 'please let my own home father come and find me very soon, 'cause I'm so tired, and I want my own mamma; and don't let those naughty boys hurt my Flossy, but let papa find him too.' I hadn't felt so chirk as I might all day, and it just went to the soft place in my heart; and it gave me a lesson, too, that I sha'n't forget in a hurry." Mr. Richards stopped and cleared his throat, and his wife took up the corner of her shawl and wiped her eyes. "Bless her!" said Mrs. Granby, winking hers very hard. "Ay, bless her, I say, too," continued the policeman. "It was as pretty a bit of faith and trust as ever I saw; and after it she seemed some comforted, and sat quiet, watching the working of the wires, as if she was quite sure the One she'd looked to would bring her help. Well, I carried her round and showed her all there was to see, which wasn't much, and then I set her to talking, to see if I could find out where she belonged. I saw she'd been confused and worried before Neal brought her in, and I thought like enough she'd forgotten. So, after some coaxing and letting her tell her story in her own way,--how her dog ran away and she ran after him, and so got lost, she suddenly remembered the name and number of the street where she lived. With that she broke down again, and began to cry and sob out, she did want to go home so much. "I was just sending out to see if she was right, when up dashes a carriage to the door, and out gets a gentleman on crutches. The moment the little one set eyes on him, she screams out as joyful as you please, 'Oh, it's my soldier, it's my soldier!' "Talk of an April day! You never saw anything like the way the sunlight broke through the clouds on her face. The moment he was inside the door, she fairly flung herself out of my arms on to his neck; and it was just the prettiest thing in the world to see her joy and love, and how she kissed and hugged him. As for him, he dropped one crutch, and held fast to her, as if for dear life. I knew who he was well enough, for I had seen him before, and found out about him, being in the way of duty. He's an English colonel that lives at the ---- Hotel; and they tell wonderful stories about him,--how brave he is, and what a lot of battles he's fought, and how, with just a handful of soldiers, he defended a hospital full of sick men against a great force of them murdering Sepoys, and brought every man of them safe off. All sorts of fine things are told about him; and I'm bound they're true; for you can tell by the look of him he's a hero of the right sort. I didn't think the less of him, either, that I saw his eyes mighty shiny as he and the baby held fast to each other. She wasn't his child, though, but Mr. Bradford's up in ---- Street, whom I know all about; and if that crooked little tongue of hers could have said 'R,' which it couldn't, I might have taken her home at once. Well, she was all right then, and he carried her off; but first she walked round and made her manners to every man there as polite as you please, looking the daintiest little lady that ever walked on two feet; and when I put her into the carriage, didn't she thank me for letting her into the station, and being kind to her, as if it was a favor I'd been doing, and not my duty; and as if a man could help it that once looked at her. So she was driven away, and I was sorry to lose sight of her, for I don't know as I ever took so to a child that didn't belong to me." "Is that all?" asked Jennie, as her father paused. "That's all." "How old was she, farher?" "Five years old, she said, but she didn't look it. It seemed to me when I first saw her as if she was about your size; but you're bigger than she, though you don't make much show for your six years." "How funny she can't say 'R' when she's five years old!" said Jennie. "Yes, almost as funny as that my girl of six can't say 'th,'" laughed the sergeant. Jennie smiled, colored, and hung her head. "And you thought maybe your lost child was Mrs. Stanton's granddaughter; did you?" asked Mrs. Granby. "Well, I thought it might be. Two children in that way of life ain't likely to be lost the same day in the same neighborhood; and we had no notice of any other but my little friend. You don't know if Mrs. Stanton has any relations of the name of Bradford?" "No; she's 'most a stranger to me, and the scared girl didn't mention no names, only said little Bessie was missin'." "That's her then. Little Bradford's name was Bessie; so putting two and two together, I think they're one and the same." They talked a while longer of little Bessie and her pretty ways and her friend, the colonel; and then Mrs. Granby carried Willie and Jennie off to bed. "Now, Mary," said Richards, going to his wife's side the moment the children were out of hearing, "I know your poor heart has been aching all day to know what the eye-doctor said; but the boy sticks so close to you, and his ears are so quick, that I couldn't do more than whisper 'yes' when I came in, just to let you know it could be done. I was bringing Willie home when I met Jarvis with a message that I was to go up to the Chief on special business, so, as I hadn't a minute to spare, I just had to hand the poor little man over to Jarvis, who promised to see him safely in your care. Dr. Dawson says, Mary, that he thinks Willie can be cured; but we must wait a while, and he thinks it best that he should not be told until the time comes. The operation cannot be performed till the boy is stronger; and it is best not to attempt it till the blindness is total,--till both eyes are quite dark. Meanwhile, he must be fed upon good nourishing food. If we can do this, he thinks in three months, or perhaps four, the child may be able to bear the operation. After that he says we must still be very careful of him, and see that his strength does not run down; and when the spring opens, we must send him away from town, up among the mountains. And that's what your doctor says of you, too, Mary; that you won't get well of this dreadful rheumatism till you have a change of air; and that next summer I ought to send you where you will have mountain air. Dr. Dawson's charge," Richards went on more slowly, "will be a hundred dollars,--he says to rich folks it would be three hundred, maybe more. But five thousand is easier come at by a good many people than a hundred is by us. So now we know what the doctor can do, we must make out what we can do. I'm free to say I think Willie stands a better chance with Dr. Dawson than he does elsewhere; but I don't see how we are to raise the money. I'd live on bread and water, or worse, lie on the bare boards and work like a slave, to bring our boy's sight back; but I can't see you suffer; and we have the rest of the flock to think of as well as Willie. And I suppose it must bring a deal of expense on us, both before and after the operation; at least, if we follow out the doctor's directions, and he says if we don't, the money and trouble will be worse than thrown away. "The first thing I have to do is to see Dr. Schwitz, and find out how much we owe him for attending you and the children, off and on, these six months. I've asked him half a dozen times for his bill, but he always said 'no hurry' and he 'could wait;' and since he was so kind, and other things were so pressing, I've just let it go by." When he had spoken of the doctor's hope of curing Willie, his wife's pale face had brightened; but as he went on to say what it would cost, her head drooped; and now as he spoke of the other doctor's bill, she covered her face with her hands, and burst into tears and sobs. "Why, Mary, what is it, dear?" [Illustration: Bessie's Friends. p. 40] "Oh, Tom! Tom!" she broke forth, "Dr. Schwitz sent his bill this morning. A rough-looking man brought it, and he says the doctor must have it the first of the year, and--and--" She could get no farther. The poor woman! it was no wonder; she was sick and weak, and this unlooked-for trouble had quite broken her down. "Now, don't, Mary, don't be so cast down," said her husband. "We'll see our way out of this yet. The Lord hasn't forsaken us." "I don't know," she answered between her sobs, "it 'most seems like it;" and taking up a book which lay upon the table, she drew from between its leaves a folded paper and handed it to him. He was a strong, sturdy man, this police-sergeant, used to terrible sights, and not easily startled or surprised, as he had told his little daughter; but when he opened the paper and looked at it, all the color left his ruddy cheeks, and he sat gazing at it as if he were stunned. There was a moment's silence; then the baby set up its pitiful little cry. Mrs. Richards lifted it from the cradle. "Oh, Tom," she said, "if it would please the Lord to take baby and me, it would be far better for you. I've been only a burden to you these six months past, and I'm likely to be no better for six months to come, for they say I can't get well till the warm weather comes again. You'd be better without us dear, and it's me that's brought this on you." Then the policeman roused himself. "That's the hardest word you've spoken to me these ten years we've been married, Mary, woman," he said. "No, I thank the Lord again and again that that trouble hasn't come to me yet. What would I do without you, Mary, dear? How could I bear it to come home and not find you here,--never again to see you smile when I come in; never to hear you say, 'I'm so glad you've come, Tom;' never to get the kiss that puts heart into me after a hard day's work? And the babies,--would you wish them motherless? To be sure, you can't do for them what you once did, but that will all come right yet; and there's the mother's eye to overlook and see that things don't go too far wrong; here's the mother voice and the mother smile for them to turn to. No, no; don't you think you're laid aside for useless yet, dear. As for this wee dolly,"--and the father laid his great hand tenderly on the tiny bundle in its mother's arms,--"why, I think I've come to love her all the more for that she's so feeble and such a care. And what would our Jennie do without the little sister that she has such a pride in and lays so many plans for? Why, it would break her heart to lose her. No, no, Mary, I can bear all things short of that you've spoken of; and do you just pray the Lord that he'll not take you at your word, and never hurt me by saying a thing like that again." Trying to cheer his wife, the brave-hearted fellow had almost talked himself into cheerfulness again; and Mrs. Richards looked up through her tears. "And what are we to do, Tom?" she asked. "I can't just rightly see my way clear yet," he answered, thoughtfully, rubbing his forehead with his finger; "but one thing is certain, we've got to look all our troubles straight in the face, and to see what we can do. What we _can_ do for ourselves we _must_, then trust the Lord for the rest. As I told you, that little soul that was brought up to the station this afternoon gave me a lesson I don't mean to forget in a hurry. There she was, the innocent thing, in the worst trouble I suppose that could come to such a baby,--far from her home and friends, feeling as if she'd lost all she had in the world,--all strange faces about her, and in what was to her a terrible place, and not knowing how she was to get out of it. Well, what does she do, the pretty creature, but just catch herself up in the midst of her grieving and say that bit of a prayer? and then she rested quiet and waited. It gave me a sharp prick, I can tell you, and one that I needed. Says I to myself, 'Tom Richards, you haven't half the faith or the courage of this baby.' There had I been all day fretting myself and quarrelling with the Lord's doings, because he had brought me into a place where I could not see my way out. I had asked for help, too, or thought I had, and yet there I was, faithless and unbelieving, not willing to wait his time and way to bring it to me. But she, baby as she was, knew in whom she had trusted, and could leave herself in his hands after she had once done all she knew how. It's not the first teaching I've had from a little child, Mary, and I don't expect it will be the last; but nothing ever brought me up as straight as that did. Thinks I, the Lord forgive me, and grant me such a share of trust and patience as is given to this his little one; and then I took heart, and I don't think I've lost it again, if I have had a hard blow I did not look for. I own I was a bit stunned at first; but see you, Mary, I am sure this bill is not fair. Dr. Schwitz has overcharged us for certain; and I don't believe it will stand in law." "But we can't afford to go to law, Tom, any more than to pay this sum. Four hundred dollars!" "I would not wonder if Mr. Ray would see me through this," said Richards. "He's a good friend to me. I'll see him, anyhow. I never thought Dr. Schwitz would serve me like this; it's just revenge." "Have you offended him?" asked Mrs. Richards, in surprise. "Yes," answered the policeman. "Yesterday I had to arrest a nephew of his for robbing his employer. Schwitz came to me and begged I'd let him off and pretend he was not to be found, saying he would make it worthwhile to me. I took offence at his trying to bribe me, which was but natural, you will allow, Mary, and spoke up pretty sharp. He swore he'd make me pay for it if I touched the lad; but I never thought he would go this far. And to think I have had the handling of so many rogues, and didn't know one when I saw him!" "And Willie?" said the poor mother. "Ah! that's the worst," answered Richards. "I'm afraid we sha'n't be able to have much done for Willie this next year; for even if Dr. Dawson will wait for his pay, there's all the expense that's to come before and after the operation; and I don't see how we are going to manage it." Long the good policeman and his wife sat and talked over their troubles; and when kind Mrs. Granby came back, she was told of them, and her advice asked; but three heads were no better than two in making one dollar do the needful work of ten. [Illustration: decoration, end of chap. 2] [Illustration: Title decoration, chap. 3] III. _LITTLE PITCHERS._ Three young ladies sat talking over their work in the pleasant bow-window of Mrs. Stanton's sitting-room, while at a short distance from them two little curly heads bent over the great picture-book which lay upon the table. The eyes in the curly heads were busy with the pictures, the tongues in the curly heads were silent, save when now and then one whispered, "Shall I turn over?" or "Is not that pretty?" but the ears in the curly heads were wide open to all that was passing in the bow-window; while the three young ladies, thinking that the curly heads were heeding nothing but their own affairs, went on chattering as if those attentive ears were miles away. "Annie," said Miss Carrie Hall, "I am sorry to hear of the severe affliction likely to befall your sister, Mrs. Bradford." "What is that?" asked Annie Stanton, looking up surprised. "I heard that Mrs. Lawrence, Mr. Bradford's Aunt Patty, was coming to make her a visit." "Ah, poor Margaret!" said Annie Stanton, but she laughed as she spoke. "It is indeed a trial, but my sister receives it with becoming submission." "Why does Mrs. Bradford invite her when she always makes herself so disagreeable?" asked Miss Ellis. "She comes self-invited," replied Annie. "Margaret did not ask her." "I should think not, considering the circumstances under which they last parted," said Carrie Hall. "Oh, Margaret has long since forgotten and forgiven all that," said Annie, "and she and Mr. Bradford have several times endeavored to bring about a reconciliation, inviting Aunt Patty to visit them, or sending kind messages and other tokens of good-will. The old lady, however, was not to be appeased, and for the last three or four years has held no intercourse with my brother's family. Now she suddenly writes, saying she intends to make them a visit." "I should decline it if I were in the place of Mr. and Mrs. Bradford," said Carrie. "I fear I should do the same," replied Annie, "but Margaret and Mr. Bradford are more forgiving. I am quite sure though that they look upon this visit as a duty to be endured, not a pleasure to be enjoyed, especially as the children are now older, and she will be the more likely to make trouble with them." "I suppose they have quite forgotten her," said Carrie. "Harry and Fred may remember her," answered Annie, "but the others were too young to recollect her at this distance of time. Bessie was a baby, Maggie scarcely three years old." "Shall you ever forget the day we stopped at your sister's house on our way home from school, and found Mrs. Lawrence and nurse having a battle royal over Maggie?" asked the laughing Carrie. "No, indeed! Nurse, with Maggie on one arm and Bessie on the other, fairly dancing about the room in her efforts to save the former from Aunt Patty's clutches, both terrified babies screaming at the top of their voices, both old women scolding at the top of theirs; while Fred, the monkey, young as he was, stood by, clapping his hands and setting them at each other as if they had been two cats." "And your sister," said Carrie, "coming home to be frightened half out of her senses at finding such an uproar in her well-ordered nursery, and poor little Maggie stretching out her arms to her with 'Patty vip me, Patty vip me!'" "And Margaret quite unable to quell the storm until Brother Henry came in and with a few determined words separated the combatants by sending nurse from the room," continued Annie, with increasing merriment. "Poor mammy! She knew her master's word was not to be disputed, and dared not disobey; but I think she has never quite forgiven him for that, and still looks upon it as hard that when, as she said, she had a chance 'to speak her mind to Mrs. Lawrence,' she was not allowed to do it." "But what caused the trouble?" asked Laura Ellis. "Oh, some trifling mischief of Maggie's, for which auntie undertook to punish her severely. Nurse interfered, and where the battle would have stopped, had not Henry and Margaret arrived, it is difficult to tell." "But surely she did not leave your brother's house in anger for such a little thing as that!" said Laura. "Indeed, she did; at least, she insisted that Maggie should be punished and nurse dismissed. Dear old mammy, who nursed every one of us, from Ruthven down to myself, and whom mother gave to Margaret as a treasure past all price when Harry was born,--poor mammy, who considers herself quite as much one of the family as any Stanton, Duncan, or Bradford among us all,--to talk of dismissing her! But nothing less would satisfy Aunt Patty; and Margaret gently claiming the right to correct her own children and govern her own household as she saw fit, and Henry firmly upholding his wife, Aunt Patty departed that very afternoon in a tremendous passion, and has never entered the house since." "Greatly to your sister's relief, I should think," said Laura. "Why, what a very disagreeable inmate she must be, Annie! I am sure I pity Mrs. Bradford and all her family, if they are to undergo another visit from her now." "Yes," said Annie. "Some sudden freak has taken her, and she has written to say that she will be here next month. You may well pity them. Such another exacting, meddling, ill-tempered old woman it would be difficult to find. She has long since quarrelled with all her relations; indeed, it was quite wonderful to every one how Margaret and her husband bore with her as long as they did. I do not know how the poor children will get on with her. She and Fred will clash before she has been in the house a day, while the little ones will be frightened out of their senses by one look of those cold, stern eyes. Do you remember, Carrie, how, during that last unfortunate visit, Maggie used to run and hide her head in her mother's dress the moment she heard Aunt Patty's step?" "Yes, indeed," said Carrie. "I suppose she will be here at Christmas time too. Poor little things! She will destroy half their pleasure." All this and much more to the same purpose fell upon those attentive ears, filling the hearts of the little listeners with astonishment and dismay. It was long since Maggie's hand had turned a leaf of the scrap-book, long since she or Bessie had given a look or thought to the pictures. There they both sat, motionless, gazing at one another, and drinking in all the foolish talk of those thoughtless young ladies. They meant no harm, these gay girls. Not one of them but would have been shocked at the thought that she was poisoning the minds of the dear little children whom they all loved towards the aged relative whom they were bound to reverence and respect. They had not imagined that Maggie and Bessie were attending to their conversation, and they were only amusing themselves; it was but idle talk. Ah, idle talk, idle words, of which each one of us must give account at the last great day! So they sat and chatted away, not thinking of the mischief they might be doing, until, at a question from Miss Carrie, Annie Stanton dropped her voice as she answered. Still now and then a few words would reach the little ones. "Shocking temper"--"Poor Margaret so uncomfortable"--"Mr Bradford very much displeased"--"patience quite worn out" until Bessie said,-- "Aunt Annie, if you don't mean us to know what you say, we do hear a little." Aunt Annie started and colored, then said, hastily "Oh, I had almost forgotten you were there. Would you not like to go down-stairs, pets, and ask old Dinah to bake a little cake for each of you? Run then, and if you heard what we were saying, do not think of it. It is nothing for you to trouble your small heads about. I am afraid we have been rather imprudent," she continued uneasily when her little nieces had left the room. "Margaret is so particular that her children shall hear nothing like gossip or evil speaking, and I think we have been indulging in both. If Maggie and Bessie have been listening to what we were saying, they will not have a very pleasant impression of Mrs. Lawrence. Well, there is no use in fretting about it now. What is said cannot be unsaid; and they will soon find out for themselves what the old lady is." Yes, what is said cannot be unsaid. Each little word, as it is spoken, goes forth on its errand of good or evil, and can never be recalled. Perhaps Aunt Annie would have regretted her thoughtlessness still more if she had seen and heard the little girls as they stood together in the hall. They had no thought of old Dinah and the cakes with this important matter to talk over. Not think of what they heard, indeed! That was a curious thing for Aunt Annie to say. She had been right in believing that Maggie must have forgotten Mrs. Lawrence. Maggie had done so, but now this conversation had brought the whole scene of the quarrel with nurse to her mind. It all came back to her; but in recollection it appeared far worse than the reality. Aunt Patty's loud, angry voice seemed sounding in her ears, uttering the most violent threats, and she thought of the old lady herself almost as if she had been some terrible monster, ready to tear in pieces her own poor frightened little self, clinging about nurse's neck. And was it possible that this dreadful old woman was really coming again to their house to make a visit? How could papa and mamma think it best to allow it? Such mischief had already been done by idle talk! "Maggie," said Bessie, "do you remember about that Patty woman?" "Yes," answered Maggie, "I did not remember about her till Aunt Annie and Miss Carrie said that, but I do now; and oh, Bessie, she's _awful_! I wish, I wish mamma would not let her come. She's the shockingest person you ever saw." "Aunt Annie said mamma did not want her herself; but she let her come because she thought it was right," said Bessie. "I wonder why mamma thinks it is right when she is so cross and tempered," said Maggie, with a long sigh. "Why, she used to scold even papa and mamma! Oh, I remember her so well now. I wish I didn't; I don't like to think about it;" and Maggie looked very much distressed. Bessie was almost as much troubled, but she put her arm about her sister and said, "Never matter, dear Maggie, papa and mamma won't let her do anything to us." "But suppose papa and mamma both had to go out and leave us, as they did that day she behaved so," said Maggie. "Nursey has so many to take care of now, and maybe she'd meddle again,--Aunt Annie said she was very meddling too,--and try to punish me when I did not do any blame." "Jane would help nurse _pertect_ us," said Bessie, "and if she couldn't, we'd yun away and hide till papa and mamma came." "She shouldn't do anything to you, Bessie. I wouldn't let her do that, anyhow," said Maggie, shaking her head, and looking very determined. "How could you help it if she wanted to, Maggie?" "I'd say, 'Beware, woman!'" said Maggie, drawing her eyebrows into a frown, and extending her hand with the forefinger raised in a threatening manner. "Oh!" said Bessie, "what does that mean?" "I don't quite know," said Maggie, slowly, "but it frightens people very much." "It don't frighten me a bit when you say it." "'Cause you don't have a guilty conscience; but if you had, you'd be, oh, so afraid!" "How do you know I would?" "I'll tell you," said Maggie. "Uncle John had a picture paper the other day, and in it was a picture of a woman coming in at the door, and she had her hands up so, and she looked as frightened, as frightened, and a man was standing behind the curtain doing so, and under the picture was 'Beware, woman!' I asked Uncle John what it meant, and he said that was a wicked woman who was going to steal some papers so she could get some money, and when she came in, she heard somebody say, 'Beware, woman,' and she was so frightened she ran away and was never seen again. I asked him to tell me more about it, but he said, 'No, it was a foolish story, not fit for little people.' Then I asked him if foolish stories were only fit for big people, but he just laughed and pinched my cheek. But I coaxed him to tell me why the woman was so frightened when the man did nothing but say those two words, and he said it was because she had a guilty conscience, for wicked people feared what good and innocent people did not mind at all. So if that old Mrs. Patty--I sha'n't call her aunt--don't behave herself to you, Bessie, I'll just try it." "Do you think she has a guilty conscience, Maggie?" "Course she has; how could she help it?" "And will she yun away and never be seen again?" "I guess so," said Maggie; "anyhow, I hope she will." "I wonder why mamma did not tell us she was coming," said Bessie. "We'll ask her to-morrow. We can't do it to-night because it will be so late before she comes home from Riverside and we'll be asleep, but we'll do it in the morning. And now, don't let's think about that shocking person any more. We'll go and ask Dinah about the cakes." But although they resolved to try to forget Aunt Patty for the present, they could not help thinking of her a good deal and talking of her also, for their young hearts had been filled with dread of the old lady and her intended visit. The reason that Mr. and Mrs. Bradford had not spoken to their children of Mrs. Lawrence's coming was that it was not yet a settled thing; and as there was not much that was pleasant to tell, they did not think it best to speak of her unless it was necessary. It was long since her name had been mentioned in the family, _so_ long that, as Mrs. Bradford had hoped and supposed, all recollection of her had passed from Maggie's mind, until the conversation she had just heard had brought it back. [Illustration: decoration, end of chap. 3] [Illustration: Title decoration, chap. 4] IV. _PAPA'S STORY._ The next morning while they were at breakfast, the postman brought three letters for papa and mamma. "Margaret," said Mr. Bradford, looking up from one of his, "this is from Aunt Patty to say that she will put off her visit until spring." Maggie and Bessie both looked up. "Oh!" said Mrs. Bradford, in a tone as if she were rather more glad than sorry to hear that Aunt Patty was not coming at present. Papa glanced at her with a smile which did not seem as if he were very much disappointed either. Probably the children would not have noticed tone or smile had they not been thinking of what they heard yesterday. "Holloa!" said Fred, in a voice of dismay, "Aunt Patty is not coming here again; is she? You'll have to look out and mind your P's and Q's, Midget and Bess, if that is the case. We'll all have to for that matter. Whew-ee, can't she scold though! I remember her tongue if it is four years since I heard it." "Fred, Fred!" said his father. "It's true, papa; is it not?" "If it is," replied his father, "it does not make it proper for you to speak in that way of one so much older than yourself, my boy. Aunt Patty is not coming at present; when she does come, I hope we shall all be ready to receive her kindly and respectfully." "I see you expect to find it difficult, papa," said the rogue, with a mischievous twinkle of his eye. Before Mr. Bradford had time to answer, Mrs. Bradford, who had been reading her letter, exclaimed joyfully,-- "Dear Elizabeth Rush says she will come to us at New Year, and make us a long visit. I wish she could have come at Christmas, as I begged her to do, but she says she has promised to remain in Baltimore with her sister until after the holidays." "Mamma," said Bessie, "do you mean Aunt Bessie is coming to stay with us?" "Yes, darling. Are you not glad?" "Indeed, I am, mamma; I do love Aunt Bessie, and the colonel will be glad too." "That's jolly!" exclaimed Fred; and a chorus of voices about the table told that Aunt Bessie's coming was looked forward to with very different feelings from those which Aunt Patty's excited. "Mamma," said Maggie suddenly, as they were about leaving the table, "don't you wish you had forty children?" "Forty!" exclaimed Mrs. Bradford, laughing. "No, that would be rather too large a family, Maggie." "But, mamma, if you had forty children, the house would be so full there would never be room for Aunt Patty." The boys laughed, but mamma was grave in a moment. "Do you remember Aunt Patty, my darling?" she asked, looking rather anxiously at Maggie. "Oh, yes, mamma, I remember her ever so well," answered poor Maggie, coloring all over her face and neck, and looking as if the remembrance of Aunt Patty were a great distress. "I thought you had quite forgotten her, dear," said her mother. "I had, mamma, but yesterday Aunt Annie and Miss Carrie were talking about her, and then I remembered her, oh! so well, and how fierce she looked and what a loud voice she had, and how she scolded, mamma, and how angry she used to be, and oh! mamma, she's such a dreadful old person, and if you only wouldn't let her come to our house." "And, mamma," said Bessie, "Aunt Annie said nobody had any peace from the time she came into the house until she went out, and you know we're used to peace, so we can't do without it." By this time Maggie was crying, and Bessie very near it. Their mamma scarcely knew how to comfort them, for whatever they might have heard from Annie and her friends was probably only too true; and both she and papa had too much reason to fear with Bessie that the usual "peace" of their happy household would be sadly disturbed when Aunt Patty should come there again. For though the old lady was not so terrible as the little girls imagined her to be, her unhappy temper always made much trouble wherever she went. All that Mrs. Bradford could do was to tell them that they must be kind and respectful to Mrs. Lawrence, and so give her no cause of offence; and that in no case would she be allowed to punish or harm them. But the thing which gave them the most comfort was that Aunt Patty's visit was not to take place for some months, possibly not at all. Then she talked of Miss Rush, and made pleasant plans for the time when she should be with them, and so tried to take their thoughts from Aunt Patty. "And Uncle Ruthven is coming home," said Maggie. "Grandmamma had a letter from him last night, and she said he promised to come before the winter was over; and _won't_ we all be happy then?" Mamma kissed her little daughter's April face, on which the tears were not dry before smiles were dancing in their place, and in happy talk of Uncle Ruthven, Aunt Patty was for the time forgotten. Uncle Ruthven was mamma's only brother, and a famous hero in the eyes of all the children. None of them save Harry had ever seen him, and he had been such a very little boy when his uncle went away ten years ago, that he could not recollect him. But his letters and the stories of his travels and adventures had always been a great delight to his young nieces and nephews; and now that he talked of coming home, they looked forward to seeing him with almost as much pleasure as if they had known him all their lives. As for the mother and the sisters who had been parted from him for so long, no words could tell how glad they were. A sad rover was Uncle Ruthven; it was easier to say where he had not been than where he had. He had climbed to the tops of high mountains and gone down into mines which lay far below the surface of the earth; had peeped into volcanoes and been shut up among icebergs, at one time had slung his hammock under the trees of a tropical forest, at another had rolled himself in his blankets in the frozen huts of the Esquimaux; had hunted whales, bears, lions, and tigers; had passed through all manner of adventures and dangers by land and by sea; and at last was really coming home, "tired of his wanderings, to settle down beside his dear old mother and spend the rest of his days with her." So he had said in the letter which came last night, and grandmamma had read it over many times, smiled over it, cried over it, and talked of the writer, until, if Maggie and Bessie had doubted the fact before, they must then have been quite convinced that no other children ever possessed such a wonderful uncle as this Uncle Ruthven of theirs. When he would come was not quite certain,--perhaps in two months, perhaps not in three or four, while he might be here by Christmas or even sooner. And now came faithful old nurse to hear the good news and to have her share in the general family joy at the return of her first nursling, her beloved "Master Ruthven." "And will your Aunt Patty be here when he comes, my dear lady?" she asked. "I think not," said Mrs. Bradford, at which mammy looked well pleased, though she said no more; but Maggie and Bessie understood the look quite well. Mrs. Bradford had intended by and by to talk to her children of Mrs. Lawrence and to tell them that she was rather odd and different from most of the people to whom they were accustomed, but that they must be patient and bear with her if she was sometimes a little provoking and cross. But now she found that they already knew quite too much, and she was greatly disturbed when she thought that it would be of little use to try and make them feel kindly towards the old lady. But the mischief had spread even farther than she had imagined. That afternoon Maggie and Bessie with little Franky were all in their mamma's room, seated side by side upon the floor, amusing themselves with a picture-book. This book belonged to Harry, who had made it himself by taking the cuts from magazines and papers and putting them in a large blank book. It was thought by all the children to be something very fine, and now Maggie sat with it upon her lap while she turned over the leaves, explaining such pictures as she knew, and inventing meanings and stories for those which were new to her. Presently she came to one which quite puzzled her. On the front of the picture was the figure of a woman with an eagle upon her shoulder, intended to represent America or Liberty; while farther back stood a man with a gun in his hand and a lion at his side, who was meant for John Bull of England. Miss America had her arm raised, and appeared to be scolding Mr. England in the most terrible manner. Maggie could not tell the meaning of it, though she knew that the woman was America, but Franky thought that he understood it very well. Now Master Franky had a good pair of ears, and knew how to make a good use of them. He had, also, some funny ideas of his own, and like many other little children, did not always know when it was best to keep them to himself. He had heard a good deal that morning of some person named Patty, who was said to scold very much; he had also heard of his Uncle Ruthven, and he knew that this famous uncle had hunted lions in far-away Africa. The picture of the angry woman and the lion brought all this to his mind, and now he suddenly exclaimed,-- "Oh, my, my! Dere's a Patty wis her chitten, and she stolds Uncle 'Utven wis his lion." This was too much for Maggie. Pushing the book from her knees, she threw herself back upon the carpet and rolled over, screaming with laughter at the joke of America with her eagle being mistaken for Aunt Patty with a chicken; Bessie joined in, and Franky, thinking he had said something very fine, clapped his hands and stamped his feet upon the floor in great glee. Mrs. Bradford herself could not help smiling, partly at the droll idea, partly at Maggie's amusement; but the next moment she sighed to think how the young minds of her children had been filled with fear and dislike of their father's aunt, and how much trouble all this was likely to make. "Children," said Mr. Bradford, that evening, "who would like to hear a true story?" Papa found he was not likely to want for listeners, as three or four eager voices answered. "Wait a moment, dear," he said, as Bessie came to take her usual place upon his knee, and rising, he unlocked a cabinet secretary which stood at the side of the fireplace in his library. This secretary was an object of great interest to all the children, not because it held papa's private papers,--those were trifles of very little account in their eyes,--but because it contained many a relic and treasure, remembrances of bygone days, or which were in themselves odd and curious. To almost all of these belonged some interesting and true story,--things which had happened when papa was a boy, or even farther back than that time,--tales of travel and adventure in other lands, or perhaps of good and great people. So they were pleased to see their father go to his secretary when he had promised "a true story," knowing that they were sure of a treat. Mr. Bradford came back with a small, rather worn, red morocco case, and as soon as they were all quietly settled, he opened it. It held a miniature of a very lovely lady. Her bright eyes were so sparkling with fun and mischief that they looked as if they would almost dance out of the picture, and the mouth was so smiling and lifelike that it seemed as if the rosy lips must part the next moment with a joyous, ringing laugh. Her hair was knotted loosely back with a ribbon, from which it fell in just such dark, glossy ringlets as clustered about Maggie's neck and shoulders. It was a very beautiful likeness of a very beautiful woman. "Oh, how sweet, how lovely! What a pretty lady!" exclaimed the children, as they looked at it. "Why, she looks like our Maggie!" said Harry. "Only don't flatter yourself you are such a beauty as that, Midget," said Fred, mischievously. "Oh, Fred," said Bessie, "my Maggie is a great deal prettier, and I don't believe that lady was so good as Maggie either." "She may have been very good," said Harry, "but I don't believe she had half as sweet a temper as our Midge. I'll answer for it that those eyes could flash with something besides fun; could they not, papa?" "Was she a relation of yours, papa?" asked Fred. "Yes," answered Mr. Bradford, "and I am going to tell you a story about her." "One summer, a good many years ago, two boys were staying on their uncle's farm in the country. Their father and mother were travelling in Europe, and had left them in this uncle's care while they should be absent. It was a pleasant home, and the boys, accustomed to a city life, enjoyed it more than I can tell you. One afternoon, their uncle and aunt went out to visit some friends, giving the boys permission to amuse themselves out of doors as long as they pleased. All the servants about the place, except the old cook, had been allowed to go to a fair which was held in a village two or three miles away, so that the house and farm seemed to be quite deserted. Only one other member of the family was at home, and this was an aunt whom the boys did not love at all, and they were only anxious to keep out of her way." "Papa," said Fred, eagerly, "what were the names of these boys and their aunt?" "Ahem," said Mr. Bradford, with a twinkle in his eye, as he saw Fred's knowing look. "Well, I will call the oldest boy by my own name, Henry, and the youngest we will call Aleck." "Oh," said Fred, "and the aunt's name was, I suppose--" "Henrietta," said his father, quickly; "and if you have any remarks to make, Fred, please keep them until my story is done." "Very well, sir," said Fred, with another roguish look at Harry, and his father went on. "Henry was a strong, healthy boy, who had never known a day's sickness; but Aleck was a weak, delicate, nervous little fellow, who could bear no excitement nor fatigue. Different as they were, however, the affection between them was very great. Gentle little Aleck looked up to his elder and stronger brother with a love and confidence which were beautiful to see, while the chief purpose of Henry's life at this time was to fulfil the charge which his mother had given him to care for Aleck, and keep him as far as he could from all trouble and harm, looking upon it as a sacred trust. "There was a large old barn standing at some distance from the house, used only for the storing of hay; and as they found the sun too warm for play in the open air, Henry proposed they should go there and make some boats which later they might sail in the brook. Aleck was ready enough, and they were soon comfortably settled in the hayloft with their knives and bits of wood. But while they were happily working away, and just as Henry was in the midst of some marvellous story, they heard a voice calling them. "'Oh, dear,' said little Aleck, 'there's Aunt Henrietta! Now she'll make us go in the house, and she'll give me my supper early and send me to bed, though Aunt Mary said I might sit up and have tea with the rest, even if they came home late. Let us hide, Henry.' "No sooner said than done. The knives and chips were whisked out of sight, Aleck hidden beneath the hay. Henry, scrambling into an old corn-bin, covered himself with the corn-husks with which it was half filled, while the voice and its owner came nearer and nearer. "'You'd better take care; she'll hear you,' said Henry, as he heard Aleck's stifled laughter; and the next moment, through a crack in the bin, he saw his aunt's head appearing above the stairs. Any stranger might have wondered why the boys were so much afraid of her. She was a tall, handsome lady, not old, though the hair beneath her widow's cap was white as snow. She stood a moment and cast her sharp, bright eyes around the hayloft; then, satisfied that the boys were not there, went down again, saying quite loud enough for them to hear,-- "'If I find them, I shall send Henry to bed early, too; he's always leading dear little Aleck into mischief. Such nonsense in Mary to tell that sick baby he should sit up until she came home!' "Now it was a great mistake for auntie to say this of Henry. He did many wrong things, but I do not think he ever led his little brother into mischief; on the contrary, his love for Aleck often kept him from harm. So his aunt's words made him very angry, and as soon as he and Aleck had come out of their hiding-places, he said many things he should not have said, setting a bad example to Aleck, who was also displeased at being called 'a sick baby.' "'Let's shut ourselves up in Dan's cubby-hole,' said Henry; 'she'll never think of looking for us there, if she comes back.' "Dan's cubby-hole was a small room shut off from the rest of the hayloft, where one of the farm hands kept his tools; and here the boys went, shutting and bolting the door behind them. They worked away for more than an hour, when Aleck asked his brother if he did not smell smoke. "'Not I,' said Henry; 'that little nose of yours is always smelling something, Aleck.' "Aleck laughed, but a few moments after declared again that he really did smell smoke and felt it too. "'They are burning stubble in the fields; it is that you notice,' said Henry. But presently he sprang up, for the smell became stronger, and he saw a little wreath of smoke curling itself beneath the door. 'There is something wrong,' he said, and hastily drawing the bolt, he opened the door. What a sight he saw! Heavy clouds of smoke were pouring up the stairway from the lower floor of the barn, while forked flames darted through them, showing that a fierce fire was raging below. Henry sprang forward to see if the stairs were burning; but the flames, fanned by the draught that came through the door he had opened, rushed up with greater fury, and drove him back. How could he save Aleck? The fire was plainly at the foot of the stairs, even if they were not already burning, while those stifling clouds of smoke rolled between them and the doors of the haymow, and were now pouring up through every chink and cranny of the floor on which he stood. Not a moment was to be lost. Henry ran back, and closing the door, said to his terrified brother,-- "'Aleck, you must stay here one moment until I bring the ladder. I can let myself down from this little window, but cannot carry you. Stand close to it, dear boy, and do not be frightened.' "Stretching out from the window, he contrived to reach an old worn-out leader which would scarcely bear his weight, and to slide thence to the ground. Raising the cry of 'Fire!' he ran for the ladder, which should have been in its place on the other side of the barn. It was not there. Frantic with terror, as he saw what headway the fire was making, he rushed from place to place in search of the missing ladder; but all in vain; it could not be found. Meanwhile his cries had brought his aunt and the old cook from the house. Henry ran back beneath the window of the little room where he had left Aleck, and called to him to jump down into his arms, as it was the only chance of safety left. But, alas, there was no answer; the poor little boy had fainted from fright. Back to the door at the foot of the stairs, which were now all in a blaze, through which he was about to rush, when his aunt's hand held him back. "'Live for your father and mother. _I_ have _none_ to live for.' "With these words, she threw her dress over her head, and dashing up the burning stairs, was the next moment lost to sight. Two minutes later, her voice was heard at the window. In her arms she held the senseless Aleck, and when Henry and the old cook stood beneath, she called to them to catch him in their arms. It was done; Aleck was safe. And then letting herself from the window by her hands, she fell upon the ground beside him scarcely a moment before the flames burst upward through the floor. Aleck was quite unhurt, but his aunt was badly burned on one hand and arm. She insisted, however, upon sitting up and watching him, as he was feverish and ill from fright. Late in the night Henry awoke, and, opening his eyes, saw his aunt kneeling by the side of the bed, and heard her thanking God that he had given her this child's life, beseeching him, oh, so earnestly, that it might be the means of turning his young heart towards her, that there might be some one in the world to love her. Will you wonder if after this Henry felt as if he could never be patient or forbearing enough with this poor unhappy lady?" "But what made her so unhappy, papa, and why were the boys so afraid of her?" asked Maggie. "Well, dear, I must say that it was her violent temper, and her wish to control every one about her, which made her so much feared not only by the boys, but by all who lived with her. But perhaps when I tell you a little more, you will think with me that there was much excuse for her. "She was the only daughter and youngest child in a large family of boys. Her mother died when she was a very little baby, so that she was left to grow up without that tenderest and wisest of all care. Her father and brothers loved her dearly; but I am afraid they indulged and spoiled her too much. She had a warm, generous, loving heart, but she was very passionate, and would sometimes give way to the most violent fits of temper. The poor child had no one to tell her how foolish and sinful this was, or to warn her that she was laying up trouble for herself and her friends, for her father would never suffer her to be contradicted or corrected." "Papa," said Bessie, as her father paused for a moment, "do you mean the story of this passionate child for a lesson to me?" "No, darling," said her father; "for I think my Bessie is learning, with God's help, to control her quick temper so well that we may hope it will not give her much trouble when she is older. It is not for you more than for your brothers and sister. But I have a reason for wishing you all to see that it was more the misfortune than the fault of the little Henrietta that she grew up with an ungoverned will and violent temper. Whatever she wanted was given without any thought for the rights or wishes of others; so it was not strange if she soon came to consider that her will was law and that she must have her own way in all things. Perhaps those who had the care of her did not know the harm they were doing; but certain it is, that this poor child was suffered to grow up into a most self-willed woman." "I am very sorry for her," said Bessie, "'cause she did not have such wise people as mine to tell her what was yight." "Yes, she was much to be pitied. But you must not think that this little girl was always naughty; it was not so by any means. And in spite of the faults which were never checked, she was generally very bright, engaging, and sweet. As she grew older, she became more reasonable, and as every one around her lived only for her pleasure, and she had all she desired, it was not difficult for her to keep her temper under control. It is easy to be good when one is happy. "This picture, which shows you how very lovely she was, was taken for her father about the time of her marriage, and was said to be an excellent likeness. Soon after this, she went to Europe with her husband and father. There she passed several delightful months, travelling from place to place, with these two whom she loved so dearly. "But now trouble, such as she had never dreamed of, came to this poor girl. They were in Switzerland, and one bright, sunny day, when no one thought of a storm, her husband and father went out in a small boat on the Lake of Geneva. There sometimes arises over this lake a terrible north-east wind, which comes up very suddenly and blows with great violence, causing the waves to rise to a height which would be thought almost impossible by one who had not seen it. For some reason Henrietta had not gone with the two gentlemen, but when she knew it was time for them to be coming in, she went down to the shore to meet them. She soon saw the boat skimming along, and could almost distinguish the faces of the two dear ones for whom she was watching, when this terrible wind came sweeping down over the water. She saw them as they struggled against it, trying with all their strength to reach the shore; but in vain. Wave after wave rolled into the little boat, and before many minutes it sank. Henrietta stood upon the shore, and as she stretched out her helpless hands toward them, saw her husband and father drown. Do you wonder that the sight drove her frantic? That those who stood beside her could scarcely prevent her from throwing herself into those waters which covered all she loved best? Then came a long and terrible illness, during which that dark hair changed to snowy white." "Papa," said Bessie, whose tender little heart could not bear to hear of trouble or distress which she could not comfort,--"papa, I don't like this story; it is too mournful." "I have almost done with this part of it, dear," said her father, "and I tell it to you that you may know how much need this poor woman had that others should be kind and patient with her, and how much excuse there was for her when all this sorrow and trouble made her irritable and impatient. "Her brother came for her and took her home, but not one of her friends could make her happy or contented; for this poor lady did not know where to turn for the best of all comfort, and she had no strength of her own to lean upon. So the faults of temper and disposition, which had been passed over when she was young and happy, now grew worse and worse, making her so irritable and cross, so self-willed and determined, that it was almost impossible to live with her. Then for years she was a great sufferer, and besides all this, other troubles came upon her,--the loss of a great part of her fortune through one whom she had trusted, and various other trials. So by degrees she drove one after another of her friends from her, until she seemed to stand quite alone in the world, and to be, as she said, 'without any one to care for her.'" "Did not Aleck love her after the fire?" asked Bessie. "I think he was very grateful to her, dear, but I am afraid he never became very fond of her. He was a gentle, timid little fellow, and though his aunt was never harsh to him, it used to frighten him to see her severity with other people." "I'd have loved her, even if she was cross," said Maggie, looking again at the picture. "I'd have been so good to her that she couldn't be unkind to me, and if she had scolded me a little, I wouldn't have minded, because I'd have been so sorry for her." "Oh, Midget," said Harry, "you would have been frightened out of your wits at her first cross word." "No, I wouldn't, Harry; and I would try to be patient, even if she scolded me like--like Aunt Patty." "And what if she was Aunt Patty?" said Fred. "But then she wasn't, you know." "But she was," said papa, smiling. Maggie and Bessie opened their eyes very wide at this astonishing news. "You said her name was Henrietta, papa," said Maggie. "Aunt Patty's name is also Henrietta," replied Mr. Bradford, "and when she was young, she was generally called so." "And Henry was this Henry, our own papa," said Fred, laying his hand on his father's shoulder. "And Aleck was Uncle Alexander, who died so long ago, before any of us were born. I guessed it at the beginning." "Well, now," said Mr. Bradford, "if Aunt Patty comes to us by and by, and is not always as gentle as she might be, will my little children remember how much she has had to try her, and how much there is in her which is really good and unselfish?" The boys promised readily enough, and Bessie said doubtfully that she would try, but when papa turned to Maggie, she looked as shy and frightened as if Aunt Patty herself had asked the question. "What is my rosebud afraid of?" said Mr. Bradford. "Papa," said Maggie, "I'm so sorry for that pretty lady, but I can't be sorry for Aunt Patty,--and oh, papa, I--I--do wish--Aunt Patty wasn't"--and poor Maggie broke down in a desperate fit of crying. Mr. Bradford feared that his story had been almost in vain so far as his little girls were concerned, and indeed it was so. They could not make the pretty lady in the picture, the poor young wife whose husband and father had been drowned before her very eyes, or the brave, generous woman who had saved little Aleck, one and the same with the dreaded Aunt Patty. The mischief which words had done words could not so easily undo. [Illustration: decoration, end of chap. 4] [Illustration: Title decoration, chap. 5] V. _LIGHT THROUGH THE CLOUDS._ Christmas with all its pleasures had come and gone, enjoyed perhaps as much by the policeman's children as it was by the little Bradfords in their wealthier home. For though the former had not the means of the latter with which to make merry, they had contented spirits and grateful hearts, and these go far to make people happy. Their tall Christmas-tree and beautiful greens were not more splendid in the eyes of Maggie and Bessie than were the scanty wreath and two foot high cedar branch, which a good-natured market-woman had given Mrs. Granby, were in those of little Jennie Richards. To be sure, the apology for a tree was not dressed with glittering balls, rich bonbons, or rows of tapers; its branches bore no expensive toys, rare books, or lovely pictures; but the owner and the little ones for whose delight she dressed it, were quite satisfied, and only pitied those who had no tree at all. Had not good Mrs. Granby made the most extraordinary flowers of red flannel and gilt paper,--flowers whose likeness never grew in gardens or greenhouses of any known land; had she not baked sugar cakes which were intended to represent men and women, pigs, horses, and cows? Were not the branches looped with gay ribbons? Did they not bear rosy-cheeked apples, an orange for each child, some cheap but much prized toys, and, better than all, several useful and greatly needed articles, which had been the gift of Mrs. Bradford? What did it matter if one could scarcely tell the pigs from the men? Perhaps you may like to know how Mrs. Bradford became interested in the policeman's family. One morning, a day or two before Christmas, Maggie and Bessie were playing baby-house in their own little room, when they heard a knock at mamma's door. Maggie ran to open it. There stood a woman who looked rather poor, but neat and respectable. Maggie was a little startled by the unexpected sight of a strange face, and stood holding the door without speaking. "Your ma sent me up here," said the woman. "She is busy below, and she told me to come up and wait for her here." So Maggie allowed the stranger to pass her, and she took a chair which stood near the door. Maggie saw that she looked very cold, but had not the courage to ask her to come nearer the fire. After a moment, the woman smiled pleasantly. Maggie did not return the smile, though she looked as if she had half a mind to do so; but she did not like to see the woman looking so uncomfortable, and pushing a chair close to the fire, she said, "There." The woman did not move; perhaps she, too, felt a little shy in a strange place. Maggie was rather vexed that she did not understand her without more words, but summing up all her courage, she said,-- "I think if you took this seat by the fire, you'd be warmer." The woman thanked her, and took the chair, looking quite pleased. "Are you the little lady who was lost a couple of months ago?" she asked. "No," said Maggie, at once interested, "that was our Bessie; but we found her again." "Oh, yes, I know that. I heard all about her from Policeman Richards, who looked after her when she was up to the station." "Bessie, Bessie!" called Maggie, "here's a woman that knows your station policeman. Come and look at her." At this, Bessie came running from the inner room. "Well," said the woman, laughing heartily, "it is nice to be looked at for the sake of one's friends when one is not much to look at for one's self." "I think you're pretty much to look at," said Bessie. "I think you have a nice, pleasant face. How is my policeman?" "He's well," said the stranger. "And so you call him your policeman; do you? Well, I shall just tell him that; I've a notion it will tickle him a bit." "He's one of my policemen," said Bessie. "I have three,--one who helps us over the crossing; the one who found me when I came lost; and the one who was so good to me in his station-house." "And that is my friend, Sergeant Richards. Well, he's a mighty nice fellow." "Yes, he is," said Bessie, "and I'd like to see him again. Are you his wife, ma'am?" "Bless you, no!" said the woman; "I am nothing but Mrs. Granby, who lives in his house. Your grandmother, Mrs. Stanton, sent me to your ma, who, she said, had work to give me. His poor wife, she can scarce creep about the room, let alone walking this far. Not but that she's better than she was a spell back, and she'd be spryer yet, I think, but for the trouble that's weighin' on her all the time, and hinders her getting well." "Does she have a great deal of trouble?" asked Maggie, who by this time felt quite sociable. "Doesn't she though!" answered Mrs. Granby. "Trouble enough; and she's awful bad herself with the rheumatics, and a sickly baby, and a blind boy, and debts to pay, and that scandal of a doctor, and no way of laying up much; for the children must be fed and warmed, bless their hearts! and a police-sergeant's pay ain't no great; yes, yes, honey, lots of trouble and no help for it as I see. Not that I tell them so; I just try to keep up their hearts." "Why don't they tell Jesus about their troubles, and ask him to help them?" asked Bessie, gently. "So they do," answered Mrs. Granby; "but he hasn't seen best to send them help yet. I suppose he'll just take his own time and his own way to do it; at least, that's what Sergeant Richards says. He'll trust the Lord, and wait on him, he says; but it's sore waiting sometimes. Maybe all this trouble is sent to try his faith, and I can say it don't fail him, so far as I can see. But, honey, I guess you sometimes pray yourself; so to-night, when you go to bed, do you say a bit of a prayer for your friend, Sergeant Richards. I believe a heap in the prayers of the young and innocent; and you just ask the Lord to help him out of this trouble. Maybe he'll hear you; anyway, it won't do no harm; prayer never hurt nobody." "Oh, mamma!" exclaimed Bessie, as her mother just then entered the room, "what do you think? This very nice woman lives with my station policeman, who was so kind to me, and his name is Yichards, and he has a lame baby and a sick wife and a blind boy, and no doctor to pay, and the children must be fed, and a great deal of trouble, and she don't get well because of it, and he does have trust in the Lord, but he hasn't helped him yet--" "And my Bessie's tongue has run away with her ideas," said mamma, laughing. "What is all this about, little one?" "About Bessie's policeman," said Maggie, almost as eager as her sister. "Let this woman tell you. She knows him very well." "I beg pardon, ma'am," said Mrs. Granby. "I don't know but it was my tongue ran away with me, and I can't say it's not apt to do so; but when your little daughter was lost, it was my friend, Sergeant Richards, that saw to her when she was up to the station, and he's talked a deal about her, for he was mighty taken with her." "Bessie told me how kind he was to her," said Mrs. Bradford. "Yes, ma'am; there isn't a living thing that he wouldn't be kind to, and it does pass me to know what folks like him are so afflicted for. However, it's the Lord's work, and I've no call to question his doings. But the little ladies were just asking me about Sergeant Richards, ma'am, and so I came to tell them what a peck of troubles he was in." "What are they, if you are at liberty to speak of them?" asked Mrs. Bradford. "Any one who has been kind to my children has a special claim on me." So Mrs. Granby told the story, not at all with the idea of asking aid for her friends,--that she knew the good policeman and his wife would not like,--but, as she afterwards told them, because she could not help it. "The dear lady looked so sweet, and spoke so sweet, now and then asking a question, not prying like, but as if she took a real interest, not listening as if it were a duty or because she was ashamed to interrupt. And she wasn't of the kind to tell you there was others worse off than you, or that your troubles might be greater than they were. If there's a thing that aggravates me, it's that," continued Mrs. Granby. "I know I ought to be thankful, and so I mostly am, that I and my friends ain't no worse off than we are, and I know it's no good to be frettin' and worryin' about your trials, and settin' yourself against the Lord's will; but I do say if I fall down and break my arm, there ain't a grain of comfort in hearin' that my next-door neighbor has broken both his. Quite contrary; I think mine pains worse for thinkin' how his must hurt him. And now that I can't do the fine work I used to, it don't make it no easier for me to get my livin' to have it said, as a lady did to me this morning, that it would be far worse if I was blind. So it would, I don't gainsay that, but it don't help my seeing, to have it thrown up to me by people that has the full use of their eyes. Mrs. Bradford aint none of that sort, though, not she; and the children, bless their hearts, stood listenin' with all their ears, and I'd scarce done when the little one broke out with,-- "'Oh, do help them! Mamma, couldn't you help them?' "But I could see the mother was a bit backward about offerin' help, thinkin', I s'pose, that you and Mary wasn't used to charity, and not knowin' how you'd take it; so she puts it on the plea of its bein' Christmas time." And here Mrs. Granby paused, having at last talked herself out of breath. All this was true. Mrs. Bradford had felt rather delicate about offering assistance to the policeman's family, not knowing but that it might give offence. But when she had arranged with Mrs. Granby about the work, she said,-- "Since your friends are so pressed just now, I suppose they have not been able to make much preparation for Christmas." "Precious little, ma'am," answered Mrs. Granby; "for Sergeant Richards don't think it right to spend a penny he can help when he's owin' others. But we couldn't let the children quite forget it was Christmas, so I'm just goin' to make them a few cakes, and get up some small trifles that will please them. I'd have done more, only this last week, when I hadn't much work, I was fixin' up some of the children's clothes, for Mrs. Richards, poor soul, can't set a stitch with her cramped fingers, and there was a good deal of lettin' out and patchin' to be done." "And how are the children off for clothes?" asked Mrs. Bradford. "Pretty tolerable, the boys, ma'am, for I've just made Willie a suit out of an old uniform of his father's, and the little ones' clothes get handed down from one to another, though they don't look too fine neither. But Jennie, poor child, has taken a start to grow these last few months, and I couldn't fix a thing for her she wore last winter. So she's wearin' her summer calicoes yet, and even them are very short as to the skirts, and squeezed as to the waists, which ain't good for a growin' child." "No," said Mrs. Bradford, smiling. "I have here a couple of merino dresses of Maggie's, and a warm sack, which she has outgrown. They are too good to give to any one who would not take care of them, and I laid them aside until I should find some one to whom they would be of use. Do you think Mrs. Richards would be hurt if I offered them to her? They will at least save some stitches." "Indeed, ma'am," said Mrs. Granby, her eyes dancing, "you needn't be afraid; she'll be only too glad and thankful, and it was only this mornin' she was frettin' about Jennie's dress. She ain't quite as cheery as her husband, poor soul; 'taint to be expected she should be, and she always had a pride in Jennie's looks, but there didn't seem no way to get a new thing for one of the children this winter." "And here is a cap of Franky's, and some little flannel shirts, which I will roll up in the bundle," said Mrs. Bradford. "They may, also, be of use." Away rushed Maggie when she heard this to her own room, coming back with a china dog and a small doll, which she thrust into Mrs. Granby's hands, begging her to take them to Jennie, but to be sure not to give them to her before Christmas morning. "What shall we do for the blind boy?" asked Bessie. "We want to make him happy." "Perhaps he would like a book," said mamma. "But he couldn't see to read it, mamma." "Oh, I dare say some one would read it to him," said Mrs. Bradford. "Does he not like that?" she asked of Mrs. Granby. "Yes, ma'am. His mother reads to him mostly all the time when the baby is quiet. It's about all she can do, and it's his greatest pleasure, dear boy, to have her read out the books he and Jennie get at Sunday-school every Sunday." "Can he go to Sunday-school when he's blind?" asked Maggie. "Why, yes, honey. Every Sunday mornin' there's a big boy that goes to the same school stops for Willie and Jennie, and totes them with him; and if their father or me can't go to church, he just totes them back after service. And when Willie comes in with his libr'y book and his 'Child's Paper' and Scripture text, he's as rich as a king, and a heap more contented, I guess." While Mrs. Granby was talking, Mrs. Bradford was looking over a parcel which contained some new books, and now she gave her one for blind Willie's Christmas gift, saying she hoped things would be ordered so that before another Christmas he would be able to see. There is no need to tell Mrs. Granby's delight, or the thanks which she poured out. If Mrs. Bradford had given her a most magnificent present for herself, it would not have pleased her half so much as did these trifles for the policeman's children. That evening, after the little ones were all in bed, Mrs. Granby told Mr. Richards and his wife of all that had happened at Mrs. Bradford's. Mrs. Richards was by no means too proud to accept the lady's kindness; so pleased was she to think that she should see Jennie warm and neat once more that she had no room in her heart for anything but gratitude. Mrs. Granby was just putting away the treasures she had been showing, when there came a rap from the old-fashioned knocker on the front-door. "Sit you still, Sergeant Richards," she said. "I'm on my feet, and I'll just open the door." Which she did, and saw a tall gentleman standing there, who asked if Mr. Richards was in. "He is, sir," she answered, and then saying to herself, "I hope he's got special business for him that he'll pay him well for," threw open the door of the sitting-room, and asked the gentleman in. But the police-sergeant had already done the "special business," for which the gentleman came to make return. Mr. Richards knew him by sight, though he had never spoken to him. "Mr. Bradford, I believe, sir?" he said, coming forward. "You know me then?" said the gentleman. "Yes, sir," answered Richards, placing a chair for his visitor. "You see I know many as don't know me. Can I be of any service to you, sir?" "I came to have a talk with you, if you are at leisure," said Mr. Bradford. "Perhaps you may think I am taking a liberty, but my wife heard to-day, through your friend, that you were in some trouble with a doctor who has attended your family, and that you have been disappointed in obtaining the services of Mr. Ray, who has gone to Europe. I am a lawyer, you know, and if you do not object to consider me as a friend in his place, perhaps you will let me know what your difficulties are, and I may be able to help you." The policeman looked gratefully into the frank, noble face before him. "Thank you, sir," he said; "you are very good, and this is not the first time that I have heard of your kindness to those in trouble. It's rather a long story, that of our difficulties, but if it won't tire you, I'll be thankful to tell it." He began far back, telling how they had done well, and been very comfortable, having even a little laid by, until about a year since, when Mrs. Richards' father and mother, who lived with them, had died within a month of each other. "And I couldn't bear, sir," he said, "that the old folks shouldn't have a decent burying. So that used up what we had put by for a rainy day. Maybe I was foolish, but you see they were Mary's people, and we had feeling about it. But sure enough, no sooner was the money gone than the rainy day came, and stormy enough it has been ever since." He went on, telling how sickness had come, one thing following another; how Dr. Schwitz had promised that his charges should be small, but how he never would give in his bill, the policeman and his wife thinking all the while that it was kindness which kept him from doing so; how it had taken every cent of his salary to pay the other expenses of illness, and keep the family barely warmed and fed; of the disappointment of their hopes for Willie for, at least, some time to come; and finally of the terrible bill which Dr. Schwitz had sent through revenge, the police-sergeant thought, and upon the prompt payment of which he was now insisting. "He's hard on me, sir, after all his fair promises," said Richards, as he handed Mr. Bradford the bill; "and you see he has me, for I made no agreement with him, and I don't know as I can rightly say that the law would not allow it to him; so, for that reason, I don't dare to dispute it. But I thought Mr. Ray might be able to make some arrangement with him, and I _can't_ pay it all at once, nor this long time yet, that's settled. If he would wait, I might clear it off in a year or two though how then we are to get bread to put into the children's mouths I don't see. And there is the rent to pay, you know. We have tucked the children and Mrs. Granby all into one room, and let out the other two up-stairs; so that's a little help. And Mary was talking of selling that mahogany table and bookcase that are as dear to her as if they were gold, for they were her mother's; but they won't fetch nothing worth speaking of. The English colonel that came after your little daughter, when she was up at the station that day, was so good as to hand me a ten dollar bill, and we laid that by for a beginning; but think what a drop in the bucket that is, and it's precious little that we've added to it. I don't see my way out of this; that's just a fact, sir, and my only hope is that the Lord knows all." "You say Dr. Schwitz tried to bribe you by saying he would send in no bill, if you allowed his nephew to escape?" said Mr. Bradford. "Yes, sir, and I suppose I might use that for a handle against him; but I don't like to, for I can't say but that the man was real kind to me and mine before that. If he presses me too hard, I may have to; but I can't bear to do it." "Will you put the matter in my hands, and let me see this Dr. Schwitz?" asked Mr. Bradford. Richards was only too thankful, and after asking a little more about blind Willie, the gentleman took his leave. There is no need to tell what he said to Dr. Schwitz, but a few days after he saw the police-sergeant again, and gave him a new bill, which was just half as much as the former one, with the promise that the doctor would wait and allow Richards to pay it by degrees, on condition that it was done within the year. This, by great pinching and saving, the policeman thought he would be able to do. The good gentleman did not tell that it was only by paying part of the sum himself that he had been able to make this arrangement. "I don't know what claim I have upon you for such kindness, sir," said Richards, "but if you knew what a load you have taken from me, I am sure you would feel repaid." "I am repaid, more than repaid," said Mr. Bradford, with a smile; "for I feel that I am only paying a debt." The policeman looked surprised. "You were very kind to my little girl when she was in trouble," said the gentleman. "Oh, that, sir? Who could help it? And that was a very tiny seed to bring forth such a harvest as this." "It was 'bread cast upon the waters,'" said Mr. Bradford, "and to those who give in the Lord's name, he gives again 'good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over.'" But the policeman had not even yet gathered in the whole of his harvest. [Illustration: Title decoration, chap. 6] VI. _UNCLE RUTHVEN._ Christmas brought no Uncle Ruthven, but Christmas week brought Miss Elizabeth Rush, the sweet "Aunt Bessie" whom all the children loved so dearly. And it was no wonder they were fond of her, for she was almost as gentle and patient with them as mamma herself; and, like her brother, the colonel, had a most wonderful gift of story-telling, which she was always ready to put in use for them. Maggie and Bessie were more than ever sure that there were never such delightful people as their own, or two such happy children as themselves. "I think we're the completest family that ever lived," said Maggie, looking around the room with great satisfaction, one evening when Colonel and Mrs. Rush were present. "Yes," said Bessie; "I wonder somebody don't write a book about us." "And call it 'The Happy Family,'" said Fred, mischievously, "after those celebrated bears and dogs and cats and mice who live together in the most peaceable manner so long as they have no teeth and claws, but who immediately fall to and eat one another up as soon as these are allowed to grow." "If there is a bear among us, it must be yourself, sir," said the colonel, playfully pinching Fred's ear. "I don't know," said Fred, rubbing the ear; "judging from your claws, I should say you were playing that character, colonel; while I shall have to take that of the unlucky puppy who has fallen into your clutches." "I am glad you understand yourself so well, any way," returned Colonel Rush, drily. Fred and the colonel were very fond of joking and sparring in this fashion, but Bessie always looked very sober while it was going on; for she could not bear anything that sounded like disputing, even in play; and perhaps she was about right. But all this had put a new idea into that busy little brain of Maggie's. "Bessie," she said, the next morning, "I have a secret to tell you, and you must not tell any one else." "Not mamma?" asked Bessie. "No, we'll tell mamma we have a secret, and we'll let her know by and by; but I want her to be very much surprised as well as the rest of the people. Bessie, I'm going to write a book, and you may help me, if you like." "Oh!" said Bessie. "And what will it be about, Maggie?" "About ourselves. You put it in my head to do it, Bessie. But then I sha'n't put in our real names, 'cause I don't want people to know it is us. I made up a name last night. I shall call my people the Happys." "And shall you call the book 'The Happy Family'?" asked Bessie. "No; I think we will call it 'The Complete Family,'" said Maggie. "That sounds nicer and more booky; don't you think so?" "Yes," said Bessie, looking at her sister with great admiration. "And when are you going to begin it?" "To-day," said Maggie. "I'll ask mamma for some paper, and I'll write some every day till it's done; and then I'll ask papa to take it to the bookmaker; and when the book is made, we'll sell it, and give the money to the poor. I'll tell you what, Bessie, if Policeman Richards' blind boy is not cured by then, we'll give it to him to pay his doctor." "You dear Maggie!" said Bessie. "Will you yite a piece that I make up about yourself?" "I don't know," said Maggie; "I'll see what you say. I wouldn't like people to know it was me." The book was begun that very day, but it had gone little farther than the title and chapter first, before they found they should be obliged to take mamma into the secret at once. There were so many long words which they wished to use, but which they did not know how to spell, that they saw they would have to be running to her all the time. To their great delight, mamma gave Maggie a new copy-book to write in, and they began again. As this was a stormy day, they could not go out, so they were busy a long while over their book. When, at last, Maggie's fingers were tired, and it was put away, it contained this satisfactory beginning:-- "THE COMPLETE FAMILY. "A TALE OF HISTORY. "CHAPTER I. "Once upon a time, there lived a family named Happy; only that was not their real name, and you wish you had known them, and they are alive yet, because none of them have died. This was the most interesting and happiest family that ever lived. And God was so very good to them that they ought to have been the best family; but they were not except only the father and mother; and sometimes they were naughty, but 'most always afterwards they repented, so God forgave them. "This family were very much acquainted with some very great friends of theirs, and the colonel was very brave, and his leg was cut off; but now he is going to get a new leg, only it is a make believe." This was all that was done the first day; and that evening a very wonderful and delightful thing occurred, which Maggie thought would make her book more interesting than ever. There had been quite a family party at dinner, for it was Aunt Bessie's birthday, and the colonel and Mrs. Rush were always considered as belonging to the family now. Besides these, there were grandmamma and Aunt Annie, Grandpapa Duncan, Uncle John, and Aunt Helen, all assembled to do honor to Aunt Bessie. Dinner was over, and all, from grandpapa to baby, were gathered in the parlor, when there came a quick, hard pull at the door-bell. Two moments later, the parlor door was thrown open, and there stood a tall, broad figure in a great fur overcoat, which, as well as his long, curly beard, was thickly powdered with snow. At the first glance, he looked, except in size, not unlike the figure which a few weeks since had crowned their Christmas-tree; and in the moment of astonished silence which followed, Franky, throwing back his head and clapping his hands, shouted, "Santy Caus, Santy Caus!" But it was no Santa Claus, and in spite of the muffling furs and the heavy beard, in spite of all the changes which ten long years of absence had made, the mother's heart, and the mother's eye knew her son, and rising from her seat with a low cry of joy, Mrs. Stanton stretched her hands towards the stranger, exclaiming, "My boy! Ruthven, my boy!" and the next moment she was sobbing in his arms. Then his sisters were clinging about him, and afterwards followed such a kissing and hand-shaking! It was an evening of great joy and excitement, and although it was long past the usual time when Maggie and Bessie went to bed, they could not go to sleep. At another time nurse would have ordered them to shut their eyes and not speak another word; but to-night she seemed to think it quite right and natural that they should be so very wide awake, and not only gave them an extra amount of petting and kissing, but told them stories of Uncle Ruthven's pranks when he was a boy, and of his wonderful sayings and doings, till mamma, coming up and finding this going on, was half inclined to find fault with the old woman herself. Nurse had quite forgotten that, in those days, she told Uncle Ruthven, as she now told Fred, that he was "the plague of her life," and that he "worried her heart out." Perhaps she did not really mean it with the one more than with the other. [Illustration: Bessie's Friends. p. 124.] "And to think of him," she said, wiping the tears of joy from her eyes,--"to think of him asking for his old mammy 'most before he had done with his greetings to the gentlefolks! And him putting his arm about me and giving me a kiss as hearty as he used when he was a boy; and him been all over the world seein' all sorts of sights and doin's. The Lord bless him! He's got just the same noble, loving heart, if he has got all that hair about his face." Uncle Ruthven's tremendous beard was a subject of great astonishment to all the children. Fred saucily asked him if he had come home to set up an upholsterer's shop, knowing he could himself furnish plenty of stuffing for mattresses and sofas. To which his uncle replied that when he did have his beard cut, it should be to furnish a rope to bind Fred's hands and feet with. Maggie was very eager to write down the account of Uncle Ruthven's home-coming in her history of "The Complete Family," and as mamma's time was more taken up than usual just now, she could not run to her so often for help in her spelling. So the next two days a few mistakes went down, and the story ran after this fashion:-- "The Happys had a very happy thing happen to them witch delited them very much. They had a travelling uncle who came home to them at last; but he staid away ten years and did not come home even to see his mother, and I think he ort to don't you? But now he is come and has brought so many trunks and boxes with such lots and lots of things and kurositys in them that he is 'most like a Norz' Ark only better, and his gret coat and cap are made of the bears' skins he shot and he tells us about the tigers and lions and I don't like it and Fred and Harry do and Bessie don't too. And he is so nice and he brought presents for every boddy and nurse a shawl that she's going to keep in her will till she dies for Harry's wife, and he has not any and says he won't because Uncle Ruthven has no wife. That is all to-day my fingers are krampd." Strange to say, Maggie was at home with the new uncle much sooner than Bessie. Little Bessie was not quite sure that she altogether approved of Uncle Ruthven, or that it was quite proper for this stranger to come walking into the house and up-stairs at all hours of the day, kissing mamma, teasing nurse, and playing and joking with the children, just as if he had been at home there all his life. Neither would she romp with him as the other children did, looking gravely on from some quiet corner at their merry frolics, as if she half-disapproved of it all. So Uncle Ruthven nicknamed her the "Princess," and always called her "your highness" and "your grace," at which Bessie did not know whether to be pleased or displeased. She even looked half-doubtfully at the wonderful stories he told, though she never lost a chance of hearing one. Uncle Ruthven was very fond of children, though he was not much accustomed to them, and he greatly enjoyed having them with him, telling Mrs. Bradford that he did not know which he liked best,--Bessie with her dainty, quiet, ladylike little ways, or Maggie with her half-shy, half-roguish manner, and love of fun and mischief. Maggie and all the boys were half wild about him, and as for baby, if she could have spoken, she would have said that never was there such an uncle for jumping and tossing. The moment she heard his voice, her hands and feet began to dance, and took no rest till he had her in his arms; while mamma sometimes feared the soft little head and the ceiling might come to too close an acquaintance. "Princess," said Mr. Stanton, one evening, when he had been home about a fortnight, catching up Bessie, as she ran past him, and seating her upon the table, "what is that name your highness calls me?" "I don't call you anything but Uncle Yuthven," answered Bessie, gravely. "That is it," said her uncle. "What becomes of all your r's? Say Ruthven." "Er--er--er--Yuthven," said Bessie, trying very hard at the r. Mr. Stanton shook his head and laughed. "I can talk plainer than I used to," said Bessie. "I used to call Aunt Bessie's name very crooked, but I don't now." "What did you use to call it?" "I used to say _Libasus_; but now I can say it plain, _Lisabus_." "A vast improvement, certainly," said Mr. Stanton, "but you can't manage the R's yet, hey? Well, they will come one of these days, I suppose." "They'd better," said Fred, who was hanging over his uncle's shoulder, "or it will be a nice thing when she is a young lady for her to go turning all her R's into Y's. People will call her crooked-tongued Miss Bradford." "You don't make a very pleasant prospect for me to be in," said Bessie, looking from brother to uncle with grave displeasure, "and if a little boy like you, Fred, says that to me when I am a big lady, I shall say, 'My dear, you are very impertinent.'" "And quite right, too," said Uncle Ruthven. "If all the little boys do not treat you with proper respect, Princess, just bring them to me, and I will teach them good manners." Bessie made no answer, for she felt rather angry, and, fearing she might say something naughty, she wisely held her tongue; and slipping from her uncle's hold, she slid to his knee, and from that to the floor, running away to Aunt Bessie for refuge. After the children had gone to bed, Uncle Ruthven went up to Mrs. Bradford's room, that he might have a quiet talk with this his favorite sister. Mrs. Bradford was rocking her baby to sleep, which business was rather a serious one, for not the least talking or moving about could go on in the room but this very young lady must have a share in it. The long lashes were just drooping upon the round, dimpled cheek when Uncle Ruthven's step was heard. "Ah-oo-oo," said the little wide-awake, starting up with a crow of welcome to the playfellow she liked so well. Mamma laid the little head down again, and held up a warning finger to Uncle Ruthven, who stole softly to a corner, where he was out of Miss Baby's sight and hearing, to wait till she should be fairly off to dreamland. This brought him near the door of Maggie's and Bessie's room, where, without intending it, he heard them talking. Not hearing his voice, they thought he had gone away again, and presently Maggie said in a low tone, that she might not rouse baby, "Bessie, have you objections to Uncle Ruthven?" "Yes," answered Bessie, slowly,--"yes, Maggie, I think I have. I try not to, but I'm 'fraid I do have a little objections to him." "But why?" asked Maggie. "_I_ think he is lovely." "I don't know," said Bessie. "But, Maggie, don't you think he makes pretty intimate?" "Why, yes," said Maggie; "but then he's our uncle, you know. I guess he has a right if he has a mind to." "But he makes more intimate than Uncle John, and we've known him ever so long, and Uncle Yuthven only a little while. Why, Maggie, he kisses mamma!" "Well, he is her own brother," said Maggie, "and Uncle John is only her step-brother,--no, that's not it--her brother-of-law--that's it." "What does that mean, Maggie?" "It means when somebody goes and marries your sister. If somebody married me, he'd be your brother-of-law." "He sha'n't!" said Bessie, quite excited. "He's a horrid old thing, and he sha'n't do it!" "Who sha'n't do what?" asked Maggie, rather puzzled. "That person, that brother-of-law; he sha'n't marry you; you are my own Maggie." "Well, he needn't if you don't want him to," said Maggie, quite as well contented to settle it one way as the other. "And you needn't feel so bad, and sit up in bed about it, Bessie, 'cause you'll take cold, and mamma forbid it." "So she did," said Bessie, lying down again with a sigh. "Maggie, I'm 'fraid I'm naughty to-night. I forgot what mamma told me, and I was naughty to Uncle Yuthven." "What did you say?" "I didn't _say_ anything, but I felt very passionate, and I thought naughty things,--how I'd like to give him a good slap when he teased me, and, Maggie, for a moment I 'most thought I wished he did not come home. I am going to tell him I'm sorry, the next time he comes." "I wouldn't," said Maggie, who was never as ready as Bessie to acknowledge that she had been wrong; "not if I didn't do or say anything." "I would," said Bessie. "It is naughty to feel so; and you know there's no 'scuse for me to be passionate like there was for Aunt Patty, 'cause my people are so very wise, and teach me better. And it grieves Jesus when we feel naughty, and he saw my naughty heart to-night." "Then ask him to forgive you," said Maggie. "So I did; but I think he'll know I want to be better if I ask Uncle Yuthven too." "Well," said Maggie, "maybe he will. But, Bessie, why do you speak about yourself as if you are like Aunt Patty. You're not a bit like her." "But I might be, if I wasn't teached better," said Bessie, "and if Jesus didn't help me. Poor Aunt Patty! Papa said she was to be pitied." "I sha'n't pity her, I know," said Maggie. "But, Maggie, mamma said we ought to try and feel kind to her, and to be patient and good to her when she came here, 'cause she's getting very old, and there's nobody to love her, or take care of her. I am 'fraid of her, but I am sorry for her." "If she has nobody to take care of her, let her go to the Orphan Asylum," said Maggie. "I just hope papa will send her there, 'cause we don't want to be bothered with her." "And don't you feel a bit sorry for her, Maggie?" "No, not a bit; and I'm not going to, either. She is quite a disgrace to herself, and so she'd better stay at her house up in the mountains." Maggie, in her turn, was growing quite excited, as she always did when she talked or thought of Aunt Patty. It was some time since the children had done either, for Christmas, Aunt Bessie, and Uncle Ruthven had given them so much else to think about, that they had almost forgotten there was such a person. And now mamma, who had laid baby in her cradle, coming in to stop the talking, was sorry to hear her little girls speaking on the old, disagreeable subject. She told them they must be still, and go to sleep. The first command was obeyed at once, but Maggie did not find the second quite so easy; and she lay awake for some time imagining all kinds of possible and impossible quarrels with Aunt Patty, and inventing a chapter about her for "The Complete Family." While little Maggie was thinking thus of Aunt Patty, the old lady, in her far-away home, was wondering how she might best contrive to gain the hearts of her young nieces and nephews, for she was not the same woman she had been four years ago. During the last few months a new knowledge and a new life had come to her, making her wish to live in peace and love with every one. But she did not know how to set about this; for the poor lady had grown old in the indulgence of a bad temper, a proud spirit, and a habit of desiring to rule all about her; and now it was not easy to change all this. She had humbled herself at the feet of her Lord and Saviour, but it was hard work to do it before her fellow-men. She could not quite resolve to say to those whom she had grieved and offended by her violence and self-will, "I have done wrong, but now I see my sin, and wish, with God's help, to lead a new life." Still, she longed for the love and friendship she had once cast from her, and her lonely heart craved for some care and affection. She well knew that Mr. and Mrs. Bradford would be only too ready to forgive and forget all that was disagreeable in the past, and she also felt that they would do nothing to prejudice the minds of their children against her. She thought she would go to them, and try to be gentle and loving, and so perhaps she should win back their hearts, and gain those of their little ones. But old habit and the old pride were still strong within her, and so, when she wrote to Mr. Bradford to say she was coming to make them a visit, she gave no sign that she was sorry for the past, and would like to make amends. But shortly before the time she had fixed for the visit, something happened which caused her to change her purpose, and she chose to say nothing of her reasons for this, only sending word that she could not come before spring, perhaps not then. Now, again she had altered her plans, and this time she chose to take them all by surprise, and to go to Mr. Bradford's without warning. "Margaret," said Mr. Stanton softly, as his sister came from the bedside of her little girls, and they went to the other side of the room, "what a sensitive conscience your darling little Bessie has! It seems I vexed her to-night, though I had no thought of doing so. I saw she was displeased, but the feeling seemed to pass in a moment. Now I find that she is so penitent for indulging in even a wrong feeling that she cannot rest satisfied without asking pardon, not only of her heavenly Father, but also of me." And he told Mrs. Bradford of all he had heard the children say, with some amusement, as he repeated the conversation about himself. "Yes," said Mrs. Bradford, "my dear little Bessie's quick temper gives her some trouble. I am often touched to see her silent struggles with herself when something tries it, how she forces back each angry word and look, and faithfully asks for the help which she knows will never fail her. But with that tender conscience, and her simple trust in Him who has redeemed her, I believe all the strength she needs will be granted. God only knows how thankful I am that he has thus early led my precious child to see the sin and evil of a passionate and unchecked temper, and so spared her and hers the misery which I have seen it cause to others." Uncle Ruthven came in the next morning, and, as usual, "making intimate," ran up to mamma's room. She was not there; but Maggie and Bessie were, busy over "The Complete Family." But Maggie did not look at all as if she belonged to the Happys just then. She had composed, what she thought, a very interesting chapter about Aunt Patty, and commenced it in this way: "There came to the Happys a very great aflekshun." But when she had written this last word, she had her doubts about the spelling, and carried the book to mamma to see if it were right. Mamma inquired what the affliction was, and finding, as she supposed, that it was Aunt Patty, she told Maggie she did not wish her to write about her. Maggie was very much disappointed, and even pouted a little, and she had not quite recovered when her uncle came in. In his hand he carried a little basket of flowers, which the children supposed was for mamma, and which he stood upon the table. Bessie loved flowers dearly, and in a moment she was hanging over them, and enjoying their sweetness. Uncle Ruthven asked what they were about, and to Bessie's surprise, Maggie took him at once into the secret, telling him all about "The Complete Family" and her present trouble. Uncle Ruthven quite agreed with mamma that it was not wisest and best to write anything unkind of Aunt Patty, and told Maggie of some very pleasant things she might relate, so that presently she was smiling and good-natured again. Then Mr. Stanton took Bessie up in his arms. "Bessie," he said, "did I vex you a little last night?" Bessie colored all over, but looking her uncle steadily in the eyes, answered, "Yes, sir; and I am sorry I felt so naughty." "Nay," said Uncle Ruthven, smiling, "if I teased you, although I did not intend it, I am the one to beg pardon." "But I was pretty mad, uncle, and I felt as if I wanted to be naughty. I think I ought to be sorry." "As you please then, darling; we will forgive one another. And now would you like this little peace-offering from Uncle Ruthven?" and he took up the basket of flowers. "Is that for me?" asked Bessie, her eyes sparkling. "Yes. I thought perhaps I had hurt your feelings last night, and so I brought it to you that you might see _I_ was sorry." "But I could believe you without that." Bessie felt reproached that she had told Maggie she had "objections to Uncle Ruthven," and now she felt as if they had all flown away. "Perhaps you could," said Uncle Ruthven, smiling as he kissed her; "but the flowers are your own to do with as you please. And now you must remember that I am not much accustomed to little girls, and do not always know what they like and what they do not like; so you must take pity on the poor traveller, if he makes a mistake now and then, and believe he always wishes to please you and make you love him as far as he knows how." [Illustration: Title decoration, chap. 7] VII. _AN UNEXPECTED VISITOR._ Uncle Ruthven had brought home with him two servants, the elder of whom was a Swede, and did not interest the children much, being, as Maggie said, such a "very broken Englishman" that they could scarcely understand him. But the other was a little Persian boy about twelve years old, whom a sad, or rather a happy accident, had thrown into Mr. Stanton's hands. Riding one day through the streets of a Persian town, as he turned a corner, this boy ran beneath his horse's feet, was thrown down and badly hurt. Mr. Stanton took him up and had him kindly cared for, and finding that the boy was an orphan, with no one to love him, he went often to see him, and soon became much interested in the grateful, affectionate little fellow; while Hafed learned to love dearly the only face which looked kindly upon him. When the time came for Mr. Stanton to go away, Hafed's grief was terrible to see, and he clung so to this new friend, that the gentleman could not find it in his heart to leave him. It was not difficult to persuade those who had the care of him to give him up; they were only too glad to be rid of the charge. So, at some trouble to himself, Mr. Stanton had brought him away. But if he needed payment, he found it in Hafed's happy face and tireless devotion to himself. He was less of a servant than a pet; but his master did not mean him to grow up in idleness and ignorance, and as soon as he knew a little English, he was to go to school to learn to read and write; but at present he was allowed time to become accustomed to his new home. The children thought him a great curiosity, partly because of his foreign dress, and that he had come from such a far-off country; partly because he could speak only half a dozen English words. Hafed took a great fancy to the little girls, and was never happier than when his master took him to Mr. Bradford's house, and left him to play with them for a while. Maggie and Bessie liked him also, and they immediately set about teaching him English. As yet, he knew only four or five words, one of which was "Missy," by which name he called every one who wore skirts, not excepting Franky, who considered it a great insult. Maggie was very eager to have him learn new words, and was constantly showing him something and repeating the name over and over till he could say it. But though he took great pains, and was an apt scholar, he did not learn fast enough to satisfy Maggie. "Hafed," she said to him one day, holding up her doll, "say 'doll.'" "_Dole_," repeated Hafed, in his soft, musical tones. "Doll," said Maggie, not at all satisfied with his pronunciation, and speaking in a louder voice, as if Hafed could understand the better for that. "Dole," said Hafed again, with a contented smile. "D-o-o-ll," shrieked Maggie, in the ear of her patient pupil, with no better success on his part. Miss Rush was sitting by, and she called Maggie to her. "Maggie, dear," she said, "you must not be impatient with Hafed. I am sure he tries his best; but you must remember it is hard work for that little foreign tongue of his to twist itself to our English words. He will learn to pronounce them in time." "But, Aunt Bessie," said Maggie, "mamma said it was always best to learn to do a thing well at first, and then one will not have to break one's self of bad habits." "And so it is, dear; but then we cannot always do that at once. When mamma teaches you French, you cannot always pronounce the words as she does; can you?" "No; ma'am; but those are hard French words, and we are trying to teach Hafed English, and that is so easy." "Easy to you, dear, who are accustomed to it, but not to him. It is even harder for him to frame the English words than it is for you to repeat the French; and you should be gentle and patient with him, as mamma is with you." The little Persian felt the cold very much, and delighted to hang about the fires and registers. He had a way of going down on his knees before the fire, and holding up both hands with the palms towards the blaze. The first time nurse saw him do this, she was quite shocked. "The poor little heathen," she said. "Well, I've often heard of them fire-worshippers, but I never expected to see one, at least, in this house. I shall just make so bold as to tell Mr. Ruthven he ought to teach him better." But Hafed was no fire-worshipper, for he had been taught better, and thanks to his kind master, did not bow down to that or any other false god. It was only his delight in the roaring blaze which had brought him down in front of it, not, as nurse thought, the wish to pray to it. "Let's teach him about Jesus," said Bessie to her sister. "First, we'll teach him to say it, and then he'll want to know who he is." So kneeling down beside the little stranger, she took his hand in hers, and pointing upwards said, "Jesus." The boy's face lighted up immediately, and to Bessie's great delight, he repeated Jesus in a tone so clear and distinct as to show it was no new word to him. He had a pretty way when he wished to say he loved a person, of touching his fingers to his lips, laying them on his own heart, and then on that of the one for whom he wished to express his affection. Now, at the sound of the name, which he, as well as Bessie, had learned to love, he tried, by a change in the pretty sign, to express his meaning. Touching first Bessie's lips and then her heart with the tips of his fingers, he softly blew upon them, as if he wished to waft to heaven the love he could not utter in words, saying, "Missy--Jesus?" Bessie understood him. She knew he wished to ask if she loved Jesus, and with a sunny face, she answered him with a nod, asking, in her turn, "Do you, Hafed,--do you love Jesus?" The boy went through the same sign with his own heart and lips, saying, "Hafed--Jesus," and Bessie turned joyfully to her sister. "He knows him, Maggie. We won't have to teach him; he knows our Jesus, and he loves him too. Oh, I'm so glad!" "Now the Good Shepherd, that has called ye to be his lambs, bless you both," said old nurse, with the tears starting to her eyes. "That's as cheering a sight as I want to see; and there was me a misjudging of my boy. I might have known him better than to think he'd let one as belonged to him go on in darkness and heathendom." Nurse always called Mr. Stanton her "boy" when she was particularly pleased with him. From this time Hafed was almost as great a favorite with nurse as he was with the children, and seeing how gentle and thoughtful he was, she would even sometimes leave them for a few moments in his care. One morning mamma and Aunt Bessie were out, and Jane, who was sick, had gone to bed. Hafed was in the nursery playing with the children, when the chamber-maid came in to ask nurse to go to Jane. Nurse hesitated at first about leaving her charge, but they all said they would be good, and Hafed should take care of them. Nurse knew that this was a safe promise from Maggie and Bessie, but she feared that, with every intention of being good, mischievous Franky would have himself or the others in trouble if she stayed away five minutes. "See here," she said, "I'll put ye all into the crib, and there ye may play omnibus till I come back. That will keep ye out of harm's way, Franky, my man, for if there's a chance for you to get into mischief, ye'll find it." This was a great treat, for playing in the cribs and beds was not allowed without special permission, and Franky, being provided with a pair of reins, and a chair turned upside down for a horse, took his post as driver, in great glee; while the three little girls were packed in as passengers, Maggie holding the baby. Hafed was rather too large for the crib, so he remained outside, though he, too, enjoyed the fun, even if he did not quite understand all it meant. Then, having with many pointings and shakings of her head made Hafed understand that he was not to go near the fire or windows, or to let the children fall out of the crib, mammy departed. They were all playing and singing as happy as birds, when the nursery-door opened, and a stranger stood before them. In a moment every voice was mute, and all five children looked at her in utter astonishment. She was an old lady, with hair as white as snow, tall and handsome; but there was something about her which made every one of the little ones feel rather shy. They gazed at her in silence while she looked from one to another of them, and then about the room, as if those grave, stern eyes were taking notice of the smallest thing there. "Well!" exclaimed the old lady, after a moment's pause, "this is a pretty thing!" By this time Bessie's politeness had gained the better of her astonishment, and scrambling to her feet, she stood upright in the crib. As the stranger's eyes were fixed upon Hafed as she spoke, the little girl supposed the "pretty thing" meant the dress of the young Persian, which the children thought very elegant; and she answered, "Yes, ma'am, but he is not to wear it much longer, 'cause the boys yun after him in the street, so Uncle Yuthven is having some English clothes made for him." "Where is your mother?" asked the old lady, without other notice of Bessie's speech. "Gone out with Aunt Bessie, ma'am." "And is there nobody left to take care of you?" "Oh, yes, ma'am," answered Bessie. "Maggie and I are taking care of the children, and Hafed is taking care of us." "Humph!" said the old lady, as if she did not think this at all a proper arrangement. "I shall give Margaret a piece of my mind about this." Bessie now opened her eyes very wide. "Papa don't allow it," she said, gravely. "Don't allow what?" asked the stranger, rather sharply. "Don't allow mamma to be scolded." "And who said I was going to scold her?" "You said you were going to give her a piece of your mind, and pieces of mind mean scoldings, and we never have mamma scolded, 'cause she never deserves it." "Oh!" said the old lady, with a half-smile, "then she is better than most people." "Yes, ma'am," answered Bessie, innocently, "she is better than anybody, and so is papa." "Just as well _you_ should think so," said the lady, now smiling outright. "And you are Maggie--no--Bessie, I suppose." "Yes, ma'am. I am Bessie, and this is Maggie, and this is baby, and this is Franky, and this is Hafed," said the child, pointing in turn to each of her playmates. "And is there no one but this little mountebank to look after you?" asked the old lady. "Where is your nurse?" "She is coming back in a few minutes," answered Bessie. "And Hafed is not a--a--that thing you called him, ma'am. He is only a little Persian whom Uncle Yuthven brought from far away over the sea, and he's a very good boy. He does not know a great many of our words, but he tries to learn them, and he knows about our Jesus, and tries to be a good little boy." Dear Bessie wished to say all she could in praise of Hafed, whom she thought the old lady looked at with displeasure. Perhaps Hafed thought so, also, for he seemed very much as if he would like to hide away from her gaze. Meanwhile Maggie sat perfectly silent. When the old lady had first spoken, she started violently, and, clasping her arms tightly about the baby, looked more and more frightened each instant; while baby, who was not usually shy, nestled her little head timidly against her sister's shoulder, and stared at the stranger with eyes of grave infant wonder. "And so you are Maggie," said the lady, coming closer to the crib. Poor Maggie gave a kind of gasp by way of answer. "Do you not know me, Maggie?" asked the old lady, in a voice which she intended to be coaxing. To Bessie's dismay, Maggie burst into one of those sudden and violent fits of crying, to which she would sometimes give way when much frightened or distressed. "Why, why!" said the stranger, as the baby, startled by Maggie's sobs, and the way in which she clutched her, raised her voice also in a loud cry. "Why, why! what is all this about? Do you not know your Aunt Patty?" Aunt Patty! Was it possible? At this astounding and alarming news, Bessie plumped down again in the bed beside Maggie, amazed at herself for having dared to speak so boldly to that terrible person. And yet she had not seemed so terrible, nor had she felt much afraid of her till she found out who she was. But now Mrs. Lawrence was losing patience. Certainly she had not had a very pleasant reception. Coming cold and tired from a long journey, she had found her host and hostess out, and no one but the servants to receive her. This was her own fault, of course, since she had not told Mr. and Mrs. Bradford to expect her; but that did not make it the less annoying to her. It is not always the easier to bear a thing because we ourselves are to blame for it. However, she had made up her mind not to be vexed about it, and at once went to the nursery to make acquaintance with the children. But the greeting she received was not of a kind to please any one, least of all a person of Aunt Patty's temper. And there was worse still to come. "What is the meaning of all this?" asked Mrs. Lawrence, in an angry tone. "Here, Maggie, give me that child, and stop crying at once." As she spoke, she tried to take the baby, but poor Maggie, now in utter despair, shrieked aloud for nurse, and held her little sister closer than before. Aunt Patty was determined, however, and much stronger than Maggie, and in another minute the baby was screaming in her arms. "Oh, Maggie, why don't somebody come?" cried Bessie. "Oh, do say those words to her?" Maggie had quite forgotten how she had intended to alarm Aunt Patty if she interfered with them; but when Bessie spoke, it came to her mind, and the sight of her baby sister in the old lady's arms was too much for her. Springing upon her feet, she raised her arm after the manner of the woman in the picture, and gasped out, "Beware, woman!" For a moment Aunt Patty took no notice of her, being occupied with trying to soothe the baby. "Beware, woman!" cried Maggie, in a louder tone, and stamping her foot. Mrs. Lawrence turned and looked at her. "Beware, woman!" shrieked Maggie, and Bessie, thinking it time for her to come to her sister's aid, joined in the cry, "Beware, woman!" while Franky, always ready to take part in any disturbance, struck at Aunt Patty with his whip, and shouted, "'Ware, woman!" and Hafed, knowing nothing but that this old lady had alarmed and distressed his young charge, and that it was his duty to protect them, raised his voice in a whoop of defiance, and snatching up the hearth-brush, brandished it in a threatening manner as he danced wildly about her. Nor was this all, for Flossy, who had also been taken into the crib as a passenger, commenced a furious barking, adding greatly to the uproar. [Illustration: Bessie's Friends. p. 158.] It would be difficult to say which was the greatest, Aunt Patty's astonishment or her anger; and there is no knowing what she would have done or said, for at this moment the door opened, and Uncle Ruthven appeared. For a moment he stood perfectly motionless with surprise. It was indeed a curious scene upon which he looked. In the centre of the room stood an old lady who was a stranger to him, holding in her arms the screaming baby; while around her danced his own little servant-boy, looking as if he might be one of the wild dervishes of his own country; and in the crib stood his young nieces and Franky, all shouting, "Beware, woman!" over and over again. But Aunt Patty had not the least idea of "running away, never to be seen again," and if her conscience were "guilty," it certainly did not seem to be at all alarmed by anything Maggie or Bessie could do. Nevertheless, Mr. Stanton's appearance was a great relief to her. Baby ceased her loud cries, and stretched out her dimpled arms to her uncle, with a beseeching whimper; Hafed paused in his antics, and stood like a statue at sight of his master; and the three other children all turned to him with exclamations of "Oh, Uncle Ruthven; we're so glad!" and "Please don't leave us," from Maggie and Bessie; and "Make dat Patty be off wiz herself," from Franky. Mr. Stanton recovered himself in a moment, and bowing politely to Mrs. Lawrence, said, with a smile sparkling in his eye, "I fear you are in some trouble, madam; can I help you?" "Help me?" repeated the old lady; "I fear you will want help yourself. Why, it must need half a dozen keepers to hold these little Bedlamites in any kind of order." "They are usually orderly enough," answered Mr. Stanton as he took baby from Aunt Patty, who was only too glad to give her up; "but I do not understand this. What is the matter, Maggie, and where is nurse?" But Maggie only answered by a new burst of sobs, and Bessie spoke for her. "She's Aunt Patty, Uncle Yuthven; she says she is." "Well," said Uncle Ruthven, more puzzled than ever, for he knew little of Mrs. Lawrence, save that she was Mr. Bradford's aunt, "and do you welcome her with such an uproar as this? Tell me where nurse is, Bessie." As he spoke, nurse herself came in, answering his question with, "Here I am, sir, and--" Nurse, in her turn, was so astonished by the unexpected sight of Aunt Patty that she stood quite still, gazing at her old enemy. But, as she afterwards said, she presently "recollected her manners," and dropping a stiff courtesy to Mrs. Lawrence, she took the baby from Mr. Stanton, and in a few words explained the cause of her ten minutes' absence. The tearful faces of her nurslings, and that of Aunt Patty, flushed and angry, gave nurse a pretty good guess how things had been going while she had been away, but she saw fit to ask no questions. "My lady is out, ma'am," she said, with a grim sort of politeness to Mrs. Lawrence, "and I think she was not looking for you just now, or she would have been at home." Then Mr. Stanton introduced himself, and asking Mrs. Lawrence if she would let him play the part of host till his sister came home, he offered the old lady his arm, and led her away. Poor Aunt Patty! she scarcely knew what to do. The old angry, jealous temper and the new spirit which had lately come to dwell in her heart were doing hard battle, each striving for the victory. She thought, and not without reason, that her nephew's little children must have been taught to fear and dislike her, when they could receive her in such a manner; and the evil spirit said, "Go, do not remain in a house where you have been treated so. Leave it, and never come back to it. You have been insulted! do not bear it! Tell these people what you think of their unkindness, and never see them again." But the better angel, the spirit of the meek and lowly Master, of whom she was striving to learn, said, "No, stay, and try to overcome evil with good. This is all your own fault, the consequence of your own ungoverned and violent temper. Your very name has become a name of fear to these innocent children; but you must bear it, and let them find they have no longer cause to dread you. And do not be too proud to let their parents see that you are sorry for the past, and wish it to be forgotten. If this is hard, and not what you would have expected, remember how much they have borne from you in former days; how patient and gentle and forbearing they were." Then, as her anger cooled down, she began to think how very unlikely it was that Mr. or Mrs. Bradford had said or done anything which could cause their children to act in the way Maggie and Bessie had done that morning. This was probably the work of others who remembered how perverse and trying she had been during her last visit. And Aunt Patty was forced to acknowledge to herself that it was no more than she deserved, or might have looked for. And so, trying to reason herself into better humor, as she thought the matter over, she began to see its droll side (for Aunt Patty had a quick sense of fun) and to find some amusement mingling with her vexation at the singular conduct of the children. Meanwhile, Mr. Stanton, who saw that the poor lady had been greatly annoyed, and who wondered much at all the commotion he had seen in the nursery, though, like nurse, he thought it wisest to ask no questions, was doing his best to make her forget it; and so well did he succeed, that presently Mrs. Lawrence found herself, she scarcely knew how, laughing heartily with him as she related the story of Maggie's strange attack upon her. Mr. Stanton understood it no better than she did, perhaps not so well; but he was very much amused; and as he thought these young nieces and nephews of his were very wonderful little beings, he told Aunt Patty many of their droll sayings and doings, making himself so agreeable and entertaining, that by the time his sister came in, the old lady had almost forgotten that she had cause to be offended, and was not only quite ready to meet Mrs. Bradford in a pleasant manner, but actually went so far as to apologize for taking them all by surprise. This was a great deal to come from Aunt Patty. She would not have spoken so four years ago; but Mrs. Bradford was not more surprised by this than she was at the difference in look and manner which now showed itself in the old lady. Surely, some great change must have come to her; and her friends, seeing how much more patient and gentle she was than in former days, could not but think it was the one blessed change which must come to the hearts of those who seek for love and peace by the true way. [Illustration: decoration, end of chap. 7] [Illustration: Title decoration, chap. 8] VIII. _FRANKY._ But although such a great and delightful alteration had taken place in Mrs. Lawrence, and although Mrs. Bradford and Miss Rush did all they could to make the children feel kindly towards her, it was some days before things went at all smoothly between the old lady and the little ones, and Annie Stanton, seeing the consequence of her thoughtlessness, had more than once reason to regret it, and to take to herself a lesson to refrain from evil speaking. Maggie and Bessie, it is true, were too old and too well behaved to speak their fear and their dislike openly, by word or action, but it was plainly to be seen in their looks and manners. Poor Aunt Patty! She heard the sweet, childish voices prattling about the house, ringing out so freely and joyfully in peals of merry laughter, or singing to simple music the pretty hymns and songs their dear mother and Mrs. Rush had taught them; but the moment she appeared, sweet song, innocent talk, and gay laugh were hushed; the little ones were either silent, or whispered to one another in subdued, timid tones. Little feet would come pattering, or skipping along the hall, a small, curly head peep within the door, and then vanish at sight of her, while a whisper of "She's there; let's run," told the cause of its sudden disappearance. She saw them clinging around their other friends and relations with loving confidence, climbing upon their knees, clasping their necks, pressing sweet kisses on their cheeks and lips, asking freely for all the interest, sympathy, and affection they needed. Father and mother, grandparents, aunts, and uncles, Colonel and Mrs. Rush, the very servants, who had been long in the house, all came in for a share of childish love and trust. But for her they had nothing but shy, downcast looks, timid, half-whispered answers; they shrank from the touch of her hand, ran from her presence. Yes, poor Aunt Patty! the punishment was a severe one, and, apart from the pain it gave her, it was hard for a proud spirit such as hers to bear. But she said nothing, did not even complain to Mrs. Bradford of the reception she had met with from Maggie and Bessie, and it was only by Uncle Ruthven's account and the confession of the little girls that their mamma knew what had occurred. On the morning after Mrs. Lawrence's arrival, Maggie, as usual, brought the "Complete Family" to her mother to have the spelling corrected, and Mrs. Bradford found written, "'Beware, woman!' is not a bit of use. It don't frighten people a bit; not even gilty conshuns, and Uncle John just teased me I know. It is real mean." Mamma asked the meaning of this, and, in a very aggrieved manner, Maggie told her of Uncle John's explanation of the picture, and how she thought she would try the experiment on Aunt Patty when she had insisted on taking the baby. "But it was all of no purpose, mamma," said Maggie, in a very injured tone; "she did not care at all, but just stood there, looking madder and madder." Mamma could scarcely wonder that Aunt Patty had looked "madder and madder," and she told Maggie that she thought her aunt wished to be kind and good since she had not uttered one word of complaint at the rude reception she had met with. But the little girl did not see it with her mother's eyes, and could not be persuaded to think less hardly of Aunt Patty. But that rogue, Franky, was not afraid to show his feelings. He was a bold little monkey, full of life and spirits, and always in mischief; and now he seemed to have set himself purposely to defy and brave Mrs. Lawrence, acting as if he wished to see how far he could go without meeting punishment at her hands. This sad behavior of Franky's was particularly unfortunate, because the old lady had taken a special love for the little boy, fancying he looked like the dear father who so many years ago had been drowned beneath the blue waters of the Swiss lake. A day or two after Aunt Patty came, she, with Mrs. Bradford and Miss Rush, was in the parlor with three or four morning visitors. Franky had just learned to open the nursery door for himself, and this piece of knowledge he made the most of, watching his chance and slipping out the moment nurse's eye was turned from him. Finding one of these opportunities for which he was so eager, he ran out and went softly down-stairs, fearing to hear nurse calling him back. But nurse did not miss him at first, and he reached the parlor in triumph. Here the door stood partly open, and putting in his head, he looked around the room. No one noticed the roguish little face, with its mischievous, dancing eyes, for all the ladies were listening to Aunt Patty, as she told them some very interesting anecdote. Suddenly there came from the door, in clear, childish tones, "Ladies, ladies, does Patty stold oo? Oo better wun away, she stolds very dreadful." After which Master Franky ran away himself as fast as his feet could carry him, laughing and chuckling as he mounted the stairs, as if he had done something very fine. Mrs. Lawrence went straight on with her story, not pausing for an instant, though that she heard quite as plainly as any one else was to be seen by the flush of color on her cheek, and the uplifting of the already upright head. As for poor Mrs. Bradford, it was very mortifying for her; but what was to be done? Nothing, just nothing, as far as Aunt Patty was concerned. It was not a thing for which pardon could well be asked or an apology made, and Mrs. Bradford thought the best way was to pass it over in silence. She talked very seriously to Franky, but it seemed impossible to make the little boy understand that he had done wrong; and, although nothing quite as bad as this occurred again for several days, he still seemed determined to make war upon Aunt Patty whenever he could find a chance of doing so. And yet, strange to say, this unruly young gentleman was the first one of the children to make friends with his old auntie; and it came about in this way:-- Aunt Bessie had brought as her Christmas gift to Franky a tiny pair of embroidered slippers, which were, as her namesake said, "perferly cunning," and in which the little boy took great pride. Nurse, also, thought a great deal of these slippers, and was very choice of them, allowing Franky to wear them only while she was dressing or undressing him. But one day when she brought him in from his walk, she found his feet very cold, and taking off his walking-shoes, she put on the slippers, and planted him in front of the fire, telling him to "toast his toes." No sooner did the little toes begin to feel at all comfortable than Franky looked around for some way of putting them to what he considered their proper use; namely, trotting about. That tempting nursery-door stood ajar, nurse's eyes were turned another way, and in half a minute he was off again. Mammy missed him very soon, and sent Jane to look for him. She met him coming up-stairs, and brought him back to the nursery with a look in his eye which nurse knew meant that he had been in mischief. And was it possible? He was in his stocking feet! The precious slippers were missing. In vain did the old woman question him; he would give her no answer, only looking at her with roguishness dancing in every dimple on his chubby face; and in vain did Jane search the halls and staircase. So at last nurse took him to his mother, and very unwilling he was to go, knowing right well that he had been naughty, and that now he would be obliged to confess it. "Where are your slippers, Franky?" asked Mrs. Bradford, when nurse had told her story. Franky hung his head and put his finger into his mouth, then lifted his face coaxingly to his mother for a kiss. "Mamma cannot kiss you till you are a good boy," said Mrs. Bradford, and repeated her question, "Where are your slippers?" "In Patty's pottet," said Franky, seeing that his mother would have an answer, and thinking he had best have it out. "And how came they in Aunt Patty's pocket?" "She put dem dere hersef," answered the child. "Did she take them off your feet, Franky?" "No, mamma," answered Franky, liking these questions still less than he had done the others. "How did they come off then?" "Me trow dem at Patty," said Franky. At last, after much more questioning and some whimpering from the child, he was brought to confess that he had gone to the library, where he found Aunt Patty. Defying her as usual, and trying how far he could go, without punishment, he had called her "bad old sing," and many other naughty names; but finding this did not bring the expected scolding, he had pulled off first one and then the other of his slippers and thrown them at the old lady. These Mrs. Lawrence had picked up and put in her pocket, still without speaking. Little Franky could not tell how sorrow and anger were both struggling in her heart beneath that grave silence. When Mrs. Bradford had found out all Franky could or would tell, she told him he was a very naughty little boy, and since he had behaved so badly to Aunt Patty, he must go at once and ask her pardon. This Franky had no mind to do. He liked very well to brave Aunt Patty from a safe distance; but he did not care to trust himself within reach of the punishment he knew he so justly deserved. Besides, he was in a naughty, obstinate mood, and would not obey his mother as readily as usual. But mamma was determined, as it was right she should be, and after rather a hard battle with her little son, she carried him down-stairs, still sobbing, but subdued and penitent, to beg Aunt Patty's forgiveness. "Me sorry, me do so any more," said Franky, meaning he would do so no more. To his surprise, and also somewhat to his mother's, the old lady caught him in her arms, and covered his face with kisses, while a tear or two shone in her eye. "Don't ky; me dood now," lisped Franky, forgetting all his fear, and putting up his hand to wipe away her tears; and from this minute Aunt Patty and Franky were the best of friends. Indeed, so indulgent did she become to him, that papa and mamma were quite afraid he would be spoiled; for the little gentleman, finding out his power, lorded it over her pretty well. Mrs. Bradford, coming in unexpectedly one day, actually found the old lady on her hands and knees, in a corner, playing the part of a horse eating hay from a manger; while Franky, clothes-brush in hand, was, much to his own satisfaction, pretending to rub her down, making the hissing noise used by coachmen when they curry a horse, and positively refusing to allow his patient playfellow to rise. But Maggie and Bessie could not be persuaded to be at all friendly or sociable with Aunt Patty. True, after their first dread of her wore off, and they found she was by no means so terrible as they had imagined, they no longer scampered off at the least sound of her voice or glimpse of her skirts, as they had done at first; and Bessie even found courage to speak to her now and then, always looking however, as if she thought she was running a great risk, and could not tell what would be the consequence of such boldness. For after all they had heard, our little girls found it impossible to believe that such a great change had taken place in Aunt Patty, and were always watching for some outbreak of temper. Unhappily there was one thing which stood much in Aunt Patty's way, not only with the children, but perhaps with some grown people also, and that was her old way of meddling and finding fault with things which did not concern her. This she did, almost without knowing it; for so it is, where we have long indulged in a habit, it becomes, as it were, a part of ourselves, and the older we grow, the harder it is to rid ourselves of it. And there are few things which sooner rouse the evil passions and dislike of others than this trick of fault-finding where we have no right or need to do so, or of meddling with that which does not concern us. So Mrs. Lawrence, without intending it, was constantly fretting and aggravating those around her while Maggie and Bessie, who thought that all their mamma did or said was quite perfect, were amazed and indignant when they heard her rules and wishes questioned and found fault with, and sometimes even set aside by Aunt Patty, if she thought another way better. [Illustration: decoration, end of chap. 8] [Illustration: Title decoration, chap. 9] IX. "_BEAR YE ONE ANOTHER'S BURDENS._" One Sunday when Mrs. Lawrence had been with them about two weeks, Maggie and Bessie, on going as usual to their class at Mrs. Rush's, found that they two were to make up her whole class that morning; for Gracie Howard was sick, and Lily Norris gone on a visit to her grandfather who lived in the country. Mrs. Rush was not very sorry to have her favorite scholars by themselves, for she wished to give them a little lesson which it was not necessary that the others should hear. And Maggie gave her the opportunity for which she wished by asking Colonel Rush for the story of Benito. "For," said the little girl, "if we were away and Lily and Gracie here, and you told them a new story, we should be very disappointed not to hear it; so Bessie and I made agreement to ask for an old one, and we like Benito better than any." "Very well; it shall be as you say," replied the colonel, who, provided his pets were satisfied, was so himself, and after the children had gone, he said to his wife, "Certainly there are few things in which our sweet little Maggie does not act up to the Golden Rule, of which she is so fond. She does not repeat it in a parrot-like way, as many do, but she understands what it means, and practises it too, with her whole heart." So when the lessons were over, the colonel told the story of Benito, which never seemed to lose its freshness with these little listeners. When he came to the part where Benito helped the old dame with her burden, Mrs. Rush said, "Children, what do you think that burden was?" "We don't know," said Bessie. "What?" "Neither do I _know_," answered Mrs. Rush. "I was only thinking what it _might_ be. Perhaps it was pain and sickness; perhaps the loss of friends; perhaps some old, troublesome sin, sorely repented of, long struggled with, but which still returned again and again, to weary and almost discourage her as she toiled along in the road which led to the Father's house. Perhaps it was all of them; but what ever it was, Benito did not pause to ask; he only thought of his Lord's command, 'Bear ye one another's burdens;' and so put his hand to the load, and eased the old dame's pain and weariness. Was it not so?" she asked of her husband. "I think so," he answered. "But a little child could not help grown persons to bear their sins, or to cure them," said Bessie; "they must go to Jesus for that." "Yes, we must go to Jesus; but the very love and help and pity we have from him teach us to show all we can to our fellow-creatures, whether they are young or old. One of the good men whom Jesus left on earth to do his work and preach his word tells us that Christ was 'touched with the feeling of our infirmities, because he was in all points tempted like as we are.' This means that, good and pure and holy as he was, yet he allowed himself to suffer all the trials and struggles and temptations which can come to poor, weak man, so that he might know just what we feel as we pass through them, and just what help we need. Yet, sorely tempted as he was, he never fell into sin, but returned to his Father's heaven pure and stainless as he left it. Since then Christ feels for all the pains and struggles through which we go for his sake, since he can make allowance for all our weakness and failures; and as he is so ready to give us help in our temptations, so much the more ought we who are not only tempted, but too apt, in spite of our best efforts, to fall into sin, to show to others all the kindness and sympathy we may at any time need for ourselves. So may we try to copy our Saviour, 'bearing one another's burdens,' even as he has borne ours, by giving love and pity and sympathy where we can give nothing else. Benito was a very young child, scarcely able to walk on the narrow road without the help of some older and wiser hand, and his weak shoulders could not carry any part of the old dame's load; but he put his baby hands beneath it, and gave her loving smiles and gentle words, and these brought her help and comfort, so that she went on her way, strengthened for the rest of the journey. And, as we know, Benito met his reward as he came to the gates of his Father's house. So much may the youngest do for the oldest; and I think _we_ know of an old dame whose 'burden' our little pilgrims, Maggie and Bessie, might help to bear, if they would." "I just believe you mean Aunt Patty!" exclaimed Bessie, in such a tone as showed she was not very well pleased with the idea. "And," said Maggie, with just the least little pout, "I don't believe she is a dame pilgrim, and I don't believe she is in the narrow path, not a bit!" "There I think you are mistaken, Maggie, for, so far as we can judge, there is reason to think Aunt Patty is walking in the safe and narrow road which leads to the Father's house; and, since she has not been brought to it by paths quite so easy and pleasant as some of us have known, there is all the more reason that we happier travellers should give her a helping hand. It may be very little that we can give; a word, a look, a smile, a kind offer to go for some little trifle that is needed, will often cheer and gladden a heart that is heavy with its secret burden. And if we now and then get a knock, or even a rather hard scratch from those corners of our neighbor's load, which are made up of little faults and odd tempers, we must try not to mind it, but think only of how tired those poor, weary shoulders must be of the weight they carry." "But, Mrs. Rush," said Maggie, "Aunt Patty's corners scratch very hard, and hurt very much." "But the corners are not half as sharp as they were once; are they, dear?" asked Mrs. Rush, smiling. "Well," said Maggie, slowly, as if she were considering, "maybe her temper corner is not so sharp as it used to be, but her meddling corner is very bad,--yes, very bad indeed; and it scratches like everything. Why, you don't know how she meddles, and what things she says, even when she is not a bit mad. She is all the time telling mamma how she had better manage; just as if mamma did not know a great deal better than she does about her own children and her own house, and about everything! And she dismanages Franky herself very much; and she said dear Aunt Bessie deserved to have such a bad sore throat 'cause she would go out riding with Uncle Ruthven, when she told her it was too cold; and she said the colonel"-- "There, there, that will do," said Mrs. Rush, gently. "Do not let us think of what Aunt Patty does to vex us, but see if we do not sometimes grieve her a little." "Oh! she don't think you do anything," said Maggie; "she says you are a very lovely young woman." "Well," said the colonel, laughing, "neither you nor I shall quarrel with her for that; shall we? There is one good mark for Aunt Patty; let us see how many more we can find." "She was very good to Patrick when he hurt his hand so the other day," said Bessie. "She washed it, and put a yag on it, and made it feel a great deal better." "And she likes Uncle Ruthven very much," said Maggie. "That is right," said Mrs. Rush, "think of all the good you can. When we think kindly of a person, we soon begin to act kindly towards them, and I am quite sure that a little love and kindness from you would do much to lighten Aunt Patty's burden. And if the sharp corners fret and worry you a little, remember that perhaps it is only the weight of the rest of the burden which presses these into sight, and then you will not feel them half as much. Will you try if you can be like Benito, and so receive the blessing of Him who says the cup of cold water given in his name shall meet its reward?" "We'll try," said Maggie, "but I don't think we'll succeed." "And if at first you don't succeed, what then?" "Then try, try, try again," said Maggie, cheerfully, for she was already trying to think what she might do to make Aunt Patty's burden more easy; "but--" "But what, dear?" "I hope she won't shed tears of joy upon my bosom," said Maggie, growing grave again at the thought of such a possibility; "I wouldn't quite like _that_." "And what does Bessie say?" asked the colonel. "I was thinking how precious it is," said the little girl, turning upon the colonel's face those serious brown eyes which had been gazing so thoughtfully into the fire. "How precious what is, my darling?" "To think Jesus knows how our temptations feel, 'cause he felt them himself, and so knows just how to help us and be sorry for us." Colonel Rush had his answer to both questions. That same Sunday evening, the children were all with their father and mother in the library. Mrs. Lawrence sat in an arm-chair by the parlor fire, alone, or nearly so, for Miss Rush and Mr. Stanton in the window at the farther side of the room were not much company to any one but themselves. Certainly the poor old lady felt lonely enough, as, with her clasped hands lying upon her lap, her chin sunk upon her breast, and her eyes fixed upon the fire, she thought of the long, long ago, when she, too, was young, bright, and happy; when those around lived only for her happiness. Ah! how different it all was now! They were all gone,--the youth, the love, the happiness; gone, also, were the wasted years which she might have spent in the service of the Master whom she had sought so late; gone all the opportunities which he had given her of gaining the love and friendship of her fellow-creatures. And now how little she could do, old and feeble and helpless as she was. And what hard work it was to struggle with the evil tempers and passions to which she had so long given way; how difficult, when some trifle vexed her, to keep back the sharp and angry word, to put down the wish to bend everything to her own will, to learn of Him who was meek and lowly in heart! And there was no one to know, no one to sympathize, no one to give her a helping hand in this weary, up-hill work, to guess how heavily the burden of past and present sin bore upon the poor, aching shoulders. In her longing for the human love and sympathy she had once cast from her, and which she could not now bring herself to ask, the poor old lady almost forgot that there was one Eye to see the struggles made for Jesus' sake, one Hand outstretched to save and to help, one Voice to whisper, "Be of good courage." True, Mr. and Mrs. Bradford were always kind and thoughtful, and all treated her with due respect and consideration; but that was not all she wanted. If the children would but love and trust her. There would be such comfort in that; but in spite of all her efforts, they were still shy and shrinking,--all, save that little tyrant, Franky. Even fearless Fred was quiet and almost dumb in her presence. So Aunt Patty sat, and sadly thought, unconscious of the wistful pair of eyes which watched her from the other room, until by and by a gentle footstep came stealing round her chair, a soft little hand timidly slipped itself into her own, and she turned to see Bessie's sweet face looking at her, half in pity, half in wonder. "Well, dear," she asked, after a moment's surprised silence, "What is it?" Truly, Bessie scarcely knew herself what it was. She had been watching Aunt Patty as she sat looking so sad and lonely, and thinking of Mrs. Rush's lesson of the morning, till her tender little heart could bear it no longer, and she had come to the old lady's side, not thinking of anything particular she would do or say, but just with the wish to put a loving hand to the burden. "Do you want anything, Bessie?" asked Mrs. Lawrence again. "No, ma'am, but"--Bessie did not quite like to speak of Aunt Patty's troubles, so she said, "_I_ have a little burden, too, Aunt Patty." Aunt Patty half smiled to herself as she looked into the earnest, wistful eyes. She, this innocent little one, the darling and pet of all around her, what burden could she have to bear? She did not know the meaning of the word. Then came a vexed, suspicious thought. "Who told you that I had any burden to bear, child?" she asked, sharply. "Every one has; haven't they?" said Bessie, rather frightened; then, strong in her loving, holy purpose, she went on. "Everybody has some burden; don't they, Aunt Patty? If our Father makes them very happy, still they have their faults, like I do. And if he don't make them very happy, the faults are a great deal harder to bear; are they not?" "And what burden have you, dearie?" asked the old lady, quite softened. "My tempers," said the child, gravely. "I used to be in passions very often, Aunt Patty, till Jesus helped me so much, and very often now I have passions in myself when some one makes me offended; but if I ask Him quite quick to help me, he always does. But it is pretty hard sometimes, and I think that is my burden. Maybe it's only a little one, though, and I oughtn't to speak about it." Aunt Patty was surprised, no less at the child's innocent freedom in speaking to her than at what she said, for she had never suspected that gentle little Bessie had a passionate temper. She looked at her for a moment, and then said, "Then thank God every day of your life, Bessie, that he has saved you from the misery of growing up with a self-willed, ungoverned temper. Thank him that his grace has been sufficient to help you to battle with it while you are young, that age and long habit have not strengthened it till it seems like a giant you cannot overcome. You will never know what misery it becomes then, with what force the tempter comes again and again; _no one_ knows, _no one_ knows!" Perhaps Mrs. Lawrence was talking more to herself than to Bessie; but the child understood her, and answered her. "Jesus knows," she said, softly, and with that tender, lingering tone with which she always spoke the Saviour's name. "Jesus knows," repeated the old lady, almost as if the thought came to her for the first time. "Yes, Jesus knows," said Bessie, putting up her small fingers with a little caressing touch to Aunt Patty's cheek; "and is it not sweet and precious, Aunt Patty, to think he had temptations too, and so can know just how hard we have to try not to grieve him? Mrs. Rush told us about it to-day, and I love to think about it all the time. And she told us how he helped every one to bear their burdens; and now we ought to help each other too, 'cause that was what he wanted us to do. But if sometimes we cannot help each other, 'cause we don't know about their burdens, Jesus can always help us, 'cause he always knows; don't he?" "Bessie, come and sing," called mamma from the other room, and away ran the little comforter to join her voice with the others in the Sabbath evening hymn. Yes, she had brought comfort to the worn and weary heart; she had put her hand to Aunt Patty's burden and eased the aching pain. "Jesus knows." Again and again the words came back to her, bringing peace and rest and strength for all days to come. She had heard it often before; she knew it well. "Jesus knows;" but the precious words had never come home to her before as they did when they were spoken by the sweet, trustful, childish voice,--"Jesus knows." There is no need to tell that they were friendly after this, these two pilgrims on the heavenward way,--the old woman and the little child, she who had begun to tread in her Master's footsteps so early in life's bright morning, and she who had not sought to follow him until the eleventh hour, when her day was almost ended. For they were both clinging to one faith, both looking to one hope, and the hand of the younger had drawn the feet of the elder to a firmer and surer foothold upon the Rock of Ages, on which both were resting. And how was it with our Maggie? It was far harder work for her to be sociable with Aunt Patty than it was for Bessie; for besides her fear of the old lady, there was her natural shyness to be struggled with. As for speaking to her, unless it was to give a timid "yes" or "no" when spoken to, that was, at first, by no means possible; but remembering that Mrs. Rush had said that a look or a smile might show good-will or kindness, she took to looking and smiling with all her might. She would plant herself at a short distance from Aunt Patty, and stare at the old lady till she looked up and noticed her, when she would put on the broadest of smiles, and immediately run away, frightened at her own boldness. Mrs. Lawrence was at first displeased, thinking Maggie meant this for impertinence or mockery; but Mrs. Bradford, having once or twice caught Maggie at this extraordinary performance, asked what it meant, and was told by her little daughter that she was only "trying to bear Aunt Patty's burden." Then followed an account of what Mrs. Rush had taught the children on Sunday. "But, indeed, indeed, mamma," said poor Maggie, piteously, "I don't think I can do any better. I do feel so frightened when she looks at me, and she don't look as if she liked me to smile at her, and this morning she said, 'What are you about, child?' _so_ crossly!" Mamma praised and encouraged her, and afterwards explained to Aunt Patty that Maggie only meant to be friendly, but that her bashfulness and her friendliness were sadly in each other's way. So Mrs. Lawrence was no longer displeased, but like the rest of Maggie's friends, rather amused, when she saw her desperate efforts to be sociable; and after a time even Maggie's shyness wore away. Before this came about, however, she and Bessie had made a discovery or two which amazed them very much. Surely, it might be said of each of these little ones, "She hath done what she could." [Illustration: Title decoration, chap. 10] X. _TWO SURPRISES._ Some time after this Aunt Patty bought a magnificent toy menagerie, not for a present to any of her young nieces and nephews, but to keep as an attraction to her own room when she wished for their company. Even Maggie could not hold out against such delightful toys, and after some coaxing from Bessie, and a good deal of peeping through the crack of the door at these wonderful animals, she ventured into Aunt Patty's room. The two little girls, with Franky, were there one morning while mamma and Aunt Patty sat at their work. The animals had been put through a great number of performances, after which it was found necessary to put the menagerie in thorough order. For this purpose the wild beasts were all taken from their cages, and tied with chains of mamma's bright-colored worsteds to the legs of the chairs and tables, while the cages were rubbed and dusted; after which they were to be escorted home again. This proved a very troublesome business, for the animals, as was quite natural, preferred the fields, which were represented by the green spots in the carpet, to the cages, where they were so closely shut up, and did not wish to be carried back. At least, so Maggie said when mamma asked the cause of all the growling and roaring which was going on. "You see, mamma," she said, "they want to run away to their own forests, and they tried to devour their keepers, till some very kind giants, that's Bessie and Franky and me, came to help the keepers." But now Flossy, who had been lying quietly on the rug, watching his chance for a bit of mischief, thought he had better help the giants, and rushing at an elephant with which Franky was having a great deal of trouble, tossed it over with his nose, and sent it whirling against the side of the room, where it lay with a broken leg and trunk. Alas, for the poor elephant! It was the first one of the toys that had been broken, and great was the mourning over its sad condition, while Flossy was sent into the corner in disgrace. Of course, it was not possible for the elephant to walk home; he must ride. "Patty," said Franky, "do down-'tairs and det my water-tart; it's in de lib'ry." "Franky, Franky!" said mamma, "is that the way to speak to Aunt Patty?" "Please," Said Franky. "Aunt Patty has a bone in her foot," said Mrs. Lawrence. Franky put his head on one side, and looking quizzically at the old lady, said, "Oo went down-'tairs for oo bastet wis a bone in oo foot, so oo tan do for my tart wis a bone in oo foot." Maggie and Bessie knew that this was saucy, and expected that Aunt Patty would be angry; but, to their surprise, she laughed, and would even have gone for the cart if mamma had not begged her not to. "Franky," said mamma, as the little girls, seeing Aunt Patty was not displeased, began to chuckle over their brother's cute speech, "you must not ask Aunt Patty to run about for you. It is not pretty for little boys to do so." "But me want my tart to wide dis poor efelant," said Franky, coaxingly. Bessie said she would go for the cart, and ran away down-stairs. She went through the parlor, and reaching the library-door, which stood ajar, pushed it open. Aunt Bessie and Uncle Ruthven were there; and what did she see? Was it possible? "Oh!" she exclaimed. At this the two culprits turned, and seeing Bessie's shocked and astonished face, Uncle Ruthven laughed outright, his own hearty, ringing laugh. "Come here, princess," he said. But Bessie was off, the cart quite forgotten. Through the hall and up the stairs, as fast as the little feet could patter, never pausing till she reached mamma's room, where she buried her face in one of the sofa cushions; and there her mother found her some moments later. "Why, Bessie, my darling, what is it?" asked mamma. "What has happened to you?" Bessie raised her flushed and troubled face, but she was not crying, as her mother had supposed, though she looked quite ready to do so. "Oh, mamma!" she said, as Mrs. Bradford sat down and lifted her up on her lap. "What has troubled you, dearest?" "Oh, mamma, such a shocking thing! I don't know how to tell you." "Have you been in any mischief, dear? If you have, do not be afraid to tell your own mamma." "Oh! it was not me, mamma, but it was a dreadful, dreadful mischief." "Well, darling, if any of the others have been in mischief, of which I should know, I do not think you will speak of it unless it is necessary!" "But you ought to know it, mamma, so you can see about it; it was so very unproper. But it was not any of us children; it was big people--it was--it was--Uncle Yuthven and Aunt Bessie; and I'm afraid they won't tell you themselves." "Well," said Mrs. Bradford, trying to keep a grave face, as she imagined she began to see into the cause of the trouble. She need not have tried to hide her smiles. Her little daughter buried her face on her bosom, as she whispered the, to her, shocking secret, and never once looked up at her mother. "Mamma,--he--he--_kissed_ her!--he did--and she never scolded him, not a bit." Still the disturbed little face was hidden, and mamma waited a moment till she could compose her own, and steady her voice. "My darling," she said, "I have a pleasant secret to tell you. You love dear Aunt Bessie very much; do you not?" "Yes, mamma, dearly, dearly; and, mamma, she's very much mine,--is she not?--'cause I'm her namesake; and Uncle Yuthven ought not to do it. He had no yight. Mamma, don't you think papa had better ask him to go back to Africa for a little while?" Bessie's voice was rather angry now. Mamma had once or twice lately seen signs of a little jealous feeling toward Uncle Ruthven. She, Bessie the younger, thought it very strange that Bessie the elder should go out walking or driving so often with Uncle Ruthven, or that they should have so many long talks together. Uncle Ruthven took up quite too much of Aunt Bessie's time, according to little Bessie's thinking. She had borne it pretty well, however, until now; but that Uncle Ruthven should "make so intimate" as to kiss Aunt Bessie, was the last drop in the cup, and she was displeased as well as distressed. "And if papa had the power," said Mrs. Bradford, "would my Bessie wish Uncle Ruthven sent away again, and so grieve dear grandmamma, who is so glad to have him at home once more, to say nothing of his other friends? I hope my dear little daughter is not giving way to that ugly, hateful feeling, jealousy." "Oh! I hope not, mamma," said Bessie. "I would not like to be so naughty. And if you think it's being jealous not to like Uncle Yuthven to--to do that, I'll try not to mind it so much;" and here a great sob escaped her, and a tear or two dropped on mamma's hand. Mrs. Bradford thought it best to make haste and tell her the secret. "My darling," she said, "you know, though you are so fond of dear Aunt Bessie, she is not related to you,--not really your aunt." "Yes'm, but then I love her just as much as if she was my very, very own. I have to love her for so many yeasons; 'cause she is her own self and I can't help it, and 'cause I'm her namesake, and 'cause she's my dear soldier's own sister. Mamma, don't you think that is plenty of yeasons to be fond of her for?" "Yes, dear, but you must be willing to have others fond of her too. And do you not think it would be very pleasant to have her for your own aunt, and to keep her always with us for our very own?" "Oh, yes, mamma! but then that could not be; could it?" "Well, yes," said Mrs. Bradford; "if Uncle Ruthven marries her, she will really be your aunt, and then she will live at grandmamma's, where you may see her almost every day, and feel she is quite one of the family." "And is he going to, mamma?" asked Bessie, raising her head, and with the utmost surprise and pleasure breaking over her face; "is Uncle Yuthven going to marry her, and make her our true aunt?" "Yes, I believe so," answered her mother; "it was all settled a few days ago. We did not mean to tell you just yet, but now I thought it better. But, Bessie, if you send poor Uncle Ruthven away to Africa again, I fear you will lose Aunt Bessie too, for she will go with him." "I was naughty to say that, dear mamma," said Bessie, her whole face in a glow of delight, "and I am so sorry I felt cross to Uncle Yuthven just when he was doing us such a great, great favor. Oh, he was so very kind to think of it! He has been trying to give us pleasure ever since he came home, and now he has done the very best thing of all. He knew just what we would like; did he not, mamma?" Mamma laughed. "I rather think he knew we would all be pleased, Bessie." "I must thank him very much indeed,--must I not, mamma?--and tell him how very obliging I think he is." "You may thank him just as much as you please, dear," said mamma, merrily. "Here comes Maggie to see what has become of us. She must hear this delightful secret too." So Maggie was told, and went capering round the room in frantic delight at the news, inventing, as usual, so many plans and pleasures that might fit in with this new arrangement, that Bessie was better satisfied than ever, and even forgave Uncle Ruthven the kiss. And here was a second joy at hand; for in came a message from Mrs. Rush, asking that the little girls might come over to the hotel and spend the rest of the day with her and the colonel. They were always ready enough for this, and in a short time they were dressed and on their way with Starr, the colonel's man, who had come for them. Starr was a soldier, straight, stiff, and very grave and respectful in his manner; and now, as he walked along, leading a little girl in each hand, they wondered to see how very smiling he looked. "Starr," said Bessie, peeping up in his face, "have you some good news?" "I've no bad news, miss," said Starr, with a broader smile than before. "You look so very pleased," said Bessie; to which Starr only replied, "It's likely, miss," and became silent again. When they reached the long crossing, who should be standing on the corner but Sergeant Richards. Bessie saw him at once, and went directly up to him. "How do you do, Mr. Station Policeman?" she said, politely, and holding out her morsel of a hand to him. "This is my Maggie." "Well, now, but I'm glad to see you, and your Maggie too," said the police-sergeant. "And how have you been this long time?" "Pretty well," answered Bessie. "How are your blind boy and your lame wife and your sick baby, and all your troubles?" "Why, the wife is able to move round a little," said Richards, "and the baby is mending a bit too." "And Willie?" asked Bessie. A shadow came over the policeman's honest face. "Willie is drooping," he said, with a sigh. "I think it's the loss of the sight of his mother's face and of the blessed sunlight that's ailing him. His eyes are quite blind now,--no more light to them than if he was in a pitch-dark cell." "But I thought the doctor could cure him when his eyes were all blind," said Bessie. "Not just now, dear. Next year, maybe, if all goes well. That's the best we can hope for, I believe. But here I am standing and talking to you, when I've business on hand that can't be put off." So saying, he shook hands again with Bessie and walked rapidly away. "I s'pose he means he can't afford to pay the doctor now," said Bessie, as she and Maggie went on again with Starr. "Mrs. Granby said they were pretty poor, and she was 'fraid they couldn't do it this year. It's so long for Willie to wait. I wonder if papa wouldn't pay the doctor." "There's the mistress watching for the little ladies," said Starr, and, looking up, the children saw Mrs. Rush standing at the window of her room and nodding to them. In two minutes more they were at the door, which she opened for them with even a brighter face than usual; and, after kissing them, stood aside to let them see the colonel, who was coming forward to meet them. Yes, there he came, and--no wonder Mrs. Rush looked bright and happy, no wonder Starr was smiling--without his crutches; moving slowly, to be sure, and leaning on a cane, but walking on two feet! If Colonel Rush imagined he was about to give his little friends a pleasant surprise, he found he was not mistaken. "Oh!" exclaimed Bessie, but it was in a very different tone from that in which she had uttered it once before that day. Maggie gave a little shriek of delight which would almost have startled any one who had not known Maggie's ways, or seen her sparkling face. "Oh! goody! goody! goody!" she exclaimed, clapping her hands and hopping about in a kind of ecstasy. "How lovely! how splendid! how--how--superfluous!" Maggie had been trying to find the longest "grown-up" word she could think of, and as she had that morning heard her father say that something was "altogether superfluous," she now used the word without a proper idea of its meaning. But the colonel was quite content to take the word as she meant it, and thanked her for her joyous sympathy. He knew that Bessie felt none the less because she was more quiet. She walked round and round him, looking at him as if she could not believe it, and then going up to him, took his hand in both hers, and laid her smooth, soft cheek upon it in a pretty, tender way which said more than words. "Do let's see you walk a little more," said Maggie. "It's so nice; it's just like a fairy tale, when a good fairy comes and mends all the people that have been chopped to pieces, and makes them just as good as ever; only this is true and that is not." "Who put it on?" asked Bessie, meaning the new leg. "Starr put it on," answered the colonel. "And did you make it, too, Starr?" asked Bessie. "No, indeed, miss;" said Starr, who still stood at the door with his hat in his hand, and his head on one side, looking at his master much as a proud nurse might look at her baby who was trying its first steps,--"no, indeed, miss; that was beyond me." "Starr would have given me one of his own, if he could have done so, I believe," said the colonel, smiling. "So would I," said Maggie, "if mine would have fitted. I think I could do very well with one foot; I hop a good deal, any way. See, I could do this way;" and she began hopping round the table again. "And you run and skip a good deal," said Mrs. Rush, "and how could you do all that on one foot?" Maggie considered a moment. "But I am very attached to the colonel," she said, "and I think I could give up one foot if it would be of use to him." "I believe you would, my generous little girl," said the colonel; and Mrs. Rush stooped and kissed Maggie very affectionately. "Will that new foot walk in the street?" asked Maggie. "Yes, it will walk anywhere when I'm accustomed to it. But I am a little awkward just yet, and must practise some before I venture on it in the street." It seemed almost too good to be true, that the colonel should be sitting there with two feet, which certainly looked quite as well as papa's or Uncle Ruthven's, or those of any other gentleman; and it was long before his affectionate little friends tired of looking at him and expressing their pleasure. "We have some very good news for you," said Bessie; "mamma said we might tell you." "Let us have it then," said the colonel; and the grand secret about Uncle Ruthven and Aunt Bessie was told. "I just believe you knew it before," said Maggie, who thought Colonel and Mrs. Rush did not seem as much surprised as was to be expected. "I am afraid we did, Maggie," said the colonel, smiling; "but we are none the less pleased to hear Bessie tell of it." "But if Uncle Yuthven did it for a favor to us, why did he not tell us first?" said Bessie, rather puzzled. "Well," said the colonel, with a little twinkle in his eye, "it is just possible that your Uncle Ruthven took some other people into consideration,--myself and Marion, for instance. Can you not imagine that he thought it would be very pleasant for us to be related to you?" "Will you be our yelations when Uncle Yuthven marries Aunt Bessie?" asked Bessie. "I think we shall have to put in some claim of that sort," said the colonel. "Aunt Bessie is my sister, and if she becomes your own aunt, I think my wife and I must also consider ourselves as belonging to the family. What should you say to Uncle Horace and Aunt May?"--May was the colonel's pet name for his wife. It was not likely that either of our little girls would find fault with this arrangement; and now it was impossible to say too much in praise of Uncle Ruthven and his very kind plan. The children spent a most delightful day. Mrs. Rush had ordered an early dinner for them; after which the carriage came, and all four--the colonel and his wife and Maggie and Bessie--went for a drive in the Central Park. It was a lovely afternoon, the air so soft and sweet with that strange, delicious scent in it which tells of the coming spring, and here and there, in some sunny nooks, the children were delighted to see little patches of green grass. Sparrows and chickadees, and other birds which make their home with us during the winter, were hopping merrily over the leafless branches, and twittering ceaselessly to one another, as if they were telling of the happy time near at hand, when the warm south winds would blow, and the trees and bushes be covered with their beautiful green summer dress. Presently Starr, turning round from his seat on the box beside the coachman, pointed out a robin, the first robin; and then Maggie's quick eyes discovered a second. Yes, there were a pair of them, perking up their heads and tails, with a saucy, jaunty air, which seemed to say, "Look at me; here I am to tell you spring is coming. Are you not glad to see me?" And as the carriage drove slowly by, that the children might watch the birds, one of them threw back his head and broke into the sweetest, merriest song, which told the same pleasant story. Yes, spring was in the air, and the birdies knew it, though earth as yet showed but few signs of it. "He sings just as if he was so glad he couldn't help it," said Maggie, "and I feel just like him." When they drove back to the city, the children were rather surprised to find they were taken again to the hotel instead of going home at once; but Mrs. Rush said, that as the weather was so mild and pleasant, mamma had promised they might stay till after dark. This was a suitable ending to such a very happy day, especially as it was arranged for them to take their supper while their friends dined. Mrs. Rush thought nothing too much trouble which could give pleasure to these two dear little girls. They were listening to one of the colonel's delightful stories when Mr. Stanton and Miss Rush came in, with the double purpose of paying a short visit to the colonel and his wife and of taking home their young visitors. Scarcely were they seated when Bessie walked up to Mr. Stanton with "Uncle Er-er-er-Yuthven,"--Bessie was trying very hard for the R's in these days, especially when she spoke to her uncle,--"we do thank you so very much. We think you are the most obliging gentleman we ever saw." "Really," said Uncle Ruthven, gravely, "this is very pleasant to hear. May I ask who are the 'we' who have such a very high opinion of me?" "Why, mamma and the colonel and Mrs. Yush and Maggie and I; and I s'pose all the fam'ly who know what a very great favor you are going to do for us." "And what is this wonderful favor?" asked Mr. Stanton. "To marry Aunt Bessie, so she will be quite our very own," answered the little girl. "And then you see that makes my soldier and Mrs. Yush our own too. They are Uncle Horace and Aunt May now, for the colonel said we might as well begin at once. We are all very, very pleased, Uncle Yuthven, and Maggie and I think you are the kindest uncle that ever lived." "I am glad you have found that out at last," said Uncle Ruthven. "Here I have been living for your happiness ever since I came home, and if I had made this last sacrifice without your finding out that I am the best and most generous uncle in the world, it would have been terrible indeed." "I don't believe you think it is a sacrifice," said Maggie. "I guess you like it 'most as well as Bessie and I do." "_Does_ he, Aunt Bessie?" asked little Bessie, in a tone as if this could not be; at which Uncle Ruthven's gravity gave way, and the older people all laughed heartily, though the children could not see why. If Bessie had known how to express her feelings, she would have said that it was Uncle Ruthven's manner when he was joking which caused her to "have objections" to him. When Uncle John was joking, he had such a merry face that it was quite easy to see what he meant; but Uncle Ruthven always kept such a sober face and tone that it was hard to tell whether he were in earnest or no. And now, when he caught her up in his arms, and stood her upon the mantel-piece, she felt as if she still only half approved of him; but it was not in her heart to find fault with him just now, and she readily put up her lips for the kiss which she knew he would claim before he let her go. [Illustration: decoration, end of chap. 10] [Illustration: Title decoration, chap. 11] XI. _BLIND WILLIE._ "Maggie and Bessie," said Mrs. Bradford, one day soon after this, "I am going to send Jane over with some work to Mrs. Granby. Would you like to go with her and see the policeman's children?" Bessie answered "Yes," readily enough, but though Maggie would have liked the long walk on this lovely day, she was rather doubtful of the pleasure of calling on those who were entire strangers to her. But after some little coaxing from Bessie, who said she would not go without her, she was at last persuaded, and they set out with Jane, taking Flossy with them. The children had their hooples, which they trundled merrily before them and Flossy went capering joyously along, sometimes running ahead, for a short distance, and then rushing back to his little mistresses, and if any rough boys made their appearance, keeping very close at their side till all danger was past. For since Flossy was stolen, he had been very careful as to the company he kept, and looked with a very suspicious eye upon any one who wore a ragged coat, which was not very just of Flossy, since a ragged coat may cover as true and honest a heart as ever beat; but as the poor puppy knew no better, and had received some hard treatment at the hands of those whose miserable garments covered hard and cruel hearts, he must be excused for thinking that the one was a sign of the other. Flossy had turned out quite as pretty a little dog as he had promised to be. His coat was long, soft, and silky, and beautifully marked in brown and white; his drooping ears hung gracefully on each side of his head, while his great black eyes were so knowing and affectionate that it was hard to believe no soul looked out of them. It was no wonder that almost every child they passed turned to take a second look, and to wish that they, too, had such a pretty merry pet. Flossy was in great favor that day on account of a droll trick which he had played, much to the amusement of the children. Harry and Fred were very anxious to teach him all manner of things, such as standing on his head, pretending to be dead, and so forth; but Maggie and Bessie declared he was too young to be taught anything except "to be good and polite," and would not have him teased. Beside, he had funny tricks and ways of his own which they thought much better than those, and was as full of play and mischief as a petted doggie could be. Harry had a weak ankle, which in his boyish frolics he was constantly hurting, and now, having given it a slight sprain, he was laid up on the sofa. On the day before this, his dinner had been sent to him, but as it did not exactly suit him, he called Flossy, and writing on a piece of paper what he desired, gave it to the dog, and told him to take it to mamma. He was half doubtful if the creature would understand; but Flossy ran directly to the dining-room with the paper in his mouth, and gave it to Mrs. Bradford. As a reward for doing his errand so well, she gave him a piece of cake, although it was against her rules that he should be fed from the table. On this day, Harry had been able to come down-stairs; and while the children were at their dinner, Flossy was heard whining at the door. Patrick opened it, and in he ran with a crumpled piece of paper, on which Franky had been scribbling, in his mouth, and going to Mrs. Bradford held it up to her, wagging his tail with an air which said quite plainly, "Here is your paper, now give me my cake." "Poor little doggie! He did not know why one piece of paper was not as good as another, and Mrs. Bradford could not refuse him, while all the children were quite delighted with his wisdom, and could not make enough of him for the remainder of the day." Maggie and Bessie were rather surprised at the appearance of the policeman's house. It was so different from those which stood around it, or from any which they were accustomed to see in the city; but it looked very pleasant to them with its green shutters, old-fashioned porch, and the little courtyard and great butternut tree in front. The small plot of grass behind the white palings was quite green now, and some of the buds on the hardier bushes were beginning to unfold their young leaves. Altogether it looked very nice and homelike, none the less so that Jennie Richards and her three younger brothers were playing around, and digging up the fresh moist earth, with the fancy that they were making a garden. But their digging was forgotten when they saw Jane with her little charge. "Does Mrs. Granby live here?" asked Jane, unlatching the gate. "Yes, ma'am," answered Jennie. "Will you please to walk in?" and opening the doors, Jennie showed the visitors into the sitting-room. Mrs. Richards sat sewing, with Willie, as usual, beside her, rocking ceaselessly back and forth in his little chair; while good Mrs. Granby, who had been seated close by the window, and had seen Jane and the children come in, was bustling about, placing chairs for them. On Willie's knee was a Maltese kitten purring away contentedly; but the moment she caught sight of Flossy, she sprang from her resting-place, and, scampering into a corner, put up her back, and began spitting and hissing in a very impolite manner. If Miss Pussy had been civil, Flossy would probably have taken no notice of her; but when she drew attention upon herself by this very rude behavior, he began to bark and jump about her, more with a love of teasing than with any idea of hurting her. It was quite a moment or two before these enemies could be quieted, and then it was only done by Maggie catching up Flossy in her arms, and Mrs. Granby thrusting the kitten into a bureau drawer with a cuff on its ear. The commotion being over, with the exception of an occasional spit from the drawer, as if kitty were still conscious of the presence of her foe, Bessie walked up to Mrs. Richards, and politely holding out her hand, said, "We came to see you and your fam'ly, ma'am, and we're sorry to make such a 'sturbance." "Well," said Mrs. Richards, smiling at what she afterwards called Bessie's old-fashioned ways,--"well, I think it was the kitten was to blame for the disturbance, not you, nor your pretty dog there; and I'm sure we're all glad to see you, dear. Are you the little girl that was lost and taken up to the station?" "Yes, I am," said Bessie; "but I was not taken up 'cause I was naughty, but 'cause I could not find my way home. Is my policeman pretty well?" "He's very well, thank you, dear; but he'll be mighty sorry to hear you've been here, and he not home to see you." "Mother," said Willie, "what a sweet voice that little girl has! Will she let me touch her?" "Would you, dear?" asked Mrs. Richards; "you see it's the only way he has now of finding what anybody is like." "Oh! he may touch me as much as he likes," said Bessie, and coming close to the blind boy, she put her hand in his, and waited patiently while he passed his fingers up her arm and shoulder, then over her curls, cheek, and chin; for Willie Richards was already gaining that quick sense of touch which God gives to the blind. The mother's heart was full as she watched the two children, and saw the tender, pitying gaze Bessie bent upon her boy. "Poor Willie!" said the little girl, putting her arm about his neck, "I am so sorry for you. But perhaps our Father will let you see again some day." "I don't know," said Willie, sadly; "they used to say I would be better when the spring came, but the spring is here now, and it is no lighter. Oh, it is so very, very dark!" Bessie's lip quivered, and the tears gathered in her eyes as she raised them to Mrs. Richards. But Mrs. Richards turned away her head. She sometimes thought that Willie had guessed that the doctor had had hopes of curing them in the spring, but she had not the courage to ask him. Nor could she and his father bear to excite hopes which might again be disappointed, by telling him to wait with patience till next year. But Bessie did not know what made Mrs. Richards silent, and wondering that she did not speak, she felt as if she must herself say something to comfort him. "But maybe next spring you will see, Willie," she said. "Maybe so," said Willie, piteously, "but it is so long to wait." Bessie was silent for a moment, not quite knowing what to say; then she spoke again. "Wouldn't you like to come out and feel the spring, Willie? It is nice out to-day and the wind is so pleasant and warm." "No," answered Willie, almost impatiently, "I only want to stay here with mother. I know it feels nice out; but the children come and say, '_See_ the sky, how blue it is!' and '_Look_ at this flower,' when I can't see them, and it makes me feel so bad, so bad. I know the grass is green and the sky is blue, and the crocuses and violets are coming out just as they used to when I could see, but I don't want them to tell me of it all the time; and they forget, and it makes me feel worse. But I wouldn't mind the rest so much if I could only see mother's face just a little while every day, then I would be good and patient all the time. Oh! if I only could see her, just a moment!" "Don't, don't, sonny," said his mother, laying her hand lovingly on his head. It was the ceaseless burden of his plaintive song,--"If I only could see mother's face! If I only could see mother's face!" "And maybe you will some day, Willie," said Bessie; "so try to think about that, and how she loves you just the same even if you don't see her. And don't you like to know the blue sky is there, and that Jesus is behind it, looking at you and feeling sorry for you? None of us can see Jesus, but we know he sees us and loves us all the same; don't we? Couldn't you feel a little that way about your mother, Willie?" "I'll try," said Willie, with the old patient smile coming back again. Poor Willie! It was not usual for him to be impatient or fretful. But he had been sadly tried that day in the way he had spoken of, and the longing for his lost sight was almost too great to be borne. But now Mrs. Granby, suspecting something of what was going on on that side of the room, came bustling up to Willie and Bessie, bringing Maggie with her. Maggie had been making acquaintance with Jennie while Bessie was talking with the blind boy. "Willie," said Mrs. Granby, "here's just the prettiest little dog that ever lived, and he is as tame and gentle as can be. If Miss Maggie don't object, maybe he'd lie a bit on your knee, and let you feel his nice long ears and silken hair." "Yes, take him," said Maggie, putting her dog into Willie's arms. Flossy was not usually very willing to go to strangers; but now, perhaps, his doggish instinct told him that this poor boy had need of pity and kindness. However that was, he lay quietly in Willie's clasp, and looking wistfully into his sightless eyes, licked his hands and face. Maggie and Bessie were delighted, and began to tell Willie of Flossy's cunning ways. The other children gathered about to listen and admire too, and presently Willie laughed outright as they told of his cute trick with the crumpled paper. And now, whether Miss Kitty saw through the crack of the drawer that her young master was fondling a new pet, or whether she only guessed at it, or whether she thought it hard that fun should be going on in which she had no share, cannot be told; but just then there came from her prison-place such a hissing and sputtering and scratching that every one of the children set up a shout of laughter. Not since his blindness came upon him had his mother heard Willie's voice sound so gleeful, and now in her heart she blessed the dear little girl who she felt had done him good. Then as the children begged for her, kitty was released; but as she still showed much ill-temper, Mrs. Granby was obliged to put her in the other room. Soon after this our little girls, with their nurse, took leave, having presented Willie with a new book, and his mother with some useful things mamma had sent, and giving Willie and Jennie an invitation to come and see them. They did not go back as joyfully as they had come. Somehow, in spite of the good laugh they had had, the thought of blind Willie made them feel sad, and giving Jane their hooples to carry, they walked quietly by her side, hand in hand. Bessie was half heart-broken as she told her mamma of the blind boy's longing to see his mother's face, and neither she nor Maggie quite recovered their usual spirits for the remainder of the day. Mamma was almost sorry she had allowed them to go. "And what makes my princess so sad this evening?" asked Uncle Ruthven, lifting Bessie upon his knee. "Don't you think you'd be very sad, sir, if you were blind?" "Doubtless I should, dear. I think, of all my senses, my sight is the one I prize most, and for which I am most thankful. But you are not going to lose your sight; are you, Bessie?" "No," said Bessie; "but Willie Richards has lost his. He is quite, quite blind, uncle, and can't see his mother's face; and they can't let the doctor cure him, 'cause they are too poor. Maggie and I wished to help them very much, and we wanted to ask them to take all the glove-money we have,--that is what mamma lets us have to do charity with,--but mamma says it would not be much help, and she thinks we had better keep it to buy some little thing Willie may need. And we are very grieved for him." "Poor little princess!" said Mr. Stanton. "And why did you not come to me for help? What is the good of having an old uncle with plenty of money in his pockets, if you do not make him 'do charity' for you? Let me see. How comes on the history of the 'Complete Family,' Maggie?" "Oh! it's 'most finished," said Maggie. "At least, that book is; but we are going to have another volume. Mamma likes us to write it. She says it is good practice, and will make it easy for us to write compositions by and by." "Very sensible of mamma," said Mr. Stanton. "But I think you said you wished to sell it when it was finished, so that you might help the poor." "Yes, sir." "Well, you know I am going away to-morrow morning,--going to take Aunt Bessie to Baltimore to see her sister. We shall be gone about a week. If your book is finished when we come home, I shall see if I cannot find a purchaser for it. And you might use the money for the blind boy if you like." Just at this moment nurse put her head in at the door with "Come along, my honeys. Your mamma is waiting up-stairs for you, and it's your bed-time." "In one instant, mammy," said Mr. Stanton. "Is it a bargain, little ones? If I find a man to buy your book, will you have it ready, and trust it to me, when I come back?" The children were willing enough to agree to this; and Maggie only wished that it was not bed-time, so that she might finish the book that very night. Uncle Ruthven said they would talk more about it when he returned, and bade them "Good-night." "My darlings," said mamma, when they went up-stairs, "I do not want you to distress yourselves about blind Willie. When the time comes for the doctor to perform the operation on his eyes, I think the means will be found to pay him. But you are not to say anything about it at present. I only tell you because I do not like to see you unhappy." "Are you or papa going to do it, mamma?" asked Bessie. "We shall see," said Mrs. Bradford, with a smile. "Perhaps we can help you a little," said Maggie, joyfully; and she told her mother of her uncle's proposal about the book. [Illustration: Title decoration, chap. 12] XII. _MAGGIE'S BOOK._ Uncle Ruthven and Aunt Bessie went away the next morning, and were gone nearly a week, and very much did the children miss them, especially as the week proved one of storm and rain, and they were shut up in the house. During all this stormy weather Aunt Patty seemed very anxious to go out, watching for the first glimpse of sunshine. But none came, and at last, one morning when there was a fine, drizzling rain, she came down dressed for a walk. Mrs. Bradford was much astonished, for Mrs. Lawrence was subject to rheumatism, and it was very imprudent for her to go out in the damp. In vain did Mrs. Bradford offer to send a servant on any errand she might wish to have done. Aunt Patty would not listen to it for a moment, nor would she allow a carriage to be sent for, nor tell where she was going. She stayed a long time, and when the boys ran home from school in the midst of a hard shower, they were surprised to meet her just getting out of a carriage which had drawn up around the corner. Aunt Patty did not seem at all pleased to see them, and in answer to their astonished inquiries, "Why, Aunt Patty! where have you been?" and "Why don't you let the carriage leave you at the house?" answered, sharply, "When I was young, old people could mind their own affairs without help from school-boys." "Not without help from school-_girls_, when _she_ was around, I guess," whispered Fred to his brother, as they fell behind, and let the old lady march on. Nor was she more satisfactory when she reached home, and seemed only desirous to avoid Mrs. Bradford's kind inquiries and anxiety lest she should have taken cold. This was rather strange, for it was not Aunt Patty's way to be mysterious, and she was generally quite ready to let her actions be seen by the whole world. But certainly no one would have guessed from her manner that she had that morning been about her Master's work. Uncle Ruthven and Aunt Bessie came home that afternoon, and found no reason to doubt their welcome. "We're very glad to see you, Uncle Er-er _R_uthven," said Bessie, bringing out the _R_ quite clearly. "Hallo!" said her uncle, "so you have come to it at last; have you? You have been learning to talk English while I was away. Pretty well for my princess! What reward shall I give you for that _R_uthven?" "I don't want a reward," said the little princess, gayly. "I tried to learn it 'cause I thought you wanted me to; and you are so kind to us I wanted to please you. Besides, I am growing pretty old, and I ought to learn to talk plain. Why, Uncle Ruthven, I'll be six years old when I have a birthday in May, and the other day we saw a little girl,--she was blind Willie's sister,--and she couldn't say _th_, though she is 'most seven; and I thought it sounded pretty foolish; and then I thought maybe it sounded just as foolish for me not to say _r_, so I tried and tried, and Maggie helped me." "Uncle Ruthven," said Maggie, coming to his side, and putting her arm about his neck, she whispered in his ear, "did you ever find a man to buy my book?" "To be sure," said Mr. Stanton, "a first-rate fellow, who promised to take it at once. He would like to know how much you want for it?" "I don't know," said Maggie; "how much can he afford?" "Ah! you answer my question by another. Well, he is pretty well off, that fellow, and I think he will give you sufficient to help along that blind friend of yours a little. We will not talk of that just now, however, but when you go up-stairs, I will come up and see you, and we will settle it all then." "Here is a prize," said Mr. Stanton, coming into the parlor some hours later, when the children had all gone; and he held up Maggie's history of the "Complete Family." "What is that?" asked Colonel Rush, who with his wife had come to welcome his sister. Mr. Stanton told the story of the book. "But how came it into your hands?" asked Mr. Bradford. "Oh, Maggie and I struck a bargain to-night," said Mr. Stanton, laughing, "and the book is mine to do as I please with." "Oh, Ruthven, Ruthven!" said his sister, coming in as he spoke, and passing her hand affectionately through his thick, curly locks, "you have made two happy hearts to-night. Nor will the stream of joy you have set flowing stop with my little ones. That poor blind child and his parents--" "There, there, that will do," said Mr. Stanton, playfully putting his hand on Mrs. Bradford's lips. "Sit down here, Margaret. I shall give you all some passages from Maggie's book. If I am not mistaken, it will be a rich treat." Poor little Maggie! She did not dream, as she lay happy and contented on her pillow, how merry they were all making over her "Complete Family," as Uncle Ruthven read aloud from it such passages as these. "The Happy father and mother brought up their children in the way they should go, but sometimes the children went out of it, which was not the blame of their kind parents, for they knew better, and they ought to be ashamed of themselves, and it is a great blessing for children to have parents. "The colonel had a new leg, not a skin one, but a man made it, but you would not know it, it looks so real, and he can walk with it and need not take his crutches, and the souls of M. and B. Happy were very glad because this was a great rejoicing, and it is not a blessing to be lame, but to have two legs is, and when people have a great many blessings, they ought to 'praise God from whom all blessings flow;' but they don't always, which is very wicked. "This very Complete Family grew completer and completer, for the travelling uncle married Aunt Bessie, I mean he is going to marry her, so she will be our own aunt and not just a make b'lieve, and all the family are very glad and are very much obliged to him for being so kind, but I don't think he is a great sacrifice. "M. and B. Happy went to see the policeman's children. Blind Willie was sorrowful and can't see his mother, or anything, which is no consequence, if he could see his mother's face, for if M. Happy and B. Happy could not see dear mamma's face they would cry all the time. I mean M. would, but Bessie is better than me so maybe she would not, and Willie is very patient, and the cat was very abominable, and if Flossy did so, Bessie and I would be disgraced of him. She humped up her back and was cross, so Mrs. Granby put her in the drawer, but she put a paw out of the crack and spit and scratched and did 'most everything. Oh! such a bad cat!!!!!! Jennie she cannot say th, and afterwards I laughed about it, but Bessie said I ought not, because she cannot say r and that was 'most the same. And she is going to try and say Uncle Ruthven's name quite plain and hard, he is so very good to us, and he promised to find a man to buy this book, and we hope the man will give five dollars to be a great help for blind Willie's doctor. I suppose he will ask everybody in the cars if they want to buy a book to print, that somebody of his wrote, but he is not going to tell our name because I asked him not to." The book ended in this way:-- "These are not all the acts of the Complete Family, but there will be another book with some more. Adieu. And if you don't know French, that means good-by. The end of the book!" "Pretty well for seven years old, I think," said Mr. Bradford. "Mamma, did you lend a helping hand?" "Only to correct the spelling," said Mrs. Bradford; "the composition and ideas are entirely Maggie's own, with a little help from Bessie. I have not interfered save once or twice when she has chosen some subject I did not think it best she should write on. Both she and Bessie have taken so much pleasure in it that I think it would have been a real trial to part with the book except for some such object as they have gained." "And what is that?" asked Colonel Rush. "The sum Dr. Dawson asks for the cure of Willie Richards," answered Mrs. Bradford, "which sum this dear brother of mine is allowing to pass through the hands of these babies of mine, as their gift to the blind child." "Aunt Patty," said Bessie at the breakfast-table the next morning,--"Aunt Patty, did you hear what Uncle Ruthven did for us?" "Yes, I heard," said the old lady, shortly. "And don't you feel very happy with us?" asked the little darling, who was anxious that every one should rejoice with herself and Maggie; but she spoke more timidly than she had done at first, and something of her old fear of Aunt Patty seemed to come over her. "I do not think it at all proper that children should be allowed to have such large sums of money," said Mrs. Lawrence, speaking not to Bessie, but to Mrs. Bradford. "I thought your brother a more sensible man, Margaret. Such an ill-judged thing!" Mrs. Bradford was vexed, as she saw the bright face of her little daughter become overcast, still she tried to speak pleasantly. Something had evidently gone wrong with Aunt Patty. "I do not think you will find Ruthven wanting in sense or judgment, Aunt Patty," she said, gently. "And the sum you speak of is for a settled purpose. It only passes through my children's hands, and is not theirs to waste or spend as they may please." "And if it was, we would rather give it to blind Willie, mamma," said Bessie, in a grieved and half-angry voice. "I am sure of it, my darling," said mamma, with a nod and smile which brought comfort to the disappointed little heart. Ah, the dear mamma! they were all sure of sympathy from her whether in joy or sorrow. Aunt Patty's want of it had been particularly hard on Bessie, for the dear child saw the old lady did not look half pleased that morning, and she had spoken as much from a wish to cheer her as for her own sake and Maggie's. "It is all wrong, decidedly wrong!" continued Mrs. Lawrence. "In my young days things were very different. Children were not then allowed to take the lead in every way, and to think they could do it as well or better than their elders. The proper thing for you to do, Margaret, is to put by that money till your children are older and better able to judge what they are doing." "I think they understand that now, Aunt Patty," said Mrs. Bradford, quietly, but firmly; "and if they should not, I suppose you will allow that their parents are able to judge for them. Henry and I understand all the merits of the present case." Aunt Patty was not to be convinced, and she talked for some time, growing more and more vexed as she saw her words had no effect. Mr. and Mrs. Bradford were silent, for they knew it was of no use to argue with the old lady when she was in one of these moods; but they wished that the meal was at an end, and the children were out of hearing. And there sat Miss Rush, too, wondering and indignant, and only kept from replying to Aunt Patty by Mrs. Bradford's beseeching look. But at last Mr. Bradford's patience was at an end, and in a firm, decided manner, he requested the old lady to say nothing more on the subject, but to leave it to be settled by his wife and himself. If there was any person in the world of whom Mrs. Lawrence stood in awe, it was her nephew; and she knew when he spoke in that tone, he meant to be obeyed. Therefore, she was silent, but sat through the remainder of breakfast with a dark and angry face. "Papa," said Maggie, as her father rose from the table, "do you think there is the least, least hope that it will clear to-day?" "Well, I see some signs of it, dear; but these April days are very uncertain. Of one thing be sure, if the weather be at all fit, I will come home and take you where you want to go." "Are you tired of being shut up in the house so long, dear Midget?" asked Aunt Bessie, putting her arm about Maggie, and drawing her to her side. "Yes, pretty tired, Aunt Bessie; but that is not the reason why Bessie and I wish so very much to have it clear. Papa told us, if the weather was pleasant, he would take us to the policeman's, and let us give the money ourselves. But he says, if it keeps on raining, he thinks it would be better to send it, because it is not kind to keep them waiting when they feel so badly about Willie, and this will make them so glad. I suppose it is not very kind, but we want very much to take it, and see Mrs. Richards how pleased she will be." "We will hope for the best," said Mr. Bradford, cheerfully; "and I think it may turn out a pleasant day. But my little daughters must not be too much disappointed if the rain keeps on. And now that I may be ready for clear skies and dry pavements, I must go down town at once." No sooner had the door closed after Mr. Bradford than Aunt Patty broke forth again. "Margaret," she said, severely, "it is not possible that you mean to add to your folly by letting your children go to that low place, after such weather as we have had! You don't know what you may expose them to, especially that delicate child, whom you can never expect to be strong while you are so shamefully careless of her;" and she looked at Bessie, who felt very angry. "That will be as their father thinks best," answered Mrs. Bradford, quietly. "He will not take them unless the weather is suitable; and the policeman's house is neat and comfortable, and in a decent neighborhood. The children will come to no harm there." "And it is certainly going to clear," said Harry. "See there, mamma, how it is brightening overhead." "It will not clear for some hours at least," persisted the old lady; "and then the ground will be extremely damp after this week of rain, especially among those narrow streets. Do be persuaded, Margaret, and say, at least, that the children must wait till to-morrow." "Bessie shall not go unless it is quite safe for her," answered Mrs. Bradford, "and she will not ask it unless mamma thinks it best; will you, my darling?" Bessie only replied with a smile, and a very feeble smile at that; and her mother saw by the crimson spot in each cheek, and the little hand pressed tightly upon her lips, how hard the dear child was struggling with herself. It was so. Bessie was hurt at what she thought Aunt Patty's unkindness in trying to deprive her of the pleasure on which she counted, and she had hard work to keep down the rising passion. Aunt Patty argued, persisted, and persuaded; but she could gain from Mrs. Bradford nothing more than she had said before, and at last she left the room in high displeasure. "Mamma," said Harry, indignantly, "what do you stand it for? How dare she talk so to you? Your folly, indeed! I wish papa had been here!" "I wish you'd let me hush her up," said Fred. "It's rather hard for a fellow to stand by and have his mother spoken to that way. Now is she not a meddling, aggravating old coon, Aunt Bessie? No, you need not shake your head in that grave, reproving way. I know you think so; and you, too, you dear, patient little mamma;" and here Fred gave his mother such a squeeze and kiss as would have made any one else cry out for mercy. "I sha'n't try to bear Aunt Patty's burden this day, I know," said Maggie. "She is _too_ mean not to want blind Willie cured, and it is not any of hers to talk about, either. Her corners are awful to-day! Just trying to make mamma say Bessie couldn't go to the policeman's house!" Bessie said nothing, but her mamma saw she was trying to keep down her angry feelings. "I suppose she is tired of the 'new leaf' she pretended to have turned over, and don't mean to play good girl any more," said Fred. "She has been worrying papa too," said Harry. "There is never any knowing what she'll be at. There was a grove which used to belong to her father, and which had been sold by one of her brothers after he died. It was a favorite place with our great-grandfather, and Aunt Patty wanted it back very much, but she never could persuade the man who had bought it to give it up. A few years ago he died, and his son offered to sell it to her. She could not afford it then, for she had lost a great deal of property, and the mean chap asked a very large sum for it because he knew she wanted it so much. But she was determined to have it, and for several years she has been putting by little by little till she should have enough. She told Fred and me all about it, one evening when papa and mamma were out, and we felt so sorry for her when she told how her father had loved the place, and how she could die contented if she only had it back once more after all these years, that we asked papa if he could not help her. Papa said he would willingly do so, but she would not be pleased if he offered, though she had so set her heart on it that she was denying herself everything she could possibly do without; for she is not well off now, and is too proud to let her friends help her Well, it seems she had enough laid by at last,--a thousand dollars,--and she asked papa to settle it all for her. He wrote to the man, and had a lot of fuss and bother with him; but it was all fixed at last, and the papers drawn up, when what does she do a week ago, but tell papa she had changed her mind, and should not buy the grove at present." "Harry, my boy," said Mrs. Bradford, "this is all so, but how do you happen to know so much about it?" "Why, she talked to me several times about it, mamma. She was quite chipper with Fred and me now and then, when no grown people were around, and used to tell us stories of things which happened at the old homestead by the hour. The other day when you were out, and Mag and Bess had gone to the policeman's, she told me it was all settled that she was to have the grove; and she seemed so happy over it. But only two days after, when I said something about it, she took me up quite short, and told me that affair was all over, and no more to be said. I didn't dare to ask any more questions of her, but I thought it no harm to ask papa, and he told me he knew no more than I did, for Aunt Patty would give him no reason. He was dreadfully annoyed by it, I could see, although he did not say much; he never does, you know, when he is vexed." "Quite true," said his mother; "and let him be an example to the rest of us. We have all forgotten ourselves a little in the vexations of the morning. You have been saying that which was better left unsaid, and your mother has done wrong in listening to you." "No, indeed, you have not," said Fred, again clutching his mother violently about the neck; "you never do wrong, you dear, precious mamma, and I'll stand up for you against all the cross old Aunt Pattys in creation." "My dear boy," gasped his mother, "if you could leave my head on, it would be a greater convenience than fighting on my account with Aunt Patty. And your mother must be very much on her guard, Fred, if a thing is to be judged right by you because she does it. But, dearest children, did we not all determine not to allow ourselves to be irritated and vexed by such things as have taken place this morning? This is almost the first trial of the kind we have had. Let us be patient and forgiving, and try to think no more of it." But it was in vain that Mrs. Bradford coaxed and persuaded, and even reproved. Her children obeyed, and were silent when she forbade any more to be said on the subject; but she could not do away with the impression which Aunt Patty's ill-temper and interference had made. Poor Aunt Patty! She had practised a great piece of self-denial, had given up a long-cherished hope, that she might have the means of doing a very kind action; but she did not choose to have it known by her friends. And having made up her mind to this, and given up so much to bring it about, it did seem hard that her arrangements should be interfered with, as they seemed likely to be by this new plan which had come to her ears the night before. But now as she stood alone in her own room, taking herself to task for the ill-temper she had just shown, she felt that it would be still harder for the children; she could not allow them to be disappointed if it were still possible to prevent it; that would be too cruel now that she saw so plainly how much they had set their hearts upon this thing. At first it had seemed to her, as she said, much better that they should put by the money until they were older, but now she saw it was the desire to carry out her own will which had led her to think this. But Aunt Patty was learning to give up her own will, slowly and with difficulty it might be, with many a struggle, many a failure, as had been shown this morning; but still, thanks to the whispers of the better spirit by whose teachings she had lately been led, she was taking to heart the lesson so hard to learn because so late begun. And now how was she to undo what she had done, so that Maggie and Bessie might still keep this matter in their own hands? For Aunt Patty, hearing the little ones talk so much of the blind boy and his parents, had become quite interested in the policeman's family. She did not know them, it was true, had never seen one of them, but the children's sympathy had awakened hers, and she felt a wish to do something to help them; but to do this to much purpose was not very easy for Mrs. Lawrence. She was not rich, and what she gave to others she must take from her own comforts and pleasures. What a good thing it would be to pay Dr. Dawson and free the policeman from debt! What happiness this would bring to those poor people! What pleasure it would give little Maggie and Bessie! But how could she do it? She had not the means at present, unless, indeed, she put off the purchase of the grove for a year or two, and took part of the sum she had so carefully laid by for that purpose, and if she did so, she might never have back the grove. She was very old, had not probably many years to live, and she might pass away before the wished-for prize was her own. And these people were nothing to her; why should she make such a sacrifice for them? So thought Aunt Patty, and then said to herself, if she had but a short time upon earth, was there not more reason that she should spend it in doing all she could for her Master's service, in helping those of his children on whom he had laid pain and sorrows? She had been wishing that she might be able to prove her love and gratitude for the great mercy that had been shown to her, that she might yet redeem the wasted years, the misspent life which lay behind her, and now when the Lord had given her the opportunity for which she had been longing, should she turn her back upon it, should she shut her ear to the cry of the needy, because to answer it would cost a sacrifice of her own wishes? Should she bear the burdens of others only when they did not weigh heavily on herself? And so the old lady had gone to Dr. Dawson and paid him the sum he asked for curing Willie's eyes. What more she had done will be shown hereafter. If the children had known this, perhaps they could have guessed why she would not buy the grove after all papa's trouble. There were several reasons why Mrs. Lawrence had chosen to keep all this a secret; partly from a really honest desire not to parade her generosity in the eyes of men, partly because she thought that Mr. Bradford might oppose it, and fearing the strength of her own resolution, she did not care to have it shaken by any persuasions to the contrary, and partly because she had always rather prided herself on carrying out her own plans without help or advice from others. This fear that she might be tempted to change her purpose had also made Aunt Patty so anxious to bring it to an end at once, and had taken her out in the rain on the day before this. And now it seemed that her trouble so far as regarded Dr. Dawson was all thrown away. But the question was, how should she get the money back from the doctor without betraying herself to him or some of the family? for this Aunt Patty was quite determined not to do. It was not a pleasant task to ask him to return the money she had once given, and that without offering any reason save that she had changed her mind. Every limb was aching with the cold taken from her exposure of yesterday, and now if she was to be in time, she must go out again in the damp. True, it was not raining now, but there was another heavy cloud coming up in the south; she should surely be caught in a fresh shower. If she could have persuaded Mrs. Bradford to keep the children at home until the next day, she could go to Dr. Dawson that afternoon if the weather were clear, and so escape another wetting. For the doctor had told her he did not think he could see the policeman before the evening of that day. But Margaret was "obstinate," said the old lady, forgetting that she herself was a little obstinate in keeping all this a secret. So there was nothing for it but to go at once. Poor old lady! Perhaps it was not to be wondered at that, as she moved about the room, making ready to go out, she should again feel irritable and out of humor. She was in much pain. The plans which had cost her so much, and which she had thought would give such satisfaction, were all disarranged. She was vexed at being misjudged by those from whom she had so carefully concealed what she had done, for she saw plainly enough that they all thought her opposition of the morning was owing to the spirit of contradiction she had so often shown. She was vexed at herself, vexed with Mrs. Bradford, vexed even with the little ones whom she could not allow to be disappointed, and just for the moment she could not make up her mind to be reasonable and look at things in their right light. Nor were her troubles yet at an end. As she left the room, she met Mrs. Bradford, who, seeing that she was going out again, once more tried to dissuade her from such imprudence, but all to no purpose. Aunt Patty was very determined and rather short, and went on her way down-stairs. As Mrs. Bradford entered her nursery, mammy, who had heard all that had passed, said, with the freedom of an old and privileged servant,-- "Eh, my dear, but she's contrary. She's just hunting up a fit of rheumatics, that you may have the trouble of nursing her through it." Mrs. Lawrence heard the old woman's improper speech, but did not hear Mrs. Bradford's gently spoken reproof, and we may be sure the first did not help to restore her good-humor. [Illustration: decoration, end of chap. 12] [Illustration: Title decoration, chap. 13] XIII. _DISAPPOINTMENT._ Bessie's high spirits had all flown away. The scene with Aunt Patty, and the fear that the weather would not allow Maggie and herself to carry Uncle Ruthven's gift to blind Willie, on which pleasure, in spite of her father's warning, she had quite set her mind, were enough to sadden that sensitive little heart. More than this, she was very much hurt at what Aunt Patty had said of her mother. _She_, that dear, precious mamma, always so tender and devoted, so careful of her by night and day, to be so spoken of! No one else had ever dared to speak so to mamma in her hearing, and she did not feel as if she could forgive it. Poor little soul! she was very indignant, but she kept down her anger, and all she had allowed herself to say had been, "She would not like to be blind herself a whole year; but she has not a bit of _symphethy_." At which long word mamma could not help smiling; but as she looked at the grieved face, she felt as if she could scarcely keep her own patience. "Come here, Bessie," said Miss Rush, who was sitting by the window, "I have something to show you; see there," as Bessie climbed upon her lap. "A few moments since I saw a break in the clouds, and a bit of blue sky peeping out. I did not call you right away, lest you should be disappointed again; but the blue is spreading and spreading, so I think we may hope for a fine day, after all. And see, there is the sun struggling through. Ah, I think you will have your walk with papa." Yes, there came the sun shining quite brightly now, and the pools of water on the sidewalk began to dance in his beams as if they were saying, "How do you do, Mr. Sun? We are glad to see you after a week's absence, even though you do mean to make us disappear beneath your warm rays." Bessie watched for a few moments, and then ran to find Maggie, who had gone up-stairs with mamma for a new story-book which Aunt Bessie had promised to read for them. "Maggie, Maggie!" she called from the foot of the stairs, "come and see how the blue sky is coming out and how the sun is shining;" and as she spoke, Maggie ran along the upper hall, and came down, saying, dolefully,-- "Oh, Bessie! I saw it up-stairs, and I went to the window to look, and there's a great cloud coming over the sun. There, see! he's all gone now. I just believe it is going to rain again." It was too true, and as the little girls ran to the front-door, and Maggie drew aside the lace which covered the large panes of glass in the upper part, so that they might peep out, they saw that the blue sky had disappeared, and a moment later, down splashed the heavy drops of rain. Bessie felt a great choking in her throat, and Maggie said, impatiently, "It is _never_ going to clear up; I know it. It just rains this way to provoke poor children who want to go out." "Maggie, darling, who sends the rain?" came in Aunt Bessie's gentle tone through the open parlor-door, and at the same moment a stern voice behind the children said,-- "You are very naughty, child. Do you remember that God hears you when you say such wicked words?" Both children turned with a start to see Mrs. Lawrence in hat and cloak, and with an enormous umbrella in her hand. "No," she said, severely, as poor frightened Maggie shrank before the glance of her eye, "you will not go out to-day, nor do you deserve it." Then Bessie's anger broke forth. "You are bad, you're cruel!" she said, stamping her foot, and with her face crimson with passion. "You want poor Willie to be blind all his life. You don't want him to be well, even when our Father--" What more she would have said will never be known, save by Him who reads all hearts; for as these last two words passed her lips, she checked herself, and rushing to Aunt Bessie, who had gone to the parlor-door at the sound of Mrs. Lawrence's voice, buried her face in the folds of her dress. "Our Father!" Was she his little child now when in her fury and passion she had forgotten that his holy eye rested upon her, when she was grieving and offending him? Such was the thought that had stopped her, even as she poured forth those angry words. For one moment she stood with her face hidden, sending up a silent, hurried prayer to the Great Helper, then turning to Aunt Patty, she said, with a touching meekness,-- "Please forgive me, Aunt Patty. I didn't try hard enough that time; but I'll try not to do so again. The wicked passion came so quick;" and then she hid her face once more against Miss Rush. Yes, the passion had come quickly, but it had been quickly conquered, and as Aunt Patty looked at her, these words came to her mind: "Greater is he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city;" and she stood humbled before this little child. Turning away without a word, she opened the front-door and passed out, while Miss Rush led the children back to the parlor. Aunt Bessie's own eyes glistened as she lifted the sobbing child upon her lap, while Maggie stood beside her, holding Bessie's hand in one of her own, and with her pocket-handkerchief wiping the tears that streamed from her little sister's eyes. "Oh, it has been such a bad day, and we thought it was going to be such a nice one, didn't we?" said Bessie. "We were so very glad when we woke up this morning, and we have had such very _misable_ times all day, and now I was so naughty. And I did ask for help to be good, too, this morning. Aunt Bessie, why didn't it come?" "I think it did come, darling," said Aunt Bessie. "If it had not, you could not have conquered yourself as you did the moment you remembered you were displeasing your heavenly Father. If you forgot for a moment, and your temper overcame you, I think he knew how you had struggled with it this morning, and so pitied and forgave, sending the grace and strength you needed as soon as you saw your own want of it." "It's all Aunt Patty's fault, anyhow," said Maggie. "She provoked us, hateful old thing! I know I ought not to say that about the rain, Aunt Bessie, 'cause it's God's rain, and he can send it if he chooses; but it was not her business to meddle about, and I am a great deal more sorry for your speaking so kind than for all the scolding. I just wish--I wish--" "I would not wish any bad wishes for Aunt Patty, dear," said Miss Rush. "That will not help any of us to feel better." "I don't know about that," said Maggie, gravely shaking her head. "I think I'd feel more comfortable in my mind if I wished something about her. I think I'll have to do it, Aunt Bessie." "Then wish only that she were a little more amiable, or did not speak quite so sharply," said Miss Rush, smiling at Maggie's earnestness. "Oh, pooh! that's no good," said Maggie. "She never will learn to behave herself. I'll tell you, I just wish she was a Lot's wife." "Lot's wife?" said Miss Rush. "I mean Lot's wife after she 'came a pillar of salt, and then maybe she'd be all soaked away in this pouring rain, and no more left of her to come back again and bother us." There was never any telling where Maggie's ideas would carry her, and at the thought of the droll fate she had imagined for Aunt Patty, Miss Rush fairly laughed outright, and even Bessie smiled, after which she said she would go up-stairs and talk a little to her mother, which always did her good when she was in trouble. This shower proved the last of the rain for that day, and by twelve o'clock the clouds had all rolled away and the pavements were drying rapidly, giving fresh hope to Maggie and Bessie that they would be able to go over to the policeman's house; but before that Aunt Patty had returned. She was very silent, almost sad, and the many troubled looks she cast towards the little girls made Mrs. Bradford think that she was sorry for her unkindness of the morning. This was so, but there was more than that to trouble the old lady, for her errand to Dr. Dawson had been fruitless. When she reached his house, he was out, but she sat down to wait for him. He soon came in and without waiting for her to speak, told her that, having an hour to spare, he had just been up to the police-station to give Richards the good news. So it was too late after all, for now that the policeman knew of her gift, Mrs. Lawrence could not make up her mind to ask it back. Then the doctor asked her if she had any further business with him, to which she answered "No," and walked away, leaving him to think what a very odd old lady she was, and to say indignantly that he believed "she had not trusted him, and had come to see that he kept faith with her." "Bradford," said Mr. Stanton, as he stood in his brother-in-law's office that morning, "those dear little girls of yours have put me to shame with their lively, earnest desire to do good to others. Here have I been leading this lazy, useless life ever since I came home, looking only to my own comfort and happiness; and in my want of thought for others scarcely deserving the overflowing share of both which has fallen to me. Your little ones have given me a lesson in their innocent wish to extend to others the benefits which God has heaped upon them; now cannot you help me to put it into practice? I am still so much of a stranger in my own city that I should scarcely know where to begin the task of carrying help to those who need it; but you were always a hand to know the claims and deserts of the poor. I have, thank God, the means and the time; can you show me where I can best spend them?" "Doubtless, my dear fellow," answered Mr. Bradford. "I think you are rather hard upon yourself; but I can show you where both time and money can be laid out with a certainty of doing good and bringing happiness to those who deserve them. Just now--But how far do your benevolent intentions go?" "Tell me the necessities of your _protegée_ or _protegées_," said Mr. Stanton, smiling, "and I will tell you how far I am inclined to satisfy them. I had not thought much about it, having just been roused to a sense that it was time I was doing somewhat for the welfare of those who are not as well off as myself." "I was about to say," continued Mr. Bradford, "that at present I know of no more worthy case than that of the father of the blind boy in whom my children are so much interested. If an honest, God-fearing heart, a trusting, cheerful, yet submissive spirit, can give him a claim upon our help and sympathy, he certainly possesses it. I have watched him and talked to him during the last few months with considerable interest, and I honestly believe his troubles have not arisen through any fault of his own, but through the dealings of Providence. He has been sorely tried, poor fellow, and I should like to see him set right once more with the world, free from the pressure of debt, and able to save his earnings for the comfort of his family. I had intended to undertake the payment of Dr. Dawson for the treatment of Willie's eyes, but since you have done this, I shall hand to Richards the sum I had intended for that purpose. Whatever you may choose to add to this, will be so much towards relieving him from his debt to this Schwitz." "And how much is that?" asked Mr. Stanton. Mr. Bradford named the sum, and after hearing all the circumstances, Mr. Stanton drew a check for the amount needed to pay the rest of the debt to Dr. Schwitz, and gave it to his brother-in-law, asking him to hand it to the policeman with his own gift. "You had better come with us this afternoon, and see for yourself," said Mr. Bradford. "It is going to be fine, and I have promised those dear little things that they shall carry their prize to the blind boy's home. I believe we are likely to find Richards there about three o'clock, and I should like you to know him." So Mr. Stanton was persuaded; and as Maggie and Bessie were watching eagerly from the window for the first glimpse of papa, they saw him coming up the street with Uncle Ruthven. When they were ready to go, those three precious notes, the price of Willie's sight, were brought by Maggie to her father, with many prayers that he would take the best of care of them. She was not satisfied till she had seen them in his pocket-book, where she herself squeezed them into the smallest possible corner, next thrusting the pocket-book into the very depths of his pockets, and ramming in his handkerchief on top of that, "to be sure to keep it all safe." But there was a sore disappointment in store for these poor children. As they were leaving the house, and before Mr. Bradford had closed the door behind them, who should appear at the foot of the steps but Sergeant Richards himself, with his broad, honest face in a glow of happiness and content. "Ah! Richards, how are you?" said Mr. Bradford. "At your service, sir," answered the policeman, politely touching his cap. "I just came round to say a word to you, but I see you are going out. I sha'n't detain you two moments, though, if you could spare me that." "Willingly," said Mr. Bradford. "We were on our way to your house, but our errand will keep;" and he led the way back to the parlor, followed by the whole party. Mrs. Bradford and Miss Rush were there also, just ready to go out; while Aunt Patty sat in the library, where every word that passed in the front room must reach her ears. "No, I'll not sit down, thank you, sir," said the policeman, "and I'll not keep you long. You have been so kind to me, and taken such an interest in all my difficulties, that I felt as if I must come right up and tell you of the good fortune, or, I should say, the kind Providence, which has fallen to me. I have been furnished with the means to pay my debt to Dr. Schwitz; and more, thank God! more than this, Dr. Dawson has received the amount of his charge for the operation on Willie's eyes. I shall be able to hold up my head once more, and that with the chance of my boy having his sight again." "And how has this come about?" asked Mr. Bradford. "I cannot say, sir. Some unknown friend has done it all; but who, I know no more than yourself, perhaps not so much;" and the policeman looked searchingly into Mr. Bradford's face. "And I know absolutely nothing," said the gentleman, smiling. "I see, Richards, you thought I had some hand in it, and expected to find me out; but I assure you, it is not my doing. These little girls of mine had, through the kindness of their uncle, hoped to place in your hands the sum needed for Dr. Dawson, and it was for this purpose that we were on our way to your house; but you say some one has been beforehand with us." "That's so, sir," said Richards; "but none the less am I most grateful to you and the little ladies and this kind gentleman for your generous intentions. I am sure I don't know what I have done that the Lord should raise me up such friends. But it is most strange as to who could have done this, sir, and about that old lady." "What old lady?" asked Mr. Bradford. "Why, sir, she who either has done this or has been sent by some one else. If I don't keep you too long, I should just like to tell you what I know." "Not at all," said Mr. Bradford. "Let us have the story." "Yesterday morning," said the policeman, "Mrs. Granby was sitting by the window, when she saw an old lady going to 'most all the houses, and seeming to be asking her way or inquiring for some one. So Mrs. Granby puts out her head and asks if she was looking for any one. 'I want Mrs. Richards, the policeman's wife,' says the old lady. Mrs. Granby told her that was the place and opens the door for her. Well, she walked in, but a stranger she was, to be sure; neither my wife nor Mrs. Granby ever set eyes on her before, and they did not know what to make of her. All sorts of questions she asked, and in a way Mary did not like at all, never telling who she was or what she came for. Well, after a while she went away, but never letting on what she had come for, and Mrs. Granby and Mary set it down that it was only for spying and meddling. But last night when I took up the Bible to read a chapter before we went to bed, out drops a sealed packet with my name printed on it. I opened it, and there, will you believe it, sir, were two one hundred dollar bills, and around them a slip of paper with the words, printed, too, 'Pay your debts.' No more, no less. You may know if we were astonished, and as for my wife, she was even a bit frightened. After talking it over, we were sure it could have been no one but the old lady that had put it there. But who was she, and how did she know so much of my affairs? Mrs. Granby said she remembered to have seen her fussing with the leaves of the Bible, sort of careless like, as it lay upon the table, and she must have slipped it in then. But whether it was her own gift, or whether she was sent by some one else, who does not care to be seen in the matter, I don't know. The women will have it that it was the last, and that she did not like her errand, and so eased her mind by a bit of fault-finding and meddling, and I must say it looks like it." "And you have no possible clew to who this person was, Richards?" asked Mr. Bradford. "None, sir. I might track her easy, I suppose, but since she didn't seem to wish it to be known who she was or where she came from, I wouldn't feel it was showing my gratitude for the obligations she's laid me under, and you see by the printing she don't wish to be tracked even by her handwriting. Nor was this all. Early this morning, round comes Dr. Dawson to the station, asking for me; and he told me that an old lady had been to his house yesterday, and after asking a lot of questions, had paid him a hundred and fifty dollars for undertaking the operation on Willie's eyes, and took a receipted bill from him. By all accounts, she must be the same person who was at my place yesterday, and if ever a man was as mad as a hornet, he's the one. When he asked if he might take the liberty of inquiring what interest she had in my family, she asked if it was necessary to Willie's cure that he should know that; and when he said, 'No, of course not,' she said it _was_ a great liberty, and as good as told him to mind his own affairs. He quite agrees with my wife and Mrs. Granby that she was only a messenger from some unknown friend, and that she was not pleased with the business she had in hand. The doctor is very much occupied just now, and told her he could not well see me before this evening; but he found he could make time to run over and tell me this morning, and kindly did so. So, you see, sir, I do not rightly know what to do, joyful and grateful as I feel; and I thought I would just run over and tell you the story at once, and ask if you thought I might safely use this money without fear of getting into any difficulty. You see it's such a strange and mysterious way of doing things that I won't say but I would think it odd myself if I heard another person had come by such a sum in such a way." "I see no possible objection to your using the money," said Mr. Bradford. "It certainly has been intended for you, however singular the way in which it has been conveyed to you, or however disagreeable the manner of the messenger. It has probably been the work of some eccentric, but kind-hearted person who does not choose to have his good deeds known." "I can't say but I would feel better to know whom it came from, Mr. Bradford, grateful from my very soul as I am. I shouldn't have been too proud to take such a favor from one who I knew was a friend to me, with the hope, maybe, of one day making it up, but it's not so comfortable to have it done in this secret sort of way, and as if it were something to be ashamed of." "Do not look at it in that way, Richards, but believe that your friend has only acted thus from a wish that his left hand should not know what his right hand has done. Look at it as a gift from the Lord, and use it with an easy heart and a clear conscience, as I am sure your benefactor intended." "Well, may God bless and prosper him, whoever he is," said the policeman. "I only wish he knew what a load is lifted from my heart. And thank you too, sir, for your advice and for all your interest in me." While the policeman had been telling his story, Maggie and Bessie had stood listening eagerly to him. At first they looked pleased as well as interested, but when it was made plain to them that some stranger had done the very thing on which they had set their hearts, a look of blank dismay and disappointment overspread their faces. By the time he had finished, Bessie, with her head pressed against her mother's shoulder, was choking back the tears, and Maggie, with crimson cheeks and wide-open eyes, was standing, the very picture of indignation. "Papa," she exclaimed, as Mr. Richards said the last words, "does he really mean that woman went and paid that money for blind Willie to be cured?" "Yes, my darling," said her father, with a feeling of real pity for the disappointment of his two little daughters, "but I think--" "It's too bad," said Maggie, without waiting for her father to finish his sentence; "it's as mean, as mean as--Oh! I never heard of anything so mean; the horrid old thing! something ought to be done to her. I know she just did it to make a disappointment to Bessie and me. Oh, dear! It's too bad!" She finished with a burst of tears. "My dear little girl," said her father, "I know this is a great disappointment to you; but you must not let it make you unreasonable. This person is probably an entire stranger to you; and any way, she could know nothing of your purpose." "You will find plenty of uses for the money," said Uncle Ruthven, catching Bessie up in his arms. "Put it away till you find another blind boy, or lame girl, or some old sick body, who would be glad of a little help. Papa will find you ways enough to spend it." "But," said Bessie, mournfully, as she wiped her eyes, "we wanted to use it for Willie, and we thought so much about it, and we were so glad when we thought how pleased he would be! Oh! we are very much _trialed_; are we not, Maggie?" "Now the Lord love you for your thought of my boy," said the policeman, "and I'm sure I wish, for your sake, that the old lady had stopped short of Dr. Dawson's door, keeping her money for some other folks that had need of it, and leaving it to you two dear little ones to do this kind turn for my child. But Willie will think just as much, as I do, of your meaning to do it, as if you'd done it out and out; and if you'll allow it, madam,"--here he turned to Mrs. Bradford, "I'd like to bring him over, that he may say so." Mrs. Bradford said she would be very glad to see Willie, and asked Mr. Richards to bring him and Jennie over the next day, and let them spend an hour or two with the children. This she did, thinking it would be a pleasure to her little girls to see the blind boy and his sister, and wishing to do all she could to console them for their disappointment. The policeman promised to do this, and then, once more thanking Mr. Bradford and his family for all their kindness, he went away. [Illustration: decoration, end of chap. 13] [Illustration: Title decoration, chap. 14] XIV. _AUNT PATTY._ But Maggie and Bessie, especially the former, were quite determined not to be consoled. They thought such a terrible disappointment deserved to be sorrowed over for some time to come, and sat with tearful faces and a very mournful manner, quite unable to do anything but grieve. "I hope I shall have strength to bear it, but I don't know," said Maggie, with her pocket-handkerchief to her eyes. Mamma told her that the way to bear a trial was not to sit fretting over it and thinking how bad it was, but to look at its bright side, and see what good we or others might gain from it. "But _this_ has no bright side; has it, mamma?" asked Bessie. "I think so," replied her mother. "This unknown friend has done much more for the policeman and his family than you could have done, and she has not only given the money for Dr. Dawson, but has, also, paid the debt to Dr. Schwitz; while your uncle is kind enough to allow you to keep your money for some one else who may need it." "But, mamma," said Maggie, with her eyes still covered, "Uncle Ruthven was going to pay the debt himself; papa told us so. So it would have been just as good for the policeman." "I declare," said Mr. Stanton, "I had quite forgotten that I was disappointed too! Well, well;" and he leaned his head on his hand, and put on a very doleful air. "Bradford," he continued, in the most mournful tones, "since we are not to go over to the policeman's this afternoon, I had thought we might have some other little frolic; but of course, none of us are in spirits for the visit to the menagerie I had intended to propose." At this, Maggie's handkerchief came down, and Bessie raised her head from her mother's shoulder. "I do not know but I might go, if I could make up a pleasant, happy party to take with me," said Mr. Stanton. "_You_ could not think of it, I suppose, Maggie?" "I don't know," said Maggie, half unwilling to be so soon comforted, and yet too much pleased at the thought of this unexpected treat to be able to refuse it. "Perhaps I might. I think maybe it would do me good to see the animals." But she still sat with the air of a little martyr, hoping that Uncle Ruthven would press her very much, so that she might not seem to yield too easily. "I thought perhaps it might bring _me_ a little comfort to see the monkeys eat peanuts, and then make faces at me, while they pelted me with the shells," said Mr. Stanton, in the same despairing tone. At this Bessie broke into a little low laugh, and the dimples showed themselves at the corners of Maggie's mouth, though she pursed up her lips, and drew down her eyebrows in her determination not to smile. But it was all useless, and in two moments more Uncle Ruthven had them both as merry as crickets over this new pleasure. Mamma and Aunt Bessie were coaxed to give up their shopping and go with them, and the three boys, Harry, Fred, and Franky, being added to the party, they all set off in good spirits. The blind boy and the terrible disappointment were not forgotten, but the children had made up their minds to take mamma's advice,--bear it bravely, and look on the bright side. Aunt Patty saw them go, and was glad to be left to herself, although her own thoughts were not very pleasant company. She had done a kind and generous action in an ungracious way, causing those whom she had benefited to feel that they would rather have received the favor from another hand, bringing a real trial upon these dear children, and vexation and regret to herself. She could not look upon her work or its consequences with any satisfaction. What though she had done a good deed, she had not done it quite in the right spirit, and so it seemed it had not brought a blessing. Self-will and temper had been suffered to overcome her once more. Bessie had shamed her by the self-control which she, an old woman, had not shown, and she had been outdone by both these little ones in patience and submission. The policeman's family would have been quite as well off as they were now, and she might still have had the long-desired grove, the object of so many thoughts and wishes, had she never taken up the matter, or had she even allowed her intentions to be known. She had really had an honest desire to keep her generous self-sacrifice a secret, that it should not be published abroad to all the world; but there was, also, an obstinate little corner in her heart which made her determine to keep it from her nephew, lest he should oppose it. "For I want none of his advice or interference," she said, to herself; it being generally the case that those who deal most largely in those articles themselves are the most unwilling to receive them from others. So the poor old lady sadly thought, taking shame and repentance to herself for all the peevishness and ill-temper of the last two days, seeing where she had acted wrongly and unwisely, and making new resolutions for the future. Ah, the old besetting sin, strengthened by long habit and indulgence, what a tyrant it had become, and how hard she had to struggle with it, how often was she overcome! Yes, well might little Bessie be thankful that wise and tender teachers had taught her to control that passionate temper, which later might have proved such a misery to herself and her friends. Then came back to her the dear child's trusting words, "Jesus knows," bringing with them a comforting sense of his near love and presence, and a feeling that his help and forgiveness were still open to her, though she had again so sadly given way. Oh, that she had little Bessie's simple faith! that this feeling of the Saviour's nearness, this constant looking to him for help and guidance, which were shown by this little one, were hers also! She bethought herself of a hymn, which she had heard Mrs. Bradford teaching to her children during the last week, and which they had all sung together on Sunday evening. She could not recollect the exact words, but it seemed to her that it was the very thing she needed now. She searched for it through all the hymn-books and tune-books on which she could lay her hands, but in vain; and, as was Aunt Patty's way, the more she could not find it, the more she seemed to want it. Should she ask the children for it when they came home? To do so, would be the same as confessing that she had done wrong, and that was the hardest thing in the world for the proud old lady to do. But yes, she would do it! Nay, more, she would no longer be outdone by a little child in generosity and humility. She would tell the children that she was sorry for her unkindness of the morning. It did Aunt Patty no harm, but a great deal of good, that long afternoon's musing in the silent house, where no patter of children's feet, nor any sound of young voices was heard; for baby had gone to her grandmamma, so that even her soft coo and joyous crow were missing for some hours. Meanwhile the children were enjoying themselves amazingly; for a visit to the menagerie with Uncle Ruthven, who knew so much of the wild beasts and their habits, and who told of them in such an interesting way, was no common treat. The day had been as April-like within as without, clouds and sunshine by turns, ending at last in settled brightness; and no one who had seen the happy faces of our Maggie and Bessie would have thought that they could have worn such woeful looks but a few hours since. After reaching home, they were passing through the upper hall on their way down to the parlor, where they had left papa and Uncle Ruthven, when Aunt Patty's door opened, and she called them. They stood still and hesitated. "Come in," said Mrs. Lawrence again, in a gentle tone; "Aunt Patty wants to speak to you." Maggie and Bessie obeyed, but slowly and unwillingly, as the old lady grieved to see, the former with drooping head and downcast eyes, while Bessie peeped shyly up at her aunt from under her eyelashes. "Aunt Patty was cross, and vexed you this morning," said Mrs. Lawrence; "but she is sorry now. Come, kiss her and be friends." In a moment Bessie's rosebud of a mouth was put up for the desired kiss, but Maggie still held back. It was not that she was unforgiving, but this meekness from Aunt Patty was something so new, and so contrary to all the ideas she had formed of her, that she did not know how to believe in it, or to understand it. "Kiss her," whispered Bessie; "it is not 'bearing her burden' if you don't." So Maggie's face was lifted also, and as her aunt bent down and kissed her, she was astonished to see how gentle and kind, although sad, she looked. The "corners" were all out of sight just now, and Maggie even began to feel sorry that she had wished Aunt Patty to be "a pillar of salt which might be soaked away in the rain." Mrs. Lawrence asked them if they had enjoyed themselves, and put a question or two about the menagerie in a pleasant, gentle tone, which showed that her ill-temper was all gone. Then there was a moment's silence, the children wishing, yet not exactly knowing how, to run away; at the end of which, Mrs. Lawrence said, in rather an embarrassed voice, as if she were half ashamed of what she was doing, "Bessie, where did you find that little hymn, 'Listen, oh, listen, our Father all holy'?" "Oh, it is in our dear little 'Chapel Gems,'" said the child. "Is it not pretty, Aunt Patty? Mamma found it, and I asked her to teach it to us, 'cause it was so sweet to say when any of us had been naughty. When we sing it, I think it's just like a little prayer in music." "Can you find the book for me?" asked the old lady. "Mamma lent it to Mrs. Rush. She wanted to have the music, so we might have it for one of our Sunday-school hymns. I'll ask mamma to let you have it as soon as Aunt May sends it back." "It is of no consequence," said Mrs. Lawrence, in a tone in which Bessie fancied there was some disappointment. "Do not let me keep you if you want to go." Both children turned toward the door, but before they reached it, Bessie lingered, also detaining Maggie, who held her hand. "Aunt Patty," she said, sweetly, "I think it is of consequence if you want it. And--and--I know 'Our Father all holy.' If you would like, I can say it to you." "Come, then, darling," answered the old lady, and standing at her knee with Aunt Patty's hand resting on her curls, Bessie repeated, slowly and correctly, this beautiful hymn:-- "Listen, oh, listen, our Father all holy! Humble and sorrowful, owning my sin, Hear me confess, in my penitence lowly, How in my weakness temptation came in. "Pity me now, for, my Father, no sorrow Ever can be like the pain that I know; When I remember that all through to-morrow, Missing the light of thy love, I may go. "For thy forgiveness, the gift I am seeking, Nothing, oh, nothing, I offer to thee! Thou to my sinful and sad spirit speaking, Giving forgiveness, giv'st all things to me. "Keep me, my Father, oh, keep me from falling! I had not sinned, had I felt thou wert nigh; Speak, when the voice of the tempter is calling So that temptation before thee may fly. "Thoughts of my sin much more humble shall make me, For thy forgiveness I'll love thee the more; So keep me humble until thou shall take me Where sin and sorrow forever are o'er."[A] "'I had not sinned, had I felt thou wert nigh,'" she said again, after she was through with the last line. "I wish we could always remember our Father is nigh; don't you, Aunt Patty? We know it, but sometimes we forget it a little, and then the naughtiness comes, and so we grieve him. But is not that a sweet hymn to say when we are sorry for our sin, and want him to help and forgive us again? I felt it was yesterday when I had been angry and spoken so naughty to you." "Oh, child, child!" was all the answer Mrs. Lawrence gave. Her heart had been softened before, now it was quite melted, and putting her arm about Bessie, she drew her to her and kissed her on both cheeks; while Maggie stood by wondering as she heard the tremor of Aunt Patty's voice and saw something very like a tear in her eye. "Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings, Thou hast perfected praise," murmured the old lady to herself, when the door had closed behind the children. "Lord, make me even like unto this little child, granting me such faith, such grace, such patience, such an earnest desire to do thy will, to live only to thy glory." Yes, such were the lessons learned even by an old woman like Aunt Patty from this little lamb of Jesus, this little follower of her blessed Lord and Master. "Even a child is known by his doings." "Who is for a summer among the mountains?" asked Mr. Bradford as the family sat around the table after dinner. "I am, and I, and I!" came from a chorus of young voices, for from papa's look it was plainly to be seen that the question was addressed to the children, and that the grown people had had their say before. Even baby, who was learning to imitate everything, made a sound which might be interpreted into an "I;" but one little voice was silent. "And has my Bessie nothing to say?" asked papa. "Is the sea at the mountains, papa?" said Bessie, answering his question by another. "No, dear," said her father, smiling, "but among the mountains to which we think of going, there is a very beautiful lake, on the border of which stands the house in which we shall stay." "I am very fond of the sea, papa," answered Bessie, "and I think I would prefer to go to Quam Beach again,--I mean if the others liked it too." "I do not doubt we should all enjoy ourselves at Quam," said Mr. Bradford, "for we spent a very pleasant summer there last year. But grandmamma does not think the sea-side good for Aunt Annie's throat, and wishes to take her up among the mountains. The colonel's doctor has also advised him to go there, so we shall not have the same delightful party we had last summer if we go to Quam. About four miles from the old homestead, and higher up in the Chalecoo Mountains, is this very lovely lake set deep among the rocks and woods. Here lives a man named Porter,--you remember him, Aunt Patty?" "Certainly," answered Mrs. Lawrence, "he has been adding to and refitting his house, with the intention of taking boarders, I believe. Do you think of going there?" "Yes. I remember even in former days it was an airy, comfortable old place, and with the improvements which I hear Porter has made, I think it will just suit our party. What do you say, Bessie? Would you not like to go there with all the dear friends, rather than to Quam without them?" "Oh, yes," said Bessie; "I like my people better than I do the sea; but then I do wish there was just a little bit of sea there, papa." Papa smiled at Bessie's regret for the grand old ocean, which she loved so dearly; but as he told her of the many new pleasures she might find among the mountains, she began to think they might prove almost as delightful as those of the last summer at Quam Beach. So the plan was talked over with pleasure by all. Papa and Uncle Ruthven were to start the next morning to go up to the lake, see the house, and, if it suited, to make all the necessary arrangements. The party was a large one to be accommodated,--grandmamma and Aunt Annie, Uncle Ruthven and Aunt Bessie, Colonel and Mrs. Rush, and Mr. and Mrs. Bradford with all their family; and as soon as it was found to be doubtful if this could be done, all the children, even Bessie, were in a flutter of anxiety lest they should be disappointed. This was of no use, however, for the matter could not be decided till papa and Uncle Ruthven returned. "I have a little private business with Maggie and Bessie," said papa, as they rose from the table. "Young ladies, may I request the honor of your company in my room for a few moments?" Wondering what could be coming now, but sure from papa's face that it was something very pleasant, the little girls went skipping and dancing before him to the library, where, sitting down, papa lifted Bessie to his knee, and Maggie upon the arm of the chair, holding her there with his arm about her waist. When they were all settled, Mr. Bradford said, "Uncle Ruthven and I have a plan which we thought might please you, but if you do not like it, you are to say so." "Papa," said Maggie, "if it's any plan about that money, I think we'll have to consider it a little first. You see it seems to us as if it was very much Willie's money, and we will have to be a little accustomed to think it must do good to some one else." This was said with a very grave, businesslike air, which sat rather drolly upon our merry, careless Maggie, and her father smiled. "I shall tell you," he said, "and then you may have the next two days, till Uncle Ruthven and I come back, to consider it. Dr. Dawson thinks it necessary for Willie Richards to have change of air as soon as he is able to travel. Of course his mother must go with him, to take care of him; and, indeed, it is needful for the poor woman herself to have mountain air. I have thought that we might find some quiet farmhouse at or near Chalecoo, where Willie and his mother could go for two or three months at a small cost; but I do not believe it is possible for the policeman to afford even this, without very great discomfort and even suffering to himself and his family. Now, how would you like to use the money Uncle Ruthven gave you to pay the board of Willie and his mother, and so still spend it for his good and comfort? As I said, you may take two days to think over this plan, and if it does not suit you, you can say so." Ah! this was quite unnecessary, as papa probably knew. _This_ needed no consideration. Why, it was almost as good as paying Dr. Dawson,--rather better, Maggie thought. But Bessie could not quite agree to this last. "I am very satisfied, papa," she said, "but then it would have been so nice to think our money helped to make blind Willie see his mother's face." "Maggie, have you forgiven that old woman yet?" asked Fred, when his father and little sisters had joined the rest of the family in the other room. "Oh, yes!" said Maggie. "I think she is lovely! She has made things a great deal better for us, though she did not know it, and blind Willie is to go to the country. But you are not to talk about it, Fred, for he is not to be told till it is all fixed, and papa has found the place; and we are to pay the board, and I'm so sorry I said bad things about her, even if she was only the messenger, and some one sent her." "Hallo!" said Fred, "anything more?" "I am so full of gladness, I don't know what to do with it," said Maggie, who very often found herself in this state; "but I am so very tired I can't hop much to-night." [Illustration: decoration, end of chap. 14] [Illustration: Title decoration, chap. 15] XV. _WILLIE'S VISIT._ "There," said Mrs. Granby, holding Willie Richards at arm's length from her, and gazing at him with pride and admiration,--"there, I'd like to see the fellow, be he man, woman, or child, that will dare to say my boy is not fit to stand beside any gentleman's son in the land." Certainly Mrs. Granby had no need to be ashamed of the object of her affectionate care. His shoes, though well worn and patched, had been blacked and polished till they looked quite respectable; the suit made from his father's old uniform was still neat and whole, for Willie's present quiet life was a great saving to his clothes, if that were any comfort; his white collar was turned back and neatly tied with a black ribbon, and Mrs. Granby had just combed back the straight locks from his pale, fair forehead in a jaunty fashion which she thought highly becoming to him. There was a look of hope and peace on his delicate face which and not been there for many a long day, for last night his father had told him that the doctor had an almost sure hope of restoring his sight, if he were good and patient, and that the operation was to take place the next week. The news had put fresh heart and life into the poor boy, and now, as Mrs. Granby said this, he laughed aloud, and throwing both arms about her neck, and pressing his cheek to hers, said,-- "Thank you, dear Auntie Granby. I know I am nice when you fix me up. Pretty soon I shall _see_ how nice you make me look." "Come now, Jennie, bring along that mop of yours," said Mrs. Granby, brandishing a comb at Jennie, and, half laughing, half shrinking, the little girl submitted to put her head into Mrs. Granby's hands. But, as had been the case very often before, it was soon given up as a hopeless task. Jennie's short, crisp curls defied both comb and brush, and would twist themselves into close, round rings, lying one over another after their own will and fashion. "I don't care," said Jennie, when Mrs. Granby pretended to be very angry at the rebellious hair,--"I don't care if it won't be smoothed; it is just like father's, mother says so; and anything like him is good enough for me." "Well, I won't say no to that," said Mrs. Granby, putting down the brush and throwing Jennie's dress over her head. "The more you're like him in all ways, the better you'll be, Jennie Richards, you mind that." "I do mind it," said Jennie. "I know he's the best father ever lived. Isn't he, Willie?" "S'pose that's what all young ones says of their fathers and mothers," answered Mrs. Granby, "even s'posin' the fathers and mothers ain't much to boast of. But you're nearer the truth, Jennie, than some of them, and it's all right and nat'ral that every child should think its own folks the best. There's little Miss Bradfords, what you're goin' up to see, they'd be ready to say the same about their pa." "And good reason, too," chimed in Mrs. Richards. "He's as true and noble a gentleman as ever walked, and a good friend to us." "That's so," answered Mrs. Granby, "I'll not gainsay you there neither. And that's come all along of your man just speaking a kind word or two to that stray lamb of his. And if I'd a mind to contradick you, which I haint, there's Sergeant Richards himself to back your words. The bairns is 'most ready, sergeant; and me and Mary was just sayin' how strange it seemed that such a friend as Mr. Bradford was raised up for you just along of a bit of pettin' you give that lost child. It's as the gentleman says,--'bread cast upon the waters;' but who'd ha' thought to see it come back the way it does? It beats all how things do come around." "Under God's guidance," said the policeman, softly. "The Lord's ways are past finding out." "I'll agree to that too," answered Mrs. Granby, "bein' in an accommodatin' humor this afternoon. There, now, Jennie, you're ready. Mind your manners now, and behave pretty, and don't let Willie go to falling down them long stairs at Mrs. Bradford's. There, kiss your mother, both of you, and go away with your father. I s'pose he ain't got no time to spare. I'll go over after them in an hour or so, Sergeant Richards." Here Tommy began very eagerly with his confused jargon which no one pretended to understand but Jennie. "What does he say, Jennie?" asked the father. "He says, 'Nice little girl, come some more. Bring her doggie,'" said Jennie; then turning to her mother, she asked, "Mother, do you b'lieve you can understand Tommy till I come back?" "I'll try," said her mother, smiling; "if I cannot, Tommy and I must be patient. Run now, father is waiting." Mrs. Granby followed them to the door, and even to the gate, where she stood and watched them till they were out of sight, for, as she told Mrs. Richards, "it did her a heap of good to see the poor things goin' off for a bit of a holiday." The policeman and his children kept steadily on till they reached the park near which Mr. Bradford lived, where they turned in. "How nice it is!" said Willie as the fresh, sweet air blew across his face, bringing the scent of the new grass and budding trees. "It seems a little like the country here. Don't you wish we lived in the country, father?" "I would like it, Willie, more for your sake than for anything else, and I wish from my heart I could send you and mother off to the country this summer, my boy. But you see it can't be managed. But I guess somehow father will contrive to send you now and then up to Central Park, or for a sail down the bay or up the river. And you and Jennie can come over here every day and play about awhile, and that will put a bit of strength in you, if you can't get out into the country." "And then I shall see; sha'n't I, father? I hear the birds. Are they hopping about like they used to, over the trees, so tame and nice?" "Yes," answered his father, "and here we are by the water, where's a whole heap of 'em come down for a drink." In his new hope, Willie took a fresh interest in all about him. "Oh, I hear 'em!" said Willie, eagerly, "and soon I'll see 'em. Will it be next week, father?" and he clasped tightly the hand he held. "I don't know about next week, sonny. I believe your eyes have to be bandaged for a while, lest the light would be too bright for them, while they're still weak, but you will have patience for that; won't you, Willie?" Willie promised, for it seemed to him that he could have patience and courage for anything now. "Oh!" said Jennie, as they reached Mr. Bradford's house, and went up the steps, "don't I wish I lived in a house like this!" "Don't be wishing that," said her father. "You'll see a good many things here such as you never saw before, but you mustn't go to wishing for them or fretting after the same. We've too much to be thankful for, my lassie, to be hankering for things which are not likely ever to be ours." "'Tis no harm to wish for them; is it, father?" asked Jennie, as they waited for the door to be opened. "It's not best even to wish for what's beyond our reach," said her father, "lest we should get to covet our neighbors' goods, or to be discontented with our own lot; and certainly we have no call to do that." Richards asked for Mrs. Bradford, and she presently came down, bringing Maggie and Bessie with her. Jennie felt a little strange and frightened at first when her father left her. Making acquaintance with Maggie and Bessie in her own home was a different thing from coming to visit them in their large, handsome house, and they scarcely seemed to her like the same little girls. But when Maggie took her up-stairs, and showed her the baby-house and dolls, she forgot everything else, and looked at them, quite lost in admiration. Willie was not asked to look at anything. The little sisters had thought of what he had said the day they went to see him, and agreed that Bessie was to take care of him while Maggie entertained Jennie. He asked after Flossy, and the dog was called, and behaved quite as well as he had done when he saw Willie before, lying quiet in his arms as long as the blind boy chose to hold him, and putting his cold nose against his face in an affectionate way which delighted Willie highly. There was no difficulty in amusing Jennie, who had eyes for all that was to be seen, and who thought she could never be tired of handling and looking at such beautiful toys and books. But perhaps the children would hardly have known how to entertain Willie for any length of time, if a new pleasure had not accidentally been furnished for him. Maggie and Bessie had just taken him and his sister into the nursery to visit the baby, the canary bird, and other wonders there, when there came sweet sounds from below. Willie instantly turned to the door and stood listening. "Who's making that music?" he asked presently in a whisper, as if he were afraid to lose a note. "Mamma and Aunt Bessie," said Maggie. "Would you and Jennie like to go down to the parlor and hear it?" asked Bessie. Willie said "Yes," very eagerly, but Jennie did not care to go where the grown ladies were, and said she would rather stay up-stairs if Maggie did not mind. Maggie consented, and Bessie went off, leading the blind boy by the hand. It was both amusing and touching to see the watch she kept over this child who was twice her own size, guiding his steps with a motherly sort of care, looking up at him with wistful pity and tenderness, and speaking to him in a soft, coaxing voice such as one would use to an infant. They were going down-stairs when they met Aunt Patty coming up. She passed them at the landing, then suddenly turning, said, in the short, quick way to which Bessie was by this time somewhat accustomed, "Children! Bessie! This is very dangerous! You should not be leading that poor boy down-stairs. Where are your nurses, that they do not see after you? Take care, take care! Look where you are going now! Carefully, carefully!" Now if Aunt Patty had considered the matter, she would have known she was taking the very way to bring about the thing she dreaded. Willie had been going on fearlessly, listening to his gentle little guide; but at the sound of the lady's voice he started, and as she kept repeating her cautions, he grew nervous and uneasy; while Bessie, instead of watching his steps and taking heed to her own, kept glancing up at her aunt with an uncomfortable sense of being watched by those sharp eyes. However, they both reached the lower hall in safety, where Bessie led her charge to the parlor-door. "Mamma," she said, "Willie likes music very much. I suppose you would just as lief he would listen to you and Aunt Bessie." "Certainly," said mamma. "Bring him in." But before they went in, Willie paused and turned to Bessie. "Who was that on the stairs?" he asked in a whisper. "Oh! that was only Aunt Patty," answered the little girl. "You need not be afraid of her. She don't mean to be so cross as she is; but she is old, and had a great deal of trouble, and not very wise people to teach her better when she was little. So she can't help it sometimes." "No," said Willie, slowly, as if he were trying to recollect something, "I am not afraid; but then I thought I had heard that voice before." "Oh, I guess not," said Bessie; and then she took him in and seated him in her own little arm-chair, close to the piano. No one who had noticed the way in which the blind boy listened to the music, or seen the look of perfect enjoyment on his pale, patient face, could have doubted his love for the sweet sounds. While Mrs. Bradford and Miss Rush played or sang, he sat motionless, not moving a finger, hardly seeming to breathe, lest he should lose one note. "So you are very fond of music; are you, Willie?" said Mrs. Bradford, when at length they paused. "Yes, ma'am, very," said he, modestly; "but I never heard music like that before. It seems 'most as if it was alive." "So it does," said Bessie, while the ladies smiled at the boy's innocent admiration. "I think there's a many nice things in this house," continued Willie, who, in his very helplessness and unconsciousness of the many new objects which surrounded him, was more at his ease than his sister. "And mamma is the nicest of all," said Bessie. "You can't think how precious she is, Willie!" Mrs. Bradford laughed as she put back her little daughter's curls, and kissed her forehead. "I guess she must be, when she is your mother," said Willie. "You must all be very kind and good people here; and I wish, oh, I wish it was you and your sister who gave the money for Dr. Dawson. But never mind; I thank you and love you all the same as if you had done it, only I would like to think it all came through you. And father says"-- Here Willie started, and turned his sightless eyes towards the open door, through which was again heard Mrs. Lawrence's voice, as she gave directions to Patrick respecting a parcel she was about to send home. "What is the matter, Willie?" asked Mrs. Bradford. "Nothing, ma'am;" answered the child, as a flush came into his pale cheeks, and rising from his chair, he stood with his head bent forward, listening intently, till the sound of Aunt Patty's voice ceased, and the opening and closing of the front-door showed that she had gone out, when he sat down again with a puzzled expression on his face. "Does anything trouble you?" asked Mrs. Bradford. "No, ma'am; but--but--I _know_ I've heard it before." "Heard what?" "That voice, ma'am; Miss Bessie said it was her aunt's." "But you couldn't have heard it, you know, Willie," said Bessie, "'cause you never came to this house before, and Aunt Patty never went to yours." These last words brought it all back to the blind boy. He knew now. "But she _did_," he said, eagerly,--"she did come to our house. That's the one; that's the voice that scolded mother and Auntie Granby and Jennie, and that put the money into the Bible when we didn't know it!" Mrs. Bradford and Miss Rush looked at one another with quick, surprised glances; but Bessie said, "Oh! you must be mistaken, Willie. It's quite _un_possible. Aunt Patty does not know you or your house, and she never went there. Besides, she does not"--"Does not like you to have the money," she was about to say, when she thought that this would be neither kind nor polite, and checked herself. But Willie was quite as positive as she was, and with a little shake of his head, he said, "Ever since I was blind, I always knew a voice when I heard it once. I wish Jennie or Mrs. Granby had seen her, they could tell you; but I know that's the voice. It was _you_ sent her, after all, ma'am; was it not?" and he turned his face toward Mrs. Bradford. "No, Willie, I did not send her," answered the lady, with another look at Miss Rush, "nor did any one in this house." But in spite of this, and all Bessie's persuasions and assurances that the thing was quite impossible, Willie was not to be convinced that the voice he had twice heard was not that of the old lady who had left the money in the Bible; and he did not cease regretting that Jennie had not seen her. But to have Jennie or Mrs. Granby see her was just what Mrs. Lawrence did not choose, and to avoid this, she had gone out, not being able to shut herself up in her own room, which was undergoing a sweeping and dusting. She had not been afraid of the sightless eyes of the little boy when she met him on the stairs, never thinking that he might recognize her voice; but she had taken good care not to meet those of Jennie, so quick and bright, and which she felt would be sure to know her in an instant. But secure as Aunt Patty thought herself, when she was once out of the house, that treacherous voice of hers had betrayed her, not only to Willie's sensitive ears, but to that very pair of eyes which she thought she had escaped. For, as the loud tones had reached Maggie and Jennie at their play, the latter had dropped the toy she held, and exclaimed, in a manner as startled as Willie's, "There's that woman!" "What woman?" asked Maggie. "The old woman who brought the money to our house. I know it is her." "Oh, no, it is not," said Maggie; "that's Aunt Patty, and she's an old lady, not an old woman, and she wouldn't do it if she could. She is real mean, Jennie, and I think that person who took you the money was real good and kind, even if we did feel a little bad about it at first. Aunt Patty would never do it, I know. Bessie and I try to like her, and just as we begin to do it a little scrap, she goes and does something that makes us mad again, so it's no use to try." "But she does talk just like the lady who came to our house," persisted Jennie. "You can see her if you have a mind to," said Maggie, "and then you'll know it is not her. Come and look over the balusters, but don't let her see you, or else she'll say, 'What are you staring at, child?'" They both ran to the head of the stairs, where Jennie peeped over the balusters. "It _is_ her!" she whispered to Maggie. "I am just as sure, as sure. She is all dressed up nice to-day, and the other day she had on an old water-proof cloak, and a great big umbrella, and she didn't look so nice. But she's the very same." "Let's go down and tell mamma, and see what she says," said Maggie, as the front-door closed after Aunt Patty. Away they both rushed to the parlor; but when Jennie saw the ladies, she was rather abashed and hung back a little, while Maggie broke forth with, "Mamma, I have the greatest piece of astonishment to tell you, you ever heard. Jennie says she is quite sure Aunt Patty is the woman who put the money in the Bible and paid Dr. Dawson. But, mamma, it can't be; can it? Aunt Patty is quite too dog-in-the-mangery; is she not?" "Maggie, dear," said her mother, "that is not a proper way for you to speak of your aunt, nor do I think it is just as you say. What do you mean by that?" "Why, mamma, you know the dog in the manger could not eat the hay himself, and would not let the oxen eat it; and Aunt Patty would not buy the grove, or tell papa what was the reason; so was she not like the dog in the manger?" "Not at all," said Mrs. Bradford, smiling at Maggie's reasoning. "The two cases are not at all alike. As you say, the dog would not let the hungry oxen eat the hay he could not use himself, but because Aunt Patty did not choose to buy the grove, we have no right to suppose she would not make, or has not made some other good use of her money, and if she chooses to keep that a secret, she has a right to do so. No, I do not think we can call her like the dog in the manger, Maggie." "But do you believe she gave up the grove for that, mamma? She would not be so good and generous; would she?" "Yes, dear, I think she would. Aunt Patty is a very generous-hearted woman, although her way of doing things may be very different from that of some other people. Mind, I did not say that she _did_ do this, but Willie and Jennie both seem to be quite positive that she is the old lady who was at their house, and I think it is not at all unlikely." "And shall you ask her, mamma?" "No. If it was Aunt Patty who has been so kind, she has shown very plainly that she did not wish to be questioned, and I shall say nothing, nor must you. We will not talk about it any more now. We will wind up the musical box, and let Willie see if he likes it as well as the piano." Very soon after this, Mrs. Granby came for Willie and Jennie, and no sooner were they outside of the door than they told of the wonderful discovery they had made. Mrs. Granby said she was not at all astonished, "one might have been sure such a good turn came out of _that_ house, somehow." [Illustration: decoration, end of chap. 15] [Illustration: Title decoration, chap. 16] XVI. _WILLIE'S RECOVERY._ Willie seemed amazingly cheered up and amused by his visit, and told eagerly of all he had heard and noticed, with a gay ring in his voice which delighted his mother. It was not so with Jennie, although she had come home with her hands full of toys and picture-books, the gifts of the kind little girls she had been to see. She seemed dull, and her mother thought she was tired of play and the excitement of seeing so much that was new and strange to her. But Mrs. Richards soon found it was worse than this. "I don't see why I can't keep this frock on," said Jennie, fretfully, as Mrs. Granby began to unfasten her dress, which was kept for Sundays and holidays. "Surely, you don't want to go knocking round here, playing and working in your best frock!" said Mrs. Granby. "What would it look like?" "The other one is torn," answered Jennie, pouting, and twisting herself out of Mrs. Granby's hold. "Didn't I mend it as nice as a new pin?" said Mrs. Granby, showing a patch nicely put in during Jennie's absence. "It's all faded and ugly," grumbled Jennie. "I don't see why I can't be dressed as nice as other folks." "That means you want to be dressed like little Miss Bradfords," answered Mrs. Granby. "And the reason why you ain't is because your folks can't afford it, my dearie. Don't you think your mother and me would like to see you rigged out like them, if we had the way to do it? To be sure we would. But you see we can't do more than keep you clean and whole; so there's no use wishin'." Jennie said no more, but submitted to have the old dress put on; but the pleasant look did not come back to her face. Anything like sulkiness or ill-temper from Jennie was so unusual that the other children listened in surprise; but her mother saw very plainly what was the matter, and hoping it would wear off, thought it best to take no notice of it at present. The dress fastened, Jennie went slowly and unwillingly about her task of putting away her own and her brother's clothes; not doing so in her usual neat and orderly manner but folding them carelessly and tumbling them into the drawers in a very heedless fashion. Mrs. Granby saw this, but she, too, let it pass, thinking she would put things to rights when Jennie was in bed. Pretty soon Tommy came to Mrs. Granby with some long story told in the curious jargon of which she could not understand one word. "What does he say, Jennie?" she asked. "I don't know," answered Jennie, crossly. "I sha'n't be troubled to talk for him all the time. He is big enough to talk for himself, and he just may do it." "Jennie, Jennie," said her mother, in a grieved tone. Jennie began to cry. "Come here," said Mrs. Richards, thinking a little soothing would be better than fault-finding. "The baby is asleep; come and fix the cradle so I can put her in it." The cradle was Jennie's especial charge, and she never suffered any one else to arrange it; but now she pulled the clothes and pillows about as if they had done something to offend her. "Our baby is just as good as Mrs. Bradford's," she muttered, as her mother laid the infant in the cradle. "I guess we think she is the nicest baby going," said Mrs. Richards, cheerfully; "and it's likely Mrs. Bradford thinks the same of hers." "I don't see why Mrs. Bradford's baby has to have a better cradle than ours," muttered Jennie. "Hers is all white muslin and pink, fixed up so pretty, and ours is old and shabby." "And I don't believe Mrs. Bradford's baby has a quilt made for her by her own little sister," answered the mother. "And it has such pretty frocks, all work and tucks and nice ribbons," said Jennie, determined not to be coaxed out of her envy and ill-humor, "and our baby has to do with just a plain old slip with not a bit of trimming. 'Taint fair; it's real mean!" "Jennie, Jennie," said her mother again, "I am sorry I let you go, if it was only to come home envious and jealous after the pretty things you've seen." "But haven't we just as good a right to have them as anybody else?" sobbed Jennie, with her head in her mother's lap. "Not since the Lord has not seen fit to give them to us," answered Mrs. Richards. "We haven't a right to anything. All he gives us is of his goodness; nor have we a _right_ to fret because he has made other folks better off than us. All the good things and riches are his to do with as he sees best; and if one has a larger portion than another, he has his own reasons for it, which is not for us to quarrel with. And of all others, I wouldn't have you envious of Mrs. Bradford's family that have done so much for us." "Yes," put in Mrs. Granby, with her cheery voice; "them's the ones that ought to be rich that don't spend all their money on themselves, that makes it do for the comfort of others that's not as well off, and for the glory of Him that gives it. Now, if it had been you or me, Jennie, that had so much given to us, maybe we'd have been selfish and stingy like; so the Lord saw it wasn't best for us." "I don't think anything could have made you selfish or stingy, Janet Granby," said Mrs. Richards, looking gratefully at her friend. "It is a small share of this world's goods that has fallen to you, but your neighbors get the best of what does come to you." "Then there's some other reason why it wouldn't be good for me," said Mrs. Granby; "I'm safe in believin' that, and it ain't goin' to do for us to be frettin' and pinin' after what we haven't got, when the Almighty has just been heapin' so much on us. And talkin' of that, Jennie, you wipe your eyes, honey, and come along to the kitchen with me; there's a basket Mrs. Bradford gave me to unpack. She said it had some few things for Willie, to strengthen him up a bit before his eyes were done. And don't let the father come in and find you in the dumps; that would never do. So cheer up and come along till we see what we can find." Jennie raised her head, wiped her eyes, and followed Mrs. Granby, who, good, trusting soul, soon talked her into good-humor and content again. Meanwhile, Maggie and Bessie were very full of the wonderful discovery of the afternoon, and could scarcely be satisfied without asking Aunt Patty if it could really be she who had been to the policeman's house and carried the money to pay his debts; also, paid Dr. Dawson for the operation on Willie's eyes. But as mamma had forbidden this, and told them that they were not to speak of it to others, they were obliged to be content with talking of it between themselves. If it were actually Aunt Patty who had done this, they should look upon her with very new feelings. They had heard from others that she could do very generous and noble actions; but it was one thing to hear of them, as if they were some half-forgotten story of the past, and another to see them done before their very eyes. Aunt Patty was not rich. What she gave to others, she must deny to herself, and they knew this must have cost her a great deal. She had given up the grove, on which she had set her heart, that she might be able to help the family in whom they were so interested,--people of whom she knew nothing but what she had heard from them. If she had really been so generous, so self-sacrificing, they thought they could forgive almost any amount of crossness and meddling. "For, after all, they're only the corners," said Maggie, "and maybe when she tried to bear the policeman's burden, and felt bad about the grove, that made her burden heavier, and so squeezed out her corners a little more, and they scratched her neighbors, who ought not to mind if that was the reason. But I do wish we could really know; don't you, Bessie?" Putting all things together, there did not seem much reason to doubt it. The policeman's children were positive that Mrs. Lawrence was the very lady who had been to their house, and Aunt Patty had been out on two successive days at such hours as answered to the time when the mysterious old lady had visited first them, and then Dr. Dawson. Papa and Uncle Ruthven came home on the evening of the next day, having made arrangements that satisfied every one for the summer among the mountains. Porter's house, with its addition and new conveniences, was just the place for the party, and would even afford two or three extra rooms, in case their friends from Riverside wished to join them. The children were delighted as their father spoke of the wide, roomy old hall, where they might play on a rainy day, of the spacious, comfortable rooms and long piazza; as he told how beautiful the lake looked even in this early spring weather, and of the grand old rocks and thick woods which would soon be covered with their green summer dress. Still Bessie gave a little sigh after her beloved sea. The old homestead and Aunt Patty's cottage were about four miles from the lake, just a pleasant afternoon's drive; and at the homestead itself, where lived Mr. Bradford's cousin, the two gentlemen had passed the night. Cousin Alexander had been very glad to hear that his relations were coming to pass the summer at Chalecoo Lake, and his four boys promised themselves all manner of pleasure in showing their city cousins the wonders of the neighborhood. "It all looks just as it used to when I was a boy," said Mr. Bradford. "There is no change in the place, only in the people." He said it with a half-sigh, but the children did not notice it as they pleased themselves with the thought of going over the old place where papa had lived when he was a boy. "I went to the spot where the old barn was burned down, Aunt Patty," he said. "No signs of the ruins are to be seen, as you know; but as I stood there, the whole scene came back to me as freshly as if it had happened yesterday;" and he extended his hand to Aunt Patty as he spoke. The old lady laid her own within his, and the grasp he gave it told her that years and change had not done away with the grateful memory of her long past services. She was pleased and touched, and being in such a mood, did not hesitate to express the pleasure she, too, felt at the thought of having them all near her for some months. About half-way between the homestead and the Lake House, Mr. Bradford and Mr. Stanton had found board for Mrs. Richards and her boy. It was at the house of an old farmer who well remembered Mr. Bradford, and who said he was pleased to do anything to oblige him, though the gentlemen thought that the old man was quite as well satisfied with the idea of the eight dollars a week he had promised in payment. And this was to come from Maggie's and Bessie's store, which had been carefully left in mamma's hand till such time as it should be needed. All this was most satisfactory to our little girls; and when it should be known that the operation on Willie's eyes had been successful, they were to go to Mrs. Richards and tell her what had been done for her boy's farther good. Mrs. Bradford told her husband that night of all that had taken place during his absence, and he quite agreed with her that it was without doubt Aunt Patty herself who had been the policeman's benefactor. "I am not at all surprised," he said, "though I own that this did not occur to me, even when Richards described the old lady. It is just like Aunt Patty to do a thing in this way; and her very secrecy and her unwillingness to confess why she would not have the grove, or what she intended to do with the money, convinced me that she was sacrificing herself for the good of some other person or persons." Then Mr. Bradford told his wife that Aunt Patty meant to go home in about ten days, and should Willie's sight be restored before she went, he hoped to be able to persuade her to confess that she had had a share in bringing about this great happiness. He was very anxious that his children should be quite certain of this, as he thought it would go far to destroy their old prejudice, and to cause kind feelings and respect to take the place of their former fear and dislike. Mrs. Bradford said that good had been done already by the thought that it was probably Aunt Patty who had been so generous, and that the little ones were now quite as ready to believe all that was kind and pleasant of the old lady as they had been to believe all that was bad but two days since. She told how they had come to her that morning, Maggie saying, "Mamma, Bessie and I wish to give Aunt Patty something to show we have more approval of her than we used to have; so I am going to make a needle-book and Bessie a pin-cushion, and put them in her work-basket without saying anything about them." They had been very busy all the morning contriving and putting together their little gifts without any help from older people, and when they were finished, had placed them in Aunt Patty's basket, hanging around in order to enjoy her surprise and pleasure when she should find them there. But the poor little things were disappointed, they could scarcely tell why. If it had been mamma or Aunt Bessie who had received their presents, there would have been a great time when they were discovered. There would have been exclamations of admiration and delight and much wondering as to who could have placed them there,--"some good fairy perhaps who knew that these were the very things that were wanted," and such speeches, all of which Maggie and Bessie would have enjoyed highly, and at last it would be asked if they could possibly have made them, and then would have come thanks and kisses. But nothing of this kind came from Aunt Patty. She could not enter into other people's feelings so easily as those who had been unselfish and thoughtful for others all their lives; and though she was much gratified by these little tokens from the children, she did not show half the pleasure she felt; perhaps she really did not know how. True she thanked them, and said she should keep the needle-book and pin-cushion as long as she lived; but she expressed no surprise, and did not praise the work with which they had taken so much pains. "What is this trash in my basket?" she said, when she discovered them. "Children, here are some of your baby-rags." "Aunt Patty," said Mrs. Bradford, quickly, "they are intended for you; the children have been at work over them all the morning." "Oh!" said Mrs. Lawrence, changing her tone. "I did not understand. I am sure I thank you very much, my dears; and when you come to see me this summer, I shall show you how to do far better than this. I have a quantity of scraps and trimmings of all kinds, of which you can make very pretty things." This was intended to be kind; but the promise for the future did not make up for the disappointment of the present; and the children turned from her with a feeling that their pains had been almost thrown away. "Mamma," Bessie had said afterwards, "do you think Aunt Patty was very grateful for our presents?" "Yes, dear, I think she was," said mamma, "and I think she meant to show it in her own way." "But, mamma, do you think that was a nice way? You would not have said that to any one, and I felt as if I wanted to cry a little." Mamma had seen that her darlings were both hurt, and she felt very sorry for them, but she thought it best to make light of it, so said, cheerfully, "I am quite sure Aunt Patty was gratified, pussy, and that whenever she looks at your presents, she will think with pleasure of the kind little hands that made them." "When I am big, and some one gives me something I have pleasure in, I'll try to show the pleasure in a nice way," said Maggie. "Then you must not forget to do it while you are young," said mamma. "Let this show you how necessary it is to learn pleasant habits of speaking and acting while you are young." "Yes," said Maggie, with a long sigh, "and Aunt Patty ought to be excused. I suppose, since she was not brought up in the way she should go when she was young, she ought to be expected to depart from it when she is old. We must just make the best of it when she don't know any better, and take example of her." "Yes," said mamma, rather amused at the way in which Maggie had put into words the very thought that was in her own mind; "let us make the best of everything, and be always ready to believe the best of those about us." All this Mrs. Bradford told to her husband, and agreed with him that it was better not to endeavor to find out anything more till the trial on Willie's eyes was over. Maggie's new volume of "The Complete Family" was begun the next day in these words: "Once there was a man who lived in his home in the mountains, and who always listened very modestly to everything that was said to him, so his wife used to say a great deal to him. And one day she said, 'My dear, Mr. and Mrs. Happy, with all their family, and a great lot of their best friends, are coming to live with us this summer, and they are used to having a very nice time, so we must do all we can to make them comfortable, or maybe they will say, "Pooh, this is not a nice place at all. Let us go to the sea again. These are very horrid people!"' And the man said, 'By all means, my dear; and we will give them all they want, and let them look at the mountains just as much as they choose. But I do not think they will say unkind words even if you are a little disagreeable, but will make the best of you, and think you can't help it.' Which was quite true, for M. Happy and B. Happy had a good lesson the man did not know about, and had made a mistake; and sometimes when people seem dreadfully hateful, they are very nice,--I mean very good,--so it's not of great consequence if they are not so nice as some people, and they ought not to be judged, for maybe they have a burden. And M. Happy made two mistakes; one about Mrs. Jones, and the other about that other one mamma don't want me to write about. So this book will be about how they went to the mountains and had a lovely time. I guess we will." Rather more than a week had gone by. Willie Richards lay on his bed in a darkened room, languid and weak, his eyes bandaged, his face paler than ever, but still cheerful and patient. It was five days since the operation had been performed, but Willie had not yet seen the light, nor was it certain that he would ever do so, though the doctor hoped and believed that all had gone well. They had given the boy chloroform at the time, and then bound his eyes before he had recovered his senses. But on this day the bandage was to be taken off for the first, and then they should know. His mother sat beside him holding his thin, worn hand in hers. "Willie," she said, "the doctor is to be here presently, and he will take the bandage from your eyes." "And will I see then, mother?" "If God pleases, dear. But, Willie, if he does not see fit to give you back your sight, could you bear it, and try to think that it is his will, and he knows best?" Willie drew a long, heavy breath, and was silent a moment, grasping his mother's fingers till the pressure almost pained her; then he said, low, and with a quiver in his voice, "I would try, mother; but it would be 'most too hard after all. If it could be just for a little while, just so I could see your dear face for a few moments, then I would try to say, 'Thy will be done.'" "However it is, we must say that, my boy; but, please the Lord, we shall yet praise him for his great goodness in giving you back your poor, dear eyes." As she spoke, the door opened, and her husband put his head in. "Here's the doctor, Mary," he said, with a voice that shook, in spite of his efforts to keep it steady; and then he came in, followed by the doctor and Mrs. Granby. The latter, by the doctor's orders, opened the window so as to let in a little softened light, and after a few cheerful words the doctor unfastened the bandage, and uncovered the long sightless eyes. Willie was resting in his mother's arms with his head back against her shoulder, and she knew that he had turned it so that her face might be the first object his eyes rested on. It was done; and, with a little glad cry, the boy threw up his arms about his mother's neck. "What is it, Willie?" asked his father, scarcely daring to trust his voice to speak. "I saw it! I saw it!" said the boy. "Saw what, sonny?" asked his father, wishing to be sure that the child could really distinguish objects. "I saw mother's face, her dear, dear face; and I see you, too, father. Oh, God is so good! I will be such a good boy all my life. Oh, will I never have to fret to see mother's face again?" "Ahem!" said the doctor, turning to a table and beginning to measure some drops into a glass, while Mrs. Granby stood crying for joy at the other end of the room. "If you're not to, you must keep more quiet than this, my boy; it will not do for you to grow excited. Here, take this." "Who's that?" asked Willie, as the strange face met his gaze. "Ho, ho!" said the doctor. "Are you going to lose your ears now you have found your eyes? I thought you knew all our voices, my fine fellow." "Oh, yes," said Willie, "I know now; it's the doctor. Doctor, was I just as patient as you wanted me to be?" "First-rate," answered the doctor; "but you must have a little more patience yet. I'll leave the bandage off, but we will not have quite so much light just now, Mrs. Granby." Willie begged for one look at Auntie Granby, and then Jennie was called, that he might have a peep at her, after which he was content to take the medicine and lie down, still holding his mother's hand, and now and then putting up his fingers with a wistful smile to touch the dearly loved face he could still see bending over him in the dim light. That evening the policeman went up to Mr. Bradford's. He was asked to walk into the parlor, where sat Mr. Bradford and Aunt Patty, while old nurse was just taking Maggie and Bessie off to bed. "Oh, here is our policeman!" said Bessie; and she ran up to him, holding out her hand. "How is your Willie?" "That's just what I came to tell you, dear. I made bold to step up and let you know about Willie, sir," he said, turning to Mr. Bradford. "And what is the news?" asked the gentleman. "The best, sir. The Lord has crowned all his mercies to us by giving us back our boy's sight." "And has Willie seen his mother's face?" asked Bessie, eagerly. "Yes, that he has. He took care that should be the first thing his eyes opened on; and it just seems as if he could not get his full of looking at it. He always was a mother boy, my Willie, but more than ever so since his blindness." "How is he?" asked Mr. Bradford. "Doing nicely, sir. Rather weakish yet; but when he can bear the light, and get out into the fresh air, it will do him good; and I hope he'll come round after a spell, now that his mind is at ease, and he's had a sight of that he'd set his heart on, even if we can't just follow out the doctor's orders." Bessie felt as if she could keep her secret no longer. "May I, papa,--may I?" she asked. Papa understood her, and nodded assent. "But you _can_ follow the doctor's orders," said she, turning again to the policeman, "and Willie can have all the fresh air he needs,--fresh mountain air, he and his mother. And Maggie and I are to pay it out of the money that Uncle Ruthven gave us for the eye doctor whom the"--here Bessie looked half doubtfully towards Aunt Patty--"the old lady paid. And now, you see, it's a great deal nicer, 'cause if she hadn't, then, maybe, Willie couldn't go to the country." Bessie talked so fast that Richards did not understand at first, and her father had to explain. The man was quite overcome. "It's too much, sir, it's too much," he said, in a husky voice, twisting his cap round and round in his hands. "It was the last thing was wanting, and I feel as if I had nothing to say. There ain't no words to tell what I feel. I can only say may the Lord bless you and yours, and grant you all your desires in such measure as he has done to me." Mr. Bradford then told what arrangements had been made, in order to give Richards time to recover himself. The policeman thought all these delightful, and said he knew his wife and boy would feel that they could never be thankful and happy enough. "And to think that all this has come out of that little one being brought up to the station that day, sir; it's past belief almost," he said. "So good has been brought out of evil," said Mr. Bradford. As soon as the policeman had gone, Maggie and Bessie ran up-stairs to tell their mother the good news, leaving papa and Aunt Patty alone together. Mr. Bradford then turned to the old lady, and laying his hand gently on her shoulder, said,-- "Aunt Patty, you have laid up your treasure where moth and rust do not corrupt; but surely it is bearing interest on earth." "How? Why? What do you mean, Henry?" said Mrs. Lawrence, with a little start. "Come, confess, Aunt Patty," he said; "acknowledge that it is to you this good fellow who has just left us owes his freedom from debt, his child's eyesight, his release from cares which were almost too much even for his hopeful spirit; acknowledge that you have generously sacrificed a long-cherished desire, given up the fruits of much saving and self-denial, to make those happy in whom you could have had no interest save as creatures and children of one common Father. We all know it. The policeman's children recognized you, and told my little ones. Why will you not openly share with us the pleasure we must all feel at the blind boy's restoration to sight? Did you not see dear Bessie's wistful look at you as she bade you good-night? These little ones cannot understand why there should be any reason to hide such kindness as you have shown to these people, or why you should refuse to show an interest you really feel. It is true that we are told not to let our left hand, know that which is done by our right hand; but are we not also commanded so to let our light shine before men that they may see our good works and glorify our Father in heaven? And can we do so, or truly show our love to him, if we hide the services rendered for his sake behind a mask of coldness and reserve? My dear aunt, for his sake, for your own, for the sake of the affection and confidence which I wish my children to feel for you, and which I believe you wish to gain, let me satisfy them that it was really you who did this thing." The old lady hesitated for a moment longer, and then she broke down in a burst of humility and penitence such as Mr. Bradford had never expected to see from her. She told him how she had heard them all talking of the policeman and his troubles, and how much she had wished that she was able to help him; how she had thought that the desire to have the grove was only a fancy, right in itself perhaps, but not to be indulged if she could better spend the money for the good of others; and how, without taking much time to consider the matter, she had decided to give it up. Then she had half regretted it, but would not confess to herself or others that she did so, and so, feeling irritable and not at ease with herself, had been impatient and angry at the least thing which seemed to oppose her plans. The children, she said, had shamed her by their greater patience and submission under the disappointment she had so unintentionally brought upon them, and now she felt that the ill-temper she had shown had brought reproach on the Master whom she really wished to serve, and destroyed the little influence she had been able to gain with the children. Mr. Bradford told her he thought she was mistaken here, and if the children could only be quite certain that it was she who had proved such a good friend to the policeman's family, they would forget all else in their pleasure at her kindness and sympathy. So Mrs. Lawrence told him to do as he thought best; and she found it was as he said; for when Maggie and Bessie came down in the morning, full of joy at the happiness which had come to Willie and his parents, they ran at once to Aunt Patty, and Bessie, putting her little arms about her neck, whispered,-- "Dear Aunt Patty, we're so much obliged to you about Willie, and if we had only known it was you, we wouldn't have felt so bad about it. Now we only feel glad, and don't you feel glad, too, when you know how happy they all are?" Then Maggie sidled up, and slipping her hand into Aunt Patty's, said,-- "Aunt Patty, please to forgive me for saying naughty things about you when I didn't know you was the queer old lady." Aunt Patty was quite ready to exchange forgiveness; and for the two remaining days of her stay, it seemed as if her little nieces could not do enough to show how pleased and grateful they were; and when she left them, they could tell her with truth how glad they were that they were to see her soon again in her own home. And if you are not tired of Maggie and Bessie, you may some time learn how they spent their summer among the mountains. FOOTNOTES: [A] "Chapel Gems." 
28743	----	[Illustration: Twenty white-robed girls in ghost-like procession headed for the Fräulein's room.--Page 189. _Miss Ashton's New Pupil._] MISS ASHTON'S NEW PUPIL A SCHOOL GIRL'S STORY By MRS. S. S. ROBBINS Author of "Hulda Brent's Will," "Paul's Angel," etc., etc. [Illustration] A. L. BURT, PUBLISHER, 52-58 DUANE STREET, NEW YORK. Copyright, 1892, By BRADLEY & WOODRUFF. All Rights Reserved CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. Miss Ashton Receives a Letter. 5 II. Marion Enters School. 9 III. Gladys Has a Room-Mate. 16 IV. Settling Down to Work. 22 V. Mrs. Parke's Letter. 27 VI. School Cliques. 33 VII. Aids to Education. 40 VIII. Demosthenic Club. 46 IX. Miss Ashton's Advice. 55 X. Choosing a Profession. 62 XI. Visit of Cousin Abijah. 68 XII. The Tableaux. 73 XIII. Gladys Leaves the Club. 78 XIV. Kate Underwood's Apologies. 84 XV. Miss Ashton's Friday Night. 91 XVI. Storied West Rock. 98 XVII. November Snowstorm. 105 XVIII. The Sleigh-Ride. 112 XIX. Detectives at Work. 120 XX. Repentance. 128 XXI. Accepting a Thanksgiving Invitation. 136 XXII. Aunt Betty's Reception of Her Guest. 143 XXIII. The Academy Girl's Thanksgiving at the Old Homestead. 150 XXIV. Marion's Repentance. 160 XXV. Diphtheria. 167 XXVI. Christmas Coming. 175 XXVII. Christmas in the Academy. 183 XXVIII. Fräulein's Gymnastics. 191 XXIX. Women's Work. 200 XXX. Deceit. 208 XXXI. Marion's Letter from Home. 216 XXXII. Penitent. 223 XXXIII. Spring Vacation. 231 XXXIV. Nemesis. 236 XXXV. Farewell Words. 244 XXXVI. Women's Work. 251 XXXVII. Commencement. 260 MISS ASHTON'S NEW PUPIL. CHAPTER I MISS ASHTON RECEIVES A LETTER. Miss Ashton, principal of the Montrose Academy, established for the higher education of young ladies, sat with a newly arrived letter in her hand, looking with a troubled face over its contents. Letters of this kind were of constant occurrence, but this had in it a different tone from any she had previously received. "It's tender and true," she said to herself. "How sorry I am, I can do nothing for her!" This was the letter:-- DEAR MISS ASHTON,--I have a daughter Marion, now sixteen years old. Developing at this age what we think rather an unusual amount of talent, we are desirous to send her to a good school at the East. We have been at the West twenty years as Home Missionaries. When I tell you that, I need not add that we have been made very happy by being able to save money enough to give Marion at least a year under your kind care, if you can receive her into your school. I think I can safely promise you that she will be faithful and industrious; and I earnestly hope that the lovely Christian character she has sustained at home, may deepen and brighten in the new life which will open to her in the East. May I ask your patience while she is accustoming herself to it; of your kindness I am well assured. Truly yours, E. G. PARKE. "The child of a poor, far western missionary, so different from the class of girls that she will be with here," thought Miss Ashton as she slowly folded the letter. She sat for some time thinking over its contents, then she took her pen, and wrote:-- DEAR MRS. PARKE,--Send your daughter to me. I have great interest in, and sympathy with, all Home Missionary work. I wish I could do something to lighten the expenses she must incur; but this is a chartered institution, and at present all the places to be filled by those who need assistance have been taken. I will, however, bear her in mind; and should she prove a good scholar, exemplary in her behavior, I may be able to render her in the future some acceptable assistance. Wishing you all success in your trying and arduous life, and the help of the great Helper, I am, truly yours, C. S. ASHTON. Miss Ashton did not seal this note; she tossed it upon her desk, meaning to look it over before it was mailed; but she had no time, and, with many misgivings as to what might come of it, she allowed it to go as it was. Her school had never been fuller than it promised to be on the opening of this new year. Through the summer vacation letters had been coming to her from all parts of the country asking to put girls who had finished graded and high school education under her care. Established for many years, the academy had grown from what, in the religious world, was considered a "missionary training-school," and from which many able and faithful women had gone forth to win laurels in the over-ripe harvest fields, to a school better adapted to the wants of the nineteenth century. While it held its religious prestige, it also offered unusual advantages to that important and numerous class of girls who, not wishing a college education, were yet desirous to spend the years that should change them from girls into women in preparation for a future great in its aims, and also great in its results. Miss Ashton, large-hearted and strong-headed, seeing wisely into this future, had succeeded in offering to this class exactly what it had demanded. Ably seconded by an efficient and generous board of trustees, with ample funds, excellent teachers to assist her, a convenient and handsome building in which to hold the school, she had readily made it a success. There were more applications for admittance than she could find room for; indeed, every available corner of the house had been promised when she received Mrs. Parke's letter. Sometimes it happened that a scholar for some unforeseen reason failed to appear; that might make an opening for Marion. She wanted this Western girl; the missionary spirit of olden times came back to her with a warmth and freshness it would have cheered the hearts of the long-absent ones in heathen lands to know. The crowd of scholars began to gather. They came from the north and the south, the east and the west, with a remarkable promptness. On the day for the opening of the term every room was full, and many who had delayed applying for places--taking it for granted there was always a vacancy--were sent disappointed away. There seemed to be positively no spot for Marion; and, in spite of all the cares and perplexities which each day brought her, Miss Ashton could not forget it. It became a positive source of worry to her before she received a letter stating the day on which Marion would arrive. "That's not a good beginning, to be a week after the opening of the term," she thought. "I hope she will bring a good excuse." CHAPTER II. MARION ENTERS SCHOOL. It was a beautiful September twilight when a young girl came timidly into the main entrance of the Young Ladies' Academy at Montrose. Six days and four nights ago she had left her home in Oregon, delayed by the sickness of one of the companions under whose escort she was to come to Massachusetts. Before this journey she had never been more than ten miles from home, and it was a wonderful new world into which the cars so quickly brought her. Mountains, plains, rivers, cities, villages, seemed to fly by her as the train dashed along. She had no time to miss the familiar scenes of her own home. The flat prairie, over whose long reaches gay flowers blossomed, the little villages dotted here and there, with now and then a small, white steeple pointing heavenward,--her father's church among them, with the neat parsonage, so much of which he had built with his own hand, and the dear ones she had left behind her there. To-day she had reached her destination, and a smiling girl had met her at the door and ushered her into the lower corridor of the academy. It was just after tea, an hour given up to social enjoyment, and the corridor was full of young girls, busy and noisy. The stranger shrank back into the recess of the door; she hoped no one would see her: if she could only escape until the principal came, how glad she should be! Little groups kept constantly passing her; many from among them turned their heads and looked at her inquiringly; some smiled and bowed, but no one spoke, until a tall girl who had passed and repassed her a number of times left her party and came to her. "You are our two hundredth!" she said, holding her hand out cordially toward her. "We are glad you have come! Now we are the largest number that have ever been in this school at one time. Shall I take you to Miss Ashton?" Marion held very tight to the hand that was given her as they passed together down through the lines of scholars toward the principal's room. More smiles and cheery nods met her, and now and then she caught "two hundredth" as she passed. A knock at a door was immediately answered by a pleasant "Come in." "Oh, it's you, Dorothy, is it? I'm always glad to see you," said Miss Ashton, rising from the table at which she had been writing. "I've brought you your new pupil," said Dorothy. "And I'm very glad to see her. It is Marion Parke, I presume. You have had a long, hard journey, but you look so well I need not ask how you have borne it." As she was giving Marion this welcome, Miss Ashton, with the quick look by which her long experience had accustomed her to judging something of character, saw in the timid new pupil a very different girl from what in her troubled thoughts of her she had expected her to be. Two large gray eyes from under long, drooping eyelids met hers with an appealing look; lips trembled sensitively as they tried to answer her, and a delicate color came slowly up over the rounded cheeks. "I am very sorry to be late," Marion said with a self-possession that belied the timidity her face expressed; "but sickness of my friends with whom I was to come, detained me." "I had no doubt there was a sufficient reason," Miss Ashton answered kindly. "You are a week behind most of the others, but you can make the time up with diligence. Dorothy, please take Marion to the guest-room for to-night. I will see you later. I am very glad you are here safely. You will have time after tea to write a few lines home. Give my love to your mother, please." Dorothy led the way to the guest-room. It was a pretty room near Miss Ashton's, kept for the convenience of entertaining guests. Dorothy threw open the window-blinds, and Marion saw before her a New England village. In the near distance rose hill upon hill, their sides covered with elegant residences, and what she thought were palaces, crowning their tops. The light of this September twilight covered them with a mantle of gold, lit up the broad river that ran at the base of the hills like a translucent band, turned the tall chimneys of factories in the adjacent city, usually so disfiguring, into minarets, blazing with rich Oriental coloring. "Is it not beautiful?" Dorothy asked, slipping her arm around Marion's waist, and drawing her nearer the window; "we have it always--_always_ to look at, morning, noon, and night, and it is never the same twice. I was born and brought up by the sea, and I've been here three years, yet I love it better and better every day." "I was born and brought up on the prairies." "The land seas," added Dorothy. "How strange they must be! I would like to see the prairies. "The grand thing about this is, it belongs to you all the time you stay here, just as much as if you really owned it; nobody can take it from you; there it is, and there it must remain. That is the reason they built our academy on this high hill, so it should be ours, a part of our education,--'Grow into us,' Miss Ashton says, and it does." While they stood looking at it the twilight deepened; the golden flush faded away. Over hill and river crept the shadows of the night, and out from the adjoining corridor sounded a loud gong, the first one Marion had ever heard. She turned a frightened face toward Dorothy, who said, "Our gong; study hours begin now, so I must go: I shall see you to-morrow." Then she hurried away, and Marion was left alone; but she had hardly gone, before there was a gentle tap upon her door, then it opened, and Miss Benton, one of the teachers, came in. "What, all alone in the dark! That's lonely for a new pupil. Let me light your gas, and then I will take you down to tea; you must be very hungry." Her voice was kind, and her manner gentle. She lighted the gas, then slipped Marion's arm into hers, and took her through the long, bright corridors to the dining-hall. Here, a pleasant-faced matron came to meet her. She gave her a seat at a table, which she told her would be hers permanently, then seated herself by Marion's side and talked to her cheerfully as she ate. It was all so homelike; every one she had met was kind and friendly. It would be her own fault certainly if she were not contented and happy here, Marion thought. Tea over, she tried to find her way alone back to her room, but there were corridors leading to stairs, corridors leading to recitation rooms, corridors leading to a large hall dimly lighted, corridors leading everywhere but where she wanted to go, and, for a wonder, no one to be seen of whom she could ask direction. There was something so ludicrous in the situation, that every now and then Marion burst into a merry little laugh; and after a time one of her laughs was echoed, and, turning, she saw a short, fat little woman with very light hair, and light blue eyes, who came directly to her, holding up two small hands and laughing. "You, new der Mundel," she said; "Two Hundert they call you. What for you hier?" "I've lost my way. I can't find my room," said Marion, still laughing. "What der Raum?" Marion was startled. Was this an insane woman who was walking at large in the corridors? What sort of a jargon was this she was talking to her? Had it been wholly German, or even correct German, Marion would have understood her, at least in part; but this language, what was it? The speaker, much to the amusement of the whole school, used a curious medley of neither English nor German in her attempt to speak the English, seeming to forget the proper use of her own language. Marion answered her now with a half-frightened, "Ma'am?" "You not stand under me? I am your teacher, German. I am Fräulein Sausmann. Berlin I vas born. I teach you der German. Come, tell me, Two Hundert, vere vas your der Raum, vat you call it? Your apart_a_ment, vere you seep?" shutting up her small eyes tight, and leaning her head on one hand, to represent a pillow. "The guest-room," said Marion, now understanding her. "Der guest-room? Oui, oui, Madamoselle. I chap_p_eron you,--come!" Seizing one of Marion's hands, she led her to her room, opening the door, then, standing on the tips of her small feet and kissing her on both cheeks, she said in English, "Good-night," kissed her own hand, and, throwing the kiss toward Marion, disappeared. Marion found her trunk in her room unstrapped, and, tired as she was, began to make preparations for spending the night there. She did not suppose for a moment it was to be permanently hers, but fell asleep wondering what could be next in waiting for her. CHAPTER III. GLADYS HAS A ROOM-MATE. When Dorothy left Marion at the call of the gong for study hours she went at once to her own room. She had two room-mates, both her cousins; one, Gladys Philbrick, was a Florida girl, the only child of a wealthy owner of several orange-groves. She was motherless, and needed a woman's care, and the advantages of a Northern education, so her father sent her to live with relatives in the small seaport town of Rock Cove. The other, Susan Downer, was the child of a sister of Mr. Philbrick; her father followed the sea, and her brother, almost the one boy in Rock Cove who did not look upon a sailor life as the only one worth living, was at the present time a student at the academy at Atherton, only a few miles from Montrose. Dorothy herself was the child of a fisherman--her own mother dead, and she left under the care of a weak stepmother, whose numerous family of small children had made Dorothy's life one of constant hardship. When Mr. Philbrick, in one of his visits to Gladys at the North, became acquainted with this little group of cousins, he had no hesitation--being not only an educated man, but also one of a great heart and generous nature--in making plans for their future education. In carrying these out, he had sent Jerry Downer to Atherton; Gladys, Susan, and Dorothy to Montrose. Her cousins were already busy with their books when Dorothy came into the room; and, careful not to disturb them, she sat quietly down to study her own lessons, but she could not fix her mind upon them. Marion alone down-stairs, homesick, with no one to say a kind word to her, or to tell her about the school, "a stranger in a strange land," she kept repeating to herself; "and such a sweet-looking girl. It's too bad!" Try her best not to, she still found herself watching the hands of the clock. For a wonder she was anxious to have study hours over; she wanted to tell her cousins about Marion. As it proved, they were quite as anxious to hear; for no sooner had the clock struck nine, and the gong struck again for the close, as it had for the opening of study hours, than they shut their books, and Gladys said,-- "Tell us about Two Hundred? What a way you have, Dorothy, of always finding out people who want you!" "She was all alone," said Dorothy, by way of answer; "and she looked so lonely." "Tell us about her," said Susan. "Never mind the lonely; new scholars always are; that's a part of their education, Miss Ashton says. We should have been if we hadn't been all together. What is she like?" "She's lovely," said Dorothy. "She is pretty, and she isn't. Her hair just waves all over her head; and her eyes were blue, and they were hazel, and they were--" "Gray!" put in Gladys. "Yes, I suppose they were gray; but they were all colors, but cat colors, until it grew too dark for me to see her." "We shall like her. I wish she could have a room near us. Her eyes tell true tales." "She can," said Gladys instantly. "She can room with me. I am the only girl in school who hasn't a room-mate. You wait"--and Gladys, without another word, hurried out of the room. She very well knew that after nine Miss Ashton disliked a call unless there was some imperative necessity for it, so she knocked so gently on the closed door that she was hardly heard; and when at last Miss Ashton appeared, she looked so tired, and her smile was so wan, that Gladys, eager as she was, wished she had been more thoughtful; but, in her impulsive way, she blundered out,-- "She can come to me. I'm all alone, you know." "Who can come to you, Gladys?" If it had been any other of her pupils, Miss Ashton would have been surprised; but three years had taught her that this Florida girl was exceptional. "Two Hundred! Dorothy says she is lovely, with big eyes, and lonely"-- "You mean Marion Parke?" "Yes, that's her name. We all call her Two Hundred." "Then you must not call her so any more. It would annoy her." "I never will if you'll please let her come and room with me. It's such a cheerful room, and I'll be ever so nice to her, Miss Ashton; try me, and see." "But, Gladys, you know your father pays me an extra price for your having your room to yourself." "I think, Miss Ashton,"--looking earnestly in Miss Ashton's face,--"he would be ashamed of me if I wasn't willing to share it with her. Please! I'll be as amiable as an angel." Miss Ashton knew the cousins well. She knew, if she excepted Susan, of whom she felt always in doubt, she could hardly have chosen out of her school any girls from whom she would have expected kinder and safer treatment for the new-comer. "How could I have doubted God would provide for this missionary child!" she thought, as she looked down into the earnest face beside her; but she only said,-- "Thank you, Gladys; I will think it over!" and Gladys, not at all sure her offer would be accepted, went back to her room. The next morning, it must be confessed, things looked differently to her from what they had on the previous night. It was such a luxury to have a whole room to herself; to throw her things about "only a little," but that little enough to make it look untidy. She did not exactly wish she had waited until she knew more of Marion, and she tried to excuse her reluctance to herself by the doubt whether she ought not to have consulted her cousins, as their parlor was a room common to them all; but it was too late now, and when she received a little note from Miss Ashton, saying she should send Marion to her directly after breakfast, she made hasty preparations for her reception. The dining-hall was filled with small tables, around which the girls had taken their seats, when Miss Benton came in with Marion. Generally a new-comer was hardly noticed among so many; but the peculiarity of Marion's admittance, rounding their number to the largest the school had ever held, made her a marked character for the time. Every eye was turned upon her as she, wholly unconscious of the attention she attracted, walked quietly behind the teacher to a seat next to Gladys. "Gladys, this is your new room-mate," said Miss Benton. Then she introduced her to the others at the table, and left her. "Grace before meat," whispered Gladys to her as the customary signal for asking a blessing was given. Miss Ashton rose, and every head in the crowded hall was reverently bowed as she prayed. They were the first words of prayer Marion had heard since she knelt by her father's side in the far-away home on the morning of her departure. "The same God here as there!" Among this crowd of strangers this thought came to her with the comfort its realization everywhere, and at all times, brings. Even here, she was not alone. There was a low-toned, pleasant hum of conversation at the table during breakfast; the teacher who presided drew Marion skilfully into it now and then; and she was the centre of a little group as the school went from the hall to the chapel, where a short religious service was every morning conducted. This was under Miss Ashton's special care, and she took great pains to make it the keynote of the school-life for the day. So far in the term, what she said had its bearing on the immediate duties before them; but this morning she had felt the need of meeting the cases of homesickness with which the opening of every new year abounded, and which seemed, to the pupils at least, matters of the greatest and saddest importance. She chose one of the most cheerful hymns in the collection they used, by which to bring the tone of the school into harmony with her remarks; and, after it was sung, she said:-- CHAPTER IV. SETTLING DOWN TO WORK. "If I were to ask, which I am too wise to do,"--here a smile broke out over the faces of her audience--"those among you who are homesick to rise, how many do you suppose I should see upon their feet?" A laugh now, and a good deal of elbow-nudging among the girls. "In the twenty years I have been principal of this academy, I have seen a great deal of this sickness, and I have sympathy with, and pity for it. It has been often told us that the Swiss, away from their Alpine homes, often die of it, but I have never yet found a case that was in the least danger of becoming fatal; so far from it, I might say, that when, since the Comforter sent to us in all our troubles has taken the sickness under his healing care, my most homesick pupils have become my happiest and most contented; so, if I do not seem to suffer with you, my suffering pupils, it is because I have no fear of the result. "I have a prescription to offer you this morning. Love your home--the more the better; but keep a great place in your hearts for your studies. Give us good recitations in the place of tears. _Study_--study cheerfully, earnestly, faithfully, and if this fails to cure you, come and tell me. I shall see I have made a wrong diagnosis of your condition." Another laugh over the room, in which some of the unhappy ones were seen to join. "A few words more. I take it for granted that when a young girl comes to join my school, she comes as a lady. There are qualifications needed to establish one's claim to the title. I shall state them briefly:-- "Kindness to, and thoughtfulness of, others; politeness, even in trifles; courtesy that wins hearts, generosity that makes friends, unselfishness that loves another better than one's self, integrity that commands confidence, neatness which attracts; tastefulness, a true woman's strength; good manners, without which all my list of virtues is in vain; cleanliness next to godliness; and, above all, true godliness that makes the noblest type of woman,--a Christian lady." Then she offered a short, fervent prayer, and the school filed out quietly to the different class-rooms for their morning recitations. She spoke to Marion as she passed her, and Marion knew that the dreaded hour of her examination had come. She followed Miss Ashton to a room set apart for such purposes; and, to her surprise, the first words the principal said to her were,-- "Come and sit down by me, Marion, and tell me all about your home!" "About home!" Marion's heart was very tender this morning, and when she raised her eyes to Miss Ashton, they were full of tears. "I want to learn more of your mother,"--no notice was taken of the tears. "I had such a nice letter from her about your coming, so nice that, though I hadn't even a corner to put you in, I could not resist receiving you; and now you are invited to come into the very rooms where I should have been most satisfied to put you. I will tell you about your future room-mates; I think you will be happy there." Then she told her of the three cousins, dwelling upon their characters generally, leaving Marion to form her particular opinion as she became acquainted with them. What the examination was Marion never could recall. Her father was a college graduate. Her mother had been educated at one of our best New England schools, and her own education had been given her with much care by them both. Miss Ashton found her, with the exception of mathematics, easily prepared to enter her middle class; and the mathematics she had no doubt she could make up. Probably there was not a happier girl among the whole two hundred than Marion when, with a few kind, personal words, Miss Ashton dismissed her. Her past studies approved, and her future so delightfully planned for. Miss Ashton gave her the number of her room in the third corridor, telling her that the same young lady she had seen on the previous night was waiting to receive her. When, after some difficulty, she found her way there, the door was opened by Dorothy, who had been watching for her. "This is our all-together parlor," she said. "Gladys, you know, and Susan,--this is my cousin, Susan Downer. We are glad to have you with us." It was a simple welcome, but it was hearty, and we all know how much that means. Gladys led her to the window. "Come here first," she said, "and look out." It was the same view she had seen from the guest-room the night before, only now it was soft and tender in the light of a half-clouded autumn sun. "My father said, when he saw it, it ought to make us better, nobler, and happier to have this to look at. That was asking a great deal, was not it? because, you see, we get used to it. But there's the sea; you know how the sea looks, never the same twice; because it's still and full of ripples to-day, you don't know but the waves will be tumbling over Judith's Woe to-morrow." "I never saw the ocean," said Marion. "That is one of the great things I have come to the East to see." "Never saw the ocean?" repeated Gladys, looking at Marion as curiously as if she had told her she never saw the sun. "Oh, what a treat you have before you! I almost envy you. This is well enough for a landscape, but the seascapes leave you nothing to desire. Now, come to our room. You are to chum with me, and we will be awful good and kind to each other, won't we?" "How happy I shall be here!" was Marion's answer, as she looked around the rooms. "I wish my mother could see it all!" "I wish she could," said Dorothy kindly. The rooms in this academy building were planned in suites,--a parlor, with two bedrooms opening from it. These accommodated four pupils, unless, as was frequently the case, some parents wished their daughter--as did Gladys's father--to have her sleeping-room to herself. In this case extra payment was made. Marion found her trunk already in Gladys's room, and the work of settling down was quickly and pleasantly done, with the help of her three schoolmates. Lucky Marion! She had certainly, so far, begun her Eastern life under the pleasantest auspices. CHAPTER V. MRS. PARKE'S LETTER. And now commenced Marion's work. She was not quite fitted in higher mathematics, and Miss Palmer, not disposed to be too indulgent in a study where stupid girls tried her patience to its utmost every day of her life, conditioned her without hesitation. Miss Jones found her fully up, even before her class, in Latin and Greek; her father having taken special pains in this part of her education, being himself one of the elect in classical studies when in Yale College. Her words of commendation almost made amends to Marion for Miss Palmer's brief dismissal; almost, not quite, for, in common with nine-tenths of the scholars in the academy, Marion "hated mathematics." Miss Sausmann tried her on the pronunciation of a few German gutturals, then patted her on the shoulder and said,-- "Marrione, you vill do vell; you may koom: I vill be most gladness to 'ave you koom. I vill give unto you one, two, three private lessons. You may koom to-day, at four. The stupid class vill not smile at you; you vill make no mistakens." Then she kissed Marion as affectionately as if she had been a dear old friend, and watched her as she went down the long corridor. Some words she said to herself in German, smiled pleasantly, waved two little hands after the retreating figure, and smiled again, this time with some self-congratulatory shakes of the head. The truth was, though German was an elective study, it was by no means a favorite in the school, and, it may be, Miss Sausmann was not a popular teacher. Broken English, too great an affection for, and estimation of the grandeur of, the Fatherland, joined with a quick temper, do not always make a successful teacher. The girls, moreover, had fallen rather into the habit of making fun of her, and this did not add to her happiness. In Marion she thought she saw a friend, and very welcome she was. The arrangement that put four scholars in one room for study, also was not the wisest on the part of the architect of Montrose Academy. If he had taught school for even one year, he would have found how easy it was for a restless scholar to destroy the quiet so essential to all true work. In Marion's room there was not a stupid or a lazy girl; but they committed their lessons at such different times, and in such different ways, that they often proved the greatest annoyance to each other. One of the first obstacles Marion found as she bent herself to real hard work, was the need of a place where her attention was not continually called from her book to something one of her room-mates was doing or saying. To be sure, it was one of the rules of the school that there should be perfect quiet in the room during study hours, but that was absolutely impossible; and Marion, especially with her mathematics, found herself struggling to keep her thoughts upon her lesson, until she grew so nervous that she could not tell _x_ from _y_, or demonstrate the most common proposition in an intelligible way; and now she found to her surprise a new life-lesson waiting for her to learn, one not in books. So far, her life had all been made easy and sure by the wise parents who had never allowed anything to interfere with their child's best interests; as they had made more and greater sacrifices than she ever knew, to send her East for her education, so nothing that could prepare her for it had been forgotten or neglected. The very opportunities she had craved had been granted her, and she found herself hindered by such trifles as Gladys moving restlessly around the room, her own lessons well learned, lifting up a window curtain and letting a glare of sunshine fall over her book, knocking the corner of the study table, pushing a chair; no matter how trifling the disturbance, it meant a distracted attention, and lost time; or, Susan would fidget in her chair, draw long and loud breaths, push away one book noisily and take up another, fix her eyes steadily on Marion, look as if she were watching the slow progress she made, and wondering at it. Even Dorothy, dear, good Dorothy, was not without her share in the annoyance. If she had any occasion to move about the room, "she creeps as if she knew how it troubles me, and was ashamed of me," thought nervous Marion. In her weekly letters home she gave to her mother an exact account of her daily life, and among the hindrances she found this nervous susceptibility was not omitted. It had never occurred to her that it was a thing under her own control, therefore she was not a little surprised when she received the following letter from her mother:-- "MY DEAR CHILD,--You are not starting right. What your room-mates do, or do not do, is none of your concern. Learn at once what I hoped you had learned, at least in part, before leaving home, to fix your mind upon your lesson, to the shutting out of all else while that is being learned. I know how difficult this will seem to you, with your attention distracted by everything so new about you; _but it can be done_, and it must be if you are to acquire in the only way that will be of any true use to you in the future. Remember that the very first thing you are to do, in truth the end and aim of all education, is to develop and strengthen the powers of your mind. Acquisition is, I had almost written, only useful in so far as it tends to this great result. When you leave school, if your memory is stored with all the facts which the curriculum of your school affords, and you lack in the mental control which makes them at your service, your education has only made your mind a lumber-room, full perhaps to overflowing, but useless for the great needs of life. Now you will wonder what all this has to do with your being made uncomfortable, so that you could not study, by the restlessness of your room-mates. If you begin at once to fix your mind, as I hope you will soon be able to do, on your lesson, you will be delighted to find how little you will be disturbed by anything going on around you, and how soon your ability to concentrate your working powers will increase. "Try it faithfully, my dear one, and write me the result. I want to send you one other help, which I am sure you will enjoy. In your studies, make for yourself as much variety as possible. By _that_, I mean when you are tired of your Latin do not take up your Greek; take your mathematics, or your logic, or your literature,--any study that will give you an entire change. Change is rest; and this is truer even in mental work than in physical. Above all, _do not worry_. Nothing deteriorates the mind like this useless worry. When you have done your best over a lesson, do not weary and weaken yourself by fears of failure in your recitation room. Nothing will insure this failure so certainly as to expect it. Cultivate the feeling that your teacher is your friend, and more ready to help you, if you falter, than to blame you. You think Miss Palmer is hard on you in your mathematics, and don't like you. Avoid personalities. At present, you probably annoy Miss Palmer by your blunders; but that is class work, and I do not doubt a little sharpness on her part is good for you; but, out of the recitation room, you are only 'one of the girls,' and if you come in contact with her, I have no doubt you will find her an agreeable lady. There is a tinge of self-consciousness about this, which I am most anxious for you to avoid. I want you to forget there is such a person in the world as Marion Parke, in your school intercourse; but more of this at another time." Here follows a few pages written of the home-life, which Marion reads with great tears in her eyes. What her mother has written her Marion had heard many times before leaving home, but its practical application now made it seem a different thing. She could not help the thought that if her mother had been in her place, had been surrounded as she was by the new life,--the teachers, the scholars, the routine of everyday,--if she had seen the anxious, pale faces of many of the girls when they came into the recitation room, and the tears that were often furtively wiped away after a failure, she would not have thought it so easy to fix your attention on your lesson, undisturbed by any external thing, or to bend your efforts to the development of your mind, above every other purpose: but, after all, the letter was not without its salutary effect; and coming as it did at the beginning of Marion's school career, will prove of great benefit to her. CHAPTER VI. SCHOOL CLIQUES. The trustees of Montrose Academy had not only chosen a fine site upon which to erect the building, but they had also very wisely bought twenty acres of adjacent land, and laid it out in pretty landscape gardening. There was a grove of fine old trees, that they trimmed and made winding paths where the shade was the deepest and the boughs interlaced their arms most gracefully. They cut a narrow driveway, which proved so inviting that, after a short time, there had to appear the inevitable placard, "Trespassing forbidden." A small brook made its way surging down to the broad river that flowed through the town; this they caused to be dammed, and in a short time they had a pond, over which they built fanciful bridges. The pond was large enough for boats; and these, decked with the school color,--a dainty blue,--were always filled with pretty girls, who handled the light oars, if not with skill, at least with grace, and, as Miss Ashton knew, with perfect safety. During the fine days of the matchless September weather, this grove was the favorite resort of the girls through the hours allotted to exercise; and here Marion, having found a quiet, shaded nook where she could be sure of being alone, brought her book and did some of her best studying. "It's easy enough," she thought with much self-gratulation, "to fix your mind on what you are doing, with nothing to disturb you; but it's a different thing when there are three other minds that won't fix at the same time. I just wish mother would try it." One day, however, when her satisfaction was the most complete over an easily mastered Latin lesson, a laughing face peeped down upon her through her canopy of green leaves, and a voice said,-- "Caught you, Marion Parke! Now I'm going straight in to report you to Miss Ashton, and you'll see what you'll get." "What shall I?" asked Marion, laughing back. "She'll ask you very politely to take a seat by her on the sofa, and then she'll look straight in your eyes and she'll say,-- "'I am very sorry, Marion, to find you so soon after joining my school breaking one of my most important regulations.' (She always says regulations; we don't have any rules here.) 'I had expected better things of you, as you are a minister's daughter, and came from the far West.'" "Is studying your lesson, then, breaking a rule?" "Studying it in exercise hours is an unpardonable sin. Don't you know we are sent out into the open air for rest, change, exercise? You ought to be rowing, walking, playing croquet, tennis, base-ball, football. You've to recruit your shattered energies, instead of winding them up to the highest pitch. We've been watching you, but no one liked to tell you, so I came. I won't tell Miss Ashton this time, if you'll promise me solemnly you'll join our croquet party, and always play on our side! Come; we're waiting for you!" "Wait until I come back," said Marion, rising hastily, and gathering up her books. "I didn't know there was any such a rule--regulation, I mean." Then, half frightened and half amused, she went back to the house, straight to Miss Ashton's room. Miss Ashton was busy, but she met her with a smile. "Miss Ashton," said Marion, "I am very sorry; I didn't know it was against your wishes. I found such a lovely, quiet little nook in the grove, and I've been studying there when Mamie Smythe says I ought to have been exercising." "Then you have done wrong," said Miss Ashton gravely. "I understand that the newness of your work makes your lessons difficult, but there is nothing to be gained by overwork. Come to me at some other time, and I will talk with you more about it. Now go, for the pleasantest thing you can find to do in the way of healthful exercise. There are some fine roses in blossom on the lawn; I wish you would pick me a nice, large bunch for my vase. Look at the poor thing! See how drooping the flowers are!" Mamie Smythe's croquet party waited in vain for Marion's return; but on the beautiful lawn, where the late roses were doing their best to prolong their summer beauty, Marion went from bush to bush, picking the fairest, and conning a lesson which somehow seemed to her to be a postscript to her mother's letter, that was, "Study wisely done was the only true study." The lawn itself, cultured and tasteful, had its share, and by no means a small one, in the work of education. Clusters of ornamental trees, dotted here and there over its soft green, were interspersed with lovely flower-beds, in which were growing not only rare flowers, but the dear old blossoms,--candytuft, narcissus, clove-pinks, jonquils, heart's-ease, daffodils, and many another to which the eyes of some of the young girls turned lovingly, for they knew they were blossoming in their dear home garden. As Marion was going to her room, after taking her roses to Miss Ashton, she found Mamie Smythe waiting for her. "O you poor Marion!" she said, catching Marion by the arm, "I--I hope she didn't scold you; she never does--never; but she looks so hurt. I never would have told on you, and nobody would. We all knew you didn't know; I'm so sorry!" "I told on myself," said Marion, laughing, "and she punished me. Don't you see how broken-hearted I am?" "What _did_ she do to you? Why, Marion Parke, she is always good to those who confess and don't wait to be found out!" "She sent me out to pick her a lovely bunch of roses." "Oh!" said Mamie. Then a small crowd of girls gathered round them, Mamie telling them the story in her own peculiar way, much to their amusement; for Mamie was the baby and the wit of the school, a spoiled child at home, a generous, merry favorite at school, a good scholar when she chose to be, but fonder of fun and mischief than of her books, consequently a trouble to her teachers. She was a classmate of Marion, and for some unaccountable reason, as no two could have been more unlike, had taken a great fancy to her, one of those fancies which are apt to abound in any gathering of young girls. Had Marion returned it with equal ardor, the two, even short as the term had been, would be now inseparable; but Marion had her room-mates for company when her lessons left her any time, and Gladys and Dorothy had already learned to love her. As for Susan, she seemed of little account in their room. She would have said of herself that she "moved in a very different circle," and that was true; even a boarding-school has its cliques, and to one of the largest of these Susan prided herself upon belonging. Just what it consisted of it would be difficult to say, certainly not of the best scholars, for then both Gladys and Dorothy would have been there; not of the wealthiest girls, for then, again, Gladys Philbrick was one of the richest girls in the school; not of the most mischievous, or of idlers, for then Miss Ashton would have found some way of separating them; yet there it was, certain girls clubbing together at all hours and in all places, where any intercourse was allowed, to the exclusion of others: walking together, having spreads in each other's rooms, going to concerts, to meetings, anywhere and everywhere, always together. Miss Ashton, in her twenty years of experience had seen a great deal of this; but she had learned that the best way of dealing with it was to be ignorant of it, unless it interfered in some way with the regular duties of the school. This it had only done occasionally, and then had met with prompt discipline. As several of the leaders had graduated the last Commencement, she had hoped, as she had done many times before, only to be disappointed, that the new year would see less of it; but it had seemed to her already to have assumed more importance than ever, so early in the fall term. She very soon saw Mamie Smythe's devotion to Marion, and knowing how fascinating the girl could make herself when she wished, and how genial was Marion's great Western heart, she expected she would be drawn into the clique. On some accounts she wished she might be, for she had already begun to feel that where Marion was, there would be law and order; but, on the whole, she was pleased to see that her new pupil, while she was rapidly making her way into that most difficult of all positions in a school to fill, that of general favorite, was doing so without choosing any girl for her bosom friend. "She helps me," Miss Ashton thought with much self-gratulation, "for she is not only a winsome, merry girl, but a fine scholar, and already her Christian influence begins to tell." CHAPTER VII. AIDS TO EDUCATION. In the prospectus of Montrose Academy was the following sentence:-- "The design of Montrose Academy is the nurture of Christian women. "To this great object they dedicate the choicest instruction, the noblest personal influences, and the refinements of a cultivated home." It was to carry out this, that religious instruction was made prominent. Not only was the Bible a weekly text-book for careful and critical study, but, in accordance with an established custom of the school, among the distinguished men and women who nearly every week gave lectures or addresses to the young ladies, were to be found those who told them of the religious movements and interests of the day. Not only those of our own country, but those of a broader field, covering all the known world. Returned missionaries, with their pathetic stories of their past life. Heads of the great philanthropic societies, each one with its claim of special and immediate importance. Professors for theological seminaries and from prominent colleges, discussing the prevailing questions that were agitating the public mind. Trained scholars in the scientific world, laden with their rich treasures of research into nature's hidden secrets. Musicians of wide repute, who found an inspiration in the glowing young faces before them, that called from them their choicest and their best. Elocutionists, with their pathetic and humorous readings, always finding a ready response in their delighted audience. These, and many others of notoriety, were brought to the academy; for Miss Ashton had not been slow in learning what is so valuable in modern teaching,--_variety_. If there were fewer prayer-meetings in the corridors among pupils and teachers than in olden times, there was in the school more alertness of mind, a steadier, stronger ability to think, and, consequently, to study, and, therefore, judiciously used, more power to grasp, believe in, and love the great Christianity to whose service the academy was dedicated. Nor was it by these lectures alone that the educational advantages were broadened. The library every year received often large and important additions. It would have been curious to note the difference between the literature selected now, and that chosen years ago. Then a work of fiction would have been considered entirely out of place on the shelves of a library consecrated to religious training. Now the pupils had free access to the best works of the best literary authors of the day, in fiction or otherwise. Monthly magazines and newspapers were spread upon the library table. There was but one thing required, that no book taken out should be injured, and that no reading should interfere with the committal of the lessons. In the art gallery the same growth was readily to be seen. The portraits of the early missionaries who had gone out from the school, and whose names had become sainted in the religious world, still hung there; but the walls were covered now with choice paintings,--donations from the rapidly increasing alumnæ, and from friends of the school. Here the art scholars found much to interest and instruct them, not only in the pictures, but in the models and designs, which had been selected with both taste and skill. There was a cabinet of minerals; but this was by no means a favorite with the pupils, though here and there a diligent student might be seen possibly reading "sermons in the stones," who could tell! There seemed, indeed, nothing to be wanting for the "higher education" for which the institution was designed, but that the pupils should accept and improve the privileges offered them. Marion Parke was not the only one who found herself confused by the sudden wealth of opportunity surrounding her. Other pupils had come from the north and the south, the east and the west, many from homes where few, if any, of the advantages of modern life had been known. That Marion should have appreciated, and to some extent have appropriated, them as readily as she did, is a matter of surprise, unless her educated Eastern parents are remembered, also the amenities of her parsonage home. Certain it is, that watching her as so many did, and as is the common fate of every new pupil, there was not detected any of the "verdancy" which so often stamps and injures the young girl. It was the girl next to her who leaned both elbows on the table, and put her food into a capacious mouth on the blade of her knife. It was the one nearly opposite her that talked with her mouth so full she had difficulty in making herself understood; and another, half-way up the table, to whom Miss Barton, the teacher who presided, had occasion to say, when the girl, having handled several pieces of cake in the cake-basket, chose the largest and the best,-- "Whatever we touch here, Maria, we take." A hard thing for Miss Barton to say, and for the girl to hear; but it must be remembered that this is a training as well as a finishing school, and that there is an old adage with much truth in it, that "manners make the man." It may seem a thing almost unnecessary and unkind to suggest, that even the most brilliant scholarship could not give a girl a high standing in a school of this kind, if it were unaccompanied with the thousand little marks of conduct which attest the lady. Maria, after her rebuke from Miss Barton, left the table in a noisy flood of tears, of course the sympathy of all the girls going with her. Miss Barton was pale, and there were tears in her eyes; but no one noticed her, unless it was to throw toward her disapproving looks. The fact was, that she had spoken to Maria again and again, kindly and in private, about this same piece of ill-manners, and the girl had paid no heed to it. There seemed nothing to be left to her but the public rebuke, which, wounding, might cure. Marion took the whole in wonderingly. Was this, then, considered a part of that education for which purpose what seemed to her such a wealth of treasures had been gathered? Here were lectures, libraries, art galleries, beautiful grounds, excellent teachers, a bevy of happy companions, and yet among them so small a thing as a girl's handling cake at the table, and choosing the largest and the best piece, was made a matter of comment and reproof, and, for the first time since she had been in the academy, had raised a little storm of rebellion on the part of pupils towards a teacher. When she went to her room, Susan had already told the others, who sat at different tables, what had happened. Susan was excited and angry, but Dorothy said quietly,-- "And why should Maria have taken the best bit of cake, even if it had been on the top? I wouldn't." "No: you would have been the last girl in the school to take the best of anything," said Gladys, giving Dorothy a hug and a kiss; "and as for Miss Barton, she's a dear, anyway, and I dare say she feels at this moment twice as bad as Maria." "Sensible girl, am I not, Marion?" seeing Marion come into the room. "Don't you take sides in any such things; you mind what I say! Teachers know what they are doing; and if any of us are reproved, why, the long and short of it is, nine times out of ten we deserve it. It's 'for the improvement of our characters' that everything is done here." "I believe you," said Marion heartily; and, trifling as the event was, she put it with the long array of educational advantages which she had come from the far West to seek. "It requires attention to little as well as great things"--she thought, wisely for a girl of sixteen--"to accomplish the object of this finishing-school." CHAPTER VIII. DEMOSTHENIC CLUB. "Well! what of that! If college boys can have secret societies, and the Faculties, to say the least, wink at them, why can't academy girls? I don't see!" This is what Jenny Barton said one evening to a group of girls out in the pretty grove back of the academy building. There were six of them there. Jenny had culled them from the school, as best fitted for her purpose. She had two brothers in Harvard College, and she had been captivated by their stories of the "Hasty Pudding Club," of which they were both members. "So much fun! such a jolly good time! why not, then, for girls, as well as for boys?" When, after the long summer vacation, Jenny came back to school to establish one of these societies, to be called in after years its founder, and at the present time to be its head, this was the height of her ambition, the one thing that she determined to accomplish. These six girls that in the gloaming of this September night are waiting to hear what she has to say were well chosen. There was Lucy Snow, the one great mischief-maker in the school. No teacher but wished her out of her corridor; in truth, no teacher, not even Miss Ashton, who never shrank from the task of trying to make over spoiled pupils, was glad to see her back at the beginning of a new year. There was Kate Underwood, a brilliant girl, a fine scholar, and the best writer in the school. There was Martha Dodd, whose parents were missionaries at Otaheite; but Martha will never put her foot on missionary ground. There was Sophy Kane, who held her head very high because she was second cousin of Kane, the Arctic explorer, and who talked in a grand manner of what she intended to do in her future. There was Mamie Smythe, "chock-full of fun," the girls said, and was never afraid, teachers or no teachers, rules or no rules, of carrying it out. There was Lilly White, red as a peony, large as a travelling giantess, with hands that had to have gloves made specially to fit them, and feet that couldn't hide themselves even in a number ten boot. She was as good-natured as she was uncouth, and never happier than when she was being made a butt of. These were to be the nucleus around which this society was to be formed; and as they threw themselves down on the bed of pine-leaves which carpeted the old stump of a tree upon which Jenny Barton was seated, they were the most characteristic group that could have been chosen out of the school. Jenny had shown her powers of leadership when she made the selection. The opening sentence of this chapter was what she said in reply to some objection which Kate Underwood had offered. Kate liked to be popular, to be admired and courted for her talents: it was the _secret_ society that would prevent this. This, Jenny Barton understood; and in the long debate that followed she met it well. There should be a public occasion now and then. Did not the Harvard societies give splendid spreads, and have an abundance of good times generally? The society was established, and its name, after a long and warm debate, chosen: "The Demosthenic Club." "For we are going to debate, you know; train for lecturers, public readers, ministers, actresses, lawyers, and whatever needs public speaking," said President Jenny. Vice-President Kate Underwood gave her head an expressive toss, and, if it hadn't been too dark to see her smile, there might have been seen something more than the toss; for while they talked, the long twilight had faded away, the little ripples of the lake by whose side they were sitting had gone to sleep on its quiet bosom. The air was full of the chirrup of innumerable insects; two frogs, creeping up from the water, adding a sonorous bass, and the long, slender pine-leaves chimed into this evening lullaby with their sad, sweet, Æolian notes. But little of all of this did this Demosthenic Club notice as, coming out at length from the darkness of the grove, they saw the sky full of stars, the academy windows blazing with gas-light, and knew study hours had been begun. Not to be in their rooms punctually at that hour was an infringement upon the "regulations" not easily excused, and to begin the formation of their society by incurring the displeasure of their teachers did not promise well for their future. "Take off your boots," whispered Mamie Smythe, as they stood hesitating at the door. In a moment every pair of boots was in the girls' hands, and they were creeping softly through the empty corridors toward their respective rooms. As fate would have it, the only one who reached her room was Lilly White. To be sure, Fräulein Sausmann, the German teacher, heard steps in her corridor, and, opening her door a crack, peeped out. When she saw Lilly White creeping along on the toes of her great feet, her boots, like two boats, held one in each hand, she only smiled, and said to herself, "Oh, Fräulein White! She matters not. She studies no times at all," and shut her door. All the others were taken in the very act; and their shoeless feet, their confession of a guilty conscience, were reported to Miss Ashton. "Seven of the girls! that means a conspiracy of some sort," said this wise teacher. "I must keep an eye upon them." How much any one of this "Demosthenic Club" suspected of their detection by their corridor teachers it would be difficult to say, for, except by a glance, no notice was taken of them at the time. Jenny Barton told the others triumphantly at their next secret session, how she had hidden her shoes behind her, and taken little, mincing steps, so to hide her feet, and imitated the whole performance, much to the amusement of the others. "Ah, but!" said Mamie Smythe, "that wasn't half as good as what I did. When I met Miss Stearns pat in the face, and she looked me through and through with those great goggle eyes of hers, I just said, 'O Miss Stearns, I was so thirsty I couldn't study; I had to go and get a drink of ice-water!' "Then the ugly old thing stared at the boots I had forgotten to hide, as much as to say, 'It was very necessary, in order to go over these uncarpeted floors, to take off your boots, I suppose, Mamie Smythe!' If she had only said so right out, I should have answered,-- "'Why, Miss Stearns, I did it so not to make a noise;' that's true, isn't it, now?" looking round among the laughing girls. "And you ought to have added," put in Kate Underwood, "you didn't want to disturb any one in study hours; that was true, wasn't it?" "Exactly what I would have said; but then, when she only goggle-eyed me, what could a girl do?" "Do? Why, do what I did," said Lucy Snow. "I walked right up to Miss Palmer, she's so ill-natured, and likes so much to have us all hate her, that you can do anything with her, and I said,-- "'Miss Palmer! I know it's study hours, but I ate too much of that berry shortcake for tea, and I went to find the matron, to see if she couldn't give me something to ease the pain.' "'I think' said she (the horrid thing), 'if you would put on your boots, it might alleviate the pain; but for fear it should not--you didn't find the matron, I suppose?' "'No, ma'am,' I said, 'I didn't see her; I had to come away no better than I went.' "'I am very sorry for you; you appear to be in great pain.' "I was doubling up like--like a contortionist," and she smiled, and said,-- "'Come into my room, as you can't find the matron, perhaps I can help you.' "So in I had to go; and, girls, if you can believe it, after fumbling around among her phials, she brought me something in a tumbler. It was half full and looked horrid! I tell you, I shook in my stocking feet, and I began to straighten up, and whimpered,--I could have cried right out, it looked so awful, so _awful_, but I only whimpered,--'I'm better, a good deal, Miss Palmer; I'll go to my room, and if I can't study, I'll go to bed.' "'You must take this first. I don't like to send you away in such severe pain, particularly as you couldn't find the matron, without doing something to help you. You know I am responsible to your parents for your health!' "'My parents never give me any medicine,' I snarled, for I was getting ruxy by this time. "'Perhaps you would have enjoyed better health if they had, and would have been less liable to these sudden attacks of pain,' she said; and, girls, if you can believe it, when I looked up in her face, there she was in a broad grin, holding the tumbler, too, close to my mouth. "'I'm--I'm lots better,' I whimpered. "'I'm glad to hear it,' the ugly old thing said; 'but I must insist on your drinking this at once, or I shall have to take you down to Miss Ashton's room; she is more responsible than I am, and I am sure would not pass any neglect on my part over.' "By this time the tumbler touched my lips, and, girls, I was so sure that she would take me down to Miss Ashton,--and there is no such thing as keeping anything away from her, for you know how she hates what she calls a 'prevarication,'--that I just had my choice, to drink that nasty stuff, or to betray the Demosthenic Club, or to tell a fib, and have my walking-ticket given me, so I opened my mouth wide, and swallowed one swallow, then was going to turn away my head, but Miss Palmer held the tumbler tight to my lips, as I have seen people do to children when they were giving castor oil. I took another, and tried again, but there was the tumbler tighter still, so down with it I went, and--and--she had no mercy; she made me drain it to the last drop; then she put it on the table, and said,-- "'Now, Lucy, you can go to your room; I think you will feel well enough to study your lesson, but if you do not, come back in a half-hour, and I will give you another, and a stronger dose. Put on your boots before you go; you may take cold on the bare floors, in your condition. Good-night.' "She opened her door, and held it open in the politest way until I had passed out, then I heard her laugh--laugh out loud, a real merry, ringing laugh, every note of which said as plainly as words could,-- "'I've caught you now, old lady. How is the pain? Did the medicine help you?' "I tell you, girls, it was the hardest pain I ever had in my life, and I never want another." "Tell us how the medicine tasted," said Lilly White. "Tasted! why, like rhubarb, castor oil, assafoetida, ginger, mustard, epicac, boneset, paregoric, quinine, arsenic, rough on rats, and every other hideous medicine in the pharmacopoeia." "Good enough for you; you oughtn't to have lied," said Martha Dodd, her missionary blood telling for the moment. But the other girls only laughed; the joke on Lucy was a foretaste of the fun which this club was to inaugurate. Now, if Miss Palmer did not report to Miss Ashton, and she break up the whole thing, how splendid it would be! Undaunted, as after a week nothing had been said to them in the way of disapproval, they went on to choose the other members of the club; to appoint times and places for meeting; and to organize in as methodic and high-sounding a manner as their limited experience would allow. CHAPTER IX. MISS ASHTON'S ADVICE. That the formation of such an insignificant thing as this Demosthenic Club should have affected girls like Dorothy Ottley and Marion Parke would have seemed impossible; but it was destined to in ways and times that were beyond their control. When the club was making its selection of members, among those most sought were Marion and Dorothy. Marion, with her cheery, social Western manners, made her way rapidly into one of those favoritisms which are so common in girls' boarding-schools. She always had a pleasant word for every one, and always was ready to do a kind, generous act. She was so pretty, too, and dressed so simply and neatly, that there was nothing to find fault with, even if the girls had not been, as girls are, in truth, as a class, generous, noble, on the alert to see what is good, rather than what is otherwise, in those with whom they live. As for Dorothy, she was the model girl of the school. The teachers trusted and loved her, so did the pupils. No one among them all said how the sea had browned and almost roughened her plain face; how hard work, anxiety, and poor fare had stunted her growth; how carrying the cross children, too big and too heavy, had given a stoop to her delicate shoulders, and knots on her hands, that told too plainly of burdens they were unable to lift. All that the school saw or thought of was the gentle love that was always in the large gray eyes, the kind words that the firm lips never failed to speak, and the steady, straightforward, honorable life of the best scholar. "If we can only get those two," said President Jenny Barton, "our club is made." "They are so good, they'll spoil the fun," said Mamie Smythe. "For shame!" said Martha Dodd. "You don't suppose the daughter of a missionary would join a club of which good girls could not be members!" "Or the cousin of so famous a man as Kane, the Arctic explorer," said Sophy Kane. "Don't dispute, girls; we seem to spend half our time wrangling," and the president knocked, with what she made answer for the speaker's gavel, noisily on the table. "I nominate our vice-president, Miss Underwood, to inform these young ladies of their having been chosen, and to report from them at our next meeting. "Is the nomination accepted?" "Ay! ay!" from the club. In accordance with this request, Kate Underwood had interviewed Marion and Dorothy secretly, and had received from both a positive refusal. "I have no time for secret societies," said Dorothy with a good-natured laugh. "I want twice as many hours for my studies. Thank you, all the same, Kate." "Secret society! what is that?" asked Marion. "What is it secret for? What do you do in it that you don't want to have known? I don't like the secret part of it. My father used to tell me about the secret societies in Yale College, and they were full of boys' scrapes. He nearly got turned out of college for his part in one of them; and if I should get turned out from here, it would break his heart. No, thank you, I'd better not." So, sure that _no_ from them meant no, Kate had reported to the club, and received permission to invite Susan Downer and Gladys Philbrick in their places. "Sue will come of course, and be glad to," the club said. "Really, on the whole, she will be better than Dorothy, for Dorothy always wants to toe the line." Of Gladys, they by no means felt so sure. "She is, and she isn't," Lucy Snow said; "but she has lots of money, and that means splendid spreads." "But she won't--she won't"--Martha Dodd stopped. "Won't what?" asked the president in a most dignified manner. "Won't go through the corridors with her boots in her hands," said Mamie with a rueful face, "and get dosed. She'd stamp right along into Miss Ashton's room, and say,-- "'Miss Ashton, I'm late. Mark me, will you?'" "She will keep us straight, then. I vote for Gladys;" and the first to hold up her hands--both of them--was Missionary Dodd. So Gladys and Susan were invited to become members of the club, and accepted gladly, not knowing their room-mates had declined the same honor. It was in this way that the club was to influence the rooms. October, the regal month, when nature puts on her most precious vestments, dons her crowns of gold, clothes herself in scarlet robes, with girdles of richest browns, has a half-hushed note of sadness in the anthems she sings through the dropping leaves, listens for the farewell of departing birds, and tries in vain to call back to the browning earth the dying flowers. This month was always considered in Montrose Academy the time for settling down to hard work in earnest. Vacation, with its rest and its pleasures, seemed far behind the life of the two hundred young girls who had entered into, and been absorbed by, the present, and who were roused by ambitions for the future. Marion's room-mates went thoroughly into the work required of them. "Your faithfulness during the first six weeks of the term," Miss Ashton had said to them in one of her morning talks, "will determine your standard for the year. Do not any of you think you can be indolent now, and pick up your neglected studies by and by. "You may trust my experience when I tell you that, in the whole number of years since I have been connected with this school, I never knew a pupil who failed in her duties during the first half of the first term of the year, who afterwards did, indeed could, make up the lost opportunities. "It is not only what you lose out of the passing recitation that you can never find again, but, of even more consequence, it is what you lose in forming honest, faithful habits of study. "There are many different ways of studying. I have often tried to make these plain to you. I will repeat them. First, learn to give your whole attention to your lesson; _fix your mind upon it_. This sounds as if it would be an easy thing to do; but, in truth, it is very difficult. I am sorry to say I do not think there are a dozen girls among you who can do this successfully, even after years of training. You can train your body to accomplish wonders, but it is hard to believe that the mind is even more capable of being brought into subjection by the will than the body; and, to do that, to make your mind your servant, is to accomplish the greatest result of your education. Only as far as your study and your general life here do that, are they of any true value to you. "You will ask me how are you to fix your attention when there are so many things going on around you to distract your thoughts? I can only answer, that as our minds are in many respects of different orders, so, no general rule can be given. If you will, each one, faithfully make the attempt, I have no doubt you will succeed, in just the same proportion as you are faithful. "It may be as well, as I consider this the keystone of all good study, that I should leave the other helps and hindrances for some future talk; and it will give me a great deal of pleasure if I can hear from any of you at the end of a week's trial, that you have found yourselves helped by my advice." It speaks well for Miss Ashton's influence over her school that there was not a pupil there who was not moved by what she had said. To be sure, its effect was not equally apparent. There were some who had scant minds to fix, and what nature had been niggardly in bestowing, they had frittered away in a trifling life; but for the earnest girls, those who truly longed to make the most of themselves and to be able to do a worthy work in the life before them, such advice became at once a help. "It sounds like my mother's letter to me," Marion Parke said to Dorothy, as they went together to their room. "She insists that it is not so much the facts we learn, as the help they give us in the use of our minds. I wonder if all educated people think the same?" "All thoroughly educated people I am sure do," answered Dorothy. "Sometimes I feel as if my mind was a musical instrument; and if I didn't know every note in it, the only sounds I should ever hear from it would be discords,"--at which rather Irish comparison, both girls laughed. CHAPTER X. CHOOSING A PROFESSION. There was one peculiarity of Montrose Academy that had been slow to recommend itself to the parents of its pupils. That was the elective system, which was adopted after much controversy on the part of the Board of Trustees. The more conservative insisted that the prosperity of the past had shown the wisdom of keeping strictly to a curriculum that did not allow individual choice of studies. The newer element in the Board were equally sure that to oblige a girl to go through a course of Latin and Greek, of higher mathematics, of logic and geology, who, on leaving school, would never have the slightest use for them, was simply a waste of time. A compromise was made at length, by which, for five years, the elective system should be practised, it being claimed that no shorter time could fairly prove its success or its failure; and during this period certain studies of the old course should be insisted upon. First and foremost the Bible, the others chosen to depend upon the class. The year of Marion's entering the school was the second of the experiment; and, after joining the middle class and having her regular lessons assigned to her, she was not a little surprised, and in truth confused, by Miss Ashton asking her, as if it was a matter of course, "What do you intend to _do_ in the future?" as if she expected her to have her future all mapped out, and was to begin at once her preparation for it. Miss Ashton saw her embarrassment, and helped her by saying,-- "Many of the young ladies come here with very definite plans; for instance, your room-mate Dorothy is fitting for a teacher, and a very fine one she will make! Gladys is making special study of everything pertaining to natural science,--geology, botany, physics, and chemistry. She intends when she goes back to Florida to become an agriculturist. I dare say you have already heard her talk of the wonderful possibilities to be found there. Her father is an enthusiast in the work, and she means to fit herself to be his able assistant. Susan wants to be a banker, and avails herself of every help she can find toward it. "You see our little lame girl Helen! She is to be an artist, and devotes all her spare time to courses in art. She is in the second year, and has made wonderful progress in shading in charcoal from casts and models. She uses paints, both oils and watercolors, but those do not come in our regular course. "If we see any special talent in a pupil in any line, we do not confine ourselves to what we can do for her, but we call in extra help from abroad. "Kate Underwood is to be a lawyer. Mamie Smythe has a new chosen profession for every new year, but as she is an only child, and her mother is wealthy, she will never enter one. "I might go on through perhaps an eighth of the school, and point out to you girls who are studying with an aim. For the greater number, they are content to go on with the regular curriculum; as their only object, and that of their parents for them, seems to be to secure sufficient education to make them pass creditably through the common life of ordinary women. "I thought you might have a definite object in view; and as you are now fairly started in your classes, and, as your teachers tell me, are doing very well, if you had a plan, you could find time to choose such other studies as would help you." This was new to Marion; she asked for time to think it over, which Miss Ashton gladly allowed her. She had in her heart made her choice, but that, with all the other advantages offered, she could do anything except in a general way to help this choice forward, she had never dreamed. Her room-mates noticed how silent and thoughtful she was after her talk with Miss Ashton, and wondered what could be the cause, surely she was too faithful and far too good a scholar for any remissness that would have to be rebuked; but no one asked her a question. It was after two days that Marion wrote her mother, and her letter caused a great surprise in the Western parsonage. This is in part what she wrote:-- "Miss Ashton has asked me what I am to _do_ in the future. It seems they not only give you the regular curriculum, but are ready to allow you elective studies, by which you can fit yourself for your particular future. "I wonder if you will think me a foolish girl when I write you that, if you both approve, I should like to be a doctor! Don't laugh! I have seen so much sickness that there was no really educated physician to relieve, and am, as you have so often called me, 'a regular born nurse,' that the profession, if a profession I am capable of acquiring, seems very tempting to me. There is no hurry in the decision, only please think it over, and write me your advice." It was not long before an answer came:-- "You are quite capable of choosing for yourself; and if you turn naturally to the medical profession, you will have our full approval of your choice." When Marion read this, she felt as if she had grown suddenly many years older. She looked carefully over the list of studies, to see from which she could gain the greatest help, and in a short time after her conversation with Miss Ashton she reported herself as a future M.D. This was not a rare profession for a young girl to choose. Miss Ashton knew that already there were a number with that in view. What she doubted was, whether a quarter of them would ever carry out their intention; and this was one thing which, favoring on the whole as she did the elective system, she could but acknowledge told against it,--the uncertainty which their youth, and the natural tendency of a girl's mind to change, gave. She had known them in one year, or even a shorter time, an enthusiast in one profession, then, becoming tired of it, and sure another was more suited to their abilities, turn to the new choice. One thing, however, was certain: she comforted herself by remembering, that the mental discipline which they had acquired would stay with them, even after the whim of the time had ceased to influence them. There was an immediate effect, however, which Marion's decision had upon her. It interested her in those of her schoolmates who were looking forward to a definite and useful future. She could recall now how often her room-mates had spoken of what they intended to do, but she had only listened to it as she had to what they said about their homes and their friends. How it became known to them that she, too, had made her choice for the future, she wondered over; but it was not long before they began to call her "Dr!" as if she had already earned the title. Nellie Blair Gorham she had from the first of her entering the school taken a deep interest in. The small, deformed, pale girl had a pathos in her whole appearance that touched deeply Marion's sympathies. They were in different classes, and, so far, had come little in contact; but now she felt irresistibly drawn to the art studio during the hours when Helen was there, and, standing near, watched her as she worked. Helen had all the shrinking sensitiveness which her misfortunes and her poverty--for she was poor--would naturally give her. Marion was strong of body, and strong of mind, with a gentle, loving, sympathetic nature speaking from every look and action; the one, the counterpart of the other. Marion made an immediate choice, under Miss Ashton's instruction, of the studies that would help her in the future; and so, with redoubled interest in this school-life, she bent to her work, learning day by day the value of trying to fasten her mind upon that, and that alone. CHAPTER XI. VISIT OF COUSIN ABIJAH. One afternoon when Marion's lessons had proved unusually difficult, her room-mates noisy, and obstacles everywhere, it seemed to the diligent scholar, she answered a tap on her door, to find Etta Lawrence, the girl who waited in the hall to announce visitors, with a face full of amusement. "There's a man down-stairs asking for you, Marion," she said. "He started to follow me up-stairs; and when I showed him into the parlor, and told him I would call you, he said,-- "''Tain't no odds, I can jist as well go up; I ain't afraid of stairs, no way.' I had hard work to make him go into the parlor, and I left him sitting on the edge of a chair, staring around as if he never had seen such a room before." Then Etta burst into a merry laugh, in which all the others but Marion joined: she stood still, looking from one of the girls to another, as if she couldn't imagine what it all meant. "You must go down to the parlor," said Dorothy, seeing her hesitation. "It's some one from out West," added Sue. [Illustration: "Did you wish to see me?" asked Marion, looking inquiringly at the man. Page 69. _Miss Ashton's New Pupil._] "Perhaps it's your father. Hurry! hurry!" said Gladys, thinking how she would hurry if her own father had been there. Thus encouraged, Marion, with heightened color and a rapidly beating heart, followed Etta down into the parlor, and there, still seated on the edge of his chair, twirling an old felt hat rapidly round between two big, red hands, she saw a tall, lean man in a suit of coarse gray clothes. He had grizzly, iron-gray hair, stubby white whiskers, a pale-blue eye, a brown face streaked with red. He sat a little nearer the front edge of his chair as she entered the room, and waited for her to speak. Evidently he was not prepared for the kind of Western girl he saw before him. "Did you wish to see me?" looking inquiringly at him. "Be you Marion Parke?" "Yes." "I am Abijah Jones, your cousin, three times removed; your great-aunt Betty told me to come out here and make a call on you. She's set on seeing you at Thanksgiving, and I guess you'd better humor her, for she took a spite at your father cause he wouldn't farm it, and would have an education; but she allers kind of favored him more than the rest of us, and has allers hankered after him. That's why I'm here." "I'm glad to see you, Cousin Abijah," her Western hospitality coming to her rescue. "Tell me about my Aunt Betty; she is well, I hope." Once launched upon the subject of Aunt Betty, between whom and himself there seemed to have been always a family war, he began to feel entirely at home in his strange surroundings, his voice rising to a pitch that resounded through the large room with a peculiar nasal twang Marion had never heard before. She saw one face after another make its appearance through the half-open door, and she knew very well this unusual visitor was giving a great deal of amusement to those who saw him. Accustomed to see rude characters at the West as she was, never before had Marion met one who seemed to her so utterly oblivious of all common proprieties. She felt sure that if he remained long, the whole school would be made aware of his peculiar presence; and though she struggled hard not to be ashamed of him, and to make his call as pleasant as she could, she was much relieved when she saw Miss Ashton, who, hearing the strident voice, had come to ascertain its source. As a New England woman, she at once recognized the type. Marion could only introduce him as her "Cousin Abijah." "Three times removed," put in Cousin Abijah, without rising from his chair, only twirling his hat a little faster in Miss Ashton's stately presence. She held her hand out to him cordially, and when he put his great brown knotty fist within it, a dull red color came slowly into his seamed face. It was not from any want of self-respect, far from it; he would not have been abashed if Queen Victoria with all her court in full dress had entered the room. A real out-and-out country New Englander knows no peer the wide world over. Seating herself near him, Miss Ashton soon drew him into a pleasant conversation, to which Marion listened in much surprise. Even the man's voice dropped to a lower pitch, and what he said lost the asperity that had made it so disagreeable. After a few minutes, she proposed to him to show him around the building, where she was sure he would find much to interest him, and, what was a very unusual thing for her to do, she went with him herself. A visitor of this kind was rare in the academy. She well knew the amusement he would create, and when they met, as they did often, groups of girls in the corridor, who stared and smiled at her uncouth companion, she silenced them by a look, which they could not fail to understand. Kind Miss Ashton! Marion, as well as Cousin Abijah, will never forget it. "Now, Marion," she said, when they returned to the parlor, "I will excuse you from your next recitation, and you can take your cousin over to the neighboring city. There is a great deal for him to see there, and I will give you a note which will admit you to some of the large factories. "You can go with him to the station, and see him off in the cars. You will come home, I know, safely and punctually." Then, if Cousin Abijah had been the President of the United States she would not have bidden him a more cordial "good-by." Marion, strengthened by Miss Ashton's kindness, invited her cousin before they left to visit her room. She took him through the long corridors, fully conscious that out of many doors curious eyes were peeping at them as they passed, and that smiles, sometimes giggles, followed them. Dorothy and Gladys were both there, and made him pleasantly welcome. He did not admire the view from the window, as Marion expected, for he had had far finer mountain views around him all his life; but he looked curiously at the bric-a-brac and pictures, of which the room was full, and will carry home with him wonderful stories of the Western girl's room. Then came the visit to Pomfret, the inspection of some of the finest mills, and of the pleasantest parts of the manufacturing city; and Marion bade this country cousin good-by, with the hearty hope that his visit had been a pleasant one. CHAPTER XII. THE TABLEAUX. Friday night, the work of the week being ended, was given to the young ladies as a holiday evening, which, within bounds, was entirely at their disposal. No study was required of them, and it was generally occupied by diversions of one kind and another, in which the whole school were at liberty to join. Sometimes it was a dance, the teachers enjoying it as heartily as their pupils; sometimes it was a concert, and generally it was well worth hearing, for this academy was noted for its skilled musicians. Again, it would be a play, even Antigone not being too ambitious for these amateur actors or _tableaux vivants_, which never failed to be amusing. This night was one chosen by the Demosthenic Club for their secret meetings. As its members did not like to lose any of the social fun, these meetings were held so secretly that every one in the building knew of their time and place, much to the annoyance of the club; and no one, so far, not even the club itself, was better informed of what was done and said there than Miss Ashton. It seemed to her a harmless sort of an affair. There was no difference in the scholarship of its members, the sessions were short, no mischief followed them, and if it made the girls contented and happy it was all right. How she came to have this perfect understanding it would be difficult to tell, only she was found, in some unknown and mysterious way, to always have the reins in her own hands, no matter how restive the colts she had to control. The club had grown from the original number of seven, to twelve, the new members having been chosen from among the brightest and most mischievous girls in school. This made Miss Ashton wonder at their uniformly quiet behavior, and increased the vigilance of her watch. About three weeks after the visit of Cousin Abijah, it was announced that a series of tableaux would be given on Friday evening, illustrating a poem written by Miss Kate Underwood. Kate's poetical abilities were well known and greatly admired by the school, even the teachers gave her credit for a knack at humorous sketches rather unusual. She was to be, perhaps, a second John Saxe, possibly an Oliver Wendell Holmes, who could tell? The gift was worth cultivating, particularly as it did not interfere with Kate's soberer and more disciplinary studies. Miss Ashton did not think it necessary to see the poem. It was probably witty, if not wise, and wisdom need not intrude its grave face always into the freedom of the Friday nights; indeed, she rather winked at the performance, as she and her associate principal were to be out of town on that night, and "high fun" in the hall served to keep the girls from any more serious mischief. All the club were pledged to the most profound secrecy as to what the tableaux were to be; and, for a wonder, there were no revelations made, even to the "dear, intimate friend," who was not a member, and who generally shared the most "profound secret," no matter from what source it emanated. After evening prayers, the hall was given to the club, and as every arrangement had been made previously for the decoration of the stage, the work was completed and the doors thrown open at an early hour. The hall was soon filled, and the buzz of expectation began long before the curtain was raised; when it was, it showed an interior of a farm kitchen of the olden times. Clothes-bars had been skilfully placed so as to represent a low ceiling, and from them depended hams wrapped in brown paper coverings, sausages enclosed in cloth bags, herbs tied in bunches and labelled in large letters, "Sage, Camomile, Fennel, Dock, Caraway." There were ears of corn, sweet, Indian, pop, likewise labelled; tomatoes, strung in rows to dry, and strings also of newly sliced apple. Under this motley ceiling the room showed plainly it was the living-room of the house. There was a large cooking-stove that shone so you might have seen your face in it, a row of wash-tubs, leaning bottom side up against the wall, two wooden pails and three tin ones, standing on a shelf over the tubs, and these in close proximity to the only window in the room. Just before this window was a small table with a Bible, a well-worn one, on it, and a pair of steel-bowed spectacles. One yellow wooden chair, and what was called "a settle" near the stove, a large cooking-table, and one more chair, made the furniture of the room. Before this table sat an old woman, dressed in a black petticoat, and a red, short gown that came a little below her waist. She wore a cap that fitted close to her head, made of some black cloth, innocent of bow or frill; from under it, locks of gray hung down about her face and neck. She had a swarthy skin, two small eyes, hidden by a large pair of glasses, a mouth that kept in motion in spite of the necessity of stillness which a tableau is supposed to demand, as if she were reading the letter she held in her hand aloud. The laugh and clapping which this scene called forth had hardly subsided when, from behind a hidden corner of the stage, a sweet, clear voice began to read the descriptive poem. "It's Kate Underwood herself," was whispered from seat to seat. "There's no other girl in school that can read as well as she can." The poem gave a brief description of the kitchen as it appeared on the stage, then a more lengthy one of the old woman, with the contents of the letter she was reading. It was from a niece at a boarding-school, who proposed, in a brief and direct way, to visit this aunt during her coming vacation. The tableau was acted so well, and with such piquancy, that claps and peals of laughter from the audience, and finally calls for "Kate Underwood," who demurely makes her appearance from behind the curtain, drops a stage courtesy, and disappears. The poem had been (this audience constituting the judges) excellent, the very best thing Kate ever wrote; and as for the tableaux, were there ever any before one-half so good? Now, while to almost all in the hall there had been nothing said or done that could injure the feelings of any one, to Marion Parke it seemed an unkind take-off of her cousin during his recent visit to her. Something in the tall, gaunt girl, in her rough, coarse dress, in the grotesque awkwardness of her movements, reminded Marion of Cousin Abijah; and while she had laughed with the others, and had refused to allow her feelings to be hurt, she left the hall uncomfortable and unhappy, wishing he had never come, or that all the school had shown the kind consideration of Miss Ashton; nor was she helped in the least when she heard Susan telling in great glee how the whole plan had come to them after the visit of that uncouth old cousin of Marion Parke. CHAPTER XIII. GLADYS LEAVES THE CLUB. Dorothy was the first to see Marion at the door of their room after the tableaux. She hoped she had not heard what Sue had said, but that she had she could not doubt when she saw the pained expression on Marion's face. In the after discussion of the entertainment, Marion took no part, but went quietly to her bed, with only a brief "good-night." "They have hurt her feelings, and they ought to have been ashamed of themselves," said kind Dorothy to the two members of the club sitting beside her. "Girls, if that is what you mean to do in your Demosthenic Club, I am most thankful I never joined it, and the sooner you both leave it the better." "Grandmarm!" said Sue, her hot temper flashing into her face, "when we want your advice, we will ask it." "What's up, Dody? Whose feelings are hurt, and who ought to be ashamed of themselves?" asked Gladys. "I don't know what you are talking about." "About Marion and the Demosthenic Club!" answered Dorothy briefly. "What for? What has Marion to do with the club?" Dorothy looked straight into Gladys's face for a moment. Whatever other faults Gladys had, she had never, even in trifles, been otherwise than honest and straightforward. There was nothing in her face now but surprise; so Dorothy, much relieved that she was not a partaker in the unkindness, explained to her that, as Susan had just told them, the club had taken Marion's country cousin for a butt, and had made him, with the old aunt,--the knowledge of whom must have come to them from some one in their room,--the characters in the farce; and that Marion, coming into the room just as Susan was telling of it, had heard her; and it had hurt her feelings. Now, strange as it may seem, it was nevertheless true that the club, knowing Gladys well, and how impossible it would be for her to do anything that might injure another, had carefully kept from her any direct participation in it. She knew in a general way what was to be done, but was ignorant of particulars. No sooner had the whole been made known to her, than without a word, though it was after the time when the girls were allowed to leave their rooms, without the slightest effort to move softly, she passed the doors of several teachers, up into another corridor, not stopping until she tapped at Jenny Barton's room. The tap was followed by the muffled sound of scurrying feet, of a table pulled hastily away, of whispers intended to be soft, but in the hurry having a strangely sibilant tone, that made them almost words spoken aloud, to the impatient Gladys. She rapped a second time, a little louder than the first, and the door was opened by Jenny, in her nightdress. The gas in the room was out, and there was no one to be seen. "Why, Gladys Philbrick!" she exclaimed crossly, pulling Gladys hastily in; "you frightened us almost out of our wits. Girls! it's only Gladys!" Out from under the beds and from the closets in the two bedrooms crept one after another the girls of the club. All were there but Susan and Gladys; and they would have been invited, but it was well known that if Gladys broke a rule of the school, she never rested until she had made full confession to one of the teachers. She was not to be trusted in the least; and, of course, Susan could not be invited without her, so the knowledge of the spread which was to succeed the tableaux had been carefully kept from them. No wonder at Jenny's reception of her! Somewhat staggered by this, and by the appearance of the hidden, laughing girls, Gladys stood for a moment staring blankly around her, then she asked, singling Kate Underwood out from among the others,-- "Kate! did you write that poem to make fun of Marion Parke's country cousin?" "Why do you ask?" answered Kate, turning brusquely upon Gladys. "Because, if you did, and if, as Sue says, you got up those tableaux to make fun of him, I think you are the meanest girl in the school; and as for the club--a club that would do such a thing, I wouldn't be a member of a moment longer, not if you would give me a million dollars!" "Well, as we have no million to give you, and wouldn't part with even a copper to have you stay, you can have your name taken off the roll any time," said the president majestically. "All right, it's done then; but my question is not answered. Kate Underwood, did, or did you not, intend to make fun of Marion Parke's cousin?" "When I know by what right you ask me, I will answer you; until then, Gladys Philbrick, will you be kind enough to speak in a lower voice, unless you wish to bring some of the teachers down upon us, or perhaps you will report us to Miss Ashton; I think she has just come in the late train, I heard a carriage stop at the door." "You want to know my right?" answered Gladys, without taking any notice of Kate's taunts. "It's the right of being ashamed to hold a girl up to ridicule for what she couldn't help, and a girl like Marion Parke. I hoped you could say you didn't mean to; but I see you can't." Then Gladys, without another word, left the room, leaving behind her a set of girls who, to say the least, were not in a mood to congratulate themselves on the events of the evening. The spread was hastily put on the table again, but it was eaten by them with sober faces and troubled hearts. "Well," said Sue, as Gladys came noisily into their room, "now I suppose you've made all the girls so mad they will never speak to me again." "I have told them what I think of them," and Gladys looked at Sue askance over her shoulder as she spoke, "and I advise you to quit a club that can be as unkind as this has been to-night." "When I want your advice I will ask it; I advise you to keep it until then. Whom did you see?" "All of them, hiding under beds and in closets." "That means a spread without leave, and we not invited. You're a tell-tale Gladys; they are afraid of you." "Good!" said Gladys with a scornful laugh. "Girls," said a gentle voice from the bedroom door, "don't mind; it's foolish in me I dare say, and--and the tableaux were real funny," and an odd attempt at a laugh ended in a burst of tears. In a moment both of Gladys's arms were around Marion's neck. "You dear, darling old Marion," she said, whimpering herself. "Too much noise in this room!" said Miss Palmer's voice at their door. "I did not expect this, Marion! Dorothy, what does it mean?" "We are going to bed, Miss Palmer," said Dorothy, opening the door immediately. "It was about the tableaux we were talking." "You should have been in bed half an hour ago; I am sorry to be obliged to report you. Let this never happen again. Your room has been in most respects a model room until now." Not a girl spoke, and if Miss Palmer had come again fifteen minutes later, she would have found the gas out and the girls in bed. CHAPTER XIV. KATE UNDERWOOD'S APOLOGIES. The scholars noticed that when Miss Ashton came into the hall a few nights after the Friday evening tableaux she looked very grave. "What's gone wrong? Who has been making trouble? Look at the girls that belong to the Demosthenic Club! I'm glad I am not a member!" These, and various other remarks, passed from one to the other, as Miss Ashton walked through the hall to her seat on the platform. It was the hour for evening prayers. Usually she read a short psalm, but to-night she chose the twelfth chapter of Romans, stopping at the tenth verse, and looking slowly around the school as she repeated,-- "'Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love; in honour preferring one another.'" Then she closed her Bible and repeated these verses:-- "'These things I command you, That you love one another. Let love be without dissimulation. Love worketh no ill to his neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law. By love serve one another. But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith. And I pray that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and in all judgment. Fulfil ye my joy, that ye be like minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind. Let nothing be done through strife or vain glory, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than himself. Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others. Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus. "'But as touching brotherly love ye need not that I write unto you; for ye yourselves are taught of God to love one another. "'Beloved, let us love one another; for love is of God, and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not, knoweth not God; for God is love.' "I hesitate," said Miss Ashton, after a moment's pause, "to add anything to these expressive and solemn Bible words. They convey in the most forcible way what seems to me the highest good for which we can aim in this life,--the perfection of Christian character. "I presume you all realize in some degree the world we make here by ourselves. Set apart in a great measure from what is going on around us, closely connected in all our interests, we depend upon each other for our happiness, our growth, our well-being. We are helped, or we are hindered, by what in a large sphere might pass us by. Nothing is too small to be of vital importance to us; the aggregate of our influences is made up of trifles. I have said this same thing to you time and time again, and yet I am sorry to find how soon it can be forgotten. If I could impress upon you these tender, beautiful gospel truths I have repeated, I should have had no occasion to detain you to-night. You would all of you have been bearing one another's burdens, instead of laying one upon delicate shoulders. "'Taught of God to love one another.' Do those learn the lesson God teaches who, without, we will say, bearing any ill-will, injure the feelings of others? It may be by unkind words; it may be by an intentional rudeness; it may be by neglect; it may be by a criticism spoken secretly, slyly, circulated wittily, laughed at, but not forgotten. 'The ways that are unlovely;' how numerous they are, and how directly they tend to make hearts ache, and lives unhappy, no words can tell! "Young ladies, if your lives with us sent you out into the world, first in accomplishments, thoroughly grounded in the elements of an education, that after all has only its beginning here, leaders in society, and yet you wanted the nobility of that love which the Bible claims is the fruit of the spirit, we should have to say, we have 'labored in vain, and spent our strength for naught.' I wish I could see among you that tenderness of spirit that would shrink as sensitively from hurting another, as it does from being hurt yourselves. I am looking anxiously for it in this new year. I am looking hopefully for it; you will not disappoint me I am sure." Then she asked them to sing the hymn "Blest be the tie that binds," made a short prayer, and waited before leaving the room for the hall to be cleared. It was well she did; for no sooner had the last girl left the corridor, before Kate Underwood came rushing back to the platform, and catching hold of Miss Ashton's hand said,-- "I didn't do it, I _didn't_ do it, Miss Ashton, to hurt Marion Parke's feelings! I like her so much; I think she is--is, why is about the best girl in the whole school. I only meant--why I meant he was such an old codger it was real funny; I thought it would make a nice tableau, and I never thought Marion would recognize it: I wouldn't have done it for the world!" Then she stopped, looked earnestly in Miss Ashton's face, and asked,-- "Do you believe me, Miss Ashton?" Now, Miss Ashton knew Kate to be a very impulsive girl, doing many foolish, and often wrong things, only sometimes sorry for them, so she did not receive her excited apologies with the consideration which they really deserved. She said, perhaps a little coldly,-- "I am glad you have come to see the matter both more kindly and reasonably, Kate. Yes! I do believe you: I do not doubt you feel all you say; but, Kate, you are so easily tempted by what seems to you fun. I can't make you see, fun that becomes personal in a way to injure the feelings of any one ceases to be fun, becomes cruelty. There is a great deal of that in this school this term. Hardly a day passes but some of the girls come to me crying because their feelings have been wounded, and I am truly grieved to say, you are oftener the cause of it than any other girl. To be both witty and wise is a great gift; to be witty without being wise is a great misfortune; sometimes I think it has been your misfortune. You are not a cruel girl. You are at bottom a kind girl; yet see how you wound! You didn't _mean_ to hurt Marion Parke; you like her, yet you did: you made fun of an old country cousin, whose visit must have been a trial to her. You are two Kates, one thinks only of the fun and the _éclat_ of a witty tableau; the other would have done and said the kindest and the prettiest things to make Marion Parke happy. Which of these Kates do you like best?" Miss Ashton now laid her hand lovingly over the hands of the excited girl, who answered her with her eyes swimming in tears, "Your kind, Miss Ashton." Then she put up her lips for the never-failing kiss, and went quietly away, but not to her own room. There was something truly noble in the girl, after all. She went to Marion's door and, knocking gently, asked if Marion would walk with her to the grove. Much surprised, but pleased, Marion readily consented, and the two went out in the early darkness of an October night alone, the girls whom they met in the corridors staring at them as they passed. [Illustration: Marion turned, threw both arms around Kate's neck, kissing her over and over again.--Page 89.] "Marion!" said Kate, "I ask your pardon a thousand, million times! I never, _never_ meant to hurt your feelings! I forgot everything but the fun I saw in the old farm-scenes, and the new fashionable school-girl out for a vacation; I did truly. I--I don't say it would ever have occurred to me if that cousin of yours hadn't come here, because that wouldn't be true, and I'm as bad as George Washington" (with a little laugh now), "I can't tell a lie; but can say that I never would have written one word of that miserable farce if I had ever dreamed it would have hurt your feelings: will you forgive me?" Marion had listened to this long speech with varying emotions. As we know, she had been wounded by the tableaux, but her feelings had been exaggerated by her room-mates, and if the matter had been dropped at once she would probably soon have forgotten it. Kate's apology filled her with astonishment. How could it ever have come to her knowledge that she had been wounded, and how came she to think it of enough importance to make an apology now. Instead of answering, Marion turned, threw both arms around Kate's neck, kissing her over and over again. Kate, surprised in her turn, returned the kisses with much ardor. It was a girl's forgiveness, and its recognition, without another word. Then they walked down into the grove, their arms around each other's waists, and the belated birds, scurrying to their nests, sang evening songs to them. On the side of the little lake that nestles in the midst of the grove, two petted frogs, grown large and lazy on the sweet things with which their visitors so freely regaled them, heard their steps, hopped up a little nearer to the well-worn path, and saluted them with an unusually loud bass. Whether it was the influence of Miss Ashton's words, or the generous act of apology,--the noblest showing of a noble mind that has erred,--it would be hard to tell; but, certain it is, Kate Underwood had learned a lesson this time which, let us hope, she will never forget. When Marion went back to her room it was quite time for study hours to begin; but her room-mates had so many questions to ask about Kate's object in inviting her out to walk, that a good half-hour passed before they began their lessons. Marion did not feel at liberty to repeat what Kate had said, and so she frankly told them. CHAPTER XV. MISS ASHTON'S FRIDAY NIGHT. Miss Ashton, a little timid from the use made of the liberty she had given for the Friday night entertainments, decided for a time to take the control of them into her own hands, and as something novel, that might be entertaining, she proposed that the school should prepare original papers, to be read aloud, the reading to be followed by "a spread" given by the Faculty. She made no suggestion with regard to the character of the papers to be sent in, other than to say that she knew very well there were some good writers in the school, and she should expect every one to do her best. This proposal was gladly accepted. The girls clapped when she had finished, and some began to stamp noisily, but this a motion of the principal's hand checked. There began at once to be conjectures as to whose piece would be the best. Nine-tenths of the girls agreed it would be Kate Underwood, the other tenth were for Delia Williams, who, when she tried for an honor, seldom failed to secure it; and hadn't she once written a piece on Robert Browning, of which not a scholar could understand a word, but which, it was reported, Miss Ashton said "was excellent, showing rare appreciation of the merits of a great poet"? One thing was certain, there was hardly a girl in school who had not, before going to bed that night, wandered around in her dazed thoughts for some subject upon which she could write in a way that would surprise every one. Lilly White, the dunce of the school, had hers written by the beginning of study hours. It covered three pages of foolscap paper, and had at least the merit of being written on only one side. Among the few books Marion Parke had brought from her Western home, was an old magazine, printed by a Yale College club, and edited by her father when he was a member of the college. This had in it one short story suggested by the West Rock at New Haven. In this rock was a rough cave, and here, tradition said, the regicides Goff and Whalley hid themselves from pursuit, after the murder of Charles I. The story was well told, not holding too rigorously to facts, but at the same time faithful enough to real incidents to make it not only interesting but valuable. These were tender and touching scenes of a wife and a betrothed, who, through dangers of discovery and arrest, carried food and papers to the fugitives. The story had always been a great favorite of Marion's. One day when she felt homesick she had taken it out, read it, and left it on the top of her table, under her Bible. Being very busy afterwards, and consequently the homesickness gone, she did not think of it again; she did not even notice that it had been abstracted from the table and another magazine, similar in appearance, put in its place. If Miss Ashton had foreseen the deep interest the school were taking in the proposed entertainment, she might have hesitated to propose it. The truth was, it took the first place; studies became of secondary importance. "What subjects had been chosen for the pieces? how they were to be treated? how they progressed? how they would be received?" These were the questions asked and answered, often under promise of secrecy, sometimes with an open bravado amusing to see. It was a relief to all the teachers when the Friday night came. The girls in gala dress crowded early into the hall; Miss Ashton and the teachers, also in full dress, followed them soon; and five minutes before the time appointed for the opening of the evening entertainment the hush of expectation made the room almost painfully still. Miss Ashton had requested that the pieces should be sent in to her the previous day. She had been surprised more at their number than their excellence, indeed, there was but one that did not, on the whole, disappoint her; that one delighted her. She intended to read, not the best only, but the poorest, thinking, perhaps, as good a lesson as could come to the careless or the incapable would come from that sure touchstone of the value of any writing,--its public reception. The names were to be concealed; that had been understood from the beginning, yet, with the exception of Kate Underwood, who was more used to the public of their small world than any of the others, there was not a girl there who had not a touch of stage fright, either on her own account, or on that of her "dearest friend." There were essays on friendship, love, generosity, jealousy, integrity, laziness, hope, charity, punctuality, scholarship, meanness. On youth, old age, marriage, courtship, engagement, housekeeping, housework, the happiness of childhood, the sorrows of childhood, truth, falsehood, religion, missionary work, the poor, the duties of the rich, houses of charity, the tariff, the Republican party, the Democratic party, woman's suffrage, which profession was best adapted to a woman, servants, trades' unions, strikes, sewing-women, shop-girls, newspaper boys, street gamins, the blind, the deaf and dumb, idiots, Queen Victoria and the coming Republican party into the government of England, the bloated aristocracy, American girls as European brides, the cruelty of the Russian government, Catholic religion, Stanley as a hero, Kane's Arctic adventures. Miss Ashton had made a list of these subjects as she looked over the essays, and when she read them aloud, the school burst into a peal of laughter. She said, "I cannot, in our limited time, read all of these to you. I will give you your choice, but first, let me tell you what remains. There are six poems of four and five pages length. The subjects are:-- "The Lost Naiad; Bertram's Lament; Cowper at the Grave of His Mother; A New Thanatopsis; Ode to Silence; Love's Farewell. "I promise you," she said, "you shall have these, if nothing more." A slight approbatory clapping, and she went on:-- "If I am to read you the titles of the stories I have on my desk, it will go far into the alloted time for these exercises; but, as some of you may think they would be the most interesting part, I will give you your choice. Those in favor, please hold up their hands." Almost every girl's hand in school was raised, so Miss Ashton went on:-- "Bob Allen's Resolve; The Old Moss Gatherer; Lady Jane Grey's Adventure; The Brave Engineer; How We didn't Ascend Mt. Blanc; Nancy Todd's Revenge; Little Lady Gabrielle; Sam the Boot-black; Christmas Eve; Thanksgiving at Dunmoore; New Year at Whitty Lodge; Poor Loo Grant; Jenkins, the Mill Owner; Studyhard School; Storied West Rock; Phil, the Hero; How Phebe Won Her Place; Norman McGreggor on his Native Heath; Our Parsonage; How Ben Fought a Prairie Fire; The Sorrows of Mrs. McCarthy. "These are all," and Miss Ashton laughed a merry laugh as she turned over the pile. "I am much obliged to you for your ready and full answer to my proposal. If I am a little disappointed at the literary character of some of the work, I am, as I have said, pleased by your ready response. If I should attempt to read them all, we should be here at a late hour, and lose our spread, so I will give you the poems, as I promised, and as many of the essays and stories as I can crowd into the time previous to nine o'clock." Miss Bent, who was the teacher of elocution, now stepped forward, and out of a pile separated from the larger one of manuscripts took up and read the six poems; then followed, in rapid succession, essays and stories, until at ten minutes before nine, the school having evidently heard all they wished with the spread in prospect, Miss Ashton said,-- "I have reserved the best--by far the best--of all these contributions for the last. Miss Bent will now read to you 'Storied West Rock!'" Miss Bent began immediately, and though the hands of the clock crept on to fifteen minutes past nine, not a girl there watched them; all were intent on the absorbing interest of the story. When it was finished, Miss Bent said, "This is so excellent that I feel fully justified in departing from the promise Miss Ashton made you, that your pieces should not have the name of the writer given; with her leave, it gives me great pleasure to say, this touching and excellently written story was composed by one of our own seniors, Susan Downer." "Three cheers for Susan Downer!" cried Kate Underwood, springing from her seat; and if ever boys in any finishing school gave cheers with greater gusto, they would have been well worth hearing. Even Susan found herself cheering as noisily as the rest, and would not have known it, if Dorothy, her face radiant with delight, had not stopped her. Then followed the spread, "the pleasantest and the best one that was ever given in Montrose Academy," the girls all said. CHAPTER XVI. STORIED WEST ROCK. When Marion Parke went back to her room the night after Miss Ashton's entertainment, she was in a great deal of perturbation. The title of Susan Downer's story, on its announcement, had filled her with surprise, for since her coming to the school she had never before heard West Rock mentioned. When she had asked about it, no one seemed even to have known of it, and that Susan should not only have heard, but been so interested as to choose it for the subject of her story, was a puzzle! But when the story was read, and she found it, in all its details, so exactly like her father's, her surprise changed to a miserable suspicion, of which she was heartily ashamed, but from which she could not escape. Sentence after sentence, event after event, were so familiar to her, nothing was changed but the names of the women who figured in the story. The first thing she did after coming to her room was to take the magazine from under the Bible, and open to the story. There was an ink-blot on the first page, which some one had evidently been trying to remove with the edge of a knife. It must have been done hastily, for the leaf was jagged, and most of the ink left on. This Marion was sure was not there the last time she had opened the magazine; some one had dropped it recently. Who was it? She hastily re-read the story. Yes, she had not been mistaken, Susan Downer's story was the same! Was it possible that two people, her father and Susan, who had never been in New Haven, but might have known about Goff and Whalley from her study of English history, though not about West Rock as her father had seen and described it, could have happened upon the same story? How very, very strange! Marion dropped the magazine as if it was accountable for her perplexity; then she sat and stared at it, until she heard the door opening, when she snatched it up, and hid it away at the bottom of her trunk. It was Dorothy who came into the room; and Marion's first impulse was to go to her and tell her all about it, ask her what she should do, for do something she felt sure she must. Dorothy saw her, and called,-- "Marion! isn't it splendid that Sue wrote such a fine piece? I feel that she is a real honor to our class and to Rock Cove! Her brother Jerry will be so happy when he hears of it." "Why, Marion!" catching sight of Marion's pale face, "what is the matter with you? You look as pale as a ghost. Are you sick?" "No-o," said Marion slowly. "O Dody! Dody!" "Marion! there is something the matter with you. Sit down in this chair. No, lie down on the lounge. No, on your bed. You'd better undress while I go for the matron. I'll be very quick." "Don't go, Dody! Don't go," and Marion caught tight hold of Dorothy's arm, holding her fast. "I'm not sick; I'm frightened." But in spite of her words, indeed more alarmed by them, Dorothy broke away and rushed down to the matron's room, who, fortunately, was out. Then she went for Miss Ashton, but she also had not returned. So Dorothy, unwilling to leave Marion alone any longer, went back to her. While she was gone, Marion had time to resolve what she would do, at least for the present; she would leave Susan in her own time and way to make a full confession, which she tried to persuade herself after a little that she would certainly do. So when Dorothy came back she met her with a smile, told her not to be troubled, that it was the first time in her life such a thing had ever happened, and she hoped it never would again. "But you said you were frightened," insisted Dorothy, "and you looked so pale; what frightened you?" Marion hesitated; to tell any one, even Dorothy, would be to accuse Susan of such a mean deception. No; her resolve so suddenly made was the proper one: she would keep her knowledge of the thing until Susan herself confessed, or assurance was made doubly sure; for suppose, after all, Susan had written the story, how could she have known about it in that magazine? She had never lent it to her; she had never read it to any of her room-mates, or to any one in the school, proud of it as she was. Indeed, the more she thought of it, the more sure she was that she ought to be ashamed of herself for such a suspicion, and, strange as it may seem, the more sure she also was, that almost word by word Susan had stolen the story. "I was frightened at a thought I had, a dreadful thought; I wouldn't have any one know it. Don't ask me, Dody, please don't; let us talk about something else," she said. Then she began to talk rapidly over the events of the evening, not, as Dorothy noticed, mentioning Susan or her success. Dorothy wondered over it, and an unpleasant thought came into her mind. "Can it be that Marion is jealous of Sue, and disappointed and vexed that her piece wasn't taken any more notice of? I'm sure it was an excellent story, 'How Ben Fought a Prairie Fire.'" Marion had read it to her before handing it in, and she had been much interested in it, but it didn't compare with Susan's, and it wasn't like Marion to feel so. She never had shown such a spirit before. Neither Susan nor Gladys came to their room until the last moment allowed for remaining away. Susan was overwhelmed with congratulations on her success. The teacher of rhetoric told her she felt repaid for all the hours she had spent in teaching her, by the skill she had shown in this composition, and if she continued to improve, she saw nothing to prevent her taking her place, by and by, among the best writers in the land. Kate Underwood pretended to be vexed, "having her laurels taken away from her," she said "was not to be borne;" and Delia Williams, the rival of Kate in the estimation of the school, made even more fun than Kate over her own disappointment. Some of the girls made a crown of bright papers and would have put it on Susan's head, but she testily pushed it away. Susan's love of prominence was well known in the school, and even this small rejection of popular applause they wondered over. And when the girls began to cluster around her, and to ask if she had ever been to that West Rock, if there was really such a place, and if all those things she wrote of so beautifully had ever happened? she was silent and sulky; and in the end, crowned with her new honors, at the point in her life she had always longed for, and never before reached, she looked more like a girl who was ashamed of herself, than like one whose vanity and love of praise had for the first time been fully gratified. She dreaded going to her room; she was afraid something to mar her success was waiting for her there. She wished Marion Parke had never come from the West, that Gladys had never been weak enough to take her in for a room-mate. In short, Susan was more unhappy than she had ever been before. Gladys, full of frolic with a large clique of girls in another part of the room, had not given her a thought. To have Susan write so good a story had been the same surprise to her that it was to every one; but the reading was no sooner over, than she had forgotten it, and if the teacher had not told her it was time she went to her room, she would also have forgotten there was any room to go to. When she saw Susan she said, "Come on if you don't want to get reported. I say, Sue, haven't we had a real jolly time?" but much to Susan's relief not a word about "Storied West Rock." Dorothy had been waiting for Susan, and when the gas was out and they were all in bed, she whispered to her,-- "O Sue! I'm so glad for you." Dorothy thought a moment after she heard a sound like a smothered sob, but Susan not answering or moving, she concluded she had fallen quickly asleep, and that was a half snore; so she went to sleep herself, but not without some troubled thoughts about Marion and her unusual behavior. When Marion and Susan met the next morning, Marion noticed that Susan avoided her, never even looked at her; and when Dorothy and Gladys went away to a recitation, leaving them alone, Susan hastily gathered up her books, and going into her bedroom, shut the door. Marion thought this over. To her it looked as if Susan felt guilty and was afraid; but she had determined not to watch her, not even to seem to suspect her. "How should she know that I remember the story?" she thought, "or, indeed, that I have ever so much as read it? I will put it off my mind; I will! I _will!_" But, in spite of her resolutions, Marion could not; and as days went on she took to wondering whether by thus concealing what she knew, she was not making herself a partner in the deception. Susan, not being at once accused by Marion, came slowly but comfortably to the conclusion that she had not even the vaguest suspicion that anything was wrong; still, she sedulously avoided her, and when Dorothy noticed and asked her about it, answered crossly, "She never had liked that girl, and she never should to the longest day of her life." "And Marion certainly does not approve of Susan. How unfortunate!" thought this kind Dorothy. CHAPTER XVII. NOVEMBER SNOWSTORM. When November had fairly begun, the grove was leafless; the boats taken out of the little lake and stored carefully away, to await the return of birds and leaves; the days grown short, dark, and cold; the "constitutionals" matters of dire necessity, but not in the least of pleasure; study assumed new interest, and the worried teachers, relieved for a time of their anxieties over half-learned lessons, began to enjoy their arduous work, finding it really pleasant to teach such bright girls. The girl who made the best recitation was the heroine of the hour, rules were observed more faithfully, a tender spirit went with them into the morning and evening devotions, Faculty meetings became cheerful. This seemed to Miss Ashton one of the most prosperous and successful fall terms she had ever known; she congratulated herself constantly on its benign influences, and often said, "I have fewer black sheep in my flock than I have ever gathered together before." There was one reason for this prosperity which she fully realized. Thanksgiving was not far distant, and on that happy New England festival, the school had a holiday of three or four days. It was a practice to send then to the parents or guardians of the pupils an account of their progress in their studies. The system of marking had not been abandoned in the school; and many a lazy scholar, whom neither intreaties nor scolding seemed to touch, was alarmed at the record which she was to carry home. Such a thing had been known as girls refusing to leave the academy even for Thanksgiving, rather than to face what they knew awaited them with their disappointed parents. But from whatever cause the change had come, it was destined to have a severe shock before the festival day came. Montrose Academy had been purposely built within a few miles of the old and famous school for boys in Atherton. The reasons for this were, the ease with which the best lecturers could be obtained from there in many departments (a competent man finding plenty of time to lecture in both academies), and the general literary atmosphere which a social acquaintance engendered. Of course this social acquaintance was not without its drawbacks, and it had been found necessary for both principals to require written permits for the visits which the boys were inclined to make upon the girls at Montrose. So far, during this term, the boys had been fully occupied by their athletic games; but as the ground became one series of frozen humps, hands grew numb, and feet cold, the interest in them subsided; and yet the love of misrule, so much stronger in a boys' than in a girls' school, grew more active and troublesome. Jerry Downer, a brother of Susan Downer, was a member of this famous school; and it soon became known among a class of boys who studied the Montrose catalogue more faithfully than they did their Livy, that he had a sister there, that she was a lively girl, not too strict in obeying rules, fond of fun, "up to everything," as they described her; so it not infrequently happened that Jerry was invited by a set, with whom at other times he had little to do, to ride over with them to Montrose, he calling on his sister and cousins, while they apparently were waiting for him. In this way Jerry had been quite frequently there, no objection being made by Miss Ashton, as a note from her to the principal of Atherton Academy brought back a flattering account of Jerry as a scholar, and as a boy to be fully trusted. Jerry had improved in every respect since he went to Atherton. He was now a tall, broad-shouldered, active, well-dressed young man, who rang the doorbell of the majestic porch at the Montrose Academy with that unconsciousness which is the perfection of good manners, and which came to him from his simplicity, and went in among the crowd of girls, neither seeing nor thinking of any but those he had come to visit. Susan, in her own selfish way, was proud of him, so he was always sure of a reception that sent him back to his studies ambitiously happy. On the fifteenth of November there fell upon Massachusetts such a snowstorm as the rugged old State never had known before. It piled itself a foot deep on the level ground, heaped up on fence and wall, covered the trees with ermine, until even the tenderest twig had its soft garment; bent telegraph poles as ruthlessly as if communication was the last thing to be cared for, blotted telephoning out of existence, delayed trains all over the north, turned electric and horse cars into nuisances, filled the streets and the railroad stations with impatient grumblers, had only one single redeeming thing, the beauty of its scenery, and a certain weird, uncanny feeling it brought of being suddenly taken out of a familiar world and dropped into one the like of which was never even imagined before. There was one part of the community, however, that looked upon it with great favor. "Now for the jolliest of sleigh-rides!" said a clique of Atherton boys. "Hurra for old Jerry Downer! We'll make him turn out this time!" The roads between the two places were soon well worn, and not two days after the astonished world had waked to its surprise, Samuel Ray's best sleigh was hired, four extra sets of bells promised for the four horses, and a thoroughly organized "spree" was decided upon. It was no use to ask Jerry to help them in any thing contrary to the rules; but through him they might convey to certain girls there the knowledge of their coming, and their plans for the evening. They would give Jerry a note to his sister; she would hand it to Mamie Smythe; and, once in her possession, the whole thing would take care of itself. The bells were taken off from the horses and put carefully away in the bottom of the sleigh before it left the stable; the boys did not have it driven to the dormitories, as it did when they had a licensed ride, but met it at Wilbur's Corner. They had a ready reason for this, and for the absence of the bells when Jerry noticed and inquired about them. It would not do to give him the least occasion to suspect them. It was a beautiful night, with a bright moon making the cold landscape clearer and colder. There wasn't a young heart in either of these two educational towns that would not have leaped with joy over the pleasure of a sleigh-ride then and there. A very merry ride the boys had as soon as they had cleared the thickly settled part of the town, breaking out into college songs, glees, snatches of wild music that the buoyant air caught up and carried on over the long reaches of the ghost-like road before them. Jerry had a fine baritone voice, and he loved music. How he led tune after tune was a marvel and a delight. As they passed solitary farmhouses, where only a light shone from a back kitchen window, the quiet people there would drop their work and listen as the sleigh dashed by. When the party reached Montrose, Jerry was told that "while he was making his visit they would drive on, and if they were not back in time he had better go home by the train, as they knew he would not like to be out late." "And by the way," said Tom Lucas, taking a ticket out of his pocket, "here is a railroad ticket I bought the other day; you'd better use it, old fellow. I shall never want it--that is, if we are not back in time for you." The boys knew Jerry worked hard for every cent he had, and Tom would have felt mean if he had let a ride to which he had invited him be an expense. The first thing he did when Susan came into the room was to give her the note intrusted to him; and Susan, understanding only too well what it meant, delivered it without any delay to Mamie Smythe. Jerry's call was always a treat to his friends; and to-night, Marion coming with them, he had an evening the pleasure of which, in spite of what followed, he did not soon forget. When it came time for him to leave, he saw with surprise that he could only by running catch his train, and, as the boys had not come back for him, he hurried away. He found when he reached Atherton that the study hour had already passed, and, going to his room, he was met with,-- "I say, Jerry; Uncle John don't expect _you_ to go stealing off on sleigh-rides without leave. Give an account of yourself." "The party had leave, and when that is given, Uncle John don't trouble himself to single out every boy, and call him up to ask if he had his permission to go. It's all right." But, in spite of this assertion, Jerry began to have suspicions that, as the boys had failed to come for him to return with them, it might, after all, be not quite in order; and with these doubts he did not find committing his lesson an easy task. CHAPTER XVIII. THE SLEIGH-RIDE. When Susan hurried away from her brother to find Mamie Smythe and give her the note, she knew full well what it probably contained. Jerry had told her he had come over with a party of boys, and had the very best sleigh-ride he had ever had in his life; and when she asked the names of his companions, she recognized some, who, for reasons best known to herself, Miss Ashton had forbidden to be received as visitors to the academy. Mamie Smythe read the note with a heightening color. This was it,-- "Sleigh waiting corner of Bond and Centre Streets. Supper at Bascoms' Hall engaged for a dance. Bring six lively girls! 8 P.M. sharp. SUB ROSA." For a moment Mamie looked doubtingly into Susan's face. She would not have chosen her for one of the "lively girls;" but, now, as Susan knew something was going on, perhaps it would be best to ask her, if--Mamie had conscience enough to dally with this _if_ for a moment; perhaps she might have longer, if there had been time, but as it was now half-past seven, and the time was "eight sharp," and the girls were to be chosen and notified, there was not a moment for parleying, even with so respectable a thing as her conscience, so she showed Susan the note. "Oh, dear! that's too bad!" said Susan, as she finished reading it. "Jerry is here, and he won't go away before eight. What can I do? it would be just splendid!" And the tears actually came into her eyes. "That's a pity!" and Mamie, more relieved than sorry, tried to look regretful. "But don't you tell. Promise me, Susan Downer, let come what may, you won't tell." "I'm no tell-tale, Mamie Smythe, and I'll thank you not even to hint at such a thing. You'll all get expelled, as like as not, and, come to think of it, I'm real glad I'm not to go with you." Before her sentence was finished, Mamie had flown out of the room, and wild with delight over the "fun" before her, she rapidly made her choice among the girls, not giving them time for consideration, but hurrying them with all speed into their best clothes. They crept out, one by one, through different ways. Myra Peters jumped from a window when she heard Miss Palmer's door open, sure that otherwise she would be found. That her dress caught, that for a moment she hung between the moonlit sky and a deep snow-bank, seemed to her of no consequence, so she could escape. She left a bit of her best dress hanging on a hook, but this she did not know until afterwards. The girls met in the street, near the large front gate, where a tall Norway spruce hid them entirely from the front windows of the academy. Certainly they were not a merry group when they came together. All they had to say to each other was in hushed and frightened tones the peril of their escape. When they reached the corner of Bond and Centre Streets there stood the sleigh! How tempting it looked with its warm fur robes, its four gayly caparisoned horses, its driver, slapping his hands together to keep them warm, and the boys coming to meet them with such a merry welcome! Did they forget there was such a thing as consequences? Who can tell? We would not if we could describe any further the occurrences of the evening. It was past twelve when the six girls, tired, frightened, locked out of the house by every door, found themselves--sleigh, horses, bells, boys, all gone--shivering under the back balcony, as forlorn a set of beings as the calm moon shone upon. It was not for some time that Myra Peters remembered the window out of which she had clambered. If that were unlocked here might be an entrance that at this time of night would be wholly unobserved. "But if it is?" asked the most frightened of the girls. "Julia Abbey, you are always croaking," scolded shaking Mamie Smythe. "The next time I ask you to go anywhere, I shall know it!" "I--I hope you never will; it--it don't pay," sobbed Julia. One of the girls had tried the window, found it still unlocked, and had partly raised it. Now the question was, who would be the first one to go in? It was Mamie Smythe who felt the responsibility of the ride, and therefore the necessity of putting on a brave face, and taking whatever consequences followed. "I'll go, girls," she said. "Some of you lift me." Mamie was small and light; it was not a difficult thing to do, as she clung to the window-sill, and in a moment she had disappeared. Then her head came out of the window. "All right, girls," she said in a whisper. "Come quickly, and as soon as you are in go softly right to your rooms. It's still as a mouse here." Now there was a pushing among the girls, not who should venture as before, but who might go. They were too cold and alarmed not to be selfish, and their struggle for precedence delayed them, until Mamie impatiently called the one to come by name. In this way, one after another safely entered, crept to their rooms unheard and unseen, leaving the tell-tale bit of dress hanging on the hook, and forgetting to fasten the window behind them. If they had been all together in one corridor, their pale faces and poor recitations might, at least, have excited the teachers' suspicion that something was wrong; but, as it was, it only seemed to be an event of not very uncommon occurrence that some one should come into the class poorly prepared. It now wanted ten days of Thanksgiving. Only a few of the pupils,--those who had come from Mexico, Texas, Oregon, San Francisco, and other distant places,--but had all their plans made for spending the festival at home; and these, with one exception, were invited away. The school was on the tiptoe of expectation, when, one morning after prayers, Miss Ashton sent for Susan Downer to come to her room. This was the first time such a thing had happened to Susan, and if she had been an innocent girl she would have been elated by it; but, alas, we well know that she was not, so it was with much trepidation that she answered the summons. "Susan," said Miss Ashton kindly, "I am in a good deal of trouble; I thought you might help me. How long is it since your brother came to see you?" What a relief to Susan! Miss Ashton had often inquired about Jerry, and once came into the room to see him, so she answered glibly,-- "Week before last, on Wednesday." "He came in the evening, I believe." "Yes, ma'am: it was a beautiful moonlight night, and a party of boys that were taking a sleigh-ride brought him over." "Did he go back with them?" "I suppose so," said Susan unhesitatingly. Jerry had not told her of his possible return in the cars. "Does your brother know many of the young ladies here?" "He knows his cousins, of course, and Marion Parke, and some of the girls that happened to come into the parlor when he was here, to whom I introduced him." "Can you tell me the names of the girls?" Susan hesitated a moment. What could Miss Ashton want to know for? What could Jerry have done to make her suspect him? All at once the thought of the sleigh-ride flashed upon her, and she colored violently. He had brought the note for Mamie Smythe. The girls had gone on the sleigh-ride. She had heard the whole story from them on their return. Miss Ashton watched the color come and go; then she said quietly,-- "The names of the girls to whom you have introduced him, please." Now, it so happened that these girls were not among the sleighing-party, and after a moment's hesitation Susan named them. "Thank you," Miss Ashton said pleasantly. "That is all now." "All now, _now_," repeated Susan to herself, as she went back to her room. "Is there anything more to come by and by I wonder?" Miss Drake, Susan's teacher in logic, found her a very absent-minded pupil during the next recitation, and gave her the lowest mark for the poorest lesson of the term. In truth, the more Susan thought the matter over, the more troubled she became. Miss Ashton never would have asked those questions without a particular purpose. That she had no suspicions about "Storied West Rock" was plain, for not a question tended that way, but all toward the sleigh-ride; for the first time since it had taken place Susan felt glad that she had not gone. She attached little importance to the giving of the note to Mamie Smythe. How was she to know its contents? She was not in the habit of opening other people's notes. To be sure, her conscience told her, she did know them, and, besides, that troublesome old adage would keep coming back to her, "The partaker is as bad as the thief." Should Miss Ashton put the question point-blank to her, "Susan Downer, did, or did you not, know of the sleigh-ride?" What should she answer? To say she did, would be to bring not only herself, but all the other girls into trouble, perhaps to be the means of their being expelled. To say she knew nothing about it would be to tell a _lie_. Susan dealt plainly enough with herself now, not even to cover it with the more respectable name of falsehood, and it was so hard to escape Miss Ashton if she were once on the track; she _would_ find out, and if she did not expel her too, she would never respect her again. It must be acknowledged, Susan's was a hard place; but she is not the first, and will by no means be the last, to learn that the way of the transgressor is often very, very hard. "I don't care," was Susan's conclusion, after some hours of painful thought. "Thanksgiving is most here, and she'll forget it before we come back." CHAPTER XIX. DETECTIVES AT WORK. Miss Ashton's forgetfulness was not of a kind to be depended upon. Mr. Stanton, the janitor, had come to her a few days after the sleigh-ride to tell her that he had found a back window unlocked; that he was sure he had locked it carefully before going to bed, and that under the window was the print of footsteps. He "kind o' hated," he said, "to be a-telling on the gals, but then, agin, he hadn't been there nigh eighteen years without learning that gals were gals, as well as boys were boys, and weren't allers--not zactly allers--doin' jist right; perhaps it was best to let Miss Ashton know, and then--there now--he hated to do it awfully. If the gals found it out it might set 'em agin him." "Mr. Stanton," said Miss Ashton gravely, "if you had made this discovery and kept it to yourself, you would have lost your place in twenty-four hours. Please show me the window." The snow, for a wonder, remained as it was on the night of the ride, and looking from the window Miss Ashton saw the distinct marks of a number of feet around the bank into which Myra Peters had fallen. She also saw, and took off, the piece torn from her dress. This would surely give her a clew to one of the girls; but, before using it, she would make herself acquainted as far as possible with the time and circumstances when it had occurred. Mr. Stanton could fix the morning when he found the window unlocked, and Miss Ashton remembered that on the previous evening Susan Downer's brother had been there to call. This put a really serious aspect upon the matter. She immediately connected it with the boys from the Atherton Academy. She called a Faculty meeting, hoping some of the teachers had heard the girls go and come, or the sleigh, if indeed it had been a sleigh-ride that tempted them. But none of them had heard the least noise after bedtime, nor even unusual sleigh-bells. If it had not been for the open window, the footprints, and the torn bit of dress, Miss Palmer, who prided herself upon, and made herself unpopular by, her vigilance, would have said it could not have happened; as it was, there was no denying it, and no question that something must be done. Susan Downer's examination had proved so far satisfactory to Miss Ashton, that it had shown her there had been a sleigh-ride given by the Atherton boys; and she said reluctantly to herself, "I am afraid the reliable-looking young man, Jerry Downer, had a hand in it. How strange it is that we can trust young people so little!" Then Miss Ashton felt ashamed of this feeling; for in her long experience she had known a great many true as gold, who had gone out from her training to be burning and shining lights in the world. The quickest way to get at the bottom of the whole, she thought after much deliberation, would be to take the bit of torn dress into the hall, and ask to which young lady it belonged. Accordingly, after morning prayers, she asked the school to stop a few moments, held the piece of cloth up in her hand, and simply said,-- "The owner of it might need it for repairing her dress, and if she would remain after the others left, it would be at her disposal." The majority of the school laughed and chatted merrily about it. Some few came up to see if it could have by any luck belonged to the torn dresses of which not a few hung in their closets. But no one claimed it! Here, then, was a dilemma! It would not be possible to go to every room, and examine the wardrobe of every scholar; besides, now it was known that the bit had been found, and might easily be made to lead to a discovery of the guilty ones, what more natural than that the dress should be hidden away, or sent from the academy building to prevent the possibility of detection! Miss Ashton was disappointed over this failure. She was not much of a detective, and had less reason for being so than falls to the lot of many teachers. She wrote to the principal of the Atherton Academy, inquiring whether he had given leave to a party of his boys to take a sleigh-ride on the night of the twentieth of November. She knew Jerry Downer had been one of them, as he had called on his sister, who was one of her pupils, on that night. She received an immediate answer, saying, "He had not given leave for any sleigh-ride on that night, and was both surprised and sorry that a boy he had always considered so reliable as Jerry Downer should have been among them. He would inquire into the matter at once." And he lost no time; sending for Jerry, he put the question point-blank, his usual straightforward way of dealing with his boys,-- "Did you go on a sleigh-ride the evening of the twentieth of November?" "Yes, sir," said Jerry unhesitatingly. "Did I give you leave to go?" "No, sir; but I supposed the party had asked you, or they would not have gone." "Your supposition was entirely erroneous. My leave had never been asked. Who besides yourself made up the party?" Now Jerry hesitated: he could take the blame of his own going, but it would be mean in him to tell the names of his companions. "Mr.--Uncle John (the principal smiled grimly as he heard this familiar name), I mean Dr. Arkwright," said Jerry, the color browning, instead of reddening his sea-tanned face, "I am very sorry, sir; I thought they had leave; I would not have gone." "Don't _think_ again; _know_, Jerry Downer: that is the only way for a boy that wants to do right. You will tell me, if you please, the names of your companions." "Would that be honorable in me, sir?" asked Jerry, now looking the doctor straight in the eye. A look of doubt passed over the principal's face before he answered, then he said with less austerity,-- "I must find out in some way who among my boys have broken my rules; you can help me more directly than any one else." "Would it be honorable in me?" repeated Jerry. "You are not here to ask questions, but to answer them. Are you going to refuse to help me by giving me the names of the boys?" "I cannot, indeed I cannot; it would be so mean in me. You must punish me any way I deserve, sir; I am willing to bear it; but I cannot tell on the boys." "Very well, Jerry Downer; you are dismissed," and he waved Jerry out of the room. But after Jerry had gone, he went to the window and stood watching him. "That is a generous boy!" he said; "but he has made a mistake. He will see it when he is older and wiser. He will learn that true manhood helps law and order, not even the idea of honor coming before it, noble as it is." Still the difficulty of unravelling the matter remained with him in as much doubt as it did with Miss Ashton; but with both of these excellent principals there was no question but that it must be sifted to the bottom, the delinquents discovered and punished. The time for doing this was short; and should it be necessary to expel a pupil, the coming vacation offered a suitable occasion. Soon after, Miss Ashton, going through the corridor one evening, found two girls in close and excited conversation,--Myra Peters and Julia Dorr. They did not see her at first, so she was quite near enough to them to catch a few words. "You may say what you please," said Julia Dorr. "I'm as sure of it as sure can be; I've sat close by you time and again when you had it on, and if I had been you I would have owned it." "Owned it!" snarled Myra Peters, "will you be kind enough to mind your own business, and let other people's alone, Miss Interferer?" "Well, interferer or not, I've half a mind to go and tell Miss Ashton." "Tell Miss Ashton what?" asked a voice close beside them. The girls turned, to find Miss Ashton there. "Tell Miss Ashton what?" she asked again pleasantly; "I always like to hear good news. What is this about?" Now, nothing had really been farther from Julia's intention than to tell on Myra. She was one of those who had gone up to the desk when Miss Ashton showed the piece of cloth, and had recognized it as like a dress she had seen Myra wear. That there was anything of more importance attached to it than the ability to mend the dress neatly, she did not think, so she answered readily,-- "Why, Miss Ashton, that piece of cloth you showed us was exactly like Myra's dress. I've seen it a hundred times; but she declares she never had a dress like it, and we were quarrelling about it. I wish you would show it to her close up, and see if she don't have to give in." "I will; come to my room, Myra!" and she led the way there, Myra following with a frightened, sullen face. Then she found the piece, and laid it on the table. "Myra," she said, after looking at the girl kindly for a moment, "is this like your dress? Tell me truly; it is much the best thing for you to do." Myra gazed at the cloth for a moment, then burst into a flood of tears. "So you were one of the sleighing-party?" said Miss Ashton quietly. "Will you tell me who were with you?" If Myra had not been taken so entirely by surprise, she might, probably would, have refused to answer, for honor is as dear to girls as to boys; but she sobbed out one name after another, until the six stood confessed. "Thank you," was all Miss Ashton said, then she handed Myra the tell-tale cloth, and added, "You had better put it neatly in the place from which it was torn." She opened her door, and Myra, wiping her eyes, went quickly out and back to her room. Hardly conscious what she was doing, with an impatient desire to get away, she began to pack her trunk. "I will go home, home, home!" she kept repeating to herself. "I never will see one of those girls again. Oh, dear, dear! If I only hadn't gone on that sleigh-ride; that abominable Mamie Smythe is always getting the girls in trouble: I perfectly detest her. What will my father say?" CHAPTER XX. REPENTANCE. It is a common error that to send a girl into a boarding-school to finish her education is to bring her out a model, not only in learning, but in accomplishments and character. Here were two hundred girls, coming from nearly two hundred different families, each one brought up, until she was in her teens, in different ways. Looking over the population of a small village, the most careless observer must see how unlike the homes are; how every grade of morals and manners is represented, and with what telling effect they show themselves in the characters of the young trained under their roofs. It happened often that Montrose Academy was looked upon by anxious parents--who were just discovering, in wilfulness, disobedience, perhaps in matters more serious even than these, the mistakes they had made in the education of their daughters--as a sort of reformatory school, where Miss Ashton took in the erring, and after one or more years sent them out perfect in every good work and way. While Miss Ashton made all inquiries in her power to prevent any undesirable girls from joining her school, she was often imposed upon, sometimes by concealments, and not unseldom by positive falsehoods, but oftener by the parental fondness which could see nothing but good in a spoilt, darling child. It often happened that with just such characters Miss Ashton was very successful, not seldom receiving a girl of a really fine nature which had been distorted by home influences, and sending her away, after years of patient work, with this nature so fully developed and improved that her whole family rose to her standard. Instances of this kind made Miss Ashton careful in her discipline. She well understood that a girl once expelled from a school, no matter how lightly her friends might appear to regard the occurrence, was under a ban, which time and circumstances might remove, but might not. In the case of this sleigh-ride, the disobedience to known and strictly enforced rules made her more anxiety than any case of a similar kind had given her for years. She knew now the names of the girls concerned: they had given her trouble before. Mamie Smythe she had often been on the point of sending home, but she was one of those characters with fine traits, capable of being very good or very bad in her life's work. The mother was a wealthy widow, Mamie her only child. Spoiled by weak and foolish fondness she had been; but her brightness, her lovableness, her cheery, witty, sunshiny ways remained. Evidently, here she was the accountable one; she should be expelled as a lesson to the school, but to expel her meant, _what_? She had wealth, she had position, she would in a few years be able to wield an influence that, in the right direction, would outweigh that of almost any other girl in school. To be sent home, back to that weak mother, with a life of frivolous pleasures before her, what, under these circumstances, was it the wisest and best thing to do? Favoritism for the rich or the poor was not one of Miss Ashton's faults. By this time the whole school knew of the ride, of its discovery, and was holding its breath over the probable consequences. The girls said, "Miss Ashton grew thin and pale from the worry." The feeling of the school, most of whom were tenderly attached to her, was decidedly against those who had troubled her; and if she could have known the true state of the case, when she was neither eating nor sleeping, in her anxiety to do what was right, she would have found that the good for order, discipline, and propriety, which was growing from this evil done, was to exceed any influence she could hope to exert, even from the severest act of just discipline. She was to be helped in a most unexpected way. Two days after her interview with Myra Peters, there was a soft tap on her door, and opening it, there stood Mamie Smythe! Her face, usually covered with smiles, was grave and even sad. "Miss Ashton," she said, without waiting to close the door, "please don't be hard on the other girls. It was all my fault; I was the Eve that tempted them. I know it was wrong; I know it was _dreadful_ wrong! I was worse than Eve; I was the serpent that tempted Eve! They wouldn't a single one of them have gone if it hadn't been for me! Do, please, Miss Ashton, punish me, and not them! They never, never, _never_ would have gone if I hadn't tempted them. Please, please, Miss Ashton! I'll do anything; I'll get extra lessons for a year! I won't have a single spread; I'll be good; you won't know me, Miss Ashton, I'll be so good; and I'll bear any punishment. You may ferule me, as they do in district schools," and she held out a little diamond-ringed hand toward Miss Ashton; "I'll be shut up for a week in a dark closet, and live on bread and water. You may do anything you please with me, only spare them," and she looked so earnestly and imploringly up in Miss Ashton's face, that her heart, in spite of her better judgment, was touched; all she said was,-- "Tell me about it, Mamie." "When Susan gave me the note," began Mamie. Miss Ashton started. "Susan who?" she asked, for Susan Downer had not confessed to any note; indeed, had virtually denied connection with the ride. "Susan Downer, of course; she gave me the note. Her brother brought it to her, and I was wild with joy to have a sleigh-ride. It was such a bright moon, and the sleighing looked so fine, I wanted all day to ask you to let me have a big sleigh, and take the girls out, but I knew you wouldn't." "Yes, I should have," interrupted Miss Ashton. "That's just awful," said Mamie, after a moment's reflection; "and if I'd been brave enough to ask you, nothing of this would have happened. "I hadn't time to think only of the girls--you know them all, Miss Ashton!" "And who were the boys?" asked Miss Ashton, thinking perhaps she might aid the other troubled principal. "The boys! oh, the boys!" and Mamie's face looked truly distressed now. "Please don't ask me, Miss Ashton. I'd cut my tongue out before I'd tell you!" "Very well, go on with your ride." Then Mamie repeated fully and truly all that a girl in the flush of excitement caused by a stolen sleigh-ride could be expected to remember, not palliating one thing, from the supper to the dance, and the clamber in at midnight through the open window. If at some points a little laugh gurgled up from her fun-loving soul, as she told her tale, Miss Ashton understood, and forgave it. "I thank you, Mamie," said she at last; and she stroked the little hand given to her so loyally for the sacrificial feruling, but she turned her eyes away. What Mamie might have read there, she dared not trust to the girl's quick sight; indeed, she hardly dared to trust the feeling that prompted it in herself. There was no use to have another Faculty meeting, and depend upon it for help; she must settle the trouble alone. It was Susan Downer who was next called to the principal's room. She went tremblingly. What was to happen to her now? Miss Ashton knew the girls' names who went on the sleigh-ride, and as yet no one had been punished. Could it be about "Storied West Rock"? How Susan by this time hated its very name, and how much she would have given if she had never known it, she could best have told. "Susan," said Miss Ashton, as with a pale face and downcast eyes the girl stood before her, "when I asked you about your brother's visit to you on the night of the sleigh-ride, you did not tell me of the note he gave you, and you gave to Mamie Smythe. If you had, you would have saved me many troubled hours." "You did not ask me," said Susan promptly. "True. Did you know the contents of the note?" "Mamie asked me to go with them, but I refused. I was afraid you wouldn't like it, and I'd much rather lose a ride any time than displease you;" and Susan, as she said this, looked bravely in Miss Ashton's face. "That's all," the principal said gravely, and Susan, with a lighter heart than that with which she had entered, left the room; but Miss Ashton thought, as she watched the forced smile on the girl's face, "There's one that can't be trusted; what a pity, for she is not without ability!" Then she remembered the story she had read and praised, and wondered over it. Two days before the time for the term to close, Miss Ashton received this note:-- OUR DEAR MISS ASHTON,--We, the undersigned, do regret in sackcloth and ashes our serious misconduct in going away at an improper time, and in an improper manner, on a sleigh-ride, without your consent and approval. We promise, if you will forgive us, and restore us to your trust and affection, that we will never, NEVER be guilty of such a misdemeanor again. That we will try our best faithfully to observe the rules of the school, and endeavor to be good and faithful scholars. Pray forgive and test us! MAMIE SMYTHE, HELEN NORRIS, JANE SOMERS, JULIA ABBEY, MYRA PETERS, ETTA SPRING. Miss Ashton smiled as she read the note. Repentance by the wholesale she had never found very reliable; and in this instance she would have had much more confidence if the girls had come to her, and made a full confession, without waiting to be found out. It was not until after two sleepless nights that she came to the conclusion to give them further trial; and when she called them to her room, one by one, and had a long and faithful talk with them, sending them from her tenderly penitent, she felt sure her course had been a right one. Then she made a short speech to the school, went over briefly what had happened, not in the least sparing the impropriety of the stolen ride, but, on account of the repentance and promises from the girls concerned, she had decided not to expel them now, but to give them a chance to redeem the character they had lost. The school clapped her enthusiastically as she closed. CHAPTER XXI. ACCEPTING A THANKSGIVING INVITATION. A week before Thanksgiving, Marion Parke received this note from her Aunt Betty:-- DEAR NIECE,--If you haven't anywhere else to go, and have money to come with, you can take the cars from Boston up here and spend Thanksgiving Day with us at Belden. Your pa used to think a lot of coming here when he went to college--the great pity he ever went. He might have been well-to-do if he had stuck to farming, but he always hankered after an eddication, and he got it, and nothin' else. Your Cousin Abijah will drive over in his cutter and bring you here. Don't have nothing to do with Isaac Bumps; he'll charge you twenty-five cents, and tell you it's a mile and a half from the station to my house, but it's only a mile, and don't you hear to him, for your Cousin Abijah can't come until after the milking, and if the cows are fractious, it may make him belated. I am your great-aunt, BETSY PARKE. Marion had previously received a letter from her father, saying,-- "If you have an invitation from your Aunt Betty to spend Thanksgiving with her in Belden, by all means accept it. I want you to see the town in which I was born; there is not a mountain or a valley there that does not often cover these flat prairie-lands with their remembered beauty. As they were a part of my boyish life, so are they a part of my man's; and when you come home we can talk of them together. I was not born in the old farmhouse where your aunt now lives, but my father was, and his father, and his father's father, and your Aunt Betty was a kind, loving sister to your grandfather long years ago. "Go, and write me all about the old home, all about the old aunt, and make her forget, if you can, that I would not be a farmer." Before the coming of this letter, Marion had many invitations from her schoolmates to spend Thanksgiving with them at their homes. Her room-mates were very urgent that she should go to Rock Cove; and besides her longing to see that wonderful mysterious thing, the ocean, she had learned so much of their homes during the weeks they had been together, that she almost felt as if she knew all the friends there, and would be sure of a welcome. But her father's letter left her no choice, and a few cordial lines of acceptance went from her to her Aunt Betty by the next mail. Of this decision Miss Ashton heartily approved. And now began in the school the pleasant bustle which precedes this holiday vacation. Recitations were gone through by the hardest. Meals were eaten in indigestible haste; devotional exercises were filled with "wandering thoughts and worldly affections." All through the long corridors and out from the open doors came crowded, eager words of inquiry and consultation. One would have thought who heard them, that these girls had been close prisoners, breaking away from a hard, dull life, instead of what most of them really were, happy girls bound for a frolic. Miss Ashton heard it all without the least injury to her feelings. She had heard it for years, and, in truth, was as glad of her vacation as any of her girls. A journey alone in a new country, with the beauty of the autumn all gone, and the rigors of a New England winter already beginning to show themselves, made Marion, self-reliant as she usually was, not a little timid as she saw the tall academy building lost behind the hills, between which the cars were bearing her on to New Hampshire. A homesick feeling took possession of her, and a dread that she might find Kate Underwood's tableaux a reality when she should reach her old aunt in the mountain-girded farmhouse. Three hours' ride through a bare and uninteresting country brought her to Belden. The day was extremely cold here. The snow, which had seemed to her very deep at Montrose, lay piled up in huge drifts, not a fence nor a shrub to be seen. All around were spurs of the White Mountains, white, literally, as she looked up to them, from their base to their summit. There were great brown trees clinging stiff and frozen to their steep sides; sharp-pointed rocks, raising their great heads here and there from among the trees. Majestic, awful, solemn they looked to this prairie child, as she stood on the cold platform of the little station gazing up at them. A voice said behind her, startling her,-- "You'd better come in, marm. It's what we call a terrible cold day for Thanksgiving week. Come in, and warm you." Marion turned, to see a man in a buffalo overcoat, with whiskers the same color as the fur, eyes that looked the same, a big red nose, a buffalo fur cap pulled well down over his ears, with mittens to match. He stood in an open door, to which he gave a little push, as if to emphasize his invitation. Inside the ladies' room of the station a red-hot stove sent out a cheerful welcome. To this the man added stick after stick of dry pine wood, much to Marion's amusement and comfort, as she watched him. "Come from down South?" he asked, after he had convinced himself of the impossibility of crowding in another. "From the West," said Marion pleasantly. "You don't say so. You ain't Aunt Betty Parke's niece, now, be ye?" "I am Marion Parke. Did you know my father?" "Let me see. Was your father Philip Parke? Phil, we used to call him when he was a boy, the one that would have an eddication, and went a home-missionarying after he got chock-full of books. Aunt Betty, she took it hard. Be he your father?" "Yes," said Marion, laughing; "he is my father." "You don't say so, wull, naow, I'm beat. You don't favor him not a mite; you sarten don't. An' you're here to get an eddication too, be ye?" "Yes; that's what I hope to do. I'm sorry it's so cold here; I should like to walk to my aunt's if it were not." The man gave a chuckle, which Marion did not at all understand, jammed the stove full of wood again, and remarked as he crowded in the last knot,-- "There's your Cousin Abijah; I know his old cowbells a mile off! Better get warm!" Marion was hovering close over the stove when the door opened and Cousin Abijah entered. "There you be," he called out hilariously as he saw her. "Not froze nuther! You're clear grit! I told your Aunt Betty so, and she said 'seein' was believin'.' As soon as I've thawed my hands a mite, we'll be joggin'. Dan, that's the hoss, isn't the safest to drive in the dark." The early twilight was already dropping down over the hills before "the mite of thawing" was done, and then wrapped up in an old blanket shawl Aunt Betty had sent, and covered by two well-worn buffaloes, they started. What a ride it was! Marion will never forget how Dan crawled along up a mountain road, where the path ran between huge snow-drifts, under beetling rocks that looked as if an avalanche might at any moment fall from them and crush horse and riders in the sleigh. Sometimes going under arches of old pine-trees, the arms of which had met and interlocked, long, long years ago; up steep declivities, where the horse seemed almost over their heads, down steep declivities, where they seemed over the horse's head, never meeting any one, only hearing the dull moaning of the wind among the forest trees, and the louder moaning of old Dan, as he toiled painfully along. At last there came an opening that widened until they crossed the mountain spur, and the little village of Belden lay before them. Marion saw a church steeple, a few houses, a sawmill, and great spaces covered with snow. To one of these houses, on the outskirts of the village, Cousin Abijah drove. The house was a two-storied old farmhouse, innocent of paint or blind. There was not a fence round, or a tree near it. On one side was a wooden well-top, with a long arm holding an iron-bound bucket above it, the arm swinging from a huge beam, from which, in its turn, swung two large stones, suspended from the well-sweep by an iron chain. A well-worn foot-path came from a back door to it, and on this path stood a yellow dog, nose in air, and tail beating time on a snow-bank. It was the only living thing to be seen, and Marion's heart sank within her. She was cold, tired, and homesick; and she saw at once that around the small front door, before which Cousin Abijah in his gallantry had stopped, no footstep had left a mark. The snow-bank reached to the handle, clung to it, and as absolutely refused entrance, as did a shrill voice which at once made itself heard, but from whence Marion could not conjecture. It said, however, "Go round to the back door! What's good enough for me, is good enough for them that come to see me!" [Illustration: "I hope I see you well," said a not unkindly voice, as Marion stepped out of the sleigh.--Page 143. _Miss Ashton's New Pupil._] CHAPTER XXII. AUNT BETTY'S RECEPTION OF HER GUEST. When the sleigh stopped before the back door, it was slowly opened, and Marion saw a tall, lank old woman with thin gray hair, small, faded blue eyes, a long, sharp nose, and thin lips, standing in it. "I hope I see you well," said a not unkindly voice, and something like a smile played over the hard old face. A knotty hand was held out toward her, and when she put hers timidly within it, it drew her into a large kitchen, where a cooking-stove, that shone like a mirror, sent out rays of heat even to the open door. It was like Kate Underwood's "Tableau kitchen," yet how different! It had such an air of cleanliness and comfort, that everything, even to the old chairs and tables, the long rows of bright pewter that adorned a swinging shelf, the hams clothed in spotless bags, hanging from the old crane in the big chimney, all had a certain air of refinement which went at once to Marion's heart. Aunt Betty took off one of the lids of the stove, jammed in all the wood it could be made to hold, then moved a straw-bottomed chair, laced and interlaced with twine to keep the broken straw in place, close to the stove, and motioned Marion to sit down in it. Then she stood at a little distance looking at her curiously. "You don't favor the Parkes," she said, after a slow examination. "You look more like your Aunt Jerushy; she was on my mother's side. Your brown hair is hern, and your gray eyes; you feature her too. When you're warm through, you can go up-stairs and lay off your things. I don't have folks staying with me often, but I'm glad to see you." This she said with a certain heartiness that went straight to Marion's heart. She held up her face for a welcoming kiss, and, blushing like a young girl, Aunt Betty, after a quick look around the room, as if to be sure no one saw her, bent down, and kissed for the first time in twenty years. Then Marion followed her up some steep stairs, leading from the kitchen to an unfinished room under the rafters. Here everything again was as neat as wax, but how desolate! An unpainted bedstead of pine wood, holding a round feather-bed covered with a blue-and-white homespun bed-quilt; a strip of rag carpet on a floor grown beautiful from the care bestowed upon it; a small table covered with a homespun linen towel, a Bible in exactly the middle of it; two old yellow chairs, and not another thing. It was lighted by a three-cornered window, which Marion learned afterward, being over the front door, was considered the one choice ornament of the house. In spite of its desolation, its neatness was still a charm to her. It was, as she knew, the family homestead, and that subtile influence, so strong yet so indescribable, seemed to her to brood over the room. Here generation after generation of those whose blood was running now so blithely through her veins had lived, died, and gone out from it. Gently reverent she stood on its threshold. Aunt Betty, looking at her curiously, wondered at her. It had never been warmed excepting from the heat that had come up from the kitchen stove. For the first time in her long life, Aunt Betty found herself wishing there was a chimney and a large air-tight stove in it; it would be fitter for a young girl like this visitor. But Marion had been by no means accustomed to luxuries. She made herself at home at once. She hung her hat upon a nail which was carefully covered with white cloth to prevent its rusting anything, and put her valise, not upon the table with the Bible, or on the clean, blue bed-quilt, but up in a corner by itself. Aunt Betty watched all these movements, every now and then nodding her gray head in silent approval. Then they went back to the kitchen, Marion taking a Greek play with her to read,--one of Euripides. She had promised herself much pleasure during this short vacation in finishing the play which her class were studying at the end of the term. Aunt Betty, walking back and forth around the kitchen, stopped now and then at her elbow, and peeped curiously inside the open leaves. An object of Marion's in taking the book had been to relieve her aunt of any feeling that she must entertain her; if she had been older and wiser she would have seen her mistake. She was trying to puzzle out a line of the chorus, when a voice said close to her ear,-- "Be that a Bible you are readin'?" Marion gave a little start, certainly there was nothing very Scriptural in the play. "No-o-o," she stammered; "it's a Greek play, a--a tragedy." "A tragedy! you don't read none of them wicked things!" severely. "Why, yes, auntie, when they come in the course of my study. It's in Greek!" "Greek! and you're a gal! Your father allers was cracked about it, but this beats all!" Marion failed to see it in just that light, but she said pleasantly, "I'll put it away if it troubles you." A long arm pointed up-stairs, and Marion followed its direction. When she came down, it seemed to Aunt Betty, in spite of her displeasure, that the rays of sunlight that were glimmering so faintly at the head of the stairs came down with her and lighted up the dingy old kitchen. "Now give me something to do," said Marion dancing up to her with one of the prettiest steps she had learned at the academy. "It's Thanksgiving, you know, to-morrow, and we have such lots and lots to do at home; there's pies and puddings and cakes and a big turkey to prepare, and a chicken pie, and nuts to crack, and apples to rub until you can see your face in them." Aunt Betty's mouth and eyes opened as wide as they could for the wrinkles that held them while Marion told of the festival dinner, then she looked down at Marion's feet, and, not satisfied with the glimpse she caught of a pair of little boots, she lifted Marion's dress, then asked,-- "Be you lame?" At first Marion was puzzled, then she remembered how she had danced into the room, so, with a merry peal of laughter, instead of answering, off she went into a series of _pirouettes_ that might have astonished more accustomed eyes than those of her old Aunt Betty. When she had danced herself out of breath she said, "Does that look like being lame? Better set me at work and let me use my feet to some more useful purpose!" So still and stiff Aunt Betty stood that Marion could hardly restrain herself from catching hold of her and whirling her around in a waltz. But fortunately she did not, for the first words her aunt said were,-- "Do you have Satan for a principal at your school, Marion Parke?" "Satan! Why, auntie, we have Miss Ashton, and she's the loveliest Christian lady you ever saw. We girls think she is almost an angel! Do you think it's wicked to dance?" "Sartain I do;" and the shake of Aunt Betty's gray head left no doubt she was in earnest. "Then I'll not dance while I am here," and Marion sat herself down demurely in the nearest chair. Aunt Betty looked at the big clock in the corner of the kitchen. The early dark was already creeping into the room, hiding itself under table and chair, showing the light of the isinglass doors of the cooking-stove with a fitful radiance, making Marion lonely and homesick, for you could hear the clock tick, the room was so still. Then Aunt Betty lighted two yellow tallow candles that stood in iron candlesticks on the mantel-shelf, put up a leaf of the kitchen table, covered it with a clean homespun cloth, put upon it two blue delft plates and cups, a "chunk" of cold boiled pork, a bowl of cider apple-sauce, a loaf of snow-white bread, and a plate of doughnuts. "Come to supper!" she said, and Marion went. How hungry she was, and how good everything, even the cold boiled pork, looked, she will not soon forget! Before they seated themselves, Aunt Betty stood at the back of her chair, and, leaning on its upper round with her eyes fixed on the pork, she said,-- "For all our vittles and other marcies we thank Thee." Marion, when she became aware of what was taking place, bowed her head reverently; but when she raised it she could not conceal the smile that played around her mouth. She did not know this was the same grace which had been said over that table for one hundred and twenty years; yet it made her feel more at home, and she began to chat with her quaint old relative in her pleasant way, telling her of her home, of their daily life there, of the good her father was doing, and how every one loved and respected him. Aunt Betty listened in silence, only now and then uttering a grunt, which, whether it was commendatory or condemnatory, Marion could not tell. It was a long, dull evening that followed. At eight, one of the tallow candles, much to her joy, lighted Marion to her bed. CHAPTER XXIII. THE ACADEMY GIRL'S THANKSGIVING AT THE OLD HOMESTEAD. Marion never knew that shortly after she fell asleep a tall, gaunt woman with a gray-and-white blanket over her shoulders stole softly into her room, holding her candle high above her bed, and standing over, peered down at her. As she gazed, a half-smile crept into her rugged face. "Pretty creatur!" she said aloud; then, with deft and careful fingers she tucked the bed-clothes close around the sleeping girl, smiled broadly, and crept out. The next morning when Marion waked, through the odd little oriel window the late winter light was struggling fitfully in. At first she could not tell where she was: the rafters over her head, the bare white walls that surrounded her, the blue-and-white homespun quilt that covered her, were unlike any thing she had ever seen before. She was on her feet in a moment, half frightened at the dim light. Had another night come? Had she slept over Thanksgiving? When she went to the kitchen, Aunt Betty was there busy over the cooking-stove. She was about making an apology for her lateness, but she was interrupted by,-- "'Taint never too late to pray; you may read the Bible." She pointed without another word to the old family Bible. Marion took it, opened it slowly, waiting to be told where to read. "Thanksgiving," said Aunt Betty briefly. "It's all Thanksgiving my father says. He thinks the Bible was given us to make us happy." "Thirty-fourth Psalm, then," and a quiet look came into the old seamed face. When Marion had read it, her aunt rose from her chair, stepped behind it, tilted it on its front legs, and folding her hands on its top began to pray. Like the grace at table, it was the same old prayer that had gone up from that same old kitchen for one hundred and twenty years. Its quaint simplicity was a marvel to the young girl who listened, but a breath of its devotion reached and touched her heart. Then followed breakfast. Marion wondered, as they two sat at the table alone, how the old aunt could have borne the loneliness for so many long years. To her, on her first Thanksgiving away from her cheerful home, there was something positively uncanny in the silence which settled down over the house; even the old yellow dog, with his nose between his front paws, slept soundly, and the great red rooster that had lighted upon the forked stick that before the back door had held the farm milk-pails for more than a century, instead of calling for his Thanksgiving breakfast, as orthodox New England roosters are expected to do, just flapped his wings lazily, and turned a much becombed head imploringly toward the kitchen window. What was to be done with the long, dull festival day? Marion may be forgiven if she cast many longing thoughts back to the academy, to the pleasant bustle that filled the long corridors, the merry laughs of the girls, the endless chatter, the coming and the going that seemed to her never to cease. She was homesick to see Miss Ashton, her room-mates, and Helen, over whose daily life she had already installed herself as responsible for its comforts and its pleasures, and who, homeless and poor, remained almost by herself in the great empty building. She was not, however, left long in doubt as to the day's occupations. Hardly had the breakfast dishes been put away, when Aunt Betty said,-- "Meetin' begins at ten. We hain't got no bell, and we'll start in season. You can put on your things." The clock said nine; meeting began at ten. Five minutes were all she needed for preparation. Here was time for a few lines at least of that Greek tragedy. She had read one line, when the door opened, and there stood Aunt Betty. "Listen, Aunt Betty!" she said. "Hear how soft these words are." Then she rattled off line after line of the chorus. This is Greek, she said, pausing to take breath. "Listen! I will translate for you." She carried her book to the oriel window, so the light would fall more clearly on its page, and began,-- "Before the mirror's golden round, Curious my braided hair I bound, Adjusted for the night; And now, disrobed, for rest prepared, Sudden tumultuous cries are heard, And shrieks of wild affright. Grecians to Grecians shouting call, 'Now let the haughty city fall; In dust her towers, her rampiers lay, And bear triumphant her rich spoils away.'" "Doesn't that roll along sublimely? Can't you hear the cries and the shouts of the Grecian host?" "I can hear Marion Parke making a fool of herself. Be you, or be you not, goin' to meetin' with me?" "Meeting? Why, of course I am. I wouldn't miss it for anything. I'll be ready in half a minute. Will you?" Aunt Betty, in her short black skirt, her old gray sack, and her heavy shoes, did not make much of a holiday appearance. Something of this crept slowly into her brain as she looked down, so she turned quickly, and went away without another word. Marion gave some girl-like twists to her brown hair, pinned a gay scarlet bow to the neck of her sack, and, looking fresh and pretty as a rosebud, went to the kitchen, where she had to wait some time before Aunt Betty made her appearance. Cousin Abijah had brought the old horse and sleigh round to the back door. Here a long slanting roof ran down to the lintel of the door, and up to the plain cornice snow-drifts lay piled. What a winter scene it was! Marion, never having seen the like before, gazed at it in wondering admiration. When Aunt Betty and Marion started for the village meeting-house, the thermometer was fifteen degrees below zero. Aunt Betty took a rein in each hand, and as soon as the snow-banks bordering the narrow path to the road were safely passed, began a series of jerks at the horse's mouth, which Dan perfectly well understood, too well, indeed, to allow himself to be hurried in the least. "One foot up, and one foot down, That's the way to Lunnon town," laughed Marion when they had gone a few rods. "Klick! Klick!" with more decisive tugs from Dan's mistress; but the "Klicks," as well as the tugs, were of no avail, and Marion, afraid to venture another comment, turned her eyes from the horse to the scenery around her. Notwithstanding the extreme cold, the ride to the little meeting-house Marion will never forget. When she left the farmhouse it seemed to her a short walk would bring her to the foot of the snow-clad mountains; but, to her surprise, when they reached the church they were towering up above the small village like huge sentinels, so still, so grand, that, hardly conscious she was speaking aloud, Marion said,-- "I never knew before what it meant in the Bible where it says, 'The strength of the hills is his also.' Wonderful! wonderful!" "Eh?" asked Aunt Betty, only a dim comprehension of what Marion meant having crept in beneath the big red hood that covered her head. Marion repeated the verse, and to her surprise her aunt answered it with, "'Who art thou, O great mountain? Before Zerubbabel thou shalt become a plain: and he shall bring forth the headstone thereof with shoutings, crying grace! grace unto it.'" Not a word did she offer in explanation; she only twitched the horse's head more emphatically, and did not speak again until she reached the meeting-house door. What a desolate-looking audience-room it was! Up in one corner roared a big iron stove, which, do its best, failed to warm but a few feet of the spaces around it. A gray-bearded minister in his overcoat was reading from the pulpit a hymn, as they went in, and a dozen people, most of them men, were scattered round in the bare pews. They all looked pleased to see an addition to their number, and some nodded to Aunt Betty; all stared at the new-comer. There was no sermon, but a short address, which Marion strove to remember, that she might repeat it to her father, as having come from the old pulpit before which he had worshipped as a boy; but, do her best to be attentive and decorous, her teeth chattered, and the "Amen" was to her the most interesting part of the services. The ride home was even colder than the one to the meeting; for a brisk north-east wind had risen, and came howling down from the mountains in strong, long gusts that betokened a coming storm. Dan obstinately refused to move one foot faster than he chose, and before they reached home they were thoroughly and, indeed, dangerously benumbed with the cold. Little thought had they of Thanksgiving, as they clung to the warm stove and listened to the rising of the wind. It was Marion who first remembered the day, and looked about for some way of keeping it. Poor, pinched, half-frozen Aunt Betty had entirely forgotten it. Now Marion made herself perfectly at home. She found old-fashioned china that would have been held precious in many houses, decorating with it the table in a deft and tasteful way that warmed lonely Aunt Betty's heart, as she watched her, more than the blazing fire could; and while she worked, she talked, or sang little snatches of college songs learned at school, which rippled out in her rich voice with a melody never heard in the old farmhouse before. It was not long before Aunt Betty came to her help, and such a bountiful dinner as she had prepared made Marion wish over and over again that Helen, alone in that large academy building, could have been there to share it with her. "Thanksgiving night!" Marion kept saying this to herself over and over again, as she sat alone with Aunt Betty over the kitchen stove. A little oblong light stand was drawn up between them, holding a small kerosene lamp. Not a book but the Bible, and a copy of the Farmer's Almanac suspended by a string from the corner of the mantel, was to be seen. Marion, having heard so much of the intelligence of the New Hampshire farmers, supposed of course there would be a library in the house, and had brought only her Greek Tragedy with her. This she did not dare open again, so there she sat, Aunt Betty, not having yet entirely recovered from the effects of her cold ride, alternately nodding and rousing herself to a vain effort to keep her eyes open. And all the time the storm was increasing, the wind rocking the house with its rough blasts, until it seemed to utter loud groans, and the sharp cold snapping and cracking the shaking timbers with short volleys of sound like gun-shots. Frightened mice scurried about in the low roof over the kitchen; and rats, lonely rats, seeking company, came to the top of the cellar stairs, pushing the door open with their pointed noses, and blinking in beseechingly with their big round eyes. Marion, who had never heard anything of the kind before, was really frightened. "O Aunt Betty," she said piteously, "do, please, wake up and tell me if there are ghosts here!" Aunt Betty just stared at her; she was wide awake now. "There are such dreadful noises, and such mice, and--and rats!" "Nonsense!" said Aunt Betty, listening. "Don't be a coward! It's only the storm." "It's fearful! What can we do?" "Pop corn!" Marion could not help laughing at the inconsequent answer; but anything was better than the noisy stillness of the last hour, and bringing a large brass warming-pan and some corn, they were soon busy popping the corn. It would have been difficult to say which of the two enjoyed the sport the most. It carried Marion home, where the family were all gathered together before the brisk fire in the cheerful sitting-room. Aunt Betty was young again. Nat and Sam, Bertha and Molly, and little Ruth filled the big, empty kitchen, laughed merrily over the crackling corn, held out small hands to catch it as the cover swung back, pelted each other with it till the spotless floor crunched beneath their dancing feet. It had been long years since they had come home to her before on Thanksgiving night, but here they were now, all evoked by Marion's glad youth. The moment the old clock struck nine, warming-pan, corn, and dishes vanished from sight. A long tallow-dip Aunt Betty held out to Marion, and pointed up-stairs. Marion obeyed; and though all night long the wind howled, the mice and the rats held high carnival, Marion slept soundly, and never knew that Aunt Betty, with her candle held high above her head, made another visit to her bedside, and there, bending her old knees, offered up her simple prayer, asking in much faith and love God's blessing on this new-found niece. CHAPTER XXIV. MARION'S REPENTANCE. No time had been mentioned for the continuance of Marion's visit; and coming as she had from the busy life of the school, where every minute had its allotted task, Thanksgiving week was hardly over before she began to be very homesick. In vain she strove against it, and by every pleasant device in her power tried to make her visit pleasant to her aunt. Even the short November days seemed to her endless, and the evenings had only the early bedtime to make them endurable. On her first coming, she had told Aunt Betty the day the vacation was over, and evidently she was expected to stay until then; but on the morning of the seventh day she became desperate, and for want of any other excuse hit upon one that would be most displeasing to her aunt. "You don't like to have me study my Greek here, Aunt Betty," she said; "and, as I must review it before the term begins, I think I had better go back now." Aunt Betty put her steel-bowed spectacles high up on her nose, and, after looking at her silently for a moment, said,-- "I don't take no stock in your Greek." Marion laughed good-naturedly. "If you only would let me read it to you," she said, "you would like it as well as I do; it's so soft and beautiful." "What's the matter with your Bible? Isn't that good enough for you?" "But, Aunt Betty, you don't understand." But Aunt Betty did understand enough to be very sure she did not want Marion to go, so she turned abruptly on her heel, and hid herself in the depths of the pantry. Marion stood for a moment undecided what to do, then, seeing that if she would go that day she had very little time to lose, she went up-stairs, packed her valise, and the next time she saw her aunt was ready for her journey back. The prospect of a mile walk through the half-broken roads, up steep hills, and down into drifted valleys, would have shown Marion the difficulties had she been a New Englander; but as she was not, her courage did not fail in the least when, without a word more, or any sign of a good-by from Aunt Betty, she opened the door, letting in a cold she was a stranger to, and went out into it. Of that walk she never liked to speak afterwards. Many times she stopped, almost but not quite willing to return; tired, half-frozen, and unhappy that her rest had terminated unpleasantly, yet so very, very homesick that she seemed driven on to the station,--if to reach it were a possibility. Fortunately for her, when she had reached the last half she was overtaken by a man driving an empty wood-cart, who stopped and asked her if she "didn't want a lift?" From what this saved her, no one could ever know. In the mean time, Aunt Betty, with her eyes dimmed--but she did not know it was by tears--had watched her through a slit in a green paper window-shade. Until she left the door, she did not believe she could do so foolish a thing as to attempt the walk to the station on such a morning; but when she saw her step off so courageously down the narrow foot-path, she began to have misgivings. Notwithstanding her tears, the sight seemed to harden instead of soften her heart. "If the gal will go, go she will," she said aloud, with some unforgiving wags of her head. "She's stuck full of obstinacy as her father was afore her." And by this time Marion was hidden from her sight by the deep snow-banks, and she turned from the window into her lonely kitchen with a heavy heart. Marion, safely back in the academy, had, like Aunt Betty, her own troubled thoughts. She found only Helen there among the scholars, and every teacher away but Miss Ashton, who evidently had not expected her back so soon. Regular school duties did not begin until Tuesday of the next week, and now it was only Wednesday night. She might have remained in Belden a day or two longer, and then left with her aunt's approval. What kind of a return had she made to her aunt for her kindness? Marion's room, that she had thought of with so much longing as she sat in the farm kitchen, had lost its charm. She was very willing to believe it was because her room-mates were not there, and the fast falling darkness prevented her from seeing from her window the winter view, which even the grand old mountains that she had left behind her did not make her value less. Self-deception was not one of Marion's faults; she grew so quickly regretful for what had happened, that when Miss Ashton came to her door, troubled by the girl's tired look on her arrival, she found her with red eyes and a swollen face. "Tell me all about it," she said, taking no notice of her tears, but turning up the gas to make the room more cheerful. "What has gone wrong? Wasn't your aunt glad to see you? Are you sick? Fancy I am mother, and tell me the whole story." She took Marion's hand in hers, drew the young girl close to her, and stroked the bonnie brown hair with a loving mother's touch. "It's all my blame," said Marion, her voice trembling as she spoke. "My aunt was as kind as she could be, but it was so lonely, and"--with a smile now--"so noisy there." "Noisy!" repeated Miss Ashton. "Yes, ma'am; there were ghosts and rats and mice; the very house groaned and shook, and the wind came howling down from the mountains, and all the windows rattled." Miss Ashton only laughed; but when Marion went on to tell the story of her leaving the house against her aunt's wishes, she looked very sober. She had no knowledge of Aunt Betty's circumstances, surroundings, or character, but she knew well the nature of country roads during a New England winter. She thought from Marion's own account that her homesickness had made her obstinate and unreasonable, and that her coming away must have been a source of anxiety to her aunt, while she was unable to prevent it. "Marion," she said at last, "didn't you think more of yourself than of your aunt?" "Yes, ma'am," said Marion unhesitatingly. "And to be selfish is always?" "Mean. Don't say another word please, Miss Ashton." "I am sure, Marion, in the future you will be more careful. It is such an easy thing to wound and worry those about whom we should always be thoughtful. If I were you, I would not let a mail go out without carrying a note to your aunt, telling her of your safe arrival here, and of your regrets for what has happened. It's always a noble thing to say 'I'm sorry,' when one has done wrong." The next mail took the following letter:-- MY DEAR AUNT,--I am going to write you to-night, to tell you two things. One is, that I am safely back again at the academy, and the other, that I think it was both inconsiderate and unkind for me to leave you as I did, when I saw you thought I had better stay with you. I am ashamed and grieved that I did not do as you wanted me to. I hope most sincerely you will forgive me and forget it. I cannot easily forgive myself, and I am sure I shall never forget all your kindness to me, or the nice time we had with the bright warming-pan and the crisp pop-corn, or the wonderful mountains all wrapped in their ermine mantles. Please forgive, and love your ashamed niece, MARION PARKE. Aunt Betty's correspondence amounted sometimes to two letters a year, so this penitent letter of Marion's remained in the post-office until the postmaster found a chance to send it to her. By that time, what she had suffered from anxiety had made her unable to cope with the perils of the winter before her, and she often said to the few visitors who came in to see her, "I've dropped a stitch I can never take up again," but never a word of blame for Marion did she speak; indeed, she had come to love the young girl so well, that it is doubtful whether, even in her heart, she harbored one hard thought toward her. The letter finished, Marion's conscience gave her less uneasiness. No thought had she of the suffering her selfish action had occasioned. The visit had, after all, many pleasant memories, and for her only beneficial results. There had come to her from her repentance and Miss Ashton's kind reproof, a lesson, if not new, at least impressive, of the necessity of thinking of others more than of one's self. She could not see her Greek Tragedy without a smile, indeed, she went so far as sometimes to think that its reception in the old kitchen of the farmhouse had given her a greater avidity for its study. On the whole, this winter visit was by no means a lost one; and when Saturday brought more of the scholars back, and the term began, she was fully ready for it. On Sunday morning Nellie, feeling lonely and sick, had come to Marion's room. Marion made a nice bed for her on her sofa, and sat by her side bathing her hot, aching head, now and then reading to her. Toward night she complained of her throat; fearing Miss Ashton would send her to the nurse if she were told of it, she would not let Marion go to her, but begged to stay where she was so piteously that Marion gladly consented, asking leave of the teacher, but not mentioning Nellie's sickness. The consequence was, that the disease progressed rapidly, and when morning came she was too sick even to object to the nurse, who, surprised and bewildered, sent for Miss Ashton at once. Dr. Dawson, the physician of twenty years' academical sickness, being summoned, pronounced it a case of diphtheria, and ordered Nellie's removal to the rooms used as a hospital, and Marion's separation from the rest of the school, as she had been exposed to the same disease. CHAPTER XXV. DIPHTHERIA. On Tuesday the regular exercises of the day were to begin. All day Monday, carriage after carriage came driving up to the academy, depositing their loads of freight,--excited girls full of the freshness and pleasure gathered from their brief holiday. The long corridors were merry with affectionate osculations. Light, happy laughs danced out from rosy lips, and arms were twined and intertwined in the loving clasp of young girls. So much to tell! So much to hear! Miss Ashton, welcoming the coming groups, called it a "Thanksgiving Pandemonium;" but she enjoyed it quite as much as any of the rioters. In the evening, when they were all together in the large parlor, she turned the gathering into a pleasant party, helped to fill it with fun and frolic, and sent even the most homesick to their rooms with smiles instead of tears. Not a word had been said of Nellie Blair's sickness. There is no place where a panic is more easily started and harder to control than in a girls' school; nor is there any cause that will so surely awaken it as a case of diphtheria. Its acute suffering, its often sudden end, its contagiousness, all combine to make it the most dreaded of diseases. Some reason had to be given, of course, for the condition in which Marion's room-mates found their room on their arrival, also for Marion's removal. Miss Ashton had guardedly told them the truth, with the strictest request that they should keep it to themselves; but, in spite of her injunction, that night after the party broke up, there was not a girl in the hall who did not know and who was not alarmed by Nellie's sickness. Anxious groups gathered together in the corridors and discussed it. Some fled to their rooms and wrote hurried notes home, asking for leave to come back at once. The panic had begun, augmented beyond doubt by the excitement consequent on the return. Miss Ashton was besieged by girls, all anxious to know the exact state of the case, and not a few clamoring for leave to go away, even that very night, from the contagion. Had she any less influence over this frightened crowd, or they any less trust in her wisdom and kindness, half of the rooms would have been empty before morning; but, as it was, simply by telling them the truth, that Nellie had diphtheria, but that the doctor said that it was not a malignant case, and that there was not the slightest danger of its spreading, with even ordinary care, she succeeded in so far quieting their fears that they went to their rooms, though, if she had only known it, to discuss with even more excitement than they had shown to her the dreadful possibilities before them. One girl actually stole out at midnight and, hurrying through the cold and darkness, went to the house of a cousin who lived near by, waking and alarming the family in a way that they found hard to forgive, and taking by this exposure so severe a cold that, serious lung symptoms developing, she was sent home, and her academical course ended. The next morning when the school gathered in the chapel, they found Dr. Dawson on the stage. After the preliminary exercises were over, he rose, and said,-- "Young ladies, I understand you have taken fright on account of the case of diphtheria that is occurring here. I am an old man, as you see, and have had a hundred, perhaps five hundred cases as like this as two peas in a pod." (He stopped, expecting a smile at least for his homely comparison, but every face was as sober as if he had come to sound a death-knell.) "Miss Blair _is_ sick, I might say is _very_ sick, but I am not in the least anxious about her, or about any of you. Under ordinary circumstances, and I consider these very ordinary, I think there is not any probability of another case in the house. "Take an old physician's advice. Stay where you are, go promptly and faithfully about your regular duties, don't mention the word diphtheria, and don't think of it. If I were a life-insurance agent, I would insure those of you who obeyed my injunctions for half the premium that I would those who worry over this, or run away. Again I say, go faithfully about your ordinary duties, and all of you" (dropping his voice into solemn tones now) "ask God to be with and protect you, and restore to you your sick companion." Then he took up his hat and marched down through the long, girl-bordered aisle, smiling and nodding to those he knew as he went. On the whole, his speech did little to allay the panic. He had not only allowed that Nellie was _very_ sick, but he had talked about "life-insurance," and asking God for protection. Qualms of fear followed him as he went. Miss Ashton understood the assembly better than the wise physician, and before he had closed the door she regretted that she had asked him to address them. One part of his advice, however, was sound; that regarding to the scholars at once resuming their work, and putting diphtheria out of conversation and mind. If only good advice could or would always be taken, what a different world it would be! Fortunately here, among these two hundred girls, there were leaders both sensible and trusted, who did follow the doctor's advice, went at once about their studies, and ably seconded the exertions of the teachers to resume the usual routine of work. Among the most prominent of these was Dorothy Ottley. She had that indescribable moral power over the girls which comes, and one is tempted to say comes only, from a consistent, faithful, gentle, loving character. She did not draw to herself that impulsive love which is here to-day and gone to-morrow, so common among girls; but if any were sad or sick or in trouble they instinctively sought Dorothy, and they always found in her what they needed. She was plain looking; her sea-browned face, her thin, light hair that wind and wave had bleached, the pathetic look that years of a hard life had stamped upon her, could not conceal, could not even dim, the strong, true soul that looked out of her gray eye, or change the effect of the honest words her lips always spoke. Now, wherever she went, the girls clustered around her, followed her example in prompt attendance on the regular duties, and somehow, no one could have told you just how, felt safer that she was there. Marion, Miss Ashton kept from among them. If she had been exposed to the disease from Nellie's being with her, it might be best not to allow her to mingle with the others; besides, they would shun her, and that Marion would find hard to bear. As it was not known except to her room-mates that she had returned from her vacation, this was easy to do; and so in the pleasant guest-room Marion went on with her studies without a fear of diphtheria, only thinking of, and anxious for, the sick friend. It was Gladys who began the series of attentions that on the second day filled Nellie's room with gifts of flowers, of fruit, of books, even of candy and pretty toys, which the girls had already begun to gather for the coming Christmas. Miss Mason, the trained nurse, was kept busy at certain hours answering the teacher's knock who brought the gifts and the accompanying love,--and Nellie, poor Nellie, struggling with the pain and the uncertainty, was cheered and helped by loving attentions given to her for the first time in her desolate life. Miss Ashton, hearing every hour from the sickroom, shared in the cheer and the help; there was a reward to her in this proof of the tenderness and generosity of that wonderful woman's nature she had made it her life's work to develop and train. Each day there was a bulletin put up in the hall, stating Nellie's condition. It was always cheerful. Miss Ashton wrote,-- "Nellie is cross this morning. Dr. Dawson pronounces it the best symptom he has seen since she was taken sick." "Nellie has asked for a piece of that mince-pie one of you sent her. Nurse says, 'No,' but looks much pleased at the request." "Rejoicing in the hospital! a decided improvement in Nellie." "Nellie teases to sit up." "Nellie lifted onto the sofa! Dressed in my old blue wrapper! Looks white and funny." "Nellie sends her love and thanks to all her kind, kind friends." "Nellie teasing to see Marion Parke." "Nellie pronounced out of danger." "Nellie removed to Mrs. Gaston's, where she will stay until she is strong enough to resume her studies. Sends love and thanks." The next day there were rumors around the school that Marion Parke, who had been missed by this time, and accounted for, was taken sick with diphtheria, and was much worse than Nellie had ever been. Now, of course, the panic began anew; and as many of the girls had written home and obtained leave to return, more than that, commands to do so, as the sick girl's case was contagious, Miss Ashton found all her trouble renewed. She had been besieged with letters from anxious parents, charging her not to trifle with their children's lives, but by all means to send them home at once if there was the least real danger; so now she had no hesitation in letting those go who wished, indeed it was a relief to her to have the number of her school smaller, and the anxiety lessened; but now it was only a scare. Marion did have a sore throat, but it was one which comes often with an ordinary cold, and Dr. Dawson laughed at it, gave her some slight medicines, and scolded Miss Ashton for having separated her so long from the girls. The girls gave her a wide berth, but for this Miss Ashton had prepared her, and Marion was more amused than hurt by it. Before a week had passed, the four room-mates were together in their old rooms, and Marion was made a heroine. All she had done for Nellie was exaggerated, with that generous exaggeration of which girls are so capable. After all, this diphtheritic episode had only been injurious to the school inasmuch as it had broken into the regular routine, and thrown hindrances into the completion of work which was expected to be done before the coming on of the long holiday vacation. That Christmas and New Year's came so soon after Thanksgiving was something for the teachers to deplore; but as they were in no way responsible for it, and as indeed Christmas was a religious holiday, well in keeping with the _animus_ of the institution, they met it heartily, the more so than usual this year, as they hoped, the vacation over, to resume the regular course, both in study and discipline, without any further interruption. CHAPTER XXVI. CHRISTMAS COMING. The Demosthenic Club had received two severe setbacks since its organization. One when Kate Underwood's tableaux fell under Miss Ashton's displeasure on account of the carelessness it had shown in injuring, for fun's sake, the feelings of a schoolmate; the other when members of the club had been guilty of a flagrant breach of the rules, by the stolen sleigh-ride with the Atherton boys. "In spite of it all," Kate Underwood said, "we will just change its name, and go on as if nothing had happened. We are to be now the 'Never Say Die Club.' Vote on it, girls." The new name was adopted by acclamation, and several other votes were carried at the same time, all in favor of law and order, showing how truly these girls had meant to keep the promises they had made in their extremity to Miss Ashton, to be law-abiding members of the school. They held their secret meetings as often and as secretly as their constitution demanded; they discussed all questions that the interests of the times suggested. If they had a spread, it was before study hours, and with unlocked doors. On the whole, Jenny Barton, Kate Underwood, and Mamie Smythe took the lessons they had received into good, honest hearts, and grew, by the many resisted temptations which were born of the secrecy of their club, into better, nobler characters. Miss Ashton, watching them with vigilant eyes, marked the improvement, and showed her value of it by greater confidence in its leading members. There was an important meeting to be held a week before the breaking up for the Christmas vacation. It was to be in Lilly White's room, where, indeed, most of their meetings were held, for Lilly had a room by herself, richly furnished, this being the only inducement her parents could offer her, that made her consent to the fearful ordeal of a few years at school,--to be dull and to be wealthy! Who would desire it for any child? "You understand," said President Jenny Barton, after the meeting was called to order, "that this is to be no common affair. It's to be, well! it's to be a sort of atonement for--well, for those other affairs; and, girls, if we do anything about it, let's do it up handsome. What do you say?" "Do it jist illigant, or let it alone," said Mamie Smythe. "Jist illigant!" repeated one member of the club after another, until the president said,-- "Motioned, and carried. Now for our plan. Keep it a profound secret!" Such a busy place as the academy became now, probably had its counterpart in every girls' boarding-school all over the length and breadth of our land. Where there is good discipline and good scholarship, neither the rules nor the lessons are allowed to be slighted; but as December days shorten, and December cold strengthens, even the most indolent pupil finds herself under a certain stress of occupation which she cannot resist. Shirking can find no place in the recitation-room. Moments that have been idled away now become precious, each one laden with its weight of some loving remembrance to be made for the dear ones at home. Such treasures of delicate silks, laces, plushes, velvets, ribbons, embroideries, card-boards, tassels, cords, gilt in every shape and capable of every use; such pretty gift-books, booklets, cards, afghans, sofa-pillows, head-rests; such wonders of ingenuity in working up places for thermometers, putting them in dust-pans, tying them onto bread-rollers, slipping them behind wonderful clusters of sweet painted flowers; such pen-wipers, such blotters, work-baskets, paper-baskets, bureau coverings, bureau mats! napery of all varieties; and, after all, this enumeration is but the beginning of what in Montrose Academy was hidden in drawers, stowed away in most impossible and impracticable places, yet always ready to the hand for a spare moment. Two hundred girls,--for by this time most of the diphtheritic runaways had returned,--and all, without an exception, were Christmas busy! Christmas crazy! What a changed place it made of the school! Benedictions on the hallowed holiday! If we put aside its religious bearing, think of it only as a time when heart goes out to heart, even the most selfish of us all will remember to show our love in a visible token of affection. If, with all this, we can make our offerings hallowed by a tenderer love and a deeper affection for Him in whose honor the whole world keeps the festival, then, indeed, the day becomes to us the most blessed and beautiful of our lives! Marion Parke saw it as it was kept here in an entirely new way. At her Western home, her father had made it a day of religious observance. Marion had always been leader in trimming their church with the pretty greens which their mild winter spared to them, and on Christmas Sunday they sang Christmas hymns, and listened to a Christmas sermon. On Christmas Eve they had a Christmas-tree, and hung it with such useful gifts as their necessities demanded and a small purse could provide. It was a happy, precious day, simply and heartily kept; but here she was lost in wonder, as she was called from room to room to see the rare and beautiful gifts which, it seemed to her, abounded everywhere. Money to purchase such things for herself to give away she had not, but she watched her room-mates, as they deftly prepared their gifts for their Rock Cove homes, with delight. How busy and happy they were! Sometimes Marion's longing to send something, if only a little remembrance, home brought the tears into her eyes. Gladys was the first to see this and to guess its cause. At once she began to purchase new silks, trimmings of all kinds, booklets, cards, increasing her store, until even her cousins, accustomed as they were to her fitful extravagances, wondered at her. When her drawers, never too orderly, began to assume a chaotic appearance, she said fretfully one morning to Marion Parke, who was looking and laughing at the chaos,-- "I should think, instead of laughing at me, it would be a great deal better natured in you to help me put them into some kind of order. Your drawer isn't half full. Look here! open it, and let me tuck some of these duds in." Marion opened hers, pushed the few things it contained carefully into a corner, and said,-- "You are very welcome to all the room you want. Remember, I am only here on sufferance; it is really all yours." "Nonsense! help me, can't you? I shall pitch them in any way, and you are so tidy!" Help her Marion did, and when the jumbled but valuable contents of the drawer were all transferred, Gladys shut it up with a gleeful laugh. "Oh, how splendid it is," she said, "to have the drawer clean and clear again! Never one of those duds is going back, and you can use them or throw them away; put them in a rag-bag if you want to; I've nothing more to do with them." Then Sue and Dorothy understood what the extravagance meant, but Marion did not; she only stood still, staring at Gladys, wondering what she could have said or done to vex her kind-hearted room-mate. And it was not until hours afterward, when she was alone with Dorothy, and Dorothy told her they were gifts to her, that she knew how rich in Christmas treasures she had suddenly become. And here it is pleasant to tell, that this was only one of Gladys's thoughtful kindnesses. Little bundles of similar gifts were constantly going from her to the doors of the girls whose small means made Christmas presents luxuries in which they could not indulge. Even Gladys's liberal father wondered often over the amount of money which she wished for these holidays; but he trusted her, and in truth felt proud and glad that this only child had a noble, generous nature, which could, and did, think of others more than of herself; for in the account which she always sent him of the expenditure of these moneys, while there were many "give aways," there were few dollars spent on herself. One day, in the regular mail-bag, there came this note to Miss Ashton:-- We, the undersigned, grateful for the undeserved kindnesses with which you have made our repentant days so happy, request the pleasure of your company in the parlor, Tuesday evening, December 22. JENNY BARTON, SOPHY KANE, KATE UNDERWOOD, MAMIE SMYTHE, LUCY SNOW, LILLY WHITE, MARTHA DODD, _and all the members of the "Never Say Die Club."_ "What are those girls up to now?" Miss Ashton said with a pleasant laugh, as she read the invitation, but she accepted it without any delay, and when she was told by Miss Newton, the confidential helper of the whole school in any of their wants, that the parlor had been lent to the secret society for the evening, and no teacher was to be allowed entrance until eight o'clock, she smilingly acquiesced. The club were excused from their recitations that afternoon, and it was amusing to see how much spying there was among the rest of the school to find out what was going on. All that could be seen, however, was the coming in of a big boxed article, unfortunately for the curious, so boxed that no one could even guess what it contained. A general invitation had been given to the whole school, and before the appointed hour for opening the door, groups of girls in full evening dress began to fill the corridor and press close to the door. When, punctual to the appointed moment, it was flung open, a burst of laughter followed. Ranged around a covered object in the middle of the room stood twenty girls, dressed in gray flannel blankets made in the fashion of the penitential robes worn by nuns. They all wore stiff white hoods, with the long capes coming down over their shoulders, and each one carried in her hand a small tin pan filled to the brim with ashes. They stood immovable until Miss Ashton entered the room, when the whole club sank upon their knees, bending their heads until they nearly touched the floor, dexterously placing the tin of ashes upon their backs. No sooner had they assumed this position than a little flag was unfurled from the top of the covered object in the middle of the room, upon which was printed in large letters:-- "FORGIVE, AND ACCEPT." Then the covering was slowly removed by some one hidden beneath it, and there stood an elegant writing-desk, on the front of which were the words:-- "A MERRY CHRISTMAS TO MISS ASHTON THE MERCIFUL FROM HER GRATEFUL NEVER SAY DIE CLUB." CHAPTER XXVII. CHRISTMAS IN THE ACADEMY. Marion, two days before Christmas, was once more left alone in her room. The Rock Cove cousins had given her the most cordial invitation to go home with them for the vacation, but she had declined. In doing so, she had a half-acknowledged feeling that she was to suffer just penance for her misdeeds at Belden, and a dread of what unknown trouble she might meet at Rock Cove. This Eastern world was so different from the whole-hearted, kindly one she had left behind her, that instead of wonting to it, she grew timid, diffident of herself, even among the girls, and shy about venturing abroad. So she made her mind up bravely to stay where she was, and spend her vacation in study. Miss Ashton fully approved; for since Marion's sickness with her cold, she had shown an inclination to cough, and was often hoarse in the morning. A stay by the seaside in winter would be to run a risk. It might be dull for her to remain, but she loved her books, and there was plenty for her to do in order to keep up with her advanced classes; besides, there were twenty of the pupils whose homes were so distant they could not go there, and return, without taking more time than the vacation allowed, so they, also, were to remain, and Marion, though dull, need not be lonely. All the teachers but Fräulein Sausmann were to be absent, and to her care Miss Ashton had to commit the young ladies during the vacation. The wheels of the carriage that took her away from the academy had hardly ceased to be heard by the anxious listeners there, before Marion's door was opened just far enough to admit the Fräulein's good-natured face. Never had her ample head of light hair looked so large, her blue eyes so blue, her nose so _retroussé_, or her thin lips so thin, to Marion, as now. Before she had time to welcome her, the Fräulein said in her high-pitched voice,-- "O Marione! Wir happiness time wir have der Christtag. Wir 'ave der Baum so high," holding up a plump little hand as high as she could reach. "Twenty, thirty das Licht! Christtag presented buful! You 'ave one, sieben, zwölf, four! You come happiness; nicht cry, nicht! nicht! Lachen! so!" and a merry peal of laughter Marion found no trouble in echoing. "You come parlor Christtag night, you see! I, Santa Claus! Merry Christtag. Catch you! Nicht cry! Lachen! Lachen!" She shut the door softly, but Marion heard her laugh as she went down the long corridor, such a merry, contagious laugh, that it carried away with it the loneliness from Marion's room. There was to be a gathering in the parlor then,--der Baum. Twenty, thirty das Licht, and what else? Of one thing Marion felt sure, if she was to receive, one, sieben, zwölf, four presents, she must give some in return, but what, and to whom? She was not long in doubt. Lilly White was among those who remained, and the Fräulein had hardly gone when she made her appearance with four other girls at her door. "Oui, Fräulein Marione! Ab alio expectes, alteri quod feceris. "That's French, Latin, and German. I picked it out of"-- "Don't tell, Lilly White," broke in one of the girls. "See if Marion can translate it." "Come in and let me try," said Marion, laughing. "Oui--yes; Fräulein--Miss Marion; Ab alio expectes, alteri quod feceris--If any one gives you a present, be sure you give one back." "A literal translation," said the same girl. "Miss Jones always said you were her best Latin scholar. Practically, however, it translates,-- "Come with us to Lilly White's room, and we'll show you a thing or two. But we mustn't all go together. If we do, the Fräulein will be popping down on us to be sure no mischief is brewing." "I'll tell you what I will do; I will write in German 'No Admittance' on a big placard, and put it outside my door. What is the German, girls?" "Nicht Zulassung," said one of the girls promptly. "Write it, Lilly, in a big, bold hand." They went together to Lilly's room; and she took a large square of pasteboard, and, without deigning to ask how the words were spelled, she printed in big letters:-- "NOTTZ ULLARSG." "There!" she said, turning it triumphantly for the others to read. Then she hung it on the outside of the door, moved a table to the door, planted a chair upon it, mounted into the chair, and peeped down through the transom to watch for the Fräulein's coming. The others watched her, and all business for the time was suspended. Pretty soon they heard the pattering of the Fräulein's little feet along the corridor, then the sudden halting before their door. Lilly, with a beet-red face, and frantic gestures of two big red hands, motioned them to be still. They heard,-- "N--O--T--T--Z." A significant grunt; then again, "N--O--T--T--Z;" a pause. Again, "N--O--T--T--Z U--L--L--A--R--S--G." "Hindoostanee? No; Indianee: Marione Parkee!" Then a little laugh, followed by,-- "Marione! Marione! Ope die Thur! What you mean, Nottz Ullarsg?" "No admittance," said Lilly White through the transom. "Why, Fräulein, don't you know your own German?" "Know my own German?" repeated the Fräulein slowly. "Know--my--own--German? Nein! Nein! German, Lilly White! Nein Vater Land. "Lilly White, open die Thur, quickest! My own German! Nein! Nein! Nein! "Marione Parke's Indianee!" It was some moments before Lilly, the chair and the table, could be removed from the door, the Fräulein keeping up a series of impatient knockings while she waited. Then Marion, as the one in whom she would feel the greatest confidence, was pushed to the small opening allowed, and told to say,-- "It's Christmas, almost, dear Fräulein. It's secrets here now. We can't let you in." "Indianee?" asked the Fräulein, pointing to the placard. "What you mean, Marione?" "It was meant to mean 'No Admittance' in German, Fräulein." Such funny little shrieks as the Fräulein uttered, no one could understand, not even Marion, who was looking in her face. There were anger and fun and amazement, chasing each other in quick succession, her hands beating time to each feeling, as an instrument utters its music to the touch. To the amazement of all, it ended in the Fräulein shrieking out,-- "Lilly White! You be a--what you call um der thor, narr, dummkopf, fool, idiotte; you know German, nicht! nicht, you idiotte!" In these hard words the little German teacher's anger wholly vanished; pulling down the placard, she tore it in bits, gathered them up in her small white apron, made a sweeping courtesy, and trotted away. As soon as she was fairly out of hearing, the girls began to busy themselves about their Christmas work. Lilly White's room was full of things to be made into pretty gifts for the tree, of which the Fräulein's share was by far the largest. There is a wonderful degree of thoughtfulness among a company of girls. Not one there but knew of Marion's circumstances, and how impossible it would be for her, out of her slender purse, to meet the demands of the occasion. If Gladys Philbrick had generously helped her to prepare the pretty gifts which were on their way to her far-away home, so these girls as generously planned that in the Fräulein's festival she should not find herself in the embarrassing position of being the one who should receive, without making a return. It was beautiful to see the delicacy with which they managed the whole, so that Marion hardly felt how much they gave, and how pleasantly she received. On Christmas morning the whole house was early astir. All up and down the corridors, long before the dim light penetrated into them, white-robed figures flitted noiselessly from door to door. "Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas!" was whispered inside, until a ghost-like procession of some twenty girls headed for the Fräulein's room. This was at the end of the second corridor, and as they approached it not a sound was to be heard from within but the satisfactory one of long and loud snores. It had been agreed on the previous night that not a door should be locked on the inside, and Helen Stratton, "the cute girl," who could do anything she tried to do, was chosen to open this door. This she did so noiselessly, that the whole twenty girls entered the room and surrounded the Fräulein's bed without so much as interrupting a single snore. Then all at once a merry chorus broke out with,-- "Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas, Fräulein!" The Fräulein stirred in her bed. Then another shout, louder than the first, and she sat bolt upright. The gas in the hall had been lighted, and stole in through the transom sufficiently to give the ghost-like look the girls sought; but even with this, she was slow in comprehending what was happening. One more shout, and she sprang out of bed, catching the one nearest to her, and giving her a good, hard shaking. "Der Christtag! Der Christtag! Fröhlich Weinacht! Fröhlich; I wishes you 'arpy Christtag! What _you_ call it?" "Merry Christmas!" shouted the girls. "Ah, Ja! Ja! Merrie Christmas! one Merrie Christmas, a t'ousand Merrie Christmas. Now you go dress! Miss Ashton say, 'Fräulein, the young ladies tak cough.' You catched me, I catched you to-nacht. You see! gute nacht! gute nacht!" And like a very small queen, in her pretty nightdress, she waved the girls away, then locked her door; if they had come back only a few minutes later, they would have heard the same musical sounds coming from her bed. But when the day had fairly dawned, it would have been difficult to find a more wide-awake, alert teacher than the Fräulein, or one that could have given a truer and pleasanter Christmas day and night. CHAPTER XXVIII. FRÄULEIN'S GYMNASTICS. "Fräulein, can you have prayers for the young ladies in the small reception-room on Christmas morning?" Miss Ashton asked with much hesitation the day before leaving. "Ja! Ja!" answered the Fräulein, all smiles and nods. "Very well, then, I will give the notice to-night. As Christmas is a religious festival, I shall be glad to have a religious as well as a festival observation of it. As for the matter of going to church, the young-ladies can do as they please; there need be nothing compulsory about it." "I mistand," and the Fräulein congratulated herself on her correct English. "All wrong; nein! nein, all." "Right," said Miss Ashton, laughing. "Oui, Ja! Der Dank! Tanks. I learn Anglais soon. Patientia, Fräulein Ashton. I learn soon, by un by." In compliance with this request, after a hasty Christmas breakfast, the girls assembled in the reception-room, and waited with more curiosity than devotion the coming of the Fräulein. She had not been down to breakfast, and when she made her appearance now, it was as if an odd-shaped swan was waddling into the room. From head to foot she was dressed in a fluffy white stuff, that stood out all over her like snow-feathers. A stifled laugh greeted her, but of this she took no notice; walking slowly to the table that had been prepared for her, she turned a solemn face toward the girls, opened a German prayer-book, and began to read the service for Christmas morning, stopping when she came to the places for the chant, and, motioning to her audience to rise and join her, she sang in sweet tones music familiar to the girls, in which, with the English words they were accustomed to, they all joined. Then down she fell upon her knees, the others following her example, and with her eyes half shut, and her little hands folded reverently upon her prayer-book, she rattled off prayer after prayer with astonishing rapidity. Now, though the young ladies had come in anything but a solemn frame of mind, which the Fräulein's droll appearance was not calculated to change, there was something so devotional, almost solemn, in her rapidly changing expression of face, that they became at once and unconsciously devout. Dropping on their knees, and covering their faces, they joined her "Amens" with hushed voices, and into their susceptible hearts the hallowing influence of the religious festival found ready entrance. They were hardly prepared to see the Fräulein spring lightly upon her feet, to hear a merry laugh ring out, and "Good-morgen! good-morgen!" spoken with the accompaniment of a cloud of white batting, that flew off from her arms and shoulders as she laughed. Queer little Fräulein! but good and kind as she was queer! All day long she worked indefatigably alone in the big parlor. Not one of the girls was allowed even so much as a peep within the doors. The day was a rarely fine one for a New England Christmas. The sun shone out of a cloudless sky; a warm south wind blew gently over the deep snow-drifts; little sparrows hopped delightedly upon the branches of the Norway spruces that grew close to the house, lifted their pretty wings as if to coax the wind and sun, while they chirped their cheerful Christmas carols, stole the late berries from the trees, and twisted their round heads so they could send loving glances up to the bevy of pretty girls that watched and smiled down upon them, as they fed them from their windows. At seven o'clock the gong was sounded, and the young ladies in gala dresses filed into the bright parlor. In the centre of the room was a large tree. Near it stood the Fräulein, smiling and courtesying to each one as she entered. A quaint little figure she was; yet, with all her quaintness, there was enough of dignity to suppress any merriment her appearance might have caused. The number and variety of these gifts was a marvel to them. When they were fairly distributed, the Fräulein lifted the cover of an unopened box, and took from it a gift for every teacher. Good, happy Fräulein! Not a thoughtful word or a kind act from these to you strangers in a strange land, but you have treasured in your homesick heart, and from the Vater Land you bring to them all to-day your grateful recognition of it all! Perhaps the happiest of them was the lame Nellie, who, yet weak and pale from her sickness, had with the Fräulein's consent brought to the Christmas-tree little pictures which she had painted in her convalescence, as gifts to them all. She held tight to Marion's hand. In some way, she could not have told you how, she seemed to herself to have owed to this dear friend the ability to have painted them. It was a little cross she gave Marion, but she had hung on it a wreath of lovely rosebuds, meaning, through them, to convey to Marion how her love had made the cross of her suffering beautiful. As the vacation had commenced on the twenty-third of December, and school did not begin again until the fifth of January, there was quite a time remaining after the excitement of Christmas had passed. The more scholarly and industrious of the girls remaining at the academy at once applied themselves to making up whatever deficiencies had occurred in their studies. Marion found plenty to do, not only for herself, but also for Nellie, whose lessons had necessarily run behind during her illness. The Fräulein found them together over their books much oftener than she thought was for their good. Having been thoroughly educated in the German methods of teaching, she was a firm believer in vacation benefits, also in muscular training, which she considered quite as essential for girls as for boys. In her imperfect English, and also by personal illustration, she had tried, ever since her connection with this school, to awaken the teachers, Miss Ashton in particular, to a greater sense of its importance. To be sure, there was a gymnasium in the building, and a regular teacher, who faithfully put her pupils through the exercises commonly allowed to girls. But these seemed to the Fräulein to be only a beginning of what might be done; so, now, finding herself for a time in sole authority in the school, she at once, as soon as Christmas was over, began to put her girls through what she considered so essential to their health. She made her first attempt upon Marion and Nellie. Finding them both bent nearly double over their books, Nellie very pale, with dark rings under her eyes, and Marion with flushed cheeks and too bright eyes, she at once routed them from their books, made them stand up before her, and said,-- "Now, do"--and her English word failing her, she drew a long breath from the bottom of her chest, and motioned to them to imitate her. Marion, never having attempted anything of the kind before, did so partially, and Nellie could only produce something that sounded like a gurgle in her small throat. The Fräulein shook her head impatiently, and repeated the process over and over again, Marion gaining a little every time, but Nellie soon discouraged and tired. "Bard! bard! nicht right--aushauchen tief--so, thus:" (deep breaths from the Fräulein). Then, seeming suddenly to remember that the girls did not know why she made the request, she tried in an anglicized German, which no one could by any possibility have understood, to explain it to them. She tapped her own head, took up a book, appeared to read it, while she moved the leaves in time with her long inhalations and exhalations. "Bon scholars! long--so!" Then suddenly she said, "Patientia!" and vanished from the room. In a few minutes the corridor was full of noisy girls, who came direct to Marion's room, and in obedience to the Fräulein's directions arranged themselves in a circle. They had only the vaguest idea what they had been called for, but they knew the Fräulein always gave them "a jolly good time," and came willingly. Merry enough they were for the next hour, and much to the Fräulein's surprise, for they were quicker than German girls, they made so much progress that, after the second lesson, a plan that was to tell much in future for the well-being of the academy was fully developed. The Fräulein drew up a paper in German, in which she detailed not only the benefits physically resulting from her system of deep breathing, but also the help it would be in resting the excited nerves with which so many of the young girls came into the recitation-room. Then, before presenting it to Miss Ashton, she roused the enthusiasm of her class by telling them how much she needed their help, as examples of the great good to be derived from her gymnastics. And the result was that they had not only the amusement of the exercises to help them pass the vacation, but also the benefit resulting from it, and the hope that through them it would become a part of the school-life. When Miss Ashton returned, she was not a little surprised at the gain she so quickly recognized, nor was she slow in availing herself of its aid. She had always felt that nothing was more necessary for a good working head than a perfect physical balance, and for that reason she allowed and encouraged a greater amount of amusement, which was relaxation from study, than was common in what is called a finishing school. It was almost the only boast in which she indulged, that, during the twenty years of her care of the academy as principal, she had never had a case of fatal sickness, or, indeed, of any severe enough to excite alarm. During the fall she obliged the girls, as long as the weather would allow, to spend hours every day in the open air, giving them their choice of exercise,--walking, riding, boating, botanizing, geologizing, any and every thing that would bring to them rest and change. In winter there was dancing in the large hall, there were compulsory gymnastics, there were skating on the pond, coasting on the hills back of the academy, or, not so seldom as it might have been supposed would be the case among girls, snowballing in the most approved boy-fashion. Indeed, once upon a time it was reported that, having come out, as she generally made a point of doing whenever any amusement was going on, to witness the sport, a girl more audacious than any of the others ventured to throw a snow-ball in the direction of her august person, and it was received with such a merry laugh, that another followed, and another, and another, until she was as ermine-covered as if she were dressed for a court reception; and not a girl among the laughing crowd but loved her better and respected her more. "My best recitations," she was often heard to say, "come after the best frolics. Give me pupils with steady nerves, bright eyes, and sweet, clear voices, and I will show you a school where they study well, and the deportment is of the best. "I am never so anxious about my girls as when the weather shuts them in-doors, and the cold makes them want to hug the radiators." It was on account of the good common-sense by which this method of regulation was carried on, that the school was sought far and near; to this, in a great measure, it owed its success. The gymnastic teacher already employed was a good one for the old methods; but there was something so inspiring in the Fräulein's enthusiasm on the theory of long breaths, that Miss Ashton made it at once a part of daily practice, and put her in as teacher for those classes. Watching the result of the experiment, it took Miss Ashton but a short time to satisfy herself as to its immediate benefits; and as for the girls themselves, they were so amused and strengthened by the lessons that, after a little practice, it became a favorite diversion, and you would find them often in merry groups, inhaling and exhaling, perhaps not in exact accordance with the Fräulein's rules, but gaining at least in proportion to their enjoyment. As for the Fräulein, a very happy and proud teacher she boastfully declared herself. CHAPTER XXIX. WOMEN'S WORK. The Christmas holidays being over, the young ladies returned slowly, and many of them reluctantly, to the school. A few left for good; some of them on their own account, some at the request of the principal. New pupils took their places, and almost at once the regular routine of work began. Miss Ashton in one of her short morning talks told them, while the past term had been in many respects a satisfactory one, there had been several occurrences which she should be sorry to see repeated. It would not be necessary for her to enumerate them; they were well known to the old pupils, and for the new ones, she sincerely hoped there would be no occasion for them ever to hear of them. There were now some important things, upon strict attendance to which she should insist during the remainder of the year. One was, a more honest observance of the study hours; another, less gossip: perhaps she should be better understood if she said a higher tone of social intercourse. A thing never to be forgotten was, that the school-life was a preparation for the longer one beyond, and that, a preparation for the one that never ends. "Sometimes," she said, dropping into that hushed tone which every girl in the remotest seat from her desk heard so easily, "I think our lives are but the school in which we all have set lessons to learn, set tasks to perform; and our wise Teacher, so patient, so gentle, so loving with us, when the great examination day comes, will hold us strictly accountable for every slighted lesson, for every neglected duty. "If I could only impress upon you to-day how vitally important here and hereafter the faithful discharge of even your smallest duties may be to you, I should know that when our year together is over, and I part from many of you for the last time, I should meet you again as 'crowns of my rejoicing.' "I need hardly say, certainly not to the more intelligent, who would naturally gather information of this kind, how varied and important a woman's work in life has grown to be. You are all more or less familiar with the fact that we have now entrance into the best colleges, both here and abroad. You know how we are educated for every profession, and to what eminence many of us have climbed. You understand fully, that there is not a position in the literary, business, mechanical, or art world in which to-day a woman may not be found working successfully. "You know, too, that where prizes have been offered in academical institutions, no matter for what object, it is by no means an uncommon thing for it to be awarded to a girl. Last week a class of fourteen women were graduated from the law department of the University of the City of New York. It is said to be the first law class exclusively of women that has ever been graduated. "Two female medical graduates have been appointed house surgeons at two English hospitals. A society has been incorporated in New York entitled the 'Colonial Dames of America,' and to be located in New York City. "Its objects are set forth to be, to collect manuscripts, traditions, relics, and mementoes of by-gone days for preservation; to commemorate the history and success of the American Revolution and consequent birth of the republic of the United States; to diffuse healthful and intelligent information with regard to American history, and tending to create a popular interest therein, and to inspire patriotism and love of country; to promote social interest and fellowship among its members, and to inculcate among the young the obligations of patriotism and reverence for the founders of American constitutional liberty. "A number of prominent ladies are included in the list of officers. "In this connection I will read you a short article I found in my morning paper; and here, let me say, there is not a girl in the school who should not in some way manage to spend a half-hour every day in looking over a newspaper. "I have heard intelligent gentlemen complain of the ignorance of women about the ordinary public life. "'They will talk to you,' they say, 'about housekeeping and servants: they grow eloquent over their children, and sometimes their husbands; but take them out of the region of home, and they are dull company.' "The exceptions of those who are up in the literary, political, scientific, and socialistic world is infinitely small, and all--all because they will not take the trouble to make themselves intelligent on the great questions of the day, by reading newspapers." To go on, however, with what women are doing. "The New Women's Propylæum, in Indianapolis, Indiana, is now completed, and was dedicated January 27. "This building bears the distinction of being the first one erected by women not associated as a club or society. Primarily, its use is for purely business purposes, and secondly, with an educational object in view. Six or seven women, with Mrs. May Wright Sewall at the head, have raised the money and carried out the project. It seemed at first to the public generally like a wild scheme, but the women who had the matter in hand knew just what they wanted, and made every effort to carry out their plans successfully. The board of managers is made up of fifteen women. "Mrs. Sewall says, 'The building of the Propylæum has been to all of us a valuable experience. We have been obliged to meet business men, and to familiarize ourselves with business methods, and have thus acquired an education unusual to women. The lot has a frontage of seventy-five feet, and a depth of sixty-seven feet. The building contains twenty-one rooms, there being two stories above an English basement. The lot cost $5,500, and the building complete $22,500, making a total of $28,000; and $2,000 has been put into furniture. The front of the Propylæum is of ashlar and rock-face work, and it is pronounced a very beautiful structure. The women take special pride in the kitchen, which is complete in every respect. In the front basement are two sets of doctors' offices, both of which were rented long ago; one set to Dr. Maria Gates, and the other to Dr. Mary Smith. Dr. Gates is a graduate of the Chicago Medical College, and Dr. Smith of the Michigan University. The latter is physician at the female prison and reformatory. "'The east parlor is rented by the Woman's Club, the Matinée Musicale, the Indianapolis Art Association, and the Contemporary Club, each of which has arranged to meet on such occasions that they will not interfere with each other. The west parlor is rented for physical culture classes, and to the Christian scientists for their Sunday meetings. The assembly hall will be for rent for entertainments.' "This is interesting, as showing what an active, intelligent set of women have done. "Perhaps some day I shall be receiving newspaper notices of even more important and successful work accomplished by some of my pupils. Here is an interesting notice of women as inventors: 'Within the last century, women have entered for the first time in the history of the world as competitors with men in the field of original contrivances. In the last two years and a half they have secured from the government exclusive rights in five hundred machines and other devices. In the line of machinery, pure and simple, the patent-office reports show they have exhibited great inventive capacity. Among remarkable patents of theirs, are patents for electrical lighting, noiseless elevated roads, apparatus for raising sunken vessels, sewing-machine motors, screw propellers, agricultural tools, spinning-machines, locomotive wheels, burglar alarms. "'Quite a sensation has been caused among the clerks in the New York post-office by the entrance of seven young women into the money-order department as clerks during the last month. The girls obtained their positions by surpassing their male competitors at the civil-service examination, and will receive the same pay as male clerks.' "Here is another that will interest the ambitiously literary among you:-- "'Miss Kingsley, daughter of Charles Kingsley, has been awarded the decoration of the French academic palms, with the grade of "officer of the academy," for her valuable writings upon French art.' "There seems, as you will notice from what I have read you, no bounds to what we women not only can do, but in which our success is generously allowed and honorably mentioned; but there are several things to which I may as well call your attention here. "There is not now, there never has been, an honorable achievement, but it has been gained by steady, persevering effort. I think I could pick out from among the young ladies before me, those who in the future will be able to hold positions of trust and usefulness, perhaps renown; they are the girls who are true, honest workers, day in and day out, week in and week out. This honest work never has been, never will be, done where time is frittered away, where rules are broken, where those numberless little deceits which I am grieved to say many a girl who should be far above them sometimes practises; it requires a noble character to do noble work. "I am desirous, particularly so, to impress upon you all to-day, as it is the beginning of our longest, hardest, and most important term of the year, the necessity for every one of you individually doing her best as a scholar, as a lady, and, let me add, what I wish I could feel sure you would strive for beyond all other claims, as a Christian. A true Christian is as good a scholar as her natural abilities allow, a lady she must be everywhere, and at every time. "In closing, I have one request to make of you; you will see, while it does not seem to bear immediately upon what I have been saying, there is a close connection. "I want to turn your attention specially to women's work in this nineteenth century. When you learn in a more extended manner than I have been able to give you this morning, what they have done, what they are doing, and what they expect to do, you will realize more fully your share in the life before you. "In order that you may do this, at some not distant time, we will all meet in the parlor, and I shall expect every one of you to bring to me some account of this work. From two hundred of you, we ought to gather enough to make us not only proud of being women, but ambitious to be among the leaders of our sex." * * * * * Then she dismissed the school. CHAPTER XXX. DECEIT. Miss Ashton's talk had an excellent influence upon the school. Even the wealthy girls felt there was something worth living for but society and fashion. A large proportion of the pupils were from families in moderate circumstances; to them avenues of access to power and influence were opened. To the poor, of whom there were not a few, help in its best sense was offered in ways that faithful diligence would make their own. In just so far as Miss Ashton had made these two things, faithfulness and diligence, the ground-work of all success, she had given the true character to her school; and as the work of the term began with this demand upon the attention of the pupils, there was a fair prospect of its being the best of the year. The holidays had come and gone. Not a room in the large building but bore evidence of its wealth in Christmas gifts. New books covered many of the girls' tables, new pictures hung on their walls; chairs, old and faded, blossomed into new life with their head-rests, their pretty pillows and elaborate scarfs; ribbons of all colors decked lounges, tables, curtains; pen-wipers, lay gracefully by the side of elegant ink-stands, perfume bottles stood on _étagères_, while the numbers of hand-painted toilet articles, articles to be used in spreads, bric-a-brac of all kinds and descriptions, it would have been hard to number. Pretty, tasteful surroundings are as much a part of a girl's true education as the severer curriculum that is offered to her in her studies, and Miss Ashton gave the influences of these Christmas gifts their full value when she weighed the harder work for the teachers which the vacation always brought. To be sure, there came a time at the beginning of the term when the unwise parents were responsible for much bad work. Those of their children who had come back with boxes filled with Christmas luxuries--candies, pies, cakes, boxes of preserved fruits, nuts, raisins, and whatever would tempt them to eat out of time and place--had little chance to do well in the recitation-room until these were disposed of. In truth, even more difficult, more of a hindrance in her school discipline, Miss Ashton often found the parents than their children. She was sometimes obliged to say, "I could have done something with that girl if her mother had let her alone." One fact had established itself in her experience, that almost every girl committed to her care had, in the home estimation of her character, traits which demanded in their treatment different discipline from that given to any of the others. She could have employed a secretary with profit, simply to answer letters relating to these prodigies, and nine out of ten proved to be only girls of the most common stamp, both for intellect and character. Marion had spent her vacation time in a profitable manner. As mathematics was her most difficult study, so she had given her attention almost entirely to it; and even Miss Palmer, who was never good-natured when a pupil was advanced into one of her classes, and by so doing made her extra work, was obliged to confess she was now among her best scholars. Thus encouraged, Marion received an impetus in all her other studies; and, of course, as good scholarship always will, this added to the influence which her sterling moral worth and kindly ways had already given her. There was one dunce in her mathematical class who gave her great annoyance; it was Carrie Smyth, a Southern girl, into whose dull head no figures ever penetrated. There was something really pitiable as she sat, book in hand, trying to puzzle out the simplest problem, and Marion often helped her, until Miss Palmer prohibited it. "I will not allow it," she said decidedly. "If Carrie cannot get her own lessons we ought to know it, and to treat her accordingly. Whatever assistance she needs, I prefer to give her myself." Marion obeyed, and Carrie cried, but the consequences followed at once. Carrie soon learned to copy from Marion's slate whatever she needed, and, as Marion sat next her in the class, this was an easy thing to do; and as Miss Palmer, wisely, seldom asked Carrie any but the simplest questions, well knowing how useless any others would be, she escaped detection until, one day, grown bolder by her escapes, she copied from Marion more openly, Marion seeing her. That this might have happened once, but never would again, Marion felt quite sure; but what was her dismay, when she saw it continue day after day. She was ashamed to let Carrie know of her discovery, as many another noble girl has been under similar circumstances, but she knew well that it could not be allowed, and that to pretend ignorance of the fact was wrong. She moved her seat, but, after staring at her blankly out of her dull eyes, Carrie moved hers to her side, and the class all laughed at this demonstration of affection; but Miss Palmer, who had taught long enough to know that it might mean something but affection, watched them. She had not long to do so before she discovered Carrie's trick, Marion's knowledge of it, and her embarrassment. After recitation, she told them to remain, and when they were alone together she said,-- "Marion Parke! how long have you known that Carrie Smyth copied her sums off your slate?" Poor Marion! She looked at Miss Palmer, then at Carrie; the color came into her face, and the tears into her eyes, but she did not answer a word. Miss Palmer repeated her question with much asperity. Still no answer, but two large tears on Marion's cheeks. "You do not choose to answer me" (a little more gently now): "I shall report your behavior to Miss Ashton. Carrie Smyth, how long have you been copying Marion's sums, instead of doing your own?" "I've--I've never copied them, Miss Palmer," said Carrie, looking Miss Palmer boldly in the face. "Carrie Smyth, I saw you do so!" "I--I never did, never, Miss Palmer. _Never!_" "Go to your room, Carrie Smyth. I am not surprised at your readiness to tell a falsehood; you have been acting one for weeks, and they are all the same, the acted and the spoken, in God's sight. Go to your room and pray; ask God to forgive you." Then she opened a Bible which lay on a table near her, and in very solemn tones read these words, "'But the fearful and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers'" (glancing off now in a threatening manner at Carrie), "'and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.'" Carrie turned very pale. If Miss Palmer had asked her for the truth again, she would have told it, but she did not; she only motioned the girls from the room, and went herself to see Miss Ashton. Incidents similar to this were not unusual in the school, and Miss Ashton always considered them the most painful and troublesome to deal with. She waited a day or two before taking any notice of it, then she sent for Marion, who went to her room with fear and trembling. "Marion," said Miss Ashton, beckoning to her to come and sit on the sofa beside her, "I am very sorry on your account that this has happened. It would have been better if you had told Miss Palmer as soon as you knew what Carrie was doing; better for her, for of course she was deceiving, and we know what that means; better for Miss Palmer, for she could form no just estimate of Carrie's scholarship, for which she is responsible; and better for you, because, in a certain way, it made you a partaker in the deception." "O Miss Ashton! I could not tell on her; I could not, _I could not!_" exclaimed Marion. "I understand you perfectly," said wise Miss Ashton; "I only want you to see the situation as it is. If you had thought of it, you might have come to me. Everything of that kind I should know, then your responsibility would have ceased, and, without making a class matter of it, I could have influenced Carrie to do right. "Now, if you fully understand me, run back to your lessons, only remember, in whatever perplexity for the future you find yourself, I am the house mother, and you are all my children; you would not have hesitated to tell your mother if you had found any of your brothers or sisters doing wrong, should you?" "No, ma'am; I should have gone to her at once." "And not felt that you were a tell-tale?" "Not for a moment." "Just so, then, it is here; we are all one family, and there is nothing mean in reporting to me, more than to a mother. It's the motive that prompts the telling that gives it its moral character. It is the noblest that can act wisely, and escape the odium of tell-tales; and, my dear Marion, I feel quite sure that for the future I can trust you." Marion went away with a light heart. "Trust me? of course she can," she said to herself; "but I am so sorry for Carrie Smyth." Carrie, in truth, even after listening to the terrible denunciations Miss Palmer had read to her, was to be pitied for her moral as well as mental dulness. She went through the ordeal of her talk with Miss Ashton with far less feeling than Marion had shown; and the only punishment she minded was being put back into the class of beginners, and being told that the next time she was found doing anything of the kind, and told a falsehood about it, she would be expelled from school. This, on the whole, she would have liked, for study was detestable to her, and there was nothing but the ambition of her mother that made it seem necessary in her home surroundings. Both Miss Palmer and Marion were delighted to have her leave the class. Marion kindly kept the reason for her having done so to herself, though many inquiries were made of her by the other scholars. CHAPTER XXXI. MARION'S LETTER FROM HOME. Soon after the first of January, Marion received the following letter from her mother:-- "We have all been made so happy to-day, my dear child, by a letter from Miss Ashton. She writes us how well you have been doing, and how much attached to you she has become. All this we expected as a matter of course, but what delights and satisfies us most, is what she says of your religious influence in the school. We knew we were sending you into an untried life, that would be full of anxieties and temptations. With all the confidence we felt in you, we should hardly, no matter how great the literary advantages offered, have liked to put you where the character of your surroundings would have been less helpful; and to know that you, in your turn, are proving helpful to others, is indeed a great gratification. God bless, strengthen, and keep you, my darling, through this new year, is your loving mother's prayer. "It almost seems to me that we miss you more and more as time goes. Phil counts the weeks now until you come home, and I found the little ones busy doing a long sum on their slates, which, when they brought to me to see if it was right, I saw was to ascertain first, how many days before you came, and then, how many hours. Bennie told me that to-morrow they were to calculate the minutes, and then the seconds. I suppose they have, for I see them studying the clock very often, particularly the minute hand. "So you see how we miss and long for you at home. "Your father is busier than ever. He is truly a workman of whom his Master need not to be ashamed. He keeps well and happy. Deacon Simonds came in last night to ask him to have some extra meetings, as the Methodists were going to have an evangelist here, and might draw away people from his church; but your father said in his gentle way, 'The parish was not too large as yet for him to do all the work required, and if any of his people could be benefited by the evangelist, and should wish to unite with that church, he should wish them Godspeed.' Then the deacon said something about the difficulty of raising the salary, which I minded more than your father. What a good, trusting man he is! Mrs. Hoppen ran in this noon with a large tin pan full of delicious doughnuts she had fried for us, and Hetty Sprague put two pumpkin-pies into my pantry window. Not a day passes but we are cared for in some way. I laugh, for it looks as if they thought now you are gone there was no one left to prepare goodies for the home. Tim Knowles dumped a load of coal into our cellar when your father was away, then came to the kitchen door and said,-- "'Mis' Parke, you tell the parson if he'll keep up the fire of religion in the church, I'll keep it up in his study stove, and it sha'n't cost him a copper cent. We all d'ought to have ways of sarving the Lord, and this 'ere is mine.' Then he hurried away, without giving me a chance to even say 'Thank you.' "Sometimes it seems to me as if our whole parish felt as if you belonged to them, and they had sent you away to school, and were to pay your expenses, they are so wonderfully kind and thoughtful of us. Your sabbath-school class sent you their New Year's gift yesterday; I know you will value it. Old Aunt Cutts is knitting you a pair of blue stockings; the dear old lady is taking so much comfort out of the work, that she has made them large enough for you to put both of your little feet into one; and Kate Sanders brought me her white feather to ask me if, now you had to dress stylish, I didn't think you could make use of it. I thanked her, and told her that you were wearing a hat so small I was sure the feather was too large for it. I think it was quite a relief to her, for that soiled and bedraggled feather is to her still, 'the apple of her eye.' "So, my dear parish child, you have a great burden of responsibility to carry; but your mother knows how easily and how honorably it will be borne." Marion read this letter with a variety of feelings. It had never been the home way to make her religious character a separate and distinct thing. It dominated the whole home-life. Do right, _do right_! She had almost never been told, do not do wrong, but always do right, and this meant simply and only, be a Christian. It was such a noble way to step upward from the beginning; not easy, oh, no, far from that, so often doing wrong in spite of precept and example, so often hesitating, until the delay weakened the power of doing right; yet so often, with hope and prayer to aid her, planting her foot firmly on the upper rung, singing as she went. Since she had been in school her life had been so changed, such different temptations to do wrong, such different helps to do right, that she had thought little of her influence upon her companions. The letter of her mother was almost a shock, as, for the first time, it brought up to her what she felt had been her neglect. All these months here, and what had she ever done or said that would tell for Jesus? Three room-mates; had she ever tried, from the first of her coming among them, to help them into a Christian life? To be sure they had their set times for private devotions, time required by the rules, when every pupil was expected to read her Bible, if nothing more. That they had all done, and Dorothy had "entered into her closet, and shut her door." There could be no doubt that she had prayed to her Father which is in secret, and her Father which seeth in secret had rewarded her openly; for, often, when she came back among them, her face had been so full of sweet peacefulness. "Dorothy's influence has been the one for good, not mine," Marion thought, with that true humility which is a Christian grace. As for Gladys, why she was Gladys, and there was no one like her. So generous and noble, so true and faithful; I must learn of her surely, not she of me; but Susan! It must be confessed, that in the busy days Marion had almost forgotten Susan's dishonesty. She did not like her, often she found it hard to be even patient, much less kind, to her, and Susan was sometimes very trying. She could, and did, say many unkind words, "spites me," Marion said to herself; but generally bore the ill-humor pityingly, feeling sorry for a girl who could do as Susan had done. The fact was, that while Marion did not have Susan's guilt often in her mind, Susan never forgot it when she saw Marion. _Never_ may be too strong a word to use; but Susan was constantly uneasy in Marion's company, often positively unhappy, wishing over and over again she had never heard of "Storied West Rock," especially never, never been tempted to steal that story, and palm it off for her own. Not a day of her life but she expected to be found out, to be disgraced before the school, perhaps to be expelled. Poor Susan! she is reaping now the result of her selfish lifetime ambition to be among the noted ones, to be thought of first, and treated like a heroine! Ambition is a very laudable thing; we should all try to do our best, but never should it lead us into doing selfish, mean, dishonorable things; then it becomes a sin and not a virtue. It was the weakness, nay, something worse, in Susan's character, as we all know, always leading her into trouble, because it was so wholly selfish. If Marion could have reasoned all this out as we can, she would have had fewer compunctions of conscience as she sat holding her mother's letter in her hand, thinking over its contents. It was some time before she could fully enjoy all the items of family news it contained. Then they drew her pleasantly back to the dear home, the small parish, and the life-long friends she had left there. Gladys had been watching her as she read the letter, amused and interested by the different phases of feeling her face showed; when she saw her fold it up, she asked,-- "What's happened, Marion? You've looked as if you had been at a funeral, and then at a wedding, while you were reading it." "I have--almost," and Marion could laugh now. "Let me read you the last part of it; it is so like home." Then Marion read them about the children's sum, and the parishioners' kindness; and Gladys, as she listened, planned how she could help Marion without her ever suspecting from whence the help came, and Dorothy thought what a different home it must be from that she had left at Rock Cove. Marion, instead of studying her next lesson, as it was obviously her duty to do, sat with her book open before her, wondering how she could immediately enter upon a course of conduct that would give her a more enlarged and prominent religious influence. Never once suspecting that this was a way the tempter was taking to lead her from the true self-abnegation which is so vital to a growing Christian character. Single-eyed to God's glory! Miss Ashton in the recitation looked at her inquiringly several times. What could have happened, she wondered, to make Marion blunder so? She was generally prompt, and, considering how much she had to do to keep up with her class, correct; but to-day she seemed distraught, as if her mind were anywhere but upon her recitation. She stopped her after the lesson was finished, and asked her if she were sick; but Marion was well, nor was she, in her preoccupation, aware that Miss Ashton was not pleased. She answered her carelessly, which increased the teacher's uneasiness, and made her ask a little sharply, "What is it, Marion? You did badly in your recitation to-day." "Ma'am!" said Marion, looking at her in surprise. "I said you made a bad recitation," repeated Miss Ashton. "What has happened?" Then the color grew deeper and deeper in Marion's face. "My letter from my mother," she said, "O Miss Ashton, I am so sorry!" "Sorry for what? Is any one sick?" "No, Miss Ashton; but--but--there was so much to think of in it. I am so sorry I did badly." Now Miss Ashton smiled. "If that is all," she said, "I will try to forgive you. Can't you tell me something about your home letter? I like to hear of them." Then Marion poured out her whole heart, thanking her kind teacher simply and winningly for her own kind letter to the Western home, but giving no hint of the seed of evil the letter may have sown. CHAPTER XXXII. PENITENT. Marion's first plan in order to extend her religious influence was to get up a small prayer-meeting in her room. To be sure, the room was shared by three others, and she had never quite gotten over the uncomfortable feeling that she was an intruder, particularly as Susan so often showed hostility to her; but a prayer-meeting surely was a thing no right-minded girl ought to object to. Of Dorothy's approval she had no doubt. Gladys, if she did not wish to stay, would go away without the least hesitation. Susan! What Susan would do, who could tell? Knowing the need she had of a vital change in character, in order to be a Christian, Marion made no attempt to conceal from herself that her conversion alone was an object worth earnest and constant prayer; really the reward for the conquering of any diffidence she might have to overcome in instituting the meeting. It was not an hour after she had decided upon the twelve girls she would invite, before the tempter had her in his power again. She was planning the order of exercises for the meeting, which was as it should be; but it was not as right that she was leaping forward in her thoughts to the criticisms which the girls would make upon the part she should take, the hope that they would admire her fluency and spirituality, and say to her when they were leaving the room,-- "O Marion! how much good you have done us! We shall be grateful to you as long as we live." If any one had told her that here, by this same desire for self-aggrandizement, or, to call it by its more common name of popularity, Susan had fallen, she would have been astonished indeed. Prayer-meetings were by no means uncommon in this academy; but they were under the care of a teacher, and it was not long before the necessity of asking leave for the one in her room occurred to Marion; but here was a difficulty! Would not Miss Ashton ask her questions about this, which she would find difficult to answer; such as, "What made her propose it? What did she expect to accomplish?" If she did ask these, what could she say? There followed another day of poor recitations, and Marion, for almost the first time since she joined the school, was undeniably cross. By night she was sitting on the penitential stool, ashamed, tired, and full of wonder as to what had happened to her. As is not unusual in such cases, she was inclined to blame every one but herself. Miss Palmer had lost her patience with her because she hesitated over a difficult place in her mathematical lesson, and had snapped her up before the class; Anna Dawson had laughed at her blunder, and the whole class had most unkindly smiled. Dorothy had put her arm around her and asked her if she was sick, when she knew there was nothing the matter with her. Even Gladys had stopped scratching with her slate-pencil, looking at her in a way that said as plainly as words could, "What a nervous thing you are, not to bear the scratching of a pencil without wincing;" and as for Susan, tormenting as she had been on other days, she had been angelic in comparison with this. After all, she had too much good common-sense and true religious feeling to sit upon her stool long without beneficial results. It was nearly time for the lights to be put out before she began to see the first thing to be done was the right one; that is always sure. Do the duty nearest to you, then those more distant fall readily into line and are easily met. This was, to see Miss Ashton, no matter how awkward it would be to tell her that the thought of the prayer-meeting was first put into her head by Miss Ashton's letter home; that before, her religious influence had not been a thing of which she had for a moment thought, but that now she wished to make it tell. "I'll go at once," she said to herself. "I won't give it up because I'm a coward. I shall not sleep a wink unless it's settled. Life is short; death may come at any unexpected moment. I should not like to have my Judge ask why I had not done my duty, when, perchance, I, even I, might have been a poor, weak instrument, but still an instrument, in saving a soul." In this spirit Marion went to Miss Ashton's room, quite forgetting the lateness of the hour, and knocked timidly at the door. Miss Ashton, wearied by her day's anxieties, did not approve of these late calls, and only answered them for fear of sickness, so it was some time before she said, "Come in." She was not surprised to see Marion, for Miss Palmer had already reported her failure in the mathematical class; but she said kindly, "What is wrong now, Marion? Have you had another letter from home?" "No, Miss Ashton; it is--it was--I mean, I wanted to ask you if you had any objection to my having a prayer-meeting in my room?" "A prayer-meeting in your room?" repeated Miss Ashton. "Why do you ask it?" This was the question Marion had expected; but now, with Miss Ashton looking straight in her eyes, she hesitated to answer it. "I thought--I hoped," she blundered at last, "that I might do more good,--might, perhaps, save Susan." "I see," and Miss Ashton looked very grave now. "Your mother has told you what I wrote her of your religious influence here, and you wish to increase it; but why Susan particularly?" Now Marion found herself unexpectedly in deep waters. If she attempted to answer this question, what disclosures she would have to make! A tell-tale! A mischief-maker! A character of all others she despised, and so did, she well knew, the whole school. She hung her head, the color coming into her face, and the tears into her eyes. "There is something wrong here," Miss Ashton thought, but she only said,-- "I know Dorothy is a good girl; I am very fond of Gladys; but why do you select Susan as the one in the whole school to be prayed for, or with?" If an equivocation had been natural or easy to Marion, she might have been ready with several now, which perhaps would have satisfied Miss Ashton; but she was a straightforward, honest girl, who never in her whole life had been placed before where she hesitated what to answer; if she had been a culprit to-night, she would hardly have looked more utterly discomfited than standing there trying to look Miss Ashton in the face. "You do not choose to answer me," Miss Ashton said after waiting a moment. "Very well, then, we will go back to the prayer-meetings; I think it would be unwise for you to attempt any such thing. You might at first find a few girls who would be willing to come, but they would soon tire of it, and you would find yourself alone, unless Dorothy's kind heart made her willing to remain. Let me tell you, my dear Marion, the best, in fact the only way for a pupil to exert a strong and lasting religious influence is by living a consistent Christian life. What you _are_ always tells, never what you may appear. If you are truly desirous to exert this influence, you will let your companions see it in your daily walk and conversation. All the prayer-meetings you could have would be useless, if you yourself failed in a Christian grace. "To be kind, loving, gentle, true, faithful in all your duties, great and small, that is what your parents and I hope for in you. I had almost said, and I am sure you will not misunderstand me, I would rather have the influence of good recitations, strict observance of rules, lady-like behavior in all places and at all times, than a prayer-meeting in your room every night in the week. Now it is late; go back, and if you do not wish to tell me what is wrong with Susan, I must be all the more observant of her myself. Good-night." Marion said "Good-night" faintly; certainly this was a very different reception from what she had expected. "She wants me to be perfect," she said to herself fretfully, "and she knows that I never can be; then Susan! What have I done? Oh, dear! dear! I wish I had never thought about a prayer-meeting." So far she had only dimly seen where her motives had been wrong, but she felt their check. Fräulein Sausmann met her on her way to her room. "Why, Marione!" she said, drawing her little self erect, and trying to look very dignified, "I am astonish! I am regret! You am very onright. You am to be gone to Fräulein Ashton next day and say you regret; I determine on it! Marione, you stand-under?" "I have just come from Miss Ashton," said Marion gravely. "You has just come! Very bad. You _schlecht Fräulein_! What you for done?" "Nothing, Fräulein. At least," correcting herself as she remembered Susan, "I hope nothing _schlecht_." "You do not say right, Marione; I shame you German speak so _schlecht_." Then the Fräulein laughed merrily, and standing on the tips of her little toes she kissed Marion on both cheeks. The kisses went right to Marion's heart, cheered and comforted her so her face had a less troubled look as she entered her room. Susan was sitting at the table studying, and the searching glance she gave her made the color rush into Marion's face. "She's gone and told of me, the ugly, mean, old thing," thought Susan. "I knew she would sooner or later. Now I'm in for it!" In vain she tried to fasten her attention on her book again. Over and over the consequences of the disclosure she went with beating heart. "Oh, if I had never, never, never done it!" she said to herself in the helpless, hopeless way that attends a wrong action. The short-lived celebrity the story had given her had all died away, nothing remained but this dreadful regret, and fear of what was to come. When she saw Marion go into her bedroom, she had almost a mind to follow her and confess the truth. Then she thought Marion knew it already, had perhaps told Miss Ashton, and a better thing to do would be to go to Miss Ashton and make the confession; to go at once, this very night, before she had a chance to tell the whole school: perhaps if she did, Miss Ashton would be merciful, would scold and forgive her. She looked at the clock; if she made haste there would be five minutes before they must put their lights out! Once done, what a relief it would be! She darted from the room, not daring to trust a moment's delay; but when she reached the corridor the lights were already turned out. All would soon be darkness, and then none were allowed to leave their rooms. But Susan was desperate now; she knew her way down the long flights of stairs so well that she had no fear: her only thought was to reach Miss Ashton, to confess, to know her punishment, if punishment there were to be. She flitted softly, like a ghost, through the long corridors, down the long stairs; but when she came to Miss Ashton's door her gas was turned out, and that meant she would not open her door again that night. "I'll knock! Perhaps, just perhaps, she will let me in;" but there was no response to Susan's knock. She stood waiting until she shivered with nervous dread from head to foot, then she crept back to her room, and tossed restlessly through a weary night. CHAPTER XXXIII. SPRING VACATION. The bright light of a sunny day has a wonderful influence in quieting fears, and the next morning when Susan waked and found her room cheerful, everything looking natural and pleasant, her first feeling was one of shame for all she had suffered the night before. Nothing was easier now than to make herself believe she had been foolish in her suspicion of Marion; indeed, it was not long before she had made herself almost sure that Marion knew nothing about the stolen story, that she had wronged her in suspecting, even if she did, that she would be mean enough to betray her. For the first time since she copied it, she treated Marion not only kindly but affectionately, much to Marion's surprise, for she knew how near she had come to betraying Susan, and remembered Miss Ashton's saying, "If you do not choose to tell me what is the matter with Susan, I must be all the more observant of her myself." Would she watch her? Could she ever in any way find out about "Storied West Rock"? "At any rate," Marion comforted herself by thinking, "it will not be through me; but I wish I had not said even what I did." She wondered over Susan's advances, and met them coldly, shamefacedly. "If you only knew," she said to herself, "how different you would act!" Very important as these events seem to those particularly engaged, they make little apparent difference in the life of a large school. Marion again made faulty recitations, and again her teachers were troubled by them; but Susan, having in a measure, she could hardly understand how, been thrown off her fears, was unusually brilliant in her classes, winning what she valued so much, words of approbation from her teachers. The school work went on now with much success. The holiday break-up was fairly over. Washington's Birthday was not celebrated other than with an abundance of little hatchets of all designs and colors. Easter was too far away, and the _animus_ of the school was for quiet study. Even the club held meetings less often. The two girls who had been the chief planners of whatever mischief originated from it, Mamie Smythe and Annie Ormond, were on their best behavior, knowing full well that another misdeed, no matter of what character, meant expulsion. Upon these weeks preceding the Easter vacation, Miss Ashton had learned to rely for the best part of the year's work; so uneventfully, with the exception of now and then some slight escapade on the part of the pupils, the term rolled on to its spring rest. Easter came in the early part of April this year, but the season was backward, even snowstorms coming now and then; and fierce winds, more like March than April, forbade any hunting for early flowers, or looking, as so many longing eyes did, for the swelling of the bare branches of the trees, or the first shadowing of the green tassels that waited to show themselves to warm sunbeams. There were no examinations in this school, or marking the grade of scholarship; but for all that, there was never a doubt who were the best scholars, or who would have taken the prizes if any had been given. A week before Easter, Marion received a letter from her Aunt Betty, inviting her to spend the coming recess with her; but she declined it, asking that the visit might be deferred until the long summer vacation, when, as she was probably not to return home, she should be very glad to come. Evidently Aunt Betty had forgotten whatever was unpleasant in the Thanksgiving visit, and to be among the mountains through some of the hot summer weeks seemed to Marion would be pleasant indeed. But when the vacation came, and she found herself with only a few other girls almost alone in the great desolated building, she more than once regretted her decision. A pleasant young teacher of gymnastics, Miss Orne, was left in charge, but she was tired, and more anxious to rest than to amuse the girls, so they were left pretty much to themselves, and passed the ten days of vacation in the best way they could. "Girls will be girls," that was what Miss Ashton said when the pupils who had been at home came back with their summer outfits, and she found the whole attention of the school given for a few days to their examination and comparison. "If I could hear you talk half as much about any branch of study, or your art lessons, as I hear you talk about your new clothes," she said with a pleasant laugh, "I should be delighted; but I suppose nothing seems more important to you now than the fashions, and, on the whole, I don't know but I am glad of it." It was this interest in their many-sided life that gave Miss Ashton her great influence over them. The girls would take articles of apparel to her for her inspection, and find them doubly valuable if they met with her approval. There was one set whose wardrobes were objects of especial interest: those were the graduating class. Next to her bridal dress, there seems to be no other that is thought so much of, not only by the girl, but by her parents. It would be idle, perhaps out of place here, to say how much display and foolish extravagance there is at such a time. Where it can be well afforded, it is of comparatively little importance, but a great deal of heartache might be avoided, if the simplest costume were decided to be the most suitable. Parents whose means have been tried to the utmost to give their child the advantages of the school, who have never hesitated over any labor or self-denial in order to accomplish it, find themselves at last called to confront the question of dollars, hardly earned or saved, squandered on a dress almost worthless for future use, on pain of seeing their child mortified and unhappy because she cannot, on this eventful occasion, look as well as the others. Even Miss Ashton's influence, great as it was, had failed to accomplish any good result in changing this long-established custom; and for reasons best known to themselves, the present senior class had voted in their class meetings to make their graduation day one long to be remembered in the annals of the school. CHAPTER XXXIV. NEMESIS. Until this year this academy had had a salutatory and a valedictory in the same way they did at Atherton Academy, given for the best scholarship as it was there; but as this was considered a finishing school, differing therefore from the boys' school, which was only preparatory for other and higher education, it had been decided to change the graduating exercises to the four best essays, read by their writers, an address by some distinguished orator, music, and the giving of diplomas. All the graduating class were expected to write an essay, the Faculty to judge of their merits, and to choose from among them four of the best. Not only the interest of the class, but of the whole school, was intense on the writing of these essays. The literary merit of the teaching was to be shown by them; and as no graduating class ever comes to its commencement without pride in, and love for its _alma mater_, so it seemed as if the future reputation of the academy must depend upon the way this class acquitted itself. If it had been a boys' school, bets would have run high on the supposed best writers; here there was nothing of the kind, only those who had done well whenever compositions had been read to the school were chosen as girls of especial interest, watched, _fêted_, praised, encouraged, in short, prematurely made heroines of. Among the most conspicuous was Susan Downer. Though so little had been said of late of her success in writing "Storied West Rock," it was now recalled; and, as the weeks flew by before commencement, she was daily, sometimes it seemed to her hourly, reminded of it, and importuned to be sure and do as well now. Poor Susan! She knew how really unable she would be to do anything that would compare with it. Over and over again she made the attempt; but as writing was not one of her natural gifts, and as now, whenever she tried even to choose a subject, the theft came up before her, and she went through the whole, from the first temptation to the last crowned success, she could think of nothing else but the inevitable punishment that somewhere and at some time was waiting for her. There was but one hope she thought left for her, to see her brother Jerry, and tease him into giving her one of his essays, that she might use it as it was if possible, if not, with alterations that would make it suit the occasion. She would tell him that she only wanted to read it and get some hints from it, and once in her possession, she could do as she pleased. When she received his note refusing her invitation to come to the academy, her disappointment and her helplessness may be readily imagined, for she had allowed herself to depend upon him. To write to him for an essay she knew would be useless; he would only laugh, and say,-- "Nonsense! what does Sue want one for?" but if he were with her, he was so kind and good-natured, he would do almost anything she asked. But one thing now remained. Miss Randall, their teacher in rhetoric, who had the charge of the essays, gave subjects to those who wished them; she could apply to her, and perhaps find in the library something to help her. Miss Randall gave her, remembering her former success, and hoping she would do even better now, an historical subject, "The Signal of Paul Revere." "There have not been more than a hundred poems written on the same subject," she said in a little talk she had with Susan; "but if you can write poetry, and succeed, all the better for Montrose Academy. We will send it to the newspaper, and it may be the beginning of making your name famous." What a temptation to a girl like Susan! If--only IF she could find one of those hundred or more poems, find perhaps the whole of them, and make rhymes (easy work that), and be "famous," what a glorious thing it would be! Here was, alas, no repentance, or even fears of doing wrong. It almost seemed as if the new temptation had obliterated memory of the old theft, and she was about to enter upon what she had always longed for, a career of fame. She began to haunt the library, particularly the shelves of American poetry; but there was nothing to be found that had special reference to Paul Revere, not one of "the hundred and more pieces." In this way she wasted a great deal of precious time, until, disappointed and discouraged, she was about asking for another subject, when she came upon a volume of collections of poetry written on the late war, and a sudden thought that this might be made to answer the same purpose unfortunately struck her. She had read this kind of poetry but little; but had enough literary taste to make her choose one of the very best, consequently most popular and well known, for her model. "Model," she said to herself when, delighted, she found how easily she could use it with alterations. No miser was ever made more happy by a bag of gold than she by this discovery. "Famous! famous! An honor to Montrose Academy!" In the end, when her poem was ready for Miss Randall's examination, she read it aloud to her room-mates, and their astonishment and delight over her success they were too generous to withhold. Dorothy had worked very hard on her essay. It was carefully and well done; but Gladys's, short, brilliant, straight to the point, without pause or repetition, was an effort of which an older, more accustomed writer need not have been ashamed. But neither of these, they decided, could hold any comparison with Susan's. It was Marion who, though she did not recognize the poem, could not forget "Storied West Rock," that listened with a troubled face, and only added a few faint words to those of the others' praise. "She is an ugly, jealous old thing!" Susan made herself think, as she watched her narrowly; but then would come the thought, "I wonder if she suspects me?" remembering the story, and a cloud fell instantly over the bright sky of her hopes. But she was not to escape so easily; when she carried her poem to Miss Randall, she only glanced at the heading and down over the neatly written page, without reading a line, then said, "Come to me to-morrow afternoon at three, and we will read and correct it together. I hope you have made a success of it." Susan almost counted the hours until three came; then, proud and happy, she presented herself at Miss Randall's door. The teacher had the poem on a table before her, and by its side a book, the covers of which Susan recognized at once as being the volume from which she had stolen the poem. "Sit down, Susan," said Miss Randall gravely. Then without another word she began to read first a line of Susan's poem, then one from the poem in the book, pausing over the changed words, to substitute the one for the other. In truth, the changes were very few, how few Susan had not realized until they were thus set before her. "This is hardly what might be called a parody," Miss Randall said as she ended, looking gravely into Susan's face. "I suppose you had no idea of passing it off as your own work?" How inevitably one wrong act leads to another! There is an old saying that "one lie takes a hundred to cover it," and it is true. Susan had confidently expected this to pass for her own; but now, without a moment's hesitation, looking Miss Randall fully in the face, with a pleasant smile she said,-- "Oh, no, Miss Randall! I knew you would recognize it; you are too good a teacher of literature not to suppose you would be familiar with such a fine poem as that. I thought if I made a successful parody, it would be better than any poor thing I could write myself." Miss Randall was for a moment staggered. Was the girl telling her the truth, or was it only a readily gotten-up excuse? She waited a moment before she answered, then she said coldly,-- "This will not pass at all. I am sorry you have wasted so much time upon it; you will begin at once upon your essay, and, for fear you will be tempted to use some thoughts not your own, I will change the subject. You will write an essay on 'Truth.' Good-afternoon." "Miss Ashton!" said Miss Randall, presenting herself, a few moments after Susan's departure, in the principal's room. "I am afraid Susan Downer never wrote that excellent story, 'Storied West Rock.' I always have wondered over it, for it was far superior to anything else she has done since she has been in school, and now, I am sure, though she denies it in a very plausible way, that she has copied a poem, with only a few immaterial changes to make it fit her subject, intending to palm it off for her own." Miss Ashton did not answer at once; she was busy thinking. With the other teachers, her surprise had been great at the ability Susan had shown in the story; and now, instantly, she connected this report of Miss Randall's with Marion's embarrassed mention of Susan's name, and her own intention to discover what was wrong. Perhaps Susan had stolen it, and Marion had become acquainted with the theft. It was not impossible, at any rate she must inquire into it, so she said to Miss Randall. A day or two was allowed to pass before any further notice was taken of it, then Miss Ashton had decided to spare Marion, and call Susan directly to her. Susan had word sent to her that she was wanted in the principal's room, and obeyed the summons with a heavy heart. "Susan!" said Miss Ashton, "I am willing to believe that you copied your poem with the innocent intention of passing it off as a parody, and that you really did not know it could not be accepted, but there is one other thing that troubles me. Some time ago you wrote an excellent story called 'Storied West Rock;' was that yours, or another parody?" [Illustration: Susan dropped her head upon her chest, the color surging into her face, and the tears dropping from her eyes; but she did not speak a word.--Page 343. _Miss Ashton's New Pupil._] Susan! Susan! Tell the truth now; tell it at once, simply, honestly. Do not conceal even how you have suffered from it, not even how unkind and cross you have been to Marion. Own it all at once, quickly, without giving the tempter even a chance to tempt you! Don't you know, don't you see, how much your future depends upon it? Susan dropped her head upon her chest, the color surging into her face, and the tears dropping from her eyes; but she did not speak a word. In the silence of the room you could have heard a pin drop. Miss Ashton was answered. When she spoke there was tenderness and deep feeling in her voice. "Will you tell me the truth, Susan?" she said. But Susan did not answer; she only burst into a fit of hysterical sobbing, and after waiting a few moments in vain for it to subside, Miss Ashton added, "You had better go to your room now. I hope you will come soon to me, and tell me the whole truth." Susan rose slowly, lifting her swollen and discolored face up to Miss Ashton with an entreating look the kind principal found it hard to resist; but she did. She held the door open for Susan to pass out, and watched her go down the corridor with a troubled heart. CHAPTER XXXV. FAREWELL WORDS. There was little difficulty when the time came in deciding the four essays to be chosen. Kate Underwood's was in most respects the best, and would take the place usually filled by the valedictory. Dorothy Ottley's was the next strongest, and by far the most thoughtful. To no one's surprise as much as to her own, Gladys Philbrick's was the most brilliant, and Edna Grant's, the best scholar in English literature, the most scholarly. So the important question was settled a week before commencement, and the young ladies were given their choice, either to read their pieces or to speak them. Greatly to the surprise of the teachers they all chose to speak them, and the elocution teacher was at once put to drilling them for the occasion. The choice was pleasantly accepted by the school. Every one of the four were favorites, and whatever disappointment the rejected essayists felt, they kept wisely to themselves. Susan Downer's essay on "Truth" was a miserable failure, and a disgraced future was the only one she could see opening before her. She could not summon courage to make a confession to Miss Ashton; she decided, after hours and hours of troubled and vexatious thought, to be silent, trusting to her speedy removal from the school to silence all further questionings. Such a busy week as this was now at the academy! The mail brought every day piles of letters to teachers and scholars, which must be answered. Invitations were to be sent. All the preliminaries of a great gathering were to be attended to, and both the excitement and the listlessness attendant on a closing year were to be met and combated. It would be interesting if we could tell the story of each individual during this eventful period, but it would fill a whole volume by itself, so we must be contented by telling simply of those with whom we have had the most to do. Miss Ashton tried as far as she could, with so much else to attend to, to have a little personal conversation with every pupil who had been under her care for the year. Sometimes she saw them alone, sometimes she took them in classes, according to the importance of what she had to say. Before talking with Marion she sent the following short letter to her mother:-- MY DEAR MRS. PARKE,--I should esteem it a personal favor if you would allow your daughter Marion to remain with me free from expense to you for another year. She has proved in all regards not only an excellent scholar, but, as I wrote you before, the influence of her lovely Christian character has been of great value to me. I shall be glad to do all I can to help her into the influential and well-balanced future I see before her. You need have no fear that a feeling of indebtedness to me will be a burden to her, delicate as her feelings are. I propose, by putting her at the head of my post-office department, to fully repay myself for all she will receive. This will not interfere with her studies or her needed recreation, but will come at hours she can easily spare. Hoping this will meet with your cordial approbation, Truly yours, A. S. ASHTON. It was not until an answer to this had been received that Miss Ashton sent for Marion to come and see her. Marion had in the mean time a letter from her mother, asking if she wished to remain. To which Marion had answered, "Yes! Yes!" So now all Miss Ashton had to do was to tell Marion how satisfied she was both with her and the arrangement, and Marion to tell her kind teacher of her delight in remaining. Gladys was to return with her father after a pleasant summer spent at Rock Cove, and to her, Miss Ashton had much wise advice to give regarding her future. A motherless child, an indulgent, though wise father, no brothers or sisters, only a crowd of worshipping dependents; probably not to another girl in the whole school was there to come years which would test the character as hers was to be tested. Excellent advice was given; the question was, Would it be followed? For Dorothy there was less doubt. Miss Ashton had already found a school for her, where, excellently well-fitted, she could begin in the fall her career as a teacher. Of her success, only Dorothy felt a doubt. Susan Downer, Miss Ashton had put off seeing until the last, hoping the girl would come herself and confess, if there was anything to confess; but as day after day went by, Susan shunning her when she could, and when she could not, passing her with averted face, Miss Ashton saw she must take the matter into her own hands and settle it one way or other; to ignore was to condone it. It was, therefore, only a few days before the close of the term when Susan, who had grown almost buoyant in her hope of escape, found herself summoned to what she was sure was to be her final trial. "She can't expel me now," she said to herself triumphantly as she went to the room, "and she can't withhold my diploma, for that is for scholarship, and I stand well there, so I'm safe at any rate." Still it was a trembling, pale girl that answered Miss Ashton's "Come in." "I do not want you to leave me uncertain both of your truth and honesty," she said gently. "I have been waiting, hoping you would come to me of yourself, but as you have not, I _demand_ now an answer to my question. Did, or did you not write 'Storied West Rock'?" "I d--i--d." Before she had time to finish the answer, Miss Ashton had said emphatically, "_not_; I know the truth, Susan! I want to spare you the falsehood I see you are about to tell." "I am not going to ask you where you found the story; I only want you to see, and see so plainly that you can never forget it, how small and mean a thing such a deceit, or any deceit, is, and how sure in the end to turn to the injury of the one who commits it. Of all the class that are to leave me, you, Susan Downer, carry away with you my greatest anxiety for your future. God help and save you, you poor child!" Miss Ashton's voice had tears in it as she ceased speaking, and those, more than any words she had spoken, reached and moved the girl before her. "O Miss Ashton! Miss Ashton!" Susan cried, rushing to her, and throwing both arms around her neck. "Do, _do_, _do_, please forgive me? It was Marion Parke's book, and I thought no one would ever know. I've been so sorry. I'd have given worlds, worlds, _worlds_, if I had never seen it! O Miss Ashton, what shall I, shall I do?" "Ask God to forgive you," Miss Ashton said solemnly. "It is another and a greater judge than I that has the power to do so. If I were only sure," but she did not finish her sentence, she only loosened Susan's arms gently from around her neck, then said "good-by" to her, and watched her once more as she went away down the corridor. "And Marion Parke knew it all the time, but would not tell on Susan," she said to herself as she turned back into her room. "Marion is a girl to be depended upon, I am glad she is to stay with me." "Kate Underwood," she said, when Kate's time came for the farewell counsel, taking both of the girl's hands in hers, "I'm proud of you. You have done of late what many older and wiser persons have failed to do,--learned the lesson, which I hope has been learned for your lifetime, that there is no fun in things, however written or spoken, that hurt other's feelings. I have seen you many times thoughtful and tender, when your face was alive with the ridiculous thing you saw or heard. Kate, I feel so much safer to let you go from me now than I should have six, even three months ago. Tell me, will you try not to forget?" "I'll be good as long as I live. I'll never make fun, no, not even of myself," burst out Kate, "though now I'm dying to get before a mirror and see how I must have looked when you thought me so thoughtful. Was it so, Miss Ashton?" and Kate made up a face which a sterner rebuker than her teacher could not have seen without a smile. "There's no use, Kate," she said; "go now, only don't forget." And Kate made a sweeping courtesy and disappeared. With Mamie Smythe she had a long talk, not one word of which did either divulge. In that hour it would be safe to say Mamie learned some life-lessons which it will be hard for her to forget. And so the time passed on. Recitations ceased four days before commencement, and the girls, those even who thought themselves over busy before, found every hour brought a fresh claim upon their time. "Our bee-hive," Miss Ashton called it, and the girls called her the "queen bee," and made many secret plans about the various gifts they were to give her the last night of the term. The ceremony this year was to be a public one, therefore of great importance. CHAPTER XXXVI. WOMEN'S WORK. The night before commencement Miss Ashton had reserved for the reading of notices of woman's work and success. This she did at that time, because she wished her pupils to carry away a full belief not only in their own abilities, but also in the position which, with diligence, these abilities would enable them to reach. The whole school gathered in the hall. Miss Ashton had requested that the notices should be handed in to her a few days previous. Now she said, "Young ladies, I am both surprised and pleased at the readiness and faithfulness with which you have responded to my request. I have here," lifting a pretty, ribbon-tied basket, "at least one hundred different notices! Just think! _one hundred_ instances in which women have tried, and have succeeded in earning not only a respectable, but a successful livelihood. This fact speaks so well for itself, that all remaining for me to do is to read you some of these notices. I must make a selection from among them, and the first one I will read I am sure will interest you:-- "'Mlle. Sarmisa Bileesco, the first woman admitted to the bar in France, is said to have taken the highest rank in a class of five hundred men at the École du Droit, Paris, where she studied after receiving the degree of Bachelor of Letters and Science in Bucharest. She has begun to practise law in the latter city, where her father is a banker.' "Here is another one in the same profession:-- "'Mrs. Tel Sone is a leading lawyer in Japan, and has a large and profitable practice.' "'Miss Jean Gordon of Cincinnati, upon whom will be conferred the degree of Ph.G. at the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy, has earned the highest average ever attained by any woman graduate of that institution. Out of one hundred and eighty-four graduates of this year, only six obtained the highest rating of "distinguished." Miss Gordon was one of the six. She was the only woman in her class, and had to contend with bright young men.' "Miss Gordon, I think," remarked Miss Ashton, "has a distinguished future before her. "'Female professors and lecturers are to be introduced into the Michigan University at Ann Arbor.' "'Two female medical graduates have been appointed house surgeons at two English hospitals.' "'An Ohio girl discovered a way of transforming a barrel of petroleum into ten thousand cubic feet of gas.' "'Another woman has constructed a machine which will make as many paper bags in a day as thirty men can put together.' "'An invention which you hardly would have expected from a woman, is a war vessel that is susceptible of being converted off-hand into a fort by simply taking it apart.' "'Chicago, March 25. Miss Sophia G. Hayden of Boston wins the one thousand-dollar prize offered for the best design for the woman's buildings of the World's Fair.'" (A sensation among the scholars, which pleased Miss Ashton). "'Miss Lois L. Howe, also of Boston, was second, five hundred dollars, and Miss Laura Hayes of Chicago gets the two hundred and fifty dollars offered for the third best design. "'Miss Hayden is a first-honor graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Miss Howe is from the same institution. Miss Hayes is Mrs. Potter Palmer's private secretary. "'As soon as the awards were made, Miss Hayden was wired to come to Chicago immediately and elaborate her plans. The design is one of marked simplicity. It is in the Italian renaissance style, with colonnades, broken by centre and end pavilions. The structure is to be 200 × 400 feet, and 50 feet to the cornice. There is no dome. The chief feature of ornamentation is the entrance.' "I am glad to tell those of you young ladies who feel symptoms of architectural genius only waiting for development, that year by year this institute is opening its door wider and wider to admit women. This last year the ten who are new members of it were for the first time invited to a class supper, going to it matronized by Mrs. Walker, the wife of the president. "One other thing I want you to remark. These three young ladies, by their ability, and the success which is the fruit only of faithful study, have done more for women's advancement than has been accomplished for years. "A man who is a successful architect occupies an important and proud position; that a woman can do the same is no small help in the struggle she is now making. "I recommend them to you as examples, particularly as I know there are a number among you who will not be content to let graduation from this school end your educational life. "The next I shall read you is a notice of women as journalists:-- "'Let me give you a fact about women as journalists in my own office,' said the editor of one of the largest dailies to me a few days ago. "'Five years ago I employed one woman on my staff, to-day I have over twenty, and the best work which appears in our papers is from the pen of women writers. Of course you cannot give women all sorts of commissions; but if I want a really conscientious piece of work done nowadays, I give it to one of our women. I find absolutely they do their work more thoroughly than do the men.' "Young ladies, it has always been complained of women that, though they are quicker, guided by instincts that act promptly and for the greater part correctly, they are not patient or thorough. Now, as I have told you so often that it must sound trite to you to have me repeat it, it is only patient thoroughness that wins. I am glad to have this editor of one of our largest dailies give this indubitable testimony that we _can_ be thorough if we will. For those of you who neither wish nor expect to continue study any further, I will read the opportunity offered for a bucolic life:-- "'Miss Antoinette Knaggs, a young woman with a good collegiate education, owns and manages a farm of two hundred acres in Ohio. She says she made money last year, and expects to make more this year. "I have tried various ways of farming," she says, "but I find I can get along best when I manage my farm myself. I tried employing a manager, but I found he managed chiefly for himself. Then I sub-let to tenants, and they used up my stock and implements, and the returns were unsatisfactory. So I have taken the management into my own hands, planting such crops as I think best, and I find I am a very good farmer, if I do say it myself.'" "Said the daughter of a New Hampshire farmer to me a few days ago," continued Miss Ashton, "'When my father died my mother took the control of our whole large farm into her own hands. She managed so well that we have sold our farm and moved down to suburban Boston, where we can command the literary advantages she has taught us not only to prize but to love.' The collegiate education fitted Miss Knaggs to be a better, wiser farmer. I hope if it shall be the choice of any of you, you will find yourself abler for your life here." "I am sure we shall," thought a Dakota young lady, whose father's broad ranch covered many a goodly acre, and whose secret wish had always been to own a ranch of her own. "There seems to be no profession now from which a woman is shut out, though we hear of fewer among lawyers than in any other profession. I find only one more among all these notices. 'Fourteen women were graduated from the university of New York Law School last night, among the number being Mrs. George B. McClellan, daughter-in-law of the late General McClellan.' But I well know there have been women associated with their husbands in the law. Women also with their own offices, doing a large and important business. "In England, civil service is open to them; and though it does not correspond of course with our law, still the same strict education is needed for success. "Here is a paper which states the terms on which ladies enter the civil service. "'They enter as second-class clerks, receiving $325 a year, rising by fifteen dollars a year to $400. Here the maximum, which is certainly small, is reached; but there is promotion by merit to clerkships, rising to $550 a year, and a few higher places, which go up to $850. Three lady superintendents each receive up to $2,000, and four assistant superintendents each $1,000. The work is not difficult, and the hours are seven a day. An annual holiday of a month is allowed.' "These wages are no larger than would be paid here for the same services. I know women have no difficulty, if once elected, in filling clerkships and secretaryships, and they even have important places in the treasury department at Washington. A very telling record might be, probably has been, made of their successes there. "In the medical profession we all know how rapidly they have risen to the front. Stories that sound almost fabulous are told of the income some of the most talented receive; and to show the popularity this new movement has attained, it is only necessary to state that at the present day it would be hard to find a town, north, south, east, or west, which has not its woman doctor. The medical colleges have large classes of them; and in Europe names of many American girls, if they do not lead in number, do at least in ability." Here there was a resolute stamping and clapping, which pleased Miss Ashton too much for her to attempt to stop it. "If I had more time I could tell you some wonderful but entirely true stories of difficult surgical operations being performed in foreign hospitals by young American women in so remarkable a way that they excited not only the applause of the fellow-students, but won prizes. "As this is only one of the professions, I must hurry on to the ministry. We all know that in some of our denominations there are numbers of women who occupy the place of settled minister, and do well. On the whole, however, they may be considered more successful as lecturers, Bible-readers, and elocution teachers; and then there is a wide open field to them as actresses and singers; indeed, no public or private way of earning a livelihood or a reputation is denied them. "Teaching always has been theirs, and year after year the profession becomes more and more crowded and the requirements for good teachers more strict. Many of you, young ladies, I find are looking forward to this in your immediate future. I need not here urge upon you the necessity of being well prepared when your day for examination comes. I have held it up before you during all the past year. "This is an incomplete list of the great things which I expect you young ladies of the graduating class to perform. I would not, however, on any account, forget that broad and specially adapted woman's work,--the different philanthropic schemes with which this nineteenth century abounds. "So many are in women's hands; like women's boards of missions, children's hospitals, homes for little wanderers, young women's Christian homes, young women's industrial union, North End missions, Bible-readers, evangelists, flower committees for supplying the sick in charity hospitals, providing excursions for poor children, providing homes in the country for the destitute and orphan children, society of little wanderers, newspaper boys' home, boot-black boys' home. "It is possible for me to name but a small part of them, but those of you who have the means of helping any one of these objects named, or any of the many others, will remember, I hope, that wonderful cup of cold water which, given, shall give to the giver the rich reward. "This will probably be my last opportunity to speak to you alone as my school. Let me thank you heartily for all you have done this year, and some of you for four long years, to make our life together pleasant, and we hope acceptable to our great Taskmaster. I wish you now, for myself and all the other teachers, a pleasant vacation, and a safe return to those of you who are to come back to us." There were many quiet tears shed among the girls, and Miss Ashton's eyes were not quite dry. CHAPTER XXXVII. COMMENCEMENT. Commencement morning rose upon Montrose clear, bright, and hot. Almost with the first dawn of the early day the hum of busy preparation began. Every hour of the previous day and night had brought parents and friends, some from great distances, to attend the celebration. The quiet town swarmed with strangers, all with faces turned toward the large brick building which, standing boldly prominent on its hill, had a welcoming look, as if the roses around it, that filled the air with their delicious fragrance, had blossomed that morning in new and charming beauty. The lawn, plentifully besprinkled with small flower-beds, was elsewhere one broad sheet of velvet green; and the blossoms of every variety and every hue crowded the beds so cheerfully, so merrily, that many parents lingered as they passed them, their hearts warming at the sight of the Eden in which their daughters had lived. Commencement exercises were to be held in the large hall, to which ushers appointed for that purpose took all the visitors before the entrance of the school, so it really made quite an imposing show when Miss Ashton, arm in arm with the president of the Board of Trustees, came slowly in, the gentlemen composing the board following, then the teachers, and after them the pupils in their gay holiday dresses. The senior class, of course the most prominent, coming onto the stage with the other dignitaries. There was nothing of peculiar interest in the exercises that followed. Commencements all over the country are much the same. The four young ladies who were to read their essays acquitted themselves well. Gladys, to her father's great delight, with her soft Southern voice, her sparkling face, and her easy, self-possessed, graceful ways, was the undoubted favorite. A storm of applause followed the reading, and bouquets of flowers fell around her in great profusion. It was the bestowing of the diplomas that attracted the most attention. There was something touching in the gentle smile of the aged president as, calling each member of the class by her name, he spoke a few Latin words and handed her the parchment that made her for life an alumna of Montrose Academy. It was almost as if he had laid his hand on her head in benediction. The pleasant dinner that followed was the next marked event of the day. To this all the school, and as many invited guests as could be accommodated, sat down, and the large hall was full of the cheerful voices of those who had come to congratulate and those who were congratulated. Nothing could have made a more fitting ending to the home-life of the busy year; so many kindly, cheering words spoken, so much of hearty encouragement for the coming year. Pupils and teachers, some of them together for the last time, but hardly among them an exception to the tender affection which bound them together. Susan Downer had been graduated. She held her diploma in her hand as she went off the stage with the others, but she was far from happy. "Miss Ashton is glad to have me go," she thought. "She neither respects nor loves me." No one noticed her dejection. Amidst the general happiness she seemed to herself forgotten, almost shunned. "And I had hoped," she thought, "to make this such a triumphal day!" It would be idle to waste any sympathy on Susan. There is an old adage, "As you make your bed, so must you lie in it." She had done a dishonorable, untrue thing, and had repented only over its consequences. It is very sad but true, that what we have once done, or left undone, said, or not said, can never be recalled. No repentance can efface its memory; no tears can blot it out; and only one, the great, kind Father, can forgive. Susan to the last day of her life will have that act clinging to her. She can never forget it. The moral is obvious, needing no words to make it plainer. Immediately after dinner the school broke up and the departures began. The farewells that were spoken, the tears that were shed, the oft-repeated kisses that were given, it would be difficult to tell. By twilight the large building began to have a desolated look. Miss Ashton, pale and tired, stood bravely in a doorway, kissed and wiped away tears, and silently blessed pupil after pupil in rapid succession. The Rock Cove party considerately made their farewells brief, and taking Marion with them hurried to the evening train that was to carry them home. Then down over the building settled the beautiful June twilight, and the year of study was over. A. L. Burt's Catalogue of Books for Young People by Popular Writers, 52-58 Duane Street, New York BOOKS FOR GIRLS. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. By Lewis Carroll. 12mo, cloth, 42 illustrations, price 75 cents. "From first to last, almost without exception, this story is delightfully droll, humorous and illustrated in harmony with the story."--New York Express. Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice Found There. By Lewis Carroll. 12mo, cloth, 50 illustrations, price 75 cents. "A delight alike to the young people and their elders, extremely funny both in text and illustrations."--Boston Express. Little Lucy's Wonderful Globe. By Charlotte M. Yonge. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price 75 cents. "This story is unique among tales intended for children, alike for pleasant instruction, quaintness of humor, gentle pathos, and the subtlety with which lessons moral and otherwise are conveyed to children, and perhaps to their seniors as well."--The Spectator. Joan's Adventures at the North Pole and Elsewhere. By Alice Corkran. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price 75 cents "Wonderful as the adventures of Joan are, it must be admitted that they are very naturally worked out and very plausibly presented. Altogether this is an excellent story for girls."--Saturday Review. Count Up the Sunny Days: A Story for Girls and Boys. By C. A. Jones. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price 75 cents. "An unusually good children's story."--Glasgow Herald. The Dove in the Eagle's Nest. By Charlotte M. Yonge. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. "Among all the modern writers we believe Miss Yonge first, not in genius, but in this, that she employs her great abilities for a high and noble purpose. We know of few modern writers whose works may be so safely commended as hers."--Cleveland Times. Jan of the Windmill. A Story of the Plains. By Mrs. J. H. Ewing. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. "Never has Mrs. Ewing published a more charming volume, and that is saying a very great deal. From the first to the last the book overflows with the strange knowledge of child-nature which so rarely survives childhood: and moreover, with inexhaustible quiet humor, which is never anything but innocent and well-bred, never priggish, and never clumsy."--Academy. A Sweet Girl Graduate. By L. T. Meade. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. "One of this popular author's best. The characters are well imagined and drawn. The story moves with plenty of spirit and the interest does not flag until the end too quickly comes."--Providence Journal. For sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the publisher. A, L. BURT, 52-58 Duane Street. New York. BOOKS FOR GIRLS. Six to Sixteen: A Story for Girls. By Juliana Horatia Ewing. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. "There is no doubt as to the good quality and attractiveness of 'Six to Sixteen.' The book is one which would enrich any girl's book shelf."--St. James' Gazette. The Palace Beautiful: A Story for Girls. By L. T. Meade. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. "A bright and interesting story. The many admirers of Mrs. L. T. Meade in this country will be delighted with the 'Palace Beautiful' for more reasons than one. It is a charming book for girls."--New York Recorder. A World of Girls: The Story of a School. By L. T. Meade. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. "One of those wholesome stories which it does one good to read. It will afford pure delight to numerous readers. This book should be on every girl's book shelf."--Boston Home Journal. The Lady of the Forest: A Story for Girls. By L. T. Meade. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. "This story is written in the author's well-known, fresh and easy style. All girls fond of reading will be charmed by this well-written story. It is told with the author's customary grace and spirit."--Boston Times. At the Back of the North Wind. By George Macdonald. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. "A very pretty story, with much of the freshness and vigor of Mr. Macdonald's earlier work.... It is a sweet, earnest, and wholesome fairy story, and the quaint native humor is delightful. A most delightful volume for young readers."--Philadelphia Times. The Water Babies: A Fairy Tale for a Land Baby. By Charles Kingsley. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. "The strength of his work, as well as its peculiar charms, consist in his description of the experiences of a youth with life under water in the luxuriant wealth of which he revels with all the ardor of a poetical nature."--New York Tribune. Our Bessie. By Rosa N. Carey. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. "One of the most entertaining stories of the season, full of vigorous action, and strong in character-painting. Elder girls will be charmed with it, and adults may read its pages with profit."--The Teachers' Aid. Wild Kitty. A Story of Middleton School. By L. T. Meade. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. "Kitty is a true heroine--warm-hearted, self-sacrificing, and, as all good women nowadays are, largely touched with the enthusiasm of humanity. One of the most attractive gift books of the season."--The Academy. A Young Mutineer. A Story for Girls. By L. T. Meade. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. "One of Mrs. Meade's charming books for girls, narrated in that simple and picturesque style which marks the authoress as one of the first among writers for young people."--The Spectator. For sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the publisher, A. L. BURT, 52-58 Duane Street, New York. BOOKS FOR GIRLS. Sue and I. By Mrs. O'Reilly. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price 75 cents. "A thoroughly delightful book, full of sound wisdom as well as fun,"--Athenæum. The Princess and the Goblin. A Fairy Story. By George Macdonald. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price 75 cents. "If a child once begins this book, it will get so deeply interested in it that when bedtime comes it will altogether forget the moral, and will weary its parents with importunities for just a few minutes more to see how everything ends."--Saturday Review. Pythia's Pupils: A Story of a School. By Eva Hartner. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. "This story of the doings of several bright school girls is sure to interest girl readers. Among many good stories for girls this is undoubtedly one of the very best."--Teachers' Aid. A Story of a Short Life. By Juliana Horatia Ewing. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. "The book is one we can heartily recommend, for it is not only bright and interesting, but also pure and healthy in tone and teaching."--Courier. The Sleepy King. A Fairy Tale. By Aubrey Hopwood and Seymour Hicks. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price 75 cents. "Wonderful as the adventures of Bluebell are, it must be admitted that they are very naturally worked out and very plausibly presented. Altogether this is an excellent story for girls."--Saturday Review. Two Little Waifs. By Mrs. Molesworth. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price 75 cents. "Mrs. Molesworth's delightful story of 'Two Little Waifs' will charm all the small people who find it in their stockings. It relates the adventures of two lovable English children lost in Paris, and is just wonderful enough to pleasantly wring the youthful heart."--New York Tribune. Adventures in Toyland. By Edith King Hall. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price 75 cents. "The author is such a bright, cheery writer, that her stories are always acceptable to all who are not confirmed cynics, and her record of the adventures is as entertaining and enjoyable as we might expect."--Boston Courier. Adventures in Wallypug Land. By G. E. Farrow. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price 75 cents. "These adventures are simply inimitable, and will delight boys and girls of mature age, as well as their juniors. No happier combination of author and artist than this volume presents could be found to furnish healthy amusement to the young folks. The book is an artistic one in every sense."--Toronto Mail. Fussbudget's Folks. A Story for Young Girls. By Anna F. Burnham. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. "Mrs. Burnham has a rare gift for composing stories for children. With a light, yet forcible touch, she paints sweet and artless, yet natural and strong, characters."--Congregationalist. For sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the publisher, A. L. BURT, 52-58 Duane Street, New York. BOOKS FOR GIRLS. Mixed Pickles. A Story for Girls. By Mrs. E. M. Field. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price 75 cents. "It is, in its way, a little classic, of which the real beauty and pathos can hardly be appreciated by young people. It is not too much to say of the story that it is perfect of its kind."--Good Literature. Miss Mouse and Her Boys. A Story for Girls. By Mrs. Molesworth. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price 75 cents. "Mrs. Molesworth's books are cheery, wholesome, and particularly well adapted to refined life. It is safe to add that she is the best English prose writer for children. A new volume from Mrs. Molesworth is always a treat."--The Beacon. Gilly Flower. A Story for Girls. By the author of "Miss Toosey's Mission." 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. "Jill is a little guardian angel to three lively brothers who tease and play with her.... Her unconscious goodness brings right thoughts and resolves to several persons who come into contact with her. There is no goodiness in this tale, but its influence is of the best kind."--Literary World. The Chaplet of Pearls; or, The White and Black Ribaumont. By Charlotte M. Yonge. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. "Full of spirit and life, so well sustained throughout that grown-up readers may enjoy it as much as children. It is one of the best books of the season."--Guardian. Naughty Miss Bunny: Her Tricks and Troubles. By Clara Mulholland. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price 75 cents. "The naughty child is positively delightful. Papas should not omit the book from their list of juvenile presents."--Land and Water. Meg's Friend. By Alice Corkran. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. "One of Miss Corkran's charming books for girls, narrated in that simple and picturesque style which marks the authoress as one of the first among writers for young people."--The Spectator. Averil. By Rosa N. Carey. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. "A charming story for young folks. Averil is a delightful creature-- piquant, tender, and true--and her varying fortunes are perfectly realistic."--World. Aunt Diana. By Rosa N. Carey. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1,00. "An excellent story, the interest being sustained from first to last. This is, both in its intention and the way the story is told, one of the best books of its kind which has come before us this year."--Saturday Review. Little Sunshine's Holiday: A Picture from Life. By Miss Mulock. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price 75 cents. "This is a pretty narrative of child life, describing the simple doings and sayings of a very charming and rather precocious child. This is a delightful book for young people."--Gazette. For sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the publisher, A. L. BURT, 52-58 Duane Street, New York. BOOKS FOR GIRLS. Esther's Charge. A Story for Girls. By Ellen Everett Green. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. "... This is a story showing in a charming way how one little girl's jealousy and bad temper-were conquered; one of the best, most suggestive and improving of the Christmas juveniles."--New York Tribune. Fairy Land of Science. By Arabella B. Buckley, 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. "We can highly recommend it; not only for the valuable information it gives on the special subjects to which it is dedicated, but also as a book teaching natural sciences in an interesting way. A fascinating little volume, which will make friends in every household in which there are children."--Daily News. Merle's Crusade. By Rosa N. Carey. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. "Among the books for young people we have seen nothing more unique than this book. Like all of this author's stories it will please young readers by the very attractive and charming style in which it is written."--Journal. Birdie: A Tale of Child Life. By H. L, Childe-Pemberton. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price 75 cents. "The story is quaint and simple, but there is a freshness about it that makes one hear again the ringing laugh and the cheery shout of children at play which charmed his earlier years."--New York Express. The Days of Bruce: A Story from Scottish History. By Grace Aguilar. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00, "There is a delightful freshness, sincerity and vivacity about all of Grace Aguilar's stories which cannot fail to win the interest and admiration of every lover of good reading."--Boston Beacon. Three Bright Girls: A Story of Chance and Mischance. By Annie E. Armstrong. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. "The charm of the story lies in the cheery helpfulness of spirit developed in the girls by their changed circumstances; while the author finds a pleasant ending to all their happy makeshifts. The story is charmingly told, and the book can be warmly recommended as a present for girls."--Standard. Giannetta: A Girl's Story of Herself. By Rosa Mulholland. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. "Extremely well told and full of interest. Giannetta is a true heroine--warm-hearted, self-sacrificing, and, as all good women nowadays are, largely touched with enthusiasm of humanity. The illustrations are unusually good. One of the most attractive gift books of the season."--The Academy. Margery Merton's Girlhood. By Alice Corkran. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. "The experiences of an orphan girl who in infancy is left by her father to the care of an elderly aunt residing near Paris. The accounts of the various persons who have an after influence on the story are singularly vivid. There is a subtle attraction about the book which will make it a great favorite with thoughtful girls."--Saturday Review. For sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the publisher. A. L. BURT, 52-58 Duane Street, New York. BOOKS FOR GIRLS. Under False Colors: A Story from Two Girls' Lives. By Sarah Doudney. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. "Sarah Doudney has no superior as a writer of high-toned stories--pure in style, original in conception, and with skillfully wrought out plots; but we have seen nothing equal in dramatic energy to this book."--Christian Leader. Down the Snow Stairs: or, From Good-night to Good-morning. By Alice Corkran. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price 75 cents. "Among all the Christmas volumes which the year has brought to our table this one stands out facile princeps--a gem of the first water, bearing upon every one of its pages the signet mark of genius.... All is told with such simplicity and perfect naturalness that the dream appears to be a solid reality. It is indeed a Little Pilgrim's Progress." --Christian Leader. The Tapestry Room: A Child's Romance. By Mrs. Molesworth. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price 75 cents. "Mrs. Molesworth is a charming painter of the nature and ways of children; and she has done good service in giving us this charming juvenile which will delight the young people."--Athenæum, London. Little Miss Peggy: Only a Nursery Story. By Mrs. Molesworth. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price 75 cents. "Mrs. Molesworth's children are finished studies. A joyous earnest spirit pervades her work, and her sympathy is unbounded. She loves them with her whole heart, while she lays bare their little minds, and expresses their foibles, their faults, their virtues, their inward struggles, their conception of duty, and their instinctive knowledge of the right and wrong of things. She knows their characters, she understands their wants, and she desires to help them." Polly: A New Fashioned Girl. By L. T. Meade. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. Few authors have achieved a popularity equal to Mrs. Meade as a writer of stories for young girls. Her characters are living beings of flesh and blood, not lay figures of conventional type. Into the trials and crosses, and everyday experiences, the reader enters at once with zest and hearty sympathy. While Mrs. Meade always writes with a high moral purpose, her lessons of life, purity and nobility of character are rather inculcated by example than intruded as sermons. One of a Covey. By the author of "Miss Toosey's Mission." 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price 75 cents. "Full of spirit and life, so well sustained throughout that grown-up readers may enjoy it as much as children. This 'Covey' consists of the twelve children of a hard-pressed Dr. Partridge out of which is chosen a little girl to be adopted by a spoiled, fine lady. We have rarely read a story for boys and girls with greater pleasure. One of the chief characters would not have disgraced Dickens' pen."--Literary World. The Little Princess of Tower Hill. By L. T. Meade. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price 75 cents. "This is one of the prettiest books for children published, as pretty as a pond-lily, and quite as fragrant. Nothing could be imagined more attractive to young people than such a combination of fresh pages and fair pictures: and while children will rejoice over it--which is much better than crying for it--it is a book that can be read with pleasure even by older boys and girls."--Boston Advertiser. For sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the publisher, A. L. BURT, 52-58 Duane Street, New York. BOOKS FOR GIRLS. Rosy. By Mrs. Molesworth. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price 75 cents. Mrs. Molesworth, considering the quality and quantity of her labors, is the best story-teller for children England has yet known. "This is a very pretty story. The writer knows children, and their ways well. The illustrations are exceedingly well drawn."--Spectator. Esther: A Book for Girls. By Rosa N. Carey. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. "She inspires her readers simply by bringing them in contact with the characters, who are in themselves inspiring. Her simple stories are woven in order to give her an opportunity to describe her characters by their own conduct in seasons of trial."--Chicago Times. Sweet Content. By Mrs. Molesworth. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price 75 cents. "It seems to me not at all easier to draw a lifelike child than to draw a lifelike man or woman: Shakespeare and Webster were the only two men of their age who could do it with perfect delicacy and success. Our own age is more fortunate, on this single score at least, having a larger and far nobler proportion of female writers; among whom, since the death of George Eliot, there is none left whose touch is so exquisite and masterly, whose love is so thoroughly according to knowledge, whose bright and sweet invention is so fruitful, so truthful, or so delightful as Mrs. Molesworth's."--A. C. Swinbourne. Honor Bright; or, The Four-Leaved Shamrock. By the author of "Miss Toosey's Mission." 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. "It requires a special talent to describe the sayings and doings of children, and the author of 'Honor Bright,' 'One of a Covey,' possesses that talent in no small degree. A cheery, sensible, and healthy tale."--The Times. The Cuckoo Clock. By Mrs. Molesworth. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price 75 cents. "A beautiful little story. It will be read with delight by every child into whose hands it is placed.... The author deserves all the praise that has been, is, and will be bestowed on 'The Cuckoo Clock.' Children's stories are plentiful, but one like this is not to be met with every day."--Pall Mall Gazette. The Adventures of a Brownie. As Told to my Child. By Miss Mulock. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price 75 cents. "The author of this delightful little book leaves it in doubt all through whether there actually is such a creature in existence as a Brownie, but she makes us hope that there might be."--Chicago Standard. Only a Girl: A Tale of Brittany. From the French by C. A. Jones. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. "We can thoroughly recommend this brightly written and homely narrative."--Saturday Review. Little Rosebud; or, Things Will Take a Turn. By Beatrice Harraden. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price 75 cents. "A most delightful little book... Miss Harraden is so bright, so healthy, and so natural withal that the book ought, as a matter of duty, to be added to every girl's library in the land."--Boston Transcript. For sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the publisher, A. L. BURT, 52-58 Duane Street, New York. BOOKS FOR GIRLS. Girl Neighbors; or, The Old Fashion and the New. By Sarah Tytler. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. "One of the most effective and quietly humorous of Miss Tytler's stories. 'Girl Neighbors' is a pleasant comedy, not so much of errors as of prejudices got rid of, very healthy, very agreeable, and very well written."--Spectator. The Little Lame Prince and His Traveling Cloak. By Miss Mulock. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price 75 cents. "No sweeter--that is the proper word---Christmas story for the little folks could easily be found, and it is as delightful for older readers as well. There is a moral to it which the reader can find out for himself, if he chooses to think."--Cleveland Herald. Little Miss Joy. By Emma Marshall. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price 75 cents. "A very pleasant and instructive story, told by a very charming writer in such an attractive way as to win favor among its young readers. The illustrations add to the beauty of the book."--Utica Herald. The House that Grew. A Girl's Story. By Mrs. Molesworth. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price 75 cents. "This is a very pretty story of English life. Mrs. Molesworth is one of the most popular and charming of English story-writers for children. Her child characters are true to life, always natural and attractive, and her stories are wholesome and interesting."--Indianapolis Journal. The House of Surprises. By L. T. Meade. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price 75 cents. "A charming tale of charming children, who are naughty enough to be interesting, and natural enough to be lovable; and very prettily their story is told. The quaintest yet most natural stories of child life. Simply delightful."--Vanity Fair. The Jolly Ten: and their Year of Stories. By Agnes Carr Sage. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price 75 cents. The story of a band of cousins who were accustomed to meet at the "Pinery," with "Aunt Roxy." At her fireside they play merry games, have suppers flavored with innocent fun, and listen to stories--each with its lesson calculated to make the ten not less jolly, but quickly responsive to the calls of duty and to the needs of others. Little Miss Dorothy. The Wonderful Adventures of Two Little People. By Martha James. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price 75 cents. "This is a charming little juvenile story from the pen of Mrs. James, detailing the various adventures of a couple of young children. Their many adventures are told in a charming manner, and the book will please young girls and boys."--Montreal Star. Pen's Venture. A Story for Girls. By Elvirton Wright. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price 75 cents. Something Pen saw in the condition of the cash girls in a certain store gave her a thought; the thought became a plan; the plan became a venture--Pen's venture. It is amusing, touching, and instructive to read about it. For sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the publisher, A. L. BURT, 52-58 Duane Street, New York. FAIRY BOOKS. The Blue Fairy Book. Edited by Andrew Lang. Profusely illustrated, 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. "The tales are simply delightful. No amount of description can do them justice. The only way is to read the book through from cover to cover."--Book Review. The Green Fairy Book. Edited by Andrew Lang. Profusely illustrated, 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. "The most delightful book of fairy tales, taking form and contents together, ever presented to children."--E. S. Hartland, in Folk-Lore. The Yellow Fairy Book. Edited by Andrew Lang. Profusely illustrated, 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. "As a collection of fairy tales to delight children of all ages, it ranks second to none."--Daily Graphic. The Red Fairy Book. Edited by Andrew Lang. Profusely illustrated, 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. "A gift-book that will charm any child, and all older folk, who have been fortunate enough to retain their taste for the old nursery stories."--Literary World. Celtic Fairy Tales. Edited by Joseph Jacobs. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. "A stock of delightful little narratives gathered chiefly from the Celtic-speaking peasants of Ireland. A perfectly lovely book. And oh! the wonderful pictures inside. Get this book if you can; it is capital, all through."--Pall Mall Budget. English Fairy Tales. Edited by Joseph Jacobs. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. "The tales are simply delightful. No amount of description can do them justice. The only way is to read the book through from cover to cover. The book is intended to correspond to 'Grimm's Fairy Tales,' and it must be allowed that its pages fairly rival in interest those of that well-known repository of folk-lore."--Morning Herald. Indian Fairy Tales. Edited by Joseph Jacobs. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. "Mr. Jacobs brings home to us in a clear and intelligible manner the enormous influence which 'Indian Fairy Tales' have had upon European literature of the kind. The present combination will be welcomed not alone by the little ones for whom it is specially combined, but also by children of larger growth and added years."--Daily Telegraph. Household Fairy Tales. By the Brothers Grimm. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. "As a collection of fairy tales to delight children of all ages this work ranks second to none."--Daily Graphic. Fairy Tales and Stories. By Hans Christian Andersen. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. "If I were asked to select a child's library I should name these three volumes, 'English,' 'Celtic,' and 'Indian Fairy Tales,' with Grimm and Hans Andersen's Fairy Tales."--Independent. For sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the publisher, A. L. BURT, 52-58 Duane Street, New York. FAIRY BOOKS. Popular Fairy Tales. By the Brothers Grimm. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. "From first to last, almost without exception, these stories are delightful."--Athenæum. Icelandic Fairy Tales. By A. W. Hall. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. "The most delightful book of fairy tales, taking form and contents together, ever presented to children. The whole collection is dramatic and humorous. A more desirable child's book has not been seen for many a day."--Daily News. Fairy Tales From the Far North. (Norwegian.) By P. C. Asbjornsen. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. "If we were asked what present would make a child happiest at Christmastide we think we could with a clear conscience point to Mr. Jacobs' book. It is a dainty and an interesting volume."--Notes and Queries. Cossack Fairy Tales. By R. Nisbet Bain. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. "A really valuable and curious selection which will be welcomed by readers of all ages.... The illustrations by Mr. Batten are often clever and irresistibly humorous. A delight alike to the young people and their elders."--Globe. The Golden Fairy Book. By Various Authors. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. "The most delightful book of its kind that has come in our way for many a day. It is brimful of pretty stories. Retold in a truly delightful manner."--Graphic. The Silver Fairy Book. By Various Authors. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. "The book is intended to correspond to 'Grimm's Fairy Tales,' and it must be allowed that its pages fairly rival in interest those of the well-known repository of folk-lore. It is a most delightful volume of fairy tales."--Courier. The Brownies, and Other Stories. By Juliana Horatia Ewing. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price 75 cents. "Like all the books she has written this one is very charming, and is worth more in the hands of a child than a score of other stories of a more sensational character."--Christian at Work. The Hunting of the Snark. An Agony in Eight Fits. By Lewis Carroll, author of "Alice in Wonderland." 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price 75 cents. "This glorious piece of nonsense.... Everybody ought to read it--nearly everybody will--and all who deserve the treat will scream with laughter."--Graphic. Lob Lie-By-the-fire, and Other Tales. By Juliana Horatio Ewing. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price 75 cents. "Mrs. Ewing has written as good a story as her 'Brownies,' and that is saying a great deal. 'Lob Lie-by-the-fire' has humor and pathos, and teaches what is right without making children think they are reading a sermon."--Saturday Review. For sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the publisher, A. L. BURT, 52-58 Duane Street, New York. BOOKS FOR BOYS. By Right of Conquest; or, With Cortez in Mexico. By G. A. Henty. With illustrations by W. S. Stacey. 12mo, cloth olivine edges, price $1.50. "The conquest of Mexico by a small band of resolute men under the magnificent leadership of Cortez is always rightfully ranked among the most romantic and daring exploits in history. 'By Right of Conquest' is the nearest approach to a perfectly successful historical tale that Mr. Henty has yet published."--Academy. For Name and Fame; or, Through Afghan Passes. By G. A. Henty. With illustrations by Gordon Browne. 12mo, cloth olivine edges, price $1.00. "Not only a rousing story, replete with all the varied forms of excitement of a campaign, but, what is till more useful, an account of a territory and its inhabitants which must for a long time possess a supreme interest for Englishmen, as being the key to our Indian Empire,"--Glasgow Herald. The Bravest of the Brave; or, With Peterborough in Spain. By G. A. Henty. With illustrations by H. M. Paget, 12mo cloth, olivine edges, price $1.00. "Mr. Henty never loses sight of the moral purpose of his work--to enforce the doctrine of courage and truth, mercy and loving kindness, as indispensable to the making of a gentleman. Boys will read 'The Bravest of the Brave' with pleasure and profit; of that we are quite sure."--Daily Telegraph. The Cat of Bubastes: A Story of Ancient Egypt. By G. A. Henty. With illustrations. 12mo, cloth, olivine edges, price $1.00. "The story, from the critical moment of the killing of the sacred cat to the perilous exodus into Asia with which it closes, is very skillfully constructed and full of exciting adventures. It is admirably illustrated."--Saturday Review. Bonnie Prince Charlie: A Tale of Fontenoy and Culloden. By G. A. Henty. With illustrations by Gordon Browne. 12mo, cloth, olivine edges, price $1.00. "Ronald, the hero, is very like the hero of 'Quentin Durward.' The lad's journey across France, and his hairbreadth escapes, makes up as good a narrative of the kind as we have ever read. For freshness of treatment and variety of incident Mr. Henty has surpassed himself."--Spectator. With Clive in India; or, The Beginnings of an Empire. By G. A. Henty. With illustrations by Gordon Browne. 12mo, cloth, olivine edges, price $1.00. "He has taken a period of Indian history of the most vital importance, and he has embroidered on the historical facts a story which of itself is deeply interesting. Young people assuredly will be delighted with the volume."--Scotsman. In the Reign of Terror: The Adventures of a Westminster Boy. By G. A. Henty. With illustrations by J. Schönberg. 12mo, cloth, olivine edges, price $1.00. "Harry Sandwith, the Westminster boy, may fairly be said to beat Mr. Henty's record. His adventures will delight boys by the audacity and peril they depict. The story is one of Mr. Henty's best."--Saturday Review. For sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the publisher, A. L. BURT, 52-58 Duane Street, New York. BOOKS FOR BOYS. The Lion of the North: A Tale of Gustavus Adolphus and the Wars of Religion. By G. A. Henty. With illustrations by John Schönberg. 12mo, cloth, olivine edges, price $1.00. "A praiseworthy attempt to interest British youth in the great deeds pf the Scotch Brigade in the wars of Gustavus Adolphus. Mackey, Hepburn, and Munro live again in Mr. Henty's pages, as those deserve to live whose disciplined bands formed really the germ of the modern British army."--Athenæum. The Dragon and the Raven; or, The Days of King Alfred. By G. A. Henty. With illustrations by C. J. Staniland. 12mo, cloth, olivine edges, price $1.00. "In this story the author gives an account of the fierce struggle between Saxon and Dane for supremacy in England, and presents a vivid picture of the misery and ruin to which the country was reduced by the ravages of the sea-wolves. The story is treated in a manner most attractive to the boyish reader."--Athenæum. The Young Carthaginian: A Story of the Times of Hannibal. By G. A. Henty. With illustrations by C. J. Staniland. 12mo, cloth, olivine edges, price $1.00. "Well constructed and vividly told. From first to last nothing stays the interest of the narrative. It bears us along as on a stream whose current varies in direction, but never loses its force."--Saturday Review. In Freedom's Cause: A Story of Wallace and Bruce. By G. A. Henty. With illustrations by Gordon Browne. 12mo, cloth, olivine edges, price $1.00. "It is written in the author's best style. Full of the wildest and most remarkable achievements, it is a tale of great interest, which a boy, once he has begun it, will not willingly put one side."--The Schoolmaster. With Wolfe in Canada; or, The Winning of a Continent. By G. A. Henty. With illustrations by Gordon Browne. 12mo, cloth, olivine edges, price $1.00. "A model of what a boys' story-book should be. Mr. Henty has a great power of infusing into the dead facts of history new life, and as no pains are spared by him to ensure accuracy in historic details, his books supply useful aids to study as well as amusement."--School Guardian. True to the Old Flag: A Tale of the American War of Independence. By G. A. Henty. With illustrations by Gordon Browne. 12mo, cloth, olivine edges, price $1.00. "Does justice to the pluck and determination of the British soldiers during the unfortunate struggle against American emancipation. The son of an American loyalist, who remains true to our flag, falls among the hostile red-skins in that very Huron country which has been endeared to us by the exploits of Hawkeye and Chingachgook."--The Times. A Final Reckoning: A Tale of Bush Life in Australia. By G. A. Henty. With illustrations by W. B. Wollen. 12mo, cloth, olivine edges, price $1.00. "All boys will read this story with eager and unflagging interest. The episodes are in Mr. Henty's very best vein--graphic, exciting, realistic; and, as in all Mr. Henty's books, the tendency is to the formation of an honorable, manly, and even heroic character."--Birmingham Post. For sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the publishers, A. L. Burt, 52-58 Duane Street, New York. BOOKS FOR BOYS. The Lion of St. Mark: A Tale of Venice in the Fourteenth Century. By G. A. Henty. With illustrations by Gordon Browne. 12mo, cloth, olivine edges, price $1.00. "Every boy should read 'The Lion of St. Mark.' Mr. Henty has never produced a story more delightful, more wholesome, or more vivacious."--Saturday Review. Facing Death; or, The Hero of the Vaughan Pit. A Tale of the Coal Mines. By G. A. Henty. With illustrations by Gordon Browne. 12mo, cloth, olivine edges, price $1.00. "The tale is well written and well illustrated, and there is much reality in the characters. If any father, clergyman, or schoolmaster is on the lookout for a good book to give as a present to a boy who is worth his salt, this is the book we would recommend."--Standard. Maori and Settler: A Story of the New Zealand War. By G. A. Henty. With illustrations by Alfred Pearse. 12mo, cloth, olivine edges, price $1.00. "In the adventures among the Maoris, there are many breathless moments in which the odds seem hopelessly against the party, but they succeed in establishing themselves happily in one of the pleasant New Zealand valleys. It is brimful of adventure, of humorous and interesting conversation, and vivid pictures of colonial life."--Schoolmaster. One of the 28th: A Tale of Waterloo. By G. A. Henty. With illustrations by W. H. Overend. 12mo, cloth, olivine edges, price $1.00. "Written with Homeric vigor and heroic inspiration. It is graphic, picturesque, and dramatically effective ... shows us Mr. Henty at his best and brightest. The adventures will hold a boy enthralled as he rushes through them with breathless interest 'from cover to cover.'"--Observer. Orange and Green: A Tale of the Boyne and Limerick. By G. A. Henty. With illustrations by Gordon Browne. 12mo, cloth, olivine edges, price $1.00. "The narrative is free from the vice of prejudice, and ripples with life as if what is being described were really passing before the eye."--Belfast News-Letter. Through the Fray: A Story of the Luddite Riots. By G. A. Henty. With illustrations by H. M. Paget. 12mo, cloth, olivine edges, price $1.00. "Mr. Henty inspires a love and admiration for straightforwardness, truth and courage. This is one of the best of the many good books Mr. Henty has produced, and deserves to be classed with his 'Facing Death.'"--Standard. The Young Midshipman: A Story of the Bombardment of Alexandria. With illustrations. 12mo, cloth, olivine edges, price $1.00. A coast fishing lad, by an act of heroism, secures the interest of a shipowner, who places him as an apprentice on board one of his ships. In company with two of his fellow-apprentices he is left behind, at Alexandria, in the hands of the revolted Egyptian troops, and is present through the bombardment and the scenes of riot and bloodshed which accompanied it. For sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the publisher, A. L. BURT, 52-58 Duane Street, New York. BOOKS FOR BOYS. In Times of Peril. A Tale of India. By G. A. Henty. With illustrations. 12mo, cloth, olivine edges, price $1.00. "The hero of the story early excites our admiration, and is altogether a fine character such as boys will delight in, whilst the story of the campaign is very graphically told."--St. James's Gazette. The Cornet of Horse: A Tale of Marlborough's Wars. By G. A. Henty. With illustrations. 12mo, cloth, olivine edges, price $1. "Mr. Henty not only concocts a thrilling tale, he weaves fact and fiction together with so skillful a hand that the reader cannot help acquiring a just and clear view of that fierce and terrible struggle known as the Crimean War."--Athenæum. The Young Franc-Tireurs: Their Adventures in the Franco-Prussian War. By G. A. Henty. With illustrations. 12mo, cloth, olivine edges, price $1.00. "A capital book for boys. It is bright and readable, and full of good sense and manliness. It teaches pluck and patience in adversity, and shows that right living leads to success."--Observer. The Young Colonists: A Story of Life and War in South Africa. By G. A. Henty. With illustrations. 12mo, cloth, olivine edges, price $1.00. "No boy needs to have any story of Henty's recommended to him, and parents who do not know and buy them for their boys should be ashamed of themselves. Those to whom he is yet unknown could not make a better beginning than with this book." The Young Buglers. A Tale of the Peninsular War. By G. A. Henty. With illustrations. 12mo, cloth, olivine edges, price $1. "Mr. Henty is a giant among boys' writers, and his books are sufficiently popular to be sure of a welcome anywhere. In stirring interest, this is quite up to the level of Mr. Henty's former historical tales."--Saturday Review. Sturdy and Strong; or, How George Andrews Made his Way. By G. A. Henty. With illustrations. 12mo. cloth, olivine edges, price $1.00. "The history of a hero of everyday life, whose love of truth, clothing of modesty, and innate pluck, carry him, naturally, from poverty to affluence. George Andrews is an example of character with nothing to cavil at, and stands as a good instance of chivalry in domestic life."--The Empire. Among Malay Pirates. A Story of Adventure and Peril. By G. A. Henty. With illustrations. 12mo, cloth, olivine edges, price $1.00. "Incident succeeds incident, and adventure is piled upon adventure, and at the end the reader, be he boy or man, will have experienced breathless enjoyment in a romantic story that must have taught him much at its close."--Army and Navy Gazette. Jack Archer. A Tale of the Crimea. By G. A. Henty. With illustrations. 12mo, cloth, olivine edges, price $1.00. "Mr. Henty not only concocts a thrilling tale, he weaves fact and fiction together with so skillful a hand that the reader cannot help acquiring a just and clear view of that fierce and terrible struggle."--Athenæum. For sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the publisher, A. L. BURT, 58-58 Duane Street, New York. BOOKS FOR BOYS. Friends, Though Divided. A Tale of the Civil War. By G. A. Henty. With illustrations. 12mo, cloth, olivine edges, price $1. "It has a good plot; it abounds in action; the scenes are equally spirited and realistic, and we can only say we have read it with much pleasure from first to last."--Times. Out on the Pampas; or, The Young Settlers. By G. A. Henty. With illustrations. 12mo, cloth, olivine edges, price $1.00. "A really noble story, which adult readers will find to the full as satisfying as the boys. Lucky boys! to have such a caterer as Mr. G. A. Henty."--Black and White. The Boy Knight: A Tale of the Crusades. By G. A. Henty. With illustrations. 12mo, cloth, olivine edges, price $1.00. "Of stirring episode there is no lack. The book, with its careful accuracy and its descriptions of all the chief battles, will give many a schoolboy his first real understanding of a very important period of history."--St. James's Gazette. The Wreck of the Golden Fleece. The Story of a North Sea Fisher Boy. By Robert Leighton. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1. A description of life on the wild North-Sea,--the hero being a parson's son who is appreciated on board a Lowestoft fishing lugger. The lad has to suffer many buffets from his shipmates, while the storms and dangers which he braved on board the "North Star" are set forth with minute knowledge and intense power. The wreck of the "Golden Fleece" forms the climax to a thrilling series of desperate mischances. Olaf the Glorious. A Story of the Viking Age. By Robert Leighton. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. This story of Olaf the Glorious, King of Norway, opens with the incident of his being found by his uncle living as a bond-slave in Esthonia; then come his adventures as a Viking and his raids upon the coasts of Scotland and England, his victorious battle against the English at Maldon in Essex, his being bought off by Ethelred the Unready, and his conversion to Christianity. He then returns to Pagan Norway, is accepted as king, and converts his people to the Christian faith. To Greenland and the Pole. A story of Adventure in the Arctic Regions, By Gordon Stables. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1. The unfailing fascination of Arctic venturing is presented in this story with new vividness. It deals with skilöbning in the north of Scotland, deer-hunting in Norway, sealing in the Arctic Seas, bear-stalking on the ice-floes, the hardships of a journey across Greenland, and a successful voyage to the back of the North Pole. This is, indeed, a real sea-yarn by a real sailor, and the tone is as bright and wholesome as the adventures are numerous. Yussuf the Guide. A Story of Adventure in Asia Minor. By George Manville Fenn. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. This story deals with the stirring incidents in the career of a lad who has been almost given over by the doctors, but who rapidly recovers health and strength in a journey through Asia Minor. The adventures are many, and culminate in the travellers being snowed up for the winter in the mountains, from which they escape while their captors are waiting for the ransom that does not come. For sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the publisher, A. L. BURT, 52-58 Duane Street, New York. BOOKS FOR BOYS. Grettir the Outlaw. A Story of Iceland. By S. Baring-Gould. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. "This is the boys' book of the year. That is, of course, as much as to say that it will do for men grown as well as juniors. It is told in simple, straightforward English, as all stories should be, and it has a freshness and freedom which make it irresistible."--National Observer. Two Thousand Years Ago. The Adventures of a Roman Boy, By A. J. Church. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. "Prof. Church has in this story sought to revivify that most interesting period, the last days of the Roman Republic. The book is extremely entertaining as well as useful: there is a wonderful freshness in the Roman scenes and characters."--Times. Nat the Naturalist. A Boy's Adventure in the Eastern Seas. By George Manville Fenn. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1. Nat and his uncle Dick go on a voyage to the remoter islands of the Eastern seas, and their adventures are told in a truthful and vastly interesting fashion. The descriptions of Mr. Ebony, their black comrade, and of the scenes of savage life, are full of genuine humor. The Log of the Flying Fish. A Story of Peril and Adventure. By Harry Collingwood. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1. "This story is full of even more vividly recounted adventures than those which charmed so many boy readers in 'Pirate Island' and 'Congo Rovers.'... There is a thrilling adventure on the precipices of Mount Everest, when the ship floats off and providentially returns by force of gravitation."--Academy. The Congo Rovers. A Story of the Slave Squadron. By Harry Collingwood. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. "The scene of this tale is laid on the west coast of Africa, and in the lower reaches of the Congo; the characteristic scenery of the great river being delineated with wonderful accuracy. Mr. Collingwood carries us off for another cruise at sea, in 'The Congo Rovers,' and boys will need no pressing to join the daring crew, which seeks adventures and meets with any number of them."--The Times. Boris the Bear Hunter. A Tale of Peter the Great and His Times. By Fred Wishaw. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. "This is a capital story. The characters are marked and lifelike, and it is full of incident and adventure."--Standard. Michael Strogoff; or, The Courier of the Czar. By Jules Verne. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. "The story is full of originality and vigor. The characters are lifelike, there is plenty of stirring incident, the interest is sustained throughout, and every boy will enjoy following the fortunes of the hero."--Journal of Education. Mother Carey's Chicken. Her Voyage to the Unknown Isle. By George Manville Fenn. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. "Undoubtedly one of the best Mr. Fenn has written. The incidents are of thrilling interest, while the characters are drawn with a care and completeness rarely found in a boy's book."--Literary World. For sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the publisher, A. L. BURT, 52-58 Duane Street, New York. 
21363	----	Quicksilver; or, The Boy With No Skid To His Wheel, by George Manville Fenn. ________________________________________________________________________ I don't know where they get titles for books from. The subtitle is "The Boy with no Skid to his Wheel", and that is the only mention of the word "skid" in the entire book. The only "wheel" mentioned is when the boy hero does cartwheels round the drawing-room. And the said boy is referred to as "a globule of quicksilver". So I suppose it is something the author had in his mind before he began the book. Unlike most of Fenn's books, which involve dire situations with pirates in the China Seas, and other such places, the entire action of this book takes place in a small English village. The local doctor, having retired childless, decides he would like to adopt a boy. Being a Governor of the local Institute for the Poor he goes there and selects a boy who at the age of two had been a foundling, and who is now eleven or twelve. Everyone is keen to make this work, but there is a big difference in social manners between a boy brought up in an Institute, and the boy the doctor would like to have. So a certain amount of retraining has to take place. Of course this is successful in the end, but there are a lot of blips long the way. Our hero makes friends with a local boy who is definitely "non-U". They run away together in a boat they have nicked for the purpose. For a few days they have various adventures, some enjoyable, but most of them not. On being brought back our hero is sent to a small private school run by a clergyman, who beats the boy mercilessly, so that he runs away from the school, back to the doctor's, but remains hidden in an out-house. He is found, but becomes very ill, so the whole household is taken to a rented house in the Isle of Wight, where he eventually recovers. At which point it is discovered who his real parents are, and he is "U" after all, so everyone feels good about it. ________________________________________________________________________ QUICKSILVER; OR, THE BOY WITH NO SKID TO HIS WHEEL, BY GEORGE MANVILLE FENN. CHAPTER ONE. A VERY STRANGE PAIR. He was very grubby, and all about his dark grey eyes there were the marks made by his dirty fingers where he had rubbed away the tickling tears. The brownish red dust of the Devon lanes had darkened his delicate white skin, and matted his shiny yellow curls. As to his hands, with their fat little fingers, with every joint showing a pretty dimple, they looked white and clean, but that was due to the fact that he was sitting in a bed of moss by the roadside, where the water came trickling down from the red rocks above, and dabbling and splashing the tiny pool, till the pearly drops hung among his dusty curls, and dotted, as if with jewels, the ragged old blue jersey shirt which seemed to form his only garment. This did not fit him, in spite of its elasticity, for it was what a dealer would have called "man's size," and the wearer was about two and a half, or at the most three; but the sleeves had been cut so that they only reached his elbows, and the hem torn off the bottom and turned into a belt or sash, which was tied tightly round the little fellow's waist, to keep the jersey from slipping off. Consequently the plump neck was bare, as were his dirty little legs, with their dimpled, chubby knees. While he splashed and dabbled the water, the sun flashed upon the drops, some of which jewelled the spreading ferns which drooped over the natural fount, and even reached as high as the delicate leafage of stunted overhanging birch, some of whose twigs kept waving in the soft summer breeze, and sweeping against the boy's curly hair. When the little fellow splashed the water, and felt it fly into his face, he laughed--burst after burst of silvery, merry laughter; and in the height of his enjoyment he threw back his head, his ruddy lips parted, and two rows of pearly teeth flashed in the bright sunshine. As dirty a little grub as ever made mud-pies in a gutter; but the water, the ferns, moss, and flowers around were to his little soul the most delightful of toys, and he seemed supremely happy. After a time he grew tired of splashing the water, and, drawing one little foot into his lap, he pursed up his lips, an intent frown wrinkled his shining forehead, and he began, in the most serio-comic manner, to pick the row of tiny toes, passing a chubby finger between them to get rid of the dust and grit. All this while the breeze blew, the birch-tree waved, and the flowers nodded, while from out of a clump of ling and rushes there came, at regular intervals, a low roar like the growl of a wild beast. After a few minutes there was the _pad, pad_--_pad, pad_ of a horse's hoofs on the dusty road; the rattle of wheels; and a green gig, drawn by a sleepy-looking grey horse, and containing a fat man and a broad woman, came into sight, approached slowly, and would have passed had not the broad woman suddenly laid her hand upon the reins, and checked the grey horse, when the two red-faced farming people opened their mouths, and stared at the child. "Sakes alive, Izick, look at that!" said the woman in a whisper, while the little fellow went on picking his toes, and the grey horse turned his tail into a live chowry to keep away the flies. "Well, I am!" said the fat man, wrinkling his face all over as he indulged in a silent laugh. "Why, moother, he's a perfeck picter." "The pretty, pretty little fellow," said the woman in a genuine motherly tone. "O Izick, how I should like to give him a good wash!" "Wash! He's happy enough, bless him!" said the man. "Wonder whose he be. Here, what are you going to do?" "I'm going to give un a kiss, that's what I'm a-going to do," said the woman getting very slowly out of the gig. "He must be a lost child." "Well," grumbled the man, "we didn't come to market to find lost children." Then he sat forward, with his arms resting upon his knees, watching his wife as she slowly approached the unconscious child, till she was in the act of stooping over him to lay her fat red hand upon his golden curls, when there was a loud roar as if from some savage beast, and the woman jumped back scared; the horse leaped sidewise; the farmer raised his whip; and the pair of simple-hearted country folks stared at a fierce-looking face which rose out of the bed of ling, its owner having been sleeping face downward, and now glowering at them above his folded arms. It was not a pleasant countenance, for it was foul without with dirt and more foul within from disease, being covered with ruddy fiery blotch and pimple, and the eyes were of that unnatural hue worn by one who has for years been debased by drink. "Yah!" roared the man, half-closing his bleared eyes. "Leave the bairn alone." "O Izick!" gasped the woman. "Here, none o' that!" cried the farmer fiercely. "Don't you frighten my wife." "Let the bairn alone," growled the man again. "How came you by him!" said the woman recovering herself. "I'm sure he can't be your'n." "Not mine!" growled the man in a hoarse, harsh voice. "You let the bairn be. I'll soon show you about that. Hi! chick!" The little fellow scrambled to him, and putting his tiny chubby arms about the man's coarse neck, nestled his head upon his shoulder, and turned to gaze at the farmer and his wife. "Not my bairn!" growled the man; "what d'yer say to that?" "Lor, Izick, only look," said the woman in a whisper. "My!" "Well, what are yer starin' at?" growled the man defiantly; "didn't think he were your bairn, did you!" "Come away, missus," said the farmer; and the woman reluctantly climbed back into the gig. "It don't seem right, Izick, for him to have such a bairn as that," said the woman, who could not keep her eyes off the child. "Ah, well! it ar'n't no business of our'n. Go along!" This was to the horse, who went off directly in a shambling trot, and the gig rattled along the road; but as long as they remained in sight, the farmer's wife stared back at the little fellow, and the rough-looking tramp glared at her from among the heather and ling. "Must be getting on--must be getting on," he growled to himself; and he kept on muttering in a low tone as he tried to stagger to his feet, but for a time his joints seemed to be so stiff that he could only get to his knees, and he had to set the child down. Then after quite a struggle, during which he kept on muttering in a strange incoherent manner, he contrived to get upon his feet, and stood holding on by a branch of the birch-tree, while the child stared in his repellent face. The next minute he staggered into the road and began to walk away, reeling strangely like a drunken man, talking wildly the while; but he seemed to recall the fact that he had left the child behind, and he staggered back to where a block of stone lay by the water-side, and sat down. "Here, chick!" he growled. His aspect and the tone of his voice were sufficient to frighten the little fellow away, but he did not seem in the least alarmed, and placed his tiny hands in the great gnarled fists extended to him. Then with a swing the man threw the child over his shoulder and on to his back, staggering and nearly overbalancing himself in the act. But he kept his feet, and growled savagely as his little burden uttered a whimpering cry. "Hold on," he said; and the next minute the pretty bare arms were clinging tightly round his neck, the hands hidden in the man's grizzly tangled beard; and, pig-a-back fashion, he bore him on along the road. The sun beat down upon the fair curly head; the dust rose, shuffled up by the tramp's uncertain step, while the chats and linnets twittered among the furze, and the larks sang high overhead. This and the heat, combined with the motion, sufficed to lull the tiny fellow to rest, and before long his head drooped sidewise, and he was fast asleep. But he did not fall. It was as if the natural instinct which enables the young life to maintain its hold upon the old orang-outang was in force here, so that the child clung tightly to the staggering man, who seemed thenceforth oblivious of his existence. The day passed on: the sun was setting fast, and the tramp continued to stagger on like a drunken man, talking wildly all the time, now babbling of green leaves, now muttering angrily, as if abusing some one near. Then came the soft evening-time, as he tottered down a long slope towards the houses lying in a hollow, indicating the existence of a goodly town. And now groups of people were passed, some of whom turned to gaze after the coarse-looking object with disgust, others with wonder; while the more thoughtless indulged in a grin, and made remarks indicating their impressions of where the tramp had been last. He did not seem to see them, however, but kept on the same incoherent talking in a low growl, and his eyes glared strangely at objects unseen by those he passed. All at once, though, he paused as he reached the broad marketplace of the town, and said to one of a group of idlers the one word-- "Workus?" "Eh?" "Workus!" said the tramp fiercely. "Oh! Straight avore you. Zee a big wall zoon as yer get over the bridge." The man staggered on, and crossed the swift river running through the town, and in due course reached the big wall, in which was a doorway with a bell-pull at the side. A few minutes later the door had been opened, and a stalwart porter seemed disposed to refuse admission, but his experienced eyes read the applicant's state, and the door closed upon the strangely assorted pair. CHAPTER TWO. THE TRAMP'S LEGACY. The doctor shook his head as he stood beside a plain bed in a whitewashed ward where the tramp lay muttering fiercely, and the brisk-looking master of the workhouse and a couple of elderly women stood in a group. "No, Hippetts," said the doctor; "the machinery is all to pieces and beyond repair. No." Just then there was a loud cry, consequent upon one of the women taking the child from where it had been seated upon the foot of the bed, and carrying it toward the door. In a moment the sick man sprang up in bed, glaring wildly and stretching out his hands. "Quick! take the boy away," said the master; but the doctor held up his finger, watching the sick man the while. Then he whispered a few words to the master, who seemed to give an unwilling consent, and the boy was placed within the tramp's reach. The man had been trying to say something, but the words would not come. As he touched the child's hand, though, he gave vent to a sigh of satisfaction, and sank back upon the coarse pillow, while the child nestled to his side, sobbing convulsively, but rapidly calming down. "Against all rule and precedent, doctor," said the master, in an ill-used tone. "Yes, my dear Mr Hippetts," said the doctor, smiling; "but I order it as a sedative medicine. It will do more good than anything I can give. It will not be for long." The master nodded. "Mrs Curdley," continued the doctor, "you will sit up with him." "Yes, sir," said one of the old women with a curtsey. "Keep an eye to the child, in case he turns violent; but I don't think he will--I don't think he will." "And send for you, sir, if he do!" "Yes." The little party left the workhouse infirmary, all but Mrs Curdley, who saw to lighting a fire for providing herself with a cup of tea, to comfort her from time to time during her long night-watch, and then all was very still in the whitewashed place. The child took the bread and butter the old woman gave him, and sat on the bed smiling at her as he ate it hungrily, quite contented now; and the only sounds that broke the silence after a time were the mutterings of the sick man. But these did not disturb the child, who finished his bread and butter, and drank some sweet tea which the old woman gave him, after which his little head sank sidewise, his eyes closed, and he fell fast asleep on the foot of the bed. The night was warm, and he needed no coverlet, while from time to time the hard-faced old woman went to look at her patient, giving him a cursory glance, and then stopping at the bedside to gently stroke the child's round cheek with her rough finger, and as the little fellow once broke into a crowing laugh in his sleep, it had a strange effect upon the old nurse, who slowly wiped the corners of her eyes with her apron, and bent down and kissed him. Hour after hour was chimed and struck by the great clock in the centre of the town; and as midnight passed, the watchful old nurse did her watching in a pleasant dream, in which she thought that she was once more young, and that boy of hers who enlisted, went to India, and was shot in an encounter with one of the hill tribes, was young again, and that she was cutting bread and butter from a new loaf. It was a very pleasant dream, and lasted a long time, for the six o'clock bell was ringing before she awoke with a start and exclaimed-- "Bless me! must have just closed my eyes. Why, a pretty bairn!" she said softly, as her hard face grew soft. "Sleeping like a top, and-- oh!" She caught the sleeping child from the bed, and hurried out of the place to lay him upon her own bed, where about an hour after he awoke, and cried to go to the tramp. But there was no tramp there for him to join. The rough man had gone on a long journey, where he could not take the child, who cried bitterly, as if he had lost the only one to whom he could cling, till the old woman returned from a task she had had to fulfil, and with one of her pockets in rather a bulgy state. Her words and some bread and butter quieted the child, who seemed to like her countenance, or read therein that something which attracts the very young as beauty does those of older growth, and the addition of a little brown sugar, into which he could dip a wet finger from time to time, made them such friends that he made no objection to being washed. "Yes, sir; went off quite quiet in his sleep," said the old nurse in answer to the doctor's question. "And the child?" "Oh, I gave him a good wash, sir, which he needed badly," said the woman volubly. "Poor little wretch!" muttered the doctor as he went away. "A tramp's child--a waif cast up by the way. Ah, Hippetts, I was right, you see: it was not for long." CHAPTER THREE. DOCTOR GRAYSON'S THEORY. "I want some more." "Now, my dear Eddy, I think you have had quite as much as is good for you," said Lady Danby, shaking her fair curls at her son. "No, I haven't, ma. Pa, may I have some pine-apple!" "Yes, yes, yes, and make yourself ill. Maria, my dear, I wish you wouldn't have that boy into dessert; one can hardly hear one's-self speak." "Sweet boy!" muttered Dr Grayson of the Manor House, Coleby, as he glanced at Sir James Danby's hopeful fat-faced son, his mother's idol, before which she worshipped every day. The doctor glanced across the table at his quiet lady-like daughter, and there was such a curious twinkle in his eye that she turned aside so as to keep her countenance, and began talking to Lady Danby about parish work, the poor, and an entertainment to be given at the workhouse. Dr Grayson and his daughter were dining at Cedars House that evening, greatly to the doctor's annoyance, for he preferred home. "But it would be uncivil not to go," said Miss Grayson, who had kept her father's house almost from a child. So they went. "Well, doctor," said Sir James, who was a comfortable specimen of the easy-going country baronet and magistrate, "you keep to your opinion, and I'll keep to mine." "I will," said the doctor; "and in two years' time I shall publish my book with the result of my long studies of the question. I say, sir, that a boy's a boy." "Oh yes, we all agree to that, doctor," said Lady Danby sweetly. "Edgar, my dear, I'm sure you've had enough." "Pa, mayn't I have half a glass of Madeira!" "Now, my dear boy, you have had some." "But that was such a teeny weeny drop, ma. That glass is so thick." "For goodness' sake, Maria, give him some wine, and keep him quiet," cried Sir James. "Don't you hear that Dr Grayson and I are discussing a point in philosophy!" "Then you mustn't ask for any more, Eddy dear," said mamma, and she removed the decanter stopper, and began to pour out a very thin thread of wine, when the young monkey gave the bottom of the decanter a tilt, and the glass was nearly filled. "Eddy, for shame!" said mamma. "What will Miss Grayson think?" "I don't care," said the boy, seizing the glass, drinking some of the rich wine, and then turning to the thick slice of pine-apple his mother had cut. The doctor gave his daughter another droll look, but she preserved her calm. "To continue," said the doctor: "I say a boy's a boy, and I don't care whose he is, or where he came from; he is so much plastic clay, and you can make of him what you please." "You can't make him a gentleman," said Sir James. "I beg your pardon." "And I beg yours. If the boy has not got breed in him--gentle blood-- you can never make him a gentleman." "I beg your pardon," said the doctor again. "I maintain, sir, that it is all a matter of education or training, and that you could make a gentleman's son a labourer, or a labourer's son a gentleman." "And are you going to put that in your book, doctor?" "Yes, sir, I am: for it is a fact. I'm sure I'm right." Sir James laughed. "And I'm sure you are wrong. Look at my boy, now. You can see in an instant that he has breed in him; but if you look at my coachman's son, you will see that he has no breeding at all." _Crork, crork, crork, crork_. "Oh!" from her ladyship, in quite a scream. "Good gracious!" cried Sir James; and the doctor and Helen Grayson both started to their feet, while Master Edgar Danby kept on making the most unearthly noises, kicking, gasping, turning black in the face, and rolling his eyes, which threatened to start from their sockets. "What is it?" cried Sir James. Crash went a glass. A dessert-plate was knocked off the table, and Master Edgar kept on uttering his hoarse guttural sound of _crork, crork, crork_! He was choking, and the result might have been serious as he sat struggling there, with papa on one side, and mamma on the other, holding his hands, had not Dr Grayson come behind him, and given him a tremendous slap on the back which had a beneficial effect, for he ceased making the peculiar noise, and began to wipe his eyes. "What was it, dear? what was it, my darling?" sobbed Lady Danby. "A great piece of pine-apple stuck in his throat," said the doctor. "I say, youngster, you should use your teeth." "Edgar, drink some water," said Sir James sternly. Master Edgar caught up his wine-glass, and drained it. "Now, sir, leave the room!" said Sir James. "Oh, don't, don't be harsh with him, James," said her ladyship pathetically. "The poor boy has suffered enough." "I say he shall leave the room," cried Sir James in a towering fury; and Master Edgar uttered a howl. "Really, James, I--" Here her ladyship had an hysterical fit, and had to be attended to, what time Master Edgar howled loudly till the butler had been summoned and he was led off like a prisoner, while her ladyship grew worse, but under the ministrations of Helen Grayson, suddenly becoming better, drank a glass of water, and wiped her eyes. "I am so weak," she said unnecessarily, as she rose from the dessert-table and left the room with Helen Grayson, who had hard work once more to keep her countenance, as she encountered her father's eye. "Spoils him, Grayson," said Sir James, as they settled down to their port. "Noble boy, though, wonderful intellect. I shall make him a statesman." "Hah!" ejaculated the firm-looking grey-haired doctor, who had taken high honours at his college, practised medicine for some years, and since the death of his wife lived the calm life of a student in the old Manor House of Coleby. "Now, you couldn't make a statesman of some boys whom you took out of the gutter." "Oh yes, I could," said the doctor. "Oh yes, sir." "Ah, well; we will not argue," said Sir James good-humouredly. "No," said the doctor, "we will not argue." But they did argue all the same, till they had had their coffee, when they argued again, and then joined the ladies in the drawing-room, where Master Edgar was eating cake, and dropping currants and crumbs between the leaves of a valuable illustrated book, which he turned over with fingers in a terrible state of stick,--the consequence being that he added illustrations--prints of his fingers in brown. "Have you settled your debate, Dr Grayson!" said Lady Danby, smiling. "No, madam; I shall have to prove my theory to your husband, and it will take time." "My dear James, what is the matter!" said her ladyship as a howl arose. "Pa says I'm to go to bed, ma, and it's only ten; and you promised me I might sit up as long as I liked." "How can you make such foolish promises, Maria?" said Sir James petulantly. "There, hold your tongue, sir, and you may stay another half-hour." "But ma said I might stop up as long as I liked," howled Master Edgar. "Then for goodness' sake stop up all night, sir," said Sir James impatiently; and Master Edgar stayed till the visitors had gone. "Enjoyed your evening, my dear?" said the doctor. "Ye-es, papa," said his daughter; "I--" "Might have enjoyed it more. Really, Helen, it is absurd. That man opposed my theory tooth and nail, and all the time he kept on proving it by indulging that boy. I say you can make what you like of a boy. Now what's he making of that boy?" "Sir James said he should make him a statesman," said Helen, smiling. "But he is making him a nuisance instead. Good-night." "Good-night, papa." "Oh, by the way, my dear, I shall have to prove my theory." "Indeed, papa!" "Yes. Good-night." CHAPTER FOUR. THE CHOICE OF A BOY. Next morning Dr Grayson took his gold-headed cane, and walked down to the workhouse. Upon dragging at the bell the porter opened the gate obsequiously, and sent a messenger to tell the master Dr Grayson had called. "Good morning, Hippetts," said the doctor, who being a Poor-Law Guardian, and a wealthy inhabitant of the place, was received with smiles by the important master. "Good morning, sir. Called to look round." "No, Hippetts, no," said the doctor, in the tone and manner of one making an inquiry about some ordinary article of merchandise; "got any boys?" "Boys, sir; the house swarms with them." "Ah, well, show me some." "Show you some, sir?" "Yes. I want a boy." "Certainly, sir. This way, sir. About what age, sir!" "Eleven or twelve--not particular," said the doctor. Then to himself: "About the age of young Danby." "I see, sir," said the master. "Stout, strong, useful boy for a buttons." "Nonsense!" said the doctor testily, "I want a boy to adopt." "Oh!" said the master staring, and wondering whether rich philosophical Dr Grayson was in his right mind. He led the way along some whitewashed passages, and across a gravel yard, to a long, low building, from which came the well-known humming hum of many voices, among which a kind of chorus could be distinguished, and from time to time the sharp striking of a cane upon a desk, followed by a penetrating "Hush! hush!" As the master opened the door, a hot puff of stuffy, unpleasantly close air came out, and the noise ceased as if by magic, though there were about three hundred boys in the long, open-roofed room. The doctor cast his eye round and saw a crowd of heads, the schoolmaster, and besides these--whitewash. The walls, the ceiling, the beams were all whitewashed. The floor was hearth-stoned, but it seemed to be whitewashed, and even the boys' faces appeared to have been touched over with a thin solution laid on with the whitewash brush. Every eye was turned upon the visitor, and the doctor frowned as he looked round at the pallid, wan-looking, inanimate countenances which offered themselves to his view. The boys were not badly fed; they were clean; they were warmly clad; but they looked as if the food they ate did them no good, and was not enjoyed; as if they were too clean; and as if their clothes were not comfortable. Every face seemed to have been squeezed into the same mould, to grow it into one particular make, which was inexpressive, inanimate, and dull, while they all wore the look of being on the high-road to old-manism without having been allowed to stop and play on the way, and be boys. "Hush! hush!" came from the schoolmaster, and a pin might have been heard to fall. The boys devoured the doctor with their eyes. He was a stranger. It was something to see, and it was a break in the horrible monotony of their existence. Had they known the object of the visit, a tremendous yell would have arisen, and it would have been formed of two words--"Take me." It was considered a model workhouse school, too, one of which the guardians were proud. There was no tyranny, no brutality, but there was endless drill and discipline, and not a scrap of that for which every boy's heart naturally yearns;--"Home, sweet home." No amount of management can make that and deck it with a mother's love; and it must have been the absence of these elements which made the Coleby boys look like three hundred white-faced small old men. "Now, let me see, sir," said the master; "of course the matter will have to be laid before the Board in the usual form, but you will make your selection now. Good light, sir, to choose." Mr Hippetts did not mean it unkindly; but he too spoke as if he were busy over some goods he had to sell. "Let me see. Ah! Coggley, stand out." Coggley, a very thin boy of thirteen, a little more whitewashy than the rest, stood out, and made a bow as if he were wiping his nose with his right hand, and then curving it out at the doctor. He was a nice, sad-looking boy, with railways across his forehead, and a pinched-in nose; but he was very thin, and showed his shirt between the top of his trousers and the bottom of his waistcoat, instead of upon his chest, while it was from growth, not vanity, that he showed so much ankle and wrist. "Very good boy, sir. Had more marks than any one of his age last year." "Won't do," said the doctor shortly. "Too thin," said Mr Hippetts to himself. "Bunce!" he shouted. Bunce stood out, or rather waddled forth, a stoutly-made boy with short legs,--a boy who, if ever he had a chance, would grow fat and round, with eyes like two currants, and a face like a bun. Bunce made a bow like a scoop upside down. "Another excellent boy, sir," said Mr Hippetts. "I haven't a fault to find with him. He is now twelve years old, and he--" "Won't do," said the doctor crossly. "Go back, Bunce," cried the master. "Pillett, stand out. Now here, sir, is a lad whom I am sure you will like. Writes a hand like copperplate. Age thirteen, and very intelligent." Pillett came forward eagerly, after darting a triumphant look at Coggley and Bunce. He was a wooden-faced boy, who seemed to have hard brains and a soft head, for his forehead looked nubbly, and there were rounded off corners at the sides. "Let Dr Grayson hear you say--" "No, no, Hippetts; this is not an examination," cried the doctor testily. "That is not the sort of boy I want. He must be a bright, intelligent lad, whom I can adopt and take into my house. I shall treat him exactly as if he were my own son, and if he is a good lad, it will be the making of him." "Oh! I see, sir," said Mr Hippetts importantly. "Go back, Pillett. I have the very boy. Gloog!" Pillett went back, and furtively held up his fist at triumphant Gloog, who came out panting as if he had just been running fast, and as soon as he had made the regulation bow, he, from old force of habit, wiped his nose on his cuff. "No, no, no, no," cried the doctor, without giving the lad a second glance, the first at his low, narrow forehead and cunning cast of features being quite enough. "But this is an admirably behaved boy, sir," protested Mr Hippetts. "Mr Sibery here can speak very highly of his qualifications." "Oh yes, sir," put in the schoolmaster with a severe smile and a distant bow, for he felt annoyed at not being consulted. "Yes, yes," said the doctor; "but not my style of boy." "Might I suggest one, sir!" said Mr Sibery deferentially, as he glanced at the king who reigned over the whole building. "To be sure," said the doctor. "You try." Mr Hippetts frowned, and Mr Sibery wished he had not spoken; but the dark look on the master's brow gave place to an air of triumph as the schoolmaster introduced seven boys, one after the other, to all of whom the visitor gave a decided negative. "Seems a strange thing," he said, "that out of three hundred boys you cannot show one I like." "But all these are excellent lads, sir," said the master deprecatingly. "Humph!" "Best of characters." "Humph!" "Our own training, sir. Mr Sibery has spared no pains, and I have watched over the boys' morals." "Yes, I dare say. Of course. Here, what boy's that?" He pointed with his cane to a pair of round blue eyes, quite at the back. "That, sir--that lame boy!" "No, no; that young quicksilver customer with the curly poll." "Oh! that, sir! He wouldn't do," cried the two masters almost in a breath. "How do you know!" said the doctor tartly. "Very bad boy indeed, sir, I'm sorry to say," said the schoolmaster. "Yes, sir; regular young imp; so full of mischief that he corrupts the other boys. Can't say a word in his favour; and, besides, he's too young." "How old?" "About eleven, sir." "Humph! Trot him out." "Obed Coleby," said the master in a severe voice. "Coleby, eh?" "Yes, sir. Son of a miserable tramp who died some years ago in the House. No name with him, so we called him after the town." "Humph!" said the doctor, as the little fellow came, full of eagerness and excitement, after kicking at Pillett, who put out a leg to hinder his advance. The doctor frowned, and gazed sternly at the boy, taking in carefully his handsome, animated face, large blue eyes, curly yellow hair, and open forehead: not that his hair had much opportunity for curling--the workhouse barber stopped that. The boy's face was as white as those of his companions, but it did not seem depressed and inanimate, for, though it was thin and white, his mouth was rosy and well-curved, and the slightly parted lips showed his pearly white teeth. "Humph!" said the doctor, as the bright eyes gazed boldly into his. "Where's your bow, sir?" said the master sternly. "Oh! I forgot," said the boy quickly; and he made up for his lapse by bowing first with one and then the other hand. "A sad young pickle," said the master. "Most hopeless case, sir. Constantly being punished." "Humph! You young rascal!" said the doctor sternly. "How dare you be a naughty boy!" The little fellow wrinkled his white forehead, and glanced at the schoolmaster, and then at Mr Hippetts, before looking back at the doctor. "I d'know," he said, in a puzzled way. "You don't know, sir!" "No. I'm allus cotching it." "Say _sir_, boy," cried the master. "Allus cotching of it, sir, and it don't do me no good." "Really, Dr Grayson--" "Wait a bit, Mr Hippetts," said the doctor more graciously. "Let me question the boy." "Certainly, sir. But he has a very bad record." "Humph! Tells the truth, though," said the doctor. "Here, sir, what's your name?" "Obed Coleby." "_Sir_!" cried the master. "Obed Coleby, _sir_," said the boy quickly, correcting himself. "What a name!" ejaculated the doctor. "Yes, ain't it? I hates it, sir." "Oh! you do?" "Yes; the boys all make fun of it, and call me Bed, and Go-to-bed, and Old Bedstead, and when they don't do that, they always call me Old Coal bag or Coaly." "That will do, sir. Don't chatter so," said Mr Sibery reprovingly. "Please, sir, he asked me," said the boy in protest; and there was a frank, bluff manner in his speech which took with the doctor. "Humph!" he said. "Would you like to leave this place, and come and live with me!" The boy puckered up his face, took a step forward, and the master made a movement as if to send him back; but the doctor laid his hand upon his arm, while the boy gazed into his eyes for some moments with wonderfully searching intentness. "Well?" said the doctor. "Will you?" The boy's face smoothed; a bright light danced in his eyes; and, as if full of confidence in his own judgment, he said eagerly-- "Yes; come along;" and he held out his hand. "And leave all your schoolfellows!" said the doctor. The boy's bright face clouded directly, and he turned to gaze back at the crowd of closely cropped heads. "He'll be glad enough to go," said the schoolmaster. "Yes," said Mr Hippetts; "a most ungrateful boy." The little fellow--stunted of his age--swung sharply round; and they saw that his eyes were brimming over as he looked reproachfully from one to the other. "I didn't want to be a bad un, sir," he said. "I did try, and--and-- and--I'll stop here, please, and--" He could say no more, for his face was working, and, at last, in shame and agony of spirit, he covered his face with his hands, and let himself drop in a heap on the stone floor, sobbing hysterically. "Coleby! Stand up, sir!" cried the master sternly. "Let him be, Mr Hippetts, if you please," said the doctor, with dignity; and he drew in a long breath, and remained for some moments silent, while the whole school stared with wondering eyes, and the two masters exchanged glances. "Strange boy," said Mr Hippetts. Then the doctor bent down slowly, and laid his hand upon the lad's shoulder. The little fellow started up, flinching as if from a blow, but as soon as he saw who had touched him, he rose to his knees, and caught quickly at the doctor's extended hand, while the look in the visitor's eyes had so strange an influence upon him that he continued to gaze wonderingly in the stern but benevolent face. "I think you'll come with me?" said the doctor. "Yes, I'd come. But may I?" "Yes; I think he may, Mr Hippetts?" said the doctor. "Yes, sir; of course, sir, if you wish it," said the master, with rather an injured air; "but I feel bound to tell you the boy's character." "Yes; of course." "And to warn you, sir, that you will bring him back in less than a week." "No, Mr Hippetts," said the doctor quietly; "I shall not bring him back." "Well, sir; if you are satisfied I have nothing to say." "I am satisfied, Mr Hippetts." "But he is not so old as you said, sir." "No." "And you wanted a boy of good character." "Yes; but I recall all I said. That is the boy I want. Can I take him at once?" "At once, sir!" said the master, as the little fellow, with his face a study, listened eagerly, and looked from one to the other. "I shall have to bring your proposal before the Board." "That is to say, before me and my colleagues," said the doctor, smiling. "Well, as one of the Guardians, I think I may venture to take the boy now, and the formal business can be settled afterwards." "Oh yes, sir; of course. And I venture to think, sir, that it will not be necessary to go on with it." "Why, Mr Hippetts?" "Because," said the master, with a peculiar smile which was reflected in the schoolmaster's face; "you are sure to bring him back." "I think I said before I shall not bring him back," replied the doctor coldly. The master bowed, and Mr Sibery cleared his throat and frowned at the boys. "Then I think that's all," said the doctor, laying his hand upon the boy's head. "Do I understand you, sir, to mean that you want to take him now?" "Directly." "But his clothes, sir; and he must be--" "I want to take him directly, Mr Hippetts, with your permission, and he will need nothing more from the Union." "Very good, sir; and I hope that he will take your kindness to heart. Do you hear, Coleby? And be a very good boy to his benefactor, and--" "Yes, yes, yes, Mr Hippetts," said the doctor, cutting him short. "I'm sure he will. Now, my man, are you ready?" "Yes, sir," cried the boy eagerly; "but--" "Well?" said the doctor kindly. "I should like to say good-bye to some of the chaps, and I've got something to give 'em." "Indeed! what?" "Well, sir; I want to give Dick Dean my mouse, and Tommy Robson my nicker, and share all my buttons among the chaps in my dormitory; and then I've six pieces of string and a pair of bones, and a sucker." "Go and share them, and say good-bye to them all," said the doctor, drawing a breath full of satisfaction; and the boy darted away full of excitement. "May I say a word to the boys, Mr Sibery?" said the doctor, smiling. "Certainly, sir." "Will you call for silence?" The master called, and the doctor asked the lads to give their old schoolfellow a cheer as he was going away. They responded with a shout that made the windows rattle. "And now," said the doctor, "I'm going to ask Mr Hippetts to give you all a holiday, and I am leaving threepence a piece to be distributed among you, so that you may have a bit of fun." Mr Hippetts smiled as he took the money, and the boys cheered again, in the midst of which shouts the doctor moved off with his charge, but only for his _protege_ to break away from him, and run to offer his hand to Mr Sibery, who coughed slightly, and shook hands limply, as if he were conferring a great favour. The boy then held out his hand to the master, and he also shook hands in a dignified way. "Shall I send the boy on, sir?" said Mr Hippetts. "Thanks, no, Hippetts; I'll take him with me." "Would you like a fly, sir?" "No, Hippetts; I'm not ashamed for people to see what I do. Come along, my lad." "Please, sir; mayn't I say good-bye to Mother Curdley?" "Mother Curdley? Who is she!" "Nurse, sir." "The woman who had charge of him when he was a tiny fellow." "Ah! to be sure. Yes, certainly," said the doctor. "He may, of course?" "Oh! certainly, sir. Run on, boy, and we'll follow." "No larks," said the boy sharply, as he looked at the doctor. "No; I shall not run away, my man." The boy darted down a long whitewashed passage, and the doctor said:-- "I understand you to say that he has no friends whatever!" "None, sir, as far as we know. Quite a foundling." "That will do," said the doctor; and while the boy was bidding good-bye to the old woman who had tended the sick tramp, the master led the way to the nursery, where about a dozen children were crawling about and hanging close to a large fire-guard. Others were being nursed on the check aprons of some women, while one particularly sour creature was rocking a monstrous cradle, made like a port-wine basket, with six compartments, in every one of which was an unfortunate babe. "Which he's a very good affectionate boy, sir," said a woman, coming up with the doctor's choice clinging to her apron; "and good-bye, and good luck, and there, God bless you, my dear!" she said, as she kissed the boy in a true motherly way, he clinging to her as the only being he had felt that he could love. That burst of genuine affection won Mother Curdley five shillings, which she pocketed with one hand, as she wiped her eyes with the other, and then had a furtive pinch of snuff, which made several babies sneeze as if they had bad colds. "Very eccentric man," said Mr Hippetts. "Very," assented Mr Sibery. "But he'll bring the young ruffian back." The doctor did not hear, for he was walking defiantly down the main street, waving his gold-headed cane, while the boy clung to his hand, and walked with bent head, crying silently, but fighting hard to keep it back. The doctor saw it, and pressed the boy's hand kindly. "Yes," he said to himself; "I'll show old Danby now. The very boy I wanted. Ah," he added aloud; "here we are." CHAPTER FIVE. A "REG'LAR" BAD ONE. Maria, the doctor's maid, opened the door, and as she admitted her master and his charge, her countenance was suggestive of round O's. Her face was round, and her eyes opened into two round spots, while her mouth became a perfectly circular orifice, as the doctor himself took off the boy's cap, and marched him into the drawing-room, where Helen Grayson was seated. On his way to the house, and with his young heart swelling at having to part from the only being who had been at all kind to him--for the recollection of the rough tramp had become extremely faint--the boy had had hard work to keep back his tears, but no sooner had he passed the doctor's door than the novelty of all he saw changed the current of his thoughts, and he was full of eagerness and excitement. The first inkling of this was shown as his eyes lit upon Maria's round face, and it tickled him so that he began to smile. "Such impidence!" exclaimed Maria. "And a workus boy. My! what's master going to do with him?" She hurried to the housekeeper's room, where Mrs Millett, who had kept the doctor's house, and attended to the cooking as well, ever since Mrs Grayson's death, was now seated making herself a new cap. "A workhouse boy, Maria?" she said, letting her work fall upon her knees, and looking over the top of her spectacles. "Yes; and master's took him into the drawing-room." "Oh! very well," said Mrs Millett tartly. "Master's master, and he has a right to do what he likes; but if there's anything I can't abear in a house it's a boy in buttons. They're limbs, that's what they are; regular young imps." "Going to keep a page!" said Maria, whose eyes looked a little less round. "Why, of course, girl; and it's all stuff." "Well, I don't know," said Maria thoughtfully. "There's the coal-scuttles to fill, and the door-bell to answer, a deal more than I like." "Yes," said Mrs Millett, snipping off a piece of ribbon viciously; "I know. That boy to find every time you want 'em done, and a deal less trouble to do 'em yourself. I can't abear boys." While this conversation was going on in the housekeeper's room, something of a very different kind was in progress in the drawing-room, where the daughter looked up from the letter she was writing, and gazed wonderingly at the boy. For her father pushed the little fellow in before him, and said: "There!" in a satisfied tone, and looked from one to the other. "Why, papa!" said Helen, after looking pleasantly at the boy. "Yes, my dear, that's him. There he is. From this hour my experiment begins." "With this boy?" said Helen. "Yes, my dear, shake hands with him, and make him at home." The doctor's sweet lady-like daughter held out her hand to the boy, who was staring about him at everything with wondering delight, till he caught sight of an admirably drawn water-colour portrait of the doctor, the work of Helen herself, duly framed and hung upon the wall. The boy burst into a hearty laugh, and turned to Helen, running to her now, and putting his hand in hers. "Look there," he cried, pointing with his left hand; "that's the old chap's picture. Ain't it like him!" The doctor frowned, and Helen looked troubled, even though it was a compliment to her skill; and for a few moments there was a painful silence in the room. This was however broken by the boy, who lifted Helen's hand up and down, and said in a parrot-like way-- "How do you do?" Helen's face rippled over with smiles, and the boy's brightened, and he too smiled in a way that made him look frank, handsome, and singularly attractive. "Oh, I say, you are pretty," he said. "Ten times as pretty as Miss Hippetts on Sundays." "Hah! yes. Never mind about Miss Hippetts. And look here, my man, Mr Hippetts said that you were anything but a good boy, and your schoolmaster said the same." "Yes; everybody knows that I am a reg'lar bad boy. The worst boy in the whole school." Helen Grayson's face contracted. "Oh, you are, are you!" said the doctor drily. "Yes, Mr Sibery told everybody so." "Well, then, now, sir, you will have to be a very good boy." "All right, sir." "And behave yourself very nicely." "But, I say: am I going to stop here, sir?" "Yes; always." "What, in this room?" "Yes." "And ain't I to go back to the House to have my crumbs!" "To have your what?" "Breakfasses and dinners, sir?" "No, you will have your meals here." "But I shall have to go back to sleep along with the other boys?" "No, you will sleep here; you will live here altogether now." "What! along of you and her?" cried the boy excitedly. "Yes, always, unless you go to a good school." "But live here along o' you, in this beautiful house with this nice lady, and that gal with a round face." "Yes, of course." "Ra-ra-ra-ra-ra-ra-ra-ra-ri-i-kee!" cried the boy in a shrill, piercing voice; and, to the astonishment of the doctor and his daughter, he made a bound, and then, with wonderful skill and rapidity, began turning the wheel, as it is called, going over and over on hands and feet, completely round the room. "Here, stop, sir, stop!" cried the doctor, half-angry and half-amused. "I can do it t'other way too," cried the boy; and, as he had turned before commencing upon his left hand, he began with his right, and completed the circuit of the room in the opposite direction. "There!" he cried, as he stopped before the doctor and his daughter, flushed and proud. "There isn't a chap in the House can do it as quick as I can. Mr Sibery caught me one day, and didn't I get the cane!" There was such an air of innocent pride displayed by the boy, that after for the moment feeling annoyed, Helen Grayson sat back in her chair and laughed as much at the boy as at her father's puzzled look, of surprise. "That's nothing!" cried the boy, as he saw Helen's smiles. "Look here." He ducked down and placed his head on the hearthrug, his hands on either side in front, and threw his heels in the air, to the great endangerment of the chimney ornaments. "Get down, sir! get down!" cried the doctor. "I mean, get up." "It don't hurt," cried the boy, "stand on my head longer than you will for a penny." "Will you get up, sir!" The boy let his feet go down into their normal position upon the carpet, and rose up with his handsome young face flushed, and a look of proud delight in his eyes. "I can walk on my hands ever so far," he shouted boisterously. "No, no; stop!" "You look, miss, and see me run like a tomcat." Before he could be stopped, he was down on all-fours running, with wonderful agility, in and out among the chairs, and over the hearthrug. "That's what I do to make the boys laugh, when we go to bed. I can go all along the dormitory, and jump from one bed to the other. Where's the dormitory? I'll show you." "No, no; stop!" cried the doctor, and he caught hold of the boy by the collar. "Confound you, sir: are you full of quicksilver!" "No. It's skilly," said the boy, "and I ain't full now I'm ever so hungry." The doctor held him tightly, for he was just off again. Helen Grayson tried to look serious, but was compelled to hold her handkerchief before her mouth, and hide her face; but her eyes twinkled with mirth, as her father turned towards her, and sat rubbing his stiff grey hair. The doctor's plan of bringing up a boy chosen from the workhouse had certainly failed, she thought, so far as this lad was concerned; and as the little prisoner stood tightly held, but making all the use he could of his eyes, he said, pointing to a glass shade over a group of wax fruit-- "Is them good to eat!" "No," said Helen, smiling. "I say, do you have skilly for breakfast!" "I do not know what skilly is," replied Helen. "Then, I'll tell you. It's horrid. They beats up pailfuls of oatmeal in a copper, and ladles it out. But it's better than nothing." "Ahem!" coughed the doctor, who was thinking deeply. The boy glanced at him sharply, and then turned again to Helen-- "You mustn't ask for anything to eat at the House if you're ever so hungry." "Are you hungry?" said Helen. "Just!" "Would you like a piece of cake!" "Piece o' cake? Please. Here, let go." He shook himself free from the doctor and ran to Helen. "Sit down on that cushion, and I'll ring for some." "What, have you got a big bell here? Let me pull it, will you?" "It is not a big bell, but you may pull it," said Helen, crossing to the fireplace. "There, that will do." She led the way back to the chair where she had been seated, and in spite of herself felt amused and pleased at the way in which the boy's bright curious eyes examined her, for, outside of his school discipline, the little fellow acted like a small savage, and was as full of eager curiosity. "I say," he said, "how do you do your hair like that? It is nice." Just then Maria entered the room. "Bring up the cake, Maria, and a knife and plate--and--stop--bring a glass of milk." "Yes, miss," said Maria, staring hard at the boy with anything but favourable eyes. "I say, do you drink milk?" said the boy. "Sometimes. This is for you." "For me? Oh, I say! But you'll put some water to it, won't you!" "No; you can drink it as it is. No, no! Stop!" Helen Grayson was too late; in the exuberance of his delight the boy relieved his excited feelings by turning the wheel again round the room, stopping, though, himself, as he reached the place where the doctor's daughter was seated. "Well, why do you look at me like that?" "I d'know. Feels nice," said the boy. "I say, is that round-face gal your sister?" "Oh no; she's the servant." "I'm glad of that," said the boy thoughtfully; "she won't eat that cake, will she!" Helen compressed her lips to control her mirth, and glanced at her father again, where he sat with his brow knit and lips pursed up thinking out his plans. Maria entered now with the cake and milk, placing a tray on a little table, and going out to return to the housekeeper, saying-- "Pretty pass things is coming to when servants is expected to wait on workus boys." In the drawing-room the object of her annoyance was watching, with sparkling eyes, the movements of the knife with which Helen Grayson cut off a goodly wedge of the cake. "There," she said; "eat that, and sit quite still." The boy snatched the piece wolfishly, and was lifting it to his mouth, but he stopped suddenly and stretched out his hand-- "Here; you have first bite," he said. Helen shook her head, but felt pleased. "No," she said. "It is for you." "Do," said the boy, fighting hard with the longing to begin. "No; eat it yourself." "Would he have a bit if I asked him!" said the boy, torturing himself in his generous impulse. "No, no. You eat it, my boy." Once more the cake was within an inch of the bright sparkling teeth, but the bite was not taken. Instead of eating, the boy held out the cake to his hostess. "Cut it in half, please," he said; "fair halves." "What for?" "I'm going to eat one bit; t'other's for Billy Jingle. He's had measles, and been very bad, and he's such a good chap." "You shall have a piece to send to your schoolfellow," said Helen, with her eyes a little moist now, for the boy's generous spirit was gaining upon her, and she looked at him with more interest than she had displayed a few minutes before. The boy took a tremendous bite, and began to munch as he sat upon a velvet-covered hassock; but he jumped up directly, and held out the bitten cake again, to say, with his mouth full-- "Oh, do have a bit. It's lovely." Helen smiled, and laid her hand upon the boy's shoulder, as she shook her head, when to her surprise he caught the soft white hand in his left, gazed hard at it, and then pressed it against his cheek, making a soft purring noise, no bad imitation of a cat. Then he sat eating and holding the hand which was not taken away, till, as the little stranger munched on in the full enjoyment of the wondrous novelty, the doctor said sharply, "Helen, come here." The boy stared, but went on eating, and the doctor's daughter crossed the room to where her father sat. CHAPTER SIX. A QUICKSILVER GLOBULE. "Well, papa?" she said, looking into his face in a half-amused way. "Well, Helen," said the doctor, taking her hand and drawing her to him; "about this boy?" "Yes, dear. You have made up your mind to adopt and bring one up," she said, in a low tone which the lad could not hear. "Yes," said the doctor, taking his tone from her, "to turn the raw material into the polished cultured article." "But of course you will take this one back, and select another!" "And pray why!" said the doctor sharply. "I thought--I thought--" faltered Helen. "Oh, nonsense! Better for proving my theory." "Yes, papa, but--" "A little wild and rough, that's all; boy-like; high-spirited; right stuff in him." "No doubt, papa; but he is so very rough." "Then we'll use plenty of sand-paper and make him smooth. Moral sand-paper. Capital boy, my dear. Had a deal of trouble in getting him--by George! the young wolf! He has finished that cake." "Then you really mean to keep him, papa?" said Helen, glancing at the boy, where he sat diligently picking up a few crumbs and a currant which he had dropped. "Mean to keep him? Now, my dear Helen, when did you ever know me undertake anything, and not carry it out!" "Never, papa." "Then I am not going to begin now. There is the boy." "Yes, papa," said Helen rather sadly; "there is the boy." "I mean to make him a gentleman, and I must ask you to help me with the poor orphan--" "He is an orphan, then!" said Helen quickly. "Yes. Son of some miserable tramp who died in the casual ward." "How dreadful!" said Helen, glancing once more at the boy, who caught her eye, and smiled in a way which made his face light up, and illumined the sallow cheeks and dull white pinched look. "Dreadful? Couldn't be better for my theory, my dear." "Very well, papa," said Helen quietly; "I will help you all I can." "I knew you would, my dear," said the doctor warmly; "and I prophesy that you will be proud of your work, and so shall I. Now, then, to begin," he added loudly. "All in--all in--all in!" shouted the boy, jumping up like a grasshopper, and preparing to go through some fresh gymnastic feat. "Ah! ah! Sit down, sir. How dare you!" shouted the doctor; and the boy dropped into his seat again, and sat like a mouse. "There!" said the doctor softly; "there's obedience. Result of drilling. Now, then, what's the first thing? He must have some clothes." "Oh yes; at once," said Helen. "And, look here, my dear," said the doctor testily; "I never use anything of the kind myself, but you girls rub some stuff--pomade or cream--on your hair to make it grow, do you not?" "Well, yes, papa." "Then, for goodness' sake, let a double quantity be rubbed at once upon that poor boy's head. Really it is cut so short that he is hardly fit to be seen without a cap on." "I'm afraid you will have to wait some time," said Helen, with a smile. "Humph! yes, I suppose so," said the doctor gruffly. "That barber ought to be flogged. Couldn't put the boy in a wig, of course." "O papa! no." "Well, I said no," cried the doctor testily. "Must wait, I suppose; but we can make him look decent." "Are you--are you going--" faltered Helen. "Going? Going where!" "Going to have him with us, papa, or to let him be with the servants?" said Helen rather nervously; but she regretted speaking the next moment. "Now, my dear child, don't be absurd," cried the doctor. "How am I to prove my theory by taking the boy from the lowest station of society and making him, as I shall do, a gentleman, if I let him run wild with the servants!" "I--I beg your pardon, papa." "Humph! Granted. Now, what's to be done first? The boy is clean?" "Oh yes." "Can't improve him then, that way; but I want as soon as possible to get rid of that nasty, pasty, low-class pallor. One does not see it in poor people's children, as a rule, while these Union little ones always look sickly to me. You must feed him up, Helen." "I have begun, papa," she said, smiling. "Humph! Yes. Clothes. Yes; we must have some clothes, and--oh, by the way, I had forgotten. Here, my boy." The lad jumped up with alacrity, and came to the doctor's side boldly-- looking keenly from one to the other. "What did you say your name was!" "Bed--Obed Coleby." "Hah!" cried the doctor; "then we'll do away with that at once. Now, what shall we call you!" "I d'know," said the boy, laughing. "Jack?" "No, no," said the doctor thoughtfully, while Helen looked on rather amused at her father's intent manner, and the quick bird-like movements of their visitor. For the boy, after watching the doctor for a few moments, grew tired, and finding himself unnoticed, dropped down on the carpet, took four pebbles from his pocket, laid them on the back of his right hand, and throwing them in the air, caught them separately by as many rapid snatches in the air. "Do that again," cried the doctor, suddenly becoming interested. The boy showed his white teeth, threw the stones in the air, and caught them again with the greatest ease. "That's it, Helen, my dear," cried the doctor triumphantly. "Cleverness of the right hand--dexterity. Capital name." "Capital name, papa?" "Yes; Dexter! Good Latin sound. Fresh and uncommon. Dexter--Dex. Look here, sir. No more Obed. You shall be called Dexter." "All right," said the boy. "And if you behave yourself well, perhaps we shall shorten it into Dex." "Dick's better," said the boy sharply. "No, it is not, sir; Dex." "Well, Dix, then," said the boy, throwing one stone up high enough to touch the ceiling, and in catching at it over-handed, failing to achieve his object, and striking it instead, so that it flew against the wall with a loud rap. "Put those stones in your pocket, sir," cried the doctor to the boy, who ran and picked up the one which had fallen, looking rather abashed. "Another inch, and it would have gone through that glass." "Yes. Wasn't it nigh!" cried the boy. "Here, stop! Throw them out of that window." The boy's brow clouded over. "Let me give them to some one at the school; they're such nice round ones." "I said, throw them out of the window, sir." "All right," said the boy quickly; and he threw the pebbles into the garden. "Now, then; look here, sir--or no," said the doctor less sternly. "Look here, my boy." The doctor's manner influenced the little fellow directly, and he went up and laid his hand upon his patron's knee, looking brightly from face to face. "Now, mind this: in future you are to be Dexter." "All right: Dexter Coleby," said the boy. "No, no, no, no!" cried the doctor testily. "Dexter Grayson; and don't keep on saying `All right.'" "All--" The boy stopped short, and rubbed his nose with his cuff. "Hah! First thing, my dear. Twelve pocket-handkerchiefs, and mark them `Dexter Grayson.'" "What? twelve handkerchies for me--all for me?" "Yes, sir, all for you; and you are to use them. Never let me see you rub your nose with your cuff again." The boy's mouth opened to say, "All right," but he checked himself. "That's right!" cried the doctor. "I see you are teachable. You were going to say `all right.'" "You told me not to." "I did; and I'm very pleased to find you did not do it." "I say, shall I have to clean the knives?" "No, no, no." "Nor yet the boots and shoes?" "No, boy; no." "I shall have to fetch the water then, shan't I?" "My good boy, nothing of the kind. You are going to live with us, and you are my adopted son," said the doctor rather pompously, while Helen sighed. "Which?" queried the boy. "Which what?" said the doctor. "Which what you said?" "I did not say anything, sir." "Oh my! what a story!" cried the boy, appealing to Helen. "Didn't you hear him say I was to be his something son?" "Adopted son," said the doctor severely; "and, look here, you must not speak to me in that way." "All--" Dexter checked himself again, and he only stared. "Now, you understand," said the doctor, after a few minutes' hesitation; "you are to be here like my son, and you may call me--yes, father, or papa." "How rum!" said the boy, showing his white teeth with a remarkable want of reverence. "I say," he added, turning to Helen; "what am I to call you!" Helen turned to her father for instructions, her brow wrinkling from amusement and vexation. "Helen," said the doctor, in a decided tone. "We must have no half measures, my dear; I mean to carry out my plan in its entirety." "Very well, papa," said Helen quietly; and then to herself, "It is only for a few days." "Now, then," said the doctor, "clothes. Ring that bell, Dexter." The boy ran so eagerly to the bell that he knocked over a light chair, and left it on the floor till he had rung. "Oh, I say," he exclaimed; "they go over a deal easier than our forms." "Never mind the forms now, Dexter. I want you to forget all about the old school." "Forget it?" said the boy, with his white forehead puckering up. "Yes, and all belonging to it. You are now going to be my son." "But I shall want to go and see the boys sometimes." "No, sir; you will not." "But I must go and see Mother Curdley." "Humph!" ejaculated the doctor. "Well, we shall see. Perhaps she will be allowed to come and see you." "Hooray!" cried the boy excitedly; and turning to Helen he obtained possession of her hand. "I say, save her a bit of that cake." "She shall have some cake, Dexter," said Helen kindly, for she could not help, in spite of her annoyance, again feeling pleased with the boy's remembrance of others. "And I say," he cried, "when she does come, we'll have a ha'porth o' snuff screwed up in a bit o' paper, and--has he got any gin?" "Hush, hush!" whispered Helen. "But she's so fond of a drop," said the boy earnestly. "And now," said the doctor; "the next thing is clothes. Ah, Maria, send Cribb to ask Mr Bleddan to come here directly." "Yes, sir," said Maria; and after a glance at the boy she closed the door. In less than a quarter of an hour Mr Bleddan, the tailor of Coleby, was there; and Dexter stood up feeling tickled and amused at being measured for some new clothes which the tailor said should be ready in a week. "A week!" said the doctor; "but what am I to do now? The boy can't go like that." "Ready-made, sir? I've plenty of new and fashionable suits exactly his size." "Bring some," said the doctor laconically; "and shirts and stockings and boots. Everything he wants. Do you understand!" Mr Bleddan perfectly understood, and Dexter stood with his eyes sparkling as he heard the list of upper and under garments, boots, caps, everything which the tailor and clothier considered necessary. The moment the man had gone, Dexter made a dash to recommence his Ixion-like triumphal dance, but this time Helen caught his hand and stopped him. "No, no, not here," she said quietly; and not in the least abashed, but in the most obedient way, the boy submitted. "It was because I was so jolly glad: that's all." "Hah!" said the doctor, smiling. "Now, I like that, Helen. Work with me, and all that roughness will soon pass away." "I say, will that chap be long?" cried Dexter, running to the window and looking out. "Am I to have all those things for my own self, and may I wear 'em directly?" "Look here, my lad; you shall have everything that's right and proper for you, if you are a good boy." "Oh, I'll be a good boy--least I'll try to be. Shall you give me the cane if I ain't?" "I--er--I don't quite know," said the doctor. "I hope you will not require it." "Mr Sibery said I did, and he never knew a boy who wanted it worse, but it didn't do me no good at all." "Well, never mind that now," said the doctor. "You will have to be very good, and never want the cane. You must learn to be a young gentleman." "Young gentleman?" said Dexter, holding his head on one side like a bird. "One of them who wears black jackets, and turn-down collars, and tall hats, and plays at cricket all day? I shall like that." "Humph! Something else but play cricket, I hope," said the doctor quietly. "Helen, my dear, I shall begin to make notes at once for my book, so you can take Dexter in hand, and try how he can read." The doctor brought out a pocket-book and pencil, and Helen, after a moment's thought, went to a glass case, and took down an old gift-book presented to her when she was a little girl. "Come here, Dexter," she said, "and let me hear you read." The boy flushed with pleasure. "Yes," he said. "I should like to read to you. May I kneel down and have the book on your knees!" "Yes, if you like," said Helen, who felt that the boy was gaining upon her more and more: for, in spite of his coarseness, there was a frank, merry, innocent undercurrent that, she felt, might be brought to the surface, strengthened and utilised to drive the roughness away. "Read here!" said the boy, opening the book at random. "Oh, here's a picture. What are these girls doing?" "Leave the pictures till afterwards. Go on reading now." "Here?" "Yes; at the beginning of that chapter." "I shall have to read it all, as there's no other boy here. We always stand up in a class at the House, and one boy reads one bit, and another boy goes on next, and then you're always losing your place, because it's such a long time before it comes round to your turn, and then old Sibery gives you the cane." "Yes, yes; but go on," said Helen, with a feeling of despair concerning her father's _protege_. Dexter began to read in a forced, unnatural voice, with a high-pitched unpleasant twang, and regardless of sense or stops--merely uttering the words one after the other, and making them all of the same value. At the end of the second line Helen's face was a study. At the end of the fourth the doctor roared out-- "Stop! I cannot stand any more. Saw-sharpening or bag-pipes would be pleasant symphonies in comparison." At that moment Maria entered. "Lunch is on the table, if you please, sir." "Ah, yes, lunch," said the doctor. "Did you put a knife and fork for Master Dexter?" "For who, sir!" said Maria, staring. "For Master Dexter here," said the doctor sharply. "Go and put them directly." Maria ran down to her little pantry, and then attacked Mrs Millett. "Master's going mad, I think," she said. "Why, he's actually going to have that boy at the table to lunch." "Never!" "It's a fact," cried Maria; "and I've come down for more knives and forks." "And you'd better make haste and get 'em, then," said the housekeeper; "master's master, and he always will have his way." Maria did make haste, and to her wonder and disgust Dexter was seated at the doctor's table in his workhouse clothes, gazing wonderingly round at everything: the plate, cruets, and sparkling glass taking up so much of his attention that for the moment he forgot the viands. The sight of a hot leg of lamb, however, when the cover was removed, made him seize his knife and fork, and begin tapping with the handles on either side of his plate. "Errum!" coughed the doctor. "Put that knife and fork down, Dexter, and wait." The boy's hands went behind him directly, and there was silence till Maria had left the room, when the doctor began to carve, and turned to Helen-- "May I give you some lamb, my dear?" "There, I knowed it was lamb," cried Dexter excitedly, "'cause it was so little. We never had no lamb at the House." "Hush!" said the doctor quietly. "You must not talk like that." "All right." "Nor yet like that, Dexter. Now, then, may I send you some lamb!" "May I say anything?" said the boy so earnestly that Helen could not contain her mirth, and the boy smiled pleasantly again. "Of course you may, my boy," said the doctor. "Answer when you are spoken to, and try and be polite." "Yes, sir, I will; I'll try so hard." "Then may I send you some lamb!" "Yes; twice as much as you give her. It does smell nice." The doctor frowned a little, and then helped the boy pretty liberally. "Oh, I say! Just look at the gravy," he cried. "Have you got plenty, Miss!" "Oh yes, Dexter," said Helen. "May I--" "Don't give it all to me, Mister," cried the boy. "Keep some for yourself. I hate a pig." "Errum!" coughed the doctor, frowning. "Miss Grayson was going to ask if you would take some vegetables!" "What? taters? No thankye, we got plenty o' them at the House," cried the boy; and he began cutting and devouring the lamb at a furious rate. "Gently, gently!" cried the doctor. "You have neither bread nor salt." "Get's plenty o' them at the House," cried the boy, with his mouth full; "and you'd better look sharp, too. The bell'll ring directly, and we shall have to--no it won't ring here, will it!" he said, looking from one to another. "No, sir," said the doctor sternly; "and you must not eat like that. Watch how Miss Grayson eats her lunch, and try and imitate her." The boy gave the doctor a sharp glance, and then, in a very praiseworthy manner, tried to partake of the savoury joint in a decent way. But it was hard work for him. The well-cooked succulent meat was so toothsome that he longed to get to the end of it; and whenever he was not watching the doctor and his daughter he kept glancing at the dish, wondering whether he would be asked to have any more. "What's that rum-looking stuff?" he said, as the doctor helped himself from a small tureen. "Mint sauce, sir. Will you have some?" "I don't know. Let's taste it." The little sauce tureen was passed to him, and he raised the silver ladle, but instead of emptying it upon his plate he raised it to his lips, and drank with a loud, unpleasant noise, suggestive of the word _soup_. The doctor was going to utter a reproof, but the sight of Helen's mirth checked him, and he laughed heartily as he saw the boy's face full of disgust. "I don't like that," he said, pushing the tureen away. "It ain't good." "But you should--" "Don't correct him now, papa; you will spoil the poor boy's dinner," remonstrated Helen. "He said it was lunch," said Dexter. "Your dinner, sir, and our lunch," said the doctor. "There, try and behave as we do at the table, and keep your elbows off the cloth." Dexter obeyed so quickly that he knocked a glass from the table, and on leaving his seat to pick it up he found that the foot was broken off. The doctor started, and uttered a sharp ejaculation. In an instant the boy shrank away into a corner, sobbing wildly. "I couldn't help it. I couldn't help it, sir. Don't beat me, please. Don't beat me this time. I'll never do so any more." "Bless my soul!" cried the doctor, jumping up hastily; and the boy uttered a wild cry, full of fear, and would have dashed out of the open window into the garden had not Helen caught him, the tears in her eyes, and her heart moved to pity as she read the boy's agony of spirit. In fact that one cry for mercy had done more for Dexter's future at the doctor's than a month's attempts at orderly conduct. "Hush, hush!" said Helen gently, as she took his hands; and, with a look of horror in his eyes, the boy clung to her. "I don't mind the cane sometimes," he whispered, "but don't let him beat me very much." "Nonsense! nonsense!" said the doctor rather huskily. "I was not going to beat you." "Please, sir, you looked as if you was," sobbed the boy. "I only looked a little cross, because you were clumsy and broke that glass. But it was an accident." "Yes, it was; it was," cried the boy, in a voice full of pleading, for the breakage had brought up the memory of an ugly day in his young career. "I wouldn't ha' done it, was it ever so; it's true as goodness I wouldn't." "No, no, Maria, not yet," cried Helen hastily, as the door was opened. "We will ring." Maria walked out again, and the boy clung to Helen as he sobbed. "There, there," she said. "Papa is not cross. You broke the glass, and you have apologised. Come: sit down again." If some one had told Helen Grayson two hours before that she would have done such a thing, she would have smiled incredulously, but somehow she felt moved to pity just then, and leading the boy back to his chair, she bent down and kissed his forehead. In a moment Dexter's arms were about her neck, and he was clinging to her with passionate energy, sobbing now wildly, while the doctor got up and walked to the window for a few moments. "There, there," said Helen gently, as she pressed the boy down into his seat, and kissed him once again, after seeing that her father's back was turned. "That's all over now. Come, papa." The doctor came back, and as he was passing the back of the boy's chair, he raised his hand quickly, intending to pat him on the head. The boy flinched like a frightened animal anticipating a blow. "Why, bless my soul, Dexter! this will not do," he said huskily. "Here, give me your hand. There, there, my dear boy, you and I are to be the best of friends. Why, my dear Helen," he added in French, "they must have been terribly severe, for the little fellow to shrink like this." The boy still sobbed as he laid his hand in the doctor's, and then the meal was resumed; but Dexter's appetite was gone. He could not finish the lamb, and it was only with difficulty that he managed a little rhubarb tart and custard. "Why, what are you thinking about, Dexter!" said Helen after the lunch; and somehow her tone of voice seemed to indicate that she had forgotten all about the workhouse clothes. "Will he send me back to the House?" the boy whispered hoarsely, but the doctor heard. "No, no," he said quickly; and the boy seemed relieved. That night about eleven, as she went up to bed, Helen Grayson went softly into a little white bedroom, where the boy's pale face lay in the full moonlight, and something sparkled. "Poor child!" she said, in a voice full of pity; "he has been crying." She was quite right, and as she bent over him, her presence must have influenced his dreams, for he uttered a low, soft sigh, and then smiled, while, forgetting everything now but the fact that this poor little waif of humanity had been stranded, as it were, at their home, she bent over him and kissed him. Then she started, for she became aware of the fact that her father was at the door. The next moment she was in his arms. "Bless you, my darling!" he said. "This is like you. I took this up as a whim as well as a stubborn belief; but somehow that poor little ignorant fellow, with his rough ways, seems to be rousing warmer feelings towards him, and, please God, we'll make a man of him of whom we shall not be ashamed." Poor Dexter had cried himself to sleep, feeling in his ignorant fashion that he had disgraced himself, and that the two harsh rulers were quite right,--that he was as bad as ever he could be; but circumstances were running in a way he little thought. CHAPTER SEVEN. TAMING THE WILD. "Ah!" said the doctor, laying down his pen and rubbing his hands. "That's better;" and he took off his spectacles, made his grey hair stand up all over his head like tongues of silver fire, and looked Dexter over from top to toe. Thanks to Helen's supervision, the boy looked very creditable. His hair was of course "cut almost to the bone," and his face had still the Union look--pale and saddened, but he was dressed in a neat suit which fitted him, and his turn-down collar and black tie seemed to give his well-cut features quite a different air. "What did I say, Helen!" said the doctor, with a chuckle. "You see what we have done already. Well, sir, how do you feel now!" "Not very jolly," said the boy, with a writhe. "Hem!" coughed the doctor; "not very comfortable you mean!" "Yes, that's it," said Dexter. "Boots hurts my feet, and when the trousers ain't rubbin' the skin o' my legs, this here collar feels as if it would saw my head off." "Humph!" ejaculated the doctor stiffly. "You had better put on the old things again." "Eh? No, thankye," cried Dexter eagerly. "I like these here ever so much. Please may I keep 'em!" "Of course," said the doctor; "and take care of them, like a good boy." "Yes. I'm going to be a very good boy now, sir. She says I am to." He nodded his head in the direction of Helen, and stood upon one leg to ease the foot which the shoe pinched. "That's right, but don't say _she_. You must look upon Miss Grayson now as if she were your sister." "Yes, that I will," said the boy warmly. Helen flushed a little at her father's words, and a serious look came into her sweet face; but at that moment she felt Dexter steal his hand into hers, and then it was lifted and held against the boy's cheek, as, in feline fashion, he rubbed his face against it, and a smile came into her eyes again, as she laid the hand at liberty upon the closely cropped head. "I say, ain't she pretty, and don't she look nice?" said Dexter suddenly; and his free and easy way made the doctor frown: but he looked at the boy's appearance, and in the belief that he would soon change the manners to match, he nodded, and said, "Yes." Helen looked at her father, as if asking him what next, but the doctor joined his finger-tips and frowned, as if thinking deeply. "Dexter and I have been filling his drawers with his new clothes and linen," she said. "Yes; such a lot of things," cried the boy; "and is that always to be my bedroom?" "Yes; that's to be your room," said the doctor. "And I've got three pairs of boots. I mean two pairs of boots, and one pair of shoes," cried Dexter. "One pair on, and two in the bedroom; and I shall get up at six o'clock every morning, and clean 'em, and I'll clean yours too." "Hem!" coughed the doctor. "No, my boy, your boots will be cleaned for you, and you will not have to dirty your hands now." The boy stared wonderingly, as the doctor enunciated a matter which was beyond his grasp. But all the time his eyes were as busy as those of a monkey, and wandering all over the study, and taking in everything he saw. "May I leave Dexter with you now!" said Helen, "as I have a few little matters to see to." "Yes, yes; of course, my dear. We are beginning capitally. Dexter, my boy; you can sit down on that chair, and amuse yourself with a book, while I go on writing." The boy looked at the chair, then at the doctor, and then at Helen. "I say, mayn't I go with you?" he said. "Not now, Dexter, I am going to be very busy. By and by I will take you for a walk." Helen nodded, and left the room. "You'll find some books on that shelf," said the doctor kindly; and he turned once more to his writing, while Dexter went to the bookcase, and, after taking down one or two works, found a large quarto containing pictures. He returned to the chair the doctor had pointed out, opened the book upon his knees, turned over a few leaves, and then raised his eyes to have a good long wondering stare at the doctor, as he sat frowning there very severely, and in the midst of a great deal of deep thought put down a sentence now and again. Dexter's eyes wandered from the doctor to a dark-looking bust upon the top of a book-shelf. From thence to a brown bust on the opposite shelf, at which he laughed, for though it was meant for Cicero, it put him greatly in mind of Mr Sibery, and he then fell a-wondering what the boys were doing at the workhouse school. Just then the black marble timepiece on the shelf chimed four quarters, and struck eleven. "No matter what may be the descent," wrote the doctor, "the human frame is composed of the same element." "I say," cried Dexter loudly. "Eh? Yes?" said the doctor, looking up. "What time are you going to have dinner!" "Dinner? One o'clock, sir. Why, it's not long since you had breakfast." "Seems a long time." "Go on looking at your book." Dexter obeyed, and the doctor went on writing, and became very interested in his work. So did not the boy, who yawned, fidgeted in his seat, rubbed his neck impatiently, and then bent down and tried to ease his boot, which evidently caused him pain. There was a pause during which Dexter closed the book and fidgeted about; now one leg went out, now the other. Then his arms moved about as if so full of life and energy that they must keep on the jerk. There was another yawn, but the doctor did not hear it, he was too much intent upon the chapter he was writing. Then a happy thought occurred to Dexter, and he raised the heavy quarto book he had upon his knees, placed it upon his head, and balanced it horizontally. That was too easy, there was no fun or excitement in the feat, so he placed it edgewise. That was better, but very easy--both topwise and bottomwise. Harder when tried with the front edges upon his crown, for the big book demonstrated a desire to open. But he dodged that, and felt happier. He glanced at the doctor, and smiled at his profile, for in his intentness the writer's thick bottom lip protruded far beyond the upper, and seemed to Dexter as if trying to reach the tip of his nose. What should he do next? Could he balance that book on its back? Dexter held it between his hands and cogitated. The back was round, therefore the feat would be more difficult, and all the more enjoyable, but would the book keep shut? He determined to try. Up went the book, his hands on either side keeping it close. Then there was a little scheming to get it exactly in equilibrium; this was attained, and as the boy sat there stiff-necked and rigid of spine, with his eyes turned upwards, there was nothing left to do now but to remove his hands. This he proceeded to do by slow degrees, a finger at a time, till the heavy work was supported only by the left and right forefingers, the rounded back exactly on the highest point of his cranium. "All right," said Dexter to himself, supremely happy in his success, and with a quick movement he let his hands drop to his lap. For one solitary moment the great quarto volume remained balanced exactly; then, as a matter of course, it opened all at once. _Flip! flop! bang_! The book had given him two boxes on the sides of the head, and then, consequent upon his sudden effort to save it, made a leap, and came heavily upon the floor. Dexter's face was scarlet as he dropped upon his knees to pick it up, and found the doctor gazing at him, or, as in his own mind he put it, threatening a similar caning to that which Mr Sibery gave him a year before, when he dropped the big Bible on the schoolroom floor. "Be careful, my boy, be careful," said the doctor dreamily, for he was half lost in thought. "That damages the bindings. Take a smaller book." Dexter felt better, and hastily replaced the work on the shelf, taking one of a smaller size, and returning to his seat to bend down and thrust a finger inside his boot. "How they do hurt!" he thought to himself; and he made a sudden movement. Then he checked himself. No; 'twas a pity. They were so new, and looked so nice. Yes, he would: they hurt so terribly; and, stooping down, he rapidly unlaced the new boots, and pushed them off, smiling with gratification at the relief. Then he had another good look round for something to amuse himself with, yawned, glanced at the doctor, dropped down on hands and knees, went softly to the other side of the centre table, and began to creep about with the agility of a quadruped or one of the monkey tribe. This was delightful, and the satisfied look on the boy's face was a study, till happening to raise his eyes, he saw that the doctor had risen, and was leaning over the writing-table, gazing down at him with a countenance full of wonder and astonishment combined. "What are you doing, sir?" said the doctor sternly. "Have you lost something?" Dexter might have said, "Yes, a button--a marble;" but he did not; he only rose slowly, and his late quadrupedal aspect was emphasised by a sheepish look. "Don't do that on the carpet, sir. You'll wear out the knees of your trousers. Why, where are your boots?" "On that chair, sir," said Dexter confusedly. "Then put them on again, and get another book." Dexter put on his boots slowly, laced them up, and then fetched himself another book. He returned to his seat, yawning, and glanced at the doctor again. _Booz, booz, booz, boom_--_'m_--_'m_. A bluebottle had flown in through the open window, bringing with it the suggestion of warm sunshine, fields, gardens, flowers, and the blue sky and waving trees. "_Booz_!" said the bluebottle, and it dashed away, leaving a profound silence, broken by the scratching of the doctor's pen. "I say," cried Dexter excitedly; "is that your garden?" "Yes, my boy, yes," said the doctor, without looking up from his writing. "May I go out in it?" "Certainly, my boy. Yes," said the doctor, without looking up, though there was the quick sound of footsteps, and, with a bound, Dexter was through the open French window, and out upon the lawn. The doctor did not heed the lapse of time, for he was intent upon his writing, and an hour had passed when the door opened and Helen returned. "Now I am at liberty, papa," she said; "and--where is Dexter?" "Eh? The boy? Bless me, I thought he was here!" _Smash! Tinkle_! The sound of breaking glass, and the doctor leaped to his feet, just as a loud gruff voice sounded-- "Here, you just come down." "Copestake!" cried the doctor. "Why, what is the matter out there!" CHAPTER EIGHT. OLD DAN'L IS WROTH. Mr Grayson's was the best garden for twenty miles round. The Coleby people said so, and they ought to have known. But Dan'l Copestake said it was all nonsense. "Might be made a good garden if master wasn't so close," he used to say to everybody. "Wants more money spent on it, and more hands kept. How'm I to keep a place like that to rights with only two--me and a lab'rer, under me, and Peter to do the sweeping?" Keep it to rights or not, it was to Helen Grayson four acres of delight, and she was to blame for a great deal which offended Dan'l Copestake, the head-gardener. "Papa," it would be, "did you give orders for that beautiful privet hedge to be cut down!" "Eh? no, my dear, Copestake said it kept the light off some of those young trees, and I said he might cut it down." "Oh, do stop him," cried Helen. "It will take years to grow up, and this past year it has been delightful, with its sweet-scented blossom and beautiful black berries." So it was with scores of things. Helen wanted to see them growing luxuriantly, Dan'l Copestake loved to hash and chop them into miserably cramped "specimints," as he called them, and the doctor got all the blame. But what a garden! It was full of old-fashioned flowers in great clumps, many of them growing, to Dan'l's disgust, down among the fruit and vegetables. There were flowering shrubs and beautiful conifers, a great mulberry-tree on the mossy lawn, and a huge red brick wall all round, literally covered with trained trees, which in their seasons were masses of white bloom, or glowing with purple and golden plums, and light red, black, or yellowy pink cherries, and great fat pears, while, facing the south, there were dozens of trees of peaches, nectarines, and downy golden apricots. As to the apples, they grew by the bushel, almost by the ton; and for strawberries and the other lower fruits there was no such garden near. Then there was Helen's conservatory, always full of sweet-scented flowers, and the vinery and pits, where the great purple and amber bunches hung and ripened, and the long green cucumber and melon came in their good time. But Dan'l grumbled, as gardeners will. "Blights is offle," he said. "It's the blightiest garden I ever see, and a man might spend all his life keeping the birds down with a gun." But Dan'l did not spend any part of his life, let alone all, keeping the birds down with a gun. The doctor caught him shooting one day, and nearly shot him out of the place. "How dare you, sir?" he cried. "I will not have a single bird destroyed." "Then you won't get no peace, sir, nor not a bit of fruit." "I shall have the place overrun with slugs and snails, and all kinds of injurious blight, sir, if you use that gun. No, sir, you'll put nets over the fruit when it's beginning to ripen. That will do." The doctor walked away with Helen, and as soon as they were out of sight, behind the great laurustinus clump, Helen threw her arms about his neck, and kissed him for saving her pet birds. Consequently, in addition to abundance of fruit, and although it was so close in the town, there was always a chorus of song in the season; and even the nightingale came from the woodlands across the river and sang within the orchard, through which the river ran. That river alone half made the place, for it was one of those useless rivers, so commercial men called it, where the most you could do was pleasure-boating; barges only being able to ascend to Coleby Bridge, a sort of busy colony from the town, two miles nearer the sea. "Yes, sir," Sir James Danby had been known to say, "if the river could be deepened right through the town it would be the making of the place." "And the spoiling of my grounds," said the doctor, "so I'm glad it runs over the solid rock." This paradise of a garden was the one into which Dexter darted, and in which Dan'l Copestake was grumbling that morning-- "Like a bear with a sore head, that's what I say," said Peter Cribb to the under-gardener. "Nothing never suits him." "Yes, it do," said Dan'l, showing a very red face over a clump of rhododendron. "Master said you was to come into the garden three days a week, and last week I only set eyes on you twice, and here's half the week gone and you've only been once." "Look here," said Peter Cribb, a hard-looking bullet-headed man of five-and-twenty; and he leaned on his broom, and twisted one very tightly trousered leg round the other, "do you think I can sit upon the box o' that there wagginette, drivin' miles away, and be sweeping this here lawn same time!" "Master said as it was your dooty to be in this garden three days a week; and t'other three days you was to do your stable-work--there." "Didn't I go out with the carriage every day this week?" "I don't know when you went out with the carriage, and when you didn't," said Dan'l; "all I know is as my lawn didn't get swept; and how the doctor expects a garden like this here to be kept tidy without help, I should be glad to know." "Well, you'd better go and grumble at him, and not worry me, and--pst! Lookye there." He pointed with his broom, and both men remained paralysed at the sight which met their eyes. It was not so much from its extraordinary nature as from what Dan'l afterwards spoke of as its "imperence." That last, he said, was what staggered him, that any human boy should, in the very middle of the day, dare to do such a thing in his garden. He said _his_ garden, for when speaking of it the doctor seemed to be only some one who was allowed to walk through it for a treat. What the two men gazed at was the figure of a boy, in shirt and trousers, going up the vinery roof, between where the early and the late houses joined and there was a sloping brick coping. From this they saw him reach the big wall against which the vinery was built, and there he sat for a few moments motionless. "Why, who is he?" said Peter, in a whisper. "He went up that vinery just like a monkey." Peter had never seen a monkey go up the roof of a vinery, but Dan'l did not notice that. "Hold your row," said Dan'l, in a low voice; "don't speak, and we'll ketch my nabs. Now we know where my peaches went last year." "But who is he!" whispered Peter. "I don't know, and I don't care, but I mean to have him as sure as he's there. Now if master hadn't been so precious 'tickler about a gun, I could ha' brought him down like a bird." "Lookye there," cried Peter. "See that?" "Oh yes, I see him," said Dan'l, as the figure ran easily along the top of the twelve-foot wall on all-fours. "I see my gentleman. Nice little game he's having. I'll bet a shilling he's about gorged with grapes, and now he's on the look-out for something else. But let him alone; wait a bit and we'll put salt on his tail before he can say what's what. I knowed some grapes was a-going. I could about feel it, like." "Well, I never!" whispered Peter, peering through the laurustinus, and watching the boy. "See that?" "Oh yes, I see him. Nice un he is." This last was consequent upon the boy running a few yards, and then holding tightly with his hands, and kicking both legs in the air two or three times before trotting on along the wall again as easily as a tomcat. "See that?" said Peter. "Oh yes, I can see," said Dan'l. "He's so full o' grapes it makes him lively," and he stared at the boy, who had suddenly stopped, and planting his hands firmly, stood up on them, balancing himself, with his legs spread wide in the air. "He'll break his neck, that's what he'll do," said Peter. "Good job too, I says," grumbled Dan'l. "Boys like that ought to be done away with. He's one on 'em out o' the town. Now look here, Peter, we've got to get him, that's what we've got to do." "Ah, that's better," said Peter, who had been nervous ever since a horse ran away with him. "I don't like to see a boy doing dangerous things that how." "Don't call a thing like that a boy, do yer!" said Dan'l. "I calls it monkey rubbidge. Now you step round the house, and through the stable, and get down that side o' the wall, and I'll go this. Don't you seem to see him till you hear me whistle. Then grab." "But how am I to grab when he's up there!" said Peter. "Ah! 'tis high up," said Dan'l. "Wish I'd got one o' them grappling-irons as hangs down by the bridge; I'd fetch him off pretty quick." "Shall I get a fruit-ladder?" suggested Peter. "Nay, we don't want no fruit-ladders," grumbled Dan'l. "We'll soon fetch his lordship down. Now then, you be off." "Stop a moment," said Peter, as he watched the boy intently. "Look at him! Well, I never did!" It was a very true remark. Peter certainly never did, and very few boys would have cunning enough to perform such a feat with so much ease. For, after running about fifty yards along the top of the wall, the little fellow turned quickly and ran back again, made offers as if he were going to leap down, and then suddenly squatted down in exact imitation of a cat, and began licking his arms, and passing them over his head. "Well, he caps me!" cried Peter. "I never see a boy do anything like that since I was at a show at Exeter, and then it was a bigger chap than him." "Look here," said Dan'l; "I've got it. You get a big strong clothes-prop, and I'll get another, and we'll poke him off. If he comes down your side, mind this: he'll be like a rat, and off as quick as quick; but don't you let him go. Drop your prop, and throw yourself on him; we'll ketch him, and take him in to the gov'nor, and he'll know now where the fruit goes. You couldn't net chaps like this." In happy ignorance of the doctor's plans, Peter and Dan'l each provided himself with a clothes-prop, and in due time made for the appointed sides of the wall; but no sooner did the boy catch sight of his pursuers than he started off on another all-fours run; but this took him away from the house, and before he had gone far he turned and ran back. Dan'l whistled, and Peter made a poke at the runner from one side of the wall, while Dan'l made a savage poke from the other. The boy, who seemed as active as a squirrel, dodged them both, ran along toward the vinery, and as fast as the various trees would allow the two men followed. Peter was soon out of the race, for a lean-to shed on his side of the wall put a stop to further pursuit, and Dan'l, who looked as malicious as a savage after a wild beast, had the hunt all to himself. "Ah!" he shouted, as he stopped panting, "now I've got you, my fine fellow." This was untrue, for he was as far off his quarry as ever, he being at the front of the vinery, and the boy on the top of the wall right at the back of the glass slope. "Now, then, none o' yer nonsense, and down yer come." Down the boy did not come, for he squatted there at the top, in a sitting position, with his arms round his knees, gazing coolly but watchfully at the gardener. "D'yer hear? come down!" The Yankee 'coon in the tree, when he saw the celebrated Colonel Crockett taking aim at him, and in full possession of the hunter's reputation as a dead shot, is reported to have said, "Don't shoot; I'll come down;" and the boy might have said something of the kind to Dan'l Copestake. But he had no faith in the gardener, and it is expecting too much of a boy who is seated in a safe place, to conclude that he will surrender at the first summons, especially to a fierce-looking man, who is armed with a very big stick. This boy had not the least intention of giving himself up as a prisoner, and he sat and stared at Dan'l, and Dan'l stared at him. "Do you hear me?" cried Dan'l; but the boy did not move a muscle, he only stared. "Are you over there, Peter?" shouted Dan'l. "Ay! All right!" "You stop there, then, and nip him if he comes your way. I'll get a ladder, and will soon have him down." "All right!" came from Peter again; and the boy's eyes watched keenly the old gardener's movements. "Do you hear what I say!" continued Dan'l. "Am I to fetch that ladder, or will you come down without!" The boy did not move. "Let's see: I can reach you with this here, though," Dan'l went on. "Not going to have any more of your nonsense, my fine fellow, so now then." The boy's eyes flashed as he saw the gardener come close up to the foot of the glass slope, and reach toward him with the long ash clothes-prop; but he measured mentally the length of that prop, and sat still, for, as he had quickly concluded, the gardener could not, even with his arm fully extended, reach to within some feet of where he sat. Dan'l pushed and poked about, and nearly broke a pane of glass, but the boy did not stir. "Oh, very well: only you'd better get down; you'll have it all the worse if I do fetch that ladder." Still the boy made no sign. He merely glanced to right and left, and could have dashed along the wall at once, but that would have taken him down the garden, toward the river, and that was the direction in which he did not want to go. To his left there was a portion of the house, the wall rising a good height, so that there was no escape in that direction. His way was either by the garden wall, or else down the slope of the vinery, as he had gone up. But, like a lion in his path, there at the foot of this slope stood Dan'l, with the great clothes-prop, and the boy, concluding that he was best where he was, sat and stared at the gardener, and waited. "Oh, very well then, my fine fellow: ladder it is," cried Dan'l; and, sticking the prop into the ground with a savage dig, he turned and ran off. It was only a feint, and he turned sharply at the end of a dozen steps, to find, as he expected, that the boy had moved, and begun to descend. Dan'l ran back, and the boy slipped into his former place, and sat like a monument of stone. "Oh, that's your game, is it!" said Dan'l. "But it won't do, my fine fellow. Now, are you coming down?" No reply. Dan'l reflected. If he went off to fetch the ladder from the stable-yard, the boy would slide down the top of the vinery and escape. That would not do. If he called to Peter to fetch the ladder, the boy would wait till the groom was gone, and slip over the wall, drop, and escape that way. That would not do either. Hah! There was the labourer. He could call him. It was past twelve, and he had gone to his dinner, Dan'l, like Peter, taking his at the more aristocratic hour of one. Dan'l was in a fix. He meant to have that boy, and make an example of him, but a great difficulty stared him in the face. There was no one to call, unless he waited till the doctor came. If the doctor came, he would perhaps take a lenient view of the matter, and let the boy go, and, unless Dan'l could first give the prisoner a sound thrashing with a hazel stick, one of a bundle which he had in his tool-shed, all his trouble would have been in vain. So he would not call the doctor. He made two or three more feints of going, and each time the boy began to descend, but only to dart back as the gardener turned. "Oh, that's your game, is it!" said Dan'l. "Very well; come down, but you can't get out of the garden if you do." The next time, after a few minutes' thought, Dan'l turned and ran as hard as he could, with every appearance now of going right off for the ladder. But he had made his plans with no little calculation of probabilities; and his idea was now to go right on till he had given the boy time to descend, and make for one of the entrances, when he meant to return, run him down, and seize him, before the young scamp, as he called him, had time to clamber up any other place. Dan'l ran on, and the boy watched him; and as soon as the gardener showed by his movements that he was evidently going away, began to descend. Hardly, however, had he reached the ground than Dan'l turned, saw him, and made a fresh dash to capture him. If the gardener had waited a couple more minutes he would have had a better chance. As it was, the boy had time to reach the dividing wall of the vinery wall again, but just as he was scrambling up, Dan'l was upon him, and was in the act of grasping one arm, when it was snatched away. In the effort the boy lost his composure, and the steady easy-going confidence which had enabled him to trot along with such facility; and the consequence was that as he made a final bound to reach the back wall his right foot slipped, went through a pane of glass, and as this startled him more, he made another ill-judged attempt, and, slipping, went through the top of the vinery, only saving himself from dropping down inside by spreading his arms across the rafters, and hanging, caught as if in a trap. "Here, just you come down!" Directly after the doctor appeared in the study window, and, closely followed by Helen, hurried toward the front of the vinery, where the gardener stood. CHAPTER NINE. A RELEASE. "Glad you've come, sir," said the old gardener, telling a tremendous fib. "Got one on 'em at last." "Got one of them?" cried the doctor. "Why--" "O papa dear! look!" cried Helen. "One of them nippers as is always stealing our fruit," continued Dan'l. "Why, Dexter," cried the doctor; "you there!" He stared wildly at the boy, who, with his legs kicking to and fro in the vinery in search of support, looked down from the roof of the building like a sculptured cherub, with arms instead of wings. "Yes, it's all right," said the boy coolly. "Ain't much on it broken," while Dan'l stared and scratched his head, as he felt that he had made some mistake. "You wicked boy!" cried Helen, with a good deal of excitement. "How did you get in such a position!" "I couldn't help it," said Dexter. "He chivied me all along the top o' the wall with that great stick, and there's another chap t'other side. He was at me too." "Is this true, Copestake!" cried the doctor angrily. "Well, yes, sir; I s'pose it is," said the gardener. "Me and Peter see him a-cuttin' his capers atop o' that wall, and when we told him to come down, he wouldn't, and fell through our vinery." "Who was going to come down when you was hitting at him with that big stick?" said Dexter indignantly. "You had no business atop of our wall," said the gardener stoutly. "And now look at the mischief you've done." "Tut--tut--tut--tut!" ejaculated the doctor. "Please, sir, I didn't know as he was any one you knew." "No, no, of course not," said the doctor pettishly. "Tut--tut--tut! Dear me! dear me!" "I say, ain't some one coming to help me down?" said Dexter, in an ill-used tone. "Yes, yes, of course," said the doctor. "Keep still, sir, or you'll cut yourself." "I have cut myself, and it's a-bleeding," said the boy. "Look here, if one of you goes inside this place, and holds up that big long prop, I can put my foot in the fork at the end, and climb up again." "Get a ladder quickly, Copestake, and call the groom." "Yes, sir," said Dan'l; and he went off grumbling, while the doctor seized the prop, and went into the vinery. "Are you much hurt, Dexter?" said Helen sympathisingly. "I d'know," he replied. "It hurts a bit. I slipped, and went through." "Now, sir, keep your legs still," cried the doctor from inside, as he raised the prop. "All right," said the boy, and the next moment one of his feet rested in the fork of the ash prop; but, though the prisoner struggled, and the doctor pushed, there was no result. "I wants some one to lend a hand up here," said Dexter. "If I try I shall break some more glass. Is that old chap coming back-- him as poked me!" "Yes, yes," cried Helen. "Keep still; there's a good boy." "No, I ain't," he said, smiling down at her in the most ludicrous way. "I ain't a good boy. I wish I was. Will he give it me very much?" He tapped with his hand on the glass, as he pointed down at the doctor, who was still supporting the boy's foot with the prop. Helen did not reply, for the simple reason that she did not know what to say; and the boy, feeling bound, was making a fresh struggle to free himself, when Dan'l came in sight, round the end of the house, with a light ladder, and just behind him came Peter, with a board used when glass was being repaired. "Here they come," said Dexter, watching the approach eagerly. "I am glad. It's beginning to hurt ever so." Dan'l laid the ladder against the vinery at some distance from the front, so that it should lie upon the roof at the same angle, and then, holding it steady, Peter, who was grinning largely, mounted with the board, which he placed across the rafters, so that he could kneel down, and, taking hold of Dexter, who clasped his hands about his neck, he bodily drew him out, and would have carried him down had the boy not preferred to get down by himself. As he reached the foot of the ladder the doctor was standing ready for him, armed with the clothes-prop, which he held in his hand, as if it were a weapon intended for punishment. The boy looked up in the stern face before him, and the doctor put on a tremendous frown. "Please, sir, I'm very sorry, sir," said Dexter. "You young rascal!" began the doctor, seizing his arm. "Oh, I say, please, sir, don't hit a fellow with a thing like that." "Bah!" ejaculated the doctor, throwing down the prop, which fell on the grass with a loud thud. "Copestake!--Peter!--take those things away, and send for the glazier to put in those squares. Here, Dexter; this way." The doctor strode away half a dozen steps, and then stopped and gazed down. "Where is your jacket, sir? and where are your boots?" "I tucked 'em under that tree there that lies on the grass," said the boy, pointing to a small cedar. "Fetch them out, sir." Dexter went toward the tree, and his first instinct was to make a dash and escape, anywhere, so as to avoid punishment, but as he stooped down and drew his articles of attire from beneath the broad frond-like branches, he caught sight of Helen's eyes fixed upon him, so full of trouble and amusement that he walked back, put his hand in the doctor's, and walked with him into the house. Helen followed, and as she passed through the window Dan'l turned to Peter with-- "I say, who is he?" "I dunno. Looks like a young invalid." "Ay, that's it," said the gardener. "Hair cut short, and looks very white. He's a young luneattic come for the governor to cure. Well, if that's going to be it, I shall resign my place." "Oh, I wouldn't do that," said Peter, who was moved to say it from the same feeling which induced the old woman to pray for long life to the tyrant--for fear they might get a worse to rule over them. "Doctor'll make him better. Rum-looking little chap." As they spoke, they were carrying the ladder and board round to the back of the house, and, in doing so, they had to pass the kitchen door, where Maria was standing. "See that game!" said Peter. "Oh yes. I saw him out of one of the bedroom windows." "Young patient, ain't he?" said Peter. "Patient! Why, he's a young workhouse boy as master's took a fancy to. I never see such games, for my part." Peter whistled, and the head-gardener repeated his determination to resign. "And he'll never get another gardener like me," he said. "That's a true word, Mr Copestake, sir," said Peter seriously. And then to himself: "No, there never was another made like you, you old tyrant. I wish you would go, and then we should have a little peace." CHAPTER TEN. DEXTER IS VERY SORRY. Dexter walked into the doctor's study, and Helen came as rearguard behind. "Now, sir," said the doctor sternly, "I suppose you know that I'm very much displeased with you." "Yes, sir, of course you are," said the boy seriously. "I don't wonder at it." Dr Grayson bit his lip. "Are you going to cane me?" "Wait and see, sir. Now, first thing, you go up to your room and wash your hands, and dress yourself properly. Then come down to me." Dexter glanced at Helen, but she kept her eyes averted, and the boy went slowly out, keeping his gaze fixed upon her all the time. "A young scamp!" said the doctor, as soon as they were alone. "I'm afraid I shall have to send him back." Helen looked at him. "I expected him to be a little wild," continued the doctor; "but he is beyond bearing. What do you say, my dear? Too bad, is he not?" Helen was silent for a few moments. "It is too soon to say that, papa," she replied at last. "There is a great deal in the boy that is most distasteful, but, on the other hand, I cannot help liking the little fellow." "Yes; that's just it," cried the doctor. "I feel as if I should like to give him a sound thrashing, but, at the same time, I feel that I could not raise a hand against him. What's to be done? Shall I send him back, and choose another?" "No, no, papa. If you intend to adopt a boy, let us keep this one, and see what he turns out." Just then the bell rang for lunch, and a minute after Dexter came running down into the room, with a smile, as if nothing was the matter, shining out of his eyes. "I say, wasn't that the dinner-bell?" he cried. "I am so precious hungry." "And have you no apologies to make, sir? Aren't you sorry you were so mischievous, and broke the top of my vinery?" "Yes; I'm very sorry, sir; but it was that old chap's fault. He made me run and slip. I say, what would he have done if he had caught me?" "Punished you, or brought you in to me, sir. Now, then, I've been talking about sending you back to the workhouse. You are too mischievous for me." "Send me back!" "Yes, of course. I want a boy who will be good." "Well, I will." "So you said before, but you are not good. You are about as mischievous a young rascal as I ever saw in my life." "Yes, sir; that's what Mr Sibery used to say," replied the boy quietly. "I don't want to be." "Then why are you, sir?" The boy shook his head, and looked up at the doctor thoughtfully. "I suppose it's in me," he said. Helen bit her lip, and turned away, while her father gave his head a fierce rub, as if he was extremely vexed. "Shall you send me back, sir!" said Dexter at last; and his look was full of wistful appeal. "Well, I shall think about it," said the doctor. "I don't want to go," said the boy thoughtfully. "You don't want me to go, do you?" he continued, turning to Helen. "Here, the lunch is getting cold," said the doctor. "Come along." As he spoke he half-pushed Dexter before him, and pointed to a chair. The boy hesitated, but a sharp command from the doctor made him scuffle into his place, after which the grace was said, and the dinner commenced for Dexter--the lunch for his patron and friend. Roast fowl most delicately cooked, with a delicious sauce; in addition to that made with bread; and there was an ornamentation round the dish of tempting sausages. The odour from the steaming dishes was enough to have attracted any coarsely-fed workhouse boy, just as a flower, brings a bee from afar. Helen was helped to a couple of choice slices from the breast, and then the doctor, looking stern all the while, carved off the liver wing, with a fine long piece of juicy breast adhering, and laid it on a plate, with the biggest sausage, gravy, and sauce, Maria carrying the plate afterwards to Helen to be well supplied with vegetables. Then, according to custom, Maria departed with her nose in the air, and her bosom overcharged with indignant remonstrances, which she was going to let off at Mrs Millett. The meal was commenced in silence, Dexter taking up his knife and fork, and watching by turns the doctor and Helen, to see how they handled theirs. Then he cut the sausage in half, just as the doctor had cut his, and looked hard at him, but the doctor was gazing down at his plate and frowning. Dexter looked at Helen, but she was gazing at her father, and everything was very still in the dining-room, while from without, faintly heard, there came the rippling song of a lark, far away over the meadow across the river. That fowl smelt delicious, and looked good in the extreme, but Dexter laid down his knife and fork, and sat perfectly still. Helen saw everything, but she did not speak, and the annoyance she had felt began to diminish, for the boy was evidently suffering keenly. "Hallo!" said the doctor. "Don't you like chicken!" The boy started, and looked up at him with a troubled face. "I say, don't you like chicken, sir!" Dexter tried to answer, but the words would not come; and he sat there with the tears gathering in his eyes, though he tried hard to choke his emotion down. The doctor was very angry, and sadly disappointed; but he said no more, only went on with his lunch. "Eat your dinner," said Helen, after a time; and she leant over toward the boy, and whispered the words kindly. He gave her a quick, grateful look, but he could not speak. "Come, sir, eat your dinner," said the doctor at last. "Please, sir, I can't," the boy faltered. "Why not?" Dexter had to make another fight to keep down his tears before he could say-- "Please, sir, I never could eat my breakfast when I knew I was going to have the cane." The doctor grunted, frowned, and went on eating, while the boy directed a pitiful appealing look at Helen. "Yes," she said at last, "what do you want?" "May I go up to that place where I slept last night?" Helen glanced at her father, who nodded shortly, and went on with his dinner, while the required permission being given by Helen, the boy rose hastily, and hurried out of the room. Doctor Grayson was silent for a few minutes, and then he took a glass of sherry. "A young scoundrel!" he said. "It's not pleasant to have to say so, but I've made a mistake." "And are you going to give up your project, papa?" said Helen. "_No_," he thundered. "Certainly not. It's very awkward, for that bullet-headed drill-sergeant Hippetts will laugh at me, and say `I told you so,' but I shall have to take the boy back." Helen was silent. "He told me I should," he continued; "but I would not believe him. The young dog's face attracted me. He looked so frank and ingenuous. But I'll soon pick out another. My theory is right, and if I have ten thousand obstacles, I'll carry it out, and prove to the world that I knew what I was at." Helen went on slowly with her lunch, thinking deeply the while. "Well?" said the doctor angrily, "why don't you speak? Are you triumphing over my first downfall!" Helen looked up at her father, and smiled reproachfully. "I was thinking about Dexter," she said softly. "A confounded ungrateful young dog! Taken him from that wretched place, clothed him, offered him a home of which he might be proud, and he turns upon me like that!" "It was the act of a high-spirited, mischievous boy," said Helen quietly. "Mischievous! I should think it was. Confound him! But I'll have no more of his tricks. Back he goes to the Union, and I'll have one without so much spirit." Helen continued her lunch, and the doctor went on with his, but only to turn pettishly upon his child. "I wish to goodness you'd say something, Helen," he cried. "It's so exasperating to have every one keeping silence like that." Helen looked up and smiled. "Yes, and that's just as aggravating," said the doctor. "Now you are laughing at me." "No, no; I was thinking very seriously about your project." "One which I mean to carry out, madam." "Of course, papa," said Helen quietly; "but I would not be damped at the outset." "What do you mean, Helen?" "I mean that I should not take that poor boy back to the life from which you have rescued him, just because he has displayed a few pranks, all due to the exuberance of his nature. Coming from such a place, and making such a change, he is sure to feel it strongly. He is, so to speak, bubbling over with excitement and--" "Here, stop a moment," said the doctor, in astonishment. "I give up. You had better write that book." "Not I, papa dear," said Helen, smiling. "And if you are really bent upon this experiment--" "And I am," said the doctor. "Nothing shall change me." "Then I think you have selected the very boy." "You do!" said the doctor excitedly. "Yes. He is just the wild little savage for you to reclaim." "But--but a little too bad, Helen?" "No, papa, I think not; and I think you are not justified in saying bad. I believe he is a very good boy." "You do?" "Yes; full of mischief as a boy can be, but very, very affectionate." "Yes. I think he is," assented the doctor. "I think he will be very teachable." "Humph!" "And it was plain to see that he was touched to the heart with grief at our anger." "Or is it all his artfulness!" "Oh no, papa! Certainly not that. The boy is frank and affectionate as can be." "Then you think it is possible to make a gentleman of him?" "If it is possible of any boy whom you could get from the Union, papa." "And you really think he is frank and tender-hearted?" Helen pointed to the boy's untouched plate. "And you would not exchange him for something a little more tractable?" "I don't think you could. I really begin to like the mischievous little fellow, and I believe that in a very short time we should see a great change." "You do?" "Yes; but of course we must be prepared for a great many more outbreaks of this kind." "Unless I stop them." "No, no, you must not stop them," said Helen quietly. "These little ebullitions must not be suppressed in that way--I mean with undue severity." "Then you really would not take--I mean send him back?" "No," said Helen. "I think, perhaps, I could help you in all this." "My dear Helen," cried the doctor eagerly. "My dear child, you don't know how pleased you make me. I felt that for your sake I must take him back." "For my sake?" exclaimed Helen. "Yes; that it was too bad to expose you to the petty annoyances and troubles likely to come from keeping him. But if you feel that you could put up with it till we have tamed him down--" Helen rose from her chair, and went behind her father's, to lay her hands upon his shoulders, when he took them in his, and crossed them upon his breast, so as to draw her face down over his shoulder. "My dear father," she said, as she laid her cheek against his, "I don't know--I cannot explain, but this boy seems to have won his way with me very strangely, and I should be deeply grieved if you sent him away." "My dear Helen, you've taken a load off my mind. There, go and fetch the poor fellow down. He wanted his dinner two hours ago, and he must be starved." Helen kissed her father's forehead, and went quietly up to Dexter's room, listened for a few moments, heard a low sob, and then, softly turning the handle of the door, she entered, to stand there, quite taken aback. The boy was crouched in a heap on the floor, sobbing silently, and with his breast heaving with the agony of spirit he suffered. For that she was prepared, but the tears rose in her eyes as she grasped another fact. There, neatly folded and arranged, just as the Union teaching had prompted him, were the clothes the boy had worn that day, even to the boots placed under the chair, upon which they lay, while the boy had taken out and dressed himself again in his old workhouse livery, his cap lying on the floor by his side. Helen crossed to him softly, bent over him, and laid her little white hand upon his head. The boy sprang to his feet as if he had felt a blow, and stood before her with one arm laid across his eyes, as, in shame for his tears, he bent his head. "Dexter," she said again, "what are you going to do?" "Going back again," he said hoarsely. "I'm such a bad un. They always said I was." "And is that the way to make yourself better?" "I can't help it," he said, half defiantly. "It's no use to try, and I'm going back." "To grieve me, and make me sorry that I have been mistaken?" "Yes," he said huskily, and with his arm still across his eyes. "I'm going back, and old Sibery may cut me to pieces," he added passionately. "I don't care." "Look up at me, Dexter," said Helen gently, as she laid her hand upon the boy's arm. "Tell me," she continued, "which will you do?--go back, or try to be a good boy, and do what you know I wish you to do, and stay!" He let her arm fall, gazed wildly in her eyes, and then caught her hand and dropped upon his knees, sobbing passionately. "I will try; I will try," he cried, as soon as he could speak. "Take me down to him, and let him cane me, and I won't cry out a bit. I'll take it all like Bill Jones does, and never make a sound, but don't, don't send me away." Helen Grayson softly sank upon her knees beside the boy, and took him in her arms to kiss him once upon the forehead. "There, Dexter," she said gently, as she rose. "Now bathe your eyes, dress yourself again, and come downstairs to me in the dining-room, as quickly as you can." Helen went to her own room for a few moments to bathe her own eyes, and wonder how it was that she should be so much moved, and in so short a time. The doctor was anxiously awaiting her return. "Well!" he said; "where is the young scamp!" "In his room," replied Helen, "and--" "Well--well!" said the doctor impatiently. "Oh no, father dear," said Helen quietly, but with more emotion in her voice than even she knew. "We must not send him back." Then she told what had passed, and the doctor nodded his head. "No," he said; "we must not send him back." Just then there was a knock at the door, and Maria entered to clear away. "Not yet, Maria," said Helen quietly. "Take that chicken back, and ask Mrs Millett to make it hot again." "And the vegetables, ma'am!" "Yes. I will ring when we want them." Maria took the various dishes away with a very ill grace, and dabbed them down on the kitchen table, almost hard enough to produce cracks, as she delivered her message to Mrs Millett, who looked annoyed. "You can do as you please, Mrs Millett," said Maria, giving herself a jerk as if a string inside her had been pulled; "but I'm a-going to look out for a new place." CHAPTER ELEVEN. MASTER GRAYSON GOES FOR A WALK. "Couldn't have believed it," said the doctor one evening, when a week had passed away. "It's wonderful." Helen smiled. "A whole week, and the young dog's behaviour has been even better than I could wish. Well, it's very hopeful, and I am extremely glad, Helen, extremely glad." Helen said nothing, but she thought a good deal, and, among other things, she wondered how Dexter would have behaved if he had been left to himself. Consequently, she felt less sanguine than the doctor. The fact was that she had given up everything to devote the whole of her time to the boy, thus taking care that he was hardly ever left to himself. She read to him, and made him read to her, and battled hard to get him out of his schoolboy twang. Taken by his bright, handsome face, and being clever with her brush, she had made him sit while she painted his likeness; that is, she tried to make him sit, but it was like dealing with so much quicksilver, and she was fain to give up the task as an impossibility after scolding, coaxing, and bribing, coming to the conclusion that the boy could not keep still. She played games with him; and at last risked public opinion very bravely by taking the boy out with her for a walk, when one of the first persons she met was Lady Danby. "I say, what did she mean!" said Dexter, as they walked away. "That lady--Lady Danby!" "Yes. Why did she look sorry for me, and call me a _protege_?" "Oh," said Helen, smiling; "it is only a French word for any one who is adopted or protected, as papa is protecting you." "But is it a funny word!" "Funny? Oh dear no!" "Then why did she laugh, curious like?" Helen could not answer that question. "She looked at me," said Dexter, "as if she didn't like me. I've seen ladies look like that when they've come to see the schools, and us boy's used to feel as if we'd like to throw slates at them." "You have no occasion to trouble yourself about other people's opinions, Dexter," said Helen quietly; "and of course now you couldn't throw stones or anything else at a lady." "No; but I could at a boy. I could hit that chap ever so far off. Him as was with that Lady Danby." "Oh, nonsense! come along; we'll go down by the river." "Yes; come along," cried Dexter excitedly; "but I don't see why he should sneer at me for nothing." "What? Master Danby!" "Yes, him. All the time you two were talking, he kept walking round me, and making faces as if I was physic." "You fancied it, Dexter." "Oh no, I didn't. I know when anybody likes me, and when anybody doesn't. Lady Danby didn't like me, and she give a sneery laugh when she called me a _protege_, and when you weren't looking that chap made an offer at me with the black cane he carried, that one with a silver top and black tassels." "Did he?" "Didn't he just! I only wish he had. I'd ha' given him such a oner. Why, I could fight two like him with one hand tied behind me." Helen's face grew cloudy with trouble, but she said nothing then, only hurried the boy along toward the river. In spite of her determination she avoided the town main street, and struck off by the narrow turning which led through the old churchyard, with its grand lime-tree avenue and venerable church, whose crocketed spire was a landmark for all the southern part of the county. "Look, look!" cried Dexter. "See those jackdaws fly out? There's one sitting on that old stone face. See me fetch him down." "No, no," cried Helen, catching his arm. "You might break a window." "No, I wouldn't. You see." "But why throw at the poor bird? It has done you no harm." "No, but it's a jackdaw, and you always want to throw stones at jackdaws." "And at blackbirds and thrushes and starlings too, Dexter?" said Helen. The boy looked guilty. "You didn't see me throw at them?" "Yes, I did, and I thought it very cruel." "Don't you like me to throw stones at the birds?" "Certainly I do not." "Then I won't," said Dexter; and he took aim with the round stone he carried at the stone urn on the top of a tomb, hitting it with a sounding crack. "There, wasn't that a good aim!" he said, with a smile of triumph. "It couldn't hurt that. That wasn't cruel." Helen turned crimson with annoyance, for she had suddenly become aware of the fact that a gentleman, whom she recognised as the Vicar, was coming along the path quickly, having evidently seen the stone-throwing. She was quite right in her surmise. It was the Vicar; and not recognising her with her veil down, he strode toward them, making up an angry speech. "Ah, Miss Grayson," he said, raising his hat, and ceasing to make his stick quiver in his hand, "I did not recognise you." Then followed the customary hand-shakings and inquiries, during which Dexter hung back, and gazed up at the crocketed spire, and at the jackdaws flying in and out of the slits which lit the stone staircase within. "And who is this?" said the Vicar, raising his glasses to his eyes, but knowing perfectly well all the time, he having been one of the first to learn of the doctor's eccentricity. "Ah, to be sure; Doctor Grayson's _protege_. Yes, I remember him perfectly well, and I suppose you remember me!" "Yes, I remember you," said Dexter. "You called me a stupid boy because I couldn't say all of _I desire_." "Did I? Ah, to be sure, I remember. Well, but you are not stupid now. I dare say, if I asked you, you would remember every word." "Don't think I could," said the boy; "it's the hardest bit in the Cat." "But I'm not going to ask you," said the Vicar. "Miss Grayson here will examine you, I'm sure. There, good day. Good day, Miss Grayson;" and, to Helen's great relief, he shook hands with both. "And I'm to ask you not to throw stones in the churchyard," he added, shaking his stick playfully. "My windows easily break." He nodded and smiled again, as Helen and her young companion went on, watching them till they had passed through the further gate and disappeared. "A mischievous young rascal!" he said to himself. "I believe I should have given him the stick if it had been anybody else." As he said this, he walked down a side path which led past the tomb that had formed Dexter's target. "I dare say he has chipped the urn," he continued, feeling exceedingly vexed, as a Vicar always does when he finds any wanton defacement of the building and surroundings in his charge. "No," he said aloud, and in a satisfied tone, "unhurt. But tut--tut-- tut--tut! what tiresome young monkeys boys are!" He turned back, and went thoughtfully toward the town. "Singular freak on the part of Grayson. Most eccentric man," he continued. "Danby tells me--now really what a coincidence! Sir James, by all that is singular! Ah, my dear Sir James, I was thinking about you. Ah, Edgar, my boy, how are you?" He shook hands warmly with the magistrate and his son. "Thinking about me, eh!" said Sir James, rather pompously. "Then I'll be bound to say that I can tell you what you are thinking." "No, I believe I may say for certain you cannot," said the Vicar, smiling. "Of calling on me for a subscription." "Wrong this time," said the Vicar good-humouredly. "No; I have just met Miss Grayson with that boy." "Indeed!" "Yes; very eccentric of Grayson, is it not!" "Whim for a week or two. Soon get tired of it," said Sir James, laughing. "Think so?" "Sure of it, sir; sure of it." "Well, I hope not," said the Vicar thoughtfully. "Fine thing for the poor boy. Make a man of him." "Ah, but he is not content with that. He means to make a gentleman of him, and that's an impossibility." "Ah, well," said the Vicar good-humouredly; "we shall see." "Yes, sir," said Sir James; "we shall see--we shall see; but it's a most unpleasant episode in our midst. Of course, being such near neighbours, I have been on the most intimate terms with the Graysons, and Lady Danby is warmly attached to Helen Grayson; but now they have this boy there, they want us to know him too." "Indeed!" said the Vicar, looking half-amused, half puzzled. "Yes, sir," said Sir James; "and they want--at least Grayson does--Edgar here to become his playmate." "Ah!" ejaculated the Vicar. "Sent word yesterday that they should be glad if Edgar would go and spend the afternoon. Awkward, sir; extremely awkward." "Did he go?" "Go? no, sir; decidedly not. Edgar refused to go, point-blank." Master Edgar was walking a little way in front, looking like a small edition of his father in a short jacket, for he imitated Sir James's stride, put on his tall hat at the same angle, and carried his black cane with its two silken tassels in front of him, as a verger in church carries a wand. "I wasn't going," said Master Edgar importantly. "I don't want to know a boy like that." "What would you do under the circumstances?" said Sir James. "Do?" said the Vicar; "why I should--I beg your pardon--will you excuse me? I am wanted." He pointed to a lady who was signalling to him with a parasol, and hurried off. "How lucky!" he said to himself. "I don't want to offend Sir James; but 'pon my word, knowing what I do of his young cub, I would rather have Grayson's _protege_ on spec." "Where are we going for a walk, pa!" said Master Edgar importantly. "Through the quarry there, and by the windmill, and back home." "_No_; I meant to go down by the river, pa, to see if there are any fish." "Another day will do for that, Eddy." "No, it won't. I want to go now." "Oh, very well," said Sir James; and they took the way to the meadows. Meanwhile Helen and Dexter had gone on some distance ahead. "There, you see, Dexter; how easy it is to do wrong," said Helen, as, feeling greatly relieved, she hurried on toward the meadows. "I didn't know it was doing wrong to have a cockshy," said Dexter. "Seems to me that nearly everything nice that you want to do is wrong." "Oh no," said Helen, smiling at the boy's puzzled face. "Seems like it," said Dexter. "I say, he was going to scold me, only he found I was with you, and that made him stop. Wish I hadn't thrown the stone." "So do I," said Helen quickly. "Come, you have broken yourself off several bad habits this last week, and I shall hope soon to find that you have stopped throwing stones." "But mayn't I throw anything else?" "Oh yes; your ball." "But I haven't got a ball." "Then you shall have one," said Helen. "We'll buy one as we go back. There, it was a mistake, Dexter, so remember not to do it again." They were now on the banks of the glancing river, the hay having been lately cut, and the way open right to the water's edge. "Yes, I'll remember," said Dexter. "Look--look at the fish. Oh, don't I wish I had a rod and line! Here, wait a moment." He was down on his chest, reaching with his hand in the shallow water. "Why, Dexter," said Helen, laughing, "you surely did not think that you could catch fishes with your hand!" "No," said the boy, going cautiously forward and striking an attitude; "but you see me hit one." As he spoke he threw a large round pebble which he had picked out of the river-bed with great force, making the water splash up, while, instead of sinking, the stone skipped from the surface, dipped again, and then disappeared. As the stone made its last splash, the reality of what he had done seemed to come to him, and he turned scarlet as he met Helen's eyes. "Dexter!" she said reproachfully. The boy took off his cap, looked in it, rubbed his closely cropped head in a puzzled way, and put his cap slowly on again, to stand once more gazing at his companion. "I can't tell how it is," he said dolefully. "I think there must be something wrong in my head. It don't go right. I never mean to do what you don't like, but somehow I always do." "Look there, Dexter," said Helen quickly; "those bullocks seem vicious; we had better go back." She pointed to a drove of bullocks which had been put in the newly-cut meadows by one of the butchers in the town, and the actions of the animals were enough to startle any woman, for, being teased by the flies, they were careering round the field with heads down and tails up, in a lumbering gallop, and approaching the spot where the couple stood. They were down by the water, both the stile they had crossed and that by which they would leave the meadow about equidistant, while, as the bullocks were making straight for the river to wade in, and try to rid themselves of their torment, it seemed as if they were charging down with serious intent. "Come: quick! let us run," cried Helen in alarm, and she caught at Dexter's hand. "What! run away from them!" cried the boy stoutly. "Don't you be afraid of them. You come along." "No, no," cried Helen; "it is not safe." But, to her horror, Dexter shook himself free, snatched off his cap, and rushed straight at the leading bullock, a great heavy beast with long horns, and now only fifty yards away, while the drove were close at its heels. The effect was magical. No sooner did the great animal see the boy running forward than it stopped short, and began to paw up the ground and shake its head, the drove following the example of their leader, while, to Helen, as she stood motionless with horror, it seemed as if the boy's fate was sealed. For a few moments the bullock stood fast, but by the time Dexter was within half a dozen yards, he flung his cap right in the animal's face, and, with a loud snort, it turned as on a pivot, and dashed off toward the upper part of the field, now driving the whole of the rest before it. "Ha, ha, ha!" laughed Dexter, picking up his cap, and coming back panting. "That's the way to serve them. Come along." Helen was very white, but the colour began to come in her cheeks again as she saw the boy's bright, frank, animated face; and, as they crossed the second stile, and rambled on through the pleasant meads, it began to dawn upon her that perhaps it would not prove to be so unpleasant a task after all to tame the young savage placed in her hands. CHAPTER TWELVE. A PLEASANT LESSON. One minute Helen Grayson was delighted at the freshness of nature, and the genuine delight and enthusiasm displayed by her companion, the next there came quite a cloud over everything, for it seemed to her that here was a bright young spirit corroded and spoiled by the surroundings to which it had been accustomed. "What's that? What flower's this? Oh, look at that butterfly! Here, Miss Grayson, see here--a long thin fly with his body all blue; and such lovely wings. There's another with purple edges to it. Oh, how lovely!" Helen's eyes brightened, and she began to enjoy her walk, and forget the stone-throwing, when Dexter damped her enjoyment. "Oh, here's a lark!" he cried, plunging down into a ditch, and reappearing after a hunt in the long wet grass with a large greenish frog. "What have you found, Dexter!" "A jolly old frog. Look here; I'll show you how the boys do up there at the House." "I think you had better not," said Helen, wincing. "But it's such a game. You get a flat piece of wood, about so long, and you lay it across a stone. Then you set the frog on one end, and perhaps he hops off. If he does, you catch him again, and put him on the end of the wood over and over again till he sits still, and he does when he is tired. Then you have a stick ready, as if you were going to play at cat, and you hit the end of the stick--" "Oh!" ejaculated Helen. "I don't mean the end where the frog is," cried Dexter quickly, as he saw Helen's look of disgust; "I mean the other end; and then the frog flies up in the air ever so high, and kicks out his legs as if he was swimming, and--" Dexter began his description in a bright, animated way, full of gesticulation; but as he went on the expression in his companion's face seemed to chill him. He did not understand what it meant, only he felt that he was doing or saying something which was distasteful; and he gradually trailed off, and stood staring with his narrative unfinished, and the frog in his hand. "Could you do that now, Dexter!" said Helen suddenly. "Do it?" he faltered. "Yes; with the frog." "I haven't got a bit of flat wood, and I have no stick, and if I had-- I--you--I--" He stopped short, with his head on one side, and his brows puckered up, gazing into Helen's eyes. Then he looked down, at the frog, and back at Helen. "You don't mean it?" he said sharply. "You don't want me to? I know: you mean it would hurt the frog." "Would it hurt you, Dexter, if somebody put you on one end of a plank, and then struck the other end!" The boy took off his cap and scratched his head with his little finger, the others being closed round the frog, which was turned upside down. "The boys always used to do it up at the House," he said apologetically. "Why!" said Helen gravely. "Because it was such fun; but they always made them hop well first. They'd begin by taking great long jumps, and then, as the boys hunted them, the jumps would get shorter and shorter, and they'd be so tired that it was easy to make them sit still on the piece of wood." "And when they had struck the wood, and driven it into the air, what did they do to the poor thing then?" "Sent it up again." "And then?" "Oh, they caught it--some of the boys did--caught it like a ball." "Have you ever done so?" Dexter shuffled about from foot to foot, and looked at the prospect, then at the frog, and then slowly up at the clear, searching eyes watching him. "Yes," he said, with a sigh; "lots of times." "And was it to save the poor thing from being hurt by the fall on the hard ground!" Dexter tried hard to tell a lie, but somehow he could not. "No," he said slowly. "It was to put it back on the stick, so as the other boys could not catch it first." "What was done then!" Dexter was silent, and he seemed to be taking a wonderful deal of interest in the frog, which was panting hard in his hot hand, with only its comical face peeping out between his finger and thumb, the bright golden irised eyes seeming to stare into his, and the loose skin of its throat quivering. "Well, Dexter, why don't you tell me!" "Am I to?" said the boy slowly. "Of course." There were a few more moments of hesitation, and then the boy said with an effort-- "They used--" He paused again. "We used to get lots of stones and shy at 'em till they was dead." There was a long silence here, during which Helen Grayson watched the play in the boy's countenance, and told herself that there was a struggle going on between the good and evil in the young nature, and once more she asked herself how she could hesitate in the task before her. Meanwhile it was very uncomfortable for the frog. The day was hot; Dexter's hand was hotter still; and though there was the deliciously cool gurgling river close at hand, with plenty of sedge, and the roots of water grasses, where it might hide and enjoy its brief span of life, it was a prisoner; and if frogs can think and know anything about the chronicles of their race, it was thinking of its approaching fate, and wondering how many of its young tadpoles would survive to be as big as its parent, and whether it was worth while after all. "Dexter," said Helen suddenly, and her voice sounded so clear and thrilling that the boy started, and looked at her in a shame-faced manner. "Suppose you saw a boy--say like--like--" "That chap we saw with the hat and stick? him who sneered at me?" Helen winced in turn. She had young Edgar Danby in her mind, but was about to propose some other young lad for her illustration; but the boy had divined her thought, and she did not shrink now from the feeling that above all things she must be frank if she wished her companion to be. "Yes; young Danby. Suppose you saw him torturing a frog, a lowly reptile, but one of God's creatures, in that cruel way, what would you say, now?" "I should say he was a beast." Helen winced again, for the declaration was more emphatic and to the point than she had anticipated. "And what would you do?" he continued. "I'd punch his head, and take the frog away from him. Please, Miss Grayson," he continued earnestly; "I didn't ever think it was like that. We always used to do it--we boys always did, and--and--" "You did not know then what you know now. Surely, Dexter, you will never be so cruel again." "If you don't want me to, I won't," he said quickly. "Ah, but I want you to be frank and manly for a higher motive than that, Dexter," she said, laying her hand upon his shoulder. "There, I will not say any more now. What are you going to do!" "Put him in the river, and let him swim away." The boy darted to the side of the rippling stream, stooped down, and lowered the hand containing the frog into the water, opened it, and for a moment or two the half-dead reptile sat there motionless. Then there was a vigorous kick, and it shot off into the clear water, diving right down among the water weeds, and disappearing from their view. "There!" said Dexter, jumping up and looking relieved. "You are not cross with me now!" "I have not been cross with you," she said; "only a little grieved." "Couldn't he swim!" cried the boy, who was anxious to turn the conversation. "I can swim like that, and dive too. We learned in our great bath, and--Oh, I say, hark at the bullocks." Helen listened, and could hear a low, muttering bellow in the next meadow, accompanied by the dull sounds of galloping hoofs, which were near enough to make the earth of the low, marshy bottom through which the river ran quiver slightly where they stood. Just then there was a piercing shriek, as of a woman in peril, and directly after a man's voice heard shouting for help. CHAPTER THIRTEEN. RAMPANT BEEF. "Here's something the matter!" cried Dexter; and, forgetting everything in the excitement of the moment, he ran back as hard as he could tear to the footpath leading to the stile they had crossed, the high untrimmed hedge between the fields concealing what was taking place. Helen followed quickly, feeling certain the while that the drove of bullocks in the next meadow were the cause of the trouble and alarm. Dexter reached the stile far in advance; and when at last Helen attained to the same post of observation, it was to see Sir James Danby at the far side standing upon the next stile toward the town, shouting, and frantically waving his hat and stick, while between her and the stout baronet there was the drove of bullocks, and Dexter approaching them fast. For a few moments Helen could not understand what was the matter, but directly after, to her horror, she saw that young Edgar Danby was on the ground, with one of the bullocks standing over him, smelling at the prostrate boy, and apparently trying to turn him over with one of its horns. "Here! Hi!" shouted Dexter; "bring me your stick." But Sir James, who had been chased by the leading bullock, was breathless, exhausted, and too nervous to attempt his son's rescue. All he seemed capable of doing was to shout hoarsely, and this he did more feebly every moment. Dexter made a rush at the bullocks, and the greater part of the drove turned tail; but, evidently encouraged by its success, the leader of the little herd stood firm, tossed its head on high, shook its horns, and uttered a defiant bellow. "Here, I can't do anything without a stick," said Dexter, in an ill-used tone, and he turned and ran toward Sir James, while, still more encouraged by what must have seemed to its dense brain like a fresh triumph, the bullock placed one of its horns under Edgar Danby and cleverly turned him right over. "Here, give me your stick!" shouted Dexter, as he ran up to Sir James. "You shouldn't be afraid o' them." "The boy will be killed," cried Sir James, in agony; and he shouted again, "Help! help!" "No, he won't," cried Dexter, snatching the magistrate's heavy ebony stick from his hand. "I'll make 'em run." Raising the stick in the air, Dexter ran toward where the whole drove were trotting back, and gathering round their leader, who now began to sing its war-song, throwing up its muzzle so as to straighten its throat, and emitting a bellow that was, in spite of its size, but a poor, feeble imitation of the roar of a lion. As Dexter ran up, the drove stood firm for a few moments; then the nearest to him arched its back, curved its tail, executed a clumsy gambol, turned, and fled, the rest taking their cues from this, the most timid in the herd, and going off in a lumbering gallop, their heads now down, and their tails rigid, excepting a few inches, and the hairy tuft at the end. But the leader stood fast, and shaking its head, bellowed, looked threatening, and lowering one of its long horns, thrust it into the earth, and began to plough up the soft, moist soil. "Oh, you would, would you?" cried Dexter, who did not feel in the slightest degree alarmed, from ignorance probably more than bravery; and, dashing in, he struck out with the ebony stick so heavy a blow upon the end of the horn raised in the air that the ebony snapped in two, and the bullock, uttering a roar of astonishment and pain, swung round, and galloped after its companions, which were now facing round at the top of the field. "Broke his old stick," said Dexter, as he bent over Edgar. "Here, I say; get up. They're gone now. You ain't hurt." Hurt or no, Edgar did not hear him, but lay there with his clothes soiled, and his tall hat trampled on by the drove, and crushed out of shape. "I say," said Dexter, shaking him; "why don't you get up?" Poor Edgar made no reply, for he was perfectly insensible and cadaverous of hue. "Here! Hi! Come here!" cried Dexter, rising and waving his hands, first to Helen, and then to Sir James. "They won't hurt you. Come on." The effect of the boy's shout was to make the spot where he now knelt down by Edgar Danby the centre upon which the spectators sought to gather. Helen set off first; Sir James, feeling very nervous, followed her example; and the drove of bullocks, with quivering tails and moistening nostrils, also began to trot back, while Dexter got one arm beneath the insensible boy, and tried hard to lift him, and carry him to the stile nearest the town. But the Union diet had not supplied him with sufficient muscle, and after getting the boy well on his shoulder, and staggering along a few paces, he stopped. "Oh, I say," he muttered; "ain't he jolly heavy?" A bellow from the leader of the bullocks made Dexter look round, and take in the position, which was that the drove were again approaching, and that this combined movement had had the effect of making Helen and Sir James both stop some forty yards away. "Here, come on!" cried Dexter. "I'll see as they don't hurt you." And Helen obeyed; but Sir James hesitated, till, having somewhat recovered his nerve, and moved by shame at seeing a young girl and a boy perform what was naturally his duty, he came on slowly, and with no little trepidation, toward where Dexter was waiting with his son. "That's right!" cried Dexter. "Come along. You come and carry him. I ain't strong enough. I'll soon send them off." The situation was ludicrous enough, and Sir James was angry with himself; but all the same there was the nervous trepidation to overcome, and it was a very hard fight. "Let me try and help you carry him," said Helen quickly. "No, no; you can't," cried the boy. "Let him. Oh, don't I wish I'd got a stick. Here, ketch hold." This last was to Sir James, whose face looked mottled as he came up. He obeyed the boy's command, though: took his son in his arms, and began to retreat with Helen toward the stile. Meanwhile the bullocks were coming on in their customary stupid way. "That's right; you go, sir," cried Dexter. "I'll talk to them," and, to Helen's horror, he went down on his hands and knees and ran at the drove, imitating the barking of a dog, not very naturally, but sufficiently true to life to make the drove turn tail again and gallop off, their flight being hastened by the flight of Edgar's damaged hat, which Dexter picked up and sent flying after them, and spinning through the air like a black firework till it dropped. "'Tain't no good now," said the boy, laughing to himself; "and never was much good. Only done for a cockshy. I'll take them back, though." This last was in allusion to the broken stick, which he picked up, and directly after found Master Edgar's tasselled cane, armed with which he beat a retreat toward the group making for the stile, with Helen beckoning to him to come. The bullocks made one more clumsy charge down, but the imitation dog got up by Dexter was enough to check them, and the stile was crossed in safety just as a butcher's man in blue, followed by a big rough dog, came in sight. Sir James was at first too indignant and too much upset to speak to the man. "It's of no use, Miss Grayson," he said, "but his master shall certainly be summoned for this. How dare he place those ferocious bulls in a field through which there is a right of way? O my poor boy! my poor boy! He's dead!--he's dead!" "He ain't," said Dexter sharply. "Shall I carry him, sir?" said the butcher's man, forgetful of the fact that he would come off terribly greasy on the helpless boy's black clothes. "No, man," cried Sir James. "Go and watch over those ferocious beasts, and see that they do not injure any one else." "Did they hurt him, sir!" said the man eagerly. "Hurt him! Look," cried Sir James indignantly. "He ain't hurt," said Dexter sturdily. "Only frightened. There was a chap at our school used to go like that. He's fainting, that's what he is doing. You lay him down, and wait till I come back." Dexter ran to the river, and, without a moment's hesitation, plunged in his new cap, and brought it back, streaming and dripping, with as much water as he could scoop up. Too nervous even to oppose the boy's order, Sir James had lowered his son to the ground, and, as he lay on the grass, Helen bathed and splashed his face with the water, till it was gone. "I'll soon fetch some more," cried Dexter. But it was not needed, for just then Edgar opened his eyes, looked wildly round, as if not comprehending where he was, and then exclaimed with a sob-- "Where's the bull?" "Hush! hush! my boy; you are safe now; thanks to the bravery of this gallant lad." Dexter puckered up his forehead and stared. "Where's my hat!" cried Edgar piteously. "Scrunched," said Dexter shortly. "Bullocks trod on it." "And my silver-topped cane!" "There it lies on the grass," said Dexter, stooping down and picking it up. "Oh, look at my jacket and my trousers," cried Edgar. "What a mess I'm in!" "Never mind, my boy; we will soon set that right," said Sir James. "There, try and stand up. If you can walk home it will be all the better now." "The brutes!" cried Edgar, with a passionate burst of tears. "Do you feel hurt anywhere?" said Helen kindly. "I don't know," said the boy faintly, as he rose and took his father's arm. "Can I help you, Sir James?" said Helen. "No, no, my dear Miss Grayson, we are so near home, and we will go in by the back way, so as not to call attention. I can never thank you sufficiently for your kindness, nor this brave boy for his gallantry. Good-bye. Edgar is better now. Good-bye." He shook hands warmly with both. "Shake hands with Miss Grayson, Eddy," said Sir James, while the butcher's man sat on the stile and lit his pipe. Edgar obeyed. "Now with your gallant preserver," said Sir James. Edgar, who looked extremely damp and limp, put out a hand unwillingly, and Dexter just touched it, and let his own fall. "You shall hear from me again, my man," said Sir James, now once more himself; and he spoke with great dignity. "Good day, Miss Grayson, and thanks." He went on quickly with his son, while Helen and Dexter took another footpath, leading to a stile which opened upon the road. As they reached this, Dexter laid his arm upon the top rail, and his forehead upon his wrist. "What is the matter, Dexter?" cried Helen, in alarm. "Nothing: I was only laughing," said the boy, whose shoulders were shaking with suppressed mirth. "Laughing?" "Yes. What a game! They were both afraid of the bullocks, and you've only got to go right at 'em, and they're sure to run." "I think you behaved very bravely, Dexter," said Helen warmly; "and as I've scolded you sometimes, it is only fair that when I can I ought to praise. You were very brave indeed." "Tchah! that isn't being brave," said the boy, whose face was scarlet. "Why, anybody could scare a few bullocks." "Yes, but anybody would not," said Helen, smiling. "There, let's make haste home. I was very much frightened too." "Were you!" said Dexter, with wide open eyes. "Yes; weren't you?" "No," said Dexter; "there wasn't anything to be frightened about then. But I'm frightened now." "Indeed! What, now the danger is past?" "No, not about that." "What then, Dexter?" "Look at my new cap." He held up his drenched head-covering, all wet, muddy at the bottom, and out of shape. "'Tain't so bad as his chimney-pot hat, but it's awful, ain't it? What will he say?" "Papa? Only that you behaved exceedingly well, Dexter. He will be very pleased." "Think he will?" "Yes; and you shall have a new cap at once." "Let's make haste back, then," cried the boy eagerly, "for I'm as hungry as never was. But you're sure he won't be cross?" "Certain, Dexter. I will answer for that." "All right. Come along. I was afraid I was in for it again." CHAPTER FOURTEEN. MR. DENGATE IS INDIGNANT, AND DEXTER WANTS SOME "WUMS." Mr Grayson was delighted when he heard the narrative from Helen. "There! what did I tell you!" he cried. "Proofs of my theory." "Do you think so, papa?" "Think, my dear? I'm sure. Why, there it all was; what could have been better? Young Danby has breed in him, and what did he do? Lay down like a girl, and fainted. No, my dear, you cannot get over it. Pick your subject if you will, but you may make what you like of a boy." "I hope so, papa." "That's right, my dear. Brave little fellow! Afraid I should scold him about his cap? Thoughtless young dog, but it was all chivalrous. Couldn't have been better. He shall have a hundred caps if he likes. Hah! I'm on the right track, I'm sure." The doctor rubbed his hands and chuckled, and Helen went to bed that night better pleased with her task. Sir James Danby, who was the magnate of Coleby, sent a very furious letter to Dengate the butcher, threatening proceedings against him for allowing a herd of dangerous bullocks to be at large in one of his fields, and ordering him to remove them at once. Dengate the butcher read the letter, grew red in the face, and, after buttoning up that letter in his breast-pocket, he put on his greasy cap, and went to Topley the barber to get shaved. Dengate's cap was greasy because, though he was a wealthy man, he worked hard at his trade, calling for orders, delivering meat, and always twice a week, to use his own words, "killing hisself." Topley lathered Dengate's red round face, and scraped it perfectly clean, feeling it all over with his soapy fingers, as well as carefully inspecting it with his eye, to make sure that none of the very bristly stubble was left. While Topley shaved, Dengate made plans, and as soon as the operation was over he went back home, and what he called "cleaned hisself." That is to say, he put on his best clothes, stuck a large showy flower in his button-hole, cocked his rather broad-brimmed hat on one side of his head, and went straight to Dr Grayson's. Maria opened the door, stared at the butcher, who generally came to the back entrance, admitted him, received his message, and went into the study, where the doctor was writing, and Dexter busily copying a letter in a fairly neat round hand, but could only on an average get one word and a half in a line, a fact which looked awkward, especially as Dexter cut his words anywhere without studying the syllables. Dexter had just left off at the end of a line, and finished the first letters of the word toothache, leaving "toot" as his division, and taking a fresh dip of ink ready for writing "hache." "Don't put your tongue out, Dexter, my boy." "All right," said Dexter. "And I would not suck the pen. Ink is not wholesome." "All right, I won't," said Dexter; and he put the nibs between his lips. "Mr Dengate, sir," said Maria. "Dengate? What does he want, Maria? Let him see Mrs Millett or Miss Helen." Maria looked scornfully at Dexter, as if he had injured her in some way. "Which is what I said to him, sir. `Master's busy writing,' I says; but he says his dooty, sir, and if you would see him five minutes he would be greatly obligated." The doctor said, "Send him in." Maria left the room, and there was a tremendous sound of wiping shoes all over the mat, although it was a dry day without, and the butcher's boots were speckless. Then there was another burst of wiping on the mat by the study door as a finish off, a loud muttering of instructions to Maria, and the door was opened to admit the butcher, looking hot and red, with his hat in one hand, a glaring orange handkerchief in the other, with which he dabbed himself from time to time. "Good morning, Dengate," said the doctor; "what can I do for you?" "Good morning, sir; hope you're quite well, sir. If you wouldn't mind, sir, reading this letter, sir. Received this morning, sir. Sir James, sir." "Read it? ah, yes," said the doctor. He ran through the missive and frowned. "Well, Dengate," he said, "Sir James is a near neighbour and friend of mine, and I don't like to interfere in these matters." "No, sir, of course you wouldn't, sir, but as a gentleman, sir, as I holds in the highest respect--a gentleman as runs a heavy bill with me." "Hasn't your account been paid, Dengate!" said the doctor, frowning, while Dexter looked hard at the butcher, and wondered why his face was so red, and why little drops like beads formed all over his forehead. "No, sir, it hasn't, sir," said the butcher, with a chuckle, "and I'm glad of it. I never ask for your account, sir, till it gets lumpy. I always leave it till I want it, for it's good as the bank to me, and I know I've only to give you a hint like, and there it is." "Humph!" ejaculated the doctor. "What I have come about is them bullocks, sir, hearing as your young lady, sir, and young shaver here--" "Mr Dengate," said the doctor, frowning, "this young gentleman is my adopted son." "Beg pardon, sir, I'm sure," said the butcher obsequiously. "I had heared as you'd had taken a boy from the--" "Never mind that, Dengate," said the doctor shortly, as the butcher dabbed himself hurriedly,--"business." "Exactly, sir. Well, sir, it's like this here: I'm the last man in the world to put dangerous beasts in any one's way, and if I knowed that any one o' them was the least bit risky to a human being, he'd be bullock to-day and beef to-morrow. D'yer see?" "Yes, of course," said the doctor, "and very proper." "But what I holds is, sir, and my man too says is, that there ain't a bit o' danger in any on 'em, though if there was nobody ought to complain." "Well, there I don't agree with you, Dengate," said the doctor haughtily, as Dexter came and stood by him, having grown deeply interested. "Don't you, sir? Well, then, look here," said the butcher, rolling his yellow handkerchief into a cannon ball and ramming it into his hat, as if it were a cannon that he now held beneath his left arm. "There's a path certainly from stile to stile, but it only leads to my farrest medder, and though I never says nothing to nobody who thinks it's a nice walk down there by the river to fish or pick flowers or what not, though they often tramples my medder grass in a way as is sorrowful to see, they're my medders, and the writing's in my strong-box, and not a shilling on 'em. All freehold, seven-and-twenty acres, and everybody as goes on is a trespasser, so what do you say to that?" The butcher unloaded the imaginary cannon as he said this triumphantly, and dabbed his face with the ball. "Say?" said the doctor, smiling; "why, that I'm a trespasser sometimes, for I like to go down there for a walk. It's the prettiest bit out of the town." "Proud to hear you say so, sir," said the butcher eagerly. "It is, isn't it? and I'm proud to have you go for a walk there, sir. Honoured, I'm sure, and if the--er--the young gentleman likes to pick a spot out to keep ground baited for a bit o' fishing, why, he's hearty welcome, and my man shall save him as many maddicks for bait as ever he likes." "I'll come," cried Dexter eagerly. "May I go?" he added. "Yes, yes; we'll see," said the doctor; "and it's very kind of Mr Dengate to give you leave." "Oh, that's nothing, sir. He's welcome as the flowers in May; but what I wanted to say, sir, was that as they're my fields, and people who comes is only trespassers, I've a right to put anything I like there. I don't put danger for the public: they comes to the danger." "Yes; that's true," said the doctor. "Of course, now you mention it, there's no right of way." "Not a bit, sir, and I might turn out old Billy, if I liked." "I say, who is old Billy?" said Dexter. "Hush, my boy! Don't interpose when people are speaking." "Oh, let him talk, sir," said the butcher, good-naturedly. "I like to hear a boy want to know. It's what my boy won't do. He's asleep half his time, and I feed him well too." "Humph!" ejaculated the doctor. "Billy's my old bull, as I always keeps shut up close in my yard, because he is dangerous." "And very properly," said the doctor. "Quite right, sir, quite right; and I want to know then what right Sir James has to come ordering me about. He's no customer of mine. Took it all away and give it to Mossetts, because he said the mutton was woolly, when I give you my word, sir, that it was as good a bit o' mutton as I ever killed." "Yes, yes, Dengate, but what has all this to do with me?" said the doctor testily. "Well, sir, begging your pardon, only this: your young lady and young gentleman was there, and I want to know the rights of it all. My man says the beasts are quiet enough, only playful, and I say the same; but I may be making a mistake. I went in the medder this morning, with my boy Ezry, and he could drive 'em anywheres, and he's only ten. Did they trouble your young folks, sir?" "Well, Dexter: you can answer that," said the doctor. "Trouble us?--no!" said Dexter, laughing. "Miss Grayson was a bit afraid of 'em, but I ran the big one, and he galloped off across the fields." "There," said the butcher; "what did I say? Bit playful, that's all." "And when we heard a noise, and found one of 'em standing over that young Danby, he was only turning him over, that's all." "Yes; he was running away, and fell down, and the beasts came to look at him," said Dengate, laughing. "And Sir James was over on the stile calling for help. Why, as soon as I ran at the bullocks they all galloped off, all but the big one, and I give him a crack on the horn, and soon made him go." "Of course. Why, a child would make 'em run. That's all, sir, I only wanted to know whether they really was dangerous, because if they had been, as I said afore, bullock it is now, but beef it should be. Good morning, sir." "What are you going to do!" said the doctor. "Do, sir? I'm a-going to let Sir James do his worst. My beasts ain't dangerous, and they ain't on a public road, so there they stay till I want 'em for the shop. Morning, young--er--gentleman. You're not afraid of a bullock?" "No," said Dexter quietly, "I don't think I am." "I'm sure you ain't, my lad, if you'll 'scuse me calling you so. Morning, sir, morning." The butcher backed out, smiling triumphantly, but only to put his head in again-- "Beg pardon, sir, only to say that if he'd asked me polite like, I'd ha' done it directly; but he didn't, and I'll stand upon my medder like a man." "Humph!" said the doctor, as soon as they were alone; "and so you were not afraid of the bullocks, Dexter?" "There wasn't anything to be afraid of," said the boy. "I'm ever so much more afraid of you." "Afraid?" "Yes, when you look cross, sir, only then." "Well, you must not make me look cross, Dexter; and now get on with your copying. When you've done that you may go in the garden if you'll keep out of mischief." "And when may I go fishing?" "When you like." "Down the meadows!" "Why not fish down the garden; there's a capital place." "All right," said Dexter. "I'll go there. But I want a rod and line." "There is an old rod in the hall, and you can buy a line. No, Helen is going out, and she will buy you one." Dexter's eyes glistened at the idea of going fishing, and he set to work most industriously at the copying, which in due time he handed over to the Doctor, who expressed himself as highly satisfied: though if he really was, he was easily pleased. Helen had received her instructions, and she soon afterwards returned with the fishing-line, and a fair supply of extra hooks, and odds and ends, which the doctor, as an old angler, had suggested. "These--all for me!" cried the boy joyfully. The doctor nodded. "Recollect: no mischief, and don't tumble in." "All right, sir," cried the boy, who was gloating over the new silk line, with its cork float glistening in blue and white paint brought well up with varnish. "Do you know how to fish!" "Yes, I know all about it, sir." "How's that? You never went fishing at the workhouse." "No, sir; but old Dimsted in the House used to tell us boys all about it, and how he used to catch jack and eels, and roach and perch, in the river." "Very well, then," said the doctor. "Now you can go." Dexter went off in high glee, recalling divers instructions given by the venerable old pauper who had been a fishing idler all his life, the river always having more attractions for him than work. His son followed in his steps, and he again had a son with the imitative faculty, and spending every hour he could find at the river-side. It was a well-known fact in Coleby that the Dimsteds always knew where fish was to be found, and the baskets they made took the place of meat that other fathers and sons of families would have earned. Rod, line, and hooks are prime necessaries for fishing; but a fish rarely bites at a bare hook, so one of Dexter's first proceedings was to obtain some bait. Mr Dengate had said that his man should save plenty of gentles for him; but Dexter resolved not to wait for them that day, but to try what he could do with worms and paste. So his first proceeding was to appeal to Mrs Millett for a slice or two of bread. Mrs Millett was not in the kitchen, but Maria was, and on being appealed to, she said sharply that she was not the cook. Dexter looked puzzled, and he flushed a little as he wondered why it was that the maid looked so cross, and always answered him so snappishly. Just then Mrs Millett, who was a plump elderly female with a pleasant countenance and expression, appeared in the doorway, and to her Dexter appealed in turn. Mrs Millett had been disposed to look at Dexter from the point of view suggested by Maria, who had been making unpleasant allusions to the boy's birth and parentage, and above all to "Master's strange goings on," ever since Dexter's coming. Hence, then, the old lady, who looked upon herself as queen of the kitchen, had a sharp reproof on her tongue, and was about to ask the boy why he hadn't stopped in his own place, and rung for what he wanted. The frank happy expression on his face disarmed her, and she smiled and cut the required bread. "Well, I never!" said Maria. "Ah, my dear," said Mrs Millett; "I was young once, and I didn't like to be scolded. He isn't such a bad-looking boy after all, only he will keep apples in his bedroom, and make it smell." "What's looks!" said Maria tartly, as she gave a candlestick she was cleaning a fierce rub. "A deal, my dear, sometimes," said the old housekeeper. "Specially if they're sweet ones, and that's what yours are not now." Dexter was not yet armed with all he wanted, for he was off down the kitchen-garden in search of worms. His first idea was to get a spade and dig for himself; but the stern countenance of Dan'l Copestake rose up before him, and set him wondering what would be the consequences if he were to be found turning over some bed. On second thoughts he determined to find the gardener and ask for permission, the dread of not succeeding in his mission making him for the moment more thoughtful. Dan'l did not need much looking for. He had caught sight of Dexter as soon as he entered the garden, and gave vent to a grunt. "Now, what mischief's he up to now?" he grumbled; and he set to and watched the boy while making believe to be busy cutting the dead leaves and flowers off certain plants. He soon became aware of the fact that Dexter was searching for him, and this altered the case, for he changed his tactics, and kept on moving here and there, so as to avoid the boy. "Here! Hi! Mr Copestake!" cried Dexter; but the old man had been suddenly smitten with that worst form of deafness peculiar to those who will not hear; and it was not until Dexter had pursued him round three or four beds, during which he seemed to be blind as well as deaf, that the old man was able to see him. "Eh!" he said. "Master want me?" "No. I'm going fishing; and, please, I want some worms." "Wums? Did you say wums!" said Dan'l, affecting deafness, and holding his hand to his ear. "Yes." "Ay, you're right; they are," grumbled Dan'l. "Deal o' trouble, wums. Gets inter the flower-pots, and makes wum castesses all over the lawn, and they all has to be swept up." "Yes; but I want some for fishing." "'Ficient? Quite right, not sufficient help to get 'em swep' away." "Will you dig a few worms for me, please?" shouted Dexter in the old man's ear. "Dig wums? What for? Oh, I see, thou'rt going fishing. No; I can't stop." "May I dig some!" cried Dexter; but Dan'l affected not to hear him, and went hurriedly away. "He knew what I wanted all the time," said the boy to himself. "He don't like me no more than Maria does." Just then he caught sight of Peter Cribb, who, whenever he was not busy in the stable, seemed to be chained to a birch broom. "Will you dig a few worms for me, please?" said Dexter; "red ones." "No; I'm sweeping," said the groom gruffly; and then, in the most inconsistent way, he changed his tone, for he had a weakness for the rod and line himself. "Going fishing!" "Yes, if I can get some worms." "Where's old Copestake!" "Gone into the yard over there," said Dexter. "All right. I'll dig you some. Go behind the wall there, by the cucumber frames. Got a pot!" Dexter shook his head. "All right. I'll bring one." Dexter went to the appointed place, and in a few minutes Peter appeared, free from the broom now, and bearing a five-pronged fork and a small flower-pot; for the fact that the boy was a brother angler superseded the feeling of animosity against one who had so suddenly been raised from a lowly position and placed over his head. Peter winked one eye as he scraped away some of the dry straw, and then turned over a quantity of the moist, rotten soil, displaying plenty of the glistening red worms suitable for the capture of roach and perch. "There you are," he said, after putting an ample supply in the flower-pot, whose hole he had stopped with a piece of clay; "there's as many as you'll want; and now, you go and fish down in the deep hole, where the wall ends in the water, and I wish you luck." CHAPTER FIFTEEN. DEXTER MAKES A FRIEND. "I like him," said Dexter to himself, as he hurried down the garden, found the place, and for the next ten minutes he was busy fitting up his tackle, watching a boy on the other side of the river the while, as he sat in the meadow beneath a willow-tree fishing away, and every now and then capturing a small gudgeon or roach. The river was about thirty yards broad at this spot, and as Dexter prepared his tackle and watched the boy opposite, the boy opposite fished and furtively watched Dexter. He was a dark, snub-nosed boy, shabbily-dressed, and instead of being furnished with a bamboo rod and a new line with glistening float, he had a rough home-made hazel affair in three pieces, spliced together, but fairly elastic; his float was a common quill, and his line of so many hairs pulled out of a horse's tail, and joined together with a peculiarly fast knot. Before Dexter was ready the shabby-looking boy on the other side had caught two more silvery roach, and Dexter's heart beat fast as he at last baited his hook and threw in the line as far as he could. He was pretty successful in that effort, but his cork float and the shot made a loud splash, while the boy opposite uttered a chuckle. "He's laughing at me," said Dexter to himself; and he tried the experiment of watching his float with one eye and the boy with the other, but the plan did not succeed, and he found himself gazing from one to the other, always hurriedly glancing back from the boy to the float, under the impression that it bobbed. He knew it all by heart, having many a time drunk in old Dimsted's words, and he remembered that he could tell what fish was biting by the way the float moved. If it was a bream, it would throw the float up so that it lay flat on the water. If it was a roach, it would give a short quick bob. If it was a perch, it would give a bob, and then a series of sharp quick bobs, the last of which would be right under, while if it was a tench, it would glide slowly away. But the float did nothing but float, and nothing in the way of bobbing, while the shabby boy on the other side kept on striking, and every now and then hooking a fish. "Isn't he lucky!" thought Dexter, and he pulled out his line to find that the bait had gone. He began busily renewing it in a very _nonchalant_ manner, as he was conscious of the fact that the boy was watching him keenly with critical eyes. Dexter threw in again; but there was no bite, and as the time went on, it seemed as if all the fish had been attracted to the other side of the river, where the shabby-looking boy, who fished skilfully and well, kept on capturing something at the rate of about one every five minutes. They were not large, but still they were fish, and it was most tantalising to one to be patiently waiting, while the other was busy landing and rebaiting and throwing in again. At last a happy thought struck Dexter, and after shifting his float about from place to place, he waited till he saw the boy looking at him, and he said-- "I say?" "Hullo!" came back, the voices easily passing across the water. "What are you baiting with?" "Gentles." "Oh!" Then there was a pause, and more fishing on one side, waiting on the other. At last the shabby boy said-- "You're baiting with worms, ain't you?" "Yes." "Ah, they won't bite at worms much this time o' day." "Won't they?" said Dexter, putting out his line. "No. And you ain't fishing deep enough." "Ain't I!" "No. Not by three foot." "I wish I'd got some gentles," said Dexter at last. "Do you!" "Yes." "Shall I shy some over in the box?" "Can you throw so far?" "Yers!" cried the shabby boy. "You'll give me the box again, won't you?" "Yes; I'll throw it back." The boy on the other side divided his bait by putting some in a piece of paper. Then putting a stone in his little round tin box, he walked back a few yards so as to give himself room, stepped forward, and threw the box right across, Dexter catching it easily. "Now, you try one o' them," said the donor of the fresh bait. Dexter eagerly did as was suggested, and five minutes after there was a sharp tug, which half drew his float below the surface. "Why, you didn't strike," said the boy sharply. "Well, you can't strike 'em till you've got hold of them," retorted Dexter; and the shabby-looking boy laughed. "Yah!" he said; "you don't know how to fish." "Don't I! Why, I was taught to fish by some one who knows all about it." "So it seems," said the boy jeeringly. "Don't even know how to strike a fish. There, you've got another bite. Look at him; he's running away with it." It was no credit to Dexter that he got hold of that fish, for the unfortunate roach had hooked itself. As the float glided away beneath the surface, Dexter gave a tremendous snatch with the rod, and jerked the fish out of the water among the branches of an overhanging tree, where the line caught, and the captive hung suspended about a foot below a cluster of twigs, flapping about and trying to get itself free. Dexter's fellow-fisherman burst into a roar of laughter, laid down his rod, and stamped about on the opposite bank slapping his knees, while the unlucky fisherman stood with his rod in his hand, jigging the line. "You'll break it if you don't mind," cried the shabby boy. "But I want to get it out." "You shouldn't have struck so hard. Climb up the tree, get out on that branch, and reach down." Dexter looked at the tree, which hung over the water to such an extent that it seemed as if his weight would tear it from its hold in the bank, while the water looked terribly deep and black beneath. "I say," cried the shabby boy jeeringly; "who taught you how to fish!" "Why, old Dimsted did, and he knew." "Who did!" cried the boy excitedly. "Old Dimsted." "Yah! That he didn't. Why, he's been in the House these ten years-- ever since I was quite a little un." "Well, I know that," shouted back Dexter. "He taught me all the same." "Why, how came you to know grandfather!" cried the shabby boy. Dexter ceased pulling at the line, and looked across at his shabbily-dressed questioner. For the first time he glanced down at his well-made clothes, and compared his personal appearance with that of the boy opposite, and in a curiously subtle way he began to awake to the fact that he was growing ashamed of the workhouse, and the people in it. "Yah! you didn't know grandfather," cried the boy mockingly; "and you don't know how to fish. Grandfather wouldn't have taught you to chuck a fish up in the tree. You should strike gently, like that." He gave the top of his rod a slight, quick twitch, and hooked a good-sized roach. Dexter grinning to see him play it till it was feeble enough to be drawn to the side and lifted out. "That's the way grandfather taught me how to fish," continued the boy, as he took the hook from the captive's mouth, "I say, what's your name!" "Dexter Grayson," was the answer, for the boy felt keenly already that the names Obed Coleby were ones of which he could not be proud. "Ever been in the workus!" "Yes." "Ever see grandfather there!" "Yes, I've seen him," said Dexter, who felt no inclination to enlighten the boy further. "Ah, he could fish," said the boy, baiting and throwing in again. "My name's Dimsted--Bob Dimsted. So's father's. He can fish as well as grandfather. So can I," he added modestly; "there ain't a good place nowheres in the river as we don't know. I could take you where you could ketch fish every swim." "Could you?" said Dexter, who seemed awed in the presence of so much knowledge. "Course I could, any day." "And will you?" said Dexter eagerly. "Ah dunno," said the boy, striking and missing another fish. "You wouldn't care to go along o' me?" "Yes, I should--fishing," cried Dexter. "But my line's fast." "Why don't you climb up and get it then? Ain't afraid, are you!" "What, to climb that tree?" cried Dexter. "Not I;" and laying the rod down with the butt resting on the bank, he began to climb at once. "Mind yer don't tumble in," cried Bob Dimsted; "some o' them boughs gets very rotten--like touchwood." "All right," said Dexter; and he climbed steadily on in happy ignorance of the fact that the greeny lichen and growth was not good for dark cloth trousers and vests. But the bole of the tree was short, for it had been pollarded, and in a minute or two he was in a nest of branches, several of which protruded over the water, the one in particular which had entangled the fishing-line being not even horizontal, but dipping toward the surface. "That's the way," shouted Bob Dimsted. "Look sharp, they're biting like fun." "Think it'll bear?" said Dexter. "Bear? Yes; half a dozen on yer. Sit on it striddling, and work yourself along till you can reach the line. Got a knife?" "Yes." "Then go right out, and when you git far enough cut off the little bough, and let it all drop into the water." "Why, then, I should lose the fish." "Not you. Ain't he hooked? You do as I say, and then git back, and you can pull all out together." Dexter bestrode the branch, and worked himself along further and further till an ominous crack made him pause. "Go on," shouted the boy from the other side. "He'll think I'm a coward if I don't," said Dexter to himself, and he worked himself along for another three feet, with the silvery fish just before him, seeming to tempt him on. "There, you can reach him now, can't you?" cried the boy. "Yes; I think I can reach him now," said Dexter. "Wait till I get out my knife." It was not so easy to get out that knife, and to open it, as it would have been on land. The position was awkward; the branch dipped at a great slope now toward the water, and Dexter's trousers were not only drawn half-way up his legs, but drawn so tightly by his attitude that he could hardly get his hand into his pocket. It was done though at last, the thin bough in which the line was tangled seized by the left hand, while the right cut vigorously with the knife. It would have been far easier to have disentangled the line, but Bob Dimsted was a learned fisher, and he had laid down the law. So Dexter cut and cut into the soft green wood till he got through the little bough all but one thin piece of succulent bark, dancing up and down the while over the deep water some fifteen feet from the bank. _Soss_! That last vigorous cut did it, and the bough, with its summer burden of leaves, dropped with a splash into the water. "There! What did I tell you!" cried Dexter's mentor. "Now you can get back and pull all out together. Fish won't bite for a bit after this, but they'll be all right soon." Dexter shut up his knife, thrust it as well as he could into his pocket, and prepared to return. This was not so easy, for he had to go backwards. What was more, he had to progress up hill. But, nothing daunted, he took tight hold with his hands, bore down upon them, and was in the act of thrusting himself along a few inches, when--_Crack_! One loud, sharp, splintering crack, and the branch, which was rotten three parts through, broke short off close to the trunk, and like an echo to the crack came a tremendous--_Plash_! That water, as already intimated, was deep, and, as a consequence, there was a tremendous splash, and branch and its rider went down right out of sight, twig after twig disappearing leisurely in the eddying swirl. CHAPTER SIXTEEN. "THEM AS IS BORN TO BE HANGED." It might have been presumed that Bob Dimsted would either have tried to render some assistance or else have raised an alarm. Bob Dimsted did nothing of the kind. For certain reasons of his own, and as one who had too frequently been in the hot water of trouble, Master Bob thought only of himself, and catching his line in his hand as he quickly drew it from the water, he hastily gathered up his fishing paraphernalia, and ran off as hard as he could go. He had time, however, to see Dexter's wet head rise to the surface and then go down again, for the unwilling bather had one leg hooked in the bough, which took him down once more, as it yielded to the current, and the consequence was that when Dexter rose, breathless and half-strangled, he was fifty yards down the stream. But he was now free, and giving his head a shake, he trod the water for a few moments, and then struck out for the shore, swimming as easily as a frog. A few sturdy strokes took him out of the sharp current and into an eddy near the bank, by whose help he soon reached the deep still water, swimming so vigorously that before long he was abreast of the doctor's garden, where a group beneath the trees startled him more than his involuntary plunge. For there, in a state of the greatest excitement, were the doctor and Helen, with Peter Cribb, with a clothes-prop to be used for a different purpose now. Further behind was Dan'l Copestake, who came panting up with the longest handled rake just as Dexter was nearing the bank. "Will he be drowned?" whispered Helen, as she held tightly by her father's arm. "No; he swims like a water-rat," said the doctor. "No, no," shouted Dexter, beginning to splash the water, and sheering off as he saw Dan'l about to make a dab at him with the rake. There was more zeal than discretion in the gardener's use of this implement, for it splashed down into the water heavily, the teeth nearly catching the boy's head. "Here, catch hold of this," cried Peter Cribb. "No, no; let me be," cried Dexter, declining the offer of the clothes-prop, as he had avoided it before when he was on the top of the wall. "I can swim ashore if you'll let me be." This was so self-evident that the doctor checked Dan'l as he was about to make another skull-fracturing dash with the rake; and the next minute Dexter's hand clutched the grass on the bank, and he crawled out, with the water streaming down out of his clothes, and his short hair gummed, as it were, to his head. "Here!" he cried; "where's my fish?" "Fish, sir!" cried the doctor; "you ought to be very thankful that you've saved your life." "O Dexter!" cried Helen. "I say, don't touch me," cried the boy, as she caught at his hand. "I'm so jolly wet." He was like a sponge just lifted out of a pail, and already about him there was a pool. "Here, quick, sir; run up to the house and change your clothes," cried the doctor. "But I must get my fish, sir." "Fish!" cried the doctor angrily; "that's not the way to fish." "Yes, it was, sir; and I caught one." "You caught one!" "Yes, sir; a beauty." "Look here, Dexter," cried the doctor, catching him by his wet arm; "do you mean to tell me that you dived into the river like that and caught a fish!" "No, sir; I fell in when I was getting my line out of the tree." "Oh, I see." "Beg pardon, sir," said Dan'l sourly; "but he've broke a great branch off this here tree." "Well, I couldn't help it," said Dexter, in an ill-used tone. "I caught my line in the tree, and was obliged to get up and fetch it, and--stop a minute. I can see it. All right." He ran off along the river-bank till they saw him stoop just where the wall dipped down into the river. There he found the rod floating close to the edge, and, securing it, he soon after drew in the loose branch he had cut off the tree, and disentangled his line, with the little roach still on the hook. "There!" he cried in triumph, as he ran back with rod, line, and fish; "look at that, Miss Grayson, isn't it a beauty, and--What are you laughing at!" This was at Peter Cribb, who was grinning hugely, but who turned away, followed by Dan'l. "Them as is born to be hanged'll never be drowned," grumbled the old gardener sourly, as the two men went away. "No fear of him being drowned," said Peter. "Swims like a cork." "It's disgusting; that's what I say it is," growled Dan'l; "disgusting." "What's disgusting?" said Peter. "Why, they cuddles and makes a fuss over a boy as is a reg'lar noosance about the place, just as any other varmint would be. Wish he had drowned himself. What call was there for me to come and bring a rake!" "Ah, he's a rum un, that he is," said Peter. "And master's a rum un; and how they can take to that boy, Miss Helen specially, and have him here's more'n I can understand. It caps me, that it do." "Wait a bit, my lad, and you'll see," cried the old gardener. "He's begun his games just as such a boy would, and afore long this here garden will be turned into such a wreck as'll make the doctor tear his hair, and wish as he'd never seen the young rascal. He's a bad un; you can see it in his eye. He's got bad blood in him, and bad blood allus comes out sooner or later. Peter Cribb, my lad--" "Yes." "We're getting old fellow-servants, though you're only young. Peter, my lad, I'm beginning to tremble for my fruit." "Eh?" "Yes; that I am, my lad," said Dan'l in a whisper. "Just as I expected--I was watching of him--that rip's took up with bad company, Poacher Dimsted's boy; and that means evil. They was talking together, and then young Dimsted see me, and run away." "Did he?" "Did he? Yes, he just did; and you mark my words, Peter Cribb, it will not be long before the gov'ner gets rid of him." "Oh yes; it's a very beautiful fish," said the doctor testily; "but make haste in. There, run and get all your wet things off as quickly as you can." Dexter was so deeply interested in the silvery scales and graceful shape of his fish that he hardly heard the doctor's words, which had to be repeated before the boy started, nodded shortly, and ran off toward the house, while his patron walked to a garden chair, sat down, and gazed up at Helen in a perplexed way. Helen did not speak, but gazed back at her father with a suppressed laugh twinkling about the corners of her lips. "You're laughing at me, my dear," said the doctor at last; "but you mark my words--what I say is true. All this is merely the froth of the boy's nature, of which he is getting rid. But tut, tut, tut! All this must be stopped. First a new cap destroyed by being turned into a bucket, and now a suit of clothes gone." "They will do for a garden suit, papa," said Helen, speaking as if she had had charge of boys for years. "Well, yes: I suppose so," said the doctor. "But there: I am not going to worry myself about trifles. The cost of a few suits of clothes are as nothing compared to the success of my scheme. Now let's go in and see if the young dog has gone to work to change his things." The doctor rose and walked up the garden, making comments to his daughter about the course of instruction he intended to pursue with Dexter, and on reaching the house and finding that the object of his thoughts was in his bedroom, he went on to the study just as Maria came from the front door with a letter. "Letter, eh? Oh, I see. From Lady Danby!" The doctor opened the letter. "Any one waiting!" he said. "Yes, sir. Groom waiting for an answer." "I'll ring, Maria," said the doctor, and then he smiled and looked pleased. "There, my deaf," he cried, tossing the note to his daughter. "Now I call that very kind and neighbourly. You see, Sir James and Lady Danby feel and appreciate the fine manly conduct of Dexter over that cattle, and they very wisely think that he not only deserves great commendation, but that the present is a favourable opportunity for beginning an intimacy and companionship." "Yes, papa," said Helen, with rather a troubled look. "Danby sees that he was wrong, and is holding out the right hand of good fellowship. Depend upon it that we shall have a strong tie between those two boys. They will go to a public school together, help one another with their studies, and become friends for life. Hah! Yes. Sit down, my dear," continued the doctor, rubbing his hands. "My kind regards to Sir James and Lady Danby, that I greatly appreciate their kindness, and that Dexter shall come and spend the day with Edgar on Friday." Helen wrote the note, which was despatched, and the doctor smiled, and looked highly satisfied. "You remember how obstinate Sir James was about boys?" "Yes, papa. I heard a part of the conversation, and you told me the rest." "To be sure. You see my selection was right. Dexter behaved like a little hero over that adventure." "Yes," said Helen; "he was as brave as could be." "Exactly. All justification of my choice. I don't want to prophesy, Helen, but there will be a strong friendship between those boys from that day. Edgar, the weak, well-born boy, will always recognise the manly confidence of Dexter, the er--er, well, low-born boy, who in turn will have his sympathies aroused by his companion's want of--er--well, say, ballast." "Possibly, papa." "My dear Helen, don't speak like that," said the doctor pettishly. "You are so fond of playing wet blanket to all my plans." "Oh no, papa; I am sure I will help you, and am helping you, in all this, but it is not in my nature to be so sanguine." "Ah, well, never mind that. But you do like Dexter!" "Yes; I am beginning to like him more and more." "That's right. I'm very, very glad, and I feel quite grateful to the Danbys. You must give Dexter a few hints about behaving himself, and, so to speak, keeping down his exuberance when he is there." "May I say a word, papa!" "Certainly, my dear; of course." "Well, then, I have an idea of my own with respect to Dexter." "Ah, that's right," said the doctor, smiling and rubbing his hands. "What is it!" "I have been thinking over it all a great deal, dear," said Helen, going to her father's side and resting her hand upon his shoulder; "and it seems to me that the way to alter and improve Dexter will be by example." "Ah yes, I see; example better than precept, eh!" "Yes. So far his life has been one of repression and the severest discipline." "Yes, of course. Cut down; tied down, and his natural growth stopped. Consequently wild young shoots have thrust themselves out of his nature." "That is what I mean." "Quite right, my dear; then we will give him as much freedom as we can. You will give him a hint or two, though." "I will do everything I can, papa, to make him presentable." "Thank you, my dear. Yes, these boys will become great companions, I can see. Brave little fellow! I am very, very much pleased." The doctor forgot all about the broken branch, and Dexter's spoiled suit of clothes, and Helen went to see whether the boy had obeyed the last command. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN. DAN'L IS TOO ATTENTIVE. Things were not quite so smooth as Dr Grayson thought, for there had been stormy weather at Sir James's. "Well, my dear, you are my husband, and it is my duty to obey," said Lady Danby; "but I do protest against my darling son being forced to associate with a boy of an exceedingly low type." "Allow me, my dear," said Sir James importantly. "By Dr Grayson's act, in taking that boy into his house, he has wiped away any stigma which may cling to him; and I must say that the lad displayed a great deal of animal courage--that kind of brute courage which comes from an ignorance of danger." "Is it animal courage not to be afraid of animals, ma?" said Master Edgar. "Yes, my dear, of course," said Lady Danby. "I wish Edgar would display courage of any kind," said Sir James. "Why, you ran away from the bulls too, papa," said Master Edgar. "I am a great sufferer from nervousness, Edgar," said Sir James reprovingly; "but we were not discussing that question. Dr Grayson has accepted the invitation for his adopted son. It is his whim for the moment, and it is only becoming on my part to show that we are grateful for the way in which the boy behaved. By the time a month has gone by, I have no doubt that the boy will be back at the--the place from which he came; but while he is at Dr Grayson's I desire that he be treated as if he were Dr Grayson's son." "Very well, James," said Lady Danby, in an ill-used tone of voice. "You are master here, and we must obey." The day of the invitation arrived. Dexter was to be at Sir James's in time for lunch, and directly after breakfast he watched his opportunity and followed Helen into the drawing-room. "I say," he said; "I can't go there, can I?" "Why not?" said Helen. "Lookye here." "Why, Dexter!" cried Helen, laughing merrily; "what have you been doing!" "Don't I look a guy!" There was a change already in the boy's aspect; his face, short as the time had been, was beginning to show what fresh air and good feeding could achieve. His hair had altered very slightly, but still there was an alteration for the better, and his eyes looked brighter, but his general appearance was comical all the same. Directly after breakfast he had rushed up to his room and put on the clothes in which he had taken his involuntary bath. These garments, as will be remembered, had been obtained in haste, and were of the kind known in the trade as "ready-mades," and in this case composed of a well-glazed and pressed material, containing just enough wool to hold together a great deal of shoddy. The dip in the river had been too severe a test for the suit, especially as Maria had been put a little more out of temper than usual by having the garments handed to her to dry. Maria's mother was a washerwoman who lived outside Coleby on the common, and gained her income by acting as laundress generally for all who would intrust her with their family linen; but she called herself in yellow letters on a brilliant scarlet ground a "clear starcher." During Maria's early life at home she had had much experience in the ways of washing. She knew the smell of boiled soap. She had often watched the steam rising from the copper, and played among the clouds, and she well knew that the quickest way to dry anything that has been soaked is to give it a good wringing. She had therefore given Dexter's new suit a good wringing, and wrung out of it a vast quantity of sticky dye which stained her hands. Then she had--grumbling bitterly all the time--given the jacket, vest, and trousers a good shake, and hung them over a clothes-horse as near to the fire as she could get them without singeing. Mrs Millett told her to be sure and get them nice and dry, and Maria did get them "nice and dry." And now Dexter had put them on and presented himself before Helen, suggesting that he looked a guy. Certainly his appearance was suggestive of the stuffed effigy borne about on the fifth of November, for the garments were shrunken so that his arms and legs showed to a terrible extent, and Maria's wringing had given them curves and hollows never intended by the cutter, the worst one being in the form of a hump between the wearer's shoulders. "The things are completely spoiled. You foolish boy to put them on." "Then I can't go to that other house." "Nonsense! You have the new clothes that came from the tailor's--those for which you were measured." "Yes," said Dexter reluctantly; "but it's a pity to put on them. I may get 'em spoiled." "Then you do not want to go, Dexter," said Helen, smiling. "No," he cried eagerly. "Ask him to let me stop here." "No, no," said Helen kindly. "Papa wishes you to go there; it is very kind of the Danbys to ask you, and I hope you will go, and behave very nicely, and make great friends with Edgar Danby." "How?" said Dexter laconically. "Well, as boys generally do. You must talk to him." "What about?" "Anything. Then you must play with him." "What at?" "Oh, he'll be sure to suggest something to play at." "I don't think he will," said Dexter thoughtfully. "He don't look the sort of chap to." "Don't say chap, Dexter; say boy." "Sort of boy to play any games. He's what we used to call a soft Tommy sort of a chap--boy." "Oh no, no, no! I don't suppose he will be rough, and care for boisterous sports; but he may prove to be a very pleasant companion for you." Dexter shook his head. "I don't think he'll like me." "Nonsense! How can you tell that? Then they have a beautiful garden." "Can't be such a nice one as this," said Dexter. "Oh yes, it is; and it runs down to the river as this one does, and Sir James has a very nice boat." "Boat!" cried Dexter, pricking up his ears. "And may you go in it!" "Not by yourselves, I suppose. There, I'm sure you will enjoy your visit." Dexter shook his head again. "I say, you'll come too, won't you?" he cried eagerly. "No, Dexter; not this time." The boy's forehead grew wrinkled all over. "Come, you are pretending that you do not want to go." "I don't," said the boy, hanging his head. "I want to stay here along with you." "Perhaps I should like you to stay, Dexter," said Helen; "but I wish you to go and behave nicely, and you can tell me all about it when you come back." "And how soon may I come back?" "I don't suppose till the evening, but we shall see. Now, go and change those things directly. What would papa say if he saw you?" Dexter went slowly up to his room, and came down soon after to look for Helen. He found her busy writing letters, so he went off on tiptoe to the study, where the doctor was deep in his book, writing with a very severe frown on his brow. "Ah, Dexter," he said, looking up and running his eye critically over the boy, the result being very satisfactory. "Let's see, you are to be at Sir James's by half-past twelve. Now only ten. Go and amuse yourself in the garden, and don't get into mischief." Dexter went back into the hall, obtained his cap, and went out through the glass door into the verandah, where the great wisteria hung a valance of lavender blossoms all along the edge. "He always says don't get into mischief," thought the boy. "I don't want to get into mischief, I'm sure." Half-way across the lawn he was startled by the sudden appearance of Dan'l, who started out upon him from behind a great evergreen shrub. "What are you a-doing of now?" snarled Dan'l. "I wasn't doing anything," said Dexter, staring. "Then you were going to do something," cried the old man sharply. "Look here, young man; if you get meddling with anything in my garden there's going to be trouble, so mind that. I know what boys is, so none of your nonsense here." He went off grumbling to another part of the garden, and Dexter felt disposed to go back indoors. "He's watching me all the time," he thought to himself; "just as if I was going to steal something. He don't like me." Dexter strolled on, and heard directly a regular rustling noise, which he recognised at once as the sound made by a broom sweeping grass, and sure enough, just inside the great laurel hedge, where a little green lawn was cut off from the rest of the garden, there was Peter Cribb, at his usual pursuit, sweeping all the sweet-scented cuttings of the grass. Peter was a sweeper who was always on the look-out for an excuse. He was, so to speak, chained to that broom so many hours a day, and if he had been a galley slave, and the broom an oar, it is morally certain that he would have been beaten with many stripes, for he would have left off rowing whenever he could. "Well, squire," he said, laying his hands one over the other on the top of the broom-handle. "Well, Peter. How's the horse?" "Grinding his corn, and enjoying himself," said Peter. "He's like you: a lucky one--plenty to eat and nothing to do." "Don't you take him out for exercise?" said Dexter. "Course I do. So do you go out for exercise." "Think I could ride?" said Dexter. "Dersay you could, if you could hold on." "I should like to try." "Go along with you!" "But I should. Will you let me try!" Peter shook his head, and began to examine his half-worn broom. "I could hold on. Let me go with you next time!" "Oh, but I go at ha'-past six, hours before you're awake. Young gents don't get up till eight." "Why, I always wake at a quarter to six," said Dexter. "It seems the proper time to get up. I say, let me go with you." "Here, I say, you, Peter," shouted Dan'l; "are you a-going to sweep that bit o' lawn, or am I to come and do it myself. Gawsiping about!" "Hear that?" said Peter, beginning to make his broom swing round again. "There, you'd better be off, or you'll get me in a row." Dexter sighed, for he seemed to be always the cause of trouble. "I say," said Peter, as the boy was moving off; "going fishing again?" "No; not now." "You knows the way to fish, don't you? Goes in after them." Dexter laughed, and went on down to the river, examined the place where the branch had broken off, and then gazed down into the clear water at the gliding fish, which seemed to move here and there with no more effort than a wave of the tail. His next look was across the river in search of Bob Dimsted; but the shabby-looking boy was not fishing, and nowhere in sight either up or down the stream. Dexter turned away with another sigh. The garden was very beautiful, but it seemed dull just then. He wanted some one to talk to, and if he went again to Peter, old Dan'l would shout and find fault. "It don't matter which way I go," said Dexter, after a few minutes, during which time he had changed his place in the garden again and again; "that old man is always watching me to see what I am going to do." He looked round at the flowers, at the coming fruit, at everything in turn, but the place seemed desolate, and in spite of himself he began thinking of his old companions at the great school, and wondering what they were doing. Then he recalled that he was to go to Sir James Danby's soon, and he began to think of Edgar. "I shan't like that chap," he said to himself. "I wonder whether he'll like me." He was standing thinking deeply and gazing straight before him at the high red brick wall when he suddenly started, for there was a heavy step on the gravel. Dan'l had come along the grass edge till he was close to the boy, and then stepped off heavily on to the path. "They aren't ripe yet," he said with an unpleasant leer; "and you'd best let them alone." Dexter walked quickly away, with his face scarlet, and a bitter feeling of annoyance which he could not master. For the next quarter of an hour he was continually changing his position in the garden, but always to wake up to the fact that the old gardener was carrying out a purpose which he had confided to Peter. This the boy soon learned, for after a time he suddenly encountered the groom, still busy with the broom. "Why, hullo, youngster!" he said; "what's the matter!" "Nothing," said Dexter, with his face growing a deeper scarlet. "Oh yes, there is; I can see," cried Peter. "Well, he's always watching me, and pretending that I'm getting into mischief, or trying to pick the fruit." "Hah!" said Peter, with a laugh; "he told me he meant to keep his eye on you." Just then there was a call for Dan'l from the direction of the house, and Mrs Millett was seen beyond a laurel hedge. Directly after the old man went up to the house, and it seemed to Dexter as if a cloud had passed from across the sun. The garden appeared to have grown suddenly brighter, and the boy began to whistle as he went about in an aimless way, looking here and there for something to take his attention. He was not long in finding it, for just at the back of the dense yew hedge there were half a dozen old-fashioned round-topped hives, whose occupants were busy going to and fro, save that at the hive nearest the cross-path a heavy cluster, betokening a late swarm, was hanging outside, looking like a double handful of bees. Dexter knew a rhyme beginning-- "How doth the little busy bee--" and he knew that bees made honey; but that was all he did know about their habits, save that they lived in hives; and he stood and stared at the cluster hanging outside. "Why, they can't get in," he said to himself. "Hole's stopped up." He stood still for a few minutes, and then, as he looked round, he caught sight of some bean-sticks--tall thin pieces of oak sapling, and drawing one of these out of the ground he rubbed the mould off the pointed end, and, as soon as it was clean, took hold of it, and returned to the hive, where he watched the clustering bees for a few minutes, and then, reaching over, he inserted the thin end of the long stick just by the opening to the hive, thrust it forward, and gave it a good rake to right and left. There was a tremendous buzz and a rush, and the next moment Dexter, stick in hand, was running down the path toward the river, pursued by quite a cloud of angry bees. Dexter ran fast, of course, and as it happened, right down one of the most shady paths, beneath the densely growing apple-trees, where the bees could not fly, so that by the time he reached the river-side he was clear of his pursuers, but tingling from a sting on the wrist, and from two more on the neck, one being among the hair at the back, and the other right down in his collar. "Well, that's nice," he said, as he rubbed himself, and began mentally to try and do a sum in the Rule of Three--if three stings make so much pain, how much pain would be caused by the stings of a whole hiveful of bees? "Bother the nasty vicious little things!" he cried, as he had another rub, and he threw the bean-stick angrily away. "Don't hurt so much now," he said, after a few minutes' stamping about. Then his face broke up into a merry smile. "How they did make me run!" Just then there was a shout--a yell, and a loud call for help. Dexter forgot his own pain, and, alarmed by the cries, ran as hard as he could back again towards the spot from whence the sounds came, and to his horror found that Old Dan'l was running here and there, waving his arms, while Peter had come to his help, and was whisking his broom about in all directions. For a few moments Dexter could not comprehend what was wrong, then, like a flash, he understood that the bees had attacked the old gardener, and that it was due to his having irritated them with the stick. Dexter knew how a wasp's nest had been taken in the fields by the boys one day, and without a moment's hesitation he ran to the nearest shrub, tore off a good-sized bough, and joined in the task of beating down the bees. It is pretty sport to fight either bees or wasps in this way, but it requires a great deal of courage, especially as the insects are sure to get the best of it, as they did in this case, putting their enemies to flight, their place of refuge being the tool-house, into whose dark recesses the bees did not attempt to come. "Much stung, Dan'l!" said Peter. "Much stung, indeed! I should think I am. Offle!" "You got it much, youngster?" said Peter. "I've got three stings," replied Dexter, who had escaped without further harm. "And I've got five, I think," said Peter. "What was you doing to 'em, Dan'l!" "Doin' to 'em!" growled Dan'l, who was stamping about and rubbing himself, and looking exceedingly like the bear in the old fable. "I wasn't doin' nothin' to 'em. One o' the hives have been threatenin' to swarm again, and I was just goin' by, when they come at me like a swarm o' savidges, just as if some one had been teasing them." Dexter was rubbing the back of his neck, and feeling horribly guilty, as he asked himself whether he had not better own to having disturbed the hive; but there was something so unpleasantly repellent about the old gardener, and he was looking so suspiciously from one to the other, that the boy felt as if he could not speak to him. If it had been Peter, who, with all his roughness, seemed to be tolerant of his presence, he would have spoken out at once; but he could not to Dan'l, and he remained silent. "They stings pretty sharp," said Peter, laughing. "Blue-bag's best thing. I shall go up and get Maria to touch mine up. Coming?" "Nay, I'm not coming," growled Dan'l. "I can bear a sting or two of a bee without getting myself painted up with blue-bags. Dock leaves is good enough for me." "And there aren't a dock left in the garden," said Peter. "You found fault with me for not pulling the last up." So Peter went up to the house to be blue-bagged, Dan'l remained like a bear in his den, growling to himself, and Dexter, whose stings still throbbed, went off across the lawn to walk off the pain, till it was time to go to Sir James's. "Who'd have thought that the little things could hurt so much!" Then the pain began to diminish till it was only a tingle, and the spots where the stings went in were round and hard, and now it was that Dexter's conscience began to prick him as sharply as the bees' stings, and he walked about the garden trying to make up his mind as to whether he should go and confess to Dan'l that he stirred the bees up with a long stick. But as soon as he felt that he would do this, something struck him that Dan'l would be sure to think he had done it all out of mischief, and he knew that he could not tell him. "Nobody will know," he said to himself; "and I won't tell. I didn't mean to do any harm." "Dexter! Dexter!" He looked in the direction from whence the sounds came, and could see Helen waving her handkerchief, as a signal for him to come in. "Time to go," he said to himself as he set off to her. "Nobody will know, so I shan't tell him." And then he turned cold. Only a few moments before he had left Dan'l growling in his den, and now here he was down the garden, stooping and picking up something. For a few moments Dexter could not see what the something was, for the trees between them hindered the view, but directly after he made out that Dan'l had picked up a long stick, which had been thrown among the little apple-trees, and was carefully examining it. The colour came into Dexter's cheeks as he wondered whether Dan'l would know where that stick came from. The colour would have been deeper still had he known that Dan'l had a splendid memory, and knew exactly where every stick or plant should be. In fact, Dan'l recognised that stick as having been taken from the end of the scarlet-runner row. "A young sperrit o' mischief! that's what he is," muttered the old man, giving a writhe as he felt the stinging of the bees. "Now what's he been up to with that there stick? making a fishing-rod of it, I s'pose, and tearing my rows o' beans to pieces. I tell him what it is--" Dan'l stopped short, and stared at the end of the stick--the thin end, where there was something peculiar, betraying what had been done with it. It was a sight which made him tighten his lips up into a thin red line, and screw up his eyes till they could be hardly seen, for upon the end of that stick were the mortal remains of two crushed bees. CHAPTER EIGHTEEN. DEXTER SPENDS A PLEASANT AFTERNOON. Dexter went up to where Helen was waiting for him, and found her dressed. "Going out!" he said. "Yes; I thought I would walk up to Sir James's with you," she said; and she cast a critical eye over him, and smiled upon seeing that he only needed a touch with a brush to make him presentable. This was given, and they set off together, the doctor only giving Dexter a friendly nod in accordance with a promise made not to upset the boy with a number of hints as to how he was to behave. "It must come by degrees, papa," Helen said; "and any advice given now would only make him more conscious." Dexter's hair still looked horribly short, but his face did not quite resemble now that of a boy who had just risen from a sick-bed. He looked brighter and more animated, and in nowise peculiar; but all the same, in their short walk, Helen was conscious of the fact that they were being observed by every one they passed, and that plenty of remarks were made. All at once she noticed that Dexter as she was speaking to him gave quite a start, and following the direction of his eyes, she saw that he was looking at a rough-looking boy, who was approaching them with a fishing-rod over his shoulder, and a basket in his hand. The boy's mouth widened into a grin as he passed, and Helen asked Dexter if he knew him, the friendly look he had given speaking volumes of a new difficulty likely to be in their way. "I don't know whether I know him--or not," said Dexter. "I've spoken to him." "Where? At the schools!" "No; he was fishing on the other side of the river that day I tumbled in." "Oh!" said Helen coldly. "Here we are." She turned through a great iron gate, walked up a broad flight of steps, and knocked. "There, Dexter," she said, as the door was opened. "I hope you will enjoy yourself." "Ain't you going in with me!" he whispered excitedly, as a footman in a blue and yellow livery opened the door. "No; good-bye." She nodded pleasantly, and went down the steps, leaving Dexter face to face with the footman, who had become possessed of the news of the young guest's quality from no less a personage than Master Edgar himself. "Will you come in, please," he said, drawing back, and holding the door open with an air that should have made him gain for wages--kicks. Dexter said, "Yes, sir," as respectfully as if he were the workhouse porter, and took off his cap and went in. "This way, hif you please," said the supercilious gentleman. "You may leave your cap here." Dexter put down his cap, and followed the man to a door at the further end of the hall. "What name!" said the footman. Dexter stared at him. "What name shall I announce?" said the man again with chilling dignity. "Please, I don't know what you mean," said the boy, feeling very much confused. The man smiled pityingly, and looked down with a most exasperating kind of condescension at the visitor,--in a way, in fact, that stamped him mentally as a brother in spirit, if not in flesh, of Maria, the doctor's maid. "I 'ave to announce your name to her ladyship," said the footman. "Oh, my name," cried Dexter, "Obed Cole--I mean Dexter Grayson." He turned more red than ever in his confusion, and before he could say another word to add to his correction the door was thrown open. "Master Obed Cole Dextry Grayson," said the footman, in a loud voice; and the boy found himself standing in a large handsomely furnished room in the presence of Lady Danby, who rose with a forced smile, and looked very limp. "How do you do, Master Grayson!" she said sadly, and she held out her hand. Dexter in his confusion made a dash at it, and caught it tightly, to find that it felt very limp and cold, but the sensation did not last long, for the thin white fingers were snatched away. "Eddy, dear," said Lady Danby. There was no answer, and Dexter stood there, feeling very uncomfortable, and staring hard at the tall lady, who spoke in such an ill-used tone of voice. "Eddy, my darling," she said a little more loudly, as she turned and looked toward a glass door opening into a handsome conservatory; "come and shake hands with Master Grayson." There was no reply, but a faint rustling sound fell upon Dexter's quick ears, telling plainly enough that some one was in the conservatory. Lady Danby sighed, and there was a very awkward pause. "Perhaps you had better sit down, Master Grayson," she said. "My son will be here soon." Just at that moment there was a loud important sounding cough in the hall, the handle of the door rattled loudly, and Sir James entered, walking very upright, and smiling with his eyes half-closed. "Aha!" he exclaimed. "Here you are, then. How do you do--how do you do--how do you do!" He shook hands boisterously, nodding and smiling the while, and Dexter wondered whether he ought to say, "Quite well, thank you, sir," three times over, but he only said it once. "That's right," said Sir James. "Quite safe here, eh? No bullocks to run after us now." "No, sir," said Dexter uneasily. "But where's Eddy!" cried Sir James. "He was here a little while ago, my dear," said Lady Danby uneasily. "I think he has gone down the garden." "No; I think not," said Sir James. "Here, Eddy! Eddy!" "Yes, pa," came out of the conservatory. "Why, where are you, sir? Come and shake hands with our young friend." Master Edgar came slowly into sight, entered the drawing-room, and stood still. "Well; why don't you welcome your visitor? Come here." Master Edgar came a little more forward. "Now, then, shake hands with your friend." Master Edgar slowly held out a white thin hand in the direction of Dexter, who caught it eagerly, and felt as if he were shaking hands with Lady Danby again. "That's better," said Sir James. "Now the ice is broken I hope you two will be very great friends. There, we shall have an early dinner for you at three o'clock. Better leave them to themselves, my dear." "Very well, my love," responded Lady Danby sadly. "Take Dexter Grayson and show him your games, and your pony, and then you can take him round the garden, but don't touch the boat." "No, pa," said Edgar slowly. "He's a little shy, Dexter," said Sir James. "No, I ain't, ma," said Edgar, in a whisper. "We are very glad to see you, Dexter," continued Sir James. "There, now, go and enjoy yourself out in the garden, you'll find plenty to see. Come, Eddy." Master Edgar looked slowly and sulkily up at his father, and seemed to hesitate, not even glancing at his visitor. "Well!" said Sir James sharply. "Why are you hesitating? Come: run along. That way, Dexter, my lad. You two will soon be good friends." Dexter tried to smile, but it was a very poor apology for a look of pleasure, while Sir James, who seemed rather annoyed at his son's shrinking, uncouth conduct, laid his hand upon the boy's shoulder and led him into the conservatory. "Come, Eddy," he said bluffly. "Must I go, ma!" whispered Eddy. "Yes, my dear, certainly. Papa wishes it, and you must behave like a young gentleman to your guest." "Come, Eddy," shouted Sir James from the conservatory. Master Edgar went out sidewise in a very crabby way, and found Sir James waiting. "There, no more shyness," said Sir James bluffly. "Go out and enjoy yourselves till dinner-time." He nodded and smiled at them, gave his son a push toward Dexter, and returned to where Lady Danby was seated, with her brow all in wrinkles. "They will soon make friends," said Sir James. "It's Grayson's whim, of course, and really, my dear, this seems to be a decent sort of boy. Very rough, of course, but Eddy will give him polish. This class of boy is very quick at picking up things; and if, after a few weeks, Grayson is disappointed and finds out his mistake, why, then, we have behaved in a neighbourly way to him and Helen, and there's an end of it." "But it seems so shocking for poor Eddy, my dear," remonstrated Lady Danby. "Fish! pooh! tchah! rubbish! not at all!" "Eddy may pick up bad language from him, and become rude." "He had better not!" said Sir James. "He knows differently. The other young dog will learn from him. Make him discontented, I'm afraid; but there--it is not our doing." Lady Danby sighed. "They'll come back in a hour or two quite companions," continued Sir James. "Boys like that are a little awkward at their first meeting. Soon wear off. I am going to write letters till three. After their dinner perhaps I shall take them in the boat down the river." Lady Danby sighed again, and Sir James went to see to his letters for the post. By this time Master Edgar had walked softly out on to the lawn, with his right hand in his pocket, and his left thumb playing about his mouth, looking the while in all directions but that occupied by Dexter, who followed him slowly, waiting for his young host to speak. But Eddy did not seem to have the slightest intention of speaking. He only sidled away slowly across the lawn, and then down one of the winding paths among the shrubs and ornamental trees. This went on for about ten minutes, during which they got to be further and further from the house, not a word being spoken; and though Dexter looked genial and eager as he followed his young host, the silence chilled him as much as did the studied way in which his companion avoided his eyes. "What a beautiful garden you've got!" said Dexter at last. There was no reply. Eddy picked up a stone, and threw it at a thrush. "It's bigger than Dr Grayson's," said Dexter, after a pause. Eddy picked a flower, gave a chew at the stalk; then picked it to pieces, and threw it away. Then he began to sidle along again in and out among the trees, and on and on, never once looking at his companion till they were at the bottom of the garden. A pleasant piece of lawn, dotted with ornamental trees, sloped down to the river where, in a Gothic-looking boat-house, open at either end, a handsome-looking gig floated in the clear water. "That your boat?" said Dexter eagerly, as his eyes ran over the cushioned seats, and the sculls of varnished wood lying all ready along the thwarts. Edgar made no reply, only moved nearer to the water, and threw himself on a garden seat near the edge. "Isn't this a good place for fishing?" said Dexter, trying another tack. No answer, and it was getting very monotonous. But Dexter took it all good-humouredly, attributing the boy's manner more to shyness than actual discourtesy. "I say, don't you fish sometimes!" No reply. "Have you got any rods and lines!" Eddy gave a contemptuous sniff, which might have meant anything. "There's lots at Dr Grayson's," said Dexter eagerly, for the sight of the roach gliding about in the clear water in the shade of the boat-house excited the desire to begin angling. "Shall I go and fetch the rods and lines?" Eddy leaned back in the garden seat, and rested his head upon his hand. In despair Dexter sighed, and then recalled Sir James's words about their enjoying themselves. It was a lovely day; the garden was very beautiful; the river ran by, sparkling and bright; but there was very little enjoyment so far, and Dexter sat down upon the grass at a little distance from his young host. But it was not in Dexter's nature to sit still long, and after staring hard at the bright water for a few minutes, he looked up brightly at Edgar. "I say," he cried; "that bullock didn't hurt you the other day, did it?" Edgar shifted himself a little in his seat, so that he could stare in the other direction, and he tried to screw up his mouth into what was meant to be a supercilious look, though it was a failure, being extremely pitiful, and very small. Dexter waited for a few minutes, and then continued the one-sided conversation-- "I never felt afraid of bullocks," he said thoughtfully. "If you had run after them with your stick--I say, you got your stick, didn't you?" No reply. "Oh, well," said Dexter; "if you don't want to talk, I don't." "I don't want to talk to a boy like you," said Edgar, without looking. Dexter started, and stared hard. "I'm not accustomed to associate with workhouse boys." Dexter flinched. Not long back the idea of being a workhouse boy did not trouble him in the least. He knew that there were plenty of boys who were not workhouse boys, and seeing what freedom they enjoyed, and how much happier they seemed, something of the nature of envy had at times crept into his breast, but, on the whole, he had been very well contented till he commenced his residence at the doctor's; and now all seemed changed. "I'm not a workhouse boy," he said hotly. "Yes, you are," retorted Edgar, looking at him hard, full in the face, for the first time. "I know where you came from, and why you were fetched." Dexter's face was burning, and there was an angry look in his eyes, as he jumped up and took a couple of steps toward where Edgar sat back on the garden seat. But his pleasant look came back, and he held out his hand. "I'm not ashamed of it," he said. "I used to be at the workhouse. Won't you shake hands!" Edgar sniffed contemptuously, and turned his head away. "Very well," said Dexter sadly. "I don't want to, if you don't." Edgar suddenly leaped up, and went along by the side of the river, while Dexter, after a few moments' hesitation, began to follow him in a lonely, dejected way, wishing all the time that he could go back home. Following out his previous tactics, Edgar sidled along path after path, and in and out among the evergreen clumps, all the while taking care not to come within sight of the house, so that his actions might be seen; while, feeling perfectly helpless and bound to follow the caprices of his young host, Dexter continued his perambulation of the garden in the same unsatisfactory manner. "Look here," cried Edgar at last; "don't keep following me about." "Very well," said Dexter, as he stood still in the middle of one of the paths, wondering whether he could slip away, and return to the doctor's. That seemed a difficult thing to do, for Sir James might see him going, and call him back, and then what was he to say? Besides which, when he reached the doctor's there would be a fresh examination, and he felt that the excuse he gave would not be satisfactory. Dexter sighed, and glanced in the direction taken by Edgar. The boy was not within sight, but Dexter fancied that he had hidden, and was watching him, and he turned in the other direction, looking hopelessly about the garden, which seemed to be more beautiful and extensive than the doctor's; but, in spite of the wealth of greenery and flowers, everything looked cheerless and cold. Dexter sighed. Then a very natural boyish thought came into his head. "I wonder what's for dinner," he said to himself; but at the same time he knew that it must be a long while yet to dinner-time, and, sighing once more, he walked slowly down the path, found himself near the river again, and went and sat on a stump close to the boat-house, where he could look into the clear water, and see the fish. It was very interesting to him to watch the little things gliding here and there, and he wished that he had a rod and line to try for some of them, when all at once he started, for a well-aimed stone struck him upon the side of the head, and as it reached its goal, and Dexter started up angrily, there was a laugh and a rustle among the shrubs. As the pain went off, so did Dexter's anger, and he reseated himself upon the stump, thinking, with his young wits sharpened by his early life. "I don't call this coming out to enjoy myself," he said drily. "Wonder whether all young gentleman behave like this?" Then he began thinking about Sam Stubbs, a boy at the workhouse school, who was a terrible bully and tyrant, knocking all his companions about. But the sight of the clean-looking well-varnished boat, floating so easily in the shade of the roof of its house, took his attention, and he began thinking of how he should like a boat like that to push off into the stream, and go floating along in the sunshine, looking down at the fish, and fastening up every now and then to the overhanging trees. It would be glorious, he thought. "I wish Dr Grayson had a boat," he thought. "I could learn to row it, and--" _Whack_! Dexter jumped up again, tingling with pain; and then with his face scarlet he sat down once more writhing involuntarily, and drawing his breath hard, as there was a mocking laugh. The explanation was simple. Master Edgar was dissatisfied. It was very pleasant to his spoiled, morbid mind to keep on slighting and annoying his guest by making him dance attendance upon him, and dragging him about the garden wherever he pleased to go; but it was annoying and disappointing to find that he was being treated with a calm display of contempt. Under these circumstances Master Edgar selected a good-sized stone--one which he thought would hurt--and took excellent aim at Dexter, where he sat contemplating the river. The result was most satisfactory: Dexter had winced, evidently suffered sharp pain, but only submitted to it, and sat down again twisting himself about. Edgar laughed heartily, in fact the tears stood in his eyes, and he retreated, but only to where he could watch Dexter attentively. "He's a coward," said Edgar to himself. "All that sort of boys are." And with the determination of making his visitor a kind of captive to his bow and spear, or, in plainer English, a slave to his caprices, he went to one of the beds where some sticks had lately been put to some young plants, and selecting one that was new, thin, and straight, he went back on tiptoe, watched his opportunity, and then brought the stick down sharply across Dexter's back. He drew back for a few moments, his victim's aspect being menacing; but Dexter's young spirit had been kept crushed down for a good many years, and his custom had been under many a blow to sit and suffer patiently, not even crying aloud, Mr Sibery objecting to any noise in the school. Dexter had subsided again. The flashes that darted from his eyes had died out, and those eyes looked subdued and moist. For the boy was mentally, as well as bodily hurt, and he wondered what Helen would say, and whether Sir James would correct his son if he saw him behaving in that manner to his visitor. "Hey: get up!" said Edgar, growing more bold, as he found that he could ill-use his guest with impunity; and as he spoke he gave him a rough poke or two with the sharp end of the stick, which had been pointed with the gardener's pruning-knife. His treatment of Dexter resembled that which he had been accustomed to bestow upon an unfortunate dog he had once owned--one which became so fond of him that at last it ran away. "Do you hear!" cried Edgar again. "Get up." "Don't: you hurt." "Yes: meant to hurt," said Edgar, grinning. "Get up." He gave Dexter so sharp a dig with the stick that the latter jumped up angrily, and Edgar drew back; but on seeing that the visitor only went on a few yards to where there was a garden seat, and sat down again, the young tyrant became emboldened, and went behind the seat with a malicious look of satisfaction in his eyes. "Don't do that," said Dexter quietly. "Let's have a game at something. Do you think we might go in that boat?" "I should think not indeed," cried Edgar, who now seemed to have found his tongue. "Boats are for young gentlemen, not for boys from the Union." Dexter winced a little, and Edgar looked pleased. "Get up!" he shouted; and he made another lunge with the stick. "I'm always getting into trouble," thought Dexter, as the result of the last few days' teachings, "and I don't want to do anything now." "Do you hear, blackguard? Get up!" There was another sharp poke, a painful poke, against which, as he moved to the other end of the seat, Dexter uttered a mild protest. "Did you hear me say, `Get up'?" shouted Edgar. Dexter obeyed, and moved a little nearer to the water's edge. "I wish it was time to go," he said to himself. "I am so miserable here." "Now, go along there," said Edgar sharply. "Go on!" The boy seemed to have a donkey in his mind's eye just then, for he thrust and struck at Dexter savagely, and then hastily threw down the stick, as an angry glow was gathering in his visitor's countenance. For just then there was a step heard upon the gravel. "Ah, Eddy, my darling," said a voice; and Lady Danby walked languidly by, holding up a parasol. "At play, my dear?" She did not glance at Dexter, who felt very solitary and sad as the lady passed on, Master Eddy throwing himself on the grass, and picking it off in patches to toss toward the water till his mother was out of sight, when he sprang up once more, and picked the stick from where he had thrown it upon a bed. As he did this he glanced sidewise, and then stood watching for a few minutes, when he made a playful kind of charge at his visitor, and drove the point of the stick so vigorously against his back that the cloth gave way, making a triangular hole, and causing the owner no little pain. "Don't," cried Dexter appealingly; "you hurt ever so. Let's play at some game." "I'm going to," cried Edgar, with a vicious laugh. "I'm going to play at French and English, and you're the beggarly Frenchman at Waterloo. That's the way to charge bayonets. How do you like that, and that, and that!" "Not at all," said Dexter, trying hard to be good-humoured. "Then you'll have to like it, and ever so much more, too. Get up, blackguard. Do you hear?" Dexter rose and retreated; but, with no little agility, Edgar got before him, and drove him toward the water, stabbing and lunging at him so savagely, that if he had not parried some of the thrusts with his hands his face must have been torn. Edgar grew more and more excited over his work, and Dexter received a nasty dig on one hand, another in the cheek, while another grazed his ear. This last was beyond bearing. The hurt was not so bad as several which he had before received; but, perhaps from its nearness to his brain, it seemed to rouse Dexter more than any former blow, and, with an angry cry, he snatched at and caught the stick just as it came near his face. "Let go of that stick! Do you hear?" cried Edgar. For response Dexter, who was now roused, held on tightly, and tried to pull the stick away. "Let go," cried Edgar, tugging and snatching with all his might. Dexter's rage was as evanescent as it was quick. It passed away, and as his enemy made another furious tug at the stick Dexter suddenly let go, and the consequence was the boy staggered back a few yards, and then came down heavily in a sitting position upon the grass. Edgar sat and stared for a few moments, the sudden shock being anything but pleasant; but, as he saw Dexter's mirthful face, a fit of rage seized him, and, leaping up, he resumed his attack with the stick. This time his strokes and thrusts were so malicious, and given with so decided a desire to hurt his victim as much as was possible, that, short of running away, Dexter had to do everything possible to avoid the blows. For the most part he was successful; but at last he received so numbing a blow across the arm that he quivered with pain and anger as he sprang forward, and, in place of retreating, seized the stick, and tried to wrest it away. There was a brief struggle, but pretty full of vigour. Rage made Edgar strong, and he fought well for his weapon, but at the end of a minute's swaying here and there, and twistings and heavings innumerable, Edgar's arms felt as if they were being torn from his body, the stick was wrenched away, and as he stood scarlet with passion, he saw it whirled into the air, to fall with a loud splash into the river. Edgar ground his teeth for a moment or two, and then, as white with anger as his adversary was red, he flew at him, swaying his arms round, and then there was a furious encounter. Edgar had his own ideas about fighting manoeuvres, which he had tried again and again upon his nurse in bygone times, and upon any of the servants with whom he had come in contact. His arms flew round like flails, or as if he had been transformed into a kind of human firework, and for the next five minutes he kicked, scratched, bit, and tore at his adversary; the next five minutes he was seated upon the grass, howling, his nose bleeding terribly, and the crimson stains carried by his hands all over his face. For Dexter was not perfect: he had borne till it was impossible to bear more, and then, with his anger surging up, he had fought as a down-trodden English boy will sometimes fight; and in this case with the pluck and steadiness learned in many a school encounter, unknown to Mr Sibery or Mr Hippetts, the keen-eyed and stern. Result: what might be expected. Dexter felt no pain, only an intense desire to thrash the virulent little tyrant who had scratched his face, kicked his shins, torn at his hair--it was too short still for a good hold--and, finally, made his sharp, white teeth meet in his visitor's neck. "Served you right!" muttered Dexter, as he knelt down by the river, and bathed his hands and face before dabbing them dry with his pocket-handkerchief. "No business to treat me like that." Then, as he stood rubbing his face--very little the worse for the encounter--his anger all passed away, and the consequences of his act dawned upon him. "Look here," he said; "it was all your fault. Come to the water; that will soon stop bleeding." He held out his hand, as he bent over the fallen tyrant, meaning to help him to rise, when, quick as lightning, Edgar caught the hand proffered to him and carried it to his teeth. Dexter uttered a cry of pain, and shook him off, sending him backwards now upon the grass, just as a shadow fell across the contending boys, and Sir James stood frowning there. CHAPTER NINETEEN. MASTER EDDY "HOLLERS WAHOO!" "What is the meaning of this!" cried Sir James furiously. Dexter was speechless, and he shrank back staring. Edgar was ready with an answer. "He's knocking me about, pa. He has done nothing but knock me about ever since he came." "Oh!" cried Dexter in a voice full of indignant astonishment. "I didn't. He begun it, and I didn't, indeed." "Silence, sir!" cried Sir James, in his severest magisterial tones. "How dare you tell me such a falsehood? I saw you ill-using my son as you held him down." "Why, he had got hold of my hand!" cried Dexter indignantly. "Got hold of your hand, sir? How dare you? How dare you, sir, I say? I've a great mind to--" Sir James did not finish his speech, but made a gesture with the walking-cane he carried; and just then there was a loud hysterical shriek. For Lady Danby had realised the fact that something was wrong from the part of the garden where she was promenading, parasol in hand, and she came now panting up, in the full belief that some accident had happened to her darling, and that he was drowned. "Eddy, Eddy!" she cried, as she came up; and then as soon as she caught sight of his anything but pleasant-looking countenance, she shrieked again wildly, and flung herself upon her knees beside him. "What is it? What is it, my darling?" she sobbed, as she caught him to her heart. "That horrid boy! Knocking me about," he cried, stopping his howling so as to deliver the words emphatically; and then looking at his stained hands, and bursting into a howl of far greater power than before. "The wretch! The wretch!" cried Lady Danby. "I always knew it. He has killed my darling." At this dire announcement Edgar shook himself free from his mother's embrace, looked at his hands again, and then in the extremity of horror, threw himself flat upon his back, and shrieked and kicked. "O my darling, my darling!" cried Lady Danby. "He isn't hurt much," cried Dexter indignantly. "How dare you, sir!" roared Sir James. "He's killed; he's killed!" cried Lady Danby, clasping her hands, and rocking herself to and fro as she gazed at the shrieking boy, who only wanted a cold sponge and a towel to set him right. "Ow!" yelled Edgar, as he appreciated the sympathy of his mother, but believed the very worst of his unfortunate condition. The lady now bent over him, said that he was killed, and of course she must have known. Edgar had never read _Uncle Remus_. All this was before the period when that book appeared; but his conduct might very well be taken as a type of that of the celebrated Brer Fox when Brer Rabbit was in doubt as to whether he was really dead or only practising a ruse, and proceeded to test his truth by saying, as he saw him stretched out-- "Brer Fox look like he dead, but he don't do like he dead. Dead fokes hists up de behime leg, en hollers _wahoo_!" Edgar, according to Brer Rabbit's ideas, was very dead indeed, for he kept on "histing up de behime leg, en hollering _wahoo_!" with the full power of his lungs. By this time the alarm had spread, and there was the sound of steps upon a gravel walk, which resulted in the appearance of the supercilious footman. "Carry Master Edgar up to the house," said Sir James, in his severest magisterial tones. "Carefully--very carefully," wailed her ladyship piteously; and she looked and spoke as if she feared that as soon as the boy was touched he would tumble all to pieces. Dexter looked on, with his eyes turning here and there, like those of some captured wild animal which fears danger; and as he looked he caught sight of the footman gazing at him with a peculiar grin upon his countenance, which seemed to be quite friendly, and indicated that the man rather enjoyed the plight in which his young master was plunged. Master Edgar howled again as he was raised, and directly after began to indulge in what the plantation negroes used to call "playing 'possum"-- that is to say, he suddenly became limp and inert, closing his eyes, and letting his head roll about, as if there were no more bone left in his body, while his mother wrung her hands, and tried then to hold the head steady, as the footman prepared to move toward the house. "Now, sir," said Sir James sternly, "come here. We will have a few words about this in my library." Accustomed for years past to obey, Dexter took a step forward to accompany the stern-looking man before him to the house; but such a panorama of troublous scenes rose before his mind's eye directly, that he stopped short, gave one hasty glance round, and then, as Sir James stretched forth his hand, he made one bound which landed him in a clump of hollyhocks and dahlias; another which took him on to the grass; and then, with a rush, he dashed into a clump of rhododendrons, went through them, and ran as hard as he could go toward the house. For a few moments Sir James was too much astounded to speak. This was something new. He was accustomed to order, and to be obeyed. He had ordered Dexter to come to him, and for answer the boy had dashed away. As soon as Sir James could recover his breath, taken away in his astonishment, he began to shout-- "Stop, sir! Do you hear? How dare you?" If a hundred Sir Jameses had been shouting it would not have stayed Dexter, for he had only one idea in his head just then, and that was to get away. "Put down Master Edgar, and go and fetch that boy back." "Carefully! Oh, pray, put him down carefully," cried Lady Danby passionately. Just then Master Edgar uttered a fresh cry, and his mother wailed loudly. "No, never mind," cried Sir James, "carry him up to the house; I will fetch that young rascal." He strode off angrily, evidently believing in his own mind that he really was going to fetch Dexter back; but by that time the boy had reached the house, ran round by the side, dashed down the main street, and was soon after approaching the bridge over the river, beyond which lay the Union and the schools. CHAPTER TWENTY. AN EXPLANATION. For a few moments Dexter's idea was to go to the great gates, ring the porter's bell, and take sanctuary there, for he felt that he had disgraced himself utterly beyond retrieving his character. Certainly, he never dared go back to the doctor's. He felt for a moment that he had some excuse, for Edgar Danby had brought his punishment upon himself; but no one would believe that, and there was no hope for the offender but to give up everything, and go back to his former life. But, as the boy reached the gloomy-looking workhouse entrance, and saw the painted bell-pull, through whose coating the rust was eating its way, he shivered. For there rose up before him the stern faces of Mr Hippetts and Mr Sibery, with the jeering crowd of schoolfellows, who could laugh at and gibe him for his downfall, and be sure to call him Gentleman Coleby, as long as they were together, the name, under the circumstances, being sure to stick. No, he could not face them there, and beside, though it had never seemed so before, the aspect of the great building was so forbidding that he shrank away, and walked onward toward the outskirts of the town, and on, and on, till he found himself by the river. Such a sensation of misery and despair came over him, that he began walking along by the bank, seeing nothing of the glancing fish and bright insects which danced above the water. He had room for nothing but the despondent thoughts of what he should do now. "What would the doctor think of him? What would Helen say?" He had been asked out to spend the day at a gentleman's house, and he had disgraced himself, and-- "Hullo!" Dexter looked up sharply, and found that he had almost run against his old fishing friend of the opposite side of the river. "Hullo!" stammered Dexter in reply. "Got dry again?" said the boy, who was standing just back from the water's edge, fishing, with his basket at his side, and a box of baits on the grass. "Got dry?" said Dexter wonderingly. "Yes! My!" cried the boy, grinning, "you did have a ducking. I ran away. Best thing I could do." "Yes," said Dexter quietly; "you ran away." "Why, what yer been a-doing of? Your face is scratched, and your hands too. I know: you've been climbing trees. You'll ketch it, spoiling your clothes. That's got him." He struck and landed a small fish, which he took from the hook and dropped into his basket, where there were two more. "They don't bite to-day. Caught any down your garden!" "No," said Dexter, to whom the company of the boy was very cheering just then. "I haven't tried since." "You are a fellow! Why, if I had a chance like you have, I should be always at it." "I say, what did you say your name was?" "Bob Dimsted--Bob," said the fisher, throwing in again. "I know what yours is. You come out of the workus." "Yes," said Dexter sadly, as he wondered whether he did not wish he was there now. "I came out of the workus--workhouse," he added, as he remembered one of Helen's teachings. "Why don't you get your rod some day, and a basket of something to eat, and come right up the river with me, fishing? There's whackers up there." "I should like to," said Dexter thoughtfully, for the idea of the fishing seemed to drive away the troubles from which he suffered. "Well, come then. I'd go any day, only you must let me have all you caught." "All?" said Dexter, as he began to think of trophies. "Yes. As I showed you the place where they're caught, I should want to take them home." "All right," said Dexter. "You could have them." "Ah, it's all very well," said the boy, "but there wouldn't be many that you caught, mate. Ah! No, he's off again. Keep a little furder back." Dexter obeyed, and sat down on the grass, feeling in a half-despairing mood, but as if the company of this rough boy was very pleasant after what he had gone through, and that boys like this were more agreeable to talk to than young tyrants of the class of Edgar Danby. "Fish don't half bite to-day," said Bob Dimsted. "I wish you'd got a rod here, I could lend you a line--single hair." "But I haven't got a rod." "Well, run home and fetch it," said Bob. "Run home and fetch it?" How could he run home and fetch it? How could he ever go back to the doctor's again? "No," he said at last, as he shook his head. "I can't go and fetch it." "Then you can't fish," said the boy, "and 'tain't much use. It's no fun unless they bite, and some days it don't matter how you try, they won't." "Won't they?" said Dexter, and then he started to his feet, for a familiar voice had spoken close to his ear-- "Why, Dexter!" The voice was as full of astonishment as the pleasant face which looked in his. "I thought you were at Sir James Danby's! Is Edgar out here, in the meadows!" "No--no," faltered Dexter; and Bob Dimsted began to gather up his tackle, so as to make a strategic movement, there being evidently trouble in the rear. "But what does this mean?" said Helen firmly. "Who is that boy?" "Bob--Bob Dimsted." "And do you know him?" "He--he was fishing opposite our--your--garden the day I fell into the river," faltered Dexter; and he looked longingly at Bob, who was quickly moving away, and wished that those eyes did not hold him so firmly, and keep him from doing the same. "Was he at your school?" "No," faltered Dexter. "Then I am sure papa would not like you to be making acquaintance with boy's like that. But come, Dexter. What is the meaning of all this? I left you at Sir James Danby's." "Yes," said Dexter, shuffling from foot to foot. "Then why are you not there now--playing with Edgar?" Dexter did not answer, but seemed to be admiring the prospect. "Why, Dexter, your face is all scratched!" Dexter looked up at her, with the scratched face scarlet. "How is that!" continued Helen sternly. "Fighting," said Dexter grimly. "Fighting? Oh, shame! And with that rough boy!" "No!" cried Dexter quickly. "He didn't knock me about." "Then who did!" "That young Danby." Dexter's lips were well opened now, and he went on talking rapidly. "I never did anything to him, but he went on for an hour walking all round the garden, and wouldn't speak; and when I was tired and sat down, he got a stick and knocked me about, and poked me with the point. I stood it as long as I could, and then, when he got worse and worse, I pitched into him, and I'm sure you would have done the same." Helen did not look as if she would have done the same, but stood gazing at the young monkey before her, wondering whether he was deserving of her sympathy, or had really misbehaved himself, and was trying to palliate his conduct. "There, Dexter," she said at last. "I really do not know what to do with you. You had better come on and see papa at once." She took a step toward the town, and then waited, but Dexter stood firm, and cast a glance toward the country. "Dexter, did you hear what I said!" The boy looked at her uneasily, and then nodded sullenly. "Come home with me, then, at once," said Helen quickly. "It's no use for me to come home along of you," said Dexter surlily. "He'll hit me, and I don't want to go." Helen hesitated for a few moments, and then laid her hand upon the boy's shoulder. "I wish you to come, Dexter." He shook his head. "Come," she cried, "if you have been in fault confess it frankly." "But I haven't," cried the boy angrily. "I couldn't help fighting when he knocked me about as he did. He bit me too. Look there!" He hastily drew up his sleeve, and displayed a ruddy circle on his white skin, which bore pretty strong witness to the truth of his words. "Then, if you were not to blame, why should you shrink from coming to papa?" "'Cause he mightn't believe me. Mr Sibery never would, neither," muttered Dexter. "Tell the truth and papa will be sure to believe you," cried Helen indignantly. "Think he would!" said Dexter. "I am sure of it, sir." "All right then," cried the boy quickly. "I'll come. Oh, I say!" "What is the matter?" "Look! Here he comes!" He pointed quickly in the direction of the town, and, wresting himself from Helen's grasp, set off at a sharp run. But he had not gone a dozen yards before he turned and saw Helen gazing after him. He stopped directly, and came slowly and reluctantly back. "Did you call me!" he said sheepishly. "No, Dexter; I think it must have been your conscience spoke and upbraided you for being such a coward." "Yes, it was cowardly, wasn't it?" cried the boy. "I didn't mean to run away, but somehow I did. I say, will he hit me!" "No, Dexter." "Will he be very cross with me?" "I am afraid he will, Dexter; but you must submit bravely, and speak the simple truth." "Yes, I'm going to," said Dexter, with a sigh; and he glanced behind him at the pleasant stretch of meadows, and far away down among the alders and willows, with Bob Dimsted fishing, and evidently quite free from the care which troubled him. The doctor strode up, looking very angry. "So you are there, are you, sir?" he cried austerely. "Do you know of this disgraceful business!" "Dexter has been telling me," said Helen gravely. "Humph!" grunted the doctor. "I knew you had come down here, so I thought I would come and tell you of the terrible state of affairs." "Terrible, papa!" "Ah! then you don't know. It was not likely he would tell you. Sir James came straight to me, and told me everything. It seems that the two boys were sent down the garden together to play, and that as soon as they were alone, Dexter here began to annoy and tease Edgar." "Here, just say that again, will you?" cried Dexter sharply. "I repeat that Dexter here began to annoy and tease Edgar." "Oh!" ejaculated Dexter. "And at last, after the poor boy had tried everything to keep his companion from the line of conduct he had pursued, he resolved to go down and sit by the river, leaving Dexter to amuse himself. But unfortunately the spirit of mischief was so strong in him that this boy took out a dahlia-stick with a sharp point--Sir James showed it to me-- and then, after stabbing at him for some time, began to use his fists, and beat Edgar in the most cruel way." "Oh, my!" ejaculated Dexter; and then, giving his right foot a stamp, "Well, of all the--Oh, my! what a whopper!" The low slangy expression was brought out with such an air of indignant protest that Helen was unable to keep her countenance, and she looked away, while the doctor, who was quite as much impressed, frowned more severely to hide the mirth aroused by the boy's ejaculations, and turned to him sharply-- "What do you mean by that, sir!" he cried. "Mean?" cried Dexter indignantly, and without a shade of fear in his frank bold eyes; "why there isn't a bit of it true. He didn't like me because I came from over yonder, and he wouldn't speak to me. Then he kept on hitting me, and I wouldn't hit him back, because I thought it would make her cross; but, last of all, he hurt me so that I forgot all about everything, and then we did fight, and I whipped--and that's all." "Oh, that's all, is it, sir!" said the doctor, who was angry and yet amused. "Yes, that's all," said Dexter; "only I've got a bite on my arm, and one on my neck, and one on my shoulder. They didn't bleed, though, only pinched and hurt. I only hit him one good un, and that was on the nose, and it made it bleed." "Humph!" ejaculated the doctor. "Now, look here, Dexter, is every word of that true!" "Yes, sir, every bit," cried the boy eagerly. "You will see if it ain't." The doctor's face wrinkled a little more, as to conceal a smile he turned to his daughter-- "Now," he said, "do you think this is true?" "I feel sure it is," said Helen. "I am convinced that Dexter would not tell either of us a falsehood." "There!" cried the boy, smiling triumphantly, as he crept to Helen's side and laid his hand in hers. "Hear that? Of course I wouldn't. I wanted to be all right, but--I say, does my head bleed there?" He took off his cap, and held down his head, while Helen looked at the spot he pointed out, and shuddered slightly. "That's where he stuck his nails into my head, just like a cat. It did hurt ever so, but I soon forgot it." "Let's go home," said the doctor gravely. "It is unfortunate, but of course Dexter could not submit to be trampled upon by any boy." "I say, you do believe me, don't you!" said Dexter quickly. "Yes, my boy. I believe you on your honour." "On my honour," said Dexter quickly. "That will do," said the doctor. "It is unfortunate, but unavoidable. Let us go home to lunch." "And you will not send me back to the--you know!" "Certainly not," said the doctor. "And may I come out here to fish by and by!" "Certainly," said the doctor. "If you are a good boy." "No, I think not," said Helen, making a shadow cross the boy's countenance. "Dexter cannot come out fishing alone; I will come with him." Dexter gave her a meaning look, as he understood why she had said that; and then walked quietly home with the doctor and his daughter to a far more agreeable meal than he would have enjoyed at the baronet's house. CHAPTER TWENTY ONE. A RECORD OF CARES. "Hang his impudence!" said the doctor. "What do you think he told me?" "Sir James?" "Yes, my dear. Told me I was a regular modern Frankenstein, and that I had made a young monster to worry me to death. Such insolence! Dexter's growing a very nice lad, and I feel as if I could make a nobleman of him if I liked, but I think I'll send him to a good school for a bit. You see, he's full of promise, Helen." "Yes, papa," said Helen, suppressing her mirth. "Ah! now you are laughing at me. I mean full of the promise that will some day mean performance. But--yes, I will send him to a good school." A good school was selected, and Dexter duly sent down to it, leaving Helen very unwillingly, but holding up manfully, and the doctor said he would come back at the holiday-time vastly improved. In six weeks Dr Grayson received a letter asking him to fetch Dexter away to save him from being expelled. The Doctor looked very angry as he went down to Cardley Willows, and the inquiries took a stern, rather bitter turn. "Has the boy been a young blackguard?" he said. "No," said the principal. "Dishonest?" "Oh dear no!" "Well, what is it then--disobedient!" "Oh dear no! He'll promise anything." "Humph! yes," said the doctor to himself. "I'm very sorry, Dr Grayson," continued the principal; "but the boy is incorrigible, and you must take him away." The doctor took the boy away, and he had a very stern talking-to at home. Two months passed away. "There, Helen," said the doctor one morning; "what do you say to him now? Wonderfully improved, has he not? Good natural boy's colour in his cheeks--better blood, you see, and nice curly hair. Really he is not like the same." "No, papa; he is greatly changed," said Helen, as she followed the direction of her father's eyes to where Dexter was out on the lawn watching old Dan'l, while old Dan'l, in a furtive manner, was diligently watching him in return. "Greatly changed," said the doctor thoughtfully, as he scratched the side of his nose with his penholder, "in personal appearance. Sir James seems very sore still about that little affair. Says I ought to have thrashed Dexter, for he behaved brutally to young Edgar." "And what did you say, papa?" "Well, not exactly all I thought. Dreadful young limb that Edgar. Spoiled boy, but I could not tell Danby so with such a catalogue of offences as Master Dexter has to show on my black list. You see, Helen, we do not get any further with him." Helen shook her head sadly. "There's something wrong in his brain; or something wanting. He'll promise amendment one hour, and go and commit the same fault the very next." "It is very sad," replied Helen thoughtfully; "but I'm sure he means well." "Yes, my dear; of course," said the doctor, looking perplexed; "but it's a great drawback to one's success. But there: we must persevere. It seems to me that the first thing to do is to wean him from that terrible love of low companions." "Say companion," said Helen, smiling. "Well, a companion, then. I wish we could get that young fishing scoundrel sent away; but of course one cannot do that. Oh, by the way, what about Maria? Is she going away?" "No," said Helen. "I had a long talk to her about her unreasoning dislike to Dexter, and she has consented to stay." "Well, it's very kind of her," said the doctor testily. "I suppose Mrs Millett will be giving warning next." "Oh no," said Helen; "she finds a good deal of fault, but I think, on the whole, she feels kindly toward the poor boy." "Don't!" cried the doctor, giving the writing-table so angry a slap with his open hand that a jet of ink shot out of the stand and made half a dozen great splashes. "Now, look there, what you've made me do," he continued, as he began hastily to soak up the black marks with blotting-paper. "I will not have Dexter called `the poor boy.' He is not a poor boy. He is a human waif thrown up on life's shore. No, no: and you are not to call him a human waif. I shall well educate him, and place him on the high-road toward making his way properly in life as a gentleman should, and I'll show the whole world that I'm right." "You shall, papa," said Helen merrily; "and I will help you all I can." "I know you will, my dear, and you are helping me," cried the doctor warmly; "and it's very good of you. But I do wish we could make him think before he does anything. His mischievous propensities are simply horrible. And now, my dear, about his education. We must do something more, if it is only for the sake of keeping him out of trouble. You are doing nobly, but that is not enough. I did mean to read classics with him myself, but I have no time. My book takes too much thought. Now, I will not send the poor boy--" "`Poor boy,' papa!" said Helen merrily. "Eh? Did I say `poor boy'!" cried the doctor, scratching his nose again. "Yes." "Ah, well; I did not mean it. I was going to say I will not send him to another school. He would be under too many disadvantages, so I think we will decide upon a private tutor." "Yes, papa; a very excellent arrangement." "Yes, I think it is; and--well, Maria, what is it!" "Dan'l, sir," said that young lady, who spoke very severely, as if she could hardly contain her feelings; "and he'd be glad to know if you could see him a minute." "Send him in, Maria," said the doctor; and then, as the housemaid left the room, "Well, it can't be anything about Dexter now, because he is out there on the--" The doctor's words were delivered more and more slowly as he rose and walked toward the open window, while Helen felt uneasy, and full of misgivings. "Why, the young dog was here just now," cried the doctor angrily. "Now, really, Helen, if he has been at any tricks this time, I certainly will set up a cane." "O papa!" "Yes, my dear, I certainly will, much as I object to corporal punishment. Well, Daniel, what is it!" Old Dan'l had a straw hat in his hand--a hat that was rather ragged at the edge, and with which, as if it was to allay some irritation, he kept sawing one finger. "Beg pardon, sir--pardon, Miss," said Dan'l apologetically; "but if I might speak and say a few words--" "Certainly, Daniel; you may do both," said the doctor. "Thanky, sir--thanky kindly, Miss," said the gardener, half-putting his hat on twice so as to have it in the proper position for making a bow; "which I'm the last man in the world, sir, to make complaints." "Humph!" ejaculated the doctor. "Serving you as I have now for over twenty year, and remembering puffickly well, Miss, when you was only a pink bit of a baby, as like one o' my tender carnations as could be, only more like a Count dee Parish rose." "Well, what's the matter, Daniel?" said the doctor hastily, for he wanted to bring the old man's prosings to an end. "Well, sir, heverythink, as you may say, is the matter. Look at me, sir; I've suffered more in that garden than mortal man would believe!" "Oh, have you!" said the doctor, taking off his glasses. "You don't look so very bad, Daniel, for a man of sixty-five." "Sixty-four and three-quarters, begging your pardon, sir; but I have suffered. I've laid awake nights and nights thinking of what was best for planting them borders with s'rubs, as is now a delight to the human eye; and I've walked that garden hundreds o' nights with a lanthorn in search o' slugs, as comes out o' they damp meadows in in counted millions; and I've had my cares in thrips and red spider and green fly, without saying a word about scale and them other blights as never had no name. But never in my life--never in all my born days--never since I was first made a gardener, have I suffered anythink like as I've suffered along o' that there boy." "Nonsense, Daniel! nonsense!" cried the doctor pettishly. "Well, sir, I've served you faithful, and took such a pride in that there garden as never was, and you may call it nonsense, sir, but when I see things such as I see, I say it's time to speak." "Why, you are always coming to me with some petty complaint, sir, about that boy." "Petty complaint, sir!" cried Dan'l indignantly. "Is Ribstons a petty complaint--my chycest Ribstons, as I want for dessert at Christmas? And is my Sturmer pippins a petty complaint--them as ought to succeed the Ribstons in Febbery and March?" "Why, what about them?" cried the doctor. "Oh, nothing, sir; only as half the town's t'other side o' the river, and my pippins is being shovelled over wholesale." The doctor walked out into the hall and put on his hat, with Dan'l following him; and, after a moment's hesitation, Helen took up a sunshade, and went down the garden after her father. She overtook him as he was standing by a handsome espalier, dotted with the tawny red-streaked Ribstons, while Dan'l was pointing to a couple of newly-made footmarks. "Humph! Not all gone, then?" said the doctor, frowning. "Not yet!" growled Dan'l. "And see there, Miss; there was four stunners on that there little branch this mornin', and they're all gone!" "Where is Master Dexter?" said the doctor. Dan'l made a jerking motion with his thumb over his right shoulder, and the doctor walked on over the grass toward the bottom of the grounds. The little party advanced so noiselessly that they were unheard, and in another minute they were near enough to hear Dexter exclaim-- "Now, then; this time--catch!" The doctor stopped short in time to see, according to Dan'l's version, the Ribstons and Sturmers thrown across the river to half the town. "Half the town," according to Dan'l, consisted of Bob Dimsted, who had laid down his rough fishing-rod, and was holding half an apple in one hand, munching away the while, as he caught another deftly; and he was in the act of stuffing it into his pocket as he caught sight of the doctor, and stood for a few moments perfectly motionless. Then, stooping quickly, he gathered up his tackle and ran. "What's the matter!" cried Dexter. Bob made no reply, but ran off; and as he did so, Dexter laughingly took another apple from his pocket--a hard green Sturmer pippin, which he threw with such force and accuracy that it struck Bob right in the middle of the back, when the boy uttered a cry of alarm, ran more swiftly, and Dexter stood for a moment roaring with laughter, and then turned to find himself face to face with the trio who had come down the garden. "And them pippins worth twopence apiece at Christmas, sir!" cried Dan'l. "What are you doing, Dexter!" cried the doctor sternly. "I was only giving him an apple or two," said the boy, after a few moments' hesitation. "Come in, sir," cried the doctor. "A month's notice, if you please, sir, from to-day," said Dan'l, frowning angrily; but no one paid any heed to him, for the doctor had laid his hand upon Dexter's shoulder, and marched him off. "And I've never said nothing yet about our bees," grumbled Dan'l. "A young tyke! Raddled 'em up with a long stick on purpose to get me stung to death, he did, as is a massy I warn't. Well, a month to-day. Either he goes or I do. Such whims, to have a boy like that about the place. Well, I'm glad I've brought it to a head, for the doctor won't part with me." "Now, sir," said the doctor, as he seated himself in his chair, and Helen took up her work, carefully keeping her eyes off Dexter, who looked at her appealingly again and again. "Now, sir, what have you to say for yourself?" Dexter looked at the doctor, and his countenance was so unpleasantly angry that the ceiling, the floor, and the various objects around seemed preferable, and were carefully observed in turn. "Do you hear, sir? What have you to say for yourself!" "What about?" faltered Dexter at last. "What about, sir? Just as if you did not know! Weren't you forbidden to touch those apples!" "Only by Daniel, sir; and he said I was never to touch any fruit at all; but you said I might." "Yes--I did. I said you might have some fruit." "Apples is fruit," said Dexter. "_Are_ fruit--_are_ fruit, sir," cried the doctor, in an exasperated tone. "Apples _are_ fruit," said Dexter. "But I did not tell you to pick my choice pippins and throw them across the river to every blackguard boy you see." "But he hasn't got a beautiful garden like we have," protested Dexter. "What has that got to do with it, sir?" cried the doctor angrily. "I don't grow fruit and keep gardeners on purpose to supply the wants of all the little rascals in the place." "He asked me to get him some apples, sir." "Asked you to get him some, indeed! Look here, sir; I've tried very hard to make you a decent boy by kindness, but it does no good. You were told not to associate with that boy any more." "Please, sir, I didn't," cried Dexter. "I didn't, indeed, sir." "What? Why, I saw you talking to him, and giving him fruit." "Please, sir, I couldn't help it. I didn't 'sociate with him; he would come and 'sociate with me." "Bah!" ejaculated the doctor. "And he said if I didn't give him some apples and pears he'd come and stand in front of the windows here and shout `workus' as loud as he could." "I shall have to send the police after him," said the doctor fiercely; "and as for you, sir, I've quite made up my mind what to do. Kind words are thrown away. I shall now purchase a cane--and use it." "Oh, I say, don't," cried Dexter, giving himself a writhe, as he recalled sundry unpleasant interviews with Mr Sibery. "It does hurt so, you don't know; and makes black marks on you afterwards, just as if it had been dipped in ink." Helen bent down over the work she had taken up. "Don't?" said the doctor sharply. "Then what am I to do, sir? Words are of no use. I did hope that you were going to be a better and more tractable boy." "Well, but ain't I?" said Dexter, looking puzzled, and rubbing his curly head. "Better? No, sir; much worse." Dexter rubbed his head again thoughtfully. "I haven't torn my clothes this week, and I haven't been down on my knees; and I haven't been on the top of the wall, and I did want to ever so badly." "No, Dexter; but you climbed right to the top of the big pear-tree," said Helen quickly; "and it was a terribly dangerous thing to do." "Now you've begun at me!" said the boy in a lachrymose tone. "I'm afraid I'm a regular bad one, and you'd better send me back again." The doctor looked at Helen, and she returned the glance with a very serious aspect, but there was a merry light in her eyes, as she saw her father's discomfiture. He read her looks aright, and got up from his seat with an impatient ejaculation. "I'm going out, my dear," he said shortly. "Are you going to get a cane!" cried Dexter excitedly. "I say, don't, and I will try so hard to do what you want." "I was not going to buy a cane, sir," said the doctor, who was half-angry, half-amused by the boy's earnestness. "One of my walking-sticks would do very well when I give you a good sound thrashing. Here, Helen, my dear, you can speak to Dexter a bit. I will have another talk to him to-night." The doctor left the room, and Dexter stood listening as his step was heard in the hall. Then the door closed, and Helen bent thoughtfully over her work, while the boy stood first on one foot, then on the other, watching her. The window was open, the sun shone, and the garden with its lawn and bright flowers looked wonderfully tempting, but duty and the disgrace he was in acted as two chains to hold the boy there. "I say," he said at last. "Yes, Dexter," said Helen, looking up at him sadly. "Oh, I say, don't look at me like that," he cried. "You force me to, Dexter," she said gravely. "But ain't you going to talk to me!" "If I talk to you, it will only be to scold you very severely." Dexter sighed. "Well," he said, after a pause, during which he had been gazing intently in the earnest eyes before him; "you've got to do it, so let's have it over. I was always glad when I had been punished at school." "Glad, Dexter?" "Yes, glad it was over. It was the worst part of it waiting to have your whack!" "Do you want to oblige me, Dexter?" said Helen, wincing at the boy's words. "Yes, of course I do. Want me to fetch something?" "No. Once more I want you to promise to leave off some of those objectionable words." "But it's of no use to promise," cried the boy, with a look of angry perplexity. "I always break my word." "Then why do you!" "I dunno," said Dexter. "There's something in me I think that makes me. You tell me to be a good boy, and I say I will, and I always mean to be; but somehow I can't. I think it's because nobody likes me, because--because--because I came from there." "Do I behave to you as if I did not like you?" said Helen reproachfully. The boy was on his knees beside her in a moment, holding her hand against his cheek as he looked up at her with his lip working, and a dumb look of pitiful pleading in his eyes. "I do not think I do, Dexter." He shook his head, and tried to speak. Then, springing up suddenly, he ran out of the study, dashed upstairs, half-blind with the tears which he was fighting back, and then with his head down through the open door into his bedroom, when there was a violent collision, a shriek followed by a score more to succeed a terrific crash, and when in alarm Helen and Mrs Millet ran panting up, it was to find Dexter rubbing his head, and Maria seated in the middle of the boy's bedroom with the sherds of a broken toilet pail upon the floor, and an ewer lying upon its side, and the water soaking into the carpet. "What is the matter?" cried Helen. "I won't--I won't--I declare I won't put up with it no longer!" cried the maid in the intervals of sundry sobs and hysterical cries. "But how did it happen!" said Mrs Millet. "It's--sit's--sit's--sit's--sit's--sit's--his tricks again," sobbed Maria. "Dexter!" cried Helen. "Yes--es--Miss--es--ma'am," sobbed Maria. "I'd dide--I'd dide--I'd-- just half--half--half filled the war--war--war--ter--jug, and he ran-- ran--ran at me with his head--dead in the chest--and then--then--then-- then knocked me dud--dud--dud--down, and I'll go at once, I will-- there." "Dexter," said Helen sternly; "was this some trick?" "I don't know," said the boy sadly. "I s'pose so." "But did you run at Maria and try to knock her down?" "No," said Dexter. "I was going into my room in a hurry, and she was coming out." "He did it o' purpose, Miss," cried Maria viciously. "That will do, Maria," said Helen with dignity. "Mrs Millet, see that these broken pieces are removed. Dexter, come down to the drawing-room with me." Dexter sighed and followed, feeling the while that after all the Union School was a happy place, and that he certainly was not happy here. "It is very unfortunate that you should meet with such accidents, Dexter," said Helen, as soon as they were alone. "Yes," he said piteously, "ain't it? I say--" "Well, Dexter!" "It's no good. I know what he wants to do. He said he wanted to make a gentleman of me, but you can't do it, and I'd better be 'prenticed to a shoemaker, same as lots of boys have been." Helen said nothing, but looked at the boy with a troubled gaze, as she wondered whether her father's plan was possible. "You had better go out in the garden again, Dexter," she said after a time. The trouble had been passing off, and Dexter leaped up with alacrity; but as he reached the window he saw Dan'l crossing the lawn, and he stopped short, turned, and came back to sit down with a sigh. "Well, Dexter," said Helen, "why don't you go?" He gave her a pitiful look which went right to her heart, as he said slowly-- "No. I shan't go. I should only get into trouble again." CHAPTER TWENTY TWO. THE BEGINNING OF TROUBLE. "I say," said Dexter, a few days later, as he followed Helen into the drawing-room. "What have I been doing now!" "I hope nothing fresh, Dexter. Have you been in mischief!" "I don't know," he said; "only I've been in the study, and there's a tall gent." "Say gentleman, Dexter." "Tall gentleman with a white handkerchief round his neck, and he has been asking me questions, and every time I answered him he sighed, and said, `Dear me!'" "Indeed!" said Helen, smiling. "What did he ask you?" "If I knew Euclid; and when I said I didn't know him, he said, `Oh dear me!' Then he asked me if I knew Algebra, and I said I didn't, and he shook his head at me and said, `Dear me! dear me!' and that he would have to pull me up. I say, what have I done to be pulled up!" "Don't you know that Euclid wrote a work on Geometry, and that Algebra is a study by which calculations are made!" "No," said Dexter eagerly. "I thought they were two people. Then why did he say he would have to pull me up?" "He meant that you were very much behind with, your studies, and that he would have to teach you and bring you forward." "Oh, I see! And is he going to teach me?" "Yes, Mr Limpney is your private tutor now; and he is coming every day, so I hope you will be very industrious, and try hard to learn." "Oh yes, I'll try. Mr Limpney; I don't think he much liked me, though." "Nonsense, Dexter; you should not think such things." "All right. I won't then. It will be like going to school again, won't it?" "Much pleasanter, I hope." Time glided rapidly on after its usual fashion, and Dexter grew fast. There was a long range of old stabling at the doctor's house, with extensive lofts. The first part was partitioned off for a coachman's room, but this had not been in use for half a century, and the whole place was ruinous and decayed. Once upon a time some one with a love of horses must have lived there, for there were stalls for eight, and a coach-house as well, but the doctor only kept two horses, and they occupied a new stable built in front of the old. The back part was one of Dexter's favourite hunting-grounds. Here he could be quite alone, and do pretty well as he liked. Peter the groom never noticed his goings-out and comings-in, and there was no one to find fault with him for being untidy. Here then he had quite a little menagerie of his own. His pocket-money, as supplied by the doctor, afforded him means for buying any little thing he fancied, and hence he had in one of the lofts a couple of very ancient pigeons, which the man of whom he bought them declared to be extremely young; a thrush in a cage; two hedge-sparrows, which were supposed to be linnets, in another; two mice in an old cigar-box lined with tin; and a very attenuated rat, which had been caught by Peter in a trap, and which was allowed to live _minus_ one foreleg that had been cut short off close to the shoulder, but over which the skin had grown. No one interfered with Dexter's pets, and in fact the old range of stabling was rarely visited, even by the gardeners, so that the place became not only the boy's favourite resort in his loneliness, but, so to speak, his little kingdom where he reigned over his pets. There was plenty of room, especially in the lofts with their cross-beams and ties; and here, with his pets, as the only spectators, Dexter used to go daily to get rid of the vitality which often battled for exit in the confinement of the house. Half an hour here of the performance of so many natural gymnastic tricks seemed to tame him down--these tricks being much of a kind popular amongst caged monkeys, who often, for no apparent object, spring about and hang by hands or feet, often by their tail. But he had one piece of enjoyment that would have driven a monkey mad with envy. He had discovered among the lumber a very large old-fashioned bottle-jack, and after hanging this from a hook and winding it up, one of his greatest pleasures was to hang from that jack, and roast till he grew giddy, when he varied the enjoyment by buckling on a strap, attaching himself with a hook from the waist, and then going through either a flying or swimming movement as he spun slowly round. Then he had a rope-trick or two contrived by means of a long piece of knotted together clothes-line, doubled, and hung from the rafters to form a swing or trapeze. Dexter had paid his customary morning visit to his pets, and carefully fed them according to his wont; his plan, a very regular one among boys, being to give them twice as much as was good for them one day, and a starving the next--a mode said to be good with pigs, and productive of streaky bacon, but bad for domestic pets. Then he had returned to the house to go through his lessons, and sent long-suffering Mr Limpney, BA, almost into despair by the little progress he had made, after which he had gone down the garden with the expectation of meeting Dan'l at some corner, but instead had come upon Peter, busy as usual with his broom. "Yer needn't look," said the latter worthy; "he's gone out." "What! Dan'l has?" "Yes; gone to see a friend who's a gardener over at Champney Ryle, to buy some seeds." It was like the announcement of a holiday, and leaving the groom making the usual long stretches with his broom, Dexter went on aimlessly to the river-side, where, for the first time for many months, he found Bob Dimsted fishing. "Hullo, old un!" was the latter's greeting, "how are you!" Dexter gave the required information, and hesitated for a few moments, something in the way of a collection of Helen's warnings coming vaguely to his hand; but the volunteered information of the boy on the other side of the river, that he had got some "glorious red wums," and that the fish were well on the feed, drove everything else away, and in a few minutes Dexter was sitting upon the crown of a willow pollard, ten feet out over the river, that much nearer to the fisher, and in earnest conversation with him as he watched his float. Once more the memory of words that had been spoken to him came to Dexter, but the bobbing of the float, and the excitement of capturing a fish, drove the thoughts away--the fascination of the fishing, and the pleasant excitement of meeting a companion of near his own age, cut off, as he was, from the society of boys, being too much for him; and he was soon eagerly listening, and replying to all that was said. "Ever go fishing in a boat?" said Bob, after a time. "No." "Ah! you should go in a boat," said Bob. "You sit down comfortable, with your feet all dry, and you can float over all the deep holes and best places in the river, and catch all the big fish. It's lovely!" "Did you ever fish out of a boat?" asked Dexter. "Did I ever fish out of a boat? Ha! ha! ha! Lots of times. I'm going to get a boat some day, and have a saucepan and kettle and plate and spoon, and take my fishing-tackle, and then I shall get a gun or a pistol, and go off down the river." "What for!" "What for? Why, to live like that, catching fish, and shooting wild ducks and geese, and cooking 'em, and eating 'em. Then you have a 'paulin and spread it over the boat of a night, and sleep under it--and there you are!" Dexter looked at the adventurous being before him in wonder, while he fished on and talked. "I should make myself a sail, too, and then I shouldn't have to row so much; and then I could go right on down to the end of the river, and sail away to foreign countries, and shoot all kinds of wonderful things. And then you could land sometimes and kill snakes, and make yourself a hut to live in, and do just as you liked. Ah, that is a fine life!" "Yes," said Dexter, whose eager young mind rapidly painted an illustration to everything his companion described. "A man I know has been to sea, and he says sometimes you come to places where there's nothing but mackerel, and you can almost ladle 'em out with your hands. I should boil 'em over a fire. They are good then." Dexter's eyes grew more round. "Then out at sea you have long lines, and you catch big cod-fish, and soles almost as big as the boat." "And are you going to have a boat?" "To be sure I am. I get tired of always coming out to catch little roach and dace and eels. I mean to go soon." Dexter sighed. "That man says when you go far enough away, you come to islands where the cocoa-nuts grow; and then, all you've got to do is go ashore and pull your boat up on the sands, and when you are hungry you climb a tree and get a cocoa-nut; and every one has got enough meat and drink in it for a meal." "Do you?" "Yerrrs! That you do. That's the sort of place to go and live at. I'm tired o' Coleby." "Why don't you go and live there, then!" said Dexter. "I'm going to, some day. It's no use to be in too much of a hurry; I want to save a little money first, and get some more tackle. You see, you want big hooks for big fish, and some long lines. Then you must have a boat." The idea of the unknown countries made Dexter thrill, and he listened eagerly as the boy went on prosing away while he fished, taking out his line from time to time, and dropping the bait in likely places. "Haven't made up my mind what boat I shall have yet, only it must be a good one." "Yes," said Dexter; "you'd want a good big boat." "Not such a very big un," said Bob. "I should want a nice un with cushions, because you'd have to sit in it so long." "And sleep in it too?" "Oh yes; you'd have to sleep in it." "Should you light the fire, and cook in it!" said Dexter innocently. "Yah! No, o' course not. You'd go ashore every time you wanted to cook, and light a fire there with a burnin'-glass." "But suppose the sun didn't shine!" "Sun always shines out there," said Bob. "That sailor chap told me, and the birds are all sorts of colours, and the fish too, like you see in glass globes. I mean to go." "When shall you go?" "Oh, some day when I'm ready. I know of a jolly boat as would just do." "Do you?" "Yes; I dessay you've seen it. Belongs to Danby's, down the river. Lives in a boat-house." "Yes, I've seen it," said Dexter eagerly. "It is a beauty!" "Well, that's the sort of boat I mean to have. P'r'aps I shall have that." "You couldn't have that," cried Dexter. "Why not? They never use it, not more'n twice a year. Dessay they'd lend it." "That they wouldn't," cried Dexter. "Well, then, I should borrow it, and bring it back when I'd done with it. What games you could have with a boat like that!" "Yes," sighed Dexter; "wish we had one!" "Wouldn't be such a good one as that if you had. That's just the boat I've made up my mind to have." "And shall you sail right away to a foreign country!" said Dexter, from his nest up in the willow. "Why, how can you sail away to another place without a mast and sail, stoopid!" cried Bob. "If you call me stupid," said Dexter sharply, "I'll come and punch your head." "Yah! Yer can't get at me." "Can't I? I could swim across in a minute, and I would, if it wasn't for wetting my clothes." "Yah!" cried Bob scoffingly. "Why, I could fight yer one hand." "No, you couldn't." "Yes, I could." "Well, you'd see, if I came across." "But yer can't get across," laughed Bob. "I know of a capital mast." Dexter looked sulky. "It's part of an old boat-hook my father found floating in the river. I shall smooth it down with my knife if I can't borrow a spokeshave." "And what'll you do for a sail?" said Dexter, his interest in the expedition chasing away his anger. "Oh, I shall get a table-cloth or a sheet. Sheets make beautiful sails. You just hoists 'em up, and puts an oar over the stern to steer with, and then away you go, just where you like. Sailing along in a boat's lovely!" "Ever been in a boat sailing?" asked Dexter. "No; but I know it is. That sailor told me. He says when you've got all sail set, you just cruises along." "Do you?" "Yes. I know; and I mean to go some day; but it's no use to be in a jolly hurry, and you ought to have a mate." "Ought you?" "Yes, so as he could steer while a chap went to sleep; because sometimes you'd be a long way from the shore." Dexter sat very thoughtful and still, dreaming of the wonders of far-off places, such as could be reached by Bob Dimsted and his companion, the impracticability of such a journey never once occurring to him. Bob had been about all his life free to go and come, while he, Dexter, seemed to have been always shut up, as it were, in a cage, which had narrowed his mind. "Some chaps would be glad of such a chance," said Bob. "It'll be a fine time. My, what fishing I shall have!" "Shall you be gone long!" said Dexter, after a time. "Long? Why, of course I shall; years and years. I shan't come back till I've made a fortune, and am a rich man, with heaps of money to spend. Some chaps would be glad to go." "Yes, of course," said Dexter dreamily. "I want to get a mate who isn't afraid of anything. Dessay we should meet lions sometimes, and big snakes." "What! in England!" "England! Yah! Who's going to stop in England? I'm going to sail away to wonderful places all over the world." "But would the boat be big enough to cross the great sea?" "Who's going to cross the great sea?" cried Bob. "Of course I shouldn't. I should only go out about six miles from shore, and keep close in, so as to land every night to get grub, or anything else. P'r'aps to go shooting. My father's got an old gun--a fine un. Think I don't know what I'm about? Shoots hares with it, and fezzans. "There's another!" he exclaimed, as he hooked and landed an unfortunate little perch, which he threw into his basket with a look of disgust. "I'm sick of ketching such miserable little things as these. I want to get hold of big sea-fish of all kinds, so as to fill the boat. Some chaps would be glad to go," he said again, as he threw his line in once more. "Yes," said Dexter thoughtfully; "I should like to go." "You!" said Bob, with a mocking laugh. "You! Why, you'd be afraid. I don't believe you dare go in a boat!" "Oh yes, I dare," said Dexter stoutly. "Not you. You're afraid of what the doctor would say. You daren't even come fishing with me up the river." "They said I was not to go with you," said Dexter quietly; "so I couldn't." "Then what's the use of your saying you'd like to go. You couldn't." "But I should like to go," said Dexter excitedly. "Not you. I want a mate as has got some pluck in him. You'd be afraid to be out all night on the water." "No, I shouldn't. I should like it." "Well, I don't know," said Bob dubiously. "I might take you, and I mightn't. You ain't quite the sort of a chap I should want; and, besides, you've got to stay where you are and learn lessons. Ho! ho! ho! what a game, to be obliged to stop indoors every day and learn lessons! I wonder you ain't ashamed of it." Dexter's cheeks flushed, and he looked angrily across the river with his fists clenched, but he said nothing. "You wouldn't do. You ain't strong enough," said Bob at last. "I'm as strong as you are." "But you daren't come." "I should like to come, but I don't think they'd let me." "Why, of course they wouldn't, stoopid. You'd have to come away some night quietly, and get in the boat, and then we'd let her float down the river, and row right away till morning, and then we could set the sail, and go just wherever we liked, because we should be our own masters." "Here's some one coming after you," said Bob, in a low voice; and he shrank away, leaving Dexter perched up in the crown of the tree, where he stopped without speaking, as he saw Helen come down the garden, and she walked close by him without raising her eyes, and passed on. CHAPTER TWENTY THREE. THE TROUBLE GROWS. Dexter got down out of the willow-tree with a seed in his brain. Bob Dimsted had dropped that seed into his young mind, and there it had struck root directly, and continued to grow. A hard fight now commenced. So long as he was with Helen or the doctor, he could think of nothing but the fact that they were so kind to him, and took so much interest in his welfare, that it would be horribly ungrateful to go away without leave, and he vowed that he would not go. But so sure as he was alone, a series of dissolving views began to float before his vivid imagination, and he saw Sir James Danby's boat managed by Bob Dimsted and himself, gliding rapidly along through river and along by sunlit shores, where, after catching wonderfully tinted fish, he and the boy landed to light a fire, cook their food, and partake of it in a delightful gipsy fashion. Then they put to sea again, and glided on past wondrous isles where cocoa-nut palms waved in the soft breeze. Try how he would, Dexter could not keep these ideas out of his head, and the more he thought, the brighter and more attractive they became; and day after day found him, whenever he had an opportunity, waiting about by the river-side in the expectation of seeing Bob Dimsted. Bob did not come, but as Dexter climbed up into his nest in the willow pollard his vivid imagination supplied the words he had said, and he seemed to see himself sailing away, with the boy for his companion, down the river, and out into the open sea; a portion of this globe which he formed out of his own fancy, the result being wonderfully unlike the truth. Bob did not come, but Helen noticed how quiet and thoughtful the boy seemed, and also how he affected that portion of the garden. "Why don't you fish, Dexter?" she said to him one day, as she saw him gazing disconsolately at the river. He had not thought of this as an excuse for staying down by the river, but he snatched at the idea now, and for the next week, whenever he could get away from his lessons or their preparation, he was down on the bank, dividing his time between watching his float and the opposite shore. But still Bob Dimsted did not come; and at last Dexter began to settle down seriously to his fishing, as the impressions made grew more faint. Then all at once back they came; for as he sat watching his float one day, a voice said sharply-- "Now then! why don't you strike!" But Dexter did not strike, and the fish went off with the bait as the holder of the rod exclaimed-- "Why haven't you been fishing all this time!" "What was the good?" said Bob, "I was getting ready to go, and talking to my mate, who's going with me." "Your mate!" exclaimed Dexter, whose heart sank at those words. "Yes, I know'd you wouldn't go, so. I began to look out for a chap who would." "But I didn't say that I really would not go," said Dexter, as he laid his tackle under the bushes. "Oh yes, you did; I could see what you meant. Do they bite to-day!" "I don't know," said Dexter dolefully. "But, I say, you couldn't have that boat if you wanted to." "Oh yes, I could if I liked." "But it isn't yours." "Tchah! couldn't you borrow it!" Dexter did not see how, and he climbed into the willow, while Bob went on fishing. "I hate a chap who is always trying to find out things to stop a fellow from doing anything. Why don't you say you won't go and ha' done with it?" Dexter sighed as he thought of the wonderful fish to be caught, and the great nuts on the trees, each of which nuts would make a meal. Then of the delight of sailing away in that beautiful boat down the river, and then out to sea, where they could land upon the sands and light their fire; and it seemed to him that such a life would be one long time of delight. He sat in his nest picking the buds off the willow twigs, and bending and lacing them together, furtively glancing at grubby-looking Bob Dimsted, whose appearance was not attractive; but what were appearances to a boy who possessed such gifts of knowledge in fishing and managing a boat, and had learned so much about foreign lands? Dexter sighed again, and Bob gave him a furtive look, as with evident enjoyment he took a red worm out of some moss and stuck his sharp hook into it, drew the writhing creature over the shank, and then passed the point through again and again. So to speak, he had impaled Dexter on a moral hook as well, the barb had gone right in so that it could not be drawn out without tearing; and Dexter writhed and twined, and felt as if he would have given anything to get away. Bob went on fishing, throwing the twisting worm just down among the roots of a willow-tree, and the float told directly after that the cast was not without avail, for there was a quick bobbing movement, then a sharp snatch, Bob struck, and, after a good deal of rushing about and splashing, a good-sized perch was landed, with its sharp back fin erect, and its gilded sides, with their black markings, glistening in the sunshine. "What a beauty!" cried Dexter enthusiastically, as for the moment the wonders of the boating expedition were forgotten. But they were brought back directly. "Pooh!" exclaimed Bob contemptuously. "That's nothing; only a little perch. Why, if we went off fishing in that boat, you'd chuck a fish like that in again." But Bob did not "chuck" that perch in again; he placed it in his basket, and directly after caught up his various articles of fishing-gear and ran off. Dexter was about to speak, but just then he heard a harsh cough, and, glancing through the screen of willow twigs which surrounded him, he saw old Dan'l coming hastily down over the grass path towards the tree. "Yes, I can see yer," he shouted, as he reached the water's edge; and, to Dexter's surprise, he found that it was not he the old gardener was addressing. "You come over there fishing again, I'll send the police arter yer." Bob, safe at a distance, made a derisive gesture. "None of your sarse, you poaching young vagabond. I know what you came there for. Be off with you." "Shan't," cried Bob, as he settled down to fish a hundred yards away. "Always coming here after that boy," grumbled Dan'l. "If I could have my way I'd bundle 'em both out of the town together. Young robbers,-- that's what they are, the pair of 'em." Dexter's face flushed, and he was about to respond, but the old gardener began to move away. "Doctor ought to be ashamed of himself," he grumbled, as he stood for a moment or two looking round in search of Dexter, but never looking above the brim of his broad straw hat, and the next moment Dexter was left alone seated in the crown of the old willow, very low-spirited and thoughtful, as he came down from his perch, brushed the bits of green from his clothes, and then walked slowly up toward the house, taking the other side of the garden; but of course coming right upon Dan'l, who followed him about till he took refuge in the doctor's study, with a book whose contents seemed to be a history of foreign lands, and the pictures records of the doings of one Dexter Grayson and his companion Bob. For the old effervescence consequent upon his having been kept down so long was passing off, and a complete change seemed to be coming over the boy. Quicksilver--by George Manville Fenn CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR. THE PLEASANT WAYS OF LEARNING. "Now, Master Grayson," said Mr Limpney, "what am I to say to the doctor!" The private tutor threw himself back in his seat in the study, vacated by the doctor, while Dexter had his lessons, placed his hands behind his head, and, after wrinkling his forehead in lines from his brow to right on the top, where the hair began, he stared hard at his pupil. "I say again, sir, what am I to tell the doctor!" "I don't know," said Dexter dolefully. Then, plucking up a little spirit: "I wrote out all my history questions, and did the parsing with a little help from Miss Grayson, and I did the sum you set me all by myself." "Yes; but the Algebra, the Classics, and the Euclid! Where are they?" "There they are," said Dexter, pointing dismally to some books on the table. "Yes, sir, there they are--on that table, when they ought to be in your head." "But they won't go in my head, sir," cried Dexter desperately. "Nonsense, sir! you will not let them, and I warn you plainly, that if we do not make better progress, I shall tell the doctor that I will not continue to take his payment for nothing." "No; I say; don't do that," said Dexter piteously. "He wouldn't like it." "I cannot help that, sir. I have my duty to perform. Anybody can do those childish history and grammatical questions; it is the classical and mathematical lessons in which I wish you to excel. Now, once more. No, no, you must not refer to the book. `In any right-angled triangle, the square of the side--' Now, go on." Dexter took up a slate and pencil, wrinkled up his forehead as nearly like the tutor's as he could, and slowly drew a triangle. "Very good," said Mr Limpney. "Now, go on." Dexter stared at his sketch, then helplessly at his instructor. "I ought to write _ABC_ here, oughtn't I, sir?" "Yes, of course. Go on." Dexter hesitated, and then put a letter at each corner. "Well, have it that way if you like," said Mr Limpney. "I don't like it that way, sir," said Dexter. "I'll put it your way." "No, no. Go on your way." "But I haven't got any way, sir," said Dexter desperately. "Nonsense, nonsense! Go on." "Please, sir, I can't. I've tried and tried over and over again, but the angles all get mixed up with the sides, and it is all such a muddle. I shall never learn Euclid. Is it any use?" "Is it any use!" cried the tutor scornfully. "Look at me, sir. Has it been any use to me!" Dexter looked at the face before him, and then right up the forehead, and wondered whether learning Euclid had made all the hair come off the top of his head. "Well, go on." "I can't, sir, please," sighed the boy. "I know it's something about squares, and _ABC_, and _BAC_, and _CAB_, and--but you produce the lines." "But you do not produce them, sir," cried Mr Limpney angrily; "nor anything else! You ought to be ashamed of yourself, sir!" "I am," said Dexter innocently. "I'm a dreadfully stupid boy, sir, and I don't think I've got any brains." "Are you going through that forty-seventh problem this morning, sir?" Dexter made a desperate attempt, floundered on a quarter of a minute, and broke down in half. "Tut--tut--tut!" ejaculated Mr Limpney. "I'm sure you have not looked at it since I was here." "That I have, sir," cried Dexter, in a voice full of eager protest. "Hours and hours, sir, I walked up and down the garden with it, and then I took the book up with me into my loft, and made a chalk triangle on the floor, and kept on saying it over and over, but as fast as I said it the words slipped out of my head again. I can't help it, sir, I am so stupid." "Algebra!" said Mr Limpney, in a tone of angry disgust. "Am I not to try and say the Euclid, sir?" "Algebra!" cried Mr Limpney again, and he slapped the table with a thin book. "Now then, where are these simple equations?" Dexter drew a half-sheet of foolscap paper from a folio, and rather shrinkingly placed it before his tutor, who took a pair of spectacles from his pocket, and placed them over his mild-looking eyes. "Let me see," he said, referring to a note-book. "The questions I gave you were: `A spent 2 shillings and 6 pence in oranges, and says that three of them cost as much under a shilling as nine of them cost over a shilling. How many did he buy?'" Mr Limpney coughed, blew his nose loudly, as if it were a post-horn, and then went on-- "Secondly: `Two coaches start at the same time for York and London, a distance of 200 miles, travelling one at nine and a half miles an hour, the other at nine and a quarter miles; where will they meet, and in what time from starting?'" He gave his nose a finishing touch with his handkerchief, closed his note-book, and turned to Dexter. "Now then," he said. "Let us see." He took the sheet of paper, looked at one side, turned it over and looked at the other, and then raised his eyes to Dexter's, which avoided his gaze directly. "What is this?" he cried. "The equations, sir," said Dexter humbly. "Tut--tut--tut!" ejaculated Mr Limpney. "Was there ever such a boy? _plus_ where it ought to be _minus_, and--why, what's this!" "This, sir?" said Dexter. "Half-crowns." "But it was to be oranges. How many did he buy? and here you say he bought ninety-seven half-crowns. I don't know how you arrived at it, or what you mean. A man does not go to a shop to buy half-crowns. He spent half a crown in oranges." "Yes, sir." "I believe it's sheer obstinacy. You do not want to do these equations--simple equations too, mind you! Now then, about the stage-coaches. When did they meet, and in what time from starting? Now then--there are your figures, where did they meet? Look and tell me." Dexter took the half-sheet of paper, stared at it very doubtfully, and then looked up. "Well!" said Mr Limpney. "Where did they meet?" "Peterborough, sir." "Where!" cried Mr Limpney in astonishment. "Peterborough, sir." "Now, will you have the goodness to tell me how you found out that?" "On the map, sir." "Bless my soul!" exclaimed the tutor. "Well, go on. At what time from starting!" "About ten o'clock, sir." "Better and better," said the tutor sarcastically. "Now, will you kindly explain--no, no, don't look at your figures--Will you kindly explain how you arrived at this sapient conclusion?" Dexter hesitated, and shifted one foot over the other. "Well, sir, I am waiting," cried Mr Limpney, in a tone of voice which made Dexter think very much resembled that of Mr Sibery when he was angry. "I--I--" "Don't hesitate, sir. Have I not told you again and again that a gentleman never hesitates, but speaks out at once? Now then, I ask you how you arrived at this wonderful conclusion?" "I tried over and over again, sir, with the _a's_ and _b's_, and then I thought I must guess it." "And did you guess it?" "No, sir, I suddenly recollected what you said." "And pray, what did I say!" "Why, sir, you always said let _x_ represent the unknown quantity, and-- and _x_ stands for ten--ten o'clock." Mr Limpney snatched the paper from the boy's hand, and was about to tear it up, when the door opened and Dr Grayson entered. "Well," he said pleasantly, "and how are we getting on?" "Getting on, sir?" said Mr Limpney tartly. "Will you have the goodness to ask my pupil!" "To be sure--to be sure," said the doctor. "Well, Dexter, how are you getting on? Eh? what's this? Oh, Algebra!" he continued, as he took the half-sheet of paper covered with the boy's calligraphy. "Oh, Algebra! Hah! I never was much of a fist at that." "Only simple equations, sir," said the tutor. "Ah, yes. Simple equations. Well, Dexter, how are you getting on?" "Very badly, sir." "Badly? Nonsense!" "But I am, sir. These things puzzle me dreadfully. I'm so stupid." "Stupid? Nonsense! Nothing of the kind. Scarcely anybody is stupid. Men who can't understand some things understand others. Now, let's see. What is the question? H'm! ah! yes, oranges. H'm! ah! yes; not difficult, I suppose, when you know how. And--what's this? London and York--stage-coaches. Nine and a half miles, nine and a quarter miles, and--er--h'm, yes, of course, where would they meet?" "Peterborough, sir," said Mr Limpney sarcastically, and with a peculiar look at Dexter. "H'm! would they now?" said the doctor. "Well, I shouldn't have thought it! And how is he getting on with his Latin, Mr Limpney!" "Horribly, sir!" exclaimed the tutor sharply. "I am very glad you have come, for I really feel it to be my duty to complain to you of the great want of diligence displayed by my pupil." "Dear me! I am very sorry," exclaimed the doctor. "Why, Dexter, my boy, how's this? You promised me that you would be attentive." "Yes, sir, I did." "Then why are you not attentive?" "I do try to be, sir." "But if you were, Mr Limpney would not have cause to complain. It's too bad, Dexter, too bad. Do you know why Mr Limpney comes here?" "Yes, sir," said the boy dismally; "to teach me." "And you do not take advantage of his teaching. This is very serious. Very sad indeed." "I am sure, Dr Grayson, that no tutor could have taken more pains than I have to impart to him the various branches of a liberal education; but after all these months of teaching it really seems to me that we are further behind. He is not a dull boy." "Certainly not. By no means," said the doctor. "And I do not give him tasks beyond his powers." "I hope not, I am sure," said the doctor. "And yet not the slightest progress is made. There is only one explanation, sir, and that is want of diligence." "Dear me! dear me! dear me!" exclaimed the doctor. "Now, Dexter, what have you to say?" "Nothing, sir!" said the boy sadly; "only I think sometimes that my brains must be too wet." "Good gracious! boy: what do you mean!" "I mean too wet and slippery, sir, so that they will not hold what I put into them." The doctor looked at the tutor, and the tutor looked at the doctor, as if he considered that this was impertinence. "I am very sorry--very sorry indeed, Dexter," said the doctor. "There, sir, you can go now. I will have a talk to Mr Limpney. We must see if we cannot bring you to a better frame of mind." CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE. DEXTER'S DUMB FRIENDS. Dexter went out into the hall feeling exceedingly miserable, for he had left the occupants of the study talking about him, and, as the saying goes, it made his ears burn. "I couldn't help it," he said dolefully: "I did try. I'll go and tell Miss Grayson all about it, and ask her to take my part." He went into the drawing-room, but Helen was not there, so he ran upstairs, and was in the act of tapping at her bedroom door, when Maria came out of another room. It was a curious fact, but there it was: Dexter always had the effect upon Maria that a dog has upon a cat. The dog may be of the most amiable disposition, and without the slightest desire to fight or worry, but as soon as he is seen, up goes the cat's back in an arch, the tail becomes plumose and the fur horrent, while, with dilated eyes and displayed teeth glistening, puss indulges in the bad language peculiar to cats. Maria being of a different physique did not display these signs of aggression exactly, but she invariably became vicious and metaphysically showed her teeth. "It's of no use your knocking there, Master Dexter. Miss Helen isn't at home, and I'm quite sure if she was that she wouldn't approve of your trapesing up out of the garden in your muddy and dirty shoes. I've got enough to do here without cleaning up after you." "But I haven't been in the garden, Maria," said Dexter, apologetically. "I have just come out of the study." "Don't I tell you she ain't at home," said Maria spitefully. "Do you know when she will be back!" "No, I don't," said Maria, and then sarcastically: "I beg your pardon, _sir_--no I don't, _sir_." Maria went along the passage like a roaring wind, she made so much noise with her skirts, and then hurried downstairs, as if in great haste to get hold of a door that she could bang; and as soon as she did reach one, she made so much use of her opportunity that a picture in the hall was blown sidewise, and began swinging to and fro like a great square pendulum. Dexter sighed, and felt very miserable as he stole downstairs again, and past the study door, where the murmur of voices talking, as he knew, about him made him shiver. He was obliged to pass that door to get his cap, and then he had to pass it again to get to the garden door. Mr Limpney was talking, and Mr Limpney, being accustomed to lecture and teach, spoke very loudly, so that Dexter heard him say-- "I must have more authority, sir, and--" Dexter heard no more, for he fled into the garden, but he knew that having authority meant the same as it meant with Mr Sibery, and it sounded like going backwards. He felt more miserable as he went out into the garden. "Nobody hardly seems to like me, or care for me here," he said dolefully; and, led by his inclination, he began to make his way down the long green path toward the river, half fancying that Bob Dimsted might be fishing. But before he had gone far he saw Dan'l, who was busy doing up a bed, and his appearance seemed to be the signal for the old man to put down his tools and take out his great pruning-knife, as if he meant mischief, but only to stoop from time to time to cut off a dead flower as an excuse, so it seemed, for following Dexter wherever he went. It was impossible to go about the garden under these circumstances, so Dexter went down a little way, passed round a large _Wellingtonia_, and walked slowly back toward the house, but, instead of entering, went by the open window of the study, where the voice of Mr Limpney could still be heard talking loudly, and, as it seemed to the listening boy, breathing out threatenings against his peace of mind. The voice sounded so loud as he went by that he half-expected to hear himself called in, and in great dread he hurried on by the conservatory, and round the house to the old stable-yard. As he reached this he could hear a peculiar hissing noise--that which Peter always made when he was washing the carriage, or the horses' legs--to blow away the dust, so he said. For a moment Dexter felt disposed to go into the new stable and talk to Peter, but the opportunity was not tempting, and, hurrying on, the boy reached the old buildings, looked round for a moment, and, thus satisfied that he was not observed, he made a spring up to a little old window, caught the sill, scrambled up directly, and, passing through, disappeared inside. He uttered a sigh as of relief, and crossing the damp stones of the gloomy old place he reached a crazy flight of steps, which led up to a loft, on either side of which were openings, through which, when the stable had been in use, it had been customary to thrust down the stored-up hay. Dexter stopped here in the darkness for a few minutes listening, but no one was following him, and he walked along to a second ladder which led to a trap-door through which he passed, closed the trap, and then, in the long roof a place greatly resembling in shape the triangle over whose problem of squares he had that day stumbled, he seemed once more himself. His first act was to run quietly along some boards laid over the loft ceiling, and, making a jump that would not have disgraced an acrobat, he caught at a rope, pendent from the highest portion of the rafters, twisted his legs about it, and swung easily to and fro. The motion seemed to give him the greatest satisfaction, and as the impetus given died out, he dropped one foot, and with a few vigorous thrusts set himself going again till he was tired. But that was not very soon, and he did not leave off till there were sundry scratchings and squeakings, which drew his attention to his pets, all of which were eager for food. They were a heterogeneous collection, but, for the most part, exceedingly tame, and ready to allow themselves to be handled, constant familiarity with the gentle hand so often thrust into their boxes or cages having robbed it of its terrors. Dexter's happiest moments were passed here, saving those which Helen continued to make pleasant to the boy; and as soon as his pets had drawn his attention, he took off his jacket and vest, rolled up his sleeves, and began to attend to their wants. His rabbits--two which he had bought through Bob Dimsted, who made a profit of a hundred per cent, by the transaction--were lifted out of the packing-case they occupied, and in which they were kept by the lid being closed within half an inch, by their pink ears, and immediately stood up on their hind-legs, with drooping fore-paws, their pink noses twitching as they smelt their owner's legs, till he gave them a couple of red carrots, a portion of Dan'l's last year's store. The next to be taken out was a hedgehog, a prize of his own discovering, and captured one day asleep and tightly rolled up beneath one of the Portugal laurels. The minute before its box was open, the hedgehog was actively perambulating its dark prison, but the moment it was touched it became a ball, in which form it was rolled out on to the rough floor close to a flower-pot saucer of bread and milk, smuggled up directly after breakfast each morning. Next came the large grey rat, captured originally in the steel trap, and whose first act might have been anticipated. It did not resent its owner's handling; but the moment it was set down it darted under the loose boards, and remained there until tempted forth by the smell of the bread and milk, and a tempting piece of candle-end, the former of which it helped the hedgehog to eat. The mice, which lived in the old cigar-box--not white mice, nor those furry little sleepers given to hiding away in nooks and corners for elongated naps, but the regular grey cheese-nibblers--next, after a good deal of scratching, took Dexter's attention. As soon as the lid was open, and the boy's hand thrust in, they ran up his fingers, and then along his arm to his shoulder, wonderfully active and enterprising with their sharp little noses, one even venturing right up the boy's head after a pause by one ear, as if it looked like the cavernous entrance to some extremely snug hiding-place. "Quiet! Don't tickle," cried Dexter, as he gently put up one hand for the mouse to run upon; and every movement was made so gently that the little creatures were not alarmed, but rested gently upon the boy's hand, as he lifted them down to where he had placed some scraps of cheese and a biscuit, all articles of provender being derived from the stores situated in his trousers-pockets, and that of his jacket. The list was not yet complete, for an old wire trap had been turned into a cage, and here dwelt Dexter's greatest favourite--about the shabbiest-looking squirrel that ever exhibited bare patches upon its skin, and a tail from which the plume-like hair had departed. It cost five shillings, all the same, at a little broker's shop down in the most poverty-stricken part of Coleby. It had been bought by the broker at a sale in company with a parrot, a cockatoo, and a canary, all being the property of a lady lately deceased. The canary died before he reached home, and the parrot and cockatoo, on the strength of being able to screech and say a few words, soon found owners, but the squirrel, being shabby-looking, hung on hand, or rather outside the little shop, in a canary's cage, to which it had been promoted after its own revolving wire home had been sold, the purchaser declining to buy the squirrel because he was so shabby. The poor little brute did not improve afterwards, for he rubbed the hair off his face by constantly trying to get through either the seed or water hole, and every time he--for the sake of exercise--whisked round the cage, it was to the disadvantage of his tail, which daily grew more and more like that of Dexter's rat. This little unfortunate might have been bought for a shilling by such a boy as Bob Dimsted, but the superfine broadcloth of Dexter's jacket and trousers sent it up to five, and pocket-money had to be saved for weeks before it finally came into the boy's possession, to be watched with the greatest attention to see if its hair would grow. The squirrel's nose was thrust between the bars of the old wire rat-trap, and when this was not the case, the active little animal performed a kind of evolution suggestive of its trying to make the letters SS in its prison, as skaters contrive them upon the ice, till the wire door was open, and with one bound it was upon its owner's shoulder, then up in the rafters, along one beam and down another, till the first wild excitement of freedom was over, when it dropped upon the floor, and began to forage for food. Dexter was so truly happy among his little subjects that he sat down upon the edge of an old box, forgetful of other claimants while he attended to the wants of these, calling them by endearing names, giving the rabbits oats from his pockets, a handful of which grain came now and then from Peter. The boy had intuitively discovered the way to tame his various pets. Fear will accomplish a great deal with dumb animals, but the real secret of winning their confidence is quietness, the art of never alarming them, but by perfectly passive behaviour, and the most gentle of movements, accustom the timid creatures to our presence. The rest was merely habituating them to the fact that their owner was the sole source from which food was to be obtained. No one told Dexter all this; he learned it in his solitary communings with the animal world. For somehow it seems to be the law of nature that every moving thing goes about in dread of losing its life from something else which either preys upon or persecutes it. The house-sparrow, the most domestic of wild birds, gives a look-out for squalls between every peck, but it will soon learn to distinguish the person who does not molest and who feeds it, even to coming at his call, while fish, those most cold-blooded of creatures, which in an ordinary way go off like a silver flash at the sight of a shadow, will grow so familiar that they will rise to the surface and touch the white finger-tips placed level with the water. So Dexter sat smiling and almost without movement among his subjects, with the rabbits begging, the mice coming and going, now feeding and now taking a friendly walk up his legs and about his chest, and the squirrel bounding to him from time to time after nuts, which were carried up to the beam overhead, and there rasped through with its keen teeth, the rat the while watching it from the floor till furnished with another nut, as it had pounced upon one the squirrel dropped. There was yet another pet--one which had been very sluggish all through the winter, but now in fine sunshiny days fairly active, and ready upon this occasion to come forth and be fed. Dexter rose very slowly, talking gently the while to the mice, which he coaxed to his hand with a piece of cheese, and then placed them upon the floor, while he went to a corner where, turned upside down upon a slate, stood one of Dan'l's large flower-pots, the hole being covered with a piece of perforated zinc. The pot was lifted, slate and all, turned over, and the slate lifted off, to display quite a nest of damp moss, which, as the boy watched, seemed for a few minutes uninhabited, but all at once it began to heave in one part; there was an increasing movement, as if something was gliding through it, and then from among the soft moss a smooth glistening head with two bright eyes appeared, and a curious little tongue darted out through an opening between the tightly-closed jaws. There was no doubt of the nature of the creature, which glided forth more and more till it developed itself into a snake of a bright olive green, about thirty inches long, its singular markings and mottlings looking as bright as if it had been varnished. Dexter watched the curious horizontal undulating movement of the little serpent for some time before he touched it, and then taking it up very gently, its tail hung swinging to and fro, while the front portion curved and undulated, and searched about for a place to rest till it found one upon the boy's arm, up which it began to glide as if the warmth were pleasant, ending by nestling its head in the hollow of the elbow-joint. Meanwhile there was another rustling and movement of the moss, but nothing showed for a time. Dexter smoothed and stroked the snake, which seemed to be perfectly content when it was moved, but soon after began to insinuate its blunt rounded head here and there, as if in search of something, till its owner bore it to a large pickle-jar standing upon a beam nearly level with the floor, and upon his placing the reptile's head on a level with the mouth, it glided in at once, inch by inch, over the side, and through Dexter's hands, till it disappeared, the finely-graduated tail passing over the edge, and it was gone, the jar being its larder, in which were stored, ready for consumption, half a dozen of Dan'l's greatest enemies--the slugs. As Dexter turned to the heap of moss once more, at which one of the rabbits was sniffing, there was another heaving movement, followed by a sharp rap on the boards, the alarm signal of the rabbit which bounded away, while a blunt, broad head and two glistening eyes slowly appeared; then what looked like a short sturdy arm with outstretched fingers pressed down the moss, then another arm began to work, and by slow degrees a huge toad, which seemed to be as broad as it was long, extricated itself from the soft vegetable fibre, and crept away on to the boards, all in the most deliberate manner, as if it was too fat to move fast. "Hallo, Sam!" said Dexter, laughing. "Why, you've been asleep for a month." The toad seemed to be looking up at him in an unblinking fashion, but did not move, and Dexter stooped down to touch it, but the moment his hand approached, the reptile rose on its legs, arched its back, lowered its head, swelled itself up, and uttered a low, hissing sound. Dexter waited for a moment, and then softly began to scratch its side, the result evidently being so satisfactory to the toad that it began by leaning over toward the rubbing fingers, and then more and more, as if the sensation were agreeable in the extreme. A little coaxing then induced it to crawl slowly into its master's hand, which it more than filled, sitting there perfectly contented till it was placed in another pickle-jar to feed, this one being furnished with wood-lice, pill millipedes, and other luxuries dear to a toad. The striking of a clock roused Dexter from his communings with his pets, and hastily restoring them to their various habitations, he resumed his jacket, and after a quick glance round descended the steps. "I couldn't take them with me," he said sadly, as he stood for a few minutes in the old dark stable; "and if I left them without setting them at liberty they would all die." CHAPTER TWENTY SIX. THE GROWING CLOUD. "Dexter, I want to talk to you," said Helen, a few weeks later. The boy sighed. "Ah! you are afraid I am going to scold you," she said. "I don't mind you scolding me," he replied; "but I don't think I have done anything this time, except--" "Except what?" said Helen, for the boy paused. "Except talk to Bob Dimsted." "Have you been out to meet him?" "No, that I haven't," cried Dexter. "He came to the bottom of the river to fish, and he spoke to me; and if I had not answered, it would have seemed so proud." Helen was silent for a few moments, not knowing what to say. "It was not about that," she said, at last, "but about your lessons. Mr Limpney has again been complaining very bitterly to papa about your want of progress." "Yes," said Dexter, "and he is always scolding me." "Then why don't you try harder?" "I do, but I am so stupid." "You are not, Dexter. You always learn easily enough with me." "Yes, with you," said the boy quickly, "but you don't want me to say angle _ABC_ is equal to the angle _CBA_, and all such stuff as that." "Don't call it stuff," said Helen, smiling in spite of herself; "it is Geometry." "But it is rum stuff all the same. What's the use of my learning about straight lines and squares and angles?" "But you are behind with your Algebra too." "Yes," sighed Dexter, "I'm just as stupid over that." "Now, Dexter!" "But I am, quite. Why can't I go on finding out things by Arithmetic, as we used at the schools? It was bother enough to learn that. Oh, what a lot of caning I had over nine times!" "Over nine times!" said Helen. "Over a hundred, I should say," cried Dexter. "I mean with strokes on the hand, and taps on the head, and over the shoulders--counting 'em altogether; and wasn't I glad when I knew it all, and twelve times too, and somebody else used to get it instead of me." "Dexter, papa wishes you to learn these things." "Do you?" said the boy. "Yes, very much. I should like to see you master them all." "Then I will. See if I don't," he cried. "That's right. Try and please Mr Limpney by being energetic." "Yes, I'll try," said Dexter; "but I don't think he'll be pleased." "I shall be. Now, get out your last lessons over which you failed so dismally, and I'll try and help you." "Will you?" cried the boy, in delighted tones, and he hurriedly obtained his folio, pens, and ink, feeling in such high spirits that if Bob Dimsted had been at hand to continue his temptations they would have been of no avail. The orange question was first debated, and tried in two or three different ways without success. Then it was laid aside for the time being, while the stage-coaches were rolled out and started, one from London to York, the other from York to London. "Look here," said Dexter, "I'll try the one that starts from London, while you try the one from York." That was only another simple equation, but in its novelty to Helen Grayson, as difficult as if it had been quadratic, and for a time no sound was heard but the busy scratching of two pens. "It's of no good," said Dexter suddenly, and with a look of despair upon his face. "I'm so terribly stupid." "I'm afraid, Dexter," said Helen merrily, "if you are stupid, I am too." "What! can't you do it!" "No." "Are you sure?" "Yes, Dexter. Algebra is beyond me." "Hooray!" cried the boy, leaping from his seat, and dancing round the room, ending by relieving his excitement by turning head over heels on the hearthrug. "Is that to show your delight at my ignorance, Dexter?" said Helen, smiling. "No," he cried, colouring up, as he stood before her out of breath. "It was because I was glad, because I was not so stupid as I thought." "You are not stupid, Dexter," said Helen, smiling. "We must go back to the beginning, and try and find out how to do these things. Does not Mr Limpney explain them to you?" "Yes," said Dexter dismally, "but when he has done, I don't seem to see what he means, and it does make me so miserable." "Poor boy!" said Helen gently. "There, you must not make your studies a trouble. They ought to be a great pleasure." "They would be if you taught me," said Dexter eagerly. "I say, do ask Dr Grayson to send Mr Limpney away, and you help me. I will try so hard." "A pretty tutor I should make," cried Helen, laughing. "Why, Dexter, I am as ignorant, you see, as you!" Dexter's face was a study. He seemed hurt and pleased at the same time, and his face was full of reproach as he said-- "Ignorant as me! Oh!" "There, I'll speak to papa about your lessons, and he will, I have no doubt, say a few words to Mr Limpney about trying to make your tasks easier, and explaining them a little more." "Will you!" cried the boy excitedly, and he caught her hands in his. "Certainly I will, Dexter." "Then I will try so hard, and I'll write down on pieces of paper all the things you don't want me to do, and carry 'em in my pockets, and take them out and look at them sometimes." "What!" cried Helen, laughing. "Well, that's what Mr Limpney told me to do, so that I should not forget the things he taught me. Look here!" He thrust his hand into his trousers-pocket, and brought out eagerly a crumpled-up piece of paper, but as he did so a number of oats flew out all over the room. "O Dexter! what a pocket! Now what could you do with oats?" "They were only for my rabbits," he said. "There, those are all nouns that end in _us_, feminine nouns. Look, _tribus, acus, porticus_. Isn't it stupid?" "It is the construction of the language, Dexter." "Yes; that's what Mr Limpney said. There, I shall put down everything you don't like me to do on a piece of paper that way; and take it out and read it, so as to remember it." "Try another way, Dexter." "How?" he said wonderingly. "By fixing these things in your heart, and not on paper," Helen said, and she left the room. "Well, that's the way to learn them by heart," said the boy to himself thoughtfully, as with brow knit he seated himself by a table, took a sheet of paper, and began diligently to write in a fairly neat hand, making entry after entry; and the principal of these was-- "Bob Dimsted: not to talk to him." The next day the doctor had a chat with Mr Limpney respecting Dexter and his progress. "You see," said the doctor, "the boy has not had the advantages lads have at good schools; and he feels these lessons to be extremely difficult. Give him time." "Oh, certainly, Doctor Grayson," said Mr Limpney. "I have only one wish, and that is to bring the boy on. He is behind to a terrible extent." "Yes, yes, of course," said the doctor; "but make it as easy for him as you can--for the present, you know. After a time he will be stronger in the brain." Mr Limpney, BA, looked very stern. He was naturally a good-hearted, gentlemanly, and scholarly man. He thoroughly understood the subjects he professed to teach. In fact, the ordinary routine of classic and mathematical study had, by long practice, grown so simple to him, that he was accustomed to look with astonishment upon a boy who stumbled over some of the learned blocks. In addition, year upon year of imparting knowledge to reckless and ill-tempered as well as stupid boys had soured him, and, in consequence, the well-intentioned words of the doctor did not fall on ground ready to receive them quite as it should. "Complaining about my way of teaching, I suppose," he said to himself. "Well, we shall see." The result was that Mr Limpney allowed the littleness of his nature to come uppermost, and he laboriously explained the most insignificant portions of the lessons in a sarcastic manner which made Dexter writhe, for he was not slow to find that the tutor was treating him with contempt. To make matters worse, about that time Dan'l watched him more and more; Peter was unwell and very snappish; there was a little difficulty with Mrs Millett over some very strong camomile-tea which Dexter did not take; and on account of a broken soap-dish which Maria took it into her head Dexter meant to lay to her charge,--that young lady refused even to answer the boy when he spoke; lastly, the doctor seemed to be remarkably thoughtful and stern. Consequently Dexter began to mope in his den over the old stable, and at times wished he was back at the Union Schools. The wish was momentary, but it left its impression, and the thought that, with the exception of Helen, no one liked him at the doctor's house grew and grew and grew like the cloud that came out of the fisherman's pot when Solomon's seal was removed, and that cloud threatened to become the evil genii that was to overshadow the boy's life. CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN. DEXTER WRITES A LETTER. Dexter watched his chance one afternoon when the study was empty, and stole in, looking very guilty. Maria saw him going in, and went into the kitchen and told Mrs Millett. "I don't care," she said, "you may say what you like, but it's in him." "What's in him!" said the old housekeeper, raising her tortoise-shell spectacles so as to get a good look at Maria, who seemed quite excited. "Master may have tutors as is clergymen to teach him, and Miss Helen may talk and try, but he's got it in him, and you can't get it out." "Who are you talking about, Maria," said the old lady testily. "That boy," said Maria, shaking her head. "It's of no good, he's got it in him, and nothing won't get it out." "Bless my heart!" cried Mrs Millett, thinking first of mustard and water, and then of castor-oil, "has the poor fellow swallowed something?" "No-o-o-o!" ejaculated Maria, drawing the word out to nearly a foot in length. "But you said he'd got something in him, Maria. Good gracious me, girl! what do you mean!" "Sin and wickedness, Mrs Millett. He comes of a bad lot, and Dan'l says he's always keeping bad company." "Dan'l's a chattering old woman, and had better mind his slugs and snails." "But the boy's always in mischief; see how he spoiled your silk dress." "Only spotted it, Maria, and it was clean water. I certainly thought it rained as I went under his window." "Yes, and you fetched your umbrella." "I did, Maria. But he's better now. Give him his physic regular, and it does him good." "Did you find out what was the matter with those salts and senny!" "No, Maria, I did not. I had to break the glass to get it out; set hard as a stone. It was a good job he did not take it." Mrs Millett never did find out that Dexter had poured in cement till the glass would hold no more, and his medicine became a solid lump. "Ah, you'll be tired of him soon," said Maria. "No, I don't think I shall, Maria. You see he's a boy, and he does behave better. Since I told him not, he hasn't taken my basting-spoon to melt lead for what he calls nickers; and then he hasn't repeated that wicked cruel trick of sitting on the wall." "Why, I see him striddling the ridge of the old stable, with his back to the weathercock, only yesterday." "Yes, Maria, but he wasn't fishing over the wall with worms to try and catch Mrs Biggins's ducks, a very cruel trick which he promised me he wouldn't do any more; and he hasn't pretended to be a cat on the roof, nor yet been to me to extract needles which he had stuck through his cheeks out of mischief; and I haven't seen him let himself down from the stable roof with a rope; and, as I told him, that clothes-line wasn't rope." "Ah, you always sided with the boy, Mrs Millett," said Maria; "but mark my words, some of these mornings we shall get up and find that he has let burglars into the house, and Master and Miss Helen will be robbed and murdered in their beds." "Maria, you're a goose," said the old housekeeper. "Don't talk such rubbish." "Ah, you may call it rubbish, Mrs Millett, but if you'd seen that boy just now stealing--" "Stealing, Maria?" "Yes 'm, stealing into Master's study like a thief in the night--and after no good, I'll be bound,--you wouldn't be so ready to take his part." "Gone in to write his lessons," said Mrs Millett. "There, you go and get about your work." Maria snorted, stuck out her chin, and left the kitchen. "Yes, she may talk, but I say he's after no good," muttered the housemaid; "and I'm going to see what he's about, or my name ain't what it is." Meanwhile Dexter was very busy in the study, but in a furtive way writing the following letter in a bold, clear hand, which was, however, rather shaky in the loops of the letters, while the capitals had an inclination to be independent, and to hang away from the small letters of the various words:-- Sir, Me and a friend have borrowed your boat, for we are going a long journey; but as we may keep it all together, I send to you fourteen shillings and a fourpny piece, which I have saved up, and if that isn't quite quite enough I shall send you some more. I hope you won't mind our taking your boat, but Bob Dimsted says we must have it, or we can't get on. Yours af--very truly, Obed Coleby, or To Sir Jhames Danby, Dexter Grayson. Dexter's spelling was a little shaky here and there, but the letter was pretty intelligible; and, as soon as it was done, he took out his money and made a packet of it, and doubled it up, a task he had nearly finished, when he became aware that the door was partly opened, and as he guiltily thrust the packet into his pocket the door opened widely, and Maria entered, with a sharp, short cough. "Did I leave my duster here, Master Dexter!" she said, looking round sharply. Before Dexter could reply, she continued-- "No, I must have left it upstairs." She whisked out and closed the door with a bang, the very opposite of the way in which she had opened it, and said to herself triumphantly-- "There, I knew he was doing of something wrong, and if I don't find him out, my name ain't Maria." Dexter hurriedly finished his packet, laying the money in it again after further consideration--in and out amongst the paper, so that the money should not chink, and then placing it in the enclosure with the letter, he tied it up with a piece of the red tape the doctor kept in a little drawer, sealed it, and directed it in his plainest hand to Sir James Danby. Dexter felt better after this was done, and the jacket-pocket a little bulgy in which his missive was stuffed. He had previously felt a little uneasy about the boat; but though not quite at rest now, he felt better satisfied, and as if this was a duty done. That same evening, just before it grew dusk, Dexter watched his opportunity, and stole off down the garden, after making sure that he was not watched. There was no one visible on the other side, and it seemed as if Bob Dimsted was not coming, so after waiting a few minutes Dexter was about to go back to the house, with the intention of visiting his pets, when there was a loud chirping whistle from across the river. Dexter looked sharply through the gathering gloom; but still no one was visible, and then the chirp came again. "Are you there, Bob?" "Why, course I am," said that young gentleman, rising up from where he had lain flat behind a patch of coarse herbage. "I'm not the sort of chap to stay away when I says I'll come. Nearly ready!" "Ye-es," said Dexter. "No gammon, you know," said Bob. "I mean it, so no shirking out." "I mean to come too," said Dexter with a sigh. "Well, you do sound jolly cheerful; you don't know what a game it's going to be." "No, not quite--yet," said Dexter. "But how are we going to manage!" "Well, if ever!" exclaimed Bob. "You are a rum chap, and no mistake. Of course we shall take the boat, and I've got that table-cloth ready for a sail, and a bit of rope to hoist it up." Dexter winced about that table-cloth, one which he had borrowed at Bob's wish from the housekeeper's room. "But must we take that boat?" "Why, of course, but we shall send it back some day as good as new, hanging behind a ship, and then have it sent up the river. I know lots of fellows who'll put it back for me if I ask 'em." Dexter felt a little better satisfied, and then listened to his companion's plans, which were very simple, but effective all the same, though common honesty did not come in. The conversation was carried on across the river, and to ensure its not being heard, Dexter lay down on the grass and put his lips close to the water, Bob Dimsted doing the same, when, it being quite a still evening, conversation became easy. "What are your people doing now?" said Bob, after they had been talking some time. "Dr Grayson is writing, and Miss Grayson reading." "Why, we might go now--easy." "No," said Dexter. "If we did, it would be found out directly, and we should be fetched back, and then, I dare say, they'd send me again to the school." "And yer don't want to go there again, do you!" "No," said Dexter, with a shudder. "Don't forget the ball of string I told you about?" "No, I've got that," replied Bob sharply. "And p'r'aps that won't be long enough. It's very deep in the sea. Now mind, you're here." "Yes, I'll mind." "If yer don't come, I won't never forgive you for making a fool of me." "I won't do that," said Dexter; and then after a little more hesitation as to something he particularly wanted to do, and which he saw no other way of doing, he whispered-- "Bob!" "Hullo!" "Will you do something for me before you come!" "Yes, if I can. But I say, don't you forget to bring a big bundle of your clothes and things, and if you don't want 'em all, I can wear some of 'em." Dexter was silent. "And as much money as you can; and, I say, the old un never give you a watch, did he?" "No." "You wouldn't like to borrow his, would you!" "No, of course not," said Dexter indignantly. "Oh, I don't want you to, unless you like. Only watches is useful at sea. Sailors find out where they are by their watches. I don't quite know how, but we could soon find out. Whatcher want me to do!" "I want you to take a little parcel to Sir James Danby's." "I ain't going to carry no parcels," said Bob importantly. "It's only a very little one, as big as your hand. You know the letter-box in Sir James's big door!" "I should just think I do," said Bob, with a hoarse laugh. "Me and two more boys put a lighted cracker in last fift' o' November." "I want you to go there last thing," said Dexter, as he could not help wondering whether the cracker made a great deal of noise in the letter-box; "and to drop the packet in just as if it was a letter. I mean just before you come." "But what for?" "Because it must be taken there. I want it taken." "O very well. Where is it?" "Here," said Dexter, taking out his carefully tied and sealed packet. "Chuck it across." "Get up, then, and be ready to catch it." "All right! Now then, shy away." Dexter drew back from the river, and aiming carefully at where he could see Bob's dim figure, he measured the distance with his eye, and threw. _Slap_! "Got it!" cried Bob. And then, "Oh!" There was a splash. "Just kitched on the top o' my finger, and bounced off," whispered the boy excitedly. "O Bob, what have you done!" "Well, I couldn't help it. I ain't a howl.--How could I see in the dark!" "Can't you see where it fell in!" "Why, ain't I a-trying. Don't be in such a fuss." Dexter felt as if their expedition was at an end, and he stood listening with a breast full of despair as Bob lay down at the edge of the river, and rolling up his sleeve began feeling about in the shallow water. "It's no good," he said. "It's gone." "O Bob!" "Well, what's the good of `O Bobbing' a fellow? I couldn't help it. It's gone, and--Here: I got it!" Bob rose up and gave his arm a whirl to drive off some of the moisture. "It's all right," he said. "I'll wrap it in my hankychy, and it'll soon dry in my pocket, I say, what's inside?" "Something for Sir James." "Oh! S'pose you don't know!" "Is the paper undone?" said Dexter anxiously. "No, it's all right, I tell yer, and it'll soon get dry." "And you'll be sure and take it to Sir James's." "Now?" "No, no, last thing to-night, just before you come, and don't ring, only drop the thing in the letter-box." "All right. Didn't I get my arm wet! There, I'm going home to get it dry, and put the rest of my things ready. Mind you bring yours all right." Dexter did not answer, but his companion's words made him feel very low-spirited, for he had a good deal in his mind, and he stood listening to Bob, as that young worthy went off, whistling softly, to make his final preparations for the journey down the river to sea, and then to foreign lands, and the attempt seemed now to begin growing very rapidly, till it was like a dense dark cloud rising higher and higher, and something seemed to keep asking the boy whether he was doing right. He felt that he was not, but, at the same time, the idea that he was thoroughly misunderstood, and that he would never be happy at the doctor's, came back as strongly as ever. "They all look upon me as a workhouse boy," he muttered, "and Bob's right. I'd better go away." CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT. PREPARATIONS FOR FLIGHT. Dexter listened till Bob Dimsted's whistle died away, and then stole from the place of appointment to go back to the house, where he struck off to the left, and made his way into the loft, where he took a small piece of candle from his pocket, lit it, and set it in an old ginger-beer bottle. The light roused the various occupants of the boxes and cages. That and the step were suggestive of food, and sundry squeakings and scratchings arose, with, from time to time, a loud rap on the floor given by one of the rabbits. There was a lonely desolate feeling in Dexter's breast as he set the rat at liberty, for the furtive-looking creature to hurry beneath the boards which formed the rough floor. Then the mice were taken out of their box, and the first movement of the little creatures was to run all over their master, but he hurriedly took them off him, feeling more miserable than ever, and ready to repent of the step he was about to take. The rabbits were carried downstairs, and turned out into the yard, Dexter having a belief that as they had once grown tame perhaps, many generations back, they might now as easily grow wild, and if in the process they made very free with old Dan'l's vegetables, until they escaped elsewhere, it would not be very serious. As it was, they crept here and there over the stones for a few moments, and then went off investigating, and evidently puzzled by their freedom. The hedgehog and squirrel were brought down together, and carried right into the garden, where the former was placed upon one of the flower-beds, and disappeared at once; the latter held up to a branch of the ornamental spruce, into which it ran, and then there was a scuffling noise, and Dexter ran away back to the stable, afraid to stop, lest the little ragged jacketed animal should leap back upon him, and make him more weak than he was. He climbed again to the loft, hearing a series of tiny squeaks as he mounted--squeaks emanating from his mice, and directly after he nearly crushed the rat, by stepping upon it as the little animal ran up to be fed. He had come for the toad and snake, and hurriedly plunging his hand into the big pot he found Sam the toad, seated right at the top, evidently eager to start on a nocturnal ramble, but the snake was coiled up asleep. It was a curious pet, that toad, but somehow, as it sat nestled up all of a squat in the boy's warm hand, he felt as if he should like to take it with him. It was not big, and would take up little room, and cost nothing to feed. Why not? He hesitated as he descended and crossed the yard to the garden, and decided that he would not. Bob Dimsted might not like it. He reached the garden, and crossed the lawn to the sunny verbena bed. That seemed a suitable place for the snake, and he tenderly placed it, writhing feebly, among the thin pegged-down strands. Then came the other reptile's turn. They had been friends and even companions together in the big flower-pot, Dexter argued, so they should have the chance of being friends again in the flower-bed. The toad was in his left hand, and going down on one knee he separated the verbenas a little, and then placed his hand, knuckles downward, on the soft moist earth, opening his fingers slowly the while. "Good-bye, Sam," he said, in a low voice. "You and I have had some good fun together, old chap, and I hope you will be very happy when I'm gone." He slowly spread his hand flat, so that his fingers and thumb ceased to form so many posts and rails about the reptile, or a fleshly cage. In imagination he saw the dusky grey creature crawl off his hand gladly into the dewy bed, and it made him more sad to find how ready everything was to be free, and he never for a moment thought about how he was going to play as ungrateful a part, and march off too. "Good-bye, Sam," he said, as he recalled how he had played with and tickled that toad, and how it had enjoyed it all, and turned over to be rubbed. Then he seemed to see it walk in its heavy, cumbrous way slowly off, with its bright golden eyes glistening, till it sat down in a hollow, and watched him go. But it was all fancy. The toad did not crawl out of his hand among the verbenas, nor go right away, but sat perfectly motionless where it was, evidently, from its acting, perfectly warm, comfortable, and contented. "Well, Sam, why don't you go!" said Dexter softly. "Do you hear?" He gave his hand a jar by striking the back on the earth, but the toad did not move, and when he touched it with his right hand, it was to find the fat squat reptile squeezed up together like a bun. He stroked it, and rubbed it, as he had rubbed it scores of times before, and the creature once more pressed up against his fingers, while Dexter forgot everything else in the gratification of finding his ugly pet appreciate his attentions. "Now then! off you go!" he cried quickly; but the creature did not stir. "Are you going?" said Dexter. "Come: march." Again it did not stir. "He don't want to go," cried the boy, changing it from, one hand to the other; and the next moment he was holding it, nose downward, over his jacket-pocket, when the toad, pretty actively for one of its kind, began to work its legs and dived slowly down beneath the pocket-handkerchief crumpled-up there, and settled itself at the bottom. "It seems to know," cried Dexter. "And it shall go with me after all." Curious boy! some one may say, but Dexter had had few opportunities for turning his affections in ordinary directions, and hence it was that they were lavished upon a toad. Indoors, when he stole back after setting all his pets at liberty to shift for themselves, Dexter felt very guilty. He encountered Mrs Millett in the hall, and a thrill ran through him as she exclaimed-- "Ah, there you are, Master Dexter, I just want a few words with you." "Found out!" thought the guilty conscience, which needs no accuser. "Now just you look here, sir," said the old housekeeper, in a loud voice, as she literally button-holed the boy, by hooking one thin finger in his jacket, so that he could not get away, "I know all." "You--you know everything," faltered the boy. "Yes, sir. Ah, you may well look 'mure. You little thought I knew." "How--how did you find out?" he stammered. "Ah! how did I find out, indeed! Now, look here, am I to go straight to the doctor and tell him!" "No, no, pray don't," whispered Dexter, catching her arm. "Well, then, I must tell Miss Helen." "No, no, not this time," cried Dexter imploringly; and his tone softened the old lady, who shook the borders of her cap at him. "Well, I don't know what to say," said Mrs Millett softly. "They certainly ought to know." Dexter gazed at her wildly. He knew that everything must come out, but it was to have been in a few hours' time, when he was far away, and deaf to the angry words and reproaches. To hear them now seemed more than he could bear. It could not be. Bob Dimsted must think and say what he liked, and be as angry and unforgiving as was possible. It could not be now. He must plead to the old housekeeper for pardon, and give up all idea of going away. "Ah!" she said. "I see you are sorry for it, then." "Yes, yes," he whispered. "So sorry, and--and--" "You'll take it this time, like a good boy!" "Take it?" "Yes, sir. Ah! you can't deceive me. Last time I saw the empty glass I knew as well as could be that you hadn't taken it, for the outside of the glass wasn't sticky, and there were no marks of your mouth at the edge. I always put plenty of sugar in it for you, and that showed." "The camomile-tea!" thought Dexter, a dose of which the old lady expected him to take about once a week, and which never did him any harm, if it never did him any good. "And you'll take it to-night, sir, like a good boy!" "Yes, yes, I will indeed," said Dexter, with the full intention of keeping his word out of gratitude for his escape. "Now, that's like being a good boy," said the old lady, smiling, and extricating her fingers from his button-hole, so as to stroke his hair. "It will do you no end of good; and how you have improved since you have been here, my dear, your hair's grown so nicely, and you've got such a good pink colour in your cheeks. It's the camomile-tea done that." Mrs Millett leaned forward with her hands on the boy's shoulder, and kissed him in so motherly a way that Dexter felt a catching of the breath, and kissed her again. "That's right," said the old lady. "You ain't half so bad as Maria pretends you are. `It's only a bit of mischief now and then,' I says to her, `and he's only a boy,' and that's what you are, ain't it, my dear?" Dexter did not answer. "I shall put your dose on your washstand, and you mind and take it the moment you get out of bed to-morrow morning." "Yes," said Dexter dismally. "No! you'll forget it. You've got to take that camomile-tea to-night, and if you don't promise me you will, I shall come and see you take it." "I promise you," said Dexter, and the old lady nodded and went upstairs, while the boy hung about in the hall. How was it that just now, when he was going away, people were beginning to seem more kind to him, and something began to drag at his heart to keep him from going? He could not tell. An hour before he had felt a wild kind of elation. He was going to be free from lessons, the doctor's admonitions, and the tame regular life at the house, to be off in search of adventure, and with Bob for his companion, going all over the world in that boat, while now, in spite of all he could do, he did not feel so satisfied and sure. There was something else he knew that he ought to do. He could not bid Helen good-bye with his lips, but he felt that he must bid her farewell another way, for she had always been kind to him from the day he came. He crept into the study again, this time without being seen. There was a faint light in the pleasant room, for the doctor's lamp had been turned down, but not quite out. A touch sent the flame brightly round the ring, and the shade cast a warm glow on the boy's busy fingers as he took out paper and envelope; and then, with trembling hand, sore heart, and a pen that spluttered, he indited another letter, this time to Helen. My dear Miss Grayson, I am afraid you will think me a very ungrateful boy, but I am obliged to go away to seek my fortune all over the world. You have been so kind to me, and so has Doctor Grayson sometimes, but everybody else has hated me, and made game of me because I was a workhouse boy, and I could not bear it any longer, and Bob Dimsted said he wouldn't if he was me, and we are going away together not to come back again any more.--I am, Your Affec Friend. Dexter Grayson. _PS_--I mean Obed Coleby, for I ought not to call myself Dexter any more, and I would have scratched it out, only you always said it was better not to scratch out mistakes because they made the paper look so untidy. I like you very much, and Mrs Millett too, but I can't take her fiz-- physick to-night. Is physick spelt with a k? There was a tear--a weak tear in each of Dexter's eyes as he wrote this letter, for it brought up many a pleasant recollection of kindnesses on Helen's part. He had just finished, folded and directed this, when he fancied he heard a door open across the hall. Thrusting the note into his pocket so hastily that one corner went into the toad, he caught up a piece of the doctor's foolscap, and began rapidly to make a triangle upon it, at whose sides and points he placed letters, and then, feeling like the miserable impostor he was, he rapidly let his pen trace a confused line of _A's_ and _B's_ and _C's_, and these backwards and forwards. This went on for some minutes, so that there was a fair show upon the paper, when the door softly opened, Helen peered in, and then coming behind him bent down, and, in a very gentle and sisterly way, placed her hands over his eyes. "Why, my poor hard-working boy," she said gently. "So this is where you are; and, oh dear, oh dear! Euclid again. That Mr Limpney will wear your brains all away. There, come along, I am going to play to papa, and then you and I will have a game at draughts." Dexter rose with his heart beating, and that strange sensation of something tugging at his conscience. Why were they all so kind to him to-night, just when he was going away? "Why, you look quite worn out and dazed, Dexter," said Helen merrily. "There, come along." "Eh? Where was he? In mischief?" said the doctor sharply, as they entered the drawing-room. "Mischief? No, papa: for shame!" cried Helen, with her arm resting on the boy's shoulders. "In your study, working away at those terrible sides and angles invented by that dreadful old Greek Euclid." "Work, eh? Ha! that's good!" cried the doctor jovially. "Bravo, Dexter! I am glad." If ever a boy felt utterly ashamed of himself, Dexter did then. He could not meet the doctor's eye, but was on his way to get a book to turn over, so as to have something to look at, but this was not to be. "No, no, you have had enough of books for one day, Dexter. Come and turn over the music for me. Why! what's that?" "That?" said Dexter slowly, for he did not comprehend. "Yes, I felt it move. You have something alive in your pocket." He felt prompted to lie, but he could not tell a falsehood then, and he stood with his teeth set. "Whatever have you got alive in your pocket?" said the doctor. "I know. A young rabbit, for a guinea." "Is it?" cried Helen. "Let me look: they are such pretty little things." "Yes, out with it, boy, and don't pet those things too much. Kill them with kindness, you know. Here, let me take it out." "No, no!" cried Dexter hastily. "Well, take it out yourself." A spasm of dread had run through the boy, as in imagination he saw the doctor's hand taking out the letter in his pocket. "It isn't a young rabbit," he faltered. "Well, what is it, then? Come, out with it." Dexter hesitated for a few moments, and now met the doctor's eye. He could not help himself, but slowly took out his pocket-handkerchief, as he held the note firmly with his left hand outside the jacket. Then, diving in again, he got well hold of Sam, who was snug at the bottom, and, with burning cheeks, and in full expectation of a scolding, drew the toad slowly forth. "Ugh!" ejaculated Helen. The doctor, who was in a most amiable temper, burst into a roar of laughter. "Well, you are a strange boy, Dexter," he said, as he wiped his eyes. "You ought to be a naturalist by and by. There, open the window, and put the poor thing outside. You can find plenty another time." Dexter obeyed, glad to be out of his quandary, and this time, as he put Sam down, the reptile crawled slowly away into the soft dark night. He closed the window, and went back to find the doctor and Helen all smiles, and ready to joke instead of scold. Then he went to the piano, and turned over the music, the airs and songs making him feel more and more sad, and again and again he found himself saying-- "Why are they so kind to me now, just as I am going away?" "Shall I stop!" he said to himself, after a time. "No: I promised Bob I would come, and so I will." CHAPTER TWENTY NINE. AN ACT OF FOLLY. Bedtime at last, and as Dexter bade the doctor and his daughter "good-night," it seemed to him that they had never spoken so kindly to him, and the place had never appeared to be so pleasant and homelike before. His heart sank as he went up to his room, and he felt as if he could not go away. The lessons Mr Limpney had given him to write out were not done; but he had better stop and face him, and every other trouble, including the window he had broken, and never owned to yet. It was impossible to go away and leave everybody who was so kind. A harsh word would have kept him to the point; but now he wavered as he sat down on the edge of his bed, with his mind in a whirl. Then, as he sat there, he pictured in his own mind the figure of Bob Dimsted, waiting for him, laden with articles of outfit necessary for their voyage, and behind Bob loomed up bright sunny scenes by sea and land; and with his imagination once more excited by all that the boy had suggested, Dexter blinded himself to everything but the object he had in view. He had planned in his own mind what he would take with him, but now it had come to the point he felt a strange compunction. Everything he possessed seemed to him as if it belonged to the doctor, and, finally, he resolved to take nothing with him but the clothes in which he stood. He began walking about the room in a listless way, looking about at the various familiar objects that he was to see no more, and one of the first things to strike him was a teacup on the washstand, containing Mrs Millett's infusion, bitter, nauseous, and sweetened to sickliness; and it struck Dexter that the mixture had been placed in a cup instead of a glass, so as to make it less objectionable in appearance. He could not help smiling as he took up the cup and smelt it, seeing at the same time the old dame's pleasant earnest face--a face that suddenly seemed to have become very loving, now he was to see it no more. He set down the cup, and shook his head, and then, as if nerving himself for the task, he went to the drawers, took out a key from his pocket, and then, from the place where it lay, hidden beneath his clean linen, brought forth the old clothes-line twisted and knotted together--the line which had done duty in the loft as a swing. He listened as he crossed to the door, but all was still downstairs, and it was not likely that any one would come near his room that night; but still he moved about cautiously, and taking the line with his hands, about two feet apart, snapped it again and again with all his might, to try if it was likely to give way now beneath his weight. It seemed firm as ever, but he could not help a shiver as he laid it by the window, and thought of a boy being found in the shrubbery beneath, with a broken leg, or, worse still, neck. Then as he waited for the time to glide by, so that all might be in bed before he made his escape, a sudden chill ran through him. He had remembered everything, as he thought; and yet there was one thing, perhaps the simplest of all, forgotten. He was going to take no bundle, no money, nothing which the doctor had in his kindness provided for him; but he could not go without a cap, and that was hanging in the hall, close to the drawing-room door. The question arose whether he should venture down to get it now, or after the doctor had gone to bed. It took him some time to make up his mind; but when he had come to a decision he opened his door softly, listened, and stole out on to the landing. All was very still as he looked over the balustrade to where the lamp shed its yellow rays all round, and to his mind more strangely upon the object he wanted to obtain than elsewhere. It was a very simple thing to do, and yet it required a great deal of nerve, for if the drawing-room door were opened just as he reached the hat-stand, and the doctor came out, what should he say? Then there was the risk of being heard, for there were, he knew, two of the old oaken stairs which always gave a loud crack when any one passed down, and if they cracked now, some one would be sure to come out to see what it meant. Taking a long catching breath he went quickly to the top of the stairs, and was about to descend in a desperate determination to go through with his task, when an idea struck him, and bending over the balustrade he spread his hands, balanced himself carefully, and then slid down the mahogany rail, round curve after curve as silently as could be, and reaching the curl at the bottom dropped upon the mat. Only five or six yards now to the hat-stand, and going on tiptoe past the entrance to the drawing-room, he was in the act of taking down the cap, when the handle rattled, the door was thrown open, and the hall grew more light. In his desperation Dexter snatched down the cap, and stood there trying to think of what he should say in answer to the question that would be asked in a moment-- "What are you doing there!" It was Helen, chamber-candlestick in hand, and she was in the act of stepping out, when her step was arrested by words which seemed to pierce into the listener's brain:-- "Oh, about Dexter!" "Yes, papa," said Helen, turning. "What do you think about--" Dexter heard no more. Taking advantage of Helen's back being turned as she bent over towards the speaker, the boy stepped quickly to the staircase, ran up, and had reached the first landing before Helen came out into the hall, while before she had closed the door he was up another flight, and gliding softly toward his own room, where he stood panting as he closed the door, just as if he had been running a distance which had taken away his breath. It was a narrow escape, and he was safe; but his ears tingled still, and he longed to know what the doctor had said about him. As he stood listening, cap in hand, he heard Helen pass his door singing softly one of the ballads he had heard that evening; and once more a curious dull sensation of misery came over him, as he seemed to feel that he would never hear her sing again, never feel the touch of her soft caressing hand; and somehow there was a vague confused sense of longing to go to one who had treated him with an affectionate interest he had never known before, even now hardly understood, but it seemed to him such gentleness and love as might have come from a mother. For a moment or two he felt that he must open the door, call to her, throw himself upon his knees before her, and confess everything, but at that moment the laughing, mocking face of Bob Dimsted seemed to rise between them, and his words buzzed in his ear--words that he had often said when listening to some account of Dexter's troubles-- "Bother the old lessons, and all on 'em! I wouldn't stand it if I was you. They've no right to order you about, and scold you as they do." The weak moments passed, and just then there was the doctor's cough heard, and the closing of his door, while directly after came the chiming of the church clock--a quarter past eleven. Half an hour to wait and think, and then good-bye to all his troubles, and the beginning of a new life of freedom! All the freedom and the future seemed to be behind a black cloud; but in the fond belief that all would soon grow clear Dexter waited. Half-past eleven, and he wondered that he did not feel sleepy. It was time to begin though now, and he took the line and laid it out in a serpentine fashion upon the carpet, so that there should be no kinks in the way; and then the next thing was to fasten one end tightly so that he could safely slide down. He had well thought out his plans, and, taking one end of the line, he knotted it securely to the most substantial place he could find in the room, passing it behind two of the bars of the grate. Then cautiously opening his window, a little bit at a time, he thrust it higher and higher, every faint creak sending a chill through him, while, when he looked out upon the dark starlight night, it seemed as if he would have to descend into a black gulf, where something blacker was waiting to seize him. But he knew that the black things below were only great shrubs, and lowering the rope softly down he at last had the satisfaction of hearing it rustle among the leaves. Then he waited, and after a glance round to see that everything was straight, and the letter laid ready upon the table, he put out the candle. "For the last time!" he said to himself, and a great sigh came unbidden from his breast. A quarter to twelve. Dexter waited till the last stroke on the bell was thrilling in the air before setting his cap on tightly, and passing one leg over the sill. He sat astride for a few moments, hesitating for the last time, and then passed the other leg, and lowered himself down till he hung by his hands, then twisted his legs about the rope, seized it with first one hand then the other, and hung by it with his whole weight, in the precarious position of one trusting to an old doubled clothes-line, suspended from a second-floor window. It was hard work that descent, for he could not slide on account of the knots; and, to make his position more awkward, the rope began to untwist--one line from the other,--and, in consequence, as the boy descended slowly, he bore no small resemblance to a leg of mutton turning before a fire. That was the only mishap which occurred to him then, for after resting for a few moments upon the first-floor sill he continued his journey, and reached the bottom in the midst of a great laurel, which rustled loudly as he tried to get out, and then tripped over a horizontal branch, and fell flat. He was up again in an instant, and, trembling and panting, made a couple of bounds which took him over the gravel walk and on to the lawn, where he stood panting and listening. There was a light in the doctor's room, and one in Helen's; and just then the doctor's shadow, looking horribly threatening, was thrown upon the blind. He must be coming, Dexter thought, and, turning quickly, he sped down the lawn, avoiding the flower-beds by instinct, and the next minute had reached the kitchen-garden, down whose winding green walk he rapidly made his way. CHAPTER THIRTY. DARK DEEDS. It was very dark among the trees as Dexter reached the grass plot which sloped to the willows by the river-side, but he knew his way so well that he crept along in silence till he had one hand resting upon the trunk he had so often climbed, and stood there gazing across the starlit water, trying to make out the figure of his companion in the boat. All was silent, save that, now and then, the water as it ran among the tree-roots made a peculiar whispering sound, and once or twice there was a faint plash in the distance, as if from the feeding of a fish. "Hist! Bob! Are you there!" "Hullo!" came from the other side. "I was just a-going." "Going?" "Yes. I thought you wasn't a-coming, and I wasn't going to stop here all night." "But you said twelve." "Well, it struck twelve an hour ago." "No; that was eleven. There--hark!" As proof of Dexter's assertion the church clock just then began to chime, and the heavy boom of the tenor bell proclaiming midnight seemed to make the soft night air throb. "Thought it was twelve long enough ago. Ready!" "Yes," said Dexter, in an excited whisper. "Got the boat?" "No: course I haven't. It'll take two to get that boat." "But you said you would have it ready." "Yes, I know; but we must both of us do that. I waited till you come." This was a shock; and Dexter said, in a disappointed tone-- "But how am I to get to you!" "Come across," said Bob coolly. "Come across--in the dark!" "Why, of course. You ain't afraid, are you? Well, you are a chap!" "But it's too deep to wade." "Well, who said it wasn't!" growled the boy. "You can swim, can't you?" "But I shall get so wet." "Yah!" ejaculated Bob in tones of disgust. "You are a fellow. Take your clothes off, make 'em in a bundle, and swim over." Dexter was half-disposed to say, "You swim across to me," but nothing would have been gained if he had, so, after a few minutes' hesitation, and in genuine dread, he obeyed the wishes of his companion, but only to pause when he was half-undressed. "I say, though," he whispered, "can't you get the boat? It's so cold and dark." "Well, you are a fellow!" cried Bob. "Beginning to grumble afore we start. It's no use to have a mate who's afraid of a drop of water, and don't like to get wet." "But--" "There, never mind," grumbled Bob; "we won't go." "But I didn't say I wouldn't come, Bob," whispered Dexter desperately. "I'll come." There was no answer. "Bob." Still silence. "I say, don't go, Bob. I'm very sorry. I'm undressing as fast as I can. You haven't gone, have you?" Still silence, and Dexter ceased undressing, and stood there in the cold night air, feeling as desolate, despairing, and forlorn as boy could be. "What shall I do?" he said to himself; and then, in a despondent whisper, "Bob!" "Hullo!" "Why, you haven't gone!" joyfully. "No; but I'm going directly. It's no use for me to have a mate who hasn't got any pluck. Now then, are you coming, or are you not!" "I'm coming," said Dexter. "But stop a moment. I'll be back directly." "Whatcher going to do!" "Wait a moment and I'll show you." Dexter had had a happy thought, and turning and running in his trousers to the tool-shed, he dragged out a small deal box in which seeds had come down from London that spring. It was a well-made tight box, and quite light, and with this he ran back. "Why, what are you doing?" grumbled Bob, as soon as he heard his companion's voice. "Been getting something to put my clothes in," whispered Dexter. "I don't want to get them wet." "Oh," said Bob, in a most unconcerned way; and he began to whistle softly, as Dexter finished undressing, tucked all his clothes tightly in the box, and bore it down to the water's edge, where it floated like a little boat. "There!" cried Dexter excitedly. "Now they'll be all dry when I've got across. Ugh! how cold the water is," he continued, as he dipped one foot. "I wish I'd brought a towel." "Yah! what does a fellow want with a towel? You soon gets dry if you run about. Going to walk across!" "I can't," said Dexter; "it's too deep." "Well, then, swim. I could swim that with one hand tied behind." "I couldn't," said Dexter, hesitating, for it was no pleasant task to plunge into the little gliding river at midnight, and with all dark around. "Now then! Look alive! Don't make a splash." "Oh!" "What's the matter?" "It is cold." "Yah! Then, get back to bed with you, and let me go alone." "I'm coming as fast as I can," said Dexter, as he lowered himself into the stream, and then rapidly climbed out again, as the cold water caused a sudden catching of the breath; and a nervous shrinking from trusting himself in the dark river made him draw right away from the edge. "Why, you ain't swimming," said Bob. "Here, look sharp! Why, you ain't in!" "N-no, not yet," said Dexter, shivering. "There's a coward!" sneered Bob. "I'm not a coward, but it seems so dark and horrible to-night, and as if something might lay hold of you." "Yes, you are a regular coward," sneered Bob. "There, jump in, or I'll shy stones at yer till you do." Dexter did not speak, but tumbled all of a heap on the short turf, shrinking more and more from his task. "I shall have to go without you," said Bob. "I can't help it," said Dexter, in a low, tremulous whisper. "It's too horrid to get in there and swim across in the dark." "No, it ain't. I'd do it in a minute. There, jump in." "No," said Dexter sadly. "I must give it up." "What, yer won't do it!" "I can't," said Dexter sadly. "We must try some other way. I'm going to dress again. Oh!" "What's the matter now!" "My clothes!" _Splash_! _Rush_! Dexter had rapidly lowered himself into the black deep stream and was swimming hard and fast, for as he rose and sought for his garments he suddenly recalled the fact that he had turned the box into a tiny barge, laden it with his clothes, and placed them in the river, while now, as he went to take them out, he found that the stream had borne the box away, and it was going down toward the sea. "Try if you can see them, Bob," said Dexter, as he panted and struggled on through the water. "See what?" "My clothes. They're floating down the river." Bob uttered a low chuckling laugh, and trotted along by the edge of the river; but it was too dark for him to see anything, and Dexter, forgetting cold and dread, swam bravely on, looking well to right and left, without avail, till all at once, just in one of the deepest eddies, some fifty yards down below the doctor's house, and where an unusually large willow spread its arms over the stream, he caught sight of something which blotted out the starlight for a moment, and then the stars' reflection beamed out again. Something was evidently floating there, and he made for it, to find to his great joy that it was the floating box, which he pushed before him as he swam, and a couple of minutes later he was near enough to the edge on the meadow-side to ask Bob's help. "Ain't got 'em, have you?" the latter whispered. "Yes; all right. I'll come out there. Give me a hand." Dexter swam to the muddy overhanging bank, and seized the hand which Bob extended toward him. "Now then, shall I duck yer!" said Bob, who had lain down on the wet grass to extend his hand to the swimmer. "No, no, Bob, don't. That would be cowardly," cried Dexter. "Help me to get out my clothes without letting in the wet. It is so cold." "But you swam over," said Bob sneeringly. "Yes; but you don't know how chilly it makes you feel. Mind the clothes." Bob did mind, and the next minute Dexter and the barge of dry clothes were upon the grass together. "Oh, isn't it cold?" said Dexter, with his teeth chattering. "Cold? no. Not a bit," said Bob. "Here, whatcher going to do!" "Do? Dress myself. Here, give me my shirt. Oh, don't I wish I had a towel!" "You leave them things alone, stoopid. You can't dress yet." "Not dress!" "No," cried Bob loudly. "What do you mean!" "You come along and I'll show yer. Why, we haven't got the boat." "No, but--" "Well, you're all ready, and you've got to swim across and get it." "I've got to get it!" cried Dexter in dismay. "Why, you said you would get the boat." "Yes, but I didn't know then that you were going to swim across." "But you said it would take two to get it," protested Dexter. "Yes, I thought so then, but you're all ready and can swim across, and get it directly. Here, come along!" "But--but," stammered Dexter, who was shivering in the chill night air. "What, you're cold? Well, come along. I'll carry the box. Let's run. It'll warm yer." Dexter was ready with another protest, but he did not utter it. His companion seemed to carry him along with the force of his will, but all the same there was a troublous feeling forcing itself upon him that he had made a mistake, and he could not help a longing for his room at the doctor's with its warm bed, comfort, safety, and repose. But he knew it was too late, and he was too much hurried and confused to do more than try to keep up with Bob Dimsted as he ran by his side carrying the box till they had reached the meadow facing Sir James Danby's garden; and there, just dimly seen across the river, was the low gable-end of the boat-house beneath the trees. "Hush! don't make a row," whispered Bob. "Now then, slip in and fetch it. Why, you could almost jump it." "But, Bob--I--I don't like to go. I'm so cold." "I'll precious soon warm yer if you don't look sharp," cried Bob fiercely. "Don't you try to make a fool of me. Now then, in with you!" He had put the box down and gripped Dexter fiercely by the arm, causing him so much pain that instead of alarming it roused the boy's flagging spirit, and he turned fiercely upon his assailant, and wrested his arm free. "That's right," said Bob. "In with you. And be sharp, and then you can dress yerself as we float down." Dexter's instinct was to resist and give up, but he felt that he had gone too far, and feeling that his companion might consider him a coward if he refused to go, he lowered himself down into the water. "That's yer sort," said Bob, in a loud whisper. "You'll soon do it." "But suppose the chains are locked!" "They won't be locked," said Bob. "You go acrost and see." In the eager desire to get an unpleasant task done, Dexter let himself glide down into the swift stream about a dozen yards above the boat-house, and giving himself a good thrust off with his feet, he swam steadily and easily across, the river there being about thirty yards wide, and in a very short time he managed to touch the post at the outer corner of the long low boat-house. Then, hardly knowing how he managed it, he found bottom as his hand grasped the gunwale of the boat, and walking along beside it he soon reached the chain which moored it to the end. Here in his excitement and dread it seemed as if his mission was to fail. It was dark enough outside, but in the boat-house everything seemed to be of pitchy blackness, and try how he would he could find no way of unfastening the chain. He tried toward the boat, then downwards, then upwards, and in the boat again, and again. His teeth were chattering, his chest and shoulders felt as if they were freezing, and his hands, as they fumbled with the wet chain, began to grow numbed, while, to add to his excitement and confusion, Bob kept on from time to time sending across the river a quick hissing-- "I say; look sharp." Then he heard a sound, and he splashed through the water in retreat toward the river, for it seemed that they were discovered, and some one coming down the garden. But the sound was repeated, and he realised the fact that it was only the side of the boat striking against a post. "I say, are you a-coming?" whispered Bob. "I can't undo the chain," Dexter whispered back. "Yer don't half try." Just then the clock chimed half-past twelve, and Dexter stopped involuntarily; but a fresh summons from his companion roused him to further action, and he passed once more along to the prow of the boat, and seizing the chain felt along it till this time he felt a hook, and, wondering how it was that he had missed it before, he began with trembling fingers to try and get it out from the link through which it was thrust. It was in very tightly, though, for the point being wedge-shaped the swaying about and jerking to and fro of the boat had driven it further and further in, so that it was not until he had been ready over and over again to give up in despair that the boy got the iron free. Then panting with dread and excitement he found the rest easy; the chain was passed through a ring-bolt in one of the posts at the head of the boat-house, and through this he drew it back slowly and cautiously on account of the rattling it made. It seemed of interminable length as he drew and drew, piling up the chain in the bows of the boat till he thought he must have obtained all, when there was a sudden check, and it would come no further. Simple enough in broad daylight, and to a person in the boat, but Dexter was standing waist deep in the water, and once more he felt that the case was hopeless. Another call from Bob roused him, and he followed the chain with his hand till he had waded to the post, and found that the hook had merely caught in the ring, and only needed lifting out, and the boat was at liberty. But just at this moment there was a furious barking, and a dog seemed to be tearing down the garden toward the boat-house. In an agony of horror Dexter climbed into the boat, and feeling the side of the long shed he thrust and thrust with so much effect that he sent the light gig well out into the stream and half-across the river. Then seizing an oar, as the dog was now down on the bank, snapping and barking more furiously than ever, he got it over into the water, and after a great deal of paddling, and confused counter-action of his efforts, forced the boat onward and along, till it touched the shore where Bob was waiting with the box. "No, no, don't come out," he whispered. "Here, help me get these in." Dexter crept to the stern of the boat, and in his effort to embark the box nearly fell overboard, but the treasure was safe. Then Bob handed in a basket, and a bundle of sticks, evidently his rod, and leaping in directly after, gave the boat sufficient impetus to send it well out into the stream, down which it began to glide. "Ah, bark away, old un," said Bob contemptuously, as the sound of the dog's alarm notes grew more distant, and then more distant still, for they were going round a curve, and the garden side of the river was thick with trees. "Is that Danby's dog!" whispered Bob. "I don't know," said Dexter, with his teeth chattering from cold and excitement. "Why! you're a-cold," said Bob coolly. "Here, I'll send her along. You look sharp and dress. I say, where's your bundle of things?" "Do you mean my clothes?" "No! Your bundle." "I didn't bring anything," said Dexter, hurriedly slipping on his shirt. "Well, you are a chap!" said Bob sourly, but Dexter hardly heard him, for he was trying to get his wet body covered from the chill night air; and he could think of nothing but the fact that he had taken a very desperate step, and the boat was bearing them rapidly away from what seemed now to have been a very happy home--further out, further away from the doctor and from Helen, downward toward the sea, and over that there was a great black cloud, beyond which, according to Bob Dimsted, there were bright and glorious lands. At that moment, chill with the cold and damp, Dexter would have given anything to have been back in his old room, but it was too late, the boat was gliding on, and Bob had now got out the sculls. The town lights were receding, and they were going onward toward that dark cloud which Dexter seemed to see more dimly now, for there was a dumb depressing sensation of despair upon him, and he turned his eyes toward the river-bank, asking himself if he could leap ashore. CHAPTER THIRTY ONE. TIMES OF DELIGHT! "Here we are!" said Bob Dimsted, as he sat handling the sculls very fairly, and, as the stream was with them, sending the boat easily along. "I think we managed that first-rate." Dexter made no reply, for he had his teeth fast set, and his lips pressed together to keep the former from chattering, but he thought a great deal, and found himself wondering what Bob had done toward getting the boat. With the covering up of his goose-skinned body, and the return of some of his surface heat, the terrible fit of despondency began to pass away, and Dexter felt less ready to sit down in helpless misery at the bottom of the boat. "Getting nice and warm, ain'tcher?" "Not very, yet." "Ah, you soon will be, and if you ain't you shall take one of these here oars. That'll soon put you right. But what a while you was!" "I--I couldn't help it," shivered Dexter, drawing in his breath with a quick hissing sound; "the chain was so hard to undo." "Ah, well, never mind now," said Bob, "only, if we'd got to do it again I should go myself." Dexter made no protest, but he thought it sounded rather ungrateful. He was too busy, though, with buttons, and getting his fingers to work in their regular way, to pay much heed, and he went on dressing. "I say, what a jolly long while you are!" continued Bob. "Oh, and look here! I'd forgot again: why didn't you bring your bundle with all your clothes and things, eh!" "Because they weren't mine." "Well, you are a chap! Not yourn? Why, they were made for you, and you wore 'em. They can't be anybody else's. I never see such a fellow as you are! I brought all mine." It was an easy task, judging from the size of the bundle dimly seen in the bottom of the boat, but Dexter said nothing. "How much money have you got?" said Bob, after a pause. "None at all." "What?" There was utter astonishment in Bob Dimsted's tones as he sat motionless, with the sculls balanced on the rowlocks, staring wildly through the gloom, as Dexter now sat down and fought hard with an obstinate stocking, which refused to go on over a wet foot--a way stockings have at such times. "Did you say you hadn't got any money?" cried Bob. "Yes. I sent it all in a letter to pay for the boat in case we kept it." "What, for this boat?" cried Bob. "Yes." "And you call yourself a mate?" cried Bob, letting the scull blades drop in the water with a splash, and pulling hard for a few strokes. "Well!" "I felt obliged to," said Dexter, whose perseverance was rewarded by a complete victory over the first stocking, when the second yielded it with a better grace, and he soon had on his shoes, and then began to dry his ears by thrusting his handkerchief-covered finger in the various windings of each gristly maze. "Felt obliged to?" "Yes, of course. We couldn't steal the boat." "Yah, steal it! Who ever said a word about stealing? We've only borrowed it, and if we don't send it back, old Danby's got lots of money, and he can buy another. But, got no money! Well!" "But we don't want money, do we!" said Dexter, whom the excitement as well as his clothes now began to make comparatively warm. "I thought we were going where we could soon make our fortunes." "Yes, of course we are, stoopid; but you can't make fortunes without money. You can't ketch fish if yer ain't got no bait." This was a philosophical view of matters which took Dexter aback, and he faltered rather as he spoke next, this time with his ears dry, his hair not so very wet, and his jacket buttoned up to his chin. "I'm very sorry, Bob," he said gently. "Sorry! Being sorry won't butter no parsneps," growled Bob. "No," said Dexter mildly, "but we haven't got any parsneps to butter." "No, nor ain't likely to have," growled Bob, and then returning to a favourite form of expression: "And you call yourself a mate! Here, come and kitch holt of this scull." Dexter sat down on the thwart, and took the scull after Bob had contrived to give him a spiteful blow on the back with it before he extricated it from its rowlock. Dexter winced slightly, but he bore the pain without a word, and began rowing as well as a boy does row who handles a scull for the first time in his life. And there he sat, gazing to right and left at the dark banks of the river, and the stars above and reflected below, as they went slowly on along the bends and reaches of the little river, everything looking strangely distorted and threatening to the boy's unaccustomed eyes. The exercise soon began to bring a general feeling of warmth to his chilled frame, and as the inward helplessness passed away it began to give place to an acute sense of fear, and his eyes wandered here and there in search of Sir James Danby, the doctor, and others more terrible, who would charge them with stealing the boat in spite of his protests and the money he had left behind. And all the time to make his trip more pleasant he had to suffer from jarring blows upon the spine, given by the top of Bob's oar. In nearly every case this was intentional, and Bob chuckled to himself, as with the customary outburst of his class he began to abuse his companion. "Why don't yer mind and keep time!" he cried. "Who's to row if you go on like that? I never see such a stoopid." "All right, Bob, I'll mind," said Dexter, with all the humility of an ignorance which kept him from knowing that as he was rowing stroke Bob should have taken his time from him. The blows on the back had two good effects, however: they gratified Bob, who had the pleasure of tyrannising over and inflicting pain upon his comrade, while Dexter gained by the rapid increase of warmth, and was most likely saved from a chill and its accompanying fever. Still that night trip was not pleasant, for when Bob was not grumbling about the regularity of Dexter's stroke, he had fault to find as to his pulling too hard or not hard enough, and so sending the head of the boat toward the right or left bank of the stream. In addition, the young bully kept up a running fire of comment on his companion's shortcomings. "I never see such a mate," he said. "No money and no clothes. I say," he added at the end of one grumbling fit, "what made you want to run away!" "I don't know," said Dexter sadly. "I suppose it was because you persuaded me." "Oh, come, that's a good un," said Bob. "Why, it was you persuaded me! You were always wanting to go away, and you said we could take Danby's boat, and go right down to the sea." "No!" protested Dexter; "it was you said that." "Me!" cried Bob. "Oh, come, I like that, 'pon my word I do. It was you always begging of me to go, and to take you with me. Why, I shouldn't never have thought of such a thing if you hadn't begun it." Dexter was silent, and now getting thoroughly warm he toiled on with his oar, wondering whether Bob would be more amiable when the day came, and trying to think of something to say to divert his thoughts and make him cease his quarrelsome tone. "I never see such a mate," growled Bob again. "No money, no clothes! why, I shall have to keep yer, I s'pose." "How long will it take us to get down to the sea, Bob?" said Dexter at last. "I d'know. Week p'r'aps." "But we shall begin fishing before then, shan't we!" "Fishing! How are you going to fish without any rod and line? Expects me to find 'em for yer, I s'pose!" "No, but I thought you would catch the fish, and I could light a fire and cook them." "Oh, that's what yer thought, was it? Well, p'r'aps we shall, and p'r'aps we shan't." "Do you think they will come after us!" ventured Dexter, after a time. "Sure to, I should say; and if they do, and they kitches us, I shall say as it was you who stole the boat." "No, you won't," said Dexter, plucking up a little spirit now he was getting more himself. "You wouldn't be such a sneak." "If you call me a sneak, I'll chuck you out of the boat," cried Bob angrily. "I didn't call you a sneak, I only said you wouldn't be such a sneak," protested Dexter. "I know what you said: yer needn't tell me, and I won't have it, so now then. If you want to quarrel, you'd better get out and go back." "But I don't want to quarrel, Bob; I want to be the best of friends." "Then don't yer call me a sneak, because if you do it'll be the worse for you." "Oh, I say, Bob," protested Dexter, as he tugged away at his oar, "don't be so disagreeable." "And now he says I'm disagreeable!" cried Bob. "Well of all the chaps as ever I see you're about the nastiest. Look here, do you want to fight? because if you do, we'll just go ashore here and have it out." "I don't want to fight indeed, Bob." "Yes, you do; you keep egging of me on, and saying disagreeable things as would have made some chaps give you one for yourself ever so long ago. Lookye here, only one on us can be captain in this here boat, and it is going to be either me or you. I don't want to be, but I ain't going to be quite jumped upon, so we'll get ashore here, and soon see who it's going to be." As Bob Dimsted spoke in a low snarling way, he gave his scull so hard a pull that he sent the boat's head in toward the bank. "First you want one thing, and then you want another, and then you try to make out that it was me who stole the boat." "I only said it wasn't me." "There," cried Bob, "hark at that! Why, who was it then?" Didn't you take yer clothes off and swim over while I stood t'other side? Dexter did not answer, but went on rowing with a hot feeling of anger rising in his breast. "Oh, so now you're sulky, are you? Very well, my lad, we'll soon see to that. If you don't know who's best man, I'm going to show you. It's dark, but it's light enough for that, so come ashore and--" _Whish! rush! crash_! "Row! pull! pull!" whispered Bob excitedly, as there was a loud breaking of the low growth on the bank close by them, followed by the loud clap given by a swing-gate violently dashed to. Dexter pulled, but against the bank, for they were too close in for them to get a dip of the oar in the water; but what he did was not without some effect, and, as Bob backed, the boat's head gradually glided round, shot into the stream, and they went swiftly on again, pulling as hard as they could. "Did you see him!" whispered Bob at last. "No, did you?" "No, but I nearly did. He has been creeping along the bank for ever so long, and he nearly got hold of the boat." "Who was it?" whispered Dexter. "Pleeceman, but pull hard, and we shall get away from him yet." They both pulled a slow stroke for quite an hour, and by that time the horse that had been feeding upon the succulent weedy growth close to the water's edge had got over its fright, and was grazing peaceably once more. Bob was quiet after that. The sudden alarm had cut his string of words in two, and he was too much disturbed to take them up again to join. In fact he was afraid to speak lest he should be heard, and he kept his ill-temper--stirred up by the loss of a night's rest--to himself for the next hour, when suddenly throwing in his oar he said-- "Look here, I'm tired, and I shall lie down in the bottom here and have a nap. You keep a sharp look-out." "But I can't row two oars," said Dexter. "Well, nobody asked you to. You've got to sit there with the boat-hook, and push her off if ever she runs into the bushes. The stream'll take her down like it does a float." "How far are we away from the town!" "I d'know." "Well, how soon will it be morning!" "How should I know? I haven't got a watch, have I? If I'd had one I should have sold it so as to have some money to share with my mate." "Have you got any money, Bob?" "Course I have. Don't think I'm such a stoopid as you, do yer!" Dexter was silent, and in the darkness he laid in his oar after the fashion of his companion, and took up the boat-hook, while Bob lifted one of the cushions from the seat, placed it in the bottom of the boat, and then curled up, something after the fashion of a dog, and went off to sleep. Dexter sat watching him as he could dimly make out his shape, and then found that the stern of the boat had been caught in an eddy and swung round, so that he had some occupation for a few moments trying to alter her position in the water, which he did at last by hooking the trunk of an overhanging willow. This had the required effect, and the head swung round once more; but in obtaining this result Dexter found himself in this position--the willow refused to give up its hold of the boat-hook. He naturally, on his side, also refused, and, to make matters worse, the current here was quite a race, and the boat was going rapidly on. He was within an ace of having to leave the boat-hook behind, for he declined to try another bath--this time in his clothes. Just, however, at the crucial moment the bark of the willow gave way, the hook descended with a splash, and Dexter breathed more freely, and sat there with the boat-hook across his knees looking first to right and then to left in search of danger, but seeing nothing but the low-wooded banks of the stream, which was gradually growing wider as they travelled further from the town. It was a strange experience; and, comparatively happy now in the silence of the night, Dexter kept his lonely watch, thinking how much pleasanter it was for his companion to be asleep, but all the time suffering a peculiar sensation of loneliness, and gazing wonderingly at the strange, dark shapes which he approached. Men, huge beasts, strange monsters, they seemed sometimes right in front, rising from the river, apparently as if to bar his way, but always proving to be tree, bush, or stump, and their position caused by the bending of the stream. Once there was a sudden short and peculiar grating, and the boat stopped short, but only to glide on again as he realised that the river was shallow there, and they had touched the clean-washed gravelly bottom. There was enough excitement now he was left to himself to keep off the depression he had felt, for now the feeling that he was gliding away into a new life was made more impressive by the movement of the boat, which seemed to him to go faster and faster among dimly seen trees, and always over a glistening path that seemed to be paved with stars. Once, and once only, after leaving the town behind was there any sign of inhabited building, and that was about an hour after they started, when a faint gleam seemed to be burning steadily on the bank, and so near that the light shone down upon the water. But that was soon passed, and the river ran wandering on through a wild and open district, where the only inhabitants were the few shepherds who attended the flocks. On still, and on, among the low meadows, through which the river had cut its way in bygone times. Serpentine hardly expressed its course, for it so often turned and doubled back over the ground it had passed before; but still it, on the whole, flowed rapidly, and by slow degrees mile after mile was placed between the boys and the town. Twice over a curious sensation of drowsiness came upon Dexter, and he found himself hard at work trying to hunt out some of his pets, which seemed to him to have gone into the most extraordinary places. For instance, Sam the toad had worked himself down into the very toe of the stocking he had been obliged to take off when he went into the water, and the more he tried to shake it out, the more tightly it clung with its little hands. Then he woke with a start, and found out that he had dozed off. Pulling himself together he determined not to give way again, but to try and guide the boat. To properly effect this he still sat fast with the boat-hook across his knees, and in an instant he was back at the doctor's house in Coleby, looking on while Helen was busy reading the letter which had been brought down from the bedroom. Dexter could see her perfectly plainly. It seemed a thoroughly realistic proceeding, and she was wiping her eyes as she read, while, at the same moment, the doctor entered the room with the willow pollard from the bottom of the garden; and lifting it up he called him an ungrateful boy, and struck him a severe blow on the forehead which sent him back on to the carpet. But it was not on to the carpet, but back into the bottom of the boat, and certainly it was a willow branch which had done the mischief, though not in the doctor's hand. Dexter got up again, feeling rather sore and confused, for the boat had drifted under a projecting bough, just on a level with the boy's head, but his cap had saved him from much harm. Dexter's first thought was that Bob would jump up and begin to bully him for going to sleep. But Bob was sleeping heavily, and the bump, the fall, and the rocking of the boat only acted as a lullaby to his pleasant dreams. And then it seemed that a tree on the bank--a tall poplar--was very much plainer than he had seen any tree before that night. So was another on the other bank, and directly after came a sound with which he was perfectly familiar at the doctor's--a sound that came beneath his window among the laurustinus bushes. _Chink_--_chink_--_chink_--_chink_. A blackbird--answered by another. And then all at once it seemed to be so cold that it was impossible to help shivering; and to ward off the chilling sensation Dexter began to use the boat-hook as a pole, thrusting it down first on one side of the boat and then on the other as silently as he could, so as not to wake Bob. Sometimes he touched bottom, and was able to give the boat a good impetus, but as often as not he could not reach the river-bed. Still the exercise made his blood circulate, and drove away the dull sense of misery that had been coming on. As he toiled on with the pole, the trees grew plainer and plainer, and a soft pearly dawn seemed to be floating over the river. The birds uttered their calls, and then, all at once, in a loud burst of melody, up rose a lark from one of the dewy meadows on his right. Then further off there was another, and right away high up in the east one tiny speck of dull red. Soon this red began to glow as if gradually getting hotter. Then another and another speck appeared--then scores, fifties, hundreds--and Dexter stood bathed in the rich light which played through the curling river mists, as the whole of the eastern heavens became damasked with flecks of gold. In a comparatively short time these faded, and a warm glow spread around the meadows and wild country on either side, where empurpled hills rose higher and higher, grew more and more glorious, and the river sparkled and danced and ran in smooth curves, formed eddies, and further in advance became one wonderful stretch of dancing golden ripples, so beautiful that Dexter stood on the thwart with the pole balanced in his hand wondering whether everything could be as beautiful at Coleby as he saw it now. Then there was a sudden shock, so sharp that he could not save himself, but took a kind of header, not into the water, but right on to Bob Dimsted, landing with his knees in Bob's softest portion, and the pole right across his neck, just as Bob tried to rise, and uttered a tremendous yell. The wonder was that the end of the boat-hook had not gone through the bottom of the boat. CHAPTER THIRTY TWO. MASTER AND SLAVE. "Eee! I say! Whatcher doing of!" roared Bob, beginning to struggle, as Dexter contrived to get his feet once more. "I--I couldn't help it, Bob," he said, in a shame-faced way. "Couldn't help it! Here, don'tcher try to wake me again that way." "I didn't. I--" "Coming jumping on a fellow." "I didn't, Bob. The boat stopped all at once, and I tumbled forward." "Then just you tumble on to some one else next time," growled Bob, sitting up rubbing himself, and then yawning loudly. "Why, hulloa! Whatcher been doing of now?" "I? Nothing Bob." "Yes, you have. You've got the boat aground." "I--I didn't indeed, Bob. It went like that all of itself," stammered Dexter. "Went all of itself! You are a fellow to leave to manage a boat. I just shut my eyes a few minutes and you get up to them games. Here, give us holt!" He snatched at the boat-hook, and began to thrust with all his might: but in vain. "Don't stand staring like that," he cried, becoming all at once in a violent hurry to get on. "Come and help. D'yer want them to come and ketch us!" Dexter went to his help, and by dint of thrusting together the boat was pushed off the shallows, and gliding once more into deep water began to float gently on. There was a few minutes' silence, during which Bob took the sculls and began to pull, looking, with his eyes red and swollen up, anything but a pleasant companion; and in spite of himself Dexter began to think that Bob as a conversational friend across the water was a very different being to Bob as the captain of their little vessel, armed with authority, and ready to tyrannise over his comrade to the fullest extent. Suddenly a thought occurred to Dexter as he ran his eye over the handsome cushions of the well-varnished boat. "Bob!" he said. There was no answer. "Bob, did you take that parcel and drop it in Sir James's letter-box!" "What parcel!" said Bob sourly. "That one I threw over to you last night." "Oh! that one as fell in the water?" "Yes: did you take it?" "Why, didn't you tell me to!" "Yes: but did you?" "Why, of course I did." "That's right. I say, where are we now?" "I d'know. Somewhere down the river." "Hadn't we better begin to fish?" "Fish? What for?" "Because I'm getting so hungry, and want my breakfast." "Yes, you're a nice fellow to wantcher bragfuss. Got no money and no clothes. I s'pose I shall have to keep yer." "No, no, Bob. I'll work, or fish, or do anything." "Yes, so it seems," said Bob sarcastically; "a-sitting there like a gent, and letting me do everything." "Well, let me pull one oar." "No, I can do it, and you shall have some bragfuss presently. I don't want to be took, because you've stole a boat." Dexter turned pale, and then red with indignation, but he did not say anything, only waited till his lord should feel disposed to see about getting a meal. This happened when they were about a couple of miles lower down the stream, which steadily opened out and became more beautiful, till at last it seemed to be fully double the size it was at Coleby. Here they came abreast of a cluster of cottages on the bank, one of which, a long whitewashed stone building, hung out a sign such as showed that it was a place for refreshment. "There," said Bob, "we'll land there--I mean you shall, and go in and buy some bread and cheese." "Bread and cheese," faltered Dexter. "Shan't we get any tea or coffee, and bread and butter?" "No! of course not. If we both get out they'll be asking us questions about the boat." Bob backed the boat close to the shore, stern foremost, and then said-- "Now, look here, don't you make no mistake; but you jump out as soon as I get close in, and go and ask for four pen'orth o' bread and cheese. I'll row out again and wait till you come." Dexter did not like the task, and he could not help thinking of the pleasant breakfast at the doctor's, but recalling the fact that a fortune was not to be made without a struggle, he prepared to land. "But I haven't got any money," he said. "No, you haven't got any money," said Bob sourly, as he tucked one oar under his knee, so as to get his hand free to plunge into his pocket. "There you are," he said, bringing out sixpence. "Look sharp." Dexter took the money, leaped ashore, and walked up to the little public-house, where a red-faced woman waited upon him, and cut the bread and cheese. "Well," she said, looking wonderingly at her customer, "don't you want no beer!" Dexter shook his head, lifted up his change, and hurried out of the place in alarm, lest the woman should ask him any more questions. But she did not attempt to, only came to the door to watch the boy as he went back to the boat, which was backed in so that Dexter could jump aboard; but Bob, whose eyes were looking sharply to right and left in search of danger, just as a sparrow scrutinises everything in dread while it is eating a meal, managed so badly in his eagerness to get away, that, as Dexter leaped in, he gave a tug with the sculls, making the boat jerk so sharply that Dexter's feet began to move faster than his body, and the said body came down in a sitting position that was more sudden than agreeable. "Well, you are a fellow!" cried Bob, grinning. "Any one would think you had never been in a boat before." Dexter gathered together the portions of food which had been scattered in the bottom of the boat, and then sat looking ruefully at his companion. "If any of that there's dirty, you've got to eat it," said Bob sourly. "I shan't." As he spoke he tugged as hard as he could at the sculls, rowing away till they were well round the next bend, and quite out of sight of the woman who stood at the door watching them, and as Bob bent down, and pulled each stroke well home, Dexter sat watching him with a troubled feeling which added to his hunger and discomfort. For once more it began to seem that Bob was not half so pleasant a companion as he had promised to be when he was out fishing, and they sat and chatted on either side of the little river. But he brightened up again as Bob suddenly began to pull harder with his left-hand scull, turning the boat's head in toward the shore where a clump of trees stood upon the bank with their branches overhanging, and almost touching the water. "Look out! Heads!" cried Bob, as the bow of the boat touched the leafage, and they glided on through the pliant twigs; and as the sculls were laid in, Bob rose up in his place, seized a good-sized bough, and holding on by it worked the boat beneath, and in a position which enabled him to throw the chain over, and securely moor the little vessel in what formed quite a leafy arbour with the clear water for floor, and the thwarts of the boat for seats. "There," cried Bob, in a satisfied tone, and with a little of his old manner, "whatcher think o' that? Talk about a place for a bragfuss! Why, it would do to live in." Dexter said it was capital, but somehow just then he began to think about the pleasant room at the doctor's, with the white cloth and china, and the silver coffee-pot, and the odour from the covered dish which contained ham or bacon, or fried soles. "Now then!" cried Bob; "I'm as hungry as you, and we're all safe here, so hand over." Dexter gave him one of the portions of bread and cheese--the better of the two, but Bob turned it over and examined it in a dissatisfied way, scowling at it the while, and casting an occasional glance at that which Dexter had reserved for himself. "What I says is--play fair," he growled. "I don't want no more than half." "But that's the bigger half, Bob." "I dunno so much about that." "And this is the one which seemed to be a little gritty." "Oh, is it?" said Bob surlily; and he began eating in a wolfish fashion, making fierce snaps and bites at his food, as he held the bread in one hand, the cheese in the other, and taking alternate mouthfuls. "Hunger is sweet sauce," and Dexter was not long in following Bob's example, that is as to the eating, but as he sat there munching away at the cakey home-made bread, and the strong cheese, in spite of its being a glorious morning, and the sun showering down in silver pencils through the overhanging boughs--in spite of the novelty of the scene, and the freedom, there did not seem to be so much romance in the affair as had been expected; and try how he would he could not help longing for a good hot cup of coffee. This was not heroic, but the boy felt very miserable. He had been up all night, going through adventures that were, in spite of their tameness, unusually exciting, and he was suffering from a nervous depression which robbed him of appetite as much as did his companion's words. For instead of being merry, confidential, and companionable, Bob scarcely opened his lips now without assuming the overbearing bullying tone he had heard so often from his elders. "Come, get on with your bragfuss," said Bob sharply. "We're going on d'rectly, and you've got to pull." "I can't eat much this morning," said Dexter apologetically; "and I'm thirsty." "Well, why don't yer drink!" said Bob, grinning, and pointing at the river. "Here, I'll show you how." He took off his cap, and placing his chest on the side of the boat, leant over till his lips touched the clear flowing stream. "Hah!" he said at last, rising and passing his hand across his lips; "that's something like water, that is. Better than tea, or drinking water out of a mug." "Doesn't it taste fishy?" Dexter ventured to say. "Fishy! Hark at him!" cried Bob mockingly. "You try." Dexter's mouth felt hot and dry, and laying aside what he had not eaten of his bread and cheese he followed his companion's example, and was drawing in the cool sweet water, when he suddenly felt Bob's hand on the back of his, neck, and before he could struggle up his head was thrust down into the water over and over again. "Don't, don't!" he panted, as he thrust against the side of the boat and got free. "You shouldn't do that." There was a flash of anger in his eyes as he faced Bob, and his fists were clenched, but he did not strike out, he contented himself with rubbing the water from his eyes, and then wiping his face upon his handkerchief. "I shouldn't do that? Why shouldn't I do that?" said Bob threateningly. "Serve yer right, sittin' down to bragfuss without washing yer face. Going to have any more?" Dexter did not answer; but finished drying his face, and then took up his bread and cheese. "Oh, that's it, is it!" said Bob. "Sulky, eh? Don't you come none o' them games with me, young fellow, or it will be the worse for yer." Dexter made no reply, but went on eating, having hard work to swallow each mouthful. Time back all this would not have made so much impression upon him, but the social education he had been receiving in his intercourse with Helen Grayson had considerably altered him, and his breast swelled as he felt the change in his companion, and began to wish more than ever that he had not come. Almost as he thought this he received a curious check. "It won't do for you to be sulky with me," began his tyrant. "You've got to go along o' me now you have come. You couldn't go back after stealing this boat." "Stealing!" cried Dexter, flushing up. "I didn't steal it. We borrowed it together." "Oh, did we?" said Bob mockingly; "I don't know nothing about no _we_. It was you stole it, and persuaded me to come." "I didn't," cried Dexter indignantly. "I only borrowed it, and you helped me do it." "Oh, did I? We shall see about that. But you can't go back never no more, so don't you think that." Bob's guess at his companion's thoughts was pretty shrewd; and as Dexter sat looking at him aghast, with the full extent of his delinquency dawning upon him, Bob began to unloose the chain. "Now then," he said, "finish that there bread and cheese, or else put it in yer pocket. We're going on again, and I want to catch our dinner." The idea of doing something more in accordance with the object of their trip roused Dexter into action, and, after helping to force the boat from among the branches, he willingly took one of the sculls; and in obedience to the frequently given orders, rowed as well as his inexperience would allow, and they glided swiftly down the stream. "What are you going to do first, Bob?" said Dexter, who felt more bright and cheerful now out in the sunshine, with the surface all ripple and glow. "Why, I telled yer just now!" said the boy surlily. "Mind what yer doing, or you'll catch a crab." Dexter did catch one the next moment, thrusting his oar in so deeply that he could hardly withdraw it, and bringing forth quite a little storm of bullying from his companion. "Here, I shall never make nothing o' you," cried Bob. "Give's that there oar." "No, no, let me go on pulling," said Dexter good-humouredly, for his fit of anger had passed off. "I'm not used to it like you are, but I shall soon learn." He tried to emulate Bob's regular rowing, and by degrees managed to help the boat along till toward midday, when, seeing an attractive bend where the river ran deep and dark round by some willows, Bob softly rowed the boat close up to the bank, moored her to the side, and then began to fit together his tackle, a long willow wand being cut and trimmed to do duty for a rod. This done, a very necessary preliminary had to be attended to, namely, the finding of bait. Bob was provided with a little canvas bag, into which he thrust a few green leaves and some scraps of moss, before leaping ashore, and proceeding to kick off patches of the bank in search of worms. Dexter watched him attentively, and then his eyes fell upon a good-sized, greenish-hued caterpillar which had dropped from a willow branch into the boat. This seemed so suitable for a bait that Dexter placed it in one of Bob's tin boxes, and proceeded to search for more; the boughs upon being shaken yielding six or seven. "Whatcher doing of?" grumbled Bob, coming back to the boat, after securing a few worms. "Yah! they're no use for bait." All the same, though, the boy took one of the caterpillars, passed the hook through its rather tough skin, and threw out some distance in front of the boat, and right under the overhanging boughs. There was a quick bob of the float, and then it began to glide along the top of the water, while, as Bob skilfully checked it, there was a quick rushing to and fro, two or three minutes' hard fight, and a half-pound trout was drawn alongside, and hoisted into the boat. "That's the way I doos it," said Bob, whose success suddenly turned him quite amiable. "Fish will take a caterpillar sometimes. Give us another!" The bait was passed along to the fisherman, who threw out, and in five minutes was again successful, drawing in, after a short struggle, a nice little chub. After that, it was as if the disturbance of the water had driven the fish away, and though Bob tried in every direction, using the caterpillar, a worm, a bit of bread paste, and a scrap of cheese, he could not get another bite. Bob tried after that till he was tired, but no fish would bite, so he handed the rod to Dexter, who also fished for some time in vain, when a removal was determined upon; but though they tried place after place there were no more bites, and hunger having asserted itself once more, they landed to prepare their dinner. The place chosen was very solitary, being where the river ran deeply beneath a high limestone cliff, and landing, a few sticks were soon gathered together ready for a fire. "But we have no matches," said Dexter. "You mean you ain't got none," sneered Bob, taking a box out of his pocket. "I'm captain, and captains always thinks of these things. Now then, clean them fish, while I lights this fire. Got a knife, ain't yer!" Dexter had a knife, and he opened it and proceeded to perform the rather disgusting task, while Bob lay down and began blowing at the fire to get it into a blaze. That fish-cleaning was very necessary, but somehow it did not add to the charm of the _alfresco_ preparations; and Dexter could not help thinking once how uncomfortable it would be if it came on to rain and put out the fire. But it did not come on to rain; the wood burned merrily, and after a piece of shaley limestone had been found it was placed in the fire where the embers were most clear, and the fish laid upon it to cook. The success was not great, for when the fish began to feel the heat, and hissed and sputtered, the piece of stone began to send off splinters, with a loud crack, from time to time. Then a pocket-knife, though useful, is not a convenient cooking implement, especially when, for want of lard or butter, the fish began to stick to the stone, and refused to be turned over without leaving their skins behind. "Ain't it fun?" said Bob. Dexter said it was. He did not know why, for at that moment a piece of green wood had sent a jet of hot, steamy smoke in his eyes, which gave him intense pain, and set him rubbing the smarting places in a way which made them worse. "Here, don't make such a fuss over a bit o' smoke," said Bob. "You'll soon get used to that. Mind, that one's tail's burning!" Dexter did mind, but the fish stuck so close to the stone that its tail was burned off before it could be moved, a mishap which drew from Bob the remark-- "Well, you are a chap!" Before the fish were done, more and more wood had to be collected; and as a great deal of this was green, a great smoke arose, and, whenever a puff of wind came, this was far from agreeable. "How small they are getting!" said Dexter, as he watched the browning fish. _Bang_! A great piece of the stone splintered off with a report like that of a gun, but, fortunately, neither of the boys was hurt. "We shall have to buy a frying-pan and a kittle," said Bob, as soon as examination proved that the fish were safe, but stuck all over splinters of stone, which promised ill for the repast. "Can't do everything at once." "I'm getting very hungry again," said Dexter; "and, I say, we haven't got any bread." "Well, what o' that?" "And no salt." "Oh, you'll get salt enough as soon as we go down to the sea. You may think yourself jolly lucky as you've got fish, and some one as knows how to kitch 'em. They're done now. I'll let you have that one. 'Tain't so burnt as this is. There, kitch hold!" A fish hissing hot and burnt on one side is not a pleasant thing to take in a bare hand, so Dexter received his upon his pocket-handkerchief, as it was pushed toward him with a piece of stick; and then, following his companion's example, he began to pick off pieces with the blade of his pocket-knife, and to burn his mouth. "'Lishus, ain't it?" said Bob, making a very unpleasant noise suggestive of pigs. Dexter made no reply, his eyes were watering, and he was in difficulties with a bone. "I said 'lishus, ain't it!" said Bob again, after more pig noise. "Mine isn't very nice," said Dexter. "Not nice? Well, you are a chap to grumble! I give you the best one, because this here one had its tail burnt off, and now you ain't satisfied." "But it tastes bitter, and as if it wants some bread and salt." "Well, we ain't got any, have we? Can't yer wait?" "Yes," said Dexter; "but it's so full of bones." "So are you full of bones. Go on, mate. Why, I'm half done." Dexter did go on, wondering in his own mind whether his companion's fish was as unpleasant and coarse eating as the one he discussed, giving him credit the while for his disinterestedness, he being in happy ignorance of the comparative merits of fresh-water fish when cooked; and therefore he struggled with his miserable, watery, insipid, bony, ill-cooked chub, while Bob picked the fat flakes off the vertebra of his juicy trout. "Wish we'd got some more," said Bob, as he licked his fingers, and then wiped his knife-blade on the leg of his trousers. "I don't," thought Dexter; but he was silent, and busy picking out the thin sharp bones which filled his fish. "Tell you what," said Bob, "we'll--Look out!" He leaped up and dashed to the boat, rapidly unfastening the chain from where it was secured to a stump. Dexter had needed no further telling, for he had caught sight of two men at the same time as Bob; and as it was evident that they were running toward the fire, and as Dexter knew intuitively that he was trespassing, he sprang up, leaving half his chub, and leaped aboard, just as Bob sprang from the bank, seized an oar, and thrust the boat away. It was pretty close, for as the stern of the boat left the shore the foremost man made a dash at it, missed, and nearly fell into the water. CHAPTER THIRTY THREE. THE LIFE OF THE FREE. "Here," cried the man, as he recovered himself, "it's of no use. Come back!" Dexter was so influenced by the man's words that he was ready to go back at once. But Bob was made of different stuff, and he began now to work the boat along by paddling softly, fish-tail fashion. "Do you hear!" roared the man, just as the other came trotting up, quite out of breath. "Yah!" cried Bob derisively, as he began to feel safe. "Come back, you young scoundrel!" roared the man fiercely. "Here, Digges, fetch 'em back." He was a big black-whiskered man in a velveteen jacket, evidently a gamekeeper, and he spoke to his companion as if he were a dog. This man hesitated for a moment or two. "Go on! Fetch 'em back," cried the keeper. "But it's so wet." "Wet? Well, do you want me to go? In with you." The underkeeper jumped off the bank at once into the water, which was about up to his knees; but by this time Bob was working the boat along more quickly, and before the underkeeper had waded out many yards Bob had seated himself, put out the second scull, and, helped by the stream, was able to laugh defiance at his would-be captors. "Here, I ain't going any further," grumbled the underkeeper. "It will be deep water directly," and he stopped with the current rippling just about his thigh. "Are you coming back!" cried the keeper, looking round about him and pretending to pick up a big stone. "No! Come arter us if you want us," cried Bob, while Dexter crouched down watching the man's hand, ready to dodge the missile he expected to see launched at them. "If you don't come back I'll--" The man did not finish his speech, but threw himself back as if about to hurl the stone. "Yah!" cried Bob. "Y'ain't got no stone." "No, but I've got a boat up yonder." "Go and fetch it, then," cried Bob derisively. "You young scoundrels! Landing here and destroying our plantations. I'll send the police after you, and have you before the magistrates, you poaching young vagabonds!" "So are you!" cried Bob. "Hush, don't!" whispered Dexter. "Who cares for them?" cried Bob. "We weren't doing no harm." "Here, come out, Digges, and you run across and send the men with a boat that way. I'll go and get ours. We'll soon have 'em!" The man slowly waded out while the keeper trampled on the fire, stamping all over it, to extinguish the last spark, so that it should not spread, and then they separated, going in different directions. "Row, Bob; row hard," cried Dexter, who was in agony. "Well, I am a-rowing, ain't I? We warn't doing no harm." "Let me have an oar." "Ketch hold, then," cried Bob; and as soon as Dexter was seated they began to row as if for their lives, watching in turn the side of the river and the reach they were leaving behind in expectation of seeing the pursuers and the party who were to cut them off. Dexter's horror increased. He pictured himself seized and taken before a magistrate, charged with damaging, burning, and trespassing. The perspiration began to stand out in beads upon each side of his nose, his hair grew wet, and his cap stuck to his forehead as he toiled away at his oar, trying hard to obey the injunctions of his companion to pull steady--to keep time--not to dip his scull so deep, and the like. As for Bob, as he rowed he was constantly uttering derisive and defiant remarks; but all the same his grubby face was rather ashy, and he too grew tremendously hot as he worked away at his scull for quite an hour, during which time they had not seen anything more formidable than half a dozen red oxen standing knee-deep in the water, and swinging their tails to and fro to drive away the tormenting flies. "They hadn't got no boat," said Bob at last. "I know'd it all the time. Pretended to throw a stone at us when there wasn't one near, only the one we tried to cook with, flee him take hold of it and drop it again!" "No." "I did. Burnt his jolly old fingers, and serve him right. We never said nothing to him. He ain't everybody." "But let's get further away." "Well, we're getting further away, stream's taking us down. You are a coward." "You were frightened too." "No, I wasn't. I laughed at him. I'd ha' give him something if he'd touched me." "Then why did you run away?" "'Cause I didn't want no bother. Here, let's find another good place, and catch some more fish." "It won't be safe to stop yet, Bob." "Here, don't you talk to me, I know what I'm about. We'll row round that next bend, and I'll show you a game then." "Hadn't we better go on till we can buy some bread and butter?" said Dexter; and then as he saw some cattle in a field a happy hunger-engendered thought occurred to him,--"And perhaps we can get some milk." "You're allus thinking of eating and drinking," cried Bob. "All right! We'll get some, then." They rowed steadily on, with Dexter rapidly improving in the management of his oar, till a farm-house was sighted near the bank; but it was on the same side as that upon which they had had their adventure. They were afraid to land there, so rowed on for another quarter of a mile before another building was sighted. This proved to be a farm, and they rowed up to a place where the cattle came down to drink, and a plank ran out on to a couple of posts, evidently for convenience in landing from a boat, or for dipping water. "Here, I'll go this time," said Bob, as the boat glided up against the posts. "No games, you know." "What games!" "No going off and leaving a fellow!" "Don't be afraid," said Dexter. "I ain't," said Bob, with a malicious grin. "Why, if a fellow was to serve me such a trick as that I should half-kill him." Bob landed, and as Dexter sat there in the swift-streamed Devon river gazing at the rippling water, and the glorious green pastures and quickly sloping hills, everything seemed to him very beautiful, and he could not help wishing that he had a pleasanter companion and some dinner. Bob soon returned with a wine bottle full of milk and half a loaf, and a great pat of butter of golden yellow, with a wonderful cow printed upon it, the butter being wrapped in a rhubarb leaf, and the bread swung in Bob's dirty neckerchief. "Here y'are!" he cried, as he stepped into the boat and pushed off quickly, as if he felt safer when they were on the move. "We'll go lower down, and then I'll show you such a game." "Let's have some bread and butter first," said Dexter. "No, we won't; not till we get further away. We'll get some fish first and light a fire and cook 'em, and--pull away--I'll show yer." Dexter obeyed; but his curiosity was excited. "Going to catch some more fish!" "You wait and you'll see," was the reply; and in the expectation of a hearty meal matters looked more bright, especially as the day was glorious, and the scenery beautiful all round. No signs of pursuit being seen, Dexter was ready to laugh with his companion now. "I knew all the time," said Bob, with superior wisdom in every intonation of his voice; "I should only have liked to see them come." Dexter said nothing, and the next minute, as they were in a curve of the river, where it flowed dark and deep, they ran the boat in once more beside a meadow edged with pollard willows. "Now then, I'll show you some fishing," cried Bob, as he secured the boat. "No, not now: let's have something to eat first," protested Dexter. "Just you look here, young un, I'm captain," cried Bob. "Do you know what cray-fish are!" Dexter shook his head. "Well, then, I'm just going to show yer." The water was about two feet deep, and ran slowly along by a perpendicular clayey bank on the side where they were, and, deliberately undressing, Bob let himself down into the river, and then began to grope along by the side, stooping from time to time to thrust his hand into some hole. "Here, undo that chain, and let her drift by me," he cried. "I shall fish all along here." Dexter obeyed--it seemed to be his fate to obey; and taking the boat-hook he held on easily enough by tree after tree, for there was scarcely any stream here, watching intently the while, as Bob kept on thrusting his hand into some hole. "Oh!" cried Bob suddenly, as he leaned down as far as he could reach, and then rose slowly. "Got one?" "No: I missed him. It was an eel; I just felt him, and then he dodged back. Such a big un! They're so jolly hard to hold." This was exciting, and now Dexter began for the first time to be glad that he had come. "I've got him now!" cried Bob excitedly; and, rising from a stooping position, in which his shoulder was right underneath, he threw a dingy-looking little fresh-water lobster into the boat. Dexter examined it wonderingly, and was favoured with a nip from its claws for his attention. "Here's another," said Bob, and he threw one much larger into the boat, its horny shell rattling on the bottom. "Are they good to eat?" said Dexter. "Good to eat? Why, they're lovely. You wait a bit. And, I say, you look how I do it; I shall make you always catch these here, so you've got to learn." Dexter paid attention to the process, and felt that there was not much to learn: only to find out a hole--the burrow of the cray-fish,--and then thrust in his hand, and, if the little crustacean were at home, pull it out. The process was soon learned, but the temptation to begin was not great. Bob evidently found the sport exciting, however, for he searched away with more or less success, and very soon there were a dozen cray-fish of various sizes crawling about the bottom of the boat. "There's thousands of them here," cried Bob, as he searched away all along beneath the steep bank, which was full of holes, some being the homes of rats, some those of the cray-fish, and others of eels which he touched twice over--in one case for the slimy fish to back further in, but in the other, for it to make a rush out into the open water, and swim rapidly away. The pursuit of the cray-fish lasted till the row of willows came to an end, and with them the steep bank, the river spreading out again, and becoming stony and shallow. "How many are there?" said Bob, as he climbed out upon the grass, after washing his clayey arm. "Twenty-one," said Dexter. "Ah, just you wait a bit till I'm dressed." Bob said no more, but indulged in a natural towel. That is to say, he had a roll on the warm grass, and then rose and ran to and fro in the glowing sunshine for about five minutes, after which he rapidly slipped on his things, which were handed to him from the boat. "Now," he cried, as he stepped in once more and seized an oar, "I'll show you something." They rowed on for some distance, till a suitable spot was found at the edge of a low, scrubby oak wood which ran up a high bank. The place was extremely solitary. There was plenty of wood, and as soon as the boat had been moored Dexter was set to work collecting the sticks in a heap, close up to where there was a steep bare piece of stony bank, and in a few minutes the dry leaves and grass first collected caught fire, then the twigs, and soon a good glowing fire was burning. The bread and butter and bottle of milk were stood on one side, and close by them there was a peculiar noise made by the unhappy cray-fish which were tied up in Bob's neckerchief, from which the bread had been released. "Going to cook 'em!" he said; "in course I am. Wait a bit and I'll show yer. I say! this is something like a place, ain't it!" Dexter agreed that it was, for it was a sylvan nook which a lover of picnics would have considered perfect, the stream ran swiftly by, a few yards away the stony bank rose up, dotted with patches of brown furze and heath, nearly perpendicularly above their heads, and on either side they were shut in by trees and great mossy stones. The fire burned brightly, and sent up clouds of smoke, which excited dread in Dexter's breast for a few moments, but the fear was forgotten directly in the anticipation of the coming feast, in preparation for which Bob kept on adding to the central flame the burnt-through pieces of dead wood, while Dexter from time to time fetched more from the ample store beneath the trees, and broke them off ready for his chief. "What are you going to do, Bob!" he said at last. "Going to do? You want to know too much." "Well, I'm so hungry." "Well, I'll tell yer. I'm going to roast them cray-fish, that's what I'm going to do." "How are you going to kill them!" "Going to kill 'em? I ain't going to kill 'em." "But you won't roast them alive." "Won't I? Just you wait till there's plenty of hot ashes and you'll see." Dexter had made pets of so many creatures that he shrank from inflicting pain, and he looked on at last with something like horror as Bob untied his kerchief, shot all the cray-fish out on the heathy ground, and then, scraping back the glowing embers with his foot till he had left a bare patch of white ash, he rapidly thrust in the captives, which began to hiss and steam and whistle directly. The whistling noise might easily have been interpreted to mean a cry of pain, but the heat was so great that doubtless death was instantaneous, and there was something in what the boy said in reply to Dexter's protests. "Get out! It don't hurt 'em much." "But you might have killed them first." "How was I to kill 'em first?" snarled Bob, as he sat tailor fashion and poked the cray-fish into warmer places with a piece of burning stick. "Stuck your knife into them." "Well, wouldn't that have hurt 'em just as much?" "Let them die before you cooked them." "That would hurt 'em ever so much more, and took ever so much longer." "Well I shan't like to eat them," said Dexter. "More for me, then. I say! don't they smell good?" Dexter had a whiff just then, and they certainly did smell tempting to a hungry boy; but he made up his mind to partake only of bread and butter, and kept to his determination for quite five minutes after Bob had declared the cookery complete, and picked the tiny lobsters out of the hot ashes with his burnt stick. "They're too hot to touch yet," he said. "Wait a bit and I'll show you. Cut the bread." Dexter obeyed with alacrity, and was soon feasting away on what might very well be called "Boy's Delight," the honest bread and butter which has helped to build up our stalwart race. Bob helped himself to a piece of bread, spread it thickly with butter, and, withdrawing a little way from the fire, hooked a hot cray-fish to his side, calmly picking out the largest; and as soon as he could handle it he treated it as if it were a gigantic shrimp, dividing the shell in the middle by pulling, and holding up the delicate hot tail, which drew easily from its armour-like case. "Only wants a bit of salt," he cried, smacking his lips over the little _bonne bouche_, and then proceeding to pick out the contents of the claws, and as much of the body as he deemed good to eat. Dexter looked on with a feeling of disgust, while Bob laughed at him, and finished four of the cray-fish, throwing the shells over his shoulder towards the river. Then Dexter picked up one, drew off the shell, smelt it, tasted it, and five minutes later he was as busy as Bob, though when they finished the whole cooking he was seven fish behind. "Ain't they 'lishus?" cried Bob. "Yes," said Dexter, unconsciously repeating his companion's first remark, "only want a bit of salt." CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR. AN AWKWARD PURSUER. It was wonderful how different the future looked after that picnic dinner by the river-side. The bread and butter were perfect, and the cray-fish as delicious as the choicest prawns. The water that glided past the bank was like crystal; the evening sun lit up the scene with orange and gold; and as the two boys lolled restfully upon the bank listening to the murmur of the running water, the twitter of birds, and the distant lowing of some ox, they thoroughly appreciated everything, even the rest after their tiring night's work and toilsome day. "Are we going on now!" said Dexter at last. "What for?" asked Bob, as he lay upon his back, with his head in a tuft of heath. "I don't know." "What's the good of going on? What's the good o' being in a hurry?" "I'm not in a hurry, only I should like to get to an island where there's plenty of fruit." "Ah, we shan't get to one to-day!" said Bob, yawning. Then there was silence; and Dexter lay back watching the beautiful river, and the brown boat as it swung easily by its chain. Soon a butterfly flitted by--a beautiful orange brown butterfly covered with dark spots, dancing here and there over the sylvan nook, and the next minute Dexter as he lay on his back felt cool, and began wondering while he looked straight up at the stars, fancying he had been called. He felt as if he had never seen so many stars before glittering in the dark purple sky, and he began wondering how it was that one minute he had been looking at that spotted butterfly, and the next at the stars. And then it dawned upon him that he must have been fast asleep for many hours, and if he had felt any doubt about this being the right solution of his position a low gurgling snore on his left told that Bob Dimsted was sleeping still. It was a novel and curious sensation that of waking up in the silence and darkness, with the leaves whispering, and that impression still upon him that he had been called. "It must have been old Dan'l," he had thought at first. "Perhaps he was in search of them," and he listened intently. Or it might have been the men who had come upon them where they had the first fire, and they had seen this one. "No, they couldn't see this one, for it was out." Dexter was about to conclude that it was all imagination, when, from far away in the wood he heard, in the most startling way:--_Hoi hoi_--_hoo hoo_! He started to his feet, and was about to waken Bob, when a great ghostly-looking bird came sweeping along the river, turned in at the nook quite low down, and then seemed to describe a curve, passing just over his head, and uttered a wild and piercing shriek that was appalling. Dexter's blood ran cold, as the cry seemed to thrill all down his spine, and in his horror he made a rush to run away anywhere from the terrible thing which had startled him. But his ill luck made him once more startle Bob from his slumbers, for, as he ran blindly to reach the shelter of the wood, he fell right over the sleeping boy, and went down headlong. "Here! I--oh, please sir, don't sir--don't sir,--it was that other boy, sir, it wasn't me, sir. It was--was--it was--why, what games are you up to now!" "Hush! Bob. Quick! Let's run." "Run!" said Bob excitedly, as the frightened boy clung to him. "I thought they'd come." "Yes, they're calling to one another in the wood," whispered Dexter excitedly; "and there was a horrid something flew up, and shrieked out." "Why, I heerd it, and dreamed it was you." "Come away--come away!" cried Dexter. "There, hark!" _Hoi hoi_--_hoi hoi_! came from not far away. "Ha, ha, ha!" laughed Bob. "You are a one!" and putting his hands to his mouth, to Dexter's great astonishment he produced a very good imitation of the cry. "Why, you'll have them hear us and come," he whispered. "Yah! you are a coward! Why, it's an old howl." "Owl! calling like that!" "Yes, to be sure. I've heerd 'em lots o' times when I've been late fishing up the river." "But there was a big thing flew over my head, and it shrieked out." "That was a howl too. Some of 'em shouts, and some of 'em screeches. I say, I hope you've kept a heye on the boat!" "Are you sure that other was an owl too!" said Dexter excitedly. "Course I am. Think I've been out in the woods with father after the fezzans, and stopping out all night, without knowing a howl?" Dexter felt quite warm now. "I never heard one before, and it frightened me." "Yes, you're easily frightened," said Bob contemptuously. "You haven't been to sleep, have you!" "Yes, I have." "Then you oughtn't to have been. If you've been to sleep and let that boat go, I'll never forgive you." Bob had hardly uttered the words when Dexter, who had forgotten all about the boat, ran to the water's edge feeling sure that it was gone. But it was quite safe, and he went back to Bob. "What shall we do now!" he said. "Do?" said Bob, yawning. "You sit and keep watch while I go to sleep for a quarter of an hour. Then you may call me, and I'll take my turn." Bob curled himself up after the fashion of a dog, and went off to sleep directly, while, as Dexter, who felt chilly, began to walk up and down between the water's edge and the steep cliff-like bank, he could not help once more wishing that he was in his comfortable bed at the doctor's. He waited for long over a quarter of an hour, keeping his lonely watch, but Bob slept on and snored. At the end of about an hour and a half he thought it would only be fair to call his companion to take his turn, but he called in vain. Then he tried shaking, but only to elicit growls, and when he persevered Bob hit out so savagely that Dexter was fain to desist. "I'll let him sleep half an hour longer," he said to himself; and he walked to and fro to keep himself warm. It must have been after an hour that he called Bob again. "All right," said that worthy. "But it isn't all right," cried Dexter. "It ain't fair. Come: get up." "All right! I'll get up directly. Call me in about ten minutes." Dexter waited a little while, and called his companion. But in vain. And so it went on, with the sleeper sometimes apologetic, sometimes imploring, till it was broad daylight; and then Bob rose and shook himself. "I say, 'tain't fair," said Dexter ill-humouredly. "Well, why didn't you make me get up!" "I did try, lots of times." "But you didn't half try. You should have got me quite awake." "It's too bad, and I'm as sleepy as can be," grumbled Dexter. "Here! whatcher going to do?" cried Bob. "Lie down and sleep till breakfast-time." "Oh, are yer?" cried Bob. "We've got to go and catch our breakfasts." "What, now?" "To be sure. I'm getting hungry. Come along. I'll find a good place, and it's your turn now to get some cray-fish." "But I'm so cold and sleepy." "Well, that'll warm yer. There, don't look sulky." Bob got into the boat and unfastened the chain, so that there was nothing left for Dexter to do but follow; and they rowed away down the river, which was widening fast. The exercise and the rising sun sent warmth and brighter thoughts into Dexter, so that he was better able to undertake the task of searching the holes for cray-fish when the boat was brought up under a suitable bank, and urged on by Bob he had to undress and take an unwilling bath, and a breakfast-hunt at the same time. He was clumsy, and unaccustomed to the task, but driven by Bob's bullying tones, and helped by the fact that the little crustaceans were pretty plentiful, he managed to get a dozen and a half in about an hour. "There, come out, and dress now," said Bob ill-humouredly. "It's more trouble to tell you than to have got 'em myself. I'd ha' found twice as many in the time." Dexter shivered, and then began to enjoy the warmth of his garments after as good a wipe as he could manage with a pocket-handkerchief. But it was the row afterwards that gave the required warmth--a row which was continued till another farm-house was seen beside a great cider orchard. Here Dexter had to land with sixpence and the empty bottle. "I promised to take that there bottle back," said Bob, with a grin, "but I shan't now. Lookye here. You make 'em give you a good lot of bread and butter for the sixpence, and if they asks you any questions, you say we're two gentlemen out for a holiday." Dexter landed, and went up to the farm-house, through whose open door he could see a warm fire, and inhale a most appetising odour of cooking bacon and hot coffee. A pleasant-faced woman came to the door, and her ways and looks were the first cheery incidents of Dexter's trip. "Sixpennyworth of bread and butter, and some milk?" she said. "Yes, of course." She prepared a liberal exchange for Dexter's coin, and then after filling the bottle put the boy's chivalry to the test. "Why, you look as if you wanted your breakfast," she said. "Have a cup of warm coffee?" Dexter's eyes brightened, and he was about to say _yes_. But he said _no_, for it seemed unfair to live better than his comrade, and just then the vision of Bob Dimsted looking very jealous and ill-humoured rose before him. "I'm in a hurry to get back," he said. The woman nodded, and Dexter hastened back to the water-side. "I was just a-going without yer," was his greeting. "What a while you've been!" "I was as quick as I could be," said Dexter apologetically. "No, you weren't, and don't give me none of your sarce," said Bob. "Kitch holt o' that scull and pull. D'yer hear!" Dexter obeyed, and they rowed on for about a mile before a suitable place was found for landing and lighting a fire, when, after a good deal of ogreish grumbling, consequent upon Bob wanting his breakfast, a similar meal to that of the previous day was eaten, and they started once more on their journey down-stream to the sea, and the golden land which would recompense Dexter, as he told himself, for all this discomfort, the rough brutality of his companion, and the prickings of conscience which he felt whenever Coleby occurred to his mind, and the face of Helen looked reproach into the very depth of his inner consciousness. All that morning, when they again started, he found the river widen and change. Instead of being clear, and the stones visible at the bottom, the banks were further away, so were the hills, and the water was muddy. What was more strange to Dexter was that instead of the stream carrying them along it came to meet them. At last Bob decided that they would moor by the bank, and begin once more to fish. They landed and got some worms, and for a time had very fair sport, taking it in turns to catch some small rounded silvery and creamy transparent fish, something like dace, but what they were even Bob did not know. He was never at a loss, however, and he christened them sea-gudgeon. Dexter was just landing one when a sour-looking man in a shabby old paintless boat came by close to the shore, and looked at them searchingly. But he looked harder at the boat as he went by, turned in, as it seemed, and rowed right into the land. "There must be a little river there," Bob said. "We'll look presently. I say, didn't he stare!" Almost as he spoke the man came out again into the tidal river and rowed away, went up some distance, and they had almost forgotten him when they saw him come slowly along, close inshore. "Bob," whispered Dexter, "he's after us." To which Bob responded with a contemptuous-- "Yah!" "Much sport?" said the man, passing abreast of their boat about half a dozen yards away, and keeping that by dipping his oars from time to time. "Pretty fair," said Bob, taking the rod. "'Bout a dozen." "What fish are they!" said Dexter eagerly, and he held up one. "Smelts," said the man, with a peculiar look. "Come fishing?" "Yes," said Bob sharply. "We've come for a day or two's fishing." "That's right," said the man, with a smile that was a little less pleasant than his scowl. "I'm a fisherman too." "Oh, are yer?" said Bob. "Yes, that's what I am." "He ain't after us," whispered Bob. "It's all right." Dexter did not feel as if it was. He had an innate dislike to the man, who looked furtive and underhanded. "Got a tidy boat there," said the man at last. "Yes, she's a good un to go along," said Bob. "Wouldn't sell her, I s'pose!" said the man. "What should we sell her for?" said Bob, hooking and landing a fish coolly enough. "I d'know. Thought you might want to part with her," said the man. "I wouldn't mind giving fifteen shillings for a boat like that." "Yah!" cried Bob mockingly. "Why, she's worth thirty at least." "Bob!" whispered Dexter excitedly. "You mustn't sell her." "You hold your tongue." "I wouldn't give thirty shillings for her," said the man, coming close now and mooring his own crazy craft by holding on to the gunwale of the gig. "She's too old." "That she ain't," cried Bob. "Why, she's nearly new." "Not she. Only been varnished up, that's all. I'll give you a pound for her." "No," said Bob, to Dexter's great relief. "I'll give you a pound for her, and my old 'un chucked in," said the man. "It's more than she's worth, but I know a man who wants such a boat as that." "You mustn't sell her, Bob," whispered Dexter, who was now in agony. "You hold your row. I know what I'm a-doing of." "Look here," said the man, "I'm going a little farder, and I'll fetch the money, and then if you like to take it we'll trade. It's more'n she's worth, though, and you'd get my little boat in, as is as good a boat as ever swum." He pushed off and rowed away, while, as soon as he was out of sight, Dexter attacked his companion with vigour. "We mustn't sell her, Bob," he said. "Why not? She's our'n now." "No, she isn't; and we've promised to take her back." "Look here!" said Bob, "have you got any money?" "No, but we shan't want any as soon as we get to the island." "Yes, we shall, and a pound would be no end of good." "But we would have to give up our voyage." "No, we shouldn't. We'd make his boat do." "But it's such a shabby one. We mustn't sell the boat, Bob." "Look here! I'm captain, and I shall do as I like." "Then I shall tell the man the boat isn't ours." "If you do I'll knock your eye out. See if I don't," cried Bob fiercely. Dexter felt hot, and his fists clenched involuntarily, but he sat very still. "If I like to sell the boat I shall. We want the money, and the other boat will do." "I say it won't," said Dexter sharply. "Why, hullo!" cried Bob, laughing. "Here's cheek." "I don't care, it would be stealing Sir James's boat, and I say it shan't be done." "Oh, yer do--do yer!" said Bob, in a bullying tone. "You won't be happy till I've given you such a licking as'll make yer teeth ache. Now, just you hold your row, and wait till I gets yer ashore, and you shall have it. I'd give it to yer now, only I should knock yer overboard and drown'd yer, and I don't want to do that the first time." Bob went on fishing, and Dexter sat biting his lip, and feeling as he used to feel when he had had a caning for something he had not done. "I shall do just as I please," said Bob, giving his head a waggle, as if to show his authority. "So you've got to sit still and look on. And if you says anything about where the boat came from, I shall tell the man you took it." "And, if you do, I shall tell him it's a lie," cried Dexter, as fiercely as his companion; and just then he saw the man coming back. CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE. BOB ASKS A QUESTION. "Caught any more?" said the man. "Only one," replied Bob. "Ah! I could show you a place where you could pull 'em up like anything. I say, though, the boat ain't worth a pound." "Oh yes, she is," said Bob. "Not a pound and the boat too." "Yes, she is," said Bob, watching Dexter the while out of the corner of one eye. "I wouldn't give a pound for her, only there's a man I know wants just such a boat." Dexter sat up, looking very determined, and ready to speak when he thought that the proper time had come, and Bob kept on watching him. "Look here!" said the man, "as you two's come out fishing, I'll give you fifteen shillings and my boat, and that's more than yours is worth." "No, you won't," said Bob. "Well, sixteen, then. Come, that's a shilling too much." Bob shook his head, hooked, and took a good-sized smelt off his hook. "It's more than I care to give," said the man, who grew warm as Bob seemed cold. "There, I'll go another shilling--seventeen." Bob still shook his head, and Dexter sat ready to burst out into an explosion of anger and threat if his companion sold the boat. "Nineteen, then," said the man. "Nineteen, and my old un as rides the water like a duck. You won't?" "No," said Bob. "Well, then," cried the man, "I'm off." "All right," said Bob coolly. "There, I'll give you the twenty shillings, but you'll have to give me sixpence back. Look here! I've got the money." He showed and rattled the pound's worth of silver he had. "Come on. You get into my boat, and I'll get into yours." "No, yer won't," said Bob. "I won't sell it." "What!" cried the man angrily, and he raised one of his oars from the water. "I won't sell," cried Bob, seizing the oars as he dropped his rod into the boat. "You mean to tell me that you're going to make a fool of me like that!" He began to pull the little tub in which he sat toward the gig, but Bob was too quick for him. The gig glided through the water at double the rate possible to the old craft, and though it was boy against man, the former could easily hold his own. Fortunately they were not moored to the bank or the event might have been different, for the man had raised his oar as if with the intention of striking the boat in which the boys were seated. "Here, you, stop!" he shouted. Bob replied in dumb show with his sculls, dipping them as fast as he could, and looking very pale the while, till they were well out of reach, when he rested for a moment, and yelled back in defiant tones the one word-- "Yah!" "All right, my lads," shouted the fellow. "I know yer. You stole that boat, that's what you've done!" "Row hard, Bob!" whispered Dexter. "It's all very fine to say row hard. You kitch hold and help." Dexter readily seized the second scull, and began to pull with so much energy and effect that they had soon passed the muddy creek up which the man had gone and come, and before long he was out of sight. "It was all your fun, Bob," said Dexter, as they went on. "I thought you meant to sell the boat." "So I did," grumbled Bob; "only you were so disagreeable about it. How are we to get on for money when mine's all done!" "I don't know," said Dexter dolefully. "Can't we work for some?" "Yah! How can we work? I say, though, he knew you'd stolen the boat." "I didn't steal it, and it isn't stolen," said Dexter indignantly. "I wrote and told Sir James that we had only borrowed it, and I sent some money, and I shall send some more if we cannot find a way to get it back." "See if they don't call it stealing," said Bob grimly. "Look there at the her'ns." He nodded toward where a couple of the tall birds were standing heel-deep in the shallow water, intent upon their fishing, and so well accustomed to being preserved that they did not attempt to rise from their places. Dexter was so much interested in the birds that he forgot all about their late adventure. Then they rowed on for about a couple of hours, and their next proceeding was to look out for a suitable spot for their meal. There were no high cliff-like banks now, but here and there, alternating with meadows, patches of woodland came down to the water's edge, and at one of these they stopped, fastened the boat to a tree where it was quite out of sight; and now for the first time they began to see boats passing along. So far the little tub in which the would-be purchaser of their gig was seated was the only one they had seen on the water, but they were approaching a village now, and in low places they had seen high posts a short distance from the water's edge, on which were festooned long nets such as were used for the salmon at the time they run. As soon as they had landed, a fire was lit, the fish cleaned, and the remainder of the bread and butter left from the last meal brought ashore. After which, as an experiment, it was decided to roast the smelts before the blaze, a task they achieved with more or less success. As each fish was deemed sufficiently cooked it was eaten at once--a piece of bread forming the plate--and, with the exception of wanting salt, declared to be delicious. "Ever so much better than chub, Bob," said Dexter, to which for a wonder that young gentleman agreed. Evening soon came on, and as it was considered doubtful whether they could find as satisfactory a place for their night's rest as that where they were, it was decided to stop, and go on at sunrise next morning. "We shall get to the sea to-morrow," said Bob, as he began to yawn. "I'm jolly glad of it, for I'm tired of the river, and I want to catch cod-fish and soles, and something big. Whatcher yawning for?" "I'm tired and sleepy," said Dexter, as he sat upon the roots of an old tree, three or four yards from the water's edge. "Yah! you're always sleepy," said Bob. "But I had to keep watch while you slept." "So you will have to again." "But that isn't fair," said Dexter, in ill-used tones. "It's your turn to watch now." "Well, I'll watch half the night, if you watch the other," said Bob. "That's fair, isn't it?" "Yes." "Then I shall lie down now, and you can call me when it's twelve o'clock." "But I shan't know when it is," protested Dexter. "Well, I ain't particular," said Bob, stretching himself beneath the tree. "Guess what you think's fair half, and I'll get up then." "But will you get up!" said Dexter. "Of course I will, if you call loud enough. There, don't bother, I'm ever so tired with rowing, and I shall go to sleep at once." Bob kept his word as soon as darkness had set in, and Dexter sat listening to the lapping of the water, and wondered whether, if they camped out like this in a foreign land, crocodiles would come out of the rivers and attack them. He sat down, for he soon grew tired of standing and walking about, and listened to Bob's heavy breathing, for the boy had gone off at once. It was very dark under the trees, and he could only see the glint of a star from time to time. It felt cold too, but as he drew himself close together with his chin down upon his knees he soon forgot that, and began thinking about the two owls he had heard the past night. Then he thought about the long-legged herons he had seen fishing in the water; then about their own fishing, and what capital fish the smelts were. From that he began to think about hunting out the cray-fish from the banks, and how one of the little things had nipped his fingers quite sharply. Next he began to wonder what Helen Grayson thought about him, and what the doctor had said, and whether he should ever see them again, and whether he should like Bob any better after a time, when camping out with him, and how long it would be before they reached one of the beautiful hot countries, where you could gather cocoa-nuts off the trees and watch the lovely birds as they flitted round. And then he thought about how long it would be before he might venture to call Bob. And then he began thinking about nothing at all. When he opened his eyes next it was morning, with the sun shining brightly, and the birds singing, and Bob Dimsted had just kicked him in the side. "Here, I say, wake up," he cried. "Why, you've been to sleep." "Have I!" said Dexter sheepishly, as he stared helplessly at his companion. "Have yer? Yes; of course yer have," cried Bob angrily. "Ain't to be trusted for a moment. You're always a-going to sleep. Whatcher been and done with that there boat!" CHAPTER THIRTY SIX. IN DIRE STRAITS. "Done with the boat?" "I haven't done anything with the boat." "Then where is it?" "Fastened up to that old tree." "Oh, is it!" cried Bob derisively. "I should like to see it, then. Come and show me!" Dexter ran to the water's edge, and found the place on the bark where the chain had rubbed the trunk, but there was no sign of the boat. "Now then," cried Bob fiercely, "where is it?" "I don't know," said Dexter dolefully. "Yes, I do," he cried. "The chain must have come undone, and it's floating away." "Oh, is it?" said Bob derisively. "Then you'd better go and find it!" "Go and find it?" "Yes; we can't go to sea in our boots, can we, stoopid?" "But which way shall I go, Bob? Sometimes the tide runs up, and sometimes it runs down." "Yes, and I'll make you run up and down. You're a nice un, you are! I just shet my eyes for a few minutes, and trust you to look after the boat, and when I wake up again you're fass asleep, and the boat gone." "I'm very sorry, Bob, but I was so tired." "Tired! You tired! What on? Here, go and find that boat!" Dexter started off, and ran along the bank in one direction, while Bob went in the other, and at the end of half an hour Dexter came back feeling miserable and despondent as he had never felt before. "Found it, Bob!" he said. For answer his companion threw himself down upon his face, and began beating the ground with his fists, as if it were a drum. "I've looked along there as far as I could go," said Dexter sadly. "What shall we do!" "I wish this here was your stoopid head," snarled Bob, as he hammered away at the bare ground beneath the tree. "I never see such a chap!" "But what shall we do?" said Dexter again. "Do? I dunno, and I don't care. You lost the boat, and you've got to find it." "Let's go on together and walk all along the bank till we find somebody who has seen it." "And when we do find 'em d'yer think they'll be such softs as to give it to us back again!" This was a startling question. "I know 'em," said Bob. "They'll want to know where we got it from, and how we come by it, and all sorts o' nonsense o' that kind. Say we ain't no right to it. I know what they'll say." "But p'r'aps it's floating about?" "P'r'aps you're floating about!" cried Bob, with a snarl. "Boat like that don't go floating about without some one in it, and if it does some one gets hold of it, and says it's his." This was a terrible check to their adventurous voyage, as unexpected as it was sudden, and Dexter looked dolefully up in his companion's face. "I know'd how it would be, and I was a stoopid to bring such a chap as you," continued Bob, who seemed happiest when he was scolding. "You've lost the boat, and we shall have to go back." "Go back!" cried Dexter, with a look of horror, as he saw in imagination the stern countenance of the doctor, his tutor's searching eyes, Helen's look of reproach, and Sir James Danby waiting to ask him what had become of the boat, while Master Edgar seemed full of triumph at his downfall. "Go back?" No he could not go back. He felt as if he would rather jump into the river. "We shall both get a good leathering, and that won't hurt so very much." A good leathering! If it had been only the thrashing, Dexter felt that he would have suffered that; but his stay at the doctor's had brought forth other feelings that had been lying dormant, and now the thrashing seemed to him the slightest part of the punishment that he would have to face. No: he could not go back. "Well, whatcher going to do!" said Bob at last, with provoking coolness. "You lost the boat, and you've got to find it." "I will try, Bob," said Dexter humbly. "But come and help me." "Help yer? Why should I come and help yer? You lost it, I tell yer." Bob jumped up and doubled his fists. "Now then," he said; "get on, d'yer hear? get on--get on!" At every word he struck out at Dexter, giving him heavy blows on the arms--in the chest--anywhere he could reach. Dexter's face became like flame, but he contented himself with trying to avoid the blows. "Look here!" he cried suddenly. "No, it's you've got to look here," cried Bob. "You've got to find that there boat." Dexter had had what he thought was a bright idea, but it was only a spark, and it died out, leaving his spirit dark once more, and he seemed now to be face to face with the greatest trouble of his life. All his cares at the Union, and then at the doctor's, sank into insignificance before this terrible check to their adventure. For without the boat how could they get out of England? They could not borrow another. There was a great blank before him just at this outset of his career, and try how he would to see something beyond he could find nothing: all was blank, hopeless, and full of despair. Had his comrade been true to him, and taken his share of the troubles, it would have been bad enough; but it was gradually dawning upon Dexter that the boy he had half-idolised for his cleverness and general knowledge was a contemptible, ill-humoured bully--a despicable young tyrant, ready to seize every opportunity to oppress. "Are you a-going?" cried Bob, growing more brutal as he found that his victim made no resistance, and giving him a blow on the jaw which sent him staggering against one of the trees. This was too much; and recovering himself Dexter was about to dash at his assailant when he stopped short, for an idea that seemed incontrovertible struck him so sharply that it drove away all thought of the brutal blow he had received. "I know, Bob," he cried. "Know? What d'yer know?" "Where the boat is." "Yer do?" "Yes: that man followed us and took it away." Bob opened his mouth, and half-closed his eyes to stare at his companion, as he balanced this idea in his rather muddy brain. "Don't you see?" cried Dexter excitedly. "Come arter us and stole it!" said Bob slowly. "Yes: he must have watched us, and waited till we were asleep." "Go on with you!" "He did. I feel as sure as sure," cried Dexter. There was a pause during which Bob went on balancing the matter in his mind. "He has taken it up the river, and he thinks we shall be afraid to go after it." "Then he just thinks wrong," said Bob, nodding his head a good deal. "I thought something o' that kind a bit ago, but you made me so wild I forgot it again." "But you see now, Bob." "See? O' course I do. I'll just let him know--a thief. Here, come on, and we'll drop on to him with a policeman, and show him what stealing boats means." "No, no, Bob, we can't go with a policeman. Let's go ourselves, and make him give it up." "But s'pose he won't give it to us!" "We should have to take it," said Dexter excitedly. "Come on, then. He's got my fishing-tackle too, and--why just look at that! Did you put them there?" He darted to where his bundle and rough fishing-rod lay among the trees. "No; he must have thrown them out. Let's make haste. We know where the boat is now!" The boys started at once, and began to tramp back along the side of the river in the hope of finding the place where the boat was moored; but before they had gone far it was to find that floating down with the stream, or even rowing against the tide, was much easier work than forcing their way through patches of alder-bushes, swampy meadows, leaping, and sometimes wading, little inlets and ditches and the like. Their progress was very slow, the sun very hot, and at least a dozen times now they came upon spots which struck both as being the muddy bank off which they had captured the smelts. It was quite afternoon before they were convinced, for their further passage was stopped by the muddy inlet up which they had seen the man row, and not a hundred yards away was the bank under which they had fished. "Sure this is the place?" said Bob, as he crouched among some osiers and looked cautiously round. "Yes," said Dexter; "I'm certain this is the place. I saw him row up here. But--" "But what?" "He'd be quite sure not to take the boat up here." "Why not?" "For fear we should come after it." "Get out! Where would he take it, then?" "He'd hide it somewhere else; perhaps on the other side. Look!" Dexter pointed up the river to where, about a couple of hundred yards further on, a boat could be seen just issuing from a bed of reeds. Bob seized Dexter's arm to force him lower down among the osiers, but it was not necessary, for they were both well concealed; and as they continued there watching it was to see the boat come slowly toward them, and in a few minutes they were satisfied that it was the man they sought, propelling it slowly toward where they stooped. The fellow came along in a furtive manner, looking sharply round from time to time, as if scanning the river to see if he was observed. He came on and on till he reached the creek at whose mouth the boys were hidden, and as he came so close that they felt it impossible that they could remain unseen he suddenly ceased rowing, and stood up to shade his eyes from the sunshine, and gaze sharply down the river for some minutes. Then giving a grunt as of satisfaction he reseated himself, and rowed slowly up the creek, till he disappeared among the osiers and reeds which fringed its muddy banks. As he passed up he disturbed a shoal of large fish which came surging down, making quite a wave in the creek, till they reached the river, where all was still. "The boat's up there, Bob," said Dexter, after a long silence, so as to give the man time to get well out of hearing. "Yes, but how are we to get to it?" "Wade," said Dexter laconically. "'Tain't deep, only muddy." To cross the creek was necessary, and Bob softly let himself down from the bank till his feet were level with the water, then taking hold of a stout osier above his head he bent it down, and then dropped slowly into the water, which came nearly to his waist. "Come on!" he said, and after getting to the end of the osier he used his rod as a guide to try the depth, and with some difficulty, and the water very nearly to his chest, he got over. Dexter did not hesitate, but followed, and began to wade, feeling his feet sink at every step into the sticky mud, and very glad to seize hold of the end of the rod Bob was civil enough to hold to him from the further bank, up which they both crept, dripping like water-rats, and hid among the osiers on the other side. "Come on," whispered Bob, and with the mud and water trickling from them they crept along through quite a thicket of reeds, osiers, and the red-flowered willow-herb, while great purple patches of loosestrife blossomed above their heads. Every step took them further from the enemy, but they kept down in their stooping position, and a few yards from the bank of the river, feeling sure that they could not miss their way; and so it proved, for after what seemed to be an interminable journey they found themselves stopped by just such another creek as that which they had left, save and except that the mouth was completely hidden by a bed of reeds some of which showed where a boat had lately passed through. Whether their boat was there or not they could not tell, but it seemed easy to follow up the creek from the side they were on, and they crept along through the water-growth, which was thicker here than ever, but keeping as close as they could to the side, the scarped bank being about eight feet above the water. The creek was not above twenty feet wide, and, from the undisturbed state of the vegetation which flourished down its banks to where the tide seemed to rise, it seemed as if it was a rare thing for a boat to pass along. They stopped at every few yards to make sure that they were not passing that of which they were in search, looking carefully up and down, while the creek twined so much that they could never see any extent of water at a time. They must have wound in and out for quite three hundred yards, when, all at once, as they stooped there, panting and heated with the exercise, and with the hot sun beating down upon their heads, Dexter, who was in front, stopped short, for on his right the dense growth of reeds suddenly ceased, and on peering out it was to see a broad opening where they had been cut down, while within thirty yards stood a large stack of bundles, and beside it a rough-looking hut, toward which the man they had seen rowing up the other creek was walking. They had come right upon his home, which seemed to be upon a reedy island formed by the two creeks and the river. The boys crouched down, afraid to stir, and watching till they saw the man enter the rough reed-thatched hut, when, moving close to the edge of the bank, they crept on again after a few moments' hesitation, connected with an idea of making a retreat. Their perseverance was rewarded, for not fifty yards further on they looked down upon what seemed to be a quantity of reeds floating at the side of the creek, but one bundle had slipped off, and there, plainly enough, was the gunwale of the boat, the reeds having been laid across it to act as a concealment in case any one should glance carelessly up the creek. "Come on, Bob," whispered Dexter; and he let himself slide down into the muddy water as silently as he could, and began to tumble the bundles of reeds off into the creek. Bob followed his example, and, to their great delight, they found that the sculls and boat-hook were still in their places, while the boat-chain was secured to a stake thrust down into the mud. This was soon unloosed after they had climbed in, dripping, and covering the cushions with mud, but all that was forgotten in the delight of having found the boat. "Now, Bob, you row softly down and I'll use the boat-hook," whispered Dexter, as he stood up in the stern, while Bob sat down, seized the oars, and laid them in the rowlocks, ready to make the first stroke, when high above them on the bank they heard a quick, rushing noise, and directly after, to their horror, there stood, apparently too much dumbfounded to speak, the man they had seen a few minutes before going into the reed hut. CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN. SECOND-HAND STEALING. "Here, you, sir! stop!" he roared. "Pull away, Bob!" whispered Dexter, for Bob had paused, half-paralysed by the nearness of the danger. But he obeyed the second command, and tugged at the oars. "D'yer hear!" roared the man, with a furious string of oaths. "Hold hard or I'll--" He did not say what, but made a gesture as if striking with a great force. "Don't speak, Bob: pull hard," whispered Dexter, bending forward in the boat so as to reach the rower, and encourage him to make fresh efforts, while, for his part, he kept his eyes upon the man. "D'yer hear what I say?" he roared again. "What d'yer mean by coming here to steal my boat?" "'Tain't yours," cried Dexter. "What? Didn't I buy it of yer and pay for it?" "You came and stole it while we were asleep, you thief!" cried Dexter again. "Say I stole yer boat and I'll drown'd yer," cried the man, forcing his way through the reeds and osiers so as to keep up with them. "If you don't take that back it'll be the worse for yer. Stop! D'yer hear? Stop!" Bob stopped again, for the man's aspect was alarming, and every moment he seemed as if he was about to leap from the high bank. Fortunately for all parties he did not do this, as if he had reached the edge of the boat he must have capsized it, and if he had leaped into the bottom, he must have gone right through. Bob did not realise all this; but he felt certain that the man would jump, and, with great drops of fear upon his forehead he kept on stopping as the man threatened, and, but for Dexter's urging, the boat would have been given up. "I can hear yer," the man roared, with a fierce oath. "I hear yer telling him to row. Just wait till I get hold of you, my gentleman!" "Row, Bob, row!" panted Dexter, "as soon as we're out in the river we shall be safe." "But he'll be down upon us d'reckly," whispered Bob. "Go on rowing, I tell you, he daren't jump." "You won't stop, then, won't yer?" cried the man. "If yer don't stop I'll drive a hole through the bottom, and sink yer both." "No, he won't," whispered Dexter. "Row, Bob, row! He can't reach us, and he has nothing to throw." Bob groaned, but he went on rowing; and in his dread took the boat so near the further side that he kept striking one scull against the muddy bank, and then, in his efforts to get room to catch water, he thrust the head of the boat toward the bank where the man was stamping with fury, and raging at them to go back. This went on for a hundred yards, and they were still far from the open river, when the man gave a shout at them and ran on, disappearing among the low growth on the bank. "Now, Bob, he has gone," said Dexter excitedly, "pull steadily, and as hard as you can. Mind and don't run her head into the bank, or we shall be caught." Bob looked up at him with a face full of abject fear and misery, but he was in that frame of weak-mindedness which made him ready to obey any one who spoke, and he rowed on pretty quickly. Twice over he nearly went into the opposite bank, with the risk of getting the prow stuck fast in the clayey mud, but a drag at the left scull saved it, and they were getting rapidly on now, when all at once Dexter caught sight of their enemy at a part of the creek where it narrowed and the bank overhung a little. The man had run on to that spot, and had lain down on his chest, so as to be as far over as he could be to preserve his balance, and he was reaching out with his hands, and a malicious look of satisfaction was in his face, as the boat was close upon him before Dexter caught sight of him, Bob of course having his back in the direction they were going. "Look out, Bob," shouted Dexter. "Pull your right! pull your right!" Bob was so startled that he looked up over his shoulder, saw the enemy, and tugged at the wrong oar so hard that he sent the boat right toward the overhanging bank. "I've got yer now, have I, then?" roared the man fiercely; and as the boat drifted towards him he reached down and made a snatch with his hand at Dexter's collar. As a matter of course the boy ducked down, and the man overbalanced himself. For a moment it seemed as if he would come down into the boat, over which he hung, slanting down and clinging with both hands now, and glaring at them with his mouth open and his eyes starting, looking for all the world like some huge gargoyle on the top of a cathedral tower. "Stop!" he roared; and then he literally turned over and came so nearly into the boat that he touched the stern as it passed, and the water he raised in a tremendous splash flew all over the boys. "Now, Bob, pull, pull, pull!" cried Dexter, stamping his foot as he looked back and saw the man rise out of the water to come splashing after them for a few paces; but wading through mud and water was not the way to overtake a retreating boat, and to Dexter's horror he saw the fellow struggle to the side and begin to scramble up the bank. Once he slipped back; but he began to clamber up again, and his head was above the edge when, in obedience to Bob's tugging at the sculls, the boat glided round one of the various curves of the little creek and shut him from their view. "He'll drown'd us. He said he would," whimpered Bob. "Let's leave the boat and run." "No, no!" cried Dexter; "pull hard, and we shall get out into the river, and he can't follow us." "Yes, he can," cried Bob, blubbering now aloud. "He means it, and he'll half-kill us. Let's get out to this side and run." "Pull! I tell you, pull!" cried Dexter furiously; and Bob pulled obediently, sending the boat along fast round the curves and bends, but not so fast but that they heard a furious rustling of the osiers and reeds, and saw the figure of the man above them on the bank. "There, I told you so," whimpered Bob. "Let's get out t'other side." "Row, I tell you!" roared Dexter; and to his surprise the man did not stop, but hurried on toward the mouth of the creek. "There!" cried Bob. "He's gone for his boat, and he'll stop us, and he'll drown'd us both." "He daren't," said Dexter stoutly, though he felt a peculiar sinking all the time. "But he will, he will. It's no use to row." Dexter felt desperate now, for theirs was an awkward position; and to his horror he saw that Bob was ceasing to row, and looking up at the bank on his left. "You go on rowing," cried Dexter fiercely. "I shan't," whimpered Bob; "it's of no use. I shan't row no more." _Thud_! Bob yelled out, more in fear than in pain, for the sound was caused by Dexter swinging the boat-hook round and striking his companion a sharp rap on the side of the head. "Go on rowing," cried Dexter, "and keep in the middle." Bob howled softly; but, like a horse that has just received an admonition from the whip, he bent to his task, and rowed with all his might, blubbering the while. "That's right," cried Dexter, who felt astonished at his hardihood. "We can't be far now. Pull--pull hard. There, I can see the river. Hurray, Bob, we're nearly there!" Bob sobbed and snuffled, and bent down over his oars, rowing as if for life or death. The boat was speeding swiftly through the muddy water, the opening with its deep fringe of reeds was there, and Dexter was making up his mind to try and direct Bob to pull right or left so as to get to the thinnest place that the boat might glide right out, when he saw something. "No, Bob, only a little way," he had said. "Pull with all your might." Then he stopped short and stared aghast. Fortunately Bob was bending down, sobbing, and straining every nerve, as if he expected another blow, otherwise he would have been chilled by Dexter's look of dread, for there, just as if he had dropped from the bank and begun wading, was their enemy, who, as the boat neared, took up his position right in the middle of the creek, where the water was nearly to his chest, and, with the reeds at his back, waited to seize the boat. Dexter stood holding the boat-hook, half-paralysed for a few moments, and then, moved by despair, he stepped over the thwart toward Bob. "No, no," cried the latter, ducking down his head. "I will pull--I will pull." He did pull too, with all his might, and the boat was going swiftly through the water as Dexter stepped right over the left-hand scull, nearly toppled over, but recovered himself, and stood in the bows of the boat, as they were now within twenty yards of the man, who, wet and muddy, stood up out of the creek like some water monster about to seize the occupants of the boat for a meal. "Pull, Bob, hard!" whispered Dexter, in a low, excited voice; and Bob pulled. The boat sped on, and the man uttered a savage yell, when, with a cry of horror, Bob ceased rowing. But the boat had plenty of impetus, and it shot forward so swiftly that, to avoid its impact, the man drew a little on one side as he caught at the gunwale. _Whop_! Dexter struck at him with the light ash pole he held in his hand--struck at their enemy with all his might, and then turned and sat down in the boat, overcome with horror at what he had done, for he saw the man fall backward, and the water close over his head. Then there was a loud hissing, rustling sound as the boat glided through the reeds, which bent to right and left, and rose again as they passed, hiding everything which followed. The next moment the force given to the boat was expended, and it stopped outside the reeds, but only to commence another movement, for the tide bore the bows round, and the light gig began to glide softly along. "I've killed him," thought Dexter; and he turned cold with horror, wondering the while at his temerity and what would follow. "Was that his head?" said Bob, in rather a piteous voice, as he sat there resting upon his oars. "Yes," said Dexter, in a horror-stricken whisper. "I hit him right on the head." "You've been and gone and done it now, then," whimpered Bob. "You've killed him. That's what you've done. Never did see such a chap as you!" "I couldn't help it," said Dexter huskily. "Yes, that's what you always says," cried Bob, in an ill-used tone. "I wish I hadn't come with yer, that I do. I say, ought we to go and pick him up? It don't matter, do it?" "Yes, Bob; we must go back and pull him out," said Dexter, with a shudder. "Row back through the reeds. Quick, or he may be drowned!" "He won't want any drowning after that whack you give him on the head. I don't think I shall go back. Look! look!" Dexter was already looking at the frantic muddy figure upon the bank, up which it had climbed after emerging from the reeds. The man was half-mad with rage and disappointment, and he ran along shaking his fists, dancing about in his fury, and shouting to the boys what he would do. His appearance worked a miraculous effect upon the two boys. Dexter felt quite light-hearted in his relief, and Bob forgot all his sufferings and dread now that he was safely beyond their enemy's reach. Laying the blades of the sculls flat, as the boat drifted swiftly on with the tide, he kept on splashing the water, and shouting derisively-- "Yah! yah! Who cares for you? Yah! Go home and hang yourself up to dry! Yah! Who stole the boat!" Bob's derision seemed to be like oil poured upon a fire. The man grew half-wild with rage. He yelled, spat at them, shook his fists, and danced about in his impotent fury; and the more he raged, the more delighted Bob seemed to be. "Yah! Who stole the boat!" he kept on crying; and then added mocking taunts. "Here! hi!" he shouted, his voice travelling easily over the water, so that the man heard each word. "Here! hi! Have her now? Fifteen shillings. Come on. Yah!" "Quick, Bob, row!" cried Dexter, after several vain efforts to stop his companion's derisive cries. "Eh?" said Bob, suddenly stopping short. "Row, I tell you! Don't you see what he's going to do!" The man had suddenly turned and disappeared. "No," said Bob. "I've scared him away." "You haven't," said Dexter, with his feeling of dread coming back. "He's running across to the other creek to get the boat." Bob bent to his oars directly, and sent the gig rapidly along, and more and more into the swift current. He rowed so as to incline toward the further shore, and soon after they passed the mouth of the other creek. "Get out with yer," said Bob. "He ain't coming. And just you look here, young un; you hit me offull on the head with that there boat-hook, and as soon as ever I gits you ashore I'll make you go down on your knees and cry _chi_--_ike_; you see if I don't, and--" "There he is, Bob," said Dexter excitedly; and looking toward the other creek, there, sure enough, was the man in his wretched little tub of a boat, which he was forcing rapidly through the water, and looking over his shoulder from time to time at the objects of his pursuit. Bob pulled with all his might, growing pallid and muddy of complexion as the gig glided on. Matters had been bad enough before. Now the map would be ten times worse, while, to make things as bad as they could be, it soon became evident that the tide was on the turn, and that, unless they could stem it in the unequal battle of strength, they would be either swept back into their enemy's arms or else right up the river in a different direction to that which they intended to go, and, with the task before them, should they escape, of passing their enemy's lair once again. CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT. THE CROWNING POINT OF THE TRIP. "Come and lay hold o' one scull," said Bob, whose eyes seemed to be fixed as he stared at the back of their enemy. "Oh, do be quick!" Dexter slipped into his place, took the scull, and began to row. "Getting closer, ain't he?" whispered Bob hoarsely. "Yes. I'm afraid so." "Pull, pull!" Dexter needed no telling, and he tugged away at the oar as the boat glided a little more swiftly on. "Ain't leaving him behind, are we!" growled Bob, whose face now grew convulsed with horror. "No; I'm afraid he's coming nearer." "Oh dear, oh dear!" groaned Bob. "He'll half-kill me, and it's all your fault. Let's stop rowing and give him the boat." "That we won't," cried Dexter, setting his teeth. "I'll row till I die first." "But it'll only make him more savage," growled Bob. "I wish I was safe at home." "You're not half-pulling, Bob." "It's of no use, matey. He's sure to ketch us, and the furder we rows, the more wild he'll be." "I don't care," cried Dexter; "he shan't have it if I can help it. Row!" In his most cowardly moments Bob was obedience itself, and breaking out into a low sobbing whimper, as if it were a song to encourage him in his task, he rowed on with all his might, while only too plainly it could be seen that the man was gaining steadily upon them in spite of the clumsiness of his boat; and consequently it was only a question of time before the boys were overtaken, for the muscles of the man were certain to endure longer than those of Dexter, untrained as they were to such work. "He's closer, ain't he?" whined Bob. "Yes, ever so much," replied Dexter, between his set teeth. "Well, jest you recollect it was you hit him that whack on the head. I didn't do nothing." "Yes, you did," said Dexter sharply. "You said, _yah_! at him, and called him names." "No, I didn't. Don't you be a sneak," whined Bob. "You were ever so much worse than me. Is he coming closer?" "Yes." It was a fact, closer and closer, and the tide ran so strongly now that the boys had hard work to make much progress. They did progress, though, all the same, for their boat was narrow and sharp. Still the current was dead against them, and their want of movement added to their despair. Bad as it was for them, however, it was worse for the man in his heavy little broadly-bowed tub; and so it happened that just as Bob began to row more slowly, and burst into a fit of howling, which made Dexter feel as if he would like to turn and hit him over the head with his oar--a contact of scull against skull--the man suddenly ceased rowing, turned in his seat, and sat shaking his fist at them, showing his teeth in his impotent rage. "There!" cried Bob, who was transformed in an instant. "We've bet him. He can't pull no further. Yah! yah!" Bob changed back to his state of cowardly prostration, and began to tug once more at his oar, for his derisive yell galvanised the man once more into action, and the pursuit was continued. "Oh!" howled Bob. "Who'd ha' thought o' that?" "Who's stupid now?" panted Dexter, as he too rowed with all his might. Bob did nothing but groan, and the pursuit and flight were once more continued, each moment with despair getting a stronger hold of the fugitives. The oar felt hot in Dexter's blistered hands, a peculiar sensation of heaving was in his chest, his eyes began to swim, and he was just about to cease rowing, when he could hardly believe his starting eyes--their enemy had once more given up the pursuit, and was sitting wrenched round, and staring after them. "Don't, pray, don't shout at him this time, Bob," panted Dexter. "I won't if you're afraid," said the young scoundrel. "Keep on rowing, or he'll come after us again." Bob's scull was dipped again directly, and the motion of the boat was kept up sufficiently to counteract the drift of the tide, while the man in the little tub was swept rapidly away. "Let's get over the other side to those trees," said Dexter, as he felt that he could row no further, and the boat's head was directed half-across the stream so as to reach the clump of willows indicated, where, after a much heavier pull than they had anticipated, the gig was made fast, and Bob's first act after laying down his scull was to lean over the side and drink heartily of the muddy water. Dexter would gladly have lain down to rest, but there was a watch to keep up. Bob mocked at the idea. "Yah!" he said; "he won't some any more. I say, are you nearly dry?" "Nearly," said Dexter, "all but my boots and socks." These he took off, and put in the sun to dry, as he sat there with his elbows on his knees, and his chin on his hands, watching till Bob was asleep. He was faint and hungry, and the idea was strong in his mind that the man would steal down upon them when he was not expected. This thought completely drove away all drowsiness, though it did not affect his companion in the slightest degree. The next thing ought to have been to get some food, but there was no likely place within view, and though several boats and a barge or two passed, the fear of being questioned kept the watcher from hailing them, and asking where he could get some bread and milk. The hours glided slowly by, but there was no sign of the shabby little boat. The tide ran up swiftly, and the gig swung easily from its chain; and as Dexter sat there, hungry and lonely, he could not keep his thoughts at times from the doctor's comfortable house. Towards evening the socks and boots were so dry that Dexter replaced them, looking down the while rather ruefully at his mud-stained trousers. He rubbed them and scratched the patches with his nails; but the result was not satisfactory, and once more he sat gazing up the river in expectation of seeing their enemy come round the bend. It was getting late, and the tide had turned, as Dexter knew at once by the way in which the boat had swung round with its bows now pointing up-stream. And now seemed the time when the man might appear once more in pursuit. The thought impressed him so that he leaned over and shook Bob, who sat up and stared wonderingly about. "Hallo!" he said. "What time is it!" "I don't know, but the tide has turned, and that man may come after us again." "Nay, he won't come any more," said Bob confidently. "Let's go and get something to eat." It was a welcome proposal, and the boat being unmoored, Dexter took one of the sculls, and as they rowed slowly down with the tide he kept his eyes busy watching for the coming danger, but it did not appear. Bob went ashore at a place that looked like a ferry, where there was a little public-house, and this time returned with a small loaf, a piece of boiled bacon, and a bottle of cider. "I'd ha' brought the bacon raw, and we'd ha' cooked it over a fire," said Bob, "only there don't seem to be no wood down here, and there's such lots of houses." Dexter did not feel troubled about the way in which the bacon was prepared, but sat in the boat, as it drifted with the tide, and ate his portion ravenously, but did not find the sour cider to his taste. By the time they had finished, it was growing dark, and lights were twinkling here and there on either bank, showing that they were now in a well-populated part. "Where are we to sleep to-night, Bob?" said Dexter at last. "Dunno yet. Can't see no places." "We must be near the sea now, mustn't we?" "Yes, pretty handy to it," said Bob, with the confidence of one in utter ignorance. "We shall be there to-morrow, and then we can catch heaps of cod-fish, and soles, and mack'rel, and find oysters. It'll be all right then." This was encouraging, but somehow Dexter did not feel so much confidence in his companion as of old. But Bob's rest, and the disappearance of danger had brought him back to his former state, and he was constantly making references to the departed enemy. "I should just liked to have ketched him touching me!" he said. "I'd ha' give his shins such a kicking as would soon have made him cry `Leave off.'" Dexter sat and stared through the gloom at the young Gascon. "I'd ha' soon let him know what he'd get if he touched me." "Hi, Bob! look out!" Bob uttered a cry of dread, and nearly jumped overboard as something still and dark suddenly loomed up above him. Then there was a bump, which nearly finished what the boy had felt disposed to do; and then they were gliding along by the side of a vessel anchored in midstream. As they swept past the stern the boat bumped again against something black and round, which proved to be a floating tub. With this they seemed to have become entangled, for there was a rasping grating noise, then the boat's chain began to run rapidly over the bows, the boat swung round, and their further progress was checked. A piece of the chain with the hook had been left hanging over, and when they had touched the tub buoy the hook had caught, and they were anchored some little distance astern the large vessel. "Here's a game!" cried Bob, as soon as he had recovered from his astonishment. "Well, we can't go on in the dark. Let's stop here." "But we've got to find a place to sleep, Bob," protested Dexter. "Yah! you're always wanting to go to sleep. There ain't no place to sleep ashore, so let's sleep in the boat. Why, we shall always have to bunk down there when we get out to sea." "But suppose the boat should sink?" "Yah! suppose it did. We'd swim ashore. Only mind you don't get outer bed in the night and walk into the water. I don't want to go to sleep at all." Dexter did not feel drowsy, but again he could not help thinking of his room with the white hangings, and of how pleasant it would be to take off his clothes once more and lie between sheets. "Some chaps is always thinking about going to bed," said Bob jauntily. "Long as I gets a nap now and then, that's all I want." Dexter did not know it, but Bob Dimsted was a thorough-paced second-hand boy. Every expression of this kind was an old one, such as he had heard from his father, or the rough men who consorted with him, from the bullying down to the most playful remark. But, as aforesaid, Dexter did not realise all this. He had only got as far as the fact that Bob was not half so nice as he used to be, and that, in spite of his boasting and bullying, he was not very brave when put to the test. "There, I shan't go to sleep yet. You can have one o' them cushins forward," said Bob at last; and, suffering now from a sudden feeling of weariness, Dexter took one of the cushions forward, placed it so as to be as comfortable as possible, realising as he did this that, in spite of his words, Bob was doing the same with two cushions to his one, and before he had been lying there long, listening to the rippling of the water, and gazing up at the stars, a hoarse, wheezing noise proclaimed the fact that Bob Dimsted was once more fast asleep. Dexter was weary now in the extreme, the exertion and excitement he had gone through had produced, in connection with the irregular feeding, a state of fatigue that under other circumstances might have resulted in his dropping off at once, but now he could only lie and listen, and keep his eyes dilated and wide open, staring for some danger which seemed as if it must be near. He did not know what the danger might be, unless it was that man with the boat, but something seemed to threaten, and he could not sleep. Then, too, he felt obliged to think about Bob and about their journey. Where they were going, what sort of a place it would be, and whether they would be any more happy when they got to some beautiful island; for he was fain to confess that matters were very miserable now, and that the more he saw of Bob Dimsted the less he liked him. He was in the midst of one of his thoughtful moods, with Bob for his theme, and asking himself what he should do if Bob did begin to thrash him first time they were on shore; and he had just come to the conclusion that he would not let Bob thrash him if he could help it, when Bob suddenly leaped forward and hit him a round-handed sort of blow, right in the back of the neck. This so enraged him that he forgot directly all about companionship, and the sort of tacit brotherly compact into which they had entered, and springing at his assailant he struck him a blow in the chest, which sent him staggering back. For a moment or two Bob seemed to be beaten; then he came at him furiously, the turf was trampled and slippery, and they both went down; then they got up again, and fought away, giving and taking blows, every one of which sounded with a loud slap. That fight seemed as if it would never end, and Dexter felt as if he were getting the worst of it, consequent upon an inherent dislike to inflict pain, and his having passed over again and again opportunities for administering effective blows. At last they joined in what became little more than a wrestle, and Dexter felt the ground giving way beneath his feet; the back of his neck hurt him terribly, and he was about to give in, when the boys began to cheer, Mr Sibery ran up with the cane, and the doctor came looking stern and frowning, while he saw Helen Grayson put her hand to her eyes and turn away. "It's all Bob Dimsted's fault," he cried passionately; and he woke up with the words upon his lips, and a crick in the back of his neck, consequent upon the awkward cramped-up position in which he had lain. It was broad daylight, and for a few moments he was too much confused to understand where he was; but as he realised it all, and cast a quick look round in search of danger, he saw that they were hooked on to the slimy buoy, that twenty yards further there was the hull of an old schooner, against which they had been nearly capsized the previous evening, and four or five hundred yards beyond that, slowly paddling along, was their enemy, looking over his shoulder as if he had seen them, and meant to make sure of them now. Dexter hesitated between wakening Bob and setting the boat adrift. He decided on doing the latter, and hauling on the chain, he drew the boat right up to the buoy, followed the chain with his hands till he could touch the hook, and after some difficulty, his efforts reminding him of the night when he unfastened the chain in the boat-house--he dragged the hook from where it clung to a great rusty link, and all the time his eyes were as much fixed upon the man in the boat as upon the task he had in hand. Clear at last, and drifting away again. That was something towards safety, and he now stepped over the thwarts and shook Bob. Bob was too comfortable to open his eyes, and no matter what his companion did he could get no reply till he bent lower, and, inspired by the coming danger, shouted in his ear-- "I've got yer at last." Bob sprang up as if electrified, saw who spoke, and was about to burst into a torrent of angry abuse, when he followed the direction of Dexter's pointing hand, caught the approaching danger, and seized an oar. It was none too soon, for as Dexter seized the other, the man evidently realised that his prey was about to make another effort to escape, and, bending to his work, he sent the little tub-like boat surging through the water. "Pull, Bob!" said Dexter excitedly, an unnecessary order, for Bob had set his teeth, and, with his face working, was tugging so hard that it needed all Dexter's efforts to keep the boat from being pulled into the right-hand shore. The chase had begun in full earnest, and for the next hour, with very little alteration in their positions, it kept on. Then the pace began to tell on the boys. They had for some time been growing slower in their strokes, and they were not pulled so well home. Bob engaged every now and then in a dismal, despairing howl, usually just at the moment when Dexter thrust his oar too deeply in the water, and had hard work to get it out. But their natural exhaustion was not of such grave consequence as might have been imagined, for their pursuer was growing weary too, and his efforts were greatly wanting in the spirit he displayed at first. On the other hand, though the man came on slowly, he rowed with a steady, stubborn determination, which looked likely to last all the morning, and boded ill for those of whom he was in chase. Bob's face was a study, but Dexter's back was toward him, and he could not study it. The enemy was about two hundred yards behind, and whenever he seemed to flag a little Bob's face brightened; but so sure as the man glanced over his shoulder, and began to pull harder, the aspect of misery, dread, and pitiable helplessness Bob displayed was ludicrous; and at such times he glanced to right and left to see which was the nearest way to the shore. As Bob rowed he softly pushed off his boots. Soon after he made three or four hard tugs at his oar, and then, by a quick movement, drew one arm out of his jacket. Then rowing with one hand he shook himself quite clear of the garment, so as to be unencumbered when he began to swim, for that was his intention as soon as the man overtook them, and his peril became great. "He wants most of all to get the boat," he thought to himself; and soon after he opened his heart to Dexter. "Lookye here!" he said, "he wants to get the boat; and if he can get that he won't come after us. Let's row pretty close to the bank, and get ashore and run." "What! and leave the boat?" cried Dexter. "That I'm sure I will not." Dexter pulled all the harder after hearing this proposal, and Bob uttered a moan. All that morning the flight and pursuit were kept up, till on both sides it became merely a light dipping of the oars, so as to keep the boats' heads straight, the tide carrying them along. It was plain enough now that they were getting toward the mouth of the river, which was now quite broad. Houses were growing plentiful, barges lay at wharves or moored with other boats in the stream, and care had to be exercised to avoid coming in collision with the many obstacles in their way. But they kept on; and though at Bob's piteous suggestion they wound in and out among the many crafts in the hope of shaking off their pursuer, it was all in vain, for he kept doggedly on after them, with the matter-of-fact determination of a weasel after a rabbit, sure of its scent, and certain that before long the object of the pursuit would resign itself to its fate. On still in a dreary mechanical way. Dexter could hardly move his arms, and Bob was, in spite of his long experience, almost as helpless. "It's of no use," the latter said at last; and he ceased rowing. "No, no, Bob; don't give in!" cried Dexter excitedly. "We shall soon tire him out now. Row! Row!" "Can't," said Bob drearily. "I haven't another pull in me." "Then give me the other scull, and let me try." "Yah! you couldn't pull both," cried Bob. "There, I'm going to try a hundred more strokes, and then I shall swim ashore. I ain't going to let him catch me." "Pull, then, a hundred more," cried Dexter excitedly. "Oh, do make it two, Bob! He'll be tired out by then." "I'm a-going to pull a hundred," grumbled Bob, "and then give it up. Now then!" The sculls splashed the water almost together, and for a few strokes the boys pulled vigorously and well; but it was like the last bright flashes of an expiring candle, and long before the half-hundred was reached the dippings of the blades grew slower and slower. Then they became irregular, while, to add to the horror of the position, the man in pursuit seemed to have been keeping a reserve of strength ready for such an emergency, and he now came on rapidly. Bob would have proposed putting ashore once more, but, in avoiding the various crafts, they had now contrived to be about midstream, and in his horror and dread of the coming enemy all thought of scheming seemed to have been driven out of his head. He uttered a despairing yell, and began to tug at his oar once more; Dexter followed his example, and the distance again increased. But only for a few minutes, then they seemed to be growing weaker, their arms became like lead; their eyes grew dim, and the end was very near. "Ah, I've got yer at last, have I?" shouted the man, who was not forty yards away now. "Not yet," muttered Dexter. "Pull, Bob, pull!" Bob responded by going through the motion of rowing, but his scull did not dip into the water, and, meeting with no resistance, he went backwards off the seat, with his heels in the air. Dexter jumped up, seized his companion's scull, and, weary as he was, with all the stubborn English pluck which never knows when it is beaten, he reseated himself, shipped his scull, and bent forward to try, inexperienced as he was, to make another effort for escape. As he seated himself, breathless and panting hard, he gave one glance at his enemy, then another over his shoulder at a boat on ahead, which it would be his duty to avoid, for it seemed to be going right across his track. Then he began to row, putting the little strength he had left into his last strokes. "Ah, it's no good," cried the man triumphantly. "I've got yer at last." "How--ow!" yelled Bob, with a cry like a Newfoundland dog shut out on a cold night. "Drop that there rowing, or I'll--" Dexter heard no more. He was pulling frantically, but making hardly any way. Then he heard voices ahead, glanced round with his sculls raised, and found that he was running right toward the craft just ahead. Another moment and there was a bump. The man had driven his little tub right into the stern of the gig, and as he laid hold he snarled out-- "I knew I should ketch yer." "How--ow!" yelled Bob again, from where he lay on his back in the bottom of the boat, his legs still over the seat. _Bump_! There was another shock, and Dexter started up, saw that he had run into the boat ahead, and that one of the two sailors, who had been rowing, had taken hold of the bows. He saw that at a glance, but he also saw something else which seemed to freeze the blood in his breast. For there, seated in the stern of that large boat into which he had run, were the Doctor, Sir James Danby, old Dan'l, and Peter. CHAPTER THIRTY NINE. BROUGHT TO BOOK. Dexter did not pause a moment. It did not occur to him that he was utterly exhausted, and could hardly move his arms. All he realised was the fact that on the one side was the man whom he had half-killed with the boat-hook, just about to stretch out his hand to seize him, on the other, those whom he dreaded far more, and with one quick movement he stepped on to the thwart of the gig, joined his hands, dived in, and disappeared from sight, in the muddy water. For a few moments there was the silence of utter astonishment, and then the man who had pursued the boys down the river began to take advantage of the general excitement by keeping hold of the side of the gig and beginning to draw it away; but Bob set up such a howl of dismay that it drew Peter's attention, and he too seized the boat from the other end, caught out the chain, and hooked it on to a ring-bolt of the big boat in which he sat. "You drop that there, will yer!" cried the man. "It's my boat." "How--ow!" cried Bob, in the most canine of yelps; and at the same moment the gig was literally jerked from the man's hold, for the two sailors had given a tremendous tug at their oars to force the boat in the direction that Dexter was likely to take after his rise, and the next minute a dozen yards were between the tub and the gig. "For heaven's sake, mind! stop!" cried the doctor excitedly. "Don't row, men, or you may strike him down." The men ceased rowing, and every eye began to search the surface of the water, but no sign of Dexter could be seen. "He could not sink like that," cried Sir James. "He must rise somewhere." But must or no, Dexter did not rise, and the men began to paddle softly down-stream, while the doctor stood up in the boat gazing wildly round. "It was all my doing," he said to himself. "Poor boy! poor boy!" A feeling of horror that was unbearable seemed to be creeping over the occupants of the great boat. Even Dan'l, who looked upon Dexter as his mortal enemy, and who had suggested, in the hope of seeing him sent to prison, that the surest way of capturing the boys was to go down to the mouth of the river--even Dan'l felt the chill of horror as he mentally said-- "'Tain't true. Them as is born to be hanged is sometimes drowned." But just then there was a tremendous splash, and the big boat rocked to and fro, the captive gig danced, and Bob uttered another of his canine yelps, for Peter had suddenly stepped on to the gunwale, dived in after something he had seen touch the surface of the water twenty yards lower down, where it had been rolled over and over by the rapid tide, and a minute later, as he swam vigorously, he shouted--"I've got him!" And he was seen holding the boy's head above the water, as he turned to try and stem the current, and swim back to the boat. The task was not long, for the two sailors sent her down with a few vigorous sweeps of their oars, and Dexter and his rescuer were dragged over the side, as the man with the tub slowly backed away. No time was lost in reaching the shore, and the insensible boy was carried up to the principal hotel in the port, where quite an hour elapsed before the surgeon whose services were sought was able to pause from his arduous task, and announce that his patient would live. For it was a very narrow escape, and the surgeon said, as he shook hands with Dr Grayson-- "Some men would have given it up in despair, sir. But there he is, safe and sound, and, I dare say, boy-like, it will not be very long before he gets into some mischief again." Sir James Danby coughed, and Doctor Grayson frowned as he met his friend's peculiar look. But nothing was said then till the surgeon had been up to see his patient once more, after which he returned, reported that Dexter had sunk into a sound slumber, and then took his leave. "I suppose we shall not go back to Coleby to-night?" said Sir James. "I shall not," said the doctor; "but, my dear Danby, pray don't let me keep you." "Oh! you will not keep me," said Sir James quietly. "I've got to make arrangements about my boat being taken up the river." "Why not let my men row it back!" said the doctor. "Because I did not like to impose on your kindness." "Then they may take it?" "I shall only be too grateful," said Sir James. Nothing more was said till they had ordered and sat down to a snug dinner in the hotel, when Sir James opened the ball. "Now, Grayson," he said, "I happen to be a magistrate." "Yes, of course," said the doctor uneasily. "Well, then, I want to have a few words with you about those two boys." The doctor nodded. "Your groom is with your _protege_, and your old gardener has that other young scoundrel in charge." "In charge?" said the doctor. "Yes; you may call it so. I told him not to lose sight of the young rascal, and I also told your groom to exercise the same supervision over the other." "But surely, my dear Danby, you do not mean to--" "Deal with them as I would with any other offender? Why not?" The doctor had no answer ready, so Sir James went on-- "I valued that boat very highly, and certainly I've got it back--with the exception of the stains upon the cushions--very little the worse. But this was a serious theft, almost as bad as horse-stealing, and I shall have to make an example of them." "But one of them has been terribly punished," said the doctor eagerly. "Pooh! not half enough, sir. Come, Grayson, of course this has completely cured you of your mad folly!" "My mad folly!" cried the doctor excitedly. "May I ask you what you mean?" "Now, my dear Grayson, pray don't be angry. I only say, as an old friend and neighbour, surely you must be ready to agree that your wild idea of making a gentleman out of this boy--one of the dregs of our civilisation--is an impossibility?" "Nothing of the sort, sir," cried the doctor angrily. "I never felt more certain of the correctness of my ideas." "Tut--tut--tut--tut!" ejaculated Sir James. "Really, Grayson, this is too much." "Too much, sir? Nothing of the kind. A boyish escapade. Nothing more." "Well!" said Sir James drily, "when such cases as this are brought before us at the bench, we are in the habit of calling them thefts." "Theft: pooh! No, no!" cried the doctor stubbornly. "A boyish prank. He would have sent the boat back." "Would he?" said Sir James drily. "I suppose you think his companion would have done the same?" "I have nothing to do with the other boy," said the doctor shortly. "It was a most unfortunate thing that Dexter should have made his acquaintance." "Birds of a feather flock together, my dear Grayson," said Sir James. "Nothing of the kind, sir. It was my fault," cried the doctor. "I neglected to let the boy have suitable companions of his own age; and the consequence was that he listened to this young scoundrel, and allowed himself to be led away." "Do I understand aright, from your defence of the boy, that you mean to forgive him and take him back!" "Certainly!" said the doctor. "Grayson, you amaze me! But if I prove to you that you are utterly wrong, and that the young dog is an arrant thief, what then?" "Then," said the doctor, "I'm afraid I should have to--No, I wouldn't. I would try and reform him." "Well," said Sir James, "if you choose to be so ultra lenient, Grayson, you must; but I feel that I have a duty to do, and as soon as we have had our wine I propose that we have the prisoners here, and listen to what they have to say." "Prisoners?" "Yes. What else would you call them?" Before the doctor could stand up afresh in Dexter's defence a waiter entered the room. "Beg pardon, sir, but your groom says would you be good enough to step upstairs?" "Bless my heart!" cried the doctor. "Is it a relapse?" He hurried up to the room where Dexter had been sleeping, to find that, instead of being in bed, he was fully dressed, and lying on the floor, with Peter the groom holding him down. "Why, what's the matter!" cried the doctor, as he entered the room hastily, followed by Sir James. "Matter, sir?" said Peter, "matter enough. If I hadn't held him down like this here I believe he'd 'a' been out o' that window." "Why, Dexter!" cried the doctor. The boy struggled feebly, and then, seeing the futility of his efforts, he lay still and closed his eyes. "Went off fast asleep, sir, as any one would ha' thought," said Peter. "And seeing him like that I thought I'd just go down and fetch myself a cup o' tea; but no sooner was I out o' the room than he must have slipped out and dressed hisself--shamming, you know--and if I hadn't come back in the nick o' time he'd have been gone." The doctor frowned, and Sir James looked satisfied, as he gave him a nod. "Going to run away, eh!" "Yes, Sir James," said the groom; "and it was as much as I could do to hold him." "Get up, Peter," said the doctor. The groom rose, and Dexter leapt up like a bit of spring, and darted toward the door. But Sir James was close to it, and catching the boy by the arm he held him. "Take hold, of him, my man," he said; "and don't let him go." Peter obeyed, getting a tight grip of Dexter's wrist. "Now, you give in," he whispered. "It's no good, for I shan't let go." "Bring him down," said Sir James sternly. Peter shook his head warningly at Dexter, and then, as Sir James and the doctor went down to their room, Peter followed with his prisoner, who looked over the balustrade as if measuring the distance and his chance if he made a jump. "Now," said Sir James, as the boy was led into the room; "stand there, sir, and I warn you that if you attempt to run away I shall have in the police, and be more stern. You, my man, go and tell the gardener to bring up the other boy." Peter left the room after giving Dexter a glance, and the doctor began to walk up and down angrily. He wanted to take the business into his own hands, but Sir James was a magistrate, and it seemed as if he had a right to take the lead. There was a painful silence, during which Dexter stood hanging his head, and feeling as if he wished he had been drowned, instead of being brought round to undergo such a painful ordeal as this. Ten minutes must have elapsed before a scuffling was heard upon the stairs, and Bob Dimsted's voice whimpering-- "You let me alone, will yer? I never done nothing to you. Pair o' great cowards, y'are. Don't knock me about, or it'll be the worse for yer. Hit one o' your own size. I never said nothing to you." This was continued and repeated right into the room, Dan'l looking very severe and earnest, and holding on by the boy's collar, half-dragging him, while Peter pushed behind, and then closed the door, and stood before it like a sentry. "You have not been striking the boy, I hope!" said the doctor. "Strike him, sir? no, not I," said Dan'l; "but I should like to. Been a-biting and kicking like a neel to get away." Sir James had never seen an eel kick, but he accepted the simile, and turning to Bob, who was whimpering and howling--"knocking me about"--"never said nothing to him"--"if my father was here," etc. "Silence!" roared Sir James, in his severest tones; and Bob gave quite a start and stared. "Now, sir," said Sir James. "Here, both of you; stand together, and mind this: it will be better for both of you if you are frank and straightforward." "I want to go home," whimpered Bob. "Y'ain't no business to stop me here." "Silence!" roared Sir James; and Bob jumped. Dexter did not move, but stood with his eyes fixed to the floor. "Now!" said Sir James, gazing fiercely at Bob; "you know, I suppose, why you are here." "No! I don't," whimpered Bob. "And y'ain't no business to stop me. I want to go home." "Silence, sir!" roared Sir James again. "You do not know? Well, then, I will tell you. You are before me, sir, charged with stealing a boat." "Oh!" ejaculated Bob, in a tone of wondering innocence. "And I perhaps ought to explain," said Sir James, looking hard at Dr Grayson, and speaking apologetically, "that in an ordinary way, as the boat was my property, I should feel called upon to leave the bench; but as this is only a preliminary examination, I shall carry it on myself. Now, sir," he continued, fixing Bob's shifty eyes, "what have you to say, sir, for stealing my boat?" "Stealing your boat!" cried Bob volubly; "me steal your boat, sir? I wouldn't do such a thing." "Why, you lying young dog!" "No, sir, I ain't, sir," protested Bob, as Dexter slowly raised his head and gazed at him. "It wasn't me, sir. It was him, sir. That boy, sir. I begged him not to, sir; but he would do it." "Oh, it was Dexter Grayson, was it?" said Sir James, glancing at the doctor, who was gnawing his lip and beating the carpet with his toe. "Yes, sir; it was him, sir. I was t'other side o' the river one day, sir," rattled off Bob, "and he shouts to me, sir, `Hi!' he says, just like that, sir, and when I went to him, sir, he says, `Let's steal the old cock's boat and go down the river for a game.'" "Well?" said Sir James. "Well, sir, I wouldn't, sir," continued Bob glibly. "I said it would be like stealing the boat; and I wouldn't do that." "Oh!" said Sir James. "Is this true, Dexter!" said the doctor sternly. "No, sir. He wanted me to take the boat." "Oh, my!" cried Bob. "Hark at that now! Why, I wouldn't ha' done such a thing." "No, you look a nice innocent boy," said Sir James. "Yes, sir; and he was allus at me about that boat, and said he wanted to go to foreign abroad, he did, and the best way, he said, was to steal that there boat and go." "Oh," said Sir James. "And what more have you to say, sir?" "It isn't true, sir," said Dexter, making an effort to speak, and he gazed angrily at his companion. "Bob here wanted me to go with him, and he persuaded me to take the boat." "Oh! only hark at him!" cried Bob, looking from one to the other. "And I thought it would be like stealing the boat to take it like that." "Well, rather like it," said Sir James sarcastically. "And so I sent that letter and that money to pay for it, sir, and I meant to send the rest if it wasn't quite enough." "Ah!" ejaculated the doctor eagerly. "What letter? What money?" said Sir James. "That money I sent by Bob Dimsted, sir, to put in your letter-box." "I never received any money," cried Sir James. "You sent some money!" "Yes, sir; before we took the boat, sir." "Ah!" ejaculated the doctor again. "And you sent it by this boy?" "Yes, sir." "Then where is the money?" cried Sir James, turning upon Bob. "I dunno, sir. I never had no money." "You did, Bob, in a letter I gave you," cried Dexter excitedly. "Oh!" ejaculated Bob, with an astonished look. "Well, if ever!" "This is getting interesting," said Sir James. "Now, sir, where's that money?" "He never give me none, sir," cried Bob indignantly. "I never see no letter." "You did. The one I threw across the river to you!" said Dexter. "Oh, what a cracker!" cried Bob. "I never had no letter, gen'lemen, and I never see no money. Why don't you tell the truth, and the kind gentlemen won't be so hard on you?" "I am telling the truth," cried Dexter, "It was you asked me to take the boat." "Only hark at him!" cried Bob. "Why yer'd better say yer didn't take all yer clothes off and swim acrost and get it." "I did," said Dexter; "but you made me. You said you'd go." "Oh, you can tell 'em!" cried Bob. "And I did give you the money to take." "Oh, well, I've done," said Bob. "I never did hear a chap tell lies like you can!" "I think that will do," said Sir James, with a side glance at the doctor, who sat with his brows knit, listening. "Now, you will both go back to the room where you are to sleep, and I warn you that if you attempt to escape, so surely will you be taken by the police, and then this matter will assume a far more serious aspect. You, my men, will have charge of these two boys till the morning. They are not to speak to each other, and I look to you to take them safely back to Coleby by the early train. That will do." Dexter darted one glance at the doctor, but his face was averted. "Please, sir," he began. "Silence!" cried Sir James. "I think Dr Grayson understands your character now, and I must say I never heard a more cowardly attempt to fasten a fault upon another. No: not a word. Go!" Bob Dimsted was already outside with Dan'l's knuckles in the back of his neck. Peter was more gentle with his prisoner as he led him away. "You've been and done it now, young fellow," he said. "I would ha' told the truth." Dexter turned to him with bursting heart, but he could not speak, and as soon as he was in his bedroom he threw himself before a chair, and buried his face in his hands, so as to try and shut out the reproachful face of Helen, which he seemed to see. "I wish I had not been saved," he cried at last passionately, and then he glanced at the window, and listened, while downstairs Sir James was saying quietly-- "There, Grayson, I think you understand the boy's character now." "No," said the doctor shortly. "I don't think I do." "What!" "And I'd give a hundred pounds," said the doctor, "to know the truth." "Really," said Sir James, laughing. "You are the most obstinate man I ever knew." "Yes," said the doctor. "I suppose I am." CHAPTER FORTY. "HUZZA! WE'RE HOMEWARD BOUND!" The first wet day there had been for a month. It seemed as if Mother Nature had been saving up all her rain in a great cistern, and was then letting it out at once. No glorious sapphire seas and brilliant skies; no golden sunshine pouring down on tawny sands, over which waved the long pinnate leaves of the cocoa-nuts palms; no brilliant-coloured fish that seemed to be waiting to be caught; no glorious life of freedom, with their boat to enable them to glide from isle to isle, where it was always summer; but rain, rain, rain, always rain, pouring down from a lead-black sky. A dreary prospect, but not half so dreary as Dexter's spirits, as he thought of what was to come. If ever boy felt miserable, he did that next morning, for they were all going back to Coleby. The romantic adventure was at an end, and he was like a prisoner. Why had he left the doctor's? What had he gained by it but misery and wretchedness. Bob had turned out one of the most contemptible cowards that ever stepped. He had proved to be a miserable tyrannical bully when they were alone; and in the face of danger a wretched cur; while now that they were caught he was ready to tell any lie to save his own skin. What would Helen say to him, and think of him? What would Mr Hippetts say--and Mr Sibery? He would be sent back to the Union of course; and one moment he found himself wishing that he had never left the schools to be confronted with such misery as he felt now. They were on their way back by rail. The doctor, who had not even looked at him, was in a first-class carriage with Sir James, and the plans being altered, and the boat sent up to Coleby by a trustworthy man, Bob and Dexter were returning in a second-class carriage, with their custodians, Peter and old Dan'l. They were the sole occupants of the carriage, and soon after starting Bob turned to Dexter-- "I say!" he exclaimed. Dexter started, and looked at him indignantly--so angrily, in fact, that Bob grinned. "Yer needn't look like that," he said. "If I forgives yer, and begins to talk to yer, what more d'yer want!" Dexter turned away, and looked out of the window. "There's a sulky one!" said Bob, with a coarse laugh; and as he spoke it was as if he were appealing to old Dan'l and Peter in turn. "He would do it. I tried to hold him back, but he would do it, and he made me come, and now he turns on me like that." "You're a nice un," said Peter, staring hard at the boy. "So are you!" said the young scamp insolently. "You mind yer own business, and look arter him. He's got to look arter me--ain't yer, sir!" "Yes," said old Dan'l sourly; "and I'm going to stuff a hankychy or something else into your mouth if you don't hold your tongue." "Oh, are yer!" said Bob boldly. "I should just like to see yer do it." "Then you shall if you don't keep quiet." Bob was silent for a few minutes, and then amused himself by making a derisive grimace at Dan'l as soon as he was looking another way. "It was all his fault," he said sullenly. "He would take the boat." "Ah, there was about six o' one of you, and half a dozen of the other," said Peter, laughing. "You'll get it, young fellow. Six weeks hard labour, and then four years in a reformatory. That's about your dose." "Is it?" said Bob derisively. "That's what he'll get, and serve him right--a sneak." Dexter's cheeks, which were very pale, began to show spots of red, but he stared out of the window. "I shouldn't have gone, only he was allus at me," continued Bob. "Allus. Some chaps ain't never satisfied." Old Dan'l filled his pipe, and began to smoke. "You'll get enough to satisfy you," said Peter. "I say, Dan'l, you wouldn't mind, would you?" "Mind what?" grunted Dan'l. "Giving me one of the noo brooms. One out o' the last dozen--the long switchy ones. I could just cut the band, and make about three reg'lar teasers out of one broom." "What, birch-rods?" said Dan'l, with a sort of cast-iron knocker smile. "Yes," said Peter. "Mind? no, my lad, you may have two of 'em, and I should like to have the laying of it on." "Yah! would yer!" said Bob defiantly. "Dessay you would. I should like to see yer." "But you wouldn't like to feel it," said Peter. "My eye, you will open that pretty mouth of yours! Pig-ringing'll be nothing to it." "Won't be me," said Bob. "It'll be him, and serve him right." Dexter's cheeks grew redder as he pictured the disgrace of a flogging scene. "Not it," continued Peter. "You'll get all that. Sir James'll give it you as sure as a gun. Won't he, Dan'l!" "Ah!" ejaculated the old gardener. "I heerd him say over and over again that ha wouldn't lose that boat for a hundred pounds. You'll get it, my gentleman!" "No, I shan't, 'cause I didn't do it. He'll give it to him, and sarve him right, leading me on to go with him, and boasting and bouncing about, and then pretending he wanted to buy the boat, and saying he sent me with the money." "So I did," cried Dexter, turning sharply round; "and you stole it, and then told lies." "That I didn't," said Bob. "I never see no money. 'Tain't likely. It's all a tale you made up, and--oh!" Bob burst into a regular bellow of pain, for, as he had been speaking, he had edged along the seat a little from his corner of the carriage, to bring himself nearer Dexter, who occupied the opposite diagonal corner. As Bob spoke he nodded his head, and thrust his face forward at Dexter so temptingly, that, quick as lightning, the latter flung out his right, and gave Bob a back-handed blow in the cheek. "Oh! _how_!" cried Bob; and then menacingly, "Here, just you do that again!" Dexter's blood was up. There was a long course of bullying to avenge, and he did that again, a good deal harder, with the result that the yell Bob emitted rose well above the rattle of the carriage. "Well done, young un," cried Peter delightedly. "That's right. Give it him again. Here, Dan'l, let 'em have it out, and we'll see fair!" "No, no, no!" growled the old gardener, stretching out one hand, and catching Bob by the collar, so as to drag him back into his corner--a job he had not the slightest difficulty in doing. "None o' that. They'd be blacking one another's eyes, and there'd be a row." "Never mind," cried Peter, with all the love of excitement of his class. "No, no," said Dan'l. "No fighting;" and he gave Dexter a grim look of satisfaction, which had more kindness in it than any the boy had yet seen. "Here, you let me get at him!" cried Bob. "No, no, you sit still," said Dan'l, holding him back with one hand. The task was very easy. A baby could have held Bob, in spite of the furious show of struggling that he made, while, on the other hand, Peter sat grinning, and was compelled to pass one arm round Dexter, and clasp his own wrist, so as to thoroughly imprison him, and keep him back. "Better let 'em have it out, Dan'l," he cried. "My one's ready." "Let me go. Let me get at him," shrieked Bob. "Yes, let him go, Dan'l," cried Peter. But Dan'l shook his head, and as Bob kept on struggling and uttering threats, the old man turned upon him fiercely-- "Hold your tongue, will you?" he roared. "You so much as say another word, and I'll make you fight it put." Bob's jaw dropped, and he stared in astonishment at the fierce face before him, reading therein so much determination to carry the threat into effect that he subsided sulkily in his corner, and turned away his face, for every time he glanced at the other end of the carriage it was to see Peter grinning at him. "Ah!" said Peter at last; "it's a good job for us as Dan'l held you back. You made me shiver." Bob scowled. "He's thoroughbred game, he is, Dan'l." Dan'l chuckled. "He'd be a terrible chap when his monkey was up. Oh, I am glad. He'd ha' been sure to win." "Let him alone," growled Dan'l, with a low chuckling noise that sounded something like the slow turning of a weak watchman's rattle; and then muttering something about white-livered he subsided into his corner, and solaced himself with his pipe. Meanwhile Peter sat opposite, talking in a low tone to Dexter, and began to ask him questions about his adventures, listening with the greatest eagerness to the short answers he received, till Dexter looked up at him piteously. "Don't talk to me, please, Peter," he said. "I want to sit and think." "And so you shall, my lad," said the groom; and he too took out a pipe, and smoked till they reached Coleby. Dexter shivered as he stepped out upon the platform. It seemed to him that the stationmaster and porters were staring at him as the boy who ran away, and he was looking round for a way of retreat, so as to escape what was to come, when Sir James and the doctor came up to them. "You can let that boy go," said the doctor to Dan'l. "Let him go, sir?" cried the gardener, looking at both the gentlemen in turn. Sir James nodded. Bob, whose eyes had been rat-like in their eager peering from face to face, whisked himself free, darted to the end of the platform, and uttered a loud yell before he disappeared. "Look here, Dexter," said the doctor coldly; "I have been talking to Sir James on our way here. Now sir, will you give me your word not to try and escape?" Dexter looked at him for a moment or two. "Yes, sir," he said at last, with a sigh. "Then come with me." "Come with you, sir?" Dexter looked at his stained and muddy clothes. "Yes," said the doctor; "come with me." Sir James shrugged his shoulders slightly, and gave the doctor a meaning look. "Good-bye, Grayson," he said, and he shook hands. "As for you, sir," he added sternly, as he turned to Dexter, "you and your companion have had a very narrow escape. If it had not been for your good friend here, matters would have gone ill with you--worse perhaps than you think." Dexter hung his head, and at a sign from the doctor went to his side, and they walked out of the station with Dan'l and Peter behind. The doctor stopped. "You have given me your word, sir, that you will come quietly up to the house," he said coldly. "Yes, sir," said Dexter sadly. The doctor, signed to Dan'l and Peter to come up to them. "You can go on first," he said; and the men passed on. "I don't want you to feel as if you were a prisoner, Dexter," said the doctor gravely. "It is one of the grandest things in a gentleman--his word--which means his word of honour." Dexter had nothing he could say; and with a strange swelling at the throat he walked on beside the doctor, gazing at the pavement a couple of yards in front of him, and suffering as a sensitive boy would suffer as he felt how degraded and dirty he looked, and how many people in the town must know of his running away, and be gazing at him, now that he was brought back by the doctor, who looked upon him as a thief. Every house and shop they passed was familiar. There were several of the tradespeople too standing at their doors ready to salute the doctor, and Dexter's cheeks burned with shame. His punishment seemed more than he could bear. In another ten minutes they would be at the house, where Maria would open the door, and give him a peculiar contemptuous look--the old look largely intensified; and but for the doctor's words, and the promise given, the boy felt that he must have run away down the first side-turning they passed. Then, as Maria faded from his mental vision, pleasant old Mrs Millett appeared, with her hands raised, and quite a storm of reproaches ready to be administered to him, followed, when she had finished and forgiven him, as he knew she would forgive him, by a dose of physic, deemed by her to be absolutely necessary after his escapade. The house at last, and everything just as Dexter had anticipated. Maria opened the door, and then wrinkled up her forehead and screwed up her lips in a supercilious smile. "Your mistress in!" said the doctor. "Yes, sir, in the drawing-room, sir." "Hah!" ejaculated the doctor. "Found him, sir? _And_ brought him back!" cried a familiar voice; and Mrs Millett hurried into the hall. "O you bold, bad boy!" she cried. "How dare you? And you never took your medicine that night. Oh, for shame! for shame!" "Hush, hush, Mrs Millett!" said the doctor sternly. "That will do." He signed to the old lady, and she left the hall, but turned to shake her head at the returned culprit as she went, while Maria gave him a meaning smile as soon as the doctor's back was turned, and then passed through the baize door. The doctor stood there silent and frowning for a few minutes, with his eyes fixed upon the floor, while Dexter awaited his sentence, painfully conscious, and longing for the doctor to speak and put him out of his misery. "Now, sir," he said at last; "you had better go in and speak to Miss Grayson. She is waiting, I suppose, to see you in that room. I sent word we were coming." "No, no," said Dexter quickly. "Don't send me in there, sir. You'd better send me back to the school, sir. I'm no good, and shall only get into trouble again; please send me back. I shouldn't like to see Miss Grayson now." "Why not!" said the doctor sternly. "Because you don't believe me, sir, and she won't, and--and--you had better send me back." "I am waiting to see you here, Dexter," said Helen gravely, and the boy started away with a cry, for the drawing-room door had opened silently, and Helen was standing on the mat. CHAPTER FORTY ONE. HOW THE DOCTOR PUNISHED. Dexter's interview with Helen was long and painful, for at first it seemed as if she had lost all confidence and hope in the boy, till, realising all this, he cried in a wild outburst of grief--"I know how wrong it all was, but nearly everybody here seemed to dislike me, and I did tell the truth about the boat, but no one believes. Do--do ask him to send me away." There was a long silence here, as, for the first time, in spite of a hard fight, Dexter could not keep back his tears. The silence was broken by Helen, who took his hand, and said gently-- "I believe you, Dexter. I am sure you would not tell a lie." In an instant his arms were round her neck, and he was clinging to her unable to speak, but his eyes, his convulsed face, telling the doctor's daughter that she was right. That evening, feeling very strange and terribly depressed, Dexter had gone to his old bedroom, thinking it must be for the last time, and wondering how Mr Sibery would treat him. Helen had sat talking to him for quite a couple of hours, winning from him a complete account of his adventures, and in return relating to him how concerned every one had been on the discovery of his evasion, and how bitterly the doctor had been mortified on learning later on that the boat had been taken. Who were the culprits was known in the course of the day, with the result that, acting on the suggestion already alluded to, the doctor had gone down to the mouth of the river to wait the coming of the borrowers of the boat. Helen had exacted no promises from Dexter. He had made none, but sat there with her, his hand in hers, wondering and puzzled how it was that he could have run away, but the more he thought, the more puzzled he grew. "Well," said the doctor that evening, as he sat with his daughter, "I told Danby that I was more determined than ever; that it was only a boyish escapade which he must look over to oblige me, and he agreed after making a great many bones about it. But I feel very doubtful, Helen, and I may as well confess it to you." "Doubtful?" she said. "Yes, my dear. I could have forgiven everything if the boy had been frank and honest--if he had owned to his fault in a straightforward way; but when he sought to hide his own fault by trying to throw it on another, I couldn't help feeling disgusted." "But, papa--" "Let me finish, my dear. I know what you are about to say. Woman-like, you are going to take his part. It will not do. The lying and deceit are such ugly blemishes in the boy's character that I am out of heart." "Indeed, papa?" said Helen, smiling. "Ah, it's all very well for you to laugh at me because I have failed over my hobby; but I feel I'm right all the same, and I tell you that his ignorance, vulgarity--" "Both of which are wonderfully changed." "Yes, my dear, granted, and he does not talk so much about the workhouse. He was a great deal better, and I could have forgiven this mad, boyish prank--though what could have influenced him, I don't know." "I can tell you," said Helen. "A boy's love of adventure. The idea of going off in a boat to discover some wonderful island where he could live a Robinson Crusoe kind of life." "A young donkey!" cried the doctor. "But there, it's all off. I could have forgiven everything, but the cowardly lying." "Then, poor fellow, he is forgiven." "Indeed, no, my dear. He goes back to the Union to-morrow; but I shall tell Hippetts to apprentice him to some good trade at once, and I will pay a handsome premium. Confound Hippetts! He'll laugh at me." "No, he will not, papa." "Yes, he will, my dear. I know the man." "But you will not be laughed at." "Why not?" "Because you will not send Dexter back." "Indeed, my dear, but I shall. I am beaten, and I give up." "But you said you would forgive everything but the deceit and falsehood." "Yes, everything." "There is no deceit and falsehood to forgive." "What?" "Dexter has told me everything. The simple truth." "But he should have told it before, and said he took the boat." "He told the truth in every respect, papa." "My dear Helen," said the doctor pettishly, "you are as obstinate as I am. The lying young dog--" "Hush, papa, stop!" said Helen gently. "Dexter is quite truthful, I am sure." "That is your weak woman's heart pleading for him," said the doctor. "No, my dear, no; it will not do." "I am quite certain, papa," said Helen firmly, "that he spoke the truth." "How do you know, my dear?" "Because Dexter told me again and again before he went up to bed." "And you believe him?" "Yes, and so will you." "Wish I could," said the doctor earnestly. "I'd give a hundred pounds to feel convinced." "You shall be convinced for less than that, papa," said Helen merrily. "Give me a kiss for my good news." "There's the kiss in advance, my dear. Now, where is the news?" "Here, papa. If Dexter were the hardened boy you try to make him--" "No, no: gently. He makes himself one." "--he would have gone up to bed to-night careless and indifferent after shedding a few fictitious tears--" "Very likely." "--and be sleeping heartily by now." "As he is, I'll be bound," cried the doctor energetically. "Of course, I may be wrong," said Helen, "but Dexter strikes me as being so sensitive a boy--so easily moved, that, I am ready to say, I am sure that he is lying there half-heartbroken, crying bitterly, now he is alone." "I'll soon prove that," said the doctor sharply; and, crossing the room in his slippers, he silently lit a candle and went upstairs to Dexter's door, where he stood listening for a few minutes, to find that all was perfectly still. Then turning the handle quietly, he entered, and it was quite half an hour before he came out. "Well, papa?" said Helen, as the doctor returned to the drawing-room. "You're a witch, my dear," he said. "I was right?" "You always are, my dear." "And you will not send him back to the Union schools!" "Send him back!" said the doctor contemptuously. "Nor have him apprenticed?" said Helen, with a laughing light in her eyes. "Have him ap--Now that's too bad, my dear," cried the doctor. "Danby will laugh at me enough. You need not join in. Poor boy! I'm glad I went up." There was a pause, during which the doctor sat back in his chair. "Do you know, my dear, I don't feel very sorry that the young dog went off." "Not feel sorry, papa!" "No, my dear. It shows that the young rascal has plenty of energy and spirit and determination." "I hope you did not tell him so!" "My dear child, what do you think me?" cried the doctor testily. "By the way, though, he seems to thoroughly see through his companion's character now. I can't help wishing that he had given that confounded young cad a sound thrashing." "Papa!" "Eh? No, no: of course not," said the doctor. "I was only thinking aloud." Helen sat over her work a little longer, feeling happier than she had felt since Dexter left the house; and then the lights were extinguished, and father and daughter went up to bed. The doctor was very quiet and thoughtful, and he stopped on the stairs. "Helen, my dear," he whispered, "see the women-servants first thing in the morning, and tell them I strictly forbid any allusion whatever to be made to Dexter's foolish prank." Helen nodded. "I'll talk to the men myself," he said. "And whatever you do, make Mrs Millett hold her tongue. Tut--tut--tut! Now, look at that!" He pointed to a tumbler on a little papier-mache tray standing at Dexter's door. "Never mind that, dear," said Helen, smiling. "I dare say it is only camomile-tea, and it shows that the poor boy has not lost his place in dear old Millett's heart." Helen kissed her father, and stopped at her own door feeling half-amused and half-tearful as she saw the old man go on tiptoe to Dexter's room, where, with the light of the candle shining on his silver hair and beard, he tapped gently with his knuckles. "Asleep, Dexter?" There was a faint "No, sir!" from within. "Make haste and go to sleep," said the doctor. "Good-night, my boy. God bless you!" Helen saw him smile as he turned away from the door, and it may have been fancy, but she thought she saw a glistening as of moisture in one corner of his eye. "Poor Dexter!" she said softly, as she entered her room, while the boy, as he lay there in the cool, soft sheets, utterly wearied out, but restless and feverish with excitement, felt the doctor's last words send, as it were, a calm, soothing, restful sensation through his brain, and five minutes later he was sleeping soundly, and dreaming that some one bent over him, and said, "Good-night. God bless you!" once again. CHAPTER FORTY TWO. BOB DIMSTED'S MEDICINE. It was some time before Dexter could summon up courage to go down to the breakfast-room. That he was expected, he knew, for Mrs Millett had been to his door twice, and said first that breakfast was ready, and, secondly, that master was waiting. When he did go in, he could hardly believe that he had been away, for there was a kiss from Helen, and a frank "Good morning," and shake of the hand from the doctor, not the slightest allusion being made to the past till breakfast was nearly over, when Maria brought in a note. "Hah! From Limpney," said the doctor. "I sent Peter on to say that Dexter was back, and that I should like the lessons to be resumed this morning." Dexter's eyes lit up. The idea of being busy over lessons once more seemed delightful. "Confound his impudence!" said the doctor angrily, as he ran through the note. "Hark here, Helen: `Mr Limpney's compliments, and he begs to decline to continue the tuition at Dr Grayson's house.'" Helen made a gesture, and glanced at her father meaningly-- "Eh? Oh! Ah! Yes, my dear. Well, Dexter, you'll have to amuse yourself in the garden this morning. Go and have a few hours' fishing." "If you please, sir, I'd rather stay in here if I might, and read." "No, no, no," said the doctor cheerily. "Fine morning. Get Peter to dig you some worms, and I'll come and look at you presently. It's all right, my boy. We said last night we'd draw a veil over the past, eh? You go and have a good morning's fishing." Dexter was at his side in a moment, had thrust his hand in the doctor's, and then fled from the room. "Want to show him we've full confidence in him again. Bah, no! That boy couldn't look you in the face and tell you a lie. My dear Helen, I'm as certain of my theory being correct as of anything in the world. But hang that Limpney for a narrow-minded, classic-stuffed, mathematic-bristling prig! We'll have a better." Dexter felt a strange hesitancy; but the doctor evidently wished him to go and fish, so he took his rod, line, and basket, and was crossing the hall when he encountered Mrs Millett. "It was very nice of you, my dear, and I'm sure it will do you good. You did take it all now, didn't you?" "Yes, every drop," said Dexter, smiling; and the old lady went away evidently highly gratified. Old Dan'l was busy tidying up a flower-bed as he reached the lawn, and, to Dexter's astonishment, he nodded and gave him another of his cast-iron smiles. Further down the garden Peter was at work. "Dig you up a few worms, Master Dexter? Course I will. Come round to the back of the old frames." A curious sensation of choking troubled Dexter for a few moments, but it passed off, and in a short time he was furnished with a bag of red worms, and walking down to the river he sat down and began to fish with his mind going back to the night of his running away, and he seemed to see it all again; the undressing, the hesitation, and the cold plunge after his clothes, and all the rest of the miserable dreary time which had proved so different from what he had pictured in his mind. Peter had said that the fish would "bite like fun at them worms." But they did not, for they had no chance. The worms crawled round and round the canvas bag, and played at making Gordian knots with each other, while several fish came and looked at the unbaited hook which Dexter offered for their inspection, but preferred to leave the barbed steel alone. For quite half an hour Dexter sat there dreamily gazing at his float, but seeing nothing but the past, when he started to his feet, for there was a splash in the water close to his feet, the drops flying over him, and there, across the river, grinning and looking very dirty, was Bob Dimsted. "Yah! Who stole the boat?" he cried. Dexter flushed up, but he made no reply. Only took out his line, and this time he baited it and threw in again. "Yah; who stole the boat!" cried Bob again. "I say, ain't he been licked? Ain't his back sore?" Dexter set his teeth hard and stared at his float, as Bob baited his own line, and threw in just opposite, to begin fishing just as if nothing had happened. It was a painful position. To go on fishing was like taking up with Bob again; to go away seemed like being afraid. But Dexter determined upon this last, drew out his line, and was stooping to pick up his basket, when Bob broke into a derisive war-dance-- "Yah, yah!" he cried. "Yer 'bliged to go. Yah! yer miserable, white-faced sneak! g'ome! g'ome! yah!" Dexter banged down his basket again, and threw in his line with a big splash, as his eyes flashed defiance across the stream. "Ah! it's all very fine," said Bob; "but yer dussen't do that if it weren't for the river. Why, if I'd got yer here I'd bung both yer eyes up for yer. Yah! yer sneak!" "Here, you just be off. D'yer hear!" cried an angry voice; and Peter came up, broom in hand. "She yarn't," cried Bob? "Who are you? This ain't your field. Stop as long as I like. Yah!" "Wish I was over the other side and I'd pitch you in, you sarcy young vagabond." "So are you!" cried Bob. "You dussen't touch me. Fish here as long as I like. Pair o' cowards, that's what you are--pair o' cowards. Fight either of yer one hand." "Wish we was over there," said Peter; "and we'd make you sing another song, my fine fellow." "Would yer? Yah! who cares for you!" "Look here, you've no business to come opposite our place to fish!" cried Peter, "so be off!" "Yah! 'tain't your place. Stop and fish here as long as I like; and if ever I meet him anywheres I'll give him such a licking as'll make him squeal." "You be off!" "Shan't." "Oh, you won't, won't you?" cried a gruff voice; and old Dan'l came from behind a laurustinus clump. "You, Peter--you go and get a basket full o' them brickbats from down by the frames, and we'll soon see whether he'll stop there." "Yah! go on with your old brickbats. Who cares for you!" cried Bob. "Yah! look at him! Who stole the boat, and cried to go home again? Who stole the boat?" "Oh, if I could only get across!" said Dexter, in a hoarse low voice. "Would you give it him if you could!" said old Dan'l, with a grim laugh. "Yes," said Dexter, between his teeth. "Ay, he would, Dan'l," said Peter excitedly. "I wish he was over yonder." "Yah! yah! look at the old caterpillar-killers," cried Bob. "Who stole the boat? Yah!" These last were farewell shots. "They won't bite here," cried Bob, moving off, "but don't you think you frightened me away. Come as often as I like. Yah! take him home!" Dexter's face was scarlet as he watched his departing enemy, thinking the while of his own folly in leaving his friends for such a wretched young cur as that. "Think he would?" said Peter. "Ay, two on him," said Dan'l, after glancing cautiously up toward the house. "Shall us?" "Ay, if you like, my lad," said Dan'l. "Say, youngster, if we help you acrost will you go and start him outer the west medder?" "Yes," cried Dexter excitedly. "All right. Don't make a row." Old Dan'l went off, and Peter followed, to return in five minutes with a great shallow wooden cistern across the long barrow, old Dan'l looking very grim as he walked by his side, and carrying the familiar clothes-prop. "There, that's as good as a punt," he said. "Look here! You'd better kneel down on it; I should take off my jacket and weskit, and roll up my sleeves, if I was you." Dexter's eyes sparkled as he followed this bit of advice, while Dan'l took one end of the cistern, Peter the other, and they gently launched it in the little river. "Ain't scared of him, are yer!" said Dan'l. Dexter gave him a sharp look. "That he ain't," said Peter. "Look here, Master Dexter," he whispered, "don't let him hug you, but give it him right straight out, and he'll be down and howl in two two's." Dexter made no reply, but stepped into the great shallow punt-like contrivance, seized the prop handed to him, and prepared to use it, but the strong steady thrust given by Peter sent him well on his journey, and in less than a minute he was across. "Come on, Dan'l," cried Peter. "Don't I wish we was acrost too!" They crept among the trees at the extreme corner of the garden, where they could hold on by the boughs, and crane their necks over the river, so as to see Dexter tearing along the opposite bank into the next meadow where Bob was fishing, in happy ignorance of the approach of danger; and, to further take off his attention, he had just hooked a good-sized perch, and was playing it, when Dexter, boiling over with the recollection of many injuries culminating in Bob's cowardly lies, came close up and gave a formal announcement of his presence by administering a sounding crack on the ear. Bob dropped his rod into the river, and nearly jumped after it as he uttered a howl. "Look at that!" cried Peter, giving one of his legs a slap. "Oh, I wish I was there!" Bob was as big a coward as ever stepped. So is a rat; but when driven to bay a rat will fight. Bob was at bay, and he, being in pain, began to fight by lowering his head and rushing at his adversary. Dexter avoided the onslaught, and gave Bob another crack on the ear. Then, trusting in his superior size and strength, Bob dashed at Dexter again, and for a full quarter of an hour there was a fierce up and down fight, which was exceedingly blackguardly and reprehensible no doubt, but under the circumstances perfectly natural. Dexter got a good deal knocked about, especially whenever Bob closed with him; but he did not get knocked about for nothing. Very soon there were a number of unpleasant ruddy stains upon his clean white shirt, but the blood was Bob's, and consequent upon a sensation of his nose being knocked all on one side. There was a tooth out--a very white one on the grass, but that tooth was Bob's, and, in addition, that young gentleman's eyes wore the aspect of his having been interviewing a wasps' nest, for they were rapidly closing up, and his whole face assuming the appearance of a very large and puffy unbaked bun. Then there was a cessation of the up and down fighting; Bob was lying on his back howling after his customary canine fashion, and Dexter was standing over him with his doubled fists, his face flushed, his eyes flashing, teeth set, and his curly hair shining in the sun. "It's splendid, Dan'l, old man," cried Peter, slapping his fellow-servant on the back. "I wouldn't ha' missed it for half a crown." "No," said Dan'l. "Hang him! he's got some pluck in him if he ain't got no breed. Brayvo, young un! I never liked yer half--" Dan'l stopped short, and Peter stepped back against the dividing fence. "Beg pardon, sir?" "I said how did that boy get across the river!" said the doctor sternly. There was no reply. "Now no subterfuges," said the doctor sharply. Peter looked at Dan'l in dismay, but Dan'l spoke out-- "Well, sir, beg pardon, sir, that young cub come up to the side abusing Master Dexter, and calling him names, and he let us have it too." "Yes; go on." "Well, sir, Master Dexter was a-chafing like a greyhound again his collar, and Peter and me fetched the old wooden cistern, and let him punt hisself across, and the way he went into him, sir--boy half as big again as hisself, and--" "That will do," said the doctor sternly. "Here, Dexter! Come here, sir!" Dexter turned in dismay, and came faltering back. "The moment he is home again!" said the doctor angrily. "Yah! Coward! G'ome, g'ome!" yelled Bob, jumping up on seeing his enemy in retreat. "Come here again and I'll knock yer silly. Yah!" "Dexter!" roared the doctor; "go back and knock that young blackguard's head off. Quick! Give it him! No mercy!" Dexter flew back, but Bob flew faster to the hedge, where he leaped and stuck; Dexter overtaking him then, and administering one punch which drove his adversary through, and he got up and ran on again. "Hi! Dexter!" shouted the doctor; and the boy returned slowly, as Peter stood screwing up his face to look serious, and Dan'l gave his master one of his cast-iron smiles. "Well, yes, Dan'l, it was excusable under the circumstances," said the doctor. "But I do not approve of fighting, and--er--don't say anything about it indoors." "No, sir, cert'nly not, sir," said the men, in a breath; and just then Dexter stood on the far bank looking anxiously across. "Mind how you come," cried the doctor. "That's right; be careful. Give me your hand. Bless my soul! the skin's off your knuckles. We shall have to tell Miss Grayson after all." Dexter looked up at him wildly. He could not speak. "Better put that cistern back," said the doctor quickly; and then to Dexter-- "There, slip on your things, and go up to your room and bathe your face and hands. No, stop! I'll go on first, and shut the drawing-room door." The doctor hurried away, and as soon as he was out of sight, Dexter, who had slowly put on his waistcoat and jacket, gazed disconsolately at the two men. "What shall I do?" he said dolefully. "Do!" cried Peter; "why, you did it splendid: he won't come no more." "But the doctor!" faltered Dexter, with the spirit and effervescence all gone. "What, master!" cried Dan'l. "He won't say no more. Here, shake hands, my lad. It was fine." "Hi! Dexter! Here, my boy, quick!" came the doctor's voice. "It's all right. She has gone out." "There!" said Dan'l, laughing; and Dexter ran in. CHAPTER FORTY THREE. THE RIGHT PLACE FOR A BACKWARD BOY. "Where's Dexter?" said the doctor. "Down the garden," said Helen. "Humph! Hope he is not getting into fresh mischief." "I hope not, papa," said Helen; "and really I think he is trying very hard." "Yes," said the doctor, going on with his writing. "How are his knuckles now? can he hold a pen?" "I think I would let him wait another day or two. And, papa, have you given him a good talking to about that fight?" "No. Have you?" "Yes, two or three times; and he has promised never to fight again." "My dear Helen, how can you be so absurd?" cried the doctor testily. "That's just the way with a woman. You ask the boy to promise what he cannot perform. He is sure to get fighting again at school or somewhere." "But it seems such a pity, papa." "Pooh! pish! pooh! tchah!" ejaculated the doctor, at intervals. "He gave that young scoundrel a good thrashing, and quite right too. Don't tell him I said so." The doctor had laid down his pen to speak, but he took it up again and began writing, but only to lay it aside once more. "Dear me! dear me!" he muttered. "I don't seem to get on with my book as I should like." He put down his pen again, rose, took a turn or two up and down the room, and then picked up the newspaper. "Very awkward of that stupid fellow Limpney," he said, as he began running down the advertisements. "What did he say, papa, when you spoke to him?" "Say? Lot of stuff about losing _prestige_ with his other pupils. Was sure Lady Danby did not like him to be teaching a boy of Dexter's class and her son. Confound his impudence! Must have a tutor for the boy of some kind." Helen glanced uneasily at her father, and then out into the garden. "Plenty of schools; plenty of private tutors," muttered the doctor scanning the advertisements. "Hah!" "What is it, papa!" The doctor struck the paper in the middle, doubled it up, and then frowned severely as he thrust his gold spectacles up on to his forehead. "I've made a mistake, my dear,--a great mistake." "About Dexter!" "Yes: a very great mistake." "But I'm sure he will improve," said Helen anxiously. "So am I, my dear. But our mistake is this: we took the boy from the Union schools, and we kept him here at once, where every one knew him and his late position. We ought to have sent him away for two or three years, and he would have come back completely changed, and the past history forgotten." "Sent him to a boarding-school!" "Well--er! Hum! No, not exactly," said the doctor, pursing up his lips. "Listen here, my dear. The very thing! just as if fate had come to my help." The doctor rustled the paper a little, and then began to read-- "`Backward and disobedient boys.'" "But Dexter--" "Hush, my dear; hear it all. Dexter is backward, and he is disobedient; not wilfully perhaps, but disobedient decidedly. Now listen-- "`Backward and disobedient boys.--The Reverend Septimus Mastrum, MA Oxon, receives a limited number of pupils of neglected education. Firm and kindly treatment. Extensive grounds. Healthy situation. For terms apply to the Reverend Septimus Mastrum, Firlands, Longspruce Station.'" "There! What do you say to that?" said the doctor. "I don't know what to say, papa," said Helen rather sadly. "Perhaps you are right." "Right!" cried the doctor. "The very thing, my dear. I'll write to Mr Mastrum at once. Three or four years of special education will be the making of the boy." The doctor sat down and wrote. The answer resulted in a meeting in London, where the Reverend Septimus Mastrum greatly impressed the doctor. Terms were agreed upon, and the doctor came back. "Splendid fellow, my dear. Six feet high. Says Mrs Mastrum will act the part of a mother to the boy." "Does he seem very severe, papa?" "Severe, my dear? Man with a perpetual smile on his countenance." "I do not like men with perpetual smiles on their countenances, papa." "My dear Helen, do not be so prejudiced," said the doctor angrily. "I have seen Mr Mastrum: you have not. I have told him everything about Dexter; he applauds my plan, and assures me that in two or three years I shall hardly know the boy, he will be so improved." Helen sighed. "We had a long discussion about my book, and he agrees that I am quite right. So pray do not begin to throw obstacles in the way." Helen rose and kissed her father's forehead. "I am going to do everything I can to aid your plans, papa," she said, smiling. "Of course I do not like parting with Dexter, and I cannot help feeling that there is some truth in what you say about a change being beneficial for a time; but Dexter is a peculiar boy, and I would rather have had him under my own eye." "Yes, of course, my dear. Very good of you," said the doctor; "but this way is the best. Of course he will have holidays, and we shall go to see him, and so on." "When is he to go, papa?" "Directly." "Directly?" "Well, in a day or two." Helen was silent for a moment or two, and then she moved toward the door. "Where are you going!" said the doctor sharply. "To make preparations, and warn Mrs Millett. He must have a good box of clothes and linen." "To be sure, of course," said the doctor. "Get whatever is necessary. It is the right thing, my dear, and the boy shall go at once." The doctor was so energetic and determined that matters progressed very rapidly, and the clothes and other necessaries increased at such a rate in Dexter's room that most boys would have been in a state of intense excitement. Dexter was not, and he avoided the house as much as he could, spending a great deal of time in the garden and stables. "So they're going to send you off to school, eh, Master Dexter?" said Peter, pausing to rest on his broom-handle. "Yes, Peter." "And you don't want to go? No wonder! I never liked school. Never had much on it, neither; but I know all I want." "Hullo!" said a voice behind them; and, turning, Dexter saw Dan'l standing behind him, with the first dawn of a smile, on his face. Dexter nodded, and began to move away. "So you're going off, are yer!" said Dan'l. "Two floggings a day for a year. You're in for it, youngster." "Get out," said Dexter. "They don't flog boys at good schools." "Oh, don't they?" said Dan'l. "You'll see. Well, never mind! And, look here, I'll ask master to let me send you a basket o' apples and pears when they're ripe." "You will, Dan'l!" cried Dexter excitedly. "Ay: Peter and me'll do you up a basket, and take it to the station. Be a good boy, and no more Bob Dimsted's." Dan'l chuckled as if he had said something very funny, and walked away. "Here, don't look dumpy about it, my lad," said Peter kindly. "'Tain't for ever and a day." "No, Peter," said Dexter gloomily, "it isn't for ever." "Sorry you're going, though, my lad." "Are you, Peter!" "Am I? Course I am. A man can't help liking a boy as can fight like you." Matters were growing harder for Dexter indoors now that his departure was so near. Mrs Millett was particularly anxious about him; and so sure as the boy went up to his room in the middle of the day, it was to find the old housekeeper on her knees, and her spectacles carefully balanced, trying all his buttons to see if they were fast. "Now I'm going to put you up two bottles of camomile tea, and pack them in the bottom of your box, with an old coffee-cup without a handle. It just holds the right quantity, and you'll promise me, won't you, Master Dexter, to take a dose regularly twice a week!" "Yes; I'll promise you," said Dexter. "Now, that's a good boy," cried the old lady, getting up and patting his shoulder. "Look here," she continued, leading him to the box by the drawers, "I've put something else in as well." She lifted up a layer of linen, all scented with lavender, and showed him a flat, round, brown-paper parcel. "It's not a very rich cake," she said, "but there are plenty of currants and peel in, and I'm sure it's wholesome." Even Maria became very much interested in Master Dexter's boots and shoes, and the parting from the doctor's house for the second time promised to be very hard. It grew harder as the time approached, for, with the gentleness of an elder sister, Helen exercised plenty of supervision over the preparation. Books, a little well-filled writing-case and a purse, were among the things she added. "The writing-case is for me, Dexter," she said, with a smile. "For you?" he said wonderingly. "Yes, so that I may have, at least, two letters from you every week. You promise that?" "Oh yes," he said, "if you will not mind the writing." "And the purse is for you," she said. "If you want a little more money than papa is going to allow you weekly, you may write and ask me." It grew harder still on the morning of departure, and Dexter would have given anything to stay, but he went off manfully with the doctor in the station fly, passing Sir James Danby and Master Edgar on the road. "Humph!" grunted the doctor. "See that, Dexter!" "I saw Sir James laugh at you when he nodded." "Do you know why!" Dexter was silent for a few minutes. "Because he thinks you are foolish to take so much trouble over me." "That's it, Dexter," said the doctor eagerly. "So, now, I'll tell you what I want you to do." "Yes, sir?" "Show him that I'm right and he's wrong." Dexter looked a promise, for he could not speak just then, nor yet when they had passed through London that afternoon, reached Longspruce station, and been driven to the Reverend Septimus Mastrum's house, five miles away among the fir-trees and sand of that bleak region. Here the doctor bade him "Good-bye," and Dexter, as he was standing in the great cold hall, felt that he was commencing a new phase in his existence. CHAPTER FORTY FOUR. PETER CRIBB SEES A GHOST. Helen rang the bell one evening and Maria answered the summons. "Papa thinks he would like a little supper, Maria, as we dined early to-day. Bring up a tray. There is a cold chicken, I think!" "Yes, 'm," said Maria, and disappeared, but was back in a few minutes. "If you please, 'm, Mrs Millett says there is no cold chicken, 'm." "Indeed?" said Helen wonderingly. "Very well, then, the cold veal pie." "Yes, 'm." Maria disappeared, and came back again. "Please, 'm, Mrs Millett says there is no veal pie." "Then tell her to make an omelette." "Yes, 'm." Maria left the room and came back. "Please, 'm, Mrs Millett says there's no eggs, and it's too late to get any more." "Ask Mrs Millett to come here," said Helen; and the old lady came up, looking very red. "Why, Millett," said Helen, "this is very strange. I don't like to find fault, but surely there ought to have been a chicken left." "I'm very glad you have found fault, Miss," said Mrs Millett, "for it's given me a chance to speak. Yes; there ought to have been a chicken, and the veal pie too; but I'm very sorry to say, Miss, they're gone." "Gone?" "Yes, Miss. I don't know how to account for it, but the things have begun to go in the most dreadful way. Bread, butter, milk, eggs, meat, everything goes, and we've all been trying to find out how, but it's no good." "This is very strange, Millett. Have you no idea how it is they go?" "No, Miss; but Dan'l fancies it must be that rough boy who led Master Dexter away. He says he's sure he caught sight of him in the dark last night. Somebody must take the things, and he seems to be the most likely, knowing the place as he does." "This must be seen to," said Helen; and she told the doctor. Consequently a watch was kept by the gardener and the groom, but they found nothing, and the contents of the larder continued to disappear. "If it were a man," said the doctor, on being told of what was going on, "I'd set the police to work, but I hate anything of that kind with a boy. Wait a bit, and he will get more impudent from obtaining these things with impunity, and then he will be more easily caught." "And then, papa?" said Helen. "Then, my dear? Do you know that thin Malacca cane in the hall? Yes, you do. Well, my dear, the law says it is an assault to thrash a boy, and that he ought to be left to the law to punish, which means prison and degradation. I'm going to take that cane, my dear, and defy the law." But somehow or another Master Bob Dimsted seemed to be as slippery as an eel. He saw Peter one day and grinned at him from the other side of the river. Two days later he was seen by Dan'l, who shook his fist at him, and Bob said-- "Yah!" "Have you heard from Master Dexter, Miss!" said Mrs Millett one morning. "No, Millett, and I am rather surprised. He promised so faithfully to write." "Ah, yes, Miss," said the old lady; "and he meant it, poor boy, when he promised, but boys are such one's to forget." Helen went into the library where she found the doctor biting the end of his pen, and gazing up into a corner of the room. "I don't seem to be getting on as I could wish, my dear. By the way, we haven't heard from that young dog lately. He promised me faithfully to write regularly." Helen thought of Mrs Millett's words, but said nothing, and at that moment Maria entered with the letters. "From Dexter?" said Helen eagerly. "Humph! No! But from Longspruce! I see: from Mr Mastrum." The doctor read the letter and frowned. Helen read it, and the tears stood in her eyes. "The young scoun--" "Stop, papa!" said Helen earnestly. "Do not condemn him unheard." "Then I shall have to go on without condemning him, for we've seen the last of him, I suppose." "O papa!" "Well, it looks like it, my dear; and I'm afraid I've made a great mistake, but I don't like to own it." "Wait, papa, wait!" said Helen. "What does he say? Been gone a fortnight, and would not write till he had had the country round thoroughly searched. Humph! Afraid he has got to Portsmouth, and gone to sea." Helen sighed. "`Sorry to give so bad an account of him,'" muttered the doctor, reading bits of the letter--"`treated him as his own son--seemed to have an undercurrent of evil in his nature, impossible to eradicate--tried everything, but all in vain--was beginning to despair, but still hopeful that patience might overcome the difficulty--patience combined with affectionate treatment, but it was in vain--after trying to persuade his fellow-pupils one by one, and failing, he threatened them savagely if they dared to betray him, and then he escaped from the grounds, and has not been seen since.'" There was a painful silence in the doctor's library for a few minutes. "`Patience combined with affectionate treatment,'" read the doctor again. "Helen, I believe that man has beaten and ill-used poor Dexter till he could bear it no longer, and has run away." "I'm sure of it, papa," cried Helen excitedly. "Do you think he will come back!" "I don't know," said the doctor. "Yes, I do. No; he would be afraid. I'd give something to know how to go to work to find him." "If you please, sir, may I come in?" said a pleasant soft voice. "Yes, yes, Millett, of course. What is it?" "Dan'l has been to say, sir, that he caught sight of that boy, Bob Dimsted, crawling in the garden last night when it was dark, and chased him, but the boy climbed one of the trained pear-trees, got on the wall, and escaped." "Confound the young rascal!" cried the doctor. "And I'm sorry to say, sir, that two blankets have been stolen off Master Dexter's bed." There was a week of watching, but Bob Dimsted was not caught, and the doctor sternly said that he would not place the matter in the hands of the police. But all the same the little pilferings went on, and Mrs Millett came one morning, with tears in her eyes, to say that she couldn't bear it any longer, for only last night a whole quartern loaf had been taken through the larder bars, and, with it, one of the large white jars of black-currant jam. Mrs Millett was consoled with the promise that the culprit should soon be caught, and two nights later Peter came in to announce to the doctor that he had been so near catching Bob Dimsted that he had touched him as he chased him down the garden, and that he would have caught him, only that, without a moment's hesitation, the boy had jumped into the river and swum across, and so escaped to the other side. "Next time I mean to have him," said Peter confidently, and this he repeated to Mrs Millett and Maria, being rewarded with a basin of the tea which had just come down from the drawing-room. It was just two days later that, as Helen sat with her work under the old oak-tree in the garden--an old evergreen oak which gave a pleasant shade--she became aware of a faint rustling sound. She looked up, but could see nothing, though directly after there was a peculiar noise in the tree, which resembled the chopping of wood. Still she could see nothing, and she had just resumed her work, thinking the while that Dexter would some day write, and that her father's correspondence with the Reverend Septimus Mastrum had not been very satisfactory, when there was a slight scratching sound. She turned quickly and saw that a ragged-looking squirrel had run down the grey trunk of the tree, while, as soon as it saw her, it bounded off, and to her surprise passed through the gateway leading into the yard where the old stable stood. Helen Grayson hardly knew why she did so, but she rose and followed the squirrel, to find that she was not alone, for Peter the groom was in the yard going on tiptoe toward the open door of the old range of buildings. He touched his cap on seeing her. "Squir'l, Miss," he said. "Just run in here." "I saw it just now," said Helen. "Don't kill the poor thing." "Oh no, Miss; I won't kill it," said Peter, as Helen went back into the garden. "But I mean to catch it if I can." Peter went into the dark old building and looked round, but there was no sign of the squirrel. Still a little animal like that would be sure to go upwards, so Peter climbed the half-rotten ladder, and stood in the long dark range of lofts, peering among the rafters and ties in search of the bushy-tailed little creature. He walked to the end in one direction, then in the other, till he was stopped by an old boarded partition, in which there was a door which had been nailed up; but he remembered that this had a flight of steps, or rather a broad-stepped old wood ladder, on the other side, leading to a narrower loft right in the gable. "Wonder where it can be got," said Peter to himself; and then he turned round, ran along the loft, dropped down through the trap-door, and nearly slipped and fell, so hurried was his flight. Half-across the yard he came upon Dan'l wheeling a barrow full of mould for potting. "Hallo! what's the matter?" Peter gasped and panted, but said nothing. "Haven't seen a ghost, have you?" said Dan'l. "Ye-es. No," panted Peter. "Why, you white-faced, cowardly noodle!" cried Dan'l. "What d'yer mean?" "I--I. Come out of here into the garden," whispered Peter. Dan'l was going down the garden to the potting-shed, so he made no objection, and, arrived there, Peter, with solemn emphasis, told how he had gone in search of the squirrel, and that there was something up in the loft. "Yes," said old Dan'l contemptuously--"rats." "Yes; I know that," said Peter excitedly; and his eyes looked wild and dilated; "but there's something else." Dan'l put down the barrow, and sat upon the soft mould as he gave his rough stubbly chin a rub. "Lookye here, Peter," he said; "did yer ever hear tell about ghosts being in old buildings?" "Yes," said Peter, with an involuntary shiver, and a glance across the wall at a corroded weathercock on the top of the ancient place. "Well, my lad, ghosts never comes out in the day-time: only o' nights; and do you know what they are?" Peter shook his head. "Well, then, my lad, I'll tell you. I've sin several in my time. Them as you hears and don't see's rats; and them as you sees and don't hear's howls. What d'yer think o' that?" "It wasn't a rat, nor it wasn't a howl, as I see," said Peter solemnly; "but something gashly horrid, as looked down at me from up in the rafters of that there dark place, and it made me feel that bad that I didn't seem to have no legs to stand on." "Tchah!" cried the gardener. "What yer talking about?" "Anything the matter?" said the doctor, who had come up unheard over the velvety lawn. "Hush!" whispered Peter imploringly. "Shan't hush. Sarves you right," growled Dan'l. "Here's Peter, sir, just seen a ghost." "Ah! has he?" said the doctor. "Where did you see it, Peter?" "I didn't say it were a ghost, sir, I only said as I see something horrid up at end of the old loft when I went up there just now after a squir'l." "Squirrel!" said the doctor angrily. "What are you talking about, man? Squirrels live in trees, not in old lofts. You mean a rat." "I know a squir'l when I see one, sir," said Peter; "and I see one go 'crost the yard and into that old stable." "Nonsense!" said the doctor. "Did you find it, Peter!" said Helen from under the tree. "Find what?" said the doctor. "A squirrel that ran from here across the yard." Peter looked from one to the other triumphantly, as he said-- "No, Miss, I didn't." "Humph!" grunted the doctor. "Then there was a squirrel!" "Yes, sir." "And you saw something strange!" "Yes, sir, something awful gashly, in the dark end, sir." "Bah!" cried the doctor. "There, go and get your stable lanthorn and we'll see. Helen, my dear, we've got a ghost in the old stable loft: like to come and see it!" "Very much, papa," said Helen, smiling in a way that put Peter on his mettle, for the moment before he had been ready to beg off. He went pretty quickly to get his stable lanthorn, and came back with it alight, and looking very pale and sickly, while he bore a stout broomstick in the other hand. "For shame, man! Put away that absurd thing," said the doctor, as he led the way through the gate in the wall, followed by Helen, Peter and Dan'l coming behind. "Go first with the lanthorn," said the doctor to the old gardener, but Peter was stirred to action now. "Mayn't I go first, sir!" he said. "Oh yes, if you have enough courage," said the doctor; and Peter, looking very white, led the way to the foot of the ladder, went up, and the others followed him to the loft, and stood together on the old worm-eaten boards. The lanthorn cast a yellow glow through its horn sides, and this, mingling with the faint pencils of daylight which came between the tiles, gave a very peculiar look to the place, festooned as the blackened beams were with cobwebs, which formed loops and pockets here and there. "There's an old door at the extreme end there, or ought to be," said the doctor. "Go and open it." Peter went on in advance. "Mind the holes, my dear," said the doctor. "What's that?" A curious rustling noise was heard, and, active as a young man, Dan'l ran back to the top of the ladder and descended quickly. "Well 'tain't me as is skeart now," said Peter triumphantly. Just then there was a sharp clap from somewhere in front, as if a small trap-door had been suddenly closed, and Dan'l's voice came up through the boards. "Look out!" he shouted, and his voice sounded distant. "There's some one up in the far loft there. He tried to get down into one of the hay-racks, but I frightened him back." "Stop there!" said the doctor. "We'll soon see who it is. Go on, Peter, and open that door. That young larder thief for a guinea, my dear," he continued to Helen, as Peter went on in advance. "Door's nailed up, sir," said the latter worthy, as he reached the old door, and held the lanthorn up and down. "How came it nailed up?" said the doctor, as he examined the place. "It has no business to be. Go and get an iron chisel or a crowbar. Are you there, Daniel?" "Yes, sir," came from below. "I'm on the look-out. It's that there young poacher chap, Bob Dimsted." Peter set the lanthorn on the floor and hurried off, leaving the little party watching and listening till he returned, but not a sound broke the silence, and there was nothing to see but the old worm-eaten wood and blackened tiles. "I've brought both, sir," said Peter breathlessly, and all eagerness now, for he was ashamed of his fright. "Wrench it open, then," said the doctor; and after a few sharp cracks the rotten old door gave way, and swung upon its rusty hinges, when a strange sight met the eyes of those who pressed forward into the further loft. CHAPTER FORTY FIVE. A STARTLING DISCOVERY. The rough loft had been turned into a kind of dwelling-place, for there was a bed close under the tiles, composed of hay, upon which, neatly spread, were a couple of blankets. On the other side were a plate, a knife, a piece of bread, and a jam-pot, while in the centre were some rough boxes and an old cage, on the top of which sat the ragged squirrel. "There," said Peter triumphantly, as he pointed to the squirrel. The doctor was looking eagerly round in search of the dweller in this dismal loft, but there was no one visible. "Found him, sir?" came from below. "No, not yet," replied the doctor. "Here, Peter, go up that other place." There was no hesitation on the groom's part now. He sprang up the second ladder and went along under the roof, but only to come back shaking his head. "No one up there, sir." "Are you sure he did not come down!" cried the doctor, as Peter lifted a rough trap at the side, through which, in bygone days, the horses' hay had been thrust down. "Quite sure, sir," shouted back Dan'l. "I just see his legs coming down, and he snatched 'em up again, and slammed the trap." "The young rascal!" said the doctor; "he's here somewhere. There must be some loose boards under which he is hidden." But there was not a loose board big enough to hide Bob Dimsted; and after another search the doctor rubbed his head in a perplexed manner. "Shall I come up, sir, and have a look?" said Dan'l. "No, no. Stay where you are, and keep a sharp look-out," cried the doctor. "Why, look here," he continued to Helen; "the young scoundrel has been leading a nice life here, like a Robinson Crusoe in an uninhabited island. Ah! at last!" shouted the doctor, staring straight before him; "there he is. Here, Peter, hand me the gun!" Peter stared at his master, whose eyes twinkled with satisfaction, for his feint had had the desired effect--that of startling the hiding intruder. As the doctor's words rang out there was a strange rustling sound overhead; and, as they all looked up, there came a loud crack, then another and another, and right up, nearly to the ridge of the roof, a leg came through, and then its fellow, in company with a shower of broken tiles, which rattled upon the rough floor of the loft. The owner of the legs began to make a desperate effort to withdraw them, and they kicked about in a variety of peculiar evolutions; but before they could be extricated, Peter had climbed up to an oaken beam, which formed one of the roof ties, and from there reached out and seized one of the legs by the ankle. "I've got him," he cried gleefully. "Which shall we do, sir--pull him through, or get the ladder up to the roof and drag him out?" "Here, Daniel! Come up," said the doctor. The old gardener came up eagerly; and one of his cast-iron grins expanded his face as he grasped the situation. "Brayvo, Peter!" he cried. "That's the way to ketch a ghost. Hold him tight, lad!" The doctor smiled. "Don't let them hurt him, papa," whispered Helen. "Oh no; they shall not hurt him," said the doctor quietly. Then, raising his voice--"Now, sir, will you come down quietly, or shall I send for the police to drag you out on to the roof?" An indistinct murmur came down, after a vigorous struggle to get free. "Woho! Woho, kicker!" cried Peter, speaking as if to a horse. "What does he say!" said the doctor. "Says he'll come down if I'll let go." "Don't you trust him, sir," cried Dan'l excitedly. "I do not mean to," said the doctor. "Will you come down quietly?" he shouted. There was another murmur. "Says `_yes_,' sir," cried Peter. "Then, look here," said the doctor, "you hold him tight, and you," he continued to the gardener, "climb up on that beam and push off a few tiles. Then you can draw him down through there." "All right, sir," cried Dan'l; and as Peter held on to the leg, the old gardener, after a good deal of grunting and grumbling, climbed to his side, and began to let in daylight by thrusting off tile after tile, which slid rattling down the side of the roof into the leaden guttering. The opening let in so much daylight that the appearance of the old loft was quite transformed, but the group on the worm-eaten beam was the principal object of attention till just as Dan'l thrust off the fourth tile, when there was a loud crack, a crash, and gardener, groom, and their prisoner lay in a heap on the floor of the loft, while pieces of lath and tile rattled about their heads. The old tie had given way, and they came down with a rush, to the intense astonishment of all; but the distance to fall was only about five feet, and the wonder connected with the fall was as nothing to that felt by Helen and her father, as the smallest figure of the trio struggled to his feet, and revealed the dusty, soot-smeared face of Dexter, with his eyes staring wildly from the Doctor to Helen and back again. "Dexter!" cried Helen. "You, sir!" cried the doctor. "Well, I _ham_!" ejaculated Peter, getting up and giving his thigh a slap. Dan'l sat on the floor rubbing his back, and he uttered a grunt as his face expanded till he displayed all his front teeth--a dismal array of four, and not worth a bite. "Are you hurt?" cried Helen. Dexter shook his head. "Are either of you hurt?" said the doctor frowning. "Screwed my off fetlock a bit, sir," said Peter, stooping to feel his right ankle. "Hurt?" growled Dan'l. "Well, sir, them's 'bout the hardest boards as ever I felt." "Go and ask Mrs Millett to give you both some ale," said the doctor; and the two men smiled as they heard their master's prescription. "Then go on and tell the builder to come and patch up this old roof. Here, Dexter, come in." Dexter gave Peter a reproachful look, and limped after the doctor. "Well, let's go and have that glass o' beer Peter," said Dan'l. "Talk about pickles!" "My!" said Peter, slapping his leg again. "Why, it were him we see every night, and as swum across the river. Why, he must ha' swum back when I'd gone. I say, Dan'l, what a game!" "Hah!" ejaculated the old gardener, wiping his mouth in anticipation. "It's my b'lief, Peter, as that there boy'll turn out either a reg'lar good un, or 'bout the wust as ever stepped." "Now, sir!" said the doctor, as he closed the door of the library, and then with a stern look at the grimy object before him took a seat opposite Helen. "What have you to say for yourself!" Dexter glanced at Helen, who would not meet his gaze. "Nothing, sir." "Oh, you have nothing to say! Let me see, now. You were sent to a good school to be taught by a gentleman, and treated as a special pupil. You behaved badly. You ran away. You came here and made yourself a den; you have been living by plunder ever since, and you have nothing to say!" Dexter was silent, but his face was working, his lips quivering, and his throat seemed to swell as his breath came thick and fast. At last his words came in a passionate appeal, but in a broken, disjointed way; and it seemed as if the memory of all he had suffered roused his nature into a passionate fit of indignation against the author of all the trouble. "I--I couldn't bear it," he cried; "I tried so hard--so cruel--said he was to break my spirit--that I was bad--he beat me--seven times--I did try--you wanted me to--Miss Grayson wanted me to--I was always trying-- punished me because--so stupid--but I tried--I took a bit of candle--I was trying to learn the piece--the other boys were asleep--he came up-- he caned me till I--till I couldn't bear it--break my spirit--he said he'd break it--I dropped from the window--fell down and sprained my ankle--but I walked--back here--then I was--afraid to tell you, and I hid up there." There were no tears save in the boy's voice; but there was a ring of passionate agony and suffering in every tone and utterance; and, as Helen read in the gaunt figure, hollow eyes, and pallor of the cheeks what the boy must have gone through, she turned in her chair, laid her arm on the back, her face went down upon it, and the tears came fast. The doctor was silent as the boy went on; his lips were compressed and his brow rugged; but he did not speak, till, with wondering eyes, he saw Dexter turn, go painfully toward where Helen sat with averted face, look at her as if he wanted to speak, but the words would not come, and, with a sigh, he limped toward the door. "Where are you going, sir!" said the doctor roughly. "Up there, sir," said Dexter, in a low-toned weary voice, which sounded as if all the spirit had gone. "Up there!" cried the doctor. "Yes," said Dexter feebly; and without turning round--"to Mr Hippetts, and to Mr Sibery, sir. To take me back. It's no good. I did try so-- hard--so hard--but I never had--no mother--no father--not like--other boys--and--and--" He looked wildly round, clutching at vacancy, and then reeled and fell heavily upon the carpet. For Mr Mastrum had done his work well. His system for breaking the spirit of unruly boys, and making them perfectly tame, seemed to have reached perfection. With a cry of horror Helen Grayson sprang from her seat, and sank upon her knees by Dexter's side, to catch his head to her breast, while the doctor tore at the bell. "Bring brandy--water, quick!" he said; "the boy has fainted." It was quite true, and an hour elapsed before he looked wildly round at those about him. He tried to rise, and struggled feebly. Then as they held him back he began to talk in a rapid disconnected way. "'Bliged to take it--so hungry--yes, sir--please, sir--I've come back, sir--come back, Mr Sibery, sir--if Mr Hippetts will let me stay-- where's Mother Curdley--where's nurse!" "O father!" whispered Helen excitedly! "Poor, poor boy! what does this mean?" "Fever," said the doctor gently, as he laid his hand upon the boy's burning forehead and looked down in his wild eyes. "Yes," he said softly, "fever. He must have suffered terribly to have been brought to this." CHAPTER FORTY SIX. FEVER WORKS WONDERS. Doctor Grayson's book stood still. For many years past he had given up the practice of medicine, beyond writing out a prescription for his daughter or servants, but he called in the services of no other medical man for poor Dexter. "No, my dear," he said. "It is my fault entirely that the boy is in this state, and if such knowledge as I possess can save him, he shall come down hale and strong once more." So Dexter had the constant attention of a clever physician and two nurses, who watched by him night and day, the doctor often taking his turn to relieve Helen or Mrs Millett, so that a little rest might be theirs. And all through that weary time, while the fever was culminating, those who watched learned more of the poor fellow's sufferings at the scholastic establishment, during his flight, when he toiled homeward with an injured foot, and afterwards when he had taken possession of his old den, and often nearly starved there, in company with his squirrel-- his old friend whom he found established in the loft, whence it sallied forth in search of food, as its master was obliged to do in turn. One night Helen went up to relieve Mrs Millett, and found Maria leaning against the door outside, crying silently, and this impressed her the more, from the fact that Peter and Dan'l had each been to the house three times that day to ask how Master Dexter was. Maria hurried away, and Helen entered, to find old Mrs Millett standing by the bedside, holding one of the patient's thin white hands, and watching him earnestly. "Don't say he's worse," whispered Helen. "Hush, my dear," whispered the old woman. "Ring, please, Miss; master said I was to if I saw any change." Helen glided to the bell, and then ran back to the bed, to stand trembling with her hands clasped, and her eyes tearless now. The doctor's step was heard upon the stairs, and he entered breathlessly, and without a word crossed to the bed, to bend down over the sufferer as he held his wrist. The silence in that room was terrible to two of the inmates, and the suspense seemed to be drawn out until it was almost more than could be borne. At last the doctor turned away, and sank exhausted in a chair; and as Helen caught his hand in hers, and questioned him with her eyes, he said in a low and reverent voice-- "Yes, Helen, our prayers have been heard. Poor fellow! he will live." CHAPTER FORTY SEVEN. CONVALESCENCE. "Get out," said Dan'l, some weeks later. "Tired? Why, I could pull this here inv'lid-chair about the garden all day, my lad, and not know it." "But why not rest under one of the trees for a bit?" said Dexter. "'Cause I don't want to rest; and if I did, it might give you a chill. Why, you're light as light, and this is nothing to the big roller." "I'm afraid I'm a great deal of trouble to you all," said Dexter, as he sat back, supported by a pillow, and looking very white, while from time to time he raised a bunch of Dan'l's choicest flowers to his nose. "Trouble? Tchah! And, look here! master said you was to have as much fruit as you liked. When'll you have another bunch o' grapes!" "Oh, not yet," said Dexter smiling, and he looked at the grim face of the old gardener, who walked slowly backwards as he drew the chair. "Well, look here," said Dan'l, after a pause. "You can do as you like, but you take my advice. Peter's gone 'most off his head since master said as you might go out for a drive in a day or two; but don't you be in no hurry. I can draw you about here, where it's all nice and warm and sheltered, and what I say is this: if you can find a better place for a inv'lid to get strong in than my garden, I should like to see it. Humph! There's Missus Millett working her arms about like a mad windmill. Got some more jelly or blammondge for you, I s'pose. Lookye here, Master Dexter, just you pitch that sorter thing over, and take to beef underdone with the gravy in it. That'll set you up better than jelleries and slops." Dan'l was right. Mrs Millett was waiting with a cup of calves'-feet jelly; and Maria had brought out a rug, because it seemed to be turning cold. Two days later Dan'l was called away to visit a sick relative, and Peter's face was red with pleasure as he brought the invalid chair up to the door after lunch, and helped deposit the convalescent in his place, Helen and the doctor superintending, and Mrs Millett giving additional orders, as Maria formed herself into a flesh and blood crutch. "There, Dexter," said the doctor; "we shall be back before it's time for you to come in." He nodded, and Helen bent down and kissed the boy. Then there was the crushing of the wheels on the firm gravel, and Dexter lay back breathing in health. "Thought I was never going to have a pull at the chair, Mas' Dexter," said Peter. "Old Dan'l gets too bad to live with. Thinks nobody can't take care of you but him. Let's see, though; he said I was to cut you a bunch of them white grapes in Number 1 house, and there was two green figs quite ripe if you liked to have them." Peter pulled the carriage up and down the garden half a dozen times, listening the while till he heard the dull bang of the front door. "They're gone," he said gleefully. "Come on!" He went down the garden at a trot, and then carefully drew the wheeled-chair on to the grass at the bottom. "Peter, did you feed the squirrel!" said Dexter suddenly. Peter looked round very seriously, and shook his head. "Oh!" ejaculated Dexter. "Why didn't you feed the poor thing?" "Wait a minute and you'll see," said the groom; and, drawing the chair a little further, until it was close to the brink of the bright river, he turned round-- "Thought you'd like to feed him yourself, so I brought him down." There, on a willow branch, hung the old cage, with the squirrel inside, and Peter thrust his hand into his pocket to withdraw it full of nuts. But Peter had not finished his surprise, for he left the chair for a few moments and returned with Dexter's rod and line, and a bag of worms. "Going to fish?" said Dexter eagerly. "No, but I thought you'd like to now you was better," said Peter. "There, you can fish as you sit there, and I'll put on your bait, and take 'em off the hook." Dexter fished for half an hour, but he did not enjoy it, for he could not throw in his line without expecting to see Bob Dimsted on the other side. So he soon pleaded fatigue, and was wheeled out into the sunshine, and to the door of the vinery, up which he had scrambled when he first came to the doctor's house. A week later he was down at Chale, in the Isle of Wight, where the doctor had taken a house; and here, upon the warm sands, Dexter sat and lay day after day, drinking in the soft sea air, and gaining strength, while the doctor sat under an umbrella to think out fresh chapters for his book, and Helen either read to her invalid or worked. CHAPTER FORTY EIGHT. THE PROOF OF THE DOCTOR'S THEORY. Three years, as every one knows, look like what they are--twenty-six thousand two hundred and eighty long hours from one side, and they look like nothing from the other. They had passed pleasantly and well, for the doctor had been so much pleased with his Isle of Wight house that he had taken it for three years, and transported there the whole of his household, excepting Dan'l, who was left in charge at Coleby. "You see, my dear," the doctor had said; "it's a mistake for Dexter to be at Coleby until he has gone through what we may call his caterpillar stage. We'll take him back a perfect--" "Insect, papa?" said Helen, smiling. "No, no. You understand what I mean." So Dexter did not see Coleby during those three years, in which he stayed his terms at a school where the principal did not break the spirit of backward and unruly boys. On the contrary, he managed to combine excellent teaching with the possession of plenty of animal spirits, and his new pupil gained credit, both at home and at the school. "Now," said the doctor, on the day of their return to the old home, as he ran his eye proudly over the sturdy manly-looking boy he was taking back; "I think I can show Sir James I'm right, eh, my dear?" Old Dan'l smiled a wonderful smile as Dexter went down the garden directly he got home. "Shake hands with you, my lad?" he said, in answer to an invitation; "why, I'm proud. What a fine un you have growed! But come and have a look round. I never had such a year for fruit before." Chuckling with satisfaction, the doctor was not content until he had brought Sir James and Lady Danby to the house to dinner, in company with their son, who had grown up into an exceedingly tall, thin, pale boy with a very supercilious smile. No allusion was made to the doctor's plan, but the dinner-party did not turn out a success, for the boys did not seem to get on together; and Sir James said in confidence to Lady Danby that night, precisely what Dr Grayson said to Helen-- "They never shall be companions if I can help it. I don't like that boy." Over the dessert, too, Sir James managed to upset Dexter's equanimity by an unlucky speech, which brought the colour to the boy's cheeks. "By the way, young fellow," he said, "I had that old friend of yours up before me, about a month ago, for the second time." Dexter looked at him with a troubled look, and Sir James went on, as he sipped his claret. "You know--Bob Dimsted. Terrible young blackguard. Always poaching. Good thing if they had a press-gang for the army, and such fellows as he were forced to serve." It was at breakfast the next morning that the doctor waited till Dexter had left the table, and then turned to Helen-- "I shall not forgive Danby that unkind remark," he said. "I could honestly do it now, and say, `There, sir, I told you I could make a gentleman out of any material that I liked to select; and I've done it.' But no: I'll wait till Dexter has passed all his examinations at Sandhurst, and won his commission, and then--Yes, Maria--what is it!" "Letter, sir, from the Union," said Maria. "Humph! Dear me! What's this? Want me to turn guardian again, and I shall not. Eh, bless my heart! Well, well, I suppose we must." He passed the letter to Helen, and she read Mr Hippetts formal piece of diction, to the effect that one of the old inmates, a Mrs Curdley, was in a dying state, and she had several times asked to see the boy she had nursed--Obed Coleby. During the doctor's absence from the town the master had not felt that he could apply; but as Dr Grayson had returned, if he would not mind his adopted son visiting the poor old woman, who had been very kind to him as a child, it would be a Christian-like deed. "Yes; yes, of course, of course," said the doctor; and he called Dexter in. "Oh yes!" cried the lad, as he heard the request. "I remember all she did for me so well, and--and--I have never been to see her since." "My fault--my fault, my boy," said the doctor hastily. "There, we shall go and see her now." There were only two familiar faces for Dexter to encounter, first, namely, those of Mr Hippetts and the schoolmaster, both of whom expressed themselves as being proud to shake their old pupil's hand. Then they ascended to the infirmary, where the old nurse lay very comfortable and well cared for, and looking as if she might last for months. Her eyes lit up as she saw Dexter; and, when he approached, she held out her hand, and made him sit down beside her. "And growed such a fine chap!" she said, again and again. She had little more to say, beyond exacting a promise that he would come and see her once again, and when he was about to leave she put a small, dirty-looking, brown-paper packet in his hand. "There," she said. "I'd no business to, and he'd ha' took it away if he'd ha' known; but he didn't; and it's yours, for it was in your father's pocket when he come here and died." The "he" the poor old woman meant was the workhouse master, and the packet was opened in his presence, and found to contain a child's linen under-garment plainly marked--"Max Vanburgh, 12," and a child's highly-coloured toy picture-book, frayed and torn, and further disfigured by having been doubled in half and then doubled again, so that it would easily go in a man's pocket. It was the familiar old story of Little Red Riding-Hood, but the particular feature was an inscription upon the cover written in a delicate feminine hand-- "For my darling Max on his birthday, June 30th, 18--. Alice Vanburgh, The Beeches, Daneton." "But you told me the boy's father was a rough, drunken tramp, who died in the infirmary." "Yes, sir, I did," said Mr Hippetts, when he had a private interview with the doctor next day. "But it seems strange." "Very," said the doctor. Helen also agreed that it was very strange, and investigations followed, the result of which proved, beyond doubt, that Dexter Grayson, otherwise Obed Coleby, was really Maximilian Vanburgh, the son of Captain Vanburgh and Alice, his wife, both of whom died within two years of the day when, through the carelessness of a servant, the little fellow strayed away out through the gate and on to the high-road, where he was found far from home, crying, by the rough, tipsy scoundrel who passed that way. The little fellow's trouble appealed to what heart there was left in the man's breast, and he carried him on, miles away, careless as to whom he belonged to, and, day by day, further from the spot where the search was going on. The child amused him; and in his way he was kind to it, while the little fellow was of an age to take to any one who played with and petted him. Rewards and advertisements were vain, for they never reached the man's eyes, and his journeyings were on and on through a little-frequented part of the country, where it was nobody's business to ask a rough tramp how he came by the neglected-looking, ragged child, who clung to him affectionately enough. The little fellow was happy with him for quite three months, as comparison of dates proved, and what seemed strange became mere matter of fact--to wit, that Dexter was a gentleman by birth. All this took time to work out, but it was proved incontestably, the old nurse having saved all that the rough fellow had left of his little companion's belongings; and when everything was made plain, there was the fact that Dexter was an orphan, and that he had found a home that was all a boy could desire. "There, papa! what have you to say now?" said Helen to the doctor one day. "Say?" he said testily. "Danby will laugh at me when he knows, and declare my theory is absurd. I shall never finish that book." "But you will not try such an experiment again?" said Helen laughingly. Just then Dexter came in sight, bright, frank, and manly, and merrily whistling one of Helen's favourite airs. "No," said the doctor sharply; and then--"God bless him! Yes: if it was to be the making of such a boy as that!" THE END. 
14488	----	ELSIE'S KITH AND KIN by MARTHA FINLEY 1886 CHAPTER I. "O married love! each heart shall own; Where two congenial souls unite, Thy golden chains inlaid with down, Thy lamp with heaven's own splendor bright." LANGHORNE. "There, there, little woman! light of my eyes, and core of my heart! if you don't stop this pretty soon, I very much fear I shall be compelled to join you," Edward Travilla said, between a laugh and a sigh, drawing Zoe closer to him, laying her head against his breast, and kissing her tenderly on lip and cheek and brow. "I shall begin to think you already regret having staid behind with me." "No, no, no!" she cried, dashing away her tears, then putting her arms about his neck, and returning his caresses with ardor of affection. "Dear Ned, you know you're more than all the rest of the world to your silly little wife. But it seems lonely just at first, to have them all gone at once, especially mamma; and to think we'll not see her again for months! I do believe you'd cry yourself, if you were a girl." "Altogether likely," he said, laughing, and giving her another hug; "but, being a man, it wouldn't do at all to allow my feelings to overcome me in that manner. Besides, with my darling little wife still left me, I'd be an ungrateful wretch to repine at the absence of other dear ones." "What a neat little speech, Ned!" she exclaimed, lifting her head to look up into his face, and laughing through her tears--for her eyes had filled again. "Well, you know I can't help feeling a little lonely and sad just at first; but, for all that, I wouldn't for the world be anywhere else than here in your arms:" and with a sigh of content and thankfulness, she let her pretty head drop upon his breast again. "My darling! may it ever be to you the happiest place on earth! God helping me, I shall always try to make it so," he said, with a sudden change to gravity, and in low, moved tones. "My dear, dear husband!" she murmured, clinging closer to him. Then, wiping her eyes, "I sha'n't cry any more; for, if I'm not the happiest woman in the world, I ought to be. And what a nice time we shall have together, dear Ned! each wholly devoted to the other all winter long. I have it all planned out: while you are out about the plantation in the mornings, I'll attend to my housekeeping and my studies; and in the afternoons and evenings,--after I've recited,--we can write our letters, or entertain ourselves and each other with music or books; you can read to me while I work, you know." "Yes: a book is twice as enjoyable read in that way--sharing the pleasure with you," he said, softly stroking her hair, and smiling down into her eyes. "Especially if it is a good story, or a bit of lovely poetry," she added. "Yes," he said: "we'll have both those in turn, and some solid reading besides." "I don't like solid reading," she returned, with a charming pout. "One may cultivate a taste for it, I think," he answered pleasantly. "But you can't cultivate what you haven't got," she objected. "True enough," he said, laughing. "Well, then, we'll try to get a little first, and cultivate it carefully afterward. I must go now, love," he added, releasing her: "the men need some directions from me, in regard to their work." "And the women some from me," said Zoe. "Oh! you needn't laugh, Ned," shaking her finger at him, as he turned in the doorway to give her an amused glance: "perhaps some of these days you'll find out that I am really an accomplished housewife, capable of giving orders and directions too." "No doubt, my dear; for I am already proud of you in that capacity," he said, throwing her a smiling kiss, then hurrying away. Zoe summoned Aunt Dicey, the housekeeper, gave her orders for the day, and the needed supplies from pantry and storeroom, they went to the sewing-room, to give some directions to Christine and Alma. She lingered there for a little, trying on a morning-dress they were making for her, then repaired to her boudoir, intent upon beginning her studies, which had been rather neglected of late, in the excitement of the preparations for the departure of the greater part of the family for a winter at Viamede. But she had scarcely taken out her books, when the sound of wheels on the avenue attracted her attention; and glancing from the window, she saw the Roselands carriage draw up at the front entrance, and Ella Conly alight from it, and run up the veranda steps. "There, I'll not do much studying to-day, I'm afraid," said Zoe, half aloud; "for, even if it's only a call she has come for, she'll not leave under an hour." She hastily replaced the books in the drawer from which she had taken them,--for she had a feeling, only half acknowledged even to herself, of repugnance to having Ella know of her studies,--Ella, who had graduated from boarding-school, and evidently felt herself thoroughly educated,--and hurried down to meet and welcome her guest. "I told Cal and Art, I thought you'd be sure to feel dreadfully lonely to-day, after seeing everybody but Ned start off on a long journey, and so I'd come and spend the day with you," said Ella, when the two had exchanged kisses, and inquiries after each other's health. "It was very kind and thoughtful in you," returned Zoe, leading the way into the parlor usually occupied by the family, where an open wood fire blazed cheerily on the hearth. "Take this easy-chair, won't you?" she said, wheeling it a little nearer the grate; "and Dinah shall carry away your wraps when it suits you to doff them. I wish cousins Cal and Art would invite themselves to dine with us too." "Art's very busy just now," said Ella: "there's a good deal of sickness, and I don't believe he's spent a whole night at home for the last week or more." "Dear me! I wouldn't be a doctor for any thing, nor a doctor's wife!" exclaimed Zoe. "Well, I don't know: there's something to be said on both sides of that question," laughed Ella. "I can tell you, Art would make a mighty good husband; and it's very handy, in ease of sickness, to have the doctor in the house." "Yes; but, according to your account, he's generally somewhere else than in his own house," returned Zoe playfully. Ella laughed. "Yes," she said, "doctors do have a hard life; but, if you say so to Art, he always says he has never regretted having chosen the medical profession, because it affords so many opportunities for doing good. It's plain he makes that the business of his life. I'm proud of Art. I don't believe there's a better man anywhere. I was sick last summer, and you wouldn't believe how kindly he nursed me." "You can't tell me any thing about him that I should think too good to believe," said Zoe. "He's our family doctor, you remember; and, of course, we are all attached to him on that account, as well as because of the relationship." "Yes, to be sure. There, Dinah, you may carry away my hat and cloak," Ella said, divesting herself of them as she spoke, "but leave the satchel. I brought my fancy-work, Zoe: one has to be industrious now, as Christmas is coming. I decided to embroider a pair of slippers for each of my three brothers. Walter does not expect to get home; so I made his first, as they had to travel so far. I'm nearly done with Art's, and then I have Cal's to do." "Oh, how pretty!" exclaimed Zoe, examining the work: "and that's a new stitch; won't you teach it to me?" "Yes, indeed, with pleasure. And I want you to teach me how to crochet that lace I saw you making the other day. I thought it so pretty." The two spent a pleasant morning chatting together over their fancy-work, saying nothing very wise, perhaps, but neither did they say any thing harmful: an innocent jest now and again, something--usually laudatory--about some member of the family connection, and remarks and directions about their work, formed the staple of their talk. "Oh! how did it come that you and Ned staid behind when all the rest went to Viamede for the winter?" asked Ella. "Business kept my husband, and love for him and his society kept me," returned Zoe, with a look and smile that altogether belied any suspicion Ella might have had that she was fretting over the disappointment. "Didn't you want to go?" "Yes, indeed, if Edward could have gone with me; but any place with him is better than any other without him." "Well, I don't believe I should have been willing to stay behind, even in your place. I've always had a longing to spend a winter there visiting my sister Isa, and my cousins Elsie and Molly. Cal and Art say, perhaps one or both of them may go on to spend two or three weeks this winter; and in that case I shall go along." "Perhaps we may go at the same time, and what a nice party we will make!" said Zoe. "There," glancing from the window, "I see my husband coming, and I want to run out and speak to him. Will you excuse me a moment?" and scarcely waiting for a reply, she ran gayly away. Meeting Edward on the threshold, "I have no lessons to recite this time," she said; "but you are not to scold, because I've been prevented from studying by company. Ella is spending the day with me." "Ah! I hope you have had a pleasant time together--not too much troubled by fear of a lecture from the old tyrant who bears your lessons," he said laughingly, as he bent his head to press a kiss of ardent affection upon the rosy lips she held up to him. "No," she laughed in return: "I'm not a bit afraid of him." Zoe had feared the hours when Edward was unavoidably absent from her side would be very lonely now while the other members of the Ion family were away; but she did not find it so; her studies, and the work of making various pretty things for Christmas gifts, keeping her very busy. And, when he was with her, time flew on very rapid wings. She had grown quite industrious, and generally plied her needle in the evenings while he read or talked to her. But occasionally he would take the embroidery, or whatever it was, out of her hands, and toss it aside, saying she was trying her eyes by such constant use; and, besides, he wanted her undivided attention. And she would resign herself to her fate, nothing loath to be drawn close to his side, or to a seat upon his knee, to be petted and caressed like a child, which, indeed, he persisted in calling her. This was when they were alone: but very frequently they had company to spend the day, afternoon, or evening; for Ion had always been noted for its hospitality; and scarcely a week passed in which they did not pay a visit to the Oaks, the Laurels, the Pines, or Roselands. Also a brisk correspondence was carried on with the absent members of the family. And Zoe's housekeeping cares and duties were just enough to be an agreeable variety in her occupations: every day, too, when the weather permitted, she walked or rode out with her husband. And so the time passed quite delightfully for the first two months after the departure of the Viamede party. It was a disappointment that Edward found himself too busy to make the hoped-for trip to Viamede at Christmas-time; yet Zoe did not fret over it, and really enjoyed the holidays extremely, giving and receiving numerous handsome presents, and, with Edward's assistance, making it a merry and happy time for the servants and other dependants, as well as for the relatives and friends still in the neighborhood. The necessary shopping, with Edward to help her, and the packing and sending off of the Christmas-boxes to Viamede, to the college-boys,--Herbert and Harold,--and numerous other relatives and friends far and near, Zoe thought altogether the most delightful business she had ever taken in hand. A very merry, happy little woman she was through all those weeks and months, Edward as devoted as any lover, and as gay and light-hearted as herself. "Zoe, darling," Edward said one day at dinner, "I must drive over into our little village of Union--by the way, do you know that we have more than a hundred towns of that name in these United States?" "No, I did not know, or suspect, that we had nearly so many," she interrupted, laughing: "no wonder letters go astray when people are not particular to give the names of both county and State. But what were you going to say about driving over there?" "I must see a gentleman on business, who will be there to meet the five-o'clock train, and leave on it; and, in order to be certain of seeing him, I must be there at least fifteen or twenty minutes before it is due. Shall I have the pleasure of my wife's company in the carriage? I have ordered it to be at the door by fifteen or twenty minutes past four, which will give us plenty of time, as it is an easy matter to drive from here to Union in ten minutes." "Thank you," she said. "I accept the invitation with pleasure, and promise to be ready at the minute." "You are the best little woman about that," he returned, with an appreciative look and smile. "I don't remember that you have ever yet kept me waiting, when told beforehand at what time I intended to start." "Of course not," she said, with a pleased laugh; "because I was afraid, if I did, I shouldn't be invited so often: and I'm always so glad to go with you." "Not gladder than I am to have you," he said, with a very lover-like glance and smile. "I always enjoy your society, and am always proud to show my friends and acquaintances what a dear little wife I have. I dare say I'm looked upon as a very fortunate fellow in that respect, and sometimes envied on account of having drawn such a prize in the matrimonial lottery." They had left the table while he spoke, and with the last words he passed his arm round her waist. "Dear me, Ned, what a gallant speech!" she said, flushing with delight; "you deserve a reward:" and she held up her face for a kiss. "I am overpaid," he said, when he had bestowed it. "In spite of the coin being such as you have a right to help yourself to whenever you will?" she returned with a merry laugh. "O Ned, my lover-husband!" she added, laying her head on his breast, "I am so happy in belonging to you, and I can never love you enough for all your goodness to me!" "Darling, are you not equally good and loving to me?" he asked in tender tones, and holding her close. "But I owe every thing to you," she responded with emotion. "If you had not come to my aid when my dear father was taken from me, what would have become of me, a mere child, without a near relative in the world, alone and destitute in a foreign land?" "But I loved you, dearest. I sought my own happiness, as well as yours, in asking you to be my wife. So you need never feel burdened by the idea that you are under any special obligation to me, to whom you are the very sunshine of life." "Dear Ned, how very kind in you to say so," she responded, gazing with ardent affection into his eyes; "but it isn't burdensome to be under obligation to you, any more than it is a trial to be ruled by you," she added, with playful tenderness; "and I love to think of all your goodness to me." It was five minutes past four by Zoe's watch, and she just about to go to her dressing-room to put on her hat and cloak, when visitors were announced,--some ladies who always made a lengthened call at Ion; so she at once resigned herself to the loss of her anticipated drive with her husband. "O Ned!" she whispered in a hasty, vexed aside, "you'll have to go alone." "Yes, dear," he returned; "but I'll try to get back in time to take you a drive in the other direction." They stepped forward, and greeted their guests with hospitable cordiality. They were friends whose visits were prized and enjoyed, though their coming just at this time was causing Zoe a real disappointment. However, Edward's promise of a drive with him at a later hour so far made amends for it, that she could truthfully express pleasure in seeing her guests. Edward chatted with them for a few moments, then, excusing himself on the plea of business that could not be deferred, left them to be entertained by Zoe, while he entered his waiting carriage, and went on his way to the village, where he expected to meet his business acquaintance. CHAPTER II. "The truth you speak doth lack some gentleness."--SHAKSPEARE. Edward had met and held his desired interview with his business acquaintance, seen him aboard his train, and was standing watching it as it steamed away and disappeared in the distance, when a feminine voice, close at hand, suddenly accosted him. "O Mr. Travilla! how are you? I consider myself very fortunate in finding you here." He turned toward the speaker, and was not too greatly pleased at sight of her. "Ah! good-evening, Miss Deane," he said, taking her offered hand, and speaking with gentlemanly courtesy. "In what can I be of service to you?" "By inviting me to Ion to spend the night," she returned laughingly. "I've missed my train, and was quite in despair at the thought of staying alone over night in one of the miserable little hotels of this miserable little village. So I was delighted to see your carriage standing there, and you yourself beside it; for, knowing you to be one of the most hospitable of men, I am sure you will be moved to pity, and take me home with you." Edward's heart sank at thought of Zoe, but, seeing no way out of the dilemma, "Certainly," he said, and helped his self-invited guest to a seat in his carriage, placed himself by her side, and bade the coachman drive on to Ion. "Now, really, this is very good in you, Mr. Travilla," remarked Miss Deane: "there is no place I like better to visit than Ion, and I begin to think it was rather a fortunate mishap--missing my train." "Very unfortunate for me, I fear," sighed Edward to himself. "The loss of her drive will be a great disappointment to Zoe, and the sight of such a guest far from making it up to her. I am thankful the visit is to be for only a night." Aloud he said, "I fear you will find it less pleasant than on former occasions,--in fact, rather lonely; as all the family are absent--spending the winter at Viamede, my mother's Louisiana plantation--except my wife and myself." "Ah! but your wife is a charming little girl,--I never can think of her as a woman, you know,--and you are a host in yourself," returned the lady laughingly. Zoe's callers had left; and she, having donned hat and cloak, not to keep her husband a single moment, was at the window watching for his coming, when the carriage came driving up the avenue, and drew up at the door. She hurried out, expecting to find no one there but himself, and to be at once handed to a seat in the vehicle, and the next minute be speeding away with him, enjoying her drive all the more for the little disappointment that had preceded it. What, then, was her chagrin to see a visitor handed out, and that visitor the woman for whom she had conceived the most violent antipathy! "Miss Deane, my dear," Edward said, with an entreating look at Zoe, which she did not see, her eyes being at that instant fixed upon the face of her uninvited and unwelcome guest. "How do you do, my dear Mrs. Travilla? I hope you are glad to see me?" laughed the intruder, holding out a delicately gloved hand, "your husband has played the Good Samaritan to me to-night--saving me from having to stay in one of those wretched little hotels in the village till two o'clock to-morrow morning." "I am in usual health, thank you. Will you walk in?" returned Zoe in a freezing tone, and utterly ignoring the offered hand. "Will you step into the parlor? or would you prefer being shown to your room first?" "The latter, if you please," Miss Deane answered sweetly, apparently quite unaware that Zoe's manner was in the least ungracious. "Dinah," said Zoe, to a maid-in-waiting, "show Miss Deane to the room she occupied on her last visit. Carry up her satchel, and see that she has every thing she wants." Having given the order, Zoe stepped out to the veranda where Edward still was, having staid behind to give directions in regard to the horses. "Zoe, love, I am very sorry," he said, as the man turned his horses' heads, and drove away toward the stables. "O Edward! how could you?" she exclaimed reproachfully, tears of disappointment and vexation springing to her eyes. "Darling, I really could not help it," he replied soothingly, drawing her to him with a caress, and went on to tell exactly what had occurred. "She is not a real lady," said Zoe, "or she never would have done a thing like that." "I agree with you, love," he said; "but I was sorry your reception of her was so extremely ungracious and cold." "Would you have had me play the hypocrite, Ned?" she asked indignantly. "No, Zoe, I should be very far from approving of that," he answered gravely: "but while it was right and truthful not to express pleasure which you did not feel, at her coming, you might, on the other hand, have avoided absolute rudeness; you might have shaken hands with her, and asked after her health and that of her father's family." "I treated her as well as she deserved; and it does not make her any the more welcome to me, that she has already been the means of drawing down upon me a reproof from my husband's lips," Zoe said in tremulous tones, and turning away from him with her eyes full of tears. "My words were hardly intended as that, little wife," Edward responded in a kindly tone, following her into the hall, catching her in his arms, and imprinting a kiss on her ruby lips. "And I wanted my drive with you so badly," she murmured, half hiding her face on his breast; "but she has robbed us of that, and--O Ned! is she to come between us again, and make us quarrel, and be so dreadfully unhappy?" Her voice was full of tears and sobs before she had ended. "No, no; I could not endure that any more than you," he said with emotion, and clasping her very close: "and it is only for to-night you will have to bear the annoyance of her presence; she is to leave in the morning." "Is she? that is some comfort. I hope somebody will come in for the evening, and share with us the infliction of her society," Zoe said, concluding with a forlorn attempt at a laugh. "Won't you take off that very becoming hat and cloak, Mrs. Travilla, and spend the evening?" asked Edward playfully. "Thank you. I believe I will, if you will accompany me to the dressing-room," she returned, with a smiling look up into his face. "That I will with pleasure," he said, "provided you will reward me with some assistance with my toilet." "Such as brushing your hair, and tying your cravat? Yes, sir, I will: it's a bargain." And so, laughing and chatting, they went up to their own private apartments. Halt an hour later they came down again together, to find Miss Deane in the parlor, seated by a window overlooking the avenue. "There's a carriage just drawing up before your front entrance," she remarked: "the Roselands family carriage, I think it is." Zoe gave her husband a bright, pleased look. It seemed her wish for an addition to their party for the evening had been granted. The next moment the room-door was thrown, open, and Dr. Conly and Miss Ella were announced. They were cordially welcomed, asked to tea, and staid the evening, greatly relieving Zoe in the matter of entertaining her unwelcome guest, who devoted herself to the doctor, and left Edward to his wife and cousin, a condition of things decidedly agreeable to Zoe. A little after nine the Roselands carriage was announced; and the doctor and Ella took their departure, Edward and Zoe accompanying them to the outer door. The sky was black with clouds, and the wind roaring through the trees on the lawn. "We are going to have a heavy storm. I think," remarked Arthur, glancing upward: "there is not a star to be seen, and the wind blows almost a gale. I hope no patient of mine will want the doctor very badly to-night," he added with a slight laugh. "Step in out of the wind, cousin Zoe, or you may be the very one to send for me." Doing as directed, "No, indeed," she said: "I'm sure I couldn't have the heart to call anybody up out of a warm bed to face such a cutting wind as this." "No, no; never hesitate when there is a real necessity," he returned, speaking from his seat in the carriage, where he had already taken his place beside his sister, whom Edward had handed in. "Good-night, and hurry in, both of you, for my sake if not for your own." But they lingered a moment till the carriage turned, and drove swiftly down the avenue. "I am so glad they came," remarked Zoe, as Edward shut the door and locked it for the night. "Yes," he said: "they added a good deal to the pleasure of the evening. As we couldn't be alone together, three guests were more acceptable than one." "Decidedly; and that one was delighted, I'm sure, to have an opportunity to exercise her conversational gifts for the benefit of a single man instead of a married one." "Zoe, love, don't allow yourself to grow bitter and sarcastic," Edward said, turning toward her, laying a hand lightly, affectionately, upon her shoulder, and gazing down into her eyes with a look of grave concern. She colored under it, and turned away with a pout that almost spoiled the beauty of her fair face. She was more than ever impatient to be rid of their self-invited guest. "She always sets Ned to scolding me," was the bitter thought in her heart as she went slowly back to the parlor, where they had left Miss Deane, Edward following, sighing inwardly at the change in his darling always wrought by that unwelcome presence in the house. "How the wind roars down the chimney!" Miss Deane remarked as her host and hostess re-entered the room, where she was comfortably seated in an easy-chair beside the glowing grate. "I fear to-morrow will prove a stormy day; but in that case I shall feel all the more delighted with my comfortable quarters here,--all the more grateful to you, Mr. Travilla, for saving me from a long detention in one of those miserable little country taverns, where I should have died of _ennui_." "You seem kindly disposed, my dear madam, to make a great deal of a small service," returned Edward gallantly. But Zoe said not a word. She stood gazing into the fire, apparently lost in thought; but the color deepened on her cheek, and a slight frown contracted her brows. Presently she turned to her guest, saying courteously, "You must be weary with your journey, Miss Deane: would you like to retire?" "Thank you, I should," was the reply; and thereupon the good-nights were said, and they sought their respective rooms. "You are not displeased with me, dear?" Zoe asked, lifting her eyes inquiringly to her husband's face as she stood before their dressing-room fire with his arm about her waist: "you are looking so very grave." "No, dearest, I am not disposed to find fault with you," he said, softly caressing her hair and cheek with his disengaged hand; "though I should be glad if you could be a trifle more cordial to our uninvited guest." "It's my nature to act just as I feel; and, if there's a creature on earth I thoroughly detest, it is she!" returned the child-wife with almost passionate vehemence. "I know she hates me,--for all her purring manner and sweet tones and words,--and that she likes nothing better than to make trouble between my husband and me." "My dear child, you really must try not to be so uncharitable and suspicious," Edward said in a slightly reproving tone. "I do not perceive any such designs or any hypocrisy in her conduct toward you." "No: men are as blind as a bat in their intercourse with such women; never can see through their designs; always take them to be as sweet and amiable as they pretend to be. It takes a woman to understand her own sex." "Maybe so," he said soothingly; "but we will leave the disagreeable subject for to-night at least, shall we not?" "Yes; and, oh, I do hope the weather to-morrow will not be such as to afford her an excuse for prolonging her stay!" "I hope not, indeed, love," he responded; "but let us resolve, that, if it does, we will try to bear the infliction patiently, and give our self-invited guest no right to accuse us of a lack of hospitality toward her. Let us not forget or disobey the Bible injunction, to 'use hospitality one to another without grudging.'" "I'll try not to. I'll be as good to her as I can, without feeling that I am acting insincerely." "And that is all I ask, love. Your perfect freedom from any thing approaching to deceit is one of your greatest charms, in your husband's eyes," he said, tenderly caressing her. "It would, I am sure, be quite impossible for me to love a wife in whose absolute truth and sincerity I had not entire confidence." "And you do love me, your foolish, faulty little wife?" she said, in a tone that was a mixture of assertion and inquiry, while her lovely eyes gazed searchingly into his. "Dearly, dearly, my sweet!" he said, smiling fondly down upon her. "And now to bed, lest these bright eyes and rosy cheeks should lose something of their brilliance and beauty." "Suppose they should," she said, turning slightly pale, as with sudden pain. "O Ned! if I live, I must some day grow old and gray and wrinkled, my eyes dim and sunken: shall you love me then, darling?" "Better than ever, love," he whispered, holding her closer to his heart; "for how long we shall have lived and loved together! We shall have come to be as one indeed, each with hardly a thought or feeling unshared by the other." CHAPTER III. "One woman reads another's character, without the tedious trouble of deciphering."--JONSON. Zoe's sleep that night was profound and refreshing, and she woke in perfect health and vigor of body and mind; but the first sound that smote upon her ear--the dashing of sleet against the window-pane--sent a pang of disappointment and dismay to her heart. She sprang from her bed, and, running to the window, drew aside the curtain, and looked out. "O Ned!" she groaned, "the ground is covered with sleet and snow,--about a foot deep, I should think,--and just hear how the wind shrieks and howls round the house!" "Well, love," he answered in a cheery tone, "we are well sheltered, and supplied with all needful things for comfort and enjoyment." "And one that will destroy every bit of my enjoyment in any or all the others," she sighed; "but," eagerly and half hopefully, "do you think it is quite certain to be too bad for her to go?" "Quite, I am afraid. If she should offer to go," he added mischievously, "we will not be more urgent against it than politeness demands, and, if she persists, will not refuse the use of the close carriage as far as the depot." "She offer to go!" exclaimed Zoe scornfully: "you may depend, she'll stay as long as she has the least vestige of an excuse for doing so." "Oh, now, little woman! don't begin the day with being quite so hard and uncharitable," Edward said, half seriously, half laughingly. Zoe was not far wrong in her estimate of her guest. Miss Deane was both insincere and a thoroughly selfish person, caring nothing for the comfort or happiness of others. She had perceived Zoe's antipathy from the first day of their acquaintance, and took a revengeful, malicious delight in tormenting her; and she had sufficient penetration to see that the most effectual way to accomplish her end was through Edward. The young wife's ardent and jealous affection for her husband was very evident; plainly, it was pain to her to see him show Miss Deane the slightest attention, or seem interested in any thing she did or said; therefore the intruder put forth every effort to interest him, and monopolize his attention, and at the same time contrived to draw out into exhibition the most unamiable traits in Zoe's character, doing it so adroitly that Edward did not perceive her agency in the matter, and thought Zoe alone to blame. To him Miss Deane's behavior appeared unexceptionable, her manner most polite and courteous, Zoe's just the reverse. It was so through all that day and week; for the storm continued, and the uninvited guest never so much as hinted at a wish to leave the shelter of their hospitable roof. Zoe began each day with heroic resolve to be patient and forbearing, sweet-tempered and polite, toward her tormentor, and ended it with a deep sense of humiliating failure, and of having lost something of the high esteem and admiration in which her almost idolized husband had been wont to hold her. Feeling that, more or less of change in her manner toward him was inevitable; less sure than formerly of his entire approval and ardent affection, a certain timidity and hesitation crept into her manner of approaching him, even when they were quite alone together; she grew sad, silent, and reserved: and he, thinking her sullen and jealous without reason, ceased to lavish endearments upon her, and, more than that, half unconsciously allowed both his looks and tones to express disapprobation and reproof. That almost broke Zoe's heart; but she strove to hide her wounds from him, and especially from her tormentor. The storm kept Edward in the house: at another time that would have been a joy to Zoe, but now it only added to her troubles, affording constant opportunity to the wily foe to carry out her evil designs. On the evening of the second day from the setting in of the storm, Miss Deane challenged Edward to a game of chess. He accepted at once, and with an air of quiet satisfaction brought out the board, and placed the men. He was fond of the game; but Zoe had never fancied it, and he had played but seldom since their marriage. Miss Deane was a more than ordinarily skilful player, and so was he; indeed, so well matched were they, that neither found it an easy matter to checkmate the other: and that first game proved a long one,--so long that Zoe, who had watched its progress with some interest in the beginning, eager to see Edward win, at length grew so weary as to find it difficult to keep her eyes open, or refrain from yawning. But Edward, usually so tenderly careful of her, took no notice,--indeed, as she said bitterly to herself, seemed to have forgotten her existence. Still, it was with a thrill of delight that she at length perceived that he had come off victorious. Miss Deane took her defeat with very good grace, and smilingly challenged him to another contest. "Rather late, isn't it?" he said with a glance at the clock, whose hands pointed to half-past eleven. "Suppose we sign a truce until to-morrow?" "Certainly: that will be decidedly best," she promptly replied, following the direction of his glance. "I feel so fresh, and have enjoyed myself so much, that I had no idea of the hour, and am quite ashamed of having kept my youthful hostess up so late," she added, looking sweetly at Zoe. "Very young people need a large amount of sleep, and can't keep up health and strength without it." "You are most kind," said Zoe, a touch of sarcasm in her tones: "it must be a very sympathetic nature that has enabled you to remember so long how young people feel." A twinkle of fun shone in Edward's eyes at that. Miss Deane colored furiously, bade a hasty good-night, and departed to her own room. "That was a rather hard thrust, my dear," remarked Edward, laughing, as he led the way into their dressing-room; "not quite polite, I'm afraid." "I don't care if it wasn't!" said Zoe. "She is always twitting me on my extreme youth." "Sour grapes," he said lightly: "she will never see twenty-five again, and would give a great deal for your youth. And since you are exactly the age to suit me, why should you care a fig for her sneers?" "I don't, when I seem to suit you in all respects," returned Zoe with tears in her voice. Her back was toward him; but he caught sight of her face in a mirror, and saw that tears were also glistening in her eyes. Putting his arm round her waist, and drawing her to him, "I don't want a piece of perfection for my wife," he said; "she would be decidedly too great a contrast to her husband: and I have never yet seen the woman or girl I should be willing to take in exchange for the one belonging to me. And I'm very sure such a one doesn't exist." "How good in you to say it!" she said, clinging about his neck, and lifting to his, eyes shining with joy and love. "O Ned! we were so happy by ourselves!" "So we were," he assented, "and so we may hope to be again very soon." "Not so very, I'm afraid," she answered with a rueful shake of the head; "for just hark how it is storming still!" "Yes; but it may be all over by morning. How weary you look, love! Get to bed as fast as you can. You should not have waited for the conclusion of that long game, that, I know, did not interest you." "I was interested for your sake," she said, "and so glad to see you win." "Wife-like," he returned with a smile, adding, "It was a very close game, and you needn't be surprised to see me beaten in the next battle." "I'm afraid she will stay for that, even if the storm is over," sighed Zoe. "Dear me! I don't see how anybody can have the face to stay where she is self-invited, and must know she isn't a welcome guest to the lady of the house. I'd go through any storm rather than prolong a visit under such circumstances." "You would never have put yourself in such a position," Edward said. "But I wish you could manage to treat her with a little more cordiality. I should feel more comfortable. I could not avoid bringing her here, as you know; nor can I send her away in such inclement weather, or, indeed, at all, till she offers to go; and your want of courtesy toward her--to put it mildly--is a constant mortification to me." "Why don't you say at once that you are ashamed of me?" she exclaimed, tears starting to her eyes again, as with a determined effort she freed herself from his grasp, and moved away to the farther side of the room. "I am usually very proud of you," he answered in a quiet tone; "but this woman seems to exert a strangely malign influence over you." To that, Zoe made no response; she could not trust herself to speak; so prepared for bed, and laid herself down there in silence, wiped away a tear or two, and presently fell asleep. Morning brought no abatement of the storm, and consequently no relief to Zoe from the annoyance of Miss Deane's presence in the house. On waking, she found that Edward had risen before her; she heard him moving about in the dressing-room; then he came to the door, looked in, and, seeing her eyes open, said, "Ah, so you are awake! I hope you slept well? I'm sorry for your sake that it is still storming." "Yes, I slept soundly, thank you; and as for the storm, I'll just have to try to bear with it and its consequences as patiently as possible," she sighed. "A wise resolve, my dear. I hope you will try to carry it out." he returned. "Now I must run away, and leave you to make your toilet, as I have some little matters to attend to before breakfast." She made no reply; and he passed out of the room, and down the stairs. "Poor little woman!" he said to himself: "she looks depressed, though usually she is so bright and cheery. I hope, from my heart, Miss Deane may never darken these doors again." Zoe was feeling quite out of spirits over the prospect of another day to be spent in society so distasteful: she lay for a moment contemplating it ruefully. "The worst of it is, that she manages to make me appear so unamiable and unattractive in my husband's eyes," she sighed to herself. "But I'll foil her efforts," she added, between her shut teeth, springing up, and beginning her toilet as she spoke: "he likes to have me bright and cheery, and well and becomingly dressed, and so I will be." She made haste to arrange her hair in the style he considered most becoming, and to don the morning-dress he most admired. As she put the finishing touches to her attire, she thought she heard his step on the stairs, and ran out eagerly to meet him, and claim a morning kiss. But the bright, joyous expression of her face suddenly changed to one of anger and chagrin as she caught the sound of his and Miss Deane's voices in the hall below, and, looking over the balustrade, saw them go into the library together. "She begins early! It's a pity if I can't have my own husband to myself even before breakfast," Zoe muttered, stepping back into the dressing-room. Her first impulse was to remain where she was; the second, to go down at once, and join them. She hastened to do so, but, before she reached the foot of the stairway, the breakfast-bell rang; and, instead of going into the library, she passed on directly to the dining-room, and, as the other two entered a moment later, gave Miss Deane a cold "Good-morning," and Edward a half reproachful, half pleading look, which he, however, returned with one so kind and re-assuring that she immediately recovered her spirits, and was able to do the honors of the table with ease and grace. Coming upon her in that room alone, an hour later, just as she had dismissed Aunt Dicey with her orders for the day, "Little wife," he said, bending down to give her the coveted caress, "I owe you an explanation." "No, Ned, dear, I don't ask it of you: I know it is all right," she answered, flushing with happiness, and her eyes smiling up into his. "Still, I think it best to explain," he said. "I had finished attending to the little matters I spoke of,--writing a note, and giving some directions to Uncle Ben,--and was on my way back to our apartments, when Miss Deane met me on the stairway, and asked if I would go into the library with her, and help her to look up a certain passage in one of Shakspeare's plays, which she wished to quote in a letter she was writing. She was anxious to have it perfectly correct, she said, and would be extremely obliged for my assistance in finding it." "And you could not in politeness refuse. I know that, Ned, and please don't think me jealous." "I know, dear, that you try not to be; and it shall be my care to avoid giving you the least occasion. And I do again earnestly assure you, you need have no fear that the first place in my heart will not always be yours." "I don't fear it," she said; "and yet,--O Ned! it is misery to me to have to share your society with that woman, even for a day or two!" "I don't know how I can help you out of it," he said, after a moment's consideration, "unless by shutting myself up alone,--to attend to correspondence or something,--and leaving you to entertain her by yourself. Shall I do that?" "Oh, no! unless you much prefer it. I think it would set me wild to have her whole attention concentrated upon me," Zoe answered with an uneasy laugh. So they went together to the parlor, where Miss Deane sat waiting for them, or rather for Edward. She had the chess-board out, the men placed, and at once challenged him to a renewal of last night's contest. He accepted, of course; and they played without intermission till lunch-time, Zoe sitting by, for the most part silent, and wishing Miss Deane miles away from Ion. This proved a worse day to her than either of the preceding ones. Miss Deane succeeded several times in rousing her to an exhibition of temper that very much mortified and displeased Edward; and his manner, when they retired that night to their private apartments, was many degrees colder than it had been in the morning. He considered himself forbearing in refraining from remark to Zoe on her behavior; while she said to herself, she would rather he would scold her, and have done with it, than keep on looking like a thunder-cloud, and not speaking at all. He was not more disgusted with her conduct than she was herself, and she would own it in a minute if he would but say a kind word to open the way. But he did not; and they made their preparations for the night and sought their pillows in uncomfortable silence, Zoe wetting hers with tears before she slept. CHAPTER IV. "Forbear sharp speeches to her. She's a lady So tender of rebukes, that words are strokes, And strokes death to her."--SHAKSPEARE. As we have said, the storm lasted for a week; and all that time Edward and Zoe were slowly drifting farther and farther apart. But at last the clouds broke and the sun shone out cheerily. It was about the middle of the forenoon when this occurred. "Oh," cried Miss Deane, "do see the sun! Now I shall no longer need to encroach upon your hospitality, my kind entertainers. I can go home by this afternoon's train, if you, Mr. Travilla, will be so very good as to take or send me to the depot." "The Ion carriage is quite at your service," he returned politely. "Thanks," she said; "then I'll just run up to my room, and do my bit of packing." She hurried out to the hall, then the front door was heard to open; and the next minute a piercing shriek brought master, mistress, and servants running out to the veranda to inquire the cause. Miss Deane lay there groaning, and crying out "that she had sprained her ankle terribly; she had slipped on a bit of ice, and fallen; and oh! when now would she be able to go home?" The question found an echo in Zoe's heart, and she groaned inwardly at the thought of having this most unwelcome guest fastened upon her for weeks longer. Yet she pitied her pain, and was anxious to do what she could for her relief. She hastened to the medicine-closet in search of remedies; while Edward and Uncle Ben gently lifted the sufferer, carried her in, and laid her on the sofa. Also a messenger was at once despatched for Dr. Conly. Zoe stationed herself at a front window of the drawing-room to watch for his coming. Presently Edward came to her side. "Zoe," he said, "can't you go to Miss Deane?" "What for?" she asked, without turning her head to look at him. "To show your kind feeling." "I'm not sure that I have any." "Zoe! I am shocked! She is in great pain." "She has plenty of helpers about her,--Christine, Aunt Dicey, and a servant-maid or two,--who will do all they can to relieve her. If I could do any thing more, I would; but I can't, and should only be in the way. You forget what a mere child you have always considered me, and that I have had no experience in nursing." "It isn't nursing, I am asking you to give her, but a little kindly sympathy." A carriage was coming swiftly up the avenue. "There's the doctor," said Zoe. "You'd better consult with him about his patient; and, if he thinks my presence in her room will hasten her recovery, she shall have all I can give her of it, that we may get her out of the house as soon as possible." "Zoe! I had no idea you could be so heartless," he said, with much displeasure, as he turned and left the room. Zoe remained where she was, shedding some tears of mingled anger and grief, then hastily endeavoring to remove their traces; for Arthur would be sure to step into the parlor, to see her before leaving, if it were but for a moment. She had barely recovered her composure when he came in, having found his patient not in need of a lengthened visit. His face was bright, his tone cheery and kind, as he bade her good-morning, and asked after her health. "I'm very well, thank you," she said, giving him her hand. "Is Miss Deane's accident a very bad one?" "It is a severe sprain," he said: "she will not be able to bear her weight upon that ankle for six weeks." Then seeing Zoe's look of dismay, shrewdly guessing at the cause, he hastened to add, "But she might be sent home in an ambulance a few days hence, without the least injury." Zoe looked greatly relieved, Edward scarcely less so. "I can't understand how she came to fall," remarked Arthur reflectively. "Nor I," said Zoe. "Wouldn't it be well for you to advise her never to set foot on that dangerous veranda again?" Arthur smiled. "That would be a waste of breath," he said, "while Ion is so delightful a place to visit." "How are they all at Viamede?" he asked, turning to Edward. "Quite well at last accounts, thank you," Edward replied, adding, with a slight sigh, "I wish they were here,--my mother at least, if none of the others." Zoe colored violently. "Cousin Arthur, do you think I am needed in your patient's room?" she asked. "Only to cheer and amuse her with your pleasant society," he answered. "She would find neither pleasure nor amusement in my society," said Zoe; "and hers is most distasteful to me." "That's a pity," said Arthur, with a look of concern. "Suppose I lend you Ella for a few days? She, I think, would rather enjoy taking the entertainment of your guest off your hands." "Oh, thank you!" said Zoe, brightening; "that would be a relief: and, besides, I should enjoy Ella myself, between times, and after Miss Deane goes home." "Please tell Ella we will both be greatly obliged if she will come," Edward said. "I'll do so," said Arthur, rising to go; "but I have a long drive to take, in another direction, before returning to Roselands. And you must remember," he added with a smile, "that I lend her for only a few days. Cal and I wouldn't know how to do without her very long." With that, he took his departure, leaving Edward and Zoe alone together. "I am sorry, Zoe, that you thought it necessary to let Arthur into the secret of the mutual dislike between Miss Deane and yourself," remarked Edward, in a grave, reproving tone. Zoe colored angrily. "I don't care who knows it," she retorted, with a little toss of her head. "I did not think it _necessary_ to let Arthur into the secret, as you call it (I don't consider it one), but neither did I see any objection to his knowing about it." "Then, let me request you to say no more on the subject to any one," he said, with vexation. "I sha'n't promise," she muttered, half under her breath. But he heard it. "Very well, then, I forbid it; and you have promised to obey me." "And you promised that it should always be love and coaxing," she said, in tones trembling with pain and passion. "I'll have to tell Ella something about it." "Then, say only what is quite necessary," he returned, his tones softening. Then, after a moment's silence, in which Zoe's face was turned from him so that he could not see its expression, "Won't you go now, and ask if Miss Deane is any easier? Surely, as her hostess, you should do so much." "No, I won't! I'll do all I can to make her comfortable; I'll provide her with society more agreeable to her than mine; I'll see that she has interesting reading-matter, if she wants it; I'll do any thing and every thing I can, except that; but you needn't ask that of me." "O Zoe! I had thought you would do a harder thing than that at my request," he said reproachfully. Ignoring his remark, she went on, "I just believe she fell and hurt herself purposely, that she might have an excuse for prolonging her visit, and continuing to torment me." "Zoe, Zoe, how shockingly uncharitable you are!" he exclaimed. "I could never have believed it of you! We are told, 'Charity thinketh no evil.' Do try not to judge so harshly." He left the room; and Zoe indulged in a hearty cry, but hastily dried her eyes, and turned her back toward the door, as she heard his step approaching again. He just looked in, saying, "Zoe, I am going to drive over to Roselands for Ella: will you go along?" "No. I've been lectured enough for one day," was her ungracious rejoinder; and he closed the door, and went away. He was dumb with astonishment and pain. "What has come over her?" he asked himself. "She has always before been so delighted to go any and every where with me. Have I been too ready to reprove her of late? I have thought myself rather forbearing, considering how much ill-temper she has shown. She has had provocation, to be sure; but it is high time she learned to exercise some self-control. Yet perhaps I should have been more sympathizing, more forbearing and affectionate." He had stepped into his carriage, and was driving down the avenue. He passed through the great gates, and turned into the road, still thinking of Zoe, and mentally reviewing their behavior toward each other since the unfortunate day in which Miss Deane had crossed their threshold. The conclusion he presently arrived at was, that he had not been altogether blameless; that, if his reproofs had been given in more loving fashion, they would have been received in a better spirit; that he had not been faithful to his promise always to try "love and coaxing" with the impulsive, sensitive child-wife, who, he doubted not, loved him with her whole heart; and, once convinced of that, he determined to say so on his return, and make it up with her. True, it seemed to him that she ought to make the first advances toward an adjustment of their slight differences (quarrels they could scarcely be called; a slight coldness, a cessation of accustomed manifestations of conjugal affection, a few sharp or impatient words on each side), but he would be too generous to wait for that; he loved her dearly enough to sacrifice his pride to some extent; he could better afford that than the sight of her unhappiness. In the mean time Zoe was bitterly repenting of the rebuff she had given him. He had hardly closed the door when she started up, and ran to it to call him back, apologize for her curt refusal to go with him, and ask if she might still accept his invitation. But it was too late: he was already beyond hearing. She could not refrain from another cry, and was very angry with herself for her petulance. She regretted the loss of the drive, too, which would have been a real treat after the week of confinement to the house. She had refused to comply with her husband's request that she would go to Miss Deane and ask how she was: now she repented, and went as soon as she had removed the traces of her tears. "Ah! you have come at last!" was the salutation she received on entering the room where Miss Deane lay on a sofa, with the injured limb propped upon pillows. "I began to fear," sweetly, "that your delicate nerves had given way under the sight of my sufferings." "My nerves are not delicate," returned Zoe coldly; "in fact, I never discovered that I had any; so please do not trouble yourself with anxiety on that account. I trust the applications have relieved you somewhat." "Very little, thank you. I suppose it was hardly to be expected that they would take effect so soon. Ah, me!" she added with a profound sigh, "I fear I am tied to this couch for weeks." "No; do not disturb yourself with that idea," said Zoe. "The doctor told me you could easily be taken home in a few days in an ambulance." "I shall certainly avail myself of the first opportunity to do so," said Miss Deane, her eyes flashing with anger, "for I plainly perceive that I have worn out my welcome." "No, not at all," said Zoe; "at least, not so far as I am concerned." Miss Deane looked her incredulity and surprise, and Zoe explained,--"I think I may as well be perfectly frank with you," she said. "You have not worn out your welcome with me, because I had none for you when you came. How could I, knowing that you invariably make trouble between my husband and myself?" "Truly, a polite speech to make to a guest!" sniffled Miss Deane. "I hope you pride yourself on your very polished manners." "I prefer truth and sincerity." said Zoe, "I shall do all I can to make you comfortable while you are here; and, if you choose to avoid the line of conduct I have objected to, we may learn to like each other. I very well know that you do not love me now." "Since frankness is in fashion at this moment," was the contemptuous retort, "I will own that there is no love lost between us. Stay," as Zoe was about to leave the room, "let me give you a piece of disinterested advice. Learn to control your quick temper, and show yourself more amiable, or you may find one of these days, when it is too late, that you have lost your husband's heart." At that, Zoe turned away, and went swiftly from the room. She was beyond speaking, her whole frame quivering from head to foot with the agitation of her feelings. Lose the love of her idolized husband? That would be worse than death. But it should never be: he loved her dearly now (it could not be possible that these last few wretched days had robbed her quite of the devoted affection she had known beyond a doubt to be hers before); and she would tell him, as soon as he came in, how sorry she was for the conduct that had vexed him, and never, no, never again, would she do or say any thing to displease him, or lower herself in his estimation. As she thought thus, hurrying down the hall, she caught the sound of wheels on the drive, and ran out, expecting to see him, as it was about time for his return from Roselands. It was the Ion carriage she had heard, but only Ella Conly alighted from it. They exchanged greetings, then Zoe asked half breathlessly, "Where's Edward?" "Gone," Ella responded, moving on into the hall. "Come, let's go into the parlor, and sit down, and I'll tell you all I know about it. Why, Zoe," as she turned and caught sight of her companion's face, "you are as pale as death, and look ready to faint! There's nothing to be scared about, and you mustn't mind my nonsense." "Oh, tell me! tell me quickly!" gasped Zoe, sinking into a chair, her hands clasped beseechingly, her eyes wild with terror: "what, what has happened?" "Nothing, child, nothing, except that we met cousin Horace on our way here, and he carried Ned off to Union. They had to hurry to catch a train, in order to be in time for some business matter in the city, I didn't understand what: so Ned couldn't wait to write the least bit of a note to tell you about it; and he told me to explain every thing to you, and say you were not to fret or worry, not even if he shouldn't get home to-night; for he might not be able to finish up the business in time for even the last train that would bring him." The color had come back to Zoe's cheek, but her countenance was still distressed; and as Ella concluded, two scalding tears rolled quickly down her face, and plashed upon the small white hands lying clasped in her lap. "Dear me!" said Ella, "how fond you are of him!" "Yes," said Zoe, with a not very successful effort to smile through her tears: "who wouldn't be, in my place? I owe every thing to Ned, and he pets and indulges me to the greatest extent. Besides, he is so good, noble, and true, that any woman might be proud to be his wife." "Yes: I admit every word of it; but all that doesn't explain your tears," returned Ella, half sympathizingly, half teasingly. "Now, I should have supposed that anybody who could boast of such a piece of perfection for a husband would be very happy." "But I--we've hardly ever been separated over night," stammered Zoe, blushing rosy red; "and--and--O Ella! I hadn't a chance to say good-by to him, and--and you know accidents so often happen"-- She broke down with a burst of tears and sobs that quite dismayed her cousin. "Why, Zoe, I'm afraid you cannot be well," she said. "Come, cheer up, and don't borrow trouble." "I'm afraid I'm very silly, and have been making you very uncomfortable," said Zoe, hastily wiping away her tears, "and it's a great shame; particularly, considering that you have kindly come on purpose to help me through with a disagreeable task. "I'll show you to your room now, if you like," she added, rising, "and try to behave myself better during the rest of your visit." "Apologies are quite uncalled for," returned Ella lightly, as they went up-stairs together. "I have always had a good time at Ion, and don't believe this is going to be an exception to the general rule. But do you know," lowering her voice a little, "I don't propose to spend nearly all my time with that hateful Miss Deane. I never could bear her." "Then, how good it was in you to come!" exclaimed Zoe gratefully. "But I should never have asked it of you, if I had thought you disliked her as well as I." They were now in the room Ella was to occupy, and she was taking off her hat and cloak. "Oh, never mind! I was delighted to come anyhow," she answered gayly, as she threw aside the latter garment, and took possession of an easy-chair beside the open fire. "To tell you a secret," she went on laughingly, "I like my cousins Ned and Zoe Travilla immensely, and am always glad of an excuse to pay them a visit. But that Miss Deane,--oh! she's just _too sweet_ for _any thing!_" making a grimace expressive of disgust and aversion, "and a consummate, incorrigible flirt: any one of the male sex can be made to serve her turn, from a boy of sixteen to a man of seventy-five." "I think you are correct about that," said Zoe. "And, do you know, she is forever making covert sneers at my youth; and it's perfectly exasperating to me." "Sour grapes," laughed Ella. "I wouldn't let it vex me in the least: it's all to hide her envy of you, because you are really young, and married too. I know very well she's dreadfully afraid of being called an old maid." "I suspected as much," Zoe remarked. "But don't you think gentlemen are more apt to be pleased with her than ladies?" "Yes: they don't see through her as her own sex do. And she is handsome, and certainly a brilliant talker. I'd give a good deal for conversational powers equal to hers." "So would I," Zoe said, with an involuntary sigh. Ella gave her a keen, inquiring look; and Zoe flushed hotly under it. "Shall we go down now?" she asked. "It is nearly dinner-time; and we shall have to dine alone unless some one drops in unexpectedly," she added, as they left the room together, and passed down the stairs, arm in arm. "If Arthur should, wouldn't it be a trial to Miss Deane to have to dine in her own room?" exclaimed Ella, with a gleeful laugh. "Why, what do you mean?" asked Zoe, opening her eyes wide with surprise. "That she would not have the slightest objection to becoming Mrs. Dr. Conly." "But you don't think there's any danger?" queried Zoe, by no means pleased with the idea of having the lady in question made a member of the family connection. "No, and I certainly hope not. It wouldn't be I that would want to call her sister," returned Ella emphatically. "I should think Art had sufficient penetration to see through her," said Zoe. "But no; on second thoughts, I'm not so sure; for Ned will have it that it's more than half my imagination when I say she sneers at me." "That's too bad," said Ella. "But Art is older than Ned by some years, and has probably had more opportunity to study character." "Yes," replied Zoe, speaking with some hesitation, not liking to admit that any one was wiser than her husband, little as she was inclined to own herself in the wrong when he differed from her. CHAPTER V. "Is there no constancy in earthly things? No happiness in us, but what must alter?" Zoe drove over to the village in good season to meet the last train for that day, coming from the direction in which Edward had gone, ardently hoping he might be on board. The carriage was brought to a stand-still near the depot; and she eagerly watched the arrival of the train, and scanned the little crowd of passengers who alighted from it. But Edward was not among them, and now it was quite certain that she could not see him before another day. Just as she reached that conclusion, a telegram was handed her:-- "Can't be home before to-morrow or next day. Will return as soon as possible. E. TRAVILLA." To the girl-wife the message seemed but cold and formal. "So different from the way he talks to me when he is not vexed or displeased, as he hardly ever is," she whispered to herself with starting tears during the solitary drive back to Ion. "I know it's silly--telegrams can't be loving and kind: it wouldn't do, of course--but I can't help feeling as if he is angry with me, because there's not a bit of love in what he says. And, oh, dear! to think he may be away two nights, and I'm longing so to tell him how sorry I am for being so cross this morning, and before that, too, and to have him take me in his arms and kiss me, and say all is right between us, that I don't know how to wait a single minute!" She reached home in a sad and tearful mood. Ella, however, proved so entertaining and mirth-provoking a companion, that the evening passed quickly, and by no means unpleasantly. But when the two had retired to their respective apartments, Zoe felt very lonely, and said to herself that she would rather have Edward there, even silent and displeased, as he had been for several days past, than be without him. Her last thought before falling asleep, and her first on awaking next morning, were of him. "Oh, dear!" she sighed half aloud, as she opened her eyes, and glanced round the room, "what shall I do if he doesn't come to-day? I'll have to stand it, of course; but what does a woman do who has no husband?" And for the first time she began to feel some sympathy for Miss Deane, as a lonely maiden lady. She thought a good deal about her unwelcome guest while attending to the duties of the toilet, and determined to treat her with all possible kindness during the remainder of her enforced stay at Ion. So, meeting, on her way to the breakfast-room, the old negress who had been given charge of Miss Deane through the night, she stopped her, and asked how her patient was. "Jes' pow'ful cross dis hyar mawnin', Miss Zoe," was the reply, in a tone of disgust. "Dar isn't one ob de fambly dat would be makin' half de fuss ef dey'd sprained bofe dey's ankles. Doan ye go nigh her, honey, fear she bite yo' head off." "Indeed I sha'n't, Aunt Phillis, if there's any danger of that," laughed Zoe. "But as she can't jump up and run after me, I think I shall be quite safe if I don't go within arm's-length of her sofa." "She's pow'ful cross," repeated Aunt Phillis: "she done gone call dis chile up time an' again fru de night; an' when I ax her, 'Whar yo' misery at?' she say, 'In my ankle, ob c'ose, yo' ole fool you! Cayn't yo' hab nuff sense to change de dressin'?'" "Who is that has been so polite and complimentary to you, Aunt Phillis?" cried a merry voice in their rear. Ella was descending the stairway at whose foot they stood, as they perceived, on turning at the sound of her voice. "Good-morning, cousin: how bright and well you are looking!" said Zoe. "Just as I feel. And how are you, Mrs. Travilla? I trust you did not spend the night in crying over Ned's absence?" was the gay rejoinder. "No, not nearly all of it," returned Zoe, catching her spirit of fun. "Mawnin', Miss Ella," said the old nurse, dropping a courtesy. "'Twas de lady what sprain her foot yisteday I was talkin' bout to Miss Zoe." "Ah! how is she?" "I doan' t'ink she gwine die dis day, Miss Ella," laughed the nurse, "she so pow'ful cross; and dey do say folks is dat way when dey's gittin' bettah." "Yes, I have always heard it was a hopeful sign, if not an agreeable one," Ella remarked, "Was that the breakfast-bell I heard just now?" "Yes," said Zoe. "I hope you feel ready to do justice to your meal?" As they seated themselves at the table, Zoe, glancing toward Edward's vacant chair, remarked, with a sigh, that it seemed very lonely to sit down without him. "Well, now," said Ella, "I think it's quite nice to take a meal occasionally without the presence of anybody of the masculine gender." "Perhaps that is because you have never been married," said Zoe. "Perhaps so," returned her cousin, laughing; "yet I don't think that can be all that ails me, for I have heard married women express the same opinion quite frequently. What shall we do with ourselves to-day, Zoe? I've no notion of devoting myself exclusively to Miss Deane's entertainment, especially if she is really as cross as reported." "No, indeed! I couldn't bear to let you, even if you were willing," replied Zoe with decision. "I consented to your taking my place in that, only because I supposed you found her agreeable; while to me she is any thing else." "Suppose we call on her together, after a little, and let the length of our stay depend upon the enjoyment our presence seems to afford her," suggested Ella. "Agreed," said Zoe. "Then I will supply her with plenty of reading-matter, which, as she professes to be so very intellectual, ought to entertain her far better than we can. Shall we ride after that?" "Yes, and take a promenade on the verandas. We'll have to take our exercise in those ways, as the roads are not yet fit for walking." "Yes," said Zoe; "but I hope that by afternoon they will be good enough for driving; as I mean to drive over to the depot to meet the late train, hoping to find Ned on it." "Don't expect him till to-morrow," said Ella. "Why not?" queried Zoe, looking as if she could hardly endure the thought. "Because, in that case, your disappointment, if you have one, will be agreeable." "Yes; but, on the other hand, I should lose all the enjoyment of looking forward through the whole day, to seeing him this evening. Following your plan, I shouldn't have half so happy a day as if I keep to my own." "Ah! that's an entirely new view of the case," Ella said in her merry, laughing tones. Miss Deane did not seem to enjoy their society, and they soon withdrew from her room; Zoe having done all in her power to provide her with every comfort and amusement available in her case. "I'm glad that's over," sighed Zoe, when they were alone again. "And now for our ride, if you are ready, Ella. I ordered my pony for myself, and mamma's for you; and I see they are at the door." "Then let us don our riding-habits, and be off at once," said Ella. "Where are we going?" she asked, as they cantered down the avenue. "To the village, if you like. I want to call at the post-office." "In hopes of finding a note from Ned, I suppose. I don't believe there can be one there that would bring you later news than yesterday's telegram. But I have no objection to making sure, and would as soon ride in that direction as any other." Nothing from Edward was found at the office; and the young wife seemed much disappointed, till Ella suggested that that looked as if he expected to be at home before night. It was a cheering idea to Zoe: she brightened up at once, and in the afternoon drove over the same road, feeling almost certain Edward would be on the incoming train, due about the time she would reach the village, or rather at the time she had planned to be there. Ella, who had asked to accompany her, was slow with her dressing, taxing Zoe's patience pretty severely by thus causing ten minutes' detention. "Come, now, don't be worried: it won't kill Ned to have to wait ten or fifteen minutes," she said laughingly, as she stepped into the carriage, and seated herself by Zoe's side. "No, I dare say not," returned the latter, trying to speak with perfect pleasantness of tone and manner; "and he isn't one of the impatient ones, who can never bear to be kept waiting a minute, like myself," she added with a smile. "Now, Uncle Ben, drive pretty fast, so that we won't be so very far behind time." "Fas' as I kin widout damagin' de hosses, Miss Zoe," answered the old coachman. "Marso Ed'ard allus tole me be keerful ob dem, and de roads am putty bad sence de big storm." Zoe glanced at her watch as they entered the village. "Drive directly to the depot, Uncle Ben," she said. "It's fully fifteen minutes past the time for the train to be in." "I ain't heard de whistle, Miss Zoe," he remarked, as he turned his horses' heads in the desired direction. "No, nor have I," said Ella; "and we ought to have heard it fully five minutes before it got in. There may have been a detention. That is nothing very unusual," she hastened to add, as she saw that Zoe had suddenly grown very pale. The carriage drew up before the door of the depot; and the girls leaned from its windows, sending eager, searching glances from side to side, and up and down the track. No train was in sight, and the depot seemed strangely silent and deserted. "Oh!" cried Zoe, "what can be the matter?" "I suppose the train must have got in some time ago,--perhaps before we left Ion," replied Ella, in a re-assuring tone; "and all the passengers have dispersed to their homes, or wherever they were going." "No, there could not have been time for all that," Zoe responded, in accents full of anxiety and alarm. "Our watches may be much too slow," suggested Ella, trying to re-assure both herself and her cousin, yet trembling with apprehension as she spoke. "No, it isn't possible that they and all the timepieces in the house could be so far from correct," said Zoe despairingly. "Dar doan' 'pear to be nobody 'bout dis hyar depot," remarked Uncle Ben reflectively; "but I reckon dar's somebody comin' to 'splain de mattah. Wha's de 'casion ob dis mos' onusual state ob t'ings?" he added, as a woman, who been watching the carriage and its occupants, the open door of a neighboring house, came miming in their direction. "What de mattah, Aunt Rhoda?" he queried, as she reached the side of the vehicle, almost breathless with excitement and exertion. "Why, Uncle Ben, dar--dar's been a accident to de kyars, dey say, an' dey's all broke up, and de folks roun' here is all"-- "Where? where?" exclaimed Ella, while Zoe sank back against the cushions, quite unable to speak for the moment. "Dunno, Miss," was the reply; "but," pointing up the road, "it's out dat way, 'bout a mile, I reckon. Yo see, de kyars was a comin' fas' dis way, and 'nudder ole injine whiskin' 'long dat way, and dey bofe comes togedder wid a big crash, breakin' de kyars, and de injines bofe of em, till dey's good for nuffin' but kin'lin' wood; and de folks what's ridin' in de kyars is all broke up too, dey says; and de doctahs and body"-- "Edward!" gasped Zoe. "Drive us there, Uncle Ben, drive with all your might! O Edward, my husband, my husband!" and she burst into hysterical weeping. Ella threw her arms about her. "Don't, dear Zoe, oh, don't cry so! He may not be hurt. He may not have been on that train at all." Ben had already turned and whipped up his horses, and now they dashed along the road at a furious rate. Zoe dropped her head on Ella's shoulder, answering only with tears and sobs and moans, till the carriage came to a sudden stand-still. "We's got dar, Miss Zoe," said Uncle Ben, in a subdued tone full of grief and sympathy. She lifted her head; and her eye instantly fell upon a little group, scarcely a yard distant, consisting of several men, among whom she recognized Dr. Conly, gathered about an apparently insensible form lying on the ground. Ella and Ben saw it too. She suddenly caught the reins from his hands: he sprang from the carriage, and, lifting Zoe in his strong arms as if she had been but a child, set her on her feet, and supported her to the side of the prostrate man; the little crowd respectfully making way for her, at the words spoken by Ben in a voice half choked with emotion, "Hit's Marse Ed'ard's wife, gen'lemen." It was Edward lying there motionless, and with a face like that of a corpse. With an agonized cry, Zoe dropped on her knees at his side, and pressed her lips passionately to his. There was no response, no movement, not the quiver of an eyelid; and she lifted her grief-stricken face to that of the doctor, with a look of anguished inquiry in the beautiful eyes fit to move a heart of stone. "I do not despair of him yet, dear cousin Zoe," Arthur said in a low, moved tone. "I lave found no external injury, and it may be that he is only stunned." The words had scarcely left his lips when Edward drew a sighing breath, and opened his eyes, glancing up into Zoe's face bending over Mm in deepest, tenderest solicitude. "Ah, love! is it you?" he murmured faintly, and with a smile. "Where am I? What has happened?" "O Ned! dear, _dear_ Ned! I thought you were killed!" she sobbed, covering his face with kisses and tears. "There has been an accident, and you got a blow that stunned you," answered the doctor; "but I think you are all right now, or will be soon." "An accident!" Edward repeated, with a bewildered look, and putting his hand to his head. "What was it?" "A collision on the railroad," Arthur said. "There is an ambulance here: I think I will put you in it, and have you taken home at once. 'Tis only a few miles, and not a rough road." "Yes, yes: home is much the best place," he sighed, again putting his hand to his head. "Are you in pain?" asked Arthur. "Not much, but I feel strangely confused. I should like to be taken home as soon as possible. But not to the neglect of any one who may have been more seriously hurt than I," he added, feebly raising his head to look about him. "There are none such," Arthur answered. "You perhaps remember that the cars were nearly empty of passengers: no lives were lost and no one, I think, worse hurt than yourself." "And I?" returned Edward, in a tone of inquiry. "Have escaped without any broken bones, and I trust will be all right in a few days." "O Ned! how glad I am it is no worse!" sobbed Zoe, clinging to his hand, while the tears rolled fast down her cheeks. "Yes, little wife," he said, gazing lovingly into her eyes. "There, I positively forbid any more talking," said Arthur, with a mixture of authority and playfulness. "Here is the ambulance. Help me to lift him in, men," to the by-standers. "And you, cousin Zoe, get into your carriage, and drive on behind it, or ahead if you choose." "Can't I ride in the ambulance beside him?" she asked, almost imploringly. "No, no: you will both be more comfortable In doing as I have directed." "Then, please go with him yourself," she entreated. "I shall do so, certainly," he answered, motioning her away, then stooping to assist the others in lifting the injured man. Zoe would not stir till she had seen Edward put into the ambulance, and made as comfortable for his ride home as circumstances would permit. Then, as the vehicle moved slowly off, she hurried to her carriage. Ben helped her in, sprang into his own seat, and, as he took the reins from Ella, Zoe gave the order, "Home now, Uncle Ben, keeping as close behind the ambulance as you can." "Oh, don't, Zoe! you oughtn't to!" expostulated Ella, perceiving that her cousin was crying violently behind her veil. "I don't think Ned is very badly hurt. Didn't you hear Arthur say so?" "He only expressed such a hope: he didn't say certainly," sobbed Zoe. "And when people are in danger, doctors always try to hide it from their friends." "Arthur is perfectly truthful," asserted Ella, with some warmth. "He may keep his opinions to himself at times, but he never builds people up with false hopes. So cheer up, coz," she added, squeezing Zoe's hand affectionately. "I know that what you say of cousin Arthur is all true," sobbed Zoe; "but I could see he had fears as well as hopes: and--and--Ned doesn't seem a bit like himself; he has such a dazed look, as if not quite in his right mind." "But he knew you and Art; and it is to be expected that a man would feel dazed after such a shock as he must have had." "Yes, of course. Oh, I'm afraid he's dreadfully, dreadfully hurt, and will never get over it!" "Still," returned Ella, "try to hope for the best. Don't you think that is the wiser plan always?" "I suppose so," said Zoe, laughing and crying hysterically; "but I can't be wise to-night; indeed, I never can." CHAPTER VI. "And, if division come, it soon is past, Too sharp, too strange an agony to last." MRS. NORTON. Christine and Aunt Phillis, who had been left in charge of Miss Deane, had had a sore trial of patience in waiting upon her, humoring her whims, listening to her fretting and complaints, and trying to soothe and entertain her. She was extremely irritable, and seemed determined not to be pleased with any thing they could do for her. "Where is your mistress?" she asked at length. "Pretty manners she has, to leave a suffering guest to the sole care of servants." "Yes, Miss, Ise alluz t'ought Miss Zoe hab pretty manners and a pretty face," replied Aunt Phillis; "but dere is ladies what habn't none, an' doan' git pleased wid nuffin' nor nobody, an eayn't stan' no misery nowhars 'bout deirselves, but jes' keep frettin' and concessantly displainin' 'bout dis t'ing and dat, like dey hasn't got nuffin' to be thankful for." "Impudence!" muttered Miss Deane, her eyes flashing angrily. Then bidding her attendants be quiet, she settled herself for a nap. She was waked by a slight bustle in the house, accompanied by sounds as if a number of men were carrying a heavy burden through the entrance-hall, and up the wide stairway leading to the second story. "What's the matter? What's going on? Has any thing happened?" she asked, starting up to a sitting posture. Christine had risen to her feet, pale and trembling, and stood listening intently. "I must go and see," she said, and hurried from the room, Aunt Phillis shambling after her in haste and trepidation. "Stay!" cried Miss Deane: "don't leave me alone. What are you thinking of?" But they were already out of hearing. "I was never so shamefully treated anywhere as I am here," muttered the angry lady, sinking back upon her pillows. "I'll leave this house to-morrow, if it is a possible thing, and never darken its doors again." Listening again, she thought she heard sounds of grief, sobbing and wailing, groans and sighs. She was by no means deficient in curiosity, and it was exceedingly trying to be compelled to lie there in doubt and suspense. The time seemed very much longer than it really was before Aunt Phillis came back, sobbing, and wiping her eyes on her apron. "What is the matter?" asked Miss Deane impatiently. "Dere's--dere's been a awful commission on de railroad," sobbed Aunt Phillis; "and Marse Ed'ard's 'most killed." "Oh, dreadful!" cried Miss Deane. "Have they sent for his mother?" Aunt Phillis only shook her head doubtfully, and burst into fresh and louder sobs. "Most killed! Dear me!" sighed the lady. "And he was so young and handsome! It will quite break his mother's heart, I suppose. But she'll get over it. It takes a vast deal of grief to kill." "P'raps Marse Ed'ard ain't gwine ter die," said the old nurse, checking her sobs. "Dey does say Doctah Arthur kin 'most raise de dead." "Well, I'm sure I hope Mr. Travilla won't die," responded Miss Deane, "or prove to be permanently injured in any way.--Ah, Christine!" as the latter re-entered the room: "what is all this story about a railroad accident? Is Mr. Travilla killed?" "No, no, he not killed," replied Christine, in her broken English. "How bad hurt, I not know to say; but not killed." Meantime Edward had been taken to his room, and put comfortably to bed; while Zoe, seated in her boudoir, waited anxiously for the doctor's report of his condition. Ella was with her, and now and then tried to speak a comforting word, which Zoe scarcely seemed to hear. She sat with her hands clasped in her lap, listening intently to catch every sound from the room where her injured husband lay. She looked pale and anxious, and occasionally a tear would roll quickly down her cheek. At last the door opened, and Arthur stepped softly across the room to her side. "Cheer up, little cousin," he said kindly. "Edward seems to be doing very well; and if you will be a good, quiet little woman, you may go and sit by his side." "Oh, thank you! I'll try," she said, starting up at once. "But mayn't I talk to him at all?" "Not much to-night," was the reply; "not more than seems absolutely necessary; and you must be particularly careful not to say any thing that would have the least tendency to excite him." "Oh, then he must be very, very ill,--terribly injured!" she cried, with a burst of tears and sobs. "That does not necessarily follow," Arthur said, taking her hand, and holding it in a kindly pressure. "But you must be more composed, or," playfully, "I shall be compelled to exert my authority so far as to forbid you to go to him." "Oh, no, no! don't do that!" she cried pleadingly. "I'll be calm and quiet; indeed, indeed I will." "That's right," he said. "I think I may venture to try you." "But won't you please tell me just how much you think he is hurt?" she pleaded, clinging to his hand, and looking up beseechingly into his face. "My dear little cousin," he said in a tenderly sympathizing tone, "I wish to do all in my power to relieve your anxiety, but am as yet in some doubt myself as to the extent of his injuries. He is a good deal shaken and bruised; but, as I have said before, there are no broken bones; and, unless there should be some internal injury which I have not yet discovered, he is likely to recover entirely in a few days or weeks." "But you are not sure? Oh! how could I ever bear it if he should"--she broke off with a burst of violent weeping. He led her to a seat, for she seemed hardly able to stand: her whole frame was shaking with emotion. "Try not to meet trouble half way, little cousin," he said gently. "'Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof,' and 'As thy days, so shall thy strength be.' It is God's promise to all who put their trust in him, and cannot fail; all his promises are yea and amen in Christ Jesus." "Yes, I know," she said, making a strong effort to control herself. "And you do hope Ned will soon be well?" "I certainly do," he responded in cheerful accents. "And now, if you will wipe away your tears, and promise to be very good and quiet, I will take you to him. He was asking for you when I left the room." She gave the desired promise, and he led her to the bedside. "I have brought you your wife, Ned," he said in a quiet tone, "and mean to leave her with you for a while; but you are to be a good boy, and not indulge in much chatter with her." "We'll be good: I'll answer for her, and myself too," Edward returned, with a tenderly affectionate smile up into Zoe's face, as she bent over him, and touched her lips to his forehead. She dared not trust herself to speak, but silently put her hand in his, dropped on her knees by the bedside, and laid her pretty head on the pillow on which his rested. "My own darling!" he murmured, softly pressing the hand he held: "my own precious little wife!" Once more Arthur enjoined quiet, then went out, and left them alone together. He paid a professional visit to Miss Deane, satisfied her curiosity in regard to Edward's injuries, and learned with pleasure that she was quite resolved to go home the next morning. "Of course Mrs. Travilla should give all her attention to her husband now," she remarked; "and I shall be only in the way. One disabled person is quite enough to have in a house at one time. So if you, doctor, will be so kind as to have the ambulance sent out for me directly after breakfast, I'll be much obliged." "I will do so," he said. "The journey will do you no harm, and you will probably be better cared for and happier in your own home than here, under the circumstances." Zoe's poor heart was longing to pour itself out into her husband's ear in words of contrition, penitence, and love; and only the fear of injuring him enabled her to restrain her feelings, and remain calm and quiet, kneeling there close by his side, with her hand in his. She couldn't rest till she told him how very, very sorry she was for the petulance of the past few days, and especially for the cold rejection of his invitation to accompany him on his drive to Roselands, how firmly resolved never again to give him like cause to be displeased with her, and how dearly she loved him. But she must refrain, from fear of exciting him: she must wait till all danger from that was past. It was hard; yet there was strong consolation in the certainty that his dear love was still hers. She read it in his eyes, as they gazed fondly into hers; felt it in the tender pressure of his hand; heard it in the tones of his voice, as he called her his "darling, his own precious little wife." Yet she was tormented with the fear that his accident had affected his mind and memory for the time, so that he had forgotten the unkindness of the morning; and that, when returning health and vigor should recall the facts to his remembrance, he would again treat her with the coldness and displeasure merited by her behavior. "But," she comforted herself, "if he does, it will not last long: he is sure to forgive and love me as soon as I tell him how sorry I am." She did not want to leave him to take either food or rest; but Arthur insisted that she should go down to tea, and later to bed, leaving Edward in his care; and she finally yielded to his persuasions, and exertion of medical authority. She objected that it was quite useless to go to bed; she was positively sure she could not sleep a wink: but her head had scarcely touched the pillow before she fell into a profound slumber, for she was quite worn out with anxiety and grief. It was broad daylight when she woke. The events of yesterday flashed instantly upon her mind; and she sprang from her bed and began dressing in haste. She must learn as speedily as possible how Edward was; not worse, surely, for Arthur had promised faithfully to call her at once if there should be any unfavorable change during the night. Still, a light tap at the door made her start, and turn pale; and she opened it with a trembling hand. Ella stood there with a bright, smiling countenance. "Good-morning, coz," she said gayly. "I bring you good news,--two pieces of it. Ned is almost himself again; Arthur is entirely satisfied that there is no serious injury,--internal or otherwise; and Miss Deane has already set out for her home, leaving me to give you her adieus. Now are you not happy?" "Indeed, indeed I am!" cried Zoe, dancing about the room in ecstasy, her eyes shining, and her cheeks flushing with joy. "May I go to him at once?" she asked, stopping short, with an eager, questioning look. "Yes. Art says you may, and Ned is asking for you. How fond he is of you, Zoe! though, I think, no fonder than you are of him." "I don't deserve it," responded Zoe, with unwonted humility, answering the first part of the remark. "I don't see but you do," said Ella. "Can I help you with your dressing? I know you are in a hurry to get to him." "Thank you. I don't think you can, but I'll be done in five minutes." Edward lay watching for her coming, listening for the sound of her light footsteps, and, as she opened the door, looked up, and greeted her with a tenderly affectionate smile. "O Ned! dear, dear Ned!" she cried, hastening to the bedside; "how like yourself you look again!" "And feel, too, love," he said, drawing her down till their lips met in a long kiss. Arthur had stepped out on her entrance, and they were quite alone together. "God has been very good to us, darling, in sparing us to each other," Edward said, in low, moved tones. "Oh, yes, yes!" she sobbed. "And I didn't deserve it; for I was so cross to you day before yesterday, when you asked me to go with you: and I'd been cross for days before that. Can you, will you, forgive me, dear Ned?" "I have not been blameless, and we will exchange forgiveness," he said, drawing her closer, till her head rested against his breast. "It is so good in you to say that," she sobbed. "Oh, if you had been killed, as I thought for one minute you were, I could never have had an hour of peace or comfort in this world! Those unkind words would have been the last I ever spoke to you; and I should never have been able to forget them, or the sad look that your face must have worn as you turned away. I didn't see it, for I had rudely turned my back to you; but I could imagine it: for I knew you must have been hurt, and grieved too." "So I was, little wife," he said tenderly, and passing his hand caressingly over her hair and cheek: "but a few moments' honest retrospect showed me that I was not blameless, had not been as forbearing and affectionate in my treatment of my darling little wife, for the past few days, as I ought to have been; and I resolved to tell her so, on the first opportunity." "O Ned! I don't deserve such a kind, loving husband!" she sighed; "and you ought to have a great deal better wife." "I am entirely satisfied with the one I have," lifting her hand to his lips. "There isn't a woman in the world I would exchange her for." "But I often do and say things you don't approve," she murmured, with a regretful sigh. "Yes; but have I not told you more than once, that I do not want a piece of perfection for my wife, lest there should be far too strong a contrast between her and myself?" "But there wouldn't be," she asserted. "I don't believe there's another man in all the world quite so dear and good as my husband." "Sweet flattery from your lips," he returned laughingly. "Now, dearest, go and eat your breakfast. I have had mine." "Ned, do you know our tormentor is gone?" she asked, lifting her head, and looking into his eyes, with a glad light in her own. "Yes, and am much relieved to know it," he replied. "And, dearest, she shall never come again, if I can prevent it." CHAPTER VII. "Tell me the old, old story." "My dear Zoe! what a happy face!" was Ella's pleased exclamation, as the two met in the breakfast-room. "Very bright, indeed!" said Arthur, who had come in with Zoe, smiling kindly upon her as he spoke. "Because it reflects the light and joy in my heart," she returned. "Wouldn't it be strange if I were not happy in knowing that my husband is not seriously hurt? Oh, we have been so happy together, that I have often feared it could not last!" "There seems every reasonable prospect that it will," Arthur said, as they seated themselves at the table. "You are both young and healthy, your tastes are congenial, and you have enough of this world's goods to enable you to live free from carking cares and exhausting labors." Zoe was in so great haste to return to Edward, that she could scarce refrain from eating her breakfast more rapidly than was consistent with either politeness toward her guests or a due regard for her own health: but she tried to restrain her impatience; and Arthur, who perceived and sympathized with it, exerted himself for her entertainment, telling amusing anecdotes, and making mirth-provoking remarks. Ella, perceiving his designs, joined in, in the same strain. Zoe presently entered into their mood, and they seemed, as in fact they were, a light-hearted and happy little breakfast party; both Arthur and Ella feeling greatly relieved by the favorable change in their cousin, not for Zoe's sake alone, but also because of their own affection for him. Edward no longer needed Arthur as nurse: indeed, Zoe claimed the right to a monopoly of the, to her, sweet task of waiting upon him, and attending to all his wants. So Arthur resigned in that capacity, but was to continue his visits as physician. He and Ella returned to Roselands shortly after leaving the breakfast-table; and Zoe, in joyous, tender mood, took her place by her husband's bedside. He welcomed her with a loving smile, taking her hand in his, and carrying it to his lips. "Arthur has condemned me to lie here for a full week," he said. "It would seem a weary while in the prospect, but for the thought of having, through it all, the sweet companionship of my darling little wife." "Dear Ned, how good in you to say so!" she murmured, kneeling beside the bed, and laying her cheek to his. "I don't believe there's another creature in the world that thinks my society of much account." "If you are right in that, which I very much doubt," he said with a smile of incredulity, "it only shows their want of taste, and makes no difference to us, does it, love, since we are all the world to each other?" "I am sure it makes no difference to me," she responded: "if you love, and are pleased with, me, it's very little I care what anybody else may think or say about me. But, oh! isn't it nice to be alone together again?" "Very nice." "And remember, you are to make all possible use of me,--as nurse, reader,--when you feel that you would like to listen to book or news-paper,--as amanuensis, every thing." "Yes, dearest, I expect to employ you in all those capacities by and by; but at present, I want nothing but to have you sit by my side, and talk to me, while I hold your hand, and feast my eyes on the face that is to me the dearest in all the world." At that, the pretty face was suffused with blushes and smiles. "I'm so happy! so very happy!" she murmured, stealing an arm round his neck. "It is such a change from yesterday, when for a little while, I--I thought you--were gone, and--and without my having had a chance to ask your forgiveness." The sobs came thick and fast as she went on. "O Ned! dear, dear Ned! I--I don't mean ever to be cross to you again, especially when we are going to part even for an hour." "No," he said, with emotion, and drawing her closer to him; "we should not have parted so; we had promised each other we would not; and I should have gone to you and made it up with you before leaving the house." "It was all my fault," she sobbed; "and if--if you had been taken from me, I could never have had another happy moment." "Thank God that we are spared to each other!" he said with fervent gratitude. "And now, dear wife, let us try to forget that there has been ever any coldness or clashing between us. Let us enjoy the present, and be as happy in each other as if no cloud, even the slightest, had ever come over our intercourse as husband and wife." "Yes," she said. Then, lifting her face, and gazing earnestly into his, "How pale and exhausted you look!" she cried in alarm. "I have talked, and let you talk, too much and too excitingly. I'm afraid cousin Arthur will say I am but a poor sort of nurse. Now," withdrawing herself from his embrace, and gently re-arranging his pillows, and smoothing the bed-clothes, "shut your eyes, and try to sleep. I'll stay close beside you, and be as quiet as a mouse." With a faint smile, he did as he was bidden; and she fulfilled her promise to the letter, watching beside him with love and solicitude for two hours, till his eyes again unclosed, and met hers, gazing so tenderly upon him, with an answering look of ardent affection. "You have had a good nap, and look quite refreshed, dear," she said, bending over him, and softly stroking his hair with her little white hand. "Yes; I feel much better," he said. "And you, love,--have you been sitting there all this time?" "Of course I have," she answered gayly: "did you think I would break my word, or feel any desire to go away and leave you?" "I know you to be the most devoted of nurses, when it is I who require your services," he returned, with a tenderly appreciative smile. "You are the best of little wives. But you must be very weary, and I want you now to go and take some exercise in the open air." "Is that an order?" she asked playfully. "Not yet," he returned, in the same tone; "but, if not obeyed as a request, it may become--something stronger." "Well," she said laughing, "it won't hurt me if it does: you can't hurt me in that way any more; for do you know, Ned," and she bent lovingly over him, pressing a kiss upon his forehead, "I have become such a silly thing, that I actually enjoy obeying you,--when you don't order me as if you thought I wouldn't do as you wish, and you meant to force me to it." "Forgive me, love, that I have ever done it in that spirit," he said remorsefully, and coloring deeply. "Ned, I haven't any thing to forgive," she said, with sudden energy and warmth of affection. "Then you will obey about the air and exercise?" he asked, returning to his playful tone. "Presently, sir, when I have seen you eat something. It's time for that now, according to the doctor's directions." She rang for refreshment, saw him take it, then left him for a short time in the care of old Aunt Phillis, while she donned riding hat and habit, mounted her pony, and flew over several miles of road and back again. She seemed to bring a breath of fresh air with her when she returned to his side. "My darling," he said, smiling up at her, "how the roses glow on your cheeks, and how bright your eyes are! Give me a kiss, and then sit down close by my side." "I obey both orders most willingly," she said merrily, as she bent down and kissed him on lips and forehead and cheek, then took possession of the chair she had vacated on leaving the room. "Now, sir, what next?" "Move your chair round a trifle, so that I can have a better view of your face." She smilingly obeyed. "There! does that satisfy your lordship?" "Quite. Now talk to me." "About what?" "Any thing you please: the principal thing is to hear the music of your voice." "Suppose I sing, then." "Yes, yes!" eagerly; "that's just what I should enjoy. Let it be, 'I love to tell the story.'" Zoe had a beautiful voice. Soft and sweet and clear it rose,-- "'I love to tell the story Of unseen things above, Of Jesus and his glory, Of Jesus and his love. I love to tell the story, Because I know it's true: It satisfies my longings As nothing else can do. "I love to tell the story: 'Twill be my theme in glory, To tell the old, old story, Of Jesus and his love. "I love to tell the story: More wonderful it seems, Than all the golden fancies Of all our golden dreams. I love to tell the story, It did so much for me; And that is just the reason I tell it now to thee. "I love to tell the story; 'Tis pleasant to repeat What seems, each time I tell it, More wonderfully sweet. I love to tell the story, For some have never heard The message of salvation From God's own Holy Word. "I love to tell the story; For those who know it best, Seem hungering and thirsting To hear it like the rest. And when in scenes of glory, I sing the new, new song, 'Twill be the old, old story, That I have loved so long.'" The last note died away, and for a moment there was silence in the room. Edward lay gazing into his wife's eyes with a look of sad, yearning tenderness. "O Ned! why, why do you look so at me?" she asked, with a sudden burst of tears, and dropping her face on the pillow beside his. He had been holding her hand while she sang; he kept it still, and, laying his other one gently on her head, "Zoe, my darling," he said, in tones tremulous with emotion, "it is the one longing desire of my heart that you may learn the full sweetness of that old, old story. O love! sometimes the thought, 'What if my precious wife should miss heaven, and our union be only for time, and not for eternity,' sends so keen a pang to my heart, that I know not how to endure it." "O Ned! surely I shall not miss it," she said, with a sob: "my father and mother were such good Christians; and you, my own husband, are so good too." "Ah, my darling!" he sighed, "that hope is but as a spider's web. Do you not remember that passage in Ezekiel, 'Though these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in it, they should deliver but their own souls by their righteousness, saith the Lord God'? And it is repeated again and again, 'Though Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in it, as I live, saith the Lord God, they shall deliver neither son nor daughter; they shall but deliver their own souls by their righteousness.' Zoe, dear, no righteousness but the imputed righteousness of Christ can save the soul from death. He offers it to you, love; and will you continue to reject it?" "Ned," she sobbed, "I wish I had it: I often think I would be a Christian if I only knew how, but I don't." "Do you not?" he asked, in some surprise. "I will try to make it plain. Jesus offers you a full and free salvation, purchased by what he has done and suffered in your stead, that 'God might be just, and yet the justifier of him who believeth in Jesus.' "'Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.' "He bids you come to him, and says, 'Him that cometh to me, I will in no wise cast out.'" "But how shall I come?" she asked. "Tell me just how." "How do you come to me, love, when you feel that you have displeased me, and want to be reconciled?" "Oh! you know I just come and acknowledge that I've been hateful and cross, and say how sorry I am, and that I don't mean to behave so any more, and ask you to forgive and love me; and, dear Ned, you are always so willing and ready to do that, you hardly wait till I've said my say, before you put your arms round me, and hug and kiss me, and it's all right between us." "Yes, dearest; and God, our heavenly Father, is far more ready to receive and forgive us when we turn to him with sorrow for our sins, confessing them and pleading for pardon in the name, and for the sake, of his dear Son, our Saviour," "I'm afraid I don't feel half so sorry as I ought." "Who of us does? but we are not to wait for that. We must come to him, to be shown the evil of our natures, the sinfulness of our lives. "'Him hath God exalted with his right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour, for to give repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins.'" "But how am I to make myself believe?" she asked. "'By grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God.' So you see, we have to go to Jesus for it all,--for repentance, for faith, for salvation from the guilt and love of sin, and from eternal death. "The plan of salvation is very simple,--its very simplicity seems to stumble many; they don't know how to believe that it is offered them as a free gift; they think they must do something to merit it; but it cannot be bought, it is 'without money and without price.' 'Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely,' Come to Jesus, dear one; come now, for only the present moment is yours; delay is most dangerous, for the invitation may be withdrawn at any time." "If I could only see him! If I could hear his voice!" she sighed. "That you cannot; yet you know I am not nearer to you, or more willing to hear a petition from you, than he is." At that moment a well-known step was heard in the hall without; and as Zoe rose hastily, wiping her eyes, Arthur tapped at the door. CHAPTER VIII. "I bless thee for kind looks and words Showered on my path like dew, For all the love in those deep eyes, A gladness ever new." --MRS. HEMANS. A week had passed since Edward's accident; and he now exchanged his bed, during the day, for an easy-chair. He and Zoe had just finished taking their breakfast together in her boudoir when a servant came in with the mail. There were letters from Viamede,--one for Edward from his mother, one for Zoe from Betty Johnson. Both brought the unwelcome tidings that little Grace Raymond and Violet's babe were very ill with scarlet-fever. Edward read aloud his mother's announcement of the fact. "Yes," said Zoe. "Betty tells me the same thing. O Ned! how sorry I am for poor Vi! It would be hard enough for her if she had the captain with her, to help bear the burden and responsibility, and to share in her grief if they should die." "Yes, it is hard for her; and I am glad she has mamma and grandpa and grandma with her. Mamma says Dick Percival is attending the children, and there is talk of telegraphing for Arthur. "Ah," glancing from the window, "here he comes! He will perhaps bring us later news." Arthur did so: the children were worse than at the date of the letters. He had just received his summons, and would obey it immediately, taking the next train; had called to tell them, and see how Edward was. "Almost entirely recovered, tell my mother," Edward said, in reply to the query; "and you needn't go feeling any anxiety in regard to this one of your patients," he added playfully. "I leave him in your care, Zoe," said Arthur; "and, if he does not do well, I shall hold you responsible." "Then you must lay your commands upon him to obey my orders," she said, with a merry glance from one to the other. "Would that be any thing new in his experience?" asked the doctor with mock gravity. "It won't do to question us too closely," returned Zoe, coloring and laughing. "She is a very good little wife, and tolerably obedient," laughed Edward. "Really, would you believe it? she told me once she actually enjoyed obeying--under certain circumstances; and so, I suppose, should I. Zoe, you mustn't be too hard on me." "Oh! I intend to be very strict in seeing the doctor's orders carried out," she said; "and I expect to enjoy my brief authority immensely." Dr. Conly took leave almost immediately, for he had no time to spare; and the reading of the letters was resumed. Betty's was a long one, giving a full account, from her point of view, of the contest between Mr. Dinsmore and Lulu Raymond in regard to her refusal to take music-lessons of Signor Foresti after he had struck her. None of the family had mentioned the affair in their letters, even Rosie feeling that she had no warrant to do so; and the story was both new and interesting to Zoe. Lulu had not yet submitted when Betty wrote, so the story as told in her letter left the little girl still in banishment at Oakdale Academy. Zoe read the letter aloud to Edward. "Lulu is certainly the most ungovernable child I have ever seen or heard of," he remarked, at its conclusion. "I often wonder at the patience and forbearance grandpa and mamma have shown toward her. In their place, I should have had her banished to a boarding-school long ago, one at a distance, too, so that she could not trouble me, even during holidays." "So should I," said Zoe: "she hasn't the least shadow of a claim upon them." "No: the captain feels that, and is duly grateful. It is evident, too, that Lulu's lack of gratitude, and her bad behavior, are extremely mortifying to him." "But don't you think, Ned, it was rather hard to insist on her going back to that ill-tempered, abusive old music-teacher?" "Yes," he acknowledged with some hesitation. "I rather wonder at grandpa." "I wonder how it is going to end," said Zoe: "they are both so very determined, I should not like to stand in Lulu's shoes, nor yet in his." A second letter from Betty, received a fort-night later, told how it had ended: though Betty, not being in Lulu's confidence as Evelyn was, knew nothing of Capt. Raymond's letter to his daughter, or of Lulu's confession in reply to it; so her story ended with the statement that Lulu had at last submitted, been restored to favor, and was at Magnolia Hall with Evelyn as a companion, all the children who were in health having been banished from Viamede to save them from the danger of catching the dreaded fever. But to go back to the morning when the first instalment of her story was received. "It must be a very anxious time for them,--the family at Viamede, I mean," remarked Edward musingly. "And poor, dear Vi is so young to have such burdens to bear. What a blessing that she has mamma with her!" "Yes," said Zoe. "And, oh! I hope the children will get well, they are such darlings, both Gracie and the baby. I feel very sorry they are so ill, and yet I can't help rejoicing that my dear husband is able to sit up again. "Is that quite heartless in me?" she asked, laying her hand on one of his, which rested on the arm of his easy-chair; for she was seated in a low rocker, close at his side. "I think not," he answered, smiling down into her eyes. "It will do them no good for us to make ourselves unhappy. We will sympathize with, and pray for, them, but at the same time be thankful and joyful because of all God's goodness to us and them. 'Rejoice in the Lord always: and again I say, Rejoice.' 'Rejoicing in hope; patient in tribulation.'" "You have certainly obeyed that last injunction," remarked Zoe, looking at him with affectionate admiration; "so patient and cheerful as you have been ever since your injury! Many a man would have grumbled and growled from morning to night; while you have been so pleasant, it was a privilege to wait on you." "Thank you," he said, laughing: "it is uncommonly good in you to say that, but I'm afraid you are rather uncharitable in your judgment of 'many men.' "Mamma has not yet heard of my accident," he remarked presently, "and wonders over my long silence. I'll write to her now, if you will be so kind as to bring me my writing-desk." "I'm doubtful about allowing such exertion," she said: "you are left under my orders, you remember, and I'm to be held responsible for your continued improvement." "Nonsense! that wouldn't hurt me," he returned, with an amused smile; "and if you won't get the desk, I'll go after it myself." "No, you mustn't: I sha'n't allow it," she said, knitting her brows, and trying to look stern. "Then get it for me." "Well," she said reflectively, "I suppose there'll have to be a compromise. I'll get the desk, if you'll let me act as your amanuensis." "We'll consider that arrangement after you have brought it." "No: you must agree to my proposition first." "Why, what a little tyrant you are!" he laughed. "Well, I consent. Now will you please to bring the desk?" "Yes," she said, jumping up, and crossing the room to where it stood; "and if you are very good, you may write a postscript with your own hand." "I'll do it all with my own hand," he said as she returned to his side. "Why, Ned!" she exclaimed in surprise, "I thought you were a man of your word!" "And so I am, I trust," he said, smiling at her astonished look, then catching her right hand in his. "Is not this mine?" he asked: "did you not give it to me?--Let me see--nearly two years ago?" "Yes, I did," she answered, laughing and blushing with pleasure and happiness: "you are right; it is yours. So you have every right to use it, and must do so." "Ah!" he said, "'a wilful woman will have her way,' I see: there never was a truer saying. No, that won't do," as she seated herself with the desk on her lap: "put it on the table. I can't have you bending over to write on your lap, and so growing round-shouldered, especially in my service." "Any thing to please you," she returned gayly, doing as he directed. "I suppose my right hand is not all of me that you lay claim to?" "No, indeed! I claim you altogether, as my better and dearer half," he said, his tone changing from jest to earnest, and the light of love shining in his eyes. She ran to him at that, put her arms round his neck, and laid her cheek to his. "No, Ned, I can't have you say that," she murmured, "you who are so good and wise, while I am such a silly and faulty thing, not at all worthy to be your wife. Whatever made you marry me?" "Love," he answered, drawing her closer, and fondly caressing her hair and cheek,--"love that grows stronger and deeper with every day we live together, dearest." "Dear Ned, my own dear husband!" she said, hugging him tighter. "Words could never tell how much I love you, or how I rejoice in your love for me: you are truly my other, my best, half, and I don't know how I could live without you." "Our mutual love is a cause for great gratitude to God," he said reverently. "There are so many miserably unhappy couples, I feel that I can never be thankful enough for the little wife who suits me so entirely." "You are my very greatest earthly blessing," she replied, lifting her head, and gazing into his face with eyes shining with joy and love; "and your words make me very, very happy. Now," releasing herself from his embrace, "it's time to attend to business, isn't it? I am ready to write if you will dictate." And she seated herself before the desk, and took up her pen. It was not a lengthened epistle. He began with an acknowledgment of the receipt of his mother's letter, expressed his sympathy in the sorrow and suffering at Viamede, gave a brief account of his accident, consequent illness, and partial recovery, highly eulogizing Zoe as the best of wives and nurses. When he began that, her pen ceased its movement, and was held suspended over the paper, while, blushing deeply, she turned to him with a remonstrance. "Don't ask me to write that: I am ashamed to have mamma see it in my handwriting." "Go on," he said: "she will know they are my words, and not yours." "Well, I obey orders," she replied with a smile; "but I don't half like to do it." "Then let me," he said. "If you will hold the desk on the arm of my chair for five minutes, and give me the pen, I can finish up the thing easily, and without the least danger of hurting my precious self." She did as directed. "There, now lie back in your chair, and rest," she said, when he had finished his note, and signed his name. "You do look a little tired," she added, with an anxious glance at him as she returned the desk to the table. "Nonsense! tired with that slight exertion!" he responded gayly. "You may read that over, and see if it wants any correction." She did so, then, turning toward him with an arch smile, asked, "May I criticise?" "I should be happy to have the benefit of your criticism," he said, laughing; "but don't make it too severe, please." "Oh, no! I was only thinking that mamma, judging of her by myself, would not be half satisfied with such a bare statement of facts, and that I had better write a supplement, giving her more of the particulars." "I highly approve the suggestion," he answered, "only stipulating that you shall not spend too much time over it, and shall read it to me when finished." "I'm afraid it won't be worth your hearing." "Let me judge of that. If not worth my hearing, can it be worth mamma's reading?" "Perhaps so," she said with a blush; "because what I tell will be news to her, but not to you." "Ah! I hadn't thought of that. But I shall want to hear it all the same, and take my turn at criticism." "If you are not more severe than I was, I can stand it," she said. "And now please keep quiet till I am done." He complied, lying back at his ease, and amusing himself with watching her, admiring the graceful pose of her figure, the pretty face bending over the paper, and the small, white, shapely hand that was gliding swiftly back and forth. "Come," he said at last, "you are making quite too long a story of it." "Mamma won't think so," she retorted, without looking up; "and you know you are not obliged to hear it." "Ah! but that is not the objection; I want to hear every word of it: but I can't spare my companion and nurse so long." She turned to him with a bright smile. "What can I do for you, dear? Just tell me. The letter can be finished afterward, you know." "I want nothing but you," was the smiling rejoinder. "Finish your letter, and then come and sit close by my side. "But no; you must take your accustomed exercise in the open air." Considering a moment, "I think," he said, "I'll have you order the carriage for about the time you are likely to be done there, and we'll have a drive together." She shook her head gravely. "You are not fit for any such exertion." "Uncle Ben and Solon shall help me down the stairs and into the carriage, so there need be no exertion about it." "I won't consent," she said. "The doctor left you in my charge; and his orders were, that you should keep quiet for the next few days." "You prefer to go alone, do you?" "Yes, rather than have you injured by going with me." "Come here," he said; and, laying down her pen, she obeyed. He took both her hands in his, and, gazing with mock gravity up into her face as she stood over him, "What a little tyrant you are developing into!" he remarked, knitting his brows. "Will you order the carriage, and take a drive in my company?" "No." "Then what will you do?" "Go by myself, or stay at home with you, just as you bid me." "What a remarkable mixture of tyranny and submission," he exclaimed, laughing, as he pulled her down to put his arm round her, and kiss her first on one cheek, then on the other. "I'll tell you what we'll do: you finish that letter, read it to me, and take the benefit of my able criticisms; then I'll try to get a nap while you take your drive or walk, whichever you prefer." "That will do nicely," she said, returning his caresses; "if you will be pleased to let me go, I'll order the carriage, finish the letter in five minutes, hear the able criticisms, put my patient to bed, and be off for my drive." "Do so," he said, releasing her. From this time forward, till the children were considered out of danger, and Edward was able to go about and attend to his affairs as usual, there were daily letters and telegrams passing between Viamede and Ion. Then Dr. Conly came home, and almost immediately on his arrival drove over to Ion to see for himself if his patient there had entirely recovered, and to carry some messages and tokens of affection from the absent members of the family. It was late in the afternoon that he reached Ion, and he found Edward and Zoe sitting together in the parlor; she with a bit of embroidery in her hands, he reading aloud to her. Arthur was very warmly welcomed by both. "Cousin Arthur, I'm delighted to see you!" cried Zoe, giving him her hand. "And I no less so," added Edward, offering his. "How did you leave them all at Viamede?" "All in health, except, of course, the two little ones who have been so ill," he said, taking the chair Edward drew forward for him; "and them we consider out of danger, with the careful attention they are sure to have." "How have mamma and Vi stood the anxiety and nursing?" asked Edward. "Quite as well as could have been expected. They have lost a little in flesh and color, but will, I think, soon regain both, now that their anxiety is relieved. "And you, Ned, are quite yourself again, I should say, from appearances?" "Yes; and I desire to give all credit to the nurse in whose charge you left me," returned Edward, with a smiling glance at Zoe. "As is but fair," said Arthur. "I discovered her capabilities before I left." "She made the most of her delegated authority," remarked Edward gravely. "I was allowed no will of my own, till I had so entirely recovered from my injuries that she had no longer the shadow of an excuse for depriving me of my liberty." "I thought it was a good lesson for him," retorted Zoe. "I've read somewhere that nobody is fit to rule who hasn't first learned to obey." "Ah! but that I learned before I was a year old," said Edward, laughing. "Nobody would have thought it, seeing the trouble I had to make you obey," said Zoe. "Now, cousin Arthur, tell us all about Viamede, and what you did and saw there." "It is a lovely place," he said. "I expected to be disappointed after the glowing accounts I had heard, but I feel like saying, 'The half has not been told me;'" and he plunged into an enthusiastic description of the mansion, its grounds, and the surrounding country. "I was loath to leave it," he said in conclusion. "And you make me more desirous to see it than ever," said Zoe. "Oh, do tell us! had Capt. Raymond been heard from before you left? We have seen by the papers that the report of the loss of his vessel was untrue, and, of course, we were greatly relieved." "Yes: letters came from him the day before I started for home. Fortunately, they had been able to keep the report from Vi and little Gracie; but May and Lulu had heard it, and were terribly distressed, I was told." "They are very fond of their father," remarked Zoe. "Yes, as they have good reason to be," said Arthur: "he is a noble fellow, and one of the best of husbands and fathers." "Did you hear any thing in particular about Lulu?" Zoe asked. "No, I think not," he said reflectively; "nothing but that she, May, and Evelyn Leland were staying, by invitation, at Magnolia Hall. "Ah, yes! I remember now that Betty told me there had been some trouble between uncle Horace and Lulu in regard to her taking lessons of a music-teacher whom she greatly disliked; that, because of her obstinate refusal, he had banished her from Viamede, entering her as a boarder at the academy the children were all attending; but that her distress of mind over the illness of her little sisters, and the sad report about her father, had led her to submit." "Much to Vi's relief, no doubt," remarked Edward. "Poor Vi! She is devotedly attached to her husband, but Lulu is a sore thorn in her side." "I don't believe she has ever acknowledged as much, or could be induced to," said Zoe. "No," assented Edward; "but it is evident to those who know her well, nevertheless. She tries hard to conceal the fact, and has wonderful patience with the wilful passionate child, really loving her for her father's sake." "And for her own, too, if I mistake not," Arthur said. "There is something quite lovable about Lulu, in spite of her very serious faults." "There is," said Edward. "I have felt it strongly myself at times. She is warm-hearted, energetic, very generous, and remarkably straight-forward, truthful, and honest." Dr. Conly had risen, as if to take leave. "Now, cousin Arthur," said Zoe, "please sit down again; for we cannot let you leave us till after tea." Edward seconded the invitation. "Thank you both," Arthur said, "but"-- "But--no buts," interrupted Zoe gayly. "I know you were about to plead haste; but there is the tea-bell now, so you will not be delayed; for you have to take time for your meals." "Then I accept," he said, "rejoicing in the opportunity to spend a little longer time in your very pleasant society." CHAPTER IX. "Here are a few of the unpleasantest words that ever blotted paper." Edward and Zoe now began to look forward to the return of the family as a desirable event not very far in the future. They had been extremely happy in each other during almost the whole time of separation from the rest; but now they were hungering for a sight of "mamma's sweet face," and would by no means object to a glimpse of those of grandparents, sisters, and children. At length a letter was received, fixing the date of the intended departure from Viamede, and stating by what train the party would probably reach the neighboring village of Union, where carriages must be in readiness to receive and convey them to Ion. And now Edward and Zoe began counting the days: the little matron put on more housewifely airs than was her wont, and was in great glee over her preparations for a grand reception and welcoming feast to the loved travellers. She insisted on much cleaning and renovating, and on the day of the arrival robbed the green-houses and conservatories for the adornment of the house, the table, and her own person. Edward laughingly asserted that he was almost, if not quite, as much under her orders at that time as when left in her charge by the doctor, and could have no peace but in showing himself entirely submissive, and ready to carry out all her schemes and wishes. Fairview also was getting ready to receive its master and mistress; but the indoor preparations there were overseen by Mrs. Lacey of the Laurels,--Edward's aunt Rose. It was the last of April: lovely spring weather had come, and the head gardeners and their subordinates of both places found much to do in making all trim and neat against the expected arrival of the respective owners; and of these matters Edward took a general oversight. He and Zoe were up earlier than their wont on the morning of the long-looked-for day, wandering about the gardens before breakfast. "How lovely every thing looks!" exclaimed Zoe, in delight. "I am sure mamma will be greatly pleased, and praise you to your heart's content, Cuff," she added, turning to the gardener at work near by. "Ya'as, Miss Zoe," he answered, with a broad grin of satisfaction; "dat's what I'se been a workin' for, an' spects to hab sho', kase Miss Elsie, she doan' nebber grudge nuffin' in de way ob praise nor ob wages, when yo's done yo' bes', ob co'se; an' dis chile done do dat, sho's yo' bawn." "Yes, I'm sure you have, Cuff," said Edward kindly: "the flowers look very flourishing; there's not a dead leaf or a weed to be seen anywhere; the walks are clean and smooth as a floor; nothing amiss anywhere, so far as I can perceive." They moved on, walking slowly, and inspecting carefully as they went, yet finding nothing to mar their satisfaction. They had reached the front of the house, and were about to go in, when a boy on horseback came cantering up the avenue, and handed a telegram to Edward. Tearing it hastily open, "From grandpa," he said. "Ah! they will be here by the next train!" "Half a day sooner than they or we expected," cried Zoe, half joyfully, half in dismay, struck with a momentary fear that her preparations could not be quite complete in season. Edward hastened to re-assure her. "Altogether, good news, isn't it?" he said. "We can be quite ready, I am sure, and will escape some hours of waiting; while they will gain time for rest and refreshment before the arrival of the family party who are to gather here from the Oaks, Roselands, the Laurels, and the Pines." "Oh, yes, yes! it is ever so nice! and I'm as glad as I can be," she cried rapturously. "Now let us make haste to get our breakfast, and then attend to the finishing touches needed by the house and our own persons." "Stay," said Edward, detaining her as she was starting up the steps into the veranda. "We should send word to Fairview, but it will be time enough after breakfast. Suppose we ride over there immediately upon leaving the table, and carry the news ourselves? The air and exercise will do you good." "It would be very nice," she returned meditatively; "but I'm afraid I shall hardly have time." "Yes, you will," he said. "You can give your orders, and let Christine and Aunt Dicey see them carried out." "But I want my taste consulted in the arrangement of the flowers," she objected. "Plenty of time for that after we get back," he said. "And I want your help in deciding whether every thing is exactly as it should be in the grounds at Fairview. Shall I order the horses?" "Yes. I'll go, of course, if you wish it, and enjoy it greatly, I know." They were very gay over their breakfast and during their ride; for they were young, healthy, happy in each other; the morning air was delicious, and not a cloud was to be perceived in either the natural sky above their heads, or in that of their future; all was bright and joyous, and they seemed to have naught to do with sorrow or care, or any of the evils that oppressed the hearts and darkened the lives of many of their fellow-creatures. Their tidings were received with joy by the retainers at Fairview, nearly every thing being in readiness for the reception of its master and mistress. Edward and Zoe had agreed that it was not at all necessary to inform the expected guests of the evening of the change in the hour for the arrival of the home-coming party they intended to welcome. "The meeting will be quite as early as anticipated," remarked Edward; "and it will do no harm for mamma and the others to have a chance to rest a little before seeing so many." "They will enjoy themselves all the better, I'm sure," said Zoe. They were cantering homeward as they talked. Arrived there, Zoe set to work at the pleasant task of adorning the house--"mamma's" boudoir in particular--with beautiful and sweet-scented flowers, and contrived to be delightfully busy in their arrangement till some little time after Edward had gone with the carriages to meet and bring home the travellers. All came directly to Ion, except the Fairview family, who sought their own home first, but promised to be present at the evening festivities. The journey had been taken leisurely; and no one seemed fatigued but the little convalescents, who were glad to be put immediately to bed. "Mamma, dear, dearest mamma!" cried Zoe, as the two clasped each other in a close embrace. "I am so, so glad to see you!" "Tired of housekeeping, little woman?" Elsie asked, with an arch look and smile. "No, mamma, not that, though willing enough to resign my position to you," was the gay rejoinder. "But my delight is altogether because you are so dear and sweet, that everybody must be the happier for your presence." "Dear child, I prize and fully return your affection," Elsie said in reply. For each one, Zoe had a joyous and affectionate greeting, till it came to Lulu's turn. At her she glanced doubtfully for an instant, then gave her a hearty kiss, saying to herself, "Though she did behave so badly, I'm sure she had a good deal of provocation." Lulu had noted the momentary hesitation, and flushed hotly under it; but the kiss set all right, and she returned it as warmly as it was given. "It seems nice to see you and uncle Edward again, aunt Zoe!" she said, "and nice to get back to Ion, though Viamede is so lovely." "Yes," chimed in Rosie. "Viamede is almost an earthly paradise, but Ion is the homiest home of the two." Lulu had been on her very best behavior ever since the termination of the controversy between Mr. Dinsmore and herself in regard to her tuition by Signor Foresti; and she had returned to Ion full of good resolutions, promising herself, that, if permitted to continue to live at Ion, she would henceforward be submissive, obedient, and very determined in her efforts to control her unruly temper. But was she to be allowed to stay there? No objection had been raised by any of the family; but remembering her father's repeated warning, that, if she proved troublesome to these kind friends, he would feel compelled to take her away from Ion, and send her to a boarding-school, she awaited his decision with much secret apprehension. It was quite too soon to look for a response to her confession, written from Magnolia Hall, or a letter from him to her mamma, grandma Elsie, or grandpa Dinsmore, giving his verdict in regard to her; and, at times, she found the suspense very hard to bear. Thus far, Evelyn Leland had been the sole confidant of her doubts, fears, and anxieties on the subject; not even Max having been made acquainted with the contents of either her father's letter to her, or her reply to it. She had managed to conceal her uneasiness from him, and also from grandma Elsie and Violet; the time and attention of both ladies being much occupied with the care of the little invalids. But, on the evening of this day, Grace and baby Elsie were fast asleep, the one in bed, the other in her dainty crib, at an early hour; and Violet bethought her of Lulu in connection with the expected assembling of a large family party. "I must see that the child is suitably attired," she said to herself, and, deferring her own toilet, went at once to the little girl's room. She found her already dressed,--suitably and tastefully too,--and sitting by a window in an attitude of dejection, her elbow on the sill, her head on her hand; but she was not looking out; her eyes were downcast, and her countenance was sad. "What is the matter, Lulu, dear?" Violet asked in gentle tones, as she drew near, and laid her soft white hand caressingly on the bowed head: "are you sorry to be at home again?" "Ok, no, no, mamma Vi! it's not that. I should be very glad to get back, if I were only sure of being allowed to stay," Lulu answered, lifting her head, and hastily wiping a tear out of the corner of her eye. "But I--I'm dreadfully afraid papa will say I can't; that I must be sent away somewhere, because of having been so disobedient and obstinate." "I hope not, dear," Violet said: "you have been so good ever since you gave up, and consented to do as grandpa wished." "Thank you for saying that, mamma Vi. I have been trying with all my might,--asking God to help me too," she added low and reverentially; "but papa doesn't know that, and he has been very near banishing me two or three times before. Oh, I don't know how to wait to hear from him! I wish a letter would come!" "It is almost too soon to hope for it yet, dear child; but I trust we may hear before very long," said Violet. At that moment there came a little tap at the door; and the sweetest of voices asked, "Shall I come in?" "Oh, yes, mamma!" "Yes, grandma Elsie!" answered the two addressed. "I thought our little girl might like some help with her toilet for the evening," Elsie said, advancing into the room. "But--is any thing wrong? I think you are looking troubled and unhappy, Lulu." Violet explained the cause; and Elsie said, very kindly, "I don't want you sent away, Lulu, dear. No one could desire a better behaved child than you have been of late; and I have written to your father to tell him so, and ask that you may stay with us still. So cheer up, and hope for the best, little girl," she added, with a smile and an affectionate kiss. Lulu had risen, and was standing by Elsie's side. As the latter bent down to bestow the caress, her arms were thrown impulsively about her neck with a glad, grateful exclamation, "O grandma Elsie! how good you are to me! I don't know how you could want to keep me here, when I've been so bad and troublesome so many times." "I trust you have been so for the very last time, dear child," Elsie responded. "Think how it will rejoice your father's heart if he learns that you have at length conquered in the fight with your naturally quick, wilful temper, which has been the cause of so much distress to both him and yourself." "I do think of it very often, grandma Elsie," Lulu returned, with a sigh that seemed to come from the depths of her heart. "And I do want to please papa, and make him happy: but,--oh, dear! when something happens to make me angry, I forget all about it and my good resolutions till it's too late; the first thing I know, I've been acting like a fury, and disgracing myself and him." "Yet don't be discouraged, or ever give up the fight," Elsie said. "Persevere, using all your own strength, and asking help from on high, and you will come off conqueror at last." About the same time that this little scene was enacting at Ion, Elsie Leland, passing the door of Evelyn's room, thought she heard a low sob coming from within. She paused and listened. The sound was repeated, and she tapped lightly on the door. There was no answer; and opening it, she stole softly in. Evelyn sat in an easy-chair at the farther side of the room, her face hidden in her hands, an open letter lying in her lap. "My poor child! Is it bad news?" Elsie asked, going up to the little girl, and touching her hair caressingly. "It is heart-breaking to me, aunt Elsie; but read and judge for yourself," Evelyn replied, in a voice choking with sobs; and taking up the letter, she put it into her aunt's hand. Elsie gave it a hasty perusal, then, tossing it indignantly aside, took the young weeper in her arms, bestowing upon her tender caresses and soothing words. "It is hard, very hard for you, dear, I know; it would be for me in your place; but we must just try to make the best of it." "Yes," sobbed Evelyn; "but I could hardly feel more fully orphaned if my mother were dead. And papa has not been gone a year. Oh, how could she! how could she! You see, aunt Elsie, she talks of my joining her as soon as I am my own mistress; but how can I ever think of it now?" "We--your uncle and I--would be very loath to give you up, darling; and, if you can only be content, I think you may always have a happy home here, with us," Elsie said, with another tender caress. "Dear auntie, you and uncle have made it a very happy home to me," returned Evelyn gratefully, wiping away her tears as she spoke, and forcing a rather sad sort of smile. "I should be as sorry to leave it as you could possibly be to have me do so." Evelyn was of a very quiet temperament, rarely indulging in bursts of emotion of any kind; and Elsie soon succeeded in restoring her to calmness, though her eyes still showed traces of tears; and her expressive features again wore the look of gentle sadness that was their wont in the first weeks of her sojourn at Fairview, but which had gradually changed to one of cheerfulness and content. "Now, Eva, dear, it is time we were getting ready for our drive to Ion," Elsie said. "Shall I help you change your dress?" "I--I think, if you will excuse me, auntie," Evelyn returned, with hesitation, "I should prefer to stay at home. I'm scarcely in the mood for merry-making." "Of course, you shall do just as you like, dear child," was the kindly response; "but it is only to be a family party, and you need not be mixed up with any fun or frolic,--I don't suppose there will be any thing of the kind going on,--and you will probably enjoy a private chat with your bosom-friend, Lulu. You know, there are plenty of corners where you can get together by yourselves. I think you would find it lonely staying here, and Lulu would not half enjoy her evening without you." "You are right, auntie: I will go," Evelyn answered, more cheerfully than she had spoken since reading her letter. "I will dress at once, but shall not need any help except advice about what I shall wear." Elsie gave it, and, saying the carriage would be at the door in half an hour, went back to her own apartments, to attend to the proper adornment of her own pretty person. Soon after her little talk with grandma Elsie and mamma Vi, Lulu, still unable to banish the anxiety which made her restless and uneasy, wandered out into the shrubbery, where she presently met Max. "I've been all round the place," he said; "and I tell you, Lu, it's in prime order: every thing's as neat as a pin. Don't the grounds look lovely, even after Viamede?" "Yes," she sighed, glancing round from side to side with a melancholy expression of countenance quite unusual with her. "What's the matter, sis?" he asked with some surprise: "I hope you're not sick?" "No, I'm perfectly well," she answered; "but, the prettier the place looks, the sorrier I feel to think I may have to go away and leave it." "Who says you are to go away?" he demanded,--"not grandma Elsie, or mamma Vi either, I am sure, for they're both too kind; and, in fact, I don't believe anybody here wants to send you off." "Maybe not," she said, "but I'll have to go if papa says so; and, O Max! I'm so afraid he will, because of--all that--all the trouble between grandpa Dinsmore and me about the music-lessons." "I didn't suppose papa had been told about it?" he remarked, half inquiringly. "Yes," she said: "I confessed every bit of it to him in that letter I wrote at Magnolia Hall." "Bully for you!" cried Max heartily. "I knew you'd own up at last, like a brick, as you are." "O Max! you forget that mamma Vi does not approve of slang," she said. "But I don't deserve a bit of praise for confessing, because I had to. Papa wrote to me that he was sure I'd been misbehaving,--though nobody had told him a single word about it,--and that I must write at once, and tell him every thing." "Well, I'm glad you did; and I hope he won't be hard on you, Lu. Still, I wouldn't like to be in your place, for papa can be quite severe when he thinks it necessary. I wouldn't fret, though," he added in a consolatory tone, "because there's no use trying to cross the bridge before you come to it, 'specially when you mayn't come at all." "That's quite true, but it's a great deal easier to preach than to practise," she said. "Maxie, would you be sorry to have me sent away?" she asked, her voice taking on a beseeching tone. "Why, of course I should," he said. "We've gone through a good deal together, and you know we've always been rather fond of each other, considering that we're brother and sister," he added laughingly. "Ah, here comes Eva!" and he lifted his hat with a profound bow as a turn in the walk brought them face to face with her. "O Eva! I'm so glad you've come early!" exclaimed Lulu. "I too," said Max; "but, if you have any secrets for each other's private ear, I'll be off." "Your company is always agreeable, Max," Evelyn said with a faint smile, "and I should be sorry to drive you away." "Thanks," he said; "but I'll have to go, for I hear grandpa Dinsmore calling me." He hastened to obey the call; and the two girls, each putting an arm about the other's waist, paced to and fro along the gravel-walk. "How is Fairview looking?" asked Lulu. "Lovely: it couldn't be in better order, and there are a great many flowers in bloom. One might say just the same of Ion." "Yes: it is even prettier than Fairview, I have always thought. But that's a sweet place too and aunt Elsie and uncle Lester are delightful to live with. I only wish I was as sure as you are of such a sweet home." "Don't worry, Lu. I hope your father will let you stay on here," Evelyn said in an affectionate tone; "but, indeed, I don't think you have any reason to envy me." She ended with so profound a sigh, that Lulu turned a surprised, inquiring look upon her, asking, "Have you had any bad news, Eva? I know you have been looking anxiously for a letter from your mother." "Yes, it has come: I found it waiting for me at Fairview, and"--She paused for a moment, her heart too full for speech. "And it was bad news? Oh, I am so sorry!" said Lulu. "I hope it wasn't that she wants you to go away from here--unless I have to go too, and we can be together somewhere." "No, it was not that--not now. Mamma knows that, because of the way papa made his will, I must stay with uncle Lester till I come of age. She talks of my going to her then; but I cannot,--oh, I never can! for,--Lulu, she's married again, to an Italian count; and it is not a year since my dear, dear father was taken from us." Evelyn's voice was tremulous with pain, and she ended with a burst of bitter weeping. "Oh, how could she!" exclaimed Lulu. "I don't wonder you feel so about it, Eva. A horrid Italian too!" she added, thinking of Signor Foresti. "I'd never call him father!" "Indeed, I've no idea of doing that," Eva said indignantly. "I only hope he may never cross my path; and so I--feel as if my mother is lost to me. You are far better off than I, Lulu: you have your own dear father still living, and aunt Vi is so lovely and sweet." "Yes, I am better off than you," Lulu acknowledged emphatically; "and if I hadn't such a bad temper, always getting me into trouble, I'd be a girl to be envied." CHAPTER X. LULU'S SENTENCE. Pending Capt. Raymond's verdict in regard to Lulu, life at Ion fell into the old grooves, for her as well as the other members of the family. Studies were taken up again by all the children, including Evelyn Leland, where they had been dropped; Mr. Dinsmore and his daughter giving instruction, and hearing recitations, as formerly. This interval of waiting lasted for over two months, a longer period of silence on the part of the husband and father than usual; but, as they learned afterward, letters had been delayed in both going and coming. Capt. Raymond, in his good ship, far out on the ocean, was wearying for news from home, when his pressing want was most opportunely supplied by a passing vessel. She had a heavy mail for the man-of-war, and a generous share of it fell to her commander. He was soon seated in the privacy of his own cabin, with Violet's letter open in his hand. It was sure to receive his attention before that of any other correspondent. With a swelling heart he read of the sore trial she had been passing through, in the severe illness of Gracie and the babe. Deeply he regretted not having been there to lighten her burdens with his sympathy and help in the nursing; and though, at the time of writing, she was able to report that the little sufferers were considered out of danger, he could not repress a fear, amid his thankfulness, that there might be a relapse, or the dread disease might leave behind it, as it so often does, some lasting ill effect. He lingered over the letter, re-reading passages here and there, but at length laid it aside, and gave his attention to others bearing the same post-mark. There was a short one from Max, which stirred his heart with fatherly love and pride in his boy; that came next after Violet's: then he opened Lulu's bulky packet. He sighed deeply as he laid it down after a careful perusal, during which his face had grown stern and troubled, and, rising, paced the cabin to and fro, his hands in his pockets, his head bowed on his breast, which again and again heaved with a deep-drawn sigh. "What I am to do with that child, I do not know," he groaned within himself. "If I could make a home for her, and have her constantly with me, I might perhaps be able to train her up aright, and help her to learn the hard lesson how to rule her own spirit. "I could not do that, however, without resigning from the service; and that would be giving up my only means of earning a livelihood for her as well as the others and myself. That is not to be thought of: nor could I forsake the service without heartfelt regret, were I a millionnaire." The captain was a man of prayer. Some moments were spent on his knees, asking guidance and help for himself, and a change of heart for his wayward little daughter; then, again seating himself at his writing-table, he opened yet another letter, one whose superscription he recognized as that of a business agent in one of our far Western States. His face lighted up as he read, and a text flashed across his mind: "And it shall come to pass, that before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear." That sheet of paper was the bearer of most strange, unlooked-for tidings: a tract of wild land, bought by him for a trifle years before, and long considered of little or no value, had suddenly become--by the discovery that it contained rich mineral deposits, and the consequent opening of mines, and laying out of a town upon it--worth many thousands, perhaps millions of money. And he--Capt. Raymond--was the undisputed owner of it all,--of wealth beyond his wildest dreams. He could scarce believe it: it seemed impossible. Yet it was undoubtedly true; and a bright vision of a lovely home, with wife and children about him, rose up before his mind's eye, and filled him with joy and gratitude to the Giver of all good. He would send in his resignation, and realize the vision at the earliest possible moment. But stay! could he now, in the prime of life, forsake the service for which he had been educated, and to which he had already given many of his best years? Could he be content to bid a final farewell to the glorious old ocean so long his home, so beautiful and lovable in its varied moods, and settle down upon the unchanging land, quite reconciled to its sameness? Would he not find in himself an insatiable longing to be again upon the ever restless sea, treading once more the deck of his gallant ship, monarch of her little world, director of all her movements? It was not a question to be decided in a moment; it required time for thought; a careful consideration of seemingly conflicting duties; a careful balancing of inclinations and interests, and for seeking counsel of his best, his almighty and all-wise, Friend. At Ion, as the summer heats approached, the question was mooted, "Where shall we spend the next two or three months?" After some discussion, it was decided that all should go North to Cape May for a time: afterward they would break up into smaller parties, and scatter to different points of interest, as they might fancy. Lester and Elsie Leland would spend a portion of the season at Cliff Cottage,--Evelyn's old home,--taking her and Lulu with them. Edward and Zoe, too, and probably some of the others, would visit there. All necessary arrangements had been made, and they were to start the next day, when at last letters were received from Capt. Raymond. Lulu's heart beat very fast at sight of them. She had been full of delight at the prospect of her Northern trip, especially the visit to be paid with Evelyn to her former home; the latter having in their private talks dwelt much upon its many attractions, and the life she had led there in the sweet companionship of her beloved father. "Would there be any thing in papa's letter to prevent the carrying out of the cherished plans?" Lulu asked herself as, in fear and trembling, she watched Violet opening with eager fingers the packet handed her at the breakfast-table. Max and Gracie, too, looked on with interest quite equal to Lulu's; but in their case there was only joyous expectancy unmingled with dread. "There is something for each of us, as usual," Violet said presently, with a smiling glance from one to another,--"Max, Lulu, Gracie, and myself." Lulu received hers,--only a folded slip of paper,--and, asking to be excused, stole away to the privacy of her own room to read it. "MY DEAR LITTLE DAUGHTER [it ran],--The story of your misconduct has given a very sad heart to the father who loves you so dearly. I forgive you, my child, but can no longer let you remain at Ion to be a trouble and torment to our kind friends there. I shall remove you elsewhere as soon as I can settle upon a suitable place. In the mean time, if you are truly sorry for the past, you will, I am sure, earnestly strive to be patient, submissive and obedient to those who have you in charge. "Your loving father, "L. RAYMOND." The paper fell from Lulu's hand, and fluttered to the floor, as she folded her arms upon the sill of the window beside which she had seated herself, and rested her head upon them. "And that's all; just that I am to go away, nobody knows where; to be separated from Max and Gracie and every one else that I care for: and when papa comes home, maybe he won't visit me at all; or, if he does, it will be for only a little bit, because, of course, he will want to spend most of his leave where the others are. Oh, dear! oh, dear! I wish I'd been good! I wish I'd been born sweet-tempered and patient, like Gracie. I wonder if papa will ever, _ever_ let me come back! "But perhaps grandpa Dinsmore and grandma Elsie will never invite me again. I wouldn't in their place, I'm sure." The captain's letter to his wife made the same announcement of his intentions in regard to Lulu; adding, that, for the present he would have her disposed of as should seem best to them--Mr. Dinsmore, his daughter, and Violet herself--upon consultation together; he had entire confidence, he said, in their wisdom and their kind feeling toward his wayward, troublesome, yet still beloved child; so that he could trust her to their tender mercies without hesitation. He went on to say (and, ah, with what a smile of exultation and delight those words were penned!), that "there was a possibility that he might be with them again in the fall, long enough to find a suitable home for Lulu; and, in the mean time, would they kindly seize any opportunity that presented itself, to make inquiries in regard to such a place?" Violet read that portion of his letter aloud to her mother and grandfather, then asked if they saw in it any thing necessitating a change in their plans for the summer. They did not, and were glad for Lulu's sake that it was so. Lulu, in the solitude of her room, was anxiously considering the same question, and presently went with it to her mamma, taking her father's note in her hand. Finding Violet alone in her dressing-room, giving the captain's missive another perusal, "Mamma Vi," she said, "what--what does papa tell you about me?" She spoke hesitatingly, her head drooping, her cheeks hot with blushes. "I mean, what does he say is to be done with me?" Violet pitied the child from the bottom of her heart. "I wish, dear," she said, "that I could tell you he consented to mamma's request to let us try you here a little longer; but--doesn't he say something about it in his note to you?" "Yes, mamma Vi," Lulu answered chokingly: "he says he can't let me stay here any longer, to be such a trouble and torment to you all, and will put me somewhere else as soon as he can find a suitable place; but he doesn't say what is to be done with me just now." "No, dear: he leaves that to us,--grandpa, mamma, and me,--and we have decided that no change in the arrangements for the summer need be made." "O mamma Vi! how good and kind you all are!" cried Lulu, in a burst of irrestrainable gratitude; and her tears began to fall. Violet was quite moved by the child's emotion. "You have been a dear good girl of late, and we feel glad to take you with us," she said, drawing her to her side, and giving her an affectionate kiss. "Your father says there is a possibility that he may be at home with us again for a while, in the fall; he expects to settle you somewhere then: but if you continue to be so good, perhaps he may relent, and allow you still to have a home with us. I am quite sure that such a child as you have been for the last two or three months, would be heartily welcome to us all." "It's ever so good in you to say that, mamma Vi," returned the little girl, furtively wiping her eyes; "and I'm determined to try with all my might. I'd want to do it to please papa, even if I knew there wasn't one bit of hope of his letting me stay. I don't think there is much, because, if he decides a thing positively, he's very apt to stick to it." "Yes, I know; but he will doubtless take into account that circumstances alter cases," Violet answered lightly, and with a pleasant smile. "And at all events, you may be quite sure that whatever small influence I may possess will be exerted in your behalf." "I am sure you have a great deal, mamma Vi; and I thank you very much for that promise," Lulu said, turning to go. But at that instant a quick, boyish step sounded in the hall without; and Max's voice at the door asked, "Mamma Vi, may I come in?" "Yes," she said; and in he rushed, with a face full of excitement. "Lu, I've been looking everywhere for you!" he cried. "What do you think? just see that!" and he held up a bit of paper, waving it triumphantly in the air, while he capered round the room in an ecstasy of delight. "What is it?" asked Lulu. "Nothing but a strip of paper, as far as I can see." "That's because you haven't had a chance to examine it," he said, laughing with pleasure. "It's a check with papa's name to it, and it's good for fifty dollars. Now, do you wonder I'm delighted?" "No, not if it's yours. Did he give it to you?" "Half of it; the other half's to be divided between you and Gracie; and it's just for pocket-money for this summer." "Oh, that is nice!" exclaimed Violet. "I am very glad for you all." Lulu looked astounded for an instant; then the tears welled up into her eyes as she said falteringly, "I--don't deserve it; and--I thought papa was so vexed with me, I should never have expected he'd give me a single cent." "He's just a splendid father, that's what he is!" cried Max, with another bound of exultant delight. "He says that if we go to the mountains, and grandpa thinks I can be trusted with a gun, I'm to have one of the best that can be bought; and, if I'm a splendid boy all the time, when he comes home I shall have a fine pony of my own." Then sobering down, "I'm afraid, though, that he can't afford all that; and I shall tell him so, and that I don't want him to spend too much of his hard-earned pay on his only son." "Good boy!" Violet said with an approving smile; "but I know it gives your father far more pleasure to lay out money for his children than to spend it on himself." Still, she wondered within herself, for a moment, if her husband had in some way become a little richer than he was when last he described his circumstances to her. Had he had a legacy from some lately deceased relative or friend? (surely no one could be more deserving of such remembrance) or an increase of pay? But no, he would surely have told her if either of those things had happened; and with that thought, the subject was dismissed from her mind. He had not told her of his good fortune--the sudden, unexpected change in his circumstances: he wanted to keep it secret till he could see the shining of her eyes, the lighting up of her face, as she learned that their long separations were a thing of the past; that in future they would have a home of their own, and be as constantly together as Lester and Elsie, Edward and Zoe. But his mind was full of plans for making her and his children happy by means of his newly acquired wealth, and he had not been able to refrain from some attempt to do so at once. "I don't want papa to waste his money on me, either," Lulu said. "I'd rather never have any pocket-money than have him do without a single thing to give it to me." "Dear child, I know you would," Violet said. "But take what he has sent, and be happy with it; that is what he desires you to do; and I think you need have no fear that he will want for any thing because of having sent it to you." "Let me see that, won't you, Maxie?" Lulu asked, following her brother from the room. He handed her the check, and she examined it curiously. "It has your name on it," she remarked. "Yes: it is drawn payable to me," returned Max, assuming an air of importance. "But," said Lulu, still examining it critically, "how can you turn it into money?" "Oh! I know all about that," laughed Max. "Papa explained it to me the last time he was at home: I just write my name on the back of that, and take it to a bank, and they'll give me the fifty dollars." "And then you'll keep half, and divide the other half between Gracie and me. That will be twelve dollars and fifty cents for each of us, won't it?" "No, it isn't to be divided equally: papa says you are to have fifteen dollars, and Gracie ten,--because you are older than she is, you know." "But she's better, and deserves more than I," said Lulu. "Anyway, she shall have half, if she wants it." "No, she doesn't," said Max. "I told her about it; and she thinks ten dollars, to do just what she pleases with, is a great fortune." "When will you get it, Max?" "What,--the money? Not till after we go North. Grandpa Dinsmore says it will be best to wait till then, as we won't care to spend any of it here. O Lu!--you are going along, I suppose?--what does papa say about--about what you told him in your last letter?" "You may read for yourself, Max," replied Lulu, putting the note into his hand. She watched his face while he read, and knew by its expression that he was sorry for her, even before he said so, as he handed it back. "But perhaps papa may change his mind, if you keep on being as good as you have been ever since you left that school," he added. "But you haven't told me yet whether you are still to go North with us, or not." "Yes: mamma Vi says I am. She says papa says in his letter to her, that they may do what they think best with me for the present: and they will take me along. It's good in them, isn't it?" To that Max gave a hearty assent. "They are the kindest people in the world," he said. CHAPTER XI. "How terrible is passion!" The summer passed quickly and pleasantly to our friends of Ion and Fairview. The plans they had made for themselves before leaving home were carried out, with, perhaps, some slight variations. Lulu had her greatly desired visit to Cliff Cottage, and enjoyed it nearly as much as she had hoped to; a good deal less than she would if she could have quite forgotten her past misconduct, and its impending consequences. As matters stood, she could seldom entirely banish the thought that the time was daily drawing nearer when her father's sentence would be carried out, to her sad exclusion from the pleasant family circle of which she had now been so long a member. She experienced the truth of the saying, that blessings brighten as they take their flight, and would have given much to undo the past, so that she might prove herself worthy of a continuance of those she had rated so far below their real value, that, in spite of her father's repeated warnings, she had wantonly thrown them away. She kept her promise to Violet, and strove earnestly to deserve a repeal of her sentence, though her hope of gaining it was very faint. All summer long she had exercised sufficient control over her temper to avoid any outbursts of passion, and generally had behaved quite amiably. By the 1st of October the two families were again at home at Ion and Fairview, pursuing the even tenor of their way, Lulu with them, as of old, no new home having yet been found for her. No one had cared to make much effort in that direction. It was just as well, Mr. Dinsmore, Elsie his daughter, and Violet thought, simply to let things take their course till her father should return, and take matters into his own hands. There was no certainty when that would be: his letters still alluded to his coming that fall as merely a possibility. But Lulu had been so amiable and docile for months past, that no one was in haste to be rid of her presence. Even Rosie was quite friendly with her, had ceased to tease and vex her; and mutual forbearance had given each a better opinion of the other than she had formerly entertained. But Lulu grew self-confident, and began to relax her vigilance: it was so long since her temper had got decidedly the better of her, that she thought it conquered, or so nearly so that she need not be continually on the watch against it. Rosie had brought home with her a new pet,--a beautiful puppy as mischievous as he was handsome. Unfortunately it happened again and again that something belonging to Lulu attracted his attention, and was seriously damaged or totally destroyed by his teeth and claws. He chewed up a pair of kid gloves belonging to her; and it did not mend matters that Rosie laughed as though it were a good joke, and then told her it was her own fault for not putting them in their proper place when she took them off: he tore her garden-hat into shreds; he upset her inkstand; tumbled over her work-basket, tangling the spools of sewing-silk and cotton; jumped upon her with muddy paws, soiling a new dress and handsome sash; and at last capped the climax by defacing a book of engravings, belonging to Mr. Dinsmore, which she had carelessly left in his way. Then her anger burst forth, and she kicked the dog till his howls brought Rosie running to the rescue. "How dare you, Lulu Raymond!" she exclaimed, with flashing eyes, as she gathered Trip in her arms, and soothed him with caresses. "I'll not allow my pet to be so ill used in my own mother's house!" "He deserves a great deal more than I gave him," retorted Lulu, quivering with passion; "and if you don't want him hurt, you'll have to keep him out of mischief. Just look what he has done to this book!" "One of grandpa's handsome volumes of engravings!" cried Rosie, aghast. "But who left it lying there?" "I did." "Then you are the one to blame, and not my poor little Trip, who, of course, knew no better. How is he to tell that books are not meant for gnawing quite as much as bones?" "What is the matter, children?" asked Mr. Dinsmore, stepping out upon the veranda where the little scene was enacting. "It surprises me to hear such loud and angry tones." For a moment each girlish head drooped in silence, hot blushes dyeing their cheeks; then Lulu, lifting hers, said, "I'm very sorry, grandpa Dinsmore. I oughtn't to have brought this book out here; but it wouldn't have come to any harm if it hadn't been for that troublesome dog, that's as full of mischief as he can be. I don't believe it was more than five minutes that I left the book lying there on the settee; and when I ran back to get it, and put it away in its place, he had torn out a leaf, and nibbled and soiled the cover, as you see. "But if you'll please not be angry, I'll save up all my pocket-money till I can buy you another copy." "That would take a good while, child," Mr. Dinsmore answered. "It is a great pity you were so careless. But I'll not scold you, since you are so penitent, and so ready to make all the amends in your power. Rosie, you really must try to restrain the mischievous propensities of your pet." "I do, grandpa," she said, flashing an angry glance at Lulu; "but I can't keep him in sight every minute; and, if people will leave things in his way, I think they are more to blame than he is if he spoils them." "Tut, tut! don't speak to me in that manner," said her grandfather. "If your dog continues to damage valuable property, he shall be sent away." Rosie made no reply, but colored deeply as she turned and walked away with her pet in her arms. "Now, Lulu," said Mr. Dinsmore, not unkindly, "remember that in future you are not to bring a valuable book such as this, out here. If you want to look at them, do so in the library." "Yes, sir, I will. I'm very sorry about that; but if you'll tell me, please, how much it would cost to buy another just like it, I'll write to papa, and I know he will pay for it." "I thought you proposed to pay for it yourself," remarked Mr. Dinsmore grimly. "Yes, sir; but I don't wish to keep you waiting; papa wouldn't wish it. He sends his children pocket-money every once in a while, and I'd ask him to keep back what he considered my share till it would count up to as much as the price of the book." "Well, child, that is honorable and right," Mr. Dinsmore said in a pleasanter tone; "but I think we will let the matter rest now till your father comes, which I trust will be before a very great while." Rosie, knowing that her grandfather was quite capable of carrying out his threat, lacking neither the ability nor the will to do so, curtailed the liberty of her pet, and exerted herself to keep him out of mischief. Still, he occasionally came in Lulu's way, and when he did was very apt to receive a blow or kick. He had a fashion of catching at her skirts with his teeth, and giving them a jerk, which was very exasperating to her--all the more so, that Rosie evidently enjoyed seeing him do it. A stop would have been put to the "fun" if the older people of the family had happened to be aware of what was going on; but the dog always seemed to seize the opportunity when none of them were by, and Lulu scorned to tell tales. One morning, about a week after the accident to the book, Lulu, coming down a little before the ringing of the breakfast-bell, found Max on the veranda. "Don't you want to take a ride with me after breakfast, Lu?" he asked. "Mamma Vi says I can have her pony; and, as Rosie doesn't care to go, of course you can ride hers." "How do you know Rosie doesn't want to ride?" asked Lulu. "Because I heard her tell her mother she didn't; that she meant to drive over to Roselands with grandpa Dinsmore instead; that he had told her he expected to go there to see Cal about some business matter, and would take her with him. So you see, her pony won't be wanted; and grandma Elsie has often said we could have it whenever it wasn't in use or tired, and of course it must be quite fresh this morning." "Then I'll go," said Lulu with satisfaction; for she was extremely fond of riding, especially when her steed was Rosie's pretty, easy-going pony, Gyp. So Max ordered the two ponies to be in readiness; and, as soon as breakfast was over, Lulu hastened to her room to prepare for her ride. But in the mean time Mr. Dinsmore had told Rosie he had, for some reason, changed his plans, and should wait till afternoon to make his call at Roselands. Then Rosie, glancing from the window, and seeing her pony at the door, ready saddled and bridled, suddenly decided to take a ride, ran to her room, donned riding hat and habit, and was down again a little in advance of Lulu. Max, who was on the veranda, waiting for his sister, felt rather dismayed at sight of Rosie, as she came tripping out in riding-attire. "O Rosie! excuse me," he said. "I heard you say you were going to drive to Roselands with your grandpa, and so, as I was sure you wouldn't be wanting your pony, I ordered him saddled for Lu." "That happened very well, because he is here now all ready for me," returned Rosie, laughing, as she vaulted into the saddle, hardly giving Max a chance to help her. "Lu can have him another time. Come, will you go with me?" For an instant Max hesitated. He did not like to refuse Rosie's request, as she was not allowed to go alone outside the grounds, yet was equally averse to seem to desert Lu. "But," he thought, "she's sure to be in a passion when she finds this out, and I can't bear to see it." So he sprang upon his waiting steed; and as Lulu, ready dressed for her ride, and eager to take it, stepped out upon the veranda, she just caught a glimpse of the two horses and their riders disappearing down the avenue. She turned white with anger at the sight, and stamped her foot in fury, exclaiming between her clinched teeth, "It's the meanest trick I ever saw!" There were several servants standing near, one of them little Elsie's nurse, an old negress, Aunt Dinah, who, having lived in the family for more than twenty years, felt herself privileged to speak her mind upon occasion, particularly to its younger members. "Now, Miss Lu," she said, "dat's not de propah way fo' you to talk 'bout dis t'ing; kase dat pony b'longs to Miss Rosie, an' co'se she hab de right to ride him befo' anybody else." "You've no call to put in your word, and I'm not going to be lectured and reproved by a servant!" retorted Lulu passionately; and turning quickly away, she strode to the head of the short flight of steps leading down into the avenue, and stood there leaning against a pillar, with her back toward the other occupants of the veranda. Her left arm was round the pillar, and in her right hand she held her little riding-whip. She was angry at Dinah, furiously angry at Rosie; and when the next minute something--Rosie's dog, she supposed--tugged at her skirts, she gave a vicious backward kick without turning her head. Instantly a sound of something falling, accompanied by a faint, frightened little cry, and chorus of shrieks of dismay from older voices flashed upon her the terrible knowledge that she had sent her baby sister rolling down the steps to the hard gravel-walk below. She clutched at her pillar, almost losing consciousness for one brief moment, in her dreadful fright. Violet's agonized cry, as she came rushing from the open doorway, "My baby! oh, my baby! she's killed!" roused her: and she saw Dinah pick up the little creature from the ground, and place it in its mother's arms, where it lay limp and white, like a dead thing, without sense or motion; the whole household, young and old, black and white, gathering round in wild excitement and grief. No one so much as glanced at her, or seemed to think of her at all: their attention was wholly occupied with the injured little one. She shuddered as she caught a glimpse of its deathlike face, then put her hand over her eyes to shut out the fearful sight. She felt as if she were turning to stone with a sense of the awful thing she had done in her mad passion; then suddenly seized with an overwhelming desire to hide herself from all these eyes, that would presently be gazing accusingly and threateningly at her, she hurried away to her own room, and shut and locked herself in. Her riding-whip was still in her hand. She tossed it on to the window-sill, tore off her gloves, hat, and habit, and threw them aside, then, dropping on her knees beside the bed, buried her face in the clothes, sobbing wildly, "Oh, I've killed my little sister! my own dear little baby sister! What shall I do? what shall I do?" Moments passed that seemed like hours: faint sounds came up from below. She heard steps and voices, and, "Was that mamma Vi crying,--crying as if her heart would break? saying over and over again, 'My baby's dead! my baby's dead! killed by her sister, her cruel, passionate sister!' Would they come and take her (Lulu) to jail? Would they try her for murder, and hang her? Oh! then papa's heart would break, losing two of his children in such dreadful ways. "Oh! wouldn't it break anyhow when he heard what she had done,--when he knew the baby was dead, and that she had killed it, even if she should not be sent to prison, and tried for murder?" At length some one tried the door; and a little, sobbing voice said, "Lulu, please let me in." She rose, staggered to the door, and unlocked it. "Is it only you, Gracie?" she asked in a terrified whisper, opening it just far enough to admit the little slender figure. "Yes: there's nobody else here," said the child. "I came to tell you the baby isn't dead; but the doctor has come, and, I believe, he doesn't feel sure she won't die. O Lu! how could you?" she asked with a burst of sobs. "O Gracie! I didn't do it on purpose! how could you think so? I mean, I didn't know it was the baby: I thought it was that hateful dog." "Oh, I'm glad! I couldn't b'lieve it, though some of them do!" exclaimed Gracie in a tone of relief. Then, with a fresh burst of tears and sobs, "But she's dreadfully hurt, the dear little thing! I heard the doctor tell grandpa Dinsmore he was afraid she'd never get over it; but he mustn't let mamma know yet, 'cause maybe she might." Lulu paced the room, wringing her hands and sobbing like one distracted. "O Gracie!" she cried, "I'd like to beat myself black and blue! I just hope papa will come home and do it, because I ought to be made to suffer ever so much for hurting the baby so." "O Lu, no!" cried Gracie, aghast at the very idea. "It wouldn't do the baby any good. Oh, I hope papa won't whip you!" "But he will! I know he will; and he ought to," returned Lulu vehemently. "Oh, hark!" She stood still, listening intently, Grace doing the same. They had seemed to hear a familiar step that they had not heard for many a long month; yes, there it was again: and with a low cry of joy, Grace bounded to the door, threw it open, but closed it quickly behind her, and sprang into her father's arms. "My darling, my precious little daughter!" he said, clasping her close, and showering kisses on her face. "Where is every one? you are the first I have seen, and--why, how you have been crying! What is wrong?" "O papa! the baby--the baby's most killed," she sobbed. "Come, I'll take you to her and mamma!" Fairly stunned by the sudden dreadful announcement, he silently submitted himself to her guidance, and suffered her to lead him into the nursery, where Violet sat in a low chair with the apparently dying babe on her lap, her mother, grandfather and his wife, and the doctor, grouped about her. No one noticed his entrance, so intent were they all upon the little sufferer; but just as he gained her side, Violet looked up, and recognized him with a low cry of mingled joy and grief. "O Levis, my husband! Thank God that you have come in time--to see her alive." He bent down and kissed the sweet, tremulous lips, his features working with emotion, "My wife, my dear love, what--what is this? what ails our little one?" he asked in anguished accents, turning his eyes upon the waxen baby face; and, bending still lower, he softly touched his lips to its forehead. No one replied to his question; and gazing with close scrutiny at the child, "She has been hurt?" he said, half in assertion, half inquiringly. "Yes, captain," said Dr. Conly: "she has had a fall,--a very severe one for so young and tender a creature." "How did it happen?" he asked, in tones of mingled grief and sternness. No one answered; and after waiting a moment, he repeated the question, addressing it directly to his wife. "Oh, do not ask me, love!" she said entreatingly, and he reluctantly yielded to her request; but light began to dawn upon him, sending an added pang to his heart; suddenly he remembered Lulu's former jealousy of the baby, her displeasure at its birth; and with a thrill of horror, he asked himself if this could be her work. He glanced about the room in search of her and Max. Neither was there. He passed noiselessly into the next room, then into the one beyond,--his wife's boudoir,--and there found his son. Max sat gazing abstractedly from a window, his eyes showing traces of tears. Turning his head as the captain entered, he started up with a joyful but subdued cry, "Papa!" then threw himself with bitter sobbing into the arms outstretched to receive him. "My boy, my dear boy!" the captain said, in moved tones. "What is this dreadful thing that has happened? Can you tell me how your baby sister came to get so sad a fall?" "I didn't see it, papa: I was out riding at the time." "But you have heard about it from those who did see it?" "Yes, sir," the lad answered reluctantly; "but--please, papa, don't ask me what they said." "Was Lulu at home at the time?" "Yes, sir." "Would she be able to tell me all about it, do you think?" "I haven't seen her, papa, since I came in," Max answered evasively. The captain sighed. His suspicions had deepened to almost certainty. "Where is she?" he asked, releasing Max from his embrace, and turning to leave the room. "I do not know, papa," answered Max. "Where was the baby when she fell? can you tell me that?" asked his father. "On the veranda, sir: so the servants told me." "Which of them saw it?" "Aunt Dinah, Agnes, Aunt Dicey,--nearly all the women, I believe, sir." The captain mused a moment. "Was Lulu there?" he asked. "Yes, sir; and papa,--if you _must_ know just how it happened,--I think she could tell you all about it as well as anybody else, or maybe better. And you know she always speaks the truth." "Yes," the captain said, as if considering the suggestion: "however, I prefer to hear the story first from some one else." He passed on through the upper hall and down the stairs, then on out to the veranda, where he found a group of servants--of whom Aunt Dicey was one--excitedly discussing the very occurrence he wished to inquire about. They did not share the reluctance of Violet and Max, but answered his questions promptly, with a very full and detailed account of the affair. They gave a graphic description of the rage Lulu was thrown into at the sight of Rosie galloping away on the pony she had expected to ride, repeated her angry retort in reply to Aunt Dinah's reproof, and told, without any extenuation of the hard facts, how the baby girl, escaping from her nurse's watchful care for a moment, had toddled along to her sister, caught at her skirts for support, and received a savage kick, that sent her down the steps to the gravel-walk below. The captain heard the story with ever increasing, burning indignation. Lulu's act seemed the very wantonness of cruelty,--a most cowardly attack of a big, strong girl upon a tiny, helpless creature, who had an indisputable claim upon her tenderest protecting care. By the time the story had come to an end, he was exceedingly angry with Lulu; he felt that in this instance it would be no painful task to him to chastise her with extreme severity; in fact, he dared not go to her at once, lest he should do her some injury; he had never yet punished a child in anger; he had often resolved that he never would, but would always wait till the feeling of love for the delinquent was uppermost in his heart, so that he could be entirely sure his motive was a desire for the reformation of the offender, and not the gratification of his own passion. Feeling that he had a battle to fight with himself ere he dared venture to discipline his child, and that he must have solitude for it, he strode away down the avenue, turned into a part of the grounds but little frequented, and there paced back and forth, his arms folded on his breast, his head bent, his heart going up in silent prayer for strength to rule his own spirit, for patience and wisdom according to his need. Then he strove to recall all that was lovable about his wayward little daughter, and to think of every possible excuse for the dreadful deed she had done, yet without being able to find any that deserved the name. At length, feeling that the victory was at least partially won, and filled with anxiety about the baby, he began to retrace his steps toward the house. In the avenue, he met Edward and Zoe, who greeted him with joyful surprise, not having before known of his arrival. The expression of his countenance told them that he was already informed of the sad occurrence of the morning; and Edward said with heartfelt sympathy, "It is but a sad home-coming for you, captain, but let us try to hope for the best: it is possible the little darling has not received any lasting injury." A silent pressure of the hand was the captain's only reply for the moment. He seemed too much overcome for speech. "Such a darling as she is!" said Zoe; "the pet of the whole house, and just the loveliest little creature I ever saw." "Did you--either of you--see her fall?" asked the captain huskily. "Yes," said Zoe, "I did. Violet and I happened to be at the window of the little reception-room overlooking the veranda, and were watching the little creature as she toddled along, and"--But Zoe paused, suddenly remembering that her listener was the father of Lulu as well as of her poor little victim. "Please go on," he said with emotion. "What was it that sent her down the steps?" "Lulu was standing there," Zoe went on, hesitating, and coloring with embarrassment, "and I saw the baby-hands clutch at her skirts"-- Again she paused. "And Lulu, giving the tender, toddling thing a savage kick, caused the dreadful catastrophe?" he groaned, turning away his face. "You need not have feared to tell me. I had already heard it from the servants who were eye-witnesses, and I only wanted further and undoubtedly reliable testimony." "I think," said Edward, "that Lulu really had no idea what it was she was kicking at. I happened to be out in the grounds, and coming round the corner of the house just in time to catch her look of horror and despair as she half turned her head and saw the baby fall." "Thank you," the captain said feelingly. "It is some relief to her unhappy father to learn of the least extenuating circumstance." CHAPTER XII. "Anger resteth in the bosom of fools."--ECCLES. vii. 9. "Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child; but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him."--PROV. xxii. 15. "He seems to feel terribly about it, poor man!" remarked Zoe with a backward glance at the retreating form of Capt. Raymond, as he left them and pursued his way to the house. "Yes, and no wonder," said Edward. "Not for worlds would I be the father of such a child as Lulu!" "Nor I her mother," said Zoe. "So I'm glad it was you I got for a husband instead of Capt. Raymond." "Only for that reason?" he queried, facing round upon her in mock astonishment and wrath. "Oh, of course!" she returned, laughing, then sobering down with a sudden recollection of the sorrow in the house. "But, O Ned! how heartless we are to be joking and laughing when poor Vi and the captain are in such distress!" "I'm afraid you are right," he assented with a sigh. "Yet I am quite sure we both feel deeply for them, and are personally grieved for the injury to our darling little niece." "Yes, indeed! the pretty pet that she is!" returned Zoe, wiping her eyes. Gracie was on the veranda looking for her father, and, catching sight of him in the avenue, ran to meet him. "How is baby now? Can you tell me?" he asked, taking her hand, and stooping to give her a kiss. "Just the same, I suppose, papa," she said. "Oh, it's very hard to see it suffer so! isn't it, papa?" He nodded a silent assent. "Papa," she asked, lifting her tearful eyes to his face with a pleading look, "have you seen Lulu yet?" "No." "O papa! do go now! It must be so hard for her to wait so long to see you, when you've just come home." "I doubt if she wants to see me," he said, with some sternness of look and tone. "O dear papa! don't punish her very hard. She didn't hurt the baby on purpose." "I shall try to do what is best for her, my little girl, though I very much doubt if that is exemption from punishment," he said with an involuntary sigh. "But if she is in haste to see me," he added, "there is nothing, so far as I am aware, to prevent her from coming to me." "But she's afraid, papa, because she has been so very, very naughty." "In that case, is it not kinder for me to keep away from her?" "O papa! you know she always wants things--bad things--over." "The bad thing she has brought upon the poor baby will not be over very soon," he said sternly. "I must go now to it and your mamma." He did so; and sharing Violet's deep grief and anxiety, and perceiving that his very presence was a comfort and support to her, he remained at her side for hours. Hours, that to Lulu seemed like weeks or months. Alone in her room, in an agony of remorse and fear, she waited and watched and listened for her father's coming, longing for, and yet dreading it, more than words could express. "What would his anger be like?" she asked herself. "What terrible punishment would he inflict? Would he ever love her again, especially if the baby should die? "Perhaps he would send her away to some very far-off place, and never, never come near her any more." Naturally of a very impatient temperament, suspense and passive waiting were well-nigh intolerable to her. By turns she walked the floor, fell on her knees by the bedside, and buried her face in a pillow, or threw herself into a chair by table or window, and hid it on her folded arms. "Oh! would this long day, this dreadful, _dreadful_ waiting for--_what_? ever come to an end?" she asked herself over and over again. Yet, when at last the expected step drew near, she shuddered, trembled, and turned pale with affright, and, starting to her feet, looked this way and that with a wild impulse to flee: then, as the door opened, she dropped into her chair again, and covered her face with her shaking hands. She heard the door close: the step drew nearer, nearer, and stopped close at her side. She dared not look up, but felt her father's eyes gazing sternly upon her. "Miserable child!" he said at length, "do you know what your terrible temper has wrought?--that in your mad passion you have nearly or quite killed your little sister? that, even should she live, she may be a life-long sufferer, in consequence of your fiendish act?" "O papa, don't!" she pleaded in broken accents, cowering and shrinking as if he had struck her a deadly blow. "You deserve it," he said: "indeed, I could not possibly inflict a worse punishment than your conduct merits. But what is the use of punishing you? nothing reforms you! I am in despair of you! You seem determined to make yourself a curse to me instead of the blessing I once esteemed you. What am I to do with you? Will you compel me to cage or chain you up like a wild beast, lest you do some one a fatal injury?" A cry of pain was her only answer, and he turned and left the room. "Oh!" she moaned, "it's worse than if he had beaten me half to death! he thinks I'm too bad, even to be punished; because nothing will make me good: he says I'm a curse to him, so he must hate me; though he used to love me dearly, and I loved him so too! I suppose everybody hates me now, and always will. I wish I was dead and out of their way. But, oh! no, I don't; for I'm not fit to die. Oh! what shall I do? I wish it was I that was hurt instead of the baby. I'd like to go away and hide from everybody that knows me; then I shouldn't be a curse and trouble to papa or any of them." She lifted her head, and looked about her. It was growing dusk. Quick as a flash came the thought that now was her time; now, while almost everybody was so taken up with the critical condition of the injured little one; now, before the servants had lighted the lamps in rooms and halls. She would slip down a back stairway, out into the grounds, and away, she cared not whither. Always impulsive, and now full of mental distress, she did not pause a moment to consider, but, snatching up a hat and coat lying conveniently at hand, stole noiselessly from the room, putting them on as she went. She gained a side-door without meeting any one; and the grounds seemed deserted as she passed round the house and entered the avenue, down which she ran with swift footsteps, after one hasty glance around to make sure that she was not seen. She reached the great gates, pushed them open, stepped out, letting them swing to after her, and started on a run down the road. But the next instant some one had caught her: a hand was on her shoulder, and a stern, astonished voice cried, "Lulu! is it possible this can be you? What are you doing out here in the public road alone, and in the darkness of evening? Where were you going?" "I--I--don't want--to tell you, papa," she faltered. "_Where_ were you going?" he repeated, in a tone that said an answer he would have, and that at once. "Nowhere--anywhere to get away from this place, where everybody hates me!" she replied sullenly, trying to wrench herself free. "Please let me go, and I'll never come back to trouble you any more." He made no reply to that, but simply took her band in a firm grasp, and led her back to the house, back to her own room, where he shut himself in with her, locking the door on the inside. Then he dropped her hand, and began pacing the floor to and fro, seemingly in deep and troubled thought, his arms folded, his head bowed upon his breast. A servant had brought in a light during Lulu's absence; and now, looking timidly up at her father, she saw his face for the first time since they had bidden each other farewell a year before. It struck her as not only very pale, stern, and grief-stricken, but very much older and more deeply lined than she remembered it: she did not know that the change had been wrought almost entirely in the last few hours, yet recognized it with a pang nevertheless. "Papa is growing old," she thought: "are there gray hairs in his head, I wonder?" Then there came dimly to her recollection some Bible words about bringing a father's gray hairs down with sorrow to the grave. "Was her misconduct killing her father?" She burst into an agony of sobs and tears at the thought. He lifted his head, and looked at her gravely, and with mingled sternness and compassion. "Take off that hat and coat, get your night-dress, and make yourself ready for bed," he commanded, then, stepping to the table, sat down, drew the lamp nearer, opened her Bible, lying there, and slowly turned over the leaves as if in search of some particular passage, while she moved slowly about the room, tremblingly and tearfully obeying his order. "Shall I get into bed, papa?" she asked tremulously, when she had finished. "No, not yet. Come here." She went and stood at his side, with drooping head and fast-beating heart, her eyes on the carpet, for she dared not look in his face. He seemed to have found the passage he sought; and, keeping the book open with his left hand, he turned to her as she stood at his right. "Lucilla," he said, and his accents were not stern, though very grave and sad, "you cannot have forgotten that I have repeatedly and positively forbidden you to go wandering alone about unfrequented streets and roads, even in broad daylight; yet you attempted to do that very thing to-night in the darkness, which, of course, makes it much worse." "Yes, papa; but I--I didn't mean ever to come back." "You were running away?" "Yes, sir: I--I thought you would be glad to get rid of me," she sobbed. He did not speak again for a moment; and when he did, it was in moved tones. "Supposing I did desire to be rid of you,--which is very far from being the case,--I should have no right to let you go; for you are my own child, whom God has given to me to take care of, provide for, and train up for his service. You and I belong to each other as parent and child: you have no right to run away from my care and authority, and I have none to let you do so. In fact, I feel compelled to punish the attempt quite severely, lest there should be a repetition of it." "Oh, don't, papa!" she sobbed. "I'll never do it again." "It was an act of daring, wilful disobedience," he said, "and I must punish you for it. Also, for the fury of passion indulged in this morning. Read this, and this, aloud," he added, pointing to the open page; and she obeyed, reading faltering, sobbingly,-- "'Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child; but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him.' ... 'Withhold not correction from the child: for if thou beatest him with the rod, he shall not die. Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and shalt deliver his soul from hell.'" "You see, my child, that my orders are too plain to be misunderstood," he said, when she had finished; "and they must be obeyed, however unwelcome to me or to you." "Yes, papa; and--and I--I--'most want you to whip me for hurting the baby so. I suppose nobody believes I'm sorry, but I am. I could beat myself for it, though I didn't know it was the baby pulling at my skirt. I thought it was Rosie's dog." "It is not exactly for hurting the baby," he said; "if you had done that by accident, I should never think of punishing you for it: but for the fury of passion that betrayed you into doing it, I must punish you very severely. "I shudder to think what you may come to, if I let you go on indulging your fiery, ungovernable temper: yes, and to think what it has already brought you to," he added, with a heavy sigh. "You can never enter heaven unless you gain the victory over that, as well as every other sin: and, my daughter, there are but two places to choose from as our eternal home,--heaven and hell; and I must use every effort to deliver your soul from going to that last--dreadful place!" He rose, stepped to the window where her little riding-whip still lay, came back to her; and for the next few minutes she forgot mental distress in sharp, physical pain, as the stinging, though not heavy, blows fell thick and fast on her thinly covered back and shoulders. She writhed and sobbed under them, but neither screamed, nor pleaded for mercy. When he had finished, he sat down again, and drew the weeping, writhing child in between his knees, put his arm about her in tender, fatherly fashion, and made her lay her head on his shoulder; but he said not a word. Perhaps his heart was too full for speech. Presently Lulu's arm crept round his neck. "Papa," she sobbed, "I--I do love you, and I--I'm glad you wouldn't let me run away,--and that you try to save me from losing my soul. But oh, I _can't_ be good! I wish, I _wish_ I _could!_" she ended, with a bitter, despairing cry. He was much moved. "We will kneel down, and ask God to help you, my poor, dear child," he said. He did so, making her kneel beside him, while, with his arm still about her, he poured out a prayer so earnest and tender, so exactly describing her feelings and her needs, that she could join in it with all her heart. He prayed like one talking to his Father and Friend, who he knew was both able and willing to do great things for him and his. When they had risen from their knees, she lifted her eyes to his face with a timid, pleading look. He understood the mute petition, and, sitting down again, drew her to his knee, and kissed her several times with grave tenderness. "I wanted a kiss so badly, papa," she said. "You know, it is a whole year since I had one; and you never came home before without giving me one just as soon as we met." "No; but I never before had so little reason to bestow a caress on you," he said. "When I heard of your deed of this morning, I felt that I ought not to show you any mark of favor, at least not until I had given you the punishment you so richly deserved. Do you not think I was right?" "Yes, sir," she answered, hanging her head, and blushing deeply. "I will put you in your bed now, and leave you for to-night," he said. "I must go back to my little suffering baby and her almost heart-broken mother." He led her to the bed, and lifted her into it as he spoke. "Papa, can't I have a piece of bread?" she asked humbly. "I'm _so_ hungry!" "Hungry!" he exclaimed in surprise. "Had you no supper?" "No, sir, nor dinner either. I haven't had a bite to eat since breakfast." "Strange!" he said; "but I suppose you were forgotten in the excitement and anxiety every one in the house has felt ever since the baby's sad fall. And they may have felt it unnecessary to bring any thing to you, as you were quite able to go to the dining-room for it." "I couldn't bear to, papa," she said, with tears of shame and grief; "and, indeed, I wasn't hungry till a little while ago; but now I feel faint and sick for something to eat." "You shall have it," he replied, and went hastily from the room, to return in a few minutes, bringing a bowl of milk and a plentiful supply of bread and butter. He set them on the table, and bade her come and eat. "Papa, you are very kind to me, ever so much kinder than I deserve," she said tremulously, as she made haste to obey the order. "I think some fathers would say I must go hungry for to-night." "I have already punished you in what I consider a better way, because it could not injure your health," he said; "while going a long time without food would be almost sure to do so. It is not my intention ever to punish my children in a way to do them injury. Present pain is all I am at all willing to inflict, and that only for their good." "Yes, papa, I know that," she said with a sob, setting down her bowl of milk to wipe her eyes; "so, when you punish me, it doesn't make me quit loving you." "If I did not love you, if you were not my own dear child," he said, laying his hand on her head as he stood by her side, "I don't think I could be at the trouble and pain of disciplining you as I have to-night. But eat your supper: I can't stay with you much longer, and I want to see you in bed before I go." As she laid her head on her pillow again, there was a flash of lightning, followed instantly by a .crash of thunder and a heavy downpour of rain. "Do you hear that?" he asked. "Now, suppose I had let you go when I caught you trying to run away, how would you feel, alone out of doors, in the darkness and storm, no shelter, no home, no friends, no father to take care of you, and provide for your wants?" "O papa! it would be very, very dreadful!" she sobbed, putting her arm round his neck as he bent over her. "I'm very glad you brought me back, even to punish me so severely; and I don't think I'll ever want to run away again." "I trust not," he said, kissing her good-night; "and you must not leave this room till I give you permission. I intend that you shall spend some days in solitude,--except when I see fit to come to you,--that you may have plenty of time and opportunity to think over your sinful conduct and its dire consequences." CHAPTER XIII. "I'm on the rack; For sure, the greatest evil man can know, Bears no proportion to the dread suspense." "Is there any change, doctor?" asked Capt. Raymond, meeting Arthur Conly in the hall. "Hardly," was the reply: "certainly none for the worse." "Will she get over it, do you think?" The father's tones were unsteady as he asked the question. "My dear captain, it is impossible to tell yet," Arthur said feelingly; "but we must try to hope for the best." Their hands met in a warm clasp. "I shall certainly do so," the captain said. "But you are not going to leave us,--especially not in this storm?" "No: I expect to pass the night in the house, ready to be summoned at a moment's notice, should any change take place." "Thank you: it will be a great satisfaction to us to know we have you close at hand." And the captain turned and entered the nursery, which Arthur had just left. Violet, seated by the side of the crib where her baby lay, looked up on her husband's entrance, greeting him with a smile of mingled love and sadness. "Your dear presence is such a comfort and support!" she murmured as he drew near. "I don't like to lose sight of you for a single moment." "Nor I of you, dearest," he answered, bending down to kiss her pale cheek, then taking a seat close beside her; "but I had to seek solitude for a time while fighting a battle with myself. Since that I have been with Lulu." He concluded with a heavy sigh, and for a moment both were silent; then he said with grave tenderness,-- "I fear you will find it hard to forgive her: it has been no easy thing for me to do so." "I cannot yet," returned Violet, a hard look that he had never seen there before stealing over her face; "and that is an added distress, for 'if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.' I think I can if my baby recovers; but should it--be taken away--or--or, worse by far, live to be a constant sufferer--oh, how can I ever forgive the author of that suffering! Pray for me, my dear husband," she sobbed, laying her head on his shoulder. "I will, I do, my darling," he whispered, passing his arm about her, and drawing her closer; "and I know the help you need will be given. "'Ask, and it shall be given you.' "Perhaps it may aid the effort, if I tell you Lulu did not intentionally harm her little sister, and is greatly distressed at her state. She thought it was Rosie's dog pulling at her skirts; and I own that that explanation makes the sad affair a little less heart-rending to me, though I could not accept it as any excuse for an act done in a fury of passion, and have punished her very severely for it; that is, for her passion. I think it is right, under the circumstances, that you should know that I have, and that it is my fixed purpose to keep her in solitary confinement, at least so long as the baby continues in a critical condition." "Oh! I am glad to know it was not done purposely," Violet exclaimed,--though in a tone hardly raised above a whisper,--lifting her tearful eyes to his face with a look of something like relief: "knowing that, I begin to feel that it may be possible to forgive and forget, especially if the consequences do not prove lasting," she added with a sob, and turning her eyes to the little wan face on the pillow. "But I certainly take no delight in the severity of her punishment: in fact, I fear it may destroy any little affection she has had for her baby sister." "No," he said, "I am not at all apprehensive of that. When she found I was about to punish her, she said she almost wanted me to; that she felt like beating herself for hurting the baby, then went on to explain her mistake,--thinking it was the dog tugging at her dress,--and I then gave her fully to understand, that the chastisement was not for hurting the baby, but for indulging in such a fury of passion, a fault that I have punished her for on more than one former occasion; telling her, too, that I intended to chastise her every time I knew of her being guilty of it." The sound of a low sob caused the captain to turn his head, to find his little Grace standing at the back of his chair, and crying bitterly, though without much noise. He took her hand, and drew her to his side. "What is the matter, daughter?" he asked tenderly. "O papa! I'm so sorry for Lulu," she sobbed; "please, mayn't I go to her for a little while?" "No, Gracie. I cannot allow her the pleasure of seeing you, either to-night, or for some days." "But, papa, you said--you told mamma just now--that you had already punished her very severely; and must you keep on?" "Yes, my child, so far as to keep her in solitude, that she may have plenty of time to think about what she has brought upon herself and others by the indulgence of an ungovernable temper. She needs to have the lesson impressed upon her as deeply as possible." "I'm so sorry for her, papa!" repeated the gentle little pleader. "So am I, daughter," he said; "but I think, that to see that she has the full benefit of this sad lesson, will be the greatest kindness I can do her. And my little Grace must try to believe that papa knows best. "Now, give me a good-night kiss, and go to your bed, for it is quite time you were there." As he spoke, he took her in his arms, and held her for a moment in a close embrace. "Papa's dear little girl!" he said softly: "_you_ have never given me a pang, except by your feeble health." "I don't want to, papa: I hope I never, never shall!" she returned, hugging him tight. Leaving him, she went to Violet, put her arms about her neck, and said in her sweet, childish treble, "Dear mamma, don't feel so dreadfully about baby: I've been asking God to make her quite, quite well; and I do believe he will." When she had left the room, the captain found himself alone with his young wife and their little one. Again her head was on his shoulder, his arm about her waist. "My husband, my dear, dear husband," she murmured, "I am so glad to have you here! I cannot tell you how I longed for you when the children were so ill. Oh, if we could only be together always, as Lester and Elsie, Edward and Zoe, are!" "My love, my life," he said in low tones, tremulous with feeling, "what if I should tell you that your wish is already accomplished?" She gave him a glance of astonishment and incredulity. "It is even so: I mean all I have said," he answered to the look. "I have sent in my resignation: it has been accepted, and I have come home--no, I have come _here_ to _make_ a home for you and my children, hoping to live in it with you and them for the rest of my days." Her face had grown radiant. "Oh! can it be true?" she cried, half under her breath; for even in her glad surprise, the thought of her suffering babe and its critical condition was present with her: "are we not to be forced apart again in a few days or weeks? not to go on spending more than half our lives at a distance from each other?" "It is quite true, my darling," he answered, then went on to tell, in a few brief sentences, how it had come about. "It cost me a struggle to give up the service," he said in conclusion; "and perhaps I might not have decided as I did, but for the thought that, if I should be needed by my country at some future day, I could offer her my services; and the thought that, at present, wife and children needed me more, probably, than she. I felt that Lulu, in particular, needed my oversight and training; that the task of bringing her up was too difficult, too trying, to be left to other hands than those of her father; and I feel that still more sensibly since hearing of this day's doings," he added in a tone of heartfelt sorrow. "I think you are right," Violet said. "She is more willing to submit to your authority than to that of anybody else; as, indeed, she ought to be: and in a home that she will feel is really her own, her father's house, and with him constantly at hand, to watch over, and help her to correct her faults, there is hope, I think, that she may grow to be all you desire." "Thank you, love, for saying it," he responded with emotion. "I could not blame you if now you thought her utterly irreclaimable." "No, oh, no!" she answered earnestly. "I have great hopes of her, with her father at hand to help her in the struggle with her temper; for I am sure she does struggle against it; and I must acknowledge, that, for months past, she has been as good and lovable a child as one could desire. I don't know a more lovable one than she is when her temper does not get the better of her; and, as Gracie says, whenever it does, 'she gets sorry very soon.'" "My darling," he said, pressing the hand he held, "you are most kind to be so ready to see what is commendable in my wayward child. I cannot reasonably expect even you to look at her with her father's partial eyes. And dearly as I certainly do love her, I have been exceedingly angry with her to-day; so angry, that, for a time, I dared not trust myself to go near her, I, who ought to have unlimited patience with her, knowing, as I do, that she inherits her temper from me." "I don't know how to believe that, my dear, good husband," Violet said, gazing up into his face with fond, admiring eyes; "for I have never seen any evidence of it. If you have such a temper, you have certainly gained complete mastery of it. And that may well give us hope for Lulu." "I do not despair of her," he said; "though I was near doing so to-day--for a time--after hearing a full account of her passionate behavior--her savage assault, as it seemed to be, upon her baby sister." "Oh!" moaned Violet, bending over the little one with fast-falling tears,--for it was moaning as if in pain,--"my baby, my poor, precious baby! how gladly mamma would bear all your suffering for you, if she could! O Levis! what shall we do if she is taken from us?" "Dear wife, I hope we may not be called to endure that trial," he said; "but, in any case, we have the gracious promise, 'As thy days, so shall thy strength be.' And that blessed assurance, for our consolation, in regard to her, 'He shall gather the lambs with his arm, and carry them in his bosom.'" "'Tis a very sweet promise; but, oh! I don't know how to resign her, even to Him," she said, weeping bitterly. "Nor I; but we will try to leave it all with Him. We will rejoice if she is spared to us; and, if not, we will be glad to know that she is so safe, so happy with Him--gathered with His arm, carried in His bosom." "Yes, yes," she sobbed: "it would be only for ourselves we would need to grieve, not for her, sweet pet." Elsie, Violet's mother, came into the room at that moment. "My dear Vi," she said tenderly, "you are looking sadly worn and weary. I want you and the captain to take your rest to-night, while Arthur and I will care for baby." "Thank you, dearest mamma," Violet replied; "but rest and sleep are quite as necessary to you as to me; and, besides, I could not bear to leave her." "I took a nap on purpose to be able to sit up to-night," Elsie said; "also, I am less exhausted by mental distress than her mother is, dearly as I love her. Can you not trust her to me, with the doctor sharing my vigil?" "I could trust your nursing sooner than my own, mother," Violet answered; "it is not that; but I cannot tear myself away from my darling, while she is in so critical a state." "And I," said the captain, "while warmly thanking you and the doctor, cannot consent to leave either wife or baby to-night." So, finding they were not to be persuaded to rest, the others left them to watch over the little one through that night. The morning brought a slight change for the better, yet no certainty of recovery; but even that barely perceptible improvement, joined to the delightful prospect of always having her husband at home, cheered Violet greatly. They had talked much of that through the night, beguiling the long hours of their tedium with many a bright plan for the future, always hoping that "baby" would be a sharer in their realization. The captain hoped to buy or build in the near neighborhood of Ion, that Violet need not be separated from her mother,--a separation he was most desirous to avoid on his own account, also; for he entertained a very high regard and warm affection for his mother-in-law, averring that it would be scarcely possible for him to love her better were he her own son. He had resigned to Violet the pleasure of telling the joyful news to her mother and the whole family, except his children; reserving to himself the right to communicate the glad tidings to them when, and in what way, he should deem best. Lulu, he said, was to be kept in ignorance of it till the time of her imprisonment expired. At a very early hour in the morning, Elsie and the doctor came to the relief of the watchers. Arthur noted and announced the improvement, thus reviving hope in the anxious hearts of the parents; and before retiring for a few hours' rest and sleep, Violet whispered to them the news that had gladdened her heart in spite of its heavy load of grief and fear. They both rejoiced with her, and bade her hope for the best in regard to her babe. Pain, mental and physical, kept Lulu awake a good while after her father left her; but at length she fell into a deep sleep, which lasted far beyond her customary hour for rising, the house being very still, because of the baby's illness, and the blinds down in her room, so that there was neither light nor noise to rouse her. Her first thoughts on awaking were a little confused: then, as with a flash, all the events of yesterday came to her remembrance, bringing with them bitter upbraidings of conscience, and torturing anxieties and fears. Would the baby die? oh! perhaps it was already dead, and she a murderess! the murderess of her own little sister--her father's child! If that were so, how could she ever look him, or anybody else, in the face again? And what would be done to her? was there any danger that she would be put in prison? oh! that would be far worse than being sent to a boarding-school, even where the people were as strict and as disagreeable as possible! And she would be sorry, oh, so sorry! to lose the baby sister, or to have her a sufferer from what she had done, for life, or for years, even could she herself escape all evil consequences. All the time she was attending to the duties of the toilet, these thoughts and feelings were in her mind and heart; and her fingers trembled so that it was with difficulty she could manage buttons and hooks and eyes, or stick in a pin. She started at every sound, longing, yet dreading,--as she had done the previous day,--to see her father; for who could tell what news he might bring her from the nursery? Glancing at the little clock on the mantel, when at last she was quite dressed, and ready for her breakfast, she saw that it was more than an hour past the usual time for that meal; yet no one had been near her, and she was very hungry; but, even if her father had not forbidden her to leave the room, she would have preferred the pangs of hunger to showing her face in the dining-room. Presently, however, footsteps--not those of her father--approached her door. "Miss Lu," said a voice she recognized as that of her mamma's maid, "please open de doah: hyar's yo' breakfus." The request was promptly complied with; and Agnes entered, carrying a waiter laden with a bountiful supply of savory and toothsome viands. "Dar it am," she remarked, when she had set it on the table. "I s'pose mos' likely yo' kin eat ef de precious little darlin' is mos' killed by means ob yo' bein' in a passion an' kickin' ob her--de sweet honey!--down de steps." And turning swiftly about, her head in the air, the girl swept from the room, leaving Lulu standing in the middle of the floor, fairly struck dumb with indignation, astonishment, and dismay. "How dared Agnes--a mulatto servant-girl,--talk so to her! But was the baby really dying? Would papa never come to tell her the truth about it? She wouldn't believe any thing so dreadful till she heard it from him: very likely Agnes was only trying to torment her, and make her as miserable as possible." She had sunk, trembling, into a chair, feeling as if she should never want to eat again; but with that last thought, her hopes revived, hunger once more asserted its sway, and she ate her breakfast with a good deal of appetite and relish. But, when hunger was appeased, fears and anxieties renewed their assault: she grew half distracted with them, as hour after hour passed on, and no one came near her except another maid, to take away the breakfast-dishes and tidy the room. On her, Lulu turned her back, holding an open book in her hand, and pretending to be deeply absorbed in its contents, though not a word of the sense was she taking in; for, intense as was her desire to learn the baby's condition, she would not risk any more such stabs to her sensitiveness and pride as had been given by Agnes. This one came, did her work, and went away again in silence; but all the time she was in the room, Lulu felt that she was casting glances of disgust and disfavor at her. She could not breathe freely till the girl had left the room. She thought surely the dinner-hour would bring her father; but it did not: her wants were again supplied by a servant. CHAPTER XIV. "The dread of evil is the worst of ill." On leaving the breakfast-room, Violet hastened back to the nursery; but the captain, calling Max and Grace into her boudoir, said, as he took the little girl on his knee, and motioned Max to sit by his side,-- "I have some news for you, my children: can you guess what it is?" "Something good, I hope, papa," said Max: "you look as if it was." "I am very much pleased with my share of it," the captain said, smiling; "and I shall know presently, I presume, what you two think of yours. What would you like it to be, Gracie?" "That my papa was never, never going away any more," she answered promptly, lifting loving eyes to his face. "There couldn't be better news than that," remarked Max; "but," with a profound sigh, "of course it can't be that." "Ah! don't be quite so sure, young man," laughed his father. "Papa, you don't mean to say that that is it?" queried Max breathlessly. "I do: I have resigned from the navy, and hope soon to have a home ready for my wife and children, and to live in it with them as long as it shall please God to spare our lives." Tears of joy actually came into the boy's eyes; while Gracie threw her arms round their father's neck, and half smothered him with kisses. "O papa, papa!" she cried, "I'm so glad, I don't know what to do! I'm the happiest girl in the world!--or should be, if only the dear baby was well," she added, with springing tears. "Yes," he sighed: "we cannot feel other than sad, while she is suffering and in danger. But she is a trifle better this morning, and we will hope the improvement may continue till she is entirely restored." "She's such a darling!" said Max; "just the brightest, cutest baby that ever was seen! Mamma Vi has taught her to know your photograph; and, whenever she sees it, she says, 'Papa,' as plainly as I can. She calls me too, and Lu. Oh! I don't know how Lulu could"--He broke off, without finishing his sentence. "Lu didn't do it on purpose," sobbed Gracie, pulling out her handkerchief to wipe her eyes. "No," sighed the captain: "I am quite sure she had no intention of harming her little sister, yet she is responsible for it as the consequence of indulging in a fit of rage; she feels that: and I hope the distress of mind she is now suffering because of the dreadful deed she has done in her passion, will be such a lesson to her, that she will learn to rule her own spirit in future." "Oh, I do hope so!" said Grace. "Papa, does Lulu know your good news?" "No. I have not told her yet; and I intend to keep her in ignorance of it for some days, as part of her deserved punishment. I do not want her to have any thing to divert her mind from the consideration of the great sin and danger of such indulgence of temper." "You haven't quit loving her, papa? you won't?" Grace said, half entreatingly, half inquiringly. "No, daughter, oh, no!" he replied with emotion. "I don't know what would ever make me quit loving any one of my dear children." He drew her closer, and kissed her fondly as he spoke. "I am very glad of that, papa," said Max feelingly; "for though I do mean to be always a good son to you, if I ever should do any thing very, very bad, I'd not be afraid to confess it to you. I could stand punishment, you know; but I don't think I could bear to have you give up being fond of me." A warm pressure of the lad's hand was the captain's only reply at first; but presently he said, "I trust you will always be perfectly open with me, my dear boy. You don't think, do you, that you could have a better--more disinterested--earthly friend than your father?" "No, sir! oh, no, indeed!" "Then make me your confidant," his father said, with a smile and look that spoke volumes of fatherly pride and affection; "let me into all your secrets. Now that I am to be with you constantly, I shall take a deeper interest than ever in all that concerns you,--if that be possible,--in your studies, your sports, your thoughts and feelings. You may always be sure of my sympathy, and such help as I can give in every right and wise undertaking." "I'll do that, papa!" Max exclaimed with a sudden, glad, lighting-up of the face. "Why, it'll be as good as having the brother I've often wished for!" he added with a pleased laugh; "better, in some ways, anyhow; for you'll be so much wiser than any boy, and keep me out of scrapes with your good advice." "Papa," queried Grace, with a little bashful hesitation, "mayn't I have you for my friend too?" "Yes, indeed, my darling little girl!" he answered with a hug and kiss. "I should like to be quite as intimate with you as I hope to be with Max." "With Lulu too?" she asked. "Yes; with every one of my children." Max had averted his face to hide his amusement at his little sister's question in regard to her father's friendship for herself, for the timid, sensitive little girl could hardly bear to be laughed at; but now he turned to his father again with the query,-- "Papa, where are we going to live?" "I don't know yet, Max," the captain answered; "but I hope to be able to buy or build somewhere in this neighborhood, as I should be loath to take your mamma far away from her mother,--myself either, for that matter; and I presume you would all prefer to live near these kind friends?" "I am sure I should," said Max. "But, papa,"--he paused, coloring, and casting down his eyes. "Well, my boy, what is it? don't be afraid to talk freely to your intimate friend," his father said in a kindly tone, and laying a hand affectionately on the lad's shoulder. "Please don't think me impertinent, papa," Max said, coloring still more, "but I was just going to ask how you could live without your pay; as I have heard you say it was nearly all you had." "I am not at all offended at the inquiry," was the kindly reply. "The intimacy and confidences are not to be all on one side, my boy. "I am quite willing you should know that am able now to do without the pay, some land belonging to me in the Far West having so risen in value as to afford me sufficient means for the proper support of my family, and education of my children." "Oh, that is good!" cried Max, clapping his hands in delight. "And if it is used up by the time I'm grown and educated, I hope I'll be able to take care of you, and provide for you as you do now for me." "Thank you, my dear boy," the captain said with feeling; "the day may come when you will be the stay and staff of my old age; but, however that may be, you may be sure that nothing can add more to your father's happiness than seeing you growing up to honorable and Christian manhood." "Yes, sir: it's what I want to do." Then, a little anxiously, after a moment's thought, "Am I to be sent away to school, sir?" "I have not quite decided that question, and your wishes will have great weight with me in making the decision. I shall keep Lulu at home, and educate her myself,--act as her tutor, I mean,--and if my boy would like to become my pupil also"-- "O papa! indeed, indeed I should!" exclaimed Max joyfully, as his father paused, looking smilingly at him; "and I'll try hard to do you credit as my teacher as well as my father." "Then we will make the trial," said the captain. "If it should not prove a success, there will be time enough after that to try a school." "What about me, papa?" asked Grace wistfully, feeling as if she were being overlooked in the arrangements. "You, too, shall say lessons to papa," he answered with tender look and tone. "Shall you like that?" "Ever so much!" she exclaimed, lifting glad, shining eyes to his face. "Now you may go back to your play," he said, gently putting her off his knee. "I must go to your mamma and our poor, suffering baby." He went; but the children lingered a while where they were, talking over this wonderfully good news. "Now," said Max, "if Lu had only controlled her temper yesterday, what a happy family we'd be!" "Yes," sighed Grace; "how I do wish she had! Oh, I'm so sorry for her, that she doesn't know this about papa going to stay with us all the time! 'Sides, she's 'specting to be sent away somewhere; and how dreadfully she must feel! Papa's punishing her very hard, and very long; but of course he knows best, and he loves her." "Yes, I'm sure he does," assented Max: "so he won't give her any more punishment than he thinks she needs. It'll be a fine thing for her, and all the rest of us too, if this hard lesson teaches her never to get into a passion again." Capt. Raymond had intended going to Lulu early in the day; but anxiety about the babe, and sympathy with Violet, kept him with them till late in the afternoon. When at last he did go to his prisoner, he found her feverish with anxiety and fear for the consequences of her mad act of the day before. She had been longing for his coming, moving restlessly about the room, feeling that she could not endure the suspense another moment; had at length thrown herself into a chair beside the window, and, as was her wont in times of over-wrought feeling, buried her face on her folded arms, laid on the window-sill. She started up wildly at the sound of his step and the opening of the door. "Papa," she cried breathlessly, "O papa! what--what have you come to tell me? Is--is the baby"-- "She is living, but far from out of danger," he said, regarding her with a very grave, stern expression; but it softened as he marked the anguish in her face. He sat down, and drew her to his knee, putting his arm about her waist, and with the other hand clasping one of hers. He was startled to feel how hot and dry it was. "My child!" he exclaimed, "you are not well." She dropped her head on his shoulder, and burst into a passion of tears and sobs. "Papa, papa! what shall I do if baby dies? Oh! I would do or bear any thing in the world to make her well." "I don't doubt it, daughter," he said; "but a bitter lesson we all have to learn is, that we cannot undo the evil deeds we have done. Oh! let this dreadful occurrence be a warning to you to keep a tight rein upon your quick temper." "Oh! I do mean to, indeed I do," she sobbed; "but that won't cure the dear baby's hurt. Papa, all day long I have been asking God to forgive me. Do you think he will?" "I am sure that he has already done so, if you have asked with your heart, and for Jesus' sake. But we will ask him again for that, and to give you strength to fight against your evil nature as you never have fought, and to conquer." "And to make the baby well, papa," she added sobbingly, as he knelt with her. "Yes," he said. When they had risen from their knees, he bade her get her hat and coat, saying, "You need fresh air and exercise. I will take you for a walk." "I'd like to go, papa," she said; "but"-- "But what?" "I--I'm afraid of--of meeting some of the family; and--and I don't want to see any of them." "Perhaps we shall not meet them," he said; "and, if we do, you need not look toward them; and they will not speak to you. Put on your hat and coat at once: we have no time to lose." She obeyed; and presently they were walking down the avenue, not having met any one on their way out of the house. The captain moved on in silence, seemingly absorbed in sad thought, and hardly conscious that Lulu was by his side. She glanced wistfully up into his grave, stern face two or three times, then said humbly, pleadingly, "Papa, please may I put my hand in yours?" "Certainly," he said, looking down at her very kindly, as he took her hand, and held it in a warm, affectionate clasp. "Child, you have not lost your father's love. You are very dear to me, in spite of all your naughtiness." He slackened his pace, for he saw she was finding it difficult to keep up with him; and his attention was again attracted to the heat of her hand. "You are not well, perhaps not able to walk?" he said inquiringly, and in tenderly solicitous accents. "It is pleasant to be out in the air, papa," she answered; "but it tires me a good deal more than usual." "We will not go far, then," he said; "and, if your strength gives out before we get back to the house, I will carry you." They were in the road now, some distance beyond the avenue-gates; and at this moment a number of horsemen came in sight, approaching from the direction opposite to that they were taking. Perceiving them, Lulu uttered a sharp cry of terror, and shrank behind her father, though still clinging to his hand. "What is it, daughter?" he asked in surprise: "what do you fear?" "O papa, papa!" she sobbed, "are they coming to take me and put me in prison? Oh, don't let them have me!" "Don't be frightened," he said soothingly. "Don't you see it is only some men who have been out hunting, and are going home with their game?" "Oh! is that all?" she gasped, the color coming back to her face, which had grown deadly pale. "I thought it was the sheriff coming to put me in jail for hurting the baby. Will they do it, papa? Oh! you won't let them, will you?" she cried entreatingly. "I could not protect you from the law," he said, in a moved tone; "but I think there is no danger that it will interfere. You did not hurt your sister intentionally, and she is still living. You are very young too; and, doubtless, everybody will think your punishment should be left to me, your father." She was trembling like a leaf. He turned aside to a fallen tree, sat down on it, and took her in his arms. She dropped her head on his shoulder, panting like a hunted thing. "These two days have been too much for you," he said pityingly. "And that fear has tormented you all the time?" "Yes, papa: oh, I thought I might have to be hung if baby died, and--it was--so--dreadful--to think I'd killed her--even if they didn't do any thing to me for it," she sobbed. "Yes; very, very dreadful; perhaps more so to me--the father of you both--than to any one else," he groaned. "Papa, I'm heart-broken about it," she sobbed "Oh, if I only could undo it!" He was silent for a moment; then he said, "I know you are suffering very much from remorse; this is a bitter lesson to you; let it be a lasting one. I can relieve you of the fear of punishment from the law of the land; there is no danger of that now: but, if you do not lay this lesson to heart, there may come a time when that danger will be real; for there is no knowing what awful deed such an ungovernable temper as yours may lead you to commit. "But don't despair: you can conquer it by determination, constant watchfulness, and the help from on high which will be given in answer to earnest prayer." "Then it shall be conquered!" she cried vehemently. "I will fight it with all my might. And you will help me, papa, all you can, won't you, by watching me, and warning me when you see I'm beginning to get angry, and punishing me for the least little bit of a passion? But oh, I forget that you can't stay with me, or take me with you!" she cried with a fresh burst of sobs and tears. "Must you go back to your ship soon?" "Not very soon," he said; "and I gladly promise to help you all I can in every way. I can do it with my prayers, even when not close beside you. But, my child, the struggle must be your own; all I can do will be of no avail unless you fight the battle yourself with all your strength. "We will go home now," he added, rising, and taking her hand in his. But they had gone only a few steps when he stooped, and took her in his arms, saying. "You are not able to walk. I shall carry you." "But I am so heavy, papa," she objected. "No, darling: I can carry you very easily," he said. "There, put your arm round my neck, and lay your head on my shoulder." The pet name from his lips sent a thrill of joy to her heart; and it was very pleasant, very restful, to feel herself infolded in his strong arms. He carried her carefully, tenderly along, holding her close, as something precious that he began to fear might slip from his grasp. She had always been a strong, healthy child, and heretofore he had scarcely thought of sickness in connection with her; but now he was alarmed at her state. "Are you in pain, daughter?" he asked. "Only a headache, papa; I suppose because I've cried so much." "I think I must have the doctor see you." "Oh, no, no, papa! please don't," she sobbed. "I don't want to see him or anybody." "Then we will wait a little; perhaps you will be all right again by to-morrow." He did not set her down till they had almost reached the house; and he took her in his arms again at the foot of the stairway, and carried her to her room, where he sat down with her on his knee. "Papa, aren't you very tired, carrying such a big, heavy girl?" she asked, looking regretfully into his face. "No; very little," he answered, taking off her hat, and laying his cool hand on her forehead. "Your head is very hot. I'll take off your coat, and lay you on the bed; and I want you to stay there for the rest of the day; go to sleep if you can." "I will, papa," she answered submissively; then as he laid her down, and turned to leave her, "Oh, I wish you could stay with me!" she cried, clinging to him. "I cannot now, daughter," he said, smoothing her hair caressingly. "I must go back to your mamma and the baby. But I will come in again to bid you good-night, and see that you are as comfortable as I can make you. Can you eat some supper?" "I don't know, papa," she answered doubtfully. "Well, I will send you some; and you can eat it, or not, as you feel inclined." CHAPTER XV. "After the storm, a calm; after the rain, sunlight." As Capt. Raymond passed through the hall on which Lulu's room opened, a little girl, dressed in deep mourning, rose from the broad, low sill of the front window, where she had been sitting waiting for the last few minutes, and came forward to meet him. She was a rather delicate-looking, sweet-faced child, with large dark eyes, full of intelligence. "Capt. Raymond?" she said inquiringly, and with a timid look up into his face. "Yes," he said, holding out his hand to her with a fatherly smile: "and you, I suppose, are my Lulu's little friend, Evelyn Leland?" "Yes, sir: we--uncle Lester, aunt Elsie, little Ned, and I--have been away visiting at some distance, and did not hear of--of the baby's bad fall till we came home this afternoon. We are all so sorry, so very sorry! Aunt Elsie is with aunt Vi now; and I--oh! please, sir, may I go to Lulu?" "My dear little girl, I should like to say yes, for your sake,--and Lulu's too,--but for the present I think best not to allow her to see any one," he said in a kindly tone, and affectionately pressing the little hand she had put into his. "But," seeing the disappointment in her face, "I entirely approve of the intimacy, and hope it will be kept up; for I think it has been of benefit to Lulu." "Thank you, sir," she returned, coloring with pleasure. "But Lulu told me you had quite determined to send her away from here: I hope you will reconsider, and--let her stay," with a very coaxing look up into his face. He smiled. "Can you keep a secret?" he asked,--"one from Lulu only, and that for but a few days?" "Try me, sir," she answered brightly. "I will. I have left the navy, and expect to settle down in this neighborhood. In that case, you and Lulu will not be separated; for my strongest reason for the change was, that I might have her constantly with me, and train her up as I think she should be trained; as perhaps no one but her father can train her." Evelyn's face had grown very bright. "Oh, how delighted, how happy Lu will be when she hears it!" she exclaimed; "for, do you know, sir, she thinks there is nobody in the world to compare to her father?" Those words brought a glad look into his face for the moment. "Yes," he said, "she is a warm-hearted, affectionate child; a dear child, in spite of her quick temper." A door had opened and closed: a step was coming down the hall, and a cheerful voice in his rear said, "Captain, I have good news for you: there has been a great, a really wonderful change for the better in the last hour; the child will live, and I hope, I believe, entirely recover from the injuries caused by her fall." Before the doctor's sentence was finished, the captain had turned, and caught his hand in a vice-like grasp: his eyes filled, his breast heaved with emotions too big for utterance; he shook the hand warmly, dropped it, and, without a word, hurried into the nursery. He found nearly the whole family gathered there, every face full of a great gladness. The doctor, however, following him in, speedily cleared the room of all but two or three: only the two Elsies, besides himself and the parents, were left. Violet looked up at her husband as he entered, with a face so bright and joyous that it recalled the days of their honeymoon. "Oh, how happy I am! how good God has been to us!" she whispered, as he bent down to kiss her: "our darling is spared to us! See how sweetly she is sleeping!" "Yes," he returned, in the same low tone, his features working with emotion: "and what double reason for joy and gratitude have I--the father of both the injurer and the injured!" "Forgive me that I have felt a little hard to Lulu. I can and do forgive her now," she said, her sweet eyes looking penitently into his. "Darling," he returned with emotion, "I have nothing to forgive, but shall be very glad if you can find any love in your heart, after this, for my wayward child, little as she merits it." Then, without waiting for a reply, he turned to Mrs. Leland with a brotherly greeting, not having seen her before since his arrival at Ion. "Vi has told me the glad tidings you brought her yesterday," she said, as he held her hand in his; "and I can't tell you how delighted we all are to know that you have come to stay among us." "And now I can rejoice in that to the full, my dear, dear husband," Violet said, dropping her head on his shoulder as he sat down by her side, and put his arm about her. For a little while they all sat silently watching the sleeping babe; then Arthur glanced at the clock, and, with a low-toned promise to be back in an hour, rose, and left the room. "Excuse me for a little, dear," the captain said to Violet, and softly followed Arthur out to the hall. "Can you spare me a moment?" he asked. "Yes, full five of them, if necessary," was the jovial reply. Arthur's heart was so light in consequence of the improvement in his young patient, that a jest came readily to his lips. "Thank you," returned the captain warmly, then went on to describe Lulu's condition, and ask what should be done for her. "Relieve her mind as speedily as possible with the good news of the certainty of the baby's recovery, and, if you choose, the other glad tidings you brought us yesterday," Arthur answered. "The mental strain of the past two days has evidently been too much for her: she must have suffered greatly from grief, remorse, and terror. Relief from those will be the best medicine she could have, and probably work a speedy cure. Good-evening." He hurried away, and the captain went at once to Lulu. She was on the bed where he had left her, but, at the opening of the door, started up, and turned to him with a look of wild affright. "Papa!" she cried breathlessly, "is--is the baby?--Oh, no! for how glad your face is!" "Yes, baby is very much better; in fact, quite out of danger, the doctor thinks. And you? have you not slept?" he asked, bending over her in tender solicitude; for she had fallen back on her pillow, and was sobbing as if her heart would break, weeping for joy as she had before wept with sorrow, remorse, and penitence. He lifted her from the bed, and sat down with her in his arms. "Don't cry so, daughter, dear," he said soothingly, softly caressing her hair and cheek: "it will make your head ache still more." "I can't help it, papa: I'm so glad, so very, very glad!" she sobbed; "so glad the dear baby will get well, and that I--I'm not a murderess. Papa, won't you thank God for me?" "Yes," he said with emotion,--"for you and myself and all of us." When they had risen from their knees, "Now I hope you can sleep a while, and afterward eat some supper," he said, lifting her, and gently laying her on the bed again. "O papa! I wish you could stay with me a little longer," she cried, clinging to his hand. "I cannot stay now, daughter," he said; "but I will come in again to bid you good-night." He leaned over her, and kissed her several times. She threw her arm round his neck, and drew him down closer. "Dear, dear papa!" she sobbed: "you are the best father in the world! and oh, I wish I was a better girl! Do you think I--I'm a curse to you now?" "I think--I believe you are going to be a very great blessing to me, my own darling," he answered in tones tremulous with emotion. "I fear I was hard and cruel in what I said when I came to you that first time last night." "No, papa, I deserved it every bit; but it 'most broke my heart, because I love you so. Oh, I do want to be a blessing to you, and I mean to try with all my might!" "My dear little girl, my own little daughter, that is all I can ask," he said, repeating his caresses. Then he covered her up with tender care, and left her, weary and exhausted with the mental suffering of the last two days, but with a heart singing for joy over his restored affection and the assurance of the baby's final recovery. She expected to stay awake till he came again, but in less than five minutes was fast asleep. The captain found Max and Gracie hovering near as he passed out into the hall. "Papa," they said, coming hastily forward, "may we go in to see Lulu now?" Max adding, "I was too angry with her at first to want to see her, but I've got over that now." Grace: "And mayn't she know now that we're going to keep you always at home?" taking his hand in both of hers, and looking up coaxingly into his face. "No, my dears, not to-night," he said: "she has cried herself sick--has a bad headache, and I want her to try to sleep it off." "Poor Lu! she must have been feeling awfully all this time," Max said. "I wish I hadn't been so very angry with her." "You look very happy--you two," their father said, smiling down at them. "So do you, sir," returned Max; "and I'm so glad, for you've been looking heart-broken ever since you came home." "Pretty much as I have felt," he sighed, patting Gracie's cheek as he spoke. "We are just as happy as we can be, papa," she said; "only I"-- "Well?" he said inquiringly as she paused, leaving her sentence unfinished. "I'm just hungry to sit on your knee a little while; but," ruefully, "I s'pose you haven't time." "Come into the nursery with me, and you shall sit there as long as you like, and are willing to keep perfectly quiet, so as not to disturb baby." "Oh! thank you, papa," she returned joyously, slipping her hand into his. "I'll be as quiet as a mouse." "I hope my turn will come to-morrow," remarked Max. "I've a hundred questions I want to ask." "As many as you like, my boy, when I have time to listen; though I don't promise to answer them all to your entire satisfaction," his father replied, as he passed on into the nursery, taking Grace with him. Max went down-stairs, where he found Evelyn Leland sitting alone in one of the parlors, waiting till her aunt Elsie should be ready to go back to Fairview. "Max," she said, as he came in, and took a seat at her side, "you have just the nicest kind of a father!" "Yes, that's so!" he returned heartily: "there couldn't be a better one." "I wish he would let me see Lu," Evelyn went on: "I was in hopes he would after the doctor had told him the baby was sure to get well." "I think he would, but that Lu has cried herself sick, and he wants her to sleep off her headache. He refused to let Gracie and me in for that reason." "Poor thing!" Evelyn exclaimed, tears springing to her eyes. "I should think it must have been almost enough to set her crazy. But how happy she will be when she hears that your father isn't going away again, and means to keep her at home with him." "Yes, indeed; she'll go wild with joy; it's what all three of us have wanted to have happen more than any thing else we could think of. "I've often envied boys that could live at home with their fathers; though," he added with a happy laugh, "I've said to myself many a time, that mine was enough nicer than theirs to make up for having to do without him so much of the time; at least, I'd never have been willing to swap fathers with one of 'em. No, indeed!" "Of course not," said Evelyn. "And I'm so delighted that Lu and I are not to be separated! I can hardly wait to talk with her about it, and the good times we'll have together." A nap and a nice supper had refreshed Lulu a good deal; but she felt weak and languid, and was lying on the bed again when her father returned to her room. She looked up at him wistfully as he came and stood beside her, then her eyes filled with tears. "What is it?" he asked, lifting her from the bed, seating himself, and drawing her into his arms: "what is your petition? for I read in your eyes that you have one to make." "Papa, you won't send me away--very--soon, will you?" she pleaded in tremulous tones, her arm round his neck, her face hidden on his shoulder. "Not till I go myself; then I shall take you with me." "To a boarding-school?" she faltered. "No: I'm going to put you in a private family." Her face was still hidden, and she did not see the smile in his eyes. "What kind of people are they, papa?" she asked with a deep-drawn sigh. "Very nice people, I think: the wife and mother is a very lovely woman, and the four children--a boy and three girls--are, I presume, neither better nor worse than my own four. The gentleman, who will teach you himself, along with the others, and have the particular care and oversight of you, is perhaps rather stern and severe with any one who ventures to disobey his orders; but I am quite certain, that, if you are good and obedient, he will be very kind and indulgent, possibly a trifle more indulgent than he ought to be." Lulu began to cry again. "I don't like men-teachers!" she sobbed. "I don't like a man to have any thing to do with me. Please, please don't send me there, papa!" "You want me to relent, and let you stay on here if they will have you?" "No, no, papa! I don't want to stay here! I don't want to see anybody here again, except Max and Gracie; because I'm so ashamed of--of what I've done. I couldn't look any of them in the face, for I know they must despise me." "I am sure you are mistaken in that, my child," he said gravely. "But what is it you do desire?" "To be with you, papa. Oh, if I could only go with you!" "And leave Max and Gracie?" "I'll have to leave them, anyhow, if you take me away from here; and, though I love them very much, I love you a great deal better." "I'm afraid you would have a doleful time on shipboard, with no young companions, nobody to see or speak to but your father and the other officers." "I wouldn't care for that, or any thing, if I could only be with you. Papa, you don't _know_ how I love you!" "Then, I'll take you with me when I leave here; and you need never live away from me any more, unless you choose." "Papa," she cried, lifting her head to look up into his face, with glad, astonished eyes, "do you really mean it? _May_ I go with you?" He held her close, with a joyous laugh. "Why, I understood you to say, a moment since, that you didn't want to be in the care of a man,--_any_ man." "But you know I didn't mean you, papa." "But I am the gentleman I spoke of a little while ago, as the one in whose care I intended to put you." "Papa," she said, with a bewildered look, "I don't understand." Then he told her; and she was, as Max had foreseen, almost wild with delight. "Oh!" she cried, "how nice, _nice_ it will be to have a home of our very own, and our father with us all the time! Papa, I think I sha'n't sleep a wink to-night, I'm so glad." "I trust it will not have that effect," he said, "I hesitated a little about telling you to-night, lest it might interfere with your rest; but you seemed so unhappy about your future prospects, that I felt I must relieve you of the fear of being sent away among strangers." "You are so very good and kind to me, papa," she returned gratefully. "Where is our dear home to be?" "I don't know, yet," he said. "I have not had time to look about in search of house or land; but I hope to be able to buy or build a house somewhere in this region, as near Ion as a pleasant location can be found." "I hope you'll find a house ready built, papa," she said. "I shouldn't know how to wait for one to be built." "Not if, by waiting, we should, in the end, have a much nicer, pleasanter one?" She considered a moment. "Couldn't we rent a house to live in while we get our own built?" "I think that plan might answer quite well," he said with a smile. "I had no idea you were such a business woman. Probably that is what we will do, for I am as anxious to get to housekeeping as even you can be." "But, papa," she exclaimed, with a look as if struck by a sudden and not very pleasant thought, "may I--will you be vexed if I ask you something?" "Suppose you find out by asking?" "I--I hope you won't think it's impertinence, papa, I don't mean it for that," she said with hesitation, hanging her head, and blushing; "but--but--I hope it isn't mamma Vi's money we're to live on?" He put his hand under her chin, and lifted her face, so that he could look down into her eyes; and she drew a long breath of relief as she perceived that he was smiling at her. "No," he said. "You come honestly by your pride of independence. I would no more live on mamma Vi's money than you would." "Oh, I'm so glad! But--then, how can you do without your pay, papa?" "Because my heavenly Father has prospered me, and given me money enough of my own (or, rather, lent it to me; for all we have belongs to him, and is only lent to us for a time) to provide all that is necessary for my family, and educate my children. "Now we have had a long talk, which has, I trust, made my dear little girl much happier; and it is time for you to go to your bed for the night." "I don't like to have you leave me," she said, clinging about his neck; "but you were very kind to stay so long. Won't you come soon in the morning?" "You are not a prisoner any longer," he said, caressing her: "you are free to leave this room, and go where you choose about the house and grounds to-morrow." "But I don't want to. O papa! I can't face them! Mayn't I stay in my room till you are ready to take me to our own home?" "You will have to face them sometime," he said; "but we will see what can be done about it. Would you like to see Max and Gracie to-night?" "Gracie, ever so much; but Max--I--I don't know how he feels toward me, papa." "Very kindly. He has been asking permission to come in to see you; and Gracie has pleaded quite hard for it, and to have you forgiven, and told the good news." "Gracie always is so dear and kind," she said tremulously; "and Maxie isn't often cross with me. Yes, papa, I should like to see them both." "Your friend Evelyn was here this afternoon, asking permission to come in to see you, but is gone now. You may see her to-morrow, if you want to. Ah! I hear your brother and sister in the hall." He opened the door, and called to them. They came bounding in, so full of delight over the pleasant prospect opening before them, as hardly to remember that Lulu had been in such dreadful disgrace. "O Lu! has papa told you the good news?" they cried. "Yes." "And aren't you glad?" "Yes; glad as glad can be. But, oh, I wish the home was ready to go into to-night!" Her father laughed. "I think you were born in a hurry, Lulu," he said. "You are never willing to wait a minute for any thing. "Well, I suppose you children would prefer to be left to yourselves for a while; so I will leave you. You may talk fifteen minutes together, but no longer; as it is your bedtime now, Gracie's at least." "O papa! don't go!" they all exclaimed in a breath. "Please stay with us: we'd rather have you, a great deal rather!" He could not resist their entreaties, so sat down, and drew his two little girls into his arms, while Max stationed himself close at his side. "My dear children," he said, "you can hardly be happier in the prospect before us than your father is." "Is mamma Vi glad?" asked Lulu. "Yes; quite as much rejoiced, I think, as any of the rest of us." "But doesn't she want me sent away to school or somewhere?" with a wistful, anxious gaze into his face. "Is she willing to have me in the new home, papa?" "Yes, daughter, more than willing: she wants you to be under your father's constant care and watchfulness, hoping that so he may succeed in teaching you to control your temper." "She's very good and forgiving," was Lulu's comment in a low and not unmoved tone. "Papa, when will you begin to look for the new home?" asked Grace, affectionately stroking his cheek and whiskers with her small white hand. "I have been looking at advertisements," he said; "and, now that baby is out of danger, I shall begin the search in earnest." "Can we afford a big house, and handsome furniture, papa?" queried Lulu. "And to keep carriage and riding horses?" asked Max. "I hope my children have not been so thoroughly spoiled by living in the midst of wealth and luxury, that they could not content themselves with a moderately large house, and plain furniture?" he said gravely. "I'd rather live that way with you, than have all the fine things, and you not with us, dear papa," Lulu said, putting her arm round his neck, and laying her cheek to his. "I too." "And I," said Max and Grace. "And I," he responded, smiling affectionately upon them, "would prefer such a home with my children about me, to earth's grandest palace without them. Millions of money could not buy one of my treasures!" "Not me, papa?" whispered Lulu tremulously, with her lips close to his ear. "No, dear child, not even you," he answered, pressing her closer to his side. "You are no less dear than the others." "I deserve to be," she said with tears in her voice. "It would be just and right, papa, if you did not love me half so well as any of your other children." She spoke aloud this time, as her father had. "We all have our faults, Lu," remarked Max, "but papa loves us in spite of them." "'God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us,'" quoted the captain. "If God so loved me, while yet his enemy, a rebel against his rightful authority, I may well love my own children in spite of all their faults, even were those faults more and greater by far than they are." "Then, papa, I think we should love you well enough to try very hard to get rid of them," returned Max. "And the wonderful love of God for us should constrain us to hate and forsake all sin," said his father. "The Bible bids us to 'be followers of God as dear children.' And oh, how we should hate sin when we remember that it crucified our Lord!" There was a momentary silence: then the children began talking joyfully again of the new home in prospect for them, and their hopes and wishes in regard to it. Their father entered heartily into their pleasure, and encouraged them to express themselves freely, until the clock, striking nine, reminded him that more than the allotted time for the interview had passed. Then he bade them say good-night, and go to their beds, promising that they should have other opportunities for saying all they wished on the subject. CHAPTER XVI. "'Tis easier for the generous to forgive Than for offence to ask it." In passing through the hall on his way from Lulu's room to the nursery, Capt. Raymond met "grandma Elsie." She stopped him, and asked, in a tone of kindly concern, if Lulu was ill, adding, that something she had accidentally overheard him saying to the doctor had made her fear the child was not well. "Thank you, mother," he said: "you are very kind to take any interest in Lulu after what has occurred. No, she is not quite well: the mental distress of the last two days has been very great, and has exhausted her physically. It could not, of course, be otherwise, unless she were quite heartless. She is full of remorse for her passion and its consequences, and my only consolation is the hope that this terrible lesson may prove a lasting one to her." "I hope so, indeed," Elsie said, with emotion. "Yes, she must have suffered greatly; for she is a warm-hearted, affectionate child, and would not, I am sure, have intentionally done her baby sister an injury." "No, it was not intentional; yet, as the result of allowing herself to get into a passion, she is responsible for it, as she feels and acknowledges. "And so deeply ashamed is she, that she knows not how to face the family, or any one of them, and therefore entreats me to allow her to seclude herself in her own room till I can take her to the home I hope to make for my wife and children ere long." "Poor child!" sighed Elsie. "Tell her, Levis, that she need not shrink from us as if we were not sinners, as well as herself. Shall I go in to-morrow morning, and have a talk with her before breakfast?" "It will be a great kindness," he said, flushing with pleasure, "and make it much easier for her to show herself afterwards at the table. But I ought to ask if you are willing to see her there in her accustomed seat?" "I shall be glad to do so," Elsie answered, with earnest kindliness of look and tone. "She was not banished by any edict of mine or papa's." "No: I forbade her to leave her room while the baby was in a critical condition. Yet I think she had no disposition to leave it,--shame and remorse causing a desire to hide herself from everybody." "It strikes me as a hopeful sign," Elsie said; "and I do not despair of one day seeing Lulu a noble woman, the joy and pride of her father's heart." She held out her hand as she spoke. The captain grasped it warmly. "Thank you, mother, for those kind and hopeful words," he said with emotion. "For the last year or two, she has been alternately my joy and my despair; and I am resolved to leave no effort untried to rescue her from the dominion of her fierce temper. "The task would doubtless have been far easier could I have undertaken it years ago, in her early infancy. But I trust it is not yet too late to accomplish it, with the help and the wisdom I may have in answer to prayer. "No, I am sure it is by no means a hopeless undertaking, looking where you do for needed strength and wisdom; and I rejoice almost as much for Lulu's sake as for Vi's, that you have now come among us to stay. I will try to see her in the morning, and do what I can to make it easy for her to join the family circle again. "And now good-night. I must not keep you longer from the wife who grudges every moment that you are absent from her side," she concluded, with a smile as sweet and beautiful as that of her girlhood's days. While the captain and his mother-in-law held this little conversation in the upper hall, Zoe and Rosie were promenading the veranda, arm in arm. They had been talking of Violet and her baby, rejoicing together over its improved condition. "How dreadful the last two days have been to poor Vi!" exclaimed Rosie, "even in spite of the home-coming of her husband, which has always before this made her so happy. In fact, it has been a dreadful time to all of us; and nobody to blame except that bad-tempered Lulu. "At least, so _I_ think," she added, conscience giving her a twinge; "though mamma says I ought to have let her have my pony, and taken my own ride later in the day, if I wanted one." "It would have been more polite and unselfish, wouldn't it?" queried Zoe, in a teasing tone. "I dare say it is what mamma herself would have done under the same circumstances." "I have no doubt of that," returned Rosie; "but mamma and I are two very different people. I can never hope to be as good and unselfish as she is, and always has been so far as I can learn." "Ah! but there's nothing like trying," laughed Zoe. "Suppose you tell Lulu that, advising her to undertake the task of controlling her temper." "She was quite a good while without an outbreak," said Zoe; "and really, Rosie, that dog of yours is extremely trying at times." "It's quite trying to me, that I've had to send him away, and can't have him about any more till Lulu's gone. I'll be sorry to have Vi leave Ion, but rejoiced to be rid of Lulu. I wonder if the captain still intends to send her away? I sincerely hope so, for Vi's sake. Poor little Elsie may be killed outright the next time Lulu has an opportunity to vent her spite upon her." "O Rosie! how can you talk so?" exclaimed Zoe. "haven't you heard that Lulu says she thought it was your dog she was kicking at? and that she has been really sick with distress about the baby? As to sending her away to be trained and taught by strangers--her father has no idea of doing it: in fact,--so Vi told Ned,--the conviction that Lulu needed his constant oversight and control had a great deal to do in leading him to resign from the service and come home to live." "Then, he's a very good father,--a great deal better one than she deserves. But I'm sorry for Vi and her baby." "You needn't be: surely the captain should be able to protect them from Lulu," laughed Zoe. Rosie laughed too, remarked that it must be getting late; and they went into the house. * * * * * "I do wish papa would come for me. I can't bear to go down alone to breakfast," Lulu was saying to herself the next morning, when a light step in the hall without caught her ear: then there was a tap at the door; and, opening it, she found the lady of the house standing on the threshold. "Good-morning, my child," she said in pleasant, cheery tones, and smiling sweetly as she spoke; then, bending clown, she gave the little girl a kiss. "Good-morning, grandma Elsie," murmured Lulu, blushing deeply, and casting down her eyes: "you are very kind to come to see me, and to kiss me too, when I have been so bad. Please take a chair," she added, drawing one forward. "Thank you, dear; but I would rather sit on the sofa yonder, with you by my side," Elsie said, taking Lulu's hand, and leading her to it, then, when they had seated themselves, putting the other arm about the child's waist, and drawing her close to her side. "I feel that I have been neglecting you," she went on; "but my thoughts have been much taken up with other things, and"-- "O grandma Elsie!" cried Lulu, bursting into tears. "I didn't deserve that you should show me the least kindness, or think of me at all except as a very bad, disagreeable girl. I should think you'd want to turn me out of your house, and say I should never come into it again." "No, dear child, I have no such feeling toward you: if I had, should I not be very much like that wicked servant to whom his lord had forgiven a debt of ten thousand talents, yet who refused to have compassion on his fellow-servant who owed him a hundred pence? I should, indeed; for my sins against God have been far greater, and more heinous, than yours against me or mine." "But you were always such a good child when you were a little girl, and I am such a bad one." "No, my dear; that is quite a mistake; I was not always good as a child, and I am very far from being perfect as a woman." "You seem so to me, grandma Elsie: I never know of your doing and saying any thing the least bit wrong." "But you, my child, see only the outward appearance, while God looks at the heart; and he knows that, though I am truly his servant, trying earnestly to do his will, I fall lamentably short of it." "Grandma Elsie, I didn't know it was the baby: I didn't mean to hurt her." "No, my dear, I know you didn't." "But papa said he must punish me all the same, because it was being in a passion that made me do it. Grandma Elsie, if you had such a dreadful temper as mine, wouldn't you be discouraged about ever conquering it?" "No, my child, not while I could find such words as these in the Bible: 'O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself: but in Me is thine help.' 'Thou shalt call his name Jesus; for he shall save his people from their sins.' 'He is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him.' 'God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.'" "'His people,'" repeated Lulu; then with a sigh, "But I am not one of them, grandma Elsie; so those promises are not for me." "He invites you to become one of his people, and then they will be for you. "'Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden,' Jesus says, 'and I will give you rest.' "You feel yourself heavy laden with that unconquerable temper, do you not?" "Yes, ma'am." "Then, that invitation is for you; and it will not be unconquerable with the Lord to help you. "'The God of Israel is he that giveth strength and power unto his people.' 'And they that stumbled are girded with strength.' You cannot doubt that you are included in the invitation, for it is, 'Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.' And the time to come is now: 'Now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.'" The breakfast-bell rang at that moment; and grandma Elsie, rising, took Lulu's hand, saying, "Come, my dear, you need not shrink from joining us at the table: no one will be disposed to treat you unkindly." As she spoke, the door opened, and Capt. Raymond and Violet came in. They exchanged morning greetings with their mother; while Lulu, with eyes cast down, and cheeks aflame, half shrank behind her, ashamed and afraid to meet Violet's gaze. But Violet bent down and kissed her affectionately, saying in a kindly tone, "I hope you are feeling better than you did yesterday?" "O mamma Vi!" Lulu cried, throwing her arm round her young step-mother's neck, and bursting into tears, "is baby still getting better? and will you forgive me? I am, oh, so sorry!" "Yes, dear, baby is improving fast; and it is all forgiven, so far as I am concerned," was the gentle reply. Then the captain kissed his little girl good-morning, and they all went down to the breakfast-room together. The worst was over to Lulu in having seen Violet, yet it was quite an ordeal to her to face the rest of the large family; but each one spoke pleasantly to her. Rosie alone bestowed so much an unkind look upon her, and that was wasted; for Lulu, expecting it from that quarter more than any other, constantly averted her gaze from Rosie, keeping her eyes down, or turned in another direction. Dr. Conly had joined them as they sat down, and presently he addressed the captain:-- "I hear, Raymond, that you would like to buy in this neighborhood." "Yes, if I can find a suitable place,--one that will satisfy my wife as well as myself," the captain answered with a smiling glance at Violet. "Well, Vi, how would Woodburn answer, so far as you are concerned?" queried Arthur. "Woodburn! is it for sale?" she cried delightedly. "O Levis!" turning to her husband, "it is a lovely old place! A visit there was always a great treat to me as a child." "And it is really for sale?" exclaimed several voices in chorus, all eyes turning inquiringly upon Dr. Conly. "Yes, so Miss Elliott told me yesterday," replied Arthur. "She was slightly indisposed, and sent for me, and, while telling of her ailments, remarked that she was very lonely since her sister Margaret had married and gone, leaving her sole occupant--not taking servants into account--of that large house, with its extensive grounds. So she had at last decided, she said, to comply with her sister's urgent request to sell the place, and take up her abode with them. "She had thought of advertising, and asked my advice about it. Of course, I thought at once of you and Vi, captain, told her I knew of a gentleman who might like to become a purchaser, and that I would promise her a call from him to-day to look at the place. Will you redeem my promise?" "Gladly," responded the captain, "especially as Vi expresses so strong a liking for the place. Will you go with me, my dear?" "I hardly like to leave my baby yet," she answered dubiously. "But if you should feel entirely satisfied with the house, the grounds, and the price asked for them, you could not please me better than by making the purchase." "There! if Miss Elliott only knew it, she might consider the estate as good as sold," remarked Zoe. "If she is willing to take a reasonable price, I presume she might," said Arthur. "Captain, I will go there directly from here: will you drive over with me, and take a look at the place?" "Yes, thank you; and have a talk with the lady, if you will give me an introduction." Max and Lulu, sitting side by side at the table, exchanged glances,--Lulu's full of delight, Max's only interested. He shook his head in response to her's. "What do you mean? wouldn't you like it?" she asked in an undertone. "Yes, indeed! but I'm pretty sure papa couldn't afford such a place as that: it must be worth a good many thousands." Lulu's look lost much of its brightness; still, she did not quite give up hope, as the conversation went on among their elders, Woodburn and the Elliotts continuing to be the theme. "Will it be near enough to Ion?" Capt. Raymond asked, addressing Violet more particularly. "What is the distance?" "Something over a mile, they call it," said Mr. Dinsmore. "That is as near as we can expect to be, I suppose," said Violet. "And with carriages and horses, bicycles, tricycles, and telephones, we may feel ourselves very near neighbors indeed," remarked Edward. "When the weather is too inclement for mamma or Vi to venture out, they can talk together by the hour through the telephone, if they wish." "And it won't often be too inclement to go back and forth," said Zoe; "almost always good enough for a close carriage, if for nothing else." "We are talking as if the place were already secured," remarked Violet, with a smiling glance at her husband. "I think you may feel pretty sure of it if you want it, love; unless Miss Elliott should change her mind about selling," he responded, in a tone too low to reach any ear but hers. She gave him a bright, glad look, that quite settled the matter so far as he was concerned; he would, if necessary, give even an exorbitant price for the place, to please her. "Have you never seen Woodburn, captain?" asked Mrs. Dinsmore. "I have some recollection of driving past it," he replied meditatively; "but--is not the house nearly concealed from view from the road, by a thick growth of trees and shrubbery?" "Yes: you will thin them out a little, I hope, for the mansion is well worth looking at; it is a very aristocratic-looking dwelling,--large, substantial, and handsome architecturally." "Papa, are you going to buy it?" asked Grace. "It is too soon to answer that question, daughter," he said pleasantly; and Max and Lulu again exchanged glances, which said this time, "Maybe he will, after all." Both ardently wished their father would propose taking them along; he did not: but when Dr. Conly said, with a kindly glance at Grace, "There will be room in my carriage for a little friend of mine, if papa is willing to let her go with us," he at once said,-- "Certainly, Gracie may go, if she will be ready in season, and not keep the doctor waiting." "Indeed I will, papa," she cried delightedly, and ran away to don hat and coat; for the meal was concluded, and everybody leaving the table. Lulu followed her father, till, in the hall, she found an opportunity to speak to him without being overheard. "Papa," she asked, "what am I to do with myself to-day?" "Stay in your room, and learn your lessons, beginning just where you left off the other day. You will recite to me after I come back; then we will consider what you shall do for the rest of the day." "Yes, sir: may I see Evelyn when she comes?" "If she chooses to go to you in your room." "Must I stay in my room all the time?" she asked dejectedly. "While I am away. I will take you out after I return." Then, noticing her downcast look, "You shall have more liberty when we get into our own home," he said kindly. At that she looked up with a bright, glad smile. "Papa, it will be _so nice_!" Max had drawn near. "Papa," he said, "won't you let Lu take a walk with me? Mayn't we run over to Fairview, and bring Evelyn back with us? I know she'd be glad to have company coming over to school." "Yes, you may go, both of you, if you like. But, Lulu, when you get home, go at once to your room: don't stop in the grounds or on the veranda." "I won't, papa," she said: "I'll go straight to my room, and, oh, thank you for letting me go!" CHAPTER XVII. "Home, sweet home!" "How large is the estate, doctor?" asked Capt. Raymond, as they were on their way to Woodburn. "I cannot say exactly," replied Arthur. "There is a bit of woodland comprising several acres; and lawn, gardens, and shrubbery cover several more. I believe that is all." "About as much as I care for," returned the captain. "The estate was formerly very large," Arthur went on,--"some thousands of acres,--and the family was a very wealthy one; but, like many others, they lost heavily by the war, and were compelled to part with one portion of the estate after another, till little more than the homestead was left; and now it seems that it, too, must go." "Are they so reduced?" the captain asked in a tone of deep sympathy. "I think Miss Elliott does not feel compelled to part with it, and would still live on there, if it were not for the loneliness of the situation, and a natural desire to be with her sister, the only remaining member of their once large family, besides herself." "Yes, yes: I see. I understand, and shall feel much more comfortable in buying it, than if I knew that poverty compelled her to part with it against her will." "That shows your kindness of heart," Arthur said, turning toward his friend with an appreciative smile. The next moment they had entered the Woodburn grounds, and Capt. Raymond and Grace were glancing from side to side in a very interested manner. "The place is a good deal run down," remarked Arthur. "They have not had the means to keep it up, I suppose; but if it comes into your hands, captain, you can soon set matters right in regard to that; and I, for one, shall greatly enjoy seeing the improvement." "And I making it," was the cheery rejoinder; "more, I think, than taking possession of a place that was too perfect to be improved." "Papa, I'd just love to have this for our home!" cried Gracie, flushing with pleasure as she glanced here and there, and then up into his face with an eager, questioning look, "Won't you buy it, papa?" coaxingly. "It is still too soon for that question, my child," he said, smiling down at her. "But I hope to be able to answer it before very long." They had reached the house, and were presently ushered into the presence of its owner. She was desirous to sell, the captain to buy,--willing also to give not only a fair, but a liberal, price; so it took but a short time for them to come to an agreement. He bought the land, house, furniture, every thing just as it stood; was promised possession in two weeks, and accorded the privilege of at once beginning any repairs or alterations he might deem desirable. Before making the agreement, he had inspected the whole house. He found it large, conveniently arranged, and in very tolerable repair. The furniture had evidently been very handsome in its day, and would do quite well, he thought, to begin with: much of it might, with re-upholstering and varnishing, please Violet as well as any that could be bought elsewhere. He was eager to bring her to look at it, the house and the grounds. These last delighted both himself and Grace, although lawn and gardens were far from being as trim and neat as those of Ion and Fairview: there was an air of neglect about the whole place, but that could soon be remedied. The bit of woodland was beautiful; and through it, and across lawn and gardens, ran a little stream of clear, sparkling water,--a pretty feature in the landscape, without being deep enough to be dangerous to the little ones. Grace went everywhere with her father, up-stairs and down, indoors and out, quietly looking and listening, but seldom speaking, unless addressed. Once or twice she said, in a low aside, "Papa, I'd like to live here, if you can 'ford to buy it. "Papa, this is such a pretty room, and the view from that window is so nice!" He would reply only by a kind smile, or a word or two of assent. She did not understand all the talk in the library after they had finished their round, and when they left was still in some doubt as to her father's intentions. "Papa," she asked eagerly, as soon as they were fairly on their homeward way, "have you bought it?" "We have come to an agreement," he answered. "Then, is it ours?" "It will be, as soon as I have got the deed, and handed over the money." "Oh, I'm so glad!" she cried, clapping her hands with delight. "And we're to be 'lowed to go there to stay in two weeks, aren't we? I thought that was what Miss Elliott said." "Yes: can you get all your possessions packed up by that time?" "Yes, indeed, papa: one day would be enough time for that." "And if you should happen to forget one of the dollies, you could go back for her," remarked the doctor. "Or replace it with a new one," said the captain. "But I love all my dollies, papa," she returned, with a wistful look up into his face: "they're my children, you know. Would you be satisfied with another new little girl 'stead of me?" "No, indeed!" he replied, bending down to kiss her cheek. "If I had another new little girl given me, I should want to hold fast to my little Gracie too; and you shall keep all your dollies as long as you please." Lulu and Max started on their walk to Fairview about the same time that Dr. Conly drove away with their father and Grace. Their talk was principally of the new home in prospect. Lulu had only driven past Woodburn several times; but Max had been taken there once by Dr. Conly, with whom he was almost as great a favorite as his sister Grace, and had seen not only the grounds, but one or two rooms of the mansion. Lulu was eager to hear all he had to tell about the place, and he not at all averse to describing what he had seen. So interested were they in the topic, that they reached the entrance to the Fairview grounds almost ere they were aware of it. "Oh, we're here!" exclaimed Lulu, in some surprise. "Max, I'll stay outside, while you go up to the house, for--I--I can't bear to see aunt Elsie and the others." Her eyes were downcast, her cheeks burning with blushes as she spoke. "But you may as well get it over," said Max: "you'll have to see them all sometime." "You don't care a bit, _do_ you?" she said, in a hurt tone. "Yes, I do; I'm right sorry for you; but I can't help your having to meet them sooner or later." "But I'm afraid I won't be welcome to aunt Elsie. What if she should tell me to go out of the house, she didn't want such a bad girl there?" "She isn't that kind of person," said Max. "But here comes Eva," as the little girl came tripping down the avenue to meet them. She shook hands with Max, then threw her arms round Lulu, and kissed her. "O Eva! I'm 'most ashamed to look at you," murmured Lulu, half averting her blushing face. "I shouldn't think you'd want me for your friend any more." "I do, though: I love you dearly, and should have gone to your room yesterday if your papa had not refused to allow it," responded Evelyn, repeating her caress. "Come in and rest, both of you: aunt Elsie told me to ask you." "I'm not sure that papa meant to give me permission to go into the house," said Lulu, hanging back. "No,--come to think of it,--I don't believe he did," said Max. "Besides, it must be pretty near school-time; so if you are ready, Eva, and want to walk, we'll start back directly, and be glad to take you with us." "Yes, I prefer to walk," she said: "I'll be ready in five minutes, and glad to have your company." Mrs. Leland was on the veranda. "Won't they come in?" she asked of Evelyn, as the child came hurrying up the steps. "No, auntie: Lu is not quite certain that her papa gave her permission." "Then, I'll go to them." Lulu's eyes were on the ground, her cheeks hot with blushes, as Mrs. Leland drew near the rustic bench on which she and Max had seated themselves. "Good-morning, my dears: I am sorry you cannot come in and sit a while," was her pleasant greeting. Then she shook hands with Max and kissed Lulu. "I heard you were not well yesterday, Lulu: I hope you feel quite so this morning?" "Yes, ma'am, thank you." "I heard from Ion before breakfast, and am delighted that baby is still improving, as, no doubt, you are, both of you." "Yes, indeed!" exclaimed Max. "And I am gladder than words can tell," said Lulu, a tear rolling quickly down her cheek. "Aunt Elsie, I do love her! I think she is the nicest, sweetest baby I ever saw." "Yes, my dear; and I have no doubt you intend to be the best of sisters to her." "Oh, I do! I can't ever make up to her for--for hurting her so, though I did not mean to do it." "Of course not: you couldn't be so cruel toward any baby, but especially your own sweet little sister," was the gentle, sweet-toned reply. "I am rejoiced, especially for you, my dears, and for your mamma, that your father is going to settle down here; for I know it will add greatly to your happiness, he is such a good husband and father, and you will so enjoy having a home of your own." "Yes, aunt Elsie: we think it is the best thing that could have happened to us," replied Max. Evelyn joined them at that moment; so they said good-by, and started on their way back to Ion. "Eva," said Max, "have you heard about Woodburn?" "No; what about it?" "It's for sale, and perhaps papa will buy it." "Oh, how nice that would be!" she exclaimed. "I've been there with aunt Elsie, and it's just a lovely place! It has a rather neglected look now; but it wouldn't take long to remedy that, and then it would be quite as handsome as Ion or Fairview, or any other place about here. Aren't you happy, Lu?" "I shall be if papa gets it; but the best thing of all is, that he is to be with us all the time." "Yes, of course," sighed Evelyn, thinking of the happy days when she had her father with her. "Lu," she said presently, "I know you are not to be sent away; but where are you to go to school?" "To papa," replied Lulu, with a glad look and smile. Evelyn sighed again. "The only part I regret," she remarked, "is that we have to give up being together in our studies,--you and I. Unless," she added the next moment, as if struck by a sudden thought, "your father would take me as a pupil too. But I wouldn't dare to ask it." "I would," said Max: "I dare ask papa almost any thing,--unless it was leave to do something wrong,--and I'll undertake to sound him on the subject." "I'm not afraid to ask him, either," said Lulu; "and he's so kind, I do believe he'll say yes, or at least that he'll do it if everybody else is agreed. Have you seen him, Eva?" "Yes; and he had such a kind, fatherly manner toward me, that I fell in love with him at once. I believe I'd be glad to have him adopt me if he was badly in want of another daughter about my age," she added, with a merry look and smile. "I believe he'd be the gainer if he could swap me off for you," said Lulu, catching her friend's tone; "but I'm very happy in feeling quite sure he would rather have me, bad as I am, just because I am his own." "That makes all the difference in the world," said Evelyn; "and perhaps, on becoming acquainted with my faults, he might think them worse than yours." It was not quite school-time when they reached Ion, and Evelyn proposed that they should spend the few intervening minutes in the grounds. "I'd like to, ever so much," said Lulu; "but papa bade me go directly to my own room on getting home. So good-by," and she moved on resolutely in the direction of the house. "Good-by. I'll see you again when school is out, if I can," Evelyn called after her. Lulu's thoughts were so full of other things, she found great difficulty in fixing them upon her lessons. But saying to herself that it would be much too bad to fail in her first recitations to her father, she exerted her strong will to the utmost, and succeeded. She was quite ready for him when, at length, he came in. But looking up eagerly from her book, "Papa," she asked, "have you, oh! have you, bought it?" "Bought what?" he asked smilingly, as he sat down and drew her to his side. "O papa! you know! Woodburn, I mean." "I think I have secured it," he said, "and that it will make a very delightful home for us all." "Oh, I am so glad!" she cried, throwing her arms round his neck, and giving him a vigorous hug. "When can we move in, papa?" "In about two weeks, probably: can you stand having to wait for that length of time?" "I s'pose I'll have to," she said, laughing a little ruefully. "It'll help very much that I'll have you here, and see you every day. Are you going to keep me shut up in this room all the time?" "No: did I not tell you, you were no longer a prisoner?" "Oh, yes, sir! but I--I don't care very much to--to be with Rosie and the rest." "I prefer that you should not be, except when I am present," he returned gravely. "I want to keep you with me as much as possible; and would rather have you alone, or with Evelyn, Max, and Gracie only, when I am not with you." "I like that best, too, papa," she replied humbly; "for I can't trust myself not to get into a passion with Rosie and her dog, and I suppose you can't trust me either." "Not yet, daughter," he said gently; "but I hope the time will come when I can. Now we will attend to the lessons." When the recitations were finished, "Papa," she said, with an affectionate, admiring look up into his face, "I think you are a _very_ nice teacher: you make every thing so clear and plain, and so interesting. I'm so glad you're the gentleman who is to have charge of me," she added with a happy laugh. "So am I," he said, caressing her. "I am very glad, very thankful, to be able to take charge of all my own children; and whatever I may lack in experience and ability as a teacher, I hope to make up in the deep interest I shall always feel in the welfare and progress of my pupils." She then told him of Evelyn's wish, concluding With, "Won't you, dear papa? I'd like it so much, and Eva is such a good girl you wouldn't have a bit of trouble managing her. She's just as different from me as possible." "Quite a recommendation; and if I were as sure of proving a competent teacher, I should not hesitate to grant your request. But it is a new business to me, and perhaps it would not be wise for me to undertake the tuition of more than my own three at present. However," he added, seeing her look of disappointment, "I will take the matter into consideration." "Oh, thank you, sir! Papa, I've just thought of two things I want to talk to you about." "Very well; let me hear them." "The first is about my being so naughty at Viamede," she went on, hanging her head, and blushing deeply; "in such a passion at Signor Foresti, and so obstinate and disobedient to grandpa Dinsmore." "I was very sorry to hear of it all," he said gravely: "but what about it?" "Don't you have to punish me for it?" she asked, half under her breath. "No: the punishment I gave you the other night settled all accounts up to that date." She breathed more freely. "Papa, would you have made me go back to that horrid man after he struck me?" "It is not worth while to consider that question at this late day. Now, what else?" he asked. "Papa, I spoiled one of those valuable books of engravings belonging to grandpa Dinsmore; no, I didn't exactly spoil it myself, but I took it out on the veranda without leave, and carelessly left it where Rosie's dog could get at it; and he scratched and gnawed and tore it, till it is almost ruined." "I shall replace it at once," he said. "I am sorry you were so careless, and particularly that you took the book out there without permission; but that was not half so bad as flying into a passion, even if you hurt nothing or no one but yourself." "But I did get into a passion, papa, at the dog and at Rosie," she acknowledged, in a frightened tone, and blushing more deeply than before. "I am deeply grieved to hear it," he said. "And won't you have to punish me for that, and for getting the book spoiled?" "No: didn't I tell you just now that all accounts were settled up to the other night?" "Papa, you're very, very kind," she said, putting her arm round his neck, and laying her head on his shoulder. "I am very glad, that, with all her faults, my dear little daughter is so truthful and so open with me," he said, smoothing her hair. "Papa, I'm ever so sorry you'll have to pay so much money to replace that book," she said. "But--you often give me some pocket-money, and--won't you please keep all you would give me till it counts up enough to pay for the book?" "It is a right feeling, a feeling that pleases me, which prompts you to make that request," he said in a kind tone, and pressing his lips to her cheek; "and probably another time I may let you pay for such a piece of carelessness, but you need not in this instance. I feel rich enough to spare the money quite easily for that and an increase in my children's weekly allowance. What is yours now?" "Fifty cents, papa." "Where is your purse?" She took it from her pocket, and put it into his hand. "Only five cents in it," he remarked, with a smile, when he had examined. Then, taking a handful of loose change from his pocket, he counted out four bright quarters and ten dimes, and poured them into her purse. "O papa! so much!" she cried delightedly, "I feel ever so rich!" He laughed at that. "Now," he said, "you shall have a dollar every week, unless I should have to withdraw it on account of some sort of bad behavior on your part. Max is to have the same; Gracie half a dollar till she is a little older: and you are all to keep an account of your spendings." He took from another pocket, three little blank-books. "One of these is for you: the others are for your brother and sister," he said. "See, there is a blank space for every day in the week; and, Whenever you lay out any money, you must write down in the proper place what it was that you bought, and how much it cost." "And show it to you, papa?" "Once in a while: probably, whenever I hand you your allowance, I shall look over your account for the week that is just past, and tell you what I think of the way you have laid out your money, in order to help you to learn to spend it judiciously." CHAPTER XVIII. "Fortune is merry, And in this mood will give us any thing." There was a sound of small, hurrying feet in the hall without, a tap at the door; and Max's voice asked, "May we come in?" "Yes," said his father; and instantly the door was thrown wide. Evelyn came in with a quiet, lady-like step, and Max and Grace more boisterously. The captain rose, shook hands with Eva, set her a chair, and sat down again, drawing Gracie to his arms, while Max stood at his side. "Oh! what are those for?" he asked, catching sight of the blank-books. "This is for you, this for Grace," the captain answered, bestowing them as he spoke, then went on to repeat substantially what he had just been saying to Lulu, and to replenish their purses as he had hers. They were both delighted, both grateful. Evelyn looked on, well pleased. "Now your allowance is just the same as mine, and I am so glad," she said to Lulu. "I have never kept an account; but I think it must be a good plan, and I mean to after this." "There is another thing, children," said the captain: "any money that we have, is only lent to us by our heavenly Father; and it is our duty to set aside a certain portion for giving to his cause." "How much, papa?" asked Max. "People have different ideas about that," was the reply. "In Old-Testament times, the rule was one-tenth of all; and I think most people should not give less now: many are able to give a great deal more. I hope each of you will be glad to give as much as that." He opened Lulu's Bible, lying on the table, and read aloud, "'He who soweth sparingly, shall reap also sparingly; and he who soweth bountifully, shall reap also bountifully. Every man according as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give; not grudgingly, or of necessity; for God loveth a cheerful giver.'" "I'll give a tenth of all," said Lulu. "I mean to buy a little purse on purpose to keep my tenth in, and I'll put two of these dimes in it. That will be the tenth of the two dollars you've given me, won't it, papa?" "Yes," he said. "And I'll do the same," said Max. "I too," added Gracie. "It is just what my papa taught me to do," remarked Evelyn modestly. "Would you children all like to take a drive with me this afternoon?" asked the captain. There was a simultaneous and joyful assent from his own three: then Evelyn said, "Thank you, sir. I should like it extremely, if I can get permission. Aunt Elsie expects me home to dinner; but I will go now to the telephone, and ask if I may stay and accept your invitation." "And while you are doing that, I will go to my wife, and try to persuade her to join our party," the captain said, leaving the room. Evelyn had no difficulty in gaining permission to stay at Ion for the rest of the day, or go anywhere Capt. Raymond might propose to take her; and he found but little difficulty in persuading Violet to accompany him in a drive that would take her from her baby for an hour or two, the little one being so much better that she did not fear to leave it in charge of her mother and the nurse, thinking it might die before her return. "The carriage will be at the door in ten or fifteen minutes after we leave the dinner-table," the captain told them all; and each one promised to be ready to start at once. The children all came down the stairs and out upon the veranda together, and only a little in advance of the captain and Violet. There was a simultaneous exclamation of surprise as they saw, not the Ion family carriage, but a new and very handsome one, with a pair of fine match-horses, which none of them had ever seen before, drawn up at the foot of the veranda-steps, while, a few feet beyond, a servant held the bridle of a beautiful, spirited pony, whose long mane, gracefully arched neck, and glossy coat, struck them all with admiration. The carriage-horses were no less handsome or spirited: they were tossing their manes, and pawing the ground, with impatience to be off. Violet turned a bright, inquiring look upon her husband, while all three of his children were asking in eager, excited tones, "Papa, papa, whose carriage and horses are these?" "Ours," he said, handing Violet to a seat in the vehicle; then, as he helped Evelyn in, "Max, my son, if you will ride that pony, there will be more room here for the rest of us." "O papa! may I?" cried the boy in tones of delight. "Did you hire it for me?" "No: I only bought it for you. Mount, and let me see how well you can manage him--how well you have improved your opportunities for learning to ride." Max needed no second invitation, but had vaulted into the saddle before his father was done speaking. "Now put him through his paces," was the next order. Max wheeled about, dashed down the avenue at a rapid gallop, turned, and came back at an easy canter; his father and sisters, Violet also, watching him in proud delight, he was so handsome, and sat his pony so well. "Ah! that will do," his father said when the lad was within easy hearing-distance: "these fellows," glancing at the horses attached to the carriage, "are getting too restless to stand any longer; so you may finish your exhibition at another time. I have seen enough to feel that you are quite equal to the management of your pony." "O papa! he's just splendid!" Max burst out, bending down to pat and stroke the neck of his steed; "and I can never thank you enough for such a gift." "Enjoy him, and use him kindly: that is all I ask," the captain said, entering the carriage, where he had already placed his two little girls. "Drive on, Scipio. Max, you may ride along-side." "I 'spect I know where we're going," remarked Grace gleefully, and with an arch smile up into her father's face, as she noticed the direction they were taking on turning out of the avenue into the high-road. "Do you?" he said. "Well, wait a little, and you will find out how good a guess you have made." "To Woodburn, papa?" queried Lulu eagerly. "Have patience, and you will see presently," he answered with a smile. "Mamma Vi, do you know?" she asked. "It is your father's secret," said Violet. "I should not presume to tell you when he declines doing so." "We shall know in a very few minutes, Lu," said Evelyn: "it is only a short drive to Woodburn." "I was thinking about that name," said Grace. "Papa, why do they call it Woodburn? There's woods,--do they burn them sometimes? They don't look as if they'd ever been burned." "I don't think they have," he said, "except such parts of them as dry twigs and fallen branches, that could be picked up from the ground, or now and then a tree that it was thought best to cut down, or that fell of itself. But you know, there is a pretty little brook running across the estate, and in Scotland such a stream is called a burn; so, having a wood and a burn, Woodburn is a very appropriate name." "Yes, papa, I think it is, and a pretty name too. Thank you for explaining it, and not laughing at my mistake." "Even papa doesn't know nearly every thing, little daughter," he said, stroking and patting the small hand she had laid on his knee, "so it would be quite out of place for him to laugh at you for asking a sensible question. We should never be ashamed to ask for information that we need. It is much wiser than to remain in ignorance for fear of being laughed at." "And her father always gives information so kindly and patiently," remarked Violet. "And I think he knows '_most_ every thing," said Grace. "Oh, I did guess right! for here we are at Woodburn." They drove and walked about the grounds, admiring, criticising, planning improvements; then called on Miss Elliott, and, with her readily accorded permission, went over the house. Violet and the captain selected a suite of rooms for their own occupation, and he decided which the children should use. A bedroom opening from their own was selected for Grace, the adjoining room beyond for Lulu; and another, into which both these latter opened, they were told should be their own little sitting-room. Besides these, a tiny apartment in a tower, communicating with Lulu's bedroom, was given to her. The sitting-room opened into the hall also, so that it was not necessary to pass through one bedroom to reach the other. They were all bright, cheerful rooms, with a pleasant outlook from every window: in the sitting-room there were French windows opening upon a balcony. The little girls were almost speechless with delight when told by their father that these four apartments were to be appropriated solely to their use. Lulu caught his hand, and kissed it, tears of mingled joy and penitence springing to her eyes. He smiled down at her, and laid his other hand tenderly on her head for an instant. Then turning to Max, "Now, my boy," he said, "we must settle where you are to lodge. Have you any choice?" "Is it to be more than one room for me, papa?" he asked, with an arch smile. "I believe boys don't usually fare quite so well as girls in such things." "My boy does," returned his father: "you shall have two or three rooms if you want them, and quite as well furnished as those of your sisters." "Then, if you please, papa, I'll take those over Lu's, and thank you very much. But as you have already given me several things that my sisters haven't got,--a gun, a watch, and that splendid pony,--I think it would be quite fair that they should have better and prettier furniture in their rooms than I in mine." "That makes no difference, Max," his father answered with a pleased laugh. "I should hardly want the girls to have guns, but watches and ponies they shall have by the time they are as old as you are now." At that the two little girls, standing near, exchanged glances of delight. They had been unselfishly glad for Max, and now they rejoiced each for herself and for the other. Though, in common with all the rest, deeply interested in the new home, Max was not sorry when his father and Violet decided that it was time to return to Ion; for he was eager to show his pony to grandma Elsie, Zoe, and Rosie, who had not yet seen it. "Papa, do you require me to keep along-side of the carriage?" he asked, as he remounted. "No: if you wish, you may act as our _avant-courier_," was the smiling reply. "I quite understand that you are in haste to display your new treasure." "Yes, sir: that was why I asked. Thank you, sir;" and away the lad flew, urging his pony to a rapid gallop. He reached Ion some minutes in advance of the carriage, found nearly all of the family who had remained at home on the veranda, and greatly enjoyed their exclamations of surprise and admiration at sight of his steed. As he drew rein at the foot of the steps, and lifted his hat to the ladies, Zoe and Rosie came hurriedly forward to get a nearer view. The first exclaimed,-- "What a beautiful pony! Where did he come from, Max?" Rosie asking, "Whose is he?" "Mine; a present from papa," replied Max, sitting proudly erect, and patting the pony's neck; "but I don't know where he came from, aunt Zoe. You'll have to ask papa if you want to know." "You're in luck, Maxie," she said lightly. "Yes, indeed. I was born in luck when I was born my father's son." "Of course you were," she returned, laughing. "Where are the others? Oh, here they come!" as she caught sight of the captain's new carriage just turning in at the avenue-gates. Those who were in it were a gay and happy party, who, all the way as they came, had been discussing plans for making the new home more convenient, comfortable, and beautiful, and for the life they were to live in it. Woodburn was the principal theme of conversation in the evening also, the entire family being gathered together in the parlor, and no visitors present. "Tell us about your nursery, Vi," said her mother: "where is it to be?" "Next to our sleeping-room, mamma, on the other side from Gracie's: you may be sure we want our little ones near us." "But is it a pleasant room?" "None brighter or cheerier in the house, mamma; it is of good size too; and we mean to have it furnished with every comfort, and in a way to make it as attractive as possible." "Pleasantly suggestive pictures among other things?" "Yes, mamma. I know, from my own happy experience, that they have a great deal to do with educating a child." "In both morals and art?" said the captain, looking smilingly at her. "I should think so, judging from what my wife is; and surely, it is reasonable to expect a child to be, to some extent, a reflection of its surroundings; refined or vulgar, according to the style of faces--living or pictured--it is constantly gazing upon, etc. But, however that may be, we will try to keep upon the safe side, furnishing only what must have a good influence, so far as it has any at all." Lulu was there, sitting as close to her father as she could well get. She had a feeling that it was the only safe place for her. "Shall I have some pictures on my walls, papa?" she asked in a low aside. "Yes: we will go some day soon to the city, and choose some fine engravings for your rooms, Max's and Gracie's; furniture, too, carpets, curtains, and new paper for the walls." "Oh, but that will be delightful!" she exclaimed. "Papa, you are just too good and kind for any thing." Max, who was near at hand, had overheard. "That's so!" he said. "I suppose you mean that I am to go too, papa?" "Yes; Gracie also. My dear," to Violet, "when will it suit you to accompany us?--to-morrow?" "To-morrow is Saturday," she said reflectively. "Suppose we say Monday? I hope baby will be so much better by that time, that I shall feel easy in leaving her for a long day's shopping." "Very well," he said: "we will go Monday morning if nothing happens to prevent." "Lulu looks as if she did not know how to wait so long," Violet said, smiling kindly on the little girl. "Can't you take her and Max and Gracie to-morrow, and again on Monday? Surely, they can select some things for their own rooms, with you to help them." "No. I want your taste as well as my own and theirs, and Lulu must learn to wait: it is a lesson she needs," he added, looking down at her with grave kindliness, and pressing affectionately the hand she had slipped into his. She flushed, and cast down her eyes. "Yes, papa," she murmured, "I will try to be good and patient. I'm sure I ought to be when you are so very good to me." "Now, captain, if my taste and judgment were considered equal to Vi's, and Lulu might be spared that lesson," remarked Zoe laughingly, "I'd offer to go in her place,--Vi's, I mean. I think it would be great fun to help choose pictures, carpets, and furniture." "Thank you, Zoe; that is a kind offer," said Violet: "and if mamma thinks it an enjoyable errand, and will consent to supplement your taste and judgment with hers, they will be a good deal more than equal to mine," she concluded, with a smiling glance at her mother. "I am quite of Zoe's opinion as to the pleasantness of the object of the expedition, Vi," Elsie said, "and quite at the service of the captain and yourself, to go, or to take your place in watching over baby while you go; and I think you will find it necessary to spend more than one or two days in the work of selecting what you will want for the furnishing of your home." "I dare say you are right about that, mother," said the captain; "and as it seems to be the desire of all parties that the work should be begun to-morrow, I think I will take the children and as many of you ladies as may like to accompany us." "Papa, mayn't we drive to the city in the new carriage?" pleaded Lulu. "I'd like it ever so much better than going in the cars; and then we can drive from one store to another, without having to take the street-cars or a hack." "It shall be as the ladies who decide to go with us may wish," he said. "I think Lulu's plan a very good one," said grandma Elsie, kindly desirous to see the child gratified. "And I would greatly prefer it, if I should be one of the party," added Zoe. "As I trust you will," returned the captain gallantly. "Gracie, daughter, it is time little ones like you were in their nests. Bid good-night, and go." The child obeyed instantly and cheerfully. "And I must go back to my baby," Violet remarked, as she rose and left the room along with the little girl. "You may go to your room, Lulu," the captain said, in a quiet aside; "but you need not say good-night to me now: I shall step in to look at you before I go to mine." "Yes, papa," she returned, with a glad look, and followed Grace's example. "Max, what do you say to a promenade on the veranda with your father?" Capt. Raymond asked, with a smiling glance at his son. Max jumped up with alacrity. "That I'd like nothing better, sir," he said; and they went out together. "You are pleased with your pony, Max?" the captain said inquiringly, striking a match and lighting a cigar as he spoke. "Yes, indeed, papa!" was the enthusiastic reply. "I feel very rich owning him." "And mean to be a kind master to him, I trust?" "Yes, sir; oh, yes, indeed! I don't intend ever to speak a cross word to him, much less give him a blow." "He has always been used to kind treatment, I was told, and has nothing vicious in his disposition," the captain continued, puffing at his cigar, and pacing the veranda with measured tread, Max keeping close at his side: "so I think he will always give you satisfaction, if you are gentle and kind, never ill-treating him in any way." "I mean to make quite a pet of him, sir," Max said. Then, with an arch look up into his father's face,--a full moon making it light enough for each to see the other's countenance quite distinctly,--"Papa, you are very generous to me, but you never offer me a cigar." The captain stopped short in his walk, and faced his son with some sternness of look and tone. "Max, you haven't learned to smoke? tell me: have you ever smoked a cigar? or tobacco in any shape?" "Yes, sir; but"-- "Don't do it again: I utterly and positively forbid it." "Yes, sir: I'll obey; and, in fact, I have no desire to smoke again: it was just one cigar I tried; and it made me so deathly sick, that I've never wanted another. I wouldn't have done it, papa, if you had ever forbidden me; but--but you had never said any thing to me on the subject, and I'd seen"--Max hesitated, and left his sentence unfinished. "You had seen your father smoke, and naturally thought you might follow his example?" "Yes, sir." "Well, my son, I can hardly blame you for that; but there are some things a man may do with impunity, that a boy may not. Tobacco is said to be far more injurious to one who has not attained his growth, than to an adult. But it is not seldom injurious to the latter also: some seem to use it with no bad effect, but it has wrought horrible suffering for many. I am sorry I ever formed the habit, and I would save you from the same regret, or something worse: indeed, so anxious am I to do so, that I would much rather hand you a thousand dollars than a cigar, if I thought you would smoke it." "Papa, I promise you I will never try the thing again; never touch tobacco in any shape," Max said earnestly. "Thank you, my son; and I will give up the habit for your sake," returned his father, grasping the lad's hand with one of his, and, with the other, flinging his cigar far down the avenue. "Oh, no, papa! don't do it for my sake," said Max. "Cousin Arthur told me that when a man had smoked for years, it cost him a good deal of suffering to give it up; and I couldn't bear to see you suffer so. I'll refrain all the same, without your stopping." "I don't doubt that you would, my dear boy; and I fully appreciate the affection for me that prompts you to talk in that way," the captain said: "but I have set a bad example quite long enough, not to my own son alone, but to other people's; and whatever I may have to endure in breaking off from the bad habit, will be no more than I deserve for contracting it. I should be very sorry, Max, to have you feel that you have a coward for a father,--a man who would shrink from the course he felt to be right, rather than endure pain, mental or physical." "A coward! O papa! I could never think that of you!" cried the boy, flushing hotly; "and if ever any fellow should dare to hint such a thing in my hearing, I'd knock him down as quick as a flash." The corners of the captain's lips twitched; but his tones were grave enough as he said, "I don't want you to do any fighting on my account, Max; and if anybody slanders me, I shall try to live it down. "There is another thing I want to talk to you about," he went on presently, "and that is the danger of tampering with intoxicating drinks. The only safe plan is to let them entirely alone. I am thankful to be able to say that I have not set you a bad example in that direction. My good mother taught me to 'touch not, taste not, handle not;' and I have never taken so much as a glass of wine; though there have been times, my boy, when it required some moral courage to stand out against the persuasions, and especially the ridicule, of my companions." Max's eyes sparkled. "I know it must, papa," he said; "and when I am tried in the same way, I'll remember my father's example, and try to act as bravely as he did." CHAPTER XIX. "Train up a child in the way he should go."--PROV. xxii. 6. "Papa, I want to ask you for something," was Lulu's eager salutation, as, in accordance with his promise, he stepped into her room, on the way to his own, to bid her good-night. "Well, daughter," he said, sitting down, and drawing her into his arms, "there is scarcely any thing that gives me more pleasure than gratifying any reasonable request from you. What is it you want?" "Leave to invite Evelyn to go with us to-morrow, if you don't think it will make too many, papa." "I suppose it would add greatly to your enjoyment to have her with you," he said reflectively. "Yes, you may ask her; or I will do so, early in the morning, through the telephone, if the weather is such that we can go." "Thank you, you dear papa." she said, giving him a hug and kiss. "I ought to be a very good girl, for you are always so kind to me." She was up betimes the next morning, eagerly scanning the sky, which, to her great delight, gave every indication of fair weather for the day. She hastened to array herself in suitable attire for her trip to the city,--having consulted grandma Elsie on the subject the night before,--and had just finished when she heard her father's step in the hall. She ran to open the door. "Good-morning, little daughter," he said with a smile, and stooping to give her a caress. "I have just been to the telephone. Evelyn will go with us, and I trust you will both enjoy your day." "Oh, I know I shall!" she cried: "it will be just delightful! Are we all to go in the carriage, papa?" "All but Max: he prefers to ride his pony." "I should think he would. I'm so glad you gave it to him, papa!" There was not a trace of envy or jealousy in her look or tone. "Wouldn't you like to have one?" he asked. "Oh, yes, indeed, papa! but," hanging her head, and blushing deeply, "I don't deserve it." "I intend to give you one as soon as you have learned to have patience under provocation, so that I shall be able to trust you to treat him kindly," he said. "How soon do you think that will be?" "I don't know, papa. It will be a good while before I can feel at all sure of myself," she answered humbly. "I hope it will," he said; then, as she looked up in surprise, "The apostle says, 'When I am weak, then am I strong.' When we feel our own weakness, and look to God for help, then we are strong with a strength far greater than our own; but when we grow self-confident, and trust in our own strength, we are very apt to find it but weakness. "And now I must caution you to be on your guard to-day against any exhibition of self-will and ill temper, if your wishes are overruled by those older and wiser than yourself." "Why, papa, am I not to be allowed to choose the things for my own rooms?" she asked, in a tone of deep disappointment. "I intend that your taste shall be consulted, my child," he said; "but I cannot promise that you shall have, in every case, exactly what you most prefer. You might select carpets, curtains, and upholstery of material and colors that would wear poorly, or fade very soon. Therefore we must take grandma Elsie into our counsels, and get her help in deciding what to take; for I am sure you would like neither to have your rooms disfigured with faded, worn-out furnishings, or to put your father to the expense of refurnishing for you very soon." "Oh, no, papa! No, indeed," she said. "Besides," he went on, "don't you wish to consult _my_ taste too? Would you not have your rooms pleasing to my eyes when I pay a visit to them, as I shall every day?" "Oh, yes, papa! Yes, indeed! I think I shall care more for that than to have them look pretty to myself," she answered, with a look of eager delight, the cloud having entirely cleared from her brow. "Then, I think we are not likely to have any trouble," he said, smoothing her hair caressingly, and smiling approvingly upon her. "Now we will go down to breakfast, and we are to set out very soon after the meal is over." He rose, and took her hand in his, to lead her down to the breakfast-room. "Papa," she said, looking up at him with eyes shining with filial love, "how kind you were to reason with me in that nice way, instead of saying sternly, as you might have done, 'Now, Lulu, if you are naughty about the choice of things for furnishing your rooms, you sha'n't have any thing pretty for them, and when we get home I'll punish you severely!'" "Certainly, I might have done that, and probably with the effect of securing your good behavior," he said; "but I think neither of us would have felt quite so happy as we do now." "I am sure I should not," she said, lifting his hand to her lips. That little talk had a most happy effect upon Lulu, so that throughout the entire day she showed herself as docile and amiable as any one could have desired. Her father, on his part, was extremely indulgent toward all three of his children, in every case in which he felt that it was right and wise to be so, sparing no reasonable expense to gratify their tastes and wishes. But in several matters they yielded readily to his or grandma Elsie's better judgment; indeed, always, when asked to do so, seeming, too, well satisfied with the final decision. They returned home, a very happy set of children, except, in Lulu's case, when memory recalled the passionate outburst of the early part of the week with its dire consequences: that remembrance would be a sore spot in her heart, and a bitter humiliation, for many a day, probably for the rest of her life. Rosie was on the veranda awaiting their arrival. "Well, have you had a good time, and bought great quantities of pretty things?" she asked, addressing the company in general. It was Zoe who answered first. "Yes: if these young Raymonds are not satisfied with the furnishing of their apartments, I, for one, shall deem them the most unreasonable and ungrateful of human kind." "She won't have a chance to, though," said Max; "for we're delighted with every thing papa has got us. Aren't we, Lu and Gracie?" "Yes, indeed!" they both replied. "Oh, we have ever so many beautiful things! Papa and grandma Elsie helped us to choose them; so, of course, they are all just right," added Lulu, looking gratefully from one to the other. "She takes no account of _my_ very valuable assistance," laughed Zoe. "Never mind: you are sure to be appreciated in one quarter," said Edward, coming up at that moment, catching her round the waist, and bestowing a hearty kiss upon each cheek. "I have been lost without my wife all day." "How good of you!" she returned merrily. "I doubt if it isn't a very good plan to run away occasionally, that I may be the more highly appreciated on my return." "Would you advise me to do likewise, and for the same reason, lady mine?" he asked, drawing her caressingly aside from the little group now busily occupied in telling and hearing about the day's purchases. "No, sir," she said, tossing back her curls, and looking up into his face with a bewitchingly saucy smile: "you'd better not attempt it, lest there should be mutiny in the camp. When you go, I go too." "Turn about, fair play," he said, knitting his brows. "I claim the privilege of being quite as independent as you are--when you can't plead delegated authority from the doctor;" and, drawing her hand within his arm, he led her away to their private apartments. Violet, hurrying down to welcome her husband home, passed them on the stairway. "You two happy children!" she said, glancing smilingly back at them. "Children!" echoed Edward. "Mrs. Raymond, how can you be so disrespectful to your elder brother?--your senior by some two years." "Ah! but your united ages are much less than Levis's and mine; and husband and wife make but one, don't they?" she returned gayly, as she tripped away. Baby was almost herself again, and the young mother's heart was full of gladness. She joined the group on the veranda, her husband receiving her with a glad smile and tender caress, and standing by his side, her hand on his shoulder, his arm half supporting her slight, girlish form, listened with lively interest to the story his children were telling so eagerly, of papa's kindness and generosity to them, and the many lovely things bought to make beautiful and attractive the rooms in the new home that were to be especially theirs. He let them talk without restraint for some moments, then said pleasantly, "Now, my dears, it is time for you to go and make yourselves neat for the tea-table. Any thing more you think of that would be likely to interest Rosie and Walter, you can tell them afterwards." The order was obeyed promptly and cheerfully, even by Lulu. When the excitement of telling about their purchases, and all the day's experiences, was over, the children found themselves very weary,--the two little girls at least: Max wouldn't acknowledge that he was at all fatigued, but was quite willing to comply with his father's suggestion that it would be wise for him, as well as for his sisters, to go early to bed. While Lulu was making ready for hers, her thoughts turned upon the morrow, bringing with them a new source of disquiet. "Papa," she said pleadingly, when he came in to bid her good-night, "mayn't I stay at home to-morrow?" "Stay at home from church? Not unless you are sick, or the weather quite too bad for you to go out. Why should you wish it?" "Because--because--I--I'm afraid people have heard about--about how bad I was the other day; and--so I--I can't bear to go where I'll--be seen by strangers. No, I mean by folks out of the house that know who I am, and what happened the other day." "My child, I am sorry for you," he said, taking her on his knee; "but it is a part of the punishment you have brought upon yourself, and will have to bear." "But let me stay at home to-morrow, won't you?" "No: it is a duty to go to church, as well as a privilege to be allowed to do so. "'Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is,' the Bible says; so I cannot allow you to absent yourself from the services of the sanctuary when you are able to attend. "As I have told you before, I must obey the directions I find in God's Word, and, as far as lies in my power, see that my children obey them too." "I'd rather take a whipping than go to-morrow," she muttered, half under her breath. "I hope you are not going to be so naughty that you will have to do both," he said very gravely. "You have been a very good girl to-day, and I want you to end it as such." "I mean to, papa; I'd be ashamed to be naughty after all you have done for me, and given me to-day: and I mean to be pleasant about going to church to-morrow; though it'll be ever so hard, and I'm sure you wouldn't want to go if you were me." "If you were I," he corrected. "No: if I were you, I suppose I should feel just as you do; but the question is not what we want to do, but what God bids us do. "Jesus said, 'If ye love me, keep my commandments.' 'He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me.' "It is the dearest wish of my heart to see my children his followers, showing their love to him by an earnest endeavor to keep all his commandments." "Papa, you always want to do right, don't you?" she asked. "I mean, you like it; and so it's never hard for you as it is for me?" "No, daughter, it is sometimes very far from being easy and pleasant for me to do what I feel to be my duty; for instance, when it is to inflict pain upon you, or another of my dear children, or deny you some indulgence that you crave. I should like to grant your request of to-night, if I could feel that it would be right; but I cannot, and therefore must deny it." Lulu acquiesced in the decision with a deep sigh, and half hoped that something--a storm, or even a fit of sickness--might come to prevent her from having to go to church. But Sunday morning was as bright and clear as the one before it, and she in perfect health; so there was no escape from the dreaded ordeal. She ventured upon no further entreaty, knowing it would be altogether useless, and quite as much from love to her father, and a real desire to please him, as from fear of punishment, behaved herself as well as possible. But she kept as entirely in the background as she could, not looking at or speaking to any one unless directly addressed. No one, however, gave her any reason to suppose her agency in the baby's accident was known; and she returned to Ion with a lighter heart than she had carried with her when she went. She had not seen the baby yet, since its fall, and though longing to do so, having an ardent affection for the winsome little creature, did not dare to ask that she might. But as she was about to go into her own room, on reaching home, her father said, "Would you like to go with me to the nursery, Lulu, and see your little sister?" "Oh, so much, papa, if I may!" she cried eagerly. "But," half drawing back, "perhaps she--will be afraid of me." "I trust not," he said, with emotion. "I hope she does not know that you had any thing to do with her fall. Come and see." He took her hand, and led her to the nursery. The baby was awake, sitting in its nurse's lap, and looking bright, but so much thinner and paler than before her fall, that tears sprang to Lulu's eyes, and she could scarce refrain from sobbing aloud. But the little one, catching sight of her, held out its arms, with a joyful cry, "Lu!" At that, Lulu's tears fell fast. "May I take her, papa?" she asked sobbingly, and with an entreating look up into his face. "I won't hurt her, I wouldn't for all the world!" "You may take her," he said, his tones a trifle tremulous: "I am quite sure you would never hurt her intentionally." Lulu gladly availed herself of the permission, took the baby in her arms, and sat down with it on her lap. "Lu, Lu!" the little one repeated in her sweet baby voice; and Lulu hugged her close, kissing her again and again, and saying softly, "You dear, sweet darling; sister loves you, indeed, indeed she does!" The captain looked on, his heart swelling with joy and thankfulness over the evident mutual affection of the two; for there had been a time when he feared Lulu would never love the child of her step-mother as she did Max and Grace. Violet entered the room at that moment, and the little scene caused her eyes to fill with tears of gladness. She was ready for the shopping expedition the next day: the children were allowed to go too, and again had a most enjoyable time. After that they were told lessons must be taken up again: and Lulu passed most of her time in her own room, generally engaged in preparing her tasks for her father to hear in the evening; for he was now so busy with the improvements being carried forward at Woodburn, that very often he could not attend to her recitations till after tea. She continued to think him the kindest and most interesting teacher she had ever had; while he found, to his surprise, that he had a liking for the occupation, aside from his fatherly interest in his pupil: and Max and Grace, listening to Lulu's report, grew anxious for the time when they could share her privileges. But their waiting-time would not be very long. As soon as Miss Elliott's stipulated two weeks had expired, she would leave Woodburn, and they would take possession immediately. Their father and his young wife were quite as eager as they to begin the new order of things. CHAPTER XX. IN THE NEW HOME. The moving to Woodburn was not a formidable affair, there being little to carry from Ion besides the personal belongings of parents and children; and, indeed, nearly every thing, even of that kind, had been sent over beforehand. Miss Elliott went one morning; and the Raymonds drove over scarcely an hour later, to find the greater part of the house in perfect order, a full staff of competent servants, and an excellent dinner in course of preparation. Max and his sisters had been directed to stay away from the place ever since the day when their rooms were assigned them, and now a glad surprise awaited them. "Come up-stairs," their father said, when they had made the circuit of the lower rooms. "My dear," to Violet, "will you please come too?" "With all my heart," she returned gayly, and tripped lightly after him up the broad stairway, the children following. He led them first to her apartments, and on through them into those of the little girls, greatly enjoying the exclamations of wonder and delight from her and the children. They had all supposed the work of renovation and improvement was not to be begun till after the departure of Miss Elliott; but they found it not only begun, but finished; the new papers they had chosen were already on the walls, the carpets down, the curtains up, mirrors and pictures hung, and furniture in place. Max's rooms, visited last, were found to be in like condition,--not at all inferior to those of his sisters in any respect. Violet was greatly pleased; the children were wild with delight; every thing was so dainty and fresh, there was such an air of elegance and refinement about the appointments of each room, that all were charmed with the effect. They were hardly yet satisfied with gazing and commenting, when the summons to dinner came. They trooped down to the dining-room, the captain and Violet leading the way, and seated themselves at the table. Here, too, all was new and handsome; the napery, china, glass and silver ware, such as would not have suffered by comparison with what they had been accustomed to at Ion and Viamede. Lulu was beginning to express that opinion, when her father silenced her by a gesture. All quieted down at once, while he reverently gave thanks for their food, and asked God's blessing upon it. "May I talk now, papa?" she asked, a moment after he had finished. "Yes, if you have any thing to say worth our hearing." "I'm not sure about that," she said; "but I wanted to tell you how beautiful I think the china and glass and silver are." "Ah!" he said, smiling, "I am glad they meet your approval." "O papa! such a nice, _nice_ home as you have made for us!" exclaimed Grace in her turn. "Isn't it, Maxie?" turning to her brother. "Yes, indeed! and we'll have to be nice, nice children to fit the home, won't we, Gracie?" "Yes, and to fit papa and mamma," she responded, sending a merry glance from one to the other. Both smiled upon her in return. "We are going to have a house-warming this evening, Gracie," said her father: "do you know what that is?" "No, papa; but I think it's very nice and warm now in all the rooms. Don't you?" "It is quite comfortable, I think; but the house-warming will be an assembling of our relatives and friends to celebrate our coming into it, by having a pleasant, social time with us." "Oh, that will be nice!" she exclaimed. "How many are coming, papa? I s'pose you've 'vited grandma Elsie and all the rest of the folks from Ion, and all the folks at Fairview?" "Yes, and from the Oaks, the Pines, the Laurels, Roselands, and Ashlands; and we hope they will all come." She gave him a wistful look. "Well," he said with a smile, "what is it?" "Papa, you know I 'most always have to go to bed at eight o'clock. I'd like ever so much to stay up till nine to-night, if you are willing." "If you will take a nap after dinner, you may," he replied in an indulgent tone. "Max and Lulu may stay up later than usual if they will do likewise." They all accepted the condition with thanks, and at the conclusion of the meal retired to their respective rooms to fulfil it. Violet also, having not yet entirely recovered from the ill effects of anxiety and nursing, consequent upon the baby's injury, retired to her apartments to rest and sleep. Capt. Raymond went to the library to busy himself with some correspondence first, afterwards with books and papers. He had one of these last in his hand, a pile of them on the table before him, when, from the open doorway into the hall, Lulu's voice asked,-- "Papa, may I come in? are you very busy?" "Not too busy to be glad of my little girl's company," he said, glancing up from his paper with a pleasant smile. "Come and sit on my knee." She availed herself of the invitation with joyful haste. "I thought you were taking a nap," he remarked, as he put his arm round her, and kissed the ruby lips she held up in mute request. "So I was, papa; but you didn't intend me to sleep all the afternoon, did you?" she asked, with a gleeful laugh, and nestling closer to him. "No, hardly," he returned, joining in her mirth: "so much sleep in the daytime would be apt to interfere with your night's rest. I want you all to have sufficient sleep in the twenty-four hours to keep you in health of body and mind, but should be very sorry to have you become sluggards,--so fond of your beds as to waste time in drowsing there, that should be spent in the exercise and training of body or mind. What have you been doing besides napping?" "Enjoying my lovely, lovely rooms, papa, and examining the closets and wardrobe and bureau, to find out just where all my things have been put." "That was well. Do you know any thing about housework,--sweeping, dusting, and keeping things neat and tidy?" "Not very much, papa." "That is to be a part of your education," he said. "I want my daughters to become thorough housekeepers, conversant with all the details of every branch of the business. Gracie is not old enough or strong enough to begin that part of her training yet, but you are; so you must take care of your rooms yourself, except when something more than sweeping, dusting, and bed-making is needed." "I'd like well enough to do it sometimes, papa," she said, looking a little crestfallen; "but I don't like to be tied down to doing it every day, because some days I shall want to be busy at something else; and besides, it is so much like being a servant." "My little girl, that isn't a right kind of pride; honest labor is no disgrace; and 'Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work,' is as much a command of God as the 'In it (the sabbath) thou shalt not do any work.'" "Yes, papa: and I don't think I'm lazy; I like to be busy, and sometimes work for hours together at my fret-sawing." "No, I have never thought you an indolent child," he said, smoothing her hair caressingly; "but I am afraid you are wilful, and inclined to think yourself wiser than your elders, even your father." "Please, papa, don't think that," she said, blushing, and hanging her head: "I know you are much wiser than I am." "Is it, then, that you doubt my affection for you?" he asked seriously. "Why, papa, how could I, when you are so good to me, and often tell me that you love me dearly?" "What, then, is the trouble? if you believe your father to be both wise and loving, and if you love him, and want to please him, how can you object to his plans and wishes for you?" "But, papa, who is to teach me how to take care of my rooms? Not mamma Vi, I suppose? I never saw her do any such work; and--would you want me taught by one of the servants?" she queried, blushing vividly. "No," he said: "I have a better plan than that. I have engaged Christine to be housekeeper here, and she will instruct you in all housewifely arts. She is a lady in education and manners, and you need feel it no degradation to be instructed by her." "Oh, that will be nice! and I'll try to learn to do the work well, and to like it, too, to please you, my own, dear papa," she said, looking up lovingly into his face, her own growing very bright again. "That is right, my dear little daughter," he returned, smiling kindly upon her. "You asked just now," he went on, "if your mamma Vi would teach you these things. When I asked her to become my wife, I promised that she should have no care or responsibility in the matter of training and looking after the welfare of the three children I then had; because her mother objected, that she was too young for such a burden: so now that I can live at home with my children, and have no business that need interfere, I shall do my best to be father and mother both to them." "How nice, papa!" she exclaimed joyfully. "Oh, I do think we ought to be the happiest children in the world, with such a dear, kind father, and such a lovely home! But"--her face clouded, and she sighed deeply. "But what, my child?" "I was thinking of that dreadful temper that is always getting the better of me. But you will help me to conquer it, papa?" she added, half inquiringly, half in assertion. "I fully intend to do all in my power to that end," he said in a tender tone; "but, my beloved child, the hardest part of the battle must inevitably be your own. You must watch and pray against that, your besetting sin, never allowing yourself to be a moment off your guard." "I mean to, papa; and you will watch me, and warn me when you see that I am forgetting?" "I shall be constantly endeavoring to do so," he answered,--"trying to guard and guide all my children, looking carefully after their welfare, physical, mental, moral, and spiritual. "To that end, I have just been examining some of the reading-matter which has been provided for them in my absence; and, so far as I have made myself acquainted with it, I decidedly approve it, as I expected I should; having all confidence in those who chose it for you,--grandpa Dinsmore and grandma Elsie. "This little paper, 'The Youth's Companion,' strikes me as very entertaining and instructive, also of excellent moral tone. Do you like it?" "Oh, yes, indeed, papa! we are all very fond of it, and find a great deal of useful information in it. I wouldn't be without it for a great deal, nor Max wouldn't either; and Gracie likes the part for the little folks ever so much." "Then, we will continue to take it," he said; "also this magazine, 'St. Nicholas,' if you like it, as I can hardly doubt that you do." "Indeed we do!" she exclaimed: "we wouldn't any of us like to do without that, either. Oh, I am glad you will let us go on with both that and the paper! "Papa, where is the schoolroom? You haven't shown us that yet." "No; and here come Max and Gracie," he said, as the two came hurrying in together. "I will show it to you now." "What, papa?" asked Max. "Oh! is there something more to see?" exclaimed Grace, running to her father, and putting her hand in his. "Oh, it's ever so nice to have such a beautiful home, and so many beautiful new things to look at!" "It is only your schoolroom this time," her father said, closing his fingers lovingly over the little hand, and smiling down into the sweet blue eyes upraised so gratefully to his. "Oh, yes, I want to see that! I'd 'most forgotten 'bout it," she said, skipping along by his side as he led the way, Max and Lulu following. The room he had selected for the purpose was in a wing attached to the main building at the end farthest removed from Violet's apartments; for he did not want her to be disturbed by any noise the children might make, or them to feel constrained to keep very quiet when not engaged in study or recitation. There was a simultaneous burst of delight from the three, as he threw open the door, and ushered them in. Every thing had been done to render that as attractive as any other part of the mansion: the windows reached almost from floor to ceiling, some opening on to the veranda, one looking directly out upon lawn and flower-garden, with a glimpse of the wood and the brook beyond; a handsome rug covered the centre of the stained and polished floor. In an open fireplace a bright wood fire was blazing, an easy-chair on each side of it; and a sofa on the farther side of the room seemed to invite to repose: but the handsome writing-table, and three pretty rosewood desks, were suggestive of work to be done ere the occupants of the room might feel entitled to rest. The walls were tinted a delicate gray, an excellent background for the pictures that adorned them here and there: most of these were marine views,--that over the fireplace, a very large and fine one, of a storm at sea. On the mantel-shelf were heaped sea-mosses, shells, and coral; but the tiles below it represented Scripture scenes. Blinds and curtains shaded the windows; and the broad, low sills were cushioned, making pleasant places to sit in. "It will be just a pleasure to study in such a place as this," cried Max, rubbing his hands with satisfaction, and smiling all over his face. "Indeed it will! especially with such a teacher as we are to have," chimed in Lulu. "Oh, I'm just in ever such a hurry to begin!" said Grace. "Papa, which is my desk?" "They are exactly alike," he said. "I thought of having yours made a trifle lower than the others, but concluded to give you a foot-rest instead, as you will soon grow tall enough to want it the height it now is. Max and Lulu, shall we give your little sister the first choice, as she is the youngest?" "Yes, indeed, papa! yes, indeed!" they both answered with hearty good will, Max adding, "And Lu must have the next, if you please, papa." That matter being speedily settled, the next question was when school was to begin. They were all three asking it. "You may have your choice--we will put it to vote--whether we will begin to-morrow morning, or not till Monday," replied their father; "to-morrow, you will remember, is Thursday: we will begin school regularly at nine o'clock each morning; and it is to last four hours, not including five or ten minutes at the end of every hour for rest." "That'll be ever so nice!" was Lulu's comment. "That's so," said Max. "I see you are not going to be hard on a fellow, papa." "Wait till you are sure," said his father: "there's to be no idling, no half attention to study, in those hours; you are to give your whole minds to your lessons, and I shall be very strict in exacting perfect recitations." "Do you mean, sir, that we are to repeat the answers in the book, word for word?" "No, not at all. I shall very much prefer to have you give the sense in your own words: then I shall know that you understand the meaning of the text, and are not repeating sounds merely like a parrot; that you have not been going over the words without trying to take in the ideas they are meant to express." "But suppose we can't catch the writer's meaning?" "If you fail to do so, after giving your best efforts to the task, your teacher will always be ready to explain to the best of his ability," was the smiling rejoinder. "But remember, all of you, that I intend you to use your own brains with as little assistance from other people's as possible. Mind as well as body grows strong by exercise." "But we haven't decided when we are to begin," said Lulu. "I vote for to-morrow," said Max: "afternoons will give us time enough to do any thing else we want to." "Yes: I second the motion," she said. "And I third it," added Grace. "Now, papa, you are laughing at me, and so is Max. Wasn't that the right way to say it?" "It was 'most as right as Lu's," said Max. "And both will do well enough," said their father. "I was going to ask if I might have Eva here to visit me to-morrow, papa," said Lulu; "but she'll be busy with lessons in the morning too. May I ask her to come in the afternoon?" "Yes: you can ask her this evening; she will be here with the rest. "Now I have something else to show you. Come with me." He took Gracie's hand again, and led them to a small, detached building, only a few yards distant,--a one-story frame, so prettily designed that it was quite an ornament to the grounds. The children exclaimed in surprise; for, though it had been there on their former visit to Woodburn, it was so greatly changed that they failed to recognize it. "It wasn't here before, papa, was it?" asked Grace. "I'm sure I didn't see it." "Yes, it was here," he said, as he ushered them in, "but I have had it altered and fitted up expressly for my children's use: you see, it is a little away from the house, so that the noise of saws and hammers will not be likely to prove an annoyance to your mamma and visitors. See, this is a workroom furnished with fret and scroll saws, and every sort of tool that I know of which would be likely to prove useful to you, Max and Lulu." "Papa, thank you! how good and kind you are to us!" they both exclaimed, glancing about them, then up into his face, with sparkling eyes. "You must have spent a great deal of money on us, sir," added Max thoughtfully. "Yes, indeed," chimed in Lulu with a slight look of uneasiness. "Papa, I do hope you won't have to go without any thing you want, because you've used up so much on these and other things for us." "No, my dears; and if you are only good and obedient, and make the best use of what I have provided, I shall never regret any thing of what I have done for you. "See here, Gracie." He opened an inner door as he spoke, and showed a playroom as completely fitted up for its intended use as the room they were in. It was about the same size as the workroom, the two occupying the whole of the small building. A pretty carpet covered the floor, a few pictures hung on the delicately tinted walls; there were chairs and a sofa of suitable size for the comfort of the intended occupants, and smaller ones on which Gracie's numerous dolls were seated; a cupboard with glass doors showed sets of toy china dishes, and all the accessories for dinner and tea table; there were also a bureau, wash-stand, and table corresponding in size with the rest of the furniture; and the captain, pulling open the drawers of the first named, showed them well stocked with material of various kinds, suitable for making into new garments for the dolls, and with all the necessary implements,--needles, thread, thimbles, scissors, etc. The two little girls were almost breathless with astonishment and delight. "Papa!" cried Gracie, "you haven't left one single thing for Santa Claus to bring us on Christmas!" "Haven't I?" he returned, laughing, and pinching her round, rosy cheek. "Ah, well wouldn't you as soon have them as presents from your own papa?" "Oh, yes, papa! I know he's just pretend, and it would be you or some of the folks that love me," she said, laying her cheek against his hand; "but I like to pretend it, 'cause it's such fun." "There are a good many weeks yet to Christmas-time," remarked Lulu; "and perhaps our Santa Claus folks will think up something else for you, Gracie." "Perhaps they may," said the captain, "if she is good: good children are not apt to be forgotten or neglected, and I hope mine are all going to be such." "I'm quite sure we all intend to try hard, papa," Max said, "not hoping to gain more presents by it, but because you've been so good to us already." "Indeed we do!" added his sisters. CHAPTER XXI. "Then all was jollity, Feasting and mirth, light wantonness and laughter." "It seems nice and warm here," remarked Lulu; "but," glancing about, "I don't see any fire." Her father pointed to a register. "There is a cellar underneath, and a furnace in it," he said. "I thought that the safest way to heat these rooms for the use of very little people. I do not want to expose you to any danger of setting yourselves on fire." "It's getting a little dark," remarked Grace. "Yes," he said. "We will go in now. It is time for you to be dressed for the evening." "Papa, who is to tell us what to wear,--you, or mamma Vi?" asked Lulu, as they pursued their way back to the house. "You may wear your cream-colored cashmere with the cherry trimmings; Gracie, hers with the blue," he replied. "That's just what I wanted you to say, papa! I like those dresses," remarked Lulu with satisfaction. "That is well: and Gracie, of course, is pleased; for she never objects to any thing papa or mamma wishes her to do," he said, with a loving glance down into the little girl's face. "'Course not, papa; 'cause I know you and mamma always know best," she said, her blue eyes smiling up into his. "And I mean to try to be like her in that, papa," Lulu said with unwonted humility. "I hope so: I have no fault to find with your behavior of late," he returned kindly. They passed into the house, and in the hall met Christine and Alma. "Ah! you have come, my good girls?" the captain said to them with a pleased look. "Jane," to the girl who had admitted them, "show them to their rooms." Christine had come to assume her duties as housekeeper at Woodburn; Alma was to make her home there while still continuing to sew for the families at Ion and Fairview--an arrangement which suited the sisters admirably. "Thanks, sir: it ees one grand place you haf here," said Christine. "We shall be very pleased to haf so nice a home." "I hope it will prove a happy one to you both," he returned kindly. Then, as they followed Jane to the rear of the mansion,-- "Now, children," he said, "make haste with your dressing." "Yes, sir," they replied, hurrying up the broad stairway with willing feet. At its head they met Agnes, their mamma's maid. "I'se to help yo' dress, Miss Lu and Miss Gracie," she said. "Miss Wi'let tole me so, and I'se laid out yo' things on yo' beds." "What things? What dress for me?" asked Lulu sharply. "De cream-colored cashmere, what Miss Wi'let corrected me to." Lulu laughed. "Directed, you mean, Agnes. You may tie my sash when I'm ready. I can do all the rest myself," she said, passing on into her bedroom, while Grace skipped gayly into hers. "Mamma's very good to send you, Agnes," she said; "and you may please dress me as fast as you can, 'cause papa told us to make haste." Grace was a favorite with Agnes as with all the servants at Ion. "Ya'as, I'll dress yo' up fine, Miss Gracie, and make yo' look putty as a pink," she said, beginning her task. "Lots ob folks comin' to-night, honey, and grand doin's gwine on in de kitchen and de dinin'-room. Dere's a long table sot out in de bigges' dinin'-room, and heaps and heaps ob splendiferous china dishes, wid fruits and flowahs painted onto 'em, and silverware bright as de sun, and glass dishes dat sparkle like Miss Elsie's di'mon's; and in de kitchen dey's cookin' turkeys and chickens, and wild game ob warious kinds, and oysters in warious styles; 'sides all de pastry and cakes and fruits and ices, and--oh, I cayn't begin to tell yo' all de good things the captain has perwided! dere wasn't never nuffin' grander at Ion or Wiamede or de Oaks, or any ob de grand places belongin' to our fam'lies." Grace was a highly interested listener. "Oh," she said, "I want to see the table when it's all set and the good things on it! I wonder if papa will let me eat any of them." "Maybe," said Agnes; "but you know, Miss Grace, yo's sickly,--leastways, not bery strong,--and de doctah doan' let you eat rich things." "No," returned the little girl, sighing slightly, "but I do have a good many nice things; and I'd rather eat plain victuals than be weak and sick. Wouldn't you, Agnes?" "Yaas, I reckon. Dere, you's done finished, Miss Gracie, and looks sweet as a rosebud." "So she does," said Lulu, coming hurrying in from her room, arrayed in her pretty cashmere, and with a wide, rich sash-ribbon in her hand. "Now, Agnes, if you will please tie my sash, I'll be 'done finished' too." "O Lu!" exclaimed Grace in loving admiration, "I'm sure you must look twice as sweet and pretty as I do." Their father opened the door, and stepped in just in time to hear her words, and, glancing smilingly from one to the other, said, "To papa's eyes, both his dear little girls look sweet and lovable. Agnes, their appearance does you credit. Now, my darlings, we will go down to tea, for there is the bell." "Have the folks come, papa?" asked Grace, putting her hand into his. "No, daughter: they will probably not begin to come for an hour or so." "Then, are we going to have two suppers?" "Yes, one for ourselves--the children especially--at the usual hour, and a later one for the company. That last will be too late, and too heavy, for your weak digestion." "But not for Max's and mine, will it, papa?" questioned Lulu. "Yes, I fear so." "But we are strong and healthy." "And I wish to keep you so," he said pleasantly; "but you may rest assured that I shall not deny you any enjoyment I think it safe to grant you. Now sit down and be quiet till the blessing has been asked,"--for they had reached the dining-room, and found Violet and Max there waiting for them. Lulu had overheard a good deal of the glowing account of the coming feast to which Agnes had treated Grace, and, when at liberty to speak again, asked, in a rather discontented tone, if she and Max were not to have any share in the good supper being prepared for the expected guests. Instead of answering directly, the captain turned to his son, and asked, "Max, what do you think of this supper?" "It's good enough for a king, sir," returned the lad heartily, glancing over the table as he spoke,--"the nicest of bread and butter, plenty of rich milk and cream, canned peaches and plums, and splendid gingerbread. Why, Lu, what more could you ask?" Lulu only blushed and hung her head in reply. "I think it is a meal to be thankful for," remarked Violet cheerily; "but, my dear, you will let them share in some of the lighter refreshments provided for the guests, won't you?" "Yes, I intend they shall," replied her husband. "Even Gracie can, I think, eat some ice-cream with safety." "Thank you, papa: I'll be satisfied with that, if you don't think it is best for me to have any thing else," Lulu said, recovering her spirits. They had scarcely left the table when the guests began to arrive, those from Ion and Fairview coming first. "Mamma, dearest mamma! welcome, a thousand times welcome, to our home!" exclaimed Violet, embracing her mother with ardent affection. "I wish it were yours also, mother," the captain said: "there could be no more welcome inmate." There were cordial, affectionate greetings for each of the others also: then, when outdoor garments had been laid aside, all were conducted over the house, to be shown the improvements already made, and told of those still in contemplation. It was a great delight to Lulu and Grace to exhibit their pretty rooms to Evelyn and Rosie, and hear their expressions of surprise and admiration; and the pleasure was repeated several times, as the little folks from the Laurels, the Oaks, and the Pines arrived, and in succession went the same round. "I am pleased with all I have seen, Vi; but this room is especially charming to me," grandma Elsie said, when Violet led her a second time into the nursery, the rest of the Ion party having passed on down to the parlors. "Baby should be a merry, happy child, if pleasant, cheerful surroundings can make her so." "I trust she will, mamma," returned the young mother, leading the way to the dainty crib where the little one lay sweetly sleeping. Elsie bent over the little form, gazing at the sweet baby face with eyes brimful of motherly love and tenderness. "The lovely, precious darling!" she murmured softly. "I am so rejoiced, so thankful, to see her looking almost herself again!" "As we are," said Violet, in low, tremulous tones. "Her father is extremely fond of her, mamma, as he is of all his children. I think he has no favorite among them, but loves each one devotedly." "As I do mine," Elsie responded, a bright, sweet smile lighting up her face. "I love you, my Vi, and all your brothers and sisters, very dearly,--each with a love differing somewhat in kind from that given to the others, but not at all in intensity." They lingered a moment longer, watching the young sleeper: then with a parting injunction to the nurse to be very careful of her, not leaving her alone for an instant, they went down-stairs again, and rejoined the rest of the company. Everybody had come, the last party of children just descended from the inspection of the rooms of Max and his sisters. "Now, have we seen positively every thing?" asked Rosie Travilla. "Why, no!" cried Max, as with sudden recollection. Then hurrying to his father, who was talking on the other side of the room to Dr. Conly, and Mr. Horace Dinsmore of the Oaks, he stood waiting respectfully for an opportunity to speak. The gentlemen paused in their conversations and the captain asked, "What is it, my son?" "We haven't shown the workroom or the playroom, papa." "Ah, sure enough! We must have them lighted first. Send Scipio out to put a lamp in each. Then the ladies' wraps will have to be brought down, for they would be in danger of taking cold going even that short distance without." "I'll attend to it all, sir," Max rejoined with cheerful alacrity, and hastened away to do so. In a few minutes all was in readiness. Max, announcing the fact to his father, and the company in general, said dubiously, "I'm afraid we can't go all at once: the rooms aren't big enough to take in so many." "So we will go in divisions," said Mr. Dinsmore. "There are thirty of us--not counting the Woodburn family proper: we will make five divisions, six in each, in addition to the guide and exhibiter. Does everybody consent?" "Yes, yes," was heard on every side. Then ensued a merry time forming the divisions, and deciding the order of precedence; for every one was in mirthful mood. It was all settled at last. The visits of inspection were made: everybody agreed in praising all they saw, and congratulating Max and his sisters on the good fortune that had befallen them. The rest of the evening passed off very pleasantly. The feast was enjoyed, every dish being pronounced a success: the Woodburn children were satisfied with the share of it allowed them,--all the more, perhaps, that a like care was exercised by the parents and guardians of the other young folks in respect to their indulgence of appetite. Grace bade good-night, and went to her nest at nine o'clock, a cheerful, happy child; but, as the party broke up at ten, Max and Lulu were allowed to remain up to see them off. Lulu had taken an early opportunity to give the invitation for the next day to Evelyn, and it was joyfully accepted, "uncle Lester" giving ready permission. "You'll come as soon as lessons are over at Ion, won't you?" asked Lulu in parting. "Yes, you may be sure I'll come the first minute I can," Eva answered gayly. "I expect to have a lovely time with you in those beautiful rooms, and I've had a lovely time to-night. Good-by," giving her friend a hearty embrace. "Well, children," the captain said at breakfast the next morning, "remember, I expect every one of you to be in the schoolroom at five minutes before nine, and to begin studying exactly at the hour." "Every thing to be done with naval precision, I suppose," remarked Violet, giving him a bright half-saucy smile; "that being, I understand, about on a par with military." "Yes," he said, smiling in return, "that is to be the rule in this house for every one but my wife: she is to follow her own sweet will in all things." "Ah!" she responded gayly, "I fear you do not realize what a rash promise you are making; or, rather, how rash you are in according such a privilege." "It is hardly that," he answered: "acknowledging a right, would be my way of expressing it." They had left the table and the breakfast-room, and were alone at the moment, the children having scattered to their work or play. "How good you are to me, my dear husband!" she said, looking up fondly into his face as they stood together before the parlor fire. "Not a whit better than I ought to be, my darling," he responded, bending to kiss the sweet, upturned face. "I have taken you from a tender mother and a most luxurious home, and it must be my care to see that you lose nothing by the transplantation--sweet and delicate flower that you are!" "In my place, Zoe would call you an old flatterer," she returned with a light laugh, but a tell-tale moisture gathering in her eyes. "And what do you call me, my Violet?" he asked, putting his arm about her, and drawing her close to his side. "The kindest, best, dearest of husbands, the noblest of men!" "Ah, my dear! who is the flatterer now?" he laughed. "I'm afraid you and I might be accused of forming a mutual admiration society." "Well, what if we do? isn't it the very best sort of a society for husband and wife to form? Levis, am I to have no duties in this house? none of the cares and labors that the mistress of an establishment is usually expected to assume?" "You shall have no care of housekeeping that I can save you from," he said. "I undertake that, with Christine as my head assistant; though you, of course, are mistress, with the right to give orders and directions whenever you will--to housekeeper, servants, children, even to your husband if you see fit," he concluded with a humorous look and smile. "The idea of my ordering you whom I have promised to obey," she returned merrily. "But I'm afraid you are going to spoil me. Am I to have nothing to do?" "You are to do exactly what you please," he said: "the care and training of our little one, aside from all the assistance to be had from servants, will furnish you with no small amount of employment." "But you will help me with that?" "Certainly, love; I intend to be as good and faithful a father to her as I know how to be: but you are her mother, and will do a mother's part by her, I know. Then, there are wifely duties which you would not wish to delegate to any one else." "No, never!" she cried. "O my dear husband! it is the greatest pleasure in life to do any thing I can to add to your comfort and happiness." "I know it, sweet wife. Ah!" glancing at his watch, "I must tear myself away now from your dear society, and attend to the duties of employer and teacher. I have some directions to give both _employees_ and children." Grace ran and opened the schoolroom door at the sound of her father's approaching footsteps. "See, papa," she said, "we are all here, waiting for you to come, and tell us what lessons to learn." "Yes, you are good, punctual children," he replied, glancing at the pretty little clock on the mantel; "for it still wants five minutes to nine." "Papa, I know what lessons to learn, of course," remarked Lulu; "but the others are waiting for you to tell them." "Yes. I shall examine Max first," the captain said, seating himself at his writing-table. "Bring your books here, my son." "Are you dreadfully frightened, Maxie? very afraid of your new teacher?" Lulu asked laughingly as her brother obeyed the order. "I don't expect to faint with fright," he returned; "for I've a notion he's pretty fond of me." "Of you and of all his pupils," the captain said. "Lulu, you may take out your books, and begin to study." When the tasks had been assigned to each, "Now children," he said, "I am going to leave you for a while. I can do so without fear that you will take advantage of my absence to idle away your time; for I know that you are honorable and trustworthy, also obedient. I have seldom known any one of you to disobey an order from me." "Thank you, papa," Max said, answering for both himself and sisters, and coloring with pleasure as he spoke. "We'll try to deserve your praise and your confidence. But are we to consider ourselves forbidden to speak at all to each other while you are gone?" "No, not entirely; but do not engage in unnecessary talk, to the neglect of your studies." So saying, he went out and left them. Returning exactly at the expiration of the first hour for study, he found them all busily at work. He commended their industry, and gave permission for five minutes' rest. They were prompt to avail themselves of it, and gathered about him full of gleeful chat, the girls seating themselves one on each knee, Max standing close at his side. School was a decided success that day, and neither teacher nor pupils saw any reason to regret the establishment of the new order of things. Evelyn came soon after they were dismissed, spent the afternoon and evening, and, when she left, averred that it had been the most delightful visit she had ever paid. CHAPTER XXII. LIFE AT WOODBURN. Lulu's temper was not conquered, but she was more successful than formerly in combating it. The terrible lesson she had had in the injury to her baby sister, consequent upon her outburst of passion, could not easily be forgotten: the bitter recollection was often a great restraint upon her, and her father's loving watchfulness saved her many a time, when, without it, she would have fallen; he kept her with him almost constantly when at home,--and he was rarely absent,--scarcely allowed her to go anywhere off the estate without him, and seemed never for a moment to forget her and her special temptation: the slightest elevation in the tones of her voice was sure to catch his ear; and a warning look generally proved sufficient to put her on her guard, and check the rising storm of anger. There were several reasons why it was--as she often asserted--easier to be good with him than with Mr. Dinsmore: he was more patient and sympathizing, less ready to speak with stern authority, though he could be stern enough when he deemed it necessary. Besides, he was her father, whom she greatly reverenced and dearly loved, and who had, as she expressed it, a right to rule her and to punish her when she deserved it. One morning, after several very happy weeks at Woodburn, the quiet of the schoolroom, which had been profound for many minutes, was broken by a slight exclamation of impatience from Lulu. Her father, glancing up from the letter he was writing, saw an ominous frown on her brow, as she bent over her slate, setting down figures upon it, and quickly erasing them again, with a sort of feverish haste, shrugging her shoulders fretfully, and pushing her arithmetic peevishly aside with the free hand. "Lulu, my daughter," he said, in a quiet tone, "put on your hat and coat, and take a five-minutes' run on the driveway." "Just now, papa?" she asked, looking up in surprise. "Yes, just now. When you think you have been out the specified number of minutes, you may come back; but I shall not find fault with you if you are not quite punctual, as you will not have a timepiece with you." "Thank you, sir," she said, obeying with alacrity. She came in again presently, with cheeks glowing and eyes sparkling, not a cloud on her brow. "Ah! I see you feel better," her father remarked, smiling kindly upon her; "and I have finished my letter, so have time to talk with you. Max and Gracie, you may take your turn at a run in the fresh air now." Donning their outdoor garments, while Lulu took hers off, and put them in their proper place, they hurried away. "Bring your slate and book here, daughter," was the next order, in the kindest of tones, "and let me see what was troubling you so." "It's these vulgar fractions, papa," she said, giving herself an impatient shake. "I don't wonder they call them vulgar, for they're so hateful! I can't understand the rule, and I can't get the examples right. I wish you wouldn't make me learn them." "Daughter, daughter!" he said, in grave, reproving accents, "don't give way to an impatient temper. It will only make matters worse." "But, papa," she said, bringing the book and slate as directed, "won't you please let me skip these vulgar fractions?" "I thought," he said, "that my Lulu was a brave, persevering little girl, not ready to be overcome by a slight difficulty." "Oh! but it isn't a slight one, papa: it's big and hard," she pleaded. "I will go over the rule with you, and try to make it clear," he returned, still speaking in a pleasant tone; "and then we will see what we can do with these troublesome examples." She sighed almost hopelessly, but gave her attention fully to his explanation, and presently cried out joyfully, "Oh, I do understand it now, papa! and I believe I can get the sums right." "I think you can," he said. "Stand here by my side, and let me see you try." She succeeded, and was full of joy. "There is nothing like trying, my little girl," he said, smiling at her exultation and delight. She came to him again after lessons were done, and Max and Grace had left the room once more. "May I talk a little to you, papa?" she asked. "Yes, more than a little, if you wish," he replied, laying aside the book he had taken up. "What is it?" "Papa, I want to thank you for sending me out to take that run, and then helping me so nicely and kindly with my arithmetic." "You are very welcome, my darling," he said, drawing her to a seat upon his knee. "If you hadn't done it, papa, or if you had spoken sternly to me, as grandpa Dinsmore would have done in your place, I'd have been in a great passion in a minute. I was feeling like just picking up my slate, and dashing it to pieces against the corner of the desk." "How grieved I should have been had you done so!" he said; "very, very sorry for your wrong-doing, and that I should have to keep my word in regard to the punishment to be meted out for such conduct." "Yes, papa," she murmured, hanging her head, and blushing deeply. "Would breaking the slate have helped you?" he asked with grave seriousness. "Oh, no, papa! you cannot suppose I'm so foolish as to think it would." "Was it the fault of the slate that you had such difficulty with your examples?" "Why, no, papa, of course not." "Then, was it not extremely foolish, as well as wrong, to want to break it just because of your want of success with your ciphering?" "Yes, sir," she reluctantly admitted. He went on, "Anger is great folly. The Bible says, 'Be not hasty in thy spirit to be angry; for anger resteth in the bosom of fools.' It seems to be the sort of foolishness that, more than any other, is bound in the heart of this child of mine. It seems, too, that nothing but 'the rod of correction' will drive it out." She gave him a frightened look. "No," he said, "you need not be alarmed: as you did not indulge your passionate impulse, I have no punishment to inflict. "My dear, dear child, try, _try_ to conquer the propensity! Watch and pray against this besetting sin." "I will, papa," she murmured with a half despairing sigh. Some weeks later--it was on an afternoon early in December--Lulu and Grace were in their own little sitting-room, busied in the manufacture of some small gifts for "papa and Maxie," who were, of course, to be kept in profound ignorance on the subject till the time for presentation; therefore, the young workers sat with locked doors; and when presently Maxie's boyish footsteps were heard rapidly approaching, their materials were hastily gathered up, thrust into a closet close at hand, and the key turned upon them. Then Lulu ran and opened the door. "Hollo!" cried Max, in a perfectly good-humored tone, "what do you lock a fellow out for? It looks as if you're up to some mischief. I just came to tell you there's company in the parlor, and they've asked for you, both of you." "Who are they?" asked Lulu, glancing at her reflection in a pier-glass opposite, to make sure that dress and hair were in order. She was neat and orderly by nature, and her father very particular about the appearance of his children; not caring to have them expensively attired, but always neat and tidy. "The Oaks young folks," replied Max,--"Horace and Frank and their two sisters, Maud and Sydney." "Come, Gracie," said Lulu, turning to her little sister: "we both look nice, and we'll go right down." The children all felt rather flattered by the call, because the Oaks young people were older than themselves. Horace, Frank, and Maud were all older than Max, and Sydney was between him and Lulu in age. With the Dinsmore girls, the Raymonds were quite well acquainted, having seen them frequently at Ion, and sometimes met them elsewhere; but the boys, who had been away at school, were comparative strangers. Violet was in the parlor chatting pleasantly with her young cousins, the call being intended for her also; and her cheerful presence set her little step-daughters more at their ease than they would otherwise have been. They had not been long in the room ere they learned that the special object of the visit was to invite them and Max to the Oaks, to spend the greater part of Christmas week. "It is to be a young people's party, you must all understand," said Maud, who seemed to be the chief speaker, "and so the captain and cousin Vi are not invited: not that cousin Vi is not young, you know, for she is that; but there are to be no married folks asked. "There is to be the usual Christmas-eve party at Ion for all the family connection, Christmas-tree and all that, and the grand dinner-party on Christmas Day; then all the boys and girls of the connection are invited to the Oaks to stay till the next Saturday evening. "We hope, cousin Vi, that Max and his sisters may come?" "If it depended upon me," returned Violet pleasantly, "I presume I should say yes; but of course it will have to be as their father says." "Oh, yes! certainly. Is he in?" "No, and I fear he will not be for an hour or two; but if you will stay to tea, you will be pretty sure to see him." The invitation was declined with thanks; "they had other calls to make, and must be going presently:" but they sat for some minutes longer, the whole four joining in an animated description of various diversions planned for the entertainment of their expected guests, and repeating again and again that they hoped Max and his sisters would be permitted to come. "I do wish papa may let us go!" cried Lulu, the moment the visitors had departed. "I'm sure it will be perfectly delightful!" "So do I," said Max. "Mamma Vi, do you think papa will consent?" "I really cannot say, Max," she answered doubtfully. "Do you want to go, too, Gracie?" drawing the child to her side, and softly smoothing her hair. "Yes, mamma, if--if I could have you or papa there with me. I don't want to go very much 'less one of you goes too." "And you are such a delicate little darling, that I hardly think your papa will feel willing to have you go, without either of us along to take care of you." "I can take perfectly good care of Gracie, mamma Vi," asserted Lulu with dignity. "Here comes papa," cried Max, as a step was heard in the hall. Then the door opened, and the captain came in. "We've had an invitation, papa, and hope you will let us accept it," Max said, coming eagerly forward. "O papa! please, please do!" cried Lulu, running to him, and taking hold of his hand. "Let me hear about it," he said, sitting down, and allowing Lulu to take possession of one knee, Gracie of the other; "but speak one at a time. Max, you are the eldest: we will let you have the first turn." Violet sat quietly listening, and watching her husband's face, while the eager children told their tale, and expressed their wishes. He looked grave and thoughtful; and before he spoke, she had a tolerably correct idea what he was about to say. "I am glad my little Gracie does not care to go," he said, caressing the child as he spoke, "because she is too feeble and too young to be so long among comparative strangers, without papa or mamma to take care of her. I am sorry Lulu does want to accept the invitation, as there is an insuperable objection to letting her do so." Lulu's countenance had assumed an expression of woful disappointment not unmingled with anger and wilfulness. "I want to go, papa, and I do think you might let me," she said with an ominous frown. "I'm not sickly, and I'm a good deal older than Gracie." "You cannot go, Lucilla," he said gravely, and with some sternness of tone. "Max," in answer to the eagerly questioning look in the lad's eyes, "if you are particularly desirous to go, you have my permission." "Thank you, sir," said the boy heartily. "Papa, why can't I go?" grumbled Lulu. "I think a moment's reflection will tell you why," he answered. "I will talk with you about it at another time. And now not another word on the subject till I mention it to you first." Lulu was silenced for the time; but after tea, going into the library, and finding her father sitting there alone, she went up to him, and in her most coaxing tones said, "O papa! won't you _please_ let me go? I'll be"-- "Lulu," he interrupted sternly, "go immediately to your room and your bed." "Papa, it isn't my bedtime for two hours yet," she said, in a half pleading tone, "and I want to read this new 'Companion' that has just come." "Don't let me have to repeat my order," was the stern rejoinder; and she obeyed, trembling and in haste. She felt sorely disappointed, angry, and rebellious; but, as her father had said, a few moments' reflection showed her the reason of his refusal to allow her to accept the invitation to the Oaks: and, as she glanced round her rooms at the many pretty things his indulgent kindness had supplied, her anger changed to penitence and love. "Of course, papa was right," she sighed to herself, as she moved about, getting ready for bed; "and it wasn't because he doesn't love to see me happy; and I wish, oh, _how_ I wish, I'd been good about it!" She was not at all drowsy; and it seemed a long, long time that she had been lying there awake, when at last she heard her father's step in the hall: then he opened the door, and came in. He had a lighted lamp in his hand. He set it on the mantel, and drew near the bed. "You are awake, I see," he said. "Yes, papa; and I'm sorry I was naughty." "You understand why I sent you to bed? and why I refused to grant your request?" "Yes, sir; you can't trust me to pay that visit, because of my bad temper; and you sent me to bed for disobeying you, by asking again, after you had told me to say no more about it." "Yes: you must learn to be more obedient, less wilful. Did you obey me about going immediately to bed?" he asked, drawing up a chair, and seating himself close beside her. "Yes, papa,--just as quickly as I could get ready." "I hope you did not neglect to kneel down and ask forgiveness of God?" he said inquiringly, in a gentle, tender tone, bending over her, and smoothing her hair as he spoke. "You do not need to be told, that, when you are rebellious and disobedient to your earthly father, you are so toward your heavenly Father also; because he bids you 'honor thy father and thy mother.'" "Yes, papa, I know; I did ask him; and won't you forgive me too?" "Yes," he said, giving her a kiss. "I am sorry to have to deprive you of the pleasure of accepting that invitation, but I cannot yet trust you anywhere away from me; and it was to spare your feelings that I did not state my reason before your mamma and brother and sister." "Oh! I'm sorry I was naughty about it, papa," he said, again putting her hand into his. He held it in a kindly pressure, while he went on talking to her. "I intend you shall go to Ion to the Christmas-eve party, and the dinner-party the next day, as I shall be there too." "Thank you, dear papa: I'd like to go ever so much, but I don't deserve to," she said humbly, "or to have any Christmas gifts. If I were you, and had such a bad child, I wouldn't give her a single thing." "I hope she is going to be a better girl, in future," he said, kissing her good-night. It was a joyful surprise to Lulu when, at the breakfast-table the next morning, her father said, "Children, your mamma and I are going to drive into the city, and will take you all along: and, as I suppose you would like to do some Christmas shopping, I shall advance your next week's allowance,--perhaps furnish something over," he added, with a kindly smile. All three young faces had grown very bright, and there was a chorus of thanks. "We expect to start in a few minutes after prayers," the captain went on, "and so there will be no school to-day." "We like school, papa," said Grace. "I never liked it half so well before." "Nor I." "Nor I," cried the other two. "But you are glad of a holiday once in a while, nevertheless?" their father said, with a pleased look. "Oh, yes, indeed, papa! 'specially when it is to go somewhere with you," replied Grace; and again the others gave a hearty assent. When family worship was over, the captain handed a little roll of bank-notes to each, saying, "Now run away, and get yourselves ready for your ride. Put on your warmest clothing, for the wind is sharp." They flurried out into the hall; then Lulu hesitated, turned about, and ran back. "Papa," she said, rushing up to him, where he sat beside a table, with some papers before him, and throwing her arm round his neck, "dear papa! you are just too good and kind to me! Oh, I don't mean to be disobedient, wilful, or passionate ever again!" "I am rejoiced to hear you say that, my dear little daughter," he replied, putting his arm round her, hugging her close, and kissing her tenderly; "and I do not think I shall ever regret any thing I have done for you or either of the others. It is, to me, the greatest pleasure in life to do whatever I can to make my children happy." "I am so, _so_ sorry I was naughty and disobedient last night," she murmured, laying her cheek to his. "Dear child," he said, "it is fully and freely forgiven. Now run up to your room and dress." Grace called to Lulu as she came up the stairs, "O Lu! come in here a minute, into my room. Look, look, on the bed! see how many papa has given me,--ten nice new one dollars." Lulu counted them as they lay spread out in a row. "Yes, ten," she said. "O Gracie! isn't it nice? isn't papa kind?" "'Course he is; kindest man ever was made," said Grace. "Now see how many you have." Lulu hastily spread out her roll, and counted the bills. "Nine ones, and one two," she announced. "Just as many as mine," said Grace; "and I've got this besides," holding up a bright new silver half-dollar. "So mine's the most this time, isn't it?" "No, because one of my bills counts two: that makes mine fifty cents the most. Papa has given us each ten dollars besides our regular allowance." CHAPTER XXIII. "At Christmas play, and make good cheer, For Christmas comes but once a year." --TUSSER. The morning of the twenty-fourth found Grace almost too ill, with a heavy cold, to be out of bed; and it was quite evident that she would not be able to go to the Christmas-eve party at Ion, or the dinner on Christmas Day. The captain was just finishing his morning toilet when Lulu knocked at his dressing-room door. She had come with the news of Grace's illness, and he followed her at once to the bedside of the sick child. "My poor darling," he said, bending over her in tender concern, "you seem quite feverish. I think you must stay in bed, and we will send for your doctor." "And can't I go to-night, papa?" she asked, the tears starting to her eyes. "I'm afraid not, darling; but don't fret; papa will try to find some way to make it up to you." "I'll stay with her, papa, and read her stories, and do every thing I can to help her enjoy herself," cried Lulu eagerly. "I may, mayn't I?" "You may, if you choose," he said; "but I thought you were very anxious to go." "I was, but I'm not now," she said. "I'd rather stay with Gracie. I shouldn't be one bit happy there without her." "O Lu! I'd love to have you! but I don't want you to lose all that fun just for me," Grace said, with a wistful, loving look into her sister's eyes. "It wouldn't be fun without you, my Gracie," was the quick rejoinder. "I am glad indeed that my little daughters love each other so dearly," the captain said, kissing first one and then the other. "Well, we will see what can be done. If it were not for the disappointment to your mamma, I should stay at home with you, my darlings; as it is, I shall spend at least a part of the evening with you." He left them, and sought Violet in her dressing-room. "My dear, what has happened? I am sure you look anxious and troubled!" she exclaimed, the instant she caught sight of his face. "I confess that I am a little troubled about Gracie," he replied: "she seems to have taken a very heavy cold. I shall send at once for the doctor. And, of course, she has to be disappointed in her expectations for this evening." "Then, let us all stay at home," returned Violet promptly. "I could not enjoy myself, leaving the poor darling at home, sick. Besides," glancing from the window, "do you see? it is snowing fast, and I should not like to expose baby to the storm. So I propose that we change our plans entirely, and have a private Christmas of our own," she went on in a lively tone. "What do you say to it, my dear?" They discussed the idea for some minutes, presently growing quite enthusiastic over it. Their plans were nearly matured when the breakfast-bell rang; and, shortly after leaving the table, they began carrying them out. Max was taken into their confidence, and allowed to assist; and a proud and happy boy was he, going about with an air of mystery, as one to whom secret and important business is intrusted. The little girls, shut up in their own apartments,--Grace reclining on a couch, Lulu with her as constant companion, and making every exertion for her entertainment, while papa, mamma, and Maxie came running in now and then to ask how she was,--knew nothing of messages sent back and forth through the telephone, of packages of various shapes and sizes brought into the house, of mysterious goings and comings, and much time spent by papa, mamma, Maxie, Christine, and others in a certain large room, hitherto but little used. Grace frequently fell asleep: then Lulu would darken the room, go into the adjoining one, leaving the door ajar, so that she could hear the slightest movement her little sick sister might make on waking, and amuse herself with a book or her own thoughts. Their meals were brought to them, and set out in their sitting-room upon a little round table, covered with a snowy damask cloth, whereon were arranged a set of dainty china dishes of a size just suited to the occasion, and toothsome viands such as "papa" deemed they might eat and enjoy without danger to health. It was very nice, they thought; almost nicer, just for a change, than going to the larger table down-stairs with the rest of the family. Soon after they had had their supper, their father came in, bringing the doctor with him, for his second visit that day. "Ah! she is a good deal better," Dr. Conly said, when he had examined his little patient. "Hardly well enough yet to go to Ion," he added with a humorous look and smile; "but I think, if well wrapped up, she may venture a trip down-stairs in papa's arms, and even stay a little while, if she finds the change to the parlor a pleasant one." "Should you like it, papa's dear pet?" the captain asked, leaning over her. "Yes, sir, if you and my doctor think it will be good for me," was the reply, in a submissive and rather languid tone, "and if my Lulu is to come too," she added, with a loving look at her sister. "Oh, yes, indeed! we would not think of going without Lulu!" their father said, smiling affectionately upon her also. So a large shawl was brought, and carefully wrapped about Gracie's little slender figure; and she made the short journey in her father's strong arms, the doctor and Lulu going on before, hand in hand, chatting and laughing merrily. Max heard them, and threw open the parlor-door just as they reached it. Then what a surprise for the little girls! A large, handsome Christmas-tree, loaded with beautiful things, burst upon their astonished sight, and was greeted by them with exclamations of wonder and delight. "Oh! oh! oh! it's the very prettiest Christmas-tree we ever saw! And we didn't know we were to have any at all! And how many, _many_ lovely things are on it! Papa, papa, how good and kind you are to us!" He looked as if he enjoyed their surprise and delight quite as much as they did the tree. "Other folks have been kind to you, too, my darlings," he said, seating himself, with Gracie still in his arms, "as you will see presently, when the gifts are distributed." "Who, papa?" asked Gracie, laying her head on his shoulder, and gazing with delighted eyes, beginning to single out one beautiful object from another as she sent her glances up and down, here and there. "Grandma Elsie, and everybody else in the Ion family, I believe; the Oaks and Laurels and Fairview friends; and Roselands people too; to say nothing of mamma and Maxie." "They're ever so good and kind! they always are," she said in grateful tones. "Oh!" for the first time perceiving that Violet stood near her with the baby in her arms, "mamma and baby too! and how pleased baby looks at the tree!" for the little one was stretching her arms toward it, and cooing and smiling, her pretty blue eyes shining with delight. When all, children and servants,--for the latter had been called in to enjoy the sight also,--had looked to their full, the gifts were distributed. They were very numerous,--nearly everybody having given to nearly everybody else,--and many of those received by the parents and children were very handsome. But their father's gift--a tiny watch to each, to help them to be punctual with all their duties, he said--was what gave the greatest amount of pleasure to Lulu and Grace. Both they and their brother went to bed that night, and woke the next morning, very happy children. The weather being still too severe for the little ones to be taken out, the captain and Violet went to Ion only for a call, and returned early in the day, bringing a portion of the party that usually gathered there, to dine with them at Woodburn. Among these, to Lulu's extreme satisfaction, was Evelyn. She staid till after tea; and all the afternoon, there was much passing to and fro of the different members of the large family connection. Evelyn was to be at the Oaks for the next few days, with the other young people, and regretted greatly that Lulu was not to go too. But Lulu's rebellious feeling about it was a thing of the past. She told Evelyn frankly her father's reason for refusing his consent, adding that she felt that he was right, and that he was so dear, so kind and indulgent in every thing that he thought best to allow, that she was now entirely satisfied to stay at home; particularly as Gracie was not well, and needed her nursing. Grace went early to bed and to sleep. Max and Evelyn had gone to the Oaks: there were only grown people in the parlors now; and Lulu did not care to be there, even if she had not wanted to be near her sleeping sister. There was an open, glowing fire in their little sitting-room, a high fender of polished brass obviating all danger from it to the children's skirts. Lulu seated herself in an easy-chair beside it, and fell into a reverie, unusually deep and prolonged for her. She called to mind all the Christmases she could remember,--not very many,--the last two spent very pleasantly with her new mamma's relatives; the two previous ones passed not half so agreeably, in the poor apology for a home that had been hers and Grade's before their father's second marriage. But what a change for the better that had brought! What forlorn little things she and Gracie were then! and what favored children now! What a sweet, sweet home of their very own, with their father in it!--as she had said to Eva that afternoon, "such a dear, kind father; interested in every thing that concerned his children; so thoughtful about providing pleasures for them, as well as needful food, shelter, and clothing; about their health, too, and the improvement of their minds; reading with them, even in other than school-hours; talking with them of what they read, and explaining so clearly and patiently any thing they did not quite understand; but, above all, striving to lead them to Christ, and train them for his service in this world and the next." He had read with them that morning the story of our Saviour's birth, and spoken feelingly to them of God's wonderful love shown in the "unspeakable gift" of his dear Son. "Certainly, there could not be in all the world a better, dearer father, than theirs. How strange that she could ever grieve him by being naughty, rebellious, passionate! Oh, if she could only be good! always a comfort and blessing to him! she would try, she _would_, with all her might!" Just then the door opened softly; and he came in, came noiselessly to her side, lifted her in his arms, and sat down with her on his knee. "What has my little girl been thinking of sitting here all by herself?" he asked, pressing his lips to her cheek. She told him in a few words, finishing with her longing desire to be to him a better child, a comfort and blessing. "Indeed I ought to be, papa," she said; "and you are such a dear, kind father! you have given me--and all of us--such a lovely home, and such a happy, happy Christmas,--the very happiest we have ever known!" "And it is God our heavenly Father who has put it in my power to do all that I have done for you, and for all my darlings," he said with emotion, drawing her closer, and holding her tenderly to his heart; "and, O my dear child! if I could know that you had begun this day to truly love and serve him, it would be to _me_ the happiest Christmas that _I_ have ever known." 
27618	----	[Transcriber's note: Susan Warner, _The End of a Coil_ (1880)] THE END OF A COIL. BY SUSAN WARNER AUTHOR OF "THE WIDE, WIDE WORLD." "Well begun is half done." LONDON: JAMES NISBET & CO., 21 BERNERS STREET NOTE TO THE READER. As in the case of "My Desire," the turning facts of this story are fact; even to the most romantic and unlikely detail. In this is found, I hope, my justification for making the hero in one place repeat something very like what was said by the hero of Queechy on a like occasion. I was unwilling to disturb the absolute truth of the story, so far as I had it. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. DOLLY'S ARRIVAL II. CHRISTINA AND HER MOTHER III. THE MARINE DICTIONARY IV. THE "ACHILLES" V. THE PIECE OF ROPE VI. END OF SCHOOL TERM VII. PLAYTHINGS VIII. LONDON IX. THE PEACOCKS X. BRIERLEY COTTAGE XI. IN THE PARK XII. THE HOUSE XIII. PREACHING AND PRACTICE XIV. DIFFICULTIES XV. THE CONSUL'S OFFICE XVI. A FIGHT XVII. RUPERT XVIII. A SQUARE PARTY XIX. SEEING SIGHTS XX. LIMBURG XXI. VENICE XXII. MR. COPLEY XXIII. THE WINE SHOP XXIV. PAST GREATNESS XXV. CHRISTMAS EVE XXVI. NAPLES XXVII. SORRENTO XXVIII. AT THE VILLA XXIX. WHITHER NOW? XXX. DOWN HILL XXXI. HANDS FULL XXXII. THE NURSE XXXIII. UNDER AN OAK TREE XXXIV. UNDER THE SAME OAK XXXV. WAYS AND MEANS XXXVI. THIS PICTURE AND THAT THE END OF A COIL. CHAPTER I. DOLLY'S ARRIVAL. The door stands open of a handsome house in Walnut Street--the Walnut Street which belongs to the city of William Penn; and on the threshold stands a lady, with her hand up to her brows, shielding her eyes from the light. She is watching to see what will come out of a carriage just driving up to the curbstone. The carriage stops; there descends first the figure of a handsome, very comfortable-looking gentleman. Mrs. Eberstein's eyes pass over him very cursorily; she has seen him before; and there is hardly a curl on his handsome head which his wife does not know by heart. What comes next? Ah, that is she!--the figure of the expected one; and a little girl of some eleven years is helped carefully out by Mr. Eberstein, and comes up the steps to the waiting and watching lady. A delicate little thing, delicate in frame and feature alike, with a fair, childish face, framed in by loose light brown curls, and a pair of those clear, grave, wise, light hazel eyes which have the power of looking so young and so spiritually old at once. Those eyes are the first thing that Mrs. Eberstein sees, and they fascinate her already. Meanwhile kind arms are opened wide, and take the little one in. "Come at last, darling! And do you remember your Aunt Hal? and are you half as glad to see her as she is to see you?" So Mrs. Eberstein gives her greeting, while she is drawing the child through the hall and into the parlour; gives it between kisses. "Why, no," said her husband, who had followed. "Be reasonable, Harry. She cannot be so glad to see you as we are to see her. She has just come from a long stage-coach journey; and she is tired, and she is hungry; and she has left a world she knows, and has come to a world she doesn't know; hey, Dolly? isn't it true? Tell your Aunt Hal to stop asking questions, and give you something to eat." "I have come to a world I don't know," repeated the little girl by way of answer, turning her serious small face to her questioner, while Mrs. Eberstein was busily taking off coat and hat and mufflers. "Yes, that's what I say!" returned Mr. Eberstein. "How do you like the look of it, hey?" "I wonder who is asking questions now!" said Mrs. Eberstein. "There, darling! now you are at home." She finished with another kiss; but, nevertheless, I think the feeling that it was a strange world she had come to, was rather prominent in Dolly. She suddenly stooped to a great Maltese cat that was lying on the hearthrug, and I am afraid the eyes were glad of an excuse to get out of sight. She touched the cat's fur tenderly and somewhat diligently. "She won't hurt you," said her aunt. "That is Mr. Eberstein's pet. Her name is Queen Mab." "She don't look much like a fairy," was Dolly's comment. Indeed, Queen Mab would outweigh most of her race, and was a magnificent specimen of good feeding. "You do," thought Mrs. Eberstein. Aloud she asked: "What do you know about fairies?" "Oh, I know they are only stories. I have read about them." "Fairy tales, eh?" "No, not much fairy tales," said Dolly, now rising up from the cat. "I have read about them in 'Midsummer Night's Dream.'" "'Midsummer Night's Dream,' you midget!" exclaimed Mrs. Eberstein. "Have you read that? And everything else you could lay hands on?" She took the child in her arms again as she spoke. Dolly gave a quiet assent. "And they let you do just what you like at home? and read just what you like?" Dolly smiled slightly at the obviousness of the course of action referred to; but the next minute the smile was quenched in a mist of tears, and she hid her head on Mrs. Eberstein's shoulder. Kisses and caresses of course followed, not successfully. At last Mr. Eberstein's repeated suggestion that food, in the circumstances, would be very much in place, was acted upon. Supper was served in the next room, which did duty for a dining-room; and the little family gathered round a bountifully spread table. There were only those three; and, naturally, the attention of the two elder was very much concentrated upon the third new member of the party; although Mr. Eberstein was hungry and proved it. The more Mrs. Eberstein studied her new acquisition, however, the more incitement to study she found. . Dolly was not like most children; one could see that immediately. Faces as pretty, and more pretty, could easily be found; the charm was not in mere flesh and blood, form or colour. Other children's faces are often innocent too, and free from the shadow of life's burdens, as this was. Nevertheless, it is not often, it is very rarely, that one sees the mingling of childish simplicity with that thoughtful, wise, spiritual look into life, which met one in Dolly's serious hazel orbs; not often that sweetness and character speak so early in the lines of the lips; utterly childish in their soft, free mobility, and yet revealing continually a trait of thoughtfulness or of strength, along with the happy play of an unqualified tender disposition. "You are lovely! you are lovely!" was Mrs. Eberstein's inner cry; and she had to guard herself that the thought did not come to too open expression. There was a delicate air of refinement also about the child, quite in keeping with all the rest of her; a neat and noiseless handling of knife and fork, cup and saucer; and while Dolly was evidently hungry as well as her uncle, she took what was given to her in a thoroughly high-bred way; that is, she made neither too much nor too little of it. Doubtless all the while she was using her power of observation, as Mrs. Eberstein was using hers, though the fact was not obtruded; for Dolly had heart wants quite as urgent as body wants. What she saw was reassuring. With Mr. Eberstein she had already been several hours in company, having travelled with him from New York. She was convinced of his genial kindness and steadfast honesty; all the lines of his handsome face, and every movement of his somewhat ease-loving person, were in harmony with that impression. Mrs. Eberstein was a fit mate for her husband. If Dolly had watched her a little anxiously at first, on account of her livelier manner, she soon made out to her satisfaction that nothing but kindness, large and bounteous, lodged behind her aunt's face, and gave its character to her aunt's manner. She knew those lively eyes were studying her; she knew just as well that nothing but good would come of the study. The meal over, Mrs. Eberstein took her niece upstairs to make her acquainted with her new quarters. It was a little room off the hall which had been destined for Dolly, opening out of her aunt's own; and it had been fitted up with careful affection. A small bedstead and dressing-table of walnut wood, a little chest of drawers, a little wardrobe; it was a wonder how so much could have been got in, but there was room for all. And then there were red curtains and carpet, and on the white spread a dainty little eider-down silk quilt; and on the dressing-table and chest of drawers pretty toilet napkins and pincushion. It was a cosy little apartment as ever eleven years old need delight in. Dolly forthwith hung up her hat and coat in the wardrobe; took brush and comb out of her travelling bag, and with somewhat elaborate care made her hair smooth; as smooth, that is, as a loose confusion of curly locks allowed; then signified that she was ready to go downstairs again. If Mrs. Eberstein had expected some remark upon her work, she was disappointed. In the drawing-room, she drew the child to sit down upon her knee. "Well, Dolly, what do you think you are going to do in Philadelphia?" "Go to school--they say." "Who says so?" "Father says so, and mother." "What do you think they want you to go to school for?" "I suppose that I may become like other people." Mr. Eberstein burst out into a laugh. His wife's eyes went over to him adjuringly. "Are you not like other people now, Dolly?" The child's sweet, thoughtful brown eyes were lifted to hers frankly, as she answered, "I don't know, ma'am." "Then why do you say that? or why do they say it?" "I don't know," said Dolly again. "I think they think so." "I daresay they do," said Mrs. Eberstein; "but if you were mine, I would rather have you unlike other people." "Why, Aunt Harry?" "Yes," said Mr. Eberstein; "now you'll have to go on and tell." And Dolly's eyes indeed looked expectant. "I think I like you best just as you are." Dolly's face curled all up into a smile at this; brow and eyes and cheeks and lips all spoke her sense of amusement; and stooping forward a little at the same time, she laid a loving kiss upon her aunt's mouth, who was unspeakably delighted with this expression of confidence. But then she repeated gravely-- "I think they want me changed." "And pray, what are you going to do, with that purpose in view?" "I don't know. I am going to study, and learn things; a great many things." "I don't believe you are particularly ignorant for eleven years old." "Oh, I do not know anything!" "Can you write a nice hand?" Dolly's face wrinkled up again with a sense of the comical. She gave an unhesitating affirmative answer. "And you have read Shakespeare. What else, Dolly?" "Plutarch." "'Plutarch's Lives'?" said Mrs. Eberstein, while her husband again laughed out aloud. "Hush, Edward. Is it 'Plutarch's Lives,' my dear, that you mean? Caesar, and Alexander, and Pompey?" Dolly nodded. "And all the rest of them. I like them very much." "But what is your favourite book?" "That!" said Dolly. "I have got a whole little bookcase upstairs full of the books I used to read when I was a little girl. We will look into it to-morrow, and see what we can find. 'Plutarch's Lives' is not there." "Oh, I do not want that," said Dolly, her eyes brightening. "I have read it so much, I know it all." "Come here," said Mr. Eberstein; "your aunt has had you long enough; come here, Dolly, and talk to me. Tell me which of those old fellows you think was the best fellow?" "Of 'Plutarch's Lives'?" said Dolly, accepting a position upon Mr. Eberstein's knee now. "Yes; the men that 'Plutarch's Lives' tell about. Whom do you like best?" Dolly pondered, and then averred that she liked one for one thing and another for another. There ensued a lively discussion between her and Mr. Eberstein, in the course of which Dolly certainly brought to view some power of discrimination and an unbiassed original judgment; at the same time her manner retained the delicate quiet which characterised all that belonged to her. She held her own over against Mr. Eberstein, but she held it with an exquisite poise of ladylike good breeding; and Mr. Eberstein was charmed with her. The talk lasted until it was broken up by Mrs. Eberstein, who declared Dolly must go to rest. She went up herself with the child, and attended to her little arrangements; helped her undress; and when Dolly was fairly in bed, stood still looking at the bright little head on the pillow, thinking that the brown eyes were very wide open for the circumstances. "Are you very tired, darling?" she asked. "I don't know," said Dolly. "I guess not very." "Sleepy?" "No, I am not sleepy yet. I am wide awake." "Do you ever lie awake, after you have gone to bed?" "Not often. Sometimes." "What makes you do it?" "I don't know. I get thinking sometimes." "About what can such a midget as you get thinking?" Dolly's face wrinkled up a little in amusement at this question. "I see a great many things to think about," she answered. "It's too soon for you to begin that," said Mrs. Eberstein, shaking her head. Then she dropped down on her knees by the bedside, so as to bring her face nearer the child's. "Dolly, have you said your prayers?" she asked softly. The brown eyes seemed to lift their lids a little wider at that. "What do you mean, Aunt Harry?" she replied. "Do you never pray to the Lord Jesus before you go to sleep?" "I don't do it ever. I don't know anything about it." The thrill that went over Mrs. Eberstein at this happily the little one did not know. She went on very quietly in manner. "Don't you know what prayer is?" "It is what people do in church, isn't it?" "What is it that people do in church?" "I do not know," said Dolly. "I never thought about it." "It is what you do whenever you ask your father or mother for anything. Only that is prayer to your father or mother. This I mean is prayer to God." "We don't call it prayer, asking them anything," said Dolly. "No, we do not call it so. But it is really the same thing. We call it prayer, when we speak to God." "Why should I speak to God, Aunt Harry? I don't know how." "Why He is our Father in heaven, Dolly. Wouldn't it be a strange thing if children never spoke to their father?" "But they can't, if they don't know him," said Dolly. Here followed a strange thing, which no doubt had mighty after-effects. Mrs. Eberstein, who was already pretty well excited over the conversation, at these words broke down, burst into tears, and hid her face in the bedclothes. Dolly looked on in wondering awe, and an instant apprehension that the question here was about something real. Presently she put out her hand and touched caressingly Mrs. Eberstein's hair, moved both by pity and curiosity to put an end to the tears and have the talk begin again. Mrs. Eberstein lifted her face, seized the little hand and kissed it. "You see, darling," she said, "I want you to be God's own child." "How can I?" "If you will trust Jesus and obey Him. All who belong to Him are God's dear children; and He loves them, and the Lord Jesus loves them, and He takes care of them and teaches them, and makes them fit to be with Him and serve Him in glory by and by." "But I don't know about Jesus," said Dolly again. "Haven't you got a Bible?" "No." "Never read it?" "No." "Never went to Sunday School?" "No, ma'am." "Little Dolly, I am very glad you came to Philadelphia." "Why, Aunt Harry?" "Because I love you so much!" exclaimed Mrs. Eberstein, kissing the child's sweet mouth. "Why, Dolly, Jesus is the best, best friend we have got; nobody loves us so much in the whole world; He gave his life for us. And, then, He is the King of glory. He is everything that is loving, and true, and great, and good; 'the chiefest among ten thousand.'" "What did He give His life for?" said Dolly, whose eyes were growing more and more intent. "To save our lives, dear." "From what?" "Why, Dolly, you and I, and everybody, have broken God's beautiful law. The punishment for that is death; not merely the death of the body, but everlasting separation from God and His love and His favour; that is death; living death. To save us from that, Jesus died Himself; He paid our debt; He died instead of us." "Then is He dead?" said Dolly awefully. "He was dead; but He rose again, and now He lives, King over all. He was God as well as man, so the grave could not hold Him. But He paid our debt, darling." "You said, death was everlasting separation from God and good," said Dolly very solemnly. "For us, it would have been." "But He did not die that way?" "He could not, for He is the glorious Son of God. He only tasted death for us; that we might not drink the bitter cup to eternity." "Aunt Harry," said Dolly, "is all that true?" "Certainly." "When did He do that?" "It is almost nineteen hundred years ago. And since then, if any one trusts His word and is willing to be His servant, Jesus loves him, and keeps him, and saves him, and makes him blessed for ever." "But why did He do that? what made Him?" "His great love for us." "Us?" Dolly repeated. "Yes. You and me, and everybody. He just came to save that which was lost." "I don't see how He can love me," said Dolly slowly. "Why, I am a stranger to Him, Aunt Harry." "Ah, you are no stranger! Oh yes, Dolly, He loves you dearly; and He knows all about you." Dolly considered the matter a little, and also considered her aunt, whose lips were quivering and whose eyes were dropping tears. With a very serious face Dolly considered the matter: and came to a conclusion with promptitude unusual in this one subject of all the world. She half rose up in her bed. "Then I love Him," she said. "I will love Him, too, Aunt Harry." "Will you, my darling?" "But I do not know how to be His servant." "Jesus will teach you Himself, if you ask Him." "How will He teach me?" "He will make you understand His word, and let you know what pleases Him. He says, 'If ye love me, keep My commandments.'" "His commandments are in the Bible, aren't they?" "Certainly. You say you have not got a Bible?" "No." "Then we will see about that to-morrow, the first thing we do. You shall have a Bible, and that will tell you about His commandments." "Aunt Harry, I would like Him to know to-night that I love Him." "Then tell Him so, dear." "Can I?" "To be sure you can. Why not?" "I do not know how." "Tell Him, Dolly, just as if the Lord Jesus were here present and you could see Him. He is here, only you do not see Him; that is all the difference Tell Him, Dolly, just as you would tell me; only remember that you are speaking to the King. He would like to hear you say that." "I ought to kneel down when I speak to Him, oughtn't I? People do in church." "It is proper, when we can, to take a position of respect when we speak to the King; don't you think so?" Dolly shuffled herself up upon her knees in the bed, not regarding much that Mrs. Eberstein threw a shawl round her shoulders; and waited a minute or two, looking intensely serious and considering. Then laying her hands involuntarily together, but with her eyes open, she spoke. "O Lord Jesus,--Aunt Harry says you are here though I cannot see you. If you are here, you can see, and you know that I love you; and I will be your servant. I never knew about you before, or I would have done it before. Now I do. Please to teach me, for I do not know anything, that I may do everything that pleases you. I will not do anything that don't please you. Amen." Dolly waited a moment, then turned and put her arms round her aunt's neck and kissed her. "Thank you!"--she said earnestly; and then lay down and arranged herself to sleep. Mrs. Eberstein went downstairs and astonished her husband by a burst of hysterical weeping. He made anxious enquiries; and at last received an account of the last half-hour. "But, oh, Edward, what do you think?" she concluded. "Did you ever hear anything like that in your life? Do you think it can be genuine?" "Genuine what?" demanded her husband. "Why, I mean, can it be true religious conversion? This child knows next to nothing; just that Jesus died out of love to her, to save her,--nothing more." "And she has given her love back. Very logical and reasonable; and ought not to be so uncommon." "But it is uncommon, Edward. At least, people generally make a longer business of it." "In which they do not show their wisdom." "No; but they do it. Edward, can it be that this child is so suddenly a Christian? Will it stand?" "Only time can show that. But Harry, all the cases,--almost all the cases reported in the New Testament are cases of sudden yielding. Just look at it. John and Andrew took but a couple of hours or so to make up their minds. Nathanael did not apparently take more than two minutes after he saw Christ. Lydia became a Christian at her first hearing the good news; the eunuch made up his mind as quick. Why should not little Dolly? The trouble is caused only by people's obstinate resistance." "Then you think it may be true work?" "Of course I think so. This child is not an ordinary child, there is that to be said." "No," said Mrs. Eberstein thoughtfully. "Is she not peculiar? She is such a child; and yet there is such a wise, deep look in her brown eyes. What pretty eyes they are! There is the oddest mixture of old and young in her I ever saw. She is going to be lovely, Edward!" "I think she is lovely now." "Oh yes! but I mean, when she grows up. She will be very lovely, with those spiritual eyes and that loose curly brown hair; if only she can be kept as she is now." "My dear, she cannot be that!" "Oh, you know what I mean, Edward. If she can be kept unspoiled; untainted; unsophisticated; with that sort of mixture of wisdom and simplicity which she has now. I wish we need not send her to school." "We have no choice about that. And the Lord can keep His own. Let us ask Him." They knelt and did so; with some warm tears on Mrs. Eberstein's part, and great and warm earnestness in them both. CHAPTER II. CHRISTINA AND HER MOTHER. Mrs. Eberstein watched during the next few days, to see, if she could, whether the sudden resolve taking on Dolly's part that first evening "meant anything," as she expressed it, or not. She remained in doubt. Dolly was thoughtful certainly, and sweet certainly; "but that don't tell," Mrs. Eberstein remarked; "it is her characteristic." It was equally certain that she had attached herself with a trustful, clinging affection to the new friends whose house and hearts had received her. Dolly's confidence was given to them fully and heartily from that very first day; and they saw that it was. Nearly a week passed before the school-term began. Meanwhile Dolly was taken about, in walks and drives, to see all that her friends thought would interest her. Everything interested her, they found; and upon every subject presented to her, her little head went to work; the result of which was the putting of a question now and then, which afforded her guardians, perhaps, as much entertainment as the ground of the question had given Dolly. These questions, however, were called forth most of all by the subject which had seized hold of Dolly's mind with such force that first evening. Mrs. Eberstein had not forgotten her promise about the Bible. One of the first expeditions undertaken the next day had been in search of one; successful, in the judgment of both Dolly and her aunt; and since then the book was very often to be seen in Dolly's hands. "What are you reading there, Dolly?" Mr. Eberstein asked, corning in one evening just before dinner. Dolly was on a low seat at the corner of the fireplace, reading by the shine of a fire of Liverpool coal, which threw warm lights all over the little figure. She looked up and said it was her Bible she was studying. "You will put out your eyes." "Oh no, Uncle Edward; the print is so good, and the fire makes such a nice blaze, I can see perfectly." "And pray, what are you looking for, or what are you finding, in that book, little one?" "I am looking for a great deal,--and I am finding a little," was Dolly's reply. "Different with me," said Mr. Eberstein with a short laugh. "I generally find more in the Bible than I look for." "What do you look for in it?" said Dolly, raising her head which had gone down to the reading. Mr. Eberstein laughed again. "Truly, Dolly," he said, "you have hit me there! I believe I often open the Bible without looking for anything in particular." "Perhaps that makes the difference," said Dolly, letting her eyes fall again to her page. "Perhaps it does; but, Dolly, I should very much like to know what you are looking for?" "I am looking to find out the will of God, Uncle Edward." "Come here, my pet," said Mr. Eberstein, coaxing the little girl into his arms and setting her on his knee. "What do you want to find out the will of God for? what about?" "About me." "What do you want to know the will of God about you for?" "I want to do it, Uncle Edward." "There couldn't be a better reason. Jesus says, 'He that hath My commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth Me.' Do you find what you seek?" "I find some," said Dolly. "Where were you reading just now?" "About Abraham." "Abraham! What do you find in Abraham's life, may I ask, that tells you the will of God about Dolly Copley? You are not called upon to leave your country and go out into a strange land." "No; not that. But God said to Abraham, 'Walk before Me, and be thou perfect.' And it puzzles me." "What puzzles you?" "I don't see how I can 'walk before Him.'" "Dolly,--the Lord is here, here where we are, wherever we are." "Yes. I know that." "Then, if you know that and remember it, and do everything you do in His presence, and feeling that it is in His presence, you will be walking before Him; don't you see? Just as if Jesus were here again upon earth, and you were always with Him; only you do not see Him now. He sees you." "And 'be perfect'?" said Dolly questioningly. "Yes. That means, I think, don't try to serve two masters. If you love God with all your heart, and give Him your whole life and service,--not a part of it,--that is what the word to Abraham means, I think. A servant of God is a perfect servant, if he does all the will of God that he knows, and as fast as he knows it. But you cannot do that of yourself, little Dolly." "Why cannot I, if I want to?" "Why, because there come temptations, and there come difficulties; and you will want to do something you like, and not what God likes; and you will do it too, unless the Lord Jesus keeps fast hold of you and saves you from making such a mistake. Only He can." "Can He?" "Certainly He can." "Will He?" "If you want Him to do it, and trust Him to do it, He will. He will just do all that you trust Him to do." Dolly pondered. "Will He do that because He loves me?" she asked. "Just for that reason, Dolly." "Then He will do it," said Dolly confidently; "for I will trust Him. Won't you show me where he says that, Uncle Edward?" Mr. Eberstein told Dolly to find Matt. xxi. 21. Dolly read eagerly-- "Jesus answered and said unto them, Verily I say unto you, If ye have faith, and doubt not, ye shall not only do this which is done to the fig-tree, but also if ye shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea, it shall be done. And all things whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive." Dolly read to herself, then looked up, eager and confident, for the next reference. "Turn to John xv. 7." Again Dolly found and read, in silence-- "If ye abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you." "What next, Uncle Edward?" "Isn't that promise enough?" "Yes; but I thought you had more." "There is a great deal more. Look out Thessalonians v. 23, 24." Dolly read, slowly, aloud now-- "'And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is He that calleth you, who also will do it.' That is beautiful, Uncle Edward!" "Do you want another? Find Jude, and read the 24th and 25th verses." With some trouble Dolly found it. "'Now unto Him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy, to the only wise God our Saviour, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen.'" Dolly slipped off Mr. Eberstein's knee and retook her old place by the fire; where she sat turning from one passage to another of those she had been reading. Mr. Eberstein watched her, how the ribbon markers of the Bible were carefully laid in two of the places, and a couple of neat slips of paper prepared for the others. "What have you been doing to-day, Dolly?" he asked at length. "We went to see the water works." "Oh, you did! And what did you think of the water works?" "We went up to the top and walked about. Do the people in Philadelphia want so much water as all that?" "They want a great deal more. The Fairmount works give only enough for part of the city." "That is taking a great deal of trouble to get water." "It would be worse trouble to do without it." "But why don't people all live in the country, as we do at home? then they would have water for nothing." "Humph! That would answer, Dolly, if people were contented with water; they all want wine. I mean, my child, that most people are not satisfied with simple doings; and for anything more they must have money; and they can make money faster in cities. Therefore they build cities." "Is _that_ what they build cities for?" said Dolly. "Largely. Not altogether. A great many things can be better done where people are congregated together; it is for the convenience of trade and business, in many kinds and in many ways. What have you been doing since you came home from the water works?" "O Uncle Edward!" said Dolly, suddenly rising now and coming to him, "Aunt Harry has opened for me her old bookcase!" "What old bookcase? I didn't know she had an old bookcase." "Oh yes; the one where she keeps the books she had when she was as old as I am." "And as young, eh? Well, what is in that bookcase? is it a great find?" "O Uncle Edward, there is a great deal in it! It is wonderful. Books I never saw, and they look so interesting!" "What, for instance? Something to rival Plutarch's Lives?" "I don't know," said Dolly; "you know I have not read them yet. There is 'Sandford and Merton;' I was reading in that, and I like it very much; and the 'Looking Glass' is another; and 'Rosamond' I am sure is interesting. Oh there is a whole load of them." "Well I am glad of it," said Mr. Eberstein. "That is the right sort of stuff for your busy little brain; will not weigh too heavy. Now I suppose you will be reading all the time you are in the house." "Aunt Harry has begun to teach me to knit." "Very good," said Mr. Eberstein. "I believe in knitting too. That's safe." They went to dinner, and after dinner there was a further knitting lesson, in which Dolly seemed absorbed; nevertheless, before the evening was over she brought up a very different subject again. "Aunt Harry," she began, in the midst of an arduous effort to get the loops of wool on her needles in the right relative condition,--"does mother know about the Bible?" "Yes," said Mrs. Eberstein, with a glance at her husband, "she knows about it, something." "Then why did she never tell me anything about it?" Mrs. Eberstein hesitated. "I suppose, Dolly, her thoughts were fuller of other things." "But how _could_ they be?" said the little one, laying her hands with their knitting work in her lap, and looking up. Her aunt did not answer. "How could her thoughts be fuller of other things, if she knows the Bible?" Dolly urged. "I don't think she really knows much of what is in the Bible," Mrs. Eberstein said. "She has never read it much." "I don't think she knows about Jesus," Dolly went on gravely; "for she never told me; and she would if she had known, I think. Aunt Harriet, I think _I_ ought to tell _her_ now." "What would you tell her, my darling?" "Oh, I will tell her that I know Him and love Him; and I will tell her I have got a Bible, and some of the things I have found in it. I will ask her to get one too, and read it. I don't believe she knows." "The reason why a great many people do not know, Dolly, is, as your Aunt Harry says, that they are so much taken up with other things." "Then I think one ought to take care not to be too much taken up with other things," said Dolly very seriously. "But you have got to be taken up with other things," Mr. Eberstein went on. "Here you are going to school in a few days; then your head will be full of English and French, and your hands full of piano keys and harp strings, from morning till night. How are you going to do?" Dolly looked at the speaker, came and placed herself on his knee again, and laid a hand on his shoulder; eyeing him steadily. "Ought I not to go to school?" "Must!--else you cannot be the right sort of a woman, and do the right sort of work." "How then, Uncle Edward? what shall I do?" "I'll tell you one thing, Dolly. Don't study and practise to get ahead of somebody else; but to please the King!" "The King--that is Jesus?" "Certainly." Dolly nodded, in full agreement with the rule of action as thus stated; presently brought forward another idea. "Will He care? Would it please Him to have me play on the piano, or learn French and arithmetic?" "Dolly, the more you know, and the better you know it, the better servant you can be; you will have the more to use for Jesus." "Can I use such things for Him? How?" "Many ways. He will show you how. Do you think an ignorant woman could do as much in the world as an elegant, well-informed, accomplished woman?" Dolly thought over this question, nodded as one who had come to an understanding of it, and went back to her knitting. "What ever will become of that child," said Mrs. Eberstein an hour or two later, when she and her husband were alone. "I am full of anxiety about her." "Then you are taking upon you the part of Providence." "No, but, Edward, Dolly will have a history." "So have we all," Mr. Eberstein responded very unresponsively. "But she will not have a common history. Do you see how open she is to receive impressions, and how fast they stay once they are made?" "I see the first quality. I never saw a creature quicker to take impressions or to welcome affections. Whether they will prove as lasting as they are sudden,--that we have no means of knowing at present." "I think they will." "That's a woman's conclusion, founded on her wishes." "It is a man's conclusion too; for you think the same thing, Edward." "Don't prove anything, Harry." "Yes, it does. When two people come to the same independent view of something, it is fair to suppose there are grounds for it." "I hope so. Time will show." "But, Edward, with this extremely sensitive and affectionate nature, how important it is that Dolly should have only the right surroundings, and see only the right sort of people." "Just so. And so she is going out into the world of a large school; where she will meet all sorts of people and be subjected to all sorts of influences; and you cannot shield her." "I wish I could keep her at home, and have her taught here! I wish I could!" "Playing Providence again. We all like to do it." "No, but, Edward, just look at her," said Mrs. Eberstein with her eyes full of tears. "I do," said Mr. Eberstein. "I've got eyes. But you will have to trust her, Harry." "Now she will go, I have no doubt, and write that letter to her mother. I wonder if Sally will get scared, and take her away from us?" "Why, Hal," said her husband, "your self-will is getting up very strong to-night! What if? Dolly's future does not depend upon us; though we will do what we can for it." What they did then, was to pray about it again; for these people believed in prayer. The next day Mrs. Eberstein had invited an acquaintance to come to dinner. This acquaintance had a daughter, also about to enter Mrs. Delancy's school; and Mrs. Eberstein's object was to let the two girls become a little known to each other, so that Dolly in the new world she was about to enter might not feel everything utterly strange. Mrs. Thayer belonged to a good New York family; and it likewise suited her purposes to have her daughter received in so unexceptionable a house as Mrs. Eberstein's, albeit the young lady was not without other Philadelphia friends. So the party fitted together very harmoniously. Mrs. Thayer, in spite of her good connections, was no more than a commonplace personage. Christina, her daughter, on the other hand, showed tokens of becoming a great beauty. A little older than Dolly, of larger build and more flesh and blood development generally, and with one of those peach-blossom complexions which for fairness and delicacy almost rival the flower. Her hair was pretty, her features also pretty, her expression placid. Mrs. Eberstein was much struck. "They are just about of an age," remarked Mrs. Thayer. "I suppose they will study the same things. Everybody studies the same things. Well, I hope you'll be friends and not rivals, my dears." "Dolly will not be rivals with anybody," returned Dolly's aunt. "She don't look very strong. I should think it would not do for her to study too hard," said the other lady. "Oh, rivalry is necessary, you know, to bring out the spirit of boys and girls and make them work. It may be friendly rivalry; but if they were not rivals they would not be anything; might as well not be school girls, or school boys. They would not do any work but what they liked, and we know what that would amount to. I don't know about beating learning into boys; some people say that is the way; but with girls you can't take that way; and all you have to fall back upon is emulation." "Very few young people will study for the love of it," Mrs. Eberstein so far assented. "They might, I believe, if the right way was taken," Mr. Eberstein remarked. "Emulation will do it, if a girl has any spirit," said Mrs. Thayer. "What sort of spirit?" "What sort of spirit! Why, the spirit not to let themselves be outdone; to stand as high as anybody, and higher; be No. 1, and carry off the first honours. A spirited girl don't like to be No. 2. Christina will never be No. 2." "Is it quite certain that such a spirit is the one to be cultivated?" "It makes them study,"--said Mrs. Thayer, looking at her questioner to see what he meant. "What do you think the Bible means, when it tells us not to seek for honour?" "_Not_ to seek for honour?" repeated the lady. "Not the honour that comes from man." "I didn't know it forbade it. I never heard that it was forbidden. Why, Mr. Eberstein, it is _natural_ to wish for honour. Everybody wishes for it." "So they do," Mr. Eberstein assented. "I might say, so _we_ do." "It is natural," repeated the lady. "Its being natural does not prove it to be right." "Why, Mr. Eberstein, if it is _natural_, we cannot help it." "How then does trying to be No. 1 agree with the love that 'seeketh not her own'?" Dolly was listening earnestly, Mr. Eberstein saw. Mrs. Thayer hesitated, in some inward disgust. "Do you take that literally?" she said then. "How can you take it literally? You cannot." "But Christ pleased not Himself." "Well, but He was not like us." "We are bidden to be like him, though." "Oh, as far as we can. But you cannot press those words literally, Mr. Eberstein." "As far as we can? I _must_ press them, for the Bible does. I ask no more, and the Lord demands no more, than that we be like our Master _as far as we can_. And He 'pleased not himself,' and 'received not honour from men.'" "If you were to preach such doctrine in schools, I am afraid you would have very bad recitations." "Well!" said Mr. Eberstein. "Better bad recitations than bad hearts. Though really there is no necessary connection between my premises and your conclusion. The Bible reckons 'emulations,' Mrs. Thayer, in the list of the worst things human nature knows, and does." "Then you would have a set of dunces. I should just like to be told, Mr. Eberstein, how on that principle you would get young people to study. In the case of girls you cannot do it by beating; nor in the case of boys, after they have got beyond being little boys. Then emulation comes in, and they work like beavers to get the start of one another. And so we have honours, and prizes, and distinctions. Take all that away, and how would you do, Mr. Eberstein?" Mr. Eberstein was looking fondly into a pair of young eyes that were fixedly gazing at him. So looking, he spoke, "There is another sort of '_Well done!_' which I would like my Dolly and Miss Christina to try for. If they are in earnest in trying for that, they will study!" said Mr. Eberstein. Mrs. Thayer thought, apparently, that it was no use talking on the subject with a visionary man; and she turned to something else. The party left the dinner-table, and Dolly took her new acquaintance upstairs to show her the treasure contained in Mrs. Eberstein's old bookcase. "Mr. Eberstein is rather a strange man, isn't he?" said Miss Christina on the way. "No," said Dolly. "I don't think he is. What makes you say so?" "I never heard any one talk like that before." "Perhaps," said Dolly, stopping short on the landing place and looking at her companion. Then she seemed to change her manner of attack. "Who do you want to please most?" she said. "With my studies? Why, mamma, of course." "I would rather please the Lord Jesus," said Dolly. "But I was talking about _school work_," retorted the other. "You don't suppose _He_ cares about our lessons?" "I guess He does," said Dolly. They were still standing on the landing place, looking into each other's eyes. "But that's impossible. Think!--French lessons, and English lessons, and music and dancing, and all of it. That couldn't be, you know." "Do you love Jesus?" said Dolly. "Love him? I do not know," said Christina colouring. "I am a member of the church, if that is what you mean." Dolly began slowly to go up the remaining stairs. "I think we ought to study to please Him," she said. "I don't see how it should please him," said the other a little out of humour. "I don't see how He should care about such little things." "Why not?" said Dolly. "If your mother cares, and my mother cares. Jesus loves us better than they do, and I guess He cares more than they do." Christina was silenced now, as her mother had been, and followed Dolly thinking there were a _pair_ of uncomfortably strange people in the house. The next minute Dolly was not strange at all, but as much a child as any of her fellows. She had unlocked the precious bookcase, and with the zeal of a connoisseur and the glee of a discoverer she was enlarging upon the treasures therein stowed away. "Here is 'Henry Milner,'" she said, taking down three little red volumes. "Have you read that? Oh, it is delightful! I like it almost best of all. But I have not had time to read much yet. Here is 'Harry and Lucy,' and 'Rosamond,' and 'Frank.' I have just looked at them. And 'Sandford and Merton.' do you know 'Sandford and Merton'? I have just read that." "There are the 'Arabian Nights,'" said Christina. "Is that good? I haven't read much yet. I don't know almost any of them." "'The Looking-Glass'"--Christina went on--"'Pity's Gift'--'Father's Tales.'" "Those are beautiful," Dolly put in. "I read one, about 'Grandfather's old arm-chair.' Oh, it's _very_ interesting." "'Elements of Morality'"--Christina read further on the back of a brown book. "That don't sound good, but I guess it _is_ good," said Dolly. "I just peeped in, and 'Evenings at Home' looks pretty. Here is 'Robinson Crusoe,' and 'Northern Regions;' I want to read that very much. I guess it's delightful." "Have you ever been to school before?" said Christina. The books had a faint interest for her. "No," said Dolly. "Nor have I; but I know somebody who has been at Mrs. Delancy's, and she says there is one lovely thing at that school. Every month they go somewhere." "They--go--somewhere," Dolly echoed the words. "Who go?" "Everybody; teachers and scholars and all. There is a holiday; and Mrs. Delancy takes them all to see something. One time it was a rope walk, I think; and another time it was a paper-mill; and sometimes it's a picture-gallery. It's something very interesting." "I suppose we are not _obliged_ to go, are we, if we don't want to?" "Oh, but we _do_ want to. I do." "I would just as lief be at home with my Aunt Harry," said Dolly, looking lovingly at the book-case. But Christina turned away from it. "They dress a great deal at this school," she said. "Does your mother dress you a great deal?" "I don't know," said Dolly. "I don't know what you mean." "Well, what's your school dress? what is it made of?" "My school dress for every day! It is grey poplin. It is not new." "Poplin will do, I suppose," said Christina. "But some of the girls wear silk; old silk dresses, you know, but really handsome still, and very stylish." "What do you mean by 'stylish'?" said Dolly. "Why don't you know what 'stylish' means?" "No." Christina looked doubtfully at her new little companion. Where could Dolly have come from, and what sort of people could she belong to, who did not know _that?_ The truth was, that Dolly being an only child and living at home with her father and mother, had led a very childish life up to this time; and her mother, owing to some invalidism, had lately been withdrawn from the gay world and its doings. So, though the thing was greatly upon her mother's heart, the word had never made itself familiar to Dolly's ear. Christina was reassured, however, by observing that the little girl's dress was quite what it ought to be, and certainly bespoke her as belonging to people who "knew what was what." So the practice was all right, and Dolly needed only instruction in the theory. "'Stylish,'"--she repeated. "It means--It is very hard to tell you what it means. Don't you know? 'Stylish' means that things have an air that belongs to the right kind of thing, and only what you see in a certain sort of people. It is the way things look when people know how." "Know how, what?" inquired Dolly. "Know how things ought to be; how they ought to be worn, and how they ought to be done." "Then everybody ought to be stylish," said Dolly. "Yes, but you cannot, my dear, unless you happen to know how." "But I should think one could always know how things ought to be," Dolly went on. "The Bible tells." "The Bible!" echoed Christina. "Yes." "The Bible tell one how to be stylish!" "The Bible tells how things ought to be." "Why, no, it don't, child! the Bible don't tell you what sort of a hat to put on." "Yes, it does, Christina. The Bible says, 'Whether you eat or drink, or whatsoever you do, do all to the glory of God.' I can show you the words." "Oh, that is something quite different. That has nothing to do with being stylish. How shall I make you understand? If your cravat wasn't tied in a nice bow there, it wouldn't be stylish." "Well," returned Dolly, "it wouldn't be to the glory of God either." "What has that to do with it?" "I think it would be wrong for a Christian to be anything but nice." "Oh, it isn't being _nice!_" said Christina. "Your dress wouldn't be stylish if it hadn't those flounces." "And is it now?" "Yes--I think it is. I should say, your mother knows what is what. It isn't very easy to be stylish if you are poor; but I've seen people do it, though." "I don't think I understand, quite," said Dolly. "But when I am old enough to dress myself,--to choose my own dresses, I mean, I shall dress to please Jesus, Christina." "You can't," said Christina. "I never heard of such a thing. It's making religion little, I think, to talk so." "I think, if religion isn't little, it'll _do_ so," answered Dolly. Whereby each kept her own opinion; notwithstanding which, at the end of the afternoon they separated, mutually pleased each with her new acquaintance. CHAPTER III. THE MARINE DICTIONARY. As the weeks of the first school term went on, the two girls drew nearer to each other. Everybody inclined towards Dolly indeed; the sweet, fresh, honest little face, with the kindly affections beaming forth from it, and the sensitive nature quick to feel pleasure or pain, and alive to fun in the midst of its seriousness, made such a quaint mingling and such a curious variety and such a lovely creature, that all sorts of characters were drawn towards her. From the head of the school down, teachers and pupils, there was hardly one whose eye did not soften and whose lips did not smile at Dolly's approach. With Christina, on the other hand, it was not just so. She was not particularly clever, not particularly emotional, not specially sociable; calm and somewhat impassive, with all her fair beauty she was overlooked in the practical "selection" which takes place in school life; so that little Dolly after all came to be Christina's best friend. Dolly never passed her over; was never unsympathetic; never seemed to know her own popularity; and Christina's slow liking grew into a real and warm affection as the passing days gave her more and more occasion. In the matter of "style," it appears, Dolly had enough to satisfy her; thanks to her mother; for Dolly herself was as unconventional in spirit and manner as a child should be. In school work proper, on the other hand, she was a pattern of diligence and faithfulness; gave her teachers no trouble; of course had the good word and good will of every one of them. Was it the working of Mr. Eberstein's rule? The first monthly holiday after school began was spent in Fairmount Park. A few weeks later, Dolly and Christina were sitting together one day, busy with some fancy work, when one of their schoolmates came up to them. "Guess where we are going next week!" she cried. "Next week?" said the others, looking up. "Next holiday--next week--next Saturday. Yes. Where do you think we are going? Just guess. Oh, you can't guess." "I can't guess," said Dolly; "I don't know what there is to go to. The Mint? Mrs. Delancy did speak of the Mint." "Not a bit of it! Something else has come up. Guess again." "Something has _come up_. Then it must be something new." "It isn't new, either. Can't a thing come to you that isn't new?" "But you're talking riddles, Eudora," the other two said, laughing. "Well, I'll tell you. There's a man-of-war come up the river." "A man-of-war"--Dolly repeated. "You know what that means, I hope, Dolly Copley?" "I don't know. It means a soldier. The Bible says, Goliath was a man-of-war from his youth." Dolly as she spoke looked mystified, and her words were met by a shout of laughter so loud and ringing that it almost abashed the child. Some other girls had joined the group and were standing around, and there were many to laugh. However, Dolly was never given to false shame. She waited for more light. "It's a _ship_, Dolly," they cried. "You dear little innocent, don't you know as much as that?" "It's a ship; and this is a big one. It is lying out in the Delaware." "Then why is it called a man-of-war?" said Dolly. "Because it is a war ship. Won't it be fun! just think!--the guns, and the officers, and the midshipmen!" "What are midshipmen?" "I don't know!" cried another. "They are somebodies that are always on a man-of-war; and they are young too. Baby officers, I suppose." "They _are_ officers," said the first speaker. "No, they're not. They are learning to be officers. They're at school, and their school is a man-of-war; and their teachers are the captain, and the lieutenants, and so on." "And what are their lessons about?" said Dolly. "_I_ don't know. Oh, they are learning to be officers, you know. Really they are boys at school." "Some of them are old enough," remarked another. "Learning _what_, Eudora?" said Dolly. "How do I know, chicken? I've never been a midshipman myself. You can ask them if you like, when we go on board. For we are going on board, girls! Hurrah! We shall drive over to the Navy Yard, and there we shall get into boats, and then we shall row--I mean be rowed--out into the stream to the ship. It's a big frigate, the 'Achilles;' and Mrs. Delancy knows the captain; and she says it's a good chance, and she will not have us lose it. Hurrah, girls! this is prime." "What's a _frigate?_" was Dolly's next question. "Dolly Copley, you are ridiculous! you want to understand everything." "Don't you?" "No! I guess I don't. I am tired enough with trying to understand a little. I'll let alone what I can. You'll know what a frigate is when you have been on board of her." "But I think I should enjoy it a great deal more if I knew beforehand," said Dolly. "You had best study a ship's dictionary. _I_ am going to study what I shall wear." "That you cannot tell yet," Christina remarked. "You do not know what sort of a day next Saturday, I mean, Saturday week, will be. It may be cold or"---- "It mayn't be hot," said the other. "It will be cold, cold enough. It's November. You can wear your prettiest winter things, young ladies." A little while after, the group had broken up, and Dolly sought out one of the teachers and begged to know where she could find a "ship's dictionary." "A ship dictionary? My dear, there is no such thing. What do you want to find out?" "One of the girls said I could find out about ships in a ship's dictionary. We are going to see a man-of-war next week." "Oh, and you want to study up the subject? It is a Marine Dictionary you are in quest of. Come to the library." The library was always open to the girls for study purposes. The teacher was good-natured, and got out a big, brown square volume, and put it in Dolly's hand. Dolly had been followed by Christina; and now the two sat down together in a window recess on the floor, with the book before them. Dolly began at the beginning, and aloud. "'_Aback_.'" "That is nothing we want," remarked Christina. "Oh yes, I think it is. It is 'the situation of the sails when their surfaces are flatted against the masts by the force of the wind.' I do not understand, though. The sails are said to be 'taken aback.'-- Oh, I have heard mother say that. What could she mean? I have heard her say she was taken aback." "I have heard people say that too," said Christina; "often. I never knew what they meant. Something disagreeable, I think." "Well, you see," said Dolly, reading further, "it 'pushes the ship _astern_'--what's that? 'See _Backing_.' I suppose it means pushing it back. But I don't understand!" the little girl added with a sigh. "Oh, well! we don't care about all that," said Dolly's companion. "Go on to something else. Find out about the midshipmen." "What about the midshipmen?" "Nothing,--only I would like to know what they are. Madeleine said they were young officers; very young; not older than some of us." "Then why do you want to know about them?" said Dolly. "We have nothing to do with young officers. We don't know any of them." "But we might," suggested Christina. "We shall see them, if we go on board the ship." "I don't care about seeing them," said Dolly. "Young officers are young men, I suppose. I understand _them;_ what I don't know about, is the ship. Let us go on in this book, and see what we come to. '_Abaft_--the hinder part of a ship'"---- "O Dolly!" cried Christina, "we have not time to go through everything in this way. You have not turned over one leaf yet Do get on a little." "It is good it's a holiday," said Dolly, turning the leaf. "We have plenty of time. I like this book. '_Aboard_,--the inside of a ship.' So when we go into the ship, we go aboard. That's it." "Go on," urged Christina. "Here's '_Admiral_.'" "'An officer of first rank and command in the fleet.' There is a great deal here about the Admiral. I don't believe we shall see him. We'll look a little further." Dolly presently was caught by the word "_Anchor_," and lost herself in the study of the paragraphs following, and the plate accompanying; after which she declared that she understood how a ship could be held by its anchor. Urged to go on again, she turned over more leaves, but got lost in the study of "_boats;_" then of "_cannon;_" then of the "_captain_'s" office and duties; finally paused at the plate and description of a ship's deck. "It's just the deck of a ship!" said Christina impatiently. "You will see it when we go on board the 'Achilles.'" "I want to understand it." "You can't." "Are those guns?" said Dolly, pointing to a row of pieces delineated along the side of the deck. "Must be guns." "Well, I should like to go on board of a ship very much," said Dolly. "There are twelve guns on that side. If there are the same on this side, that would make twenty-four. What do they want so many for, Christina, on one ship?" "Why, to fight with, of course. To fire at other ships." "But what do they want of _so many?_ They would not want to fire twelve at once. I should think one would be enough." "Perhaps it wouldn't. Go on, Dolly, do! let us get to something else." It was difficult to get Dolly on. She was held fast again by the description of a naval engagement; then fell to studying the directions for the "_exercise_" of the guns; then was interested in some plates giving various orders of the line of battle. At last in due course they came to the word "_Midshipman_," which was read, or the article under it, by both girls. "'A naval cadet'"--repeated Christina. "And a cadet must be four years at sea before he can become a lieutenant; and two years midshipman besides. I should think they would be tired of it." "But if they are going to be sailors all their lives, it's no use for them to get tired of it," said Christina. "They come on shore sometimes, don't they?" "I suppose so. Oh yes, they have houses, I know, and wives and children. I shouldn't like to be the wife of a sailor!" "Somebody must, I suppose," said Dolly. "But I shouldn't like to have my home--my principal home, I mean--on the sea; if I was a man. _They_ must like it, I suppose." Dolly went on reading. "The midshipmen have plenty to do, Christina. They have to learn how to do everything a common sailor does; all the work of the ship; and then they must learn astronomy, and geometry, and navigation and mechanics. Hydrostatics, too; oh dear, I don't know what that is. I can look it out, I suppose. The midshipmen must be very busy, Christina, and at hard work too." Christina's interest in the Marine Dictionary was exhausted. She went off; but Dolly pored over its pages still, endeavouring to take in details about vessels, and ropes, and sails, and winds, until her head was in a fog. She recurred to the book, however, on the next opportunity; and from time to time, as her lessons permitted, gave her time and attention to this seemingly very unnecessary subject. How much she really learned, is doubtful; yet as little things do touch and link themselves with great things, it may be that the old Marine Dictionary in Mrs. Delancy's library played a not insignificant part in the fortunes of Dolly Copley. As we shall see. She studied, till a ship became a romance to her; till rigging and spars and decks and guns were like the furniture of a new and strange life, which hardly belonged to the earth, being upon the sea; and the men who lived that life, and especially the men who ruled in it, grew to be invested with characteristics of power and skill and energy which gave them fabulous interest in Dolly's eyes. At home there had been a little scruple about letting Dolly join the party. She had had a cold, and was rather delicate at all times. The scruples, however, gave way before the child's earnest wish; and as Saturday of the particular week turned out mild and quiet, no hindrance was put in the way of the expedition. CHAPTER IV. THE "ACHILLES." It was a very special delectation which the school were to enjoy to-day. The girls thought it always "fun," of course, to quit lessons and go to see anything; "even factories," as one of the girls expressed it, to Dolly's untold astonishment; for it seemed to her that to be allowed to look into the mystery of manufactures must be the next thing to taking part personally in a fairy tale. However, to-day it was not a question of manufactures, but of a finished and furnished big ship, and not only finished and furnished, but manned. "_This_ is something lively," Eudora opined. And she was quite right. The day was a quiet day in November, with just a spice of frost in it; the air itself was lively, quick and quickening. The party were driven to the Navy Yard in carriages, and there received very politely by the officers, some of whom knew Mrs. Delancy and lent themselves with much kindness to the undertaking. The girls were more or less excited with pleasure and anticipation; but to Dolly the Navy Yard seemed to be already touching the borders of that mysterious and fascinating sea life in which her fancy had lately been roaming. So when the girls were all carefully bestowed in stout little row boats to go out to the ship, Dolly's foot it was which stepped upon enchanted boards, and her eye that saw an enchanted world around her. What a field was this rippling water, crisped with the light breeze, and gurgling under the boat's smooth sweep ahead! How the oars rose and fell, all together, as if moved by only one hand. Was this a part of the order and discipline of which she had read lately, as belonging to this strange world? Probably; for now and then a command was issued to the oarsmen, curt and sharp; and obeyed, Dolly saw, although she did not know what the command meant. Yes, she was in an enchanted sphere; and she looked at the "Achilles" as they drew nearer, with profoundest admiration. Its great hulk grew large upon her view, with an absolute haze of romance and mystery hanging about its decks and rigging. It was a large ship, finely equipped, according to the fashion of naval armament which was prevalent in those days; she was a three-decker; and the port holes of her guns looked in threatening ranks along the sides of the vessel. Still and majestic she lay upon the quiet river; a very wonderful floating home indeed, and unlike all else she had ever known, to Dolly's apprehension. How she and the rest were ever to get on board was an insoluble problem to her, as to most of them; and the chair that was presently lowered along the ship's side to receive them, seemed a very precarious sort of means of transport. However, the getting aboard was safely accomplished; one by one they were hoisted up; and Dolly's feet stood upon the great main deck. And the first view was perfectly satisfactory, and even went far beyond her imaginings. She found herself standing under a mixed confusion of masts and spars and sails, marvellous to behold, which yet she also saw was no confusion at all, but complicated and systematic order. How much those midshipmen must have to learn, though, if they were to know the names and uses and handling of every spar and every rope and each sail among them! as Dolly knew they must. Her eye came back to the deck. What order there too; what neatness; why it was beautiful; and the uniforms here and there, and the sailors' hats and jackets, filled up the picture to her heart's desire. Dolly breathed a full breath of satisfaction. The Captain of the "Achilles" made his appearance, Captain Barbour. He was a thick-set, grizzly haired man, rather short, not handsome at all; and yet with an air of authority unmistakably clothing him like a garment of power and dignity. Plainly this man's word was law, and the girls stood in awe of him. He was known to Mrs. Delancy; and now she went on to present formally all her young people to him. The captain returned the courtesy by calling up and introducing to her and them some of his officers; and then they went to a review of the ship. It took a long while. Between Mrs. Delancy and Captain Barbour a lively conversation was carried on; Dolly thought he was explaining things to the lady that she did not understand; but though it might be the case now and then, I think the talk moved mainly upon less technical matters. Dolly could not get near enough to hear what it was, at any rate. The young lieutenants, too, were taken up with playing the host to the older young ladies of the party. If _they_ received instruction also by the way, Dolly could not tell; the laughing hardly looked like it. She and the other young ones at any rate followed humbly at the tail of everything, and just came up to a clear view of some detail when the others were moving away. There was nobody to help Dolly understand anything; nevertheless, she wandered in a fairy vision of wonderland. Into the cabins, down to the forecastle, down to the gun deck. What could equal the black strangeness of _that_ view! and what could it all mean? Dolly wished for her Uncle Edward, or some one, to answer a thousand questions. She had been reading about the guns, she looked curiously now at the realities, of which she had studied the pictures; recognised here a detail and there a detail, but remaining hugely ignorant of the whole and of the bearing of the several parts upon each other. Yet she did not know how time flew; she did not know that she was getting tired; from one strange thing to another she followed her leaders about; very much alone indeed, for even the other girls of her own age were staring at a different class of objects, and could hardly be said to see what she saw, much less were ready to ask what she wanted to ask. Dolly went round in a confused dream. At last the party had gone everywhere that such a party could go; Captain Barbour had spared them the lower gun deck. They came back to the captain's cabin, where a very pleasant lunch was served to the ladies. It was served, that is, to those who could get it, to those who were near enough and old enough to put in a claim by right of appearance. Dolly and one or two more who were undeniably little girls stood a bad chance, hanging about on the outskirts of the crowd, for the cabin would not take them all in; and hearing a distant sound of clinking glass and silver and words of refreshment. It was all they seemed likely to get; and when a kindly elderly officer had taken pity on the child and given Dolly a biscuit, she concluded to resign the rest of the unattainable luncheon and make the most of her other opportunities while she had them. Eating the biscuit, which she was very glad of, she wandered off by herself, along the deck; looking again carefully at all she saw; for her eyes were greedy of seeing. Sails,--what strange shapes; and how close rolled up some of them were! Ropes,--what a multitude; and cables. Coils of them on deck; and if she looked up, an endless tracery of lines seen against the blue sky. There was a sailor going up something like a rope ladder; going up and up; how could he? and how far could he go? Dolly almost grew dizzy gazing at him. "What are you looking after, little one?" a voice near her asked. An unceremonious address, certainly; frankly put; but the voice was not unkindly or uncivil, and Dolly was not sensitive on the point of personal dignity. She brought her eyes down for a moment far enough to see the shimmer of gold lace on a midshipman's cap, and answered, "I am looking at that man. He's going up and up, to the top of everything. I should think his head would turn." "Yours will, if you look after him with your head in that position." Dolly let her eyes come now to the speaker's face. One of the young midshipmen it was, standing near her, with his arms folded and leaning upon something which served as a support to them, and looking down at Dolly. For standing so and leaning over, he was still a good deal taller than she. Further, Dolly observed a pair of level brows, beneath them a pair of wise-looking, cognisance-taking blue eyes, an expression of steady calm, betokening either an even temperament or an habitual power of self-control; and just now in the eyes and the mouth there was the play almost of a smile somewhat merry, wholly kindly. It took Dolly's confidence entirely and at once. "You don't think you would like to be a sailor?" he went on. "Is it pleasant?" said Dolly, retorting the question earnestly and doubtfully. The smile broke a little more on the other's face. "How do you like the ship?" he asked. "I do not know," said Dolly, glancing along the deck. "I think it is a strange place to live." "Why?" "And I don't understand the use of it," Dolly went on with a really puzzled face. "The use of what?" "The use of the whole thing. I know what ships are good for, of course; other ships; but what is the use of such a ship as this?" "To take care of the other ships." "How?" "Have you been below? Did you see the gun decks?" "I was in a place where there were a great many guns--but I could not understand, and there was nobody to tell me things." "Would you like to go down there again?" "Oh yes!" said Dolly. "They will be a good while at lunch yet. Oh, thank you! I should like so much to go." The young midshipman took her hand; perhaps he had a little sister at home and the action was pleasant and familiar; it seemed to be both; and led her down the way that took them to the upper gun deck. "How comes it you are not taking lunch too?" he asked by the way. "Oh, there are too many of them," said Dolly contentedly. "I don't care. I had a biscuit." "You don't care for your lunch?" "Yes, I do, when I'm hungry; but now I would rather see things. I never saw a ship before." They arrived in the great, gloomy, black gun deck. The midshipman let go Dolly's hand, and she stood and looked along the avenue between the bristling black cannon. "Now, what is it that you don't understand?" he asked, watching her. "What are these guns here for?" "Don't you know _that?_ Guns are to fight with." "Yes, I know," said Dolly; "but how can you fight with them here in a row? and what would you fight with? I mean, who would you fight against?" "Some other ship, if Fate willed it so. Look here; this is the way of it." He took a letter from the breast of his coat, tore off a blank leaf; then resting it on the side of a gun carriage, he proceeded to make a sketch. Dolly's eyes followed his pencil point, spell-bound with interest. Under his quick and ready fingers grew, she could not tell how, the figure of a ship,--hull, masts, sails and rigging, deftly sketched in; till it seemed to Dolly she could almost see how the wind blew that was filling out the sails and floating off the streamer. "There," said the artist,--"that is our enemy." "Our enemy?" repeated Dolly. "Our supposed enemy. We will suppose she is an enemy." "But how could she be?" "We might be at war with England suppose, or with France. This might be an English ship of war coming to catch up every merchantman she could overhaul that carried American colours, and make a prize of her; don't you see?" "Do they do that?" said Dolly. "What? catch up merchantmen? of course they do; and the more of value is on board, the better they are pleased. We lose so much, and they gain so much. Now we want to stop this fellow's power of doing mischief; you understand." "What are those little black spots you are making along her sides." "The port holes of her guns." "Port holes?" "The openings where the mouths of her guns look out. See," said he, pointing to the one near which they were standing,--"that is a port hole." "That little window?" "It isn't a window; it is a port hole." "It is not a black spot." "Because you are inside, and looking out towards the light. Look at them when you are leaving the ship; they will look like black spots then, you will find." "Well, that's the enemy," said Dolly, drawing a short breath of excitement. "What is that ship you are making now?" "That's the 'Achilles'; brought to; with her main topsails laid aback, and her fore topsails full; ready for action." "I do not know what are topsails or fore topsails," said Dolly. The midshipman explained; to illustrate his explanation sketched lightly another figure of a vessel, showing more distinctly the principal sails. "And this is the 'Achilles,'" said Dolly, recurring to the principal design. "You have put her a great way off from the enemy, it seems to me." "No. Point blank range. Quite near enough." "Oh, what is 'point blank range'?" cried Dolly in despair. Her new friend smiled, but answered with good-humoured patience. Dolly listened and comprehended. "Then, if this were an enemy, and that the 'Achilles,' and within point blank range, you would load one of these guns and fire at her?" The midshipman shook his head. "We should load up all of them--all on that side." "And five them one after another?" "As fast as we could. We should give her a broadside. But we should probably give her one broadside after another." "Suppose the balls all hit her?" "Yes, you may suppose that. I should like to suppose it, if I were the officer in command." "What would they do to her?--to that enemy ship?" "If they all hit? Hinder her from doing any more mischief." "How?" "Break her masts, tear up her rigging, make a wreck of her generally. Perhaps sink her." "But suppose while you are fighting that she fights too?" "Extremely probable." "If a shot came in here--could it come in here?" "Certainly. Cannon balls will go almost anywhere." "If it came in here, what would it do?" "Kill three or four of the men at a gun, perhaps; tear away a bit of the ship's side; or perhaps disable the gun." "While you were firing at the enemy on this side, the guns of the other side, I suppose, would have nothing to do?" "They might be fighting another enemy on that side," said the midshipman, smiling. "I should think," said Dolly, looking down the long line of the gun deck, and trying to imagine the state of things described,--"I should think it would be most dreadful!" "I have no doubt you would think so." "Don't _you_ think so?" "I have never been in action yet." "Don't you hope you never will?" The young man laughed a little. "What would be the use of ships of war, if there were never any fighting? I should have nothing to do in the world." "You might do something else," said Dolly, gazing at the lines of black guns stretching along both sides of the deck, so near to each other, so black, so grim. "How many men does it take to manage each gun? You said _three or four_ might be killed." "According to the size of the gun. Twelve men for these guns; larger would take fifteen." Again Dolly meditated; in imagination peopled the solitary place with the active crowd of men which would be there if each gun had twelve gunners, filled the silence with the roar of combined discharges, thought of the dead and wounded; at last turned her eyes to the blue ones that were watching her. "I wonder if God likes it?" she said. "Likes what?" said the midshipman in wonder. "Such work. I don't see how He _can_." "How can you help such work? People cannot get along without fighting." He did not speak carelessly or mockingly or banteringly; rather with a gentle, somewhat deliberate utterance. Yet Dolly was persuaded there was no unmanly softness in him; she never doubted but that he would be ready to do his part in that dreadful work, if it must be done. Moreover, he was paying to this odd little girl a delicate sort of respect and treating her with great consideration. Her confidence, as I said, had been entirely given to him before; and now some gratitude began to mingle with it, along with great freedom to speak her mind. "I don't think God can like it," she repeated. "What would you do, then?" he also repeated, smiling. "Let wicked people have their own way?" "No." "If they are not to have their own way, you must stop them." "I think this is a dreadful way of stopping them." "It's a bad job for the side that goes under," the young officer admitted. "I don't believe God likes it," Dolly concluded for the third time, with great conviction. "Is that your rule for everything?" "Yes. Isn't it your rule?" "I have to obey orders," he answered, watching her. "Don't you obey _His_ orders?" said Dolly wistfully. "I do not know what they are." "Oh, but they are in the Bible. You can find them in the Bible." "Does it say anything about fighting?" Dolly tried to think, and got confused. Certainly it did say a good deal about fighting, but in various ways, it seemed to her. She did not know how to answer. She changed the subject. "How do you get the shot, the balls, I mean, into these guns? I don't see how you get at them. The mouths are out of the windows. Port holes, I mean." For the upper gun deck had been put to a certain extent in order of action, and the guns were run out. "You are of an inquiring disposition," said the midshipman gravely. "Am I?" "I think you are." "But I should like to know"--pursued Dolly, looking at the muzzle of the gun by which they were standing. "The guns would be run in to be loaded." Dolly looked at the heavy piece of metal, and at him, but did not repeat her question. "Now you want to know how," he said, smiling. "If I were captain, I would have the men here and show you. The gun is run in by means of this tackle, see!--and when it is charged, it is bowsed out again." Seeing Dolly's wise grave eyes bent upon the subject, he went on to amuse her with a full detail of the exercise of the gun; from "casting loose," to the finishing "secure your guns;" explaining the manner of handling and loading, and the use of the principal tackle concerned. Dolly listened, intent, fascinated, enchained; and I think the young man was a little fascinated too, though his attentions were given to so very young a lady. Dolly's brown eyes were so utterly pure and grave and unconscious; the brain at work behind them was so evidently clear and busy and competent; the pleasure she showed was so unschoolgirl-like, and he thought so unchildlike, and at the same time so very far from being young lady-like. What she was like, he did not know; she was an odd little apparition there in the gun-deck of the "Achilles," leaning with her elbows upon a gun carriage, and surveyeing with her soft eyes the various paraphernalia of conflict and carnage around her. Contrast could hardly be stronger. "Suppose," said Dolly at last, "a shot should make a hole in the side of the ship, and let in the water?" "Well? Suppose it," he answered. "Does that ever happen?" "Quite often. Why not?" "What would you do then?" "Pump out the water as fast as it came in,--if we could." "Suppose you couldn't?" "Then we should go down." "And all in the ship?" "All who could not get out of it." "How could any get out of it?" "In the boats." "Oh!--I forgot the boats. Would they hold everybody?" "Probably not. The other ships' boats would come to help." "The officers would go first, I suppose?" "Last. The highest officer of all would be the last man on board." "Why?" "He must do his duty. If he cannot save his ship, at least he must save his men;--all he can. He is there to do his duty." "I think it would be better not to be there at all," said Dolly very gravely. "Who would take care of you then, if an enemy's fleet were coming to attack Philadelphia?" said the young officer. "I would go home," said Dolly. "I don't know what would become of Philadelphia. But I do not think God can like it." "Shall we go above where it is more cheerful? or have you seen it all?" Dolly gave him her hand again and let him help her till they got on deck. There they went roaming towards the fore part of the vessel, looking at everything by the way; Dolly asking the names and the meaning of things, and receiving explanations, especially regarding the sails and rigging and steering of the ship. She was even shown where the sailors made their home in the forecastle. As they were returning aft, Dolly stopped by a coil of rope on deck and began pulling at an end of it. Her companion inquired what she wanted? "I would like a little piece," said Dolly; "if I could get it." "A piece of rope?" "Yes;--just a little bit; but it is very strong; it won't break." She was tugging at a loose strand. "How large a bit do you want?" "Oh, just a little piece," said Dolly. "I wanted just a little piece to keep--but it's no matter. I wanted to keep it." "A keepsake?" said the young man. "To remember us by? They are breaking up,"--he added immediately, casting his glance aft, where a stir and a gathering and a movement on deck in front of the captain's cabin could now be seen, and the sound of voices came fresh along the breeze. "They are going--there is no time now. I will send you a piece, if you will tell me where I can send it. Where do you live?" "Oh, will you? Oh, thank you!" said Dolly, and her face lifted confidingly to the young officer grew sunny with pleasure. "I live at Mrs. Delancy's school;--but no, I don't! I don't live there. My home is at Uncle Edward's--Mr. Edward Eberstein--in Walnut Street." "What number?" said the midshipman, using his pencil again on the much scribbled piece of paper; and Dolly told him. "And whom shall I send the--the piece of rope, to?" "Oh, yes!--Dolly Copley. That is my name. Good bye, I must go." "Dolly Copley. You shall have it," said he, giving the little hand she held out to him a right sailorly grasp. And Dolly ran away. In the bustle and anxiety of getting lowered into the little boat again she forgot him and everything else; however, so soon as she was safely seated and just as the men were ordered to "give way," she looked up at the great ship they were leaving; and there, just above her, leaning on the guards and looking over and down at her, she saw her midshipman friend. Dolly saw nothing else till his face was too small in the distance to be any longer recognised. CHAPTER V. THE PIECE OF ROPE. It was Saturday and holiday, and Dolly went home to her aunt's. There her aunt and uncle, as was natural, expected a long story of the morning's experience. And Dolly one would think might have given it; matter for the detail was not wanting; yet she seemed to have little to tell. On the other hand, she had a great deal to ask. She wanted to know why people could not do all their fighting on land; why ships of war were necessary; Mr. Eberstein tried to explain that there might be great and needful advantages attendant upon the use of them. Then Dolly begged for instances. Had we, Americans, ever fought at sea? Mr. Eberstein answered that, and gave her details of facts, while Mrs. Eberstein sat by silent and watched Dolly's serious, meditative face. "I should think," said Dolly, "that when there is a fight, a ship of war would be a very dreadful place." "There is no doubt of that, my little girl," said Mr. Eberstein. "Take the noise, and the smoke, the packed condition of one of those gun decks, and the every now and then coming in of a round shot, crashing through planks and timbers, splintering what comes in its way, and stretching half a dozen men at once, more or less, on the floor in dead and wounded,--I think it must be as good a likeness of the infernal regions as earth can give--in one way at least." "In what way?" Dolly asked immediately. "Confusion of pain and horror. Not wickedness." "Uncle Ned, do you think God can like it?" "No." "Then isn't it wicked?" "No, little one; not necessarily. No sort of pain or suffering can be pleasing to God; we know it is not; yet sin has made it necessary, and He often sends it." "Don't He always send it?" "Why no. Some sorts people bring on themselves by their own folly and perverseness; and some sorts people work on others by their own wicked self-will. God does not cause that, though He will overrule it to do what He wants done." "Uncle Ned, do you think we shall ever have to use our ships of war again?" "We are using them all the time. We send them to this place and that place to protect our own people, and their merchant vessels and their commerce, from interference and injury." "No, but I mean, in fighting. Do you think we shall ever have to send them to fight again?" "Probably." "To fight whom?" "That I don't know." "Then why do you say 'probably'?" "Because human nature remains what it was, and will no doubt do the same work in the future that it has done from the beginning." "Why is fighting part of that work, Uncle Ned?" "Ah, why! Greed, which wants what is the right of others; pride, which resents even a fancied interference with its own; anger, which cries for revenge; these are the reasons." Dolly looked very deeply serious. "Why do you care so much about it, Dolly?" her aunt asked at length, after a meditative pause of several minutes. "I would be sorry to have the 'Achilles' go into battle," said Dolly; and a perceptible slight shudder passed over her shoulders. "Is the 'Achilles' so much to you, just because you have seen her?" "No--" said Dolly thoughtfully; "it isn't the _ship;_ it's the people." "Oh!--But what do you know of the people?" "I saw a good many of them, Aunt Harry." Politic Dolly! She had really seen only one. Yet she had no idea of being politic; and why she did not say whom she had seen, and what reason she had for being interested in him, I cannot tell you. From that time Dolly's reading took a new turn. She sought out in the bookcases everything that related to sailors and ships, and especially naval warfare, and simply devoured it. The little Life of Lord Nelson, by Southey, in two small calf-bound volumes, became her darling book. Better than any novel, for it was _true_, and equal to any novel for its varied, picturesque, passionate, stirring life story. Dolly read it, till she could have given you at any time an accurate and detailed account of any one of Nelson's great battles; and more than that, she studied the geography of the lands and waters thereby concerned, and where possible the topography also. I suppose the "Achilles" stood for a model of all the ships in which successively the great commander hoisted his flag; and if the hero himself did not take the form and features of a certain American midshipman, it was probably because there was a likeness of the subject of the Memoir opposite to the title-page; and the rather plain, rather melancholy, rather feeble traits of the English naval captain, could by no effort of imagination be confounded with the quiet strength and gentle manliness which Dolly had found in the straight brows and keen blue eyes and kindly smile of her midshipman friend. That would not do. Nelson was not like him, nor he like Nelson; but Dolly had little doubt but he would do as much, if he had occasion. In that faith she read on; and made every action lively with the vision of those keen-sighted blue eyes and firm sweet mouth in the midst of the smoke of battle and the confusion of orders given and received. How often the Life of Nelson was read, I dare not say; nor with what renewed eagerness the Marine Dictionary and its plates of ships and cannon were studied and searched. From that, Dolly's attention was extended to other books which told of the sea and of life upon it, even though the life were not war-like. Captain Cook's voyages came in for a large amount of favour; and Cooper's "Afloat and Ashore," which happened about this time to fall into Dolly's hands, was devoured with a hunger which grew on what it fed. Nobody knew; she had ceased to talk on naval subjects; and it was so common a thing for Dolly to be swallowed up in some book or other whenever she was at home, that Mrs. Eberstein's curiosity was not excited. Meanwhile school days and school work went on, and week succeeded week, and everybody but Dolly had forgotten all about the "Achilles;" when one day a small package was brought to the door and handed in "For Miss Dolly Copley." It was a Saturday afternoon. Dolly and her aunt were sitting comfortably together in Mrs. Eberstein's workroom upstairs, and Mr. Eberstein was there too at his secretary. "For me?" said Dolly, when the servant brought the package in. "It's a box! Aunt Harry, what can it be?" "Open and see, Dolly." Which Dolly did with an odd mixture of haste and deliberation which amused Mrs. Eberstein. She tore off nothing, and she cut nothing; patiently knots were untied and papers unfolded, though Dolly's fingers trembled with excitement. Papers taken off showed a rather small pasteboard box; and the box being opened revealed coil upon coil, nicely wound up, of a beautifully wrought chain. It might be a watch chain; but Dolly possessed no watch. "What is it, Aunt Harry?" she said in wondering pleasure as the coils of the pretty woven work fell over her hand. "It looks like a watch chain, Dolly. What is it made of?" Mrs. Eberstein inspected the work closely and could not determine. "But who could send me a watch chain?" said Dolly. "Somebody; for here is your name very plainly on the cover and on the paper." "The boy is waiting for an answer, miss." "Answer? To what? I don't know whom to answer," said Dolly. "There's a note, miss." "A note? where?--Oh, here _is_ a note, Aunt Harry, in the bottom of the box. I did not see it." "From whom, Dolly?" Dolly did not answer. She had unfolded the note, and now her whole face was wrinkling up with pleasure or fun; she did not hear or heed her aunt's question. Mrs. Eberstein marked how her colour rose and her smile grew sparkling; and she watched with not a little curiosity and some impatience till Dolly should speak. The little girl looked up at last with a face all dimples. "O Aunt Harry! it's my piece of rope." "Your _piece of rope_, my dear?" "Yes; I wanted a piece of rope; and this is it." "That is not a piece of rope." "Yes, it is; it is made of it. I could not think what it was made of; and now I see. Isn't it beautifully made? He has picked a piece of rope to pieces, and woven this chain of the threads; isn't it beautiful? And how kind! How kind he is." "_Who_, Dolly? Who has done it?" "Oh, the midshipman, Aunt Harry." "_The_ midshipman. What one? You didn't say anything about a midshipman." "I saw him, though, and he said he would send me a piece of rope. I wanted a piece, Aunt Harry, to remember the ship by; and I could not break a bit off, though I tried; then he saw me trying, and it was just time to go, and he said he would get it and send it to me. I thought he had forgotten all about it; but here it is! I am so glad." "My dear, do you call that a piece of rope?" "Why, yes, Aunt Harry; it is woven out of a piece of rope. He has picked the rope apart and made this chain of the threads. I think he is very clever." "_Who_, my dear? Who has done it, Dolly?" "The midshipman, Aunt Harry." "What midshipman?" "On the 'Achilles.' I saw him that day." "Did you see only one midshipman?" "No; I suppose I saw a good many. I didn't notice any but this one." "And he noticed you, I suppose?" "Yes, a little"--said Dolly. "Did he notice nobody beside you?" "I don't know, Aunt Harry. Not that time, for I was alone." "Alone! Where were all the rest, and Mrs. Delancy?" "Eating lunch in the captain's cabin." "Did you have no lunch?" "I had a biscuit one of the officers gave me." "And have you got a note there from the midshipman?" "Yes, Aunt Harry." "What does he say?" Dolly unfolded the note again and looked at it with great consideration; then handed it to Mrs. Eberstein. Mrs. Eberstein read aloud. "Ship '_Achilles_,' "_Dec_. 5, 18-- "Will Miss Dolly Copley please send a word to say that she has received her piece of cable safe? I thought she would like it best perhaps in a manufactured form; and I hope she will keep it to remember the 'Achilles' by, and also "A. CROWNINSHIELD." "What's all that?" demanded Mr. Eberstein now from his writing-desk. Mrs. Eberstein bit her lips as she answered, "Billet-doux." "Aunt Harry," said Dolly now doubtfully, "must I write an answer?" "Edward," said Mrs. Eberstein, "shall I let this child write a note to a midshipman on board the 'Achilles'? What do you think? Come and counsel me." Mr. Eberstein left his writing, informed himself of the circumstances, read "A. Crowninshield's" note, and gave his decision. "The 'Achilles'? Oh yes, I know Captain Barbour very well. It's all right, I guess. I think Dolly had better write an answer, certainly." So Dolly fetched her writing materials. Her aunt looked for some appeals for advice now on her part; but Dolly made none. She bent over her paper with an earnest face, a little flushed; but it seemed she was in no uncertainty what to say or how to say it. She did not offer to show her finished note to Mrs. Eberstein; I think it did not occur to her; but in the intensity of her concentration Dolly only thought of the person she was writing to and the occasion which made her write. Certainly she would have had no objection that anybody should see what she wrote. The simple words ran as follows: "MR. CROWNINSHIELD, "I have got the chain, and I think it is beautiful, and I am very much obliged to you. I mean to keep it and wear it as long as I live. You are very kind. "DOLLY COPLEY." The note was closed and sent off; and with that Dolly dismissed the subject, so far at least as words were concerned; but Mrs. Eberstein watched her still for some time handling and examining the chain, passing it through her fingers, and regarding it with a serious face, and yet an expression in the eyes and on the lips that was almost equivalent to a smile. "What are you going to do with it, Dolly?" Mrs. Eberstein asked at length, wishing to get into the child's thoughts. "I'll keep it, Aunt Harry. And when I have anything to wear it with, I will wear it. When I am old enough, I mean." "What did you do to that young fellow, to make him show you such an attention?" "Do to him? I didn't do anything to him, Aunt Harry!" "It was very kind of him, wasn't it?" "_Very_ kind. I guess he is kind," said Dolly. "Maybe we shall see him again one of these days, and have a chance to thank him. The midshipmen get leave to come on shore now and then." But no such chance offered. The "Achilles" sailed out of those waters, and her place in the river was empty. CHAPTER VI. END OF SCHOOL TERM. Dolly's school life is not further of importance in this history; or no further than may serve to fill out the picture already given of herself. A few smooth and uneventful years followed that first coming to Philadelphia; not therefore unfruitful because uneventful; perhaps the very contrary. The little girl made her way among her fellow pupils and the teachers, the masters and mistresses, the studies and drills which busied them all, with a kind of sweet facility; such as is born everywhere, I suppose, of good will. Whoever got into scrapes, it was never Dolly Copley; whoever was chidden for imperfect recitations, such rebukes never fell on her; whoever might be suspected of mischief, such suspicion could not rest for a moment on the fair, frank little face and those grave brown eyes. The most unpopular mistress had a friend in Dolly; the most refractory school-girl owned to a certain influence which went forth from her; the most uncomfortable of her companions found soothing in her presence. People who are happy themselves can drop a good deal of oil on the creaking machinery around them, and love is the only manufactory where the oil is made. With all this smooth going, it may be supposed that Dolly's progress in knowledge and accomplishments would be at least satisfactory; and it was more than that. She prospered in all she undertook. The teacher of mathematics said she had a good head for calculation; the French mistress declared nature had given her a good ear and accent; the dancing master found her agile and graceful as a young roe; the drawing master went beyond all these and averred that Miss Copley would distinguish him and herself. "She has an excellent manner of handling, madame," he said,--"and she has an eye for colour, and she will have a style that will be distinguished." Moreover, Dolly's voice was sweet and touching, and promised to be very effective. So things went on at school; and at home each day bound faster the loving ties which united her with her kind protectors and relations. Every week grew and deepened the pleasure of the intercourse they held together. Those were happy years for all parties. Dolly had become rather more talkative, without being less of a bookworm. Vacations were sometimes spent with her mother and father, though not always, as the latter were sometimes travelling. Dolly missed nothing; Mrs. Eberstein's house had come to be a second home. All this while the "Achilles" had never been heard of again in the neighbourhood of Philadelphia. Neither, though Dolly I am bound to say searched faithfully all the lists of ship's officers which were reported in any American ports, did she ever so much as see the name of A. Crowninshield. She always looked for it, wherever a chance of finding it might be; she never found it. Such was the course of things, until Dolly had reached her seventeenth year and was half through it. Then, in the spring, long before school term ended, came a sudden summons for her. Mr. Copley had received the appointment of a consulship in London; he and his family were about to transfer themselves immediately to this new sphere of activity, and Dolly of course must go along. Her books were hastily fetched from school, her clothes packed up; and Dolly and her kind friends in Walnut Street sat together the last evening in a very subdued frame of mind. "I don't see what your father wanted of a consulship, or anything else that would take him out of his country!" Mr. Eberstein uttered his rather grumbling complaint. "He has enough to satisfy a man without that." "But what papa likes is precisely something to take him out of the country. He likes change"--said Dolly sorrowfully. "He won't have much change as American Consul in London," Mr. Eberstein returned. "Business will pin him pretty close." "I suppose it will be a change at first," said Dolly; "and then, when he gets tired of it, he will give it up, and take something else." "And you, little Dolly, you are accordingly to be shoved out into the great, great world, long before you are ready for it." "Is the world any bigger over there than it is on this side?" said Dolly, with a gleam of fun. "Well, yes," said Mr. Eberstein. "Most people think so. And London _is_ a good deal bigger than Philadelphia." "The world is very much alike all over," remarked Mrs. Eberstein; "in one place a little more fascinating and dangerous, in another a little less." "Will it be more or less, over there, for me, Aunt Harry?" "It would be 'more' for you anywhere, Dolly, soon. Why you are between sixteen and seventeen; almost a woman!" Mrs. Eberstein said with a sigh. "No, not yet, Aunt Harry. I'll be a girl yet awhile. I can be that in England, can't I, as well as here?" "Better," said Mr. Eberstein. "But the world, nevertheless, _is_ a little bigger out there, Ned," his wife added. "In what way, Aunt Harry? And what do you mean by the 'world' anyhow?" "I mean what the Lord was speaking of, when He said to His disciples, 'If ye were of the world, the world would love his own; but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.'" "That means, bad people?" "Some of them are by no means bad people. Some of them are delightful people." "Then I do not quite understand, Aunt Harry. I thought it meant not only _bad_ people, but gay people; pleasure lovers." "Aren't you a lover of pleasure, Dolly?" "Oh yes. But, Aunt Harry," Dolly said seriously, "I am _not_ a 'lover of pleasure more than a lover of God.'" "No, thanks to His goodness! However, Dolly, people may be just as worldly without seeking pleasures at all. It isn't that." "What is it, then?" "I don't know how to put it. Ned, can you?" "Why, Hal," said Mr. Eberstein pondering, "it comes to about this, I reckon. There are just two kingdoms in the world, upon earth I mean." "Yes. Well? I know there are two kingdoms, and no neutral ground. But what is the dividing line? That is what we want to know." "If there is no neutral ground, it follows that the border line of one kingdom is the border line of the other. To go out of one, is to go into the other." "Well? Yes. That's plain." "Then it is simple enough. What belongs to Christ, or what is done for Him or in His service, belongs to His kingdom. Of course, what is _not_ Christ's, nor is done for Him, nor in His service, belongs to the world." There was a silence here of some duration; and then Dolly exclaimed, "I see it. I shall know now." "What, Dolly?" "How to do, Aunt Harry." "How to do what?" "Everything. I was thinking particularly just then"--Dolly hesitated. "Yes, of what?" "Of dressing myself." "Dressing yourself, you chicken?" "Yes, Aunt Harry. I see it. If I do not dress for Christ, I do it for the world." "Don't go into another extreme now, Dolly." "No, Aunt Harry. I cannot be wrong, can I, if I do it for Christ?" "I wonder how many girls of sixteen in the country have such a thought? And I wonder, how long will you be able to keep it, Dolly?" "Why not, Aunt Harry?" "O child! because you have got to meet the world." "What will the world do to me?" Dolly asked, half laughing in her simple ignorance. "When I think what it will do to you, Dolly, I am ready to break my heart. It will tempt you, child. It will tempt you with beauty, and with pleasant things; pleasant things that look so harmless! and it will seek to persuade you with sweet voices and with voices of authority; and it will show you everybody going one way, and that not your way." "But I will follow Christ, Aunt Hal." "Then you will have to bear reproach." "I would rather bear the world's reproach, than His." "If you don't get over-persuaded, child, or deafened with the voices!" "She will have to do like the little girl in the fairy tale," said Mr. Eberstein; "stuff cotton in her ears. The little girl in the fairy tale was going up a hill to get something at the top--what _was_ she going for, that was at the top of the hill?" "I know!" cried Dolly. "I remember. She was going for three things. The Singing bird and the Golden water, and--I forget what the third thing was." "Well, you see what that means," Mr. Eberstein went on. "She was going up the hill for the Golden water at the top; and there were ten thousand voices in her ears tempting her to look round; and if she looked, she would be turned to stone. The road was lined with stones, which had once been pilgrims. You see, Dolly? Her only way was to stop her ears." "I see, Uncle Ned." "What shall Dolly stop her ears with?" asked Mrs. Eberstein. "These words will do. 'Whether ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.'" There was little more talking, for as the evening drew on, the heaviness of the parting weighed too hard upon all hearts. The next day Dolly made the journey to Boston, and from there to her parents' house; and her childhood's days were over. CHAPTER VII. PLAYTHINGS. Dolly did not know that her childhood was over. Every pulse of her happy little heart said the contrary, when she found herself again among her old haunts and was going the rounds of them, the morning after her return home. She came in at last to her mother, flushed and warm. "Mother, what are we going away for?" she began. "Your father knows. I don't. Men never know when they are well off." "Do women?" "I used to think so." "Is it as pleasant in England as it is here?" "Depends on where you are placed, I suppose, and _how_ you are placed. How can I tell? I have never been in England." "Mother, we have got the prettiest little calf in the barn that you ever saw." "In the barn! A queer place for a calf to be, it seems to me." "Yes, because they want to keep it from the cow. Johnson is going to rear it, he says. I am so glad it is not to be killed! It is spotted, mother; all red and white; and so prettily spotted!" An inarticulate sound from Mrs. Copley, which might mean anything. "And, mother, I have been getting the eggs. And Johnson has a hen setting. We shall have chickens pretty soon." "Dolly Copley, how old are you?" "Sixteen last Christmas, mother." "And seventeen next Christmas." "Yes, ma'am, but next Christmas is not come yet." "Seems to me, it is near enough for you to be something besides a child." "What's the harm, mother?" "Harm?" said Mrs. Copley with a sharp accent; "why, when one has a woman's work to do, one had better be a woman to do it. How is a child to fill a woman's place?" "I have only a child's place to fill, just now," said Dolly merrily. "I have no woman's work to do, mother." "Yes, you have. You have got to go into society, and play your part in society, and be married by and by; and _then_ you'll know that a woman's part isn't so easy to play." Dolly looked grave. "But we are going to England, mother; where we know nobody. I don't see how we are to go into much society." "Do you suppose," said Mrs. Copley very irately, "that with your father's position his wife and daughter will not be visited and receive invitations? That is the one thing that reconciles me to going. We shall have a very different sort of society from what we have here. Why you will go to court, Dolly; you will be presented; and of course you will see nothing but people of the very best circles." "I don't care about going to court." "Why not? You are a goose; you know nothing about it. Why don't you want to go to court? Your father's daughter may, as well as some other people's. Why don't you care about it?" "It would be a great deal of fuss; and no use." "No use! Yes, it would; just the use I am telling you. It would introduce you to the best society." "But I am not going to live in England all my life, mother." "How do you know?" very sharply. "How do you know where you are going to live?" "Why, father won't stay there always, will he?" "I am sure I don't know what your father will take into his head. I may be called to end my days in Japan. But you--Look here; has your aunt made you as old-fashioned as she is herself?" "How, mother?" "I am sure I can't tell how! There are ever so many ways. There's the benevolent sort, and there's the devout sort, and there's the puritanical sort. Has she put it into your head that it is good to be a hermit and separate yourself from the rest of the world?" Dolly laughed and denied that charge. "She's a very good woman, I suppose; but she is ridiculous," Mrs. Copley went on. "Don't be ridiculous, whatever you are. You can't do any good to anybody by being ridiculous." "But people may call things ridiculous, that are not ridiculous, mother." "Don't let them _call_ you ridiculous, then," said Mrs. Copley, chopping her words in the way people do when impatience has the management of them. "You had better not. The world is pretty apt to be right." Dolly let the subject go, and let it go from her mind too; giving herself to the delights of her chickens, and the calf, and the nests of eggs in the hay mow. More than half the time she was dancing about out of doors; as gay as the daffodils that were just opening, as delicate as the Van Thol tulips that were taking on slender streaks and threads of carmine in their half transparent white petals, as sweet as the white hyacinth that was blooming in Mrs. Copley's window. Within the house Dolly displayed another character, and soon became indispensable to her mother. In all consultations of business, in emergencies of packing, in perplexities of arrangements, Dolly was ready with a sweet, clear common sense, loving hands of skill, and an imperturbable cheerfulness and patience. It was only a few weeks that the confusion lasted; during those weeks Mrs. Copley came to know what sort of a daughter she had. And even Mr. Copley began to divine it. Mr. Copley has been no more than mentioned. He was a comely, intelligent, active, energetic man; a very good specimen of a typical Yankee who has enjoyed the advantages of education and society. He had plenty of common sense, acute business faculties, and genial manners; and so was generally a popular man among his compeers. His inherited family property made him more than independent; so his business dealings were entered into rather for amusement and to satisfy the inborn Yankee craving to be doing something, than for need or for gain. Mr. Copley laid no special value on money, beyond what went to make him comfortable. But he lacked any feeling for art, which might have made him a collector and connoisseur; he had no love for nature, which might have expended itself in grounds and gardens; he cared little for knowledge, except such as he could forthwith use. What was left to him but business? for he was not of those softly natures which sit down at home in the midst of their families and are content. However, Mr. Copley could value his home belongings, and had an eye to discern things. He was watching Dolly, one day just before their departure, as she was busying herself with a bunch of violets; putting some of them in a glass, sticking some of them in her mother's hair, finally holding the bunch under her father's nose. "Dolly," said her father, "I declare I don't know whether you are most of a child or a woman!" "I suppose I can be both, father; can't I?" "I don't know about that." "So I tell her," said Mrs. Copley. "It's all very well as long as she is here; but I tell her she has got to give up being a child and playing with the chickens." "Why must I?" said Dolly. "You will find other playthings on the other side," said her father, fondly putting his arm round her and drawing her up to him. "Will they be as good as chickens? What will they be?" "Yes, there, 'what will they be,' she asks! I do believe that Dolly has no idea," Mrs. Copley remarked. "She will find out soon enough," said Mr. Copley contentedly. "What will they be, father?" Dolly repeated, making for the present a plaything of her father's head; for both her soft arms were around it, and she was touching first one side and then the other side with her own cheeks. Mr. Copley seemed to enjoy the play, for he gave himself up to it luxuriously and made no answer. "Dolly has been long enough in Philadelphia," Mrs. Copley went on. "It is time she was away." "So I think." "Father," said Dolly now, "have I done with going to school?" There ensued a debate upon this question; Dolly herself taking the negative and her mother the affirmative side. She wanted her daughter at home, she said. "But not till I am fit to be at home, mother?" "Fit? Why are you not fit?" said Mrs. Copley. "You know as much as I did when I was married; and I should think that would be enough. I do not see what girls want with so much crammed into their heads, nowadays! It does them no good, and it does nobody else any good." "What do you think you want, Dolly, more than you have already?" her father asked. "Why, father, I do not know _anything_. I have only begun things." "Humph! Not know anything. I suppose you can read and write and cipher?" "And you can play and sing," added Mrs. Copley. "Very little, mother." "And your drawings are beautiful." "Oh, no, mother! That is one especial thing that I want to do better; a great deal better." "I think they are good enough. And you have music enough. What's the use? When you are married you will give it all up." "My music and my drawing, mother?" "Yes. Every girl does." "But I am not going to be married." "Not just yet,"--said Mr. Copley, drawing the soft arms round his neck,--"not just yet, Dolly. But when a girl is known to have so much money as you will have, there are sure to be plenty of fellows after her. Somebody will catch you up, some of these days." "Somebody who wants my money, father?" "Everybody wants money"--Mr. Copley answered evasively. "They would not come and tell you so, I suppose?" "Not exactly. That isn't the game." "Then they would pretend to like me, while they only wanted my money?" "Mr. Copley, do you think what notions you are putting in Dolly's head? Don't you know yet, that whatever you put in Dolly's head, stays there?" Mrs. Copley objected. "I like that," said Dolly's father. "Most girls' heads are like paper fly traps--won't hold anything but a fly. Dolly, in the pocket of my overcoat that hangs up in the hall, there is something that concerns you." "Which pocket, father?" "Ay, you've got your head on your shoulders! That's right. In the inner breast pocket, my dear. You'll find a small packet, tied up in paper." Being brought and duly opened, Mr. Copley's fingers took out of a small paper box a yet smaller package in silk paper and handed it to Dolly. It was a pretty little gold watch. "Why didn't you wait till you go to Geneva, Mr. Copley?" said his wife. "You could have got it cheaper and better there." "How do you know, my dear, without knowing how much I paid for this, or how good it is? I am not going to Geneva, either. Well, Dolly?" Dolly gave her father a mute kiss, which was expressive. "_You_ think it will do, then. What will you wear it on? I should have thought of that. You must have a chain." "Oh, I have got a chain!" Dolly cried, and off she ran to fetch it. She came back presently with the little box which had been sent her from the "Achilles," and sat down by the lamp to put the watch on the chain. Her father's eye rested on her as she sat there, and well it might. The lamp-light fell among the light loose curls of brown hair, glanced from the white brow, showed the delicate flush with which delight had coloured her cheeks, and then lit up the little hands which were busy with gold and wreathen work of the cable chain. The eyes he could not see; the mouth, he thought, with its innocent half smile, was as sweet as a mouth could be. Mrs. Copley was looking that way too, but seeing somewhat else. Eyes do see in the same picture such different things. "What have you got there, Dolly?" "A chain, mother. I am so glad! I never could wear it, before. Now I am so glad." "What is it?" "A chain, mother," said Dolly, holding it up. "What sort of a chain? Made of what?" Dolly told her story. Mrs. Copley examined and wondered at the elegance of the work. Mr. Copley promised Dolly a chain of gold. "I do not want it, father. I like this," said Dolly, putting the chain round her neck. "Not better than a gold one?" "Yes, father, I do." "Why, child?" "It reminds me of the time, and of the person that made it; and I like it for all that." "Who was the person? what was his name?" "A midshipman on the 'Achilles.' His name was Crowninshield." "A good name," said Mr. Copley. "Why that was five and a half years ago, child. Did he make such an impression on you? Where is he now?" "I don't know." "You have never seen him since?" "Nor heard of him. I could not even find his name in any of the lists of officers of ships, that I saw sometimes in the paper." "I'll look for it," said Mr. Copley. But though he was as good as his word, he was no more successful than Dolly had been. CHAPTER VIII. LONDON. Mrs. Copley did not like London. So she declared after a stay of some months had given her, as she supposed, an opportunity of judging. The house they inhabited was not in a sufficiently fashionable quarter, she complained; and society did not seem to open its doors readily to the new American consul. "I suppose, mother, we have not been here long enough. People do not know us." "What do you call 'long enough'?" said Mrs. Copley with sharp emphasis. "And how are people to know us, if they do not come to see us? When people are strangers, is the very time to go and make their acquaintance; I should say." "English nature likes to know people before it makes their acquaintance," Mr. Copley remarked. "I do not think you have any cause to find fault." "No; you have all _you_ want in the way of society, and you have no notion how it is with me. That is men's way. And what do you expect to do with Dolly, shut up in this smoky old street? You might think of Dolly." "Dolly, dear," said her father, "are you getting smoked out, like your mother? Do you want to go with me and see the Bank of England to-day?" Dolly made a joyful spring to kiss her thanks, and then flew off to get ready; but stopped at the door. "Won't you go too, mother?" "And tire myself to death? No, thank you, Dolly. I am not so young as I was once." "You are a very young woman for your years, my dear," said Mr. Copley gallantly. "But I should like to know, Frank," said Mrs. Copley, thawing a little, "what you do mean to do with Dolly?" "Take her to see the Bank of England. It's a wonderful institution." "You know what I mean, Frank. Don't run away from my question. You have society enough, I suppose, of the kind that suits you; but Dolly and I are alone, or as near as possible. What is to become of Dolly, shut up here in smoke and fog? You should think of Dolly. I can stand it for myself." "There'll be no want of people to think of Dolly." "If they could see her; but they don't see her. How are they to see her?" "I'll get you a place down in the country, if you like; out of the smoke." "I should like it very much. But that will not help Dolly." "Yes, it will; help her to keep fresh. I'll get her a pony." "Mr. Copley, you will not answer me! I am talking of Dolly's prospects. You do not seem to consider them." "How old is Dolly?" "Seventeen." "Too young for prospects, my dear." "Not too young for us to think about it, and take care that she does not miss them. Mr. Copley, do you know Dolly is very handsome?" "She is better than that!" said Mr. Copley proudly. "I understand faces, if I don't prospects. There is not the like of Dolly to be seen in Hyde Park any day." "Why don't you take her to ride in the Park then, and let her be seen?" "Do you want her to marry an Englishman?" Mrs. Copley was silent, and before she spoke again Dolly came in, ready for her expedition. London was not quite to Dolly the disappointing thing her mother declared it. She was at an age to find pleasure in everything from which a fine sense could bring it out; and not being burdened with thoughts about "prospects," and finding her own and her mother's society always sufficient for herself, Dolly went gaily on from day to day, like a bee from flower to flower; sucking sweetness in each one. She had a large and insatiable appetite for the sight and knowledge of everything that was worth seeing or knowing; it followed, that London was to her a rich treasure field. She delighted in viewing it under its historical aspect; she would study out the associations and the chronicled events connected with a particular point; and then, with her mind and heart full of the subject, go some day to visit the place with her father. What pleasure she took in this way it is impossible to tell. Mr. Copley was excessively fond and proud of his daughter, even though her mother thought him so careless about her interests; his life was a busy one, but from time to time he would spare half a day to give to Dolly, and then they went sight-seeing together. Old houses, old gateways and courts, old corners and streets, where something had happened or somebody had lived that henceforth could never be forgotten, how Dolly studied them and hung about them! Mr. Copley himself cared for no historical associations, neither could he apprehend picturesque effects; what he did care for was Dolly; and for her sake he would linger hours, if need were, around some bit of old London; and find amusement enough the while in watching Dolly. Dolly studied like an antiquary, and dreamed like a romantic girl; and at the same time enjoyed fine effects with the true natural feeling of an artist; though Dolly was no artist. The sense had not been cultivated, but the feeling was born in her. So the British Museum was to her something quite beyond fairyland; a region of wonders, where past ages went by in procession; or better, stood still for her eyes to gaze upon them. The Tower was another place of indescribable fascination. How many visits they made to it I dare not say; Dolly never had enough; and her delight was so much of a feast to her father that he did not grudge the time nor mind what he would have called the dawdling. Indeed it was a sort of refuge to Mr. Copley, when business perplexities or iterations had fairly wearied him, which sometimes happened; then he would flee away from the dust and confusion of present life in the city and lose himself with Dolly in the cool shades of the past. That might seem dusty to him too; but there was always a fresh spring of life in his little daughter which made a green place for him wherever she happened to be. So Mr. Copley was as contented with the condition of things at this time as it was in his nature to feel. He had enough society, as his wife had stated; he had all he wanted in that line; he was just as well contented to keep Dolly for the present at home and to himself. He did not want her to be snapped up by somebody, he said; and if you don't mean to have a fire, you had best not leave matches lying about; a sentiment which Mrs. Copley received with great scorn. It would have, so far, suited the views of both parents, to send Dolly to some first-rate boarding school for a year or two. Only, they could not do without her. She was the staple of Mrs. Copley's life, and the spice of life to her husband. Dolly was kept at home therefore, and furnished with masters in music and drawing, and at her pressing request, in languages also. And just because she made diligent, conscientious use of these advantages and worked hard most of the time, Dolly the more richly enjoyed an occasional half day of wandering about with her father. She came home from her visit to the Bank of England in high glee and with a brave appetite for her late luncheon. "Well," said Mrs. Copley, watching her,--"now you have tired yourself out again; and for what?" "O mother, it was a very great sight!" said Dolly. "I wish you had been along. I think it has given me the best notion of the greatness of England that I have got from anything yet." "Money isn't _everything_," said Mrs. Copley scornfully. "I dare say we have just as good banks in America." "Father says, there is nothing equal to it in the world." "That is because your father is so taken with everything English. He'd be sure to say that. I don't know why a bank in America shouldn't be as good as a bank here, or anywhere." "It isn't that, mother. A bank might be _good_, in one sense; but it could not be such a magnificent establishment as this, anywhere but in England." "Why not?" "Oh, the abundance of wealth here, mother; and the scale of everything; and the superb order and system. English system is something beautiful." And Dolly went on to explain to her mother the arrangements of the bank, and in especial the order taken for the preservation and gradual destruction of the redeemed notes. "I should like to know what is the use of such things as banks at all?" was Mrs. Copley's unsatisfied comment. "Why mother? don't you know? they make business so much easier, and safer." "I wish there was no such thing as banks, then." "O mother! Why do you say that?" "Then your father would maybe let business alone." "But he is fond of business!" "I don't think business is fond of him. He gets drawn into a speculation here and a speculation there, by some of these people he is always with; and some day he will do it once too often. He has enough for us all now; if he would only keep to his consul's business and let banks alone." Mrs. Copley looked worried, and Dolly for a moment looked grave; but it was her mother's way to talk so. "Why did he take the consulship?" "Ask him! Because he would rather be a nobody in England than a somebody in America." "Mother," said Dolly after a pause, "we have an invitation to dinner." "Who?" "Father and I." "Not me!" cried Mrs. Copley. "You and your father, and not your father's wife!" "I suppose the people do not know you, mother, nor know about you; that must be the reason." "How do they know about you, pray?" "They have seen me. At least one of them has; so father says." "One of whom?" "One of the family." "What family is it?" "A rich banker's family, father says. Mr. St. Leger." "St. Leger. That is a good name here." "They are very rich, father says, and have a beautiful place." "Where?" "Some miles out of London; a good many, I think." "Where is your invitation?" "Where?--Oh, it is not written. Mr. St. Leger asked father to come and bring me." "And _Mrs._ St. Leger has sent you no invitation, then. Not even a card, Dolly?" "Why no, mother. Was that necessary?" "It would have been civil," said Mrs. Copley. "It is what she would have done to an Englishwoman. I suppose they think we don't know any better." Dolly was silent, and Mrs. Copley presently went on.--"How can you go to dinner several miles away? You would have to come back in the night." "Oh no; we could not do that. Mr. St. Leger asked us to stay over till next day." "It is just like everything else in this miserable country!" Mrs. Copley exclaimed. "I wish I was at home!" "Oh, why, mother? We shall go home by and by; why cannot you enjoy things, while we are here?" "Enjoy what? Staying here in the house and seeing you and your father go off to dinners without me? At home I am Mrs. Copley, and it means something; here, it seems, I am Mr. Copley's housekeeper." "But, mother, nobody meant any affront. And you will not see us go off and leave you; for I shall stay at home." "Indeed you will do no such thing! I am not going to have you asked anywhere, really asked to a dinner, and not go. You shall go, Dolly. But I really think Mr. Copley might have managed to let the people know you had a mother somewhere. That's what he would have done, if it wasn't for business. It is business that swallows him up; and I don't know for my part what life is good for so. Once I had a husband. Now, I declare I haven't got anything but you, Dolly." "Mother, you _have_ me," said the girl, kissing her. And the caress was so sweet that it reminded Mrs. Copley how much that one word "Dolly" signified; and she was quiet. And when Mr. Copley came home, and the subject was discussed anew, she limited herself to inquiries about the family and questions concerning Dolly's dress, refraining from all complaints on her own score. "St. Leger?" said Mr. Copley. "Who is he? He's a goodish old fellow; sharp as a hawk in business; but he's solid; solid as the Bank. That's all there is about him; he is of no great count, except for his money. He'll never set the Thames on fire. What did he ask us for?--Humph! Well--he and I have had a good deal to do with each other. And then--" Mr. Copley paused and his eyes involuntarily went over the table to his daughter. "Do you remember, Dolly, being in my office one day, a month ago or more, when Mr. St. Leger came in? he and his son?" Dolly remembered nothing about it; remembered indeed being there, but not who came in. "Well, _they_ remember it," said Mr. Copley. "Is it a good place for Dolly to go?" "Dolly? Oh yes. Why not? They have a fine place out of town. Dolly will tell you about it when she has been there." "And what must Dolly wear?" pursued Mrs. Copley. "Wear? Oh, just what everybody wears. The regular thing, I suppose. Dolly may wear what she has a mind to." "That is just what you know she cannot, Mr. Copley. At home she might; but these people here are so very particular." "About dress? Not at all, my dear. English people let you go your own way in that as much as any people on the face of the earth. They do not care how you dress." "They don't _care_, no," said Mrs. Copley; "they don't care if you went on your head; but all the same they judge you according to how you look and what you do. And us especially because we are foreigners. I don't want them to turn up their noses at Dolly because she is an American." "I'd as lieve they did it for that as for anything," said Dolly laughing; "but I hope the people we are going to will know better." "They _will_ know better, there is no fear," answered her father. The subject troubled Mrs. Copley's head, however, from that time till the day of the dinner; and even after Dolly and her father had driven off and were gone, she still debated with herself uneasily whether a darker dress would have done better, and whether Dolly ought to have had flowers in her hair, to make her very best impression upon her entertainers. For Dolly had elected to wear white, and would deck herself with no ornament at all, neither ribband nor flower. Mrs. Copley half grumbled, yet could not but allow to herself that there was nothing to wish for in the finished effect; and Dolly was allowed to depart; but as I said, after she was gone, Mrs. Copley went on troubling herself with doubts on the question. CHAPTER IX. THE PEACOCKS. No doubts troubled Dolly's mind during that drive, about dress or anything else. Her dress she had forgotten indeed; and the pain of leaving her mother at home was forced to give way before the multitude of new and pleasant impressions. That drive was pure enjoyment. The excitement and novelty of the occasion gave no doubt a spur to Dolly's spirits and quickened her perceptions; they were all alive, as the carriage rolled along over the smooth roads. What could be better than to drive so, on such an evening, through such a country? For the weather was perfect, the landscape exceedingly rich and fair, the vegetation in its glory. And the roads themselves were full of the most varied life, and offered to the little American girl a flashing, changing, very amusing and abundantly suggestive scene. Dolly's eyes were incessantly busy, yet her lips did not move unless to smile; and her father for a long time would not interrupt her meditations. Good that she should forget herself, he thought; if she were recalled to the practical present maybe she would grow nervous. That was the only thing Mr. Copley was afraid of. However, for him to keep absolute silence beyond a limited time was out of his nature. "Are you happy, Dolly?" he asked her. "Very happy, father! If only mother was with us." "Ah, yes, it would have been rather pleasanter for you; but you must not mind that." "I am afraid I do not mind it enough, I am so amused with everything. I cannot help it." "That's right. Now, Dolly" "Yes, father" "I should like to know what you have been thinking of all this while. I have been watching the smiles coming and going." "I do not know that I was thinking at all--until just now; just before you spoke." "And of what then?" "It came to me, I do not know why, a question. We have passed so many people who seemed as if they were enjoying themselves,--like me;--and so many pretty-looking places, where people might live happy, one would think; and the question somehow came to me, father, what I am going to do with my own life?" "Do with it?" said Mr. Copley astonished; "why enjoy it, Dolly. Every day as much as to-day." "But perhaps one cannot enjoy life always," said Dolly thoughtfully. "All you can, then, dear; all you can. There is nothing to prevent _your_ always enjoying it. You will have money enough; and that is the main thing. There is nothing to hinder your enjoying yourself." "But, father, don't you think one ought to do more with one's life than that?" "Yes; you'll marry one of these days, and so make somebody else enjoy himself." "What would become of you and mother then?" asked Dolly shyly. "We'd get along," said Mr. Copley. "What we care about, is to see you enjoy life, Dolly. Are you enjoying it now, puss?" "Very much, father." "Then so am I." The carriage left the high road here, and Dolly's attention was again, seemingly, all bestowed on what she saw from its windows. Her father watched her, and could not observe that she was either timid or excited in the prospect of the new scenes upon which she was about to enter. Her big brown eyes were wide open, busy and interested, at the same time wholly self-forgetful. Self-forgetful they remained when arriving at the house, and when she was introduced to the family; and her manner consequently left nothing to be desired. Yet house and grounds and establishment were on a scale to which Dolly hitherto had been entirely unaccustomed. There was a small dinner party gathered, and Dolly was taken in to table by young Mr. St. Leger, the son of their host. Dolly had seen this gentleman before, and so in this concourse of strangers she felt more at home with him than with anybody. Young Mr. St. Leger was a very handsome fellow; with regular features and soft, rather lazy, blue eyes, which, however, were not insipid. Dolly rather liked him; the expression of his features was gentle and good, so were his manners. He seemed well pleased with his choice of a companion, and did his best to make Dolly pleased also. "You are new in this part of the world?" he remarked to her. "I am new in any part of the world," said Dolly, dimpling, as she did when something struck her funnily. "I am not very old yet." "No, I see," said her companion, laughing a little, though in some doubt whether he or she had made the fun. "How do you like us? Or haven't you been long enough here to judge?" "I have been in England a good many months." "Then is it a fair question?" "All questions are fair," said Dolly. "I like some things here very much." "I should be delighted to know what." "I'll tell you," said Dolly's father, who sat opposite and had caught the question. "She likes an old suit of armour or a collection of old stones in the form of an arch or a gateway; and in the presence of the crown jewels she was almost as bad as that Scotch lady who worshipped the old Regalia of the northern kingdom. Only it was the antiquity that Dolly worshipped, you know; not the royalty." "What is there in antiquity?" said Mr. St. Leger, turning his eyes again curiously to Dolly. "Old things were young once; how are they any better for being old?" "Not any better; only more interesting." "Pray tell me why." "Think of what those old stones have seen." "Pardon me; they have not _seen_ anything." "Think of the eyes that have seen them, then. Or stand before one of those old suits of armour in the Tower, and think where it has been. Think of the changes that have come; and what a strange witness it is for the things that were and have passed away." "I am more interested in the present," said the young man. "I perceive you are romantic." Dolly was silent. She thought one of those halls of old armour in the Tower was in its attractions very far beyond the present dinner table; although indeed this amused her. Presently her companion began again and gave her details about all the guests; who they were, and how they happened to be there; and then suddenly asked her if she had ever been to the races? Dolly inquired what races; and was informed that the Epsom races were just beginning. Would she like to go to them? was inquired eagerly. Dolly had no idea what was the real character of the show she was asked about; and she answered in accordance with her general craving to see everything. Nevertheless she was somewhat surprised, when the gentlemen came up from dinner, to hear the proposition earnestly made; made by both Mr. and Mrs. St. Leger; that she and her father should go with them the next day to the Epsom races; and she was greatly astonished to hear her father agree to the proposal, although the acceptance of it involved the staying another day away from home and the sleeping a second night at the St. Leger place. But Dolly was not consulted. The family expressed their pleasure in undoubted terms, and young Mr. St. Leger's blue eyes had a gleam of satisfaction in them, as he assured Dolly that now they would "show her something of interest in the present." Dolly was the youngest guest in the house, and by all rules the one entitled to least consideration; yet she went to sleep that night in a chamber the most superb she had ever inhabited in her life. She looked around her with wonder at the richness of every matter of detail, and a little private query how _she_, little Dolly Copley, came to be so lodged? Her mother would have no reason _here_ to complain of want of due regard. And all the evening there had been no such complaint to make. People had been very kind, Dolly said to herself as she was falling asleep. But how _could_ her father have consented to stay another day, for any races in the world--leaving her mother alone? But she could not help it; and no doubt the next day would be amusing; to-day had been amusing--and Dolly's thoughts went no further. The next morning everybody drove or rode to the races. Dolly herself was taken by young Mr. St. Leger, along with one of his sisters, in an elegant little vehicle for which she knew no name. It was very comfortable, and they drove very fast--till the crowd hindered them, that is; and certainly Dolly was amused. All was novel and strange to her; the concourse, the equipages, the people, the horses, even before they arrived at the race grounds. There a good position was secured, and Dolly saw the whole of that day's performances. Mr. St. Leger attended to her unremittingly; he and his sister explained everything, and pointed out the people of mark within their range of vision; his blue eyes grew quite animated, and looked into Dolly's to see what they could find there, of response or otherwise. And Dolly's eyes were grave and wide-awake, intent, very busy, very lively, but how far they were brightened with pleasure he could not tell. They were bright, he saw that; fearless, pure, sweet eyes, that yet baffled him; no trace of self-consciousness or self-seeking was to be found in them; and young St. Leger stood a little in awe, as common men will, before a face so uncommon. He ventured no direct question for the satisfying of his curiosity until they had returned, and dinner was over. Indeed he did not venture it then; it was his father who asked it. He too had observed the simple, well-bred, lovely little maiden, and had a little curiosity on his own part. "Well, Miss Copley--now you have seen Epsom, how do you like it?" Dolly hesitated. "I have been very much interested, sir, thank you," she said gravely. "But how do you _like_ it? Did you enjoy it?" Dolly hesitated again. Finally smiled and confessed. "I was sorry for the horses." "Sorry for the horses!" her host repeated. "What for?" "Yes, what for?" added the younger St. Leger. "They were not ill treated." "No,--" said Dolly doubtfully, "perhaps not,--but they were running very hard, and for nothing." "For nothing!" echoed Mr. St. Leger again. "It was for a good many thousand pounds. There's many a one was there to-day who wishes they had run for nothing!" "But after all, that is for nothing," said Dolly. "It is no good to anybody." "Except to those that win," said the old gentleman. "Except to those that win!" Probably _he_ had won. Dolly wanted to get out of the conversation. She made no answer. Another gentleman spoke up, and opined, were it not for the money won and lost, the whole thing would fail of its attraction. It would be no sport indeed, if the horses ran _for nothing_. "Do you have no races in--a--your country?" he asked Dolly. Dolly believed so. She had never been present at them. "Nothing like Epsom," said her father. "We shall have nothing to show like that for some time. But Dolly takes practical views. I saw her smiling out of the windows, as we drove along, coming here yesterday; and I asked her what she was thinking of? I expected to hear her say, the beauty of the plantations, or the richness of the country, or the elegance and variety of the equipages we passed. She answered me she was thinking _what she should do with her life!_" There was a general gentle note of amusement audible through the room, but old Mr. St. Leger laughed out in a broad "ha, ha." "What did you conclude, my dear?" said he. "What did you conclude? I am interested to know." "I could not conclude then, sir," said Dolly, bearing the laugh very well, with a pretty little peach-blossom blush coming upon her cheeks. "'Tisn't difficult to know," the old gentleman went on, not unkindly watching Dolly's face play. "There is one pretty certain lot for a pretty young woman. She will manage her household, take care of her husband, and bring up her children,--one of these days." "That is not precisely the ambition of all pretty young women," remarked one of the party; while Mrs. St. Leger good humouredly drew Dolly down to a seat beside her and engrossed her attention. "You meant the words perhaps in another sense, more practical, that your father did not think of. You were thinking maybe what profession you would follow?" "I beg your pardon, ma'am!" said Dolly, quite perplexed now. "How do you mean, profession?" "Yes; perhaps you were thinking of being a governess some day, or a teacher, or something of that sort; were you?" Dolly's face dimpled all over in a way that seemed to young St. Leger the very prettiest, winningest, most uncommon loveliness that his eyes had ever been blessed with. Said eyes were inseparable from Dolly; he had no attention but for her looks and words; and his mother knew as much, while she too looked at the girl and waited for her answer. "Oh no," Dolly said; "I was not thinking of any such thing. My father does not wish me to do anything of the kind." "Then what _did_ you mean, my dear?" Dolly lifted a pair of sweet grave eyes to the face of her questioner; a full, rather bloated face, very florid; with an expression of eyes kindly indeed, but unresting, dissatisfied; or if that is too strong a word, not content. Dolly looked at all this and answered-- "I don't want to live merely to live, ma'am." "Don't you? What more do you want? To live pleasantly, of course; for not to do _that_, is not what I call living." "I was not thinking of pleasant living. But--I do not want my life to be like those horses running to-day," said Dolly smiling; "for nothing; of no use." "Don't you think a woman is of use and fills her place, my dear, who looks after her household and attends to her family, and does her duty by society?" "Yes," said Dolly hesitating,--"but that is not enough." The girl was thinking of her own mother at the moment. "Not enough? Why, yes, it is enough. That is a woman's place and business. What else would you do?" Dolly was in some embarrassment now. She must answer, for Mrs. St. Leger was waiting for it; but her answer could not be understood. Her eye took in again the rich appliances for present enjoyment which filled the room, above, below, and around her; and then she said, her eye coming back-- "I would like my life to be good for something that would not pass away." "Not pass away? Why, everything passes away, my child" (and there came a sigh here),--"in time. The thing is to make the best of them while we have them." Is that all? thought Dolly, as she noticed the untested, rather sad look of her hostess's face; and she wished she could say more, but she dared not. Then young Mr. St. Leger bent forward, and inquired what she could be thinking of that would _not_ pass away? His mother saw the look with which his blue eyes sought the face of the little stranger; and turned away with another sigh, born half of sympathy with her boy's feeling and half of jealousy against the subject of it. Dolly saw the look too, but did not comprehend it. She simply wondered why these people put her through the catechism so? "What could you be thinking of?" St. Leger repeated, sliding into the seat his mother had quitted. "Don't you know anything that will last?" Dolly retorted. "No," said the young man, laughing. "Do you? Except that I have heard that 'A thing of beauty is a joy forever.'" This, which was a remarkable flight for St. Leger, was lost upon simple Dolly. "Oh, I know that is true," she answered; "but that is just a way of speaking. It would not be a joy to me, if I had not something else to hold to. I am sorry for you." "Really? I wish I could think that. It would be delightful to have you sorry for me." "It would be much better not to need it." "I don't know about that. Perhaps, if you were very sorry for me, you would try to teach me better." "Perhaps; but I shall not have time. I suppose we shall go away very early in the morning." "I should like to show you the gardens, first." "Haven't we seen them?" "Why, of course not. All that you have seen is a little shrubbery and a bit of the park. Suppose we go over the gardens in the morning?" "I am sure we shall return home immediately after breakfast." "Before breakfast then? Why not?" This plan went into effect. It was an occasion of great pleasure to both parties. No better time could be for seeing the utmost beauty of the flowers; and Dolly wandered in what was to her a wilderness of an enchanted land. Breakfast was forgotten; and young St. Leger was so charmed with this perfectly fresh, simple, and lively nature, that he for his part was willing to forget it indefinitely. Dolly's utter delight, and her intelligent, quick apprehension, the sparkle in her eye, the happy colour in her cheeks, made her to his fancy the rarest thing he had ever seen. The gardener, who was summoned to give information of which his young master was not possessed, entertained quite the same opinion; and thanks to his admiring gratification Dolly went back to the house the possessor of a most superb bouquet, which he had cut for her and offered through Mr. St. Leger. There were some significant half smiles around the breakfast table, as the young pair and the flowers made their appearance. St. Leger braved them; Dolly did not see them. Her sweet eyes were full of the blissful enchantment still. Immediately after breakfast, as she had said, her father took leave. Mrs. Copley had awaited their coming in a mood half irritation, half gratification. The latter conquered when she saw Dolly. "Now tell me all about it!" she said, before Dolly even could take off her bonnet. "She went to the races," said Mr. Copley. "That's a queer place for Dolly to go, Mr. Copley." "Not at all. Everybody goes that can go." "I think it's a queer place for young ladies to go," persisted the mother. "It is a queer place enough for anybody, if you come to that; but no worse for them than for others; and it is they make the scene so pretty as it is." "I can't imagine how there should be anything pretty in seeing horses run to death!" said Mrs. Copley. "I just said it is the pretty girls that give the charm," said her husband. "Though _I_ can see some beauty in a fine horse, and in good riding; and they understand riding, those Epsom jockeys." "Jockeys!" his wife repeated. "I don't want to hear you talk about jockeys, Mr. Copley." "I am not going to, my dear. I give up the field to Dolly." "Mother, the first thing was the place. It is a most beautiful place." "The race-ground?" "No, no, mother; Mr. St. Leger's place. 'The Peacocks,' they call it." "What do they give it such a ridiculous name for?" "I don't know. Perhaps they used to have a great many peacocks. But the place is the most beautiful place I ever saw. Mother, we were half an hour driving from the lodge at the park gate to the house." "The road so bad?" "So _long_, mother; think of it; half an hour through the park woods, until we carne out upon the great lawn dotted with the noblest trees you ever saw." "Better than the trees in Boston common? I guess not," said Mrs. Copley. "Those are good trees, mother, but nothing to these. These are just magnificent." "I don't see why fine trees cannot grow as well on American ground as on English," said Mrs. Copley incredulously. "Give them time enough," put in her husband. "Time!" "Yes. We are a new country, comparatively, my dear. These old oaks here have been growing for hundreds of years." "And what should hinder them from growing hundreds of years over there? I suppose the _ground_ is as old as England; if Columbus didn't discover it all at once." "The ground," said Mr. Copley, eyeing the floor between his boots,--"yes, the ground; but it takes more than ground to make large trees. It takes good ground, and favouring climate, and culture; or at least to be let alone. Now we don't let things alone in America." "I know _you_ don't," said his wife. "Well, Dolly, go on with your story." "Well, mother,--there were these grand old trees, and beautiful grass under them, and cattle here and there, and the house showing in the distance. I did not like the house so very much, when we came to it; it is not old; but it is exceedingly handsome, and most beautifully furnished. I never had such a room in my life, as I have slept in these two nights." "And yet you don't like it!" put in Mr. Copley. "I like it," said Dolly slowly. "I like all the comfort of it; but I don't think it is very pretty, father. It's very _new_." "New!" said her father. "What's the harm of a thing's being new? And what is the charm of its being old?" "I don't know," said Dolly thoughtfully; "but I like it. Then, mother, came the dinner; and the dinner was like the house." "That don't tell me anything," exclaimed Mrs. Copley. "What was the house like?" "Mother, you go first into a great hall, set all round with marble figures--statues--and with a heavy staircase going up at one side. It's all marble. But oh, the flower garden is lovely!" "Well, tell me about the house," said Mrs. Copley. "And the dinner. Who was there?" "I don't know," said Dolly; "quite a company. There were one or two foreign gentlemen; a count somebody and a baron somebody; there was an English judge, and his wife, and two or three other ladies and gentlemen." "How did you like the gentlemen, Dolly?" her father asked here. "I had hardly anything to do with them, except the two Mr. St. Legers." "How did you like _them?_ I suppose, on your principle, you would tell me that you liked the _old_ one?" "Never mind them," said Mrs. Copley; "go on about the dinner. What did you have?" "Oh, everything, mother; and the most beautiful fruit at dessert; fruit from their own hothouses; and I saw the hothouses, afterwards. Most beautiful! the purple and white grapes were hanging in thick clusters all over the vines; and quantities of different sorts of pines were growing in another hothouse. I had a bunch of Frontignacs this morning before breakfast, father; and I never had grapes taste so good." "Yes, you must have wanted something," said Mr. Copley; "wandering about among flowers and fruit till ten o'clock without anything to eat!" "Poor Mr. St. Leger!" said Dolly. "But he was very kind. They were all very kind. If they only would not drink wine so!" "Wine!" Mrs. Copley exclaimed. "It was all dinner time; it began with the soup, and it did not end with the fruit, for the gentlemen sat on drinking after we had left them. And they had been drinking all dinner time; the decanters just went round and round." "Nonsense, Dolly!" her father said; "you are unaccustomed to the world, that is all. There was none but the most moderate drinking." "It was all dinner time, father." "That is the custom of gentlemen here. It is always so. Tell your mother about the races." "I don't like the races." "Why not?" "Well, tell me what they were, at any rate," said Mrs. Copley. "It is the least you can do." "I don't know how to tell you," said Dolly. "I will try. Imagine a great flat plain, mother, level as far as the eye can see. Imagine a straight line marked out, where the horses are to run; and at the end of it a post, which is the goal, and there is the judges' stand. All about this course, on both sides, that is towards the latter part of the course, fancy rows of carriages, drawn up as close as they can stand, the horses taken out; and on these carriages a crowd of people packed as thick as they can find room to sit and stand. They talk and laugh and discuss the horses. By and by you hear a cry that the horses have set off; and then everybody looks to see them coming, with all sorts of glasses and telescopes; and everybody is still, waiting and watching, until I suppose the horses get near enough for people to begin to judge how the race will turn out; and then begins the fearfullest uproar you ever heard, everybody betting and taking bets. _Everybody_ seemed to be doing it, even ladies. And with the betting comes the shouting, and the cursing, and the cheering on this one and that one; it was a regular Babel. Even the ladies betted." "Every one does it," said Mr. Copley. "And the poor horses come running, and driven to run as hard as they can; beautiful horses too, some of them; running to decide all those bets! I don't think it is an amusement for civilised people." "Why not?" said her father. "It is barbarous. There is no sense in it. If the white horse beats the black, I'll pay you a thousand pounds; but if the black horse beats the white, you shall pay me two thousand. Is there any sense in that?" "Some sense in a thousand pound." "Lost"--said Dolly. "It is better not to lose, certainly." "But somebody must lose. And people bet in a heat, before they know what they ought to say; and bet more than they have to spare; I saw it yesterday." "_You_ didn't bet, Mr. Copley?" said his wife. "A trifle. My dear, when one is in Rome, one must do as the Romans do." "Did you lose?" "I gained, a matter of fifty pounds." "Who did you gain it from, father?" "Lawrence St. Leger." "He has no right to bet with his father's money." "Perhaps it is his own. I will give you twenty pound of it, Dolly, to do what you like with." But Dolly would have none of it. If it was to be peace money, it made no peace with her. CHAPTER X. BRIERLEY COTTAGE. A few months later than this, it happened one day that Mr. Copley was surprised in his office by a visit from young St. Leger. Mr. Copley was sitting at a table in his own private room. It was not what you would call a very comfortable room; rather bare and desolate looking; a carpet and some chairs and desks and a table being the only furniture. The table was heaped up with papers, and desks and floor alike testified to an amount of heterogeneous business. Busy the Consul undoubtedly was, writing and studying; nevertheless, he welcomed his visitor. The young man came in like an inhabitant of another world, as he was; in spotlessly neat attire, leisurely manner, and with his blue eyes sleepily nonchalant at the sight of all the stir of all the world. But they smiled at Mr. Copley. "You seem to have your bands full," he remarked. "Rather. Don't I? Awfully! Secretary taken sick--confoundedly inconvenient." Mr. Copley went on writing as he spoke. "There are plenty of secretaries to be had." "Yes, but I haven't got hold of 'em yet. What brings you here, Lawrence? Not business, I suppose?" "Not business with the American Consul." "No. I made out so much by myself. What is it? I see all's right with you, by your face." "Thank you. Quite so. But you can't attend to me just now." "Go ahead," said Mr. Copley, whose pen did not cease to scribble. "I can hear. No time for anything like the present minute. I've got _this_ case by heart, and don't need to think about it. Go on, Lawrence. Has your father sent you to me?" "No." "Sit down, and tell me what I can do for you." Mr. St. Leger sat down, but did not immediately comply with the rest of the invitation. He rested his elbow on the table, looked at Mr. Copley's pen for a few minutes, and said nothing; until Mr. Copley again glanced up at his face. "I do not know that you can do anything for me," said the young man then; "only you can perhaps answer a question or two. Mr. Copley, would you like to have me for a son-in-law?" "No," said the Consul shortly; "nor any other man. I'd as lieve have you as anybody, Lawrence." "Thank you. I couldn't expect more. But you must allow somebody in that capacity, Mr. Copley." "Must I? Depends on how much Dolly likes somebody." "That is just what I want to find out about myself," said the young man eagerly. "Then you would not put any hindrance?" "In the way of Dolly's happiness? Not if I know it. But _that's_ got to be proved." "You know, Mr. Copley, she would be happy with me." "How do I know that? I know nothing of the kind. It all depends on Dolly, I tell you. What does she think about it?" "That's just what I don't know and cannot find out. I have no chance. I cannot get sight of her." "Her mother's sick, you see. It keeps Dolly at home." "My mother has proposed several times to take Miss Copley out with her, and she will not go." "She's very kind, and we are grateful; but Dolly won't leave her mother." "So she says. Then how am I to see her, Mr. Copley? I can't expect her to like me if I never see her." "I don't know, my boy. Wait till better times." "Wait" is a word that lovers never want to hear; and Lawrence sat discontentedly watching the play of Mr. Copley's pen. "You know it would be all right about the money," he said at length. "Yes, yes; between your father and her father, I guess we could make it comfortable for you two. But the thing is all the while, what Dolly thinks of you." "And how am I to find that out?" "Can't tell, I declare. Unless you volunteer to become my secretary." "Does your secretary live in your family?" "Of course he does. One of us completely." "Will you take me, Mr. Copley?" "Yes, but you would never take the drudgery. It is not in your line." "Try me," said the young man. "I'll take it at once. Will you have me, Mr. Copley? But _she_ must not know what you take me for. I don't care for the drudgery. Will you let me come? On trial?" "Why is the boy in earnest? This is Jacob and Rachel over again!" "Not for seven years, I hope." "No, I shall not stay in this old crib as long as that. The question will have to be decided sooner. We haven't so much time to spare as those old patriarchs. But Dolly must have time to make up her mind, if it takes seven years. She is a queer little piece, and usually has a mind of her own. About this affair she certainly will. I'll give Mrs. Copley a hint to keep quiet, and Dolly will never suspect anything." Lawrence was so thoroughly in earnest that he insisted on going to work at once. And the next day he was introduced at the house and made at home there. It was quite true that Mrs. Copley was unwell; the doctors were not yet agreed as to the cause. She was feeble and nervous and feverish, and Dolly's time was wholly devoted to her. In these circumstances St. Leger's coming into the family made a very pleasant change. Dolly wondered a little that the rich banker's son should care to do business in the American Consul's office; but she troubled her head little about it. What he did in the office was out of her sphere; at home, in the family, he was a great improvement on the former secretary. Mr. Barr, his predecessor, had been an awkward, angular, taciturn fourth person in the house; a machine of the pen; nothing more. Mr. St. Leger brought quite a new life into the family circle. It is true, he was himself no great talker; but his blue eyes were eloquent. They were beautiful eyes; and they spoke of kindness of heart, gentleness of disposition, and undoubted liking for his present companions. There was refinement too, and the habit of the world, and the power of comprehending at least what others spoke; and gentle as he was, there was also now and then a gleam which showed some fire and some persistent self-will; that amount of backbone without which a man's agreeable qualities go for nothing with women. It was pleasant, his respectful attention to Mrs. Copley; it was pleasant too the assistance he was to Mr. Copley's monologues; if he did not say a great deal himself, his blue eyes gave intelligent heed, and he could also now and then say a word in the right place. With Dolly he took very soon the familiar habit of a brother. She liked him, she liked to pour out his coffee for him, it amused her to hear her father talk to him, she was grateful for his kindness to her mother; and before long the words exchanged between themselves came in the easy, enjoyable tone of a thorough good understanding. I don't know but St. Leger would have liked a little more shyness on her part. Dolly was not given to shyness in any company; and as to being shy with him, she would as soon have thought of being on terms of ceremony with Berdan, the great hound that her father was so proud of. And poor St. Leger was more hopelessly in love every day. Dolly was so fresh and cool and sweet, as she came down to breakfast in her white wrapper; she was so despairingly careless and free; and at evening, dressed for dinner, she was so quiet and simple and graceful; it was another thing, he said to himself, seeing a girl in this way, from dancing with her in a cloud of lace and flowers in a crowded room, and talking conventional nothings. Now, on the contrary, he was always admiring Dolly's practical business ways; the quick eye and capable hand; the efficient attention she bestowed on the affairs of the household and gave to her father's and mother's comfort, and also not less to his own. And she was quaint; she moved curiosity. With all her beauty, she never seemed to think of her looks; and with all her spirit and sense, she never seemed to talk but when she had something to say; while yet, if anything in the conversation deserved it, it was worth while to catch the sparkle of Dolly's eye and see her face dimple. Nevertheless, she would often sit for a long time silent at the table, when others were talking, and remind nobody voluntarily of her presence. Spring had come now, and London was filling; and Lawrence was hoping for some gaieties that would draw Dolly out into society, notwithstanding his secret confession about ball rooms. He wanted to see how she would bear the great world, how she would meet it; but still more he hoped to have some chance to make himself of importance to her. And then the doctors decided that Mrs. Copley must go into the country. What was to be done? Mr. Copley could not quit London without giving up his office. To any distance Mrs. Copley could not go without him. The dilemma, which Lawrence at first had heard of with dismay, turned for his advantage; or he hoped so. His father owned a cottage in a pretty part of the country, not a great many miles from London, which cottage just then was untenanted. Mr. Copley could run down there any day (so could he); and Mrs. Copley would be in excellent air, with beautiful surroundings. This plan was agreed to, and Lawrence hurried away to make the needful arrangements with his father and at the cottage. "Oh dear!" said Mrs. Copley, when all this was communicated to her,--"why can't we go home?" "Father is not ready for that, mother," Dolly said somewhat sadly. "Where is this place you are talking of?" "Down in Berkshire. Mr. St. Leger says you will be sure to like it." "Mr. St. Leger doesn't know everything. Is the house furnished?" "I believe so. Oh, I hope it will be very pleasant, mother dear. It's a pretty place; and they say it will be very good for you." "Who says so?" "The doctors" "_They_ don't know everything, either. I tell you what I believe would do me good, Dolly, only your father never wants what I want, unless he wants it at a different time; I should like to go travelling." "Travelling!--Where?" Dolly exclaimed and inquired. "Anywhere. I want a change. I am so tired of London, I could die! I have swallowed dust and fog enough to kill me. I should like to go where there is no dust. That would be a change. I should like to go to Venice." "Venice! So should I," said Dolly in a changed tone. "Well, mother, we'll go down first to this cottage in the country--they say it's delightful there;--and then, if it does you good, you'll be well enough, and we will coax father to take us to Italy." "I don't care about Italy. I only want to be quiet in Venice, where there are no carts or omnibusses. I don't believe this cottage will do me one bit of good." "Mother, I guess it will. At any rate, I suppose we must try." "I wish your father could have been contented at home, when he was well off. It's very unlucky he ever brought us here. I don't see what is to become of you, for my part." Dolly suppressed a sigh at this point. "You know what the Bible says, mother. 'All things shall work together for good, to them that love God.'" "I don't want to hear that sort of talk, Dolly." "Why not, mother?" "It don't mean anything. I would rather have people show their religion in their lives, than hear them talk about it." "But, mother, isn't there comfort in those words?" "No. It ain't true." "O mother! _What_ isn't true?" "That. There is a difference between things, and there is no use trying to make out they're all alike. Sour isn't sweet, and hard ain't soft. What's the use of talking as if it was? I always like to look at things just as they are." "But, mother!"-- "Now, don't talk, Dolly, but just tell me. What is the good of my getting sick just now? just now, when you ought to be going into company? And we have got to give up our house, and you and I go and bury ourselves down in some out-of-the-way place, and your father get along as he can; and how we shall get along without him to manage, I am sure I don't know." "He will run down to see us often, mother." "The master's eye wants to be all the while on the spot, if anything is to keep straight." "But this is such a little spot; I think my eye can manage it." "Then how are you going to take care of me?--if you are overseeing the place. And I don't believe my nerves are going to stand it, all alone down there. It'll be lonely. I'd rather hear the carts rattle. It's dreadful, to hear nothing." "Well, we will try how it goes, mother; and if it does not go well, we will try somewhere else." The house in town was given up, and Mr. Copley moved into lodgings. Some furniture and two servants were sent down to the cottage; but the very day when the ladies were to follow, Mr. Copley was taken possession of by some really important business. The secretary volunteered to supply his place; and in his company Mrs. Copley and Dolly made the little journey, one warm summer day. Dolly had her own causes for anxiety, the weightier that they must be kept to herself. Nevertheless, the influence of sweet nature could not be withstood. The change from city streets and crowds to the green leafiness of June in the country, the quiet of unpaved roads, the deliciousness of the air full of scents from woodland and field, excited Dolly like champagne. Every nerve thrilled with delight; her eyes could not get enough, nor her lungs. And when they arrived at the cottage, Brierley Cottage it was called, she was filled with a glad surprise. It was no common, close, musty, uncomfortable little dwelling; but a roomy old house with plenty of space, dark oak wainscotings, casement windows with little diamond panes, and a wide porch covered with climbing roses and honeysuckle. These were in blossom now, and the air was perfumed with their incomparable sweetness. Round the house lay a small garden ground, which having been some time without care looked pretty wild. Dolly uttered her delight as the party entered the porch. Mrs. Copley passed on silently, looking at everything with critical eyes. "What a charming old house, mother! so airy and so old-fashioned, and _everything_ so nice." "I am afraid there is not much furniture in it," remarked the secretary. "We don't want much, for two people," said Dolly gaily. "But when your father brings a dinner party down," said Mrs. Copley; "how does he suppose we shall manage then? You must have chairs for people to sit on." Dolly did not answer; it had struck her that her father had no intention of bringing dinner parties down, and that he had made his arrangements with an evident exclusion of any such idea. He had thought two women servants enough. For the rest, leaving parties out of consideration, the house had a rambling supply of old furniture, suiting it well enough; it looked pretty, and quaint, and cool; and Dolly for her part was well content. They went over the place, taking a general survey; and then Mrs. Copley lay down on a lounge while supper was getting ready, and Dolly and Mr. St. Leger went out to the porch. Here, beyond the roses and honeysuckles, the eye found first the wild garden or pleasure ground. There was not much of it, and it was a mere tangle of what had once been pretty and sweet. It sloped, however, down to a little stream which formed the border of the property; and on the other side of this stream the ground rose in a grassy bank, set with most magnificent oaks and beeches. A little foot-bridge spanned the stream and made a picturesque point in the view, as a bridge always does. The sun was setting, throwing his light upon that grassy bank and playing in the branches of the great oaks and beeches. Dolly stood quite still, with her hands crossed upon her bosom, looking. "The garden has had nothing done to it," said St. Leger. "That won't do. It's quite distressing." "I suppose father never thought of engaging a gardener," said Dolly. "We have gardeners to spare, I am sure, at home. I'll send over one to train those vines and put things in some shape. You'd find him useful, too, about the house. I'll send old Peters; he can come as well as not." "Oh, thank you! But I don't know whether father would choose to afford a gardener," said Dolly low. "He shall not afford it. I want him to come for my own comfort. You do not think I want your father to pay my gardener." "You are very kind. What ground is that over there?" "That? that is Brierley Park. It is a great place. The stream divides the park from this cottage ground." "Can one go over the bridge?" "Of course. The place is left to itself; nobody is at the house now." "Why not?" "I suppose they like some other place better," said St. Leger, shrugging his shoulders. "You would like to go and see the house and the pictures. The next time I come down I'll take you there." "Oh, thank you! And may I go over among those grand trees? may I walk there?" "Walk there, or ride there; you may do what you like; nobody will hinder you. If you meet anybody that has a right to know, you can tell him who you are. But don't go to the house till I come to go with you." "You are very good, Mr. St. Leger," said Dolly gratefully. But then, as if shy of what he might next say, she turned and went in to her mother. Dolly always kept Mr. St. Leger at a certain fine, insensible distance. He seemed to be very near; he was really very much at home in the family; nevertheless, an atmospheric wall, felt but not seen, divided him from Dolly. It was so invisible that it was unmanageable; it kept him at a distance. CHAPTER XI. IN THE PARK. The next day was a delightful one in Dolly's experience. Mr. St. Leger went back to town early in the morning; and as soon as she was free of him, Dolly's delight began. She attended to her mother, and put her in comfort; next, she examined the house and its capabilities, and arranged the little household; and then she gave herself to the garden. It was an unmitigated wilderness. The roses had grown into irregular, wide-spreading shrubs, with waving, flaunting branches; yet sweet with their burden of blushing flowers. Lilac bushes had passed all bounds, and took up room most graspingly. Hawthorn and eglantine, roses of Sharon and stocky syringas, and other bushes and climbers, had entwined and confused their sprays and branches, till in places they formed an impenetrable mass. In other places, and even in the midst of this overgrown thicket, jessamine stars peeped out, lilies and violets grew half smothered, mignonette ran along where it could; even carnations and pinks were to be seen, in unhappy situations, and daisies and larkspur and scarlet geraniums, lupins and sweet peas, and I know not what more old-fashioned flowers, showed their fair faces here and there. It was bewildering, and beyond Dolly's powers to put in order. She wished for old Peter's arrival; and meantime cut and trimmed a little here and there, gathered a nosegay of wildering blossoms, considered what might be done, and lost herself in the sweet June day. At last it was growing near lunch time, and she went in. Mrs. Copley was lying on an old-fashioned lounge; and the room where she lay was brown with old oak, quaint with its diamond-paned casement windows, and cool with a general effect of wooden floor and little furniture; while roses looked in at the open window, and the light was tempered by the dark panelling and low ceiling. Dolly gave an exclamation of delight. "What is it?" said Mrs. Copley fretfully. "Mother, this place is so lovely! and this room,--do you know how perfectly pretty it is?" "It isn't half furnished. Not half." "But it is furnished enough. There are only two of us; and certainly here are all the things that we want, and a great deal more than we want; and it is so pretty! so pretty!" "How long do you suppose there are to be only two of us?" "I don't know that, mother. Lawrence St. Leger is just gone, and I don't want him back, for my part. In fact, I don't believe we have dinner enough for three." "That's another thing. Where are we going to get anything to eat?" "Lunch will be ready in a minute, mother." "What have we got?" "What you like. Frizzled beef and chocolate." "I like it,--but I don't suppose it is very nourishing. Where are we to get what we want, Dolly? how are we to get bread, and butter, and marketing?" "There's a village half a mile off. And, here is lunch on the table. We shall not starve to-day." Mrs. Copley liked her chocolate and found the bread good. Nevertheless, she presently began again. "Are we to live here alone the rest of our lives, Dolly? or what do you suppose your father's idea is? It's a very lonesome place, seems to me." "Why, mother, we came here to get you well; and it's enough to make anybody well. It is the loveliest place I have ever seen, I think. Mr. St. Leger's grand establishment is nothing to it." "And what do you mean by what you said about Lawrence St. Leger? Are you glad to have even _him_ go away?" "Yes, mother, a little bit. He was rather in my way." "In your way! that's very ungrateful. How was he in your way?" "Somebody to attend to, and somebody to attend to me. I like to be let alone. By and by, when you are sleeping, I shall go over and explore the park." "What I don't understand," said Mrs. Copley, recurring to her former theme, "is, why, if he wanted me to be in the country, your father did not take a nice house somewhere just a little way out of London,--there are plenty of such places,--and have things handsome; so that he could entertain company, and we could see somebody. We can have nobody here. It looks really quite like poor people." "That isn't a very bad way to look," said Dolly calmly. "_Not?_ Like poor people?" cried Mrs. Copley. "Dolly, don't talk folly. Nobody likes that look, and you don't, either." "I am not particularly afraid of it. But, mother, we do not want to entertain company while you are not well, you know." "No; and so here you are shut up and seeing no creature. I wish we were at home!" Dolly did not precisely wish that; not at least till she had had time to examine this new leaf of nature's book opened to her. And yet she sighed a response to her mother's words. It was all the response she made. She was too tired with her unwonted gardening exertions to go further exploring that afternoon. It was not till a day or two later, when Dolly had become somewhat more acquainted with her new life and its conditions, that she crossed the bridge one fair, warm June evening, and set her hesitating steps upon what seemed to her a wonderful piece of ground. She entered it immediately upon crossing the bridge. The green glades of the park woods were before her; the old giants of the park trees stretched their great arms over her and shadowed her footsteps. Such mighty trees! their great stems stood as if they had been there for ever; the leafy crown of their heads was more majestic than any king's diadem, and gave its protecting shelter, each of them, to a wide domain of earth's minor growths. Underneath their branches the turf was all green and gold, for the slant sun rays came in there and gold was in the tree tops, some of the same gold; and the green shadows and the golden bands and flecks of light were all still. There was no stir of air that evening. Silence, the stillness and solitude of a woodland, were all around; the only house visible from here was the cottage Dolly had just quitted, with its rose-covered porch. Dolly went a little way, and stood still to look and listen, then went on a few steps more. The scene had a sort of regal beauty, not like anything she had ever known in her life before, and belonging to something her life had never touched. For this was not a primeval forest; it was not forest at all; it was a lordly pleasure ground. A "pleasaunee," for somebody's delight; kept so. There was no ragged underbrush; there were no wildering bushes and briars; the green turf swept away out of sight under the great old trees clean and soft; and they, the oaks and beeches, stretching their arms abroad and standing in still beauty and majesty, seemed to say--"Yes, we belong to the family; we have stood by it for ages." Dolly could see no dead trees, nor fallen lumber of dry branches; the place was dressed, yet unadorned, except by its own magnificent features; so most simple, most lordly. The first impression almost took away Dolly's breath. She again went on, and again stood still, then went further; at last could go no further, and she sat down on the bank under the shadow of a great oak tree which had certainly seen centuries, and gave herself up to the scene and her thoughts. They did not fit, somehow, and took possession of her alternately. Sometimes her eyes filled with glad tears, at the wonderful loveliness and stateliness of nature around her; the sense of beauty overcame all other feelings; filling and satisfying and also concealing a certain promise. It was certainly the will of the Creator that all things should be thus perfect, harmonious, and fair. What was not, could be made so. But then again a shadow would come over this sunshine, as Dolly remembered the anxieties she had brought from home with her. She had meant to let herself look at them here, in solitude and quiet; could she do it, now she was here? But when, if not now? Gradually Dolly gave herself up to thinking, and forgot where she was, or more correctly, saw the objects around her only through a veil of her own thoughts. She had several anxieties; she was obliged to confess it to herself unwillingly; for indeed anxiety was so new to Dolly that she had hardly entertained it in all her life before; and when it had knocked at her door, she had answered that it came to the wrong place. However, she could not but hear and heed the knock now; and she wanted to consider the matter calmly and see whether the unwelcome visitor must be really taken in, and lodged. It was not her mother's condition. With the buoyancy of youth, and the inexperience, Dolly expected that Mrs. Copley would soon get well. Her trouble was about her father; and the worst thing about her mother's state of nervous weakness was, that she could not talk to her on the subject or get her help and co-operation. That is, if anything were to be attempted to be done in the matter.--That was another question she wanted to consider. In the first place, she could not help seeing one thing; that Mr. Copley was not flush with money as he used to be; as he had always been, ever since Dolly could remember. It was wholly unlike him, to send her and her mother down to this cottage with a household of two women servants; barely enough for the work that was indispensably necessary. Evidently, Mr. Copley entertained no idea of showing hospitality here in the country, and Dolly thought he had been secretly glad to be relieved of the necessity of doing it in town. Very unlike him. It was unlike him, too, to content his pride with so meagre an establishment. Mr. Copley loved to handle money, always spent it with a lavish carelessness, and was rather fond of display. What had made this change? Dolly had felt the change in still other and lesser things. Money had not been immediately forthcoming when she asked for it lately to pay her mantua maker's bill; and she had noticed on several occasions that her father had taken a 'bus instead of a hansom, or even had chosen to walk. A dull doubt had been creeping over her, which now was no longer obscure, but plainly enough revealed; her father had lost money. How, and where? Impossible to answer this question. But at the same time there floated before Dolly's mind two vague images; Epsom and betting,--and a green whist table at Mr. St. Leger's, with eager busy players seated round it. True, the Derby came but once a year; and true, she had always heard that whist was a very gentlemanly game and much money never lost at it. She repeated those facts to herself, over and over. Yet the images remained; they came before her again and again; her father betting eagerly in the crowd of betters on the race course, and the same beloved figure handling the cards opposite to his friend the banker, at the hospitable mansion of the latter. Who should be her guaranty, that a taste once formed, though so respectably, might not be indulged in other ways and companies not so irreproachable? The more Dolly allowed herself to think of it, the more the pain at her heart bit her. And another fear came to help the former, its fit and appropriate congener. With the image of Mr. St. Leger and his cards, rose up also the memory of Mr. St. Leger's decanters; and Dolly lowered her head once in a convulsion of fear. She found she could not bear the course of her thought; it must be interrupted; and she sprang up and hurried on up the bank under the great trees, telling herself that it was impossible; that anything so terrible could not happen to her; it was not to be even so much as thought of. She cast it away from her, and resolved that it could not be. As to the rest, she thought, poverty is not disgrace; she would not break her heart about _that_ till she knew there was more reason. So with flying foot she hastened forward, willing to put a forcible stop to thought by her quick motion and the new succession of objects before her eyes. Yet they were not very new for a while. The ground became level and the going grew easier; otherwise it was the same lovely park ground, the same wilderness of noble trees, a renewal of the same woodland views. Lovely green alleys or glades opened to right and left, bidding her to enter them; then as she went on the trees stood thicker again. The sun getting more low sent his beams more slant, gilding the sides of the great trunks, tipping the ends of branches with leafy glitter, laying lovely lines of light over the turf. Dolly wandered on and on, allured by the continual change and variety of lovely combination in which grass, trees, and sunlight played before her eyes. But after a while the beauty took a different cast. The old oaks and beeches ceased; she found herself among a lighter growth, of much younger trees, some of them very ornamental, and in the great diversity of kinds showing that they were a modern plantation. What a plantation it was! for Dolly could not seem to get to the end of it. She went fast; the afternoon was passing, and she was curious to see what would succeed to this young wood; though it is hardly right to call it a wood; the trees were not close to each other, but stood apart to give every one a fair chance for developing its own peculiar manner of growth. Some had reached a height and breadth of beauty already; some could be only beautiful at every stage of growth; very many of them were quite strange to Dolly; they were foreign trees, gathered from many quarters. She went on, until she began to think she must give it up and turn back; she was by this time far from home; but just then she saw that the plantation was coming to an end on that side; light was breaking through the branches. She pressed forward eagerly a few steps; and on a sudden stood still, almost with a cry of delight. The plantation did end there abruptly, and at the edge of it began a great stretch of level green, just spotted here and there with magnificent trees, singly or in groups. And at the further edge of this green plain, dressed, not hidden, by these intervening trees, rose a most beautiful building. It seemed to Dolly like a castle in a fairy tale, so bewitchingly lovely and stately it stood there, with the evening sunlight playing upon its turrets, and battlements, and all that grand sweep of lawn lying at its feet. This must be the "house" of which Lawrence had spoken; but surely it was rather a castle. The style was Gothic; the building stretched along the ground to a lordly extent for a "house," and yet in the light grace and adornment of its structure it hardly looked like anything so grim as a castle. The stillness was utter; some cattle under the trees on the lawn were the only living things to be seen. Dolly could not satisfy herself with looking. This was something that she had read about and heard about; a real English baronial residence. But was it reality? it was so graceful, so noble, so wonderful. She must go a little nearer. Yet it was a good while before she could make up her mind to leave the spot where this exquisite view had first opened to her. She advanced then upon the lawn, going towards the house and scarce taking her eyes from it. There were no paths cut anywhere; it was no loss, for the greensward here was the perfection of English turf; soft and fine and thick and even. It was a pleasure to step on it; and Dolly stepped along, in a maze, caught in the meshes of the beauty around her, and giving herself up to it in willing captivity. But the lawn was enormously wider than she had supposed; her eye had not been able to measure distances on this green level; she had walked already a long way by the time she had got one-third of its breadth behind her. Still, Dolly did not much consider that; her eye was fixed on the house as she now drew nearer to it, busied in picking out the details; and she only now and then cast a glance to right or left of her, and never looked back. It did occur to her at last that she herself was like a mere little speck cast away in this ocean of green, toiling over it like an ant over a floor; and she hurried her steps, though she was beginning to be tired. Slowly, slowly she went; half of the breadth of lawn was behind her, and then three quarters; and the building was unfolding at least its external organisation to her curious eyes, and displaying some of its fine memberment and broken surface and the resulting lights and shadows. Dolly almost forgot her toil, wondering and delighted; though beginning also to question dimly with herself how she was ever to find her way home! Go back over all that ground she could not, she knew; as little could she have told where was the point at the edge of the lawn by which she had entered upon it. _That_ way she could not go; she had a notion that at the house, or near it, she might find somebody to speak to from whom she could get directions as to some other way. So she pressed on, feeding her eyes as she approached it upon the details of the house. When now more than three-fourths of the lawn ground was passed, one of Dolly's side glances, intended to catch the beauty of the trees on the lawn in their evening illumination, revealed to her a disagreeable fact--that, namely, she was looked upon as an intruder by some of the cattle; and that in especial a young bull was regarding her with serious and ominous bearing and even advancing slowly towards her from the group of his companions. It seemed to Dolly not desirable to stand the question, and she set off to run; which proceeding, of course, confirmed the young bull's suspicions, whatever they were, and he followed on a run also. Dolly became aware of this, and now, with all the strength of muscle that remained to her, fled towards the house; no longer seeing its Gothic mouldings and picturesque lights and shadows, only trying very hard to get near. She thought perhaps the creature would be shy of the immediate neighbourhood of the house, and not choose to follow her so far. But just as she reached that desirable vicinity she longed for, she was met by another danger, coming from the quarter from whence she sought safety. An enormous staghound dashed out from his covert somewhere, with an utterance from his deep throat which sounded sufficiently awful to Dolly, an angry or a warning bay, and came springing towards her. Dolly stood still dismayed and uncertain, the dog before and the bull behind; then, even before the former could reach her, a voice was heard calling him off and directing him to the advancing bull. In another minute or two a woman had come over the grass and stood at Dolly's side. Dolly was on her feet no longer; with the first breath of respite she had sunk down on the grass; nerves and muscles all trembling with the exertion and with the fright. The woman came up with a business air; then as she stood beside Dolly her look changed. This was no common intruder, she saw; this delicate-featured girl; and her dress too, simple as it was, was the dress of a lady. Dolly on her part looked up to a face not delicate-featured; far from it; solid and strong built as was the person to which it belonged; sense and capacity and kindliness, however, were legible even at that first glance. "You've been rather badly frightened, ma'am, I'm afraid," she said, in a voice which precisely matched the face; strong and somewhat harsh, but kindly in accent. "Very," said Dolly, whose face began to dimple now. "I am so much obliged to you!" "Not in the vary least, ma'am. But you are worried with the fright, I fear?" "No; I'll get up," said Dolly; "I'm only tired. I believe I'm a little weak too. I haven't quite got over trembling, I find." "You haven't your colour yet again, ma'am. Would you come into my room and rest a bit?" "Oh, thank you. You are very kind!" said Dolly with sincere delight at this proposition. For now she was upon her feet she felt that her knees trembled under her, and her footsteps were unsteady as she followed the woman over the grass. They went towards a small door in the long line of the building, the staghound coming back from his chase and attending them gravely. The woman opened the door, led Dolly through a passage or two, and ushered her into a cosy little sitting-room, neat as wax, nicely though plainly furnished. Here she begged Dolly to rest herself on the sofa; and while Dolly did so she stood considering her with a kindly, anxious face. "I'm all right now," said Dolly, smiling. "I beg your pardon, ma'am, but you're growing paler every minute. If you'll allow me, ma'am, I will fetch you a glass of wine." "Wine? Oh, no," said Dolly. "I don't want any wine. I do not drink wine. I am just tired. If you'll let me rest here a few minutes"---- "Lie still, ma'am, and don't talk." She left the room, and Dolly lay still, with shut eyes, feeling very much exhausted. It was inexpressibly good to be under shelter and on her back; how she was to get home she could not yet consider. Before that question fairly came up, her entertainer was back again; but Dolly kept her eyes shut. If she opened them, perhaps she would have to talk; and she wanted nothing on earth at that moment but to be still. After a little interval, however, she heard the door open and a second person enter; and curiosity brought her eyes open then. The second person was a maid-servant with a tray. The tray was set upon a table, and Dolly heard the other woman say-- "You'll bring the tea, Kitty, when I ring." Dolly took this as a signal that she must go; of course she was in the way; yet rest felt so very comfortable, that for a moment she still lay where she was; and lying there, she gave her hostess a more critical examination than she had hitherto bestowed on her. Who could she be? She was very well, that is very respectably, dressed; her manner and bearing were those of a person in authority; she was at home; but with gentle or noble blood she could have no connection unless one of service. Her features and her manner proved that. Nevertheless, both her face and bearing had a certain attraction for Dolly; a certain quiet and poise, an expression of acute intelligence and efficient activity, flavoured with good will, which was all very pleasant to see. Evidently she was not a person to be imposed upon. Dolly raised herself up at last to a sitting posture, preparatory to going. "Are you recovered enough to be up, ma'am?" her hostess asked, standing still to survey her in her turn. "I'm afraid not." "Oh, thank you, yes; I must go home. And I must ask you kindly to direct me; for I do not in the least know the way." "Have you come far, ma'am? I couldn't make out by what direction it was or could have been; for when I saw you first, you seemed to be coming right from the middle of the lawn." "Not quite that; but a little one side of the middle I did cross the lawn." "I do not know, ma'am, anybody that lives in that direction, nor any village." "Brierley Cottage? You know Brierley Cottage?" "I ask your pardon, ma'am; I thought that was standing empty for months." "It was, I suppose. We have just moved in. My mother wants country air, and Mr. St. Leger has let us the cottage. My mother and I are living there, and we came only a day or two ago. I wanted to see the beautiful ground and trees on this side the brook, and came over the bridge. I did not mean to have come so far; I had no notion of seeing the house or getting near it; but everything was so beautiful, I was drawn on from one point to another, till I found myself at the edge of the lawn. And then I saw the cattle, but I never thought of them." "Why, ma'am," said the woman, looking surprised, "you must have walked a good bit. You must have come all through the plantations." "I should not have minded the walk so much, if I had not had the fright at the end of it. But now the thing is, to get home. Can you tell me which way? for I am completely out of my reckoning." "You will take a cup of tea first, ma'am," said the woman, ringing the bell. "I had it made on purpose for you. I am sure you'll be the better for it. I am the housekeeper here, ma'am, and my name is Jersey." "The housekeeper?" said Dolly. "I thought the family were abroad." "So they are, ma'am; and to be sure that makes me less to do; but enough still to take care of the place. Put the table up by the sofa, Kitty." The girl had brought in the tea-pot, and Dolly saw some magnificent strawberries on the board. The table was shoved up, a cup of tea poured out, and Mrs. Jersey cut bread and butter. "How kind you are!" Dolly cried. "You are taking a great deal of trouble for me; a stranger." "Is it for somebody that loves my Master?" said Mrs. Jersey, looking at her with keen eyes. Dolly's face dimpled all up at this, which would have completed her conquest of Mrs. Jersey's heart, if there had been by this time any ground in that region not already subjected. "Your Master?" she said. "You mean--?" "Yes, ma'am, I mean that. My Master is the Lord Jesus Christ; no other. One cannot have two masters; and I serve Lord Brierley only under Him." "And what made you think--how did you know--that I am His servant too?" "I don't know, ma'am," said the housekeeper, smiling. "I guessed it when I saw you sitting on the grass there. It seems to me, if the Lord don't just yet write His name in their foreheads, He does put a letter or two of it there, so one can tell." "I am very glad to find I have a friend in the neighbourhood," said Dolly. "I am Dolly Copley; my father is American Consul at London, and a friend of Mr. St. Leger." "I know Mr. St. Leger, ma'am; by name, that is." By this time Dolly's tea was poured out. The housekeeper served her, and watched her as she drank it and eat her strawberries, both of which were refreshing to Dolly. "I think, ma'am, if you'll allow me to say it, you should not try your strength with quite such long walks." "I did not mean it. I was drawn on; and when I got a sight of the house from the other side of the lawn, I wanted to look at it nearer. I had no notion the distance was so much." "Ay, ma'am, it's a good bit across the lawn. Perhaps you would like to come another day and see the house inside. I would show it to you with pleasure." "Oh, may I?" said Dolly. "I should like it; oh, very much! But you are extremely kind, Mrs. Jersey!" "It is only what I do for a great many indifferent people, ma'am. I would think it a privilege to do it for you. My lord and lady being away, I have plenty of time on my hands." "I wonder anybody can stay away from so beautiful a home." "They have no choice, ma'am; at least so the doctors say. Lady Brierley is delicate, and the air of England does not agree with her." "And she must be banished from her own home!" said Dolly, looking out into the lovely landscape visible from the window. "How sad that is!" "There's only one home one can always keep, ma'am," said the housekeeper, watching her. "Heaven, you mean?" "We are not in heaven yet. I meant what David says, 'Lord, thou hast been our dwelling-place in all generations.'" "I am not sure I understand it." "Only love does understand it, ma'am." "How do you mean, please?" "Ma'am, it is only love that can live in the life of another; and when that other is God, one lives in a secure and wealthy abode. And then it does not much matter where one's body is. At least, so I find it." Dolly looked very thoughtful for a minute; then she rose up. "I am coming again," she said; "I am coming very soon, Mrs. Jersey. Now, will you tell me how I can get home? I must be as quick as I can." "That is provided for, ma'am," said Mrs. Jersey. "It's a longish way round by the road, farther than even you came this afternoon; and you're not fit for it; far from it, I should say. I have ordered the dog-cart to take you home; and it's ready." "How could you be so kind to a stranger?" said Dolly, giving her hand. But the housekeeper smiled. "You're no stranger to me, ma'am," she said, clasping the hand Dolly had given. "It is true I never saw you before; but whenever I see one of my Lord's children, I say to myself, 'Jersey, there is another of the family, and the Lord expects you to do what you can for him, or for her, as the case may be.'" Dolly laughed and ran away. The adventure was taking beautiful shape. Here she was to have a charming drive home, to end the day; a drive through the pretty country lanes. And they were charming in the evening light. And the dog-cart did not bring her to Brierley Cottage a bit too soon; for Mrs. Copley was already fidgeting about her. CHAPTER XII. THE HOUSE. Dolly did not tell all her experiences of that afternoon. She told only so much as might serve to quiet and amuse her mother; for Mrs. Copley took all occasions of trouble that came in her way, and invented a few more. Mrs. Jersey had sent along in the dog-cart a basket of strawberries for the sick lady; so Dolly hoped her mother's impressions of this day at least would be favourable. "Did you ever see such magnificent berries, mother? black and red?" "Why haven't we berries in our garden?" Mrs. Copley returned. "Mother, you know the garden has not been kept up; nobody has been living here lately." "Then why did not your father get some other house, where the garden _had_ been kept up, and we could have our own fruit and vegetables? I think, to be in the country and not have one's own garden and fresh things, is forlorn." "There is one thing, mother; there are plenty of markets in this country." "And plenty of high prices for everything in them. Yes, if you have no end to your purse, you can buy things, certainly. But to look at what is around us here, one would think your father didn't mean us to have much of anything!" "Mother, he means you to have all you want. We thought you just wanted country air." "And nothing to eat?" "We are not starving _yet_," said Dolly, smiling, and arranging the strawberries. "These are a gift. A gift I shouldn't think your father would like to take, or have us take, which comes to the same thing. We used to have enough for ourselves and our neighbours too, once, when we were at home, in America. We are nobody here." "We are just ourselves, mother; what we always were. It does not make much difference what people think of us." "Not much difference," cried Mrs. Copley, "about what people think of you! And then, what is to become of you, I should like to know? Nobody seeing you, and no chance for anything! I wonder if your father means you never to be married?" "You do not want me married, mother; and not to an Englishman, anyhow." "Why not? And how are you going to marry anybody else, out here? Can you tell me? But, O Dolly! I am tormented to death!" "Don't, dear mother. That is what makes you ill. What is the matter? What troubles you?" Mrs. Copley did not answer at once. "You are as sweet as a honeysuckle," she said. "And to think that nobody should see you!" Dolly's dimples came out here strong. "Are you tormented to death about that?" Another pause came, and Mrs. Copley finally left the table with the air of one who is thinking what she will not speak. She went to the honeysuckle porch and sat down, resting her head in her hand and surveying the landscape. Twilight was falling over it now, soft and dewy. "I don't see a sign of anything human, anywhere," she remarked. "Is it because it is so dark?" "No, mother; there are no houses in sight." "Nor from the back windows?" "No, mother." "Where is the village you talk about?" "Half a mile away; the woods and rising ground of Brierley Park hide it from us." "And in this wilderness your father expects me to get well!" "Why, I think it is charming!" Dolly cried. "My drive home to-night was perfectly lovely, mother." "I didn't have it." "No, of course; but the country is exceedingly pretty." "I can't make your father out." Dolly was hushed here. She was at a loss likewise on this point. "He acts just as if he had lost his money." Dolly did not know what to say. She had had the same impression. To her inexperience, this did not seem the first of evils; but she guessed it would wear another face to her mother. "And if he _has_," Mrs. Copley went on, "I am sure I wish we were at home. England is no sort of a place for poor folks." "Why should you think he has, mother?" "I _don't_ think he has," Mrs. Copley flamed out. "But if he hasn't, I think he has lost his wits." "That would be worse," said Dolly, smiling, though she felt anything but merry. "I don't know about that. Nobody'll ask about your wits, if you've got money; and if you _haven't_, Dolly, nobody'll care what else you have." "Mother, I think it is good to have one's treasure where one cannot lose it." "I thought I had that when I married your father," said Mrs. Copley, beginning to cry. This was a very strange thing to Dolly and very terrible. Her mother's nerves, if irritable, had always been wont to show themselves of the soundest. Dolly saw it was not all nerves; that she was troubled by some unspoken cause of anxiety; and she herself underwent nameless pangs of fear at this corroboration of her own doubts, while she was soothing and caressing and arguing her mother into confidence again. The success was only partial, and both of them carried careful hearts to bed. A day or two more passed without any variation in the state of things; except that old Peters the gardener made his appearance, and began to reduce the wilderness outside to some order. Dolly spent a good deal of time in the garden with him; tying up rose trees, taking counsel, even pulling up weeds and setting plants. That was outside refreshment; within, things were unchanged. Mr. Copley wrote that he would run down Saturday, or, if he could not, he would send Lawrence. "Why shouldn't he come himself?" said Mrs. Copley; and, Why should he send Lawrence? thought Dolly. She liked it better without him. She was pleasing herself in her garden; finding little ways of activity that delighted her in and out of the house; getting wonted; and she did not care for the constraint of anybody's presence who must be treated as company. One thing she determined upon, however; Lawrence should not make the next visit with her at Brierley House; and to prevent it, she would go at once by herself. She went that afternoon, and by an easier way of approach to the place. Mrs. Jersey was very glad to see her, and as soon as Dolly was rested a little, entered upon the fulfilment of her promise to show the house. Accordingly she took her visitor round to the principal entrance, in another side of the building from the one Dolly had first seen. Here, before she would go in, she stood to admire and wonder at the rich and noble effect; the beauty of turrets, oriels, mouldings, and arched windows, the wide and lofty pile which stretched away on two sides in such lordly lines. Mrs. Jersey told her who was the first builder; who had made this and that extension and addition; and then they went in. And the first impression here was a contrast. The place was a great hall of grand proportions. There was nothing splendid here to be seen; neither furniture nor workmanship called for admiration, unless by their simplicity. There were some old paintings on the walls; there were some fine stags' horns, very large and very old; there were some heavy oaken settles and big chairs, on which the family arms were painted; the arms of the first builder; and there were also, what looked very odd to Dolly, a number of leather fire buckets, painted in like manner. Yet simple as the room was, it had a great charm for her. It was lofty, calm, imposing, superb. She was not ready soon to quit it; and Mrs. Jersey, of course, was willing to indulge her. "It is so unlike anything at home!" Dolly exclaimed. "That's in America?" said the housekeeper. "Have you no old houses like this there, ma'am?" "Why, we are not old ourselves," said Dolly. "When this house was first begun to be built, our country was full of red Indians." "Is it possible! And are there Indians there yet, ma'am?" "No. Oh, yes, in the country, there are; but they are driven far off,--to the west--what there are of them.--This is very beautiful!" "I never heard anybody call this old hall beautiful before," said the housekeeper, smiling. "It is so large, and high, and so simple; and these old time things make it so respectable," said Dolly. "Respectable! yes, ma'am, it is that. Shall we go on and see something better?" But her young visitor had fallen to studying the ceiling, which had curious carvings and panellings, and paintings which once had been bright. There was such a flavour of past ages in the place, that Dolly's fancy was all alive and excited. Mrs. Jersey waited, watching her, smiling in a satisfied manner; and then, after a while, when Dolly would let her, she opened the door into another apartment. A great door of carved oak it was, through which Dolly went expectantly, and then stood still with a little cry. The first thing she saw was the great windows, down to the floor, all along one side of a large room, through which a view was given into the park landscape. The grand trees, the beautiful green turf, the sunlight and shadow, caught her eye for a minute; and then it came back to the view within the windows. Opposite this row of windows was an enormous marble chimney-piece; the family arms, which Dolly was getting to know, blazoned upon it in brilliant colours. Right and left of the fireplace hung old family portraits. But when Dolly turned next to give a look at the side of the hall from which she had entered, she found that the whole wall was of a piece with the great carved door; it was filled with carvings, figures in high relief, very richly executed. For a long while Dolly studied these figures. Mrs. Jersey could give her little help in understanding them, but having, as she fancied, got hold of a clue, Dolly pursued it; admiring the life and expression in the figures, and the richly-carved accessories. The whole hall was a study to her. On the further side went up the staircases leading to the next story. Between them opened the entrance into the dining-hall. Further than these three halls, Mrs. Jersey almost despaired of getting Dolly that day. In the dining-hall was a portrait of Queen Elizabeth; and before it Dolly sat down, and studied it. "Did she look like that?" she said finally. "Surely, she must," said the housekeeper. "The picture is thought a deal of. It was painted by a famous painter, I've been told." "She was very ugly, then!" said Dolly. "Handsome is that handsome does," said the housekeeper, smiling; "and, to be sure, I never could make out that Her Majesty was altogether handsome in her doings; though perhaps that's the fault of my stupidity." "She looks cold," said Dolly; "she looks cruel." "I'm afraid, by all I have read of her, she was a little of both." "And how she is dressed!--Who is that, the next to her?" "Mary Stuart; Mary, Queen of Scotland; this lady's rival." "Rival?" said Dolly. "No, I do not think she was; only Elizabeth chose to think her so. How lovely, how lovely!" "Yes, and by all accounts the portrait tells truth. They say, so she was to be sure." "She looks so innocent, so sweet," said Dolly, fixed before the two pictures. "Do you think she wasn't?" "One cannot feel quite comfortable about her. The story is ugly, Mrs. Jersey. But how a woman with that face could do anything fearfully wicked, it is hard to imagine. Poor thing!" "You are very kind, I am sure, to a person of whom you hold such a bad opinion," said the housekeeper, amused. "I am sorry for them both," said Dolly. "Life wasn't much good to either of them, I should think." "Queen Elizabeth had power," said Mrs. Jersey; "and Queen Mary had admiration, I understand." "Yes, but Elizabeth wanted the admiration, and Mary Stuart wanted the power," said Dolly. "Neither of them got what she wanted." "Few people do in this world, my young lady." "Do you think so?" "Young people generally think they will," said the housekeeper;--"and old people know better." "But why should that be?" "Does Miss Dolly Copley know already what _she_ wants?" the housekeeper asked. "No," said Dolly, laughing out; "not at all. I do not know what I want. I do not think I want anything in particular, Mrs. Jersey." "Keep so, my dear; that is best." "Why? Because I should be so sure to be disappointed?" "You might. But it is safe to let God choose for us, Miss Copley; and as soon as we begin to plan, we begin to work for our plans, generally; and if our plan is not _His_ plan,--that makes trouble, you see, and confusion." "Of course," said Dolly thoughtfully. "Yet it seems to me it would be pleasant to have some particular object that one was striving after. The days go by, one after another, one like another, and seem to accomplish nothing. I should like to have some purpose, some end in life, to be striving for and attaining." "A servant of Christ need never want that," said the housekeeper. "I have not anything in special to do," said Dolly, looking at her. "Every servant has something special to do," the other answered. "I have to take care of mother. But that is not work; it is not work for Christ, at least, Mrs. Jersey." "Dear, it may be. Everything you do, you may do for Him; for He has given it to you to do for Him. That is, unless it is something you are choosing for yourself." Dolly pondered. "And if there be nothing ready to hand that you call work, there is always preparation for work to be done," Mrs. Jersey went on. "What sort?" "The knowledge of the Bible,--and the knowledge of Christ, to seek and win. That surely." "The knowledge of the Bible? Mrs. Jersey, I know the Bible pretty well." "And Christ also?" Dolly mused again, with a very grave face. "I do not quite know what you mean." "Then, there is something to be gained yet." "But,--of course I know what the Bible says about Him." "That is one sort of knowledge," said the housekeeper; "but it is not the knowledge of Him." "What then?" "Only knowing about Him, dear." "What more can we have?" "Just _Himself_, Miss Copley; and till you have that, dear, you don't rightly know what the Bible means." "I don't think I quite understand you." "Suppose I told you all I could about my Lady Brierley; would that make you know her as I know her?" "No, certainly; it would not make me really know her at all." "That is what I was thinking." "But for _that_ there must be sight, and intercourse, and the power of understanding." "All that," said Mrs. Jersey, smiling; "and the more of that power you speak of, the more and the nearer knowledge there will be." "But in the case you are speaking of, the knowledge of Christ, sight is not possible." "No, not sight with the bodily eyes. It is not; and if it were, it mightn't do. Did all the people know the Lord that saw Him with the bodily eyes? 'Ye have neither known My Father nor Me,' He said to the Jews. 'Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known Me, Philip?'" "You are setting me a regular puzzle, Mrs. Jersey." "I hope not, my dear. I do not mean it; and it is the last thing I wish." "But without sight, how is such knowledge to be gained?" "Do you remember, Miss Copley, it is written,--'The secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him.' And Jesus promised to him that loves Him and keeps His commandments, 'I will manifest Myself to him.' Doubtless we must seek the fulfilment of the promise too." "How?" "The same way as with other things. We must ask, and expect, and use the means. And no doubt one must be single-eyed and true-hearted. But dear, there is no knowledge like that, once get it; and no friend to be had, that can equal the Lord Jesus Christ." Dolly sat still and pondered, gazing at the two portraits. "It is very hard to think that this world is nothing!" she said at last. "To most people it seems everything. Just look at those two faces! How they struggled and fought; and how little good their life was to them, after all." "Ay, and folks can struggle and fight for less things than what divided them, and lose all just the same. So the Lord said, 'He that loveth his life, shall lose it;' but He said too, 'He that loseth his life for My sake, shall find it.'" "You are talking riddles again, Mrs. Jersey," said Dolly, laughing. "I thought I was beginning to understand you; but I do not understand that." "No, dear; and surely it is a hard saying to many. But I'll give you a key. Just you give your life to the Lord Jesus, and He will show you what the losing it means, and the gaining it, too." "Thank you. I will," said Dolly. They went on again after that, through more rooms of the house; but the afternoon did not serve for the whole. Dolly must return to her mother. Mrs. Jersey sent her home again in the dog-cart. The evening was very bright and fair; the hedgerows sweet with flowers; the light glittered on the foliage of trees and copsewood and shrubbery; the sky was clear and calm. Dolly tasted and rejoiced in it all; and yet in the very midst of her pleasure an echo from Mrs. Jersey's words seemed to run through everything. It did not depress; on the contrary, it excited Dolly. With all the beauty and enjoyment of this very beautiful and very enjoyable world, there was something still better to be sought and found; somewhat still more beautiful, far more enjoyable; and the correlative fact that the search and attainment were, or might be, attended with some difficulty and requiring some effort or resolution, was simply an additional stimulus. Dolly breathed the air with intense taste of it. Yes, she thought, I will seek the knowledge Mrs. Jersey spoke of. That must be better than anything else. CHAPTER XIII. PREACHING AND PRACTICE. "How long you have stayed, Dolly!" was Mrs. Copley's greeting. "I don't see what is to become of me in this lonely place, if you are always trotting about. I shall die!" Dolly took this cold-water bath upon her pleasure with her usual sweetness. "Dear mother, I did not know I was so long away. I will not go again, if it is bad for you." "Of course it is bad for me. It is very bad for me. It is bad for anybody. I just think and think, till I am ready to fly.--What have you been doing?" "Looking at Brierley House. So beautiful as it is, mother!" This made a diversion. Mrs. Copley asked and received a detailed account of all Dolly had seen. "It don't sound as if _I_ should like it," was her comment. "I should never have those old chairs and things sticking about." "O mother! yes, you would; they are most beautiful, and so old-fashioned; with the arms of the barons of Coppleby carved on them." "I shouldn't want the arms of the barons of Coppleby on the chairs in my house, if I was the Earl of Brierley." "But they are everywhere, mother; they are cut and painted over the fireplace in the baron's hall." "I'd cut 'em out, then, and put up my own. Fire buckets, too! How ridiculous. What ornaments for a house!" "I like them," said Dolly. "Oh, you like everything. But, Dolly, what does your father think is to become of us? He in London, and we here! Such a way of living!" "But you wanted country air, mother." "I didn't; not in this way. Air isn't everything. Did he say, if he could not come down Saturday, he would send Mr. St. Leger?" "I do not see why he should," said Dolly gaily. "We don't want him." "Now, what do you say that for, Dolly?" "Just because _I_ don't want him, mother. Do you?" "He's a very good young man." Dolly was silent. "And very rich." Dolly said nothing. "And I am sure he is very agreeable." Then, as her utterances still met no response, Mrs. Copley broke out. "Dolly, why don't you say something? I have nobody to talk to but you, and you don't answer me! I might as well talk to the wall." "Mother, I would rather have father come down to see us. If the choice lies between them, I would rather have father." Mrs. Copley leaned her head on her hand. "Dolly," she began again, "your father acts exactly as if he had lost money." Dolly again did not answer. The repeated words gave her a very startled thrill. "As if he had lost a good deal of money," Mrs. Copley went on. "I can't get it out of my head that he has." "It's no use to think about it, mother," Dolly said as lightly as she could. "Don't you trouble yourself, at any rate." "That's foolish. How can I help troubling myself? And if it _was_ any use to think about it, to be sure I needn't be troubled. Dolly, it torments me day and night!" And tears that were bitter came into Mrs. Copley's eyes. "It need not, dear mother. Money is not the only thing in the world; nor the best thing." "And that's silly, too," returned her mother. "One's bread and butter may not be the best thing in the world,--I am sure this bread ain't,--but you can't live without it. What can you do without money?" "I never tried, you know," said Dolly; "but I should think it would be possible to be happy." "Like a child!" said her mother. "Children always think so. What's to make you happy, when the means are gone? No, Dolly; money is everything, in this world. Without it you are of no consequence, and you are at everybody's mercy; and I can tell you one thing besides;--if the women could be happy without money, the men cannot. If you don't give a man a good breakfast, he'll be cross all day; and if his dinner don't suit him, you'll hear of it for a week, and he'll go off to the club besides." "He cannot do _that_ without money," said Dolly, trying to laugh. "Then he'll stay at home, and torment you. I tell you, Dolly, life ain't worth having, if you haven't got money. That is why I want you to like"---- Mrs. Copley broke off suddenly. "I should think one might have good breakfasts and dinners even if one was poor," said Dolly. "They say French women do." "What French women do is neither here nor there. I am talking about you and me. Look at this bread,--and see that omelette. I can tell you, nothing on earth would keep your father down here if he couldn't have something better to eat than, that." Dolly began to ponder the possibility of learning the art of cookery. "What puzzles me," Mrs. Copley went on, "is, how he _could_ have lost money? But I am sure he has. I feel it in all my bones. And he is such a clever man about business too!" Dolly tried with all her might to bring her mother off this theme. At last she succeeded; but the question lingered in her own mind and gave it a good deal to do. After a day or two more, Mr. St. Leger came as threatened. Dolly received him alone. She was in the garden, gathering roses, at the time of his arrival. The young man came up to her, looking very glad and shy at once, while Dolly was neither the one nor the other. She was attending to the business she had in hand. "Well, how are you?" said her visitor. "How is Mrs. Copley? Getting along, eh?" "When's father coming down, Mr. St. Leger?" "To-morrow. He'll come down early, he said." "Sunday morning?" cried Dolly, and stopped, looking at the young man. "Oh yes. He'll come down early. He couldn't get off to-night, he told me. Some business." "What business? Anything he could not put off? What kept him, Mr. St. Leger?" "I don't know, 'pon my honour. He'll be down in the morning, though. What's the matter? Mrs. Copley isn't worse, I hope?" "No, I think not," said Dolly, going back to her rose-pulling, with a hand that trembled. "May I help you? What are all these roses for? Why, you've got a lot of 'em. How do you like Brierley, Miss Dolly? It likes you. I never saw you look better. How does your mother fancy it?" "Mother has taken a fancy to travel. She thinks she would like that better than being still in one place." "Travel! Where to? Where does she want to go?" "She talks of Venice. But I do not know whether father could leave his post." "I should say he couldn't, without the post leaving him. But, I say, Miss Dolly! maybe Mrs. Copley would let me be her travelling-courier, instead. I should like that famously. Venice--and we might run down and see Rome. Hey? What do you think of it?" Dolly answered coolly, inwardly resolving she would have no more to say about travelling before Mr. St. Leger. However, in the evening he brought up the subject himself; and Mrs. Copley and he went into it eagerly, and spent a delightful evening over plans for a possible journey; talking of routes, and settling upon stopping places. Dolly was glad to see her mother pleased and amused, even so; but herself took no sort of part in the talk. Next day Mr. Copley in truth arrived, and was joyfully received. "Well, how do you do?" said he, after the first rejoicings were over, looking from his wife to his daughter and back again. It was the third or fourth time he had asked the question. "Pretty jolly, eh? Dolly is. _You_ are not, my dear, seems to me." "You are not either, it seems to me, Mr. Copley." "I? I am well enough." "You are not 'jolly,' father?" said Dolly, hanging upon him. "Why not? Yes, I am. A man can't be very jolly that has anything to do in this world." "O father! I should think, to have nothing to do would be what would hinder jolliness." "Anything to do but enjoy, I mean. I don't mean _nothing_ to do. But it ain't life, to live for business." "Then, if I were you, I would play a little, Mr. Copley," said his wife. "So I do. Here I am," said he, with what seemed to Dolly forced gaiety. "Now, how are you going to help me play?" "_We_ help _you_," said his wife. "Why didn't you come yesterday?" "Business, my dear; as I said. These are good berries. Do they grow in the garden?" "How should strawberries grow in a garden where nobody has been living?" said his wife. "And what is your idea of play in an out-of-the-way place like this, Mr. Copley?" "Well--not a catechism," said he, slowly putting strawberries in his mouth one after the other. "What's the matter with the place? I thought it would just suit you. Isn't the air good?" "Breathing isn't quite the only necessary of life," said his wife; "and you were asking about play. I think a change would be play to me." "Well, this is a change, or I don't know the meaning of the word. You've just come, and have not examined the ground yet. Must have a good market, if this fruit is any sign." "There is no market or anything else, except what you can find in a little village. The strawberries come from Brierley House, where Dolly goes to get _her_ play. As for me, who cannot run about, on my feet, or anyway, I sit here and wonder when she will be back again. Are we to have no carriage here, Mr. Copley?" "We had better find out how you like it first, seems to me. Hardly worth while, if you're not going to stay." Mr. Copley rose and sauntered out to the porch, and Dolly looked furtively at her mother. She saw a troubled, anxious face, lines of nervous unrest; she saw that her father's coming had not brought refreshment or relief; and truly she did not perceive why it should. Dolly was wholly inexperienced, in all but the butterfly life of very happy young years; nevertheless, she could not fail to read, or at least half read, some signs of another sort of life. She noticed that her father's manner wanted its ordinary careless, confident ease; there was something forced about it; his face bore tokens of loss of sleep, and had a trait of uneasiness most unwonted in Mr. Copley. Dolly sat still a little while, and then went out and joined her father in the porch. Mr. St. Leger had come in, so that she did not leave her mother alone. Dolly came close and laid her arm round her father's neck, her fingers playing with his hair; while he fondly threw one arm about her. "How is it, Dolly?" he asked. "Don't you like it here?" "_I_ do, very much. But mother finds it very quiet. I think she would like to travel, father." "Travel! But I can't go travelling. I cannot get away from London for more than a day. Quiet! I thought she wanted quiet. I heard of nothing but her want of quiet, till I got her down here; and now she wants noise." "Not noise, exactly, but change." "Well, what is this but change? as I said. I do not know what would please her." "I know what would please me," said Dolly, with her heart beating; for she was venturing on unknown ground--"A little money." "Money!" exclaimed her father. "What in the world do you want with money down here?" "To pay the servants, father," Dolly said low. "Margaret asked me for her month's wages, and I said I would ask you. Can you give it to me?" "She cannot do anything with money down here either. She don't want it. Her wages are safe, tell her. I'll take care of them for her." "But, father, if she likes to take care of them for herself, she has the right. Such people like to see their money, I suppose." "I have yet to find the people that don't," said her father. "But, really, she'll have to wait, my child. I have not brought so much in my pocket-book with me." This also struck Dolly as very unusual. Never in her life, that she could remember, had her father confessed before to an empty purse. "Then, could you send it to me, father, when you go back to London?" "Yes, I'll send it. Or better, wait till I come down again. You would not know how to manage if I sent it. And Margaret really cannot be in a hurry." Dolly stood still, fingering the locks of her father's thick hair, while her mental thermometer went down and down. She knew by his whole manner that the money was not at hand even were he in London; and where then was it? Mr. Copley had always till now had plenty; what had happened, or what was the cause of the change? And how far had it gone? and to what point might it go? and what should she do, if she could not soon pay Margaret? and what would become of her mother, if not only her travelling projects were shattered, but also her personal and household comforts should fail her where she was? What could Dolly do, to save money? or could she in any way touch the source of the evil, and bring about an essential bettering of this new and evil state of things? She must know more first; and how should she get more knowledge? There came a sigh to her ears here, which greatly touched her. Nevertheless, for the present she could not even show sympathy, for she dared not seem aware of the need for it. Tears came to her eyes, but she commanded them back; that would not do either. "Suppose we take a walk, Dolly, in that jolly old wood yonder?" Mr. Copley said. "That's Brierley Park, ain't it? We might go and see the house, if you like." "It is Sunday, father." "Well, what then? The world is pretty much the same thing Sunday that it is other days, eh?" "Yes, father--the world; but not the day. That is not the same as the rest." "Why not? We cannot go to church to-day, if that is what you are thinking of. I took church-time to come down here. And if you wanted to go to church, Dolly, you couldn't have a finer temple than over yonder." "Oh, if you'll go to church there, father, I'll go." "To be sure I will. Get your hat." "And my Bible?" "Bible?" Mr. Copley looked at her. "I didn't say anything about a Bible. We are going to take a walk. You don't want a book to carry." "How are we going to church there, then?" "Think good thoughts, and enjoy the works of the good Creator. That's all you can do in any church, Dolly. Come, little Puritan." Dolly did not quite know what to do; however, she got her hat, finding that her mother was willing; and she and her father went down to the bridge. There, to her dismay somewhat, they were joined by Mr. St. Leger. But not to Mr. Copley's dismay; he welcomed the young man openly. Dolly would have gone back now, but she did not dare. "Going to see the house?" Lawrence asked. "It is Sunday," said Dolly. "You cannot." "There's a way of opening doors, even on Sunday," said the other. "No, not here. The housekeeper will not let you in. She is a Christian." "She is a Methodist, you mean," said Mr. Copley. "I believe she is a Methodist. She is a good friend of mine." "What business have you to make friends with Methodists? we're all good Church people; hey, Lawrence? What grand old woods these are!" "How old do you suppose these trees to be, father?" "Can't guess; less than centuries would not do. Centuries of being let alone! I wonder how men would get on, if they could have as good a chance? Glorious! Go on, children, and take your walk; I will lie down here and rest. I believe I want that more than walking." He threw himself down at full length on the turf in the shadow of a giant beech. Dolly and her remaining companion passed slowly on. This was not what she had reckoned upon; but she saw that her father wished to be left alone, and she did not feel, nevertheless, that she could go home and leave the party. Slowly she and Mr. St. Leger sauntered on, from the shadow of one great tree to another; Dolly thinking what she should do. When they were gotten out of sight and out of earshot, she too stopped, and sat down on a shady bank which the roots of an immense oak had thrown up around its base. "What now?" said Lawrence. "This is a good place to stay. Father wishes to be left to himself." "But aren't you going any further?" "There is nothing to be gained by going any further. It is as pretty here as anywhere in the wood." "We might go on and see the pheasantry. Have you seen the pheasantry?" "No." "That does not depend on the housekeeper's pleasure; and the people on the place are not all Methodists. I fancy we should have no trouble in getting to see that. Come! It is really very fine, and worth a walk to see. I am not much of a place-hunter, but the Brierley pheasantry is something by itself." "Not to-day," said Dolly. "Why not to-day? I can get the gate opened." "You forget it is Sunday, Mr. St. Leger." "I do not forget it," said he, throwing himself down on the bank beside her. "I came here to have the day with you. It's a holiday. Mr. Copley keeps a fellow awfully busy other days, if one has the good fortune to be his secretary. I remember particularly well that it is Sunday. What about it? Can't a fellow have it, now he has got it?" The blue eyes were looking with a surprised sort of complaint in them, yet not wholly discontented, at Dolly. How could they be discontented? So fair an object to rest upon and so curiosity-provoking too, as she was. Dolly's advantages were not decked out at all; she was dressed in a simple white gown; and there were none of the formalities of fine ladyism about her; a very plain little girl; and yet, Lawrence was not far wrong when he thought her the fairest thing his eyes had ever seen. _Her_ eyes had such a mingling of the childlike and the wise; her hair curled in such an artless, elegant way about her temples and in her neck; the neck itself had such a pretty set and carriage, the figure was so graceful in its girlish outlines; and above all, her manner had such an inexplicable combination of the utterly free and the utterly unapproachable. Lawrence lay thinking all this, or part of it; Dolly was thinking how she should dispose of him. She could not well say anything that would directly seem to condemn her father. And while she was thinking what answer she should make, Lawrence had forgot his question. "Do you like this park?" he began on another tack. "Oh, more than I can tell you! It is perfect. It is magnificent. There is nothing like it in all America. At least, _I_ never saw anything like it there." "Why not?" said Lawrence. "I mean, why is there not anything like this there?" Then Dolly's face dimpled all up in one of its expressions of extreme sense of fun. "We are not old enough," she said. "You know when these trees were young, our land was filled with the red men, and overgrown with forests." "Well, those forests were old." "Yes, but in a forest trees do not grow like this. They cannot. And then the forest had to be cut down." "Then you like England better than America?" "I never saw in my life anything half so beautiful as Brierley Park." "You would be contented with such a home, wherever it might be?" "As far as the trees went," said Dolly, with another ripple of fun breaking over her face. "Tell me," said Lawrence, "are all American girls like you?" "In what way? We do not all look alike." "No, no; I do not mean looks; they are no more like you in _that_, than you say America resembles Brierley Park. But you are not like an English girl." "I am afraid that is not an equal compliment to me. But why should Americans be different from English people? We went over from England only a little while ago." "Institutions?" Lawrence ventured. "What, because we have a President, and you have a King? What difference should that make?" "Then you see no difference? Am I like an American, now?" "You are not like my father, certainly. But I do not know any American young men--except one. And I don't know him." "That sounds very much like a riddle. Won't you be so good as to explain?" "There is no riddle," said Dolly. "I knew him when I was at school, a little girl, and I have never seen him since." "Then you don't know him now, I should say." "No. And yet I feel as if I knew him. I should know him if we saw each other again." "Seems to have made a good deal of an impression!" "Yes, I think he did. I liked him." "Before you see him again you will have forgotten him," said Lawrence comfortably. "Do you not think you could forget America, if somebody would make you mistress of such a place as this?" "And if everybody I loved was here? Perhaps," said Dolly, looking round her at the soft swelling green turf over which the trees stretched their great branches. "But," said Lawrence, lying on his elbow and watching her, "would you want _everybody_ you love? The Bible says that a woman shall leave father and mother and cleave to her husband." "No; the Bible says that is what the man shall do; leave father and mother and cleave unto his wife." "They work it the other way," said Lawrence. "With us, it is the woman who leaves her family to go with the man." "Mr. St. Leger," said Dolly suddenly, "father does not look well. What do you think is the matter with him?" "Oh--aw--yes! Do you think he doesn't look well?" Lawrence answered vaguely. "Not _ill_--but not just like himself either. What is it?" "I--well, I have thought that myself sometimes," replied the young man. "What is the matter with him?" Dolly repeated anxiously. "Oh, not much, he spends too much time at--at his office, you know!" "He has no need to do that. He does not want the office--not for the money's sake." "Most men want money," said Lawrence. "But do you think he does?" "Oh, why not? Why, _my_ father wants money, always wants money; and yet you would say he has enough, too. Dolly"---- She interrupted him. "But what did you mean? You meant to say he spends too much time at--at what? Say what you were going to say." Lawrence rolled himself over on the bank so that he could look up straight into her face. It was a good look of his blue eyes. "Dolly," said he, "if you will leave father and mother for my sake, figuratively, I mean,--of course, figuratively,--I will take care that neither of them ever wants anything for the rest of their lives. And you shall have a place as good as Brierley Park." Dolly's spirits must have taken one or two quick leaps, for her colour changed so; but happily Lawrence's speech was long enough to let her get possession of herself again. She answered with an _a plomb_ which, born of necessity as it was, and natural, equalled that of the most practised fine lady which should show her artificial habit or skill. Like an instinct of self-preservation, I suppose; swift in action, correct in adjustment, taking its measures with unpremeditated good aim. She answered with absolute seeming calmness-- "You evade my question, I observe." "I am sure you evade mine!" said the young man, much more hotly. "Perhaps I do. Naturally, I want mine answered first." "And then will you give me the answer to my question?" said he eagerly. "That would seem to be no more than good manners." "What do you want to know, Dolly? I am sure I can't tell what to say to you." "Tell me what makes my father look unlike himself," said Dolly quietly. She spoke quietly; not as if she were greatly concerned to know the answer; yet if Lawrence had guessed how her heart beat he would have had still more difficulty with his reply. He had some, as it was; so much that he tried to turn the matter off. "You are imagining things," he said. "Mr. Copley seems to me very much what I have always known him." "He does not seem to me as _I_ have always known him," said Dolly. "And you are not saying what you are thinking, Mr. St. Leger." "You are terribly sharp!" said he, to gain time. "That's quite common among American women. Go on, Mr. St. Leger, if you please." "I declare, it's uncanny. I feel as if you could see through me, too. And no one will bear such looking into." "Go on, Mr. St. Leger," Dolly repeated with an air of superiority. Poor child, she felt very weak at the time. "I don't know what to say, 'pon my honour," the young man averred. "I have nothing to say, really. And I am afraid of troubling you, besides." Dolly could _not_ speak now. She preserved her calm air of attention; that was all. "It's really nothing," St. Leger went on; "but I suppose, really, Mr. Copley may have lost some money. That's nothing, you know. Every man does, now and then. He loses, and then he gains." "How?" said Dolly gravely. "Oh, well, there are various ways. Betting, you know, and cards. Everybody bets; and of course he can't always win, or betting would stop. That's nothing, Miss Copley." "Have you any idea how much he has lost?" "Haven't an idea. People don't tell, naturally, how hard they are hit. I am sure it is nothing you need be concerned about." "Are not people often ruined in that way?" Dolly asked, still preserving her outside calm. "Well, that does happen, of course, now and then, with careless people. Mr. Copley is not one of that sort. Not that kind of man." "Do not people grow careless, in the interest and excitement of the play?" St. Leger hesitated, and laughed a little, casting up his blue eyes at Dolly as if she were a very peculiar specimen of young womanhood and he were not quite sure how to answer her. "I assure you," he said, "there is nothing that you need be concerned about. I am certain there is not." "Not if my father is concerned about it already?" "He is not concerned, I am sure. Oh, well! there may be a little temporary embarrassment--that can happen to any man, who is not made of gold--but it will be all right. Now, Miss Copley"---- She put out her hand to stop him. "Mr. St. Leger, can you do nothing to help? You are kind, I know; you have always been kind to us; can you do nothing to help now?" The young man rather opened his eyes. Was this asking him for an advance? It was a very cool proceeding in that case. "Help?" he repeated doubtfully. "What sort?" "There is only one way that you could help," said Dolly. He saw she meant what she meant, if he could know what that was; her cheeks had even grown pale; the sweet, clear brown eyes sought his face as if they would reach his heart, which they did; but then,--to assume any of Mr. Copley's responsibilities-- "I'll assume all Mr. Copley's responsibilities, Dolly," he said with rash decision--"if you'll smile upon me." "Assume?--Oh, did you think I meant _that?_" cried Dolly, while a furious flush came up into her face. "What a notion you must have of Americans, Mr. St. Leger! Do you think father would make over his responsibilities to another man? I did not mean anything so impossible as that." "Forgive me Then what did you mean?" "Perhaps something as impossible," said Dolly sadly, while the flush slowly paled. "I meant--couldn't you--could you--I don't know but it is just as impossible!"---- "Could I, what? I could do most things, if you wished it, Dolly." "Then you must not call me that till I give you leave. I was going to say, could you perhaps do anything to get my father away from this habit, or pleasure"---- "Of betting?" "Betting--and cards--it's all the same. He never used to do it. Can you help, Mr. St. Leger?" Dolly's face was a sort of a marvel. It was so childlike, it was so womanly; it was so innocent, and it was so forceful. Lawrence looked, and would have liked to do the impossible; but what could he? It was specially at his own father's card-table, he knew, that Mr. Copley had lost money; it was wholly in his father's society that he had been initiated into the fascination of wagers--and of something else. Could he go against his own father? and how could he? and himself a player, though a very cautious one, how should he influence another man not to play? "Miss Copley--I am younger than your father"---- Lawrence began. "I know. But you might speak where I cannot. Or you might do something." "Mr. Copley only does what my father does, and what everybody does." "If you were to tell your father,--could not _he_ perhaps stop it?--bring my father off the notion?" Dolly had reached the very core of the subject now and touched what she wanted to touch; for she had a certain assurance in her own mind that her father's intercourse with the banker and his circle of friends had led to all this trouble. Lawrence pondered, looked serious; and finally promised that he would "see what he could do." He would have urged his own question then; but to Dolly's great relief Mr. Copley found by this time that he had had enough of his own company; and called to them. However she could not escape entirely. "I have answered your question, Miss Copley," Lawrence said as they were going down the slope towards the yet unseen caller. "Hallo! yes, we're coming.--Now am I not to have the promised answer to mine?" "How did you put it? the question?" said Dolly, standing still and facing her difficulties. "You know. _I_ don't know how I put it," St. Leger said with a half laugh. "But I meant, Dolly, that you are more to me than everything and everybody in the world; and I wanted to know what I am to you?" "Not _that_, Mr. St. Leger." Dolly was quiet, and did not shun his eyes; and though she did grow rosy, there were some suspicious dimples in her fair little face; very unencouraging, but absolutely irresistible at the same time. "What then?" said the young man. "Of course, I could not be to you what you are to me, Dolly. Naturally. But I can take care of your father and mother, and I will; and I will put you in a place as good as Brierley Park. I am my father's only son, and his heir, and I can do pretty much what I like to do. But I care for nothing if you will not share it with me." "I am not going to leave my father and mother at present," said Dolly, shaking her head. "No, not at present," said he eagerly, catching at her words. "Not at present. But you do not love anybody else, Dolly?" "Certainly not!" "Then you will let me hope? You will let me hold myself your best friend, after them?" "I believe you are that," said Dolly, giving him her hand;--"except my old Methodist acquaintance, Mrs. Jersey." Which addition was a little like a dash of cold water; but Lawrence was tolerably contented after all; and pondered seriously what he could do in the matter of Mr. Copley's gaming tendencies. Dolly was right; but it is awkward to preach against what you practise yourself. CHAPTER XIV. DIFFICULTIES. Dolly on her part had not much comfort in the review of this afternoon. "It was no good," she said to herself; "I am afraid it has encouraged Lawrence St. Leger in nonsense. I did not mean that, but I am afraid he took it for encouragement. So much for going walking Sunday. I'll never do it again." Lawrence had taken leave very cheerfully; that was certain. As much could not be said for his principal. Dolly had privately asked her father to send her down the money for the servants' wages; and Mr. Copley had given an offhand promise; but Dolly saw that same want of the usual ready ease in his manner, and was not surprised when days passed and the money did not come. The question recurred, what was she to do? She wrote to remind her father; and she took a fixed resolve that she would buy no more, of anything, that she could not on the spot pay for. This, however, was not a resolve immediately taken; it ensued when after several weeks the women again pressed for their money, and again in vain. Dolly started back then from the precipice she saw she might be nearing, and determined to owe no more debts. She wrote to her father once more, begging for a supply. And a supply came; but so meagre that Dolly could but partially pay her two servants and keep a little in hand to go to market with. Mr. Copley had not come down to Brierley in the meanwhile. Lawrence had. Her unaccustomed burden of care Dolly had kept to herself; therefore it startled her when one day her mother began upon the subject. "What's this about Margaret's wages, Dolly?" "She asked me for some money the other day," Dolly answered as easily as she could. "You didn't give it to her?" "I have given her part; I had not the whole." "Haven't you _any?_" "Yes, mother, but not enough to give Margaret all she wants." "Let her have what you've got, and write your father to send you some. I never like to keep servants waiting. What's theirs, isn't yours; and besides, they never serve you so well, and you're in their power." "Mother, I want to keep a little in the house, for every day calls, till I get some more." "Your father will send it immediately. Why he don't come himself, I don't see. _I_'m not gaining, all alone in this wilderness, with nothing but the trees of Brierley Park to look at. I can't think what your father is dreaming about!" Dolly was silent, and hoped the subject had blown over. Yet it could not blow over for ever, she reflected. What was she to do? Then her mother startled her again. "Dolly have you told your father that you want money?" Dolly hesitated; had to say yes. "And he did not give it to you?" "Yes, mother; he sent me some." "When?" "It was--it must have been three weeks ago." "How much?" "Not enough to pay all that is due to Margaret." Mrs. Copley laid down her face in her hands. A terrible pain went through Dolly's heart; but what could she say. It seemed as if pain pricked her like a shower of arrows, first on this side and then on that. She thought her mother _had_ gained somewhat in the past weeks; how would it, or could it, be now? Presently Mrs. Copley lifted up her head with a further question. "Is Sarah paid?" "No, mother; not yet," said poor Dolly. "Has Peter been paid anything?" "Not by us. We do not pay Peter at all," replied Dolly, feeling as if the words were stabbing her. "Who does?" said her mother quickly. "Mr. St. Leger sent him here. He is their servant really, and they take care of him." "I don't see how your father can content himself with that," said Mrs. Copley. "But I suppose that is one of the debts that _you_ will pay, Dolly." Dolly forced herself to speak very quietly, though every nerve and fibre was trembling and quivering. She said, "How, mother?" "I suppose you know. Mr. St. Leger knows, at any rate; and your father too, it seems." "Mother," said Dolly, sitting up a little straighter, "do you think I will pay debts in _that_ way?" "What other way will you pay them, then, child? what do you and your father expect? What _can_ you do, if you have not the money?" Mrs. Copley spoke bitterly. Dolly waited a little, perhaps to bite down or swallow down some feeling. "Mother," she said, somewhat lower, "do you think father would want me to pay his debts so?" "Want to?" echoed Mrs. Copley. "I tell you, Dolly, when people get into difficulties the question is not what they _want_ to do. They have to pocket their likings, and eat humble pie. But how has your father got into difficulties?" she burst out with an expression of frightened distress. "He always had plenty. Dolly!--tell me!--what do you know about it? what is it? How _could_ he get into difficulties! Oh, if we had staid at home! Dolly, how is it possible? We have always had plenty--money running like water--all my life; and now, how _could_ your father have got into difficulties?" Perhaps the difficulty was but transient and would soon pass over, Dolly faintly suggested. "It don't look like it," said Mrs. Copley miserably, "and your father don't look like it. Here we are down in this desert, you and I, to keep us out of the way, and where we will cost as near nothing as can be; and we can't pay that! Do you know nothing about it, Dolly? how it has come about?" "I couldn't ask father such a question, mother, you know." "And what is to become of me!" Mrs. Copley went on; "when travelling is the thing I need. And what is to become of you, Dolly? Nobody to be seen, or to see you, but St. Leger. Have you made up your mind to be content with him? Will you have him, Dolly? and is that the way your father is going to take care of you?" Poor Mrs. Copley, having so long swallowed her troubles in secret, dreading to give pain to Dolly, now that her mouth was once opened poured them forth relentlessly. Why not? the subject was broached at last, and having spoken, she might go on to speak. And poor Dolly, full of her own anxieties, did not know where to begin to quiet those of her mother. "Mr. St. Leger is nothing to me," she said, however, in answer to Mrs. Copley's last suggestions. "He thinks he is." "Then he is very foolish," said Dolly, reddening. "It is you that are foolish, and you just do not know any better. I don't think, Dolly, that it would be at all a bad thing for you;--perhaps it would be the very best; though I'd rather have you marry one of our own people; but St. Leger is rich, very rich, I suppose; and your father has got mixed up with them somehow, and I suppose that would settle everything. St. Leger is handsome, too; he has a nice face; he has beautiful eyes; and he is a gentleman." "His face wants strength." "That's no matter. I begin to believe, Dolly, that you have wit enough for two." "I am not speaking of wit; I mean _strength;_ and I should never like any man that hadn't it; not like him in the way you mean, mother." "Strength? what sort of strength?" "I mean manliness; power to do right; power over himself and others; power over the wrong, to put it down, and over the right, to lift it up and give it play. I don't know that I can tell you what I mean, mother; but that is my notion of a man." "You are romantic, I am afraid, Dolly. You have been reading novels too much." "What novels, mother? I have not read any, except Scott's and Miss Austen's and 'The Scottish Chiefs.'" "Well, you have got romantic ideas, I am afraid. Your talk sounds romantic. You won't find that sort of man." "I don't care," said Dolly. "But if I don't, I'll never marry any other sort." "And that is a delusion too," said Mrs. Copley. "You will do just as other girls do. Nobody marries her fancy. And besides, St. Leger thinks he has got you; and I don't know but he and your father will manage it so. He don't ask _my_ advice." Now this was not quite true; for the subject of Mr. St. Leger had been discussed more than once between Dolly's parents; though certainly Mrs. Copley did see that matters were out of her hand and beyond her guidance now. Dolly was glad to have the conversation turn to something else; but the several subjects of it hardly left her head any more. It is blessedly true, that at seventeen there is a powerful spring of elasticity in the mind, and an inexhaustible treasury of hope; also it is true that Mrs. Copley was not wrong in her estimate of Dolly when she adjudged her to have plenty of "wit;" otherwise speaking, resources and acuteness. That was all true; nevertheless, Dolly's seventeen-year-old heart and head were greatly burdened with what they had to carry just now. Experience gave her no help, and the circumstances forbade her to depend upon the experience of her mother. Mrs. Copley's nerves must not be excited. So Dolly carried her burden alone, and found it very heavy; and debated her questions with herself, and could find an answer to never a one of them. How should she give her mother the rest and distraction of travelling? The doctor said, and Dolly believed, that it would be the best thing for her. But she could not even get speech of her father to consult over the matter with him Mr. Copley was caught in embarrassments of his own, worse than nervous ones. What could Dolly do, to break him off from his present habits, those she knew and those she dimly feared? Then when, as was inevitable, the image of Mr. St. Leger presented itself, as affording the readiest solution of all these problems, Dolly bounded back. Not _that_, of all possible outcomes of the present state of things. Dolly would neither be bought nor sold; would not in that way even be her parents' deliverer. She was sure she could not do that. What else could she do? She carried these questions about with her, out into the garden, and up into her room; and many a hot tear she shed over them, when she could be long enough away from her mother to let the tears dry and the signs of them disappear before she met Mrs. Copley's eyes again. To her eyes Dolly was unfailingly bright and merry; a most sweet companion and most entertaining society; lively, talkative, and busy with endless plans for her mother's amusement. Meanwhile she wrote to her father, begging him to come down to Brierley; she said she wanted to talk to him. Three days after that letter came Lawrence St. Leger. Mr. Copley could not spare the time, he reported. "Spare the time from what?" Dolly asked. "Oh, business, of course. It is always business." "What sort? Not consul business." "All sorts," said Lawrence. "He couldn't come. So he sent me. What is the thing, Miss Dolly? He said something was up." "I wanted to talk to my father," Dolly said coldly. "Won't I do?" "Not at all. I had business to discuss." "The journey, eh?" "That was one thing," Dolly was obliged to allow. "Well, look here. About that, I've a plan. I think I can arrange it with Mr. Copley, if you and your mother would be willing to set off with me, and let Mr. Copley join us somewhere--say at Baden Baden, or Venice, or where you like. He could come as soon as he was ready, you know." "But you know," said Dolly quietly, "I specially want _him_, himself." "But then your mother wants the journey. She really does. The doctor says so, you know, and I think he's right. And Mr. Copley won't leave London just now. He could send his secretary, you know. That's all right." "I must see father before I can do anything," said Dolly evasively. "I will write a letter for you to carry back to him. And I will go do it at once." "And I will take a look at what Peter is doing," said the young man. "Such fellows always want looking after." Dolly had looked after Peter herself. She paused before an upper window in her way to her room, to cast a glance down into the garden. Old Peter was there, at some work she had set him; and before him stood Lawrence, watching him, and she supposed making remarks; but at any rate, his air was the air of a master and of one very much at home. Dolly saw it, read it, stood still to read it, and turned from the window with her heart too full of vexation and perturbation to write her letter then. She felt a longing for somebody to talk to, even though she could by no means lay open all her case for counsel; the air of the house was too close for her; her breath could not be drawn free in that neighbourhood. She must see somebody; and no one had poor Dolly to go to but the housekeeper, Mrs. Jersey. Nobody, near or far. So she slipped out of the house and took a roundabout way to the great mansion. She dared not take a straight way and cross the bridge, lest she should be seen and followed; so she made a circuit, and got into the park woods only after some time of warm walking through lanes and over fields. Till then she had hurried; now, safe from interruption, she went slowly, and pondered what she was going to do or say. Pondered everything, and could not with all her thinking make the confusion less confusion. It was a warm, still, sultry day; the turf was dry, the air was spicy under the great trees; shadow and sunshine alternately crossed her path, or more correctly, her path crossed them. A certain sense of contrast smote her as she went. Around her were the tokens of a broad security, sheltering protection, quiet and immovable possession, careless wealth; and within her a tumult of fear, uncertainty, exposure, and craving need. Life seemed a very unequal thing to the little American girl. Her step became slower. What was she going to say to Mrs. Jersey? It was impossible to determine; nevertheless, Dolly felt that she must see her and speak to her. That was a necessity. Through the trees she caught at last sight of the grand old house. The dog knew her by this time and she did not fear him. She found the housekeeper busy with some sewing and glad to welcome her. Mrs. Jersey was that always. To-day she looked a little closer than usual at her visitor, discerning that Dolly's mind was not just in its wonted poise. And besides, she loved to look at her. Yet it is not easy to describe that for which our eyes seek and dwell upon a face or form. It is easy to say brown eyes and lightly curled, waving, beautiful hair; but hair is beautiful in different ways, and so faces. Can we put Dolly's charm into words? Mrs. Jersey saw a delicate, graceful, active figure, to begin with; delicate without any suspicion of weakness; active, in little quick, gracious movements, which it was fascinating to watch; and when not in motion, lovely in its childlike unconsciousness of repose. Her hair was exceedingly beautiful, not on account of its mass or colour so much as for the great elegance of its growth and curly arrangement or disarrangement around the face and neck; and the face was a blending of womanly and childlike. It could seem by turns most of the one or most of the other; but the clear eyes had at all times a certain deep _inwardness_, along with their bright, intelligent answer to the moment's impression, and also a certain innocent outlook, which was very captivating. And then, at a moment's notice, Dolly's face from being grave and thoughtful, would dimple all up with some flash of fun, and make you watch its change back to gravity again, with an intensified sense both of its merry and of its serious charm. She smiled at Mrs. Jersey now as she came in, but the housekeeper saw that the eyes had more care in their thoughtfulness than she was accustomed to see in them. "And how is the mother, dear?" she asked, when Dolly had drawn up a chair and sat down; for they were grown familiar friends by this time. "She is not getting on much, Mrs. Jersey. I wanted to talk to you about her. The doctor says travelling would be the best thing." "And you will go and travel? Where will you go?" "I don't know yet whether we can go anywhere. Mother wants to go." Dolly looked out hard into the tree groups on the lawn. They barred the vision. "That is one sign then that the doctor is right," said Mrs. Jersey. "It is good for sick folks to have what they like." "Isn't it good for people that are not sick?" "Sometimes," said Mrs. Jersey, smiling. "But sometimes not; or else the good Lord would let them have it, when He does not let them. What are _you_ wanting, Miss Dolly?" "I want everything different from what it is just now!" said Dolly, the tears starting to her eyes. The housekeeper was moved with a great sympathy; sympathy that was silent at first. "Can I help?" she asked. "Maybe you can help with your counsel," said Dolly, brushing her hand over her eyes; "that is what I came here for to-day. I wanted to speak to somebody; and I have nobody but you, Mrs. Jersey." "Your mother, my dear?" "I can't worry mother." "True. You are right. Well, my dear? What do you want counsel about?" "It is very difficult to tell you. I don't know if I can. I will try. One thing. Mrs. Jersey, is it right sometimes, is it a girl's duty ever--to sacrifice herself for her parents?". The housekeeper had not expected this form of dilemma, and hesitated a few minutes. "Sacrifice herself how, Miss Dolly?" "Marrying, for instance." "Marrying somebody she does not care for?" "Yes." "How 'for her parents'?" "Suppose--I am just supposing,--suppose he has money, and they haven't. Suppose, for instance, they are in difficulties, and by her sacrificing herself she can put them out of difficulty? Such a case might be, you know." "Often has been; or at least people have thought so. But, Miss Dolly, where is a young lady's first duty?" "To God, of course; her first duty." "And next after God?" "To her parents, I suppose." "And besides her parents?" "I don't know; nobody, I think." "Let us see. She owes something to herself." "Does she?" "And do you not think she owes something to the other party concerned? don't you think she owes something to the gentleman she is to marry?" "Yes, of course," said Dolly slowly. "I do not know exactly what, though; nor exactly what she owes to herself." "Before taking any course of action, in a matter that is very important, shouldn't she look all round the subject? and see what will become of all these duties?" "Certainly. But the first comes first." "The first comes first. How does the first look to you?" "The first is her duty to God." "Well. What does her duty to God say?" "I don't know," said Dolly very gravely. "I am all in a puzzle. Something in me says one thing, and something else in me cries out against it. Mrs. Jersey, the Bible says, 'Honour thy father and thy mother.'" "Yes, and it says, 'Children, obey your parents.' But the next words that come after, are--'_in the Lord_.'" "How is that?" "So as you can without failing in your duty to Him." "Can duties clash?" "No," said the housekeeper, smiling; "for, as you said, 'the first comes first.'" "I do not understand," said Dolly. "It is my duty to obey His word; and His word says, obey them." "Only not when their command or wish goes against His." "Well, how would this?" said Dolly. "Suppose they wish me to marry somebody, and my doing so would be very good for them? The Bible says, 'Love seeks not her own.'" "Most true," said the housekeeper, watching the tears that suddenly stood in Dolly's bright eyes. "But it says some other things." "What, Mrs. Jersey? Do make it clear to me if you can. I am all in a muddle." "My dear, I am not a very good hand to explain what I mean. But do you not think you owe it both to yourself and to God, not to do what would blast your life? you cannot serve Him so well with a blasted life." "It seems to me," said Dolly, speaking slowly, "I have a right to give up my own happiness. I do not see the wrong of it." "In anything else," said the housekeeper. "In anything else, my dear; only not in marriage! My dear, it is not simply giving up one's happiness; it is a long torture! No, you owe it to yourself; for in that way you could never grow to be what you might be. My dear, I have seen it tried. I have known a woman who married so, thinking that it would not matter so much; she fulfilled life's duties nobly, she was a good wife and mother and friend; but when I asked her once, after she had told me her story, how life had been to her?--I shall never forget how she turned to me and said, 'It has been a hell upon earth!' Miss Dolly, no good father and mother would buy _anything_ at such a price; and no man that really loved a woman would have her at such a price; and so, if you follow the rule, 'Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them'--you will never marry in that way." There was a little silence, and then Dolly said in an entirely changed tone, "You have cleared up the mist, Mrs. Jersey." "Then there is another thing," the housekeeper went on. She heard the change in Dolly's voice, out of which the anxiety had suddenly vanished, but she was willing to make assurance doubly sure. "Did you ever think what a woman owes to the man she marries?" "I never thought about it," said Dolly. "What a man asks for, is that she will marry him." How Dolly's cheeks flamed up. But she was very serious, and the housekeeper if possible yet more so. "Miss Dolly, she owes him the best love of her heart, after that she gives to God." "I don't see how she can," said Dolly. "I do not see how she _can_ love him so well as her father and mother." "He expects it, though, and has a right to it. And unless a woman can give it, she cannot be a true wife. She makes a false vow at the altar. And unless she do love him so, it may easily happen that she will find somebody afterwards that she will like better than her husband. And then, all is lost." "After she is married?" said Dolly. "Perhaps after she has been married for years. If she has not married the right man, she may find him when she cannot marry him." "But that is dreadful!" cried Dolly. "The world is a pretty mixed-up place," said the housekeeper. "I want _your_ way to be straight and clear, Miss Dolly." There was a pause again, at the end of which Dolly repeated, "Thank you, Mrs. Jersey. You have cleared up the mist for me." "I hear it in your voice," said her friend, smiling. "It has got its clear, sweet ring again. Is _all_ the trouble disposed of?" "Oh no!" said Dolly, a shadow crossing her face anew; "but I am relieved of one great perplexity. That was not all my trouble;--I cannot tell you all. I wish I could! One thing,--I want to see my father dreadfully, to talk to him about mother's going travelling; and I cannot get sight of him. He stays in London. And time is flying." "Write," said the housekeeper. "Oh, I have written. And I have sent messages. I would go up to London myself, but I cannot go alone." "Miss Dolly," said the housekeeper, after a minute's thought, "perhaps I can help here too. I have to go up to London for a few days, and was thinking to go next week. If you will trust yourself to me, I will take you, and take care of you." Dolly was overjoyed at this suggestion. A little more conversation to settle preliminaries and particulars, and Dolly set off on her way home with a much lightened heart. "Ah me!" thought the housekeeper, as she stood at the door looking after her, "how hard we do make it for each other in this world!" CHAPTER XV. THE CONSUL'S OFFICE. Before Dolly had reached home she was joined by Mr. St. Leger. He was still in the park. "Have you been for a walk?" said he in astonished fashion. "I suppose that would be a natural conclusion," said Dolly. She spoke easily; it rejoiced her to find how easily she could now meet Mr. St. Leger. Yet the game was not all played out, either. "Why didn't you let me know, that I might go with you?" he went on. "That was not in my purpose," rejoined Dolly lightly. "That is very unkind, Dolly." "Truth is never unkind." "Yes, indeed, it may be; it is now." "Would you like falsehood better?" "You need not be false." "I must be either false or true, must I not? Which would you rather have, Mr. St. Leger?" "It would be no good, my choosing," said he, with a half laugh; "for you would never give me anything but absolute truth, I know. I believe that is one of your attractions, Dolly. All other girls put on something, and a fellow never can tell what he is served to, the dish is spiced so cleverly. But you are like a piece of game, with no flavour but your own; and that is wild enough, and rare enough too." "Mr. St. Leger," said Dolly gravely, "you ought to study rhetoric.'' "Have. Why?" "I am afraid that last speech was rather mixed up." "Look here,--I wish you'd call me Lawrence. We know each other quite well enough." "Is that the custom in your country?" "It is going to be your country, as well. You need not speak in that fashion." "I am thinking of leaving the country," Dolly went on unconcernedly. "Mother is longing to travel; and I am going to bring it about." "I have tried Mr. Copley on that subject, I assure you." "I shall try now, and do it." "Think so? Then we will consult about plans and routes again this evening. Mrs. Copley likes that almost as well as the thing itself. For, Dolly, you cannot get along without me." Which assertion Dolly left uncontroverted. A few days after Lawrence had gone back to town was the time for Mrs. Jersey's journey. Dolly told her mother her plan; and after a deal of doubts and fears and arguings on Mrs. Copley's part, it was finally agreed to. It seemed the hopefullest thing to do; and Mrs. Copley could be left well enough with the servants for a few days. So, early one morning Mrs. Jersey called for her, and Dolly with a beating heart kissed her mother and went off. Some business reasons occasioned the housekeeper to make the journey in a little covered carriage belonging to the house, instead of taking the public post-coach. It was all the pleasanter for Dolly, being entirely private and quiet; though the time consumed was longer. They were then in the end of summer; the weather was delicious and warm; the country rich in flowers and grain fields and ripening fruit. Dolly at first was full of delight, the change and the novelty were so welcome, and the country through which they drove was so exceeding lovely. Nevertheless, as the day went by there began to creep over her a strange feeling of loneliness; a feeling of being out on the journey of life all by herself and left to her own skill and resources. It was not the journey to London; for _that_ she was well accompanied and provided; it was the real undertaking upon which she had set out, the goal of which was not London but--her father. To find her father not only, but to keep him; to prevent his being lost to himself, lost to her mother, to life, and to her. Could she? Or was she embarked on an enterprise beyond her strength? A weak girl; what was she, to do so much! It grew and pressed upon her, this feeling of being alone and busy with a work too great for her; till gradually the lovely country through which she was passing ceased to be lovely; it might have been a wilderness, for all its cheer or promise to her. Dolly had talked at first, in simple, gleeful, girlish pleasure; little by little her words grew fewer, her eye lost its glad life; until she sat back, withdrawn into herself, and spoke no more unless spoken to. The housekeeper noticed the change, saw and read the abstracted, thoughtful look that had taken place of the gay, interested delight of the morning. She perceived that Dolly had serious work on hand, of some sort; and she longed to help her. For the fair, sweet, womanly thoughtfulness was as lofty and lovely in its way, as the childlike simplicity of enjoyment before had been bewitching. She was glad when the day's ride came to an end. The stoppage was made at a little wayside inn; a low building of grey stone, overgrown with ivy and climbing roses, with a neatly kept bit of grass in front. Here Dolly's interest and delight awoke again. This was something unlike all she had ever seen. Simple and plain enough the inn was; stone flooring and wooden furniture of heavy and ancient pattern made it that; but at the same time it was substantial, comfortable, neat as wax, and with a certain air of well-to-do thrift which was very pleasant. Mrs. Jersey was known here and warmly received. The travellers were shown into a cosy little room, brown wainscoted, and with a great jar of flowers in the chimney; and here the cloth was immediately laid for their dinner, or supper. For the supper itself they had to wait a little; and after putting off her bonnet and refreshing herself in an inner room, Dolly sat down by one of the small windows. The day was declining. Slant sunbeams shot across a wide plain and threw long shadows from the trees. The trees, especially those overhanging the inn, were old and large and fine; the lights and shadows were moveless, calm, peaceful; one or two neighbouring fields were stocked with beautiful cattle; and a flock of geese went waddling along over the green. It was removed from all the scenes of Dolly's experience; as unlike them as her being there alone was unlike the rest of her life; in the strangeness there was this time an element of relief. "How beautiful the world is, Mrs. Jersey!" she remarked. "You find it so here?" answered her friend. "Why, yes, I do. Don't you?" "I suppose I am spoiled, Miss Dolly, by being accustomed to Brierley." "Oh, this is not Brierley! but I am not comparing them. This is very pretty, Mrs. Jersey! Why, Mrs. Jersey, you don't despise a daisy because it isn't a rose!" "No," said her friend; "but I suppose I cannot see the daisy when the rose is by." She was looking at Dolly. "Well," said Dolly, "the rose is not by; and I like this very much. What a neat house! and what a pleasant sort of comfort there is about everything. I would not have missed this, Mrs. Jersey, for a good deal." "I am glad, Miss Dolly. I was thinking you were not taking much good of your day's ride--the latter part." Dolly was silent, looking out now somewhat soberly upon the smiling scene; then she jumped up and threw off her gravity, and came to the supper-table. It was spread with exquisite neatness, and appetising nicety. Dolly found herself hungry. If but her errand to London had been of a less serious and critical character, she could have greatly enjoyed the adventure and its picturesque circumstances. With the elastic strength of seventeen, however, she did enjoy it, even so. "How good you are to me, Mrs. Jersey!" she said, after the table was cleared and the two were sitting in the falling twilight. The still peace outside and inside the house had found its way to Dolly's heart. There was the brooding hush of the summer evening, marked, not broken, by sounds of insects or lowing of cattle, and the voices of farm servants attending to their work. It was yet bright outside, though the sun had long gone down; inside the house shades were gathering. "I wish I could be good to you, Miss Dolly," was the housekeeper's answer. "Oh, you are! I do not know what in the world I should have done, if you had not let me go with you to London now." "What can I do for you when we get there?" "Oh, nothing! thank you." "You know exactly where to go and what to do?" "I shall take a cab and go--let me see,--yes, to father's rooms. If I do not find him there, I must go to his office." "In the City?" "Yes. Will that be very far from your house? Why, yes, of course; we shall be at the West End. Well, all the same, near or far, I must see my father." "You must be so good as to let me go in the cab with you," said Mrs. Jersey. "I cannot let you drive all about London alone by yourself." "Oh, thank you!" said Dolly again, with an undoubted accent of relief. "But"---- That sentence remained unfinished. Dolly meditated. So did the housekeeper. She was wise enough to see that all was not exactly clear and fair in her young friend's path; of what nature the trouble might be she could only surmise. "What if Mr. Copley should not be in London?" she ventured. "Oh, he must be. At least he was there a very few days ago. He never is away from London, except when he goes to visit somewhere." "It is coming towards the time now when the gentlemen go down into the country to shoot." "Father does not care for shooting. I mean to get him to go to Venice instead, with mother and me." "Suppose you should fail in that plan, Miss Dolly? is your business done then?" "No. Oh no!" said Dolly, for a moment covering her face with her hands. "O Mrs. Jersey! if I could not manage that, I do not know what I should do!" Dolly's voice had a premonition of despair. "But I guess I can do it," she added with a resumption of cheerfulness. And she talked on from that time merrily of other things. When they arrived in London next day, it was already too late for Dolly to do anything. She was fain to let Mrs. Jersey lodge her and feast her and pet her to her heart's content. She was put in a pretty room in the great house; she was entertained royally, as far as the viands went; and in every imaginable way the housekeeper was carefully kind. Well for Dolly; who needed all the help of kindness and care. The whole long day she had been brooding on what she had to do, and trying to imagine how things would be. Without data, that is a specially wearisome occupation; inasmuch as one may imagine anything, and there is nothing to contradict the most extravagant speculations. Dolly's head and heart were tired by the time night came, and her nerves in an excited condition, to which Mrs. Jersey's ministrations and the interest of the place gave a welcome relief. Dolly tried to put off thought. But everything pressed upon her, now that she was so near seeing her father; and seventeen-years-old felt as if it had a great load on its young shoulders. "Mrs. Jersey," she began, after supper, "you are quite sure that it is never right for a girl to sacrifice herself for the sake of benefiting her parents?" "In the way of marrying a man she does not love? Miss Dolly, a Christian man would never have a young lady marry him on those terms." "Suppose he is not a Christian man?" "Then he may be selfish enough to do it. But in that case, Miss Dolly, a Christian woman can have nothing to say to him." "Why not? She might bring _him_ to be Christian, you know." "That isn't the Lord's way, Miss Dolly." "What is His way, then?" "You will find it in the sixth chapter of 2nd Corinthians. 'Be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers.'" "But that means"---- "It _says_--Miss Dolly; it _says_,--do not be yoked up with one who is not following the Lord; neither in marriage, nor in business. Two oxen in a yoke, Miss Dolly, have to pull the same way; and if they don't want to, the weakest must go with the strongest." "But might not the Christian one be the strongest?" "His disobeyeing the Lord's command just shows he isn't that." Dolly let the subject drop. She took a little cushion and sat down by her friend's side and laid her head in her lap; and they sat so a while, Mrs. Jersey looking fondly down upon the very lovely bright head on her knees, and marvelling sorrowfully at the fathers and mothers who prepare trouble for such tender and delicate creatures as their young daughters. The next morning she admired her charge under a new view of her. Dolly appeared at breakfast with a calm, measured manner, which, if it were in part the effect of great pressure upon her spirits, had at the same time the grace of a very finished breeding. Mrs. Jersey looked and admired, and wondered too. How had the little American got this air? She could not put it on herself; but she had seen her mistresses in the great world wear it; a certain unconscious, disengaged dignity which sat marvellously well upon the gracious softness and young beauty of this little girl. The breakfast was rather silent. The drive, which they entered upon immediately after, was almost wholly so. Mrs. Jersey, true to her promise, let her own affairs wait, and accompanied her young friend. Dolly had changed her plan, and went now first to Mr. Copley's office in the city. It was the hour when he should be there, and to go to his lodging would have taken them out of the way. So they drove the long miles from Grosvenor Square to the American Consul's office. Dolly's mood was eager and hopeful now; yet with too much pressure to allow of her talking. The cab stopped opposite the entrance of a narrow covered way between two walls of houses. Following this narrow passage, Mrs. Jersey and Dolly emerged into a little court, very small, on one side of which two or three steps led to the American Consul's offices. The first one they entered was full of people, waiting to see the Consul or parleyeing with one or another of the clerks. Dolly left Mrs. Jersey there to wait for her, and herself went on into the inner room, her father's special private office. In those days the office of American Consul was of far more importance and dignity than to-day; and this room was a tolerably comfortable one and respectably furnished. Here, however, her father was not; and it immediately struck Dolly that he had not been there very lately. How she gathered this impression is less easy to tell, for she could hardly be said to see distinctly any one of the characters in which the fact was written. She did not know that dust lay thick on his writing-table, and that even the papers piled there were brown with it; she did not know that the windows were fastened down this warm day, nor that an arm-chair which usually stood there for the accommodation of visitors was gone, having been slipped into the outer office by an ease-loving clerk. It was a general air of forsakenness, visible in these and in yet slighter signs, which struck Dolly's sense. She stood a moment, bewildered, hoping against sense, as it were; then turned about. As she turned she was met by a young man who had followed her in from the outer office. Dolly faced him. "Where is Mr. Copley?" "He ain't here." The Yankee accents of home were unmistakeable. "I see he is not here; but where is he?" "Couldn't say, reelly. 'Spect he's to his place. We don't ginerally expect ladies at this time o' day, or I guess he'd ha' ben on hand." The clerk grinned at Dolly's beauty, the like of which to be sure was not often seen anywhere at that, or any other, time of day. "When was Mr. Copley here, sir?" "Couldn't say. 'Tain't very long, nother. Was you wantin' to see him on an a'pintment?" "No. I am Miss Copley. Where can I find my father? Please tell me as quick as you can." "Sartain--ef I knowed it. Now I wisht I did! Mr. Copley, he comes and he goes, and he don't tell me which way; and there it is, you see." "Where is Mr. St. Leger?" "Mr. Silliger? Don't know the gentleman. Likely Mr. Copley doos. But he ain't here to say. Mebbe it 'ud be a good plan to make a note of it. That's what Mr. Copley allays says; 'make a note of it.'" "You do not know, sir, perhaps, whether Mr. Copley is in London?" "He was in London--'taint very long ago, for he was in this here office, and I see him; but that warn't yesterday, and it warn't the day before. Where he's betaken himself between whiles, ain't known to me. Shall I make a note, miss, against he comes?" "No," said Dolly, turning away; "no need. And no use." She rejoined Mrs. Jersey and they went back to the carriage. "He is not there," she said excitedly; "and he has not been there for several days. We must go to his lodgings--all the way back almost!" "Never mind," said the housekeeper. "We have the day before us." "It is almost twelve," said Dolly, looking at her watch. "Before we get there it will be one. I am a great deal of trouble to you, I fear, Mrs. Jersey; more than I meant to be." "My dear, it's no trouble. I am happy to be of any use to you. What sort of a chain is that you wear, Miss Dolly?" "Curious, isn't it?" said Dolly. "It was given me long ago. It is woven of threads of a ship cable." "It is a beautiful chain," said her friend, examining it admiringly. "But that is very clever, Miss Dolly! I should never fancy it was a piece of cable. Is there an anchor anywhere?" "No," said Dolly, laughing. "Though I am not sure," she added thoughtfully. "My memory goes back along this chain a great way;--back to the time when I was a little girl, quite little, and very happy at school and with a dear aunt, whom I lived with then. And back there at the end of the chain are all those pleasant images; and one most beautiful day, when we went to visit a ship; a great man-of-war. A most beautiful day!" Dolly repeated with the accent of loving recollection. "And you brought back a piece of cable from the ship, and braided this?" "No. Oh no! I did not do it; I could not. It was done for me." "By a friend's fingers?" "Yes, I suppose you may say so," said Dolly; "though it is a friend I have never seen since then. I suppose I never shall. But I always wear the chain. Oh, how long that seems ago!--Is childhood the happiest time of a person's life, Mrs. Jersey?" "Maybe I might say yes. Miss Dolly; but if I did, I should mean not what you mean. I should mean the little-child life that one can have when one is old. When the heart says, 'Not my will, but Thine'--when it says, 'Speak, Lord, for Thy servant heareth.' You know, the Master said, 'Except ye become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.'" "I don't believe I am just as much of a child, then, as I used to be," remarked Dolly. "Get back to it, my dear, as fast as you can." "But when one _isn't_ a child, things are so different. It is easy to trust and give up for a child's things; but when one is a woman"---- "It is just the same, dear Miss Dolly! Our great affairs, they are but child's matters to the Lord's eyes. The difference is in ourselves--when our hearts get proud, and our self-will gets up." "I wish I could be like a child now," said Dolly from the depths of her heart. "I feel as if I were carrying the whole family on my shoulders, and as if _I_ must do it." "You cannot, my dear! Your shoulders will break. 'Casting your care upon Him,' the Bible says--'for He careth for you.'" "One does not see Him"---- said Dolly, with her eyes very full. "Faith can see," the housekeeper returned; and then there was a long silence; while the carriage rattled along over the streets, and threaded its way through the throng of business, or bread-seekers or pleasure-seekers. So many people! Dolly wondered if every one of them carried his secret burden of care, as she was doing; and if they were, she wondered how the world lived on and bore the multitudinous strain. Oh, to be a child, in the full, blessed sense of the term! CHAPTER XVI. A FIGHT. The cab stopped, and Dolly's heart gave a great thump against her ribs. What was she afraid of? Mrs. Jersey said she would wait in the cab, and Dolly applied herself to the door-knocker. A servant came, a stupid one seemingly. "Is Mr. Copley at home?" "I dunno." "Will you find out, please?" "Jemima, who's that?" called a voice of authority from behind the scenes. "Somebody arter the gentleman, ma'am. I dunno, is he in his room?" The owner of the voice came forward; a portly, respectable landlady. She surveyed Dolly, glanced at the cab, became very civil, invited Dolly in, and sent the maid upstairs to make inquiries, declaring she did not know herself whether the gentleman were out or in. Dolly would not sit down. The girl brought down word that Mr. Copley was not out of his bedroom yet. "I went in the parlour, ma'am, and knocked, ma'am; and I might as well ha' axed my broom, ma'am." "I'll go up," said Dolly hastily; and waiting for no answer, she brushed past landlady and maid and ran up the stairs. Then paused. "Which rooms? on the first floor?" The woman of the house came bustling after her up the stairs and opened the door of a sitting-room. It was very comfortably furnished. "You couldn't go wrong, ma'am," she said civilly, "I 'ave no one in my rooms at this present, except Mr. Copley. I suppose you are his daughter, ma'am?" "His daughter," Dolly repeated, standing still and facing the landlady, and keeping down all outward expression of the excitement which was consuming her. She knew she kept it down; she faced the woman steadily and calmly, and the landlady was more and more humbly civil. "Mr. Copley is not ill?" Dolly went on. "Oh, dear, no, ma'am! not to call h'ill. Mr. Copley is in enjoyment of very good 'ealth; as I 'ave occasion to know, ma'am, who cooks his meals for him. I can allers tell by that. When a gentleman or a lady 'as good taste for their victuals, I think it's no 'arm if they sleeps a little long in the morning; it's a trifle onconvenient to the 'ouse, it may be, when things is standing roun', but it's good for theirselves, no doubt, and satisfyin' and they'll be ready for their breakfast when they comes h'out. And shall I wake Mr. Copley for you, ma'am? It's time for him, to be sure." "Thank you, no; you need not do anything. I will sit here and wait a little." "And Mr. Copley's coffee'll be ready for him, ma'am, when he's ready for h'it. Mr. Copley, he sets a good deal by his coffee, and likes it made particular, and he _gets_ it made particular. Didn't Mr. Copley tell you, ma'am, as his coffee was satisfactory?" "I daresay it is," said Dolly; "and I will ring for it when my father wants it. You may leave me; I will wait here." The landlady had been going round the room, picking up a bit of paper here and wiping her apron over a table there, the while taking a careful view of Dolly and examining her all over. Dolly's figure and manner were irreproachable; and with renewed proffers of service, the woman at last, having no choice, left the room. Dolly stood still a moment then, collecting herself and looking at the situation. Past one o'clock, and her father not out of his room! That was not like any of his habits, as she knew them; and Dolly stood with the shadow of a nameless fear falling across her spirit. Nameless, and formless; she did not discern it clearly or attempt to examine it; the mere shadow of it chilled her to the bone. She stood thinking, and trembling. Not at his office for several days, though business must be calling for him; not out of his room at one o'clock in the afternoon, though all his old simple home habits were opposed to such a waste of daylight! Should she try to arouse him? Dolly did try, after a little while; for she could not bear the still waiting; she knocked at the inner door; but she got no response. Then she went down to Mrs. Jersey at the cab, and told her the state of the case, begging her to go away and not wait any longer. _She_ must wait, and it was impossible to say how long. "Miss Dolly, does your father often rise so late?" "They say so. He never used, but it seems he does now." "It's the way with a many," said the housekeeper. "Never mind me, my dear. I'll wait here, or if I get tired of that, I will come in and sit with the landlady. I shall not leave you." Inwardly thankful, Dolly went back to her post and sat down and looked around her. She could tell nothing by the room or its contents. Both were nice enough; there was a slight smell of cigars, that was all to find fault with. Dolly waited. The stillness grew dreadful. To seventeen years old the first trouble comes hard; albeit seventeen years old has also a great fund of spirit and strength to meet and conquer trouble. But what was the trouble here? It was not the unusual scantiness of means; _that_ could soon be made right, if other things were not wrong which wrought to cause it. On the other hand, if her father had fallen irreparably into bad habits--Dolly would not admit the "irreparably" into her thoughts. But it was bitter to her that children should ever have to find their parents in the wrong; dreadful to have occasion to be ashamed of them. She knew, if her case proved such a one, it would be only one of a great many; she had read of such things, although chiefly among another class of people who were of coarser habits and duller natures, and if they fell had less distance to fall to get to the lowest level of society. But _her father!_--Dolly cowered with her head down upon the back of a chair, and a cry in her heart calling upon his name. Her father? could she have to blush for him? All her nature revolted against it; the thought came over her as a thick black cloud, so thick that for the moment light was banished from all her little landscape. Oh, how can fathers do such things! and how can daughters live under them! Death might be borne easier; but disgrace? Death would leave the loved one still her own; disgrace seemed to have a power of annihilation. Still, Dolly knew not that such trouble was really come upon her; alas, she did know too well that the fear of it had. And what a descent did that alone imply! She raised her head again, and sat with dry eyes and a beating heart, waiting. At last she was sure she heard some movement in the inner room. She heard the click of things that were moved; the fall of a chair that was knocked over, sounds of steps. Finally the door opened, and Mr. Copley appeared on the threshold. The sight of him smote his daughter. His dress was carelessly thrown on; _that_ was not so very remarkable, for Mr. Copley never was an exact man in matters of the toilet. It was not merely that. But Dolly's eye saw that his step was unsteady, his face dull and flushed, and his eye had a look which even a very little experience understands. His air was haggard, spiritless, hopeless; so unlike the alert, self-sufficient, confident manner of old, that Dolly's heart got a great wrench. And something in the whole image was so inexpressibly pitiful to her, that she did the very last thing it had been in her purpose to do; she fled to him with one bound, threw herself on his breast, and burst into a heartbreak of tears. Poor Mr. Copley was greatly startled and sorely perplexed. He had not been prepared to see his daughter; and though miserably conscious that he offered ground enough himself for Dolly's passion, he could not yet be sure that it concerned him. It might be wrought by some other cause; and in sore dismay and uncertainty he was not able to bring out a word of question. Dolly sobbed, and sobbed; and putting her arms up around his neck strained him in an embrace that was most pitifully longing and tender. Mr. Copley felt the pitifulness; he did not know what it meant. It was not till Dolly had released him and was trying to dry her eyes that he brought out a question. "What's the matter with you, Dolly?" Dolly heard the thick and lumbering accent of his words, and burst forth in a despairing cry. "O father! what is the matter with you?" "I'm all right," said poor Mr. Copley. "I'm all right. What are you here for?" "I wanted to see you. Why did you never come down? You haven't been near us." "I was coming--hindered always--I was coming, Dolly. How's your mother?" Dolly made a great effort after voice and calmness. "She is well--I mean, she is no worse than usual. Will you have your coffee, father?" But Dolly's voice choked with a sob. Mr. Copley looked at her in a helpless kind of way and made no answer. Dolly rang the bell. "How--a--how did you get here?" was the next question, put in evident embarrassment. "You wouldn't come to Brierley, father; so I had to come to London. I came with a friend." "St. Leger?" "St. Leger! No, indeed. Oh, I came with a very nice friend, who took good care of me. Now, here's your breakfast." Dolly was glad of the chance to get upon common everyday ground, till her breath should be free again. She helped arrange the dishes; dismissed the maid; poured out Mr. Copley's coffee and served him. "Better take some yourself, Dolly. Had your breakfast? Let Mrs. Bunce do you another chop." Dolly at first said no; but presently felt that she was faint and exhausted, and agreed to the suggestion. She rang for another cup and plate, and ordered the chop. Meanwhile Mr. Copley drank coffee and made a poor hand of the rest of his breakfast. "What did you come up for, Dolly?" "To see you, sir." "You might have waited for that." "But how long? I had waited." "What's up?--if your mother's well." "I wanted to talk to you, father, and I couldn't do it in letters; because there the talking was all on one side, and I wanted to hear what you would say." "Why, didn't I answer you?" "No, sir." "Well, what do you want, Dolly?" "I want a great deal, father. Wait, please, till I get my chop; for I cannot talk to you till I do." "'Ill talking between a full man and a fasting,' eh? Well, here's your breakfast." It was only the bespoken cup and plate, however, and Mr. Copley had to wait longer. It came at last, the chop; and till it came Dolly said no more. Her father watched her, and watched her, and could not take his eyes off her. The flush on her cheek and the sparkle in her eye, the moisture still lingering on her eyelashes, how sweet she was! and how indefinably lovely! Dolly had grown into a woman; she had the presence and poise that belong to a high-bred woman; and yet she had not lost her girlhood nor grown out of its artless graces; and as Mr. Copley looked he saw now and then a very childlike trembling of the under lip. It troubled his heart. He had been very uncomfortable ever since his meeting with his daughter; the discomfort began now to develope into the stings and throes of positive pain. What was she there for? whence had come that agony of tears? and why when those tears were pouring from her eyes did her soft arm clasp him so? did she want help from him? or for him? Mr. Copley grew extremely uneasy; restless and fidgeting. Dolly ate her chop and her potatoe, needing it, I fancy; and perhaps she wanted to gain time too. Mr. Copley had no appetite. He had none to begin with, and certainly Dolly's appearance had not given him what he had not before. "You don't make much of a breakfast, father," Dolly observed. "Never do," he returned. "No time to eat, when a man has just got up. A cup of coffee is the only thing. The French way is the best." "You did not use to be up so late, in the old days." "Don't think it's the best time either; but--you must do as the rest of the world do; swim with the--what is it?--swim with the current." "How if the current goes the wrong way?" "Can't help yourself; you must go along, if you are in it." Dolly was silent, finishing her luncheon. She ate fast and hurriedly. Then she pushed her chair away and came round and sat upon her father's knee; laying one arm round his neck and looking into his face. "Father," she said in her clear, musical voice, sweet as a bird's notes,--"father, suppose we get out of the current?" "What current do you mean? It makes a great confusion to try to have your meals at a different hour from the rest of the world." "I don't mean that, father." "What have you come up to town for?" "To see about it," said Dolly, with a smile that dimpled her cheeks most charmingly, and covered the anxiety she did not want to show. "To see about what? Dolly, you are grown a woman." "Yes, father." "And, I declare you're a beautiful woman, child. It's time we were thinking of getting you married." "You're not in a hurry, are you, father?" "In a hurry!" said Mr. Copley, gazing at her admiringly. "Why, yes. I want you to be married while you can choose your place in the world, and enjoy it when you have got it. And you can choose now, Dolly." "What, sir?" "Your husband." "But, father," cried Dolly, while her cheeks covered themselves with the most brilliant roses, "I cannot choose what is not presented to my choice!" "No, child; take what _is_. That's what I am thinking of. Good enough too. Don't you like the ticket you have drawn?" "Father," said Dolly, turning the tables now on her side, and laying her face in his neck, "I wish you would have nothing to do with lotteries or gaming!" "I have nothing to do with lotteries, child." "But with gaming?" "What put such a thing into your head?" Dolly hesitated, strained him a little closer in her embrace, and did not answer directly. "Father, I wish you would!" "What folly are you talking, Dolly?" said Mr. Copley angrily. "You are meddling with what you do not understand." But Dolly only clung closer, and having once broken the ice would not now give back. She must speak now. "Father," she said, half sobbing, yet commanding the sobs down, "we are getting ruined. We are losing each other. Mother and I live alone--we do not see you--we are poor--we have not money to pay our dues--mother is not getting better--and I am breaking my heart about her, and about you. O father, let us come and live together again." Dolly got no answer to this outburst, and hardly was conscious that she got none, she was so eagerly trying to swallow down the emotion which threatened to master her voice. Mr. Copley had no answer ready. "Father," Dolly began again, "mother wants to travel; she wants to go to Venice. Suppose we go?" "Can't travel without money, Dolly. You say we haven't any." "Would it cost more to travel than to live as we are living?" "You say we cannot do that." "Father, do _you_ say so?" "I am merely repeating your statements, Dolly, to show you how like a child you talk." "Answer me as if I were a child then, father, and tell me what we can do. But _don't_ let us go on living as we are doing!" "I thought I had done the very best thing possible for your mother, when I got her that place down at--I forget what's the name of the place." "Brierley." "I thought I had done the very best thing for her, when I settled her there. Now she is tired of it." "But father, we cannot pay our way; and it worries her." "She is always worrying about something or other. If it wasn't that, it would be something else. Any man may be straightened for cash now and then. It happens to everybody. It is nothing to make a fuss about." "But, father, if I cannot pay the servants, _they_ must be without cash too; and that is hard on poor people." "Not half so hard as on people above them," replied her father hastily. "They have ways and means; and they don't have a tenth or a hundredth as many wants, anyhow." "But those they have are wants of necessary things," urged Dolly. "Well, what do you want me to do?" said Mr. Copley, with as much of harshness in his manner as ever could come out towards Dolly. "I cannot coin money for you, well as I would like to do it." "Father, let us take what we have got, and go to Venice! all together. We'll travel ever so cheaply and live ever so plainly; only let us go! Only let us go!" "Think your mother'd like travelling second-class?" said Mr. Copley in the same way. "She wouldn't mind so very much; and I wouldn't mind it at all. If we could only go." "And what is to become of my business?" Dolly did not dare give the answer that rose to her tongue, nor let her father know how much she knew. She came up on another side of the subject, and insisted that the consulate might be dispensed with. Mr. Copley did not need the office and might well be tired of it by this time. Dolly pleaded, and her father heard her with a half embarrassed, half sullen face; feeling her affectionate entreaties more than was at all convenient, and conscious at the same time of a whole side of his life that he would be ashamed his daughter should know; and afraid of her guessing it. Alas, for father and child both, when such a state of things comes about! "Come, father!" said Dolly at last, touching her forehead to his forehead in a sweet kind of caress,--"I want you." "Suppose I find somebody else to go with you instead of me?" "Nobody else will do. Come, father! Do come." "You might set off with Lawrence," said Mr. Copley as if considering, "and I might join you afterwards; at Venice, perhaps, or Nice, or somewhere. Hey?" "That won't do. I would not go with Mr. Lawrence." "Why not?" "Too much of an honour for him." "You need not be afraid of showing him too much honour, for he is willing to give you the greatest man can give to a woman." Dolly coloured again, and again touched her forehead to her father's forehead and sat so, leaning against him. Maybe with an instinct of hiding her cheeks. "Father, let us go to Venice!" she began again, leaving Mr. St. Leger. "Just think what fun it would be, to go all together. We have been living so long without you. I believe it would just make mother up. Think of seeing Venice together, father!--and then maybe we would go on to Geneva and get a look at Mont Blanc." "Geneva is a place for lovers," said Mr. Copley. "Why?" "Romantic." "Can't anybody else be romantic, except that sort of people? I am romantic,--and I do not care a straw about anybody but mother and you." "Don't tell Mr. St. Leger that." "He might as well know it. Come, father! Say you'll go." It was hard to withstand her. The pure, gentle intonations rang upon Mr. Copley's soul almost like bells of doom, because he did withstand her. She was his saving good angel; he half knew it; he was ashamed before his child, and conscience knocked hard at the door of his heart; but the very shame he felt before her made her presence irksome to him, while yet it was, oh, so sweet! Alas, "he that doeth evil hateth the light." He was entangled in more than one sort of net, and he lacked moral power to break the meshes. The gentle fingers that were busy with the net, trying to unloose it, were a reproach and a torment to him. She _must_ marry St. Leger; so his thoughts ran; it was the best thing that could happen to her; it was the best he could do for her. Then she would be secure, at all events. "Dolly, why don't you like Lawrence?" he began. "He's too handsome, father,--for one thing." "I never heard of such a reason for a lady's dislike. That's play, Dolly." "And he knows it; there's another thing." "Well, of course he knows it. How can he help knowing it?" "And he's too rich." "Dolly, you are talking nonsense." "And he knows that." "He doesn't know he's _too_ rich," said Mr. Copley, with a little bitterness. "No St. Leger ever did that." "Well, father, that's what he is. Very handsome, and very rich. He is nothing else. He would suit some people admirably; but he don't suit me." "What sort of thing would suit you?" "A very perverse sort of a person, who is called Frank Collinshaw Copley." "Well, you've got me," said her father, laughing a little at her. He could not help it. "You want something else besides." "I don't, father, indeed." "And, my child, money is necessary in this world. You cannot get along without money." "Father, will you come to Venice? and we'll get along with very little money. Father, we _must_ go, for mother. The doctor says so, and she is just longing to go. We ought to go as soon as ever you can be ready." "You show how much you know about it, when you talk of Venice and a _little_ money! You had better take Mr. St. Leger." "Father, everybody says living is cheap in Switzerland." "You talked of Venice." "And Italy. The doctor says mother ought to stay some time at Nice, or Naples. Father, you can arrange it. Do! Give up the consulate, and let us take mother to Italy; and then home if you like. I don't much care, so that we have you." And again Dolly's forehead bent over to give a soft impact to her father's brown brow. "Who did you come to town with?" he said suddenly. She told him. "Well, now you had better go back with her, and I will see what I can do." "You will go, father?" "If I cannot immediately, I will send you and come on after." "I cannot go without you, father. Oh, come, come!" And Dolly rained kisses upon his face, and stroked his forehead and cheeks, and was so entirely delicious in her tenderness and her sweetness, her love and her anxiety, that the heart of ordinary man could not stand it. Anything else became more easy than to refuse her. So Mr. Copley said he would go; and received a new harvest of caresses in reward, not wholly characterised by the usual drought of harvest-time, for some drops of joy and thankfulness still came falling, a sunlit shower. "Now, my child," said her father, "you had better go back to your good housekeeper, and then back to your mother, and get all things ready for a start." "Father, I can stay here to-night, can't I?" Mr. Copley was not sure that he wanted her; yet he could not refuse to make inquiry. There was no difficulty; plenty of room; and Dolly joyously prepared herself to gather in the fruits of her victory, through that following care and those measures of security for want of which many a victory has been won in vain. Mrs. Jersey had long since been informed that she need not wait, and had driven away. Dolly now sent for her portmanteau, and established herself in her father's sitting room. Mr. Copley looked on, helplessly; half delighted, half bored. He would not have chosen to have Dolly there just then; yet being there she was one of the most lovely visions that a father's eye could rest upon. Grown to be a woman--yes, she was; ordering and arranging things with a woman's wisdom and skill; ordering _him_, Mr. Copley felt with a queer sensation; and yet, so simple and free and sweet in all her words and ways as might have become seven instead of seventeen. St. Leger might be glad if he could get her! Yet she was inconvenient to Mr. Copley. She stood in his way, like the angel in Balaam's; only not with a sword drawn, but with loving looks, and kisses, and graces, and wiles of affection; and who could withstand an angel? He gave up trying; he let her have her way; and when dinner time came, Dolly and he had an almost jovial dinner. Until Mr. Copley rose from table, unlocked a cupboard, and took out a bottle of wine. Dolly's heart gave a sudden leap that meant a throe of pain. Was there another fight to be fought? How should she fight another fight? But the emergency pressed her. "O father," she cried, "is that sherry?" "No, it is better," said her father--pouring out a glass,--"it is Madeira." Dolly saw the hand tremble that grasped the bottle, and she sprang up. She went round to her father, fell down on her knees before him, and laid one hand on the hand that had just seized the glass, the other on his shoulder. "Please, father, don't take it! please don't take it!" she said in imploring tones. Mr. Copley paused. "Not take it? Why not?" said he. "It is not good for you. I know you ought not to take it, father. Please, please, don't!" Dolly's eagerness and distress were too visible to be disregarded, by Mr. Copley at least. Her hand was trembling too. His still held the glass, but he looked uncertainly at Dolly, and asked her why it should not be good for him? Every gentleman in the land drank wine--that could afford it. "But, father," said Dolly, "can you afford it?" "Yes," said Mr. Copley. "Get up, Dolly. Here is the wine; it costs no more to drink it than to let it alone." And he swallowed the wine in the glass at a single draught. "O father, don't take any more!" cried Dolly, seeing a preparatory movement of the hand towards the bottle. "O father! don't, don't! One glass is enough. Don't take any more to-day!" "You talk like a goose, Dolly," said Mr. Copley, filling his glass. "I feel better already for that. It has done me good." "You only think so. It is not doing you good. O father! if you love me, put the bottle away. Don't take a drop more!" Dolly had turned pale in her agony of pleading; and her father, conscious in part, and ashamed with that secret consciousness, and taken by surprise at her action, looked at her and--did not drink. "What's the matter with you, child?" he said, trying for an unconcerned manner. "Why should not I take wine, like everybody else in the world?" "Father, it isn't good for people." "I beg your pardon; it is very good for me. Indeed, I cannot be well without it." "That's the very thing, father; people cannot do without it; and then it comes to be the master; and then--they cannot help themselves. Oh, do let it alone!" "What's the matter, Dolly?" Mr. Copley repeated with an air of injury, which was at the same time miserably marred by embarrassment. "Do you think I cannot help myself? or how am I different from every other gentleman who takes wine?" "Father, a great many of them are ruined by it." "Well, I am not ruined by it yet." "Father, how can you tell what might be? Father, I can't bear it!" Dolly could not indeed; she broke down. She sat on the floor and sobbed. If Mr. Copley could have been angry with her; but he could not, she was so sweet in every pleading look and tone. If he could have dismissed her pleading as the whimsy of a fool; but he could not, for he knew it was wise truth. If he had been further gone in the habit which was growing upon him, to the point of brutality; but he was not yet; he was a man of affectionate nature. So he did not get angry, and though he wished Dolly at Brierley instead of in his room, he could not let her break her heart, seeing that she was there. He looked at her in uncomfortable silence for a minute or two; and then the bitterness of Dolly's sobs was more than he could stand. He rose and put the bottle away, locked it up, and came back to his place. Dolly's distress hindered her knowing what he had done. "It's gone," Mr. Copley said in an injured tone, as of one oppressed and persecuted. "It is put away, Dolly; you need not sit there any longer." Dolly looked up, rose from the floor, came into her father's arms, laid her two arms about his neck and her weary head upon his shoulder. It was a soft little head, and the action was like a child. Mr. Copley clasped her tenderly. "Dolly," he said,--"my child--you are giving yourself a great deal more trouble than you need." Dolly murmured, "Thank you, father!" "You mustn't be superstitious." Alas! Dolly had seen his face already altered by the indulgence of his new habits. Involuntarily her arms pressed him closer, and she only by an effort prevented a new outbreak of bitter sorrow. That was not best just now. She put a force upon herself; after a while looked up, and kissed her father; kissed him again and again. "I declare!" said Mr. Copley, half delighted and half conscience-stricken, "you are a little witch, Dolly. Is this the way you are going to rule other folks beside me? Mr. St. Leger, for instance?" "Mercy, father! no," said Dolly, recoiling. "I don't believe he would be hard to manage. He's desperately in love with you, Dolly." "Father, I don't want to manage. And I don't think Lawrence is in any danger. It isn't in him to be desperate about anything." "So much the better, I think," said her father. "What if he should want to go with us to Venice?" "Don't let him! We do not want him." "He would be useful, I daresay. And I should have to take my secretary, Dolly." "Take that other fellow, the one I saw in your office to-day." "What, Babbage? He's a raw article, Dolly, very raw. I put him there to answer questions. The fellow was in a forlorn state here with nothing to do." They calmed down after a while; and the rest of the evening was largely spent in considering plans and details of their projected movements. It was agreed that Dolly should rejoin Mrs. Jersey the next day, to be ready to return to Brierley with her; that then all preparations should be made for a speedy start to the Continent. Father and daughter talked themselves into ordinary composure, and when they had bid each other good night, Dolly went to rest with a feeling of some hopefulness. CHAPTER XVII. RUPERT. Mrs. Jersey could not leave town the next day. Dolly had to wait. It was hard waiting. She half wished she had stayed that day also with her father; yet when she asked herself why?--she shuddered. To take care of him? to watch and keep guard over him? What use, for one day, when she could do it no longer? Mr. Copley must be left to himself; and a feeling of helplessness stole over her. From the momentary encouragement and hope, she fell back again to take a more comprehensive view of the subject; she saw that all was not gained yet, and it might be that nothing! And she could do no more, except pray. Poor Dolly did that; but the strain of fear, the horror of shame, the grief of hurt affection, began to make her very sore. She was not getting accustomed to her burden; it was growing more insupportably galling; the only hope for the whole family lay in getting together and remaining together, and in this journey taking Mr. Copley away from his haunts and his tempters. Yet Dolly reflected with trembling that the temptation, both temptations, would meet them on their way; if a man desired to drink or to play, he would never be at a loss for the opportunity or the companions. Dolly wrung her hands and prayed again. However, something was gained; and Dolly on her return reported to her mother that they were to set off for the Continent in a few days. She brought down money, moreover, to pay off the servants; and with a heart so far lightened, went bravely at the preparations to be made. "And will your father go with us to Venice?" "Of course, mother. We cannot go without him." "What if Venice shouldn't agree with me?" "Oh, then we'll go on further. I think Naples would agree with you. There is a very nice house at Sorrento--nice people--where Lady Brierley spent a summer; and Mrs. Jersey has given me the address. Perhaps we'll go there." "But if Lady Brierley was there, I guess it's an expensive place." "No, Mrs. Jersey says not. You must have what you want anyhow, mother dear." "I always used," said poor Mrs. Copley; "but of late I have been obliged to sing another tune." "Go back to the old tune, then, dear. If father hasn't got the money, I'll find some way of raising it myself. I mean you shall go to Sorrento. Mrs. Jersey says it's just charming there." "I wonder what she knows about it! A housekeeper! Queer person to tell you and me where to go." "Why, a finger-post can do that, mother. Mrs. Jersey knows a great deal besides, about a great many things." "Well!" Mrs. Copley said again with another sigh--"it is new times to me altogether. And I wish the old times would come back!" "Perhaps they will, mother. When once we get hold of father again, we must try to charm him into staying with us." And it seemed to Dolly that they might do so much. The spirit of seventeen is not easily kept down; and with the stir of actually getting ready for the journey, she felt her hope and courage moving also. A change at any rate was before her; and Dolly had a faint, far-off thought of possibly working upon her father to induce him at the close of their Italian journey to take ship for home. So she bustled about from morning till night; packed what was to go and what was to be left; grew very cheery over her work, and cheered and amused her mother. September was on its way now; it was time to be off; and Dolly wrote to her father to tell him she was ready. A few days later, Dolly was in the porch resting and eating a fine pear, which came out of a basket Mrs. Jersey had sent. It was afternoon, sunny and hazy, the air fragrant from the woods, the silence now and then emphasised by a shot somewhere in the distance. Dolly was happy and hopeful; the weather was most lovely, the pear was excellent; she was having a pleasant half hour of musing and anticipation. Somebody came on foot along the road, swung open the small lattice gate, and advanced up the path towards her. Who was it? Not Mr. St. Leger, which had been Dolly's first momentary fear. No, this was a different creature. A young man, but how unlike that other. St. Leger was trim-built, smooth, regular, comely; this young fellow was lank, long-limbed, none of his joints played symmetrically with the others; and the face, though shrewd enough and good-natured, had no remote pretensions to beauty. His dress had not been cut by the sort of tailor that worked for the St. Legers; his gait, instead of the firm, compact, confident movement which Dolly was accustomed to see, had a swinging stride, which indeed did not lack a kind of confidence; the kind that makes no doubt of getting over the ground, and cares little for obstacles. As Dolly looked, she thought she had seen him before. But it was very odd, nevertheless, the sort of well-pleased smile his face wore. He took off his hat when he got to the foot of the steps, and stood there looking up at Dolly in the porch. "You don't recollect me, I guess," said he. "No," said Dolly gravely. "I am Rupert Babbage. And _that_ don't make you much wiser, does it?" "No," said Dolly. "Not at all." "Likely. But Mr. Copley has sent me down." "Has he?" "I recollect you first-rate," the stranger went on, feeling in his coat pocket for something and producing therefrom a letter. "Don't you know the day you came to your father's office?" And mounting a step or two, without further preface he handed the letter to Dolly. Dolly saw her father's handwriting, her own name on the cover, and put a stop to the wonder which was creeping over her, by breaking the seal. While she read the letter the young man's eyes read her face. "DEAR DOLLY,-- "I can't get quit of this confounded Babel yet--and you must want somebody badly. So I send Rupert down. He'll do everything you want, better in fact than I could, for he is young and spry, and as good a boy as lives. He will see to everything, and you can get off as soon as you like. I think he had better go along all the way; his mother wit is worth a dozen stupid couriers, even though he don't know quite so much about routes and hotels; he will soon pick all that up. Will you want to stay more than a night in town? For that night my landlady can take you in; and if you let me know when you will be ready I will have your passage taken in the packet. "Hurried, as always, dear Dolly, with my love to your mother, "F. C. COPLEY, "CONSUL'S OFFICE LONDON, "_Sept_. 9, 182-." Poor Dolly read this note over and over, having thrown away the remainder of her sweet pear as belonging only to a time of easy pleasure-taking which was past. Was her father not coming to Brierley then? she must get off without him? Why? And "_your_ passage"! why not "our" passage? Dolly felt the ground giving way under her feet. No, her father could not be coming to Brierley, or he would not have sent this young fellow. And all things in the world were hovering in uncertainty; nothing sure even to hope. The eyes that watched her saw the face change, the fair, bright, young face; saw her colour pale, and the lovely lines of the lips droop for a moment to an expression of great sadness. The eyelids drooped too, and he was sure there was a glistening under them. "Did Mr. Copley say why he could not come?" she asked at length, lifting her head. "He did not. I am very sorry!" said Rupert involuntarily. "I guess he could not get his business fixed. And he said you were in a hurry." But not without him! thought Dolly. What was the whole movement for, if he were to be left out of it? What should she do? But she must not let the tears come. That would do nobody any good, not even herself. She brushed away the undue moisture, and raised her head. "Did Mr. Copley tell you who I am?" the young man asked. "I guess he didn't forget that." "No. Yes!" said Dolly, unable to help smiling at the question and the simple earnestness of the questioner's face. "He told me your name." "Left you to find out the rest?" said he. "Well, what can I do first? That's what for I'm come." "I don't think there is anything to do," said Dolly. "All ready?" "Yes. Pretty much. All except finishing." "Lots o' baggage?" "No, not so very much. We did not bring a great deal down here." "Then it'll go by the coach easy enough. How will it get to the coach?" "I don't know. We must have a waggon from the village, I suppose, or from some farmhouse." "When do you want to go? and I'll soon fix that." Dolly reflected and said, "The day after to-morrow." "All right." He was setting forth immediately, with a world of energy in his gait. Dolly called after him. "To-morrow will be time enough for the waggon, Mr. Babbage." "There'll be something else for to-morrow," he answered without pausing. "Tea'll be ready at six," said Dolly, raising her voice a little. "All right!" said he, and sped away. Dolly looked after him, so full of vexation that she did not know what to do. Not her father, and in his place this boy! This boy to go with them on the journey; to be one of the party; to be always on hand; for he could not be relegated to the place of a servant or a courier. And Dolly wanted her father, and was sure that the expense of a fourth person might have been spared. The worst fear of all she would not look at; it was possible that they were still to be three, and her father, the fourth, left out. However, for the present the matter in hand was action; she must tell her mother about this new arrival before she met him at supper. Dolly went in. "Your father not coming?" said Mrs. Copley when she had heard Dolly's report. "Then we have nothing to wait for, and we can get right off. I do want to see your father out of that miserable office once!" "Well, he promised me, mother," said Dolly, sighing. "Can we go to-morrow?" "No, mother; there are too many last things to do. Next day we will." "Why can't we go and leave this young man to finish up after us?" "He could not do it, mother; and we must let father know, besides." Rupert came back in due time and was presented to Mrs. Copley; but Mrs. Copley did not admire his looks, and the supper-table party was very silent. The silence became unbearable to the new-comer; and though he was not without a certain shyness in Dolly's presence, it became at last easier to speak than to go on eating and not speaking. "Plenty of shootin' round about here, I s'pose," he remarked. "I heard the guns going." "The preserves of Brierley are very full of game," Dolly answered; "and there are some friends of Lord Brierley staying at the house." "I engaged a waggon," Rupert went on. "It'll be here at one, sharp." "I ought to have sent a word to the post-office, for father, when you went to the village; but I did not think till it was too late." "I did that," said Rupert. "Sent a word to father?" "All right. Told him you'd be up on Wednesday." "Oh, thank you. That was very thoughtful." "You're from America," said Mrs. Copley. "Should think I was!" "Whereabouts? where from, I mean?" "About two miles from your place--Ortonville is the spot. My native." "What made you come over here?" "Well, I s'pose it would be as true as anything to say, Mr. Copley made me come." "What for?" "Well, I guess it was kindness. Most likely." "Kindness!" echoed Mrs. Copley. "Poor kindness, I call it, to take a man, or a boy, or any one else, away from his natural home. Haven't you found it so? Don't you wish you were back there again?" "Well," said Rupert with a little slowness, and a twinkle in his eye at the same time,--"I just don't; if I'm to tell the truth." "It is incomprehensible to me!" returned the lady. "Why, what do you find here, that you would not have had at home?" "England, for one thing," said the young man with a smile. "England! Of course you would not have had England at home; but isn't America better?" "I think it is." "Then what do you gain by exchanging one for the other?" said Mrs. Copley with heat. "That exchange ain't made yet. I calculate to go back, when I have got all I want on this side." "And what do you want? Money, I suppose. Everything is for money, with everybody. Country, and family, and the ease of life, and the pleasure of being together--nothing matters, if only one may get money! I don't know but savages have the best of it. At least they don't live for money." Mrs. Copley forgot at the moment that she was wishing her daughter to marry for money. "I counsel you, young man," she began again. "Money won't buy everything." He laughed good-humouredly. "Can't buy much without it," he said, with that shrewd twinkle in his eye. "And what can Mr. Copley do for you, I should like to know?" she went on impatiently. "He's put me in a likely way," said Rupert. "I am very much beholden to Mr. Copley. But the best thing he has done for me is this--by a long jump." "_This?_ What?" "Letting me go along this journey. I do _not_ think money is the very best of all things," the young man said with some spirit. "Letting you---- Do you mean that you are going to Venice in our party?" "If it is Venice you are going to." Silence fell. Mrs. Copley pondered the news in some consternation. To Dolly it was not news, and she did not mean it should be fact, if she could help it. "Perhaps you have business in Venice?" Mrs. Copley at length ventured. "I hope it'll turn out so," said Rupert. "Mr. Copley said I might have the pleasure of taking care of you. I should enjoy that, I guess, more than making money." "Good gracious!" was all the speech Mrs. Copley was capable of. She sat and looked at the young man. So, furtively, did Dolly. He was enjoying his supper; yes, and the prospect too; for a slight flush had risen to his face. It was not a symmetrical face, but honesty was written in every line of it. "You've got your plans fixed?" Rupert next inquired. "Know just which way you are going? Be sure you are right, and then go ahead, you know." "We take the boat to Rotterdam," said Dolly. "Which way, then? Mr. Copley told me so much." "I don't know," said Mrs. Copley. "If I could once get hold of Mr. Copley we could soon settle it." "What points do you want to make?" "Points? I don't want to make any points. I don't know what you mean." "I mean, where do you want to go in special, between here and Venice? or are there no places you care about?" "Places? Oh!--Well, yes, there are. I should like to see the place where the battle of Waterloo was fought." "Mother, that would be out of our way," said Dolly. "Which is our way?" said Mrs. Copley. "I thought we had not fixed it." "You don't go up the Rhine, then?" said Rupert. "I'm going nowhere by boat except where I can't help myself. I like to feel land under me. No, we are not going up the Rhine. I can see mountains enough in America, and rivers enough too." Rupert had finished his supper, and took up an atlas he saw lying near. "Rotterdam," he said, opening at the map of Central Europe,--"that is our one fixed point, that and Venice. Now, how to get from the one to the other." Mrs. Copley changed her seat to come nearer the map; and an animated discussion followed, which kept her interested and happy the whole of the evening. Dolly saw it and was thankful. It was more satisfactory than the former consultation with St. Leger, who treated the subject from quite too high and lordly a point of view; referring to the best hotels and assuming the easiest ways of doing things; flinging money about him, in imagination, as Mrs. Copley said, as if it were coming out of a purse with no bottom to it; which to be sure might be very true so far as he was concerned, but much discomposed the poor woman who knew that on her part such pleasant freehandedness was not to be thought of. Rupert Babbage evidently did not think of it. He considered economy. Besides, he was not so distractingly _au fait_ in everything; Mrs. Copley could bear a part in the conversation. So she and Rupert meandered over the map, talked endlessly, took a vast deal of pleasure in the exercise, and grew quite accustomed to each other; while Dolly sat by, glad and yet chafing. Rupert certainly was a comfort, for the hour; but she wished he had never been thought of, nevertheless. But he was a comfort next day again. Cheery and busy and efficient, he managed people, sent the luggage off, helped and waited upon Mrs. Copley, and kept her quiet with his talk, up to the time when the third day they took their places in the coach. "Really, Mr. Babbage, you are a very handy young man!" Mrs. Copley once had uttered her admiration; and Rupert laughed. "I shouldn't think much of myself," he said, "if I couldn't do as much as that. You see, I consider that I'm promoted." Dolly made the journey up to town in a state between relief and disgust. Rupert did take a world of trouble off her hands; but she said to herself that she did not want it taken off. And she certainly did not want this long-legged fellow attending upon them everywhere. It was better to have him than St. Leger; that was all you could say. The days in London were few and busy. Mr. Copley during this interval was very affectionate, very kind and attentive; in fact, so attentive to supplying or providing against every possible want that he found little time to be with his family. He and Rupert were perpetually flying out and in, ordering this and searching for that; a sort of joyous bustle seemed to be the order of the day; for he carried it on gleefully. "Why, Mr. Copley," his wife said, when he brought her an elegant little leather case for holding the tinctures and medicines in which she indulged, "I thought we must economise so hard? I thought you had no money now-a-days? How is this, and what does it mean? this case must have cost a pound." "You are worth more than a pound, my dear," Mr. Copley said with a sort of semi-earnestness. "But I thought you were so poor all of a sudden?" "We are going to turn a new leaf, and live frugally; so you see, on the strength of that, we can afford to be extravagant now and then." "That seems to me a very doubtful way, Mr. Copley," said his wife, shaking her head. "Don't be doubtful, my dear. Whatever else you do, go straight to your mark, and don't be doubtful. Humming and hawing never get on with anything. Care killed a cat, my dear." "It has almost killed me," said poor Mrs. Copley. "Are we out of need of care, Frank?" "_You_ are. I'll take all the care for the family. My dear, we are going in for play, and Venice." Dolly heard this, and felt a good deal cheered. What was her consternation, then, when the day of sailing came, and at the last minute, on board the packet, her father declared he must wait; he could not leave London yet for a week or two, but he could not let _them_ be delayed; he would let St. Leger go to look after them, and he would catch them up before they got to Venice. All this was said in a breath, in a rush and hurry, at the moment of taking leave; the luggage was on board, Rupert was looking after it, Mr. St. Leger's elegant figure was just stepping across the gangway; and Mr. Copley kissed and shook hands and was off, with a word to Lawrence as he passed, before Mrs. Copley or Dolly could throw in more than an exclamation of dismay to stop him. Stop him! one might as well stop a gust of wind. Dolly saw he had planned it all; reckoned the minutes, got them off on purpose without himself, and _with_ Mr. St. Leger. And here was Mr. St. Leger to be spoken to; coming up with his assured step and his handsome, indolent blue eyes, to address her mother. St. Leger was a nice fellow; he was neither a fool nor a coxcomb; but the sight of him was very disagreeable to Dolly just then. She turned away, as full of vexation as she could hold, and went to Rupert's side, who was looking after the luggage. "Do you want to see your berth right away?" he asked her. "My berth?" said Dolly. "Well, yes; your cabin--state-room--whatever you call it--where you are to sleep. You know which it is; do you know where it is? I always like to get such things straightened out, first thing. Would you like to see it?" "Oh yes, please," said Dolly; and grasping one of the hand-bags she turned away gladly from the deck. Anything for a little respite and solitude, from Mr. St. Leger. Rupert found the place, stowed bags and wraps and rugs conveniently away, and made Dolly as much at home as she could be at five minutes' notice. "How long will the passage take?" she asked. "Well, if I knew what the weather would be, I would tell you. Shall you be sick?" "I don't know," said Dolly. "I believe I wish I may. Mr. Babbage, are you a Christian?" "Well, I ain't a heathen, anyhow," said he, laughing a little. "No, but that isn't what I mean. Of course you are not a heathen. But I mean--do you serve the Lord Jesus, and do you love Him?" Dolly had it not in mind to make a confidant of her new squire; but in the terrible confusion and trouble of her spirits she grasped at any possible help or stay. The excitement of the minute lifted her quite out of ordinary considerations; if Rupert was a Christian, he might be a stand-by to her, and anyhow would understand her. So she asked. But he looked at her and shook his head. The thought crossed him that he was _her_ servant, and her service was all that he was distinctly pledged to in his own mind. He shook his head. "Then what do you do when you are in trouble?" she asked. "Never been there," said Rupert. "Always find some way out, when I get into a fix. Why, are you in trouble?" he asked sympathetically. "Oh," cried Dolly, "I am in trouble to death, because father hasn't come with us!" She could bear it no longer; even seventeen years old gives out sometimes; she burst into tears and sat down on a box and sobbed. All her hopes dashed to pieces; all her prospects dark and confused; nothing but disappointment and perplexity before her. What should she do with her mother, she alone? What should she do with Mr. St. Leger? a still more vexatious question. And what would become of her father, left to himself, and at what possible time in the future might she hope that he would break away from his ties and temptations and come to rejoin his family? Dolly sobbed in sorrow and bitterness of heart. Rupert Babbage stood and looked on wofully; and then delicately went out and closed the door. Dolly's tears did her good. I think it was a help to her too, to know that she had so efficient and faithful a servant in the despised Rupert Babbage. At any rate, after a half hour or so, she made her appearance on deck and met Mr. St. Leger with a calm apparent unconcern, which showed her again equal to the occasion. Circumstances were making a woman of Dolly fast. Mr. St. Leger's talk had in the meantime quieted Mrs. Copley. He assured her that her husband would soon come after and catch up with them. Now he turned his attention to Dolly and Rupert. "Who is that fellow?" he asked Dolly, when Rupert had left them for a minute. "He is a young man in my father's office. Did you never see him there?" "But what is he doing _here?_ We do not want him, it strikes me." "He is very useful, and able." "Well--aw--but cannot he keep his good qualities to their proper sphere? He is not an addition of much value to our society." "Take care, Mr. St. Leger! He is an American; he cannot be set down with the servants." "Why not, if his education and habits make that his place?" "Oh, but they do not." "It seems to me they do, if you will pardon me. This fellow has never been in any gentleman's society, except your father's." "He will be a gentleman himself, in all essentials, one day, Mr. St. Leger. There is the difference. The capability is in him, and the ambition, and the independent and generous feeling. The foundations are all there." "I'll confess the house when I see it." "Ay, but you must in the meantime do nothing to hinder its building." "Why must not I?" said Lawrence, laughing. "It is not my part to lay hold on a trowel and be a social mason. Still less is it yours." "Oh, there you are wrong. I think it is everybody's part." "Do you? But fancy, what a dreadful thing life would be in that way. Perpetual rubbish and confusion. And pardon me--can you pardon me?--that is my idea of America." "I do not think it is a just one," said Dolly, as Rupert now drew near again. "Is there not perpetual building going on there, of this kind as well as of the more usual?" "Perhaps. I was very young when I left home. But what then?" "Nothing. I have a preference for order and quiet, and things in their places." "At that rate, you know," said Dolly, "nothing would ever have been built anywhere. I grant you, the order and quiet are pleasant when your own house is all that you desire. But don't you want to see your neighbour's house come up?" "No," said Lawrence, laughing. "I have a better prospect from my windows if he remains as he is." CHAPTER XVIII. A SQUARE PARTY. The passage was stormy and long. Mrs. Copley and her daughter were both soon fully occupied with attending to their own sensations; and neither Rupert nor Lawrence had any more power to annoy them till they reached quiet water again. But even in the depths of sea misery, Dolly's deeper distress broke forth. "My father! my father! What shall I do to save my father!" she was crying in her heart; all the while with a sense that every hour was bringing her further from him and from the chance of saving him. Still, Dolly was seventeen; and at seventeen one cannot be always cast down; and when rough water and troubled skies, and ship noises and smells, were all left behind, as it seemed, in the German ocean, and Dolly found herself one morning in the hotel at Rotterdam, eating a very good breakfast, her spirits sprang up in spite of herself. The retiring wave of bodily misery carried with it for the moment all other. The sun was shining again; and after breakfast they stood together at one of the windows looking out upon the new world they had come to. Their hotel faced the quay: they saw before them an extent of water glittering in the sunshine, steamers waiting for their time of sailing, small craft flying about in all directions, and activity, bustle, and business filling every nook and corner of the scene. Dolly's heart leaped up; the stir was very inspiriting; and how lovely the sunshine was, and how pleasant the novelty! And then, to think that she had but touched the shore of novelty; that all Central Europe was behind her as she stood looking out on the quay!--Her father would surely catch them up somewhere, and then all would go well. She was silent, in the full joy of seeing. "What's the next move?" said Lawrence. He did not care for Rotterdam quay. He had been looking at Dolly, charmed with the delicate, fresh picture she made. The line of frank pleasure on her lips, it was as frank as a child's, and the eyes were as absorbed; and yet they were grave, womanly eyes, he knew, not easy to cheat, with all their simplicity. The mingling of qualities was delicious, and not to be found elsewhere in all his sphere of experience. Even her little hands were full of character, with a certain precision of action and calm of repose which gave to all their movements a certain thorough-bred grace, which Lawrence could recognise though he could not analyse. Then the little head with its masses of wavy hair was so lovely, and the slim figure so full of that same certainty of action and grace of rest which he admired; there was nothing undecided about Dolly, and yet there was nothing done by rule. That again was a combination he did not know elsewhere. Her dress--he considered that too. It was the simplest of travelling dresses, with nothing to mark it, or draw attention, or make it unfit for its special use--in perfectly good taste. How did she know? thought Lawrence; for he knew as well as I do that she had not learned it of her mother. There was nothing marked about Mrs. Copley's appearance; nevertheless she lacked that harmony of simple good taste which was all over Dolly. Lawrence looked, until he saw that Rupert was looking too; and then he thought it was time to break up the exercise. "What is the next move?" he said. "We have not settled that," said Dolly. "We could think of nothing on board ship. Mother, dear, now we are here, which way shall we go?" "I don't know anything about ways," said Mrs. Copley. "Not here in this strange country." "Then put it another way," said Lawrence. "Where do you want to go?" "Why, to Venice," said Mrs. Copley, looking at him. "Of course; but you want to see something by the way?" "I left all that to Mr. Copley," said she, half whimpering. "When do you think he will come, Mr. St. Leger? I depended on my husband." "He will come soon," said Lawrence. "But I would not recommend staying in Rotterdam to wait for him. What do you say to our asking him to meet us in Wiesbaden? To be sure, the season is over." "Wiesbaden?" said Mrs. Copley. "Wiesbaden?" cried Dolly. "Oh no, Mr. St. Leger! Not there, nor in any such place!" "The season is over, Miss Dolly." "I don't want to go to Wiesbaden. Mother, you wanted to see something--what was it?" "Waterloo"---- Mrs. Copley began. "That would take us out of the way of everything--down into Belgium--and you would not see anything when you got there, Mrs. Copley. Only some fields; there is nothing left of the battle." "But if I saw the fields, I could imagine the battle," said Mrs. Copley. "Could you? Let us imagine something pleasanter. You don't want to go up the Rhine?" "I don't want to go anywhere in a boat, Mr. St. Leger. I am going to keep on land, now I've got there. But I was thinking.--Somebody told me of some wonderful painted glass, somewhere near Rotterdam, and told me not to miss seeing it. Where is it?" "I know," said Dolly; "the place was Gonda; in the cathedral. But where is Gonda?" "Nine miles off," said Rupert. "Then that's where I want to go," said Mrs. Copley. "I have heard all my life of painted glass; now I should like to see what it amounts to." "Perhaps that would take us out of our way too, mother." "I thought we just said we had no way settled," said Mrs. Copley in an irritated tone. "What's the use of being here, if we can't see anything now we are here? Nine miles isn't much, anyhow." "We will go there, dear," said Dolly. "We can go so far and come back to this place, if necessary." "And there is another thing I want to see, now we are here," Mrs. Copley went on. "I want to go to Dresden." "Dresden!" cried St. Leger. "What's at Dresden?" "A great many things, I suppose; but what I want to see is the Green vaults and the picture gallery." "Mrs. Copley," said Lawrence quietly, "there are galleries of pictures everywhere. We shall find them at every step--more than you will want to look at, by a hundred fold." "But we shall not find Green vaults, shall we? And you will not tell me that the Dresden madonna is anywhere but at Dresden?" "I did not know you cared so much about pictures, mother," Dolly ventured. "I don't!" said Mrs. Copley,--"not about the pictures; but I don't like to be here and not see what there is to see. I like to say I have seen it. It would be absurd to be here and not see things. Your father told me to go just where I wanted to; and if I don't go to Waterloo, I want to see Dresden." "And from there?" said Lawrence. "I don't know. I suppose we can find our way from there to Venice somehow." "But do you not include Cologne Cathedral in the things you wish to see?" "Cologne? I don't know about cathedrals. We are going to see one now, aren't we? Isn't one as good as another?" "To pray in, I have no doubt," said Lawrence; "but hardly to look at." "Well, you don't think churches ought to be built to look at, do you? I think that is wicked. Churches are meant for something." "You would not object to looking at them when they _are_ built? would you? Here we are now, going to see Gonda Cathedral." "No, I am not," said Mrs. Copley. "I am going to see the glass windows. We shall not see them to-day if we stand here talking." Lawrence ordered a carriage, and the party set out. He wished devoutly that it had numbered five instead of four, so that Rupert could have been sent outside. But the carnage held them all comfortably. Dolly was a little uneasy at the travelling problem before her; however, no uneasiness could stand long against the charm of that morning's drive. The blessed familiar sun shone on a world so very different from all the world she had ever known before. On every hand were flower gardens; on both sides of the way; and in the midst of the flower gardens stood pleasant-looking country houses; while the road was bordered with narrow canals, over which drawbridges of extravagant size led to the houses. It was a rich and quaint and pretty landscape under the September sun; and Dolly felt all concern and annoyance melting away from her. She saw that her mother too was amused and delighted. Surely things would come out right by and by. The town interested three of the party in a high degree. "Well!" said Mrs. Copley, "haven't they learned here _yet_ to turn the front of their houses to the street?" "Perhaps they never will," said Lawrence. "Why should they?" "Because things ought to be right, if it is only the fronts of houses," said the lady. "I wouldn't mind which _way_ they looked, if they would only hold up straight," said Rupert. "What ails the town?" "Bad soil, most likely," returned Lawrence. "The foundations of Holland are moral, not physical." "What do you mean by that?" said Mrs. Copley. "I am sure they have plenty of money. Is this the cathedral we are coming to?" "St. Jans Kirk ." "Well, if that's all!--It isn't handsome a bit!" "It's real homely, that's a fact," said Rupert. "You came to see the glass windows," said Lawrence. "Let us go in, and then pass judgment." They went in, and then a low exclamation from Rupert was all that was heard. The ladies were absolutely mute before the blaze of beauty that met them. "Well!" said Rupert after a pause of deep silence--"now I know what folks mean when they say something 'beats the Dutch.' That beats all _I_ ever saw!--hollow." "But how delicious!" exclaimed Dolly. "The work is so delicate. And oh, the colours! Mother, do you see that purple? Who is the person represented there, Mr. St. Leger?" "That is Philip the Second. And it is not likely, I may remark, that any Dutchman painted it. That broken window was given to the church by Philip." "Who did paint it, then?" "I cannot say, really." "What a pity it is broken!" "But the others are mostly in very good keeping. Come on--here is the Duke of Alva." "If I were a Dutch woman, I would break that," said Dolly. "No, you wouldn't. Consider--he serves as an adornment of the city here. Breaking his effigy would not be breaking _him_, Miss Dolly." "It must be a very strange thing to live in an old country," said Dolly. "I mean, if you belong to it. Just look at these windows!--How old is the work itself, Mr. St. Leger?" "I am not wise in such things;--I should say it must date from the best period of the art. I believe it is said so." "And when was that?" "Really, I don't know; a good while ago, Miss Dolly." "Philip II. came to reign about the middle of the sixteenth century," Rupert remarked. "Exactly," St. Leger said, looking annoyed. "Well, sir," Rupert went on, "I would like to ask you one thing--can't they paint as good a glass window now as they could then?" "They may paint a better glass window, for aught I know," said Lawrence; "but the painting will not be so good." "That's curious," said Rupert. "I thought things went for'ard, and not back, in the world. Why shouldn't they paint as well now as ever?" Nobody spoke. "Why should they not, Mr. St. Leger?" Dolly repeated. "I don't know, I'm sure. Mrs. Copley, I'm afraid you are fatiguing yourself." Mrs. Copley yielded to this gentle suggestion; and long, long before Dolly was ready to go, the party left the church to repair to a hotel, and have some refreshment. They were all in high spirits by this time. "Is it settled where we are to go next?" Mr. St. Leger inquired as they sat at table. "I don't care where _next_," said Mrs. Copley; "but only I want to come out at Dresden." "But Dresden, mother"--said Dolly gently, "it is not in our way to Venice." She interpreted the expression she saw in Lawrence's face. "Dolly, the Green vaults are in Dresden. I am not going to be so near and not see them. Wasn't I right about the painted windows? I never saw anything so beautiful in my life, nor you didn't. I wouldn't have missed it for anything. Now you'll see if I ain't right about the Green vaults." "What do you expect to find in them?" Lawrence asked. "I do not remember anything about such a mysterious place." "I have heard about it in London," Mrs. Copley answered. "Somebody who had been there told me about it, and I made up my mind I'd see it if ever I got a chance. It is like having Aladdin's lamp and going down into _his_ vault--only you can't take away what you've a mind to; that's the only difference." "But what is there? Aladdin's grotto was full of precious stones, if I remember." "And so are these," cried Mrs. Copley. "There is an egg with a hen in it." At this there was a general laugh. "It's a fact," said Mrs. Copley. "And in the hen, or under it--_in_ the hen, I believe--there is a crown of gold and diamonds and pearls, with a motto. Oh, it's wonderful. It's better than the Arabian Nights, if it's true." "Except that we cannot take the egg away with us," said Lawrence. "However--pray, do they let in the indiscriminate public to see these wonders?" "I don't know. I suppose there are ways to get in, or nobody would have been in." "No doubt; the problem is, to find the way. Influence may be necessary, possibly." "I daresay Mr. Copley can manage it. Do write and ask him what we must do, Dolly; and ask him to send us letters, or leave, or whatever we must have. Write to-day, will you? and ask him to send it right away. Of course there are ways to do things." "May I make a suggestion?" said Lawrence. "If we are to go on to Dresden, why should we return to Rotterdam? We might send back to the hotel for our luggage, and meanwhile you can rest here. And then we can go on to Utrecht early to-morrow; or this evening, if you like. It would save time." This plan met approval. Rupert volunteered to go back and bring Mrs. Copley's belongings safely to Gonda. "And while you are about it, bring mine too, my good fellow, will you?" said St. Leger as Rupert was about to go. He spoke somewhat superciliously. But the other answered with cool good humour, "All right. I'll do that, on the understanding that you'll do as much for me next time." And he went. "Confound him!" said Lawrence; while Dolly smiled. "Hush!" she said. "I am sure that is a fair bargain." "Where did Mr. Copley pick up such a green hand?" "Did you never see him at the office?" "What office?" "The Consul's office, in London. You have been there enough." "Oh, ah--the Consul's office," said Lawrence. "True, if he was there I must have seen him. But what do we want of him here?" "He is useful to you just now," said Dolly. But afterwards she took up the question again and, what Lawrence did not dream of, included his name in it. Why was either of these young men there? This time of waiting at the hotel gave Dolly a chance to think; and while she sat at the window and watched the strange figures and novel sights in the street, her mind began to go over more questions than one. She felt in a sort lost without her father. Here were she and her mother taking a journey through Europe in the care of these two young men. What were they there for? Rupert certainly for her pleasure and service, she knew; Lawrence, she was equally sure, for his own. How should she manage them? for Lawrence must not be encouraged, while at the same time he could not be sent away. At least, not yet. Careful, and cool, and womanly, she must be; and that was not so very difficult, for poor Dolly felt as if glad childish days were past for her. Another question was, how she should get the most good of her journey, and how she could help Rupert, who, she could see, was on the watch to improve himself. Dolly had a sympathy for him. She resolved that she would study up every subject that presented itself, and set Rupert upon doing the same. St. Leger might take care of himself. Yet Dolly's conscience would not let him go so. No; one can be nobody's travelling companion for days or weeks, without having duties to fulfil towards him; but Dolly thought the duties were very difficult in this her particular case. If her father would but come! And therewith Dolly sat down and wrote him the tenderest, lovingest of letters, telling him about their journey, and the glass windows; and begging him to meet them in Dresden or before, so that they might see the fabulous Green vaults together. In any case, she begged him to make such provision that Mrs. Copley might not be disappointed of seeing them. All Dolly's eloquence and some tears were poured out upon that sheet of paper; and as she sealed it up she felt again that she was surely growing to be a woman; the days of her childhood were gone. Not so far off, however, but that Dolly's spirits sprang up again after the letter was despatched, and were able to take exquisite pleasure in everything the further journey offered. Even the unattractive was novel, and what was not unattractive was so charming. She admired the quaint, clean, bright, fanciful Dutch towns; the abundance of flowers still to be seen abroad; the smiling country places surrounding the towns; the strange carvings and devices on the houses; the crooked streets. "You are the first person I ever saw," Lawrence said admiringly, "who found beauty in crooked streets." "Do you like straight ones?" said Dolly. "Certainly. Why not?" "You look from end to end; you see all there is at once; walk and walk as you may, there is no change, but the same wearisome lines of houses. Now when streets are not straight, but have windings and turnings, you are always coming to something new." "I suppose you like them to be up hill and down too?" "Oh, very much!" "You do not find that in Holland." "No, but in Boston." "Ah, indeed!" said Lawrence. "I wonder," Dolly went on, "what makes one nation so different from another. _You_ are on an island; but here there is only a line between Holland and Germany, and the people are not alike." "Comes from what they eat," said Lawrence. "Their _food?_" said Dolly. "Yes. The Scotchman lives upon porridge, the Englishman on beef and porter, the German on sausages and beer." "The French?" "Oh, on soup and salad and sour wine." "And Italians?" "On grapes and olives." "That will do to talk about," said Dolly; "but it does not touch the question." "Not touch the question! I beg your pardon--but it does touch it most essentially. Do you think it makes no difference to a man what sort of a dinner he eats?" "A great difference _to_ some men; but does it make much difference in him?" "Yes," said Rupert; and "Yes!" said Lawrence, with a unanimity which made Dolly smile. "I can tell you," the latter went on, "a man is one thing or another for the day, according to whether he has had a good breakfast or a bad one." "I understand. That's temper." "It is not temper at all. It is physical condition." "It's feeling put to rights, _I_ think," said Rupert. "I suppose all these people are suited, in their several ways," said Dolly. "Will mother like Venice, Mr. St. Leger, when we get there? What is it like?" "Like a city afloat. _You_ will like it, for the strangeness and the beautiful things you will find there. I can't say about Mrs. Copley, I'm sure." "What do they drink there?" said Rupert. "Water?" "Well, not exactly. You can judge for yourself, my good fellow." "But that is Italy," said Dolly. "I suppose there is no beer or porter?" "Well, you can find it, of course, if you want it; there are people enough coming and going that _do_ want it; but in Venice you can have pure wine, and at a reasonable price, too." "At hotels, of course," said Dolly faintly. "Of course, at some of them. But I was not thinking of hotels." "Of what, then?" "Wine-shops.'' "Wine-shops! Not for people who only want a glass, or two glasses?" "Just for them. A glass or two, or half a dozen." "Restaurants, you mean?" "No, I do not mean restaurants. They are just wine-shops; sell nothing but wine. Odd little places. There's no show; there's no set out; there are just the casks from which the wine is drawn, and the glasses-mugs, I should say; queer things; pints and quarts, and so on. Nothing else is there, but the customers and the people who serve you." "And people go into such places to drink wine? merely to drink, without eating anything?" "They can eat, if they like. There are street venders, that watch the custom and come in immediately after any one enters; they bring fruit and confections and trifles." "You do not mean that _gentlemen_ go to these places, Mr. St. Leger?" "Certainly. The wine is pure, and sold at a reasonable rate. Gentlemen go, of course--if they know where to go." Dolly's heart sank. In Venice this!--where she had hoped to have her father with her safe. She had known there was wine enough to be had in hotels; but that, she knew too, costs money, if people will have it good; and Mr. Copley liked no other. But cheap wine-shops, "if you know where to go,"--therefore retired and comparatively private places,--were _those_ to be found in Venice, the goal of her hopes? Dolly's cheeks grew perceptibly pale. "What is the matter, Miss Dolly?" Lawrence asked, watching her. But Dolly could not answer; and she thought he knew, besides. "There is no harm in pure wine," he went on. Dolly flashed a look at him upon that, a most involuntary, innocent look; yet one which he would have worked half a day for if it could have been obtained so. It was eloquent, it was brilliant, it was tender; it carried a fiery appeal against the truth of his words, and at the same time a most moving deprecation of his acting in consonance with them. She dared not speak plainer, and she could not have spoken plainer, if she had talked for an hour. Lawrence would have urged further his view of the subject, but that look stopped him. Indeed, the beauty of it put for the moment the occasion of it out of his head. Thanks to Rupert's efficient agency, they were able to spend that night at Utrecht, and the next day went on. It seemed to Dolly that every hour was separating her further from her father; which to be sure literally was true; nevertheless she had to give herself up to the witchery of that drive. The varied beauty, and the constant novelty on every hand, were a perpetual entertainment. Mrs. Copley even forgot herself and her grievances in looking out of the carriage windows; indeed, the only trouble she gave was in her frequent changing places with Dolly to secure now this and now that view. "We haven't got such roads in Massachusetts," remarked Rupert. "This is what I call first-rate going." "Have you got such anything else there?" Lawrence inquired smoothly. "Not such land, I'm bound to say." "No," said Dolly, "this is not in the least like Massachusetts, in anything. O mother, look at those cattle! why there must be thousands of them; how beautiful! You would not find such an immense level green plain in Massachusetts, Mr. St. Leger. I never saw such a one anywhere." Mrs. Copley took that side of the carriage. "It wouldn't be used for a pasture ground, if we had it there," said Rupert. "Perhaps it would. I fancy it is too wet for grain," St. Leger answered. "Now here is a lake again," said Dolly. "How large, and how pretty! Miles and miles, it must be. How pretty those little islands are, Mr. Babbage!" Mrs. Copley exchanged again, and immediately burst out-- "Dolly, Dolly, did you see that woman's earrings? I declare they were a foot long." "I beg your pardon--half a foot, Mrs. Copley." "What do you suppose they are made of?" "True gold or silver." "Mercy! that's the oddest thing I've seen yet. I suppose Holland is a very rich country." "And here come country houses and gardens again," said Dolly. "There's a garden filled with marble statues, mother." Mrs. Copley shifted her seat to the other side to look at the statues, and directly after went back to see some curiously trimmed yews in another garden. So it went on; Dolly and her mother getting a good deal of exercise by the way. Mrs. Copley was ready for her dinner, and enjoyed it; and Dolly perceiving this enjoyed hers too. Then they were delighted with Arnheim. They drove into the town towards evening; and the quaint, picturesque look of the place, lying bright in the sunshine of a warm September day, took the hearts of both ladies. The odd gables, the endless variety of building, the balconies hung with climbing vines; and above all, the little gardens, gay with fall flowers and furnished with arbours or some sort of shelter, under some of which people were taking tea, while in others the wooden tables and chairs stood ready though empty, testifying to a good deal of habitual out-of-door life; they stirred Dolly's fancy and Mrs. Copley's curiosity. Both of them were glad to spend the night in such a pretty place. After they had had supper comfortably, Dolly left her mother talking to St. Leger and slipped out quietly to take a walk, having privately summoned Rupert to attend her. The walk was full of enjoyment. It lasted a good while; till Dolly began to grow a little tired, and the evening light was dying away; then the steps slackened which had been very brisk at setting out, and Dolly began to let her thoughts go beyond what was immediately before her. She was very much inclined to be glad now of Rupert's presence in the party. She perceived that he was already devoted to her service; not with Mr. St. Leger's pretensions, but with something more like the adoration a heathen devotee pays to his goddess. Rupert already watched her eyes and followed her wishes, sometimes before they were spoken. It was plain that she might rely upon him for all to which his powers would reach; and a strong element of good-will began to mix with her confidence in him. What could she do, to help make this journey a benefit to the boy? He had known little of good or gentle influences in his life; yet he was gentle himself and much inclined to be good, she thought. And he might be very important to her yet, before she got home. "I don't know the first thing about this country," he broke the silence. "It was always a little spot in the corner of the map that I thought was no sort of count. Why, it's a grand place!" "You ought to read about it in history." "I never read much history, that's a fact," Rupert answered. "Never had much to read," he added with a laugh. "Fact is, my life up to now has been pretty much of a scrimmage for the needful." "Knowledge is needful," said Dolly. "That's a fact; but a fellow must live first, you see. And that warn't always easy once." "And what are your plans or prospects? What do you mean to be--or do? what do you mean to make of yourself?" Rupert half laughed. "I haven't any prospects--to speak of. In fact, I don't see ahead any further than Venice. As to what I am to be, or do,--I expect that will be settled without any choice of mine. I've got along, so far, somehow; I guess I'll get along yet." "Are you a Christian?" Dolly asked, following a sudden impulse. "I guess I ain't what you mean by that." "What do you mean by it?" "Well--where I come from, they call Christians folks that have j'ined the church." "That's making a profession," said Dolly. "Yes, I've heard folks call it that." "But what is the reality? _What_ do you think a man professes when he joins the church?" "I'll be shot if I know," Rupert answered, looking at her hard in the fading light. "I'd like first-rate to hear you say." "It is just to be a servant of Christ," said Dolly. "A true servant, 'doing the will of God from the heart.'" "How are you going to know what His will is? I should be bothered if you asked _me_." "Oh, He has told us that," said Dolly, surprised. "In the Bible." "Then I s'pose you've got to study _that_ considerable." "Certainly." "Well, don't it say things pretty different from what most folks do?" "Yes. What then?" "Then it wouldn't be just easy to get along with it, I should think." "What then?" "Well!" said Rupert,--"how are you going to live in the world, and not do as the world do?" "Then you _have_ studied the Bible a little?" "No, fact, I haven't," said Rupert. "But I've heard folks talk now and again; and that's what I think about it." "Suppose it is difficult?" said Dolly. "But it is really not difficult, if one is a true servant of God and not only make-believe. Suppose it were difficult, though. Do you remember what Christ said of the two ways, serving Him and not serving Him?" Rupert shook his head. "Have you got a Bible of your own?" "No," said Rupert. "That's an article I never owned yet. I've always wanted other things more, you see." "And I would rather want everything else in the world," said Dolly. "I mean, I would rather be without everything else." "Surely!" said Rupert. "Because I am a servant of Christ, you see. Now that is what I want you to be. And as to the question of ease or difficulty--this is what I was going to repeat to you. Jesus said, that those who hear and obey Him are like a house planted on a rock; fixed and firm; a house that when the storms come and the winds blow, is never so much as shaken. But those who do not obey Him are like a house built on the sand. When the storms blow and the winds beat, it will fall terribly and all to ruins. It seems to me, Mr. Babbage, that _that_ is harder than the other." "Suppose the storms do not come?" said Rupert. "I guess they come to most people," said Dolly soberly. "But the Lord did not mean these storms merely. I don't know whether He meant them at all. He meant the time by and by.--Come, we must go home," said Dolly, beginning to go forward again. "I wish you would be a servant of Christ, Mr. Babbage!" "Why?" "Oh, because all that is sure and strong and safe and happy is on that side," said Dolly, speaking eagerly. "All that is noble and true and good. You are sure of nothing if you are not a Christian, Mr. Babbage; you are not sure even of yourself. Temptation may whirl you, you don't know where, and before you know it and before you can help it. And when the storms come, those storms--your house will--go down--in the sands"---- And to Rupert's enormous astonishment, Dolly's voice broke here, and for a second she stood still, drawing long sobs; then she lifted her head with an effort, took his arm and went swiftly back on the way to the hotel. He had not been able to say one word. Rupert could not have the faintest notion of the experience which had pointed and sharpened Dolly's last words; he could not imagine why, as they walked home, she should catch a hasty breath now and then, as he knew she did, a breath which was almost a sob; but Rupert Babbage was Dolly's devoted slave from that day. Lawrence himself marvelled somewhat at the appearance and manner of the young lady in the evening. The talk and the thoughts had roused and stirred Dolly, with partly the stir of pain, but partly also the sense of work to do and the calling up of all her loving strength to do it. Her cheek had a little more colour than usual, her eye a soft hidden fire, her voice a thrill of tender power. She was like, Lawrence thought, a most rare wild wood flower, some spiritual orchis or delicious and delicate geranium; in contrast to the severely trained, massive and immoveable tulips and camellias of society. She was at a vexatious distance from him, however; and handled him with a calm superiority which no woman of the world could have improved upon. Only it was nature with Dolly. CHAPTER XIX. SEEING SIGHTS. The next day's journey was uninteresting and slow. Mrs. Copley grew tired; and even dinner and rest at a good hotel failed to restore her spirits. "How many more days will it be before we get to Dresden?" she desired to know. "Keep up your courage, Mrs. Copley," said Lawrence. "Remember the Green vaults! We have some work before us yet to get there." "We shall not get there to-morrow?" "We shall hardly do more than reach Cassel to-morrow." "I don't know anything about Cassel. Will it be nothing but sand all the way, like to-day? We have left everything pretty behind us in Holland." "I think the way will mend a little," Lawrence allowed. "What place is next to Cassel?" "As our resting place for the night? I am afraid it will take us two days to get to Weimar." "And then Dresden?" "No, then Leipzig." "Oh, I should like to see Leipzig," cried Dolly. "What for?" said her mother. "I am sure all these places are nothing to us, and I think the country is very stupid. And I like travelling where I know what the people say. I feel as if I had got five thousand miles from anywhere. What do you suppose keeps your father, Dolly?" "I don't know, mother." "You may write and tell him, if he don't come to us in Dresden I shall go back. This isn't _my_ notion of pleasure." "But it is doing you good, mother." "I hadn't anything I could eat this evening. If you don't mind, Dolly, I'll go to bed." Dolly did mind, for she longed for a walk again among the strange scenes and people. As it was not to be had this time, she sat at her window and looked out. It was moonlight, soft weather; and her eye was at least filled with novelty enough, even so. But her thoughts went back to what was not novel. The day had been dull and fatiguing. Dolly's spirits were quiet. She too was longing for her father, with a craving, anxious longing that was more full of fear than of hope. And as she thought it over again, she did not like her position. Her mother was little of a shield between her and what she wanted to escape, Lawrence St. Leger's attentions; and she could but imperfectly protect herself. True, she knew she gave him no direct encouragement. Yet he was constantly with her, he had the right of taking care of her, he let her see daily what a pleasure it was, and she was not able to turn it into the reverse of pleasure. She could not repulse him, unless he pushed his advances beyond a certain point; and Lawrence was clever enough to see that he had better not do that. He took things for granted a little, in a way that annoyed Dolly. She knew she gave him no proper encouragement; nevertheless, the things she could not forbid might seem to weave a tacit claim by and by. She wished for her father on her own account. But when she thought of what was keeping him, Dolly's head went down in agony. "O father, father!" she cried in the depths of her heart, "why don't you come? how can you let us ask in vain? and what dreadful, dreadful entanglement it must be that has such power over you to make you do things so unlike yourself! Oh, what shall I do? what shall I do? I cannot reach him now--only by letters." Mrs. Copley got up next morning in renewed spirits. "Dolly," she inquired while she was dressing, in which business Dolly always helped her,--"is anything settled between St. Leger and you?" "Settled, mother? He is father's secretary,--at least so he calls himself,--taking care of us in father's absence. There is nothing else settled, nor to be settled." "You know why he is here, child." "Because father isn't, mother; and I should like to make the exchange as quickly as possible." "What's the matter with him, Dolly?" "The principal thing is, he won't take a hint." "No, no; I mean, what fault do you find in him?" "That, mother. Nothing else." "He worships the ground you tread on." "Mother, I think that is a pity. Don't you?" "I think you ought to be very glad of it. I am. Dolly, the St. Legers are _very_ well off; he is rich, and his father is rich; and there is that beautiful place, and position, and everything you could desire." "Position!" Dolly repeated. "Mother, I think I make my own position. At any rate, I like it better than his." "O Dolly! the St. Legers"---- "They are not anything particular, mother. Rich bankers; that is all." "And isn't that enough?" "Well, no," said Dolly, laughing. "It would take a good deal more to tempt me away from you and father." "But, child, you've got to go. And Mr. St. Leger is as fond of you as ever he can be." "He will not break his heart, mother. He is not that sort. Don't think it." "I don't care if he did!" said Mrs. Copley, half crying. "It is not _him_ I am thinking of; it is you." "Thank you, mother," said Dolly, putting her arms round her mother's neck and kissing her repeatedly. "But I am not going to leave you for any such person. And I don't think so much of money as you do." "Dolly, Dolly, money is a good thing." "There is not enough of it in the world to buy me, mother. Don't try to fix my price." The rest of that day Dolly was gay. Whether from the reaction of spirits natural to seventeen, or whether she were lightened in heart by the explicitness of her talk with her mother in the morning, she was the life of the day's journey. The road itself mended; the landscape was often noble, with fine oak and beech woods, and lovely in its rich cultivation; meadows and ploughed fields and tracts of young grain and smiling villages alternating with one another. There was no tedium in the carriage from morning to night. St. Leger and Rupert laughed at Dolly, and with her; and Mrs. Copley, in spite of chewing the cud of mortification at Dolly's impracticableness, was beguiled into forgetting herself. Sometimes this happy effect could be managed; at other times it was impossible. But more days followed, not so gay. "I'm as tired as I can be!" was Mrs. Copley's declaration, as they were approaching Leipzig. "We'll soon get to our hotel now," said Lawrence soothingly. "'Tain't that," said Mrs. Copley; "I am tired of hotels too. I am tired of going from one place to another. I should like to stay still somewhere." "But it is doing you good, mother." "I don't see it," said Mrs. Copley. "And what do you mean by its doing me good, Dolly? What is good that you don't feel? It's like something handsome that you can't see; and if you call that good, I don't. I wonder if life's to everybody what it is to me!" "Not exactly," said Lawrence. "Not everybody can go where he likes and do what he will, and have such an attendant handmaiden everywhere." "Do what I will!" cried Mrs. Copley, who like other dissatisfied people did not like to have her case proved against her,--"much you know about it, Mr. St. Leger! If I had my will, I would go back to America." "Then you would have to do without your handmaiden," said Lawrence. "You do not think that we on this side are so careless of our own advantage as to let such a valuable article go out of the country?" It was said with just such a mixture of jest and earnest that Dolly could hardly take it up. The words soothed Mrs. Copley, though her answer hardly sounded so. "I suppose that is what mothers have to make up their minds to," she said. "Just when their children are ready to be some comfort to them, off they go, to begin the same game on their own account. I sometimes wonder whether it is worth while to live at all!" "But one can't help that," said Rupert. "I don't see what it amounts to." "Mother, think of the Dresden Green vaults," said Dolly. "Well, I do," said Mrs. Copley. "That keeps me up. But when I have seen them, Dolly, what will keep me up then?" "Why, Venice, mother." "And suppose I don't like Venice? I sometimes think I shan't." "Then we will not stay there, dear. We will go on to Sorrento." "After all, Dolly, one can't keep always going somewhere. One must come to a stop." "The best way is not to think of that till one is obliged to do it," said Lawrence. "Enjoy while you have to enjoy." "That ain't a very safe maxim, seems to me," said Rupert. "One's rope might get twisted up." "It is the maxim of a great many wise men," said Lawrence, ignoring the figure. "Is it wise?" said Dolly. "Would you spend your money so, like your time? spend to the last farthing, before you made any provision for what was to be next?" "No, for I need not. In money matters one can always take care to have means ahead." "So you can in the other thing." "How?" said Rupert, and "How?" said Lawrence, in the same breath. "You cannot always, as Mrs. Copley said, go on finding new places to go to and new things to see." "I'd have what would put me above the need of that." "What? Philosophy? Stoicism?" "No," said Dolly softly. "Have you discovered the philosopher's stone?" said Lawrence; "and can you turn common things into gold for your purposes?" "Yes," said Dolly in the same way. "Let us hear how, won't you? Is it books, or writing, or art perhaps? You are very fond of that, I know." "No," said Dolly slowly; "and I cannot show it to you, either, Mr. St. Leger. It is like the golden water in the story in the Arabian Nights, which was at the top of a hill, and people went up the hill to get it; but on the way so many strange voices sounded in their ears that they were tempted to look round; and if they looked round they were turned to stone. So the way was marked with stones." "And nobody got the golden water?" "Yes. At last one went up, who being forewarned, stopped her ears and never looked round. She got to the top and found the golden water. We in these times give it another name. It is the water of life." "What _are_ you talking about, Dolly?" said her mother. "Must one go up the hill with one's ears stopped _now_, to get the wonderful water?" Lawrence asked. Dolly nodded. "And when you have got it--what then?" "Then you have got it," said Dolly. "It is the water of life. And you have done with this dry wilderness that mother is complaining of, and you are recommending." Lawrence stroked and pulled his moustache, as he might have done if a lady had spoken to him in polite Sanscrit. Rupert looked gravely out of the carriage window. Neither answered, and nobody spoke another word, till Mrs. Copley exclaimed, "There's Leipzig!" "Looks sort o' peaceful now," remarked Rupert. "Peaceful? Why, ain't the place quiet?" Mrs. Copley asked anxiously. "Quiet enough," said Lawrence; "but there was a time, not so long ago, when it wasn't exactly so." "When was that?" "When all the uniforms of Europe were chasing through it," said Dolly; "some chased and some chasing; when the country was covered with armies; when a half a million of men or so fought a long battle here, and the suburbs of Leipzig were full of dead and wounded and sick and starving; there was not much peace then in or out of the city; though there was some rejoicing." "Oh," said Mrs. Copley, "you mean"---- "When Napoleon was beaten here, mother." "War's a mean thing!" said Rupert. "That's not precisely the view civilised peoples take of it," said Lawrence with a slight sneer. "True, though," said Dolly. "Mean?" said Lawrence. "Do you think it was a mean thing for Germany to rise up and cast out the power that had been oppressing her? or for the other powers of Europe to help?" "No; but very mean for the side that had given the occasion." "That's as you look at it," said Lawrence. "No, but how God looks at it. You cannot possibly think," said Dolly slowly, going back to her old childish expression,--"that He likes it." Lawrence could not help smiling at this very original view. "Very few people that make war ask that question," he said. "God will ask them, though," said Dolly, "why they did not. I think few people ask that question, Mr. St. Leger, about anything." "It is not usual, except for a little saint here and there like you," he allowed. "And yet it is the only question. There is nothing else to be asked about a matter; almost nothing else. If that is settled, it is all settled." "If we were only all saints," Lawrence put in. "Why are not we?" "I don't know. I suppose everybody is not cut out for such a vocation." "Everybody ought to be a saint." "Do you mean that?" cried Rupert. "I thought,--I mean, I thought it was a special gift." "Yes," said Dolly with a smile at him; "but God gives it to every one that wants it. And when the King comes, Mr. St. Leger, He will gather His saints to Him, and none others; don't yon want to be counted among them then?--I do!" I don't know what had wrought up Dolly to this sudden burst; but she dropped her veil upon eyes all alight, while some soft dripping tears were falling from them like diamonds. Every one knows the peculiar brilliancy of a sunlit shower; and the two young men remained fairly dazzled. Rupert, however, looked very grave, while the other wore a cloud on his brow. Dolly was as matter-of-fact as possible when she came out from under her veil again; and declared she should not go to a hotel in Dresden, but take a lodging. "Why?" Lawrence enquired. "Cheaper. And pleasanter. And much quieter. We shall probably have to stay several days in Dresden. We must get letters there." "But you do not know where to go to find lodgings." "Yes, I do. Or I shall. I hope so. I have sent for the address of the woman with whom Lady Brierley had lodgings a whole winter." "Where do you expect to receive this address?" "In Leipzig, I hope." "Really, Dolly, you take a good deal upon you, considering how old you are," said her mother. "Don't you think Mr. St. Leger knows best?" "No, mother, not for you and me. Oh, _he_ can go to a hotel. He will, of course." However, this Mr. St. Leger did not desire. He was obliged to do it, nevertheless. The letter was found at Leipzig, the lodgings were found in Dresden, but not roomy enough to hold them all. Mrs. Copley and her daughter and their attendant Rupert were very comfortably accommodated; and to Dolly's great joy found themselves alone. Frau Wetterhahn was all obligingness, hearing Lady Brierley's name, and made them right welcome. This Frau Wetterhahn! She was the most lively, active, capable, talkative, bright-eyed, good-humoured, free and easy little woman that you can imagine. She was really capable, and cooked them a nice supper. Dolly had unpacked a few things, and felt herself at home, and the three sat down comfortably to their meal. "Now, mother, dear," said Dolly, "this is pleasant!" "Well," said Mrs. Copley, "I think it is. If you only hadn't sent Lawrence away!" "He couldn't stay, mother. Frau Wetterhahn sent him away--not I. Change will be good for him. And for me too. I am going to make believe we are at home for a little while. And you are going to see the Green vaults; and I am going to see everything. And these rooms are so cosy!" "Aren't you going to see the Green vaults too?" "Indeed, I hope so. But we may have to wait a day or two, dear mother; that will be good, and you can have a rest." "I'm sure I'm glad of it," said Mrs. Copley. "I am just tired of riding, and more tired yet of seeing everlasting new things. I am aching for something I've seen before in my life." "Well, here's a cup of coffee, mother." Mrs. Copley tasted. "If you think _that's_ like anything I used to have at home, I'm sorry for you!" she said with a reproachful look. "Don't you like it? I do. I like it because it is different. But I think it is very good, mother. And look--here is some delicious bread." "It's like no bread I ever saw till I came to Germany. Oh, mercy! why must folks have so many ways? I wonder how things will be at Venice!" "Stranger than ever, mother, I'm afraid." "Then I shall get tired of it. Isn't this a very roundabout way that we are going to Venice--round this way by Dresden?" "Why, yes, mother, of course; but the Green vaults are here, and you were bound to see the Green vaults." "I wouldn't have come, if I had known it was so far," said Mrs. Copley. But she relished her supper, and was not nervous, and slept well; and Dolly was somewhat in hopes that Dresden was not a bad move after all. They had to wait, as she said, for letters, and for the sight of the glories that had attracted them hither. Several days passed by. They passed in delights, for Dolly. Two mornings were spent in the great picture gallery. Mrs. Copley's desires and expectations having focussed upon the Green vaults, were hardly able to see anything else clearly; indeed, she declared that she did not think the wonderful Madonna was so very wonderful after all; no woman could stand upon clouds in that way, and as she _was_ a woman, she did not see why the painter did not exhibit her in a possible situation; and those little angels at the foot of the picture--where was the other half of them supposed to be? she did not like half of anything. But Dolly dreamed in rapture, before this and many another wonder of art. Mrs. Copley made processions round the rooms constantly, drawing, of course, St. Leger with her; she could not be still. But Dolly would stop before a picture and be immoveable for half an hour, drinking in pleasure and feeding upon knowledge; and Rupert generally took post behind her and acted as body-guard. What he made of the show, I do not know. Dolly asked him how he liked it? He said, "first-rate." "Well, what do you think of it, Rupert?" Dolly asked gaily. "Well, I guess I don't just see into it," was the dubious answer. "If these are likenesses of folks, they ain't like my folks." "Oh, but they are not likenesses; most of them are not." "What are they, then? and what is the good of 'em, if they don't mean anything?" "They are out of people's imagination; as the painter imagined such and such persons might have looked, in such situations." "How the painter imagined they might have looked!" cried Rupert. "Yes. And they mean a great deal; all that was in the painter's mind." "I don't care a red cent how a man fancies somebody looked. I'd like the real thing, if I could get it. I'd go some ways to see how the mother of Christ _did_ look; but you say that ain't it?" "No," said Dolly, smiling. Rupert surveyed the great picture again. "Don't you think it is beautiful, Rupert?" Dolly pursued, curious to know what went on in his thoughts. "I've seen as handsome faces--and handsomer," he said slowly; "and I like flesh and blood a long sight better than a painting, anyhow." "Handsome?" said Dolly. "Oh, it is not _that_--it is so much more!"---- "What is it, Miss Dolly?" said Lawrence, just then coming up behind her. "I should like to hear your criticism. Do put it in words." "That's not easy; and it is not criticism. But I'll tell you how it seems to me; as the painting, not of anybody's features, but of somebody's nature, spirit. It is a painting of the spiritual character." "Mental traits can be expressed in words, though," said Lawrence. "You'll go on, I hope?" "I cannot," said Dolly. "It is not the lovely face, Mr. Babbage; it is thought and feeling, love and purity, and majesty--but the majesty of a person who has no thought of herself." Dolly could not get out of that one room; she sat before the Raphael, and then stood fixed before the "Notte" or the "Magdalene" of Correggio; and would not come away. Rupert always attended on her, and Mrs. Copley as regularly made progresses through the rooms on Lawrence's arm, till she declared herself tired out. They were much beholden to Lawrence and his good offices these days, more than they knew; for it was past the season when the gallery was open to the public, and entrance was obtained solely by the influence of St. Leger's mediation and money; how much of the latter they never knew. Lawrence was a very good escort also; his address was pleasant, and his knowledge of men and things sufficient for useful purposes; he knew in general what was what and who was who, and was never at a loss. Rupert followed the party like a faithful dog, ready for service and with no opportunity to show it; Lawrence held the post of leader and manager now, and filled it well. In matters of art, however, I am bound to say, though he could talk more, he knew as little as Rupert himself. "What is to be done to-morrow?" he asked, in the evening of that second day. "We haven't got our letters yet," said Mrs. Copley. "I can't see why they don't come." "So the Green vaults must wait. What else shall we do?" "Oh," said Dolly, "might we not go to the gallery again?" "Another day?" cried her mother. "Why, you have been there two whole mornings, child. Ain't that enough?" "Mother, I could go two months, I think." "Then you'd catch your death," said Mrs. Copley. "That inner room is very chill now. For my part, I do not want to see another picture again in days and days. My head swims with looking at them. I don't see what you find in the old things." Dolly could not have told. She sighed, and it was agreed that they would drive about the city and its environs next day; Lawrence assuring them that it was one of the pleasantest towns in Germany. But the next morning early came the letters from Mr. Copley; one to his wife and one to Dolly. Dolly read them both and pondered them; and was unsatisfied. They were rather cheerful letters; at the same time Mr. Copley informed his wife and daughter that he could not join them in Dresden; nor at any rate before they got to Venice. So much was final; but what puzzled and annoyed Dolly yet more than this delay was the amount of money he remitted to her. To her, for Mrs. Copley, as an invalid, it was agreed, should not be burdened with business. So the draft came in the letter to Dolly; and it was not half large enough. Dolly kept the draft, gave the letter to her mother to read, and sat in a mazed kind of state, trying to bring her wits to a focus upon this condition of affairs. What was her father thinking of? It is one thing to be short of funds at home, in one's own country and in one's own house; it is bad enough even there; what is it when one is in a strange land and dependent upon the shelter of other people's houses, for which an equivalent must be paid in money? and when one is obliged to travel from one place to another, and every mile of the way demands another equivalent in money? Mr. Copley had sent a little, but Dolly knew it would by no means take them to Venice. What did he intend? or what did he expect her to do? Apply to Lawrence? Never! No, not under any pressure or combination that could be brought to bear. He would demand an equivalent too; or worse, think that it was guaranteed, if she made such an application. How could Mr. Copley place his child in such a predicament? And then Dolly's head went down in her hands, for the probable answer crushed her. He never would, he never could, but for yielding to unworthy indulgences; becoming entangled in low pleasures; taken possession of by the influence of unprincipled men. Her father!--Dolly felt as if her heart would break or her head burst with its burden of pain,--"Oh, a father never should let his child feel ashamed for him!" was the secret cry down in the depths of her heart. Dolly would not speak it out ever, even to herself, but it was there, all the same; and it tortured her, with a nameless, exquisite torture, under which she mentally writhed, without being able to get the least relief. Every surge of the old love and reverence broke on those sharp rocks of pain more hopelessly. "O father!--O father!" she cried silently, with a pitiful vain appeal which could never be heard. And then the practical question came back, taking away her breath. What was she to do? If they did not stay too long in Dresden they would have enough money to pay their lodging-bill and go, she calculated, half the way to Venice. What then? And if Mr. Copley met them in Venice, according to promise, who would assure her that he would then come provided with the necessary funds? and what if he failed to come? Dolly started up, feeling that she could not sit any longer thinking about it; her nerves were getting into a hard knot. She would not think; she busied herself in making her mother and herself ready for their morning's excursion. And Lawrence came with a carriage; and they set off. It was a lovely day, and certainly the drive was all it had promised; and Dolly barred off thought, and _would_ look and enjoy and talk and make others enjoy; so the first part of the day passed very well. Dolly would make no arrangements for the afternoon, and Mrs. Copley was able for no more that day. But when the early dinner was over, Dolly asked Rupert to walk with her. Rupert was always ready, and gave a delighted assent. "Are you going out again? and to leave me all alone?" said Mrs. Copley. "You will be lying down, mother dear; you will not want me; and I have business on hand, that I must attend to." "I don't see what business," said Mrs. Copley fretfully; "and you can't do anything here, in a strange place. You'd better get Mr. St. Leger to do it for you." "He cannot do my work," said Dolly lightly. "But you had better wait and take him along, Dolly. He knows where to go." "So do I, mother. I want Rupert this time, and not Mr. St. Leger. You sleep till I come back." Dolly had said she meant business, but at first going out things did not look like it. She went slowly and silently along the streets, not attending much to what she was passing, Rupert thought; till they arrived at an open spot from which the view of the river, with the bridge and parts of the town, could be enjoyed; and there Dolly sat down on a step, and still without speaking to Rupert, bent forward leaning on her knees, and seemed to give herself up to studying the beautiful scene. She saw it; the river, the picturesque bridge, the wavy, vine-clad hills, the unfamiliar buildings of the city, the villas scattered about on the banks of the Elbe; she saw it all under a clear heaven and a sunny light which dressed everything in hues of loveliness; and her face was fixed the while in lines of grave thought and gave back no reflection of the beauty. It had beauty enough of its own, Rupert thought; who, I must say, paid little heed to the landscape and watched his companion instead. The steady, intent, sweet eyes, how much grave womanliness was in them; how delicate the colour was on the cheek, and how tender were the curves of the lips; while the wilful, clustering curly hair gave an almost childish setting to the features whose expression was so very un-childish. For it was exceedingly grave. Dolly did see the lovely landscape, and it made her feel alone and helpless. There was nothing wonted or familiar; she seemed to herself somehow cast away in the Saxon capital. And truly she was all alone. Lawrence she could not apply to, her mother must not even be talked to; she knew nobody else. Her father had let her come on this journey, had sent her forth, and now left her unprovided even for the barest necessities. No doubt he meant that she should be beholden to Mr. St. Leger, to whom he could return the money by and by. "Or not at all," thought Dolly bitterly, "if I would give him myself instead. O father, could you sell me!" Then came the thought of the entanglements and indulgences which had brought Mr. Copley to do other things so unlike himself; and Dolly's heart grew too full. She could not bear it; she had borne up and fought it out all the morning; now feeling and truth must have a minute for themselves; her head went down on her hands and she burst into quiet sobs. Quiet, but deep. Rupert, looking on in dismayed alarm, saw that this outbreak of pain had some deep grounded cause; right or wrong, it came from Dolly's very heart, and her whole nature was trembling. He was filled with a great awe; and in this awe his sympathy was silent for a time; but he could not leave the girl to herself too long. "Miss Dolly," he said in a pause of the sobs, "I thought you were such a Christian?" Dolly started, lifted her quivering, tearful face, and looked straight at him. "Yes," she said,--"what then?" "I always thought religious folks had something to comfort them." "Don't think they haven't," said Dolly. But there she broke down again, and it was a storm of a rain shower that poured from her eyes this time. She struggled to get the better of it, and as soon as she could she sat up again, brushing the tears right and left with her hands and speaking in a voice still half choked. "Don't think they haven't! If I had not _that_, my heart would just break and be done with it. But being a Christian does not keep one from suffering--sometimes." Her voice failed. "What is the matter? No, I don't mean that you should tell me that; only--can't I do something?" "No, thank you; nobody can. Yes, you are doing a great deal, Rupert; you are the greatest comfort to me. I depend upon you." Rupert's eyes glistened. He was silent for sheer swelling of heart. He gulped down something--and went on presently. "I was thinkin' of something my old mother used to say. I know I've heard her say it, lots o' times. I don't know what the trouble is, that's a fact--so maybe I hadn't oughter speak; but _she_ used to say that nothing could happen to Christians that would do 'em any real hurt." "I know," said Dolly, wondering to herself how it could be true; "the Bible says so."--And then conscience rebuked her. "And it _is_ true," she said, lifting up her head; "everything is true that the Bible says, and that is true; and it says other things"---- "What?" said Rupert; more for her sake, I confess, than for his own. "It says--'Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is staid upon Thee;' I was reading it this morning. You see I must be a very poor Christian, or I should not have doubted a minute. But even a Christian, and the best, must be sorry sometimes for things he cannot help," said Dolly. "Then you were not troubled about yourself just now?" said Rupert. "Yes, I was! I was indeed, in spite of all those words and a great many others. I believe I forgot them." "I should think, if God gives people promises, He would like them to be trusted," said Rupert "That's what _we_ do." Dolly looked at him again as if he had said something that struck her; and then she got up, and taking his arm, set off this time at a business pace. She knew, she said, where to find what she wanted; however, she had gone out of her way, and it cost her some trouble and time to get to the place. It was a store of artists' materials, among other things; and here Dolly made careful purchases of paper, colours, and camel's-hair pencils. Rupert was reassured as to a suspicion that had crossed him, that part of Dolly's trouble might have been caused by want of means; seeing that she was buying articles of amusement with a free hand. Then Dolly went straight home. All the rest of that afternoon she sat drawing. The next two days, the weather was unfavourable for going out, and she sat at her work persistently, whenever she was not obliged to be reading to her mother or attending upon her. The day following the long-planned visit to the Green vaults was made. In the evening Lawrence came to see them. "Well, Mrs. Copley; tired?"--he began. "I don't know which part of me's most tired," said the lady; "my eyes, or my head, or my feet." "Did it pay, after all?" "Pay! I wouldn't have missed it for a year's length of life! It went ahead of all I ever thought of or dreamt of. It was most like Aladdin's lamp--or what he saw, I mean, when he went down into fairyland. I declare, it was just as good." "Only that you could not put things in your pockets. What would you have brought, Mrs. Copley, if it had been safe and allowable? The famous egg?" "Mercy, no, Mr. St. Leger! I shouldn't have a minute's peace of my life, for fear I should lose it again." "That's about how they say the first owner felt. They tell of him, that a lady once coaxed him to let her have the egg in her hand; and she kept it in her hand; and the prince forgot; and she drove back to Dresden with it." "Where was he, the prince?" "At some hunting castle, I believe. It was night before he found out his loss; and then he booted and spurred in hot haste and rode to Dresden in the middle of the night to fetch the egg from the lady again." "What's the use of things that give folks so much trouble?" said Rupert. "A matter of taste!" said Lawrence, shrugging his shoulders. "But I am glad to have been through those rooms myself; and I never should, but for you, Mrs. Copley. I suppose there is hardly the like to be seen anywhere else." "What delicious things there were in the ivory room," said Dolly. "Those drunken musicians, mother, of Albert Dürer; and some of the vases; how beautiful they were!" "I did not see the musicians," said Mrs. Copley. "I don't see how drunken musicians, or drunken anything, could be pretty. Odd taste, I think." "Then perhaps you didn't like the piece with the fallen angels?" said Rupert. "That beat me!" "How could there be peace with the fallen angels?" Mrs. Copley asked scornfully. At which, however, there was a great burst of laughter. "I liked best of all the room where the egg was, I believe. But the silver room was magnificent." "I liked the ivory better than the silver, mother." "Who does it all belong to?" Rupert asked. "The reigning house of Saxony," Lawrence answered. "The whole of it?" "Yes." "And that big picture gallery into the bargain?" "Yes." "That's bein' grasping, for any one family to have so much," was Rupert's conclusion. "Well, you see," said Lawrence, "we get the good of it, and they have the care." "I don't see how we get the good of it," said Mrs. Copley. "I suppose if I had one of those golden birds, now, with the eyes of diamonds; or one of those wonderfully chased silver caskets; I should have enough to keep me in comfort the rest of my life. _I_ think things are queer, somehow. One single one of those jewels that lie heaped up there, and I should want for nothing more in this world. And there they lie and nobody has 'em." "Do you want for anything now, mother dear?" asked Dolly. She was busy at a side table, arranging something in a little frame, and did not look up from her work. "I should think I did!" was Mrs. Copley's rejoinder. "What don't I want, from breath up?" "Here you have had one wish fulfilled to-day--you have seen the Green vaults--and now we are going to Venice to fulfil another wish--what would you have?" "I don't like to think I am going away from here. I like Dresden best of all the places we've been in. And I would like to go through the Green vaults--but why they are called so, I cannot conceive--about once every month. I would _never_ get tired." "So you would like to settle in Dresden?" said Lawrence. "I don't think it would be safe to let you go through the Green vaults often, Mrs. Copley; you would certainly be tempted too much for your principles. Miss Dolly, we had better get her away. When _do_ we go, by the by?" Instead of answering, Dolly rose up and brought him something to look at; a plain little oval frame of black wood within which was a head in light water colours. "Mrs. Copley!" exclaimed Lawrence. "Is it like?" "Striking! capital. I'm not much of a judge of painting in general, but I know a friend's face when I see it; and this is to the life. To the life! Graceful, too. Where did you get it?" "I got the paper and the paints at a little shop in--I forget the name of the _strasse;_--and mother was here to my hand. Ecco!" "You _don't_ mean you did it?" said Lawrence, while the others crowded near to look. "I used to amuse myself with that kind of thing when I was at school, and I had always a knack at catching likenesses. I am going to try you, Rupert, next." "Ah, try me!" cried Lawrence. "Will you? and we will stay in Dresden till it is done." "Suppose I succeed," said Dolly softly,--"will you get me orders?" "Orders?" "Yes. To paint likenesses, like this, in miniature. I can take ivory, but I would not waste ivory on this one. I'll do yours on ivory if you like." "But _orders?_" said Lawrence, dumbfounded. "Yes," said Dolly, nodding, "orders; and for as high pay as you think I can properly ask. Hush! say nothing to mother"---- "Is that like me?" Mrs. Copley asked, after studying the little picture. "Capitally like you!" Lawrence cried. "Then I've changed more'n I thought I had, that's all. I don't think I care about your painting me any more, Dolly, if that's the best you can do." "Why, Mrs. Copley," said Lawrence, "it's beautiful. Exactly your turn of the head, and the delicate fresh colour in your cheeks. It's perfect!" "Is it?" said Mrs. Copley in a modified tone. "So that's what you've been fussing about, Dolly, these two days. Well, take Mr. St. Leger next. I want to see what you'll make of him. She won't flatter you," the lady went on; "that's one thing you may lay your account with; she won't flatter you. But if we're going away, you won't have much chance; and, seems to me, we had better settle which way we are going." Lawrence did not take up this hint. He sat gazing at the little miniature, which was in its way very lovely. The colours were lightly laid in, the whole was rather sketchy; but the grace of the delineation was remarkable, and the likeness was perfect; and Dolly had shown a true artist's eye in her choice of position and point of view. "I did not know you had such a wonderful talent," he remarked. Dolly made no answer. "You'll do me next?" "If you like my conditions." "I do not understand them," he said, looking up at her. "I want orders," Dolly said almost in a whisper. "Orders? To paint things like this? For money? Nonsense, Dolly!" "As you please, Mr. St. Leger; then I will stay here a while and get work through Frau Wetterhahn. She wants me to paint _her_." "You never will!" "I'll try." "As a favour then?" Dolly lifted her eyes and smiled at the young man; a smile that utterly and wholly bewitched him. Wilful? yes, he thought it was wilful, but sweet and arch, and bright with hope and purpose and conscious independence; a little defiant, a great deal glad. "Paint me," said he hastily, "and I'll give you anything you like." Dolly nodded. "Very well," said she; "then you may talk with mother about our route." CHAPTER XX. LIMBURG. Lawrence did talk with Mrs. Copley; and the result of the discussion was that the decision and management of their movements was finally made over to him. Whether it happened by design or not, the good lady's head was quite confused among the different plans suggested; she could understand nothing of it, she said; and so it all fell into Lawrence's hand. I think that was what he wanted, and that he had views of his own to gratify; for Dolly, who had been engaged with other matters this time, expressed some surprise a day or two after they set out, at finding herself again in Weimar. "Going back the way we came?" she cried. "Only for a little distance--a few stages," explained Lawrence; "after that it will be all new." Dolly did not much care, nor know enough to correct him if he was going wrong; she gave herself up to hopeful enjoyment of the constantly varying new scenes and sights. Mrs. Copley, on the contrary, seemed able to enjoy nothing beyond the shortening of the distance between her and Venice. If she had known how much longer than was necessary Lawrence had made it! So it happened that they were going one day down a pleasant road which led along a river valley, when an exclamation from Dolly roused her mother out of a half nap. "What is it?" she asked. "Mother, such a beautiful, beautiful old church! Look--see how it sits up there grandly on the rock." "Very inconvenient, I should think," said Mrs. Copley, giving a glance out of the carriage window. "I shouldn't think people would like to mount up there often." "I believe," said Lawrence, also looking out now, "that must be a famous old church--isn't this Limburg?--yes. It is the cathedral at Limburg; a very fine specimen of its style, Miss Dolly, they say." "What is the style? it's beautiful! Gothic?" "No,--aw--not exactly. I'm not learned myself, really, in such matters. I hardly know a good thing when I see it--never studied antiquities, you know; but this is said, I know, to be a very good thing." "How old? It does not look antiquated." "Oh, it has been repaired and restored. But it is not Gothic, so it dates further back; what they call the Transition style." "It is very noble," said Dolly. "Is it as good inside as outside?" "Don't know, I declare; I suppose so. We might go in and see; let the horses feed and Mrs. Copley take a rest." This proposition was received with such joy by Dolly that it was at once acted upon. The party sought out an inn, bespoke some luncheon, and arranged for Mrs. Copley's repose. But chancing to hear from Lawrence that the treasures of art and value in the church repositories were both rich and rare, she gave up the promised nap and joined the party who went to the dome. After the Dresden Green vaults, she said, she supposed nothing new could be found; but she would go and see. So they went all together. If Lawrence had guessed to what this chance visit would lead! But that is precisely what people can never know. Dolly was in a condition of growing delight, which every step increased. Before the great front of the cathedral she stood still and looked up, while Rupert and Mrs. Copley turned their backs and gazed out upon the wide country view. Lawrence, as usual when he could, attended upon Dolly. "I did not know you were so fond of _this_ kind of thing," he remarked, seeing a little enviously her bright, interested eyes. "It lifts me almost off my feet!" said Dolly. "My soul don't seem big enough to take it all in. How grand, how grand!--Whose statues are those?" "On each side?" said Lawrence, who had been collecting information. "That on the one hand is Heinrich von Isenburg, the founder; and the other is the architect, but nobody knows his name. It is lost. St. George is on the top there." "Well," said Dolly, "he is just as well off as if it hadn't been lost!" "Who? the architect? How do you make that out? He loses all the glory." "How does he lose it? Do you think," said Dolly, smiling, "he would care, in the other world, to know that you and I liked his work?" "The other world!" said St. Leger. "You believe in it, don't you?" "Yes, certainly; but you speak as if"---- "As if I believed in it!" said Dolly merrily. "You speak as if you didn't." "I do, I assure you; but what is fame then?" "Nothing at all," said Dolly.--"Just nothing at all; if you mean people's admiration or applause given when we have gone beyond reach of it." "Beyond reach of it!" said Lawrence, echoing her words again. "Miss Dolly, do you think it is no use to have one's name honoured by all the world for ages after we have lived?" "Very good for the world," said Dolly, with a spice of amusement visible again. "And nothing to the man?" "What should it be to the man?" said Dolly, seriously enough now. "Mr. St. Leger, when a man has got beyond this world with its little cares and interests, there will be just one question for him,--whether he has done what God put him here to do; and there will be just one word of praise that he will care about,--the 'Well done!'--if he may have it,--from those lips." Dolly began quietly, but her colour flushed and her lip trembled as she went on, and her eye sparkled through a sudden veil of tears. Lawrence was silenced by admiration, and almost forgot what they were talking about. "But don't you think," he began again, as Dolly moved towards the church door, "that the one thing--I mean, the praise here,--will be a sort of guaranty for the praise there?" "No," said Dolly. "That which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God--often, often." She pushed open the door and went in. Only a little way in; there she stood still, arrested by all the glory and the beauty that met her eye. The nobleness of form, the wealth of colour, the multiplied richness of both, almost bewildered her at first entering. Pillars, arches, vaultings, niches, galleries, arcades--a wilderness of harmonised form; and every panel and fair space filled with painting. She could not see details yet; she was lost in the greatness of the whole. "Whom has Mrs. Copley picked up?" asked Lawrence in an undertone. After all, if the architect's posthumous fame had depended on him, it would not have been worth much effort. Mrs. Copley, it may be mentioned, had passed on while Dolly and St. Leger had stood talking outside; and now she was seen in the distance the centre of a group of lively talkers; at least there was one lady who was free to exercise her gifts in that way. Lawrence and Dolly slowly advanced, even Dolly's attention taken for a moment from the church by this extraordinary combination. Yes, Mrs. Copley had found acquaintances. The talker was a lady of about her own age; a gentleman stood near, a little behind was a younger lady, while Rupert balanced the group on the other side. "There's something uncommon over yonder," whispered Lawrence. "Do you see that blond girl? not blond neither, for her hair isn't; but what an exquisite colour!--and magnificent figure. Do you know her?" "No," said Dolly,--"I think not. Yet I do. Who can it be? I do not know the one talking to mother." "And this is she?" the elder lady was saying as Dolly now came up, looking at her with a smiling face. "It's quite delightful to meet friends in the midst of a wilderness so; like the print of a man's foot on the sands in a desert; for really, in the midst of strange people one feels cast away. She's handsomer than you were, Mrs. Copley. My dear, do you know your old schoolfellow?" "Christina Thayer!" exclaimed Dolly, as the other young lady came forward; and there was a joyful recognition on both sides. "Who is your friend?" Mrs. Thayer next went on. "Won't you introduce him?--St. Leger? Don't I know your father? Ernest Singleton St. Leger?--Yes! Why, he was a great beau of mine once, a good while ago, you know," she added, nodding. "You might not think it, but he was. Oh, I know him very well; I know him like a book. You must be my friend. Christina, this is Mr. St. Leger; my old friend's son.--Mr. Thayer." Mr. Thayer was nothing remarkable. But Christina had fulfilled the promise of her girlhood, and developed into a magnificent beauty. Her skin showed the richest, clear, creamy white tints, upon which in her cheeks and lips the carmine lay like rose leaves. Her hair was light brown and abundant, features regular, eyes sweet; she was one of those fair, full, stately, placid Saxon types of beauty, which are not very common in America and remarkable anywhere. Her figure was roundly and finely developed, rather stately and slow moving; which characteristic harmonised with all the rest of her. The two girls were as unlike each other as possible. It amused and half fascinated Lawrence to watch the contrast. It seemed to be noon of a summer day in the soul of Christina, a still breadth of light without shadow; there was a murmur of content in her voice when she spoke, and a ripple of content in her laugh when she laughed. But the light quivered on Dolly's lip, and gleamed and sparkled in her brown eyes, and light and shadow could flit over her face with quick change; they did so now. Meanwhile people had forgotten the old cathedral. Christina seemed unaffectedly glad at the meeting with her friend of the school days. "I'm so delighted," she said, drawing Dolly a little apart. "Where are you? where do you come from, I mean? How come you to be here?" "We come from Dresden; we are on our way"---- "You are living in London, aren't you? I heard that. It's too good to meet you so! for Europe is full of people, no doubt, but there are very few that I care for. Oh, tell me where you are going?" "Venice first." "And further south? you are going on into Italy?" "Yes, I think so." "That's delightful. Oh, there's nothing like Italy! It is not your wedding journey, Dolly?"--with a glance at the very handsome young man who was standing in waiting a few paces off. "What are you thinking of!" cried Dolly. "Christina, we are travelling for mother's health." "Oh, well, I didn't suppose it; but it might be, you know; it will be, before you know it. It isn't _mine_, either; though it only wants two things of it. Oh, I want to tell you all about myself, Dolly, and I want to show you somebody; I have got somebody to show, you see. You will come and make us a visit, will you not? Oh, you must! I must have you." "You said it wanted only _two things_ of being your wedding journey? What things?" "The presence of the gentleman, and the performance of the ceremony." And as Christina said it, a delicate peach-blossom bloom ripened in her cheeks; you could hardly say that she blushed. "Oh, the gentleman is somewhere, though he is not here," she went on, with that ripple of laughter; "and the ceremony is somewhere in the distance, too. I want you to see him, Dolly. I am proud of him. I think everything in the world of him." "I suppose I may know his name?" "Christina," cried Mrs. Thayer, "where are you? My dear, we cannot stand here and talk all the afternoon; our friends have got to see the church. Isn't it a delicious old place? Just go round and examine things; I could stay here for ever. Every little place where there is room for it is filled with the quaintest, queerest, charmingest paintings. Where there is room for it, there is a group; and where there is not a group, there is an apostle or a saint; and where there is not room for that, there is something else, which this unintelligible old guide will explain to you. And think--for years and years it has held the richest collection--oh, just wait and see! it is better than the church itself. My dear, the riches of its treasures are incalculable. Fancy, a mitre, a bishop's mitre, you know, so heavy with precious stones that the good man cannot bear it on his head but a few minutes; over three thousand pearls and precious stones in it; and the work, oh, the work of it is wonderful! just in the finest Renaissance"---- "We have just come from the Green vaults at Dresden," put in Mrs. Copley. "I suppose that goes ahead of everything else." "Oh, my dear, I don't know; I don't see how anything can be superior to the show here. Is Mr. St. Leger fond of art?" "Fonder of nature," Mr. St. Leger confesses with a bow. "Nature,--well, come to see us at Naples. We have got a villa not far from there--you'll _all_ come and stay with us. Oh, we cannot let you off; it is such a thing to meet with one's own people from home. You will certainly want to see us, and we shall want to see you. Venice, oh yes, after you have seen Venice, and then we shall be at home again; we just set off on this journey to use up the time until the 'Red Chief' could come to Naples. We are going back soon, and we'll be all ready to welcome you. And Mr. St. Leger, of course. Mr. St. Leger, I could tell you a great deal about your father. He and I flirted dreadfully once; and, you know, if flirting is _properly_ carried on, one always has a little sneaking kindness for the people one has flirted with." "No more than that?" said St. Leger with a polite smile. "Why, what would you have? after one has grown old, you know. You would not have me in love with him! Here is my husband and my daughter. Don't you have a kindness for the people you flirt with?" "I must not say anything against flirting, in the present company"---- Lawrence began. "No, of course you mustn't. We all flirt, at a certain age. How are young people to get acquainted with one another and find out what they would like? You never buy cheese without tasting it, you know, not in England. Just as well call things by their right names. I don't think anybody ought to deny flirting; it's nature; we must do it. Christina flirts, I know, in the most innocent way, with everybody; not as I did; she has her own style; and your daughter does it too, Mrs. Copley. I can see it in her eyes. Ah me, I wish I was young again! And what a place to flirt in such an old church is!" "O mamma!" came from Christina. "Very queer taste, I should say," remarked Mrs. Copley. "It isn't taste; it is combination of circumstances," Mrs. Thayer, smiling, went on. "You see if I don't say true. My dear, such a place as this is full of romance, full! Just think of the people that have been married here; why, the first church was built here in 814; imagine that!" "Enough to keep one from flirting for ever," said Dolly, on whom the lady's eye fell as she ended her sentence. "Just go in and see those jewels and hear the stories," said Mrs. Thayer, nodding at her. "That old woman will tell you stories enough, if you can understand her; Christina had to translate for me; but, my dear, there's a story there fit to break your heart; about a blood jasper. It is carved; Mr. Thayer says the carving is very fine, and I suppose it is; but all I thought of was the story. My dear, the stone is all spotted with dark stains, and they are said to be the stains of heart's blood. Oh, it is as tragical as can be. You see, the carver, or stone-cutter,--the young man who did the work,--loved his master's daughter--it's a very romantic story--and she"---- "Flirted?" suggested St. Leger. "Well, I am afraid she did; but it is the old course of things; her father thought she might look higher, you know, and she _did;_ married the richest nobleman in Verona; and the young man had been promised her if he did his work well, and the work is magnificently done; but he was cheated; and he drove a sharp little knife into his heart. Christina, what was the old master's name?" "I forget, mamma." "You ought not to forget; you will want to tell the story. Of course _I_ have forgotten; I did not understand it at the time, and I never remember anything besides; but he was very famous, and everybody wanted the things he did, and he could not execute all the commissions he got; and this young man was his best favourite pupil." "How came the stains upon the stone?" asked Lawrence. "Did it bleed for sympathy?" "I don't know; I have forgotten. Oh yes! the stone was in his hand, you know." "And it was sympathy?" said Lawrence quite gravely, though Dolly could not keep her lips in order. "No, it was the blood. Go in and you'll see it, and all the rest. And there---- Where are you going? to Venice? We are going on to Cologne and then back to Rome. We shall meet in Rome? You will stay in Venice for a few weeks, and then be in Rome about Christmas; and then we will make arrangements for a visit from you all. Oh yes, we must have you all." Lawrence accompanied the lady to the door, and Christina following with Dolly earnestly begged for the meeting in Rome, and that Dolly would spend Christmas with her. "I have so much to tell you," she said; "and my--the gentleman I spoke of--will meet us in Rome; and he will spend Christmas with us; and I want you to see him. I admire Mr. St. Leger, very much!" she added in a confidential whisper. "Mr. St. Leger is nothing to me," said Dolly steadily, looking in her friend's face. "He is father's secretary, and is taking care of us till my father can come." "Oh, well, if he is not anything to you _now_, perhaps--you never know what will be," said Christina. "He is very handsome! Don't you like him? I long to know how you will like--Mr. Rayner." "Who is he?" said Dolly, by way of saying something. "Didn't I tell yon? He is first officer on board the 'Red Chief,' one of our finest vessels of war; it is in the Mediterranean now; and we expect him to come to us at Christmas. Manage to be at Rome then, do, dear; and afterwards you must all come and make us a visit at our villa, near Naples, and we'll show you everything." "Christina," said Mrs. Thayer, when she and her daughter and her husband were safe in the privacy of their carriage, "that is a son of the rich English banker, St. Leger; they are _very_ rich. We must be polite to him." "You are polite to everybody, mamma." "But _you_ must be polite to him." "I'll try, mamma--if you wish it." "I wish it, of course. You never know how useful such an acquaintance may be to you. Is he engaged to that girl?" "I think not, mamma. She says not." "That don't prove anything, though." "Yes, it does, with her. Dolly Copley was always downright--not like the rest." "Every girl thinks it is fair to fib about her lovers. However, I thought _he_ looked at you, Christina, not exactly as if he were a bound man." "He is too late," said the girl carelessly. "I am a bound woman." "Well, be civil to him," said her mother. "You never know what people may do." "I don't care, mamma. Mr. St. Leger's doings are of no importance to me." Mrs. Thayer was silent now; and her husband remarked that Mr. St. Leger could not do better than pick up that pretty, wise-eyed little girl. "Wise-eyed! she is that, isn't she?" cried Christina. "She always was. She is grown up wonderfully pretty." "She is no more to be compared to you, than--well, never mind," said Mrs. Thayer. "I hope we shall see more of them at Christmas. Talk of eyes,--Mr. St. Leger's eyes are beautiful. Did you notice them?" Dolly on her side had seen the party descend the rocks, looking after them with an odd feeling or mixture of feelings. The meeting with her school friend had brought up sudden contrasts never so sharply presented to her before. The gay carelessness of those old times, the warm shelter of her Aunt Hal's home, the absolute trust in her father and mother,--where was all that now? Dolly saw Christina's placid features and secure gaiety, saw her surrounded and sheltered by her parents' arms, strong to guard and defend her; and she seemed to herself lonely. It fell to her to guard and defend her mother; and her father? what was he about?--There swept over her an exceeding bitter cry of desolateness, unuttered, but as it were the cry of her whole soul; with again that sting of pain which seemed unendurable, how can a father let his child be ashamed of him! She turned away that St. Leger might not see her face; she felt it was terribly grave; and betook herself now to the examination of the church. And the still beauty and loftiness of the place wrought upon her by and by with a strange effect. Wandering along among pillars and galleries and arcades, where saints and apostles and martyrs looked down upon her as out of past ages, she seemed to be surrounded by a "great cloud of witnesses." They looked down upon her with grave, high sympathy, or they looked up with grave, high love and trust; they testified to work done and dangers met, and suffering borne, for Christ,--and to the glory awaiting them, and to which they then looked forward, and which now they had been enjoying--how long? What mattered the little troubled human day, so that heaven's long sunshine set in at the end of it? And that sun "shall no more go down." Dolly roved on and on, going from one to another sometimes lovely sometimes stern old image; and gradually she forgot the nineteenth century, and dropped back into the past, and so came to take a distant and impartial view of herself and her own life; getting a better standard by which to measure the one and regulate the other. She too could live and work for Christ. What though the work were different and less noteworthy; what matter, so that she were doing what He gave her to do? Not to make a noise in the world, either by preaching or dying; not to bear persecution; just to live true and shine, to comfort and cheer her mother, to reclaim and save her father, to trust and be glad! Yes, less than that latter would not do full honour to her Master or His truth; and so much as that He would surely help her to attain. Dolly wandered about the cathedral, and mused, and prayed, and grew quiet and strong, she thought; while her mother was viewing the church treasures with Mr. St. Leger, Dolly excused herself, preferring the church. "Dolly, Dolly," said Mrs. Copley when at last she came away, "you don't know what you have lost." "It is not so much as I have gained, mother." "I'm glad we have seen it, Mr. St. Leger; and I'm glad we have done with it! I don't want to see any more sights till we get to Venice. Where are the Thayers going, Dolly?" "To Cologne, mother, and to Nice and Mentone, they said." "I wish they were coming to Venice. How fat Christina has grown!" "O mother! She is a regular beauty--she could not do with less flesh; she ought not to lose an ounce of it. She is not fat. She is perfect. Is she not, Mr. St. Leger?" Lawrence assented that Miss Thayer had the symmetry of a beautiful statue. "Too fat," said Mrs. Copley. "If she is a statue now, what will she be by and by? I don't like that sort of beauties. Her face wants life." "It does not want sweetness," said Lawrence. "It is a very attractive face." "I am glad we stopped here, if it was only for the meeting them," said Mrs. Copley. "But I can't see how you could miss all those diamonds and gold and silver things, Dolly. They were just wonderful." "All the Green vaults did not give me the pleasure this old church did, mother." CHAPTER XXI. VENICE. "You and your friend are the most perfect contrast," remarked Lawrence as they were driving away. "She is repose in action--and you are activity in repose." "That sounds well," Dolly answered after a pause. "I am trying to think whether there is any meaning in it." "Certainly; or I hope so. She is placidity itself; one wonders if she could be anything but placid; while you"---- "Never mind about me," said Dolly hastily. "I am longing to know whether mother will like Venice." "Shall you?" "Oh, I like everything." Which was the blissful truth. Even anxiety did not prevent its being the truth; perhaps anxiety even at times put a keener edge upon enjoyment; Dolly fled from troublesome thoughts to the beauties of a landscape, the marvels of a piece of mediaeval architecture, the bewitchment of a bit of painting from an old master's hand; and tasted, and lingered, and tasted over again in memory, all the beauty and the marvel and the bewitchment. Lawrence smiled to himself at the thought of what she would find in Venice. "There's one thing I don't make out," Rupert broke in. "Only one?" said Lawrence. But the other was too intent to heed him. "It bothers me, why the people that could build such a grand church, couldn't make better houses for themselves." "Ah!" said Lawrence. "You manage that better in America?" "If we didn't--I'd emigrate! We don't have such splendid things as that old pile of stones,"--looking back at the dome,--"but our farmhouses are a long sight ahead of this country." "I guess, Rupert," Dolly remarked now, "the men that built the dome did not build the farmhouses." "Who built the dome, as you call it, then? But I don't see any dome; there's only a nest of towers." "The nobles built the great cathedrals." "And if you went through one of _their_ houses," said Lawrence, "you would not think they neglected number one. You never saw anything like an old German _schloss_ in America." "Then the nobles had all the money?" "Pretty much so. Except the rich merchants in some of the cities; and _they_ built grand churches and halls and the like, and made themselves happy with magnificence at home in other ways; not architecture." "I am glad I don't belong here," said Rupert. "But don't the people know any better?" "Than what?" "Than to let the grand folks have it all their own way?" "They were brought up to it," said Lawrence. "That's just what they like." "I expect they'll wake up some day," said Rupert. Which observation Lawrence did not think worthy of answer; as it was ahead of the time and of him equally. They made no unnecessary delay now in going on to Venice. I think Lawrence had had a secret design to see some one of the great gaming watering-places; and they had come back to the banks of the Rhine on purpose. But, however, both Dolly and her mother were in such haste that he could not induce them by any motive of curiosity or interest to stop. Dolly indeed had a great horror of those places, and did not want, she said, to see how beautiful they were. She hoped for her father's coming to them in Venice; and Mrs. Copley with the nervous restlessness of an invalid had set her mind on that goal, and would not look at anything short of it. So they only passed through Wiesbaden and went on. But Dolly did want to see Switzerland. When the party came to the lake of Constance, however, Mrs. Copley declined that proposal. Everybody went to Switzerland, she said; and she did not care about it. The hope would have fallen through, only that Lawrence, seeing Dolly's disappointment, proposed taking a route through the Tyrol. Comparatively few people went there, he assured Mrs. Copley; and furthermore, that it was as good a way to Venice as any other. Mrs. Copley gave consent; and to Dolly's immeasurable and inexpressible satisfaction through the Tyrol they went. Nothing could spoil it, even although Mrs. Copley every day openly regretted her concession and would have taken it back if she could. The one of them was heartily sorry, the other as deeply contented, when finally the plains of Lombardy were reached. It was evening and rainy weather when they came to the last stage of their journey, and left the carriage of which Mrs. Copley had grown so weary. "What sort of a place is this?" she asked presently. "Not much of a place," said Lawrence. "We will leave it as fast as possible." "Well, I should hope so. What are these things? and is that a canal?" "We should call it a canal in our country," said Rupert; "but _there_ there'd be something at the end of it." "But what are those black things?" Mrs. Copley repeated. "Do you want me to get into one of them? I don't like it." "They are gondolas, mother; Venetian gondolas. We must get into one, if we want to go to Venice." "Where is Venice?" said Mrs. Copley, looking over the unpromising landscape. "I don't know," said Dolly, laughing, "but Mr. St. Leger knows. We shall be there in a little while mother, if you'll only get in." "I don't like boats. And I never saw such boats as those in my life," said Mrs. Copley, holding back. "I would rather keep the carriage and go on as we came; though all my bones are aching. I would rather go in the carriage." "But you cannot, mother; there are no carriages here. The way is by water; and boats are the only vehicles used in Venice. We may as well get accustomed to them." "No carriages!" "Why, surely you knew that before." "I didn't. I knew there were things to go on the canals; I never knew they were such forlorn-looking things; but I supposed there were carriages to go in the streets. Are there no carts either? How is the baggage going?" "There are no streets, mother. The ways are all water ways, and the carriages are gondolas; and it is just as lovely as it can be. Come, let us try it." "What are the houses built on?" "Mother, suppose you get in, and we'll talk as we go along. We had better get out of the rain; don't you think so? It is falling quite fast." "I had rather be in the rain than in the sea. Dolly, if it isn't too far, I'll walk." "It is too far, dear mother. You could not do that. It is a long way yet." Lawrence stood by, biting his lips between impatience and a sense of the ridiculous; and withal admiring the tender, delicate patience of the girl who gently coaxed and reasoned and persuaded, and finally moved Mrs. Copley to suffer herself to be put in the gondola, on the forward deck of which Rupert had been helping the gondoliers to stow some of the baggage. Dolly immediately took her place beside her mother; the two young men followed, and the gondola pushed off. Mrs. Copley found herself comfortable among the cushions, felt that the motion of the gondola was smooth, assured herself that it would not turn over; finally felt at leisure to make observations again. "We can't see anything here," she remarked, peering out first on one side, then on the other. "There is nothing to see," said Lawrence, "but the banks of the canal." "Very ugly banks, too. Are we going all the way by water now?" "All the way, to our hotel door." "Do the boatmen know where to go?" "Yes. Have no fear." "Why don't they have streets in Venice?" "Mother, don't you remember, the city is built on sand banks, and the sea flows between? The only streets possible are like this. Could anything be better? This motion will not fatigue you; and are not your cushions comfortable?" "The _sea_, Dolly?" cried Mrs. Copley, catching the word. "You never told me that. If the sea comes in, it must be rough sometimes." "No, mother; it is a shallow level for miles and miles, covered at high tide by a few feet of water, and at low tide bare. Venice is built on the sand banks of islands which rise above this level." "What ever made people choose such a ridiculous place to build a city, when there was good ground enough?" "The good ground was not safe from enemies, mother, dear. The people fled to these sand islands for safety." "Enemies! What enemies?" So the history had to be further gone into; in the midst of which Mrs. Copley burst out again. "I'm so tired of this canal!--just mud banks and nothing else. How much longer is it to last?" "We shall come to something else by and by. Have patience," said Lawrence. But the patience of three of them was tried, before they fairly emerged from the canal, and across a broader water saw the lines of building and the domes of Venice before them. "You'll soon be out of the gondola now, mother, dear," said Dolly delightedly. For the rain clouds had lifted a little, and the wide spread of the lagoon became visible, as well as the dim line of the city; and Dolly's heart grew big. Mrs. Copley's was otherwise. "I'll never get into one again," she said, referring to the gondolas. "I don't like it. I don't feel as if I was anywhere. There's another,--there's two more. Are they all painted black?" "It is the fashion of Venetian gondolas." "Well! there is nothing like seeing for yourself. I always had an idea gondolas were something romantic and pretty. Is the water deep here?" "No, very shallow," Lawrence assured her. "It looks just as if it was deep. I wouldn't have come to Venice if I had known what a forlorn place it is." But who shall tell the different impression on Dolly's mind, when the city was really reached and the gondola entered one of those narrow water-ways between rows of palaces. The rain had begun to come down again, it is true; a watery veil hung over the buildings, drops plashed busily into the canal; there were no beautiful effects of sunlight and shadow; and Lawrence himself declared it was a miserable coming to Venice. But Dolly was in a charmed state. She noted eagerly every strange detail; bridges, boats, people; was hardly sorry for the rain, she found so much to delight her in spite of it. "What's our man making such noises for?" cried Mrs. Copley. "Just to give warning before he turns a corner," Lawrence explained, "lest he should run against another gondola." "What would happen then? Is the water deep enough to drown? It would be horrid water to be drowned in!" said Mrs. Copley shuddering. "No danger, mother; we are not going to try it," Dolly said soothingly. "Nobody is ever drowned in Venetian canals," said Lawrence. "They will carry us safe to our hotel, Mrs. Copley; never fear." "But hasn't the water risen?" she exclaimed presently. "It is up to the steps of that house there." "It is up to all the steps, mother, so that people can get into their gondolas at their very door; don't you see?" "It goes ahead of everything!" exclaimed Rupert, who had scarce spoken. "It's like being in a fairy story." "I can't see much beside water," said Mrs. Copley. "Water above and water below. It must be unhealthy. And I thought Venice had such beautiful old palaces. I don't see any of 'em." "We have passed several of them," said Lawrence. "I can see nothing but black walls--except those queer painted sticks; what are _they_ for?" "To the gondolas in waiting." "What are they painted so for?" "The colours belonging to the family arms." "Whose family?" "The family to whom the house belongs." "Dolly," said Mrs. Copley, "we shall not want to stay here long. We might go on and try Rome. Mrs. Thayer says spring-time is the best at Naples." "It will all look very different, Mrs. Copley, when you see it by sunlight," said Lawrence. "Wait a little." Dolly would have enjoyed every inch of the way, if her mother would have let her. To her eyes the novel strangeness of the scene was entrancing. Not beautiful, certainly; not beautiful yet; by mist and rain and darkness how should it be? but she relished the novelty. The charmed stillness pleased her; the gliding gondolas; the but half revealed houses and palaces; the odd conveyance in which she herself was seated; the wonderful water-ways, the strange cries of the gondoliers. It was not half spoiled for her, as it was; and she trusted the morning would bring for her mother a better mood. Something of a better mood was produced that evening when Mrs. Copley found herself in a warm room, before a good supper. But the next morning it still rained. Dark skies, thick atmosphere, a gloomy outlook upon ways where no traveller for mere pleasure was to be seen; none but people bent on business of one sort or another. Yet everything was delightful to Dolly's eyes; the novelty was perfect, the picturesqueness undeniable. What she could see of the lagoon, of the vessels at anchor, the flying gondolas, the canals and the bridges over them, and the beautiful Riva, put Dolly in a rapture. Her eye roved, her heart swelled. "O mother!" she exclaimed, "if father would only come!" "What then?" said Mrs Copley dismally. "He would take us away, I hope." "Oh, but not until we have seen Venice." "_I_ have seen Venice enough to content me. It is the wettest place I was ever in my life." "Why, it rains, mother. Any place is wet when it rains." "This would be wet at all times. I think the ground must have sunk, Dolly; people would never have built in the water so. The ground must have sunk." "No, mother; I guess not. It has been always just so." "What made them build here then, when there is all the earth beside? What did they take to the water for? And what are the houses standing on, any way?" "Islands, mother, between which these canals run. I told you before." "I should think the people hadn't any sense." And nothing would tempt Mrs. Copley out that day. Of course Dolly must stay at home too, though she would most gladly have gone about through the rainy, silent city, in one of those silent gondolas, and feed her eyes at every step. However, she made herself and made her mother as comfortable as she could; got out her painting and worked at Rupert's portrait, which was so successful that Lawrence begged she would begin upon him at once. "You know the conditions," she said. "I accept them. Finish one of me so good as that, and I will send it to my mother and ask her what she will give for it." "But not tell her?"---- "Certainly not." "I find," said Dolly slowly, "that it is a very great compliment for a lady to paint a gentleman's likeness." "Why?" "She has to give so much attention to the lines of his face. I shouldn't like to paint some people. But I'll do anybody, for a consideration." "Your words are not flattering," said Lawrence, "even if your actions are." "No," said Dolly. "Compliments are not in my way." And though she made a beginning upon St. Leger's picture, and studied the lines of his face accordingly, he did not feel flattered. Dolly's clear, intelligent eyes looked at him as steadily and as unmovedly as if he had been a Titian. The next day brought a change. If Dolly had watched from her balcony with interest the day before, now she was breathless with what she found. The sun was shining bright, a breeze was rippling the waters of the lagoon, and gently fluttering a sail and a streamer here and there; the beautiful water was enlivened with vessels of all kinds and of many lands, black gondolas darted about; and the buildings lining the shores of the lagoon stood to view in their beauty and magnificence and variety before Dolly's eye; the Doge's palace, here and there a clock tower, here and there the bridge over a side canal. "O mother!" she cried, "we have seen nothing like this! nothing like this!" "I am glad it don't rain at least," said Mrs. Copley. "But it can't be healthy here, Dolly; it must be damp." And when they all met at breakfast, and plans for the day began to be discussed, she declared that she did not want to see anything. "Not St. Mark's?" said Lawrence. "What is St. Mark's? It is just a church. I am sure we have seen churches enough." "There is only one St. Mark's in the world." "I don't care if there were a dozen. Is it better than the church we went to see--at that village near Wiesbaden?" "Limburg? Much better." "Well--that will do for me." "There is the famous old palace of the Doges; and the Bridge of Sighs, Mrs. Copley, and the prisons." "Prisons? You don't think I want to go looking at prisons, do you? Why should I? what's in the prisons?" "Not much. There has been, first and last, a good deal of misery in them." "And you think that is pleasant to look at?" Dolly could not help laughing, and confessed she would like to see the prisons. "Well, you may go," said her mother. "_I_ don't want to." Lawrence saw that Dolly's disappointment was like to be bitter. "I'll tell you what I'll show you, Mrs. Copley, if you'll trust yourself to go out," he said. "I have got a commission from my mother which must take me into one of the wonderful shops of curiosities here. You never saw such a shop. Old china, of the rarest, and old furniture of the most delightful description, and old curiosities of art out of decayed old palaces, caskets, vases, trinkets, mirrors, and paintings." Mrs. Copley demurred. "Can we go there in a carriage?" "No such thing to be had, except a gondola carriage. Come! you will like it. Why, Mrs. Copley, the streets are no broader than very narrow alleys. Carriages would be of no use." Mrs. Copley demurred, but was tempted. The gondola went better by day than in the night. Once out, Lawrence used his advantage and took the party first to the Place of St. Mark, where he delighted Dolly with a sight of the church. Mrs. Copley was too full of something else to admire churches. She waited and endured, while Dolly's eyes and mind devoured the new feast given to them. They went into the church, up to the roof, and came out to the Piazza again. "It is odd," said Dolly--"I see it is beautiful; I see it is magnificent; more of both than I can say; and yet, it does not give me the feeling of respect I felt for that old dome at Limburg." "But," said Lawrence; "that won't do, you know. St. Mark's and Limburg! that opinion cannot stand. What makes you say so?" "I don't know," said Dolly. "I have a feeling that the people who built that were more in earnest than the people who built this." "More in earnest? I beg your pardon!" said Lawrence. "What can you mean? I should say people were in earnest enough here, to judge by the riches of the place. Just see the adornment everywhere, and the splendour." "Yes," said Dolly, "I see. It is partly that. Though there was adornment, and riches too, at the other place. But the style of it is different. Those grave old towers at Limburg seemed striving up into the sky. I don't see any striving here; in the building, I mean." "Why, there are pinnacles enough," said Lawrence, in comical inability to fathom her meaning, or answer her. "Yes," said Dolly; "and domes; but the pinnacles do not strive after anything, and the cupolas seem to settle down like great extinguishers upon everything like striving." Lawrence laughed, and thought in his own mind that Dolly was a little American, wanting culture, and knowing nothing about architecture. "What is that great long building?" Mrs. Copley now inquired. "That, mother?--that is the palace of the Doges. Where is the Bridge of Sighs?" They went round to look at it from the Ponte della Paglia. Nearer investigation had to be deferred, or, Dolly saw, it would be too literally a bridge of sighs to them that morning. They turned their backs on the splendours, ecclesiastical and secular, of the Place of St. Mark, and proceeded to the store of second-hand curiosities St. Leger had promised Mrs. Copley, the visit to which could no longer be deferred. Dolly was in a dream of delight all the way. Sunlight on the old palaces, on the bridges over the canals, on the wonderful carvings of marbles, on the strange water-ways; sunlight and colour; ay, and shadow and colour too, for the sun could not get in everywhere. Between the beauty and picturesqueness, and the wealth of old historic legend and story clustering about it everywhere, Dolly's dream was entrancing. "I do not know half enough about Venice," she remarked by the way. "Rupert, we must read up. As soon as I can get the books," she added with a laugh. However, Dolly was susceptible to more than one sort of pleasure; and when the party had reached the Jew's shop, she was perhaps as much pleased though not so much engrossed as her mother. For Mrs. Copley, figuratively speaking, was taken off her feet. This was another thing from the Green vaults and the treasure chamber of Limburg; here the wonders and glories were not unattainable, if one had the means to reach them, that is; and not admiration only, but longing, filled Mrs. Copley's mind. "I must have that cabinet," she said. "I suppose we can do nothing till your father comes, Dolly. Do write and tell him to bring plenty of money along, for I shall want some. Such a chance one does not have often in one's life. And that cup! Dolly, I _must_ have that cup; it's beyond everything I ever did see!" "Mother, look at this ivory carving." "That's out of my line," said Mrs. Copley with a slight glance. "I should call that good for nothing, now. What's the use of it? But, O Dolly, see this sideboard!" "You don't want _that_, mother." "Why don't I? The price is not so very much." "Think of the expense of getting it home." "There is no such great difficulty in that. You must write your father, Dolly, to send if he does not come, at once. I should not like to leave these things long. Somebody else might see them." "Hundreds have seen them already, Mrs. Copley," said Lawrence. "There's time enough." "I'd rather not trust to that." "What things do you want, dear mother, seriously? Anything?" Dolly's voice carried a soft insinuation that her mother's wanting anything there was a delusion; Mrs. Copley flamed out. "Do you think I am coming into such a place as this, Dolly, and going to let the chance slip? I _must_ have several of these things. I'll tell you. This cup--that isn't much. Now that delicious old china vase--I do not know what china it is, but I'll find out; there is nothing like it, I don't believe, in all Boston. I have chosen that sideboard; _that_ is quite reasonable. You would pay quite as much in Boston, or in London, for a common handsome bit of cabinet-maker's work; while this is--just look at it, Dolly; see these drawers, see these compartments--that's for wine and cordials, you know"---- "We don't want wine and cordials," said Dolly. "See the convenience and the curiousness of these arrangements; and look at the inlaying, child! It's the loveliest thing I ever saw in my life. Oh, I must have that! And it would be a sin to leave this screen, Dolly. Where ever do you suppose that came from?" "Eastern work," said Lawrence. "What eastern work?" "Impossible for me to say. Might have belonged to the Great Mogul, by the looks of it. Do you admire _that_, Mrs. Copley?" "How should it come here?" "Here? the very place!" said Lawrence. "What was there rare or costly in the world, that did not find its way to Venice and into the palaces of the old nobles?" "But how came it _here?_" "Into this curiosity shop? The old nobles went to pieces, and their precious things went to auction; and good Master Judas or Master Levi bought them." "And these things were in the palaces of the old nobles?" "Many of them. Perhaps all of them. I should say, a large proportion." "That makes them worth just so much the more." "You need not tell Master Levi that. And you have admired so much this morning, Mrs. Copley, if you will take my advice, it will be most discreet to come away without making any offer. Do not let him think you have any purpose of buying. I am afraid he will put on a fearful price, if you do." Whether Lawrence meant this counsel seriously, or whether it was a feint to get Mrs. Copley safely out of the shop, Dolly was uncertain; she was grateful to Lawrence all the same. No doubt he had seen that she was anxious. He had been in fact amused at the elder lady not more than interested for the younger one; Dolly's delicate attempts to draw off her mother from thoughts of buying had been so pretty, affectionate, and respectful in manner, sympathising, and yet steady in self-denial. Mrs. Copley was hard to bring off. She looked at Lawrence, doubtful and antagonistic, but his suggestion had been too entirely in her own line not to be appreciated. Mrs. Copley looked and longed, and held her tongue; except from exclamations. They got out of the shop at last, and Dolly made a private resolve not to be caught there again if she could help it. In the afternoon she devoted herself to painting Lawrence's picture. Her first purpose had been to take a profile or side view of him; but St. Leger declared, if the likeness was for his mother she would never be satisfied if the eyes did not look straight into her eyes; so Dolly had to give that point up; and accordingly, while she studied him, he had full and equal opportunity to study her. It was a doubtful satisfaction. He could rarely meet Dolly's eyes, while yet he saw how coolly they perused him, how calmly they studied him as an abstract thing. He wanted to see a little shyness, a little consciousness, a little wavering, in those clear, wise orbs; but no! Dolly sat at her work and did it as unconcernedly as if she were five years old, to all appearance; with as quiet, calm poise of manner and simplicity of dignity as if she had been fifty. But how pretty she was! Those eyes of hers were such an uncommon mingling of childhood and womanhood, and so lovely in cut and colour and light; and the mouth was the most mobile thing ever known under that name, and charming in every mood of rest or movement. The whole delicate face, the luxuriant brown hair, the little hands, the supple, graceful figure, Lawrence studied over and over again; till he felt it was not good for him. "Painting a person must make you well acquainted with him," he began after a long silence, during which Dolly had been very busy. "Outside knowledge," said Dolly. "Does not the outside always tell something of what is within?" "Something," Dolly allowed in the same tone. "What do you see in me?" "Mrs. St. Leger will know, when she gets this." "What you see _in_ me?" "Well, no--perhaps not." "Couldn't you indulge me and tell me?" "Why should I?" "Out of kindness." "I do not know whether it would be a kindness," said Dolly slowly. "You see, Dolly, a fellow can't stand everything for ever! I want to know what you think of me, and what my chances are. Come! I've been pretty patient, it strikes me. Speak out a bit." Mrs. Copley was lying down to rest, and Rupert had left the room. The pair were alone. "What do you want me to say, Mr. St. Leger?" "Tell me what you see in me." "What would be the good of that? I see an Englishman, to begin with." "You _see_ that in me?" "Certainly." "I am glad, but I didn't know it. Is that an advantage in your eyes?" "Am I an Englishwoman?" "Not a bit of it," said Lawrence, "nor like it. I never saw an English girl the least like you. But you might grow into it, Dolly, don't you think?" She lifted her face for an instant and gave him a flashing glance of fun. "Won't you try, Dolly?" "I think I would just as lieve be an American." "Why? America is too far off." "Very good when you get there," said Dolly contentedly. "But not better than we have on our side?" "Well, you have not all the advantages on your side," said Dolly, much occupied with her drawing. "Go on, and tell me _what_ we have not." "I doubt the wisdom." "I beg the favour." "It would not please you. In the first place, you would not believe me. In the second place, you would reckon an advantage what I reckon a disadvantage." "What _do_ you mean?" said Lawrence, very curious and at the same time uneasy. Dolly tried to get off, but he held her to the point. At last Dolly spoke out. "Mr. St. Leger, women have a better time in my country." "A better time? Impossible. There are no homes in the world where wives and daughters are better cared for or better loved. None in the world!" "Ah," said Dolly, "they are too well cared for." "How do you mean?" "Too little free." "Free?" said Lawrence. "Is _that_ what you want?" "And not quite respected enough." "Dolly, you bewilder me. What ever did you see or hear to make you think our women are not respected?" "I dare say it is a woman's view," said Dolly lightly. But Lawrence eagerly begged her to explain or give an instance of what she meant. "I have not seen much, you know," said Dolly, painting away. "But I heard a gentleman once, at his own dinner-table, and when there was company present--I was not the only visitor--I heard him tell his wife that the _soup was nasty_." And Dolly glanced up to see how Lawrence took it. She judiciously did not tell him that the house was his own father's, and the gentleman in question Mr. St. Leger himself. Lawrence was silent at first. I presume the thing was not so utterly unfamiliar as that he should be much shocked; while he did perceive that here was some difference of the point of view between Dolly's standpoint and his own, and was not ready to answer. Dolly glanced up at him significantly: still Lawrence did not find words. "That didn't mean anything!" at last he said. Dolly glanced at him again. "I suppose the soup _wasn't_ good. Why not say so?" "No reason why he should not say so, at a proper time and place." "It didn't mean any harm, Dolly." "I suppose not." "Then what's the matter?" "It is not the way _we_ do," said Dolly. "In America, I mean. Not when we are polite." "Do you think husband and wife ought to be polite to each other--in that way?" "In what way?" "That they should not call things by their right names?" Here Dolly lifted her sweet head and laughed; a merry, ringing, musical, very much amused laugh. "Ah, you see you are an Englishman," she said. "That is the way you will speak to your wife." "I will never speak to _you_, Dolly, in any way you don't like." "No" said Dolly gravely, and returning to her work. "Aren't you ever going to give me a little bit of encouragement?" said he. "I have been waiting as patiently as I could. May I tell my mother who did the picture, when I send it?" "Say it was done by a deserving young artist, in needy circumstances; but no names." "But that's not true, Dolly. Your father is as well off as ever he was; his embarrassments are only temporary. He is not in needy circumstances." "I said nothing about my father. Here, Mr. St. Leger--come and look at it." The finished likeness was done with great truth and grace. Dolly's talent was an extraordinary one, and had not been uncultivated. She had done her best in the present instance, and the result was a really delicious piece of work. Lawrence saw himself given to great advantage; truly, delicately, characteristically. He was delighted. "I will send it right off," he said. "Mamma has nothing of me half so good." "Ask her what she thinks it is worth." "And I want you to paint a duplicate of this, for me; for myself." "A duplicate!" cried Dolly. "I couldn't." "Another likeness of me then, in another view. Set your own price." "But I shall never make my fortune painting you," said Dolly. "You must get me some other customers; that is the bargain." "What notion is this, Dolly? It is nonsense between me and you. Why not let things be settled? Let us come to an understanding, and give up this ridiculous idea of painting for money;--if you are in earnest." "I am always in earnest. And we are upon an excellent understanding, Mr. St. Leger. And I want money. The thing is as harmonious as possible." CHAPTER XXII. MR. COPLEY. Lawrence could get no more satisfaction from Dolly. She left him, and went and stood at the window of her mother's room, looking out. The sunset landscape was glorious. Bay and boats, shipping, palaces, canals and bridges, all coloured in such wonderful colours, brilliant in such marvellous lights and shades, as northern lands do not know, though they have their own. Yet she looked at it sadly. It was Venice; but when would her father come? All her future seemed doubtful and cloudy; and the sunshine which is merely external does not in some moods cast even a reflection of brightness upon one's inner world. If her father would come, and Lawrence would go--if her father would come and be his old self--but what large "ifs" these were. Dolly's eyes grew misty. Then her mother woke up. "What are you looking at, Dolly?" "The wonderful sunset, mother. Oh, it is so beautiful! Do come here and see the colours on the sails of the boats." "When do you think your father will be here?" "Oh, soon, I hope. He ought to be here soon." "Did you tell him I would want money to buy things? I must not lose that sideboard." "There was no need to write about that. He can always get money, if he chooses, as well here as in London. If he has it, that is; but you know, mother"---- "I know," Mrs. Copley interrupted, "that is all nonsense. He _has_ it. He always did have it. He has been spending it in other ways lately; that's what it is. Getting his own pleasure. Now it is my turn." "You shall have it, dear mother, if I can manage it. You are nicely to-day, aren't you? Venice agrees with you. I'm so glad!" "I think everything would go right, Dolly, if you would just tell Mr. St. Leger that you will have him. I don't like such humming and hawing about anything. He really has waited long enough. If you would tell him that, now, or tell _me_, then he would lend me the money I want to get those things. I am afraid of losing them. Dolly, when you know you are going to say yes, why not say it? I believe I should get well then, right off. _You_ would be safe too, any way." Dolly sighed imperceptibly, and made no answer. "You don't half appreciate Mr. St. Leger. He's just a splendid young man. I don't believe there's such another match for you in all England. You should have seen how keen Mrs. Thayer was to know all about him. Wouldn't she like him for her daughter, though! and she is handsome enough, according to some taste. I wish, Dolly, you'd have everything fixed and square before we meet the Thayers again; or you cannot tell what may happen. He may slip through your fingers yet." Dolly made as little answer as possible. And further, she contrived for a few days to keep her mother from the curiosity shops. It could be done only by staying persistently within doors; and Dolly shut herself up to her painting, and made excuses. But she found this was telling unfavourably on her mother's spirits, and so on her nerves and health; and she began to go out again, though chafing at her dependence on Lawrence, and longing for her father exceedingly. He came at last; and Dolly to her great relief thought he looked well; though certainly not glad to be in Venice. "How's your mother?" he asked her when they were alone. "I think she will be well now, father; now that you have come. And I have so wanted you!" "I have no doubt she could have got along just as well without me till she went to Sorrento, if she had only thought so." "I don't think she could. And _I_ could not, father. I do not like to be left so much to Mr. St. Leger's care." "He likes it. How has he behaved?" "He has behaved very well." "Then what's the matter?" "I don't want him to think he has a right to take care of us." "He has the right, if I give it to him. And you know you mean to give him the right, Dolly, in permanence. What's the use of fighting shy about it? Oh, girls, girls! You must have your way, I suppose. Well, now I'm here to look after you." And the business of sight-seeing was carried on from that time with unabating activity. They went everywhere, and still Mr. Copley found new things for them to see. Mrs. Copley took him into the curiosity shops, but as surely he took her out of them, with not much done in the way of purchases. Dolly enjoyed everything during the first week or two. She would have enjoyed it hugely, only that the lurking care about her father was always present to her mind. She was not at rest. Mr. Copley seemed well and cheery; active and hearty as usual; yet Dolly detected something hollow in the cheer and something forced in the activity. She thought him restless and uneasy, in spite of all the gaiety. One day after an excursion of some length the party had turned into a restaurant to refresh themselves. Chocolate and coffee had been brought; and then Mr. Copley exclaimed, "Hang it! this won't do. Have you drunk nothing but slops all this while, Lawrence?" And he ordered the waiter to bring a flask of Greek wine. Dolly's heart leaped to her mouth. "Oh no, father!" she said pleadingly, laying her hand on his. "Oh no, what, my child?" "No wine, please, father!" There was more intensity in Dolly's accents than perhaps anybody knew but Mr. Copley; he had the key; and the low quaver in Dolly's voice did not escape him. He answered without letting himself meet her eyes. "Why not? Hasn't Lawrence given you any _vino dolce_ since you have been in foreign parts? One can get good wine in Venice; and pure." "If one knows where to go for it," added St. Leger. "So I am told." "You have not found out by experience yet? We will explore together." "Not for wine, father?" murmured Dolly. "Yes, for wine. Wine is one of the good things. What do you think grapes grow for, eh? Certainly, wine is a good thing, if it is properly used. Eh, Lawrence?" "I have always thought so, sir." "Cheer your mother up now, Dolly. I believe it would do her lots of good. Here it is. We'll try." Dolly flushed with pain and anxiety. Yet here, how could she speak plainly? Her father was opening the bottle, and the waiter was setting the glasses. "We have it on good authority, Miss Dolly," Lawrence said, looking at her, and not sure how far he might venture, "that wine 'maketh glad the heart of man.'" "And on the same authority we have it that 'wine is a mocker.'" "What will you do with contradictory authority?" "They are not contradictory, those two words," said Dolly. "It is deceitful; it gets hold of a man, and then he cannot get loose from it. You _know_, Mr. St. Leger, what work it does." "Not _good_ wine," said her father, tossing off his glass. "That's fair; nothing extra. I think we can find better. Letitia, try it; I have a notion it will do you good;--ought to have been tried before." And he filled his wife's glass, and then Dolly's, and then Rupert's. Dolly felt as nearly desperate as ever in her life. Her father had the air of a man who has broken through a slight barrier between him and comfort. Mrs. Copley sipped the wine. Lawrence looked observingly from one face to another. Then Dolly stretched out her hand and laid it upon Rupert's glass. "Please stand by me, Rupert!" she begged. "I will!" said the young man, smiling. "What do you want me to do?" "Do as I do." "I will." Dolly lifted her glass and poured the contents of it into the nearly emptied chocolate jug. Rupert immediately followed her example. "What's that for?" said her father, frowning. "It's waste," added her mother. "I call that waste." "Don't make yourself ridiculous, Dolly!" Mr. Copley went on. "My child, the world has drunk wine ever since before you were born, and it will go on drinking it after you are dead. What is the use of trying to change what cannot be changed? What can _you_ do?" "Father, I will not help a bad cause." "How is it a bad cause, Miss Dolly?" said Lawrence now. "It is a certain pleasure,--but what harm?" "Do you ask me that?" said she, with a look of her clear, womanly eyes, which it was not very pleasant to meet. "Well, of course, if people misuse the thing,"---- he began. "Do they often misuse it, Mr. St. Leger?" "Well, yes; perhaps they do." "Go on. What are the consequences, when they misuse it?" "When people drink too much bad brandy of course--but wine like _this_ never hurt anybody." Dolly thought, it had hurt _her_ that day; but she could not trust her voice to say it. Her lips trembled, her beautiful eyes filled, she was obliged to wait. And how, there before her father whom the fruit of the vine had certainly hurt grievously, and before Mr. St. Leger who knew as much and had seen it, could she put the thing in words? Her father had chosen his time cruelly. And where was his promise? Dolly fought and swallowed and struggled with herself; and tried to regain command of voice. "It's a narrow view, ray dear," said Mr. Copley, filling his glass again, to Dolly's infinite horror; "a narrow view. Well-bred people do not hold it. It is always a mistake to set yourself against the world. The world is generally right." "O father, do you think so?" "Not a doubt of it," said Mr. Copley, sipping the wine and looking from one to another of the faces in the little group. "Dolly is a foolish girl, Rupert; do not let her persuade you." "It certainly is not the wine that is to be condemned," said Lawrence, "but the immoderate use of it. That's all." "What do you call immoderate use of it?" Rupert asked now, putting the question in Dolly's interest. "More than your head can bear," said Lawrence. "Keep within that limit, and you're all right." "Suppose your neighbour cannot bear what you can?" said Dolly, looking at him. "And suppose your example tempts him?" "It's his business to know what he can take," said Lawrence. "It isn't mine." "But suppose he is drawn on by your example, and drinks more than he can bear? What follows, Mr. St. Leger?" Dolly's voice had a pathetic clang which touched Rupert, and I think embarrassed Lawrence. "If he is so unwise, of course he suffers for it. But as I said, that is his business." "And not yours?" "Of course not!" Mr. Copley broke in. "Dolly, you do not understand the world. How can I tell St. Leger how much he is to drink? or he tell me how much I must? Don't be absurd, child! You grow a little absurd, living alone." "Father, I think the world might be better than it is. And one person helps on another for good or for evil. And St. Paul was not of your opinion." "St. Paul? What did he say about it? That one must not drink wine? Not at all. He told Timothy, or somebody, to take it, for his stomach's sake." "But he said,--that if meat made his brother to offend, he would eat no meat while the world stood, lest he made his brother to offend. And meat is certainly a good thing." "Well, there are just two things about it," said Mr. Copley; "meat is not wine, and I am not St. Paul. A little more, Lawrence. If it is not a man's duty to look after his neighbour's potations, neither is it a woman's. Dolly is young; she will learn better." If she did not, Lawrence thought, she would be an inconvenient helpmeet for him. He was very much in love; but certainly he would not wish his wife to take up a crusade against society. Perhaps Dolly _would_ learn better; he hoped so. Yet the little girl had some reason, too; for her father gave her trouble, Lawrence knew. "I'm sorry," he thought, "deuced sorry! but really I can't be expected to take Mr. Copley, wine and all, on my shoulders. Really it is not my look-out." Dolly went home very sober and careful. It is true, not much wine had been drunk that day. Yet she knew a line had been passed, the passing of which was significant of future licence, and introductory to it. And that it had been done in her presence was to prove to her that her influence could avail nothing. It was bravado. What lay before her now? "Rupert," she said suddenly, as they were walking together, "let us make a solemn pledge, you and I, each to the other, that we will never drink wine nor anything of the sort; unless we must, for sickness, you know." "What would be the good of that?" said the young man, laughing. "I don't know," said Dolly, from whose eyes, on the contrary, hot tears began to drop. "Perhaps I shall save you, and you may save me; how can we tell?" "But we could keep from it just the same, without pledging ourselves?" said Rupert, soberly enough now. "Could; but we might be tempted. If we do this, maybe we can help other people, as well as each other." The tears were coming so thick from Dolly's eyes that Rupert's heart was sore for her. She was brushing them away, right and left, but he saw them glitter and fall; and he thought the man who could, for the sake of a glass of wine, cause such tears to be shed, was--I won't say what he thought he was. He was mad against Mr. Copley and St. Leger too. He promised whatever Dolly wanted. And when they were at home, and an opportunity was found, the agreement abovementioned was written out, and Rupert made two copies, and one of them he kept and one Dolly kept; both signed with both their names. So Rupert was safe. From that day, however, things went less well with Mr. Copley. He began by small degrees to withdraw himself from the constant attendance upon his wife and daughter which he had hitherto practised, leaving them again to Lawrence's care. By little and little this came about. Mr. Copley excused himself in the morning, and was with them in the evening; then after a while he was missing in the evening. Dolly tried to hold him fast, by getting him to sit for his picture; and the very observation under which she held him so, showed her that he was suffering from evil influences. His eyes had lost something of their frank, manly sparkle; avoided hers; looked dull and unsteady. The lines of his whole face inexplicably were changed; an expression of feebleness and something like humiliation taking place of the alert, bold, self-sufficient readiness of look and tone which had been natural to him. Dolly read it all, with a heart torn in two, and painted it as she read it; making a capital picture of him. But it grieved Dolly sorely, while it delighted everybody else. "What is it worth, father?" she asked, concealing as well as she could what she felt. "Worth? it's worth anything you please. It is glorious, Dolly!" "I work for money," she said archly. "Upon my word, you could turn a pretty penny if you did. This is capital work," said he, turning to Lawrence. "If this had been done on ivory, now"---- "I did a likeness of Mr. St. Leger for his mother--that was on ivory. She sent me ten pounds for it." "Ten pounds to _her_. To anybody else, I should say it was worth twenty,--well," said Mr. Copley. "So I say, sir," Lawrence answered. "I am going to pay that price for my copy." "Then will you pay me twenty pounds, sir?" "I?" said Mr. Copley. "Not exactly, Dolly! I am not made of money, like your friend Lawrence here. Wish I could, and you should have it." "Will you get me customers, then, father?" "Customers!" echoed Mr. Copley. "Yes. Because you are not made of money, you know, father; and I want a good deal of money." "You!" said Mr. Copley, looking at her. For, indeed, Dolly had never been one of those daughters who make large demands on their father's purse. But Dolly answered now with a calm, practical tone and manner. "Yes, I do, father; and mother has a longing for some of those Arabian Nights things in the curiosity shops. You know people enough here, father; show them your picture and get me customers." "Don't be ridiculous, Dolly," said her father. "We are not at the point of distress yet. And," he added in a graver tone, as Lawrence left the room, "you must remember, that even if I were willing to see my daughter working as a portrait-painter, Mr. St. Leger might have a serious objection to his wife doing it--or a lady who is to be his wife." "Mr. St. Leger may dispose of his wife when he gets her," said Dolly calmly. "I am not that lady." "Yes, you are." "Not if I know anything about it." "Then you don't!" said Mr. Copley. "It is proverbial that girls never know their own minds. Why, Dolly, it would be the making of you, child." "No, father; only of my dresses." Mr. Copley was a little provoked. "What's your objection to St. Leger? Can you give one?" he asked hotly. "Father, he doesn't suit me." "You don't like him, because you don't like him. A real woman's reason! Isn't he handsome?" "Very. And sleepy." "He's wide awake enough for purposes of business." "Maybe; not for purposes of pleasure. Father, beautiful paintings and grand buildings are nothing to him; nothing at all; and music might be the tinkling of tin kettles for all the meaning he finds in it. Father, dear, do get me some customers!" "You are a silly girl, Dolly!" said her father, breaking away, and not very well pleased. Neither did he bring her customers. Those were not the days of photographs. Dolly took to painting little bits of views in Venice; here a palace; there a bridge over a canal; the pillars with the dragon and St. Theodore, the Place of St. Mark, bits of the Riva with boats; she finished up these little pictures with great care and delicacy of execution, and then employed Rupert to dispose of them in the stationers' and fancy shops. He had some difficulty at first in finding the right market for her wares; however, he finally succeeded; and Dolly could sell as many pictures as she could paint. True, not for a great price; they did not pay so well as likenesses; but Dolly took what she could get, feeling very uncertain of supplies for a time that was coming. Mr. Copley certainly was not flush with his money now; and she did not flatter herself that his ways were mending. Less and less did his wife and daughter see of his company. "Rupert," said Dolly doubtfully, one day, "do you know where my father goes, so much of the time?" "No," said Rupert; "that's just what I don't. But I can find out, easy." Dolly did not say, Do; she did not say anything; she stood pondering and anxious by the window. Neither did Rupert ask further; he acted. It came by degrees to be a pretty regular thing, that Mr. Copley spent the evening abroad, excused himself from going anywhere with his family, and when they did see him wore an uncertain, purposeless, vagrant sort of look and air. By degrees this began to strike even Mrs. Copley. "I wish you would just make up your mind to marry Mr. St. Leger!" she said almost weepingly one day. "Then all would go right. I believe it would make me well, to begin with; and it would bring your father right back to his old self." "How, mother?" Dolly said sadly. "It would give him spirit at once. It is because he is out of spirits that he does so." (Mrs. Copley did not explain herself.) "I know, if he were once sure of seeing you Mrs. St. Leger, all would come right. Lawrence would help him; he _could_ help him then." "Who would help me?" "Nonsense, Dolly! Who would help you choose your dresses and wear your diamonds; that is all the difficulty you would have. But all's going wrong!" said Mrs. Copley, sinking into tears; "and you are selfish, like everybody else, and think only of yourself." Dolly bore this in silence. It startled her, however, greatly, to find her own view of things held by her much less sharp-sighted mother. She pondered on what was best to do. Should she sit still and quietly see her father lost irretrievably in the bad habits which were creeping upon him? But what step could she take? She asked herself this question evening after evening. It was late one night, and Lawrence as well as her father had been out ever since dinner. Mrs. Copley, weary and dispirited, had gone to bed. Dolly stood at the window looking out, not to see how the moonlight sparkled on the water and glanced on the vessels, but in a hopeless sort of expectancy watching for her father to come. The stream of passers-by had grown thin, and was growing thinner. "Rupert," Dolly spoke after a long silence, "do you know where my father is?" "Can't say I do. I could give a pretty fair guess, though, if you asked me." "Could you take me to him?" "Take you to him!" exclaimed the young man, starting. "Can you find the way? Where is it?" "I've been there often enough," said Rupert. "What place is it?" "The queerest place you ever saw. Do you recollect Mr. St. Leger telling us once about wine-shops in Venice? You and he were talking"---- "Yes, yes, I remember. Is it one of those? Not a café?" "Not a café at all; neither a café nor a trattoria. Just a wine-shop. Nothing in it but wine casks, and the mugs or jugs of white and blue crockery that they draw the wine into; it's the most ridiculous place altogether I ever was in. I haven't been in it now, that's a fact." "What were you there for so often, then?" "Well," said Rupert, "I was looking after things." "Drink wine and eat nothing!" said Dolly again. "Are there many people there?" "Well, you can eat if you have a mind to; there are folks enough to sell you things; though they don't belong to the establishment. They come in from the street, with ever so many sorts of things, directly they see a customer sit down; fish and oysters, and cakes and fruit. But the shop sells nothing but wine. Mr. St. Leger says that is good." "Not many people there?" Dolly asked again. "No; not unless at a busy time. There won't be many there now, I guess." "What makes you think my father is there?" "I've seen him there pretty often," Rupert said in a low voice. Dolly stood some minutes silent, thinking, and struggling with herself. When she turned to Rupert at the end of those minutes, her air was quite composed and her voice was clear and calm. "Can you take me there, Rupert? Can you find the way?" "I know it as well as the way to my mouth. You see, I didn't know but maybe--I couldn't tell what you might take a notion to want me to do; so I just practised, till I had got the ins and outs of the thing. And there are a good many ins and outs, I can tell you. But I know them." "Then we will go," said Dolly. "I'll be ready in two minutes." It was a brilliant moonlight night, as I said. Venice, the bride of the Adriatic, lay as if robed in silver for her wedding. The air was soft, late as the time of year was; Dolly had no need of any but a light wrap to protect her in her midnight expedition. Rupert called a gondola, and presently they were gliding along, as still as ghosts, under the shadow of bridges, past glistening palace fronts, again in the deep shade of a wall of buildings. Wherever the light struck it was like molten silver; façades and carvings stood sharply revealed; every beauty of the weird city seemed heightened and spiritualised; almost glorified; while the silence, the outward peace, gave still more the impression of a place fair-like and unreal. It was truly a wonderful sail, a marvellous passage through an enchanted city, never to be forgotten by either of the two young people; who went for some distance in a silence as if a spell were upon them too. At Dolly's age, with all its elasticity, some aspects of trouble are more overwhelming than in later years. When one has not measured life, not learned yet the relations and proportions of things, one imagines the whole earth darkened by the cloud which is but hiding the sun from the spot where our feet stand. And before one has seen what wonders Time can do, the ruin wrought by an avalanche or a flood seems irreparable. It is inconceivable, that the bare and torn rocks should be clothed again, the choking piles of rubbish ever be anything but dismal and unsightly, the stripped fields ever be green and flourishing, or the torn-up trees be ever replaced. Yet Time does it all. Come after a while to look again, and the traces of past devastation are not easy to find; nature's weaving has so covered, and nature's embroidery has so adorned, the bald places. In human life there is something like this often done; though, as I said, youth wots not of it and does not believe in it. So Dolly this night saw her little life a wilderness, which had been a garden of flowers. Some flowers might be lifting their heads yet, but what Dolly looked at was the destruction. Wrought by her own father's hand! I cannot tell how that thought stung and crushed Dolly. What would anything else in the world have mattered, so she could have kept him? help could have been found; but to lose _him_, her father, and not by death, but by change, by dishonour, by loss of his identity--Dolly felt indeed that a storm had come upon the little garden of her life from the sweeping ruin of which there could be no revival. She could hardly hold her head up for a long distance of that midnight sail; yet she did, and noted as they passed the fairy glories of the scene. Just noted them, to deepen, if possible, the pangs at her heart. All this beauty, all this outward delight, mocked the inner reality; and made sharp the sense of it with the contrast of what might have been. As they went along, Venice became to her fancy a grave and monument of lost things, which floated together in her mind's vision. Past struggles for freedom, beaten back or faded out; vanished patriotism and art, with their champions; extinct ambitions and powers; historical glories evaporated, as it were, leaving only a scent upon the air; what was left at Venice but monuments? and like it now her own little life gone out and gone down! For so it seemed to Dolly. Even if she succeeded in her mission, and brought her father home, what safety, what security could she have? And if she did _not_ bring him--then all was lost indeed. It was lost anyhow, she thought, as far as her own life was concerned. Her father could not be what he had been again. "O father! my father!" was poor Dolly's bitter cry, "if you had taken anything else from me, and only left me yourself!" After a long time, when she spoke to Rupert, it was in a quiet, unaltered voice. "Is this the shortest way, Rupert?" "As like as not it's the longest. But, you see, it's the only way I know. I've always got there starting from the Place of St. Mark; and that way I know what I am about; but though I daresay there's a short cut home, I've never been it, and don't know it." Dolly added no more. "It's a bit of a walk from St. Mark's," Rupert went on. "Do you mind?" "No," said Dolly, sighing. "Rupert, I wish you were a Christian friend! You are a good friend, but I wish you were a Christian!" "Why just now?" "Nobody else can give one comfort. You cannot, Rupert, with all the will in the world; there is no comfort in anything you could tell me. I have only one Christian friend on this side of the Atlantic; and that is Mrs. Jersey; and she might as well be in America too, where Aunt Hal is!" Dolly was crying. It went to Rupert's heart. "What could a Christian friend say to you?" he asked at length. "Remind me of something, or of some words, that I ought to remember," said Dolly, still weeping. "Of what?" said Rupert. "If you know, tell me. Remind yourself; that's as good as having some one else remind you. What comfort is there in religion for a great trouble? Is there any?" "Yes," said Dolly. "What then? Tell us, Miss Dolly. I may want it some time, as well as you." "I suppose everybody is pretty sure to want it, some time in his life," said Dolly sadly, but trying to wipe away her tears. "Let's have the comfort then," said Rupert, "if you've got it." "Why, are _you_ in trouble, Rupert?" she said, rousing up. "What about?" "Never mind; let's have the comfort; that's the thing wanted just now. What would you say to me now if I wanted it pretty bad?" "The trouble is, it is so hard to believe what God says," Dolly said, speaking half to herself and half to her companion. "What does He say? Is it anything a fellow can take hold of and hold on to? I never could make out much by what I've heard folks tell; and I never heard much anyhow, to begin with." "One of the things that are good to me," said Dolly, bowing her face on her hand, "is--that Jesus knows." "Knows what?" "All about it--everything--my trouble, and your trouble, if you have any." "I don't see the comfort in that. If He knows, why don't He hinder? I suppose He _can_ hinder?" "He does hinder whatever would be real harm to His people; He has promised that." "Well, ain't this real harm, that is worrying you?" said Rupert. "What do you call harm?" "Pain and trouble are not always harm," said Dolly, "for His children often have them, I know; and no trouble seems sweet at the minute, but bitter; and the sweet fruits come afterward. Oh, it's so bitter now!" cried poor Dolly, unable to keep the tears back again;--"but He knows. He knows." "If He knows," said Rupert, wholly unable to understand this reasoning, "why doesn't He hinder? That's what I look at." "I don't know," said Dolly faintly. "What comforts you in that, then?" said Rupert almost impatiently. "That's too big a mouthful for me." "No, you're wrong," said Dolly. "He knows why. I have the comfort of that, and so I am sure there _is_ a why. It is not all vague chance and confusion, with no hand to rule anything. Don't you see what a difference that makes?" "Do you mean to say, that everything that happens is for the best?" "No," said Dolly. "Wrong can never be as good as right. Only, Rupert, God will so manage things that to His children--to His children--good shall come out of evil, and nothing really hurt them." "Then the promise is only for them?" "That's all. How could it be for the others?" "I don't see it," said Rupert. "Seems to my eyes as if black was black and white white; it's the fault of my eyes, I s'pose. It is only moonshine to my eyes, that makes black white." "Rupert, you do not understand. I will tell you. You know the story of Joseph. Well, when his brothers tried to murder him, that was what you call evil, wasn't it?" "Black, and no moonshine on it." "Yet it led to his being sold into Egypt." "What was the moonshine on that? He was a slave, warn't he?" "But that brought him to be governor of Egypt; he was the means of the plenty in the land through those years of famine; and by his power and influence his family was placed in the best of the land when starvation drove them down there." "But why must he be sold a slave to begin with?" "Good reasons. As a servant of Potiphar he learned to know all about the land and its produce and its cultivation, and the peasant people that cultivated it. If it had not been for the knowledge he gained as a slave, Joseph could never have known what to do as a governor." "I never thought of that," said Rupert, his tone changing. "Then when he was thrown into prison, _you_ would have said that was a black experience too?" "I should, and no mistake." "And there, among the great prisoners of state, he learned to know about the politics of the country, and heard what he never could have heard talked about anywhere else; and there, by interpreting their dreams, he recommended himself to the high officers of Pharaoh. Except through the prison, it is impossible to see how he, a poor foreigner, could ever have come to be so distinguished at the king's court; for the Egyptians hated and despised foreigners." "I'll be whipped if that ain't a good sermon," said Rupert drily; "and what's more, I can understand it, which I can't most sermons I've heard. But look here,--do you think God takes the same sort of look-out for common folks? Joseph was Joseph." "The care comes of His goodness, not out of our worthiness," said Dolly, the tears dripping from her eyes. "To Him, Dolly is Dolly, and Rupert is Rupert, just as truly. I know it, and yet I am so ungrateful!" "But tell me, then," Rupert went on, "how comes it that God, who can do everything, does not make people good right off? Half the trouble in the world comes of folks' wrong-headedness; why don't He make 'em reasonable?" "He tries to make them reasonable." "_Tries!_ Why don't He do it?" "You, for instance," said Dolly--"because He has given you the power of choice, Rupert; and you know yourself that obedience would not be obedience if it were not voluntary." On this theological nut Rupert ruminated, without finding anything to say. "You have comforted me," Dolly went on presently. "Thank you, Rupert. You have made me remember what I had forgotten. Just look at that palace front in the moonlight!" "The world's a queer place, though," said Rupert, not heeding the palace front. "What are you thinking of?" "This city, for one thing. I've been, reading that book you lent me. Hasn't there been confusion enough, though, up and down these canals, and in and out of those palaces! and the rest of the world is pretty much in the same way. Only in America it ain't quite so bad. I suppose because we haven't had time enough." CHAPTER XXIII. THE WINE-SHOP. It was past twelve by the clock tower when the two left the gondola and entered the Place of St. Mark. The old church with its cupolas, the open Place, the pillars with St. Theodore and the dragon, the palace of the Doges with its open stone work, showed like a scene out of another world; so unearthly beautiful, so weird and so stately. There had been that day some festival or public occasion which had called the multitude together, and lingerers were still to be seen here and there, and the windows of cafés and trattorie were lighted, and the buzz of voices came from them. Dolly and Rupert crossed the square, however, without more than a moment's lingering, and plunged presently into what seemed to her a labyrinth of confused ways. Such ways! an alley in New York would be broad in comparison; two women in hoops would have been obliged to use some skill to pass each other; they threaded the old city in the strangest manner. Rupert went steadily and without hesitation, Dolly wondered how he could, through one into another, up and down, over bridge after bridge, clearly knowing his way; yet it was a nervous walk to her, for more than one reason. Sometimes the whole line of one of these narrow streets, if they could be called so, would be perfectly dark; the moonlight not getting into it, and only glittering on a palace cornice or a street corner in view; others, lying right for the moonbeams, were flooded with them from one turning to another. Most of the shops were closed; but the sellers of fruit had not shut up their windows yet, and now and then a cook-shop made a most peculiar picture, with its blazing fire at the back, and its dishes of cooked and uncooked viands temptingly displayed at the street front. Steadily and swiftly Rupert and Dolly passed on; saw these things without stopping to look at them, but yet saw them so that in all after-life those peculiar effects of light and shade, fireshine and moonlight, Italian fruits and vegetables, and fish coloured by the one or the other illumination, were never lost from memory. Here there would be a red Vulcanic glow in the interior of a shop where the furnace fire was flaming up about the pots and pans of cookery; and at the street front, at the window, the moonlight glinting white from the edge of a dish, or glancing from a pane of glass; and then again reflected from the still waters of a canal. The two saw these things, and never forgot; but Dolly was silent and Rupert did not know what to say. Yet he thought he felt her arm tremble sometimes, and would have given a great deal to be able to speak to the purpose. Perhaps Dolly at length found the need of distraction to her thoughts, for she it was that first said anything. "I hope mother will not wake up!" "Why?" "She would not understand my being away." "Then she does not know?" "I did not dare tell her. I had to risk it. I do not want her ever to know, Rupert, if it can be helped." "She'll be no wiser for me. What are you going to do now, Miss Dolly? We ain't far off the place." "I am going to get my father to go home with me. You needn't come in. Better not. You go back to the gondola and wait there for a little say--a quarter or half an hour; if I do not come before that, then go on home." "But you cannot go anywhere alone?" "Oh no; I shall have father; but I cannot tell which way he may take to get home. You go back to the gondola,--or no, be in front of St. Mark's; that would be better." "I am afraid to leave you, Miss Dolly." "You need not. One gets to places where there is nothing to fear any more." Rupert was not sure what she meant; her voice had a peculiar cadence which struck him. Then they turned another corner, and a few steps ahead of them saw the light from a window making a strip of illumination across the street, which here was unvisited by the moonbeams. "That is the place," said Rupert. Dolly slackened her walk, and the next minute paused before the window and looked in. The light was not brilliant, yet sufficient to show several men within, some sitting and drinking, some in attendance; and Dolly easily recognised one among the former number. She drew her arm from Rupert's. "Now go back to St. Mark's," she whispered. "I wish it. Yes, I would rather go in alone. Wait for me a little while in front of St. Mark's." She stood still yet half a minute, making her observations or getting up her resolution; then with a light, swift step passed into the shop. Rupert could not obey her and go at once; he felt he must see what she did and what her reception promised to be; he came a little nearer to the window and gazed anxiously in. The minutes he stood there burned the scene for ever into his memory. The light shone in a wide, spacious apartment, which it but gloomily revealed. There was nothing whatever of the outward attractions with which in New York or London a drinking saloon, not of a low order, would have been made pleasant and inviting. The wine had need to be good, thought Rupert, when men would come to such a place as this and spend time there, simply for the pleasure of drinking it. Yet several men were there, taking that pleasure, even so late as the hour was; and they were respectable men, at least if their dress could be taken in testimony. They sat with mugs and glasses before them; one had a plate of olives also, another had some other tit-bit or provocative; one seemed to be in converse with Mr. Copley, who was not beyond converse yet, though Rupert saw he had been some time drinking. His face was flushed a little, his eyes dull, his features overspread with that inane stupidity which comes from long-continued and purely sensual indulgence of any kind, especially under the fumes of wine. To the side of this man, Rupert saw Dolly go. She went in, as I said, with a light, quick step, looked at nobody else, made straight to her father, and laid a hand upon his shoulder. With that she threw back her head-covering a little,--it was some sort of a scarf, of white and brown worsted knitting, which lay around her head like a glory, in Rupert's eyes,--and showed her face to her father. Fair and delicate and sweet, bright and grave at once, for she _did_ look bright even there, she stood at his side like his good angel, with her little hand upon his shoulder. No wonder Mr. Copley started and looked frightened; that was the first look; and then confused. Rupert understood it all, though he could not hear what was said. He saw the man was embarrassed. "Dolly!" said Mr. Copley, falling back upon his first thought, as the easiest to speak of,--"what is the matter?" "Nothing with me, father. Will you take me home?" "Where's your mother?" "She is at home. But it is pretty late, father." "Where's Lawrence?" "I don't know." "Where is Rupert, then?" "He is out, somewhere. Will you go home with me, father?" "How did you come here?" said Mr. Copley, sitting a little straighter up, and now beginning to replace or conceal confusion with displeasure. "I will tell you. I will tell you on the way. But shall we go first, father? I don't like to stay here." "Here? What in the name of ten thousand devils---- Who brought you here?" "I am alone," said Dolly. "Hadn't we better go, father? and then we can talk as we go." At this point a half tipsy Venetian rose, and stepping before the pair with a low reverence, said something to Mr. Copley, of which Dolly only understood the words, "La bella signorina;" they made her, however, draw her scarf forward over her face and brought Mr. Copley to his feet. He could stand, she saw, but whether he could walk very well was open to question. "Signer, signor"---- he began, stammering and incensed. Dolly seized his arm. "Shall we go, father? It is so late, and mother might want me. It is very late, father. Never mind anything, but come!" Mr. Copley was sufficiently himself to see the necessity; nevertheless, his score must be paid; and his head was in a bad condition for reckoning. He brought out some silver from his pocket, and stood somewhat helplessly looking at it and at the shopman alternately; then with an awkward movement of his elbow contrived to throw over a glass, which fell on the floor and broke. Everybody was looking now at the father and daughter, and words came to Dolly's ears which made her cheek burn. But she stood calm, self-possessed, waiting with a somewhat lofty air of maidenly dignity; helped her father solve the reckoning, paid for the glass, and at last got hold of his arm and drew him away; after a gentle, grave salutation to the attendant which he answered profoundly, and which brought everybody in the little shop to his feet in involuntary admiration and respect. Dolly looked at nobody, yet with sweet courtesy made a distant sign of acknowledgment to their homage, and the next minute stood outside the shop in the dark little street and the mild, still air. I think, even at that minute, with the strange, startling inappropriateness of license which thoughts give themselves, there flashed across her a sense of the ironical contrast of things without and within her; without, Venice and her historical past and her monumental glory; within, a trembling little heart and present danger and a burden of dishonour. But that was only a flash; the needs of the minute banished all thinking that was not connected with action; and the moment's business was to get her father home. She had no thought now for the picturesque revealings of the moonlight and obscurings of the shadow. Yet she was conscious of them, in that sharp flash of contrast. At getting upon his feet and out into the air and gloom of the little street, Mr. Copley's head was very contused; or else he had taken more wine than his daughter guessed. He was not fit to guide himself, or to take care of her. As he seemed utterly at a standstill, Dolly naturally and unconsciously set her face to go the way she had come; for one or two turnings at least she was sure of it. Before those one or two turnings were made, however, she was shocked and scared to find that her father's walk was wavering; he swayed a little on his feet. The street was empty; and if it had not been, what help could Dolly ask for? A pang of great terror shot through her. She took her father's arm, to endeavour to hold him fast; a task rather too much for her little hands and slight frame; and feeling that in spite of her he still moved unsteadily, and that she was an insufficient help, Dolly's anguish broke forth in a cry; natural enough in its unreasoningness-- "O father, don't!--remember, I am all alone!" How much was in the tone of those last words Dolly could not know; they hardly reached Mr. Copley's sense, though they went through and through another hearer. The next minute Rupert stood before the pair, and was offering his arm to Mr. Copley. Not trusting his patron, in the circumstances, to take care of his young mistress, Rupert had disobeyed her orders so far as to keep the two figures in sight; he had watched them from one turning to another, and had seen that his help was needed, even before he heard Dolly's cry. Then, with a spring, he was there. Mr. Copley leaned now upon his arm, and Dolly fell behind, thankful unspeakably for the relief. She knew by this time that she could never have found her way; and it was plain her father could not. "Rupert," said Mr. Copley, half recognising the assistance afforded him, "you're a good fellow, and always in the way when you aren't wanted, by George!" But he leaned on his arm heavily. Dolly followed close; she could not well keep beside them; and felt in that hour more thoroughly lonely perhaps than at any other of her life before or after. Rupert was a relief; and yet so the shame was increased. She stepped along through moonlight and shadow, feeling that light was gone out of her pathway of life for ever, as far as this world was concerned. What was left, when her father was lost to her?--her father!--and not by death; _that_ would not have been to lose him utterly; but now his very identity was gone. Her father, whom all her life she had loved; manly, frank, able, active, taking the lead in every society where she had seen him, making other men do his bidding always, until the passion of gaining and the lust of drink got hold of him! Was it the same, that figure in front of her, leaning on somebody's arm and glad to lean, and going with lame, unsteady gait whither he was led, so like the way his mental course had been lately? Was that her father? The bitterness of Dolly's feeling it is impossible to put into words. Tears could bring no relief, and nature did not summon them to the impossible service. The fire at her heart would have burnt them up; for there was a strange passion of resistance and sense of wrong mixed with Dolly's bitter pain. The way was not short, and it seemed threefold the length it was; every step was so hard, and the crowd of thoughts was so disproportionately great. They were rather ruminating thoughts of grief and pain, than considerative of what was to be done. For the first, the thing was to get Mr. Copley home. Dolly did not look beyond that. She was glad to find herself arrived at St. Mark's again; and presently they were all three in the gondola. Mr. Copley leaned in a corner, laid his head against a cushion, and slept, or seemed to sleep. The other two were as silent; but I think both felt at the moment as if they would never sleep again. Rupert's face was in shadow; he watched Dolly's face which was in light. She forgot it could be watched; her eyes stared into the moonshine, not seeing it, or looking through it; the sweet face was so very grave that the watcher felt his heart ache. Not the gentle gravity of young maidenhood, looking into the vague light; but the anxious, searching gaze of older life looking into the vague darkness. Rupert did not dare speak to her, though he longed. What would he not have given for the right and the power to comfort! But he knew he had neither. He had sense enough not to try. It was customary for Mr. Copley, after he had been late out at night, to keep to his room until a late hour the next morning; so Dolly knew what she had to expect. It suited her very well this time, for she must think what she would say to her father when she next saw him. She took care that a cup of coffee such as he liked was sent him; and then, after her own slight breakfast, sat down to plan her movements. So Rupert found her, with her Bible in her lap, but not reading; sitting gazing out upon the bright waters of the lagoon. He came up to her, with a depth of understanding and sympathy in his plain features which greatly dignified them. "Does that help?" said he, glancing at the book in Dolly's lap. "_This?_" said Dolly. "What other help in the world is there?" "Friends?" suggested Rupert. "Yes, you were a great help last night," Dolly said slowly. "But there come times--and things--when friends cannot do anything." "And then--what does the book do?" "The book?" Dolly repeated again. "O Rupert! it tells of the Friend that can do everything!" Her eyes flushed with tears and she clasped her hands as she spoke. "What?" said Rupert; for her action was eloquent, and he was curious; and besides he liked to make her talk. Dolly looked at him and saw that the question was serious. She opened her book. "Listen. 'Let your conversation be without covetousness; and be content with such things as ye have; for He hath said, I will never leave thee nor forsake thee. So that we may boldly say, The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me.'" "That makes pretty close work of it. Can you get hold of that rope? and how much strain will it bear?" "I believe it will bear anything," said Dolly slowly and thoughtfully; "if one takes hold with both hands. I guess the trouble with me is, that I only take hold with one." "What do you do with the other hand?" "Stretch it out towards something else, I suppose. For, see here, Rupert;--'Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on Thee; because he trusteth in Thee.'--I am just ashamed of myself!" said Dolly, breaking down and bursting into tears. "What for?" said Rupert. "Because I do not trust so." "I should think it would be very difficult." "It ought not to be difficult to trust a friend whose truth you know. There! that has done me good," said the girl, sitting up and brushing away the tears. "Rupert, if there is anything you want to see or to do here in Venice, be about it; for I think we shall go off to Rome at once." She told the same thing to St. Leger when he came in; and having got rid of both the young men set herself anew to consider how she should speak to her father. And consideration helped nothing; she could not tell; she had to leave it to the moment to decide. It was late in the morning, later than the usual hour for the déjeuner à la fourchette, which Mr. Copley liked. He did not want anything to-day, his wife said; and she and Dolly and Rupert had finished their meal. Dolly contrived then that her mother should go out under Rupert's convoy, to visit the curiosity shop again, (nothing else would have tempted her), and to make one or two little purchases for which Dolly gave Rupert the means. When they were fairly off, she went to her father's room; he was up and dressed, she knew. She went with a very faint heart, not knowing in the least what she would do or say, but feeling that something must be said and done, both. Mr. Copley was sitting listlessly in a chair by the window; miserable enough, Dolly could see by the gloomy blank of his face; looking out, and caring for nothing that he saw. His features showed traces of the evening before, in red eyes and pale cheeks; and yet worse, in the spiritless, abased expression, which was more than Dolly could bear. She had come in very quietly, but when she saw this she made one spring to his side and sank down on the floor before him, hiding her face on his knee. Mr. Copley's trembling hand presently lifted her up into his arms, and Dolly sat on his knee and buried her face in his breast. Neither of them was ready to speak; neither did speak for some time. It was Mr. Copley who began. "Well, Dolly,--I suppose you will say to me that I have broken my word?" "O father!"--it came in a sort of despair from Dolly's heart,--"what shall we do?" Mr. Copley had certainly no answer ready to this question; and his next words were a departure. "How came you to be at that place last night?" "I was afraid you were there"---- "How did you dare come poking about through all those crooked ways, and at that time of night?" "Father," Dolly said, without lifting her head, "that was nothing. I dared nothing, compared with what you dared!" "I? You are mistaken, child. I did not run the slightest risk. In fact, I was only doing what everybody else does. You make much of nothing, in your inexperience." "Father," said Dolly, with a great effort, "you promised me. And when a man cannot keep his promise"---- She had meant to be perfectly quiet; she had begun very calmly; but at that word, suddenly, her calmness failed her. It was too much; and with a sort of wailing cry, which in its forlornness reached and wrung even Mr. Copley's nerves, she broke into a terrible passion of weeping. Terrible! young hearts ought never to know such an agony; and never, never should such an agony be known for the shame or even the weakness of a father. The hand appointed to shield, the love which ought to shelter,--when the blow comes from _that_ quarter, it finds the heart bare and defenceless indeed, and comes so much the harder in that it comes from so near. No other more distant can give such a stroke. And to the young heart, unaccustomed to sorrow, new to life, not knowing how many its burdens and how heavy; not knowing on the other hand the equalising, tempering effects of time; the first great pain comes crushing. The shoulders are not adjusted to the burden, and they feel as if they must break. Dolly's sobs were so convulsive and racking that her father was startled and shocked. What had he done? Alas, the man never knows what he has done; he cannot understand how women die, before their time, that death of the heart which is out of the range of masculine nature. "Dolly!--Dolly!" Mr. Copley cried, "what is the matter? Don't, Dolly, if you love me. My child, what have I done? Don't you know _everybody_ takes a little wine? Are you wiser than all the world?" "You promised, father!" Dolly managed to say. "Perhaps I promised too much. You see, Dolly,--_don't_ cry so!--a man must do as the rest of the world do. It isn't possible to live a separate life, as you would have me. It would make me ridiculous. It would not do. There's no harm in a little wine, child." "Father, you promised!" Dolly repeated, clinging to him. She was not shrinking away; her arms of love were wrapped round his neck as tenderly as even in old childish days; they had power over Mr. Copley, power which he could not quite resist nor break away from. He returned their pressure, he even kissed her, feeling, I am happy to say, a little ashamed of himself. "You don't want me to be ridiculous, Dolly?" he repeated, not knowing what to say. What should she answer to that? No, she did not want him to be ridiculous; and as he spoke she recalled the staggering, impotent figure of last night, in its unmanly feebleness and senseless idiocy. A sense of the difficulty of her task and the vanity of her representations came over Dolly; it gave her new food for tears, but the present effect was to make her stop them. I suppose despair does not weep. Dolly was not despairing, either. "What shall we do, father?" she asked, ignoring all his remarks and suggestions. "Do, Dolly? About what?" "Don't you think we will not stay any longer in Venice?" "For all I care! Where, then?" "To Rome, father?" "I thought you were to be in Rome at Christmas?" "It is not so very long till Christmas." "Is your mother agreed?" "She will be, if you say so." "If it pleases you, Dolly--I don't care." "And, father, dear father! won't you keep your promise to me? What is to become of us, father?" Some bitter tears flowed again as she said this quietly; but Mr. Copley knew they were flowing, and he had an intuitive sense that they were bitter. They embarrassed him. "I'll make a bargain, Dolly," he said after a pause. "I'll do what you want of me--anything you want--if you'll marry St. Leger." "But, father, I have not made up my mind to like him enough for that." "You will like him well enough. If you were to marry him you would be devoted to him. I know you." "I think the devotion ought to come first." "Nonsense. That is romantic folly. Novels are one thing, and real life is another." "I daresay; but do you object to people's being a little romantic?" "When it interferes with their bread and butter, I do." "Father, if you would drink no wine, we could all of us have as much bread and butter as we choose." "You are always harping on that!" said Mr. Copley, frowning. "Because, our whole life depends on it, father. You cannot bear wine as some people can, I suppose; the habit is growing on you; mother and I are losing you, we do not even have but half a sight of you; and--father--we are wanting necessaries. But I do not think of _that_," Dolly went on eagerly; "I do not care; I am willing to live on dry bread, and work for the means to get it; but I cannot bear to lose you, father! I cannot bear it!--and it will kill mother. She does not know; I have kept her from knowing; she knows nothing about what happened last night. O father, do not let her know! Would anything pay you for breaking her heart and mine? Is wine more to you than we are? O father, father! let us go home to America, and quit all these people and associations that make it so hard for you to be yourself. I want you to be your dear old self, father! Your dear self, that I love"---- Dolly's voice was choked, and she sobbed. Mr. Copley was not quite insensible. He was silent a good while, hearing her sobs, and then he groaned; a groan partly of real feeling, partly, I am afraid, of desire to have the scene ended; the embarrassment and the difficulty disposed of and behind him. But he thought it had been an expression of deeper feeling solely. "I'll do anything you like, my dear child," he said. "Only stop crying. You break my heart." "Father, will you really do something if I ask you?" "Anything! Only stop crying so." "Then, father, write and sign it, that you will not ever touch wine. Rupert and I have taken such a pledge already." "What is the use of writing and signing? I don't see. A man can let it alone without that." "He can, if he wants to let it alone; but if he is very much tempted, then the pledge is a help." "What did you and Rupert do such a thing as that for?" "I wanted to save him." "Make _him_ take the pledge, then. Why you?" "How could I ask him to do what I would not do myself? But I've done it, father; now will you join us?" "Pshaw!" said Mr. Copley, displeased. "Now you have incapacitated yourself from appearing as others do in society. How would you refuse, if you were asked to drink wine with somebody at a dinner-table?" "Very easily. I should think all women would refuse," said Dolly. "Father, will you join us, and let us all be unfashionable and happy together?" "Did St. Leger pledge himself?" "I have not asked him." "Well, I will if he will." "For him, father, and not for me?" said Dolly. "Ask him," said Mr. Copley. "I'll do as he does." "Father, you might set an example to him." "I'll let him set the example for me," said Mr. Copley rising. And Dolly could get no further. But it was settled that they were to leave Venice. What was to be gained by this step Dolly did not quite know; yet it was a step, that was something. It was something, too, to get out of the neighbourhood of that wine-shop, of which Dolly thought with horror. What might await them in Rome she did not know; at least the bonds of habit in connection with a particular locality would be broken. And Venice was grown odious to her. CHAPTER XXIV. PAST GREATNESS. They went to Rome. Dolly had little comfort from her conversation with her father. She turned over in her mind his offer to quit wine if St. Leger would do the same. St. Leger would not give any such pledge, Dolly was very clearly aware; except, indeed, she paid him for it with another pledge on her part. With such a bribe she believed he would do it, or anything else that might be asked of him. Smooth and quiet as the young gentleman was outwardly, he had a power of self-will; as was shown by his persistence in following her. Dolly was obliged to confess that his passion was true and strong. If she would have him, no doubt, at least she believed there was no doubt, Lawrence would agree to be unfashionable and drink no more wine to the day of his death for her sake. If he agreed to that, her father would agree to it; both of them would be saved from that danger. Dolly pondered. Ought she to pay the price? Should she sacrifice herself, and be the wife of a rich banker, and therewith keep her father and all of them from ruin? Very soberly Dolly turned the whole thing over in her mind; back and forward; and always she was certain on one point,--that she did not want to be Lawrence's wife; and to her simple, childlike perceptions another thing also seemed clear; that it is a bad way to escape one wrong by doing another. She always brought up with that. And so, she could not venture and did not venture to attack Lawrence on the wine question. She knew it would be in vain. Meanwhile, they were in Rome. Two of the gentlemen being skilled travellers, they had presently secured a very tolerable apartment; not in the best situation, indeed, but so neither was it of the most expensive sort; and clubbing their resources, were arranged comfortably enough to feel quite at home. And immediately Dolly began to use her advantage and see Rome. Mrs. Copley had no curiosity to see anything; all her wish was to sit at her window or by her fire and talk to her husband; and as Mr. Copley shared her lack of enterprise and something withheld him from seeking either gambling or drinking-shops, Dolly could go out with an easy mind, and give herself undividedly to the intense enjoyment of the place and the time. Yes, undividedly; for she was eighteen, and at eighteen one has a power of, for a time, throwing off trouble. Trouble was on her, she knew; and, nevertheless, when Dolly found herself in the streets of Rome, or in presence of its wonders of art or marvels of antiquity, she and trouble parted company. She forgot all but the present; or even if she did not forget, she disregarded. Her spirit took a momentary leap above all that ordinarily held it down, and revelled, and rejoiced, and expanded, and rose into a region of pure exquisite life. Rupert, who always accompanied her, was rather opening the eyes of his mind, and opening them very wide indeed, and as is the case with eyes newly opened, not seeing very clearly; yet taking great pleasure in what he did see. St. Leger, her other companion, had a certain delight in seeing Dolly's enjoyment; for himself, alas! it was too plain that art said little to him, and antiquity nothing. One afternoon, when they had been perhaps a week in Rome, Dolly declared her intention of taking Rupert to the Museo Capitolino. "You were there the day before yesterday," St. Leger remarked, rousing himself from a comfortable position and a magazine. "Yes, thank you; and now I am going to do for Mr. Babbage what you did for me; introduce him to a scene of delights. You know, one should always pass on a good thing that one has received." "Don't you want me?" "No, indeed! I wouldn't bore you to that extent." "But you will allow me, for my own pleasure," said Lawrence, getting up. "No, I will not. You have done your part, as far as that museum is concerned; and besides, I have heard that a lady must not dance too many dances with one gentleman. It is Mr. Babbage's turn." And with a merry little nod of her head, and smile at the irresolute St. Leger, Dolly went off. Rupert was generally of the party when they went sight-seeing, but it had happened that it was not the case when the visit to the Capitoline Museum had been made. "You are not going to this place for my sake?" Rupert said as Dolly hurried along. "For your sake, and for my sake," she answered. "I was there for about two minutes, and I should like two days. O Rome, Rome! I _never_ saw anything like Rome." "Why?" said Rupert. "It hasn't got hold of me so." "Wait, and it will. I seem to be touching the history of the world here, till I don't know whereabouts in the ages I am. Is this the nineteenth century?--Here we are." Half an hour later, the two found themselves in the Hall of the Emperors. "Do you know Roman history, Rupert?" "A little. Not much. Not far down, you see. I know about Romulus and Remus." "Then you know more than anybody else knows. That's a myth. Look here. Let us begin at the beginning. Do you know this personage?" "Julius Caesar? Yes. I have read about him." "Did you ever read Plutarch's Lives? They used to be my delight when I was a little girl. I was very fond of Julius Caesar then. I know better now. But I am glad to see him." "Why, wasn't he a great man?" "Very. So the world says. I have come to perceive, Rupert, that that don't mean much." "Why not? I thought the world was apt to be right." "In some things. No doubt this man _might_ have been a very great man; he had power; but what good did he do to the world? He just worked for himself. I tell you what the Bible says, Rupert; 'The things which are highly esteemed among men, are abomination in the sight of God.' Look, and you will see it is so." "If you go by _that_---- Who is this next man? Augustus. He was the first Roman emperor, wasn't he?" "And all around here are ranged his successors. What a set they were! and they look like it." "How do you know they are likenesses?" "Know from coins. Do you know, almost all these men, the emperors, died a violent death? Murdered, or else they killed themselves. That speaks, don't it, for the beauty and beneficence of their reigns, and the loveliness of their characters?" "I don't know them very well. Some of them were good men, weren't they?" "See here, Nos. 11 and 12. Here are Caligula and Claudius. Caligula was murdered. Then Claudius was poisoned by his wife Agrippina; there she is, No. 14. She was killed by her son Nero; and Nero killed himself; and No. 13, there is another wife of Claudius whom he killed before he married Agrippina; and here, No. 17, was a wife of Nero whom he killed by a kick. And that is the way, my dear Rupert, they went on. Don't you wish you had belonged to the Imperial family? There's greatness for you!" "But there were some really great ones, weren't there? Which are they?" "Well, let us see. Come on. Here is Trajan. He was not a brute; he was a philosopher and a sceptic. He was quite a distinguished man in the arts of war and peace. But he ordered that the profession of Christianity should be punished with death. He legalised all succeeding persecutions, by his calm enactments. Do you think he was a great man in the sight of God?" "Were the Christians persecuted in his reign?" "Certainly. In Asia Minor, under the good governor Pliny. Simon the son of Cleophas was crucified at that time." "Perhaps Trajan did not know any better." "He might have known better, though. Ignorance is no plea that will stand, when people have the means of knowledge. But come on. Here is Marcus Aurelius; here, Rupert, Nos. 37 and 38. He was what the world calls a very great man. He was cultivated, and wise, and strong, a great governor, and for a heathen a good man; and how he treated the Christians! East and west, and at Rome here itself, how they were sought out and tortured and killed! What do you think the Lord thinks of such a great man as that? Remember the Bible says of His people, 'He that toucheth you, toucheth the apple of His eye.' What do you think the Lord thought of Marcus Aurelius' greatness? Look here, Rupert--here is Decius, and here is Diocletian." "Were they persecutors too?" "Great. It is so strange to look at their faces here, in this museum, after so many centuries. I suppose they will stand here, maybe, till the end of the world. Come away--we have been so long in this gallery we have not left time enough for the other rooms." They went to the Hall of the Gladiator; and there Dolly studied the figure which gives name to the place, with a kind of rapt intensity. She described to her companion the meaning of the marble; but it was not the same thing to them both. Dolly was lost in delighted contemplation. Rupert looked on with a kind of incredulous scorn. "You don't care for it?" she said suddenly, catching a sight of his face. "What's it good for?" said Rupert. "This ain't a likeness of anybody, is it?" "It is a likeness of a great many people. Hundreds and hundreds died in such fashion as that, for the pleasure of the Roman people." "Well, would it have been any satisfaction to you to see it?" "Why, no! I hope not." "Then why do you like to see it here now?" "I don't! this is not reality, but an image." "I can't see why you should like to look at the image, when you couldn't bear the reality." "Why, Rupert"---- Dolly began, but her further words were cut off. "Met again!" said a soft voice. "You here! we did not know you would be in Rome so soon." "Dolly!" exclaimed Christina, who followed her mother. "That's delightful. Dolly Copley in Rome! and in the Museo Capitolino. Who is with you?" "We are all here," said Dolly, smiling. "Yes, yes, in Rome, of course; but you are not in the museum alone?" Dolly presented Mr. Babbage. "And how is your mother?" Mrs. Thayer went on. "Better! I am so glad. I thought she would be better in Italy. And what have you done with your handsome _cavaliero servente_--Mr. St. Leger?" "I left him at home with a magazine, in which I _think_ there was a story," said Dolly. "Impossible! his gallantry allowed you to come alone?" "Not his gallantry, but perhaps his sense of weakness," Dolly answered. "Of weakness, my dear? Is he a weak young man? He does not look it." "Very good muscular power, I daresay; but when we talk of power of will, you know 'weakness' is relative. I forbade him, and he did not dare to come." "You forbade him! and he obeyed? But, Christina, I do not think you have Mr. Shubrick in such training as that. Would he obey, if you gave him orders?" "Probably the relations are different," said Dolly, obliging herself to keep a grave face. "I am in a happy independence of Mr. St. Leger which allows me to command him." "Independence!" said Mrs. Thayer, with an air half curious, half confounded, which was a severe trial to Dolly's risible muscles. "I know young ladies are very independent in these days--I don't know whether it is a change for the better or not--but I do not think Christina would boast of her independence of _her_ knight-errant." "No," said Dolly. "The cases are different--as I said. Mr. St. Leger does not stand in that particular relation to me." "Doesn't he? But, my dear, I hope you haven't quarrelled?" "Not at all," said Dolly. "We do not like each other well enough to quarrel." "But he struck me as a most delightful young man." "I believe he generally makes that impression." "I used to know his father," said Mrs. Thayer. "He was a sad flirt. I know, you see, my dear, because I was one myself. I am glad Christina does not take after me. But I used to think it was great fun. Is Mr. St. Leger anything of a flirt?" "I have had no opportunity of knowing, ma'am," said Dolly gravely. "Well, you will bring him to see us? You are all coming to make us a visit at our villa, at Sorrento; and Mr. Shubrick is coming; Christina wants to show him to you; you know a girl is always proud of her conquests; and then we will go everywhere and make you see everything. You have just no notion how delightful it is at Sorrento in the spring and summer. It's Paradise!" "But you are coming first to spend Christmas with me, Dolly," said her friend, who until now had hardly been able to get in a word. "I have five thousand things to talk to you about. My sailor friend has promised to be here too, if he can, and his ship is in the Mediterranean somewhere, so I guess he can; and I want you to see him. Come and spend Christmas Eve with me--do! and then we shall have a chance to talk before he comes. Of course there would be no chance after," she added with a confident smile. Dolly was not much in a mood for visiting, and scantly inclined to mix in the joyous circle which must be breathing so different an atmosphere from her own. She doubted besides whether she could leave her watch and ward for so long a time as a night and a day. Yet it was pleasant to see Christina, and the opportunity to talk over old times was tempting; and her friend's instances were very urgent. Dolly at last gave a conditional assent; and they parted; Dolly and Rupert taking the way home. "Is that lady a friend of yours?" Rupert enquired. "The daughter; not the mother." "The old lady, I meant. She has a mind to know all about us." "Why?" "She asked me about five hundred and fifty questions, after she quitted you." "What did you tell her?" "I told her what she knew before," said Rupert, chuckling. "Her stock of knowledge hasn't grown _very_ much, I guess, by all she got out of me. But she tried." Dolly was silent. After a short pause, Rupert spoke again in quite another tone. "Miss Dolly, you've put me in a sort of a puzzle. You said a little while ago, or you spoke as if you thought, that all those grand old Roman emperors were not after all great men. Then, if _they_ were not great, what's a fellow to try for? If a common fellow does his best, he will not get to the hundredth or the thousandth part of what those men did. Yet you say they were not great. What's the use of my trying, for instance, to do anything, or be anything?" "What did they do, Rupert?" "Well, you seem to say, nothing! But don't you come to Rome to admire what they did?" "Some of the things they did, or made. But stand still here, Rupert, and look. Do you see the Rome of the Caesars? You see an arch here and a theatre there; but the city of those days is buried. It is under our feet. The great works of art here, those that were done in their day, were not done by them. Do you think it is any good to one of those old emperors in the other world--take the best of them--is it any good to him now that he had some of these splendid buildings erected, or marbles carved? Or that his armies conquered the world, and his government held order wherever his arms went? If he is happy in the presence of God, is it anything to him, now, that we look back and admire his work?--and if he is unhappy, banished that Presence, is it anything to him then?" "Well, what _is_ greatness then?" said Rupert. "What is worth a man's trying for, if these greatest things are worth nothing?" "I do not think anything is really great or worth while," said Dolly, "except those things that God likes." "You come back to religion," said Rupert. "I did not mean religion. What are those things?" "I do not think anything is worth trying for, Rupert, except the things that will last." "What things will last?" said he half impatiently. "Look here," said Dolly. "Step a little this way. Do you see the Colosseum over yonder? Who do you think will remember, and do remember, that with most pleasure; Vespasian and Titus who built it, or the Christians who gave themselves to the lions there for Christ's sake?" "Yes," said Rupert, "of course; but _that_ isn't the thing. There are no lions here now." "There are lions of another sort," said Dolly, standing still and with her eyes fixed upon the wonderful old pile in the distance. "There is always work to be done for God, Rupert, and dangers or difficulties to be faced; and to the people who face _any_ lions for His sake, there is a promise of praise and honour and blessing that will last for ever." "Then you would make all a man's work to be work for God?" said Rupert, not satisfied with this view of the question. "What is to become of all the rest of the things that are to be done in the world?" "There ought not to be anything else done in the world," said Dolly, laughing, as she turned and began to walk on again. "It ought all to be done for Him. Merchants ought to make money for His service; and lawyers ought to strive to bring God's order between man and man, and justice to every one, and that never wrong should be done or oppression exercised by anybody. 'Break every yoke, and let the oppressed go free.' And soldiers ought to fight for no other reason but to protect weaker people from violence and wrong. And so on of everything else. And, Rupert, God has promised a city, of His own preparing, for His people; it will be a place of delights; and I am thinking of that word,--'Blessed are they that do His commandments; that they may have a right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city.' I don't believe anybody that is left outside will think much of what we call greatness in that day." "Why, the world wouldn't be the world, at that rate," cried Rupert. "Think it wouldn't be altered for the better?" "But a few people can't make it like that." "Suppose they make only a very little piece of it like that?--But then comes the end, Rupert, and the King's 'Well done!'" "Then you wouldn't have a man make as much as he can of himself," said Rupert after a dissatisfied pause. "Certainly I would." "What use?" "Oh, to be a better servant to his Master, the best he possibly can; and to do more work for Him; the most he can do." "It seems to me, Miss Dolly, if you are right, pretty much all the rest of the world are wrong." "Yes, Rupert; don't you remember the Bible says that the wrong way is the broad way, where almost all the people go?" Rupert's meditations this time held him till they got home. The days that intervened before Christmas were filled full with delightful business. Dolly had her anxieties, it is true; but she was in Rome. What could stand against the witchery of the enchantress city? Anxieties fell into the background; and with all the healthy, elastic spring of her young years Dolly gave herself to the Present and the Past, and rejoiced, hour by hour and step by step, in what the Present and the Past opened up to her. True, her father and mother hardly shared in her pleasure; Mr. Copley's taste was blunted, I fear, for all noble enjoyment; and Mrs. Copley cared mainly to be comfortable in her home quarters, and to go out now and then where the motley world of fashion and of sight-seeing did most congregate. Especially she liked to go to the Pincian Hill Sunday afternoon, and watch the indescribable concourse of people of all nationalities which is there to be seen at that time. But there Dolly would not go. "It is very absurd of you, Dolly!" cried her mother, greatly disappointed; for she had a pride in seeing the universal attention which was drawn to Dolly in every public place. "What harm should there be in looking at the beautiful view and hearing music? we are not going to _do_ anything." "It's the Lord's day, mother," said Dolly, looking up at her sorrowfully. "You went to church this morning all right," her mother said. "There is no church for you to go to at this time of day, that I know of; and if there were, I should think it very ridiculous to go again. If you want to think, you could think about good things, I should hope, on the Pincian. What is there to hinder you?" "Only everything I should see and hear, mother." "Hinder you from thinking about good things!" "Hinder me from thinking about anything," said Dolly, laughing a little. "Seriously, Miss Dolly," said Lawrence, who stood by, hat in hand, ready to go; the Pincian Hill Sunday evening was something he quite approved of;--"seriously, do you think there is anything _wrong_ in sitting up there for an hour or two, and seeing the beautiful sunset colours, and hearing the music?" "She's a little Puritan," said her father; "and the Puritans were always an obstinate set, Lawrence; always, and in every nation and people. I wonder why the two things should go together." "What two things, father?" "What you call Puritanism and obstinacy." "I suppose because those you call Puritans love the truth," said Dolly; "and so hold to it." "And do you not think other people, who are not Puritans, also love the truth, Miss Dolly?" Lawrence asked. "I don't think anybody loves the truth he disobeys," Dolly said with a gentle shake of her head. "There!" said her mother. "There's Dolly all over. She is right, and nobody else is right. I wonder what she supposes is to become of all the rest of the world! Everybody in Rome will be on the Pincian to-night except Dolly Copley. And every other mother but me will have her daughter with her." In answer to which Dolly kissed her, pulled the strings of her bonnet into a prettier bow, and looked at her with sweet, shining eyes, which said as plainly as possible without words that Mrs. Copley knew better. The party went off, nevertheless; and Lawrence, lingering till the others had turned their backs, held out his hand to Dolly. "Will you tell me," said he, "as a favour, what you think is the harm of what we are doing?" "You are just robbing the King of heaven and earth," Dolly answered gravely. "Robbing! Of what?" "Of time which He says is His, and of honour which He says ought to be His." "How?" "'The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God.'" "This is not the seventh; it is the first." "Quibbling, Mr. St. Leger. It is not the seventh from Monday, but it _is_ the seventh from Sunday; it is the one day set apart from the seven." "And what ought we to do with it? Sabbath means _rest_, does it not? What are we going to do but rest up there on the Pincian? only rest most delightfully. You will not rest so here." "I suppose your bodies will rest," said Dolly. "Your minds will have most uncommon powers of abstraction if they do." "But you are putting yourself out of the world, Dolly." "I mean it," said she with a little nod at him. "The Lord's people are not of the world, Mr. St. Leger; and the world does not like their ways. Never did." "I wonder if all Puritans are as quaint as you," said he, kissing the hand he held. But then he went off to the Pincian. And there, surely, was a most wonderful, rich, and varied scene; a concourse of people of all characters and nationalities--except the small party in the world which Dolly represented; a kaleidoscope view of figures and costumes, classes and callings, most picturesque, most diversified, most changeful. There were the Thayers, amongst others; and as they joined company with the Copley party, of course Mrs. Copley's pleasure was greatly increased; for in a crowd it is always pleasant to know somebody. Mr. Copley knew several people. Mrs. Thayer had leisure to tell and ask whatever she had a mind with Mrs. Copley, and to improve her acquaintance with Mr. St. Leger; who on his part managed to get some conversation with the beautiful Christina. It was a distinction to be talking to such a beauty, and he felt it so; and Christina on her part was not insensible to the fact that the young man was himself very handsome, and unexceptionably well dressed, and the heir to many thousands; therefore a person of importance. The time on the Pincian Hill that evening was very pleasantly spent; and so Mrs. Copley told her daughter on their return. "Mrs. Thayer said she was very sorry not to see you," Mrs. Copley added. "I am much obliged to her." "You are not obliged to her at all, for she didn't mean it. That's what you get by staying behind." "What?" said Dolly, dimpling up. "That woman had it all her own way; talked to Mr. St. Leger, and let him talk to her daughter. You see, Dolly, Christina is very handsome when you are not by." "Mother, she is at any time. She's beautiful. You must not set me up in comparison with her." "Well, she's engaged," said Mrs. Copley. "I wish you were. You let everything hang by the eyelids, Dolly; and some fine morning what you look for won't be there." CHAPTER XXV. CHRISTMAS EVE. Christmas Eve came, and Rupert attended Dolly to the Piazza di Spagna, where her friends had apartments in a great hotel. Dolly was quite prepared to enjoy herself; the varied delights of the foregoing days had lifted her out of the quiet, patient mood of watchful endurance which of late had been chronic with her, and her spirits were in a flow and stir more fitted to her eighteen years. She was going through the streets of Rome! the forms of the ages rose before her mind's eye continually, and before her bodily eye appeared here and there tokens and remains which were like the crumblings of those ages; tangible proofs that once they had been, and that Rome was still Rome. Dolly drew breaths of pleasure as she and Rupert walked along. "You are going to stay all night?" said Rupert. "Yes, they want me." "And they have asked nobody but you?" said Rupert, who was not conventional. "They wanted nobody but me. It is not a party; it is my old school-friend only, who wants to show me her future husband." Rupert grunted his intelligence, and at the same time his mystification. "What for?" he asked. And Dolly laughed. "I don't know! It is natural, I suppose, to some people. Here we are. Good night." The Thayers were very well lodged indeed. Dolly found herself in really charming rooms, well furnished and well lighted. She was joyfully received, and Christina led her forthwith through saloon and dining-room to the sanctuary of her own chamber. A certain feeling of contrast began to fall upon Dolly already, Christina looked so very fresh and fair and well kept; the lightest veil of anxiety had never shadowed her bloom; the most remote cloud of embarrassment or need had never risen on her horizon. Careless, happy, secure, her mind knew no burden. It made Dolly feel the pressure of her own; and yet she was glad, for a little, to get into this atmosphere of peace and confidence, and enjoy it even by the contrast. Christina's room looked like a curiosity shop. It was littered with recent purchases; all sorts of pretty things, useful and useless. "One cannot help buying," she said, excusing herself. "I see something at every step that I want; and I must get it when I see it, or I may never see it again, you know. It is great fun, but sometimes I almost get tired. Here, dear, I can lay your things here. Isn't my fire nice? Now sit down and warm yourself. It's too delightful to have you! It is like a bit of home, and a bit of old times. Those old school days were pleasant?" "Very pleasant!" said Dolly, sitting down and looking into the queer but bright fire of small sticks which burned in Christina's chimney. "Very pleasant! I was with my dear Aunt Hal, in Philadelphia." "But these days are better, Dolly," Miss Thayer went on. "That wasn't much compared to this." "I don't know," said Dolly. "There was no care in those times." "Care?" exclaimed Christina, as if she did not know the meaning of the word. "What care have you, Dolly? I have none, except the care to make my money buy all I want--which it won't, so I may as well make up my mind to it, and I do. What have you been getting in Rome?" "Oh, more pleasure than I knew so many days could hold," said Dolly, laying some of the sticks of the fire straight. "Isn't it wonderful? I think there's nothing like Rome. Unless, perhaps, Paris." "Paris!" said Dolly. "What's at Paris?" "Ah, you don't know it, or you wouldn't ask! Everything, my dear. Rome has a good deal, certainly, but Paris has _everything_. Now tell me,--are you engaged?" "I? No. Of course not." "I don't see why it's of course. Most people are at one time or another; and I didn't know but your time had come." "No," said Dolly. "Neither the time nor the man. I've come to hear about yours." "If he's good, you'll see him; the man, I mean. He promised to be with us at Christmas, if he could; and he always keeps his promises." "That's a good thing," said Dolly. . "Ye-s," said Christina, "that is, of course, a good thing. One likes to have promises kept. But it is possible to have too much of a good thing." "Not of keeping promises!" said Dolly in unfeigned astonishment. "I don't know," said Christina. "Sandie is so fixed in everything; he holds to his opinions and his promises and his expectations; and he holds a trifle too fast." "He has a right to hold to his expectations, surely," said Dolly, laughing. "Not too much," said Christina. "He has no right to expect everybody to keep their promises as precisely as he does his! People aren't made alike." "No; but honour is honour." "Come, now, Dolly," said Christina laughing in her turn, "you are another! You are just a little bit precise, like my Sandie. You cannot make all the world alike, if you try; and he can't." "I am not going to try, and I think it would be a very stupid world if I could do it; but nobody ought to raise _expectations_ he is not prepared to gratify." "Like a sentence out of a book!" cried Christina. "But Sandie is the most unchangeable person; he will not take any views of anything but the views he has always taken; he is as fixed as the rock of Gibraltar, and almost as distinct and detached from the rest of the world." "And don't you like that?" "No; confess I do not. I'd like him to come down a little from his high place and mix with the rest of us mortals." "What expectations does he indulge which you are not willing to meet?" "That's the very thing!" cried Christina, in her turn stooping to arrange the little sticks and pile more on; "he is unreasonable." "How?" "Wants me to marry him." "Is that unreasonable?" "Yes! till things are ready for such a step, and I am ready." "What things?" "Dolly, he is only the first officer of his ship. He was distinguished in the last war, and he has the prospect of promotion. I don't want to marry him till he is a captain." "Why?" said Dolly. "Why?--Don't you understand? He would have a better position then, and better pay; and could give me a better time generally; and mamma thinks we ought to wait. And I like waiting. It's better fun, I do think, to be engaged than to be married. I _know_ I shouldn't have my head near so much if I was married to Sandie. I do just as I like now; for mamma and I are always of a mind." "And are not you and Mr. Shubrick of a mind?" "Not about this," said Christina, getting up from the hearth, and laughing. "Pray, if one may ask, how long have you and he been waiting already?" "Oh, _he_ thinks it is a great while; but what is the harm of waiting?" "Well, how long is it, Christina?" "Dolly, we were engaged very young. It was before I left school; one summer when I was home for the vacation. I was sixteen; that is four years ago, and more." "Four years!" cried Dolly. "Yes. Of course we were too young then to think of marrying. He was home on furlough, and I was home for the vacation; and our houses were near together; and so we made it up. His people were not very well off, but mine were; so there was nothing in the way, and nobody objected much; only mother said we must wait." "What are you waiting for now, Christina?" "I told you. I am in no hurry, for my part. I want Sandie to get his ship; and in the meanwhile it is just as nice to be as we are. We see each other when we can; and Italy is Italy; and I am very contented. Unfortunately, Sandie isn't." "How long do you propose to go on waiting?" "I don't know. Oh, I don't know! and I don't care. What is the harm of waiting?" "That depends on what you promise yourselves in being married." "Dolly," said Christina thoughtfully, "I don't promise myself anything much better than I have got now. If Sandie would only be content, I could go on so for ever." "And not be married?" "Besides, Dolly, I don't want to keep house in a small way. I do not! and if I married a lieutenant in the navy, I couldn't do anything else. You see, Sandie would not live upon papa's money; though papa would do anything for me; but Sandie won't; and on _his_ means we should live on a very small scale indeed." "But you would have enough?" "Enough for what? We should have enough to eat. But, Dolly, I do not like to have to think of economy. I have never been used to it. Look at my room; see the things I have got together these last few days. Look here--this is a ring I want you to wear for me. Isn't it delicious? It is as old as the best time of cameo-cutting, they say, but I do not remember when that was; it's rather large for a lady's ring, but it is an undoubted beauty. Jupiter's eagle, with the thunderbolts. Just look at the plumage of the bird,--and its fierce eye!" Dolly was greatly delighted. Of all the pretty things she had seen during the weeks past, she had bought nothing, save one or two bits for her mother. This gift was vastly more to Dolly than Christina could imagine. She had so literally everything she wanted, that no further acquisition could give her great pleasure. It lacked the enhancement of difficulty and rarity. I suppose the ring was more to Dolly than her whole roomful beside to Christina. It was in truth a very exquisite cameo. Dolly put it on her finger and looked at it in different lights, and admired it and enjoyed it hugely; while at the same time it gave an odd grace of setting-off to her simple dress. Dolly was in a plain black silk, with no adornment at all, until she put the ring on. Unless her quaint old cable chain could be called such. _That_ Dolly always wore. She was a sweet, quaint figure, illuminated by the firelight, as Christina observed her; girlish and graceful, with a fair face and beautiful hair; the sober dress and the true womanly eyes making a certain hidden harmony, and the cameo setting a seal of daintiness and rareness to the whole. Christina was seized with admiration that had a good deal of respect blended with it of a sudden. "You don't agree with me, Dolly," she said after a little, when Dolly's thanks and the beauty of the ring had been sufficiently discussed, and a pause had brought the thoughts of both back to the former subject. "What do you want, Christina?" "I just want to be happy and comfortable," said the girl, "as I always have been. I don't want to come down to pinching. Is that unreasonable?" "You would not have to pinch, Christina." "Yes, I should; to live like the rest of the world." "Are you obliged to do that?" "Live like the rest of the world? Yes, or be out of the world." "I thought you were a Christian," said Dolly softly. "A Christian! Yes, so I am. What has that got to do with it?" "A good deal, I should say. Tiny, you cannot follow Christ and be like the world." "I don't want to be like the world, in bad things; but I mean things that are not bad. One must be like the world in some ways, if one can. Don't you set up for being any better than me, Dolly, for I won't stand it; we are all really just alike." "The world and Christians?" "Yes; in some things." "Ways of living?" "Yes,--in some ways." "Christina, did you use to think so in old times?" "I was young then; I did not know the world. You have _got_ to do as the world do, in a measure, Dolly." Dolly was silent a bit. She too, on her part, observed her friend. Fair and handsome she was; very handsome; with the placid luxuriance of nature which has never known shocks or adverse weather. Dolly felt the contrast which Christina had also felt, but Dolly went deeper into it. She and her friend had drifted apart, not in regard for each other, but in life and character; and Dolly involuntarily compared their experiences. Trouble to Christina was a word of unknown meaning; to herself it was become daily bread. Had that made the difference? Christina was living on the surface of things; skimming a smooth sea in a gilded gondola; shelter and adornment were all about her life, and plenty within. Dolly had been, as it were, cast into the waves and was struggling with them; now lifted on a high crest, and now brought down to the bottom. Was that how she had learned to know that there were wonderful things of preciousness and beauty at the bottom of the sea? and must one perhaps be tossed by the storm to find out the value and the power of the hand that helps? It did smite Dolly with a kind of pain, the sense of Christina's sheltered position and security; the thought of the father's arms that were a harbour for her, the guardianship that came between her and all the roughness of the world. And yet, Dolly along with the bitterness of this, was tasting also something else which did not enter Christina's cup of life; a rarer sweetness, which she would not have exchanged for Christina's whole draught. She had found jewels more precious at the depth of the sea than ever Christina could pick up in her pleasure sail along shore. Christina, with all her luxury, was missing something, and in danger of losing more. Dolly resolved to speak. "Do you know, Tiny," she said, "if I were Mr. Shubrick, I should not be satisfied?" "Why not?" said Christina carelessly. "Why, you are preferring the world to him." "I am not! No such thing, Dolly. I love him dearly." "By your own showing, you love--what shall I say?--luxuries and position, more." "I only want to wait a little." "And, Christina--I don't believe God likes it." "Likes what?" "Your wanting to do as the world do." "How do you know I do?" "You said so." "I like to have a nice house, and servants enough, and furniture to please me, and means to entertain my friends; and who doesn't? That's all I ask for." "And to do what everybody else does." "Yes," said Christina smiling. "Who don't?" "You were on the Pincian Hill Sunday afternoon." "Yes," said Christina suddenly, looking up. "Why not? Why weren't you there?" "If you will read the last two verses of the fifty-eighth chapter of Isaiah, you will know." "I can't read in this light," said Christina, looking round the room, "and I don't know just where I have laid my Bible. Everybody goes to the Pincian. It's no harm." "Would Mr. Shubrick go?" "Who told you he wouldn't?" said Christina. "I declare, if you are going to help him in his crotchets, I won't let you see much of him! Sandie!--he's just an unmanageable, unreasonable bit of downrightness.--And uprightness," she added, laughing. "Dolly, he can have his own way aboard ship; but in the world one can't get along so. One must conform a little. One must." "Does God like it?" said Dolly. "What queer questions you ask! This is not a matter of religion; it is only living." Dolly remembered words which came very inconveniently across Christina's principles; yet she was afraid of saying too much. She reflected that her friend was breathing the soft air of luxury, which is not strengthening, and enveloped in a kind of mist of conventionality, through which she could not see. With herself it was different. She had been thrown out of all that; forced to do battle with necessity and difficulty, and so driven to lay hold of the one hand of strength and deliverance that she could reach. What wonder if she held it fast and held it dear? while Christina seemed hardly to have ever felt the need of anything. "Now, Dolly, tell me all about yourself," Christina broke in upon her meditations. "There isn't much to tell." "What have you been doing?" "Painting miniatures--one of the last things." "Oh, delightful! Copies?" "Copies from life. May I take you? and then perhaps, if I succeed, you will get me work." "Work!" repeated Christina. Dolly nodded. "Yes; I want work." "Work!" cried Christina again. "Dolly, you don't mean that you _need_ it? Don't say that!" "I do. That's nothing so dreadful, if only I can get it. I paint miniatures for--I have had ten and I have had twenty pounds," said Dolly with a laugh; "but twenty is magnificent. I do not ask twenty." Christina exclaimed with real sorrow and interest, and was eager to know the cause of such a state of things. Dolly could but give her the bare facts, not the philosophy of them. "You poor, dear, lovely little Dolly!" cried Christina. "A thought strikes me. Why don't you marry this handsome, rich young Englishman?" Again Dolly's face dimpled all over. "The thought don't strike me," she said. "But he's very rich, isn't he?" "Yes. That is nothing to me. I wouldn't give my father and mother for him." "But for your father and mother's sake?"--There was a knock at the door here. "What is it? dinner? Come, Dolly; we'll reason afterwards." The dinner was excellent. More than the excellence, however, went to Dolly's enjoyment. The rare luxury of eating without having to think what it cost, and without careful management to make sure that enough was left for the next day's breakfast and lunch. It was great luxury! and how Dolly felt it, no one there could in the least guess. With that, however, as the evening went on and the unwonted soft atmosphere of ease was taking effect upon her, Dolly again and again drew the contrast between herself and her friend. How sheltered and guarded, and fenced in and fenced off, Christina was! how securely and safely blooming in the sacred enclosure of fatherly and motherly care! and Dolly--alas, alas! _her_ defences were all down, and she herself, delicate and tender, forced into the defender's place, to shield those who should have shielded her. It pressed on her by degrees, as the sweet unaccustomed feeling of ease and rest made itself more and more sensible, and by contrast she realised more and more the absence of it in her own life. It pressed very bitterly. The girls had just withdrawn again after dinner to the firelight cosiness of Christina's room, when Mrs. Thayer put her head in. "Christina, here's Baron Krämer and Signor Count Villa Bella, come to know if you will go to the Sistine Chapel." "Mother!--how you put titles together! Oh, I remember; there is music at the Sistine to-night. But Sandie might come." "And might not," said Mrs. Thayer. "You will have time enough to see Sandie; and this is Christmas Eve, you know. You may not be in Rome next Christmas." "Would you like to go, Dolly?" said Christina doubtfully. Dolly's heart jumped at the invitation; music and the Sistine Chapel! But it did not suit her to make an inconvenient odd one in a partie carrée, among strangers. She declined. "I said I would go," said Mrs. Thayer. "Since the gentlemen have come to take you, I think you had better. Dolly will not mind losing you for an hour or two." Which Dolly eagerly confirmed; wondering much at the same time to see Christina hesitate, when her lover, as she said, might come at any minute. She, too, finally resolved against it, however; and when Mrs. Thayer and the gentlemen had gone, and Mr. Thayer had withdrawn, as his custom was, to his own apartment, the two girls took possession of the forsaken drawing-room. It was a pretty room, very well furnished, and like every other part of the present home of the Thayers, running over with new possessions in the shape of bits of art or antiquity, pictures, and trinkets of every kind, which they were always picking up. These were an infinite amusement to Dolly; and Christina was good-humouredly pleased with her pleasure. "There's no fun in being in Rome," she remarked, "if you cannot buy all you see. I would run away if my purse gave out." "But there is all that you cannot take away," said Dolly. "Think of what your mother has gone to this evening." "The Sistine Chapel," said Christina. "I don't really care for it. Those stupid old prophets and sybils say nothing to me; though of course one must make a fuss about them; and the picture of the Last Judgment, _I_ think, is absolutely frightful." But here Dolly's eyes arrested her friend. "Well, I tell you the truth; I do think so," she said. "I may tell the truth to you. I do not care one pin for Michael Angelo." "Mayn't you tell the truth to anybody?" "Not unless I want to be stared at; and I do not want to be stared at, in _that_ way. I am glad I did not go with mamma and those people; if Sandie had come, I do not think he would have altogether liked it. Though I don't know but it is good to make men jealous. Mamma says it is." "Oh no!" said Dolly. "Not anybody you care for." "What do _you_ know?" said Christina archly. Before she could receive an answer, then, she had started and sprung up; for the door gently opened and on the threshold presented himself a gentleman in naval uniform. "Sandie!" cried Christina. "Didn't you expect me?" he said with a frank and bright smile. Dolly had heard enough about this personage to make her very curious; and her eyes took keen note of him. She saw a tall, upright figure, with that free poise of bearing which is a compound of strength and ease; effortless, quiet, graceful, and dignified. Though in part the result of a certain symmetry of joints and practised activity in the use of them, this sort of bearing refers itself also, and yet more surely, to the character, and makes upon the beholder the impression again of strength and ease in the mental action. It is not common; it struck Dolly in the first five steps he made into the room and in the manner of his greeting his betrothed. Out of delicate consideration, I suppose, for the company in which they found themselves, he offered only a look and a hand-clasp; but Christina jumped up and kissed him. She was not short, yet she had to make a little spring to reach his lips. And then, quietly putting an arm round her, he gave her her kiss back. Christina was rosy when she turned to present him, and both were smiling. Letting her go, he bowed low before Christina's friend; low and gravely; with such absolute gravity that Dolly almost felt herself in the way; as if he wished her not there. Then they sat down around the fire; and the same feeling came over her again with a rush. They were three; they ought to have been but two; she was one too many; they must wish her away. And yet, Christina had asked her precisely and specially that she might be one of the company that night. Dolly would have wished herself away, nevertheless; only that she was so very much interested, and could not. The newcomer excited her curiosity greatly, and provoked her observation; and, if the truth must be told, exercised also a powerful attraction upon her. He sat before the fire, full in her view, and struck Dolly as different from all the people she had ever seen in her life. She took glances from time to time, as she could, at the fine, frank, manly face, which had an unusual combination of the two qualities, frankness and manliness; was much more than usually serious, for a man of his age; and yet, she saw now and then, could break to tenderness or pleasure or amusement, with a sweetness that was winning. Dolly was fascinated, and could not wish herself away; why should she, if Christina did not? In all her life she never forgot the images of two of the people around the fire that evening. "Sandie" in the middle, in front of the blaze; Christina on the other hand of him. She was in a glistening robe of dark blue silk, her fair hair knotted and wound gracefully about her head; a beautiful creature; looking at her lover with complacent looks of possession and smiles of welcome. Dolly never knew what sort of a figure the third was; she could not see herself, and she never thought about it. Yet she was a foil to the other two, and they were a foil to her, as she sat there at the corner of the hearth on a low cushion, in her black dress, and with no ornament about her other than the cameo ring. A creature very different from the beauty at the other corner of the fireplace; more delicate, more sensitive, more spiritual; oddly and inexplicably, more of a child and more of a woman. That's a rare mixture. There was something exceedingly sweet and simple in her soft brown eyes and her lips; but the eyes had looked at life, the brow was grave, and the lips could close into lines of steady will. The delicate vessel was the shrine of a soul, as large as it could hold, and so had taken on the transparent nobility which belongs to the body when the soul is allowed to be dominant. One point of the contrast between the two girls was in the character and arrangement of their hair. Christina's was smooth, massed, and in a sort massive; Dolly's clustered or was knotted about her head, without the least disorder, but with a wilfulness of elegant play most harmonious with all the rest of her appearance. To characterise the two in a word, Christina was a beautiful pearl, and Dolly was a translucent opal. They sat down round the fire. "Well, Sandie, you naughty boy," Christina began, "what has kept you away all this time?" "Duty." "Duty! I told you so, Dolly; this man has only two or three words in his vocabulary, which he trots out on all occasions to do general service. One of them is 'duty;' another is 'must.'" "'Must' is the true child of 'duty,'" the gentleman remarked. "Oh no, I don't allow that; it is a marriage connection, which may be dissolved by a dispensation." "Is that your idea of the marriage connection?" said he with a smile. "But, Sandie! don't you want something to eat?" "No, thank you." "Because you can have it in a moment." "I have dined, Christina." "Where have you been all this while--weeks and weeks?" "Have you not received any letters from me?" "Yes, indeed! but words are so different spoken and written. We have been half over Europe. I wish you could have been along! Sandie, we went to Baden-Baden." "What for?" "_What for!_ Why, to see it. And we saw the gaming." "How did you like it?" "It is fascinating. I never saw such a scene in my life; the people's faces; and then the mad eagerness with which they went at it; old men and young men, and women. Oh, it was astonishing to see the women!" "What was the effect upon you?" "I don't know; astonishment." "How did Mrs. Thayer like it?" "Do you know, I think she half wanted to try her hand? I was so amazed at mother! I told her she must not." "You observe, Miss Copley, Miss Thayer knows the use of one of my words." It was a strange, novel, absorbing experience to Dolly. Sitting at one corner of the hearth, quiet, and a little as it were a one side, she watched the play and the people. She was so delightfully set free for the moment from all her home cares and life anxieties. It was like getting out of the current and rush of the waves into a nook of a bay, where her tossed little skiff could lie still for a bit, and the dangers and difficulties of navigation did not demand her attention. She rested luxuriously and amused herself with seeing and hearing what went on. And to tell the whole truth, Dolly was more than amused; she was interested; and watched and listened keenly. Christina was a lovely figure in her bright dress and bright beauty, a little excited, and happy, not too much; not too much to make Dolly's presence desirable and agreeable; just enough to make her more lovely than usual. The other figure of the little party was more interesting yet to Dolly. She thought he was very peculiar, and unlike any one she had ever seen. His repose of demeanour was striking; he seemed to make no unnecessary movement; he sat still; neither hand nor head nor foot betrayed any restlessness either of mind or body; and yet when he did move, were it only hand or foot or head, the impression he gave Dolly was of readiness for the keenest action, if the time for action once came. How the two seemingly contradictory impressions were conveyed together, Dolly did not stop to think; she had no time to moralise upon her observations; however, this mingling of calm and vigour was very imposing to her; it attracted and fascinated. No man could sit more quiet in company; and yet, if he turned his head or shifted the position of his hand, what Dolly saw was power and readiness to move with effect if there were anything to be done; and the calm intensified the power to her mind. And then, apart from all this, the room in which they were sitting was filled with pretty things and charming things which the Thayers had been collecting since they came to Rome. Dolly's eye strayed from one to another, as she sat listening to her companions; though the pretty things never diverted her attention from what these were saying or what they were doing. It was a charmed hour altogether! of rest and relief and enjoyment. Taken out of herself and away from her cares, Dolly tasted and delighted in the fairy minutes as they flew, and did not even trouble herself to think how soon they would be flown by and gone. "You have been a great while away, Sandie," Christina was saying. "Why could you not join us before? You might have skipped something. Here have I stayed away from the Sistine to-night, for your sake." "Is it any special loss, this evening of all others?" "Certainly! It is Christmas; there is music, and company." "Do you enjoy the Sistine Chapel, apart from music and company?" "No, indeed I don't! I don't like it at all. Such horrid things on the walls, as are enough to give one the nightmare after being there. I know it is Michael Angelo, and I am horribly out of order in saying so; but what is the use of pretending in _this_ company?" "What is the use of pretending in any company?" "Oh, nonsense, Sandie! a great deal. Everybody pretends, at some time or other. What would become of us if we spoke out all we had in our minds?" "You do not like the Sistine Chapel. What do you enjoy most in Rome?" "Most? The Pincian, Sunday afternoon." "Sunday! Why Sunday?" "Music, and all the world there. It's the most beautiful scene, in the first place, and the most amusing, that you can find. There is _everybody_ there, Sandie; people from all the quarters of the earth; of all nationalities and costumes; the oddest and the prettiest; everybody you know and everybody you don't know." "But why on Sunday?" "Oh, that's the special day; that and Thursday, I believe; but I generally have something else to do Thursday; and anyhow there isn't as good a show. I rarely go Thursday." "And Sunday you have nothing else to do. I see." "Well, Sandie, of course we have been to church in the morning, you know. There is nothing to go to in the afternoon. What should one do?" "Miss Copley, do you enjoy the Pincian on Sunday evenings?" "I have not tried it," said Dolly. "Your mother and father were there, though, last Sunday," said Christina. "Sandie, what are you thinking of? You have some superstitious objection? I daresay you have!" "Not I," said Mr. Shubrick. "But it occurs to me that there is a command somewhere, touching the question." "What command? In the Bible! Sandie, do you think those Sunday commands are to be taken just as they stand--to mean just so? and shut one stupidly up in the house for all day Sunday except when one is going in procession to church?" "You know," said Mr. Shubrick, "I am like the centurion in the Bible, 'a man under authority,' having other men under me; 'and I say to this man, Go, and he goeth; and to another, Come and he cometh.' I know nothing about orders that are not to be obeyed." "And is that the way you would rule your house?" said Christina, half pouting. "I should leave that to you," he answered smiling. "It is enough for me to rule my ship. The house would be your care." "Would it? Does that mean that you expect always to be a sailor?" "It is my profession. A man must do something." "If he _must_. But not if he has no need to do anything?" The young officer looked at her with a considerative sort of gravity, and inquired if she could respect a lazy man. "No, and you never would be lazy, or could be lazy," she said, laughing. "But surely there are things enough to be done on shore." "Things enough. The question for every one is where he can do most." "Why, Sandie," Christina cried, "it is not possible that you should have your time to yourself on shipboard, and as an acting officer, as you could at home on shore. Reading and study, that, you like, I know; and then painting, and all art pleasures, that you think so much about, much more than I do; and a thousand other things;--you have no chance for them at sea." "You talk as if one had nothing to do but to please himself." "Well," said Christina, "so far as one can, why not? Does not all the world?" "Yes. All the world. You are right. All the world, except a little body of men who follow Christ; and _He_, pleased not Himself. I thought you knew I was one of His servants, Christina." "Does that forbid your pleasing yourself?" "Not in one way," said Mr. Shubrick, smiling again, a smile that made Dolly's heart throb with its meaning. "It is my pleasure to do my Master's will. The work He has given me to do, I would rather do of all things." "I can't think what work you mean, Sandie. I really do not understand." "Do you understand, Miss Copley?" Dolly started. "I believe so," she said. "Will you have the goodness to explain to Christina?" "Why don't you explain yourself, Sandie?" said his betrothed. "I am talking too much. Besides, it will come better from Miss Copley's lips." "I don't think so; but however.--Well, Dolly, if you are to explain, please explain. But how come _you_ to understand, when I don't understand? What work does he mean?" "I suppose," said Dolly, "Mr. Shubrick means work for other people." "Work for other people!" cried Christina. "Do you think _we_ do not do work for other people? Mamma gives away loads; she does a great deal for the poor. She is always doing it." "And you?" "Oh, I help now and then. But she does not want my help much." "Did you think, Miss Copley, I meant work for poor people?" "No," said Dolly. "At least--that is--I thought you meant the work that is for Christ." "Well, I am sure He commanded us to take care of the poor," said Christina. "He commanded us also to carry the gospel to every creature." "That's for ministers, and missionaries," said Christina. "The order was given to all the disciples, and He commanded us to be lights in the world." "Of course--to set good examples." "That is not quite the whole," said Mr. Shubrick; "though people do take it so, I believe." "I have always taken it so," said Dolly. "What more can it be?" "Remember the words--'Whatsoever _doth make manifest_ is light.' There is the key. There are good examples--so called--which disturb nobody. There are others,"--he spoke very gravely,--"before which sin knows itself, and conscience shrinks away; before which no lie can stand. Those are the Lord's light-bearers." "Sandie, what has got you into this vein of moralising? Is this talk for Christmas Eve, when we ought to be merry? Don't you lead a dreadful dull life on board ship?" "No," said he. "Never. Neither there nor anywhere else." "Are you always picking at the wick of that light of yours, to make it shine more?" "By no means. No lamp would stand such treatment. No; the only thing for us to do in that connection is to see that the supply of oil is kept up." "Sandie, life would be fearful on your terms!" "I do not find it so." And, "Oh no, Christina!" came from Dolly's lips at the same time. Christina looked from one to the other. "I had better gone to the Sistine," she said. "I suppose you would tell me there to look at Michael Angelo's picture of the Last Judgment. But I assure you I never do. I make a point not to see it." "What do _you_ enjoy most in this old city, Miss Copley?" Mr. Shubrick said now, turning to her. "I hardly can tell," said Dolly; "I enjoy it all so very much. I think, of all--perhaps the Colosseum." "That old ruin!" said Christina. "But it is such a beautiful ruin! Have you seen it by moonlight? And I always think of the time when it was finished, and full, and of the things that were done there; and I fancy the times when the moonlight shone in just so after the days when Christians had been given to the lions. I never get tired of the Colosseum." "You, too!" exclaimed Christina. "What pleasant and enlivening contemplations!" "Yes," said Dolly. "Grand. I see the moonlight shining on the broken walls of the Colosseum, and I think of the martyrs in their white robes. There is no place brings me nearer to heaven, and the world looks so small." "Dolly Copley!" cried Christina. "Do you want the world to look small, as long as you are obliged to live in it?" "It looks big enough," said Dolly, smiling, "as soon as I get home." The conversation, however, after this did take a turn, and ran upon more everyday topics; less interesting to Dolly however. But the speakers were interesting always; and she watched them, the play of sense and nonsense, of feeling and fun, not caring much that the matter of the talk did not concern her; until Mrs. Thayer and her escort were heard returning. And then, indeed, the evening changed its character; however the fascination remained for Dolly. The talk was no longer on personal subjects; it went gaily and jovially over all sorts of light matters; an excellent supper was served; and in the novelty and the brightness and the liveliness of all about her, Dolly was in a kind of bewitchment. It was a lull, a pause in the midst of her cares, a still nook to which an eddy had brought her, out of the current; Dolly took the full benefit. She would not think of trouble. Sometimes a swift feeling of contrast swept in upon her, the contrast of her friend's safe and sheltered life. No care for her; no anxiety about ways and means; no need to work for money; and no need to fear for anybody dear to her. Christina's father was _her_ guardian, not she his; he might be a very humdrum man, and no doubt was, but his daughter had no cause to be ashamed for him; had not the burden of his life and character on her own shoulders to take care of. A swift, keen feeling of this contrast would come over Dolly; but she put it away as instantly, and would not see or hear anything but what was pleasant. CHAPTER XXVI. NAPLES. Dolly shared her friend's room. Talk ran on, all the while they were undressing, upon all manner of trifles. When they were laid down, however, and Dolly was just rejoicing to be quiet and think, Christina began to speak in a different tone. "Dolly, how do you like him?" I think, if Dolly had liked him less, she would have been fuller in his praise. I do not know by what sort of hidden instinct and unconscious diplomacy she answered very coolly and with no enthusiasm. "I like him very well. I think he is true." "True! Of course he is true. If he wouldn't be so stupid. To expect one to be unlike all the world." Dolly was silent. "He's crochetty, that's what he is," Christina went on. "I hate a man to be crochetty. I shall work him out of it, if ever we come to live together." "I don't believe you will, Christina." "Why not?"--quickly. "I don't _think_ you will," Dolly repeated. "Because you have the same notions that he has. My dear little Dolly! you don't know the world. You _can't_ live in the world and be running your head perpetually against it; indeed you cannot. You may break your head, but you won't do anything else. And the world will laugh at you." "But, Christina, whom do you serve? For it comes to that." "Whom do I serve! Pooh, that's not the question." "It comes to that, Christina." "Well, of course there is but one answer. But Sandie would have me give up everything;--everything!--all I like, and all I want to do." "Christina, it seems to me the Bible says we must give Christ our whole selves." "Oh, if you are going to take the Bible literally"---- "How else can you take it?" "Seasonably." "But how are you going to settle what is reasonable? Didn't the Lord know what He wanted His people to do? And He said we must give Him ourselves and all we have got." "Have you?" said Christina. "What?" "Given up all, as you say?" "I think I have," Dolly answered slowly. "I am sure, Christina, I do not want anything but what God chooses to give me." "And are you ready to give up all your own pleasure and amusement, and your time, and be like no one else, and have no friends in the world?" Christina spoke the words in a kind of hurry. "You go too fast," said Dolly. "You ask too many things at once; and you forget what Mr. Shubrick said--that it is pleasure to please our Master. _He_ said it was His meat to do His Father's will; and He is our pattern. And doing His will does not prevent either pleasure or amusement, of the right sort; not at all. O Christina! I do not think anybody is rightly happy, except those who love Christ and obey him." "Are you happy?" was the next quick question. Dolly could not answer it as immediately. "If I am not," she said at last, "it is because there are some things in my life just now that--trouble me." "Dear Dolly!" said Christina affectionately. "But you looked quite happy this evening." "I was," said Dolly. "You made me so." Christina kissed her, and thereupon at once fell asleep. But Dolly was not sleepy. Her thoughts were wide awake, and roved over everything in the world, it seemed to her; at least over all her friend's affairs and over all her own. She was not fretting, only looking at things. Christina's ease and security and carelessness, her own burdens and responsibilities; the fulness of means here, the difficulty of getting supplies in her own household; Sandie Shubrick, finally, and Lawrence St. Leger! What a strange difference between one lot and another! It was a bright night; the moonlight streamed in at one of the windows in a yellow flood. Dolly lay staring at the pool of light on the floor. Roman moonlight! And so the same moonlight had poured down in old times upon the city of the Caesars; lighted up their palaces and triumphal arches; yes, and the pile of the Colosseum and the bones of the martyrs. The same moonlight! Old Rome lay buried; the oppressor and the oppressed were passed away; the persecutor and his victims alike long gone from the scene of their doings and sufferings; and the same moon shining on! What shadows we are in comparison! thought Dolly; and then her thoughts instantly corrected themselves. Not we, but _this_, is the shadow; this material, so unchanging earth. Sense misleads us. "The world passeth away and the lust thereof; but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever." Then it is only to do that, thought Dolly; be it hard or easy; that is the only thing to care about. And therewith another word came to her; it seemed to be written in the moonlight:--"Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?" It came so soft and sweet upon Dolly's heart as I can hardly tell; her eyelids dropped from their watch, and in another minute she too was fast asleep. The next day was wholly pleasant to her. It was merry, as Christmas ought to be; and Dolly had laid aside her own cares and took everything as light-heartedly as anybody else. More, perhaps, if the truth were known; for Dolly had laid her cares she knew where, and that they would be looked after. The pleasant people, whose festivities she shared, were all kind to her; she had not been forgotten in the gifts which were flying about; and altogether the day was a white one. It only ended too soon. At four o'clock Dolly prepared to go home. Christina protested that she was not wanted there. "I am wanted more than you think. I must give mother a piece of my Christmas Day." "Well, you're all coming to us at Sorrento, remember; and that will be charming. We will go everywhere together. And Sandie;--you will be with us, Sandie? in the spring, at the villa? Oh, you must!" "If I possibly can," he said gravely. "And Sandie will take you home now, as you must go. I see he is ready." Dolly would have objected, but she could not alter this arrangement; and Mr. Shubrick walked home with her. It was a very matter-of-fact walk, however. There was as nearly as possible no conversation between the two. Nevertheless, the walk had its fascination for Dolly. The stately, straight, manly figure beside her, inspired her with an admiration which had a little awe mixed with it; to walk with him, even in silence, was an undoubted pleasure; and when he took leave of her at the door of her lodgings and turned away, Dolly felt, and not till then, that her holiday was over. She went up the stairs slowly. Her short holiday was over. Now work again. Well! Dolly remembered the conclusion of last night's thoughts in the moonlight; took up her burden on her shoulders, and carried it up stairs with her. She found her mother alone. "Dearest mother, how do you do?" she said, kissing her; "and how has the day been? I have stayed away pretty late, but I could hardly help it; and I have had a very nice time." "I don't like holidays," was Mrs. Copley's answer. "They're the wearisomest days I know; especially when every one else is out and enjoying himself. This Christmas has been a year long, seems to me. Who did you see?" "Just themselves, and Christina's friend, Mr. Shubrick." "What's he like?" "He's very fine, mother, I think. Christina ought to be a happy woman." "He hasn't got anything, as I understand?" said Mrs. Copley. "I don't think Mrs. Thayer is at all delighted with the match. I know I shouldn't be." "Mrs. Thayer does not see things with my eyes, probably; and you don't see them at all, mother, dear, not knowing Mr. Shubrick. Look at my presents; see this lovely cameo ring; Christina gave it to me Christmas Eve; and this brooch is from Mrs. Thayer; and Mr. Thayer gave me this dear little bronze lamp." "What do you want with such a thing as that? you can't use it." "Oh, for the antique beauty, mother; and the lovely shape. It's real bronze, and Mr. Thayer says the workmanship is very fine." "But he has nothing, has he?" said Mrs. Copley, weighing the bronze lamp in her hand disapprovingly. "Who? He has another just like it. Do you mean Mr. Thayer?" "Pshaw, child, no! I mean the other man, Christina's intended. He has nothing, has he?" "I do not know what you call 'nothing.' He has a very fine figure, an excellent face, sense and firmness and gentleness; and a manner that's fascinating. I never saw anybody with a finer manner. I think he has a good deal." "Mr. St. Leger has all that, Dolly, and money to boot." "Mother! There is all the difference in the world between the two men." "St. Leger has the money, though; and that makes more difference than anything else I know of. Dolly, I _wish_ you would make up your mind. I think that would bring your father all right." "Where is father, mother?" "Gone out." "But I thought he would stay with you while I was away. Couldn't you keep him at home, mother? just this one day?" "I never try to influence your father's motions, Dolly. I never did. And it would be no use. Men do not bear that sort of thing." "What sort of thing?" "Interference. They never do. No man of any spunk does. They are all alike in that." "Do you mean that no man will give up any of his pleasure for a woman that he loves, and that loves him?" "While men are just in love, Dolly, and before they are married, they will make fools of themselves; and for a little while after. Then things fall into their regular train; and their regular train is as I tell you. Let a man alone, if you want to keep the peace and have a comfortable time, Dolly. I _never_ interfere with your father. I never did." Would it have been better if she had? Dolly queried. _She_ must interfere with him now, and it was hard. Dolly thought the wife might have done it easier than the daughter. She did not believe her father was looking up antiquities; she had not faith in his love of art; he could be on no good errand, she greatly feared. Christmas Day! and he would go out and leave his nervous, invalid wife to count her fingers in solitude; not even waiting till Dolly should be at home again. _Are_ all men like that? Mr. Shubrick, for instance? But what was to be done? If Mr. Copley had found places and means of dissipation in Rome, then Rome was a safe abode for him no longer. Where would be a safe abode? Dolly's heart was bitter in its sorrow for a moment; then she gathered herself up. "Mother, do you like Rome?" "Why should I like it? I think we came away from Venice a great deal too soon. You would come, Dolly. There is nothing here, for me, but old tumbledown places; and the meals are not near so good as we had there in Venice. No, I'm sick and tired of Rome. I'm glad you've had a good Christmas Day; it's been forlorn to me." "I won't go again from you, mother. Will you like to make a visit to the Thayers at their villa?" "I don't know. Is Mr. St. Leger invited?" "Particularly." "And the other man?" "What other man?" said Dolly, laughing. "You know,--Christina's man." "He is asked. I do not know about his coming. He would if he could, he said. Why? do you want to see him?" "No." It was well on in the evening before Mr. Copley made his appearance. And then he was taciturn and not in an agreeable temper. The worse for wine he was not, in one sense; he was in no measure overcome by it; but Dolly knew that he had been taking it somewhere. O fathers! she thought, if you are not to "provoke your children to anger," neither ought you to drive them to despair; and you ought never, never, to let them blush for you! That I should be ashamed for _my father!_ She said nothing that night but what was in the way of sweetest ministry to both father and mother. She talked of all that she had seen and done during her visit. She got out a supper of fruit, and would have them eat it. Not very easy work, for her father was glum and her mother unresponsive; but she did what could be done. Next day she proposed going on to Sorrento. "It does not agree very well with mother here; at least I do not think she is gaining; and she does not enjoy it." "You enjoy it, don't you?" "Oh yes; as far as that goes. But I care more for mother and you." "And I care for you, Dolly. No, no; we are old people; it doesn't signify a rush whether we like it or no. You are young, and you are here for once, in Rome, and I am not going away till you've seen it fairly. Don't you say so, mother, hey? Now she has got a good chance, she must use it." "I'm afraid it's expensive," put in Mrs. Copley. "Nonsense; no more than anywhere else. It'll be just about the same thing at Sorrento, or wherever you go. See all you can, Dolly. We'll stay." "I should think you would send Rupert home, at least," said his wife rather disconsolately; but true to her principles she put in no objection to her husband's pleasure. "We might save so much." "We shouldn't save anything. Rupert makes himself very useful; if we had not him, we should want some rogue of a courier. I'll keep Rupert. How he enjoys it, the dog!" Rupert was invaluable to Dolly, though she said nothing about it. Always ready to attend upon her, always devoted to her wishes, her intelligent companion, and her most faithful and efficient servant in making purchases of drawing materials or in disposing of her finished work. Dolly attempted to overrule the decision made ostensibly in her favour, that their stay in Rome should be prolonged; but had no success. Everybody, except only her mother, was against her. And though she feared sadly that her father's motive was twofold and regarded his own pleasure more than hers, she could not change the present status of things. They remained at Rome all winter. It was a winter of mingled delight and distress to Dolly; strangely mingled. The immediate money cares were lifted off; that was one thing. The family lived cheaply, and gave themselves few indulgences, but the bills were paid, somehow; and it was a perpetual indulgence only to be in Rome. How Dolly took the good of it, I have not room to describe. She was busy, too; she even worked hard. Before the Thayers went away, she had taken all their portraits; and with so much acceptance that they introduced her to other friends; and Dolly's custom grew to be considerable. It paid well, for her pictures were really exquisite. Her great natural gift had been trained judiciously, so far as it was trained at all, in America; and now necessity spurred her, and practice helped her, and habitually conscientious work lost no time, and maturing sense and feeling added constant new charm to her performances, discernment to her eye, and skill to her hand. Dolly was accumulating a little stock of money against a time of need; and the secret knowledge of this was a perpetual comfort. And when she gave herself play-time, how she played! Then, with her father if she could get him, or with Rupert if, as most often was the case, Mr. Copley was out of the way or indisposed for sight-seeing, Dolly went about the old city, drinking in pleasure; revelling in historical associations, which were always a hobby of hers; feasting with untiring enjoyment on the wonders of architecture old and new; or in churches and galleries losing herself in rapt ecstasy before this or that marvel of the painter's art. It was a wonderful winter to Dolly. Many a young lady has passed the same season in the same place, but it is only one here and there who finds the hundredth part of the mental food and delectation that Dolly found. Day by day she was growing, and knew it; in delicacy of appreciation, in tenderness of feeling, in power of soul to grasp, in largeness of heart to love, in courage to do and suffer. For all Dolly's studying and enjoying she did in the light of Bible truth and the enriching of heavenly influences; and so, in pictures of the old masters and creations of the grand architects of old and new time, she found truth and teaching and testimony utterly missed by those who have not the right key. It is the same with nature and with all the great arts; for Truth is one; and if you are quite ignorant of her in her highest and grandest revelations, you cannot by possibility understand the more subordinate and initiative. Some dim sense of the hidden mystery, some vague appreciation of the outward beauty of the language without getting at its expressed meaning, or but very partially, just so far as you have the key; that is all there is for you. In all Dolly's horizon there was but one cloud. Lawrence was one of the company, it is true, almost one of the family; treated with greatest consideration and familiarity by both father and mother. But Dolly was not a weak young woman. She knew her own mind, and she had given Lawrence to know it; she was in no confusion about him, and her conscience was clear. Lawrence was also enjoying Rome, after his own fashion; if he was staying for her, Dolly did not know it, and it was not her fault. So her one only shadow upon the brightness at Rome came from her father. Not that he went into any great excesses; or if he did, they were hidden from Dolly; but he indulged himself, she knew, in one at least of his mischievous pleasures. She had no reason to suppose that he gambled; as I said, there was always money to discharge the weekly bills; but he found wine somewhere and drank it; that was certain; and when did ever evil habits stand still? If he kept within bounds now, who should warrant her that he would continue to do so? Mr. Copley came home sometimes cheerful and disposed to be merry; he had taken only enough to exhilarate him; at other times he came home gloomy and cross, and then Dolly knew he had drunk enough to confuse his head and slightly disturb his conscience. What could she do? She clenched her little hands sometimes when she was walking the streets, and sometimes she wrung them in impotent grief. She strove to win her father to share in her pleasures; with little success. She was lovely to him as a daughter could be, always; and at the same time she let him see by her grave face and subdued manner when he came home with the breath of wine upon his lips, that she was troubled and grieved. What more could she do? So her winter was a complication of great enjoyment with anxiety and mortification. About the end of March they left the delightful old city and set off southwards. To Sorrento, was Dolly's fond hope. But when they got to Naples, she found that all the men of the party were against proceeding further, at least before the pleasures and novelties of that place had also bean tasted. "There's a famous museum here, Dolly," said her father. "You could not pass that?" "And Pompeii--don't you want to see Pompeii?" cried Rupert. "It will be pleasanter at Sorrento later in the season," said Lawrence; "much pleasanter. Wait till it grows warm here; then Sorrento will be delightful. We are taking everything just at the right time." "And it is as beautiful here as you can find anything," added Mr. Copley. "You want to look at the bay of Naples, now you have the chance." Yes, said Dolly to herself, and they say the wines are good at Naples too! But she gave up the question. They established themselves in a hotel. "For how long, I wonder?" said Mrs. Copley to Dolly when they were alone. "It seems as if I wasn't going to get to Sorrento. I don't know what I expect there, either, I am sure; only we set out to go to Sorrento for my health; and here we are in Naples after five months of wandering and lounging about! and here we are going to stay, it seems." "The wandering and lounging about was very good for you, mother, dear. You are a great deal improved in your looks." "I wish I was in my feelings." "You are, aren't you?" "What does your father want to do in Naples?" "I don't know. They all want to stay here a while, you see. And, mother, don't you enjoy this wonderful view?" For their windows commanded the bay. "I'd rather see Boston harbour, by half." "Oh, so would I!--on some accounts. But, mother, it is a great thing to see Naples." "So your father thinks. Men never do know what they want; only it is always something they haven't got." "We're in Naples, though, mother." "We shan't be long." "Well, we don't _want_ to be here long, mother." "I'd like to be still somewheres. Your father'd as lieve be anywhere else as at home; but I like to see my own fire burn. I don't know as I ever shall again. Unless you'll marry Mr. St. Leger, Dolly. That would bring all right, at one stroke." From which suggestion Dolly always escaped as fast as possible. It turned out that they were to stay a good while at Naples. Perhaps Mr. Copley feared the seclusion of a private house at Sorrento. However that were, he seemed to find motives to detain him where he was, and Lawrence St. Leger was nothing loth. The days went by, till Dolly herself grew impatient. They went very much after the former manner, as far as the gentlemen were concerned; Lawrence found society, and Mr. Copley too, naturally, took pleasure in meeting a good many people to whom he was known. What other pleasure he took in their company Dolly could but guess; with him things went on very much as they had done in Rome. With her, not. Dolly knew nobody, kept close by her mother, who eschewed all society, and so of course had no likenesses to paint. She worked busily at the other sort of painting which had engaged her in Venice; made lovely little pictures of Naples; rather of bits of Naples; characteristic bits; which were done with so much truth and grace that Rupert without difficulty disposed of them to the fancy dealers. The time of photographs was not yet; and Dolly made money steadily. She enjoyed this work greatly. Her other pleasures were found in walks about the city, and in visits to the museum. There was not in Naples the wealth of art objects which had been so inexhaustible in Rome; nevertheless, the museum furnished an interest all its own; and Dolly went there day after day. Indeed, the interest grew; and objects which at her first going she passed carelessly by, at the fourth or fifth she began to study with intent interest. The small bronzes found at Pompeii were pored over by her and Rupert till they almost knew the several pieces by heart, and had constructed over them a whole system of the ways of private life in those old days when they were made and used. Dolly often managed to persuade her father to be her escort when she went to the museum; and Mr. Copley would go patiently, for Dolly's sake, seeing the extreme delight it afforded her; but Mr. Copley was not always to be had, and then Dolly chose certain parts of the collection which she and Rupert could study together. So they gave a great deal of time to the collection of coins; not at first, but by degrees drawn on. So with the famous collection of antique bronzes. Rupert looked on these in the beginning with a depreciating eye. "What's the fun here? I don't get at it," he remarked. "O Rupert! the beauty of the things." "They are what I call right homely. What a colour they have got. Is it damp, or what?" "Don't you know? these dark ones come from Herculaneum, and were locked up in lava; the others, the greenish ones, are from Pompeii, where the covering was lighter and they were exposed to damp, as you say." "Well, I suppose they are curious, being so ancient." "Rupert, they are most beautiful." But Rupert as well as Dolly found a mine of interest in the Greek and gladiatorial armour and weapons. "It makes my head turn!" said Rupert. "What?" "Why, it is eighteen hundred years ago. To think that men lived and fought with those helmets and weapons and shields, so long back! and now here are the shields and helmets, but where are the men?" Dolly said nothing. "Do you think they are anywhere?" "Certainly!" said Dolly, turning upon him. "As certainly as they wore that armour once." "Where, then?" "I can't tell you that. The Bible and the ancients call it Hades--the place of departed spirits." "But here are their shields,--and folks come and look at them." "Yes." "It gives one a sort of queer feeling." "Yes," said Dolly. "One of those helmets may have belonged to a conqueror, and another may have been unclasped from a dead gladiator's head. And it don't matter much to either of them now." "It seems as if nothing in the world mattered much," said Rupert. "It don't!" said Dolly quickly. "'The world passeth away, and the lust thereof; but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.'" "You think such a one is better off than the rest?" said Rupert. "How? You say the rest are living somewhere." "Existing." "What's the difference?" "Just all the difference between light and darkness;--or between life and death. You would not call it living, if all joy and hope were gone out of existence; you would wish that existence could end." "How do you know all about it so well, Miss Dolly?" the young man asked a little incredulously. "Rupert, it begins in this world. I know a little of the difference now. I never was where all joy and hope were gone out of existence--though I have seen trouble," said Dolly gravely. "But I _do_ know that nothing in this world is so good as the love of Christ; and that without Him life is not life." "People seem to have a good time without it," said Rupert. "For a little. How would they be, do you think, if all their pleasures were taken away?--their money, and all their money gets for them; friends and all?" "Wretched dogs," said Rupert. "But nobody in the world that loved Christ was ever that," Dolly said, smiling. There was in her smile something so tender and triumphant at once, that it silenced Rupert. It was a testimony quite beyond words. For that instant Dolly's spirit looked out of the transparent features, and the light went to Rupert's heart like an arrow. Dolly moved on, and he followed, not looking at the gladiators' shields or Greek armour. "Then, Miss Dolly," he burst out, after his thoughts had been seething a little while,--"if this world is so little count, what's the use of anything that men do? what's the good of studying--or of working--or of coming to look at these old things?--or of doing anything else, but just religion?" Dolly's eyes sparkled, but she laughed a little. "You cannot 'do' religion that way, Rupert," she said. "The old monks made a mistake. What is the use? Why, if you are going to be a servant of Christ and spend your life in working for Him, won't you be the very best and most beautiful servant you can? Do you think a savage has as much power or influence in the world as an educated, accomplished, refined man? Would he do as much, or do it as well? If you are going to give yourself to Christ, won't you make the offering as valuable and as honourable as you can? That is what you would do if you were giving yourself to a woman, Rupert. I know you would." Rupert had no chance to answer, for strangers drew near, and Dolly and he passed on. Perhaps he did not wish to answer. There were other times when Dolly visited the museum with her father. Then she studied the frescoes from Pompeii, the marble sculptures, or sat before some few of the pictures in the collections of the old masters. Mr. Copley was patient, admiring her if he admired nothing else; but even he did admire and enjoy some of the works of art in which the museum is so rich; and one day he and Dolly had a rare bit of talk over the collection of ancient glass. Such hours made Dolly only the more grieved and distressed when she afterwards perceived that her father had been solacing himself with other and very much lower pleasures. CHAPTER XXVII. SORRENTO. It was not till the end of May that they got away from Naples. Mrs. Copley was long tired of her stay there, and even, she said, tired of the bay! Dolly was glad to have her father at a distance from hotels and acquaintances, even though but for a time; and the gentlemen liked moving, as men always do. So the little party in the carriage were in very good spirits and harmony. Rupert had gone on before with the luggage, to make sure that all was right about the rooms and everything ready. They were engaged in the house to which Lady Brierley's housekeeper had given them the address. The day was one of those which travellers tell us of in the south of Italy, when spring is in its glory or passing into summer. In truth, the weather was very warm; but Dolly at least never regarded that, in her delight at the views presented to her. After Castellamare was passed, and as the afternoon wore on, her interest grew with every step. Villages and towns, rocks and trees, were steeped in a wonderful golden light; vineyards and olive groves were etherialised; and when they drew near to Meta, and the plain of Sorrento opened before them, Dolly hung out of the carriage almost breathless. "Is it better than the bay of Naples?" asked Lawrence, smiling. "I am not comparing," said Dolly. "But look at the trees! Did you ever see such beautiful woods?" "Hardly woods, are they?" said Lawrence. "There's variety, certainly." "Said to be a very healthy place," remarked Mr. Copley. "I envy you, Dolly. You can get pleasure out of a stick, if it has leaves on it. Naturally, the plain of Sorrento---- But this sun, I confess, makes me wish for the journey's end." "That is not far off, father. Yonder is Sorrento." And soon the carriage rolled into the town, and turning then aside brought them to a house on the outskirts of the place, situated on a rocky cliff overhanging the shore of the sea. Rupert met them at the gate, and announced a neat house, civil people, comfortable lodgings, and dinner getting ready. "I only hope they will not give us maccaroni with tomatoes," said Mrs. Copley. "I am so tired of seeing maccaroni with tomatoes." "Don't mind for to-day, mother, dear," said Dolly. "We'll have it all right to-morrow." The rooms were found so pleasant, bright and clean, that even Mrs. Copley was satisfied. The dinner, which was ready for them as soon as they were ready for it, proved also excellent; with plenty of fresh vegetables and fruit. Till the meal was over, Dolly had scarce a chance to see where she was; but then she left the others at the table and went out at the open glass door upon a piazza which extended all along the sea front of the house. Here she stood still and cried to the others to follow her. The house was built, as I said, like many houses in Sorrento, on the edge of a rocky cliff, from which there was fair, unhindered view over the whole panorama of sea and land. The sun was descending the western sky, and the flood of Italian light seemed to transfigure the world. Between the verandah and the absolute edge of the rocks, the space was filled with beds of flowers and shrubbery; and a little a one side, so as not to interrupt the view, were fig-trees and pomegranate-trees and olives. Dolly ran down the steps into the garden, and the rest of the party could not but come after her. Dolly's face was flushed with delight. "Did anybody ever see such colours before?" she cried. "Oh, the colours! Look at the blue of the water, down there in the shade; and then see that delicious green beyond, set off by its fringe of white foam; and then where the sun strikes, and where the clouds are reflected." "It is just what you have been seeing in the bay of Naples," said Mrs. Copley. "And Vesuvius, mother! Do look at Vesuvius; how noble it is from here, and in this light." "We had Vesuvius at Naples too," said Mrs. Copley. "It is a wonder to me how people can be so fond of being near it, when you never know what tricks it will play you." "Mother, dear, the lava _never_ comes so far as this, in the worst eruptions." "The fact that it never did does not prove what it may do some time." "You are not afraid of it, surely?" said Mr. Copley. "No," said his wife. "But I have no pleasure in looking at anything that has done, and is going to do, so much mischief. It seems to me a kind of monster." "You cannot be fond of the sea, at that rate, Mrs. Copley," Lawrence observed. "No, you are right," she said. "The only thing I like about it is, that it is the way home." "You don't want to see the way home just now, my dear," said Mr. Copley. "You have but now got to the place of your desires." "If you ask me what that is, it is Boston," said Mrs. Copley. But, however, for a while she did take satisfaction in the quiet and beauty and sweet air of Sorrento. Dolly revelled in it all. She was devoted to her mother and her mother's pleasure, it is true; and here as at Rome and Naples she was thus kept a good deal in the house. Nevertheless, here, at Sorrento, she tempted her mother to go out. A little carriage was procured to take her to the edge of one of the ravines which on three sides enclose the town; and then Dolly and her mother, with Rupert's help, would wind their way down amid the wilderness of lovely vegetation with which the sides and bottom of the ravine were grown. At the bottom of the dell they would provide Mrs. Copley with a soft bed of moss or a convenient stone to rest upon; while the younger people roved all about, gathering flowers, or finding something for Dolly to sketch, and coming back ever and anon to Mrs. Copley to show what they had found or tell what they had seen; and Mrs. Copley for the time forgot her ills, and even forgot Boston, and was amused, and enjoyed the warm air and the luxuriant and sweet nature of Italy. Sometimes Lawrence came instead of Rupert; and Dolly did not enjoy herself so well. But Lawrence was at his own risk now; she could not take care of him. Except by maintaining her calm, careless, disengaged manner; and that she did. There were other times when Dolly and Rupert went out in a boat on the sea. Steps in the rock led immediately down from the garden to the shore; on the shore were fishermen's huts, and a boat was always to be had. Long expeditions by water could not be undertaken, for Mrs. Copley could not be tempted out on the sea, and she might not be long left alone; but there were lovely hours, when Rupert rowed the boat over the golden and purple waves, when all the air seemed rosy and all the sea enamelled, and the sky and the clouds (as Rupert said) were as if they had come out of a fairy book; every colour was floating there and sending down a paradise of broken rainbows upon water and land and the heads of the two pleasure-takers. But even at Sorrento there was a shadow over Dolly. For the first weeks the gentlemen, that is, Mr. Copley and his supposed secretary, made numerous excursions. Mrs. Copley utterly declined to take part in anything that could be called an excursion; and Dolly would not go without her. Lawrence and Mr. Copley therefore went whither they would alone, and saw everything that could be seen within two or three days of Sorrento; for they were gone sometimes as long as that. They took provisions with them; and Dolly sadly feared, nay, she knew, that wines formed a large part of their travelling stock on these occasions; she feared, even, no small part of the attraction of them. Mr. Copley generally came back not exactly the same as when he went; there was an indescribable look and air which made Dolly's heart turn cold; a disreputable air of license, as if he had been indulging himself in spite of strong pledges given, and in disregard of gentle influences that were trying to deter him. And when he had not been on excursions, Dolly often knew that he had found his favourite beverage somewhere and was a trifle the worse for it. What could she do? she asked herself with a feeling almost of desperation. She had done all she knew; what remained? Her father was well aware how she felt. Yet no! not that. He could not have the faintest conception of the torture he gave his daughter by making her ashamed of him, nor of the fearful dread which lay upon her of what his habit of indulgence might end in. If he _had_, Mr. Copley could not, at this stage of things at least, have borne it. He must have yielded up anything or borne anything, rather than that she should bear this. But he was a man, and could not guess it; if he had been told, he would not have understood it; so he had his pleasure, and his child's heart was torn with sorrow and shame. There came a day at last when in their lodgings Mr. Copley called for a bottle of wine at dinner. Dolly's heart gave a great jump. "O father, we do not want wine!" she cried pleadingly. "I do," said Mr. Copley, "and St. Leger does. Nonsense, my dear! no gentleman takes his dinner without his wine. Isn't it so, Lawrence?" And the wine was brought, and the two gentlemen helped themselves. Mrs. Copley accepted a little; Rupert,--Dolly looked to see what he would do,--Rupert quietly put it by. So it had come to this again. Not all her prayers and tears and known wishes could hold her father back from his desire. The desire must already be very strong! Dolly kept her composure with difficulty. She ate no more dinner. And it was a relief to thoughts she could scarcely bear, when Rupert in the evening asked her to go out and take a row on the water. Such an evening as it was! Dolly ran gladly down the rocky steps which led to the shore, and eagerly followed Rupert into the boat. She thought to escape from her trouble for a while. Instead of that, when the boat got away from the shore, and Dolly was floating on the crimson and purple sea, with a flush of crimson and purple sent down upon her from the clouds, and everything in the world glowing with colour or tipped with gold,--her face as she gazed into the glory took such an expression of wan despair, that Rupert forgot where he was. Greatly he longed to say something to break up that look; and could not find the words. The beauty and the peace of the external world wrought, as it sometimes does, by the power of contrast; and had set Dolly to thinking of her father and of his and her very doubtful future. What would become of him if his present manner of life went on?--and what would become of his wife and of her? What could she do, more than she had done, in vain? Dolly tried to think, and could not find. Suddenly, by some sweet association of rays of light, there came into her mind the night before Christmas, and the moonshine in Christina's room, and the words that were so good to her then. "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?" Yes, thought Dolly,--that is sure. Nothing can come between. Nothing can take _that_ joy from me; "neither death nor life; nor things present, nor things to come." But, oh! I wish my father and mother had it too!--With that came a rush of tears to her eyes; she turned her face away from Rupert so that he might not see them. Had she done anything, made any efforts, to bring them to that knowledge? With her mother, yes; with her father, no. It had seemed hopelessly difficult. How could she set about it? As she pondered this question, Rupert saw that the expression of her face had changed, and now he ventured to speak. "Miss Dolly, you set me a thinking in Rome." "Did I?" said Dolly, brightening. "About what?" "And in Naples you drove the nail further in." "What nail? what are you talking about, Rupert?" "Do you remember what you said when we were coming from the Capitoline Museum? We were looking at the Colosseum." "I do not recollect." "I do. You drove the nail in then; and when we were in Naples, at the museum there, you gave it another hit. It's in now." Dolly could not help laughing. "You are quite a riddle, Rupert. I make nothing of it." "Miss Dolly, I've been thinking that I will go home." "Home?" And Dolly's face now grew very grave indeed. "Yes. I've been splitting my head thinking; and I've about made up my mind. I think I'll go home." Rupert was very serious too, and pulled the oars with a leisurely, mechanical stroke, which showed he was not thinking of _them_. "What home? London, do you mean?" "Well, not exactly. I should think not! No, I mean Boston, or Lynn rather. There's my old mother." "Oh!--your mother," said Dolly slowly. "And she is at Lynn. Is she _alone_ there?" "She's been alone ever since I left her; and I'm thinking that's what she hadn't ought to be." Dolly paused. The indication seemed to be, that Rupert was taking up the notion of duty; duty towards others as well as pleasure for himself; and a great throb of gladness came up in her heart, along with the sudden shadow of what was not gladness. "I think you are quite right, Rupert," she said soberly. "Then you are purposing to go back to Lynn to take care of her?" "I set out to see the world and to be something," Rupert went on, looking thoughtfully out to sea;--"and I've done one o' the two. I've seen the world. I don' know as I should ever be anything, if I staid in it. But your talk that day--those days--wouldn't go out of my head; and I thought I'd give it up, and go home to my old mother." "I'll tell you what I think, Rupert," said Dolly; "a man is a great deal more likely to come out right in the end and 'be something,' if he follows God's plan for him, than if he makes a plan for himself. Anyhow, I'd rather have that 'Well done,' by and by"---- She stopped. "How's a man to find out God's plan for him?" "Just the way you are doing. When work is set before you, take hold of it. When the Lord has some more for you He'll let you know." "Then you think this _is_ my work, Miss Dolly, to go home and take care of her? She wanted me to make a man of myself; and when Mr. Copley made me his offer, she didn't hold me back. But she cried some!" "You cannot do another so manly a thing as this, Rupert. I wouldn't let her cry any more, if I were you." "No more I ain't a-goin' to," said the young man energetically. "But, Miss Dolly"---- "What?" "Do you think it is my duty, because I do one thing, to do t'other? Do you think I ought to take to shoemaking?" "Why to shoemaking, Rupert?" "Well, my father was a shoemaker. They're all shoemakers at Lynn, pretty much." "That is no reason why you should be. Your education, the education you have got since you came over to this side, has fitted you for something else, if you like something else better." "That's just what I do!" said Rupert with emphasis. "But I could make a good living that way--I was brought up to it, you see;--and I s'pose _she'd_ like me to take up the old business; but I feel like driving an awl through a board whenever I think of it." "I wouldn't do it, Rupert, if I could do something I was more fit for. People always do things best that they like to do. I think the choice of a business is your affair. Do what you can do best. But I'd make shoes rather than do nothing." "I don't know what I am fit for," said Rupert, evidently relieved, "but--oh yes, I would _cobble_ shoes rather than do nothing. I don't want to eat idle bread. Then I'll go." "Your experience here, in London and on this journey, will not have been lost to you," Dolly observed. "It's been the best thing ever happened to me, this journey," said the young man. "And you've done me more good, Miss Dolly, than anybody in this world,--if it ain't my mother." "I? I am very glad. I am sure you have done a great deal for me, Rupert." "You have put me upon thinking. And till a fellow begins to think, he ain't much more good than a cabbage." "When will you go, Rupert? I wish we were going too!" "Well, I guess my old mother has sat lookin' for me long enough. I guess I'll start pretty soon." "Will you?" said Dolly. "But not before we have made our visit to Mrs. Thayer's villa? We are going there next week." "I'll start then, I guess." "And not go with us to the Thayers'?" "I guess not." "Didn't they invite you?" "Not a bit of it! Took good care not, I should say." "How do you mean?" "Well, Miss Dolly, Mrs. Thayer was standing two feet from me and asking Mr. St. Leger, and she didn't look my way till she had got through and was talking of something else; and then she looked as if I had been a pane of glass and she was seeing something on the other side--as I suppose she was." Dolly was silent for a few minutes and then she said, "How I shall miss you, Rupert!"--and tears were near, though she would not let them come. And Rupert made no answer at all, but rowed the boat in. Yes, Dolly knew she would miss him sadly. He had been her helper and standby and agent and escort and friend, in many a place now, and on many an occasion. He had done for her what there was no one else to do, ever since that first evening when he had made his appearance at Brierley and she had wished him away. So little do people recognise their blessings often at first sight. Now,--Dolly pondered as she climbed the cliff,--how would she get along without Rupert? How long would her father even be content to abide with her mother and her in their quiet way of living? she had seen symptoms of restlessness already. What should she do if he became impatient? if he left them to St. Leger's care and went back to London? or if he carried them off with him perhaps? To London again! And then afresh came the former question, what was there in her power, that might draw her father to take deeper and truer views of life and duty than he was taking now? A question that greatly bothered Dolly; for there was dimly looming up in the distance an answer that she did not like. To attack her father in private on the subject of religion, was a step that Dolly thought very hopeless; he simply would not hear her. But there was another thing she could do--could she do it? Persuade her father and mother to consent to have family prayer? Dolly's heart beat and her breath came quick as she passed through the little garden, sweet with roses and oleander and orange blossoms. How sweet the flowers were! how heavenly fair the sky over her head! So it ought to be in people's hearts, thought Dolly;--so in mine. And if it were, I should not be afraid of anything that was right to do. And this _is_ right to do. Dolly avoided the saloon where the rest of the family were, and betook herself to her own room; to consider and to pray over her difficulties, and also to get rid of a few tears and bring her face into its usual cheerful order. When at last she went down, she found her mother alone, but her father almost immediately joined them. The windows were open towards the sea, the warm, delicious air stole in caressingly, the scent of roses and orange blossoms and carnations filled the house and seemed to fill the world; moonlight trembled on the leaves of the fig-tree, and sent lines of silver light into the room. The lamp was lowered and Mrs. Copley sat doing nothing, in a position of satisfied enjoyment by the window. As Dolly came in by one door, Mr. Copley entered by another, and flung himself down on a chair; his action speaking neither enjoyment nor satisfaction. "Well!" said he. "How much longer do you think you can stand this sort of thing?" "What sort of thing, father?" "Do you sit in the dark usually?" "Come here, father," said Dolly, "come to the window and see the moonshine on the sea. Do you call that dark?" "Your father never cared for moonshine, Dolly," said Mrs. Copley. "No, that's true," said Mr. Copley with a short laugh. "Haven't you got almost enough of it?" "Of moonshine, father?" "Yes--on the bay of Sorrento. It's a lazy place." "You have not been very lazy since you have been here," said his wife. "Well, I have seen all there is to be seen; and now I am ready for something else. Aren't you?" "But, father," said Dolly, "I suppose, just because Sorrento is what you call a lazy place it is good for mother." "Change is good for her too--hey, wife?" "You will have a change next week, father; you know we are going for that visit to the Thayers." "We shall not want to stay there long," said Mr. Copley; "and then we'll move." Nobody answered. Dolly looked out sorrowfully upon the beautiful bright water. Sorrento had been a place of peace to her. Must she go so soon? The scent of myrtles and roses and oranges came in bewilderingly at the open window, pleading the cause of "lazy" Sorrento with wonderfully persuasive flatteries. Was there any other place in the world so sweet? Dolly clung to it, in heart; yearned towards it; the glories of the southern sun were what she had never imagined, and she longed to stay to enjoy and wonder at them. The fruits, the flowers, the sunny air, the fulness and variedness of the colouring on land and sea, the leisure and luxury of bountiful nature,--Dolly was loath, loath to leave them all. No other Sorrento, she was ready to believe, would ever reveal itself to her vision; and she shrank a little from the somewhat rough way she had been travelling before and must travel again. And now in the further way, Rupert, her helper and standby, would not be with her. Then again came the words of Christmas Eve to her--"Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?"--and with the words came the recollection of the new bit of service Dolly had found to do in her return and answer to that love. Yet she hesitated, and her heart began to beat faster, and she made no move until her father began to ask if it were not time to leave the moonlight and go to bed. Dolly came from the window, then to the table where the lowered lamp stood. "Mother and father, I should like to do something," she said with an interrupted breath. "Would you mind--may I--will you let me read a chapter to you before we go?" "A chapter of what?" said her father; though he knew well enough. "The Bible." There was a pause. Mrs. Copley stirred uneasily, but left the answer for her husband to give. It came at last, coldly. "There is no need for you to give yourself that trouble, my dear. I suppose we can all read the Bible for ourselves." "But not as a family, father?" "What do you mean, Dolly?" "Father, don't you think we ought together, as a family,--don't you think we ought to read the Bible together? It concerns us all." "It's very kind of you, my daughter; but I approve of everybody managing his own affairs," Mr. Copley said, as he rose and lounged, perhaps with affected carelessness, out of the room. Dolly stood a moment. "May I read to you, mother?" "If you like," said Mrs. Copley nervously; "though I don't see, as your father says, why we cannot every one read for ourselves. Why did you say that to your father, Dolly? He didn't like it." Dolly made no reply. She knelt down by the low table to bring her Bible near the light, and read a psalm, her voice quivering a little. She wanted comfort for herself, and half unconsciously she chose the twenty-seventh psalm. "'The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?'" Her voice grew steady as she went on; but when she has finished, her mother was crying. CHAPTER XXVIII. AT THE VILLA. The place inhabited by the Thayers was a regular Italian villa. It had not been at all in order that suited English notions of comfort, or American either, when they moved in; but they had painted and matted and furnished, and filled the rooms with pretty things, pictures and statues and vases and flowers; till it looked now quite beautiful and festive. Its situation was perfect. The house stood high, on the shore overlooking the sea, with a full view of Vesuvius, and it was surrounded with a paradise of orange-trees, fig-trees, pomegranates, olives, oaks and oleanders, with roses and a multitude of other flowers; in a wealth of sweetness and luxuriance of growth that northern climes know nothing of. The reception the visitors met with was joyous. "I am so glad you are come!" cried Christina, as she carried off Dolly through the hall to her particular room. "That bad boy, Sandie, has not reported yet; but he will come; and then we will go everywhere. Have you been everywhere already?" "I have been nowhere. I have staid with mother, and she wanted to be quiet." "Well, she can be quiet now with my mother; they can take care of each other. And you have not been to Capri?" "No." "Just think of it! How delightful! You have not seen the Grotta azzurra?" "I have seen nothing." "Nor the grotto of the Sirens? You have seen _that?_ It was so near." "No, I have not. I have been nowhere; only with mother to gather ferns and flowers in the dells around Sorrento. We used to take mother in a donkey cart--a calessino--to the edge of the side of the dell, and then help her down, and get loads of flowers and ferns. It was very pleasant." "I wish Sandie would only come--the tiresome fellow! There's no counting on him. But he will come. He said he would if he could, and he can of course. I suppose you have not visited Paestum yet then?" "I believe father went there. We did not." "Nor we, yet. I don't care so much--only I like to keep going--but father is crazy to see the ruins. You know the ruins are wonderful. Do you care for ruins?" "I believe I do," said Dolly, smiling, "when the ruins are of something beautiful. And those Greek temples--oh, I _should_ like to see them." "I would rather see beautiful things when they are perfect; not in ruins; ruins are sad, don't you think so?" "I suppose they ought to be," said Dolly, laughing now. "But somehow, Christina, I believe the ruins give me more pleasure than if they were all new and perfect--or even old and perfect. It is a perverse taste, I suppose, but I do." "Why? They are not so handsome in ruins." "They are lovelier." "Lovely!--for old ruins! I can understand papa's enthusiasm; he's a kind of antiquity worshipper; but you--and 'lovely!'" "And interesting, Christina. Ruins tell of so much; they are such grand books of history, and witnesses for things gone by. But beautiful--oh yes, beautiful beyond all others, if you talk of buildings. What is St. Peter's, compared to the Colosseum?" Christina stared at her friend. "What is St. Peter's? A most magnificent work of modern art, I should say; and you compare it to a tumbledown old bit of barbarism. That's _too_ like Sandie. Do you and your friend agree as harmoniously as Sandie and I? We ought to exchange." "I have no 'friend,' as you express it," said Dolly, pulling her wayward, curling locks into a little more order. "Mr. St. Leger is nothing to me--if you are speaking of him." "I am sure, if he told the truth, he would not say that of you," said Christina, looking with secret admiration at the figure before her. It was a rare kind of beauty, not of the stereotyped or formal sort; like one of the dainty old vases of alabaster, elegant in form and delicate and exquisite in chiselling and design, with a pure inner light showing through. That was not the comparison in Christina's mind, and indeed she made none; but women's eyes are sometimes sharp to see feminine beauty; and she confessed that Dolly's was uncommon, not merely in degree but in kind. There was nothing conventional about it; there never had been; her curling hair took a wayward way of its own; her brown eyes had a look of thoughtfulness mingled with childlike innocence; they always had it more or less; now the wisdom was more sweet and the innocence more spiritual. Her figure and her manner were all in harmony, wearing unconscious grace and a very simple, free dignity. "We cannot go to Paestum at this season of the year, they say," Christina began again, at a distance from her thoughts; "but one _can_ go to the Punta di Campanella and Monte San Costanzo; and as soon as Sandie comes, we will. We will wait a day for him first." Dolly was quite willing to wait for him; for, to tell the truth, one of her pleasures in the thought of this visit had been the possibility of seeing Mr. Shubrick again. She did not say so, however; and the two girls presently went back to the hall. This was a luxurious apartment, occupying the centre of the house; octagonal, and open to the outer world both at front and back. Warm and yet fresh air was playing through it; the odours of flowers filled it; the most commodious of light chairs and settees furnished it; and scattered about the wide, delicious space were the various members of the party. Mrs. Thayer and Mrs. Copley had been sitting together; just now, as the girls entered, Mrs. Thayer called St. Leger to her. "I am delighted to see you here, Mr. St. Leger," she said graciously. "You know your father was a very old friend of mine." "That gives me a sort of claim to your present kindness," said St. Leger. "You might put in a claim to kindness anywhere," returned the lady. "Don't you get it, now, if you tell the truth?" "I have no reason to complain--in general," said the young man, smiling. "You are a little like your father. He was another. We were great cronies when I was a girl. In fact, he was an old beau of mine. We used to see a vast deal of each other;--flirting, I suppose you would call it; but how are young people to get along without flirting? I liked him very much, for I always had a fancy for handsome men; and if you ask him, he will tell you that I was handsome too at that time. Oh, I was! you may look at me and be incredulous; but I was a belle in those days; and I had a great many handsome men around me, and some not handsome. ....Was I English? No. You don't understand how I could have seen so much of your father. Well, never doubt a story till you have heard the whole of it. I was an American girl; but my father and mother were both dead, and I was sent to England, to be brought up by an aunt, who was the nearest relation I had in the world. She had married an Englishman and settled in England." "Then we may claim you," said Lawrence. "To all intents and purposes you are English." "Might have been," returned Mrs. Thayer. "The flirtation ran very high, I can tell you, between your father and me. He was a poor man then. I understand he has nobly recovered from that fault. Is it true? People say he is made of gold." "There is no lack of the material article," Lawrence admitted. "No. Well, the other sort we know he had, or this would never be true of him now. I did not look so far ahead then. There is no telling what would have happened, but for a little thing. Just see how things go. I might have married in England, and all my life would have been different; and then came along Mr. Thayer. And the way I came to know him was this. A cousin of mine in America was going to be married, and her friend was a friend of Mr. Thayer. Mr. Thayer was coming over to England, and my cousin charged him with a little piece of wedding cake in white paper to bring to me. Just that little white packet! and Mr. Thayer brought it, and we saw one another, and the end was, I have lived my life on the other side instead of on this side." "It's our loss, I am sure," said St. Leger civilly. "You are too polite to say it is mine, but I know you think so. Perhaps it is. At any rate, I was determined, and am determined, that my daughter shall see and choose for herself which hemisphere she will live in. What are you doing in Italy?" "What everybody does in Italy, looking at the old and enjoying the new." "Ah, that's what it is!" said Mrs. Thayer approvingly. "That is what one enjoys. But my husband is one of the other sort. We divide Italy between us. He looks at the marbles, and I eat the pomegranates. Do you like pomegranates?--No? I delight in them, and in everything else fresh and new and sweet and acid. But what I want to know, Mr. St. Leger, is--how come these old ruins to be so worth looking at? Hasn't the human race made progress? Can't we raise as good buildings now-a-days, and as good to see, as those old heathen did?" "I suppose we can, when we copy their work exactly." "But how is that? Christians ought to do better work than heathens. I do not understand it." "No," said St. Leger, "I do not understand it." "Old poetry--that's what they study so much at Oxford and Cambridge, and everywhere else;--and old pictures, and old statues. I think the world ought to grow wiser as it grows older. I believe it is prejudice. There's my husband crazy to go to Paesturn,--I'm glad he can't; the marshes or something are so unhealthy; but I'm going to arrange for you an expedition to the Punta--Punta di something--the toe of the boot, you know; it's delightful; you go on donkeys, and you have the most charming views, and what I know you like better than anything,--the most charming opportunities for flirtation." "It will have to be Miss Thayer and I then," said Lawrence. "Miss Copley does not know how." "Nonsense! Don't tell me. Every girl does. She has her own way, I suppose. Makes it more piquant--and _piquing_." Lawrence looked over towards the innocent face, so innocent of anything false, he knew, or even of anything ambiguous; a face of pure womanly nature, childlike in its naturalness, although womanly in its gravity. Perhaps he drew a swift comparison between a man's chances with a face of that sort, and the counter advantages of Christina's more conventional beauty. Mr. Thayer had sat down beside Dolly and was drawing her into talk. "You are fond of art, Miss Copley. I remember we met you first in the room of the dying gladiator, in the Capitoline Museum. But everybody has to go to see the dying gladiator and the rest." "I suppose so," said Dolly. "I remember, though, I thought you were enjoying it." "Oh, I was." "I can always find out whether people really enjoy things. How many times did you go to see the gladiator? Let me see,--you were in Rome three months?" "Nearer four." "Four! Well, and how many times did you see the gladiator?" "I don't quite know. Half a dozen times, I think. I went until I had got it by heart; and now I can look at it whenever I like." "Humph!" said Mr. Thayer. "The only thing Christina wanted to see a second time was the mosaics; and those she did not get by heart exactly, but brought them away, a good many of them, bodily. And have you developed any taste for architecture during your travels?" "I take great pleasure in some architecture," said Dolly. "May I ask what instances? I am curious to see how our tastes harmonise." "Ah, but I know nothing about it," said Dolly. "I am entirely--or almost entirely--ignorant; and you know and understand." "'Almost entirely?'" said Mr. Thayer. "You have studied the subject?" "A little," said Dolly, smiling and blushing. "Do favour me. I am desirous to know what you have seen that particularly pleased you." "The cathedral at Limburg." "Limburg. Oh--ah! yes, it was _there_ we first met you. I was thinking it was in the museum of the Capitol. Limburg. You liked that?" "Very much!" "Romanesque--or rather Transition." "I do not know what Romanesque is, or Transition either." "Did you notice the round arches and the pointed arches?" "I do not remember. Yes, I do remember the round arches; but I was thinking rather of the effect of the whole." "The church at Limburg shows a mixture of the round Romanesque and the pointed Gothic; Gothic was preparing; that sort of thing belongs to the first half of the thirteenth century. Well, that bespeaks very good taste. What next would you mention, Miss Dolly?" "I don't know; I have enjoyed so many things. Perhaps I should say the Doge's palace at Venice." "Ha! the Doge's palace, hey? You like the pink and white marble." "Don't you, Mr. Thayer?" "That's not what one looks for in architecture. What do you say to St. Peter's?" "You will find a great deal of fault with me. I did not care for it." "Not? It is Michael Angelo's work." "But knowing the artist is no reason for admiring the work," said Dolly, smiling. "You are very independent! St. Peter's! Not to admire St. Peter's!" "I admired the magnificence, and the power, and a great many things; but I did not like the building. Not nearly so much as some others." "Now I wish we could go to Paestum, and see what you would say to pure old Greek work. But it would be as much as our lives are worth, I suppose." "Yes, Mr. Thayer," his wife cried; "don't talk about Paestum; they are going to-morrow to the point." "The point? what point? the coast is full of points." "The Punta di Campanella, papa," said Christina. "I thought you were going to Capri?" "We'll keep Capri till Sandie comes. He would be a help on the water. All our marine excursions we will keep until Sandie comes. I only hope he'll be good and come." The very air seemed full of pleasant anticipations; and Dolly would have been extremely happy; was happy; until on going in to dinner she saw the wineglasses on the table, and bottles suspiciously cooling in water. Her heart sank down, down. If she had had time and had dared, she would have remonstrated; but yet what could she say? She knew, too, that the wine at Mr. Thayer's table, like everything else on it, would be of the best procurable; better and more alluring than her father could get elsewhere. In her secret heart there was a bitter unspoken cry of remonstrance. O friends! O friends!--she was ready to say,--do you know what you are doing? You are dropping sweet poison into my life; bitter poison; deadly poison, where you little think it; and you do it with smiles and coloured glasses! She could hardly eat her dinner. She saw with indescribable pain and a sort of powerless despair, how Mr. Copley felt the license of his friend's house and example, and how the delicacy of the vintages offered him acted to dull his conscience; Mr. Thayer praising them and hospitably pressing his guest to partake. He himself drank very moderately and in a kind of mere matter-of-fact way; it was part of the dinner routine; and St. Leger tasted, as a man who knows indeed what is good, but also makes it a matter of no moment; no more than his bread or his napkin. Mr. Copley drank with eager gusto, and glass after glass; even, Dolly thought, in a kind of bravado. And this would go on every day while their visit lasted; and perhaps not at dinner only; there were luncheons, and for aught she knew, suppers. Dolly's heart was hot within her; so hot that after dinner she could not keep herself from speaking on the subject to Christina. Yet she must begin as far from her father as possible. The two girls were sitting on the bank under a fig-tree, looking out on the wonderful spectacle of the bay of Naples at evening. "There is a matter I have been thinking a great deal about lately," she said, with a little heartbeat at her daring. "I daresay," laughed Christina. "That is quite in your way. Oh, I do wish Sandie would come! He _ought_ to be here." "This is no laughing matter, Christina. It is a serious question." "You are never anything but serious, are you?" said her friend. "If you have a fault, it is that, Dolly. You don't laugh enough." Dolly was silent and swallowed her answer; for what did Christina know about it? _She_ had not to watch over her father; her father watched over her. Presently she began again; her voice had a little strain in its tone. "This is something for you and me to consider; for you and me, and other women who can do anything. Christina, did you ever think about the use of wine?" "Wine?" echoed Miss Thayer, a good deal mystified. "The use of it? I don't know any use of it, except to give people, gentlemen, something to talk of at dinner. Oh, it is good in sickness, I suppose. What are you thinking of?" "I am thinking of the harm it does," said Dolly in a low voice. "Harm? What harm? You are not one of those absurd people I have heard of, who cut down their apple-trees for fear the apples will be made into cider?" "I have no apple-trees to cut down," said Dolly. "But don't you know, Christina, that there is such a thing as drinking too much wine? and what comes of it?" "Not among our sort of people," said Christina. "I know there are such things as drunkards; but they are in the lower classes, who drink whisky and gin. Not among gentlemen." Dolly choked, and turned her face away to hide the eyes full of tears. "Too much wine?" Christina repeated. "One may have too much of anything. Too much fire will burn up your house; yet fire is a good thing." "That's only burning up your house," said Dolly sorrowfully. "_Only_ burning up your house! Dolly Copley, what are you thinking of?" "I am thinking of something infinitely worse. I am thinking of a man losing his manhood; of families losing their stay and their joy, because the father, or the husband, or the brother, has lost himself!--gone down below his standing as an intellectual creature;--become a mere animal, given up to low pleasures which make him sink lower and lower in the scale of humanity. I am thinking of _his_ loss and of _their_ loss, Christina. I am thinking of the dreadfulness of being ashamed of the dearest thing you have, and the way hearts break under it. And don't you know that when the love of wine and the like gets hold of a person, it is stronger than he is? It makes a slave of him, so that he cannot help himself." Christina's thoughts made a rapid flight over all the persons for whom Dolly could possibly fear such a fate, or in whom she could possibly have seen such an example. But Mr. St. Leger had the clear, fresh colour of perfect health and condition; Mr. Copley loved wine evidently, but drank it like a gentleman, and gave, to her eyes, no sign of being enslaved. What could Dolly be thinking of? Her mother was out of the question. "I don't make out what you are at, Dolly," she said. "Such things do not happen in our class of society." "Yes, they do. They happen in every class. And the highest ought to set an example to the lowest." "No use if they did. Anyhow, Dolly, it is nothing you and I can meddle with." "I think we ought not to have wine on our tables." "Mercy! Everybody does that." "It is offering temptation." "To whom? Our friends are not that sort of people." "How do you know but they may be? How can you tell but the taste or the tendency may be where you least think of it?" "You don't mean that Mr. St. Leger has anything of that sort?" said Christina, facing round upon her. "No more than other people, so far as I know. I am speaking in general, Christina. The thing is in the world; and we, I do think, we whose example would influence people,--I suppose everybody's example influences somebody else--I think we ought to do what we can." "And not have wine on our dinner-tables!" "Would that be so very dreadful?" "It would be very inconvenient, I can tell you, and very disagreeable. Fancy! no wine on the table. No one could understand it. And how our dinner-tables would look, Dolly, with the wine-glasses and the decanters taken off! And then, what would people talk about? Wine is such a help in getting through with a dinner-party. People who do not know anything else, and cannot talk of anything else, can taste wine; and have plenty to say about its colour, and its _bouquet_, and its age, and its growth, and its manufacture, and where it can be got genuine, and how it can be adulterated. And so one gets through with the dinner quite comfortably." "I should not want to see people who knew no more than that," said Dolly. "Oh, but you must." "Why?" "And it does not do to be unfashionable." "Why, Christina! Do you recollect what is said in the epistle of John--'The world knoweth us not'? I do not see how a Christian _can_ be fashionable. To be fashionable, one must follow the ways of the world." "Well, we must follow some of them," cried Christina, flaring up, "or people will not have anything to do with you." "That's what Christ said,--'Because ye are not of the world, ... therefore the world hateth you.'" "Do you like to have people hate you?" "No; but rather that than have Jesus say I do not belong to Him." "Dolly," said Christina, "you are _very_ high-flown! That might just do for one of Sandie's speeches." "I am glad Mr. Shubrick is such a wise man." "He's just a bit too wise for me. You see, I am not so superior. I should like to take him down a peg. And I--will if he don't come soon." He did not come in time for the next day's pleasure-party; so the young ladies had only Mr. St. Leger and Mr. Thayer to accompany them. Mrs. Copley "went on no such tramps," she said; and Mrs. Thayer avowed she was tired of them. The expedition took all day, for they went early and came back late, to avoid the central heat of midday. It was an extremely beautiful little journey; the road commanding a long series of magnificent views, almost from their first setting out. They went on donkeys, which was a favourite way with Dolly; at Massa they stopped for a cup of coffee; they climbed Monte San Costanzo; interviewed the hermit and enjoyed the prospect; and finally settled themselves for as pleasant a rest as possible among the myrtles on the solitary point of the coast. From here their eyes had a constant regale. The blue Mediterranean spread out before them, Capri in the middle distance, and the beauties of the shore nearer by, were an endless entertainment for Dolly. Christina declared she had seen it all before; Mr. Thayer found nothing worthy of much attention unless it had antiquities to be examined; and the fourth member of the party was somewhat too busy with human and social interests to leave his attention free. Mr. St. Leger had been now for a long time very unobtrusive in his attentions to Dolly, and Dolly partly hoped he had given her up; but that was a mistake. Perhaps he thought it was only a matter of time, for Dolly to get acquainted with him and accustomed to him; perhaps he thought himself sure of his game, if the fish had only line enough. Having the powerful support of Dolly's father and mother, all worldly interests on the side of his suit, a person and presence certainly unobjectionable, to say the least; how could a girl like Dolly, in the long run, remain unimpressed? He would give her time. Meanwhile, Mr. St. Leger was enjoying himself; seeing her daily and familiarly; he could wait comfortably. It would appear by all this that Lawrence was not an ardent man; but constitutions are different; there is an ardour of attack, and there is an ardour of persistence; and the latter, I think, belonged to him. Besides, he had sense enough to see that a too eager pressing of his cause with Dolly would ruin all. So he had waited, not discontentedly, and bided his time. Now, however, he began to think it desirable on many accounts to have the question decided. Mr. Copley would not stay much longer in Italy, Lawrence was certain, and the present way of life would come to an end; if his advantages were ever to bear fruit, it should be ripe now. Moreover, one or two other, and seemingly inconsistent, considerations came in. Lawrence admired Miss Thayer. Her beauty was even more striking, to his fancy, than Dolly's; if it were also more like other beauties he had seen. She had money too, and Dolly had none. Truly, Mr. St. Leger had enough of his own; but when did ever a man with enough not therefore desire more? He admired Christina very much; she suited him; if Dolly should prove after all obdurate, here was his chance for making himself amends. Cool! for an ardent lover; but Mr. St. Leger _was_ of a calm temperament, and these suggestions did come into his mind back of his liking for Dolly. This liking was strong upon him the day of the excursion to the Punta di Campanella. Of necessity he was Christina's special attendant, Mr. Thayer being Dolly's. Many girls would not have relished such an arrangement, Lawrence knew; his sisters would not. And Dolly was in an acme of delight. Lawrence watched her whenever they came near each other, and marvelled at the sweet, childish-womanish face. It was in a ripple of pleasure; the brown, considerate eyes were sparkling, roving with quick, watchful glances over everything, and losing as few as possible of the details of the way. Talking to Mr. Thayer now and then, Lawrence saw her, with the most innocent, sweet mouth in the world; her smile and that play of lip and eye bewitched him whenever he got a glimpse of it. The play of Christina's features was never so utterly free, so absent from thought of self, so artless in its fun. Now and then, too, there came the soft, low ring of a clear voice, in laughter or talking, bearing the same characteristics of a sweet spirit and a simple heart; and yet, when in repose, Dolly's face was strong in its sense and womanliness. The combination held Mr. St. Leger captive. I do not know how he carried on his needful attentions to his companion; with a mechanical necessity, I suppose; when all the while he was watching Dolly and contrasting the two girls. He was not such a fool as not to know which indications promised him the best wife; or if not him, the man who could get her. And he resolved, if a chance offered, he would speak to Dolly that very day. For here was Christina, if his other hope failed. He _was_ cool; nevertheless, he was in earnest. They had climbed up Monte San Costanzo and admired the view. They had rested, and enjoyed a capital lunch among the myrtles on the point. It was when they were on their way home in the afternoon, and not till then, that the opportunity presented itself which he had wished for. On the way home, the order of march was broken up. Christina sometimes dropped St. Leger to ride with her father; sometimes called Dolly to be her companion; and at last, declaring that she did not want Mr. St. Leger to have a sense of sameness about the day, she set off with her father ahead, begging Dolly to amuse the other gentleman. Which Dolly made not the least effort to do. The scenery was growing more lovely with every minute's lengthening shadows; and she rode along, giving all her attention to it, not making to Mr. St. Leger even the remarks she might have made to Mr. Thayer. The change of companions to her was not welcome. St. Leger found the burden of conversation must lie upon him. "We have not seen much of each other for a long time," he began. "Only two or three times a day," said Dolly. "And you think that is enough, perhaps!" said Lawrence hastily. "Don't you think more would have a tendency to produce what Christina calls a 'sense of sameness'?" said Dolly, turning towards him a face all dimpled with fun. "That is according to circumstances. The idea is not flattering. But, Miss Dolly," said Lawrence, pulling himself up, "in all this while--these months--that we have been travelling together, we have had time to learn to know each other pretty well. _You_ must have been able to make up your mind about me." "Which part of your character?" "Miss Dolly," said Lawrence with some heat, "you know what I mean." "Do I? But I did not know that I had to make up my mind about anything concerning you; I thought that was done long ago." "And you do not like me any better now than you did then?" "Perhaps I do," said Dolly slowly. "I always liked you, Mr. St. Leger, and I had cause. You have been a very kind friend to us." "For your sake, Dolly." "I am sorry for that," she said. "And I have waited all this time in the hope that you would get accustomed to me, and your objections would wear away. You know what your father and mother wish concerning us. Does their wish not weigh with you?" "No," said Dolly very quietly. "This is my affair, not theirs." "It is their affair so far as your interests are involved. And I do not wish to praise myself; but you know they think that those interests would be secured by a marriage with me. And I believe I could make you happy, Dolly." Dolly shook her head. "How could you?" she said. "We belong to two opposite parties, and are following two different lines of life. You would not like my way, and I should not like yours. How could either of us be happy?" "Even granting all that," said Lawrence, "why should you not bear with my peculiarities, and I with yours, and neither be the worse? That is very frequently done." "Is it? I do not think it ought to be done." "Let us prove that it can be. I will never interfere with you, Dolly." "Yes, you would," said Dolly, dimpling all over again. "Do you think you would make up your mind to have no wine in your cellar or on your table? Take that for one thing. I should have no wine on mine." "That's a crotchet of yours," said he, smiling at her: he thought if _this_ were all, the thing might be managed. "That is only one thing, Mr. St. Leger," Dolly went on very gravely now. "I should be unfashionable in a hundred ways, and you would not like that. I should spend money on objects and for causes that you would not care about nor agree to. I am telling you all this to reconcile you to doing without me." "Your refusal is absolute, then?" "Yes." "You would not bring up these extraneous things, Dolly, if you had any love for me." "I do not know why that should make any difference. It might make it hard." "Then you _have_ no love for me?" "I am afraid not," said Dolly gently. "Not what you mean. And without that, you would not wish for a different answer from me." "Yes, I would!" said he. "All that would come; but you know your own business best." Dolly thought she did, and the proposition remained uncontroverted. Therewith the discourse died; and the miles that remained were made in unsocial silence. Dolly feared she had given some pain, but doubted it could not be very great; and she was glad to have the explanation over. Perhaps the pain was more than she knew, although Lawrence certainly was not a desperate wooer; nevertheless, he was disappointed, and he was mortified, and mortification is hard to a man. For the matter of that, it is hard to anybody. It was not till the villa occupied by the Thayers was close before them that he spoke again. "Do you expect to stay much longer in Italy?" "I am afraid not," Dolly answered. "I have reason to think Mr. Copley will not. Indeed, I know as much. I thought you might like to be informed." Dolly said nothing. Her eyes roved over the beautiful bay, almost with an echo of Eve's "Must I then leave thee, Paradise?" in her heart. The smoke curling up from Vesuvius caught the light; little sails skimming over the sea reflected it; the sweetness of thousands of roses and orange blossoms, and countless other flowers, filled all the air; it was a time and a scene of nature's most abundant and beautiful bounty. Dolly checked her donkey, and for a few minutes stood looking; then with a brave determination that she would enjoy it all as much as she could while she had it, she went into the house. CHAPTER XXIX. WHITHER NOW? The days that followed were full of pleasure; and Dolly kept to her resolution, not to spoil the present by care about the future. Indeed, the balmy air and the genial light and all the wealth that nature has bestowed upon southern Italy, were a help to such a resolution. The infinite lavish fulness of the present quite laughed at the idea of barrenness or want anywhere in time to come. Dolly knew that was nature's subtle flattery, not to be trusted, and yet she willingly admitted the flattery. Nothing should spoil these days. One evening she and Christina were sitting again on the bank, wondering at the marvellous sunset panorama. "How difficult it is, looking at this," said Dolly, "to believe that there is want and misery in the world." "Why should you believe it?" said Christina. "I don't think there is, except where people have brought it upon themselves." "People bring it upon other people. But to look at this, one would say it was impossible. And this is how the world was meant to be, I suppose." "What do you mean? how?" said Christina. "It is rich to hear you talk." "Oh, look at it, Christina! Look at the colours and the lights and the sparkle everywhere, the perfect wealth of loveliness in form as well as colour; and if you think a minute you will know that He who made it all meant people to be happy, and meant them to be as full of happiness as the earth is full of beauty." "I don't see 'lights' and 'colours' so much as you do, Dolly; I am not an artist; but if God meant them to be happy, why aren't they happy?" "Sin," said Dolly. "What's the use of thinking about it? You and I cannot help it." "Christina, that is not true. We can help some of it." "By giving money, you mean? Well, we do, whenever we see occasion; but there is no end of the cheatery." "Giving money will not take away the world's misery, Christina." "What will, then? It will do a good deal." "It will do a good deal, but it does not touch the root of the trouble." "What does, Dolly?--you dreamer." "The knowledge of Christ." "Well, it is the business of clergymen and missionaries to give them that." "Prove it." "Why, that's what they are for." "Do you think there are enough of them to preach the good news to every creature?" "Well, then, there ought to be more." "And in the meantime?--Tell me, Christina, to whom was that command given, to preach the gospel to every creature?" "To the apostles, of course!" "Twelve men? Or eleven men, rather. They could not. No, it was given to all the disciples; and so, Christina, it was given to you, and to me." "To preach the gospel!" said Christina. "That is, just to tell the good news." "And to whom do you propose we should tell it?" "The command says, everybody." "How can you and I do that, Dolly?" "That is just what I am studying, Christina. I do not quite know. But when I look out on all this wonderful beauty, and see what it means, and think how miserable the world is,--just the very opposite,--I feel that I must do it, somehow or other." Christina lifted her arms above her head and clapped her hands together. "Mad, mad!" she exclaimed--"you are just gone mad, Dolly. Oh, I wish you'd get married, and forget all your whimsies. The right sort of man would make you forget them. Haven't you found the right sort of man yet?" "The right sort of man would help me carry them out." "It must be my Sandie, then; there isn't another match for you in extravagant ideas in all this world. What does Mr. St. Leger think of them?" "I never asked him. I suppose he would take very much your view." "And you don't care what view he takes?" said Christina, looking sharply at her. "Not in the least. Except for his own sake." The one drawback upon the perfect felicity of this visit was, that the said Sandie did not appear. They could not wait for him; they went on the most charming of excursions, by sea and land, wishing for him; in which wish Dolly heartily shared. It had been one of the pleasures she had promised herself in coming to the Thayers' that she should see Mr. Shubrick again. He had interested her singularly, and even taken not a little hold of her fancy. So she was honestly disappointed when at last a note came from him, saying that he found it impossible to join the party. "That means just that he has something on hand that he calls 'duty'--which anybody else would put off or hand over," said Christina, pouting. "Duty is a very good reason," said Dolly. "Don't you see, you are sure of Mr. Shubrick, that in any case he will not do what he thinks wrong? I think you ought to be a very happy woman, Christina." But the excursions were made without Mr. Shubrick's social or material help. They went to Capri; they visited the grottoes; nay, they made a party to go up Vesuvius. All that was to be seen, they saw; and, as Christina declared, they left nothing undone that they could do. Then came the breaking up. "Are you expecting to go back to that stuffy little place at Sorrento?" Mr. Copley asked. It was the evening before their departure, and all the party were sitting, scattered about upon the verandah. "Father!" cried Dolly. "It is the airiest, floweriest, sunniest, brightest, most delightful altogether house, that ever took lodgers in!" "It certainly wasn't stuffy, Mr. Copley," said his wife. "Dolly likes it because you couldn't get a glass of good wine in the house. Whatever the rest of humanity like, she makes war upon. I conclude you are reckoning upon going back there, my wife and daughter?" "Are not you, Mr. Copley?" his wife asked. "I must be excused." "Then where are you going?" "Home." "Home!" exclaimed Mrs. Copley. "Do you mean _home?_ Boston?" "A Boston woman thinks Boston is the centre of the universe, you may notice," said Mr. Copley, turning to Mr. Thayer. "It's a curious peculiarity. No matter what other cities on the face of the earth you show her, her soul turns back to Boston." "Don't say anything against Boston," said Mrs. Thayer; "it's a good little place. I know, when Mr. Thayer first carried me there, it took me a while to get accustomed to it;--things on a different scale, you know, and looked at from a different point of view; but I soon found admirers, and then friends. Oh, I assure you, Boston and I were very fond of each other in those days; and though I lost my claims to admiration a long time ago, I have kept my friends." "I have no doubt the admirers are still there too," said Mr. Copley. "Does Mrs. Thayer mean to say she has no admirers? I profess myself one!" "Christina takes the admiration now-a-days. I am contented with that." "And so you conquer by proxy." "Mr. Copley," here put in his wife, "if you do not mean America by 'home,' what do you mean? and where are you going?" "Where my home has been for a number of years. England--London." "But you have given up your office?" "I am half sorry, that is a fact." "Then what should you do in London?" "My dear, of the many hundred thousands who call London their home, very few have an office." "But they have business of some kind?" "That is a Boston notion. Did you ever observe, Thayer, that a Massachusetts man has no idea of life without business? It is the reason why he is in the world, to him; it never occurs to him that _play_ might be occasionally useful. I declare! I believe they don't know the meaning of the word in America; it has dropped out, like a forgotten art." "But, father," Dolly spoke up now, "if you are going to London, mother and I cannot possibly go to Sorrento." "I don't quite see the logic of that." "Why, we cannot be here in Italy quite alone." "I'll leave you St. Leger to take care of you and bring you back; as he took you away." "I should be very happy to fall in with that plan," said Lawrence slowly; "but I fear I cannot make it out. I have been making arrangements to go into Greece, seeing that I am so near it. And I may quite possibly spend another winter in Rome." There was a pause, and when Mr. Copley spoke again there was another sound in his voice. It was not his will to betray it, but Dolly heard the chagrin and disappointment. "Well," said he, "such independent travellers as you two ladies can do pretty comfortably alone in that paragon of lodging-houses." "But not make the journey home alone, father." "When are you coming?" "When you do, of course," said his wife. Dolly knew it must be so and not otherwise. She sat still and down-hearted, looking abroad over the bay of Naples, over all the shores of which the moonlight was quivering or lying in still floods of calm beauty. From this, ay, and from everything that was like this, in either its fairness or its tranquillity, she must go. There had been a little lull in her cares since they came to Sorrento; the lull was over. Back to London!--And that meant, back to everything from which she had hoped to escape. How fondly she had hoped, once her father was away from the scene of his habits and temptations, he could be saved to himself and his family; and perhaps even lured back to America where he would be comparatively safe. Now where was that hope, or any other? Suddenly Dolly changed her place and sat down close beside Mr. Copley. "Father, I wish you would take us back to our real old home--back to Roxbury!" "Can't do it, my pet." "But, father, why not? What should keep you in England?" "Business." "Now that you are out of the office?" "Yes. Do you think all business is confined to the consuls' offices? A few other people have something to do." Dolly heard no tone of hope-giving in her father's words. She ceased and sat silent, leaning upon his knee as she was and looking off into the moonlight. Mrs. Thayer and Mr. St. Leger were carrying on a lively discourse about people and things unknown to her; Mr. Thayer was smoking; Mrs. Copley was silent and sorry and cast-down, like herself, she knew. Dolly's eye went roving through the moonlight as if it were never going to see moonlight again; and her heart was taking up the old question, and feeling it too heavy to carry, how should she save her father from his temptation? Under the pressure Dolly's heart felt very low; until again those words came and lifted her up,--"Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?" After that the sweet moonbeams seemed to be full of those words. I am _not_ alone, thought Dolly, I am _not_ forgotten; and He does not mean that I should be crushed, or hurt, by this arrangement of things, which I strove so to hinder. I will not be one of the "little faith" people. I will just trust the Lord--my Lord. What I cannot do, He can; and His ways are wonderful and past finding out. So she was quieted. And yet as she sat there it came over Dolly's mind, as things will, quite unbidden; it came over her to think how life would go on here, in Italy, with Christina, after she was gone. When the lovely Italian chapter of her own life was closed up and ended, when she would be far away out of sight of Vesuvius, in the fogs of London, the sun of Naples would still be shining on the Thayers' villa. They would go sailing on blue water, or floating over the gold and purple reflections which sometimes seemed to fill both water and air; they would see the white shafts of Paestum, yes, it would be soon cool enough for that; or if they must wait for Paestum, there were enough old monasteries and ruined castles and beauties of the like sort to keep them busy for many a day. Beauties which Dolly and Mr. Thayer loved. Nobody else in the house loved them. Christina had hardly an eye for them; and St. Leger, if he looked, did not care for what he saw. Nevertheless, they three would go picnicking through the wonderful old land, where every step was on monumental splendour or historical ashes, and the sights would be before them; whether they had eyes to see or no. For Dolly it was all done. She was glad she had had so much and enjoyed so much; and that enjoyment had given memory such a treasure of things to keep, that were hers for all time, and could be looked at in memory's chambers whenever she pleased. Yet she could not see the moonlight on the bay of Naples this evening for the last time, and remember towards what she was turning her face, without some tears coming that nobody saw--tears that were salt and hot. The journey home was a contrast to the way by which they had come. It pleased Mr. Copley to go by sea from Naples to Marseilles, and from thence through France as fast as the ground could be passed over, till they reached Dover. And although those were not the days of lightning travel, yet travelling continually, the effect was of one swift, confused rush between Naples and London. Instead of the leisurely, winding course pursued to Dresden, and from Dresden to Venice, deviating at will from the shortest or the most obvious route, stopping at will at any point where the fancy took them, dawdling, speculating, enjoying, getting good out of every step of the way,--this journey was a sort of flash from the one end of it to the other, with nothing seen or remembered between but the one item of fatigue. So it came about, that when they found themselves in a London lodging-house, and Mrs. Copley and Dolly sat down and looked at each other, they had the feeling of having left Sorrento last evening, and of being dazed with the sudden transition from Sorrento and sunshine to London and smoke. "Well!" said Mr. Copley, rubbing his hands, "here we are!" "I don't feel as if I was anywhere," said his wife. "My head's in a whirl. Is this the way you like to travel, Frank?" "The purpose of travelling, my dear," said Mr. Copley, still rubbing his hands--it must have been with satisfaction, for it could not have been with cold--"the purpose of travel is--to get over the ground." "It wasn't my purpose when I went away." "No--but when you came back." "It wasn't my purpose anyway," said Mrs. Copley. "I should never stir from my place if I had to move the way you have kept me moving. My head is in a whirl." "I'll take hold and turn it round the other way." "I think it is quite likely you will! I should like to know what you mean to do with us, now you have got us here." "Keep you here." "What are you going to do with yourself, Mr. Copley?" "There are always so many uses that I can make of myself, more than I have time for, that I cannot tell which I shall take hold of first." With which utterance he quitted the room, almost before it was fairly out of his mouth. The two left behind sat and looked at the room, and then at each other. "What are we going to do now, Dolly?" Mrs. Copley asked in evidently dismayed uncertainty. "I don't know, mother." "How long do you suppose your father will be contented to stay in this house?" "I have no means of guessing, mother. I don't know why we are here at all." "We had to go somewhere, I suppose, when we came to London--just for the first; but I can't stay _here_, Dolly!" "Of course not, mother." "Then where are we going to? It is all very well to say 'of course not;' but where can we go, Dolly?" "I have been thinking about it, mother, dear, but I have not found out yet. If we knew how long father wanted to stay in London"---- "It is no use asking that. I can tell you beforehand. He don't know himself. But it is my belief he'll find something or other to make him want to stay here the rest of his life." "O mother, I hope not!" "It is no use speaking to him about it, Dolly. Even if he knew, he would not own it, but that's my belief; and I can't bear London, Dolly. A very few days of this noise and darkness would just put me back where I was before we went away. I know it would." "This is a darker day than common; they are not all so." "They are all like gloom itself, compared to where we have been. I tell you, Dolly, I cannot stand it. After Sorrento, I cannot bear this." "It's my belief, mother, you want home and Roxbury air. Why don't you represent that to father, forcibly?" "Dolly, I never put myself in the way of your father's pleasure. He must take his pleasure; and he likes London. How he can, I don't see; but he does, and so do a great many other people; it may be a want of taste in me; I daresay it is; but I shall not put myself in the way of his pleasure. I'll stand it as long as I can, and when I cannot stand it any longer, I'll die. It will come to an end some time." "Mother, don't talk so! We'll coax father to finish up his business and go home to Roxbury. I am quite setting my heart on it. Only you have patience a little, and don't lose courage. I'll talk to father as soon as I get a chance." "What a dirty place this is!" was Mrs. Copley's next remark. "Yes. It is not like the rocks and the sea. A great city must be more or less so, I suppose." "I believe great cities are a mistake. I believe they were not meant to be built. They don't agree with me, anyway. Well, I'll lie down on that old sofa there--it's hard enough to have been one of Job's troubles--and see if I can get to sleep." Dolly drew a soft shawl over her, and sat down to keep watch alone. The familiar London sounds were not cheering to the ears which had been so lately listening to the lap of the waves and the rustling of the myrtle branches. And the dingy though comfortable London lodging-house was a poor exchange for the bay of Sorrento and the bright rooms full of the scents of orange flowers and roses and carnations. Dolly gave way a little and felt very down-hearted. Not merely for this change of her outside world, indeed; Dolly was not so weak; only in this case the outward symbolised the inward, and gave fitting form and imagery for it. The grime and confusion of London streets, to Dolly's fancy, were like the evil ways which she saw close upon her; and as roses and myrtles, so looked a fair family life of love and right-doing. Why not?--when He, who is Love itself and Righteousness immaculate, declares of Himself,--"I am the rose of Sharon, and the lily of the valleys." I do not think those words occurred to Dolly that night, but other Bible words did, after a while. Promises of the life that shall be over all the earth one day, when the wilderness and the desert places shall be no longer desolate or barren, but shall "rejoice and blossom as the rose;" when to the Lord's people, "the sun shall no longer be their light by day, neither for brightness shall the moon give light" to them; when "sorrow and sighing shall flee away," and "the days of their mourning shall be ended." The words were like a lovely chime of bells,--or like the breath from a whole garden of roses and orange flowers,--or like the sunset light on the bay of Naples; or anything else most majestic, sweet, and fair. What if there were shadowed places to go through first?--And a region of shadow Dolly surely knew she had entered now. She longed for her father to come home; she wanted to consult with him about their arrangements, and so arrive at some certainty respecting what she had to do and expect. But Dolly knew that an early coming home was scarce to be hoped for; and she providently roused her mother at ten o'clock, and persuaded her to go to bed. Then Dolly waited alone in truth, with not even her sleeping mother's company; very sad at heart, and clutching, as a lame man does his stick, at some of the words of comfort she knew. "Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for Thou art with me." The case was not quite so bad, nor so good, with her as that; but the words were a strong staff to lean upon, nevertheless. And those others: "Because he hath set his love upon Me, therefore will I deliver him; I will set him on high, because he hath known My name. He shall call upon Me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble;"... And, "There shall no evil happen to the just." Dolly stayed her heart on such words, while she waited for her father's coming. As it grew later and yet later she doubted whether she ought to wait. She was waiting however when he came, between twelve and one, but nearer the latter. She listened to his step on the stair, and knew all was not right; and when he opened the door, she saw. Her father had surely been taking wine or something; his face was flushed, his eyes were excited, and his manner was wandering. "Dolly!--What are you here for?" "I waited for you, father. I wanted to have a talk with you. But it's too late now," Dolly said, trembling. "Too late--yes, of course. Go to bed. That's the thing for you. London is a great place, Dolly!" Alas! His expression of satisfaction was echoed in her heart by an anathema. It was no time then to say anything. Dolly went to bed and cried herself to sleep, longing for that sunshiny time of which it is promised to the Lord's people--"Thy sun shall no more go down by day;" and thankful beyond all power of words to express, even then in her sorrow, that another sun had even already risen upon her, in the warm light of which no utter darkness was possible. It was a day or two before, with her best watching, she could catch an opportunity to speak to her father. The second morning Mrs. Copley had headache and staid in bed, and Dolly and Mr. Copley were at breakfast alone. "How long, father, do you think you may find affairs to keep you in England?" Dolly began with her father's first cup of coffee. "As long as I like, my dear. There is no limit. In England there are always things going on to keep a man alive, and to keep him busy." "Isn't that true in America equally?" "I don't think so. I never found it so. Oh, there is enough to do there; but you don't find the same facilities, nor the same men to work with; and you don't know what to do with your money there when you have got it. England is the place! for a man who wants to live and to enjoy life." "It isn't for a woman," said Dolly. "At least, not for one woman. Father, don't you know mother is longing to go home, to Roxbury?" "Dolly, she is longing for something or other impossible, every day of her life." "But it would do her a great deal of good to be back there." "It would do me a great deal of harm." There was a pause here during which Dolly meditated, and Mr. Copley buttered pieces of toast and swallowed them with ominous despatch. Dolly saw he would be soon through his breakfast at that rate. "But, father," she began again, "are we to spend all the rest of our lives in England?" "My dear, I don't know anything about the future. I never look ahead. The day is as much as I can see through. I advise you to follow my example." "What are mother and I to do, then? We cannot stay permanently here, in this house." "What's the matter with it?" "Nothing, as a lodging-house; but mother would not thrive or be happy in a London lodging-house." "People's happiness is in their own power. It does not depend upon place. All the clergymen will tell you so. You must talk to your mother, Dolly." "Father, I talked to _you_ at Sorrento; but I remember you thought you could not live there." "That was Sorrento; but London!--London is the greatest city in the world. Every taste may be suited in London." "You know the air does not agree with mother. She will not be well if we keep her here," said Dolly anxiously; for she saw the last piece of toast on its way. "Nonsense! That is fancy." "If it is fancy, it is just as good as reality. She was pining when we were here before, until we went down to Brierley; and she will lose all she has gained in her travelling if we keep her here now." "Well--I'll see what I can do," said Mr. Copley, rising from the table. "When is St. Leger coming back?" "How should I know? I know nothing at all of his purposes but what he told us." "Have you thrown him over?" "I never took him up." "Then you are more of a goose than I thought you. He'll be caught by that fair friend of yours, before he gets out of Italy. Good morning!" Mr. Copley hurried away; and Dolly was left to her doubts. What could so interest and hold him in a place where he had no official business, where his home was not, and he had no natural associations? Was it the attraction of mere pleasure, or was it pleasure under that mischievous, false face of gain, which men delight in and call speculation. And from speculation proper, carried on among the business haunts of men, there is not such a very wide step in the nature of things to the green level of the gaming-table. True, many men indulge in the one variety who have a horror of the other; but Dolly's father, she knew, had a horror of neither. Stocks, or dice, what did it matter? and in both varieties the men who played with him, she knew too, would help their play with wine. Against these combined powers, what was she? And what was to become of them all? Part of the question was answered at dinner that evening. Mr. Copley announced that Brierley Cottage was unoccupied and that he had retaken it for them. "Brierley!" cried Mrs. Copley. "Brierley! Are we going back _there_ again! Frank, do you mean that we are to spend all our lives apart in future?" "Not at all, my dear! If you will be so good as to stay with me, I shall be very happy." "In London! But you know very well I cannot live in London." "Then you can go down to Brierley." "And how often shall you come there?" "When the chinks of business are wide enough to let me slip through." "Business! All you live for is business. Mr. Copley, what do you expect is to become of Dolly, shut up in a cottage down in the country?" "How is she to get married, you mean? _She_ expects a fairy prince to come along one of these days; and of course he could find her at Brierley as easily as anywhere. It makes no difference in a fairy tale. In fact, the unlikely places are just the ones where the princes turn up." "You will not be serious!" sighed Mrs. Copley. "Serious? I am nothing but serious. The regular suitor, proposed by the parents, has offered himself and been rejected; and now there is nothing to do but to wait for the fairy prince." Poor Mrs. Copley gave it up. Her husband's words were always too quick for her. Brierley was afterwards discussed between her and Dolly. The proposal was welcome to neither of them. Yet London would not do for Mrs. Copley; she grew impatient of it more and more. And so, within a week after their arrival, they left it and went down again to their old home in the country. It felt like going to prison, Mrs. Copley said. Though the country was still full of summer's wealth and beauty; and it was impossible not to feel the momentary delight of the change from London. The little garden was crowded with flowers, the fields all around rich in grass and grain; the great trees of the park standing in their unchanged regal beauty; the air sweet as air could be, without orange blossoms. And yet it seemed to the two ladies, when Mr. Copley left them again after taking them down to the cottage, that they were shut off and shut up in a respectable and very eligible prison, from whence escape was doubtful. CHAPTER XXX. DOWN HILL. To do Mr. Copley justice, he left the prison very well provided and furnished. The store closet and pantry were stocked; the house put in tolerable order, and two maids were taken down. The old gardener had disappeared, but Dolly declared she would keep the flowers in order herself. So for a number of weeks things really went not ill with them at Brierley. Dolly did keep the flowers in order, and she did a great many other things; the chief of which, however, was attending to her mother. How exquisitely she did this it would take a great deal of detail to tell. It was shown, or felt rather, for a great part, in very small particulars. Not only in taking care of her mother's wardrobe and toilette, like the most skilled of waiting-maids; not only in ordering and providing her meals like the most dainty of housekeepers; not only in tireless reading aloud of papers and books, whatever could be got to interest Mrs. Copley; these were part, but besides these there were a thousand little touches a day given to Mrs. Copley's comfort, that even herself hardly took any note of. Dolly's countenance never was seen to fall in her mother's presence, nor her spirits perceived to flag. She was like the flowers with which she filled the house and dressed the table; sweet and fresh and cheery and lovely. And so ministering, and so ministered to, I cannot say that the life of the mother and daughter was other than a happy one. If Mrs. Copley was sensible of a grievous want here and there, which made her nervous and irritable whenever she thought of it, the tenderness of Dolly's soothing and the contagion of Dolly's peace were irresistible; and if Dolly had a gnawing subject of care, which hurt and pricked and stung her perpetually, a cloud of fear darkening over her, from the shadow of which she could not get free; yet the loving care to ward off both the pain and the fear from her mother, helped at least to keep her own heart fresh and strong to bear whatever was coming. So in their little room, at their table, or about the flowers in the garden, or sitting in the honeysuckle porch reading, the mother and daughter were always together, and the days of late summer and then of autumn went by sweetly enough. And when the last roses were gone and the honeysuckle vines had ceased to send forth their breath of fragrance, and leaves turned sear, and the winds blew harsh from the sea, Dolly and Mrs. Copley made themselves all the snugger in the cottage; and knitting and reading was carried on in the glow of a good fire that filled all their little room with brightness. They were ready for winter; and winter when it came did not chill them; the household life was warm and busy. All this while they had the stir of frequent visits from Mr. Copley, and between whiles the expectation of them. They were never long; he came and went, Mrs. Copley said, like a gust of wind, with a rush and a whistle and a roar, and then was gone, leaving you to feel how still it was. However, these gusts of wind brought a great deal of refreshment. Mr. Copley always came with his hands full of papers; always had the last London or Edinburgh Quarterly, and generally some other book or books for his wife and daughter to delight themselves withal. And though Dolly was not always satisfied with her father's appearance, yet on the whole he gave her no new or increased occasion for anxiety. So the autumn and winter went not ill away. The cottage had no visitors. It was at some distance from the village, and in the village there was hardly anybody that would have held himself entitled to visit there. The doctor was an old bachelor. The rector took no account of the two stranger ladies whom now and then his eye roved over in service time. Truly they were not often to be seen in his church, for the distance was too far for Mrs. Copley to walk, unless in exceptionally good days; when the weather and the footing and her own state of body and mind were in rare harmony over the undertaking. There was nobody else to take notice of them, and nobody did take notice of them; and in process of time it came to pass, not unnaturally, that Mrs. Copley began to get tired of living alone. For though it is extremely pleasant to be quiet, yet it remains true that man was made a social animal; and if he is in a healthy condition he craves contact with his fellows. As the winter wore away, some impression of this sort seemed to force itself upon Mrs. Copley. "I wonder what your father is dreaming of!" she said one day, when she had sat for some time looking at Dolly, who was drawing. "He seems to think it quite natural that you should live down here at this cottage, year in and year out, like a toad in a hole; with no more life or society. We might as well be shut up in a nunnery, only then there would be more of us. I never heard of a nunnery with only two nuns." "Are you getting tired of it, mother?" "Tired!--that isn't the word. I think I am growing stupid, and gradually losing my wits." "We have not been a bit stupid this winter, mother, dear." "We haven't seen anybody." "The family are soon coming to Brierley House, Mrs. Jersey says. I daresay you will see somebody then." "I don't believe we shall. The English don't like strangers, I tell you, Dolly, unless they come recommended by something or other;--and there is nothing to recommend us." Mrs. Copley uttered this last sentence with such a dismal sort of realisation, that Dolly laughed out. "You are too modest, mother. I do not believe things are as bad as that." "You will see," said her mother. "And I hope you will stop going to see the housekeeper then." "I do not know why I should," said Dolly quietly. However, this question began to occupy her; not the question of her visiting Mrs. Jersey or of any one else visiting them; but this prolonged living alone to which her mother and she seemed to be condemned. It was not good, and it was not right; and Dolly saw that it was beginning to work unfavourably upon Mrs. Copley's health and spirits. But London? and a lodging-house? That would be worse yet; and for a house to themselves in London Dolly did not believe the means were at hand. Lately, things had been less promising. Mr. Copley seemed to be not so ready with his money; and he did not look well. Yes, he was well, he said when she asked him; nevertheless, her anxious eye read the old signs. She had not noticed them during the winter, or but slightly and rarely. Whether Mr. Copley had been making a vigorous effort to be as good as his word and spare Dolly pain; whether his sense of character had asserted itself, whether he had been so successful in speculation or play that he did not need opiates and could do without irritants; I do not know. There had been an interval. Now, Dolly began to be conscious again of the loss of freshness, the undue flush, the weak eyes, the unsteady mouth, the uneven gait. A stranger as yet might have passed it all by without notice; Dolly knew the change from her father's former quick, confident movements, iron nerves and muscular activity. And what was almost worse than all to her, among indications of his being entered on a downward course, she noticed that now he avoided her eye; looked at her, but preferred not meeting her look. I cannot tell how dreadful this was to Dolly. She had been always accustomed, until lately, to respect her father and to see him respected; to look at him as holding his place among men with much more than the average of influence and power; he was apt to do what he wished to do, and also to make other men do it. He was recognised as a leader in all parties and plans in which he took any share; Mr. Copley's word was quoted and Mr. Copley's lead was followed; and as is the case with all such men, his confidence in himself had been one of his sources of power and means of success. Dolly had been all her life accustomed to this as the natural and normal condition of things. Now she saw that her father had ceased to respect himself. The agony this revelation brought to Mr. Copley's loyal little daughter, it is impossible to tell. She felt it almost unbearable, shrank from it, would have closed her eyes to it; but Dolly was one of those whose vision is not clouded but rather made more keen by affection; and she failed to see nothing that was before her. The ministry Dolly applied to this new old trouble was of the most exquisite kind. Without making it obtrusive, she bestowed upon her father a sort of service the like of which not all the interest of courts can obtain for their kings. She was tender of him, with a tenderness that came like the touch of a soft summer wind; coming and going, and coming again. It calls for no answer or return; only it is there with its blessing, comforting tired nerves and soothing ruffled spirits. Mr. Copley hardly knew what Dolly was doing; hardly knew that it was Dolly; when now it was a gentle touch on his arm, leading him to the tea-table, and now a specially prepared cup, and Dolly bringing it, and standing before him smiling and tasting it, looking at him over it. And Mr. Copley certainly thought at such times that a prettier vision was not to be seen in the whole United Kingdom. Another time she would perch herself upon his knee and stroke back his hair from his temples, with fingers so delicate it was like the touch of a fairy; and then sometimes she would lay her head caressingly down on his shoulder; and though at such times Dolly could willingly have broken her heart in weeping, she let Mr. Copley see nothing but smiles, and suffered scarce so much as a stray sigh to come to his ear. "Have you seen anything of the great people?" he asked one evening, when Dolly had moved his sudden admiration. "Do you mean the people at the House?" his wife said. "No, of course. Don't you know, Mr. Copley, you must be great yourself to have the great look at you." "Humph! There are different ways of being great. I shouldn't wonder, now, if you could show Lady Brierley as much as Lady Brierley could show you--in some ways." "What extravagant notions you do have, Frank," said his wife. "You are so much of an American, you forget everybody around you is English." "Lady Brierley has been only a little while come home," said Dolly. "We need not discuss her yet." And so speaking, Dolly brought out the Bible. The reading with her mother had become a regular thing now, greatly helpful to Mrs. Copley's good rest, Dolly believed, both by day and night; and latterly when he had been at the cottage her father had not run away when she brought her book. Alone with her mother, Dolly had long since added prayer to the reading; not yet in her father's presence. Her heart beat a little, it cost an effort; all the same Dolly knew it must now be done. With a grave little face she brought out her Bible, laid it on the table, and opened it at the fifth chapter of Matthew. "Here comes our domestic chaplain!" said her father. Dolly looked up at him and smiled. "Then of course you would not interfere with anything the chaplain does?" she said. "Only not preach," said her father in the same tone. "I don't approve of any but licensed preaching. And that one need not hear unless one has a mind to." "I let the Bible do the preaching, generally," said Dolly. "But we do pray, father." "Who?" said Mr. Copley quickly. "Your mother and you? Everybody prays, I hope, now and then." "We do it now, and then too, father. Or rather, _I_ do it now, after reading." Mr. Copley made no reply; and Dolly went on, feeling that the way was open to her, if it were also a little difficult to tread. She read part of the chapter, feeling every word through and through. Alas, alas, alas! The "poor in spirit," the "pure in heart," the "meek,"--where were these? and what had their blessing to do with the ears to which she was reading? The "persecuted for righteousness' sake,"--how she knew her father and mother would lay that off upon the martyrs of olden time, with whom and their way of life, they thought, the present time has nothing to do! and so, with the persecuted dismiss the meek and the pure. The blessings referred certainly to a peculiar set of persons; no one is called on in these days to endure persecution. Dolly knew how they would escape applying what they heard to themselves; and she knew, with her heart full, what they were missing thereby. She went on, feeling every word so thrillingly that it was no wonder they came from her lips with a very peculiar and moving utterance; that is the way with words that are spoken from the heart; and although indeed the lovely sentences might have passed by her hearers, as trite or unintelligible or obsolete, the inflexions of Dolly's voice caught the hearts of both parents and stirred them involuntarily with an answering thrill. She did not know it; she did know that they were very still and listening; and after the reading was done, though she trembled a little, her own feelings were so roused that it was not very difficult for Dolly to kneel down by the table and pray. But she had only scanty opportunities of working upon her father in this or in any way; Mr. Copley's visits to Brierley, always short, began now to be more and more infrequent. As weeks went on and the spring slipped by, another thing was unmistakable about these visits; Mr. Copley brought less money with him. Through the autumn and winter, the needs of the little household had been indifferently well supplied. Dolly had paid her servants and had money for her butcher and grocer. Now this was no longer always the case. Mr. Copley came sometimes with empty pockets and a very thin pocket-book; he had forgotten, he said; or, he would make it all right next time. Which Dolly found out he never did. Her servants' wages began to get in arrear, and Dolly herself consequently into anxious perplexity. She had, she knew, a little private stock of her own, gained by her likenesses and other drawings; but like a wise little woman as she was, Dolly resolved she would not touch it unless she came to extremity. But what should she do? Just one thing she was clear upon; she would _not_ run in debt; she would not have what she could not pay for. She paid off one servant and dismissed her. This could not happen without the knowledge of Mrs. Copley. "But however are you going to manage? the latter asked in much concern. "Honestly, mother. Oh, and nicely too. You will see. I must be a poor thing if I could not keep these little rooms in order." "And make beds? and set tables? and wash dishes?" "I like to set tables. And what is it to wash two cups and spoons? And if I make the beds, we shall have them comfortable." "Jane certainly had her own ideas about making beds, and they were different from mine," said Mrs. Copley. "But I hate to have you, Dolly. It will make your hands red and rough." "Nothing does that for my hands, luckily, mother, dear. Don't you mind. We shall get on nicely." "But what's the matter? haven't you got money enough?" "Mother, I won't have servants that I cannot pay punctually." "Don't your father give you money to pay them?" "He gave me money enough to pay part; so I pay part, and send the other part away," said Dolly gaily. "I _hope_ he has not got into speculation again," said Mrs. Copley. "I can't think what he busies himself about in London." This subject Dolly changed as fast as she could. She feared something worse than speculation. Whether it were cards, or dice, or betting, or more business-like forms of the vice, however, the legitimate consequences were not slow to come; the supply of money for the little household down at Brierley became like the driblets of a stream which has been led off from its proper bed by a side channel; only a few trickling drops instead of the full, natural current. Dolly could not get from her father the means to pay the wages of her remaining servant. This was towards the beginning of summer. Dolly pondered now very seriously what she should do. The lack of a housemaid she had made up quite comfortably with her own two busy hands; Mrs. Copley at least had been in particular comfort, whenever she did not get a fit of fretting on Dolly's account; and Dolly herself had been happy, though unquestionably the said hands had been very busy. Now what lay before her was another thing. She could not consult her mother, and there was nobody else to consult; she must even make up her mind as to the line of duty the best way she might; and however the difficulty and even the impossibility of doing without anybody stared her in the face, it was constantly met by the greater impossibility of taking what she could not pay for. Dolly made up her mind on the negative view of the case; what she _could_ being not clear, only what she could not. She would dismiss her remaining servant, and do the cooking herself. It would be only for two. And perhaps, she thought, this step would go further to bring her father to his senses than any other step she could take. Dolly, however, went wisely to work. Quite alone in the house she and her mother could not be. She went to her friend Mrs. Jersey and talked the matter over with her; and through her got a little girl, a small farmer's daughter, to come and do the rough work. She let her mother know as little as possible about the matter; she took some of her own little stock and paid off the cook, representing to her mother no more than that she had exchanged the one helpmeet for the other. But poor Dolly found presently that she did not know how to cook. How should she? "What's become of all our good bread?" said Mrs. Copley, a day or two after the change. "And, Dolly, I don't know what you call this, but if it is meant for hash, it is a mistake." Dolly heard in awed silence; and when dinner and breakfast had seen repeated animadversions of the like kind, she made up her mind again and took her measures. She went to her friend Mrs. Jersey, and asked her to teach her to make bread. "To make bread!" the good housekeeper repeated in astonishment. "You, Miss Dolly? Can that be necessary?" "Mother cannot eat poor bread," said Dolly simply. "And there is nobody but me to make it. I think I can learn, Mrs. Jersey; cannot I?" The tears stood in the good woman's eyes. "But, my dear Miss Dolly," she began anxiously, "this is a serious matter. You do not look very strong. Who does the rest of the cooking? Pardon me for being so bold to ask; but I am concerned about you." Therewith Dolly's own eyes became moist; however, it would never do to take that tone; so she shook off the feeling, and confessed she was the sole cook in her mother's establishment, and that for her mother's well-doing it was quite needful that what she eat should be good and palatable. And Dolly declared she would like to know how to do things, and be independent. "You've got the realest sort of independence," said the housekeeper. "Well, my dear, come, and I'll teach you all you want to know." There followed now a series of visits to the House, in which Mrs. Jersey thoroughly fulfilled her promise. In the kind housekeeper's room Dolly learned not only to make bread and biscuit, and everything else that can be concocted of flour, but she was taught how to cook a bit of beefsteak, how to broil a chicken, how to make omelettes and salads and a number of delicate French dishes; stews and soups and ragouts and no end of comfortable things. Dolly was in great earnest, therefore lost not a hint and never forgot a direction; she was quick and keen to learn; and Mrs. Jersey soon declared laughingly that she believed she was born to be a cook. "And it goes great qualities to that, Miss Dolly," she said. "You needn't take it as low praise. There are people, no doubt, that are nothing _but_ cooks; that's the fault of something else, I always believe. Whoever can be a real cook can be something better if he has a chance and a will." "It seems to me, it is just common sense, Mrs. Jersey." "I suppose you are not going to tell me that _that_ grows on every bush? Yes, common sense has a great deal to do, no doubt; but one must have another sort of sense; one must know when a thing is right; and one must be able to tell the moment of time when it is right, and then one must be decided and quick to take it then and not let it have the other moment which would make it all wrong. Now, Miss Dolly, I see you know when to take off an omelette--and yet you couldn't tell me how you know." Dolly's learning was indeed by practising with her own hands. One day it happened that Lady Brierley had come into the housekeeper's room to see about some arrangements she was making for Mrs. Jersey's comfort. While she was there, Dolly opened the door from an adjoining light closet, with her sleeves rolled up to her elbows and her arms dusted with flour. Seeing somebody whom she did not know, Dolly retreated, shutting the door after her. "Whom have you got there, Mrs. Jersey?" said the lady, forgetting what she had come about. "That girl is too handsome to be among the maids." "She's not among the maids, my lady. She is not in the house. She only came to get some instruction from me, which I was very glad to give her?" "Of course. That is quite in your way. But she does not belong in the village, I think?" "No, my lady, nor hereabouts at all, properly. She lives in Brierley Cottage; she and her mother; I believe the father is there now and by times, but they live alone mostly, and he is in London. They have been much better off; and last year they went travelling all through Europe. I thought I should never see them again; but here they are back, and have been for a year." "I think I have heard of them. Are they poor?" "I am much afraid so, my lady." "Would it do any good, Jersey, if I went there?" "It would be a great kindness, my lady. I think it might do good." The final result of all which was a visit. It was now full summer; the season had come into its full bloom and luxuriance. Roses were opening their sweet buds all around Brierley Cottage; the honeysuckles made the porch into an arbour; the garden was something of a wilderness, but a wilderness of lovely, old-fashioned things. One warm afternoon, Dolly with a shears in her hand had gone out into the garden to cut off the full-blown roses, which to-morrow would shed their leaves; doing a little trimming by the way, both of rose-bushes and other things; the wildering of the garden had been so great. And very busy she was, and enjoying it; "cutting in" here, and "cutting out" there, flinging the refuse shoots and twigs carelessly from her into the walk to be gathered up afterwards. She was so busy she never heard the roll of carriage wheels, never heard them stop, nor the gate open; knew nothing, in fact, but the work she was busy with, till a slight sound on the gravel near by made her look round. Then she saw at one glance the lady standing there in laces and feathers, the carriage waiting outside the gate, and the servants in attendance around it. Dolly shook herself free of the roses and stepped forward, knowing very well who it must be. A little fresh colour had been brought into her cheeks by her exercise and the interest in her work; a little extra flush came now, with the surprise of this apparition. She was as lovely as one of her own rose-branches, and the wind had blown her hair about, which was always wayward, we know, giving perhaps to the great lady the impression of equal want of training. But she was very lovely, and the visitor could not take her eyes off her. "You are Miss--Copley?" she said. "I have heard Mrs. Jersey speak of you." "Mrs. Jersey is a very kind friend to me," said Dolly. "Will Lady Brierley walk in?" Mrs. Jersey is her friend, thought the lady as she followed Dolly into the cottage. Probably she is just of that level, and my coming is thrown away. However, she went in. The little cottage sitting-room was again something of a puzzle to her; it was not rich, but neither did it look like anything Mrs. Jersey would have contrived for her own accommodation. Flowers filled the chimney and stood in vases or baskets; books lay on one table, on the other drawing materials; and simple as everything was, there was nevertheless in everything the evidence, negative as well as positive, that the tastes at home there were refined and delicate and cultivated. It is difficult to tell just how the impression comes upon a stranger, but it came upon Lady Brierley before she had taken her seat. Dolly too, the more she looked at her, puzzled her. She had set down her basket of roses and thrown off her garden hat, and now opened the blinds which shaded the room too much, and took a chair near her visitor. The girl's manner, the lady saw, was extremely composed; she did not seem at all fluttered at the honour done her, and offered her attentions with a manner of simple courtesy which was graceful enough but perfectly cool. So cool, that it rather excited Lady Brierley's curiosity, who was accustomed to be a person of great importance wherever she went. Her eye took in swiftly the neatness of the room, its plainness, and yet its expression of life and mental activity; the work and workbasket on the chair, the bunch of ferns and amaranthus in one vase, the roses in another, the violets on the table, the physiognomy of the books, which were not from the next circulating library, the drawing materials; and then came back to the figure seated before her, with the tossed, beautiful hair and the very delicate, spirited face; and it crossed Lady Brierley's mind, if she had a daughter like that!--with the advantages and bringing up she could have given her, what would she not have been! And the next thought was, she was glad that her son was in Russia. Dolly had opened the window and sat quietly down. She knew her mother would not wish to be called. Once, months ago, Dolly had a little hoped for this visit, and thought it might bring her a pleasant friend, or social acquaintance at least; now that so long time had passed since Lady Brierley's return, with no sign of kindness from the great house, she had given up any such expectation; and so cared nothing about the visit. Dolly's mind was stayed elsewhere; she did not need Lady Brierley; and it was in part the beautiful, disengaged grace of her manner which drew the lady's curiosity. "I did not know Brierley Cottage was such a pretty place," she began. "It is quite comfortable," said Dolly. "Now in summer, when the flowers are out, I think it is very pretty." "You are fond of flowers. I found you pruning your rose-bushes, were you not?" "Yes," said Dolly. "The old man who used to attend to it has left me in the lurch since we went away. If I did not trim them, they would go untrimmed. They do go untrimmed, as it is." "Is there no skill required?" "Oh yes," said Dolly, her face wrinkling all up with fun; "but I have enough for that. I have learned so much. And pruning is very pretty work. This is not just the time for it." "How can it be pretty? I do not understand." "No, I suppose not," said Dolly. "But I think it is pretty to cut out the dead wood which is unsightly, and cut away the old wood which can be spared, leaving the best shoots for blossoming the next year. And then the trimming in of overgrown bushes, so as to have neat, compact, graceful shrubs, instead of wild, awkward-growing things--it is constant pleasure, for every touch tells; and the rose-bushes, I believe seem almost like intelligent creatures to me." "But you would not deal with intelligent creatures so?" "The Lord does," said Dolly quietly. "What do you mean?" said the lady sharply. "I do not understand your meaning." "I did not mean that all people were rose-bushes," said Dolly, with again an exquisite gleam of amusement in her face. "But will you not be so good as to explain? What _can_ you mean, by your former remark?" "It is not a very deep meaning," said Dolly with a little sigh. "You know, Lady Brierley, the Bible likens the Lord's people, Christians, to plants in the Lord's garden; and the Lord is the husbandman; and where He sees that a plant is growing too rank and wild, He prunes it--cuts it in--that it may be thriftier and healthier and do its work better." "That's a dreadful idea! Where did you get it?" "Christ said so," Dolly answered, looking now in the face of her questioner. "Is it a dreadful idea? It does not seem so to me. He is the husbandman. And I would not like to be a useless branch." "You have been on the Continent lately?" Lady Brierley quitted the former subject. "Yes; last year." "You went to my old lodging-house at Sorrento, I think I heard from Mrs. Jersey. Did you find it comfortable?" "Oh, delightful!" said Dolly with a breath which told much. "Nothing could be nicer, or lovelier." "Then you enjoyed life in Italy?" "Very much. But indeed I enjoyed it everywhere." "What gave you so much pleasure? I envy you. Now I go all over Europe, and find nothing particular to hold me anywhere. And I see by the way you speak that it was not so with you." "No," said Dolly, half smiling. "Europe was like a great, real fairyland to me. I feel as if I had been travelling in fairyland." "Do indulge me and tell me how that was? The novelty, perhaps." "Novelty is pleasant enough," said Dolly, "but I do not think it was the novelty. Rome was more fascinating the last week than it was the first." "Ah, Rome! there one never gets to the end of the novelties." "It was not that," said Dolly shaking her head. "I grew absolutely fond of the gladiator; and Raphael's Michael conquering the dragon was much more beautiful to me the last time I saw it than ever it was before; and so of a thousand other things. They seemed to grow into my heart. So at Venice. The palace of the doges--I did not appreciate it at first. It was only by degrees that I learned to appreciate it." "Your taste for art has been uncommonly cultivated!" "No" said Dolly. "I do not know anything about art. Till this journey I had never seen much." "There is a little to see at Brierley," said the lady of the house. "I should like to show it to you." "I should like dearly to see it again," said Dolly. "Your ladyship is very kind. Mrs. Jersey did show me the house once, when we first came here; and I was delighted with some of the pictures, and the old carvings. It was all so unlike anything at home." "At home?" said Lady Brierley enquiringly. "I mean, in America." "Novelty again," said the lady, smiling, for she could not help liking Dolly. "No," said Dolly, "not that. It was far more than that. It was the real beauty,--and then, it was the tokens of a family which had had power enough to write its history all along. There was the power, and the history; and such a strange breath of other days. There is nothing like that in America.'' "Then we shall keep you in England?" said Lady Brierley still with a pleased smile. "I do not know," said Dolly; but her face clouded over and lost the brightness which had been in it a moment before. "I see you would rather return," said her visitor. "Perhaps you have not been long enough here to feel at home with us?" "I have been here for several years," said Dolly. "Ever since I was fifteen years old." "That is long enough to make friends." "I have not made friends," said Dolly. "My mother's health has kept her at home--and I have stayed with her." "But, my dear, you are just at an age when it is natural to want friends and to enjoy them. In later life one learns to be sufficient to one's self; but not at eighteen. I am afraid Brierley must be sadly lonely to you." "Oh no," said Dolly, with her sweet gleam of a smile, which went all over her face; "I am not lonesome." "Will you come and see me sometimes?" "If I can. Thank you, Lady Brierley." "You seem to me to be a good deal of a philosopher," said the lady, who evidently still found Dolly a puzzle. "Or is it rather an artist, that I should say?"--glancing at the drawing-table--"I know artists are very sufficient to themselves." "I am neither one nor the other," said Dolly, laughing. "You are not apathetic--I can see that. What is your secret, Miss Copley?" "I beg your pardon--what secret does your ladyship mean?" "Your secret of content and self-reliance. Pardon me--but you excite my envy and curiosity at once." Dolly's look went back to the fire. "I have no secret," she said gravely. "I am not a philosopher. I am afraid I am not always contented. And yet I _am_ content," she added, "with whatever the Lord gives me. I know it is good." Lady Brierley saw tears in the eyes, which were so singularly wise and innocent at once. She was more and more interested, but would not follow Dolly's last lead. "What do you draw?" she asked, again turning her head towards the drawing materials. "Whatever comes in my way," said Dolly. "Likenesses, sometimes; little bits of anything I like." Lady Brierley begged to be shown a specimen of the likenesses; and forthwith persuaded Dolly to come and make a picture of herself. With which agreement the visit ended. If she had come some months ago, thought Dolly as she looked after the retreating figure of her visitor, I should have liked it. She might have been a friend, and a great help. Now, I don't think you can, my lady! CHAPTER XXXI. HANDS FULL. Dolly was, however, partly mistaken. Lady Brierley was a help. First, for the likenesses. Dolly painted so charming a little picture of her ladyship that it was a perpetual letter of recommendation; Lady Brierley's friends desired to have Dolly's pencil do the same service for them; neighbouring families saw and admired her work and came to beg to have her skill exerted on their behalf; and, in short, orders flowed in upon Dolly to the full occupation of all the time she had to give to them. They paid well, too. For that, Dolly had referred to Lady Brierley to say what the price ought to be; and Lady Brierley, guessing need on the one hand and knowing abundance on the other, had set the price at a very pretty figure; and money quite piled itself up in Dolly's secret hoard. She was very glad of it; for her supplies from her father became more and more precarious. He seemed to shut his eyes when he came to Brierley, and not recognise the fact that anything was wanting or missing. And well Dolly knew that such wilful oversight could never happen if Mr. Copley were himself doing true and faithful work; she knew he was going in false and dangerous ways, without being able to follow him and see just what they were. Her one comfort was, that her mother did not seem to read the signs that were so terribly legible to herself. And here too Lady Brierley's new-found friendship was of use. She wrought a diversion for the girl's troubled spirits. She was constantly having Dolly at the House. Dolly objected to leaving her mother; at the same time Mrs. Copley very much objected to have Dolly stay at home when such chances offered; so, at first to paint, and then to give her sweet company, Dolly went often, and spent hours at a time with Lady Brierley, who on her part grew more and more fond of having the little American girl in her society. Dolly was a novelty, and a mystery, and a beauty. Lady Brierley's son was in Russia; so there was no harm in her being a beauty, but the contrary; it was pleasant to the eyes. And Dolly was _naïve_, and fresh, and independent too, with a manner as fearless and much more frank than Lady Brierley's own, and yet with as simple a reserve of womanly dignity as any lady could have; and how a girl that painted likenesses for money, and made her own bread, and learned cookery of Mrs. Jersey, could talk to Lord Brierley with such sweet, quiet freedom, was a puzzle most puzzling to the great lady. So it was to others, for at Brierley House Dolly often saw a great deal of company. It did her good; it refreshed her; it gave her a world of things to tell for the amusement of her mother; and besides all that, she felt that Lady Brierley was really a friend, and would be kind if occasion were; indeed, she was kind now. Dolly needed it all, for darker days were coming, and the shadow of them was "cast before," as the manner is. With every visit of Mr. Copley to the cottage, Dolly grew more uneasy. He was not looking well, nor happy, nor easy; his manner was constrained, his spirits were forced; and for all that appeared, he might suppose that Dolly and her mother could live on air. He gave them nothing else to live on. What did he live on himself, Dolly queried, besides wine? and she made up her mind that, hard as it was, and doubtful as the effect, she must have a talk with him the next time he came down. "O father, father!" she cried to herself in the bitterness of her heart, "how can you! how can you! how can you! It never, never ought to be, that a child is ashamed for her father! The world is turned upside down." How intensely bitter it was, the children who have always been proud of their parents can never know. Dolly wrung her hands sometimes, in a distress that was beyond tears; and then devoted herself with redoubled ardour to her mother, to prevent her from finding out how things were going. She would have a plain talk with her father the next time he came, very difficult as she felt it would be; things could not go on as they were; or at least, not without ending in a thorough breakdown. But what we purpose is one thing; what we are able to execute is often quite another thing. It was a week or two before Mr. Copley made his appearance. Dolly was looking from the window, and saw the village fly drive up and her father get out of it. She announced the fact to her mother, and then ran down to the garden gate to meet him. As their hands encountered at the gate, Dolly almost fell back; took her hand from the latch, and only put it forth again when she saw that her father could not readily get the gate open. He was looking ill; his gait was tottering, his eye wavering, and when he spoke his utterance was confused. Dolly felt as if a lump of ice had suddenly come where her heart used to be. "You are not well, father?" she said as they went up the walk together. "Well enough," returned Mr. Copley--"all right directly. Cursed wet weather--got soaked to the bone--haven't got warm yet." "Wet weather!" said Dolly; "why, it is very sunny and warm. What are you thinking of, father?" "Sun don't _always_ shine in England," said Mr. Copley. "Let me get in and have a cup of tea or coffee. You don't keep such a thing as brandy in the house, do you?" "You have had brandy enough already," said Dolly in a low, grave voice. "I will make some coffee. Come in--why, you are trembling, father! Are you _cold?_" "Haven't been warm for three days. Cold? yes. Coffee, Dolly, let me have some coffee. It's the vilest climate a man ever lived in." "Why, father," said Dolly, laying her hand on his sleeve, "your coat is wet! What have you done to yourself?" "Wet? no,--it isn't. I put on a dry coat to come down--wouldn't be such a fool as to put on a wet one. Coffee, Dolly! It's cold enough for a fire." "But how _did_ your coat get wet, father?" "'Tisn't wet. I left a wet coat in London--had enough of it. If you go out in England you must get wet. Give me some coffee, if you haven't got any brandy. I tell you, I've never been warm since." Dolly ran up stairs, where Mrs. Copley was making a little alteration in her dress. "Mother," she cried, "will you go down and take care of father? He is not well; I am afraid he has taken cold; I am going to make him some coffee as fast as I can. Get him to change his coat;--it is wet." Then Dolly ran down again, every nerve in her trembling, but forcing herself to go steadily and methodically to work. She made a cup of strong coffee, cooked a nice bit of beefsteak she had in the house, rejoicing that she had it; and while the steak was doing she made a plate of toast, such as she knew both father and mother were fond of. In half an hour she had it all ready and carried it up on a tray. Mrs. Copley was sitting with an anxious and perplexed face watching her husband; he had crept to the empty fireplace and was leaning towards it as towards a place whence comfort ought to be looked for. His wife had persuaded him to exchange the wet coat for an old dressing-gown, which change, however, seemed to have wrought no bettering of affairs. "What is the matter?" said poor Mrs. Copley with a scared face. "I can't make out anything from what he says." "He has caught cold, I think," said Dolly very quietly; though her face was white, and all the time of her ministrations in the kitchen she had worked with that feeling of ice at her heart. "Father, here is your coffee, and it is good; maybe this will make you feel better." She had set her dishes nicely on the table; she had poured out the coffee and cut a piece of the steak; but Mr. Copley would look at no food. He drank a little coffee, and set the cup down. "Sloppy stuff! Haven't you got any brandy?" "You have had brandy already this afternoon, father. Take the coffee now." "Brandy? my teeth were chattering, and I took a wretched glass somewhere. Do give me some more, Dolly! and stop this shaking." "Where did you get cold, Mr. Copley?" asked his wife. "You have caught a terrible cold." "Nothing of the kind. I am all right. Just been in the rain; rain'll wet any man; my coat's got it." "But _when_, Frank?" urged his wife. "There has been no rain to-day; it is clear, hot summer weather. When were you in the rain?" "I don't know. Rain's rain. It don't signify when. Have you got nothing better than this? I shall not stop shaking till morning." And he did not. They got him to bed, and sat and watched by him, the mother and daughter; watching the feverish trembling, and the feverish flush that gradually rose in his cheeks. They could get no more information as to the cause of the mischief. The truth was, that two or three nights previous, Mr. Copley had sat long at play and drunk freely; lost freely too; so that when at last he went home, his condition of mind and body was so encumbered and confused that he took no account of the fact that it was raining heavily. He was heated, and the outer air was refreshing; Mr. Copley walked home to his lodgings; was of course drenched through; and on getting home had no longer clearness of perception enough in exercise to know that he must take off his wet clothes. How he passed the night he never knew; but the morning found him very miserable, and he had been miserable ever since. Pains and aches, flushes of heat, creepings of inexplicable cold, would not be chased away by any potations his landlady recommended or by the stronger draughts to which Mr. Copley's habits bade him recur; and the third day, with something of the same sort of dumb instinct which makes a wounded or sick animal draw back to cover, he threw himself into the post coach and went down to Brierley. Naturally, he took advantage of stopping places by the way to get something to warm him; and so reached home at last in an altogether muddled and disordered state of mind and body. Neither Mrs. Copley nor Dolly would go to bed that night. Not that there was much to do, but there was much to fear; and they clung in their fear to each other's company. Mrs. Copley dozed in an easy-chair part of the time; and Dolly sat at the open window with her head on the sill and lost herself there in slumber that was hardly refreshing. The night saw no change; and the morning was welcome, as the morning is in times of sickness, because it brought stir and the necessity of work to be done. It was still early when Dolly, after refreshing herself with water and changing her dress, went downstairs. She opened the hall door, and stood still a moment. The summer morning met her outside, fresh with dew, heavy with the scent of roses, musical with the song of birds; dim, sweet, full of life, breathing loveliness, folding its loveliness in mystery. As yet, things could be seen but confusedly; the dark bank of Brierley Park with its giant trees rose up against the sky, there was no gleam on the little river, the outlines of nearer trees and bushes were merged and indistinct; but what a hum and stir and warble and chitter of happy creatures! how many creatures to be happy! and what a warm breath of incense told of the blessings of the summer day in store for them! For them, and not for Dolly? It smote her hard, the question and the answer. It was for her too; it ought to be for her; the Lord's will was that all His creatures should be happy; and some of his creatures would not! Some refused the rich invitation, and would neither take themselves nor let others take the bountiful, tender, blessed gifts of God. It came to Dolly with an unspeakable sore pain. Yes, the Lord's will was peace and joy and plenty for them all; fulness of gracious supply; the singing of delighted hearts, loving and praising Him. And men made their own choice to have something else, and brought bitterness into what was meant to be only sweet. Tears came slowly into her eyes, mournful tears, and rolled down her cheeks hopelessly. Whatever was to become now of her little family? Her father, she feared, was entering upon a serious illness, which might last no one knew how long. Who would nurse him? and if Dolly did, who would do the work of the household? and if her father was laid by for any considerable time, whence were needful supplies to come from? Dolly's little stock would not last for ever. And how would her mother stand the strain and the care and the fatigue? It seemed to Dolly as she stood there at the door, that her sky was closing in and the ground giving way beneath her feet. Usually she kept up her courage bravely; just now it failed. "Dolly," her mother's voice came smothered from over the balusters of the upper hall. "Yes, mother?" "Send Nelly for the doctor as soon as you can." "Yes, mother. As soon as it is light enough." The doctor! that was another thought. Then there would be the doctor's bill. But at this point Dolly caught herself up. "_Take no thought for the morrow_"--what did that mean? "_Be careful for nothing;_ but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God." And, "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?" The words loosed the bands which seemed to have bound Dolly's heart in iron; she broke down, fell down on her knees in the porch, resting her head on the seat, and burst into a thunder-shower of weeping, which greatly cleared the air and relieved the oppression under which she had been labouring. This was nearly as uncommon a thing for Dolly as her former hopeless mood; she rose up feeling shaken, and yet strengthened. Ready for duty. She went into the little sitting-room, set open the casement, and put the furniture in order, dusting and arranging. Leaving that all right, Dolly went down to the kitchen and made the fire. She was thinking what she should do for breakfast, when her little handmaid made her appearance. Dolly gave her some bread and butter and cold coffee, and sent her off to the village with a note to the doctor which she had meanwhile prepared. Left to herself then, she put on her kettle, and looked at the untouched pieces of beefsteak she had cooked last night. She knew what to do with them, thanks to Mrs. Jersey. The next thing was to go out into the dewy garden and get a handful of different herbs and vegetables growing there; and what she did with them I will not say; but in a little while Dolly had a most savoury mess prepared. Then she crept upstairs to her mother. Here everything was just as it had been all night. Dolly whispered to her mother to come down and have some breakfast. Mrs. Copley shook her head. "You must, mother, dear. I have got something nice--and father is sleeping; he don't want you. Come! I have got it in the kitchen, for Nelly is away, and it's less trouble, and keeps the coffee hot. Come! father won't want anything for a little while, and you and I do, and must have it, or we cannot stand what is on our hands. Come, mother. Wash your face, and it will refresh you, and come right down." The little kitchen was very neat; the window was open and the summer morning looking in; nobody was there but themselves; and so there might be many a worse place to take breakfast in. And the meal prepared was dainty, though simple. Mrs. Copley could not eat much, nor Dolly; and yet the form of coming to breakfast and the nicety of the preparation were a comfort; they always are; they seem to say that all things are not confusion, and give a kind of guaranty for the continuance of old ways. Still, Mrs. Copley did not eat much, and soon went back to her watch; and Dolly cleared the table and considered what she could have for dinner. For dinner must be as usual; on that she was determined. But the doctor's coming was the next thing on the programme. The doctor came and made his visit, and Dolly met him in the hall as he was going away. He was a comfortable-looking man, with the long English whiskers; ruddy and fleshy; one who, Dolly was sure, had no objection, for his own part, to a good glass of wine, or even a good measure of beer, if the wine were not forthcoming. "Your father, is it?" said the doctor. "Well, take care of him--take care of him." "How shall we take care of him, sir?" "Well, I've left medicines upstairs. He won't want much to eat; nor much of anything, for a day or two." "What is it? Cold?" "No, my young lady. Fever." "He got himself wet in the rain, a few days ago. He was shivering last night." "Very likely. That's fever. Must take its course. He's not shivering now." "Will he be long ill, sir, probably?" "Impossible to say. These things are not to be counted upon. May get up in a day or two, but far more likely not in a week or two. Good morning!" A week or two! Dolly stood and looked after the departing chaise which carried the functionary who gave judgment so easily on matters of life and death. The question came back. What would become of her mother and her, if watching and nursing had to be kept up for weeks?--with all the rest there was to do. Dolly felt very blue for a little while; then she shook it off again and took hold of her work. Nelly had returned by this time, with a knuckle of veal from the butcher's. Dolly put it on, to make the nicest possible delicate stew for her mother; and even for her father she thought the broth might, do. She gathered herbs and vegetables in the garden again, and a messenger came from Mrs. Jersey with a basket of strawberries; Dolly wrote a note to go back with the basket, and altogether had a busy morning of it. For bread had also to be made; and her small helpmate was good for only the simplest details of scrubbing and sweeping and washing dishes. It was with the greatest difficulty after all that Dolly coaxed her mother to come down to dinner; Nelly being left to keep watch the while and call them if anything was wanted. "I can't eat, Dolly!" Mrs. Copley said, when she was seated at Dolly's board. "Mother, it is necessary. See--this is what you like, and it is very good, I know. And these potatoes are excellent." "But, Dolly, he may be sick for weeks, for aught we can tell; it is a low fever. Oh, this is the worst of all we have had yet!" cried Mrs. Copley, wringing her hands. It did look so, and for a moment Dolly could not speak. Her heart seemed to stand still. "Mother, we don't know," she said. "We do not know anything. It may be no such matter; it may _not_ last so; the doctor cannot tell; and anyhow, mother, God does know and He will take care. We can trust Him, can't we? and meanwhile what you and I have to do is to keep up our strength and our faith and our spirits. Eat your dinner like a good woman. I am going to make a cup of tea for you. Perhaps father would take some." "And you," said Mrs. Copley, eyeing her. Dolly had a white kitchen apron on, it is true, but she was otherwise in perfect order and looked very lovely. "What about me?" she said. "Doing kitchen work! You, who are fit for--something so different!" Mrs. Copley had to get rid of some tears here. "Doing kitchen work? Yes, certainly, if that is the thing given me to do. Why not? Isn't my veal good? I'll do anything, mother, that comes to hand, provided I _can_ do it. Mother, we don't trust half enough. Remember who it is gives me the cooking to do. Shall I not do what He gives me? And I can tell you one little secret--I _like_ to do cooking. Isn't it good?" Mrs. Copley made a very respectable dinner after all. This was the manner of the beginning of Mr. Copley's illness. Faith and courage were well tried as the days went on; for though never violently ill, he never mended. Day and night the same tedious low fever held him, wearing down not his strength only but that of the two whose unaided hands had to manage all that was done. Dolly did not know where to look for a nurse, and Mrs. Copley was utterly unwilling to have one called in. She herself roused to the emergency and ceased to complain about her own troubles; she sat up night after night, with only partial help from Dolly, who had her hands full with the care of the house and the day duty and the sick cookery. And as day after day went by, and night after night was watched through, and days and nights began to run into weeks, the strength and nervous energy of them both began at times to fail. Neither showed it to the other, except as pale faces and weary eyes told their story. Mrs. Copley cried in secret, at night, with her head on the window-sill; and Dolly went with slow foot to gather her herbs and vegetables, and sat down sometimes in the porch, in the early dawn or the evening gloom, and allowed herself to own that things were looking very dark indeed. The question was, how long would it be possible to go on as they were doing? how long would strength hold out?--and money? The doctor's fees took great pinches out of Dolly's fund; and for the present there was no adding to it. Lady Brierley was away; she had gone to the seaside. Mrs. Jersey was very kind; fruit and eggs and vegetables came almost daily from the House to Dolly's help, and the kind housekeeper herself had offered to sit up with the sick man; but this offer was refused. Mr. Copley did not like to see any stranger about him. And Dolly and her mother were becoming now very tired. As the weeks went on, they ceased to look in each other's faces any more with questioning eyes; they knew too well how anxiety and effort had told upon both of them, and each was too conscious of what the other was thinking and fearing. They did not meet each other's eyes with those mute demands in them any more; but they stole stealthy glances sometimes each to see how the other face looked; what tokens of wear and tear it was showing; taking in at a rapid view the lines of weariness, the marks of anxiety, the faded colour, the languor of spirit which had gradually taken the place of the earlier energy. In word and action they showed none of all this. All the more, no doubt, when each was alone and the guard might be relaxed, a very grave and sorrowful expression took possession of their faces. Nothing else might be relaxed. Day and night the labour and the watch were unintermitting. And so the summer wore on to an end. Dolly was patient, but growing very sad; perhaps taking a wider view of things than her mother, who for the present was swallowed up in the one care about her husband's condition. Dolly, managing the finances and managing the household, had both parents to think of; and was sometimes almost in despair. She was sitting so one afternoon in the kitchen, in a little lull of work before it was time to get supper, looking out into the summer glow. It was warm in the small kitchen, but Dolly had not energy to go somewhere else for coolness. She sat gazing out, and almost querying whether all things were coming to an end at once; life and the means to live together, and the strength to get means. And yet she remembered that it is written--"Trust in the Lord, and do good; so shalt thou dwell in the land, and _verily thou shalt be fed_." But then,--it came cold into her heart,--it could not be said that her father and mother had ever fulfilled those conditions; could the promise be good for _her_ faith alone? And truly, where was Dolly's faith just now? Withal, as she sat gazing out of the window, she saw that full wealth of summer, which was a pledge and proof of the riches of the hand from which it came. "There's a gentleman, mum," Dolly's little helpmate announced in her ear. Dolly started. "A gentleman? what gentleman? It isn't the doctor? He has been here." "It's no him. I knows Dr. Hopley. It's no him." "I cannot see company. Is it company, Nelly?" "The gentleman didn't say, mum." "Where is he?" "He's a standin' there at the door." Dolly slowly rose up and doubtfully took off her great kitchen apron; doubtfully went upstairs. Perhaps she had better see who it was. Mrs. Jersey might have sent a messenger,--or Lady Brierley! She went on to the hall door, which was open, and where indeed she saw a tall figure against the summer glow which filled all out of doors. A tall figure, a tall, upright figure; at first Dolly could see only the silhouette of him against the warm outer light. She came doubtfully close up to the open door. Then she could see a little more besides the tallness; a peculiar uprightness of bearing, a manly, frank face, a head of close curling dark hair, and an expression of pleasant expectation; there was a half smile on the face, and a deferential look of waiting. He stood bareheaded before her, and had not the air of a stranger; but Dolly was quite bewildered. Somebody altogether strange, and yet somehow familiar. She said nothing; her eyes questioned why, being a stranger, he should stand there with such a look upon his face. "I am afraid I am not remembered," said the gentleman, with the smile coming out a little more. His look, too, was steady and straightforward and observant,--where had Dolly seen that mixture of quietness and resoluteness? Her eyes fell to the little cap in his hand, an officer's cap, and then light came into them. "Oh!" she cried,--"Mr. Shubrick!" "It is a long time since that Christmas Day at Rome," he said; a more wistful gravity coming into his face as he better scanned the face opposite to him, which the evening light revealed very fully. "Oh, I know now," said Dolly. "I do not need to be reminded; but I could not expect to see you here. I thought you were in the Mediterranean. Will you come in, Mr. Shubrick? I am very glad to see you; but my thoughts were so far away"---- "You thought I was in the Mediterranean?" he said as he followed Dolly in. "May I ask, why?" "Your ship was there." "_Was_ there; but ships are not stationary things." "No, of course not," said Dolly, throwing open the blinds and letting the summer light and fragrance stream in. "Then, when did you see Christina?" "Not for months. The Red Chief has been ordered to the Baltic and is there now; and I got a furlough to come to England. But--how do you do, Miss Copley?" "I am well, thank you." "Forgive me for asking, if that information can be depended on?" "Yes, indeed I am well. I suppose I look tired. We have had sickness here for a good while--my father. Mother and I are tired, no doubt." "You look very tired. I am afraid I ought not to be here. Can you make me of use? What is the matter? Please remember that I am not a stranger." "I am very glad to remember it," said Dolly. "No, I do not feel as if you were a stranger, Mr. Shubrick, after that day we spent together. You asked what was the matter--oh, I don't know! a sort of slow, nervous fever, not infectious at all, nor very alarming; only it must be watched, and he always wants some one with him, and of course after a while one gets tired. That cannot be helped. We have managed very well." "Not Mrs. Copley and you alone?" "Yes." "How long?" "It is five weeks now." "And no improvement yet?" "I do not know. Mother thinks a little," said Dolly, faltering. This speaking to eyes and ears of sympathy, after so long an interval, rather upset her; her lips trembled, tears came, she was upon the point of breaking down; she struggled for self-command, but her lips trembled more and more. "I have come in good time," said her visitor. "It is pleasant to see somebody, to be able to speak to somebody, that is so good as to care," said Dolly, brushing her hand over her eyes swiftly. "You are worn out," said the other gently. "I am not going to be simply somebody to speak to. Miss Copley, I am a countryman, and a sort of a friend, you know. You will let me take the watch to-night." "You!" said Dolly, starting. "Oh no!" "I beg your pardon. You ought to say 'Oh yes.' I have had experience. I think you may trust me." "Oh, I cannot. We have no right to let you do so." "You have a right to make any use of me you can; for I place myself at your disposal." "You are _very_ kind, Mr. Shubrick!" "Don't say anything more. That is settled," said he, taking up his cap, as if in preparation for departure. Dolly was a little bewildered by the quiet, decided manner, just like what she remembered of Mr. Shubrick; unobtrusive and undemonstrative, but if he moved, moving straight to his goal. She rose as he rose. "But," she stammered, "I don't think you can. Father likes nobody but mother and me about him." "He will like me to-morrow," Mr. Shubrick answered with a smile. "Don't fear; I will manage that." "You are very kind!" said Dolly. "You are very kind!"--Already her heart was leaping towards this offered help, and Mr. Shubrick looked so resolute and strong and ready; she could hardly oppose him. "But you are _too_ kind!" she said suddenly. "No," said he gravely; "that is impossible. Remember, in the family we belong to, the rule is one which we can never reach. 'That ye love one another, even as I have loved you.'" What it was, I do not know, in these words which overcame Dolly. In the words and the manner together. She was very tired and overstrung, and they found some unguarded spot and reached the strained nerves. Dolly put both hands to her face and burst into tears, and for a moment was terribly afraid that she was going to be hysterical. But that was not Dolly's way at all, and she made resolute fight against her nerves. Meanwhile, she felt herself taken hold of and placed in a chair by the window; and the sense that somebody was watching her and waiting, helped the return of self-control. With a sort of childish sob, Dolly presently took down her hands and looked up through the glistening tears at the young man standing over her. "There!" she said, forcing a smile on the lips that quivered,--"I am all right now. I do not know how I could be so foolish." "_I_ know," said Mr. Shubrick. "Then I will just return to the village for half and hour, and be back here as soon as possible." "But"--said Dolly doubtfully. "Why don't you send for what you want?" "Difficult," said the other. "I am going to get some supper." "Oh!" said Dolly. "If _that_ is what you want--sit down, Mr. Shubrick. Or send off your fly first, and then sit down. If you are going to stay here to-night, I'll give you your supper. Send away the fly, Mr. Shubrick, please!" "I do not think I can. And you cannot possibly do such a thing as you propose. I shall be back here in a very little time." Dolly put her hand upon Mr. Shubrick's cap and softly took it from him. "No," she said. "It's a bargain. If I let you do one thing, you must let me do the other. It would trouble me to have you go. It is too pleasant to see a friend here, to lose sight of him in this fashion. There will be supper, of some sort, and you shall have the best we can. Will you send away your fly, please, and sit down and wait for it?" If Dolly could not withstand him, so on this point there was no resisting her. Mr. Shubrick yielded to her evident urgent wish; and Dolly went back to her preparations. The question suddenly struck her, _where_ should she have supper? Down here in the kitchen? But to have it in order, upstairs, would involve a great deal more outlay of strength and trouble. The little maid could not set the table up there, and Dolly could not, with the stranger looking on. That would never do. She debated, and finally decided to put her pride in her pocket and bring her visitor down to the kitchen. It was not a bad place, and if he was going to be a third nurse in the house, it would be out of keeping to make any ceremony with him. Dolly's supper itself was faultless. She had some cold game, sent by Lady Brierley or by her order; she had fresh raspberries sent by Mrs. Jersey, and a salad of cresses. But Mrs. Copley would not be persuaded to make her appearance. She did not want to see strangers; she did not like to leave Mr. Copley; in short, she excused herself obstinately, to Dolly's distress. However, she made no objection to having Mr. Shubrick take her place for the night; and she promised Dolly that if she got a good night's sleep and was rested, she would appear at breakfast. CHAPTER XXXII. THE NURSE. Dolly made her mother's excuses, which seemed to her visitor perfectly natural, and ushered him down to the supper laid in the little kitchen; Dolly explaining very simply that her mother and she had lived there since there had been sickness in the house, and had done so for want of hands to make other arrangements possible. And Mr. Shubrick seemed also to find it the most natural thing in the world to live in the kitchen, and for all that appeared, had never taken his meals anywhere else in his life. He did justice to the supper too, which was a great gratification to Dolly; and lifted the kettle for her from the hob when she wanted it, and took his place generally as if he were one of the family. As for Dolly, there came over her a most exquisite sense of relief; a glimpse of shelter and protection, the like of which she had not known since she could hardly remember when. True, it was transient; it could not abide; Mr. Shubrick was sitting there opposite her like some one that had fallen from the clouds, and whom mist and shadow would presently swallow up again; but in the meanwhile, what a gleam of light his presence brought! He would go soon again, of course; he must; but to have him there in the meantime was a momentary comfort unspeakable. More than momentary; he would stay all night. And her mother would get a night's sleep. For her own part, this feeling of rest was already as good as sleep. Yes, for once, for a little, a strong hand had come between her and her burdens. Dolly let herself rest upon it, with an intense appreciation of its strength and sufficiency. And so resting, she observed her new helper curiously. She noticed how entirely he was the same man she had seen that Christmas Day in Rome; the same here as there, with no difference at all. There was the calm of manner that had struck her then, along with the readiness for action; the combination was peculiar, and expressed in every turn of head and hand. Here, in a strange house, he was as absolutely at ease and unconstrained as if he had been on the quarterdeck of his own ship. Is it the habit of command? thought Dolly. But that does not necessarily give a man ease of manner in his intercourse with others who are not under his command. Meanwhile, Mr. Shubrick sat and talked, keeping up a gentle run of unexciting thoughts, and apparently as much at home in the kitchen of Brierley Cottage as if he had lived there always. "When have you seen Christina?" Dolly asked. "Not in some months." "Are they at Sorrento yet?" "No; they spent the winter in Rome, and this summer they are in Switzerland. I had a letter from Miss Thayer the other day. I mean, a few weeks ago." It occurred to Dolly that one or the other of them must be a slack correspondent. "I almost wonder they could leave Sorrento," she remarked. "They got tired of it." "I never get tired of lovely things," said Dolly. "The longer I know them the better pleasure I take in them. I could have stayed in Venice, it seemed to me, for years; and Rome--I should never have got away from Rome of my own accord, if duty had not made me; and then at Naples, I enjoyed it better the last day than the first. And Sorrento"---- "What about Sorrento?" "Oh, it was--you know what Sorrento is. It was roses and myrtles and orange blossoms, and the fire of the pomegranate flowers and the grey of the olives; and the Italian sun, and the Italian air; and, Mr. Shubrick, you know what the Mediterranean is, with all its colours under the shadow of the cliffs and the sunlight on the open sea. And Vesuvius was always a delightful wonder to me. And the people were so nice. Sorrento is perfect." A soft breath of a sigh came from Dolly's heart. "You do not like England so well?" "No. Oh no! But I could like England. Mr. Shubrick, my time at Sorrento was almost without care; and you know that makes a difference." "Would you like to live without care?" said he. Dolly looked at him, the question seemed so strange. "Without anxious care--I should," she answered. "That you may, anywhere." "How is it possible, sometimes?" Dolly asked wistfully. "May I be Yankee enough to answer your question by another? Is it any relief to you to have me come in and take the watch for to-night?" "The greatest," said Dolly. "I cannot express to you how great it is; for mother and I have had it all to do for so long. I cannot tell you, Mr. Shubrick, in what a strange lull of rest I have been sitting here since we came downstairs. I have just let my hands fall." "How can you be sure it is safe to do that?" he said, smiling. "Oh," said Dolly, "I know you will take care; and while you do, I need not." Mr. Shubrick was silent. Dolly pondered. "Do I know what you mean?" she said. "I think you do," he replied. "Do you remember it is written, --'Casting your care upon Him, _for He careth for you_'?" "And that means, not to care myself?" "Not anxiously, or doubtfully. You cannot trust your care to another, and at the same time keep it yourself." "I know all that," said Dolly slowly; "or I thought I knew it. How is it, then, that it is so difficult to get the good of it?" "Was it very difficult to trust me?" Mr. Shubrick asked. "No," said Dolly, "because--you know you are not a stranger, Mr. Shubrick. I feel as if I knew you." He lifted his eyes and looked at her; not regarding the compliment to himself, but with a steady, keen eye carrying Dolly's own words home to her. He did not say a word; but Dolly changed colour. "Oh, do you mean _that?_" she cried, almost with tears. "Is it because I know Christ so poorly that I trust Him so slowly?" "What else can it be? And you know, Miss Dolly, just that absolute trust is the thing the Lord wants of us. And you know it is the thing of all others that we like from one another. We need not be surprised that He likes it; for we were made in His image." Dolly sat silent, struck and moved both with sorrow and gladness; for if it were possible so to lay down care, what more could burden her? and that she had not done it, testified to more strangeness and distance on her part towards her best Friend than she liked to think of. Her musings were interrupted by Mr. Shubrick. "Now may I be introduced to Mr. Copley?" he said. Dolly was rather doubtful about the success of this introduction. However, she brought her mother out of the sick-room, and took Mr. Shubrick in; and there, in obedience to his desire, left him, without an introduction; for her father was asleep. "He will never let him stay there, Dolly," said Mrs. Copley. "He will not bear it at all." And Dolly waited and feared and hoped. But the night drew on, and came down upon the world; Mrs. Copley went to bed, at Dolly's earnest suggestion, and was soon fast asleep, fatigue carrying it over anxiety; and Dolly watched and listened in vain for sounds of unrest from her father's room. None came; the house was still; the summer night was deliciously mild; Dolly's eyelids trembled and closed, and opened, and finally closed again, not to open till the summer morning was bright and the birds making a loud concert of their morning song. Mr. Shubrick, left alone with his patient, sat down and waited; reviewing meanwhile the room and his surroundings. It was a moderate-sized, neat, pretty room, with one window looking out upon the garden. The casement was two-leaved, and one leaf only was part open. The air consequently was close and hot. And if the room was neat, that applies only to its natural and normal condition; for if neatness includes tidiness, it could not be said at present to deserve that praise. There was an indescribable litter everywhere, such as is certain to accumulate in a sick-room if the watchers are not imbued with the spirit of order. Here were one or two spare pillows, on so many chairs; over the back of another chair hung Mr. Copley's dressing-gown; at a very unconnected distance from his slippers under a fourth chair. On still another chair lay a plate and knife with the remains of an orange; on the mantelpiece, the rest of the chairs, the tables, and even the floor, stood a miscellaneous assortment of cups, glasses, saucers, bottles, spoons, and pitchers, large and small, attached to as varied an assemblage of drinks and medicines. Only one medicine was to be given from time to time, Mr. Shubrick had been instructed; and that was marked, and he recognised it; what were all the rest of this assemblage doing here? Some books lay about also, and papers, and magazines; here a shawl, there some articles of female apparel; and a basket of feminine work. The litter was general, and somewhat disheartening to a lover of order; Mrs. Copley being one of those people who have nothing of the sort belonging to them, and indeed during the most of her life accustomed to have somebody else keep order for her; servants formerly, Dolly of late. Mr. Shubrick sat and looked at all these things, but made no movement, until by and by his patient awoke. It was long past sunset now, the room in partial twilight, yet illumination enough still reflected from a very bright sky for the two people there to see each what the other looked like. Mr. Copley used his eyes in this investigation for a few minutes in silence. "Who are you?" he inquired abruptly. "A friend." "What friend? You are a friend I don't know." "That is true; but it will not be true to-morrow," Mr. Shubrick said quietly. "What are you here for?" "To act the part of a friend, if you will allow me. I am here to wait upon you, Mr. Copley." "Thank you, I prefer my own people about me," said the sick man curtly. "You may go, and send them, or some of them, to me." "I cannot do that," said the stranger, "and you must put up with me for to-night. Mrs. Copley and your daughter are both very tired, and need rest." "Humph!" said the invalid with a surprised grunt. "Did _they_ send you here?" "No. They permitted me to come. I take it as a great privilege." "You take it before you have got it. I have not given my leave yet. What are you doing there?" "Letting some fresh air in for you." Mr. Shubrick was setting wide open both leaves of the casement. "You mustn't do that. The night air is not good for me. Shut the window." "You cannot have any air at night _but_ night air," replied Mr. Shubrick, uttering what a great authority has since spoken, and leaving the window wide open. "But night air is very bad. I don't want it; do you hear?" "If you will lie still a minute or two, you will begin to feel that it is very good. It is full of the breath of roses and mignonette, and a hundred other pleasant things." "But I tell you that's poison!" cried Mr. Copley, beginning to excite himself. "I choose to have the window shut; do you hear me, sir? Confound you, I want it shut!" The young man, without regarding this order, came to the bedside, lifted Mr. Copley's head and shook up his pillows and laid him comfortably down again. "Lie still," he said, "and be quiet. You are under orders, and I am in command here to-night. I am going to take care of you, and you have no need to think about it. Is that right?" "Yes," said the other, with another grunt half of astonishment and half of relief,--"that's right. But I want the window shut, I tell you." "Now you shall have your broth. It will be ready presently." "I don't want any broth!" said the sick man. "If you could get me a glass of wine;--_that_ would set me up. I'm tired to death of these confounded slops. They are nothing for a man to grow strong upon. Never would make a man strong--never!" Mr. Shubrick made no answer. He was going quietly about the room. "What are you doing?" said the other presently, watching him. "Making things ship-shape--clearing decks." "What do you know about clearing decks?" said Mr. Copley. "I will show you." And the sick man watched with languid amusement to see how, as his new nurse went from place to place, the look of the room changed. Shawls and clothing were folded up and bestowed on a chest of drawers; slippers were put ready for use at the bedside; books were laid together neatly on the table; and a small army of cups and glasses and empty vials were fairly marched out of the room. In a little while the apartment was in perfect order, and seemed half as large again. The invalid drew a long breath. "You're an odd one!" said he, when he caught Mr. Shubrick's eye again. "Where did you learn all that? and who are you? and how did you come here? I have a right to know." "You have a perfect right, and shall know all about me," was the answer; "but first, here is your broth, hot and good." (Mr. Shubrick had just received it from the little maid at the door). "Take this now, and to-morrow, if you behave well, you shall have something better." Mr. Copley suffered himself to be persuaded, took the broth, and then repeated his question. "I am Sandie Shubrick, lieutenant in the United States navy, on board ship 'The Red Chief;' just now on furlough, and in England." "What did you come to England for?" "Business and pleasure." "Which do you call this you are about now?" "Both," said Mr. Shubrick, smiling. "Now you may lie still, and keep the rest of your questions for another time." Mr. Copley yielded, and lay looking at his new attendant, till he dozed off into unconsciousness. Waking then after a while, hot and restless, his nurse brought water and a sponge and began sponging his face and neck and hands; gently and soothingly; and kept up the exercise until restlessness abated, breaths of satisfied content came at easy intervals; and finally Mr. Copley slumbered off peacefully, and knew no more. When he awoke the sun was shining on the oaks of Brierley Park. The window was open, as it had been all night, and by the window sat Mr. Shubrick, looking out. The sick man eyed him for a while. "Are you asleep there?" he said at last, growing impatient of the silence. Mr. Shubrick got up and came to him. "Good morning!" said he. "How have you rested?" "I believe it's the best night I've had yet. What were you doing to me in the night? using a sponge to me, weren't you? It put me to sleep. I believe it would cure a man of a fever, by Jupiter." "Not by Jupiter," said Mr. Shubrick. "And you must not say such things while I am here." "Why not?" Mr. Copley opened his eyes somewhat. "It is no better than counterfeit swearing." "Would you rather have the true thing?" "I never permit either, where I am in authority?" "Your authority can't reach far. You've got to take the world as you find it." "I dispute that. You've got to take the world and make it better." "What do you do where your authority is not sufficient?" "I go away." "Look here," said Mr. Copley. "Do you call yourself in authority _here?_" "Those are the only terms on which I could stay," said Mr. Shubrick, smiling. "Well, see," said the other,--"I wish you would stay. You've done me more good than all the doctor and everybody else before you." "I come after them all, remember." "I wish you had come before them. Women don't know anything. There's my wife,--she would have let the room get to be like a Jew's old clothes shop, and never be aware of it. I didn't know what was choking me so, and now I know it was the confusion. You belong to the navy?" "I told you so last evening," said Mr. Shubrick, who meanwhile was sponging Mr. Copley's face and hands again and putting him in order generally, so as a sick man's toilet might be made. "By Jupiter!--I beg your pardon--I believe I am going to get over this, after all," said Mr. Copley "I am sure I shall, if you'll stay and help me." "I will do it with pleasure. Now, what are you going to have for your breakfast?" "But, look here. Why should you stay with me? I am nothing to you. Who's to pay you for it?" "I do not come for pay; or rather, I get it as I go along. Make yourself easy, and tell me about your breakfast." "How do you come here? I don't know you. Who does know you?" "I have been a friend of your friends, Mr. and Mrs. Thayer, for many years." "Humph. Ah! Well. About breakfast, I don't know what they have got for me downstairs; some lolypop or other." "We'll do better for you than that," said Mr. Shubrick. The morning meanwhile had come to the other inmates of the house. Dolly had left the sofa where she had spent the night, with a glad consciousness that the night was over and there had been no disturbance. Her mother had slept all the night through and was sleeping yet. What refreshment and comfort it was. What strength and rest, to think of that kind, calm, strong, resolute man in her father's room; somebody that could be depended upon. Dolly thought Christina ought to be a happy woman, with always such a hand to support her all her life long. "And he drinks no wine," thought Dolly; "that temptation will never overtake him; she will never have to be ashamed of him. He will hold her up, and not she him. She is happy." The worst thing about Mr. Shubrick's coming was, that he must go away again! However, not yet; he would be seen at breakfast first; and to prepare breakfast was now Dolly's next care. Then she got her mother up and persuaded her to make herself nice and appear at the meal. "You are never going to bring him down into the kitchen?" said Mrs. Copley, horrified, when she got there. "Certainly, mother; it is no use trying to make a fuss. I cannot give him breakfast anywhere else." "Then I would let him go to the village, Dolly, and get his breakfast there." "But that would be very inhospitable. He was here at supper, mother; I don't think he was frightened. He knows just how we are situated." "He doesn't know you have nobody to help you, I hope?" "How could he help knowing it? The thing is patent. Never mind, mother; the breakfast will be good, if the breakfast-room is only so so. If you do not mind, nobody else will." "That you should come to this!" said Mrs. Copley, sinking into a chair. "My Dolly! Doing a servant's work, and for strangers, and nobody to help or care! And what are we coming to? I don't see, for my part. You are ruined." "Not yet," said Dolly cheerfully. "If I am, I do not feel like it. Now, mother, see if you can get Mr. Shubrick down here before my omelette is ruined; for that is the greatest danger just at present." It was not quite easy to get Mr. Shubrick down there, however; he demurred very seriously; and I am afraid the omelette was something the worse before he came. But then the breakfast was rather gay. The watcher reported a quiet night, and as he was much inclined to think, an amended patient. "Quiet!" echoed Mrs. Copley. "How could you keep him quiet?" "I suppose I imagined myself on board ship," said the young man, smiling, "and gave orders, as I am accustomed to do there. Habit is a great thing." "And Mr. Copley minded your orders?" "That is understood." "Well!" ejaculated Mrs. Copley. "He never would do the least thing I or Dolly wanted him to do; not the least thing. _He_ has been giving the orders all along; and as fidgetty as ever he could be. Fidgetty and nervous. Wasn't he fidgetty?" "No; very docile and peaceable." "You must be a wonderful man," said Mrs. Copley. "Habit," said Mr. Shubrick. "As I said, it is a great thing." "He has been having his own way all along," said Mrs. Copley; "and ordering us about, and doing just the things he ought not to do. He was always that way." "Not the proper way for a sick room," said Mr. Shubrick. "You had better install me as head nurse." How Dolly wished they could do that! As she saw him there at the table, with his quiet air of efficiency and strength, Dolly thought what a treasure he was in a sick house; how strong she felt while she knew he was near. Perhaps Mrs. Copley's thoughts took the same turn; she sighed a little as she spoke. "You have been very kind, Mr. Shubrick. We shall never forget it. You have been a great help. If Mr. Copley would only get better now"---- "I am going to see him better before I go." "We could not ask any _more_ help of you." "You need not," and Mr. Shubrick smiled. "Mr. Copley has done me the honour to ask me." "Mr. Copley has asked you!" repeated Mrs. Copley in bewilderment. "What?" "Asked me to stay." "To stay and nurse him?" "Yes. And I said I would. You cannot turn me away after that." "But you have your own business in England," Dolly here put in. "This is it, I think." "Your own pleasure, then. You did not come to England for this." "It seems I did," he said. "I am off duty, Miss Dolly, I told you; here on furlough, to do what I like; and there is nothing else at present that I should like half so well." Dolly scored another private mark here to the account of Mr. Shubrick's goodness; and in the ease which suddenly came to her own mind, felt as if her head were growing light and giddy. But it was no illusion or dream. Mr. Shubrick was really there, finishing his breakfast, and really going to stay and take care of her father; and Dolly felt as if the tide of their affairs had turned. So indeed it proved. From that time Mr. Shubrick assumed the charge of the sick-room, by night and also by day. He went for a walk to the village sometimes, and always got his dinner there; the rest of the time he was at the cottage, attending to everything that concerned Mr. Copley. Dolly and her mother were quite put away from that care. And whether it were the moral force of character, which acted upon Mr. Copley, or whether it were that his disorder had really run its length and that a returning tide of health was coming back to its channels, the sick man certainly was better. He grew better from day to day. He had been quiet and manageable from the first in his new nurse's hands; now he began to take pleasure in his society, holding long talks with him on all possible subjects. Appetite mended also, and strength was gradually replacing weakness, which had been very great. Anxiety on the one score of her father's recovery was taken away from Dolly. Other anxieties remained, and even pressed harder, when the more immediately engrossing care was removed. In spite of Mr. Shubrick's lecture about casting off care, Dolly found it difficult to act upon the truth she knew. Her little fund of money was much reduced; she could not help asking herself how they were going to live? Would her father, as soon as he was strong enough, go back to his former ways and be taken up with his old companions? and if he did, how much longer could the little household at Brierley struggle on alone? What had become of all her father's property in America, from which in old time the income had always been more than sufficient for all their wants and desires? Was it gone irrevocably? or had only the ready money accruing from it been swallowed up in speculation or pleasure? And whence could Dolly get light on these points, or how know what steps she ought to take? Could her weakness do anything, in view of that fact to which her mother had alluded, that Mr. Copley always took his own way? It was all utter and dark confusion as she looked forward. Could Dolly trust and be quiet? In her meditations another subject occupied her a good deal. The presence of Sandie Shubrick was such a comfort that it was impossible not to think what she would do without him when he was gone. He was a universal comfort. Since he had taken charge of the sick-room, the sickness was disappearing; while he was in command, there was no rebellion; the affairs of the household worked smoothly, and Dolly had no need to draw a single long breath of perplexity or anxiety. The sound of that even, firm step on the gravel walk or in the hall, was a token of security; the sight of Mr. Shubrick's upright, alert figure anywhere was good for courage and hope. His resolute, calm face was a light in the house. Dolly's thoughts were much busied with him and with involuntary speculations about him and Christina. It was almost unavoidable. She thought, as indeed she had thought before, that Miss Thayer was a happy woman, to have so much strength and goodness belonging to her. What a shielded life hers would be, by this man's side. He would never neglect her or prefer his interests to hers; he would never give her cause to be ashamed of him; and here Dolly's lips sometimes quivered and a hot tear or two forced their way out from under her eyelids. And how could possibly Christina so play fast and loose with him, do dishonour to so much goodness, and put off her consent to his wishes until all grace was gone out of it? Mr. Shubrick apparently had made up his mind to this treatment and was not cast down by it; or perhaps would he, so self-reliant as he was, be cast down utterly by anything? I think perhaps Dolly thought too much about Mr. Shubrick. It was difficult to help it. He had brought such a change into her life; he was doing such a work in the house; he was so very pleasant a companion at those breakfasts and suppers in the kitchen. For his dinner Mr. Shubrick persisted in going to the village inn. He said the walk did him good. He had become in these few days quite as one of themselves. And now he would go. Mr. Copley was fast getting well, and his nurse would go. Dolly could not bear to think of it. CHAPTER XXXIII. UNDER AN OAK TREE. More than a week passed, and Mr. Copley was steadily convalescent. He had not left his room yet, but he needed no longer the steady attendance of some one bound to minister to his wants. Dolly was expecting now every day to hear Mr. Shubrick say he must bid them good-bye; and she took herself a little to task for caring so much about it. What was Sandie Shubrick to her, that she should feel such a heart-sinking at the prospect of his departure? It was a very wonderful thing that he, Christina Thayer's Mr. Shubrick, should have come to help this little family in its need; it was very astonishing that he should be there even then, waiting on Dolly Copley's sick father; let her be satisfied with this so unexpected good, and bid him farewell as easily as she had bid him welcome. But Dolly could not. How could she? she said to herself. And every time she saw Mr. Shubrick she feared lest the dreaded words would fall from his lips. So when he came to her one afternoon when she was sitting in the porch, her heart gave a throb of anticipation. However, he said nothing of going, but remarked how pretty the sloping ground looked, on the other side of the little river, with its giant trees and the sunlight streaming through the branches upon the greensward. "It is very pretty," said Dolly. "The park is beautiful. You ought to see it"--_before you go_, she was on the point of saying, but did not say. "Will you come with me, and show me what I ought to look at?" "Now?" said Dolly. "If it is not too warm for you. We might take it easily and keep in the shadow of the trees." "Oh, it is not too warm," said Dolly; and she ran to fetch her garden hat. It was not August now; the summer was past, yet the weather was fit for the height of summer. Warm, spicy, dry air, showing misty in the distance like a gossamer veil, and near by a still glow over everything. The two young people wandered over the bridge and slowly mounted the bank among the oaks and beeches, keeping in the shade as much as might be. There was a glorious play of shadow and sunlight all over the woodland; and the two went softly along, hardly disturbing the wild creatures that looked at them now and then. For the woods were full of life. They saw a hare cross an opening, and grey squirrels eyed them from the great oak branches overhead; and there was a soft hum of insects filling all the silence. It was not the time of day for the birds to be merry. Nor perhaps for the human creatures who slowly passed from tree to tree, avoiding the spaces of sunlight and summer glow. They were neither merry nor talked much. "This is very noble," said Sandie at last. "Were you ever in England before, Mr. Shubrick?" "Yes." "Then you have seen many of these fine places already, perhaps?" "No, not many. My stay has been mostly in London; though I did run down a little into the country." "People say we have nothing like this in America." "True, I suppose," said Sandie. "We are too young a people, and we have had something else to do." "It is like a dream, that anybody should have such a house and such a place as Brierley," Dolly went on. "There is nothing wanting that one can imagine, for beauty and dignity and delight of living and luxury of ease. It might be the Arabian Nights, or fairyland. You must see the house, with its lovely old carvings, and pictures, and old, old furniture; and the arms of the family that built it carved and painted everywhere, on doors and chairs and mantelpieces." "Of the family that built it?" repeated Mr. Shubrick. "Not the family that owns it now?" "No. You see their arms too, but the others are the oldest. And then it would take you hours to go through the gardens. There are different gardens; one, most exquisite, framed in with trees, and a fountain in the middle, and all the beds filled with rare plants. But I do not like anything about the place better than these trees and greensward." "It must be a difficult thing," said Sandie meditatively, "to use it all for Christ." Dolly was silent a while. "I don't see how it _could_ be used so," she said. The other made no answer. They went slowly on and on, getting up to the higher ground and more level going, while the sun's rays coming a little more slant as the afternoon declined, gave an increasing picturesqueness to the scene. Mr. Shubrick had been for some time almost entirely silent, when Dolly proposed to stop and rest. "One enjoys it better so," she said. "One has better leisure to look. And I wanted to talk to you, besides." Her companion was very willing, and they took their places under a great oak, on the swell of greensward at the foot of it. Ground and grass and moss were all dry. Dolly sat down and laid off her hat; however, the proposed "talk" did not seem to be ready, and she let Mr. Shubrick wait. "I wanted to ask you something," said she at last. "I have been wanting to ask you something for a good while." There she stopped. She was not looking at him; she was taking care not to look at him; she was trying to regard Mr. Shubrick as a foreign abstraction. Seeing which, he began to look at her more persistently than hitherto. "What is it?" he asked, with not a little curiosity. "There is nobody else I can ask," Dolly went on; "and if you could give me the help I want, it would be a great thing for me." "I will if I can." The young man's eyes did not turn away now. And Dolly was an excessively pretty thing to look at; so taken up with her own thoughts that she was in no danger of finding out that she was an object of attention or perhaps admiration. Her companion perceived this, and indulged his eyes fearlessly. Dolly's fair, flushed face was thin with the work and the care of many weeks past; the traces of that were plain enough; yet it was delicately fair all the same, and perhaps more than ever, with the heightened spirituality of the expression. The writing on her features, of love and purity, habitual self-devotion and self-forgetfulness, patience and sweetness, was so plain and so unconscious, that it made her a very rare subject of contemplation, and, as her companion thought, extremely lovely. Her attitude spoke the same unconsciousness; her dress was of the simplest description; her brown hair was tossed into disorder; but dress and hair and attitude alike were deliciously graceful, with that mingling of characteristics of child and woman which was peculiar to Dolly. Lieutenant Shubrick was familiar with a very diverse type of womanly charms in the shape of his long-betrothed Miss Thayer. The comparison, or contrast, might be interesting; at any rate, any one who had eyes to read this type before him needed no contrast to make it delightful; and probably Mr. Shubrick had such eyes. He was quite silent, leaving Dolly to choose her time and her words at her own pleasure. "I know you will," she said slowly, taking up his last words;--"you have already; but I am a bad learner. You know what you said, Mr. Shubrick, the day you came, that evening when we were at supper,--about trusting, and not taking care?" "Yes." Dolly did not look at him, and went on. "I do not find that I can do it." "Do what?" "Lay down care. Quite lay it down." "It is not easy," Mr. Shubrick admitted. "Is it possible, always? I find I can trust pretty well when I can see at least a possible way out of difficulties; but when the way seems all shut up, and no opening anywhere,--then--I do not quite lay down care. How can I?" "There is only one thing that can make it possible." "I know--you told me; but how then can I get that? I must be very far from the knowledge of Christ--if _that_ is what is wanting." Dolly's eyes filled with tears. "No," said Mr. Shubrick gently, "but perhaps it does follow, that you have not enough of that knowledge." "Of course. And how shall I get it? I can trust when I see some light, but when I can see none, I am afraid." "If I promised to take you home, I mean, to America, by ways known to me but unknown to you, could you trust me and take the steps I bade you." I am not justifying Mr. Shubrick. This was a kind of tentative speech for his own satisfaction; but he made it, watching for Dolly's answer the while. It came without hesitation. "Yes," she said. "I should believe you, if you told me so." "Yet in that case you would follow me blindly." "Yes." "Seeing no light." "Yes. But then I know you enough to know that you would not promise what you would not do." "Thank you. This is by way of illustration. You would not be afraid?" "Not a bit. I see what you mean," said Dolly, colouring a little. "Do you think there is anything friends can give one another, so precious as such trust?" "No--I suppose not." "Is it wonderful, if the Lord wants it of His children?" "No. O Mr. Shubrick, I am ashamed of myself! What is the reason that I can give it to you, for instance, and not to Him? Is it just wickedness?" "It is rather, distance." "Distance! Then how shall I get near?" "Do you know what a question you are asking me? One of the grandest that a creature can ask. It is the question of questions. For, to get near, is to see the Lord's beauty; and to see Him is to love Him, and to love with that absolute confidence. 'Thou wilt keep Him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on Thee.' And, 'This is life eternal, to know thee.'" "Then how, Mr. Shubrick?" said Dolly. "How is one to do?" She was almost tearful in her earnestness. But he spoke, earnestly enough, yet with a smile. "There are two sides to the question. On your side, you must do what you would do in any case where you wanted to cultivate a friendship. How would that be?" Dolly pondered. "I never put it so to myself," she said slowly, "and yet I suppose it must be so. Why, in any such case I should try to see a great deal of the person I wanted to make a friend of. I would be in the person's company, hear him talk, or hear her talk, if it was a woman; and talk to her. It would be the only way we could become known to each other." "Translate, now." "Translate?" said Dolly. "You mean,"---- "Apply to the case in hand." "You mean," said Dolly, "that to study the Bible is to hear the Lord speak; and to pray, is to speak to Him." "To study the Bible with a heart ready to obey all it finds--_that_ is hearing the Lord speak; and if prayer is telling Him your thoughts and wishes in your own language, that is speaking to Him." "But it is speaking without an answer." "I beg your pardon. It is speaking without an audible answer; that is all." "Then how does the answer come?" "In receiving what you ask for; in finding what you seek." Dolly brushed away a tear again. "One needs to take a good deal of time for all that," she said presently. "Can you cultivate a friendship on any other terms?" "Perhaps not. This is quite a new view of the whole matter, Mr. Shubrick. To me." "Common sense. And Bible." "Does the Bible speak of it?" "The Bible speaks of the life of religion as contained in our knowing God and in His knowing us." "But He,--He knows everybody." "Not in this way. It is the sweet knowledge of intimate friendship and relations of affection. 'I know thee by name,' was one of the reasons given why the Lord would grant Moses' bold prayer. 'I have called thee by thy name, thou art Mine,' is the word to His people Israel. 'He calleth His own sheep by name,' you know it is said of the Good Shepherd. And 'they shall all know Me,' is the promise concerning the Church in Christ. While, you remember, the sentence of dismissal to the others will be simply, 'I know you not.' And, 'the Lord knoweth them that are His.'" There was silence; and then Dolly said, "You said there were two sides to the question." "Yes. Your part we have talked about; it is to study, and ask, and obey, and believe. The Lord's part is to reveal Himself to you. It is a matter of revelation. You cannot attain it by any efforts of your own, be they never so determinate. Therefore your prayer must be constantly like that of Moses--'I beseech thee, show me Thy glory.' And you see, that makes your part easy, because the other part is sure." "Mr. Shubrick, you are a very comforting talker!" said Dolly. "Nay, I am only repeating the Lord's words of comfort." "So I am to study, and yet study will not do it," said Dolly; "and I am to pray, and yet prayer will not give it." "Study will not do it, certainly. But when the Lord bestows His light, study becomes illumination. No, prayer does not give it, either; yet you must ask if yon would have. And Christ's promise to one who loves Him and keeps His commandments is,--you recollect it,--'I will love him _and will manifest Myself to him_.'" "That will do, Mr. Shubrick, thank you," said Dolly rising. "You need not say any more. I think I understand. And I am very much obliged to you." Mr. Shubrick made no answer. They went saunteringly along under the great trees, rather silent both of them after that. As the sun got lower the beauty of the wooded park ground grew more exceeding. All that a most noble growth of trees could show, scattered and grouped, all that a most lovely undulation of ground surface could give, in slope and vista and broken light and shadow, was gilded here and there with vivid gold, or filled elsewhere with a sunny, misty glow of vapourous rays, as if the air were streaming with gold dust among the trees. All tints and hues of greensward, moss, and fern, under all conditions of illumination, met their wondering eyes; and for a while there was little spoken but exclamations of delight and discussion of beautiful effects that came under review. They went on so, from point to point, by much the same way that Dolly had taken on her first visit to the park; till they came out as she had done from the thinner part of the woodland, and stood at the edge of the wide plain of open greensward which stretched on up to the House. Here they stood still. The low sun was shining over it all; the great groups of oaks and elms stood in full revealed beauty and majesty; and in the distance the House looked superbly down over the whole. "There is hardly anything about Brierley that I like better than this," said Dolly. "Isn't it lovely? I always delight in this great slope of wavy green ground; and see how it is emphasised and set off by those magnificent trees? And the House looks better from nowhere than from here." "It is very noble--it is exceeding beautiful," Mr. Shubrick assented. "Now this, I suppose, one could not see in America," Dolly went on; "nor anything like it." "America has its own beauties; doubtless nothing like this. There is the dignity of many generations here. But, Miss Dolly, as I said before,--it would be difficult to use all this for Christ." "I do not see how it could be done," said Dolly. "Mr. Shubrick, I happen to know, it takes seven or eight thousand a year--or more--to keep the place up. Pounds sterling, I mean; not dollars. Merely to keep the establishment up and in order." "And yet, if I were its owner, I should find it hard to give up these ancestral acres and trees, or to cease to take care of them. I am glad I am a poor man!" "Give them up?" said Dolly. "Do you think _that_ would be duty?" "I do not know. How could I take seven or eight thousand pounds a year just to keep up all this magnificence, when the money is so wanted for the Lord's work, in so many ways? When it would do such great things, given to Him." "Then, Mr. Shubrick, the world must be very much mistaken in its calculations. People would not even understand you, if they heard you say that." "Do _you_ understand me?" "Oh yes. And yet I cannot tell you what delight I take in all this, every time I see it. The feeling of satisfaction seems to go to my very heart. And so when I am in the house,--and the gardens. Oh, you have not seen the gardens, nor the House either; and there is no time to-day. But I do not know that I enjoy anything much more than this view. Though the House is delicious, Mr. Shubrick." "I can believe it," he said, smiling. "You see what reason I have to rejoice that I am a poor man." Dolly thought, poor child, as they turned and went homeward, she could hardly go so far as to rejoice that she was a poor woman. Not that she wanted Brierley; but she did dread possible privation which seemed to be before her. She feared the uncertainty which lay over her future in regard to the very necessaries of life; she shrank a little from the difficulty and the struggle of existence, which she knew already by experience. And then, Mr. Shubrick, who had been such a help and had made such a temporary diversion of her troubled thoughts, would be soon far away; she had noticed that he did not speak of some other future opportunity of seeing the house and gardens, when she remarked that it was too late to-day. He would be going soon; this one walk with him was probably the last; and then the old times would set in again. Dolly went along down among the great oaks and beeches, down the bank now getting in shadow, and spoke hardly a word. And Mr. Shubrick was as silent as she, probably as busy with his own thoughts. So they went, until they came again in sight of the bridge and the little river down below them, and a few steps more would have brought the cottage into view. "We have come home fast," said Mr. Shubrick. "Do you think we need go in and show ourselves quite yet? Suppose we sit down here under this tree for a few minutes again, and enjoy all we can." Dolly knew it must be approaching the time for her to see about supper; but she could not withstand the proposal. She sat down silently and took off her hat to cool herself. "I come here very often," she said, "to get a little refreshment. It is so pleasant, and so near home." "You call Brierley 'home.' Have you accepted it as a permanent home?" "What can we do?" said Dolly. "Mother and I long to go back to America--we cannot persuade father." "Miss Dolly, will you excuse me for remarking that you wear a very peculiar watch-chain," Mr. Shubrick said next, somewhat irrelevantly. "My watch-chain! Oh, yes, I know it is peculiar," said Dolly. "For anything I know, there is only one in the world." "May I ask, whose manufacture it is?" "It was made by somebody--a sort of a friend, and yet not a friend either--somebody I shall never see again." "Ah? How is that?" "It is a great while ago," said Dolly. "I was a little girl. At that time I was at school in Philadelphia, and staying with my aunt there. O Aunt Hal! how I would like to see her!--The girls were all taken one day to see a man-of-war lying in the river; our schoolmistress took us; it was her way to take us to see things on the holidays; and this time it was a man-of-war; a beautiful ship; the 'Achilles.' My chain is made out of some threads of a cable on board the 'Achilles.'" "You did not make it?" "No, indeed. I could not, nor anybody else that I know. The manufacture is exquisite. Look at it," said Dolly, putting chain and watch in Mr. Shubrick's hand. "But somebody must have made it," said the young officer, examining the chain attentively. "Yes. It was odd enough. The others were having lunch; I could not get into the little cabin where the table was set, the place was so full; and so I wandered away to look at things. I had not seen them half enough, and then one of the young officers of the ship found me--he was a midshipman, I believe--and he was very good to me. He took me up and down and round and about; and then I was trying to get a little bit of a piece off a cable that lay coiled up on the deck and could not, and he said he would send me a piece; and he sent me that." "Seems strong," said Mr. Shubrick, still examining the chain. "Oh, it is very strong." "This is a nice little watch. Deserves a better thing to carry it." "Better!" cried Dolly, stretching out her hand for the chain. "You do not appreciate it. I like this better than any other. I always wear this. Father gave me a very handsome gold chain; he was of your opinion; but I have never had it on. This is my cable." She slipped the chain over her neck as she spoke. "What makes you think you will never see the maker of the cable again?" "Oh, that is a part of the story I did not tell you. With the chain came a little note, asking me to say that I had received it, and signed 'A. Crowninshield.' I can show you the note. I have it in my work-box at home. Do you know anybody of that name in the navy, Mr. Shubrick?" "Midshipman?" "He might not be a midshipman now, you know. That is nine years ago." "True. I do not know of a Lieutenant Crowninshield in the navy--and I am sure there is no captain of that name." "That is what I thought," said Dolly. "I do not believe he is alive. Whenever I saw in the papers mention of a ship of the navy in port, I used to go carefully over the lists of her officers; but I never could find the name of Crowninshield." Mr. Shubrick here produced his pocket-book, and after some opening of inner compartments, took out a small note, which he delivered to Dolly. Dolly handled it at first in blank surprise, turned it over and over, finally opened it. "Why, this is my note!" she cried, very much confounded. "My own little note to that midshipman. Here is my name. And here is his name. How did you get it, Mr. Shubrick?" she asked, looking at him. But his face told her nothing. "It was given to me," he said. "By whom?" "By the messenger that brought it from you." "The messenger? But you you--you--are somebody else!" Mr. Shubrick laughed out. "Am I?" said he. "Well, perhaps,--though I think not." "But you are not that midshipman?" "No. I was he, though." "Your name,--your name is not Crowninshield?" "Yes. That is one of my names. Alexander Crowninshield Shubrick, at your service." Dolly looked at him, like a person awake from a dream, trying to read some of the remembered lineaments of that midshipman in his face. He bore her examination very coolly. "Why--Oh, is it possible you are he?" cried Dolly with an odd accent of almost disappointment, which struck Mr. Shubrick, but was inexplicable. "Why did you not sign your true name?" "Excuse me. I signed my true name, as far as it went." "But not the whole of it. Why didn't you?" "I had a reason. I did not wish you to trace me." "But please, why not, Mr. Shubrick?" "We might say, it was a boy's folly." "I shall not say so," said Dolly, tendering the note back. "I daresay you had some reason or other. But I cannot somehow get my brain out of a whirl. I thought you were somebody else!--Here is your note, Mr. Shubrick. I cannot imagine what made you keep it so long." His hand did not move to receive the note. "I have been keeping it for this time," he answered. "And now, I do not want to keep it any longer, Miss Dolly, unless--unless I may have you too." Dolly looked at him now with a face of startled inquiry and uneasiness. Whether she were more startled or incredulous of what she heard, it would be impossible to say. The expression in her eyes grew to be almost terror. But Mr. Shubrick smiled a little as he met them. "I kept the note, for I always knew, from that time, that I should marry that little girl, if ever I could find her,--and if she would let me." Dolly's face was fairly blanched. "But--you belong to somebody else," she said. "No," said he,--"I beg your pardon. I belong to nobody in the world, but myself. And you." "Christina told me"---- "She told you true," said Mr. Shubrick quite composedly. "There was a connection subsisting between us, which, while it lasted, bound us to each other. It happened, as such things happen; years ago we were thrown into each other's company, in the country, when I was home on leave. My home was near hers; we saw a great deal of each other; and fancied that we liked each other more than the fact was, or rather in a different way. So we were engaged; on my part it was one of those boyish engagements which boys frequently form before they know their own minds, or what they want. On the other side you can see how it was from the circumstances of the case. Christina did not care enough about me to want to be married; she always put it off; and I was not deeply enough concerned to find the delay very hard to bear. And then, when I saw you in Rome that Christmas time, I knew immediately that if ever in the world I married anybody, it would be the lady that wore that chain." "But Christina?" said Dolly, still with a face of terrified trouble. Was then Mr. Shubrick a traitor, false to his engagements, deserting a person to whom, whether willingly or not, he was every way bound? He did not look like a man conscious of dishonourable dealing, of any sort; and he answered in a voice that was both calm and unconcerned. "Christina and I are good friends, but not engaged friends any more. Will you read that?" He handed Dolly another letter as he spoke, and Dolly, bewildered, opened it. "Ischl, _May_ 6, 18--. "DEAR SANDIE,--"You are quite ridiculous to want me to write this letter, for anybody that knows you, knows that whatever you say is the truth, absolutely unmixed and unvarnished. Your word is enough for any statement of facts, without mine to help it. However, since you will have it so, here I am writing. "But really it is very awkward. What do you wish me to say, and how shall I say it? You want a testimony, I suppose. Well, then, this is to certify, that you and I are the best friends in the world, and mean to remain so, in spite of the fact that we once meant to be more than friends, and have found out that we made a mistake. Yes, it was a mistake. We both know it now. But anybody may be mistaken; it is no shame, either to you or me, especially since we have remedied the error after we discovered it. Really, I am in admiration of our clear-sightedness and bravery, in breaking loose, in despite of the trammels of conventionality. But you never were bound by those trammels, or any other, except what you call 'duty.' So I herewith declare you free,--that is what you want me to say, is it not?--free with all the honours, and with the full preservation of my regards and high consideration. Indeed, I do not believe I ever shall hold anybody else in _quite_ such high consideration; but perhaps that very fact made me unfit to be anything but your friend. I am afraid you are too good for me, in stern earnest; but I have a notion that will be no disadvantage to you in certain other sweet eyes that I know; the goodness, I mean, not anything else. "We are here, at this loveliest of lovely places; but we have got enough of it, and are going to spend some weeks in the Tyrol. I suppose I know where to imagine _you_, at least part of the summer. And you will know where to imagine me next winter, when I tell you that in the fall the probability is that I shall become Mrs. St. Leger. You may tell Dolly. Didn't I remark to her once that she and I had better effect an exchange? Funny, wasn't it? However, for the present I am, as I have long been, your very sincere friend, CHRISTINA THAYER." Dolly read the letter and stared at it, and finally returned it without raising her eyes. And then she sat looking straight before her, while her face might be likened to the evening sky when the afterglow is catching the clouds. From point to point the flush catches, cloud after cloud is lighted up, until under the whole heaven there is one crimson glow. Dolly was not much given to blushing, she was not at all wont to be a prey to shyness; what had come over her now? When Lawrence St. Leger had talked to her on this very same subject, she had been able to answer him with scarcely a rise of colour in her cheeks; with a calm and cool exercise of her reasoning powers, which left her fully mistress of the situation and of herself. She had not been disturbed then, she had not been excited. What was the matter now? For Dolly was overtaken by an invincible fit of shyness, such as never had visited her in all her life. I do not think now she knew that she was blushing; according to her custom, she was not self-conscious; what she was conscious of, intensely, was Mr. Shubrick's presence, and an overwhelming sense of his identity with the midshipman of the "Achilles." What _that_ had to do with Dolly's shyness, it might be hard to tell; but her sweet face flushed till brow and neck caught the tinge, and the eyelids fell over the eyes, and Dolly for the moment was mistress of nothing. Mr. Shubrick looking at her, and seeing those lovely flushes and her absolute gravity and silence, was in doubt what it might mean. He thought that perhaps nobody had ever spoken to her on such a subject before; yet Dolly was no silly girl, to be overcome by the mere strangeness of his words. Did her silence and gravity augur ill for him? or well? And then, without being in the least a coxcomb, it occurred to him that her excessive blushing told on the hopeful side of the account. He waited. He saw she was as shy as a just caught bird; was she caught? He would not make so much as a movement to startle her further. He waited, with something at his heart which made it easier every moment for him to wait. But in the nature of the case, waiting has its limits. "What are you going to do about it?" he inquired at length, in a very gentle manner. "Give me my note back again, with the conditions?" Dolly did nothing of the kind. She held the note, it is true, and looked at it, but without making any movement to restore it to its owner. So decided an action did not seem at the moment possible to her. She looked at the little note, with the prettiest sort of embarrassment, and presently rose to her feet. "I am sure it is time to have supper," she said, "and they cannot do anything at home till I come." Mr. Shubrick rose too and followed Dolly, who set off unceremoniously down the bank towards the bridge. He followed her, half smiling, and wholly impatient. Yet though a stride or two would have brought him alongside of her, he would not make them. He kept behind, and allowed her to trip on before him, which she did with a light, hasty foot, until they neared the little gate of the courtyard belonging to the house. Then he stepped forward and held the gate open for her to enter, not saying a word. Dolly passed him with the loveliest shy down-casting of her eyelids, and went on straight into the house. He saw the bird was fluttering yet, but he thought he was sure of her. CHAPTER XXXIV. UNDER THE SAME OAK. Dolly threw off her hat and went down to the kitchen premises. Mr. Shubrick repaired to the sick-room and relieved Mrs. Copley. That lady, descending to the lower part of the house, found Dolly very busy with the supper-table, and apparently much flushed with the hot weather. "Your father's getting well!" she said with a sigh. "That's good news, I am sure, mother." "Yes,--it's good news," Mrs. Copley repeated doubtfully; "but it seems as if everything good in this world had a bad side to it." Dolly stood still. "What's the matter?" she said. "Oh, he's so uneasy. As restless end fidgetty as a fish out of water. He is contented with nothing except when Mr. Shubrick is near him; he behaves quietly then, at least, however he feels. I believe it takes a man to manage a man. Though I never saw a man before that could manage your father. _He_ laughs at it, and says it is the habit of giving orders." "Who laughs at it?" "Mr. Shubrick, to be sure. You don't suppose your father owns to minding orders? But he does mind, for all that. What will become of us when that young man goes away?" "Why, mother?" "My patience, Dolly! what have you done to heat yourself so! Your face is all flushed. Do keep away from the fire, or you'll certainly spoil your complexion. You're all flushed up, child." "But father,--what about father?" "Oh, he's just getting ready to take his own head, as soon as Mr. Shubrick slips the bridle off. He's talking of going up to town already; and he will go, I know, as soon as he _can_ go; and then, Dolly, then--I don't know what will become of us!" Mrs. Copley put her hands over her face, and the last words were spoken with such an accent of forlorn despair, that Dolly saw her mother must have found out or divined much that she had tried to keep from her. She hesitated with her answer. Somehow, the despair and the forlornness had gone out of Dolly's heart. "I hope--I think--there will be some help, mother." "Where is it to come from?" said Mrs. Copley sharply. "We are as alone as we can be. We might as well be on a desert island. Now you have sent off Mr. St. Leger--oh, how obstinate children are! and how little they know what is for their good!" This subject was threadbare. Dolly let it drop. It may be said she did that with every subject that was started that evening. Mr. Shubrick at supper made brave efforts to keep the talk a going; but it would not go. Dolly said nothing; and Mrs. Copley in the best of times was never much help in a conversation. Just now she had rather a preoccupied manner; and I am by no means certain that, with the superhuman keenness of intuition possessed by mothers, she had not begun to discern a subtle danger in the air. The pressure of one fear being removed, there was leisure for any other to come up. However, Mr. Shubrick concerned himself only about Dolly's silence, and watched her to find out what it meant. She attended to all her duties, even to taking care of him, which to be sure was one of her duties; but she never looked at him. The same veil of shy grace which had fallen upon her in the wood, was around her still, and tantalised him. Nor did he get another chance to speak to her alone through the next two days that passed; carefully as he sought for it. Dolly was not to be found or met with, unless sitting at the table behind her tea-urn and with her mother opposite. Mr. Shubrick bided his time in a mixture of patience and impatience. The latter needs no accounting for; the former was half brought about and maintained by the exquisite manner of Dolly's presentation of herself those days. The delicate, coy grace which invested her, it is difficult to describe it or the effect of it. She was not awkward, she was not even embarrassed, the least bit in the world; she was grave and fair and unapproachable, with the rarest maidenly shyness, which took the form of the rarest womanly dignity. She was grave, at least when Mr. Shubrick saw her; but watching her as he did narrowly and constantly, he could perceive now and then a slight break in the gravity of her looks, which made his heart bound with a great thrill. It was not so much a smile as a light upon her lips; a play of them; which he persuaded himself was not unhappy. The loveliness of the whole manifestation of Dolly during those two days, went a good way towards keeping him quiet; but naturally it worked two ways. And human patience has limits. The second day, Mr. Shubrick's had given out. He came in from his walk to the village, bringing Mrs. Copley something she had commissioned him to get from thence; and found both ladies sitting at a late dinner. And not the young officer's eyes alone marked the sudden flush which rose in Dolly's cheeks when he appeared, and the lowered eyelids as he stood opposite her. "We began to review the park, the other day," he said, eyeing her steadily. "Can we have another walk in it this afternoon, Miss Dolly? The first was so pleasant." "I shouldn't think you'd go pleasuring just now, Dolly, when your father wants you," said Mrs. Copley. "You have seen hardly anything of him lately. I should think you would go and sit with him this afternoon. I know he would like it." Whether this arrangement was agreeable to the present parties concerned, or either of them, did not appear. Of course the most decorous acquiescence was all that came to light. A little later, Mr. Shubrick himself, being thus relieved from duty, quitted the house and strolled down to the bridge and over it into the park; and Dolly slowly went upstairs to her father's room. It was true, she had been there lately less than usual; but there had been a reason for that. Her conscience was not charged with any neglect. Mr. Copley seemed sleepily inclined; and after a word or two exchanged with him Dolly began to go round the room, looking to see if anything needed her ordering hand. Truly she found nothing. Coming to the window, she paused a moment in idle wistfulness to see how the summer sunshine lay upon the oaks of the park. And standing there, she saw Mr. Shubrick, slowly going over the bridge. She turned away and went on with her progress round the room. "What are you about there, Dolly?" Mr. Copley called to her. "Just seeing if anything wants my attention, father." "Nothing does, I can tell you. The room is all right, and everything in it. I've been kept in order, since I have had a naval officer to attend upon me." "Don't I keep things in order, father?" "If you do, your mother don't. She thinks that anywhere is a place, and that one place is as good as another." "Mother seems to think I have neglected you lately. Have you missed me?" "Missed you! no. I have had care and company. Where did you pick up that young man, Dolly?" "I, father? I didn't pick him up." "How came he here, then? What brought him?" "I don't know," said Dolly. "Would you like to have me read to you?" "No, child. Shubrick reads to me and talks to me. He's capital company, though he's one of your blue sort." "Father! He is not blue, nor am I. Do you think I am blue?" "Sky blue," said her father. "He's navy blue. That's the difference." "I do not understand the difference," said Dolly, half laughing. "Never mind. What have you done with Mr. Shubrick?" "I?" said Dolly, aghast. "Yes. Where is he?" "Oh!--I believe, mother sent him into the park." "Sent him into the park? What for?" "I do not mean that she sent him," said Dolly, correcting herself in some embarrassment; "I mean, that she sent me up here, and he went into the park." "I wish he'd come back, then. I want him to finish reading to me that capital article on English and European politics." "Can I finish it?" "No, child. You don't understand anything about the subject. Shubrick does. I like to discuss things with him; he's got a clear head of his own; he's a capital talker. When is he going?" "Going where, father?" "Going away. He can't stay here for ever, reading politics and putting my room in order. How long is he going to stay?" "I do not know." "Well--when he goes I shall go! I shall not be able to hold out here. I shall go back to London. I can't live where there is not a man to speak to some time in the twenty-four hours. Besides, I can do nothing here. I might as well be a cabbage, and a cabbage without a head to it." "Are we cabbages?" asked Dolly at this. "Mother and I?" "Cabbage roses, my dear; cabbage roses. Nothing worse than that." "But even cabbage roses, father, want somebody to take care of them." "I'll take care of you. But I can do it best in London." "Then you do not want me to read to you father?" Dolly said after a pause. "No, my dear, no, my dear. If you could find that fellow Shubrick--I should like him." And Mr. Copley closed his eyes as if to sleep, finding nothing worthy to occupy his waking faculties. Dolly sat by the window, looking out and meditating. Yes, Mr. Shubrick would be going away, probably soon; his furlough could not last always. Meanwhile, she had given him no answer to his questions and propositions. It was rather hard upon him, Dolly felt; and she had a sort of yearning sympathy towards her suitor. A little impatience seized her at being shut up here in her father's room, where he did not want her, and kept from the walk in the park with Mr. Shubrick, who did want her. He wanted her very much, Dolly knew; he had been waiting patiently, and she had disappointed every effort he made to get speech of her and see her alone, just because she was shy of him and of herself. But it was hardly fair to him, after all, and it could not go on. He had a right to know what she would say to his proposition; and she was keeping him in uneasiness, (to put it mildly), Dolly knew quite well. And now, when could she see him? when would she have a chance to speak to him alone, and to hear all that she yet wanted to hear? but indeed Dolly now was thinking not so much of what she wanted as of what _he_ wanted; and her uneasiness grew. He might be obliged to go off suddenly; officers' orders are stubborn things; she might have no chance at all, for aught she knew, after this afternoon. She looked at her father; he had dozed off. She looked out of the window; the afternoon sun, sinking away in the west, was sending a flood of warm light upon and among the trees of the park. It must be wonderfully pretty there! It must be vastly pleasant there! And there, perhaps, Mr. Shubrick was sitting at this moment on the bank, wishing for her, and feeling impatiently that his free time was slipping away. Dolly's heart stirred uneasily. She had been very shy of him; she was yet; but now she felt that he had a right to his answer. Something that took the guise of conscience opposed her shy reserve and fought with it. Mr. Shubrick had a _right_ to his answer; and she was not treating him well to let him go without it. Dolly looked again at her father. Eyes closed, breathing indicative of gentle slumber. She looked again over at the sunlit park. It was delicious over there, among its sunny and shadowy glades. Perhaps Mr. Shubrick had walked on, tempted by the beauty, and was now at a distance; perhaps he had not been tempted, and was still near, up there among the trees, wanting to see her. Dolly turned away from the window and with a quick step went downstairs. She met nobody. Her straw flat was on the hall table; she took it up and went out; through the garden, down to the bridge, over the bridge, with a step not swift but steady. Mr. Shubrick had a right to his answer, and she was simply doing what was his due, and there might be no time to lose. She went a little more slowly when she found herself in the park; and she trembled a little as her eye searched the grassy openings. She was not quite so confident here. But she went on. She had not gone very far before she saw him; under the same oak where they had sat together; lying on his elbow on the turf and reading. Dolly started, but then advanced slowly, after that one minute's check and pause. He was reading; he did not see her, and he did not hear her light footstep coming up the bank; until her figure threw a shadow which reached him. Then he looked up and sprang up; and perhaps divining it, met Dolly's hesitation, for, taking her hands he placed her on the bank beside his open book; which book, Dolly saw, was his Bible. But her shyness had all come back. The impression made by the thought of a person, when you do not see him, is something quite different from the living and breathing flesh and blood personality. Mr. Shubrick, on the other hand, was in a widely different mood; which Dolly knew, I suppose, though she could not see. "This is unlooked-for happiness," said he, throwing himself down on the bank beside her. "What have you done with Mr. Copley?" "Nothing. He did not want me. He asked me what I had done with Mr. Shubrick? I think you have spoiled him." Dolly spoke without looking at her companion, be it understood, and her breath came a little short. "And what are you going to do with Mr. Shubrick?" her companion said, not in the tone of a doubtful man, lying there on the bank and watching her. But Dolly found no words. She could not say anything, well though she recognised Mr. Shubrick's right to have his answer. Her eyes were absolutely cast down; the colour on her cheek varied a little, yet not with the overwhelming flushes of the other day. Dolly was struggling with the sense of duty, the necessity for action, and yet she could not act. She had come to the scene of action, indeed, and there her bravery failed her; and she sat with those delicate lights coming and going on her cheek, and the brown eyes hidden behind the sweep of the lowered eyelashes; most like a shy child. Mr. Shubrick could have smiled, but he kept back the smile. "You know," he said in calm, matter-of-fact tones, that met Dolly's sense of business, "my action must wait upon your decision. If you do not let me stay, I must go, and that at once. What do you want me to do?" "I do not want you to go," Dolly breathed softly. Silently Mr. Shubrick held out his hand. As silently, though frankly, Dolly put hers into it. Still she did not look at him. And he recognised what sort of a creature he was dealing with, and had sense and delicacy and tact and manliness enough not to startle her by any demonstration whatever. He only held the little hand, still and fast, for a space, during which neither of them said anything; then, however, he bent his head over the hand and kissed it. "My fingers are not accustomed to such treatment," said Dolly, half laughing, and trying hard to strike into an ordinary tone of conversation, though she left him the hand. "I do not think they ever were kissed before." "They have got to learn!" said her companion. Dolly was silent again. It was with a great joy at her heart that she felt her hand so clasped and held, and knew that Mr. Shubrick had got his answer and the thing was done; but she did not show it, unless to a nice observer. And a nice observer was by her side. Yet he kept silence too for a while. It was one of those full, blessed silences that are the very reverse of a blank or a void; when the heart's big treasure is too much to be immediately unpacked, and words when they come are quite likely enough not to touch it and to go to something comparatively indifferent. However, words did not just that on the present occasion. "Dolly, I am in a sort of amazement at my own happiness," Mr. Shubrick said. Dolly could have answered, so was she! but she did not. She only dimpled a little, and flushed. "I have been waiting for you all these years," he went on; "and now I have got you!" Dolly's dimples came out a little more. "I thought you did not wait," she remarked. Mr. Shubrick laughed. "My heart waited," he said. "I made a boy's mistake; and I might have paid a man's penalty for it. But I had always known that you and no other would be my wife, if I could find you. That is, if I could persuade you; and somehow I never allowed myself to doubt of that. I did not take such a chance into consideration." "But I was such a little child," said Dolly. "Ay," said he; "that was it. You were _such_ a little child." "But you must have been a very extraordinary midshipman, it seems to me." "By the same rule you must have been a very extraordinary little girl." They both laughed at that. "I suppose we were both extraordinary," said Dolly; "but, really, Mr. Shubrick, you know very little about me!" His answer to that was to kiss again the hand he held. "What do you know of me?" "I think I know a great deal about you," said Dolly softly. "You have a great deal to learn. Wouldn't you like to begin by hearing how Miss Thayer and I came to an understanding?" "Oh, yes, yes! if you please," said Dolly, extremely glad to get upon a more abstract subject of conversation. "I owe that to myself, perhaps," Mr. Shubrick went on; "and I certainly owe it to you. I told you how I got into my engagement with her. It was a boyish fancy; but all the same, I was bound by it; and I should have been legally bound before now, only that Christina always put off that whenever I proposed it. I found too that the putting it off did not make me miserable. Dolly, the case is going to be different this time!" "You mean," said Dolly doubtfully, "it _is_ going to make you miserable?" "No! I mean, you are not going to put me off." "Oh, but!"----said Dolly flushing, and stopped. "I have settled that point in my own mind," he said, smiling; "it is as well you should know it at once.--So time went by, until I went to spend that Christmas Day in Rome. After that day I knew nearly all that I know now. Of course it followed, that I could not accept the invitation to Sorrento, when you were expected to be there. I could not venture to see you again while I was bound in honour to another woman. I stayed on board ship, those hot summer days, when all the officers that could went ashore. I stayed and worked at my problem--what I was to do." He paused and Dolly said nothing. She was listening intently, and entirely forgetting that the sunlight was coming very slant and would soon be gone, and that home and supper were waiting for her managing hand. Dolly's eyes were fixed upon another hand, which held hers, and her ears were strained to catch every word. She rarely dared glance at Mr. Shubrick's face. "I wonder what counsel you would have given me?" he went on,--"if I could have asked it of you as an indifferent person,--which you were." "I don't know," said Dolly. "I know what people think"---- "Yes, I knew what people think, too; and it a little embarrassed my considerations. However, Dolly, I made up my mind at last to this;--that to marry Christina would be acting a lie; that I could not do that; and that if I could, a lie to be acted all my life long would be too heavy for me. Negatively, I made up my mind. Positively, I did not know exactly how I should work it. But I must see Christina. And as soon as affairs on board ship permitted, I got a furlough of a few days and went to Sorrento. I got there one lovely afternoon, about three weeks after you had gone. Sea and sky and the world generally were flooded with light and colour, so as I have never seen them anywhere else, it seems to me. You know how it is." "Yes, I know Sorrento," said Dolly. But just then, an English bank under English oaks seemed as good to the girl as ever an Italian paradise. That, naturally, she did not show. "I know Sorrento," she said quietly. "And you know the Thayers' villa. I found Christina and Mr. St. Leger sitting on the green near the house, under an orange tree--symbolical; and the air was sweet with a thousand other things. I felt it with a kind of oppression, for the mental prospect was by no means so delicious." "No," said Dolly. "And sometimes that feeling of contrast makes one very keen to see all the lovely things outside of one." "Do _you_ know that?" said Mr. Shubrick. "Yes. I know it" "One can only know it by experience. What experience can you have had, my Dolly, to let you feel it?" Dolly turned her eyes on him without speaking. She was thinking of Venice at midnight under the moon, and a sail, and a wine-shop. Tell him? No, indeed, never! "You are not ready to let me know?" said he, smiling. "How long first must it be?" "It isn't anything you need know," said Dolly, looking away. But with that the question flashed upon her, would he not have to know? had he not a right? "Please go on," she said hurriedly. "I can go on now easier than I could then," he said with a half laugh. "I sat down with them, and purposely brought the conversation upon the theme of my trouble. It came quite naturally, _apropos_ of a case of a broken engagement which was much talked of just then; and I started my question. Suppose one or the other of the parties had discovered that the engagement was a mistake? They gave it dead against me; all of them; Mrs. Thayer had come out by that time. They were unanimous in deciding that pledges made must be kept, at all hazards." "I think that is the general view," said Dolly. "It is not yours?" "I never thought much about it. But I think people ought always and everywhere to be true.--That is nothing to kiss my hand for," Dolly added with the pretty flush which was coming and going so often this afternoon. "You will let me judge of that." "I didn't think you were that sort of person." "What sort of person?" "One of those that kiss hands." "Shall I choose something else to kiss, next time?" But Dolly looked so frightened that Mr. Shubrick, laughing, went back to his story. "We were at Sorrento," he said. "You can suppose my state of mind. I thought at least I would take disapprobation piecemeal, and I asked Christina to go out on the bay with me. You have been on the bay of Sorrento about sun-setting?" "Oh yes, many a time." "I did not enjoy it at first. I hope you did. I think Christina did. It was the fairest evening imaginable; and my oar, every stroke I made, broke and shivered purple and golden waters. It was sailing over the rarest possible mosaic in which the pattern was constantly shifting. I studied it, while I was studying how to begin what I had to do. Then, after a while, when we were well out from shore, I lay on my oars, and asked Miss Thayer whether she were sure that her judgment was according to her words, in the matter we had been discussing at the house? She asked what I meant. I put it to her then, whether she would choose to marry a man who liked another woman better than he did herself? "Christina's eyes opened a little, and she said 'Not if she knew it.' "'Then you gave a wrong verdict up there,' I said. "'But that was about what the _man_ should do,' she replied. 'If he has made a promise, he must fulfil it. Or the woman, if it is the woman.' "'Would not that be doing a wrong to the other party?' "'How a wrong?' said Christina. 'It would be keeping a promise. Every honourable person does that.' "'What if it be a promise which the other side no longer wishes to have kept?' "'You cannot tell that,' said Christina. 'You cannot know. Probably the other side does wish it kept.' "I reminded her that she had just declared _she_, in the circumstances, would not wish it; but she said, somewhat illogically, 'that it made no difference.' "I suggested an application of the golden rule." "Yes," said Dolly; "I think that rule settles it. I should think no woman would let a man marry her who, she knew, liked somebody else better." "And no man in his senses--no _good_ man," said Sandie, "would have a woman for his wife whose heart belonged to another man; or, leaving third parties out of the question, whose heart did not belong to _him_. I said something of this to Christina. She answered me with the consequences of scandal, disgrace, gossip, which she said attend the breaking off of an engagement. In short, she threw over all my arguments. I had to come to the point. I asked her if she would like to marry _me_, if she knew that I liked somebody else better? "She opened her eyes at me. 'Do you, Sandie?' she said. And I told her yes. "'Who?' she asked as quick as a flash. And I knew then that _her_ heart was safe," Mr. Shubrick added with a smile. "I told her frankly, that ever since Christmas Day, I had known that if I ever married anybody it would be the lady I then saw with her. "'Dolly!' she cried. 'But you don't know her, Sandie.'" Mr. Shubrick and Dolly both stopped to laugh. "I am sure that was true. And I should think unanswerable," said Dolly. "It was not true. Do you think it is true now?" "Well, you know me a little better, but I should think, not much." "Shows how little you can tell about it. By the same reasoning, I suppose you do not know _me_ much?" "No," said Dolly. "Yes, I do! I know you a great deal, in some things. If I didn't"---- she flushed up. "We both know enough to begin with; is that it? Do you remember, that evening, Christmas Eve, how you sat by the corner of the fireplace and kept quiet, while Miss Thayer talked?" "Yes." Dolly remembered it very well. "You wore a black dress, and no ornaments, and the firelight shone on a cameo ring on your hand, and on your face, and the curls of your hair, and every now and then caught this," said Mr. Shubrick, touching Dolly's chain. "Christina talked, and I studied you." "One evening," said Dolly. "One evening; but I was reading what was not written in an evening. However, I left Christina's objection unanswered--though I do not allow that it is unanswerable; and waited. She needed a little while to come to her breath." "Poor Christina!" said Dolly. "Not at all; it was poor Sandie, if anybody. I do not think Christina suffered, more than a little natural and very excusable mortification. She never loved me. I had guessed as much before, and I was relieved now to find that I had been certainly right. But she needed a little while to get her breath, nevertheless. She asked me if I was serious? then, why I did not tell her sooner? I replied that I had had a great fight to fight before I could make up my mind to tell her at all. "And then, as I judge, _she_ had something of a fight to go through. She turned her face away from me, and sat silent. I did not interrupt her; and we floated so a good while on the coloured sea. I do not believe she knew what the colours were; but I did, I confess. I had got a weight off my mind. The bay of Sorrento was very lovely to me that evening. After a good while, Christina turned to me again, and I could see that she was all taut and right now. She began with a compliment to me." "What was it?" Dolly asked. "Said I was a brave fellow, I believe." "I am sure I think that was true." "Do you? It is harder to be false than true, Dolly." "All the same, it takes bravery sometimes to be true." "So Christina seemed to think. I believe I said nothing; and she went on, and added she thought I had done right, and she was much obliged to me." "That was like Christina," said Dolly. "'But you are bold,' she said again, 'to tell me!' "I assured her I had not been bold at all, but very cowardly. "'What do you expect people will say?' "I told her I had been concerned only and solely with the question of how she herself would take my disclosure; what she would say, and how she would feel. "She was silent again. "'But, Sandie,' she began after a minute or two which were not yet pleasant minutes to either of us,--'I think it was very risky. It's all right, or it will be all right, I believe, soon,--but suppose I had been devotedly in love with you? Suppose it had broken my heart? It _hasn't_--but suppose it had?'" "Yes," said Dolly. "You could not know." "I think I knew," said Mr. Shubrick. "But at any rate, Dolly, I should have done just the same. 'Fais que dois, advienne que pourra,' is a grand old motto, and always safe. I could not marry one woman while I loved another. The question of breaking hearts does not come in. I had no right to marry Christina, even to save her life, if that had been in danger. But happily it was not in danger. She did shed a few tears, but they were not the tears of a broken heart. I told her something like what I have been saying to you. "'But Dolly!' she said. 'You do not know her, you do not even _know her_.' That thought seemed to weigh on her mind." "What could you say to it?" said Dolly. "I said nothing," Mr. Shubrick answered, smiling. "Then Christina went on to remark that Miss Copley did not know me; and that possibly I had been brave for nothing. I still made no answer; and she declared she saw it in my face, that I was determined it should _not_ be for nothing. She wished me success, she added; but 'Dolly had her own way of looking at things.'" Dolly could not help laughing. "So that is my story," Mr. Shubrick concluded. "And, oh, look at the light, look at the light!" said Dolly, jumping up. "Where will mother think I and supper are!" "She thinks probably that you are in Mr. Copley's room." "No, she knows I am not; for she is sure to be there herself." "Then I will go straight to them, while you bring up arrears with supper." "And Christina will marry Mr. St. Leger!" said Dolly, while she flushed high at this suggestion. "Yet I am not surprised." "Is it a good match?" "The world would say so." "_I_ am not," said Sandie, "according to the same judgment. I am not rich, Dolly. By and by I will tell you all I have. But it is enough for us to live upon comfortably." Nobody had ever seen Dolly so shy and blushing and timid as she was now, walking down the bank by Mr. Shubrick's side. It was a bit of the same lovely manifestation which he had been enjoying for a day or two with a little alloy. It was without alloy that he enjoyed it now. CHAPTER XXXV. WAYS AND MEANS. As they entered the house, Dolly went downstairs and Mr. Shubrick up; she trembling and in a maze, he with a glad, free step, and a particularly bright face. Mrs. Copley was with her husband, as Dolly had opined. "Here's one of them," cried Mr. Copley as Sandie entered. "Where have you been all this while? If you think I'll do to be left alone yet, you're mistaken. Where have you been?" "In what I believe is the park of Brierley--over there under the oaks." "And where is Dolly, Mr. Shubrick?" Dolly's mother asked. "I have just brought her home. She is downstairs." "I sent her to take care of her father," said Mrs. Copley in a dissatisfied tone. "She informed me that Mr. Copley did not want her, and preferred me," said Mr. Shubrick. "But you did not come?" said Mrs. Copley suspiciously. He stood looking at her half a minute, with a slight smile upon his face, the frank, pleasant smile which belonged to him; then he turned, took a glass from the table and came to Mr. Copley's side to give him a draught which was due. Next he lifted his patient by the shoulders a little, to arrange the pillows behind him, and as he laid him back upon them he said quietly--"Will you give your daughter to me, Mr. Copley?" Mr. Copley looked, or stared rather, grumly enough at the speaker. "That means, you have got her already!" "Not without your consent." "I thought as much! Does Dolly want to marry you?" "I do not know," said Sandie with a smile; "but I believe I may say that she will marry nobody else." "Ay, there it is. I have other views for my daughter." "And I thought you were engaged to Miss Thayer?" put in Mrs. Copley. "True; I was; but that was a boyish mistake. We have all other views. Miss Thayer is to marry your friend, Mr. St. Leger." "Christina!" cried Mrs. Copley. "Didn't I know Mrs. Thayer would do that, if she could! And now she has done it. And Christina has thrown you over?" "Not at all," said Sandie, again with a smile. "And you have not to blame Mrs. Thayer, so far as I know. Miss Thayer and I are very good friends, but we were never intended to marry each other. We have found that out, and acted accordingly." "And she has got him!" Mrs. Copley repeated. "I told Dolly she would like to do that. Put their two fortunes together, and they will have enough," said poor Mrs. Copley. "That comes of our going to Sorrento!" "Look here, young man," said Mr. Copley. "If I give you Dolly, as you say, after she has given herself,--the witch!--what are you and she going to live on?" "We have something to live on," said the young man with quiet independence. "Not much, I'll be sworn!" "Not perhaps what you would call much. A lieutenant in the navy is not likely to have more than a very moderate fortune." "Fortune! What do you call a fortune?" "Enough to live on." "Are you ever going to be a captain?" "I cannot say. But there is some prospect of it." "Things might be worse, then," grumbled Mr. Copley. "Anyhow, you have tied my tongue, my fine fellow. I can't say a word against you. But look here;--if you don't want a wife that will rule you, I advise you not to marry my Dolly. She's a witch for having her own way. 'My Dolly'!" Mr. Copley half groaned. "I suppose now she's your Dolly. I don't want to give her to any man, that's the truth." "And I thought all this nursing had been so disinterested!" said Mrs. Copley dolefully. Sandie's answer to this was conclusive, of the subject and the conversation both. He went up to Mrs. Copley, took her hand, and bent down and kissed her. Just at that moment they were called to supper; and Mrs. Copley, completely conquered, went down with all her reproaches smothered in the bud. Yet I confess her face showed a conflict of feelings as she entered the kitchen. It was cloudy with disappointment, and at the same time her eyes were wet with tears of some sweeter feeling. Dolly, standing behind the supper-table, looked from the one to the other as the two came in. "It is all settled, Dolly," said Mr. Shubrick. And I think he would have taken his betrothal kiss, then and there, had not Dolly's glance been so shy and shrinking that she flashed at him. She was standing quietly and upright; there was no awkwardness in her demeanour; it was the look of her eyes that laid bans upon Sandie. He restrained himself; paid her no particular attention during supper; talked a great deal, but on entirely indifferent subjects; and if he played the lover to anybody, certainly it was to Mrs. Copley. "He is a good young man, I believe," said Mrs. Copley, making so much of an admission as she and Dolly went upstairs. "O mother," said Dolly, half laughing and half vexed, "you say that just because he has been entertaining you!" "Well," returned Mrs. Copley. "I like to be entertained. Don't you find him entertaining?" Mr. Shubrick kept up the same tactics for several days; behaving himself in the house very much as he had done ever since he had come to it. And out of the house, though he and Dolly took long walks and held long talks together; he was very cool and undemonstrative. He would let her get accustomed to him. And certainly in these conversations he was entertaining. Walking, or sitting on the bank under some old beech or oak tree, he had endless things to tell Dolly; things to which she listened as eagerly as ever Desdemona did to Othello; stories out of which, avoid personalities as he would, she could not but gain, step by step, new knowledge of the story-teller. And hour by hour Dolly's respect for him and appreciation of him grew. Little by little she found how thorough his education was, and how fine his accomplishments. Especially as a draughtsman. Easily and often, in telling her of some place or of some naval engagement, Sandie would illustrate for her with any drawing materials that came to hand; making spirited and masterly sketches with a few strokes of his hand, it might be on paper, or on a bit of bark, or on the ground even. "Ah," said Dolly one day, watching him, "I cannot do that! I can do something, but I cannot do that." "What can you do?" inquired Sandie. "I can copy. I can take down the lines of a face, or of a bridge, or a house, when I see it before me; but I cannot put things on paper out of my thoughts. Do you remember how you did this sort of thing for me the very first time I saw you?--in the gun deck of the 'Achilles'?" He smiled, finishing the sketch he was about. "I remember. I remember what pleasure it gave me, too. At that time I had a little sister, just your age, of whom I was exceedingly fond." "At that time--you _had?_" Dolly repeated. "Yes," he said soberly; "I have not anybody now, of near kin to me." Dolly's hand with mute sympathy stole into his. It was the first action of approach to him that she had made, unless that coming to him in the park three or four days before might be reckoned in the bargain. He tossed his drawing into her lap and warmly clasped the hand. "It is time you began to talk to me, Dolly," he said. "I have talked a great deal, but you have said next to nothing. You must have a great many questions to ask me." "I don't know," said Dolly. "Why, you know nothing about me," he said with a laughing look of his eyes. "You had better begin. You may ask me anything." "But knowing a person and knowing _about_ him, are very different things." "Very. And if you have the one sort of knowledge, it seems to me you must want to have the other. Unless, where both are alike uninteresting; which I cannot suppose is my case." "No," said Dolly, laughing a little, "but I suppose you will tell me things by degrees, without my asking." "What makes you suppose that?" "It would be natural, wouldn't it?" "_Would_ it be natural, without your showing any interest?" "Ah, but now _you_ are supposing. Perhaps I should show interest." Sandie laughed now heartily. "I will try you," said he. "I will begin and tell you something without questions asked. Dolly, I have a house." "Have you?" "You do not care to hear about it?" "I am glad that you have a house," said Dolly demurely. Sandie was lying on the turfy bank, in a convenient position for looking up into her eyes; and she found it not precisely an easy position for her. "You do not take it as a matter of personal concern?" "It is a house a long way off," said Dolly. "Just now we are here.'' "How much longer do you expect to be here?" "That I do not know at all. Mother and I have tried and tried to get father to go home again,--and we cannot move him." "I must try," said Mr. Shubrick. "Oh, if you could!" said Dolly, clasping her hands unconsciously--"I don't know what I would give. He seems to mind you more than anybody." "What keeps him here? Business?" "I suppose it is partly business," said Dolly slowly, not knowing quite how to answer. And then darted into her heart with a pang of doubt and pain, the question: was not Mr. Shubrick entitled to know what kept her father in England, and the whole miserable truth of it? She had been so occupied and so happy these last days, she had never fairly faced the question before. It almost caught her breath away. "Dolly, when we all go back to America, the house I speak of will not be 'far off.'" "No," said Dolly faintly. "Look here," said he, taking one of her hands. "It is a house I hope you will like. _I_ like it, though it has no pretension whatever. It is an old house; and the ground belonging to it has been in the possession of my family for a hundred years; the house itself is not quite so old. But the trees about it are. The old house stands shut up and empty. I told you, I have no one very near of kin left to me; so even when I am at home I do not go there. I have never lived there since my mother left it." Dolly was silent. "Now, how soon do you think I may have the house opened and put in order for living in?" There came up a lovely rose colour in the cheeks he was looking at; however Dolly answered with praiseworthy steadiness---- "That is a matter for you to consider." "Is it?" "Certainly." "But you know it would be no use to open it, until somebody is ready to live there." "No," said Dolly. "Of course--I suppose not." "So you see, after all, I have to come to you with questions, seeing you will ask me none." "Oh," said Dolly, "I will ask you questions, if you will let me. I would rather ask than answer." "Very well," said he, laughing. "I give place to you. Ask what you like." Then followed silence. The young officer lay easily on the bank at her feet, holding Dolly's hand; sometimes bringing his eyes to bear upon her face, sometimes letting them rove elsewhere; amused, but waiting. "I shall have to begin again," said he. "No, don't," said Dolly. "Mr. Shubrick, where is your house?" "About fifty miles from Boston, in one of the prettiest New England villages on the coast." "And how much ground is there round it?" "About a hundred acres." "Doesn't it spoil a house to be shut up so?" "It is not good for it. But there is nobody belonging to me that I would like to see in it; and I could never rent the old place. I am very fond of it, Dolly. It is full of associations to me." It swept through Dolly, how she would like to put it in order and keep it open for him; and again she was silent, till admonished by a laughing, "Go on." But Dolly did not know what further to say, and was still silent. "There is one question you have not asked me," Mr. Shubrick said, "which would be a very pertinent one just now. You have never asked me how long _I_ was going to stay in England." "No," said Dolly, starting. "How soon must you--how long can you stay?" "My leave expires in two weeks." "Two weeks! And can you not get it extended?" "I don't know. Perhaps, for a little. But, Dolly, there is a prospect of the 'Red Chief' being ordered home; and there is a further possibility that I may have to take her home; for Captain Busby is very much out of health and wants to stay the winter over in Naples." "You may have to take her home. Will that give you the ship, do you mean?" "No," said he, smiling; "ships are not had at such an easy rate as that. But, Dolly, you perceive that there are several questions we must ask and answer; and the sooner the better." "Then," said Dolly a little hurriedly,--she was afraid of the questions that might be coming,--"if you go away in two or three weeks, when shall I see you again?" There was more of an admission made in these words than Dolly herself knew; and it was made with a tender, shy grace of tone and manner which touched the young officer with more than one feeling. He bent down to kiss Dolly's hand before he said anything. "That is one of the questions," he said. "Let me tell you what I have thought about it. The 'Red Chief' has been a long time out; she needs overhauling. She will probably be sent home soon, and I am like to be in charge of her. I may expect to get a long furlough when I go home; and--I want to spend every minute of it with you. I do not want to lose a day, Dolly. Do you understand? I want you to be all ready for me, so that we can be married the very day I get to you." "You mean, in America?" said Dolly, with a great flush. "I mean, in America, of course. I want to take you straight away from your old home to your new one. I will have the house put in readiness"---- "When do you think you will be there?" Dolly broke in. "By Christmas, perhaps." "But I am here," said Dolly. "So am I here, just at present," said he, smiling. "But you can go over in one ship while I am going over in another, and be there as soon as I, or before." "I don't know," said Dolly. "I can't tell about father. I don't know when he will be persuaded to leave England." She looked doubtful and troubled now. Possible difficulties and hindrances began to loom up before her, never looked at until then. What if her father would not go? What if he persisted in staying by the companions who were his comrades in temptation? Could she go away and leave him to them? and leave her mother to him? Here offered itself another sort of self-sacrifice, to which nothing could be objected except its ruinous effect upon her own future. Nay, not _her_ own future alone; but what of that? "Fais que dois advienne que pourra." It all swept through Dolly's head with the speed, and something of the gloom, of a whirlwind. "I don't know anything about his movements," she repeated anxiously. "Only, mother and I cannot get him away." "In that case, I will come to England for you." "Oh no!" said Dolly, shaking her head; "_that_ would not do. I could not leave him and mother here." "Why not?" Dolly was silent. She could not tell him why not. "Would it be more difficult here, than to leave them in America?" Mr. Shubrick asked, the smile upon his lips checked by the very troubled expression of Dolly's face. "It would not be 'difficult' here; it would be _impossible_." "May I ask, why more impossible, or difficult, than in America?" Dolly was silent. What could she say? "Suppose Mr. Copley should prefer to stay in England permanently?" "Yes," said Dolly in a sort of whisper. "What then?" "I do not know," she answered faintly. "In America it would be different?" "Yes." "Do you know, my little Dolly, you are speaking what it is very difficult for me to understand?" "Of course," said Dolly. "You cannot understand it." "Are you not going to give me the grace of an explanation?" "I cannot." "Then I shall go to Mr. Copley for it." "Oh no!" said Dolly, starting, and laying both her hands upon one of the young officer's, as if in pleading or in hindering. "Oh no, Mr. Shubrick! Please, _please_, do not speak to mother or father about this! Please say nothing about it!" He kissed and clasped the hands, making, however, no promise. For a moment he paused, seeing that Dolly was very deeply disturbed. "Do you think father and mother both could not be tempted to go home for your sake?" he then asked. "Oh, mother, yes; but father--I don't know about father." "I shall try my powers of persuasion," said Mr. Shubrick lightly. Dolly made no answer and was evidently in so much troubled confusion of thought that she was not ready, even if he were, to take up again the consideration of plans and prospects, or to enter into any other more indifferent subject of conversation. After a trial or two, seeing this, Mr. Shubrick proposed to get a book and read to her; which he had once or twice done to their great mutual pleasure. And as Dolly eagerly welcomed the proposal, he left her there on the bank and went down to the cottage, which was not very far off, to fetch the book. As soon as he was out of sight, Dolly laid her face in her hands. It was all rushing upon her now, what she had scarce looked at before in the pre-occupation and happiness of the last days. It was a confusion of difficult questions. Would her father leave the companions and habits to which he had grown so fast, and go back to America for her sake--that is, for the sake of seeing her promptly married? Dolly doubted it much. It was quite possible that her father would regard that consideration as the reverse of an inducement. It was quite possible that no unselfish inducement would have any power at all with him. Then he would stay in England. And so long as he was in England, in the clutches of the temptation that had got so much power, Dolly could not leave him; and if she could leave him, it would be impossible to forsake her mother, whose only stay and comfort on earth she was. In that case, what was she to say to Mr. Shubrick? How could he understand, that for Dolly to leave father and mother was any way different or more difficult than Christina's or any other girl's doing the same thing? He could not understand, unless she told him all; and how was it possible for her to do that? How could she tell her lover her father's shame? And if she simply refused to marry him and refused to give any reason, what was he to think then? Shame and fear and longing took such possession of Dolly that she was thrown into great perturbation. She left her seat on the bank and walked up and down under the great trees. A good burst of tears was near, but she would not give way to that; Sandie would see it. He would be back presently. And he would be putting his question again; and whatever in the world should she say to him? For the hundredth time the bitter apostrophe to her father rose in Dolly's heart. How _could_ he have let her be ashamed of him? And then another thought darted into her head. Had not Mr. Shubrick a right to know all about it? Dolly was almost distracted with her confusion of difficulties. She would not cry, which as she told herself would help nothing. She stood by a great oak branch which, leaving the parent trunk a few feet higher up, swept in lordly fashion, in a delicious curve, down towards the turf, with again a spring upward at its extremity. Dolly stood where it came lowest, and had rested her two arms upon it, looking out vaguely into the green wilderness beyond. She thought she was safe; that was not the side towards the cottage, from which quarter Mr. Shubrick would come; she would hear his steps in time before she turned round. But Mr. Shubrick had seen her standing there, and innocently made a little bend from the straight path so as to come up on one side and catch a stolen view of her sweet face. Coming so, he saw much more than he expected, and much more than Dolly would have let him see. The next moment he had taken the girl in his arms. Dolly started and would have freed herself, but she found she could not do it without making more effort than she was willing to use. She stood still, fluttering, trembling, and at the same time not a little abashed. "What is troubling you, Dolly?" Dolly dared not look and could not speak. Silence made an admission, she knew; nevertheless, she could find no words to say. "Don't you love me well enough to tell me?" "Oh, it isn't that," cried Dolly; "it's _because_"---- Here Dolly's revelations came to an end, and yet she had revealed a good deal. A dark glow came into the young officer's eyes. Truly, she had before never told him so much as that she loved him. But his next words were spoken in the same tone with the foregoing. It was very affectionate, and withal there was a certain accent of authority in it. I think it awed Dolly a little. She had known really very little of authority, as exercised towards herself. This was something very unlike her father's careless acquiescence, or his careless opposition; very unlike the careless way in which he would sometimes throw his arm round her, affectionate though that was. The affection here was different, Dolly felt with an odd sort of astonishment; and the care, and the asserted right of ownership. It gave the girl a thrill of joy; at the same time it had upon her a kind of subduing effect. So came his next question, gently as it was put, and it was put very gently. "Do you not think I have a right to know?" "Perhaps," she stammered. "Oh, I don't know but you ought to know,--but how can I tell you! Oh, I don't know how I can tell you!" Dolly trembled in her doubt and distress; she fought down tears. Both hands went up to cover her face. "Is it a trouble in which I can help?" "I don't know." "If I am to help, you must tell me something more, Dolly." "Yes, but I cannot. Oh, if you knew, you would know that I cannot. I think perhaps you ought to know,--but I cannot tell you! I don't see how I can tell you!" "Then do not try to tell me, until we are married," said he soothingly. "It will be easier then." "But I think you ought to know before," said Dolly, and he felt how she trembled in his arms. "If you don't know, you will not be able to understand"---- "What?" for Dolly paused. "What I do. You will not understand it." "What are you going to do?" said Mr. Shubrick, smiling; she knew he was smiling. "You are going home to be ready to meet me; and the day I come, we are going to be married. Then you can tell me what you like. Hey?" "But you don't know!" cried Dolly. "I can't tell when we shall go home. I don't know whether father will quit England for all I can say. I don't know whether he will ever quit it!" "Then, as I remarked before, I will have the honour to come to England and fetch you." "Ah, but I could not go then." "Why not?" "I could not leave them alone here." "Why not here as well as in America?" "My father needs me here," said Dolly in a low voice and with tears,--what sharp tears of bitterness!--coming into her eyes. "Needs you! Do not I need you?" said Mr. Shubrick. "No," said Dolly. "I am so glad you don't!" And her brown eyes gave one flash of undoubted, albeit inexplicable, pride and rejoicing into his face. "How do you dare say that, Dolly?" he asked in growing curiosity and mystification. "You can stand alone," she said, her voice again drooping. Mr. Shubrick was silent a moment, considering what this might mean. They had not altered their relative positions during this little dialogue. Dolly's face was again covered by her hands. "I don't know if I can stand alone," said Sandie at last slowly; "but I am not going to try." "Perhaps you must," said Dolly sadly, lifting her face again. "If I can get father to go home, I will; maybe you can do it if I cannot. But I am not sure that anybody can do it. Mr. Shubrick, he did not use to be like this; he was everything different; he was what you would have liked; but now he has got in with some people here in whose company he--oh, how can I tell you!" cried Dolly, bursting into tears; but then she fought them back and struggled for voice and went on with sad bravery. "I have told you so much, I must tell you the whole. He is not just master of himself; temptation takes hold of him and he cannot resist it. They lead him to play and--betting--and he loses money,--and then comes wine." Dolly's voice fell. "I have been trying and trying to get him back; sometimes I almost thought I had done it; but the temptation gets hold of him again, and then everything goes. And so, I cannot be sure," Dolly went on, as Mr. Shubrick remained silent, "what he will do about going home. Once he would have done it for me; but I do not know what he will do now. I cannot tell. And if there is a hope for him, it is in me. I have not been able to do much, yet; but if I cannot, no one can. Unless you, perhaps; but you cannot be with him. And you see, Mr. Shubrick, that even if I can be of no use to him, I could not leave mother all alone. I could not. I am glad you know it all now; but"---- Dolly could say nothing more. In sorrow and shame and agitation of spirits, she broke down and sobbed. Her lover was very still; but though he spoke not a word, Dolly was feeling all the while the new guardianship she had come into; what strong love and what resolute care it was; feeling it the more because Mr. Shubrick was so quiet about it. It was new to Dolly; it was very delicious; ah, and what if she were but learning that now, to do without it for ever after! Her tears had more sources than one; nevertheless, as soon as she could manage it, Dolly mastered her feelings and checked down the expression of them; lifted her head and wiped her eyes, as if she had done now with tears for the term of her natural life. Even forced a smile, as she said-- "Please, Mr. Shubrick, let me go,--you must be tired of me." Which Dolly, to be sure, had no reason to think, and had still less reason a minute after; being obliged to learn, somewhat to her astonishment, that there was also a difference in kisses as well as in some other things. Dolly was exceedingly filled with confusion. "I--didn't--give you leave!" she managed to say, abashed as she was. "No," said Sandie, laughing. "And yet I think you did, Dolly. I am glad to see your dimples again! Come here and sit down. I think I see the way out of our difficulties." "You have been quick in finding it," said Dolly, as he placed her on the bank. "Habit," said Sandie. "Sailors _must_ see their way and make their decisions quickly, if at all. At least, that is oftentimes the case. This is one of the cases." "Can you depend on decisions formed so suddenly?"--Dolly was driven by some unaccountable instinct of shyness to lead off from the subject in hand, nearly as it concerned her. And besides, she was too flushed and abashed to deal coolly with any subject. "_Must_ depend on them," said Sandie, laughing a little at her pretty confusion. "As I told you, there is often no other to be had. And a sailor cannot afford to change his course; he must see to it that he is right at first. Vacillation would be almost worse than anything." "At that rate, sailors must get a very downright way with them." "Perhaps. Are you afraid of it?" "No," said Dolly demurely. "Are you a good sailor?" Mr. Shubrick laughed out "Do you doubt it?" "No, not at all," said Dolly, laughing a little herself. "Only you can do so many things--drawing, and speaking so many languages,--I wanted to know if you were good at that too." "That is one of the necessities of my position, Dolly. A man who cannot sail a ship had better not try to command her." "I wish you would tell me one thing," said Dolly wistfully. "I will tell you anything." "I wish you would tell me how you got your promotion. When I saw you first, you were a midshipman on board the 'Achilles.' Christina told me you had distinguished yourself in the war. How was it?" Mr. Shubrick gave her a glance of surprise at first, at this very irrelevant propounding of questions; then a gleam came out of his blue eyes, which were not in the least like Mr. St. Leger's blue eyes; but he answered quite gravely. "You have a right to know, if anybody in the world has; and yet I cannot tell you, Dolly. I did nothing more than hundreds of others; nothing but my duty. Only it happens, that if a man is always doing his duty, now and then there comes a time that draws attention to him, and brings what he does into prominence; and he gets advancement perhaps; but it does not follow that he has done any more than hundreds of others would have done." "Are there so many men that are 'always doing their duty'?" "I hope so. I believe so. In naval affairs." "You have not told me what was the occasion that brought your doings into prominence?" He glanced at her with a flash in his eyes again. "Is that pressing just now?" "Isn't now a good time?" said Dolly, smiling. "No, for my head is full of something else. I can't tell you how I came to be promoted first. After I was raised to a lieutenancy, I got special credit for disciplining the crew." "Disciplining?" said Dolly. "Exercising them in gunnery practice." "Oh!--I remember how you told me about that in the gun deck of the 'Achilles.'" "This was on board another ship. Her guns were well served upon an occasion that followed, and honourable mention was made of my services as having led to that result. Now shall I go on?" "If you have any more to tell." "I am going no further on that tack. You must come about." "I suppose," said Dolly quaintly, "I must if you must." "We were getting too far to leeward. We must come up into the wind a little more, Dolly, and face our difficulties. I think I have found the way out of them. As I understand you, it is quite a matter of uncertainty when, or if ever, Mr. Copley can be induced to leave England." "Quite uncertain. Even if he promised to-day that he would go next week, I could not be sure but he would change his mind before the day came." "And so long as he and your mother are here, they need you. Do you see, Dolly, what prospect that opens to us?" "Yes." "The only thing to do, is to give me a right to speak in the matter." "You have a right to speak," said Dolly. "Only"---- "I have no right to speak with authority. You must give me the authority." "How?" said Dolly shyly. "There is but one way. Don't you see, if I have the right to say where you shall be, the rest all follows?" "How can you?" said Dolly. He took her hand gently. "You must marry me before I go," said he. "It is the only way, Dolly. Don't be startled; you shall have all the time you want to get accustomed to the thought. I am not going to hurry you. The only difference is, that instead of being married the day I get to you in America, we will have the ceremony performed here, the day I leave you. Not till then, Dolly. But then, of course, you must go to America to meet me; and if I know anything of Mr. and Mrs. Copley, where you must be, they will choose to be also. I think I can get another week or two of leave, so that it will not seem so very sudden." Dolly had flushed and paled a little. She sat looking on the ground in silence. Mr. Shubrick let her have a while to herself, and then asked her what she thought of his plan? "I don't know," said Dolly faintly. "I mean," she added,--"perhaps it is the best way. I don't know but it is the only way. I don't believe mother will like it." "We will talk her over," said the young officer joyfully. "You said _she_ wishes to go home?" "Oh yes. And I think she will come over to our side, when she knows the reasons." Sandie bent down and reverently kissed the hand he held. "Then"---- said Dolly, on whose cheek the flushes were coming and going,--but she did not finish her sentence. "Then, what?" "I was thinking to ask, how soon or when you expect your ship to go home?" "I do not know certainly. Probably I shall be ordered home before Christmas; but it may not be till January." Dolly was silent again. "If our plan is carried out, _you_ will go sooner, will you not?" "Oh, immediately. As soon as possible." "In that case you will be there before I shall. I told you, I have nobody very nearly belonging to me; but there is a cousin--a sort of cousin--living in the place; Mrs. Armitage; I will send her word to open the house and get it in some sort of order for us." Both were silent again for a space, and I think not only one was happy. For Dolly knew the plan would work. But she was struggling besides with a thought which she wanted, and did not want, to speak. It must come out! or Dolly would not have been Dolly. "Mr. Shubrick"---- she began. "What?" said he eagerly; for Dolly's tone showed that there was a good deal behind it. "Would you--I was thinking"---- "About what?" "The house. Would you--trust _me?_ I mean, of course, if we are there before you?" A flood of colour rushed over Dolly's face. "Trust you?" he said with a bright light in his eyes. "What am I going to do all my life? Trust you to put your own house in order? I cannot think of anything I should like quite so well. What a delightful thought, Dolly!" "I should like it," said Dolly shyly. "Then, instead of writing to Mrs. Armitage to open the house, I will send her an order to deliver the key to Mrs. Shubrick." He liked to watch how the colour flitted on her face, and the lines of brow and lip varied; how she fluttered like a caught bird, and yet a bird that did not want to fly away. Dolly was frank enough; there was nothing affected, or often even conscious, about this shy play; it was the purest nature in sweetest manifestation. Shyness was something Dolly had never been guilty of with anybody but Mr. Shubrick; it was an involuntary tribute she constantly paid to him. CHAPTER XXXVI. THIS PICTURE AND THAT. The plan worked, as Dolly had known from the first, that it would. Mrs. Copley came into it, and then Mr. Copley could not resist. It only grieved Mrs. Copley's heart that there should be, as she said, no wedding. "Might as well be married in a barn!" she said. The barn-like effect was a little taken off by Lord and Lady Brierley's presence at the ceremony, which to be sure was performed in no barn, but the pretty village church; and by the breakfast given to Dolly thereafter at the great house. This was not what Dolly or Mr. Shubrick had desired. It came about on this wise. Dolly went to pay a farewell visit of thanks to Lady Brierley and to her good friend the housekeeper. Sandie accompanied her. Now, Mr. Shubrick was one of those persons who make their way in all companies. Lady Brierley, talking to Dolly, eyed the while the figure of the young officer, his face, and his fine, quiet, frank manners; watched him talking with her husband, who happened to come in; and also caught with her practised eye a glance or two of Dolly's. Dolly, be it remarked, was not shy here; before her noble friends, she neither flushed nor trembled nor was nervous. But Lady Brierley saw how things were. "So," said her ladyship at last, when Dolly was about taking leave,--"you have not told me, but I know it,--you are going home to get married!" "That would seem to be the natural order of things," said Sandie, as Dolly was not immediately ready with her answer; "but we are going to reverse the terms. We are purposing to be married first and then go home." The lady looked at him with a curious mixture of expressions; it was too early in the century then for an officer of the American navy to be altogether a pleasant sight to the eyes of an Englishwoman; at the same time, she could not wholly withhold her liking from this young officer's fine looks and manly bearing. She turned to Dolly again. "I hope you are going to ask me to your wedding," she said. "When is it to be, Dolly?" "My mother thinks it does not deserve to be called a wedding," said Dolly, dimpling and growing rosy. "I should not have ventured to ask your ladyship. But if you are so kind--it is to be on the morning of the 10th--very early in the morning, for Mr. Shubrick has to set off that day to rejoin his ship." "I'll get up by daybreak," said her ladyship, arching her brows, "if it is necessary. And you will come here from the church and have breakfast with me, will you? It would be a great pleasure to me." So it had been arranged; and, as I said, Mrs. Copley had been a good deal comforted by the means. Lady Brierley's breakfast was beautiful; she had caused her rooms to be dressed with flowers in Dolly's honour; the company was small, but the more harmonious; and the presents given to Dolly were very handsome. And now there is nothing more to do, but to give two pictures; and even for them there is hardly room. The scene of the first, is a house in Harley Street, London. It is an excellent house, and just new furnished and put in cap-a-pie order from top to bottom. In the drawing-room a group of people taking a general survey. One of them a very handsome young man, in unexceptionable style, waiting upon two ladies; a beauty, and the beauty's mother. Things in the house meet approval. "I think it is perfect," said Mrs. Thayer. "Just perfect. The man has done his work very well." She was referring to the upholsterer, and at the moment looking at the window curtains. "Isn't that a lovely tint of French grey?" said Christina, "and the blue fringe is the right thing for it. I think the folds are a little too full--but it is a good fault. It is all right, I believe. I do like a drawing-room with no fault in it, no eye-sore." "There could hardly be any fault in the work of Hans and Piccalilly," remarked St. Leger. "Oh, I don't know, Lawrence," said the young lady. "Didn't they do the Fortescues' house? and the drawing-room is in white and gold; very pretty in itself, but just think how it will set off all those florid people. A bunch of peonies on a white ground!" Lawrence laughed. "_You_ can bear anything," he said. "But blue suits you." "It's just perfect," Mrs. Thayer repeated. "I see nothing to find fault with. Yes, Christina can bear anything and wear anything. It saves a great deal of trouble. When I was a girl I had a different complexion. I wasn't a peony, but I _was_ a rose--not a white rose; and anything shading on red I could not wear; not purple, nor claret, nor even ashes of roses. It was a regular perplexity, to get variety enough with the small number of shades at my disposal; for orange did not become me, either. Well, I can wear anything now, too," she added with a half laugh. "And it is nothing to anybody." "Mamma, you know better than that," said Christina. "Now," said Lawrence, "the question is, when shall we take possession? The house is all ready for us." "There is no use in taking possession till we are ready to keep it; and it would be dull to stay in town all winter, wouldn't it?" said Christina. "Whatever should we do?" "Very dull," said Mrs. Thayer. "It is a long while yet before the season begins. Better be anywhere else." "I was thinking of Brighton," said Christina. "I think I should like that." "After the Peacocks," said Lawrence. "We are due there, you know, for a visit." "Oh, after the Peacocks, of course. But then,--do you think, Lawrence, we could do anything better than go to Brighton? Till the season opens?" Brighton quite met Mr. St. Leger's views of what was desirable. It was a month or two later, as it happened, that another house was undergoing inspection, a house at a very great distance from Harley Street, geographically and otherwise; but let the reader judge. This was a country house in a fair New England village; where there was land enough for everybody, and everybody had land, and in consequence the habitations of men were individually, as the habitations of men should be, surrounded with grass and trees and fields; the very external arrangements of the place giving thereby a type of the free and independent life and wide space for mental and characteristic development enjoyed by the inhabitants. The particular house in question was not outwardly remarkable above many others; it stood in a fair level piece of ground, shaded and surrounded with beautiful old American elms. The inspectors of the same were two ladies. Dolly had come to the village a week or two before. Mr. Copley was not just then in condition to be left alone; so as her mother could not be with her, she had summoned her dear Aunt Hal, from Philadelphia; and Mr. Eberstein would not be left behind. All three they had come to this place, found quarters at the inn, and since then Dolly and Mrs. Eberstein had been very busy getting the house cleaned and put in order. The outside, as I said, gave promise of nothing remarkable; Dolly had been the more surprised and pleased to find the interior extremely pleasant and not commonplace. Rooms were large and airy; picturesquely arranged; and furnished, at least in part, in a style for which she had not been at all prepared. The house had been for a long stretch of years in the possession of a family, not wealthy, but well to do, and cultivated; and furthermore, several of the members of it at different times had been seafaring; and, as happens in such cases, there had been brought home from foreign parts a small multitude of objects of art or convenience which bore witness to distant industries and fashions. India mats of fine quality were on some of the floors; India hangings at some of the windows; beautiful china was found to be in quantity, both of useful and ornamental kinds. Little lacquered tables; others of curious inlaid work; bamboo chairs; Chinese screens and fans; and I know not what all besides. Dolly and Mrs. Eberstein reviewed these articles with great interest and admiration; they gave the house, simple as it was, an air of elegance which its exterior quite forbade one to look for. At the same time, some other necessary things were wanting, or worn. The carpet in what Dolly called the drawing-room was one of these instances. It was very much the worse for wear. Dolly and her aunt went carefully over everything; adjusting, supplying, arranging, here and there; Dolly getting a number of small presents by the way, and a few that were not small. At last Mr. Eberstein sent in a fine carpet for the drawing-room; and Dolly would not have it put down. "Not till Mr. Shubrick comes," she said. "Why not, my dear? this is threadbare," her aunt pleaded. "Aunt Hal, I should not like to give the room a strange look. He may have associations with this old carpet, for anything I know." "Men do not have 'associations' with things," said Mrs. Eberstein. "Some men do, and perhaps he is one of them. At any rate, I want the house to look like home to him when he comes. I'll put down the carpet afterwards, if he likes it." "I am afraid you are going to spoil him, Dolly," said Mrs. Eberstein, shaking her head. "I hope he is worthy of it all. But don't spoil him!" "He is much more likely to spoil me, Aunt Hal." "Spoil _you!_" exclaimed her aunt indignantly. "What do you know about it? O Dolly, Dolly! I hope you have got the right man!" At which, however, Dolly showed all her dimples, and laughed so comically that Mrs. Eberstein, right or wrong, was obliged to laugh with her. Mr. Copley had once said a true thing about his daughter; that if she married Mr. St. Leger she would be devoted to him. "If"--yes, so she would. And being now married to somebody else, Dolly was a very incarnation of loyalty to her husband. Alas, many another woman has trusted so, on less grounds, and made shipwreck; but Dolly's faith was well founded, and there was no shipwreck in store for her. So the day came when all was in readiness, and the two ladies took a satisfied review of their work. It was the day when Mr. Shubrick was looked for home. The "Red Chief" had arrived in port; and Sandie had written that by the evening of this day he hoped to be at home. Everything was in order; fires were lighted; a servant installed below stairs; supper prepared; nothing left to be done anywhere. Dolly had seen to the supper carefully herself; indeed, for a day or two there had been some very thoughtful cooking and baking going on; which Mrs. Eberstein had watched with great interest, some amusement, and ever so little a bit of jealousy. "Is Mr. Shubrick a difficult man to please?" she demanded. "How can I tell?" said Dolly. "I have only seen him in our house, not in his own. He did not scold there; but how do I know what he may do here?" "Scold!" repeated Mrs. Eberstein. "Dolly, I believe it would rouse all the wickedness there is in me, if anybody should scold _you!_" Dolly flushed rosily, and then she fairly laughed out. "I will tell you a secret, Aunt Hal," she said. "I don't mean that in this matter, at least, he shall find any occasion." So the supper was ready, and the table was set, and fires were bright. Mrs. Eberstein stayed with Dolly till the evening began to fall, and then went back to the inn; averring that she would not for the universe be found in Mr. Shubrick's house when he came. Dolly stood at the window and watched her aunt's dark figure moving down to the gate, and then still stood at the window watching. It was all snow stillness outside. There was a faint moonlight, which glistened on the white ground and bare elm branches. A few inches of snow had fallen the day before; the sun had thawed the surface slightly, and then it had frozen in a glittering smooth crust. It was still outside as only leafless winter can be, when there are no wings to flutter, or streams to trickle, or chirrup of insects to break the calm. Not a footfall, not a sleigh bell; not another light in sight, but only the moon. Anybody in the road might have seen another light,--that which came from Dolly's windows. She had been hard to suit about her arrangements; she would not have candles lit, for she did not wish an illumination that might make the interior visible to a chance passer-by; and yet she would not have the shutters shut, for the master of the house coming home must read his welcome from afar in rays of greeting from the windows. So she made up the fires and left the curtains open; and ruddy firelight streamed out upon the snow. It was bright enough to have revealed Dolly herself, only that the house stood back some distance from the road. Dolly watched and listened a while; then crossed the hall to the room on the other side, from the windows of which a like glow shone out. The fire was in order; the table stood ready. Dolly went back again. It was so still outside, as if Sandie never would come. She listened with her heart beating hard and fast. For an hour and a half, perhaps; and then she heard the tinkle of sleigh bells. They might be somebody else's. But they came nearer, and very near, and stopped; only Dolly heard a mixed jangle of the bells, as if the horse had thrown his head up and given a confused shake to them all. The next thing was the gate falling to, and a step crunching the crisp snow. Then the house door opened with no preliminary knock; and somebody was throwing off wraps in the hall. Dolly had made a step or two forward, and stopped; and when Sandie appeared on the threshold, she was standing in the middle of the room, as pretty a picture of shy joy as a man need wish to see in his heart or his house. If Mrs. Eberstein could have been there and watched his greeting of her, the lady's doubts respecting his being "the right man" would perhaps have been solved. But after the first hasty word or two, it was very silent. "Dolly," Mr. Shubrick said at last. And there he stopped; nothing followed. "What were you going to say?" Dolly whispered. "So much, that I do not know how to begin. I cannot get hold of the end of anything. Are you not going to let me see your eyes? I do not know where I am, till I get a look into them." He smiled a moment after; for, although shyly and fleetingly, the brown eyes were lifted for a brief glance to his. What a sweet, tender simpleness was in them, and yet what a womanly, thoughtful brow was above them; and, yes, Sandie read somewhat else that a man likes to read; a fealty of love to him that would never fail. It went to his heart. But he saw too that Dolly's colour had left her cheeks, though at first they were rosy enough; and in the lines of her face generally and the quiver of her lip he could see that the nervous tension was somewhat too much. He must lead off to commoner subjects. "Who is here with you?" "Nobody." "You do not mean that you are _alone_ here, Dolly?" "No. Oh no. I mean, nobody in the house. Aunt Harry and Uncle Ned are at Baxter's. Aunt Harry only left me an hour or two ago, when it was time to expect you." "It was very kind of her to leave you!" said Sandie frankly. "We have been here a fortnight. When I found I could not have mother, I wrote to Aunt Hal; and she came." "What was the matter with your mother?" Dolly half unwound herself from the arms that held her, and turned her face away. She was trying to choke something down that threatened to stop her speech. "Father"---- "What of him?" said Sandie with a grave change of tone. "I am not sorry," said Dolly. "But, oh! to think that I should not be sorry!" She covered her face. Sandie was silent, waiting and wondering. It could not be Mr. Copley's death that was in question; but what then could it be? He waited, to let Dolly take her own time. Neither did he have to wait long. "You remember," she began, still with her face turned away,--"you remember what I told you one day in Brierley Park--about father?" "Certainly I remember." "You understood me?" "Yes, I think so." "Then you knew that I was--very anxious"--Dolly caught her breath--"about what might come? Oh, it is not treason for me to talk to you about it--now!" cried Dolly. "It is not treason for you to tell me anything," said Mr. Shubrick, drawing her again closer, though Dolly kept her face bent down out of his sight. "Treason and you have nothing in common. What is it?" "I told you, I knew there was no safety," she said, making a quick motion of her hand over her eyes. "I hoped things would be better over here, away from those people that led him the wrong way; and they _were_ better; it was like old times; still I knew there was no safety. And now--he is taken care of," she said with a tremble of her lip which spoke of strong pain, strongly kept down. "He went to see some new fine machinery in somebody's mill. Somehow, by some carelessness, his coat got caught in the machinery; and before the works could be stopped his leg was--fearfully broken." Dolly spoke with difficulty and making great effort to master her agitation. The arms that held her felt how she was quivering all over. "When, Dolly? When did this happen?" "Soon after we came home. It is six weeks ago now." "How is your father now?" "Doing very well; getting cured slowly. But he will never walk again without--support. Oh, do you see how I am so sorry and glad together? Isn't it dreadful, that I should be glad?" She looked up now, for she would not distress Mr. Shubrick by giving way to the tears which would have been a relief to herself. She looked up with such a face! the eyes shining through tears, the mouth trembling with a smile; sunshine and rain all in one glitter. "And _that_ is the way he has been taken care of!" she said. Mr. Shubrick stooped his face gently to hers with a mute, caressing motion, leaving her time to get rid of those encumbering tears or to shed more of them; waiting till the tremor subsided a little. Soon Dolly spoke again. "It has been such a weight on me--oh, such a weight! I could hardly bear it sometimes. And now--this is better." "Yes," he said. "You had to know of it. I was very sorry!" "Sorry that I should know?" "Oh yes, yes! Sorry and ashamed. Sorry for you, too." Dolly's trembling was excessive. "Hush!" said Sandie softly. "What is yours is mine; sorrow and joy together. I think I had better go and take up my old office of nurse again." "Oh," said Dolly, starting, and a glad tone coming into her voice, "would you? How he would like that!" "It must have been a little hard for them both to have you come away just now. I think we will go and comfort them up, Dolly." "You are very, very good!" said Dolly, with her eyes glistening, and speaking from hearty conviction. "Whom are you talking to? I have not heard my name yet." "I have not got accustomed to you yet, you know," Dolly said with a little nervous laugh. "Besides,--I never did." "Never did what?" "I never called you anything but--Mr. Shubrick." "Christina did." "Poor Christina!" said Dolly. "Why?" said the other merrily. "She is the rich Mrs. St. Leger; why do you say 'Poor Christina'?" "I am afraid I have come between her and happiness," Dolly said, blushing frankly. "You have no occasion to say that," Sandie said, laughing. "She has got what she wanted. There was a terrible danger that she might have come between _me_ and happiness. But for her--I am not at all sure that she would have been happy with me." "I remember," said Dolly, "she told me one time, she knew she would not '_have her head_' so much, if she were once married to you." "She would not have approved my old house, either," said Sandie contentedly, letting Dolly go that he might put up the fire, which had tumbled down, after the fashion of wood fires. "She might have liked it," Dolly answered. "You do?" "Oh, very much! Aunt Hal and I think it is charming. And it is full of lovely things." "Wants a new carpet, I should say," said Sandie, eyeing the threadbare one under his feet, which Mrs. Eberstein had objected to. "There!" said Dolly. "Aunt Hal said you would never know what was on the floor. I told her she was mistaken." "What gave her such a poor opinion of my eyesight?" "Oh, nothing, it was not of your _eyesight_, I don't know, unless she thinks that is the way with men in general. Uncle Ned had brought me a present of a beautiful new carpet for this room, and Aunt Harry wanted me to have it put down; but I wouldn't until I knew whether you would like it." "Whether I would like it!" Sandie repeated, rather opening his eyes. "I should think the question was, whether _you_ would like it. I like new carpets." "I did not know but you might have some affection for this old one," said Dolly. "I did not want to change the look of the room before you came, so that it would not seem like home. Aunt Harry said I would spoil you." "What did you answer to that?" "I said it was more likely you would spoil me," said Dolly, dimpling up and flushing. "Do you think I will?" said Sandie, taking her hand and drawing her up to him. Dolly hesitated, flushed and dimpled more, and answered, however, a frank "No." "Why?" was the quick next question. "You ask too many things," said Dolly. "Don't you want something to eat?" "No, not at all!--Yes." "I thought so," said Dolly, laughing. "Come, then." She put her hand in his and led him across the broad hall to the dining-room. And during the next hour Sandie might have recurred with reason to his late remark; that Christina had been near coming between him and happiness. The careless luxury of her way of entertaining him, was in strongest contrast to the sweet, thoughtful, delicate housewifery of his wife. It was a constant pleasure to watch her. Tea-making, in her hands, was a nice art; her fingers were deft to cut bread; and whenever the hands approached him, whether it were to give a cup of tea or to render some other ministry, it was with an indescribable shyness and carefulness at once, which was wholly bewitching. Sandie was hungry, no doubt; but his feast was mental that night, and exquisite. Meanwhile, he talked. He gave Dolly details of his voyage home, which had been stormy; got from her a full account of the weeks since she had set foot on American ground; and finally informed her that his having a ship was certain, and in the near future. "Poor Christina!" said Dolly. "Hush!" said he, laughing and drawing her with him back into the other room; "you shall not say that again. Would you like to go to Washington? The probability is that you will have to go." "Anywhere," said Dolly. They stood silently before the fire for a few minutes; then Mr. Shubrick turned to her with a change of tone. "Why did you think I would not spoil you?" She was held fast, she could not run away; he was bending down to look in her face, she could not hide it. Dolly's breath came short. There was so much in the tone of his words that stirred her. Besides, the answer--what came at last was-- "Sandie, you know you wouldn't!" "Reasons?" "Oh!--reasons." "Yes. I want to know the reasons, Dolly." In her desperation Dolly looked up, one good glance of her brown eyes; then she hid her face. I think Sandie was satisfied, for he asked no more. "Yes," he said presently. "I love you too well, and you love me too well. We will try to help each other up; not down. Dolly, I would not spoil you for the whole world! and I do not believe I could if I tried." The lady from whom this story comes, remembers having seen Mrs. Shubrick when she was a beautiful old lady. Then and all her life she wore her cable watch-chain. THE END. Typographical errors silently corrected: Chapter 1: =if they don't know Him= replaced by =if they don't know him= Chapter 3: ='The sails are said= replaced by =The sails are said= Chapter 4: =what strange shapes:= replaced by =what strange shapes;= Chapter 4: =unschoolgirl-like;= replaced by =unschoolgirl-like,= Chapter 6: =for calculation,= replaced by =for calculation;= Chapter 10: =all her beauty she= replaced by =all her beauty, she= Chapter 10: =pay my gardener.= replaced by =pay my gardener."= Chapter 11: =old-fashioned flowers showed= replaced by =old-fashioned flowers, showed= Chapter 18: =with it. I should= replaced by =with it, I should= Chapter 18: =No" said Rupert= replaced by =No," said Rupert= Chapter 20: =If Lawrence, had= replaced by =If Lawrence had= Chapter 22: =there by interpreting= replaced by =there, by interpreting= Chapter 22: =to him, Dolly= replaced by =to Him, Dolly= Chapter 23: =in thee.--I am= replaced by =in thee.'--I am= Chapter 25: =and he cometh.= replaced by =and he cometh.'= Chapter 25: ="Though people do= replaced by ="though people do= Chapter 26: =ways, of private= replaced by =ways of private= Chapter 28: =hateth you."= replaced by =hateth you.'"=