MARIOfl HARLAND'S WORKS. 
 
 1. ALONE. 
 
 2. HIDDEN PATH. 
 
 8. MOSS SIDE. 
 
 4. NEMESIS. 
 
 6. MIRIAM. 
 
 6. THE EICTTY HEART. 
 
 7. HELEN GARDNER. 
 
 8. 8UNNYBANK. 
 
 9. HUSBANDS AND HOMES. 
 10. KUBY'8 HUSBAND. 
 11. PHEMIE'S TEMPTATION. 
 
 12. AT LAST. 
 
 13. TKUE AS STEEL. 
 
 14. JESSAMINE. 
 
 15. FROM MY YOUTH UP. 
 
 16. MY LITTLE LOVE. (New.) 
 
 "The Novels of Marion Harland are of surpassing ex- 
 cellence. By intrinsic power of character-draw- 
 ing and descriptive facility, they hold 
 the reader's attention with the 
 most intense interest 
 and fascination." 
 
 All published uniform with this volume. Price f 1.60 
 each, and sent free by mail, on receipt of price, 
 
 BY 
 
 G. W. CARLETON Jk CO., 
 New York.
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 
 
 BY 
 
 MARION HARLAND, 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 
 "ALONE," "HIDDEN PATH," "MOSS-SIDE," "NEMESIS," "MIRIAM," 
 
 "AT LAST," "TRUE AS STEEL," "JESSAMINE," 
 
 "FROM MY YOUTH UP," ETC., ETC. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 G. W. Carle fan & Co., Publishers. 
 
 LONDON: S. LOW & CO. 
 MDCCCLXXVI.
 
 COPYRIGHTED, 1876, BY 
 G. W. CARLETON & CO. 
 
 JOHN F. TROW & SON, 
 
 PRINTERS AND S TEKKOTYPKRS, 
 
 205-213 Kast I2//4 St., 
 
 NEW YORK.
 
 TO THE MEMORY 
 
 OF 
 
 "THE SWEETEST SOUL 
 THAT EVER LOOKED WITH HUMAN EYES." 
 
 MARION HARLAND. 
 
 2072323
 
 "You could hardly have seen her face thoroughly meeting yours 
 without believing that human creatures had done nobly in times 
 past, and might do more nobly in times to come. The finest 
 child-faces have this consecrating power, and make us shudder 
 anew at all the grossness and basely-wrought griefs of the world, 
 lest they should enter here and defile." 
 
 GEORGE ELIOT (Daniel Deronda).
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 !._ There's Sand now ! " 1 1 
 
 II. Ailsie Darling 27 
 
 III. Rain upon the Roof 44 
 
 IV. "Papa!" 62 
 
 V. Headache and Diplomacy 83 
 
 VI. How the Old Tree Fell 95 
 
 VII. Troth-plight 107 
 
 VI 1 1. Hasheesh 122 
 
 IX. In Clover 142 
 
 X. Robin Adair 157 
 
 XI. (Fool's) Paradise Lost 170 
 
 XII." The Nine Column " 181 
 
 XIII. Comforted 197 
 
 XIV. Blessed St. Valentine 223 
 
 XV. Home 231 
 
 XVI. The Memorial Pine 251 
 
 XVII. How One Promise was kept 270 
 
 XVIII. Witch-hazel 287 
 
 XIX. My Oriole 300 
 
 XX In the Woods 320 
 
 XXI. "Good-bye, Sweetheart" 331 
 
 XXII." Withered " 343 
 
 XXIII. " Pulling through " 355 
 
 XXIV. The Winter Robin 371 
 
 XXV." At Six O'clock this Morning " 385
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 "THERE'S SAND NOW!" 
 
 ? ENT to the country to recover his health ! " 
 
 It was stamped all over me as legibly as if I 
 had been hung with painted canvas, white ground, 
 black lettered, like the animated sign-boards one 
 meets on city streets automata who have sold the 
 birthright of manhood for five cents an hour and the 
 moral privilege of making known to curious and loath- 
 ing spectators the virtues and price of " Detersive 
 Soap " and " Balm of a Million Flowers." 
 
 Very white as to face, very black as to eyebrows 
 and hair and sunken eyes, a mere bundle of long-drawn-out 
 bones and lax sinews, indifferent, in the main, about the pre- 
 servation in any circumstances of the scanty remains of vi- 
 tality spared by the six weeks of fever from which I had just 
 escaped with what people were pleased to call life yet pre- 
 ferring, if the matter were left to me, to scrape together the 
 wrecks anywhere else than just where I found myself on a
 
 12 MY LITTLE L O VE. 
 
 certain tenth of June, when I recollected that I was twenty- 
 one years old. 
 
 The date was recalled to me in this wise : 
 
 " Deary me ! " said the grand-dame of the farm-house to 
 which I had been consigned during my supposed convales- 
 cence. " A Wednesday mornin', and the tenth day of June, 
 in the year of our Lord, Anner Dominy ain't it? We was 
 married yer Pa 'n' me, fifty-seven year ago this very arter- 
 noon, Ezry. It don't 'pear as if it could 'a been. Peace ! 
 peace ! when there's no peace ! And him a-lyin' in his grave 
 in the churchyard, with a black slate stun at his head, this 
 twenty year, poor man 1 It's fa'r tuk away my appertite not 
 to say that I had much to start with ! " 
 
 She pushed away the bowl of "rye 'n' Injun bread" 
 soaked in milk, which she affected, she was careful to inform 
 me at each meal, " because she hadn't no teeth to speak of." 
 Truth to say, I should have been better satisfied had her 
 want of these troublesome yet useful appliances been passed 
 over in silence as discreet. 
 
 I also had had no appetite to begin with, nor found aught 
 provocative of zest in the salt herrings and stale bread, white 
 and brown, the weak, over-sweetened coffee and cold boiled 
 potatoes that composed the regulation morning meal. In- 
 creased disrelish, and of a more decided tvpe, seized upon 
 palate and diaphragm at the crone's speech. 
 
 It was my birthday. I had attained my majority, speaking 
 after the manner of men. Legally I was free, because white 
 and twenty-one. I could even and I descried grim pleas-
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 13 
 
 antry in the reflection make a will, if I liked, and had any- 
 thing worth the trouble of bequeathing over my hand and 
 seal ; might, in lawful seriousness, call all men to witness by 
 these presents, that I was of sound mind, with as many other 
 involvements of words and as royal disregard of sense as 
 might suit my whim. I was the Benjamin of my tribe, yet 
 neither brother, sister, nor my twice-wedded father had recol- 
 lected what anniversary this was, or, if it were remembered, 
 had cared to recognize it by written word or token. I was 
 too weary and dull to be hurt by the omission. A sense of 
 greater fatigue and of physical nausea moved me to mutter 
 an excuse to the mistress of the board. 
 
 " Very excusable, Mr. Haye ! " responded she, with an in- 
 clination of her sheet-iron figure. 
 
 Mrs. Ezra Gaskin prided herself upon an experimental ac- 
 quaintance with the essential rules and forms of good soci- 
 ety, country-bred though she was. Her phrase of acquies- 
 cence was " altogether the thing." She could not have 
 respected herself had she failed to use it in the circum- 
 stances. 
 
 I made my way out of the apartment, half kitchen, half 
 dining-room, where the breakfast-table was spread, into the 
 porch beyond. Standing in the doorway of this, which was 
 rankly overrun by old-fashioned " Matrimony-vine," I did 
 not avoid hearing the farmer's comment upon my retreat. 
 
 "He hain't got no stomach for hullsome victuals. I 
 minded yisterday, 'Liza, that he went raal white about the 
 gills over your biled dinner, what was good enough for a
 
 14 M Y LITTLE L O VE. 
 
 king. I could swallow a biled dinner if I lay at death's 
 door. I guess there warn't never much peth into him, even 
 when he was well." 
 
 I did not take the trouble to contradict him. What 
 difference did it make, since the pith was missing from 
 the frame that tottered down the hill, with queerly 
 overlapping ankles to hide itself like other spent animals 
 in the woods that I had been, within four months, the best 
 wrestler and leaper in rny college, and prided myself upon 
 the length of limb that made me so often victor in skating 
 and foot-races ? 
 
 I was utterly fagged out by the time I gained the shelter 
 of the maple-grove I had marked from my chamber-window 
 as a place where I might be left to myself and the misery 
 of my good-for-nothingness. It was fully a quarter of a mile 
 from the farm-house, and I had not walked so far since my 
 illness. The ground sloped prettily beyond the maples, 
 cedars, white birches, and beeches taking their place. The 
 undergrowth thickened into wildness toward the bottom of 
 the hill, and, blent with the rustle of the leaves, I heard the 
 ripple of water. I was always thirsty, then-a-days. My 
 throat and mouth were drier and hotter for the sound that 
 conjured up the vision of a gleaming, dancing brook. Sliding 
 and stumbling, stopping twice to rest, I went down, down 
 over slippery leaf-mould and mossy rocks, until I stood upon 
 the brink of a shallow stream, so broad that the sun broke 
 for itself a path between the foliage lining the banks, and 
 glittered upon the gravel under the brown water. I scooped
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 15 
 
 up tremulous handfuls of the liquid, spilling much of it on 
 the way to my mouth, and pitying myself for losing it. 
 
 I was sorry for myself, continually, the while I despised 
 ithe unmanly emotion. Sorry not that I was losing time 
 from my studies, and forfeiting the opportunity of gaining 
 the class-honor I had resolved to win, before the pith was 
 taken out of me ; not that my healthy relatives had not con- 
 cerned themselves more evidently about my recovery and 
 had taken no heed of my loss of spirits ; but sadly compas- 
 sionate for one with whom active feeling of whatever kind 
 was no longer possible, for whom the lights and shadows of 
 life had run into one dreary middle-tint. Sorrier than for all 
 else that I was " so tired ! " Not in body alone, but, as I 
 phrased it, " tired all through." 
 
 I sat down upon a rock at the root of a tree, leaned against 
 the trunk, and repeated aloud the sentence that stands at 
 the head of this chapter : 
 
 " Sent to the country to recover his health ! " 
 
 I laughed. My excellent father had unwittingly perpetrated 
 a ghastly practical joke. There might have been a chance 
 of revivification in the city, where the very air was instinct 
 with the electric stir of human life. Here, the only luxuri- 
 ance was vegetable. There, in time, my spirit might have 
 rallied to the thought that existence was worth the keeping, 
 where it brought so much that others, sane in body and mind, 
 sought and prized. Here, one had only to sit still and let 
 himself be drifted out of being into the dim Silence about 
 which I could not take the trouble to speculate, except to
 
 1 6 M Y LITTLE L O VE. 
 
 hope that in dreamless sleep I might be rid of the conscious- 
 ness of tired self. I sat all huddled together, my lank hands 
 crossed below my knees, which were drawn up to support my 
 chin, and, because the sun's track a-down the brook was 
 dazzling from its bright unsteadiness, I shut my eyes the 
 better to commiserate myself. I was incapable of a con- 
 nected line of thought, yet my memory strayed back liter- 
 ally strayed, for I made no effort to control it to the mo- 
 notonous plaint of a young girl I had helped drag from the 
 trampling hoofs of a runaway team in the street, the winter 
 before my sickness. I held her head while we bore into the 
 nearest druggist's the mangled thing that had been erect and 
 well, sixty seconds ago, and stayed by her until a physician 
 arrived. Ten minutes may have elapsed while I knelt by the 
 lounge, wiping the blood and sweat from the drawn face that 
 must have been pretty before it was so pale. It was like a 
 half-a-day to me, and in all that time she said nothing but 
 " Poor me ! poor me ! " over and over and over, until my 
 brain rang with the hearing. I had read, too, as a neat bit 
 of French pathos, the story of Madame de Stael's consump- 
 tive niece and her tearful " Je me regrette / " It was some- 
 thing to regret the loss of the desire to live, if only because 
 it presupposed the ruin of so much else. 
 
 " I am a wreck past rehabilitation," I said, with a very 
 faint tincture of bitterness in the decision. " And I don't 
 care ! " 
 
 The clear brown water rippled through the grasses and 
 tinkled over the gravel ; the beeches and birches whispered
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 1 7 
 
 among themselves, and a lonely pine behind me sighed in 
 the dreamy summer air. A robin chirped near by, and a 
 crow cawed afar off. 
 
 " I have only to let go of sight, hearing, and breath, and 
 drift out, drift out ! " ran my thoughts to the rhythmic flow 
 of the stream, gliding down to the unknown river in the low- 
 lands. 
 
 " Dying must be easier work than living when one's vital 
 apparatus was so badly damaged," I meditated further, still 
 with no liveliness of curiosity. " What was the precise nature 
 of the sensation of letting go ? How much more feebly and 
 sluggishly must the thin current in my wrists run before the 
 veins were empty ? And the heart, would it stagnate gradu- 
 ally, or the beat of the arterial pump be checked in mid-leap ?" 
 Finally, I wondered, if anything more were needed to end 
 the pitiful playing at living, than to stop doing at all to give 
 up and be drifted out. I invariably came back to that. 
 
 I did not start, as some invalids would have done, at a 
 splash and spatter in the stream. My nerves seemed too 
 weak to be irritable. But my fingers held my knees harder, 
 and my eyelids parted in time to see the eddies close upon 
 the stone that had fallen midway between the two banks. 
 With a sense of languid annoyance, I exerted myself so far 
 as to turn my head and look for the intruder. 
 
 A little girl stood upon a flat stone surrounded by water, 
 lying about a yard from the hither shore. Her left hand was 
 filled with pebbles, and these she proceeded to fling, with ex- 
 treme deliberation and unfeminine dexterity as far as she
 
 1 8 MY LITTLE LOVE. 
 
 could into the brook, waiting until the circle made by each 
 had " dispersed itself to nought," before tossing in another. 
 Every throw was made with the forecast of a philosopher, 
 not with the reckless hilarity of the mere baby she looked 
 to be. When both hands were emptied, she stood perfectly 
 still, her fingers interlocked, still watching the gliding 
 water. 
 
 At last she stooped as if impelled by a resistless temptation, 
 gathering her frock about her that it might not dip in the 
 stream, and made as if she would gather a handful of the 
 shining gravel strewn about the base of the stone, and barely 
 covered by the ripples. She leaned over so far that I ex- 
 pected to see her lose her balance, and undid the loose 
 knot of legs and hands in readiness for the rescue should the 
 accident occur. In another second she stood upright again, 
 brushing the water from her finger-tips. Putting her hands 
 behind her back, she remained stationary as before, gazing 
 down upon the sungilt gravel-bed. 
 
 The grave wistfulness of the face now turned toward me 
 interested me sufficiently to fix my attention upon her move- 
 ments, and to keep me motionless in my covert of hazel 
 bushes that she might not be frightened away by the dis- 
 covery that she was not alone. She was, I judged, between 
 six and seven years old; straight as a reed, with well-rounded 
 figure and limbs, an oval face and brunette complexion, set 
 off by a pink muslin frock and white apron. Her hair, dark 
 and thick, was combed back from her forehead and bound 
 with pink ribbon. Her hands, although tanned like a gyp-
 
 LITTLE LOVE. 19 
 
 sey's, were beautifully formed. She was no rustic, or forest 
 child, I concluded promptly after a study of these " points," 
 simple as was her dress and at home though she seemed on 
 the border of the woodland stream. Nor was my mental 
 query in watching her "What is she looking at?" but, 
 "What is she thinking. of?" 
 
 The inharmonious cry of a cat-bird in the tree against 
 which I leaned severed the chain of abstraction. She glanced 
 around and saw me. A blush swept up to her hair, lighting 
 the dark cheeks richly; then she bowed with serious tranquil 
 grace that surprised me more than her appearance had ; 
 bounded lightly back to the bank, walked directly up to me, 
 and offered her hand. 
 
 " Good-morning, sir ! I hope you are better." 
 
 " How do you know that I have been sick?" asked I, 
 smiling at her artless politeness. 
 
 " We heard there was a sick gentleman from the city board- 
 ing at Mr. Gaskin's house. And you are so thin and white I 
 knew it must be you. I dare say you will be well very soon. 
 Papa says this country is very healthy. I wouldn't worry 
 about myself if I was in your place." 
 
 I smiled now because I could not retain my gravity under 
 the quaint counselling. 
 
 "Thank you for your good wishes. I cannot be sure that 
 
 the country air will do me good, but you are very kind to care 
 
 about it at all. What were you worrying over, standing upon the 
 
 rock down there and staring the water out of countenance ? " 
 
 "I wasn't worrying." She managed the double r rather
 
 20 MY L1TL TE LO VE. 
 
 awkwardly, a touch of baby patois that was odd in her grand- 
 motherly mode of address. " I was only thinking hard. 
 Don't you believe there must be the beautifullest kind of 
 sand and gravel in heaven ? " 
 
 I tried not to look amused under her questioning eyes. 
 
 " I don't know. I shouldn't like to say that there is, or is 
 not. I never was there." 
 
 " Course not ! " a touch of disdain in the solemn nod. 
 "Nobody ever went to heaven and earned came back 
 beceps" (except) "Moses and Elijah. They wouldn't have 
 done it either only to see the dear Saviour. On the mountain, 
 you remember. I'm pretty certain there must be loads and 
 piles of sand and gravel in heaven, for they are just the nicest 
 things in the world to play with, and mamma says I mustn't, 
 without they are dry as bones." 
 
 " That is a little hard isn't it?" said I, sympathizingly, 
 for her visage expressed deep dejection. " I should say, 
 now, that they were as clean as they are pretty." 
 
 She shook her wise little head. 
 
 " 'Twon't do to take things from the looks of them. They 
 get fearfully wet, you see, staying under the water, and 
 they're nothing but common stones when they're dry. Ever 
 so ugly, some of them. And I ,r#/-pose "t wasn't quite proper 
 for me to fill the lap of my nice white dress with them and 
 carry them home to put into Aunt Evy's bowl. She can't 
 walk so far, and I'd been telling her how they shone like all 
 sorts of precious stones, and she said she had no doubt they 
 were perfectly lovely ! They were, too ! "
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 21 
 
 The ruffles of her bib-apron trembled in the sigh that 
 swelled her bosom. 
 
 " But mamma scolded did she ? " queried I. 
 
 She shrugged her shoulders and raised her eyebrows in a 
 gesture that was irresistibly comic. 
 
 " Depends upon what kind of scolding you're used to ! 
 She said she would put me to bed. next time, and make me 
 stay there all day. It is horrid to be put to bed in the day- 
 time, in the summer, and hear the birds and chickens and 
 children and even the ducks playing and singing out-of-doors. 
 Mamma always does what she promises, so I can't touch them" 
 nodding backward at the gravel bed. " Besides I prom- 
 ised I wouldn't, and 'twould be a shame if she couldn't trust 
 such a great girl to keep her word. I came awfully near for- 
 getting though ! I got my fingers right into the water before 
 I remembered. Oh ! how frightened I was ! It is fearfully 
 hard to do right isn't it ? " 
 
 " For wicked big boys, perhaps." I began to find her 
 frankness contagious. " But I don't believe you often do 
 wrong. You look like an amiable, well-behaved little girl. 
 I can't think that you ever lose your temper, and say sharp or 
 cross things." 
 
 Another shrug. 
 
 " Dorft I, though ? I got mad with Mary that's our 
 nurse, you know, this very morning, and called her an Irish 
 idiot) and said I wished she hadn't ever been borned; that I 
 didn't see what the Lord made that kind for. That was 
 wicked downright. And last week I cursed her."
 
 22 MY LITTLE LOVE. 
 
 "What!" 
 
 " I did ! cursed her so dreadfully that she went to mamma 
 about it. Mamma made me ask her pardon ; papa laughed. " 
 
 " Liberal ideas papa's must be respecting juvenile profan- 
 ity ! " I thought. 
 
 She went on. "He laughed when Mary wasn't looking 
 at him, so's not to hurt her feelings I sup-pose. But wasn't 
 she angry with me ! She told mamma what I said was the 
 worstest curse anybody could wish." 
 
 "What did you say?" curious to get at the phraseology 
 of this terrific malediction. It was difficult to imagine that 
 the lips I was looking at had ever been sullied by an oath. 
 
 " I said, ' Bad luck to the ship that brought you over ! ' It 
 was very bad, I sup-pose, but she had thrown away the nest 
 of sweet little field-mice Jo Bragdon found for me in the 
 meadows, and she called them ' crayturs.' That's why I 
 cursed her. I'd do it again!" kindling up fierily in eyes 
 and color and doubling down her fingers forcibly upon her 
 palms. " It was hateful ! " 
 
 " I agree with you entirely. She ought to have been sunk 
 with the ship. And this morning what was the matter 
 then ? " 
 
 " It was the dearest, darlingest hop-toad you ever saw ! I 
 caught it last night and made it a bed of grass and cotton in 
 an old cigar-box that the smell had gotten out of, and gave it 
 a supper of flies and tied some old lace over the top to keep 
 him from smuddering, and put it under my bed, far back 
 against the wall, where he ought to have been safe. She
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 23 
 
 found it while I was in the barn-yard, digging worms for his 
 breakfast. When I came back the box was empty." 
 
 Her voice faltered, and she winked fast two or three times. 
 
 "When I told her I should complain to mamma and make 
 her send her away, she said I was enough to fret a saint, litter- 
 ing up a Christian's house with bastes. Then" the corners 
 of her mouth twitching in a sly smile, while her eyelids drooped 
 shamefacedly " I called her a baste herself and said that I 
 ^tested her. Mary can be a good girl, but dear me ! she is 
 very twy\ng sometimes ! " with her knowing shake of the head. 
 
 " You are a funny little lady ! " 
 
 I cannot convey by written words any adequate impression 
 of the mixture of womanliness, naivete and childish naughti- 
 ness that excited my mirthful amazement. It was as if the 
 plump-breasted robin, fussily busy with her young ones over- 
 head, had hopped to my feet and entertained me with a his- 
 tory of her daily life, trials, and peccadilloes. 
 
 " Where do you live ? " I made so free as to inquire. 
 
 " In town, when we are at home. We are staying at 
 grandpa's a long time this summer because baby is cutting 
 her eye-teeth. I like the country above everything, but you 
 can't be perfectly contented anywhere, and there are so 
 many temptations ! There's sand, now 1 not the gravelly 
 sort, but smooth land-sand. You wouldn't believe what ele- 
 gant houses and fences and ca&tels anybody can make out of 
 it. W T hen it's damp, you understand. 'Twon't stay fixed 
 if it's dry; but mamma says dry sand is clean, and wet 
 sand dirty. There's not a morsel of fun in that."
 
 J24 MY LITTLE LOVE. 
 
 I uncoiled my limbs and straightened my spine. 
 
 " I think you and I together can manage it. I will bring 
 'the sand up here on these dry, broad rocks, and you can 
 build your houses. I'll see that the sand is not wet enough 
 to soil your dress." 
 
 " Good ! good ! " clapping her hands. " I had no i-de-a 
 you were such a nice gentleman ! " dropping into the gravely 
 confidential. " You looked so dull and sulky when I first 
 saw you all crooked up against the tree." 
 
 At the water's edge she stayed me. 
 
 "Aren't you afraid you will take cold dabbling in the 
 water and handling damp sand ? Robbie came near having 
 the croup last week because he played in the well- trough and 
 got his apron and sleeves all wet. You've been sick, you 
 know." 
 
 " I will be very careful," I promised, with admirable sc- 
 dateness. " If I should get sick you can come and nurse 
 me." 
 
 " I will ! " she engaged, in good faith. 
 
 Our joint labors engrossed all our energies after that. A 
 brave fortification grew into shape and just proportions, upon 
 a table-rock we dubbed, at my suggestion, Gibraltar. There 
 were walls and a moat, and a birch-bark drawbridge, scarp, 
 counter-scarp, barbicans, bomb-proofs, and towers with twig 
 guns cut of suitable size and proportions by my useful pen- 
 knife. The barracks within the defences were models of 
 compact architecture. Muskets were stacked artistically in 
 the court-yard, and a few sentinels, whittled out of pine
 
 M Y LITTLE LOVE. 25 
 
 sticks, mounted guard stiffly enough in convenient proximity 
 to these. 
 
 For a flag we had to content ourselves with a tall stick 
 topped by a cardinal flower. 
 
 "It is magnissifent 1 " cried my fellow-builder, stepping 
 back some paces to take in the tout ensemble. " I thought 
 I could build tolerable houses and things, but you make me 
 ashamed of my poor little affairs. I say ! you will be my 
 friend, won't you ? And come down here every day for a 
 little while ? You see," coming up close to me, taking my 
 hand between her coaxing fingers, and talking very fast, " I 
 have nobody worth talking about to play with. Aunt Evy has 
 gone to the Springs with Uncle George. My big sister is too 
 big, even when she's at home, and my big brother lives away 
 off in Cincinnati and has got a baby of his own. Baby Evy is 
 just learning to walk, and Robby is only two-and-a-half, be- 
 sides having the croup and can't run about beceps where the 
 ground is even and dry. We could have jolly times you 
 and me and, indeed, I will be ever so good." 
 
 I passed my hand over her hair ; searched the depths of 
 such eyes as I have never seen in another face. I had 
 scarcely noticed until then how rarely beautiful they were. 
 Gray, with inky rings edging the irids that might have been 
 the encircling shadow of the long, black lashes, they were 
 fathomless springs of softness and light. 
 
 " Go through a fellow 's if she knowed what he was thinkin' 
 about, let alone what he's sayin'," said a rough yeoman of 
 them, once. 
 2
 
 2 6 MY LITTLE LOVE. 
 
 A page of word-painting would not have described them 
 better. 
 
 They enforced a truthful answer from me, free from equi- 
 vocation and banter. 
 
 " I shall be glad if you will take me for your friend. 
 Every morning, when I am well enough and the weather is 
 pleasant, I will be here to meet you." 
 
 A horn rang out shrill and importunate from the direction 
 of the farm-house. 
 
 I pulled out my watch incredulously. It was twelve 
 o'clock.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 AII.SIE DARLING. 
 
 FOUND, next morning, a less precipitous path 
 from the Gaskiu homestead to the " crick/' 
 as Ezra called it, than that into which I had 
 stumbled the preceding day. It was a faintly- 
 worn trail winding around a shoulder of Maple Hill, 
 and skirting the water for some distance below the 
 trysting-rock. Advancing quietly by this, I perceived 
 that I was not first at the rendezvous, and was at my 
 " friend's " elbow before she suspected my approach. 
 She was bending forward with a sort of restrained 
 eagerness in attitude and profile, that warned me not to 
 speak or move abruptly. Directly beneath Gibraltar was a 
 miniature cove, deeper and darker than the main stream. 
 Pendant grasses fringed it, and the stones lining it were 
 green with moss. Beyond was a patch of water-lilies. Stoop- 
 ing to look over the child's head at whatever it might be that 
 riveted her notice, I saw the reflection of her intent face 
 upon the pool, and that it changed as mine fell beside it. 
 She turned partly around, hand uplifted, every feature alive 
 with excitement and welcome. With the other hand she 
 pointed to the shadiest recess of the cove, where lay a fine
 
 28 MY LITTLE L VE. 
 
 \ 
 
 brook-trout. A chance pencil of light refracted by the spark- 
 ling mirror that held our faces in almost unwavering lines, 
 struck athwart his spotted back, shimmered down his silvery 
 sides. Green moss and brown opaline water were the back- 
 ground on which he shone in royal beauty, motionless as a 
 painted king with all his regalia on. 
 
 The blood tingled to my fingers' ends as I fancied what it 
 would be to me and to him had I my trusty rod in hand. 
 In one second I lived through it all the poise, the throw, the 
 rise, the strike, the play the landing ! My breath came in a 
 quick, sharp respiration that cut the air audibly. The mirror 
 was dashed into fragments ; the gleam of living jewels or 
 of fire shot the depths of the pool. Then, through the 
 stilling surface we saw green velvet cushion and curtaining 
 water, vacant. 
 
 " You've scared him away ! " said my companion, catch- 
 ing her breath in her turn, " I've been watching him this ever- 
 so-long. Wasn't he a beauty ? " 
 
 I assented heartily, adding "Do you often see that kind 
 of fish about here ? " 
 
 "You won't catch them if I say, 'Yes?'" screwing up 
 one side of her face in a teasing grimace. 
 
 " I do not promise that. Trout were made to be Caught. 
 You like to eat them, don't you ? " 
 
 " Not if they are acquaintances of mine, like him," point- 
 ing to the pool. " He knows me quite well. He wouldn't 
 have run away for may-be two hours, if nobody else had 
 come. He isn't fond of strangers. I'll tell you something,"
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE 29 
 
 sinking her voice to a mysterious whisper. " He is a fairy 
 prince, changed to a fish by a wicked fairy. At the end of a 
 hundred days, a good fairy will come along, and touch him 
 with her wand, and he will jump out of the water in a white 
 satin coat all buttoned up with scarlet diamonds, didn't you 
 see them ? a double row ! " 
 
 "What if I should be the good fairy? " I suggested. "I 
 have a magic wand, bound and tipped with silver, almost 
 long enough to reach across this creek, that I am positive 
 would bring him, at one leap, to land." 
 
 She had started up, and away from me, red indignation 
 upon brow and neck. 
 
 " If you do ! if you do ! " she protested, stamping her foot, 
 and eyeing me with aversion. " I will never forgive you, 
 never ! never ! " 
 
 The tears rushed up and put out the fires. She collapsed 
 into a heap upon the grass, sobbing that she had not be- 
 lieved I could be so cruel ! and to Rer precious tame trout that 
 knew and loved her ! She thought I looked good and kind. 
 
 " My dear little friend," I was fain to plead on bended 
 knee, " listen to me ! If you will stop crying, I will promise 
 neverto fish in this pool, or on this side of the stream, 
 another time. Do you hear me ? " 
 
 She nodded behind the white apron, now nearly wet 
 through. 
 
 " Tell all your particular acquaintances among the trout 
 to wear a pink ribbon around their throats when they go 
 out walking."
 
 30 MY LITTLE L VE. 
 
 She laughed between her sobs. 
 
 " Fish don't walk. They swim. They are not ampher- 
 bus like bullfrogs." 
 
 " When they go out swimming, then, and I will never try 
 to catch them only touch my hat to them and go on." 
 
 Down went the apron, and she was rummaging in her 
 pocket, drawing out, first a handkerchief, next a doll's cape, 
 some printed slips cut from newspapers, a stumpy cedar pencil, 
 a pair of blunt-edged scissors, finally a slender roll of paper, 
 from which she carefully extracted the object she sought. 
 
 " See what I have ! Mamma gave me the ribbon. I 
 made the flag all by my lone self! " 
 
 I could credit it when I examined the treasure two 
 square inches of red, white and blue ribbon, put together 
 with an unnecessary quantity of irregular stitches, and 
 fastened more securely than neatly to an old knitting-needle. 
 I praised the tri-color warmly, and we sealed our reconcilia- 
 tion by planting it upon the chief tower of Gibraltar, in 
 place of the withered cardinal flower. 
 
 " It took me an immense time to make it ! " observed the 
 seamstress surveying it with intensest complacency. " And 
 how I did prick my fingers ! " 
 
 Indeed, as I now perceived, there were many 
 dotting the seams, indicating these as the line of battle. 
 
 " Mary bothered me, asking what I was making. As if I 
 would tell her ! Such a chatterbox as that girl is ! I think, 
 sometimes, she will wear me out entirely ! Do you always 
 do as you'd be done by?"
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 31 
 
 " Not always, I am afraid," confessed I meekly. 
 " Nor I neither," in ingenuous discouragement. " Yet I 
 suppose everybody ought to ; for, 
 
 " You know, my dear, the Bible says 
 
 That you should always do 
 To others as you would that they 
 Should likewise do to you." 
 
 She chanted it in a nasal sing-song, suggestive of disgust 
 with the lame machinery of the " poem," or weariness of 
 having heard it so often. 
 
 " Sounds easy don't it ? Maybe you'd better try it, that's 
 all." 
 
 To win her from the inclement mood into which she was 
 likely to lapse if one might judge from tone and pout, I 
 asked : " Do you like to learn verses ? " 
 
 "To read poetry, do you mean? Better than anything 
 else under the sun ! Would you mind my telling you some- 
 thing I was saying to myself, when you came just now ? I 
 found it in one of mamma's books. There are lots of other 
 beautiful pieces in there. Its just the very picture of my 
 pond here, if you make believe a little in some parts of it. 
 Listen if it isn't!" 
 
 She was upon her feet, her electric face shining and quiver- 
 ing, one foot braced against a projection of the rock over- 
 hanging the pool. Her hat had been tossed upon the 
 ground, and her very hair seemed to gleam and stir with her 
 animated action.
 
 32 MY LITTLE LOVE. 
 
 I had expected a jingle of nursery rhymes Mrs. Bar- 
 bauld at the best ; but to my astonishment she rushed into 
 Percival's " Coral Grove : " 
 
 "Deep in the waves is a coral grove 
 Where the purple mullet and gold-fish rove. 
 
 (" Trout's all the same, you know. 'Least 'twill do just as 
 well, only 'twouldn't have come out right in the verse, I sup- 
 pose.) 
 
 There the sea-flower spreads its leaves of blue 
 
 That never are wet with falling dew, 
 
 But in bright and changeful beauty shine 
 
 Far down in the green and glassy brine. 
 
 (" Isn't that exactly like ? Right down there don't you 
 see ? where my prince was lying ?) 
 
 The floor is of sand, like the mountain drift 
 And the pearl-shells spangle the flinty snow 
 
 ("That isn't quite so true, for mine has green and brown 
 stones in the bottom. But only hear this !) 
 
 The water is calm and still below 
 
 For the winds and waves are absent there, 
 And the sands are bright as the stars that glow 
 
 In the mo-ti-on-less fields of upper air. 
 There, with its waving blades of green, 
 
 The sea-flag streams through the silent water, 
 And the crimson leaf of the dulse is seen 
 
 To blush like a banner bathed in slaughter
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 33 
 
 (" I knew how to per-nounce that word because it rhymes 
 with 'water.') 
 
 There 
 (swinging her arm to-and-fro) 
 
 with a light and easy motion 
 The fan-coral sweeps through the clear, deep sea, 
 
 And the yellow and scarlet tufts of ocean 
 Are bending like corn on the upland lea. 
 
 (" Oh ! can't you see them when you shut your eyes ! ") 
 She closed hers, clasped her hands, and swayed gently from 
 side to side, while reciting the next four lines, her rapt face 
 raised to the sunlight. 
 
 " And life in rare and beautiful forms 
 
 Is sporting amid those bowers of stone, 
 And is safe when the wrathful spirit of storms 
 
 Has made the top of the waves his own. 
 And 
 
 (throwing both arms widely abroad, her eyes dark and fore- 
 head frowning) 
 
 when the ship from his fury flies 
 And the my-ri-ad voices of ocean roar, 
 When the wind -god frowns in the murky skies 
 
 And demons are waiting the wreck on shore, 
 Then 
 
 (" Did you ever hear anything exquisiter than this? " sinking 
 her voice almost to a whisper, and caressing each syllable as 
 it glided from her lips )
 
 34 MY LITTLE LOVE. 
 
 far below in the peaceful sea 
 The purple mullet and gold-fish rove, 
 Where the waters murmur tranquilly 
 
 Through the bending twigs of the coral grove." 
 
 She sat down fairly spent with excitement, but radiant, and 
 fell to work, brushing out, with a hemlock twig, the sand 
 that had slidden from the wall of the fortress into the moat. 
 
 " That's what 1 call poetry ! none of your babyish non- 
 sense ! " 
 
 " I call it poetry, too, and of the finest kind," replied I, 
 as naturally as I could, while scrutinizing her with a ming- 
 ling of admiration and apprehension. The creature was un- 
 canny, while she stood on the rock ; possessed, shaken, 
 rarefied (I mean it, for she reminded me of luminous air) 
 by the spirit of poesy, absolutely seeing, " when she shut her 
 eyes," all that the words portrayed. There had been tears 
 on her lashes as she concluded. One had rolled from her 
 cheek to the hand holding the hemlock broom. Yet in less 
 time than it took her to twinkle them away, she was again 
 very child, intent upon her playthings, the rare and beauteous 
 forms of ocean-life forgotten in the temporary solicitude of 
 keeping the mimic trenches clean. 
 
 I made an effort to revive the vanished fire. 
 
 " Did you say that you learned poetry for yourself? Can 
 you read ? " 
 
 Her eyes were stretched wide in haughty surprise. 
 
 "I should hope so!" emphatically slow. "Why, I 
 was six years old last Christmas- Eve, and I could read any-
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 35 
 
 where in the Bible by the time 1 was five. That is 'most 
 anywhere beceps, of course, those chapters full of jaggedy 
 words in Chronikillers and Deut-er-er-on-o-my ; I never could 
 understand why they were put into the Bible. I'm glad I 
 wasn't one of the men who had to write those parts. No 
 nor the first chapter of Matthew. But people had learned 
 how to be sensibler about such things before they wrote the 
 New Testament. There are only two chapters of names in 
 it I " 
 
 11 Who taught you all this ?" 
 
 " How to read do you mean ? Mamma, most times 
 sometimes, Aunt Evy ; I read and spell to Aunt Evy every 
 day when we are at home. Papa did not quite like my learn- 
 ing to read, but mamma was obliged to let me do it I was 
 such a restless mischief when I was little. When I am eight 
 years old, I am to begin French and music, she says. Papa 
 doesn't approve of any kind of lessons for me, I believe. I 
 don't know why." 
 
 I imagined that I did, and altogether "approved" of 
 papa's judgment. 
 
 The moat was cleared by this time, and the flag stood 
 " straight out," as she said satisfiedly, partly because there was 
 a slight breeze, chiefly because its " set" upon the pole was 
 such that it could not have drooped in a dead calm. All 
 having been pronounced ship-shape at the fort, my restless 
 little dryad forthwith produced from her teeming brain the 
 " splendidest plan that had popped into her head last night." 
 
 We were to build a bower in the woods and " maybe who
 
 36 MY LITTLE LOVE. 
 
 knows? live there altogether some day. In case grandpa's 
 house were to burn down, or blow over or be anything- 
 elsed. 'Tenny rate 'twould be derlicious in hot weather." 
 She "had heard of countries where people lived in bush- 
 houses the year round for all the world, like a picnic." There 
 was a picture in a book, at home, of a Bunyan tree. Or 
 was that the name of the man that wrote " Pilgrim's Prog- 
 ress" in jail for preaching the gospel? Any way, it was 
 something like that. A tree, where the roots grew all the 
 way down from the limbs. 'Twas too comical to see the 
 little ones that had just started down ! And people were 
 cooking dinner and sleeping and dancing and saying their 
 prayers under them as comfortable and cunning as could be. 
 There was a grape-vine back there, on the hill, that looked 
 exactly like a what-do-you-call-it tree. Would it tire me to 
 step up and look at it ? 
 
 Of course I went ; equally of course, I lent my advice, my 
 long legs and arms, and my knife, to the enterprise of con- 
 verting a Yankee grape-vine wandering over a tough 
 mountain-ash into the similitude of an Indian banyan. I per- 
 suaded myself that I got a crick in the neck and aches in 
 shoulders and back out of lazy good-nature ; that I was too 
 inert to cross the eager petitioner. I believe now, that I 
 should have tried to heave ton boulders into the creek had 
 she expressed a wish to have a stone bridge built across to 
 the other side, so beguiled was I already by her witching im- 
 perialism. She worked harder than I did, picking up and 
 bearing away the cut boughs as they dropped under my knife.
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 37 
 
 There were gaps in the roof and sides, which the inconsider- 
 ate vine had neglected to cover. It was necessary that \ve 
 should remedy the defects in Nature's architecture, by weav- 
 ing otherwise useless streamers across the apertures, and 
 binding them in their new places, if we would have our bower 
 even sun-tight, to say nothing of its ability to shed the rain. 
 
 Out from her wonderful pocket came a bunch of string, 
 without which she had foreseen that " we could not possibly 
 get along." She " could hold the branches while I tied them." 
 I could not hint at, scarcely think of fatigue, while the earn- 
 est little face was upturned to note each step in the opera- 
 tion, and the lights through the shaken vines danced over it. 
 She spoke but seldom, while we were actually at work, hold- 
 ing the stems with firm fingers and as firm a set of the child- 
 ish features that meant business, and business alone. Dome 
 and walls finished, I was bidden to rest awhile upon "the 
 seat " a big stone, so near to the ash that I could find in its 
 trunk some relief to my strained spinal column. 
 
 She stood, regarding me, for a moment, in sorrowful sur- 
 prise, divining from my countenance and motions that I had 
 over-exerted myself. 
 
 " I am sorry I asked you to build the bower to-day," she 
 said gently. 
 
 " It has not hurt me ; I shall be all right again, directly." 
 
 "If you wouldn't mind lending me your knife/' she re- 
 sumed, persuasively. " I will be careful not to break or lose it." 
 
 " Don't cut your fingers !" was my caution in passing it 
 over ; " it is very sharp."
 
 38 MY LITTLE LOVE. 
 
 " It would be good-for-nothing if it was dull." 
 With that, she retired from sight, but not out of hearing. 
 I was willing to rest. I was really very tired, and the June 
 day was slumberous. There was a plantation of young hem- 
 locks and pines hard by, and the warm air extracted their 
 resins to blend with the smell of the bleeding grape-vine and 
 trampled ferns. The ripple and tinkle of the water were 
 soothing, not dulling, as on yesterday. A rustling in the 
 thickets on my left, and the sound of a child's voice singing 
 low, but very sweetly to herself, told me that I was not in a 
 sylvan solitude. The rustling came nearer, now and then, and 
 I was drowsily aware that some sort of forest upholstery was 
 going on at the back of the booth, and that the sweet croon- 
 ing was intermitted when the mistress of the bower entered, 
 chiming in again with the lullaby of the water, when she 
 withdrew in the direction of the evergreen covert. By-and- 
 by, I aroused myself to hearken to snatches of what she 
 warbled. It was one tune, sung again and again, shaping 
 itself, sometimes, into words, then subsiding into a musical 
 murmur; again, ceasing suddenly, as she tugged at, or cut 
 into the twigs she gathered. It was not a child's song. I 
 learned, later in our acquaintanceship, that it was a favorite of 
 " Aunt Evy's," and that the little niece had liked it the more 
 after happening upon the words in that "one of mamma's 
 books" which had also given her the " Coral Grove." 
 
 " Faintly flow, them falling river, 
 Like a dream that dies away, 
 Down the ocean gliding "
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 39 
 
 The hummed cadence flowed on, but the breeze gave me no 
 words until another visit was made to the bower, and the fleet 
 footsteps went back to the hemlock plantation. 
 
 " Roses bloom and then they wither, 
 Cheeks are bright, then fade and die." 
 
 " Fade and die ! Fade and die ! " The echoes from the 
 opposite bank took up the strain, repeating faithfully a pe- 
 culiar undulating cadenza with which the second line ended, 
 the sound melting into the silences of the distance upon the 
 word " die," with an effect I remembered for many a day 
 thereafter. I waited for the recurrence of this passage with 
 pensive pleasure, straining my ears to hearken for the faint- 
 est vibration of the summer air, among the hills on either 
 side of the gorge, yet without a thought of the " drifting out " 
 that had been the refrain of heart and pulses yesterday. 
 
 Not that I was awakening from the lethargic reaction 
 which was the dregs of the fever. This I would not admit, 
 so obstinate had been my persuasion that I could never again 
 be quite alive. But I did acknowledge that I had turned in 
 my sleep ; that the gentle relaxation of the system after my 
 recent exercise was some removes from the lassitude I had 
 been content should swallow up will and energy. Perhaps 
 it was one of the delights of convalescence of which doctors 
 and friends had prated to me. 
 
 A hand touched my arm ; warm, pure breath fanned my 
 cheek.
 
 40 MY LITTLE LOVE. 
 
 "Won't you sit on the sofa? It is ever so much softer 
 than that rough old rock." 
 
 Which had been "our seat/' a little while before. 
 
 The indefatigable dryad had clipped and piled pine and 
 hemlock twigs into a mound at that side of the bower facing 
 the entrance and the creek. It was an elastic, fragrant cush- 
 ion I was ashamed to rest upon when I remarked her flushed 
 face, and hair damp with perspiration. 
 
 " How you have worked ! " I said, in self-reproachful 
 gratitude, " I did not dream that you were doing this for me. 
 I thought you were playing." 
 
 " It was better than playing ! " the white teeth shining in 
 her glee as she capered around me, too much elated to keep 
 still for a second. " I heard papa and Uncle George talk- 
 ing about the lumbermen's beds, away off in Maine, and I 
 said to myself then that I would try to make one, some day. 
 Wasn't it lucky that high stump came to be just there, to 
 make a back for the sofa ? But " stopping short in her waltz 
 and joyous talk, and sinking into plaintive regrets " I 
 couldn't get near enough for a bed. Though I did cut all I 
 could reach. And the lounge is very short." 
 
 "We will call it a tabouret. That means a small sofa. 
 There is plenty of room for you and me," drawing her gently 
 to my side. "And we don't expect company yet awhile 
 not until we are fairly settled to housekeeping." 
 
 "Not anytime!" she protested. "Becepspapa. He's 
 coming on Saturday." 
 
 That "beceps" always provoked me to a smile. It was a
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 41 
 
 singular slip of the nimble tongue, and reminded me, as did 
 her valiant but sometimes ineffectual wrestle with polysylla- 
 bles, what a baby she was in age and size. Yet I did not 
 put my arm about her when she nestled down by me on the 
 tabouret. If I had, I was as positive then as after I knew 
 her better, that she would have arisen and walked away. 
 There was a delicacy of dignity in her bearing and look, with 
 all her freedom of speech, that would have taught the rudest 
 boor to respect her inborn ladyhood. It may sound absurd 
 when one takes into consideration her " six years last Christ- 
 mas Eve," and my manly majority, already twenty-four hours 
 old, but I would not have dared take her on my knee, or 
 kiss her. The right to hold her hand or stroke her hair was 
 the utmost extent of familiarity that would have been vouch- 
 safed to her chosen " friend," at this stage of our intercourse. 
 Fortunately for the perpetuity of our intimacy I gleaned this 
 fact from intuition. I have seen her teach the lesson to 
 others by the manifestation of hauteur they could not mistake 
 for a childish freak. 
 
 " He spends much of^his time in town, does he not? " I 
 asked after her last observation. 
 
 " All the week from Monday morning till Saturday at din- 
 ner-time. It is perfectly dreadful ! I thought, at first, that I 
 couldn't possibly live through it. It's bad enough now." 
 
 " You love him very dearly, then ? " 
 
 " Love him ! I would be burned up alive, chopped into 
 little bits with a hatchet, and never say a word if he wanted 
 me to, or it would do him any good ! "
 
 42 MY LITTLE LOVE. 
 
 She uttered it in a subdued tone, without gesture, but the 
 concentrated passion of a woman's heart was in the intense 
 face. I pray never to see it in another as young. I shivered, 
 and chided the ridiculous fancies that made me do it the 
 next second. 
 
 " That would be the last thing he would want you to do," I 
 returned, jocularly. " You could not love him, if it were 
 possible for him to be so cruel." 
 
 " I should love papa if he beat me to death. Like the 
 little boy ofAn-ti-och I read of in the History of the Martyrs. 
 They whipped him until he died, because he loved Jesus. It 
 was a rough way of getting to heaven, but I don't suppose 
 that mattered much after he got there, and it didn't last long. 
 My papa is never cruel to anybody, and he loves me almost 
 as much as I do him " returning to the livelier theme. 
 "He is the very bestest man ever was. I am going to 
 marry him when I am grown ! " 
 
 " Marry him ! " I echoed laughing. 
 
 She caught me up, defiantly 
 
 " Course I shall ! I must have a husband, you know, and I 
 love him a thousand times better than I ever can anybody 
 else. Mamma will be getting sort of old by that time, and 
 he will want me to ride and walk with him." 
 
 " But won't he be getting old, himself, too ?" 
 
 " Papa ! He's so big and strong, I think he'll live a hun- 
 dred years. I hope so, or that GOD will let me die when he 
 does. I've often thought that would be a nice plan, for all 
 of a family to die in a bunch, and there wouldn't be anybody
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 43 
 
 left to be sorry. My sister Minnie died, oh, a long time ago, 
 and mamma takes me in her lap now, on Sunday evenings, 
 and talks to me about her, and the tears roll down her face 
 to mine, without her knowing that she is crying." 
 
 This appeared to my inexperience an unwise indulgence 
 of maternal grief, when the recipient of the sacred confidence 
 was the sensitive, imaginative daughter who already talked 
 of the Martyr's agony as a short road to heaven, and of 
 death as preferable to bereavement. 
 
 I broke the chain of conversation with a snap. 
 
 " This is Thursday, and as papa does not come until Satur- 
 day, I shall hope to see you here to-morrow. It is time I 
 was going up to my dinner, now, if I do not want Mrs. Gas- 
 kin to scold about my being late. Mamma will be wonder- 
 ing where you are, too. Good-bye. Isn't it queer that we have 
 not thought to ask one another's names ? Mine is Barry 
 Haye." 
 
 " My name is Ailsie," she returned in prompt simplicity. 
 
 " Elsie ? " I repeated. 
 
 " No, A, i, 1, s, i, e ! Mamma had a dear friend whose father 
 was a Scotchman, and I was named for her. Papa is Mr. 
 Darling. So, I am Ailsie Darling."
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 RAIN UPON THE ROOF. 
 
 T was colorless light, and late in coming, that 
 crept through the windows of my eastward 
 chamber on Friday morning. The sauce pi- 
 guante of Ezra' s breakfast was the gratulation, 
 / oft-repeated and dwelt upon with much chuckling 
 and smacking of lips, that " the early hay in Squire's 
 south medder he'd been so stuck-up about, was cut 
 yestidday, every spear on it," while his Ezra's, 
 j f would not be ready for the scythe " afore middle 
 
 o' next week." 
 
 " Thaf s what comes o' book farming," responded his 
 helpmeet. "To hear Squire talk you'd think ther' was a 
 year o' corn into every grain o' dust if a person would 
 only read up faithful on agricultoore, and chimistry and sech- 
 like fol-de-rols. Its jist as well he should be learned a lesson 
 by the ways o' Providence, wunst in a while. He has it 
 easy enough, a sight too easy for growth in grace, most 
 times." 
 
 " ' The ox knoweth his owner and the ass his master's 
 crib ! ' piped the grand-dame, mumbling and mouthing over 
 her " rye 'n Injun " mess. " Deary me ! my jints ache like
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 45 
 
 'twas going to be Tallin' weather. And the smoke drawed 
 down the kitchen chimbley for quite a spell this rnornin'. 
 How's the wind, Ezry ?" 
 
 " Straight out east. Couldn't be wuss fur them as is foru'd 
 with their grass. All sorts o' signs of all-day rain. Look at 
 the chickens," pointing through a window that commanded 
 an unappetizing view of the barn-yard. " If ever you see 'em 
 a-stragglin' 'round regardless-like on a dampish mornin' like 
 this, look out for a stiddy rain, and 'bundance of it. 'What's 
 the odds ? ' sez Mr. Chicken. ' I'm bound for to git my 
 feathers wet afore this 'ere job is through with. Mought 
 jist's well take it easy and git my pickin's reg*lar 'cording to 
 custom.' That's about the ticket, Mr. Haye." 
 
 I had not seen him so facetious before since my arrival 
 at his house. His play of wit seemed to astonish and ex- 
 hilarate himself. He laughed boisterously, and shook his 
 fist toward the window with the next sentence : 
 
 "There's the first drops, sure's you're born and I ain't a 
 teapot! What's the time o' day, ma?" his pet name for 
 the wife who had never borne him a child. " Seven-an-a- 
 quarter, sure 's gun's iron! I sed so! 'Rain afore seven, 
 clear afore 'leven,' is a rule what works both ways. Another 
 cup o' coffee, ma. Seein' as how my grass ain't down I 
 kin take life comfortable." 
 
 The extent to which he gloated over his neighbor's dis- 
 comfiture and his own immunity from damage was equally 
 novel and revolting to me. I did a little sum in mental and 
 moral arithmetic while I turned the square inch of horny
 
 4<5 MY LITTLE L O VE. 
 
 steak, fried in lard, that graced the centre of my plate, in quest 
 of a corner vulnerable to knife, and, problematically, to 
 teeth. If the wetting of one field of the Squire's hay afford- 
 ed him such exquisite enjoyment, how near to the seventh 
 heaven would the destruction of the prosperous man's house 
 and barns by lightning, and the death of his family " in a 
 bunch," as Ailsie put it, raise the excellent Christian with the 
 Old Testament praenomen ? In my comparative ignorance 
 of the characteristics of the genus Rusticus, I was so foolish 
 as to fancy that such outspoken and malicious envy had its 
 root in a personal or family feud. I was to find out at my 
 leisure and to my bewilderment that prosperity, especially 
 the affluence which is the result of intelligent enterprise, is 
 always a noisome stench in Hodge's nostrils, and resented as 
 a pointed reflection upon his estate of intellectual and 
 social underlinghood, which cannot be condoned or for- 
 given. 
 
 " Squire's a main smart man," maundered the old mother, 
 with the fatal facility possessed in a supereminent degree by 
 superannuated grandmothers of saying the wrong thing in the 
 nick of time. " A proper nice man. So's his wife. Emily 
 Barrow she was. Ther* ain't no sech purty girls these days as 
 trier* used to was. Well, well ! Time flies and the poor ye 
 have always with you. She come of a prime family, did Em'ly. 
 I guess none on 'em '11 disgrace the name. She allus had a 
 bright eye in her head, and a sweet word in her mouth had 
 Em'ly." 
 
 " Ther* ain't many things easier did nor to be pious 'n
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 47 
 
 pop'lar when a person's got both their pockets full," pro- 
 nounced her son. 
 
 " Nor to carry yer head high when you hain't never hed 
 no trouble to bring it low," was his wife's appendix. " I 
 hain't no opinion of high-flyers, no matter how civil-spoken 
 they be. ' A haughty sperrit before a fall.' Ther" ain't one 
 of them Darlings but is too high-strung for comfort." 
 
 " ' Man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward,' " 
 quoted the irrelevant grand-dame. 
 
 The Gaskin memory was an arsenal of Scripture texts, 
 used more frequently in the devil's work of "all uncharita- 
 bleness " than in any other. 
 
 " The Darlings ! " The obnoxious Squire was probably the 
 " Grandpapa " at whose house Ailsie was spending the sum- 
 mer. I checked my motion to quit the table and give up 
 the matutinal meal as an ignominious failure ; helped myself 
 to another mottled saleratus biscuit and kept my ears open. 
 My meeting with Ailsie had been the only break in the dreary 
 calm of my country sojourn, and whatever related to her 
 family history could not be devoid of interest. Even the 
 backbiting chit-chat of the trio, while it tended Darlingward, 
 was some variety in the boredom of a rainy day in- doors. 
 
 "Ther's the oldest son Pressley now. But maybe you 
 know him, Mr. Haye ? " The hostess suspended her scal- 
 pel pending the appeal to me. "Anyway, its likely you 
 must 'a' heard of Pressley Darling, livin' in the same city. 
 He's somethin' in the hullsale line I can't rightly say what. 
 I think, though, its woollings."
 
 48 MY LITTLE LOVE. 
 
 "West Ingy merchant and emporter ! " corrected her hus- 
 band. "That's as nigh as wimmen gits to most things." 
 
 I was learning another thing about underbred ignoramuses, 
 and may jot it down here as a rule of universal application 
 so far as I have had an opportunity of judging. The less a 
 
 man knows, of and for himself the more nearly he approx- 
 
 
 
 imates the reasoning faculties of the lower animals the more 
 contemptuous is his estimate of the mental powers of women, 
 especially of those belonging by the accident of birth, or the 
 blunder of marriage, to his bestial estate. 
 
 " Ezry don't set no kind o' store by women," observed his 
 mother, with a feeble giggle. " His sainted pa was jest so 
 allers ! But as I tell 'em when they're too hard with us, men 
 would make a poor shift 'thout us, come feedin' time. Ah, 
 well ! Holdin' faith and a good conscience. Thafs the 
 p'int, Mr. Haynes. My poor mother used to say the same 
 thing when she was alive, jest the same. She was a good 
 woman, my mother was. Ther's nothin' truer than that they 
 shall run that read, Mr. Haynes." 
 
 " Mr. Haye, mother ! " said the shrewish daughter-in-law. 
 "And between you and Ezry, he hain't had no chance to 
 answer my question." 
 
 I made reply that I had never seen or heard of Mr. Press- 
 ley Darling to the best of my knowledge, but that the city 
 was a large place in which we might both live for many years 
 without meeting. 
 
 " Guess he ain't sech a big bug as he'd hev people think," 
 grunted the gratified Ezra. "For all he swells 'round so
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 49 
 
 when he comes to the country. A tadpole '11 make more 
 splash in a mud-puddle than a bull-frog will into a mill-pond. 
 It's likely you'll run agin him somewheres this summer. He 
 ain't nowise sociable with us plain folks, but he may pay you 
 some 'tendon, seein' you're one of his kind-like. The hull 
 kit 'n' boozle on 'em air stayin' to the Squire's for quite a 
 spell." 
 
 > " Hev you found out yit whether they're payin' board or 
 not ? " questioned the wife eagerly. 
 
 " Stan's to reason they'd orter," was the answer. " I was 
 kinder soundin' Jabe Wyckoff 'bout it, last night. He's been 
 workin' there some considerable this spring and summer. 
 He 'lowed he'd never seen no money pass between em, nor 
 heerd no talk o' bills, but that don't prove nothin' ! They're 
 a desprit close-mouthed set." 
 
 The " stiddy rain " predicted by Ezra and his intellectual 
 peer, " Mr. Chicken," lasted all that day and the next, and 
 my state of body and mind had, by Saturday night, passed 
 over the jagged bounds of desperation into the mire and 
 darkness of despair. I had read such books as my sister had 
 packed in spare corners of my trunk to keep other proper- 
 ties from "riding" to their own damage and that of their 
 neighbors, until I was nearly blind. They were, for the most 
 part, light literature of the frothiest order, selected, I imag- 
 ined, first, because my mind was considered to be in need of 
 dissipation and distraction; secondly, because pamphlets 
 were less likely to tumble my shirt-bosoms and rub holes in 
 my cloth Sunday-suit than stiff-backed and sharp edged vol. 
 3
 
 SO MY LITTLE LOVE. 
 
 umes. Two days of this cooling diet so effectually dissipated 
 such powers of thought as had survived six weeks of fever 
 and six days of country recreation, that I was in danger of 
 permanent distraction. 
 
 I made no pretensions to " keeping the run " of the vari- 
 ous stories. Plots (if there were any), characters, incidents 
 and denouements, were, with respect to the pulpy mass of my 
 brain, like Miss Phelps's Bible Class scholar's ideas of the 
 blessed inhabitants of heaven, "floating around loose some- 
 how, like jubejube paste." My room, bestrewed with yellow 
 and purple-covered " novels," than which nothing, it seemed 
 to me, could be more stale ; with the sullen roll of the rain 
 upon the slanting roof, and the sometime fast, sometime 
 deliberate drip from the leaky trough under the eaves upon 
 the top of the porch beneath my window, was yet many de- 
 grees preferable to the scenes and society below-stairs. I 
 have never marvelled at the sterility and slowness of the 
 average country mind since that rainy Friday and Saturday. 
 
 " How do you employ and amuse yourselves in wet 
 weather ? " I had asked of Ezra, the first day. 
 
 " Oh, it's 'cordin as it falls ! " I had not the remotest con- 
 ception of his meaning. "We mostly keep a-potterin' 
 'round." 
 
 I discovered what that signified before my forty-eight hour 
 term of confinement expired. 
 
 Mrs. Ezra did much of her pottering in the garret a space 
 between the chamber-ceilings which sloped on one side, and 
 the roof-tree which sloped on both sides a space lighted
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE, 51 
 
 by a triangular window in each gable, and which, on these 
 dully-illumined days, must have been nearly dark when one 
 stood equi-distant from the casements. A space that smelled 
 so mightily of old leather, onions, moth-eaten woollens, dried 
 apples, dried pumpkins and dry rot, that overpowering whiffs 
 shot in through my key-hole whenever the garret-door not 
 five feet off and exactly opposite was opened, and it stood 
 wide all the while Mrs. Ezra was overhauling the hid treasures 
 therein entombed. 
 
 The grand-dame Ezra and his spouse called her " the old 
 lady " invariably in speaking of her pottered in the kitchen, 
 the fire being " comfortin' to her bones of a damp day," she 
 informed me with unflinching regularity three times per diem, 
 and on as many other occasions as I chanced to encounter 
 her. She rattled in cupboard corners with a very quilly 
 turkey-wing to get out the dust ; rattled inside the pots with 
 a stick tied to a wet rag, and rattled the covers in putting 
 them on, rattled plate upon plate, and dish against dish ; 
 always dropped the stove-covers upon the hearth before 
 rattling them into their places ; knocked down the shovel and 
 tongs twenty times a day, and made so much rattling in 
 getting them again into position that one might have suspected 
 her of practicing tongs-and-bones for an Ethiopian serenade ; 
 rattled chairs over tables and tables over the floor ; broom, 
 dust-pan, scrubbing-pail aud brush over everything, until I, 
 condemned to hear all through the thin flooring, was diaboli- 
 cally tempted to wish that the death-rattle might make a 
 seasonable abatement of the nuisance. I could have borne it
 
 52 MY LITTLE LOVE. 
 
 better, if she had not talked to herself incessantly, when alone. 
 Once, passing along the entry on my way to the well for a 
 pitcher of cool water, I saw as well as heard her through the 
 kitchen-door which was ajar. Her head was tied up in a 
 blue cotton handkerchief and she had on a chocolate calico 
 gown. Her glasses were on the tip of her nose, and while 
 she scoured a milk-pail with rattling nails and knuckles, she 
 jabbered in this fashion : 
 
 " Myry Coles said so, and she'd orter know ; Myry was a 
 spry girl's ever was. Righteousness and truth meet together. 
 My ole granny always held out there weren't no manner of 
 use in putting a mite o' salt into soft soap. I never see sich 
 another to make butter and hive bees. Ontil the land be 
 des'late and the cities "thout inhabitant. Ther's no gittin' 
 'round comfortin' Scripter like that, let Ezry say what he 
 likes. They might talk to me 'till Doomsday 'n' nobody 
 shouldn't make me say 's how blue vit'ril ain't equinomical 
 fur to dye yarn and carpet-rags. Avide the a'pearance of 
 evil. Hannah Jones she was Dominie Vanderdonk's third 
 wife. His second was a Bristow. The fust was a Dykeman. 
 He didn't get no money with none but her." 
 
 Nobody ever intimated that the old housewife was insane. 
 She was reputed among her kinsfolk and congeners to be 
 " wonderful smart for her years." But, as I regained my 
 chamber and the split-bottomed chair that gave me the 
 choice between the potato-field on my left and the big barn 
 on my right through the two-leaved doors of which I could 
 see Ezra "pottering about" the dusky interior in his shirt-
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. S3 
 
 sleeves I entered upon a serious and not inspiriting calcula- 
 tion of the causes which had induced the habit of senile 
 maundering that made her grotesque instead of being the 
 object of affectionate veneration. Cramped by her sur- 
 roundings and by the fact of her womanhood, that by which 
 her husband and sons and their masculine associates " set no 
 store " the radius of thought and ambition had narrowed 
 yearly, until what might have grown into autumnal fulness 
 and beauty had become a shrivelled husk in which the dead 
 kernels of ideas lay loosely, without order or sequence. Poor 
 old soul ! what wonder that everything else rattled under her 
 touch ? Her son would be no better at the same age. His 
 piety, by which he did " set store," being an Elder in an or- 
 thodox Church would be as absurdly formulated. 
 
 All this time the rain poured steadily upon the house-roof, 
 spattered, gurgled and gushed through the break in the 
 wooden gutter exactly above my window, down upon the 
 shingled porch. Beyond potato-patch and barn-yard the 
 landscape was but semi-visible by reason of the drooping 
 veil of cloud, and sheets of fine mist, quickly succeeded by 
 others when they broke over the earth under the superin- 
 cumbent weight of moisture. I am not ashamed to confess 
 my utter demoralization, or how well considered- was the vow 
 I then and there committed to the register of memory, that 
 I would abjure farm-houses and the denizens thereof, for the 
 brief remainder of my unnaturally worthless existence. 
 Had I been but a degree stronger in body, and, as a conse- 
 quence, in moral courage, or had my city home been more
 
 54 MY LITTLE LOVE. 
 
 alluring, I should have fled incontinently by Saturday morn- 
 ing's stage, and braved my father's wrath at the violation 
 of my tacit pledge, to give country air a fair trial. I ought to 
 be ashamed to own that I called the longing for the sprightly 
 companionship that had enlivened two forenoons of the 
 week " puerile," judged myself to have sunk very low in the 
 scale of reason and taste, for thinking that the Gaskin home- 
 stead itself might be endurable even in wet weather, were 
 Ailsie one of the inmates. 
 
 Saturday night came at last. I had despaired of ever 
 seeing it, a dozen times that day, and I went to bed early, to 
 be kept awake for hours by the rattling "rain upon the 
 roof," and the noisier water-spout above my window. I 
 seemed to have dozed but a few minutes in a discursive 
 miserable manner, when the rising sun shot a volley of gold- 
 tipped arrows between my eyelids. It was Sunday morning, 
 fresh and glorious, but so wet in meadow and footpath, so 
 miry as to highways, that neither I nor the Gaskins ventured 
 beyond the yard-gate in the forenoon. My sister had 
 slipped in some religious periodicals and papers, furnished 
 doubtless by my step-mother, among the novels. I nodded 
 over a batch of these at one end of the porch shaded by the 
 " Matrimony-vine," while Ezra snored outright and out- 
 rageously in his arm-chair at the other, Zion's Herald and 
 Gospel Trumpet, spread over his face to keep off the flies. 
 The "women-folks," Ezra's nomenclature for mother and 
 wife, meanwhile clashed and clattered over the roaring hot 
 cooking-stove, getting up the " big dinner " of the week.
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 55 
 
 It was past three o'clock, and the afternoon, although 
 warm, still held the freshness of the two-days' storm, when I 
 strolled down the path skirting the high-shouldered hill 
 capped by the farm-house. The maple wood was cool, and 
 fragrant with the smell of the soaked earth and bush under- 
 growth. The pines and hemlocks were still and dim as 
 cathedral aisles before matins. The swollen creek ran 
 noiselessly over the hidden stones, in quest of the unknown 
 river. The rock on which I had first seen Ailsie was under 
 water, and only to be located by the swirling eddies about it. 
 Her placid pool was a muddy sluggish maelstrom, in which 
 fifty trout might hide. The fortifications of Gibraltar were 
 a gray expanse of ruins, hardly a furrow remaining to mark 
 the site of glacis, barbican, or tower. I said " ridiculous ! " 
 between my teeth because I was sorry that I could not find 
 the flag with the knitting-needle attachment, and something 
 as self-contemptuous about my involuntary glance at the 
 banyan bower. It had held its own through wind and rain, 
 and although scarcely an inviting retreat amid the pervading 
 humidity, looked undeniably picturesque. The situation 
 was well chosen, having a natural avenue open to the creek 
 side, and I had trimmed and woven better than I knew in 
 shaping the vine-grown thicket. The mossy floor was oozing 
 sponge to my tread, and the tabouret would, I feared, have 
 to be hung out to dry piece-meal ere it would be prudent 
 for the proprietors of the lodge in the wilderness again to 
 sit side by side upon it. 
 
 I was still inspecting house and furniture when voices and
 
 5 6 MY LITTLE L VE. 
 
 steps sounded along the brink of the stream, and the flutter 
 of a white dress past the rents in the bush-fringe forewarned 
 me of Ailsie's arrival. A gentleman held her hand, and 
 walked in the path, swinging his cane, while she darted from 
 rock to rock like a kitten. 
 
 " There he is ! " I heard her cry gladly, before I could 
 leave my covert. 
 
 To spare myself embarrassment and the new-comers the 
 ascent of the hill, I met them more than half-way. 
 
 " This is papa ! " said my " friend," gravely gracious 
 during the ceremony of introduction. " Papa, this is the 
 kind gentleman I told you about Mr. Barry," pausing and 
 looking to me for the rest. 
 
 " Haye," I supplied, smiling. Mr. Darling took me up : 
 
 " As I anticipated ! I met your father, with whom I have 
 had a business acquaintance for some years, in the city on 
 Friday. He told me that you were boarding near us for the 
 summer. I should have sought you in fulfillment of my 
 promise to him, even had not my little daughter here told 
 me of your goodness to her. She has reported such 
 wonderful things of your joint achievements in fortification 
 and bower-building that her mother and myself fear she may 
 have been troublesome." 
 
 I denied this with equal politeness and truth, adding to 
 Ailsie that I had missed her dolefully in her absence. 
 
 " Not more than she has her new friend," said her father. 
 " She was positive, scripture to the contrary, that a second 
 Noachian deluge had begun."
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 57 
 
 After a few minutes had been given to lamentation over 
 the effaced fort and rejoicing that the arbor was rather 
 improved than injured by the rain, Mr. Darling turned 
 again to Ailsie. He was evidently very proud as well as 
 fond of her. 
 
 " My daughter, will you deliver mamma's message, or 
 shall I ? " 
 
 She repeated it as prettily as she had performed the intro- 
 duction. Mrs. Darling sent, with her compliments to me, an 
 invitation to take tea and pass the night at her father-in- 
 law's. 
 
 " You are to stay all night because the evening air isn't 
 good for invaliders, " Ailsie explained. 
 
 Nevertheless, we passed the interval between tea and bed- 
 time upon the broad porch running along the south front of 
 the Darling homestead. The family proper consisted of Jhe 
 elder Darling and his wife, as fine specimens of squire and 
 lady as English manor-house could have produced, and their 
 youngest son, Wynant, a gay collegian at home for the vaca- 
 tion. The rest of a large family of children were out in the 
 great world, with families and homes of their own. 
 
 " You may imagine what a welcome variety in our hum- 
 drum life is the visit of our son and his home-treasures, " 
 remarked lovely old Mrs. Darling to me, " and how pleasantly 
 the sound of children's voices brings back thoughts of the 
 time when I had all my little flock about my knees every 
 evening, and the house was never still during the day." 
 
 Mrs. Pressley Darling returned the affectionate smile that
 
 58 MY LITTLE LOVE. 
 
 rested upon her, with Baby Evy in her lap and Robby hang- 
 ing upon the back of her chair. 
 
 " It is not every grandmother who would tolerate the hub- 
 bub," she said. " But think, Mr. Haye, how delightful must 
 be the exchange to us the mountain air and scenery and the 
 hospitality of this blessed resting-place after close rooms and 
 streets in the city ! " 
 
 While her elders talked, Ailsie sat upon a stool between 
 her father and myself, her hand on his knee, her head on the 
 elbow of my arm-chair, perfectly quiet, and if one might 
 judge from her countenance, entirely contented. As the 
 sun sank into a sea of such transparent goldenness as belongs 
 to June evenings, and none other, the mountains heaved 
 higher their purple backs against the sky, and the shadows 
 rolled into solemn stillness in the valleys. Here and there, 
 upon the plains, glimmered an eye of light like a jewel upon 
 breast or brow of ripe and royal nature ; the gleam of lake 
 or pond, or the sudden turn into the open country of a 
 mountain stream. Soon, the tree-shadows on the lawn grew 
 into renewed distinctness ; the dusky mother bedecked her- 
 self with ornaments of silver instead of gold ; the hard out- 
 lines of the mountains were softened, and farther away than 
 when they had seemed to close, dark and lofty, in upon us 
 with the withdrawal of the sun. But in the valleys the 
 shadows never stirred, and the gorges were labyrinths of 
 mysterious gloom, even when the moon had cleared the bars 
 and mists of the wooded hill-tops and looked full upon us. 
 
 The smaller children were sent to bed, and the tones of
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 59 
 
 the group left upon the porch were lower, made gentler and 
 harmonious by the influence of the hour and scene. The 
 genial flow of conversation, with its exquisite flavor of re- 
 fined breeding and genuine good- will, delicious to me as 
 the music of olden days and his own fireside to the time- 
 worn traveller, was punctuated, sometimes emphasized, by 
 rests, and in these the sacred quiet of the evening spoke to 
 us as man speaketh with his friend. The advancing tide of 
 moonlight flowed in upon the three sitting nearest the edge 
 of the piazza, washed the hem of Ailsie's white dress, crept 
 up to the hand lying with lax, still fingers upon her lap ; on- 
 ward and higher until it showed her face, paled by the chaste 
 lustre, and brought out the sheen on the ripples of dark hair 
 tossed back from her forehead. She was gazing steadily up- 
 ward, her thoughts further away than the shadowy line of the 
 most distant hills. Childish wonderings, the outreaching of 
 an immortal soul beginning to be reverently conscious of 
 what it might be what reach and enjoy were in the look 
 upon which none of us who were observant of her dared 
 remark. 
 
 It was in one of the feeling-fraught rests to which I have 
 referred, that she began to sing, according to the family habit 
 on Sabbath evenings. The sound was scarcely more than a 
 measured breath at first, and seemed to escape her involun- 
 tarily. The words were audible presently, and the move- 
 ment more assured. It was a chant ; a Gregorian, with 
 which we were all familiar. The mother joined in softly 
 with a sweet second, father and uncle followed, upbearing
 
 60 MY LITTLE LOVE. 
 
 the child-voice into roundness and strength of which I had 
 not believed it capable. 
 
 " I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills 
 From whence cometh my help. 
 My help cometh from the LORD, 
 Which made heaven and earth. 
 He will not suffer thy foot to be moved ; 
 He that keepeth Israel shall not slumber ; 
 Behold ! He that keepeth Israel 
 Shah 1 neither slumber nor sleep. 
 The LORD is thy keeper ; 
 The LORD is thy shadow upon thy right hand. 
 The sun shall not smite thee by day, 
 Nor the moon by night. 
 The LORD shall preserve thee from all evil, 
 He shall preserve thy soul ; 
 The LORD shall preserve thy going out 
 And thy coming in from this time forth, 
 And even forevermore. 
 
 " Glory be to the FATHER, and to the SON, 
 And to the HOLY GHOST ! 
 As it was in the beginning, 
 Is now and ever shall be, 
 World without end ! Amen ! " 
 
 As the last exultant note trembled towards the stars, the 
 child who had led us in the service of praise arose silently, 
 shook hands with me, kissed the others, still mutely, and 
 withdrew, her gliding step a mere throb of the stillness. 
 
 O my little love ! when I remember this, the beginning
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 6 1 
 
 of your holy ministry to my undisciplined spirit, the tender- 
 ness and grace of your unconscious bringing of the things 
 of the better life and showing them unto me uncultured, 
 selfish stripling that I was, dull and common clay beside the 
 fine clearness of your soul tears say for me what words have 
 never expressed !
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 "PAPA!" 
 
 T was more than a month after my introduction 
 to the Darlings, and consequently my en- 
 trance upon the delights of a summer in the 
 country, that Ailsie and I returned home one 
 
 afternoon from a raspberry picking, with full baskets 
 and lips dyed as darkly as were our fingers. 
 
 She was as plump and brown as a partridge, and 
 as fleet of foot amidst stubble and brambles. An 
 indomitable excursionist, she had dragged me over 
 stone walls, dry ditches and spongy marshes by the 
 shortest route, which she knew as well as any crow that 
 flew and, I was inclined to think, like the birds of the air, 
 by instinct to the " big piece." 
 
 " Big piece of what ? " asked I, when she named our des- 
 tination. 
 
 " You'll see when you get there ! " was all the answer I 
 got. 
 
 I found it to be a square half-mile of wild raspberry vines 
 packed as closely together as they could grow and bear, and 
 looking from the road and encompassing highlands like a 
 sunken morass cloaked with briars, leaves and fruit. We 
 had made a picnic of our jaunt, taking lunch along in our
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 63 
 
 baskets, and dutifully emptying them to the last crumb, 
 while resting beside a spring that bubbled up considerately on 
 the borders of the berried jungle. We had famous appetites, 
 both of us. Ailsie was growing vigorously in the free, active 
 life she led, and the greed of convalescence for everything 
 edible was mighty upon me. Ezra had ceased to carp at my 
 disrelish of such "hullsome vittles" as stale "rye 'n Injun" 
 and fried pork with the rind on, and my discussion, after a 
 two-mile walk, of Mrs. Darling's cold chicken, flaky biscuits, 
 and the "wonders," well-named for their crispness and flavor, 
 would have been a study to any one but a hungry man or 
 child. 
 
 " There are so many berries we needn't pick any beceps 
 the very biggest," said sage Ailsie. 
 
 But even when we followed this rule we were not long in 
 piling our baskets until not another would stay on the heap. 
 
 " If we crowd on the tops we shall have raspberry jam" 
 I observed, and was rewarded for my bad pun by the flash of 
 eyes and teeth that never failed to applaud anything approx- 
 imating humor. 
 
 Home we trudged in great spirits. My knees were some- 
 what unsteady from stooping to the level of the berry-bushes, 
 but Ailsie did not flag in step or tongue. She " came out 
 strong " in tete-a-tetes. In company with three or four others, 
 although these might be members of her own family, she was 
 less talkative as a rule than are most intelligent, sprightly 
 children, in like circumstances. A nonpareil of a listener, 
 she was apparently so much engrossed in gathering informa-
 
 64 MY LITTLE L VE. 
 
 tion, sifting it, and storing away in her retentive memory 
 what was worth preserving, that she had no leisure for com- 
 municating her own views and feelings. Her great gray 
 eyes lost nothing that was to be seen, and her ears and wits 
 were as acute. 
 
 To-day her chatter was illimitable, receiving impetus at 
 every yard from bird, beast, leaf and stone. Her taste for 
 natural history was a passion, and her love for all dumb 
 creatures exceeded the bounds of gentlest Christian charity. 
 Her specialty that summer, if an entomologist so catholic in 
 her likings could be said to have one, was spiders. 
 
 " What becomes of them all in the day-time I can't imag- 
 ine I " she discoursed to me in the thick of a brambly field, 
 where dewberries were to be had by the bushel for the pick- 
 ing. "You wouldn't believe that every morning, when 
 there's a heavy dew, the whole of this field looks as if it was 
 covered with white lace. White lace with teenty taunty 
 pearls strung on it, like those on a breastpin and pair of ear- 
 rings Aunt Evy has white and shiny as frost. I used to 
 make believe that the fairies had been washing their 'ball- 
 dresses and had hung them out to dry. Now, see here ! this 
 is what I'd like to know ! the webs wouldn't be here 'less the 
 spiders had put them on the grass and "bushes to catch flies 
 and gnats and lady-bugs and things. That's the trouble 
 about spiders, they will kill things to eat. Harmless little 
 bugs and grasshoppers before they are grown, and butterflies 
 that aren't strong enough to break out of the cobwebs. I 
 wouldn't hardly believe it till I caught them at it."
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 65 
 
 " I hope you punished them properly ? " 
 
 " No ! Why should I be cruel because they were ? 
 'Specially as they didn't know any better, and as the hymn 
 says about bears and lions, "'Tis their nature to ? " For all 
 that, it's an ugly nature. But as I was going to tell you, I 
 had a tame one in a tumbler once, tilted up the leastest bit 
 at the side so's he could breathe. A beauty yellow with 
 black stripes like a tiger, and eyes like yellow beads. He 
 wasn't so very tame either, but I meant to do it. I'd been 
 reading about Baron Trenck and his tame spider in prison. 
 Well ! I tried my very best to teach him to eat bread and 
 sugar and milk, and such nice food. But, bless you ! he just 
 wouldn't ! He was real obstinate about it. I can't help 
 hoping he would have behaved better when he got well ac- 
 quainted with me. I sufl-pose he was shy at first. But he 
 died, poor fellow, before he learned anything. Why, there 
 must be a thousand spiders hiding somewhere in this very 
 meadow. You've seen the fine threads that catch on your 
 eye-lashes and tickle your nose when you're riding or walking 
 in the woods ? They're spiders' webs. It's too queer what 
 they do with themselves when they hear us coming. It must 
 be fun to see them scamper to hide, and better fun for 
 them than playing tag. But come here when you may, 
 you'll never see so much as the toe of a daddy-long- 
 legs." 
 
 " You seem to be pretty well used to their ways," I said. 
 " Have you ever been here before ? Or are the habits of all 
 colonies of spiders alike ? "
 
 66 My LITTLE L VE. 
 
 The field was nearly half a mile from the house, and I was 
 surprised at her familiarity with the ground. 
 
 " Often and often ! Grandpa brings me sometimes, and 
 once Uncle Wy when he was out hunting for woodcockers. 
 They aren't a mite like woodpeckers, you know, beceps their 
 long bills. But they live upon worms, too. Only they fish 
 them up out of wet ground, instead of tapping on trees to 
 make them run out to see what's the matter. And twice I 
 ran away. That was before I knew how wrong and disobe- 
 dientish it was. Ever and ever so many weeks ago. Before 
 I got acquainted with you or had ever been to Maple Hill, 
 not very many days after we came to grandpa's. You must 
 have suspected that I was a runaway child the first time you 
 saw me didn't you ? " 
 
 "What else could I think, Ailsie? Unless that your 
 father and mother did not care much what became of their 
 little daughter ? I saw from your dress and behavior that 
 you were not a wood-cutter's or farmer's child, even if there 
 had been any farm-house nearer to the creek than Mr. Gas- 
 kin's." 
 
 "I'll tell you just exactly how it happened," she began in 
 a violent hurry as was her way when the cause of truth' or 
 the character of those she loved was to be vindicated. 
 ' Mary used to take Robby and baby and me out walking, 
 and stay all the morning. 'There's nothing like the country 
 air and rambling about the beautiful woods for doing the 
 innocent crayturs good, ma'am ! ' she'd say to mamma. 
 And this was the way she went a-walking in the country and
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 67 
 
 rambling in the beautiful woods ! She went straight as she 
 could waddle to the same exactikle place every blessed 
 morning, and settled herself down on a stone when she had 
 spread her shawl on it in the shade of the big oaks by the 
 pasture-fence, and sewed patch-work pieces for her sister-in- 
 law's bed-quilt the live-long forenoon." 
 
 " I have seen her there several times," interrupted I, 
 much amused. 
 
 " Course you have! She says it's the 'garden-spot of 
 the farrum that fence-corner ! ' So Robby used to paddle 
 around and talk to the sheep, and throw wee bits of pebbles 
 at the cows that were too far off for him to chase or hit, and 
 never got tired of looking at the two " baby horses." That's 
 what he calls colts. Baby reg'larly went to sleep in the 
 wagon, and Mary sewed black and green and red and blue 
 and white pieces higgledy-piggedy in what she called her 
 ' Irish chain,' and sung ' Cush-/#, cush-/a, wadiree-e-e ! ' 
 to baby and herself until I was sick and tired of hearing her 
 stuff and nonsense. She can't turn a tune to save her life. 
 I wish you could hear her sing ' Dear, dear, what can the 
 matter be ! ' The idea of the little dump of red hair on the 
 back of our Mary's head being tied up 'with a bunch of 
 blue ribbons ! ' " 
 
 We both stopped to laugh. We were in the road, now, 
 and I proposed a rest on a turfy bank while the story went 
 on. Released from the duty of carrying the berry-basket 
 she would not resign to me except when we were climbing 
 fences, Ailsie's stained hands played a conspicuous part in
 
 68 MY LITTLE LOVE. 
 
 illustrating the remainder of the narrative. Her hat was 
 thrown beside her on the ground. Her dark, warm com- 
 plexion and mobile face gave her the look of a Spanish gitana. 
 
 Lying on the slope of the bank, I feasted my eyes while I 
 listened. She always interested me, but to-day I was in the 
 humor to be entertained, or she was unusually piquante. 
 
 "All this was dull music for me, as you may j#/-pose, and 
 I got into a way of going off by myself down to the river. 
 Then I made up ex-plo-ding exper-ditions " a death-strug- 
 gle with both words " and in one of these I happened upon 
 the creek that runs by Maple Hill and empties into the 
 river just before you get to the bridge. Every day I went a 
 little further until I got to Fairy Land. After that I always 
 stopped there. That's the way I got acquainted with my 
 disguised prince. I used to sit on a stone and watch him 
 and he never minded me any more than he would another 
 fish. At last I met you." 
 
 " On a happy day for me, Ailsie, dear," I said, affectionately. 
 
 Her eyes shone, and she touched the back of my hand 
 with her empurpled finger-tips a swift gesture, full of 
 tender meaning. 
 
 " It is good in you to say that ! The second day I saw 
 you, I couldn't hold my tongue when I went back to Mary, 
 and I talked so much about how nice and kind you were, and 
 what you had helped me to do, and what great things we 
 were going to do, that she began to look frightened I 
 couldn't guess what about until she said in that sly, catty way 
 of hers that 1 hate it always means that she wants to get
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 69 
 
 around me about something 'Ye'd better not be spaking 
 too free to yer mamma, about the foine, strange gintleman, 
 darlint, or she'll, mebbe, forbid yer going the morrow.' 
 
 " I told her all about him yesterday," I said, " and she 
 gave me the ribbon for our flag." 
 
 " ' In course ye did, yer poor innocent, and she put a quare 
 lot of questions to me about it, last night. It was harrd 
 wurruk I had to kape her from ondirstandin" that ye had 
 strayed so far, that 'twas the crick, not the river, where 
 ye'd been building yer bush-house* and what-not, and that I 
 wasn't forninst ye, all the while. Ah ! but she's a particler 
 leddy, yer mamma is, and wirra ! wirra ! wrier" s the use of 
 botherin' the dear leddy wid shtories of what's goin' on all 
 over the farrm, at all at all, Miss Ailsie ? ' " 
 
 My laugh at the capital mimicry of the Irish girl's voice 
 and brogue did not move the narrator to mirth. She was in 
 thorough earnest with her explanation of the suspicious cir- 
 cumstances attending our introduction, and was not to be 
 distracted by side-questions. 
 
 " Then, I took fire ! I left her right there, picking up her 
 old patchwork off the grass, and ' wirra-wirra-ing ' to her 
 heart's content, and marched straight to the house and told 
 mamma every sep'ret, individigel thing ! How I had gone 
 away, miles and miles from Mary every single day for a fort- 
 night, and stayed hours and hours, and how she wasn't near 
 me all the time you and I were at worky and hadn't so much 
 as seen you, and didn't even guess where my Fairy Land 
 was, and I hoped she would never find it out, for she'd spoil
 
 70 MY LITTLE LOVE. 
 
 all our fun. And how she hadn't wanted me to say anything 
 about my running away, and to pretend 1 hadn't gone fur- 
 ther than the bridge, and that was the first way I knew 'twas 
 a sin to go off by myself, and nobody with me. And wouldn't 
 she, please, if I was to be punished, put me to bed, that day, 
 and not keep me away from the creek to-morrow. Because 
 the Bower wasn't quite altogether done, and it wouldn't be 
 honenrrable to dis'point a gentleman who had been so very, 
 very good to me, and I was sure you were a perfect gentleman ! 
 
 " Mamma behaved beautifully ! She took me on her lap, 
 and asked me, as Mary would have said ' a quare lot of 
 questions,' but she didn't scold so much as a whisper. She 
 said P hadn't understood that it was not safe or right for little 
 girls to go so far away from everybody, 'specially so near the 
 water. When papa heard it, he said I wasn't really and truly 
 a runaway only ' a stray,' and he didn't want me to be 
 stolen, and he showed me the devertisements about lost 
 dogs and horses in the papers, and made me laugh by won- 
 dering if he had better crop my ears, or put a collar about 
 my neck with his name on. 
 
 "But about mamma ! she promised to go to the bower 
 with me, next day, and see you herself. Only it rained 
 straight along until Sunday, you remember." 
 
 " Don't I ? I shall never forget it. I wanted you even 
 then, little one. I was ready to blow my brains out by Sat- 
 urday night ; I did think of hanging myself with the bed-cord, 
 but it was too much trouble to undo the hard knot with which 
 it was tied."
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 7* 
 
 " Pity you hadn't asked Mr. Gaskin to untie it for you 
 mischievously. "He wouldn't have minded the trouble if 
 you'd told him what you wanted with it. Dear me ! how you 
 interrupt my story ! I rather think mamma gave that Mary a 
 going-over, for she had her in her room for most an hour that 
 afternoon, and Mary's eyes were red as my spotted rabbit's 
 when she came out. But she didn't dare be cross to me 
 about telling tales. I 'pected she would be horrid for a 
 month and perfectly bominationable. But I didn't care 
 much. I don't like to have people cross with me. But it's 
 always right to tell the straight, plain truth, and you do feel 
 so comfortable when it's out and over with ! It's like some 
 medicine I took once, lime-water, I believe that wasn't 
 nice going down, but left a sweet clean taste in your mouth." 
 
 " Were you not afraid to wander about the country, 
 alone ? " asked I. " There are not many little girls of your 
 age who would venture to do it." 
 
 "Pooh! there's nothing in the country to be afraid of! 
 Cows and dogs and oxens never hurt anybody that doesn't 
 trouble them. Now, town is dreadful ! I lie awake all night, 
 sometimes, thinking about fire and bugglers and kitsnappers 
 and drunken men till I am scared out of my senses. I'm a 
 million times more afraid of a drunken man than I would be 
 of a gristle bear. One chased me, once." 
 
 " O Ailsie ! a grizzly bear ? " 
 
 I could not win her to smile or scold at my willful miscon- 
 struction of her words. 
 
 "A drunken man ! " she said in a whisper, a strong shud-
 
 72 MY LITTLE L VE. 
 
 der shaking the color out of her very lips, her eyes frightened. 
 " I was a little girl, only five years old. I had been to see 
 Emma Rolfe who lives on the next block. It was pretty 
 late, for they were beginning to light the lamps in the street. 
 Right on the corner this awful man hallooed in my ear, and 
 made a great trampling with his feet. ' I'll catch you ! ' he 
 said. How I ran ! Papa was opening our front-door, and 
 I fell down at his feet ; I could just see him, and that was 
 all. My feet had got so heavy I couldn't have gone a step 
 further. I thought I was dead. Drunken men ought to be 
 hanged right off, like mad dogs ! " 
 
 Her vindictive energy on this theme had long since ceased 
 to amuse the family, as I found when I happened to mention 
 the story she had told me to her father. He related the in- 
 cident to me which she had outlined, regretting the occur- 
 rence as an absolute misfortune. The effect of the fright 
 upon the susceptible child had been terrible, so alarming in 
 its outward manifestation that medical aid had been sum- 
 moned to quell her excitement, and secure the sleep without 
 which it was feared her brain would give way. All allusion 
 to the subject was strictly prohibited in the household, and 
 for a year her parents had hoped she was outgrowing the re- 
 collection of it. Mr. Darling regarded her voluntary recital 
 of the story to me as a token that the violence of her un- 
 reasoning terror was subsiding. In the country, as she said 
 truly, she was devoid of physical timidity. She loved and 
 made friends with whatever lived and moved, made a reality 
 and a joy of the lovely old myths of elves and naiads and
 
 MY LITTLE L VE. 73 
 
 wood-nymphs ; moved through the valleys and groves peopled 
 by her imagination, like the brave little princess of them alL 
 Of her moral courage I have given evidence in her own 
 account of the manner in which she met the nurserymaid's 
 adroit temptation to deception and overt falsehood. 
 
 I was to see another side of the kaleidoscopic character 
 before the day was spent. 
 
 It was sunset by the time we reached home, but the 
 aspect of the family group upon the portico was not quietly 
 contemplative as was usual at this hour. Wynant, in true 
 fisherman's rig, trowsers tucked inside of his long boots, and 
 the crown of his slouched hat wreathed with catgut, snells, 
 hooks, and flies, was upon one knee on the grass-plat in front 
 of the door, and the others had crowded to the edge of the 
 porch to see the trout he emptied from his creel. They 
 shone in the afternoon light as if dripping from a quicksilver 
 bath ; the red insignia of their nobility starring their sides 
 were so many rubies. 
 
 The chorus of admiration broke out afresh at our ap- 
 proach. 
 
 " Better than berrying, eh, old fellow ? " cried Wynant. 
 " Another time you will make a wiser choice. I haven't seen 
 them rise so beautifully, before, this year. It was superb 
 sport ! " 
 
 Ailsie frowned, nettled by the taunt at my preference for 
 the berrying expedition as well as grieved by the wholesale 
 slaughter of her favorites. 
 
 " I don't see anything very grand in murdering a few lit- 
 4
 
 74 MY LITTLE LOVE. 
 
 tie fish, no longer than your hand, who never hurt anybody 
 and hadn't sense enough to keep off your hook," she said 
 pertly, or, so it sounded to her father, who was himself an 
 enthusiastic sportsman. 
 
 " Be still ! Do not let me hear you speak in that tone 
 again ! " he ordered sternly. " That is a splendid fellow ! " 
 to his brother, who drew out and held up to general view 
 the last treasure of the basket and the handsomest of all. 
 " He must weigh at least two pounds." 
 
 " The gem of the collection ! " said the captor, handling 
 him with fond triumph, brushing a bit of grass from his silver 
 skin and stroking his fins. " Yet I did not catch another 
 within a quarter of a mile of him. And when I came to 
 think of it, the marvel was how he chanced to be there, not 
 that he had the pool all to himself. Father ! did you ever 
 hear of taking trout below the falls in Yawpo creek ? I hook- 
 ed this prize in a hollow just at the foot of Maple Hill. If 
 he had had the wit to keep still, I never should have thought 
 of stopping there. But he rose at a dragon-fly as I came in 
 sight, and missed him, diving back to his hiding-place under 
 the rock, to wait for another. ' All the better for me, old 
 chap ! ' said I, and in less than two minutes, I whipped one 
 across the pool which was as much to his taste it seemed " 
 
 " Where did you say you caught him ? " asked Ailsie, press- 
 ing forward, with circling eyes and failing color. 
 
 " Directly below what you call your bower, girlie ! You 
 must have noticed the place. It looks like a spring, shut in 
 by stones, except on one side."
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 75 
 
 A scream interrupted him. Ailsie had dropped her berry- 
 basket, and was fairly dancing with anger and distress. 
 
 " It was my beauty, my prince ! my dear little tame trout ! " 
 she cried. " Mr. Barry ! do you see what this bad, bad man 
 has done? I wish you had fallen in yourself and been drowned !" 
 
 " Ailsie ! " 
 
 " I do, papa ! He is a cruel monster ! He's worse than 
 a canni/fo// / I'll never, never like him, or speak to. him again. 
 And to fool the dear little fellow with a make-believe dragon- 
 fly, just to yank him out with a hook ! It's too sinful and 
 shameful to think of!" 
 
 Her mother tried to lead her away, but she resisted in her 
 frenzy, wringing her hands and shrieking out fresh denuncia- 
 tions with every breath, her face darkened and swollen by 
 passion. 
 
 Her father laid a hard hand on her shoulder. 
 
 " Ailsie ! hush ! this moment ! Do you hear me ? Go to 
 your room and stay there until you are willing to ask your 
 uncle's pardon. Not a word will I have now!" for the 
 writhing lips were framing speech. " What I say I mean. 
 Go!" 
 
 With one wild sob she rushed away, and, in the shocked 
 pause during which we stood looking at one another, we 
 could hear her stout walking-shoes storming up the staircase 
 and along the upper hall to her chamber. 
 
 Wynant was sorry and puzzled ; Pressley, more displeased 
 than I could have believed he could be with his best-loved 
 child.
 
 76 MY LITTLE L VE. 
 
 " Upon my soul I had no idea she could cut up so rough ! " 
 stammered the former. " If Mount Vernon's ' summer breeze' 
 had suddenly waxed into a tornado I couldn't have been 
 more astounded. You don't suppose, though, that the little 
 witch really recognized the trout ? Why they are all alike as 
 peas in the same pod." 
 
 " I suppose nothing," said his brother, " except that among 
 us we are spoiling that child in a manner that is both foolish 
 and hurtful. As to humoring a mad whim like this, and 
 passing over such language and behavior as she has just 
 given us a specimen of, it is not to be thought of. She 
 ought to be severely punished, and she shall be, if she do 
 not succumb very quickly." 
 
 " I presume I come in for my full share of your condemna- 
 tion of the conspiracy of spoilers,' 1 I said, fretted that it was 
 not easier to treat pleasantly with him after his harsh dictum. 
 " I hope you will not accuse me of a disposition to shirk 
 censure or responsibility, and that you will hear me patiently 
 while I plead my client's cause. I believe that I understand 
 better than anyone else here the reasons for what you con- 
 sidered an unprovoked paroxysm of temper, whereas she is 
 chafing under actual bereavement." 
 
 I told, then, the history of my introduction to the disguised 
 prince, the imaginary friendship between him and his human 
 visitor, describing her grief when I hinted at the possibility 
 of my catching him, my pledge not to attempt it, and the 
 many stories she had confided to me of his intelligence and 
 lameness. Warming into true partisan sympathy with the
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 77 
 
 telling, I looked down with actual pity upon the dead beauty 
 lying stark upon the sward, and bethought me of the green- 
 and-brown nook, cool and deep, with shade of tree and rock, 
 from which he had been ravished. 
 
 " Pure fancy, you may say," I concluded, speaking as much 
 to myself as to those about me. "But those of us who have 
 studied Ailsie do not need to be reminded how much of her 
 world and her life lies in the realm created by her imagi- 
 nation." 
 
 My appeal was not without instant and visible effect. The 
 eyes of grandmother and mother were moist ; Squire Darling 
 "guessed," bluntly, that "if nobody felt more like eating the 
 baby's plaything than he did, it wouldn't be worth while to 
 cook it." 
 
 Wynant's concern would have been ludicrous had we not 
 been more or less partakers in it. 
 
 " It does seem like a blamed shame ! " he confessed, turn- 
 ing the slain " prince " over on the soft grass, compunction 
 in visage and touch. "Why didn't somebody drop me a 
 hint to steer clear of that particular hole ? And for the 
 poor little fool to fling himself right in my teeth was the 
 unluckiest stroke of all. I say, Pressley, what if I com- 
 fort her by promising to bury him with all the honors of 
 war and raise a tomb-stone to his memory ? Wouldn't 
 the composition of the epitaph mitigate matters some- 
 what ? " 
 
 Pressley's sternness did not relax. 
 
 " Ailsie has behaved inexcusably ! " he said shortly. I
 
 78 MY LITTLE LOVE. 
 
 suspected he could not trust himself to many words. " She 
 shall confess her fault and ask her uncle's pardon, or " 
 
 He walked off, perhaps to cool his wrath perhaps to 
 nurse his resolution. 
 
 It was a wretchedly uncomfortable evening. We all sat 
 upon the porch in the moonlight and tried to comfort our- 
 selves as upon other moonlighted nights, but the dreary joc- 
 ularity of jests and the palpable machinery of the common- 
 places each felt in duty bound to keep going in the swing 
 of question and reply, would have moved us to genuine 
 amusement had our hearts been less heavy. The absence of 
 the blithe figure that should have been flitting from one to 
 the other with merry badinage or shy caress, or sitting with 
 still hands and musing face that required not the interpreta- 
 tion of spoken language, or singing with the moonlight on 
 her uplifted brow and such melody in her young voice as 
 made us hold our breath with delight and awe this was the 
 sadder burden upon thought and spirit for the vision the 
 missing her conjured up, our pet, weeping as from the 
 sluiceways of a breaking heart upon her little bed up-stairs. 
 Weeping, yet, as her mother reported, in grieved amaze, ob- 
 durate to persuasions, deaf to the arguments with which she 
 had striven to bring her into compliance with her father's will. 
 
 "I tremble to think what the end maybe," said the gentle 
 parent, watching her husband's promenade upon the lawn, 
 his cigar his solitary counsellor. " Pressley suffers greatly, 
 and, I dare say, is secretly repentant that he raised the issue. 
 But he will not give up. Nor will Ailsie say that she is sorry.
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 79 
 
 It is their first pitched battle, and their mutual love makes it 
 more serious." 
 
 " Pressley is making a particular donkey of himself, and 
 trying to make me seem a brute to the child," growled 
 Wynant. " If I had my way she should be down here on the 
 double quick, hearing me say how sorry I am that I ever 
 learned to cast a fly. You don't believe, Annie, that he'll 
 really punish her if she don't come in to his measures? 
 By George ! if he should lay the weight of his finger upon 
 her, I'd punch his head for him ! " 
 
 It was a family quarrel with which I should have had no 
 concern, but my blood ran first cold, then, like liquid fire at 
 the suggestion of such brutality. 
 
 " It would kill her ! " escaped me, before I could consult 
 with discretion. 
 
 The grandmother signed audibly. I saw the Squire shake 
 his white head in earnest disapproval, whether of parental 
 discipline or of unwarrantable interference with the same, I 
 did not ask. 
 
 " How still the night is ! " observed Pressley, in a tone of 
 serene indifference, returning to the porch. " You can hear 
 the roar of the milldam, two miles off." 
 
 No one offered a reply to this remark addressed to the 
 company at large. Since he did not deign to notice the 
 prevalent depression, or to soothe the perturbation which 
 was the fruit of his harshness, we were not disposed to second 
 his motion toward conciliation. We were behaving like 
 sulky children, but the revolt was general.
 
 8o MY LITTLE L O VE. 
 
 " We shall have a hot night, if the breeze do not come up 
 from the river by midnight," he pursued, coolly ignoring our 
 silence. 
 
 The words were yet upon his lips when something white 
 and noiseless floated around the shaded corner of the house. 
 It was Ailsie, a wrapper of her mother's thrown on over her 
 night-dress, her feet bare and her hands clenched tightly 
 upon the trailing drapery gathered up and held against her 
 breast to leave her steps free. She paid no attention to the 
 sitters in the background. I doubt if she was aware of our 
 presence. Her father stood upon the upper step of the 
 porch, and she went directly up to him. 
 
 "Papa?" catching her breath in the rapidity of her artic- 
 ulation. " You wouldn't have me tell a lie ? How can I say 
 that I am sorry for what I said to Uncle Wy, if I am not?" 
 
 Wynant started forward. His sister-in-law held him down. 
 The moon showed us every line of the tear-blotched visage, 
 deathly pallid, but for these stains ; the wide, imploring eyes 
 filled with such agony and such love as made my heart ache 
 to look upon ; as wrings it more keenly to recall. The 
 father's features were in the shadow of his hat-brim. His 
 voice was firm, but not threatening. 
 
 " But you ought to be sorry, Ailsie. That you are not, 
 shows that you are not subdued ; that you are obstinate in 
 your naughtiness. I can have nothing to say or do with you 
 until you are sorry, and will say so." 
 
 " Papa ! " Something was in her throat, and she had to 
 swallow it before going on. " I have been thinking it all
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 81 
 
 over. If a wicked man was to kill me by mistake, for some- 
 body else's child, would you feel like asking his pardon if you 
 did call him a few bad names ?" 
 
 There was a subdued rustle in the background, of feeling, 
 or suppressed applause. 
 
 " That is ridiculous, Ailsie. A fish is not a child." 
 
 Nevertheless, his hand moved to his mouth to cover the 
 twitching I did not believe was a disposition to laugh. 
 
 " Papa ! " She had to brace herself upon the beloved 
 name, at the beginning of each argument. " It seems fool- 
 ish to you, because you are a grown man. But I did like my 
 poor little trout very much, and I had such happy times 
 making up stories about him that I got almost to believing 
 they were true. And so many things I have loved and tried 
 to tame, this summer, have died, or been taken away from 
 me. Not big things, of course, tha.ty0iSd care for. But I 
 am not such a very big girl, yet, you know ! " 
 
 Piteous little mousie ! She had never looked so babyish 
 before in my eyes. She had fastened her hands upon one 
 of his, her eyes larger and deeper in the extremity of her 
 entreaty. 
 
 " Papa ! I am sorry that I vexed you. Ever so sorry ! 
 It hurts me dreadfully when you are angry with me. I'll 
 ask your pardon, fifty a hundred times ! " 
 
 " That will not do, my daughter. You were exceedingly 
 
 rude and unkind to your uncle who was not to blame for 
 
 what he had done. You gave way to your temper, sinfully 
 
 and shamefully, and called him names I am ashamed to 
 
 4*
 
 82 MY LITTLE LOVE. 
 
 remember. I am mortified that my girl is not brave enough 
 to say that she was naughty and ask his forgiveness for her 
 behavior to him." 
 
 She shrank as if he had slapped her in the face, at the 
 charge of cowardice, but did not lose her ground. After a 
 longer pause than had preceded it, came her final attempt at 
 honorable compromise. 
 
 " Papa ! I will forgive him ! Won't that do as well ? " 
 
 " Bravo ! " shouted Wynant, unable to restrain himself 
 longer. 
 
 His brother strove vainly to make himself heard amid 
 simultaneous acclamations and noisy clapping of hands from 
 the spectators of the painful scene. 
 
 Seeing him waver, and encouraged by our sympathy, Ailsie 
 sprang to his neck with an hysterical cry that hushed the 
 uproar. 
 
 " Papa ! Papa ! " 
 
 Nothing else repeated in every intonation of reproachful 
 and grateful tenderness, until she began to sob again. 
 
 He lifted her in his arms, and bore her away as he might 
 an infant, and we saw neither of them again that night.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 HEADACHE AND DIPLOMACY. 
 
 HAD anticipated some disagreeable scenes 
 at my boarding-house, as the consequence of 
 my intimacy with the Gaskins' "high-strung" 
 neighbors. But the pious and censorious trio 
 so far adopted the policy of the children of this 
 generation, as to regard with extreme leniency my 
 preference for the flesh-pots of Egypt to wit, the 
 savory fare that graced Mrs. Darling's board over 
 the tough and salted meats that were in sober liter- 
 alness the pieces de resistance of the Gaskin menu ; 
 and for the profane and foolish babblings of the society in 
 which I discussed the daintily-cooked viands, over the talk 
 that seasoned yet more unpalatably, the corned beef and 
 pork, cabbage and onions, salt fish, waxy potatoes and heavy 
 bread, not forgetting the " biled dinners " in which Ezra's 
 soul delighted. If the supposition had not been too wild to 
 be nurtured into belief, I could have fancied that they re- 
 spected their lodger the more because of the favor with which 
 he was received at the objectionable Squire's ; that they 
 rolled as a sweet morsel under their tongues the complaints 
 they vented to neighborhood visitors as to " how little they
 
 84 MY LITTLE LOVE. 
 
 saw of Mr. Haye, now that the Squire's folks were fair crazy 
 after him. But 'twasrit to be wondered at, considerin'. Let 
 the Squire and his'n alone for findin' out and courtin' rich 
 and fash'nable strangers ;" in short, that they basked their 
 little souls contentedly in the feeble glare reflected from iny 
 social importance upon them as my hosts. 
 
 I was, at all events, grateful that they refrained from 
 verbal reprehension of my conduct in spending more than 
 half my time away from my paid-for lodgings, presumably, 
 with some member of the " big bug " confederacy. Not that 
 I was deceived by this show of Christian forbearance into 
 the persuasion that the coals of small, mean jealousies were 
 not smouldering within the breasts of the elder and his 
 spouse, or that the sharp-eyed grand-dame had not her feeble 
 share of inward burnings at my " taking-up " with those who 
 were immeasurably their superiors, although born in the 
 same walk in life. 
 
 I understood, therefore, in its length and breadth I should 
 say, in its narrowness and shallowness the meaning of the 
 feigned condolence that met, one morning, my announce- 
 ment that a severe sick-headache prevented me from touch- 
 ing so much as a cup of coffee, and my withdrawal to the 
 porch, there to lie at full length upon the bench, while my 
 room was cleared up. 
 
 " Housed hey ? " commented Ezra, stopping so close to 
 me, on his way a-field as to nauseate me anew with the smell 
 of stable and barn-yard given forth freely by his corduroy 
 trowsers and cowhide boots. " That's a pity, now ain't it ?
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 85 
 
 For, I make no doubt there's some spree or racketing of 
 some sort 'pinted for to-day. I never see the time I could go 
 off a-pleasurin', with an easy conscience, and leave the farm ; 
 but Squire's a gentleman-farmer, and makes up in book-larn- 
 in' for the sweat of his face. 'Cordin' to the new-fangled 
 religion so many's runnin' after, the Good Book ain't always 
 on the square 'bout these things. You do look powerful sick ! 
 Ef you feel to want to send any excuses, or messages, or any- 
 thing to your friends, over the crick, I'll manage to get 'em 
 there, somehow or 'nother. I ain't so ruleable as some, but 
 I'm willin' to be 'commodatin' when it comes into my way." 
 
 "Thank you ! I have no message to send," I answered, 
 faintly, holding my breath as long as I could. 
 
 By the time the clatter of his shambling feet upon the 
 gravel walk had died away, and before the effluvia had begun 
 to depart, his wife called to me from the kitchen-window. 
 
 " I 'spose we'll have the pleasure of yer company to 
 dinner, Mr. H., seein' as how you can't git away very easy." 
 
 She chuckled spitefully over the dish she was wiping, and 
 the grand-dame's wrinkled visage peered at me, under her 
 elbow, to see what the laugh was about. Perceiving my 
 prostrate condition, she hobbled out to me, her breath rattling 
 asthmatically in her shrunken chest. 
 
 " Bilious be ye ? " stooping to scan my skin through her 
 glasses. " Deary me ! And the almond-tree shall flourish 
 and all the daughters of music shall be brought low. Guess 
 ye must 'a' got kinder stirred up, trampoosin' 'round so much 
 in the sun. I never had no 'pinion of these kitin' ways.
 
 86 MY LITTLE LOVE. 
 
 People allers on the go for pomps and vanity, and the pride 
 of the flesh. Ye're dretful yaller ! I should'nt wonder a 
 mite ef ye was goin' to have the janders. All ye can do is 
 to try to cultivate a cheerful sperrit and a patient dispersition. 
 The young lions lack and suffer hunger, ye mind. And if 
 at any time you feel that a cup o' tea sage, or catnip, or pen- 
 nyr'yal, or boughten tea would comfort yer inwards, neither 
 me nor 'Liza Jane would grudge puttin' on the kittle for ye." 
 
 " Thank you ! " I said, again, stifling a groan. 
 
 I was at her mercy and she did not slight her " privileges." 
 
 "Young folks think old people fools," she pursued, breath- 
 ing more rattlingly in her earnestness. " Old folks know 
 young people to be fools ! Man/s the time I've heard my 
 granny say that. It's enough to put ye into mind of yer 
 latter end, hevin' so many bad turns. The old must die. 
 The young may die. A whip for the horse, a bridle for the 
 ass, and a rod for the fool's back. He also that is slothful 
 in his work is brother to him that is a great waster. We 
 have scripter for that. Say what you will, ther" ain't no 
 rubbin' that out. You're young, and gay, and flighty now, 
 but for all you know, yer time may be at hand. And if ye 
 should want the tea, you'll let me or Liza Jane know. I 
 hope we are Christians and wouldn't be back'ard to do our 
 jeuty by a sufferin" fellow critter." 
 
 She rattled her old bones back to her daughter-in-law, 
 and I heard the two beating up my feather bed, with an eye 
 to my immediate occupancy of the same, the strokes sound- 
 ing like the swing of a flail.
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 87 
 
 Feathers ! ugh ! How my unquiet stomach protested 
 against entering that low-browed chamber again, and still 
 more strenuously against laying my head, and nose, upon the 
 never too fragrant pillow until driven to it by sheerest neces- 
 sity. I rolled off the bench and staggered to the furthest 
 limit of the yard, where I stretched myself, helpless as a log, 
 on the grass, more miserable than any other physical derange- 
 ment could have made me, unless it were sea-sickness. 
 
 Nobody discovered me in the covert of a clump of lilac- 
 bushes, and being out of hearing of the shrill clack of my 
 tormentors' tongues, I did not lift my head until the horn 
 blew once, and again, more discordantly, for dinner. Then 
 I but dragged my heavy limbs to the kitchen door to say 
 that I wanted nothing to eat, and this, although a " b'iled 
 dinner " reeked mountainously in front of Mrs. Ezra, who 
 " did " the carving. Retreating incontinently before inqui- 
 ries and odor, I made a half-circuit of the house, and sat 
 down, exhausted, upon the steps of a small porch in the 
 north gable, and rather cooler at this hour, than the eastern 
 "stoop." I think I dozed, with my head laid upon a chair 
 that happened to be there a green wooden chair with an 
 arched back, slender spokes supporting the curve, and an 
 inexplicable projecting hump exactly in the middle of the 
 edge of the seat. I am quite sure that no one came near 
 me for a long while. I know it grew hotter every minute, 
 and the air seemed to close like an invisible thumb and fin- 
 ger, upon my nostrils, occasionally obliging me to open my 
 mouth to get my breath.
 
 88 MY LITTLE L O VE. 
 
 Perhaps it is because I had never been ill before, that I 
 recollect with curious distinctness the physical experiences 
 of that year. It was assuredly for this reason that they 
 appeared to me exceptional while undergoing them. They 
 ought to have made a man of me, or so I argued, that day, 
 within my drunken brain. They were a part, and I hoped 
 devoutly there was nothing worse behind, of the discipline of 
 life. With something akin to the maudlin gravity of the 
 tipsy philosopher, who, prone in the gutter, or backed up by 
 a lamp-post, proceeds to the study of the analogy between " the 
 leaves that have their time to fall, " and " I " I analyzed 
 and moralized upon my sensations. I was in the furnace of 
 affliction, or, as the teeth of pain tore at the reticulated 
 nerves of my scalp, threshed and winnowed. Or, altering 
 the figure at the bidding of my heaving diaphragm, tossed by 
 contrary winds and chopping seas. Once, there rushed 
 over me, in a lucid interval, such a yearning for sight and 
 touch of the mother who had died when I was five years 
 old, that I could have wept aloud with loneliness and home- 
 sickness. I have never, since the summer that taught me so 
 much, spoken lightly of bodily anguish, or underrated the 
 weight of its influence upon human character and immortal 
 destinies. 
 
 Hitherto, I had believed that the bent of my mind and 
 taste lay decidedly in the direction of psychological and 
 metaphysical research. Under the anointment of personal 
 suffering, I unclosed my eyes to the truth that the most 
 intricate lines of these were so intertwisted with the subtle
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 89 
 
 laws and analogies of physiology that they could be most 
 dexterously untangled by the student of the latter. If in my 
 choice of a profession for life I have acted wisely for my- 
 self, beneficently for others, I ought not to regret that the 
 furnace, threshing floor, and stormy waves were to me, for 
 the time, horrible realities, which taxed the utmost fortitude 
 of my manhood. They certainly showed me what a toy of 
 circumstance this same vaunted manhood was. The " Give 
 me some drink, Titinius ! " of Caesar's fever-dried lips took 
 on new and awful meaning. He arose superior to the fear 
 of the last enemy, when he wrapped his robe about his head 
 and lay down as to natural slumber at the foot of great 
 Pompey's statue. The girlish cry to his attendant was the 
 peevish protest of cowed nature beaten to the dust by a 
 master mightier than death Disease. All through those 
 months of positive illness and fluctuating convalescence, 
 there had been growing within me the conviction that he 
 who should arm himself for battle with this potent foe of 
 human happiness and usefulness, would go forth to the 
 noblest crusade possible to man, if we except that which 
 engages the Michael of moral mould in direct conflict with 
 the devil and his angels. 
 
 I did not reason or resolve coherently while sick-head- 
 ache had the mastery, and demoralization was its perfected 
 work. But one definite thought found footing in my con- 
 sciousness. If this attack had supervened upon the fever 
 of two months before, I should, undoubtedly, have suc- 
 cumbed to it as the sheep to the butcher's axe ; and I was
 
 90 ' MY LITTLE LOVE. 
 
 sorry it had not ! In that case, I should not now be lying 
 in the throes of living dissolution. I was sinfully ungrateful 
 for the gain of strength that enabled me to maintain the con- 
 flict with the pain that racked me to faintness, with the faint- 
 ness from which I struggled back to pain. 
 
 And still the air grew hotter and more lifeless. The leaves 
 and green bells of the hop-vines climbing over the porch, 
 hung motionless, save when jarred by the uneasy toss of 
 my hand, or the tortured turn of my whole body. The 
 grasshoppers sang in the parched turf in a shrill key that 
 pierced my ears like fine twisted wire, and when one stopped 
 to recover wind, the others kept on. Through the irregular 
 arch made by the drooping vines above the steps, was visible 
 a section of sky like white steel for hardness and gleam, that 
 smote me blind whenever I raised my swollen lids. Once, I 
 bethought me that decease in a bed-room, even under a 
 slanting roof and upon a feather bed, would be more deco- 
 rous and would seem more creditable when related in the 
 obituary column of a newspaper, than to be found stark 
 could I ever be cold ? like a defunct cur that had crept 
 under the vines to breathe his last, unmolested by curiosity 
 or taunts. But I thought, also, of the sun streaming upon the 
 sloping wall, and the rattle and smells of the kitchen invading 
 door and windows, and the probable visits of mother and 
 daughter-in-law, and lay still, awaiting merciful insensibility. 
 
 The roll of wheels on the dusty road, harshly audible in 
 the dead stillness, stopped for an instant opposite the farm- 
 house. There was a murmur of voices a brief colloquy,
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 91 
 
 and the wheels went on down the hill. The incident was 
 less than nothing to me at the moment. It would never 
 have meant anything, but that the scorched grass crackled, 
 presently, as under a rabbit's tread, and a shadow halted be- 
 tween me and the cruel light of the sky. 
 
 " Oh ! " 
 
 The gasp of amazement and distress brought me to my 
 senses. I sat up, holding my temples between my palms, in 
 the conviction that the sutures of the skull were gaping, 
 and forlornly hoping to keep the sundered sides in 
 place. 
 
 "Oh!" reiterated the sweet voice. "You are sick? 
 What can I do for you? Why didn't you come to grand- 
 pa's? Or send us word ? " 
 
 " It was not worth while," I managed to get out. ' ' It is 
 only a sick-headache. It means nothing ! " 
 
 After which mendacious statement, I subsided into 
 recumbency, my arms doubled under my bursting head, and 
 groaned abjectly. 
 
 Ailsie knelt on the floor and put two chubby cool hands 
 upon my eyes momentary relief from fever and glare that 
 was inexpressibly grateful. Before the heat could return, 
 she laid her folded handkerchief over them instead of the 
 caressing ringers. 
 
 " Lie still until I come back ! " she whispered, and sped 
 around to the seldom opened front-door, where she knocked 
 imperatively. 
 
 In the hot hush that lay about me seeming to enfold me
 
 92 M Y LITTLE L O VE. 
 
 as its centre, I overheard the dialogue which followed Mrs. 
 Ezra's appearance in response to the summons. 
 
 " Good-afternoon, Mrs. Gaskin ! I am Ailsie Darling. 
 My Uncle Wynant left me here just now, to pay a call to 
 my friend Mr. Haye. He is lying in the porch around that 
 side of the house suffering dreadfully with a headache. I 
 suppose he wouldn't tell you anything about it for fear of 
 worrying you and giving you the trouble of nursing him. 
 He is very particular about troubling other people." 
 
 With all my pain and nausea I smiled at my delicate con- 
 sideration for my hostess' sensibilities. 
 
 " He ought to have let you know, for a headache is a 
 very bad disease. And men don't understand how to nurse 
 themselves. If it would not be putting you to too much 
 trouble, mayn't I bring him into that nice parlor and lay 
 him down upon the sofa for a while ? He shan't bother 
 you and we won't put your furniture the leastest partickel 
 out of order. I should like to take care of him until my 
 uncle calls by for me." 
 
 " In the east stoop did you say ? " interrogated Mrs. Ezra 
 in unpromising accents. " What's to hender him from go in' 
 up to his own room and layin' down like a Christian onto as 
 good a feather bed as any man sick or well need ever want? 
 Mother 'n' me we made it up extra early in the day on a 
 purpose. I hain't no opinion o' sech airs." 
 
 " Maybe his head is dizzy," answered the other voice. 
 " My Aunt Evy often has sick-headaches, and she can't 
 move hardly her head swims so badly."
 
 Jfy LITTLE L VE. 93 
 
 "Yer Aunt Evy ! Who's she? Ther ain't none o' yer 
 pa's folks what hez that name," waxing conversational at 
 the sniff of gossip. 
 
 " She is my mamma's sister." 
 
 '* Ah ! married or single ? " 
 
 " She isn't married, I suj-pose she must be single. But 
 she is very nice." 
 
 " Whaf s her last name ? " 
 
 " Miss Marr," laconically. 
 
 " Young or old ? " 
 
 I don't think she's quite either." 
 
 From the changed direction of the sounds, I judged that 
 Ailsie had backed off the steps, keeping her face turned to 
 the catechist also keeping her temper well in hand. 
 
 " I may take Mr. Have into the parlor, mayn't I ? " she 
 continued. " It looks very cool and pleasant in there." 
 
 A grunt between satisfaction and sarcasm from my land- 
 lady. 
 
 "Thought likely you was used to sech fine doin's in town 
 and over to gran'pa's, you wouldn't care to look at my par- 
 lor, let alone set down into it." 
 
 " I am sure it is very comfortable. I should like to go in 
 very much." 
 
 The diplomatist was still backing nearer to me, but con- 
 sistent in her policy of civility. " I will run around and tell 
 him what you say about his coming in out of the sunshine. 
 I'm very much obliged to you." 
 
 All this in her tuneful, childish treble, and with the simple
 
 94 MY LITTLE LOVE. 
 
 grace of naturalness that made her address always impres- 
 sive. Before I could call her attention to the fact that the 
 permission she had taken for granted had not been accorded, 
 either directly or by implication, the house-door that opened 
 upon the small porch was unlocked, and Mrs. Ezra, grimly 
 compliant, stood on the threshold. 
 
 " Head ain't no better, hey ? Ef you won't go to bed, 
 hadn't you better step inside and lay down on the sofy in the 
 best room ? It's as easy as settin' here in the blazin' hot 
 sun." 
 
 She led the way. I followed, not too steadily, flame-col- 
 ored mists dancing before my eyes, the roar and thump of a 
 steam-engine in my brain. Ailsie clung to my hand, planting 
 her feet with great care, in the belief that she stayed my steps 
 and averted possible disasters from my dizziness. The par- 
 lor had been swept and aired that forenoon, it being the 
 allotted day of the week for the performance of this solemn 
 ceremony. The air was deliciously cool after the furnace 
 radiation of that without, and the darkness was yet more 
 delightful. The sofa was covered with hair-cloth (of course), 
 and slippery as glass ; but when Ailsie had brought a pillow 
 from my bed, and spread over the cotton slip encasing it the 
 smooth linen handkerchief which had blindfolded me in the 
 glaring porch, I let down the leaden misery I was wont to 
 name my head cautiously upon it, yet binding my temples 
 hard, that the cracking articulations of the sutures might not 
 be utterly disorganized, and found tongue to declare myself 
 comfortable or that I must be, by-and-by.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 HOW THE OLD TREE FELL. 
 
 *Y eyelids ached and were flabby, requiring an 
 effort of will, as well as of muscle, to raise 
 them. Succeeding in the attempt when the 
 engine-play ceased to strike sparks like lurid 
 pyrotechny through or athwart my eye-balls, I saw 
 that Mrs. Gaskin had added to the favor of admit- 
 ting me to the " best room " that of leaving us to 
 our own devices. In the cool dusk of the quiet 
 parlor, my little guardian stood by me, watchful of 
 every gesture, waiting patiently until I was ready 
 to be spoken to. 
 
 "You are an angel, Ailsie ! " 
 
 She put her hand upon my mouth. I held it there. 
 " Fie ! " said my mentor, in the accent of a pmde of the 
 first water or ice. " You are getting rtY-lir-i-ous. Or fool- 
 isher than common. You must behave properly, or I shall 
 be obliged to go away. Perhaps it would be just as well for 
 me to call Mrs. Gaskin back. If you would per-tzx her 
 nursing, you have only to say the word." 
 
 I professed penitence, and engaged to be preternaturally 
 docile if she would stay by me.
 
 g6 MY LITTLE LOVE. 
 
 " And not call in the dragon ! " I subjoined. 
 
 " That is unthankful ! " I was admonished. " 'Tenny 
 rate, the dragon's den isn't a bad place." 
 
 The quaint deftness of her small preparations for the bus- 
 iness of the afternoon was something to see, if one's skull 
 was splitting, his stomach void and rebellious. First, she 
 bowed a pair of the solid wooden shutters to let in a crack 
 of light. This must be kept out of my eyes, while it was 
 needed to show her the way about the apartment, and a 
 high-backed rocking-chair was pulled between me and the 
 narrow ray. Next, she made choice betwixt two worked 
 footstools, standing so exactly opposite to one another at the 
 corners of the hearthstone one might have believed they 
 were screwed fast to the floor. The selection was a subject 
 for thought. She looked long at one, then at its mate. The 
 pattern, wrought in very cross-stitch with aggressively vivid 
 crewels, upon the first, was a medallion head of Gen. Wash- 
 ington. Upon the fellow, as a companion design, was a par- 
 rot, and this she at length brought to my side, settling her 
 white dress about her for a protracted sitting. 
 
 "Now, if you can get a long nap, you will wake up 
 almost well. That 5 s Aunt Evy's plan." 
 
 " Dear child ! " I said, " I cannot think of your moping 
 here in the dark. If you are so kind as to insist upon 
 sitting by me, get a book to amuse you, and open the 
 shutters wide." 
 
 " Hush-sh-sh ! I enjoy sitting in the dark and thinking. 
 And " the ever-ready flash of fun leaping to her eyes, while
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE, 97 
 
 her lips were demure, " if I wanted to read, there's nothing 
 on the table there, but Johnson Walker's Dictionary, an 
 Almanac, and a monstracious family Bible. Go to sleep, my 
 dear ; we'll make-believe I'm your aunty come to nurse you. 
 Or " laughing, now, all over her face " you can shut your 
 eyes very tight, and play it's your loved Mrs. Gaskin watch- 
 ing over you." 
 
 I affected to shiver. " I would rather go back to the 
 porch and the wooden-bottomed chair with the lump in the 
 middle. My respected landlady seems to have made an 
 impression upon you, Ailsie." 
 
 " I should think she might upon anybody. But no more 
 backbiting or talk of any sort ! " 
 
 She took my hand upon one of hers and stroked it with 
 the other, the soft finger-tips sending tiny rills of magnetic 
 soothing along the nerves. Pretty soon she laid it back 
 gently on the sofa and tiptoed to the mantel, where she had 
 espied a fan. Even in her manner of using it she was 
 unlike other children ; evinced more tact and skill than are 
 possessed by most professional nurses. The cooler air was 
 a zephyr that did not lift a hair. The fan never came so 
 near me as to tickle my face, or creak in my ear. It was a 
 wide-bespread feather machine, however, and lest the 
 weight should weary her wrist, I arrested the action. 
 
 f ' Would you mind singing to me, girlie ? I begin to be 
 sleepy." 
 
 She sang as naturally as she breathed. I have spoken of 
 her voice as one of singular compass and sweetness, and 
 5
 
 98 MY LITTLE LOVE. 
 
 being joined to a quick ear, it had gained for her at this 
 early age the reputation of a musical prodigy. Her parents 
 were careful that praises of the rare gift should be dealt out 
 judiciously to her. If she surmised what was likely to be in 
 the future the value of her talent, she concealed it well. 
 Her vocalization was as artless as that of a wood-thrush. 
 
 That day, after two or three more modern ballads, she 
 sang Kathleen O'More. Strange as it may seem, I had 
 never heard it before. I was falling asleep as she began to 
 croon it, very lowly, that she might not recall me from the 
 misty land. 
 
 " My love, still I think that I see her once more, 
 But ah, she has left me her loss to deplore 
 My own little Kathleen, my sweet little Kathleen, 
 My Kathleen O'More ! " 
 
 The rest was as simple. A poor little tale, trite and bald 
 in terms, common enough in the happening, but this child's 
 rendering made of it a succession of " pictures from life." 
 
 The gentle milkmaid, "her hair glossy black, her eyes 
 dark-blue ; " the pensive figure on the cottage door-step ; 
 the smitten flower never lifted after the sweep of the chill 
 night-wind ; the bright corner of the old country church-yard, 
 away from the shadow of yew-tree or mossy and moulder- 
 ing wall, yet a corner where the robin built his nest and 
 hopped lightly and fearlessly upon Kathleen's grave ; these 
 I saw, without the " making believe " the songstress was 
 fond of recommending as an important means of securing 
 enjoyment in this work-a-day world.
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 99 
 
 " That is very beautiful ! " I murmured, without opening 
 my eyes, as my imagination appropriated the last and most 
 pathetic sketch. 
 
 " I am glad you like it. It is my very favorite ! " she 
 said earnestly. " I can remember begging mamma for 
 'Tathleen' when I was just able to ask for it. She used to 
 rock me to sleep with it every night. Course I didn't 
 understand it them Aunt Evy ah ! you ought to hear her! 
 sings it to me, sometimes. At twilight, you know, in her 
 room, when we two are sitting by ourselves by the fire. It's 
 like seeing it, every bit. I don't sing it to many people. 
 It's one of my privatest songs." 
 
 She wandered off to something else a Scotch air if I 
 remember aright, and I fell asleep in the midst of it. 
 
 The strangest light I ever saw was in the room when I 
 was aroused from the depths of healing slumber by a sudden 
 noise I could not at at once determine what. The 
 shutters of one window were open, and outside of it were 
 the sparsely clothed branches of an old cherry-tree, drawn 
 black and motionless upon a background done in sepia, yet 
 with a coppery glare striking through it that was very curi- 
 ous. This was the first thing my eyes rested upon, and I 
 could not make out what it meant, nor where I was, until a 
 full minute had passed ; only lay gazing at the fantastic 
 cartoon and the weird illumination. The four corners of 
 the parlor were thick with gloom. Every object in the 
 middle of it was unnaturally distinct. The spider-legs of the 
 centre-table cast crooked shadows upon the red and green
 
 loo MY LITTLE LOVE. 
 
 arabesques of the carpet. "HOLY BIBLE" on the cover of 
 the ponderous volume that had the place of honor on the 
 table was in letters that flamed as the characters traced by 
 the finger of GOD upon the first tables of the law may have 
 burned under Moses' eyes. The clear brown of Ailsie's 
 complexion was bronzed, and there were tawny glints on 
 her hair that did not belong there. 
 
 She did not observe, directly, that I was awake, but 
 remained perfectly still, looking at the cloud, the apparent 
 source of the baleful radiance, that had wrought such 
 transfiguration. Now and then, she drew a deep breath, in 
 awed interest not alarm. 
 
 She started as I touched her folded hands. 
 
 "You have waked up ! Good ! I could'nt bear to look at 
 you. You were not at all like yourself, but pale and yellow, 
 more like a brass head papa has in the library at home 
 than my dear Mr. Barry." 
 
 She drew her stool closer to me ; took my hand and 
 leaned her cheek confidingly upon it. 
 
 " Were you afraid ? " I inquired. " We are going to 
 have a thunder-storm. But you are quite safe, little 
 bird." 
 
 She smiled brightly. " I never thought of being fright- 
 ened. I am rather fond of thunder-storms. Mamma and I 
 watch them rising over the mountains from her windows. 
 It's grand ! She says they are no more dangerous than the 
 sunshine. People get struck by the sun 'most any time in 
 town, in the hot weather. It lightened once, a while ago,
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. IOI 
 
 and there was one thunder. It was that woke you up, I 
 jtf/-pose. Is your head better ? 
 
 " Much, thank you ! You and sleep have cured me. I 
 am only weak and giddy. The pain has nearly gone." 
 
 " Shan't I ask Mrs. Gaskin for something for you to eat ? " 
 
 " No, dear. There is time enough for that. I shall be 
 most comfortable lying here and watching the storm with you. 
 I could not eat, even if grandma were to tempt me with one 
 of her suppers." 
 
 She nestled in the embrace of the arm cast about her. 
 We were such dear friends now, that I might take the liberty, 
 and likewise beg, when she was in a very benign mood, the 
 supreme favor of a kiss at parting for the night. 
 
 " It is very good to be with you ! Of course we are safe 
 anywhere, for GOD is everywhere. But when we can see the 
 people we love it is a great convenience. Don't you think 
 so?" 
 
 " It is always a " convenience" and a happiness to have 
 you near me," I rejoined. " There is the lightning again ! 
 Look at that old tree, Ailsie, the next time the flash comes. 
 It really seemed to shake all over, as if frightened out of its 
 wits." 
 
 " Out of its bark, you mean," she corrected. " What little 
 it has left ! " 
 
 The scanty drapery of leaves clinging to the boughs was 
 of a sickly green, diversified by a sicklier brown. Caterpil- 
 lars' nests gray film without, squirming black within were 
 pendent from the moss-grown branches. The bark was, as
 
 102 MY LITTLE LOVE. 
 
 Ailsie had noticed, dropping piece-meal from the trunk that 
 showed, white and lifeless, through the rifts and scars. It 
 was a hoary monarch of its kind, and, in its prime, must have 
 shaded all that end of the house. On gusty nights I had 
 heard branches as large as my arm hurtle down the roof and 
 plunge, with a dull thud, upon the turf. 
 
 " I kinder hate to cut the old cherry down, yet awhile," 
 Ezra had said one day, when his wife had complained of the 
 "litter" made by leaves and twigs. 
 
 " Yer grandfather sot it out," quavered the old mother, 
 " Fifty odd years ago. There's been nigh 'pon a million 
 bushels o' whiteheart cherries onto it, fust and last. Mother- 
 in-law was a gret one for presarvin' and dryin' cherries. 
 Many*s the colic you got by stuffin' yerself with them white- 
 hearts, Ezry, when you was a little chap. Deary me ! how 
 time goes ! The righteous runneth into it, and is safe. Yes, 
 yes !" 
 
 " I kinder hate ter stick the axe into it, yit," pursued 
 Ezra, ignoring, in the lordship of manhood, the reminiscences 
 of her who bore him. " It'll be easier cut, come winter, 
 when the sap's nm down, and I shan't be so plaguey hard 
 pushed with other work. Winter's the time for cuttin' tim- 
 ber. If s powerful hefty business in hot weather." 
 
 And I had been so foolish as to credit the thrifty fellow 
 for a moment with some touch of tender regard for the ven- 
 erable warder that had guarded the Dutch-hipped roof of his 
 forefathers when he was a baby ! 
 
 The thunder succeeded the lightning quite at its leisure,
 
 M Y LITTLE LOVE. 103 
 
 A sullen growl, waxing into as sullen a roar very irregular 
 on the descending scale, as if it had half a mind to turn back 
 and repeat the performance subsided finally into a grum- 
 ble somewhere far off to the eastward. 
 
 " Sounds like a barrel rolling downstairs with a ' boo-ump ! ' 
 for the landings and bottom," said Ailsie aptly. 
 
 The air was more stifling instead of cooler, after the flash 
 and report. The storm was working itself up to the point of 
 angry outburst with ominous slowness. The yellow-green 
 leaves wilted until they lay flat upon the stems. The 
 gnarled bole and decrepit boughs were drawn more sharply 
 upon the sepia background, up which darker billows began 
 to surge majestically. I fancied I could detect sulphurous 
 odors in the atmosphere, and when I passed my hand over 
 Ailsie' s hair it clung to my fingers, then flew off as at the 
 alternate touch of the poles of an electrical machine. The 
 tempest would be something to be remembered when it did 
 come. 
 
 To divert my companion's mind from observation of these 
 phenomena, I pointed to a huge "hunk" of gingerbread in a 
 plate set on a chair near by. 
 
 " Did you bring your luncheon with you ? Or, is that for 
 me?" 
 
 I had expected the curl of the upper lip that scouted both 
 suppositions, but it was smoothed out by the smile that fol- 
 lowed. 
 
 " As if I'd lug gingerbread around in my pocket ! A kind 
 old lady with the rumpledest face I ever saw, gave it to me
 
 104 MY LITTLE LOVE. 
 
 while you were sound asleep. I am sure she is kind, though 
 she was so funny. I never imagined anybody exactly like her. 
 She made me think of Cinderella's godmother, and 'Goody 
 Gracious ' in the story we read last week, and witches and 
 pixies, and all that. She didn't speak 'loud only whis- 
 pered, sitting on that chair and stooping over towards me. 
 Something in her throat rattled like dried peas in a sifter. 
 She told me that she knew Grandma Darling when she 
 wasn't any bigger than I, and that she ' was the purtiest girl 
 in the land.' And then she said that ' cleanliness was akin 
 to godliness,' and would I never forget that text? I said, 
 ' No, ma'am ' and I don't believe she meant to be rude. 
 But 'twasn't very polite to grandma, or to me." 
 
 I was choking with laughter. 
 
 " She meant nothing wrong, dear. It is only a way she has. 
 Then, she gave you the gingerbread ? " 
 
 " Yes, and said nursing was dreadful hungry work, and I'd 
 ' better run out to play a spell, and look at the cropple- 
 crowned chickens and Buckshur pigs.' She would enjoy 
 she /miounced it ' enj'y ' ' taking a mouthful of rest in the 
 ioQ\air\g-cheer ' that's the way she called it. I think it was 
 then she told me the liberal soul should be made fat. She 
 said it, sometime. She must have read a great deal of Bible, 
 to remember so many verses that don't fit." 
 
 My laugh was irrepressible now. Ailsie's eyes twinkled 
 with fun, then were gravely repentant. 
 
 "It can't be right to laugh at her, because she's so old 
 and trembling. And she was very good to me. She opened
 
 LITTLE LOVE. 105 
 
 the shutters ' for fear I should get lonesome,' sitting in the 
 dark ; that was how I found out there was going to be a 
 shower. I shouldn't have minded eating the gingerbread to 
 please her, but mamma doesn't like to have me eat sweet 
 things between meals. I didn't like to hurt the old lady's 
 feelings, so 1 told her she might leave it there, and if I got 
 hungry enough maybe I'd eat it. Or, perhaps, you'd take a 
 piece." 
 
 The lightning flashed nearer and faster. The sooty billows 
 suffused the broad surface of the cloud-curtain, and, from 
 time to time, a cut like the sweep of a fiery cimetar split it 
 from top to bottom. The sulphurous fumes were stronger, 
 and the darkness closed in upon us, until Ailsie's face with 
 its great, solemn eyes, was lifted out of the gloom like a 
 brave, bright flower, ever turned to heaven. 
 
 There seemed to be no need for me to reiterate, " You 
 are quite safe, darling," but I said it, not yet comprehending 
 how one so young should not be terrified by the portents of 
 a tremendous battle in the air. 
 
 " I know ! " she answered calmly ; " I was thinking how 
 nice it was that my text this morning should have been, 
 " Thou shalt not be afraid of the terror that walketh by night, 
 nor the arrow that flieth by day." It was just as if GOD 
 intended it. The lightning put me in mind of arrows. It 
 is very comfortable to remember the verse just now. GOD 
 doesn't ever say things he doesn't mean, you know." 
 
 The latch-knob rattled, and the grand-dame bustled in, her 
 cap strings flying in the draught created by opening the door. 
 S*
 
 1 06 MY LITTT. E LO VE. 
 
 " For the land sakes ! " she ejaculated, skurrying across 
 the room to the shutters she had unbarred. " What 'ud 
 Liza Jane say ef she was to find this open, and ther* comin* 
 'on sech a blow as never was ! The turribillest storm ! 
 Well ! well ! the night cometh in which no man can work ! " 
 
 She was tugging at the support holding up the sash a 
 rusty nail which stuck fast in its hole. 
 
 I had arisen to help her, checking Ailsie, who sprang for- 
 ward to do the same, and putting her behind me on the sofa 
 as I left it (I have always been thankful for the blind im- 
 pulse that made me do this) when the air seemed to take 
 fire all around me, at once, and I was hurled violently back- 
 ward to the floor. 
 
 If I was stunned, it was but for a second, for Ailsie's 
 scream was yet ringing in my ears when I opened my eyes 
 upon hers. My head was in her arms ; overthrown chairs 
 and footstools were heaped to the right and left of us, as by 
 the toss of a mighty arm. The centre-table had been flung 
 one way, the great Bible another. 
 
 Close to this last, her head almost resting upon its open 
 page, was the body of the grand-dame. 
 
 The cherry-tree was cloven from crown to root, but it was 
 no more dead than was she.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 TROTH-PLIGHT. 
 
 VACATION and convalescent laziness were 
 over. I was back in my place in college and 
 home, studying in earnest, and, Aunt Evy in- 
 sisted, always a little too much for my strength^ 
 inasmuch as in addition to the cramming requisite 
 to make up for lost time, I had commenced read- 
 ing medicine out of lecture hours. 
 
 " If I had my way," said my privileged censor, 
 I would seal up your medical treatises for twelve 
 months, and stamp upon each seal, " Festina 
 Icnte? 
 
 My censor for one of the great blessings of my life had 
 come to me. Ailsie's Aunt Evy was mine also, by adoption, 
 and of love. The Darlings' house was nominally my secojid 
 home ; in reality, it was the first in whatever went to make up 
 the best and dearest elements of a heart heaven. And the 
 " Innermost" (a thousand thanks to Frederika Bremer for 
 the word !) of the Darling household, was " Aunt Ev/s 
 room." 
 
 We three she, Ailsie and I were enjoying the glow of 
 her wood-fire, the cheerier as the twilight advanced, one raw
 
 1 08 MY LITTLE L VE. 
 
 winter's evening. It was the isth of December, a date I 
 have reason to recollect. Aunt Evy's knitting-work lay on 
 her lap, and there was still sufficient daylight to show that 
 it was a pretty fabric of red and white worsted. The tiny 
 hands were notably clever in such cunning and tasteful 
 manufactures. To this day, the sight of anything particu- 
 larly ingenious or dainty in the way of knitting, netting or 
 crocheting, reminds me of her. 
 
 I saw a young girl showing off what she styled " a sea- 
 foam," the other night, with great pride and a spice of co- 
 quetry. Pride that she had fashioned it ; coquettish delight in 
 its becomingness, when it was thrown over her fair hair. It 
 was pale green and pure white, fine as a spider's web, yet 
 warm as ermine at least, so she said. There was a painful 
 stricture about heart and throat that kept back my smile at 
 her innocent manoeuvres. Not because she was young and 
 fair, and cared not that I found her so, but for love of other 
 hands that had wrought like fairy wonders, so many years 
 agone ! 
 
 Aunt Evy was very small and slight " Queen Mab," her 
 brother-in-law had dubbed her and very fragile. She could 
 just remember, she used to say, the time when she was well 
 and strong ; when people praised her rosy cheeks and laughed 
 at her dumpling dot of a figure ; when there were dimples 
 where the knuckles now showed sharply on her hands, and 
 her hair, still soft and lustrous, fell, when loosened, below her 
 knees. By-and-by she had lost flesh and health, and had 
 learned to cease looking for their return ages ago. Where
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 109 
 
 was the use of tormenting her friends and herself with uncer- 
 tainties ? It was only casting money after doctors, and time 
 after money, and what poor treasures of rest and pleasure re- 
 mained in the battered shallop after what had gone before, 
 to keep up the pitiful farce of expecting to be well again in 
 this world. 
 
 She divided her time between the homes of her two sisters, 
 one of whom lived in a pleasant village on the Hudson 
 River. But Mrs. Darling had her for three- fourths of the 
 year, much to the other's discontent. In the winter she was 
 invariably in the city, the recipient of such lavishment of 
 loving care as would have satisfied a more exacting invalid. 
 Two luxuries she would have wherever she pitched her tent : 
 her open fire-place, with its blazing logs, and her window- 
 stand of flowers. Her " pet old-maidisms," she said they 
 were, and insisted upon paying for them herself. She could 
 have afforded to indulge many and more extravagant whims, 
 being the mistress of a snug fortune in her own right. Her 
 dress was always handsome and in the prevailing mode ; hei 
 apartments well furnished and exquisitely neat. 
 
 " It is bad enough to drag my visitors up an additional 
 flight of stairs to behold a fleshless atomy," was one of her 
 sayings " without chilling them by the appointments of a 
 hospital and the gloom of a genteel family vault." 
 
 She kept open doors here, therefore, her face as sunny as 
 the sky in fair weather, as cheery always as the blaze upon 
 the hearth, and to her was continual resort of those who 
 needed counsel and sympathy. Mrs. Darling came to con-
 
 HO MY LITTLE L VE. 
 
 suit about dress-making and cookery and social requirements 
 and mooted points of etiquette. Her husband read the 
 "Post," every evening by "Evy's" lamp, toasting his 
 slippered feet upon the fender, and discussed the leading 
 topics of the paper and times, with the vivacious little being 
 who seldom saw the outside of the house from the beginning 
 to the end of winter, and sometimes did not stir beyond 
 the threshold of her chamber for weeks together. The 
 children trooped in and out, all day long, with broken knees 
 and fractured toys to be pitied and repaired, bruised heads 
 and injured feelings, capital jokes and direful woes that 
 could be appreciated so well by no one else as Aunt Evy. 
 She loved and spoiled all, serving each as faithfully and 
 zealously as if she had no one else upon the globe upon whom 
 to pour out the riches of her affectionate sympathy and help- 
 ful offices. That she had a favorite, however, she was too 
 honest to conceal. That nobody carped at the preference 
 was a proof how truly the rest loved her and the object of 
 her partiality. 
 
 " They are all passing dear," she said, once, to me, " I 
 hardly know which is the mother Mrs. Darling or I. But 
 Ailsie ? Ah, that is quite a different matter. She is my twin ! " 
 
 I could easily comprehend, when I knew her well, the 
 nature and strength of the tie ; as easily trace in the niece's 
 peculiar phraseology her habits of thought, especially in the 
 mixture of sparkling fun and profoundest earnestness that 
 was a never-old entertainment to me the formative agency 
 of the aunt's companionshp and teachings.
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. Ill 
 
 " If people would not excruciate my taste and sensibilities 
 by calling the most original child born into the world during 
 this century ' old-fashioned,' it would be a relief and a 
 boon," she complained. " When her fashion is all her own, 
 and uncopyable ! " 
 
 She was inclined to be quiet, on this evening in mid-De- 
 cember, lying in the invalid's chair which she had asked me 
 to lower for her, when she stopped knitting, only saying a 
 word, here and there, to show that she heard and enjoyed 
 what was going on between Ailsie and myself, or laughing 
 the soft, liquid gurgle of amusement that was more like 
 infantine glee than the mirth of one who had lived in this 
 world forty years, and could "just remember" what it was 
 to be free from pain. 
 
 Ailsie and I were having what she denominated " one of 
 our good talks." It was not every day, or every week, that 
 she condescended to accept a seat upon my knee. She never 
 did it when others besides Aunt Evy were by, being, at once, 
 the least shy and the most modest child I ever saw. To-night, 
 she had invited herself to occupy that perch, and while she 
 talked, played with my hands, my sleeve-buttons and those of 
 my coat counting, " rich man, poor man, merchant, thief,"up 
 one side, and down the other, varying the entertainment by an 
 occasional pull at my hair if I teased or contradicted her. 
 
 " All the leaves must be off the bower," she was saying. 
 " And the creek frozen. And the trout (poor prince isn't 
 there now !) what do you suppose has become of them ? And 
 the hop-toads and spiders ? "
 
 H2 MY LITTLE L O VE. 
 
 " Gone into winter quarters," quoth I. " With mud- 
 blankets and sod comfortables. If your dear friends the 
 spiders hadn't wasted their time making ball-dresses for the 
 fairies, in the summer, they might now be asleep in beds with 
 lace curtains and cambric sheets." 
 
 The idea pleased her fancy, and she paused to cogitate 
 upon it. 
 
 " It does seem," she said, slowly, as " if they might have 
 done something like that. Built cunning little houses under 
 ground. Wee bits of palaces and lined them with silk, and 
 had thistle-down beds." 
 
 " And stoves and gas-chandeliers ! " I interpolated, and 
 got my ears pinched. 
 
 " I can see just the kind of house I am going to live in 
 when I am grown up," she pursued, staring into the fire. " It 
 shall be almost out of town, where I can have a garden and 
 rabbits and Guinea-fowls and a dozen jolly little pigs with 
 curly tails and pink noses. Oh ! and a pony, and deers and 
 fishes, and as many birds as the trees will hold. There will be 
 a piazza all around the house, and windows down to the floor, 
 and ever so many rooms down-stairs. So's Aunt Evy won't 
 have to climb steps. One room shall be all white ; another 
 all pink, another blue. I'll have a piano in every one. And 
 a greenhouse." 
 
 " In every room ? " 
 
 " Be quiet ! " she ordered, petulantly. " My houses tum- 
 ble down when any body speaks. It breaks the charm. That 
 one has gone for ever and a day."
 
 M Y LITTLE LOVE. 113 
 
 " I'll build you a better, some time," I proposed. " When 
 I am a rich doctor, with the street in front of my office block- 
 ed up with the carriages of people who want me to cure 
 them. You shall have rooms furnished with all the colors of 
 the rainbow, and no end of flowers and gold-fish, and as many 
 singing-birds as heart could wish, not forgetting a damp cor- 
 ner in the garden for a select number of lovely hop-toads, 
 and a garret, where the spiders' webs shall never be disturbed. 
 As to pianos, and such-like trifles, they will be a drug. You 
 won't be able to move without catching your dress in a harp- 
 string or treading upon a guitar." 
 
 " Who will play upon them all ? " 
 
 " Aunt Evy and you and I." 
 
 " Ah ! you will live with us too, will you ? That would 
 be splendid ! " 
 
 " If you will let me," I responded, seriously. " But you 
 will have to marry me first." 
 
 I expected a cuff or a tweak of the ear. But she stopped 
 trifling with my coat buttons, and became profoundly medita- 
 tive, her head on one side, her eyes again upon the coals. 
 
 Aunt Evy's laugh disturbed the brown study. 
 
 " What do you say to that, Midget ? " 
 
 " I don't know but what it might do very well ! " she an- 
 swered, with unflattering hesitation. " I shall have to marry 
 somebody. And so many people advise me not to marry 
 papa. They say it 'tisn't custom-er-rary. Mamma might 
 feel badly about it, too. It would be something like Leah 
 and Rachel. I am very fond of you, and you would treat
 
 1 1 4 MY LITTLE L O VE. 
 
 me well. I did think once I would marry a minister. They 
 are poor as poverty, always, but they don't drink ! I've been 
 afraid, all my life, I should marry a &r\\\\kerd. Papa read 
 at prayers, this morning, about the men persessed with devils 
 that tore their clothes and were " exceeding fierce." I think 
 that's the matter with drunkerds. It's just the way they be- 
 have. They are persessed with devils." 
 
 "Bad spirits, certainly," said I, jocularly. 
 
 She was immovably grave. " It would be better for me to 
 die, now, while I'm sure to go to heaven, than to grow up 
 and marry a man who was persessed." 
 
 " Always the same bugbear ! " murmured Aunt Evy to 
 me. " I ask myself, often, what it can portend." 
 
 " You had better take me, Ailsie," I urged. "I'll sign the 
 pledge to-morrow. Let me see ! How does it run ? 
 
 ' We do not think 
 We'll ever drink 
 Brandy or rum, 
 Or anything that makes drunk come,' 
 
 " I promise it all if you'll say that you will marry me." 
 She ruminated yet more solemnly, weighing the proposal 
 as its moment deserved. 
 
 " I should like to get it off my mind for good and all," she 
 confessed. " It has been a great bother. Four other gen- 
 tlemen have begged me to marry them. Very nice gentle- 
 men, too. Good enough for anybody's lovers. But I had 
 papa in my head, and hadn't been told any better, and I
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 1 1 5 
 
 sent them off. After all, I didn't like any of them as well as 
 I do you. You suit me uncommonly well. Aunt Evy likes 
 you, and papa and mamma think the world of you." 
 
 "You see what a comfortable arrangement it would be all 
 around, then," pursuing my advantage. " You suit me un- 
 commonly well. I like Aunt Evy, and think the world of 
 papa and mamma. Say you'll take me, Ailsie, and get the 
 bother off both our minds." 
 
 She was not quite won. The sense of what belonged to 
 her sex was inborn and potent. 
 
 " I wonder what Clarine would say," was her next objec- 
 tion. " She might be hurt if I was engaged first." 
 
 "Don't let that stand in your way," observed Aunt Evy. 
 " I had a letter yesterday from Clarine." This was the eld- 
 est daughter, who was spending the winter with some Wes- 
 tern friends. " I should not be surprised, from what she 
 says, if she brought somebody home in the Spring, to ask 
 papa's consent to her return with him. But that is a secret, 
 for the present." 
 
 " Certainly," nodding sagaciously. " Family affairs. I 
 hope she will get a handsome husband and be very happy." 
 
 " And you will make me very happy by giving me a hand- 
 some little wife ? " I returned to the charge. 
 
 " O dear ! " The coquette in miniature tossed her head 
 pettishly. " How insisting you are ! I have a great mind 
 to say ' No ! '" 
 
 " Ailsie, the very thought of it breaks my heart ! " 
 
 She got down from my knee.
 
 1 16 MY LITTLE LOVE. 
 
 " Stand up ! " imperiously. 
 
 I obeyed, taking a military attitude, head and shoulders 
 back, hands straight down at rny sides. She retired some 
 paces, put her hands behind her, and scrutinized me. 
 
 " There is a great deal of you ! " she remarked dubiously, 
 presently. 
 
 " So much the better for your part of the bargain ! " I re- 
 torted. " It isn't every day you can get six feet in exchange 
 for four." 
 
 "You'll be getting handsomer all the while," was her 
 next move. She was a mad lover of personal comeliness. 
 "I heard mamma tell Aunt Evy so yesterday. She said 
 you would envelope into a noble man." 
 
 " Ailsie, you tell-tale ! " cried her aunt threateningly. 
 
 I bowed profoundly. " I shall make it a point, with the 
 busy bee, to improve my manly beauty every shining hour." 
 
 "No joking!" she frowned. "There is no fun in this 
 matter. Are you jpuf-feck-\y sure that you want to marry 
 me ? " 
 
 I put my hand to my heart. 
 
 " As sure as that I carry your image in this bosom, Prin- 
 cess Ailsie." 
 
 " You will always love me as well as you do now ? " 
 
 "Better, if that were possible." 
 
 " Never be cross or uncomfortable ? " 
 
 " Not while the stars shine and the rivers roar." 
 
 " Will let me have my own way when it's good for me ? " 
 
 " Yes and when it is not, if you will."
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 117 
 
 " Aunt Evy may live with us ? " 
 
 " From the first of January to the thirty-first of Decem- 
 ber." 
 
 "Then " after a pause meant to be tantalizing "we'll 
 call it settled." 
 
 " Seal it with a kiss, Ailsie." 
 
 She averted her face with coy dignity as I stooped toward 
 her, and extended her hand to receive the salute. I 
 dropped to one knee to perform the act of allegiance, Queen 
 Mab looking on in intense amusement. 
 
 " I knocked at the door and thought I heard Miss Marias 
 voice say ' Come in ! ' said pleasant accents in the rear of 
 the group. " Was I mistaken ? " 
 
 I was on my feet with a spring. Ailsie snatched away 
 her hand. Even Aunt Evy, who was rarely off her guard, 
 uttered a slight exclamation. 
 
 " Why, Bessie Barnes ! you stole in upon us like a ghost ! 
 We did not hear you, but you are none the less welcome on 
 that account. Miss Barnes, allow me to present my friend, 
 Mr. Haye. Barry ! may I trouble you to light the gas ? " 
 
 I gathered from this that Miss Barnes was hardly upon 
 what Mrs. Stowe calls, "a footing of undress intimacy" 
 with our small hostess. I had met girls there at twilight 
 whose calls were allowed to run out to the close without 
 other illumination than the rising and falling fire-light. Like 
 other single ladies and invalids, Aunt Evy had " whims," 
 and one of these was the delicate gradation of greetings that 
 were always civil and friendly, from frank affection down to
 
 Ii8 MY LITTLE LOVE. 
 
 politeness for the sake of politeness and her own self-respect. 
 I judged that Miss Barnes stood about midway on the 
 scale. 
 
 She was very pretty. That I discovered at a glance. Her 
 eyes were hazel and marvellously expressive ; her hair chest- 
 nut ; her nose straight ; teeth white and even with an en- 
 gaging trick of surprising the beholder by gleaming in sudden 
 smiles between two red lips, and her complexion was like 
 the petals of a freshly moulded wax lily. 
 
 " Pure Parian," said I to myself, noting how faint, exquisite 
 lights shone through its paleness, as she talked or laughed. 
 "A perfect piece of workmanship ! " 
 
 Like Ailsie I had an eye for personal beauty, and used 
 both of mine to excellent purpose in the ensuing half- hour. 
 Perhaps this is why I have such a nebulous recollection of 
 what she talked about. Her voice was very sweet, with 
 round tones, and rather languid modulations that were more 
 Southern than Northern. She was apparently an enthusias- 
 tic admirer of Aunt Evy, although her effusiveness did not 
 transcend the limits of good taste. 
 
 Ailsie had betaken herself to a stool on the other side of 
 the fireplace from the visitor, and said not one word while she 
 stayed. This did not impress me as significant at the time, 
 because she was subject to these fits of quiet attention, dur- 
 ing which the passage of her intelligent eyes from one 
 speaker to another declared her every sense to be on the 
 alert. Her withdrawal from Miss Barnes's vicinity and im- 
 penetrable reserve, meant only that she would rather look and
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 119 
 
 listen than talk, or be talked to. She wore a crimson dress, 
 that evening, or a deep wine-color, with a full skirt that fell 
 into graceful folds about her knees, and to her ankles, show- 
 ing her pretty feet. Her Uncle Wynant described her, in 
 sporting phrase, as " clean-limbed," and I thought of it 
 whenever I saw her walk or dance. The plumpness belong- 
 ing to robust childhood did not disguise the trim shapeliness 
 that promised to become lithe elegance in the woman. Her 
 hands were crossed in her lap, and she sat perfectly erect, 
 never vouchsafing more than a glance in my direction, and 
 that demurely expressionless. I tried to catch her eye once 
 or twice, but failed signally, and to me comically. The 
 studied propriety of my newly affianced could not have been 
 surpassed by a " model of her sex " ripe with the seasoning 
 of ten campaigns. 
 
 Miss Barnes talked away gayly, and Aunt Evy seconded 
 her, until the clock on the mantel struck six. 
 
 " Can it be ! " exclaimed the younger lady, taking out her 
 watch. " That naughty brother of mine was to call for me 
 at half-past five. He has forgotten me, beyond the shadow 
 of a doubt the careless boy ! Ah, Mr. Haye ! the best of 
 brothers are ruined for all sisterly use, lost to their families 
 and general society by the frightful accidents called " matri- 
 monial engagements." Fred used to be a nonesuch of an 
 escort for me, and I was so vain as to believe that nobody 
 could usurp my place. Now, I pledge you my word, he 
 does not remember my existence once in twenty-four 
 hours, unless I am bodily present to his eyes, and then he
 
 120 MY LI TTLE L VE. 
 
 passes me over with an abstracted stare as if I were the 
 moon." 
 
 " Excuse me ! " I said, deferentially ; " but do you con- 
 sider that an unnatural mistake ? " 
 
 A flat compliment and flatter witticism, but she accepted 
 it merrily. 
 
 " Thank you ! " sweeping me a courtesy, that would have 
 been a burlesque of gratitude but for its winsome grace. 
 The white teeth were visible in a brilliant line hardly seen 
 before it was gone. " It is easy to see whose pupil he is, 
 Miss Marr," smiling at Aunt Evy. " You cannot do better 
 than to prosecute your studies in this seminary of the graces, 
 Mr. Haye. Some of her graduates have the most enchant- 
 ing manners, and they do get off the prettiest things imagina- 
 ble. We all know they are at second-hand, and tell them so, 
 but even at that, their bans mots are preferable to anything 
 that originates in the masculine cranium." 
 
 " The brain is then the fountain-head of gallantry ? " I 
 said, interrogatively. "We stupid men are in the habit of 
 claiming for the homage we pay at the shrine of the fair, the 
 merit of heart-parentage." 
 
 " That is an exploded error. Every girl in her teens 
 knows better than to trust your fine words, or yourselves. 
 But I must positively go ! " 
 
 I arose with her, and stepped back into a side-room for my 
 hat and overcoat. 
 
 " If you please ! " remonstrated Miss Barnes, a few hur- 
 ried steps bringing her close to me, at my re-appearance.
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 121 
 
 " I beg you will not feel called upon to play deliverer to this 
 forsaken maiden ! I am not in the least timid, at any time, 
 and this evening I have an eminently courageous fit upon 
 me. Then, there are always the very civil policemen to call 
 upon, if one should get nervous. I prefer to go home alone ! 
 You may look incredulous, but I do ! I won't flatter you by 
 pretences of shrinking delicacy. I am the most candid crea- 
 ture in the universe." 
 
 She was laughing all over her face. Her eyes were upon 
 mine, and I being so much the taller of the two, she had to 
 raise them at a bewitching angle. Her teeth were a-gleam 
 with fun ; rosy flames flickered through the Parian complex- 
 ion, and amidst these, two of the archest, divinest dimples 
 that ever ensnared heart and fancy played hide-and-seek. 
 
 In the Spectator's " Bill of Mortality of Lovers," we find 
 these entries : 
 
 " Ned Courtley presenting Flavia with her glove (which 
 she had dropped on purpose), she received it, and took away 
 his life with a curtsey. 
 
 " Musidorus slain by an arrow that flew out of a dimple 
 in Belinda's left cheek." 
 
 I was doubly dispatched ; nay, trebly ; done to my death. 
 
 Yet the aromatic pain of such dying were worth a thousand 
 lives, provided one might perish with the dear, fatal rose in 
 sight.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 HASHEESH. 
 
 FELL in love, then, with Bessie Barnes, out 
 of hand, and irretrievably. I will not be 
 positive that the pretty alliteration did not 
 aid in the work so speedily and effectually 
 done. 
 
 I take to myself due credit for my prompt ap- 
 preciation of my condition and honorable surrender 
 to my captor. Some men make feeble fight, while 
 conscious of their enslavement. Others deny persis- 
 tently to themselves the fact that they are no longer 
 their own masters, and therefore ignore the odds against their 
 ever regaining their liberty. I was young, and despite a con- 
 stitutional inclination to dreaminess and morbid musings, I 
 could hardly have been reckoned as over- susceptible to Love's 
 wiles or assaults. I had never felt the symptoms I was so 
 quick to recognize, before, even in the incipient stages of 
 school-boy passion or puppy-adoration. Yet in respect to 
 coquettes and their arts I was at twenty-one as unsophisti- 
 cated as was Caspar Hauser, when found standing painfully 
 upon the rounded soles of his pulpy feet in the market-place, 
 blinking at the unknown daylight. From the time I left off
 
 My LITTLE LOVE. 123 
 
 petticoats I had preferred books to society, and shunned 
 ladies young ones, especially while at school and college, 
 with more than the usual dread common to hobbledehoydom. 
 It should have been to me a convincing proof of the human- 
 izing yet bracing influence of the summer's associations and 
 Aunt Ev/s tuition, that I had met a popular belle without 
 the disposition to run away, and bandied compliments with 
 her for three minutes before the twin darts from courtesy and 
 dimple penetrated to my vitals, and I fell at her feet as 
 Holofernes before Judith, or Sisera before inhospitable Jael. 
 
 Figuratively. Seen by the outward eye, I stood upright, 
 civilly, yet not servilely insisting upon my right to see my 
 enslaver to the home, honored beyond all other earthly habi- 
 tations (but this I said inwardly) in being her abiding-place. 
 More glances, courtesies and dimples were so much superflu- 
 ous ammunition, but she did not grudge them. I said 
 " Good-night " to Miss Marr, replying incoherently, I dare 
 say, to her query whether 1 would not return and sup with 
 her. I believe I intimated, and lied, in so doing, that " they " 
 would be disappointed if I did not put in an appearance at 
 home, about tea-time. My hasty response meant nothing 
 beyond aversion to viewing the blissful Now as limitable by 
 vulgar times and seasons. 
 
 On the first landing, I recollected that I had not taken 
 leave of Ailsie, nor so much as looked at her in leaving the 
 room. I will be so far just to myself as to assert that I should 
 probably have made some sort of apology to my companion, 
 and run back to repair the slight, had she not been in the
 
 124 MY LITTLE LOVE. 
 
 middle of a sentence which lasted all the way down-stairs ; 
 an impulse seized no, touched me, in the lower hall, to call 
 out a pleasant "Good-by, Ailsie dear!" I should like to 
 think that I had opened my mouth to do this when Miss 
 Bessie accosted me. 
 
 "Have you a pin to spare ? The walking is detestable. I 
 must pin up my dress, if I am to take your arm." 
 
 Take my arm ! Flexors and extensors were steel at the 
 suggestion. I could have borne her fairy weight one hun- 
 dred and twenty avoirdupois to the world's end, or hewed 
 through a posse of " very civil policemen." Then the sweet 
 artlessness of the declaration that she was under my protec- 
 tion, the ingenuous acceptance of my escort and all it im- 
 plied of guard, support, devotion stamped her as true and 
 noble woman. The alternate heats and thrills radiating from 
 the heart to the remotest fibers of digits and pedals, almost 
 robbed me of my speech and memory. It was as much as I 
 could do to recollect in which vest-pocket I carried the small 
 "bachelor's" pincushion fashioned for me by Ailsie, last week. 
 Producing it after fumblings and delays that earned for me 
 another glimpse of the gleaming pearls between the rose- 
 leaves of the " perfect lips," I offered it silently reverently 
 
 It was heart-shaped and made of black velvet, with 
 " B " on one side, " H " on the reverse, worked with gold 
 thread by Aunt Evy. But the uneven stitches, crowding upon 
 and overlapping one another around the edges, were set by 
 solicitous little fingers whose owner had wrought in with every 
 one a loving thought of me that lent force to the thrust of
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 125 
 
 the needle through quadruple folds. The same fingers had 
 stuck the heart all around with pins for my use. I had not 
 been able, up to this moment, to make up my mind to re- 
 move one of them. I held it out to Miss Barnes as readily 
 as I would have tendered the palpitating organ thumping 
 against my arm, and invited her to stick pins into that, had 
 it been practicable to get it outside of my ribs, and she had 
 asked me to do her the trifling favor. 
 
 She made a bootless peck at a pin's head with her gloved 
 fingers. 
 
 " Pshaw ! what a nuisance a glove is ! " and she com- 
 pleted my distraction by stripping off, with a charming show 
 of fury, the primrose-colored integument of her right hand, 
 and attacking the pins successfully with bare digits. Filbert- 
 nailed, pink-tipped, taper rolls of snow, joined to a palm it 
 made one's mouth water to behold ! Lived there a man 
 a creature of tan and sinews and palpable knuckles and 
 joints, of beard and broadcloth who could ever aspire to the 
 honor of possessing this thing of wonder and beauty, and 
 winning for his heart and home, a joy forever! 
 
 My breath went clean away for a whirling second. I held 
 fast to the velvet heart, however, and let my charmer tug 
 with mirthful moues, and pretty puckers of eyebrows, at the 
 pins. Ailsie had pushed them in very far, and the stitches 
 were so near together that they stuck fast, and the pink tips, 
 backed by the nut-shaped nails, had to pull valiantly to ex- 
 tract them. I had sense enough left not to volunteer the 
 help of fingers that were all thumbs beneath her eyes. Nor
 
 126 MY LITTLE LOVE. 
 
 could I have seen a single pin's head distinctly. Unaided 
 and unhindered by me, she pinned up her draperies in the 
 handiest, and most modest manner conceivable. Not a 
 thread's width of the white underskirt could be seen, and one 
 had only chance and fleeting glimpses of a jaunty gaiter, en- 
 clasping such a foot ! 
 
 " Her feet beneath her petticoat, 
 Like little mice, peep in and out 
 As if they feared the light" 
 
 went around and around in a brain that was spinning too 
 fast for safety before their appearance upon the scene. O rare 
 Sir John Suckling ! shrewd and kindly wert thou in prophecy 
 as in history of lovely conceits and the intoxicating effects of 
 beauty. I got the front door open which was a mercy in 
 itself, and due more to accident than dexterity and we passed 
 into the outer night together, as truly tete-a-tete as we would 
 have been on Juan Fernandez before the discovery of 
 the uncomfortable footprint in the sand, and this while the 
 streets were resounding with steps and voices. Pressley 
 Darling met us under a street-lamp near his own door ; 
 raised his hat to my companion, and looked, I fancied, quiz- 
 zically at me. He was an incorrigible tease, but I was in- 
 vulnerable to fear of persecution from any source while Bes- 
 sie (I had got to tJiat in my thoughts) grasped my arm more 
 tightly preparatory to launching herself upon the muddy 
 crossing. 
 
 "We shall have to establish ferries or station Sir Walter
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 12 J 
 
 Raleigh at the street-corners before winter is over," she 
 said, on the other side, stamping her dainty gaiters with be- 
 witching energy upon the sidewalk. 
 
 Internally I anathematized the substitution, on the part of 
 fashion, of tight-fitting, be-buttoned and be-sleeved surtouts 
 for the graceful Spanish cloak it would have been the act of 
 a moment to disengage and fling bridge-wise over the quag- 
 mire. As to ferries ! Hildebrand might have preserved one 
 grain of charity for Uncle Kohleborn in memory of the 
 time when he bore Undine through the knee-deep and rising 
 torrent. 
 
 I believe I replied that " such neglect on the part of the 
 municipal authorities was a disgrace to the corporation," 
 or words to that effect. Some benevolent agency that was 
 not common-sense withheld me from the expression of the 
 daring suggestions I have hinted at as rife in my brain or 
 heart. I could no more have decided which was the seat of 
 the sensations mastering reason, than I would willingly have 
 gone back to the estate of ignorance and unconsciousness, 
 but, as I now felt, real misery, that was mine prior to twenty 
 minutes past five o'clock this blessed afternoon of December 
 1 5th, in the year of our Lord, 18 . 
 
 It was a foggy evening of a decidedly bilious complexion, 
 and, if I must speak plainly, unsavory odor. Bessie called 
 my attention to the peculiar state of the atmosphere. Else, 
 I should have said that the flaggings were " thick inlaid with 
 patines of bright gold." She would have me stop several 
 times to observe the yellow halo encircling the gas-lights,
 
 128 MY LITTLE L VE. 
 
 like the nimbus about a saintly head by one of the old mas- 
 ters, in which the glory is curdled by three centuries' keeping. 
 What was my idea of a " London particular ? " asked the 
 sprightly beauty, her spirits, like her loveliness, proof against 
 damp and chill. She had heard it said, laughing heartily, 
 that it was more like pea-soup than anything else. Had I 
 never been abroad ? Then, I would think none the less of 
 her for confessing that neither had she. It was her darling 
 desire to see the Old World ; Paris, in particular. Should 
 she ever marry, she would insert in the marriage contract, a 
 clause to the effect that the bridal tour should be to Europe. 
 
 " That would be delightful, " I said, unable, for the life of 
 me, to frame anything anything less commonplace, so pro- 
 found was my immediate absorption in the calculation of a 
 young physician's possible profits in the first year's practice. 
 
 It would scarcely justify the expense of a double passage 
 over the Atlantic and corresponding expenditures on the 
 other side, I feared. 
 
 She allayed the smart of the misgiving by adding, with 
 sweet considerateness, that to secure such a pleasure one 
 would be willing to wait a long time. Indeed, to be candid 
 hadn't she told me already that she was the frankest girl that 
 ever breathed ? to be candid, she did not believe in very 
 early marriages, and quite doted upon long engagements. 
 She had many more serious reflections upon these subjects 
 than people gave her credit for. She could not confide 
 them to everybody. Most elderly persons were so unsym- 
 pathetic, and a majority of girls in this day were so sordid
 
 My LITTLE LOVE. 129 
 
 and calculating, and given to uncharitable judgment of other 
 women ! Her idea was 
 
 " But dear me ! I am forgetting that you were an utter 
 stranger to me, an hour since. Although, to be sure, I have 
 heard so much about you from that lovely Miss Marr, my 
 better angel, I name her, that it seems as if I had known 
 you for years." 
 
 I cleared my throat. The fog had got into it, I think. 
 Something closed up the windpipe. 
 
 " You are very good to say so. I, too, find it difficult to 
 believe that we were ever strangers." 
 
 " It is you who are good now! You don't know how en- 
 tirely that sets my scruples aside, how easy and confidential 
 it makes me feel. I was going to say, when I remembered 
 how shocked prudent people ( don't that word come from 
 prude ?) would be at my doing it, that in my opinion, while 
 there is much truth in the theory of kindred souls, and 
 matches made in heaven, and all that kind of thing, those 
 designed for one another by Providence, should, as soon as 
 they suspect that this is so, begin to prepare themselves, 
 spiritually and mentally, for that union. Tupper says, or 
 somebody told me he said it, I never saw the book ' If thou 
 art to have a wife of thy youth, she is now living upon the 
 earth. Therefore, pray for her.' Not, as a witty friend of 
 mine interprets it : ' pray that you may get her ' but that 
 she maybe good and wise and fit for you. And he might 
 have said, ' Pray that thou mayst be made worthy of so 
 good a wife.' " 
 6*
 
 13 MY LITTLE LOVE. 
 
 11 Those are noble sentiments ! " said I, enthusiastically. 
 
 Her depth of thought and elegance of diction were as 
 captivating as her beauty of feature and poetry of motion. 
 How happened it that this rare and radiant maiden had lived 
 in the same city with myself, perhaps ever since the world 
 was brightened by her birth, and the lines of our existence 
 had never crossed ? Were there no indexical heart-nerves to 
 make me magnetically aware that she was, and near me ? 
 To few men is it given to behold the incarnation of the 
 ideal upon which have been expended the thoughts and 
 fancies of years of waiting and longing. This fortune was 
 mine and I had come into my kingdom in the very spring- 
 time of my manhood. 
 
 Another crossing most sloppy and miry of all. I sup- 
 ported her over it as skilfully as I could ; first, planting my 
 foot in the muddiest spots, and partly persuading, partly 
 compelling her to tread on my instep, while, by taking both 
 hands, I assisted her in an airy leap to firmer standing-ground. 
 The gaiters came to grief in the transit. She looked dolor- 
 ously down at them in the yellow light on the farther corner. 
 
 " Do you never wear India-rubber overshoes ? " questioned 
 I, as mournful as herself over the damage. 
 
 " Never if I can help it ! the great lumbering things ! I 
 walk in them as if shod with lead." 
 
 I could comprehend how a very light clog would embarrass 
 the feet that skimmed the puddles like a petrel's. But the 
 instincts of my profession that-was-to-be were aroused. 
 
 " Are you aware that you risk your valuable health
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 131 
 
 and " I just made out to say it "life itself by getting your 
 shoes damp ? " 
 
 " What a tremendous warning ! and uttered in a tremen- 
 dous way ! " she smiled, her eyes grappling my silly soul, and 
 forcing it to the surface of mine. 
 
 It took a long time to beat and scrape the clay from the 
 soles and sides of the boots, and we were still within the area 
 of the gamboge light, the fog curtaining us from all but 
 the nearest passers-by. She waited until the task was com- 
 pleted before adding seriously, even sadly : 
 
 " I may regard life as the choice possession you seem to 
 think it, at some future date. I do not, now." 
 
 " It is of inestimable value to others ! " returned I, 
 vehemently, as we walked on. 
 
 " fen doute. A qui, par exemple?" 
 
 How lucky that I understood spoken French ! How awk- 
 ward that I could not speak it ! My English was the clash 
 of rusty iron, after a silver chime. 
 
 " To those who love you ! " 
 
 Was I misled by my own agitation, or did the hand upon 
 my anii shake ? She did not reply directly. When she spoke 
 it was doubtfully. 
 
 " And you imagine that they are many ? " 
 
 " They should be ! " 
 
 At heart I was fierce with the thought that any other man 
 should dare look at her admiringly. I would have rejoiced 
 to strangle him who should cast loving eyes upon her. But 
 the truth had to be spoken. No one with a heart in his
 
 1 3 2 My LITTLE L O VE. 
 
 bosom and warm blood in his veins could fail to love her 
 fondly, were he young and passionate, madly. 
 
 " Wait and see ! " she answered, with an obvious effort to 
 resume our gay strain. " This is my home ! Come in 
 won't you ?" 
 
 Nine-hundred-and-ninety-nine women in every thousand 
 would have worded the invitation very differently, had they 
 given it at all in the circumstances. Her frankness was a 
 delicious contrast to the conventionalities that governed her 
 sex as a body, said the modern Caspar to the inflated ig- 
 noramus he knew as his inner self. 
 
 " You are kind too kind ! " Her eyes had dragged me 
 up the steps and her hand was upon the bell-knob. " I ap- 
 preciate your great goodness. But I should not presume to 
 do so, yet. If you will allow me to call at some other 
 time" 
 
 " As often and as soon as you like ! " 
 
 Without ringing the bell, still holding the knob, she faced 
 me. 
 
 " I mean that. As often as you like ! Come whenever 
 you want to come. When you do not, you will oblige me by 
 pleasing yourself. If you care at all to come in, now, say 
 so without fear or favor. One and all, we in this house are 
 sworn enemies of useless ceremonies. My mother you 
 see I understand les moyens et les mceurs will be glad to re- 
 ceive you, Mr. Haye, as my friend and as Miss Marr's friend, 
 and overjoyed to see you drink a cup of her choice tea, now, 
 or at any time. My father will shake hands and bid you
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 133 
 
 welcome ; tell you that the weather is foggy and the times 
 dull, and forget all about you, two minutes thereafter, behind 
 his newspaper. My brother ' did a-wooing go,' this after- 
 noon, thus obliging you to be here at this hour, ' whether 
 your mother would or no.' You behold, before you, the 
 residue of the family party you dread to encounter. Will 
 you enter or, go away ? " 
 
 She rang the bell. 
 
 Of course, I followed her into a lighted and carpeted hall, 
 and obeyed when she showed me that my hat and surtout 
 were to hang upon the bronze rack that stood there. 
 
 " Now ! " 
 
 With the most seraphic smile she had yet bestowed upon 
 her slave, she signaled me to attend her into the parlor. 
 
 A bald-headed gentleman with gold spectacles astride of 
 his nose, read a newspaper by the centre-table. A lady, with 
 a dressy cap set above a very black front of curls, was dozing 
 in a corner arm-chair. 
 
 " Papa ! " said Bessie, convoying me to the front. " My 
 friend and Miss Evelyn Marr's very particular friend, Mr. 
 Haye, who most benevolently escorted me home when Fred 
 had forgotten me. He has kindly consented to stay to tea, 
 mamma." 
 
 She waved me to a seat when the predicted welcomes 
 were over, and saying, " Excuse me for a few minutes ! " 
 floated away. 
 
 Mr. Barnes and I had considered the weather fog in- 
 cluded exhaustively, and were edging toward politics be-
 
 1 34 MY LITTLE L VE. 
 
 fore the return of the household fairy. I had even had time 
 to collar and shake myself, mentally, and ask my sober con- 
 sciousness how I got into this house, and what I proposed to 
 myself by staying there. I had intended definitively if my 
 memory were faithful in recalling resolutions antedating the 
 beatitude of my Now to spend this evening with Aunt Evy. 
 I had left upon her table a book I had carried to her that 
 afternoon, with the proposal that I should read it aloud, be- 
 ginning after supper that very night. My presence in Mrs. 
 Barnes's parlor was a breach of faith with her. My accept- 
 ance of the invitation to tea was an infraction of the simplest 
 rules of social etiquette. I was no society man, but I had 
 taken in many such facts, by absorption, having lived for 
 twenty-one years in an atmosphere of good breeding. It 
 may have been the unfamiliar furniture and pattern of the 
 carpet ; perhaps the style of Mrs. Barnes's head-dress, so dis- 
 similar to that worn by my stepmother, and yet more unlike 
 Mrs 1 . Darling's breakfast-caps and evening lappets of fine lace 
 that prompted me to this spasm of common sense. 
 Whatever brought it on, it was the last seizure of the kind 
 until the end of the nine days' run of fever. 
 
 Scruples, misgivings, regrets, vanished as mists at a rush 
 of westerly winds, leaving blue depths overhead and a flood 
 of glory over all the earth, with the reopening of the parlor 
 doors, I seemed to have been born and bred in that room, 
 and to have lived ecstatically all the days of the years of my 
 life in sight of the looming peak of Mrs. Barnes's turban, by 
 the time Bessie swam around before me, superseraphic in a
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 135 
 
 pink silk robe and tulle cape. She " always dressed for the 
 evening," but not knowing this important circumstance, at 
 that date, the apparition was doubly dazzling. 
 
 We went into supper shortly, and my chair was opposite 
 Bessie's. My impression is that the table was bountifully 
 spread profusion that sacrificed taste to abundance. I 
 recollect more clearly that Mrs. Barnes now awake, yet 
 disposed to taciturnity pressed every dish upon me again 
 and yet again, with gestures more urgent than words, until I 
 made it a rule to decline nothing. Most distinct is my 
 remembrance of the ambrosial flavor of all that entered my 
 mouth, for I was continually catching Bessie's eye, and 
 warming into more zestful relish of life under her smile. We 
 had the tea-table conversation to ourselves. Mr. Barnes 
 read all the while he was gulping down cups of scalding tea 
 and bolting fried oysters, and eating custards with a dessert- 
 spoon. His wife was quietly hungry, besides being as dili- 
 gently as she was dumbly hospitable. It was very unlike a 
 meal with the Darlings. I noticed that, even then. But 
 the beauteous being exactly across the board, shedding the 
 effulgence of her orbs into my soul, made amends for all de- 
 ficiencies, harmonized discrepancies. How she would glorify 
 a home of her own ! In the genuine missionary spirit, I 
 panted for the opportunity to see her rightly placed to make 
 the setting worthy of the gem. 
 
 The cream of the evening arose for my delectation with 
 our withdrawal from the debris of the feast, to the parlor. 
 The elders with amiable discretion remained in the supper-
 
 136 MY LITTLE LOVE. 
 
 room. I did not mean to pry into family reserves, but I 
 could not avoid seeing, while bowing to Bessie to precede 
 me from the apartment, that Mr. Barnes passed his cup to 
 his wife for a fifth replenishment, and hearing his order to the 
 servant to " bring in another plate of waffles." It was clear 
 to me already, although our acquaintance was not three 
 hours old, that Bessie's will was the law of the household, 
 whenever she chose to exert authority. In view of this, it 
 should, according to my estimate of my divinity, have been 
 a perfectly-ordered establishment. Whereas, I cannot deny 
 that the only order of things seemed to be that of liberty of 
 action and bodily solacement. 
 
 Bessie was the embodiment of both, as she took possession 
 of a semi-chair, semi-divan, which she told me was made ex- 
 pressly for her. It was luxurious to a charm a marvellous 
 construction of springs and padding, rosewood and leaf- 
 brown satin, and her pose within it was also a marvel. We 
 sat in the back-parlor, devoted, she gave me to understand, 
 to her evening use " when she cared to be particularly 
 lazy." 
 
 There were two sofas, and besides her tauseuse, two 
 easy chairs. The windows were heavily curtained ; there 
 were pictures, and upon a tripod in a corner, a statuette of 
 Silence with her finger upon her lip. A fluffy rug was before 
 the glowing grate. At Bessie's left hand was a stand bear- 
 ing a vase of flowers. The shades of the chandelier were of 
 softly-clouded glass. Beyond three or four cushions laid 
 here and there on the floor, there was no other furniture in
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 137 
 
 the room than that I have described. It was a place in 
 which to rest and dream and love. 
 
 " I am afraid you will have a stupid evening," said Bessie, 
 looking at me under drooping lids that veiled not dulled 
 her eyes, the dimples glancing in and out, while her mouth 
 was drawn down in affected commiseration. " The pea-soup 
 is thicker than when we were out. It is not likely that any 
 one will venture through it for the doubtful delight of seeing 
 me. It is a pity, for I have some pleasant friends whom you 
 would enjoy meeting." 
 
 " That is the doubtful delight," rejoined I. "The fog is a 
 godsend. I desire no society except that which I have." 
 
 " Do you mean it ? " abruptly unveiling the twin globes 
 of light, and giving me such a benefit as made my wits reel 
 again. The quinine and brandy I had imbibed during my 
 spell of typhoid had never made me half so crazy. 
 
 " I do ! I should wish my dearest friend at the antipodes 
 were he to enter now." 
 
 " Please pull that bell-rope ? " she asked in the same 
 abrupt way. 
 
 I obeyed, slightly startled and altogether at a loss as to 
 what was coming next. A maid appeared, to whom her 
 young mistress gave this order : 
 
 " If any one no matter who calls this evening, say that 
 I am not at home. Now," turning to me with irresistible 
 grace " you must be very agreeable fascinating, indeed, 
 to recompense me for my possible losses. I will grant you 
 five minutes' grace in which to arrange your ideas."
 
 138 MY LITTLE L VE. 
 
 I needed it all, and more. 
 
 The coal was heaped high in the grate ; white and violet 
 flames quivering up to the apex of the pile ; the radiance 
 from the chandelier favored the finest points of the picture 
 beneath, making more pure the complexion, darkening the 
 eyes, and casting over neck and the lower part of the face a 
 tender flush, I was not cool enough to see, was the reflection 
 from the sheeny pink silk. 
 
 " Cool ! " I was a college-boy raw in years and experi- 
 ence by nature affectionate, but who had but lately learned 
 to taste the delights of home and friendship. The Darlings 
 had " drawn me out," most beneficially to myself, so far as 
 my intercourse with them was concerned. For the rest, dis- 
 cretion could come from experience alone. 
 
 The streets were unusually quiet. One could imagine 
 the veil of fog closing about the room, in whose glowing 
 centre we sat, to seclude us from curious or indifferent intru- 
 ders. Bessie, her cheek on her hand, leaned back in her 
 lounging-chair and studied the rings on the hand that reposed 
 in the pink silk nest of her lap, like an alabaster cast in 
 jeweler's cotton. 
 
 I, from the "conversation chair" at her right, sat up 
 straight and studied her, in enhancement approximating 
 delirium, and repeated more love-verses to myself than I had 
 believed that I had ever read or heard. 
 
 "Well?" said a languidly sweet voice, presently, and I 
 knew the five minutes' grace was past. 
 
 I laughed, foolishly. It was awkward, this peremptory
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 139 
 
 draft upon my powers of fascination, and I shirked incon- 
 tinently in the very glow of gratified vanity, proposing, bung- 
 lingly, that we " should have some music." 
 
 " I need not ask if you sing," jumping up with alacrity. 
 " But the piano is in the other room, isn't it ? " 
 
 It was, and the folding doors were closed between the par- 
 lors. 
 
 Bessie did not move so much as her head. The alabaster 
 hand nestled, stirless, in its silken nook. 
 
 " Not a note ! " she declared calmly. " I don't know one 
 tune from another. The piano is for the use of visitors. 
 You are welcome to try it, if you have a liking for a musical 
 jingle. It is in fair tune, so Fred says." 
 
 I stammered a hasty disclaimer, aud resumed the seat set 
 at an attractive relative position to hers. 
 
 " One takes it for granted that all young ladies play and 
 sing, and like to be asked to do it," said I, asininely. 
 
 She lifted her pretty brows. 
 
 " Ah ! but you see, my good sir, I am not an accomplished 
 young lady. I can manage some dozen phrases of French, 
 can spell and write decently, et voild tout. Except to be 
 happy all day long. Nor do I like to do things for no 
 better reason than because I am expected to do them. Half 
 the fun of life is in disappointing people. Don't you think 
 so?" 
 
 " I confess that is an untried experience with me," began I, 
 hesitatingly. 
 
 "That is because you are a man. You don't begin to en-
 
 1 40 My LITTLE L VE. 
 
 ter into the subtleties of human nature as women do. Said 
 a lady a pattern woman to me, the other day : 
 
 " ' My dear, since you are not musical, do you draw or 
 paint ? ' 
 
 " ' No, ma'am,' answered I meekly. 
 
 " I am always meek to models. 
 
 " ' 7/zdeed ! But you are doubtless an adept in fancy 
 work ? ' 
 
 " ' I don't even own a thimble or a crochet needle,' said 
 I, fearfully crushed, but sincere to the death. 
 
 " ' Do you mean to say that you have no accomplish- 
 ments ! " 
 
 " ' None, except that I always speak the truth, madam.' " 
 
 Her laugh pealed out like the springing of a spray of sleigh 
 bells, and I joined in heartily. 
 
 Were ever such naivete and sprightliness, such moral and 
 personal graces, united in another creature of mortal mould ? 
 How despicable did the thread-bare maneuvres of husband- 
 hunting maidens and calculating mammas appear, beside the 
 guileless frankness that declared herself to be neither useful 
 nor ornamental in the popular acceptation of the term ! 
 
 " Do you remember the reply of the Persian poet Hafiz, 
 when asked by a utilitarian what was the use of poetry ? " I 
 inquired. 
 
 She shook her head in charming wilfulness. 
 
 " I am an ignoramus. I know nothing from books. You 
 will have the pleasure of telling me. I never forget what is 
 told to me, face to face. If I like the storyteller, that is."
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 141 
 
 I bowed. " The poet answered by asking, ' What is the 
 use of a rose?' 'To smell,' was the reply. 'And I am 
 good to smell it,' said Hafiz. You have discovered the very 
 poetry of living, Miss Barnes." 
 
 " I believe I have," she said, ingenuously. " People make 
 life so hard and earnest ! It is all dollars and cents and pork 
 and beans for the strong, mush and molasses for the weak. 
 If I had my way, the world should be one big rose garden, 
 and all the inhabitants thereof butterflies. Your pattern wo- 
 man, now, would have it a field of buckwheat, and stock it 
 with bees. The " pattern " was a bee, herself, in a former state 
 of existence. All business and sting. Packing away honey 
 by the pound for her own use, and grudging so much as a drop 
 to anybody else."
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 IN CLOVER. 
 
 HE bilious fog was so dense at eleven 
 o'clock, when I tore myself away from the 
 beaming presence enthroned in the leaf- 
 brown satin causeuse, that it was strange I 
 did not lose my way irremediably in the walk to 
 my nominal home. I did take wrong crossings 
 and blunder against dead walls, in a style that 
 would have excited damaging suspicions in the 
 minds of beholders, had there been any. I did 
 not meet a dozen men in the half mile separating my 
 paternal mansion from the enchanted palace I had left. 
 
 Preoccupied as I was with my novel happiness, and in the 
 celestial masonry known as castle-building, I could not but 
 observe the phenomenal appearance of these few plunging 
 suddenly upon the vision at arm's length, as if projected to 
 the surface of the pea-soup by an unseen ladle. Nor did 
 the increasing unsavoriness of the bilious broth escape my 
 notice a flavor as if it had been scorched in the boiling, 
 and kept too long afterward. Pavements and brick walls 
 dripped with the unwholesome steam. It beaded my hat 
 and overcoat, and clogged my hair. If any germs of the
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE: 143 
 
 fever that had brought me nigh to the grave's mouth were 
 lurking in my system, the odor and dampness were the most 
 favorable conditions for their development. I did not give 
 my own danger a thought. The shadow that sped over my 
 dream-world, as I fitted the latch-key into my father's door, 
 and felt that the panels streamed with wet, was : 
 
 " Heavens ! what a climate for her to live in ! And she 
 never wears rubber overshoes, if she can help it ! " 
 
 The hall lamp was extinguished. I might be tolerably 
 confident of receiving a step-maternal tirade at breakfast, 
 pathetically rounded by a recapitulation of the various 
 images of dread that beset the sleepless hour preceding my 
 return, wherein burglars, false keys, wayside assassins, 
 gambling-hells and heart-disease since I was not of an 
 apoplectic build relieved one another in frightful succes- 
 sion in the matronly imagination. Nevertheless, I trod the 
 perversely creaking stairs soundless by day with an undis- 
 mayed spirit. My panoply was lecture-proof. The supposi- 
 tion that aught mundane save the loss of my lately created 
 hopes could hurt or molest me, exceeded my store of 
 credulity. 
 
 My bed-room was cheerless. The chambermaid had left 
 a sash lowered for the space of six inches from the top, 
 after " redding up " in the forenoon, and nobody had cared or 
 thought to close it. The air tasted and smelled and clung 
 like a dilution of the pea-broth outside. Yet I lighted my 
 study-lamp, and pored over Byron for a good hour before 
 my pulses were quiet enough to promise sleep.
 
 144 MY LITTLE LOVE. 
 
 Mr. Gilder did not write " The New Day " until a score 
 of years later, or I should have sought no other priest to 
 direct my devotions. Says a sapient critic, with whom it is 
 to be presumed the new day of love has become an old 
 story, " Our only objection to the volume is that no one, 
 save a lover, can enter fully into its beauties." 
 
 I would have revelled in its boscages of musk-roses, and 
 rolled ecstatically upon its spice-beds, and drunk to divinest 
 intoxication of its choice vintage ; steeped myself to 
 translucency in its sunsets and risings. 
 
 I laid me down to think of Bessie until I slept to pursue 
 her in dreams, and awoke at daydawn, to exult anew in the 
 recollection that she was a human entity, and that I loved 
 her. It is idle to relate that, although her house lay in a 
 direction diametrically opposite to the route I should have 
 taken in order to reach college punctually for morning 
 prayers, I passed it in going to my lectures, and re-passed it 
 when the classes were dismissed for the day, at two o'clock. 
 No one was visible about the premises, either time, dili- 
 gently as I scanned the windows, from the attic half-story to 
 the well-sunken basement. A flutter of Mother Barnes's 
 ribbons would have been some stay to my fainting soul. A 
 section of Bessie's shadow upon a window-blind would have 
 been solid comfort. I was left to such mitigation of my 
 thirst as I could wring from contemplation of the stone steps 
 that last night were pressed by the No. 2 gaiters, French 
 make. 
 
 By a blessed slip of her dear, frank tongue, I had learned
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 145 
 
 at what hour she took her afternoon constitutional, and in 
 what direction. Three o'clock found me dressed within an 
 inch of my life, haunting the square the Barnes house 
 helped to make highly respectable, in a divided agony the 
 dread of being espied and ridiculed by chance spectators, 
 and the apprehension that my quarry might flit away while 
 my regards were withdrawn from the front door. Fate was 
 more clement than I had dared hope for. At twenty-five 
 minutes-and-a-quarter past three, the oaken (imitation) 
 portal moved upon its hinges, gaped slowly until the open 
 door- way framed for me a vision of one fair woman 
 Bessie in irreproachable walking costume, pulling on a pair 
 of pearl-gray gloves. They were a neat fit, and being new 
 required such cautious adjustment to each taper finger that 
 I had time to saunter up at a sloth's pace, and lift my hat 
 with as flimsy an affectation of a casual passage through that 
 precinct of the great city as was ever undertaken by fledge- 
 ling lover. 
 
 The pretence became the essence of fatuity when she 
 tripped down to the side-walk with a nod of welcome. 
 
 " Good-afternoon ! I saw you go by a while ago twice 
 and hoped you were loitering about somewhere, waiting for 
 me." 
 
 Denial would have been such useless falsehood that I 
 resigned the idea at once. 
 
 " Like Chevy Slyme, round the corner ? " I said, falling 
 into step as she took her course up the street. 
 
 " Eh ? Is that a classical allusion ? Then, you'll have to 
 7
 
 146 MY LITTLE LOVE. 
 
 explain it. I never read English classics. It is too much 
 like work." 
 
 " Not even Dickens ? " 
 
 " Can't abide him ! I was sickened out with him in my 
 tender youth, when I rashly undertook to please a literary 
 stripling by reading Oliver Twist. Such low stuff as it was ! 
 Now I've shocked you, but I can't help it. If I speak at 
 all I must be sincere." 
 
 " Truth is always better than fiction even Dickens' fancy 
 pictures," replied I, more fervently than the occasion 
 warranted. 
 
 She peeped up at me sidewise like a bird the shy, pleased 
 look of a child, yet full of witchery. 
 
 All her lips said was : " How nice and tall you are ! A 
 short man is my favorite detestation. You carry yourself 
 well, too a remarkable thing for one so slight who has 
 grown rapidly." 
 
 Had she declared to me in round terms, " You are 
 eminently good looking, and have the carriage of a gentle- 
 man. It pleases me to be seen in your escort," she could 
 not have conveyed the sense of glance and remark more 
 distinctly to my mind. Nor, had I been the vainest of sap- 
 headed coxcombs, could I have been more elated by the 
 flattery. 
 
 If questioned, I should, doubtless, have described the 
 progress of the ensuing ninety minutes as a promenade, 
 whereas it was, in truth, a flight such as rational people 
 know in dreams only ; the ineffable flowing not so gross a
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 14? 
 
 motion as floating through ambient air of an etherealized 
 personality that has arisen superior to the power of gravi- 
 tation and the restraints of friction. We wonder, in our 
 dreams, why we have never done it before and always, it is 
 so easy and altogether natural, and resolve never to descend 
 to the ignominious step-by-step upon the rough earth. We 
 do come down, however, in our visions, or at our awakening, 
 and even love cannot soar forever. 
 
 My time for descent was not yet. Throughout our inter- 
 view of that day, my head was as light as a feather, and my 
 heels as light as my head. Our course up-town, down-town, 
 and everywhere rangers, might better be likened to the sail- 
 ing through aerial space, of a brace of love-birds, holding 
 the opposite ends of a love-knot in their beaks, than to any 
 method of terrestrial locomotion. This was my simile, and 
 had my native frankness equalled Bessie's, I should have 
 made a greater goose of myself by giving it expression. I 
 have not the least recollection of what we talked about, 
 only that when I had become somewhat accustomed to my 
 exaltation, my tongue was more at my command and I 
 could reply, as well as listen. 
 
 We said " Good-by," lingeringly, at her door. 
 
 There was a family of inquisitive maiden sisters across 
 the way, as I was informed at a later day, who frequented 
 the street windows with such pertinacity that Fred Barnes 
 had named their domicile, *' the pigeon-house." Being 
 '"proper" and "pattern" women, they were within the pale 
 of Bessie's vindictiveness. In the main she was amiable
 
 148 MY LITTLE LOVE. 
 
 generous to a fault when giving did not involve self-denial ; 
 placable to everybody after the flurry of resentment for real 
 or supposed injury was over always excepting prudes. 
 Her antipathy to them was of a violent and incurable type. 
 J believe she would have risked a blight to her own reputa- 
 tion in order to accomplish the disgrace of one of the spe- 
 cies. Considering, now, that she could do her opposite 
 neighbors and natural enemies no unkinder turn than to 
 display in their sight a new claimant for her favor as con- 
 spicuously as was compatible with a liberal rendering of the 
 proprieties, she kept me talking on the threshold, making of 
 herself a prettier picture than ever, by sidelong and down- 
 cast looks and blushes, palpable enough to be visible to the 
 lynx-eyed watchers. Without misgiving as to her motives, I 
 enjoyed her attitudinizing in good faith as long as she would 
 permit me to stay. 
 
 " I shall hear of this tableau again probably a dozen 
 times," she broke off a remark to say, at length. " We 
 have given our friends over the way food for a month's 
 gossip as I meant we should. Since you won't come in, I 
 won't keep you standing in the cold. Au revoir ! " 
 
 She kissed her glove-tips before shutting the door in my 
 face. I accepted the dismission with the feeling that I was 
 bound to be grateful for something. 1 could not have 
 brought myself to remind the thoughtless child that she had 
 not once invited me into the house, although she was per- 
 suaded that she had and that I had refused. I was afraid I 
 was sure that I should have gone in and again partaken of
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 149 
 
 Mrs. Barnes's glorified tea, and done fresh violence to les con- 
 venances by remaining upon the hallowed ground until mid- 
 night less sixty minutes, had she repaired the omission. Yet 
 I convinced myself that there was a strain of heroic self- 
 abnegation in my forbearing to spur the memory of the in- 
 genuous angel, and to plod homeward through the gathering 
 dusk, to study up for the morrow's lectures. 
 
 It was a help to my virtuous resolve to keep before me 
 the goal of earthly hope and endeavor the prospect of the 
 wedding-trip to Europe. Impatient to be about the busi- 
 ness that might that should bring this to pass, I hurried 
 through my supper striving to appear sublimely regardless 
 of my sister's queries, and my brother's raillery upon what 
 he described as my "uncommon heavy dyke" being slang 
 for a " grand get-up," which is slang, one degree more intel- 
 ligible, for one's best clothes. 
 
 My stepmother smiled sourly at the refined badinage. 
 My father did not seem to listen. He was a grave man who 
 never laid aside business even in his sleep dreaming, as I 
 have heard him say, of stocks and bonds and mortgages. I 
 tried to imitate his mien of genuine indifference, but my 
 forehead flushed darkly at thrust and equivoque. Mine had 
 never been a very happy home, yet I doubt if I had ever 
 rated it as positively miserable until that evening. I sat 
 bowed over my table, my head on a fat volume of essays 
 upon Political Economy, for a long time after I went to my 
 room, a prey to alternate fits of rapture and distress as I 
 contrasted the scenes of yester evening with this. Al-
 
 1 50 MY LITTLE L O VE. 
 
 ready, so much of my individuality had slipped away from 
 me that I began to see with Bessie's eyes. 
 
 She would find my stepmother staid and crabbed ; my 
 sister hoydenish ; my brother an unscrupulous tease ; my 
 father stern. I painted her fear, her recoil, her aversion, 
 her repentance that she had yielded to my passionate prayer 
 and resigned maiden freedom her one accomplishment of 
 "being happy all day long," for an abode and associates so 
 uncongenial and I bewailed the day of my birth. 
 
 Then, I vowed to make, by my own might, a home fit for 
 her occupancy ; to forswear kindred, and repudiate natural 
 affection, rather than offend her taste, or chill her heart. I 
 had faith in the omnipotence of love and energy and respec- 
 table talents ; and when I took this survey of the situation 
 I was ready to cry out with delight that I had been born unto 
 so goodly a heritage ; opened the lids of the corpulent book 
 and "boned down" in college classical to my economical 
 politics. I was working for Bessie, and kept it up until two 
 o'clock A.M. 
 
 Hamlet presented himself in Ophelia's sewing-room 
 
 " his stockings fouled, 
 Ungartered, and down-gyved to his ankle," 
 
 and was adjudged by the owlish wiseacre Polonious to be 
 " mad for her love." Benedick sneered bitterly at the de- 
 sertion of his whilom companion-in-arms who since he had 
 been smitten by Hero, would " lie ten nights awake, carving 
 the fashion of a new doublet." Claudio, in unwitting retal-
 
 M Y LITTLE LOVE. 151 
 
 iation, when describing the signs of Benedick's passion for 
 Beatrice, says, "he brushes his hat o' mornings." 
 
 My love took the tidy turn. I discovered, with concern, 
 that my everyday coat was getting shiny about the elbows, 
 and that the binding was frayed. My stepmother looked 
 well to the ways of her household, but I decided that her 
 laundress should be taken to task for criminal neglect of my 
 shirt-fronts. The tie of the cravat was the crucial test of 
 patience and resolve to appear well in the beloved eye, or 
 perish in the struggle. I had laughed at the tale of Beau 
 BrummeU's tableful of "failures." If he were in love it was 
 explicable and pardonable. My hat, like Benedick's, suf- 
 fered long. The malady would seem, with me, to have struck 
 upwards as determinedly as Hamlet's love-fit settled in his 
 calves. I had discarded the student's cap in November, my 
 stepmother objecting to it as "rakish." 1 was not fond of 
 my stepmother, but I tried, as a general principle, to keep 
 on the right side of her. To please her, I mounted a beaver, 
 and brushed it occasionally. On the day after my introduc- 
 tion to Elysium idest, the Barnes's back parlor I took it to 
 the hatter's to be blocked over and ironed. After which de- 
 ceitful renovation, I was continually seeking out stray nooks 
 and chances where and when I could pull it off and polish it 
 with my coat-sleeves, or blow the dust from the sleek cylin- 
 der, or assure myself, by ocular demonstration, that it needed 
 no such affectionate attention. I ran in debt for gloves, and 
 paid officious boot-blacks on hotel -steps, and at miry cross- 
 ings, for needless "shines." The major portion of my
 
 152 My LITTLE L O VE. 
 
 pocket-money went for flowers and swindling baskets of im- 
 ported fruit, gotten up regardless of expense at the top, and 
 with equal disregard of honesty at the bottom. But as I 
 dared not disturb the fragrant mosaic of the orange-red and 
 whity-green surface, I was none the wiser, and much the 
 poorer. Bessie "could live on fruit," and "doted upon 
 flowers." What man with a heart in his bosom, and a half- 
 dollar in his pocket, would let her want for either ? 
 
 I had known her nine days nine incomparable days, 
 for I had not missed seeing her in one of them. Sunday was 
 the reddest letter of the three-times-three. She had suffered 
 my attendance to and from church in the forenoon. I had 
 found the places in her prayer-book, not without some pains, 
 not having been drilled in Episcopal forms ; had stood, sat 
 and kneeled beside her in the pew, tenanted only by our- 
 selves. Papa and Mamma Barnes were not noted church- 
 goers. Her silken skirt overflowed my ankles ; the fringe of 
 her velvet sleeve lay upon my arm, during the sermon, and 
 her loosened fur boa slid down, down noiselessly, until it 
 rested on my knee. A sluggish-blooded man behind us com- 
 plained, after service, that the "church was as cold as a 
 barn." I could have challenged him on behalf of the 
 sexton, who had transferred a Floridian climate to latitude 
 40. 
 
 " I take a famous nap on Sabbath afternoons," said the can- 
 did Peri, at our morning parting. " But if you will promise 
 positively, that you will be in after supper, say about half- 
 past eight, I will be at home to nobody else."
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 153 
 
 " What stress of weather, battle, murder, and sudden 
 death, could keep me away after that ? " said I. 
 
 " Fie ! " But she did not frown as if she meant it. " You 
 should not quote scripture upon light occasions." 
 
 I could not correct her, when she tripped in another it 
 would have been blundered in such trifles. Would statistical 
 and literal starch make her more enchanting ? 
 
 I said merely, " This is a matter of moment and weight," 
 and restored the prayer-book she had let me carry all the 
 way to and from the sanctuary. 
 
 About four o'clock, my Sunday dinner having been hearty 
 and my attempted afternoon nap a failure, I strolled around 
 a matter of four furlongs or so to satisfy myself that all was 
 right with Beauty's Bower. I did an immense deal of gratui- 
 tous police-duty that winter, and was quietly amused when I 
 met a licensed guardian of the public peace sauntering 
 through my beat, at the thought of how much shoe-leather 
 and time he was wasting. 
 
 The house was all right except that upon the steps 
 stood a young man. I inventoried him in the twinkling of a 
 jealous eye. Of good height, passable features and easy car- 
 riage ; faultless in each particular of his fashionable apparel, 
 he glanced with a kind of keen superciliousness at me, 
 flicked his boot with his cane, and drummed with his toe 
 upon the stone step while awaiting the answer to his ring. 
 The sight of him thus and there was a personal grievance, 
 yet there was a glimmer of sardonic mirth in my visage as I 
 contemplated his show of impatience and foresaw the disap- 
 7*
 
 1 54 My LITTLE L O VE. 
 
 pointment which was his inevritable portion. Bessie was in- 
 visible, until supper-time ; afterward she would be at home 
 to but one person, and that not this arrogant dandy. I 
 walked slowly onward purposely and maliciously. I was 
 curious to contrast his crest-fallen bearing with the confi- 
 dent expectation that had nettled me. The concussion of a 
 closing door, familiar to me as the tinkle of the bell which 
 hung beside it, awoke the Sabbath echoes that slept on other 
 days in the much frequented street. The foiled stranger did 
 not overtake me, after receiving his quietus, and I looked 
 over my shoulder to see if he had gone down the street 
 instead. 
 
 He had vanished. There was no more trace of him than 
 if he had sunk into the bowels of the coal-vault and the flag- 
 stones closed above his head. I wheeled and stood stock 
 still, dumb, amazed, enraged, oblivious of surveillant 
 " pigeons." The block was a long one. He could not 
 have gained the lower corner, unless by precipitate flight, 
 and he did not look like one who would take to his heels in 
 broad daylight. I retraced my steps, scrutinizing every brick 
 and board of the house in passing. Save for the mysterious 
 disappearance of the would-be caller, all was as before. 
 The parlor-shutters were fast and blank. It was almost a 
 certainty that he was not sitting there in the dark. He 
 dared not enter the back room uninvited by the genius of the 
 retreat. If I could have improvised an excuse I would have 
 rung the bell, and ended my uncertainty by actual proof of 
 sight and hearing. Failing this, I sought to console myself
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 155 
 
 with the theory that it might have been the slamming door 
 of the next house which I had heard, he having mistaken the 
 number. 
 
 But I had no more stomach for wholesome victuals at 
 supper-time than when Ezra had animadverted upon my lack 
 of " peth." The apparition of the foppish interloper, whom 
 I had succeeded in hating virulently by this time, haunted 
 me. The clanging echo of the too-hospitable door reverbe- 
 rated through my head like a knell. I could not hope to lay 
 the dread by any means short of an explicit explanation with 
 the "frankest girl in the universe." 
 
 She had never looked lovelier or been more engaging in 
 demeanor than when I entered her sanctum, that evening. 
 Ensconced in the leaf-brown satin nest, she held out her 
 hand, without rising, with the sweetest of her ever-sweet 
 smiles. 
 
 " Five minutes late ! In another five, my ' not-at-home ' 
 to other people would have been outlawed. You have just 
 saved your distance." 
 
 "I thought I might have mistaken my orders," I replied. 
 " I saw a gentleman upon the front steps this afternoon whose 
 countenance seemed to say that you were at home to him, 
 at least." 
 
 " I am not responsible for the stamp of masculine conceit 
 upon his face, or any other " with a curl of the red lip. 
 *' But I would have seen him had I been aware that he was 
 here. It was mamma's pet nephew, Nat Wallace. She had 
 him all to herself for an hour. I scolded her well for not
 
 156 MY LITTLE LOVE. 
 
 awaking me. I used to love Nat dearly when we were at 
 school together. He lives in Philadelphia, now, and we 
 seldom meet." 
 
 I was miserably mortified, so pitiful did my jealousy appear 
 in the light of this simple solution of the mystery I had made 
 for myself, so fully had I exposed it by my untimely investi- 
 gation of the very innocent circumstance of a nephew calling 
 upon his aunt on Sabbath afternoon. 
 
 I would have essayed an apology, but Bessie mercifully 
 led the talk to some other theme mercy for which my soul 
 blessed her as the most magnanimous of created intelligences.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 f 
 
 ROBIN ADAIR. 
 
 HAD known Bessie nine days, as I have said, 
 and my passion was at flood-tide, when a 
 great ball was given by one of her acquain- 
 tances which she was to attend. Since I was 
 not invited, I found myself with a spare evening on 
 my hands and resolved to devote it to my friends 
 the Darlings. 
 
 My foot was upon the steps of the house before I 
 recollected that I had not seen one of the family 
 since I left Aunt Evy's room in Bessie Barnes's com- 
 pany. I was slightly abashed, and more surprised at my 
 apparent remissness. I hoped they would not "make a 
 time " about it. Aunt Evy ought to deal gently with me, for, 
 knowing Bessie as she did, she must suspect the inevitable 
 result of our introduction and subsequent interview. I rang 
 the bell with wonted boldness, having done nothing whereof 
 I should be ashamed. Before it had ceased to tinkle, the 
 door flew back and Ailsie sprang into my arms with an aban- 
 don of affection she had never exhibited to me before. 
 
 "I said it was your ring ! " she cried, a dry sob breaking 
 her articulation. "We have been so unhappy about you !
 
 158 MY LITTLE LOVE. 
 
 I was sure you were sick again, and wouldn't let us know. 
 Then, papa met your father yesterday, and he said you were 
 well. What has been the matter ? Come right up to Aunt 
 Evy's room. She told me to bring you." 
 
 " I have been very much engaged, Ailsie, dear. Almost 
 too busy to eat or sleep." 
 
 I did not blush at the equivocation, for I recalled the 
 neglected meals and sleepless midnights of the past week. 
 
 "You shouldn't work so hard. It isn't wholesome!" 
 chided my monitress, clinging to my hand all the way up 
 stairs. "Here he is, Aunt Evy ! He has been studying him- 
 self to death again. He'll have softening-on-the-brain, if he 
 isn't careful." 
 
 Aunt Evy's pale face was lighted up by a smile that was 
 motherly in its goodness. Her hand-clasp bespoke undimin- 
 ished regard. I began to blame myself in earnest that even 
 an all-engrossing love had beguiled me into passing forget- 
 fulness of what I owed to her. 
 
 Ailsie kept close to me, as if fearful of losing me again. 
 The easiest arm-chair was drawn up for me to Aunt Evy's 
 side, and the small lady accepted her place upon my knee, 
 sighing thankfully in dropping her head to my shoulder. 
 Now and then, while I talked with her aunt, I felt her 
 frame heave with the long sob I had remarked in my 
 welcome almost soundless, but deep-drawn and slow the 
 ground-swell of spent excitement. At the fourth repetition 
 I tightened my arm about her and pressed my lips silently 
 to her cheek. Both arms went around my neck, her face
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 159 
 
 was hidden for a second upon my breast ; then she released 
 herself from my embrace and rushed from the room. 
 
 " I must bespeak your forbearance for her," said Aunt 
 Evy, her smile more troubled than I could understand. 
 " She is not quite mistress of herself to-night. You forgot to 
 take leave of her the last time you were here. She would 
 not listen when I remarked upon and tried to explain the 
 omission. ' It's all right ! ' she said, proudly ; 'course he 
 didn't mean anything! You needn't tell me that! I'm 
 'stonished at you, for noticing such a little thing, Aunt Evy ! 
 It's 'most as bad as backbiting ! ' and off she marched, her 
 head as high as a duchess's. But she cried herself to sleep 
 that night. Her mother found her sleeping when she looked 
 in upon her before retiring, the tears on her face and a very 
 wet pillow telling of the flood she had shed while awake. 
 I have been made really uneasy by her solicitude concern- 
 ing you, for some days past. She has been flighty, restless, 
 without appetite, or ability to apply herself to any occupa- 
 tion or diversion. Each evening she has taken her stand at 
 my window, there, and watched along the street by which 
 you usually come, without saying whom she was expecting, 
 or expressing in words her disappointment when you did 
 not appear. To-night, she had just left her tower of obser- 
 vation when the bell rang, and with a cry of delight she 
 darted down-stairs. She was always sensitive and idealistic, 
 with, although a healthy child, a delicate nervous organiza- 
 tion. But since the fearful storm, last summer, this delicacy 
 has been yet more obvious. I dread lest some untoward
 
 160 MY LITTLE LOVE. 
 
 event may intensify it into disease. This world of changes 
 and shocks is a troublous place for her my bonny brown 
 bird ! " 
 
 " I am more sorry than I can tell you that I have been 
 the cause of pain and disappointment to her," I said, 
 earnestly. " Had I imagined that the extraordinary press 
 the unusual engagements that have absorbed me of late, 
 to the exclusion of so much that would have given me 
 pleasure " 
 
 I was getting into smoother water, yet Aunt Evy checked 
 me: 
 
 " Not a breath of apology, please ! This is one of your 
 homes, Barry : come when and how you will, and your 
 welcome is sure. We have no right, and certainly no 
 disposition to be censorious or exacting. Least of all, will 
 Ailsie hear one word of blame of her Bayard, or distrust his 
 affection." 
 
 " Her Bayard." It was a grand and ennobling thing for a 
 man to love as I loved Bessie. That I was capable of 
 doing it was an indirect evidence of something grand and 
 worthy in my nature. But the name of the spotless cheva- 
 lier, sans peur et sans reproche, stung me with the smart of 
 unmerited praise. 
 
 I felt and I said that I was not good enough to be Ailsie' s 
 hero. I said, furthermore, and felt it no less, that it was a 
 compliment the mediaeval knight himself might have coveted 
 to hold so high a place in her pure and loyal heart. That it 
 ought to make me better, more earnest in seeking that which
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 161 
 
 was true and noble, more prompt to repel what was bad. 
 Saying it, my heart warmed into softness and my voice was 
 not so firm as I would have had it. As to the shock of last 
 summer, I was grieved to hear that it had left lasting traces, 
 and loth to credit the possibility of enduring harm to a 
 robust merry-hearted child of her age. 
 
 " And by that token, she is seven years old, this very 
 day ! " I interrupted myself to exclaim. " Can this be 
 Christmas Eve ? " 
 
 " My dear boy ! " said Aunt Evy, much amused. " Where 
 have your wits been moss-gathering, that you are so far be- 
 hind the times ? One would think you had been buried 
 alive for the last ten days." 
 
 I colored, furiously ; got up and turned my back to the 
 light to conceal my confusion. 
 
 " Christmas Eve ! " 1 repeated stupidly. " It is incredi- 
 ble ! It has been a long time since we made any account of 
 Christmas at our house. We do have mince-pie and plum- 
 pudding on the 25th of December, but that is about all that 
 distinguishes it from other days. I knew the holidays were 
 near, to be sure. As to there being no lectures to-morrow, 
 it i!> Saturday, you know. I never thought of any other 
 reason for the omission. What a dunce I am ! " 
 
 " I verily believe you have been living in the clouds," re- 
 joined Aunt Evy, still laughing. " Where were your eyes 
 that you didn't see "CHRISTMAS" stamped in green-and- 
 gold, all over the shop-windows ? " 
 
 I was mute, my head hanging upon my chest like any
 
 l62 MY LITTLE LOVE. 
 
 other detected school-boy. I had been a blind simpleton, 
 dazed and daft by the survey of the glittering jewel of my 
 own supreme happiness, and could not screw my courage up 
 to confess to this gentlest of confidantes what was the glam- 
 our that had held eyes, ears and senses in bondage. Noth- 
 ing else hurt me as did the knowledge that this was my little 
 love's birthday, and that I had come to her empty-handed. 
 Worst of all, I had not a penny with which to purchase birth- 
 day, or Christmas gift. My last five-dollar bill had gone for 
 Bessie's ball-room bouquet. And holiday presents were so 
 much to a child ! 
 
 Aunt Evy divined my feelings to some extent. 
 
 "You are troubled because you have no keepsake for 
 Alsie," she said reassuringly. "She expects nothing from 
 you, having been bountifully remembered in her home, and 
 to-morrow will bring a surfeit of gifts. If you can spare 
 half-an-hour, during the day, for a walk with her, she will en- 
 joy it more than bon-bons or jewelry. Now, call her back, 
 and when she comes, take no notice of red or down-dropped 
 eyes." 
 
 Ailsie was in her bed-room, said Robbie's nurse, whom I 
 met in the hall, and I dispatched her in quest of the straying 
 bird. She answered the summons without suspicious delay, 
 carrying her head high, as was her way when there was need 
 for self-control. I could imagine how she had looked when 
 her aunt presumed to apologize for my forgetfulness of her, 
 and she " marched off with the air of a duchess." She was 
 pale, to-night, and my heart smote me remorsefully. I am
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 163 
 
 sure that then the thought was for the first time borne in 
 upon me " Shall I ever win love so fervent and entire, 
 from another ?" 
 
 Heaven knows the query was often enough with me in 
 the days and years that followed. 
 
 I knelt to receive my queen, kissed her hands, one after 
 the other, homage more real than simulated. 
 
 " I have been a thundering blockhead, Ailsie ! You 
 wouldn't believe it, but I never knew that this was Christ- 
 mas Eve until Aunt Evy told me. There are no children 
 in our house to keep Christinas for. So I never dreamed it 
 was so near. If I had recollected Christmas Eve I couldn't 
 have forgotten that it was your birthday." 
 
 I was on one knee in the middle of the room the place 
 and attitude in which Bessie had discovered me. It salves 
 my wounded self-respect to reflect that the coincidence did 
 not occur to me, at the moment. Ailsie laid her arm over 
 my shoulder, leaving one hand in mine. Her beautiful eyes 
 were brimming with pity. 
 
 "Forgot Christmas!" she said. "You never keep 
 Christmas at your house ? I did not know such a thing ever 
 happened ! I am afraid it is very wicked. I should have 
 thought your prayers would have put you in mind. Why it 
 is Our Saviour's birthday ! Aren't you dreadfully unhappy 
 about it ? " 
 
 " I am, Ailsie ! Fairly wretched ! " 
 
 Her arm dropped from my neck. She drew away from me. 
 
 " I was not joking ! "
 
 1 64 MY LITTLE LOVE. 
 
 The sad dignity of manner and tone rebuked me into true 
 penitence. 
 
 " Don't be vexed ! " I entreated. " I really feel very 
 badly about my stupidity. And I shall believe that you 
 think me a wicked fellow, past caring for, if you don't prom- 
 ise, before I rise from my knees, to take a long walk with me 
 on the blessed Christmas Day. You shall show me how to 
 keep it." 
 
 Pacified and delighted, she assented, and condescended to 
 be lured back to her perch, which she occupied all the time 
 I stayed, her bright, brown head now turned to one side, 
 now to the other, hearkening, questioning, and replying with 
 elfin grace and more than elfin wit. She did not offer to 
 exhibit her birthday gifts a tactful omission I comprehended 
 and appreciated. I had brought her nothing, and she would 
 not remind me that others had been more loving, or thought- 
 ful of her happiness. 
 
 *' So my little wife is seven years old ! " I said, after 
 awhile, fitting the rounded chin into my hollowed palm. 
 " Such a great age, and such a great girl ! " 
 
 She blushed and laughed. 
 
 " It pleases me to be getting so old, for there is some 
 chance of my catching up with you. I wish there was such 
 a thing as your standing still and waiting for me, but I sup- 
 pose that's out of the question." 
 
 " I'll engage not to grow any taller. That will help a 
 liltie, won't it ? And if you wish it, I'll not tell people 
 exactly what my age is, even now."
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 165 
 
 " I don't care what people say !" scornfully. " I used to, 
 when I was young and foolish. I've got past all that. The 
 trouble about your being so awfully old is that I'm afraid 
 you'll get to thinking of me as a wee snip of a child, that 
 don't know anything. Then you'll stop loving me. Or, if 
 you do care for me, you may be ashamed of me when very 
 clever persons are by. That would be very bad." 
 
 " It can never happen, Ailsie. You will be the cleverest 
 person of my acquaintance when you are grown." 
 
 Cheered, but not sanguine, she paused to admit the hope, 
 then continued : " I wish I could believe so ! I do try to 
 learn. But this is such a big world. It scares me to see 
 how many books have been made, and they are all the time 
 making more. I don't see where I am going to find time to 
 study them all. You are very smart. Papa says you are 
 real talentable. You will keep on getting wiser. And I am 
 so innorant ! " 
 
 She leaned back on my arm, with a sigh of prospective 
 exhaustion. 
 
 " Don't be uneasy, Chippy ! " said Aunt Evy. " You 
 have plenty of time before you, and nobody dreams of read- 
 ing all or half the books that are made. As to Mr. Barry, 
 you'll pass him before you are seventeen. It will be his 
 turn then to sigh over his ignorance. I'll see to it that you 
 are wise enough for him or any other man." 
 
 Ailsie held up her face, in form, for the seven kisses due 
 in honor of the anniversary, when her bedtime arrived ; and 
 I imprinted them lovingly, reverently one upon her fore-
 
 1 66 MY LITTLE L O VE. 
 
 head, one upon each of the lids folding in the marvellous 
 eyes, one upon each cheek, and two upon her mouth. 
 
 " She grows handsomer every day," I said to her aunt, 
 when we were left to ourselves. " Richer in all gifts, men- 
 tal, spiritual, physical. GOD bless her ! " 
 
 I was in earnest, yet my thoughts flew suddenly and far 
 from her, as soon as I reached the street. Ten o'clock 
 struck ere I had walked two blocks. I had not looked upon 
 the features of my divinity for five hours. Five ages ! I 
 accused myself of lese majeste that I had been moderately 
 content out of her presence. She had not scrupled to de- 
 clare this particular ball " a bore," and to profess her pref- 
 erence for a quiet home-evening. 
 
 " If you could drop in ! " was the graceful addenda. 
 
 That her unlikeness to other girls was in nothing more 
 manifest than in her noble frankness, was a postulate I never 
 wearied of repeating to my already convinced self. I be- 
 lieved that she was a sacrifice to Society on this particular 
 night. I could not enjoy a ball were she absent. Why 
 should not the Robin Adair lament be chanted by her heart, 
 the while I was nowhere visible to " make the assembly 
 shine " for her optics ? 
 
 I was so far left to myself as to hum air and words, and 
 to be measurably consoled thereby. 
 
 " What's this dull town to me ? 
 
 Robin's not here. 
 What's here I wish to see ? 
 
 Robin Adair 1
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 167 
 
 Where's all the joy and mirth 
 Made the town a heaven on earth ! 
 Oh ! they've vanished all with thee, 
 Robin Adair." 
 
 A drunken fellow, out-at-elbows, stepping high and care- 
 fully along the level pavement, joined in the tune in a 
 wheezing falsetto, laughing loudly as I broke off in disgust. 
 
 Street-sentimentalities have their inconveniences and in- 
 congruities. I was not, by nature, a puppy, nor had my 
 home-life tended to foster the germs of self-conceit that are 
 not wanting in the composition of most boys. Looking 
 back dispassionately to this delirious period, I see that a 
 man must needs have been the pink of humility had he 
 been doubtful as to his standing in the affections of any sin- 
 cere woman who had given him such encouragement as had 
 fed my hopes. And be it remembered that Bessie's forte 
 was candor. My experience of college " quizzing " might, 
 indeed, have excited a suspicion that she was trailing me 
 on for her amusement and my final discomfiture. Had her 
 gracious words and telling glances been pure acting, I must 
 have distrusted her at some period of our intimacy. With 
 the memory of the catastrophe strong upon me, I yet affirm 
 that her boasted sincerity was not deliberate hypocrisy. 
 She really enjoyed my devotion. She could not exist with- 
 out somebody's homage, and that somebody must be a man. 
 I have seen other women, some of whom concealed it better 
 and some worse than she, with whom the desire to fasci- 
 nate and entangle every person of the other sex who
 
 1 68 MY LITTLE L O VE. 
 
 approached them, was innate and a greed. I have seen a 
 cat play with a mouse when she was not hungry, precisely 
 as if her design were to "tender" him for her dinner, and 
 let him go, after all. 
 
 I had never said, " Will you marry me so soon as I shall 
 provide the means for the transatlantic trip, and the erection 
 of a neat brick house in a good neighborhood, with a wing 
 for the home-office ? " 
 
 But we had talked openly of love in all its phrases, 
 moods and tenses; of love's predicates, associate phrases 
 and modifiers, and alluded so boldly to our mutual capacity 
 for feeling and enjoying all these that I should have rated 
 myself as the basest of triflers could I have admitted the 
 remotest chance of my leaving the binding question unspo- 
 ken at the last. It was much for me to feel on this Christ- 
 mas Eve that one of life's great prizes was won; that my 
 heart was moored for all time. No more hungering and 
 thirsting for the share of love the kind Father must have 
 ordained as my portion when He framed my capacity for 
 happiness and for suffering through the affections. No more 
 trivial and baseless speculations as to the shape in which my 
 fate would appear. 
 
 Is passion in the early and violent stages invariably puerile ? 
 
 " I am in the biggest glee I ever felt ! " said a youth once, 
 meeting me on the street. " My girl has just said ' Yes.' 
 Hurrah for our side !" And he threw up his hat ten feet in 
 the air, catching it as it came down. 
 
 I could have laughed, danced, sung in my " glee," while
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 169 
 
 revolving the above thoughts in my mind. If I did not 
 shout, " Hurrah for my side ! " I felt it. Was it moreover 
 because I was a boy in years and experience that I was tor- 
 mented by an incessant propensity to ascertain for myself that 
 my treasure was a verity and safe, as an urchin takes out his 
 new four-blader twenty times an hour, only to turn it over, 
 pull out and polish and shut the blades and put it back 
 into his pocket, to burn there into intolerableness in less than 
 five minutes ?
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 (FOOL'S) PARADISE LOST. 
 
 COULD not have slept a wink that night 
 without going ten blocks out of my way to 
 see the outside of the house that would con- 
 tain my Koh-i-noor until three o'clock in the 
 morning. 
 
 I knew the street and the number, and the illumi- 
 nated windows guided me directly to the hospitable 
 mansion. It was spacious and built upon a corner, 
 with a larger yard on two sides of it than most city 
 houses can boast. On the cross-street was a long 
 veranda, draped, in the season, with an almost impervious 
 curtain of vines. The intertwined branches, bare of leaves, 
 wove a stout network from pillar to pillar, through the inter- 
 stices of which I espied forms passing between me and the 
 French casements. The side street was in friendly obscu- 
 rity, the iron railing of the yard low. The floor of the veran- 
 da was not six feet above the level of the ground. I put my 
 hand on the fence, cleared it at a spring, and stood in friend- 
 lier shadow directly beneath the balcony, within arm's length 
 of those walking upon it. 
 
 I had placed myself in a questionable situation with a very
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 1 7 * 
 
 faint hope of securing a questionable good. Bessie had in- 
 formed me that there were three hundred invitations out for 
 the ball. I had, thus, the three-hundredth part of a chance 
 of beholding her waltzing in another man's arms, and of 
 being driven to desperation by the odious spectacle. The 
 casements were ajar, and there poured toward and over me 
 the blended murmur of sweet girl-voices, and the deeper 
 tones of their attendants, with soft bursts of well-bred laugh- 
 ter, and wafts of warm, perfumed air. The phantasmagoria 
 inside the brilliant saloon was bewilderingly gay, streams of 
 promenaders flowing down on one side, up the other, like a 
 restless, elliptical rainbow. I looked too far and too eagerly 
 at first. I discredited the evidence of my eyes, when, hav- 
 ing accustomed themselves to the glare of light, they showed 
 me, on the veranda, so near me I could hear the swish of 
 her robe against the railing, her whom I sought. 
 
 The night was raw, although not very cold, and the dear 
 imprudent creature wore no covering on her head beyond 
 her wealth of chestnut hair and a semi- wreath of roses ; none 
 upon her shoulders except their own fairness, which I do not 
 think was pearl-powder. They gleamed in the gas-light like 
 marble. The ivory curves of her arm were white as her 
 dress. Her head was bowed to meet a bouquet she lifted to 
 her face. 
 
 Which bouquet was not the one I had given her ! 
 
 This was larger and composed of rarer exotics than was 
 that for which my last " V " had gone." There was never a 
 less mercenary lover than was I, at that epoch, but I calcu-
 
 I7 2 MY LITTLE LOVE. 
 
 lated, with a sickening pang, that this collection of camellias, 
 tea-roses, violets, etc., could not have cost less than four 
 times the sum I had impoverished myself to expend it 
 would seem uselessly. The qualm yielded slightly to the 
 hope that this might be a borrowed treasure. Young girls 
 had a way of exchanging bouquets at parties, for an hour or 
 so. It was not agreeable to reflect that careless fingers had 
 toyed with that into whose heart I had breathed vows inau- 
 dible, but so hot they ought to have withered the frail 
 blossoms on the spot, before transferring it to Queen Bess's 
 keeping. But better thus, than to believe that it lay, slighted 
 and forgotten, on her dressing-table, or had been stuck by 
 her prudent maid into a pitcher or wash-hand basin. 
 
 A pink japonica, variegated with white stemless, after the 
 manner of florist's japonicas was detached by her handling, 
 and dropped, unseen by her or her escort, upon my arm. 
 I caught it, pressed it to my lips, and believed that it was yet 
 warm with her breath. The omen gave me strength to scan 
 her companion. I was uncertain whether I ought to feel 
 better or worse when I recognized the " Nat " who had paid 
 a dutiful visit to his Aunt Barnes last Sabbath afternoon, 
 and who should certainly have returned to Philadelphia and 
 his own business five days since ; the "Nat" whom Bessie 
 was sorry to miss ; whom she had loved dearly when they 
 were at school together. 
 
 " Nat " was talking. He had a clear voice and rather an 
 incisive articulation, and, upon the honor of a sad and sin- 
 cere gentleman, this is what he was saying :
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 1 73 
 
 "Your college-boy is not here to-night? Couldn't you 
 get him a ticket?" 
 
 A white shoulder was shnigged. The lovely face laughed 
 up from the costly bouquet. 
 
 " A dozen for the asking ! But where' s the use of playing 
 the hypocrite when there's nothing to be gained by it ? The 
 sweet youth would have been in my way in his own, 
 and, most of all, in yours. You ought not to regret his 
 absence." 
 
 " Have I hinted that I do ? Not that it would have made 
 much difference to me. I don't let cubs interfere seriously 
 with my personal arrangements. Why do you have him 
 hanging around you, all the time he is out of school? " 
 
 " You would prefer for me to wear the willow while your 
 Highness is flirting with the pretty quakeresses ? You may 
 be thankful that your present substitute is not more dange- 
 rous. He is innocent as a poodle, and infinitely less 
 troublesome." 
 
 " Chacun a son gout! I shouldn't have suspected you 
 of a partiality for veal. But, as you say, I may thank my 
 stars that it is no worse. There's our waltz ! And you will 
 take cold out here ! " 
 
 He handed her through the window, and they were 
 merged in the throng. 
 
 I might have another sight of them if I waited until the 
 circling polka brought them past my post of observation 
 and discovery. I did not stay. 
 
 As I vaulted over the fence to the side-walk, something
 
 1 74 MY LITTLE L O VE. 
 
 happened that would have mortified and annoyed me when 
 I was ten minutes younger. 
 
 " That's a rum way of getting off a gentleman's premises ! " 
 said a gruff voice, simultaneously with the grip of a hand 
 upon my arm. "Should call it taking liberties myself! " 
 
 I confronted the policeman, fiercely. 
 
 " I am no thief! I went there to see a friend ! " 
 
 The word must have hung fire suspiciously, for he turned 
 me ungently towards the nearest lamp-post. 
 
 " No objection to calling of him out, and proving identity, 
 I 'spose? Might be a case of spoons, you see. One like it 
 up town, last week. Night of a bang-out party in the 
 house. You may be one of the gang, for all I know." 
 
 The conscientious fellow had no intention of being face- 
 tious, and I was too angrily miserable to see the undesigned 
 double entendre, but the time came when I could laugh over 
 the " case of spoons," as a random arrow that twanged 
 straight home. 
 
 " I will prove my own identity ! " I retorted. " Here is my 
 card, and if you need to make sure that it is mine, you can 
 follow me home." 
 
 The rascal held up the morsel of pasteboard to the street- 
 lamp, keeping tight hold of my sleeve. 
 
 "'Barry M. Haye, No. West izth street!'" he 
 spelled aloud. 
 
 " Off my beat ! I'm detailed for this here neighborhood, 
 to-night, to keep an eye on likely characters." By which he 
 did not mean personable. "Here, Phipps !"
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 1 7 5 
 
 Another policeman crossed the street, and approached us. 
 A knot of five or six people clustered about the trio, Police- 
 man No. i retaining his clutch of my sleeve. 
 
 " You keep this here gent in sight," he ordered his fellow. 
 " If he tries to bolt, spring your rattle and take him into 
 custody immediate. Says he lives at West 12. Here's 
 his label ! " passing over his card. " If there should be any- 
 thing off the square round here to-morrow, it's as well to 
 know where to find him. Move on spry 1" 
 
 " If you touch me, I will kill you ! " I said under my 
 breath, to my custodian who made as if he would have taken 
 my arm. " Follow me as close as you like." 
 
 He did not look like a doughty warrior, and changed 
 countenance at the threat. He was not ill-natured, for he 
 might have committed me for resistance to the law. 
 
 " Tut, tut ! " he said, after a glance at my livid face. " I 
 guess this is a mistake all 'round. I ain't one for interferin' 
 with young gents' larks. You step on pretty lively, and I 
 won't bother you." 
 
 I have a confused idea that one or more of the witnesses 
 of the arrest followed us for some squares, but I cared noth- 
 ing about it, then. When I took my key out at my father's 
 door, there was no one in sight except policeman No. 2, 
 strolling lazily up the other side of the way. He raised his 
 finger to his cap d la militaire in resigning the charge of me, 
 and I ought to have been thankful that I had got well out of 
 an absurd scrape. 
 
 I was not in a frame of mind to cherish gratitude, or any
 
 1 76 MY LITTLE L VE. 
 
 other Christian grace. The parlor door was ajar, and my 
 sister was at the piano ; she had a strong voice, was vain of 
 it, and managed it effectively. While tearing off my over- 
 coat in the hall. I had a partial view of the tableau at the 
 instrument. A rich young popinjay, who was strenuously 
 encouraged by step-parent and daughter, bent over the 
 songstress and her eyes were elevated to meet his, as she 
 warbled to a thrumping accompaniment 
 
 " Am I not fondly thine own ? 
 Yes!^/VES ! YES !! 
 Am I not fondly thine own ! " 
 
 " As if a crescendo of affirmatives a mile long could con- 
 vince a sane man of a woman's truth ! " growled I, savagely, 
 mounting to my third-story back, pursued by the staccato 
 refrain that rose into a shriek of elvish laughter before I 
 muffled it by slamming my door. 
 
 Not that I could keep it out. It was a new song, pre- 
 sented to my sister that evening by her suitor, and when she 
 had sung it all through by herself three times, he joined an 
 execrable base to the strident soprano. Between them they 
 persecuted me to the topmost pitch of distraction. I turn 
 cold and faint, to this hour, when the tortures of that night 
 recur to me. 
 
 I had struck a light mechanically after closing the door, 
 dropped into a chair, and buried my head in my hands. 
 Being but a boy, I should have wept had the anguish been 
 more tolerable. As it was, bereft of hope, and without
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 1 7 7 
 
 redress ; bruised and shaken by the fall from bliss to perdi- 
 tion, I suffered as I had loved, unconscionably. There is a 
 nerve ajar in my long-healed heart while I tell it. There 
 was no well-meaning comforter near to bid me consider that, 
 whereas I had lived in passable peace and happiness until 
 within a fortnight without knowing her who had wrought for 
 me such rapture and such woe, common sense and practical 
 philosophy held out a fair prospect of a return to my normal 
 condition when the paroxysm of disappointment should have 
 passed ; that it was opposed to reason and precedent that a 
 passion but nine days old should make a total wreck of a 
 human life. I would have pitched Eliphaz the Temanite 
 down-stairs, and sent Bildad and Zophar to keep him com- 
 pany at the bottom, had they their native officiousness still 
 in force taken advantage of the privilege accorded to 
 ghosts on Christmas Eve, and presented themselves to me, 
 prepared to take up the line of argumentative disputation. 
 
 I was mad, through and through. It was not enough that 
 I had been deceived. I had been also duped. There is 
 deception into which a man can fall without injury to whole- 
 some self-esteem. A victim is not, of necessity, a simple- 
 ton. I had been this woman's puppet ; made to grimace 
 and posture and jabber at her whim, and it was her humane 
 whim to fool me to the top of my bent, for her convenience 
 and the diversion of her accepted lover. I tore at my hair 
 with hands that would have strangled him, if I could have 
 got at him. Every word of his insolent allusions to me was 
 
 re-distilled concentrated venom by viewless devils into 
 8*
 
 1 78 MY LITTLE LOVE. 
 
 my ears. I was a college boy, a cub, and a calf. She had 
 only called me "a sweet youth," but that was worse than 
 scathing ridicule, or opprobrious epithets. I ground my 
 teeth together until I could hardly part the jaws, then set 
 myself to work as methodically as I could, to recount the 
 favors she had granted me. How, without shame, and, it 
 now appeared systematically, she had fed the flame of the 
 devotion I had not been able to conceal from the hour of 
 our first meeting. Raw cub though 1 was, my demonstrations 
 of the adoration in which my soul lay prostrate would have 
 been moderate and decently conventional, if she had let 
 me alone. If she had not made me drunk with flattery, and 
 stolen away sense and prudence with every glance and 
 word. With all my folly I was not a coxcomb, or I should 
 have thought at some palpable exhibition of her partiality 
 "This girl is throwing herself at my head !" Whereas, in 
 my frankest self-communings, I had only admitted that, with 
 a lofty contempt for the trammels of etiquette and coquetry, 
 she obeyed the movings of her generous heart and met me 
 so conscious of my ill-desert half-way. 
 
 All the time she had been acting a farce blaspheming 
 the holy names of Love and Faith and Wedlock, and toying 
 with my heart as I had seen her, one evening, toss an orange 
 from one hand to the other, and finally let it roll away into a 
 corner, with "Don't pick it up! I am getting tired of 
 oranges ! " She was shrewd by nature and by practice. 
 Love and beaux were an old story with her. I could not 
 mislead myself, for the sake of poor human nature, into the
 
 M y LITTLE LOVE. 1 79 
 
 hope that she had imagined it was an even game diamond 
 cut diamond with us. I had been honest and fatuous, and 
 she knew it as well as that she had never cared the ninth 
 part of a jot, nor the ninety-ninth part of a tittle for me. 
 
 All this time whether I reasoned, or whether I raved 
 bursts of that diabolical ballad were pelting the panels of my 
 door, linking themselves with a sort of idiotic sequence, into 
 my frenzied reverie, sometimes compelling audible answers. 
 
 "Thou, thou knowest that I love thee!" insisted the 
 soprano, until I was fain to cry out what a drivelling fool any 
 man was who believed that he knew anything of the kind, 
 while the base improvised a solo repetition of the already 
 quadrupled affirmative, exasperating me into a " No ! no ! 
 no ! " that was nearly a yell. 
 
 They kept at it, and, in the midst of my agony, I had to 
 hear it : 
 
 Piano prelude. First verse with refrain as a base solo, 
 then as a duett. 
 
 Interlude. 
 
 Second verse, as above. 
 
 Interlude, No. 2. 
 
 And so on, beginning again, and going through the same 
 process in an endless chain of distraction until the very chair 
 in which I sat vibrated in time, to the " ting-a-ty ! tang-e-ty ! " 
 of the accompaniment, and something in the back of my 
 head, probably the rear-guard of the brain, beat like the 
 measured thump of a big drum, with a stunning " Bang ! " 
 for the most capital " Yes !"
 
 1 80 MY LITTLE L O VE. 
 
 Ludicrous ? Certainly in the telling and in the hearing. 
 In the endurance misery, dire and prolonged. 
 
 About half-past eleven, the music ceased. Not so the 
 echoes. They sounded and resounded through my vigil 
 until I could scarcely tell which was imaginary, which actual 
 distress. The night became colder. There was no fire in 
 my room. When, at three o'clock, I tried to straighten my- 
 self up and make ready for bed, I thought for a moment that 
 I was frozen, my limbs were so stiff and numb. 
 
 An old saying came to my mind, " Caught his death of 
 cold." 
 
 I could not have done a wiser thing. Life was a more 
 troublesome complaint than dissolution. 
 
 I pondered the significance of that word, also, rubbing my 
 be-thumbed fingers into some degree of usefulness. It was 
 not an elegant term, but it suited Life well. A "com- 
 plaint ! " That over which moan was made and plaint was 
 chanted, a complaint from the first cry to the latest groan. 
 
 " For which death is the only cure ! " I muttered, turning 
 out my gas, and tumbling into bed like a heathen, without a 
 lisp, or thought of prayer the "prayers" that might have 
 "put me in mind" of other things besides whose birthday 
 Christmas was. 
 
 Perhaps I could not have so much as repeated, " Now I 
 lay me down to sleep," correctly, if I had tried. For the 
 unceasing echoes were contending for the right to be fondly 
 my own, in alternate base and soprano in staccato accom- 
 paniment to every train of musing.
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 "THE NINE COLUMN," 
 
 HE first thing I heard at my awakening on 
 Christmas morning even despair cannot lie 
 awake all night at one-and-twenty was the 
 vibrant tapping of hail against the windows. 
 
 I could not have been quite awake when I 
 recognized what it was, for I whispered " No 
 walk with Ailsie, to-day ! " before the scenes and 
 horrors of last night laid hold of memory and 
 soul. 
 
 Then I turned my face to the wall with a groan which was 
 a curse upon light and recollection. I did not try to fall 
 asleep again or so much as shut my eyes. Staring blankly 
 at the white wall, and listening, with some appreciation of 
 their congruity with my mood, to the monotonous patter 
 upon the panes and the sough of the east wind between the 
 sashes, I lay until the dressing-bell informed me that other 
 people were up and hungry, and would carp and interrogate 
 if I did not betake my appetiteless self to the breakfast- 
 table, in thirty minutes. 
 
 But even my father was unpunctual this morning. It was
 
 1 82 MY LITTLE L VE. 
 
 a legal holiday and stormy. Early rising in the circumstan- 
 ces was not a promising speculation. 
 
 I encountered my step-mother at the library door and said, 
 " Good-morning," listlessly, to be answered tartly. 
 
 There was nothing negative about this excellent woman. 
 One always "encountered" or ran afoul of her. Her 
 speech was ever crisp and spicy, rather over-seasoned with 
 salt. Indeed, her whole character gave one the impression 
 of something that was a trifle too well corned. It had all 
 the elements of durability and decided flavor, albeit 
 somewhat hard and tough for daily food. 
 
 " I am glad somebody is down to breakfast ! " she said, 
 knotting the horizontal lines of her forehead, " I suppose 
 Christmas is considered a valid excuse for laziness. It 
 wasn't in my day 1" 
 
 She swept on to the dining-room, like a gust of dryly 
 bitter wind. 
 
 I was toasting my purpled hands at the library-grate, the 
 only cheerful thing I had seen, that morning, when my sister 
 bounced in. 
 
 " Isn't this the shabbiest thing ! Good-morning, Sir Barry 1 
 I didn't see that you were here. I thought it was Aleck." 
 
 " Won't I do as well ? " I aroused myself to say. 
 
 I was very lonely-hearted, longing, without knowing it, 
 for the sympathy of a true woman. Madge, with her laugh- 
 ing blue eyes and red-gold hair and strawberry cheeks ; who 
 had never had a heart-ache in her life for a more dignified 
 reason than the want of a new dress, or the untimely ruin of
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 183 
 
 a love of a hat ; whose highest idea of sentiment was to sing 
 " Am I not fondly thine own ? " to Sam Murray in a 
 handsomely-upholstered parlor he in his best coat and she 
 arrayed in the latest mode ; Madge, who protested that she 
 hated boys, and treated me as one of the reviled wretches, 
 was yet my sister, who could recollect our own mother, 
 and must once have loved and petted her baby-brother. 
 
 " It's nothing I want done ! I'm only mad ! I do despise 
 meanness ! " 
 
 She flung a book upon the table with emphasis that made 
 it rebound and fall to the floor. I picked it up, examining 
 the corners to see if they were broken. 
 
 " Lizzie Swayne sent it to me ! Fora Christmas present 1 
 We have always exchanged gifts since we were school-girls. 
 A stupid, silly book of poetry ! Think of it ! Her brother 
 is in the book-business, you see, and she got it at cost. I 
 do detest anything that smells of the shop. I was such a 
 ninny as to send her the sweetest mouchoir-case ! blue satin 
 and silver outside, with white quilted silk lining ! I nearly 
 put my eyes out working it. I wish I had kept it for myself!" 
 
 " This is a handsome book," I said, appeasingly, turning 
 the leaves. 
 
 It was an illustrated copy of Coleridge's " Ancient Mari- 
 ner." The etchings were spirited, the print and binding 
 fine. 
 
 " A baby's story about a sailor's shooting a goose ! " she 
 retorted. " About fit for a child, five or six years old." 
 
 I was not set for the defence of Coleridge and his adult
 
 1 84 MY LI TTLE L O VE. 
 
 admirers. Looking, instead, at the fly-leaf, I saw that it 
 bore no inscription. 
 
 " Madge ! " I proposed " if you really do not care for the 
 book, I will take it off your hands, at the retail price not 
 the cost," we both laughed "and pay you next week. 
 I am impecunious, at present. I want a story-book for a 
 little daughter of Mr. Darling. I forgot her yesterday, and 
 was poor besides. She likes books and poetry-books, 
 better than toys. May I have it ?" 
 
 " With all my heart ! I say, Barry, you are a trump to 
 take it on those terms. I suppose you can ascertain the 
 price at any book-store." 
 
 I wrapped the volume up neatly, when our Christmas 
 breakfast had been despatched, my card inside bearing a 
 pencilled promise to call during the day, and left it in person 
 at Mr. Darling's door, seeing no one except a servant. 
 
 I was at liberty, this duty done, to be miserable to my 
 heart's content, and all the unhappier because no one asked 
 if I were curst or blest on this holiday of Christendom. 
 
 The storm was continuous, but never violent. The 
 streets were almost deserted, for it was a wet snow, varied by 
 an occasional fall of rain, that packed it into a clogging 
 mass. I wandered up-town, cross-town, down-town, keeping 
 well away from the quarter in which the Barneses lived; 
 hands in pockets, hat dragged down to my eyebrows, eyes 
 sullenly averted from the face of friend or stranger a grue- 
 some figure for the season, but past caring by whom I was 
 seen, or what construction was put upon my appearance.
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 185 
 
 There was no straining after effect, no sensational sentimen- 
 tality, in my aimless roaming and rueful mien. My bruises 
 were new, my wounds green and aching. In time to come 
 I might solace myself with^ remembering that the world was 
 wide. Now, I only felt that it was empty. 
 
 The snow held on, balling upon my boot-soles until my 
 slouching gait became a stumble. My overcoat was white 
 upon the shoulders and in the creases, the curling brim of 
 my so-lately-caressed beaver overran with slush, and dripped 
 now upon my nose, now down my neck. In this condition 
 I found myself at three o'clock, two miles from home, 
 sitting upon a pile of lumber under a rude awning, a sort 
 of wharf-shed, looking down and out at the river. It was 
 raining heavily, but not fast, a dogged pour that made deep 
 indentations in the lead-colored water, washing the rotting 
 piles. The mass of the shipping lay further down the river. 
 A solitary sloop, with no living creature visible, or near it, 
 except a dog, chained to a kennel upon deck, was tied to 
 the pier, pitching slowly in the incoming tide. 
 
 Alexander Smith's was a new name in men's mouths at 
 that date. I had taken the " Life Drama " from Aunt 
 Evy's knee, a fortnight before, and read some pages aloud ; 
 talked with her of these lines, little foreseeing when and how 
 I should next repeat them. 
 
 " How beautiful the yesterday that stood 
 Over me like a rainbow ! I am alone. 
 The Past is past. I see the future stretch, 
 All dark and barren as a rainy sea."
 
 ..- 
 
 186 MY LITTLE LOVE. 
 
 My Future ! My Life ! This was what I looked upon. 
 And a woman had done it. It was a vile piece of work. I 
 ought to have been enraged at the cool atrocity with which 
 it was executed, but I was not. That was for last night. 
 After the fire, cold and kindleless cinders. After the 
 eruption, scoriae, fit but to be trodden under foot by the 
 brave and happy. I should have stood excused at the bar 
 of conscience and most men's opinions had I learned to 
 hate Bessie Barnes, as mightily as I had loved her. I might 
 at least, in decent consistency, have been angry and 
 ashamed that I worshipped her still. I drew the japonica 
 she had lost, from my bosom, faded and blackened like my 
 hopes, and kissed it. In doing it, I thought of David, 
 hunted like a partridge on the mountains, deaf to the oaths 
 and reproaches of the wild outlaws of his body-guard, while 
 he gazed upon the fragment of the royal robe in his fingers, 
 shorn while the king slept. It was not Saul the slayer, that 
 he remembered, but the father of Jonathan and Michal, the 
 Lord's anointed, in whose sight the young harper had been 
 proud to find favor. 
 
 I would return, by letter, the token of what I had seen 
 and overheard. I was not so besotted as to dream of 
 possible reconciliation. One little minute a score of words 
 had made the Past to be past : removed me from her by 
 the dark and barren distance of a rainy sea whose thither 
 shore I could not I should never behold. Where was she 
 now ? I was to have gone to her this afternoon I looked 
 at my watch at this very hour. She had never said, " Not
 
 X 
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 187 
 
 at home " to me. I pictured her resting, and resting the 
 eyes of those who looked on her, in the leaf- brown puffiness 
 of the satin chair, arrayed in one of my favorite dresses, for 
 she consulted my taste in f these matters eyes soft with 
 retrospection, the fairest tableau of " Lady awaiting a 
 Lover," that ever visited limner's fancy. I should have been 
 a dog had I sought her to lie again at her feet and sun my- 
 self in her smile. I knew it, while mad with desire for a 
 sight of her face, the touch of her hand. 
 
 I could not help the fever-thirst. I could, by sheer stress 
 of will, refrain from going near her ; resist the temptation to 
 sacrifice my manliness. This I did, and I say that it was 
 more than could have been expected from the struck boy in 
 whose home " Christmas was made little account of. " 
 
 " Wai now, I do declare ! if 'tain't you ! " 
 
 A hand encased in a woollen mitten was extended to me 
 while its fellow slapped me on the back. Ezra Gaskin's 
 lean face one cheek distended by a quid of tobacco, his 
 winter's beard running to seed over his chin and meeting, in 
 a gingery shock, the velvet coat-collar, faded to the same 
 hue by time and weather peered into mine, the pale gums 
 showing above the broken line of upper teeth in his grin of 
 welcome. 
 
 "Who'd a thought it ? On a Chris'mas Day, too ! 'Sposed 
 ye wer* a frolickin' home, or some place else. How air ye, 
 ennyhow ? Folks all well ? " 
 
 Hardly waiting for the brief replies to these queries, he 
 burst forth with another :
 
 1 88 MY LITTLE L VE. 
 
 "What upon yearth brings yer deown here, this time o' 
 day, and in sech weather ? " 
 
 " I have been walking," said I, stiffly, " and strayed down 
 town. I stopped here for a few minutes to keep out of the 
 rain and to look at the water." 
 
 " Ain't much of a show to-day ! " he chuckled, glancing 
 over his shoulder at the dingy waste, pitted by the rain. 
 
 The tide was rolling in faster and the ugly sloop creaked 
 at her cable with every plunge. Ezra winked at it. 
 
 " Come down on that ! Load o' truck, potatoes, cabbage 
 and inguns, mostly. Gin'rally send 'em to teown by th' 
 skipper, but I run down yesterday to pick up a tomb-stun 
 for th' old lady gran'ma, you mind? Can't set it into the 
 ground 'tell the frost's out of course, but me an' ma, we 
 kinder guessed the ar/*Vle could be had cheaper in winter 
 when, for that reason, bis'ness must be slack in monerments. 
 We jest hit the nail 'pon the head. I happened to run acrost 
 a ra'al neat item white marble, all carved but the name 'n' 
 date. Even ' In Mem'ry of ' 'n' ' Sister, thou was mild 'n' 
 lovely,' cut in handsome with plenty of room for eteceterers. 
 I struck a bargain with the fellow on th' spot. Wanted him 
 to take part pay in sass, but he'd no call for nothin' of the 
 kind, he said, bein' a bachelor an* a single man. Wall ! he 
 filled in th' blanks to order, and we divided the cartage deown 
 to th' sloop, and she come aboard las' night and was stowed 
 awav under cover, snug as could be, afore dark. Be still, 
 you brute ! " shying a muddy stone at the dog who had 
 raised a howl.
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 189 
 
 "He's hungry, I guess. Skipper's been off all day, an' 
 left him for to keep house. I got my dinner up-town at my 
 brother's, and been a-knockin' 'round a considerable sence. 
 Ef I'd a'knowed jest where to find you, I'd a' looked in 
 upon ye. Neow I what d'ye say to goin' aboard of her fur a 
 smoke, and I would like to have yer opinion of the old 
 lady's stun. Jest fur old acquaintance sake. She allers 
 kinder tuk to you, when you was so peakin' and off yer feed. 
 Thought mebbe you'd enj'y takin' a squint at her head- 
 stun." 
 
 The dog held up his head until his nose pointed the 
 zenith, and emitted another shrill howl. 
 
 I began to beat the snow from my coat, and shook my 
 hat, preparatory to a renewal of my promenade. 
 
 " Excuse me ! " I said, coldly. " I ought to have been at 
 home an hour ago. I have had no dinner yet. My respects 
 to Mrs. Gaskin." 
 
 " It's rainin', an' you've never a sign of an umbereller ! " 
 objected Ezra, staying me with the worsted mitten. "I 
 say ! what ails ye ? You ain't a bit nat'ral, to-day, neither 
 in words, nor in looks. Don't seem to know 'nough to go 
 in when it rains." 
 
 He leered so impudently that I could have slapped his 
 lean cheeks, with a good will. I felt the color rush to mine. 
 
 " What do you mean ! " I demanded. 
 
 Instead of replying, he laughed, yet more impudently. 
 
 " Better git home straight's you kin and stay there, Mr. 
 Haye. Young men will be young men, the best on 'em.
 
 1 90 M Y LITTLE L VE. 
 
 But you've been a-goin' it a leettle to hard, I mistrust. Good- 
 by ! No offence, I hope ! O Lor* ! " 
 
 I was out of hearing of his snickering, by this, but as I 
 turned the corner I heard the dog repeat his starved howl, 
 and the meaner animal command him to " hold that racket ! " 
 
 I had no definite purpose of keeping my engagement with 
 Ailsie. I was not conscious of recollecting it, but something 
 perhaps a single fibre of the fast-untwisting thread of con- 
 science drew me to the street in which the Darlings lived. 
 So disconnected were volition and motion that I was actu- 
 ally passing the house when a rapping on the panes drew my 
 eyes upward to the window behind which I saw Ailsie smil- 
 ing and beckoning. 
 
 The next instant she was standing in the open door, her 
 face one glad glow. 
 
 "I am not fit to come into any civilized being's house ! " 
 I remonstrated, when she would have pulled me in. " I am 
 as wet as a drowned squirrel." 
 
 "The more reason why you ought to come in and get 
 dry ! " she coaxed. " Now, do I I have the beautifullest 
 fire ever made in the parlor, and I've been playing lady there 
 all by myself, ever so long. Reading at the window. And 
 watching for you. I expected you, if it did storm. You 
 always keep your promises." 
 
 She had me inside of the door and shut it ; then, without 
 releasing her hold upon my wet, ungloved hand, gently drew 
 me into the front parlor. 
 
 It was warm with red fire-light, and fragrant with Christ-
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 191 
 
 mas evergreens and bouquets. There was that air of happy 
 peacefulness over all that folds instantly and sweetly about 
 the consciousness of him who enters, from the outer world, a 
 room which, untenanted, at present, bears throughout, evi- 
 dences of recent and luxurious occupancy. The Spirit of 
 Home, restful and smiling, brooded over the ruddy hearth. 
 The breath of her presence, the shine of her furled wings, 
 warned off chill and gloom. 
 
 Every chamber of the Darling house was a living-room, 
 and it was in pleasant keeping with the family habits to see 
 Ailsie curl herself up in a capacious Turkish chair, after she 
 had divested me of my wet overcoat and rubbers, and settled 
 me in as comfortable a seat the other side of the fire. 
 
 "This is what I call heavenly I" she said, drawing out 
 each syllable luxuriously. " It is what I have been wishing 
 for all the afternoon. I made the prettiest picture of it in 
 my head. You see, Aunt Evy overtired herself yesterday 
 and this morning, and has one of her detestable headaches. 
 Nothing does them any good but to go to bed and be per- 
 fectly quiet. Papa and mamma have gone to a Christmas 
 dinner at Uncle George's. Robby and baby are having a 
 great time in the nursery with what Robby calls his ' play- 
 toys,' and I could amuse myself as I liked. The book you 
 sent me was per-fec-tion ! I have read it three times already, 
 and I was learning it by heart when -I 'spied you. 'Course I 
 wasn't sup-pe-rised to see you. But your being here was all 
 the picture wanted. Listen to the rain, and the snow melt- 
 ing off the top of the windows and porch ! It plays a real
 
 192 MY LITTLE LOVE. 
 
 tune. I could sing it ' pit-a-// ! tip-a-tap-to/> I pit, pit, 
 pat I ' Isn't it odd it should keep such good time ? Oh ! " a 
 long inspiration. " There's nothing so jolly as a stormy day 
 in the house, with a nice book and your very own-est friend 
 all to yourself, and nobody bothering 'round ! " 
 
 I was very tired, I began to discover, leg-weary and empty. 
 The chair was luxurious ; the genial heat of the red grate 
 made its way gradually through my benumbed frame. It was 
 comforting, too, to know that Ailsie was made glad by my 
 coming. She was nothing but a child, but I had been beg- 
 gared in love since I kissed her at last night's parting. 
 Something like the warmth of life stole to my heart with her 
 cheery, loving tones. 
 
 " You are the dearest little friend in the world ! " I said, 
 gratefully. " It does me good to be with you." 
 
 She slipped to the floor and came to my side, drawn irresis- 
 tibly by love-words. I put my arm about the small creature, 
 as she stood by me, and laid my head on her shoulder. 
 
 " It does me good to be with you, Ailsie ! " I repeated. 
 " There are so few who care for me. And to-day, I have 
 been very unhappy ! " 
 
 " On Christmas ! I am sorry ! " 
 
 The dear hands held my head in fond enclasp ; stroked 
 my hair back from my temples. A cheek, soft as velvet, 
 pressed close to mine. But she said never a word more. 
 Her fine tact would not suffer her to question me, and she 
 was too wise to risk unmeaning phrases of consolation. 
 
 The short winter day was dying. The straight rush of the
 
 LITTLE LOVE. 1 93 
 
 draught over the fire-tipped coals, the droning song of the 
 wind in the chimney-throat, the tattoo of the drip outside the 
 window, were all we heard for a time. My little love stayed 
 by me, resolute, patient, dumb, looking I could feel at the 
 fire, thinking of and sad for me, with the selfless compassion 
 that belongs to woman and angelhood. She would 
 have stood thus for an hour, telling of this and much 
 more by mute caressing, had I been so unkind as to 
 permit it. 
 
 " I am spoiling your Christmas, and making a sorry 
 instead of a pretty picture for you to remember," I ended 
 the silence by saying. " Sit upon my knee, and we will talk 
 of pleasanter things." 
 
 She obeyed so far as the change of position went. Her 
 face did not relax from its gravity. The large, tender look 
 in her eyes bespoke a travail of sympathy I could not bear 
 to see when I was the cause of her pain. 
 
 " Never mind me ! " she said, brusquely. " Pleasant talk 
 isn't always the most interesting. And 'tisn't easy to make- 
 believe you are happy when you have the heart-ache." 
 
 " The heart-ache ! " I echoed, smiling. " What do you 
 know of that, little Ailsie ? " 
 
 "Because I am little Ailsie, you believe I don't under- 
 stand. But we children know more than grown folks think. 
 And we have our troubles. There's the multiplication table 
 now ! When I've said my prayers at night, and laid down 
 to try to sleep, and I recollect that I've got to say the nine 
 column in the morning even to Aunt Evy I wish I could 
 9
 
 194 MY LITTLE LOVE. 
 
 die before I wake. I do, truly ! GOD understands. That's 
 one comfort ! " 
 
 She linked her small brown fingers together on her knee ; 
 her eyes saying unutterable things to the fire that grew redder 
 and brighter with the thickening of the snow-shroud without 
 the windows. 
 
 Was " that " a comfort to me ? The question was a thrill, 
 almost a shock. What did I know, or think, of the All- 
 Knowing and All-Loving ? Had the wild passion that had 
 consumed me during that fatal ten days wrought purifica- 
 tion, or degradation, within me ? Was I more, or less of a 
 man, for studying Bessie Barnes's beauty when with her and 
 dreaming of it when away ? What part or lot had I in the 
 sublime simplicity of this child, who had suffered, as she 
 loved, with all her little might ; who in the dreads at which I 
 could not laugh, so genuine were they, rested her whole 
 weight upon " GOD understands ! " 
 
 Ailsie was many removes from the approved type of pious 
 childhood. From first to last, there was not a feature of the 
 "goody" baby about her. She had her hates, and her aver- 
 sions; her tempers and tantrums all hearty and undis- 
 guised. Her very earnestness of feeling and range of thought 
 added to the intensity of her untoward moods. But above and 
 under foible and fault, were integrity that never swerved ; faith 
 hope, and love in the GOD and Father of all, that was almost 
 sight. 
 
 I spoke out my musing. 
 
 " I wish I felt as you do, Ailsie ! But I am a very wicked
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 195 
 
 boy, sometimes. At all times, I am afraid. I want what I 
 wish for, whether it is good for me, or not. And my nine- 
 column is such an ugly customer, I feel more like righting, 
 than praying, when I think of it." 
 
 " Praying is a capital thing when you can fix your mind on 
 it," was the knowing rejoinder. " It helps one awfully ! But, 
 unless you mean every single word you say, you're apt to get 
 to thinking about something else generally silly things, and 
 that s another bother ! There's many a bother for us poor 
 creatures, seems to me. It's easy to get rid of some. Some 
 stick like the Spanish needles that used to run into my 
 stockings and hang on my dress, last summer." 
 
 A ray of amusement pierced my melancholy. Was my 
 slighted love " a bother that would stick ? " A caprice seized 
 me. I drew the withered japonica from my pocket. 
 
 " Ailsie ! I want you to do me a favor. Take this care- 
 fully, for it is precious and lay it, just as carefully, on the 
 hottest pile of coal there ! " pointing to the grate. " And 
 ask no questions." 
 
 She eyed me inquiringly, the faded flower intently, as it 
 lay upon her palm. 
 
 " If it is precious " she began checked herself and col- 
 ored. 
 
 Without another word she laid the japonica gently in a 
 little hollow where waves of white heat were quivering like 
 live things. 
 
 I covered my eyes with my hand, until she said in a low, 
 awed voice, " It is quite burnt up," then looked up to meet
 
 1 9 6 MY LITTLE LOVE. 
 
 her pitying regards. She would not let them be puzzled by 
 what I did not choose to explain. 
 
 " Thank you, dear ! " I said, in lightness she seemed to 
 see was feigned. " Some day, when you and I are married, 
 Ailsie, I will tell you what that meant. By that time we will 
 laugh at the whole affair." 
 
 " Not if you don't choose," she reiterated briefly. " Are 
 you ready, quite ready, to think about something else ? You 
 are to take tea with me. Right here in the parlor ! It's 
 growing so dark, it must be time to see about getting it 
 ready. Would you mind lighting the gas while I am gone ? 
 I won't be a minute."
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 COMFORTED. 
 
 SAT by the fire in a reverie that had for its 
 starting-point and centre the little pit of 
 white flame, at the bottom of which was a 
 pinch of gray ashes tossing in the heat-waves. 
 My life had had its grand passion, then, which, 
 having burned out, had emptied my heart of all save 
 worthless residuum. When the days of my mourning 
 should be accomplished, hope would lie as lifeless 
 as the dust of the dead flower. My " nine-column " 
 would be to take up the burden of life a body with- 
 out breath or beauty and bear it to the welcome end. 
 Welcome because it was the end. I was very unhappy, and 
 general dolefulness had set in heavily. Physical inanition 
 was an element that entered largely into my depression, but 
 this I did not know. The suggestion would have mortified 
 me had it been made. I was too faint of stomach I thought 
 of heart to reason consecutively. To sit still, staring at the 
 inch-wide crater of the topmost lump of ignited coal, and to 
 be desperately wretched, was the limit of my capacity. I 
 had done enough of this sort of business within the last 
 twenty-four hours to understand the process.
 
 198 MY LITTLE L VE. 
 
 I had the grace to feel abashed at Ailsie's exclamation 
 "Why, you are in the dark, still !" and to jump up to per- 
 form her forgotten behest, apologizing for my neglect by say- 
 ing that " I liked the firelight." 
 
 " 'Tisn't good to eat by," observed the little housekeeper, 
 clearing books and papers from the centre-table in a great 
 hurry. " Think of our having a tea-party you and I by 
 our lone selves ! Mamma left orders we should if you came, 
 for I was certain you'd be in about tea-time. And Norah 
 is in a grand humor, on account of her Christmas presents. 
 You ought to have seen her fly around to get up what she 
 called "a beautiful, nate tay and wasn't it loocky we were 
 to have it so airly, so's she could hurry on her hat and rin 
 'round the corner in sayson to attind Barney Finnegan's 
 wake rist his sowl ! ' " 
 
 Ailsie was innocently vain of her ' excellent Irish,' and 
 not unfrequently aired it for my benefit. She was a born 
 mimic as she was an elocutionist. Her tongue ran now as 
 if the vocal apparatus were just wound up. 
 
 " I saved half of my birth-day cake for you. It was a 
 beauty ! All over icing and flowers, with seven weeny wax 
 candles stuck in the top. There's one for every year, you 
 know. But won't it have to be a " whopper " when I am fifty 
 years old ? Do you know that's the only trouble I have about 
 your being so very much older than me ? I won't be clever 
 enough to get married before I'm twenty-one. By that time, 
 you'll be" 
 
 " Ailsie ! " arresting my work of assisting her, the picture
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 1 99 
 
 of blank dismay. " You are not thinking of throwing rne 
 overboard, after all your promises ! " 
 
 She set her head on one side, like a saucy sparrow, 
 giving her face the comical upward twist she only could 
 achieve. 
 
 " That's 'cording as you behave, Mr. Barry ! If you stay 
 away many more week-and-a-halfs, there's no telling what 
 may happen." 
 
 This was the sole reproof she ever administered for my 
 truancy. From no one else would she hear a whisper in 
 reprobation of it. " The king can do no wrong," was the 
 rule of word and action ; although, until happy in my re- 
 stored allegiance, she had not been able to discuss with any 
 one beside her aunt the desertion she felt so acutely. 
 
 Norah had sustained her vaunt of the " beautiful tay," 
 which she soon brought in upon a large tray and set down be- 
 tween us on the table. There were a tiny silver tea-pot of 
 strong hot tea for me, with milk for Ailsie ; bread and butter, 
 thin slices of ruby tongue, doughnuts and cheese, birthday 
 cake, calves' -foot jelly and cream. Such canine and unroman- 
 tic hunger attacked me at sight of the display, that I forgot 
 to be chagrined at the unlovely weakness until after the feast. 
 Ailsie's self-felicitation in the Christmas banquet and my 
 participation therein, was the prettiest thing imaginable. 
 She could not maintain the state she at first attempted, as 
 my hospitable vis-d-vis, but hovered about me with sugar- 
 dish, cream-pitcher, and cake-basket, like a guardian sylph, 
 pressing viands and sweets upon me with urgency I did not
 
 2 oo MY LITTLE L VE. 
 
 resist until the craving appetite of a long young man, who 
 had fasted all day, was gratified. 
 
 " It's very kind of you to eat so nicely ! " prattled the 
 unsuspecting hostess. " Some grown people make-believe 
 at children's parties. It's nibble, nibble ! and sip, and smack 
 their lips over the leastest crumb and drop ! Just to please 
 us ! As if we didn't see right through their humbuggering ! 
 But you take hold, like a gentleman, as you would at mam- 
 ma's table." 
 
 " Because everything is so good, Ailsie, and I am really 
 hungry," said I, honestly. 
 
 But f could not disabuse her mind of the belief that I had 
 done much to oblige her in " taking hold." 
 
 The table was cleared, finally, the tray carried off by 
 Norah, and books and papers rearranged with conscientious 
 precision. Then Ailsie produced " Ye Ancient Mariner." 
 
 " If you wouldn't mind " her favorite preface to a peti- 
 tion "reading it over with me? There are some odd 
 words I don't understand. And some of the verses I would 
 like you to ex-plain." 
 
 The shutters were closed upon the storm. Norah had 
 replenished the fire and swept up the hearth, before depart- 
 ing to her funereal festivity. I was comforted in body, 
 and more equable in spirits than was natural or dignified in 
 one who had so lately reduced the interests and joys of exist- 
 ence to a quarter-teaspoonful of ashes. My little love 
 brought her chair up to mine, leaned confidingly against me 
 while I read aloud. We stopped at each illustration and
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 201 
 
 passed our sentence upon design and execution. She asked 
 and received explanations of such words as " eftsoons," 
 "shrieve," and " ivy-tod ;" but she listened, for the most 
 part, in attention that had no audible language scarcely 
 breath. 
 
 When the last lines were read, her breast heaved in a 
 painful respiration. 
 
 " Poor man ! how he suffered ! Yet he had done a wicked 
 thing. I don't see how it could have happened. For you 
 see" turning back some leaves "the albatross was 
 
 ' The bird that loved the man 
 
 Who shot him with his bow ! ' 
 
 I should think he could as soon have killed a little baby he 
 was in the habit of playing with. But he was punished 
 fearfully. That is what 'penance' means, isn't it? It 
 makes your flesh crawl to think of his carrying that dead 
 bird hanging around his neck." 
 
 She turned other leaves, meditatively. 
 
 " There are some of the loveliest verses in here ! Isn't 
 that just like being in the woods our woods in summer- 
 time ? Or out on grandpa's piazza in the moonlight, lis- 
 tening to the waterfall at the bottom of the lawn ? " 
 
 I read the lines designated by her finger : 
 
 " A noise like of a hidden brook, 
 
 In the leafy month of June, 
 That to the sleeping woods, all night, 
 
 Singeth a quiet tune." 
 9*
 
 202 MY LITTLE LOVE. 
 
 "And there's that about the little birds" she went on 
 
 rapidly " that 
 
 ' seemed to fill the sea and air 
 
 With their sweet jargoning.' 
 1 
 
 " I shall always think of it when the birds wake me in the 
 
 morning in the country. I shall never, never not if I live 
 to be a million be able to say such beautiful things ! " 
 
 Her voice faltered, and I was surprised to see her eyes fill 
 with tears. 
 
 " Ailsie, pet ! " I exclaimed. " What is it ? " 
 
 For answer, she hid her face against my arm, and sobbed 
 that she "didn't know. Pretty things that she saw and 
 heard made her feel strange, sometimes. Not just as if she 
 was sorry. But but oh, couldrft I understand ? " 
 
 This last with a petulant dash of the drops from her 
 lashes. 
 
 " Yes, dear," I answered. " I do comprehend. But, 
 Ailsie ! such feelings are a sure sign that you will be able to 
 write and say beautiful things, some day. That is something 
 to look forward to." 
 
 "It hurts here /" she continued, piteous, yet much con- 
 soled, laying her hand upon her heart " and here /" clasp- 
 ing her throat. " I want to cry, and yet, all the while, I 
 know I'm only glad." 
 
 I should have smiled at the thought of repeating to 
 another child the words that arose to my lips at this naive 
 attempt to syllable soul-yearning, but, as she rested within 
 my encircling arm, I said, slowly, and softly
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 203 
 
 " I see the lights of the village 
 
 Gleam through the rain and the mist, 
 And a feeling of sadness comes o'er me 
 That my soul cannot resist. 
 
 "A feeling of sadness and longing 
 
 That is not akin to pain, 
 And resembles sorrow only 
 
 As the mists resemble the rain. 
 
 " That is something like what you mean, is it not ? " 
 
 " Please say it again ! " 
 
 I complied, and then she repeated it for herself, without a 
 mistake. 
 
 " Thank you for telling it to me ! I shall never forget it." 
 
 We chatted of other things, I leading the way. I was 
 never easy when the ardent spirit so far outleaped her years. 
 I believed then and I have seen no cause since to change 
 my mind that as many precocious children live to become 
 commonplace men and women, as die and leave in their 
 stead in the places that once knew them, beauteous memo- 
 ries, fairer and dearer with every year that roots the sod 
 upon their graves. But I felt, instinctively, that no common 
 lot made up of everyday joys and ordinary griefs lay 
 before her who, but yesterday, passed the boundary of 
 infancy. Already, existence meant to her earnestness, per- 
 plexity, endeavor. Knowledge, sorrow, love, would be no 
 holiday themes with her as girl and woman. Nature had 
 set upon soul, heart, and face, the signet " This child has
 
 204 MY LITTLE LOVE. 
 
 a Destiny, and she will be straitened until it be accom- 
 plished." 
 
 " Whom do you think I met down by the river, to-day, 
 Alisie ?" asked I. " Our old acquaintance, Mr. Gaskin. 
 He had come to town to sell a load of potatoes." 
 
 Her lip curved contemptuously. 
 
 "I should think" with withering emphasis "that he 
 was just the sort of man who would peddle potatoes about 
 town on Christmas Day. Bah ! And how is Mrs. ' Ezry? ' 
 Had he seen anybody from grandpa's, lately ? " 
 
 " I did not inquire. He invited me to go with him on a 
 sloop in which he had brought down his truck ' mostly pota- 
 toes, cabbage and inguns' a raw 'biled dinner,' and enough 
 to feast the city, but I declined. I dare say he would have 
 let me stay to supper, if I had hinted hard enough.' 
 
 " It's a pity you. missed the salt pork and cold potatoes. 
 Uncle Wy says he is the most penu-ri-ant man he ever saw." 
 
 Ailsie dearly loved to handle polysyllables, as I have said. 
 It was always diverting to me when a very stout one got the 
 better of her. 
 
 " I'm glad he doesn't visit here," she continued. " I 
 can't bear him. Nor ever could. He looks mean and bad 
 to me, ever since the day he came down the bank and turned 
 up his nose at the ' Bower.' ' If ye're hard up for work, 
 better lend me a hand, hoein' potatoes ! ' said he. He 
 ought to have been a potato himself. Then he would have 
 been happy. His nose, indeed. As if it wasn't curly 
 enough, already ! "
 
 M Y LITTLE LOVE. 205 
 
 I laughed. 
 
 Tennyson's " tip-tilted like the petal of a flower" was not 
 a more apt description of his heroine's retroussk feature 
 than was Ailsie's epithet of the twists and knobs in Ezra's 
 proboscis. Encouraged by my laugh, she dealt him another 
 tap. 
 
 " Somehow, he reminds me f of the 'mother' I saw grand- 
 pa take out of a vinegar-barrel once tough and sour and 
 slimy. Faugh ! " 
 
 I looked at my watch. 
 
 " It is time small people like you and myself were asleep," 
 I said. " Before I go, won't you sing ' Kathleen O'More' 
 to get the taste of the ' mother ' out of our mouths ? " 
 
 When the ballad was finished, she mused for awhile. 
 
 " I have sung that so often I am quite acquainted with 
 Kathleen," she said, dreamily. " I know exactly how she 
 looks, sitting on the steps, ' to hear the wind blow and look 
 at the moon.' There's a vine of some kind running over 
 the door, and the wind blows the leaves of it. And her hair, 
 too, for she has no hat on her head. Her pretty blue eyes 
 are sad I can't just make out why. Not quite sorry, but 
 
 ' As the mists resemble the rain.' 
 
 It's der-licious that you taught me that ! It ex-plains so 
 much. If I could draw, I would make a picture of her 
 grave, with the robin red-breast hopping over it. There 
 would be a holly tree all berries for Christmas, close by, and 
 to-night the ground is covered with snow. Robins are not
 
 2 06 MY LITTLE L O VE. 
 
 afraid of snow. But it makes you feel lonesomely, to think 
 how it is lying over real people. That is, of course, when 
 we can't make ourselves believe that the soul isn't there. I 
 wish, Mr. Barry " with pathetic depth of expression, " that 
 I could precisely understand about people's souls. Now, 
 this is me ! " 
 
 She put out her plump brown hands, and felt the one and 
 the other, as if to assure herself that this was true. 
 
 "I can see and feel that it is the same Me who thinks and 
 talks. And, some day, just because the breath has gone 
 out of it, my father and mother will be willing to put the 
 very same Me into a hole in the ground and leave it out in 
 the cold and dark and storm all by itself. Instead of 
 caring any more for the poor little body lying there with its 
 eyes shut, as if waiting to be waked up, they'll be talking 
 about ' Ailsie in heaven.' The soul-Ailsie they nor nobody 
 else ever saw ! There's no use saying anything to me about 
 it ! It's a riddle-me-ree all the way through. Just the com- 
 icalest thing ever was ! I sufl-pose if you were to study 
 about nothing else all your life time, it might be plain by 
 the day you came to die. I sufl-pose, too, it's awful sinful 
 maybe blas-phe-mious but I dorft want to die, Mr. Barry ! 
 I went over it all to myself last Sunday when the other chil- 
 dren in Sunday-school were singing that they ' wanted to be an 
 angel, And with the angels stand, A crown upon their fore- 
 head, And a harp within their hand.' I didn't sing it because 
 I didn't want to be any such thing. I can't help loving to 
 live. It sounds ri-dic-e-lous, but I love my poor little body.
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 207 
 
 Even if it ' must die, this mortal frame decay, and these active 
 limbs of mine lie mouldering in the clay ! ' Ugh ! That's 
 the most des-gust-ingest hymn I know. The idea of singing 
 such words ! " 
 
 She had thought and talked herself into pale excitement. 
 I raised her to my lap again and chafed her fingers, which 
 were cold and tremulous. 
 
 " You should not torment your dear little self about such 
 matters especially so near bed-time," I said, soothingly. 
 " It is all imagination, Ailsie. The soul is so much the 
 better part of us that we can afford to let the other go, when 
 we have no more use for i^" 
 
 Her burst of hysterical laughter startled me. It was 
 several minutes before she could speak articulately, and the 
 tears she wiped away were of genuine mirth. 
 
 " That minds me " she related still laughing, " of what 
 happened when I was small. Mamma and I found the 
 shell of a locust in grandpa's woods, one day, and she 
 explained to me how he had split it down the back and 
 crawled out, when his wings sprouted, and how that was the 
 way the soul shook off the body. At least, that was what I 
 thought she said. So, another day, Clarine was leaning so 
 far out of the window, I was afraid she'd tumble, and I 
 caught hold of her dress, and called to her 'Don't you 
 know if you break your neck they'll take your skin off and 
 make an angel of you ? ' 
 
 "It's really s'prising what silly things children can say. 
 And they think a million sillier ones they daren't speak out
 
 208 MY LITTLE LOVE. 
 
 for fear grown people would laugh at them. That's the 
 absurdest and meanest way any man or woman can have 
 laughing at a foolish, innorant hop-o-my-thumb of a child ! 
 They aren't so fond of being made fun of themselves, I'm 
 sure." 
 
 I " s'prised " myself by smiling at this little anecdote as I 
 ploughed my way home through the sodden snow, that, in 
 spite of alternate rain-falls, was six inches on the level. 
 
 " The quaintest and dearest child that ever lived ! " was 
 my soliloquy on entering the dormitory which had been the 
 scene of last night's agony. "Who would have believed 
 that, after all, I should have jjad a tolerable Christmas 
 evening ? " 
 
 I fell obstinately to work, next morning. I would not 
 dwell upon what had been. Still less should visions of 
 Might-have-been interfere with the systematic hardening of 
 my untempered heart. I fought and conquered the insane 
 desire to walk within sight of the Barnes house, whenever I 
 went abroad. 1 dug diligently into a ponderous work upon 
 Anatomia, in preference to a newer and more interesting 
 treatise upon Cardiac Affections, and to enforce my atten-' 
 tion to the driest details of the subject, I made, each night, 
 a copious abstract of the day's reading. 
 
 For recreation or, more correctly speaking relaxation, 
 I went nearly every evening, " between the lights," to Mr. 
 Darling's for a talk with Aunt Evy, and a frolic with Ailsie. 
 Sometimes, I called earlier in the afternoon, and took the 
 latter out walking. About once in three days I made a
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 209 
 
 professional diagnosis of my state, and always with encour- 
 aging results. I was on the highroad to permanent cure- 
 A little tenderness still, under pressure : some febrile action 
 at obtrusive gushes of memory : vertigo at inopportune 
 seasons excited by trivial causes the flutter of a dress 
 around a corner ; the sight of a pretty foot encased in a 
 fashionable gaiter ; the smell of certain flowers, and, one 
 night, the accident of walking home from Mr. Darling's in a 
 fog. I could have wished that these tests had been applied 
 without effect. But it might have been much worse with 
 me. There might have been need for the cautery and the 
 moxa, whereas, mental tonics and moderate diversion were 
 the milder measures indicated. 
 
 I had not been more sanguine of speedy recovery since 
 receipt of the hurt, than upon one bright afternoon in mid- 
 January, when Ailsie and I went nutting. 
 
 " Nutting ! " cried Aunt Evy, dropping her knitting-work, 
 " You absurd masculine ! The squirrels and the rains have 
 ruined all the nuts spared by human spoilers." 
 
 " Nevertheless, we go a nutting," I replied. " Ailsie ! 
 run for your overcoat and hat I mean your hood and 
 cloak!" 
 
 She was as bewildered as her aunt, but of this the leal 
 little soul betrayed no symptom. Kissing her hand to me 
 as she ran, she was off like the wind to make ready for the 
 mysterious expedition. " Don't forget a basket ! " I called 
 after her. " A big one ! " 
 
 " She would go with you blind-fold, to the world's end ! ''
 
 210 MY LITTLE L O VE. 
 
 said Aunt Evy. "No man ever had a more staunch 
 champion. Your goodness to her is thoroughly appreciated, 
 Barry. Not by her alone, but by us all. You are making 
 her gloriously happy. She is growing on the sunny side of 
 the wall." 
 
 " Don't say that I do her good ! " I hastened to say. 
 " She is my heart-missionary. I owe her more than I can 
 tell you." 
 
 The thin white hand touched mine as it lay on the elbow 
 of my chair. "That is well. She would ask no dearer 
 mission. You have not been quite yourself for some weeks. 
 You are less talkative, less blithe than in the early winter. 
 I do not ask your confidence. If I can help you in any way 
 you will not, I hope, defraud me of "the pleasure and the 
 right. I am much older than you, but I have not forgotten 
 that young blood is hot, and how short and easy is the 
 downhill road how thickly set with temptations to stray 
 further from the safe way." 
 
 A delicate flush tinged her cheeks ; she kept her eyes 
 upon her work. 
 
 " I am passing rich, Barry, for a single woman whose 
 wants are few. If money or the lack of it is the trouble, 
 let me be your banker, and no one shall be the wiser." 
 
 " It is nothing of the kind ! " I assured her, precipitately. 
 " Nor do I drink or gamble " 
 
 " Don't be lured by a wily spinster into confessions which 
 you may repent," she interrupted. " It is quite possible that 
 Ailsie may be your best teacher as she is your best comfort-
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 211 
 
 er. It must be a sore heart, indeed, which the soft hand of a 
 little child presses to bruising. Don't be vexed when you 
 think over what I have said, or accuse me of prying into 
 your secrets. Remember that you are the adopted son of 
 the household, my nephew-in-law that is to be, and forgive 
 an auntie's freedom of speech." 
 
 " If I could if I thought it wise to confide to anybody a 
 trouble that is mine alone, that never did, and never can 
 affect another person living, I would seek no other comfor- 
 ter or adviser than yourself," was my reply. " But it is all 
 over and done with, Aunt Evy. I have been an egregious 
 fool I could knock my brains out against your mantel there, 
 when I recount the gradations of my monstrous folly to 
 myself and I am paying the piper, with no humor for more 
 dancing. That is the story in brief. I have promised to 
 tell Ailsie all about it on our wedding-day. Until then, I 
 shall make it my business to recollect it as seldom as possi- 
 ble." 
 
 She gave back my smile, all the interest she was good 
 
 
 enough to feel in me beaming in the pale, sweet face, that 
 
 always reminded me of the words " clear shining after 
 rain," and there the subject rested. 
 
 Ailsie's preparations were swiftly made. She returned to 
 us equipped in a navy-blue pelisse (I think that was the 
 name of the trig over-dress, buttoned from the throat to the 
 bottom of the skirt). A scarlet scarf was knotted about her 
 neck, and a red-bird's wing gave piquancy to her velvet 
 cap. Her cheeks were almost as bright as her feathers, and
 
 212 MY LITTLE L VE. 
 
 she danced on tiptoe instead of walking, in the wildness of 
 curiosity and the actual glee of present pleasure. The 
 basket was not forgotten, and she resisted my offer to carry 
 it, skipping away when I would have used gentle force to 
 secure my end. 
 
 The air was sharp and dry, heightening the bloom and 
 brightness of her face as she danced backward along the 
 sidewalk, mischievous yet loving in the gleaming regards 
 cast upon my soberer self. 
 
 " What a magnificent woman she will be ! " thought I, 
 and with the vision of womanhood recurred her words : 
 " When I am grown, you will be 'most a hundred." She 
 would be grown in twelve years at most. I should then be 
 thirty-three. A man in his early prime. A bachelor, of 
 course. The Spring of .love falls not twice in the same life- 
 time. I had heard of men very foolish fellows I had thought 
 them once, but judgment was crude with me in those days 
 who trained wives " to their hand" from infancy. What 
 if our mock courtship and matrimonial compact were, in 
 the very long run, to prove something more than badinage ? 
 I could take wiser care of my little love than any young 
 blood who should be captivated by her handsome face and 
 engaging ways, and declare himself (and more besides) after 
 three weeks' acquaintanceship. 
 
 I shook the phantasm out of my brain, impatiently. I have 
 been a believer since in the proverb touching the " heart 
 caught in the rebound." I entertained myself, for the next 
 rod or two, with investigating the apparent anomaly, and
 
 My LITTLE LOVE. 213 
 
 decided that the average man, having got into the habit of 
 loving, cannot summon strength to throw himself out of the 
 rut. It is easier to run along with lessening, momentum, 
 it may be, but in the same track until " shunted " off at the 
 first station or " turned out " when there happens to be a 
 switch open. 
 
 Shakspeare told the story as he did most of the tales 
 over the spinning of which out of our own brains we toil 
 benightedly in the fable of the "little western flower," 
 which " maidens call, Love-in-idleness : " 
 
 " The herb I showed thee once. 
 The juice of it on sleeping eyelids laid, 
 Will make or man or woman madly dote 
 Upon the next live creature that it sees." 
 
 Abstract speculation upon the theme that had so lately 
 engrossed my every waking thought was the utmost license I 
 granted imagination, under the disciplinary process to which 
 I subjected errant fancy and rebellious heart. 
 
 " Are you displeased ? " Ailsie stopped suddenly and ran 
 back to me. 
 
 " My love ! what a question ! Nothing you do displeases 
 me." 
 
 " You looked awfully glum ! " slipping her hand into mine 
 and keeping decorous step with my feet. 
 
 " I was thinking what a quiet old husband you will have 
 when we are married, Ailsie." 
 
 " You will always be nice," she replied, confidently. " I 
 don't take to boys. I believe I have an antip what-do-you-
 
 214 MY LITTLE L VE. 
 
 call-it ? to them. It means what makes you keep out of 
 their way. They are shocking rude. Some of them are 
 vulga-ra-rians. 'Least, some in our street. New Year's Day 
 they tied a tin pail to a dog's tail, and fastened a bag tight 
 over a poor pussy's head, and let them run. It was abom- 
 inationable. I don't see what the police were doing, that 
 they weren't 'rested and locked up in jail. That's one good 
 thing about a sure-enough man. He is above such tricks." 
 
 " I should hope so. But here is our first nut-grove." 
 
 Her eyes enlarged, then kindled into laughter, as we halted 
 before a fruit-store. I pushed open the door and led her in. 
 
 There were dates, preserved in their own candied juices, 
 packed in the matting bags in which they had journeyed over 
 the desert ; oranges, glowing more richly golden for the gray 
 moss embedding them, or heaped in pyramids higher than 
 our heads ; apples that courted sight, taste, and smell ; 
 white grapes in kegs and hampers ; Naples figs and guava 
 jelly ; and, on one side of the long counter, such wealth of 
 nuts as made our basket seem small indeed. 
 
 " Not too many of one kind ! " cautioned Ailsie, when I 
 began my purchases. " Else there won't be room ! " 
 
 I was shaking the basket hard to make space for some 
 walnuts, and Ailsie had just asked indignantly, in answer to 
 information I had furnished : 
 
 " What do they call them ' English walnuts ' for, if they 
 come from Persia ? " when a musical ripple of laughter be- 
 hind us changed my blood to ice. 
 
 "You mustn't believe everything in this world to be what
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 215 
 
 people call it, my dear ! " said tones I knew by heart, even 
 to the falling inflection of the sentence that was both coax- 
 ing and languid. 
 
 " How do you do, Mr. Haye ? " continued the speaker. 
 " I have not seen you in an age." 
 
 She offered her hand. 
 
 I lifted my hat, without the pretense of not seeing that 
 she had designed a more friendly salutation. I had had a 
 surfeit of shams. 
 
 She looked thunderstruck, blushed carnation, and with a 
 confused murmur turned away and left the store. 
 
 "We can't get any more in !" regretted Ailsie, unobserv- 
 ant of the episode, pressing with all her weight upon the lid 
 of the halnper. " When a thing is full, it is full. That's all 
 there is about it. I'm afraid this top will give us trouble. 
 The only way is to tie the top very tight with a strong string, 
 when the basket is crammed full. If you don't pop ! off 
 it comes, and there's a spill !" 
 
 Wise Ailsie ! The shopman supplied a stout twine, and 
 between us we secured the untoward cover. 
 
 " Now, we'll go home and tell Aunt Evy all about our 
 nutting," said my companion, cheerily. 
 
 " All ! " It was an inward groan. Was I likely to grieve 
 the tender heart that had " adopted " me, by telling her that 
 the world had turned upside down, reeled and shaken until I 
 was sick with the unsteadiness, as the beautiful eyes dilated 
 with astonishment, and were dimmed into piteousness under 
 the stern gaze of mine ? how that incoherent murmur stabbed
 
 2 1 6 MY LITTLE L VE. 
 
 me like a stiletto, and blackness of darkness enveloped me 
 with the hasty withdrawal of the woman I was learning not 
 to love ? But for Ailsie's interruption of the current of 
 memory and thought, I think I should have pursued the 
 fleeting figure and thrown myself upon the ground to sup- 
 plicate pardon, so basely cruel did my reception of her 
 advances appear to my conscience. 
 
 " We will go now," I said hoarsely, to my little com- 
 panion. 
 
 She followed, instantly and mutely. 
 
 In the street, I raised my hat to let the wind reach the 
 top of my head, on which a burning hand seemed to press 
 with weight that numbed the brain. 
 
 " Are you sick ? " queried Ailsie's tender voice. " We will 
 go straight home won't we ? " 
 
 My better nature rallied, ashamed. That I had been 
 knocked off my feet was no reason why her excursion should 
 be spoiled. I made an effort at gayety that must have been 
 ghastly. 
 
 " The nut-forest was a warm place," I said, affecting to 
 heave a sigh of oppression. " Threshing down chestnuts is 
 always tiresome. What say you to a saucer of ice-cream 
 before we turn our faces homeward ? " 
 
 What does any child say to ice-cream at any and all times ? 
 Ailsie looked her glad assent, and in three minutes we 
 faced one another across a marble-topped table ; an order 
 for two creams, a charlotte russe, and assorted cakes 
 was in the waiter's hands, and Ailsie's wide, gray eyes
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 217 
 
 were busy with the appointments and occupants of the, 
 saloon. 
 
 "I wish all these eating-places wouldn't smell as if dinner 
 was just over, and the pots and kettles and plates hadn't 
 been washed yet," she commented, with a sniff. " It's queer 
 the air can't be sweet and clean for once. But this is a 
 pretty room. Look at the angels on the ceiling. Looks as 
 if they wouldn't mind coming down for a bite themselves. 
 Hard on them, isn't it, to be pasted flat and fast when 
 there's so many good things going on down here ? Isn't that 
 a dear little girl ? Her hair is like silk-worms' silk. Aunt 
 Evy has some. I've never fancied silk dresses since she told 
 me the cocoons had to be baked or boiled before the silk 
 was wound off. I can't help thinking when I see a particu- 
 larly fat lady in a very fine silk dress, how funny she'd feel 
 to be caught and roasted so's some monstracious giant 
 might peel off her clothes to make frocks for his little girls' 
 dolls. Guess she'd let silk-worms alone after that ! " 
 
 Societies for the prevention of cruelty to animals were 
 unknown at that date, but Ailsie was a whole corporation 
 Berg, Board, and Detectives, in herself. Her prattle did not 
 amuse me now, but as it relieved me from the necessity of 
 speech and showed that she was adequate to her own enter- 
 tainment, it was welcome. 
 
 " It is a pity some people will look so much like 
 animals ! " she continued, benevolently compassionate. 
 " That fat gentleman over there goes by our house every day. 
 There's a picture in my Natural History of a seal that is just
 
 2 1 8 MY LITTLE L VE. 
 
 him over again mild, and sleepy, and puffy, and sleek. 
 And that l)ig man with white whiskers and hair standing 
 every which way, is 'spressly like a papa lion. Its a nactual 
 bother to me that a lady who sits across the aisle from us in 
 church will remind me of a walrus tusks and all. I keep 
 peeping 'round in church-time to see if they are so very 
 long and yellow. I carft help try as I will. I sufl-pose 
 she can't help the tusks either. There is Miss Bessie Barnes ! 
 She is coming this way. I do hope she won't " 
 
 She got no further. 
 
 A swish of silk skirts ; a waft of violet perfume ; the 
 gleam of rings upon an ungloved hand on the back of an 
 empty chair next to mine and Bessie was saying : 
 
 " I saw you come in here, and followed you purposely. 
 May I sit here for a minute until I have said what I have to 
 say to you ? " 
 
 I arose dumbly, drew back the chair that she might seat 
 herself, and resumed mine. 
 
 " I am the open enemy of round-about measures," she 
 began. " I am here to ask an explanation of your behavior 
 of late, and to listen to your defence." 
 
 " Please be explicit ! " I had to clear my throat to get 
 out the three words, but I saw that she had helped me, in the 
 outset, by assuming the aggressive. 
 
 " With pleasure ; I always speak out my mind. You 
 have never been near me since the noon of December 24th, 
 nor given me any token of your existence. You were under 
 an engagement to come to me the next day, and hear my
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 219 
 
 report of the ball. I feel very much disposed to tell you 
 what explanation I had of your non-appearance. It may be 
 the part of a friend to do it. And I am still your friend, 
 little as you have deserved the tide of mine. The report 
 is all over town. It ought to be corrected, or smoothed 
 down in some way. Fred says it is doing you harm. You 
 won't be offended with me ?" 
 
 " Because you repeat a popular rumor ? That would be 
 unjust, Miss Barnes." 
 
 Speech was becoming easier. 
 
 " Miss Barnes ! " she echoed, in accents of pained sur- 
 prise. " That is unjust unkind Barry / " 
 
 The word was scarcely louder than a whisper, but I 
 clutched the edge of the marble slab hardly colder than my 
 hand, to keep myself from visible trembling. 
 
 Failing any answer to her appeal, she took up the thread 
 of her story. 
 
 " Papa was in somebody's office down-town, the other 
 day, when six or eight gentlemen were discussing this odd 
 tale, this ' popular rumor about you.' It was directly 
 asserted that you had fallen into dissipated habits, that you 
 were often seen intoxicated in the streets, and had been 
 picked up, dead drunk, out of the gutter on the afternoon of 
 Christmas Day, in one of the most disreputable quarters of 
 the town, and taken to the station for the night. I tell you 
 this because " 
 
 " OH ! OH ! OH ! " Ailsie sprang to her feet on the other 
 side of the narrow table, striking both clenched hands upon it.
 
 220 MY LITTLE L O VE. 
 
 Her face was absolutely livid with anger, her voice a 
 shrill whisper, but as audible to us as if she had shrieked. 
 
 " That, is, the, very, worstest, story, anybody, ever, told ! " 
 slowly, with a blow of the fist on the marble for every 
 comma. " Ever so many times wickeder than the one that 
 horrid Mr. Gaskintold in papa's office, when your father 
 and another man were there and nobody else ! No ' six 
 or eight gentlemen' about it ! And that was bad as could 
 be. I wish he and his potatoes and cabbages and his moth- 
 er's tomb-stone had gone to the bottom of the Red Sea 
 along with Pharaoh's chariots before he had a chance to say 
 such things. But he only declared that Mr. Barry was loaf- 
 ing about the docks on Christmas-Day, and had been drink- 
 ing " 
 
 " My child ! wasn't that what I said?" 
 
 Thus Bessie, sweetly, eyeing the excited creature as she 
 might a monkey. 
 
 " You said ever so much more ! They thought I was 
 asleep on the sofa in Aunt Evy's room, when papa was tell- 
 ing her and mamma about it. But Mr. Barry's name woke 
 me, of course, and I jumped right up, and said it was a 
 'famous lie, from beginning to bottom, and how my dear 
 Mr. Barry was with me, all the afternoon, and wasn't I 
 sitting on his knee, and close by him, for ever so many hours, 
 and his breath wasn't a bit liquory? and wouldn't I have 
 noticed it, the first thing, when I'm 'fraid to death of tipsy- 
 ers ? And how he read my ' Ancient Mari-ner-er,' all 
 through and never missed a word, nor stuttered once, and
 
 MY LITTLE LO VE. 221 
 
 we had the soci^^/est tea-party ever was, and he was so 
 hungry and enjoyed two cups of tea, and we had a long talk 
 afterward ? and how nice and lovely he was ? 
 
 " So papa said to mamma ' Ezra was mistaken, my 
 dear. I would take Ailsie's word before his any day !' 
 
 " Because mine was the straight truth, you see. And we 
 settled it, at home, that not a breath should be said to you, 
 Mr. Barry, for fear of hurting your feelings and here comes 
 this wicked woman and blabs I I think you must be as bad 
 as Jezebel and Ath-er-liah and that poisonous Cretia Borger I 
 read about in a book. I'm shamed and 'stonished at you ! " 
 
 Despite indignation and heart-ache, I had much ado to 
 keep from smiling. 
 
 " Ailsie !" I said, gently, "you don't know what you are 
 saying, dear ! Sit down, quietly. You and I will settle all 
 this when we get home. I thank you for believing in me 
 and saying so. I need not take the pains, Miss Barnes, now 
 that you have heard my alibi proved, to assure you that I 
 did not spend Christmas -night in the station-house. As for 
 your accusation that I have not been near you since noon 
 on December 24th, it is as groundless as the charge of in- 
 toxication. I was so near you as you stood on the balcony 
 of the ball-room between ten and eleven o'clock that night 
 that a japonica fell from your bouquet into my hand. So 
 near that I heard every word you said you and your escort. 
 You require no other 'defence,' I take it, of the cessation 
 of my visits. Ailsie ! there is your ice-cream. Eat it, and 
 we will leave this unpleasant subject."
 
 222 MY LITTLE LOVE. 
 
 The poor child tried to obey. Her features were rigid, 
 and her throat contracted with the first mouthful. 
 
 "I can't swallow!" she said. "Mayn't we please go 
 home ? " 
 
 Bessie laughed, as musically as if we had been flattering 
 her all this while. There must have been some drops of game 
 blood in her cool veins. 
 
 "Frankness between friends is always delightful. Moi, je 
 T adore I " she observed, rising, and drawing up the furs she 
 had loosened in the warm room. " I could stay longer to 
 enjoy it, but I perceive that I am interfering with your duties 
 as nursery-governor. I hope you will succeed in coaxing 
 the interesting infant to take her food. Shall I inquire if 
 there is a pap-spoon in the establishment ? Au revoir / I 
 don't like adieu ever. And we shall be glad to see you 
 whenever professional engagements allow you to call. By- 
 by, Ailsie, pet ! Love to Aunt Evy ! " 
 
 And thus my first love went out of my life.
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 BLESSED ST. VALENTINE. 
 
 'Y OWN DEAR MR. BARRY : 
 
 " On the 1 3th of February, we Lou and I 
 (Lou is my cousin, Uncle Richard's daughter, 
 and is staying with me) Lou and I sent off a 
 good many valentines. That night we went to 
 bed a little excited, for the next morning we were 
 to sing the charm, and who could tell what might 
 happen ? But once asleep, I slumbered late. 
 When I did awake, Lou, who is an early bird, was 
 almost dressed. After I was ready, we opened the 
 window, cold as it was and sang 
 
 ' Blessed St. Valentine ! now while I look, 
 Open the page of the Future's sealed book ; 
 Blessed St. Valentine ! show unto me 
 He who in future my true love shall be 1 ' 
 
 " And whom do you suppose we saw ? It was just sunrise, 
 and the snow was all pink, and not a soul was in the street 
 but one old shabby man the forlornest spectacle ! Next 
 came an old woman scratching in the ash-barrels for bits of 
 coal. We shut the window, and agreed that that charm
 
 224 MY LITTLE L VE. 
 
 went for nothing. The postman was late that morning. He 
 always is when other people are in a hurry. After watching 
 a long time for him we had to go to our lessons, without a 
 single valentine. After lessons we ran out to play. Nellie 
 Brant was on her stoop, and we invited her to coast with 
 us in our back-yard. We coasted awhile, and it was twelve 
 o'clock when the postman appeared with just one, single, 
 lonely, none-too-pretty valentine for Lou. Coasting was 
 better fun than that, and back to it we went. Mamie Brant, 
 Nellie's little sister, liked it so much that, when her dinner 
 was ready, she wouldn't go in to it, and the nurse had to 
 come out and carry her in. She yelled like a young wild 
 Indian, all the way. After our dinner mamma took all us 
 children out in the sleigh. We had a jolly ride and almost 
 forgot our disappointment about the tiresome valentines that 
 wouldn't come. When we got home we were quite surprised 
 to find some waiting for us. If you had been in America I 
 would not have had to wait so long. Two more came after 
 supper, one for Lou, one for me. It was not difficult to get 
 the door-bell answered that day. Sometimes it was a visitor 
 for mamma, sometimes it was a beggar, sometimes only a 
 man to ask where Mr. Somebody Else lived. But we all 
 three for Robby was as full of it as we were ran into the 
 front hall at once, which wasn't according to Etiquet. After 
 supper, the bell kept up a continual jingle. Once, Mary 
 went to the door and saw what she supposed was a valen- 
 tine lying on the stoop, and as she stooped to pick it up, she 
 heard some one snicker around the corner. She did not feel
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 225 
 
 very amiable when she found out what it was. Some one 
 had chalked a little square, just the shape of a letter, on the 
 floor! 
 
 "By-and-by the bell rang, and behold but a small dog, with 
 cut ears and a stumpy tail who walked into the hall, looked 
 around him very gravely, and then walked out again. 
 
 " This finished the list of our valentines. 
 
 " Do you keep Valentine's Day in Paris? 
 
 " I do want to see you horribly I 
 
 " Your dear little AILSIE." 
 
 It had come all the way across the salt ocean this sheet 
 of Bath post, filled in every corner with the childish charac- 
 ters that already began to take the stamp of the writer's 
 strong individuality had travelled a thousand leagues to 
 tell me about St. Valentine's Day. 
 
 Only that ! And having said her say, my little love had 
 rested from her labors of the pen that must have cramped 
 the small fingers sadly by the time the bottom of the fourth 
 page was gained. I read the letter through again with a 
 smile that was loving and longing. Ailsie's eyes looked up 
 at me in every sentence grave, direct, honest, and tender. 
 Not a line of conventional compliment or apology broke 
 the current of the narrative save where her faithful love for 
 my too-unworthy self came to the surface in the simple " If 
 you had been in America, I should not have had to wait so 
 long ! " and the concluding paragraph of the epistle signed 
 by my " dear little Ailsie." She never questioned it. At 
 the antipodes, I must still have thought of and loved her 
 10*
 
 226 MY LITTLE LOVE. 
 
 because she was Ailsie, and I, her " own dear Mr. Barry." 
 She wrote to me every month, and my replies were as regu- 
 lar. Whatever interested her could not be dull to me in the 
 heart of Paris, dividing my time between the lecture-room 
 and the wards of a hospital. 
 
 I had been abroad six months. I was to stay but a year 
 in all so my stepmother and father had decided. I was 
 working very hard, my spirits none the better for the attempt 
 to crowd the work of three terms into one. I had a quar- 
 terly bulletin and remittance from home. About as often, 
 Madge, who was making up her trousseau, entrusted me 
 with an order for laces. Other correspondents in my native 
 land I had none, always excepting Aunt Evy and Ailsie. I 
 had had letters from both on the windy March night when I 
 sat in my ten-by-ten apartment au quinzieme before a 
 handful of charcoal in the tiny grate, and pictured to myself 
 the home-comfort of the "Innermost" chamber, where the 
 invalid was, perchance, reading one of the lovely books that 
 seemed to gravitate to her by a natural law of affinities, or 
 thinking her own lovelier thoughts, with closed lids, folded 
 hands, and peacefully smiling lips, as I had seen her a 
 hundred times while I talked with other members of the 
 family. Where Ailsie might, at this very moment, be writing 
 another letter to me. A serious matter she made of the 
 manipulation, I knew from Aunt Evy's descriptions of her 
 when thus engaged. 
 
 "Her wrestles with the spelling, and what she anathe- 
 matizes as the ' nonsensible capital letters,' are heart-rend-
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 227 
 
 ing to behold," said the letter that accompanied my valen- 
 tine. "The brain-work is a delight. She confided to me 
 the other day her intention to ' write stories beautiful 
 ones and bushels of poetry ' when she should be a woman. 
 
 " ' My head is full of them,' she added. 'I can't sleep, 
 at night, for them, sometimes I am so afraid I may forget 
 the best of them before I can write them down.' 
 
 " ' Why not put them upon paper, now ? ' I asked, some- 
 what curious to see of what complexion these beauties 
 might be. 
 
 " The dear little thing blushed suddenly (you remember 
 the trick !) and fumbled with the corner of her apron, eyes 
 downcast. Her lip curled like a baby's with the confession 
 'Because, Aunt Evy, they're not spelled. 1 
 
 " The blessed infant ! But there is a moral and a com- 
 fort in the incident for us 'grown-upper children,' as she 
 used to name you and me when we were merry together. 
 These half-fledged hopes and delicate fancies, and always 
 restless, but, as yet, not-to be-defined yearnings of yours 
 and mine, Barry, what are they but the unspelled stories we 
 shall as certainly grow into and become a part of in that 
 Other Life, as our innocent pet will learn to write out her 
 ' beautiful things ? ' 
 
 " I do not say, apropos de bottes, nor apropos to anything 
 I have been thinking of, but because it comes into my head 
 just here that Bessie Barnes was married, last week, to Mr. 
 Campion, of Philadelphia. It is an engagement of long 
 standing, say her friends. It is not for acquaintances to
 
 228 MY LITTLE LOVE. 
 
 contradict it. But pretty Bessie had her swing of admiration 
 not to hint at flirtations, more or less serious, during the 
 alleged term of betrothment. You were very reticent 
 touching the scene between you, Miss Barnes, and Ailsie, in 
 the ice-cream saloon, more than a year ago, and Ailsie was 
 dumb as the tomb, so I said nothing at the time of Bessie's 
 visit to me, a few days later, and what she styled her ' con- 
 fession.' She ' admitted that she might have given Mr. 
 Haye cause to misconstrue her sisterly interest in one so 
 interesting as himself; regretted the accidental misappre- 
 hension that had cost her your friendship, and especially 
 that you had so far mistaken (a bevy of ' misses ' you see ! ) 
 her well-meant efforts to clear your reputation by possessing 
 herself of the facts with regard to your misconduct on 
 Christmas Day, as to lose (or mislay ? ) your temper in dis- 
 cussing the circumstance, and to incite Ailsie to violent 
 language.' 
 
 " She made the explanation to me, presuming that I 
 had had your version and Ailsie's of the interview. I 
 convinced her of her error, and she begged that the matter 
 might drop, ' unless a favorable opportunity should present 
 itself to right her in your esteem. It was exquisitely pain- 
 ful,' etc., etc. 
 
 " Having freed my mind to the extent of the above state- 
 ment, we will follow Mrs. Campion's example and drop the 
 matter. She dropped hearts with less compunction than 
 she did japonicas. You deserve a better wife a truer, 
 worthier, deeper-hearted woman than she would have been
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 229 
 
 to you or any man. In the Father's own good time and 
 all his times are good He will give her to you. 
 
 " Ailsie would deem this prophecy high treason, but she 
 will have forgotten your claims in dreams of the coming 
 Prince, by then." 
 
 It was inevitable that this letter should set me to thinking. 
 It may have been the droning, like that of a sinking top, of 
 the March wind at my high casement, or the blink of the dull, 
 red eye in the grate, which seemed, all the while, on the 
 point of shutting up entirely, that overcast my reverie with 
 a shade of melancholy. 
 
 I did not grieve I did not care that Bessie was married. 
 Having seen her mask down once, her power over me was 
 destined to die speedily, and, on the whole, easily. Nor was 
 I sorry that, measuring myself to-night with the love-mad- 
 dened boy of fourteen months agone, I saw, as I had never 
 seen before, how I had grown away from those days. But in 
 awakening from that dream of a week, I had parted with 
 something that was not Bessie, nor the hope of winning her 
 for my own. I grudged the loss of the possibility of ever 
 trusting again, as 1 had confided the hopes of time and eter- 
 nity to one who toyed with hearts as with bubbles whose end 
 is to be broken and not lamented. I could have laid my 
 head in my hands and wept for the woman who had never 
 lived ; the Ideal that had, in truth, so little in common with 
 the comely, well-fed creature who had sat at her ease, on the 
 leaf-brown satin throne during the December evenings which 
 separated boyhood from manhood, that nothing but the
 
 230 MY LITTLE LOVE. 
 
 haste and hot blood of youth could palliate the blunder I 
 had made. 
 
 I was lonely and low-spirited. Still too young to love 
 work for work's sake, and, as I know now, singularly free from 
 the vicious proclivities and the indulgences in which the 
 majority of my fellows, of whatever nationality, regarded as 
 pardonable if not legitimate relaxation from severe study, I 
 was. out of class and hospital, as solitary as if Paris had been 
 a desert. It was no light sin to rob a single-hearted, dreamy 
 boy of an imagination that had typified so much how much, 
 I could only judge from the void it had left. 
 
 " Heaven forgive her," I said aloud. And " Thank 
 Heaven for one true-hearted woman and the leal little friend 
 who ' misses me horribly.' Lily and Snowdrop ! The 
 bosom that wears them should be pure ! " 
 
 I raised the letters to lips that had known few kisses of 
 mother or sister. Both were answered before I addressed 
 myself to toil that wore far into the morning hours. 
 
 When I slept, my dreams were of aunt and niece not 
 once of Mrs. Campion nee Barnes.
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 HOME. 
 
 =5 Y BLESSED MR. BARRY : 
 
 " I promised, in my last, to give you a full 
 description of the summer home papa has 
 bought for us. We have been here three 
 months. It is quite in the mountains, although 
 but three miles from grandpa's. Mamma named 
 it Brightwood, because the sun seems to shine 
 brighter here than anywhere else. The lawn is a 
 peninsula, and it is about a hundred yards from 
 the house to the lake on three sides. There are dogs and 
 pigs and cows and sheep and rabbits, and no end of chickens 
 and ducks. 
 
 " Sometimes the ducks get drowned, which strikes me as 
 extremely remarkable. 
 
 " I never liked a house more than I do this. It is three 
 stories high, with an eddition on one side. In this are the 
 kitchen, laundry, and wood-house. I have a room of my 
 own in the third-story, with a balcony, where, on hot nights, 
 I lay my pillows to cool, and, like our Kathleen, ' look at 
 the moon,' and the stars, and have the deliciousest thinking- 
 times, all to myself. A piazza runs on two sides of the
 
 232 MY LITTLE L O VE. 
 
 house and there is a porch at the back. Behind it are the 
 woods, the carriage -road winding through them. 
 
 " The poultry-yard is the greatest novelty. So Robby 
 thinks, for he is there half the day, with his apron full of 
 corn. The barn is the most splendid place to play ' tit-tat ' 
 in. We burrow tunnels through the hay, and come out, at 
 the other end, all covered with straw and dust. There are 
 enough crooked trees on the lawn to set up a curiosity-shop. 
 
 " By the way, Aunt Evy and I have just finished that book. 
 Dear little Nell's death is the heart-achingest thing I ever 
 read. 
 
 " One tree is just like a horse. Mamma gave me an old 
 skirt of hers for a riding habit, and I mount, whip in hand, 
 and play horse-back. I like to climb upon the roof of the 
 pig-pen, only the pigs run out when they hear me, and stand 
 up on their hind legs and try to rub me with their noses. 
 Pigs are amusing, but not clean enough for playmates. 
 
 "Robby and I are fond of making toad-stool pudding, but 
 we never ( taste our wares.' -It is so funny to see the bull- 
 frogs in the water ! 
 
 " It is very different from town, here, in the afternoons. 
 Instead of playing in the dusty streets, dressed up in our 
 next-to-best clothes, or staying in-doors until sundown when 
 there's no chance for fun, we go up to the woods directly 
 after breakfast and dinner and make fortresses and have 
 picnics and play tales mostly fairy stories, or sit about on 
 : the rocks in the cool shade and read. 
 
 " One day papa and my cousin Rick took Robby and me
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 233 
 
 to help gather wild cherries. And this is how we helped. 
 They climbed the tree, and Robby and I stayed underneath 
 and ate the cherries fast as they fell. We were so stained up 
 when we got home that we could not get our faces and hands 
 clean that day, and the stains have not come out of my 
 dress and apron to this day. But what else could you expect ? 
 
 " Papa and I take glorious walks. Sometimes up in the 
 mountains and down into Pine Hollow, where it is dark as 
 a pocket. Now that the Fall has come the leaves have 
 changed. Red, yellow, brown, gray, purple every color 
 but black and blue almost. The maple woods look as if 
 they were afire. Some nights the winds whistle around the 
 house, and the rain not only lulls the little children to sleep, 
 but brings down the chestnuts and butternuts, and hickory- 
 nuts. And don't we have to get up early in the morning to 
 gather them before the greedy squirrels get their share and 
 ours too ? 
 
 " We eat our nuts sometimes before they are dry, and get 
 sore mouths by it, which ought to teach us better next time, 
 but doesn't. 
 
 " I have a flower-bed. So has Robby. Take it altogether, 
 Brightwood is heaven on earth. 
 
 " I wish you were here. That is all I lack to make me 
 
 supremely happy. 
 
 " Your dear little AILSIE." 
 
 Around this letter was wrapped a half-sheet of paper on 
 which Aunt Evy had written : 
 
 " I have just heard that you are expected home by the
 
 234 MY LITTLE LOVE. 
 
 next steamer. Therefore, instead of sending the enclosed to 
 your foreign address, I shall direct it to your father's care. 
 We do not think it best to let Ailsie know that you may be 
 so near lest her impatience should outrun your convenience. 
 You know how warm will be your welcome from us all, come 
 when you may. But we must not forget that others have 
 claims which they will not be disposed to forego after so 
 long a separation. Do not forget, however, that our home, 
 in town or country, must ever be yours for the seeking. 
 
 Affy, E. L. MARR." 
 
 The claims of home and kindred ! I smiled bitterly in 
 reading of them. 
 
 Madge and her husband had dined at our father's on the 
 day of my return. My step-mother had provided a bounti- 
 ful and well-cooked repast. We were not a sentimental family, 
 and the talk at table rambled from sea-sickness, foreign hotels, 
 and the comparative merits of various ocean steamers, to 
 American politics and the state of the stock-market. 
 Nobody thought to drink my health at dessert. My step- 
 mother barely tolerated the introduction of the decanters at 
 any time, and would have regarded toasts as an expensive 
 and senseless ceremony. After dinner, for appearance sake 
 we maintained a spasmodic conversation, endeavoring, with 
 indifferent success, not to yawn in one another's faces, until 
 Madge reminded her lord that they had an evening engage- 
 ment. My father, sighing his relief after their departure, 
 helped himself to one newspaper, and me to another, and
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 235 
 
 we sat down, on opposite sides of the centre-table, to read 
 the evening news. My step-mother disappeared in the direc- 
 tion of dining-room and pantries, and I saw her no more 
 that night. 
 
 We retired early. My father supposed and said that I 
 must be weary after my voyage and would be glad to get 
 into a Christian bed once more. I thought and did not say 
 that he was more weary of the formal welcome-making than 
 I of the sea, and that the effort to " do " the gratified parent 
 had worn hardly upon his invention and patience. No ! we 
 were decidedly not an " effusive " family. I had known it 
 for so long that I ought not to have been kept awake by a 
 dull, dreary pain in the region of the heart. 
 
 From the date of my father's second marriage, I had 
 understood that the omission of censure signified with him a 
 reasonable degree of satisfaction with what I said or did. He 
 was never otherwise than reasonable, and I should have re- 
 sembled him if I would have avoided disappointment. There 
 was no necessity that he, or Madge, or my step-mother, 
 should tell me that my return had brightened life for one or 
 all of them ; that they had thought of me longingly and 
 prayed for me with faith and desire that I might quit myself 
 like a man and bring happiness, with credit, to the old home. 
 J ought to have taken these things and much more for 
 granted. That I did not, was selfish and childish. 
 
 Nevertheless, as I stood by my open window, too restless 
 to think of wooing sleep, and breathed the soft October air, 
 pure and sweet, even in city streets, I was as homesick as
 
 236 MY LITTLE LOVE. 
 
 upon that sighing March night when I read Ailsie's story of 
 St. Valentine's Day in my Paris attic. Gratitude for nega- 
 tive mercies does not spring spontaneously in the breasts of 
 the best men, and I was so many removes from this degree of 
 excellence as to regret, in my gloomy musings, that I had not 
 emulated the example of my associates and sowed a mode- 
 rate crop of wild oats, in the gay capital, instead of remain- 
 ing virtuous and wearing myself thin with unappreciated toil. 
 I had won honors at the competitive examinations ; had 
 kept my expenses within my allowance, contracted no disre- 
 putable habits and no inconvenient intimacies, and I called 
 myself a " spooney," " a muff," and " a greenhorn," for it all, 
 so harsh were the ashes of disappointment between my 
 teeth. 
 
 In this mood, I espied a sealed letter, set endwise upon 
 the mantel. Nobody had thought to mention its arrival. 
 More taking for granted ! The student of the ways and 
 means of the Haye household would have been amazed at 
 learning how superfluous judging from our practice were 
 most of the precautions and amenities prevalent among 
 "sentimental" people. 
 
 I have said that I smiled in bitterness in perusing Aunt 
 Evy's postscript, in the rehearsal of the incidents of my 
 "Home Again" dinner. My smile over Ailsie's "full de- 
 scription " of their country home outlingered the sneer. I 
 yearned for a sight of the starry eyes and the dear little 
 brown face. She wanted me. I would make her " supreme- 
 ly happy " before I was twenty-four hours older.
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 237 
 
 I packed my valise for Brightwood within the hour. 
 
 " Off already ! " ejaculated my step-mother, when I made 
 known my resolve over my breakfast-cup of coffee. " Really 
 I must say " 
 
 She compressed her lips to a hairline, and resisted neces- 
 sity itself. 
 
 " I hope, Barry, you have not fallen into unsettled, roving 
 ways abroad ? " subjoined my father. 
 
 " We will let the future settle that question, sir," I replied, 
 respectfully. " For the present, I should like to have a taste 
 of country air and enjoy a glimpse of an American autumn, 
 before tying myself down to the winter's work." 
 
 " You do look rather jaded," concluded the senior, inspect- 
 ing me narrowly ; " I thought last night it might be the effect 
 of sea-sickness, but I see it hasn't worn off." 
 
 " It is the blase look of most young students medical 
 students, in particular of this generation," said my admir- 
 able step- mother, in her saltiest manner. 
 
 " If you object, sir, I will relinquish the plan," I said, 
 yet more dutifully, to my real parent, ignoring the side- 
 thrust. 
 
 " Not at all, not at all ! You are your own master, now. 
 But when you come back I trust I shall see you apply your- 
 self steadily to business." 
 
 I ran into Madge's house, on my way to the stage-office, 
 to say " Good bye," and explain my need of mountain-air 
 and quiet. 
 
 "I don't blame you for quitting Castle Doleful by the
 
 238 MY LITTLE LOVE. 
 
 earliest train," she assured me. " While Aleck and I were 
 there we contrived in one way and another, to keep the air 
 stirring. Since he went South and I got married it has been 
 a dead calm, and a cloudy one most of the time. You know 
 that Clarine Darling was married last winter don't you ? 
 It's queer you should care to run in that direction after Paris 
 life. It is out-and-out country where the Darlings live, and 
 no ladies to entertain you except a married woman, who will 
 be a grandmother soon, and an old maid. But you never 
 were like other people. It will be just your luck to live 
 and die a bachelor." 
 
 I had not deceived myself with the notion that my 
 unflattering flight would wound or offend my affectionate 
 relatives. I was but a paltry fraction in the sum of their 
 existence. I hankered a burning thirst that increased 
 hourly to be with those to whom my absence had made 
 some "difference;" for whom my arrival would rise into the 
 dignity of an event. 
 
 " Barry always did like to be made much of, " my step- 
 parent had once remarked severely. 
 
 I would not have denied it to-day. I had been a nobody 
 in a crowd of strangers for a year. If somebody did not 
 begin to make much of me soon I should be in danger of 
 losing my individuality outright. 
 
 I was not socially disposed during the thirty-mile ride on 
 the top of the coach. I smoked cigarettes by the dozen ; 
 drew lazy enjoyment from the beauty of the day and the 
 scenery, and thought out an article upon neuralgic as con-
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 239 
 
 tradistinguished from rheumatic affections, to keep down im- 
 patience at the length of the journey. 
 
 The highway was half-a-mile from Brightwood by the 
 nearest approach, and at this point I was set down, with 
 directions from the driver to follow the disused cart-road 
 through the woods as my shortest route. The ruts cut by 
 the winter's hauling were overgrown with grass and wild- 
 flowers. Sumach bushes, whose leaves were blood-tipped 
 lances of flame, upbore cones of maroon velvet, and plumes 
 of golden-rod waved up to my elbow as I put aside the 
 underbrush. Once, a brace of quails whirred from under my 
 feet. Overhead, the trees met and linked arms. The air 
 was delicious with the nutty fragrance never distilled except 
 in hickory woods by October sunshine. 
 
 In less than a brief half-hour I should hold my little love 
 in my arms, and hear her say that the lacking element of 
 perfect bliss at Brightwood, the heavenly, was supplied by 
 my appearance. She would be taller than when we parted 
 perhaps more shy. I might have to woo her cautiously for a 
 time until the rust of non-intercourse was nibbed off. But 
 she would be always Ailsie a child that had no peer, and 
 I owned it without an unworthy shade of self-pity the 
 being who, of all in the wide world, loved me best, than 
 whom none was more dear to me. 
 
 The old road ended abruptly at a loose stone wall en- 
 wrapped by a scarlet robe of American ivy, whose tough 
 fibres kept it from tumbling down. Beyond this was a body 
 of maples. I remembered how the " maple woods look as
 
 240 MY LITTLE LOVE. 
 
 if they were afire," and stopped to note how just was the 
 comparison. Afire from bole to outermost twig, save that, 
 at long intervals, stood a few, more lush of foliage than their 
 fellows, whose green hearts were the brighter by contrast 
 with the vermilion and orange of the farther branches. 
 Others had burned into purple with a dust of grayish ashes 
 edging the leaves. They colored the very air. Each leaf 
 hung, a motionless and delicate transparency, emitting as 
 well as transmitting light. The grove was between me and 
 the western sky, and the low sun did not penetrate it, yet 
 upon grass and soil and rude wall lay clear, warm shadows, 
 like those cast by glowing sunset clouds. 
 
 " Brightwood ! " I murmured. " Even without the sun- 
 shine ! " I passed through the enchanted wood, treading a 
 carpet of such brilliant warp and woof as never came from 
 looms of man's making. A strip of pasture-land succeeded 
 it, then a compact mass of hickories, chestnuts, and oaks, the 
 yellows of the nut-bearing trees shining vividly against the 
 dark crimsons and rich browns worn by the forest monarchs. 
 
 From the lower slope of the grove arose the pleasant 
 chime of children's voices, merry in talk. Guided by the 
 sound I gained a coign of advantage behind a clump of 
 chestnut saplings, and surveyed the group, myself safely 
 hidden. A mimic Druidical temple, roofless but for the sky, 
 had been reared in a circular clearing near the foot of the 
 wooded hill, so close to the outskirts of the grove that the 
 sunlight lay in broad streaks and patches across the encom- 
 passing row of great stones and the smaller ones that served
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 241 
 
 the audience as seats. The little area was well filled. I 
 recognized Robby, although he had been promoted to the 
 rank of be-jacketed and be-trousered juvenility in my ab- 
 sence. I surmised that the sweet-faced three-year-old, sitting 
 close to him, was baby Evy. The rest of the children were 
 strangers to me, and all older than these two. They were 
 probably cousinly or neighborly visitors at the farm. There 
 were three or four boys among them, ranging in age from 
 ten to twelve, and one fine lad of fifteen with a handsome 
 Darling face, who, I settled within my own mind, must be 
 Ailsie's favorite cousin "Rick," of whom I had heard much 
 in her letters. 
 
 At the moment of my approach he was on his feet, an- 
 nouncing to the assembly that the " performance of the 
 afternoon would be commenced with a song from the cele- 
 brated vocalist Mademoiselle Malibran Jenny Lind War- 
 bleini. Whom I have the honor of introducing to you." 
 
 And forth from behind a screen of woven brush stepped the 
 songstress, mounted a platform of rather shaky stones, and 
 bowed her thanks for the burst of applause that saluted her. 
 
 My Ailsie ! chains of autumn leaves bordering her white 
 frock, girdling her waist, crowning her brown hair. The hue 
 of the brightest of them in her cheeks, and, a light in her 
 glorious eyes, the soul of the artist who was, for the time, all 
 she would seem. 
 
 Crossing her hands lightly, in the gesture once so familiar 
 to me, she began her song, amazing me by the strength and 
 flexibility of her voice, and carrying the attention of her 
 1 1
 
 242 MY LITTLE LOVE. 
 
 auditors with her by the distinctness and varying expression 
 of her utterance. 
 
 "I have told thee how sweet the roses are 
 
 In my home beyond the sea, 
 Where the dark -eyed maid with her light guitar 
 
 Sits under the greenwood tree. 
 Thou woulds't scorn the fruits of thy mountain home 
 
 Beholding the purple vine, 
 Then come to the land of my birth, oh come I 
 
 Henceforth let my home be thine I 
 
 " I have heard thee tell of a sky more blue 
 And a sun more warm than this ; 
 
 And I've sometimes thought if thy tale were true- 
 To dwell in that clime were bliss. 
 
 But oh ! when I gaze on my tranquil cot, 
 Where the clematis boughs entwine, 
 
 The land of the stranger tempts me not ; 
 No ! ne'er can thy home be mine 1 
 
 " I will sing to thee, if with me thou'lt rove, 
 
 A song of the olden time. 
 Thou wilt never compare with my ardent love 
 
 The love of this colder clime. 
 Then, fly, oh fly, from this land of storm, 
 
 Where all that is fair must pine, 
 To scenes more gay and a sun more warm ; 
 Henceforth let my home be thine. 
 
 11 Alas ! it is plain that my mountain home 
 
 Must ever be scorned by thee ; 
 And may I not fear that a time may come 
 When thou wilt have scorn for me ? ''
 
 M Y LITTLE L O VE. 243 
 
 This with hanging head, and a cadence of mournful doubt. 
 What follows, with a sudden uplifting of the bright face, a 
 triumphant peal in her song : 
 
 " And, oh 1 there is one who loves me here, 
 
 Whose voice, if less sweet than thine, 
 To my simple taste is far more dear ; 
 No ! ne'er can thy home be mine ! " 
 
 The storm of plaudits was at its height, even baby's fat 
 palms doing sounding execution, when a touch on my shoul- 
 der turned me to meet the laughing faces of Pressley and 
 Wynant Darling, who had stolen up to share my ambush. 
 With mutual admonitions to discretion, we grasped each 
 other's hands, and whispered brief greetings. Then, each 
 sought a loop-hole to watch the progress of the "perform- 
 ances." 
 
 " Mademoiselle Malibran Jenny Lind Warbleini lectures 
 quite as admirably as she sings," proclaimed the master of 
 ceremonies "and has kindly consented to favor us with 
 ah one of her most distinguished efforts one which has 
 earned for her, ahem ! deathless renown in this and in for- 
 eign countries. I trust the audience will remain seated and 
 ah superhumanly quiet while she is speaking. Like 
 other great artists, she is exacting on this point." 
 
 "Fairly done for Rick!" said Wynant. "Here comes 
 the lecturess ! " 
 
 She emerged from her leafy retreat with a more staid mien 
 than at her first appearance, as befitted the superior dignity
 
 244 MY LITTLE LOVE. 
 
 of the rostrum. She had torn the chaplet from her head in 
 haste that had ruffled the brown waves, and in her hand was 
 a slender roll that looked like a manuscript. This was evi- 
 dently the symbol of her profession, for she did not offer to 
 unroll it. 
 
 "Ladies and gentlemen," said the silvery voice, 'the 
 subject of my lecture, this afternoon, is the Life and Charac- 
 ter of Moses." 
 
 " Moses who ? " called out a boy lounging on the grass 
 at the speaker's left. He was rougher in bearing and tone 
 than his companions and was, Wynant whispered, the son 
 of Ezra Gaskin's city brother, and an interloper upon the 
 Brightwood party. 
 
 Regardless of the query, unconsciously plagiarised, many 
 years later, by Mark Twain's "Jack," the lecturer held on 
 her way. 
 
 " Moses is regarded by most speakists and book-makers 
 as a great and good man. In fact, something exterordinary 
 for those old, old times. Not quite up to the mark of our 
 wise men " 
 
 (" Dan. Webster, now What dy'e say to him for a speci- 
 men brick?" interrupted Ezra's nephew.) 
 
 " You shut up, there ! " vociferated the master of cere- 
 monies. 
 
 " Let him alone, Rick ! " ordered Ailsie, in her ordinary 
 conversational tone. " I'll have no rows while I am speak- 
 ing.") 
 
 " Never-the-less "most everybody has the idea that Moses
 
 MY LITTLE LOl r E. 245 
 
 was pretty near perfect. Let us look at the matter. Be- 
 tween you and me, my friends, I never did have much opin- 
 ion of Moses. There's an awful time made no end of lec- 
 turing and scolding and preaching and nagging ' Where do 
 you expect to go to when you die ? ' and all such scary stuff, 
 if a poor little child that hardly knows her right hand from 
 
 the left " 
 
 (" Nor B from a bull's foot ! " from the rude auditor.) 
 "happens so much as to crack one of the leastest com- 
 mandments, to put her fingers into the sugar-bowl, for 
 instance. Why, Moses broke two tables full of them, and 
 not a word was said to him about it that I ever heard of. 
 Broke them when he was angry, too ! Mad as a hatter ! 
 That's a way he had losing his temper. I'll tell you more 
 about it presently. Of course, the people of Israel were very 
 provoking. They were always up to some trick or other. 
 Whining because they hadn't just what they wanted to eat. 
 Boiled meat and onions and leeks and such like victuals 
 enough to turn one's stomach to think of ! And saying ' this 
 light bread' that meant manna, like the nicest sort of bis- 
 cuit and honey, the food angels are satisfied with wasn't 
 fit for them. Or finding fault with Moses and Aaron, or 
 setting on Korah and Dathan and the other fellow to make 
 another government. Always snarling and restless 'till there 
 was no such thing as living peaceably with them. A pack 
 of Jews, all of them ! For that matter Moses was a Jew, 
 too, and he ought to have known how to make allowances 
 for them. And it was hard when they were dying in the
 
 246 MY LITTLE LOVE. 
 
 desert for water little wee babies and all to be scolded as 
 Moses talked to them. ' Hear now, you rebels ! ' he said 
 ' Have I got to bring water out of this rock for you ? ' 
 Rebels ! Put it to yourselves, now, how you'd like that / 
 
 1 Water, water, nowhere, 
 Not a drop to drink ! ' 
 
 And the sun scorching the life out of you, drying up the 
 tongues in your mouths. Throats hotter than an oven. Out 
 comes Moses, mad as fire, his rod in his hand ' Hear, now, 
 you rebels ! ' I used to be sorry he was punished for cutting 
 up so shamefully that day whacking the rock three times, 
 as if 'twas a bad child he was whipping. Now, I think he 
 was served about right. 'Specially when I recollect the poor 
 sheep and oxen and lambs and babies." 
 
 ("What about the horses and donkeys?" from the city 
 boy.) 
 
 "Then, again, my friends, do you suppose that he wasn't 
 angry when he made the children of Israel drink the powder- 
 water? When he had melted down and burned up and 
 ground to powder the golden calf, and strewed it on the 
 water ? You'd better believe that was a bitter dose ! Worse 
 than salts and senna ! I can imagine how he did it. * There's 
 your lovely calf ! ' said he. ' You would have it. Now, 
 you've got to take it ! '" 
 
 " (By George ! he wouldn't a' got it down my throat ! " 
 from the Gaskin.) 
 
 " I don't say that the people weren't to blame. It was 
 awfully wicked in them, and foolish besides, to think that the
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE, 247 
 
 Lord didn't care for them because Moses stayed away forty 
 days. Looks as if they had been worshipping Moses all the 
 time, instead of the Lord. It was fearfully sinful in them to 
 make a golden calf." 
 
 (" Golly 1 wouldn't I have liked to get a slice of that 'ere 
 veal!" bleated the intruder.) 
 
 " Because the Egyptians had worshipped an ox with gold 
 tips to his horns, was no reason they should be so silly. 
 Seems to me they might have remembered that the Egyptian 
 idols weren't of much use to them in the Red Sea, for they 
 went down to the bottom like a stone, and the ox couldn't 
 hook them up. Somehow, I have always pitied the foolish 
 women, who were persuaded into giving up their earrings 
 and never saw them again. I think the powder water must 
 have tasted bitterer to them than to the men." 
 
 (" Say ! ain't you 'most through ? " broke in the boor.) 
 
 "The Israelites' calf, my friends," pursued the una- 
 bashed speaker, dropping each word with studied distinctness, 
 and weight, "as I have said, was made of golden earrings. 
 But there is a calf in my audience " wheeling like lightning 
 to point a level forefinger in the coarse, homely face, at her 
 left, " who isn't made of earrings unless they were brass 
 ones ! " * 
 
 " Ha ! ha ! ha ! Good enough for you, Ailsie ! " roared 
 Rick, and his laugh was sent back with a will by the am- 
 bushed anditors. 
 
 The children jumped up at the unexpected chorus, and 
 * A literal report.
 
 248 MY LITTLE LOVE. 
 
 crowded towards us, hustling the now blushing " lecturess " 
 along with them. 
 
 " Papa ! it wasn't fair ! Uncle Wy ! I didn't think I'd ever 
 catch you eaves-dropping ! " was her cry. 
 
 In the midst of the protest her glance fell upon me, as I 
 hung back still partially concealed by the clump of saplings. 
 Every drop of blood left her face ; she clasped her hands 
 with a quick convulsive movement, her eyes fastening upon 
 mine in wild incredulity that looked like terror. Really fear- 
 ing that she would faint, I darted past her father and uncle, 
 and caught her hands. 
 
 " Ailsie ! little Ailsie ! are you not glad to see me ?" 
 
 Her face was hidden in my bosom, and I felt that she was 
 shaking like a leaf, but there was no sound of welcome. I 
 think her father gave the signal to Wynant to call off the 
 spectators, for he set up a whoop : 
 
 " Hare and hounds ! here he goes ! " and tore off down 
 the slope with a yelling crowd in pursuit. 
 
 We were left to ourselves Ailsie and I. Sitting down 
 upon a stone, I drew her to my knee, stroked the bright 
 head I loved so fondly ; kissed it once and again before I 
 could win her to look or speech. 
 
 " You see " she said, at length, throwing off the spell 
 with, a resolute effort, shaking back her hair, and granting 
 me a view of her countenance, to which the color was begin- 
 ning to flow back "I did not know you were on this side 
 of the Atlantic ocean ! You must not think I am not glad : 
 I've wanted you so /"
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 249 
 
 Her heart beat fast against my arm. She laid her face to 
 mine, the smooth brown cheek the touch of which was a 
 delight, and we were still for a while. In my moved soul I 
 was thanking Him who had brought me to this good hour ; 
 who had glorified my life by the gift of love so pure and 
 strong as that which lived in the bosom of this child. I 
 often felt like praying when I was with her, seldom when I 
 was not. I had expected a joyous welcome, yet such as 
 children offer the long-absent, in which rejoicing is blent 
 with diffidence. The character and might of the emotion 
 excited by my appearance were a revelation even to me, who 
 had believed that I had gauged the deeps of a nature none 
 understood, who gave it only such casual study as we are 
 wont to bestow upon sprightly little girls between eight and 
 nine years old. 
 
 " I landed in America yesterday morning, Ailsie," I said 
 presently. " This morning I set out for Brightwood, to see 
 you. It makes me very happy to find my darling so well, 
 and that she did not forget me in all the long months I have 
 spent away from her." 
 
 " That couldn't be, you know," she returned with earnest 
 simplicity. " If you had stayed away twelve years instead 
 of one, I should have remembered you. You can't ever 
 forget anybody you really love. Now you must come to 
 Aunt Evy. It is selfish in me to keep you all to myself, 
 when she can't come to meet you." 
 
 Ailsie all over ! The same daintiness of articulation and 
 quaint brief sentences that said much and meant more. 
 n*
 
 250 MY LITTLE LOVE. 
 
 The same gentle thoughtfulness for others' comfort and hap- 
 piness. The same frank delicacy that lent subtle charm to 
 her love-talk. 
 
 We walked down the easy decline to the plateau on which 
 the house was built. The shadows of the curious " crooked 
 trees " belting one side of the lawn stretched lazy lengths 
 upon the turf. The lake was a truthful mirror of the 
 embosoming hills, with their cloaks and scarfs of many colors 
 streaming to the water's edge. On the distant mountains 
 was the royal purple which is Autumn's richest garniture. 
 
 " It always puts me in mind of the anthem, " Put on thy 
 beautiful garments," said Ailsie, checking me to point out 
 the witchery of light, color, and shadow. " It sings itself in 
 my head all day, since the woods changed their dresses. It 
 is good we are having moonlight nights now. I shall be 
 disappointed if you don't like my Brightwood."
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 THE MEMORIAL PINE. 
 
 HE veritable site of the garden of Eden," 
 remarked Aunt Evy, gravely, next morning, 
 as Ailsie broke up a prolonged conference 
 between us in the little room which was the 
 temporary " Innermost." The " Chamber of the 
 Confessional," Wynant called it 
 
 Ailsie and I how naturally the words fell 
 together again ! were going nutting. For this day 
 she would have no third person along. " Mamma" 
 had packed our luncheon in a basket which I was to carry 
 while full, and she when it was empty. The same rule was 
 to be observed in the disposition of a stouter one that was 
 to bring our nuts home. 
 
 " I mean to show you all my wonders," she said, speaking 
 very fast. " Pine Hollow, and Sunset Rock, and the 
 Witches' Glen, and the Fairies' Ball-room, and the Mountain 
 of the Cross. There isn't one of them that isn't lovely, and 
 nearly all belong to Brightwood. You don't begin to know 
 what a place it is." 
 
 " The veritable site of the garden of Eden," her aunt
 
 252 MY LITTT. E LOVE. 
 
 interrupted at this point. "It would not be possible to 
 convince her, or her father, that the stump of the ancient 
 apple-tree in the lower pasture is not the very one around 
 which Eve found the serpent twined, on that fatal morning 
 so many fruit-seasons ago." 
 
 " That's only her fun ! " explained Ailsie, apologetically for 
 her volatile relative. " Of course I know that Eden was in 
 Asia and had four rivers with hard names running through it." 
 
 " Brightwood is Eden for you to-day, happy child ! Enjoy 
 every minute and second. Take care of her, Barry ! " 
 
 The rosy and the pale faces lay together on the pillow, 
 for an instant, for Aunt Evy was a prisoner to her lounge. 
 
 " You are the onliest person I would invite to go with us," 
 said Ailsie, running back from the door for still another 
 embrace. " Auntie ! really and truly I wish I could be sick 
 instead of you for awhile. It would be jolly to think, as well 
 as the pain in my back and head would let me, how you 
 were climbing the hills and scampering down the other side. 
 And when you and Mr. Barry came home in the evening, 
 how I should enjoy hearing all about it ! " 
 
 " You would lend him to me, too, would you, as well as 
 your strong limbs and healthy lungs ? " The invalid smiled, 
 but the water stood deep in her eyes. " Thank Heaven, 
 dear, that it is not in your power to offer the sacrifice, and 
 that it does not rest with me to say whether it shall be 
 accepted or declined ! Now, be off ! and make much of Mr. 
 Barry, while you have him, and of Brightwood, too ; October 
 vacations are not endless."
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 253 
 
 "Barry likes to be made much of!" rang in my cars 
 in dry-salted tones, very unlike the accents that had 
 commended the process to my guide. To prove that 
 benevolence was not extirpated by this selfish " liking," 
 I devoted myself to making much of my charge. So tender 
 was my every thought of her, that rarely perfect day that I 
 would willingly have borne her in my arms over stone, 
 stubble and hillock. But in order not to offend her harmless 
 pride in her own woodcraft and pedestrianism, I had to 
 content myself with carrying both baskets and lending a 
 helping hand when a wide brook was to be crossed, or a tall 
 fence surmounted. For the rest of the way, she trudged on 
 sturdily beside me, doing the honors of October and the 
 landscape, talking as fast as her tongue could go. The red 
 wine of health and happiness was in her veins, heart-sunshine 
 in the eyes that sought mine, continually, with an exultant 
 sense of actual possession and proprietorship that was both 
 pretty and diverting. 
 
 She would never weary me with fondlings this dainty 
 little betrothed of mine. Unless taken by surprise, tact and 
 good taste alike warned her against effusiveness. The 
 maidenliness of her demeanor, to-day, was inimitable and 
 suggestive. With such refinement of tenderness and real 
 dignity, I felt sure she would, ten years hence, assign to a 
 lover his position and privileges. Last evening, she had 
 scarcely stirred from my side, and seldom spoken except 
 when directly addressed. Now she meant business. We 
 were out to see the country her "wonders" included, and
 
 254 MY LITTLE L VE. 
 
 to gather nuts. She had a story for each of the spots she 
 had designated incident or adventure belonging to the his- 
 tory of the summer, or traditions more or less well-substanti- 
 ated, which^she had picked up in her free-and-easy inter- 
 course with the country-people. We made no haste. There 
 was a liberal stretch of daylight ahead of us. We " did " the 
 notable places thoroughly and gathered nuts when we stumb- 
 led over them, provided they were free from husk and burr. 
 
 " Beating them out doesn't pay when they can be had 
 without smashing one's fingers between two stones," observ- 
 ed Ailsie, oracularly, turning over the dry leaves with the 
 toe of her boot, to uncover chance treasures. " It's a good 
 plan to get things without trouble when there's no harm in 
 it. Some people think nothing is worth having that comes 
 easy. Water and air and sunshine ought to teach them that 
 they are mistaken, but, dear me ! the quantity of stupid men 
 and women and children in this world is absolutly as-ton-ish- 
 ing ! Don't put those into the basket, please ! They are 
 pig-nuts. And very poor taste even for them the pigs 
 must have, if they like that sort of food. They aren't more 
 than half as big as hickory-nuts to begin with. Then, the 
 shells are twice as thick, and when you've worked your way 
 to the stingy scrap of a kernel, it's as bitter as gall. You re- 
 member what Mr. Weller says about the charity-boy and the 
 alphabet ? ' It's a question whether it is worth while to go 
 through so much to get so little.' " 
 
 " I recollect ! I did not suppose you had made Mr. 
 Welter's acquaintance yet."
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 255 
 
 " I read Pickwick in the early part of the summer. It's 
 a nice book to take out under the trees on a hot day. Papa 
 thought I couldn't appreciate it, but I liked what I did 
 understand. It doesn't take much brains to be amused at 
 the fat boy, and Mr. Winkle's riding and hunting, and Mrs. 
 Leo Hunter's ' Expiring Frog.' Nor at the Wellers. I was 
 quite worried to find that the stage-driver who brought us 
 here was a dried-up, sober little man, who couldn't say any- 
 thing but ' Geet-up I ' and ' Whoa-there ! ' " 
 
 We lunched sumptuously under a chestnut tree on the 
 brow of a green hill. Soft grass grew up to its roots. The 
 long, sharply serrated leaves were of a fine, clear lemon- 
 color, and the light strained through these painted the turf 
 in lively tints that made the shaded area about us as fair as 
 the sunny slopes beyond. The air was still, but we drew in 
 balm and sweetness with every breath, for back of the chest- 
 nutted knoll lay heights darkly clad with hemlock, cedar and 
 fir, sunbeams and wind asleep together in the topmost 
 branches. Before us rolled the hill, gradually, for a few rods, 
 then steeply down to the little river that fed the lake to the 
 left. A bridge crossed it just before the widening into the 
 pond, and the occasional rattle of a country wagon over it 
 varied the rural hum that went pleasantly with the mellow 
 sunlight, the resinous and nutty smells. There were sheep 
 in the lower meadows, cows in the upper, and from farm- 
 houses, hidden by hills and wood-belts, came the crowing of 
 answering cocks, and, once in a while, the deep bay of a 
 hound. A parliament of crows sat in a tall hemlock on the
 
 256 MY LITTLE L VE. 
 
 next spur of the ridge, at a distance that took the harshness 
 out of their discussions before they reached us. 
 
 We were hardly aware that we heeded the out-door con- 
 cert, yet it filled up the pauses in our dialogue with the 
 pulsing of low music. Our talk took on a pensive tone 
 with our unconscious listening. Our lunch basket was 
 empty, and with satisfied appetites, we lay along the hill-top, 
 our elbows cushioned in the soft tussocks of wild grass, taking 
 in full, slow draughts of enjoyment, as the connoisseur pours 
 down a beaker of brown old October ale. 
 
 " Do you see my cross ? " asked Ailsie, pointing to the 
 summit of the opposing range of hills, higher and more 
 rugged than on our side of the valley. " On the second 
 the highest mountain. Almost to the top. There ! you 
 are looking straight at it. Isn't it a very strange thing?" 
 
 It was. A tree apparently a pine towering above the 
 horizon-line of the forest, and forming with upright trunk 
 and transverse arms, a symmetrical and well-defined cross 
 against the tender blue of the October heavens. 
 
 " It's been there, maybe, a hundred years," said my cice- 
 rone, meditatively, surveying the land-mark with eyes full of 
 mysterious meaning. " It just grew into that shape of itself, 
 the people about here say. But it does seem as if GOD may 
 have meant it all along. For He knew what was to happen 
 on that hill, one day when the time came. There's some- 
 thing that makes you feel very solemn in thinking how that 
 tree kept growing, growing, growing, year by year, putting 
 out one little bunch of leaves at a time, first on this side,
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 257 
 
 then on that, and, all the while, making the cross that was 
 to be a sign to everybody, by-and-by, to remind them of the 
 poor lost children." 
 
 " What children ? " 
 
 "You don't mean you never heard of them? Pshaw! I 
 keep forgetting how long and how far you've been away, and 
 that all this part of the country is new to you. It seems so 
 natural to have you around, I can't think how it was before 
 you came." 
 
 She sat up, gathered her hands full of pale yellow leaves 
 from the grass and shred them into her lap while the story 
 grew ; now looking at them and seeing nothing but the scenes 
 of the tragedy, again gazing at the memorial pine with eyes 
 that went yet further and made her own the secrets of the 
 Unseen. 
 
 "I've thought, a thousand times, since I heard about them 
 first, how odd it was that it should have happened that very 
 Christmas-night when you and I had tea by ourselves in our 
 comfortable parlor at home. I was sorry I had said how 
 jolly it was that it was storming, while we sat by the 
 warm fire and read the 'Ancient Mariner,' and talked 
 about so many delightful things. Do you remember 
 teaching me 
 
 ' And resembles sorrow only, 
 As the mists resemble the rain' ? 
 
 How little we know ! 
 
 "There were three of them. All boys. The oldest 
 wasn't more than ten years old. The youngest was
 
 258 MY LITTLE LOVE. 
 
 five. Their father and mother were poor, and lived in 
 a small house quite on the other side of the mountain. On 
 that Christmas day it didn't snow here in the morning as it 
 did in town about three o'clock, they told their mother 
 that they had found in the morning a hickory-nut tree in the 
 woods that nobody else could have known anything about, 
 because the ground was covered thick with nuts. Might 
 they go to pick them up ? She said, ' Yes.' They were 
 mountain children, you see, and used to running wild by 
 themselves. Off they went, each with a little tin pail, and 
 full of fun over their nutting frolic. I suppose it was a 
 great affair to them, who couldn't run out to candy-stores 
 whenever they got a penny. 'Tisn't likely pennies were 
 plenty with them either. Pretty soon it began to snow. 
 You remember how the wind whistled and sang and groaned 
 in our chimney that night after tea ? Over there, in those 
 woods on the mountain, it roared I Like a thousand wild 
 beasts. 
 
 " The boys' father had been down in the village three 
 miles away. When he got home it was almost dark. He 
 found his wife alone and pretty nearly crazy. She had been 
 as far in the woods as she dared go, and called the boys at 
 the top of her voice. They had not answered and they had 
 not come home. The father took a lantern and set out to 
 look for them. He wandered up and down, shouting out 
 their names. No answer but the roaring of the wind and the 
 rattling of the hail. When he was half frozen he had to go 
 in out of the storm. Early next morning, although it was
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 259 
 
 still storming hard, he went to some of the neighbors and 
 got them to help him look for his lost sons. More and more 
 people came next day and next and the next. At last there 
 were more than a hundred men roaming through the woods 
 with dogs and guns and horns making a great noise, beat- 
 ing every bush, and looking in every stream and hollow. 
 
 " Still no children, not a sign to tell which way they had 
 gone, any more than if the ground had opened and swal- 
 lowed them up. 
 
 " Some people thought they had been murdered. Some 
 said they had strayed to some other place, maybe to some 
 town and been taken into an asylum, or somebody's house. 
 Some were sure they had fallen into a pond or river, and 
 were frozen under the ice. The hundred men got tired 
 hunting for them and went home. The father and mother 
 went to their home, too. It must have been fearfully lone- 
 some now that the three little fellows were not there." 
 
 The busy hands rested upon the pile of shred leaves- 
 She looked at me dubiously. 
 
 " I don't exactly know about telling you the rest. It 
 won't sound true, or a single speck likely to you. But it is 
 true. The man told papa about it himself this summer. 
 Papa had never quite believed it until then. But why 
 shouldn't GOD be able to talk to people in dreams now as 
 He used to ? And, since everybody had stopped hunting 
 for the children, how else could they have been found? 
 This man had a dream one night. He thought he was walk- 
 ing up the mountain and saw a flock of crows flying about
 
 260 MY LITTLE LOVE. 
 
 the top of a high pine-tree. Something or somebody told 
 him to go to that place, and when he got there, he saw the 
 three lost boys. In the morning he could not get rid of the 
 dream. He set out in his wagon in the direction of the 
 mountain and rode three or four miles before he came in 
 sight of a tree that looked just like the one he had dreamed 
 of. The crows were flying around the top. I suppose as 
 those are doing over yonder, and cawing in the same way. 
 The man, who had a friend with him, got out of the wagon 
 and went up the mountain, over the stones and bushes, 
 straight to the foot of the big pine-tree. And there, really 
 and truly, lay the three boys, all dead. It had been ten days 
 since they went to look for the Christmas nuts. On the top 
 of a great flat rock lay the oldest boy. He had hardly any 
 clothes on. The next boy was on the ground a little way 
 off. Right under the rock, in a sort of a hollow that it 
 leaned over like this " making an inclined plane of one 
 palm over the other " was the babyest of them, wrapped up 
 in his oldest brother's jacket and trowsers, on a bed of dried 
 leaves, just as his mother might have tucked him up in his 
 crib at home." 
 
 She stripped leaf after leaf into threads, her face set in 
 serious compassion very unlike the emotion a child might be 
 expected to evince in the telling of such a grievous tale. 
 
 " It is as you say, a very strange story,"* I said. "Strange 
 and sad." 
 
 " Yes, sad, if we look at it one way. But that boy died a 
 
 * But true in every particular.
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 261 
 
 glorious death. When Aunt Evy heard the story she said 
 ' Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his 
 life for his friends.' You can think how she would say it. 
 I wonder why he climbed that big rock. The men who 
 found them thought they must have been frozen to death on 
 Christmas night. It was such frightful weather. They had 
 strayed over the top of the mountain and gone some distance 
 down the other side, trying to find the way home. Do you 
 suppose he got up there so as to see farther when morning 
 came ? He had pulled his arm out of one shirt-sleeve as if 
 he had begun to take it off. No doubt he heard his little 
 brother crying with the cruel cold, and wanted to give him 
 more cover. The last thing he did was to try to help him." 
 
 "Is that the pine-tree?" inquired I, looking at the gigan- 
 tic cross with moved interest. 
 
 " No ! it is farther down on this side. We went there 
 once with papa. It was very solemn. Aunt Evy couldn't 
 go, of course, but she sent flowers to lay on the big rock. 
 She called it a pilgrimage. I couldn't help wishing the rock 
 could speak and tell us what really happened that dark stormy 
 night. We saw where the baby-brother had been put to 
 sleep. Mamma cried. I saw the tears drop on her hand 
 when she stooped down and smoothed the dead leaves as if 
 he had been asleep under them still. We all talked in whis- 
 pers even Robby. The cross-tree is on the tip-top of the 
 mountain. Likely, the boys passed under it in the dark 
 without seeing it. Aunt Evy says it is their monument, all 
 the same. She can see it from her window, and she says it
 
 262 MY LITTLE LOVE. 
 
 helps her to be patient when she is in great pain. She calls 
 the biggest boy her hero. If you could see her, sometimes, 
 in one of her bad spells, you would think she was a heroess." 
 
 The word slipped out so smoothly and suddenly that grav- 
 ity on my part was an impossibility. Luckily, she was not 
 looking at me, or she would have detected the untimely 
 glimmer, and been dumb for the next hour. Her dread of 
 making herself ridiculous equaled her desire to promote a 
 comfortable frame of mind in others. 
 
 She was emptying her lap of the torn leaves, leisurely and 
 reflectively, her mind still upon her "hero." 
 
 "I dare say," she continued, as if in soliloquy "that boy 
 didn't know how to read and write. He was poor and wore 
 patched clothes, and talked bad grammar, perhaps. But he 
 knew how to suffer and die for somebody he loved. That 
 was enough for one person's life-time. If he had been fifty 
 years old, instead of ten, he couldn't have done it better. 
 I think when the morning came, he saw very far from the 
 top of that rock much farther than he had expected, when he 
 climbed it. As Stephen did, you know, when they stoned him." 
 
 She shook out the fragments of leaf and stem from her 
 frock, and strolled down the hill, a little way, for wild flow- 
 ers, returning soon with a handful which she displayed glee- 
 fully, quoting : 
 
 " But on the hill the golden-rod 
 And the aster in the wood, 
 And the yellow sunflower by the brook 
 In autumn beauty stood."
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 263 
 
 " Aunt Evy taught that to me when I was six years old. 
 Every Fall since then, I have made a bouquet for her of the 
 three flowers. 'Crown jewels,' she says they are. I am 
 thankful the sunflower does not mean the ugly monsters your 
 Mrs. Gaskin used to have along her garden-fence. Great, 
 staring bold things big as a dinner-plate, with a brown tea- 
 plate in the middle." 
 
 "Why do you say 'your Mrs. Gaskin' so spitefully, 
 Ailsie ? " remonstrated I, plaintively. " I haven't seen her 
 in two years. And I certainly did not correspond with her 
 while I was abroad." 
 
 " She stopped to speak to us after church, last Sunday," 
 was the reply. " And asked where you were and ' how long 
 you were goin' to stay in furren parts, and were you studyin' 
 the doctor's trade over there?' Mr. ' Ezry' 'guessed you'd 
 be proper spry and stuck-up against you came back, and 
 thin as a rail, a-livin' on frogs and snails.' I wish everybody 
 who wants to be witty about French people wouldn't feel 
 obliged to talk of such disgusting things. Such as eating 
 frogs and snails, I mean. They're all right in their proper 
 place. But that isn't upon Christians' tables. Nor in their 
 mouths. Tcha ! " 
 
 Resuming her seat upon the elastic tussock, she arranged 
 her flowers, singing to herself ; setting her graceful head on 
 this side and on that, to judge of the effect of purple-and- 
 gold, touching up the cluster with delicate ferns and winding 
 the stems with wire-grass. 
 
 Watching her from the shadow of my hat-brim, in lazy
 
 2 64 My LITTLE L O VE. 
 
 content, I began to succumb to the combined influences of 
 warm sweet air, mellowed sunlight and music. The effect of 
 the fatiguing voyage and stage ride, the excitement of arrival 
 and welcome, were, in this first hour of absolute rest, appreci- 
 able in a luxurious lassitude that stole from limb to brain. I 
 could imagine nothing more divine, said my drowsy fancy, 
 than thus to lie, and look, and dream, for a week why not 
 for a month why not forever? The lotus eater's " myrrh- 
 bush on the height " was of a lively and scentless growth, in 
 comparison with the languorous droop and subtle aroma of the 
 lemon-tinted leaves, through which I stared upward. The hill- 
 lop grasses, uncut and ungrazed, were supple in their dryness, 
 They pillowed my head, without tickling my ears and nose. 
 The earth was tempered to her heart, by weeks of perfect 
 weather. 
 
 "Talk of sunny France, indeed !" I ejaculuted in a fine 
 disdain. " It and Italia may go to Ballyhack ! " 
 
 Ailsie glanced around and smiled, without intermitting her 
 crooning. 
 
 " Cherie / " said I, benevolent and complacent. " You 
 will be a marvellous singer, when your voice shall have got 
 its growth. But we will not go to Italy to cultivate it. We 
 will spend four months of the year, always including October, 
 at Brightwood, and come out every day to this enchanted 
 mount where you can sing as loudly and as long as we like, 
 with the echoes to encore you." 
 
 "And the crows?" queried my cantatrice demurely. 
 
 " The crows be shot ! Sing me a love-song, Ailsie ! And
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 265 
 
 then another. And still another, until you are tired, or I beg 
 you to stop." 
 
 I pulled my hat low over my eyes. 
 
 She laughed. A ripple of fun which recalled my slipping 
 senses for a moment. 
 
 "There are all sorts of love-songs. Will you have a kill- 
 ing one, or a dolesome, or a lively one ? " 
 
 " Nothing murderous, if you love me ! The day is too 
 delicious, and I am in too good a humor. Something 
 between the dolesome and the lively. I don't want to be 
 driven to melancholy, nor waked up too decidedly." 
 
 She preluded for awhile, humming a few bars each, of 
 different airs, then trolled, with spirited emphasis, a 
 ballad I guessed at once was drawn from Aunt Evy's 
 repertory. 
 
 " Gather ye rose-buds while ye may 
 
 Old Time is still a-flying, 
 And this same flower that smiles to-day 
 To-morrow will be dying. 
 
 " The glorious lamp of heaven, the Sun, 
 
 The higher he's a-getting. 
 
 The sooner will his race be run, 
 
 The nearer he's to setting. 
 
 % ' That age is best which is the first, 
 
 When youth and blood are warmer, 
 But, being spent, the worse and worse 
 Times still succeed the former. 
 
 12
 
 266 MY LITTLE L VE. 
 
 " Then, be not coy, but use your time, 
 
 And while ye may, go marry ; 
 For having lost but once your prime 
 You may forever tarry." 
 
 " You are hard on a fellow who'll be ' almost a hundred 
 when you are one-and-twenty !' " I complained in a muffled 
 tone, by reason of drowsiness and hat-brim. " But go on ! 
 I am at your mercy ! " 
 
 She put out her hand to pat mine. 
 
 " Poor little fellow I Did it wake up ? Sh-sh-sh ! Love- 
 songs aren't the best sleep-songs after all. 
 
 1 Hush-a-by baby, on 
 
 would be better. Or," launching her fresh young voice 
 upon a new and full tide of melody 
 
 " Peaceful slumbering on the ocean, 
 
 Seamen fear no danger nigh ; 
 The winds and waves in gentle motion, 
 Soothe them with their lullaby, 
 
 Lullaby ! " 
 
 Thus far, I followed her intelligently. The next thing I 
 knew, or thought I knew I was stretched upon the deck 
 of the steamer that brought me home, a thousand miles of 
 blue sailless sea before, and two thousand behind me ; pure 
 woolly clouds fainting into nothingness in the zenith, the 
 swish of the waves and the measured throb of the engine 
 hushing me into, slumber. Then I swung in a hammock 
 woven o/ wire-grass a.nd lined with wild hay, lashed to the
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 267 
 
 lowest branches of the chestnut. The amber light trickled, 
 in a warm, perfumed fluid, upon my eyelids a sleeping 
 potion I could not withstand, struggle though I did when I. 
 became aware that Ailsie, a band of " crown-jewels " in her 
 hair, was swaying me back and forth, and chanting her lull- 
 aby. 
 
 After that, "all was nought and nought was all," until 
 something a grasshopper, I thought, in the confusion of 
 awakening lit upon my nose, with a prodigious number of 
 titillating feet and mandibles, all going at once. Jerking up a 
 hand to dislodge him, I blinded myself with a shower of gay 
 leaves that rustled smartly in falling. I was snowed under, 
 a foot deep, with them, red, russet, amethyst, orange they 
 went flying before my sight when I would have arisen, like 
 scraps of a desiccated but fadeless rainbow. 
 
 " Ailsie ! " I cried, in feigned distress. 
 
 There was no reply. I repeated the call in a shout that 
 brought the echoes hurrying down from the heights in the 
 rear. I was alone where I had fallen asleep. The sun was 
 not a couple of yards above the highest of the western hills. 
 I must have slept long and hard. I freed myself from the 
 motley coverlet, combed divers persistent leaves with my 
 fingers from my hair and whiskers, and sought for my hat in 
 the debris. It was set spikily with the stiff stemmed "crown- 
 iewels," until there was not room to thrust another under 
 the band. An enormous bouquet of the same was pinned 
 in my button-hole. I had bracelets and leg-bangles of 
 golden-rod tied with tough grass.
 
 268 MY LITTLE LOVE. 
 
 Verily, my guardian fairy had made good use of her time 
 and the depth of my siesta ! I was surveying my numerous 
 nd ingenious adornments when a peal of laughter betrayed 
 the artificer's lurking-place. 
 
 Peeping around the thick trunk of the chestnut, she sang 
 out, mockingly 
 
 " Robin Redbreast, painful/y, 
 Did cover him with leaves." 
 
 Leaving her covert she danced around me, delighting in the 
 success of the trick, and not unlike a saucy robin in her 
 scarlet sacque and russet skirt. 
 
 "You can't think how interesting you looked! Do you 
 always sleep so soundly ? You didn't budge even when I 
 put on your bracelets. It was Rip Van Winkle over. again. 
 You might not have waked up in twenty years if I hadn't 
 tickled your nose. Here's the fellow that did it ! " showing a 
 long switch with a bunch of grass tied on the end. " How 
 you did slap at him ! " 
 
 Overcome by the recollection, she sank down to laugh 
 until the tears started. 
 
 " Ailsie ! " I uttered, solemnly. " Did you ever hear of a 
 woman named Delilah ? " 
 
 " Thought of her all the time 1 was dressing you up, and 
 burying you alive ! " she declared. " If I could have found 
 seven green withs long enough to bind your hands and feet, 
 you would have had harder work to get out of your patch- 
 work shroud. Let this be a lesson to you, young gentleman, 
 not to trust the feminine sect ! "
 
 M Y LITTLE L VE. 269 
 
 " Well ! what do you think of Eden ? " inquired Aunt 
 Evy, that evening, when we had displayed our spoils of 
 nuts, flowers and painted leaves. 
 
 I glanced at Ailsie, who, nowise disconcerted, made a 
 grimace of defiance. 
 
 " I liked Eden," I responded, slowly and mournfully. 
 "I had no fault to find with it, nor with Eve, until she 
 tricked and betrayed me." 
 
 " Fifty-one, fifty-two ! " counted Ailsie dropping her nuts 
 into a tin pan. " So, I am Eve am I ? Fifty-three, fifty- 
 four. Good enough ! I expected to be called the serpent ! "
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 HOW ONE PROMISE WAS KEPT. 
 
 HE three coldest days I have felt within my 
 recollection fell on Thanksgiving Thursdays. 
 One of these, the 2 7th of November, 18 , 
 is still remembered in the Northern and 
 Middle States by the elders of this generation, as 
 having been exceptionally and most unexpectedly 
 severe. 
 
 It had snowed all day of the 25th. The 26th 
 was cloudy and " soft," the foot of snow packing 
 hard of its own weight, as it grew " soggy." We arose on 
 Thursday morning to find it frozen solid by brisk north- 
 west winds. The sky was like pale-blue glass, the air crisp 
 and sparkling. But nobody spoke of unusual cold until after 
 the nine o'clock bells had rung for the early service which 
 was reckoned a convenience in some churches on account 
 of the rush outward from the city in later trains, thousands 
 seeking the homes of their rustic forbears on this, if on no 
 other anniversary. 
 
 I was the solitary representative of my father's household 
 at church, that forenoon, and, instead of sustaining the
 
 M Y LITTLE LOVE. 2^l 
 
 family reputation in our own pew, I occupied a corner in a 
 roomy and more cheerful one in the sanctuary in which the 
 Darlings worshipped. Pressley and his wife were there and 
 welcomed me with silent cordiality, as I entered the seat. 
 Robby, now a fine urchin of six, smiled broadly and reached 
 a chubby hand to me across his father's knee. We four sat 
 out the simple, fervent service, in company, but I, at least, iu 
 less thankfulness and content than if the vacant place at my 
 side had been filled as I hoped and expected it would be. 
 Ailsie's right to sit by me, to sing from the same hook, and, 
 after service, to walk hand-in-hand with me to her father's 
 door, was so well-established by precedent that nobody 
 thought of remarking upon it. 
 
 I had come to church in a. pleasant as I believed, a 
 devotional mood, that Thanksgiving day. Six months be- 
 fore, I had, thanks to the influence of friends Mr. Darling 
 among them: been appointed to a responsible position in a 
 large hospital. Every day since had made its mark upon 
 my life. For the first time I had the opportunity to grapple 
 at close quarters with disease, and wrestle with it unhindered 
 by interference from those who, I could not but suspect 
 often, and sometimes know, were more unfit to dictate than 
 was I to act. I had been singularly successful. Men of 
 wisdom and experience in the profession began to speak of 
 it to me and to others. My patients were grateful and 
 showed me that they were. I loved my work. It was 
 prospering in my hands. It was meet that I should devote 
 some portion of this holiday and holidays were rare with
 
 272 MY LITTLE L O VE. 
 
 me to acknowledgments to Him who had brought me by 
 large and gracious paths to an outlook so encouraging. 
 
 I was disappointed by Ailsie's absence. I had engaged 
 to meet her at church and dine at her father's. And I had 
 a story to tell her of the rapid improvement of a child who 
 had been brought to the hospital ten days ago. She was a 
 pretty little thing, just Ailsie's age, her malady, a painful 
 affection of the hip. In the appealing yet trustful regards 
 of her dark eyes, in her courage, docility and innate refine- 
 ment, she had brought my little love to my mind many 
 times. I had talked to her of Ailsie, when I had a spare 
 minute in which I could sit by her and try to cheat her into 
 forgetfulness of suffering ; had promised that she would send 
 her books and flowers, perhaps write to her a charming note, 
 such as I had from her every few days. I had even showed 
 her the ambrotype set in a locket, which I always carried 
 in my breast-pocket, attached to a chain of silky-brown hair, 
 with an occasional thread of gold flashing through the 
 braid. I had begged for the picture, and had it set. The 
 chain was my birthday present. For somebody remembered 
 and made festival upon my birthdays now. 
 
 " She looks sorrowful somehow out of her eyes," Abby 
 had said, after a protracted scrutiny of the miniature. 
 
 "She is merry as the day is long," I answered quickly. 
 
 Others had made a similar comment upon the pictured 
 eyes. One sentimental cousin of mine had stated oracularly, 
 ' that a lurking melancholy and far-off gaze in the eye were 
 universally regarded as a presage of early and violent death."
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 2 73 
 
 and cited Charles I. and Major Andre as examples of the 
 truth of the sign. 
 
 I had never admired the sentimental cousin, and after this 
 speech, I mentally added a want of common sense and tact 
 to the list of her imperfections. 
 
 I did not like Abby's criticism and my accent probably 
 betrayed my distaste, for she said : " I beg your pardon ! " 
 in her old-womanish way and hastened to tell me that she 
 " was sure from looking at her that the young lady was 
 beautiful and good." 
 
 " She is not a young lady yet," I smiled. " She will not 
 be ten years old until Christmas Eve. But she is good, and 
 to my eyes beautiful. She is my dearest friend, for all she is 
 so young." 
 
 " Christmas Eve ! " repeated the sick child, eagerly. 
 " Folks born on Christmas Eve can never see ghosts. My 
 grandmother used to say so." 
 
 " My little friend will be glad to hear that," said I, laugh- 
 ing. " For, between you and me, she is easily frightened. 
 I dare say she was brave enough naturally, but she has had 
 two or three bad shocks. One from a drunken man, another 
 during a thunderstorm. These have shaken her nerves a 
 little. But she will outgrow all that. You young people get 
 over many things that older ones could not bear." 
 
 " Where is Ailsie ? " was my inquiry of her father before 
 we left the pew, after the benediction. " Is Aunt Evy 
 worse ? " 
 
 "On the contrary, she is remarkably comfortable. But 
 12*
 
 2 74 MY LITTLE LOVES 
 
 Wynant was in town, visiting his Dulcinea, on Monday, and 
 insisted on taking Ailsie back with him. He wanted to 
 teach her how to skate. She wanted to learn and her grand- 
 parents wanted to see her, so we let her go upon condition 
 that she should be home again in season to eat her thanks- 
 giving dinner with us. The supposition that she could be 
 storm-stayed for three days at this season never occurred to 
 us. So heavy a fall of snow in November is phenomenal in 
 this latitude." 
 
 In the church porch we were met by a breeze that cut 
 like a razor. A steady wind swept down the street not 
 blusteringly but with even persistence that was more cruel. 
 A thermometer hung without the door of the nearest drug- 
 shop, and Pressley stepped aside to consult it. 
 
 " A fall of twenty degrees in an hour-and-a-half ! " he said 
 with a whistle. " Sharp work that ! " 
 
 Aunt Evy met us in the hall when we got home pale and 
 anxious. 
 
 " You don't imagine that harum-scarum boy Wynant will 
 think of bringing Ailsie across the country in this fierce 
 weather, do you ? " she asked of her brother-in-law. 
 
 He looked actually vexed at the suggestion. 
 
 " Give my father and mother credit for some grains of 
 common sense, if Wynant is hare-brained and in love ! " he 
 said. " Do you think that they would trust the child in an 
 open sleigh, for a thirty-mile drive with the thermometer 
 below zero ? " 
 
 Miss Mart drew a relieved breath.
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 275 
 
 " I might have been sure of that, for myself. But recol- 
 lecting that Wynant is in love with our fair neighbor, and 
 presumably supplied with inward heat enough to enable him 
 to attempt the north-west passage without danger of freezing, 
 and how positively Ailsie promised to dine with us to-day 
 But there is no rhyme or reason, which is rarer in torment- 
 ing you as I have tormented myself ever since the mercury 
 of the thermometer in the library began to fall. What a 
 bitter day for Thanksgiving ! Heaven pity the poor, and 
 those who travel by sea or land ! " 
 
 There were roaring fires in both parlors and in the dining- 
 room, which was en suite with them. Sitting about the 
 hearth in the front room, we could see the glitter of the 
 flames in three fire-places, and reflected in as many mirrors. 
 Yet the ladies sent for shawls and kept the children between 
 them, as near the grate as they dared push them without 
 scorching their holiday attire, while Pressley and I checked 
 ourselves every few minutes in the act of rubbing our hands 
 as we had been obliged to do in the street to maintain 
 equable circulation. The wind got into the house and at us 
 through a hundred hitherto unsuspected chinks and cracks. 
 There were icy rills of draughts that crept down the backs 
 of our necks, and boldly nipping airs that wrung our noses 
 to the sneezing-point, and others still that played the mis- 
 chief with our toes. 
 
 It was not until Pressley had visited the cellar in person 
 to adjust every valve below and opened every register on the 
 first floor, and the waves of invisible heat almost out-roared the
 
 276 MY LITTLE L VE. 
 
 flames in the chimney, that we could, with the most amiable 
 desire to seem comfortable, begin to talk of anything except 
 the terrific weather. 
 
 " It was kind in you to come to us in spite of Ailsie's 
 absence," said Aunt Evy, ceasing to chafe Robby's red fin- 
 gers and bidding him spread them for himself, before the blaze. 
 " Our chagrin at her non-arrival would have been redoubled 
 had you also failed us. Dear little Chippy ! much as we miss 
 her, not one of us feels the trial as she does. She left all man- 
 ner of messages with me for you. One was that she " didn't 
 believe she could have gone even to grandpa's, had she not 
 been sure that you could not get off from the hospital before 
 Thursday." 
 
 " I told her so, on Sunday," I replied. " She forgets 
 nothing, and nobody." 
 
 "Certainly never her overgrown sweetheart," said her 
 father. " Were she one whit less affectionate to me, I could 
 find it in my heart to be jealous of you, sometimes. When 
 do you two mean to stop this farce of love-making ? She 
 will be a tall girl in a couple of years more. Before you 
 know it, she will pitch you adrift in favor of some callowling 
 of sweet seventeen, who is just convalescing from the 
 " goslings." 
 
 " I won't borrow trouble," I rejoined. " It will be time 
 enough, ' all around my hat to wear a green willow,' when 
 she jilts me. I shall give the green gosling a fight before I 
 abandon the field to him." 
 
 "Ailsie likes goslings," interjected Robby, intelligently
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 2^^ 
 
 intent upon our discourse, and quite equal to the theme. 
 " She had a tame one at Brightwood, in the summer-time. 
 She used to carry it about in her apron and pet it because it 
 had a lame foot, and the others pecked it, 'specially the banty 
 roosters. 1 guess it's turned to a great ugly goose by now." 
 
 " They will do it, dear ! " Aunt Evy stroked the face 
 turned from one to another in blank amaze at the shout of 
 laughter evoked by his innocent venture. " That's a very 
 common fault with goslings, you may tell Dr. Haye. They 
 won't stay nice and yellow, and downy." 
 
 " Like the callowling's beard," said I, ostentatiously caress- 
 ing my extremely satisfactory whiskers. "I am sorry that 
 you all have not a juster estimate of Ailsie's taste. But time 
 will vindicate it." 
 
 By the time the hands of the mantel clock pointed to 
 twelve, we were so far thawed out as to exhibit lively interest 
 in the movements of the sparsely scattered pedestrians, who 
 hurried by our windows, their shoulders and ears on a level, 
 and, oftener than not, both hands bound over the latter. 
 We were not yet so embruted by prosperity as to find food 
 for merriment in their misery. 
 
 " It is a matter for anxious speculation what can take them 
 abroad when all sensible people are supposed to be housed 
 for the day, making ready to devour their own or their 
 neighbor's turkey," philosophized Aunt Evy. " Hark ! there 
 are the first sleigh-bells I have heard in three hours. Who 
 but a lunatic or a native Nova Zemblan can be on pleasure 
 bent to-day ? "
 
 278 MY LITTLE L VS. 
 
 With one impulse of curiosity, we all crowded about the 
 window, for the bells were tinkling wildly, madly, through our 
 street. 
 
 I heard a groan, very like an imprecation, from Mr. Darl- 
 ing, before I had a view of a sleigh heaped with wolf-robes 
 drawn up to the curb-stone, and a figure alighting from it. 
 Yet I reached it first, dashed down the furs and lifted my 
 darling out in my arms. 
 
 " She's all right ! a perfect trump ! " cried Wynant, gayly. 
 " The gamiest little one ever made 1 " 
 
 I passed him in silence. I had no time or strength for 
 speech, for the weight I bore was limp and heavy as one 
 just dead. 
 
 " In here ! " gasped the mother from the parlor-door. 
 
 I laid her instead upon the sofa in her father's library as 
 the coldest room on that floor. With all my horrified haste 
 I could recollect how we had been hugging the fire for two 
 hours as the only source of comfort. The child's features 
 were muffled in a double veil. My hands trembled in tear- 
 ing it off. What should I see ? 
 
 Her eyes were open ; her face blenched into frosted blood- 
 lessness, her lips rigid and blue. But she looked at me ! I 
 saw this, although the others did not, and composure, at 
 which I now marvel, possessed me, quieted nerve almost 
 quelled apprehension. Professional instinct and address 
 rallied in support of my calmness. There are no more faith- 
 ful handmaidens of the will, when they have been cultivated 
 into a second nature.
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 279 
 
 " She is conscious ! " I said. " She will be better soon. 
 Mr. Darling, will you help me carry her up to bed at once ? 
 Let nobody but her mother come with us." 
 
 Wynant was sobbing like a big baby when, at two o'clock, I 
 carried the tidings down-stairs that Ailsie had passed from the 
 paroxysm of dumb nausea succeeding the deadly chill, into 
 natural warmth and sleep, and that, while lapsing into this, 
 she had been induced to swallow a few spoonfuls of hot soup. 
 
 Aunt Evy had been striving to console the author of the 
 mischief, herself pallid as a ghost, wan and aged as by a 
 month's illness. 
 
 " Is she out of danger ? " she asked of me, directly, her 
 eyes compelling the truth. 
 
 " I hope I believe so. Unless inflammation and fever 
 should supervene." 
 
 " Don't say there is a doubt of it ! " groaned Wynant, 
 dropping his head again into his hands. " If you don't want 
 me to go out and hang myself ! Or blow out my brains ! " 
 
 " Perhaps before you indulge in either recreation, you will 
 be kind enough to tell us how you reconciled it with your 
 conscience to risk the child's life to gratify your own selfish 
 desires ! " said his brother, severely, beginning to pace the 
 room with great strides. 
 
 We all understood what Pressley"s carpet and lawn 
 promenades meant, and the gleaming eyes that went with 
 the compressed lips. 
 
 Wynant was too humble to take offence ; very grateful 
 for the opportunity to explain that he was less culpable than
 
 28o MY LITTLE LOVE. 
 
 would appear from circumstantial evidence. He had at- 
 tempted to fulfil his engagement to bring Ailsie home on the 
 preceding day. The roads were well broken for sleighs for 
 a couple of miles beyond his father's outer gates. There 
 was no misgiving, even in the mind of the prudent old squire, 
 of any probable difficulty in making the thirty miles in five 
 hours. Accordingly, Wynant left the farm-house door at 
 eleven o'clock in the forenoon, with his precious charge, in 
 a strong sleigh with two excellent horses. Before they had 
 gone three miles, they ran into a heavily-drifted road over 
 which nothing but a few wheeled vehicles had passed since 
 the snowstorm. The horses had to walk every step, 
 floundering badly at times, and often stopping to rest. The 
 damp snow clogged their feet, and the runners, and the 
 climax of impediments was reached in the crushing of an 
 iron stay running across the bottom of the cutter, by violent 
 collision with a stone buried out of sight in the drift. 
 
 The passengers were thrown out, but fortunately escaped 
 injury. The horses behaved well, and Wynant did not lose 
 hold of the reins. Laying a fur robe over the back of the 
 gentler horse of the two, he brushed the snow from Ailsie' s 
 cloak, and set her upon the improvised saddle, holding her 
 in her place while with the other arm he guided the obedient 
 animal. In this awkward style, with the broken sleigh drag- 
 ging at the horses' heels, they tramped for a mile down a 
 side-road to his brother Richard's house. Once there, the 
 aspect of their fortunes was changed. They were warmly 
 received, and the series of mischances that had cast them
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 281 
 
 upon the hospitality of their entertainers was declared to be 
 a providential interposition in favor of the latter. The sleigh 
 was repaired by night-fall at the nearest blacksmith's. The 
 brothers enjoyed a family confabulation over their pipes in 
 the evening, and Ailsie was merry with her favorite Rick and 
 a host of younger cousins. All agreed that the sleighing would 
 be much finer on the morrow and that they could, as Wynant 
 phrased it, " slip down to the city in less than no time." 
 
 With the morning and the changed temperature arose 
 serious deliberations as to the expediency of continuing the 
 interrupted journey. 
 
 " I won't deny that I wanted to get on for my own sake," 
 said the young uncle, coloring. " But you must believe me 
 all of you when I declare that I should not have budged 
 a foot in a month, if I had had the most distant fear of what 
 has happened. Ailsie was in a suppressed agony of impa- 
 tience to be off. She was too anxious as to the result of the 
 discussions pro and con, to eat her breakfast, or to speak 
 one uncalled-for word. When it was, at last, decided that 
 we should wait an hour or two to see whether the extreme 
 cold would not abate, she waylaid me in the hall, and begged, 
 as for her life, that we might set out immediately. 
 
 "'I wouldn't miss Thanksgiving-day at home, for one thou- 
 sand dollars,' she said. ' It drives me wild to think of their 
 all sitting down to the table at dinner, with my empty chair 
 staring them in the face. It will be almost as bad as if I 
 were dead. You don't know how fast and firm I promised 
 to be there, Uncle Wy ! I said to Aunt Evy " I shall be
 
 282 MY LITTLE LOVE. 
 
 home on Thanksgiving if I have to crawl all the way on my 
 hands and knees." They can't help being uneasy, after that, 
 if I don't come. Mamma will be miserable. She will think 
 I'm sick or that something dreadful has happened. She 
 knows I never break my word to her. And what's to hurt 
 me? Uncle Richard and Aunt Sophy don't know how 
 strong I am, and that I never mind the cold. Ifs perfectly 
 glorious weather and we will have a jolly jaunt. Uncle Rich- 
 ard says himself that the sleighing is superb.' 
 
 "You know how she said it ! Her fingers punishing one 
 another, nervously, her eyes speaking as eloquently as her 
 tongue, her face alive with such beseeching as would turn the 
 heart of a nether mill-stone. There is no use talking about 
 it ! She could wheedle me out of my eyes if she chose to 
 try the experiment. What she urged seemed reasonable too. 
 I took a turn around the house to try the air for myself. It was 
 very cold, but the sun was bright, and the wind gave no sign of 
 rising higher. Indeed, it had gone down within the last 
 hour. 
 
 " I returned to the sitting-room and told Sophy to get all 
 the bottles of hot water and blankets she could spare and 
 pack Ailsie up for the ride, for 1 meant to eat my Thanks- 
 giving dinner in town. Of course there was a hubbub. 
 There always is over Ailsie. Knowing this, I, maybe, paid 
 less attention to it than I should have done. She was in 
 tip-top spirits. You wouldn't have thought she could ever 
 be cold again if you had seen her color and dancing eyes 
 when we got her into the sleigh at half-past nine.
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 283 
 
 "Rick couldn't get over what he chose to look upon as 
 her wilful desertion of him. 
 
 " ' Better change your mind at the last gasp !' he said lean- 
 ing on the side of the sleigh as I gathered up the reins. 
 ' That town-fellow doesn't care half as much for you as I do.' 
 
 " ' That shows how much mistaken a wise boy can be,' she 
 answered saucily. 
 
 " ' You won't see him to-day, at all events,' he went on. 
 ' I have a presentiment that he will be off pleasuring with 
 some other girl. He's a shifty chap, I know from his looks.' 
 
 " ' Speak more respectfully of your elders and superiors, 
 young man!' with immense dignity. 'Uncle Wy, we are 
 losing time, listening to \&* flummery!* 
 
 " 'You will be sorry for your hardness of heart when your 
 blood begins to freeze,' was Rick's parting shot. ' I shall 
 expect to see you back in less than an hour, crying with the 
 cold your lap full of tear-drops turned to ice.' 
 
 " ' I'll die before I'll complain ! ' she called out, and we 
 were off. 
 
 "The horses travelled finely, and driving kept me warmer, 
 no doubt, than she could be, sitting perfectly still, and so 
 bundled ap that she couldn't have moved if she had tried. I 
 proposed, several times, that we should stop and give up the 
 trip for to-day, or get out to warm, but she would not con- 
 sent to either plan. We did not talk much during the last 
 ten miles. The wind was keen in our teeth and took away 
 our breath when we opened our mouths. Now and then I 
 asked if she were comfortable, and had the same answer,
 
 2 84 MY LITTLE L VE. 
 
 always : ' I am doing very well, thank you ! ' The last time 
 I spoke to her it was ' Don't worry about me, please, Uncle 
 Wy!' 
 
 " How was I to guess that she was freezing, and hiding her 
 suffering ? " 
 
 Pressley still walked the floor with measured tread, but his 
 hand went up to his mouth again and again, during the latter 
 part of the narrative. 
 
 " The brave darling ! " murmured Aunt Evy, betwixt 
 smiles and tears. " There never was one of the name of 
 more heroic spirit, Pressley. We must not scold her when 
 she awakes " 
 
 For the second time that day he turned sharply upon her. 
 
 " What do you take me for ? Nobody but a brute could 
 blame her. She w.ould be faithful unto death, to her word, 
 and to those whom she loves. Forgive my hasty judgment 
 and words, Wynant. In your place I should have acted as 
 you did. But let it be a lesson to' us all for the future. No 
 more pledges from, or unreasonable demands upon her affec- 
 tion and conscience ! " 
 
 The early dinner was a success so far as cookery was con- 
 cerned. Conversation was as palpably a failure. Mr. Dar- 
 ling carved in absolute silence. Aunt Evy and Wynant 
 feigned to chat in a semi-confidential key. Nobody save 
 Robby and the wee sister brought to the feast an appetite 
 worthy of the name. 
 
 As for me, I was sick with a sort of nervous depression 
 hitherto unknown to me even in my early hospital training.
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 285 
 
 What-might-have-been was a chill shadow in which I cow- 
 ered, shivering and horror-stricken. Against rny will, I 
 rehearsed the scenes of the noon-tide. My first sight of the 
 sleigh and its occupants, the terror winging the steps that 
 outran even the father's frenzy. The awful weight of my 
 darling's helplessness as I lifted her from the seat a burden 
 that pressed hope out of my bosom on the passage to the 
 library ; the livid complexion and the fixed gaze of the large 
 eyes ; the stilled pulse in the limp wrist ; the gasp of pain 
 that marked the revival of circulation in limbs and heart. 
 
 Would these haunt me all night ? Would they follow me 
 into the dreams of years to come, always to gloom me with 
 the memory of the death that had so nearly been ? 
 
 " Excuse me, if you please ! " I said abruptly, when the 
 dessert was set on. 
 
 Ailsie's empty chair did not stare me in the face as she had 
 dreaded. Aunt Evy had privily ordered it to be removed, 
 and the gap filled up by scattering the rest on that side 
 farther apart. But her frost-white face floated between me 
 and my plate. I could not get away from the imagination of 
 the patient accents in which she must have said, with the mortal 
 agony upon her " Don't worry about me, Uncle Wy ! " 
 
 And he, in selfish absorption in his love-fancies, drawing 
 nearer to the woman he adored, with every stroke of his 
 horse's hoofs upon the rock-hard snow, remarked neither 
 patience nor pain. 
 
 "I'll die before I'll complain !" the dauntless little crea- 
 ture had engaged for herself. He had taken her at her word.
 
 286 MY LITTLE LOVE. 
 
 GOD might forgive him as he bent his handsome face toward 
 the woman of gentle face and heart beside him, and talked of 
 everyday topics in everyday tones, and sometimes with a 
 smile ! I never would. I did not want to judge him merci- 
 fully. He had showed no ruth to her tender years ; had not 
 been touched to pity and admiration by her fortitude. I 
 must insult him by word or blow if I did not get me out of his 
 presence. All were surprised when I arose with my blunt 
 request. I must have looked something of the savageness I 
 felt, for there was dismayed inquiry in Aunt Ev/s eyes as 
 she answered : 
 
 " Certainly, Barry, if you wish to leave us. Are you not 
 well ? " 
 
 " Quite well but not hungry ; I thought " softening 
 instinctively to her "that I would go up and relieve Mrs. 
 Darling. She will be faint. Moreover, I want to see how 
 my patient is getting on." 
 
 " He hasn't eaten a bit of plum-pudding or pumpkin pie. 
 And there's ice-cream coming ! " uttered Robby, with gaping 
 eyes and mouth. 
 
 Nobody smiled. I was not equal to so much as an attempt 
 to seem amused. 
 
 Wynant started up. "I say! can't I go in your place? 
 I'm not a doctor. But I ought to be doing something, or 
 going somewhere for her, you know." 
 
 I put him aside with a gesture that was sufficiently express- 
 ive, for they did not hinder me, after that. 
 
 Which was all I asked of them.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 WITCH-HAZEL. 
 
 HERE was a window upon the landing of the 
 stairs. I paused there for a moment. The 
 pale-blue sky was yellow and hard at the 
 lower edge, where a frozen-looking sun was 
 taking leave of the world he had done so little to 
 benefit, that day. The wind had fallen, but the 
 cruel cold held fast to all it had made its own 
 during the eight hours of its reign. The snow 
 sparkled with millions of freshly-formed crystals ; 
 the icicles fringing eaves and gutters had not 
 dripped from morning until evening. 
 
 " ' Who can stand before His cold ? '" I repeated, involun- 
 tarily. 
 
 View and quotation incensed me the more against the 
 handsome scaramouch I had left down-stairs. The impatient 
 muttering with which I turned from the casement had noth- 
 ing to do with Holy Writ. 
 
 Mrs. Darling opened the chamber-door at my low tap, 
 and when I had satisfied her, after brief inspection of the 
 sleeper, that she was doing well, she yielded to my wish that 
 she should leave me in charge.
 
 288 MY LITTLE LOVE. 
 
 At last, I could be quiet enough for thought and for the 
 analyzation of feelings the might and tumult of which 
 bewildered me. At last I said it with exultation that 
 trenched upon fierceness I had- my darling all to my- 
 self. 
 
 I took the chair vacated by her mother, and watched her 
 in the fast-fading light of the winter afternoon. She lay in 
 an attitude that was inexpressibly graceful, her face turned 
 toward me, her hand under her cheek. The waves of dark 
 hair swept away from her forehead, and the noble contour of 
 head and features was thrown into relief by the white pillow. 
 " Peerless," I had named her long ago. Seeing her thus ; 
 recalling her gifts of mind, heart and manner ; dwelling, 
 until my heart swelled to aching, upon her heroism, her fond 
 faithful love, manifested so clearly, and for so long toward 
 me the truth unfolded itself to me. I deceived myself no 
 longer I never could delude my heart again with the belief 
 that the affection I bore her was, as her father had styled it, 
 " a farce." The event of the day and the agitation it had 
 engendered within me the anguish of suspense, the joy of 
 relief, the indignation against the carelessness that had 
 endangered the precious life, the welling tide of tenderness 
 flowing toward her from the depths of my being, as I looked 
 upon her now, living, safe, and in my loving keeping, these 
 were revelations that needed no key. 
 
 Freely and minutely as I have related the rise and growth 
 of our two years' intimacy, and the many circumstances 
 that had combined to divide me from the associates I might
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 289 
 
 naturally have been expected to seek, and to bind me to my 
 stanch little ally, there are those among my readers who will 
 smile derisively when I say that, then and there, I knew be- 
 yond peradventure that, child or woman, this ten-year-old-girl 
 was made for me and I for her, and that in the conviction, my 
 whole soul went out to her in yearnings none other could 
 satisfy in allegiance never to be revoked. I bowed in the 
 presence of my new hope, my new joy, my new life, as before 
 the visible angel of blessing. I had stepped from the world 
 of formulated duty and conventional ambition into one where 
 love was law, where all I should hereafter be, or achieve, was 
 for love's sake. I anticipated, with thrilling pulses, the fresh 
 delight of watching the development of mind and character 
 into a glory of perfected womanhood such as the world 
 seldom sees ; the certain and closer knitting of the bands of 
 mutual affection. I thought how the dross and dregs of my 
 character must pass away in the association with a nature so 
 pure and fine as hers ; how, as all that was base in me now 
 stood rebuked before the holy light of her eyes, and what- 
 ever was worthy incited me to the attainment of such true 
 nobility as might justify her belief in and love for me, the 
 good work would the more surely go on until I became her 
 soul-mate. 
 
 In all my dreams there was no foreshadowing of a day 
 when she might shrink from me who had loved her always, 
 and for refuge from the might of a devotion she had not 
 fathomed because it had grown with her to strength and 
 maturity, into the arms of a younger, and gayer lover. I do
 
 290 MY LITTLE L O VE. 
 
 not comprehend why the fear was not there. Perhaps 
 because having been conscious of her growing nearness to me 
 during each succeeding month and week, I could not admit 
 the possibility of retrogression in a nature so true and stable. 
 
 Perhaps 
 
 " Has she slept quietly ? " The soft voice went through 
 me like a galvanic shock. 
 
 I had not heard Mrs. Darling enter. 1 had not observed 
 that the moon was shining in at the window, and that day- 
 light had gone. I could trace the outline of the pure face 
 upon the pillow, with its framing of dark hair. My eyes 
 and thoughts were for that alone. 
 
 " Yes," I said. " Most peacefully." 
 
 The mother laid her hand upon my shoulder. 
 
 " It terrifies me to think what mistakes we might have 
 made, how fatally misapplied restoratives, but for the seeming 
 accident of your being here. We can never thank Our 
 Heavenly Father as we should that you were with us to-day, 
 and retained your self-command, when we lost ours. Never 
 repay you for your great goodness to us and to her our 
 precious one ! " 
 
 " It is nothing ! less than nothing ! " responded I hastily. 
 
 It irked me that I should be thanked for services due and 
 joyfully rendered to my own. 
 
 " I question if even you appreciate how dear she is in our 
 sight," resumed Mrs. Darling, without withdrawing her gaze 
 from the pillowed head. " There has been something pecu- 
 liarly lovely and interesting about her from babyhood. At
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 291 
 
 least, to us. You must wonder sometimes at our apparent 
 favoritism." 
 
 This I could not bear. 
 
 " She is as dear to me," I said, curtly. " You do not 
 believe this, now " for she had turned her face to me in 
 mild surprise. "You will, some day !" 
 
 Not even a vague perception of my meaning could have 
 reached the mother's mind. Yet, her instincts touched to 
 natural alarm by my vehement speech, she leaned toward 
 the bed in silence, for an instant, the attitude of a bird 
 cherishing or protecting her young. 
 
 I had been recklessly imprudent, but the endeavor to re- 
 pair the mistake would only make it more palpable. I had 
 resigned my chair to Mrs. Darling and now stood at her 
 back, dreading yet longing for the next words. 
 
 She sat upright with a struggling sigh then a little laugh. 
 
 " And you will know better some day, Barry. No friend- 
 ship, however sincere and strong, can vie with parental 
 love." 
 
 As if aroused by the last word, the recumbent figure stirred 
 and spoke. 
 
 " Mamma dear ! is that you ? " 
 
 I had stepped back to the head of the bed, out of eye- 
 range. 
 
 " I am not sick am I ? " was the next question. 
 
 " No, my love. You were so cold and tired when you got 
 home, that we thought a long nap would be the best thing 
 for you. You are quite comfortable are you not ? "
 
 9 2 MY LITTLE LOVE. 
 
 " Yes, only my hands and feet burn and ache. Not very 
 badly, though. Mamma ! " fastening eagerly upon her hand, 
 and speaking in a low, awed tone. " I thought I should 
 never get home alive. The cold was fearful ! I kept pray- 
 ing, constantly, after Uncle Wy said we were half-way to 
 town, that GOD would let me see you again, and help me 
 not to Complain. By the time we got in sight of the church- 
 steeples, I felt the cold creeping up to my heart. I knew if 
 it touched that I must die, and I tried hard to keep it warm 
 by thinking of you all and loving you with all my might. GOD 
 is very good ! " 
 
 A pause neither of the listeners could end. 
 
 "Mamma!" spoke the sweet tones again. "Did I 
 dream it, or was Mr. Barry here when we stopped at the 
 door? I thought he brought me into the house. I couldn't 
 speak. Something ailed my tongue. But it seemed to me 
 that I heard his voice and saw his face." 
 
 " You did, dear." The poor mother strove in vain to 
 answer steadily. " But for him, we should hardly have 
 known what to do for . you, you were so chilled and weak. 
 Here he is now, as thankful as are the rest of us to see you 
 so much better." 
 
 The darling held up her mouth for a kiss, retained my 
 hand and motioned me to a seat on the side of the bed. 
 
 " I was certain you would dine with us on Thanksgiving 
 Day ! " she said in tranquil satisfaction. " I told Rick you 
 never broke your word to me. I kept my promise, too. 
 That was right, wasn't it ? " struck by our significant silence.
 
 MY LITTLE L VE. 2 93 
 
 "Mamma! I ought to have come, oughtn't I, when I had 
 promised '? Mr. Barry ! was I wrong to beg Uncle Wy to 
 bring me ? " 
 
 " You are never wrong ? " I pressed the hot hands to my 
 lips. " But we will not trust you in the country in the 
 winter again. You shall tell us about your visit, by-and-by. 
 I am going to send papa up to you, now. He wanted to 
 be called as soon as you were awake." 
 
 We had a lively evening, after all. Ailsie was dressed 
 and brought down to the parlor in her father's arms, where 
 she lay in high state, on a sofa, drawn into the centre of the 
 room. We took tea about her, Robby and baby having 
 theirs upon a broad cricket on the hearth-rug. Our queen's 
 eyes were brilliant with enjoyment, taking in every feature 
 of the novel grouping. Her laugh rang out happy and 
 mischievous by turns, as she talked with the children, or 
 bandied repartee with her father and uncle. To me she was 
 winning and loving beyond her wont, beckoning me to the 
 place of honor at the back of her lounge, within reach of her 
 hand, then inquiring, as an anxious second thought, if I 
 would take cold there with her between me and the fire ? 
 
 One and all, we waited upon her obsequiously. Her 
 father fed her from his cup and plate ; her mother tempted 
 her with mention of dainties not upon the tea-board. Aunt 
 Evy, looking somewhat worn by the agitations of the after- 
 noon, sat ir> her sight with responsive smile and love-word 
 whenever her " twin's " glance fell upon her. 
 
 Wynant went far to reinstate himself in my good graces by
 
 294 MY LITTLE LOVE. 
 
 his reception of the news that his niece was able to join the 
 family circle, and his unbounded joy at seeing her again. 
 His inamorata, who was not yet his betrothed, lived in the 
 next street, and was presumably at home, since she knew 
 of his intention to dine at his brother's on Thanksgiving 
 Day. Yet he lingered with us until nearly nine o'clock, 
 and it really appeared doubtful whether he would have gone 
 then, but for Aunt Evy's direct advice that he should pay his 
 respects an 1 offer the compliments of the season to the 
 expectant fair one. 
 
 " You are certain, Ailsie, woman, that you haven't the 
 tiniest bit of a grudge laid up against me in some back 
 corner of your blessed little heart ?" he returned to the par- 
 lor to say after putting on his overcoat. 
 
 Ailsie showed her white teeth in a merry smile. 
 
 " You are behind the times, Uncle Wy. There are no 
 back corners in my well-regulated young lady's heart. It's 
 all front windows, plate-glass, and gas-fixtures inside, so that 
 you can see clear through. But I see what you are at. 
 You're trying to hint me into saying that I oughtn't to have 
 brought your delicate self across the country in such weather. 
 It's likely somebody else will think so, too. Tell her it was 
 entirely my fcult. That you begged and prayed me to let 
 you stay at your brother's where you were enjoying yourself, 
 but I forced you to come, whether you would or not. 
 That's a nice beginning for your evening's talk. I have 
 heard gentlemen say it was half the battle to get the con- 
 versation handsomely started."
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 295 
 
 " I wish " said Wynant threateningly, when the laugh at 
 his expense had subsided " that I had upset you in a 
 dozen snow-drifts instead of one. Let me but get you in a 
 sleigh once more ! " 
 
 " I'd rather be where I am ! " remarked Ailsie, to me, 
 nestling down among her cushions, with a sigh of exquisite 
 comfortableness, as a puff of cold air penetrated to the warm 
 parlor from the front door, opened by the departing suitor. 
 " This is deliciously snug and lovely. It is almost worth 
 while to be half-frozen, now and then, to learn how to enjoy 
 home and big fires, and people taking tea sociably about 
 one's lazy self. Take it altogether, I am not sorry I went 
 to grandpa's. I had a delightful visit. I never saw the 
 country in winter before. I like it. The gray rocks 
 and brown fields ; the straight solemn trees, with, may be, 
 three or four bunches of ragged leaves hanging on the 
 branches, and the blackish hemlocks and rusty, obstinate- 
 looking cedars were not exactly beautiful, of course. But 
 they were interesting. Then the wind at night was grand ! 
 You might have thought yourself at the sea-shore in a storm, 
 as you lay awake, listening to it in the grove behind the 
 house. But the most curious thing was to hear the river 
 groan all night long. You needn't laugh, Mamma ! It 
 really did ! It was tight-frozen, and you could hear the groan 
 begin away up as far as the bridge, and run all the way 
 down, until, I suppose, it moaned itself out." 
 
 "Whales?" suggested round-eyed Robby, squeezing be- 
 tween his mother and aunt to get near the story-teller.
 
 296 MY LITTLE LOVE. 
 
 Ailsie smoothed his hair affectionately, laughing at what 
 she considered a bright idea of her small brother's. 
 
 " No, dear ! But it sounded very alive ! I was quite 
 vexed when grandpa told me it was wind under the ice that 
 made it. It was the queerest noise, Aunt Evy ! It made 
 shivers run through me. I wouldn't think about the air bub- 
 bling under the ice and trying to get out, after I went to bed. 
 It was nice and horrible to imagine that it was the poor 
 water-spirits moaning in their prison for the air and sunshine. 
 It reminded me of Ariel shut up in the tree. When his 
 groans made the wolves howl, you know." 
 
 " In the name of reason," said Mr. Darling, glancing from 
 one to another with a frown of perplexity, half earnest, half 
 comic. "Are you all in a conspiracy to crack this child's 
 brain ? What business has she to know anything about 
 Ariel, or even that such a man as Shakspeare ever lived ? " 
 
 " That is a question for you to answer," returned Miss 
 Marr, quietly. " She made acquaintance with him in your 
 library. Under your eye, she tells me." 
 
 "You said I might look at the book, papa," explained 
 Ailsie. " The heavy Shakspeare with so many pictures in it." 
 
 " Which pictures were the attraction, as I supposed," said 
 Mr. Darling, sighing like one beyond his depth. " That a 
 monkey like you would sit curled up in the corner of a sofa, 
 poring, half the evening, over anything else in the volume, 
 never entered my head. And, pray, Miss Darling, what 
 have you read in my heavy Shakspeare besides ' The Tem- 
 pest?'"
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 297 
 
 " Midsummer Night's Dream, papa. And Romeo and 
 Juliet. And the Comedy of Errors. Hamlet I began, but 
 let go when I got to the ghost. I can't endure scary stories. 
 Oh ! and Julius Caesar." 
 
 " In spite of dead Caesar's ghost ! " interposed her father, 
 " Go on ! " 
 
 " That is about all, papa. Except that 1 dipped into 
 Richard Third." 
 
 " And waded a short distance into Henry Fifth, with a 
 sprinkle of each of the other kings ? " 
 
 " Not yet ! " with a sparkle of arch defiance. Then, in 
 serious simplicity: "You don't really object, papa? I 
 thought all wise scholars liked to read Shakspeare." 
 
 " It is too early for my lady-bird to be a wise scholar." 
 The father put back the hair from her forehead, smiling half- 
 mournftilly. " Mother Goose would be safer reading for you 
 yet awhile." 
 
 " There are as silly things in Shakspeare as in Mother 
 Goose," affirmed Ailsie, stoutly. "Just hear this ! 
 
 ' You spotted snakes with double tongue, 
 
 Thorny hedge- hogs, be not seen ; 
 Newts and blind-worms, do no wrong, 
 Come not near our fairy queen. 
 Philomel with melody 
 Sing in our sweet lullaby, 
 Lulla, lulla, lullaby; lulla, lulla, lullaby.' 
 
 There's just as much poetry in 
 
 ' London Bridge is broken down, 
 
 Dance light, my lady gay. 1 
 13*
 
 298 MY LITTLE LOVE. 
 
 And as for it's being a fairies' song and a lullaby it was 
 enough to keep Titania awake all night to hear of so many 
 crawly creatures when she was going to sleep on the 
 ground, too ! " 
 
 Encouraged by the unusually active part his sister was 
 taking in the general conversation, Robby put in his oar : 
 
 " Mother Goose is splendid, / think. All but Old Mother 
 Morey. That is a cheat." 
 
 " I don't know about that," said Ailsie, eagerly. " There's 
 a deal to be got out of her. So much to make up stories 
 about. There used to be a picture of her in my Mother 
 Goose the first one I ever had. An old lady with a cap 
 with a wide border, and a blue apron on, sitting in an arm- 
 chair. Her brother was in another chair on the other side 
 of the house-door. He was a meek, bald little man with a 
 stick in his hand, and round shoulders. It always seemed 
 to me that she must have hen-pecked him. The story may 
 have been about that. Or, she was a very respectable old 
 lady, and he wasn't. You could make-believe no end of 
 things about them." 
 
 " That is a novel notion to me that anything could be 
 made out of Mother Morey," said Mrs. Darling. " Like 
 Robby, I have always regarded her as a cheat, and her 
 brother as another of the same sort." 
 
 Ailsie colored quickly and diffidently. 
 
 " It's all make-believe, of course, mamma," she said, de- 
 precatingly. " But it does seem as if there are lots of fun 
 and good times in the world as well as in books, if people
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 299 
 
 would take the trouble to hunt them up. Beautiful and 
 curious things, too ! " 
 
 " Witch-hazel ! " said Aunt Evy, aside. 
 
 Ailsie caught the words, but not the meaning, and sub- 
 sided into studious silence. She had a way of going into 
 retirement with a new idea, as a squirrel carries off a nut to 
 his hole to pick out the meat undisturbed. 
 
 By-and-by, taking advantage of a brisk discussion between 
 her father, mother, and aunt, relative to some date of family 
 history, she appealed softly to me : 
 
 "Isn't it a hazel-rod they carry to show where water is 
 under the ground ? " 
 
 " Yes. And hid treasure. That is the superstition." 
 
 "Then I don't understand what Aunt Evy meant. Do 
 you ? " 
 
 I smiled. " I think I do." 
 
 " Will you tell me ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 "When?" 
 
 I stooped to say it in her ear : 
 
 " In eight years from to-night, Ailsie. Do not forget to 
 ask me, then!"
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 MY ORIOLE. 
 
 HREE-quarters of the first of the eight years 
 had gone. It was the first week of Septem- 
 ber. The Darlings had been at Brightwood 
 since the middle of June, and I had visited 
 them but twice ; once on the glorious Fourth, and 
 again for one restful Sabbath in August. But the 
 wearisome lane had turned at last. I was to have 
 a fortnight's vacation from sick-beds and city 
 streets, every day of which I designed to spend 
 with my best friends. 
 
 This time they knew of my coming. At the half-mile bend 
 that led the highroad in the opposite direction from Bright- 
 wood, a curricle was waiting for me in the shade of an oak, 
 a low-hung, cozy conveyance, with a sober roadster in the 
 shafts, and seated within, holding the reins, with neither 
 driver nor groom in sight, was Ailsie. 
 
 I could sketch her now, as she appeared to me at the sud- 
 den whirl of the stage out of a wooded piece of road into the 
 cleared plain. The bloom of her pink lawn dress and rib- 
 bons of the same hue on her broad- brimmed "flat," made a
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 301 
 
 pretty dash of color in the monotone of September green. 
 The wavering lights piercing the tree-boughs dappled her 
 skirts and hat. And the face under the straw brim was the 
 rarest bit of moulding and tinting my eyes had rested upon 
 since she blessed them last. She waved me no welcome. 
 Her countenance did not change from its grave serenity. 
 Touching her horse lightly with the whip, she drove forward 
 when the coach moved off not before meeting me half- 
 way between the oak and the public road. The coach was 
 full, inside and out, and I comprehended that she would not 
 be made a spectacle of, or have our re-union commented 
 upon by coarse or indifferent spectators. The color rose to 
 her cheek ; the lips unbent gladly in giving me her hand 
 over the side of the curricle. Her eyes said a world of sweet 
 and nameless things ; were lustrous with proud satisfaction ; 
 completeness of joy that needed not the endorsement of lip- 
 language. 
 
 " You were good to come for me, Cherie" I said stepping 
 into my place. 
 
 " I would not have let anybody else come," she rejoined, 
 brightly. " 1 learned to drive on purpose. And kept it for 
 a surprise for you. Now, you should say that you are sur- 
 prised." 
 
 "Never more in my life!" I affirmed. "I shall expect 
 to see you an Amazon yet. Your Arab steed is quite safe 
 is he?" 
 
 "He isn't a particle steed-y !" flicking him with the lash 
 to prove his imperturbability. " He is only very plain Jack.
 
 32 MY LITTLE LOVE. 
 
 Born and bred to the plough except when he went to church 
 on Sunday. But for the looks of the thing we might as well 
 drive an old cow. Safe ! That's no word for his stupidity. 
 I don't believe he ever threw his heels up and his head down 
 even when he was a colt. He only stood on the sunny side 
 of the fence with a straw in his mouth, all day long." 
 
 He went as fast as I cared to have him, at present. The 
 road was a tolerably smooth track, up-hill most of the way ; 
 an evergreen wood on one side, chestnuts and oaks on the 
 other. Little brooks all silver and foam leaped down the 
 bank and ran laughing across the road to throw themselves 
 down the steeper headland of the lake. The familiar smell 
 of resinous boughs ; the fresh air from the water \ the rest- 
 less play of the shadows and sunbeams upon green hillsides ; 
 the beautiful glooms of bosky gorges leading upward from 
 the road into the mountains, brought back Aunt Evy's jest 
 about the garden of Eden. As we drove along I began to 
 chant : 
 
 " O Paradise ! O Paradise ! 
 
 Who doth not crave for rest ? 
 Who would not seek the happy land 
 Where they that love are blest ? 
 Where loyal hearts and true 
 Stand ever in the light " 
 
 " That is Heaven ! " said Ailsie, when she had listened 
 thus far. 
 
 " Didn't you write to me that Brightwood was hearen upon
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 303 
 
 earth ? It is lovelier than ever, Ailsie ! I have dreamed of 
 it every night and day for a week past." 
 
 " You are going to give us your whole vacation aren't 
 you ? " she asked, solicitously. " The entire fortnight ? " 
 
 " Every day of it, Cherie I If you will let me stay. I am 
 very sure at this minute, that I shall never go away. It will 
 always be September and afternoon, and you and I are to 
 drive slowly on under the sweet-smelling trees, talking of 
 what pleases us and doesn't concern other people. That is 
 my idea of a vacation." 
 
 "You wouldn't object to Jack's going a little faster?" 
 
 " Jack is perfect in his way, my dear ! I am in the 
 humor for saying ' Blessed be idleness ! Long live sloth ! ' 
 Don't go in ! " seeing that our lively " steed " slackened his 
 already moderate speed in nearing the Brightwood gate. 
 " The sun is more than an hour high. Are you too tired to 
 make the turn of the lake ? " 
 
 " No " hesitating. " Not at all tired. I should like it 
 dearly. Ah ! there is Robby ! " beckoning joyfully. " Robby, 
 dear ! will you run to the house and tell mamma that I have 
 gone to ride with Mr. Barry and that we shall be home in 
 good time for tea ? You see " she added, when we had 
 driven off " I was afraid she might be uneasy at my staying 
 out so long, if she supposed I had only gone to the corner 
 to meet the stage." 
 
 " Thoughtful little woman ! " I said, in genuine admiration. 
 
 The sudden blush Aunt Evy had described as " one of her 
 tricks," warmed her face.
 
 304 MY LITTLE LOVE. 
 
 i 
 " You would not say that if you knew ! That is Aunt 
 
 Evy*s way, not mine thinking of other people first. I feel 
 dreadfully about it, sometimes, when I forget. When, for 
 instance, I sit still with my book in a rocking-chair and let 
 mamma take one that isn't so pleasant. Or, let her wait on 
 herself when she wants something out of another room, or 
 maybe up-stairs. Aunt Evy says I'll get over it when I am 
 older. That young people are more thoughtless than selfish. 
 That she has nothing to do but lie still and think how she 
 can help others. I wish one could be good without having 
 to suffer beforehand. Aunt Evy says Pain is GOD'S most 
 skilful teacher. I was born a coward. I'm terribly afraid 
 of pain ! " 
 
 " So are all who have sound, healthy bodies. The very 
 fulness of life makes the idea of suffering ' terrible.' Don't 
 distress yourself with the notion that it is cowardly. It 
 would be unnatural if you liked to think of the possibility 
 that the discipline of sorrow and sickness may be yours 
 some day." 
 
 We drove so slowly that Jack must have enjoyed the jaunt 
 almost as much as ourselves. But we talked very fast, each 
 having much to tell. It is difficult to believe now, remem- 
 bering her age, that she hearkened with intelligent sympathy 
 to details of professional struggles, ordeals and successes ; 
 that she was the solitary confidante of the fact that I was the 
 author of certain articles upon sanitary precautions in archi- 
 tecture, street-building, and in the daily life of the house- 
 hold, that were exciting some talk in the metropolis, or that
 
 MY LH'TLE LOVE. 305 
 
 I had brought them, with the editorial remarks thereupon, 
 for her private reading. 
 
 " You are sure you have them all in your valise ? " she 
 queried, earnestly. " And you are really willing to trust them 
 with me ? I will be very careful not to tear the least slip. 
 
 " It makes me feel very happy," she resumed, blushing 
 again, " to know that you are getting to be a distinguished 
 man. And that you care for silly me as much as ever. But 
 it is a great puzzle that you do." 
 
 " You don't know what nonsense you are talking, dear. 
 I am not ' distinguished.' The probability is that I never 
 shall be. And nothing nothing, Ailsie, in life or in death, 
 can ever change my love for you. Promise that you will 
 never doubt this ! " 
 
 My vehemence neither agitated nor surprised her. 
 
 " I always believe what you say," she replied, quietly. " I 
 could not endure to think that you could stop loving me. 
 But it is very good in you, all the same." 
 
 I had talked to her in our drive as to a woman. It was 
 the child who knocked at my door next morning to call out 
 that she was "going to feed the chickens in ten minutes, and 
 I must hurry down, if I wanted to see them in their morning 
 glory." 
 
 A frolicsome child, in the wild spirits that never bless full- 
 grown human beings before breakfast, she danced along the 
 path leading to the barn and poultry-yard, swinging her 
 basket of shelled corn around her head so dexterously as not 
 to spill a grain, brimful of mimicry and badinage.
 
 306 MY LITTLE LOVE. 
 
 11 Honor bright, now, doctor " she reserved the title for 
 her teazing moods. At other seasons I was still her " Mr. 
 Barry" " Honor bright, now ! Did you ever come so near 
 seeing the sun rise before ? " 
 
 " Not that I remember. But I have seen it set a thousand 
 times and more." 
 
 " And you are so ignorant of ' Nature's grand phenom- 
 enay ' as to imagine that you have only to read a sunset 
 backward, and you have a sunrise ? That's like 
 
 ' a citizen 
 Of credit and renown,' 
 
 who fancies there's nothing out of town worth seeing or 
 hearing about. Why, the dewdrops and the cobwebs are a 
 sight in themselves, if you are up in the morning early." 
 She sang as she waltzed : 
 
 " Now summer dews are on the grass, 
 
 Hanging pure and pearly, 
 And morning moments quickly pass, 
 Up in the morning early ! " 
 
 An indescribable clamor drowned her voice. From grove, 
 barn-yard, and lawn scampered and flew toward us a feath- 
 ered throng, turkeys, ducks, Guinea-fowls, chickens, in all 
 stages of development, wide-mouthed in welcome or greed, 
 and within the pale of the poultry-yard proper arose a corre- 
 sponding din. 
 
 Ailsie laughed heartily when I put both hands to my ears.
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 307 
 
 " Don't you like it ? " having quieted her courtiers meas- 
 urably by bountiful handfuls from her basket. " It is better 
 than a brass band when your ear is educated to it." 
 
 " Those wretches certainly have brazen throats ! " replied 
 I, pointing to some Guinea-fowls whose metallic " pot-rack ! 
 pot-rack ! " threatened to split my tympanum. 
 
 " I am not over-fond of them, myself " tossing extra rations 
 in their direction to purchase a moment's peace. " Aunt 
 Evy says they are the ' speckled Arabs of the poultry-yard.' 
 But they are not like Arabs in one thing ; they don't care a 
 mite more for you when they've eaten your bread and salt 
 or corn and oats, which amounts to the same thing all sum- 
 mer long, than if you were their worst enemy. They would 
 run for their lives if I were to go a step nearer to them. 
 While my chickens, turkeys, and ducks trust me. Just see ! " 
 
 She stooped in the midst of the noisy crowd, and held out 
 her hand full of corn. In a second it was empty, and a 
 dozen were scrambling to peck at her fingers, two or three 
 young chickens jumped on her lap, and one saucy cockerel 
 to her shoulder. She turned her face from them to laugh up 
 into mine the embodiment of health and innocent delight. 
 
 In wholesomeness and vigor she resembled the typical 
 English child, rather than the more meagre American nurs- 
 ling one encounters in country strolls as often as in city 
 promenades. " Hale," was the word that offered itself to 
 me as most happily descriptive of her at that instant. Her 
 clear brown skin was rosy with the regular pulse of fresh 
 blood untainted in fount or flow. Lung, muscle, and brain,
 
 308 MY LITTLE L VE. 
 
 she was faultlessly sound. The mind, which was her richest 
 dower, did not owe its rapid expansion to unhealthy heats. 
 
 Stepping aside to wait for her, I uncovered my head to the 
 sweet morning air. I was thanking Him who had made her, 
 that she lived, and praying, as I had never asked for other 
 blessings, that the fond sense of ownership with which I 
 regarded her, might not prove the vainest, as it had been the 
 fairest of illusions. 
 
 By the time the rest were ready for breakfast, we had been 
 to the upper pasture to look at the " fairy lace " draping 
 every weed and bearded blade of grass, and binding the 
 gaunt mullein-stalks in telegraphic communication ; had fed 
 the rabbits, and decided upon the comparative beauty of 
 white, tawny, and dappled ; had admired the pretty audacity 
 of the half-domesticated squirrels that chattered at us from 
 boughs I could almost have touched with my hand, and had 
 a row upon the lake in the " Midget," a dainty shell of a 
 boat, so named by her father, out of compliment to his best- 
 loved child. She was very proud of the craft, and of her 
 skill in rowing, taking me up to " Lily Island " above the 
 bridge and back, in time that proved her to be a capital 
 oarswoman. I was permitted to steer, but not to touch an 
 oar, and, reassured that she was not in danger of over-exerting 
 herself by seeing the ease with which she handled her name- 
 sake, I gave myself up to the pleasure of watching the sup- 
 ple, rounded wrists that pulled so even and strong a stroke, 
 and the witching face, more radiant than the early sunlight 
 
 " Lilies and roses ! " said Mr. Darling, glancing from the
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 309 
 
 central ornament of the breakfast-table a bowl of exquisite 
 lilies, which were the spoils of our voyage to his daughter's 
 cheeks. " The trophies of your triumph over ' dull sloth 
 and a drowsy bed ! ' At your age, young people, I thought 
 them worth rising for. Now 
 
 * I love an early doze, mother, 
 I love an early doze. ' " 
 
 " At your age ! " It might have been a slip of the tongue, 
 or a good-natured endeavor to say something agreeable to 
 me. Most likely it was a careless form of words that meant 
 less than nothing. But the phrase sent a tingle through me. 
 The fifteen years' seniority, that I was apt to think of with 
 apprehension, sometimes with dismay, as a possible or prob- 
 able gulf that might appear to Ailsie or her natural guardians 
 just cause for separating us eventually, was evidently a mat- 
 ter of no consequence in her father's estimation. If any- 
 thing were needed to make the sunshine clearer, the air more 
 invigorating, and the prospect of a whole fortnight in my 
 present Paradise more transporting, the random remark sup- 
 plied it. To heighten the pleasing effect of the speech, no- 
 body smiled, or seemed aware of anything incongruous in the 
 conjunction of "us young people." My footing as Ailsie's 
 peculiar property was assumed and granted, without criticism, 
 much less, demur. 
 
 She settled the matter by informing me, after breakfast, 
 that her daily tasks of reading and needlework were to be 
 intermitted during my stay at Brightwood.
 
 3io MY LITTLE LOVE. 
 
 " My practising I must keep up, of course," she observed. 
 " If you will excuse me, I'll get that off my mind, forthwith." 
 
 " Run away, then, Mrs. Bagnet, and attend to the greens," 
 said her aunt. "The doctor must content himself with the 
 society of a grandmother and a grand-aunt. You know that 
 I have a namesake in Cincinnati don't you ? " 
 
 " Ailsie wrote that she was promoted to the dignity of 
 auntship," returned I, blowing a blue ring from the end of 
 the cigar Ailsie had lighted before going to the piano. 
 
 The ladies were seated in Boston rockers, broad and low, 
 on the piazza, fronting the lake ; I, upon the steps. It was a 
 divine morning, and the sun which had kissed the dew off 
 the lawn would not reach our shade until near noon. The 
 honeysuckles on the pillars and underrunning the eaves of 
 the porch were in their second blossoming. A brood of 
 pigeons with eyes like carbuncles, hoods and breasts of 
 chameleon silk, strutted and cooed on the gravel walk. 
 Remembering the scorching sidewalks with their thinned 
 stream of passengers, and the teeming hospital with its 
 sickening sights and sounds, I luxuriated in my lazy content. 
 Fourteen days seemed a lifetime of bliss when one took 
 into account that this was early in the forenoon of the first. 
 
 " She is an inveterate newsmonger," said Mrs. Darling, 
 " if we may judge from your reception of our morsels of 
 family and neighborhood gossip. ' So Ailsie wrote ' or 
 'Ailsie mentioned that,' are stereotyped replies patented 
 wet blankets." 
 
 " She is a pearl of a correspondent," I answered ; " deal-
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 311 
 
 ing, as yet, more with fact than with sentiment. And having 
 announced her fact, she lets it alone drops it entirely, 
 dusts her fingers delicately and proceeds to the next item. 
 She wastes neither time nor words." 
 
 There was pleasure in the consciousness that I had more 
 intimate knowledge than the loving mother and aunt, of her 
 habits of thought and expression. 
 
 " And then it is ' off her mind ! ' " smiled Miss Marr. 
 " You will observe how systematic she has grown ; how con- 
 scientious as to the season, no less than the manner in which 
 duty is discharged. Recreation does not deserve the name 
 in her regard, while the shadow of an unperformed task 
 rests upon her. She has heard of Mrs. Bagnet's greens 
 until she must be sick of their odor." 
 
 The conversation strayed with that, and my attention also. 
 From the neighboring parlor came the sound of a simple 
 theme so well played that I could not help listening, knowing 
 who the performer was. The fingering was not difficult, or 
 the score abstruse. Hands less deft than the slender, sun- 
 burned ones now on the keys could have managed these. 
 But the child had seized upon the soul of the composition 
 and interpreted it audibly. By shifting my position to the 
 farther end of the steps I obtained a view of the unconscious 
 performer. Light from the long casement flowed over her 
 and the music-sheets set up for her study. She had a par- 
 tiality for all shades of gold-color, from orange to palest 
 amber, and all became her. Especially did she affect in this 
 summer weather, a morning costume of buff muslin or
 
 3 1 2 MY LITTLE L VE. 
 
 French chintz, and a coquettish black silk apron with pockets 
 and, what were known then as bretdles, passing over the 
 shoulders. A white ruffle finished the dress at the throat ; 
 a buff ribbon tied back her hair. 
 
 " Barry ! " called Aunt Evy, in pretended petulance. 
 " Do you know that Mrs. Darling has spoken to you twice 
 without receiving a symptom of a reply? Are your wits 
 drowsing or sky -larking ? " 
 
 " I am studying the natural habits and appearance of the 
 oriole," returned I, apologetically. " If Mrs. Darling will 
 step this way she will pardon me." 
 
 She smiled forgiveness without change of place. 
 
 " Her father calls her his canary bird when she wears that 
 dress, but I like your simile better." 
 
 " A canary is too tame, too much the creature of train- 
 ing and circumstance," I said. " His song is always the 
 same, too. There is so little variety in the shrill warble that 
 one soon tires of it. The oriole wild, bright, graceful,-r 
 singing for very gladness the song nature and love have 
 taught that is more like Ailsie ! " 
 
 There was nothing peculiar in my accent or manner at 
 least, so I thought but Miss Marr turned to me with a 
 strange, startled expression, as of one rudely shaken from 
 slumber; unclosed her lips to question or exclaim, but 
 remained silent. 
 
 So silently abstracted that her sister seemed to weary of our 
 society after a while, and left us to dream out our respective 
 visions or to compare confidences as we might choose.
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 313 
 
 I felt what was coming, and contemplated the prospect 
 with the serenity of a mind long since made up, committed 
 to one line of action, " 'Though father and mither and a' 
 should go mad." 
 
 In the audacity of seasoned resolve and the impertinence 
 of present happiness, I quoted the line aloud before Miss 
 Marr had her catechism in train : 
 
 " ' Though father and mither and a' should go mad ! ' 
 
 That's the plain Scotch of it, Aunt Evy more stubborn than 
 English ! The oriole will sing in my bower, in the fulness 
 of time. So the fates have decreed." 
 
 "So says a boy's wilful fancy!" was the rejoinder. 
 " Some things are too absurd for serious argument or 
 opposition, Barry. There will be time for a dozen heart- 
 aftairs on your part, before she begins to think of being a 
 woman. And she will have her say before the matter can be 
 decided so definitely as you imagine. A 'say' that may not 
 be what you expect." 
 
 " All the same, she will be mine ! " I said, imperturbably. 
 " Will come to and with me, of her own will. It is written 
 in our stars, hers and mine." 
 
 The sweet pale face was troubled. Rising from her chair, 
 Aunt Evy crossed over to me and sat down upon the step, 
 laid her hand upon my knee. 
 
 " Don't jest about this ! It seems foolish to discuss the 
 subject seriously, but I cannot endure the suspicion of ridi- 
 cule where she and her happiness are concerned." 
 14
 
 314 MY LITTLE L VE. 
 
 " Jest ! " more nearly angry with her than I would have 
 believed possible, a moment before. " How do you expect 
 me to endure the imputation of trifling with that which is 
 more sacred in my thoughts and hopes than aught else upon 
 earth ? I thought you knew me better than that ! " 
 
 " I know what you are now. I believe, too, that yours is 
 a nature that will not lightly change. But she is our baby, 
 Barry ! Have you counted over the years that must pass 
 before you can so much as tell her what she is to you 
 always provided that your own feelings, and views, do not 
 alter?" 
 
 " I am to wait seven years and a quarter, before I say a 
 word," I answered, cheerfully. " Jacob served almost twice 
 that time, for a woman who was not one hundredth part as 
 worthy of life-long devotion, and they ' seemed but a few days 
 unto him for the love that he bore her.' It has been re- 
 vealed to me that this great glory is to crown my existence. 
 Call me irrational, and puerile, if you like. I own that some 
 things cannot be assailed by argument, or upset. But do not 
 make me miserable now, by intimations that you will not 
 entrust your bright bird to my keeping when her wings are 
 plumed for flight from the parent nest. I will guard her 
 faithfully, cherish her tenderly." 
 
 Her eyes filled with tears. 
 
 " She is as sensitive as bright, Barry ! I tremble when I 
 picture her as exposed to the chill airs and unfriendly buffets 
 of a world that bears most hardly upon the finest spirits. 
 Her home has been a warm and sheltered retreat."
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 315 
 
 " Give her to me ! " I entreated. " To me who have 
 known and studied her so long. My breast shall be her 
 shield from rude winds, and ruder blows. You cannot doubt 
 my earnestness, or my constancy ! This is not a whim but 
 something that has rooted itself in the very core of my being. 
 I am not a boy, Aunt Evy ! Nor has mine been a boy's 
 career for four years past. I understand to what I am 
 pledging myself what possible prejudices and more plau- 
 sible reasonings I arn engaging to overcome. For overcome 
 them I shall in the end. I shall prove that I have kept my- 
 self young for Ailsie's sake, and pure that I might never 
 have to hang my head in shame at thought of the crystal 
 purity of her soul. I told you, years ago, that she was my 
 evangel. You cannot know, because I cannot put into words, 
 all that she has been to me since of example and stimulus, 
 of warning from the evil, and winning toward the good. You 
 have called her your baby, but the woman looks out of those 
 marvellous eyes. Let her love me, still, without bashful 
 
 tremor until I dare teach her what love is, and what love 
 
 
 
 I have felt for her. Trust to rny honor not to forestall the 
 declaration by a day." 
 
 I pleaded as for life and all its goods. A horrible dread 
 had overtaken me. What if this woman, whose will was law 
 in everything pertaining to the management of her " twin," 
 should deem the continuance of my intimacy with her 
 charge inadvisable, now that she had listened to my confes- 
 sion ? if, with her knowledge of human nature, and the world, 
 she should adjudge it wise and kind to separate us for per-
 
 3 1 6 MY LITTLE L VE. 
 
 haps a term of years, lest Ailsie should be unduly influenced 
 to favor my suit by reason of her youth, and in the belief 
 that I would put away what Miss Marr considered a pre- 
 posterous fancy, as I gained in experience and age ? 
 
 Separation from Ailsie ! I felt the blood drain back to 
 my heart and stagnate there at the thought ; wished heartily 
 that I had never been betrayed by the heedlessness of hap- 
 piness into the indiscretion of speaking openly of that which 
 I had guarded so jealously and long. Why could not I have 
 remained content with the idyl that stood with me for all I 
 knew of poetry, beauty, romance, home, love I had almost 
 said, heaven without perilling it by weak cravings for sym- 
 pathy and confirmation of my hopes ? Since my love-story 
 was unlike any other ever told or written, why must I tam- 
 per with its delicate loveliness by attempting to narrate it, 
 even to one so tender of heart and subtle of comprehension 
 as was she who sat beside me, the troubled look deepening, 
 instead of passing from her eyes ? Was it possible for any 
 third person to enter into the feeling I had for my little love ? 
 Rarefied flame ; flower-scent ; the drop of light that throbs, 
 but never flickers in the diamond's heart ; the hearing and 
 the thought of sweet music were similitudes that presented 
 themselves to be rejected as like, but not exact, as I sought 
 to define it to myself. Like a father's fondness in watchful 
 protection of her feebleness ; like a mother's love in fostering 
 care of growing mind and body ; and intertwined with and 
 intensifying these, the lover's pride and rapturous anticipa- 
 tions of the blossom-time of this exquisite bud.
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 317 
 
 " I cannot sum it up to my dwn satisfaction ! " I broke 
 out, impatiently. "How can I expect you to understand 
 how much this is to me how utterly wrecked I shall be if 
 you take it from me, even for awhile ? " 
 
 " As if I could ! " smiling, but not yet brightly. " As if I 
 would if I could ! But I was unprepared, Barry, and you 
 have frightened me somewhat. Your vehemence could not 
 but seem incongruous " 
 
 She glanced over her shoulder at the figure sitting in the 
 flood of sunlight in the room beyond, unconscious of our obser- 
 vation, intent upon getting the hour's practice " off her mind." 
 
 " If she were an ordinary child, or if our intercourse had 
 been less close and dear to both, you might use that word. 
 I have known and studied her through and through. I have 
 never loved another creature with one thousandth part of the 
 devotion I have lavished upon her. And since last Thanks- 
 giving Day I have understood and meant all I have said and 
 more," I went on, taking courage from my companion's evi- 
 dent wavering. " Be merciful, Aunt Evy ! And reasonable. 
 You have not forgotten your own young days. Put yourself 
 in my place " 
 
 " Don't say that! For heaven's sake, don't put it in that 
 way ! " 
 
 Her dress was no whiter than her face. Her breath came 
 hard ; her hands fluttered as if grasping in the air for invisi- 
 ble support. 
 
 " You don't know you have never heard I am not 
 superstitious but don't ask me to imagine "
 
 318 MY LITTLE LOVE. 
 
 I had seen men and 'women struggle for composure. 
 I had never witnessed a battle for it until this frail creature 
 fought for the semblance of self-command before me. The 
 veins in her temples stood out like dark cords ; every muscle 
 of face and hands was tense ; the lips were crushed into a 
 straight line of pain. 
 
 " Forgive me, and say no more ! " I began, and was 
 silenced by a gesture. 
 
 Ailsie had returned to the pensive "Thought" with which 
 she had begun her practising very weird and mournful in 
 the silence that lay between us two, without. She had 
 played it quite through when Miss Marr spoke again : 
 
 " I have not mentioned his name in fifteen years since 
 his mother died except to Ailsie. She has seen his like- 
 ness, and we talk of him in the Sabbath twilights. She 
 would not speak of him, even to you, for she understands. 
 As no other child would. You are right there. He died to 
 save my life. I was riding alone in the country and the 
 horse ran away, directly down the mountain. Barry was out 
 gunning (You never guessed why I liked your name so 
 well ? It was his, and until I met you, I had never known 
 another who bore it.) He chanced to be crossing the road, 
 and saw me coming. There was a precipice just beyond the 
 turn at which he took his stand. He caught the bridle and 
 struggled with the horse, calling to me to throw myself off, 
 and clear of the saddle. I obeyed. As I touched the 
 ground, the horse leaped forward. They went over the cliff 
 together. His arm was wound in the bridle to gain a firmer
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 319 
 
 hold. That he might the more surely save me ! He lived a 
 day and a night. He said in the intervals of such suffering 
 as drove me wild to see that he was thankful he was near 
 at hand that his had been the privilege of rescuing me. / 
 have never been thankful for it. But I thought I was bear- 
 ing it better as time is bringing nearer the day of our reunion.. 
 You took me by surprise by speaking as you did. You need 
 not fear lest I shall be skeptical as to the strength and dura- 
 tion of the one love of a lifetime. 
 
 " Our Father who knows our frame and remembers that 
 we are dust the only Friend who is both all-wise, and all- 
 pitiful bless you, and in His own good time (nbt yours, 
 Barry ! remember that !) give you the love of my precious 
 child ! The thought of , seeing her a woman grown the 
 fancy that I might in some way guard her happiness, has 
 gone further than anything else to reconcile me to the pro- 
 longed separation from my Barry. Should I not live to do 
 this, there will be comfort in the remembrance of what you 
 have said, to-day ; that the dear work will be left for you to 
 complete." 
 
 She arose, waved me back when I would have offered my 
 arm, and walked feebly into the house. 
 
 The warmed honeysuckle -bells yielded spicier incense to 
 the pleasant wandering airs. The pigeons cooed and pouted 
 in their sunny promenade. Ailsie played on persever- 
 ingly, her hour not being up.
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 IN THE WOODS. 
 
 HE last day but one of my vacation was 
 devoted to a repeatedly postponed expedi- 
 dition, in quest of woodcock, which were 
 reported to be plentiful and not over-shy in 
 the marshy preserves on the other side of the 
 mountain-ridge. There were moist glens over 
 there and brush-fringed quagmires, known famil- 
 iarly to Wynant, who was an enthusiastic sports- 
 man and never averse to the display of a " capital 
 shot " to an appreciative looker-on. 
 
 Between his determination that I should accompany him 
 in an all-day tramp, and my own lurking liking for a good 
 gun and dog, with a tolerable chance of filling my game-bag, 
 the matter was settled and the programme carried out even 
 to the early breakfast and the trudge through the fields 
 before the " fairy lace " lost a row of the seed-pearls be- 
 gemming it. 
 
 Ailsie went with us to the fence dividing the road from 
 the tipper meadow : mounted a rock, and stood watching 
 us while we crossed the open ground to the forest. At the
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 321 
 
 thither fence we looked back. The buff-and -black uniform 
 was plainly discernible at this distance, and the wave of her 
 hand responsive to the toss of our hats. Then we plunged 
 into wilderness and solitude save for the companionship of 
 each other, and the excellent retriever we had brought 
 along. The exception of the latter is simple justice. 
 
 " Did you ever see anything handsomer ? " asked Wynant, 
 as the fine fellow " pointed " a covey of quails before we had 
 gone a quarter of a mile into the woods. " He can do any- 
 thing but speak in human language ; knows more than most 
 Christian bipeds ever learn." 
 
 " He doesn't understand that the law isn't up for quail- 
 shooting until November," said I. " More's the pity for us 
 that it isn't ! It is hard on a gunner who gets out but once a 
 year not to be allowed a crack at such a flight of brown- 
 coats as that." 
 
 I raised my gun in silent aim at the tempting flock 
 whirring away, ahead of us. 
 
 " Frank is as wise as the quails, at any rate," re- 
 joined his master. " They ought to know they are in uo 
 danger." 
 
 The report of two shots fired in quick succession in the 
 direction taken by the birds gave the lie to his words. 
 With the sportsman's instincts in hot revolt, he pushed 
 through the bushes, in quest of the violator of the law we 
 had respected at such cost of our inclination, whistling, as he 
 went, to recall Frank, who had dashed off to look up the 
 fallen game, at sound of the gun. The offender stood on 
 14*
 
 322 MY LITTLE L O VE. 
 
 the verge of a stubble-field, not a dozen yards away, and 
 his own dog was in the act of delivering up a quail, still 
 fluttering, at his feet. 
 
 " You may not be aware that you have rendered yourself 
 liable to prosecution and fine by shooting quail at this 
 season," began Wynant, temperately enough. " I could 
 inform against you, and receive a share of the fine for so 
 doing, but " 
 
 The other interrupted him by a volley of oaths, directed 
 first at the laws, secondly, and more viciously, at Wynant, 
 whom he addressed by name and stigmatized as a " bloody 
 aristocrat," with a variety of other less complimentary titles. 
 Young Darling bore the attack with better temper than I 
 should have expected. 
 
 " I did not recognize you when I first spoke," he said- " I 
 know now who you are, and that this is not your only offence 
 of this kind. You were warned off the Brightwood fields 
 last month by my brother's farmer, for firing into a covey of 
 half-grown partridges. 1 shall enter a complaint against you 
 at the next term of court, for wilful and repeated violation 
 of the game laws of this State. It is pot-hunters and loafers 
 like you who are ruining our hunting in this part of the 
 country, destroying the birds before they are grown, and 
 making those you don't kill, so wild there is no such thing 
 as getting near to them when the season comes. These are 
 my brother's Pressley Darling's grounds, and I order you to 
 take yourself and your dog out of them. You mean to carry 
 those quails home to your uncle, to be cooked, I suppose.
 
 M Y LITTLE LOVE. 323 
 
 Say to him for me that he becomes your accomplice if ha 
 receives them." 
 
 " I shan't budge 'till I'm good and ready ! " blustered the 
 poacher, with another broadside of profanity. 
 
 " ' Good ' you will never be. ' Ready' you are now, or I'll 
 put you out into the road, willy-nilly ! " said Wynant, draw- 
 ing up his athletic form, and so evidently meaning what he 
 said that the loafer called in his dog, and skulked off sulkily, 
 growling hoarse curses at every step. 
 
 "A load of buck-shot in his filthy carcass wouldn't be a 
 bad investment," remarked Wynant, contemptuously. " You 
 know who the vagabond is, I suppose ? Gaskin's nephew. 
 Don't you remember the brazen calf of Ailsie's lecture upon 
 the ' Life and Character of Moses ? ' laughing at the recol- 
 lection. " His father died last year, and this valuable citizen 
 came back on his affectionate uncle for home and provender. 
 . Ezra put him on the farm, at the tail of a plough, and Mrs. 
 Ezra hammered away at him when he was in the house to 
 get ' chores ' out of him. But a lazier, tipsier dog never 
 emigrated from city to country, and that is saying much. 
 His relatives cannot actually disown him, or send him to the 
 poor-house, but he is a rankling thorn in the side of the frugal 
 respectable pair. He will not work, and he will drink ! The 
 best disposition they could make of him would be to lock 
 him up in the garret for a week, with a tapped barrel of 
 Jersey lightning. That might finish him. Although it is a 
 tough job killing off that kind. If the truth were known, we 
 should learn that he slept under somebody's haystack last
 
 324 MY LITTLE L VE. 
 
 night. That is the reason he is abroad so early. As like as 
 not, he was rooted out of his bed by the other pigs." 
 
 I gave a parting glance at the miserable object disappear- 
 ing among the trees. An overgrown, hulking boy, ruined, 
 soul and body, at eighteen. " Outcast," stamped upon every 
 lineament of his dirt-seamed visage, unshorn of the reddish 
 down of incipient manhood, and in every rent of his shabby 
 clothes. His unkempt hair, carroty red, protruded through 
 the gaps in his slouched hat, and hung in a mat, down to his 
 eyes, bloodshot and ugly as any bull-dog's. Mine had never 
 rested upon a more unsightly figure or face. In the clean, 
 pure-scented country he was abominable beyond compari- 
 son. I thought in genuine compassion, of the bustling 
 housewife, once my landlady ; of her fidgety neatness at 
 home, and her respect for the opinions of the community 
 that was all the world she had ever known. The foul sot 
 must be a grotesque feature amid the shining cleanliness of 
 the farm kitchen, where the grand-dame used to rattle all 
 movable properties in her rainy-day " pottering." 
 
 How long ago it seemed ! and how uncertain the identity 
 of the sickly lad, tormented into womanish peevishness by the 
 poor old woman's evolutions, with the muscular sportsman 
 of this glorious Fall morning, affluent in strength, love, and 
 hope ! 
 
 We made " a day of it," as Wynant had threatened. The 
 number and complaisance of lawful woodcock had not been 
 over-lauded. Our gallant retriever did not flag once in per- 
 severing search and honest returns, and each of us was so
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 325 
 
 successful in his own shots as to move him to generous ad- 
 miration of his comrade's skill. Rather leg-weary, but in 
 gay spirits, we struck the main road a mile-and-a-half from 
 home when the sun was near setting, and trudged leisurely 
 down the " long hill," on a plateau of which stood the Bright- 
 wood cottage. 
 
 "What are your present emotions supperward ?" inquired 
 Wynant, shifting his gun to the other shoulder and adjusting 
 the strap of his game-bag to a new position. 
 
 "I yearn !" replied I, in forcible slang. "The cold bite 
 at noon exasperated me to renewed voracity instead of allay- 
 ing my pangs. As a little water on a fire is worse than 
 none." 
 
 "I was savage upon pot-hunters, this morning," Darling 
 proceeded to confess. " But there is something transport- 
 ing in the reflection that one has shot that which is eatable, 
 when there is*a void or your ' cold bite ' where should 
 repose, in process of amiable digestion, a good dinner. 
 ' Broiled woodcock for breakfast ' hath a goodly jingle in such 
 circumstances." 
 
 "'Broiled chicken at an early supper' is more to the 
 point." 
 
 " ' Plato ! thou reasonest well ! ' Come in, you rascal ! " 
 to the dog who darted after a rabbit's white tail in a sumach- 
 bush. " I'll break your head, sir ! " menacing poor Frank 
 with the butt of the gun, " if I catch you at such low work 
 as that again ! There's nothing spoils a dog's nose for deli- 
 cate game like rabbit-hunting."
 
 326 MY LITTLE LOVE. 
 
 " Is your gun loaded ?" I asked. 
 
 Mrs. Darling, in consideration of Hobby's propensity to 
 meddle with dangerous toys, had laid down as a positive rule 
 that no loaded fire-arms should be brought into the house. 
 
 "Yes!" 
 
 He stopped, raised the piece, his finger on the trigger, 
 then dropped it back to its rest within his arm. 
 
 "I'll let Ailsie fire it off when we get home. She likes to 
 do it. There's the making of a first-rate marksman in her. 
 Next year, I shall get a light fowling-piece for her and take 
 her gunning whenever I go." 
 
 "A novel accomplishment for a young lady," quoth I, 
 carelessly. 
 
 "Accomplishments be hanged! I mean that girl to be 
 brought up sensibly, and according to hygienic laws. She 
 can row and swim now, and would be a good whip but for 
 Ev/s fear to trust her with a horse under fifteen years old. 
 She handles a gun beautifully, as you'll see presently. Never 
 winks, or lets it kick. There's not an atom of affectation 
 about her. By Jove I what a magnificent woman she will 
 be!" 
 
 " When she can bring down woodcock on the wing and 
 drive four-in-hand ? " interpolated I. " And in what other 
 manly accomplishment do you propose to make her profi- 
 cient?" 
 
 Secretly pleased at his unsuspecting enthusiasm, I guarded 
 the manifestation of my relish at the turn the talk had taken. 
 Since the dialogue on the piazza on the morning succeeding
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 327 
 
 my arrival, my resolution to win the family prize, if not more 
 firm, was more distinctly denned in my own mind, yet more 
 discreetly veiled from general view. Least of all would I 
 put into the teazing uncle's hand the instrument of annoy- 
 ance to Ailsie, should his amusement at the discovery of 
 what he would regard as an unparalleled joke, exceed the 
 bounds of affectionate consideration for her feelings. 
 
 "You may laugh, if you like 1" he retorted, half-offended. 
 " But she will be a glorious girl by the time she is sixteen. 
 And you people who don't appreciate her fully now will be 
 glad to join in her praises. Where will you see another eye 
 and step like hers ? Did you ever know another child who 
 had one-tenth of her sense and wit ? You like her as a child 
 a nice plaything, because she entertains you in your vaca- 
 tions and leisure hours. You never look forward to what 
 she will become. Wait until you begin to know her as I 
 do!" 
 
 He marched on, Frank still cowering at his heels, the 
 memory of the brandished gun fresh upon him, and I fell 
 back to laugh in my sleeve at the honest heat of the warm- 
 hearted, dull-sighted athlete, whom not even his own be- 
 trothal had enlightened as to the signs of another's affection. 
 
 " Speak of the angels and you'll hear their wings ! " he 
 said abruptly, halting, finger uplifted and face alight. 
 
 Up the wooded road floated the voice of one who sang as 
 she strolled toward us. She was coming to meet us, not 
 thinking that we were so close to her. We stepped to the 
 turf edging the highway, that she might come full upon us
 
 328 MY LITTLE LOrE. 
 
 at the next turning, now scarcely a hundred yards off. She 
 should not be balked in her contemplated surprise. Wynant 
 looked to the trigger and cap of his gun, that it might be in 
 readiness for her fingers. 
 
 We could hear, the words, now. I had caught the air at 
 once ; knew that she was dreamy, not expectant, thinking 
 out ' beautiful things ' in her sunset walk. 
 
 I have lived over those two minutes, a million times, tor- 
 turing my imagination with vain thoughts of what might have 
 been changed had I done this, or that, or had Wynant acted 
 differently. 
 
 If he had discharged his gun according to his intention. 
 If Frank had been suffered to run on, as was his wont in 
 Hearing home. If we had continued to converse in our or- 
 dinary key. If the ring of our heels upon the stony high- 
 way had betrayed our proximity. If one or all of these 
 things had happened, this story might never have been 
 written. 
 
 And always, in the agony of the retrospect, the useless re- 
 gret and unavailing longing, I am walking on to meet the 
 well-known figure, which I am sure will wear the oriole plum- 
 age I have told her I like best ; straining my eyes to catch 
 a glimpse of the buff dress between tree-boles, and under low- 
 hanging branches, the while I picture to myself exactly what 
 I shall see a form as erect and a step as free as a gypsy 
 queen's ; nut-brown hair tossed back from the dark, warm- 
 tinted face, the matchless eyes yet dusky with thought-shad- 
 ows, the smile that will end the song.
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 329 
 
 Still the silvery, dreamy singing draws nearer and nearer. 
 We do not lose a syllable now, catch the accent of each note. 
 
 " Oh ! cold was the night-wind that blew 'round her bower, 
 It chilled my poor Kathleen ; she drooped from that hour, 
 And I lost my own Kathleen, my sweet little Kathleen 
 
 My Kathleen O'More ! " 
 
 The holy calm of the sunset was broken by a wild shriek. 
 Another and another followed, wrung out by the extremity 
 of physical or mental distress, ere our swiftest run carried 
 us around the curve in the road, and in sight of what it had 
 hidden. 
 
 The besotted wretch we had met that morning was there, 
 grinning fiendishly into the face of her he held fast by both 
 arms. We comprehended the situation at a glance. He 
 had sprung out at her from the covert of underwood with a 
 drunken notion of a practical jest, or in revenge for her 
 uncle's language to him in the forenoon. We both reached 
 them at the same second. 
 
 " Ailsie ! " I cried. 
 
 Wynant panted " You villain ! " 
 
 I saw my darling reel and sink, released from the rough 
 clutch, and caught her before she reached the ground. I 
 heard, not conscious then that I did so, a scuffle, a rain of 
 blows and kicks, groans and curses uttered in a thick, coarse 
 voice. It was nothing to me how the ruffian fared, while I 
 held my shaken flower upon my breast, and strove, by caress 
 and reassuring word, to restore color to the livid face, and
 
 33 MY LITTLE L VE. 
 
 quiet the convulsive trembling that threatened to banish life 
 as it had strength. Carrying her to a grassy glade in the 
 woods, out of hearing of what was going on in the road, I 
 laid her gently down, pillowing her head upon my arm, and 
 fanning her with my hat. I told her she was safe and with 
 me ; implored her to look at and speak to me to see for 
 herself that the danger was over. 
 
 The power of articulation was utterly gone. She could 
 only sob tearlessly, each breath jarring her entire frame. 
 Her eyes had not opened since my call to her had caused the 
 brute to relax his hold. 
 
 " We must get her home without delay," I said, when 
 Wynant joined us, breathless from his struggle. " Don't 
 speak to her ! She cannot answer. Go on and explain what 
 has happened ! " 
 
 In the ditch, between the wheel-track and the stone fence, 
 was stretched a thing, that might be alive or dead, filthy with 
 blood and dust. I did not give it a second look, or a 
 thought, except a passing emotion of gratitude that Ailsie 
 could not see it.
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 " GOOD-BYE, SWEETHEART." 
 
 'RESSLEY DARLING met me at the entrance 
 of the grove surrounding the house, and, dumb 
 with haste and alarm, held out his arms to re- 
 lieve me of the weight that still lay against my 
 shoulder. He was her father. She had told me 
 once that she was willing to lay down her life for 
 his. But I shook my head and pressed on, never 
 resigning the dear burden until I laid her upon her 
 mother's bed, and in her mother's embrace. 
 
 Her hand fastened feebly upon the lappel of my 
 coat, when I would have raised myself upright. The eyelids 
 were lifted with effort, and the poor, unbent mouth tried to 
 speak once twice before the words escaped : 
 " I am so sorry ! Forgive me ! I am very sorry! " 
 Sorry that, in succumbing to the shock that had prostrated 
 body and sense, she had given us trouble. 
 
 "My precious love!" I said, heedless who might hear. 
 " Do not speak, do not think of us ! We are only thankful to 
 have you look at and know us again. Remember this, and 
 nothing else. Can you swallow this for me ? " 
 
 She tasted the lavender-and-water Aunt Evy had prepared, 
 and did not like it.
 
 332 MY LITTL E LOVE. 
 
 " Must I ? ; ' looking at me. 
 
 " If you love me, dear ! " 
 
 She raised her head and took every drop, sinking back 
 with a sigh of exhaustion, and a long, shuddering gasp. 
 
 " It was dreadful ! The man, I mean ! " catching my 
 hand and whispering, while her features worked uncontrolla- 
 bly. " He was drunk ! " 
 
 The word rang out in shrill distress, and hiding her face 
 with her hands, she began to sob again in tearless suffering. 
 
 The father's face was dark with wrath, and I heard a 
 muttered curse from Wynant. Tears dropped fast from the 
 mother's eyes in folding her child to her bosom. Aunt Evy's 
 met mine across the bed in awed questioning and entreaty. 
 
 " Ailsie ! " I stooped to say, steadily, and with something 
 of authority blended with my tenderness, " You are quite 
 safe, now. Neither that man nor any other shall ever annoy 
 you again. We will take such good care of you in future 
 that there shall be no risk of this. He is a foolish, bad boy 
 Ziba Gaskin do you recollect him ? who meant to play 
 a trick upon you. He has not harmed you. He never 
 shall. Try to believe this, dear child ! " 
 
 " I'll blow him to atoms if he tries it on again ! " put in 
 Wynant, his voice cracking queerly when he tried to laugh. 
 
 " Now, we will all go out and leave her with mamma for 
 a while," said sagacious Aunt Evy, motioning to us to follow 
 her. " Our hunters must be almost famished, and supper is 
 ready." 
 
 In shutting the door after me, my eye lingered upon the
 
 M Y LITTLE LOVE. 333 
 
 two who lay upon the bed, the final red ray of sunset seem- 
 ing to band them in a closer embrace. 
 
 '"As one whom his mother comforteth ! ' " I repeated, 
 inly. 
 
 Even love's jealousy could not interfere there. In no other 
 arms would I have been content to leave my best- 
 beloved. 
 
 The supper table waited vainly for mother and daughter. 
 The rest of us made some poor feint of eating, and adjourned 
 to the piazza to discuss, over and over again, the incident of 
 the afternoon, in guarded tones, and with indignation that 
 grew hotter with each repetition of the scene. 
 
 Pressley Darling never sat down for an instant, and his 
 stride from end to end of the portico was portentous of 
 further vengeance upon the creature still lying, for aught we 
 knew or cared, in the ditch beyond the road. Wynant 
 could not forgive himself for having left a vestige of life in 
 him. Miss Marr and I, seeming to hearken to his blood- 
 thirsty regrets, pondered, each knowing that the other did 
 so, upon the probable extent of the harm already done, and 
 what looked like the malignant fate that so strangely pursued 
 a being so harmless and lovable. Repeated disasters of the 
 kind that had so strangely befallen her would be hurtful to 
 children of stouter nerve and coarser sensibilities. We 
 dared not speak of, or fairly contemplate what they might 
 bring upon this one. 
 
 Luckless Wynant blundered upon the hidden rock, pres- 
 ently.
 
 334 MY LITTLE LOVE. 
 
 " It's confoundedly queer when you come to think it all 
 over ! It would appear as if Fate had an actual spite against 
 that child ! " he was so bereft as to say. " There was the 
 first scare with the drunken loafer in town years ago. Then, 
 the thunderstorm that killed this vagabond's grandmother. 
 Next, the chill on Thanksgiving-Day. Now, this infamous 
 piece of work. I don't suppose any of you have looked at 
 it in this light. Odd isn't it ? " 
 
 His brother stopped short in front of him. 
 
 " Don't charge upon Providence for there is no such 
 power as Fate the egregious carelessness or vice of man ! 
 These were the causes of all the casualties you have enume- 
 rated, with the single exception of the thunderstorm. I do 
 wish, however, that the consequences of others' sins had 
 fallen elsewhere than upon the head of this sensitive, inno- 
 cent baby ! " 
 
 After which, silence reigned throughout the group. 
 
 At nine o'clock Mrs. Darling called from an upper window 
 in a gentle, cheerful voice, designed, we comprehended, to 
 dissipate our apprehensions. 
 
 " Papa ! Ailsie would be very glad to see you, if you can 
 come up-stairs." 
 
 He was absent twenty minutes or more, returning to us 
 with softened voice and mien. 
 
 " She will sleep with her mother to-night," he said, 
 addressing me. "She is almost composed again, but the 
 evening has been an anxious one with my wife. The shudder- 
 ing fits recurred at brief intervals, for two hours. Will you
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 335 
 
 look in, and let us know whether or not a sedative is advisa- 
 ble ! " 
 
 There was no lamp in the chamber, and the harvest-moon, 
 large and yellow, filled it with rich, yet chastened light. 
 
 " It reminds me of Thanksgiving night," said Ailsie, when 
 I had felt her pulse and heard that she was " pretty well, 
 only trembly, now and then." 
 
 " I have been lying here, thinking of it. I am a regular 
 nuisance to you all. The most accidental child I ever heard 
 of. Decidedly the scrape-y one of the family." 
 
 She never hesitated for a word. If none lay ready to her 
 hand she made one for the occasion and went on with what 
 she had to say. 
 
 " Mr. Barry ! " 
 
 I sat on the edge of the bed, holding her hand, as on that 
 other night, when I had first said to myself that I loved her 
 better than all the world besides. Her disengaged hand 
 stole timidly up my sleeve. Her tone and look were 
 deprecatory. 
 
 "Mr. Barry! Shall I always be a coward? And will 
 things go on happening to me all my life ? " 
 
 " I hope so, darling ! Very pleasant things. You wouldn't 
 have every day just like its yesterdays and to-morrows." 
 
 "Adventures, I mean. Disagreeable ones. Catastro- 
 phes ! " The word was a mouthful, but she managed it 
 cleverly. " I'd rather die at once and get clear of it all. 
 I'm like a foolish little mouse, with a cat watching behind 
 every corner. You wouldn't believe it, but every joint in me
 
 336 MY LITTLE LOVE. 
 
 aches. Only because I was silly enough to get frightened 
 out of my wits. And " stretching her arms over her head 
 with a plaintive little moan " I am so tired ! " 
 
 Twice that night I crept to the door of Mrs. Darling's 
 room and listened for sound from within. Once it was a 
 weary sigh, intermitted by a slight sob that brought my heart 
 into my throat. The mother's soothing was prompt and 
 love-full. 
 
 "Mamma's birdie ! I am here, my blessing ! " 
 
 The second time, I could hear nothing but soft, regular 
 breathing, and returned to my upper chamber, relieved and 
 comforted. The sun was up when I again passed the thresh- 
 old. At the other end of the passage was Ailsie's dormi- 
 tory. The door was standing open, and I had a view of the 
 interior clear through to the balcony where she was wont to 
 " lay her pillows on hot nights, and, like Kathleen, ' look at 
 the moon ' and stars, and have the deliciousest thinking 
 times all to herself." 
 
 I trod cautiously along the matted hall lest I should awake 
 the slumberers upon the lower floor, and stood within the 
 small room. It was bright and clean, and her own little 
 treasures were disposed about the walls and on the dressing- 
 bureau. An ambrotype of myself I had given her last Christ- 
 mas-Eve, had accompanied her from town, and now occupied 
 a corner bracket. A tiny vase of flowers was set in front of 
 it, and the frame was wreathed with ground pine. Streamers 
 of the same trailed around the oval mirror and made a cor- 
 nice for the muslin curtain of the broad window that opened
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 337 
 
 down to the balcony. It was a pretty and tasteful bower, 
 yet the bare sadness of the place struck coldly to my heart. 
 The white emptiness of the low bed with its unrumpled 
 coverlet and plump pillows ; the prim arrangement of the 
 furniture, telling that no living presence had been there over- 
 night were more than I could bear. 
 
 I shut the door upon the pathetic vacancy, and fled the 
 spot as I would fain have sped away from the associations I 
 had aroused. 
 
 In the main hall on the first floor, I stopped to select my 
 unremarkable summer straw from half-a-dozen hats of similar 
 pattern that crowded the rack. I had just discovered that 
 I had taken Wynant's instead of my own, when a trailing 
 step that I did not recognize stole down the stairway behind 
 me. It was Ailsie, dressed with her customary care, but 
 heavy eyed, and unsmiling even at my delighted salutation. 
 
 " Is it possible ! " I said. " Good morning ! I am very 
 glad to see that you are well enough to be stirring so early. 
 How do you feel ? " 
 
 I took her hand and finding it drier and warmer than I 
 liked, would have slipped my finger to the wrist, but she drew 
 it away, still grave, with no sign of her habitual liveliness. 
 
 " Quite well, thank you. I am going to feed the chick- 
 ens." 
 
 " Is that best ? Let me do it alone, for once. Are you 
 strong enough ? " 
 
 " Of course I am ! Why not ? " 
 
 My catechism annoyed her for some reason. Her tone
 
 338 ' MY LITTLE L O VE. 
 
 was almost pettish, and she went off to the barn for her feed- 
 basket, with no intimation by word or sign, that she desired 
 my company. I read the riddle, or believed that I did. 
 With nerves still irritable after yesterday's trial, she was 
 ashamed at the memory of her weakness and shunned all 
 reference to it. With characteristic philosophy she had 
 determined that since the matter could not be helped, she 
 having, as she judged, made herself supremely ridiculous and 
 the cause of much anxiety to others the less said about it 
 the better. It was natural, too, that she should avoid the 
 revival of disagreeable sensations such as a recapitulation of 
 the roadside scene would be likely to awaken. 
 
 She was a sage and prudent little woman, I decided, 
 while weighing these considerations and assisting her in col- 
 lecting and feeding her feathered bantlings. Any other child 
 would have enjoyed the prolonged sensation and continued 
 petting, maintained the role of heroine as long as we would 
 indulge her in it. Our business in the poultry-yard was 
 transacted in much less time and with infinitely less spirit 
 than on any previous occasion. While she Avent into the 
 kitchen to wash her hands, I purposely preceded her to the 
 breakfast-room and served notice upon the party assembled 
 there to emulate my example of kindly discretion. Her 
 entrance was greeted affectionately, but without marked 
 demonstration of any kind, save that her father drew her 
 chair closer to him, as she sat down, and Wynant selected 
 the finest woodcock on the dish for her eating, with the 
 promise that he would teach her to bring down more and
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 339 
 
 larger birds than we could show, if she would become his 
 pupil next season. She was shy and still, while we talked 
 merrily and took no visible notice of her indisposition to 
 follow our lead. When the meal was over, she was allowed 
 to go to the piano for her morning practising. 
 
 Aunt Evy and I talked comfortably and without fore- 
 bodings, upon the piazza, I smoking, and she busy with her 
 fancy-knotting, while scales and exercises and set pieces, 
 more or less difficult, were executed by the patient fingers. 
 
 " Wynant visited the field of battle early this morning," 
 said Miss Marr, sinking her voice. " His vanquished foe 
 had come to life, apparently, and retreated in tolerable 
 order. I imagine our young Hercules would have been 
 better pleased if he had been obliged to crawl home on his 
 hands and knees. She " motioning toward the parlor 
 " seems almost herself again, don't you think so ? " 
 
 " Except for the slight depression which is the reaction 
 after extreme excitement, increased, I suspect, by a tinge of 
 mortification at the part she played. We are acting wisely 
 in letting her believe that we think lightly of the affair. By 
 to-morrow, she will be disposed to laugh over it. The fright 
 is too recent now." 
 
 Aunt Evy shivered. " Thank Heaven it has ended so 
 well ! It was a fearful experiment ! " 
 
 " Which nobody but a brute or a fool would make ! Don't 
 spoil my last day with you by setting me to speculate about 
 what has not happened.'' 
 
 I had meant to give most of the day to Ailsie, but a sue-
 
 340 MY LITTLE LOVE. 
 
 cession of untoward trifles thwarted intention and desire. 
 Pressley Darling, who had come up from town but two days 
 before the termination of my visit, invited me to a ramble 
 with him before Ailsie's hour was more than three-quarters 
 " off her mind." With the pardonable energy of proprietor- 
 ship, he led the way over " upland, dale, and glen," in the 
 refreshing persuasion that every stick and stone and clod 
 must be as replete with interest to me as to himself. , It was 
 twelve o'clock when we got back, more tired, hot and dusty 
 than our gunning tramp had made me. Running up to my 
 room for a cooling bath of face and hands before dinner, I 
 observed that the door at the other end of the passage was 
 shut. It was still fast when my simple toilet was completed. 
 Hoping that Ailsie might be within, I whistled softly, two or 
 three times a signal long ago agreed upon between us. 
 The doorway remained a solid blank. Nor did I see the 
 mistress of the balconied bower until we all sat down to 
 dinner. 
 
 In the afternoon Squire Darling, with his lovely old wife 
 and an assorted carriage-load of grandchildren, drove over 
 from the farm, Rick, my most formidable rival, acting as 
 outrider. The whole party remained at Brightwood until 
 after supper. Rick monopolized his favorite cousin, accord- 
 ing to custom. They went out upon the lake at sunset, 
 after a long ramble in the woods. Sitting with their elders 
 on the piazza, and bearing a decent part in their discourse, I 
 watched the " Midget," a floating speck upon the incarna- 
 dine glory of the water ; heard the young voices in the
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 341 
 
 boating-song Ailsie and I had sung together on other, but 
 never fairer evenings. 
 
 " O, come, maidens, come, o'er the blue rolling wave 
 The lovely should still be the care of the brave. 
 
 Trancadillo ! trancadillo ! 
 With moonbeam and eyebeam we'll bound o'er the billow." 
 
 From a sentiment of chivalric generosity that had its 
 admixture of quiet amusement, I had kept myself aloof from 
 them this afternoon. The boy should have a fair chance. 
 But I was not amused while thus watching them. Jealousy 
 was out of the question. Not so, disappointment. I wished 
 the excellent relatives had postponed their visit for a day ; I 
 wished more heartily that they had not stayed with us until 
 half past eight o'clock, preferring to wait until the moon 
 was up. 
 
 It was nine o'clock Ailsie's nominal bed-time, before I 
 could make an opportunity to say a few sentences to her, 
 alone. Aunt Evy helped me by more adroit manoeuvres 
 than my impatient artifices could claim to be called, or this 
 minute morsel of cheer would not have been mine. 
 
 We stood together, then, on the porch looking lake-ward, 
 the honeysuckle, freighted with dew and sweetness, drooping 
 to my shoulder and her head my arm about her waist, my 
 heart too full for much speaking. 
 
 " You will not fail to write to me, every week ? " I said. 
 " I shall be very lonely and home-sick for six days. Only 
 tolerably happy on that on which I receive your letter." 
 
 " I shall write every Tuesday, regularly," she replied.
 
 342 MY LITTLE LOVE. 
 
 The quiet monotone was not her voice. She was weary 
 after the bustle of entertaining her visitors, and, like myself, 
 heavy of spirit. She would miss me sadly, I knew, and the 
 various delights of the holiday we had enjoyed in company. 
 
 " How you have grown this summer ! " remarked I, more 
 brightly. " It seems but yesterday that you were proud of 
 coming up to my elbow. Don't outgrow your strength in 
 your anxiety to overtake my preposterous inches." 
 
 She dropped her head to touch my hand to her lips. 
 
 " How good you have been to me, always ! " she said, 
 irrelevantly. " You will never know because I shall never 
 be able to manage my words well enough to tell you how 
 dearly, dearly I love you ! " 
 
 " Eyes and kisses are better than words for that, Ailsie ! " 
 
 Her head with its wealth of hair " outwardly brown, in- 
 wardly golden " very dark in the moonlight, returned to its 
 resting-place upon my heart, for a long moment. 
 
 Then she raised it, sighing under the pressure of thought 
 or fatigue. 
 
 " Mamma will be wondering why I do not go to bed," in 
 the even, listless tone that had engaged for her part of our 
 correspondence. " Staying here doesn't make it any easier 
 to say ' good-night.' And that means ' good-by,' to-night. 
 You will be in a hurry in the morning. Everybody else will 
 be around, too." 
 
 She clasped her hands behind my neck as I bent to kiss 
 her, held me in a clinging caress, and left me without speak- 
 ing again.
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 " WITHERED." 
 
 
 
 XE forenoon in mid-October. I loitered upon 
 
 FH.W V^l* 1 
 
 r*\i if* j/*] the hospital steps, after an hour's walk in the 
 sunshine, reluctant to encounter the cool dim- 
 ness of the interior. The very streets were 
 less noisy than was usual at that busy hour. 
 The turmoil of traffic was attuned to something 
 like harmony with the placid perfectness of the 
 day. Autumn the ripeness, not decadence of 
 the year had stayed late with us. Frosty nights 
 garlanded the trees with bright, soft jewels, opened the nut- 
 shells, changed the crude juices of grapes and thick-skinned 
 pears to spiced syrups. But the mornings and evenings were 
 bracing not keen ; the noons rich and bland. % 
 
 "'Lustrous and smiling!'" I quoted, lingering and lux- 
 uriating. " Old Burton spirit quaint as fine said it of a 
 woman's hair. It paints this day to a charm. The man 
 who helps me to a felicitous phrase is my benefactor." 
 
 A wain, loaded high with wheat-straw, had stopped on the 
 corner. A man was walking slowly toward me with a dozen 
 red balloons, or inflated bladders, such as children play with, 
 floating above his head from the string in his hand. The
 
 344 MY LITTLE LOVE. 
 
 golden straw, the crimson globes caught and pleased the eye 
 in the mild glow that tempered the fierce brick dust and 
 vicious greens of walls and shutters in the tall buildings lining 
 the thoroughfare. The whole was a goodly study of color 
 and light. 
 
 " ' Lustrous and smiling ! '" I reiterated, and smiled my- 
 self in recollecting who had said to me once, as I stroked 
 and praised the gleaming waves of her hair : 
 
 "It does well enough, I dare say. If only it didn't have 
 red streaks real blaze-y lines across it, after I have been 
 wearing it braided 1 On the shiniest parts the crinkles, you 
 know ! " 
 
 My office was on the second floor of the hospital, sur- 
 rounded by rows of wards. Not an attractive retreat for 
 one's leisure hours, and certainly not a place to which one 
 would care to invite his friends. Just without the door I 
 met an attendant, who told me that a lady had been waiting 
 some time to see me. Without presentiment that she might 
 be there upon other than professional business, I entered and 
 saw Mrs. Darling sitting in my one arm-chair. 
 
 " Ah, Barry ! At last ! " 
 
 The exclamation was nervous, or impatient, and I an- 
 swered it by an apology before she could explain. 
 
 " I am very sorry I have kept you waiting. I am seldom 
 out at this hour. If I had had the remotest idea that you 
 were in town 
 
 Here the coldness of her hand, perceptible through her 
 glove as I pressed it, made me look narrowly at her. She
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 345 
 
 smiled and spoke cordially, but her eyelids were slightly 
 flushed, and her lips twitched in a manner very foreign to her 
 habitual serenity. 
 
 "Is anything wrong?" I asked hastily. "You are all 
 well ? " 
 
 She resumed her chair. The trembling of the mouth was 
 more perceptible. 
 
 " I do not know that anything is far wrong. I have been 
 sadly uneasy for several weeks. Pressley is away from home, 
 as you know, travelling on business through the Western 
 States. I have not written to him of what troubles me. My 
 fears are so vague, and anxiety would only unsettle his mind. 
 In a case like this where there is no pain, or fever, one is at 
 a loss how to describe symptoms accurately." 
 
 She had begun to hurry in her speech, and paused to col- 
 lect thought or composure. I sat quietly opposite to her, 
 genuinely and seriously concerned by what I had gleaned 
 from her address. Her sister was my own by adoption and 
 affection. That this preamble referred to her I never 
 doubted. I had had no letter from her since September, and 
 in Ailsie's weekly bulletins of home news, there were repeated 
 references to Aunt Evy's sick headaches, and regrets that 
 she " did not seem as well as she was earlier in the season." 
 
 " What are the symptoms that have alarmed you ? " I 
 queried, to make her task simpler. 
 
 "Drowsiness, lassitude, and a lack of interest in what 
 formerly pleased her. At times but this is not frequent 
 an outbreak of irritability totally unlike her natural self. 
 '5*
 
 346 MY LITTLE LOVE. 
 
 Lately, a rapid decrease in flesh and weight that is unac- 
 countable, since her appetite is moderately good. She falls 
 asleep at any hour, and anywhere. Twice we have found 
 her lying upon the parlor floor in slumber or lethargy. It 
 is more like that. When aroused, she is dull and silent. 
 Indeed, she shows a disinclination for conversation most of 
 the time. It breaks my heart to see her going slowly about 
 the light duties she used to undertake so gladly. She is 
 faithful to these still. She must always be conscientious. 
 But the life and spring are gone." 
 
 " When did you begin to notice these things ? " I inquired, 
 more to give her time to recover her faltering voice than for 
 my own information. Her agitation was painful to behold, 
 bravely as she contended with its exhibition. 
 
 " We did not know it until afterward, but she slept away 
 all the forenoon of the last day you spent with us at Bright- 
 wood. I had to send up to her room at dinner-time to 
 awaken her. Evy and I have feared yet we cannot under- 
 stand how that could be we dare not admit the possibility 
 but these symptoms manifested themselves so soon after 
 it Do you believe, Barry, that the fright had anything to 
 do with it ? " 
 
 She burst into tears. 
 
 " The fright ! " I said, huskily, growing cold to my heart. 
 "For Heaven's sake, Mrs. Darling, don't say that you have 
 been telling me about Ailsie ! I thought you meant Miss 
 Marr ! " 
 
 " Evy is well for her, but inexpressibly anxious," she re-
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 347 
 
 turned, drying her eyes. " She has not writtento you in some 
 weeks, because she could not, and conceal the truth. And 
 you could not come to us. It was enough that we should be 
 unhappy, without distressing you. After all, we may be un- 
 necessarily alarmed." 
 
 " I have heard from Ailsie every week," I said, with an 
 effort to examine the case rationally. " Her letters have 
 not been long, but she explained that by saying that there 
 was little new to tell about her life in the country, now that 
 I had seen everything at Brightwood." 
 
 The mother's tears rushed up again. 
 
 " Ah ! those letters ! If you had guessed what power of 
 patient resolve was expended upon them you would prize 
 them indeed. On a certain day, at a given hour, she would 
 address herself to the business of writing to you, persevering 
 until the bottom of the third page was reached, although 
 ready, sometimes, to fall from her chair when this was 
 accomplished. I have urged her, several times, to postpone 
 writing, saying that you would excuse her if she were not 
 well. Her answer was always to the same effect : " I prom- 
 ised to write every Tuesday, and I am not sick." Once she 
 added, " I like to write better than to do anything else. At 
 least, I would, if my hand didn't get so tired. Somehow, I 
 feel tired all through, now a days. Mamma, do you suppose 
 I am growing lazy ? " She was so exhausted by our ride, 
 yesterday, that I put her to bed as soon as we arrived at 
 home." 
 
 " She is here, then ? In your own house ? "
 
 348 MY LITTLE LOVE. 
 
 " Yes. I preceded Evy and the other children by a few 
 days that I might get the house settled, and brought her 
 along ostensibly for company. Really, that I might see you 
 and secure medical advice. She showed more animation, 
 this morning, at the thought of receiving a visit from you 
 than I have seen her display in many weeks. Can you call 
 upon us to-day ? " 
 
 "Not before four o'clock this afternoon," I replied, sor- 
 rowfully. " I can get off duty, then perhaps for the rest 
 of the day." 
 
 " Come to tea ! Ailsie will be delighted. That is " 
 correcting herself in a failing voice " as nearly delighted as 
 she can be, now. You would not know her, Barry our 
 withered blossom ! " 
 
 I accompanied her to the front entrance ; stood there, an 
 instant, looking down the street as I had done, not thirty 
 minutes ago. The sunshine slumbered as placidly upon 
 buildings and pavements. The steeple-clocks were striking 
 twelve. In a church-tower some blocks away, the chimes 
 were playing, ".Life let us cherish." Crowds of school-chil- 
 dren were trooping along the sidewalks bound for home or 
 frolic in the noon recess. One a brown-haired girl about 
 Ailsie' s size, looked up at me with merry eyes, as she 
 bounded by. 
 
 Sick of brightness, I put my hand to my dizzied head, and 
 went back up-stairs, nominally and mechanically, to work. 
 
 " You would not know her, Barry our withered blos- 
 som ! "
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 349 
 
 Of the interview that had overturned the world for me, I 
 seemed to retain but that one sentence, and the deeper 
 heart-ache (if that could be 1 ) that smote me with the hear- 
 ing of her set purpose, persisted in so painfully, of writing to 
 me. 
 
 My loyal love ! faithful in weakness as in strength ! 
 
 I not know Ailsie's eyes and Ailsie's smile ? " Withered ! " 
 My hale English girl, whose wholesome reserve of vitality 
 might bid defiance to disease for a century ! Had I dreamed 
 the horrible scene, from beginning to end ? Could I have 
 misunderstood the unhappy mother ? Or was the halluci- 
 nation hers ? 
 
 By four o'clock I was at liberty to go whither I would. 
 Sky and wind had changed. Gray mists, smelling of the sea, 
 were streaming up in plumy pennons from the east. The 
 low sun was already hidden. One would hardly have known 
 the day for the same. The phrase strayed of itself into my 
 mind and from my tongue. " Not know it for the same." 
 Would that other change be as woful ? My heart beat fast, 
 yet with difficulty, as I turned into the well-remembered 
 street. 
 
 The parlor shutters were open, and a face was watching 
 for me in the old place. The next moment I was within the 
 door ; the wasted form lying upon my bosom, raised in my 
 embrace as I might hold an infant. When I could speak, 
 and dared trust myself to look into her face, I drew her near 
 the window, and scanned the altered features. Her mother 
 was partly right. But for her eyes I should hardly have
 
 35o MY LITTLE LOVE. 
 
 been able to identify her with the plump, rosy gypsy 1 had 
 parted with, five weeks before. 
 
 Yet and the truth went through my heart like a knife 
 she was less like a sick than an etherealized child. Her 
 complexion was purely pale not sallow. There was even 
 a flush of pink in her cheeks. And the eyes that had 
 deepened as well as enlarged and brightened how shall I 
 paint the wistful intensity the languor of yearning in their 
 gaze ? They were the gates of the soul always ; now, not 
 ajar, but opened wide by some mysterious touch of what 
 angel, I shuddered to think. 
 
 " Don't stare at me so hard ! " she said, trying to avert 
 her face. " Indeed, I am not sick. I haven't an ache or a 
 pain. People worry me out of all patienc" by saying how 
 much I have ' fallen away.' Old Mrs. King, our house- 
 cleaner, screeched right out yesterday, when she opened the 
 door for us. 'Land's sake 1 but ain't she failed powerful, 
 mem ? ' I wish they would mind their own business ! " 
 
 " So do I ! " responded 1, sincerely. " But my business is 
 to set you up strong and plump again, and I mean to set 
 about it, forthwith. What is the use of having a doctor in 
 the family if you never give him anything to do ? " 
 
 The hand I fondled was thin, and the palm dry, with a 
 peculiar look about the latter that, more than anything else 
 in her appearance, justified the epithet of "withered." I 
 noted this at the time, as a phenomenon, with no misgiving 
 as to its real significance. Nor, watch and study her as I 
 might and did, throughout that portion of the evening she
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 351 
 
 spent with us ; nor in the long talk I held with her mother 
 after she went to bed, could I detect the probable secret of 
 the fearful change wrought in these brief weeks. For all 
 our united wisdom could discover, it was as causeless, save 
 for the nervous shock she had received in September, as the 
 wasting of a snow-drift on a sunless winter day with the 
 thermometer at zero. 
 
 The east wind was strong and bitter when I emerged from 
 the house. For this reason, and no other, as I then believed, 
 I chose a different route from that I generally took back to 
 my rooms one sheltered for most of its length by solid 
 blocks of houses. Skirting these at a swinging gait, with my 
 head down and thoughts busy with those I had left, I ran 
 directly against a gentleman who was coming from the oppo- 
 site direction. 
 
 " I beg pardon ! " we said simultaneously. 
 
 " Dr. Tremaine ! " I subjoined. " I trust I have not hurt 
 you ! " recognizing a leading physician of the city and a 
 constant friend of my own. 
 
 " Dr. Haye is it not ? " holding his hat fast on his head 
 in the rushing wind. " This is an odd happening ! I was 
 thinking of you. There is a man in your hospital in whom 
 I am much interested. Would you object to my turning 
 back with you for some talk about him ? Your office is 
 nearer than mine, or I would invite you to go on with me." 
 
 In three minutes we were snugly established before my 
 fire, launched on the high tide of conversation. 
 
 The original topic disposed of, he arose.
 
 352 M Y LITTLE LOVE. 
 
 " You are doing me a personal kindness in promising to 
 look after this case," he said, in his terse, nervous style. 
 
 Everything pertaining to moral, mental or pecuniary dis- 
 order falls, with the man of medicine, under the head of 
 " case " as naturally as do bodily ailments. 
 
 " If I can ever do anything to prove my appreciation of it, 
 please command me." 
 
 Thus it happened again a " happening," as I supposed 
 that I entered upon a description of Ailsie's condition and 
 my perplexity respecting it. 
 
 He listened, standing, to a synopsis of the symptoms, 
 then, the physician soul fairly alive, he dropped into a chair, 
 and questioned sharply and rapidly. This over, he sat in 
 profound deliberation for at least five minutes, plucking at 
 his under lip and projecting his eyebrows as he had a queer 
 habit of doing. I got up to mend the fire. 
 
 " He knows no more about it than I do ! " I was solilo- 
 quizing mentally, leaning over the grate, tongs in hand, when 
 he spoke two words. 
 
 |The tongs crashed upon the fender, and I confronted him 
 with a face which I felt grow ghastly. 
 
 " Impossible ! " I said. 
 
 "It is easily ascertained," he answered, with diabolical 
 coolness. " If the case were mine I would know the truth 
 in less than twenty- four hours." 
 
 I had to control myself by the recollection that he had 
 never seen the proposed patient before I could reply. 
 
 " It shall be yours ! I cannot go with you in the morn-
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 353 
 
 ing, but you can return the slight service I have ren- 
 dered you, a thousand-fold, by calling upon Mrs. Darling 
 early in the day. I will write a note of introduc- 
 tion." 
 
 With treacherous fingers I penned the few lines that told : 
 Ailsie's mother who the bearer was, and what were his recom- 
 mendations to her confidence. Dr. Tremaine eyed me 
 keenly under his beetling brows, thumb and fore-finger pulling 
 at his lip. 
 
 " You say the child is between ten and eleven years old ? " 
 he said, puzzled probably by my evident disquiet, and search- 
 ing for an adequate reason. 
 
 " She will not be eleven until late in December." 
 
 " That is against her, if my hypothesis with regard to her 
 malady be correct. There is not a case on record of recov- 
 ery from the disease I have named, when the patient was 
 under twenty years of age. Frankly and I have made the 
 matter a specialty I regard it as incurable at any age. 
 Much may be accomplished in the way of sustenance of the 
 decaying powers by tonics and dietetics ; but the end is in- 
 evitable. It is a mere question of time." 
 
 I think I was nearer actual murder at that instant than at 
 any other period of my life. I hated him in whose hands I 
 had placed the verdict of living or dying for my darling. I 
 could scarcely reply civilly to the friendly nonchalance of 
 his " Good-night." 
 
 " Rely upon my prompt attention to the case we have 
 been discussing ! " he said, as he took leave. " The more I
 
 354 MY LITTLE LOVE. 
 
 think of it, the more firm is my conviction that my interpre- 
 tation of the mystery is the right one." 
 
 " How dared he ! how dared he ! " I ground out, from 
 between my clenched teeth, when the room was clear of him 
 and his odious theorizing. " If it be proved that he is mis- 
 taken, I will never forgive him, never ! " 
 
 Then I threw myself upon the floor, and wept like a hys- 
 terical woman, over my withered blossom.
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 "PULLING THROUGH." 
 
 N three days we knew the worst there was to 
 tell, or to hear. Terrified and overwhelmed 
 by Dr. Tremaine's opinion of her daughter's 
 state, Mrs. Darling called a consultation of 
 the ablest men known to the profession in our city, 
 to reverse, or confirm his decision. But one gave 
 the shadow of hope, and his views were based upon 
 a foreign treatise on this and cognate maladies, of 
 which he had just received an advance copy. 
 I borrowed the pamphlet, copied it entire, and the regimen 
 imposed by it, as the slender chance of salvation from 
 death, was adopted without delay. I am thankful there is 
 no need for me to enter here into the details of the privations 
 to which the patient child was subjected by our obedience to 
 the Paris physician's code. I would rather remember that 
 no medicines were given her except tonics, that every luxury 
 permitted by the regulations governing her diet was procured 
 for her ; that, one and all, we followed zealously the unani- 
 mous recommendation of the doctors to afford her freely the 
 diversions of exercise in the open air, cheerful society, games 
 and story-books, and to spare the tried nerves and brain by 
 every device that the ingenuity of love could conceive.
 
 356 My LITTLE L O VE. 
 
 Her father purchased a horse and gave it to her. 
 
 " For my very own ! " she said to me at my afternoon 
 visit on the day of the event. " And either he or you are to 
 take me driving every day. So papa says. ' Oh ! let us be 
 joyful ! ' as Mr. Chadband says." 
 
 She waltzed three times round the room, flying back to me 
 on the tips of her toes. 
 
 " Now I shall get well ! It would be very ungrateful if I 
 did not." 
 
 " She may pull through," said the doctor, who had allowed 
 us to hope. " She has an exceptionally fine constitution. 
 Her recovery would be but a degree short of a miracle. Yet 
 there have been miracles, even in the nineteenth century." 
 
 Every moderately fine day, therefore, " Ailsie's phaeton " 
 was brought to the door, and her father left his counting- 
 house, or I my office, to act as charioteer. Aunt Evy's 
 parlor looked like a Vanity-fair wareroom with the pretty 
 knick-knacks collected by and for the household favorite. 
 Each morning I left in person a bouquet for the vase in 
 " Sister Anne's window," as we named the post of observa- 
 tion from which she watched for my evening visit. The days 
 were short, now, and when the street-lamps were kindled, I 
 could only trace the outline of her form upon the red duski- 
 ness of the background. She would not have the parlor 
 lighted except by the fire-glow until my arrival. 
 
 " Gas lights made the frames like black mirrors," she said, 
 " and the world outside invisible." 
 
 The outside world saw little ot any of us during those
 
 LITTLE LOVE. 357 
 
 anxious weeks. Ailsie was never left alone by day, and at 
 the even-tide we gathered about her with solicitous fondness 
 that must have seemed overstrained to those unacquainted 
 with the imminence of the danger that threatened us through 
 her. After our first anguished consultation, we four her 
 parents, aunt, and myself never spoke out our fears to one 
 another, but each felt that it was a hand-to-hand battle with 
 the destroyer, and as one day after another dragged by, 
 the hope trembled into life in the breast of each that, inch 
 by inch, we were gaining upon the foe. Drowsiness and 
 lassitude were vanquished symptoms ; the step had its 
 former lightness, and was at times as fleet. The figure had 
 never drooped. The spirited grace of the " thoroughbred" 
 defied disease even a waste so deadly as that which had 
 robbed the complexion of its rich tints, the supple limbs of 
 their roundness. 
 
 When her father called at my office one November day, to 
 announce that Ailsie had gained a pound of flesh within a 
 fortnight, we shook hands over the news as over a national 
 victory, and laughed in each other's faces we two bearded 
 men with eyes that saw but dimly through warm mists of 
 gladness. 
 
 In my rounds that forenoon, I recognized the reflection of 
 my own sunlit heart in many a wan countenance. I had 
 grown strangely tender in sympathy, very tolerant in my 
 treatment of suffering strangers, while my blossom was 
 fading. I hope I had never been callous. I am sure I had 
 not been harsh in my professional dealings, but the dull eye
 
 3 5 8 MY LITTLE L O VE. 
 
 of stupor and the flush of fever, the sight of thinning cheeks 
 that had once been round, touched me now to the quick. 
 Whenever and wherever I went among the crowd of unfor- 
 tunates, in clinical or surgical ward, I carried one prayer 
 until my heart beat to its fervent measure. I remembered 
 the Physician of old and forever, who, when He could do no 
 mighty work among His own kindred and in the home of His 
 boyhood because of their unbelief, yet out of the great com- 
 passion that was in Him, " laid His hands upon a few sick 
 folk and healed them." As the sick snatched hastily from 
 their beds and laid in the highroad, clogging His feet as He 
 trod the sorrowful way whose end He was never to forget for 
 one waking hour of His three-and-thirty-years clutched at 
 the hem of His robe, I clung to the thought of His humanity, 
 beseeching Him because He knew what was in man what 
 weakness of faith and what strength of human affection to 
 have pity upon me and the little maid (younger even than 
 the ruler's daughter) whom I loved. 
 
 The shadow upon the dial of Ahaz went backward ten 
 degrees that trembling Hezekiah might know, for a certainty, 
 that his prayer for life was answered. I thought it not pre- 
 sumption in me to ask that I might discern in the success of 
 my ministry to the Lord's poor and smitten ones the sign 
 that my cry for help had been heard. If, by unsolicited 
 vigils and tireless labors beside and for those who, to mortal 
 eye, seemed marked for speedy doom, I could wave back the 
 shadowing wings, might it not be accepted as part of the 
 ransom of the precious life ?
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 359 
 
 " Ye look as if summat had heartened ye up a bit," 
 observed an Englishman a Yorkshireman who had been 
 dragged out of a fallen house, the previous week, with a 
 broken collar-bone, a compound fracture of the leg and 
 three cracked ribs. 
 
 " Something has ! " I answered, smiling. 
 
 "Yer hands beant never heavy," he pursued. "But 
 tudday they bees uncommon loight and delikit-loike. Ye 
 couldn't handle yer sweetheart's feenger more tender uor 
 ye're easin thot beeg j'int o'moine." 
 
 I smiled again and went on with the bandaging. 
 
 " Mebbe ye bees thinkin' o' hur, the whoile?" he ven- 
 tured, with a broad, kindly grin. 
 
 " Perhaps so ! " 
 
 "You've got one, then, hev you ?" said another voice, in 
 unmistakable Yankee dialect. 
 
 A thump between my shoulders emphasized the delicate 
 jest. 
 
 " How did you get in here ? " I demanded, frowning at 
 Ezra Gaskin, in his Simday suit, his leathery jaws wrinkled 
 in longitudinal creases with his best attempt at an engaging 
 smile. 
 
 " Come with a friend of ourn who ain't likely to give me 
 much more trouble for a spell. It's my opinion he's goin' to 
 make a die of it. Ther's been a row, some kind, on the wharf, 
 and this fool-fellow, he was into it, of course. It's a way he 
 hez. Ma and me we had jest come to town fur our winter 
 shoppin', aixl I happened ter fall in with the skipper of our
 
 360 MY LITTLE LOVE, 
 
 sloop, the Mary Jane and sez he ' I've got a permit from 
 the hospittle fur yer nevy,' sez he. ' Won't you go 'long, 
 and see him got in reg'lar and decent, seein' you're nighest 
 of kin ?' That's how I'm here. Say! when you've did that 
 'ere chap up ail square, will you take Ziby in hand ? " 
 
 " Not if there's another doctor in the establishment who 
 can attend to him ! " I retorted. " I would sooner pitch 
 him out of the window, and you after him ! " 
 
 My poor Yorkshireman looked up with a grimace of pain 
 at the compression of the sore flesh under the roller I was 
 adjusting. 
 
 " I beg your pardon, my good fellow ! " I said to him. 
 " I have no right to make you suffer for the sins of others." 
 
 Ezra did not retreat as I had meant that he should. 
 
 " Come now 1 " he resumed in a tone he designed for 
 wheedling. '"Taint Christian-like for to bear malice. I 
 ain't denyin' that the Darlings hez got some right for to be 
 bad friends with me and mine, and so, I s'pose, you think you 
 hev, considerin' you air so desprit thick you 'n' them 
 tarred with the same stick ez one mought say. Fact is, I 
 bed to send Ziby off the farm, turn him out o' house and 
 home, you may say, and him an orph'n, on account of that 
 little rumpus last summer. I was actilly afeered that young- 
 est Darling that bloody-minded, onprinci/<?//^ vagabone of 
 a Wynant would kill him at sight. No sech gret loss, I 
 s'pose you think. But kin is kin, and 'thcnigh I 'low he's a 
 bad lot, I'd be loth to have him cut down vi'lent and him 
 unprepared, and an inquest in my house. So, off I bundles
 
 MY LITTLE L VE. 36 1 
 
 him to town, and sot him to work with a carpenter, and this 
 is what come on it, you see. If anything should happen 
 from his hurts, my skirts is clear. I can't answer for the 
 Darlings. People's consciences ain't all cut after the one 
 pattern." 
 
 He appeared nowise averse to the prospect of his relative's 
 " regular and decent " demise in a city hospital, I imagined. 
 
 " It is against the rules for you to stand talking here," said 
 I very curtly. " Your nephew will be properly cared for by 
 competent doctors and nurses. You had better go back to 
 your wife and your shopping." 
 
 "'Twould be a raal comfort for to leave him into a friend's 
 hands," he persisted, without moving. "So's I could hear 
 how he was a-gettin' on and in case of anything happening, 
 I'd hev infermation sent to me. I'm his guardeen by his 
 father's will, and trier's a piece o' property on which his 
 father hed a mortgage. It's in the court now the property, 
 I mean and ef the other fellows don't swaller it up with 
 their first mor'gage ther* maybe a chance o'somethin' comin' 
 to Ziby. And, in the event of his dessolution, I'd be his 
 heir, seein' he ain't of age." 
 
 I beckoned up an attendant a stalwart porter. 
 
 " See this man down stairs and into the street ! " I said. 
 " He is disturbing the peace of the ward. Don't let him in 
 again without my permission." 
 
 " By jarge ! " uttered my Englishman, eyeing the slouching 
 yeoman as he was escorted down the long room by the broad- 
 shouldered Milesian. " He'd fain talk 'ee legs off an iron 
 16
 
 362 MY LITTLE LOVE. 
 
 pot yon chap ! Ye wnr hard on he, maister main hard ! 
 I'd niver tho't to heer ye coom so naigh sweering. It's the 
 mairciful as obteens maircy, sir. No offence to yer honor ! " 
 
 I bit my lip to hold in the tart word his interference 
 merited, and finished dressing his injuries before I trusted 
 myself to reply : 
 
 " There is a text, too, in the Good Book about being 
 angry and sinning not, my friend. You would have kicked 
 that fellow down the stairs had you been able to stand up- 
 right and known all that I do about him and his blackguard 
 nephew. Or you are not the man I take you for." 
 
 True to my threat, I did not approach the bed on which 
 Ziba Gaskin lay. It was at one end of the ward, and I 
 could avoid it conveniently. He was well-looked after by 
 my coadjutor, a clever young man who reported the case to 
 me as severe, rather than dangerous. The chief cause of 
 apprehension was in the inflammatory state of the system 
 consequent upon his habits. 
 
 I took advantage of Ailsie's temporary absence from the 
 room that evening, to relate to Miss Marr the remarkable 
 instance of righteous retribution that had laid the wretch who 
 had done me most harm at the door of my mercy. 
 
 "But you would haye succored him had his life depended 
 upon your professional care ? " she said seriously. 
 
 " I doubt it ! Perhaps a rigid rendering of the physician's 
 oath might make it obligatory upon ne to tie up an artery to 
 keep him from bleeding to death. But I would not like to 
 engage for myself to do even that much for hirn."
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 363 
 
 The tender, mournful eyes were fixed upon me, I knew, 
 and in my obstinacy I would not meet them. I heard her 
 sigh softly. 
 
 " I am not as good as you, Aunt Evy ! I am too young 
 my hates and loves are too ardent to accomplish such a 
 feat of forgiveness as would be involved in personal attend- 
 ance upon Ziba Gaskin, however badly hurt he might be." 
 
 Ailsie stood in the open door. I feared from the startled 
 eyes that went quickly from my lowering brow to Aunt 
 P>y's face, that a portion of the last sentence had been over- 
 heard. The fellow's name was never mentioned in the 
 family, and, heartily vexed at my own imprudence, I watched 
 her narrowly during the rest of my stay, that I might judge 
 for myself if harm had been done by it. She was very 
 gentle and cheerful. Her former wild spirits were tempering 
 daily into a loveliness of calm that heightened her resem- 
 blance to her " twin." 
 
 " So you have been gaining flesh ! " I said, gayly, patting 
 her head approvingly as she occupied her low stool at my 
 knee. " We shall have you as round and ruddy as a Spit- 
 zenberg apple by Christinas." 
 
 She smiled, held my palm to her cheek and made no 
 other answer. 
 
 " Beefsteak, oysters and omelets ought to pad one's bones 
 pretty comfortably," I continued. " I say, Ailsie, I am 
 growing distressingly gaunt. Can't you persuade your 
 Dr. Lawrence to prescribe such diet for me?" 
 
 " I dare say you take enough of them without his pre-
 
 364 M Y LITTLE L VE. 
 
 scriptions," said she dryly. " They seem to do you so little 
 good you had better try a course of Graham bread and gen- 
 tian tea. Dr. Lawrence says there's nothing better for restor- 
 ing the tone of the system. The older the bread and the 
 stronger the tea, the better for you. One ought to get up a 
 very loud tone upon such stuff as that a perfect yell ! I 
 know I feel like it when I take my bitters." 
 
 "You are growing saucy as you grow stronger," said her 
 aunt. " That is a good sign." 
 
 " We must take her to Brightwood early next summer. 
 By the first of June at latest," I went on. " By nutting- 
 lime, she will be as well as ever. And, Ailsie ! don't let it 
 afflict you too much but I am to have six weeks' vacation 
 then. My two years' apprenticeship will have expired." 
 
 She did not reply, nor turn her eyes from the fire. 
 
 " What are you thinking of? " asked I. 
 
 " Of several things. One is, I am glad you are to have a 
 long holiday after working so hard. Then, I was thinking 
 of the time ever and ever so many years ago when you 
 took me nutting in the winter, and what a rage I got into 
 with the lady who sat down at our table and told you what 
 wasn't true. What a little spitfire I was ! " 
 
 " I don't care to have you recollect anything that hap- 
 pened that day." Foolish as it was, I colored at the remin- 
 iscence. " I would rather have you think of the jolly day we 
 spent among the Brightwood hills, a year ago last month. 
 When you played Robin Redbreast to this babe-in-the-wood, 
 and adorned me with ' crown jewels ' besides. And
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 365 
 
 of the many frolics we are to have there together, next 
 year." 
 
 " Did you know that we get all the wood we burn from 
 those hills ? " inquired Ailsie, still studying the blazing sticks 
 upon the fire-dogs. " Sometimes I wish we didn't ! It's 
 only a notion, of course. But I imagine the logs suffer 
 more in the fire than others that come from we don't know 
 or care where. I know just how lovely the air and sunshine 
 were that gave them their sap, and how fresh and sweet the 
 summer showers were that used to patter on their leaves. It 
 looks like such cruel waste to see their life drip ! drip ! drip- 
 ping down upon the hearth." 
 
 I read Aunt Evy's thought as truly as she knew that it was 
 likewise mine, and that sorrow for waste more real and cruel 
 wrung my heart as it did hers. 
 
 "We shall be ashamed to look their brother and cousin 
 trees in the face, next summer, if we indulge such fancies," 
 I said. " You must not spoil the beauty of Aunt Evy's 
 wood fire for me. How do you suppose Jack will take your 
 preference for Tricksy ?" (the new horse). "Won't he be 
 hurt if you refuse to drive him ?" 
 
 She did not answer immediately. Her hands very slen- 
 der now clasped each other more tightly, but she stared 
 straight into the fire without other motion. 
 
 " Do you think " she began, in a sweet, thrilling voice 
 scarcely above a whisper " that it is well for us to talk 
 much about things that may never happen ? Next summer 
 is a long way off. Even if I should be at Brightwood then "
 
 366 MY LITTLE LOVE. 
 
 She arose and moved to the window ; pressed her face to 
 the glass, feigning to look out then quitted the room. 
 
 " Who has been talking to her ? " demanded I, indignantly. 
 " What do you suppose she means ? " 
 
 " She may be nearer right than we," said Aunt Evy, 
 tremulously. " GOD only knows ! But the notion pray 
 Heaven it may be nothing more is her own. We are all 
 hopeful of her final restoration. I have never felt that we 
 were to drink of the cup the thought of whose bitterness 
 makes us heart-sick unto death. Even Dr. Lawrence, who 
 is the impersonation of professional caution, is encouraged." 
 
 " As he ought to be ! He would be purblind if he did 
 not see how rapidly she has rallied in the last fortnight. 
 These bracing northwesters have put new life into her. To 
 foster these unhealthy fancies would be the worst thing con- 
 ceivable. We rely upon her indomitable spirit her ' game 
 blood,' as Wynant calls it, as much as upon her constitution, 
 to pull her through." 
 
 Aunt Evy repeated the four concluding words. 
 
 " That is a genuine doctor's phrase. You all use it in 
 speaking of her. I ought to remind you, Barry^-it is best 
 for you to bear in mind what a wreck may come out of the 
 wrestle for life. Dr. Lawrence agrees with the rest that she 
 can never be altogether strong again ; that should she grow 
 to womanhood the care requisite to preserve her in a mod- 
 erate degree of health must be unremitting." 
 
 " I will risk it ! " I answered promptly. " If she remain 
 an invalid, the more reason why mine should be the dear
 
 MY LI TTLE LOVE. 367 
 
 right to cherish her. No ! no ! Aunt Evy ! you cannot 
 intimidate me by such prognostications. Not though I were 
 sure she would never know another day, or hour, of health." 
 
 She did not tell me that this impetuous fling of the gaunt- 
 let into the face of Fate was selfish, if sincere. I know now 
 that it was both, and that she must have thus regarded it. 
 
 About noon, next day, a basket was brought to my office, 
 by a hired messenger. Just under the lid were two letters. 
 One superscribed in Aunt Evy's hand " Read this first," 
 contained but eight lines. 
 
 " I beg you to believe that I have told the dear one noth- 
 ing except that Ziba Gaskin is in the hospital, badly hurt. 
 All that follows her knowledge of this is the outflow of her 
 own heart and such Christian charity as one cannot name 
 without reverence. She has just come to ask my assistance 
 in packing the basket, and devising a sure means of sending 
 it. She has not a thought that what she is doing may not 
 meet with yofir approval. I need not counsel you to dis- 
 cretion." 
 
 This was Ailsie's note : 
 
 " MY OWN MR. BARRY : Aunt Evy says that when I 
 heard you call that poor man's name, last night, you were 
 telling her about his being in your hospital. Papa says I 
 ought to know it, so that I need not be afraid any more of 
 meeting him in the street. I have not been afraid of this for 
 some time, now. I am very sorry to hear of what has hap- 
 pened to him. Would you mind giving him the things I
 
 368 MY LITTLE LOVE. 
 
 send, and telling him I have never forgotten that the poor 
 old lady, his grandmother, was kind to me, the day of the 
 thunder-storm ? If he should feel badly because it was meet- 
 ing him last summer that made me sick, please tell him not 
 to mind it any longer. He didn't know what he was doing. 
 That is the worst about getting drunk. I hope he will get 
 well. I prayed for him, last night and this morning. 
 
 " Your dear little AILSIK. 
 
 "P.S. Don't blame Aunt Evy for telling tales out of 
 school. I made her do it, and wouldn't be put off. 
 
 " P.S., No. 2. I open this to say that you must not imag- 
 ine I am generous in giving what I do to the poor man. 
 People who do not understand that the doctors won't let me 
 eat fruit and other sweet things, are all the time sending them 
 to me. I am glad to find somebody who needs them. It is 
 * real favor to me, you see ! 
 
 " CHKRIE." 
 
 Aunt Evy had intimated truly that commoner mortals 
 should attend reverently upon the impulses of such a soul as 
 was held within this fragile child-frame. 
 
 I lifted the white napkin covering her offering as the pious 
 Levite, who read aright the types and shadows of the first 
 dispensation, might have handled a sacrifice after it was laid 
 upon the altar. Beneath were hot- house grapes, oranges, 
 golden-iusset pears, some delicate wafers and a mould of 
 calf's-foot jelly. I carried the basket with my own hand to 
 the cot of him who had struck the vigor out of the sweet
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 369 
 
 young life, forgetting nothing of his crime, while I com- 
 pelled myself, by thoughts of his victim, to greet him civilly. 
 
 " You recollect me, I see," I added. " I am the physician 
 in charge of this ward. I saw you last summer, while I was 
 hunting in the Brightwood woods. Mr. Darling's youngest 
 daughter the one you met in the road that afternoon sends 
 you this basket. Your grandmother was kind to her once, 
 when she came to see me at your uncle's, and she is glad to 
 be able to do you a kindness in remembrance of this." 
 
 1 felt that every sentence ought to be a living coal upon 
 his head, nor did I regret, as a Christian should have done, 
 that mine was the office of heaping these where they belonged. 
 
 He stared at me stupidly, contracting his eyebrows, as 
 doubting whether he had heard aright. 
 
 " I will take care of the fruit and other things for you," I 
 said. " You can eat a bunch of grapes now, if you like." 
 
 His lips were dry with fever and the drunkard's thirst. His 
 red eyes glistened at sight of the luscious cluster. Yet, to 
 my amazement, he put them away with the back of his hand ; 
 twisted his head over on the pillow so as not to see them or 
 me. 
 
 "I'd as lief swaller so much p'ison as to eat one on 'em ! " 
 he growled. " You needn't kick a feller when he's down. 
 No nor she, neither. I ain't got quite so low as to be 
 beholden to none of the Darling tribe. You can give 
 your trash to some mean-spirited sneak what can stomach 
 it." 
 
 I was detained by a press of business at the hospital that 
 16*
 
 370 MY LITTLE LOVE. 
 
 night, and could not pay my evening visit to my little evan- 
 gel. I wrote, instead, as follows : 
 
 " PRECIOUS CHILD : I am too busy to come to you this 
 evening. I have only time to write a little story for you to 
 dream upon. 
 
 "A lily once grew by chance, on the edge of a mud- 
 puddle. The result was that the lily looked very white, and 
 the puddle very black. 
 
 " I delivered your basket and message as requested. 
 
 " Aunt Evy can put these two paragraphs together and tell 
 you more than I have leisure to do now. 
 
 " Lovingly your Barry and yours only." 
 
 I never enlightened her as to the particulars of the presen- 
 tation of her peace-offering. It would have been like throw- 
 ing mud over the lily.
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 THE WIXTER ROBE*. 
 
 all attended church on Thanksgiving-day, 
 even Baby and Aunt Evy who rode thither in 
 a close carriage. By appointment, I called 
 by for Allsie, and two happier beings did 
 not breathe the pure air of that morning than 
 were we as we walked to the house of GOD in 
 company. 
 
 "I've kept this new suit for to-day," she 
 informed me, whirling slowly on one foot as on a 
 pivot to let me inspect it. " I had a fancy to be new and 
 fresh all through on Thanksgiving-day. It's the first time 
 I've put on real winter clothes, and I thought about offering 
 the first fruits. If s natural for women j&r to like pretty 
 dresses and all that ; and though, of course, it really makes 
 no difference, I felt, somehow, that I wanted to sanctify the 
 first wearing of mine. I haven't one thing on that I ever 
 wore before, from my hat to my shoes." 
 
 The " suit "dress and sacque was dark green cashmere, 
 edged with black fur. A band of the same encircled her cap, 
 which was of dark-green velvet A small India scarf with a 
 scarlet centre was tied about her throat The dainty ruffles
 
 372 M Y LITTLE L O VE. 
 
 she loved were in neck and sleeves. Gloves and boots 
 fitted to a charm. 
 
 *' A French child ! " I overheard a lady say in passing. 
 
 "A good many people call me that," observed quick- 
 eared Ailsie. " I suppose because my hair and skin are so 
 brown. One of my very great-grandmothers was a French- 
 woman." 
 
 I knew that her bearing and the indescribable and inimita- 
 ble accord of costume and person, which was a natural gift, 
 elicited the remark. It was clearly and highly compli- 
 mentary, but of this she had no suspicion. In calico or in 
 camel's hair, she was the lady born not made, and her 
 sincerity matched her breeding. 
 
 " "What a delicious day ! " she continued, leaving the topic 
 of her own looks for one more interesting to herself. 
 " Neither too warm for the season, nor too cold for comfort. 
 Not much like this time last year ! I am very glad I did not 
 freeze to death in that fearful ride from Uncle Richard's." 
 
 " So am I ! " 
 
 I smiled at the seriousness with which it was said. 
 
 She went on : 
 
 " It was worth while living twelve months longer to be 
 alive to-day. Doesn't it come over you all in a rush some- 
 times, how good GOD is, and how much we have to make us 
 happy, and you wonder to yourself if there are really and 
 truly such things as trouble and pain and death in the world, 
 or whether all you've read and heard and felt about them 
 wasn't a bad dream? That's just how I feel today this
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 373 
 
 blessed very minute ! " whirling around again on one shape 
 ly toe, as a slight token of emotion. 
 
 " I was just thinking over some lines that describe to day," 
 I said. 
 
 " Poetry ! let me hear ! " coming up close and eagerly to 
 my side. 
 
 I repeated 
 
 " The shrinking day that sometimes comes, 
 In Winter's front, so fair 'mong its dark peers 
 It seems a straggler from the files of June, 
 Which, in its wanderings had lost its wits, 
 And half its beauty ; and when it returned, 
 Finding its old companions gone away 
 It joined November's troop, then marching past." 
 
 " Poor day ! " said Ailsie compassionately. " But we will 
 rejoice and be glad in it now that it is here. I suppose we 
 shall feel as happy over every day in heaven as I do over 
 this. That's a pleasant thing to look forward to." 
 
 ' Life is a pleasant thing as it is," said I. " Especially, 
 when my little winter robin is well and bright." 
 
 She slipped her hand under my arm and gave it an affec- 
 tionate squeeze. 
 
 I held it there. 
 
 "You are running up like Jonah's gourd, Cherie ; are 
 quite tall enough to walk arm in arm with me." 
 
 " And are you, like Jonah, exceeding glad of the gourd ? " 
 she asked, with the upward twist of eye and mouth that 
 meant teasing. "It is not a very elegant compliment to a
 
 374 MY LITTLE LOVE. 
 
 tall young lady to call her such a vulgar vegetable. Why 
 not say pumpkin, or cucumber, at once, while you are choos- 
 ing a pet-name ? That would be something original, and 
 more useful as well as sweeter than gourd. I tasted one 
 once. Pah ! " 
 
 "But Jonah's gourd was not what you think," I defended 
 myself. " It was the palm-christ, a tall, graceful plant that 
 shot up like a tree, with long broad leaves drooping over 
 him like an umbrella." 
 
 " Is that true ? Thank you for telling me ! " she cried 
 excitedly. " I never liked to imagine him as sitting in the 
 shade of a coarse sprawling vine, like the one that ran up a 
 pole at Brightwood last year, with big yellow flowers, and 
 maybe, little green gourds, bumping his head whenever he 
 moved. Yet one can't help being sorrier for him, after 
 knowing that it was a beautiful tree, to read that GOD pre- 
 pared a worm the very next day to destroy it, and let the 
 hot sun in upon his head, poor Jonah ! I am afraid any of 
 us would have quarrelled about it, and said, to GOD'S very 
 face, that we did well to be angry. It does seem as if he 
 might have enjoyed it a little longer. 
 
 " That's something also to be thankful for that we haven't 
 any worm-eaten palm-trees to fret over." 
 
 She said it in the church porch, flashing a glance, half 
 merry, half loving, into my face. Then hers settled 
 reverently and she entered the sanctuary softly at my side. 
 
 Still at my side, nestling nearer, and once laying her hand 
 stealthily on mine, when fervent mention was made in the
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 375 
 
 sermon of the home-blessings, health and friends, daily food 
 and raiment, spared to us during the year, she sat through- 
 out the service. 
 
 Looking down at her as we arose for the last hymn, I 
 "saw her face as it had been the face of an angel." Others 
 besides myself, suppressed their voices to hear the clear tones, 
 so full and sweet they were surprised to see that they issued 
 from a child's lips, which raised the sacred song : 
 
 " O Thou long-expected ! weary 
 
 Waits my anxious soul for Thee. 
 Life is dark and earth is dreary 
 When Thy light I do not see, 
 
 O my Saviour I 
 When wilt Thou return to me ? 
 
 " Nearer is my soul's salvation 
 
 Spent the night, the day at hand ; 
 Keep me in my lowly station, 
 Watching for Thee, till I stand, 
 
 O my Saviour ! 
 In Thy bright and promised land. 
 
 " With my lamp well-trimmed and burning. 
 
 Swift to hear, and slow to roam ; 
 Watching for Thy glad returning, 
 To restore me to Thy home. 
 
 Come, my Saviour ! 
 O my Saviour, quickly come 1 " 
 
 She repeated the second stanza while we were walking 
 home.
 
 3 7<5 MY LIT TLE L VE. 
 
 "It was a delicious hymn words, and tune ! " she added. 
 " I mean to learn it all. Strange that I never saw it before ! " 
 
 1 heard her singing it above-stairs when she had gone 
 up to lay off her hat and sacque. The refrain, " O my 
 Saviour ! " was on her lips when she rejoined me in the 
 parlor. 
 
 A goodly number of us sat down to dinner that day. 
 George Marr, his wife and six children, Wynant and his be- 
 trothed, soon to be his bride, were spending the family holi- 
 day with the Darlings. At the conclusion of the meal, the 
 parlors were left to the children by the adjournment of their 
 elders to the library for a quiet chat. 
 
 At the end of an hour I arose. 
 
 " You are not obliged to leave us already ? " said Pressley 
 Darling, hospitably regretful. *' I thought you had an all day 
 furlough." 
 
 " I have," I answered. " I am going no further than 
 across the hall to see that Ailsie does not over-exert her- 
 self." 
 
 " I say !" interposed Wynant. " Do you propose to adopt 
 that child, or to marry her ? " 
 
 " Shame ! " ejaculated his sister-in-law. 
 
 I laughed. 
 
 ' That will be as she shall choose. Just now, there is a 
 professional bias in my interest." 
 
 Ailsie danced up to me, at my entrance, handkerchief 
 in hand. " You will be Buff won't you ? " 
 
 As the easiest way of effecting my object, I suffered her
 
 M Y LITTLE LOVE. 377 
 
 to blind me, the operation being performed so faithfully as to 
 flatten my eyeballs and threaten an embolism at the root of 
 the brain. In three rounds I caught and identified her, and 
 pulling off the bandage, proposed to tell the small mob a 
 story. I established myself in. an easy-chair near the fire. 
 Ailsie fluttered to my knee ; the others gathered about us, 
 some on chairs, some on footstools ; the boys sitting and 
 lounging upon the hearth-rug. My darling leaned on my 
 breast presently, and in the hope that she would fall asleep, 
 I spun out my narration by unnecessary details and digres- 
 sions. 
 
 At the finale, she sat upright, her eyes large and bright, 
 and began a volley of queries and comments. 
 
 In the midst of them, I noticed that she put her hand to 
 her chest, with one deep, labored inspiration. 
 
 "What makes you do that ?" I asked, quickly. 
 
 " Oh, it is nothing ! A sort of catch in my breath that's 
 all ! " 
 
 " Sitting-still plays are best for you," said I. " Don't run 
 again to-night, dear. I am afraid you have been romping too 
 hard. Blind-man's-buff must be postponed until you are 
 quite strong." 
 
 " Do you know, Dr. Haye," she enunciated, solemnly, tak- 
 ing hold of my shoulders as if to shake me " that you are 
 growing absolutely fidgety ? It grieves me to say it but 
 you are in danger of slipping into old-bachelorish ways. Not 
 that I object to sitting-still plays. Or story-telling either, if 
 your next tale is as delightful as the one you have just told
 
 378 MY LITTLE L VE. 
 
 us. There's nothing more charming than to sit in this way 
 around the fire in the twilight and listen." 
 
 Around the fire we sat, then, until twilight became dark- 
 ness, and the younger children were carried off by their 
 nurses, first to tea, then to bed. 
 
 Ailsie and I had the room and red half-lights of the hum- 
 ming coals to ourselves for a good hour before the library- 
 party poured in. 
 
 " This is ever so much nicer than even standing by the 
 window and watching for you," she murmured, con- 
 tentedly, lying back on my shoulder, her cheek against 
 mine. 
 
 I never held her thus, now a days, without a heart-ache at 
 the lightness of the weight. The hand I pressed to my lips 
 was almost translucent ; the palm retained the shrivelled look 
 and the dryness I understood better now than when I first 
 perceived it. But she was better. She would get well. I 
 discredited the owlish prognostications relative to future 
 weakness and protracted suffering. How could she fail to 
 recover, with youth, a faultless constitution, and all the as- 
 siduity of love's cares on her side ? The full, regular throb 
 succeeding the transient heart-pang was a pasan of gladness 
 in the joyful going out of this Thanksgiving-day. 
 
 Ailsie talked on brightly. 
 
 " I read a story, the other day, of a book-keeper who had 
 stood forty years at the same desk, and when he died, his 
 shadow stayed on the wall for six months before it faded 
 quite out. If I were to stop watching for you at that win-
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 379 
 
 dow, I dare say you would see something that looked like 
 me there for quite a while afterward." 
 
 "I would rather see you!" I affirmed, honestly. "I 
 don't like fetches and shadows." 
 
 She glanced away from the subject to tell me how well she 
 was getting on with her Christmas work. " Aunt Evy and 
 I " were making a great store of mats, tidies, cushions, muf- 
 fatees, etc., etc., these manufactures being kept a profound 
 secret from each of the prospective recipients. 
 
 " It is delightful the way my pocket-money has held out ! " 
 she said, with the satisfaction of a judicious economist. "All 
 the materials I shall need are paid for, and I have a dollar- 
 and-a-half in my purse for Christmas ' goodies ' for the chil- 
 dren's stockings." 
 
 " And you don't owe a penny? Happy Ailsie ! " 
 
 " Not a cent, my dear sir ! The world and I are even ! " 
 
 She did not see me smile, being engrossed in her much- 
 loved study of the fire. 
 
 " Only one month more ! " she sighed, presently. " Mr. 
 Barry ! you won' t think me very greedy if I ask you one 
 question ? " 
 
 " That is the last thing I should accuse you of, even in my 
 secret thoughts. The hungrier you are and the more you 
 eat, the better I like you." 
 
 " But this is about forbidden fruit. I don't like to speak 
 of it here at home, because they all feel so badly already 
 that 1 have to go without so many things. Mamma would 
 never havs a dessert if I didn't beg her not to punish the rest
 
 380 M Y LI TTLE L O VE. 
 
 on my account. So I always ask to be excused before it 
 conies on the table. They must eat more comfortably for 
 not having my big, hungry eyes watching every mouthful. 
 But don't you believe that I may have just one bunch of 
 white grapes, and one saucer of ice-cream on Christmas-day ? 
 It seems babyish to ask it so long beforehand, but I want 
 such things so dreadfully, that I dream about them, almost 
 every night. I never used to be so very fond of sweets, 
 either. I am walking through candy-shops and orchards, 
 loaded with fruit, and whenever I have them in my hand, 
 ready to eat them, I am sure to wake up. Even in the day- 
 time, when I pass the confectioner's windows, I have to look 
 the other way, or I should be tempted to smash a pane of 
 glass, and ' grab ' candy and cake." 
 
 She laughed somewhat tremulously to dissemble her real 
 earnestness. I kissed the cheek so near my lips, silently. 
 I knew that she understated the fierce cravings of a system 
 in which the wholesome juices were perverted into poison, 
 maddening appetite into greed for that which would be as oil 
 upon the fire which had consumed strength and flesh. Yet 
 this was the only complaint she had ever spoken. 
 
 " I take it upon myself to say that you shall have these 
 and whatever else you like best, on that day," I answered. 
 " The fruits of all the tropics, if they can be had. For 
 twenty-four hours we will snap our fingers at the doctors." 
 
 " Thank you a thousand times ! And don't be angry ! 
 1 try not to be impatient but if I go on getting stronger and 
 less skeleton-y, mayn't I begin to study a little after New
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 381 
 
 Year's ? I'm really afraid I shall grow up to be a dunce out- 
 and-out." 
 
 " I am not ! If you continue to improve during the next 
 month as steadily as you have in the last, we will begin to 
 talk about lessons with the New Year. Am I a very stern 
 master, pet ? " 
 
 " Never anything but good and dear ! " she cried, clinging 
 to me. " That is one of the reasons I hope GOD will let me 
 live. I want to do something for you something to show 
 how thankful I am to you, how much I love you, if I ever 
 have a chance. I have been such a bother and nuisance 
 lately ! nothing but a great, clumsy, stupid sponge that sucks 
 up everything that is given to it, and holds all it gets." 
 
 I put my finger upon her lip. 
 
 " No more of that or I shall think you are fishing for a 
 compliment ! " 
 
 " I seem never to have known how kind people could be 
 until this Fall," she resumed, when I would let her speak. 
 " Or what dear friends I had. It is a lovely world, and this 
 is one of the lovely times in it to sit with you on Thanks- 
 giving evening, and talk just as I please. It is good that 
 you could get away from the hospital. You said that poor 
 Ziba Gaskin was getting along nicely, didn't you ? " 
 
 " He will be well enough in a week to leave the hospital." 
 
 " I hope he will do better after this. I am almost sure he 
 will. It has been such a sad lesson for him. Can't you keep 
 an eye on him, and help him, somehow, to be good, after he 
 gets about again ? "
 
 382 My LITTLE LOVE. 
 
 " I will try, Ailsie if you wish it." 
 
 The reserve of the sentence had to be brought up to help 
 the van off the field. She noticed my stammer. 
 
 " I do honestly and truly ! Why not ? He never 
 meant to do me real harm. If he did, it is time that I for- 
 gave him. Nobody but a heathen remembers a hurt for two 
 whole months. I wouldn't trouble myself not to forgive him, 
 or anybody else, when there are oceans of pleasanter mat- 
 ters to think of. He never had a fair chance at least, if 
 his father and mother were like his uncle and aunt. No 
 doubt they are good people. But don't you think the best way 
 to make people love goodness is to make goodness beautiful ?" 
 
 " That is sound philosophy ! " assented I, admiringly. 
 
 My small teacher nodded sagaciously. 
 
 " It is something better. It is pure gospel. ' Let your 
 light so shine, that men may glorify your Father in heaven.' 
 That isn't the text, precisely, but it is the meaning of it. I 
 saw Mrs. Gaskin light a home-made tallow candle, once. 
 ' A dip,' she called it. It was made up, when she had got it 
 going, of a great deal of bad smell and snuff and smoke, with 
 a little sick-looking yellow blaze in the middle. It didn't do 
 her much credit. I have thought of it many limes, since, 
 and hoped my glorifying the Father wouldn't be like that. 
 If poor Ziba never had any better example, we can't wonder 
 that he has gone wrong." 
 
 This was not preaching only thinking aloud. The slim 
 hands were chafing each other slowly the eyes full of shad- 
 ows that were lovelier than earthly lights.
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 383 
 
 " I will try to help him, Ailsie ! " I repeated, sincerely. 
 " For your sake ! " 
 
 " Philandering as usual ! " called Wynanfs gay tones behind 
 us. "All alone by themselves and nobody with them ! " 
 
 Ailsie glanced at him in saucy defiance, not offering to 
 quit her place on my knee. She even stole one arm around 
 my neck. He was jealous of her preference for her tall 
 sweetheart, and she knew it ; loved to play upon his unreason. 
 
 "You seem to know the signs pretty well when you see 
 them," she said, her eyes dancing. " You speak like a per- 
 son of experience." 
 
 The others were too close upon his heels for him to parry 
 the thrust. He contented himself with a gentle pull of her 
 ear and a " Sauce-box ! " uttered aside. 
 
 I had promised to be at the hospital by ten o'clock. At 
 a quarter past nine I took leave of Ailsie in the hall. It 
 was her bed-time, and her mother was prompt always to 
 remind her of it. 
 
 " You ought not to sit up ten minutes later," said I, at the 
 foot of the stairs, noting that her eyes were languid, and 
 that she repeated the gesture, that had attracted my attention 
 once before that evening, of pressing her hand to her chest 
 with a labored breath. " You are weary, precious child ! 
 Tell me ! have you pain when you do that, or only a tired, 
 sinking feeling ? " 
 
 She answered as before. 
 
 " It is nothing ! " straightening her figure and treading 
 firmly up the steps.
 
 3^4 MY LITTLE LOVE. 
 
 On the landing she looked back and seeing me still 
 watching her, threw me a kiss, smilingly. 
 
 Then I heard her begin to sing in the upper hall, catching 
 up my word " weary :" 
 
 " O Thou long-expected ! weary 
 
 Waits my anxious soul for Thee ! " 
 
 In passing from one room to another her song was muffled 
 for a minute, but while I stood below and hearkened with a 
 desire to know how she really was that was scarcely denned 
 into uneasiness, another verse floated down to me, distinct 
 and strong, which emphasized her figure of the home-made 
 candle : 
 
 " With my lamp well trimmed and burning, 
 
 Swift to hear and slow to roam, 
 Watching for Thy glad returning 
 To restore me to Thy home ; 
 
 Come, my Saviour ! 
 O my Saviour, quickly come ! " 
 
 The door of her chamber closed. I should gather nothing 
 more by longer waiting. 
 
 I shall hear nothing sweeter until the angels' song shall 
 awaken me from my death-sleep.
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 "AT six O'CLOCK THIS MORNING." 
 
 LONG, rather narrow room, with a row of 
 white beds on the side bounded by the inner 
 wall. The windows on the other carefully 
 shaded by green jalousies. In every bed a man 
 or a boy for Thanksgiving frolics and amateur sport- 
 manship had brought the customary influx of patients 
 to the accident ward. Nurses passing to and fro 
 with bowls, plates and bandages. Three doctors 
 bending over as many beds. Through an unshuttered 
 window at the farther end of the apartment a slice of pale 
 blue sky, cut into irregularly by a peaked house-roof. Mid- 
 way in the aisle between beds and outer wall, myself, staring 
 at an open note which contains a single line. 
 
 I have had it perhaps a minute, but I have had time to 
 pass out of my own personality, since I opened it ; to doubt 
 and then to disbelieve that this can be the same man who 
 bound up the shattered hand of the boy over there, and 
 talked to him cheerfully of the strong probability that the 
 young bones would knit soon and firmly. Have had time 
 to see myself as the soul, rid of the body, might survey the 
 17
 
 386 MY LITTLE LOVE. 
 
 motionless figure, rooted to the floor, with blank eyes bent 
 upon the one line : 
 
 "Ailsie is very ill. She wants you. Come to us, if 
 possible." 
 
 That is all, and it is in Evelyn Marr's handwriting. No 
 date. No signature. 
 
 I think an attendant accosted me, and finding me deaf, 
 touched me. But I remember nothing that passed until I 
 stood in the office of the principal physician, asking for an 
 indefinite leave of absence. He shrugged his shoulders and 
 thrust out his lip. 
 
 " You could hardly have made the request at a more 
 inopportune time. You must see for yourself that we need 
 all the help we can get. Still " eying the paper in my 
 hand, then, and more curiously, my face " if the call be 
 urgent, Dr. Haye " 
 
 I waited for nothing more. 
 
 I met Dr. Lawrence coming out of Mr. Darling's house. 
 
 " That dear little creature " he began. 
 
 " I know ! " I interrupted him; " What is it ? " 
 
 " The end. But I had not thought it would be so soon." 
 
 " You are sure ? " 
 
 " Beyond the glimpse of a doubt. You see " 
 
 I left him to finish his pathological summary in soliloquy. 
 
 At the threshold of Ailsie' s chamber I paused and leaned 
 against the wall to master myself in some degree. I hope 
 I tried to form a prayer for strength. But I had none before 
 I saw her dear eyes and the welcome that leaped from them.
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 387 
 
 I could not speak until I had put my arms over her as she 
 lay propped by pillows ; felt her trembling hand stroke my 
 cheek. 
 
 " My darling ! if / could bear it all for you ! could lie 
 down here in your stead ! " 
 
 " No ! no ! no ! I am glad it is only me ! " 
 
 The struggle for breath hindered whatever else she would 
 have said. 
 
 " Only me ! " In humility, in generosity, in heroism, it 
 was the key-note of her life. 
 
 She stayed with us all that day. All that day ! And 
 twelve hours before we had promised her years upon 
 earth ! 
 
 Father, mother, aunt and lover not one of us left her. 
 But one visitor was admitted the pastor who had baptized 
 her a babe in her father's arms, who had yesterday bidden 
 us rejoice in the possession of health and friends and un- 
 stricken hearts. She knew him as she did each one of us, 
 thanked him with the native grace which must still be hers, 
 because so essential a part of her, in heaven for coming to 
 see her. 
 
 He was a good man, and his heart softened to yearning 
 over the patient sufferer. He talked no platitudes, nor did 
 he torture her, or us, with many sentences. 
 
 " Dear child ! do you love the Saviour ? " 
 
 " O yes ! " a gentle surprised smile. " I always did." 
 
 " You believe that He is as certainly with you, now as 
 certainly loves you as does your mother here ? that come
 
 388 MY LITTLE LOVE. 
 
 what may of suffering or change, He will never leave, nor 
 forsake you ? " 
 
 " I know it ! " 
 
 Her voice was feebler, yet steadier than was his. The 
 thrilling tones never lost their music. 
 
 " Shall I pray with you now, dear Ailsie ? And what shall 
 I ask for you ? " 
 
 " Would you mind " the familiar formula " would it be 
 wrong to ask that I may breathe a little easier ? I should 
 like to if GOD is willing if He thinks it is best for me." 
 
 A while later, awaking from a doze to see her aunt sitting 
 at her pillow, she put out her hand in entreaty. 
 
 " Aunt Evy ! do go and lie down for awhile ! You must 
 be worn out. You will make yourself sick. Papa, mamma, 
 and my Mr. Barry will take care of me, while you take a 
 nap." 
 
 Again, after tasting her beef-tea, she inquired who had 
 made it. 
 
 "Norah," was her mother's answer. 
 
 " It is very nice. Thank her for me please ! " 
 
 At dusk of the heavy-footed day, I lifted her into a sitting 
 posture, while her mother re-arranged her pillows. 
 
 " Take care ! " she whispered, with her own roguish smile. 
 " I have very little breathe left ! " 
 
 Once, and once only, her mind wandered, and she tried to 
 sing: 
 
 " Nearer is my soul's salvation, 
 Spent the night, the day "
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 389 
 
 Articulation sank into a musical murmur. 
 
 Night had fallen upon those of us who saw only with the 
 bodily vision. The light in the sick-room was screened from 
 the dying eyes that yet recognized the loved faces about her. 
 From the first there had not been a cry or groan, or the 
 faintest indication of impatience. The strong, fearless soul 
 was breasting the dark waters in the full knowledge of what 
 had come to her ; anxious, but for us ; thoughtful of our 
 comfort, and ours alone ; resolved to spare us present pain 
 and heart-rending memories. 
 
 At a quarter-past-nine the hour of our parting, last night 
 she called quickly a ring of exultation in the eager tone : 
 
 " O papa ! papa ! " 
 
 " I am here, my blessing ! What can I do for you ? " 
 
 She stretched her left hand to him, the right towards 
 the to us invisible Presence on the other side of the 
 bed. 
 
 " Papa ! " It was like " All's well ! " from the Other Shore. 
 " I know Jesus is here, for He has hold of my hand ! " 
 
 By-and-by, I heard my name, breathed lowly, but with 
 exquisite tenderness, as in a pleasant dream. 
 
 I bowed my ear to her mouth. 
 
 " Mr. Barry ! I wish" 
 
 " What, my dearest ? " 
 
 I shall never know in this life. 
 
 Nor, though she lay thus in our sight, seeming to sleep 
 peacefully until the dawn of another day, did she ever speak 
 again, or give other sign than the deep breathing of a tired
 
 39 MY LITTLE LOVE. 
 
 child, that she might still be numbered among the living of 
 earth. 
 
 At day-break, as the night-lamps began to burn gross and 
 yellow, the breath fluttered over the lips for the last time. 
 
 I was back in the surgical ward before the sun shone over 
 the obstructing roof into the window at the eastern end. I 
 was not faint, although I had scarcely eaten a morsel since 
 my breakfast of the previous day. Not weary, for all my 
 trying vigil. Nor had grief acted as a tonic, bracing me for 
 the work of the hour by begetting indifference to personal 
 comfort. I was simply benumbed and incredulous. The 
 desire of my eyes had been taken away by a stroke so sudden 
 and stunning that I did not know it had been removed. 
 
 Not even when a shambling wretch, his arm in a sling, and 
 his lank jaws overgrown with a carroty beard, arrested me in 
 my rounds. 
 
 " I say, doctor ! " he said awkwardly, " I s'pose I shall 
 be let go in a day or so ? " 
 
 I nodded, and would have pushed on but he detained me. 
 "I've been a thinkin' since you fetched me that basket one 
 day, soon after I come, about that little girl of Darling's. I 
 don't mind sayin' as how I'm downright sorry for what hap- 
 pened last summer, and you can tell her so, if you're a mind 
 to. Ezry Gaskin's wife what I won't call " aunt " had some 
 bug-a-boo story 'bout if s having kinder upset her so's her 
 health has been poor, ever since. However that may be, I 
 wish I'd never played the trick on her. How is she gettin' 
 along?"
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 391 
 
 " She is dead ! " I said, briefly. ' ' She died at six o'clock 
 this morning." 
 
 I saw his skin change to a cadaverous hue, his jaw drop in 
 dismay, and I went on to the next bed beyond. 
 
 My head was clear. My perceptions of all pertaining to 
 the business in hand were never more active., Yet my 
 abhorrence of Ailsie's murderer was dulled into instinctive 
 avoidance of him. I had told him of her death as I would 
 have apprised him of that of the uncle's wife so hated by him, 
 had it fallen in the way of my duty to do it. 
 
 I said over the words to myself while I dressed a gash in 
 the head of " No 13," received in an oyster-cellar on Thanks- 
 giving night : 
 
 " She is dead. She died at six o'clock this morning." 
 
 The two sentences should have meant much to me ; ought 
 to have changed instantly and forever the complexion of my 
 existence. 
 
 Yet I had uttered them like a just-wound automaton, in 
 measured, passionless phrase. I must be sorry for what 
 had " happened," I thought, in such mechanical com- 
 monplaces as I spoke. In the course of time, in a 
 few hours, perhaps when I could get away to my office, 
 and think it over, I should surely be grieved to the 
 heart. 
 
 I stopped at the bed of a young fellow, about my own age, 
 who had been severely burned the night before, in attempt- 
 ing to extinguish the blazing dress of a child. He had borne 
 up bravely, reported my substitute in the ward at the time he
 
 392 MY LITTLE LOVE. 
 
 was brought in. I found him crying silently, his face hidden 
 in the pillow. 
 
 " Are you in much pain ? " I inquired. " Perhaps fresh 
 dressings may be a great relief to you." 
 
 " I don't mind pain for myself. I was thinking of her what 
 I tried to save and would have laid down my life for, 
 thankful ! My little sister, she was, sir ! Just six years old, 
 and all I had since mother died. The cutest young one you 
 ever see. She didn't live an hour after she was burnt. I 
 wouldn't be so much as touched till I saw the breath was out 
 of her. Then, I didn't care what became of me. It's hard 
 lines, doctor ! " 
 
 " Somebody else is dead " I was near saying to him. 
 " She died at six o'clock this morning." 
 
 I know I had the impression that if I were to tell him my 
 news, he would think no more of the burnt baby he 
 bewailed. 
 
 The forenoon's work over, I sat down at my office -table to 
 make the usual summary for the chiefs inspection. My 
 mind was firm on its poise. Brain and memory were compe- 
 tent to their duty. Yet I actually began at the top of the 
 page, bearing the date, the haunting formula that had pursued 
 me all day. Guarding every pen-stroke and reconsidering 
 each sentence I framed before writing it down, I finished 
 the record, and showered sand over the fresh lines. 
 
 Then I put on my hat and passed into the street. 
 
 My sister met me on the second biock from the hospital ; 
 ran up to me and seized me by the button.
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 393 
 
 "This is dreadful about dear little Ailsie ! " she cried, her 
 eyes reddening with moisture. " I suppose you have heard 
 it ! I never was more shocked than when Mrs. Burtiss 
 stopped me and told me just now." 
 
 " She is dead ! " I answered, looking curiously at her easy 
 tears. " She died at six o'clock this morning." 
 
 "You can't be well yourself, Barry! You look like a 
 fright. No more color than a ghost. I do hope you are 
 not going to have another spell of fever. You will call upon 
 the Darlings very soon, I suppose ? You ought to. They 
 have a right to expect it you've been so intimate there. 
 Please tell them how sorry I am to hear of their affliction, 
 and give my love to Mrs. Darling and Miss Marr, and ask 
 if Sam or I can be of any service that's a dear boy ! You 
 doctors don't mind going where there has been a death. But 
 it fairly uses me up. I don't recover the tone of my nerves, 
 for days afterward. And do take care of yourself. You are 
 overworked in that horrid hospital. I can't see why you 
 stay there. But you never cared for anything except your 
 profession." 
 
 I looked up from the particular point in the sidewalk 
 where I was used to stand to kiss my hand to the 
 watcher on the other side of the window. The blinds 
 were fast shut. The house had a gloomy, forbidding 
 aspect to me before I saw the mute and awful signal 
 pendent from the bell-knob, telling of slain Hope and Death 
 triumphant. 
 
 I had a latch-key. Ailsie had given it to me, a month ago, 
 17*
 
 394 MY LITTLE L VE. 
 
 adding in her best brogue " And let it be a hint to yer 
 Honor ! " 
 
 I had never used it without recalling the injunction and 
 how she looked when she said it. I almost smiled at the 
 recollection now, when I fitted it in the lock. No one was 
 visible in the halls. The house was still as if it had no living 
 tenant save him who had just entered. 
 
 I knew where I should find what I sought, and I mounted 
 the stairs to the guest-chamber. The door was locked, the 
 key on the outside. I turned it, withdrew it, and locked 
 myself in. 
 
 Kneeling by the bed, I laid back the sheet from the face, 
 and gazed without let or hindrance from others' observation, 
 upon the still majesty the covering had concealed. There 
 was not one childish lineament. The beautiful spirit had 
 left a cast of itself upon the pillow, as it sped to join its 
 mates. The pure oval of the cheek and chin, the expanse 
 of brow ; the carven bow of the mouth were womanly 
 angelic yet hers and hers alone to me who had searched 
 out the hidden treasures of heart and intellect. 
 
 Amid the white calm of the Presence-chamber, I knelt, 
 neither moving nor weeping ; sight and thought enchained 
 by what I looked upon, until the daylight began to wane. 
 
 The merest trifle broke the spell. 
 
 I had brought a ruby ring to Ailsie from Paris, which she 
 had worn constantly since, shifting it from one finger to 
 another as her hands grew thinner. If it had not been left 
 upon the forefinger of her right Jiand where I had seen it
 
 MY LITTLE LOVE. 395 
 
 yesterday, I would ask it of her mother, as a souvenir that 
 should never leave me. 
 
 I drew down the covering, and lifted the slender fingers to 
 r the light glimmering between the barred shutters. 
 
 Oh ! the piteousness of the wasted little hand ! In one 
 flash swift as vivid thought showed her to me as I had 
 seen her first ; the nut-brown sprite of the wooded creek 
 then, portrait after portrait, each more clearly drawn than the 
 last. The demure duchess of our betrothal evening ; my 
 dauntless champion against slanderous and sarcastic tongues ; 
 the tricksey playfellow of my town and country rambles ; the 
 earnest student and the tender comforter; the unconscious 
 preacher of righteousness to my ungodly youth my evangel 
 my Ch'erie my Kathleen through all, in all, above all 
 my little love ! 
 
 " And has it come to this ! " I cried aloud, in a passion 
 of horror and grief that told me I had not, until that instant, 
 been able to " make her dead." 
 
 GOD forgive me, if in my frenzied lamentation I boldly 
 declared that I did well to be angry that He had claimed 
 His own ! I humbly believe that the Man of Sorrows 
 accounted it as my infirmity not my sin that I forgot in 
 Whose hand she had laid hers, and with what loving faith 
 when flesh failed and tongue faltered upon her last earthly 
 wish ! 
 
 * * * * * * 
 
 Evelyn Marr rejoined her " twin " fifteen years ago. 
 Robby a noble young man, whose gray eyes, lightening
 
 39^ My LITTLE LOVE. 
 
 with mirth or darkening with earnestness, often thrill me by 
 their likeness to others I used to study is my office-partner. 
 He will have the major part of my practice in time. 
 
 " Baby " was married last week. It was at her " recep- 
 tion " that a gay witch of thirteen or thereabouts, Wynant 
 Darling's third daughter, in fastening a bridal bouquet in 
 my button-hole, got her fingers tangled in a mere threadlet 
 of a gold chain, and drew from the breast-pocket of my vest, 
 a locket. 
 
 "If I ever!" she screamed. "Uncle Barry the con- 
 firmed old bachelor carries a medallion likeness next his 
 heart!" 
 
 Her father chid her so sharply that I was fain to take her 
 part and pass over the indiscretion with a jest. 
 
 It was not until 1 was safe in my bachelor quarters that, 
 moved to something akin to tender remorse that I had thus 
 jested, even to shield the abashed child, I opened the case 
 and looked at it long and reverently. There is no pictured 
 face within. Only a ruby ring, too small for the least of my 
 fingers, encircled by a lock of brown hair and protected by 
 glass. 
 
 On the inside of the lid are engraved the words "My 
 Little Love: 1 
 
 THE END.
 
 OF 
 ANGELES